M-DAY AT IRONDEQUOIT HIGH

How Martin Lwher II, Age 14, beat back

the Moratorium-makers and their mimeograph machines­

armed only with a typewriter-and how. 011 the way

home from school, experienced an epiphany of sorts

The Story of the Posting of the Theses

For ce11t11rie.1. tlte pamphlet /ras been

one of the 111//.\I powerful weapo11.1 i11

the great wars of words In the hands of 1111•11 like Swift. Burke and Thoma.1

Paine, it /ra.1 changed tlu coune of history. The f ollowin.r: arco11111 Jhows

how this a11cie11t de1•ice was once <1!-fai11 11111 w 1,tood use and how the Mom­

tori1m1 Cit I /IS did 11<>1 go 1111defied.

Till' r !RSI TIIING l noticeu Tues­

d.iy morning was that a large crowu was entering the northwest door

of IHS at an unusually slow rate. The

cause of this delay was two students who were pussing out some sheet or other, probabl) related to Homecoming Weekend. But then I real11ed that this

was The Weck, the week of the Fif­

teenth. Alrcai.ly, the leaflet was thrust in my hand, I was reading the first sen­

tence. My worst suspicion, were con­

firmed: the sale of indulgences had be­gun. Tetzel had arrived in lro111kquoit.

The flaws of this leaflet arc perhaps

not as numerous as one might expect:

it is such ·1 vapid i.locument. But in my book, it still r:.itcs a nosegay. "We

h;1ve been turned down in efforts for outside speakers ... :· In other words. turneu down in efforts for outside lib­erals. l he Moratorium "encourages a broad cross-section of Americans to

work again,t the war ... " l hat is to say. it encourages the left-wing, which,

though numerous, is hardly a broad cross-section. And the word "leaflet­

t ing." C,oou heavem! when a writer has at his disposal the most subtle and var­ied language in the world, one might

think he could avoid such monstrosities as "le:1fletting"! But what galled me

mo,t aboul the pass-out was Just i1s air of smug cockiness: "We. as concerned

students," "The program is an ini.lividual expression of your moral

196 NAIIONAl RFVILW

RICHARD BROOKHISER

views," "We . . . must cuucate the

community," and most odious of all, "You may stay in school. .. . " Oh, how uncommonly good of them to say

so. By first period, l was ulreauy suffi­

ciently wrought up lo do something. It seemed that l was a voice crying in the

wiluernes�. Everywhere I went. I saw the blue Moratorium buttons. I could hear the Moratorium being praised­the war was being cursed by bell, book and candle and no one realized that

the Mass was being recited back wards.

Similar pass-outs that afternoon only served to rile me more. By the time I

got home, my choler had not subsided, but I had given it a definite purpo�e:

the Moratorium would not go unchal­lenged.

And so, all that night, I typed. J did not have access to the resources of the

other pamphleteers they were ,o or­ganized, there had to he a teacher be­

hinu them. So for two hours. I made do with carbon paper. crnnkrng out

four sheets at a time. And the end re­sult: "The 95 These, of the Vietnam

War entitled / Prote1t!''

Lookrng back on it all, I am often

startled. At one pllrnt, I borrowed dan­gerously from the rhetoric of the Left:

. . . the enemies of the people of South Vietnam." I consider the bit about bluejays inspired. though it mui.t

seem rather bitchy in print. 1 he elev­enth thesis is almost a drrect quote

from an appraisal of Eleanor Roose­velt by James Burnham, and the closing of the last thesis could have been lifted from The Prisoner. AIM>, upon reflection, I must agree with Wm. r-. Buckley Jr , that a true Moratorrum. devoted LO serious thought on the war, would be welcome. But the Moratt1-

rium, as it was, amounted to nothing more than an intellectual Saturnalia

(you see, we do learn something from

mythology), so that Thesis Number Six. should remain unchanged.

So tr WAS that after two hours offurious activity, I had one measly pile of papers and no idea what 10 do with

them. The Moratorium people could drown J HS in puss-outs ( on two days, at least four different antiwar pam­phlets were distributed): I had only

:n typewriuen sheets. including duds

{joke's on me, I put the carbon paper 111 backwards) I decided to call

the principal. Dr. Davis, to check on regulations concerning the u1ssemina tion of propaganda. I was informed that his mother was ill and in the hos­

pital, anu that he might be back in ten minutes or at 3 A.M. That was bad;

Doc might have been sympathetic tomy position. I would have to call Mr.Wilson, Dean of Students; I did notknow what he thought. In the mciin-time. however, one of our neifjhborshad seized the line: the Moratoriummight be over before she stopped talk-ing. I amused my.self by playing a Bach"lntrata." The neighbor hung up. Wil-son was busy; I thought of callingDave Stevenson, resident conservativeof the senior class. Mother suggestedthat we creep into the school at night,post our manifestos and softly fadeaway. It was getting late ("Ricky, it'sfrcrf-timel"). But finally. Mr. Wilsonanswered. This was the first test. Iwould have to proceed gingerly.

Bearding Bttreauaacy

1 stated my question: What were theregulations of IHS. as I had a Mora-torium message? He asked for a name,I gave it; it was all in the open now.I sounded him out carefully.

"I believe my pamphlet . . . supple-ments those passed out today." Well,in that case. Lester Maddox "supple-ments" the SDS.

"What position do you take?""Uh . . . I believe my leaflet . . .

calls into question . . . certain points. . . raised in the other leaflet." Icould have said: "My leaflet attacksthe entire structure of leftist ortho-doxy," but it did not seem appropriate.With fear and trembling, I listened asMr. Wilson outlined the rules—I couldpass out anything to my heart's con-tent, so long as it neither advocated theoverthrow of the government nor wasobscene: anything put on the walls,however, would have to be okayed bya Power—himself, or the Doc.

I had heard The Word. Tomorrow,I would set to work.

I arrived at school half an hourearly. The very first thing, I accostedMr. Wilson in the halls. We adjournedto his inner sanctum: he read my paper."Well . . . that's very good." Relief.relief. The night before, he had men-tioned something about initialing eachsheet, but this morning, he waived therequirement. The last hurdle waspassed. I was loose in Wittenberg.

One leaflet by the Band room, oneby (he teacher mailboxes, four sur-rounding the Large Group InstructionCenter (scene of scheduled debates onthe war), three by the cafeteria, threeon the stairs, two on the doors of theteachers' lounge, one on a blank bul-

letin board, two by some lavatories,two over drinking fountains, and themost pointed touch of all. one underthe plaque honoring veterans of theKorean War. The school was fillingwith people. One student carrying pro-Moratorium leaflets spotted me busilyat work on the LGIC. His features litup. "Oh, you have pamphlets too!" Iput on a most disarmingly liberal face.

"Sure. I'll trade you one of mine forone of yours." The exchange wasmade. I scuttled around a comer be-fore the explosion took place.

The Truth Dawns

1 had used every paper, keeping onefor myself. Already. I could see smallknots of people collecting around mywork. Let Ihe leftists "leaflet" away,they didn't have anything posted.School had begun; I had finished justin time. 1 went off to Band, my firstperiod.

The only subject of talk was theMoratorium. A few "concerned stu-dents" could be seen outside millingaround the bus loop: a nag wilh thepwace sign emblazoned on it had beenrun up ihe flagpole. And quite inno-cently, 1 passed around a copy of my

The Ninety-Five Theses of the Vietnam WarI PROTEST against the leaflet passed

out yesterday as being anemotional and grotesquedistortion of the t ruth.

I PROTEST against the use of suchwords as "leafletting."

I PROTEST against that leaflet as athinly veiled invitation tostudents to boycott schoolon Mora tor ium Day.

I PROTEST against the idea that theauthors of that leaflet couldeducate anybody about any-thing, much less "educatethe communi ty and localindust ry" on the subject ofthe war in Vietnam.

1 PROTEST against the idea that a stu-dent , because of his con-science, may refuse to at-tend school. This idea isconducive to hypocrisy andis plainly illegal.

I PROTEST against the entire Mora-torium itself, which willonly give moral aid and

comfor t to the enemies ofSouth Vie tnam.

I PROTEST against the Idea that only aperson who opposes the warin Vietnam may have aconscience.

I PROTEST against those who wouldwithdraw from Vie tnam,leaving it open to C o m m u -nist subjugation.

I PROTEST against the use of the word" d o v e " to describe the anti-w a r members of the left-wing. A much more accu-rate symbol would be thebluejay, a hird which isboth raucous and shrill.

1 PROTEST against the use of theword "l iberal" to describethe left-wing, becau.se thisword implies a degree oftolerance and broadminded-ness, while in reality, theLeft is often character izedby the most repugnantself-righteousness.

I PROTEST against the rhetoric of theLeft in which all distinc-tions are blurred, all reasondone away with and whichcovers the issues in a cloudof emot ion which makessane analysis impossible.

I PROTEST against those who say thatcoexistence with C o m m u -nism is either possible ordesirable,

BECAUSE C o m m u n i s m is, of its veryna ture , a militant and ag-gressive faith

AND even in its most ideal form.Communi sm is based onthe subordinat ion of the in-dividual to the State , anidea which is repulsive toall free men.

If I can he shown, by logic and reason-ing, that my statements are false, I willrecant. Until then. I can no t—I willnot recant. Here I stand.

M A R T I N L U T H E R II

FEBRUARY 24, 1970 197

leaflet (I said I had found it lying onthe floor). Mark Spahn. French hornplayer, read it, among others.

"Mmnim. Must have been written byHossenfefer [a prominent liberal)."

He read on."Guess not. Must be sarcastic."And finally, ihe truth dawned on his

left-wing mind."He's serious!"Martin Luther II had taken his place

In history.On my way to homeroom, I was

held up at the bottom of the stairs.Half a dozen students and teacherswere looking at my paper. Delay wasnever so sweet.

Yet. by second period, the fruits ofmy labor had been removed. Thoselittle initials, passed over by Mr. Wil-son, were near the root of the problem.Though Doc might agree with my posi-tion, duty forced his hand. If he letthirty notices stay up now, by nextmonth the halls would be completelypapered over.

Of Shrews and Cyclists

Even so. it appears that my messagereached more people than I had hoped.Someone had scrawled at Ihe bottom ofone leaflet: "If your to chicken to signyour name why write this?" I feelcritics who spell like that deserve norebuttal. Several teachers made favor-able remarks—how they guessed myidentity might be a question that Mr.Wilson could shed some light on.

But ihcre was more to the Mora-torium story. Sixth period, my SocialStudies class trooped down to theLGIC to hear a debate on the subjectof the war. The school administration,seeking to appease the radicals andhead them off, had set aside the Fif-teenth as a day for a "panel discussion"of the war each period. A lot of Ihanksthey got for Ihcir efforts. I was alsosomewh.it wary of the debate itself—we might hear anything from black-armbanded Maoists to the ChristianAnti-Communist Crusade. The teachersitting across the aisle from me had anarmband: it took nearly ten minules toquiet the room down. I wonderedraiher vaguely if this was the way theydid things in the UN.

Finally, the debate began. The con-servatives were represented by Steven-son and Smith, meticulous in theirsuits and ties—it was a good sign. Op-posing them were two sophomore girls.

Behind the debaters, a monstrous por-trait glared over their shoulders, ex-ecuted hy some student. The subject ofthe painting looked like a crossbetween Mahatma Gandhi and HoChi Minh.

The arguments flew back and forth.I was impressed by the good taste thatthe debaters were exercising. Of course,the Left spouted off its usual quota ofgaffes, viz. that American terrorism islike Nazi Germany. But to this. Smithgamely responded that the parallel withthe Nazis was very good—when ap-plied to North Vietnam. The debatewas dominated by the eonservatives.not only because their position wassuperior, which went without saying,but because they expressed it withmore skill. At this • point, questionsfrqm the floor were solicited.

All during the liberal exposition. Ihad been taking notes, and now I wasfaced with a dilemma. There was sucha wealth of logical errors at which tofire away that I was hard pressed topick. But finally, I made my choice.My hand was raised. A friend behindme whispered: "Make it good. Rick."

The last question had been from anantiwar student, some shrew in (hefront row had vented her spite on TomSmith. I hoped to profit by contrast.Rising slowly from my seat, trying tolook for all the world like Wm. F.Buckley Jr. and hoping that my redand yellow turtleneck sweater did notdetract from that impression, I spoke.

"We have heard of corruption anddelays in the elections in South Viet-nam," I addressed the antiwar party,"do you have any statistics on the freeand open elections that have been heldin North Vietnam?"

I sat down, gloating over my wit—and heaven save us all. the sophomoresproceeded to prate on about electionsin South Vietnam! My irony had beencompletely over their heads! it was leftto Tom Smiih to restate my point whenhe replied to their answer. My goldenopportunity had been lost because theDiet of Worms had been taking stupid-pills! The debate meandered to its con-clusion.

But there is one more incident to re-late, perhaps more important than TomSmith or Martin Luther II or anythingthat 1 have said before.

It was after school: I was walkinghome. First, however. I decided tomake a detour to the front lawn wherethe names of the American war dead

were read. I had left school somewhatlate: not many people were there. Thesign announcing thut you were lookingat Irondequoit High School had beencovered by Moratorium postere. A"concerned student" read the list* ahood sat at his feet (anything to getout of school). Before them on thegrass were perhaps half a dozen peo-ple, ail girls. A few cyclists gaped incuriosity from the sidewalk.

Blasphemy

1 had a few nasty thoughts aboutpasting my last paper to the reader'snose. Bui it did not seem to he worththe trouble. The names came on.

"Foster. John . . ."And this was the way of it, I re-

flected—the Left, shedding its tearswhen thoughts were needed, unwitting-ly aiding those very dictators who hadnot a trace of tears in them.

"Foster. William . . ."Drearily the reading proceeded. It

would make as much sense. I thought,to read the names in a fifty-year-oldtelephone book—they, too, were alldead.

"Fowler. David . . ."At once, I was shocked out of my

reverie. The reader had stumbled overa name. I looked at him closely. Hekept on going. The hood, the girls—none of them had noticed. And sud-denly, I saw the truth of it all. He hadstumbled over a name and gone righton. I had been wrong all along. Thereader, the student.s. the Left—they didnot care, how could they care? DavidFowler was only a name to them, aword on paper, a stop to be pulled inthe org:in of human emotions, a pawnin the ideological spasms of theirminds. If only they realized the magni-tude of that list they were reading, ifonly they could sense the horror of onedeath, much less of thousands. Butthey could not sense this; the readingof the names, the whole Moratoriumitself was only a selfish act. a forumfrom which they could announce theirexistence to the world. Those namesbeing read, the whole idea of namesbeing read—it was not tragedy, it wasblasphemy. The Left had become likethe insensate brutes it had defended forso long.

I have no more to say. The Morato-rium is over. If it comes again in April,I shall be strongly tempted to ignore it.

n198 NATIONAL REVIEW