II WORD
Page 2
University Daily Kansan Monday, October 2, 1961
1
Ynihd
dsdTKir
rbbstpalh
Love and the Birchers
They probably didn't know it at the time, but the 300 persons who crowded into the Forum Room Friday to hear Robert D. Love, a leader of the John Birch Society in Wichita, were entering a world of the unreal.
In the hour and one-half that followed, they listened with growing frustration as the speaker flouted reason and reality to explain the workings of the world in terms of his fantastically distorted outlook. Many asked questions, hoping to introduce a rationale into the discussion. But their attempts were futile. Reason usually gets trounced in a fight with the half-truth, the smear, the guilt-by-association, and the hazy proof—all used so glibly by those of the far right.
He made the familiar equation of liberalism with communism, or at least with "Communist sympathy." He made the usual reference to "authorities" whose validity is doubtful, if not non-existent. And there was the old standy-by, the ridiculous insination that those who oppose the John Birch Society (or McCarthy, or the House Committee on Un-American Activities, or the film "Operation Abolition," or the "muzzling" of the military) are probably Communists, or at least Communist "dupes."
MR. LOVE RELIED on the standard tactics of the rabid anti-Communist, many of them inherited from The Great God McCarthy. He waved an unidentified paper in the air, asserting that it proved someone's Communist affiliation. But he understandably overlooked the student in front who called out, "What is that paper?"
But in spite of the bluster about such things as internal subversion and the need to impeach Chief Justice Earl Warren, Mr. Love's basic motivation seems clear: He doesn't want to pay taxes. This explains his outspoken opposition to
social security, medical care for the aged, foreign aid—all elements of what he calls "the welfare state."
AN OVERWHELMING ANTIRATHY against taxes is probably the raison d'etre, in fact, of the Birch Society, which is led largely by wealthy men. Robert Welch, the Society's founder, is a retired candy millionaire. Fred C. Koch, another Wichita Bircher, made his money in oil.
Only a group of rich men would so strongly push the inane motto, "This is a republic, not a democracy—let's keep it that way!" Fearful of losing their millions, the Birchers inveigh against rule by majority, against "the welfare state," against "creeping socialism." But it is unfortunate that they have wandered into a half-baked fight against a harmless foe: the "Communist sympathizer.
Strange as it seems, these men are influential in some quarters. (Not at KU, hopefully.) They write pamphlets. They give speeches. And they lug that abominable film around, showing it at the flick of a light switch. Their appeal is great to housewives, businessmen, and the headline-readers who cannot grasp the complexity of today's issues.
THIS IS DEPLORABLE, because the attitude of the Birchers and their ilk causes dissension at home and distrust of the United States abroad.
Of all the students who tried to batter the wall of unreason with their questions Friday, perhaps the most challenging was the intense young man from India, who asked what may be the most important question of all: Why do you preach hatred of the Communists?
But this sounds dangerously like appeasement.
—Fred Zimmerman
Reflections on English
A recent announcement from an Eastern university that it intends to drop its remedial courses in English and throw the burden of preparing students for college level work in English back on the high schools led me to consider the general condition of English at KU.
THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT is undoubtedly one of the most underrated departments at KU. Most students I have come into contact with either dislike English or are indifferent toward it. Considering this attitude, the English department does a surprisingly good job. This is especially true when one considers that some of
the students coming into the university are practically illiterate. I know some graduates of the technical departments of the University who went through their entire careers at KU in that condition.
I sometimes think the English instructors must occasionally have fits of depression and bang their heads against the wall I knew one instructor who was positively bitter over the state of English among students. This is understandable. Frankly, after about a semester of reading freshman English themes, I suspect I would be a raving section eight case.
Bill Mullins
A Raise for Mitchell?
Editor:
Three cheers for Coach Mitchell and the football team. They have done more to drive students back to their studies and serious pursuits than the senior key system did to set the blood a-racing in my roommate's sluggish circulatory system.
I say our coach deserves another good raise. A man who can accomplish what he and his boys have done rates twice as much as any academic dean.
Ralph Marston Colby freshman
This campus needs more organizations, especially of the "with it" and "far out' kind, so I am proud to announce the formation of the greatest: SIC, a club for "Students Interested in Culture!" Get it?
For Cool Culturist
To make it a success, we'll need 700 of the solidest listeners to crowd Fraser Theater (which has sometimes been called a barn of a place) on Tuesday evenings to hear Humanities lectures. If we get more SIC cats than said barn will hold, we'll try to supply sit-ups (chairwise, that is) for extras.
We cannot promise to bring any fabulous new group from North-Central Kansas, but we have booked seven renowned scholars in literature, philosophy, and history
... Letters ...
this year. All SIC cats will have an opportunity to meet the scholars after each of our conventions...and no dues will be charged.
SIC is not just coming! SIC is here!
Where's The Left?
**
All right, I've heard the John Birch man speak and aside from making himself and his society more absurd than I had thought, the Forum was a 90-minute waste. He shone no lights in the dark corners and he stimulated most of us only to a cavernous yawn.
Elmer F. Beth
Professor of Journalism,
SIC president (by my
unanimous vote).
P.S.-Just call us "the SIC
follows!"
Next I'd like to hear someone from the left, the real left, someone who will criticize the wellmeaning but juvenile administration for its insane Cuban policy, its inflexible Berlin policy, its inept domestic policy. I want a man here who can speak for the dynamic political left, a Norman Thomas, Murray Kempton, Milton Mayer, Sidney Lens, Wright Mills. If they cost too much, I'll lend my hat for a public collection in the union. Anyone else tired of the bromides of the right and the quibblers of the center?
Wichita graduate
Frank Morrow
Against Housing Policy Editor:
Fred Zimmerman's leading article on the Housing Policy in UDK dated Sept. 27,1961 is very timely and merits an immediate and deep consideration.
On the basis of my experience of four years' residence here, I have developed a great deal of admiration for the nice and hospitable people of Lawrence. Such a favorable image is bound to be damaged in the face of recent humiliation suffered by a KU student from Sudan. It is agonizing and it may take a considerable time for him to forget the punishment for which he had committed no crime. To his folks back home it does not leave much choice but to suffer a silent torture and frustration.
A good citizenship, no doubt, demands a legitimate respect for the legal rights of others. Yet if you can get over the legal quibblings marshaled in for evasion and escapism, the issue is clearly a moral one and the moral leadership does not lie with the few landlords, who so undermine the laudable work being done by some campus agencies, i.e. CRC and nascent but vitally important and dynamic People-to-People Program, but with the University of Kansas.
Raia Mohammed Naib
Pakistan graduate student
"It might help if we'd buy a straighter telescope and get out of this fog, Mr. Welch!"
Guest Editorial
Kansas Outlaws Sex
It is hard to take seriously the literary judgment of a judge who splits infinitives right in the courtroom.
It is even harder to take seriously a law that outlaws a basic human motivation.
WHEN THE SOPHISTICATED PRECINCTS of this nation plumb the full implication of Chapter 186 of the Session Laws of the State of Kansas, 1961, we once again will be the laughing stock of Broadway, ranking ahead of Brooklyn for guffaws. Even the Arkansawers may make fun of us.
Be all this as it may, Judge Fletcher of Junction City in his recent decision implementing this statute tackled in a forthright manner the grievous problem of plugging the flow of filth found in paperback pornography. He ruled the books should be burned. You and I who object to obscenity agree with him.
The rub comes in the test for obscenity. Following the second section of the statute, Judge Fletcher held: "If the books in question show to this court that their dominant purpose was calculated to effectually incite sexual desire . . ." then they should be destroyed.
YOU KNOW WHY the peacock preens his plumage, why the bee buzzes and why the young steno next door twitches down Santa Fe Avenue. You have seen the perfume ads. And you may have studied biology, psychology and Freud.
Uh huh!
Then note the emphasis supplied by the split infinitive, "to effectually incite." If this test were generally applied, all women, whether in fiction or for real, would have to be abolished unless, perhaps, they were scrawny, spavined, cross-eyed and obliterated by a Mother Hubbard.
This well-meant law provides its own reducto ad absurdum, as the supreme court inevitably must find. After all, the species must be preserved.
The battle against filth should be waged, but Kansas must find better grounds for censoring obscenity than the last session of the Legislature provided.
—From the Salina Journal
Daily Hansan UNIVERSITY
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone VIking 3-2700
Extension 711 news room
Telephone Viking 3-2105 Extension 711, news room Extension 376, business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Tom Turner ... Managing Editor
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Editorial Editor
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Tom Brown ... Business Manager