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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 8, 1973)
— Editorials - New thaw in the 'anti-war' When Richard Nixon ran for President in 1968 he claimed to have a secret plan for ending the war in Southeast Asia. In reality he had no such plan. But with the consummate skill of the master politicians he managed to defuse the domestic crisis, the “anti-war” in the streets. Since the Cambodian invasion of 1970 the anti-war movement has shriveled and died. But if Nixon is to blame for putting the movement on ice, he may also be to blame for putting a torch to the freeze. Given new life in recent weeks end-the war activists must now decide on the tactics of their crusade. Their choice will have significant consequences. Energy spent fighting the Asian war in American streets is wasted energy. That is the lesson of Cambodia. Only in Congress is there hope—and slim hope at that if track records mean anything. Nixon appears determined to force a military end to the war. Henry Kissinger is again in Paris asking the North Viet namese to surrender and bring an “honorable peace” to Southeast Asia. If the current talks fail, and Kissinger has expressed pessimism of late, Nixon in tends to resume the terror bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong. Sunday, a CBS newsman reported Pentagon officials have leaked to the press details of a South Vietnamese in vasion of North Vietnam backed by American air power. Nixon, the com mentator reported, is considering or dering the invasion if talks collapse. Given Nixon’s reluctance to end the war fairly, it falls to Congress to legislate an end to hostilities. There are end-the war noises already in the new session of Congress. But those noises have been heard before. Significantly, however, new faces have been added to the ranks of Congressional doves. Included among them is Oregon Senator Robert Pack wood who announced last week his in tention to vote for anti-war legislation. (Conspicuously absent from the group is Fourth District Congressman John Dellenback. Hie Medford legislator has condemned the bombing but steadfastly refuses to commit himself to voting against the war.) Hie choice facing anti-war activists should be fairly simple. If Congress is to end the war in this session then Congressional leaders must be made aware of public sentiment. Hi at sentiment is against the war, more strongly than ever. Nixon and Kissinger promised peace in October. Hey have betrayed their promise to the American people and to the world. Only Congress can stop them now, and that should be the focus of the anti-war movement. Good head proves fatal Going organic but just can’t stay away from your favorite tavern? Hien you’d better check into just what is going into that golden brew you’re pouring down your throat. The Dec. 23 issue of Environmental Action magazine points out that many brands of beer use various chemicals to make a better head, keep the beer clear when cold or to kill organisms in the beer giving it a longer life. While most of the chemicals used are harmless, controls are so loose that some brewers in the Midwest and the East used cobalt sulfate, an organic material found in vitamin B-12, to beef up the head on their beer. Unfortunately no (me bothered to check to see what would happen if cobalt and alcohol were mixed and 50 people died from the results of this carelessness. Truth in packaging might be the an swer. Another might be to just ask your favorite bartender what is really coming out of the tap. University athletics need definition A December column by Eugene Register-Guard Sports Editor Blaine Newnham raises some pertinent questions about the place of athletics at the University. The column, entitled “Almighty Dollar,” discusses money and recruiting and how it applies to football and other sports at the University. It seems football coach Dick Enright feels he needs more money to operate his program, especially where it applies to recruiting. In 1971 the football team grossed $700,000. But it didn’t spend all this money on football. To quote Enright: “Right now we’re paying for all the other programs. Basketball is the only one that comes close to paying its own way. Track, for example, is a big loser, here as well as everywhere.” However if football isn’t going to share the wealth just how are these other programs going to survive? When Enright was speaking of track as a loser, he was speaking in terms of money. But considering the national reputation the University derives from its track program, the popularity of the sport in Eugene and the state, and the excitement it generates, track is a bigger winner than football, even if the team did beat Oregon State. It doesn’t follow that all other athletic programs should be hurt just to build a single sport. Are athletics going to be considered as a whole or are they going to be broken up into separate corporate entities forced to pay their own way or suffer the con sequences? Enright is football coach and therefore must be the chief advocate for his sport, but to emphasize football, at the expense of other sports, is unfair. Enright is also upset because recruiting will be tougher this year. It seems the NCAA is tightening up the academic requirements for athletes entering the University. Newnham quotes Enright as saying: “Do you realize that 16 of the 22 star ters we used against Oregon State were not eligible for admission to schools in the Pac-8 other than Oregon and Oregon State?” Now it seems that the University won’t have that advantage any more. The NCAA has indicated it won’t approve tables used at the University to deter mine whether athletes will be able to maintain a 1.6 grade point average. While this may cause Enright problems in his recruiting efforts, it won’t bother other students with scholarships who have to maintain a GPA a little better than 1.6 to stay in school. It doesn’t seem too much to ask that athlete-students at the University face some sort of reasonable academic scrutiny. Admission standards at other Pac-8 schools can’t be that tough if they have produced the fine teams that they have in the past. There is no reason that the University should have standards any different than any other school in the conference. The question of where athletics, or more specifically intercollegiate athletics, fits into a University has been with us for years. Enright’s comments, as found in Newnham’s column, show that the thinking of the coaches hasn’t changed much over the years. But how do others think? A sent in y of the athletic department’s budget, a study made by the In tercollegiate Athletics Committee and a clear concise statement from the ad ministration on this question are in order. Input from the general student body is also needed. Students spend more than $150,000 a year on the AD from student incidental fees. They must have their say. The need for a statement on the pur pose of athletics at the University is made clear considering the final quote from Enright in Newnham’s column concerning the fiture of football at the University: You tell me,” he said, “I think it’s playing the Michigans and Oklahomas. But it takes resources.”
