Nebraska Newspapers

    THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
Editorials
Commentary
Wednesday, October 25, 1967
Page 2
LSD Overwhelming Case
The case against LSD is overwhelming
too much for any individual to overlook
or fail to heed.
The penalties are foreboding a fine
up to $5,000, imprisonment of up to 10
years in the State Penitentiary, and very
probable expulsion from school.
But these penalties are far less than
the serious physiological and psychological
effects of LSD. And these latter effects
not only affect the individual taking LSD
but also those innocent individuals around
him and those individuals who are yet to
be born.
The possibility that an individual may
' commit suicide unknowingly far outweighs
any advantages the individual may claim
to gain through a greater insight into him
self and the world of art and literature.
What good are the claimed insights to the
individual if he is dead? Or what good
are these claimed insights if the person
goes into a permanent or even partial
amnesia because of LSD?
If the person claims that it is his
right as an individual to make this de
cision, he can only have a very distorted
view of his worth as an individual.
But the problem of responsibility does
not lie with the individual alone. The re
sponsibility also includes those who also
must share this world and those who have
not yet been born.
And here is the REAL responsibility.
Studies have shown that individuals
who take LSD are usually unaware of
what they are doing in their relation to
others, while under LSD. Thus, they may
kill others without even being fully aware
of what they are doing. Certainly this
MUST be weighed against the use of LSD
if it is being considered.
There are also those who are yet un
born who must also be taken into con
sideration. It should not be denied that
one does have a responsibility to see that
one's children are not deformed through
the foolish use of LSD.
In the use of LSD the individual's re
sponsibility toward his fellow man must
outweigh his rights as an individual.
The Daily Nebraskan is not denying
that there may be very valuable uses for
LSD. In fact, some researchers say that
LSD can be used effectively in treatment
of the mentally ill.
But LSD is for the researcher, not the
novice.
Only the properly trained researcher
has the medical knowledge to work with
LSD. And only the properly trained re
searcher should attempt to use LSD.
There is proper and solid cause be
hind the laws made by the Legislature and
the rules set down by the Board of Re
gents concerning the use of LSD.
The Daily Nebraskan hopes that these
rules and laws will be rigidly enforced in
relation to LSD. Further the Nebraskan
will not sympathize with any student
caught in the possession of LSD.
Although it is almost impossible to de
termine, we feel that there is very little,
if any, use of LSD on the University of
Nebraska campus.
The intent of the story and editorial
on LSD is not meant to raise fears that
LSD is used on the University campus.
Instead it is meant to point out to any
individual (whether he be student or not),
who might be contemplating the use of
LSD, the serious consequences of the
drug's use.
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Journalist Reacts
Southern Bourgeois Is Man Denatured
By DAVID LLOYD-JONES
Collegiate Press Service
It is a truism of journalism that it is not possible to
report events, just the way people and events react to a
reporter watching them. This is nowhere truer than in
the rural South.
To spend a week in Arkansas and three days in a
rural village near the Louisiana border is not to be able
to tell what these places are like or how their people
think. It is only to be able to write, with whatever ob
jectivity one can manage, how their people react to a
long-haired stranger who drives a car with Mississippi
plates and speaks with a strange accent.
And what objectivity one can manage is problemati
cal. To visit and talk with the people of a small South
ern town is an experience which forces one to suspend
normal logics, to don new thought processes. The two
policemen I encountered both waved guns at men in the
course of ordinary conversation, and it was not until
I had returned to the comparative normality of Little Rock
that I noticed there was something off about the fact.
In the surrealistic ambience of rural Arkansas it is not
odd, shocking, or even frightening. Until one returns to
the outside work it slips one's mind that the purpose of
an "equalizer" is to shoot people.
Children of both races have one characteristic they
share with all Americans, but carry perhaps to extremes
in the South the desire to always give the response
desired, in word, deed, and expression.
A white 13-year-old will tell a racist joke with a wide
;grin on his face, then switch to decrying the atitudes of
:the people he heard it from when he detects that one
does not think it funny. A black 14-year-old will explore
the ridiculous in telling how much progress is being made,
ihow good the white folks are and how his fellow blacks
: cannot be trusted without white supervision. Significantly,
;the white child in question could adjust instantly to my
: disapproval, while it did not penetrate to the black one
:that I thought his pat answers ludicrous though revealing.
With adult Afro-Americans one has two conversations,
always. The first is the introductory one in which one is
Dur Man Hoppe
assured of their good will, lack of ambition, trust in the
white man, and confidence in the future. Rap Brown is
equated with the Klansman, and one is duly thanked for
having passed the Civil Rights Act.
After a while one makes the transition to a second
conversation. In one case this happened as I was leav
ing after a pointless 20 minutes with the vice-principal of
a black school. He had reassured me that as a guidance
teacher he took no steps to encourage integration, and
was not at all worried by the inferiority of the equip
ment at his school.
"Ah ain't seen every school in Arkansas, but I guess
we is as good off as any black school. 'Course the white
schools is better everywhere, but that's just the way
things is."
As I got to the door, his tone changed a little, from
deferential to plaintive: "Do you think things will al
ways be like this? What is happening in Washington. Will
the Federal government ever do anything?"
I answered as truthfully as I could, since I'm new
to the U.S., that I expect civil rights enforcement to
slow down because of the coming election year, and that
I tnink the principle supporters of civil rights are a tiny
powerless minority; I confirmed his world-view. Back to
keeping the kids from shouting in study hall and running
in the halls.
Often the second conversation it would be pre
sumptiuous to call it the one that follows the establish
ment of trust, is less deferent, less based in the easy
assumption of the superiority of any white man, even
one from a college newspaper service.
The man whose wife is a cleaner at Arkansas Light
and Power: with a year of college she gets $1.15 an hour
for a job at which white men are paid $2.45. The 16-year-old
who failed at the white school and returned to the
black one because he had not been prepared for the
algebra his grade was expected to know. The angry par
ent who accuses the black teachers of sabotaging inte
gration because they don't have the quilification to match
the whites. The youngster planning on joining the ser
vice because he knows that is the only place he'll get
Small Act Of Courage
Arthur Hoppe
Washington The leaves are falling, Congress is
: drearily whittling down the once brave programs of the
Great Society, the Administration is angrily attacking in
: tellectualism and equating patriotism with assent and at
Georgetown cocktail parties they rarely bother to talk
; about the war in Vietnam any more. It simply is.
; Over in a modest office tucked away on the top floor
;of the Longworth Building, Congressman Jerry Waldie
leaned back in his chair, put his feet on his desk and
J talked quietly about why he had changed his mind about
; the war.
Waldie is a modestly handsome, neat, well-built man
of 42, with a serious smile and Belf-contained air. He is
Ifrom Antioch, California, a small river town where he
iwas born and reared. His constituents usually vote Re
: publican. He is a middle-of-the-road Democrat.
: His only experience outside Antioch was in the State
Legislature in Sacramento, where he was considered tough,
honest, hard working and loyal. He has been a congress
:.man only a little more than a year. As Washington judges
: importance, he is not important.
: "When I was in Sacramento." he said, frowning. 'I
. don't think I had any strong feelings about the war. I
generally supported the Administration. It was an issue
. on which I was greatly uninformed."
Waldie continued defending the war in speeches to
j his constituents through the first half of this year. His
"stand was popular. A mail poll of his district last April
: indicated 73 per cent of the voters favored continuing
the war and J63 per cent were for escalating it.
Bv August, however, Waldie was expressing doubts
in letters home. It was not one thing. It was a complexity
of things.
There were letters from constituents, a speech by
Mariner Eccles attacking the war, the bombings ever
closer to the Chinese border, and talks with a fellow
congressman he admires who was also having misgivings.
"Maybe it wasn't primary," he said, running his hand
over his shock of dark hair, "but there were these per
sonal notes I write to the parents of every GI from my
district who is killed over there. It was no longer an iso
lated thing. I was writing two or three a week.
"And then General Thieu (now the president-elect of
South Vietnam said they weren't going to draft any 18
or 19-year-old South Vietnamese. That's when I decided
we ought to let them fight their own God damned war."
In late September Waldie mailed a newsletter to all
his constituents saying flatly that he had made a mistake
and now favored de-escalating American involvement" as
quickly as possible."
Surprisingly, his mail haB been running about 60-40
in favor of his stand. But many letters begin, "I was
shocked and disturbed . , M or "Your appalling position
. . ." And there is no question but he had lost a good
r-iany votes.
"I think it will be a tolerable political loss," he said.
He paused, searching his own soul. "If I knew it would
have defeated me for re-election, I don't think . . ." He
angrily shook his head. "That's nonsense. I KNOW I
wouldn't have had the courage to do it."
You may agree with Mr. Waldie that it was only a
small act of courage not the kind of courage that wins
great battles, but a common, every-day, very human act
of courage. 9
As 1 walked down from Capitol Hill under the gray
Washington skies. I was strangely elated. My faith in
the inherent strength of our democratic process was re
plenished and renewed.
mechanics papers. These are all second selves, symbols of
the schizophrenia racism, behind the smiles and the well
lubricated traditions, forces on the black.
For the white the corresponding mental set is para
noia. For he knows his society is crumbling, despite the
radio programs that tell him otherwise. Yet there is
enough decency in his tradition to tell him the offerings
of the liberal society that would supplant his own are
rotten and corrupt.
"We've never had a Detroit in the South" is a ready
answer to all questions. And while it is irrelevant, it is
nevertheless true and evidence to the Southerner that
the lawyers, agitators and journalists who question him
so impudently have nothing to offer him as they tear
down his world.
The ancient grace of the South is now corrupted.
Hospitality is a shot of bourbon from a bottle under the
counter, and erudition is the well-memorized cataloque of
Northern ills. The ancient trusts, the business done with
a handshake, give way to the finance companies and the
modern corporate legalisms. Noblesse oblige has the
Churchillian ability to recognizes that the trade union con
sists of real people with real concerns. The surface de
cency that was possible when the niggers knew their
place crumbles when black men ask for justice instead
of charity.
Despite this catalogue of decadence, the South is no
worse and is probably better in most ways than the North
at least to my eyes, in which progress and efficiency
are not the capital virtues. The Faulknerian fixation, the
love-hate relationship lo the South, infects many there.
For the poor the hatred of the land that has given them
so little is combined with the clinging love for what little
they have. Among the well-to-do one hears passionate de
nunciations of both the racism of the South and the com
mercial moralities of the North.
The most thorough-going dissection of the cult of the
gun, the willingness to prove manhood through violence
tomes from those who were raised in the Zeitgeist they
decry. If most the religion of the South is based on ig
norance and Bible worship, it is nevertheless possible to
find people who still follow the laws of the prophets. The
town liberal of Strong, whose sons have cerebral palsy
and multiple sclerosis: they live out ther blighted lives at
home, a trial but loved. In the North they would be in
asylums.
There is a peculiar attraction for even the outsider
to the South. The conservatism, nay, the ossification can
seem at times to promise something better than the wor
ship of the dynamic, the compulsive world of permanent
change.
But the spell breaks.
As much as the unorganized working white or the
semi-literate black, the Southern bourgeois is a man
denatured: short-sighted, demoralized, and uncultured be
cause the information content of his life is false. His
pretended independence is made otiose by the direction
of his world by the Northern economics, the temper of
the times, the mysteries of progress emanating from
elsewhere.
Empires are great fun to be at the center of. but to
accept their mythology and be stuck serving them in Little
Rock is as dehumanizing as working in the Burmese police.
Daily Nebraskan
Vol. tl. No. 35
Oct. 39, 1K7
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KIlrTORIAL ajTAFT
Editor Bnirp Gllea: Manaainc Editor Jack Todd: Newg Editor Charsrt Trltt:
Niahl Nrwt fcdllor Alan Plrwniall: Editorial Pew AaeanaM Julie Morris; Upon
Editor Mark (.oidnn. Aitnni Sport Editoi Charlie Oavtr: AMMIam Niatil
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Photoaraprier Mike tiayman and Dan l-a4le
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Dear Editor:
The opposition to the Vietnam War and the draft is
predominantly misguided, inconsistent and frequently a
dishonest front for collectivist ideologies. The arguments
offered in defense, however, are even more irrational,
particularly in reference to the draft.
Neither the draft nor any other form of involuntary
servitude can be justified by the notion that "rights im
pose obligations." As Ayn Rand has said, this implies
that rights are given to us by the government. Rights are
not a gift from anybody. They are conditions of existence.
To survive in the manner appropriate to man, he must
have the right to his own life, the choice of his actions,
and the use and enjoyment of the products of his labors.
The obligation is to be consistent: to observe the rights
of others.
Today we are told that men have the right to force
others to provide for their welfare and fight their wars
(worthwhile or not). Both the "right to be a parasite"
and the draft obviously negate the principle of rights.
Sadly, the guiltiest are the victims, the otherwise com
petent and moral majority, who sanction altruistic self
sacrifice enforced by "consensus rule," thereby sacrific
ing everybody's rights.
Abolition of all forms of involuntary servitude would
benefit us in many ways. A volunteer army would be
much more competent, efficient and economical in fight
ing worthwhile defensive wars. Rational men would not
volunteer for futile wars, such as Vietnam, or immoral
wars typified by Commnnist aggression. Even more im
portant is the basis of these and other benefits: the af
firmation of individual rights that are so crucial to man.
David P. Demarest
Film Festival
Dear Editor:
The "Camp Film Festival" idea turns everbody on. We
will back it. So shove it on through.
Suzy Creamcheese
Student Machine
Dear Editor:
The room was noisy: typewriters chanting an almost
hypnotic "click-click-ding"; forms documents, briefs, pa
pers, all subject to the wrath of busy and deft fingers
rustled and cracked in seeming defiance. Voices, deep
and husky, full of authority, penetrated the din through a
half-open door several feet to my right. Occasionally, as
if by cue, laughter would resound from the cubby hole,
followed by a mysterious silence.
My eyes, more from drowsiness than curiosity, traveled
the expanse of my chamber, seeing all yet looking at
nothing until they finally rested on a sign, barely in
telligible, painted in bold letters on the exterior side of
the door's translucent glass: "Dean of Student Affairs."
"Yes," I muttered half aloud, "Student affairs is dic
tated by a machine a machine so complex that it as
sumes the identity of persons, ruling, drafting, regulating,
crediting."
"OK," interrupted a young secretary seated at a
large mahogany desk, "508-70-7646, the Dean will see you
in room 204-B." Slowly I rose and sauntered through the
waiting doorway, insecure, as if entering a death chamber.
"You sent for me, sir," 1 asked.
"Yes," he replied without looking up from a pile of
papers in front of him, "Sit down." I did as I was told,
grateful, yet still very unsure.
"In regards to parking violation received on the
day of May , you failed to comply with regulations
established by this board of directors. We established
these rules with due consideration of comparable prob
lems, all in your behalf."
He went on in a monotone and 1 was only vaguely
aware of what he was saying. Finally my mind excur
sion was cut short as he concluded:
"And therefore it is the decision of this board to sus
pend all privileges and credits until compliance with
these statutes is established and recognized. Good-day.""
Dumbfounded, I again rose and began a subtle re
treat when he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.
"The student interests and problems are our fore
most concern, and it is the policy of this board to solve
or aid in solving all student problems 'click-click' all
student problems 'click-click' all student prob . . .
1 slammed the door behind me and ran headlong
down the stairs and onto the street, stopping only when
my breath was coming in short, painful gasps.
Finally I spied an acquaintance, a true friend. His
warm smile cheered me, comforted me. I told my my
problem and he listened sympathetically until I finished.
Leaning closer, he whispered: "You know, this whole
campus is one vast piece of machinery." His smile was
gone and his face became flushed. "Even the students
are stereotyped 'click-click' are stereotyped 'click
click' are . . .
Will this nightmare never end !
Bob Van lJerslice
Dear Editor:
1 agree, let's take a look
at the human angle
In the Oct. 4 Daily Ne
braskan there was a letter
from "A Correspondent"
writing on the "human an
gle" of Greek rush. As a
sophomore pledge 1 can say
that the writer obviously
has not had much to do
with the Greek system.
Last, year as an inde
pendent at a small college
1 found myself with much
more freedom than I ever
had in high school and
many more "extracurricu
lar" activities which could
be done instead of study
ing. Looking at a large uni
versity 1 can imagine how
much more there is to do
outside class here as a
freshman to distract the
student's mind from
studies.
As a sophomore and a
fraternity pledge I find you
do not have any choice but
to study. Most fraternities
have some tyte of enforced
study rules for all pledges.
The fraternity I pledged,
for instance, requires a
pledge to be in class or
study nail from 8.30 a.m.
to noon and from 1 p.m. to
3:30. Of course, we have a
lot of time for social activi
ties in the evening since,
again most have study
hours from 7 p.m. to 11
p.m. Monday through
Thursday.
The social life, of course,
cannot be denied, but it is
put in its place 'ery prop
erly for the pledge.
Now to the point that "a
freshman needs to find
himself before he can de
cide what he really needs.
The Daily Nebraskan
comic "Voice in the Wilder
ness" by Ron P s o t a an
swer; ;hat argument easily
enough what better way
to ""lose" yourself than to
come to a university of
18.004 and not know a soul.
The Greek system ex
tends to the pledges the
confidence needed to face
the "big bad University
life" as well as to meet
people.
Deterring rush would
not help in any way to
solve tlie problems of a
freshman at the University.
So. 1 agree, let's take a
look at the human angle of
the Greek rush system.
Steve Burnt