Newspapers / Jones County Journal (Trenton, … / May 7, 1970, edition 1 / Page 2
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i?' , ' .4 > A A £r j| mMsm Never For eel That These Editorials Are The Opinion Of One Man _______ And tie May Be Wrone A Beginning? Although it surely does not mean a‘ renaissance of reason is about to be come epidemic in public education there is some basis for the guarded optimism that Saturday’s vote for member of the Lenoir County Board of Education may he a beginning. For the first time in the history of public schools in the county a majority of the county school board is Republi can and those Republicans freely and frequently declared that they would ac cept their election as a mandate from the people to keep the county school system as it presently is insofar as ra cial integration is concerned; meaning that they would stick with a true Free dom of Choice plan that would force no student to attend and no parent to send his children to a school against their will. Now we shall see. There is a weak whine that it is disastrous to inject partisan politics in the schools, but this is ridiculous on its face for the very lifeblood of public schools is political involvement But after their brief hqneymoon of joylhe Republicaus qxe likely to find that promising is one thing and deliver ing is another. Despite the Republican occupancy of the White House there is is no dear evidence yet that Washing ton intendsto lessen the demand for an end to what it refers to as “dual school Systems.” Which leads one to -wonder what they call the public school system in Washington today, since in. a town that is 55 per cent Negro the 1 schools are over 95 per cent Negro. If the Republicans in Washington political amunon sense to what kind of pciitiqai h«y in North Carolina by opportunism may buy a few public school systems enough time to permit reason to rise from the ashes that now exist where so many wonderful public school systems existed before. Politics is not a gentle art, but it op erates within the .same physical laws as botany; that one can cut roses only where roses grow and while they are blooming. There is a potential Republican Rose Garden here in Eastern Carolina if the national Republican leadership has in telligence enough to cultivate it. The Real Message The real message written between the lines of the Cambodian invasion is that Vietnamization has failed. The area invaded has been a Viet Cong staging area and’ sanctuary throughout this interminable bloodlet ting in Indo-China, so using it as an excuse ‘to protect” our troops in the field: has no validity. They need this kind of protection no more now than they did last yew or five or seven years ago.—-11 _ . And alter seven years of fighting with, over ten years of training and billions of dollars sprat in equipping the South Vietnamese they were still unable to mount a 20-mile thrust without Ameri can direction and Amerieah haij>.,v;:l If Nixon persists in this madness it wiH end his political career j surely as a similar madness ended. son’s career. . Nixon 'must r'" ^ '*Ji v or park it. If But these young people who choose to fight on eolege campuses rather than in Vietnam camnot expect sympa thy from the nation they are seeking to destroy. Their life is no more prec ious than that of any frightened young man who has died in Vietnam. They chose their form of violence and died exercising it. ■ The real tragedy in this, and all other campus disorders has been the total abdication and sometime support of college officials in this determined effort to convert our nation into a totalitarian society over which (they hope) the intellectual elite will rule. Few of the students being used1 in this plot me realty aware of the degree to whi&i they are being abused. They are young and idealistic and easy prey for the people who desire to destroy our system and replace it with the lock step conformity of the ordered society. And any person in our country — young or old — who believes that this nlWism is simply spontaneous and youth iui resentment against our i country s mistaken involvement in Vietnam iS liv ing in a fool’s paradise. Before Vietnam it was the racial issue that was used to irritate and wound the body politic. ( Before that it was such noble causes as the Atomic bomb spies and the bathos over Oppenheimer’s rejection and his later cleansing during the John son era as LBJ tried1 to make a few points with the socialists who kept him locked in that gilded White House cage. It was the liberals who very largely involved us in Vietnam because they realized in it a golden opportunity to bankrupt our country morally as well as economically. The real struggle between Russia and the United States is pot military, but economic and now in two wars (Korea and Vietnam) they have dissipated our resources and' divided our country with out the loss of a single Russian soldier. And nowhere have they been more successful than on our college campuses. ing, but at this 'kite date, and even after all the terrible toll in our finest young men and vast amounts of our natural; resources the country would rally 'behind a clear-cut decision to win. A decision to win would involve, first of all a declaration of war by the Pres ident and congress and a mobilization of the national effort to that end. Too many people have been getting rich and dodging their responsibility in this affair, and if the President cannot get a Declausaton of Waroutofcongress — which is most unlikely—then he should immediately and by the vary most rapid manner withdraw every American from that tortured little country. Congress permittediteelf to be paint ed into Ibis corner by delegating its 'B&dfefcn. Gulf are tod new each uterfere unless we JACK RIDER Vice President Agnew is « roan after roy own heart because when he makes' a speech there is no difficulty in under standing it. He speaks dearly, bluntijr and intelligently. Consider in his re cent speech in Fort Lauderdale, Florida his prescription for ending anarchy otr the campus: “First, the era of appeasement must come to an end. “Second, a concise and dear set of rules for campus conduct should be es tablished, transmitted to incoming fresh men, and enforced — with immediate ex pulsion for serious violations. “Third, it is folly for universities con fronted with their current crisis in our turbulent times to open their doom to thousands of patently unqualified stu dents. “Fourth, no negotiations under threat or coercion. “Fifth, no amnesty for lawlessness or violence. This canon is crucial. “Sixth, any organization which public ly declares its intention to violate the rules of an academic community and which carries out that declaration should be barred from campus. “Seventh, we must look to how we are raising our children. Today, by the thousands — without a cultural heritage, without a set of spiritual values, and with a moral code summed up in that idealistic injunction, ‘do your own things.’ junior — his pot and Portnoy secreted in hii knapsack — arrives at ‘The Old Main and finds there a smiling and benign faculty even more accom odating and less demanding than his parents. “Eight, we must look to the university that receives those children. Is it pre pared to deal with the challenge of the non-democratic left? “Ninth, let us support those courage ous administrators, professors and stu dents on our college campuses who are standing up for the traditional rights of the academic community against what the New York Times rightly calls ‘The New Fascists.’ Their number is grow ing.” And The Vice President ended his speech by saying, “It is one of the trag edies of our time that faculties and stu dents sit in catatonic trance while the raucous militants destroy academic freedom. When will they awaken?” Maybe the tragedy of Kent State Uni versity this week wffl wake up the trustees of more Colleges and universi ties who will appreciate their own dereliction in permitting college and university administratibhi to to such a low level If ths small benefit is derived from this tragic incident the sacrifice of four young lives may not have been m vain, although they were working in exactly tbe opposite direction. lOMS COUNTY JOURNAL J
Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.)
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May 7, 1970, edition 1
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