The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1963-09-20

to the young writer's who have had their writ
ing suppressed for fear of the public wrath
They were already developed and committed
to the point that most of them have probably
carried on with little loss to themselves or
others.
1t is the effect of the situation / have
tried 20 describe many other students
would speculate about. 1t to
the effects bad. But not dramatically
bad. The University has always had we'll
behaved student body. 1t has needed
strong-armed man in any position to keep
order Students still go studying, most
of them do. Many of them have fine, mu-
tually-rewarding relationships with faculty
members. Playing and dancing and love-
making will occupy them too. But that is
not the whole story, though it is the only
story many people see.
AS see it, many thoughtful students who
might become deeply interested in genuine
community government now simply Withdraw
from organized campus life, because they see
that so much of it. however official it is made
to look, is quite trivial in its concerns, near
waste of firSt-rate minds on second-rate pur-
poses Denied, in effect, the chance to par
ticipate effectively with the persons who make
the rules and regulations and the educational
programs, they do what the ablest and most
ambitious commoners in feudal Japan are
said to have done when they found it impos-
sible to cross the class-lines between them
selves and the ruling military elite: excluded
from political leadership, they compensated
by building up ideals of high economic achieve
ment and acquiring money, as ends in them
selves.
Such environment will still give us many
able business and professional men and many
well-trained scholars but it will still leave
us short of able men disposed and trained to
participate in the public realm.
Some of the able and many of the less able
students will continue to do a great deal with
campus politics, and this will give us skillful
public relations men to make the arrange
ments in political and economic life.
The mass of students will go on with their
studies, having a good time within, if pos
sible, the rules they and their fellows have
had little hand in making even though they
are old enough to vote, to fight wars and es-
tablish families. They will join in political
parades just for the fun of it, not fooled
at all, but not caring for anything significant
ly political very much either, am afraid. And
editors will all wonder why can't get
citizens out to vote!
Postscript: On reading all this see that
someone may feel that I the administra-
tors the villains in the academic world. On
the contrary, | see them too often as the vic
Tins, victims of way of governing that
doesn't work well in any good academic COM
munity. Hannah Arendt has summed it up in
a wise word in her book, THE HUMAN CON-
DITION: History is full of examples of the
strong and superior who does not know
how to enlist the help, the co-acting of his
fellow mem"
/ also see that my thesis stands unsupported
by any description of practical patterns of
cooperation between faculty, students, and
administration There many patterns,
ranging from ad hoe arrangements for sepa-
rate occasions to the thorough going commu-
nifty government at Antioch College. How it
can be done is much less important than the
idea that it can be done.