6 The Daily Tar Heel - Friday Sep:omrter y ''J'
letters
Greg Porter
Editor
Ben Corneucs. Muiutfting Editor
Ed fUNKIN. Associate Editor
Lou BlLlONis, Associate Editor
Lai ra Scism. University Editor
Ei i.iott Potter. On- Editor
Chuck Aiston, State and Satiomil Editor
Sara Bul l ard, Features Editor
Jf ANNt Newsom. Am Editor
Gene Uivhi rch. Swm Editor
L.C. Barhoi'K, PhtHouranliY Editor
Eat a banana
To the editor:
I would like to make a sporting offer to
David Craft concerning his recent article on
pyramid power ("Twentieth century cashes
in on pyramids at Giza," Sept. 7).
If he agrees, I will buy three bananas for
him. As described in his article, let him put
one banana under a sealed dish, one on an
uncovered dish and a third under a pyramid.
When Willie Koch has judged the first two to
be thoroughly rotten challenge Mr. Craft
to then eat the third one, since he claims it
will still be fresh.
Dietrich Schroecr
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Satin
Jar UM
85th year of editorial freedom
f I "DOMT'tlEW usrUWE r .
Reality of rejected needs
Student fee coffers depleted
Last spring, this newspaper spoke out in favor of an increase in student
fees. The reasoning behind such a recommendation was rather simple: since
the last fee increase in 1954. a full 23 years of inflation had sapped the
strength of the student fund. Furthermore, the boom in student
organizations since that last increase had made it even more difficult to
allocate the few funds available. A "cost of living" increase was long
overdue.
A student fee increase seems just as sensible now. but political infighting
at the campus level may obscure reason and logic. Disputes over how funds
are allocated are rapidly becoming partisan battles which ignore the most
glaring of all facts the coffers are depleted.
The estimated income from student fees this year is $330,000. Thirty
seven different campus groups and organizations will receive all but about
$19,000 of the revenue. Two organizations the Daily Tar Heel and the
Carolina Union receive their appropriations on a percentage basis. The
Union is allocated $110,000 to fund the numerous activities it sponsors
throughout the year, while the DTH is granted a set percentage of student
fees $52,800 for the 1977-78 fiscal year. This fee appropriation is
augmented by $206,000 in advertising to pay the paper's bills.
The remaining 35 organizations vie for approximately $150,000, which
the Campus Governing Council (CGC) budgets each spring. And that
means that many a group leaves the budget hearings with a disappointingly
low appropriation or no appropriation at all.
Each undergraduate now pays $9 per semester in student fees, while every
graduate and professional student contributes $7 per semester to the coffers.
A small increase, say, $2 per semester, would add approximately $80,000 to
the fund which the CGC distributes. An additional $80,000 could spell the
difference between financially-hampered student organizations and campus
groups with the money to provide real and welcome services to the various
students of this University.
The opponents of a fee increase, though, seem preoccupied with the
logistics. Rather than discussing the reasons for or against a hike, they
prefer to cite problems with the allocation process and the lack of budgetary
representation. Their rationale is fairly elementary: as long as the money is
spent poorly, there is no need to give more.
But a repleted fund would solve many of the problems observed during
the past few springs. A larger student fund would meet the needs of dozens
of organizations which have not been able to fully serve the campus. Since
no one group can or does appeal to a majority of the students, increased fees
could assure ample funds for various groups reaching out to a varied
populace. A fatter treasury probably will encourage greed, but inflated
budget requests can be handled easily by the CGC. Surely it would be better
to face the possibility of outrageous requests than the reality of rejected
needs.
In spite of the needs demonstrated at budget sessions, some oppose a fee
increase on apparently political grounds, offering objection only as to how
the hike should be decided. One letter on this page has called the proposed
increase an "arrogant money grab" on the part of the student government
that will "shaft" students once again. Those inclined to this point of view
demand that a campus-wide referendum be held to determine the fate of any
proposal to increase student fees.
While no precedent exists in favor of a referendum, we agree that one
should be held. Ideally, the choice should be presented during the spring
elections, thereby affording a heavier turn-out free from the skewing effects
of one or more particularly well-organized groups.
When a referendum comes and a referendum is likely we hope that
the issue is not clouded by ulterior motives and challenges, like the recent
allegation that the CGC wants an increase so it can appropriate itself a
salary. Every student should seriously weigh the merits of a small increase in
his or her fees. A lot more than a few dollars each semester will be at stake.
The choice is ultimately between protest and undue pressure at budget time
or healthy student activities appealing to the diverse nature of this
university. We feel the right choice is all too clear.
Potent political force
'New' Black Panthers try comeback
Bv JEFF GOTTLIEB
anil JOS STEWART
Eleven years alter he founded the most
controversial and leared black militant
movement of the 1960s. Muey Newton has
returned from hisCubancxiletofind a party
rcinvigoralcd by successes in Democratic
electoral campaigns and in building
neighborhood service organizations in a
growing number of major cities.
Ironically, however, while the Black
Panther party has won its first taste of
official political legitimacy. Huey Newton as
chairman is today the only nationally
prominent black figure who remains a
militant "outsider."
An exile in Cuba since August 1974
when he was charged with murder and
assault involving a 17-vcar-old girl on the
streets of Oakland Newton has
maintained regular contact with the party's
Oakland headquarters and is regarded as the
leading theoretician of its new two-pronged,
strategy to work simultaneously in local
governments and ghettos.
The largest of the new Panther offices is in
Los Angeles. Situated between two
ramshackle Baptist churches in the middle of
Watts, the city's black ghetto, it is the first
Panther chapter organized outside of
Oakland since the turbulence of the late
1960s. Other chapters have opened more
recently in Las Vegas, which has a large
black population, and in Chicago.
But the opening of the new Los Angeles
chapter on Jan. 1 7 was particularly sy mbolic
of the new phase in the party's growth.
It was on that date in 1969 that Bunch
Carter and John Huggins. leaders of the
local Panther organization, were murdered
at UCLA by members of Ron Karenga's
"U.S." black nationalist group. Just two
months earlier. FBI Director J. Edgar
Hoover had ordered his Los Angeles agents
to use the "U.S." group in "hard-hitting
counter-intelligence measures aimed at
crippling the BPP (Panthers.)"
In the ensuing violent history of the
Angeles chapter, 1 1 Panthers were slain,
more than in any other chapter. The climax
came in a December 1969 shoot-out with the
Los Angeles police that lasted five-and-one-half
hours. In the end. 18 Panthers were
arrested and more than $172 million in bail
money was paid out over the next two years.
By 1972 the Los Angeles office was closed
and two years later all Panther activity in
Southern California and most of the rest
of the nation - had ceased.
The highly successful Cointelpro
(counter-intelligence program) of the FBI
hud resulted in the deaths or exile of many
Panther leaders and members. What few
chapters remained outside Oakland were
later closed due to real or suspected
infiltration by police and an almost total
breakdown in communications and control
from the party's Oakland headquarters.
While the party refuses to divulge
membership numbers, the FBI claimed that
the paitv rolls had shrunken from some
1.500 to a core of just 200 by 1975. Some
former leaders, such as Eld ridge Cleaver and
David Milliard, were expelled. Co-founder
Bobby Scale left the party under strange
circumstances, and with Newton in exile, the
day-to-day leadership had fallen to Elaine
Brown, a dynamic and articulate women in
her mid-thirties.
According to Brown, the long period of
retrenchment was necessary to cut losses and
"secure our base area - secure in the sense of
being entrenched in the community. Now
we've done that and we can afford to think
about something else"
In fact, the Panthers have become a potent
political force in Oakland, a city roughly 50
per cent black and 70 per cent minority.
Brown won 41 per cent of the vote in a 1975
race for city council and was recently named
to the executive committee of the Oakland
Council for Economic Development, an
influential, corporate-dominated group
charting the rebuilding of the city's
downtown center. She claims to have a close
working relationship with' Gov. Jerry
Brown, w ho she supported in his presidential
bid.
John George, a black attorney long active
in Oakland politicsand now a member of the
Alameda County Board of Supervisors, says
the Panthers have survived in Oakland
because they continue to "express the needs
of the most exploited sections of the
population. The conditions they were
speaking for in the beginning remain the
same, in fact worse," he says, including
unemployment, inflation and housing.
"The leadership of the Panthers, from
Newton to Elaine Brown." says George,
"recognized that to survive they had to keep
in touch with people's needs." To do so, the
Oakland Panthers launched a series of
ambitious community projects, including a
highly successful alternative school, free
food programs for the poor, free
transportation for the elderly, an ambulance
and paramedic service and medical and
dental clinics.
They also entered the local electoral arena
by running their own candidates and
supporting others. "Voting is the most
fundamental conscious political statement a
person can make." Brown says. "Il l can get
you to walk out ol your house to vote. I can
get you to walk out of your house for
something else." Today, claims Brown,
"there is not a black who can get elected to
office in Oakland without us."
She predicts the Panthers and their
sympathizers will "take control of Oakland
in five years." including the management of
the city's lucrative port, the second largest
containerized-shipping port in the world.
Brown says the decision to expand to
other cities was a "strategic one. It's a simple
matter of analyzing where the problems are
and w hat we should and can do about them."
New chapters, she says, will focus on the
peculiar needs of each city, and local leaders
and members will be carefully screened. In
the past, she says, "it was too easy for
reactionary elements and police and FBI
infiltrators to enter the party."
The first project of the Los Angeles office
was to give away 500 bags of groceries as a
"gesture of our understanding of what the
people's needs are," says Duran. Such
gestures, say the Panthers, also demonstrate
the inability of the government to serve such
needs.
Other projects in the planning stage
include programs modeled after the Oakland
chapter's medical and dental clinics, martial
arts and tutorial programs and alternative
school.
Since the opening, hundreds of curious
young people have passed through the office
seeking information. Letters of support have
arrived from numerous community groups,
including a food cooperative, the Watts
Summer Festival and even a credit union.
A church next door has given the Panthers
a key and carte blanche use of their facilities
whenever they are available. Elaine Brown
confidently predicts that this time around
the Panthers will take hold wherever they set
up chapters and come to represent "a
concrete alternative" to the problems of the
crime and poverty-infested ghettos. She
views the community self-help programs as
the key to entrenchment. "We don't get the
ear of our people by walking down the street
with our gun operation and scaring half of
them to death," she says. "The party believes
in mass participation, not dead heroes."
"The Vanguard Party," she proclaimed
recently in the Black Panther newspaper,
"still lives to fight another day. It'sbuildinga
base in Oakland by any means necessary, a
base for revolution. The Black Panther party
is alive and well and living all over America.
This column was provided by the courtesy
of the Pacific News Service.
Salary shenanigans
To the editor:
Let's clear up the confusion over the
possible salary for CGC members. One CGC
memberwrote, in this column, that the CGC
is not considering paying itself a salary. But
it was another CGC member who originally
told me that CGC w as considering enacting a
salary for itself. Looks as if CGC's right hand
doesn't know what its left hand is doing.
Bruce Tindall
Law School
Citizens responsible, too
To the editor:
You are correct Mr. Ariail; people were
aware this summer that there would be a
critical water situation again this fall. Why
didn't you. as a good citizen, write your letter
then and demand action from our local
government? The University is entitled to
water, too, because it pays its taxes and its
utility bills just like you do. Could Chapel
Hill or the University, either one, afford to
postpone the opening of school until the
problem is solved? No, Mr. Ariail, action
should have been taken long ago to alleviate
the water problem. Dean Boulton is easy to
chastise, but where were you as long as last
winter when everyone knew a permanent
solution was needed? You should have come
out of the rain then and demanded
permanent action be taken, instead of
insinuating this preposterous postponement
of any real solution. It is your responsibility,
as well as Dean Boulton's, to see we don't run
out of water.
Jeff Moore
214 Lewis
Buses need happy riders
To the editor:
The Wednesday issue of the DTH brought
to public and campus attention the sorry
state of our bus system, particularly its night
service or lack thereof. Chapel Hill Transit
authorities seem content with their new idea
of night taxi service, but the number of riders
using it is close to nonexistent. Paying 75
cents for what should be a 25-cent bus ride is
discouraging enough for most Chapel Hill
residents, but when that is paired with the
inconvenience of calling a taxi to be
transported home from an evening spot of
work or entertainment, the scheme seems
absolutely ridiculous. Night ridership in past
years has not been bad at all; it was far, far
better than the absurd non-ridership of the
taxi service.
Another pressing problem of the night
service is the requirement of a bus pass to
procure evening transportation. Many bus
users are temporary Chapel Hill residents
who cannot afford a pass for a few cross
town trips. Visitors are common in the
village, as are college students who are
staying with their Chapel Hill parents. How
do they transport themselves? Oh, Chapel
H ill Transit, come off of your mountaintop
and listen only satisfied bus riders can
provide the young bus system with the funds
it so desperately needs! '
Blair A. M. Tindall
305 Burlage Circle
Some of that old-time religion no cure for Wake Forest-Baptist quarrel
By DAVID STACKS
Leaders of the state's Baptist churches joined
together in 1831 to form an association so they
would have a foundation establishing a school to
train young people in the principles of Baptist
theology.
Since the Baptist State Convention-supported
Wake Forest University was founded in 1831,
Baptist churches in North Carolina have been
well supplied with able leadership.
Wake Forest alumni have led the convention
to become the mouthpiece of more than one
million Southern Baptists in 3,500 churches in
North Carolina. The university has made
tremendous strides in the world of academia,
becoming one of the most respected schools in
the nation.
But now, convention leaders have appointed ?
committee to probe charges that the school has
drifted away from the Baptist doctrines upon
w hich it w as founded more than 140 years ago.
Ill feeling arose between the university and the
convention in the wake of Hustler magazine
publisher Larry Flynt's much-publicized visit to
campus in February. When the school's Men's
Residence Council presented Flynt with a "Man
of the Year" award. Baptist leaders across the
state protested. The convention's general board
instructed its president, the Rev. Bob Shepherd
of Sanford, to appoint a 15-member panel to
probe the poor relations between the school and
the convention.
But because ol fundamental dillercnccs
between the school and the convention, the
Wake Forest Committee ol 15 and the
university's trustees mav find their problems
..MO HERETIC GVJE
TODAYS 5ERMOM IS
DGACON JOE" FREK)We;
A 1976 GRADUATE OF
WST. -Jet?
OS A rL
insolvablc when they meet face to face for the
first time today in Winston-Salem.
The causes of the problems are basic; things
have changed since 1831. Convention leaders
and school administrators agree that the Larry
Flynt affair was not the cause of poor relations.
Flynt's appearance was merely the symptom of a
disease that has been developing over the years.
Wake Forest no longer gets most of its
operating budget from the convention. Out of a
total yearly budget of SI9 million, the body of
churches only helps with a fraction of the
university's costs: $726,000. The rest comes from
tuition, contributions and government aid.
Some churches have actually asked the
convention not to use their contributions to
support the school.
A contract convention leaders signed with the
Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation complicated the
school's financial situation after plans were
underway to move the school from the town of
Wake Forest in Wake County to its present site
in Winston-Salem. In 1940. the convention and
the foundation agreed that each would
contribute a set percentage to the university's
annual operating budget. If either party defaults
on the contract, neither is bound by it.
So if relations between the convention and its
university worsen, and the school splits from the
convention. Wake Forest w ill lose $726,000 from
the convention and an additional S726.000 from
the foundation.
I veil though Wake Forest could get by with
$1.4 million less each year, it would be a
hardship Administrators would have to raise
tuition, cut enrollment, do without some
pi ograms. or all three.
I he posvihihtv nl V;ike I mest splitting away
from the convention is real. Laymen and pastors
in the churches who have asked that their
contributions not be forwarded to Wake Forest
are proof that a serious problem does exist.
Another indication of an impending split is the
dwindling number of practicing Baptists
enrolled at Wake Forest. Of the school's 3,000
undergraduates, fewer than 28 per cent are
Baptists. Enrollment trends seem to indicate that
the convention, if it should retain ownership of
the university, would be helping to support fewer
and fewer Baptist students each year. Some of
the more vocal opposition from the convention
has contended that when most Wake Forest
students graduate, they leave the state and
contribute little to the growth of Baptist life.
The Wake Forest Committee of 1 5 is supposed
to look into relations between the convention
and the school, according to the Rev. Charles
Dorman of Fuquay-Varina. chairperson of the
group. The committee has no power to take
corrective action on the problems at hand. And
even il it did have that authority, it would first
have to pinpoint possible solutions. The only
thing the group may do is report its findings to
the convention's statewide meeting in
November.
If the committee report angers the convention
something that may cause more problems
than it will solve the situation could become
hopeless.
I he probe panel is not a "w itch-hunting"
group, according to Sara Parker of Greensboro
second vice president of the convention.
" I he w hole idea is to keep questionable things
!iom becoming issues." Parker said. "The
committee is to act as a bridge between the
school and the convention."
Shepherd said the committee is a "suggestive"
group rather than an "investigative" one.
"The term 'investigative' would carry with it
the connotation that there are corrective
measures to be taken," Shepherd said.
" 'Suggestion' is just a step below 'investigation,'
but there is a difference. It's a very fine line, but
there is a difference."
One thing the committee may decide to
examine is the relationship the convention has
with its six other schools in the state. But unlike
the other schools. Wake Forest is a university, a
four-year institution with a reputation that has
made it the fountainhead of Baptist thought in
North Carolina.
H owever, if the convention's relationship with
Wake Forest is different from its relationship
with the six two-year cdlleges, the committee will
have found nothing profound.
Shepherd said the committee will operate on a
positive note. Its primary task is to reveal to
rank-and-file Baptists the relationship between
the university and the convention.
However, it is already known that the state of
affairs between the school and the convention is
poor. Given the ambiguous responsibilities that
it has. the only thing the panel can do is confirm
that belief.
Neither Shepherd, Parker, nor Dorman has
said what type of relationship the convention
should have with the university. And with the
committee given such an ambiguous job, it seems
doubtful the group will accomplish the
insurmountable task of restoring goodwill.
David Stacks, a sophomore journalism major
from Blowing Rock, N.C., is a staff writer for the
Duih Tar Heel