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Monday, April 5, 1971
University Daily Kansan
comment
Community Relations
By STEVE DAVIS Student Senator
wue everyday citizens, street people, blacks, students, Indians, policemen, administrators and businessmen talk within their own groups about problems they face as members of the Lawrence community, representatives from each of these factions are coming together to discuss all of these problems and to make recommendations that may help to steer the community toward its own type of peaceful coexistence.
These representatives are being called together as a part of a Lawrence community-police relations project which was first set in motion several months ago by city leaders in conjunction with the Menninger Foundation of Topeka. The purpose of the project (as I see it) is to determine more consistent and compatible ways of dealing with the problems whose effects have, within recent years, shown themselves in the Lawrence community. A basic assumption inherent in the project is that all or most of these problems are related to an intense friction between different groups which exist in the city.
THE PROJECT HAS been set up in such a way that it allows participants from virtually every group to get together and discuss the problems from their own perspectives and to make recommendation as a group to a similar group known as the steering committee. The steering committee is made up of the leaders of the groups that exist within the city. These members include the chancellor, representing the University administration, the city manager representing the "city," Suzy White, representing the students, John Narramore, representing the street people, Richard Stanwix, the police chief, representing the police department, as well as other citizens of Lawrence.
The steering committee will take the recommendations made by all of the similar discussion groups, consider them, and reach conclusions and make recommendations.
The first of the discussion groups met ten weeks ago, the final group met last weekend. Each group consists of totally members of the Lawrence community.
I PARTICIPATED IN the ninth of these ten group encounters representing the students. Participants were selected, I believe, on the basis of how well they represented their particular faction and on how willing they were to express themselves as representatives.
Without revealing any names or actual dialogue, I will express my impressions of the meeting as a participant.
I arrived late Friday at the Holiday Inn West Motel in Topeka and was given a packet containing information about what was to occur in the next 24 hours. All participants were treated similarly; all were given individual hotel rooms; all were served three excellent meals.
Friday afternoon the meetings began with short self-introductions by each
participant with an additional comment about what problems are facing the city. The group consisted of four or five police officers, a street person, an administrator, a faculty member, a black parent, two black students, two employees from Haskell, two businessmen, a city recreation representative, myself and a retired schoolteacher.
THE MEETINGS WERE led by two people from the Menninger Foundation and observed by two additional employees of the Foundation. Meetings Friday lasted for two or three hours at a time with coffee breaks, breaks for dinner and adjournment Friday night. Saturday, we had two more two hour meetings, the last delegated specifically for recommendations for the steering committee.
Of our particular discussion section, I would say we failed in two ways. First we failed because most participants were contented to keep the conversation fairly superficial; we just didn't want to argue about anything for very long. Real emotions and convictions did not emerge. This in terms of a group designed as an instrument of communication. We might as well have stayed home and talked things over with our good friends who almost always agree with us on such issues. Little if any trust was established even with the knowledge that what was said was to be kept confidential. That very friction which is in part causing the problems in the city failed to appear in this particular confrontation.
LATE SATURDAY MORNING when we were asked to make our recommendations, I was completely lost. How I was to make any sort of worthwhile recommendation which could transcend the "cliche" was beyond me. After temporarily passing up my turn at policy making, I hastily scribbled some semblance of a plan to reorganize the Lawrence Board of Education. Most of the recommendations made were even more nebulous and trite than was mine. Examples: recommendation number 4: equal employment opportunity for blacks, Indians, students; etc: recommendation number 12: extend police-community relations program; recommendation number 15: eliminate discriminatory practices in the city.
A few of the suggestions were not so banal and hopefully their merit could be spotted and utilized by the steering committee.
Our discussions were, if nothing else, interesting and somewhat stimulating. But I cannot see how what our particular group accomplished (if anything) could be in the least bit beneficial to the steering committee and indeed to the city of Lawrence.
In order for a discussion group such as this to have any significant effect upon the community or even the individuals involved it must realize within itself that the problem is perception and communication. And when the members of the discussion group do not communicate and truthfully state their points of view without reservation, mere recommendations can hardly be valid.
Letters policy
Letters to the editor should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 580 words. All letters are subscripted in the author's recording to space limitations and the editor's judgment. Students must provide their name, year in school and faculty and staff must provide their contact information. Students must provide their name and address.
WHY, THE PUBLIC MIGHT GET THE IDEA THAT ALMOST ANYONE COULD BE THE SUBJECT OF THIS ACTION.
TM or All rights reserved 1971 Publisher-Hall Syndicate
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The ROTC Review and the Calley Verdict
To the editor:
Please convey my congratulations to Mr. Slaughter for his editorial on the ROTC review. He will demonstrate that he equals right for ROTC.
Perhaps Mr. Shaughter will now favor us with his views on ROTC students using washrooms and water tanks.
To the editor:
John R. McKenzie, Major, USAF Assistant Professor of Aerospace Studies
The consensus of Washington officials since the conviction of L. William Calley Monday seems to be that the case is just
These two editorials seem to be rather inconsistent. If the situation here is so delicate that it would be too risky to hold the knife, it might be too risky to hold the knife. It would
The two editorials in the 3-29-71 Kansan were rather puzzling in their reasoning. The first argued that students should be moved off campus to avoid antagonizing the “delicate” political situation and sparking “renewed tension.” The second argued that William Kristall was William Kristall to the campus because he had a right to speak and because he wasn't responsible for the violence that had occurred on some of his other speeches.
Roger Burkhart Lawrence graduate student
Kunstler has the right to speak then the ROTC cadets have the right to hold their review, perhaps even more of a right as University community. They are even less responsible for the violence or threats of violence which have attended past Kunstler is for the violence that has followed his speeches.
It would be interesting if someone would try to explain this inconsistency. It usually makes for amusing reading when someone who claims to be a civil libertarian attempts to defend themselves against an agreement with should have their rights guaranteed at any cost while those whom he doesn't agree with have only those rights he feels like giving them. If you cut away all the tortuous and complicated details, you will find that this was the thesis underlying the two editorials.
To the editor:
Perhaps public reluctance to talk about Calley underlines the fact that L.I. Calley was a doomed lawyer. She was in contact with the case. To acquit him would have been to admit that Calley, in his massacre of Vietnamese civilians, was in the line of duty. He had taken the fight personally, possibly to save face, the Calley jurors convicted the defendant. They convinced the one man who was unfortunately wrong in the pursuit of many a soldier in Vietnam.
Hopefully the public will not let the injustice and the irony of this sad case go unnoticed. The irony being that when the jury found Calley guilty, they in fact, adamantly refused to face Vietnam War. And the injustice being that as a product of the military effort to win in Vietnam, Calley was indeed a victim of this era of hatred. And finally, let it not go unrecognized that we are all in some way related to hate and violence connected with the war. Then, after escaping the official scorn of the military elite, let us not fail to face up to our own guilt.
My final and futile defense of
How to Get Out of the War
too hot to touch. Nobody is saying much of anything, perhaps out of fear of being labeled either pro or anti-military.
By EUGENE V. RISHER
One of the most popular scenarios went something like this:
BY EUGENE V. RISHER
WASHINGTON (UPI)—Seven years ago correspondents in the beastheart Asia used to sit around and about the best way to end the american involvement in Vietnam.
Pick a highly esteemed and patriotic South Vietnamese leader and throw him into jail for his insults to the sense of outrage. Then send him into exile to Paris or somewhere in the West where he can give advice, or go to prison. Then poplarize his concept of South Vietnam's destiny. He might even be allowed to make a speech at lecture tours in the United States.
In a short while, then, he would return home on a wave of French concessions to the Republic of South Vietnam's pride and purpose and the instrument for their war.
because the British have been using the system for years. It was pointed out, with only slight criticism, that the leaders of the Commonwealth had been in jail or in disregue before attaining their current authority.
London would be a good place
for exile, the argument went.
The fighting in this war is not for territory. Terrain has only a very transitory value. The aim of the mission is to destroy missions, helicopter landing forces, and river battles in the Mekong is to win the conflict by creating America—but for a government in Saigon which could merge the disparate interests of the people and impress on them a sense of power.
And after all, the only thing the United States really hoped to achieve in South Vietnam was creation of a national leader who could unite the diverse factions of his fractured little country to a political force strong enough to counter the communism of Ho Chim M.
The battles are the negative
Griff & the Unicorn
It is finally argued that Calley would have been damned for not killing. To this possibility I agree, and I contend that an act of refusal could have added to the horrors "we" have characterized this war. Among the heroes are those who have been damned to never see their homes and families again by fleeing to Canada rather than participate, and those who have been damned to Army stockades to temporarily rather than carry out illegal orders in an illegal war.
On the other hand, evidence indicates that the Calley conviction may merely add to an already deteriorating morale among American soldiers in Vietnam. Arguing the favorable effect of freeing Calley on this basis is equivalent to saying that American participants necessitate high morale among American participants, no matter what grounds necessitate the existence of the war.
The virtue of Calley's conviction is that it could provide a precedent for evaluating the efficacy of American activities in Southeast Asia, a precedent which does not permit the innocence of one because of the guilt of many.
soldier's ability to tacitly accept the "supposed" valueless life standard of Orientals as justification for their execution. Imagine a case of an American Lieutenant convicted for massacring at least 22 German Italian women and children during World War II ( unless it was by a aerial bombing which has been absurdly ethically sacrosanct). It's a safe bet that the public would be less concerned about the demoralizing effect of his conviction. If Calley's conviction will be demoralizing because it must unaccepted by the toll of value-living, then we should convict him and let morale deteriorate.
Vicki Bullard Tulsa junior
By Sokoloff
It is possible to concede the argument favoring Lt. Calley's innocence, and yet to support his conviction.
Calley can be summed up in the final words of Lt. Calley's caller who went to Vietnam were boys taught to Kill, Kill, Kill!!
Dan Hamblin Lawrence junior
Ll. Calley's conviction has evoked a majority response of dissent. The most common dissenting argument is that Ll. Calley simply obeyed orders and that the effect of his trial and punishment will be demoralizing for American fighting men. Ll. Calley is said to have in situation in which he would have been damned for not killing, just as he has been damned for killing.
aspects of the struggle. And they are necessary to eliminate the threat. Congress in order to provide security and get on with the positive aspects of nation building. But it is also a disruption as lack of security
If LL Calley simply obeyed orders in executing Vietnamese women and children, he is at least as guilty of murder as those who originated the orders. Some say there is no murder in war. I argue that it is not. He war in Vietnam, and that the former statement is as ridiculous as the latter. A definition for murder in war is killing when enemy retaliation may be prevented by other means. Under this law, if a victim is killed equally even if every massacred individual was a Viet Cong sympathizer, the massacred had not the weapons for retaliation, and the Army and the South Vietnamese had incarcerative powers to patrol and pathizen. It may well be that Capt. Medina, General Westmoreland, former President Johnson, and the passive American public are also guilty in varying degrees for the My Lai attack, but this does not logically imply the innocence of LL Calley.
To the editor:
Will the Calley ordeal be demoralizing for American fighting men in Vietnam? Yes, if good morale depends upon a
So, in influenced perhaps by the oriental fondness for intrigue, the newsman, joined occasionally by a friend and a little restaurant off Saigon's To Do Street and plot under the bemused gaze of its proprietor, a French woman who general will felt victim to a coup. Underlying all the schemes was the premise that friendly Americans wouldSaigon—and the United States.
"Copyright 1971, David Sokoloff."
Those Were the Days
50 Years Ago Today—1921
Final arrangements were completed for the Junior Prom to be held April 8. It was to be the "snippiest party of the year." Seniors have been given complementary tickets.
The school of engineering had undertaken a project to beautify the campus. A committee made up of faculty and students had been formed to monitor the project.
Middy suits were advertised as the latest fashion and were available in a wide range of styles.
30 Years Ago Today—1941
There was a drive to make Lawrence the "redbud" city of Kansas. More than 200 redbud trees had been ordered to be planted around the city.
Lawrence theaters reduced their prices today. The Jayhawker theater reduced theirs from 25 cents to 22 cents for the matries and from 35 cents to 31 cents for evening shows. From 20 cents to 20 cents for all shows. The Variety charged 10 cents with two double feature show a week.
There was a complaint that there was too little space for students to park on campus during the day. More campus parking was needed in concert concerts and basketball games at Hoch.
A peace conference modeled on the U.N. met at Kansas State to discuss atom bomb control, sovereignty versus world organization and universal language.
10 Years Ago Today—1961
Former President Harry Truman described K.U. students as "the spring that makes the water fresh. Those youngsters are heid, he said in a speech in Hoch Auditorium.
There was a poem published in defense of wearing white socks.
Snapadragons of "every imaginable color" decorated K.U. offices today as the result of the diligent efforts of the manager of K.U.'s greenhouses.
A girl lamented the coming of "pinning" season and was afraid she wouldn't get pinned. She wished spring were a time when girls got unpinned.