Pot Laws Unfair... THERE HAS LONG BEEN debate, especially on college campuses, concern ing the fairness of pot laws. So now, it seems, the Nixon Administration doesn’t think that smoking pot is worth ten years of prison anymore. The proposals for change were made -yesterday. Presently, possession, sale or use of marijuana is a felonv with a maximum penalty of two to ten years in p r- '-~” and a fine. UNDER THE suggested revisions, use or possession of any drugs would become a misdemeanor providing for a sentence of up to one year and a $5,000 fine. Perhans the Nixon administration thinks that if its suggested revisions go through, pot laws in this countrv will be as fair as they need to be. or at least will be in the context of realistic late 20th century social mores. However, the revisions are actually legal tokenism. Even if the changes go through, it is absurd that smoking grass can send you to prison. It is iust as absurd that John E. Tngersoll, director of the Justice Department’s Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs said: “Because of the present penalty structure, there is a real hesitancy on the part o f prosecutors in courts to handle (drug) possession cases because of the poten tial I”''* l ’ "nn"it=e S involved.” INGERSOLL, we presume, is look ing for the greatest number of drug con- ...Grid Rankings, Too UNIVERSITY GRID FANS will be ;unnerved this morning as they note T the second time in three weeks that the Nittany Lions have slipped down in the Associated Press football rankings. The Lions played a heroic fourth quarter on Saturday, showing in the Orange Bowl tradition thev created themselves, that two tries at the goal line are as good as one anyday. Also, the Syracuse Orangemen were clearly playing over their heads. Tt was Homecoming in Syracuse, and they had their three periods of fun. ! STILL, THE AP WRITERS who rank the college teams thought more .highly of seven other teams, and the Lions slipped from fifth to eighth. Penn State coach Joe Paterno said tit all with these words. “The sign of r ®hr Satin (EoUrgtatt Published Tuesday through Saturday during the Fall/ Winter and Spring Terms/ and Thursday during the Summer Term, by students of The Pennsylvania State University. Second class postage paid at State College, Pa. 16801. Circulation: 12,500. Mail Subscription Price: $12.00 a year Malting Address Box 467. State College, Pa. 16801 Editorial and Business Office Basement of Sackett (North End) Phone 865-2531 Business office hours: Monday through Friday# 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Member of The Associated Press PAUL S. BATES Business Manager Beard of Editors: Managing Editor Glenn Kranxley; Editorial Editor. Allan Yoder; City Editor. David Nestor; Assistant City Editors, Marc Klein, Pat Gurosky; Copy Editors, Sara Herter, Sandy Bazonis, Pat Dyblie; Feature Editor, Marge Cohen; Sports Editor, Don McKee; Assistant Sports Editor, Dan Donovan; Senior Reporters, Rob McHugh and Denise Bowman; Weather Reporter, Billy Williams. JAMES R. DORRIS Editor Board of Managers: LocaJ Ad Manager/ Kathy McCormick; Assistant Local Ad Manager, Leslie Schmidt; National Ad Manager, Chris Dunlap; Credit Manager, Steve Leicht; Assistant Credit Manager, Patti Filippi; Circulation Manager, Denny Marvich; Classified Ad Manager, Barry Barnett; Promotion Manager, Jerry Orris; Sales Manager, Lynn Kranx leiiter. PAGE TWO How Far Does Good Gir! Have To Get A Diamond? When he takes you home to a mother like this, you deserve a decoration. Viva la Diamond Room. Financing Available mayer jewelers 216 EAST COLLEGE AVENUE Open Evenings by Appointment Editorial Opinion victions possible, and can see reduced penalties to increase the number of con victions under them. Rather, laws should be revised or stricken only to further justice. On one hand, the Administration acts as though it wants to make the drug laws more "fitting;” on the o+he" hand, however, Ingersoll’s statements make the revisions appear only as a new means of policing morality. Whv can’t the government face up to the fact that millions of young peo ple. and some not so young, are smoking grass across the country? WHY CAN'T IT take the time to appoint a blue ribbon panel of experts to studv the drug problem and its cni'e quences? Second guessing is a worthless pasttime, but we can’t help but conjec ture that at least marijuana laws would be found totallv antiquated. Sensible restrictions should be im posed on the use of marijuana. It should not be sold to persons under, say, 18 years of ace. Tt should be licensed p~' j taxed by the federal government. And smoker« who d’-hm under its influence should be penalized. N t XON'S STATEMENT vesterdav that the revisions will make “better respect, for the law” is ill advised Tf the President, or any of his advisers, believe that persons about to smoke the week will stop and think. “The pot laws are more iivt now. so let’s not smoke,” he’s thinking absurdly. great team is when you beat a good team and don’t play so well.” THE LIONS HAD their backs to the wall on Saturday, but they wouidn” let Syracuse count them out. They fought when all seemed hopeless, and they came up winners. Such a valiant effort deserves praise rather than the fate the Lions received. Something is wrong with a rating system that allows people who see no more than a box score to rate teams for a national championship. THE RESPONSIBILITY OF rating college football teams should belong to the National Collegiate Athletic Association. They sanction the games and set uo the rules. SteDs toward •" national playoff system rather than out moded bowl system should b e investigated. Only then can the true strength of teams be tested. Successor to The Free Lance, est. 1887 64 Years of Editorial Freedom To Go rESDAY, OCTOBER 21 S&A B " v t v rn&.-?iL jp-- - In the Bell System you start at management level. And we don’t intend to pamper you. We know by now that when you’re fresh from the graduation ceremony, you have a lot more to offer than most businesses give you credit for. And we'll take ad vantage of it. We'll throw problems at you right away. Big problems. And there are a lot of them. A field as fast paced as communications produces them as fast as we can solve them. We are interested in aspiring people with Bache lor’s or Master’s degrees in Engineering, Mathe matics, Science, Liberal Arts or Business Adminis tration. BELL SYSTEM ON CAMPUS NOV. 4 & 6 representing all Bell System Companies throughout the U.S. MAKE AN APPOINTMENT NOW WITH YOUR PLACEMENT OFFICE , We are an equal opportunity employer "That 1954 Supreme Court ruling on desegregation never entered my mind." KirtirW-ara / D id snoopv & =====4, I 6ET BACK? W ill OJHAT HAPPENED? Collegian Invites Faculty Writers University faculty are in- The articles should be type vitea to submit articles to Col- written and triple-spaced and iegian’s “Faculty Forum.” should not exceed 75 lines in I Columns of opinion from all length. Interested faculty | meirbers of the faculty are should bring their articles to welcome. Collegian office, 20 Sacketf j Building. Start out where it’s happening... in a meaningful management job tj iwwwc«* “j^ 1 6 - f L 2? Meet company representatives from Bell of Pennsylvania A.T.&T. Company-Long Lines Dept Bell Telephone Laboratories Inc. Western Electric Company Inc. A.T.&T. Company-Treasury Department # r YES, NO THANKS TO YOU! HE WAS CHAR6ED WITH NOT PURSUING HIS AOTHLY QUOTA OF RABBITS FORTUNATE. 1 !', THE HEAP BEA6LE UJAS VERY UNPERSTANPINS... - I^l Letters to the Editor Women: Sex Objects? TO TIIE EDITOR: The Homecoming Queen Contest is an example of the roles that women are given to play in our society. We are treated as sex objects, and thus \vc become conditioned to accept such a degrading role. This phenomenon is not an accident, however. This role of wo.men is functional for the society that we live in. As mindless bodies that are evaluated on the terms of a monolithic standard of beauty and “pleasing personalities” (passive and ac cepting behavior), we become very susceptible victims of the consumer society. The large monopolistic companies that rule the U.S. economy and government find that impulsive, thoughtless buying habits and very insecure people are very susceptible to advertising. The very notion of having the University represented by a beauty queen denies the stated goals of an academic community, whose members pretend to themselves that PSU is dedicated to logical thought, free exchange of ideas, critical inquiry and rational challenge of human ideas and behavior. But the dominant ideology of our society in fact discourages the active pursuit of these goals, especially for women. It is no accident either that those members of U.S. society who sit on boards of trustees are also members of the corporate elite who benefit from the ex ploitation and oppression of women. Contests such as Homecoming Queen become quite logical in this context. Yet we must, if we are to live fully human lives, reject the kind of logic which rationalizes and even glorified the treatment of peoples as objects. The energies dissipated in such frivolous activities as Homecoming and its beauty con tests could be put to much better use if directed toward such crucial issues as the war and institutionalized racism. We urge our fellow men and especially women students to reject the false values and roles assigned to us by a decadent society and to accept the challenge of building a humanistic society. Cindy Rosenthal Chairman, Women’s Liberation (lOth-GNAS-Levittown) HUB Marine: A Service? TO THE EDITOR: On Friday I protested the presence of Marine Corps recruiters on cam pus. In regard to the protest and to your cov erage of said events m the Saturday edition of The Collegian: —lt is easy to pigeonhole (and thereby obscure) a protest in the “devil-theory” category whether the devil be communist or SDS. In reply to your article headed “Marines vs. SDS”: I am not a member of SDS and I moan to be understood by what I say, not by how someone artibrarilv labels me. —The draft card burnings and the protest signs lent nothing but a carnival atmosphere (mirrored m the stupid grins of many who walked by) to what should have been a serious dialogue between the protestors and the non protestors. - —ln reply to Lt. W. C. Conrad’s comments in The Collegian: “Lt. W. C. Conrad of the Marines said the protestors did not bother him. ‘Everyone has the right to protest.... As a mat ter of fact it is my duty and obligation to pro tect that right to dissent.’ ” As a matter of fact the Marines do less to protect my right to dissent than they do to deny others the right to dissent. (Witness the popular revolutionary movements in Vietnam or the Dominican Republic.) Indeed, my right to dissent becomes rather hollow when the substance of my dissent is the “protection” of my right to dissent. Furthermore, in regard to Lt. Conrad’s assertion that he was not bothered by the pro testors: Is he so sure of himself that he has ceased to question the morality of his actions? —ln reply to the person who argued that I was merely picking up business for the recruiters: The situation will not get better by being ignored. Military recruitment is a disease on this campus because it is unchallenged by an ignorant, apathetic, and morally degenerate student body. It goes without saying that a disease must be understood before it can be treated. —ln reply to the gentleman who asked me why I was protesting: Why are military recruiters allowed on campus? When, why. and and by whom was military recruitment sanctioned to be carried on within the boun daries of University Park? Granted that a University should ideally be an open forum for all opinions, the question remains, is military WANTED Person meeting the descripion of a. imaginative b. good sense of humor c. absurd tendencies d. a flair for the ridiculous If you meet the following qualifications you’re wanted on UUB Special Events Committee Turn yourself in at the HUB Desk by signing an application ©(not affiliated with Spring Week) university union board 7:00 P.M. - 11:00 P.M. Tuesday and Thursday recruitment the exercise of an opinion? Or is it more accurately an indirect form of coercion? If. as the Marine recruiters assert, their presence on campus is a service to those stu dents seeking career opportunities is it not also a disservice to those who find their presence morally repugnant? I will end, not by demanding that military recruiters be removed from the HUB, but rather by demanding that people qupstion the tacit assumption that military recruiters belong in University Park. Tom Podoll March: Common Cause TO THE EDITOR: Rc Morton Levy's letter “March Judged Dismal Failure”. In his hasty decision Wednesday evening, he obviously missed the score. It was more like (to use Mr. Levy’s choice of terms) “Anti-American SDS” 30, the “Pro-American Moratorium” 3,000. If Mr. Levy was so concerned about mak ing the Moratorium a moral demonstration against the war, why didn’t he join the other 3,000 students and wave an American flag. He would have been welcomed. The beauty of the march was that everyone, regardless of political persuasion or idcafs, was able to march together in one com mon cause PEACE. I Let Ideals be Ends' TO THE EDITOR: On Wednesday several speakers used the Moratorium as a soap box for socialism. Many of us have been too busy avoiding exploitation to have considered deeply whether we would rather be exploited by capitalists or socialists, but it seems to me that we have nothing to learn from the warmed-over formulas of the men who corrupted the labor movement. Every socialist government mucks around in the lives of people, and this is exactly what we are resisting. Behind every ideology, including capitalism and socialism, there are con men ready to cor rupt ideals in the name of that ideology. To them the ideals of peace and freedom are merely means to attain ideology; they would just as readily use war and slavery. For once, why don’t we let ideals be ends in themselves, and tell the con men what they can do with their ideologies. Why Did Nixon Ignore Us? TO THE EDITOR: This month’s moratorium has ended. The day spent at the HUB and Schwab auditorium with its many speakers and viewpoints was an education in itself. There is so much to react to; two points bother me today. One, what naive faith I had in the democratic system is disintegrating. Why did President Nixon choose to completely ignore us? A sudden policy change was not really ex pected, but couldn’t he have said something to the American people on Wednesday? Would he have looked out his window if the marchers had been violent? Doesn’t he remember President Kennedy’s meeting with representatives of the March on Washington (only 200,000 strong)? The presidents have met with small groups of exchange students at the White House before they return from their year here to their homes all over the world. Don’t the American people rate such a courtesy? My faith in democracy has faltered locally too. Apparently there are those in this university who are not able to let their political views known publicly, without fear of losing their future departmental status. When the names of those faculty members who supported the moratorium were read by Asst. Professor Wells Keddie in Schwab auditorium, there were the unknown faculty who supported the moratorium but could not allow their names to be read. There were the others those who were cither brave or secure enough that the heads of their departments judged their work on their abilities not their political beliefs. If a man cannot form his own political viewpoints and state them freely in an American university where can he do so? What has happened to this representative government “of the people, by the people, and for the people?” Do we have freedom of speech? Kay Borish Call the Collegian HOT LINE 865-2881 (G r a d-Physical Chemistry- Scattle, Wash.) Coalition for Peace C. Leon Harris Instructor, biophysics (11-Art-Philadelphia) —need an answer? —want to cut red tape? —have a gripe? —or just curious?
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers