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University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, Nov. 6, 1962
Vote Twice
Today is election day across the nation and on campus. Although there is no considerable interest in the congressional races on the national political scene there is no reason to deny oneself the privilege of voting. In the campus election everyone can vote and has the responsibility to do so.
The national and state balloting, of course, is vital to the progress of the country. But there has arisen some question about the need and significance of the campus primary today and tomorrow.
CERTAINLY THIS WEEK'S election on campus does not mean as much as the general election which will be one week from now. But, just because student representation on the All Student Council will not be decided in the primary does not negate the need to go to the polls in Murphy, Strong or the Kansas Union and express a preference.
Vox Populi, the reigning campus political power is making no effort to display its well-known and feared voting drawing power for its candidates are already selected. This is no secret. Vox picks its representatives through a series of interviews and party meetings. University Party holds the debatable primary which does not prove too much more than spending student funds and iron out the problems in the mechanical process of voting for the people running it.
It has been suggested by a student leader that, if for no other reason, students should vote in the campus primary merely to acquire the experience of voting. For many it will be the first time students will vote in such a manner. This chance is good because it should acquaint the student with the process and eliminate many of the void ballots which could keep some candidate from being elected next week.
—Bill Sheldon
Republicans Strong in Kansas
By Richard Bonett
(This is the last in a series of articles
contests in the 1962 election.
Kansans who are familiar with the names of their top state leaders and national representatives probably will be spared the trouble of learning many new names after today.
Gov. John Anderson is a shoo-in for a second term in his race against Democratic challenger Dale E. Saffels, a former state representative. Eyes will pop if either of the two incumbent Republican U.S. senators is beaten.
IN CONTESTS for seats in the House of Representatives, four Republican incumbents appear to have wide edges. The only race that generated much interest is that involving two present members of the House who are pitted against one another in a newly formed district.
Despite repeated efforts of Democrats to throw the onus of corruption and mismanagement onto Anderson's state house rule the past two years, the charges have failed to produce any general public indignation against the governor.
The charges have included corruption in the state printing office, favoritism by the governor in the matter of the revocation of a driver's license of GOP leaders, a conflict of interest on the part of the chairman of the Turnpike Authority, and mismanagement of the state penal institutions.
To all of this, Anderson generally has found it unnecessary to answer
with anything other than a charge that his opponents are conducting a "fly-speck campaign."
WHATEVER THE VALIDITY of the charges, it is clear that they have failed to make an impression on the ordinary Kansas voter, whose historical allegiance is to the Republican party.
Little more excitement has been generated over the state in the two races for U.S. Senate. With the announcement by President Kennedy of the blockade against the shipment of arms to Cuba, the races lost in the last two weeks of the campaign what little heat they contained.
Hitting the "soft on Castro" line particularly hard has been Sen. James Pearson, appointed to office by Anderson on the death of Sen. Andrew F. Schoeppel. Pearson, a former state senator and Anderson's campaign manager two years ago, is seeking to finish out the remaining four years of that term.
Pearson is opposed by Paul Aylward, an Ellsworth attorney and former member of the Kansas Park and Resources Authority under Democratic Gov. George Docking. Aylward's public statements leave the impression that he would be a "New Frontier" Democrat, supporting in full the President's domestic program. He favors old age medical care under the social security program and tight controls on agricultural production.
IN CONTRAST, Pearson has tended in his year in the Senate to follow the party line in voting
against the Kennedy domestic proposals. He has been endorsed for re-election by conservative stalwarts among his colleagues.
Sen. Frank Carlson, also a safe party-line conservative, has said next to nothing in his campaign for a third term aside from criticizing the Kennedy foreign policy. A former congressman, state representative, and governor from 1946 to 1950, Carlson is assured re-election against his little-known opponent. K. L. (Ken) Smith, a county employee from Wichita.
The loss of a congressional district last year and subsequent reapportionment by the state legislature threatens to squeeze out of office the lone Democrat in the current Kansas congressional delegation.
Democrat J. Floyd Breeding, farmer and stockman, must win over Republican Bob Dole, Russell attorney, if he hopes to go back to Washington for a fourth term. The former districts of these two opponents have been thrown together in the huge, 58-county first district, comprising nearly the entire western half of the state.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
DOLE, SEEKING a second term, has been particularly acid in his criticism of the Kennedy administration, both on foreign and domestic policies. He has tried to paint the Billie Sol Estes scandal as being totally a question of administration corruption in the Agriculture Department.
Republicans are safe bets to hold or gain seats in other congressional races as well. These include Robert Ellsworth, trying for a second term in the third district; William Avery, going after his fifth term in the second district; Garner Shriver, seeking a second term in the fourth district; and Joe Skubitz, running in the fifth district.
Skubitz gained the nomination over incumbent Rep. Walter McVey in the August primary. McVey had served one term and a rumor was circulated until recently that McVey, whose margin of defeat was slim, would conduct a write-in campaign in the election.
FACING THIS BATTERY of formidable runners is a slate of Democrats, most of whom are political unknowns. They include Bill Sparks opposing Ellsworth, Wade Myers facing Skubitz, Harry H. Kehee against Avery, and Lawrence J. Wetzel facing Shriver.
Of these, only Myers has served in office. He was a member of the Kansas Senate from 1947 to 1949 and was minority leader part of his term.
Daily Hansan
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COMMENT
An Important Query
A great wailing and gnashing of teeth has come about because of a statement by Arthur Sylvester, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs. In the statement, Sylvester said that "in the kind of world we live in, the generation of news by the government serves as a weapon in a strained situation."
HE ADDED THAT during the recent Cuban crisis, the American press had been used as a "weapon" to assure the success of the Cuban blockade.
The reaction of the press in the United States has caused the aforementioned wailing and gnashing of teeth. The New York Times, for example, said that "a democratic government cannot work if news of and about that government is long suppressed or managed or manipulated or controlled."
Lee Hills, president of the American Society of Newspaper Publishers, labeled the governmental use of the press a "deep shock to responsible newspaper editors."
A DISSENTING VOTE, however, was cast by New York Times columnist James Reston.
"The question in the present case," he said, "is not whether the administration told all the truth—it obviously didn't—but whether, under the grave circumstances of the crisis, it conducted itself in a dishonorable way. This is clearly a matter of opinion. My own is that it did not."
The most interesting aspect of the whole situation is that even the most bitter foe of the government's "weapon" use of the press is not adverse to that same government censoring the press during wartime.
- The government has the right to decide what is crisis and what is not, and use the press as a "weapon" accordingly.
The controversy thus boils down into two declarations.
- In any situation short of actual declared war, the American press has the right to demand full and detailed accounts of the situation involved.
In regard to the first alternative, the question immediately arises as to exactly what constitutes a crisis "crucial" enough to permit government manipulation of the press.
DURING THE SECOND World War, it was agreed that the Japanese and German war efforts warranted government censorship of the press. The reason given then was the same given by the Department of Defense last week: the press, used as a weapon by the government, would ultimately work for the benefit of this nation and the people in it.
Government censorship curtailed the amount of information fed to the Japanese and the Germans, just as it curtailed the amount of information given to the Russians and Cubans during the Cuban crisis.
Who sits on the throne and decides that Situation A is a crisis warranting governmental censorship of the press and that Situation B is not?
THE SECOND statement is equally as confusing. Since the Cuban crisis was not part of an actual 'war,' the press should be allowed to know ento what was going on. But who draws the line? Who is going to sit on the throne?
Columnist Reston said that since the Kennedy administration was pushing this nation to the brink of a nuclear war and possible annihilation, it had the right to manipulate the American press.
This still does not answer the question. The United States was staring annihilation in the face during the second World War; the press allowed itself to be censured. We faced annihilation last week; the press bitterly objected to censorship.
THE ULTIMATE question which arises from this means is whether the press should be censored at all. Did the people of the United States have the right to know that we were about to invade Europe in 1944? Did they have the right to know that the Kennedy administration was about to place us at the brink of nuclear holocaust?
If the people can be considered competent enough to know what they want, perhaps they should have the ultimate say as to whether they wish to chance annihilation. If they are not competent, or if there is no time to make a decision one way or the other, perhaps someone should do it for them.
The people have elected representatives to do their bidding in Washington. These representatives include the President and Department of Defense officials. The representatives and the government itself, therefore, are theoretically working in the best interests of the people.
IF WE BELIEVE in our form of government, we must assume that the government will always work in the best interests of the people. But there may be a danger in allowing the government to make too many decisions without knowing the feelings of the people. One way to know this feeling is to allow the press to have full knowledge of the facts concerning a situation.
But by giving the press the power to print these data, we may be giving the enemy valuable information, and thereby thwart our chance of success.
This is no easily answered question. At stake is more than mere journalistic ire—at stake is the basic concept of this nation. It is a question that cannot be hasitly resolved.
—Zeke Wigglesworth