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One of the constant battles of our free society is the
struggle between the press and government over the
amount and nature of information made available to the
public. The University, a branch of state government,
also suppresses information for both good and bad
reasons.
On page one of today's Daily Nebraskan is a story
revealing the apparent secret list of seven candidates
who are being considered by the Board of Regents for
the UN L chancellorship.
University officials have maintained that the list,
prepared by a special search committee, should be kept
secret. They contend that each man's integrity is being
assessed and cannot be given public circulation without
hurting the candidate or the University's potential for
recruiting a first class person. They further argue that
selecting a chancellor should not be open to undue
political pressure.
That is all very nice, but it leaves the public and most
of the University in the dark about the selection
process. This is a strange practice considering the
University is supported by public tax dollars and
students and faculty will be deeply affected by the new
chancellor.
President D. B. Varner has repeatedly stated that the
University belongs to the taxpaying public. If this is the
case, why not let the people of the state have a voice in
the selection of the new chancellor?
Granted, the Regents should have the final say in
picking a successor to Joseph Soshnik. But a decision of
such importance should not be made by eight men in a
back room.
These are some of the reasons why the Daily
Nebraskan is making the list public.
Two other interesting aspects of the selection process
are that (1) the selection committee did not get a
chance to interview the candidates and (2) the Regents
are not obligated to follow the search committee's
recommendations. Both these procedures seem to
reduce the value of the search committee in the hunt for
a new chancellor.
Now that the list is public, the candidates should be
examined closely, but with extreme caution. They
should not be subjected to public debacle or emotional
attack. The Regents' goal should be to find the best
possible man after exploring public sentiment.
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Editor: Gary Seacre&t. Managing Editor: Laura Willers. News Editor:
Steve Strasier. Advertising Manager: Barry Pilger. Publications
Committee Chairman: James Horner.
Staff writers: Bill Smitherman, Carol Strasser, Marsha Kahm, Bart
Becker, Dennis Snyder, Vicki Pulos, Roxann Rogers, Steve Kadel, H. J.
Cummins, Randy Beam, Lucy Lien, Duane Leibhart. Sports editor: Jim
Johnston. Photographers: Bill Ganzel, Gail Folds. Entertainment
editor: Larry Kubert. Literary editors: Alan Boye, Lucy Kerchberger.
East campus writer: Terri Bedient. Artist: Al Chan. Copy editors: Tom
Lans worth, Jim Clemons, Sara Trask, Jim Gray, Night editor: Leo
Schleicher.
BUSINESS STAFF
Coordinator: Jerri Haussler. Ad staff : Greg Scott, Beth Malashock,
Jane Kidwell, Sue Phillips, Mick Moriarty, Jeff Aden, Steve Yates, Kay
Phillips, O. J. Nelson, Susie Goebel. Secretary: Kathy Cook.
Telephones: editor: 472-2588, news: 472-2589, advertising:
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The Daily Nebraskan is a student publication, independent of the
University of Nebraska's administration, faculty and student
government.
Address: The Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, University of
Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68508.
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The following are excerpts from a
speech prepared by Joseph Soshnik for
Doane College's commencement last
month. Soshnik left his postion as
UNL president Sept. 1 to take a job
with an Omaha investment banking
firm.
A little over a year ago I read a
commencement address given by Dr.
Eric Walker, who was then president
of Pennsylvania State University. He
presented to the graduates a series of
facts that had been gathered by Dr.
Bergen Evans of Northwestern
University. These are some of the
things Dr. Walker said to the graduates
a little over a year ago:
"These--your parents and
grandDarents--are the people who
within just five decades - 1919
1969 - have by their work increased
your life expectancy by approximately
50 per cent -- who while cutting the
working day by a third, have more
than doubled per capita output.
"These are the people who have
giveh you a healthier world than they
found...
"Many of these people know what
it is to be poor, what it is to be hungry
and cold. And because of this, they
determined that it would not happen
to you, that you would have a better
life, you would have food to eat, milk
to drink, vitamins to nourish you, a
warm home, better schools, and
greater opportunities to succeed than
they had...
"And because they were
materialistic, you will work fewer
hours, learn more, have more leisure
time, travel to more distant places, and
have more of a chance to follow your
life's ambition...
"And they made a start - although
a late one - in healing the scars of the
earth and in fighting pollution and the
destruction of our natural
environment. They set into motion
new laws giving conservation new
meaning, and setting aside land for
you and your children to enjoy for
generations to come ....
"While they have done all these
things, they have had some failures.
They have not yet found an alternative
for war, nor for racial hatred. Perhaps
you, the members of this graduating
class, will perfect the social
mechanisms by which all men may
follow their ambitions without the
threat of force - so that all the earth
will no longer need police to enforce
the laws, nor armies to prevent some
men from trespassing against others.
"But they-those generations -made
more progress by the sweat of
their brows than in any previous era,
and don't you forget it. And if your
generation can make as much progress
in as many areas as these two
generations have, you should be able
to solve a good many of the world's
remaining ills."
"With regard to the 1970's, much
has been projected and much has been
written. Inevitably, the prognosticators
and predictors have dealt with new
and exciting possiblities that are to be
expected through sophisticated science
and technology.
"Not surprisingly, the scientifical
frontier has been made synonymous
with what might be called
"breakthroughs": cancer vaccines;
control of hurricanes and weather;
"genetic engineering," to correct
hereditary malfuncations and prevent
birth abnormalities; new fuel sources;
earthquake prediction techniques - all
of these were cited as illustrative
possibilities.
"These brief references to projected
scientific and technological advances
are intended as background for two
points: First of all, the advances will
not be independent achievements.
They will be products of the
development of human capabilities.
Although exceptions can be cited,
most contemporary scientific and
technological advances have been the
result, not of solitary inspiration or
genius, but of organized and highly
purposeful effort.
"These advances represent tangible
returns or dividends produced by our
investments in higher education and
scholarship it may be accepted as a
truism that educational expenditures
are reproductive in character. It is
correct to say that educational
expenditures supported by taxation or
philanthropy are an "investment", not
a "cost," and should also be reflected
in our social and governmental
accounting processes.
"My second point is that scientific
progress and technological progress are
not ultimate ends -- or for that matter,
simply means -- to human progress.
"Simple reflection tells us that the
most recent decade of American life
has witnessed - simultaneously -
unprecedented technological progress
and striking social change and unrest.
At the same time that we observe in
awe the achievements of nuclear and
space scientists we hear more and
louder voices whose key words are
environment, pollution, poverty, racial
justice, quality of life. There is
growing frustration as increasing
numbers of people come to realize
that our wealth, our superb technical
skills, and our desire for the
superlative both solve and create
problems. As though to mock our
material progress, darkening problems
of urbanization, of lacerating political
and social division, and of aimless
discontent are a part of the legacy of
the decade of the 60's.
"It is of course impossible to
calculate the national benefits of
"being scientific". Few persons would
question the claim that such an
outlook has been of fundamental
importance in achieving our material
progress at home and our inf luence
abroad. On the other band, "being
humanistic", both in our schools and
colleges - and outside them - is
equally necessary to achieve solutions
to our national anguishes, to maintain
our leadership abroad, and to
represent to the world what the
quality of human life can be.
"In this sense we can say, with
fervent hope, to the young adults of
this nation - and especially to those
who are graduating this evening:
"Anything we can do you can do
better."
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V'iimmiii' Sal
AAeany's position
shows weakness
Hopefully, the troops of
George Meany will pause and
request to be informed before
they follow their leader into
defiance of the President's
wage-price freeze. Equally
hopefully, someone will inform
them that the last labor leader
to defy a wage-freeze was John
L. Lewis, a more fearsome man
than Mr. Meany. But Lewis
met his match in a President
named Harry Truman who
always behaved as though he
didn't know what the word
"fearsome" meant.
There may be a great deal to
be said for Mr. Meany's point
of view. He does not like the
investment tax credit part of
the President's plan and he
thinks it unfair to freeze wages
without freezing profits. Many
economists agree, and there is
plenty of time for dissenters to
take their case to Congress. It
was Congress a Democratic
Congress wmch bestowed
power upon President Nixon to
do what he has done. What
Congress has bestowed,
Congress can amend or take
away.
Nor can it be said that
the Presiddent acted hastily.
Poor George Schultz. He
held out to the last in the
hope that the mini-recession
he had created would
eventually halt inflation.
But in the end there was
Shultz, still arguing for a
little more time.
On the other side, there was
Arthur Burns, also an
economist, arguing for action
now, and there was John
Connally, the consummate
politician, pointing to the
Phillips curve.
The Phillips curve occupied
the time of the President's
Council of Economic Advisers
in the week before the
President issued his order.
Roughly defined, this curve
shows the relationship between
unemployment and inflation.
It is the curve which offers
economists evidence that full
employment requires a 7
inflation. As the members of
the counsel studied the curve
during the week of decision, it
became clear that in the large
states-Texas and California,
for example- no amount of
pump priming between now
and Election Day of 1972
would reduce unemployment
sufficiently for the President to
brag about it. Therefore, the
council was unanimous in
recommending that Mr. Nixon
go after the inflation problem
instead.
And so he did, and
George Shultz, who has
always said privately that
Mr. Nixon showed great
courage in permitting him
to plan unemployment went
to work loyally to argue for
another scheme.
What George Meany
forgets--or chooses not to
remember--is that the
inflation-recession is the direct
result of President Lyndon
Johnson's war and of Lyndon
Johnson's practiced deceit in
refusing to ask the American
people to pay for that war.
In all of this Mr. Johnson
was vastly aided by Mr. Meany
who has supported "More" for
Vietnam with as much
eagerness as he has always
demanded "more" for labor.
Mr. Meany conceives of
himself as a patriot. He has
apparently yet to learn that
patriotism demands more of a
man than support for any
foreign policy which comes
along.
Brevity in letters is requested and the Daily Nebraskan
reserves the right to condense letters. All letters must be
accompanied by writer's true name but may be submitted for
publication under a pen name or initials. However, letters will
be printed under a pen name or initials at the editor's
discretion.
Dear Editor,
Why is this University determined to make distribution of
student indentification cards a difficult thing?Monday and
Tuesday I noticed the freshmen and new students standing
(and standing) in line literally for hours waiting to pick up
their new identification cards, a task that in the past has only
taken a matter of minutes. I noticed upperclassmen standing
for hours in the administration building waiting to get their
new ID stickers, stickers that a seemingly arbitrary portion of
the upperclassmen received in the mail.
Why all the bureaucratic and institutionalized hassle to
perform a seemingly simple task? Knowing full well how
necessary ID cards are for much of the first week busy work,
the administration apparently made no attempts to simplify
the distribution but rather seems to have complicated it. I can
only imagine what drop and add will be like.
To the new students: Welcome to the University where the
computerized and institutionalized dehumanization of a ,
student body is a way of life.
Doug Beckwith
ASUN Senator (A&S)
There is no rationality.
Absurdity abounds. Confusion
reigns. Small things are absurd.
Large things are absurd. Things
get more absurd in direct
proportion to size.
The large things that are
absurd are everywhere and
everything, all-evident. In the
large things irrationality is
rationality. We live in a
democracy and a capitalist
system. Therefore it is logical
that we elect a President like
we buy a package of
hamburger, artificially flavored
and colored. Another example
is units.
Our society is, of course,
based on the accumulation of
units (theory of John K.
Hansen of Informer fame)
Units can be material, like
dollars, cars, votes, or they can
be more intangible, like
belonging to the country club.
The thing to understand about
units is that the more you
have, the better. Since our
society is a diverse society, we
don't figure out units on a
uniform basis. It all depends on
your Frame of Reference. First
I will cover the mass men of
our country, the silent
majority, middle class, or
whatever.
The silent majority Frame
of Reference measures mostly
material units. (To get your
please send three Reader's
Digest Covers, one Barbie doll,
and one autographed glossy of
Sen. Roman Hruska to Richard
Nixon, White House.)
The freak Frame of
Reference (or hippie, if you
prefer) is a little different. Fora
freak, not having units is
having units. It's mainly a
serendipity effect on the silent
majority Frame of Reference.
(To get your freak Frame of
Reference, please send three
joints (no Nebraska grass
please), one Right On!
deodorant label, and one other
relevant and meaningful object
to the Rolling Stone Magazine,
S.F.. Calif.)
One important thing to
remember is that the silent
majority Frame of Reference is
very predominant in this
country. Using this frame of
reference, you arc lead easily
to the conclusion that if the
Russians can kill everyone in
our country with nuclear
warheads four times, we must
then be able to kill the
Russians six or seven times at
the very minimum, just to
make sure. After all, we
wouldn't want those
communits to have control of
the slag heap that would be left
after we were all killed at least
four times.
Now, to equate units to the
immediate situation, our fine
No. 1 university, the University
of Nebraska, pronounced
'New" or "Unnnhhh" for
short. You all will be getting
tuition statements soon. This
semester the University will get
$267, let's just call them 267
units from each of us, no
strings attached.
For each of us to get just
fifteen or sixteen measly credit
hours, fifteen or sixteen units,
we must go through a required
number of Catch-22's such as
exams, Drop and Add,
memorizing and regurgitating
at regular intervals. Now, if
267 units, no strings attached,
for sixteen Catch-22 units, isn't
a screw....
After we accumulate around
a hundred and thirty Catch-22
units, we receive a diploma, or,
equated into unit
nomenclature, a
Unit-Manipulating Certificate,
which enables us all to go out
into our society and
manipulate units, so that we
might accumulate more units,
the highest glory. But lo! We
find that if we have
accumulated too many
Catch-22 units, we can't even
manipulate. Especially for
Master's or Ph. D.
Unit-Manipulating Certificate.
A breakdown in our
accumulating society.
Boy, this thinking about
units is getting me down.
Besides, I must go and
manipulate units in Drop and
Add. See you next week.
fX Prof. Jeffrey Hart
P w
mlti Nixon moves dramatic
r. Ik.'. aW
On four different occasions so far during his
Presidency Richard Nixon hasshown himself
capable of moving dramatically-and suddenly-to
affect the course of events, and this pattern
must be unsettling to his rivals at home and his
opponents abroad. His actions on the economic
front are only the most recent example of this
distinctive Nixonian style.
From the beginning of his Presidency,
Nixon's options on Vietnam were severly
limited by decisions made in the closing days of
the Johnson Administration. Had Lyndon
Johnson waited on the bombing halt, and
allowed either Nixon or Hubert Humphrey'to
make that move, then the winner of the 1968
election would have had much more room for
maneuver as far as the North Vietnamese are
concerned. If the new President had stopped
the bombing himself, then he would have been
much freer politically to have used the threat of
resuming it, even resuming it on a much
increased scale. Instead, when he took office in
January, 1968, Nixon was limited to essentially
three options: a) a sudden pullout and the
abandonment of all policy goals in Vietnam; b)
a negotiated peace; and c). gradual withdrawal
and Vietnamization.
Rejecting a, frustrated on b in Paris and
Moscow, Nixon was forced back to c. But
having reached this conclusion, he did not
hesitate to face the consequences; the necessity
for quick strikes against the Communist bases
in Cambodia and Laos, He did not try to
muddle through or fudge the issues, but moved
boldly to disrupt the enemy in those strategic
base areas.
The diplomacy with China exhibits an
analogous pattern. No matter how Nixon's
Peking moves are presented, they' are,
objectively, anti-Soviet rather than pro-Peking.
It is, after all, the Soviet Union that has moved
ahead with a crash program in long-range
missiles; it is the Soviet Union that is expanding
its influence through the Mediterranean and the
Middle East; and it is the Soviet Union whose
growing fleets are spreading through the oceans
of the world. Nixon's Peking diplomacy gives
the Russians plenty to think about, even
though they have 45 divisions on the Chinese
border.
And, for the connoisseur, a delicious touch
was added when it was reported that Chou
En-lai is going to visit Romania, Albania and
perhaps other Balkan states, the Balkans being,
of course, a simmering trouble spot in the
Soviet empire. A Nixon Administration aide has
remarked privately that since Nixon's'' China
ploy Soviet diplomats in Washington-usually
distant and haughty-have become amazingly
agreeable and cordial. And down among the
second-raters, both the North Vietnamese
"seven point" peace plan and Rep. Paul N.
McCloskey have sunk without a trace.
Now come the equally sudden and dramatic
economic moves. In substance these are
complex, but there can be no doubt that nixon
concluded that the gradual recovery implicit in
his game-plan to date did not sufficiently
accord with the political timetable. He had to
act, and act he did, leaving McGovern, Bayh,
Muskie and assorted spear-carriers in the middle
of half-delivered speeches on the economy.
Back to your speechwriters, boys.
PAGE 6
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1971
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1971
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
PAGE 7
