In recent weeks we have had a number of conversations with neighborhood people, mostly property owners and merchants, and more often than not, the rash of student demonstrations against ROTC on the Washington University campus has come up.
And rightfully so. For while the violence has been confined to the campus, the trouble is affecting us all, directly or indirectly. Being awakened in the early hours of the morning by the wail of police sirens is disconcerting, but not of itself, harmful. What is more disconcerting is the knowledge that the burning of private property, the breaking of windows and the spattering of paint on buildings, criminal actions, are taking place with frightening regularity only a few blocks away.
The most common comment heard from our neighbors is, “I don’t understand it. I don’t know what makes them do such things.” We don’t know either. It has been observed that WHAT people DON’T UNDERSTAND they fear. And what they fear, all too often, they hate. It seems to be holding true in this case, too.
Almost everyone we speak to dislikes the war for moral, economic or humanitarian reasons. But no one seems to believe that violence on a campus will be any more effective in bringing it to an end than has the canned rhetoric of politicians.
We believe that the anti-war movement is more effective and strongly felt among middle Americans when its views are stated in non-violent terms. Thus, the hundred or more violent radicals at Washington University would be better advised to change their tactics if they really want to change the minds and attitudes of the public. Under their present course they can do nothing but draw contempt and hatred.
They are harming their university. They are harming our area. And, if they should be reading this, we hope they realise that they are harming their cause.
In the not-to-distant future, ROTC activities probably will be removed from college campuses. But we hope it will not be because they were burned out.
Originally published in The Paper, May 1970.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
