James G. Goble and Jeff
Nelson, letter
to the editor, Triangle, 15 September
1967, 2.
To the Editors:
{12}We,
the undersigned, wish to express our opposition to the
methods of enforcement of Freshman Rules currently being
employed by the Varsity H Club. Specifically, we
are opposed to the members of this club drawing a red "H"
on the foreheads of violators of the rules.
{13}We
remember no time during our years at Hanover College when
such tactics were used, and the absence of such methods
has not, in our judgment, had an adverse effect on the
Classes of 1968, 1969, and 1970. We see no
reason to suppose that the class of 1971 will outshine any
other class here as a result of being forced by such
methods to wear beanies.
{14}We see no purpose for the actions of
the Varsity H Club other than the ridiculing and
embarrassment of the Freshman Class. We are shocked to
see such actions being carried on at Hanover College, with
the expressed or implied (through silence) consent of the
members of the Orientation
Committee. We
feel that these actions have no place whatsoever in a
community of scholars.
[by
James G. Goble, '69, and Jeff Nelson, '68]
Mike Palmisano [Triangle
editor], "Focus
On . . . Dress Policy," Triangle,
6 February 1969, 3.
{15}Students at Roxboro Junior High
School in Cleveland Heights have rebelled against dress
codes. One of
their arguments for determining their own dress was,
"colleges don't have dress codes." I would be the
last one to disenchant the hopeful ninth-graders at
Roxboro who have petitioned Principal James Gordon, but,
well, we know better.
{16}Roxboro Junior High School students
are puzzled by an educational institutional process which
is supposed to teach them maturity, responsibility, and
how to make their own decisions, but which clutches
fervently to right to dictate what the students shall
wear. As
Hanoverians can well attest, Roxboro's ninth-graders
flatter us, but are erroneous in generalizing that
"college" is a mecca for practicinvitizens.
{17}There are still some colleges which
consider it their right and responsibility to determine
the attire of their students. Hanover is one
such college.
{18}Hanover College's dress policy is
more specifically leveled at its women as if to protect
the more gentle sex from the inconvenience of thinking for
themselves. Men,
however, have not been exempt, and at times have been told
to shorn sideburns and cut their hair.
{19}Women's dress policy stipulates
that "acceptable dress for classes, assemblies, night
classes and public sports is school clothes (skirts or
dresses)." It
goes on to order "school clothes" for the Administration
Building (at all times), in Madison, the upper floors of
the campus center, and in all classroom buildings
(optional for labs) until 3:30.
{20}It is not unreasonable that the
school has attempted to set some kind of dress decorum for
particular areas of student activity. Society does the
same. Restaurants,
movie theatres, country clubs, churches, and many other
places where people meet for an expressed purpose set
accepted rule for dress.
{21}Hanover's dress code, however, goes
three steps further.
First, a business establishment, like a theatre,
for example, does not demand an outlandish dress for its
patrons. A
sports arena would not demand that girls wear skirts or
dresses to a "public sport contest." Hanover's dress
code does. Such
a ruling is dubiously reasoned, and it seems out of touch
with the nature of the activity.
{22}Second a night club would hardly
regulate its patrons' dress after they had left its
premises. Yet,
the college dress code here forbids "casual" dress in
Madison for women. Actually,
what
coeds wear in Madison should be of no concern to the
college. When
in Madison, the student should be answerable to minimal
dress statutes for that city, not the Dean of Women unless
the city of Madison and the college have some little deal
worked out that we do not know about.
{23}Thirdly, while Hanover College
might want to designate appropriate dress decorum for
various areas of activity, suggesting skirts for classroom
and Administration Building, and sweatshirt for the
basement of the J. Graham Brown Campus Center, it should
leave it at that.
{24}In short, administrators are going
a bit far when they inform coeds repeatedly that their
skirts are too short, and that if they do not lower them,
they will be barred from eating their meals in the JGBCC. This has
happened at Hanover this fall.
{25}Principal Gordon of Roxboro, when
asked in the Cleveland Plain Dealer about his students'
desire for change, returned, "I haven't told them I'll
accept it. All
I did was say I'd consider it." He continued,
"they have to realize that a lot of people are affected by
any policy change here. . . . [original ellipses] parents,
staff, and other students."
{26}"Warden" Gordon will "consider it." He also makes an
interesting point by naming least of all, the student as
one of the groups which will be "affected by any policy
change."
{27}Gordon is obviously one of the
school of thought which envisions the educational
institutions as existing for the perpetuation of the mores
and codes of the staff and parents rather than for
maturing the student's capacity for deciding what is best
for him.
{28}Call it the generation gap if you
like, but I fail to understand educational administrators
who seem to be afraid of letting students work it out for
themselves - - like Principal Gordon. Could it be that
by doing that they would be moving themselves out of the
picture just a bit more but then, who is the school for? Such a
revelation should not make the administrator uneasy. Rather it should
be an exciting experience assisting students think for
themselves is the "controlled" and supposedly healthy
atmosphere of the school.
{29}Give them the
challenge and they might shock you and do something
intelligent.
Jim Nixon, letter
to the editor, Triangle, 26 September
1969, 9.
To the Editor:
{30}Mr.
Loar said last week in his editorial that the U. S. should
admit: that
it made a mistake concerning the "Communist Plot to take
over the world." I
want to remind him of Czechoslavakia. Can this be
construed as honorable intentions on the part of the
Communists? I
want to ask him what assurance he has that when and if the
Communists take South Vietnam that that they will not try
for Laos and Cambodia and India and all of Asia. The level of
fighting in Laos today is already comparable to that in
Vietnam in 1965. Any
"Sane" person, however, could see that these possibilities
are sheer fantasy. The
"sane" people thought WWII a fantasy when Poland fell in
1938, Germany was no threat. . . [original ellipses]
and so they consoled themselves. . . [original
ellipses] and war came. The
Communist appetite, much like the Nazi, is that of a
glutton.
{31}The
author would say that Vietnam, as a strategic position, is
useless and the country is too insignificant to worry
about as much as we do.
I would agree that it does not have much to offer
the U. S. - - but the war there is not designed to keep S.
Vietnam a pro- U. S. nation.
It is an attempt to stem the bigger war that may
follow. Still
to write off Vietnam as a pawn in the hands of giants is
not justice. We
believe that self-determination is the objective - - no
one can contend that the Communists will provide that
after they rename Saigon "Ho Chi Minh City" as they said
they will do if a coalition is to be formed in the south.
{32}The
author stated that 100 billion dollars have been spent on
the war. I
will agree that it would have been much nicer if we could
have won the war a few years ago. But a risk
always hung over our heads - - a big war. If we had left
long ago with a defeat, what would be the cost of the war? We could be
fighting now for all of Asia. . . . [original ellipses] or
what would be the cost of all the destruction as a result
of a nuclear exchange stemming from such a war? Give me the
cost in dollars and in lives then. Surely far more
than the 37,000 lives we have paid to date.
{33}The
author stated several incidences of corruption in S.
Vietnam. I
say that he is right.
But let me remind him that all war is ugly and
black, "War is hell," said Sherman. And let me
remind him that an immediate pullout of U. S. troops which
is the only alternative the author wants to leave open,
and a victory for the Communists (which would be the
result of a pullout) would mean more unexplained,
unjustified and unpublicized executions and imprisonments
than could be imagined.
{34}It
is ironic that those who so fervently advocate
"involvement" with the problems of society and
"reassessment of priorities" should oppose this war. We are deeply
involved in the fate of the freedom of a nation - - and
what priority could we place higher than the elimination
of a threat which endangers the freedom - - perhaps even
the eventual survival - - of man on this planet.
{35}The
war in Vietnam might take us another five or ten years to
finish. And
it could be that this marks only the beginning of a series
of brushfire wars that could last the better part of our
lives. We
will fight because we must - - because we don't want to
reach the ultimate showdown.
It is a painful and tragic burden that we must
bear, but I feel that no fight could be more "involved" or
more virtuous when the stakes are so high. Thank you.
Jim Nixon
Jim
Nixon is a freshman from Bluffton, Indiana
Mike Palmisano, "The
Price to Pay at Kent, Ohio," Triangle,
8 May 1970, 1.
{36}In
1798, the English Romantic poet, Samuel Coleridge,
grappled emotionally with the issue of his country's
imperialism when he lamented, in his poem Fears in Solitude.
We, this whole people, have been clamorous
For war and bloodshed, animating sports,
The which we pay for as a thing we talk of,
Spectators and not combatants!
{37}The
verse, exposing the poet's deep, intellectual alienation
from England's military exploits around the world,
suggests a disillusionment strikingly comparable to that
voiced by a significant cross section of American youth
today. Like
many of his fellow Romantic artists and not unlike today's
American college generation.
Coleridge abhorred his native land's methodical
subjugation of weak peoples, and deplored the way most
English comfortably viewed the harsh assemblage of the
British Empire from the vantage point of "spectators
and not combatants." He then
fantasized remorsefully:
And what if all-avenging Providence
Strong and retributive, should make us know
The meaning of our words, force us to feel
The desolation and the agony
Of our fierce doings?
{38}The
sensitivity of the poet captures what the "armchair
imperialists" did not perceive. Slain Indians
and ravaged villages might easily be slain English
citizens and ravaged English towns. Today, a
generation of Americans defiantly refutes the mythology of
the Communist threat and the searing but not uncommon
chauvinism exemplified by a Kent, Ohio merchant who, upon
hearing of the shooting of four students by National
Guardsmen at nearby Kent State University remarked, "I can
see our soldiers killing Vietnamese much more than our own
kids."
{39}If
war is, as some tell us, something to which human beings
are hopelessly addicted then we shall have to also
accustom ourselves to the fact that, as in the shooting of
the four college youths in Ohio, there will be a price to
pay - - the inevitably militarism of our youth. It is naive for
those who support and sustain the American war effort in
Vietnam - - most notably the President and his
administration - - not to recognize that the continuous
spectacle of the American military machine slugging its
way through Southeast Asia, pursuing a dubious villain,
will not take its toll among the young people who sit
silently before their television sets. The only
surprise is that the reaction has come so late.
{40}The
"Vietnam generation" is coming of age at a moment when the
government's policy of military adventurism has prompted a
profound crisis of confidence in our ability to rise above
a morally questionable foreign policy of repression and
intervention. The
generation's heritage is already one of violence. And, the cycle
is vicious and ironic.
{41}The
violence in Vietnam prompted a widespread dissent on the
domestic front, and inevitably led to violence. To counter the
dissent, the administration in Washington indulged in a
frivolous and inflammatory polemic which only fanned the
displeasure of those already angered young people, and the
violence spread. In
his desire to extricate himself from the violence in South
Vietnam, the President has spread the violence to Laos and
Cambodia. Now,
in the last two weeks, the country has suffered the first
five casualties of opposition to the war effort at home -
- one student slain in California, reportedly by a
policeman's bullet while trying to put out flames, in a
fire-bombed bank, and four students shot to death by
National Guardsmen at Kent State University while
protesting or observing protests against the Southeast
Asian war. Then,
the President's official statement, chidingly political in
tone and based on a flimsy and inconclusive assemblage of
facts, infers that wrong was on the side of the students,
and further alienates, frustrates, and fuels the arguments
of young advocates of violence who gleefully interpret
every example of administrative insensitivity as
repression.
{42}And
so it goes on, and will continue to go on: the Nixon
administration stoking the flames of the revolutionary
movements they so bitterly despise by their own actions
and grave rhetoric. The
advocates of violence feeding, with alarming success, on
the brutality and thoughtlessness of the government whose
destruction they seek.
{43}To
a still sizable number of Americans, the stakes in Vietnam
are high. To
a growing minority, the stakes have been grossly
over-exaggerated and long ago lost any semblance of
legitimacy. But,
there will be little dispute that the battlefield has been
expanded to our college campuses and into our living
rooms. And,
as in any battle, there are causalities inflicted - - as
at Kent State - - on innocent bystanders. The enduring
verdict from Kent State, however, is that there will be
more, not less, violence as long as Americans kill
Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians. The crime is
that it has gone this far, the nightmare is that, as
warned by Coleridge 172 years ago in a similar situation
in Ode On
The Departing Year, it could go
farther.
Abandoned of heaven; mad avarice thy guide
At cowardly distance, yet kindling with pride - -
Mid thy herds and thy corn-fields secure thou has
stood
The nations curse thee! They with eager
wondering
Shall hear thy Destruction!
Hanover College
History Department
Hanover College Visitor's Page