The Dow Sit-in and Its Aftermath

(The letters printed below were written before the University decided, on Tuesday, to put 74 of last week's demonstrators on probation, and to admonish 171 others.)

Neutrality vs. Freedom

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

How I wish that Dow had come here as George Lincoln Rockwell did last year, as an unwelcome guest practicing free speech. Unfortunately our problem now is not one of maintaining free speech but of establishing free communication. This difference, between the hideous procedural "free speech" of Naked Lunch style con-men (do I describe the deans as well the Dowists?) recruiting researchers and salesmen for the adhesive medicine that burns whole bodies, families, and countries, and the apophantic, the real, I-thou, perhaps loving communication between brave persons, largely absent in Cambridge, Mass. as in most places I've seen, perhaps therefore a difference unrecognized by those who know one part only, this difference divides administration from a group of students.

I think the quiet students too, many of them, some hardly understanding their feelings at all, know this division and will come to choose the truer, better freedom. The university's "neutral" position, giving "free speech" to "all," is an entire, awful delusion. I've no desire to make a rational, scholarly demonstration of this. I hope that humans will make some portion of this effort for themselves, take into account the full seriousness of the occupations of their lives, and act not in accordance with either false archaic moral high commands or cynical manipulation, both of which are in the air like smog, but in accordance with the world's possibilities, with what people can do, can make of these bodies so excellent for loving, exploring, and dying a more fitting death than the nuclear, the explosive, the incendiary, or the long slow death of the neutral man, who sells death, or lends it his secretary, or merely does not commit as much of himself to life as he might. Merrill Kaitz '68

"Communal Violation"

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Among the many reactions I have to the very complex issues raised by the Dow sit-in is the total incongruity between the meaning and form of the student protest on the one hand, and the severity and narrowness of the University administration's proposed disciplinary action on the other. After all, there was neither physical violence nor property desruction. A man was detained in his room for several hours (where presumably he would have remained for the better part of the day anyway, had he been interviewing job applicants), in conscious, communal violation of University regulations. The demonstration was an act of moral outrage, more or less spontaneous on the part of the majority of participants. When one has wrestled with all of the complex arguments about free speech, individual rights, the difficulty in drawing lines and making general cases, political effectiveness, university discipline and so on, one still must come back to the point that overwhelmed the demonstrators with moral indignation: that the University was playing host to and facilitating the work of the producer of what is probably the most horrible and indiscriminate weapon in the history of human warfare.

An essentially non-violent act taken by a significant segment of the University community out of this sense of moral outrage simply cannot and should not be dealt with in narrow and punitive legalistic terms. The Dow protest has raised some very important issues about the role of the University, issues which the University should fully discuss and deal with, rather than attempting to shift the focus to essentially trivial questions of behavioral infractions. The University administration's attempt to isolate and divide the protestors is most ignoble. Those who share this moral outrage--faculty and students alike--should not allow these diverse tactics to prevail and should not allow the essential moral questions to be evaded.   Chester W. Hartman   Assistant Professor of City Planning

Hemlock

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Either the protest at Mallinckrodt, although it was an abhorrent kind of civil disobedience, pointed out the University's complicity in war crimes--and the University should serve up a banquet for the prophets in its midst--or the University should file a complaint and have the students put in jail. The watered-down hemlock of disciplinary action is inappropriate. At least the citizens of Athens had the good sense to realize that Socrates was serious.   Mary-Claire Stubbs   Assistant to the Director of Development   Harvard Divinity School

Forcing the Issue

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

We members of the faculty of Wellesley College, like men and women in all parts of the world, are morally outraged by the war in Vietnam. Students in many universities, including most recently Harvard, have expressed this sense of outrage by protesting the use of university facilities for job recruitment by representatives of such war-supporting companies as Dow Chemical Corporation, chief supplier of napalm. By their actions they have forced the issue of university attitudes toward campus recruitment by the armed forces and by such companies as Dow Chemical, and we as faculty members wish to join them in urging that universities refuse the use of their facilities for recruitment of this kind. We cannot endorse the use of force against recruiters, although we believe that in the particular case of the Harvard protestors of October 25 any punishment which impedes their academic progress would be excessive. We do, however, support their position entirely and call for all universities, including Harvard and Wellesley, to heed the call to conscience which has generated these protests.  Sigmund Abeles, Art  Leon Apt, History  Duncan Aswell, Eng.  Grazia Avitabile, Ital.  Mariam Berlin, His.  Sharon Cadman, Eng.  Elizabeth Conant, Bio.  Ann Congleton, Phil.  Helen Corsa, Eng.  John Crawford, Music  Ward Cromer, Psych.  Fred Denbeaux, Bib. His.  Jacqueline Evans, Math.  David Ferry, Eng.  John Graham, Math  Laurel Furumoto, Psy.  Rene Galand, French  Edward Gulick, His.  Jean Harrison, Bio.  Walter Houghton, Eng.  Gabriele Jackson, Eng.  Owen Jander, Music  Florence McCulloch, French  Eleanor McLaughlin, His.  Jeanette McPherrin, French  Joan Melvin, Bio.  Genworth Mofett, Art  Torsten Norvig, Math  Barry Phillips, Eng.  David Pritzker, Math  Ruth Anna Putnam, Phil.  Jerome Regnier, Geo.  Margaret Robinson, Art  Patsy Sampson, Psy.  Alice Schafer, Math  Patricia Spacks, Eng.  George Stambolian, French  Richard Wallace, Art

Courageous Action

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I wish to express my support for the courageous action taken by those who picketed the Dow Chemical representative last Wednesday. The demonstration was certainly noted in Europe as well as within the United States. I hope that in considering possible discipline of those involved, the Faculty will not allow parochial considerations of their own convenience to blind them to the enoromous moral implications of the demonstrators' stand. Few of the many parallels drawn between the war in S.E. Asia and World War II seem to be relevant. But it is certainly possible that if the manufacturers of poisonous gases in Nazi Germany had been more actively opposed by other Germans, many lives might have been spared.  J.B.P. Lovell  Teaching Fellow in General Education

Blacklist

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The idea of denying access to private facilities to persons who are involved in disfavored activities is not new.

The demonstrations against the Dow Chemical Company merely echo what occurred in the movie industry in the early 1950's. It was called "blacklisting" in those days.

Some may try to distinguish mere speech from actual recruitment for practical activities. But is not all speech an attempt to affect action?  Robert Bornbaum

Contradiction in Terms

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The recent sit-in and the ensuing student demands seem to me to be a contradiction of the sponsoring organization's name, Students for a Democratic Society. I, for one, resent the idea that a minority should tell me whether or not I can see a recruiter from Dow Chemical, the CIA, or the military. It is certainly within any group's rights to stage a peaceful demonstration for the purpose of bringing to attention the record of a recruiter such as Dow Chemical. But it should be the individual's choice as to whether he still wants to be interviewed. If the recruiter is guilty of was crimes in the minds of enough students to warrant his banishment from campus, he would face enough student apathy to his recruiting to convince him to pull out on his own.  Russell Merriam '68

Saran Wrap

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The editorial, "The Wrong Way to Peace" is to be commended because it shows careful and probing thought and because you are willing to cooperate with a minority's being heard. Now that I have been polite and commended your fairness, I will say what I have to say.

Because of the demonstration against a Dow Chemical Recruiter, I know of a couple of women who have been alerted to the maker of Saran Wrap's being also the maker of napalm. They are going to boycott Saran Wrap. As the editorial points out, Dow Chemical Company is not the only culprit and not the original one, but some exposure of industrial-military power in the country may help. The demonstration caused some persons to think.

The writer of this editorial should read Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham City Jail." He is taking the law as it stands too seriously and substituting it for thought about good and bad in laws and what you do about bad laws.  Robert Steele  Professor of Film, Boston University

War Against Starvation

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The Chrstian Science Monitor recently let the story out on the Dow Chemical Company: Dow is furtively building a plant in India to produce a high-protein peanut-base food to alleviate rampant malputrition in that country, a condition which led an Indian spokesman to say recently that India was producing millions of subhumans yearly. On this basis, I accuse Dow of being a tool of the War against Starvation, and I accuse the University of complicity in this relationship; and I applaud the sit-in as an effective means of thwarting Dow's recruitment for this War.  John H. Beck '71