Newspaper Page Text
4
TM WHT OtOBOtXw. JUiY II 174
\vi;si(ii;ou(ii\\
ALLEN GIJNTER
Editor
Missing Books
The library’s loss may well be a
professor's gain.
Professors at West Georgia, or
administrators in any capacity,
are allowed to check out books for
an indefinite period of time,
which sometimes trickles over
into forever.
If a student is required to read
a book in the West Georgia
library and can’t find that book,
he often learns that a professor
has checked the book out and has
had it since, oh, 1971, or maybe
even before then. The student
can’t find the professor’s name,
and the professor can keep the
book, even though he might
receive a call requesting the
hook's return.
Bigdeal? It is when the student
drives ail the way to Atlanta to
check out a book that is on this
campus somewhere; a book that
has been in the clutches of an
“overdue” professor for months,
Concert Reinstatement
Surprise of surprises. Mr.
Charles Smith, assistant dean of
student survices, told us this
week that he would like to get
back into the outdoor concert
business. It was the same Mr.
Smith who dealt the students here
last spring a heavy handed blow
when he cancelled a late quarter
concert.
Mr. Smith's reasoning for
axing the concert was that the
West Georgian and campus radio
station WWGC refused to
editorially support the three-fold
conditions for reinstating outdoor
music. In brief those conditions
were:
Campus organizations agree
not to condone or participate in
illegal activities.
—“Monitors" of illegal activity
be secured
—The campus media
editorially support reinstatement
of concerts under those other two
Traffic
Dilemma
How long must we wait for the
administration to discover that
the present one way traffic flow
design on campus is not working?
Having heard all the excuses
about the coming of 1-20, danger
to pedestrians, and already
having painted the signs, we say
that making Brumbleow one way
was. and continues to be a
grevious mistake.
For nearly six months this
monstrosity (created first with
the idea of "saving gasoline”) has
not only jammed up students but
has caused hundreds of
problems. It is time for a change
a two way change.
possibly years.
It is time for some action.
Either library administrators or
disgusted students should see to it
that delinquent books are found,
and turned in. There is no limit to
the number of books one may
check out, but for the student,
there is a due date. For the
professor, there is only a pseudo
due date. Perhaps this is just
more of the same old policy so
prevalent on campus today.
The old adage of “Make them
do it, but I sure don't have to
abide by the rules myself”
certainly applies to this case.
Borrowing books is a privilege,
whether one is a student or a
professor. Borrowed books are to
be returned. Lack of regard to
this privilege could result in an
empty library, while certain
professor’s libraries are brim
ming with expensive books paid
for by the University System.
conditions.
The “illegal activity” referred
to was the public consumption of
alcoholic beverages and drugs.
When Mr. Smith told us that he
was m favor of having concerts,
he said that he and other ad
ministrators only wanted to avoid
trouble at concerts which might
damage the college image. We go
along with that. We know that a
drug bust or other mass arrests
would stagger the college.
But while we too would like to
see outdoor concerts again, we
still do not fully support those
stipulations set forth by Mr.
Smith. In fact, we believe those
three conditions represent a
stacked deck of cards against the
students. It was all too easy for
Mr. Smith to make demands
which he thought couldn’t be met.
That goes especially for the
third requirement. Demanding
that the campus media take a
certain editorial stand is
ludicrous. As much as we’d like
to think, we know that our sup
port alone would have little or no
effect on student behavior.
Mr. Smith said he’d like to
reinstate outdoor concerts. He
said he only wanted to deal ef
fectively with problems before
they did serious damage. But like
we said, he appears to be holding
all the cards.
We’re calling Mr. Smith’s
hand. It’s time those outdoor
concerts were reinstated. If there
aren’t any concerts, there aren’t
any problems, regardless of how
much a person claims he is in
terested in dealing with them.
Let’s put outdoor music back
on the agenda and then take steps
to deal with problems that arise.
CAREY SMITH
Managing
Editor
Allen Gunter
Up Jumped the Devil
I was sitting in an Atlanta
church one summer Sunday night
a few years ago trying to ignore
some of the testimony which
characterizes those torrid August
revival meetings. There was a
young man there, a “lost soul ”,
who got up to speak about the
time the congregation had given
up and started listening.
The young man confronted the
audience with wide eyes peering
out through long, stringy hair, a
flushed complexion, toothy smile,
and stooped posture He was, in
short, all the things a good sinner
is supposed to be. Moreover, he
QUESTION 14 ASKSTwHAT HAS BEEN DIE
WORST U-S. DISASTER SINCE PRESIDENT
NIXONS ELECTION IN 1472-?* IS DMT
ALSO THE ANSWER?'
David Broder
A New Face ( On The Line ’
WASHINGTON Down in Carrollton, Ga.,
Newt Gingrich took every minute he could spare
last winter from his job as a history professor at
West Georgia College to woo small groups of
party workers in hopes (now realized) of getting
the congressional nomination without a primary
fight.
Mr. Broder is a syndicated columnist for the
WASHINGTON POST. Parts of his July 1,
column are reprinted here with permission.
Gingrich had been content for more than a
decade to manage other people’s campaigns and
work behind the scenes, but this year, he said, “I
felt was the time you had to put yourself on the
line.”
Ambitious young men always have been ready
to take risks with their careers when opportunity
beckoned and the only remarkable thing about
Gingrich in this year of seemingly golden
Democratic prospects is that he happens to be a
Republican candidate running in a tough
Democratic-held district.
Gingrich was among the 100 GOP hopefuls who
turned up here in June to attend the candidates
school run by the Republican Congressional
Campaign Committee.
He may not be typical, because he was
recommended by others as one of the brightest
new faces in the crowd. But to a country —and a
party deeply concerned about post-Watergate
apathy and cynicism, the fact that you can find
such first-time candidates in a measure of hope
that the GOP will survive as a vital political
force, despite Mr. Nixon’s willingness to drag it
down to ruin with him. _
In a bad year, parties often fill their slates with
candidates who would never pass muster if
was believable.
He began his spiel by telling of
all his sins—smoking, drinking,
swearing, and “God knows.
Naturally it didn’t suffice to look
the part of a lost soul nor to
convince everyone of the real
gravity of his rotten deeds, he
had to tell us all how he got that
way.
It was at that point when he
drew the biggest “Amen’s” and
“Aha’s” by telling of being a
student at West Georgia College
“It’s the biggest den of sin in the
state. God knows,” he said.
anyone thought they had a chance to win. That is
not the case with these men.
Gingrich, the 31-year-old history professor who
is challenging 20-year veteran Rep. John J. Flynt
Jr., D-Ga., comes from an Army family,
graduated from Emory University and earned a
Ph. D. at Tulane. When not teaching at his
college or his Baptist Sunday school, he has been
working as a self-described “moderate con
servative” to build a Republican organization in
Georgia.
Gingrich says his once strongly pro- Nixon
Georgia voters “know it’s over” for the
President, and he spends most of his time
voicing their frustration with “a Congress that
will not act on impeachment or anything else.”
In his own way, he argues that all of
Washington, and not just the White House, has
abused the country’s trust. “There are two
games in this country,” said Gingrich. “One is
played by the 5,000 insiders in Washington who
write the laws and tell the lies, and the other by
the rest of us, who pay the price. That’s what we
can’t tolerate.”
New Republican candidates are also realists
about their own and their party’s prospects. And
realistically today, while each of them has a
chance, the odds are against any of them being in
the 94th Congress. But, as Gingrich said, “as a
conservative, I believe in organic growth, and
win or lose, the sweat and labor of this campaign
is the price I pay to earn the right to stand there
on Nov. 6 and say, “This is where I think we have
to go from here.”
With candidates like him, no matter what
happens to the Republicans on Nov. 5, they will
have some place to go. - <c1974.)
Thereafter, he proceeded to
deliver *.n insidious indictment
against WGC, calling the place
everything but a college.
Eventually he managed to infer
that his role at a West Georgia
student was the reason he em
bodied all the dire evils he
claimed.
The trouble with innuendo of
the sort that student delivered is
not what is said but to whom it is
said. I found myself wondering
how many other disgruntled
college kids were, at that
moment, running rampant in
churches telling people what they
“learned in school ” that week.
The vituperative vendetta
came at a time just prior to
release of a now infamous “drug
survey” which fingered West
Georgia as the number one
college in drug usage. Even so,
the college was already troubled
by a stigma of being considered
by some a “ drug city
Later, 1 realized that blame for
bad image was not on the guy in
church that night or or others like
him. Probably, he was telling the
truth when he called himself lost
and gone and such.
More likely, the blame for a
faltering reputation could be
placed on those who see a few
bright spots in their world and
don’t bother to say anything. I
mean those people who don’t
glorify in being rotten or lost;
those people who don’t consider
themselves or their world
hopeless. Those people who like
to be part of the solution rather
than part of the problem need to
be counted too. They also deserve
to grab a share of the spotlight.
And let the devil sit back down.