Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / April 26, 1955, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 1955 THE DAILY TAR HEEL PAGE TWO r ' "' - r The Administration Is A Big Bad ... Two student government leaders raised their oratorical voices above the conversational exchange at the weekend's All-Campus Conference to verbal ly slap the University administration. "The administration plans to take over student government," accused Manning Muntzing. "The administration, in its desire to avoid trouble, has a tendency to maintain the status quo," opined David Reid. The Daily Tar Heel does not believe that the administration plans to take over student govern ment, despite Muntzing's ominous declaration. Nor do we feel that the administration strives for the status quo, merely to avoid trouble,- as Reid would have us believe. However, it is clear that the -current lack of understanding between student leaders and the Dean of Student Affairs office resembles diplomatic relations between this country and Russia nol relations between two elements of the same L Diversity. Student leaders and University administrators are equally at fault for letting the gap widen, for falling out of contact with each other. The admini stration has shown a tendency to become preoc cupied with high-level affairs to the point of neg lecting the student. And student government leaders have demonstrated a propensity to become so full ci themselves and their own pet plans that they resent consultation with the administration. Any automomy that student government enjoys h..s been granted by the the administration. And any administrative plan that is to be successful re quires the cooperation of students. Thus, both stu dents and administrators are nowhere without each other; neither group can succeed without coopera tion from the other. The Daily Tar Heel urges student .leaders to splice the lines of student-administrative communi cation back together. We suggest a regular board of student leaders, Dean of Student Affairs Fred Weaver, and Dean of Student Activities Roy Hol sten. With such a group as this talking over problems, the present University civil war between students and administrators would begin to look like what it really is a healthy scrimmage between two ele ments of the same squad. The Scales Case The conviction af alumnus Junius Scales at Greensboro holds so many signs and portents that they can be discussed, at best, only partially. Scales will go to prison as an advocate of the violent overthrow of the United States government. Rightly or wrongly, that much is now settled. Any one with fingers sensitive to the pulse of feeling on Communism could have told you as much when Scales was arrested last November in Memphis. Liberals ought to be, and are, the most out spoken enemies of Marxism. Its gospel of state supremacy, its insistence that "the safety of the revolution is the supreme law," are hot and intoler able winds in the face of a liberal. Before them, the Constitutional "unalienable rights" in which he so strongly believes would vanish in crisis like wisps of smoke. Yet there is much in our current treatment of domestic Communists like Scales that gives the liberal hesitation. There are factors which run foul of his real allegiance on the purely ideological side and place him in enemy tents where he does not wish to be. One of these factors is his fear that the American people have lost their sense of relativity in the realm of values. The English, who have as much reason as we to fear Communism, let their domestic Communists agitate to their heart's con tent, right in Hyde Park. What difference in con dition makes our own attitude other than that? Another factor is the liberal's fear that opinion is being confused vvtih act. We do not put people before the bar of justice in this country for their opinions alone; rather, it is requisite that clearly catalogued laws against criminal violence must have been broken. Was the distinction- made clear in the long, dreary course of the Scales Trial? Was Scales tried for opinion or for act? A final factor, getting down this time to more specific instances, is the rapid rise of the paid in former as a star of American justice. The Scales trial ran over from day to day with witnesses who had gained their information through the back door and over the transom, whose graphic testimony to events was gained through a moral keyhole. We condemn evesdroping; we have openly fought the unAmeriacn device of wiretapping. Is there here a basic incongruity with that lofty fighting and con demnation? Jacob Hay, who covered the trial for the Greens boro Daily News, sounds a note of pessimism in his post mortem column on the case: Nearly every man afthe press table took a dim view of the government's professional and amateur informers. It's all very well to say that these people perform a valuable function; that they are saving us all from Russia: that some body has to do the job. The point is, these in formers just aren't a natural phenomenon in this country. They are, it seems to me, the symptom of a sickness. We, too, thought the sickness of the system had been indicated by the ballerina-like twirling of Harvey Matusow. A failure of that proportion should suffice to put us on the alert about the reliability of paid witnesses. Our system of justice is founded on the assump tion of sincerity and innocence; that system must take grave jolts when insincerity and suspicion pit us against each other. Insincerity at the roots of anything breeds cynicism; and cynicism is about as good for a society as stray grains of sand for precision machinery. The informers, says Mr. Hay in conclusion, "frighten me much, much more than Junius Scales and his chums." They frighten us too. . Carolina Front -MAJOR PORTENT IN JAPAN A Squabble, A Quibble, & A Deathnote J. A. C. Dunn ANOTHER OF THOSE moun tain of exchange " newspapers has come down upon us in an avalanche o f battered news print. This is something that 4 happens every 'f so often, some i thing we just ' have t0 face. However, the avalanche is. not always unfruit ful, to wit: A University Head Gives Warning WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSI TY, in its newspaper, The Daily Athenaeum, printed on April 21 a baffling comment on UNC which we reprint here in its entirety for the benefit of those who may be in the know. "The University of North Car olina campus now boasts a beach of imported sand. It's on the lawn, on the sidewalk, in the street and in various nooks and crannies of the terrain sur rounding Joyner Dormitory. "The founding fathers form ulated a constitution to control use of . the beach. Some provir sions: no. profanity uttered ex cept at law enforcement officers or any other males who mumble, think or orate any cutting re marks; no spreading by Univer sity employees of 'horse, cow or elephant fertilizer' on the grounds of the heach; invitations will verbally expressed to fe males regardless of size shape or other qualifications." We cannot honestly say we know what this means, but per haps someone could enlighten us. What beach? Whose found ing fathers, UNC's or Virginia's? Does that stuff under the bush es really come from elephants? And invitations will be express ed to females to do what, pray? IF YOU THINK the normal routine of this University has been upset by the recent fee raise business, take a look at Texas, whose eyes, for once, seem to be turned inward on themselves. Texas was trying to pass a bill in its Senate empowering college governing boards to levy a compulsory student activity fee not to exceed $15 per stu dent. When the bill went to the Texas House for further act ion, "Filibustering Senator Jim my Phillips stood on the Senate floor and rasped in an already hoarse voice Monday afternoon and at the night session as he tried to block the bill." The rasping Mr. Phillips evi dently managed to bollux up a considerable amount of the Tex as Legislature's organization be fore the protest of the bill was finally squelched. The bill was reduced from $20 to $15. Phillips rasped through an amendment cutting it still further to $5. This amendment was tabled. Phillips ' rasped again, took another amendment written on yellow ruled paper up to the rostrum; this amendment pro posed the bill be for $8. Then Phillips discovered that he had proposed the wrong amendment, reproposed another one setting the limit of the bill at $4. In the end, despite poor Mr. Phillips' wisecracking, nail-filing and hoarse rasping, the bill was passed at $15 again. A pox upon thy tvivial quibbling Texas! And all those oil wells out there, too! it LAST SATURDAY WAS a black day. We received in the morning mail a sinister postcard to' the effect that, "Brother Dunn, get a new picture! 'I pre dict' your taunting, smarty ex pression in this is poisonous for your future;" and our raugshot had been clipped and pasted on the upper left hand corner of the card. Of course it is rather discon certing to be called "Brother Dunn," as if we were monastary bait. However, let that pass. We do not quite understand the quotes around "I predict," eith er. But let that pass. What in terests us most is this business about our future. Should we rejoice that someone is concern ed for our welfare in the years ahead? Joseph Alsop TOKYO, Japan President Ya naihara of Tokyo University is a major portent for the United States, of the kind our increas ingly reckless policy makers never seem to notice. Tokyo is the great, national, state supported university to which bright young men flock from all over Japan. Since the ancient tradition of the pupils reverence for the master is stili strong in this country, Tokyo's annual graduating class of sev eral thousand all tend to reflect the opinions of Tokyo's presi dent. By virtue of his office, therefore, and as an admirable scholar and a man of the highest character, President Yanaihpra occupies a position in Japanese life that has had no real Ameri can equivalent since the days when Eliot of Harvard was the grand panjandrum of education in the United States. A call on President Yanaihara is a singular experience. Under the young spring green of the trees . on Tokyo University's crowded campus, black uniformed students are enjoying the sun and talking animatedly. The win dows that survey the campus also pour bright spring sunshine into the comfortable president's' of fice, full of pleasant, scholarly litter. President Yanaihara, whose handsome, fine boned face pro claims his strong religious ideal ism, welcomes his visitor with charming Japanese courtesty. The wandering reporter, sadly tired of looking at political faces in public places, savors this non political atmosphere wtih delight and refreshment. But the first re action changes to something rather different when Japan's current problems begin to be discussed. 'BARKING DOG' "Japan," 'says President Ya naihara firmly, "is now Ameri ca's barking dog. We now bark or bark not as the signal may be given. ' As illustration of this thesis, President Yanaihara, with per ceptible bitterness, describes the problem of his colleague, the President of Fukuoka University. The university is close to the big American airfield at Fuku oka. The planes landing and tak ing off are very noisy. Many pro fessors, in protest against the nuisance, actually cease lectur ing when a plane noise is heard. The others who do not fall silent are inaudible anyway. But the President of Fukuoka has received no satisfaction from pointing out these grave incon veniences to the American Air Force and the Japanese govern ment. Nothing has 'been done to improve the situation. "I ask you," says President Yanaihara, "is that real independence? Is this our country or is it yours?" From this beginning, Presi dent Yanaihara develops his main theme: The world is con vulsed by the struggle between . America and the Soviet Union. Who is to blame for this struggle may be disputed, but all Asians fear "American imperialism" and American belligerency. From this struggle, the Japanese people wish to stand apart, in perfect nutralism, having friendly relations with both sides. MOVE FORCES v Therefore the first and most essential thing is to get all Amer ican armed forces out of Japan immediately. It is true, of course, that the Soviet Union has deployed vast forces in Siberia, and that Communist China is arming to the teeth. But the Rus sians and Chinese have probably been driven to do these things by America with her hydrogen bombs. In any case, President Yanaihara has no fear that his country will fall victim to these good neighbors. The problem of Japan's self defense can be settled after the withdrawl of American forces from Japanese soil. Until then, no wise discussion of the prob lem is possible. And for himself, being an idealist, President Ya naihara thinks that Japan should set a high example to the world by having no defense of any kind. Such are the views of the most influential single educator in this country. They are not iso lated or eccentric views either. Gakushuin University is the for mer peers school, where Japan's Crown Price is now being edu cated with the sons of Japan's other great and ancient families. And at Gakushuin, the high minded and benevolent Presi dent Abe holds the same opin ions as President Yanaihara al though a visit to Communist China as head of a good will mission has left President Abe a littlelesspositiveaboutthe e e a little less positive about the desirability of having no defense whatever. The same views are to be found, again, in three of the four magazines which speak for and to the Japanese intelligentsia. 'Really, Don't You Notice Anything'? Over The Hill Charles Dunn CAMPUS publications have long been one of the outstand ing features at Carolina. The Daily Tar 'Heel, the Carolina Quarterly, and Tarnation have all been recognized as some of the outstanding publications in their class in the South. 'The University is lucky to have these publications, and the students are lucky to have such outlets for their talents, whether these talents be for writing, or for art work, or for anything else. Yet the number of students taking advantage ' of these op portunities for experience is very small. There are usually a few that take an interest in each of the publications and work very hard and do the job well. But there are others on campus, who have the talent and who have had some experience on high school publications, that could aid the few who have to work so hard to keep the quality of the publications as high as they are. The big problem is to get more students out to work on the publications. Some don't have time, some think that there is no place 'for them on the 'Staffs, some don't get the proper en couragement. Maybe if every dormitory, fraternity, and so rority had a reporter elected with their officers it would help, and if the editors of the publi cations would take a little more time to consider and encourage the work and the offers to work of interested students the Caro lina publications would be even better than they are. POEM: In the column today we would like to print a couple of- bits of student writing. The first is a poem entitled "inte gration and the D.T.H." It was written by Bill Acker, a fresh man from South Carolina. Kindly focus your attention Pardon, -please, the interven tion On your incidental mental State 0f studious intention To a subject now demanding Contemplation, notwithstanding That our reason may be treason To the righteous D.T.H. 'Twas a peaceful situation In a state of segregation. There, invested, unprotested, Were ideals of noble station. But the fact that different races Go to school in separate places Is ferociously attrocious To the righteous D. T. H. With this heinous innovation, With this scheme of integration Came discussion, repercussion And defiant legislation. ! But the slighest indication Of the feeblest remonstration Has been chided and derided By the righteous D. T. H. It is with such apprehension I promulgate my dissension, I'm refraining from complaining And will make no further men tion Which might be a malefaction, Which might bring a swift re action To revile me and defile me In the righteous D. T. H. READER'S RETORT S-L. o . Orchids To Dunn. Not Leonard Editors A sheaf of orchids to Associate Editor J. A. C. Dunn for his Sunday bouquet of onions to Column ist Rueben Leonard! In regard to the surprisingly (for the usually acceptable DTH of Messrs. Yoder and Kraar) saf fron Saturday selection ("Y Court Corner"), may we add a few bulbs of garlic to J.A.C. Dunn's pre sentation? It seems to us remarkably singular that anyone should be call "lewd" (for use of "by God") by, of all people, a former . editor of Tarnation. Not that we are casting aspersions at the campus humor -magazine; far from it! The wit in Tarnation, even when not particularly subtle, is funny. Mr. Leo nard's humor escapes us. And Phi on him for at tackling this assembly" ex-speaker, with a great big whooping week-out-of -water Yadkin River fish thrown in. . We won't attempt to parry the thrust at the Carolina Forum. We are sure that the versatile head of this most worthwhile organization could much more effectively purge away the mud smear, if he thought it worth the trouble. Wnich It prob- ably isn't. And speaking of trouble, did it occur to you, Mr. Leonard, that a few minutes' conversation a few months ago with,a member either of the Bud get Committee or of the Ligislature's Finance Committee would have been a much more effec tive place to air your gripes than a supposedly entertaining and informative newspaper column appearing after the budget's presentation? We be lieve that it would. Furthermore, we are sure'that any legislator would be most willing to hear you views. That's what we elected them for, isn't it to represent us? Or perhaps, being an ex-legislator yourself, you may feel that the new session has been purged (there's that word again are we subversive?) of all the so-called "political nymphomaniacs." Look ing back over election results, we find that a few seasoned veterans still . remain. Praise Allah! (Are we, too, Lewd-Mouthed?) Political nymphomaniacs." Perhaps. We won der if their value isn't superior to that of "soapbox sadists." Our money (student fees, that is) goes to the former. . , a ' . A pontieal je ne sals -quoi Diapered Dan, Pea-Brain Threat Ed Yoder It's hard to hear what someone says through a lipful of snuff, but this time I tried very hard. Th sneaker, an old-timer in Chapel Hill, jmi- ed the new load of snuff around in front of his mi teeth. . . "Lord " he groaned, "these students now am t got to do a 'damn thing." His features, the chipped -from-granite variety, jerked authoritatively. "I can remember when nobody had no cars and students even had to tote firewood. Now all you d6 is push a button. The next thing you know, you fellers won't even go to the classroom or think. You'll just push a button for that, too." MACHINES VS. CLASSES That thought, coupled with an- intention to write a piece on the rising terrors of automation, set me to thinking The idea that machines could ever take the place of going to class or thing hadn't crossed my horizon of thought. Could it be? Of course I d read how, at Harvard, Joe McCarthy's ace gumshoe, G. David Schine, had surrounded himself with tape recording machines and stenographers to record Cambridge learning and pour it down into his skull: but even there the human factor hung on. A sinister between the think-machines and im pending automation began to work itself round and round in the hinges of my brain. Suppose the maze of calculus baffles the physicist ironing out a tech nical hitch in the Nautilis; supose a certain his torian wants to know wheher, if Longstreet hadn't done thus and so at a certain moment in Gettysburg, the Confederacy would have taken another course; or another, what effect it would have had on Athenian history if Themistocles had put the pots herds in .the urns instead of in an abandoned well. Suppose Dr. Einstein had been able to ask an electronic machine to prove his Unified Field Theory. FREUD AND THE MACHINE This led me to last year's anniversary issue of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and to an article, "Electronic Brain On War and Peace," by Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review. In the early history of the electronic brain, Mr. Cousins tells us, the gadgets fell flat on pro positions involving emotional and or psychological factors. Probably didn't have education in the ways of Adlerian Earth-Mother complexes and Freudian Narcisism. In other words, if decision were involved in any problem, the winking pro file of tubes and wires and light registered only bewilderment. Mr. Cousins dwelt at length on that short coming. Then came a letter from a Dr. P. Stor hperne, former head of the Norwegian Academy of Science, the world's foremost authority on the inpotencies and potencies of the electroic brain. Dr. Storhjerne, in that letter, proclaimed the successful testing of an electronic brain which could work with the intangibles of human choice emotion, feeling, psychology. Called "Deciding Dan", this undfapered child could deliver answers other than to baffing calculus problems. History, economics, political science surrendered to its lightning omniscience. The old brain had possess ed a working vocabulary of about 1200 words and a functioning memory of about 24 hours. AMAZING MEMORY "Deciding Dan," furnished with germanium diode tubes, mustered a memory-span of 42 days far beyond the human average, as Mr. Cousins points out. This "electronic brain can register every fact fed into it for almost a month and a half." Nine historians, enlisted from universities in Europe and Asia, including Oxford, Berlin, Cairo, and Delphi, fed "Deciding Dan" a choking problem entailing some 780,000 sets of facts on the possibilities of war and peace. Dan wheezed and blinked and whirred and hummed away at the cards of facts as they were fed him at the rate of 240 a minute. After four hours and 20 minutes of feeding and some 19 minutes of electro-cogitalion, Dan began to. return his answers. (This brain-work the scientists estimate, would have taken 60 men a total of 15 years; yet Dan did it in 19 minutes.) Dan's conclusion, by the way, was unmistakable: "When tranlated it read as follows: 'War is not in-' evitable. Give the United Nations the power and" the means it needs to enforce world peace through law.' " "Deciding Dan" could, then, work amazing won ders for the Dr. Einsteins and the Tovnbees and the John Maynard Keyneses; it could hand down to man undebatable historical, scientific, and economic man dates. (Continued tomorrow) FOR LAUGHS: This next bit of student writing was done by Tony Miller, a pre-med student from ' near Winston-Salem. The article was written for an April fool edition of the "Rebel Yell," (Stacy's dorm newspaper) which didn't come out: "It has been announced that the (dormitory) social room has been given over for the use of a bar and will be open to coeds at any time from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. The only rules that dorm men must abide by follow. Dorm men must wear a tie while entertaining the ladies. The bar is to be the . main attraction, with beer being on sale during the regular times stated by the ABC board. Therex is to be no drunkeness, nor any profanity while ladies are present. There will be no hard liquor sold, but set-ups will be served,' since there is a new ruling that men can keep in their possession one quart of liquor per person, or two. quarts per room (if one is lucky enough not to have a roommate who will drink up his 'water of life').". Wat Baity Car -h)tz The official student publication of the Publi cations Board of the University of North Carolina, where it is published f . daiy except Monday V aim examination and " vacation periods and summer terms. Enter s' ed as second class H matter at the post of- ' fice in Chapel Hill, N. C, under the Act of jj March 8, 1879. Sub- t ed. S4 per year, $2.50 a semester; delivered, scription rates: mail $6 a year, $3.50 a semester. Editors ED YODER, LOUIS KRAAR Managing Editor FRED POWLEDGE Business Manager TOM SHORES Sports Editor BUZZ MERRITT Associate Editor j q EUN News Editor TJL . JackleodnTa Circulation Manager Subscription Manager - Assistant Business Manager Dick Sirkin Jim Kiley Jack Godley Bill Bob Peel Night editor for this issue -Eddie Crutcblield
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
April 26, 1955, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75