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Volume 72, Number 53 Thursday, November 21, 1963 70 Years of Editorial Freedom Entered as 2nd class matter at the Fost Office in Chapel Hill, N. C, pursuant to Act of March 8, 1870. Subscription rates: $4.50 per semester; $8 per year. Published daily except Mondays, examinations 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 Hill, N. C. 'But Everyone Already Knew Thai Of all the mumblings heard in the wake of our recent series on fraternity and sorority discriminatory clauses, the bulk has come from members of fraternities and sororities. Their con sistent opinion has been that the stor ies were unnecessary. The typical argu ment runs, "Everybody already knew that the fraternities and sororities discriminated, so what good did it do to run the fact on the front page?" In the first place, we have serious doubts as to whether "everybody" knew, since the Inter-Fraternity Coun cil President last year didn't know. He went so far as to tell the whole Orien tation class that only one fraternity on this campus had a restrictive clause. It turns out he missed the count by at least 10. But the claim that Greek discrimi natory policies are well known and therefore don't need to be publicized, aside from being incorrect, shows a basic contradiction. If these are the standards of admission they set, and they are proud of these standards, then it seems they should be delighted to see them printed on the front page of the DTH. Instead, the fraternities mutter weak and embarrassed defen ses of their right to discriminate. Rut let's examine that right which they claim as inalienable. Should a Jew or a Negro pay taxes in North Carolina to help support a university in which discrimination is practiced? We aren't saying that the fraternities get money from the University, but the Univer sity does regulate and grant recogni tion to them. So the claim of private social organization, with all the rights of discrimination attendant on it, is not a valid argument. This argument does, however, bring us to the question of the University's position in the matter. The current ad ministration policy is that no frater nity or sorority may establish a chap ter on this campus if it has a discrim inatory membership clause. This is fine, but what of the eleven houses already have these clauses? If the University says that these clauses are bad, and not in the best interest of the campus, as is certainly implicit in the rule, is it not then a compromise with morality to allow this discrimination to exist as it does now? This would cer tainly seem to be the case. Then, too, we are often subjected to the rather strange argument from house members that fraternities and sororities are discriminatory by na ture, and while discrimination may not be a good thing, it is the basis of the whole system. We agree with every point in that apologia. But what does it say? It tells us to accept something which is evil as the cornerstone of an institution, and then accept the insti tution as something good. -The logic of this plea escapes us. But it brings to light another point which is even more important. Frat ernities and sororities don't just dis criminate against Jews or Negroes, they discriminate against everybody. So we arrive at another interesting question: Should a white protestant American pay taxes to support an in stitution which officially sanctions a system which might discriminate against his son or daughter on the bas is of how he or she looks, speaks and dresses ? Many people are not bothered by a fraternity or sorority rejection, but many are cruelly hurt by the rejection. And who are these people who are hurt? In most cases they are the ones who most need the companionship and sense of belonging a fraternity or soro rity can offer. They are dependent on this sort of attachment for their total assimilation into the University Com munity, and rejection is not something they take lightly. So what is to be done? Abolition of the whole fraternity sorority system is often suggested, but arguments against this action are pre sent on many of the campuses across the nation. At Brown, Amherst, Dart mouth and many more, the system is a vital and constructive force in the whole social pattern. Fraternities are open to anyone who wishes to join. While some may not get their first choice, all may join. While the homo geneity of the group may suffer slightly, the crippling insularity is al so gone, and no one is hurt by rejec tion. Should the University step in and open the fraternities and sororities up? Such action is obviously within its jurisdiction, and would get our admin istrators out of the position of allowing something to exist which they have ruled is wrong. Another technique used to excellent effect on many campuses is a referen dum of the student body. Usually the students get three choices: (1) Leave the system as it is, (2) Do away with discriminatory clauses and 'gentle men's agreements (3) Open the sys tem to anyone who wishes to join. In all cases this referendum has been used, the administration has carried out the mandate of the student body. This referendum idea seems to us to be the fairest and most representative method. The Student Legislature could authorize such a referendum to be pre sented to the student body in the Spring elections or could call a special election for that purpose. The results would dictate whether the fraternity system is to become a truly effective community force, as it is elsewhere or whether it is to remain the artificial, ingrown order which cur rently prevails at Carolina. Needed: Another WUNC-WCHL Hook-Up A 1 J a n 1QQ11P nr cnrnr. siomiTipariro rr Chapel Hill desegregation currently is being aired over WUNC Radio, but unfortunately the three-part series doesn't seem to have stimulated much interest. This is undoubtedly because WUNC Radio is an FM station, and most peo- Gary Blanchard, David Ethridg Co-Editor Business Manager Managing Editors Advertising Manager Associate Editor Photo Editor Sports Editor Art Pearce Wayne King Fred Seely Fred McConnel Peter Harkness Jim Wallace Curry Kirkpatrick John Montague Jim Wallace Bob Samsot Asst. Sports Editor Night Editor Copy Editor Reporters: Mickey Blackwell, Administration Peter Wales, Campus Affairs Hugh Stevens, Student Government Editorial Assistants: Dale Keyscr Linda McPherson Science Editor Women's Editor Reviews Editor Circulation Manager Subscription Manager . Asst. Advertising Mgr. Sue Simonds Linda Riggs Mat Friedman Diane Hile Steve Dennis John Evans . Bryan Simpson, Woody Sobol pie don't even own or have easy access to FM receivers. In the interest of giving this series the audience it deserves, we suggest that the station manager check with Chapel Hill's AM radio station, WCHL, and see about getting it to cooperate in airing the remaining two parts of the show. Tonight's show and the final one two weeks from now could be taped by WUNC Radio, then re-played over WCHL at that station's programming convenience. In addition, if the first show was taped, it too should be offer ed for re-broadcast over WCHL. This would not be the first time that the two stations have worked togeth er for a common end, and we think this would be a fine way for both sta tions to continue their traditions of public service. This past summer was dramatic proof that Chapel Hill's desegregation problems are far from over, and the frank comments offered by the parti cipants of WUNC's series could make a positive contribution to settling the problem. But those comments must be heard by the people of Chapel Hill for them to do any good. "He Says That After The Bloodletting He Can Bring Us Peace" Book Review A Harvest Of Paperbacks By STEVE DENNIS One of the major American paperback lines, Dell, has come out with a very competent and stimulating list of new titles for this fall. Some of these are the inevitable reprints, now made available to a larger audience at a reduced price, but a few are originals, members of a new genre which the phenomenon of the paperback seems to be en couraging. More and more books are now being printed only in a paperback version. . A good idea is the combina-. tion of all three parts to Shak- ' espeare's Henry VI into one por table volume.. This will be useful for readers interested in trac ing the developing of ideas in the different parts of this historical trilogy. (95c). For the Tolstoy fan to whom the tations dictated this unhappy fact, but it is still regrettable. (60c). A Dell original is The New Handbook of Modern Birth Con trol, by Dr. Paula Seiler. A straightforward, simple explana tion of its subject, this book also considers religious and moral problems connected with birth control. The principal methods of birth control avail able today are explained and evaluated. (50c). Elizabeth Drew, whose Poetry: A Modern Guide To Its Under standing and Enjoyment has been a choice item in the Dell list now for several years, has just com pleted a work which is as skil ufully and perceptively written as its predecessor. It is entitled The Novel: A Modern Guide To Fifteen English Masterpieces. great tomes of the master are Discussed are Moll Flanders, at times forboding, there is now a Dell collection of six short stories and novels, including The Death of Ivan Ilyich and The Kreutzer Sonata along with four other lesser - known selec tions. (75c). Reprints cf T. H. White's The Sword In The Stone and Kather ine Anne Porter's The Leaning Tower have also been brought out by Dell. White's novel (50c) about Arthurian England is now being made into a movie by Walt Disney, and the Porter collec tion has been a minor Ameri can classic for many years now. (50c). An almost excellent collection of short plays by ten Americans ranging from Sherwood Ander son to Gore Vidal is also in the new Dell line. Unfortunately, most of the selections, with the exception of Wilder's The Hap py Journey To Trenton and Camden, are minor. Space limi- Quotes (United Press International) NEW HAVEN Yale Profes sor Frederick C. Barghoorn, telling newsmen of his arrest on spy charges: "Behavior which we regard as completely innocent becomes an object of police suspicion . . . arrest, investigation and indictment on espionage charges is a deeply disturbing experience. It is true any place, but differ ent in the Soviet Union, where law is the instrument of the state, not the individual. Clarissa, Tom Jones, Lord Jim, Vanity Fair, Emma, The Mill on The Floss, Tristram Shandy, Far from the Madding Crowd, With ering Heights, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Women in Love, The Portrait of a Lady, To The Lighthouse and Great Expectations. This is obviously a very creditable sampling of over two hundred years of Eng lish fiction to be considered in a one-volume paperback. (60c). Miss Drew makes her critical intent plain at the outset: "All kinds of creative artists flourish in the field of literature, but the only kind of criticism of litera ture which is of any- value is that which makes us want to go and read or reread the books it discusses. This collection of es says is written in the hope that it will do that." This list seems to suffer from the usual faults found in pa perbacks lines, such as overly sensational covers, but the books are at least reputable and cheap. This one economic consideration alone has made the paperback a force to be reckoned with in all the groves of Academe. LETTERS FO THE iDITORS -:.WHH?S:: if Spectator Editors, The Tar Ileel, Enclosed pix of unidentified studentfriendalumnus (?) taken Saturday (16) during Miami game. Most loyal and enthusias tic ever seen bowed three times to the west at every great N. C. play, face .mirroved every emo tion that the play in progress de served and fairly leapt out of the stands at a touchdown. The jack et under his arm was a brilliant red color which made his ac tions much more colorful until he got warmed up and took it off. We nominate him for the UNC Spectator of the Week. Sterling W. Wright WSOC-TV, Charlotte Elimination Editors, The Tar Heel If as Sarah Watson Emery and Mrs. A. S. Nashe say, sui cide, homosexuality and com munism are all related, then ianti-communists 'iave nothing to fear. In a few years the world should be good again, by pro cess of peaceful elimination. Carl Weibel 113 Connor POGO Government For All The People Will Not Perisli By THE DAILY KANSAS One-hundred years ago next Tuesday, Abraham Lincoln dedi cated a battlefield cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and set a standard for American be lief which has so gained in sta ture that now, a century later, it is probably better known and more beloved than even our Dec laration of Independence itself. There is good reason for this durability. Thousands of men had already given their lives in battle, and similar fields would become bur ial grounds in the weeks end months before the Civil War would end. These men were fighting for what they believed was right, not only for the solidarity of the Union, but also for the "proposi tion that all men are created equal." They were simple, straight-forward beliefs, en nobled that day by an equally honest, heartfelt respect, laced with the confidence that "these dead shall not have died in vain." Who does not recall the words: "The world will little note nor long remember what we say here," but how many could com plete the sentence to state what we were to recall instead: "but it can never forget what they did here." What they were fighting about was the right of free men to be free. That year, 1863, marked the application of the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all the slaves. It was an instance in which we had neither intended nor succeeded in beating the Russians to an opportunity. On the day before Lincoln was inau gurated, the czar's official de cree was published setting all serfs free. Nor was Lincoln pri marily concerned with the slaves es individuals. f In answering Horace Greeley's plea of freedom for the Negroes, Lincoln said, "What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union." December of 1865 saw the rati fication of the thirteenth amend ment to the Constitution, declar ing that neither "slavery nor in voluntary servitude . . .shall exist within the United States. At the time, William Lloyd Garrison's Boston Liberator pro claimed editorially that the amendment was the "final crowning and completion of the labors of the American aboli tionists." But, in the same breath, the article added: "We are now to concentrate the whole power of American law, justice, conscience, sense of consistency and duty, and bring all to bear on the work of making the free dmen in every sense a free man and citizen." Legally, slavery was abolished. But Abraham Lincoln, assassin ated eight months earlier, did not know of it. The editorial might es well have been written yesterday. The first "Civil Rights" law was passed by Congress in March of 1866, guaranteeing the Negroes the rights and corre sponding duties of citizenship. President Johnson vetoed this legislation on the basis that it overcompensated for the Negro and discriminated against the whites, but Congress overrode the veto. Anticipating an inevitable at tack on the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, a set of resolutions was formulated which ultimately became the fourteenth amendment to the Con stitution. This amendment requir ed the states to apply equal pro tection of the laws to all citizens, and has been construed to mean thet a state cannot make unrea sonable distinctions between dif ferent persons as to their rights and privileges. For example, the Supreme Court has held that a state can not arbitrarily deny some of its citizens the right to vote or to serve on juries. Nevertheless, the state remains free to make reasonable classifications. Thus, the Supreme Court has held that, under certain circum stances, a state may grant vot ing rights to the literate, but deny them to the illiterate. The fifteenth amendment is more explicit: "The right of citi zens of the United States to vote shell not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any By Walt Kelly NOW, t A160 (2OTS0M& INFORMATION ON TH& SHIP WHAT if PftWNG THS FOG"' JtAlLy- tit TWf &A& &rP TAKES YOU ?f?OA ONf tr ie. sa9V A92tn a 25,CC0 MIU55 AN HOWS'" MMTGOOPS MAT? CAN you 60 M0M9 fri& WCZlP IN A HOUS?"' yOU 6Y VOUV 02 BACK WH&KS you aw you av; tteofa vow cz AoruAu icfrA oifi? yOU WANffcP TO KU A HOU" HAN&il WAV9 GMTeZ'H SJ&T I N'AZOUN? Tg HCUSBT 3 state on account ,q! "race, color, or prerious condition- of servi tude." But over the years it has bo come apparent that laws aren't what make the final difference. Even as far back as 1833, Alex:? de Tocquevilie suggested th:.t freedom for the Negro intensi fied rather than alleviated the prejudice on the part of th'' whites. Slavery might recede, said Tocquevilie, "but the pre judice to which it has given birth is immovable." The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights pointed to a similar situa tion in noting that "the pres ence of qualified Negroes in ever increasing numbers often only heightened the unwillingness of many Americans to grant the Negro that equality to which the law said he was entitled, and which the Negro increasingly asserted he deserved." This tendency was reflected in the recent testimony of Ralph E. Odum, the Assistant Attorney General of Florida, before a Sen ate committee studying voting rights. Said Odum, "We are fearful that if Congress should enact the bills you are consider ing here, the practical result wi',1 be a regressive trend in Negro registration. The reason for this is obvious: The exertion of out side pressure and coercion by the Central Government in lo cal matters is regarded as a usurpation of authority which stimulates resentment rather than understanding, tolerance, and racial cooperation." Odum indicated the people of Florida would prefer to let dis crimination end in its own good time. Said he, this "may be a longer road than some might like, but we believe it to be the best and most effective road leading to ultimate dignity, mu tual respect, and equal oppor tunity for all our people." The question has been, of course, whether the Negro will wait much longer. The Rever end Martin Luther King Jr., pays no: "We have waited for more than 340 years for our conslitu 1 Itional and God.-given fights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward gaining political indepen dence, but we still creep at horsenand-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter." President Kennedy, in a re cent address to the United Na tions General Assembly, took ac count of this when he expressed his regret that some U.N. dele gates have been discriminated against in this country. He made it clear the situation would not persist if he could help it. "I ask you to believe me when I tell you," said Kennedy in apologizing, "that this is not the wish of most Americans that we share your regret and resentment and that we intend to end sch practices for all time to come, not only for our visi tors but for our own citizens as well." And, speaking to the American people, the President has mode it clear he feels the best solu tion "lies not in what we say to day, but in what we do in the days and months ahead to com plete the work begun by Abra ham Lincoln. 'In giving freedom to the slaves,' President Lin coln said, 'we assure freedon. io the free.' In giving rights to oth ers which belong to them, we give rights to ourselves and to our country." Obviously, legislation, discus sion, and even the most deter mined efforts of those who have been denied their rights have not been, nor will be enough to span the gap between white and black. Then, is there an answer? We must legislate, each of us, in our own minds, the laws of human brotherhood. We mu.st stand up in our own consciences and be counted among those will ing to discard the shabby mask of social aloofness and come face to face with reality that human dignity exists as much beneath black skin as white. We must stand behind Arnold Toynbee's reminder that "without freedom, men would no longer be hu man." And, thinking back over the years to Gettysburg, we must accept with renewed courage the challenge put forth by Abraham Lincoln one man who took a stand and, without realizing the timelessness of his actions, gave to future generations the charge we remember today: "It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the un finished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us thet from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of de votion; that we here highly res olve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this na tion, under God, shell have a new birth of freedom; and that -government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." ,4
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Nov. 21, 1963, edition 1
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