Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / May 19, 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
THURSDAY, MAY 19,. 1955 - PA62 TWO THE DAILY TAR HEEL A Handicap In The Home Stretch As students roiuul the semester turn and head for the home stretch (seemingly now more like the homework, streak), ideas lor improving the mechanics of getting an edu cation are as plentiful as spring picnics. ' The most-needed improvement is a stu. , dent reading day a day between the last day of classes and the opening of exams to pre pare for finals. I hestudcnt Legislature, overlooking1 the fact that the University's Calendar (Commit tee makes up' the exam schedule oyer a year in advance, evnv students a reading day be fore exams. Actually, students won't get the day this spring, or any other term, unless the calendar maters agree with the. student law lnakcts. We trust the arbiters of calendar and events will give the students a break next year and grant a leading day. Students, even bright ones, need more than one evening to review an entire term's work. Bevyare Socialistic Jabberwocks, My Sons What is good for the Tories is - good for the count rv: and since the Hoover Commis sion, the heart and soul of all good Toryism in the l S.. ha's recently come out for a dras tic reduction in public enterprises we will have to go along like good little Tories. "The Hoover Commission has now dispatch ed to the Congress as recommendations for removal of assorted thorns in the side of Tree Tnterprise. Among them: abolishment of the postal savings svstem: transference to private industry of lS8 industrial plants built, at Fed eral expense din ing World AVar II: abolish ment of all chemical research by the Tennes see Vallev Authority at Muscle Shoals. We have heard of rumblings within the Commis sion to axe TVA entirely. The public enterprises pay nox taxes and deprive the government of revenue it could get from private funds. Their -"unjustified continuance." in the words of those great "Tor ies ot the Hoover (Commission, "is a" definite injury to the vitality of the whole private en terprise system." Yes. these enterprises are gross and evil. What is more, they represent creeping so cialism. As John (Cog ley tells us in The Com-, monweal. socialistic mav be used to describe the intervention of government in private business. There are some exceptions when the Government" subsidizes the building of factories, private housing, overseas trade and in general cost-plus contracts, tor instance. Price supports to the independent farmer do not qualify as, socialistic, except in some be nighted Utah circles. Government intervention in these cases is known as stimulating free en terprise. What It Is, Is Originality In the new Yacketv-Yack, one would ex pect to find chronicled the storv of a campus year, liut stub is not the case. Actually. Tdhors Cornell Wright and Jac kie Park have given the Cniversitv some thing more than just a pictorial chronicle ot tne year. 1 he new Vack abounds in iH.etrv i i i -... . . . - Carolina Front The Decline And Fall Of Pari-Mutuel ' 1 A. C. Dunn pictures, and lik The vearlook is a . ,t as a Y-Court stroll in some places ami as sol emn a Commencement in others. In short tins ear's Yai Uiy-Yiwk is the" best Carolina' has seen in mauv ears. We congratulate vthe Yaek editors - and then stall-lor putting origiualitv jmo the yearUn.k. lor breaking awav from' the stereo type to present something new. tf)t Bail? Star J)etl The official student publication of the Publi cations Board of the University of North Carolina. where it is published t O 0 daily except Monday ff Jf : ' -yrJ'.. . TV W anil px.nmmoti.in I . 1 vacation periods and ed as swond class matter at the post of fice in Chapel Hill, N. O, under the Act of March 8, 1879. Sub scription rates: mail ed. $4 per year, $2 50 a semester; delivered, S6 a year, $3.50 a semester. It.. , . , NWih O ret. I'm -1 h Itr , ,.- : 1 f , : . V - Editors ... ED TODErTlOuTsKILAAR Managing Editor . FRED POWLEDGK Business Manager TOM SHORES Spom Edit Jr - BUZZ MEKRITT Associate Editor J. A. C. DUNN News Editor JACKIE GOODMAN Advertising Managers- Circulation Manager , Subscription Manager Assistant Business Manager Photographer Society Editor Librarian . , Dick Sirkin Jim Kiley Jack Godley Bin Bob. Peel Boyden Henley Susan Andes Pat Oliver " Readers Retort x m Socrates. DTH, & Yes-Yes LAST MONDAY NIGHT we were in the midst of an Irish poem that seemed, for all we could tell, t0 be talking about a girl who was raped by a goose, when we were lifted from the fastnesses of Winston Dorm I by a call from the editoral j povyers that be. 'Dunn, go cover the rat races at the Sigma Chi der- 1 by," said the voice. W e started to point out that we were reading a poenv and that it was Irish and all about a girl who . . . "Go cover the rat races. Navy field." We staggered down to the rat races. NEWS STAKE Neil Bass, Don St ray horn. Lois Owen, Jack Wiesel Niiht Editor tor this issue Jack Wiesel FAITHFUL TO THE very end, we forsook the Bingo table, the miniature golf course, the "Hit The Whatnot With A Thing ummy" game, and the Flush the Coed routine, and panted up to the Smith Dorm Rat Race Track. There were no lavishly dressed crowds standing anxiously in grandstands, there were no pari mutuel windows, no one had any binoculars or racing seats. But it was post time, and there was a horde of people bending over the table and yelling and jump ing up and down. At the end of the race we managed to squeeze our way in and have a look. The Smith Rat Track was com prised of four long runways in a cardboard box, each runway walled in by cardboard strips, each runway containing one rat. There were three white rats and a brown one the dark horse, presumably. We placed a dime on number four (Hat rack's Glory, by Registered Post out of Beerstein). The crowd swelled, swayed, placed its dimes; we ex amined Hatrack's Glory as it waited in its stall. It seemed restive, eager to run. Looked like a good thing. The rats came up to the wire. Number 2 (Lucky Strike, by Taj Mahal out of Socialism II) had evidently lost interest in racing and had given his attention to a piece of dog biscuit. Number 1 (Chaos, by Cobb Dorm out of Alderman) was running in tight little circles. Number 1 was the dark hors". Number 3 (Feetle bomb, by Swinburne out of 'Mereomatei) was frantically try ing to leave the track. Last minute bets were placed. The crowd tensed. The cardboard barrier flew up. They're off! THE CROWD ROARED. It cheered. It swore. It screamed. Several coeds were trampled in the rush. The boy beside us buried his face in his hands and wept. Not one of the rats moved. Hands were waved at them, dis traught bettors beat (he card board box and wailed. Hatrack's Glory took four steps forward, sat down, smiled up at the yell ing mass of faces, and brushed its whiskers. ' . At this crucial point one Feet lebomb backer leaned down and murmured "Hey, rat, I'm a cat!" Feetlebomb took off as if he was going to the moon and won the race by eighteen necks and a nose. We relinquished our dime and the Feetlebomb backer col lected a certificate entitling him to 20c worth of Goody Shop. THE NEXT FOUR races re lieved us of four- more dimes. We gave up on Hatrack's Glory and put our money en ChaosT Chaos ran halfway to the finish line at top speed and then dis covered he'd left his umbrella or something at the gate and ran back again. We had a go at Lucky Strike, but Lucky Strike hadn't finished his dog biscuit yet 'and wasn't going to give it up for any silly old race, be the stakes in the thousands though they may. We tried Feet lebomb. Feetlebomb lost simply because he didn't bother to run fast enough. We put our last dime on Chaos again. He ran quite well until the three quarter mark, and then developed colic. We left the track a ruined mac Editors: You quote Professor Hutchins as having asserted that a university "is a kind of continuing Socratip conversation on the highest level for. the very best people . . ." Since you appear to endorse this def inition, you will perhaps be pleased to grant me the privilege of expressing certain of my owfn opin ions which your monofogic parrotings have inspir ed. 1 .1 never did care much for Socratic dialogue. And I'll tell you why. It's a one-sided deal. Socrates' opponent always turns out to be a sort of brain washed yes-man who in his confusion is incapable of doing his own reasoning and lets Socrates do it for him. I open my Plato quite at random, mind you and find myself somewhere in the Phaedo. Here, from two pages, are some of the yes-man's answers: "Very true," "True." "Very true." "True." "Quite so.' "It may be." "Very true. ". . . yes, and swear to it, with all the confidence in life." "To be sure." I turn the page and find, on the next two pages: "That is certain." "Very true." "Yes." "Very true." "Yes, in a very great measure too." "Certainly." "Precisely.-1 "Very true." "Yes." "Certainly." "Yes." "True." . ' Now there, for our enlightenment, is one side of a Socratic dialogue. Ironically enough. Professor Hutchins' definition is a good one. A university education today is, is indeed, a sort of Socratic dialogue. What feacher does not like to play the part of Socrates? What student does not play the ves-man? I would not cast reflections on the honesty of the student by insinuating .that he consciously plays his ignominious yes-man part in the ereat farce of present day education. I am not talking about the few who put advancement above integrity to the extent of yessing themselves into the favor of the teacher. I am talking about the average student, who is, unconsciously, a yes-man. He is the victim of an attitude into which he has been trained hy years of classroom attendance. He has been condi tioned to believe what the te'acher says, and more often than not he does. He will even defy what he thinks to be and what may well be the ignorance of his own parents with what he has been taught in school. When he graduates, he is a product, the product of a system. He believes exactly what the system taught him. To say this is to say no more than that he was taught what he was taught. And I would take him as an astonishing exception as a product of our schools today if he had been taught to question what he had been taught. Now, of course you may say, "Oh, but that is ex actly what the Socratic method teaches: to examine and consider and reason upon and if need be, in the light of truth, reject." Well, that is true. That is what the Socratic method has come to mean, and that is undoubtedly what Professor Hutchins meant to convey. But the point is, this attitude unfortun aely does not characterize the present-day student. Ironically, and somewhat paradoxically, he is too much like the yes-man of the Socratic dialogue to participate in the true spirit of the Socratic meth od. (In the dialogues it is" really Socrates who does the examining and considering and reasoning. His part of the dialogue represents, actually, the total ity of the method His "opponent" merely stands there to affirm what Plato thinks is the soundness of Socrates' musings.) Tronv niles uDon ironv. In vour editorial of last Sunday you yes-yes the Hutchins statement which you had quoted a day or so before, by modestly putting "yourselves forward as carriers-on of "the great Socratic tradition"; and then you proceed to yes-yes the Phi Beta-Kappa address of Professor Adams. ' , . , ; I don't say that you shouldn't haye yes-yessed the Adams speech, but your doing so illustrated what is in your case not only a prevailing tendency but, apparently, a hard and fast, rule: that is, your presumption that the educator is always right. Well, Professor Adams is right, partly. He is right when he says "even college students join the general public in the avoidance of thinking" and that "Many (students) have concluded that it won't do to think too much" and that "in a modern university, espe cially in a modern state university, very little cre ative thinking is done by the faculty." But he goes on to illustrate the thesis of his own un-thinkingness (even deans, he says, can't find time to think) by yes-yessing the liberal-educator .propaganda that the sincere concern over the teach ing of un-American doctrines in our schools arise from some sort of "small-minded" delight in a "cloak-and-dagger game." Poor Adams! Poor sincere but misguided Adams! I sincerely doubt that even if he had time to think, he would wake up to the fact that he had unwittingly revealed earlier in his own speech the real cause of present-day concern over the exposing ofvstudents to anti-American teachings. Students, even college students, he had said, don't think; and "Many have concluded that it won't do to think too much . . ." Here is the reql danger to academic freedom and, though he in his Adamitic blindness cannot see it, the real cause for the concern over what is taught. As long as the Socrates-"yes-man" relationship exists in our schools, there can be no true academic freedom. The point that has been overlooked is that academic freedom involves more than the teacher's right to teach what he pleases. Academic freedom involves and this is even more important tire student's position as a person taught. As long as he has an unvarying and unwavering "yes" atti tude toward what seems to him an all-wise teacher, he is not free.' A product as he is, from his early years, of a system which has taught him a cowering acquiescence in intellectual authority, he is not even free to "yes" or not to "yes." So fashioned, he never gives a thought to the alternatives and does not even see that he is "not free. Out of consideration of all this has come the increasing concern over the teaching of Communism and of Communist-tinged doctrines in our schools. The problem is, not so simply defined, nor so easily explained away, as some would have us believe. The absolutistic "reasoning" now in vogue assumes that the student is a detached nucleus of autonomy and therefore' perfectly free to accept or reject what is taught him. But he is not, and the very word "taught" belies the contention that he is. Here, and not in impositions from outside the schools, is the real problem of "thought-control," here is the real problem of academic freedom. The solution will come when students are educated to a healthy suspicion of intellectual authority, indeed almost a contempt for it. The solution will come when students are taught to think for themselves. There is no place in American education for the yes-man of the Socratic dialogues. John W. McDonald 'Rest Assured That If We Find One Polio Germ Crossing A Stat e Line' ' '.-- .j. ------- . ..-n -t. China Lobby Loses Ike & Support Doris Fleeson WASHINGTON It has been apparent here for some time that President Eisenhower is moving toward some form of disengage ment in the Far East and that advocates of a hard policy in Asia and all out support of Chiang Kai-shek have lost. Chiang's friends including Senators Bridges and McCarthy are now speaking up in the Senate to show that they realize what is happening. They are saying more or less directly that they, at least, are not de ceived by any pretensions that the administration has not ma terially altered its course since the P r e s i d'e n t "unleashed' Chiang in his first State of the Union message. , It is perhaps too much to de . clare that these speeches are funeral orations over a policy to which a powerful Republican faction has long been dedicated and which iLhas pressed to the hilt against Democratic Admin istrations. But barring an unex pected turn of events, that is what they will prove to be. For the President is going to get his way. Congress is behind him, thinking that the American people are. Few Senators both ered to listen to the speeches which so well described, from one point of view, the present turning point in history. The Senators are indifferent because the cause is lost. The mere fact that it was left to the discredited Senator from Wis-" consin to mount the principal attack speaks for itself. The McCarthy text was cogently and closely reasoned. It charted more lucidly than any Democrat has managed to do the WThite House changes of direct ion. These the speech carried directly to the President with many pungent and quotable ob servations such as; "the masters never had a better pupil." Had Chiang's friends here, now so bitter against Eisen hower, been able to persuade an s influential TSehator to make such a speech, obviously they would have done so. Senator Bridges proceeded much more cautiously, wrapping up many go-slow warnings to the President in the Yalta text which he quoted copiously. Brid ges, the senior Republican of the Senate, knows that the party has to have Eisenhower to win next year. He has also seen a New Hampshire poll taken by Rep. Perkins Bass which shows their home state is solidly for the President's policv. The objective observer must admit some truth in the ' Mc Carthy charge that the Adminis tration is pursuing an equivocal course with respect to the Chinese Nationalists. Chiang's hopes, of course, have risen and fallen with the changes in U. S. policy. It would be possible to feel much more apologetic about this were it not that his friends have subjected this Capital for years to ceaseless and unwearied lob bying which attempted to exploit every domestic political quarrey. All . foreign countires, of course, seek friends here. Few others, if any, have bad the nerve to try Openly to turn domestic politics to their advantage. The China Lobby put all its chips on one GOP faction and it has lost. CONTRAST IN STATE PARKS North Carolina's two most visited State parks, Mount Mit chell and Fort Macon, illustrate the dramatic geographical con trasts of Variety Vacationland. Like all other North Carolina State parks, Iiey are open free to visitors. Mount Mitchell State Park is atop 6,68-1 foot Mount Mitchell, highesj peak in eastern America. No point yi the park is less than a mile above sea level. It is open from April through late October and is reached by a five-mile section of paved highway (N.C. 128) connecting with the Blue Ridge Parkway 33 miles north of Asheville- A large new build ing of native stone houses a res turant; other park facilities in clude a refreshment stand, paved 250-ear parking lot, picnic and camping areas, and hiking trails. The park covers 1.224 acres purchased by the State ia 1815. v r Y -Court Corner Reuben Leonard IN THE three previous springs that I have sper. in Chapel Hill each was characterized by the turr ins of young men's fancies to thoughts of crusar ing This spring is no exception. It seems that or.c aain the majority of the student body has board,, that good ship "Crusade." - The boys in the lower quad are advocating 'Tre love " the seniors are preaching "live fast die youn; and be a pretty corpse," and The Daily Tar Heel i endeavoring to carry the "White Man's Burden." The thought of The Daily Tar Heel editors an their willingness to be martyrs for the segrat.o ssue reminds me of the time that I ived cloop, in the South than at present. In fact, the Snul seemed further south than it does now. INCIDENTALLY, MY name is Cmp-pper. 'Calf D Culpepper the third that is. I am hundred an sixteen-year-old idiot. I come from a long line , Culpeppers, and we are all just one grat big har! degenerate Southern family. Anyway, we used to live on an o'd plantatio named TaVa. The Mississippi River used to flo within a stone's throw of our house. I know. becau I used to throw stones' into the river. That Missi sippi was an odd sort of river; it was as clear ; crystal until it reached the Mason-Dixon Line, an then it became Vmuddy and stayed that way tint it reached where ever it was that it was goin?. -. EVERY TIME I think of Tara, 1 think of the Civ Wan My brother, Rhett Butler Culpepper age T and my mother. Scarlet OTIara Culpepper age 0: and myself were the only ones living on the plar tation during the war. We had 1,700 slaves to hel us with the chores, but we were still shorthantlc because most of our slaves had deserted us for o fice jobs up North. My brother Rhett and I had to keep our motlu in her room. She would drink all the canned lie; if we let her out. Sterno certainly was hard to i; during the war. A- AS I have already mentioned, everyone had lc the plantation to fight the war. By the way, w Culpeppers are all heroes. My great-grandfathe Carlton "Stone Wall" Culpepper was the first Coi federate soldier killed in the Civil War. He w; called "Stone Wall" because when he was fihtin the Yankees he gave out of cannon bails so he 'star ed firing granite blocks taken from the jailhou wall. They left the hole in the wall as a monurnei to him. But alas, his military career came to an abruj halt when one of his men mistook him for a Se ond-Lieutenant and shot him in the back. I'M NOT exactly certain as to the cause of "Tli War of Northern Aggression," but I have heard ; said that some fellow by the name of Lincoln star ed it. They say in the South that he was a sort ; king up North, and he was awfully jealous of a! the big white houses in the South. I suppose h wanted to be the only man living in a bU( .whit - house. Anyway, he sent a whole host of Yankee soldier down South with orders to burn all the houses, wr men, and children. He also instructed his men, have heard, to capture the slaves and bring then up North to work in the mills and to help build , golf course on the White House lawn. This Lincoln fellow was very fond of moving pic tures so he would go to the theater and sit for dav at a time watching the new 3 D movies. One da; he sat down beside another man's wife and t.vi man shot him. BUT BACK to Tara and my family. One day on maid Lisa prepared one of the most delicious' din ners we had ever tasted southern fried chicke: and chittlings (Lisa really knew how to fix southern-fried chicken she would take the chicken on into the backyard, pick all the feathers out an, then kill it). Our meal was interrupted by a knock on the door I very casually opened the door and to mv am 370 ment saw 100,000 Yankee soldiers in the front yard The spokesman for the group was standing i.n th porch leading his men in a cheer or yell or "some thing They were yelling, "War is Hell War isrHel! War is Hell." The spokesman turned around.- XoU me his name was Sherman, and said that he h.v orders to burn a path 60 miles wide throu-h th South and our house was in that path. I knew tha he meant what he said because he was tou-h Ir fact, that's the next thing he said to ie-Ir tough." SHERMAN AND his men set fire to te ho'io Rhett and myself sneaked out a back window bi, we didnt let mother come with us. ye knew tin she would want the few remaining cans f ', that we had. We sat comfortably in one of the honen, tvu old homeplace went up in flames. I uiW never f.'.r get the sound of my mother's screams as te f1It closed m on her. It was a rather eerie situatu-n WHEN WE awoke the next mornins. we not ce that only- the chimney remained standi" Te re mainder of Tara had gone up in smoke We ve the chimney standing in racmorv )aZ dear mother. - , The nnlv item; .. - . llc WCJt aoie I0 ,-3ve frcn, ., f,. -v.. UiU scraps of paper. One wjs "New York Express Timetable- arS the oeV 'vr coirrCe tPH0liCyC SinCe Rhett h3d S-duate f ron college with a B. S. in Business Administration he told me that we could collect a good dea o money o the policy and CU i V - Jever been out of the South so I agreed to u WE ARRIVED in NeV Ynri- ......... ... " fire had destroyed Tara. New York wis size of our old homestead . f.., -; .v.. '.V Ve didnt have a Mississippi R:v,-r roar o r home, but we could go doun to Kxi K ,' stir it with a stick and make it muddv There was a lutle store 4n the treot'fr where we lived that sold a Northern d-W Seat so writ T hV miX ' -neat so we got along all right. ? f- rUSaders runniS- out all over the -v
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
May 19, 1955, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75