Oregon daily emerald., April 28, 1972, Page 14, Image 13

f Editorials
The editor says goodbye
We’ve come full circle in the last year.
When I began my term as editor, one of
the first week’s issues was a special “No
Business as Usual” day in which we
editorially urged people to get involved in
bringing an end to the war in Indochina. One
year ago this week we were urging members
of the campus community to participate in a
May Day Moratorium and take time out from
their daily routine to act against the war.
Since that time, of course, the war has
ended.
At least it’s ended in the mind of
President Nixon.
But it’s still very real to the Indochinese.
U S. troops might not be in evidence, but
we’ve made up for that with increased
bombing missions. To the people on the
receiving end of those bombing missions, the
war is very, very real.
The war is also still very real to
America’s prisoners of war and their
families. But, instead of ending the war so we
can get our prisoners back, we’ve insisted on
prolonging their incarceration by prolonging
the war.
So the war isn’t really over. And now
another May Moratorium is planned next
Thursday, on the second anniversary of the
Kent State killings. And now I am ending my
term as editor as I began it: by asking
members of the campus community to take
time out from their daily routines to
demonstrate their convictions, to show that
they cio not support the war in Indochina—
and once and for all to end that war.
The war MUST be stopped.
I’m not saying that each of you must take
to the streets in protest and it doesn’t really
matter what next Thursday is called. It can
be a strike, a moratorium or even a day of
concern. .. ...
But it should be a day on which the
normal campus activities take the back
seat—for at least one 24-hour period—to
stopping the war.
And, in this election year, there are
obviously many avenues to peace besides
demonstrations, open to each one of us.
Next Thursday could well be a day for
you to set your school work aside and go out
into the community, canvassing either for
peace as an issue or for specific Presidential
candidates.
One day is not too much of a sacrifice
when you look at the stakes you’re playing
with: Richard Nixon’s continuing war games
or a candidate who will guarantee an irm
mediate end to the war.
If you’d rather work at the Senatorial
level, there are some obvious peace can
didates there you could canvass for next
Thursday. It doesn’t really matter whether
you’re democrat or republican, both parties
have a peace candidate running for
Congress.
But you should do what you can to make
sure the choice left Oregon voters next fall is
a choice for peace between Mark Hatfield
and Wayne Morse.
Participating in the electoral process is
only one activity available for next Thur
sday. There will be many other activities
going on in conjunction with the day of
concern. But the political campaign provides
an opportunity for persons who have been
saying they’re against the war but pooh
poohing demonstrations to give a day for
their convictions.
Whatever activities you decide to par
ticipate in next Thursday, you should at least
think twice before you enter into your daily
routine. And one of those thoughts should be
about the war in Indochina and what it’s done
to this nation. .
After such a thought, you shouldn t have
much trouble deciding to take a day off for
peace.
We can’t stop once we get the war in
Indochina ended either. We must all work
together to make certain that we do away
with all wars, to make certain that days of
protest like next Thursday will not be annual
activities in the future.
A postscript to my staff:
The paper has functioned well as a news
source this year only because each of you
made it function that way. It has functioned
as a watchdog for the public only because
each of you made it function that way. And it
has gone through its first year as an in
dependent newspaper successfully—and
emerged as a professional newspaper—only
because each of you allowed that to happen.
Too many times a newspaper is per
sonified as its editor. When that happens, it’s
unfortunate. The editor is not the Emerald;
100 of you are.
In the past year we have fought some
good fights together. Sometimes we’ve been
right, sometimes we’ve been wrong. All I can
say is I think we tried.
I know you will continue to support your
beliefs long after I’m gone. I wish you luck in
those ventures; I know you will act as
professionals. I can only thank you for being
a part of the Emerald this year. Without you
it would have been nothing, with you it was
everything. ArtBushnell
lain More
May 4 must be different
May the 4th will be called a number of
things a strike, a moratorium, a mass
action day, etc It is not the name that is
important What is important is why it will
exist at all for the University of Oregon as
something different from any other May 4.
The present government in the United
States should not have the confidence of
the people The recent and continuing
bombing in North Vietnam only serves to
heighten the obvious: that Vietnamization
is not working, that while we spend time
picking up bottles and cans a whole
country is being destroyed; that while the
United States boasts low American
fatalities, lower than Ireland even, 130,000
other people are killed each year in
Southeast Asia; that while the United
States espouses democracy it is willing to
prop up the Thieu regime almost at the
expense of all else; that while the
President exercises great power, the
corporations exercise greater power and
are allowed to, thus apportioning the gains
of war to themselves and the losses to the
people of the United States in the form of a
drain on their pockets and the cost of their
lives.
That the tragedy that is Vietnam has not
really hit the American people must be
obvious from an appraisal of the attitudes
of the supposedly best informed—the
PPJ
mkmw\
IN ©80.7
r
'I'M SORRY, MR. KISSINOER IS TOO BUSY WORKING ON FOREIGN POLICY TO SEE YOU NOW!'
faculty of universities. That the University
of Oregon faculty with some knowledge of
the cost in Vietnam voted not to decide on
ROTC, symbolic as it may be, is im
portant; but more important is their
ability to switch from the serious mood
commensurate with that problem to one of
obvious joviality when discussing the next
issue. The real tragedy is still the seeming
lack of awareness of people as to the
situation in Vietnam and also their
frustration and consequent unwillingness
to deal with it.
I would therefore like to urge this
University to take time out on May 4th to
educate itself, to activate itself and, at the
same time, to educated and activate the
rest of the community to the tragedy of
this war and to do something about it.
May 4, 1970, saw four students die at
Kent State. We made a fuss over that. Yet
it was only four deaths as compared to
hundreds of thousands in Indochina, but it
made May 4, 1971, a different day. May 4,
1972, can be a different day in Eugene if
this University takes itself to the com
munity to inform, to petition, to support
candidates. Nobody should be coerced—
student, faculty member, or someone from
the community. It is up to each person’s
individual conscience, but if that isn’t
pricking every person in this University
now it never will be. There seems to be
some hope that electoral politics might
work in this country in 1972, but it needs
more than having the taverns closed and
the polls open.
If people strike on May 4th that is one
thing. It doesn't do much. However, if
people take time out and work as a per
sonal goal to help change the present
tragedy, May 4, 1972, will be worthwhile.
The mechanism to do things will have been
set up by a small group of motivated and
committed people, the rest is up to the rest
of this University community