Word: whig
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...academic freedom issue, the row over down when Hiss spoke. They emigrated from the city in droves, corncring reluctant students to voice an opinion on a man convicted when they were thirteen or fourteen. Photographers were so rambunctious when University proctors spirited Hiss into Whig Hall that he arranged an escape through the rear exit, leaving the men of the press taking pictures of themselves at the front. Representatives from Reuters, the London News-Chronicle, and the New Republic, who were left on the door-step, didn't get much of a story on Hiss' actually anti-climactic speech...
...level-headedness of undergraduates was just what the newspapermen wanted to see break topics had dwindled, and Whig-Clio wanted to do something to spark sagging attendance at it's lectures. Though they knew that Hiss could impart no special information on "The Meaning of Geneva," they were genuinely curious about what he would have to say. Whig-Clio undoubtedly was interested to some degree in the publicity of a Hiss appearance, but of course had no notion that it would create such an unfortunate furor...
...Bruce probably wouldn't do it all over again if he had the choice," a public speaking teacher said in reference to the choice of Hiss by Bruce D. Bringgold '57, Whig-Clio president. "We all had Father Halton regretted that the initial invition was ever tendered to Hiss. The Whig-Cliosophic Society which sponsored the talk, originally asked a total of seventeen luminaries--including Vice-President Nixon, Generals MacArthur, Ridgeway, and Marshall, Governor Folsom, Senators Eastland, McCarthy, Kefauver, and George--to address undergraduates...
Actually, one cannot help but suspect the motives of the Whig-Clio Society in asking Hiss to speak in the first place. While his comments on the Geneva Conference were undoubtedly interesting, his own position at Yalta was so unimportant as to make him anything but an expert on international conferences. More than anything else, Hiss was controversial, and all the hoopla surrounding the speech seems to be exactly what the Whig-Clios bargained...
Even though the Whig-Clios seem to have been more concerned with buying publicity than with selling a speech, they have still given dramatic evidence to a principle that can always use a little bolstering. Happily, the policy of letting student groups invite whomever they choose--even extremists from Howard Fast to Gerald L.K. Smith--has been supported time and time again by responsible institutions throughout the country. The action of Princeton's administration is certainly within the good tradition, and is no surprise...