Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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JIM. FARRELL EDITOR LUCRETIA JONES DAVE LUNDGREN MANAGING ED AD. MNGR. EDITORIALS ROTC yes; West Point no There has been a movement throughout the country to remove the ROTC program from the different campuses. This movement has now become a part of the Carolina campus. There are a few facts that should be faced. The need for an army in this country is a reality because regardless of who controls the country, protection for the people is needed. There are many different ways to build an army and one of them is to have a strong officers' corps. One of the means to achieve this corps is to have military institutions. Military institutions, such as West Point, throughout the country are geared for the sole purpose of training men in the art of strategy and dicipline. Many of the people coming out of these institutions are living a life of the military by the time their first year is up and their concept of life is '"spit and shine." They are pushed to the point of believing everything that is told to them. They live in the military atmosphere for four years straight. They become indoctrinated with the military rhetoric to the point of forgetting that most of America is made up of civilians. The all-military institute should be abolished. However, on the other hand, the men in the Reserve Officers Training Corps can relate to other students and, since the army reflects the Civilian problem, be able to help change the military. Many of these people are looking for a way to go through college and when they qualify for the program they get incentives from the military. They have more sense in many cases because of their constant contact with the rest of the population than would a completely militarily in doctrinated officer. Isn't it better that we allow this type of military teaching to continue than striving to force those interested in this type of education and life into the military in stitutions? The military is here to stay. Face the facts and look at the alternatives. MUMSY.4**O* . .BU.aW/ H a~ Insight: Bill Hen Black -Editor's note-This Is the first in a series of two columns written by Bill Henderson of the Afro American Studies Dept. The appearance of the Honorable Edmond Muskie in our state last week brought to mind the controversy over Black par ticipation in the November 1972 election. Sen. Muskie is an out standing candidate for the Democratic nomination. He had been at the forefront of a number of progressive measures and Sen. Muskie's party, as well as the nation, could certainly benefit from much of the progressive leadership he has offered. I think on the other hand, however, that Senator Muskie has missed the mark as "ruling out the possibility of a Black vice presidential running mate." There is currently a belief being talked about throughout the nation by responsible persons, that a Black presidential candidate would be the more qualified to lead the nation than any other person on the scene. I agree with this. It seems to me that the nation is in need of a real father who can Our times Politics BY SMITH HEMPSTONE Columnist The resignations within a single week of Associate Justices Hugo L. Black and John Marshall Harlan for the first time since 1941 afford an American president the op portunity to fill a double vacancy on the Supreme Court. And let one thing, to coin a phrase, be made perfectly clear: With a presidential election just 13 months ahead, short-term political considerations will have much to do with whom Mr. Nixon names to the court. The principal groups with which Mr. Nixon needs (or would like) to ingratiate himself before the balloting can easily be identified: Blacks, women, Jews and Southerners. The President realizes, however, that he has little chance to make much of an inroad into the Negro vote whatever he does. And, in any case, blacks have a representative on the court in the person of Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall. Marshall is reported to be in poor health and, were he to retire or die, the chances are that Mr. Nixon would appoint another black to succeed him. But that is a question for the future and it is extremely unlikely that the President will appoint another Negro to the court at this time. On several occassions since the Senate's refusal to confirm either Judge Clement F. Hayneswor-th of South Carolina (in 1969) or Judge G. Harrold Carswell of Florida (in 1970), Mr. Nixon has publicly stated his intention of appointing a Southerner to the Supreme Court. 'Tis is doubly imperative in a political sense now that the retirement of Black, an Alabaman, has left the court denuded of Southerners. As recently as last Thursday morning, before the resignation of derson president bring us all together, someone who has a boy in Vietnam , someone who is young; someone who is free of color prejudice, someone who ...the nation is in need of a real father who can bring us all together,someone who has a boy in Vietnam, someone who is young, someone who is free of color prejudice, some one who can relate to all people. A Black president fits this bill. ,can relate to all people. A Black President fits this bill. One needs only look at the Vietnam War. It was leadership of double peared highly probable that Mr. Nixon would try once again to place a Southerner on the court. Now that two vacancies are available, that probability has become a virtual certainty. A number of Southern names have been floated, the most prominent of which has been that of 10-term Republican Representative Richard Harding Poff of Roanoke, Va. Others mentioned have been former Florida Republican Congressman William C. Cramer, U.S. District Court Judge George C. Young of Orlando, Fla., former American Bar Association presidents Lewis F..Powell Jr. of Richmond, Va., adid Charles S. Rhyne of Washington, D.C. (the latter is a close personal friend of Mr. Nixon), District Judge Walter E. Hoffman of Norfolk, Va., and mirabile dictu, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew of Maryland. 'Ihe Poff candidacy has been the strongest pressed. He is young (48), has a good legal mind and (like Black, named from the Senate by FDR) would be coming directly from political life. But Poff in his 20 years in Congress has had ample opportunity to make political foes as well as friends, is opposed by segments of the civil rights lobby (despite the support of the ranking members of the House Judiciary Committee, Emanuel Celler and William M. McCulloch, both strong civil rights advocates) and has no experience on the bench, a factor to which Mr. Nixon has said he attributes much im portance. If Poff is bypassed for "the Southern seat," Nixon might well turn to someone like U.S. District Judge Frank M. Johnson, 52, of Montgomery, Ala., a liberal Republican who worked hard for both the Eisenhower and Nixon .candidacies, or to Charles A. needed like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King which took the initiative to speak out against the war at a time when few persons dared to say anything. It was only later the men of good will began to see that the Vietnam was leading us to an all out atomic war. From another angle also, Blacks serve and die at a higher rate than any other racial group in that war. We are 25 per cent of the total armed forces in Vietnam and 40 per cent of the front line. We therefore are in a position also to want peace. Our mothers cry, we fit in pine boxes. We're tired of war and killing. Why then can't we become President? So the father of the nation must know war in a special way. Then secondly the father of the nation must be able to speak to the needs of the young. The Black Community is a young community. Is it not . then a representative able to articulate the aspirations and longings of youths,. Fifty percent of the Black population is under 21; while the national average is 31 years old. Are we not therefore the youth and vitality in the country? vacancy law professor who is a con servative Republican with im peccable intellectual credentials. The "Jewish seat" on the court has been vacant since the resignation, under a cloud, of Associate Justice Abe Fortas more, than two years ago, the present occupant being Harry A. Blackmun of Minnesota. The importance of the Jewish vote can be overestimated, since it is heavily concentrated in one state, New York. But Mr. Nixon needs to win New York in 1972 and -perhaps more importantly--to reduce Jewish campaign con tributions to his Democratic op ponent. Had only one seat on the court been available, it almost certainly would have gone to a Southerner rather than a Jew; now that two seats are at Mr. Nixon's disposal, the possibility of a Jewish nominee cannot be ruled out. The availability of that second seat also adds credence to the possibility that Mr. Nixon, with his known penchant for "firsts," might name a woman. Several women reportedly were on the basic list of about ibU jurists under consideration. But when only one seat was available, it seemed highly unlikely that the President would pay more than lip-service to the feminist movement. The loss within a single week of the two towering figures on the Supreme Court probably foreshadows a period of un certainty before philosophical trends begin to develop. But that trend almost certainly will be to the right. Mr. Nixon has the responsibility to name jursists who will be an adornment to the court. But to deny the pressures of partisanship is to deny that there will be a presidential election in 13 months.