Editorial opinion
Breaking lock-Op
The University Administration
has recognized that "stop the
world I want to get off" feeling
around campus.
Beginning Winter Term 1974, a
student will be able to take a leave
of absence from the University by
completing a form and getting the
approval of his college dean.
Under the policy now in effect, a
student has had to take the drastic
step of formally withdrawing from
the University and risking the
possibility of not being readmitted.
The forthcoming drop-out, drop
in policy is a welcome alternative.
Sometimes, in a student's eyes,
Conspiracy:
By JAMES M. CORY
for the Penn State Young Socialists
The Watergate hearings are far from over ,I and the
growing mass of- connected and related Scandals,
intrigues and conspiracies would very likely occupy the
front pages of both the capitalist and working-class
press for years to come if history did, not promise to
intervene with much more shattering and fundamental
developments in tits , immediate future.
Watergate obviously foreshadows those
developments, spelling opt in the clearest posSible way
that this society has reached the stage in In) i hich the
ruling class can no longer possibly rule ] in its
accustomed ways while denying to the broad masses of
working people the ability to live in the old ways.
The industrialists and their political representatives
have quite consciously pulled the stoppers out on
inflation, knowing full well that this will quickly erode
the standard of living that the American working class
has won for itself since the Second World War. The
ruling classes of the advanced countries of Western
Europe are now moving very openly toward- Bonapartist
forms of, rule. Fascist movements, basing themselves
on the distraught and hapless middle classes, have
developed quite massively in France and — especially in
Italy.
The so-called "I.R.A. bombings" carried out daily in
London are more likely to be the work of the police
themselves rather than the 1.R.A., as the notorious
Littlejohn affair has revealed. The bombings are
deliberately designed to create an atmosphere in
London and all across England in which Scotland Yard
can round up leftists at- random. The brutal (not
suicide!) of Dr. Allende speaks volumes concerning the
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ducation is a lock-step process of
terms and credits and grade point
averages. These students become
restless, wondering if they are
trapped in the wet cement of a
major, and the remaining terms to
graduation become something to
be endured.
The need is not only a
Psychological one. As tuition, room
and board costs continue: to
escalate, it becomes increasingly
difficult for a student to pay the
cost of his education. Taking a
Year off, working at a full-time job,
a student earns enough to con-
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the
against
ultimate intentions of these armed criminals of the
state. ' •
. Students of ,the Pennsylvania State University now
find themselves the victims of the same sort of
conspiracies and intrigues, quite related and even as
perfidious. The disgusting and outrageous attempts of
, the local FBI (which, certain newspapers haVe recently
revealed, has nationally been funding the fascist
"Minuteman" group for a number of years!) in cahoots
with the Camprus Patrol to intimidate and muzzle
supporters of left-wing organizations is not at all
unrelated to the Nixon clique's attempts at constructing
a police state.
While the Young Socialists have conducted their
activities on the campus (and off of ft) in a completely
open" manner, with absolutely nothing to hide from
anyone, the despicable agents of the FBI and the
Campus Patrol conspire behind closed and locked
doors, in the dark of the night, with half-deranged
informers (as the Gainsville 8 trial demonstrated) and
sinigter electronic devices, to steal away the democratic
rights which the Constitution supposedly guarantees.
Stormer "apologizes" for beingHvery willfully!)
ignorant of an ordinance concerning the right to
distribute political material which has been on the
boobs for years! Only a fool can fail, to see Stormer's
real motives.
The FBI arrogantly has "no comment" for The Daily
Collegian when it inquires as to whether or not this
goon squad for the financial interests is investigating
individuals associated with the YS. Because of course it
is! Employers, landlords; roommates, etc. are
contacted in an effort to isolate and intimidate
militants. Phones are tapped, comrades are follo'wed in
cars.
At the Young Socialists' summer camp (held for both
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tinUe his education and gains ex
perience and insight.
To a retUming traveler, home is a
new place:. He notices more; there
is a freshness to the routine. A
leave of absence can spark the en
thusiasm of many, students who
have been counting 'terms,
checking off requirements, walking
slow and stooped. •
Drop-out, drop-in is not -for
everyone. It should be a last
resort, t? be considered with
professional counselors. But It
should exist. And the University
should bd,thanked l for that.
latest vicious
democratic rights
President Nixon vetoed the minimum
wage bill on September 6, and since then
the welkin, as they say, has. been
ringing. He has been denounced at least
22 .times a day, chiefly by liberal
Democrats whose odd notion of how
best to care for the poor is to herd them
into housing projects and to keep them
on welfare forever.
The President's veto, inimy own view,
was soundly reasoned. It ought to be
sustained
The pending bill would raise the
federal minimum wage for most non
farm workers, which has 'been fixed at
$1.60 an hour since 1968, to $2 on
November 1 and to $2.25 next July. The
bill would extend coverage to domestic
workers and to certain employes of state
and local governments. Thousands of
assault
educational and recreational purposes) in, Canada,
bugging devices were discovered in the main meeting
halls. Planes manned by provincial policemen flew
menacingly overhead. The police threatened to search
the camp, looking for a "stolen car" (which eventually
became a "stolen trailer!) and admitting that they had
been sent by the request of the U.S. government.
The capitalist system is dying. All democratic rights
are being scrapped by a desperate government fighting
for its very life. There are no "conspiracies" on the left.
it is the paid and armed partisans of this dying system
who are the real conspirators.
The leaders of the labor movement must immediately
convene an emergency Congress of Labor, open to all
sections of the working class. The tasks of this
Congress will be twofold. The first item of business
mustof course be the removal of Nixon through general
strike action. Only the labor movement has the power to
do this. The second, and just as pressing, order of
business must be the establishment of a Labor Party.
Such a party must necessarily be politically responsible
to the rank and file members of the unions. It must have
a socialist program for the expropriation of the financial
and coPporate magnates without compensation and the
transfer of all control of the productßre forces (mines,
mills, factories, ships, etc.) into the hands of the
workers themselves.
These tasks will not and can not be accomplished by
conspiracies, but rather by the most massive. movement
of the working class. Such a movement is imminent.
The working class is waking up to the governrrient's
vicious attacks against democratic rights and against
the worker's very hard-won standards of living. And we
have the fullest confidence that the working class will
not much longer tolerate the presence of the vile gang
of police conspirators. •
Tuesday Sept. 18th
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without
workers in small retail and service
establishments also would be affected.
Nixon's position,is that these sevefal
provisions, on balance, "would do far
more harm than good." He is not
opposed to a substantial increase: . The
administration!s own bill would raise the
minimum wage to $1.90 at once and to
$2.30 three years hence. But he argues
convincingly that the adverse effects of
an increase can be minimized by a more
gradual and less sweeping approach.
The purpose of any increase in the
minimum wage is to benefit the low
wage worker. Subh a prospective benefit
would prove illusory, if it were
swallowed up in higher prices; or it
could prove disastrous, if it resulted in
the loss of a job.
Manifestly, the pending bill would be
some contribution toward higher prices.
The employer who is compelled to meet
a 37.5 per cent increase for his
minimum-wage workers over an eight
month period, and is further compelled
to adjust other wages in order to
maintain differentials, is bound to feel
the impact in his labor costs. Yet
proponents of the bill probably are
correct in saying that the inflationary
effect of the increases would be small.
The be.t, estimate is that the bill would t.
add $1.7 billion next year, or only 0.4 per
cent, to total wageS paid.
The more significant inquiry goes - to
the prospective effect of this bill in
human terms: What about the marginal
man or woman who "benefits" by being
fired? This is not the sort of benefit that
has great appeal. Yet Nixon is quite right
in warning the well-intentioned sponsors
of this legislation that this likely will be
the consequence of their benevolence.
Consider the domestic household
workers. ffie bill would fix their
dtatryCollegian
PATRICIA J. STEWART
Editor
Successor to the Free Lance, est. 1887
Member of the Associated Press ‘.
Charter member of Pennsylvania
Collegiate Media Association
Editoric.:l policy is determined by the Editor.
Opinions expressed by the editors and staff of The Daily Collegian are not
necessarily those of the University administration, faculty or students.
Mail Subscription price: $17.50 a year.
Mailing Address: Box 467, State College, Pa. 16801
Office: 126 Carnegie
lobs
minimum at $l.BO an hour in November,
$2 next July and $2.20 in July 0f•1975. An
estimated 671,000 domestics now are
paid less than $l.BO, and 700,000 are
paid less than $2. They are not mere
tabulated figures in a statistical report:
They are real live human beings, and it is
idle oratory to complain that they are
being "exploited" or that they are being
paid "starvation wages." They are
performing honest work it the very
edges of .the labor market and they earn
something, at least, in self-respect.
Is it better for a domestic to earn, say,
$l2 a day at $1.50 an hour or to earn zero
dollars a day because there is, no job
at $2 an hour? To the 16-year-old
cutting grass or to the elderly black maid
in a small southern town, the question
has fateful meaning. Such marginal
workers have more to fear from their
benefactors than from their oppressors.
The President also objects, on sound
grounds, that it is unwise to extend
federal wage controls to functions of
state and local government not involved
in federal aid. The number of such
affected employes is small (only 74,000),
but the principle is large. He also makes
the realistic argument that the small
retail and service establishments newly
covered by the bill "are the very
businesses least able to absorb sharp,
sudden payroll increases:' Such
employers could meet the higher wage
costs only by cutting back on jobs.
Most of the key Rroponents of the bill
unceasingly proclaim themselves, in
their political campaigns, as friends of
the poor, the blacks, the young and the
working women of our society. It is a
curious act of friendship, I submit, to
hold out to these constituents the
prospect of higher pay but no work.
JOHN J. TODD
Business Manager