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Letters to the editor
in our Mgiriativt syatem. It it view the arthritis m impulsive,
■M many persons who eon- idealistic people who want to
D. G police
use gas guns
An open
letter
At this time you an Marine
completion of another success
ful milestone in your (young?)
Ihns. As always you an faced
with decisions ay to how you
can best utilise your vacation
time.
As a Brother and Mend let
me make a suggestion: Join us
in our efforts to make the
South a decent place to live for
your Black brethren.
Ham in Georgia a new poli
tical frontier ia taking form.
Through your efforts in full-
scale political education and
voter registration a Black man
will possibly be the next
Governor of this state and
Btack men from Georgia will
hopefully move into the na
tional political arena via the
U. S. House of Representatives.
Thsm am ao many happenings
ia Georgia now! Would you
like to help make history?
Would you like to help your
fallow man? Would you like to
join us in 9COPE *70?
Think about K ... can you
really find something more re
warding to do!!
Your Soul Brother,
Hoses L. Williams, Director
Voter Registration &
Political Education
Southern Christian
Leadership Conference
FOR APPLICATION &
INFORMATION:
S.C.O.P.E.
Southern Christian
Leadership Conference
384 Auburn Avenue, N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30303
Phone: (404) 522-1420
Dear editor
thing, or that pact of aodoty
which acta Indifferently or
lethargicaBy and shows little or
no concern or opinion —
whether one ia felt or not” If
this ia ao, then for a moment
the jeOy fish raised a tentacle
to post signs around campus
claiming the silent majority
would be heard. Funny, I
haven’t heard anything since
The definition encompessed
political committment and In
volvement Kathy Hindman
wrote, “1 would say that the
only requirement for member
ship In the silent majority is
that you nod respectfully to
Mr. Nixon after every press
confeaence and every troop
withdrawal.” , Another coed
writes, “according to Nixon,
the silent majority are those
people who don’t express their
opinion but are in favor of his
Viet Nam policy, Indochina,
etc. (lower and middle daas).”
Is it that Nixon relies on the
lower daffies because their sup
port is tacit, and untainted by
the mind-bending philosophical
arguments upon which univer
sity students and intellectuals
in each class base their belief?
If so, why are the lower dames
claimed to be in revolt against
discriminatory clam systems
which feed the rich and starve
the poor?
Ambiguity besides every
side. One coed claims that not
only is the majority those who
don’t care, but “the ones that
sit around and gripe about the
way the government is being
run but make no effort to con
tact their congressmen.” She
advocates personal involvement
tinue to believe in the Repub
lic’s processes, that going
through the proper channels’ is
the only way. Bertie Wilkie be
lieve they are both “intel
lectual and concerned people
who have thought out pro
blems and have workable solu
tions either in the form of revi
sion through long-term politics
or innovation through non
violent means, but who feel
they have no power to change
things.” Those who have given
the system a try, such as In
change at Mercer, can tell you
frustration results from inac
tion at (he other end. Exertion
perpetually deed ends. This
major downfall tends to ex
plain Young America’s resort
to violence in the footsteps of
the dvil rights and labor move
ments. Ineffectiveness leads
eventually to violent activism
as was unfortunately seen at
Kent State. It has been sug
gested that, despite extreme
provocation stemming from
the standstills and recurrent
snags, groups refrain from re
sorting to violence as “the only
way to get what we want.”
A conservative co-ed is
opinionated and concerned but
not pubiically active. Opinion
is not by implication activism.
As Dean Trimble suggested,
there has to be another way —
an alternative to militarism or
the SDS. As the co-ed put it,
“What we first have to do is get
together."
It seems violent activism is
not the way to win the truly
silent majority, the unrespon
sive 77% of this poll. “They
bring about change now yet
have no answers, no alternate
suggestions for improvement,
and therefore their dramatic,
violent demonstrations have
been futile, accomplishing little
other than publicity.”
Some conservatives, consid
ering themselves part of the
silent majority believe it's time
to speak. The liberals have con
ferred and ate tired of hot air.
“Usually the silent majority
speaks up when something
drastic goes wrong or when
something they support is chal
lenged strongly.” The time is
imminent.
Silent majority:
SOMETHING HAS GONE
WRONG WITH OUR AMERI
CA. YOU ARE BEING CHAL
LENGED. The liberals aren’t
waiting on “America — love it
or leave it.” While I’m here
trying to define this tacit group
to you people are denouncing
their beliefs in the L. S. before
the conservatives became the
church mice of North America.
Quite easily the majority
has becomf, for some, “a
myth, a boogeyman made up
by parents, college administra
tors and (above all) politicians
who want to scare anti-war
protestors back into the class
room and into a placid accep
tance of our country’s faults.”
They can no longer believe
in the hypocracy of the silent
people who allow the system
to run this country for them.
People cannot stand by while
their beloved country goes
I went to Washington for
the anti-war demonstration for
a variety of reasons. One. I was
deeply concerned with the
deaths of four fellow students
at Kent State University — a
school I considered attending.
Secondly, being a male of 2-S
draft status, I was very con
cerned with the,new violation
of International Law by the
Nixon Administration. And,
thirdly, being an American citi
zen, I felt it to be my duty to
express my opinion to a gov
ernment that is supposed to
work for my interests.
Upon entering Washington,
D. C., the capital of the most
powerful nation in the world, 1
was taken aback by the size of
the force of the City and Park
Police, as well as the National
Guard troops. Even at 6:30
Saturday morning, when I first
arrived, police barricades were
set up, tear gas canisters were
being passed out, and police
were busily guiding traffic.
Not that these precautions
were not necessary, but the
magnitude and the placing of
so many officers gives rise to
some thought as to how safe
our country really is.
As the day wore on and the
weather grew more humid
angry words were flying
through the air from the stu
dent leaders on the speaker’s
platform. On the ground, many
of the students slept or enjoy
ed the sun. Out on the Mall,
many students tried to cool off
by taking a dip into the Tidal
Basin, sometimes au nature),
which prompted some police
by Tom Robinson
to go into action and arrest
them for indecent exposure.
Later in the day, however,
the heat got to some students
who refused to give right-of-
way to pedestrians, so the pol
ice, snatching at the first op
portunity to use their gas, fired
a couple of canisters at the
demonstrators as well as a lot
of the pedestrians they were
supposed to protect. This also
prompted several other police
men to come from what seem
ed out of the woodwork.
The force they used in the
afternoon was nothing com
pared to that about 1:30 Sun
day morning. Several students
desired to put a poster up on
the Washington Monument.
The students got a little rough,
so once again. City Police fired
tear gas into the crowd. It was
of no consequence to the Pol
ice that the tear gas also drifted
toward people who were trying
to sleep.
Later that morning, police
also fired tear gas to break up
small disturbances at George
Washington University, and
once again, the tear gas fell
among several students trying
to sleep.
No one who was there, ex
cept the police can say with a
straight face that the po ce
couldn’t have broken up the
disturbances without tear and
pepper gas.
Not all the police were trig
ger-happy with the gas guns;
but there were those who ob
viously got some kind of sadis
tic pleasure shooting tear gas at
people who were not even in
volved in the disturbances.
(Continued on Page 4)
Editorial exchange
Opinion from around the state . . .
Before this year was out I
knew I had to ferret out the
truth or falsity of the Mar
cerian Myth — apathy and the
silent majority. Much has hap
pened during the past two or
three weeks to cause me to re
consider my original statement
“What this campus needs is
some thought.” Words have
been flying hot and heavy
around campus. At least I
thought they were.
One night around midnight
I conceived an “opinion poll’’
of the lowest order — hand
typed, etc. It was one of those
spot cheeks of croaseections
which never represent a true
section of anything except
areas people being asked the
aaaae things over and over.
Unfortunately the results
are conahsaive, as always - the
SILENT MAJORITY, contrary
to recent signs around campus,
IS NOT SPEAKING UP, even
about themselves.
Mr Question was this: Who
andwhnththesilent majority?
After all, who would know bet-
tar than a cross section which
paobabty contained that “ma
jority”? Result: of the two
FWRH halls polled I received
exactly sight replies, that is,
18%. The opinions were not
necessarily from the “liberal
left.”
Definition stood primarily
on the wall-worn “anybody
who doamit gvead
Mr impression, in reading fur
ther wm that the silent raa
josity le a jefly-fish type group
~ and doiag nothing save
r ate “that group in society
which acts aa a ‘behind the
* ^ tar —
Serendipity
Reprinted from the
Baptist Faculty Paper
The U. S. has poured more
than one trillion dollars into
the military since the end of
World War II. One tenth of this
staggering amount was invested
in the Vietnam war.
Out of every tax dollar in
Fiscal Year 1969, seventy cents
went to pay for wars, pint and
present, and preparation of
war. Of this amount, nineteen
cents went to pay for Vietnam,
thirty-five cents for other cur
rent military expenditures, and
sixteen cents for the cost of
past wars. Every man, woman,
and child in the U. S. is now
spending an average of four
hundred dollars a year on the
military, an increase of 60 per
cent over the last five years.
What could even a portion
of this amount of money buy
if invested elsewhere? In Viet
nam, the U. S. has lost six
thousand aircraft valued at six
billion dollars as of October
24, 1969. Six billion dollars
could buy a fully equipped
elementary school for one
thousand children, a fully
equipped junior high school for
thirteen hundred and a fully
equipped senior high school for
fifteen hundred in each of 250
communities, plus a starting
salary of $7,000 for each of
35,714 teachers — one teacher
for every twenty-seven child
ren.
in memoriam
Four Kent State University
students were shot down by
the Ohio National Guard
troops Monday. The incident
of student rioting on the Kent
Campus which precipitated the
shootings has been given full
111 mags by the national media
and requires no further descrip
tion here.
Dead are two coeds, Allison
Krauee of Pittsburg and Sandy
Schauer of Youngstown, Ohio,
and two male students, Jeffrey
Glenn Millar of Plain view,
N.Y., and William Schroeder
of Lorain, Ohio.
Whan Nixon heard of the
risootiap, he blamed the stu
dents for the tragedy. Earlier,
he had called diaMnting stu
dents “college bums.” Agnew
blamed college faculty and ad
ministrators and the media for
encouraging “violent diasdht”
which he said provoked the
killings.
Former President Truman
went one step further when he
publicly proclaimed, as quoted
by AVANT GARDE magazine,
“He’s (Nixon) a
who never told the truth in his
life.” Agnew is not worth fur
ther mention
Nixon doesn’t seem to un
derstand that he connot con
tinue to use violence as a
means himself and simnlta-
Pulse of the public
Reprinted from the
George—Anne
Georgia Southern College,
Statesboro, Georgia
The GEORGE-ANNE is cri
tlcized by many different
people for many different rea
sons. Some people say that we
don’t devote' enough space to
the Greeks (others say we
devote too much space to the
initialed few); some people say
we complain too much about
the administration and the
campus facilities; others accuse
us of arrogantly sitting back in
easy chairs and writing hypo
critical copy.
Reprinted from
the West Georgian
West Georgia College,
Carrolton, Georgia
neously condemn students’ use
of it. Nixon has okayed the
death warrants for thousands
of Americans in Southeast
Asia, not to mention thousands
of Southeast Asians. And now
ha has apparently justified the
murders of four Kent State stu
dents.
Nixon is proving himself
one of this country's . most
treacherous and vicious presi
dents. His blind foreign policy
has widened the rift between
Intellectuals and ignoramuses
like himself. Ha is setting the
stage for a revolution, and
providing increasing grounds to
justify one.
But the criticism voiced
most often and most consis
tently is that our editorial
columns represent only a small
portion of the student body.
We are told that our columnists
are always writing extremely
liberal, and sometimes radical,
columns (tell that to the boys
at Berkeley).
None of our columnist will
deny that his political and
social philosophy is somewhat
to the left of Wallace. Reagan,
and Gold water. We realize that
this campus is a stronghold of
Southern conservatism but
freedom of the press allows us
to speak our minds, and we do.
Causing most of the friction
is the mistaken belief that a
t9w long-haired radicals control
the printed word and no con
servative opinion can be
voiced. Balderdash. Last quar
ter we literally got down on
our collective knees and begged
readers to send letters to the
editor, giving us some inkling
as to what was going on in the
minds of the silent majority.
The flow of letters increased
for a couple of weeks, and then
settled back down to a trickle.
In the hope of clianging this
supposed under representation
of all campus elements, we are
instituting an open column,
“Pulse of the People.” This
column will be open to anyone
having an inclination to apeak
out on anything - students,
faculty, administrators, and
staff personnel.
'The columns may be writ
ten on any subject in any style,
with no restriction on length.
The only limitations placed on
these columns will be rele
vancy, literacy, and taste. The
only editing we will do will be
to correct flagrant grammatical
errors and to strike out any un
necessary obscenities which
might needlessly offend, and.
since we are admittedly liberal
we will keep our editing at a
minimum to allow you to say
what you want to say in the
manner in which you wish to
say it.
The deadline for these col
umns is the Thursday before
Tuesday publication; columns
submitted after Thursday will
be held over for the next edi
tion.
So, if you have something
you want to say, this Is the
best opportunity you’ve ever
had. The “Pulse of the People"
column is open to everyone —
anarchists, monarchists, conser
vatives, radicals, liberals, mo
derates, socialists, communists
— everyone The success of this
innovation depends on von
Reader interest could turn it
into a campus forum; apathy
will kill it.
You’re in college now. you
can think for yourself. Pick up
your pen and write
Support
Action Line
Box 1070
..■a’*.
THE MERCER CLUSTER • May 19, 1970 • 3
