Carolina Students Should Stop Taking Things That Don't Belong to Them, Says T.C. Taylor, Dec. 6, 1919

From the editorial page of The Tar Heel, Chapel Hill, N.C., Dec. 6, 1919

By T.C. Taylor

My purpose in writing this is to speak plainly of a condition existing on this campus which should not exist. It should not be at any college; at Carolina, among Carolina men, in a community of students who regard as a priceless treasure the thing we call Carolina Spirit, it is unthinkable that it should continue.

I am speaking of the habit of taking things that do not belong to them that some men here have. Whether they brought the habit with them or acquired it since coming here, I am unable to state. That is not important; the important thing is that they have such a habit. Now, these men do not look upon this as a disgraceful thing to do; they merely reason that since everyone else does it they might as begin. The do not think of it as “stealing” in the ordinary sense of that term, and it could not fairly be called that. There are many, I take it, who would not be averse to “swiping” a good chair or table, but who could not be hired for love or money to take some personal article that did not belong to them. They see no particular wrong in removing some article of furniture or a light bulb from a class room. It is not with them a question of supplying their needs in the shortest possible time.

A man who has reached that stage in his intellectual development where he can come to college knows that such actions are beneath his dignity. If you want a light bulb or a chair, or any other article of furniture that your room is supposed to have, you are due that from the University. It’s the University’s job to see that you get these things, and it’s not becoming to you as a Carolina man it does not speak well for your honor as a gentleman to go prowling into someone else’s room to get them.

We are by chance and circumstances thrown together here in this University. We are neighbors of the closest sort; the welfare of each individual is inseparably locked up with the welfare of the whole body. A decent respect for certain rights that men possess here is imperative if we are to keep student life sound and on the high plane it has occupied in former years. You are as much a citizen in this community as it is possible for you to be; you are a definite nit in a most definite sort of democracy. 

Your responsibility is to more than yourself alone; it is to your fellows, to your University. Acts such as have been mentioned cannot for a moment stand the test either of a gentleman or a good citizen, which terms at Carolina are synonomous. A good citizen respects his neighbor and expects and demands a like respect in return. “Swiping” is going to stop at Carolina, and it’s going to be the spirit of the students themselves that stop it.