4
Monday, April 2, 1973
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
April Notions
The price of meat is expected to decline this week to levels comparable to those of 1967. Meat producers and consumers appear to have settled their differences, and the economy is righting itself.
The energy crisis has come to an end. American consumers have reduced the amount of energy that they are using, and new domestic fuel reserves have been found. The results show that reduce drastically the amount of fuel imported from the politically troubled Middle East.
An unprecedented reduction in the overall crime rate, revealed in recently released FBI statistics, is expected to continue throughout the year. The continued decline is due to a number of factors, including leadership from the White House and to the potential leadership qualities of L. Patrick Gray.
The most recent revelation in the Watergate bugging case shows that absolutely no connection exists between convicted Watergate defendants and the Republican party or the White House. Likewise, all hint of scandal has evaporated from the good name of ITT.
Pollution, a federal report revealed last week, is receding to the point where it no longer is considered a major national problem. Reduction in the use of automobiles, compliance with pollution standards by the nation's major industries and success of
mass transit are responsible for the good news.
The dollar has made a tremendous comeback on the international market. Its upward revaluation is attributable to the general amelioration of domestic conditions in the United States.
The long-awaited word has come from Detroit indicating that no more cars will be recalled this year. The Food and Drug Administration has offered a prediction that no addiction prevention initiative product this year because of increased industry responsibility to the consumer.
Violence in Northern Ireland is at a five-year low. Catholics and Protestants met last week and settled many of their differences. In South Africa a traditional policy of apartheid has been abolished. Complete integration is expected within five years.
The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong have agreed to respect the integrity of South Vietnam and will not attempt to break their country 'convert' the country to communism.
The Student Senate at the University of Kansas, under new leadership, will have near perfect attendance at meetings this year because of a disappearance of student apathy.
Certainly by now you must know that this is but April Fools' Day whimis. Regrettably, whimsy is all it is.
—Steve Riel
It Defies Reason
President Nixon recently decided publicly to try to curb the "permissive philosophy" that, as he explained it, held society responsible for criminals' misdeeds. Nixon vowed to attack crime "the way others would have done it," his personality. His suggestions for fighting crime would indeed attack it without pity, and in some cases, without reason.
One section of Nixon's crime plan proposes that the present insanity defense be limited. No plea on the defendant's mental state would be permitted at a trial except the contention that the defendant did not know what he was doing when he committed the crime, "for example, whether the defendant knew he was pulling the trigger of a gun."
One insanity defense, commonly accepted today, that the offender did not realize his act was wrong when he committed it, would probably be unacceptable to Nixon. Only after a jury has reached a verdict could this type of insanity plea be made to a judge.
The insanity defense traditionally has been justified by the supposition that mental illness negates an essential prerequisite of the criminal process—the culpability of the offender. Criminal law has considered the person may be considered morally responsible for the time he committed a crime, it was unreasonable to expect him to avoid the forbidden conduct.
A standard means in many states for determining insanity of an offender in the courts of the United States is known as the M'Naghten rule, enunciated by the British House of Lords in 1843. It states that the accused is not responsible for a criminal act if, at the time of committing the act, he "was born before the dead" because from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong."
A recent Minnesota Law Review
study of the M'Naghten rule by a law professor and a professor of clinical psychology supports the contention that an offender who at the time of his crime does not realize that his act is forbidden should be acquitted.
"Very few criminals at the time of the crime have a real recognition of the extent of their wrong," the study says. "If they did, crime might diminish."
Mental states of strong motivation or emotion can sometimes totally impair one's ability to determine right and wrong, the study says. Schizophrenic thought disorder, feeble-mindedness and organic brain damage also can preclude rationality. However, these conditions alone do not guarantee automatic acquittal under the M'Naghten rule. They are only factors in the determination of the validity of an offender's insanity plea.
The M'Naghten rule is not perfect. Many psychologists and psychiatrists dislike it. The most frequent substitute allows an offender to plead insanity if his crime can be proved to result from a mental disease or defect. Thus, the offender's realization of the rightness or wrongness of his act is not usually even considered.
Nixon fails to recognize the many decades of work psychologists have expended in an effort to determine the multitude of factors that influence human behavior. If his suggestions are adopted, chances would be greater that an offender with a serious mental disorder would be committed to a penal institution rather than a hospital.
The Minnesota study cites an appropriate example: "An idiot once cut off the head of a man whom he found asleep, remarking it would be great fun to see him look for it when he woke."
There are people who do not recognize the criminality of their acts.
Barbara Spurlock
Consumers' Beef Is Misdirected
James J. Kilpatrick
SCRABLE, Va.—The Black Angus cow moves across our quiet meadows, here in the Blue Ridge Mountains, as slowly as shadows, as softly as dark seawed in some great gray-green rolling sea. Until this past year or so, local farmers might have been better off investing in cattle and calves. They have known hard times. Now they are solvent, and the want to stay that way.
This is cattle country, and in some ways fairly typical cattle county. Virginia has a few large producers, dealing in thousands of animals a year, but most of our livestock men are small operators. This is the picture elsewhere. In the nation as a whole, an estimated 200,000 large farms account for about 1.7 million farm families also earn their living on livestock.
In recent months, as meat prices have increased, livestock producers have begun to share in the cost of buying fresh meat from a disposable income that city
It has been, to put the matter mildly, a very poor living. A typical small rancher in the Southwest, according to a recent study, netted only $237 in actual profits on his first head of cattle last year. A major producer in Idaho or Montana, according to the study, had $800,000 in an investment of $460,000—a return of less than 7 per cent without taking his years of labor into account.
dwellers have been enjoyie right along. These farm families are getting a pleasant taste of new cars, color television, new furniture and electric appliances. Now they turn on the TV, and see that the wives of workers who make automobiles, furniture, and electric appliances are mounting their chairs. You drive the price back down. My country friends are burned up, and justifiably so.
It is a curious notion, or so it seems to me, which holds that food costs should stay down while housewives have has proposed a boycott on housing or clothing or automobiles. The housewives who are leading this movement are the owners of their own husbands' salaries were subjected to organized assault. Why do they want to hurt the farm family whose average last year was under $6,000?
The Springfield News & Leader, out in Greene County Mo., came up with a pointed editor. Steers were then selling at around $40 to $45 per humane if he applied. If he increased since 1956 at the same rate as postage stamps, the editor observed, beef would have been at $77. If beef prices had merely kept pace with increases in hourly pay in industry, the price on beef would have fallen; the price on beef had followed the price of medical care, a producer would have been getting $179 per
hundredweight. Granted, meat prices are high today compared to meat prices a few years ago, but they've become more parisions that ought to be made.
Why does beef cost so much? The answer lies, at bottom, in the inexorable law of supply and demand. Meat production has remained relatively stable, but thousands of families who have purchased past are now able, willing and eager to put steak on the table. Their cumulative demand drives the price up. Other factors of.
To verify this one only need contact the Volunteer Clearing
Didn't I See That Man In a Freight Elevator?
course, are involved -import controls, price controls on other goods, even the impact of the food industry. The old fashioned factor is old-fashioned demand.
WASHINGTON—Despite that fancy name, L. Patrick Gray III, the acting director of the FBI looks like the guy who sits on a staircase in front of an elevator. He showed the same public presence, the same sharpness, the other day before the Senate Judiciary Committee begged them to commit euthanasia and put him away.
An example of our nondiscriminatory policies, can be seen in our "Tax Clinic," where BALSA members complete income tax forms for low income taxpayers. In providing this service, we've completed income tax forms for over 12 million races, the only prerequisites being that they be a citizen of Lawrence and poor.
"Senator Hart," he pleaded, "I gotna be honest with you. I could sit here and chat pretty long, but there's got to be some finality. I'm entitled to some kind of a judgment."
nas to have some incentive for increasing his investment and thus increasing his risk. The success will be achieved, will take incentive away.
$ ^6 $ EQUAL RIGHTS BE DAMNED: A WOMAN'S PLACE IS IN THE HOME/ ITS MAN WILL TAXE CARE OF EVERYTHING ELSE//'
He's not likely to get it soon.
The housewives' boycott may produce illusory benefits. Temporarily, meat prices may be driven down; over the long haul, organized consumer resistance is bound to be self-sufficient, and demand for increased demand by increasing their herds, livestock men will counter by keeping production stable. The farmer
Readers Respond
If we will be patient, a satisfactory answer can be found in simply leaving the market alone. If you have livestock producers are not getting rich. For a whole lot of hard work, they're earning a little more money. In simple terms, who can fairly object to that?
The Charge
Since it acquired University recognition, BALSA has never barred a nonblock from adding his or her name to its memorials. The university refused any services to nonblocks which are extended to blacks.
To the Editor:
No BALSA Discrimination
In the Tuesday, March 27th edition of the University Daily Kansas, it was disclosed that Gus dZirega, the University passed away Black American Law Students Association (BALSA) as being an organization that discriminates in membership practices. We challenge dZirega to present the case upon which he based his claim.
(C) 1973 Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
DiZerega's defamatory assertions reflect a callous disregard for the truth, and serve as another signal to black students that their organizations, intimacy and rightfulness, are always to the whim of egocentric campus politicians.
Agency in the Kansas Union, or the Ballard Center or the Douglas County Extension Service.
Had diziZega only taken the time to call us for information about our membership policies, he would have discovered the truth. However, because he refused to do his homework he revealed to the University co-trained that he far too often opens his mouth without acquiring the relevant facts.
Louis Sturns, Reklaw, Tax., Third-Year Law Student
Gary Jackson, Topeka,
Third-Year Law Student
Jessie James, Deerfield Beach,
Fla., Third-Year Law Student
It's never pleasant to eat words, but I am afraid I must
The Retraction To The Editor
To The Editor.
concerning the Black American law Student Association (BALSA). I charged them in the Student Senate with discriminatory membership practices, a charge reported in the Kansas. BALSA members have shown me that this charge was false.
The charges were based on conversations with white law
officers, and on talks with certain other black
organizations. Such a basis was inadequate; it should have
regret that the charge was made.
Retractions never completely undo the harm created by the initial charge, but I hope this might serve to end any harm which might come to BAILA as a result of my remarks.
Indeed, BALS appears to be performing a valuable function by providing free tax clinic for all low income people in Lawrence, a valuable service needed in more areas and students may pay them a visit.
I deeply regret my mistake.
By Sokoloff
Lawrence Graduate Student
Neither chairman Jim Eastland, who sits like a quiet, lopsided man with an unshaped committee table, nor any of his colleagues appeared ready to slide the knife across the plate, did so. The man is amiably belessman's neck.
Griff and the Unicorn
More time must pass before they vote his appointment as the permanent director of the FBI—up or down—but while he waits and tries in his inadequate way to answer the senators' questions, you can study him and guess why He is not doing so. He is the useful, unthinking servant: that's what his testimony reveals.
By making available in this public way the pages of unrebuted hearse, and gossip filled by FBI sources, she shaken a nation's privacy. In some dim way he recognized that. He complained, "I made it difficult for the FBI to receive information from sources in the future."
A Compliment To The Editor:
To The Editor:
If they asked him to make a campaign speech, he went and did it. If they asked him to let them use his bureau as an adjunct to the re-election apparatus, he 'lè rem' it. If they asked him to take part in the investigation of their burglaries and their wrestapping and dirty tricks, he'd have stayed on his stool and run the elevator.
He began his testimony with the Judiciary Committee in the same compliant, accommodating way by allowing the members to be present at the information file on its investigation of the waterbugers. "I made an unprecedented offer," the old fellow with the crew cut told them. Indeed he had, but if it bothered him that the judge gave one that might ruin reputations in the future, he didn't say it.
Congratulations on your student voting guide in the March 13 Kansan.
Hear certainly has—anything you may tell an FBI agent is subject to coming rollout out of the mouth of a politician the next day. But, strangely, these politicians didn't avail themselves of this offer. The guys that are going to vote for him had no motive to go打破 the rule or verify what the FBI had been used to hide cupirps instead of discovering them. But the Democrats, the liberals, the gums laid up against him-Sen. Tunney of California excepted—didn't bestrighter themselves to go through the documentation. As so often happens with Sen. Rubio they came unprepared and were so unfamiliar with the subject matter that they couldn't ask him the killing questions.
It provided the most comprehensive coverage we have seen in the Kansan for the Student Senate contests. Although it is difficult to summarize a degree of its appeal, the chart she showed a good sample of opinions on issues and gave an interesting insight into the views of a cross section of students.
It was a great help and we encourage you to repeat your efforts next year.
Nicholas von Hoffman
It was the White House that shutter Gray up and locked the files, not out of any regard for civil liberties but because too much stuff that was leaking into was inculping Nixon's nearest ally, Michael Rush of the Judiciary Committee to repeat endlessly that he "respectfully declines to answer" and to say in a voice that
Nor could they call the investigation off. There had to be an investigation, if they were going to have a false exoneration of the bombing, the bureau was out of control. The old pro-Hoverpeople and the new anti-Gray people inside the FBI had learned the political uses of information from the compliant government had been set in charge of them.
Fifteen times at least he was called on the carpet for the stories that were leaking out of the FBI. While Ron Ziegler was railing at the press for printing stories about the rapacious lawlessness of many of his own clients, Grays Grey's providing the information, and he couldn't cauk the holes. If the Bureau had been a rowboat, it couldn't have gotten you across a guppy pond.
Mary Ward
Picture the FBI dredging up more and more information compromising the President's most intimate assistants despite their knowledge they weren't to find anything. Trained as it is, the FBI could not find any thing. The damning information piled up and up until it leaked, not only to the White House staff, which was fine with the press. Each time it did, Gray was called up and reamed out.
Leahow Special Student
Rusty Leffel
Shawne Mission
Third-Year Law Student
Kathy Vratl
Lawrence
First-Year Law Student
asked for pity, "I'm the fella that's carrying the water up here. I'm the fella that's carrying the hod."
But grateful we may be that these tales of high-level dishonesty come on too, and he indicted FBI letter, so scary is enough to make us oldtime. J Edgar Hover-haters wish he were still around. J Edgar rode the front elevator and left it for him to keep his mouth shut.
He had, it seemed, been used and dumped by the man who appointed him. So, silenced and forbidden to answer any questions of substance, he returned to the committee where they had managed to get enough out of him to provide us with a account of his life in connection with the FBI and the White House as the Wateregate scandals were growing larger and more public.
(C)
Washington Post-King Features Syndicate
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
Published at the University of Kansas during the academic year except holidays and examination periods. Mail subscription rates $6 a semester, $10 a quarter, or $25 per month for all goods, services and employment offered to all students without regard to color, creed or national origin. Opinions expressed are not necessarily intended as endorsements.
An All-American college newspaper
NEWS STAFF
NEWS STAFF
News Advisor . . . Susanne Shaw
Editor Joyce Newman
Associate Editor Andrea Clemente
Campus Editor Bob Simpson
Editors Brian Ritter Steve Winn
Editor Joee Dunbar, Alita Knopp Hal Ratier
Copy Chiefs Linda Chaput, Ginnie Mickle, Linda Schald
Copy Editors Hary Zamir, Robin Groom, Sally Morgan
Assistant Campus Editors Patricia Proctor
Entertainment Editor Mary Lind
Entertainment Editor Emerson Lynch
Wire Editors Jim Kendall, Sherman, Ginnie Mickel
Picture Editor Hilary Wilson, Willie Brantley
Picture Editor Prentice Brantley
Portfolio Editors Ed Lallo, Dan Launcher
Cantoonists Steve Carpenter David Schoflott
Editorial Writers John Bailey, Chris Lundhil, Barbara Spurrock
Erie Krangle, Kliman Lind, Schild, Barbara Spurrock
Business Adviser . . . Mel Adams
Business Manager
Administrative Team Manager
Chairman, Company
Advertising Manager
Advertising Manager
Steve Cummins
Steve Cummins
Bee Wood
National Advertising Manager
Kathy Hildreth
Mike Hilfreich
Promotional Manager
Claire Hilldrecht
Clark Hilldrecht