Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Oct. 2, 1965, 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
tr.-. Pae 2 Saturday, October 2, 1965 (2 Saily (Mr i Opinions of the Daily Tar Heel are expressed in its Sj editorials. Letters and columns, covering a wide range : :: of views, reflect the personal opinions of their authors, ' xj ERNIE McCRARY. EDITOR : JACK HARRINGTON, BUSINESS MANAGFR What Has Happened? By ROBERT E. BAKER The Washington Post RALEIGH What has happened to North Carolina? For many years the Tar Heel state has been the symbol of racial moderation and progressive thought in the South. When other state universities in the South were silent under the impending racial crisis, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was publishing studies on the Negro and its professors were discussing the issue openly with students. When other Southern governors were shouting defiance to the Supreme Court's school desegregation decision, North Car olina's governors were talking compliance. When other Southern state legislatures were passing segre gation laws by the potful, North Carolina's lawmakers in gen eral were acting with calm, composure and good sense. And it was North Carolina that provided the nation and the South with a much needed laugh during the tense and hectic days of 1958, when the Lumbee Indians, with shotguns, tear gas and war whoops, routed a rally of Wizard James "Cat fish" Cole and his Ku Klux Klan on a field near Maxton. These were the things that helped give North Carolina a sparkling image as the home of moderate, progressive, friend ly folk who took pardonable pride in twitting South Carolina to the south and Virginia to the north by voicing an old saying: "North Carolina is a vale of humility between two moun tains of conceit." But today, disturbing things are going on in the vale. The Ku Klux Klan seems to be on the rise and recently Gov. Dan K. Moore held an audience with the Grand Dragon. The governor has appointed North Carolina's most vociferous segretationist, I. Beverly Lake, to the State Supreme Court. And North Carolina is the only state in the union to have a "speaker-ban" law aimed directly at the University at Chapel Hill, a law which the mountains of conceit, Virginia and South Carolina, refused to enact and which even Gov. George C. Wallace of Alabama could not get through his legis lature. All of this is disturbing to many North Carolinians and to her friends throughout the nation. Perhaps it is not as bad as it seems. North Carolina's good image was the result of a fortunate 11 years under Gov. Luther H. Hodges and Terry Sanford, two men with the capacity to lead, and push when necessary, the state into progress, with highway, industrial development and educational programs of vision and challenge. But in 1963, during Sanford's term, a spiteful session of the legislature enacted in a few minutes the speaker-ban law which prohibits Communists or those persons who have pleaded the Fifth Amendment in loyalty cases from speaking at state supported colleges. Now the fact is that you could cram all the Communists and Fifth Amendment-takers in North Carolina into an outhouse. But the legislature supporters of the ban were not con cerned about Communists. They were simply mad because , Negroes and whites were demonstrating for open public ac commodations at the Sir Walter Hotel, in Raleigh, making it i untidy for lawmakers who made their home there. Among the white demonstrators were a couple of UNC faculty members. Refusal of the University to fire them led to the retaliatory speaker-ban law. The next image-tarnisher came last year in the Demo cratic primary campaign for governor, featuring a spectrum choice of L. Richardson Preyer a liberal; Lake, the outspoken segregationist, and Moore, a man from the mountains who pictured himself as a middle-of-the-road conservative. In the first primary, Preyer came in first, followed by Moore and Lake. Loser Lake then endorsed Moore in the sec ond primary and with all the hard-core segregationist votes solidly in his camp, Moore trounced Preyer. It looked like a political deal between Moore and Lake. And, recently, when Moore appointed Lake to the State Supreme Court, most everybody said: "Ah, hah, the payoff." Moore also fired three department heads, including George W. Randall, director of prisons, whose successful reforms have made the North Carolina prison system a model in the nation. Moderates immediately suspected that Randall was fired because he had desegregated the prisons. But more likely the truth is that Moore penalized Randall for overt support of Preyer, his foe, last year. Moore invited additional criticism by conferring in the cap itol recently with Grand Dragon Robert Jones whose Klan has been surging in the state. Yet, the governor, a former Superior Court judge, was not gentle with the Dragon, telling him to obey the law or face the consequences. A few days later, Klansmen showed their displeasure by picketing Moore in Kinston. There are gusts that buffet North Carolina's proud banner of moderation, but it is the speaker-ban storm that is tattering it. Moore inherited the law when he took office last January. And then was his opportunity to persuade the legislature to get rid of it. North Carolina's governors are strongest during the first session of the legislature when they have appoint ments and programs and favors to bargain with. But Moore did not move. Now the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools has threatened to remove accreditation from the state's colleges because of the law. Moore has appointed a blue-ribbon com mission, with nary a Lake supporter on it, to study the situa tion and report. At recent hearings, former governor (and commerce secre tary) Hodges said the law damaged the state and its institu tions and many other witnesses agreed. Supporters said the majority of North Carolinians favor the law and besides, what's wrong with keeping Commies off campuses? Deputy Attorney General Ralph Moody contended the law was constitutional: Professor William Van Alstyne of Duke University filed a brief saying it was not. The Moody-Van Alstyne feud continued in the press after the hearings. In a letter to the commission, Moody said the legis lature could use "the power of the purse" to enforce the ban even if it were declared unconstitutional. And he questioned what business Van Alstyne had in the whole affair since Duke is a private university not affected. There is a theory to explain North Carolina's present sit uation: its image had si.one so brightly and high under Gov ernors Hodges and Sanford that observers were blinded to the troubles beneath. Now, with a more conservative governor who is not so much in a hurry and who gained office with the help of the segregationist vote, these previously muffled voices and' problems are coming to the surface. And that is North Carolina's challenge, to deal with these left over problems and solve them with the good sense, tem per and progress that has marked her past. Few people doubt that North Carolina will succeed, for her momentum for progress has been firmly established. And the opposition is like the drunk who was so irritated by the noise of passing trains nearby that he staggered from the bar, stood defiantly on the tracks and swung at an onrushing locomotive with a baseball bat. "An; 'Tear Away' Jerseys -4 h 4 I I 1 Barry Jacobs The Ban Is Bad Law Even If Constitutional Of the thousands of words written and spoken about North Carolina's speaker ban law, some have concerned the merits or demerits of the statute, some, its consti tutionality, and many too many the personalities ; supporting and opposing it. The first two points are worthy of discus sion. Arguments on the third are largely a waste of time. A law is good or bad because of what it does, not because of who is in favor of it. The fire and heat of the arguments on this issue have generated a considerable amount of smoke in the form of irrelevant statements which only confuse the situation. Both supporters and opponents of the ban have been guilty of this error. As a student at UNC, I am concerned about the fate of the ban. As a citizen of another state Louisiana I can view the issue with a degree of objectivity that the length and intensity of the fight may now make diffi cult for North Carolinians. While I admire the ostensible motive be hind the law I don't like communism, either I believe the ban should be re pealed. Any law which limits the informa tion available to the people is a hindrance to our form of government which is based on an educated, informed people. A law which places such a restriction on the basis of what a few people, or a state legislature, think is good for the people to know is dangerous. It is a step toward state control of the information channcels. If it is danger- our to hear a communist speak, it is danger ous to read communist material. A logical next step would be to remove the writings of Karl Marx from public libraries. An at tempt could be' made to cut off all sources of information on the beliefs and meanings of communism. Would this be good? We are engaged in a fight with the com munists. In some areas, such as Viet Nam, it is an open, armed fight. In others, it is a fight for men's minds. In this latter fight, knowledge is our weapon, knowledge of both our system and the enemy's. To limit access to knowledge of communism is to make a dangerous admission, namely, that there might be something attractive in what the communists have to say. I am sure that nOne of the advocates of the speaker ban law believe that the communist sys tem is superior to ours. Why not let the communists speak and expose the weak nesses in their beliefs? Moreover, as matters now stand, the law is futile. Apparently, its backers want to keep students from being exposed to and contaminated with communist beliefs and propaganda. Yet only a total censorship of all communications media, which fortunate ly has not been suggested, could hope to achieve this goal. The current law has about the same effect on the dissemination of communist information that blindfolding half of one eye has on vision: it is a nui sance, but not a serious impediment. Books newspapers, television and other mass media do much more to spread this in formation than do campus lecturers. So much for the value of the law. What about its constitutionality? This question, while of some relevance, has, I believe, received too much attention. A debate on this subject tends to obscure the fundamen tal issue: Is this a good or bad law? Laws can be constitutional and still be bad laws. The mere fact that a law is constitutional does not mean that it should remain on the books. Personally, I think the law is consti Standard Equipment?" tutional with regard to the ban on com munists; but I have my doubts that the invoking "of a constitutional right taking the Fifth Amendment can be made the basis for a penalty. - In- the - bitterness of. the. fight .oyer, the. ; speaker ban both sides hive resortecL to , . weapons other than relevant arguments. They have done little besides confusing the case and increasing the ill feeling. Black mail has been tried by both sides. The op ponents of the ban have held up the threat of loss of accreditation by North Carolina's colleges. The ban's defenders have hinted at possible curtailment of funds for the colleges if the ban is repealed. Neither of the actions threatened has any relevance to the speaker ban. It is nonsense to. suppose that mere permission for com munists to speak on campus (without even assurance that any will come or that any students will listen) is on a par with such factors as quality of faculty, curriculum and library facilities. The existence of the ban does not justify withdrawal of accredi tation. Neither does its repeal justify withdraw al of funds from the colleges in this state. Such action would hardly hurt the com munist cause. It would only hurt the stu dentsand the state of North Carolina. Another reason sometimes given for re peal is that the existence of the ban hurts North Carolina's image in the eyes of the nation. While the ban certainly doesn't help this image, I don't think it hurts it much, either. The issue is simply not important news elsewhere. Most people don't know North Carolina has a speaker ban law and probably wouldn't care if they did know. . In short, the speaker ban law may be constitutional and well-motivated. It is still a bad law; and for that reason alone it should be repealed. In attempting to re strict the free flow of ideas and informa tion, it may be the start of a trend toward total state control of this flow. Such a trend should be halted now. TDOWVOUCAN1 THUMB IS ALL HEALED! i I ? t V r , . k 1 x u I m l n Aloe ggT8 Letter- Tn Tin- Editor Chase Manager Answers Critics Editor. The Daily Tar Heel: We at Chase Cafeteria appreciate the in terest of the six students from Morrison who wrote in with their suggestions about the food and service encountered at this new dining hall. After being open for just a week, we are gratified with the tolerance and under standing of our efforts to establish good food and quick cheerful service at low prices. The building was due for completion in July to enable us to move in with furnish ings, utensils, supplies and food; to train the new employees and to get accustomed to the new equipment. As it turned out, construction difficulties delayed the com pletion to the worst possible time the evening before classes began. The letter in Sunday's Daily Tar Heel also mentioned the inadequate capacity of the automatic ice dispensing machines. This is only one item among many others on six solid pages of defects which must be cor rected. I know the patrons who dine at Chase aren't interested in all the obstacles we are trying to overcome, but you can be lieve that the management and staff are bending every effort to provide for their satisfaction. Mention was made of having only two lines. Since Chase is using the new "scram ble system" serving area, the efficiency is considerably increased. Even at the start, with the patrons and servers being new at getting used to the system, the speed of the "line" is about double the time it takes to go through the line at Lenoir. I know everyone in Chapel Hill is proud and delighted with the beautiful new cafe teria building, and we have been gratified with the enthusiastic encouragement and response already received. Kenneth Krakow Manager Solution Given For Rams Head Editor, The Daily Tar Heel: One more letter in regard to campus parking. We hope the administration will examine our complaint and follow what we consider to be a constructive suggestion. We have been informed that there is a drastic shortage of available parking spaces on campus. Then why, may we ask, does the Rams Head parking lot remain totally empty except on weekends? Our regulation bulletin states that the Rams Head lot is to be used by "C" and "H" stickered automobiles. After a week's sur veillance of parking at the Rams Head, we have complied the interesting statistic that no more than 30 cars ever park in the 'Art For By DAVID ROTHMAN DTH Columnist Art Buchwald talked with me last sum mer after he discovered my concern over articles in Newsweek and Time, which, I felt, had slandered and misquoted the famed columnist. To set things straight, I had offered to interview him for The Daily Tar Heel. But first I promised I wouldn't: 1. Say he looks like a panda. 2. Call him a court jester. 3. Say he arises "grouchily." 4. Quote him as saying his favorite book is Catcher in the Rye. 5. Suggest that taxi fares be raised. (He spends nearly $800 a year to get from place to place because he doesn't drive.) I assured him I would: 1. Call his planned ABC program "The Buchwald-Capp Report" even if TV Guide has it the other way around. 2. Short-circuit our shop's computer should it ever again print his column upside down. 3. Avoid calling him simple and unpre tentious. I couldn't, however, guarantee that my editor would not use a pun like "Art for Art's Sake" in the headline above the inter view. Just as eager as I to correct Newsweek I'LL 60 OPEM A CAN OF DOS FOOD RieHTAtOAV. AMD HOG CAN MAKE VP FOR ALL THE MEALS d30Y MISLED.- 11 J J "C" and "H" area, except on football week ends when the lot is reserved for Caro lina Athletic Association anyway! At the same time, the members of Ehringhaus, Craige and gigantic Morrison are in con stant competition for the few choice spaces in the Craige lot. Solution? Why not make the Rams Head lot a "C", "H", and G" lot on Monday-Friday? Our economics ma jors inform us that this would be the "proper" utilization of available space. Well? Why Not! Mike Doares George Dailey George Boulware Sophocles McSweeney Jim Lenz Morrison Dormitory Computer Love? Editor, The Daily Tar Heel: I would like to suggest that this school sponsor a computer dance, based on the principle of Operation Match. Each student could pay a small fee and fill out an ap plication which would then be matched with a supposedly compatible form filled out by a member of the opposite sex. This would be a dance composed of all schools of the University of North Carolina. I'm sure that this kind of dance is possible because other schools have done it. Please print this letter and ask for other people's opinion. Bill Staton 239 Maverick House Uncooked Pork Is 'Gross' Meal Editor, The Daily Tar Heel: I feel that, in the interest of all stu dents, this letter should be published; and if it cannot be published, please be sure that it reaches the Lenoir Hall manage ment. I am not one who really enjoys break fast anyway, but half-cooked sausage is quite gross at 7:30 a.m. or anytime for that matter. Cold eggs, toast, etc., and warm orange juice are both tolerable and semi-understandable; they cannot make anyone ill rare sausage can, though. Anyone having had just an introductory biology course knows about the sometimes deadly trichina worm. Any biology book states that this parasite is most dangerous in pork that is not cooked enough. Attention Lenoir Hall Manage: For the sake of us "po'k loving' tar heels," please cook that sausage well done. Thank you for what I hope will be quick action. Johnny Martin 306 Manly Art's Sake' and Time, Buckwald agreed to be ques tioned. But he insisted it wouldn't take long "since I talk very fast." The interview lasted 75 minutes. On the walls of his Washington office were mounted crackpot letters that only a columnist like Buchwald can collect. He ex hibited these sourvenirs of his trade as members of a German dueling team would display their scars, a fisherman his biggest catch, or a press agent a photo of his best stacked client.- Later, I thanked him for his time. My letter went something like this: Dear Mr. Buchwald: Thank you for the Interview. Enclosed is the article. If you don't like it, please write me a nasty letter which I can frame and show to any Herald Tribune columnists who might visit the DTH office to write a story about me. And sure enough, I got what I asked for. . "Dear Mr. Rothman," the letter began, "I very much appreciated the interview which more or less quoted me as I had said it. "The. only thing you left out was my demand for royalties from The Daily Tar HeeL "This letter may not be printed after my death." f BACK TO THE (STARVATION lH
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Oct. 2, 1965, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75