Stay home, or become Nixon's scape-goat
(Reprinted from the Salina Journal)
If my friends at Kansas Wesleyan, Marymount and the other college campuses sincerely want peace they will forego the public demonstration planned for this month.
It is a matter of hard-headed reality. It also is an intelligence test.
Mr. Nixon has his back up. With the propaganda forces at his command, he has been able to convince a substantial number of Americans that the real enemy—at least the enemy handy to attack—is not in Hanoi but in the college streets.
You are to be the scape-goats for Vietnam and all its tragedy.
If you want to draw fire, you must understand the possible consequences. We Americans already are divided and frustrated. Mr. Nixon and Mr. Agnew deliberately have deepened that division. It is now hardening into anger and hatred. Further demonstrations could erupt into riot. Action now can provoke violent reaction.
If you shift the warfare from Vietnam to Kansas and the other states, you hardly will be promoting peace. Moreover, you may be delaying peace in Vietnam.
It is not that marches, bloody or peaceful prevent successful negotiations at Paris. In their present course, they already are down the drain. But you can change Mr. Nixon's mind and reverse his plan, his plan to bring the troops home under a pretext of victory and an unburdening upon the South Vietnamese. It you rob him of the illusion you can destroy the fact of disengagement.
As Californians know, Mr. Nixon is a poor and revengeful loser. But he has not lost. The real danger to peace is in what he might do were he to believe himself put down.
His game is winning. His intense desire for a political win is shown by the hatchet-work of his vice-president. Mr. Agnew's speech at Harrisburg last week was a shrewd attempt to mobilize the prejudices of middle America against the collegians, against the intellectuals and against the peaceniks.
At first I thought it might be dismissed as the angry striking back of a bumpkin baited once too often. But then came the full Agnew text, circulated apparently with White House blessing. It was the calculated incitement of Marc Antony's oration over Caesar. It was to stir the white-collar mob.
So, if you truly want peace you do not hunt the battlefield. You do not invite the program.
It may be hard to stay home, to do nothing more than talk, write letters and vote. But the streets are not for peace. Wisdom is not found in anger. Let the cool, sweet voice of reason be your own.
'Yes, sir, you're my kind of vice-president!'
WHO KNOWS, WE MAY ALL LACK THE GENES AND CHROMOSOMES FOR SURVIVAL? HATE HAS BECOME SAFER THAN LOVE.
Jerry Hoffman
Readers' write
To the editor;
Thank God "Joe College and Betty Cood" live. For many long years the seniors have worked hard to get where they are now, preparing themselves to go out into the world and try to make it a better place to live. So why not take some time off, spend a few dollars, and have some fun, meeting old friends that may not have been seen since freshman days and who might never be seen again.
As to whether or not one looks "like an ass" in his hat and tee shirt, that is a matter of opinion, for there are those who think that the long-haired men of today look like asses, still others who think that those who wear uniforms look like pigs. Who is to say one form of dress is any better than any other? If the seniors are going to wear hats and tee shirts why not have them look alike just for the fun of it. No one condemned the football team for wearing their look-alike helmets and jekseys to the game, why seniors?
Who says that just because a senior wears his "regalia" he does not care about what is going on around him? The mere donning of a hat and tee shirt does not alter one's beliefs or ideals, it does not mean that he will become any less involved in what is going on around him, or cares any less about the world or the University. Sure there was a lot of money spent on the senior "regalia," but much more is just as equally wasted by the studentry (sic) every weekend on booze, cigarettes, drugs, etc. So if the Kansan is so worried about the students wasting their money, why doesn't it start a fund collecting this money for the much-needed improvements in Watkins Hospital, etc.
Wm. Ray Sellers Wheaton, Ill., senior
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GRIFF AND THE UNICORN
by DAVE SOKOLOFF
Griff & the Unicorn, Copyright, 1969.
University Daily Kansan.