ability to report faithfully the reactionsrnof the offended (Bill Clinton and thernFraternal Order of Police, in a strangernpairing) while sanctimoniously refusingrnto call into question the “artistic” right tornself-expression. Poor Marge, fated tornbaseball and Chevrolet sales rather thanrnvinyl or the cloth.rnSchott has undoubtedly benefited inrnall of this by her partial claim, as a woman,rnto victim status. Dodgers executivernAl Campanis said in 1987 that blacksrnwere less buoyant than whites; withinrnminutes Campanis was packing up hisrnoffice and Major League Baseball hadrndiscovered a latent sensitivity toward thernpaucity of minorities in the front office.rnMarge may be down, but it is still too earlyrnto count her out.rnBaseball’s moralizing stance on Margernis all the more hard to swallow for thernsheer hypocrisy involved. As USA Today’srnTom Weir has pointed out. MajorrnLeague Baseball’s chutzpah in castingrnstones at Marge Schott could only be believedrnof an organization like MajorrnLeague Baseball. It must be only very recentlyrnthat ethnocentrism has replacedrnavarice as one of the deadly sins. MargernSchott tosses out some racially insensitivernone-liners; baseball owners sacrificernthe World Series and half a season on thernaltar of their greed. Schott is an embarrassmentrnto the game? Marge keeps anrnSS armband in a drawer; Ted Turner,rnowner of World Series champions thernAtlanta Braves, keeps I lanoi Jane Fondarnin his bed.rnIn short, baseball’s argument thatrnSchott is single-handedly decimatingrnthe game’s fan base is cynicism of Ruthianrnproportions. If fans will tolerate therncancellation of a season, they will toleraternMarge Schott. In fact, attendance atrnReds games had steadily increased fromrn14,000-plus fans in 1983, the year beforernSchott took over as general partner, tornmore than 30,000 fans a game untilrnthe strike in 1994. While attendance inrn1996 hovered around 22,000, it seemsrnlikely that baseball’s insensitivity to itsrnfans has had much more to do with drivingrndown attendance than any of MargernSchott’s infelicities.rnWhy then Major League Baseball’srnfrantic scramble to push Marge Schott tornthe sidelines? The truth is, baseball atrnthe level of the luxury box is far too whiternfor the postmodern era, and it knows it.rnThe banishing of Marge Schott is nothingrnmore than a wishful attempt to exorcisernthe ghosts which continue to hauntrnthe game a half-century after JackiernRobinson. In the sense that she is thernwilling personification of knee-jerk bigotry.rnMarge Schott is the perfect totemrnfor baseball’s white guilt. Banishing herrnfrom the tribe will not change a thing,rnbut it sure will make some people feelrnbetter.rnMarge Schott is guilty of letting slip inrnpublic what so many whites continue tornsay in private, what the members of anyrnracial group with its ethnic identity stillrnintact will continue to whisper whenrnthey think no one is listening, a muffledrn”we’re better than they are.” As a privaternclub which has shown it can occasionallyrnpolice itself, baseball still enjoys its constitutionalrnright to free association. Butrnthe recent Red-baiting by the white malernclique which runs the game and itsrnchorus in the media smacks of Mc-rnCarthyism in the most derogatory sensernof the term.rnD.K. Brainard is a freelance writer inrnCincinnati.rnLetter FromrnVirginiarnby Marshall FishwickrnThe Stone Wall Has CrumbledrnLast June, the tradition of 157 years atrnsingle-sex Virginia Military Institute wasrnchanged by the vote of seven Justices inrnWashington. The statue of StonewallrnJackson still guarded the parade grounds,rnbut the general who stood like a stonernwall at Manassas could not prevailrnagainst those seven Justices. His slogan isrnstill emblazoned over the approach tornthe main entrance of the Institute: “YournMay Be Whatever You Resolve To Be.”rnBut no resolve could preserve the allmalerninstitution which VMI had beenrnwhen Jackson taught there and whenrnGeorge C. Marshall studied there. Millionsrnof alumni dollars only delayed therninevitable. An era was ending.rnThat ending could have been, andrnwas, widely predicted. It was both constitutionallyrnand politically correct. Wernare all children of our culture, andrngender equality is now assumed and enforced.rnWriting the majority opinion.rnJustice Ruth Ginsburg declared thatrn”Women seeking and fit for a VMI-qualityrneducation cannot be offered anythingrnelse.” The women will come to VMI inrnthe fall of 1997.rnThough agreement for the decisionrnwas widespread—ranging from thernWhite House to the Court House, andrnpraised by scholars like Abigail Adamsrnwho was certain that VMI “will benefitrnfrom learning how to mentor and bernmentored by women”—questions remain.rnHow will what we do now affectrnwhat happens later? George Will wasrnone of the few cautionary voices. “ThernSupreme Court gave women the right tornenroll in an educational institutionrnwhich, the moment they enter it, will essentiallyrncease to exist.” This is the irony:rnin order to protect diversity, the Court isrndestroying it.rnJournalists are mainly concerned withrnnow. They give us news of the momentrnfor the moment—then move to the nextrnfast-breaking story. Not so historians,rnwho must factor in the “then,” and try tornunderstand worlds quite different fromrnours. They try to see patterns, not merernstories. What is the pattern that somernthink was destroyed in June 1996, atrnVMI?rnI have a bit of firsthand knowledge,rnhaving lived on the Washington and Leerncampus adjoining VMI, and seen thernCorps in action. There was a proud precisionrnin their drills, and a ring to theirrncommemoration of New Market Day.rnWhen the names of the fallen cadetsrnwere read out, a living cadet would steprnforward to say: “Died on the field of honor.”rnAnd when the cadets passed LeernChapel, they stopped talking and salutedrnsmartly, in honor of Robert E. Lee. ThernFrench phrase for this, which manyrnwould think silly now, was esprit de corps.rnThat esprit might be embedded andrnembodied in the bronze Stonewall Jackson.rnOnce he stood there in the flesh.rnHe was unusually forward-looking andrndevout for his day. He was one of thernfirst Sunday school teachers to admitrnwhat were then called Negroes, and laterrnon he sent money to a Negro Sundayrnschool. He was a twice-a-Sundayrnchurchgoer, who carried his Bible intornbattle and prayed before attacks. Whatrnmade Mighty Stonewall one of the mostrnadmired generals in history? Why did hernstand firm when many turned and ran?rnWhy is his statue on the parade grounds?rnWhy did the men who followed him allrn34/CHRONICLESrnrnrn