Wednesday, March 10. 1976
KANSAN
Staff Photo by JAY KOELZER
The University of Kansas—Lawrence. Kansas
Vol. 86 No.104
While the tennis courts were crowded with people enjoying a warm Tuesday afternoon, Dana Durrell, Anadarko, Okla. freshman, decided to enjoy an alternative sport in lacrosse. Durrell, who has to practice against a wall because of a lack of partners, is thinking about starting a club if he can find enough interested persons in the area.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
Smashina
Bv MARY ANN DAUGHERTV
Staff Writer
Beuerman plaque wording argued
Friends and admirers of the late Leo M. Beuerman, a severely handicapped Lawrence resident whose courage was known to many, appeared before the court on June 30 toight to air their opposing views on the wording of a Beuerman memorial plaque.
The commission, apparently puzzled about appropriate action, took the issue under advisement for an indefinite period of time.
Sally Jenkins, Omaha senior, received approval from the commission March 5, 1975, to place the plaque in the sidewalk at 8th and Massachusetts.
The plaque, which is expected to be finished early this summer, is to read: "Remember me? I'm that little man gone who used to sell pencils on the street card."
Beuernum wrote the words in a letter to some of his business natrons.
REPRESENTATIVES OF Concerned Disabled Consumers, led by Joe Greve, executive secretary of the Governor's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped and the wringing. They said it involved incorrect stereotypes of handicapped people.
Greve cited Lawrence as one of the most progressive Kansas cities in eliminating the architectural barriers that the handcapped face. But, he said, allowing the proposed words to be used would increase attitudinal barriers.
Greve said he approved the plaque but said he thought other words should be chosen that would emphasize Beurmann's courage as a person rather than as a lawyer. Greve said he couldn't be fully understood by visitors to Lawrence who never knew Beurmann
Katty Hagen, Fargo, N.D. graduate student, told the commission those who didn't know Beuerman would think he was a lawyer. "We were stood on the street corner selling poultry."
Hagen, who is blind, suggested instead any of the following other Beurman man.
"I think everybody's lonesome and feels sorry for themselves at times, but I never feel it," she said.
"IF ONE THINKS it all over and sees a way through, let nothing stop you until you get what you set out for or at least see your mistakes."
And, "One of my very greatest wisha always was that I could get into some very profitable business and help those who are poor."
The Rev. Harold Wilkie, a member of the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped, spoke briefly and said, "We want these persons (the handicapped) to be treated as the whole persons we really think and know they are."
Mayor Barkley Clark asked Jenkins whether she and a group of fellow University of Kansas students, who befriended Beuerman and raised money for the plaque soon after his death in October 1974, would change the wording.
Jenkins said, "This is a gift to the city. We didn't feel we had to ask anyone's opinion. If you don't want it, you don't need to accept it."
MICHAEL REEED, Courtland senior and one of those who planned the plaque, said a plaque was only part of what would be remembered of any man.
"Any person who sees the plaque will naturally inquire about the rest of his life."
Another of those who helped plan the plague, Anna Block, argued that the suggested quotations would be too lengthy. Another of those who helped plan the plague was for anyone not from Lawrence.
"This is a Lawrence memorial to Lawrence citizens," she said. "I don't think this is deraining to handicapped people at all, and it derains to all handicapped people. It's for Leo."
Roger Williams, chairman of KU's Committee on the Architecturally Handicapped, said he had been trying to negotiate a compromise since October 1974. He is Senior Professor of English and one-time advisor to the students, don't seem interested.
SENIOR IS IN Ireland with a group of Pearson Integrated Humanities students, who are studying life on an Irish island this semester.
After nearly one hour's discussion, Clark said the commission was bewildered about
its position. He said he didn't know whether the commission could legally oppose the wording. However, he said he thought it was correct and the approval it gave Jenkins last year.
Beuerman, a dwarf 38 inches tall, had muscle and bone impurities that prevented him from walking normally. As a boy, he had an illness that left him deaf.
In 1970, Beauerman went blind and quit selling his merchandise in town.
For years, he drove a small tractor from his home on the outskirts of Lawrence to 8th and Massachusetts where he sold pencils and pens. He also made key chains, beaded necklaces and leather objects that were sold in some downtown businesses.
Rock Chalk groups to be paired in future by KU-Y process
In other business, the commission accepted a bid of $21,861.90 for the construction of sidewalks on the west side of Iowa from 15th to 3rd. The bid, offered by C & S Park Service, Inc., is $6,975.60 less than original city estimates.
By LIZ LEECH Staff Writer
A structured process for pairing groups that want to compete as teams in the Rock Chalk Revue was agreed upon last night by the Executive Council of Fraternity Council (ICC) representatives.
Participating groups usually have been Greek and they haven't had a defined process for pairing, which apparently had caused some problems.
Eleanor Burchell, KU-Y coordinator, said that groups interested in competing as teams in the 1977 Revuus should inform KU-Whyte and the other leaders which Greek groups would come.
KU-Y will use a bid system to pair all the groups for 1977. The system originally was set up by the IFC and Panheleniic councils for fraternities and sororities.
On March 24 the groups will submit lists of what other groups they would want to be paired with in order of preference KUY-LAN, the organization president will be present.
Burchill said that groups can find out which other groups also are interested in participating by calling KU-Y Friday or after spring break.
Sherman delicately waters the blooming plant as he speaks.
Sherman's basement apartment is spacious and uncluttered. There's an end door with a sliding glass door, sliding glass door. One of the plants is wilting and dying, its leaves fall brown to the carpet. But the other plant, a hyacinth, still stands tall in the sunlight that beams through the glass.
his long, brown fingers. "Once a prisoner I knew killed another because he wouldn't pay up a $1.35 bill. But I'm out and I've penetrated the culture I want to live in."
Staff Writer
"You know, in the penitentiary some of my best friends were killers, cold-blooded."
Ex-convict rehabilitates after soul searching
Sherman's descent through the world of crime and his eventual elevation to respectability is the story of a man who has to grip with all that he is and has
Sherman (not his real name) lives in the university culture. He's a 36-year-old junior psychology major enrolled full time in classes at KU. But he hasn't forgotten where he's been and be knows where he's going.
been. His story begins in Iowa some ten years ago.
Sherman husted pool in taverns for a living. He met a local card shark who examined his long fingers and said they'd be of great value in cheating at poker. He taught Sherman how to deal crookedly and to use specially marked cards that could have been thrown with an axe. Sherman picked up more tricks and techniques as he went along.
He got into a gang of small-time thieves who were using Des Moines as a base of operations to rob surrounding town's grocery stores and taverns. When Sherman
Bv GREG BASHAW
tells of his thieving days, his large brown eyes take on a faraway stare, his head of black, curly hair rests on the back of his chair.
The Panhellenic and IFC presidents councils voted in April 1976 to match the budget for the new program.
"Two or three of us would drive out to a small town in suits and ties and park a ride from our target," he said. "Then we'd change into jeans and break into a joint and take all their cigarettes, crack a safe if we knew there was a lot of cash in it."
IFC and Panhellenic had planned to have Bob Turvey, assistant dean of men and IFC adviser; and Parm Horne, assistant to the Head of Human Resources, adviser, match the Greek organizations.
After they'd ransacked their target they'd dress again in suits to fool police who might stop them and then make off with their soils. But there were never riches.
See EX-CONVICT page 5
However, a communication breakdown between KU-Y, Panhellenic and IFC caused some misunderstanding about who would do the planning, representatives of each group said
declare on partners for the
See ROCK CHALK page 8
Linda Pflasterer, Panhellenic president, said that last year's councils had received complaints from Greek organizations about procedures some of the groups were using to get partners for the Revue. The groups usually decide on partners for the next
Ford and Carter capture Florida primary victories
MIAMI (AP)—President Gerald R. Ford won Florida's Republican presidential primary election last night, beating conservative challenge once seemed strong.
Georgia's Jimmy Carter resumed a leading position in the Democratic presidential field with a victory over Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace.
For Carter, it was a triumph in what had been Wallace country.
For Ford, it was a major stride toward a Republican presidential nomination he had been pushing for.
Sen. Henry M. Jackson of Washington, running third among the Democrats, said he was satisfied to wait and fight another day, contending that Carter can't win the big industrial states the Democrats will need in November.
That will be tested later. The arithmetic of Florida made Reagan Wallace and Jack Kahaner successful.
With 94 per cent of the precincts reported, he had 53 per cent of the Republican vote. He was an independent.
Darter led with 35 per cent of the
Carter Wallace had 32 per cent,
Jacson 22 per cent.
Ford's campaign manager, Howard H. Callaway, said in Washington that he wouldn't speculate on Reagan's political future.
"It is not up to me to say what Mr. Reagan will do," Callaway says. "We intend to go forward."
The jubilant Carter said in Orlando that his victory was hard to believe. He said that he was ready for his next test, the Illinois primary next Tuesday.
"I think it's obvious our success here in Florida against Gov. Wallace, who carried the state in 1972, is a major step forward for us," Carter said.
He won after a year-long campaign and more than 30 vote-hunting missions to
Wallace suffered a setback that could be his undoing as a national candidate, because it was in an area that had been part of his political base.
Carter now emerges as the man who beat Wallace in his own neighborhood, and he has been named the former Georgia governor, they owe him one. By beating Wallace in Florida, Carter undercut the Alabama governor who was the personal problem for national Democrats.
Reagan's defeat seemed more severe because of the early forecasts of his manager, who once had predicted a 21 landslide over Ford. Reagan discharged in the latter days of the campaign, but he couldn't make Republicans forget it.
States consider decriminalization as pot use rises
(Editor's note: This is the third in a four-part series examining marjurina use by University of Kansas students. Today's part looks at recent attempts to minimize marjurina use in Kansas
By BRUCE SPENCE
Staff Writer
The long dispute over marjuna penalties may become the victim of sweeping changes as more and more states consider removing criminal penalties for the use of marjuna.
Teeth were added to the law by establishing a mandatory prison sentence of two to 10 years for use or possession of marijuana and a sentence of five to 20 years for the sale of marijuana.
In 1937, the first federal legislation was enacted after public reports stated that marijuana caused harmful effects ranging from violent crime to insanity.
At one time, every state in the Union made the use of marijuana a tacitly by law of widely held fears that it could endanger life.
But in the 1960s, a movement developed to reduce the penalties for smoking marijuana to a less serious classification of crime—a misdemeanor. And police often consider a considerable argument, most states had done so.
Then entered "decriminalization" a softening of legal sanctions against the use of marijuana. About 30 states have or are considering bills that would limit the use of marijuana in private no longer a crime.
Seven states had adopted such a policy. The first was in Oregon in 1973, the latest in South Dakota or Feb.
Alaska Supreme Court ruled criminal penalties for marijuana possession to an unconstitutional
California, Maine and Colorado recently subsumed in place of jail sentences for the murder of a teacher.
If decriminalization of marijuana is to come to Kansas, Glover is hoping to get it through as a part of House Bill 2911, which makes a one-year minimum sentence mandatory for persons convicted of selling heroin, cocaine or opium. The bill is still in Senate committee.
The decriminalization approach has been ingrained at the national level. Legal regulation to stop marijuana use in marijuana has been introduced in the U.S. Congress by Sen. Jacob Javits, R-N.Y., and by Rep. Edward Scalia.
The Alaska Legislature, shortly after,
decriminalized private possession of marijuana.
and in Kansas, State Rep. Mike Glover, D-
Atlanta has been tenaciously pursuing a change
in the district.
Present penalties for possession of marjurian call for a Class A midemnesor for first conviction, which carries a penalty of up to one year in county jail or a fine of $2,500 or both.
Yesterday, Glover attempted to tack on an amendment to provide for the decriminalization of marijuana.
The amendment read, "First or subsequent convictions of simple possession or use of two ounces or of marijuana will carry a fine of up to $100 as an unclassified misdemeanor."
Subsequent convictions for possession of marijuana, regardless of the amount, are Class D felonies, punishable by a minimum sentence of one year in jail and a maximum sentence of 10 years.
"The minimum amount of change I think we can expect the legislature to take is the subsequent
conviction change from a Class D felony to a Class A misdemeanor. "Glover says, 'That’s not really a conviction.'"
"It's something that every prosecutor in the state will support because the second time you run somebody in—and you're probably not going to run them in for a small conviction of a small amount—it's a Class D felony carrying a maximum of 10 years in the penitentiary.
"There's nobody in this state—well, there are a few—who thinks that the simple marijuana user uses it," she said.
Statements made by Douglas County Attorney David Berkwitz and Lance Burr, former assistant attorney general of Kansas, battles that position. Berkwitz, in a Topeka in favor of decriminalization of marijuana
Berkowitz already uses a system of deferred prosecution for those arrested for possessing four ounces or less of marijuana who have no prior record. Under deferred prosecution, the defendant promises to not break any law for six months (except minor traffic violations) and to parachute a drug education program at Headquarters, a 24-hour drug crisis center in Lawrence, Inc.
If the defendant stays out of trouble with the law for the six-month period, the case is drooned.
Glover thinks his amendment will do well because the tougher stance on the sellers of "hard" drugs will cancel out any possible hesitation of legislators on easing up on marijuana penalties.
"You see, they can go back home and tell the妈 and the moms and the toucher laws against sales of the hard stuff, and yet we've made it so that your kid won't get a criminal record if they're ex-convicted."
But a member of the committee that considered
Glover's amendment, State Sen. Arden Booth, R-Lawrence, said yesterday that, although Glover had made a good presentation, "I think that the committee probably wants the bill as it is." They think that the amendment might throw it over into the category of the controversial.
"So there's some question in my mind as to whether his request would be honored. It's always dangerous to guess what a committee will do, but I will give the amendment has two chances: little and none."
Booth said that he wouldn't be able to support the amendment as tacked onto the original bill because such a decriminalization provision would be entirely foreign to the intent of the rest of the bill.
"Attitudes have changed," be said, "and I think its only a matter of time before it happens."
Booth doesn't think the amendment has much support, although he said that public opinion in favor of a lighter stand toward marijuana appeared to be growing.
State Rep. Lloyd Buzzi, R-Lawrence, sees the chance for passage of decriminalization legislation in the House.
"They say it's a tool to get the护谁 who they can't get for sale." Booth said, "I'm not sure that this is the proper way of doing it, but at the same time, I'm reluctant to take this tool away from the law enforcement people until they say, 'We no longer need it.'"
Booth said he had talked to many law enforcement people who told him that they didn't every try to 'hang it on' for simple possession, and that only after the owner of drugs. Law enforcement officials tell him that they use laws against possession to get the pushers.
"If there is, it will probably be an eleventh hour type of thing." Buzzi said. "I think that people feel that there are other areas that need to be taken care of first."
Tom Duncan, state coordinator of the National Organization for the Reform of Marjuana Laws (NORML), said Glover's amendment would be more than acceptable to his organization.
"It is, essentially, a compromise position," Duncan said. "The NORML position is that marijuana use and possession is not the kind of situation we want to tolerate. But it sounds like a reasonable position."
Duncan agrees with Glover that the chances of passage of the decriminalization legislation are
"When you are able to attach the thing to a bill that increases the penalty for those engaged in commercial trafficking, it think that makes it a lot more palatable for the legislators," he said.
Kansas have shown a serious concern for recreational drug use, he said, as illustrated by the
"I think the legislators are very concerned about doing anything that places them in a position that looks like they're encouraging recreational drug use." Duncan said.
Duncan sees two reasons why such a decriminalization amendment—which he admits never would have gotten of the ground several years ago—would not succeed through better medical evidence and education.
"There is much better medical evidence available now as opposed to, say, three years ago," he said. "And more people are educated on the issue of marijuana." He added the response that marijuana evokes in many people.
See MARIJUANA page 2
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