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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday. November 6, 1968
Why the relique?
Technology, modern public relations and quick and efficient voting methods made it possible for the American citizens to wake up this morning, read their early papers and know who the next President of the United States is by popular vote.
Yet according to a creaking outdated system of election, the next president really hasn't been decided upon. The final decision will not be made until the Electoral College votes are officially tabulated Jan. 6, 1969.
Of course, the electoral college voters actually have already made known their decision. But theoretically they are not held by that popular vote.
when the aristocratic founders of our country didn't trust the common man to make competent choices all by himself. That era is now surely over.
The Electoral College was established in an era
Yet no one ever gets around to abolishing it.
The Electoral College is condemned each election year as being ineffectual, inefficient and, especially this year with the candidacy of George Wallace, potentially dangerous if the electoral votes had been deadlocked.
In 1972, when the elections become even more sophisticated; even more efficient, will the United States still have to contend with this dilapidated relique of the past?
Alison Steimel Editorial Editor
Campaign surprises
Observations:1968
CBS news commentator Walter Cronkite appeared on the home television screen at 6 p.m. Tuesday evening and briskly began Election Night 1968.
What a few weeks ago was supposed to be a fairly easy and early victory for Republican Richard Nixon instead became a long night's vigil of juggling figures.
And at 7:30 a.m. this morning, the news commentators were still there, still marking the votes, commenting on history and, in general, waiting.
The 1968 election is the closest election since 1912, the commentators remarked.
But Richard Nixon, reputed to be a loser, won this year.
But as far as the rest of the campaign, the surprisingly close race fits in with the pattern of the events since last spring.
Richard Nixon's announcement of his candidacy shocked no one but the upsurge of a political darkhorse, Senator Eugene McCarthy, in a New Hampshire primary amazed the nation.
Then after dissension in his own party became an uproar, President Lyndon Johnson, who was expected to be the Democratic candidate for 1968, dropped out of the race altogether.
Since then, nothing has been predictable.
Senator RobertKennedy was assassinated in June.
George Wallace's third party became a reality instead of only a veiled threat.
The summer polls showed strong support for both Eugene McCarthy and Governor Nelson Rockefeller.
Although both conventions chose the expected party candidates, dissent with the choice rang loud and clear.
Law and order became the prime campaign issue almost overshadowing the Vietnam war which first started the dissension in the nation over the Johnson administration.
And the cry of "law and order" and "save our property" came after a relatively peaceful summer, a summer devoid of the serious urban riots predicted all last winter.
And last night, Hubert Humphrey, who was thought to be politically dead scarcely more than a week ago, almost pulled off the Harry Truman turnabout of the 1948 election.
Almost, but not quite.
The 1968 campaign had a bonus surprise: Edmund Muskie, Democratic vice presidential candidate.
In the last month, Muskie had the highest rate of increase in popularity of all the candidates. Many wistfully contemplated Muskie as the most appealing choice not for vice president but for president.
The 1968 campaign surprises are over. But Maine's Senator Edmund Muskie is likely to remain a bright star on the Deomcratic political horizon for years to come.
Alison Steimel
Editorial Editor
'Well, here we go again'
Kansan book review
LSD explored
By Scott Nunley
"Then on the 'inside' I was enveloped in light, in pure light. It was luminous and milky white. I was completely lost and dissolved in it. It's not that I could say that I was in the light, but the light was there and I was not quite there in it. I just wasn't."
Obviously, as Rabbi Schachter's attempt demonstrates, language is inadequate in describing any ecstatic experience. Words and metaphors ultimately have always failed the priest and mystic.
But this rabbi's "ascent of the soul" (Aliyath Han'shamah) could be vulgarly (and accurately) termed "tripping out"—the rabbi had just taken LSD-25.
Dr. Ralph Metzner's volume "The Ecstatic Adventure" is an attempt to collect 38 different accounts of such psychedelic voyages. Priests, psychotherapists, artists, laymen, and even two children face the same barriers of language that halted Rabbi Schachter—each detailing the raptures or terrors of his chemical "trip."
Metzner, of course, is well rooted in such psychedelic data-gathering, from his Harvard days with Dr. Timothy Leary.
Together with Dr. Richard Alpert, these men have established vehicles of investigation such as the periodical "Psychedelic Review" (many of whose essays are now collected in hardback) and the practical manual "Psychedelic Experience" (based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead). In addition to papers and interviews by the trio, Leary currently has published an autobiography "High Priest" and a collection of poetry, translations applicable to an "estatic adventure."
In the current anti-intellectual atmosphere, where LSD is either being sermonized as hellish or peddled as kicks, it is refreshing to discover any intelligent men willing to discuss the most powerful phenomenon of our time without hysteria.
That is not to say that Leary, Metzner, and Alpert are completely detached and scientific. They have been themselves, frequently, voyagers into the expanded consciousness. Nor are they completely unprejudiced, since they begin with the great assumption that the psychelic experience is at heart a valuable one.
But such a work as "The Ecstatic Adventure" vindicates their honest concern for the question. Among the 38 "trips" described, not all are idylis of heavenly bliss. Perhaps all are voyages of discovery, but frequently the land unveiled is a nightmarish realm of paranoia and terror.
And even after a positive experience, Rabbi Schachter can still fall back from his original enthusiasm into important doubts:
"It has certainly had a profound effect on me and in many ways has restructured my life. For the better? Who can say? There are times when I am not so sure. . . . Emotionally and spiritually I still have problems; they did not vanish. . . . I am no longer sure that soft or hard psychedelics are a panacea."
Since the lid on research in 1963, psychedelia has become a commercial "literary" marketplace. Many cheap ladies' magazine-type articles have been ground out, many editions of paperback fiction produced (sometimes masquerading as "fact").
The most fascinating recent appearance is "Day of St. Anthony's Fire" by journalist John G. Fuller describing the havoc with which an unprepared French village was "turned on" in 1951 by Ergot poisoning.
But to date the experiences and theories of Timothy Leary's circle seem the most nearly profound.
In their eyes, the ecstatic adventure is not a "mere chemical illusion." Rather, LSD frees man to share an almost divine experience of ineffable power, one that cults and priests have traditionally reserved as a climax to their arduous years of devotion and preparation.
Like the Tibetan lama who guides his healthy pupil through a symbolic "death" and healing rebirth, Leary aims beyond instant thrills to meaningful personal change. Dropping out is not a mandate to drift, but a command to abandon diseased mis-perceptions. "LSD is a tool, not a method."
Certainly if their estimate is correct that 20 per cent of America's college youth have used acid, despite this Second Prohibition, then carefully considered books like "The Ecstatic Adventure" should be added to the library of every educator and student.
Letter to the editor
Cites Kansan error
To the Editor:
The Friday Kansan covered the speech by Socialist Workers Party Representative, Seth Wigderson. Part of the news story read: "Speaking against the war in Vietnam, Wigderson urged socialist followers to subvert American soldiers, thereby weakening the war effort. 'Our goal is to get every single GI out of Vietnam and bring them home.'"
Mr. Wigderson did not call upon people to "subvert-American soldiers," but to support them by demanding their immediate withdrawal from Vietnam. He said that most GIs do not support the war and that radicals should help them unite against the war.
In fact, Wigderson believes that this is one of the most important things radicals can do to end the war. He said that the GIs are not fighting for their
country, nor do many GIs feel they are, but are fighting for an elite group of big business profiteers who are protecting investments in Southeast Asia and in other parts of the Third World.
For more information about the Socialist Workers Party write SWP, 873 Broadway. N.Y., N.Y. Kenneth Clark
Kenneth Clark
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