AMERICAN NOTES: Reason Is the Victim

Perhaps no other incident better symbolizes the division of American thought and feeling about the Attica tragedy than a dedication ceremony held last week for Georgetown University's new law center, a few blocks from the Supreme Court building. The guest speaker was Chief Justice Warren E. Burger. Preceding him, Alfred F. Ross, president of Georgetown's student bar association, reflected the somber mood of Burger's audience by making an impassioned reference to the prison riot and its aftermath. "What happened at Attica," he said, "was not merely a senseless and brutal massacre of men whose lives had already been unspeakably...