E1xtensions of Remarks

5056 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS March 3, 1969 E1XTENSIONS OF REMARKS REVEREND HESBURGH'S LETTERS rather than selfish goals, than any past gen using them, and hopefully youth's great TO VICE PRESIDENT AGNEW AND eration of students I have known. vigor and idealism as well, to attack the NOTRE DAME GOOD REASON FOR CONCERN deeper problems yet ahead of us in our age Iong walk out Of the jungle into the light. Many of the them are bothered by some as pects of American and world society and LETTER TO STUDENTS HON. WILLIAM A. STEIGER current values or the lack of them-with This letter has been on my mind for weeks. OF WISCONSIN good reason in most cases. They would work It ls both time and overtime that it be IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES very hard. I believe, if given a real oppor written. tunity to participate in changing this world My hope is that these ideas will have deep Monday, March 3, 1969 for the better. They would also find out how personal resonances in our own community, Mr. STEIGER of Wisconsin. Mr. hard this is to do and would quickly discard although the central problem they address some of their more naive present solutions exists everywhere in the university world Speaker, Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, to our problems. today and, by instant communication, feeds president of the University of Notre Even the most far-out students are trying upon itself. It is not enough to label it the Dame, has laid down a series of guide to tell society something that may also be alienation of youth from our society. God lines to be followed on his campus in the worth searching for today if they would only knows there is enough and more than event of student disorders. He has also lower the volume so we could hear the mes enough in our often non-glorious civiliza made an eloquet plea that we avoid over sage. tion to be alienated from, be you young, reacting to instances of violence; that we Anyway, the great majority of our students middle-aged, or old. permit the university community to en need better leadership than we or the faculty The central problem to me is what we do have been giving them. In a fast changing about it and in what manner, if we are force its own rules and make its own society the real crisis is not one of authority interested in healing rather than destroying adaptations to reasonable suggestions but a crisis of vision that alone can inspire our world. Youth especially has much to of for change. great leadership and create great morale in fer-idealism, generosity, dedication, and Few other academic leaders have so any society. service. The last thing a shaken society effectively articulated the need for a bal A rebirth of great academic, civic and po needs is more shaking. The last thing a noisy, anced approach. I include excerpts from litical leadership, a sharing of some of these turbulent, and disintegrating community his letters to Vice President Agnew and youthful ideals and dreams (impossible or needs is more noise, turbulence, and disin not) would be good for our universities and tegration. Understanding and analysis of so the students of Notre Dame University good for America too. It might also help us all cial ills cannot be conducted in a boiler fac at this point as part of a continuing ef remove some of the key problems that under tory. Compassion has a quiet way of service. fort to bring to the attention of my col line most of the unrest. The campus is really Complicated social mechanisms, out-of-joint, leagues materials relating to academic reflecting America and the world today in are not adjusted with sledge hammers. disturbances: hi-fl sound and living color. Now to the heart of my message. You re [From the New York Times, Feb. 28, 1969] Part of the vision I have been speaking call my letter of Nov. 25, 1968. It was written of must certainly include law and order. But after an incident, or happening if you will. ExCERPTS FROM HESBURGH'S LETI'ERS TO VICE curiously enough, one cannot really have law It seemed best to me at the time not to PRESmENT AGNEW AND TO NOTRE DAME and order without another part of the vision: waste time in personal recriminations or (NOTE: Following are excerpts from a letter Greater achievement of justice in our heavy-handed discipline, but to profit from from the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, presi times, more compassion for all, real love the occasion to invite this whole university dent of the University of Notre Dame, to between the generations. All elements community, especially its central councils of Vice President Agnew, made public in Wash of the vision are interdependent. Moreover, faculty, administration, and students, to de ington yesterday, and from an earlier open the vision must be whole and real for every clare themselves and to state their convic letter from Father Hesburgh to the Notre one. Lastly, a measure of humor would help tions regarding protests that were peaceful Dame students and faculty:) from time to time to break up the deathly and those that threatened the life of the LETTER TO AGNEW seriousness of the present scene. community by disrupting the normal opera As to present action, I would make the tions of the university and infring,lng upon The best salvation for the university in the following two suggestions: the right of others. face of any crisis is for the university com (1) Assume for a few months that the uni I now have a statement from the Academic munity to save itself, by declaring its own versity community-faculty, students, ad Council, the Faculty Senate, the Student Life ground rules and basic values and then ministration and trustees--are capable, in Council, some College Councils, the Alumni enforcing them with the widest and deepest most cases, of laying down their own guide Board, and a whole spate of letters from form of moral persuasion for the good life lines and effectively maintaining them in individual faculty members and a few stu of the university, and consequent moral their usual free and independent university dents. In genera.I, the reaction was condemnation with academic sanctions for style. Things will be messy from time to time practically unanimous that this community any movement against university life and but we will make it as universities if we de recognizes the validity of protest in our values-especially violence, vandalism and termine strongly to maintain our freedoms day-sometimes even the necessity-regard mob action which are the antitheses of rea and our values. That determination is grow ing the current burning issues of our soci son, civility and. the open society which re ing on every campus, every day now. Give ety: War and peace, especially Vietnam; o1v11 spects the right of each and all. it elbow room in which to grow and operate rights; especially of minority groups; the When moral persuasion and academic in its own good way. stance of the university vis-a-vis moral is sanctions fail to deter those who show open (2) Where special help is needed, let all sues of great public concern; the operation contempt for the life style and self-declared assume it will be asked for and given quick of the university as university. There was values of the university community, there ly, effectively and as humanly as possible also practical unanimity that the university should be no hestitation to invoke whatever given the provocations that surround the could not continue to exist as an open so outside assistance ls necessary to preserve need for such outside help, as a last alterna ciety, dedicated to the discussion of all issues the university and its values. However, it is tive to internal self-correction. But let it of importance, if protests were of such a na the university that best judges its need for be understood that the university, and only ture that the normal operations o! the uni outside assistance and invokes this assist the university, publlc or private, makes this versity were in any way impeded, or if the ance, much as it would call for help in a determination. rights of any members of this community three-alarm campus fire. Here the concern If my two assumptions are correct, the were abrogated, peacefully or nonpeace is survival against forces bent on destruction. crisis will pass without the further require fully. It is important to see and judge univer ment of actions other than those contained I believe that I now have a clear mandate sities today as they really are, not as they in my assumptions, especially not repres from this university community to see that: appear to be. The bizarre and widely pub sive legislation, or overreaction in its many 1) our 11nes of communication between all llcized antics of relatively few students and forms. segments of the community are kept as open relatively even fewer faculty are accepted as May I conclude with a word of optimism. as possible, with all legitimate means of the stereotypes of all students and all faculty, As Dickens wrote in the "Tale of Two Cities,'' communicating dissent assured, expanded, much to the disgust of this widely mallgned "It was the best of times and the worst of and protected; 2) civility and rationality are majority of faculty and students. times." The worst. because many of our best maintained as the most reasonable means of The vast majority of university and col traditions, as universities and as a nation, dissent within the academic community; lege students today are a very promising and a.re under siege.

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