4
Tuesday, January 22,1974
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Traumatic New Year
The hopeful little 1974 hitchhiker pictured in the cartoon below appears to be justifiably anxious about his fate. His path began in cold and ice and he is burdened with the hangover of 1973.
Indeed, the new year seems likely to be as choked with dramatic, if sometimes tragic, events as last year.
that is a risky prediction since 1973 included such climactic developments as a constitutional crisis, revelation of scandal in the Nixon administration, a fuel shortage, a Middle East war, the resignation of one vice president and the appointment of another.
But developments during the Christmas break indicated that several issues will be dramatically worse in bigger fish will be fried in 1974.
Severe cold gripped much of the nation during the break, causing deep erosion of available fuel supplies and renewed pressure for fuel rationing. A somewhat voluntary system of rationing for everything but gasoline has already been imposed. Eventual gasoline rationing during 1974 seems inevitable.
A happy consequence of the fuel shortage and subsequent lower speed limits has been less congested traffic and fewer highway deaths. In states which had imposed the emergency 55 mph speed limits, the highway death toll was lowered by 16 per cent. In the rest of the nation the toll was lowered by only two per cent.
Financial statements by the oil companies which indicated huge profits during the fuel crisis increased skepticism about the true
nature of the shortage. A congressional committee began investigations to determine the extent of the shortage and the role of the company.
in the crisis is revealed to be a fisco or an avoidable development, remaining public confidence in the system could disintegrate.
President Nixon, meanwhile, was spending the holidays in San Clemente where he toasted 1974, wistfully hoping for a political triumph. The president's favorable rating in the latest Gallup poll fell to 29 per cent.
Nixon supposedly left Washington to avoid the dreary mid-winter weather. During his visit in San Clemente it rained and the ground was minor earthquake, and the tide there was the highest in 300 years.
He left the property only to take long drives, attend church and the wedding of his parents. He attended and hooting of Nixon's detractors could be heard.
President Nixon may resign or be impeached in 1974, because he was in a position cautiously but definitely preparing for an impeachment vote.
1974 began with hopes for peace in the Middle East via the Geneva negotiations. Some progress is reportedly being made by fits and starts and a serious settlement is finally within comprehension of the perennial most troubled area of the world.
Yes, 1974 could be a climactic year. We will continue to report and analyze the progress of the anxious hitchhiker during the course of the semester and invite your company and comments.
Extended Shutdowns Face Colleges Pinched by Heating Fuel Shortages
By BART BARNES The Washington Post
WASHINGTON - Thousands of college students in the nation's northern states are facing the greatest Christmas leaves this year. More than a quarter of college students prolonged shutdowns on many colleges.
Scores of colleges have already announced winter closings ranging from three days to six weeks in an effort to conserve heating fuel. Hundreds of others in the northern United States are developing contingency plans to close down in the event heating fuel runs out.
At Main's Bowdow College, for example, a scheduled Dec. 14 to Jan. 7 winter break has been changed to run from Dec. 22 to Jan. 20, Provest Olivon仁obison Said. Semester examinations, originally set to follow a two week period of reading and term paper writing in January, have been rescheduled.
The January assignments for reading and term papers still stand, Robison said, but
students will be expected to do the work at home and mail term papers to their professors. Vermont's state college students will be away from school until Feb. 11, when classes begin for the next semester, a three week extension of the winter break. Frequent visitors to Baldock college will be said, will be made up by eliminating most of the Easter vacation and extending the academic year further into June.
The pending shutdowns are concentrated mostly in the New England states, particularly among the large number of private colleges in that region. New England is expected to be especially hard hit by the fuel shortage this winter.
But colleges planning shutouts extend into the midwest and range from Harvard to the University of Maine to Grinnell College in Iowa.
"There is absolutely no way to generalize about what institutions might or might not do," said John F. Morse, director of government relations for the American
Wall Street Braces for Recession
systems of the Midwest and Far West are indicated that most have enough fuel reserves to remain open on their regular schedules. But a number of smaller private colleges, such as Ursuline University in Jackson, in Minnesota, for example, are shutting down for periods of up to two weeks.
Gloomy '74 Outlook Prompted by Fuel Crisis
Among the more dramatic changes of the academic calendar is that at Tufts University in the Boston bush of Medford, Mass. Faced with a 30 per cent cut in its heating fuel allotment, Tufts moved its Easter vacation into 1 February and extended the two weeks until June 4, thereby gaining six weeks to shut down in the winter.
Among the difficulties, Morse said, is that under current monthly quotes of fuel allocation, colleges have no assurance that students will be able to leave if they would save by closing in January. At Harvard, where the Christmas break was extended by one week until Jan. 13, 16 students have been warned that the situation will worsen before the beginning of the spring semester Feb. 6.
While students and faculty accepted the reasons for closing some complained that the late schedule in June would make it difficult to get summer jobs.
Council on Education "Some have a backup of coal and they're in good shape."
WASHINGTON—The stock market's record nose-dive over the past several weeks indicates that Wall Street doesn't believe the Nixon administration's optimistic assessment of the probable economic impact of the energy crisis.
In the meantime, southern colleges, while they do not face the winter closings because of fuel shortages, may find that high air conditioning costs in the summer increase the pressures to curtail summer activity, the Association of American Colleges said.
Thus, Wall Street is paying more attention to current facts that cannot be ignored, such as cutbacks in Detroit, layoffs in the manufacturing economic analyses by private forecasters.
Instead, businessmen and investors seem convinced that the Arab oil boycott has created a genuine economic crisis for the country. And the international meaningful recession in 1974. Moreover, the general conclusion seems to be that the administration was caught unprepared by events, and even now is refusing to face the of the hard decisions that must be made.
By HOBART ROWEN The Washington Post
For example, Alan Greenspan of townsend-Greenspan and Co. predicts that the Fed will raise interest rates.
By HOBART ROWEN
Not everyone is a pauverey of gloom and doom. Former Treasury Assistant Secretary Murray Weddenhain, to cite one up-bat analyst, argues that the 1970 depression was no worse than the 1970 dip which was only a mild recession. He, like Federal Reserve Board Chairman Arthur F. Burris, notes the strength of business investment in new plants and equipment, strong export trends, and financial reserves, and the healthier ton of the dollar.
Similarly, a panel of experts at the University of Chicago see nothing worse than slow growth and high inflation, with a lack of investment in training momentum by the end of the year.
But even the less pessimistic forecasts represent a dramatic re-assessment of what is happening now.
“This plan goes only to Feb. 6,” said Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Henry Russovsky, “I think it is really frustructile to do so. We don't know. We'll try and stay open. We'll try and have as little disruption as possible. We'll try and meet our educational goals. I like take the rest of the American people wondering what the hell is going to happen to us.”
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The Cleveland Trust Co., in predicting a recession, estimates a 25 per cent drop in corporate profits next year and a sharp rise in unemployment.
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Like many of the nation's older universities, Harvard is plagued by a number of buildings with antiquated heating systems that have no thermostats and are not subject to temperature controls as a means of saving fuel.
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will be down 22 per cent from first quarter 1973 levels, and off 15 per cent for the year as a whole. That means sharp loss in jobs, and consequent effect on related industries.
And, it added, the nation's commuter colleges are worried that a serious gasoline shortage will make classrooms inaccessible to students of students who commute daily to colleges.
Morris Cohen of Schroder, Naess and Thomas points out that housing will join the automobile industry as a chief victim of the energy crisis. Because of the uncertainty of the future for many homeowners, Cohen suggests that the 1973 starts rate of 2,650,000 units (down 13 per cent from 1972) will drop 20 per cent in 1974 to about 1,650,000 and that "projections for 1975 would indicate that the scope of gasoline delivery is an order than it is now."
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FBI Memos Disclose Assault on New Left
"All you can do," a university spokesman said, "turn them on or turn the off."
By JACK NELSON The Los Angeles Times
Kelley, a Hover supporter who served under the director in the FBI, said the program was a vital measure. He offered no additional details on the program and indicated that any report he makes to the Justice Department will not be made public.
WASHINGTON - Remember the attacks in Congress on J. Edgar Hoover in 1971 and the saying, "an FBI agent behind every mailbox?"
It was not until those attacks on the late FBI director gained momentum and that saying came to symbolize the FBIs assault on the agency. The agency averted a three-year-old program to disrupte
Shortly before Hoover discontinued the program, the FBI was under fire from several agents using agents in several cases not made notable in several of which it was one in which the Rev. Philip Berrigan and six other anti-war activists were accused and later acquitted of conspiracy.
The 1968 memo instructed agents to "expose, disrupt and otherwise neutralize the New Left" and to "inspire action in instances where circumstances warrant."
Two Hoover memos which initiated the program were released after the Justice Department decided not to appeal a U.S. lawsuit requiring production of the documents.
FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley strongly defended the program, and promised to give the Justice Department a fuller explanation of it.
NBC newman Carl Stern had filed suit to
the documents under the Freedom of
Parliament.
"That speech had a whole series of very, very serious allegations," Boggs said. "One was that the FBH had infiltrated the college campuses, labor unions, black organizations, business organizations, church organizations—that in many cases they had employed the tactics of secret police in Russia and in Germany."
One document which was highly publicized was a newsletter urging increased interviewing of leftist figures because "it will enhance the paranoia endemic in these circles and will further serve to disarm you. There is an FBI agent behind every mailbox."
on March 8, 1971 a self-styled Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI burglarized the bureau's Media, Pa., office and state, 1200 documents, some of which gave the FBU's critics additional ammunition.
The FBI was already under attack when
Many of the documents, copies of which were mailed to several members of Congress and newspapers, dealt with inquiries and assessment of student, Black andiftal groups.
And the gloomer outlook can be traced not simply to the complications created by the Arab oil embargo, but to worries about possible future shortages of other materials
Boggs, in several attacks, accused the FBI of numerous civil liberties violations and of bugging his telephone in an investigation of Maryland contractor deals. However denied the bugging allegation and Boggs never substantiated it.
Former Commerce Secretary Peter G. Peterson, who tried unsuccessfully to get Nikon and Henry Kissinger interested in the energy question a year ago, said, "we are not going to be able to solve the energy problem. And we may reasonably anticipate the possibility of dealing with a growing number of organizations in the pattern of OPEC, the Organization for Economic Cooperation which has been so effective in raising the price demanded for their oil.
Three days before Hoover discontinued the program Boggs told a nationwide television audience that the FBI director had tried to divert public attention from his broader attack on the FBI by concentrating on the bugging allegation.
Neggs, apparently unaware that Hoover had rescued the intelligence program three days after his speech, was on a small plane that was declared missing during a flight in Alaska on Oct. 16, 1972. He later was declared dead.
"There could be, in short, many OPECS, and in each case, as you could see if you were at the airport, that there were non-aligned nations held in Aligiers, in every case the target will be the richer countries
Thus, Wall Street suspects that the disclosures created by the energy crisis may be only the first of a series of recessions in recent years that even if the United States escapes a serious recession in 1974, Western Europe and Japan will not, and all of the Western World economies are too closely intertwined to escape the impact of such an eventuality.
Beyond that, Wall Street's pessimism, even if overdone, is an expression of no confidence either in President Nixon or in governmental indecision so far in meeting the short-term energy shortage. It hopes that the new federal energy office under Obama, Simon will pull things together; but needs to see some decisive actions for convincers.
And not a few in Wall Street plainly hope that with Gerald Ford now established as the 40th Vice President of the United States, President Nixon will step out of office. The prospect, after all, that President Nixon would continue trying to clear himself of the Watergate mess, instead of running the country, is one of the most Bearish factors of all.
By BOB SIMISON Kansan Staff Reporter
If It Can Go Wrong... It Will; Murphy's Law
If the dislimal performance of the comet Kohoutek is to be considered an augury for the coming year, then the planet could not be unnervingly, could be unnervingly, to say the least.
After all, the bright economic outlook and the triumph of peace in Vietnam of 2015 has also opened up an economic uncertainty, political chaos and an energy crisis. The colossal failure of Kohoutek to meet its billing as the comet of the century seemed appalled.
it also conspicuously confirmed a principle on which physical scientists have based their anxieties for years: Murphy's Law. Once again, the assistant and physicists saw that if anything can go wrong, it will, as the law predicts.
Although it isn't widely known, Murphy's Law has been around a good while—so long, in fact, that nobody knows who Murphy was. This circumstance is accepted as a function of the law.
Other functions of the law are almost universally discernible. For example, our own Wesco Hall is completely climate-controlled and the thermostats in each room are so constructed that they can regulate the temperature to mess up the temperature settings.
Murphy's Law applies particularly to transportation. The airlines, for example, compartment their aircraft so they won't oversell any flights. These computers are programmed to extra seats can be sold as a hedge against no-price wars.
However, that means that the average dolt can do nothing but perspire when something goes wrong and the thermostat is set on $8 degrees.
And of course there are the more mundane appearances of Murphy's Law. The telephone will ring when you're in the shower; the car will break down on the way to catch a plane; the television will malfunction during the Sugar Bowl football game; the annually simplified federal income tax won't be the same as it was before you over the table when you go to dinner with a prospective host, and on and on
However, the no-show factor isn't reliable, so flights are still oversold and passengers with reservations still face uncertainty in getting seats.
Some have developed corollaries to the principle. Craftsmen are familiar with Murphy's Law as the Law of Selective Gravitation; a dropped tool will land where it can do the most damage.
Another corollary, Berrstein's First Law, enunciated by the迪莫尔 M. of the court. States that when an object awaits rules to the most inaccessible spot, Thus, if
] ]
you drop a dime, it will roll under a desk or into a heat register.
More recently, Vermont Royette the Wall Street Journal expounded on another corollary of Murphy's Law: "You are more likely to go wrong where they are likely to go wrong everywhere."
For example, he explained,
housewives know that if the dishwasher
quits, so will the washing machine. And
therefore it will be sick and
dinner will be run.
In politics, Nixon has been caught in the corollary for some time. First, the existence of those Watergate tapes leaked out, then there was a court fight to obtain them. This resulted in the firing of a special prosecutor, which led to a public uproar and ultimate release of the tapes.
But then some tapes turned up missing and mysterious gaps appeared in other tapes.
The economy has been caught in the corollary, too. There were meat and gasoline shortages and more wage and price controls during the summer. Then Asahi Airlines (the Oceaneer Middle East war). That $^2$ economy outlook rather grim.
Which brings us back to that comet and the augury for 1974. If you're a persistent pessimist, the lesson of the comet is that things will continue to go wrong in accordance with Murphy's Law.
But if you're an optimist, that comet might indicate a low point from which things can only improve. Sometimes, but not often, the converse to Royster's corollary holds: when something goes wrong, those things are likely to go right elsewhere.
Indeed, a few things seem to be going right. Henry Kissinger, secretary of state, has produced agreements in the United States with countries that want a change of things for the better.
And the nation will know shortly whether Nixon is definitely on the way out.
Here at the University of Kansas, events appear on the upwearing as well. The University's faculty slide because of underfunding will be slowed by favorable action in Topeka as a result of the efforts of the Board of Regents and Chancellor Arch. R.
Meanwhile, classes recommended yesterday apparently unaffected by Murphy's Law. Which brings to mind another law, this one attributed to Richard J. Herrnstein of Harvard University.
His principle is that "the attention paid to an instructor is a constant," regardless of the size of the class. So the amount of attention paid by each student decreases as the class size increases.
And, for students, the implications of that are more intriguing than those of Murphy's Law anyway.
Griff and the Unicorn
JUST THINK OF ALL
THOSE ORGANS,
THROBBING AND
PULSATING,, THE
BLOOD COURSING
THROUGH THE VEINS,
by Sokoloff