Tha Dally Tar Heel Friday, September 16, 1977
Congress busy studying Carters energy proposals
Greo Porter
Editor
e
Ben Cornelius, Managing Editor
Ed Rankin, Associate Editor
Lou Bilionis, Associate Editor
Laura Scism, University Editor
Elliott Potter, City Editor
Chuck Alston, State and National Editor
Sara Bullard, Features Editor
Chip Ensslin, Arts Editor
Gene Upchurch, Sports Editor
Allen Jernigan, Photography Editor
While Bert Lance stole the headlines this
week with his wheelings and dealings, the
Senate quietly started work on President
Carter's energy proposals, beginning a step-by-step
consideration of the mass of
legislation.
Deliberation began on a variety of the
package's facets, including conservation
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THE WEEK
WXYC needs own board
WXYC, the student radio station, and the campus Media Board are
heading towards a showdown that may embroil the two in a lengthy power
struggle detrimental to both and the four other organizations governed by
the Media Board.
WXYC, now under Media Board control, wants to set up its own board of
directors Student Educational Broadcasting (SEB). The Federal
Communications Commission (FCC), which licenses the station, requires
that the station have a board of directors responsible for program and
editorial content. That board, by law, answers to the FCC.
Because the M edia Board controls only the business aspects of its member
organizations, WXYC officials think it best to establish SEB as a separate
entity to observe both the business and editorial matters of the station. The
arguments for such a board are compelling.
First, the Media Board, as the governing body of five organizations, does
not have the time, the interest or the expertise to concern itself with the
content of WXYC's broadcasts and the regulations of the FCC. Second, the
radio station has little in common with the print media which make up the
balance of the Media Board membership. The literary magazines Carolina
Quarterly and Cellar Door, the annual Yackety Yack and the science
magazine Alchemist share neither the problems, the legal status nor even the
aims of WXYC. But some Media Board members still hold that the Media
Board should control WXYC, or at the very least the new SEB should be
responsible to the Media Board.
"SEB has got to exist, and I don't necessarily want Media Board people
on it, but it's still responsible to the Media Board," said Patty Turner, Media
Board chairperson. "When it comes down to the budget, when it' comes
down to who the next manager will be, that's up to the Media Board."
Turner makes a good point that WXYC must remain accountable to the
students, but we cannot agree that the Media Board's control of the station
is necessary to provide accountability. The most equitable solution to the
brewing controversy is to make SEB a board parallel to the Media Board,
and like the Media Board, responsible to the Campus Governing Council
(CGC). WXYC and the Council should work together to found this board,
just as it once founded the Media Board. SEB should have CGC just as
the Media Board does appointees so that it will remain accountable.
SEB's charter and bylaws should be established to satisfy both the CGC,
which allocates the station's budget, and the FCC, which licenses the
station.
To make SEB responsible to the Media Board, which is a standing sub
board of the CGC, rather than directly responsible to the CGC would
merely complicate the relationship unnecessarily and stand in the way of
true and direct accountability. A Student Educational Broadcasting Board
parallel to the Media Board, satisfactory to the FCC and the CGC, would
make things run a lot smoother for WXYC and Student Government as a
whole. If such a plan is not adopted soon, the coming struggle will prove a
perilous drain on the fledgling radio station and a crippling situation for
four publications whose governing board will be preoccupied with its
powers rather than its duties.
Thirty-nine years later
By CHUCK ALSTON
measures, natural gas pricing and oil taxes.
Each piece of legislation approved by the
Senate must be passed along to a joint
Senate-House conference committee to
negotiate any differences in versions.
On Tuesday the Senate overwhelmingly
rejected three gas-conservation proposals
introduced by Sens. Dale Bumpers, D-Ark.,
and Lowell Weicker, R-Conn. The Bumpers
legislation called for gas rationing,
envisioning World War II lines and cards.
Weicker proposed that drivers do without
their cars one day a week and that gas
stations be closed from Saturday evening
until Monday morning.
The Senate Energy Committee, set up
specifically for the task of reviewing the
Carter proposals, Wednesday sidestepped
administration utility rate-reform measures
by pleading ignorance. The measures,
including rewards for off-peak-hour usage of
electricity, an end to bargain rates for large
consumers of natural gas and electricity and
different rates for natural gas in the summer
and winter, were put off until the committee
learns more about the issues.
In the Senate Finance Committee, where
the tax provisions of the energy package are
expected to run into trouble, hearings began
on the suggested tax on crude oil. Oklahoma
Gov. David Boren, speaking for the M idwest
and Southern Governors Conferences,
called the crude-oil tax "tragically
shortsighted" and asked that it be scrapped,
citing a projected decrease in production.
And while the Senate debated the
proposals, Carter announced that the new
Department of Energy, the first new cabinet
department in 1 1 years, will open its doors
for business Oct. 1. In doing so, he sent the
name of Federal Energy Administration
Director John O'Leary to the Senate as the
suggested deputy to James Schlesinger, the
department head.
EXECUTION
Monday, Florida Gov. Reubin Askew
signed the order for the execution of John
Spekellink, a California prison escapee who
was convicted in 1973 of shooting a
companion escapee in the head after
attacking him with a hatchet.
Whether the execution will go as planned
at 8:30 a.m. Monday remains to be seen,
however, as Spekellink's lawyers have vowed
to take their appeal all the way to the U.S.
Supreme Court.
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Florida Atty. Gen. Robert Shevin has said
that he sees no basis for stopping the
execution and predicted earlier in the week
that the execution would go as planned.
If Spekellink is executed, he would be the
first victim of capital punishment in the
United States since Gary Gilmore died
before a Utah firing squad Jan. 17.
SHUTTLE
The space shuttle Enterprise Tuesday
made its second successful free flight, gliding
to a landing on a dry lake bed after saying
goodby to its 747 host.
Donald "Deke" Slayton, chief for the
landing tests, called the flight "essentially
perfect."
Two more test flights are planned for this
year. The shuttle is scheduled to make its
first voyage into outer space in March 1979
followed by round trips with men and
equipment into outer space in the 1980s.
KENT STATE
While efforts to block construction of a
gymnasium on the site of the May 4, 1970
massacre of four students at Kent State
failed in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals in Cincinnati, the same court agreed
Monday to reopen the shooting case.
The court ordered a new trial for the $46
million damages suit filed by the parents of
the victims against Ohio Gov. James A.
Rhodes and others.
The court agreed to grant the new trial
because . .the verdict was returned by a
jury, at least one of whose members had been
assaulted and threatened. . ."
Meanwhile, Kent State President Brage
Golding has said he will ask the university's
trustees to dedicate the gym to the victims.
The May 4th Coalition, which occupied
the site earlier, has vowed to block
construction by reoccupying the site on Sept.
24.
BUDGET
House and Senate conferees put the final
touches this week on the fiscal 1978 budget,
which goes into effect Oct. 1 this year.
The final budget was approved without a
provision for a rise in social security payroll
taxes. Senators had feared the increase
would give rise to more inflation and lead to
a business slowdown.
Other than leaving out a provision for
shifting general tax revenue to social security
if needed, the $468.25 billion budget closely
follows President Carter's
recommendations.
KIELBASA
The world's largest Polish sausage has
been missing since the World Kielbasa
Festival closed out last weekend in
Chicopee, Mass.
The 25-foot, 107-pound kielbasa was the
festival's featured attraction, but officials of
the Chicopee Provisions Co., the sausage's
maker, have no idea where it is.
Leon Partyka, the manager of the
company, said he wouldn't pay a ransom for
the return of the sausage, but allowed, "If
somebody calls and says they have it, I'll
send them the rye bread and horse radish to
go with it."
"THE WEEK," a regular Friday feature,
digests lop happenings on the state, national
and international scenes. Chuck Alston, a
junior political science major from
Greensboro, N.C., is state and national
editor for the Daily Tar Heel.
Thomas Wolfe's 'golden years' in Chapel Hill are still remembered
By CHIP PEARS ALL
"... a stone, a leaf, an unfound door; of a
stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten
faces.
Naked and alone we came into exile. In her
dark womb we did not know our mother's face;
from the prison of her flesh have we come into
the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of
this earth.
Which of us has known his brother? Which of
us has looked into his father's heart? Which of us
had not remained ever prison-pent? Which of us
is not forever a stranger and alone?
0 waste of loss, in the hot mazes, lost, among
bright stars on this most weary unbright cinder,
lost! Remembering speechlessly we seek the
great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into
heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where?
Wlien?"
A small concrete-and-bronze memorial stands
inconspicuously near the back western corner of
Davie H all. Ornamental evergreen bushes carpet
its base. M any students pass the monument each
day, yet few notice its presence. Those who do
may furrow their brows momentarily in
curiosity, then pass on.
After all, the metal sculpture has an unusual
shape, and green patches tarnish its front. The
cryptic words across its top ring hollowly,
incomprehensibly, in the mind.
But occasionally, someone passes and glances
with familiarity at this moment. The eyes trace its
message, and after a brief moment of reflection,
the knowing observer passes also.
The monument, placed there by the class of
1966, is a shrine to Thomas Clayton Wolfe, a
1920 graduate of the University. Thirty-nine
years ago yesterday September 15, 1938
Wolfe, one of the most well-known sons of the
University, died of pneumonia in a Baltimore,
Md., hospital. He was 38.
A bright star in American literature flickered
out with Wolfe's death, and the unobtrusive
memorial is a mute tribute to a man who once
passed this way and left his indelible mark.
But Thomas Wolfe's real monuments are not
weatherbeaten hulks of stone and metal. They
are Look Homeward, Angel (from which these
italicized portions are taken,) Of Time and the '
River, The Web and the Rock, and his other
fiction. Wolfe's monuments are characters like
W. 0. Gant, Gant's wife Eliza, and their son Ben
characters almost literally drawn from
Thomas Wolfe's own family. His portrayals of
Altamont, Pulpit Hill and the State University
thinly-veiled representations of Asheville (his
home town), Chapel Hill and the University of
North Carolina are the real testimonies to
Wolfe's genius.
Through these monuments, more lasting than
stone and metal and certainly more
unforgettable, Thomas Wolfe lives.
And because he spent four special years in
Chapel Hill, Wolfe reserves a niche in his most
literally autobiographical novel, Look
Homeward, Angel, for describing his
experiences here. They are seen through the eyes
of Eugene Gant, who is Wolfe himself. And for a
University student, past or present, reading
Thomas Wolfe's account of Chapel Hill and his
college years cannot fail to bring a lump to the
throat, along with a smile of recognition.
Chapel H ill, of course, is quite a different place
today than when a dark-eyed, beanpole of a 16-year-old
from Asheville arrived as a freshman in
September, 1916. The student body of 1,000, the
overwhelmingly male enrollment and the
campus bounded by South Building, Franklin
Street, Swain Hall and New East gave no
indication of the sprawling institution today.
But this was the environment in which
Thomas Wolfe's germinal creative self began to
flourish. Wolfe called his years at UNC "the
golden years" in Look Homeward, Angel, and
said they were "as close to magic as I've ever
been."
A recently published account of Wolfe's
undergraduate days shows that the Chapel Hill
period differed from the sometimes bleak,
brooding years in Pulpit Hill described in the
novel. Especially after he became an
upperclassman, Wolfe ran rampant on the
campus, had many friends, and joined many
campus organizations from the Dialectic
Society, scholastic and literary groups and the Pi
Kappa Phi fraternity to the Daily Tar Heel,
Yackety Yack, Carolina Playmakers and Golden
Fleece.
Wolfe knew Chapel Hill and the University
well. He roomed all over town while an
undergraduate, beginning with a three-room
boarding house on Cameron Avenue near the
west entrance to campus. He later moved to a
small cottage in the woods of Battle Park,
roomed above a drugstore downtown and lived
in one of the "new dorms" Battle Hall as
well.
. Wolfe also called his fraternity house and a
hotel room his homes at one time.
And, like most students who attend the
University, Thomas Wolfe enjoyed himself and
"raised some hell" while here. Wolfe was a
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Stafl photo by Mike Sneed
The monument to Thomas Wolfe between Davie Hall and New East is a silent tribute to one of the
University's greatest sons.
recognized campus wit and practical joker. He
indulged in biscuit-throwing in the Swain Hall
cafeteria and often joined his classmates in
pelting unsuspecting innocents with peanuts in
Pickwick Theater.
Wolfe also experienced the other end of
joking, and took part in several "snipe hunts" as
a freshman before realizing what was going on.
Along with his other activities, Wolfe also
found time for classes. Though not a brilliant
student, he performed well in the subjects that
interested him. And many of his classmates and
instructors remember the perpetually late Wolfe,
entering classrooms on the run, shabbily clad
and needing a bath, with his assignment perhaps
scrawled ten minutes earlier on the back of a
handbill, matchbook, or even on a roll of toilet
paper.
Through academics, Wolfe met several
professors whom he later used in his novels.
Among them were William Stanley "Bully"
Bernard, professor of Greek, who expanded
Wolfe's love of the classics. Professor Edwin
Greenlaw of the English Department was also
a favorite of Wolfe's.
But two professors above the others stood out
Frederick H. "Proff" Koch of the drama
department and Horace Williams, professor of
philosophy. It was Koch who once instructed
Wolfe's class in folk drama to "Look homeward,
and there vou will find vour play."
And Williams, a controversial figure in
North Carolina at the time, is disguised as Dr.
Vergil Weldon in Look Homeward, Angel.
Eugene Gant's last meeting with Weldon before
Gant leaved Chapel Hill parallels a similar
meeting between Wolfe and Williams, and both
scenes are moving, memorable ones.
But along with the happiness Wolfe
experienced in Chapel Hill, his life was tinged
with sadness also. The deaths of his college
roommate and President Edward Kidder
Graham hurt Wolfe deeply. Wolfe's brother Ben
died while Thomas was a student, and the scene
is chronicled in Look Homeward, Angel.
Friends have recalled the despair and brooding
Wolfe underwent because of the tragedy.
S hadows passed over the "golden years" at times,
as they sometimes do today.
Nevertheless, Wolfe's years in Chapel Hill
stimulated his great writing talent, and opened
his mind to the future's possibilities. And Wolfe
was grateful. In his final editorial as editor of the
Daily Tar Heel on June 5, 1920, Wolfe called
attention to the seniors' debt:
"... the senior approaches graduation with no
such feeling (of confidence) today. He is usually
appalled at his own colossal ignorance and
knows that he has just started his education.
Instead of believing that he has definitely settled
all the problems that may come to him, he
recognizes his own limitations, and that his
education is a lifelong process. And the
University that can give this kind of stimulus
justifies, once and for all, the worth of a
university training."
Wolfe was graduated on a sultry summer day
later that month. As class poet, Wolfe read a
moving poem called "1920 Says a Few Words to
Carolina." In it, Wolfe captures the feeling of
every senior which accompanies the joy and
sadness of graduation and leaving Chapel Hill,
and the golden years.
"... think ahead of this night here
And of these old brown walls,
Of white old well and of old South
With bell's deep booming tone,
They'll think again of Chapel Hill and
Thinking come back home."
"O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come
back again."
ChipPearsall.a senior journalism major from
Rocky Mount, N.C., is a staff writer for the
Daily Tar Heel. He credits Richard Waber'i
Thomas Wolfe Undergraduate (Duke University
Press, 1977) for some information in this
column. i