A Service Rendered
Congratulations should be extended the ASUO and the
campus organizations that helped create and run this
week's symposium.
The idea of a conference such as this week's Symposium
on Social Revolution in the United States was not a new
one. Others have thought about it and wanted to do it
But the symposium happened first at the University and
it's to the credit of those who organized it that it did.
It occurred here because campus organizations with
widely varying views were able to cooperate in an effort
to present people with ideas. Young Democrats, Young Re
publicans. Young Americans for Freedom, Students for
a Democratic Society, and the Black Students Union all
worked together in an effort to bring the people necessary
to insure the success of the conference. Add to that the
overall guidance and resources of the ASUO. particularly
Tony Hazapis and the Speakers and Debates Bureau. These
are the ones who should be praised.
The symposium was truly an exercise in ideas. It not
only exposed the students to ideas but it provided them
with first hand impressions of the people who expound
them. And in turn it exposed the speakers to the students
who had a chance to react through question and answer
sessions.
By holding such a symposium those involved have
served the University in the basic spirit of education —
free expression and free inquiry.
Again we say congratulations to the ASUO and the or
ganizations that aided in the symposium. They did a
good job.
rMI
..Mini..
Emerald Editor:
1
Harsh Fad
Emerald Editor:
lie: James Weber’s letter of
Feb. 22.
“Forty per cent of the people
in the world are now living bet
ter than a king lived before the
turn of tin* century due to the
fallout from research during
the First and Second World
Wars." says Mr. Webber.
If. in the brief intervals of
peace that the world has ex
perienced since the turn of the
century, an amount of develop
mental research equal only to
the “fallout” of wartime re
search had been enacted, per
chance the other sixty pur cent
of the world's people would be
living better than did peasants
seventy years ago.
Is that fuel of life a little
harsh for the not so-timid Mr.
Webber?
Hubert I.. Greene
Junior, 1‘oliticul Science
* * *
We’re Canadian
Kmcrald Editor:
I have a question for some
students:
Are you tired of being a tone
Canadian in the “Great Amcri
Oregon
daily
EMERALD
Opinions expressed on the editorial page are those of the Emerald and
do not necessarily represent the opinions of the A8UO or the University.
However, the Emerald does present on this page columnists and letter
writers whose opinions reflect those of our diverse readership and not
those of the Emerald Itself.
MIKE FANCHER, Editor
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Linda Melerjurgen Ron Saylor
Cliff Sanderlln Jean Snider
John Sasaki Jaql Thompson
WILBUR BISHOP JR.
Business Manager
RICH JERNSTEDT BARBARA STONE
Advertising Manager National Advertising Manager
University of Oregon. Eugene, Friday, February 23, 1868
Ron Eachus
Rick Fitch
Gil Johnson
can Society”? In ca»e you
haven't noticed. Canadians on
campus arc the victims of a
severe identity crisis. The only
time Americans notice we're
different is when we sing “Oh
Canada’' to the Slur Spanned
Banner,”
So what if we say ‘‘about”
like an Englishman that's our
perogativc. We're Canadian! We
call Canuda home and not tie
cause we're dodging the draft
either.
“Time'' said Inst July that
Canadians have lost their "in
feriority psyche" so it is time
for us to prove ihat this great
American) magazine is correct
It is time we Canadians let
our presence he known. There
are 175 of us on campus, includ
ing one Canadian of wtiicti we
are all very proud — Harry
Jerome. Now is the time for us
to assert our individuality. Ca
nadian Chili Whiskey forever!
Eskimos, we love you!
Americans are a great people
hut there are a lot of Hungs
they do not know about Canada.
We may lie the only Canadians
our fellow students know, au it
is our job and privilege to tell
them about our country. The
International Festival is sched
uled for April 11-14. Canada
should lie represented.
Carol Steininger
Sophomore, Journalism
In Democratic Institutions Center Seminar
Activists at Odds on ‘Student Power’
Editor's Note: The following is a
release by the Center for the Study
of Democratic Institutions concern
ing a recent three-day seminar held
at the Center. The Center is in Santa
Barbara. Calif.
SANTA BARBARA. Calif. — Student
activists are in sharp disagreement with
themselves and Fellows of the Center
for -the Study of Democratic Institutions
about the nature and tactics of “student
power.”
But in a recent Center seminar here,
the student activists agreed their aim
should be to turn both the American
university and society away from what
they see as hypocrisy, economic ex
ploitation and imperialism and towards
meaningful citizen-participation in po
litical and social life.
Views of the students and Center Fel
lows. frequently at odds, are contained
in a 64-page Occasional Paper. “Students
and Society.” published by the Center
and edited by W. H. Ferry, a Center
Vice-President.
The three-day seminar was organized
by four university students who had
spent three months at the Center as
Junior Fellows: Jeffrey Elman of Har
vard. Frederick Richman of New York
University, Stephen Saltonstall of Yale
University, and Daniel Sisson of Clare
mont Colleges.
The conference was held because Cen
ter Fellows wanted to hear first-hand the
views of student activists, one of whose
strongest complaints is that the older
generation is not listening to them.
The Center is a private, non-profit
educational institution, located here, de
voted to clarification through dialogue
of basic issues confronting a democratic
society. Its corporate entity is the Fund
for the Republic, Inc. Its President is
Roberi M. Hutchins, former President
of the University of Chicago.
Center Occasional Papers comprise a
new series of Center publications, issued
at least five times a year, for members
of the Center. They appear on alternate
months to the new' “Center Magazine,”
also a membership publication.
CHANGE SOCIETY?
Michael Lerner of the University of
California at Berkeley echoed the views
of many of the students whetrbe ques
tioned the possibility of changing the
university without also, and possibly
first, changing society.
There is a “plausibility,” said Lerner
in “talking about the university as a
means for changing the society. But
precisely because it’s a crucial institu
tion they will not let you change it.
“We start enunciating our ideals about
the ‘life of the mind’ and ‘critical intel
ligence’ and ‘democratic control of the
university’ and getting the kinds of edu
cational experiences that are relevant
to our interpretation of life, and deal
ing with the major problems, and relat
ing to one’s fellow' man,” said Lerner.
“But these are exactly the problems
the university will not allow you to deal
with.” he added.
Frank Bardacke, a graduate student
at the University of California, said that
“the issue is what happens to the life
of the mind" in the American university.
INHOSPITABLE PLACE
That life can be destroyed, he said,
by removing students from men with
ideas, making the university “a place
which is inhospitable to a learned man.
a man who has some kind of vision of
unified knowledge and is trying to make
knowledge relevant to his life.”
"It is impossible," said Bardacke, "for
(the learned man) to be in the univer
sity because he isn’t a good enough
specialist. So, university students come
into contact instead with technicians,
with intellectual technicians who are
uninspiring and dull — no student can
have any respect for them . . . Most of
us go through college never meeting a
man we would want to spend more than
one year with.”
Bruce Levine of Valley Stream High
School, New York, said that the value
of student activism is not that one can
hope to change either the university or
society, but that "by participating in
movements (the student) can radicalize
experience and may change his outlook
on society as a whole.”
John Blood, student body president at
Indiana University, said the real job is
‘‘to make the middle-class students po
litical . . . We have to show them all
the inconsistencies and contradictions
and hypocrisies in our society . . . We’d
better face the fact that we have a gen
eration of students who are not so
politically active as economically mo
tivated.
"Berkeley is a hotbed of revolt and
Harvard may be. But how about Slippery
-Rock State College, how about Valley
State College, how about Bethel College?
This is where the majority of students
are.”
INSTRUMENTS
Saltonstall, however, questioned
whether the aim of student activists
should be to convert all students to
radical activism.
‘‘Radical reform has never been ac
complished by changing everyone’s mind.
Only one-third of Americans started the
Revolution. We don’t have to bother with
the folks in the suburbs who want three
cars . . . What we should do is be the
instruments of change. I think we have
enough people now. It is worthless to
try to radicalize every student. It will
never happen.”
Devereaux Kennedy, student body
president at Washington University, St.
Louis, said the student power movement
should line itself up with the Third
World forces and the Negro rebellion
rather than with ‘‘the American ruling
class.”
“I’m going to say loudly and explicitly
what I mean by revolution,” Kennedy
said. "What I mean by revolution is over
throwing the American government and
American imperialism and installing
some sort of decentralized power in this
country."
If this meant university whites sup
plying guns and money to rebellious
Negroes, said Devereaux, he would be
in favor of that.
Meanwhile, student activists “can give
people a vision of something other than
what they have now. They can give them
a vision of people living as whole men,
not as engineers for Monsanto or Mc
Donnell Aircraft.”
But Mary Quinn of Mount Mercy Col
lege, Pittsburgh, objected.
"W'e talk about the mind,” she said,
"but this is where it’s all gotten us. We
can't talk any more; we have to go
around and take on guns. This is really
the saddest thing in this society, that
we can't really be like men ... 1 can't
talk you into it and so I’m going to
stick a gun in your ribs and you’re go
ing to have to comply. Where has the
mind gone?”
BLOODY ACTIVITY
Stanley Wise, executive secretary of
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee, Atlanta, said “revolutions
are bloody, they’re destructive, they
seek to destroy. There are very few
people here who would ever be in
volved in (that kind of) revolutionary
activity.”
Wise distinguished between three
types of revolutionary action: “rampant
guerrilla'' action, “highly controlled and
sophisticated sabotage” and “non-vio
lent positive action.”
"I think,” he said, “we fall into the
last class . . . The role of the intellectual
is to build something concrete.”
In a final session of the meeting, Center
Fellows who had remained silent during
the student discussions commented criti
cally.
Center President Hutchins said: “As
I listened to your conversation ... it
seemed a good deal like Tammany Hall,
and I couldn’t see that a young Tam
many Hall was going to be any better
than the old Tammany Hall, with its
aim of let’s get power, let’s manipulate
the people.
“In this case, it’s your contemporaries
that you intend to manipulate as soon
as you get political power, and you begin
manipulating in order to get it. So my
first question is about your moral
stance.”
EXPLANATION NEEDED
Hutchins also said: “Your constant in
sistence that it is impossible to have a
good university in a bad society leads
to the conclusion that a Center for the
Study of Democratic Institutions in a
society like this is impossible because
the sole purpose of the Center is to
criticize society . . .
“Until the effort is made to explain
what education is, it is perhaps a little
premature to say that it is impossible
to have a Hood university. 1 didn't hear
anyone give an intelligible idea of what
he thought the university ought to be,
or what he thought education was."
Stringfellow Karr asked: “What do you
want to run the university for — to
do what? To answer your needs? Then
I want to hear about the needs. I am
particularly concerned as to whether
these needs are idiosyncratic or whether
they are something you share with all
human beings."
One Center Fellow. Scott Buchanan,
said he felt a “certain kind of anger at
your playing house with the idea of
power ... I don't want to call you chil
dren, but you act like children . . . You
are talking about power in ways that
make me want to spank you . . .
"The thing that makes me weep, al
most literally, is the impression I get
that you, as a generation, have never
had any good teaching. You don't know
what a teacher is . . .”
However, another Center Fellow, Har
vey Wheeler, said: "1 think it is in
excusable for us to berate these students
in this way. W'e have . . . expected them
somehow to produce some kind of ideu
of a university and to put it into prac
tice.”
The students, in turn, rebuked the
Center Fellows. Levine described Hutch
ins’ comments "naive" and Kennedy said
the Center Fellows "don’t know what’s
going on in the world."
“I don’t think you’ll ever understand,”
said Kennedy. "I didn't come here to
talk to you, though I’m willing to put
up with this session."
Bardacke said, "I really don’t know
what to make of this escalation of rude
ness — I don’t know what it is about
people of widely different ages sitting
together in a room that brings it out."
SIGNALS
In his foreword to the report Ferry
said that "the proceedings of the con
ference on Students and Society should
be viewed as signals from (an) early
warning system.”
Their discussion, he said, "might have
been called The Worried Citizens’ Guide
to Tumult on the Campus. It is easy to /
disagree with these young people, but
they should not be ignored. They are
profoundly concerned with what is hap
pening in their country and the world.
“They cannot be said to be average
young people. They are unusually bright,
vocal, and determined. They are leaders
in their communities: presidents of stu
dent bodies, editors of papers, execu
tives of youth organizations.
"They represent the leading edge of
opinion among youth today in the way
that the young black leaders of the
past ten years represented the blacks’
determination to achieve an equal share
in the political, economic and social life
of their country. The parallel between
don’t trust Whitey’ and ‘don't trust any
one over 30’ is significant.”