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 ?
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EXCUSE FOR BEING
DID ` 63 ,, U 0 ABSENT FROM
BRING (10— S CHOOL BECAUSE
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YES, SOU HAVE TO HAVE ONE..
OTHERWISE THE SCHOOL CAN'T
COLLECT ITS STATE-AID MONEY
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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
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