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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, January 5, 1968
U.S. new year probabilities
Lyndon Johnson will be re-elected President in 1968, but by a narrow margin.
That is one of the probabilities of this new year in U.S. domestic affairs. At this point there are few new year's certainties for the U.S. except that politics will dominate domestic news, though stepping aside periodically for more social problems and technological advancement.
In 1968 politics, the Democrats will promote a peace-maker image for the electorate. Watch for a dramatic Vietnam peace move by Johnson after the Democratic nominating convention and before election eve. Oh yes, LBJ will be nominated by his party; in spite of men like Eugene McCarthy, incumbent Presidents still control the important parts of their party's national convention if they so choose.
In the crucial South, Johnson will probably win more votes than his opponents, thanks to Wallace, whose Southern strength will split the anti-Johnson vote with the Republicans. Nevertheless, Johnson's winning margin in 1968 is not likely to be nearly as substantial as last time
The Republican Presidential choice is not as easy a prediction, however. Rockefeller will not accept a nomination, it seems. Equally probable is Nixon becoming the front-runner before the convention, though he will certainly receive as much criticism as Romney got when he was a 1967 favorite. And Romney will be considered, of course, with a few others. One thing is certain: The Republican delegates will be looking more this year for a man to beat LBJ than the best qualified man for President.
At the Democratic convention in Chicago, racial demonstrations may threaten that tense city There will almost certainly be more race
riots this summer, for the problems of U.S. racial differences were not solved in 1967.
In 1968, we will see public distaste of riots reflected in increased emphasis on law enforcement, rather than problem-solving, especially since racial radicals are not likely to moderate their actions and demands this year. But moderate Negroes, as in 1967, will gain more political power in 1968.
Race problems will be the No. 2 issue this year after Vietnam . . . and poverty will be close behind.
While social problems will remain unsolved, man in the U.S. will continue to play God with science. He will extend more lives with dramatic transplants of hearts and other organs, new medicines and new surgical developments—and rising medical charges in 1968 to Mr. Average will help pay the cost. Man may even succeed in creating life in a test tube, having come very close in 1967.
Similarly, U.S. technology will provide in 1968 more space victories, more atomic power for private industry, more destructive weapons, more amazing communications facilities and more transportation hang-ups than ever. Most importantly over the long run, the U.S. population will continue to rise above the 200 million mark achieved in 1967, thus compounding the problems of already sick American cities.
Indeed, 1968 may be the year best described by "more"—more crime, more taxes, more costs of living, more students, more fads, more demonstrations, more social drop-outs, more foul air, more water pollution, more more. It may be too much. Allan Northcutt Editorial Editor
HERBLOCK
"I'm Afraid To Look"
NEW BOOKS
A Nation of Newcomers: Ethnic Minority Groups in American History, by J. Joseph Huthmacher (Dell, 50 cents); The Outnumbered, edited by Charlotte Brooks (Dell, 50 cents)—Two books that take advantage of the hottest domestic issue in America today. Huthmacher's volume is slight and is intended, it would appear, for younger readers. He shows how the immigrant has been treated in American history, from earliest times to such groups as today's Puerto Ricans. There are photographs to illustrate the story, one that would be quite familiar to most students of American history. The other book consists of stories, essays and poems about minority groups. Some are obvious; some belabor the point (such as Freneau's "Indian Burying Ground" and Longfellow's "Jewish Cemetery at Newport") Persons represented here include Steinbeck, Malamud, James Baldwin, Saroyan, Richard Wright, Cather, Stephen Vincent Benet, Marian Anderson, Langston Hughes.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
"THE SCREENING COMMITTEE DIP A LOUSY JOB SELECTING A TEXT = WWW THERE ARE PARTS OF THIS BOOK WRITTEN SO CLEARLY THAT EVEN I UNDERSTOOD IT WITH THE FIRST READING."
Letters to the Editor
To the Editor:
Abrams support, a lesson
As a relieved graduate of KU's design department, I support Prof. Norman Abrams and those who protest his dismissal this spring.
Along with a few other young design instructors, Abrams is modern, devoted, and energetic, and therefore too progressive for the group of variety store illustrators and retired cartoonists who govern the department.
Next year, Prof. Abrams will hopefully have found a job where intelligence isn't called rebelliousness—someplace where he can just teach and turn kids on with his ideas.
Meanwhile, the KU design department stagnates.
Chuck Kraemer
Class of '67
* *
To the Editor:
Although I'm afraid that the people who could benefit most by sharing my experience will not even bother to finish reading this, I'd at least like to try to express my feelings on the subject, because I, myself, am proof that it can and does have a staggering effect on one's life.
I am a KU student who had been happily and well along the way in pre-med schools. I have wanted to go through med school since the eighth grade, partly because of a family tradition, but mostly because of my own personal goals.
But because of one moment's thoughtlessness a short while ago, I don't have that chance now. In fact, so many doors have been closed to my future that it is beginning to seem that I've already reached the "peak of my career!"
I'm speaking of the night a while ago when I gave myself a criminal record. One foolish, unthinkable moment I saw only the "dare" and "thrill" involved in stealing an article from a store. I didn't see the consequences; I didn't weigh the "excitement"
against what could happen—and
believe me, that "excitement" doesn't compare to the hours of cold sweat when its over and you have time to think about what all this means to you, your furture, your family and friends, whom you've disappointed so much that you can't look them in the face anymore.
If only I could have spent that hour and a half at the police station a little sooner—watching the steady stream of losers come in and get "booked" once again. To those people, the police station was a big part of their cheap, wretched, purposeless lives. Most had been there before and probably accepted their lot. "The only thing against the law is gettin' caught" is probably the extent to their insights into life.
And suddenly I realized that I had put myself on their level; by my own actions I had lowered
myself to the status of this kind of people. This hit home hard. When I began to realize how much I had lost, I really started thinking clearly, maybe for the first time. How stupid and worthless it all seemed now. If only before I had started to realize what responsibility means, what being a man, a member of society entails, to see that morals and ethics are not just in church and in the books. Sure, I learned a tremendous lesson, but that doesn't go on the record.
Try it yourself. See if you belong with the kind of people you see in a police station. If you do look, you'll find you have a choice. Don't make the wrong one now that will take away all your future choices. No one can afford to do that.
Dennis Blair Springfield, Mo.
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