Taxpayers, Republicans Alike Affected by President's Tour
By Lyle C. Wilson United Press International
Page 5
The U.S. taxpayer put up the scratch that paid for the elaborate public relations trimmings to President Kennedy's non-political swing to the West Coast. The taxpayer doesn't know it, but he paid.
There were pamphlets, booklets, maps, movies and still pictures. One securely strapped container hand-delivered to UPI's Washington, D.C., bureau contained 16 mm movie film, sufficient for a 30-minute show. An accompanying letter said there were film sequences of projects and other installations which President Kennedy will either visit, fly over or (fly) near during his western trip.
AN EIGHT BY TEN PAMPHLET bound in slick brown paper turned out to be an 18-page, glossy stock copy of Kennedy's March 1, 1962, message to Congress on conservation. This was a great improvement on the roughly mimeographed text UPI received last March. The glossy version had several pages of pictures showing the recreational and other delights and advantages to be enjoyed by the President.
All of this material was printed by the government printing office. The departments of agriculture and interior cooperated in preparing some or all of the material. It came to the news media with the compliments of interior secretary Stewart L. Udall.
GEM III Project Returns to KU
Beware of the flying saucers above the Kaw River next summer. It may be the GEM III, a Ground Effect Machine being studied by the KU Department of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering under a research grant from the Office of Naval Research (ONR).
A ground effect machine floats a few feet above the ground on a cushion of compressed air provided by a powerful blower. It is jet-propelled and steered by air from auxiliary blowers. It's main value is its ability to travel over water, mud, or snow. The principle vices of GEM III, which the aeronautical laboratories of KU will attempt to correct, are rolling instability when operated over water and difficulty in clearing obstacles more than a foot or two in height.
GEM's also have a tendency to drift sideways with the slightest gust of wind or slope in the roadway. An effort will be directed toward developing an intertial drift stabilizer to improve the drift in the handling of the machine.
GEM III will be on display at the KU laboratories at the Lawrence airport on October 15. The project will be formally launched at that time with its presentation to the University by Gen. W. K. Jones of the U.S. Marine Corps, a 1939 KU graduate.
The project will be administered by the Center for Research in Engineering Science under the supervision of Prof. C. Choliasmenos, and work on the control and guidance system will be assisted by Dr. Hajime Akashi, a visiting professor from Doshisha University in Japan.
The history of GEM's at KU began in 1959 when a hastily constructed machine surprised visitors at the Engineering Exposition (and, to some extent, it's student designers) by floating into zone D parking lot. Another KU aeronautical engineer, Kenneth Wernicke, solved the carrying capacity problem of small GEM's by teaching his three-year-old daughter to steer a cardboard model powered with a vacuum cleaner motor around his driveway. He went on to design a small air-cushion motorcycle at Bell Helicopter Corporation.
AS A STUDENT, Prof. Cholasmenos carried out ground-effects experiments in the old KU wind tunnel that won first prize in an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics competition in 1960.
The ONR award of an operating GEM and $10,000 for research is therefore received with unusual enthusiasm at KU.
Two graduate students, V. Sundararajan and James Lewis, have volunteered to attack the problem of aerodynamics and drift stabilization
Next summer beware of "Flying Saucers!"
UPI was informed at the interior department that most of the 16 mm film footage was documentary material from the Reclamation Bureau's film library, but that some film was shot especially for the Kennedy trip. Four prints of the film were distributed. The department roughly estimated the cost of the film project at $1,500 but emphasized that this was not precise.
an elaborately illustrated glossy booklet entitled "The Trip of the President" was especially produced for Kennedy's western swing. About 500 copies were run off on interior department offset facilities. No costs estimates were available.
Toward the end of Kennedy's trip last week in Salt Lake City, veteran reporters detected politics in the President's speech which all but denounced Sen. Barry Goldwater by name. But the pretense of non-politics was maintained in the White House tradition.
neys from the political realities than he can deny his membership in a political party.
THE NON-POLITICAL, speechmaking trip through politically significant states is a political gimmick, almost a political tradition. It is a phony, of course, because a President no more can divorce his jour-
So it is with expenditure of the taxpayers' dollars to make the President's non-political journey look as good as possible. Perhaps the taxpayers should come up with their own version of equal time—a demand, for example, for a trip at government expense to all of the lovely spots Kennedy visited.
Of course that wouldn't work, either. So it comes down to this: When any President decides to go tripping off to make some political hay on a non-political trip, the taxpayers will just have to pay and like it.
ideas:
"The future depends on people with ideas." This statement helps explain the work at IBM today: seeking and finding new ways to handle information, planning and building new machinery for the task, exploring wholly new methods... The demand for ideas has never been greater.
Check with your college placement officer and make an appointment with the IBM representative who will be on campus interviewing. Ask for our brochures. IBM is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
If you cannot attend the interview, write: Manager of College Relations., IBM Corp., 590 Madison Ave., New York 22, N. Y.
MOVE AHEAD: SEE IBM OCT.31,NOV.1
University Daily Kansan
NEED A RIDE? NEED RIDERS?
Riding in a Group Saves Money
Find that group under "Transportation" in your
DAILY KANSAN CLASSIFIEDS
Monday, Sept. 30, 1963
Law Entrance Tests
Law school admission tests, required of all prospective law students, will be offered here Nov. 9.
Applications must be submitted to the Educational Testing Service at Princeton, N.J., by Oct. 26 with a $12 registration fee, and are available at the Law School office.
Jumper's No Junior
ORANGE. Mass. — (UPI) — John Lawler, a Manchester, Conn., broker who will be 64 next birthday, claims to be the nation's oldest sport parachutist. He has been taking lessons at the Orange Airport parachuting center.
WORDS: THEIR CAUSE AND CURF
Today let us take up the subject of etymology (or entomolog, as it is sometimes called) which is the study of word origins (or insects, as they are sometimes called).
Where are word origins (insects) to be found? Well sir, sometimes words are proper names which have passed into the language. Take, for instance, the words used in electricity: ampere was named after its discoverer, the Frenchman Andre Marie Ampere (1775-1836); similarly, ohm was named after the German G.S. Ohm (1781-1854), watt after the Scot James Watt (1736-1819), and bulb after the American Fred C. Bulb (1843-1912).
There is, incidentally, quite a poignant little story about Mr. Bulb. Until Bulb's invention, all illumination was provided by gas, which was named after its inventor Milton T. Gas
who, strange to tell, had been Bulb's roommate at Cal Tech! In fact, strange to tell, the third man sharing the room with Bulb and Gas was also one whose name burns bright in the annals of illumination—Walter Candle!
Candle and Gas, bitter and impoverished at the ages respectively of 75 and 71, went to sea as respectively the world's oldest and second oldest cabin boy. Bulb, rich and grand, also went to sea, but he went in style—as a first-class passenger on luxury liners.
The three roommates were inseparable companions in college. After graduation all three did research in the problems of artificial light, which at this time did not exist. All America used to go to bed with the chickens, and many fine citizens were, alas, severely injured falling off the roost.
Well sir, the three comrades—Bulb, Gas, and Candle—promised to be friends forever when they left school, but success, alas, spoiled all that. First Candle invented the candle, got rich, and forgot his old friends. Then Gas invented gas, got rich, bankrupted Candle, and forgot his old friends. Then Bulb invented the bulb, got rich, bankrupted Gas, and forgot his old friends.
For three years they drifted in the dinghy, shaking hands and singing the Cal Tech rouser all the while. Then, at long last, they spied a passing liner and were taken aboard.
Well sir, strange to tell, all three were aboard the ill-fated Lusitania when she was sunk in the North Atlantic. And strange to tell, when they were swimming for their lives after the shipwreck, all three clambered aboard the same dinghy!
Well sir, chastened and made wiser by their brush with peril, they fell into each other's arms and wept and exchanged forgiveness and became fast friends all over again.
They remained fast friends for the rest of their days, which, I regret to report, were not many, because the liner which picked them up was the Titanic.
What a pity that Marlboros were not invented during the lifetimes of Bulb, Gas, and Candle. Had there been Marlboros, these three friends never would have grown apart because they would have realized how much, despite their differences, they still had in common. I mean to say that Marlboros can be lit by candle, by gas, and by electricity, and no matter how you light them, you always get a lot to like—a filter, a flavor, a pack or box that makes anyone—including Bulb, Gas, and Candle—settle back and forswear pettiness and smile the sweet smile of friendship on all who pass!
© 1963 Max Shulman
Etymology is not the business of the makers of Marlboro Cigarettes, who sponsor this column. We deal in rich tobacco and fine filters. Try a pack soon.