Page 2
University Daily Kansan Thursday. Oct. 18, 1962
A Positive HRC
The Human Rights Committee last night offered the student body an opportunity to have its say in regard to any phase of civil rights. This was almost completely disregarded by even the most vitriolic student on the subject.
There was a total of only 16 people drifting in and out during the course of the one and one-quarter hour meeting. Of this group all but a known four were members of fraternities with the exception of two faculty members. Several of the audience were left-overs from the Civil Rights Council meeting which had preceded the HRC open session in the same room.
This failure of the students to attend and participate in a meeting such as this indicates that the magnitude of the human rights problems on this campus may have reduced itself over the past few months.
TO SHOW EVEN more what must be termed student apathy on the topic, the most active participant was not even a KU student.
This was not a gripe session, as was suggested there might be held in the future. The HRC meeting, as announced by the chairman, was held with the purpose of receiving from the student body suggestions for work in the area of human rights. Apparently the student body chose not to take advantage of its most effective means of battling for rights of minority groups.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
THE PROBLEM WHICH RECEIVED the most attention during the discussion was that of discriminatory clauses in the constitutions of fraternities and sororities. As mentioned, the attendance was overwhelmingly Greek. From this it might be concluded that the Greeks have an active interest in the solution of this problem and will at least spend a short time at a meeting to protect their interests.
It is wholly unfortunate that there was not a larger and better cross-section of student opinion and representation last night. The issues dealt with are those which should mean something to every member of the University community. This is true especially in light of this year's HRC.
This time last year the HRC was inactive. Last spring a flurry of action ended in the issuing of a report which was criticized on its authenticity. This year's committee is composed of some people who, in part through their discussions last night, have a strong feeling in the area of human rights and are willing to drive laboriously toward advancements. Anytime an arm of student government offers its palm to be slapped or filled by the individual it seems to mean that it is ready and able to wield the shovel which may uncover the seed of the situation.
ALTOUGH MUCH OF THE MEETING was spent in discussion of past situations and HRC action there was a new light shown which might lead to a further reduction of human rights problems in Lawrence.
The committee offered its services to move in directions never before considered by such a group. There were suggestions made about taking stands such as the letter recently sent to the University of Mississippi, bringing outside speakers to campus to inform the students on civil rights, to name a couple.
Thus it appears this year's HRC will be the most positive and effective force on campus in dealing with civil rights problems, especially in the areas of housing, work opportunities, and barber shop and similar discrimination. Last spring the groundwork was laid and it appears this year the task will be carried to a greater degree as the University finds and eliminates any human rights problems. Bill Sheldon
An Unfortunate Discovery
The development of a hybrid wheat should be a boon to mankind, but it is more likely to become just another embarrassing headache for the United States.
But we know this will not happen. We have developed weapons which transcend any boundary line, but the economic lines remain fixed by
IT IS UNFORTUNATE. perhaps even disgusting, that the world is not yet advanced enough to allow us to make the best use of the new wheat now being developed by agronomists in the Department of Agriculture and the University of Nebraska. These scientists have discovered the missing link which will lead to a strain of hybrid wheat. When seed is developed and made available to American farmers, wheat yields should increase from 20 to 50 per cent meaning that it would be within the capabilities of the United States alone to produce enough wheat for bread for the whole world.
WE CAN DIRECT condescending sneers toward the Communists because, despite all the planning and boasting, their farms are bogged down with communal claptrap while ours continue to be the most productive in the world. But it is hardly to our credit, or our advantage, that we have contributed so little toward constructing an effective, self-sustaining and humane international economic vehicle.
monetary and ideological restrictions—need continues to be one of the least influential factors in determining whether or not food will be forthcoming to those who are underfed.
Meanwhile, our surpluses continue to grow while children grow up hungry. It is pathetic that the world's great leaders are so devoid of economic imagination that such a situation is likely to endure even though it is theoretically possible to remedy it.
Bob Hoyt
The editorial in the Oct. 12 Daily Kansan implies that Congressman J. Floyd Breeding would be the best choice for First District Representative. The general tone of the article is that Rep. Bob Dole is
Favors Dole's Re-election Editor:
... Letters ...
What is Bob Dole for? Let's look at the record. We see that he is for the best interests of the First District. He believes that each farmer should have the right to operate his
against almost everything, while Rep. Breeding is for what is best for the First District.
Daily Hansan
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone VIK3-2700
University of Kansas student newsnaner
Extension 376: business office
Telephone Viking 3-270c
Extension 711 noon pm
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
Managing Editor
Clayton Keller and Bill Sheldon Co-Editorial Editors
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
own farm, without "help" from the government. On the contrary, Mr. Breeding has consistently voted for more regimentation of the American farmer, such as a 30 per cent wheat acreage cut and compulsory feed grain controls. Measures such as these would drive many Western Kansas farmers out of business.
Charles Martinache ... Business Manager
On the major issues having to do with a bigger and more expensive federal government, Rep. Breeding voted for all, Bob Dole, favoring a limited and economical federal government, opposed all these power-grabbing New Frontier plans.
During the final weeks of Congress, Rep. Dole stayed in Washington almost all the time to do his job. On the other hand, Rep. Breeding was home almost all the time campaigning. Who is the "Congressman working for the First District?"
I believe that the voters of the First District are intelligent enough to see that Bob Dole is working for their best interests, regardless of what they may be told by outsiders.
Charles L. Frickey
Charles L. Frickey
Oberlin freshman
"YOU SEEM TO FLIFF ON TH HEAVY CANG, PROFESSOR SNARF. — I WOULDN'T
MJY YOUR Job AT THE COLLEGE UNTIL WE SEE HOW YOU WORK OUT."
U
THE STORY OF GOSTA BERLING, by Selma Lagerlof (Signet Classics, 75 cents).
Somehow one feels that it is scraping the bottom of the classic barrel to foist this one off onto an unsuspecting public. It is really no novel, but chiefly a series of amiable but seldom interesting wanderings into Swedish folklore and even mythology.
Put it down as a picaresque novel. Gosta Berling is an unfrocked minister, quite a roue, and the book is about his adventures. If the book has any real value to contemporary readers it is in Miss Lagerlof's fine descriptions of the Swedish countryside, her obvious love for nature, and her absorption with the traditions of her people.—CMP
* *
THE SPIRAL ROAD. by Jan de Hartog (Bantam, 60 cents).
The cover blub calls this "a novel of volcanic power." Well, it may be, but it's pretty heavy going, and who cares if Rock Hudson is in the movie. What we have here is an arrogant young Dutch doctor who goes into the jungle of Borneo back in the thirties. He becomes the assistant of a great doctor whose specialty is leprosy, helps to cleanse a native village of plague, brings his sweetheart to the jungle and makes life hell for her, and finally finds himself, and God.
There are good scenes here, in the slums of Amsterdam, in the jungle itself. The "leprosy doctor" is a good study, as is a sultan who wears a high silk hat and plays quite a game of billiards—CMP
* *
THE ROBBER BARONS, by Matthew Josephson (Harvest, $2.25).
THE AGE OF ENTERPRISE, by Thomas C. Cochran and William Miller (Harper Torchbooks, $2.35).
A few years ago, Matthew Josephson and Allan Nevins had a debate in the pages of Saturday Review, "Should American History Be Rewritten?" Yes, said Nevins. No, said Josephson. Nevins would reevaluate the men Josephson calls "The Robber Barons" in terms of our present outlook and social climate. Josephson would keep them the plunderers, the buccaneers who despoiled America and built up their great fortunes 100 years ago.
His history remains one of the best on the subject. There is little admiration for Rockefeller, Carnegie, Frick, Gould, Fisk, Morgan and company. Josephson is not disposed to regard them as great builders.
It is fast and sweeping social history. Josephson tells how the Scot Carnegie built a steel industry and scalped all rivals in sight; how Rockefeller built an oil industry and trampled all opposition; how Hill moved across the Northwest with the Great Northern and Jay Cooke before him with the Northern Pacific; how Vanderbilt and Drew and Gould and Fisk fought their battles of the Erie.
WHEN THE NORTHERN SECURITIES was formed, Morgan told Roosevelt, "If we have done anything wrong, send your man to my man and they can fix it up." That quote about sums up the robber barons, and what Josephson thinks of them.
Cochran and Miller's history is a good social portrayal, though fairly conventional. They see both the good and bad sides of industrial growth in America, and they treat most aspects of the coming of technology. Their approach is almost exclusively that of using secondary documents.
They begin with America at the turn of the 18th century and carry us through the early railroad age, the fight between cotton and wheat, the development of inventions, the coming of the industrialists and the era of "social Darwinism," the growth of labor, the city, the growth of finance capitalism. It is a good standard book, though scarcely one of classical stature.-CMP