DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | Emil L. Rinderspacher selected papers, 1970-1971 | A Special Report from The University of Iowa Page 2

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Emil L. Rinderspacher selected papers, 1970-1971

A Special Report from The University of Iowa Page 2

SAMPLING THE PRESIDENT'S MAIL

The May demonstration at Iowa prompted scores of parents alumni and other citizens to send letters, cards, and telegrams to President Willard L. Boyd, offering praise, criticism, scorn and sympathy. 
The following excerpts give some indication to the variety in Boyd's recent mail:

Dear Pres. Boyd: 
As I'm concerned with my son's safety and well-being please close the college for this year. 
Thank you 

AS A PARENT OF STUDENT OF UNIVERSITY OF IOWA, REQUEST YOU DO NOT GIVE IN TO DEMANDS FOR CLOSING COLLEGE

Thank you for what can only be superhuman efforts in keeping the University open. I am solidly behind your policy and share your convictions on the agony and frustrations of these young people. 

I suppose you cannot help having these animals on campus. But to give in to them invites more of the same 

I congratulate you on keeping the University open and rest of the year and not letting those Thugs of the campus run your office. 

It's unbelievable that the governor of the state feared to visit your campus or that ROTC cannot conduct their drills as they see fit. When I was young, church, school and parents stood shoulder to shoulder against lawlessness of any description.

When leaders lack moral fibre, the mob dominates.Law-abiding men everywhere must  be threatened by your lack of courage. 

Thank God at least one college president still has some guts. 

We are bringing our daughter home Wednesday because she and we are too grief-stricken at the course our nation has taken to concentrate on our work. 

Our two daughters attend the University. At this writing, one favors demonstrating the other enjoys it. They have both been appraised of our thoughts against it. 

I don't know whether my daughter is one of the agitators or not. I sincerely hope not but if she is, it would not change my view that those who disrupt University life should be expelled. 

If people in our age group had some some protesting fifteen or twenty years ago, our nation would not be in this state of unrest. We pray that you will find the way to deal with the problems facing you and that the campus will again be used by the students who deserve and want an education. 

LETTER FROM LOREN HICKERSON

Loren Hickerson, mayor of Iowa City and director of community relations for the University , was totally involved in the week of tumultuous events surrounding the anti-war, anti-ROTC demonstrations on the campus and in Iowa City. 
Afterward he wrote a letter to friends and relatives to try to characterize for them his impressions of those days. 
Here is the main portion of that letter:

We've had our problems here - less serious than in many university cities. Nearly two-thirds of our students returned home early, exercising options extended at mid-week when tensions were high and it was clear that nobody would be learning anything useful until the climate changed and the "front" passed. 
I went through the longest days of my life during that week. You have to experience this to begin to understand what "social forces" are, how thy can affect a democratic community, and why simple answers don't even begin to fit the questions. 

It starts with a routine campus rally. Like the old-time pep meetings, they're a dime a dozen. Depending on the campus climate and the world situation, you keep your weather eyes open. But you can't really plan for trouble. You may have it, but you may not. 
The situation evolves, like a thunderstorm on a humid day in the summer. You feel the storm but can't predict it. How much wind? How much rain? Maybe only sheet lightning. Maybe a tornado. 
We had nearly 300 arrests in 72 hours, most of them willing and, to the arestees, symbolic. Old Capitol was "occupied" briefly, twice in a night before the mass arrests. (Minor Damage) . An old frame building burned near the Old Armory (More symbolism?)
Days earlier a powerful bomb explosion downtown on Dubuque Street at 1 a.m. shattered windows along a whole block of a street blessedly devoid of people and cars. 
Tension rises, fear spreads, and the rumours grow fantastic in number and content. And who's involved? Overwhelmingly Iowa kids, from Clarinda and Mason City and Strawberry Point. 
At a distance it is so easy to be incredulous, to blame permissive administrators and inept civil officials, to suggest rational preventatives and solutions. 
But you'll recall that the president of an Ohio university (one of the "tough" schools) appeared proudly on a panel following the Nixon press conference. "We're in good shape," he said. "Our rules are firm and fair and our students are sound and rational" A thousand Ohio National Guardsmen were on his campus a few days later and the school was closed until summer.
At least Iowa is open and our Guard only had to stand by.
What causes it? All the things that are different than they used to be - for all of us, but especially for the great majority of young people : No chores to do around home. Plenty of money. Automobiles and urban society. Television, which teaches instantaneousness in all  things, from stopping acid indigestion to walking on the moon. Do it now ! -from rewriting dorm rules to stopping a war. Over-indulgence and over-simplification in a whole generation. Plus a passionate sense of freedom, whose practitioners will have to learn all over again, the hard way, in a new world, that discipline, and standards, and taste, and human dignity, and tolerance, and order are imperatives for any freedom worthy of the name.

Why is it so hard to deal with? The power of numbers. You can't deal with a whole generation in thee woodshed. Neither can you expect rationality or a bi-lateral sense of justice from a mob. Man learned that a thousand years ago but he's gone through the process again and again through history. 
The individual who rebels have everything going for him these days, including the sympathy, solidarity and crowd power of masses of his fellows. Plus, constitutional guarantees of free speech, upheld by courts quite properly committed to the protection of the individual, but not yet dedicated to the new imperative : writing new definitions of social order for a brand new kind of ball game. When the Abbie Hoffmans and the Jerry Rubins and the obscenity hurling hippies who throw pies in the faces of federal officials are effectively curbed by the laws of the land, colleges will again be able to make their own disciplinary actions stick - and not until. 
The foregoing suggests (as I do indeed believe) that campus radicals are spawned by contemporary crowds, not vice-versa. Crowds protect both confirmed and potential radicals, not because the mass of the crowd believes in rock-throwing as a way of life, but because they do believe in protest, and the inclination to throw rocks has not yet exceeded their own innate sense of restraint. As a result, evidence against a radical (which will hold up in court) is mighty hard to get in the absence of one policeman per protester. Who among the thousand out there in the dark threw the brick that shattered the window?
Please step forward. And if nobody steps forward, do you arrest the thousand? There aren't that many policemen and there aren't that many jails and there aren't that many courts. And who wants to live perpetually amidst the National Guard? There has to be a better solution than that. 
I don't know the answers. I only know that under the circumstances, nobody else's answers are any better than mine. And I know for absolute certain that the immediate answers have to be found at the scenes of protests, not at a distance. The University and city administrations here both know that well, and we work together maybe better than in most places.
Don't weep for the good old days. We're all born to at time in history and this is our time. I keep remembering Lord Thomas Macauley's comment of 957 about the dangers America would face, in time : "Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor." But I also keep remembering, with my own brands of hope and faith, the words of my favorite philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead: "The greatest advances in civilization are processes which ll but wreck the societies in which they occur."

Precious Time Of Life

We have just listened to the broadcast telling us of the difficult hours you are experiencing in Iowa City. 
We hope you will see this trying time through. You are young, well balanced and intelligent so that you will be able to understand this world-wide revolt of youth. 
There are so many fine young people. We can understand why our youth feels that war is folly. If life is so precious to my husband and me at 84 and 77, life surely must be more precious to an 18 year old. 
- Letter received by President Boyd during the May demonstrations.

Saving...

SAMPLING THE PRESIDENT'S MAIL The May demonstration at Iowa prompted scores of parents alumni and other citizens to send letters, cards, and telegrams to President Willard L. Boyd, offering praise, criticism, scorn and sympathy. The following excerpts give some indication to the variety in Boyd's recent mail: Dear Pres. Boyd: As I'm concerned with my son's safety and well-being please close the college for this year. Thank you AS A PARENT OF STUDENT OF UNIVERSITY OF IOWA, REQUEST YOU DO NOT GIVE IN TO DEMANDS FOR CLOSING COLLEGE Thank you for what can only be superhuman efforts in keeping the University open. I am solidly behind your policy and share your convictions on the agony and frustrations of these young people. I suppose you cannot help having these animals on campus. But to give in to them invites more of the same I congratulate you on keeping the University open and rest of the year and not letting those Thugs of the campus run your office. It's unbelievable that the governor of the state feared to visit your campus or that ROTC cannot conduct their drills as they see fit. When I was young, church, school and parents stood shoulder to shoulder against lawlessness of any description. When leaders lack moral fibre, the mob dominates.Law-abiding men everywhere must be threatened by your lack of courage. Thank God at least one college president still has some guts. We are bringing our daughter home Wednesday because she and we are too grief-stricken at the course our nation has taken to concentrate on our work. Our two daughters attend the University. At this writing, one favors demonstrating the other enjoys it. They have both been appraised of our thoughts against it. I don't know whether my daughter is one of the agitators or not. I sincerely hope not but if she is, it would not change my view that those who disrupt University life should be expelled. If people in our age group had some some protesting fifteen or twenty years ago, our nation would not be in this state of unrest. We pray that you will find the way to deal with the problems facing you and that the campus will again be used by the students who deserve and want an education. LETTER FROM LOREN HICKERSON Loren Hickerson, mayor of Iowa City and director of community relations for the University , was totally involved in the week of tumultuous events surrounding the anti-war, anti-ROTC demonstrations on the campus and in Iowa City. Afterward he wrote a letter to friends and relatives to try to characterize for them his impressions of those days. Here is the main portion of that letter: We've had our problems here - less serious than in many university cities. Nearly two-thirds of our students returned home early, exercising options extended at mid-week when tensions were high and it was clear that nobody would be learning anything useful until the climate changed and the "front" passed. I went through the longest days of my life during that week. You have to experience this to begin to understand what "social forces" are, how thy can affect a democratic community, and why simple answers don't even begin to fit the questions. It starts with a routine campus rally. Like the old-time pep meetings, they're a dime a dozen. Depending on the campus climate and the world situation, you keep your weather eyes open. But you can't really plan for trouble. You may have it, but you may not. The situation evolves, like a thunderstorm on a humid day in the summer. You feel the storm but can't predict it. How much wind? How much rain? Maybe only sheet lightning. Maybe a tornado. We had nearly 300 arrests in 72 hours, most of them willing and, to the arestees, symbolic. Old Capitol was "occupied" briefly, twice in a night before the mass arrests. (Minor Damage) . An old frame building burned near the Old Armory (More symbolism?) Days earlier a powerful bomb explosion downtown on Dubuque Street at 1 a.m. shattered windows along a whole block of a street blessedly devoid of people and cars. Tension rises, fear spreads, and the rumours grow fantastic in number and content. And who's involved? Overwhelmingly Iowa kids, from Clarinda and Mason City and Strawberry Point. At a distance it is so easy to be incredulous, to blame permissive administrators and inept civil officials, to suggest rational preventatives and solutions. But you'll recall that the president of an Ohio university (one of the "tough" schools) appeared proudly on a panel following the Nixon press conference. "We're in good shape," he said. "Our rules are firm and fair and our students are sound and rational" A thousand Ohio National Guardsmen were on his campus a few days later and the school was closed until summer. At least Iowa is open and our Guard only had to stand by. What causes it? All the things that are different than they used to be - for all of us, but especially for the great majority of young people : No chores to do around home. Plenty of money. Automobiles and urban society. Television, which teaches instantaneousness in all things, from stopping acid indigestion to walking on the moon. Do it now ! -from rewriting dorm rules to stopping a war. Over-indulgence and over-simplification in a whole generation. Plus a passionate sense of freedom, whose practitioners will have to learn all over again, the hard way, in a new world, that discipline, and standards, and taste, and human dignity, and tolerance, and order are imperatives for any freedom worthy of the name. Why is it so hard to deal with? The power of numbers. You can't deal with a whole generation in thee woodshed. Neither can you expect rationality or a bi-lateral sense of justice from a mob. Man learned that a thousand years ago but he's gone through the process again and again through history. The individual who rebels have everything going for him these days, including the sympathy, solidarity and crowd power of masses of his fellows. Plus, constitutional guarantees of free speech, upheld by courts quite properly committed to the protection of the individual, but not yet dedicated to the new imperative : writing new definitions of social order for a brand new kind of ball game. When the Abbie Hoffmans and the Jerry Rubins and the obscenity hurling hippies who throw pies in the faces of federal officials are effectively curbed by the laws of the land, colleges will again be able to make their own disciplinary actions stick - and not until. The foregoing suggests (as I do indeed believe) that campus radicals are spawned by contemporary crowds, not vice-versa. Crowds protect both confirmed and potential radicals, not because the mass of the crowd believes in rock-throwing as a way of life, but because they do believe in protest, and the inclination to throw rocks has not yet exceeded their own innate sense of restraint. As a result, evidence against a radical (which will hold up in court) is mighty hard to get in the absence of one policeman per protester. Who among the thousand out there in the dark threw the brick that shattered the window? Please step forward. And if nobody steps forward, do you arrest the thousand? There aren't that many policemen and there aren't that many jails and there aren't that many courts. And who wants to live perpetually amidst the National Guard? There has to be a better solution than that. I don't know the answers. I only know that under the circumstances, nobody else's answers are any better than mine. And I know for absolute certain that the immediate answers have to be found at the scenes of protests, not at a distance. The University and city administrations here both know that well, and we work together maybe better than in most places. Don't weep for the good old days. We're all born to at time in history and this is our time. I keep remembering Lord Thomas Macauley's comment of 957 about the dangers America would face, in time : "Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor." But I also keep remembering, with my own brands of hope and faith, the words of my favorite philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead: "The greatest advances in civilization are processes which ll but wreck the societies in which they occur." Precious Time Of Life We have just listened to the broadcast telling us of the difficult hours you are experiencing in Iowa City. We hope you will see this trying time through. You are young, well balanced and intelligent so that you will be able to understand this world-wide revolt of youth. There are so many fine young people. We can understand why our youth feels that war is folly. If life is so precious to my husband and me at 84 and 77, life surely must be more precious to an 18 year old. - Letter received by President Boyd during the May demonstrations.