THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
Editorials
Commentary
Wednesday, October 18, 1967
Page 2
.Now C3i. .Ncvci
.-.
You are right and everyone else Is
wrong.
Though the phrase is often used to be
little a person who steps out of line with
a group, it really should not be used as
such.
In fact, too many students and groups
are afraid to judge themselves on the ba
sis of their own ideals, but judge them
selves on the basis of group ideals. This
is not as it should be.
One of the best examples is the fra
ternities and sororities. Instead of judging
their chapters on the basis of their ideals,
they judge themselves in relation to what
other chapters are doing.
Thus, each chapter feels that it is pro
gressing satisfactorially because that's
what all the other chapters are doing. But
progressing is hardly the word. Sitting
pat is more like it.
Agreed that fraternities and sororities
are social organizations. But does social
merely imply the ability to get a date or
have a party? The social teachings of
most fraternities and sororities, as they
now exist, would have one believe so.
Webster defines social as "of or hav
ing to do with human beings living to
gether as a group in a situation requir
ing beings living together ""as a group in
that they have dealings with one another."
Fraternities and sororities, as they now
exist, can only have defined group in its
narrowest sense.
Group implies much more. It implies
the University community, the state, the
nation, and even the world. And merely
being able to get a date or attend a party
is not going to help one get along in these
greater spheres of the word group.
It is going to require that fraternities
once again return to their original ideals
of scholarship, justice, friendship and in
dividual merit and not just grant these
ideals lip service. They must become real,
and should be held up as a judge of each
action.
Had fraternities and sororities stuck
by their original ideals, they would not
now be facing such issues as deferred
rush.
Nor would the Greek system be in
the "sick" condition it is now, if it had
not measured its growth by what every
body else is doing rather than measuring -its
actions against its ideals.
The Daily Nebraskan could not em
phasize enough the statement made by
Terry Bullock, Delta Upsilon's alumni
president at Kansas State:
The Greek system must return to its
basic ideals or face its demise.
And it must be done now.
4 W sv-w
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5 , C:i
Big Difference
; Americans have a strange tendency
; to generalize or lump two totally different
entities into one big assumption, -t
This is never so apparent as when
one talks to a member of a veteran's
group about the Vietnam War.
r' It is automatically assumed that if
one does noj support the war in Vietnam,
then he does not support the men fight
ing there.
Yet it is wrong to lump these two
totally different views into one general
, . ized statement.
It is possible to oppose the war and
at the same time still support those who
. are required by law to fight in Vietnam.
; In, Southern Slates
Under the democratic structure of the
United States, one is given the right to
disagree with a policy or law. Yet this
does not give one the right to oppose
those who enforce the law or the policy.
Whether they like it or not. those who
enforce such a law or policy must do so.
If one has even a simple knowledge
of government, he knows that laws are
changed through the branch of govern
ment which makes them, not through the
branch that enforces them.
If adults would only ask students and
not make assumptions, we are sure that
most students who oppose the war in
Vietnam would admit they do support the
men fighting there.
Forgotten
By Mike Hayman
u.s.
Dollars Support Segregated Schools
By David Lloyd-Jones
Collegiate Press Service
Strong, Ark. Hundreds
and possibly thousands of
Southern school districts
are receiving money in
clear violation of section
601 of the Civil Rights Act,
and the Department of
Health, Education and Wel
fare has managed to en
force the act in 67 cases
over three years:
Title six of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 is quite
clear: its meat takes up
only four lines of the 24
piece column that laws are
reproduced in.
Section 601 states, "No
person in the United States
shall, on the grounds of
race, color, or national ori
gin, be excluded from par
ticipation in, be denied the
benefits of, or be subjected
to discrimination under any
program or activity receiv
ing Federal financial assis
tance. Since the Brown decision
of 1954 established that sep
araf r-hool vste 're
inherently discriminatory,
Section 601 makes it illegal
to run a segregated school
system with Federal funds
and to supply Federal
funds to a segregated
school system.
NOT SIMPLE
Things are not quite so
simple, however, to ex-secretary
of Health, Education
and Welfare Anthony Cele
brezze, to the present HEW
Secretary John Gardner
and to Lyndon men, who
are responsible for the reg
ulations which enforce the
Civil Rights Act, and who
hav tortured logic tt allow
a plan for desegregation
and "reasonable assur
ance" that it will be carried
out to qualify in the place
of desegregtaion for t h e
purposes of qualifying for
federal funds.
School systems, by t h e
Civil Rights Act will be
treated as desegregated, at
the taxpayers expense, as
soon as it has either con
fessed the opposite or been
found guilty of segregation
in a Federal court.
That the Department of
Health, Education and Wel
fare is naive about the re
sults of this Alire in Won
drlanr' reasoning is not to
be assumed, however. In
an HKW brief, written by
an HEW attorney to be
heard before an HEW hear
ing examiner, the precise
implications of some of the
plant "demand" in compli
ance with the law are laid
out:
"This means that under
these ('free-choice') plans
accepted by the Commis
sioner, somewhere between
95 percent and 99 percent
of the Negro students (in
the South) remained iso
lated in separate schools
that were originally estab
lished for the purpose of
segregating them from
'their white neighbors and
contemporaries. It is cer
tain that n at least 100 dis
tricts with accepted free
choice plans, total segrega
tion was left completely un-.
disturbed by the "free
choice" operation. Hardly
any districts took more than
the absolute minimum step
toward faculty desegrega
1 tion, which was to desegre
gate staff meetings. Many
did not even do this."
For HEW Secretary
Gardner, watching television-
in the back of his blue
Cadillac limousine, of
course such a statement by
one of his own underlings
does not have much force.
In their rural village near
the Louisana border, by
contrast, the harsh reality
behind the words is an ob
scenity at variance with the
complacency . of limestone
Washington.
OLIGARCHS
That there are men of
good will in the South even
in the tiny villages and set
tlements that dot the sand
and clay back roads of Mis
sissippi, Alabama, Louisi
ana and! Arkansas is an
important truth. Though the
neanderthals, with their
strident voices, dictate
much of the 'tone of the
South, they are a pitiful mi
nority: the embittered old,
the threatened local oli
garchs, the more repressed
ef the working class and
the scattering of profession
al larynxes whose venom is
their livelihood.
But the p o w e r of the
equally tiny groupings of
people committed to deseg
regation is easy to overesti
mate. The small town black
preacher, f t e n the only
person hifbrmed or inter
ested in challenging segre
gation, may have a grade
twelve education and re
ceive $35 a month from his
church. His job depends on
his white employer. And his
white employer is likely to
be not a Klansman but a
pliant reed, bowing to t h e
winds of opinion.
Though not everyone is a
segregationist, everyone as
sumes that segregation is
the dominant way of life
and that to move against it
is to offend. Like juvenile
gang members who go
along with some stupid or
vicious action because each
assumes that the others
approve of it, Southerners
continue to act our segrega
tion because most assume
that all others expect it of
them.
Such a circle of habit rein
forcement can only be brok
en by bold declaration of
the untruth being lived or
by someone outside the cir
cle stepping in to break it.
But for the native Southern
er, particularly in a small
town, to be the first one to
call the segregationist my
thology a lie is to be bank
jpyrted and ostracized.
Zr COWARDS
m Of the thousand people
in Strong the only man who
has the strength to do so is
a merchant with inherited
money That he told a wom
an in the town to take her
. washing to the next town if
she wanted a coin-washer
that only whites used, re
fusing to segregate ma
chines in his own laundro
mat cost him perhaps a
third of his business.
It is men like this who
are betrayed, as much as
the blacks, by the adminis
trative pieties: "establish
an administratively feasi
ble method of securing non
discrimination," "process
of transition," "reasonable
allowance" and so forth.
The plight of the South
ern white liberal, however,
is nothing to that of the rur
al poor blacks. The liberals,
at least, have their money
and their good intentions.
For the blacks there is not
just despondency; there is
the progressive -erosion of
the hopes built up during
the so-called civil rights
revolution of the early six
ties. "The Negro has been pa
tient," a Christian-Metho-diet-Espisopal
minister cum
sawmill worker will say.
"In. 1966 they said by 1967
, we would be all done with
this mess. Now it's 1967 and
we're still just chewing the
cud."
In Strong there were 15
black kids willing to risk
hostility and failure by
transferring to the white
school. All were rejected for
no apparent reason, though
the school board claimed
that "we have opened the
door. Now the culud folks
just have to walk through
it."
Last year, after the re
buff, there were only nine
willing to take the step. Far
from snowballing into com
plete desegregation, the hat
ing and the gentle hints
around the town took their
toll. This year there are
only four black youngsters
in the white school, and
there may be less next
year.
Two vignettes illustrate
why "free choice" integra
tion, which depends on the
black to take the initiative
of moving into the hostile
environment of the white
school, is a vicious and un
fair device. It is character
istic of the method that
there had to be a thin edge
of the wedge, there have to
be some people who will
identify themselves as will
ing to defy the old customs.
ALONENESS
And these people expose
themselves to retaliation
and their children to the
frightening aloneness of be
ing unique in the classrooms
they desegregate. "I smell
a far." went the first line of
an exchange popular with
white kids in the hearing of
black students. "A cee
gar?" "No, a neegar." The
13-year-old who told me
that was proud of the sense
of humor it betokened.
And for the Rev. G. L.
Evans, who "truck patches"
a few acres outside the
town, the result of sending
his children to the white
school was a mysterious
car following the school bus
to the point where his wife
met the children every day.
Not much of a threat, but
enough to remind him that
a dead child is dead forev
er. His children are now all
back at the rambling shack
that is school for 500 black
youngsters.
Sutton Place
Hi. fun seekers. Well, last week we
plaved "tell it like it is." the game any
body can play. The rules are simple. You
just throw out the truth and glance up to
see whose toes you've stepped on this
time.
Last week I'm afraid I really went
off the deep end in exposing a bit of
double-dealing on the part of the AWS
committee chairman who, despite official
statements to the contrary, threw out the
proposals which the committee chairmen
had decided on in a "special meeting."
This week I promise to repent and be
positive. (Mainly because- my original
column, exposing the unfounded accusa
tions of Dr. Patrick Wells, concerning the
University's lack of concern in recruiting
Negro scholars).
I shot off my mouth about how false
the accusations were and shot down my
own column. Oh well, pass it off to "To
tal Education."
Ves, Suzy Creamcheese, there is a
certain amount of positive thinking in "To
tal Education" aside from "which of our
business friends can profit from construc
tion, etc."
And yes. Suzy Creamcheese. even that
hardened critic of the system, Sutton, can
"think positive" on occasion. Just watch
my positive smoke, baby!
Every Sunday night we find several
thousand women students in search of sev
eral thousand male students with one
thing in mind, they're hungry. Since there
are no meals served in the living units on
Sunday nichts. dates are easy to come by.
In fact, sometimes they're hard to avoid.
So what happens? You take a girl down
to King's, spend a dollar on food, and an
hour later she's back in the dorm. Right?
Moving on we see the Union with a
10o drop in business due to the difficulty
involved in just going in and out, a con
dition brought about by the construction
activities.
By Don Sutton
Looking around still further at our
campus Sundays we say of the day, in
general, "what a drag." itight?
Enter "positive thinking." (Stage left)
I would like to hear the reactions of
any of you who would be in favor of a
Sunday night "Camp Film Festival." A
regular Sunday night activity in the Union
which would offer as a package deal for
the huge sum of $1.00; a "camp" film
(W. C. Fields, Charlie Chan, etc.), a ham
burger basket and a 10c drink. I haye al
ready discussed this proposal with Allan
Bennett, Nebraska Union director, who
has said that the Union could provide
all of this for the price I suggested and
still show enough of a small profit to
justify its existence. He also said that he
personally would like to see such a thing.
Would you? If you would, how about fir
ing off a letter to the Union Program
Committee, the Campus Opinion column in
the Nebraskan, Mr. Bennett or myself
(in care of the Daily Nebraskan).
I should like to point out to the stu
dents that the easiest way to re-institute
the 5 cent refill in the Crib is to take a clean
cup each time you get coffee. You see, the
Union makes more profit on a five cent
refill than it does on the original cup
(things like dishwashing, etc, that aren't
involved in a refill cost about' seven-and-a-half
cents per cup.) Also, if you're pay
ing the price of a new cup, then you are
entitled to a new cup.
A few days of this should bring about
the desired change. Just tell the cashier
when you do it.
.
After the revolution, business as usual.
t i t th tTT,i,tf cit hefnre ontoritifT
l speni iwo years at i"c u'woiV
the Marine Corps and in a &hort time I will be return
ing to finish my college education. The Daily Nebraskan
was always one of my favorite papers and with the com
ing elections I know you will be printing letters to the
editor about them.
Recently I was reading Time magazine and I ran
across the letter which I am enclosing with the hopes that
it may find its way into your column. 1 believe it does
very well in expressing the feelings of all of us over
here. The only change in it's content should be the "Re
publicans and Democrats." not just the Republicans.
Yes, get out of Vietnam, but only when we are as
sured that the people of South Vietnam will be free to
choose their own form of government and not be forced
to submit to the aggressions of North Vietnam as soon
as we leave.
Here is the letter:
"Sir:
The Republicans should keep in mid that there will
be large numbers of Vietnam veterans exfe-cising-their
privilege to vote for the first time in this coming presi
dential election. These men are not about to vote for a
'peace at any price' candidate. Such a candidate would
be telling us that all the sweat, blood and human life that
we have given was in vain.
"Such a candidate would, in effect, be selling us out.
I can say from experience that no one wants peace
more than those who must fight the war. Still, we rea
lize that any peace reached must be a just one that meets
the standards that sent us over here in the first place.
"We are willing to pay the price and see this thing
through. We are looking for a man who will not throw
out our sacrifices. We want a man who will exercise
our capabilities wisely and bring us to a just peace as
soon as possible."
Pfc. Douglas E. Blayney
U.S.M.C.
Time, Asia edition Oct. t, 1967
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. I
will be returning to the U.S. in 20 days.
Cpl. John M. Polk
U.S.M.C.
Reviewed Review
Dear Editor:
In regard to Cater Chamblee's "Sight'n . . . Sound,"
Oct. 12 concerning his review of "Ulysses": I am curious
to know the exact position which Mr. Chamblee holds
on your staff. Is he supposed to be a reviewer of the
movies or a critic of the audience?
If the former is his job, then the movie should be
the object of his praise or criticism, not the audience. I
personally admire persons who have so much respect
for their principles and are not willing to let them be
compromised, even to the point of walking out on "Ulys
ses" upon finding it offensive to their tastes.
It appears that Mr. Chamblee turned upon the audience
as the object of his sharp, critical faculty, upon finding
that he had nothing but praise for the movie.
One does not read Mr. Chamblee's column for his
tactless opinions on audience reaction. In his own feeble
way, he should concentrate on the movie and nothing
more. He should not exercise his almighty judgment upon
those people fcho stood up for their morals and principles.
This does not fall into his area of criticism.
James W. Healey
Dear Editor:
Re: Cater Chamblee's review of "To Sir With Love"
I refuse to "read black" (as suggested by'the article),
but see red.
Sidney Poitier is indeed wasted wasted on movie-goers
such as Mr. Chamblee who superimposes personal preju
dices upon a film which is striking for its piercing com
mentary on the teaching profession and on several other
issues not the most important of which is racism.
I recommend to Mr. Chamblee that he devote future
reviews to a discussion of the movie itself and not to
the broadcast of personal political bias.
Rita Yerdi
Dorm Life
I have finally had the wonderous realization of the
value of total education as it is embodied by living in a
dormitory.
I confess that 1 was discouraged with dorm life in
the middle of second semester last year, but I see now
that living in a University residence was an invaluable
something that allowed me experiences I would have suf
fered miserably without.
Dorm living made it possible for me to experience a
hospital visit, something that had eluded me for 17 years.
I have been ever grateful.
The dormitory soon made it possible for me to lose
some extra weight I'd been carrying around when I
switched to a diet of no-doz and coffee in order that I
might both go to my classes and still be able to spend
my nights in bed listening to the vociferate manifesta
tions of my fellow scholars.
I also learned interesting things about people. When
I tried to change roommates the residence director said
I had insufficient reason.
So I'm sorry now that I relegated myself to the mad
wilderness of the off-campus beyond reality and I can
just hardly control myself in waiting for the University
people to come and urge me gently back into the pro
tection of the steaming flock.
Adam Craft
Daily Nebraskan
0t. 11. WW
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