Bethpage-Tribune_1972-06-29

              Island Trees Serving Bethpage
VOL. 6 NO. 34
Guest Editorial
Plainview - Island Trees - P|ained8e - SeafohJ
Thursday, June 2 9 , 1 9 72
Old Bethpage
10* par copy «•>«•*
One of America's most famous poets of the
Romantic Age, Walt Whitman, was born just a few
miles from here at Huntington Station
a„H ^ , c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of the Romantics of the 1830's
and 1840 s just as it is of youth of all ages, to be critical
oi everything that smacks of restraint of personal
behavior, or independence of thought
Whitman wrote about the perennial emotions and
tears ot man as a youth, and man well into old age
Leaves of Grass reflect the romanticism of his youth"
just as Democratic Vistas describes the reservations of
his later years.
In "Leaves" Whitman writes prophetically of the
ecology movement of our day when he importuned his
readers to
"Love the earth, the sun and animals
"Despite Riches
"Give alms to everyone that asks
"Hate Tyrants"
And in a line that reveals an anarchistic trait often
common to romantics of all ages, he urges readers to
"take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to
any man or number of men
"Re-examine all you have been told at school, at
church or in every book."
Here is a philosophy quite at odds with the familiar
recitation
"to believe in all that is seen and unseen."
But Whitman was rewarded by God with a long life,
and by the 1870's he had some serious misgivings about
the direction of his country and of his former
allegiance to an absolute independence of youth.
The poet had become the prophet, and I believe that
in the following passage from Democratic Vistas,
written in 1871, Whitman prophesized a phenomenon
that is becoming a reality today:
The situation of a great nation confronted with the
loss of its own soul, that is its very purpose for
existence.
This is what he said:
"1 say, we had best look our times and lands
searchingly in'the face, like a physician diagnosing
some Heep disease. Never was there perhaps more
hollowness at heart than at present, and here in the
United States. Genuine belief seems to have left us.
The underlying principles of the states are not
honestly believed in (for all these melodramatic
screamings), nor is humanity itself believed in.
What penetrating eye does not everywhere see
through the mask? — It is as if we were somehow
being endowed with a vast and more and more
thoroughly-appointed body, and then left with little
or no soul."
Democratic Vistas 1871
Walt Whitman
It there is a lesson in this contrast it is this:
Each generation must learn for itself4, that the
world existed prior to its existence, and that from
the great experiences of man through the millenia,
we can gelan from the record something called
Wisdom.
Wisdom is an elusive thing to the young, as well as
a difficult problem for the old. But is there for
those favored with long life, and who are patient
enough and humble enough to recognize it.
Edwin F. Klott. PH.O.
Superintendent of Schools
« Island trout
The Idea Of
A University
Nassau County Executive
Ralph G. Caso announced today
he will ask the New York State
Dormitory Authority to build a
new $115 million Nassau Com­munity
College campus at Mit-chel
Field.
Speaking at the college's
commencement exercise at
Nassau Veterans Memorial
Coliseum, Caso disclosed that the
Nassau Board of Supervisors will
be given an emergency resolution
tomorrow (June 12) for
authorization to apply to the
Dormitory Authority for the
funds.
"I am committing the county to
this course because it is in the
best interests of the young people
in our county," the county
executive told the 2,900 members
of the college's 12th graduating
class. "The college's present
buildings were erected -as tem­porary
structures during World
War n. It is not a setting that
befits a school that ranks first
among 38 community colleges in
the state. It does not present the
best learning atmosphere for the
30,000 men and women who avail
themselves of the educational
opportunity offered them by the
people of Nassau County."
Caso said the county is ready to
forward its funding application to
the state budget director, the
State University Board of
Trustees at its June 28 meeting
and, finally, the Dormitory
Authority.
The proposal, which was made
possible because the governor
last week signed a bill
authorizing the Dormitory
Authority to provide funds for
Nassau County Executive Ralph G. Caso, left, and A.
Holly Patterson, chairman off the Nassau Community
College Board off Trustees, view scale model of
proposed new college campus at Mitchel Field.
community college construction
calls for the authority to build the
new community college campus
on 225 acres in the northeast
portion of Mitchel FieH by
floating a $115 million bond issue
to cover the entire cost of con­struction.
The county, over a
period of 30 years, would pay half
the-cost.
Caso pointed out that such an
arrangement will be less costly
for the county.
"In the first place, the Dor­mitory
Authority has the proven
expertise in campus con­struction,"
he said. "It also has
the supervisory personnel and
purchasing power others do not
have and will work closely with
us as construction progresses."
The construction will progress
in seven stages over a period of
five years. The first phase- a
physical plant building - would
begin almost immediately after
the proposal is approved. The
for
administration
fr^t«imd center, a media center, a
level parking to accommodate
several thousand cars.
"In 1960, Nassau Community
College opened in a wing of the
old county courthouse...in 1962 it
moved to the abandoned
barracks buildings at Mitchel
Field," Caso told the graduating
class. "We are, at last, going to
build a college campus that
equals the excellence of its
education, its teachers and its
students."
WE ARE PROUD TO PRESENT-The Bethpage Rotary Club presents Scholarship Awards
amounting to $2800 to the local schools in this area. L-R: Alvin Briskie. Island Trees High School.
Edwin Blaauw. Plainedge U.S.. Robert Murphy. Bethpage U.S.. Frank D'Andria. President Rotary
Club. Charlie Mitchell. Chairman Scholarship Committee. Photo by J. Augutu
(See Story on Page 18)