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Tuesday, December 5. 1972
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN
The Westwood Issue
Jean Westwood, the controversial chairman of the Democratic National Party, went to St. Louis last weekend to argue her case before the Democratic Governors' Conference. She has indicated that she will fight to retain her job, or see that it is given to someone who will continue to be the advocate of party reforms. With all due respect to both Westwood and her supporters, it can be argued with good liberal conventions that not only should she hold a position, she should also encourage her supporters to less vociferous in their demands for continued party reforms. In the interests of the two-party system, there are many who would rather see a switch at a fight this time around.
The party's reforms, coming as they did in the aftermath of the 1968 Chicago convention debacle, deserve recognition for opening up the 1972 convention's delegate selection process. But it should also be recognized that the chief function of political parties is to win elections—not against themselves, but against the other party. The Democratic Party sacrificed the election this year in favor of the nomination. It was a comic replay of the 1964 Republican convention in San Francisco which nominated Barry Goldwater, then watched as he led the party to a humiliating defeat.
successfully created, let no man tear asunder might well be the cry of a new coalition of Democratic reform groups and old style party regulars.
As unpalatable as it may be to the reformists, the strength of the Democratic Party has, and probably still does, rest with the labor unions, the average working man and the Daley-Docking forces. It is the regulators that contribute their time and money on a year in and year out basis. It should logically remain the prerogative of this group to take an interest in the party's work for the party's highest office, the Presidency of the United States. The regulars were denied that role this year, and the last laugh is to be theirs at the expense of both Westwood and, perhaps, the entire progressive faction in the Democratic Party.
Following the lessons of the Republicans in '64, the Democrats would do well to kindly replace Ms. Smith with someone who can once again lead the party as support of the entire party membership. What Frank Roosevelt sovelt
A prominent Republican Senator once said of Wendell Wilkie's dark horse bid for the presidential nomination, "Back in Indiana it's all right if the town drunks join the church, but we don't let them lead the choir on the first night." In a sense if the reformists can be said to have led the choir in 1972, then it is now their task to accept the consequences of a tune that offended the elders' ears. If I may be allowed to strain my metaphor a bit, I would like to suggest that if these same reformists are truly interested in remaining with the congregation, and giving up the life of the streets, they will, in the future at least, listen to the voice of experience. The religion of pary politics cannot afford another election year like the past one.
Radio Plagued by Payola
Jack Anderson
Mark Bedner
WASHINGTON-In a prominent Southern city, the black, midnight-to-dawn disc jockey earned a paltry $500 a month from the radio station's penurious white owner.
Yet the "desijay" drove an extravagant car that put the white owner's auto to shame and killed a businessman. And the city's most luxurious hotel.
glamor of the job, but his wife was sick. The bills started piling up.
In a smaller city, a young,
black disc jockey getting his start
made $85 a week. He loved the
The station owner, worried about illegal payola, asked the "dee Jay" about the source of his affluence but couldn't get a straight answer. The owner monitored the program but could not understand the evidence of payola. Nevertheless, the disc jockey on suspicion.
a white promotion man from a black-owned record company dropped by to push his rhythm and hit the numbers by to us by one of America's top black "dee jays," the promotion man "loaned" the disc jockey $200 to pay the bills. In graduate, he became a new friend. He played his new friend's records.
Our interviews with black disc jockeys, white owners, promotion men, record critics, FCC officials and many others confirm that payola is all too common among both whites and blacks.
of the big city radio station chains was Starr Broadcasting Group, inc.
But among the blacks, who are generally far less well paid than the white "deejays," payola comes from the wealthy. Recently, one of the worst-paying
At one of the three black-
format stations in Memphis,
WLOK, the going salary for a disc
jockey three years ago was as
low as $10. Now the low is closer
to $150, the high $200.
The disc jockeys, meanwhile,
are aware that at $17 a minute for
national commercials and $ to $6
for grossing thousands every month.
Peter Starr, president of the chain, explained that he can't offer her salaries. A check with Starr is sent to him and shows that four days before he pleaded poorn mouth with us, his company had announced a 400 million bonus.
grosses only $40,000 a month and that each station should make its own way.
Asked whether low salaries might drive jockeys to payola, Starr said he is haunted by the fear that he can be on the take, but he has never obtained any proof of it. He says he regulates what records are to be played to prevent a "deejay" slipping in a "turkey" for pay.
The big record companies, meanwhile, are covering up past patents found a record executive who fired a promotion man for allegedly giving "deejays" for playing the firm's records.
In another, a reliable witness overheard a promotion person talking about providing $20 bags
of marjanaas as payola. Her company, while denying knowledge of the dope, warned promotion men or against her payola. "If we find that an employee of this company is guilty of this or any other infraction, be advised that that will be immediately dismissed" warned the firm in a memo.
Footnote: The Federal Communications Commission, meanwhile, is investigating our efforts to increase FCC and FCC compliance chief Bill Ray will consider granting witnesses immunity if they will be tried. But, says Ray, they're afraid of blacklisting if they speak up."
Copyright, 1972 by United Feature Syndicate. Inc
"NOW MORE THAN EVER"
Readers Respond
Housewife's Role Argued
Hunt Up
To the Editor:
To Robert Ward concerning his editorial of November 30 ("Degrading Freedom");
—December issue of MS magazine
"Housework, children, and all the aspects of homemaking are an important tasks as all human and should be. Homemaking is a career for the liberated woman—but no more so than for the working person."
Find me a feminist who "shames and degrades" the woman who enjoys being a housewife
Colette Kocour Kenilworth, Ill., Senior
As a nation, we are indebted to the black power movement for
Even Up
To the Editor:
forcing a new and needed equality in employment, education and interpersonal relations. For that we thank them, but we also we owe a few bitter words for the effect we can treat their fanatic preaching to us the next decade's college blacks.
Overall, blacks as a race are no more talented than whites. Certainly there are some blacks who have exceptional intellects and exceptional motivation, and who should be allowed to claim eminence as a result of eminence as leaders of state, as professionals and as artists.
What some militants seem to overlook is that the great mass of people, both black and white, are—and by definition will be—armed. These people, for the most part, will not be admitted to the elite ranks of the politicians, the professionals, or the artists, nor should they be. These are people who are not capable of leading, or conversing with, the exceptional minds of this or any other decade.
Garry Wills
I think more troubles arise, for us, from the fact that the religion of America is America. We are constantly being asked to believe in America, and critics of any American action are felt to be beyond obligation must be total and unquestioning. Love it or leave it.
The fatuous Dr. Peale was just staining hard political fact when he described the country that carried me as a child." "Even before the future of the United States, We were the greatest people under God's sun." This being so, God would not give his special people just any old ruler. Therefore, he could make our own sort, Peale can thank God! President Nixon to be our providential leader. And, once
America, the Chosen
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, preaching last week to President Nixon, thanked God that "I was an enthusiastic country." He believed "packed full of God." And if only a whole country is "packed full of God," it cannot commit war crimes. Thus, while he is still bombing schedule, Dr. Peale could praise the President as
Calvin Coolidge said that the business of America is business—and some people trace all our faults to this formula.
Now it certainly is pleasant to be God's chosen people. But it also has it its disadvantages—recalling the story of a wry old Jew who, looking at his chosen people's history of sufferings, asked God please to "choose" somebody else for a change.
"one of the great peacemakers of history."
Conversely, if anyone does consider America's action criminal, he is implicitly saying that the country is not packed full of God—only this can explain the political resentment voters felt for mild (but heretical) preacher, George McGovern.
The trouble with having a country and a religion all in one package is that we cannot accept any criticism of the package. And when we cannot be criticized, we cannot learn. That is why, in Asia we have repeated the same mistakes in China, in Korea, in Vietnam. We have to repeat the mistakes because we cannot admit they were mistakes. God doesn't make mistakes, and America is just his
again, how is one to criticize the President without, indirectly, criticizing the God who called him?
The more criminal our acts look, the more divine mystery there must be in our actions. So the President can call Vietnam our finest hour—as medieval theologians tortuously found in the existence of evil the greatest proof of the Creator's goodness. To get the better we must be. The Lord Nixon and Naxon, in these dark days, ever more desperately celebrate our virtues.
It is an awful spectacle, and those who really love our country should try to free us of such a trap of being a political choice people. Couldn't God choose some of the change for a new
instrument. We have to repeat the mistakes because we have to keep justifying—justifying the ways of America to man.
blacks will add to the already distinctive achievements of the nation by contributing their share in the national drug and alcohol problem, the mental illness rate and the national disease and chronic disorders.
(C) Universal Press Syndicate, 1972
To these people, the militants,
by thoroughly and quite unjustify
dishonoring janitorial-maid
services, have rendered a great
reputation to the blacks who might have once found challenge, fulfillment and happiness in being a janitor will now instead grow up knowing
that it is not enough for merejanitor ... thanks to the polemic of the black militants.
No longer protected by the condescending socialization rules, young boys and girls will suffer the same socialization that young whites have since time been introduced to. Counterparts the black boys and girls will now be taught to strive only for the highest goals, which are not competent to the struggle. They will be drilled again and again in the necessity of being number one and in the unacceptability of playing.
Without a doubt, blacks have a right to strive for their personal fulfillment. But that right hardly applies to them, the same crippling, frustrating socialization process now faced by all whites. Not just blacks, but all Americans need more opportunities in a social structure which deprives the mediocre of their sense of human dignity. Shaming and degrading the black who enjoys an ordeal or jail is not the answer.
Ann G. Francke Prairie Village, Sophomore
And in the end, the mediocre of
the whites in the frustrating
realization of their medicinity
and their insignificance. In their
medicine, we know not to be
Sums Up
To the Editor:
In the editorial "Degrading Freedom" (Nov. 30) Robert Ward has taken it upon himself to summarize the effects of the women's liberation movement. The irony of it is that in his writings he encapsulates the women's liberation philosophy, "As a nation, we are indebted to the women's liberationists for forcing a new and needed equality in women and interpersonal interaction and interpersonal relations."
He then proceeds to express some very naive and indiscriminate opinions about the future, for example, that will have on future generations.
Admittedly, there does exist a very vocal and radical minority of women who complete reversal of male-female roles. However, it is not to these women that we should give attention, but to those who women's liberation, which is personal freedom. This personal freedom means that any woman should be able to choose her own choices—if she so desires. Before the movement, the housewife who was unhappy felt defeated by the movement. The movement has not only alleviated these guilt feelings,
but has shown that the housewife's role is varied and complex—certainly not degrading as M. Ward, suggests.
Conservative, reasonable women's liberationists far outnumber the radicals. We, along with the majority of American women, have seen two major problems that underline the personal value of women's liberation. Ward's evaluation of the American woman's ability to synthesize and analyze the issues is itself degrading. Women's liberationists disgust and impatience with opinions such as his.
What Ward does not recognize that through the women's life they have been given the recognition and support they have deserved because of this recognition and support those women who once felt unfulfilled as housewives now have been alone. and never were alone.
statements he pares down the self-concept and intellectual functioning of Americans to be able to interactively concentrate on women.
Our argument is that Ward patronizes women by asserting that they will blindly believe the truth, but not that they say that those women who will have careers as housewives will "now instead grow up knowing more about their situation than a mere housewife with this" of the feminists. This is ridiculous and a gross underestimation of woman's ability to work in a team of thousands of women who have found, and will find, challenge, fulfillment, and happiness in her work. They will always find this contentment.
The feminists have probably had an adverse effect on some women, but certainly not the number that Ward impels.
Ward has practically condemned the people of this society as groveling, frustrated individuals, "And in the end, the mediocre of these women will become the frustrating realization of their misinfeasance." With his sweeping
Liz Lochridge
Weston, Connecticut, Junior
Rosie Boose
Wichita, Ohio
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