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DAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1969
NIGHT EDITOR: STEVE NISSEN
___...._.__.I
Sunday
Groundhog Da:
Aholiday you can trust
If Candlemas be clear and bright k
Come Winter, have another flight;
If Candlemas bring clouds and rain
Go Winter, and come not again. no
-Anon
GROUNDHOG DAY is a holiday to enjoy without exchanging presents or
sending cards or otherwise paying tribute to the lords of commercializa-
tion.
Just a frivolous, folksy holiday with no claim on your faith in religion
or loyalty to your country, Groundhog Day is one of the last old-fashioned
days for being silly and free. '
Without pomp or pageantry you can run in the morning sun, watch
the shadows do their magic and believe whatever you want. No one willeh
expect you to tip extra or whistle Yankee Doodle through your teeth.
Groundhog Day is based on the best kind of superstition - one
which has value for the believers and no retribution for the unbelievers.
According to tradition originating in Europe, where Feb. 2 was named Can-
dlemas, spring will come tomorrow if the groundhog doesn't see his shadow
today.
DESPITE RAIN, FOG, SNOW OR SLEET, a ray of sunlight seems inevi-
tably to illuminate his burrow long enough for the groundhog to glimpse
his shadow. And winter stays for another six weeks.
There is no logic in the theory that a sunless, day or a super-sleepy
groundhog can bring spring. But there is some sort of ultimate optimism
in just thinking that spring is only a shadow away.
And the holiday has merits for the groundhog, too. In most states an
open hunting season is maintained on the fat-furry little animal because it
often burrows into the ground and eats crops. But hunters are expected to
show mercy today.
You remember Groundhog Day when you're six and have just learned
that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are make-believe. Groundhog Day
is a holiday you can trust. What other day demands so little and promises
a change in the weather?
-THE EDITORIAL DIRECTORS -Daily-Sara Kruiwich
A picture postcard view ofFranco s Spain
1
0
morning
This village
was liberated
from Marxist tyranny Feb-
ruary 10, 1937, by national
forces composed of groups
and individuals from the
blessed institute of la guar-
dia civil . . . Up with Spain!
Long live the army !
-Daily-Stuart Gannes
By STUART GANNES
W HEN YOU ASK a Spaniard what he
thinks about Franco, the immediate
response in broken English runs: "Franco?
He is very good, he is good for Spain. When
I say in my halting Spanish "Es un buen
hombre?" they answer: "Si, es bueno."
As an American preparing for a trip to
Spain, I remembered Hemingway's tales
of the horror of the Spanish Civil War.
After reading For Whom the Bell Tolls as
a high school student I had a vivid idea of
the atrocities of the Guardia Civil.
I expected Spaniards to possess an un-
dying hatred of Franco and all that he
represented. Instead I found monuments
of the glorious victory of 1937 and a gen-
eral political apathy among the people.
The Spanish seemed a resigned people;
the atrocities of the four centuries royal
inquisition must have conditioned them
for the slaughter of their civil war-the
first ,modern' war in history. Once rulers
of the western hemisphere, the Spanish
now complacently allow American investors
to infiltrate their economy.
As Hemingway wrote in Death in the
Afternoon: "I know things change now
and I do not care. It's all been changed
for me. Let it all change. We'll all be gone
before it's changed too much and if no
deluge comes when we are gone it still
will rain in summer in the north and
hawks will nest in the Cathedral at San-
tiago."
INDEED, IN THIS DECADE of mass-dis-
content, Spain must be one of the few
countries in the world where stability is
an institution. For more than thirty
years, the Spanish government has been
one man, Generalissimo Francisco Franco.
During his period of semi-absolute and
iron fisted rule, Spain has improved. Al-
though people are poor, they are more
prosperous than ever before. M a s s i v e
housing projects are rising all over, all
with Franco's consent, all according to
plan.
Foreign investors and tourists are pump-
ing money into the vacuum which was
the Spanish economy. Jobs seem plenti-
ful and the people are generally content.
In fact, even from the perspective of
the brief gaze of an American tourist,
everything seems just fine in Spain -
sure Franco did some bad things in the
thirties, but everything is all right now.
Memories of the civil war are clouded
by the monuments to the victory of the
Spanish people over the "tyranny of the
Marxists." Reliefs and busts of Franco
are everywhere, on buildings, housing pro-
jects, stamps, coins and paper currency.
THE CULT OF FRANCO has captured
the love of the Spanish people in the same
unconscious manner which the Catholic
4;
of Madrid is more unassialably academic
than any ivory tower in America. Individ-
ual buildings are separated by parks and
wide thoroughfares. There is no sense:of a
university' community and consequently it
is hard to imagine students uniting over
anything let alone mobilizing an opposi-
tion against the government.
OPPOSITION is especially remarkable
when one realizes t h a t Franco's laissez
faire management of Spain's economy
doesn't extend into the area of civil lib-
erties and political dissent.
Something profound is happening in
*i
The night we had a vigil, ho-hum
By HAROLD ROSENTHAL
*rfHERE WERE A dozen of us in the LSA BlIg. around 1 a.m.
Friday morning. We didn't really know what to do.
It was easiest to sit and talk about the things that happened
that day and confidently consider the ultimate effect of our
tactics. Classical radicals all, we tried not to doubt the purpose
and legitimacy of our act.
But finally someone, a girl, asked "What do we do when the
.faculty doesn't do anything?"
"We'll have to take aver the building," a student replied
quickly and seriously. His eyes were circled and his face covered
with stubble, but he knew the proper response.
"But how do you take 'over a building if you don't have
large numbers of students taking part?" the girl countered.
'1WELL, WE'LL JUST have enough people," he said, and
he lnew that wasn't enough.
It isn't that simple to mobilize students against censorship,
classified research and certainly not for such an academic issue
as the abolition of the language requirement.
"How many people have you been able to get since the wel-
fare sit-in?" another guy protested. We realized that turn-out
had been a reaction to police brutality in Chicago.
We already knew what the special state Senate investigating
committee on student activism will find out: this is not a
radical campus.
The group dispersed. We had to study-poli sci, chemistry,
Spanish.
A pair of protesters began a chess game. They kept playing
until one was in checkmate, then they went back a few moves
and started over again. I think they had about eight checkmates
before the night was through.
The most valuable thing at'the vigil was the radio that was
tuned) to WABX, playing Judy Collins' "Wildflowers" album.
When some people became bored with the lobby of the
second floor, they started to explore the building. All the doors
were locked, but the elevators kept running.
By MARCIA ABRAMSON
I USED TO go over to The Whei
the time when it was open all n
It isn't any more. I would get hu
in the early morning, right b(
dawn, and go wandering over I
with the 50 cents it cost for a+
tasteless turkey on rye, swathed
mayonnaise.
Usually I didn't talk to an
there. I'd look at them and think a
them, but I never tried to talk
of them. I usually went there ei
One person came bursting out of the elevator after dis-
covering "this fantastically ugly man sitting behind the in-
formation booth- downstairs!" I went down, but all you could
see was the outline of his head peering over the top of the
information booth. He was guarding the building.
IF YOU RODE all the way up to the fifth floor you could
talk to the man from Sanford Security. If it weren't for us he
would be stuck in the building by himself, I thought. The
greatest entertainment he could have then would be reading a
book or magazine and checking the building every hour.
At about 3:30, we got to see The Daily and read about our-
selves.
At this point we had long finished the Diet-Pepsi and the
Diet Rite Cola we had.
I left about 5 a.m. that morning when all but two of the
people were settling down to the easiest of available activities-
sleep.
-Daily-Stuart Gannes
4
Church holds the people in its sway.
Spaniards don't analyze their faith. They
are Catholic; their beautiful buildings are
cathedrals; their government is Franco.
However, the events of the past ten days
would seem to indicate that something is
rotten in Spain' after all. Students and
workers are striking, the government has
proclaimed a "state of exception" which
decrees strict censorship and sweeping po-
lice powers.
This is truly remarkable for Spain. Spain
is not given to revolution. The University
Spain, but it has little to do with a revolu-
tion against t h e institution of Franco.
What seems to be shaking the country now
is the vibration of the heart of the govern-
ment - the human heart of Franco.
After thirty years, Spaniards are pro-
foundly aware that their Generalissimo is
not immortal, no matter how much Fran-
co's doctors assert to the contrary. Upon
Franco's death, Spain's enforced stability
will be shattered by inevitable struggle fot
power in the tradition of the bloody war of
the thirties.
The only two people, who
their kings on the chess board.
didn't sleep were still moving
40
-Daily-Sara Krulwicb
rom a Grecian restaurant owner
had been an ordinary stud, foaming
at the mouth and all, but he wasn't.
"EXCUSE ME, miss, how I say this,"
he began, in a rasping, almost strang-
ulated, voice with a heavy, high-
pitched accent. "But I have to talk to
you. I think you have the most beauti-
ful leg I have seen in my life."
I didn't know what to say, because
he was pathetic. I wondered if he
thought that was the way to talk to
American women. Or if he thought I
"I DON'T drink coffee."
"You want cigarette? I buy you pack
cigarettes."
"I don't smoke either."
"Oh," he said, as though he sudden-
ly understood. "You meet boyfriend
here?"
"No."
"You will talk with me?"
And because he was so sad, and so
ugly, and because I was in a perverse
mood anyway, I talked to him, even
though I knew I would only end up
lanti, with four bedrooms, swimming
pool."'
"Oh, that's very nice."
He seemed delighted and kept on
talking, about how meek and unin-
teresting the girls back home in Greece.
were because they believed in staying
home and not speaking until spoken to.
His mother wanted him to go back
to Greece and get a wife. He didn't
like that. He liked American girls. But
they never liked him.
He was a greasy little man in a slick,
wife? I tell you what I have. I will
love you, give you very much. And you
will like my mother."
"I'm sorry," I said, trying to be as
serious as he was. I told him I was
living with my boyfriend, who was as
big as a football player and as mean.
"You leave him," he said. "I take
care of you."
f "He'd kill me. He hits me all the.
time."
"Why you not leave him?"
"Oh, I don't know. I guess I love
1