Reader questions
Morrill editorial

To the editor:

I want to commend you on your facility of expression in "Students Plan Indictment Protest March" in the March 27, 1969, issue of the Clarion, and at the same time check you up a bit on what I believe may be a disservice to your fellow students and the Christian testimony of Bethel.

I know you students are hard pressed for time and material.  And I know that it can seem thrilling and relevant to take current issues and dash off a piece, letting your emotions, biases and prejudices carry you away.  The printed page is a real power, and should be wielded with all the serious thinking and integrity at our command--especially Christian writers.  Okay, I'm lecturing, forgive me!

You wrote of the Grand Jury making a serious blunder in respect to action against those allegedly causing $6,000 damages to property.  Now that comes under the heading of "criminal processes" and not "state interference in the educational process."  As you correctly state, "There is no doubt that the Grand Jury had the right to issue the indictment."  Now, it's in the courts where it should be.

I felt badly when you turned around and said:  "The indictment was, to put it bluntly, stupid."  How do you KNOW it was stupid?  Don't you think the court must give that verdict?  You certainly don't want to assume the position of God, Judge and Jury by making rash remarks like that.  You can stir up shallow-thinking students to irrational action by assuming you know it all.

When crimes are alleged to have been committed this is no longer an "educational process," and the police are not "outside," they are our constituted way of handling crime.  If people bash in my front door and begin to destroy my furniture, I'm glad I can call the constituted authority to put a stop to it.  There is no double standard:  when people destroy school property, they make themselves subject to law enforcement--and that's the natural process--not some strange interference from "outside."

You agree that if the courts have a case they can prosecute.  Then you turn right around and say that all charges should be dropped.  Just who are you assuming to be that you can tell your peers what is right and wrong without due process?  Aren't you really glad that we don't deal on that emotional unfair basis?

The Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh expresses it very well, I believe, when he gave his message last February to students and faculty of the University of Notre Dame (the emphasis is mine):

"There seems to be a current  myth that university members are not responsible to the law, and that somehow the law is the enemy, as are those whom society has constituted to uphold and enforce it.  I would like to insist here that all of us are responsible to the duly constituted laws of this University community and to all the laws of the land.  There is no other guarantee of civilization versus the jungle or mob rule, here or elsewhere."

Dear C.M., the central problem is WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT OUR WORLD'S WRONGS?  We want to heal them. We've got the world's best method of government to do the job, no matter how bungling we have used it.  My daddy used to tell me, "Son, I'd rather be on a construction gang than on a wrecking crew."

I don't think it's anything to be proud of to use the world's system, and tear everything down.  Returning evil for evil is the way the unChristian world says will do the job.  So, when we see some wrongs righted by that process, well maybe that's the way to get the job done.  History and the Bible will tell us over and over that in the long run that won't work.

For pity's sake, don't let's fall into the clutches of the few dissidents who want only to destroy.  If they didn't have some kind of a half-way cause, they wouldn't be able to catch our fine youth.  Don't use their thoughtless, illogical, stupid, shallow tactics.

Think, man, think.  You are different if you are a Christian!

Yours in His matchless Name,
Dr. Edwin R. Greene, Pastor
Warner Avenue Baptist Church
Huntington Beach, California