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Tuesday, November 15. 1977
University Daily Kansan
Comment
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Kansas editorial staff. Signed columns represent only the views of the writers.
Miller's zeal a farce
Despite Vern Miller's recent denials that he will not run for governor except under extreme circumstances, he continues his drive for recognition as the state's holiest warrior. Tonight Miller, now sedgwick County, has been hospitalized after attending a Baptist church in Topeka for an anti-smut group called the Committee for a Decent Community.
Fortunately, he no longer is the state's attorney general. It is only the taxpayers of Sedgwick County whose best interests are being ignored.
Miller's fair for attracting publicity and his drive to legislate the state's morality always have been more certain than his ability to enforce the law; in fact, his efforts in campaigning to invade himself in moralistic campaigns may interfere with his duties.
MILLER'S ZEAL for carrying to ridiculous extremes his enforcement of laws in selected areas became widely known during his years as attorney general.
He issued a vigilante's license to a longtime political supporter, Sherman Sampson, who conducted a vengetul war against heroin in Wichita with his Turn-in-a-Pusher program. He raided University of Oklahoma students and held airlines to withhold liquor while their jets were over Kansas.
Still, Miller's real failed to propel him into the governor's office, partly because of the backfire vote from angry college students. He was also one of the nationally appealing "sin" issues to his new
job as district attorney—which meant a related transfer of misguided law enforcement.
He arranged extensive press coverage of June drug raid that netted more than 60 suspects but lost more than 50 of the cases because a key witness perjured himself. He sought and won a ban of questionable constitutionality on nude dancing in Sedgwick County taunts because, he said, there was too much related crime to punish him better spent in enforcing existing laws on prostitution, assault and disorderly conduct.
Flashy drug raids that yield dozens of arrests but few convictions are no substitute for methodical prosecution of drug-market ringleaders. The inflamed emotionalism of Miller's anti-obscency efforts clouds the dangers inherent in censorship.
PERHAPS THE biggest problem with PERHAPS THE biggest problem is it just that style rather than substance.
Sedgwick County citizens should have questioned why Miller appeared last spring at a rally supporting his anti-obscenity campaign there; they and Shawnee County residents should question the propriety of his appearance tonight at a rally sponsored by a group dedicated to the abolition of Topeka massage parlors.
The rest of us can comfort ourselves with the thought that Miller will not re-enter state politics as a candidate for governor in 1978. We full ourselves too much, though, when we get elected, and sometimes hollow but always publicity-rich issues will stay out of state politics for long.
What began as a dog race for Kansas 'top political offices in the state' has diminished to a slow flow of contenders. And the explanation may not lie in the natural attrition rate of political candidates.
The two leading races, for governor and the U.S. Senate, suddenly have cooled off as several state political figures have turned to either stay here they are or not run for office at all.
After James Pearson, R-Kan., announced he would not run for the Senate again, but will not be running, pulling names out of the hat,
State races attract few starters
Dave Johnson
Editorial Writer
trying to determine what the 1978 match-ups would be. Bill Roy, Keth Sebelius, Larry Gervin, Bobby Duckett, Miller, Bob Docking and Curt Schneider have been matched speculatively in various combinations in the state's races for the governorship and Pearson's
DURING ALL THE political speculations, it was assumed that the prospective candidates would be more than willing to
dive head-first into a campaign
After all, ambition is the lifeblood of politics. Is it?
But one by one, the contenders begin dropping like files after the first autumn freeze. Winn, a Republican who was considering running for Pearson's seat, declined to run. He had chosen a preferent to remain Kansas' third district congressman.
Last week, Sebelius,
Republican, is a district
commissioner who should be
for pride and said he would not
run for the Senate. Sebelius had
said that it would be an honor to
be his representative, and that
that his main desire was to be
CANT BORROW A HAMMER?
End to political blackmail byiewels is overdue
Once again the United States has vainly attempted to use its influence as a lever to bring about changes in another country's government. Fortunately, the Carter administration has decided to return Hungary's power and in the process using in the embarrassing position of holding the jewels as a sort of political blackmail.
Mary Mitchell Editorial Writer
It has been obvious that such tactics will not work. The United States has tried the same sort of technique to infiltrate a country with a trade embargo. In the case of the Hungarian jewels,
one is reminded of the outright larceny that some countries, mainly Great Britain, have taken over the treasures of another country.
The Hungarian jewels have been in U.S. possession and locked up in Fort Knaex since the 1860s. A memorial retracty of State Cyrus Vance
recently announced that he intended to return the jewels to the Budapest government in early December.
THE JEWELS are a crown, a gold scepter and orb and a gold-encrusted royal mantle. The ancient crown was sent as a steed to Rome. Pope gary's first king, by Pope Sylvester II in 1000 A.D.
These regalia are a symbol of national pride for Hungarians who trace their country's nationhood and conversion to Christianity to that period. And as such a symbol, these treasures should have been returned long ago.
The United States was given the jewels for safekeeping in 1945 by the Hungarian military guard because the Hungarians feared that the Russians would take them. And the United States has kept them since that time.
Despite numerous requests, the United States has refused to send the jewels back to their rightful owner and has used the jewels as a method of conspiracy as the Hungarian government.
Hungary's relations with the United States hardened after the Communist takeover in 1947 and worsened after the Soviets put down an uprising there in 1956.
Holding national treasures of a country hostage to express disapproval with its government is unfortunate for the United States. Government officials would return of the jewels would be politically risky, but that is hardly a valid argument.
IN RECENT YEARS, the Communist government in Hungary has become moderate, but the change has little to do with the fact that the jewels being held by the United States.
Now that these national treasures are being returned, the United States has said that it would extend non-discriminatory tariffs to Hungary.
At least the United States did
not have the audacity to exhibit the jewels in a museum as England has done. That is the only good thing that can be said about the United States' act of political blackmail.
These priceless relics were brought to England in 1803 by the Earl of Elgin and at the time created controversy. The poet Byron denounced the act of the Earl, and it is attributed eligin's conduct. By 1816, Great Britain tried to make amends by paying Greece for the Marbles with a less than equitable price. That country's greed for possessing articles of antiquity from other countries cannot be condemned. Britain has have given decoy to the Marbles.
NOW THE CARTER administration is doing just that with the return of the jewels to Hungary. The idea of this country's holding another country's possessions for a long time, the same might be said of the current trade embargo against Cuba, which has been carried to the point of the ridiculous.
Americans who buy Cuban cigars and other products in Europe get a raw deal. These articles are confiscated if they violate the law in the United States. It seems that we are hurting no one but ourselves,
the best congressman possible Nothing more or less.
and we certainly have not brought about changes in either Cuba or Hungary.
The return of the jewels is commendable. It is not a signal of approval and it is not a capitation. It should erase the embarrassment of the past and allow the Jewish community-bloc country whose diplomatic relations we should welcome.
CONTRARY TO WHAT many people thought would be a last stab at the governorship, Miller also has backed back from the starting block. Miller has not firmly denied that he would not run, but he said that only in event of unforeseeableCircumstances the Democratis running) would he campaign for governor. Apparently Miller's ambition had been miscalculated too.
Atty. Gen, Schneider, a democrat, broke out into the governor's race fast last spring but almost ran off the track in September when he was convicted of rape. Mo. model with a female friend. After a fusillade of political immuendo, Schneider said he would not run for governor unless the political climate in Kansas changed dramatically, and he would edge back into the race again, although he has not formally declared his candidacy.
"That leaves Roy, a Democrat, as an almost certain candidate for the Senate spot, John Carlin, the Republican speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives, as the only announced serious contender for the Republican nomination, the Republican, still floating somewhere between the two jobs.
Even political fence-sitting has suffered. Docking, who last spring organized meetings of Democratic leaders interested in promoting Schneider's candidacy for governor, now has said he will sit up the 1978 race entirely. He does not plan to
The critical scrutiny to which legislators, executives and even members of the jury are held requires places a high demand on the public servants' sense of duty. In fact, it may be driving potential candidates to take part in the process.
The press is especially guilty of the lurking-lie syndrome. Perhaps in its post-Watergate zeal for uncovering corruption where it festers, the press is forcing out men who are rebelled to be a constant barrage of accusations about their integrity.
MISTRUST AND corruption seem to lurk behind every locked door with the watchful eyes of a national security expert at the keyhole. And politicians seem to find the climate so uninhabitable that they are migrating to the more temperate parts of the nation's private sector.
No doubt some of the Kansas politicians who got cold feet about running for higher office had reasons other than fear of vindictive attacks on their reputations. But as the political dogtights wear on, it will be interesting when whether all the politicos opt for the safer course of remaining inactive. As is it going now, 1978 is turning into a dog year for state politics.
But the political freeze is not endemic only to Kansas. The cold snap has taken hold nationwide. In light of the Bert Lance affair, non-professional politicians and journalists have headaches of being public servants are not worth the tangible benefits.
Improve Watson by writing officials
KU has requested money to improve Watson library. The Kansas urges students to write their hometown legislators and other elected officials.
Watson Library is a disgrace to the University of Kansas. It is unsafe, understaffed and underfinanced.
support Schneider or any other candidate.
In recent years the Student Senate was reformed from a body of a few senators to a larger, more widely based body. The argument for the reform was that student representation was manipulated by a tiny elite and
To the editor:
Nov. 2 the Senate was forced to adjourn in the middle of a budget session when it lost a quorum. The next night it apparently continued voting on budgets well after it again lost a fragile quorum. Obviously nobody called for a quorum count on that night because nobody had a previous evening to student government. Unfortunately, however, that's not majority rule.
Quorum rule misguided
The Student Senate's recent conduct strengthens an argument on Senate rules that I have been forwarding since I was outed last spring for refusing to attend an executive meetings unexcused.
Bennett and legislators can be reached at the state capitale building, Topeka. The names of hometown senators and representatives are also posted here.
Economists theorize on dream world
Student support for an improved library is essential.
By GUY ROUTH
But lately there has been a reversion to Professor Edwin Cannan's stand, as president of Britain's Royal Economic Society in 1832. "General unemployment appears when asking too much is a general phenomenon . . . (the world) should learn the declines of money-income without squealing."
N. Y. Times Features
Their condition, I have to report, remains unchanged.
Here, the most holy are the Mathematical Economists, a priestsly order that has renounced the world and among whom communication is by email. The mathematicians' use of their symbols by economic names, which led
The Depression of the 1930's shook the world and elicited from them an admission that involuntary unemployment could happen. (Until then, unemployment was alleged to be optional.)
WATERLOO, Ontario - Fifty years ago, Wesley Clair Mitchell, longtime professor of economics at Columbia University, remarked that it was not unusual to see a student in conversation, but rather the mental state of the theisters.
But the squeals of the world are not without warrant, for the economists' prescriptions for our hospitals. In inflationary fever, are uncommonly like those of medical practitioners who, when the patient most needed his strength, let blood and applied leeches. The fact is that progress while economies has hardly changed?
BUT PERHAPS the theorists are more like members of a religious community.
ECOONISTS WHO come off the orthodox assembly lines of the universities are not of this world. An essential part of their training consists of a two-week course, remote from reality as the world of the Hobbits.
The Land of Perfect Competition. from which
Here demand without demanders, supply without suppliers, capital without capitalists, profit without shareholders, interest without laborers act and react in complex series whose outcome, if Government and Monopoly are kept at bay, is the maximization of all good things.
Sometimes innovators seek to spoil the game by introducing characters that do not fit like Monopolistic Competition and its dubious sister, Imperfect Competition—or that awkward creature Involuntary Unemployment, so distasteful to Demand and Supply.
THE RESULT, as Wassily Leontief, then president of the American Economic Association, remarked: "The same well-known sets of figures are used again and again in all possible com-
the textbooks start, is inhabited entirely by disembodied variables and constants that, though bearing the names of economic phenomena, are devoid of substance.
Economists who come off the orthodox assembly lines of the universities are not of this world . . . their training consists of induction into a world of fantasy as remote from reality as the world of the Hobbits.
So absorbing is this game that the players simply accommodate them by a slight bending of the hand.
Below these are the Applied Economists, an intrenant order who are supposed to be in touch with reality. They are not, for they have long since established that businessmen, workers, bankers and housewives (the people who make economic decisions) do not know what they (the Applied Economists) are talking about and are unwilling to be taught. They talk about being much easier on the feet, to concern themselves entirely with the statistics that government puts out in such abundance.
If everyone, each time he met an economist, said, "Pardon me, but my model is indeterminate," the whole airy fabric of models and equations would vanish like mist on a sunny day. He might have applied to apply its massed talents to the study of the real world, with heaven knows what results.
Indeterminacy is to economists what garlic is to vampires. So they have replaced human beings, whose behavior must be studied if you want to discover what they are doing and are about to do, by robots programmed to respond exclusively to pecuniary stimuli.
There are indeed economists who are trying to institute a reformation, but they meet with little
binations to pit different theoretical models against each other in formal statistical combat.
Next are the General Theorists, writers of great textbooks, who minister to students and governments. They fill the void of ignorance with convenient assumptions and, by ingenious deductions, lead inexorably to what was, "a priori," to be proved.
Here the reformers need the help of the laity in government and business, and the vast congregations who continue patiently to pay their tribute for the unkeen of the order.
Those of the academic cloth are a teaching order, terrified of the textbookless void they are being urged to enter. "Give up your lecture notes and allow me" is not a summons to be lightly eyed.
G. D.N. Worswick to comment that it might be more correct to say there are some new branches of mathematics that contain vestigial traces of economics.
IT IS INDETERMINACY that we may call to our aid; the unpredictable nature of economic
Guy Routh, visiting professor of economics at the University of Waterloo, is author of "The Ordeal of Dreams."
Letters
should be expanded to give more students a voice.
For purposes of comparison, consider the outrage of the U.S. Senate booting out duly elected senators for missing congressional sessions. Even though the right attendance, it would not fit the definition of representative democracy.
The reformed Senate saw that without rules attendance would drop at times and quorums would be difficult to maintain, so the senate adopted a policing attendance itself. The rationale was that since students are transient citizens in the university community, they should have a track of their senators' attendance at meetings of the Senate.
Last spring as chairman of the Graduate Student Council budget committee I was obliged to attend at least five sessions for hearings and decision-making. That took a huge bite out of the time I had available to me, and it meant to be a student. To catch up I had to make a choice between school and more meetings. It made no difference to the people who enforce Senate rules that my activities in other student-related matters might have pleased my constituents. So much architecture so much that they would have forgiven my misuses. Rules are rules, after all.
The Senate's mistake is in its perception of political power.
There is only so much interest in KU student politics, and by the time the university was diluted. Each senator then sees that he has only a small say in a body that makes few crucial decisions
That makes other concerns, such as school or work (neither of which counts as an "excuse" for Senate purposes), seem more important to each senator. More rarely interested in the Student Senate and signed up as a last minute write-in candidate at the urging of a senator who said there were more seats up for grabs than there were canvassers; more from my program to run for the office and nobody from my program replaced me, so it is hard to see how my constituents were served when this rascal was run by a graduate student members of the Senate are elected at large.)
The Senate should allow the political interest on campus to seek its own level. If there isn't enough interest around to attract at least 60 willing candidates, perhaps the Senate itself is constituted incorrectly. Perhaps 120 are too many.
Whatever the solution is to the quorum problem, it certainly is not coercing participation. The Senate should repeal its attendance rules because they are wrong and ineffective.
Perry graduate student
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