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Page 2 Friday, May 3, 19 S3 THE DAILY TAR HEEL Wbp lailg Star Bfttl 76 Years of Editorial Freedom Wayne Hurdsr, Editor Donald Walton, Business Manager Terry Gingras Managing Editor Rebel Good, News Editor Shari Willis, Features Editor Dale Gibson, Sports Editor Joe Sanders, Associate Editors Dick Levy Kermit Buckner, Jr, Advertising Manager DTH Will Continue 75 Year-Old Tradition What role should the Daily Tar Heel play on campus? A common idea among non-journalist has been that the paper, since its editor is selected by the students and the paper receives half its money from the students, should reflect the students' opinions. But we 'don't think so and that is not what the readers of the DTH should expect in the up coming year. During the past 75 years of publication of the DTH, it has remained independent, call ing things as the paper saw them, and not a s administrators ; students, or Student Government saw them. The paper for the next year will continue this tradition. We will try to keep the campus informed about what's happening and try to work for the students' interests here on campus. In ad dition we will be offering our own commentary on the events here on campus, in the state, the nation, and the world. It is particularly' in the area, ; of working for an ' improved life for students here and in the area of commenting on current events that the Daily Tar Heel must re main independent and will remain independent. College students during the past decade have become much more active in demanding from their college administrations those rights which are generally ac corded persons outside the University ut which, for some reason, have been denied college students. We think students to be the equals of non-students and will work for the elimination of unfair restrictions on students' lives. In doing so we may come into conflict with people who made those rules and who don't want to eliminate them or with people who don't want to accept the responsibilities that elimination of rules would force on them. Despite these potential conflicts we will continue to work for .those changes which we think students deserve. Proponents of the rules may warn that nothing can be changed because of the problem of state relations or they may warn that change can't come because the students aren't ready for it. reasons for denying people their We cannot accept these as, valid rights and we will consider it Jur duty to work for these things, call ing matters as we see them. In addition, the Daily Tar Heel, besides working towards the at tainment of some of these ideals, will also concern itself with the little things that make student life on campus better, such as more intramural fields, a transportation system etc. The administrators of the University are not students and therefore cannot understand the problems that the students face. In addition, Student Government sometimes loses contact with the feelings of the students. We hope to remind them of the little things that need to be done on campus to better the students' conditions. Lastly, we will comment on what's happening in the state, the nation, and the world. Here we won't try to agree with the mass of students, but we will continue to write about things as we see them, because we feel that to be the obligation of the journalist. This year in particular we may expect to be criticized for our stands because our nation and the world can be considered to be in a state of revolution, non-violent in some places, violent in others. In such a situation it is even more im perative thai we take sides. Fence , straddling in r time when sides must be picked, when goals and means are ' being debate d vehemently, cannot be , accepted. To ride . the middle of the road is ' to - grossly shirk o u r ' responsibilities. So that's what you can expect from your Daily Tar Heel. Hopefully it will be an upholding of the DTH tradition of the past 76 years. We will try to be honest with, you, .and while there -may be ' conflict t with other people (possibly, the majority) we feel that from this conflict good things will come. Day's Actions Ken Day took over as Student Body President Wednesday and did it in a manner "which offers some promise for a good year in Student Government. Day had himself sworn in and immediately got to work on solving one of the main problems of the campus, transportation. He appointed the chairmen of the transportation committee and took steps to try to get an ap propriation immediately from stu dent legislature so that the buses can start running Monday. In so doing he has laid aside party interests in order to assure the campus that student govern ment will work for students' in terests. He has accepted and started working for a transportation plan devised by his opponents in the election and he has appointed as a chairman, John McMurray, one of the top SP lieutenants in the recent campaign. Furthermore, Day has pro mised a committee which will be politically and geo-graphically balanced. Such a promise offers even more hope that the new regime will be able to fashion an effective student government out of a coalition of the various forces in Student Government. In the next year it is imperative that Day attack his tasks in a non-partisan spirits. The long, bit ter fight for the presidency and the strong showing by independent Bruce Strauch make it necessary that non-partisanship be the rule so that the conflicts of the cam paign can be ended and the cynicism that got Strauch 1,000 votes can be alleviated. Offer H ope Dick Levy Talk Last Friday's moratorium of the war poverty, and racism was meaninfgless. Not that the gathering was valueless. It provided a grand opportunity .for breast beating by anguished liberal hypocrites. It provided a forum for the sometimes brilliant, often bitter commentaries of Carl Ogglesby and Mrs. Cleveland Sellers, and the cliches of a represen tative for Senatorial candidate Charles Pratt. Yet the result was a void. Those who came in sympathy left the same way and once again failed to commit themselves to positive action. They were satisfied jn the afternoon as in the morning," intellectuals afraid to X'vi (Vlvin Ardi voirfc. 1 m rnniirj -for G1 oor Morrison Borm. The -Vcle4$ JkH-orlr 1 l- . it i in 44. I .1 I T L ine The. 0 -V.rvfc Cfie 1 our O pinion; From The Temple News Accumulated evidence indicates that . American opinion on the Vietnam war , can properly be characterized as neither-.-"-hawkish"; nor "doveish'i As 'a - massy the public Generally supports the war, but disapproved of President Johnson's handling of it; Rejects a precipitous withdrawal but refuses to pay the increasing costs of maintaining the war effort, and : Prefers a negotiated settlement to - the alternative of continual escalation, even if that means accepting the Viet Cong as a legitimate party t ;o discussions. ' Keeping an eye on the state of public opinion is no simple task for the student : f public affairs. A plethora of polls strike the attention of the careful reader over time, and inconsistencies among the reported figures abound. 1 When a Congressman states that he has sampled public opinion in his district, the best that he can say is that he knows what people in his own district are thinking. Usually however, such generalizations are - not valid because most Congressmen use mail ques tionnaires and few persons respond. A year ago, for example Representative Charles A. Mosher of Ohio was candid enough to admit that of 130,541 families in his district only 4,596 returned his questionnaire on the Vietnam War. However, the undeniable trend of public opinion since the Gulf of Tonkin incident is the decline in approval of the President's overall Vietnam policy. AIPO shows results for a question: "Do you approve or disapprove of the way President Johnson is handling the situation in Vietnam" Here are representative figures which show the trend: 1 App. Disap. No Op. May, 1965 55 26 19 December 56 26 18 May, 1966 46 35 19 late June 40 42 18 August 43 39 18 January, 1967 38 43 19 March 37 49 14 June 38 47 15 August 33 54 13 October 28 57 15 Before the State of the Union message. Source: Public Index, copyright the American Institute of Public Opinion: New York Times. To offer the explanation that the pub lice has become increasingly disenchant ed with the American commitment is at once both circular and tautological. Ad ditional iinformE'tion may be helpful. George Gallup, writing in a recent series of articles published in the Washington Post, reviews the responses to this ques tion: "In view of the developments since we entered the fighting in Vietnam, do Makes jeopardize their own security. One tires of these affairs, despite the mental stimulation precisely because the results are so predictable. Each of us who is concerned about the problems of our day know that more is necessary to ensure progress than endless reiteration of the same familiar arguments valid though they may be. And if we are honest we admit that the most repugnant features . of the war, the draft, and the social system rely for their maintenance on our com plicity. David Harris said it when he spoke here. He pointed out that the Draft is built as an institution by the coopera tion of millions of youth not up on o you. Vive in f "E A f The Booh-Y n ice "To i. i i make ? - m I ( ' ml Drifts Toward Peace you think the U.S. made a mistake send ing troops to fight in Vietnam?" Rep resentatives, of the trends: Yes .24 26 35 No 61 59 48 No Op. 15 16 17 August, 1965 March, 1966 September Jay Fleishman Taxes Not The American crisis today is not poverty per sef but general knowledge among the poorer Americans that they, unlike most Americans are not enjoying the advantages of the "affluent society." It's simply a case of too many paupers in an opulent state. The cause? It can be found in an old cliche: The rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. It's not really that the poor are getting poorer rather they are just multiplying much faster than the richer. And all this in a country where the government has ostensibly assumed the grandaddy role by helping the poor in numerous ways. Yet, poverty still runs rampant. The government scratches its head, shrugs its shoulders and then openly declares "But Why" Well, Uncle Sam Qf J0f 1 Poof Snlbstitate the power of the local boards. Still, no matter how dramatic the events, rationalizations are made and decisions avoided. The result of a paradox a crude juxtaposition of op timistic idealism and frustrated cynicism. The war my Son, is still going on. Yes. And another American soldier and several Vietnamese die each hour. Yet we cannot act. Thirty million Americans are sCll hungry, many of them malnourished, as shown in a recent study. Yet we do not act. Despite Martin Luther King's death little has been done to alleviate racial tensions. And one wonders with another mor-i -r February, 1967 32 52 July 41 43 September 46 44 16 11 10 - For the first time, then, more Ameri-' cans think our involvement was a mis take than those who don't, and the ap proval rate is at an all-time low. Fair To All Americans it's about time you took a look at yourself. Namely your tax system. Specifically, the income tax system. No other device has so unnoticeably and for so so - long contributed to the perpetuation of the status quo for the poor and the -betterment of the rich. And it's about time this deception was brought out into the open. Last year thousands of Americans who make over $100,000 per year paid not one penny of taxes to the United States federal government. At the same time there were not only thousands but Americans numbering in the millions who were making less than $5,000 in cash. How do we know? Well, the Internal Revenue Service doesn't publish such statistics but ask around for the local Certified Public Accountants, as we did. From The Temple University News violent summer approaching, whether more will be done. ONLY MORATORIUMS. With this background the daily newspaper becomes absurd, a study a existentialism. Who can get excited any more about talks of peace or bombing cutbacks Or more accurately who really believes the war will end in the near future, so long have we heard the prediction of professional optomists like Mr. Than or General Westmoreland or Mr. Rusk Were one never to see the front page he would know as much relevant in formation about the war situation as one who reads it daily. Who can get excited about Presiden tial politics as a genuine panacea? Rockefeller the assiduous non-candidate, suddenly "re-evaluates" for the tenth time, as if the issues were not grave enough to inspire singlemindedness of purpose. Humphrey, whose foreign policy views have torn our nation, runs for President as a unifier. Kennedy, seeking to strike an idealistic chord attempts to buy Indiana. McCarthy, who seems genuinely committed to idealism, is not really taken seriously by most Americans. The American is like a Greek tragedy. The citizen can only sit back and try to avoid the excessive demands of a removed government and hooe that bureaucracy will accomplish something Apathy is no longer a mere disparag ing description. It is a lifestyle, a by-word of our political system and our relation to it. The concerned American voices his opinion and does nothing because 'he has long ago sold his soul to the system. The mass of the citizenry are so estrang ed that action is beyond their reach. The only thing that matters is who leads the American League in home runs. The answer: have faith and invest in mutual funds. The Daily Tar Heel b pub lished by the University of North Carolina Student Publi cations Board, daily except Mondays, examinations periods and .vacations. Offices are on the second iloor of Graham Memorial Telephone numbers: editorial, sports, - jiews 933-1011; bus iness, circulation, advertising 933-1163. Address: Box '1080, Chapel Hill, N. C. 27514. Second class postage paid at UJ5. Post Office in Chapel Hill, N. C. Subscription rates: $9 per year; $5 per semester. They will answer when asked. Otherwise, because their very occupation depends on their ability to find for their pro ductive clients these loopholes in the tax system they wisely choose not to : speak out to loudly on these gross in equities. What can be done? Let's look at an example. Is it necessary to have the income maximum that a person can make before paying taxes so outrageously low. As the present system stands, anyone making over $1,000 per year will unless he can find enough' exemptions to bring this amount below -$1000 pay income taxes. A lower class American with three children and who makes $5,000 per year will also find it very difficult to provide his family with the necessities of life, and the luxuries that most of his fellow Americans are enjoying will be no more than a dream. Yet, many of these luxury-enjoying fellow 'Americans, by skillfully working through the loopholes by hiring clever CPAs will be paying less income tax than our upper lower class Americans. The graduated income tax was in corporated into the American tax system to try to modify to an extent the disparity of incomes so that the poor would not be so poor and the rich would not be so rich. Obviously the system is not only defeating its purpose, it is reversing it. The plight of the poor will not even begin to improve, no matter how many good jobs or welfare checks the govern ment provides until these glaring loopholes are stopped up and the max imum income limit before paying taxes is increased considerably. It is neither communists nor atheists who are fostering these obvious in equities, but the United States govern ment. The Daily Tar Heel accepts all letters' for publication provided they are typed, double-spaced and signed. Letters should be no longer than 300 words in length. We reservp the right to edit for libelous statements. i
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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May 3, 1968, edition 1
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