Wednesday, December 13, 1967
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
3
Docking strong in '67 state news
By Paul Haney and Gary Murrell
"I expected him to be a taller man," some visitors to the Kansas capitol said after meeting Gov. Robert B. Docking. For a 5 feet 4 inch Democratic governor, Docking made big regional news in 1967.
He was sworn in to the state's highest office just six years after his father, George Docking, held the same position. It was the first time in Kansas history that a son of a former governor followed in his father's footsteps.
Gov. Robert Docking
Docking scored a landslide victory over William H. Avery, the Republican incumbent.
Docking inherits good treasury
Although the GOP held a 2-to-1 majority in both chambers of the Kansas Legislature, Docking could claim victory in several important areas. And he received a solid treasury accumulated by the Avery administration.
Docking campaigned with a promise to lower the state income tax. The Legislature allowed him to keep his promise by reducing the tax from $2^{1/2}$ to 2 per cent; this amount applies to the first $2,000 of taxable income. The cut is expected to save taxpayers $5 million a year.
Throughout the 96-day session, the Republican majority failed to override the powerful veto strength of Docking. During most of the session, the Republicans were so disorganized that one observer noted, "You can't tell the Republicans from the Democrats without a scorecard."
Withholding tax down
The Governor had little trouble getting the state withholding tax reduced to 10 per cent of the federal tax from 15 per cent. Kansas was the only state to reduce income taxes this year. For the first time in 108 years, conflict of interest legislation was passed, and Kansas also was one of a few states free from debt.
However, another of Docking's pet ideas did not fare so well. The House of Representatives proposed a three-road turnpike package, which would have financed construction of superhighways from Wichita to Hays, from Wichita to Baxter Springs and from Kansas City to Galena, Docking did not approve of the financing method of the bill. He wanted the highway department in charge, not the Kansas Turnpike Authority.
It wasn't long before Docking made headlines again when he became the first governor to accept a White House invitation for governors to tour Vietnam. He said he went to the Far East with three missions in mind;
- Kansas is the only state which has trained two Army divisions stationed in Vietnam. "I wanted to visit as many Kansans as I could locate," he said.
- The pacification program—he wanted to try to evaluate its effectiveness.
$\bullet$ Ways in which Kansas colleges and universities might aid the South Vietnamese similar to the ways used in other foreign countries by the United States. Among these he mentioned social and technical training programs.
Docking met with Republican criticism when he began the journey. Republicans charged that he had left his state without ex-
ective leadership when in Wichita racial strife threatened. The political overtones, connecting Docking with Johnson, also were questioned.
Racial trouble critical
The assertions were not without support as Joseph Doherty, assistant director of the Kansas Commission on Civil Rights, said the Wichita turmoil marked a critical stage in racial trouble for Kansas. Doherty believes some action must be taken soon to curtail anti-Negro sentiment in both city and rural areas.
He cited giant civil strides in the passage of fair housing laws in Kansas City, Topeka and Lawrence, but viewed as unfortunate the failure of the ordinances in Wichita and the Kansas Legislature.
"These laws are designed to provide Negroes and other minority groups with the rights they need and deserve," Doherty said.
"If the people of Kansas want to encourage racial disorder of the sort that Wichita experienced, this summer, then the defeat of housing laws might offer Negroes the incentive," he continued.
He underscored the violence in Wichita as major and expressed the fear that next summer a more devastating holocaust might erupt there and in other Kansas cities. Doherty included Lawrence in this category but did not elaborate.
Doherty said numerous amendments passed by the Kansas body gave the commission and other rights' groups the opportunity to initiate complaints and other actions in court cases. He attributed partial success of the proposals to the cooperation of Gov. Docking.
The assistant director was generous with his praise for the Legislature, which increased the commission's budget by $89,000, the first such increase in history.
Senate seat may be vacant
More riots coming?
The announcement that Sen. Frank Carlson, the longtime GOP standard-bearer from Kansas, may retire shook the ranks of the party. And Docking got into this act, too, when he said he would consider opposing a Republican, if Carlson should decide to give up the seat. Avery, practically out of the political picture, sprang to new life with Carlson's possible retirement. He could run for the seat.
The Protester: man of the year
On campuses and city streets, in the nation's capital and in the sprawling slums of her major cities, 1967 was a year of protest.
Kansan editorial staff writers have named The Protester the newsmaking man-of-the-year.
By Linda Sleffel and Benjamin Lightfoot
As individuals and as groups—several numbering into the hundreds of thousands—the protester voiced disapproval of racial inequality, poverty, the Selective Service system and American involvement in Vietnam.
The protester had many faces. He was a white civil rights worker, a priest, a college student, a housewife, a Negro black power leader and sometimes a segregationist or a member of a patriotic group, protesting the protester.
He harassed recruiters and harried police. He burned his draft card and tried to burn his city. He participated in passive resistance and active violence. He was an American turned upside down.
Hct summer
In mid-July his wrath at his economic plight and social injustice erupted into fullblown riots in Newark, Plainfield, Detroit and Milwaukee, and lesser disorders in a hundred other American cities. In Detroit alone more than 3,000 protests became felonies.
Early in the summer, civil rights leaders and followers by the tens of thousands gathered in the nation's capitol and said, "We want equality, and we want it now."
In the fall, more thousands stalked the Pentagon and shouted. "Hell no, we won't go."
During 1967 the protester also criticized police brutality, harsh narcotic laws, the presence of rats and nebulous evils of The Establishment. For the protester -silent, demonstrative or violent-it was a busy year.
U.S. soldier in Vietnam
It was also a busy year for the man Kansan editorial staffers picked as the number two newsmaker, the United States soldier in Vietnam.
He made news in metropolitan dailies and weekly hometown journals when he arrived in Vietnam, shot down a MIG, took Hill 875, and took marijuana. He also made the news when he died.
The American fighting man in Vietnam was busy, thinking about his next duty station, his next meal and his next encounter with "Charlie." Sometimes he thought about his fellow
Americans on the other side of the world who argued about him, praised him, loved him and mourned him.
3. Gen. Moshe Dayan, Israeli defense minister, for leading the Israeli army to its stunning victory over the Arab nations in the June war.
Other top newsmakers of the year, in the order of their selection, were:
4. Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee, America's first astronauts to die in the line of duty, who were burned to death last January when their Apollo spacecraft caught fire during a test.
5. Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, for conducting the Vietnam war with restraint and for encouraging cooperation among the armed services.
DeGaulle only sixth
6. President Charles DeGaulle of France, for his continuing vision of a united Europe with France as its leader, for his repeated refusal to admit England to the Common Market, for arousing controversy in Canada with his cry of "Free Quebec," and for his recent influence in the gold markets of Europe.
7. Stokely Carmichael, Black Power leader, for championing the militant civil rights movement and for equally militant opposition to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
8. Carl Stokes, recently elected Negro mayor of Cleveland, symbolic of the advances of the moderate wing of the civil rights movement.
9. Pope Paul VI, for decisions with impact both within and outside the Roman Catholic church he heads. The pontiff upheld priestly eclebacy, ordered sweeping changes in the Curia, principal administrative arm of the church, and extended ecumenical influence by conferring, for the first time in several centuries, with the head of the Eastern Orthodox church.
10. Lyndon B. Johnson, for leadership during times of crisis at home and abroad. The President increased American troop commitments in Vietnam in an effort to resolve conflict there, and reaffirmed American foreign policy, despite increasing criticism from political leaders of both parties. He avoided U.S. involvement in a Middle East war and peacefully settled a long-standing dispute with Mexico. In the face of domestic racial and economic strife, the President upheld peaceful assembly, decried violence, and prompted further Congressional action in a war on poverty.