THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
Editorials
Commentary
Friday, February 16, 1968
Page 2
. NFU headaches
- No eyebrows will be raised when the Nebras
. Z Ea Free University conducts second semester regis
tration. NFU no longer has the allure of a new ex
perience it is simply accepted.
;"','! ' NFU is far from being entrenched as a Uni
versity landmark, however, as its healthy com
plexion is misleading.
".' ,J Two major problems have weakened the NFU
and this semester's courses will probably deter
mine if there will be another registration next fall.
First the NFU Coordinating Committee has
been anything but coordinated during the Univer
sity's brief history. The internal structure has
lacked cohesion and members have not communi
cated with the different NFU course leaders.
";;. Consequently there presently is no system for
evaluating the free university to determine its
Weaknesses or strengths and to test student reac
tion to the entire program. Ku one knows if the
university is accomplishing its goals or failing mis
erably. While some may argue that a free university
'. must be free and unstructured, this does not mean
that the programming nucleus of the group can al
" "So be organized in this manner and survive.
The committee can solve its problem by form
alizinp a strict committee structure and establish
ing a communications network with the leaders and
Organizing of the coordinating committee will
' .be difficult but it will strengthen the university if
Jts "action" people and its "ideas" people can meet
on a common level another missing factor in the
NFU.
Th internal committee headaches are not in
surable but another problem plaguing the NFU
will require a more potent remedy.
Z When the NFU was first organized there was a
-small group of enthusiastic professors willing t
i i t f 1 XT1PTT Thoca
assume leauersiup 01 sevciui iu-u tumoco.
men shared the same educational goals as the uni
Iversity and spent many hours developing their
courses and establishing guidelines for the future
:nfu.
These men are now ready to step aside and al-
lAm nthAr fonitw numnirt m cnarp in ineir wurK
but no one is filling the vacancies.
Statistics show that professors are overworked
tand underpaid, but so are the students taking NFU
"-courses without credit to broaden their education
1 experiences.
7 This semester while many capable instructors
are writing their "required" book, the number of
NFU courses will be decreased rather than ex
. panded and they will be led by students and gradu
ate instructors rather than professors.
It is discouraging and frustrating to find that
when Nebraska students actually want to attempt
romething new in education they are hindered by
" the same people who scoff at students who aren't
: serious about education.
rDan Looker
horse . . .
;but a good guy
Everyone knows that dark horses never win,
'but the coat of the charger that carries Sen. Eu
.gene McCarthy has been bleaching. The Senator-
'has not had much to do with this and his policy on
Vietnam is unaltered.
jOjitlook
r 1
am recent events nave maae nis views ap
pear even more sane. In Vietnam the recent com
munist offensive:
' "' "created 500,000 new refugees overnight.
forced the South Vietnamese army to with-
draw to the cities, endangering the pacification pro
V.gram and leaving the Americans alone in the coun
tryside. forced the government to go back to marshal
law after only four months of rule by the national
assembly (which did not pass a single law).
Events at home this week further helped Mc
Carthy's cause:
Tuesday: LBJ. admitted that there will be
, widespread rioting in American cities not only this
summer but for several to come.
Wednesday: Robert Kennedy told the people
of Appalachia that their plight is not improving be
cause butter has been sacrificed to guns for Viet
nam. Wednesday: 500 law professors took a stand
against present administration war policies to show
mJhat antiwar sentiment "is not limited to a few ex
- tremists . . ."
" McCarthy critics say that there is no difference
between McCarthy and Johnson except for his
Vietnam policy and that McCarthy's campaign is
"one-sided," merely a protest against the war. They
say that the domestic policies of the two men are
essentially the same. -
In reality, however, President Johnson has been
forced to abandon his domestic policy. McCarthy
believes this is a serious mistake and is calling for
a return to a vigorous domestic program and less
emphasis on Vietnam. McCarthy's antiwar argu
ments now are gaining strength. ; '
Replying to President Johnson's claim that
Tthe VC suffered "a complete failure" in their lat
est offensive McCarthy was quoted in the New,
' York Times as saying: "If taking over a section
of the American Embassy, a good part of Hue,
Dalat, and major cities in the Fourth Corps area
constitutes complete failure I suppose by this log
ic that if the Viet Cong captured the entire coun-
. try, the Administration would be claiming their to
tal collapse." McCarthy said that the attacks show
instead "that we are hTa much worse position than
we were two years ago."
McCarthy clearly a dove, nevertheless, he does
not advocate a total sell-out. He envisions a com
promise in Vietnam and working towards a coali
tion government. ,
, If McCarthy's support is not growing, at least
it is crystalizing. For the first time in twenty
years the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA)
will not support an incumbent Democratic presi
dent. Instead they are supporting McCarthy.
McCarthy's solutions to the plight of the na
tion mey not be grandiose but they make des
perate sense. The man deserves a good hard loolc
by Nebraska Democrats when he arrives here next
week.
THE WAYWARD
BUS.. .
William F. Buckley . . .
The American Dream: Circa 1968
The crisis in South Vietnam,
suddenly, isn't altogether an
American crisis. There is,
discreetly to be sure, an out
pouring of sentiment from
crusty Europeans who are
normally rather sniffy about
America and America's for
eign policy, but who suddenly
feel a cold draft blow by, re
minding them perhaps that
the great effort at Khe Sanh
is, and Saigon is, somehow, re
lated to them even as so many
American knew, when Paris
fell in 1940, that, somehow,
the crisis was related to them. "
I pass along a letter from a
young officer in Vietnam, ad
dressed a few days ago to his
family. It suggests a great
many things which are not so
readily explicated by analysis,
or history, or polemical rhe
toric. A view of life, sharp
ened by the rigors of the bat
tlefield, from an American in
escapably young . . .
;"I guess," he writes his ia- v
rher and mother, "that you
have wondered what I meant
by 'One Fine Day.' It's time
I explained a little. Let me be-
Professors speak .
gin.
"One fine Day Is a family
like you. It's a family which
makes mistakes and scores
successes. A family which
can change its mood from joy
to sadness. Which can shatter
into a thousand pieces and
yet, when the call is sounded,
can be One again.
"It is parents whose sole
reason for being has been to
give and give again to their
children. How can one even
begin to chronicle their la
bors? How can their children
ever say, 'Thank you'?
"It is: brothers so different
in size, shape, feelings, likes
and dislikes as to make one
wonder, What are the ties
that bind? But in that differ
ence lies their strength. For
none is the shadow of the oth
ers. They are themselves, they
are individuals. Five brothers
so different and yet so alike.
"One Fine Day is a day so
beautiful and., invigorating i
that you can understand what
Edna St. Vincent M i 1 1 a y
meant when she said, 'Oh
World I cannot get thee close
enough. It's a day filled with
the pure joyous excitement of
being alive. The thrill of liv
ing lifts your body, and your
feet rush to go somewhere.
Anxious, impatient steps.
"It's a night when the mu
sic and booze fuse together and
all else ceases to exist but you
and this time and this place
. . . how simple it all seems.
"One Fine Day is an eager,
questioning, rebellious genera
tion. It is mini-skirts-sex-drags
the whole drill. If the
old shall prevail, then it must
stand-the test .. of ; doubting
youth. We all search for t h e
same things. How we get
these, and what price we pay,
are the important things.
"One Fine Day is a world
which no longer bleeds. It's
a world without guns, fear,
fraud, hunger, or tears. If this
type of world is One Fine Day,
then it is a world with soul
and God. ,
"One Fine Day is the 25th
of December. It is chilled
snowy air, crowded stores and
parking lots. It is Christmas
Eve in a knotty pine cellar.
It Is giving brightly colored
gifts and kisses and hand
shakes. It is church the next
morning. Indeed it is a time
to celebrate, to be happy and
to be thankful.
"All this and so many
things more are One Fine
Day. A big part of one Fine
Day will occur this year
when I come home. There will
be no brass bands or ticker
tape parades. But in me
there will be a tumult great
er than I feel my body could
contain. For all others the
world will come to a grinding,
screeching halt. The mills of
industry will cease their roar
The winds their wandering
The animals their symphony.
Even the jet I ride in will have
its whinning engines come to
silence. For that moment, that
immeasurable fraction of in
finity, will be mine and mine
alone, It will be part of my
longed for dream of fantasies
One Fine Day. s
"Until then,"
Until then, we who are not
at the front, can only stand
and wait, hope and pray.
Editor's Note: Dr. Robert
Narveson, an associate profes
sor in the department of En
glish, is the third contributor
in the Nebraskan'g Professors
Speak series.
University of Nebraska un
dergraduates are overwhelm
ingly from N e b r a s k a. That
means they are from farms
or small towns. Or from Oma
ha, the culture of which is a
national joke yes, we may
include Omaha among the
small towns. Of Lincoln I dare
not speak.I live here.
Let me tell you about peo
ple raised in small towns ("I
am the man, I suffered, I was
there.") Forget for the mo
ment all the virtues that make
them the finest people on
God's green earth. I want to
speak of one wee defect;
namely, that they grow up
with a rather distorted idea
about serious literary, drama
tic, and musical culture.
Their customary artistic
fare is, in music, the high
school symphonic marching
band playing the overture to
La Boheme, in drama and the
senior class trying "Our
Town" as a dutiful variant on
"Harvey," and in movies. As
a result, they vaguely respect
all that "Kultural" stuff, they
pay it lip service, and secret
ly in their inmost hearts they
believe that it is like medi
cine: nobody likes it, but you
take it, because somehow it
is good for you.
As I say, I was there. Un
til I was twenty one I thought
"good movie" was a contra
diction in terms. I thought
the fault was in the medium
itself. But then my opinion
was formed on the offerings
of the local movie house
academy award winners and
stuff like that so how could
I know any better? (But then
I was more deprived than
most kids nowadays.) Of
course no undergraduate to
day is so benighted as I was
(they all have television, and
Life magazine, and are oh so
sophisticated). Even so some
of them uneasily suspect I
have seen it that they have
something to learn. Is it pos
sible to get a wrong impres
sion of opera from Jiggs in
the funny papers? Why is it
Shakespeare can survive thou,
sands of amateur assaults in
A liberal arts policy asked
college and community thea
ters?
Why do some apparently
sane people prefer Fellini to
the MGM lion? you finish
the list. The fact is and we
all know it that there are
things we cannot judge until
we have experienced them
fairly, that is, at their best.
Most young people in this part
of the country have rarely or
never had the opportunity for
such experiences with the per
forming arts. I argue that a
college serious about educa
tion must give its students an
opportunity to experience the
cultural forms most highly
valued by educated, informed
judgement.
The liberal arts college I at
tended was run of the mill in
most respects, but it did take
its responsibility for cultural
education seriously. At the
Philistine college across the
graveyard from us they mock
ingly called us lovers of the
good, the true, and the beau
tiful. That succinctly expressed
their healthy folk-suspicion
that our high-brow fine arts
series indicated a phony pre
tension to superiority. They
were careful to offer a "bal
anced" series you know,
like the Nebraska Union Fine
Arts Series: The Modern
Dance Quartet (it won't draw
but it shows we're serious),
Al Capp (the ex-funny man),
a jazz band (for the jazz
crowd), and the Chantoors de
Paris (if it's French it's got
to be cultural).
Actually students did not
care for our diet of opera
stars, famous pianists, tour
ing Broadway productions,
and prestigious symphonies.
We pleaded for a bit of Bru-
beck or Louis Armstrong, but
the college was adamant. As
a callow college editor I re
member writing: "We stu
dents will not go often to be
bored in the name of good
music." That met mild amuse
ment from a tolerant faculty
able dual (duel?) roles as both
culture and sports emporia.
I assert flatly that this uni
versity is shirking its respon
sibility. Ok, ok I see the
heckles rising all over the
campus. -I know full well that
the campus abounds in musi
cal organizations, and that our
that had the gaU to insist it . theater Is passing fair as col
Knew Deuer tnan we wnat was ege theaters go. But beware,
guuu lur us
If JUST NOW I seemed
critical of the Union Fine Arts
Series, it is not for the reason
you think. The Union, as I un
derstand it, is not an educa
tional institution but a recrea
tional one.
It is supposed to give the
students what they want, not
what Is good for them. I real
ly do not expect students to
demand highbrow offerings in
music, drama, movies, and
the like. Students have their
own important concerns, such
as protesting Open House
rules, or giving away heart
shaped balloons on downtown
street corners.
When students do in fact de
mand serious entertainment, I
am impressed and delighted,
and embarassed for my uni
versity that finds itself trail
ing where it ought to be lead
ing. The foreign film service
does the students here great
credit, and I am heartened by
the ambitious plans of the
Union Fine Arts Committee to
upgrade its offerings to in
clude a major symphony next
year, as well as some other
worthy musical attracrions.
Perhaps, some day the Uni
versity will be shamed into
building a hall for them to ap
pear in, on which day Persh
ing and the Colliseum can be
freed from their uncomfort-
Daily Nebraskan
m. u, net
Vol. 91. No. 63
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t-nma, nan Looker, sutuuf JJreiia, loon Mammal.
Mittoella Joel Davis, Lyu fVomaca.ua,
beware of the Nebraska Syn
drome. The Nebraska Syn
drome manifests itself as a
perverse form of local pride
and is too various to decribe
fully.
I mention only the raised
brows and deprecatory hems
and haws when one dares sug
gest that any local product
could be improved.
At the University one is ex
pected to be grateful for stu
dent productions and faculty
recitals, and if one stays away
from the annual opera or the
oratorio in the Coiliseum, one
thereby abdicates all right to
criticize.
Just as local government is
assumed to be sufficient, so
the local cultural program i3
assumed to be sufficient. We
don't believe in cultural im
ports. So this University has
no Fine Arts Series whatso
ever, and even the Senate
Convocations Committee re
sponsible for bringing in lec
turers, one of whom occas
sionally represents the arts,
limps along on an annual
budget of four thousand dol
lars a year, the magnificent
sum of two bits a student.
Brief message to Dr. E. S.
Wallace, new chairman of the
Convocations Committee:
Dear Professor Wallace:
Much happiness in your new
position. Remember now, two
bits ($.25) per student.
I can hear the snorts from
the hard-core philistines and
th suffers from the Nebraska
Syndrome: so what does he
expect, New York City on the
plains? I reply, if anyone
thinks a decent concert and
drama series and an occasion
al lecture by a celebrated au
thoe will turn Lincoln into
New York, that's his problem,
not mine. I'm only asking that
a university of 18,000 students
try to do as much as many
a college of a thousand. If we
reach that exalted goal we
can try for more.
Al Spangler . .
Strange days
Sen Eugene McCarthy, who is challenging LBJ
for the Democratic presidential nomination, hopes
that his candidacy will be a challenge to the new
leftists and that it will absorb what he calls "dis
content, frustration and a disposition to extralegal
if not illegal manifestations of power."
Strange
Days
McCarthy, like the rest of the liberal estab
lishment, sees that many of the students who, un
der normal circumstances, might have run lem-ming-like
into liberal waters were not now willing
to take the plunge.
He was hopeful that "a challenge may allevi
ate the sense of political hopelessness and restore
to many people a belief in the processes of AmerU
can politics and American government."
What is the challenge of the McCarthy candi
dacy? The ADA calls him a 62 liberal. He has
cast his vote in favor of regular and supplemen
tary appropriation for the U.S. military interven
tion in Southeast Asia. He twice voted against
amendments proposed by Senator Gruening which
would have prohibited the sending of draftees to
Vietnam against their will. He cast his vote in fa
vor of continuing the Selective Service System from
July 1, 1967, to July 1, 1971. Yet he is certainly a
better prospect than LBJ.
The charge that McCarthy has no domestic poli
cy to propose as an alternative to the Administra
tion's is beside the point, and probably false.
But McCarthy's foreign policy proposals are
equally uninspiring. What we have here should not
be seen as the lesser of two evils, but as a smaller
dose of rat poison.
Allen Young, writing in the Guardian (an in
dependent radical news weekly) says that "oppo
sition to McCarthy ... is a refusal to be co-opted,
which is in turn an affirmation of a new brand of
militant, radical politics. This new left politics has
before it a major challenge to provide specific
political alternatives to electoral politics and to the
liberal Democrats who are battling for the support
of the growing number of Americans who hava
begun to understand this -society and who want to
change it."
If the discrediting of Johnson and McCarthy,
indeed, of electoral politics itself, is not a ques
tion of radicals being purists, but or radicals be
ing radical, then these alternatives must be forth
coming. Carl Oglesby, former SDS head, writes that
"we who are radicals have a task much different
than the salvation of liberalism to champion th
values which made us radicals to begin with."
But unless the championing of these values is
being more than a moral witness to the collapse of
liberalism, doubtleti all will witness the collapse
of someone else's disagreeable vision of the good
enough society. It is not enough to say, with the
poets, "There is some shit I will not eat," unless
one is just looking for a noble way to fall.
John Reiser . . .
Nixon can't win
Richard Nixon is back on the campaign trail,
seeking the Republican Presidential nomination.
Official word is that Nixon will use the pri
maries to prove that the statement "Nixon can't
win" is not true. The truth of the matter is that he
can't prove that in primaries.
Primaries are a test of strength among Repub
lican voters only. They are generally won by super-human
organizational efforts by party profes
sionals, whose support is clearly with Nixon, at
least for the moment.
Primaries prove nothing about elections in
which Democrats and Independents will also take
part. Both groups are now larger than Republicans,
so it is manifest that for a GOP presidential candi
date to win, he must attract Democratic and In
dependent votes.
Nixon should show up very well In the pri
maries, for the very reasons, at least in part, that
he can't win the big one in November of this year.
His primary backers are those who won th
Heart
and
Hands
nomination for Barry Goldwater in 1964. They back
him because Nixon took the stump for Goldwater
throughout that campaign.
The Goldwater people have grown fond of say
ing they couldn't back this candidate or that candi
date, because they couldn't "forgive"them for not
supporting their man four years ago.
This logic presents one problem can the
American people forgive one who supported Gold
water in 'G4? They indicated in that election they
are somewhat less than total accord with Gold
water or, for that matter, with those Republicans
unfortunate enough to have shared the ballot with
him.
Right-wing elements, however, dispose of these
questions with their favorite assertion that con
servatism has somehow grown popular in the last
four years. What has happened, of course, is mere
ly that President Johnson in now unpopular enough
that any Republican could ge elected. If the party
chooses Nixon or Reagan, I think they'll find such
is not the case.
Those who raise doubts about Nixon's ability to
win are roundly criticized in GOP circles for do
ing so. The argument is that, "if we all just keep
saying he can win, he'll be able to win." I don't buy
that theory.
Nixon's support and enthusiasm for Goldwater
in 64 may be enough to deliver him the '68 nomina
tion, but it will be an albatross in the November
campaign.
.J!Dadii?inina is Republican dilemma of the
?a Ctl,e very thin?8 which make him eligible
cast doubt upon his ability to get elected.
. ,u ?,lican Party really wants a Repub
S. tt-.WI?te House next year-and I think
tolSiii? WiU h3ve t0 deny the nomination
