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thursday, October 5, 1972
lincoln, nebraska vol. 96, no. 19
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Agnew hits McGovern tax plan
by Michael (O.J.) Nelson
OMAHA-Vice President Spiro T. Agnew
said Wednesday at an Omaha press
conference that he will take a more
aggressive stance during the coming weeks of
the campaign.
A few minutes later, at a Republican
rally, he gave 4,500 people a taste of what
might be coming.
He lambasted Sen. George McGovern's
tax proposals and said they would "destroy
the years and years of labor which went into
building the family farm."
He said the Democratic presidential
nominee knows he has "to get the money to
pay for (his) give away schemes somewhere"
and has decided to take it "out of the
pocket of the American farmer."
Three of the planks in the South
Dakotan's program would harm the farmer,
Agnew said.
McGovern has proposed a phase-out of
the investment tax credit and capital gains
provisions. He also has advocated an increase
in inheritance tax.
Elimination of the investment tax and
capital gains provisions would increase the
farmer's taxes, Agnew said, and drive up
food prices.
An increase in the inheritance tax, he
added, would make it nearly impossible for
the farmer's children to inherit his land.
On the other hand, he said, the
President's agricultural program has
benefited the working man as well as the
farmer.
He said the administration's international
policies have helped the farmer. The recent
grain sales to Red China and Russia not only
will help raise the price paid the farmer for
corn and wheat, he said, but will save the
taxpayer money and create new jobs.
He said the sale will decrease surpluses
and save the government about $200 million
in grain storage costs.
More than 25,000 new jobs wil
created by the sale, he said.
be
"I realize people want to hear some
gung-ho rhetoric," he said, "but these
statistics are important. They are a measure
of the administration's success."
In a brief response to a question about
the Nixon Administration's status with
young people, Agnew said he believes most
young voters support the President.
There were no anti-war or pro-McGovern
demonstrators at the Hilton Hotel rally.
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Probasco editor turned radical turned editor
by Adella Wacker
A campus newspaper editor may gradually
become more and more sensitive to the ideas of other
people-sort of a social and political barometer of
those around him.
Herb Probasco, who was editor of the Daily
Nebraskan the first semester of 1960, "kind of got
radicalized" in that process.
That fall, Sen. John F. Kennedy was campaigning
against Richard M. Nixon for the presidency; that
year began a decade which journalists would someday
call the turbulent sixties, the violent sixties.
Probasco, now 32, works on the Omaha World
Herald night side as copy editor. He remembers that
before coming to the University his background was
orthodox Republicanism-he passed out Eisenhower
buttons in junior high.
As a first semester sophomore journalism major,
Probasco had been on the Daily Nebraskan reporting
staff, but walked out because of a disagreement over
his handling of a story.
"I guess I was a little more of a hothead then," he
said.
But Probasco came back to the Nebraskan second
semester.
The summer before his editorship he accidentally
learned of a conference for student editors sponsored
by the National Student Association.
Probasco went and "kind of got radicalized by the
thing."'
At the conference he met and grew to admir Tom
Hayden, founder of liberal Students for a Democratic
Society (SDS). That was before Hayden was into his
college administration-building raiding days, Probasco
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Probasco . . . "reporters are still unable to treat unorthodox, unconventional people
objectively."
said.
Probasco characterized his change by saying he
"went up wearing a Nixon button and came back
wearing a Kennedy button."
Back on the UNL campus, the 1960 presidential
campaign was generating most of the important
issues, but Probasco said people didn't expect the
"Rag" to do anything terribly important with them.
But the early sixties weren't the beginning of
activism everywhere, he said.
In the South, the seeds of the civil rights
movement were growing. There were non-violent
protests like sit-ins.
And according to a national column carried in a
September Daily Nebraskan, some students around
the country were being tr,ked, but were refusing to
sign loyalty oaths before receiving diplomas.
Probasco mentioned that there were a few racial
sit-ins in Lincoln bars and protests over foreign
student treatment, but reflected that "I couldn't say
you could sense any great amount of change yet."
Any campus activism was embedded within the
Young Democrats and Young Republicans, he said.
Probasco said most of the campus news revolved
around Greek leadership. Fraternity drinking
problems also were winning headlines.
It was the things that weren't written with a
radical intent that turned out to be, Probasco said.
In January 1961, shortly before the end of his
term as editor, he criticized, in his column "A Liberal
View," both the proceedings of the House Committee
on Un-American Activities and a film being shown on
campuses.
Probasco wrote satirically: "Why, look at the film
which shows how the Communist Party in this
country is manipulating the youth and infiltrating
student movements with its agitation tactics."
As he remembers it now, Probasco said, "I had a
hole to fill and I had this material I'd hoped to use
sometime."
However, the controversy that mushroomed over
that column overshadowed the events of the entire
semester.
"I really wasn't prepared for all the fuss people
were going to make over it," he admitted.
After the Omaha World Herald criticized Probasco,
the American Legion jumped in, calling for an
investigation into this "demoralization of
Americanism" in the School of Journalism.
"It was a question almost of motherhood,"
Probasco said.
Twelve years ago it was things like this and fallout
shelters; today it's human sexuality conferences,
Probasco said.
Turn to page 2.
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