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Wednesday, October 28.1977
University Daily Kansan
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Comment
Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent only the views of the writers.
Watson repairs vital
Watson Library is a disgrace to the University of Kansas.
The disgrace is pervasive. It extends from a hazardous lack of fire safety in the stacks to an appallingly low budget for current periodicals.
The University spends millions of dollars each year on new construction projects. It receives generous private donations that spruce up museums. It might even allow them to be a museum athletic director, to go ahead with a $2 million scheme to renovate Memorial Stadium.
Meanwhile, Watson goes wanting.
The lack of fire safety in the stacks is a time bomb with ample potential for tragedy. According to library officials, emergency wells are unmarked and poorly located.
THERE SIMPLY is no excuse for not remodeling the stacks to make them safe for studying. Nor is there any excuse for the University's dismal ranking by the Association, which in 1957-58 ranked KU 71 atlast among its 100 member institutions in total dollars spent.
The University of Illinois has one of the finest college library systems in the country. A few statistics from the association compilers at KU's are shocking as well as saddening.
In 1975-76, Illinois spent $8,502,302 on library expenditures. KU spent $8,280,279.
During the same period of time, Illinois spent $14 million in library salaries. Lunenburg had invested $1,324,000.
Illinois' devoted $1,138,004 to current periodicals. KU's expenditure? A paltry
ILLINOIS, WITH 35,000 students enrolled on its main Urbana campus, is larger than KU, but the comparison is a valid one because the size of an institution need not be larger than its library. These are basic library needs that major university must meet.
In addition, Midwestern universities other than Illinois also outdistance KU in library funding. Minnesota, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Ohio State, Ohio State, and Kansas all put KU to shine when their library appropriations are compared with ours.
Watson Library is unsafe, understaffed and underfinanced. If KU enrollment were cut in half, its main library still would be a bitter, baffling anomaly—a markedly inferior part of an institution that prides itself on academic excellence.
LAST WEEK, the University received permission from the Kansas Board of Regents to ask the legislature for library improvements money. The $291,200 is supposed to supplement this year's library expenditures, but it is not enough. It is a drop in the bucket when Watson's pressing needs are taken into account.
Positive action must be taken if Watson is to be rescued from its present condition. The Kansan urges all students who care about their library to express concern about it. It also urges with student senators. Urge University administrators to do their very best for Watson.
Also, contact state legislators from your home district. Write the people who control Watson's budget. They can be reached at the state capitol, Topeka. For those who need the names of their legislators, the information is available at the reference desk in Watson.
The Regents, who also have a critical role in Watson's funding, can be reached at the Merchants National Bank Tower, Suite 1416, Topeka.
Action needs to be taken now, before the legislature convenes in January. The University needs a safe, decently funded library. It does not have such a library in Watson.
While legal minds grapple with the question of reverse discrimination and the rights of whites and blacks, another problem affecting two conflicting groups quietly smolders.
Anti-smoking law heated issue
The problem concerns the rights of smokers versus the rights of non-smokers. And it has come to light again because the Department of Health, Education and Science is increasing more than 30 strategies for mounting an offensive against cigarette smoking.
The strategies range in potency from declaring a "Don't Smoke Day" to pleading limits on the amounts of harmful substances that can be contained in cigarettes. The all-out effort is initiated by TDEW Secretary Joseph Califano, who is committed to organizing a government antismoking campaign.
Dave Johnson
Editorial Writer
FOR YEARS, THOSE who have chosen to not smoke have had to accommodate those who are not interested in restaurants, movie theaters and other public places where the opportunities for escape were either undesirable or unavailable. A lack of awareness programs, non-smokers are asserting their rights to breathe clean air by demanding that smokers stub out smoking and remind them to smoke elsewhere.
To the smoker, the current government campaign to drive him onto the endangered species list might seem like an
unwarranted attack on his personal habits. What started out as a mild diversion has now turned into one with all kinds of ramifications.
Airlines now restrict him to certain sections, non-smoking signs give him a hostile reception in fanatics loudly "ahem" him in public. He simply wants to indulge in his habits, like nail biting and self-impulsive eaters, not be hassled by Polynanats with glass lungs.
The downtradden smokers can reasonably wonder how the federal government can accept them for smoking from tobacco taxes and yet play good sister to health. It more or less resembles the dentist who rewards kids who have good closures by handing out suckers.
LAST YEAR, the federal government collected $2.3 billion from tobacco taxes. That amount covers the total revenue collected. Perhaps the government's concern for public health only goes as it it became endangered the money garnered each year from cigarette taxes.
The contradiction is not so blunt but here as it is in France, where the government last month banned smoking in public places. The ban specifically places a fine of from $8.25 to $16.50 on victims caught smoking in any place where they were those under 16 years of age.
At the same time, the French government holds a monopoly on the production of cigarettes, tobacco and beer, a year from the state-owned Company for Industrial Production of Tobacco and Matches.
Still, the American smoker can take little comfort from his French counterpart. Nor will he get any pity from American non-smokers, who have had to endure the gagging and wheeze of a nicotine nousa fun since smoking became a popular pastime.
It certainly doesn't seem to be out of line for the federal government to initiate a campaign at least limit the areas in which smokers can indulge in their habit to places where it won't harm the health of others. The program of the French government as well as througposed strategies of the HEW, may seem hypocritical, but they represent a legitimate concern for the health of private citizens and deserve to be
Safeguards needed for older workers
By MARC ROSENBLUM
WASHINGTON—Business and higher education have combined to oppose extension of law that would limit students to persons beyond age 65. Their efforts led to adoption recently of two exemptions that would negate the proposed law on teachers on executives and professors.
These exemptions reflect the fear that forbidding mandatory retirement between ages 65 and 70 would result in the nation's board rooms and classrooms becoming havens for the senile. Such fears run counter to most available evidence.
Nevertheless, sufficient pressure on the Senate Human Resources Committee led to adoption of amendments excluding from coverage businessmen who were to get $20,000 pensions and tenured professors.
THE SENATE should reject these exemptions or, alternatively, the House-Senate conference that will reconcile different versions of the 1977 Act amendments should refuse to accept the weaker Senate formula. The House, 359 to 4, would not terminate employees before the age of 70 in the private sector without excepting special interest groups.
These groups' special pleadings are unfounded, unnecessary and, in light of a fact, probably unconstitutional.
THE CUSTOMARY POLICY of permitting unproductive exertion and providing tenure protection unrelated to academic performance might be aggravated by extending the act's time frame. In these boaty practices themselves that require re-
examination; they should not be permitted to serve as an excuse for diluting a bill that permits workers to remain on the job.
Largely absent from most news analyses and press coverage is any indication of the substantial extent to which federal law permits nonproprietary business executives and professors—to be removed legally. Thus, special exemptions should be viewed as nothing other than a convenience for willing to face the shortcomings of their ingrained practices.
The opposition of business leaders and higher education, while ill-founded, was not unexpected. The same cannot be said for the league leader, Vernon Jordan, who believes that blacks would
THE EXPEDIENT tradeoff of one group's civil rights by those supposedly sensitive to discrimination serves particularly to underscore how ingrained ageism is in Amer'an life. In truth, not only would older black workers benefit more from the mediation, but younger blacks—and other minority members as well—as they got older would enjoy the law's protection.
suffer if older workers were better protected from job discrimination.
The overwhelming majority of older workers will continue to retire on becoming eligible for Social Security, or soon after. Perhaps 200,000 would postpone retirement for a number of reasons, but they easily be accommodated by any resumption of economic
growth. To suggest, as do opponents of the bill's original version, that our 100-million member labor force cannot properly function if protection between ages 65 and 70 is under our economic system's vitality and underlying strength.
The Senate ought to recognize that the House has passed a better version of the Age Act because it is far more ideal, it more nearly captures the belief that added safeguards are needed for the older worker. House Republicans should house sends to President Carter should reflect that realization.
Marc Rosenbum, a consultant to the Senate Special Committee on Aging, is a staff economist with the National Commission on Employment and Unemployment Statistics
Sen. Sam's apple pie causes concern
To the editor:
Letters
Last week's speech by the Honorable Senator Sam Ervin is a prime example of how politicians can apple-pie their way right to the hearts of American citizens.
The Senator started out by telling a series of entertaining jokes. (The was the joke of the wifebeater who got sympathy from the president, criticized the U.S., judicial system really funny?) But these jokes swayed many a Doubt Thomas in thinking that such an enjoyable man couldn't bring but the American Ideal.
The speech was full of rhetorical devices and appeals to the emotion, deliberating on how All Americans enjoy "equality of legal rights" and how the U.S. has evolved the greatest constitution and legal system ever known to man. Many Americans are justly proud of their material but a time blind to its faults. These rhetorical euphemisms only contribute to the people's unquestioning belief in our country.
The Senator then went on to list all the provisions that insure a fair legal system (i.e., the rules of tort law) for trial by jury, etc.). But not once did the Senator say anything about the uncountable instances when these provisions have not been used in injustices have been incurred.
The Honorable Senator, who admitted his passion for law, put The Judge in a rather sacred position by saying that
Judge Sir John Sirkas was the only one who could rightfully judge and reduce the sentences of the convicted criminals Mitchell, Haleman and Erichman. But the Senator went on to pass judgment: that these three, by falling into the position in the U.S. government have suffered enough and probably deserve reductions.
I suppose the biggest show of hypocrisy was when the Senator very justly stated that both he and any homosexual, as American citizens, deserved the firing of his teacher, the firing of a homosexual teacher because, as he said, homosexuals are "perverted."
But the most depressing thing about this statement was the generous cheering from the audience. They apparently enjoyed being told that they were members of the "most just" nation, and that their class citizen privileges would certainly be protected from those who might be "perverted." It makes me wonder, and I think it should make you wonder about what kinds of racism and prejudices our nation "justice" system is based on.
Laurie Bretz
Oshkosh, Neb., senior
KU exempted from wage bill To the editor:
effect of a minimum wage increase on student employment was interesting. You are quite properly concerned with the potential employment if additional funding is not received.
However, your editorial suggests that this dilemma is being forced upon the University by the U.S. Congress. This is not correct. The University, as a state agency, is not covered by the federal minimum wage legislation.
The U.S. Supreme Court in the 1976 National League of Cities case decided that the University be applied to state and local governments under the Constitution. Thus, the University is not obligated to pay the University fee to Congress for the private sector.
Your editorial on the possible
If the University pays a higher minimum wage of $2.65 an hour next January, this will cost the university part because there can be no federal requirement. The University could, for example, continue to pay students $2.30 per hour and not reduce employment at all.
In fiscal 1973, additional funding could be sought to finance a wage increase to $2.65 an hour, if that is desirable.
Charles E. Krider Associate professor of business
- WELL, LET'S SEE. SECOND AND IH...LOOKS LIKE A HE HEEH. PROGING SITUATION. EH. FELLS? *
Life not chosen by homosexuals To the editor:
Homosexuality is merely a variation of human sexual behavior but hardly a "lifestyle" and hardly a crime.
In regard to the letter from Doug Lamborn Oct. 19, I fail to see how someone can make the "decision to become homosexual." There is no choice by me in deciding preference; it is well determined by the time the person enters grade school. If there was a choice involved, I don't imagine that many people themselves to the kind of persecution faced by homosexuals.
The real choice is whether to restrain one's sexual urges and
Lamborn says, "If homosexuals endure discrimination, it's not because they can't escape sexuality that they don't want to give up." I believe I hear the word sexuality and I am more ment. Cellaby is hardly a fair thing to ask of someone, heterosexual or homosexual.
lie to himself and society or accept himself and live with it. Of course, the majority choose the former so that they might live comfortably under society's good graces.
Christopher Budd
Christopher Budd Independence, Mo., freshman
GOP creeps into Deep South
On a muggy summer afternoon, a rather formidable man dressed in an immaculate black suit and white Panama hat is shaking hands with a group of people. Farmers have come in from the fields, and blacks are standing behind them to square to hear the man speak.
Redneckes, who have rushed into town this Saturday afternoon to hear their candidate speak, mingle with the townspeople. Cheers fill the hot, heavy air as the man ap- plains from band plays patriotic tunes and "Dite."
The man works himself into a sweat as he exhorts the throngs to vote for him. His issues are improvements of highways, housing, and arguments are grounded in raising the standards of living for whites and those from his Southern Baptist background. He clearly is the hero of the election, is certain to win the election.
This scene is familiar enough to followers of Southern politics. The year could be 1930, 1940 or any other year. The man could be Huey Long, Theodore Bilbo and John Brown, usually Democrats, are the rule rather than the exception in the Deep South.
Today, it is becoming increasingly hard to distinguish between Democratic and Republican candidates. South unless one knows the candidates' affiliations beforehand. Only in the last 10 years have Democratic candidates been elected to office, but they have to stand on reactionary
principles to get even their feet in the door.
For the first time in years, Southern states voted Republican in 1972, when Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern. There have been other occasions when the South voted Republican in 1980, did not vote the Republican ticket, etc.
In 1948, the South voted for the States' Rights Party candidates. Strom Thurmond, a former, former and a fire-eater in the John C. Calhoun vein, was the presidential candidate. States' Righters opposed Democratic politics. Instead of looking at the parties and their own party—the Dixiecrats.
STATES 'RIGHTS' candidates won only in those states in which they succeeded in appropriating the Democratic label. Thurmond won easily in Mississippi. Gerrish won easily in South Carolina.
A similar incident occurred in 1968 when George Wallace ran as a third party candidate. His leadership was powering than Thurmond's. It is debatable how far Wallace would have gone in the 1972 presidential election. In May of the same year, he was defeated by Ronald Reagan's bullet in Laurel, Md., and dropped out of the race.
In the case of the 1948 election, the third party had an influence on the outcome of the election. The Truman-Dewey race was so close that winning some of these valuable votes by the Republican side could have thrown the election. In both 1948 and 1952 the attraction of the third party was demagogic air that had been so predominant in Southern politics.
In the past 15 years, Republicanism has been creeping into the South. Tennessee, so close to the states of the Deep South, has become a Republican stronghold.
Thurmond has jumped from party to party so much that he hardly can be counted as a Democrat. He was a Democrat, then there was the short-lived Dixiecation ticket in 1948. After this flaccé, he returned to the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in 1964.
THE SAME trend is showing up in the Deep South. Three out of seven of Alabama's U.S. representatives are Republican. Mississippi has two Republican representatives out of five. Both Louisiana and South Carolina governors. The only state that the Republican senator is South Carolina, and he is Thurmdom.
Only Georgia remains outwardly uninfluenced by Republicans. All of its senators and lawmakers are Democrats, nor are Democrats. This phenomenon is due to the Herman Talmage machine, though his influence may be diminishing because of his recent divorce suit.
Other machines in the South, most notably Jim Eastland's in Mississippi, still have an enormous influence. In that state's 1975 election, Mr. Westward wielded power. The former state treasurer and lieutenant governor, William Winter, also a Democrat, lost the election because of Eastland and his men, Eastland's endorsement of the boy, boy Cliffin, ruined Wintner's political chances.
Catering to Eastland's machine and gaining national attention by riding tractors and truckers, the governor John Finch gave Winter a crushing defeat. However, some of Eastland's constituents were not impressed with his endearment, and he year lawyer exposing the cause of the common man. They voted Republican, and for the first time in recent history, they voted for a close government's race.
SOME OF THE SOUTH's most powerful U.S. senators are approaching retirement. Eastland, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and president pro tempore, is 73 and has held his office since 1942. Mississippi's other
senator, John Stennis, 76, is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and was first elected in 1947.
Stennis, who probably is serving his last term, was re-elected last year. Alabama's John Sparkman is 78 and has served with the Army for the past year, publicized his retirement and there is speculation that George Wallace will run for his seat. Strom Thornford is 77 and has no plans to step down, but there are indications that he will change parties again.
The retirements of Eastland, Sparkman and Stenius would change the make-up and power of the prestigious Senate committees.
More importantly, the retirements of these three senators would give the Republican party a chance once again in the Solid South. Southerners are no longer afraid to defy tradition and vote Republican. Only the future will reveal whether the Republicans are in the Deep South, but their chances look good. The future is not too long away because Eastland's and Sparkman's terms expire next year.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published at the University of Kansas daily August, through May and Monday through Thursday during summer. Mail address: 625 W. 14th St., Dayton, Ohio. Second-class postage paid at Lawrence, Kan. Mail address: 704 W. 13th St., Dayton, Ohio. A year in Douglas County and $2 a semester or $2 $3 a semester, paid through the student activity fee.
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