Page Two
n'day. May 8, 1970
7
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Opinions of The Daily Tar Heel are expressed on its editorial page. All
unsigned editorials are the opinions of the editor and the staff. Letters and
columns represent only the opinions of the individual contributors.
1
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Tom Gooding, Editor
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Worthless Act
The general faculty of this
University failed to take any
absolute action in their meeting
Thursday.
The faculty refused to commit
themselves to any stand against the
invasion of Cambodian territory or
denouncing the murders at Kent
State.
A resolution was introduced
requesting the chairman of the
faculty to appoint a committee to
work with a student committee to
plan, propose and organize effective
political action bringing pressure on
the national government to end the
U.S. military involvement in
Southeast Asia.
Immediate negative response
came from many faculty members
who were afraid the resolution
would make the University
"political." One faculty member,
who persisted in insisting that the
University was apolitical, raised the
spector that passage of the
resolution would "invite the State
Legislature to purge professors and
put faculty members on this
campus that will say what they
want to hear."
We find it inconceivable that any
individual could feel the university
isn't political and so blatantly
flaunt the threat of political jeprisal
from the state. ;;
This University -jriessentially a
political organization intended to
maintain the standards of the state
of North Carolina.
Dr. Dickson, who introduced the
resolution, characterized the
opposing faculty members well
when he said, "They were brought
up in a world that once existed.
The University cannot remain
isolated from he forces that are
present in our society."
However, when a vote was called
the resolution was defeated
270-240.
Following the defeat of that
resolution, Fred Bode proposed
that the faculty "express our
opposition to American
intervention in Southeast Asia."
The faculty proceeded to defeat
Bode's proposal.
Faculty members, clinging to a
dream of an ivory tower,
acquiesced to the U.S. involvement
in Southeast Asia. We wish to point
out that the faculty of the
University of North Carolina at
Charlotte passed a resolution the
other day condemning the
president's action in Cambodia.
Are we to assume that the
faculty in Charlotte will be struck
with a state purge?
Are we to assume that our
faculty supports President Nixon in
his quasi-genocidal imperialistic war
throughout Southeast Asia.
Or are we to assume that our
faculty members do not have
enough courage to come out from
behind the coattails of this
University in the face of atrocity?
By United Press International
GREENVILLE, S.C.-The four
students killed at Kent State
University "got exactly what they
were entitled to," the president of
Bob Jones University told students
at a Chapel Thursday.
Jones said, "If the reports that
have come to me are accurate, and
the pictures of that thing are true,
those young people should have
been shot.
"And the country's better off
without that many more of that
kind of young person," he said.
"It is con temp table for student:
to come in and attack a building
and not expect to be killed, "
We bitterly denounce the faculty
for their failure to take a stand. We
cannot help but remember that
"the hottest places in hell are
reserved for those who remain
neutral in time of crisis."
Then the faculty was presented
with 4,446 student signatures on a
petition requesting that they "give
those students who participate in
the strike final grades on the basis
of work so far done in this
semester, i.e. students will not be
penalized academically for
participation in the strike, for
missing classes or for missing
exams."
The faculty had predetermined
not to accept the original wording
of the petition and a substitute
resolution was introduced by two
faculty members.
The substitute resolution read in
part, "This includes giving students
final grades on the basis of work
completed thus far this semester or
of permitting delay in the
completion of course requirements.
Students are assured of the right of
appeal in cases of departure from
this policy."
The faculty failed to give the
strikers any guarantees that their
academic futures would be
protected. The faculty resolution
consists of a conditional clause that
gives professors the discretion of
how' they wish to handle student's
grades.
The strike has been called for
the remainder of the year including
the exam period. Thus if a
professor chooses to follow the
second option he can force a
student to complete course work
and take a final exam during the
summer months.
Thus, seniors can be forced back
into their classrooms if they want
to graduate on schedule. Faculty
members will be able to severely
inconvenience or intimidate
students without "departing from
this policy."
We find the faculty action
worthless.
The faculty refused to condemn
the invasion of Cambodia or the
murders at Kent State, passed an
ehipty resolution and failed to act
on half the proposals listed in their
agenda.
The students outside Hill Hall
Thursday should have forced the
faculty to remain in session until
they produced a meaningful stand
on the issues.
The plea from many faculty
members was for students to trust
them. Unfortunately, we find it
impossible to trust a group that
displayed as little moral
committment as the UNC faculty.
Sift CsUiJ GTar TftM
78 Years of Editorial Freedom
Tom Gooding, Editor
Rod Waldorf Managing Ed.
Harry Bryar News Editor
Rick Gray . Associate Ed.
Laura White ... Associate Ed.
Chris Cobbs Sports Editor
Mary Burch ..... Arts Editor
Mike McGowan .... Photo Editor
Bob Wilson . . .
Frank Stewart
. . . Business Mgr.
. . . . . . Adv. Mgr.
Ken Smith . .
. . . .Night Editor
By the time this column gels in print,
there may not be anybody left on campus
to read it.
This column is written in the hope
that today's issue of The Daily Tar Heel
does not find its way into a single
classroom on this campus.
We hope there is not a single class
being held in a single university in this
nation.
This is the only way that we, as
students, have left to show the political
beasts in Washington that democracy in
this country is not dead.
Closing down the normal operation of
this University and every other college
and university in the nation is the only
way left for students to bring the
machine grinding to a halt.
This past week has been a significant
point for the peace movement among the
youth of America.
Not only has blood been shed in the
past week, just as it was in Chicago, but
lives have been given, or rather lives have
been taken.
This mUBsTY VfL
IS OK Yo GUYS
30TJVTHiN6-
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III
Student Questions Power
Of Mickey Mouse Club
To the Editor:
In Saturday's Daily Tar Heel it was
reported that the Student Legislature had
passed a resolution condemning the
President of the United States, and that
Tom Bello, the Head Mouseketeer of the
Mickey Mouse Club that resides in the
student union complex, has called a.
meeting of the Student Body to protest
the presence of American troops in
Cambodia.
My initial reaction was a question: by
what authority did either of these two
events take place? The answer is clearly
that Tom Bello, the president with a
Kennedy complex, and that anonymous
band of misguided fools who play at
politics at Student Legislature have
overstepped what little authority they do
have and infringed upon the rights of
those who do not share their political
views.
First of all, by no stretch of the
imagination can the election of Student
Legislature be considered a mandate by
the Student Body to represent them in
any and all facets of life. Members of
Student Legislature are elected, not to
voice opinions on foreign policy, but to
decide much simpler issues, such as how
much money should go to the Yack each
year. (And by their performance at the
last budget session, I am not sure that
they are qualified to do even that.) I, for
one, bitterly resent the assumption by a
majority of the Legislature that they have
any authority, expressed or implied, to
voice a political opinion for me.
As individuals, members of Student
Legislature may voice any idea of opinion
that they wish. But I protest their
attempt to use as a forum for those
personal views a student government
organization which has no right to voice
such an opinion in the first place.
And President Bello has called a
meeting of the Student Body to protest
U.S. involvement in Cambodia. He suffers
from delusions of grandeur. His shallow
office has no inherent power to decide
that the Student Body will meet to
protest anything. The only meeting that
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From reading about the four students
who died at Kent State during another in
a long series of National Guard riots, we
would conclude that their commitments
to the peace movement, if indeed these
four had made commitments was no
more than that of the students who sat
on the sidelines and watched last fall.
These four are now the martyrs of the
peace movement. By giving their lives,
they have given life to the movement, a
life that was quickly being sapped away
by the rhetoric of polarization which has
spewed forth from Washington and by
the apathy and disillusion that grew out
of the failure of any of the tactics tried to
bring us peace.
Now Nixon has blundered. He has
attacked a neutral nation, after having its
legitimate government deposed by the
CIA.
He has shown that the lives of students
and GIs do not matter. He took the four
deaths Monday at Kent State and tried to
make them a symbol of his idea of what
America should be.
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he may call is one consisting of those
students who wish to protest the war for
the simple reason that the "Student Body
of U.N.C.-CH' refers to a group of people
who hold differing views on virtually
every subject under the sun, especially
Viet Nam.
Bello assumes not only that there is a
consensus on Viet Nam, but also that he,
as President of the Student Body, has the
authority to represent that consensus. I
would suggest that Mr. Bello, in his less
hurried moments, read . the Student
Constitution for the first time to discover
that he speaks only for himself when he
reflects on national policy.
Carolina for political leverage. Such an
attempt can only bring harm to the
University itself and a loss of freedom of
expression to its individual members, who
find, too late, that someone else has
already claimed the right to speak for alL.
Sincerely,
Don Bumgardner
Law School
Student Expresses Fear
Of National Guard Here
To the Editor:
I was most upset by the reported
comment (DTH, May 6) of campus
security officer Arthur J. Beaumont to
the effect that "Well bring in the
Nations! Guard. They have the solution."
Coming only 24 hours after Guard
members shot and killed four Ohio
students, the statement expresses a
callousness in personal attitude that I find
unbelievable in any man. Coming further
from an officer of this University, the
statement is Intemperate beyond
countenance.
A public statement of this sort on the
part of any administrative officfcl is so
indefensible as to indicate a lacking in the
professional and personal qualifications
necessarv to retain his position. Such
conduct' ought not be tolerated by
Beaumont's superior.
Sincerely,
James N. Stirewclt
But the youth of this nation, and the
others who are willing to fight with us.
will not allow Nixon to pervert Monday's
events at Kent State.
Every movement throughout history
has had a martyr. They have also had an
oppressor.
Our oppressor has been with us for a
long time now. Our martyrs were
provided by our oppressor.
Our martyrs must not have died
without purpose.
Before their deaths they were not the
kmd of people one would expect to
become martyrs.
Sandra Scheuer, a graduate student
who knew her said, "was not the kind of
person to get involved in something like
this."
Allison Krause liked to carry her pet
kitten around campus with her. "Flowers
are better than bullets," she said Sunday
as she put a flower in the barrel of a
guardsman's rifle.
Jeffrey Miller's high school guidance
counselor said of him, "The outstanding
thing about him was his personality. Jeff
was never a political activist.
"He was concerned about the state of
the world but was never what you would
consider an activist."
William Schroeder was curious about
campus violence, a Knight newspapers
report said. He had a personal interest in
what was going on at Kent State. The
Army ROTC building was burned
Saturday, and he was a member of the
Ken
Strike Brings Confusion
But Needs
Th
The Kent State murders blew the top
off campus life this week, and nothing
seems normal, much less "business as
unusual." Except, perhaps, for putting
out a newspaper.
The huge crowds Tuesday in the Pit,
the sea of faces Wednesday in Polk Place,
the long line of marchers on Tuesday and
Wednesday all seem kind of scary to
those accustomed to the calm academia
of Chapel Hill. And the atmosphere, so
free and loose over Jubilee Weekend, is
unbearably tense.
And doubts continue to plague many
of us, as well as sheer fear. An innate fear
of possible, very possible, repression on
this campus. A fear of the strike itself and
its implications. And a gnawing,
undefmable fear that something is
terribly, terribly wrong somewhere.
Protest Voices Need Clarity
To the Editor:
I cannot agree with those complacent
Americans who contend that a student
boycott is politically ineffectual. But in
this grave hour your protesting voices
could be made more clear. The business
of the silent majority is money. The
business of the student is school. Why not
boycott them? Boycott Pepsi Cola.
Boycott beer. Boycott gas and oil for
your car.
Live for a week, for two weeks, as lean
as a Vietnamese peasant, and you could
raise a cry that would soon echo painfully
in Nixon's ears.
Sincerely
Isabella Davis
Not Heros. Not Martyrs.
Not Anything.
To the Editor:
The Cambodian Love Song
The green machine muddles on,
Ordered to fullfill his destiny.
A few weeks you say,
Before the monsoons. But,
One bleeds just like another
This morning four students
lay at attention,
As the alma mater played on.
Not heros. Not martyrs.
Not anything.
Just dvad.
Oh say how they saw those,
Last seconds of excretiating
horror.
Th anarchists are everywhere.
Says the full filler of his destiny.
A purge? I think not.
But What?
We could sit and wait.
David A. Feffer
220 FirJey Golf Course Road
cadet corp..
Thes1 four are
dead. Thev verr
even in the demonstration, but the Guard
shot them anyway.
This is what it has come to now.
This is what we have to face.
We now live in a country when? it is no
longer a riht to disagree with the
government.
We live in a country where the truth of
what we are told by Big Brother is to be
accepted on faith.
We are being asked by Nixon nr. J his
puppets in both Washington and
Southeast Asia to trust them, to march
blindly into the future to which they
point.
The strike here is a refusal by many of
our number to accept on pure fail h what
Nixon
This strike is a declaration that we
hold our own beliefs, that we can no
longer sit by and do nothing while our
brothers and sisters, both here and in
Asia, are slaughtered by the bullets
bought with our money and our parents'
money.
The war must be stopped. The
machine which continues this w ar must
be stopped.
Make a commitment.
Put something on the line.
Four people who had not made
commitments were murdered Monday.
That is more than enough reason to
grind the machine to a halt,
DO IT.
Ripley
inking
jt
There is nothing like an immediate
political crisis to create a personal crisis in
the minds of many. I'm no exception.
Too muci uncertainty about the
usefulness of the strike, too much horror
at the Kent State incident, too many
pressures as a Christian, journalist, and
student have descended upon me to even
attempt to persuade anyone else either
way about the strike swirling around us.
About the only thing I am sure of is
that protests to the contrary there are
no black-or-white alternatives, no easy
answers.
While I was still uncertain about my
own position on the strike Wednesday
morning, I had to go to an unavoidable
class. As I entered the building, an
, incredibly naive girl bitterly spat at me,
"If you enter those doors, you've got
blood on your hands."
My response, were I not shocked by
the unfairness and ridiculousness of such
a charge, could very well have been
"militantly rude."
But the incident brought home to me
my greatest fear and most urgent
plea that despite signs saying "think,"
we aren't doing enough thinking.
It is easy, particularly easy in a sudden
movement in which only one side is
basically presented, to take rhetoric for
fact and impassioned pleas for intelligent
argument. It is easy to follow the crest of
public opinion and just join the strike,
accept the slogans, and agitate for
shutting the place down. And it is easy to
condemn somebody else in the heat of a
cause without justification or
compassion.
The last speaker in Wednesday's rally,
citing how we have all been taught to say
"Yes" all our lives, urged us to "think"
and be able to say "No." I agree with
him, but just as importantly-we've got
to think even harder and be able,
honestly and with reason, be able to say
either "Yes" or "No."
Freedom to think goes both ways, and
along with the need for each of us to
think out our own positions goes the
responsibility each of us has to accept
someone elses' decision. It is his right,
and his conscience.
It would be easy for me to take the
evidently popular way out and support
the strike. I, too, am uneasy about
Cambodia and detest the Kent State
massacre.
But I frankly don't know how I feel
about the strike. It's got to be an
intelligent personal decision.
But I do know one thing.
In a very real sense, 174 thinking about
it.
........,,', V.V.VVVVV.VVV
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