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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 22, 1968)
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN Editorials Commentary ""Page 2 Friday, March 22, 1968 i V i i ) i I I a 3 -4 ! Today's need: Editor's note: The following essay by Jeffery Johnson, University student and Harper Hall resi dent, is an observation on tne plignt or the stu dent at a university. Can the student, in todays vast multiversities, ; still find himself as an individual, or is he destined to become a computerized punch card filling a space In the monolithic amphitheatres of todays univer sities? . This is a question which sociologists, students, and laymen alike have put before themselves, to , try to arrive at a sound reevaluation of our educa tional system. Has the race for lunar supremacy with the Soviet Union forced the student's own ori ginality and sensitivities into a place subservient to that of the all too important grade point? The answers to these questions have really very ' little bearing on the Individual, for through such euphemisms as "total education" the rulers in the vast labyrinth of administration have glossed over the problem with a veneer of faulty reassurance that the students growth is of utmost importance. As they vie amongst themselves for the glittering research grants and the intellectual prestige of pow er the updergraduate is literally thrown into the sea, whether he can swim or not. They, through their deep-rooted negligence for the undergraduate student, have placed the indi vidual in a position of finding his own place in the community, and all the deliberation of sociologists (doubtless on a research grant) are of little im portance to the individual trying to find his place in the multiversity. Or is the student really trying to find nig. place, trying to nurture his own seeds of Individuality? The student today, well aware of his position In the community, through the constant reminders of the news media, can very easily not attempt to find himself, and can prepare a fairly valid ra tionalization for his position through the ceaseless barrage of charts, reports, and statistics which are ever shedding new light on the plight of the stu dent. The stench of conformity which surrounds a university campus accurately illustrates the inse curity which the individual harbors, and instills in him a set of values which clearly belong to no sin gle individual, but, rather, the values of the "group, a species which is becoming increasingly common across the country. The "group's" philosophy has given refuge to the countless numbers on administration files. It has allowed the students to sing out a uniform cry ' of appeal for greater individual freedom. But what could be a richer field then the saluatory neglect by administration for the individuals growth? In otherwords, the neglect by the university has laid open a boundless area for intellectual growth on the part of the student. And it is, there fore, up to him. to j find himself, to develop in a way both rewarding to himself and beneficial to society. It all ninges on the fact of whether he is willing to use this opportunity or become stagnant in his growth. 1 John Reiser Dick by default You're now reading in the space where I plan ned to give instructions on aiding the Rockefeller 1 candidacy, which is no more. Unless something completely bizarre or unfore seen happens, Dick Nixon will be nominated by the Republican convention in August. Hearts and Hands Lai ft m-- All interest in the Nebraska primary will now be on the Democratic side, since Americus Libera tor is as strong as anyone challenging Nixon on the Republican side. All this is pretty disheartening for me. It is a hard thing to exert oneself on behalf of a candi dacy which never materializes. What the moderate-liberal wing of the party will do now is uncertain. The candidacy of Pat Paulsen will gather steam particularly with this dynamic leader scheduled for a timely appearance in Ne braska next month. Some of us may write-in Tom Scantlebury, who possesses the virtue of being the most exciting bas ketball player I've ever seen. Johnny Carson may garner home-state support. Probably the most realisic course for moderate Republicans is to attempt to work within their own party and to exert ts much influence as possible upon Richard Nixon. This is the course most will choose, I'd guess. As far as a race for the nomination goes, the Democrats now have the "only game in town" and some Republicans may choose, just for the devil of it, to play in that game. For those who choose to try to beat Johnson with Nixon, whoever their previous favorite, the only course is to vote for Nixon on May 14th. Daily Nebraskan Vol. 1. No. S3 March 22, 196. Second-das port paid ( Lincoln. Neb. TELEPHONES: Editor 472-25M, New 472 2589, Basiasss 478-8590. Subscription rates an (4 per semester or 86 tor the academic year. Published Monday, Wednesday. Thursday and Friday during the school year, except during; vacations and exam period, by the students of tne University oi Nebraska under the jurisdiction of the Faculty Snbcom Ihtttee on Student Publications. Publications shall be free from censor ahtp by the Subcommittee or any person outside tne University. Hem- , ters of tin Nabrnakaa era I .sponsible for what they cause to be minted. Member Associated Collegiate Press, National Educational Adver tising Service. EDITORIAL STAFF Editor Cheryl Tritti Managtaf Editor Jack Todd; News Editor Ed rrenoglei Night News Editor J. L. 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IIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII1IIIIIIIIIIIU 1 Campus I I opinion I a - i s Dear Editor: i This letter is in regard to Al Spangler's column as it appeared in the Nebraskan last week. I should be made clear at the beginning that I dislike appearing to defend Governor Wallace, but Truth makes her own demands and the shortcomings of his posi tion need some correction. In his first paragraph, he suggests that Governor Wal lace crossed into Nebraska with the intention of causing a riot, I infer that this sug gestion is based on the fact that a riot took place after he had spoken. He notes that Governor Wal lace permitted the demonstra tors to disturb the proceedings just long enough to turn the crowd into a mob. Two ques tions arise: one, what would he have said if they had been kicked out on the mere sus picion of anticipation of trou ble? And, two, why couldn't the demonstrators have sat quietly as they had been in vited to, or have ostentacious ly but peacefully walked out? I submit that the fifty or I so wno were expelled by the police were under no ob ligation to play into the Gov ernor's hands, yet his article gives the impression that if the Governor had lost an eye to one; of the placards jammed at this face, he would accuse him of skillfully ma nipulating the crowd's sym pathies. Robert Kemmy HARK. ...THINK. IT'S QWlKNiKiG "TO rtrVTCW William F. Buckley Jr. ... . And the race is on . . The entry into the Presiden tial race of Senator Robert Kennedy has greatly excited European observers, some of who have decidedly deep view on American politics. The rou tine observation,, that here is the Bobby we all used to be familiar with, coming through as the opportunist par excel lence, is little meditated upon, perhaps because Europeans believe that it is innocence beyond the call of duty for sophisticated p e o p 1 e to re mark opportunism in a poli tician. What else if not opportun istic? They are uninterested in that feature of the Kenne dy candidacy. And the news that he was booed by people who cheered him a year ago at the St. Patrick's Day pa rade in New York is put down as yet another sign of t h e charming naivete of Ameri cans. The focus, pure and simple, is on the likely effects of Ken nedys entry in the race, on Johnson's chances of re-election, and the Democratic par ty's performance in Chicago and, finally, in November. The assumption is that Ken nedy and McCarthy will make a deal, that although it is true that McCarthy and Kennedy do not particularly like each other, and true that the mor al initiative is securely in Mc Carthy's hands, the dynamics of the political situation are both clear and compulsive: They are that the two must somehow arrive in Chicago having fused their votes. ; How else could they behave considering that their appeal ' has got to be based on the idealistic desire to replace President Johnson? How, in the weeks and months to come can Senator McCarthy or Sen ator Kennedy say: "Vote for me not because you love me, or because I desire to be President, but because the future of the Republic depends on the replacement of Lyn don Johnson" . . . when it is tacit that the proviso dan gles. However, "better John son than McCarthy." In other words, the moral plausibility of the two gentle men is bound to depend on their arriving at terms on the basis of which the support of the one will go to the other at the crucial moment. Those terms will be negotiated an act of negotiation only just less difficult than the ne gotiation that everyone so ar dently seeks between the North and the South Vietna mese. Kennedy is likely to say: "Let the polls, or the actual primary votes, deter mine which one of us is the front runner. Let the runner up drop out." Mr. Kennedy has every reason to be confi dent that in Nebraska, in Ore gon, and California, he will summon the resources to beat McCarthy. (Incidentally, if he , doesn't he would appear to Jiave made a truly mortal mistake). McCarthy is likely to con tend that it was his initiative that made possible the dem onstration in the first place, and that he will take his del egates, intact, right to Chi cago,, and fight for his own nomination on the floor. My own guess is that McCar thy's position is the more self discrediting; that the ideal istic integrity which he re quires in order to survive at all will require him, in the end, to yield to force ma jeure; and that force majeure is what Senator Kennedy, with his latent resources political, academic, popular, and financial specializes in. It is likely that he will over whelm McCarthy before Chi cago. He will never be as strong as he might have been had he for instance treated McCarthy In the way that Rockefeller treated Romney. But there are many weeks ahead of us during which Kennedy will have plenty of opportunity to bury the im age of Hamlet which so bur dens him at the moment. The Sunday Times of Lon- Orangeburg troubles -CPS) ... About 700 black students, the majority of them from South Carolina State College, gathered outside the South Carolina State House .this week to present a'. pe tition to Gov, Robert E.'Mc : Nair... The students, who also in tended their presence as a p r o t e s t against the fatal shootings of their students at S.C. State last month and the: arrest of six students . w h o entered the Senate chamber in the State House last week, were met by about 150 po lice, many of them wore gas masks and carried night sticks. There was no violence, al though around noon several students rushed up the stairs, leading into the State House, and were turned back by the police. Gov. McNair refused to meet with the students, but Lt. Gov. John C. West agreed to talk with a delegation. He promised the group of 17 stu dents who talked with him that their list of grievances would be read on the state Senate floor. The list, in the form of a petition, included a request that open hearings be held into the deaths of the three students in Orangeburg, and that the six students arrested in the Senate last week be tried by the Senators. The petition said the six should come to trial in the Senate because they were ar rested while attempting to present grievances relating to the Orangeburg shootings to the Senators. don reasons that Johnson could be denied the renoml nation provided McCarthy' prevailed in the duel with Kennedy. "It may be a hard realization for a man who has dedicated himself to the pursuit of the Presidency, but the 'unknown' from Minneso ta now seems in a better po sition to call the shots and the rational solution to t h e 'peace' division is for Bobby to swing behind Gene." Which is a little like saying that the rational solution to the situation in England is for the Labor Government to resign, which of course it cer tainly is. But the rational situation in American politics is that whatever his foulmouthing of the lower establishment, Ken nedy knows how to deal with it: And he will almost cer tainly elbow out Gene McCar thy but ihen he will, come against the final power estab lishment, the Presidency, whose powers Bobby did ev erything to augment back when he felt a fraternal in terest in it. President Lyndon Johnson is still the odds-on favorite to put down the insurrection. If he does not succeed in doing so, he clearly isn't qualified to superintend the disposition of insurrections in Southeast Asia. Professors speak . . . Greener grows the grass Editor's Note: Today's con tributor, Dr. Harry Cannon, is the director of the Univer sity's Counseling Service. (From time to time, I get discouraged. There are too few staff associates to do a . job, a colleague or superior is being unusually obtuse and stubborn, and I start to con sider other universities where the grass might be greener. Once what's wrong with the University has been- fully de veloped, however, I some times move on in my ruminations in the following vein.) I am a Nebraskan. In point of fact, I was Pennsylvania born and raised, never quite became ; a Virginian, and migrated to the Great American Desert with not a few misgivings. My becoming a Nebraskan had mostly to do with the people ' here at the Univer sity. It also has very much to do with being a member of a University community that is experiencing a quiet revo lution. Fo example: Being a Nebraskan (NU) means being a part of a Free University program that is one of the largest and most diverse in the country. Hon est. A research psychologist friend at the Berkeley Cen ter of R&D in Higher Educa tion tells me that we have more students enrolling in NFU than any institution out side of San Francisco State. And the NFU drop-out rate is no worse than it is at that granddaddy of free uni versities. Being a Nebraskan (NU) means having a N e b r a s ka undergraduate (Gene Po korny) invited as a consult ant to an Eastern college seminar on experimental ap proaches to higher educa tion. They could have in vited someone from Berkeley, or Michigan, or Yale. They invited a Nebraskan. Being a Nebraskan (NU) means working with students who are trying to instill some hope in ghetto kids. The YWCA, Wesley Foundation, Lutheran Student Associa tion (and others, I'm sure) are actively mucking artund in the despair that is made part of being black. These stu dents are effectively prodding some of us on the staff to" develop additional resources to"meet the needs of non white Nebraskans. Being a Nebraskan (NU) means talking to Nevitt San ford, Congressman Conyers,. Dick Gregory, Senator Car penter, Joan Baez, Congress man Denney. It means ex changing views with them as disturbed, angry, enthusiast ic in face-to-face encounters with people who have intense commitments. It means test ing my own ideas in the face of their coiinter-argue-ments, and frequently find ing my reasoning in need of finer honing. Being a Nebraskan (NU) means being nagged by stu dents to study the effects of pass-fail, to evaluate the im pact of the NFU, to assess the practicality of student initiated innovations in edu cation. Note that the staff, In this instance, are being asked by students to perform the jobs they ought to be per- forming without prodding. Being a Nebraskan (NU) means taking part in a student-faculty committee ap pointed by the Chancellor to develop a Centennial College. It means hearing these stu ' dents articulate some basic notions of what higher educa tion is all about, and challeng ing the faculty to implement these ideas. And behind the whole concept of the Centen nial College is an understand ing that we, faculty and stu dents, have an abiding con cern for the development of ates, not just the intellecu tual elite. Being a Nebraskan (NU) means an Able-Sandoz pro duction of "Pajama Game," Hyde Park on Thursday af ternoons, Greeks wanting to become something other than exclusive clubs of mono-chromatic hue, political rallies for losers who act on the basis of principle, ASUN represent atives talking University bud get needs to the legislature, superb art two blocks away, W. C. Fields on a Sunday afternoon, and a lot of peo ple who care. Enacting what others ponder Charles Marxer officially announced yesterday his plans for the Nebraska Draft Resistance Union and some of the reactions he received were pain, fully typical of the University's usual response to liberal ideas. It was rather amusing to observe the worried glances of administrators who apparently expected an outbreak of violence after the Union's plans were revealed. There was also a fair gathering of uniformed UOTC enthusiasts mumbling derogatory remarks on the fringes of an unexpectedly large crowd. : : r Some student reactions were typical, however, . and their numbers will increase as the Vietnam War plods endlessly along with no sign of "light at the end of the tunnel." The Draft. Resistance Union is certainly not a Nebraska innovation. They are being formed on many campuses throughout the country to inform and aid the growing number of draft age men who find the Vietnam War and the conscription laws morally unacceptable. The Union proposes returning of draft cards, draft card burning, non-registration, non-cooperation and induction refusal. These acts of resistance defy the law and its consequences, but these men have selected these actions rather than subject themselves to an undemocratic draft system and involve themselves in an immoral war. The NDRU feels that academic protests in the form of letters, sign holding demonstrations and 1000-signature petitions are not going to force the Administration to reconsider its Vietnam policy or to change the draft laws and it is right. Too many people escape making moral deci sions about the Vietnam War by claiming that the subject is so complex it is presumptuous to ques tion the policies. ' But more and more students are asking why an American death toll of 20,000 men, a troop com mitment of one half million men who are -not win ning,' or a child maimed by a grenade or napalm are such complex situations that they should not only be questioned but acted upon. And these are the men the Union has been formed to help. The NDRU will not find a flock of disillusioned Nebraskans at its door but they will find a small (growing) number of individuals who have reached the difficult decision that their consciences will not allow them to obey unjust laws simply because they are laws. . , The Union and the men it counsels will not find their acts of resistance widely acclaimed in Ne. braska and perhaps their methods will not even be effective, but they are to be admired and ap plauded for having the courage to enact what others only dare to ponder. Cheryl Tritt . , ' ' i " v 'Dan Looker. . . . Up for grahs ' r i The one thing that all Democrats have in com mon these days is their speculation about what ef feet Sen. Robert Kennedy's entrance into jthe race will have. The estimates vary, of course, depend ing on . whether Johnson, McCarthy, or Kennedy backers are doing the talking. At last University Democrats are going to hear the unadulterated truth Johrison can only be hurt by Kennedy's bid, McCarthy is still a strong contender, and Kennedy's efforts make stopping Johnson at the convention a realistic possibility. " J. James Exon (a Johnson supporter and Vice Chairman of the State Democratic Party) was quoted in the Sunday Journal and Star as predict ing that Kennedy would take away votes from Mc Carthy. From the results of my own personal poll this isn't true. v McCarthy backers are worse than Tareytoa smokers for stubborn loyalty and they aren't switch, ing. McCarthy already has a tremendous student organization in Nebraska colleges ready to cam paign for him. There are quite a few Republicans as well as Democrats in the McCarthy organization. Very few students in either party are switching t Kennedy. Does this mean that Kennedy doesn't have a chance? No, there are Kennedy supporters around, too. Most of them did not throw their weight be. hind McCarthy because he wasn't "professional" enough and because his campaign seemed one. sided. Many Kennedy backers had been resigned to Johnson until last Saturday. If McCarthy backers aren't switching and if some of the party regulars are moving towards Ken. nedy, then how can Exon be so optomistic? It seems that Johnson men are going to be plagued by an embarrassing credibility gap in the next few months. If both McCarthy and Kennedy are strong can. didates, then which one should Democrats support? It's largely a matter of personal taste. The differ, ences between the two anti-war candidates have been exaggerated. McCarthy has been accused of not being dyna mic enough and of conducting a one-sided cam. paign. Yet, a man who almost won the New Hamp. shire primary single-handed has to be a courageous forceful individual. The main reason that McCar thy's campaign has seemed one-sided is due to th incomplete coverage he received in the press be. fore he proved himself in New Hampshire. Kennedy has been cast as a cynical opportunist who let McCarthy do all the work for him. But Kennedy did not make it easy on himself by wait, ing. McCarthy already has a large delegate block: behind him. Since there are only 14 primaries Ken nedy will have to get much of his support from professional politicians rather than from delegates elected in primaries. It's one thing to convince the voters that they should reject Johnson (as McCar. thy seems to be doing) and another thing to con vince politicians that they would risk their careers to reject Johnson (as Kennedy will Jiave to do). Kennedy knew that he faced an uphill fight when he entered the race last Saturday. Yet, he threw himself into the struggle. It would be hard to say that this, also, does not take a great deal of courage. ' In Nebraska McCarthy' has the advantage of not alienating disillusioned Republicans the way Kennedy often does. Yet Kennedy has brought the old Phil Sorenson and JFK machinery to bear against Johnson which can only be construed as a victory for the anti-Johnson forces. The only advice I can give Democrats is to workhard for the candidate you prefer and don't sling mud against the opponents, you may be work ing for him in November.
