Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / May 3, 1966, edition 1 / Page 2
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Page 2 Tuesday, May 3, 1966 "Fresh, hell; Vm trying to stay dry!" The Student Spraks j iUb Sath? War tynl Opinions of Tin- Dail Tar Hid ar- t pn ssnl in its :j: editorials. All unsigned editorials an- written by the editor. Letters and eolunins reflect only the personal x views of their contributors. FKEI) THOMAS, EDIT OK . 1:1. Hays Criticizes Wilson's "a. SL Attack On Appointee r A Weil-Made Step Dean of Men William G. Long wrote Student Gov ernment a blank check yesterday afternoon. The occasion was the first installment of what are planned to be weekly meetings of the dean, stu dent leaders in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of Student Government and the heads of the Men's and Women's Residence Councils and the Greek system. The idea for the meeting was a joint effort by Dean Long and Student Body President Bob Powell. The affair was very informal and "completely off the record." And, as might be expected, no earth-shaking decisions came out of this first session. But this was definitely a good first step toward ironing out many of the problems of the University community on which we have all too often seen the administration take its stand and Student Government take an opposite position, leaving the whole matter unsolved and the air polluted with ill feelings between the two groups. The "blank check" we referred to was just that a blank check. Or, we should say, it was blank on the money side. But on the reverse side was scrawled a list of problems with which the group will be con cerning itself this spring and all of next year things such as the parking problem, the student judiciary, the residence college system and the fraternity sys tem. Certainly all these areas possess an abundance of rough edges. These rough edges can be eliminated only through a cooporative effort on the parts of the administration and the students concerned. The Daily Tar Heel tends to be quite critical of Student Government and of the administration from time to time. This is because there are always situa tions that could bear remedy. It is indeed, a rare oc casion when the hard-hearted press sees fit to laud both groups in one sitting. But today we do just that. And we hope these per sons will devlote themselves to developing this first step into a dead-ahead sprint for the good of the whole University. Students Can Vote In the past days we have had calls and letters from several students who have complained that they are being denied the right to vote. One student sent us a clipping from last week's News of Orange County. (Encircled was a paragraph which we feel is proba bly at the base of the problem. It read: "University students are qualified to vote in Or ange County if they satisfy the State and precinct residence requirements; if they change or have al ready changed their registration to an Orange County precinct; and if they consider their residence in Or ange County to be permanent that is, if they have no specific plans to leave the County within the im mediate future." The complaining students said they realized that the county could not open its polling places to every 21-year-old person who spends nine months in Chapel Hill. But they were concerned about married students especially graduate students many of whom live here for several years, pay taxes here, register their automobiles here, some have their children in school here, but cannot Vote because they cannot af firm that they have no plans to leave the county with in the foreseeable future. We talked with County Election Board member and Secretary James Prothro about this, and he ex plained that students can, indeed, vote here, although in past years many have been denied this privilege. The clause concerning "plans to leave the county in the immediate future" is aimed at students who are in residence here during the school year, but who maintain their registration privileges somewhere else. Prothro said this clause does not apply to stu dents who, by having established residence in Or ange County, have forfeited the right to vote in their former home precinct. "If you wanted to interpret the rule that way," Prothro said, "you could refuse voting privileges to a 35-year-old Orange County resident who has a cottage in Florida and plans to go there when he retires at 65, simply because his residence isn't permanent un til death." So, if you meet the residence requirement here and to employ a different interpretation of perman ance if by establishing residence in this county you have lost your voting privileges in another precinct, you can vote here. Voter registration will be held the next two Satur days from 9 a.m. until sunset at precinct polling places. We urge all eligible students to visit their lo cal registrars in your hearts you know they're right. GJhe Satly ular tfcel Fred Thomas, editor; Scott Goodfellow, managing editor; John Greenbacker, associate editor; Ron Shinn, news ed itor; Barry Jacobs, sports editor; Ernest RobI, assistant news editor; Bill Hass, assistant sports editor; John Jenn rich, wire editor; Mike Wiggin, night editor; Jock Lauter er, Jerry Lambert, photographers; Chip Barnard, art ed itor; Andy Myers, Steve Bennett, Steve Lackey, Peytie Fearrington, Carol Gallant. Lytt Stamps, Alan Banov, Bill Amlong, staff writers; Bill Rollins, Sandy Trea dwell. DrummoM Bell. Jim Fields, sports writers; Jeff Mac 'cily, Bruce Strauch, cartoonists. j&A iii.'' ' 'mSi Jill it- i ui fc-' mm WMfM&AWm 4 ,1 i Si' Editor's note These remarks were submitted to the DT1I by former Elections Board chairman Arthur Hays. They deal with last Thursday's legislative session.) By ARTHUR HAYS Last Thursday night. I was a helpless witness to a disgusting display of insinua tions and character assassination by a sup posed "public servant" of the student body. The occasion was the public trial before the Student Legislature of one, Douglas McKeown, presidential appointee as chair man of the Elections Board. The prose cution was none other than that esteemed jurist, Rep. Ed Wilson, University Party floor leader. The defense was denied the right to speak. I had suggested McKeown's name to President Powell because as chairman of the Elections Board this spring I had found McKeown to be the most dependable and hardest working member of the Elections Board. I had observed his understanding of the basic mechanics of the election process and his fairness to everyone. The announcement of his appointment two weeks ago heralded the beinning of what now appears to have been a calculat ed campaign of rumor that, as rumors do, got worse in the telling and re - telling. These rumors centered around the compli cations which arose in the counting of the Ehringhaus legislative ballots. Each of these rumors which I have heard has been false and unfounded in fact. Essentialy they impugn the trustworthiness of Mc Keown. But what finally convinced Wilson of the duplicity of McKeown was that McKeown Cornell Daily Editorial Bombing Civilians Immoral (Editor's note This editorial appeared recently in the Cornell Daily Sun.) On April 26, 1937, exactly twenty - nine years ago today, German planes flew over the Basque town of Guernica dropping in cendiary bombs and high explosives. 1,654 men, women, and children were killed and 889 others were wounded out of a popula tion of 7,0000. We do not mention this just to drag up old history. Instead we hope that this will serve as a reminder that the practice f bombing civilian populations is a rela tively new one, less than thirty years old. It was during the Spanish civil war that the fascists and their German allies intro duced this method of modern warfare. The bombing of Guernica was soon followed by air strikes at Madrid and other strong holds of the Loyalists. Most of the world cried out at the slaughter of the people of Guernica. Such bombings were considered highly inhuman and Picasso's painting caught much of the outrage that was shared by most civilized people. But they soon got used to such bombings. Nazi bombings of London were followed by the saturation bombings of German and Japanese cities by the Allies, culminating in the mass slaughter of the people of Dresden. Soon after that the idea of the annihilation of whole cities and countries by the use of nuclear weapons was meekly accepted. We mentioned Guernica as a reminder that we have become cold hearted with re gard to "the necessities of war." Today the United States is carrying on extensive bombings of civilian populations in South Viet Nam. This is accepted, along with the ruining of crops in Viet Cong - controlled areas, as the necessities of war. Bombing civilian areas has never won any war. Military experts tell us that Hit ler's worst mistake was the bombing of London. It drew off his strength from where it should have been focused and it streng thened the will of the British people. The bombings of Dresden did not add mater ially to the Allied victory over the Nazis. Arguments will go on forever as to wehth er the bombing of Hiroshima was necessary to end the war quickly, but certainly Amer ica would have won the war anyway. The bombing of Nagasaki in retrospect al so seems needless. In a conventional war, the arguments for the "necessity" of such methods are highly dubious. Friendly populations have never been the victims of bombings. Thus, French cit ies under German control were not sub jected to repeated bombings, whereas Ger man cities like Hamburg and Dresden were. Guernica was a stronghold of antifascist opinion. Perhaps the bombings of peasant villages in the sections of South Viet Nam controlled by the Viet Cong show us what kind of war our government is waging. We are fooling ourselves if we think that the Vietnamese respond to American. .. bombings of thf ir villages inja different manner from the way the British respond- Da vid Roth man ed in World War II. It is ridiculous to think that a Vietnamese peasant will be kindly disposed towards America after he has seen his village and perhaps his family destroy ed by American bombs. They are, after all, people like the rest of us. Perhaps remembering the original hor ror and revulsion that was felt in 1937 af ter the bombing of Guernica will remind us that the bombing of civilians is a hideous and immoral practice of eliminating help less and innocent-people whose only crime is living in a war zone. ' Rights Leaders Seek Aid For Watts Negroes Civil rights leader James Farmer re ports that the Negroes of Watts, Calif., are becoming "increasingly angry" be cause white labor is repairing buildings damaged in the recent racial trouble there. To me, the situation seems very serious if Farmer's remarks are correct. Knowing the W a 1 1 s district has long been plagued by unemploy ment, the Poverty Pro gram should at least let the Negroes re build the structures they so valiantly van dalized; otherwise, the riots will have been n vain. You've got to admit it takes a lot of guts to dodge police bul lets, beat up shopkeepers, terrorize the whites of nearby neighborhoods and throw rocks at automobiles. Enough guts, in fact, for the rioters to be repaid by being hired to repair the damages structures. But what's passed is past. Now, one must look to the future; one must con- sider ways of avoiding similar trouble, and in doing to, must admit that the Negroes themselves are partially to be blame. For instance, if they'd been good, re sponsible citizens and peacefully checked whether the rebuilding crews would be tho roughly integrated, they might have learned that most of the workers repairing the riot - damaged structures would be white. Then, the Negroes might take the mat er to the Civil Rights Commission. This would also mean a few trips to the White House, but eventually, LBJ, mindful of the Negro vote in forthcoming elections, would yield to their demands and solemnly promise them they could riot in good conscience, knowing full well that af ter the bloodshed, the Job Corps would step in to establish completely integrated rebuilding squads. So the Negroes would begin their riot ing until they would again protest to the Commission. They'd of course insist that the riots weren't an educational experience unless whites could be bussed in from the other part of town. HfWf hi the RAIN U J PITCHER'S u)HV DON'T VOU fitelTP TO COMMISSIONED eCKRT,AMl ASK HIM 10 A KELO ONE 7 You're MTtKoedfoz TAXING SU666STICNS, MZEWU? If REMEMBER NOW, NOT TOO V-GEJ VFLF bME AS MUCH TO ORINK.AN' OONT-JT SOON AS THEY CLOSE CwWT rAl VZUT IM A PAPfS r A v.i -r--r -r QCN M i i 1 f M t II If . -V dz LASTNIOHT. x i a i 11 n-Ti v III II I I I I v II II 1 I I 111! Mill I-IT r L07 II ri ?! I ml 11 testified before the Constitional Council as to facts which indicated that the Ehring haus ballots had been tempered and a re election was in order. It did not matter that the chairman of that court had ask ed McKeown to so appear and testify. Since the University Party did not want a re election in Ehringhaus, McKeown's ap pearance confirmed, the worst imaginings of Rep. Wilson and others in his party. I appeared on behalf of the University Party in the Ehringhaus election appeal. I did not, and cio not, question the truthful ness of McKeown's testimony. He and I were in agreement as to the facts. We merely disagreed as to the conclusions to be drawn from those facts. Whereas he felt the ballots had been tampered, therefore jus tifying a re - election, I felt there was only a possiblity of tampering which I felt did not meet the standard necessary to invali date the original election. But Wilson seized upon this honest dis agreement as proof of McKeown's '"parti sanship". Over and over it was repeated, to individuals, to the UP caucus, to the Stu dent Legislature, that Doug had been "dis respectful" to me by disagreeing with me. My only comment to this is that I am per fectly able to defend myself without the so licitations of the esteemed Rep. Wilson. In this particular case I saw no offense and I took none. As the rumors continued to circulate, I began to expect the very worst. I was not disappointed. Last Wednesday, McKeown and I sat for four hours waiting to testify on his ap pointment before the UP controlled Ways and Means Committee of Student Legislal ture. The committee decided not to hear testimony and reported out McKeown's ap pointment favorably. . Things were going just a little t o o smoothly so I attended Student Legislature Thursday night. At that session Wilson mov ed to delete McKeown's name from the re solution of approval of several presidential appointments. A motion was made by Steve Hockfield to allow me to speak as to the qualifica tions of McKeown and to refute the ru mors that had been circulated about him. Wilson said he didn't think this was "ne cessary" and,, the UP voted against -the . .motion in a bloc. Wilson then spoke from the rostrum re peating all the accusations and insinuations against McKeown in even more vague terms than the rumors which had circulated. Re turning to his seat, he moved to close de bate. Having previously decided not to al low me to defend McKeown, the UP legis lators now decided not to allow any mem ber of the body defend him either as they voted to cut off further debate and then voted to reject Douglas McKeown's ap pointment. At no time, either in committee or on the floor, was McKeown or anyone else al-s lowed to rebut the rumors against him. He was charged with imaginary offenses, had evidence offered against him based on pure conjecture, was denied the right to defend himself, and was adjudged guilty without trial. Cobra Riders Arouse Ire Of Townsman Editor, The Daily Tar Heel: There is no venom in my attack on the cobra crowd. I hope to encourage maturi ty and responsibility and discourage the Freudian death - wish that inspires riding a Cobra. I was shocked to read Jack Tate's con fession of reckless riding on the public roads. He writes that he and the Cobra's keeper "sailed at 90 to 100 miles per hour over a winding road where every ma jor curve was marked '35 miles per hour.' Should this disrespect for the law be allowed to go unpunished? Do people on country hayrides, farmers on tractors and horseback riders using these same roads deserve protection from thoughtless irre sponsibles? Tate never did "feel" in danger, but shouldn't he be asked to think whether he endangers others? This case belongs on the, court docket, not the sports page. In court, Tate could take the Fifth Amendment -if he felt guilty of aiding and abetting this crime, and he would be rewarded by having beaten the system. Or he could observe his pledge tc uphold the Honor Code. He could appear in court and repeat his atcual report. Jack Tate should serve justice. Whether he will reflects many things. It will be some mea sure of the success of the intangibles of his education here. D. Kemble Banman Chapel Hfll
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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May 3, 1966, edition 1
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