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Freedom Built Kansan Reputation
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By Earl J. Johnson
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Editor Kelly , So-
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I knew the Kansan well in 1919 and 1920 and have always had a high regard for it as an independent campus newspaper. This characteristic sets the Daily Kansan apart.
nagerlation charles notion
Too many campus newspapers are no more than puff sheets for colleges or universities. Sometime in the early days of this 50-year-old newspaper the board established it as a newspaper dedicated to reporting the news; also to offering journalism students practice in their chosen profession under the guidance of wise tutors. Thank heaven that concept has never been abandoned.
WHEN I WENT up to Lawrence after the first world war, I had a few months of experience on the Winfield Courier, but I was shamefully deficient in academic credits. I had to enroll as a special student. I also was deficient in logistical support. So I got a space-rate job on the Lawrence Gazette and later on the Journal-World and the Kansas City Journal and Post.
I took a course in editorial practice given by Samuel O. Rice in what was then the journalism department. This gave me access to the Daily Kansan newsroom which I used as liberally as rather elastic ethical standards would permit. That is to say, Daily Kansan copy and proofs soon became one of my campus news sources. To appease my own conscience I frequently put on head-phones and copied the United Press news report as telephoned daily from Kansas City to the Daily Kansan and the Gazette, a joint call.
The Rice course was as down-to-earth as anything I've ever heard from a practicing city editor. He lectured on how to cultivate news sources (especially policemen), how to write effectively and how to read copy. He was full of memorable tricks and examples. For instance how to know when to use "as" and "like." Just remember the phrase, "He lived as he died, like a dog." Who could forget one like that? And Samuel O. Rice would go out and cover a story himself occasionally to show us how it should be done. His stuff was always admired by us amateurs.
WE HAVE MANY KANSANS in U.P.I., and most of them worked on the campus paper when they were in school. There is no better training for a news service man than a few years on a small town daily. There he learns the problems that are common to a majority of U.P.I. subscribers, the majority being small papers. (There are not enough metropolitan dailies in the country to support a world-wide news service.) There he stands close to his news sources and learns things about responsibility that are not as easily learned on big papers where news sources are often more remote and impersonal.
On a small paper a man has a chance to do a little of everything. He reports, writes news, writes heads, edits telegraph copy, writes cutlines, helps make up pages and sometimes takes classified ads. Where else could he practice all the basic skills?
I salute the University Daily Kansan for the good newspaper it is on its 50th anniversary, and more importantly I salute it for the quality of its alumni, who are working so effectively in important journalistic posts around the world.
(Mr. Johnson, class of '21, is Vice President and Editor of the United Press International.)
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
Tuesday, Jan. 16, 1962 University Daily Kansan
Editor Recalls Kansan Days
Last June I was on the Hill to celebrate the Golden Anniversary of my Class of 1911; now I am reminded that the Daily Kansan, with which I was associated, will celebrate its 50 years of prosperous and aggressive life. A half century may not be long for nations and cities, nor even for the University itself, but for one who has been newspapering since long before 1912 and who is now in retirement, it is a considerable span with many things and persons to remember.
By Louis LaCoss
I HAVE TOLD this story many times but it illustrates the truth of the non-existence of faculty supervision which was a by-product of the School of Journalism when Prof. Merle Thorpe came to the University. Shortly after I became editor, Gov. Stubbs veted $70,000 out of an already skimpy KU appropriation by the state legislature. I believed he did it to further his political ambitions and I said so in an editorial. I wrote it and had it published without consulting any faculty member, certainly not Chancellor Strong.
The Kanans then — it went from a tri-weekly to a daily — had its quarters in the basement of Fraser Hall, a rather dismal abode for young folks who aspired to join the professional ranks. We "played it by ear" for the most part because, except for the kind and wise advice of Prof. "Daddy" Flint, faculty control of its contents did not exist.
The Governor was angry, believing that it had been inspired by the faculty, Chancellor Strong disclaimed any connection with the editorial, so the Governor requested a full investigation by the Board of Regents of which William Allen White was chairman. Mr. White investigated and discovered the editorial was the sole product of a newspaper youth who doubtless would not have published it had he consulted anybody in the upper echelons.
SO, HE WROTE a letter to the Kansas which was published. I answered it, and then ensued an exchange of correspondence which was duly printed. I still have the letters in my files. All this was grist for the fellows who were writing at space rates for the Kansas City Star and the Topeka Capital. Years later I discovered that Mr. White was merely having a chuckling good time with this Kansan youth who had the audacity to cross swords with one of the outstanding newspapermen in the country. I relate this to emphasize how divorced we were from faculty supervision. Time marches on.
In those days we had no wire news services. We were not concerned with international, national or even city of Lawrence news. But we covered the Hill which, of course, was easier than today because of the concentration of buildings, faculty and students. We did many feature stories and we had good writers to do them.
ONE I RECALL was "Pug" Ferguson who did a drama criticism of the current play by the Thespians, who were rather proud of themselves. He was devastating in his deflation of the actors and actresses. The latter called at the office in tears, the former even threatened libel suits which would have been fatal to them because it could be proved that they were "hams" with not a potential Barrymore in the bunch.
I had my personal bouts with the Women's Student Government Association which I admired not at all. This aversion to groups of busy-body women has remained with me, and during my many years on the Globe-Democrat I had many hassles with the League of Women Voters.
NAMES OF KANSAN workers crowd my memory. Joe Murray, Paul Harvey, Earl Fischer, "Cub" Baer, J. Earle Miller, George Marsh, Homer Berger, Ike Lambert among the many. Harry Kemp, the Trump Poet, although not on the staff used our typewriters and stationery. Frank Motz, who has just been elected to the Kansas Newspapermen's Hall of Fame, read our proofs and got tips on stories which he sold to outside
(Continued on page 5)
A Reporter From The 'Cenozoic Era'
By Murray Davis
Looking back from here, I seem to recall that the Department of Journalism was housed in a little frame building that sat back in the shadows of Fraser Hall. It faded deeper into the shadows as each year added more grime to its exterior. The original plant could have been either yellow or mustard.
The whole appearance of the building in the early '20s seemed to emphasize that we were a stepchild among the other schools and departments which were housed in buildings of stone or brick.
THERE COULD have been some comfort to us journalism students, if we were aware of our dubious status, in the fact that those studying astronomy were equally unimportant in the family of schools and departments of learning.
In dredging up the past, I fail to feel any resentment for our tenement of journalism Perhaps we all felt the decore of our plant was entirely in keeping with the low-pay, journeyman profession we were seeking.
The building did prove that it either was aesthetically perfect or genius will not be denied, because there have been a number of outstanding figures in all phases of the publication field who got their first lessons in the old building at the knee of Prof. Flint. I'll not undertake to name any of these famous products of the old building for fear I'd overlook some, but your rolls carry them all, I'm sure.
While in the Department of Journalism I must have been in a continual fog; a condition which I have not yet entirely overcome, for I'm unable to recall anything that I did personally. Perhaps I just didn't do anything.
HOWEVER, I DO recall a talk William Allen White gave us on various types of coverage. I'll never forget his suggestion that in covering opera, a good lead might be: "Why do prima donnas eat potatoes?"
I recall also, in a vague way, of frustration and elation in almost equal parts. The frustration came — and still does — when some editor who obviously is an idiot because all editors are idiots, rewrites one of my pieces. The elation came when the editor was less an idiot than usual! — or vice versa — and ran my stuff without rewrite.
Regardless of my lack of recollections, I did learn the basics of newspaper work, although there was one disagreeable incident that seems to contradict this. It was an incident when I made the really horrible discovery that I wasn't a good reporter. What made it even worse was that everyone on the Daily Kansan shared my discovery.
A ROBBERY occurred in my own fraternity house and I found out about it by reading the story in the University Daily Kansan, written by a "real" reporter on the Kansan staff who had picked it up from the Lawrence Police Department.
Time is kind, so I don't recall whether it was Prof. Flint, Chet Shaw or some other instructor or editor — probably it was all of them — who really ate me out. I don't even remember what they said, but my face still is red.
If I'm a good reporter now, I'm sure the turning point came in the little old Journalism building from the instructors and editors who pounced on me that day. Certainly they impressed on me: Never sleep soundly in a fraternity house that is going to be robbed.
(Editor's Note: Murray Davis, Class of 1925, works for the New York World Telegram & Sun. Editor & Publisher described him as a "nationally-known reporter . . . big in physique, big in courage, big in friendship, big in community consciousness, big in the will to crusade for the public's welfare . . . his real love is reporting..."
By James W. Scott
(In commenting on being asked to look back three decades, he wrote the Kansasan: "Your letter appeared innocent enough. Then it turned into a horror letter after I calculated the distance, in years, from then to now. I must have been a student in the Cenozoic Era—37 years ago.")
Hears 'On the Job' Echoes
Last week a copyreceiver fixed a cold eye on me and said, "You say here that Kansas had 544 traffic fatalities in 1961 and 512 in 1960. Then farther down you say that 42 more persons were killed last year than the year before. Now which is right? They can't both be right."
At moments like these a vision of Elmer Beth floats up. I can see him staring through those thick glasses and hear him in a Reporting III class of 12 years ago: "Verify, verify, verify!" Or I can see his crabby, red-pencil writing on a story: "Sloppiness like this will get you in trouble on the job." He was always talking about "on the ioh."
Or I remember an editorial I wrote for the University Daily Kansan in 1949 or 1950 in which "the late" Senator Wagner of New York was mentioned. Wagner had
been an invalid for a number of years, but of course he didn't die until 1953. A classmate, Marvin Rowlands, framed a large sign, "WAGNER LIVES!" and hung it above my desk.
Working on the Kansan is good preparation for the inevitable pit-fails that occur "on the job." The student reporter learns to be wary of his own slips of the mind and begins early to collect a fund of excuses and alibis.
(Mr. Scott, Class of '50, is an editorial writer with the Kansas City Star.)
Gone With the Shack
Journalism students in the 1950s lost a chance at a special memory with the move into the new Flint Hall facilities. No longer would KU graduates be able to recall experiences in "the shack."