KANSAN Comment
Playing the game
"Fraud! Fraud!," the young men shouted as they tried to cash in their winning numbers and were told that the game had been just for fun.
Some people are obviously too emotional for lotteries. Can't they understand that the value of the game is the game itself, and not the prize?
The draft lottery had provided some genuine drama for 1969. For most men of draft age, it had really been more exciting than the moon landing. And now, just because No.295 finds out he's no better off than No.12, he gets bitter about it.
What has happened to the gambling, gaming spirit of American youth? Didn't they ever play poker for match sticks?
Well President Nixon must have played a lot of match stick poker, because he realizes the importance of imagination. When you don't have anything to play for, you just pretend the stakes are high. President Nixon went out of his way to stimulate the imaginations of these young men.
Before the lottery the White House offered as a "rule of thumb" that men whose birthdays were among the first third drawn would probably be drafted, the middle third would be uncertain and the last third would probably not be called.
Now the state Selective Service directors have revised the "rule of thumb." In at least three states, the directors have said they will probably call all 366 birthdays.
So the young men are bitter. "It's like playing Russian roulette with six bullets in the revolver," they cry. "What kind of fun is that?"
Aha! That's probably just what President Nixon asked himself. He knew from his old poker experiences that the game would be pretty dull if there was nothing in the pot. So the President brought out the match sticks (the White House rule of thumb).
The President deserves to be congratulated for injecting some flair and excitement into the Selective Service System. But there are those who just aren't sporting enough to appreciate the President's imaginative gesture. The game itself wasn't entertaining enough for them; they have to get their prize or they start complaining. How petty.
So it's no fun with six bullets, is it? Well, cheer up, boys. President Nixon's going to see that everyone gets a bang out of this game.
Off the wire
—Joe Naas
By United Press International
LONDON—Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan speaking on Soviet Middle East foreign policy: "The Russians are not in the Middle East for Arab interests but Russian ones. The Russians are looking after their own interests first."
CHICAGO—Judge Julius Hoffman commenting on poet Allen Ginsberg's Sanskrit recital during the "Chicago Seven" trial: "I just don't understand the whole thing. The language
of the U.S. District Court is English. I don't know what language that is we just heard."
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WASHINGTON — Anti-smoking crusader Sen. Frank E. Moss, D-Utah, warning against tobacco companies shifting television commercial expenditures to other media: "Already there is strong evidence that the cigarette industry intends simply to divert the vast sums of money it has been spending for broadcast advertising into print and display advertising, coupon prizes and other promotional sales devices."
Sorel's News Service
Cat gets George's tongue
1. 1969. King Features Syndicate, Inc. World rights reserved.
PRINCETON, N.J.-The Gallup Poll shows Vice-President Agnew enjoying rising popularity, particularly in 13 Southern states. In a recent survey, Mr. Agnew's rating had climbed to 25 per cent "highly favorable" in the South. The poll has apparently caught the attention of George Wallace, former Governor of Alabama, who accused the Nixon Administration of adopting most of his policies. Singling out Agnew, he said: "He's a copy cat. I said everything he's saying now first."
Readers' write
To the editor:
I am certain this will be but one of the many replies to Professor Findlay's observations on the plight of graduate student instructors at the university. It is also quite probable that some of the replies will be construed as evidence of a discontent which is more apparent than real: it is hard to remain dispassionate in replying to such assaults on one's professional convictions. Thus I state flatly at the outset that it is dissatisfaction with Professor Findlay's brand of sympathy, and not with my own professional status, which has compelled this answer to his views.
The graduate students I know do not need, and do not want, the kind of sympathy which Professor Findlay offers. Most of them will, as I do, resent the basis for it, which seems monetary rather than professional. I am sure that in most graduate students' minds the question of money is not so large, nor the question of professional attitudes so secondary and insignificant, as Professor Findlay would have them. Most of my graduate student colleagues accept their long and often unengelcel poverty with tolerably good faith and humor. It is true that most of us would like to see enough on our paychecks to help us in the struggle against sudden twenty-cent rises on a pound of bacon, twenty-dollar rises on a month's rent, and now the understandable but also very grim threat of rising university fees. But I have never heard or read of a serious graduate student demand for "the same kind of salary considerations" as regular faculty—at least not in the English Department, where Professor Findlay has chosen to make his case. I do not pretend, however, to speak for his department as authoritatively as he has spoken for mine.
Others of his thoughts are in fact much more fundamentally arbitrary than those on the money problem, and deserve proportionately more attention. The first is that there is no legitimate basis for comparison between the workloads of full-time and part-time faculty. Most assistant instructors in English teach nine hours of Freshman-Sophomore English and do six hours of graduate course work per semester. Freshman-Sophomore English courses are writing methods courses. They demand continual vigilance from the instructor on the matters of evaluating student work and preparing classes, and these responsibilities in turn demand considerable time. I am sure I speak for assistant instructors in other departments as well when I suggest that the "work load" on the assistant instructor—in terms of time demanded of him and toll exacted on his mind and nerves—is not so very different from that of the full-time faculty member. It would therefore cost the university a great deal to rid itself of troublesome salary complaints from AI's by replacing them with assistant professors. Even if we admit that an Assistant Professor has twice the workload of an AI (and the proportion seems generously theoretical), at $10,000 per year the professor would still receive approximately twice as much money per unit of work load as the AI. So the system may provide "subsidy" for us, but the benefits are by no means one-sided. Indeed, the other side of Professor Findlay's workload argument, which implies a vast difference between the responsibilities of full-time and part-time faculty, is worthy of more respect.
The proposition that the career faculty of a university is more directly responsible for the workings of the entire university, the graduate student more directly responsible for himself, is in general workable enough to ring with some truth. A distinction in salaries, based on that same distinction in responsibilities, is also serviceable enough in general, however arbitrary it may become when certain particular cases come up for scrutiny. But to speak frankly, the general implication that the two commitments produce unrelated effects, and especially that commitment to self has little or no advantage for the university, is most odious. Again speaking from my knowledge of the English Department, I do not recall ever being told that "my commitment is not to my teaching, and that no one expects it to be." In fact, I remember being told precisely the opposite. The department has consistently demanded of its graduate students a most serious professional attitude toward their teaching. That demand is now so explicit that all PhD candidates in English must spend some time teaching in order to get a degree—it is a department rule. Perhaps because of the special character of the professional job market for PhD's in English, the official, and quite straight-faced, department position on itself is that it is in part a training ground for teachers. Professional attitudes are part of the requirement. But even if they were not, most assistant instructors would require them of themselves. Without qualms of conscience I can say that I have always done so, and I am appalled at Professor Findlay's suggestion that whether I do so or not is largely irrelevant. Graduate instructors learn to live with that myth when the undergraduate is its source; when the full-time faculty propagates it, it becomes unbearable.
Professor Findlay speaks of "approaching old age," and I, for one, sincerely hope he has correctly diagnosed his problem. As a person not so awfully far behind him in that regard, I thank him for giving me a hint of something so insidious to militate against. Hopefully, at any rate, his fit was momentary; otherwise it becomes difficult indeed to discover any professional excuse for such unprofessional argument.
James E. Anderson Graduate Student
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