Cornell Alumni News - eCommons@Cornell - Cornell University

apparent factor in the handling of antiwar
sympathizers. He was due to speak
in Bailey Hall on Good Friday, at the
end of the week of maximum card-burning
confrontation and the day before
the start of the spring recess. A number
of persons involved in the faculty and
administration deliberations did not
want a head-on clash that might have
the effect of intensifying protests against
Rusk.
Rusk faced a capacity audience of
2,200 in Bailey, with at least another
thousand turned away at the door. A
handful of people walked out when he
got up to speak, another sixty-five or so
donned white skull masks and wore
them throughout the speech, and at least
six women wore black shrouds, all in
protest against US policy in Vietnam
and his part in that policy. Some others
wore arm bands bearing the word SHAME.
He received standing ovations when
he arrived and at the end. His talk on
"Organizing World Peace" and forty
minutes of responding to sharp questions
were interrupted only once, when he
failed to answer a question. President
Perkins, who had introduced him, quieted
those calling for him to answer,
and he answered.
Drug Arrests in Ithaca
In mid-March, eleven persons in Ithaca
were arrested on charges of possession
or sale of marijuana, LSD, or other
drugs. Eleven were also arrested in New
York City at the same time, although
the connection between the arrests has
yet to be established, and one Ithacan
was arrested in Montreal. Indictments
on the Ithaca arrests were returned by
Tompkins County grand jury April 3.
One of the eleven indicted in Ithaca
was a Cornell graduate student, Steven
L. Surrey of the Bronx, on charges of
selling $10 worth of LSD to a detective
and of possession of marijuana. The
other ten were not connected with Cornell,
although several lived in the Collegetown
area. An apartment at 410
Eddy Street featured in seven of the indictments.
As of April 6, no arraignment dates
had been set and none of the evidence
for the arrests had been released.
District Attorney Richard Thaler '53
said he believes the arrests represent almost
a clean sweep of the distributors
in the area. "You can't say I only got
the little chickens this time," he said.
One indictment mentions sale to a detective
of $1,700 worth of LSD.
The district attorney has also stated
that he believes the Cornell campus,
particularly Willard Straight, to be the
gathering place for local distributors.
The Straight is open to the public, and
the university estimated that about 10,-
000 people pass through each day—it is
a popular gathering place for many purposes.
The arrests led to considerable speculation
in the press about the amount of
drug use by young people in and around
Ithaca.
Those at all familiar with the picture
estimate that approximately 1 per cent
(about 150 to 200) of the Cornell student
body use drugs at all regularly, and
that many more have tried marijuana
once or twice—although not necessarily
at Cornell [NEWS, January 1967, page
13]. There are no reliable estimates on
LSD or amphetamine use.
The quantity of drugs seized in the
raid would support the general understanding
that drugs are also available to
and used by students of the nearby Corning
Community College, Ithaca College,
and other young people in the Ithaca
area.
Chair Honors Schurnian
The Jacob Gould Schurman professorship
in German literature has been established
in the College of Arts & Sciences,
to honor the university's third President.
Eric A. Blackall, previously the Avalon
Foundation professor in the humanities,
has been named to the new Schurman
chair.
Professor Blackall, who joined the
faculty in 1958 after twenty years at
Cambridge University, was chairman of
the department of German literature at
Cornell from 1958 until 1964. A leading
scholar, he has several books in print
and is working on two more, Goethe and
the Novel and The Romantic Novel.
Schurman had life-long ties with Germany,
extending from his student days
at the University of Heidelberg to the
early 1930s. He was US ambassador to
Germany, 1925-30, and is honored by a
building at Heidelberg for which he
helped raise $500,000 from American
donors. A Schurman fellowship at Heidelberg
provides funds for a student
from Cornell to study there and Cornell
has a similar scholarship for a student
from Heidelberg.
Honors for Seniors
So far, Cornell seniors have pulled
down a total of sixty-two national fellowships
for graduate work, and seven
state fellowships.
Twenty-seven seniors have been
Bruce Dancis '69 speaks to crowd in Willard Straight lobby on March 17 during draft-card-burning signups. —Ralph Baker