5-Year Man
on Campus
With Ellison Clary
New Protest
Qive Needed Inspiration
There hasn’t been much in the ^pers about draft protestors
lately, notwithstanding A1 Capp’s comic strip. This can’t be a good
tiling because draft protesting has become as much a part of “the
American way,” at least to the college student, as apple pie, mother,
and Daytona Beach on Mother’s Day.
Students just don’t seem to have enough oomph right now in regard
to the draft situation, anyway.
Maybe we undergraduates are merely waiting for graduate students
to form the vanguard of a new series of demonstrations since they
are the ones most recentlythreatenedbythefickle finger of Lieutenant
General Lewis Hershey.
But it could be that what we really need is a new protest song.
After all, we haven’t had a newie in quite a while and “Draft Dodger
Blues” gets a little old (No offense intended, Jerry Vincent, where-
ever you are. You know some words.)
To remedy this dire situation, I wrote a new draft protest song.
Not being gifted musically, (I faked my way through several years
of band in high school on clarinet and never blew a note) I thought
it wise to set new lyrics to an old song.
Tune’s ‘Midnight Special’
So I put my new words to the tune of “Midnight Special.” You
remember the son; it’s the one Harry Belafonte has popped the
buttons off his shirt with for years. More recently Johnny Rivers
made a folk-rock version of it a nationwide hit.
Explanations aside, it goes like this:
Well you just got home from school. Boy,
And ya feelin’ kinda nervous
Cause you got a letter in da mail box
And it was from Selective Service.
Babuh all dey wanna tell ya
Ya lost ya student deferment
An’ if ya say a thing abawt it
You in trouble wid da guverment.
Chorus
So let da Ottawa Special
Shine its light on me.
Cause I wanna go da Canada
Just so I can be free.
Mamma let dat Special
Shine its light on me.
An’ I hope it runs over
Gen’ral Lewis Hershey.
Well if ya ever goad da Pentagon
Son ya better walk right,
Ya better not demonstrate
Or sleep in a tent at night.
Cause Gen’ral Hershey will draft ya
An’ give ya a M-16 that jams
An’ nen dey’U send ya off ta flght
In Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.
Chorus : same as above.
Yonder comes Miz Skidmore.
How, I wonder, did ya know?
Cause she’s lookin’ at mah record
An’ shakin’ her head in woe.
Umbrella on her shoulder,
Man, she’s actin’ real prudent
She goes a marchin’ to da ChanceUor,
She gonna draft" some students.
Sock It To ’Em, Joan
That’s it. Sock it to ’em, Joan Baez.
Maybe you’re shocked at the down home nature of the lyrics, but
that’s the way the song must be sung. Never get too much sould,
you know.
The only problem, now that it’s written, is getting someone to
record it. And it’Ul have to be someone that most radio stations like.
For instance, if the Cowsills recorded it. Big WAYS wouldn’t
play it. Unless, of course, Monte Zepeda decided he liked it.
It might go well on WGIV if Wilson Pickett recorded it and called
it “Funky Funky Draft Dodger.”
The country music stations might play it if Buck Owens sand under
the title of “Jest a Country Boy That don’e Want To Fight Blues.”
If he yodeled, that would help, too.
And those more sophisticated stations would have a field day
with it if Kate Smith recorded it as “The Universal Draft Dodger.”
At any rate, I hope whoever might read it in this column will
understand that it’s just a good-natured poke at the present draft
system which I think is unfair in some of its aspects.
There’ll be a better column next week, even if we have to go
back to the Esquire fashion news. That’s a promise.
The Carolina Journal Wednesday March 6, 1968 Page 7
Letters To The Editor
Struggle For Equality Has
Grown Into Raging War
Dear Editor:
Jim Patterson’s article in last
week’s Journal was both interest
ing and timely, showing at the same
time a relative lack of bias; and
while it presented many aspects of
the Racial Issue, it left much
unsaid. The following remarks.
while addressed to Mr. Patterson
and all concerned, are especially
addressed to Negro students
everywhere.
What was once a struggle for
equality between ethnic or racial
grous have grown into something
far more ominous; a raging war
that can have no winners.
Student Has Diffi
culty Doing Work
Ann Arbor, Mich.-(I. P.) - If
you’re an “A”student, you find
it hard to change your study habits
to earn only a “C” grade —
even when that’s all that is neces
sary and all you want to achieve.
This seems to be the result of
an experimental “pass-fail”
option adopted by the University of
Michigan College of Literature,
Science, and the Arts.
Beginning last winter, seniors
were permitted to take one course
outside their major field of study
on a pass-fail basis, with the
credits to count toward gradua
tion but not toward their final
grade-point average. Thisyearthe
faculty has extended the privilege
to junior students as well. In
general, students have welcomed
the innovation as giving them a
chance for academic exploration.
But compilation of grades ach
ieved by 178 of the 203 students
who took advantage of the option
in its first year indicates that
the “good students” did their usual
level of work in the pass-fail
course. The pass-fail students
were in the same classes as stu
dents taking the course under the
traditional grading and credit sys
tem.
The instructor gave aU students
the traditional letter grades, but
for those enrolled on a pass-fail
basis, the registrar recorded only
“pass” for those making C or
better, and “fail” for those get
ting D’s or E’s.
The level of performance of the
pass-fail students in the courses
was similar to their generalgrade
point average for all work taken
in the University. In other words,
A students continued to make A’s.
Charles Pascal, a research
associate who conducted the study
for the Center for Research on
Learning and Teaching, comments:
“We were surprised that students
were not more adept at playing
this new academic game.”
He said that even though the stu
dents sought only to achieve a C,
or passing level, their previous
years of “academis conditioning”
made it difficult if not impossible
to do so. The students themselves
were surprised, he says. One pass-
fail student expressed it this way:
“I’m trying hard not to work
and I still made a B-plus on the
midterm exam. I find myself try
ing to do the minimum amount
of work to get a C. Otherwise
I am frustrated that I am wasting
time in the (pass-tail) course that
I could be spending on the other
courses (in which grades are re
corded).”
Pascal recommends pass-fail
sections, in which all students
are enrolled on the pass-fail sys
tem. He cites the example of
“two lonely mathematics majors”
who enrolled in a course in the
history of art on a pass-fail basis.
Since at least a third of the
students in the class were
“majors” in history of art, the
math students not only were out
of their depth, but felt compelled
to respond to the competitive pres
sure for grade achievement, he
points out.
Let us bypass for a moment
the moral question of police
presence in Orangeburg, and its
result, and study the nature of
the Civil Rights movement to the
present. At first the Rights move
ment was met 'vith a wall of
animosity that equalled or sur
passed that which inspired it; yet
a few managed to breach the ^vall
and see • and be seen by their
enemy tor what they were humans.
This human confrontation, this
one-to-one relationship embodied
the hopes of the Rights leaders,
and indeed, at the time it was
their only hope. Perhaps it still
is. Yet it seems that such ef
forts have failed and that -the
opposing forces have begun to
regroup for a bigger battle with
more powerful weapons. Who can
doubt the effectiveness of an all-
consuming hatred as THE ulti
mate weapon?
Perhaps Orangeburg was more
than just a moral question, more
than flaunted equality, and more
than the death of three humans
with feelings much like yours or
mine; perhaps it is a question
of people being robbed of their
individuality, of people being used
for ends they don’t understand,
of people being forcefully denied
their ability to think and func
tion as human beings. Maybe that’s
what Civil Rights movements are
all about: a revolt against the
enforced acceptance of a de
humanized stereotype, a denial
of one’s uniqueness. If so, pre
judice can’t be fought by a mob—
that’s just compounding the error.
Can we condone the presence
of police in Orangeburg, or de
fend segregated establishments
there? No. But neither can we
condone a people’s blind faith in
inept leadership, or defend the
subordination of one’s unique per
sonality to the inevitable hysteria
of mob psychology. When this hap
pens, and the confrontation comes,
people are caught in a maze and
begin to strike out against the
madness that surrounds them,
rather than at the real madness
that underlies it all. Individuals
know right and wrong, love and
hate—mobs know nothing. If both
sides continue to act and react
as mobs against mobs, Orange
burg will be just a sampler.
(Signed) Walt Sherrill
“Gosh, Miss Brooks, do you really think it’s too late to apply for a deferment?