Baldwin Wallace University - Grindstone Yearbook (Berea, OH)

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the college in perspective We are known for our violence, we Americans. The creative violence with which we haul down the good for what we fancy as better. The cruel violence with which we have treated red men, and black. The intox- icating violence of our athletic and corporate games. The coarse violence of our speech, even our jokes. And now we have come violently to disagree about the nature of our violence in Vietnam or Dallas or Watts or Hiroshima. We seek the primitive within our- selves and bemoan the failure of affluence to civilize. Our young deplore the violence of the old and are tempted to use violence against them. The old deplore the ferocity of the young and are tempted to use vio- lence to suppress them. Thus we came, already maimed, to 1968. The ugly war in Asia dragged on. The proud President in the White House gave up. The Commission on Civil Dis- orders spoke, nay cried, about the bitter heritage of our racism. Martin Luther King fell slain, and the rot- ten cores of a hundred cities burned. Robert Kennedy fell slain, and even his safe suburban enemies wept. In the summer of our discontent, not even George Wallace's angry young men could turn up a roster of scapegoats to blame by name. We threatened Dr. Spock, the permissive baby doctor, with jail for his prescriptions of dissent. And we railed, in the name of law and order, against the guardians of the law on the Supreme Court. We tried suppression here and appease- ment there, but still the hostilities and frustrations and ambitions of the deprived, whether rich or poor, pro- pelled us from melee to mayhem. We perpetrated hate even in the name of love. Preachers and teachers, politicians and policemen were struck dumb, or furious. Columbia University col- lapsed in chaos. So did the Sorbonne, as if to challenge the last premise of American superiority. We were not unique or alone. As we buried Robert Kennedy beside John, Presi- dent Johnson named yet another commission, on the causes and the prevention of violence. —Max Frankel Superficially Baldwin-Wallace did not have these characteristics of national turmoil. The college lived in an artifical environment sheltered from the real world. Inwardly the college community moved closer to the American reality. We were faced with racism and ignorance, conflict and frustration. We looked for solu- tions, but few did so sincerely. There was apathy; there was disconcern. Now some have hope, some even determination. The 1969 Grindstone presents the college in per- spective.