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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Dec. 13, 1961
Debate U.S., Soviet Constitutions
A colonel in the United States Army gave a lecture to the faculty forum yesterday on the Russian constitution—then the faculty members gave him a lecture.
What began as a 20-minute talk by Colk Robert P. McQuail, a U.S.S.R. area specialist stationed at Ft. Leavenworth, turned into an hour-long debate between the colonel and about 20 faculty members who attended the forum.
IN IIS TALK, Col. McQuail said the 1936 Russian Constitution looked democratic on paper, but failed to guarantee any basic freedoms to Russian citizens.
He told the faculty members that the Soviet Union is trying to destroy the image that the United States constitution has built up around the world.
Col. McQuail served for two years as the chief of the United States military liaison group to the commander in chief of Russian forces in East Germany.
"The adoption of the American constitution 170 years ago was an event that was emulated all over the world. Many other constitutions have been based on it. The adoption in 1936 of the Stalin constitution was
the beginning of a Russian campaign to displace our own constitution's power in the world."
COL MECQUAIL SAID that the author of a book on the Stalin constitution, Andre Vishinsky, took the ideas of the West and with the "peculiar and warped ideas of democracy" Russians have, "told in his own critical words the way these ideas developed in the West."
He said that Vishinsky wrote that the American constitution was written by "the biggest financiers" in the Colonies, "for the preservation of capitalistic ideas."
In the audience, a faculty member nodded his head and mumbled:
"That's true. That's true."
Col. McQuail said that the Russian constitution was a fine document on paper, but that "it should be viewed in its proper context."
He told the group that in the 1936 constitution, the process of the secret ballot is provided for.
"The process is that all the candidates are written on a ballot. The voter simply scratches out all but one of the candidate names. The one remaining is the one voted for. But, there are few people in Russia who will vote in this way. There is only one name on the ballot . . . the
Communist Party's candidate. The voter who writes in his own candidate is rare."
HE POINTED OUT that while the '26 constitution guarantees democracy, only 86 men rule the lives of 212 million Russian people.
He was referring to the 53-man Council of Ministers and the 33-man Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Russia's equivalent to the U.S. Congress.
A faculty member raised his hand. "Is this the kind of speech you give to high school students? Are you really being objective? We should compare the two systems (the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.) and let the truth decide the validity of each."
The Colonel replied, saying:
"The American people do not know enough about the Russian constitution. It must be taken and placed into its proper context so that its threat will be realized."
Two Disapprove一
(Continued from page 1)
ought to be interested in world affairs, and that interest can replace knowledge. This view fails to recognize that there are two kinds of interest.
"There is interest which is purely rational and which is co-extensive with the amount of knowledge a person possesses, and there is emotional interest which appears in times of national peril and takes its origin from an anxiety concerning national survival.
"Neither the academically - educated nor the self-educated person possesses the intellectual leisure and faculties to acquire enough knowledge to develop a comprehensive interest in world affairs.
"The word 'crisis' is itself an unproved value judgment with objectionable emotional overtones.
"THE PERIL from which emotional interest may arise does not, and should not, exist today for the student and citizen. It cannot be proved that we are face to face with a genuine world crisis, and that therefore even an emotional interest is justified.
"The organizers of World Crisis Day have failed to recognize that for the common man there are only two political forces; an established government and a successful revolution.
ence into an equally sterile interest in existing policies.
"THE OVERWHELMING majority of Americans have rejected revolution as a means of political and ideological change. At the same time, by delegating power to the government the individual has lost all initiative in the formulation of political principles and policy. The result of this estrangement can only be indifference on the part of the citizen. World Crisis Day represents an effort to turn a sterile indifer-
"BUT," RETORTED the faculty member, "you have shown that their constitution is good on paper, but that it is not applied correctly. This statement of yours about Vishinsky bothers me."
"The alleged 'crisis' of today is really a profound malaise common to all transitional periods of history. The only existing contemporary crisis is a moral crisis of the individual caused by his inability to cross the gap between appearance and reality.
"For modern man, a fragmented universe, with no prospect of regaining its intellectual unity, has no meaning. In this sense, the speakers on World Crisis Day will only nibble at the edges of wisdom."
Small Change
The Diaper Service Industry Association said its records show that baby girls learn earlier to require less changing and use from two to five fewer diapers a day than baby boys.
NEW YORK — (UPI) — The battle of the sexes starts in the cradle and even there the females are winning a victory of sorts.
"You say that he said the American constitution was written by a bunch of capitalists trying to preserve capitalism in America. This is correct. When the American constitution was drafted, it had no bill of rights, no guarantees for all the things we take as natural now.
"We in the United States today realize that there is a difference between our constitution on paper and the way it is applied. You spoke of the secret ballet of the Russian constitution being unreal. How about voting in Mississippi? Is the voting there carried on as it is guaranteed in the constitution?"
"I THNK that what you have in mind during your lectures is to condition the audience so that they reject the Russian Constitution and accept ours," added the faculty member.
Col. McQuail answered that "in essence, you might say that. I feel the students don't know enough about either our Constitution or that of Russia. I'm selling our Constitution in terms of what I believe and in terms of what I think our children should believe."
of what they hoped to achieve in the future. When they say that their constitution is more democratic than ours, we must realize that their concept of the word 'democracy' is different than ours. They are speaking of economic freedom."
Another faculty member pointed out that there is a semantic problem when we try to understand the Russians.
He continued, saying; "People tell me that they are thrilled because communism is being taught in high schools.
"When the Russians adopted their constitution, they did it as a promise
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"I am always a little apprehensive when I hear this, because I fear that the teaching of the Russian system will be one-sided. The student will get a one-sided view of communism. Later, when this student is faced with a situation like U.S. soldiers were confronted with in Korea, he will break down because of the propagandist view he has received of communism."
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"I'll admit that. We must be careful in our teaching. But we in the United States don't know about their constitution. We have got to take it out of its context and see it for what it is."
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