FAGE 2
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1959
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Grass
lai
smoldering
A few narrowminded state legislators
is traditional.
" , Several narrowminded senators could
be expected.
' But 40 of them is just plain out of
sight.
7 OUR BELOVED Unicameral has pass
ed through first reading a bill which would
suspend a college student convicted of
possession of marijuana.
Those enrolled in state colleges are
already equally punishable under law with
other Nebraskans. But the state legislators
seem to feel that students need extra
reminders not to commit no-no's.
, , ON THE SURFACE 30-day suspension
Would not seem all that fatal. But there
Is absurdity in forcing a student, perhaps
on probation for a first conviction of
possession, to withdraw from , classes for
a month.
Suspension for a month can mean
failure for the entire semester. And if
you're a male, it may mean a cozy bunk
in U.S. Army barracks.
RPVftNTi TIIRSF! onneiripratinnc thpro .m'KtMV
. , Vty-KJ !lfi!'if
is the fact that the Unicameral is in effect
legislating against a specinc group, rawgr
depriving a convicted student of something igOTjr
It would not deprive a non-conege possessor
Thft hill also intervenes into school ad- A&vf
ministrative matters, a poor policy to 'J,-i'fh
establish and strengthen. University of- ;jJWAs
ficials are retained to carry out, with due
process, such matters. Forty more would-be
educators are not needed.
IF THE UNICAMERAL is intent on
passing selective legislation, it should con
sider figuring a way to get better
legislators, not students who fit their
personal ideas of morality.
f-mmwrnns. x whirls' a ijawmxsmmii
"REMEMBER, WE NTM TOGETHER
ope for a Vietnam peace - - Russian help
by Rowland Evans and Robert Novak
Washington Despite the deadlock now block
ing all progress at the Vietnam peace talks in
Paris, the mood both in the Nixon administration
and along diplomatic row here is anything but
Soon after the Nebraska Legislature passed
Senator Karpainter's bill calling for the permanent
expulsion of students found in possession of mari
juana from all State public institutions of higher
education, the exodus of young people began. By
year's end over two hundred Nebraskans had gone
into exile.
I recently interviewed several of these exiles
in the refugee camps which have been their homes
since leaving Nebraska. My travels took me to
Council Bluffs, Iowa; Marysville, Kansas;
Julesburg, Colorado; Torrington, Wyoming; and
Aberdeen, South Dakota. Everywhere I met
students who had fled Nebraska before being ex
pelled from state colleges and universities.
THE PLIGHT of the exiles was summed up in
a conversation I had with two former students
in Council Bluffs. It was a cold afternoon and
three of us were sitting on a sandbar on the east
side of the Missouri River. The two boys were
looking wistfully across at the spires of Omaha,
silhouetted in gold in the light of the setting sun.
We sat silently until one turned to me and
said with a voice filled with emotion, "That's my
home over there and I can never go back." Unable
to hold back the tears, he buried his head in
the sand.
Although similar scenes were common in all
the border camps, many of the refugees seemed
happy in their new homes and said that the decision
to leave Nebraska was the right one. A 21 year
old man told me that he had been thinking about
leaving the State for a long time but had been
persuaded to stay by his priest.
Unable to live under a governmental system
which threatened his basic right to smoke, he
decided on a life of exile and made the 120 mile
journey north to South Dakota in his old Ford.
OTHER student exiles were not so happy. Qn3
told me that he was sorry he had left Nebraska
but if he went back his patriotic father would
turn him into the highway patrol. He regrets having
left home but feels he can never honorably return.
Life for the refugees has been made easier
by the number of committees set up by concerned
citizens in South Dakota, Iowa, Wyoming, and the
other bordering states. These committees help the
exiles find housing, jobs, and if so desired, barbers.
They also assist them in applying for state's
residence status.
Many of those helping the refugees were
themselves forced into exile during Prohibition.
One prominent Coloradoan involved in the resettle
ment work, Mr. Jack "Bootleg" Daniels, was forced
out of Nebraska in the early Thirties because of
the "gin games" he played in his bathtub. He
established himself in Julesburg, and over the years
prospered from selling supplies to visiting Nebraska
teenagers.
DESPITE SUCH aid, many of the student exiles
long to return home. One group has appealed for
assistance to the United Nations Committee on
Refugees but have been told that the matter is
strictly a domestic affair of Nebraska over which
the International body has no jurisdiction. . .
Most of the exiles feel that someday the
Nebraska law will be changed and they will be
welcomed home as heroes. The majority of them
are young, literate, and represent some of the
finest minds produced in our state. Yet because
of the irreconciliable conflict between law and
human nature, they have been forced to leave
their ancestral homes. They are pawns caught in
cruel game of human chess.
gloomy, for a most interesting reason: help from
Moscow.
Reports have leaked out from time to time
the past few months that the Soviet Union gave
the U.S. vital help at tense stages of the negotiations
that led up to the Oct. 31 bombing halt and breaking
the deadlock over the shape of the negotiating
table in mid-January.
BUT THE full extent of that assistance has
never been documented. Nor has the expectation
within the new Administration that Moscow fully
intends to continue if not increase its role as in
termediary at Paris.
The Moscow line is becoming visible among
Soviet and other Communist diplomats i n
Washington in their effusive praise for Richard
M. Nixon who, before his nomination for Presi
dent last summer, was viewed in Moscow as the
devil incarnate.
This strange love affair between the Kremlin
and President Nixon, then, is one of the main
reasons that, despite total Communist in
transigeance at Paris last Thursday, U.S. policy
makers are counting on a negotiating break-through
within six to eight weeks.
Soviet policy in the Vietnam war has been
shrouded for years. Some U.S. diplomats have in
sisted that Moscow wanted the war to end out
of fear that protracted fighting would enhance
Chinese Communist influence in Southeast Asia.
The opposite view, held by foreign policy hard
liners, claims that Moscow, benefiting from the
U.S. discomfiture in Vietnam, long ago could have
ended the war by stopping supplies of war materiel
to Hanoi.
SINCE October, the weight of evidence favors
the first analysis. It was the Russians, for example,
who came up with the answers to the two most
perplexing questions at the Paris talks: what kind,
of a commitment Hanoi should make in return
for a complete halt to the bombing and the shape
of the negotiating table in the old Majestic Hotel
in Paris.
Soviet officials privately informed U.S.
diplomats in Moscow in early October exactly what
Hanoi would concede as a response to the bombing
halt. In January, intervention by Soviet diplomats
in Paris, acting as a result of inside information
from Moscow, fixed the shape of the table.
SINCE THEN, there have been a number of
smaller indications of Russian desires to end the
war, none of which Moscow is eager to advertise.
But coupled with the effusive Soviet reaction to
Mr. Nixon's first two weeks in office, they strongly
hint that the Kremlin is hyperactive behind the
scenes to prevent a breakdown of the Paris talks
from interfering with Moscow's objectives
regarding the Middle East and arms control, higher
on the current Soviet priority list than Vietnam.
The Moscow press is now filled with pro-Nixon
stories, depicting the new President as a man
of peace. Treatment of Mr. Nixon's inaugural
speech and his first press conference last week
was nothing short of euphoric. One Communist
diplomat describes the current Moscow line as
heaping more praise on Mr. Nixon than any Presi
dent since Franklin Roosevelt.
THIS LEAVES in doubt how much Moscow"
can actually influence Ho Chi Minn, the North
Vietnamese patriarch who has shown over two
decades a notorious independence of foreign
pressures by friend and enemy alike. Intelligence
reports from Hanoi show beyond question that
Soviet influence is higher in Hanoi today than at
any time since large-scale fighting started in Viet
nam. Conversely, the influence of Communist China
is now at a low ebb in Hanoi.
Accordingly, the backstage mediation by
Moscow to help produce a settlement in Paris
is viewed here as likely to have a continuing in
fluence on Hanoi. Hardheaded diplomats, while
ruling out any quick breakthrough, are hopeful
that within six to eight weeks the present deadlock
will begin to yield.
If it does not, President Nixon will be forced
to try to break the deadlock by other means
possibly military re-escalation. Once that happens,
the careful, behind-the-scenes work by the Soviet
Union, coupled with its buildup of Mr. Nixon as
a man of peace, will collapse. That is a development
Moscow wants to avoid at all cost.
(e) 1969, Publlshers-HaD. SynUoate
Dear Editor:
A bill which should interest every student at
this university was introduced into the U.S. Senate
January 22, by Senator Mark Hatfield. It calls
for recruitment of a volunteer army and an end
to conscription within six months of the date of
its passage into law.
The eight sponsors, six Democrats and two
Republicans, include Senators McGovern and
Goldwater. President Nixon condemned the present
Selective Service System in a radio speech last
October. He favors establishing a voluntary
recruitment system only he would put this off
until the war is resolved.
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.
DAILY NEBRASKAN
Second class porta paid at Lincoln, Neb
Telephones: Editor, 472-2588, News 472-2588. Business 472-2590.
Subscription rates are U per semester or M per academic year.
Published Monday Wednesday Thursday and Friday during the school
year evcept during vacations.
Editorial Staff
Editor: Ed Icenoflei Managing Editor Lynn Gottschalk; News Editor
Jim Evtngen Night News Editor Kent Cocksoni Editorial Assistant
June Wagoner) Assistant News Editor Andy Wood; Sports Editor Mark
Gordon, Nebraskan Stan Writers John Dvorak. Jim Pedersen, Connie
Winkler, Susan Jenkins BUI Smitherman. Sue Schlichtemeier, Sue
Petty, Ron Taleott, Joanelle Ackerman. Bachittar 8lnghi Photographers
Dan Ladely, Linda Kennedy, Hike Htman; Reporter-Photographers
Ed Anson, John Nollendorfs; Copy Editors J.L Schmidt. Joan Wago
aar, Phyllis Adkisson, Dave Filial. Sara Scbwetder.
Business Staff
Business Manager Roger Boye; Local Ad Manager Joel Darts:
Production Manager Randy Irey; Bookkeeper Ron Bowlln; Secretary
Janet Boatman: Classified Ads Jean Baer: Subscription Manager
Linda Ulrichs Circulation Managers Ron Pavelka. Rick Doran, James
Stelier; Advertising Representatives Meg Brown, Gary Grahnqnlst,
Linda Robiaaoa, i, L. ftctamidt. Fritg Shoemaker, Charlotte Walker.
Selective conscription is regarded by these
politicians, various Journalists and military men
as involuntary servitude, contrary to the basic
precepts of America. It is, they say, unfair, out
dated, inefficient and expensive. Even Carl Curtij
has spoken publicly in favor of a volunteer force.
s)
FOR THOSE plagued by fears about a sudden
need for great numbers of men, the Senate Bill
503 would still require men to be registered front
ages 18 to 26, thus identifying the national man
power pool in the event that the President could
pass an emergency act through Congress
reinstituting the draft.
However, Hatfield points out that the bill would
also build up the -Ready Reserve and National
Guard the two traditional sources of emergency
manpower.
The extended debate over whether or not we
should abolish the draft is drawing to a close.
The time has come to discuss when it shall be
done, and what we may yet do.
I WOULD LIKE to propose the following items
to speed the passage of Senate Bill 503:
1. Petitions of support for the bill from in
dividuals and groups, addressed to Congressmen
and the President.
2. Requests to local boards and the state head
quarters here in Lincoln to stop issuing induction
orders and for personnel resignations.
3. Utilization of all rights of appeal under
Selective Service regulations, thus slowing the SS
to an inoperative level.
4. Active counseling to delay and stop Induc
tions. 5. A massive draft card turn-in on the campus
shortly before debate on the bill Is to begin.
6. A petition to the President requesting am
nesty for all imprisoned or facing prosecution under
current S.S. laws.
Sincerely,
John Diets
Is there a "film generation" coming of a ;e
in Nebraska?
The national press is filled with articles pro
claiming a film renaissance - Saturday Review's
annual film issue was on "the Now Movie." The
astonishing success of "The Graduate" was at
tributed to the growing awareness of film as an
art form among college students. What about
Nebraska?
That hallowed institution, the Wednesday even.
ing Union Film Society series, is Nebraska's chief
claim to (in Richard Nixon's mellifulous phrase)
"a piece of the action."
IT HAS even been mentioned in the New York
Times as the series with the highest attendance
in the nation. Its apparent success, however, is
very deceptive; Nebraskans for the most part don't
even understand movies, let alone "art films."
One of the principal problems is the film selec
tion process. According to Tom Lonnquist, next
year's chairman, the committee prepares lists from
film catalogues and from suggestions by interested
parties. A tentative list is then drawn up, which
is discussed with a wide variety of Lincolnites
before the final list is drawn up.
Although this would, appear to insure a
representative list, the final effect has been to
get a list devoid of any apparent goals a grab
bag of films, chosen indiscriminately.
EVEN WHEN the final list has been chosen
there is no guarantee that all the films will be
shown. Thus both "Battle of Algiers" and "Bell
de Jour" were withdrawn by the distributor because
of possible commercial bookings later in the year.
Lonnquist recognizes the difficulties,
particularly when the Series is run as an adjunct
to the Union: committee members are usually in
terested in films, but unfortunately that does not
guarantee any knowledge.
Thus those ultimately responsible for the selec
tion must rely on others rather than basing the
selections on a sound knowledge of films.
The selections themselves are not so bad
any series that presents two Godard's, Bergman's
"Persona" and the delightful "Crazy Quilt" is good.
The problem is more with Lincoln itself ; there
are simply no other outlets for recent films.
THE NEBRASKA Theatre, sometimes
specializes in three-day wonders "The Stranger"
and the "Two of Us" are two examples from the
past year. Thus the film society, rather than con
centrating on films which are worth seeing but
do not get wide distribution, must become, in effect,
the only foreign film outlet in Lincoln.
And this tends to deaden the audience's
' responses; (For University students who feel
themselves "culturally-deprived") it's more like
going to the biweekly worship service.
"This is Art, this is Art" they cry, and then
fall for sentimental slop like "The Cranes are
Flying," which, it seemed to me, was the audience's
favorite among last year's films.
THE POOR attendance at most films in the
Sheldon series demonstrates that there is really
not much of an audience in Lincoln for older films
(Renoir's influential "The Rules of the Game" was
almost as sparsely attended as Ken fchakawa's
unforgettable "Fire on the Plains," or else that
no one knows they're being presented.)
This year's weekend film series at the Union
has been abominable, but Lonnquist promises that
next year's will have more quality. If it does,
and the Sheldon series continues at the high level
of the past two years, there should be plenty of
good older films available. The main question is,
once again, is there an audience?
I really don't think so. Without a good com
mercial outlet, which makes films worth seeing
continuously available, a good audience just will
not develop. 'And of course no commercial theater
is going to take chances without an audience
already available.
THE AUDIENCE now is full of faddists those
who know it's in to talk about film as the art
form of our time, but who really are just bein'
self-indulgent by calling works which they respond
to sentimentally "art." (Pauline Kael's essay in
the February Harper's brilliantly dissects this
unhealthy phenomena.) The film series Is good, in
deed indispensable, but it finally means nothing
as long as the audience goes to receive their
biweekly dose of culture.
Those who bring these films into Lincoln are
struggling valiantly to serve this apparently large,
but actually almost non-existent, audience. There
may be an Underground film festival this spring:
there is talk of reviving the High Camp film
festival, and more lecturers and documentaries
may be brought in.
But according to this year's chairman, Mary
McClymont, attendance at the Wednesday series
has been down. While Nebraskans congratulate
themselves on their growing awareness and prattle
about film as art, the audience somehow trickles
away. "And so we beat on, boats against the cur
rent borne back ceaselessly nto the past . . ."
"" " - li i in imisii
"We need of-shore drilling so that you
people can drive your cars to the beach
es and enjoy them!"