Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Sept. 26, 1963, edition 1 / Page 2
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Vol. 72, No. 5 Thursday, September 26, 1963 Letters To The Editors Site of the: Uaiverrsity ?' North dttetint' ojftttvi it door t I. 1 J Otfp iaxltt (Mr 70 Years of Editorial Freedom Offices on the second floor of Graham Memorial. Telephone number: Editorial, sports, news 942-3112. Business, cir culation, advertising 942-2138. Address: Box 1080, Chapel Hill, N. C. Entered as 2nd class matter at the Post Office in Chapel Hill, N. C, pursuant to Act of March 8, 1870. Subscription rates: $4.50 per semester; $8 per year. 3 u I?:: Published daily except Mondays, examination periods and vacations, throughout the aca demic year by the Publications Board of the University of North Carolina. Printed by the Chapel Hill Publishing Company, Inc., 501 West Franklin Street, Chapel IBU, N. C. THE DAILY TAR HEEL is a subscriber to United Press International and utilizes the services of the University News Bureau. Editor Of Quarter i . . On The Bravery Of Minor League Hoods Who Draw Their Courage From Anonymity Just when we begin to feel that man has come a long way from the state of nature, and that life is not short and brutish, we get stopped cold by some action which we can neither believe nor comprehend. It is in this state of in credulity that we write this editorial. Several dajrs ago there appeared on this page a letter to the editor criti cizing the conduct of some of the stu dents attending the Friday night "Free Flicks." The letter pointed out that a few boisterous, selfish students ruined the movie for the rest of the crowd. Yesterday, the author of the letter received a boldly worded but unsigned letter from someone who obviously found a shoe that fit. It follows as it wras written: "I'm taking bets that you have to be a goddam (sic) freshman here to have the guts to write such a sick ening article! Obviously you have not been untied from your mother's apron strings long enough to understand the real purpose of those "Free Flicks." And if you don't, I'll tell you they're just a means of letting off steam after a wreek's work around here. If your damned niger (sic) friends are 'embarrassed' why the hell don't they go to school at Greensboro where they belong. "After such "sucklings" as you have been here a little longer, you'll , also realize that there's no such thing as the so called "campus code" to most of the people here it's admittingly (sic) a farce. "Why don't you come down off cloud 9 now, huh? You'd just as well try to change the world." Thanks We find it difficult to believe that a student at Carolina wrote this letter, but such is apparently the case. And if this were not bad enough, the author of the original letter to the DTH has had several groups of visitors come to his room to insult him. One group of four or five stayed in his room for a few minutes and just stared threaten ingly, then left. One can only admire the bravery of these minor league hoodlums. They come to call in groups, are afraid to sign their letters, and become rude and overbear ing only in the protective anonymity pro vided by a darkened theatre. So now that these people have ven tured forth and accomplished their spohomoronic mission of muck intimida tion, we hope they will retreat to their room and not .show themselves until it is time for them to regale the audience of a "Free Flick" with their sophisticat ed wit. The Peculiar Malady Of Homesickness - It's our experience that one thing most newcomers to Chapel Kill and the University will almost certainly get is a good, rousing case of homesickness. Doesn't matter if you're a downy cheeked freshman, a divorced sopho more, a girl (or boy) hungry junior or a married senior. It even happens to graduate students and professors. Chapel Hill is like that. All we can promise you is that it's worth fighting and getting over, because Chapel Hill grows on you, and once you're covered with its aura, loneliness is a very in frequent companion. But believe us, you have to work at it. Get to know the people next door. Join a couple of things you want to be ac tive in, or think you might like. Use the rifle, not the shotgun, technique. Slowly and unnoticed, the alone-ness of this place departs and suddenly you belong. Once that happens, you'll forget all about those long, grey days and quiet, blue evenings, and the beauty of this place will come through to you. We know. Our particular case lasted quite awhile. Leave Us Spike The Water, As Arranged Chapel Hill's Manning Simons looks from here like sort of a male Otelia EDITORIAL STAFF Gary Blanchard, David Ethridge Co-Editors Managing Editors Wayne King Fred Seely Associate Editor Peter Harkness Photo Editor Jim Wallace Sports Editor Curry Kirkpatrick John Montague Jim Wallace Asst. Sports Editor Night Editor Reporters: Mickey BlackweU, Administration Peter Wales, Campus Affairs Hugh Stevens, Campus Affairs Sue Simonds, Desk Bruce Williamson, Desk Dona Fagg, Desk Reviews Editor Steve Dennis Women's Editor Diane Hile Features Editor : Chris Farran Science Editor Mat Friedman BUSINESS STAFF Business Manager Art Pearce Advertising Manager Circulation Manager . Subscription Manager .. Asst. Advertising Mgr. Asst. Business Mgr. Sales Fred McConnel John Evans .... Bryan Simpson Woody Sobol Sally Rawlings Frank Potter Dick Baddour Bob Vunderberry Conner. Simons, apparently short on pastimes, has contented himself for the past three years with holding up fluoridation of the town's water supply by legally out maneuvering the University. His suit was dismissed in Chatham County Superior Court a few weeks back, but that didn't stop him. He imme diately set about having a new suit drawn up and, if past experience is any guide, he'll keep Assistant Attorney Generals busy for the next three years trying to defeat it. Let's be clear about this: We admire Mr. Simons' devotion to his cause and all that sort of thing. But many people, including us, are losing out on dental protection for what appears to be no better reason than Mr. Simons' ability to hogtie the judicial process. That's why we were glad to read that the University plans to go ahead with spiking the water now, instead of giv-. ing Mr. Simons another turn at bat first. After all, if he's really and truly all wet, there's just no sense in the Uni versity waiting any longer. And if he isn't, no irreparable harm will have been done. Editors, The Tar Heel, It is a fine thing indeed that the University of North Carolina now has a writer-in-residence and it is even more remarkable that students were so largely instru mental in making the program a reality. Very wisely Gil Stallings and the Writer-in-Residence Com mittee had the presence of mind to give John Knowles a maximum of free time for his own writing since a turgid schedule of lectures and busy-bodying most certainly would have scared off anybody worth having. The Committee has done its job, but making the program a fruitful one, however, is a vague and long-range possibility that can not be administered to by any committee, but will rest largely cn the somewhat diffident should ers of that amalgamated mass known as "student body"; for beyond all the exchange of pleas antries and compliments between writer and admirer, what will surely impress a writer most and be decisive in his reaction to his stay at a university is the degree of interest in writing that he sees in students, and, most important ly, the results he sees on paper or in print, clear proof not only that his official duties have aided the student writer, but that the student writer had some inter est and enthusiasm for writing in the first place. Unfortunately. I am afraid that Knowles is going to discover that the majority of student writers on this campus need most pressingly a grand and well-placed kick to their listless posteriors. It is nothing less than extra ordinary that in the past school year, the recommendation was made in the Student Legislature that the stipend allotted to The Carolina Quarterly, the only stu-c'ent-staffed and sponsored liter ary magazine on campus, be terminated, and this fall, the Uni versity receives a writer-in-residence because of student enthus iasm for writers and writing. The record of a continual and diligent interest in serious writing here is not very auspicious. Too many magazines of student writing have been started by pan-flashes of zeal only to falter and be extin guished in a matter of months Spectrum, Parlance, The Carolina Magazine are all now spectral relics of the past. Fortunately The Carolina Quart- -erly has received steady financial aid from the Student Legislature. But magazines need more than money to continue to produce a product worth buying and reading. In the past school year I put out two magazines with a multitude of seven or eight staff members who not only had to render the difficult decisions in selecting material for publication but had to persecute and cajole a large number of students into buying a copy. Many students have been se verely critical of the Quarterly, accusing the staff of not publish ing much student writing. This accusation is quite valid. Most of the people published in the Quarterly have turned out to be nation-wide apprentice and prac ticed writers, not because the stu dent staff members of the maga zine are adverse to student mater ial, but simply because the quali ty and insignificant amount of stu dent writing received is almost negligible compared to the returns and relative superiority of writ ing that comes to the Quarterly .office from all over the country. The Quarterly's first considera tion in selecting material for pub lication is not where it comes from but how good it is. A stand ard of excellence is set; a chal lenge to student writers to be pub lished on a national level is offer ed. Too often that challenge is disregarded. Also disregarded is the fact that the undergraduates who run the magazine offer their time and talents unequivocally for criticizing student writing, offer ing suggestons for mprovements in hopes that when student work from this campus is published, it will meet the standards of prac it cally every literary magazine in the country, not to mention the personal benefits of balanced criticism to the young writer. The Quarterly's highest concern for the students of this campus is educative, not to offer, as so many less visionary students of other universities do, merely an outlet for the unpracticed, falter ing literary efforts of the occa sional writer. The latter venture is doomed from its inception, for it cannot, sell its hesitant efforts beyond the circle of friends who embody them. . Much of what I have said may seem like personal querulousness. It is quite the opposite. I am appreciated. Louis M. Bourne, Editor The Carolina Quarterly Aii Answer To Gebeaux Letter Editors, The Daily Tar Heel, As another new student to the University, I think Mr. Ge beaux's carefully balanced state ment (Sunday, Sept. 22) of the "moderate" position deserves some analysis. He argued, the reader may recall, that being ". . . militantly for equal rights for all" but then giving "unre mitting support for a Public Accommodations law" was a contradiction on the part of the Editors. Yet there is present in his letter a contradiction of his own. It reveals the usual hidden assumption of white hegemony in this apparent issue of "civil rights" vs. "property rights" and leaves the entire issue bog ged down just where it begins. Mr. Gebeaux made the fol lowing key points: 1) the Negro "has been denied the right to choose where he can go . . . (etc.).; 2) the "Ijw must give to all the right to choose, to dis criminate, and to live by his own thought and beliefs"; but 3) "Once we begin to deal with private persons and their busi nesses, we are dealing with oth er human beings who are also given the same and equal right to choose where they want to go . . . (etc.)." He also asserts that 4) parts of the Accommoda tions law concerning privately owned businesses opened to the deeply and unerringly grateful to public are "concerned not with further protecting equal rights for all but in denying some rights ... to some individuals in favor of others." Some permutations of these four points are rather interest ing, but confusing. If (1) and (2) are true, the law 'sides' with the Negro and seeks to end the admitted denial of his 'rights.' But if (2) and (3) are true, the law 'sides' with the private property owner's unlimited 'right', evn to 'unwisely' refuse service, arbitrarily, to Jews or and not iust. say, to the "students who have entrusted their magazine and its reputation to me for two years' editorship, but with the end of this school year, I can no longer offer my services to a magazine that has perhaps too often embodied my deepest desires. The future and fate of the Quarterly should be the urgent concern of every student on this campus and those to come. Whether the University that offer ed its faculties and enlightened attitude to Thomas Wolfe, Walker Percy and a number of other well known authors remains to be seen. Tonight at 8:00 p.m. The Caro lina Quarterly is holding its first organizational meeting and the need for new staff members is crucial. For those students whose interest in writing is a persist ent devotion to the aesthetic ob ject and to the not always pleas ant task of literary criticism, we offer a place for them to conjoin in hard work, the satis faction of seeing that work well done, and occasionally, the read ing of literature whose intuition of fineness beyond the reality experienced can unite them as the celebrants of a communal act. But only when the Quarter ly is viewed not as a magazine but as a movement will its prop er function be understood and more accurately, become limit ed rights; so the present defini tion is inadequate and has little future. I leave others to argue for some hierarchy of "human" ov er or under "property" rights, or. to point out that the minimum wage and sanitation laws el ready limit the previously "ab solute" rights of the private owner. I would point out, how ever, that this proposed law has the same "form" as did the mul titude of Southern laws PRO HIBITING integration of public facilities which were privately owned; but the "content" non discrimination rather than segre gationis new. THESE laws re stricted property rights. But where, I ask, were the ever present "constitutionalists" like Sen. Ervin, when these "uncon stitutional" albeit popular laws were propagated? The rest of Mr. Gebeaux's let ter onl yadds to the verbal con fusion. This popular equivocation on the term "discrimination" likes to confuse impersonal and patterned social restrictions with private, personal, almost random individual choice. The law does not, in the very notion of a bill of rights, grant the un limited right of a majority GROUP of persons to "choose" at the expense of other person's rights in such issues as religious freedom for Jehovah's witnesses, criminal right and reapportion ment. There ARE limits, you see, to the 'unwisdom' of the people. The fair determination of these limits is our issue, not the pious preservation or destruction of a pattern of unequal rights con sistent with our past hegemony. Robert P. Althauser Dept. of Sociology Student Favors A Speaker Ban Editors, The Tar Heel, This letter is written to voice a rather unpopular stand, in de fense of the state speaker ban law. Before you drop this letter and unleash the valiant reporters to stamp out this new conserva tive menace to motherhood and inadequately dressed noisy beg- ralism, let me please clarify eerlv or drunken clients. If tne T. be an argument that this law en dangers this University's eral tradition", or at p.r: thereof. In this, I would a-:r,e. The law definitely attacks u. (sic) Scales and Larry Ph..';;, who both have done so much to bring Carolina to the nation,., i lime-light. If you were a ;..-.. lator who annually poured Nortin Carolina tax dollars (and from a rather poor state, at thai) into the coffers of our Univer sity, you might well feel dis mayed when it hits the head lines in the fashion that it d -. You might even be so egocen tric as to feel that while you paid the piper, you at least ha 1 the right to monitor his tunes. Given that the law will proba bly not obtain many of objec tives desired by its legislator;, we must at least understand the sentiment behind their aetiuns. The second attack I have heard against the law is that it constitutes a singularly un-American method of obtaining re sults. In this I can also partially agree. However, remembering that the philosophy which these men wished to combat is the of ficial philosophy which moti vates Russia, at least in part, to her aspiration of world conquest. I do not recommend that we "hear no evil, speak no evil ..." with our heads in the sand so far as this menace is concerned, but it is certainly within the duty of a University to properly warn its students of the danger they will face and leave with them an abiding sense of the traditions into which they were born. Given that the present law is imperfect, there are several things that we should learn from its enactment. The first is that it springs from an honest and sincere forboding and a desire to further the best interest of the students. Second, that this forboding is not completely without foundation. And third, that if the University commun ity desires autonomous control, it must provide for its students a responsible academic image and an understanding of the tradi tions and beliefs for which they may well be asked to pledge their lives, property, and sacred honor. Warren Ogden eerlv or drunken law at present does not support either side to their clear satis faction (there are doubts, no?) then "further protecting equal rights" is pointless! WHAT equal rights ere there now, if 1) is true? Mr Gebeaux is struggling to say that the rights of the Negro and of the white property owner should be equal, but that those of the latter group are "more equal than" (to borrow Orwed's phrase) the former's. This as sumption of white hegemony in variably undermines the usual definition of the issue as one of equal but conflicting white and Negro rights. When the courts deal with the issue, someone s rights will become "rights , or and publicize. It seems to me, as I'm sure it does to you, that this particular state law is far from perfect. Moreover, we probably agree that it should be revoked or at least radically changed. However, it would seem likely that our common antagonism would spring from very different sources. To me the law represents a faltering, overly-rigid, and only half-hearted attempt on the part of our elected representatives in Ral eigh. Your views, it seems safe to say, will be well voiced at other times and in other places. Of the two most common at tacks I have heard against the law, the most popular seems to Lett ers The Daily Tar Heel solicits and is happy to print any letter-to-the-editor written by a mem ber of the University commun ity, so long as it is free of slan derous and libelous remarks. No letters will be edited in any way, unless they are un reasonably long. Letters must bo typed and triple-spaced. DH offices are on the second floor of Graham Memorial. Edit page . material should be turned in two-to-three days before pub lication is desired. "Man, That Looks Like A Real Twister" The Same Show Br,i Lr---i-.r- " ' 1-'' ni. f sl : x K FVj-'- By FRED SEELY No matter what your feelings may be about UNC, you must ad mit that it is an interesting place. Things happen here as they hap pen nowhere else. Consider last year - the dem onstrations, the Beat Dock pa rade, the apartment rule, the furor after William F. Buckley spoke. Also, the panty raids, the dem onstrations against Castro, the appearance of Malcolm X and his Musiums, the Meredith Resolution in the Student Legislature. But that was last year, and the Big Top has moved on. What will stir the student's breast this year? The apartment rule mess will continue, but no one really cares about that anymore. The dem onstrations have already start ed (Sunday's march mourning the Birmingham deaths), but the novelty is gone. The Beat Dook parade will go on, but it will be as pure as a spinster's soul. So allow us a few predictions. -The so-called "gag law", of course, will occupy everyone's thoughts for the first part of the year. The thing is such a hot political issue that it appears there is no hope for any action in the special session of the state legislature. This issue will prove a strong test for student government and its leaders. If they realize that the law was proposed by fools, pushed through by fools but, con versely, cannot be attacked in a foolish manner, then there is a chance that it can somehow be beaten. The flaming hearts of the Stu dent Peace Union may have been somewhat assuaged by the pass age of the test-ban treaty, but they are so bent on raising some sort of hell that we will hear from them frequently. The Carolina Forum always is good for a controversy or two (wait until you hear Truman speak about civil rights!), and the Symposium will be attacked for being left-wing. The American Legion will not be happy until they clean out the whole school, and those rumors about some sort of States' Right s Party may yet turn out to he true. The political campaigns will dominate the latter half of the year. Both the gubernatorial and presidential races stack up as being exciting, and there should be enough controversy to satisfy everyone. The Goldwater fever which seems to be permeating the stu dent mind across the nation Fhould reach UNC before long. Of course, the liberals think Pres ident Kennedy is the greatest thing since labor unions, and there is an outside possibility that Rockefeller has a supporter or two. And, hopefully, there is a Ross Barnett man around. Richardson Preyer and Dan Moore should have a good fight for the Democratic nomination for governor, and Raymond Stans bury and Bruce Burleson w ill pro vide all sorts of comedy relief Of course, there's always I. Beverly if Lhe GeorSe Wallace of iNorth Carolina. Lake and Preyer will try to chew each other to bits, and unknown, Moore, just may get the nomination. If he wins Charles Jonas, the lone ' not . H either of the other two get the bid, look for the Lincolnton congressman to !o try for the top state post. ttw, ae- wlccme back to LC;. Bi3 Top has moved on out it s the some show.
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Sept. 26, 1963, edition 1
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