A long,long time
By MIKE RIEKE Photo & Graphics Editor
1960 to 1969—how long are 10 years? It is long enough to grow from infancy to youth, from youth to middle age, from middle age to old age. It is long enough to grow, to live, to experience, to change.
Ten years is long enough for leaders—famous an infamous—to come and go, and for new ones to take their places. It is time enough for John Kennedy to call on Americans to ask what they can do for their country and what their country can do for mankind, time enough for a day in Dallas in November, time enough to remember, as one man put it, "when Kennedy was a man and not an airport." It is time enough for his brother, Robert, to follow in his footsteps and meet a similar end.
It is long enough for Lyndon to defeat Barry Goldwater by a landslide and then choose not to run again because of unpopularity, for Eugene McCarthy to ask the people—instead of the delegates—whom they want for a candidate, for Hubert Humphrey to ask the delegates and get the answer he knew he would get, for George Wallace to speak of "pussyfootin" and win 10 per cent of the votes, for Richard Nixon to lose a Presidential race and a governor's race, retire from politics and come back to win the Presidency.
Ten years is long enough for the ousting of a Krushchev and the passing of a Churchill, for the retirement of a DeGaulle and the cremation of a Nehru, for the execution of an Eichmann and the death of a Pope John.
In ten years a long, thin, backward country in Southeast Asia can command the attention of the world; military advisers can become 40,000 American dead. It is time enough for bombing and a bombing halt, for deciding the shape of the table at the peace talks, for My Song and Hue.
People can begin to ask questions in the span of 10 years. Is South Vietnam worth 40.000 American and countless Vietnamese lives? Is it worth driving young men to the point where they might kill women and children? Is it worth dividing the people of the United States?
Ten years is time enough for the mounting of student protest, for Berkeley, Columbia, San Francisco State. It is time enough for thousands of others to join the students in Chicago, the March on the Pentagon, the Moratorium March; time enough for hippies and yippies, for LSD and marijuana.
In ten years Martin Luther King can have a dream and be shot down before seeing it come true. Selma, Alabama, can become a place of terror and of hope. In 10 years there can be a time of fire and of death in Watts, in Detroit, in Kansas City. There can be hope in voting laws, in equal opportunity, in public accommodations. There can be Malcolm X, Medgar Evars, Bull Conners, Eldridge Cleaver, Jesse Jackson, two Governor Wallaces, Black Panthers, there can
be bombed churches, marches hand-in-hand shotgun blasts, Afro-styles.
Ten years can be an eternity to the poor. It can be a 10 year sentence to the prison of the inner city, the death knell to a small rural community, another 10 years of buck-passing for the migrant workers. It can be hunger and malnutrition. It can be the ignored Indians. It can be a lack of education, a lack of opportunity, a lack of aspiration. It can also be Resurrection City, VISTA, Model Cities, the prospect of a guaranteed income.
Ten years is time enough to renew or continue old grudges. It is time enough to build a wall in Berlin, blockade Cuba and reach the brink of a nuclear war, to stage a fiasco at the Bay of Pigs. It is time enough to again pit Arab against Jew, Irish Protestant against Irish Catholic.
It is also time enough for the Peace Corps, the Organization of American States, Strategic Arms Limitations Talks, the emergence of free Africa.
In ten years hemlines can go up on women and women can go up on racing horses. The New York Mets can start as the worst team in Baseball history and become World Champions. Broadway Joe Namath can put his passing arm where his mouth is and give the American Football League the championship over the National Football League. Bill Russell can become the first Negro coach of a major league sports team.
Ten years is time enough for John, Paul, George and Ringo to become gods. It is time enough for Dustin Hoffman to meet Mrs. Robinson, Paul Newman to eat fifty eggs, Omar Sharif to write poems and Sidney Poitier to come dinner. It is time enough for Liz Taylor to be bitten by a snake, Mia Farrow to have a baby, Julie Andrews to give a spoonful of sugar and Raquel Welch to become a man. It is time enough for G.M.R.X.
In 10 years new problems can arise to threaten man. Cigarettes can be linked to cancer. People can begin to wonder whether their plane is going to Miami or to Cuba. Water can become unfit to sustain life, air unfit to breathe, and land unfit for habitation. The population can advance at such a rate that it would double by the year 2000. Inflation can shake the pound, the franc, the mark and the dollar.
It can also bring turnpikes, jet airliners, communications satellites, Teflon, seat belts and self-cleaning ovens.
Ten years is time enough for man to go beyond his own world, to circle the earth, to walk in space. It is time enough for Grissom, White and Chaffee to give their lives. Ten years is time enough to look at the earth from the moon 250,000 miles away, seeing not humans killing for ideologies and boundaries, not blacks fighting whites, not millions starving and suffering; but rather to see one world, deep blue and lush green, calm and peaceful looking. Ten years is long enough to look forward.
Readers' write
In view of the brutal attacks on the Black Panther Party which have taken place in Chicago and Los Angeles in recent weeks, the K.U. Student Mobilization Committee wishes to make the following statement
To the editor:
Although some of us may disagree with some portions of the Black Panther program, we wholeheartedly condemn the nationwide pattern of repression which we recognize as an attempt to destroy an organization whose primary goal has been to improve the lives of black people in this country. We realize that if this repression is successful, it will only be a matter of time before all people advocating justice for the oppressed begin to receive the same treatment. These attacks must be stopped. We call on all those concerned with peace and humanity to join with us in demanding an end to the attacks which the Black Panthers have suffered and will continue to suffer until the powers that be in this country are made to realize that although they may destroy the lives of our brothers and sisters, they can never destroy our ideas.
KU SMC Steering Committee
KU SMC Steering Committee
Linda Schild
Walker Hendrix
David Ranney
Fred R. Murphy
Paul R. Schowalter
Tom Ashton
Chris Clifford
Off the wire
By United Press International
CHICAGO—Linda.Morse, 26, of Berkeley, Calif., testifying for the defense at the trial of the "Chicago Seven," summing up an explanation of the radical political theory that motivated the defendants:
"The more I see of the horrors perpetrated by this government, like the murder of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, like the starvation of millions of children, like the pollution caused by offshore oil drilling, then the more I want this system torn down and replaced by one that cares about people."
LOS ANGELES—Mrs. Pat Mearns, wife of an Air Force colonel missing in action in Vietnam for three years, in a Christmas appeal to Americans to help her and other wives of missing or captured servicemen;
"We ask that Americans send one extra Christmas card this year to the president of North Vietnam acting President Ton Duc Thang, successor to Ho Chi Minh.
"We ask that they plead with him to give our husbands, and the 1,400 American servicemen who have not been heard from, humane treatment."
PANAMA CITY—Brig. Gen. Omar Torrijos, returning in triumph to Panama after his supporters reversed a coup de atat begun last weekend;
"You cannot destroy a year's work in a day."
WASHINGTON—Rep. Wilbur Mills, D-Ark., the House Senate conference chairman in charge of reaching a compromise bill on tax reform, giving a progress report on the lengthy task after completing an 11-hour session Tuesday night:
"We're halfway through. We may be finished by Thursday night."
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GRIFF AND THE UNICORN
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Griff & the Unicorn, Copyright, 1969.
University Daily Kansan.