Oregon daily emerald., May 10, 1973, Page 13, Image 13

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On the
Commentary
right: Me Govern lives
By William F. Buckley, Jr.
Senator McGovern has heatedly
denied saying to Joe McGinniss the
things McGinniss published in the New
York Times Magazine last Sunday.
McGinniss has stuck by his version of
what McGovern told him, late at night at
various motels during a weekend of
campaigning in South Dakota last
March.
On the question of which man is
correct, I incline towards McGinniss. He
is a gfted reporter, with an ear for idiom.
Moreover, although he begins his piece
by acknowledging that by the time
election day came around he “found it a
duty to support (McGovern), not a
privilege,” McGinniss is clearly in
sympathy with McGovern and
McGovern ism, and the whole of the
piece inures greatly to the advantage of
McGovern the man, though of course the
headline-making excerpts were
damaging.
People don’t care very much whether
a presidential candidate likes his vice
V.
presidential candidate — as often as not
they dislike each other, and for reasons
perfectly natural. But they do care that
a president or a candidate be cir
cumspect in speaking about the other
man, and this George McGovern was
not, though the sutures were nicely
applied last week, with McGovern and
Eagleton pledging to each other their
perpetual love and admiration as the
article was about to come out — the kind
of thing Nelson Rockefeller and John
Lindsay used to do.
What McGovern did not protest, so far
as is known, was more interesting really
than the Eagleton business, and con
firms the surreal world that presidential
candidate McGovern lives in. He told
about going to the football stadium in
Washington in mid-August. “In order to
get to our seats, we had to cross a cat
walk above a section where people were
seated. As soon as they saw me, they
started tp boo. There was a certain
amount of applause, too...but the booing
wasn’t the good-natured kind. It had a
mean, ugly ton e. I looked down and I
saw hatred, real contempt, on the faces.
They were shaking their fists and
shouting ‘getoutta here, ya sonofabitch.’
Things like that. It was awful. It was the
first time I had seen this kind of harsh,
ugly undercurrent.”
And then McGovern told McGinniss
about the consequence for America of
his defeat in November. “I really
believe we may have missed our last
chance to turn away from militarism, to
prevent a loss of faith in our institutions’.’.
From this juxtaposition one sees the
perverse innocence of George
McGovern — still he doesn’t understand
why he was beaten. His candidacy, he
says, was “our last chance to turn away
from militarism.” Militarism is not a
spectre that hangs over American life.
There are probably more Americans
afraid of being bitten by black widow
spiders than by American militarists.
But there are many many Americans,
and some of them no doubt were at the
football stadium that afternoon in mid
August, who believe that a demagogic
disparagement of the military and the
underest i mat ion of their importance —
by such proposals as a reduction of 30
billion in the military budget — en
danger everything they care for. The
security of the country, the health and
safety of their children — their freedom,
among other things to reject George
McGovern.
He thought, he told McGinniss, of
leaving America after the election; of
going to live in England, but was
restrained from doing so only out of a
sense of loyalty to the two million
Americans who had worked for his
victory. One fears that he really believes
that in England the people would have
reacted differently.
Meanwhile it must be particularly
galling to learn that the nomination of
candidate McGovern was not alone the
work of Professors Galbraith and
Schlesinger and Bob & Carol & Ted &
Alice, but of Donald Segretti et al,
agents of the White House, who knew
that Nb'on would stand the best chance
of all against the American who knew
least of all about his country.
Letters
“The Happy Hooker”
I suggest that Mary and Terri take
another look at those “dehumanizing
factories” they refer to in their letter to the
editor (May 7). In Nevada, prostitution is
regarded as a legitimate profession and is
treated as such. The business of
prostitution is efficient (centrally located
houses just outside Reno and Carson City),
clean (the girls are inspected regularly),
provides many employee benefits (a
“good” girl will make over $30,000 a year
and for every three weeks of work, a week
of vacation follows), and provides revenue
for the community through taxation. The
Nevadan prostitute is quite content in the
safety and comfort of these so-called
“dehumanizing factories” and is entirely
free to pack up and leave if she so desires.
She is indeed a “happy hooker.” I am not
suggesting that prostitution is not
degrading and dehumanizing in and of
itself — so are many other professions. As
long as the spread of prostitution con
tinues, it should be regulated and con
trolled like any other profession for the
betterment of society and the individuals
within the society — including the
prostitutes.
Andrew Bates
People, not lettuce
So far I’ve read two letters by that friend
of “free choice,” Joseph Vidali. They’ve
caused me to write a few comments. ,
First, it doesn’t impress me at all
whether or not somebody worked his way
through high school and “part of college”
in the fields, for his position is still dif
ferent from those that need to make a
living by that type of work. The only thing
that interests me is how a person perceives
or misperceives the situation, and after
that, which side that person chooses to
support. Mr. Vidali’s stand leaves much to
be desired.
The very callousness of the opening line
of his first letter (“How can anyone
discriminate against a lettuce?”) in itself
seems to show a total misunderstanding of
the situation. The issue should not be
treated as flippantly as that. It is people,
not things, that is being dealt with here.
The issue is whether or not farmworkers
will have a working union of their own
choice, or whether the bosses will be the
only ones organized.
Oh, to be °:ure, Mr. Vidali does like to use
the phrast- “free choice.” It has good
rhetorical \ alue. Unfortunately, his use of
the phras^ sounds a great deal like that
which has .jeon used in nearly every union
busting effort that iias taken place in this
country. In this case, it means free choice
_ wedwww
(£*971 ne&rjMOfK- Mr 0*0*5*®
'AH, BUT IT'S GREAT TO BE YOUNG!'
which union will be representing (sic)
them in the fields.
Definitely the issue of free choice is
involved here. But it seems only logical to
me that the choice should belong to the
workers. After all, they are the ones that
will be paying the dues. Their union should
bargain with the growers, not collaborate
with them.
The contracts that have been won by the
UFW have been achieved by
democratically allowing the workers to
decide. On the other hand, the Teamsters
only seem interested in unionizing the
growers, a situation that would be almost
comic if it weren’t seriously taking place.
Teamster bureaucrats have already
decided that it will be years before the
workers are “ready” to take part in a
union meeting. Maybe by that time they
feel they would have destroyed the UFW. I
don’t think they will be successful.
Mr. Vidali seems to have enough
common sense to realize that there are two
sides to this issue. But Mr. Vidali appears
to have taken the side of the growers
against the workers. He should now at
least be honest enough to admit it.
Dean Nolan
Mr. Dellenback, please!
The war in Indochina is supposedly over,
but the Department of Defense and the
Administration are asking Congress to
approve transfer of $500 million through
the Supplemental Appropriations Bill (FY
73 DOD Supplemental Appropriations Bill)
to pay for the continued bombing of
Cambodia. Many observers, in and out of
Congress, believe that the granting of this
authority would allow the administration
to claim legal justification for the bomb
ing; it would be interpreted as a new Gulf
of Tonkin mandate.
I am disturbed that Congressman John
Dellenback has not, to my knowledge,
made any protest about this back-door
maneuver to continue an illegal war which
President Nixon claims to have ended with
“honor.” How can we continue to pour $5
million a day into SE Asia, when President
Thieu told the National Press Club in
Washington, D.C., April 5 that he “can
stand on his own two legs without
American troops or airpower.”
' I hope Mr. Dellenback’s constituents will
let him know promptly what we think of
the Administration request for transfer
funds.
The vote is scheduled in the House of
Representatives the week of May 7.
Lois Barton
Springtime turkeys
To all the students, religious fanatics or
not:
It is Springtime in Eugene again. The
flowers are blooming, trees are green,
children are laughing and, like rain in
Winter, we are plagued by various
religious groups handing out papers,
booklets and other types of propaganda.
The Christians were bad with their,
“Jesus loves you. Would you like to read
this? Please dear sir,” and following you
for blocks at a time. The Buddhists were
worse, lurking on dark street corners in
the middle of the night luring unsuspecting
civilians to their sordid meetings (“Hey
little girl, want some religion?”). Now, for
the past week or so the Hare Krishnas
have been in and around our lovely, auiet
campus. A bunch of weirdos with shaved
heads and bongo drums, odd clothing and
stranger speech patterns. They look like
the after in an advertisement against drug
abuse (“See what happens to you if you
smoke marijuana.”).
Now, please don’t get me wrong. I think
that these turkeys have as much right to
practice their disgusting rites as the next
person. That’s not my complaint. I don’t
even care if they do look like the em
bodiment of all that is evil with the system
that I hold near and dear to my heart,
America. But, then again, that’s not my
complaint.
You may well ask, “What’s this
kumquat trying to say?” I’m trying to say
this: You self-righteous, ideologically
perverted freaks of nature, don’t try and
hand me any more of your religiously
tainted, anti-intellectual garbled non
sense.
It is Springtime in Eugene and it ap
pears that we have to watch out for more
than dog droppings on the campus.
Sincerely yours, in atheistic happiness,
Dean Perchik
Soph. History