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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (July 13, 1972)
( Commentary On the right. . . William F. Buckley Jr. George McGovern: the new religion MIAMI BEACH - There are those who say that the politics of George McGovern is a new politics based on great shifts in ideological sentiment. Professor Galbraith, using to be sure a kind of shorthand, says that the new issues are 1) global communism, 2) the redistribution of wealth, and 3) economic growth Concerning which tin* Democratic avant garde believes 1) that we have done quite enough of containment, 2) that we should have more of it; and 3) that it isn’t a cure to all human problems. But there is something else in the McGovern Spirit, and it is quite countable here in Miami. It is the sense of absolute, total self righteousness. It is manifestly intolerant of different opinions, and disposed, towards those who hold them, to dismiss them as cretins It was worth noting, for in stance, the attitude of typical young McGovemites toward Hubert Hum phrey They hate him. It seems an odd word to use but it is something like the appropriate word. They feel an utter contempt for him. I attempted to probe this attitude, in talking with a young delegate who is highly placed in the youth-McGovem hierarchy, and I said to him: Why are you so very much opposed to Hum phrey? After all, his ideological rating, as handed down by the Americans for Democratic Action on the basis of his lifelong record, is 97, which is higher even than McGovern’s 92. Ahh—said the young man quick-wittedly— but the record in question was earned during the period that Senator Humphrey was a senator, mostly before he took the Vice Presidency in 1964. We hate him for the positions he took while he was Vice President. This of course has to mean the position that Humphrey took on the Vietnam war, since on all domestic matters, Lyndon Johnson was an exemplary liberal. So I said, but isn’t it to be expected that a Vice President takes the same position as the President? That has been the case since the great disengagement of Vice President Calhoun from President Jackson Well, said the youth, but the fact of it is that Humphrey took Johnson’s positions enthusiastically. Well, I said, Humphrey takes every position enthusiastically—it is his mode. One could hardly stand up before a crowd as Vice President to President Johnson and speak listlessly one’s orisons to President Johnson’s policies. No, the thing of it is that Hubert Humphrey opposes George McGovern, and in the New Politics that isn’t as simple as that Humphrey’s emphases are different from McGovern’s. What it is, is sacrilege. McGovernism is something of a religion, and the test in the days ahead will be whether the McGovern shock troops can move with sufficient tact. It will have to a cultivated tact. It will not, that is to say, come naturally. Because they do not feel it naturally. The young man in question told me that he would desert the Democratic Party rather than back Humphrey, in the event the Convention chose him. Note the interesting failure to meditate the symmetry. The distance between McGovern and Humphrey is no greater than the distance between Humphrey and McGovern. Yet although they expect that Humphrey people will work for McGovern they would not make a commitment the other way around. The reason is quite simple: they are right, the others are wrong. It is to be expected that the heathens will work for the saints if the saints are con firmed. It is not in prospect, failing that, that the saints would turn to the cause of the heathens. Now George McGovern, not withstanding the great seismic fault in his temperament revealed the week in which the Credentials Committee applied to California the democratist principles of George McGovern, knows how to be conciliatory. And he is going to have to do a lot of that kind of thing in order to conceal from the mass of Democratic voters the priggishness, the ethical chauvinism, of his followers. It is off-putting to be asked to vote for McGovern as a religious exercise. It is one thing to reduce the Humphrey Democrat by appealing to his party loyalty or t6 his disapproval of Richard Nixon. It is something else to try to coopt him into a new religious order. I Letters Trlrphones On Juno 30 the* Housing Department and the telephone company implemented a decision to discontinue off-campus phone service to the* phones located on each floor of the dorms The* main rease>n behind the action, rumor has it, is that too many collect calls were being ae*cepted by the dorm re*side*nts, ceisting the* University large* amounts on its phone* bill The* floor pheme*s now may only be use*d for on-campus communication. For off campus calls (local e*alls included) a pay phone is located on the* first floor of e*aeh hall This plume must be* use*d for beith making and re*e*e*iving local calls, and in tin* cast of Hamilton at le*ast, is locate*d in a closet in the* first floor lounge* This ne*w phone* service (disservice) raise's the following questions and con cerns 1) It is unfair that, while residents of Hamilton must pay to make loe*al off campus e*alls, those* peeiplc in Carson do not (their plume se*rvie*e was nert cut on the :wth). 2) It is an unjust e*xponse* to have to pay e*ve*ry time* you want to call a friend or te*ae*he*r, who may very well live within r blocks of the school 3) Because there are not phones on every floor that are equipped to receive outside calls, those people living on the upper floors of the dorms are not getting their calls or messages of the calls, because people won’t come up to find you. And they shouldn't have to. 4) It does not seem that calling out has anything to do with receiving and accepting collect calls. The University would be in no danger of un wanted phone bills if it allowed students to be able to make calls from their floor. Residents would at least like a pay phone on every floor so we can get calls that have been made to us. This is especially necessary in cases of emergencies or long distance calls. Other schools in the state have gotten around the collect call problem by in stalling Centrex switchboards with trained operators to weed out collect calls, and still make phone service available to all floors It seems unreasonable to think that one pay phone per dorm, located in a closet on the first floor is adequate to the needs of dorm residents. It also seems unfair, that while some students must make do with that limited phone service, others enjoy full service from phones on every floor at no cost. Bob Schatz Boynton-Hamilton and 41 co-signers Greater knowledge The front-page story, “Speaker Claims Women Ignored” t June 26), which has just been called to my attention, certainly shows the need for greater knowledge of the role of women in American history and society. The anonymous author—possibly a “male chauvinist pig?”—managed to make both himself and the speaker, Isabel Welsh, appear very ignorant. Welsh may have actually been responsible for some of the errors—it is impossible to say -but, even if so, an adequately informed jour nalist would not have permitted some of them to get into print. Welsh is quoted as saying that “Anne Hutchins" (sic) was “expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for political f I F 'WELL, SO FAR, SO OOOD . . . ..JINP AllflWS heterodoxy” and also that she was “a witch.” Hutchinson was indeed exiled in 1637 but for the religious heterodoxy of claiming that God spoke to her “by an immediate voice” rather than for political errors. The controversy over her teaching did, to be sure, result in a political cleavage. To say that she was “a witch” is nonsense. Not even her worst enemies so called her. Reference was also made to “the Grimpy sisters” (sic), presumably Sarah and Angelina Grimke, abolitionists and pioneer advocates of women’s rights. If uncertain as to the pronunciation or spelling the speaker or writer should have checked. Welsh was also quoted as saying: “Women were not allowed to speak in public.” But such a statement is meaningless unless it is specified when, where, and by whom women—what women?—were “not allowed” to do thus and so. Quaker women. Sojourner Truth, | Carry A. Nation, Emma Goldman, and many other women mentioned and un mentioned certainly did “speak in public.” Kenneth W. Porter Professor emeritus of history Re: DOGS I approached the young woman whose dog, I had been told, had recently killed a squirrel on campus and, wanting to make certain she knew of this act mentioned it to her. Her reply was that she was “rather proud of him, considering that he’d been chasing squirrels for two years.” 1 made some remarks about how it would be too bad when all the proud dog owners had let their animals run loose, in open violation of the law, until all the squirrels were killed. She made no reply, apparently contemplating how her pride will grow when her "pet" kills again. It is beyond my comprehension why the administration allows this situation to continue. Eighteen dog bites (reported) Spring term and no one but the Emerald seems to give a damn. If the county Animal Control officers are too busy rounding up dogs in rural areas, it is the duty of the University authorities to do something about the problem Until they do. prudent people on campus can only stay away from the dogs and WATCH' THEIR STEP!! Jim Higgins Junior, t: gush