There Is No Place at College for a Thief, March 13, 1920

From the editorial page of The Tar Heel, Chapel Hill, N.C., March 13, 1920

This Is No Place for a Thief

There are thieves at the University. Men in the dormitories have lost their personal belongings; equipment has been stolen from the laboratories. There are thieves at the University and they must go, branded as thieves when detected and sent from this place, whose honor system they have abused, whose students they have wronged, whose name they have attempted to blacken.

It is characteristic of the University that it never tries to evade or sidestep an unpleasant situation. It is characteristic of the student body that when a meeting was called in chapel Tuesday morning the building was crowded to its utmost capacity. After the first bitter, scourging shock of the news of the thefts, the student body’s action was immediate and vigorous. Class meetings were called after dinner and before the bell began to ring every class and every school in the University were meeting with the largest class attendances of the year—meeting to face this problem, to look at ugly situation in the face and to take a united stand against it.

“This has been a year of solid achievement,” said Dean Graham Tuesday morning in chapel. Nothing could better emphasize the truth of that statement than the response of the student body in three hours’ time to meet this menace of thievery in our midst. The University is sound from the bottom up; the student body is fine and clean and strong, and their action only further demonstrates the truth of this.

Now listen, thief or thieves—whether you be one of a half-dozen,--this is meant for you: If we find you, and we eventually shall, if you stay here and continue your practice, we will drive you away. There is not the smallest iota of sympathy here for a thief; there is no intention to try and reform you, to “give you another chance.” You have desecrated the temple, you have prostituted the honor of a place that is as dear to us as the “honor of a woman that we love,”—and you must go. You have committed the unpardonable sin.

You poor things,--vile moral degenerates, did you think that this student body would stand for your unclean practices,--this student body? Do you think you can hide yourself and your insane debauchery in this group of men? You haven’t a chance. These men are clean and you are befouled, unclean—a thief. You are the black sheep in a flock of white ones. Thief, or thieves, leave here now while you have a chance to save your sneaking faces,--leave here before you have been hurled form our gates with the brand upon you—a loathsome thing that no man will come near.

You were offered citizenship in the cleanest and freest community in the world, you were given a chance to be men, along with your comrades, thinking your own lives through, and mastering the situations that beset you. Instead you have let thievery master you, you have bartered away your individuality to be the slave of theft. You were given a chance “to see God,” you have buried your faces in the slime.

There can be no excuse for such as you, you have attempted to dishonor a place whose worth you have never realized,--and you must go! Carolina has no welcome for a thief!