President Stewer and the Key
Carey, George
President Stewer and the Key George Carey We reprint here an excerpt from Arturo Slysinger's monumental work. The Age of Reason: A Complete History. (New York: Hoopla and Roll, 1985. 60 pp....
...Although an enlightened agnostic, President Stewer was quick to point out that every man is entitled to his own opinion and that to attack his prescriptions on grounds of his non-religion constituted character assassination of the basest kind...
...If you hire a locksmith to open President Stewer's office, none of us will be safe...
...In the course of this program several functional illiterates were interviewed...
...He will be a martyr...a symbol for those generations yet unborn...
...Answer: Not at all...
...Something should be doafs...
...The worst finally came to pass in 1971...
...He is responsible for the fact that FUN abducted me...
...Soon you will find locksmiths snooping around our campus in droves...
...We had best leave punishment of alleged offenses against society to god, any god...
...These attacks would do the late Senator Joseph McCarthy proud...
...Yes, it will be posthumously awarded...
...But think of it...
...Allow one transgression of this nature and all our precious freedoms will be lost...
...But you must recognize that we all have to pay a price for the preservation of freedom...
...His eloquent defense of the New Heaven rapists of 1970 captured the hearts and minds of the entire intellectual community...
...are really the fault of society...
...Soon the word was out: President Stewer, bound and gagged, was locked in his own office...
...Louis Post-Dispatch...
...Applause...
...Members of FUN physically tried to bar the entrance of the locksmith...
...He should be muzzled...
...Answer: Yes...
...They knocked at President's Stewer's door and all they could hear were muffled groans...
...I am proud of the behavior of the faculty and the student body during these moments of crisis...
...Because at this time university presidents were being abducted at a rate of three a day, this particular abduction would not have merited much attention save for the following two facts...
...One school of thought held that President Stewer would like to suffer his inevitable fate because this would be a genuine and meaningful gesture, a positive indication to the world that he was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the principles and beliefs which he had espoused during his lifetime...
...None of us will be secure...
...They also voted by the same margin to rename the administration building from Washington Hall to Stewer's Tomb...
...This was a very small price to exact of me...
...Besides which I had to lose weight anyway...
...As Fate would have it, disposing of the key eventually became the key issue in the events which followed...
...Are you upset about the students' resolution to construct a Stewer's Tomb...
...The New York Times enthusiastically praised President Stewer for pointing out that all criminal acts (arson, bombthrowing, murder, etc...
...We present here a chronicle of what actually transpired...
...We cannot let this opportunity pass...
...They tried the door and found it locked...
...Some, a very few, argued that the office should not be opened because university presidents were not needed and, besides, President Stewer presented a positive menace to the goals and purposes of higher education...
...The citation ran, in part, as follows: "He could see beyond the immediate situation to the transcendent truths of man's existence...
...Stewer, will eventually die for lack of water and food...
...Here we can only highlight the more significant questions and answers as duly recorded by the New York Times...
...President Stewer, we hasten to add, did win his much deserved Nobel Peace Prize...
...The comments of Irving Sunhill, a sixth grade dropout from Topeka, Kansas, are representative of this segment of the population...
...a) Reporters from the Colossal Broadcasting System were making their weekly pilgrimage to President Stewer in order to gain further insight into the increasingly critical question, how to run a university and keep the student and faculty militants content...
...Tear gas was used and approximately thirty members of FUN suffered bruises and cuts in the scuffle...
...How can I possibly run a university with such men in high public position...
...Laughter...
...These original observations provided an entire generation of intellectuals with food for thought...
...Another dominant line of argument, presented by Professor Rodelent of the law school, ran as follows: "To hire a locksmith would constitute an abridgement of academic freedom and the sacred privacy of our academic institutions...
...A week later he was able to hold his first press conference...
...A bit so, I guess...
...The Washington Post put the issue this way in one of its lead editorials: "Those attacks upon President Stewer's reflective and enlightened positions, simply because he is an agnostic, are simply irrelevant to his central arguments and his vision of a better world...
...Despite this, the faculty by unanimous vote decided that the office should not be opened...
...After agonizing deliberation, the Governor of Gommeticus sent the National Guard into New Heaven with specific orders to protect the locksmith, whose sole function was to unlock the door...
...Amazingly, Sunhill's view finally prevailed...
...The faculty of Yahoo University denounced this as "fascistic...
...Question: But you did go through some ordeal...
...d) The Colossal Broadcasting Company managed to get Erraticus Serverous to produce an instant special on the plight of President Stewer...
...First, Stewer was almost certain to win a Nobel Peace Prize because of his outspoken concern for humanity...
...Answer: Not for one moment...
...He was immediately taken to a hospital...
...Beware my friends...
...Carey is Professor of Political Science at Georgetown University and recently published, with the late Willmoore Kendall, The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition...
...The poor chap, Mr...
...And he even expanded on this thesis when he wrote: "Justice is not of this world...
...c) The students following the lead of the faculty adopted by referendum (3000 to 15) a resolution which called for the sealing of all entrances to the administration building with bricks and mortar in order to insure that there could be no outside interference...
...Sensing something wrong, they contacted other administration officials...
...President Stewer was finally rescued...
...This was duly noted in the St...
...As one proponent of this position put it so eloquently: "Now President Stewer will get his Nobel Peace Prize...
...His intemperate statements about universities were clearly responsible for my plight...
...A second and more important factor, was this: After being bound and gagged the FUN abductors locked Stewer in his office and then threw the key away...
...Question: Where would you place the blame, if any, for the fact that you spent three days without water and food-bound and gagged no less...
...He was willing to sacrifice his life for these truths...
...Kingster Stewer, president of Yahoo University and one of the most outspoken defenders of human liberties and student rights, was seized by members of a radical group called "Free Universities Now," (FUN for short...
...Various resolutions were offered at the meeting...
...I think this shows that we are a free and liberal university with diversity of opinion...
...b) The faculty senate met immediately to discuss this situation...
...Said he, "I think it wrong for any group no matter how well intentioned to engage in any such activities...
...Question: Were you at any time afraid for your life...
...Mr...
...Question: Are you at all upset about the faculty senate's resolution not to seek your release...
...Two principal reasons can be given for this unanimity...
...This will endanger our right of privacy...
...This very small minority was quickly hooted down...
...Answer: Squarely on the shoulder of our present national administration, particularly Spiro Agnew...
...250...
...You had no food or water for three days...
...Weren't you a bit concerned...
...Its editors asked: "What kind of universities do we have when innocent kids are subject to these brutalities...
Vol. 4 • April 1971 • No. 5
