Ideals in action
In a crazy, tumbling angry world, the New Jersey project was sweet balm.
Sixteen houses had been refurbished when the five-weekend project was completed April 30. But its value is in more than new paint and restored front porches.
The project, started by the "advocacy planning" class, Architecture 98, and the Ballard Center of Lawrence, united two groups of people, a group of supposedly affluent students with less affluent people of New Jersey Street, united them for a definite goal.
Student idealism, so often attacked on the grounds that it is flowery and unrealistic, was put into action. Students not only talked about helping the poorer people of the world and Lawrence, they actually helped them.
And in a world fraught with idealism that comes across too often in talk instead of work, the painting and repairing of 16 houses was a small milestone.
Hopefully only one milestone in a university whose students must look outside its boundaries to keep the precepts of learning from turning stale.
There are a lot more streets in Lawrence and lots of other problems that could be helped by constructive student attention. And lots more students who could transform their idealism into social response and action. (AMS)
"The child was diseased at birth, stricken with a hereditary ill that only the most vital men are able to shake off. I mean poverty—the most deadly and prevalent of all diseases."
Eugene O'Neill, Fog
Seeing the Grand Old Flag in a new light?
Letters to editor
Compromise needed on Left and Right
To the Editor:
It often seems a curious phenomenon to me, that while members of the New Left are stating demands of the firmly entrenched establishment, no one ever voices demands of the firmly entrenched New Left.
A demand to relinquish credit for ROTC courses is certainly a strong demand to make. It is even strong if offered in the form of a suggestion. Perhaps it is justified. But let's be realistic.
As high as one may hold ideals and principles, one does not get
something for nothing, and in most cases, progress is made most rapidly through understanding and compromise. As correct as one may believe himself to be, a blatantly self-righteous attitude has never accomplished much other than
closing the minds of the opposition to arguments.
'So, by 1970, the Russians might be able to destroy the planet 3.11 times, while we could only destroy it 2.8 times.'
If the members of the New Left really want to make human attempts to understand those with whom they disagree, they must expect to give up something, just as anyone must expect to give a little in any human relationship in order to attain anything meaningful.
suggestion, when need not even be taken seriously. It is only proposed with the hope of initiating some degree of self-introspection in order to reach for understanding.
I generally detest cliches, but I believe that it is in giving that one receives. I would propose a final question to both ROTC and the New Left. How much are you willing to give in order to understand and be understood?
If you are really convinced that what you believe is for a better world, why not try to realistically attain it?
A possible offer which the "radical" members of this campus could propose might be to forfeit the credit now given for New Left courses offered by the university, specifically the series of LAS 48 courses presently being conducted.
I do not propose this as a demand, but more as a
Dan Schleske
Valley Stream, N.Y.
sophomore
Quotes
ITHACA, N.Y. James Perkins, president of Cornell University, where armed students occupied a campus building:
"It is time to stop the taking over of university buildings by force."
BERKELEY, Calif. — Internationally known engineer
T. Y. Lin, urging that an intercontinental bridge be built across the Bering Strait from Alaska to the Soviet Union:
"It has been called a dream, but I think it is not so much a dream as a vision—and also a mission. People will find we can do constructive things as well as ABMs and ICBMs."
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