Newspaper Page Text
November 4, 1966
iHerter (Uluater
Volume FLVII, No. S
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Thomas W. Lang
/c££D\ ASSOCIATE EDITOR _oao
(iflae)
Diana Denton , flw.
BUSINESS MANAGER
MEMBER
Nancy Barrett
News Editor ...
Bill Wehunt
Feature Editor .
Sue Walker
Technical Editors
Rich Van Boakirk
Cal Gough
Social Editors .
David Wansley
Martha Wansley
Sports Editors .
Roger Britt
Robert Sipe
Sandra Clinton
Advertising Manager
Sherri Clark
Circulation Manager
Ann Vance
Executive Editor
. Bill Dayton
News Staff ...
Jimmy Hagler, Tom Cawthorn,
Don VanBuskirk, Shirley Mitchell,
Sarah June McRae, Mary Middlebrooks,
Susan Smallwood
Features Staff
John Guthrie, Peggy Geren,
Kaye Johnson, Jack Ksssewitz
Sign Of The Times
We suppose that it is a symptom of the times. Janitors in many
places have become "sanitation engineers.” undertakers have turned
into “morticians,” the Secretary of War is now called "Secretary of
Defense" (and MacNamarra is talking about making it "Secretary of
Peace”—sounds like "Minipax" in Orwell's 1894). Mercer was bound
to succumb to the general, silly, trend, and sure enough, the University
Business Manager woke up one recent morning to be “Vice President
for Business and Finance.” We mean to criticize not individuals, but
the trend of the times to tolerate such semantic tomfoolery, much less
find it the widespread practice it has come to be.
ARGUMENT AD ABSURDUM
DIANA DENTON
“Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world,
Red and yellow, black and white,
They are precious in his sight....”
The closing bell of the superintendent brine to an end
the final strains of that classic of Sunday School hymnology
and supposed affirmation of Christianity’s concepts, the little
children and their big parents filed freely into church, to seat
themselves—with the accustomed pre-sermon irreverence, this
time a little more nervous, perhaps, than usual—and await
the message of the saving love of a God not dead, who in a
few minutes would seek their dimes and dollars for a missionary
effort: to carry the gospel “to all ends of the earth”.
Outside, a young man stood, awaiting Ins chance to join
the worshipping throng who supposedly gathered inside out
of a concern for their own sins and those of others, supposedly
to share the sentiments of the missionary-preacher. Outside,
the cameras ground, the press and public watched and waited,
while on the steps a minion of the law of God stepped carefully
before the Negro whichever way he turned, and in a low voice
tried to reason with him: “Please leave peaceably,” they told
him. “We don’t want any trouble here. It is your attempts
to be admitted, not our efforts to disbar you, that are at fault
and cause trouble.”
“You are telling me you do not want me.” He seemed a
bit perplexed. “Then if you do not want me in the kingdom of
God, you are condemning me to Hell.”
(“Profanity!! Blasphemy!!” those standing around him
cried. But when the minister used the same four-lettered word
inside, they merely trembled a bit and perhaps whispered
“Amen!”)
“We are not saying God does not want you, or that you
are not welcomed to His Kingdom, but merely that we do not
want you, and that in thia church, His Kingdom here on earth,
there is no place for one of your particular color.”
“I am a foreign student,” he explained. “I was converted
by your own missionaries in my Africa.”
“It isn’t that we don’t want foreigners,” they kindly
answered him. “In fact, we’ve voted to allow two foreign stu
dents to attend our services, and one of them was a Buddhist.”
(“Voa populi, vos Deii.”)
Meanwhile, a little black dog ran up and down the steps,
my) in and out of the church, with no one to stop or even
queistion him.
A black Christian turned away with the consolation that
in welcoming yellow Buddhists these people had done their
fair share in the eyes of God and their fellow man. A min
quite titecalhr “treated like a dog” while the canine worshipped
unhindered. A hymn that now sounds like a TV commercial:
“Red and yellow, - -blip, blip- - and white.” No contradictions
here or paradox!
“Vox populi, vox Dan.” The voice of the people is the
voice of God. Isn’t it great to live in a country where even
the'divine must yield to a majority vote?
ANOTHER VIEW
Despite the need for the funds which will allow
for the expansion of the physical plant and the con
tinued improvement of the quality of education of
fered to Mercer students, one of the most readily
available sources of such funds remains untapped.
This source is the federal funds—loans, grants and
the like—funts for which Mercer students and their
families have payed their pro rata share.
The Georgia Baptist Convention has maintained
that the dangers of federal control over the college
or university accepting such funds outweighs the
advantages to be gained by utilizing them. Strange—
that this rather oblique support for academic freedom
should come from a group whose educational insti
tution*’ histories all too often bespeak heresy trials,
or dismissal of professors for doctrinal and theological
error.
Despite its vaunted support of the principle of
separation of church and state there are perhaps few
religious groups in this part of the country more
prone to lobbying for legislation that is favorable to
their particular brand of belief, or happier to enjoy
the benefits of being a tax-free organization, or more
enthused over the government support of professional
holp men within the military establishment
One might suspect that there are deeper lying
and much less idealistic motives than those officially
stated for the Georgia Baptist’s refusal to allow their
educational institutions the use of federal aid to
education.
The attitude maintained by the Georgia Bap
tist Convention may be in part attributed to the
changes that have occurred in this part of the coun
try during the past several years concerning race
relations. These changes have been inaugurated foi
the most part by federal legislative bodies or federal
courts. The church, despite some few exceptions, has
seemed to he either unwilling of unable to assume
any notable degree of leadership in alleviating the
difficulties inherent in oar g*"g times. It was in
fact, not so unusual to hear support for the racist
point of view from the pulpit In abort the civil
rights legislation of the past decade or so has termed
the segregationist policies to which so many members
of the Georgia Baptist Convention had either ac
quiesced or overly supported as being illegal and
wrong, and this despite all the scripture that had
been quoted to the contrary. When considered in this
frame of reference it is not difficult to understand
suspicion and resentment of all thing* federal by
those who control the Georgia Baptist Convention.
The fact that federal aid to education is often
directed more towards the natural aciencas might also
help explain the attitude of the Georgia Baptist Con
vention concerning the uee of federal funds by its
colleges and universities, for there are still those who
resent the continued encroachments made upon what
was once the purely realm of theology and religious
dogma by the natural sciences.
The Georgia Baptist Convention is in a sense
attempting to fight a battle lost long ago. They have
pursued an inconsistent and not too well-reasoned
course of action concerning the federal funds which
are available; a course of action for which present
and future Mercerians must pay. If this University
is to compete with others in Georgia and elsewhere, a
more farsighted and less reactionary approach to the
usage of federal aid is called for.
87 Years Ago
ROBERT EWEGEN
(C. P. S.)
(As presented by Little Boy Johnson, president
of the United States and grandson of a former
President whom we all know and love. The address
was delivered at the dedication of the American
military cemetery "Gettysburg East,” outside of
Saigon in the year 2052.)
Mah fellow Americans:
Foah score and seven yeahs ago, my grand
father brought forth upon this continent of Asia a
new political concept, cenceived in expediency and
dedicated to the proposition that we are better dead
than red.
Now we are engaged in a Great Society (oops, I
mean a great Civil War), and as for that matter have
been engaged in that Great Civil War for four score
and seven years now, testing whether that concept
of a permanent American military presence in Asia
or any concept so ill-conceived and so ineptly ex
ecuted, can long enudre.
We are met on a great battlefield of that war,
a battlefield where General Ky was overthrown by
General Hee, where General Hee was overthrown
by General Me, where General Me was overthrown
by General Wee, where General Wee was overthrown
by Gneral Gee, and so forth through the 66 different
coups that finally culminated last spring in General
Flea’s government, which we age now convinced is
in a position to bring to this nation the political
stability that is so necessary if we are to begin to
effectively roll back the agression from the north.
Excuse me folks, I just received an urgent note.
(Oh no, not again.) Hrrumph. What I meant was the
57 coups which finally culminated in General She’s
coup three minutes ago which we are finally con
vinced is in a position to at last offer this nation
the political stability that is ...
Hmmrph. Be that as it may. We have come to
dedicate this battlefield as a fitting memorial to the
light ot moderate losses that your forces have sus
tained over the past 87 years so that my grandfather
and his successors could test the theory that the way
to bring Hanoi to the peace table was to escalate
further.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should
do this, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a nervous
nellie and probably a traitor besides and simply
helping to prolong the war.
The world will long note and long remember
what we did here, probably because wa will still be
long doing it, but the world will probahly never
understand WHY we did it.
And frankly. I’m fed up with that kind of idiotic
questioning emanating from die capitals of the world
over die last nine decades! I DON’T CARE WHY
WE ARE HERE! THE POINT IS WE ARE
HERE AND ITS TOO LATE TO PULL OUT
NOW! WE ARE GOING TO STAY HERE! WE
ARE GOING TO ESCALATE! THIS UN
PATRIOTIC PRACTICE OF DEFERRING
GRANDFATHERS HAS TO STOP SO THAT
WE CAN BUILD UP OUR TROOP COMMIT
MENT TO 68,000,000 MEN. ONLY THEN WE
WILL HAVE AN ADEQUATE STRENGTH
RATOR OF 84 to 1 NECESSARY TO PUT DOWN
THIS INSURRECTION.
And as long as I am presklent, mah fellow
Americans, I promise you this: we shall not with
draw, I promise that this nation, under me, aha]
have a new birth of conformity (boy will we shut
up those peaceniks) and that government of con
aensus, by manipulation for the sake of saving foci
shall not perish from the earth, although admittedly
the population might
(Ewegen is editor of the Colorado University Daily.)
MERCER’S SCIENCE FICTION
Ever since Ah been to Mercer, i
to me, this
’Course die G.B.C. didn't volunteer to ask their
here school’s been fighting over whether or not it
was go in’ ’t have any dsosnt science fittin’s. That’s
been a goodly kmc time, and heaven knows bow
long before my advent to Tattnall Square it all began
—or, apparently when It all will and.
First they squabbled over whether they really
needed any new thing* and having decided t warn't
morally wrong for each Jmnisfn major to have a
Buna err burner tor hie own use ’stead of six or seven
cooking their potions over one measly flams or that
bio students might be justified in having mors geoi
than their cellar labs afford in which to carve on
their decaying cadavers, they turned to the very
moot point of tbs stain acceptance of federal funds
would put on their ministerial everlasting souls.
And that's where we are.
Having decided to give Mercer permiesino to
usutmrt a Science Center (Thank you.), they atipu-
balf the funds might ooroe from pi hwde
(no, they offered no donations—why
should they have?) and half Irani private loans, they
waved wide Lyndon's blood monay and the federal
members or fHands In chip in a buck or two. Am
after all, why should they?
Well, Pratedent Harris, hs worked fend, and 1
am aura, did all that ha could. Haavm knows, b
made snuff statements about how important ach
i*. and how bad Mercer’s is, and how somethin ’ had
to be done, and bow somethin’ was gonna.
But was it? Done, that is?
I don’t rightly know, but it seems to ms Mer
car’s just about the rams place it wee, yea tag ago
.Borne funds have been raleert, but not enough.
The University moved fee Venom out of 1
house in which they'd lived for so long, rased th
building, and said, thia ie where fee ls gonna be.
But, she ain't
The Venose now Use an Adame ferret, ben
there several months, in foot And fee gram be!
■pet feat onoe held their feme still stems fain
aft fee mb ewtiiag its tag awaited afenae fictioa
The Baptiste are still ffeatiag whether Me
Will aooept any Federal AM ( Tain t Tainted!” Dr
at- . It
University fraa to safe it as beet fee
seek wife ft fee raflJtaa they had be
‘ an fea new lab omwpta.
oowid and to
to
gfe fet fafarrfi. ileilag the i
fete month, any day new.
•toft ain’t.