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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 18, 1971)
tV V ? ' i t J 3 ..." H f .1' f . f 1 f ,t ? v.: v f; v ' J . il ' i Around the Legislative bush Bob Devaney is new preparing for the upcoming battle against Oklahoma, but he might soon battle another strong opponent--Gov. Exon. The governor says he might suggest to the 192 Legislature that if the University is to get an increase in state aid anywhere near the $6.8 million requested, it will have to use money currently earmarked ior the f ieldhouse, Devaney's pet project. Last May, over the governor's veto, the Legislature increased the cigarette tax 5c per pack and set aside the increased revenue for the fieldhouse and a state office building. The bill directed the State Building Commission (which is headed by Exon) to nominate architects for the projects. But almost half a year has passed and the Commission has not nominated any architects for the projects and has indicated that it is in no rush to do so. Exon is now suggesting that the estimated $7 miMion in increased revenue from the tax be divided, with $4.6 million going to the general fund and the remainder being used to finance a six-year bond issue to pay for the fieldhouse. The governor is stalling on the building projects in hopes of having the earmarking feature eliminated by the 1972 Legislature. The tax increase with its earmarking feature has, not been well received by the state and it is speculated that political pressure may force some senators, who voted for the measure, to switch over to Exon's way of thinking. Exon is definitely neglecting his duties as governor and circumventing the will of the Legislature by his stalling tactics. However, Exon is correct in his criticism of the method of financing the projects and the priorities involved. It appears that the earmarking section of the bill might be reversed by the Legislature. Since the fieldhouse and state office building have been delayed this long, it makes some sense to wait until January when the Legislature can decide on Exon's inaction. If Devaney wins another national title the lawmakers will be hard pressed to act favorably on the fieldhouse. But hopefully the Legislature will realize that there are higher priority items in the state than the fieldhouse and the state office building. Youth power The country got its first look at the impact of the 18 year-old vote in recent nationwide municipal elections. The readiest conclusion to be drawn from the elections is that the youth vote will have a significant impact on American politics, especially in college towns. Here is a partial scoreboard showing the influence of the youth vote: -Boulder, Colo; Marshall, Minnesota; Ocala Fla.;and Urbana, Ohio elected students to their city councils. The Boulder city council now has a student majority. --A recent law school graduate defeated a two-term incumbent for mayor in Bloomington, Ind.; and youth-oriented campaigns helped elect two men to the city council in East Lansing, Mich. However, there are limits to the youth vote as demonstrated by the recent elections. For example, young people failed to alter the outcome of the elections for mayor in Philadelphia and Cleveland, where conservative candidates won. Undoubtedly the young voters will suffer defeats in the electoral process. But the youth vote will also claim many victories as more and more young people register. Gary Seacrest jabbed with phase one! Then punched with phase two . . . i J usl what does it take, To really laze you p O S)t tfonrirr-itouniaL torn braden Voting ?S MissPP1 style ken wlseman Student Union more than a building Ken Wiseman k chairman of the Nebraska Union Planning Committee. It used to be thought that a union was something only for the large university - something that would help overcome the penalties of size by unifying the "big" campus and personalizing and humanizing its procedures. A union vitally contributes to this goal, but it does much more. Many colleges are coming to recognize that the campus environment furthers (or may deter) the fruitful use of student time and learning process. They recognize that wherever young people are gathered together away from home, a social center and program are needed, and that the union is as normal and necessary a part of the college equipment as dormitories, a gymnasium, and library. Study in the presence of a good teacher can provide an experience never to be forgotten. But the impacts of such moments, and the student's regard for the college, should not be blurred or destroyed by overcrowded dining rooms, the lack of ordinary small unrelated segments, a poverty of meeting and discussion and other students. Much of what students learn they learn from each other, and from faculty in informal association outside the classroom. Further, if people are to live together in harmony, they must learn new social skills, and the meaning of serving the common welfare. In college such lessons are often best learned where students eat, work, and play together; where they meet to discuss freely and act responsibly to solve, as members of a student community, their'own group problems. A campus is not complete without the essential facilities for such activities. To a great extent the East Campus Union has a "deficinecy" of these facilities. That is to say that in some cases the facilities are mediocre and in some cases non-existent. In 1952 the facilities were described as "temporary". To correct this situation a certain portion of student fees have been set aside specifically for the construction of a new East Campus Union. The funds have reached a point at which preliminary planing may be worthwhile. But before actual architectural planning may proceed, a needed study and a program analysis must be made. After all, the average union provides 40 types of services and socio-culture programs. With this in mind, the Union Planning Committee, with cooperation of the Central Planning Commission, administration, students and faculty, Is gathering this basic information so that planning can proceed in a reasonable programmed way. The planning of a new union is not just the planning of a certain kind of physical structure, or adapting an existing set of facilities to a new circumstance. The planning of a union, in the best sense, means arriving at a comprehensive, well-considered plan for the community life of the University. If a union is to respond effectively to the wide range of needs and interests of a university population at leisure, if it is to become genuinely a community center -- the social and cultural heart of the campus -- it will draw together in one place those facilities and activities which will give everyone in the university family a reason for coming to the center. Brevity in letters is requested and the C f IvM'sli VI IVl II V Vr Daily Nebraskan reserves the right to I II R 1 I I 1 U V I fll condense letters.. All letters must be I Wl rll I 1 LJgjL IjimM vAJM accompanied by writer's true name but 1 rfrafTffS (YCnJ rrCI may be submitted for publication under f 1 t-yqr M IJ & 15 1 V P8" name or initials- However, letters I I L H 1 V Kl 11 IV l W J V I "V will be printed under a pen name or AJLX' lUi' Imi --..'' initials at the editor's discretion. , lr- , , firi ,, i im iiiiiiii hi "'"L jnr n i 1 WASH INGTON-One. of the more embarrassing aspects of our democracy is that we seldom do anything about fraud at the polls. Take the case of Charles Evers, the first black man ever to run for governor of Mississippi. The final tally shows him with 158,000 votes. The figure is almost certainly fraudulent. How fraudulent we shall never know. Certainly not enough to have made him a winner over Gov.-elect Waller. But just as certainly enough to defeat many of the black candidates who ran for minor office on his independent slate. So say both private poll watchers and government-paid observers who went to Mississippi on election eve and have come back both wise and angry. Most of the fraud, they report, involved white polling officials falsely instructing illiterate blacks on how to vote. In some counties, black illiteracy runs as high as 40, and white officials, entering the polling booth with the voter, saw to it that he voted for white candidates. That was how 16 blacks running in counties with black majorities all lost. The proof in one such county, Humphreys, came when a white observer found two educated black voters and sent them into the polling place with instructions to pretend illiteracy. Their report will be delivered to the Justice Department which may or may not decide to prosecute. Humphreys was probably the worst example. In two townships. Midnight and Louise, the voting booths were surrounded by armed white toughs, who kept blacks away, THE DAILY NEBRASKAN excluded poll watchers and federal observers and made certain that Robert Clark, the only black member of the Mississippi Legislature failed to carry the preponderantly black county. But in a dozen other counties, similar tactics were used. In Gulfport, Evers' poll watchers were excluded from the voting places even after Mr. Justice Stokes Robinson, Jr. of the Mississippi Supreme Court had telephoned a deputy sheriff with the news that he had issued an injunction. The Sheriff's insistence that he had to see it in writing effectively voided the order of the court. Phoenix, Miss., a black majority town, delivered 134 votes for Waller to none for Evers. In towns where government observers were sent to watch polls, Evers and his black ticket fared better. But the observers chosen from the civil service lists by the Justice Department-were thin on the ground, and some of them took the trip South as an excuse for a holiday. One stood by and remained silent while an Evers' poll watcher got his teeth knocked out. Others brought bedrolls and retired early. Evers who has now returned to his mayoral duties in Fayette has decided not to bring evidence of fraud on his own behalf. But he will try to contest local elections where blacks were defeated in black districts and where evidence of coercion and fraud can be found. "Some of the white people of Mississippi weren't very good sports," Evers says. 'They could have beaten me without cheating. Why did they want to cheat too?" Copyright 1971, Los Angeles Times THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1971 Dear editor, On page 2 of Monday's Daily Nebraskan one reads a headline: "Conference ends in complaints." The final session of the Third National Conference on Experimental Colleges was indeed exciting, but less for "strong dissatisfaction" with the Conferences' format as reported by the newspaper than for the suggestions made by these study critics. An initial verbal spasm urged that rather than talking together in workshops it would have been far better to hug each other and scream together. Others in the group suggested that the next conference be a non-conference, that instead we meet for five days or a week -- and including the faculty if they could get away that long - on a farm or in a field and really get into each other's lives, really meet each other as human beings. You and I know that's a beautiful thought. A small group wanted to set up a nation wide tour-by-bus of people into the "really new" education--this was ideologically acceptable to the complainants, but seemed a cop out. And a good number of people, many of whom were from cities and villages perhaps more advanced culturally and who therefore found the dissident rheotoric two years old, wanted to deal with some actual and present questions. These were: (1) the format of the next conference - national or, because of the size of the Nebraska conference suggests the widespread and substantial interest in experimental programs, regional. And (2) the two strong proposals, on which many of the conference participants had been thinking for a day and a half, for. a means of national coordination, even to the sharing of resources for study and evaluation, of the major new movement in colleges across the country. Did you know that not counting Centennial Program representatives, there were 387 deans, teachers, and students from 100 programs and universities and independent colleges? For comparison, there were 60 schools and a total of 250 people at the University of Michigan conference a year ago. Something very large is happening. And the noisy claque of some thirty people from four schools rather pales, doesn't it? It was a good conference, apparently even a rich one for schools like the University of Virginia planning experimental programs or for those trying to fight through hard problems of one kind or another. Some of the workshops -- those on evaluation and on the politics of starting and keeping programs, for example -- were both high-powered. and disciplined in getting at the matters many people wanted to get at. Some divided and subdivided to celebrate points of view, others managed a solid term of hard debate. . The special panel on schools that failed-Nasson in Main, Fordham's Bensalem, North Carolina's Project Hinton-was a room-buster, as was one on off-campus study (Gene Harding talked about NOVA in that one). A sensitivity-oriented presentation out of Oakland University on popular culture ran for two days to a self-selecting clientele. But do you know what most of the people at the conference thought most exciting and ceative? Talking together about their programs and colleges - even to 6 a.m. And working together toward the national unit, which some hope will be centered in Lincoln. The conference was worth it, though. And we thank you for paying some attention. It's not often that the University gets looked at by college students and faculty from all over the nation. And although the Sunday noon claque gave us a noisy moment, quite a few other things went on, as you can see, and rather good things at that. T. E. Beck, Jr. Senior Fellow Centennial Education Program Dear editor, .... In the editorial column of the Nov. 10 Daily Nebraskan the editor has exhibited an unparalleled narrow-mindedness in evaluating the season's last half time show. The overriding purpose of the band's halftime show needs to be pointed out to the editor: the show is performed for the public's entertainment rather than as a social commentary. I share the anti-war views of the editor, however, to use a band performance to express this view is highly inappropriate, as well as in bad taste. Even the peace-loving Nebraskan editor must acknowledge the important part the armed services play in enforcing peace in areas other than Southeast Asia. In addition, anyone condemning the playing of "This Is My Country" and the formation of the letters "USA" should seriously re-examine his values if he insists on calling himself an American. A reference was made to UNL Band Director Jack Snider who "last year. . .was quite upset after the card section flashed the peace sign during a game." As a journalism major, I am ashamed of my colleague for slanting this by omitting the fact that the card section did this "ad lib" and not according to the show, which is what upset Mr. Snider. Perhaps, even a Daily Nebraskan editor would become "upset" if someone on the staff performed an assignment contrary to instructions. Harvey E. Watson f U oNiy i r i 1 i i u r- 1 1 I i n n i J LLbUU 3 EBRA5KA UniOH BalLOOmO . . Ji-iO.ORAA nouus: 47Z-Z&H9. advertising. 472 2590. Second class postage rates paid at Lincoln. Nebras Subscription rates ar $5 per semester or $9 per year. Pub .had Monday. Wednesday. Thursday and Friday dur.nt , the schoo year except during vacation and exam periods. Member of the Intercollegiate Press, National Educational Advertising Service. The Daily Nebraskan is a student publication, .editorially independent of the Univeristy of Nebraska's administration, faculty ""Vddr'r,! rhe'oaTirNebraskan. 34 Nebraska Union. University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68508. GIVE THE NATION BACK TO ITS PEOPLE John W. Gardner, Chairman Common Cause Former Secretary ot Health, Education and Welfare Who said citizen action is futile? Populism in the nineteenth century left an indelible mark on the nation. Citizen action won the vote for women in 1920 and brought the abolition of child labor. The labor movement, the civil rights movement, the peace movement, the gonservation movement all began with concerned citizens. If we had waited for the government or Congress or the parties to initiate any of them, we'd still be waiting. Try to think of a significant movement in our national life that was Initiated by the bureaucracy. Or by Congress. Or by the parties. For a while, we lost confidence in our capacity to act as citizens, but the citizen is getting back to his feet. And citizen action is taking on a tough minded professional edge it never had before. Never has our society needed more desperately the life-giving spark of citizen action. We must make our instru ments of self-government work. We must halt the abuse of the public interest by self-seeking special interests. The special interests buy favor through campaign gifts. What flows back is literally scores of billions of dollars in tax breaks, in lucrative defense contracts, in favored treatment of certain regulated industries, in tolerance of monopolistic practices. And the tax payer foots the bill. To combat such pervasive corruption, we must strike at the two instruments of corruption in public life money and secrecy. To combat the corrupting power of money, we must control campaign spending and lobbying, and require full disclosure of conflict of interest on the part of public officials. To tear away the veil of secrecy, we must enact "freedom of information" or "right to know" statutes which require that the public business be done pub licly. And that's only a beginning. We can regain command of our instruments of self-government. To accomplish this, each citizen must become an activist, especially the college student with his newly acquired right to vote. He must make his voice heard. Common Cause, a national citizens' lobby, was created to accomplish just that. It hoped to en roll 100,000 members in its first year, ana ct that number in 23 weeks! On its first anniversary, it had 200,000 members. It was the chief citizens' group lobbying tor the Constitu tional Amendment on the 18-year old vote. It joined with environmental groups to defeat the SST. It brought the first real challenge in a generation to the tyrannical seniority system in Congress. It helped bring the House of Representatives to its first recorded vote on the Vietnam War. It has sued the major parties to enjoin them from violat ing the campaign spending laws. There is much more to do. And the time to do it is now. The American people are tired of being bilked and manipulated. It's time to give this country back to its people. For additional information, write Com mon Cause, Box 220, Washington, D.C. 20044. This space is contributed as a People Service by The Van Heusen Company I1" I I i'i p. li, ti I it- f i i n it it s 1 i'V J PAGE 5 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1971 THE DAILY NEBRASKAN PAGE 4 i