Page 2
Tuesday, February 22, 1966
'Would You Believe That Tommy Jefferson Did It?'
j latlg (liar
Opinions of The Daily Tar Heel are expressed in its
editorials. All unsigned editorials are written by the
jij: editor, letters and columns' reflect only the personal
j:j: views of their contributors.
& ERNIE McCRARY, EDITOR
ts
SG Needs Cooperation;
The Slate Could Help
Those who gripe about the weakness and ineffec
tiveness of student government have a chance to do
' something about it today.
Vote "yes" on the constitutional amendment.
Article III, section 1 of the constitution merely
says that the student government president, vice
president, secretary and treasurer will be elected by
and from the entire student body.
The amendment at issue today adds this require
ment: "The president of the student body and the vice
president of the student body shall have sought their
respective positions together and shall be elected to
gether as if they were one person."
In other words, the president and vice president
will hereafter be elected on a slate system as in na
tional elections if the proposal is approved.
The amendment is a matter of practicality. This
campus has a student political party system which is
probably unrivaled in the country for its strength.
Candidates are nominated by the Student Party and
University Party; then for a month of campaigning
they fight one another with unrestrained enthusiasm.
Three times within the past five years the presi
dent and vice president were elected from different
parties and the results have been anything but out
standing. The two officers simply cannot work togeth
er when they have so little in common.
The amendment will force the parties to be as
painstaking in their selection of vice presidential can
didates as they are in nominating presidents, and the
ultimate result will be a more unified student govern
ment which has a greater chance of accomplishing its
goals.
No One Writes
"Thus, you yourself, unworthy companion of
my sad life, are like the public to whom one
must never offer delicate perfumes, which only
exasperate them. One must offer them gar
bage which has been carefully selected."
(Translated from Beaudelaire,
The Carolina Quarterly, 1965)
The most recent issue of the Quarterly would not
appeal to the public of which Beaudelaire is speaking.
For, although a major portion of the magazine
f "might well he described as garbage, there is no eyi
. dence that it has been carefully selected. -
It appears to be random garbage.
It appears, in fact, to be a stumbling conglomera
tion of pathetic bluffs a handful of fatuous little proj
ects which might succeed at being controversial if
they were the least bit coherent.
It appears, in short, to have been compiled by the
Sociology Department.
But even this depressing fact is no reason to give
up. Every reputable university should have a literary
journal. It would be nice if we had one at Carolina.
The dilemma of the Quarterly is simply indica
tive of the dilemma of the University: No one writes
For writing, as everyone knows, isn't very respec
table. No one who is honestly concerned with his
image on campus would ever dream of crawling out
of comfortable ananymity into the social perilousness
of creativity. "People from Harry's write not regular
people. Writing is for beatniks."
And that's the trouble. A small coterie of disil
lusioned cynics has obtained a monopoly on the mar
ket. The result is sometimes dazzling, often tiresome,
always lop-sided. There is no one to blame but the le
gions of potentially promising writers who refuse to
exercise a skill which, in the best of all possible
worlds, acknowledges no social or political bounda
ries. The Muses, ideally, are public property.
With this premise in mind, the Writer-in-Resi-dence
Committee of the YM-YWCA has initiated a new
program at the Uniyersity. .
Tonight in 107 Howell Hall Leon Rooke, UNC
Writer-in-Residence and recipient of a 1965 O. Henry
Award, will conduct the first in a series of Writer's
Workshops in Chapel Hill. Betty Smith, author of A
Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Joy in the Morning,
will speak at the beginning of the evening. The Work
shop will last from 8 to 10 p.m. and will be very in
formal. Typewriters and advice will be available when
needed.
Try it.
Armistead Maupin Jr.
She Satlg (Ear stl I
.v
,v ;.
: 72 Years of Editorial Freedom S
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David Rothman
Striking Back With Trivia
1 . f
The Student Speaks
Which Is The Smarter Sex?
Is trivia part of a protest movement?
Does it reflect the confusion of youth? Are
its fans mentally unstable?
Students have long wailed about incon
sequential questions on their quizzes.
The multiple choice approach some
times dubbed the "multiple guess" tech
niquehas been looked upon with contempt
because of its often emphasizing irrevelant
details.
And "fill in the blank" tests may be
just as bad.
Thus, I conclude that
trivia, with its accent
on the unimportant, is
the student's answer to
those who harrass him
in the classroom. The
game's players are un
consciously protesting
the meaningless ques-
"'m tions of their profes
sors by exaggerating the meaninglessness.
Nobody really cares about what disease
killed Emily Bronte's oldest sister (tuber
culosis) or President Harding's middle
name (Gamaliel); yet questions of this
type often appear on exams given in the
nation's schools high schools and, to a less
er extent, colleges.
I myself still have trouble recalling the
population of Blackfoot, Idaho, (5,180) or
the first person to treat sociology system
atically (Auguste Comte).
Throughout high school, I wondered why
my teachers couldn't stick to more impor
tant matters like William Shakespaeare's
birth date (1564), the color of Sinclair
Lewis' hair (red) or the meaning of the
word "Nemathelminthes (flat worms).
Graduate CFI
Other students here were probably just
as dissatisfied with their high school quiz
zes. So. turning to pop culture, they do
their best to erase the nightmares of the
past by drowning them in a flood of vital
information about comic books, radio pro
grams and canceled TV series.
Ed Freakley, my fellow columnist, ty
pifies The New Wave. Only last week, he
was concerning himself with the color of
Jimmy Olsen's hair, the identity of radio s
Abominable Snowman and the name of the
dog on "The People's Choice" (see Fri
day's DTH for the answers).
And the other day, somebody suavely
asked me the name of Sen. Goldwatcrs
yacht ("Sun-Dance") causing me to moan
and groan until I got him to admit he didn't
know the call letters of the Senator's two
radio stations (K7UGA and K3UIG).
All of us were merely protesting against
having to remember for school facts like
Puerto Rico's population (2,349,544), the
author of "Morgante maggiore" (Luigi
Pulci) and the distinction of Pulaski, Term ,
(the Ku Klux Klan organized there in 1865)1
All of us, most likely, are as neurotic
as the person who counts the bulbs in elec
trie signs, the collector of antique waste
baskets or the nut who trims his toe nails
three time a day.
But what are we to do?
Trivia fans will probably just have to
wait until some psychiatrist publicly de
clares us more deranged than the people
who avoid stepping on the cracks in the
sidewalk. Then we shall be eligible to enter
an institution other than a university.
Right now, I'll put you at ease for the
moment by admitting I used an encyc
lopedia to write this column.
Letter To The Trustees
By HUGH OWENS
As I was ambling down Franklin Street
a few days ago on my way to the N. C. my
companion made a reasonable proposition:
women are less intelligent than men. Pre
posterous you say?
Perhaps.
Perhaps not.
It all centers around what you define as
intelligence. Men are more suited to rou
tine menial mental tasks like adding up long
columns of figures. But I have yet to see a
girl who dan approach a competent male in:-
this field. Most women definitely do not pos
sess the rigorous machine logic of what is
recognized as masculine.
Yet in their own way I sometimes won
der if women don't harbor a kind of supra
logic. Call it intuition or what you like. If
women are logical in the general sense of
the word, their form of logic is different
from and often at variance with male logic.
I then advanced a statement that wom
en are the foremost realists of the race.
Women can instantly spot hypocrisy in their
sex. Then my friend asked how it is then
that girls can be "snowed" by boys so eas
ily. I disagreed and said that a girl when
she put her mind to it could snow a boy
more readily than vice versa.
Yet it is interesting to note that women
although they see weakness or deficiency in
a man they may not reject him. Whereas
a man would eschew and condemn another
man who displayed weakness or vacillation,
a woman might stand by him.
One often hears of women (often beauti
ful) sticking by men who possess no recog
nizable value what ever. But a man would
rarely act similarly toward a woman. This
type of sentiment is made so pognantly lu
dicrous in Tom Lehrer's ditty on the sub
ject: " .... to Ed or Dick or Bob, she
may be just a slob, but to me She's my
girl .... And I LOVE her!"
Ask a man about his love for a woman
and he'll answer what it is about her that
he loves. He loves her because she (a) is
beautiful (b) compassionate (c) is a Ser
bo - Croat (d) has a wealthy father etc.
But a woman will respond more like Eliza
beth Browning: "How do I love thee? Let
me count the ways ..."
So it comes down to a what or WHY vs.
HOW relationship. With later rumination I
concluded that women are instead the Tra
gic Realists of the race. Women have to
face the tedious tasks of the role that is
theirs. It takes a woman to know the real
ity of childbirth.
Women think in the actual and the con
crete. Men think in the speculative and the
abstract. For that reason I have never read
a poem by a woman that has anywhere near
the abstract depth of Shakespeare's sonnet
XVIII, or Keat's "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
or more particularly Eliot's "Wasteland."
There are no great abstract women poets.
In fact there has never been a great wo
man poet. I recall women's style of poe
try as along the whimsical lines of a Phyl
lis McGinley or perhaps the sensuous imag
ery of Sara Teasdale. I can continue to
prove my point by saying there has never
been a great (or even good) woman philo
sopher. Maybe there never was one.
Try to name a great woman mathemati
cian, or artist, or musician, or composer.
You can't do it. Women are not disposed to
such abstractions. The metaphor belongs to
man.
WTiy is it then that women can't think in
the abstract? Think about the niche in the
world that the woman has always occup
ied. In primitive societies it is the woman
who does the work of village and field while
the males sit in council. The men lend an
arm only when the tasks demands real phy
sical strength. It is the women who bear
the babies, feed the gaping mouths, buy the
food.
This recalls an amusing incident of my
experience. A few years ago while in a su
permarket I saw one of the specious fast
ones that merchants will cunningly or inad
vertently (probably the former) pull on un
suspecting women. On the shelf was a box of
food for $.34. Yet a sign blatantly announ
ced that one could get "3 for $.99!" Such
a deal. This is the type of thing that most
of us men but few women have ever seen.
But again, why do women think con
cretely? Why is it always mother (and ne
ver father) who reminds us "Not to forget
our rubbers." Perhaps the primeval female
early realized that she could never achieve
physical superiority over the male.
So she instead has ever since tried to
seize power over the concrete world that is
man's. Maybe Chaucer was correct when he
wrote that what all women desire is dom
inance over men. It is a conflict that ex
tends down to the present day.
Are they gaining on us?
I don't know.
Will they ever win?
Who cares.
But I sure enjoy watching them try.
This letter was sent to each member of
the Board of Trustees by the Graduate Com
mittee for Free Inquiry.
To the Members of the Board of Trustees
of the University of North Carolina:
As graduate students we have a deep
concern about the specter of censorship that
is facing the educational instutions in North
Carolina today and an even more immedi
ate concern over the possible actions that
the Board of Trustees might take on Feb.
28.
We came to this University from 48 states
and 39 foriegn nations to pursue advanced
studies in our respective fields for the rea
son that at the time of our decisions to
come here, this was among the best univer
sities in the United States in terms of fac
ulty, facilities and professional esteem
among educated men throughout the world.
The tragic fact today, however, is that
the University has already begun to fall in
academic standing: professional societies
have chosen not to meet there, scholars have
on principle declined inviations to speak, and
some departments are having difficulty in
recruiting faculty. Although some officials
in the government already realize this and
have taken steps to keep the University from
The Collegiate World
Students Picket Blood Drive
By GIRMA NEGASH
Daily Kansan
Members of the KU Committee to End
the War in Viet Nam picketed at noon , to
day in front of the Kansas Union, emphasiz
ing that blood would be saved by bringing
the troops home. -
Four students carried posters reading,
"USA the Warfare State," "Save Blood
Bring the Boys Home," "Stop the War Now"
and "Stop the Blood Bath."
Inside the Kansas Union the blood drive
continued on its last day.
The decision for the protest was made by
the KU Committee to End the War in Viet
Nam in its meeting yesterday.
The committee prepared a statement
which read:
"We are protesting the war in Viet Nam
and feel that a truly humanitarian approach
causes that make it necessary. Save blood
is needed in Viet Nam, but we question the
causes that make it n ecessary. Save blood
by bringing the troops home now."
"We are building up towards the inter
national and national days of protest of
March 25 and 26 against the Viet Nam
war," said Richard Hill, junior, spokesman
for the KU Committee to End the War in
Viet Nam.
Increasing interest among students was
the focus of discussion last night at the
committee's meeting. Suggestions were men
tioned, ranging from raising blood donations
for the Vietnamese people to preparing bi
bliography materials on Viet Nam for stu
dents. "The number of anti - war groups in the
nation are proliferating. Most are not just
sitting down to read anti - war literatures
but are more active," Hill said.
The Committee has received a letter of
support from the Bertrand Russell Peace
Foundation.
losing accreditation, the actions have left un
resolved the very heart of the controversy:
censorship of ideas.
Any censorship is an absolute contradic
tion to the educational process, and indeed,
to the functioning of a democratic society.
To prohibit the sincere presentation of diver
gent opinion not only wakens the opportun
ity to exchange error for turth but also
weakens the foundation of education itself
by eradicating the clearer perception of
truth that arises from its collision with er
ror. Moreover, the harmful effects of censor
ship do not depend upon the mechanism by
which the censorship is carried out. A few
days ago we learned that two Soviet writers
had been imprisonej for criticizing their go
vernment, and we were saddened that well
educated Russians not only did not protest
this action of their government (for indeed,
is not the idea of protest anathema to tyran
ny?), but that they actually concurred with
the judgment.
xue ueniai 01 vonsuiuuonai ngnis oy weu
. meaning men in America is no different
from the denial of these same rights by ag
ents of communism itself, and as citizens in
a free society we must speak out for the
preservation of freedom.
The Board of Trustees of the University of
North Carolina should enact a speaker pol
icy which restores to the University stud
ents and faculty in particular and the citi
zens in general the exercise of their right
to hear whomsoever they see fit, free from
th threat of censorship from any quarter.
To do less would no only strike a bio
to freedom and guarantee the further decay
of a great university, but would also di:n the
future of North Carolina as a state in
which education, industry and the spirit of
freedom could flourish.
We surely have a right to expect the
Board of Trustees, a body of educated men
devoted to the high principles of freedom
and education and not to the caprice of poli
tical expediency, to display nothing short of
statesmanship and moral courage in effect
ing a solution to this problem facing a free
society.
Sincerely,
Bill O'Brien
for the Graduate Committee
for Free Inquiry
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