Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Feb. 27, 1966, 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
Page 2 Sunday, February 27, 1966 J GUp? Satlg (Far :$ Opinions of The Daily Tar Heel are expressed in its editorials. Ali unsigned editorials are written by t h e 3: editor. letters and columns reflect only the personal $ jx views of their contributors. : ERNIE McCRARY, EDITOR Getting Tired Of It All? 0 How strange it is. Everybody knows America is the freest country in the world the guardian of liberty. And North Carolina, at least until recently, has been calling itself the most progressive state in the South a place where the rights of any man are respected. Then why is this University today in the position of defending itself against restrictions of its freedom? The paradox of the situation makes it even more frustrating, and harder te understand. The UNC board of trustees will meet tomorrow. It will pass regulations governing invitations to and appearances of speakers on the campuses of state supported schools. Why? Ask a trustee. The answer is easy: The law says the board must adopt such regulations. The UNC administration will suggest that those rules give the final say-so about speakers to admin istrators but it is more than possible that the trustees will require further, more stringent restrictions. Hopefully, they will. The more restrictive the better because the trust ees, the governor and the state legislators may be assured the students of the University will take this mockery of common sense to the courts. The tighter the restrictions, the more apparent their illegality be comes, and the stronger our case is. For more than two and a half years the University has been trying to reason with unreasonable men. The court is the most important safeguard of free dom in this country. It has been used before when reasoning with unreasonable men failed and it should be used now that all else has not succeeded. There can never be an understanding between ' those who support the speaker ban, in any form, and those who despise it. We cannot convert the friends of the ban and we must not let them convert us. Are you tired of the whole mess? Sick of the con troversy? Not quite as dedicated to opposing the ban as you were six months or six weeks or even six days ago? - - v : . ;; . ... : . ; The "friendsL'vof the-University those-who want to take care of us because they think we are not fit f to take care of ourselves will be glad to hear it. , We cannot falter now if we expect to survive as a first-rate institution of higher learning. If we have any integrity, we cannot accept these regulations. We must stop for a moment in the midst of all this confusion and hopeless frustration to make sure we know where we are and where we are going. We are in hell a hell created by political inter ference with the University. Barring miracles, we are going to court. A Real Winner The DTH Award of the Week, all categories, goes to the following letter which appeared in the Raleigh News and Observer Friday morning: 1 To the Editor: Regarding Sen. Robert Morgan's address to the Association of University Professors, I say, "More power to him." So glad there is one who isn't a "Red." Such a pity there aren't more legislators of his caliber. He knows, as does any sensible person, that any Com munist is more dangerous than a pack of wolves or rabid dogs, and should be treated as such. G. E. LLEWELLYN New Bern. 0 Satlg ar Ul 72 Years of Editorial Freedom 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 vacations. Ernie McCrary, editor; Pat Stith, managing editor; Barry Jacobs, associate editor; Andy Myers, news editor; Gene Rector, sports editor; Jim Coghill, asst. sports edi tor; Rick Nichols, night editor; Grady Hubbard, wire editor; Ernest Robl, photographer; Chip Barnard, editor ial cartoonist; David Rothman, columnist; Carol Gallant, secretary; Ed Freakley, Bob Harris, Steve Bennett, Steve Lackey, Glenn Mays, Lytt Stamps, Peytie Fearrington, staff writers; Wayne Hurder, Ron Shinn, Mike O'Leary, copy editors; Bill Rollins, Gene Whisnant, Sandy Tread well, Drummond Bell, Bill Hass, Jim Fields, sports writ ers; Jeff MacNelly, sports cartoonist. Second class postage paid at the post office in Chapel Hill, N. C, 27514. Subscription rates: $4.50 per semester; $8 per year. Send change of address to The Daily Tar Heel. Box 1080. Chapel Hill. N. C, 27514. Printed by the Chapel Hill Publishing Co., Inc. The Associated Press is entitled exclusively to the use for republication of all local news printed in this newspaper as well as all AP wws dispatchrs. David Rothman Would Smoking Help Grades? Officials at a Louisville, Ky., prepara tory school recently began letting seniors smoke on campus supposedly because this will put the smokers at ease, so they can perhaps get better grades. I recently visited one school whose prin cipal has. similar feelings about smoking and marks. Well, maybe not. But, anyway, here's how things have turned out: After the new smok- incr nilp vi-pnt intfi pf- ... v "e - --- --- - V-r -'A feet, many students 1 r"" complained of t h i e r Sf vW severity. "It's unfair," they told the principal. I "Cigarette smok ing may improve our grades, but it's abso lutely cruel to make us smoke 20 packs a day." "I'm sorry," the principal replied. 'The school's academic rating has declined, re gardless of what everybody says about 'smoking more but enjoying it less. " Determined to get his point across, the principal threw the nonsmokers into deten tion hall. And if the trouble-makers remained stub born they were expelled from school until Jthey caught up on their back assignments by studying enough to earn Raleigh cou pons. The students, tired of this treatment, held a free speech rally at which they read copies of the Surgeon General's report. Many of the brighter ones developed lung cancer. The stupid ones failed their exams be cause they didn't know how to hold a cig arette properly. The dishonest ones hung around the smokers' lounge, unscrupulously collecting others' odors. The careless ones forgot to bring their lighters with them to school every day. The poorer ones received matches from the Federal government under the anti poverty program. The nonconformists smoked pipes. The incorrigibles chewed tobacco. Romantically inclined students collabo rated with each other on their homework by borrowing lights from their lovers cig arettes. Students began their day by pledging allegiance to the American Tobacco Com pany. In civics classes, they learned how to be good citizens by listening to Lucky Strike commercials. And the English teachers taught them good grammar by using such sentences as: "Winston tastes good like a cieaertte should." Of course, not everybody approved of the school's methods of instruction. The P.T.A., for instance, was almost subverted by Ihe Health Department. But school officials clung to their be liefs, saying, "We'd rather fight than switch." Despite his enthusiasm for smoking, however, the principal couldn't improve his students' showing on national exams. There was just too much competition from states like Virginia and North Carolina. Trustees Don't Deserve Harassment By Students By WILLIAM OTIS Opposition to the trustee decision to bar Herbert Aptheker has grown so wide that important distinctions among its various strains have blurred. The specific student complaints have begun by virtue of their sheer mass to shroud one another in benevo lent obscurity. I suspect that a little analy sis of the hodge-podge of vituperation cur rently being hurled against the trustees will show that its range of actual merit is rather limited from the inconsistent to the absurd. Student complaint number one is the plaintive whine that the trustees (or the Governor or the Legislature, etc.) "don't trust us." This complaint is usually follow ed by some indignant assertion that they should, because we're not really a Red nest, festering sore, etc., at all. Granted. But we need demonstrate far :more than that there is no blood on the Old Well, and that Communists indood do not lurk behind every Chapel Hill shrub, in order to earn their trust. This demon stration we have not made. To the con trary, we have invited their distrust. How so? Paul Dickson admits that he, in consultation with the other Consolidated University student body presidents, last year planned invitations to two Communist speakers. He took this action independent of the knowledge or consent of the adminis tration and in direct defiance of state law. Do we expect this under-the-table conspir acy to warant trust, particularly the trust of those against whom it was in part di rected? Five months ago one of the catch phrases on this campus was "trustee-control." Our student representatives before the General Assembly were emphatic in argu ing that regulation of University speaking policy should reside with the Board of Trus tees. So the Speaker Ban amendment pass ed, and trustee-control became a reality. Now we demand that speaker policy be wrenched from the trustees and parcelled out lik so many fried fish among 'certified campus organizations." Indeed, not even the chancellor is to be notified of speaker invitations! One can only conclude that either the' student body knowingly and deliberately misrepresented its position to the state legislature in order to bring about alternation of what it con sidered an undesirable law, or that the stu dents urged trustee-control all the while with the idea in mind, but never revealed to the legislature, that this control would not be used and would thus dwindle to functional non-existence. Each of these positions is intellectually dishonest and deceitful. Is this how we expect to merit trust? In spite of such dubious behavior, I am convinced that the student body should have the confidence of the trustees, and that it indeed does. I agree that Aptheker's appearance on campus would convert not a single student to communism; as a mat ter of fact, I think any contrary contention is laughable but not for the usual reason Quote The Fifth Amendment has been very nearly a lone sure rock in a time of storm. It has been one thing which has held quite firm, although something like a jugger naut has pushed upon it. It has. thus, through all its vicissitudes, been a symbol of the ultimate moral sense of the community, upholding the best in us, when otherwise there was a good deal of wavering under the pressures of the times. Erwin N. Griswold Dean, Harvard Law School given: -that the students' critical reflection and incisive analysis would fetter out the yawning, gaping flaws in Marxist philoso phy. Nonsense. The reasons Aptheker would find no converts 'are: 1) The massive, block-busting indiffer ence with which students greet almost all political topics, amply demonstrated by the pitiable attendance political speakers usually draw here; 2) The "complete and total opposition to the Communist Party and all that it em bodies" that is so. strongly a part of almost all students' latent political attitudes; and 3) The fact that Aptheker is one of the most boring and pedantic speakers to be found anywhere, a real remedy for insom niacs. Another strain of thought holds that we ought not concern ourselves with the confi dence of the trustees. After all, ours is the monopoly on Righteous Indignation; they are the transgressors on our Freedoms. They should be summoned before us to ac count for their wrongdoing as best they . can. , Such is the essence of the "invitation" issued to Governor Moore and the trustee executive committee. It is obviously tailor ed to embarrass (if not insult) the admin istration, disclaimers to the contrary not withstanding. I dismiss it with only the comment that it is an incredible display of pompous arrogance. The second sort of complaint against the trustee decision is that it debases "the na ture of a university." A most appealing argument, but on which rests on one small but very slippery word: "a". Are we talk ing about the. nature of this university, or of private universities? Or of the Great Ideal University unencumbered by the sometimes heavy burdens of the real world? Clearly we must restrict our consider ation to the nature of a state-owned uni versity, despite alluring temptations to do otherwise. The nature of the state-owned university is such that it is subject to the regulation of the state. Moreover, a respon sible state has the right, nay, the obligation, to supervise those instutions for which it appropriates its revenue. Aptheker's appearance, we are told, would do much for the intellectual cli-' mate here. For one thing, it would assert his freedom of speech and our own free dom of inquiry. I attempted to show in last Thursday's paper that these arguments fail to stand up to criticims. I shall now con sider two other reasons give in, favor of his proposed address: One, that it will be of educational value, and, two, that it would create the opportunity for students to rip him to "verbal shreds" with their pene trating questions. - First, not even the most exceptional mind could absorb more educational value from Aptheker's one or two hour lecture than from reading his 23 books available in Louis Round Wilson Library. Further more, I doubt that the dogmatic adherance to Communist theory and the pedantic ap proach which so permeate Aptheker's ar gumentation leave much of educational val ue in either his lectures or books in any quantity. The second contention hardly constitutes a legitimate reason for inviting Aptheker. If we have invited him to provide us "with something to unite against . . . something that we can advance upon and strike, down," in the words of one trustee critic, then we belie the argument we just finished making; that is, we cannot possibly ab sorb what educational value Aptheker might offer if our primary interest lies in spring upon him like an intellectual Attila the Hun. More than this, to invite any speaker to the campus simply to use his viewpoint, no matter how unpopular, as a whipping boy for our preconceived ideas, is intellec tually shabby and just a little short of ma licious. One extreme form of opposition to the trustee decision maintains that the trustees actually do not have the authority to forbid Aptheker from speaking. I need only point out that the speaker ban amendment es tablished this authority quite explicitly. In addition, it is noteworthy that even if the speaker ban vanished today at high noon, the trustees would still have that authority. They are the immediate governing body of the University, and can make what dis position they deem advisable of University property including denying its use to Aptheker Ban or no Ban. A more moderate position is that taken by DTH Associate Editor Barry Jacobs and others, which acknowledges the authority of the trustees to bar Aptheker, but argues that the decision to do so is unwise. Their reasons for this contention are, in my opin ion, insufficient, but at least they make some sense unlike so much that is current ly heard deriding the trustees. They argue that the university is, in ideal, a place for the airing of ideas of all kinds. Second, they point out that the trustees have made a martyr out of Ap theker, and that "the students now can hardly help but see the issue as a fight between themselves and Aptheker on one side and the Governor and the trustees on the other." With only the observation that as a state owned university, we necessarily cannot claim an "ideal" intellectual environment, I concur with these assertions. I dissent, however, from the conclusions derived from them. It is clear that Aptheker was not invited for the educational benefit to be had from his lecture (and precious little that would be anyway, for the reasons mentioned above). The invitation was issued as a cal culated effort to intimidate the trustees and challenge their authority. Its design was to create turmoil and dissention , within the University and without. The only "re sponse the trustees could reasonably make was the one they made. LETTERS The Daily Tar Heel welcomes let ters to the editor on any subject, particularly on matters of local or University interest.' Letters" must be typed, double-spaced and 'must ' In clude the name and siddri'sx of the author or authors. Name will not be omitted in publication. Letters should be limited to about 250-300 words. The DTH reserves the right to edit for length or libel. Longer letters will be considered for "The Student Speaks" if they are of sufficient interest. How ever, the DTH reserves the right to use contributed materials as it sees fit. - - The alliance between organized labor and the Democratic party, a political con stant since New Deal days, has become seriously strained in the past few months. A formal break may come over wage in creases and minimums. When Franklin D. Roosevelt's adminis tration passed the Wagner Act in 1937 and put labor on an equal footing with manage ment in disputes over working conditions, the power of labor became firmly attached to the Democratic cause. The traditional alliance of big business and the Republican party was offset by the labor-Democartic tieup. The economic and po litical power of the workingmen were se cured with support of the Democrats. Through the years that power has grown, and now oreanizpH 1 a h n apparently feels strong enough to take on even the mighty Johnson Administration Several incidents have contributed to the deterioration in the good feelings that exist ed between Johnson and the labor bosses In the first place, labor has never agreed to the President's anti-inflation guideline which declared 3.2 per cent as the maxi mum non-inflationary annual wage boost AFL-CIO President George Meany reiterat ed labor's position Monday: labor will agree to limits on pay raises only if Johnson invokes ceilings on price and profit increases, too. The transit strike in New York didn't improve relations between the Administra tion and the" labor leaders. Both Johnson and Gardner Ackley, one of his top econo mic advisers, branded the settlement as inflationary. Labor's call for a minimum hourly wage of $2 a 60 per cent hike has received a cold reception from the White House. A battle over raising the minimum standard may well be in the offing. It will be in teresting to see what position the President takes. An increase is probable, but the size of the boost is the question. But the most important cause of the rift Barry Jacobs Demo. -Labor Alliance Show between Johnson and labor is the failure of the President to redeem his campaign pledge to repeal Section 14(b) of the Taft Hartley Law. This section now the most famous in the law allows states to ban the union shop. Nineteen states have exercised this option. Big labor considers this pro vision to be a serious hindrance in its drive for power to use in the constant fight with management for higher wages and shorter hours. In battling for repeal, however, labor lost a large portion of its most valuable ally the people. Americans love the underdog; and as long as labor seemed to be the underdog in the battle with management, public sympathy was largely with the un ions. In clamoring for the repeal of 14(b), however, big labor was never able to com pletely refute the charge that it was mere ly seeking power, at the expense of the ordinary working man. The public was not behind the unions, and the fight to break Senate filibuster never had a chance. Meany and the other labor leaders, however, blamed Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield for not doing more to secure passage of the repeal. The President reaped the po litical advantages of making the promise to abolish 14(b); now he must take the consequences of failing to keep it. Who is holding the better cards in this struggle between Meany and Johnson? The union leader is talking loudly, but the President appears to have the ace in the hole. Labor has no place to go if it leaves the Democratic fold. The hypocrisy of sud denly jumping into the Republican camp would surely alienate much of labor's rank and file as well as a large part of public opinion. Moreover, the GOP is still the party of big business and the party that nominated Barry Goldwater. One other alternative remains, of course. Labor could form a separate party. The chances of success, though, are virtually nil; and it's doubti'jl if the labor leaders are seriously considering such a course. Their blustering is probably little more than an attempt to get more concessions from Johnson. For the time being, at least, tha tall Texan is still hard to beat. !
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Feb. 27, 1966, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75