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March 16, 2023 Editor, The News-Gazette: Washington and Lee University has a problem. Like most problems, it is of its own making. It is this: How to define a person who made the wrong choice, to serve his state and not the nation, while in the last chapter of his life he saved a school, a right choice?
Simple problems can have difficult choices because humans are complex and life is complicated. That includes the feeling that General Lee had towards his Virginia. Yes, even love can go wrong.
Then why do we try to erase human history knowing it is impossible? I believe that it has something to do with the only time we know — the present. Living with the present means living with peer pressure — a pressure to avoid, not embrace. It means that we are changed — not for the better — in our unattainable attempt to forget the past.
Nonetheless, against all the evidence this is what W&L has been attempting to do. First with its name. Sixteen of the school’s trustees saw both the folly and the lost contributions in that. Lee would stay next to Washington. What about making Lee smaller by designing a new school logo? You can’t make yourself bigger by making the other person smaller. So that idea was scratched. A few thought of removing Lee from W&L’s diploma. Still working on that bad idea, I’m told. What’s next? Sealing off a Lee home with a Union army post followed by a national cemetery. That one sure backfired.
So how about a good idea or two before we get together again down at the old mailbox? W&L has a tough problem coming up: How does it hide Edward Virginias Valentine’s Recumbent Statue of Robert Edward Lee? It’s not easy, unlike the plaques in Lee Chapel, statues are hard to hide. Until then, stay sane. DAVID REYNOLDS Rockbridge County
