Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / May 4, 1966, edition 1 / Page 2
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Tw T 1 H M 1 The Carolina Journal ELLISON CLARY, JR., Editor HOWARD PEARRE and RICK DANCY, Associate Editors JIM CUNNING, Business Manager Robert Pliner and Ben Davis, Photographers BARBARA JAMES, Feature Editor ROBBIE SNIPES, Sports Editor STAFF: Sally Hagood, Mary Morgan, Sharron Dailey, Connie Flippo, Paul Boswell, Libby Holshouser, Earleen Mabry, Gloria Roberts, Kearney Smith, Rhett Ashley, Betty Craiff, Lee Wasson, Corny Stilwell, Pat Reid, Ronald Watts, Jack Boger, and Geraldine Ledford. WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 1966 Forget Old Tricks Monday, April 25, Jim Burgess banged his gavel on the final meeting of the 1965-66 Student Legislature of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The moment called for nostalgic reflections of the organization’s workings over the past year. And of course it came. The president of the student body got a plaque. The chairman of the legislature got an engraved gavel. The chief justice got up and said what a pleasure it had been to work with such a mature body. But before this flood of sentimental self back slapping a regular (or at least supposed to be regular) meeting of the legislature had taken place. Here are some of the things that happened. —No roll was called. One legislator who had violated bill number 65-66-6 by having more than three absences without proxies and therefore not a legal member of ihe legislature, was admitted and given his usual vote. —This same legislator questioned the validity of the preceding legislature meeting where an illegal proxy had a vote. —^The reading of the minutes of the preceding meeting was dispensed with and time was allowed for reading them. There was too much talking to read them. —There were several attempts at binding the next legislature to do something. This was settled only when the advisor had to get up and say “NO.” —The chairman of the legislature lost his temper several times and shouted “SHUT UP” at one of the members who was actually in the right. —'When a bill to serve the president of the student body with an official reprimand for actions during the elections came up someone stood up and shouted “objection to consideration.” He was not willing to hear a full case with debate. He was willing to sacrifice the very purpose of the body, the open and free discussion that is democratic. —When that motion was defeated, only a few people were allowed to air their thoughts before someone asked for a vote. —The question of who was to win the Tiger-Griffith fight and where to hold a final “soda-pop” party seemed more pressing than whether to hand the president of the student body an official reprimand. This was the last meeting. The ones ahead of it were the same. They were bitter scraps with everybody fighting to get his name printed up in the official minutes. They always ended with the words “where’re we going to drink soda-pop tonight?” The opening session of the 1966-67 student legislature will be held soon. The new chairman will bang his gavel on the table and the reading of the minutes will be dispensed with. Let’s hope our student leaders act more like leaders next year. Go, Tim Britton, Go Politicians make a lot of promises during campaigns. Tim Britton is a politician and he made a lot of promises recently. Now that Tim has become a successful politician by winning an election, we are glad to see that he is trying to keep a promise which appeals to us very much. During the campaign, he promised to work for two assembly times a week on Tuesday and Thursday instead of one a week on Wednesday. With the present set-up, too much must happen in a one and one-half hour period on Wednesday or not happen at all. Usually there are at least two or three organizations having meetings at the same time or within thirty minutes of each other on Wednesday. If a student or a faculty member belongs to more than one club, he is often forced to choose which club meeting he will have to skip. Not only would new assembly times bring a greater volume in campus activity, they would probably speed it up as well. All too often, a campus group finds out about some important news or announcements during the first part of the week which necessitate a meeting. Again, all too often, time for a meeting is not available until Wednesday of the following week. By this time, most of the members of the organization have heard some sort of distorted version of the news and think there is no need to attend the meeting. Assemblies on Tuesday and Thursday would provide time for a student body meeting monthly which we think would be quite desirable. We hope Tim Britton will be successful in keeping this campaign promise. Dancy’s Information Not Correct Or Complete In Mr. Dancy’s editorial last week he asked us why were we remaining in Vietnam. If his information had been correct his conclusion would have been valid, but his information lacked both for correctness in reporting the facts and in completeness in the information available. In his first paragraph Mr. Dancy stated that 3,000 men were forced to die tor a remote southeast Asian country. What he forgot to say was that many of those so called forced men were volunteers. Those who did not volunteer were soldiers. They were in the Armed Forces to do a job —■ to fight. When men fight a war some must die, and the loss of these men is a tragedy both to their families and their nation as a whole. But what was the good of their dying if we are to pull out as Mr. Dancy suggests? The majority of the American Service Men who are returning from or are still in Vietnam will tell you that they don’t want us to pull out. If you don’t believe me, tell one of these men you think that we should pull out of Vietnam. When you get out of the hospital, let me know what he said. In the second paragraph Mr. Dancy suggests that we are not trying to give the Vietnamese Reader Asks For Hot Issues Mr. Elditor: Looking back on the campus life of the last two semesters on this campus it is with deep regret that I must admit that the UNC Speaker Ban Issue is dead. Regret, why! Many students, who are mak ing high grades in their academic endeavors, find themselves with a lot of spare time. As a result many look tor an activity to expend this time on. It is most appropriate that this endavor be as intellectual as possible so many of them result to debating over and protesting against vari ous issues. The “controversial Speaker Ban Law” provided a very good excuse for these students to pursue their favorite activity. Now, however, the Speaker Ban Law is dead; now the students have nothing to argue about. The strain is show ing. In our recent campus elections some people tried to satisfy their needs for an intellectual and emotional outlet. Numerous de bates arose over campaign eth ics. These election conditions only exist for short periods of time. What the students appar ently need is a long-term issue to argue over. I was recently talking with a UNC-CH student and he was rather disgusted with the prob lem of getting to Greensboro. He was of the opinion that buses should be provided by the univer sity which would run back and forth between UNC-CH and UNC- G. If they don’t, said he, they will be denying me my right to date “W.C.” girls. As one can see the lack of a good controversial issue is put ting a severe strain on the intellects of the many students in our university system; and it is with this in mind that I can truly say that I regret to see the death of the “controversial Speaker Ban Law. people the type of freedom which is enjoyed by Americans today because we support a dictatorial military regime. It seems that Mr. Dancy forgot to say that this dictatorial regime has agreed to hold free elections this summer. The Vietnamese government executed loyal citizens of Viet nam because they were making a profit. This is true, but it seems that they were making their profit on goods which came from the American PX and Viet namese government without their consent. In other .words, these so called loyal citizens had robbed their own government, which is against the law here, too. You don’t get shot for stealing from the U.S. government, but placed in the same circumstances as the Vietnamese government, you might get shot in the U.S., too. I also liked the joke about the CIA. If I didn’t know Mr. Dancy better, I would swear that line came from one of the pink newspapers in the U.S. I cannot deny this statement, but it the CIA is training insurgents they most likely have a logical reason for it. I can think of at least two. One, the best wav to fight guerrilla warfare is to know how to fight that way yourself. In fact, you should know even better than the enemy. This way you can counter his actions before he has a chance to strike. The second is a CIA agent is an undercover agent. Therefore, he must know how to act behind enemy lines. Mr. Dancy also forgot to mention the Special Forces. It seems that they, too, are trained in guerrilla warfare. It is true that there were anti- American demonstrations in Vietnam. They occurred in the city of Da Nang. After the government had agreed to hold free elections, the mayor of Da Nang stated that he wanted the American troops to stay and he felt the civilian government would want American troops in Vietnam. Since we have been asked into Vietnam, if the Viet namese people want us to leave, then we should leave, but we should not leave until we have been asked. To stop anyone from thinking that the Vietnamese want to stop fighting, an incident occurred just a few weeks ago which will dispel this idea. A group of American pacifists went to Vietnam unknown to the American government. In fact, the first indication the American Embassy had that these people had been in Vietnam was when the Vietnamese government noti fied our Embassy that they were leaving. It seems that the paci fists set up headquarters in Saigon where they were almost killed by an angry mob of Vietnamese students. So the South Vietnam government had to get them out of the country fast. I don’t think that many pacifist groups will try to go to South Vietnam unless they want to commit suicide. Besides, that would destroy everything they are trying to do. No, they had better remain in the U.S. where it is safe (fairly anyway). In the next to the last para graph, we hear about the big bad CIA. I don’t know, but this organization must have at least 9 to 10 million agents. It would take that many at least to train insurgents, send agents to Viet nam, Cuba, South America, Europe and other parts of Asia. Okay, maybe what this Michigan State University official says is true, but before I’ll believe him, I want to know who he is, what official capacity he held in the U.S. government, and where he obtained his information. For all I know this so called official is a janitor at Michigan State and he received his information from the cleaning woman in one of the dorms who just happened to hear it from reliable sources (a stu dent bull session). In other words, Mr. Dancy, be ready to back your editorial up with all the facts. Don’t try to confuse the issue with misinformation and deleted facts. That is both poor journ alism and poor reporting. Stick to the facts. Jim Cunning School Needs Wider Choice In Politics By RONALD WATTS The last milk bottle and “ex tralegal” sign have finally been removed and the great circus event of the year is over. The more-than-three rings abounded with illuminated negatives, mid- dle-of - the - sidewalk placards, deformation of public highways, and more names and faces plastered in more places than the mind can conceive. The cam paign resembled those high school follies — good pantomime but not much ability. We had good nantomimes of the pattern, but little political skill was in evidence. There evolved from this skilless endeavor a mish-mash, as manifested in the Executive Council campaigns. One candi date was in theory supporting all but one of the other candidates including his own opponent! Party members sup ported independents and indeed the opposition. There was noth ing passive about the affair. But really how can we have a two-party system with such love? Supervising this circus mish mash was nothing or at least very near that. The constitution provides for an election commit tee. but little evidence of any HUGH J. HORSELY action by one was seen. There was almost complete disregard for any rules which may have been, with disputes settled “ex- tralegally.” In general, campaign and election mechanics were somewhat lacking in planning and composure. It can be said for the sake of argument that such frivolities as the campaigns are necessary to create student interest in campus politics. However, the voting statistics destroy this idea. Rath er the students' interest will be activated either by that which appeals to them or by their volition. Certainly students can’t be called apathetic when given no alternative. Changes evidently are in order. There should be definite publicity and cast regulations with an effective elections board as the regulatory power. The nature of a collegiate campaign should be above the circus affair. Students should be appealed to in their own intellectual terms. The purpose of this column is not hatchet carrying or apathy veiling. However, there is a need for discussion of the campaigns and a pertinent requisite for reform. Mav next ye.nr s goy ernment not reflect this year s campaign.
University of North Carolina at Charlotte Student Newspaper
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May 4, 1966, edition 1
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