Page 53 - TheGoldBug1969-70

the goldbug the Flak gold Flak is the name of a new section that will be bug found on this page. Flak is a special section de- voted to gripes aimed at us, for us, not concern- ing us. Sometimes we will propose topics that need to be flaked and we hope you will answer Face lifting is-an old, honored tradition in with a good, short article about that subject. Hollywood and the newspaper business. It often So, lets get some flak going. How about some follows either change of life or change of Man· comments on the School-Church affiliation. agement. In the case of this paper it is the re- Deadline for flak articles is Tuesday a week be· sult of both. for the next issue. The reasons for the changes in the Gold Bug's format are solid. We felt that since the paper has a bi-weekly frequency neither the con- tent nor the style should be limited to the con- fines usually imposed on a weekly newssheet. For this reason the style is more magazine than He is comforted by our mascot-no name. Mas· tabloid, the content more exploratory than dog- ASSOCIATE EDITOR Rick Anderson scribbles cot has disappeared. If you have any info as to matic. desperately to meet a fast-approaching deadline. his whereabouts please tell us. The issue which you now hold in your hands 'is the result of several weeks planning and about twenty fou; hours of hectic work. What was for weeks a dream is now a reality. Like Post Office officially irrational most dreams turned reality it does not measure up to the first conception. But that 'first concep- tion lingers on and this issue is a promise of the By Tim Smith things to come. Isolated as we all are here in Carroll County, we value some perspective. Rhetoric has a way of boomeranging on anything that helps to keep us in touch with CivUization. Western Maryland's Post Office is an official br.anch the rhetortician and for that reason 1 will say One of the most important Itnks wtth the outer world is the of the Westminster Post Office. It is thus offiClaIlV under the authority of the Post Office Department. On the no more. Let it be enough that we have high Post Office. Our postal facilities come in for their share other hand, Miss Irene Young, the Postmistress, and hopes, lots of determination and a good staff. of complaints as does any Post Office. I would suspect all the students employed in the WMC branch; are paid The rhetoric should not prove empty. that most of the criticism arises from empty mailboxes by the college. Thus, though Miss Younghas full respons- than any real grievance. rather Be that as it may, most ofthe people at WMC know very ibility for all the mail, money, stamps, etc. in the Post Office, she Is stiU under the authority of Mr. Rudrow, MLS little about the actual operation of the Past Office. To: manager of the Bookstore, and Mr. Schaeffer, the Coll- . understand all may not be to forgive all, but It may add ege Treasurer. Letters to the editor --- turn over completely in four years? Howmanycitles lose A col1ege Post Office has problems not shared by other have most of the population How many cines branches. 90% or more of their population every vacation? All of this moving back and forth puts quite a strain on the postal Dear Sir: "Father of waters." A march of Kulaks into Siberia could workers. Over the last two decades, much has been made of the hardly have faced greater obstacles. As 'can be imagined, Every year following Graduation, the postal workers problems of the Bjack Man in the United States. From the only a few thousand survived the treck. must remove all the graduating seniors from the list of days of the freedom marches to date, you and I of white, receiving mail delivery. For mail that arrives subse- middle-class American have been co_ndemnedto search In the world or-me 1970's, we look back with shame our .souis and to render, ifpossible, a solution to the pro- upon our treatment of the Indian by our land-grabbing quently there is a definite policy as defined by postal re- blems growing out of three hundred plus years of bondage ancestors-cor do we? Consider for our modern example gulations. All first class mall must be forwarded. Other the Negro race has had to' endure In this countr-y, the situation In our 49th State, Alaska. There again one mail can only be forwarded If the person has indicated In And yet, sir, I suggest to you that we in this nation, will find, 11 he cares to look or l1sten, the ancient story advance that he will guarantee postage.lfthlsis not done black and white all ke, have an even deeper stain of racism of the white man's governmenttaklngoverthelands of the it is kept for a certatnper-too and tr not claimed, destroy- to 'remove from out national conscience than that placed Indian In direct violation of treaties both had signed. ed. Miss Young makes an exception of parcels of obvious there by the Negro. This stain, which Is just now beglru'ilng value, which are forwarded regardless of guarantee. If a departed senior continues to receive a magazine subscrip- to receive passing attention from our etttzens, is nothing tion, the Post Office w11lreturn one copy to the publisher less than the regulated, law-abiding, and well-engineered For many years now, we have built our Ideas of the with the SUbscriber's home address. If they continue to genocide of the American Indian. American West on the struggle between the good white come they are thrown out. I am not speaking here of the Cowboy and Indian myth of and the only good Indian, the dead Indian. We have loung- the cinema or tetevtsion or even of the great hatreds en- ed In our movie theaters and watched countless regiments gendered In the days when homesteaders were fightlngon of cavalry save endless numbers of wagon-trains from Cards instructing students to transfer their publica- Indian lands with the l1kes of Pontiac's hordes. Rather, I thousands of painted savages. Who among us does not tions to their home address are placed in each mailbox wish to address myself to the calculated misery of a know the stories of Custer and Crook, Chief Joseph and pr-Ier- to the end of second semester. Or the student can minority of our population which was monsterous in its Geronimo? These, however, are not the realities oftoday arrange with the Postmaster to forward mail, or to de- scale and exists down to the present day. Let me illust- even as they were hardly the realities of yesteryear. The liver it to another person. Aproblem is involved In deter- rate with two examples, one old and one not so old: "noble savage" is still noble--but no longer savage. Ever mining who has lett for the summer and who will be re- since the days of Wounded Knee, Indian savageness has turning for summer school. In the robust, britches-bursting expansionist days of been replaced by poverty and rnstnusronment of a kind I During the summer, Post Office boxes must be assign- the 1830's, the United states was building itself into a sincerely believe has not been known even in the largest ed andreas signed. This Is complicated bythe fact that they great continental power. This was the time of the "com- city ghetto. Can we answer these questions? Howis it that cannot determine who will be here until the last week in mon man" or should I say, the common white man. Noth- ing symbolized this more than the election to the White the Indian suicide rate is at least ten to fifteen Urnes August. This creates problems as !or example by students House of Andrew Jackson of 'I'ennessea, Democratic as greater than the national average for all of the United who wish to start a magazine subscription before they "Old Hickory" might have been toward whites (remem- States? Why is the Red Man's life expectancy many years arrive at the school and do not knowtheir new number. The arises that are carried same problem In subscriptions bering of course that Blacks did not count as people any- less than even the Black's? How is It that we of MIddle from one year to the next. "Frankly, we'd rather have no know more of the plight of the Vietnamese and America way), the hero of New Orleans was an out-and-cue racist and Blafrans abroad when the bellies of Indian children number at all, than have the wrong number," says xnss when it cametoIndians.Itwasathis instigation (and as an here In our Southwest, which are often just as bloated Young. aside, to the everlasting-credit of Davy Crockett and others from malnutrition, unnoticed? These questions and One persistant complaint among students is that they who fought him and lost), that the United States Congress others were considered go and now the Nixon Administra- must use a six cent stamp to send a letter to another stu- passed the Removal Act of 1830-32. Even though this act tion has admitted what any observant person should have dent on the campus. and the activities of Its Southern supporters was eventually ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court under John known years before: the American Indian minority is the Ther-a is simple reasonforthls: according to Post Office. poorest and most oppressed lot in the land. Marshall, Jackson's aides still pushed ahead with the pro- regulations, all letters must have a stamp on them, even visions _of that law (Jackson is said to have remarked, if they only go ten feet. There's nothing we can do about :;:,~~n Marshall has made his decision, now lethtm enforce ThiS letter is not aimed, sir, at changing our outlook that except write our Congressmen. Of course there's toward our fellow Black citizens. Hopefully, it will serve Campus Mail: if the Faculty and Administration can use The Removal Act was a cold-blooded act such as one as a reminder to us all that the United States is peopled that, why can't the students? Campus MaU Is a special might expect to have come out of autocratic Russia, not by many racial minorities, some In even greater stress situation. It resulted from anagreement between the Coll- democratic America. Under its provisions, aU~surviving than the Negro. Let us not stop our concern for the pro- ege and the Westminster Post Office. According to the Indians east of the Mississippi River (and these were blems of one minority and pick upthose of another to sooth agreement, it is to be used only for official mail by the mostly In the South), were exiled to the desolate plains our conscience. Rather, let us read, study and act on a Faculty and Admin1stratIon. Perhaps, if the demand was of the far west. By a single act of Congress, these thou- commtttmant to aid all of those In this country to whom great enough for the students to use the campus mall, sands of people (Including the Cherokee, the most advanc- fortune has given less advantage, Black, Red, Yellow, and something could be worked out. The oectston would be ed Indians in all of the Americas) were deprived of lands White. Let us keep our heads and not go overboard for one up to the Westminster Post Office. they had known and toveo rcr centurtes ancwntcn had been at the expense of others. In truth, can we do less for the Miss Young receives few complaints about lost or stolen guaranteed to them many times by earlier American Ad- first Americans and sUll have the nerve to call ourselves man from students. She feels that part of the reason for ministrations. They were brutuaUy driven, like a band of seekers after justice In the "American" way? this is that the postal boxeswbtctiwere installed last year war prisoners, without adequate (indeed, anyl) provision Myron J. Smith, Jr. are harder to pick than the old ones. The original boxes made for their survival to and on the wastes beyond the Assistant Librarian could be left open which the new ones cannot •.