THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
Editorials
Commentary
Page 2
Monday, March 4, 1968
For 19 voting
After graduation from high school a 19-year-old
usually finds himself in one of three situations. He
can continue his education, he can join the work
ing order or he can enter the armed services-vol-untarily
or otherwise.
In Nebraska and in 45 other states a 19-year-old
has no voice in selecting the people who ap
propriate finances for his higher education, the
-people who approve the draft laws or the people
lho help formulate tax levels. In short he can not
vote.
A group of University students last week
launched a campaign for the passage of Amend
ment No. 1 to lower the state voting age to 19.
These students and the several prominent Nebras
ka citizens who are supporting them feel that 19
and 20-year-olds can vote intelligently and mature
ly and because of their increasing responsibilities
and significance in society they should be given
voting privileges.
Several studies have been done on voter
responsibility and they have produced some inter
esting results which enhance the argument for a
lower voting age.
In 1963 a Presidential Commission on Voter
Registration and Participation discovered that the
most delinquent voters are found in the 21-30 age
group.
The Commission's rationale for these statistics
was that after graduating from today's high
school students have reached a peak in their un
derstanding of government and poiitices. By remov
ing these youths from direct participation in gov
ernment their enthusiasm wanes and by the time
the majority of them reach voting age they have
grown apathetic toward politics.
If young adults, however, are given voting priv
.. lieges soon after they graduate their interest
in governmental activites could be sustained and
their voting habits would improve in later years.
""' Strong arguments for a lowered voting age have
been presented for many years as was shown in
1954 when the U.S. House of Representatives ap.
proved a constitutional amendment to lower the
voting age to 18. (The proposal was later defeated
by only five votes in the U.S.. Senate.)
Today's youth are better educated, better in
formed and more involved in national issues than
ever before. Thousands of young adults are serving
America in the Peace Corps, VISTA and the armed
services.
Thousands of others are influencing national
programs and policies through well-organized stu
dent groups such as the National Student Associa
tion. The young adult's role on a national level has
increased to the level where only the absence of
voting privilege is retaining him from achieving his
full portential in society.
If Nebraska For Young Adults Sufferage con
ducts an enthusiastic and well-planned campaign
(as it appears they will) Nebraska voters should
approve Amendment No. 1 next fall. This group
has not achieved its goal by a long way, however,
and University students should vigorously promote
this campaign.
Cheryl Tritt
Craig Dreeszen
Student
power
Student power can mean almost anything; to
me it means students participating in making de
cisions affecting them and the University. Merely
influencing decisions is not enough students
must help make the decisions.
By making decisions students also accept the
accompanying responsibility. Some people think
that students should be protected from the conse
uences of their decisions. They seem to be saying
that until students are prepared to face the world
we should be guided and mothered. Then at grad
uation time we suddenly are men and women
ready to face the world.
But it doesn't work that way. People don't rely
on THE AUTHORITY all their lives and then be
come self-relient. When students are kept from
making their own decisions, they become people
who vote Republican just because their fathers did
and go to Vietnam just because Father John
son says they should.
Some people justify treating college students
like children on the grounds that it contributes to
their "total education." That of course is nonsense.
To what extent do students have power at the
University of Nebraska. In the area of academics
students are beginning to be involved in the de
cision making process. There are voting student
members on curriculum planning committees and
some department committees. Some propos&ls of
the advisory boards and the ASUN Education Com
mittee have been implemented.
We generally can be happy with the progress
made in student involvement in education. By con
tinuing to demonstrate responsible judgement we
will have more and more to say about how we are
educated.
Outside the classroom the students aren't doing
as well. Administrators, faculty, and Regents should
do no more than advise the students regarding
hours, coedvisitation or the student newspaper.
There should be rules but the students should
make them.
The Regents say students shouldn't run their
own lives while at the University because it is tax
supported and the taxpayers want their children
well protected.
I do not accept this for two reasons.
First, no one has ever bothered to discover
what the taxpayers want. Secondly the taxpayers.
If they do feel that way they are wrong and not
much attention should be paid to them. No other
state agency operates on the whims of aninformed
taxpayers. The Regents should make policy deci
sions based on educational principles then justify
those decisions to the people. We can make
changes by working through the channels near
Jy every advance so far has come about that way
but they came slowly.
There is an alternative. We should remember
power in the form of rent strikes, boycotts, sit-ins
that as a last resort students can wield tremendous
and general strifes.
We should always first try the legitimate chan
nels of making changes. If those are completely
exhausted without results, students can threaten
some sort of militant action.
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Joseph AIsop
In praise of a great man
Washington Now that
Robert S. McNamara has
laid down the overwhelming
bu-den that he carried no
nobly and for so long, a fare
well word is in order. The
first thing to be said is very
simple, indeed.
McNamara, MGeorge
Bundy and Dean Rusk were
the chief civilian advisers
who pressed upon President -Johnson
the need to enter
the war in Vietnam, in or
der to avoid disaster in Asia
and in the Pacific. Contrary
to common report, he does
not regret that advice today.
He is s t i 1 1 quite firmly con
vinced, in fact, that it was
the right advice.
A different impression has
been conveyed, mainly by
far - from - disinterested per
sons but also for a reason
rooted in McXamara's com
plex and wholly admirable
personal character. He is
supposed to be an arrogant
man, and when he is deal
ing with statistical tables, ofi
which he is such a master,
he is perhaps arrogant. But
in the main, he is humble
and quick to admit his own
mistakes.
He has talked rather free
ly, in private conversations
which have been repeated
with additions and distortions
of the mistakes he has
made during the war in Viet
nam. These mistakes have
have had nothing to do with
the need to fight the war,
in order to avert a much
larger disaster that might
well have led to third world
war.
They have instead had to
do with McNamara's curious
way of looking at all pro
cesses, including war, in
terms of exact measurement.
At the outset, in fact, he ob
viously thought of the war
as something like a compu
terized chess game, in which
a given number of pieces
could be expected to produce
a given result at the end of
a given number of moves.
But since the "war in lace
ruffles" that occured but
only sometimes occurred
in the 171h and 18th centur
ies, no major war has ever
resembled a chess game. All
have been slugging matches,
in which the best way to win
has always been to maximize
your input, and to keep on
maximizing your input, un
til the other side gave up.
Being a man who has
spent his whole life thinking
in terms of carefully calcu
lated inputs producing exact
ly calculable outputs, McNa
mara as War Minister has
been a very different man
from McNamara as Deiense
Minister. He has been con
stantly unhappy, in time, he
has been downright miser
able because of the progress
of the war again all wars
has never been satistically
measurable; and statistics
are the only measurement
he regards as valid.
Because of this, the war's
burden for McNamara, which
would have been horribly
heavy in any case, for he is
a deeply humane man, has
been even heavier than it
ought to have been. And he
has indeed sometimes made
mistakes, though they have
been quite different in char
acter from the mistakes in
forecasting and calculatoin
that so much worry him.
He has been dead right,
of course, to resist the fierce
pressures for unlimited war
from people of the stripe of
Gen. Curtis LeMay. He was
dead right, too, and damn
brave as well, to insist upon
a system of graduated pres
sures at the beginning of the
war. The political arguments
for this approach, in fact, un
answerable. But in the light of hind
sight, he was wrong not to
urge the President to order
callup and maybe even mo
bilization some time ago. He
was wrong not to urge more
troops for Gen. William West
moreland, instead of scruti
nizing every troop request
with a statistically suspiciou
eye. He was wrong, in fact,
not to go to the principle
which is basic, that the wid
er the margin, the sooner a
war is always over.
With a different sort of war
leader in the White House,
these errors of temperamen
tal bias would have mattered
not a whit. In the larger bal
ance sheet, , moreover, their
importance is nugatory. The
plain fact of the matter is
that Robert McNamara is
demonstrably the greatest
public servant to enter the
executive branch of the U.S.
government since this repub
lic began.
In the war years, with the
reservations above-noted, he
has accomplished miracles.
Maybe they were almost ex
cessive miracles; for he has
managed to run a very big
war, with everything on hand
in time and in good condi
tion, in such a way that the
average American with no
son at the front has hard
ly felt a war was going on.
But all this has been mir
aculous, nonetheless.
Still more miraculous was
his reofrm and moderniza
tion of the vast Defense pe
partment that overgrown,
bureaucratically diseased
monstrosity which appear
ed to be beyond reform and
incapabled of modernization,
when he boldly undertook the
terrible task. He has made
a record, in truth, surpssing
any other comparable record
one can think of. And long
after the carping fo the Ful
brights is utterly forgotten,
history will always remem
ber this record of McNamara's.
Todays music spectrum
Editor's Note: Ken Rose
and Mark Dalton are Univer
sity students and members
of a local group 'The Ante
Icpe Pavlilion'.
One of the most neglected
albums on the market today
is Love-Forever Changes.
Love, a Los Angeles based
group, is rather notorius for
bad press relations, and
seems to have shut off quite
a large number of influential
people "in the business" with
the result being that virtual
ly nothing has been seen in
the mass media about them.
Perhaps this is good, though
for remaining in the shadowy
world of the pop underground,
and recording for Elektra,
which is still a semi-underground
company, has allowed
them to develop and grow in
a very free environment, with
out the too-often emasculating
necessity of catering to gene
ral public taste.
There are eleven songs on
the album, nine of them writ
ten, arranged and sung by
leader Arthur Lee and two of
them written and sung by gui
tarist Bryan Maclean.
All cuts are excellent and a
few are almost incredible.
This is a beautiful album, in
the traditional sense of beauty
Not "trippy" or "freaky" or
"camp", just plain pietty!
Arthur Lee has one of the
nost versatile voices around
and the songs which he has
crafted demonstrate his abili
ties quite well.
His lyrics demonstrate a
realistic sort of optimism that
has been depressingly absent
in current rock. For example
in "You Set The Scene", cer
tainly his most ambitious
work to date, he states;
"Everything I'v seen is
rearranging and for any
one who thinks it's strange,
Then you should be the
first to want to make this
change.
And for anyone who thinks
that life is just a game, do
you like the part you're
playing?
Another interesting cut is
"The Red Telephone" which
takes its theme from the mu
sic in Marat-Sade, and is a
gentle plea for a little sanity
in the world at large.
Gentleness plays a large
part indeed in Love's music.
The songs by Bryan-Maclean,
especially "OLD MAN" have
a gentle beauty unmatched
except, perhaps by Donovan
at his best. Maclean has a
lovely tenor voice and uses
it to good advantage.
To sum up, Love is a group
of some of the most polished,
dedicated musicians in the
country, and this is one of
the finest albums on the mar
ket today.
Another album which con
tains no less than 19 songs
is the new Vanilla Fudge al
bum but is this a bargain?
Hardly.
Apparently, what the Fudge
is attempting to do in this al
bum is a sort of musical "his
tory" (a. college of musical
knowledge perhaps?) In Phase
One, we progress from Mo
zart's "Divertimento No. 13 in
F Major" to "Old Black Joe"
to "In the Mood" to four ear
ly Beatle songs.
Most of these songs are less
than one minute long and
the point the Fudge tries to
make is lost in this desperate
attempt at "high camp".
After suffering through
Phase One, Phase Two is a
welcome relief. The fudge do
a fantastic job on Beethoven's
"Fur Elise" and "Moonlight
Sonata". Mark Stein, the organist-pianist,
deserves spe
cial mention, as his interpre
tation is both creative and
technically proficient.
Tim Bogert, bassist also de
serves credit for his tasteful,
simplebass lines. The Fudge
almost ruin the whole thing,
however, by updating the fi
nal measures of "Moonlight
Sonata". There's nothing
Daily Nebraskan
March 4, 1WI
Vol. !. No. 72
Serond-clii DM(an nald at Lincoln. Neb.
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EDITORIAL STAFF
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wrong with updating an old
classic, but i n this case it
sounds cute.
On to Phase Three. Here,
the Fudge do something fair
ly interesting called "Voices
In Time." It begins with Ne
ville Chamberlain's pre-World
War II speech in which he
says England and Germany
are "never to go to war with
one another again." These
words become a ghostly echo
as Nazi rallies In Berlin,
Churchill's vow to teach Ger
many "a lesson," the an
nouncement of the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor, the
first atomic bomb blast, and
Kennedy's funeral are heard.
"Voices In Time" is not mu
sic but it is a good, rather
ironic documentary of 20th
century man's good intentions
and noble causes and ulti
mate bumbling.
Phase Four, the last and
longest, is also the most dis
tressing. (Rod McKuen fans
will want to take note.) In this
section, each member takes a
turn to "express himself in a
meaningful" way.
This means that Vince Mar
tell, his voice choking with
emotion, reads sickly-sweet
poetry, that Tim Bogert tells
us "what's happening on the
seen e", that drummer Car
mine Appice reads from the
Old Testament (at this point
the Fudge needs spiritual guid
ance), and that Mark Stein
makes funny laughing noises.
When the record mercifully
ends, the listener if left with
the idea that "The Beat Goes
On" is a fine novelty album,
but a lot of gimmicks cannot
make up for too little music.
Roger Stark
The streets
of Stockholm
For sheer natural beauty, Sweden ranks high
among the nations of Scandinavia and the rest of
Europe. Latitudinally, it lies slightly north of the
U.S. and looks very similar to Minnesota, with its
many lakes and wooded areas.
Stockholm is the capitol of Sweden, and, with
approximately one million residents, is its largest
city. The city is built on a series of islands, which
only enhances the charm of this strategic seaport.
It is an exciting experience to walk along the main
streets of downtown Stockholm and pass directly
in front of ocean liners from all parts of the world.
A walk In the suburbs of Stockholm, however,
is a frightening experience, but one that leaves an
equally big Impression. For after leaving the city
proner, one passes nothing but row after row of
uniform, high rise apartment buildings, and row
after row of barrack-type, uniform duplexes.
The "ticky-tacky suburbia" of American cities
is heavily criticized, yet it compares in no way to
the impersonal, collective, government housing of
nearly 200,000 Stockholm residents.
The economic situation of Sweden is another
alarming item, characterized by rising taxes at
tempting to curb rising inflation. Their standard of
living is second only to that of the U.S., but due to
their extreme sales tax, the average family of five
persons spends about four dollars a week more than
the American average.
Added to this, not only is their wage s c a 1 j
lower than ours, but they also pay a considerably
higher income tax.
My sister is an architect in Stockholm. Before
paying taxes, her salary is about 's that of a
comparable American job. After paying taxes (and
after figuring the U.S. tax on an American wage),
her salary is about that of a comparable Ameri
can job.
Last summer I worked as a waiter in one of
Stockholms largest restaurants. The chefs were the
highest paid employees, and they conslstantly had
between 45 and 50 of their salary deducted for
personal income tax.
You may say, so what everyone has to pay
taxes. But lets examine the ramifications of this
totally socialistic system. First of all, personal sav
ing of money is nearly impossible due to the ex
treme tax on day-to-day living.
Therefore, upon retirement, everyone is pro
vided with uniform living. It seems very irrational
to give the government money all your working
life, and then be totally dependent upon that gov
ernment once you retire.
Secondly, due to their graduated income tax,
an over-whelming majority of people in Sweden re
ceive about the same take-home pay. Obviously,
there is no need to worry about "keeping up with
the Jone's (or the Johnsen's)" in Sweden, since
the government takes care of this for them.
Lastly, and most Important, the socialist sys
tem of Sweden stifles the incentive to make money,
and consequently, stifles the incentive to produce.
The person who earns $350 a month and takes home
$275 is not willing to produce more to earn $400
a month and still take home only $275. It is not
uncommon for extremely wealthy persons in Swe
den to only work six months a year, because to
work any more would still result In the dame
net gain after taxes.
Anytime a person does not work up to his full
potential, progress for all mankind is seriously hin
dered. In view of this fact, I find socialism very
hard to justify.
Campus Opinion
Dear Editor:
I believe we should move towards a system of
education in which the college student teaches him
self and the teacher shows him how to teach him-self-kind
of like a counselor.
The superiority of this system is only a hy
pothesis, and would take extensive experimentation
to prove. I imaggine that here are also facts which
might indicate that a self teaching system of col
lege education might be very poor.
However, in favor of a self teaching system
are:
A) Students would be highly motivated, since
they knew their education lay entirely in their
own hands.
B) Greater efficiency. A student would not be
forced to move onto harder material until he felt
he has mastered the basic foundation.
C) Greater Freedom. The student could choose
the reference material he understood the best and
was directed at his level.
D) Broader Education. He would not be limited
to specific interest but would move into areas of
special interest to him.
E; Greater understanding of education pro
cess. Since he would be directing his own educa
tion, he would be vitually interested in the whole
meaning and methods of education so that he could
learn the most and fastest.
F) It might be possible for a student to com
plete a degree in very short time, since he was not
restricted to any amount of time he would have to
spend on a topic, but could move on as aoon m
he understood it. m inn ai
G) Enjoyment. Matter of education would be
the students own thing. (This is especiaUy impor
tant to hippies). Teachers could counsel students
instead of teach them, giving them more time for
their own work.
Joseph Schmit
Dear Editor,
The movie, How I Won the War is one of the best
satires of the nature of war in this world to ever
come along. I don't claim to be a critic, but it really
has a message.
The mixing of music with scenes and the use
of stock footage from ancient war pictures adds to
the overall affect. John Lennon turned in a magnifi
cent performance.
Does anyone else agree with me?
Clncmatically,
Exlibrls