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Malamud at Oregon State: A Digital Humanities Project

Local Reaction to the Dismissals

After the dismissal of the two professors, the community was in an uproar. Many called upon President Strand to release his reasons for the dismissals, and others were adamantly calling them communists. This section attempts to trace the local reaction by providing you, the user, with a myriad of articles, editorials, and letters to the editor, all taken from the Oregon State Daily Barometer.

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By all means, get started! There's some (nay, a lot of) intriguing stuff in here!

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WRITTEN BY: Maxine Yoder | PUBLISHED BY: OSC Daily Barometer | DATE: Feb. 16, 1949 | TYPE OF ARTICLE: Letter to the Editor | CONTENTS: “It is extremely important that the students of Oregon State college should be aware of the significance to them of the action taken by the administration in refusing to renew the contracts of two of our faculty members and refusing to give reasons for doing so. The administration will agree that in neither case is incompetency involved. Since both men have been very active in the Progressive Party, we may assume that their political activity is the sole cause.”
WRITTEN BY: R.G. Dedlow | PUBLISHED BY: OSC Daily Barometer | DATE: Feb. 16, 1949 | TYPE OF ARTICLE: Letter to the Editor | CONTENTS: “I would like to ask the Barometer to declare a holiday in order that the students may attend a funeral. On February 15, 1949, freedom to express our views, freedom to follow our particular political beliefs, freedom of thought, and saddest of all, freedom to choose our own professions were ground under heel and sadistically murdered en masse at O.S.C. shed a tear, everyone, and sigh, ‘Oh well, we loved them while they were alive!’ Could the president of a college we hold dear be one of the pallbearers?”
WRITTEN BY: The Editors of The Daily Barometer, most notably Allen Reed, as the note is signed “A.R.” | PUBLISHED BY: OSC Daily Barometer | DATE: Feb. 16, 1949 | TYPE OF ARTICLE: Editorial | CONTENTS: The editors of that Daily Barometer post their own reply to letters that were written in, and published in the same day’s issue. They note by name the letters from Mr. Summers (“Freedom Doesn’t Exist”) and Miss Yoder (“Future at Stake”). “When the interests of a small group conflicts with the will of the majority, wherever people gather together, it is customary that the few give way to the great majority, that is, unless they desire to impress their interests in the majority by force. . . it is only natural that an institution supported by the majority should follow the beliefs of that majority--which is tolerance within the bounds of American democracy.”
WRITTEN BY: James C. Wilson, John H. McLean, Mary Lou Belton, Thomas H. McAllester Jr., Donald H. DeLay, Robert C. Sommer, Glen A. Larson, Ruth Spears, Marion Sammis, Robert Gaittens | PUBLISHED BY: OSC Daily Barometer | DATE: Feb. 23, 1949 | TYPE OF ARTICLE: Letter to the Editor | CONTENTS: A group of students wish to notify the student body that they are circulating a petition: “We, the undersigned, respectfully request that President A.L. Strand state definite reasons for the refusal to reappoint Professors L.R. LaVallee and Ralph Spitzer.”
WRITTEN BY: R. Juhnke | PUBLISHED BY: OSC Daily Barometer | DATE: Feb. 23, 1949 | TYPE OF ARTICLE: Letter to the Editor | CONTENTS: “I would like to congratulate those two professors on that masterpiece of evasion and double talk which was written in answer to the Barometer’s request for a clarification of their positions. Congratulations gentlemen, it was true to style. After all--what else could you say?”
WRITTEN BY: Dr. Linus Pauling, President Strand (separately) | PUBLISHED BY: OSC Daily Barometer | DATE: March 5, 1949 | TYPE OF ARTICLE: Personal letters published | CONTENTS: Dr. Linus Pauling comes to the defense of Ralph Spitzer and urges President Strand to reconsider his decision to dismiss the two professors. President Strand replies with a bitter note, stating, “If by this action, Oregon State College has lost your respect and support, all I can say is that your price is too high. We’ll have to get along without you.” | NOTE: These letters back and forth are also showcased on the page titled “Linus Pauling, the ACS, and the Europe Fiasco” under the “Reactions Outside OSC” category, in their original typed from. We included the Barometer’s reprinting of them to show what the community was shown, and to see the editor’s comment attached to the bottom.
WRITTEN BY: Joseph Schulein, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at OSC | PUBLISHED BY: OSC Daily Barometer | DATE: March 8, 1949 | TYPE OF ARTICLE: Letter to the Editor | CONTENTS: In response to the editorial comment attached to the Pauling/Strand exchange printed in the March 5th edition of the Barometer, a chemical engineering professor at OSC critiques the fact-checking ability of the editor before writing their comment.
WRITTEN BY: OSC Daily Barometer’s Editors | PUBLISHED BY: OSC Daily Barometer | DATE: May 11, 1949 | TYPE OF ARTICLE: Editorial | CONTENTS: Editorial regarding talk around the OSC campus about President Strand attending the Wallace “Peace Forum” in Portland for the sole purpose of spying on Oregon State professors and students. The editorial concludes, “Anyone feeling he was being spied upon because he attended a rally outside of the majority belief must be a trifle ashamed that he attended the gathering or he would not be afraid to be seen there.”
WRITTEN BY: Robert Dresbach, Chairman, Young Progressives | PUBLISHED BY: OSC Daily Barometer | DATE: May 25, 1949 | TYPE OF ARTICLE: Letter to the Editor | CONTENTS: Letter from the Chairman of the Young Progressives on the OSC campus correcting the article that had appeared the previous day. The time and date was incorrect, and the Barometer’s insinuation that the professors were going to “air grievances” at the meeting was rejected.
WRITTEN BY: Clay Castleberry, Senator-School of Engineering | PUBLISHED BY: OSC Daily Barometer | DATE: May 27, 1949 | TYPE OF ARTICLE: Letter to the Editor | CONTENTS: Doubt has arisen over Spitzer’s refusal to answer whether or not he was a communist, a question that arose at the Young Progressives meeting. “I should think that anyone with a true interest in the country would be proud to deny that he was a communist.”
WRITTEN BY: John Othus | PUBLISHED BY: OSC Daily Barometer | DATE: June 1, 1949 | TYPE OF ARTICLE: Letter to the Editor | CONTENTS: “One aspect of true academic freedom for students is giving equal discussion to both sides of an issue such as the party line regardless of what professors think about the subject. When we students get out of college and have time to do some reading on such controversial subjects, we will make up our own minds.”