THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
Editorial:
Commentary
FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 1967
Vage 2
TiemamiV Approach Questioned
The issue of tuition and state support
for public colleges and universities has
been getting considerable attention recent
ly in almost every state in the country.
In Nebraska, the governor has decid
ed that the tuition should be increased
greatly giving Nebraska students the
highest resident tuition in the Big Eight.
Open Opposition
The Legislative Budget Committee is
presently considering Gov. Tiemann's rec
ommendations. Various senators and the
students have openly opposed the large
tuition increase.
Mr. Tiemann has said he does not ex
pect his proposed $95 a year increase for
resident tuition to limit enrollment at the
University.
Governors in some states such as Cal
ifornia have joined Tiemann in recom
mending higher student tuition, but other
governors have suggested the opposite and
warned against restricting college oppor
tunity to a student's economic ability.
In West Virginia and Maine, leader
ship In promoting free tuition is coming
from the Governor's Mansion.
Free Tuition
West Virginia's Gov. Gulett Smith has
recommended free tuition for the first two
years in state colleges and universities.
In a January address to a joint session
, of the West Virginia Legislature, Gov.
Smith said:
"To open new horizons of educational
opportunity to all our young people, re
gardless of their economic station in life,
I believe we must remove the burden of
tuition and fees in the first two years of
college training." Gov. Smith recommend
ed that his proposal go into effect next
fall for in-state freshman and sophomores
enrolled in West Virginia colleges and uni
versities. Gov. Kenneth Curtis of Maine also re
cently advocated free tuition, but he did
not propose immediate implementation of
his goal. Curtis' inaugural address on Jan.
5 included this comment: "Our long-range
"objective must be free education beyond
high school for every Maine boy and girl
who has the desire and talent to use this
education. We will not achieve this ob
jective during my administration."
William Scranton
The 1968 Pennsylvania Legislature and
former Pennsylvania Gov. William Scran
ton have also been praised "for their en
actment of 'tuition supplement appropria
tions' aggregating near $22 million, to en
able the three big Pennsylvania universi
ties to reduce their student fees."
The actions of these governors show
that some public officials around the coun
try would disagree with Mr. Tiemann
when he says that higher student tuition
will not limit enrollment at institutions of
higher education.
Furthermore, the Daily Nebraskan
feels; that the actions by these governors
and other educational authorities show
that some people do realize that the Unit
ed States today by constantly requiring
students to pay more of their educational
costs may be destroying the fundamental
concept of free or at least easily attain
able public education for every American
youth.
Foreign Schools
The facts reveal, according to a re
cent survey by the Office of Institutional
Research in Washington, D.C., that stu
dents in the United States are paying
higher tuition and a greater share of the
cost of their education than students in
most other countries. The survey found
that in many foreign universities there
are no fees at all; while in others, al
most all students receive monthly allow
ances to help pay for their living expens
es and any tuition charges they may
lace.
Countries in which no fees or extreme
ly low fees are charged include both un
derdeveloped and highly advanced lands.
Afghanistan, for example, which sends
relatively few students on to college,
charges no tuition to those attending its
one university. Higher education is also
free in three Scandinavian countries Den
mark, Norway, Sweden and in the Neth
erlands. Charges are very low in France, Aus
tria, Switzerland, and much of Latin
America. In addition, higher education is
free in all of the countries of Eastern
Europe and in the Soviet Union. Moreover,
in east Germany, about 90 per cent of
the students receive monthly stipends of
about $42 from the government. Students
receive comparable stipends in several
other Communist countries, too; and in
the Canadian province of Newfoundland,
students receive tuition and $50 monthly
salaries from the government.
Pays Less
In the United States, on the other
hand, all surveys show that government
on all levels is constantly paying less and
less of the higher educational instruction
al costs on a percentage basis.
Winfred Godwin, director of the South
ern Regional Education Board, recently
reported that "in the ten years between
1953-54 and 1963-64, only student fees in
the United States were increased as a
share of instructional cost. Income from
the federal government, from state and
local governments, and from private gifts
and endowment earnings all declined on
a percentage basis."
His f i g u r e s indicate that student
charges in the United States have risen
80 per cent in this ten year period, al
though the cost of living has increased
only 17 per cent. In addition, in both pub
lic and private institutions, students pay
a larger share of their educational costs
today. In the public sector, they are pay
ing 16.4 per cent of student education
costs today, compared with 11.9 per cent
ten years ago. They are paying 54.5 per
cent in the private sector, compared to
48.8 per cent ten years ago. (These fig
ures are based on a national average and
Nebraska students' per cent of education
al costs is much higher.)
Falling Behind
The facts and comparisons make it
quite obvious that the United States
which is supposed to stand for the funda
mental concept of free public education
for everyone is falling drastically behind
other countries in its public support of
educational costs.
In light of this trend and the reac
tion of other governors and educational
authorities to this national problem, the
Daily Nebraskan must question the fore
sight and consequences of Gov. Tiemann's
approach to this issue.
Nebraska Students Not Alone
Although it surely is not news, it
might be comforting in the midst of a
messy struggle with the Administration
over housing policy, to be reminded that
Nebraska students are not the only ones
crying "let us live."
Women Demand
With varying success, women across
the country are demanding social privi
leges that men have long enjoyed.
According to a recent Collegiate Press
Service release, a ten-day postponement
of rent payments was organized by irate
dormitory residents at Stanford in sup
port of off-campus housing for women.
The strike was considered s success by
participants, but no action has been tak
en by university officials.
) This pressure tactic was unnecessary
at UCLA and Chicago, where housing reg
ulations were successfully reformed
through orderly "proper channels."
', The matter of visitation rules, only re
cently explored by students at the Uni
versity, has been explosive on many
campuses for some time. Men may visit
women's rooms and visa versa during
specified hours of the day. Old visitation
rules which forbade women to enter men's
apartments under any circumstances at
the University of Alabama, have just
been abolished.
No Curfew
Women's hours, of course, are being
debated almost everywhere. At the Uni
versity of California at Los Angeles wom
en students under 21 have been freed
from any curfew regulations. The decision
was endorsed by the associate dean of
students housing, William Locklear, who
said that previous university policy was
inconsistent with the school's statement
to entering students that they will be
treated as adults.
In a similar decision by administrat
ors at the University of Chicago, stu
dents in each house were allowed to sub
mit their own curfews, to the dean of
students for approval.
Some of UC's houses requested exten
sion of hours by 330 per cent and, in one
instance, complete abolition of curfews.
Vote On Hours
The University of Washington has also
announced its decision to eliminate im
posed women's hours and substitute a pol
icy of allowing students to vote on their
own hours.
The quirk in the movement at some
places is not In administrative abhorrence
of student demands but student defeat of
themselves. At the University of Kentucky,
for instance, women students have re
jected by six-to-one a proposal for no
hours.
YD's Come Alive
An almost dead activity on the Uni
versity campus is presently making a
great effort to come alive.
The Daily Nebraskan, in the past, has
often been critical of the Young Demo
crats at the University. For the last three
years, the YD's as a group have shown
little organization, spirit or purpose.
However, in the last two weeks be
cause of its serious consideration of im
portant campus issues and a real effort
to involve the organization, the Young
Democrat group has won the Daily Ne
braskan's respect.
The Nebraskan compliments the group
for taking a stand on the University tui
tion, the Bill of Rights and William Steen's
court case. We hope the YD's will be
able to continue making their group as
active as possible and eventually provide
some real competition for the strong
Young Republican organization.
1 c I
That's What 1 1 Says
The Peaceful Snatch
... by Steve Abbott
(NOTE: Column heading of first column was incom
plete. Also an introductory section of the first Snatch
was deleted without columnist's permission. Columnist
asks pardon of readers and assures them that this will
not happen again. The Peaceful Snatch will appear as
written or it will not appear at all for the week In ques
tion.) Next to sex and booze what we value most today
is our sleep. Life has not always been this way.
In primitive times, the meal was the unifying famili
ar and tribal symbol. Because people valued food above
all else, religious and political ceremonies were centered
around the meal.
Symbols Relevant?
Even today the Christian Eucharist continues the
symbolism of the meal and summit conferences are held
around conference tables. But are these old symboliza
tions relevant anymore?
Most of us couldn't care less about religion and poll
tics. As meal symbolism loses out to us overstuffed
Americans, the meaning behind the symbol also loses out.
What we obviously need is a new symbol to carry on re
ligious and political activities. Columnist has the answer.
The most relevant symbol to unify life today is the bed.
Behold! Instead of the conference table, the Roman
couch. When you stop laughing you will see that this is
an entirely serious and practical symbol to give hope to
mankind. Yet even the bed is not impregnable against
the Great Emasculation Plot. Especially in our sluber
ous bed, the Peaceful Snatch is lurking. How? Columnist
will tell.
Procrustens
In Greece lived a guy named Procrusteus. This P,
as we'll call him, ran a chain of motels. One day old P
was offered a good deal by the Athenian government. If
P would spy on suspicious citizens, the government would
exempt him from the draft and give him a supply of
army bunks.
P snatched up the opportunity and installed the army
bunks in his motels. Only one problem arose. P's solu
tion to it has inspired Peaceful Snatchers ever since. The
problem was this: Visitors who stayed at P's motels
were of all sizes, but the army bunks were but one stan
dardized size.
A sloppy fellow wouldn't have cared, but our P was
no sloppy fellow. He was a fastidious Greek (a cousin
of Plato's I think) who loved the traditions of order and
efficiency which he had learned from his family. This is
what P did.
Appendages Lopped
After his guests went to sleep, P crept into their
rooms, one by one, and rearranged their appendages to
fit tha beds. If the sleeper was too short, P stretched
his limbs with a special devise; if the sleeper was too
tall and his head or feet hung over the edge of the
bunk, P lopped the offending appendages right off.
The principle behind P's solution, the famous Pro
crustean principle, so pleased subsequent Peaceful Snatch
ers that it's been used as the basis of IQ tests, business
administration, government bureaucracy and social mores
ever since.
Since both democratic and dictatorships have found
the system of the Procrustian principle unsurpassable,
the bed has become the symbol "pare excellence" of the
Peaceful Snatch. Can anyone oppose It? Only the creat
ive underground of criminals and saints dare try.
My Own Bed
Let me now talk about my own bed if I may be so
brash. Over my bed (the bed which says: "Gearge Wash
ington Slept Here") is a bumper sticker reading: "Make
Love, Not War." The effect of this sticker has often dis
turbed guests (it's not, I guess, the sort of slogan Pro
crusteus would allow in his motels).
Perfectly good Christians have been led to speculate
that Christ's motto is somehow more lewd than that of
our noble generals, and perfectly good soldiers have been
tempted to lay down on the job as a result of misinter
preting the slogan, but most all of the perpetrators of
the Peaceful Snatch are opposed to the slogan. Why?
Tennessee Williams maintained in his play "Street
car Named Desire" that death is the opposite of desire
in such a way that one 6tate Is the shadow of the other.
In other words, Americans entertaining perverse Ideas
of love will entertain perverse ideas of death.
Cast A Mold
Columnist recently exposed the Great Emasculation
Plot which aimed at perverting American ideas on sex.
The principle behind the plot is the Procrustean principle
whereby the Peaceful Snatchers cast a mold and make
us think we must fit that mold. We are caught In a
schizo-spllt between our public mold and private self.
Sometimes the bed is our battlefield. We must foil
the Peaceful Snatch.
If there is something about age which
deactivates the sexual organs, dissipates
the political impetus and eliminates all
hope in a sea of despair, then we are
surely on the brink of some colossal end,
for our students are growing old when
they have scarcely begun to be young.
Youth Alone
Their youth alone will allow them to
practice their sexuality maturely and with
out either adolescent prurience or elderly
cynicism, to foment a political revolution
which strikes at the heart of the estab
lished "values," to reject in the academic
community that which is fabricated or
false.
But there is no place for youthful,
halcyon indifference in a world methodic
ally destroying itself in a maze of textual
footnotes, subway clatter, pills, television
fancies, packaged beauty, "show" Negroes,
napalm, bombs and gilt-edged murder.
Every infant, as a popular song tells,
is born with the ghostly inheritance of 20
tons of TNT and an adult responsibility
which makes simplicity all but impossible.
We Will Die
Like all the old, we will die. And why
should we be concerned when the mon
strous cloud will not lighten, the harlot
still walks the streets, and the educator
teaches cant and sullen introspection?
We are getting old, growing up, and
the odds are against our making any
news.
A. J. Muste was old, 82, but he made
news. His charm and freshness hung
about him like the flesh on his pointed
cheek-bones. He had an inner light, a ser
iousness which kept him on planes, in jail,
and at his desk working against war. He
did not betray his common humanity, but
remained a man. In this sense, he never
lost his potency.
Inner Light
Tom Hayden and Paul Potter are old,
nearing 30. They helped found Students
for a Democratic Society when the notion
of politically-aware students was almost
inconceivable, and they now run the New
ark Community Action Project and the Ed-
Our Man Hoppe1
ucational Cooperative of Boston, respect
ively. Even though their tenacity has
not visibly affected American society, they
continue to organze and activate on that
inner light, which says:
Hard times may be ripe, Vietnamese
children dead, and the spirit of poetry
quite gone, but I will stand for life, even
if I stand alone.
And what else is there to do, as adult
hood approaches? If life is truly a matter
of keeping occupied for the sake of re
maining something and somebody, then
not even Hiroshima, or the statistical ana
lysis of American business trends abroad,
or the saccharine fraudulence of the air
line stewardess' smile, can defeat us.
Take Power
The young must be mature enough to
take power, now, and to wield it imagin
atively, or they will surely not be any
more able to shape their own ends than
their elders have been.
If the war is confusing, and it surely
is, they must send their own observers to
it to see it plain, without asking the Uni
versity's permission or the world's. They
must do it, and be serious. If the war is
moreover immoral, they must refuse to
fight it, and must stay by their youthful
faith. They must make news.
If the University's dormitory policies
are ill-conceived and inhumane, they must
disobey, for free men cannot make choic
es if they succumb to tyranny. If educa
tion is irrelevant, they will see through it.
stage their Academic Revolution teach-ins,
and begin to alter it radically.
In Man's Image
If we do not, while we are Almost
Grown, grow up with an intent serious
ness of purpose to reshape in our own
image in man's image the world that
men have allowed themselves to believe
is built in the image of God, then we will
be partner to Him in our delusion.
We will kill and we will be self-righteous,
and we will grow truly old before
our proper time never has come.
Boston University BU News
Collegiate Press Service
A Casualty Of War
f, J
Arthur Hoppe
It is late in the winter of
1967. A blue-gray haze lies
outside my window. Last
week they were talking
about peace in Vietnam.
This week they are talking
about "escalation" and "de
termination." Years More
We are prepared, our
leaders say, to go on fighting
for years years more.
In the paper this morning
there is a photograph of an
American soldier hitting a
Viet Cong prisoner with his
fist.
The caption begins by
talking of the strains and
frustrations of war. Then it
tells how a company of
American GIs caught three
of the enemy hiding in a
stream.
Any American
In the photograph, the
American soldier, knee
deep in the water, has just
thrown a roundhouse right.
Ills arm is still extended,
fist clenched. He looks tall
with close-cropped hair. He
looks like any American.
The Viet Cong prisoner
seems very small. He is
naked from the waist up.
His head has snapped back.
His eyes are closed. His
empty hands are raised be
fore his face, palms inward,
in a gesture that seems al
most beseeching.
It is not an unusual pic
ture. That's the way war is.
We have seen such pictures
for years now.
I thought for a moment
of how that American sol
dier must have felt. The
frustration and strains, I
believed that. The fear dur
ing the hunt. The tri
umph of the capture. The
anger at the whole bloody
mess. The deep sense of
satisfaction when fist slam
med Into cheek.
Then, afterward, the ra
tionalizations to wash away
, the guilt.
The First Time
For I don't believe you
can strike a smaller, un
armed, helpless man with
out feeling guilt not the
first time.
To do so, I believe, you
have to close off a small
corner of your mind, you
have to callous over a small
corner of your soul.
You have to do this in the
same way a fisherman does
the first time he impales a
living worm on a hook, the
way a slaughterer does the
first time he swings the
sledge, the way a Nazi must
have the first time he
incinerated a Jew.
Callous Grows
The first time is hard.
But each time the callous
grows. Each time is easier
than the last. Eventual
ly the time comes that you
can do these things with
neither sensitivity nor com
punction. Suddenly I felt sorry, not
so much for the little Viet
Cong, as for the big Ameri
can soldier. I felt that what
he did was understandable
and human. Yet how sad it
is to have a callous on your
soul. How much less a liv
ing man it makes you. And
how fast, in war, it grows.
And then I turned the
page. For after all, we have
seen such photographs for
years now.
But later, thinking back
on that photograph in this
winter of 13G7, I never felt
more strongly that we must
end this war in Vietnam.
We must end the frustra
tions and strains and fears
and triumphs and anper
and satisfactions and guilt.
We must end it, not so
much for their sake, as for
our own.
Daily Nebraskan
Vol. M No. 70
March 1 1MT
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EDITORIAL STAFF
Editor Warm Krmi.ch.ri Manaclnc Editor Brno GIIhi Nm Editor
Itklai Nlirht New. Editor P BanuMti Editorial Pan AMkt.nt Umi, PhdoM
r",rt mu" E lwo1l A1M. port Editor T.rry Or.nnlck; Nml r
ua Writ.!-.. Jull. Mom.. Ch.ry Trltt. Randy Iran Junior Stall VrlU '.,
Mick Low., D.vld Bunt.ln. Rom Boy.. Jim Evlner. Dan Looker. Paul Eaton.
Mara Gordon. Chrla C.rl.oa, Nrw. Aa.l.tant EIImo Wlrthi Photographer.. Mi:
H.ym.n. Dmi. Krttton Copy Editor. Romnn n,t.L ... G1i---
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myr. Ba.lnrw Ai.na.w Bob Glt.ni National Adv.rll.ln. Manager Ko.r hi
Produrtlon Muutr Cham. rUxUri ClwllMd Adv.rtl.ln. M.naaw. M l
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Cariar. Ol-iui rnradt. Rum Full.r. ChrU Loum, Kathy Schoolcy, l.lada Jciiiryi
uowilpthm Manawr Jim Bunui Clrcurlatloo Manaaw Lyn K.thini CircuU
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