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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 1966)
Robert Straub Should Be Governor Our next governor will work to make Oregon the “best place in the world to live.” He will fight water pollution and will work to give tax relief to Oregon property owners. He is opposed to a sales tax. He will fight crime and discrimination against minority groups in education and job appren ticeship. He will work to develop Oregon’s great outdoors. The man who will be doing all these things will be Democrat Robert Straub. Or he may be Republican Tom McCall. Both agree these are the things the governor should stand for and should do when he wins his post. About the only issues on which the candi dates seem to disagree are the proposed water diversion plan and the methods which should be used to give tax relief to property owners. McCall said at the recent debate he and Straub had on campus that he would be in favor of the latest plan for sending water from Oregon and Washington to the arid Southwest. (Replacing it with water from a storage basin in Canada.) Straub says there should be “absolutely no com promise” and that Oregon actually has no sur plus water, not if it is used to irrigate Eastern Oregon. On this point we commend Mr. Straub. We feel he has the more realistic outlook on the diversion plan. Straub says we need not kid ourselves . . . “Anyone who believes Canada would continue to ship water to us across the border in times of shortage is just plain naive.” British Columbians have not been too happy with the deal they’ve gotten on sharing the Columbia River water as it is. On this issue and on the tax situation Straub seems to have it over his Republican opponent as far as having a clear-cut stand and a workable proposal. McCall seems to want to play the tax problem by ear, and would favor a sales tax as a last resort to save education. We appreciate McCall’s interest in protecting our schools, but we would rather go along with a man who has told us exactly what he has in mind for relieving the tax burden on the property owners. We have no reason to doubt we might end up with both high property taxes and a sales tax should McCall take office. Straub’s plan for lowering taxes has been written out in some detail, and would reduce home taxes by $25 million a year. This amount of reduced taxes, according to Straub, would be recovered by amending the Property Relief Act of 1965 so that surpluses from the General Fund would apply as tax relief only for owner-occu pied homes and farm homesteads, which at pres ent receive only one-third of the surpluses. He also plans to recommend that cigarette tax revenues go directly to home and farm property tax relief. Except for these two issues the two men seem to agree on the ends. It is on how to accomplish those ends that we detect a difference. When one compares Robert Straub’s stands and proposals against Tom McCall’s glowing generalities and promises that he will “look into these issues” it is a fairly easy choice. True, Straub may lack the contacts that his eloquent apponent has. But any shortage of contact with influential people is counter-balanced by a real istic view of what the issues are and what the consequences of his actions will be on them. And it may be that getting the other party into office will put some new vigor into the gov ernorship. We think Governor Hatfield has done a less than adequate job of preparing Oregon for its future growth because he lacks a specific program and the will to carry it through. We detect that same lack of purpose in the glittering generalities Mr. McCall has been offering. Mr. Straub, on the other hand, seems to have concrete proposals on how to solve the problems Oregon faces—pollution, property tax reforms, etc. And he strikes us as the type of man who will fight for those programs. We think either man will make a good gover nor. The state will not suffer irreparable damage with Tom McCall in the governor's chair. But we think Straub’s plans offer great promise for Oregon. For these reasons, we urge his election. Students Must Try to Transcend Embryonic Nudity of the Present ' Editor’s Note: Roberta Nudo is a junior in social science and a member of the staff of Next, the University’s student liter ary magazine. By ROBERTA NUDO Apathy seems to be one of the bywords of our generation. Student apathy, to particularize the feeling, often serves as a community stimulus, a rational ization, and at times a group thought-center. The word apathy implies a state devoid of emo tion yet is seldom used with this meaning in mind. One student seeks out others who share a majority of his or her societal opinions. (Long hair is great, especially when it hides your roving eyes during an exam: therefore I’ll find a short cropped neighbor who looks like he or she has sufficient knowl edge to pass both our exams; but I’d rather associate with other haired creatures who won’t always be critical of my obnoxi ous conformity.) Docs this student understand what education is supposed to mean? Can he understand what educatio 1 means while grinding out about four years of lecture room sedation? Must he be dis pleased with the direction of his capacities because of his re sponsibilities? (I’ll lose Daddy’s car if I don’t get good grades; why da profs expects so much of me?) ms * ault? Another excuses his dilemma by appealing to the shell-struc tures of “institutionalized learn ing.” Should he allow himself, or passively be allowed, this ex cuse? Is it his fault a state school is less expensive than the one he preferred and wasn’t able to attend? Should he be blamed because he registered for a class taught by a poor prof, as evidenced by his own grades? My last archetypal budding scholar mingles with a crowd which shows some concern for, and discusses, the problems . everyone faces “in school.” But should be or she, as a member of that crowd, recognize a re sponsibility to initiate reform? (It’s the faculty’s mess, let them clean it up; after all, I’ve paid my fees; their salaries’ll be faithfully doled out.) J , . Tfose, tfirse, “types” fife, just, that—caricatures. I see some of each in myself whenever I walk through the fish bowl, go to a play, listen to a concert, do my homework (however begrudg ingly), or scribble my wrath for other unsuspecting eyes to peruse. Should Sit By Pond Lucien Marquis made this comment a few years ago: “At this point in his educa tional career, a student should be sitting beside a pond some where, intently enjoying a book which arouses his curiosity.” Whether he meant Lolita or the Decline and Fall of Some Em pire or Other, I’m not sure. I think he meant both, and others. One distinction does cling in the moldering crevices of my skull: he said “educational ca reer,” not educational develop ment. When education becomes a career or pro tempore pro fession, I doubt the worth I gain from it. This is the time for me to stop and sit on my imaginary hypotenuse long enough to figure out why only the shells of an education are getting through to me. Also the time to ask others about what’s “bugging” them and why. But above all, it’s time to de cide what should be done, both as a pip-squeaky, prophetic slob on my own and what I can do to help subordinately in some kind of group action. If I wish to protest, 1 should do it con structively (not just knock over my very own pile of alphabet blocks and then momentarily find euphoria). Beginning to Try Apathy is a dangerous mood, often maldirected and miscom municated to others. If we feel a change for the better is in order for our education, since we’re student-body numbered and classified in more than per mutable ways, why not accom plish or at least initiate the change ourselves, however mut ant it may seem in its embryonic nudity? So what am I doing? I’m not sure, but at least I’m beginning to try. To try to do, as well as to begin. Others have been and are, too. Yet all it needed, in my opinion, was the saying . . . BLANKET TOSS ^ A/NAopfcyKa Oregon Daily Emerald Opinions expressed on the editorial page are those of the Emerald and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the ASUO or the University. Opinions expressed in signed columns are those of the writer. PHIL SEMAS. Editor ANNETTE BUCHANAN Managing Editor LARRY LANGE News Editor WILBUR BISHOP JR. Business Manager CLIFF SANDERLIN Editorial Page Editor University of Oregon, Eugene, Friday, October 21, 19C6 Emerald Editor,r 1 I All letters to the editor must be typewritten and double spaced. Letters must not ex ceed 300 words and must be signed in ink, giving the class and major of the writer. Those dealing with one subject and pertaining to the University or Eugene community will be giv en preference. The Emerald re serves the right to edit letters for style, grammar, punctuation, and potentially libelous content. Letters not meeting these cri teria and those which are mim eograph^ or otherwise obvious duplicates will be returned. Fears Unwarranted Emerald Editor: The Selective Service admin istration is making a “mockery” of the idea of academic freedom, writes Mr. William Meyer in his letter of October 17. It “perverts the entire con cept of intellectual inquiry” and, even worse, it “is setting the cri teria for continuing higher edu cation.” Serious charges, these. Yet does Mr. Meyer submit any evi dence for his judgment? First, he writes, the Selective Service administration requires a stu dent to take 15 hours of credit. So what? If he doesn’t, he won’t graduate on time. Should he be given a student deferment for merely taking 3 hours? Next, according to Mr. Meyer, it requires a student to main Oregon Daily Emerald Noml Borensteln, Associate Editor Dave. Barontl, Sports Editor Maxine Elliott, Feature Editor Mike Fancher, Assistant News Editor Tom Thompson, Photo Editor Jay Tillapaugh and Steve Dimeo, Entertainment Editors Editorial Board: Phil Sernas, Cliff San derlln, Annette Buchanan, Larry Lange, Noml Borensteln, Maxine Elliott, Dave Barontl, Bob Holmes .. .Rpbiri Tuttle, Gary Barnes, Chuck Pruitt, Tom Nash, Dave McCloskey, Roger Leo, Spencer Block, Jean Snider, Mike Fancher. tain a level of quality of perfor mance. Well, so now we are to throw out all standards? So that varsity players arc not to be bothered with grades? So “pseudo - intellectuals” can es cape all contact with reality on their “trips”? So activity-mind ed students can be given free rein to ‘‘lead”? (In 1959-fiO our student body president failed to maintain a 2.0 and lost his of fice; if recent proposals are en acted, future student “leaders” need never tear such disgrace.) Last. Mr Meyer writes that the Selective Service adminis tration defines “which course of study may be pursued and which are not considered neces sary to the national interest.” Poppycock, Mr. Meyer, this simply is not true. Art majors are as deferrable as engineering students or even “poly sci” ma majors. One can only conclude that Mr. Meyer docs not know what he is talking about. His fears are unwarranted; the best proof being that he himself is a sen ior at this University and not in Viet Nam. Tom Easton (Graduate, History * * * Beware Chain Letters Emerald Editor; The annual sport of selling chain letters is upon us already. Many people seem to think that it is all right to sell them and that they will make some easy money. But it is not all that simple. The idea of a chain letter is simple, but just exactly what happens is not. Someone starts the letter going with a $5 check attached (current rate) and sells the letter for $10 with the fol lowing instructions: (1) make up two more of these letters with blank $5 checks and sell these for $10 each, (2) before selling the letters, add your (Continued un t’uijc 11)
