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March 3, 1969 N.C. Essay Page A flTROCITl€S fiT coLumeifi Man jumps on table. That’s how I imagine the scene. Dig it: a man, a table, a leap; a leap bring ing order out of chaos, establishing and defining justice. Two weeks after the leap I re ceived a telephone call from a col league, a Stony Brook Professor. He had, so he said, "Just heard an un believable story." Professor Quen tin Anderson had told him of the disruption of a tribunal at Columbia Law School on the 19th of November 1968. Professor Anderson suggested that I had been a major participant. Was Quentin's assumption cor rect, the Stony Brook Professor wanted to know. "Yeah, sure," I said. Well, in that case I had bet ter phone Professor Anderson imme diately. If he couldn't be reached by phone I was told I should go di rectly to his home, and apologize. I thovght I vmdevstood where Professor Anderson was at. He had created an ideal worlds a toy ju dicial systan for the University and the disruption of the tribunal had snashed it. He wanted the fiction reestablished^ he wanted the gone to resme^ and to do that^ it was ne cessary for me to apologize. It was as if someone at a party had uttered a nasty word. Repressions on faces had ft>ozenj men and wonen were caight in Ivdicroie poses^ and the offender had only to say the pretty mcgic word to release captives. THESTREJGSL f,o ini’oco.ncf.'.) Sometimei you feeT'like you were ^n". bbrhioti your^knees^^'"* BCttt the^purpose of-'life is learn- fing--1 o v6 tand— . nor’ians •or “ .-'.t ■-Anrf'tjaik-’ do\-ni S6 you struggle'(in your innocence) Y Ahd^ you ’fight: Afid at l&st you're on your feet ■' ■ "^,11 But then you get cut down Still trusting, you think perhaps it's inexperience—or youth that brought you down So you try again You rise - so slowly- And again You fall Professor Anderson told me that Columbia was not planning to bring criminal charges against me. He no ted that I was "a gentleman and a scholar," a former student at the College ('63, Bob Kraft was a Class President that year) and that was an honorable man it was imperative that I send an apology to Ronnie Shiftan. That act, he concluded, would ful fill his "wildest and highest hopes•" I made no apology to Ronnie Shiftan, and I have not apologized to Quentin Anderson. II The disruption at Gus Reich- bach's Tribunal (the Columbia Law School was trying him for his role in demonstrations last September) was important for me in a personal as well as in a public way. The night following the Tribunal I re called a whole series of academic atrocities committed at Columbia: the University's totalitarian system stood revealed. Taken as a whole the incidents defined a University which was pervaded by the Cold War ideology, the liberal anti-communist ideology which has killed thought in most American universities. A few examples of the intellec tual repression I experienced from 1959 to 1963 when I was an under graduate still remain clearly in mind. In 1963 two Professors, one from the Sociology, the other from the English Department, ran a semin ar on Revolution in the 19th Cen tury, with readings in literature, history, sociology. Candidates for the course had to be "investigated." After sparring about for a while the Sociology Professor asked me, "Do you know any Communists?" I was startled. I said that that was none of his business. The House Un-Amer ican Activities Committee asked peo ple that question; it was a viola- tion of Constitutional rights in Till finally, so tired, so dis couraged You decide to stay there Your knees kissing the dust It hurts too much; it's not worth it To get up another time But it's then When you yield to the lesser pow ers that drag you down It's then that you MUST Try to your last drop of blood To stand alone (con *t on page 5) C(M€NT OF A FRUSTRATED POET In ragged anger like the sea I rage against foes percieved but yet un seen. My fist upheld like roaring wind sings as keenly as knives against my face. How is this fury that I should dare to fling as sand into eyes like iron? I may like a trumpet make answer to walls silent as steel, and pound with bleeding fists against a door thin as the paper of this page. With none to answer, none to beckon. Do not care for my raging anger, nor for my bleeding hands, my trumpet is made of tin, and is not heard by unseen foes But pray instead the gods may yet unblind my eyes. Jim Bobbitt Congress, and on the 6th floor of Hamilton Hall as well. The Profes sor thought his question was per fectly reasonable; he laughed hys terically when I asked him if he was taking care of internal security at Columbia. The Professor of English seemed a bit embarassed by his colleague's crude approach. "We only want to know what your political beliefs ate," he said, trying to be helpful. I would understand, of course, that for a seminar on Revolution that was a perfectly natural question to ask. "We don't want names of specific people," he added. About a week la ter I received a note saying that I had not been admitted to the liter- ature-sociology seminar. At the time I was disappointed. Now, I feel that mine was fortunate escape. After the disruption of the tribunal, I also remembered a lec ture in 1962 in a course on 20th Century American History. It was a- bout totalitarianism and the Profes sor began the class by taking a piece of chalk and drawing, as best he could, a circle and a straight line on the blackboard. The chalk squeaked—an oval and a wiggly line appeared. "Abstract art," one stu dent quipped. A common but wrong view of politics, the Professor as serted, pointing to the wiggly line, was that left and right were at op posite ends of the political spec trum, that liberals were in the cen ter. The truth, he continued, tap ping with his stick and pointing to the oval, was that the left and the right started at opposite sides of the circle but slid the bottom and merged, while the liberals ascended to the top ot the circle unconta minated by the left and right. With these two lines, he ofteted his view of politics in the 1930's: as dia lectical as the line of the American C.P. in 1962, It was abstract poli- (con't on pcge 5)
N.C. Essay (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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March 3, 1969, edition 1
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