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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 13, 1963)
V35 Wednesday, GOLDWATERITES: Want University girls now have another activity which they can compete and oggle over. The Nebraska Youth for Goldwater have announced that there will be interviews for "Goldwater Girls" next week. According to the Goldwaterites, the girls, outfitted in special Goldwater costumes, will be used in election cam paigns and fund raising dinners. You know, creators of spirit. It seems rather unorthodox for a political group to im plement girls in their campaigns to bolster spirit. Of course political campaign is an exercise in public relations, and the more unusual the act, then the more publicity in the newspapers and other news media. Then of course there is the adroit comment, made by one NU coed when she heard of the Goldwater Girls, "It would be hard to find ten good-looking girls on this campus who would be for Goldwater!" Jk pafhy . . . At the "Campus Controversies" meeting Monday after noon, Vice Chancellor G. Robert Ross and Student Council Vice President Dick Weill made some statements, that were on the surface, quite true. When the subject of student apathy was brought up, one couldn't help but notice that the Union room 232 contained only about 75 students. When the subject of drinking laws was brought up, few could say that they had. actually spoken to their congressman about the drinking "problem." Weill stated, "We have a greater obligation than to mirror student opinion," and there was little disagreement. Ross said "I wonder if there is a clear (student) feel ing," and no one in the room could or would tell him if there was. Finally, Weill said, "To pass a resolution favoring 3.2 beer would cause the Legislature to think we are an irre sponsible bunch of students," and this statement brought a ripple of dissent, but no one actually gave a solid reason why 3.2 beer could actually reflect student maturity. Ross and Weill put University of Nebraska students in their place. We now know that the Student Council apparent ly doesn't need to actively seek out student opinion. We now know that student opinion or feeling is not clear, and indeed shouldn't be. We now know that student support of 3.2 beer would label them irresponsible in the Legislature's mind. These are the hazy conclusions that one must reach after listening to the Vice Chancellor and the Vice Presi dent of Student Council. Someone had to speak for the students if they couldn't present a picture of maturity and responsibility necessary to support the ideas they actually held. MICK ROOD The Right Way The Bountiful Heaping As the Thanksgiving sea son approaches, the Rus sian people should give spe cial thanks to the generosi ty of the American people. Due to the benevolence of the New Frontier, 150 mil lion bushels of the U.S. wheat will soon find its way into Nikita's waiting arms. This tale of wheat to Rus sia shows the true courage of the New Frontier. It must take courage to ignore the Agriculture Act of 1961 which forbids the federal government from selling any subsidized commodity to Communist nations. It must take courage to bypass the Johnson Act of 1934 (amended in 1946) which prohibits U.S. citizens and federal agencies from mak ing loans of any kind to any government or agency which owes money to the U.S. The Daily Nebraskan JOJTf MORRIS. himukIti editor: SITE HOVTK, newi editors! FRANK PABTSCH. SUSAN SMITHBERGER. GRANT PETERSON, senior taff writers; LARRY ASMAN, SHAR1 JOHNSON, Junior staff wriUrs; PATTY KNAPP, ARNIE CARSON, copy editorsi HAL FOSTER, photographer. MICK ROOD, potU editor; MIKE JEFFREY, circulation manager, JIM DICK, subscription nanaaer; BILL GUNUCKS, BOB CUNNINGHAM. PETE LAGE, businaes Sobecrlptieos ratal S3 par aemeetar or K per rear. Entered aw second claas matter at the post office In Lincoln, Nebraska. Oder the act et A una 4, U12. The Daily Nebraakan Is published at Roma 5L, Nebraska Union, on Monday, Wednesday. Thursday, Friday by University of Nebraska student ondec the jurisdiction of the Faculty Subcommittee on Student Publications. Publications shall be tree from een tHp by the Subcommittee or any person outside the Untveniity. Members of the Nebraska arc responaibia for what they cause to be printed. DAILY IMMSKAN NEEDS REPORTERS Drop in at room 51, Student Union Nov. 13, 1963 (Girls Secretary of Agriculture, Orville Freeman, upon re turning from his recent tour behind the Iron Curtain, , said that Soviet farm pro duction has risen "consid erably" and added: "They have the ability to feed their people." In addition, other Agriculture Depart ment officials echoed this opinion, saying that we would be "startled" at the crop yield of the East Eur opean countries. The world was indeed startled to learn that Russia had suffered its fifth con secutive crop failure and that, as a result, food short-' ages behind the Iron Cur tain were increasing. Going even further, JFK has announced that Albania and East Germany, coun tries with which we do not have diplomatic relations, would be included in the wheat deal, thus giving Illinois Phi Delts Prove: IrHlzioil By Bob Weaver Pledge training, or rath er pledge education, as. it's coming to be called, is a proverbial campus problem in relation to the Greek sys tem. The fall semester brings its traditional line ups, fire drills, rack outs, fun and games, push ups, etc. Assuming that "hazing" is undesirable to begin with, there are several ways of ridding the campus of this traditional activity. The first is through ad ministration or Interfrater nity Council action. For the moment, this can be dis counted. The second, and more de sirable, is through the fra ternity active chapters themselves. Mr. Walter Draper in the Phi Delta Theta Scroll tells how it has been done : The essence of this article comes from a discussion on fraternity hazing practices, By Steve Stastny them recognition as official governments. In this wheat deal, JFK has refused to recognize the bad faith and trickery that Russia has shown in her relations with the U.S. Thir ty years of history say it can't be done on any but Soviet terms. The Soviet Union has re fused to pay her $2.5 billion Lend-Lease debt to the U.S. even after 1951 when we scaled down the original debt to $800 million. The Russians declined to pay more than $300 million of this debt. On top of this, repudiat ed Russian obligations held by the U.S. government to tal over $190 million; repu diated Russian obligations held by American citizens amount to over $100 mil lion; and confiscated proper ty rights, and interest of American citizens in Russia total over $300 million. These staggering amounts when combined with the Russian suspension of inter est payments bring her total debt to the U.S. to well over $3 billion. How can any supposedly sane person imagine that a trade with the Soviet Union can be established on these past performances? U.S. trade with Commu nist nations helps strengthen the government's control over the enslaved people. There should be no trade with the Soviet Union, what soever, as long as the Com munists are dedicated to world conquest. Without a complete change in Soviet morality, the price of more trade with the Soviet Union would come too high. Cot in a workshop at the Phi Delta Theta Biennial Con vention, Bedford Springs, Pennsylvania, August 1962. I was privileged to monitor the discussion at that work shop and from it got a num ber of valuable suggestions which I feel should be passed on to a much wider audience. Inasmuch as haz ing is one of the fraternity system's most vexatious and difficult problems, it be comes all the more import ant that we face it squarely and attack it frontally. We cannot hide the fact that hazing goes on in our fra ternities. The public knows better. This we may as well recognize. Furthermore, we may as well recognize that the future of the fraternity on the college scene de mands that we come to grips with the problem and successfully solve it. What can interfraternity councils do to abolish haz ing? What can general fra ternities do at their respec tive national levels? What Stastny Under Fire Dear Editor: Steve Stastny's "Trojan Horse" column of Novem ber 7th seems to me quite lacking in logic as well as containing a major piece of anti-United Nations misin formation. I believe Stastny's state ment that "Russia has used the veto power over 100 times," but how does this fact contribute to the con clusion that the U.N. is a "Trojan Horse" and a tool of the Russians? It seems more reasonable to conclude that Russia's veto was used because of the dissimilar ity 'between U.N. resolu tions and Communist poli cies. The activities of Commu nist spies in the United States under the cloak of U.N. immunity are certainly valid subjects for attack, but having the U.N. located in the United States can be defended on many grounds, particularly those of public relations and propaganda. U.N. delegates are a "cap tive audience" to American democratic institutions and our general way of life, which almost all Ameri icans, including the Radical Right, consider worthy of ob servation and emulation by foreign nationi. In spite of the Russians' failure to dominate the U.N., as demonstrated by their frequent use oj! the veto and the consistent and growing rejection of Communist Chi na's admission, Russia has indicated no desire to with draw from U.N. member ship. The Korean War was can college administrators do? Unfortunately, the an swer to these questions is, nothing more than they have already done. The general statutes, constitutions, and by-laws, bristle with regula tions forbidding degrading and harmful hazing prac tices. Still these practices go on. Anyone who denies this is indeed foolish and-or irresponsible. The solution must come from the chap ters themselves. It is axio matic that no unwanted law can be enforced. Therefore, an honest desire to clean up our house before some one else cleans it up for us, throwing out all that is good along with the bad, must ar rive within the chapters. Is this threat about someone else cleaning our house an understatement? Probably it is. For if one's house gets too dirty, sometimes burn ing it to the ground is more practical than trying to clean it out; that's just what our opponents are trying to do burn us out of existence. How, then, can this de- the largest armed conflict smce World War II, and the U.N. was on our side. If Russia can put up with failure, why should the Uni ted States be so politically spoiled that she should de mand ever greater success as a condition of continued U.N. membership? Herbert Hoover, the John Birch So ciety, and Stastny seem to suggest this, though. I think the cause of world peace would be served best if the U.N. were neither a tool of the Communist nations nor the Western powers, but rather a common ground on which all nations and ideologies could meet and seek common solutions to the world's problems. Communist mistreatment of Cardinals Stepinac and Mindzenty involved internal politics rather than interna tional law; and conse quently; was outside U.N. jurisdiction; but our Bay of Pigs (Cuba) fiasco did vio late international law, as did Russia's suppression of the Hungarian revolution in 1956. Contrary to Stastny (In formation Please Almanac 1963, p. 771,,) the U.N. Gen eral Assembly did vote a condemnation of Russia's action and passed not one, but five, resolutions on the subject. There has been no U.N. condemnation of the United States' role at t h e Bag of Pigs, which was not even justified exactly by the Monroe Doctrine, a docu ment hardly synonymous with international law. Sincerely, F.S.L.. Stopped! sire to do something be in stilled in fraternity chapters from coast to coast? Educa tional programs? Lectures by visiting field secretar ies? Stern admonitions from school administrators? Sor ry! They've all been tried for years and our "house" is still in sorry shape. I do not profess to propose a panacea to end our woes. But I do have some ideas to pass on ideas that are cer tainly worth a try. Me con ceited? Perhaps, but not on this account. Not quite. You see. these ideas are not mine. I learned them from other people not faculty members not school ad ministratorsnot g e n e r al fraternity executives, but from good, healthy, funlov undergraduate f r a t e r n i ty men. To them goes the credit so richly deserved. I accept none of it. I can only consider myself privileged to carry their ideas to the printed page. For four years it was my good fortune to serve the Phi Delta Theta chapter at the University of Illinois as Chapter Adviser. During this time my experiences were many and varied. They ranged from little things such as checking the spel ling on a freshman term pa per to taking up the cause of "freedom" for someone being temporarily detained at City Hall always at two o'clock in the morning! One afternoon in the Spring of 1961, I heard ru mors about the chapter house that something was "afoot". Rumors of such un determined nature or origin are always cause for advis ory interest for they can be harbingers of evil as well as good. When I was final ly taken in to the inner sanctum, a pleasant, if un easy surprise awaited me. A number of the more ma ture men in the chapter had become concerned over the increasing instance of pledge hazing in their own as well as other chapters on the campus. They decided to do something about it. Thereupon, a pledge train ing creed, designed to pre clude humiliating, degrad ing, and dangerous pledge treatment, was drawn up for consideration by the chapter. Would I look it over? Indeed I would! The document seemed maturely conceived, but had, I ob served, only one serious er ror of omission. Encourage ment of good scholarship had been left out! It was only an oversight and was quickly rectified. Thus the now widely publicized Pledge Training Creed of Phi Delta Theta at the Uni versity of Illinois came into being. You will note above I characterized my reaction to this undertaking as un easy as well as pleasant. Yes, I too had misgivings. It is one things to issue a proclamation such as this, but it is quite something else again to see its enforce ment. I cautioned the men about this and suggested that, if they felt there was even n small chance that the Creed could not be fol lowed in spirit as well as letter, they had far more to I 1200 "O" STREET iiL'H!? I jl I : ! ::: . mmm Z-it, ' ' ::: s iAT-A j II; : ., .: l -r" ' ill ill ;; Hi Hi II $225 I II II !!- ' " ftWfMWIaWteWljajpajs f ZZIZ J I II rS4fM jLt?P II! lose than if it had never been adopted at ail. They said they would insist on adoption only by unanimous vote. There was still the in evitable immature minority that is found in every chap ter, as well as the constant transciency of chapter membership to be reckoned with. Still, far be it from me to discourage anything as constructive and mature in intent as this Creed, es pecially when it springs from the chapter itself. So, with the risks well in mind the chapter went ahead and the Pledge Training Creed received unanimous pas sage in formal meeting. The' press reaction was wide but somewhat skepti cal. "Keep your promise, Phi Delts!" seemed to be the general tenor. But most important was that at long last the fraternity system was getting some favorable publicity in place of dis couraging "smear stories." Indeed, the tone of student reaction and the wide news paper, television, and radio coverage aroused the envy of many other chapters on the campus. But the same token, it put us on the spot. No one would forget the promise that had been made. The first crucial test came the following year. When "informal initiation" time approached there was a cry by the vociferous and immature minority to "change the Creed!" Re sisting pressures of this sort is not easy, but the Executive Council stood firm. The chapter president then took a step which I heartily recommend all chapter presidents to con sider. It is a step that re quires no chapter vote of any sort. It requires only the courage of one man's conviction. The president went to the editor of the college news paper (the very paper that had challenged us to keep our promise) and invited him to visit the chapter house during the informal initiation period at any hour of the day or night and to bring a photographer with him. Of course there were outcries from the dissident minority, but once the invi tation had been issued and prominently publicized on the editorial page, there was little the chapter could do about it. Tne editor accepted the invitation and paid a visit to the house where he found all the freshmen -studying in their rooms! Asked to come again when "some thing would be happening," he and his cameraman re appeared. They found the men house cleaning and this resulted in more favorable "fraternity ink" in a paper that had previously been very tepid on the subject. I do not mean to contend that with this first cruicial test safely passed the prob lem at Illinois has been fi nally "licked." No problem with a fraternity . is ever solved once and for all. Ev ery year when "that time" rolls around, all one can do is hope that there are those in the chapter mature (Con't on page 3) MCKI CAM SEN tociEir Ur 432-3616 I