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University Daily Kansan Tuesday, Oct. 16, 1962
Greeks Allow CRC?
The Civil Rights Council has gone on record as demanding that the University force fraternities to remove discriminatory clauses from their constitutions and by-laws.
And it has been recommended that fraternities be kicked off campus if they refuse to comply with the edict. Last spring, Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe refused to assume the role of dictator, and the de-segregationists are unhappy.
BUT BEFORE THEY ASK the Chancellor to assume dictatorial powers, they might examine the demand and consider what would happen if it were carried out.
To begin with, what right would the Chancellor have to order fraternities to desegregate under threat of extinction?
The fraternities are financially independent of the college and the state. Their houses are built by private funds on land paid for by private contributions. And, as long as the fraternity members abide by the University rules, the Chancellor has no reason nor, for that matter, right to tell them what creed they must live by.
CRC BASED ITS DEMAND that the Chancellor act as it desires on the grounds that the state of Kansas has a law against discrimination being practiced by any state agency. And because fraternities must be sanctioned by the University, they argued that this gives the Chancellor power to cram an arbitrary ruling down their collective throat.
And what if a church should decide to bar members of minority groups? Would it recommend that the Chancellor tell students they cannot belong to an organization which practices discrimination?
If members of the Civil Rights Council want the Constitution and the Bill of Rights rewritten, they should talk to their Congressmen. It may not be to their liking, but a citizen of the United States is guaranteed the right to practice bigotry —in a peaceful manner—if he so desires.
AND SINCE THERE IS small chance that the Constitution will be changed to give one man, or minority groups, the powers of a dictator, the CRC should find a better weapon against discrimination and bigotry.
But an honest alternative involves more work than lipping self-righteous cries of "Foul Play!"
It has long been established that in a fair fight between good and evil, the forces of good fare rather well—even if they do not emerge as total victors.
If the CRC master-plan for fraternities is best, let it be proved so in fair competition with the present system which is shot with bigotry and discrimination. Surely anything as rotten as the present fraternity system would not stand the competition of one based on equality.
IF THE PRESENT FRATERNITY system is wrong, bad and evil, let it be vanquished by a better system. But let this better system be established by the sweat and toil and devotion which built the present system which the CRC claims is bad because it restricts its membership.
NEITHER THE CRC, its members, nor the Chancellor has the right to tell the individuals who comprise a fraternity that they must live by a creed deemed best by another man.
The fraternities have the right to remain independent of the whims of others as long as they pay their own way and abide by the rules.
But if the CRC is not willing to do the work of establishing the system which they say is superior, then let it be still.
The CRC wants to live another group of person's lives by virtue of edict based on moral judgment. An empire built on the ashes of an imperfect institution would not be lacking for starting places.
THE FRATERNITIES are not perfect—they do not pretend to be. But what would be left standing if every imperfect institution were doomed to extinction?
As long as fraternity members abide by the rules enforced in other students, they can practice discrimination and bigotry to their heart's content.
And it is worth noting that the same right which permits bigotry and discrimination allows the CRC to exist against the pleasure of the fraternities.
—Terry Murphy
Food Situation at Lewis
... Letters ..
We, the residents of Lewis Hall, realize that it is hard to cook for a large number of people, and we have tried to understand this problem. We also realize starch is needed in the diet, but not in such abundance as it appears at Lewis.
JELLO ALSO IS a good food.
However, when we have to eat it
twice a day, this is carrying things to extremes.
Trying new foods and new combinations also is good — it adds variety. But such concoctions as grilled peanut butter and bacon sandwiches and dill pickles in the ever-present jello are too much for anyone to stand.
Dorm fees were raised this year
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
'OH AN ANOTHER THING — SOME OF THESE PROFS DON'T WANT TO BE BOTHERED OTHER THAN SCHEDULED OFFICE HOURS
as everyone knows. One would think that with this added money, the dorms could provide better food.
SACK LUNCHES are another problem. Last year the variety of dinners failed to appear in the lunches. Every day bologna was found for sandwiches. But, at least, one could have more than one sandwich. This year, even with the increase in dorm fees, sack lunches have gotten worse. This year sack lunches are handed out as one goes through the breakfast line. They are packaged and guarded so well, one would think they really held something worth eating. But alas, no. The sandwich consists of peanut butter on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and cheese on Tuesday and Thursday! We realize food prices have gone up, but they can't have gone up that much!
If anyone thinks the above stated comments are exaggerated, come over to Lewis and eat anytime. If anyone agrees with these statements, write more letters and maybe we can start a "Feed KU" campaign!
Mary Lou Cooley Mission junior
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904,
triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16. 1912.
Telephone VIkring 3-2700
Extension 711, news room
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COMMENT
Chiang's Dream
Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek has led the Nationalist Chinese since 1928. For 13 of those years, he has been on the island of Formosa.
He has just asserted, as he has so many times during those 13 years, that he will attack the Chinese Communist mainland, 200 miles away. This has been Chiang's dream since he was pushed from the mainland in 1949.
ON THE FACE of it, Chiang's threats would seem similar to an ant-attacking-an-elephant. Formosa has a total land mass of 14,000 square miles and a population of 10 million. The vast mainland is 4 million square miles in area,has a total population of almost 700 million.
A closer examination would reveal that the odds are a little more even.
Chiang has a standing army of 600,000, many of them highly trained, crack men. He has an air force which, although small, is more combat ready (according to some) than the Communist Chinese. Another factor in his favor is described by newsman Joseph Alsop:
"COMMUNIST CHINA is not unlike an outwardly imposing barn full of ill-cured, ill-stored hay, in which the flames of spontaneous combustion may quite suddenly leap out."
It is this "spontaneous combustion" of revolt that Chiang most counts on. He feels that if his troops ever launch an attack on the mainland, the people of Red China will rise and fight the Communists. And, as Alsop says, "no one can be sure he is wrong."
Chiang stacks another card in his favor when he points to the "rift" between Communist China and the U.S.S.R. It is his feeling that if he ever did attack China, the Russians would not interfere—they would applaud.
ALSOP REPORTS that many in Washington feel that Chiang's first point is well-taken, but they regard his second as at best highly hopeful.
Regardless of the success or failure of such an attack today, the United States is having no part of it. This country has taken a vow to maintain the status quo in Asia. We have sworn to contain communism in the area—and we have also made it plain that we will contain the Chinese nationalists. It is common knowledge, for example, that the United States 7th fleet sails the Formosan Straits to keep both the Communists and the Nationalists from attacking each other.
OUR REASONING is probably sound. If Chiang landed troops in the Fukien province of China, the Russians would do anything but applaud. If a rift exists between the two giant Communist nations, it would be rapidly forgotten in this incident. The Russians would lose no time in coming to the aid of their Chinese brothers. If Chiang attacked, the United States overnight would lose all it has been fighting for in Asia: peace.
Chiang Kai-shek is now 76 years old. His dream of once more walking on the mainland of China must die with him.
—Zeke Wigglesworth
E 7
BARREN GROUND, by Ellen Glasgow (American Century, $1.95).
IN THIS OUR LIFE, by Ellen Glasgow, (Avon, 50 cents).
It has been said that Ellen Glasgow has written as tellingly of post-Civil War Virginia as Faulkner has written of Mississippi, but without the horror and the degradation. Superficially, this is so. But there is an undercurrent of savagery and despondency in these two novels that is as marked as the horror of the saga of Yoknapatawpha County.
"Barren Ground" is the story of Dorinda Oakley and her family of Old Farm, of the unyielding soil and the cruel life of the South at the turn of the century, of her first passionate love for young Dr. Jason Greylock, which turns sour when he gets her pregnant and then marries another girl. Though Dorinda turns sour on love, she does not turn sour on life, and she turns the barren ground into fertile, flourishing land. Meanwhile she achieves a kind of equanimity, though not in any romantic sense.
"In This Our Life" is Virginia in the 1930s, and a family of the decaying aristocracy, a bit higher morally than some of Faulkner's folks, but only a bit. The central character is the worn-out, ineffectual, disillusioned father Asa, whose wife Lavinia is a bedridden nag and whose daughters, Stanley and Roy (that's right, Stanley and Roy), are making messes of their lives.
The latter novel won the Pulitzer prize for Miss Glasgow. It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, as it no doubt was mean to do.-CMP