1971-1973
By 1974, the Ursinus Community stopped mentioning the Vietnam War in their newspapers, literary magazines, and yearbooks. It seems as though people were turning their attentions elsewhere and the Vietnam War had become a thing of the past. Such a shift can be seen in sources from 1971-1973 where information on the Vietnam War went from being on every page of the Ursinus Weekly to being mentioned only a couple of times until it completely stopping in 1974. Nearly all of the sources from this period feature either propaganda, or the Ursinus community trying to interact with and question propaganda while retaining a firm, anti-war stand point. According to an article by Kristin Mathews intitled "The Medium, the Message, the Movement: Print Culture and New Left Politics," this was a common reaction among people who felt as though the United States was hiding what was really happening in Vietnam and the real reason for the war (Mathews 33).
1971
The year 1971 featured Ursinus community members tackeling propaganda related to the on-going Vietnam War. For example, in March of 1971, Donald Baker, one of the Classics professors at the college, wrote a Letter to the Editor in the Ursinus Weekly entitled, "Flak on Fred Flott." Fred Flott had been a speaker at Ursinus College and was spreading some very strong pro-America sentiments regarding the United States' involved in the war. In this article, the professor does an in depth critique of the propaganda message the speaker was spreading and asks questions about the information that was left out in the speech. As Mathews discusses in her article, this questioning of pro-American viewpoints in the war is characteristic of a time in which people were becoming more and more disillusioned to the righteousness of the United States (Mathews 33).
Another example of the Ursinus community interacting with propaganda comes in the form of two competing articles written in April of 1971: "Marchers Invade Washington for Week of Demonstrations" and "Before You March..." The former article is actually a propaganda piece from the Students and Youth for a People's Peace that tried to encourage students to join anti-war marches by only pointing out the positive aspects of the marches. In contrast, the latter article features a response to the propaganda in the former article by Ursinus Professor Chuck Chambers. Like with most of the Vietnam-related article from this time period, Chambers seems very insistent that students know all of the information about what the marches are about, how they have run in the past, and what actions he feels that the student body should take to express their anti-war beliefs. From these articles, it seems like the Ursinus community was in favor of the anti-war position, considering Chambers still advocates for ending the war, but they also believed in sharing all information, not just one side of the total story.
That same year, William Fox, an Ursinus student, wrote a poem for the Ursinus Lantern intitled "Bait", which compares American soldiers in Vietnam to bait fish being sacrificed to large bass. Like the other articles at this time, this poem aligns with Mathews' claims that people, specifically students, were looking for the truth about the Vietnam War, not the pro-American, semi-propaganda version being emphasized by the government (33). The poem showcases a different look at the soldiers in the Vietnam war who are depicted not as brave saviors of America, but unwilling pawns in a seemingly pointless battle. The author, like other members of the Ursinus community, was providing a counterargument for the prevalent pro-America propaganda.
1972
By 1972, the Ursinus community was more focused on combating propaganda in relation to the War's end. For instance, the 1972 article "Stop the War" by Carol Seifrit features a propaganda-like plea to impeach President Nixon and end the War for good. It is important to note with this particular article that there is a note at the top that states that the Ursinus Weekly Editorial Board did not necessarily agree with the claims made in this article. Since the article still appeared in the Ursinus Weekly and was not taken out of the paper completely, it seems as though the Ursinus community did support the concept of ending the war, but did not support the strong anti-America sentiments in this article. Therefore, it is clear that the Ursinus community supported putting an end to the War without fully supporting anti- or pro-American standpoints.
Another article written around the same time, "Dr. Allan Rice on War and Peace," also takes on an anti-war position, while interacting with the Communist propaganda at the time. Dr. Rice encourages students to go to the polls and vote for leaders who will end the War and confronts accusations that people who do not agree with the current administration are Communist. While it may seem like he is fighting against the use of anti-Communist propaganda, he actually uses it to his advantage by saying that people who do not vote are pro-Communist supporters. Since this piece was printed by the Ursinus weekly without any warning saying that it did not reflect the views of the editorial staff, it seems as though the Ursinus community did interact with and support some forms of anti-Communist propaganda. This deduction then brings up the notion that the Ursinus community, while often trying to find the truth among propaganda, did agree with some forms of it.
1973
By 1973, the Vietnam War was no longer a hot topic in the Ursinus Weekly or the Lantern. Only two articles were written about the war that year and only one of them featured the Ursinus community interacting with some form of propaganda. The article "The Prisoners Return" by John Fidler mainly talks about how people should treat returning POWs and advocates for a leniency towards draft dodgers. While the source is not a form of propaganda, it does interact with propaganda in relation to draft dodgers, who were seen as anti-American. Fidler claims that the dodgers should not be treated as the enemy but should instead be forgiven because they refused to fight or an "immoral" war. Interestingly enough, this article has a note above it that says that the editorial staff of the Weekly does not share the views of this article. Such a statement makes it seem like the Ursinus community, even though it typically looked for the truth in propaganda, held onto some pro-America sentiments that made some forms of propaganda acceptable. Anti-draft dodger campaigns, for example, might have been supported by the campus community.
Secondary Source:
Mathews, Kristin. "The Medium, the Message, the Movement: Print Culture and New Left Politics." In Pressing the Fight: Print, Propaganda, and the Cold War, edited by Catherine Turner and Greg Barnhisel, 31-49. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010. https://spectacled.ursinus.edu:2201/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1245305&site=ehost-live&ebv=EB&ppid=pp_Cover. Accessed April 29, 2020.