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University of Iowa anti-war protests, 1965-1967
31858064848116_018
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[handwritten] DI 10/31/67 Prof gives reasons for obstructing recruiters [handwritten] 10/31/67 To the editor: This Wednesday through Friday a number of studnets and faculty will attempt to obstruct recruiting by the U.S. Marine Corps in the Union if the recruiting officers do not leave campus on their own or at the request of University authorities. In the wake of the already much-publicized similar demonstrations at the University of Wisconsin against recruiters from Dow Chemical and Oberlin College against recruiters from the U.S. Navy, this could all become very tense. Thus, it will be helpful if all of us try to reflect ahead [unintelligible] time on some of the issues being raised an d consider the demonstration's tactics and their significance. The basic argument, as some of us see it, is first that at this time the U.S. Marines should not be allowed to recruit on the University campus. The U.S. government is fighting an immoral, illegal, unjust war in Vietnam, and the Marines - much against the will of many of their officers and men - are deeply involved in it. The University should not and need not support it, however slightly or remotely. And the position of many participants in the demonstration is that they have to prevent this support, whatever the alleged neutrality of other parts of the community. The neutrality, as I understand it, rests on the argument of "free speech" - i.e., that any recognized outside institution, from the American Friends Service Committee to the CIA (to the Communist Party?) has a traditional right to recruit. Such an argument, however, is fallacious. The right to speak on campus... these organizations certainly ought to have. But recruit means, in this case, putting men in arms and ordering them to shoot, drop bombs, burn villages, and do all the other merciless mayhem associated with the Vietnam war. Ultimately, then, stopping the recruiters is not a matter of preventing them from taking but preventing them from killing. Still, people will say, the demonstrators by their own resolve may finally bring violence on themselves. Those filling halls or blocking doors iwll ask for it by not moving. I wonder. They have, after all, given notice of their intentions and have asked the University to cancel this recruitment program. They will obstruct from what most believe is nothing more nor less than a profound principle of conscience. And their means of protest, thought obstructive, will not be violent. As the old parody goes, "I hate violence, my wife hates violence:" and so on. And if we really do, now is the time to stop it. Robert F. Savre Associate Professor of English
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[handwritten] DI 10/31/67 Prof gives reasons for obstructing recruiters [handwritten] 10/31/67 To the editor: This Wednesday through Friday a number of studnets and faculty will attempt to obstruct recruiting by the U.S. Marine Corps in the Union if the recruiting officers do not leave campus on their own or at the request of University authorities. In the wake of the already much-publicized similar demonstrations at the University of Wisconsin against recruiters from Dow Chemical and Oberlin College against recruiters from the U.S. Navy, this could all become very tense. Thus, it will be helpful if all of us try to reflect ahead [unintelligible] time on some of the issues being raised an d consider the demonstration's tactics and their significance. The basic argument, as some of us see it, is first that at this time the U.S. Marines should not be allowed to recruit on the University campus. The U.S. government is fighting an immoral, illegal, unjust war in Vietnam, and the Marines - much against the will of many of their officers and men - are deeply involved in it. The University should not and need not support it, however slightly or remotely. And the position of many participants in the demonstration is that they have to prevent this support, whatever the alleged neutrality of other parts of the community. The neutrality, as I understand it, rests on the argument of "free speech" - i.e., that any recognized outside institution, from the American Friends Service Committee to the CIA (to the Communist Party?) has a traditional right to recruit. Such an argument, however, is fallacious. The right to speak on campus... these organizations certainly ought to have. But recruit means, in this case, putting men in arms and ordering them to shoot, drop bombs, burn villages, and do all the other merciless mayhem associated with the Vietnam war. Ultimately, then, stopping the recruiters is not a matter of preventing them from taking but preventing them from killing. Still, people will say, the demonstrators by their own resolve may finally bring violence on themselves. Those filling halls or blocking doors iwll ask for it by not moving. I wonder. They have, after all, given notice of their intentions and have asked the University to cancel this recruitment program. They will obstruct from what most believe is nothing more nor less than a profound principle of conscience. And their means of protest, thought obstructive, will not be violent. As the old parody goes, "I hate violence, my wife hates violence:" and so on. And if we really do, now is the time to stop it. Robert F. Savre Associate Professor of English
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