Page 2
University Daily Kansan Tuesday, Sept. 18, 1962
The Problem of Cuba
They used to call Cuba the pearl of the Antilles. Americans knew little about it, except that it was a sunny land in the Caribbean over which the United States fought a war in 1898. It was known chiefly for its Havana night life and as the place where Lucy's husband was from.
Today, Cuba is known to nearly all Americans. It has been a thorn in our side for three years, and during those years there has been a feeling that the United States should "do something about Cuba." Recently, with the increased stream of Soviet "technicians" and military equipment into Cuba, the demands have grown louder.
AT THIS POINT, the important question is not how we got into the situation in which we find ourselves, but what we are going to do about it.
If such action were taken, the United States would have to be prepared for one of three things: We might make the Soviets back down immediately. We might precipitate a war. We might enter a Berlin-type stalemate.
Several Senators have demanded the United States take direct, tangible action, such as the establishment of a blockade.
IT IS LIKELY THAT the Soviet Union doesn't want war any more than the United States does, but it also is likely that the Soviets don't like to lose face any more than we do. The third alternative, therefore, is most likely.
There is, of course, no immediate danger to
the United States, although both civilian and military personnel at Guantanamo Naval base seem to be ready for an imminent attack, according to news reports.
This would be an unlikely move, since an attack on Guantanamo would be a direct attack on the United States, and thus would be a readymade excuse for U.S. intervention. Neither Cuba nor the Soviet Union would hand the United States such a perfect excuse.
PRESIDENT KENNEDY has warned the American people to remain calm. But he added that "this country will do whatever must be done to protect its own security and that of its allies" if the build-up in Cuba threatens our security in Guantanamo, our passage to the Panama Canal, or our missile and space activity at Cape Canaveral, or if Cuba becomes a base for attacks on other Latin American nations or a "significant military base" for the Soviet Union.
Presumably, these are the lines past which the United States would not remain calm.
Requests to remain calm are frustrating to people who are tired of being "pushed around" and who believe the United States already has reached the danger point. Key Senators who yell about the danger to the United States and issue loud cries to "do something' appeal to many people.
But as columnist James Reston warned: "It was the 'do-something' Senators and the 'dosomething' press that got us into the Spanish-American war, and one like that is enough."
—Clayton Keller
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
— AN IF YOU JOIN OUR SORORITY—YOU WILL HAVE BENEFIT OF EXCLUSIVE OUTSTANDING PLEDGE TRAINING.
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone Viking 3-2700
Extension 376. business office
Telephone VIking 3-2700
Extension 711
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.
Coff Payne Managing Editor Richard Bonett, Dennis Farney, Zeke Wigglesworth, and Bill Mullins, assistant Managing editors; Mike Miller, City Editor; Steve Clark, Sports Editor; Margaret Cathcart, Society Editor.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Clayton Keller and Bill Sheldon ... Co-Editorial Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Charles Martinache Business Manager Dan Meek, Advertising Manager; Doug Farmer, Circulation Manager; Gene Spaulding, National Advertising Manager; Bill Woodburn, Classified Advertising Manager; Jack Cannon, Promotion Manager.
Synthetic Rights Victory
Final congressional approval of the proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw poll taxes in federal elections is no more than a synthetic victory for civil rights. President Kennedy claims far too much when he terms it a "significant action." The House vote of 294 to 86, following the Senate vote of 77 to 16, provides a spurious image of Congress leaping to the battlements for the sacred right of the free ballot.
THE FACT IS that Congress could have outlawed poll taxes in federal elections by legislation, without passing the issue to the states in the form of a constitutional amendment. The House tried to do this five times but the Senate usually blocked the move. This year nobody even tried.
THE FACT IS that the poll tax measure, while usually included in recent civil rights platforms and programs, was about the least important rights measure. Only five Southern states still levy such taxes, and only in Mississippi and Alabama do these taxes constitute much of a bar to Negro voting.
Moreover, the slow process of ratification by three-fourths of the states may provide Congress with an excuse to avoid major civil rights issues for some time, when those issues involve a legislative struggle, as they usually do. But the poll tax amendment is a poor excuse for avoiding further action. It is even a poor excuse for a civil rights record in this Congress.
—From the St. Louis Post-
Dispatch
The fact is that the bill to regulate use of literacy tests, which are widely used to bar access to the polls, was a far more important measure. Yet the Senate dropped it rather than stop a threatened filibuster.
Short Ones
- COMMENT -
The liar's punishment is not that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.—George Bernard Shaw.
In Memorium
An era is over . . . a tradition has passed. Like the dodo, the dinosaur, nickel beer and the Great Depression, the cop is gone.
You all remember him. He stood in a little white circle at the intersection of Jayhawk Blvd. and Sunflower Road as hundreds of cars passed by.
DAY IN AND DAY OUT, he stood there, guiding the footsteps of students streaming through the perilous intersection.
He was always polite, never raised his voice, was always concerned with doing his job quietly and efficiently. Who will ever forget his voice as he calmly did his duty;
"Hey you (screaming), get the hell back on that curb."
WHO CAN EVER FORGET how he faced the onslaught of vehicles, fearless and authoritative . . . but always polite.
"C'mon, c'mon . . . get that heap outa here.
Who can ever forget his winning way with delinquent young women who insisted on smirking at the law?
Will he ever forget the number of times he was slapped after he told them, in concise English, what to do?
YES INDEED, a tradition has passed. But the lore of the cop will not stop . . . there is a New Breed.
The new officer doesn't stand in an intersection facing daily danger. He is still the same policeman (same uniform, same gun, same vocabulary), but he is a scientific law official. He has applied the glories of modern technology and arrived at the epitome of law enforcement.
Today's officer has invented the pillbox.
No more will he freeze in the cold wind and sleet. No more will he risk getting run down by a speeding demonic college student. No more will he get slapped.
TODAY'S OFFICER is protected from all this. Instead, he sits in his glass and steel pillbox and, like a lord of old, passes judgment on all he surveys.
Has this changed him? Of course not—he remains his old reliable self. His voice still carries leadership, his manner conjures up visions of quiet efficiency:
"Hey you (screaming), get outa here. No permit, no go."
It's nice to know that in this changing world, at least something remains changeless.
—Zeke Wigglesworth
A HISTORY OF RUSSIA, by John Lawrence (Mentor, 75 cents).
Here, in a comparatively brief volume, is a non-textbook approach to Russian history. It is a history that goes far back, for John Lawrence feels it important to describe backgrounds — the forest lives of early tribes in the seventh century; the rise of Kiev as an important center; the coming of Genghis Khan in the 13th century; the beginning of conflict with Poland; the breakup of ruling families and the growth of important commercial cities.
Great names are here Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Catherine, the czars of the 19th century. Lawrence tells about the westernization of Russia, the development of the intelligentsia and the social revolution, and, finally, the growth of the Soviet state in this century.
BERLIN DIARY, by William L. Shirer (Popular Library, 75 cents).
A new fame has been acquired by "Berlin Diary," whose author has become known to a generation that has to be told about World War II. This new fame is an all-round good thing, for "Berlin Diary" should not be forgotten.
Shirer was a CBS correspondent in Europe in that fabulous period when men like him, Murrow and Kaltenborn were making radio journalism so important. This is his story of the coming of Nazism, of the Jewish purges, of the goose-stepping Nazi youth, of party rallies and concentration camps and slow conquest followed by the horrors of the blitzkrieg.
The time period is 1934-40. Shirer tells his story in crisp journalistic style, and it is a memorable story to tell—and to read—CMP
* *
MAO TSE-TUNG, edited by Anne Fremantle (Mentor, 75 cents). COMMUNIST CHINA'S STRATEGY IN THE NUCLEAR ERA, by Alice Langley Hsich (Spectrum, $2.25).
Here are two important works for readers concerned with the growing strength and importance of China. The first volume is an anthology of the writings of Mao, with an introduction that is taken largely from Edgar Snow's "Red Star over China." This is a historical sketch of Mao by the American journalist who spent so much time with the Communists in the 1930s.
The book includes an analysis of Chinese classes, written in 1926; a report about the struggle in the Chingkang mountains; a summary of problems of the second revolutionary civil war; Mao's talk with the American correspondent, Anna Louise Strong, and discussions of various phases of Communist philosophy.
The second volume is an original work subsidized by the Rand corporation. Calmly and dispassionately the author discusses the development of military thinking in China, the response to implications of nuclear warfare, the decision to develop nuclear weapons in China, relations with the Soviet Union, and, finally, what might be expected from China as a nuclear power.