PAGF 2
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1969
O
1
iisceiiixy in
campus
newspapers
To the students:
Your senators are meeting today and they will be
trying to decide upon a way to go about reapportioning
the Senate. Most of them want this reapportioning to
make Senate more representative of you.
They believe it will tnen be more relevant to you.
THE ISSUES involved are complex, but they boil
down to these alternatives:
A constitutional convention can be called for next
fall. By setting it this far in advance, time can be
allotted for student election of delegates. These delegates
can then apportion Senate. But, ASUN would be stuck
with the same poor representation it now has.
or, Senate can appoint the delegates as soon as
this afternoon, and get the convention going. In this
case, the convention would have about a month to work
over various problems of apportionment and offer con
stitutional amendments for student referendum in March.
THEN, IF the referendum passes, the new appor
tionment will be ready in time for this spring's election.
The essence of this second alternative is whether
we can trust our senators. If we can, then perhaps
they will sincerely do all within their power to make
government relevant to you.
True, a representative convention delegation is
desirable. But a better apportioned Senate is more
desirable. And the only way to get that this year
is to urge our senators to order a constitutional conven
tion, and rely upon them to select the delegates fairly.
To the senators:
Stop screwing us around.
Your Senate is unrepresentative. There should be
senators selected by living unit. And senators elected
from colleges. And perhaps some at large.
You are not relevant to us because you do not relate
to us.
Listen to the alternatives before you today. Use
your common sense to analyze the situation. Forget
your petty Greek-independent prejudices and forge a
workable compromise. Forget your other personal in
terests and think, for once, about the good of the student
body as a whole.
If you fail the students now if you won't call
a convention immediately to rectify the apportionment
problem you are failing your jobs. And it is hereby
guaranteed that the students will know about it.
Editor's no. e: The follow
ing is a abbreviate.! re-wrilt
of an article wiiich appears
in the current issue of Look
weekly magazine.
Throughout the Midwest,
and all around the country
for thu. mu..er, college
newsp..ppr edi.or; have .ean
angering their elders with
lour letter wor;ls and lashing
attacks on the way
universities are being run.
Besides the dirty words.
university presidents and
Joans comp'ain that college
newspapers cover campus
news less and less and
society's ills more and more.
ft i!i
TAKE placid Purdue
University, whose quiet
campus is light years
removed from Morningside
Heights or Berkley.
William R. Smoot, the
bearded, long haired editor
of the Purdue Exponent, was
ROBB
1969 SflWVtR PRess AUmghts reserved
The Daily Nebraskan is solely a student
publication, independent of the
University of Nebraska's administra
tion, faculty and student government.
Opinion expressed on the editorial
page is that only of the Nebraskan's
editorial staff.
U.S. Attorney General Finch
meets Sen. Strom Thurmond
DAILY NEBRASKAN
Second class postage paid at Lincoln, Neb
Telephones: Editor. 472-2iVt8, News 472-2589, Business 472-2590.
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Published Monday Wednesday Thursday and Friday during the school
year evcept during vacations.
Editorial Staff
Editor: Ed Icenogle; Managing Editor Lynn Gottschalk; News Editor
Jim Evtager; Night News Editor Kent Cockson; Editorial Assistant
June Wagoners Assistant News Editor Andy Wood: Sports Editor Mark
Gordon, Nebiaskan Staff Writers John Dvorak, Jim Pedersen. Connie
Winkler, Susar Jenkins Kill Smitherman, Sue Schlichtemeier, Sue
Petty, Ron Talcott, Joanelle Ackerman, Bachittar Singh; Photographers
Dan Ladely, Linda Kennedy, Mike Hayman; Reporter-Photographers
Ed Anson, John Nollendorfs; Copy Editors J.L. Schmidt, Joan Wago
ner, Phyllis Adkisson, Oave Filipi. Sara Schweider.
Business Staff
Business Manager Roger Boye; Local Ad Manager Joel Davis;
Production Manager Randy Irey; Bookkeeper Ron Bowlin; Secretary
Janet Boatman; Classified Ads Jean Baer; Subscription Manager
Unda Ulrich; Circulation Managers Ron Pavelka. Rick Doran. James
Stelzer; Advertising Representatives Meg Brown, Gary Grahnquist,
Linda Robinson, J. L. Schmidt, Frits Shoemaker, Charlotte Walker.
by Rowland Evans and Robert Novak
Washington Robert Finch. Secretary of
Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), is moving
toward mandatory school desegregation in the
South, and hence a massive confrontation between
him and Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina
in the Nixon administration's first internal crisis.
Finch clothed his order of last Wednesday,
withdrawing Federal funds from five segregated
Southern school districts, with face-saving gim
micks for Thurmond. But faulty press interpretation
of these gimmicks as outright surrender to the
South all but obscures the fact that Finch, while
speaking more softly than the Johnson administra
tion, is ready to use the big stick of Federal
power to compel school desegregation.
TITUS, A CRITICAL struggle inside the Nixon
administration looms between Finch and other
Nixon intimates who believe the President made
a commitment to relax enforcement. The outcome
is still uncertain but Finch was the clear winner
last week in the first major battle inside the new
Administration.
That this battle took place so soon after Mr.
Nixon's inauguration is due largely to Finch's
Democratic predecessor as Secretary, Wilbur Cohen
a cool and wily operative in the bureaucracy.
Campus opinion
Not too little, not too late?
Dear Editor:
-.-- Although I cannot speak adequately on program
'."revision in other colleges, I would like to comment
--briefly on curriculum change in the College of
'."Arts and Sciences in connection with your January
-30 editorial citing the need for attention in this
area.
- Your comment that "improvement has come
. too little, too late," does not adequately take into
- account the considerable activity on the part of
the College faculty in this area during the last
ZZ three years. During that time the departments in
the College of Arts and Sciences have:
1. Changed the physical science requirement
from what was usually a four-semester se
quence to a three semester one.
2. Altered significantly the B.S. degree by
requiring 18 hours in the humanities and social
sciences rather than the 24 previously needed.
3. Eliminated the physical education re
quirement. 4. Approved extensive revision of the minor
by various departments. (Currently seven
departments do not in essence require minors.)
5. Reorganized significantly introductory
courses and in some cases major sequences
in English, history, journalism, chemistry and
physics, to name just five departments.
:;i In addition, the college has recently voted
to restructure its Course of Study Committee,
lowering its faculty membership from 22 to 9 and
Including three new voting student members in
its body. This group will have broader curriculum
responsibilities than the previous committee, and
review of the language requirements, an area in
which you express particular concern, would be
within its perogatives if such a matter is brought
up for discussion.
Sincerely,
Robert L. Hough
Associate Dean
v
An Open Letter to the Young "Nazi" of Hyde
Park:
When you expounded your "Christian Naziism
on Thursday, 29 January, I sat by your soapbox
and questioned (not debated) the aggregate
nonsense that passed for your philosophy. You must
have known, as your audience did, that there were
no factual backbones in your hypotheses; that your
vacuous political suggestions were as illogical as
your presentation was ill-prepared.
Yet, the very flatulence of your logic makes
you potentially more dangerous to American
democracy, to national security, and to interna
tional stability than any Mark Rudd, Rudy
Deutschke, or Danny Cohn-Bendit.
UNFORTUNATELY, you have no patent on rab
id pseudopatriotism. Conservatism, reaction, and
even fascism can appeal to any avowed nationalist.
Five years ago they attracted me. With an unbal
anced intellectual diet of William Buckley, Fulton
Lewis and Robert Welch, I was entranced by such
ideals as anti-Communism and free enterprise.
However reasonable this "all-Americanism"
may seem, you will find, as I did, that even the fin
est reactionary logic suffers from exposure. The
fear philosophies of fascism, like communism, can
not feed on an open mind.
Don't take my word for it. To rely on any
single source is to walk blindly into a pitfall. Read
Welch's The Politician if you really have a penchant
for hate (I have a copy to loan), but read Howard
K. Smith and the Kennedy's, read the Alsops and
Lippmann, read Carmichael and Cleaver, read
Sartre and Galbraith (both Galbraiths, what the
hell), read Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky.
IT WILL improve, not poison, your stunted
intellect. Then, if you are inclined to activism
(as I have not been), avoid the doctrinaire and
the dogmatic and concentrate on viable and
foreseeable objectives.
I do not advocate trading your jackboots for
bell-bottoms or your Sam Browne belt for a book
bag. You do, however, owe it to yourself and to
the society of your fe"Dws to act with a modicum
of intelligence and judgment If you have the
former, use the latter.
Wayne N. Moles
Instead of settling the five cases before he left
office, Cohen bequeathed them as a political time
bomb to the Republicans with action required by
Jan. 29.
Moreover,- all - these - cases were so un
complicated that none of tlie "freedom of choice"
plans presented by the five local school boards
could be defended as real desegregation. Each con
tained the familiar new pattern of Southern
segregation the old Negro schools continuing
as all-black and the old white schools as all-white
except for a smattering of Negro students for the
facade of desegregation.
WHAT ACUTELY heightened the political
tension of Finch's decision was the location of
two of Uiese districts in the home state of Thur
mond, the President's most valuable ally in carry
ing the South.
Throughout the campaign, Southerners assumed
that Nixon would stop withholding Federal school
money. Nothing said privately by White House aides
during the interregnum changed that impression.
But Finch wants to bring Negroes into the
Republican party and is a strong civil rights ad
vocate. Acting as Finch's chief deputy without
portfolio is California State Assemblyman Jolin
Veneman (likely to end up as Under Secretary),
even stronger on civil rights. The staffer handling
the school question is Leon Panetta, formerly an
aide to defeated liberal Sen. Thomas Kuchel of
California.
IN GENERAL, Finch's aides urged him to cut
off funds to the five districts without qualification.
But strong pressure for a stall came both from
Congressional Southerners and White House aides.
Feeling the heat from Thurmond, Finch called
moderate Republican Senators in quest of advice
and was urged to stand firm. Finally, he com
promised, but strongly on the side of desegregation
cutting off aid but adding this gimmick: H
the school districts reach agreement with teams
of HEW negotiators within 60 days, the money
lost for that period will be returned. The decision
was approved over the telephone by Nixon, but
it was Finch's decision, not the President's.
MAKING THE BEST of bitter disappointment.
Thurmond publicly expressed satisfaction. In
private, however, Southern Republicans are ap
palled and fearful that Finch's order paves tht
way for a Democratic comeback in the South.
The veteran Rep. Charles Jonas of North Carolina
was furious, storming to both House Republican
colleagues and over the phone lines to HEW.
Finch showed in other ways last week that
the millenium did not arrive for the South with
Nixon's election. Finch refused to see a schoolboard
delegation from West Palm Beach, Fla. (a hotbed
of Nixon support), which is fighting desegregation,
and insisted that the Floridians go through regular
enforcement channels.
More significantly, Finch last week sought
though unsuccessfully to retain Ruby Martin,
a militant Negro lawyer, as director of HEW's
Office of Civil Rights, offering her higher pay and
direct responsibility to the Secretary.
THE FINCH team plans more emphasis on
negotiation and conciliation in resolving desegrega
tion disputes than in the LBJ era. Finch may
also lower standards defining what constitutes ac
ceptable desegregation.
But the events last week showed that Finch
will not tolerate token desegregation masquerading
as "freedom of choice" unless, of course, Thur
mond persuades the President to overrule him.
Whether Thurmond succeeds in that should be clear
within the next 60 days, when those five cases
are disposed of once and for all.
c 196. Publishers-Hall Syndicate
fired by Purdue President
Frederick L. Ilovde.
Some months ago, a signed
column strongly attacked
Hovde in what can only be
described as vulgar,
scatological language. The
Exponent column accused
Hovde, among other acts, of
defecating on the student
body.
University officials spoke
with Editor Smoot, who
stated that a columnist
should have freedom to print
anything he sees fit.
SEVERAL weeks after the
nasty column, the Exponent
published a poem containing
vivid sexual imagery. The
administration promptly
notified the newspaper's
senior staff that Smoot was
fired and a new editor would
have to be chosen.
"President Hovde ac
complished the impossible,"
commented a young Purdue
professor. "He united nearly
every force on campus
against him."
The paper's 15 senior
editors refused to accept the
firing. Faculty and students
threatened a boycott of
classes. Smoot returned to
his job.
"Poetry . . . that was the
saddest part," Smoot said.
"I was fired for a poem. Do
the hardened cases men
build themselves into ex
clude even poetry? They
must and for that, I feel
sorry for them."
SMOOT continued, "I'm
not a n ewspaper-type
journalist that's where the
administration made its
mistake. They said, 'You
don't find those kind of
words in the Louisville
Courier-Journal.' Well, our
brand of journalism is not
that kind. We have a more
intellectual, mature
readership."
Offensive words? The war
in Vietnam is offensive to
Smoot. So are automobile
accidents. Should those
things be taken out of the
newspapers?
"The words that are of
fensive to me are words like
deceit, and murder, because
they symbolize terrible
things. But take , for ex
ample. The thing it sym
bolizes is a very natural
thing."
t
THE UNIVERSITY h a's
leverage; it has not yet lost
the war. "We are the legal
publishers," said an ad
ministration official. "We
give the paper substantial
support free quarters in
the Union building, and we
buy $9,000 worth of
subscriptions a year. The
paper owes the Purdue
Research Foundation $40,000
to $50,000 for its new press."
The leverage is in the works,
but no solution is near.
Meanwhile, in Detroit,
Michigan, there is a very
different situation at Wayne
State University. A small
group of black radicals who
describe themselves a s
revolutionaries have taken
control of the studen' daily.
Silhouettes of two bhclc
panthers now decorate the
top of page one, which
displays the slogan: "The
Year of the Heroic Guer.
rilla."
A recent issue contains
such stories as an analysis of
the trial of convicted co.
killer, Huey P. Newton,
minister of defense of the
Black Panther party; a
black historian has been
denied permission to e n t e r
Jamaica on grounds he is a
security risk; and the
organization of a tenants"
union to fight poor conditions
and high rents in Detroit
slums. An editorial in the
paper, entitled "On Pigs,"
tells why blacks should hate
cops.
PROF. W. Sprague
Holden, chairman of thu
department of journalism,
would like to take away the
paper's $30,000 a year
subsidy as well as its
university affiliation. He
wants to set up a "real stu
dent newspaper" that covers
campus affairs.
Wayne State's student
publications adviser, Frank
P. Dill, recently quit in
disgust after 22 years at the
university. "This is not a
newspaper but paranoid,
racist pamphleteering," he
charged.
A thin, bearded youth with
a burning manner, Editor
John Watson, is adamant.
"I'm not trying to win no
popularity contest. I ' m
trying to make people mad."
THE WAVE of liberalism
and freedom of expression is
present on other campuses
as well.
In Minneapolis-St. Paul,
state legislators are passing
around copies of a page one
photo in the University of
Minnesota Daily. The photo
shows a large sign carried
by a girl demonstrator pro
testing censorship. The sign
damns Puritans with the
usual four letter verb.
At the University of
Wisconsin, the regents
threatened to bar the Daily
Cardinal for language used
in a College Press Service
story on a Colorado con
ference of student radicals.
In Putney, Vermont, the
only printer in town told
the Windham College
paper to get itself another
printer when it insisted that
he print a story: The Myth of
Vaginal Orgasm.
THE College Press
Service, has been accused by
some university ad
ministrators of testing
authority by trying to further
the dirty word movement. A
majority of college papers
subscribe to that service.
A CPS official denied
everything, "We just try to
report what we see and hear.
That's the way people talk.
We're not testing anybody.
We're trying to communicate
with and among students."
f T1B .... 'Vv
joi rAyr
