Student Newspaper of Grinnefl College «Netwmtwo once again the oldest i college a, newspaper fi west at f the * i Mississippi i :11 04s¢4+4¢t¢§999 Wet: Grinnell. lows, Saturday, February lo. libs No. I? @iflr’mixbhl ._ lamp} Distribuled by gos‘iinoeltsoimts SYNDICATE dhdhofi Whhh Ghliiibii. By BARRY ANCONA 5&3 Special Writer Things will get a lot worse it something isn’t done about racial incidents, the City Coun< oil was told Monday night by Negro students irom the Col- lege. “Unless something is done 'now by the City Council and the Police Department, things are going to get a lot worse around here and somebody is going to get hurt,” predicted Hubert Farbes, a North Youn- ker junior. More than half of the Col- lege's fifty-one Negro students attended the meeting. The student's complaints —- most of which were listed in last Week’s 5&3 — included many instances of verbal abuse, physical threats, at- tempts to run them over with automobiles, having bottles thrown at them, and the apathy of proprietors of local busi- nesses where incidents have occurred. “This is not a case of insti- tutional segregation,” explained Grady Murdock. West Norris sophomore. “Only a portion oi the population is antagonistic.“ Murdock also Cited tavern and Cate owners as being reluc- tant to act impaltially when in- cidents occur: “The manage ment can do more than tell Negroes to leave when trouble starts," he said. Murdock also told the council that a white townsman had threatened him with a baseball bat. Several Negro girls irom the South agreed that they are bet- ter treated on the streets of their hometowns than in Grin- nell. Lucy Pollard, a sophomore in Loose. told of being propo honed while walking don't , The harrassment has not been limited to students. Denis M. deCoteau. a Negro Protes— sor of Music, was threatened in downtown Grinnell by sev- eral white persons wielding baseball bats. De Coteau’s two- year old daughter was with him at the time. Other Negro members of the faculty have also reported be- ing threatened while in the town. Greg Coggs, East Norris sophomore, told of being called - a "nigger" by a three-year old girl. “I'd been told Grinnell was a liberal town." he said, "but now I wouldn't tell my friends to come here.” Farbes told the council he didn't feel the City was aware of the problem. Mayor Beaver agreed noting that the council would have discussed the prob lem earlier it it had been brought to their attention. Police Chief Bill .Peters ad- mitted that he “didn't believe it was as had as it was,” and added that he would do all he could to alleviate the problem. He indicated he thought the blame lay in “a iack oi com- munication between the college students and the Police Depart< ment," that had “allowed this thing to get out of hand.” A major difficulty, the Police Chief noted. was that he has had no direct complaints irom Negro students at the time the incidents have occurred. The students had been making their complaints to college authori- ties, and the complaints often reached the police department two or three days later, The council meeting was at- tended by over 70 citizens, some oi whom asked why the problem had never been brought up before in the cerr tury Grinnell College has been in its present location. Mayor Floyd Beaver agreed that “this is the first time in the 115 year history oi the city or Grinnell that anything of this nature has arisen," Sammie Fletcher, Loose sophomore, noted that there were more Negroes on campus than ever before, and that the civil rights struggle had been brought into national aware- ness. Allen Jones, Protessor of His- tory, and a Grinnell City Coun- cilman concurred. ”Until now," he said, “the people or Grinnell have been sheltered from the problems of Negro students.” The Negro students asked for better protection from the city’s police department (Proi'. dc Coteau said earlier in the sat; that he thought Chiet Peters had a tendency to play down everything that has hap< pened as unimportant), and al- so improved service irom Grin- nell businesses. IlllllillllltlllllllllllltllllliilllIIIllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllmlllllllu FLOWER PO WER EXPLODES LAWRENCE, Kan. (ACP)— it happened at a Vietnam speakout sponsored by the lo- cal Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) to protest Marina recruitment on the KU cam- pus. The visit at which the pro- test occurred was the second by Marines in three months, Just belore the antiswar speeches began, SDS members rolled out a red paper tank, constructed at old peace posters and powered by an electric mo- tor with a reversed tan blade. The tank also had a can- non. The ammunition? Five do- . zen roses. The cannon was fired . . . and it nlisfired, spewing petals and pulp out its sides and onto everything within range. CONSTITUTION OKAYED By DAVE HORWATT S 8: E Special Writer A new Student Government constitution will come up for final ratification in a student referendum on February 13th. The work on the proposed constitution, which would re. organize Grinnell‘s present Sen- ate -— House Council Student Government into a 13 member body, was started last Novem- ber by Tom Thomas. Thomas, a member at the Constitutional Reform Committee set up by the Senate, felt Ihat there should be a complete restructuring of Ihe Student Government. Early in November, at the second meeting of the Consti- tutional R are rm Committee, Thomas presented a drait of his new constitution. At the same meeting, the com- mittee also considered a bill presented to it earlier by Neil Fischer. Fischer's bill would have cre- ated the position of Ombuds- man in the Student Guvem— ment. An Ombudsman is a people’s protector in Scandinavian na. tions who scrutinize: complaints by individuals who think they have been wronged by the bureaucracy. Two student gov. ernments, N.Y.U. and the u. of Colorado, and several states in the Union have proposed Ombudsman or Public Protec- tors. Both Fischer’s bill and Thos mas’s drait were accepted by the constitutional committee and drawn up into one constitution. The members of the commit- tee, Phil Bertenthal, (chairman and Speaker or the Senate) Tom Thomas, Tom Triplett, Bert OKAYED— (Continued on Page 2) TillllllllllllllllllllllllllIIllllllllllllllllllllllllillllIIlllllilllllllllllllllllilu FOLKFATHER PERFORMS Singing was only a hobby for Tan Mitchell until he wrote All American Folk Song Mass. Pub- lished in 1958, this folk-style musical setting oi the Com- munion service has steadily in- creased in popularity and draw1 its composer into a iull-tima concert career. Since his ordination to the Episcopal priesthood in 1953, Mitchell has worked in an inner city parish in Chicago and u an indian reservation in Utah. reaching his Folk Song Mass to a group or Navajo parish- ioners early last year, he was visited, quite unexpectedly, by Steve McQueen and invited. even more unexpectedly, to ap- pear with the actor on the To- night Show. How did the Mitchells get into show business? “Well, we started with Mass," explained MITCHELL— Continued on Page 4) g AAA/AAA/A/A/AAA/A/AAA/A/AMA g Ehlers, Scarlet at Black. ' X AAA/AAAMAMAAAAAAAMAMAAA Features Index , ~ ~ ZELTE ON THE PROBLEM -— Younker Resident Advisor Zelte ‘ ‘ Crawford reconsiders the Town vs. Negro Student problem ....PAGE 3 TAKING A CONSTITUTIONAL look ahead at Grin the Senate dis- plays the body of the new Constitu- tion. Background on Page 1. and con opinions by senators, text of the Constit tion, and Consti- tution Girls Cathy Debbie Gentry, Leslie .. Knowlton, and Connle Kueter AND . . . A Republican from Dixie on Campus; Focus on the German SDS; Buckley on Senator Dodd; A > Holy War Between Ditierent Brands of Socialism > in the Middle East; Editorial on a Pterodactylic Hex at Grinnell r . . and more . . . inside the vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv‘vvv lGo ernrne t, Pro _____ PAGES 6 and 7 WVVVVVVVVVW/VVVVVVVVV V > > > > X