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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Jan. 9, 1963
On Reapportionment
The Kansas Legislature can put off reapportionment no longer. Members are faced with the choice of either reapportioning during the current session or having a suit brought in Federal court which could easily result in the court doing the reapportionment itself.
Last year was the breakthrough in the struggle of rapidly-growing urban areas throughout the nation to obtain their rightful voice in government. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling that voters may bring suits in Federal courts to force reapportionment brought special legislative sessions in several states to forestall such suits.
THE INEQUALITIES in Kansas districting at the present time make it possible for a minority of residents to control both houses of the Legislature.
For example, Sedgwick County, with a population of 343.231, has only one seat in the state Senate. Jewell and Mitchell counties, with a combined population of only 16,083, also have one seat. A resident of Jewell or Mitchell counties, therefore, has a vote 21 times more powerful than the vote of a resident of Sedgwick County.
The 1960 Kansas population was 2,178,611; each of the 40 senators, therefore, should represent 54,465 people. At present, the four most populous counties - Sedgwick, Wyandotte, Shawnee, and Johnson, have 813,804 residents, nearly 40 per cent of the state's population, but have only four Senate seats, or 10 per cent of the membership.
twenty-one seats, a majority of the Senate's membership.
membership, are controlled by one-fourth of the people of the state. Sixty-three seats in the House of Representatives, a majority of that body, are controlled by 402,687 people, or only 18 per cent of the population.
Legislators have been reluctant to take drastic steps to reapportion the governing bodies, although the state constitution requires such redistricting every 10 years. Minor changes have been made through the years, but these changes were never enough to correct the inequality.
IT IS NOT DIFFICULT to see why legislators are reluctant to act. The lesser-populated areas obviously do not want to give up their power. Even more important perhaps is the fact that no legislator is eager to legislate himself out of a job by transferring his seat in the Legislature to a more populous county.
Exactly how the Legislature will act this session is uncertain. An attempt probably will be made to reaportion the Senate according to population but leave the House of Representatives—where each county at present is guaranteed at least one seat — to represent area. So far, the courts have not ruled whether such an agreement is acceptable or whether both houses must be divided according to population.
The threat of court action will insure that the apportionment of the Kansas Legislature will be a big improvement over what it has been, and that for the first time in years all Kansas residents—urban and rural—will have their rightful voice in government. Clayton Keller
Indecision Courts Disaster
Bv Terry Murphy
The need for a strong President is an established reality which could not be done away with even if the office-holder so desired.
The truth of that statement was indelibly demonstrated during the Cuban crisis. No one so much as suggested that Congress formulate the policy to meet the threat 90 miles off the Florida coast. There wasn't time. A diversity of opinion and its accompanying delays would have begged disaster.
AT TIMES LIKE THE CUBAN crisis the theory is practiced that it is less important which decision is made then it is that any intelligent, informed policy be formulated and put into action post haste. Intercontinental missiles and supersonic bombers have ended forever the time when all decisions are made following Congressional debate.
Many factors make a centralization of decision-making authority in U.S. government both expedient and necessary. China attacks India or starts shelling Formosa; a "friendly" regime in Latin America is threatened with Communist takeover; natural disasters devastate a region of the United States. The nature of all these dictate quick remedial action, and it was established even before FDR's "unauthorized" lend-lease program that the President shall take the bull by the horns. A special emergency fund provides him with money to act.
To be certain, the President does not operate without restraints. But these restraints primarily are effective in matters outside foreign policy. And practically everything has some bearing on foreign policy. Congress has the power and opportunity to limit the scope of foreign policy by virtue of holding the purse strings, but the President still determines the basic tenets.
THE RELATIONSHIP between Congress and the present officeholder, John F. Kennedy, illustrates the areas in which each holds the sway of power. Mr. Kennedy stuck a "must" tag on his medical care bill. He failed to impress Congress sufficiently. This, as in most domestic affairs, was the stronghold of Congress, and the President's wishes be damned.
But the pork-barrel inclination of Congressmen works effectively to make any President's public works legislation palatable. Mr. Kennedy's determination and leadership carried the revolutionary foreign trade bill through to law
with little more than a whimper from election-minded legislators. It is hard to imagine the bill having been passed without the President's leadership.
It becomes pointless to cite too many other instances where the President is seen to be the Supreme Commander. But a recent action is noteworthy. It was the executive order to end discriminatory housing practices. It was made offstage, but its consequences may well equal those of the highly publicized Telstar bill.
Necessity has dictated this centralization of power. Like most blessings, it is not without dangers and drawbacks. The machinery for oligarchic takeover has grown alongside. But it is unlikely to occur. Here are several reasons why:
NO MAN WHO WILL likely reach the Presidency will be lacking in a conviction that democracy is best and that such a takeover would ultimately fail and leave the country split and thus open to foreign eclipse or domination. Two factors act to reinforce this protection: the President must be elected every four years, and the two-term limitation prevents a man from becoming injured to the principles of government based on republican forms.
Statistically alone, the chances for it bringing disaster are preponderous. In hundreds of sunken silos, men sit with the power and capability to launch a nuclear war. Theoretically, only the President—acting as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces—can push the button which would blow civilization back beyond comprehensible levels.
The gravest danger of centralization probably would not be detected until a remedy would be impossible. This growing cancer exists as the machinery of preparedness in national defense.
ANYONE WHO WATCHES television or occasionally reads a newspaper knows that there are organizations like the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency. For all practical purposes, they operate free from the will of the people.
But mere sergeants and commissioned officers know how to launch that single weapon which could begin the end. And they are in a position to do so—either by accident or design.
Operatively speaking, these organizations are agents of the President and responsible to him and limited by his supremacy. But even
the strongest President remains one man. Physical limitations make it impossible for the President to hold the actions of every agency in positive, fool-proof check. The U-2 affair demonstrates that such agencies deal in matters of national consequence without absolute control by the President.
And the nature of these agencies' work in security matters precludes effective control by Congress. Even if Congress were able to exercise effective control through investigation, the elemental danger of mere existence would still remain.
THE TIMES demand the machinery to carry out—quickly—any policy or plan. Any compromise of the system's ability to act quickly would create an even greater danger. The capability to strike quickly is the foundation of existence in the nuclear era. The certainty of consequences which would result from a lack of centralization precludes any alternative of a greatly different nature. Simply stated, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Wishing for a return to the good old days of Calvin Coolidge, et al., is an exercise in pointless fantasy. For better or worse, Washington, D.C., is the heart of the country and, for that matter, of the free world. The network of Washington-directed activities is as essential to the continued functioning of the nation as the pedaller is to the bicycle.
The octopus or the purpose-giving central government (term it to describe your personal views) is alive and active. Without a strong President to guide its activities, the network would writen and thrash about like a tortured serpent. Eliminating the leader would not kill the network; it would simply result in confusion and proliferation of problems.
If the decision were made to wither the centralized federal government and cut its activities, it would require the creation of nearly as many agencies as presently exist.
PERHAPS IN several hundred years (if the present imperfect system will carry that far), a system of interdependence such as ours will be able to work as smoothly and efficiently as a two-man blacksmith shop.
But, until that time or until we are able to return to the age of the horse and buggy, the need for a strong President will exist. The office-holder who fails to act with conviction invites disaster and guarantees back-sliding.
Letters to the Editor
Student Apathy
Editor.
As in the past, the Daily Kansan continues to publicize the cheerleaders in a derogatory tone.
The Jan. 4 Daily Kansan ("Along the Jayhawker Trail") referred to the cheerleaders' support at the Big Eight tournament as unimpressive. Seeing that the squad has a limited budget for traveling expenses, that it was vacation time, and that they must arrange for their own housing and meals, unlike the teams, I feel that the cheerleaders should be congratulated for even showing up at all. It must be noticed that squads from six of the other eight universities did not come.
BUT THE PROBLEM goes deeper than this. The players quoted in the Jan. 4 article came close to it when they complained of apathy on the part of the Kansas City alumni. But the blame cannot be placed wholly on the alums. Neither can the blame be placed on the cheerleaders. Already this year the cheerleaders have held more rallies than were held during all of last year. They have attended all out-of-town football games. This year's squad has brought the old cheering methods up to date. The pep clubs have been reorganized to provide more concentrated support. The cheerleaders have lent their support to the traditions committee, the alumni association, and all other groups and individuals they could find who were interested.
Apathy is not the fault of the cheerleaders. It is the fault of the student body. If the students refuse to attend the games and refuse to cheer, the cheerleaders are helpless. Being one of the few schools in the Big Eight with an organized pep club, KU students seem to have the mistaken supposition that it is strictly up to the pep clubs to provide support for the teams.
If the cheerleaders' reputation at the Big Eight tournament was unimpressive, perhaps their budget should be blamed. The KU cheerleading squad receives only $1,000 per full year, while they have cheered against squads who received as much as $3,500 for a single sport. In the case of the Big Eight tourney, this allowed $30 for eight cheerleaders for three days. In order to make ends meet, the
KU cheerleaders have to arrange for their out-of-town lodging. And unlike most squads, the cheerleaders do not even get to keep their letter jackets as a memento for their time and effort.
ANOTHER REMARK made about the Big. Eight tournament was that KU fans outnumbered K-State fans, but were out-yellied. For anyone who was there, it was glaringly obvious that KU fans were vastly outnumbered, and this observer cannot see how it could have been determined otherwise, and evidently the writer of the Daily Kansan article was only at one of the games or he would have noticed that several of the other KU cheerleaders were at the other Big Eight tournament games. Overall the article did its best to degrade the cheerleading squad when the article would have been better if it were written about student mortality.
Bob Lightstone Coffeyville junior
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Big 8 Decision Upheld Editor:
When I was an undergraduate at Kansas State, I thought the KSU Collegian was a biased paper in the hands of a "mighty" few. Now I have reason to believe that this is not the case, rather the Daily Kansan fits this classification better.
Your headline "KSU Thwarts KU in Big Elections" caught my attention. Normally I read the Daily Kansan for the national news, L.M.O.C., and the want ads, and try to ignore the KU campus politics "front-page splashes."
Please remember that when one points his finger at another, there remain three other fingers pointed at the first. It is unfair to blame your failures on the other.
Have you not forgotten that six other schools are in the Big Eight besides KSU and KU? It is difficult to believe that KSU with one coalition was able to block your "planned" elections. It is unfortunate that people who initiate Big Eight programs won't have the opportunity to carry them out. That doesn't mean you should fail to support them.
I still have full confidence in the decision of KSU and the other six Big Eight schools.
Keith W. Jeffers
Kevin W. Jones
Lincoln graduate student
BOOK REVIEWS
THE MENTOR BOOK OF MAJOR AMERICAN POETS, co-edited by Oscar Williams and Edwin Honig (Mentor, 95 cents)poetry from colonial times to the present. The editors endeavor here to include only the best, and there is writing from Edward Taylor and Walt Whitman to Hart Crane and W.H. Auden. There are obvious selections—"Song of Myself," "The Congo," "The Bridge" in its entirety. Here is a valuable anthology for university students.
\* \* \*
THE POSSESSED, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Signet Classics, 95 cents)—the great Russian novel which deals with nihilism and affirmation. Dostoyevsky tells in dark and brutal fashion how two young men, Stavrogin and Verhovensky, use fanaticism, treachery and deceit to stir up an entire community.
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
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