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University Daily Kansan
Tuesday. Oct. 29, 1963
New Blood
October marked the beginning of the end of an era in the Western World.
Konrad Adenauer, 87, stepped down from his post as West German chancellor.
And from a hospital bed in England, Conservative Harold Macmillan announced his resignation as British prime minister to a nation still stunned by the Profumo incident.
FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT Dwight D. Eisenhower celebrated his 73rd birthday, and winked at rumors that he is considering running for vice-president in 1964. And a man the same age, French President Charles de Gaulle, toured Europe trying to stabilize his fluctuating popularity in time for the 1965 elections.
De Gaulle insists he'll continue as president as long as he has the strength. But soon even De Gaulle must admit that the tide of public opinion is changing.
Throughout the Western World, statesmen who weathered the rise and fall of the swastika in Europe are fading into the pages of history.
Adenauer re-built the West Germany economy and restored the German image of democracy to its rightful place among the governments of the world.
Macmillan's tireless efforts for an enduring peace saw the signing of the nuclear test ban treaty before he left office.
Eisenhower, the war general, known as the man of peace, sent economic and military aid to a faltering Europe.
De Gaulle steadied the continually collapsing French government and intensified French nationalism and leadership in the European community.
BUT NOW THE MEN of peace are passing from the world scene. They are being replaced by youthful statesmen, determined and dynamic, leaders who are pledged to peace and dedicated to prosperity.
Election of Kennedy and his progressive New Frontier may have been a hint of the trend in Western World politics.
The emphasis is on moving ahead.
This is the idea of Harold Wilson, 47-year-old British Labor Party leader most often mentioned as a safe bet in approaching elections.
STRESSING A PROGRAM of scientific socialism. Wilson hopes to move Britain ahead 25 years in the next five—industrially, educationally, socially. Whether he can, or whether scientific socialism is the best way to do it, are moot points. That is his program.
Cigar-puffing Ludwig Erhard, new West German chancellor, is an economics professor ready to inject more economic prosperity into an already thriving West German economy.
Called the "fat one" at 66, the jovial chancellor radiates hopes for co-operation throughout the Western World and liberal philosophies of progressive economic planning patterned after American capitalism.
The tone of the new era is progress, prosperity, peace and closer unity among the nations of the world.
It is difficult to imagine how a status quo, or sometimes belligerent, Goldwater or an aging De Gaulle could change tune enough to blend into the harmony of the new era of Western World leadership.
—Rose Ellen Osborne
Editor:
Who's Naive?
It has just been brought to my attention that a recent article in the Daily Kansan reported Prof. Grant Goodman of the KU Department of History as stating that he thought critics of the Ngo Dinh Diem regime in South Vietnam were "politically naive self-styled liberals, . . . who are the victims of oversimplified propaganda slogans."
It should be pointed out to Prof. Goodman, that he stands alone in regarding President Kennedy as politically naive. Since most of the distinguished Americans who fall within the scope of Prof. Goodman's immoderate and sweeping generalization will ignore him, as he deserves to be, we might let the matter end there. If Prof. Goodman, however, seriously wishes to defend these and certain other similarly ludicrous contentions made in his talk to the KU-Y Current Events Forum, I should be glad to help him demonstrate just who is naive about the events in Vietnam.
Instructor of Political Science
Klaus H. Pringsheim
Skin-deep Liberalism Editor
For the past six weeks I have been attending KU and I have been favorably impressed with most facets of student life here. The all-University parties and functions compare with those found in the New England area (of which I am a native), the Lecture Series is excellent, and the Sexual Morality debate of a few weeks ago represented a topic rarely discussed anywhere, much less a university campus. Apparently, the opinion one would formulate of KU is one of liberalness.
This laissez-faire attitude of liberalness, however, is not even skin deep. In the progressive colleges and universities of the Eastern area, the student is allowed to exercise his judgement concerning the matters of consumption of alcohol and entertaining female guests in his room. The usual procedure for allowing women in male residence rooms (and males in female residence rooms) is to sign the guest at the main desk and have the guest checked out at 10:30 p.m. on weekdays and 1:00 a.m. on weekends.
The People Say..
This system is not as far-fetched as it sounds, as all the people involved in this method of socializing realize that the success and continuation of the program is directly correlated to the savoir-faire ot the individuals. The question of alcoholic beverages is left up to the student, most mature students realize that drunkenness does not coincide with respectable grades, and therefore few people drink other than for social purposes. I would propose a plan such as this for consideration at KU; I realize that this plan could possibly (?] raise the furor of the WCTU and Dean Taylor, but, after all, it has worked for other universities, and I fail to see why it would not work here. If KU prides herself on liberalness, why not practice it amongst her students.
Harry N. Krause 216 Templin Hall
Editor:
Mr. Banks in his article (Kansan, Oct. 24) rightly deplores the past and present plight of Negroes in the U.S. He states that, "America owes Negroes a great debt." This is an untenable position. As we accrue no virtue from the lives of great leaders such as Washington and Lincoln, so also do we amass no debt from the misdeeds of our fathers. What could possibly repay a man for his oppression at the hands of another man? Nothing. An act once committed cannot be canceled. All that we can or need be concerned with are present wrongs for which we are to blame.
A key concept here can be noticed in this question: who are we? On one hand, Mr. Banks desires a degree of social equality yet unachieved, on the other he says, "We ask for the payment of overdue debt." As long as the problem of social equality is thought of in terms of "us and them" rather than "you and I," no solution is in sight. Everyone's freedom is diminished when
Dailij Hansan
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one man is denied his rights and we agree that real brotherhood cannot exist in a fraternity or elsewhere in an atmosphere of racial or religious exclusiveness. Real brotherhood requires great effort, and we note that man will generally settle for a lot less. A man whose vision extends past his front door is the exception, not the rule, and no sort of legislation will change this. It is obvious too that forced acceptance produces nothing but ill will. Making a fraternity accept a Negro when it is set against it would be a Pyrrhic victory at best. What the barest sort of common decency requires—this can be put into law, and no more. We have all seen how the problem is only accentuated by laws, not solved. I think, Mr. Banks, seeing the accelerating "legalized equality" of the Negro, disregards the fact that there is a large area into which law cannot go. I use the fraternity example, as it was cited by Mr. Banks, but there are others. Law by its very nature of forcing compliance cannot create respect or acceptance. The laws are just and have been long in coming, but they are coming. Now opens the larger problem of real social acceptance.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Mike Miller Managing Editor
Miller Managing Editor
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Blaine King          Editorial Editor
When we see that respect and acceptance proceed from an individual's freedom, not from his necessity, we are no longer in the legal realm, but have uncovered the knottiest problem of all, that of the social equality Mr. Banks wants. When a person is free, he chooses to regard another as subject, not as object; he sees that the similarities between himself and others are of much more fundamental importance than the differences. Now skin color is a very obvious difference, a difference for the slavery of suspicion and fear to grasp. Does law abate suspicion and fear? Will rules change "us and them" to "you and I"? There is the possibility that love can cast out fear and suspicion, but alas, groups cannot love groups; only one individual can love another. But what can be freely given can never be extorted.
So we wish that men were wise and good, but they often are not. The only person a man can even have a chance of making wise and good is himself. As for rights, no man has a moral right, either to take or to get. So we look within, to our own hearts, to solve the moral problem, and not to the law.
Michael L. Clark Deerfield, Illinois
"And So's My Old Man!"
Down With Conformity But It Isn't Social
The present-day college woman is getting a head start in one of the biggest races of American life — that unending race to keep up with the Joneses.
With this pursuit of the attainable, she is sacrificing a privilege which is most readily available at this time in her life - her individuality.
THE FIRST LURE to the college woman's individuality comes in the way of an AWS brochure describing just what the modern college woman should wear, what she should say, how she should eat, and all kinds of indispensible information.
And skirts. Can the woman with a well-proportioned figure be content to wear well fitting clothes? How absurd!
These suggestions are outlined in broad terms, however, and can be helpful in orienting freshman women to the social patterns of a university.
However, the freshman soon discovers that to be a member of the "in group," she must wear faded, dirty cutoffs that might have fit her perfectly at age 10. To add extra status, the seat of the jeans will have the Greek letters of one of the top 10 fraternities permanently inscribed with the whitewash.
THE FRESHMAN SOON discovers that the status symbols of college take very unusual forms. For example, blue jeans. Now, for the outside observer, who would take into consideration the patrician background of most college students, the ideal pair of blue jeans would be clean, unfaded, and neatly cuffed.
The danger comes when she arrives at the University and makes contact with a very luring pitfall - Miss Conformity Jones.
The costume regulations of Miss Jones are unlike those of the Dean of Women. They are inflexible. They are centered around keeping pace with the ever-present, but unattainable status symbol.
Hairdos are another point where the college woman must keep an ever-watchful eye on Miss Jones and figure on being joined by thousands of other coeds in the search.
Gone are the days of the smooth, feminine hairdo. A few years ago, the girls rushed to the beauty (or barber) shop to see who could get the most boyish, ducktail haircut. After discovering that their efforts toward masculinity were futile, they let their tresses grow till a rear view looked like a horse swishing flies.
THE SKIRT COMES in two extremes. It must either be three sizes too small and fit like the girl was sewn into it, or it must be three sizes too large and fit like she could raise a family inside it
offic wat
R K
A NEW SYMBOL reared its bouffant head, however. Quick, to the beauty shop to be shorn of the pony tail and see just how high the hair can be backcombed. It was the day of the exploded head.
When 95 per cent of the campus women resembled mushrooms, Miss Jones lead the status seekers on another binge. The comb was in the "out group" and the casual look was in.
The tragic thing about this search for the status-laden Miss Jones is not the physical appearance of the girl. Most of the fads are rather becoming — on the right kind of girl. Of course the archaic (last month's) style was also becoming on the right kind of girl.
Perhaps the epitome of the status search is the beatnik look.
Besides, everybody is dressing that way.
Mike Miller