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edibriol pfei
y
3
Golden
Age
revisited
When classes opened this fall, things looked rosy.
Following directly on the heels of one of the most
involved, improving, vital years at UNL, one could
only think that this year would be better yet.
Last year, you will remember, was the year when
students campaigned in droves for the primary
election. It was a year when on and off campus
students lobbied effectively for more liberal coed
visitation policies. Free University was running like
education on the hoof. The ASUN Book Exchange
and Record store began to kick some collateral back
to the students in the form of decreased prices. And
the PACE program was hauling in unbelisveable
amounts of greenbacks to share in the cost of
educating. It was a veritable golden age of activism.
So, returning this fall, one had to believe that
things would take up where they left off last spring.
Emerging projects including food cooperatives,
student discount cards, student art shops and
innovative theater groups all seemed to forecast an
even-better world right around the corner.
True to form, things started off just swell. The
project leaders began touting their causes, rolling out
the old rhetoric, saying the things which had brought
successes in the spring. But nothing happened. The
old battle cries didn't work, so new ones were
devised. Still nothing. Clearly something had changed.
Where a few months before cries of "improve,
improve" had echoed in the halls of academia, there
was little but silence to be found. A campus that a
few weeks before had buzzed with innovation,
creativity and change suddenly had become
snail-paced. The project leaders soon found their
brilliant rhetoric was being lost forever in a
bottomless vacuum.
Somewhere along the line, the Golden Age had
ended. Students, faculty, administrators no longer
cared. The campus of this fall was totally unrelated to
the semester preceding-another world.
And so the activities, or rather inactivities, of the
campus proceded all semester. Brilliant plans
appeared and died, fostered by the few souls who
managed to remain interested and not become
disillusioned by apathy. Improvement slowed to a
near-halt.
This week the final crashing embarassment
occurred. After the amount of contributions to the
Program for Active Commitment to Education
(PACE) had been totaled, they had fallen to
approximately one-third what they had been one year
earlier.
Student mentors claim most of the decrease is due
to a lack of publicity for this semester's drive and a
change in contribution form which required the
student to add $3.50 to his tuition if he wished to
contribute, rather than subtract $3.50 if he did not
wish to contribute.
Actually, these two areas seem to be convenient
excuses to cover up the total apathy and nonconcern
of those not contributing. And, once again, an
outstanding program must suffer at the hands of the
growing tide of non-involvement.
What caused the new flood of non-caring is hard to
say. It could spring from any number of origins,
justified or not. But one thing is certain-for most
within the nonmovement, it represents a shelter from
thought, emotional involvement and commitment. It
seems easier to remain unconcerned and uninvolved,
but mostly stagnant.
Christmas 1972 can't help but be a little bit sadder
and a little bit more hopeless because of it.
Jim Gray
Look! Jvsi
Said it u3ouJ
"be?
S I 1
OWL,
Its Getting
I Closer.and
I WELCOME I
E5faft I JESUS! j I
Democrats may recover for 1976 campaign
In an atypically bright move. Jean Westwood has
managed to save her face (if not have it lifted a little)
by resigning her lofty position as Democrat National
Chairthing. So now that at least the figurehead of
pernicious McGovernism has been banished into exile,
the party of Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy
can get back on the road to recovery and rebuilding
with the sure and steady hand of Texan Bob Strauss
at the helm.
Assuming that Strauss does a credible job as
national chairperson, and that Nixon's GOP has the
usual share of second term problems, the Demociatic
presidential nomination in 1976 is likely to be worth
considerably more than it was in 1972. And the
chances for an even larger number o candidates
materializing than the dozen or so we had to sort
through this year are very good, indeed.
Teddy Kennedy regretfully comes to mind as the
prime contender should he desire the honor, but my
hunch is that he does not want to be President, let
alone run for the job. Furthermore, the icandal-a-year
Senator from Massachusetts (the One and Only) is
not a salable product to the voters now, and all the
Madison Avenue tricks in the country are unlikely to
improve his political marketability in the future.
George Corley Wallace, once more a respectable
member of the Democratic establishment, is unlikely
ever again to stray from the party fold, and will figure
prominently in any '76 odds. The Alabama governor
could easily become a rallying point for conservatives
and moderates should the liberal wing of the
Democratic party come up with a clear front- runner.
Of those fighting for the nomination this
year-Humphrey, Muskie, Lindsay, Jackson, Yorty,
Mink, Mills, Harris, Hartke, Coll and Chisholm-only
john
vihstod
Chisholm is apt to try again, although HHH, Muskie
and Scoop Jackson will be around as elder statesmen.
Of those that almost entered the primaries but didn't,
however, each will no doubt give the nomination a
stab next time.
Sen. Birch Bayh, 44 yean old, darling of the
AFL-CIO, and popular in the Midwest, is sure to run
if he can survive a tough re election battle back home
in Indiana come 1974.
Harold Hughes of Iowa has his eyes on the
nomination, but he too, must first win re-election
two years from now. This latter prospect was made
dubious, however, thanks to his recent revelations
that ho believes in ghosts and seances and that he
occasionally smoked pot in his salad days. Things like
this don't sit too well with lowans, and Gov. Robert
Ray is already moving to run against the senator.
Alaska Sen, Mike Gravel, who offered himself as a
vice presidential candidate at the Democratic
National Convention and collected a fair number of
votes in the process, needs a big v ictory margin in his
1974 re-election bid if he is to have a chance in four
years.
Certainly William Proxmire of Wisconsin must have
something up his sleeve. After all, why else would a
man spend thousands of dollars getting a hair
transplant and the bags under his eyes removed? A
crusader against Pentagon fat (some say muscle) and a
fanatical health nut, the senator could prove to be
one of the Democrats' best prospects.
It goes without saying, of course, that McGovern,
Eagleton, and Shriver are washed up, forever.
What will happen from now to election day 1976,
is anyone's guess, but a quick rundown of potential
Democratic candidates shows that this party is not
lacking in people who could win back the White
House from the Republicans.
page 4
daily nebraskan
Wednesday, december 13, 1972
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