PAGE FOUR Edit , :)rial Opinion A setter Penn State tiust Be Deserved As we heard the news of the resignation of five Con greTAncii last night, we began to reflect upon the status of student government at this University. Due to the resignations, elections will soon have to be held again. With each election for Congressional substitutes, interest among students seems to decrease. We abhor this apathy. There are those, and they are not few, that will criticize us for calling non-interest in student government apathy. We ask these people to consider: Are students at the Pennsylvania State University so content . . . so satisfied with their situation ,here . . . so unimaginative and so disinterested that they could not wish 13r ct better university? As you spent $4O for books in a crowded downtown book2tore did you wish for a University bookstore which' could pw.sibly offer reluced prices? Student government has explored bookstore possibilities in the past and could do so again WITH STUDENT SUPPORT. Were male students glad to hear the University Sen ate's recommendation that ROTC be made voluntary? Student government was active in advocating this change. Probably every student, excluding freshmen and transfers, has enjoyed the Spring Week festivities. They are student government sponsored events. The:ie are but a few of the vast variety of projects in which student government has participated. The possibili ties for its future are unlimited. But without strong student support it can do nothing. Each person on this expansive campus can contribute to the betterment of this university, student body and himself in hi own way through student government. He may run for an All-University office or he may drop a line to the president recommending a capable person for a proposed project. He may just cast his ballot. Extent of contribution is an individual matter. If students are dissatisfied with the job their student government is doing or if they have become disinterested because they feel student government is "doing nothing important," let them examine their own ideas for this University's betterment. Let them use their imaginations. Let them make our potentially vital student government into the driving force that it should be. In a University as large as Penn State, student govern ment should be a body of stature, responsibility, respect and influence. Student government is not given to the stu dents, but is made by them. We cannot condone the behavior of students who . sit back and criticize . . . who jeer at attempts to better the University ... AND DO NOTHING to correct the situation. They do not deserve a better Penn State. A Student-Gperated Newspaper 58 Years of Editorial Freedom c7~ lie Datig Toltenittu Successor to The Free Lance, est. 1887 Published Tuesday through Saturday morning during the University year. The Daily Collegian Is a student—operated newspaper. Entered as second—class matter July 5. 11131 al the State College. Pa. Post Office under the act of March 3, 18T9. Molt Suhacrlption Prloet 98.00 a year Mailing Address Box 2 61, State College, Pa. ANN PALMER Editor Member of The Associated Press IF MI NEW ADVANCEMENTS ARE MADE IN PRIMARY EDUCATION, LET ME KNOW.. THE DAILY COLLEGIAN. UNIVERSITY PARK. PENNSYLVANIA HERBERT WITMER Business Manager HOW POMPOUS CAN ('OU SET ? ° - °/ " /P " - r s; YOU MEAN MV EXCUSE FOR BEING DID ` 63 ,, U 0 ABSENT FROM BRING (10— S CHOOL BECAUSE NOTE F I WAS SICK? , ... vi, , , • , • • , ~of • i.c. • • • A Litt f - 5. YES, SOU HAVE TO HAVE ONE.. OTHERWISE THE SCHOOL CAN'T COLLECT ITS STATE-AID MONEY ..._____ol . s ~........_ ~: .f .-"\.. ..--7,7te.-- # Vj 14y; ••• If ..., ,_ , , ir,-,p,-,-. at ix • - Is THAT WHAT THE NOTE IS FoR? THAT' 4,S DISILLUSI ONI NG.. 0 ~ 1 .._ 4 I , II 2 ,) '''' f. It T ' ? ' , - f • 3•1 _ ‘a, II ii .... .., 4- . .1 i 1 , C.. in .....4 .., ,r- •0.-- t. .1.--2 , - -- 1 , ... , ...- I i --- . ...iii: eS '' ''' ' I THOUGHT 'INF? WERE INTERESTED IN WHETHER OR NOT I WAG FEELING BETTER ! 1 ri i‘jk col., a al 1i) .....,,,,, v ,... 7 , .....i .1.....‘; 0 27144 .1- .s , -., e-V-004 Letters A Poe On Collegian? TO THE EDITOR: Have you an Edgar Allen Poe on your layout staff or was the front page of the Nov. 27 Collegian—containing the suicide report—merely a product of capricious chance? What involuted Gothic imagina tion could have the USG proclaim "Dead Week" (goes rather well with a suicide story!) in one place then, alongside that, proudly an nounce that university "Improve ment" (no doubt the erection of taller dormitories) "May Lead To Rating in Top Ten by 1970"—what top ten? (heh, heh). This was not all, we still have jolly old "Spring Weeks Schedule of Events Announced. "By now we all have a vague idea of what those "events" will consist. These are, of course, the im pressions of a person who reads only headlines. The report of the boy's death, contrary to the usual cry of coldness you may receive, was, I thought, well and compas sionately written. I have only one complaint and that is, why did one of the eighth-floor students get his name in bold type? A trivial matter, but it seemed to put the article in bad taste. Why should any other human being except the deceased have received that much attention in the report? To conclude, Edgar Allen Poe was pretty good at horror stories but to use him in laying out head lines is rather inappropriate. —Pete Pappentick, '64 WDFM Schedule TUESDAY, JAN. 8, 1983 THE PHILADELPHIA —Bloch: Schelomo ; Ravel: Concerto for the Left Hand DINNER DATE—Popular music THIS WEEK AT THE UNITED NATIONS WEATHERSCOPE—JoeI Myers' forecast CONTEMPORARY CLASSICS HIGHLIGHT—Campus organizations CAMPUS SPORTS PARADE Jost Grata interviews top athletes NEWS ROUNDUP THE SOUND OF FOLK MUSIC— Mike _Thomsen with records and local talent SPORTS NEWS MEET THE PROFESSOR MOSTLY MUSIC Popular mush: UPI NEWS SY2.ILON_C NOTEBOOK 8 :55 9:00 9:16 9:55 10:00 2 cents worth IFC Last year the Interfraternity Council tried to take over Spring Week by direct, methods. At that time, the council proposed that the participating members in the "week" should decide what ac tivities were to be included in the annual spring affair. Thus since the IFC has partici pated more heavily than •any oth er group, it would, in effect, be in position to dictate the events of the "week." That move failed for various reasons, the main one being that no other groupsw , r on campus sup-Igr iA2' ported IFC's posi-",y . k' tion. This year they ;„,„ IFC is waging arr,44 more subtle cam- A paign to take over`;-4'o I,< Spring Week.O'f . :itit , l , They are attempt-4V 4-4:qF ing to infiltrate :pt the sponsorship of , Spring Week by scheduling a con cert in the prime time slot of the spring weekend— Saturday night. Student govern ment has sponsored Spring Week since the conception of the event nearly 15 years ago. This year the Town Independent Men's Council has agreed to relinquish its monopoly of the rights for a "gambling" night so that a Ca sino similar to "Las Vegas Nite" could be a part of Spring Week. Thus, the present situation is that although this one weekend in April has been set aside as an All-University Spring Week, the Interfraternity Council has moved in, rather uninvited, and scheduled an event for the Satur- Affluent Society Called A Myth By Arizona State Grad Student TO THE EDITOR: In 1953 -David Lilienthal wrote: ". . . today one finds the physical benefits of our .society distributed widely, to al most everyone, with scant regard to status, class or origin of the individual." Also that year Shep ard B. Clough wrote that the It . progress which has been made in the last 20 years toward a More equitable sharing in the benefits of economic growth shows what is possible under the capitalist system." In 1958 the concept of "the affluent society" was propounded b y John Kenneth Galbraith. Among others, David Riesman and A. A. Berle have also con tributed to the popularly held notion of justly distributed wealth. Surely all this is ample testimony that Jeffersonian de mocracy has become a reality in the U.S.A. Thus we have come to believe that the rich are getting poorer, and the poor, richer. Sooner or later all dogma and myth falls prey- to facts and fig ures. So it is with American eco nomics. A recent book by a Har vard historian has exploded the pernicious myth that the so-called free enterprise system is spread ing the wealth. Dr. Gabriel Kolko's boo k, "Wealth and Power in America," attacks this comfortable notion— that the rich are getting poorer, and the poor, richer—with a bar rage of documented facts and plain-spoken logic. He shows the widely hailed democratic revolu tion of the New Deal and after to be little more than making the status quo more palatable. Even with the many reforms over the last 30 years, the distribution of wealth is essentially the same as it was in 1910! That the rich are getting richer Is also revealed by Robert J. Lampman, economics professor at the University of Wisconsin, whose book, "The Share of Top- Wealth Holders in National Wealth, 1922-56," claiins that the richest one per cent holds 76 per cent of the total of corporation stocks outstanding. This concen tration is actually worse than_ 1929. Why do such' anti-democratic TUESDAY, JANUARY 8. 1963 Week? by dave runkel day night of that weekend. The Spring Week committee was faced with the choice of either accepting the IFC-spon sored event or scheduling some thing in direct competition with it. The committee has apparently rejected the latter alternative be lieving the concert would out draw. any event they might sched ule. This seems to have some logic to suppOrt it. This scheme to take the con trol of •Spring Week out of the hands of USG and give it to the IFC would, in this writer's opin ion, destroy the All-University nature of the event. Now it is one of the few, if not the only time when all students can work on one event. It is a truly Penn State Week. In addition to this loss, the past record of the IFC shows that when it has been confronted with the choice of doing something good for the University as a whole or doing something good for IFC, it has chosen to do that thing best for IFC. This is exem plified by its refusal to partici pate in a float parade at Home coming when all other campus organizations supported the pro posal. RUN KEL When Spring Week chairman Peter Lockhart makes his report on the. schedule of events for Spring Week to the USG Con gress perhaps student govern ment will throw its full support behind an •All-University-spon sored Spring Week and apply pressure to the IFC to relinquish the sponsorship of the concert now set for the Saturday night of Spring Week. If this can't be done, perhap3 Spring Week can be moved to some other weekend more in convenient to the IFC. forces go unrecognized arid un checked? The strange silence in the universities, labor unions, and government is most mysterious to me. (We can rest assured Big Business won't blab about its monopolistic activities.) It seems that a conscious deception is be ing infused on our folkways and mores to a dangerous degree. Such corporate despotism as now pre vails in our country points to the necessity of radical change in eco nomic structure. But the crazy national psychology and logic wrought by Cold War fear are Working against any rational ap proach in solving our grave eco nomic problems. The military industrial complex has too much at stake to allow this. ("Peace" has become a subversive idea.) Close scrutiny of the U.S. power structure shows a juxtaposition of economic and political power, with labor playing a subordinate (servile) role. The record of the 87th Congress readily demon strates this. President Kennedy ultimately got his fingers burned after the row with big steel; he later appeased the monopolists. Check the record. In the name of the Taft-Hartley Law, court or ders, and national defense, labor quickly got in line. (Labor has been housebroken for years now.) Too many labor leaders have a vested interest in the status quo. Check the record. The forces of democracy are surely being th warted to serve the interests of a gre e d y few, the corporate wealthy. But why the silence (or is it confusion?) in the academic world? Surely most teachers and professors have little vested in terest in maintaining the present structure of wealth and power? Or is there an ignorance of basic facts? Fear maybe? To save what there is left of our democracy; many misconceptions and myths (many of those spawn ed sinee.the New Deal days) first have to be removed. A good start would be to read the books men tioned here. The dead hand of ancient ideas can be fatal. —John D. copping . Grad Student Arizona State University ®Letter cut
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers