Page 2
Tuesday, November 2, 1965
Utye Satlg (liar tl
Opinion of the Daily Tar Heel are expressed In its
editorials. Letters and columns, covering a wide range
of views, reflect the personal opinions of their authors.
ERNIE McCRARY. EDITOR
A Gag Foe Says So
Tom Wicker has decided to drop consideration of
a speaking engagement at N. C. State because of his
opposition to the gag law.
His reaction is characteristic of those who, while
not legally affected by the ban, are morally insulted
by it.
Conversation with Wicker, head of the New York
Times Washington bureau, syndicated columnist and
UNC graduate, reveals that he had tentatively accept
ed the May 6 speaking date at State because it was
his impression that the ban applied only to the Chapel
Hill campus. Informed of the law's statewide cover
age, he said he would have to reconsider his decision
to come to Raleigh.
George Nicholson, chairman of the Carolina For
um, had also invited Wicker to speak here. His sched
ule prevented his appearance here, but at the same
time Wicker's letter to Nicholson explained why he
might have some ban-created misgivings.
"If these reasons (schedule conflicts) did not ap
ply, however, I would have been given pause by the
existence of the so-called speaker ban at the Univer
sity of North Carolina," he said.
"I am fiercely opposed to such a limitation as that
on free speech, and while the ban could not apply
specifically to me, I believe that it might well be that
anyone concerned for freedom of speech should re
fuse to appear at the University while the ban is in
effect.
"This would be from no lack of love for the Uni
versity; quite the opposite: it would be because I
would wish to do all in my power to remove this blot
from its record.
"I have every confidence, however, that the blot
will be removed, and that if this kind invitation ever
comes to me again I will be able to accept without
qualm," Wicker said.
The General Assembly may soon have the chance
to fulfill Wicker's confidence. If a special session is
held, the legislators would do well to remember this
example and realize that men of integrity and princi
ple find the law totally repugnant and the Univer
sity loses in countless little ways so long as the law
remains. - ' .
Put Friday On Wheels?
In an editorial last week, the Raleigh News and
Observer said, in effect, that UNC President William
C. Friday is neglecting the other branches of the Uni
versity and ought to pull out of Chapel Hill.
"As head of a four branch university system, the
president should not have his office, his most frequent
contacts, his life and inescapably some of his home in
terests on the campus of any one branch," it said.
"Some students and alumni of other branches
have sometimes resented what they felt was a Chapel
Hill sense of superiority as 'the University' within the
university system.
"Under any conditions some such feelings, per
haps juvenile and unjustified, but real all the same,
will remain. Much would be done to eliminate them if
the president of the Consolidated University did not
have his office and his residence under the shadow
of one branch," it concluded.
What that editorial conveniently overlooks is that
Friday does have an office on the Raleigh campus
and he is there every Monday that he is in the state.
There are facilities available for him and his staff at
Greensboro and there will be space at Charlotte, ac
cording to a Consolidated University official. Friday
meets frequently with the chancellors of each branch,
and not all the meetings are in Chapel Hill. If any of
the campuses feel slighted, they haven't said any
thing about it. . - . .
The N and O doesn't say just what it thinks Friday
ought to do to get out of the "shadow" of Chapel Hill
Maybe it thinks the Consolidated University offices
should be moved into a house trailer. Then Friday
could stay on the road all the time, traveling from
campus to campus and maybe even spreading the
"gospel of the University" along the highways and
byways.
And in the meantime, feeling as he does, we can't
understand why the editor of the Raleigh paper
doesn't set up an office in every city in his circulation
area and spend each day working from a different
town.
XWttXff'AvAv. w.v.v.'.
...... .v.-.v.v.v.v.-.-.w
I She Eattg ar
s
72 Years of Editorial Freedom
iji: The Daily Tar Heel is the official news publication of
the University of North Carolina and is published by
students daily except Mondays, examination periods and :ji
vacations. $
S
S Ernie McCrary. editor; John Jennrich, associate editor; 8
$ Barry Jacobs, managing editor; Fred Thomas, news &!
S editor, Pat Stith. sports editor; Gene Rector, asst. sports 8
editor; Kerry Sipe, night editor; Ernest RobI, photograph- 5:
er; Chip Barnard, editorial cartoonist; John Greenbacker,
g political writer; Ed Freakley, Andy Myers, Lynne Harvel,'
: Lynne Sizemore, David Rothman, Ray LinviUe, staff S
writers; Jack Harrington, bos. mgr.; Tom Clark, asst. bus.
: mgr.; Woody Sobol, ad. mgr.
iv , :$
:::: Second class postage paid at the post office in Chapel
: Hill, N. C. 27514. Subscription rates: $4.50 per semester; 8
ijij & per year. Send change of address to The Daily Tar ?:
S Heel. Box 100. Chapel I mi. N. C, 27514. Printed by the $:
Chapel Hill Publishing Co., Inc. The Associated Press Is
: entitled exclusively to the use for republication of all jx
fx local news printed in this newspaper as well as all ap S:
jij: news dispatches. i$
"Finished With The Catsup Yet?"
Mike Jennings
Liberal Comment
'Deplorable' Recall Is
Symbol Of Public Face
Versus Private Morals
:-.
By BANKS O. GODFREY, JR.
Recent events in our national and local
history have raised once again the old prob
lem of how a public mind deals with pri
vate events which are thrust upon public
consciousness by publicity. And once more
it has become transparent that the : duplic
ity in the public mind of American allows
us to condemn openly that which we tolerate
and enjoy privately. The bridge between
the hiatus of public and private worlds is
a disclosure, usually in the newspaper, to
everyone of the taint in the lives of one
or two people. This is a very cynical busi
ness. What is so disasterous about this du
plicity is that no one is helped by it. In
stead, everyone is delivered a suffering
which usually exceeds the alleged crime.
It is duplicity, more than crises in identity
and sexuality, which makes American pub
lic life corrupt. As Hannah Arnt writes:
"In the public world, common to all, per
sons count, and so does work, that is, the
work of our hands that each of us contrib
utes to our common world; but life qua
life does not matter there. The world can
not be regardful of it, and it has to be hid
den and protected from the world." Let
it be considered, therefore, that in Ameri
can public life, if not in all public life (as
Kierkegaard thought), the possibility of for
giveness and the restoration of a deterior
ated, or destroyed persons, is simply im
possible. Such restoration is closed out be
cause the deplorable way in which we ex
pse the private lives of public men and
delight in doing so, closes out any occasion
of help, either for the exposers or the ex
posed. And it should be obvious that our
delight in such exposure is never so
euphoric as when what is to be exposed
involves sexuality. Americans, who are
smart-alecks about sex, and Southerners,
who are self-righteous about it, are so easily
convinced by so little evidence that private
sexual activity, once exposed, determinis
tically infects the large and small duties
and responsibilities of men's public acts.
With such a literalistic combination of de
light and cynicism at work, it is then a
short step before the exposed people are
transformed into scapegoats for all sorts of
causes and fronts. Such a destructive force,
deployed publicly, about particular, unique
human beings, is blasphemous.
That is why the demands of the student
leaders for a recall of Paul Dickson are de
plorable, and why the pronouncement of
the chancellor and the Dean of Student Af
fairs is a miscalculation. The students
wrote self-righteously, and the officials at
tempted to deal generally with the particu
larities of the Dickson case. Everyone was
very pious, especially the women. And
when an unbiblical and sentimental piety is
unleashed on a moral issue, the piety be
comes propaganda. This public exhibition
runs the risk of being more outrageous
than Dickson's punished breaking of a uni
versity rule.
Ironically, one woman, Lady Bird John
son, of all people, expressed honest, ap
propriate and life-loving reaction in her
statement about Walter Jenkins, whom, she
said, we must all look upon with compas
sion. It is this compassion which we have
unlearned to practice in the public and pri
vate worlds of our time .
By its absence, we have had to endure
the libelous statements of Armistead Mau
pin against not only the SDS and the SPU,
but against the responsible students who
chair these organizations. Why have the is
sues been upstaged by childish, personal
attacks? Newspapers, after all, are the
chief bridge across the communities of the
public consciousness. But in recent local is
sues it appears that more news" has- been
made' up than has been reported, 'aftd'the
same is the case in most of the state's
papers. It must be noted that the language
of emergency, the use of scape-goats, and
the vulgar treatment of human beings, is
a serious deviation from that tradition of
journalism which knows its writers to be
the keepers of the notebooks of the culture,
which tradition is marked by the names
and work of Ralph McGill, W. J. Cash,
Jonathan Daniels, Harry Ashmore, Hod
ding Carter and Mark Ethridge. In such a
tradition, opinionated detachment and per
sonal slander are intrinsically destructive,
and therefore unthinkable.
The risk of being a public figure (and
this university is a training ground for
that) is that a public man, in the lime
light, has to fight constantly the growth of
emptiness in himself, which is the frequent
gift of power. It is to Paul Dickson's credit
politically, that he has been the one who
has been the most articulate, the most re
sponsible, the most honest and the most
objective in this whole issue. Politically,
one can only hope that, in their public and
private worlds liberals and conservatives
alike will suffer themselves such loss of
pride as will allow us all to petition, about
our public and private lives, in the prayer
which Reinhold Niebuhr wrote upon the
founding of the Americans for Democratic
Action:
O God, give us serenity to accept
what cannot be changed, courage to
change what should be changed, and
wisdom to distinguish the one from the
other.
There is a freedom which is more lib
eral than what the liberal university teach
es and by which even the university lies,
and the gifts of that freedom, sorely need
ed in our public and private worlds, are
humility before one's self and others, born
out of self-knowledge, and compassion
about one's strengths and weaknesses.
Tony Mason Is "Just
A Fellow Who Likes
To See People Vote"
Tony Mason is a UNC student who be
lieves people should vote. He devotes much
of his time to getting them to vote.
Tony is a member of the Chapel Hill
Voter Registration Drive. He is also co
chairman of the UXC-YMCA Human Re
lations Committee.
Tony doesn't demonstrate or picket for
voting rights. He doesn't think that's neces
sary. Instead he works in his office at the
Y. There he checks voter registration lists
against lists of those old enough to vote to
find who among Chapel Hill's Negro com
munity are not registered. He helps send
out information sheets about registration
'procedures, candidates and issues to Negro
homes.
Tony works quietly. He speaks quietly
as well. He chooses his words slowly and
carefully. His height adds emphasis to his
words. Tony has short brown hair and dress
es in old but neat clothes. He usually
wears a patched sweater.
A native of Chapel Hill, Tony is a senior
history major.
Tony began voter registration work be
fore he left high school. He carried on this
work with various groups in the communi
ty until the Chapel Hill Voter Registration
Drive was formed in December, 1963. This
year, Tony is trying to recruit other stu
dents to work for the drive, but he is not
having much success.
Tony will eagerly take from his desk a
sheet showing in figures the success of the
drive.
"When the drive started work in Decem
ber, 1963, 746 Negroes were registered in
Chapel Hill Township. Before the primaries
in May, 1964, we registered 454 more. By
the time of the 1964 presidential election,
the total Negro registration was up to
1,462.
Tony does not need figures, however, to
tell the story of voter registration problems.
"We found that it was very hard to get
people to register. People heard about the
killings and persecution in the Deep South.
Thejj felt the only reason it hadn't hap
pened here was that nobody had been fool
enough to register.
"People remember or have heard from
theirj parents how everyone in Orange Coun-
ty once had to go to Hillsborough to reg
ister They remember or hear now Negroes
who went there to register were arrested
for disturbing th peace. Nothing like that
; happens anymore." x r ... :
Tony says that many Negroes felt their
votes wouldn't count anyway. "Some peo
ple thought Negroes' votes were burned.
Others thought some votes were counted
as two or three votes each."
To dispel false notions, the Voter Regis
tration Drive began a voter education cam
paign. Members of the University's political
science department helped write informa
tion sheets to be sent out in newsletter
form.
Tony claims that the "excellence of the
Orange County ' Elections Board" is the
reason that "there has been no direct, ob
vious discrimination in Orange County" in
recent years.
"The problem in rural areas is very
much different from that in town. A Negro
tenant farmer may be thrown out by his
landlord if he registers. We can't ask him
to take that risk."
While the discrimination problem is
largely dead, Tony says its effects still op
erate and cause Negroes to be suspicious
of the drive workers. But when we show
we really want to help they aren't sus
picious anymore.
To demonstrate their desire to help, the
drive workers go from house to house in
the Negro community on Saturdays. They
distribute information, check on who is reg
istered and urge those elibigle to vote. If
the registration station at the high school
is open and anyone in the house wants to
register, the workers will take him to regis
ter and bring him back.
On one such Saturday "field trip" Tony
demonstrated the way the drive workers
overcome distrust.
Tony went to eight houses. Nobody was
home at four of the houses. At the other
four houses nobody was home who was old
enough to vote but unregistered.
One house Tony visited had a blue and
white sedan parked in front. A Carolina
sticker was on its rear window.
Tony knocked and a man in a checked
bathrobe opened the door.
Tony told the man he was from the
Voter Registration Drive. He asked the man
if he and his wife were registered. The
man seemed reluctant to answer. But fi
nally he said he and his wife were not
registered.
Tony checked his record. "Yes you are,
but your wife isn't."
The man was surprised and a little hos
tile. "What do you mean?"
Tony explained to him that when he reg
istered once he was registered for life un
less he moved away or the county board
called for a whole new registration. Since
the man had registered for the last presi
dential election, he was permanently reg
istered. The man then seemed eager to see that
his wife registered. He said she wasn't
home, but she would probably be back lat
er. Tony offered to stop back by later to
take her to the high school.
The man was grateful.
At each house where he found registered
voters, Tony urged them to vote in the
November highway and school bond refer
endums. Tony was back in his office the next
week, drawing up new lists and trying to
get people to help in the Drive.
And so the campaign goes.
But call Tony Masoa a campaigner and
he'll disagree with you. Ask him if he's a
civil rights worker, and he'll say no to
that too.
Ask him to describe himself. He'll prob
ably stop and think a minute. Then he
may grin and say, "I'm just a fellow who
likes to see people vote."
Otelia Connor's
Vision Of World
Finds Opposition
Editor, The Daily Tar Heel:
Otelia Connor is very willing to condemn
others who are also tired of war and the
rumors of wars. Perhaps the protesters see
war as a factor which debases and weakens
man. Killing a human being, whether in
passiorriibr duty, neither strengthens" nor
ennobles man. The tree of liberty may
have to be bloodied every twenty years,
but that does not make willing killers out
of all.
History also seems to show wherever
there is man, there is conflict. Surely no
"moral equivalent of war" is going to make
man see eye-to-eye with his neighbour. (In
deed, just what does "moral equivalent of
war" mean; aren't these just words?) No
man cares to have his freedom impinged
upon some are willing to give up some
of their freedom so others may obtain
theirs, and some are not so willing. A man
should be able to make this choice himself.
Mrs. Connor wants a wonderful, beauti
ful world. Just how wonderful and beautiful
would it be if "universal military train-
ing" and "strict harsh discipline" were
compulsory? Discipline comes from the in
side of man; imposed discipline brings re
sentment against the "ordered society"
which demands it. Does Mrs. Connor want
a society where man does not have the
right to express his conception of peace and
freedom?
Jane Marcotte
5-A Towne House Apts.
LETTERS
Ih Tar ,Ieel 'comei fetters
to the editor on any subject, particularly
on matters of local or University later
est. Letter, must be typed, double
spaced and must include the name and
!! ? "thor Name,
will not be omitted in publication. Let
ter. should be kept ., brief .. pebble.
ZSlt? rigbt ,or
length or IlbeL
' 1
HI iTA f F1 sNoay itXJ 1 I THEN WMV DfO I DELIBERATELY I I UNUS 6 fcEAUV A I I WRERl&fT. IT'S teCALKE
j1, KNOidTHATI 1 60 0aTCfMVUAVTO BOS, UTTLf &W, AfO I I'M STUPlD1 vtufyt,
r NEED ALL THE LINOS ABOUT THE 6KaT rWKltf ? INSULT H( BELIEFS... (JHV DO -rrVN
. " T?
f 1V TW Hd .-- lac. Ill .
I 'I 1 J