SPEAKER: I'd like to introduce the student body to President
of the university, Mr. Shannon.
MR. SHANNON: Members of the university,
I apologize for the delay in arriving,
but I did want to give time for the switch from University Hall
and also to complete some aspects of my remarks.
I appreciate your waiting.
I come to you today to speak calmly and dispassionately
about the events of the past 10 days
nationally and at the University of Virginia that have
profoundly shocked all of us.
I want to talk to you directly about a number of the matters
which fill our mind and personally share with you
the concern, the responsibilities,
and the commitment that I have to you as student
and the faculty, as members of the university and to you
personally and individually, as a corporate body
and as individuals, in other words.
This is a time of the utmost gravity in the university
and the country.
I don't have to tell you that.
We all know it.
And I hope we can find the best in every one of us
to meet this occasion.
I ask you to listen to me and to continue to help me in the days
ahead as you have helped me during the past week
to preserve the university as a place of learning
and a free expression of ideas.
I want you to help me to preserve
the bonds of human trust so that we
as people and as human beings hoping to fulfill our highest
ideals and human capabilities can work rationally together
and constructively together to attain
the goals of the university and national goals.
I ask you to listen, and I've been listening constantly
to you.
From the very beginning of the difficulties last Monday
night, students have been in free and almost continuous
contact.
Your advice and your counsel and my ability
to work freely and with absolute trust
in you and in what you are trying to communicate to me
has kept us still intact as a university this day.
Faculty have participated in the same way.
And the complete desire from a wide spectrum of opinion
to assist me in upholding the university, whatever
differences of view prevail, to preserve within a university
free expression and responsible action
has sustained me in a week of sleeplessness
and of hours of decisions, each of which
could irrevocably affected the careers, the plans,
the livelihoods, and even the life and limb of each one us.
Now the very process of listening to you,
as I think you can understand, means
that I shall do my best this afternoon
to cover the things that are upper most for us.
But the time has not made it possible
for me to cover fully in the past,
and it has made it difficult and almost impossible
for me to cover it today.
And for that reason there certainly will
be fragmentary aspects of my remarks.
I hope also that you can understand the responsibilities
that I bear as president.
I am responsible to see that the university is not
used by those who seek to--
seek to warp it to an instrument of their own ends.
I have a responsibility to all faculty and students
to see that even in the most unusual circumstances a time
of terrible national division that the ability of everyone
is maintained to express views, that those views can
be protected to be heard, that they will not be interfered
with or harassed, and at the same time as a State University
I have obligations to the community
and for order and for personal safety.
I've asked you to meet with me this afternoon
at a moment of such crisis for the country
and for the university that we love.
It would be less than honest if I
didn't emphasis this, the gravity of the position
that we face.
But if it is outraged love and reverence that
make us all so angry and divided in many ways,
let us remember that love and reverence can also be the bond
and must be the bond that bring us together if we are
determined to set things right.
I am confident that both the country and the university
can take a lot of punishment and still survive.
Given the present condition, this
is a good thing and a fortunate thing.
But I believe that the future of our country
and of our university deserves the best
thought and the hardest work, which each of us is capable of.
And you may be sure that I am determined to give
every ounce of my energy.
As we meet this afternoon so far as I'm aware,
the University of Virginia is the only major university
on the east coast that is really open with classes and--
[APPLAUSE]
--with classes and scholarly work in progress.
At the same time, there is the free opportunity
for those who feel that there are other matters are more
important to which by the assessment
of their own responsibilities and their own duties
to refrain from attending classes
have been free to do so.
[APPLAUSE]
I believe it is the desire of the overwhelming majority
of the students and the faculty that the university continues
to proceed, that it remain open.
[CHANTS]
This is a tribute.
This is a tribute just as you've interpreted it
to the fact that we are still sitting here
and that you can interpret a boycott and a strike.
Again, your strike has not been one
to interfere or to coerce other people.
I've been struck and impressed with this.
[APPLAUSE]
And in another sense, the fact that we still are operating
is a tribute to the leadership of many individual students
and of the student body as a whole--
as a whole.
An intend that we should proceed this way
that the open opportunity-- and I'll talk more about this
later-- will continue to exist.
And I shall count upon your help, as I say,
as we go forward.
Your spirit, the spirit of the students over the last two days
has been magnificent.
I really have been never more proud of the students
and the faculty of the university than I am today.
And the way that you have come to me,
the way that you have made known to me your views in a way
that I can have that feeling that we are working and working
together with sometimes divided views
but always trying to communicate and that there
is no division in that sense among us.
Now never-- also some mistakes have been made.
I do not exempt myself from them.
I share in these mistakes, and I have no doubt
that as we try to work our way through that some more may
be made.
We are human, and the university-- and I'm
a human being.
And the university is not organized
as the kind of organization or human society that
can act in the most wise way under the conditions
and make the wisest decisions under the conditions
under which they have constantly had to have been
made in the last five days.
Despite all this, I hope we can be of good cheer.
The times are grave.
But I see no evil now existing that cannot be corrected
in this university or in the country if we work on it,
if we work on it with the best energy and with the wisest
means that we can devise.
John P wrote in one of the morning newspapers that
was brought attention has defined
a good university as one that has at its objective
the development of the free mind in what
might be called the atmosphere of competing truths.
This is an atmosphere in which a man can think otherwise,
and there are many instances in which
men can think otherwise and have shown it here
without interference or coercion.
Let us maintain it.
Now Robert White is also the despairing president
of Kent State.
I want to pay tribute again to them at that institution.
I hear lunacy.
He says on one side I see frightening repression.
On the other side, I don't hear anyone
in the center saying let us examine, let us discuss,
let us rationally investigate.
Now I don't think that's true here,
and I think that is why we're here today
and we'll keep it that way.
Now my comments--
[APPLAUSE]
Now I want to make comments about the events
of the university during the past few days
and where we go from here, how we move to change
things for the better.
After that, I want to make some suggestions about two things
that I believe we can do immediately in a practical way
to advance the cause of peace in Vietnam
and to bring about a change in the national scene
beyond the university.
[APPLAUSE]
Now one word about the work of the marshal.
It had come to--
it had been absolutely outstanding,
and I was disappointed to have called to my attention
today in the Daily Progress a reference to marshals
being exempt from arrest.
I'm calling on all of you before I proceed to other remarks
so that we will not have occasions where students will
be in danger of arrest, and I will do everything
in my power to prevent that.
I would remind you that the marshals have volunteered
and represent every shade of opinion on all of the issues
and thinking that is before us--
many of them strong sympathizers in the strike movement.
That's a perfect example.
We have both opportunities exemplified.
Now in the fast moving events of the last six days,
constant discussions, constant meetings,
constant communication, it's very difficult--
constant rumors--
It's very difficult to be sure and accurate
of all that has gone on.
It's difficult to give in summary
and capsule a precise account.
I want to try to do as much as I can in that regard beginning
with Monday night where it began with the first knowledge
that I had--
that a number of students had met together
in a deep concern, a deep agony over the news of the deaths
of students at Kent State and wished to come to my house
and wished to express that feeling
and wish my assurance that feelings and expression
and the university properly conducted
would not be interfered with.
I gladly told them that I would see them.
They came.
We had comments.
I know some of them in which I tried
to express my sympathy, my concern, and certainly
the fact that no harassment is ever
a part of the philosophy in the background of this university.
Despite this, a building was illegally broken into
and occupied.
And as president-- and as president
of the university charged with the protection of people
and his property, I sought to relieve that situation
by a court injunction as the most non-violent means
of assuring protection.
It has been-- it has been my effort to act with the--
in this way with the least requirement of any outside help
to have operate within the university for us
to operate as a university and to discipline ourselves
and not to require other authority.
Now no police action or any other
was requested or was sought or was use that night.
The building was cleared in a very rapid manner
after the reading of the injunction.
An attempted firebombing of a neighboring building failed.
And as I say again, this illegal action
did come from a spontaneous demonstration of sympathy
for the violence and concern for and the deaths at Kent State.
Now on Tuesday-- on Tuesday, peaceful demonstrations
against the war and in sympathy with Kent State
were held and continued largely throughout the day.
The injunction contrary to some rumors
is not one that prohibits peaceful assembly in any way.
Now on Wednesday, again, that Tuesday morning immediately
after before I left the university at all
to try to continue with the normal day
before I left on Monday night, I proposed and discussed
with Mr. [INAUDIBLE],, the president of the student
council.
And he agreed immediately for a memorial service
immediately to express our common feeling over the events
at Kent State, the reason why they had arisen,
and to be available to the student body of the university.
Also on Wednesday and also on Tuesday
evening, I understood there would be demand formulated
affecting both the university and the national scene
that the student council would wait to present to me
and to do so publicly.
I made myself available to do this in order again
not only to be in constant communication
with individual students, many of those who simply were
individuals, many of those who has other student
responsibility.
On Wednesday also we had events during the day.
Again, I came to the students, made
myself available to express positive action that I
had undertaken to do on our behalf
and on your behalf of students.
And on that evening in accordance with
the university's long tradition of the protection of freedom
of speech through-- and you have no idea of the vilification
and the abuse that I have been subjected to because I have
protected that right--
two of the most controversial speakers of the day
addressed a large audience in University Hall.
Following this late that evening between 1,500 and 2,000 people
assembled in the dark outside my house
where I had retired with my wife and five daughters.
The mob was addressed by persons, including
those visiting speakers.
They shouted and were agitated in many ways.
This was an absolutely dangerous and frightening situation.
I refrained from any request with previous knowledge
for any kind of police protection
or any protection of any kind.
I refrained after this mob was assembled
from requesting or communicating with anyone outside of one
or two student leaders.
I also as a result of this with the assistance of the student
marshals, the mob dispersed and left the house and much of it
proceeded to Maury Hall, the university building previously
occupied.
Where the building was occupied again damage was done,
fires were set in two buildings.
Awareness of the injunction and the action of student marshals,
again, resulted in non-violent departure
of these persons who had illegally entered it,
and a number of those who did so appear
not to have been students but persons from away and outside.
During the night, the danger of violence at the University
reached a near peak.
As you know, a crowd assembled at the intersections
of 29 and 250, a mob of several hundred people
chanting and apparently threatening
the safety of motorist and people.
If violence had occurred there, there
would have been an absolute riot.
Now as the movement came back farther up 29--
now I want you to listen to this.
I'm trying to--
I'm trying to give you some explanations
that I think are useful and necessary to all of us.
By following the recommendations again of the students,
we were in a confrontation situation
with a large number of police drawn up
and with many students drawn up on the other side.
And following the recommendations
of the students and their marshals
and the president of the student council
and with my specific request, Vice President Williams
advised the students that the police would withdraw.
The police withdrew on the understanding and assumption
that the spectators would disperse and they did.
The police-- the police marched away immediately,
and the spectators dispersed, as I say,
and the violence was here again averted.
Well, this is what we're working on.
Now the intensity of that threat brought
about the strong recommendation of the police and the state
police that if such mobs again formed
and the laws against impeding traffic and disorderly conduct
were again broken that action would
have to be taken, that the arrest would have to be made,
that there would be no alternative.
Now Friday afternoon city, county,
and authorities and representatives
of the state police requested meetings
with the officials of the university
and required that control of all police and maintenance of order
be transferred to the police authorities at 6 o'clock.
I refused.
[APPLAUSE]
But during the night, Friday night crowds again
formed at a major city intersection
on the edge of the central grounds,
again, harassed passing motorists and pedestrians.
Again, I had assured the state police and the city
that I would be in contact, that I would undertake
to be in a position where there would be representatives
of the university available so that we would have liaison
and again that we would have the possibility of averting
direct conflict.
The crowd was again moving, and I
won't to go into all the details there.
But the matter came--
the matter came to the point where I was not at the scene,
was not able to be at the scene.
Someone at the scene in order to preserve authority and order
had to have the authority to act on the judgment of maintaining
the law and in maintaining the order as far as assembly
was concerned.
As long as I could--
as long as I could, we kept in touch,
but I was not able to do so.
And my responsibility as far as a public official is concerned,
I had to transfer that responsibility to the police
captain on the scene.
Now the law violations were not so extreme that night
as had been, I understand, the night before.
The police and university officials on the scene,
however, came to the point in the light of a whole series
of five days of disturbances despite my abhorrence
of the use of police in academic institutions
on a [INAUDIBLE] night of the difficulties,
I believe that action had to be taken
in the interest of the university.
And I consequently transferred that responsibility
and gave that responsibility to carry out
whatever action was necessary.