Our Reply

The following statements, reprinted here in the original English, appeared in the Publisher's column of the January Yale Political. They contain a challenge to our nation and our University which cannot go unanswered. (A picture of the publisher which accompanied the text in the original article is also reproduced here, so that readers may keep their antagonist firmly in mind.)

ON STUDENT APATHY

On a visit to Cuba before the present Communist regime seized power, I remember being astonished by the number of students, probably members of the Young Students' Progressive League, continually agitating in front of Batista's sumptuous palace. As I stood on the Havana sidewalk marvelling at their perilous behavior, I wondered, "why don't American students demonstrate such courageous and determined political feelings?" My Cuban sojourn was during that fateful month of October, 1956, when, even in Havana news of the Hungarian student rioters headlined all the papers. Indeed, the Hungarian freedom-fighter was also a student, and we all lauded his youthful ardor as a tribute to the ideals of free men.

But do you know that during this turbulent month, while students were proclaiming their political ideals not only in Havana and Budapest but also in Istanbul, Caracas, and Tokyo, only three student groups rioted in these United States--two for the removal of football coaches who had failed to produce winning teams and the third for more free student parking space? In fact student riots in the "home of the brave" are now incomparable to the purposeful demonstrations of far-off lands. Harvard University, for example, has yielded two major demonstrations during this past decade (both, of course, in the mild weather of late spring) when students mutinied in 1952 for "Pogo for President" and in 1961 for retaining Latin-inscribed diplomas....

We repeat; the above statements contain a challenge which cannot go unanswered. First, in the past decade Harvard has had not two riots, as is alleged, but four. In addition to the Pogo and Diploma Riots there were the Vellucci Riot of 1956 and the Fight Mental Health protests of 1958.

Second, the insinuation that "student riots in the 'home of the brave' are incomparable to the purposeful demonstrations of far-off lands" simply ignores the facts. What, we ask, is more purposeful: a group of Latin Americans "continually agitating in front of Batista's sumptuous palace" or 4,000 clean-cut Harvard students shouting as one man: "Latin si, Pusey no"? And which is more effective; students vaguely "proclaiming their political ideals" in scattered cities or 1600 Harvard men concentrated on Cambridge making a specific demand: Pogo for President.

Third, as for the patronizing remarks about our riots taking place "in the mild weather of late spring," tell us, Mr. Publisher, what better time is there for a riot?