KANSAN Comment
Taking a stand
No apologies from Clay Center are really necessary.
Three black members of the KU Symphony Orchestra suffered some very rude treatment from white families with whom they had been assigned to spend the night. It was an incident caused by sick and twisted viewpoints. People like this don't have to be tolerated.
KU doesn't need the help of this type of person. And Marquita Cross, Irving D. Curtis, and Claude Turner, the offended individuals, don't need their apologies. What is needed is a University policy to prevent any similar incident in the future.
Chancellor E. Laurence Chalmers Jr. has seen this need and reacted with admirable boldness. Chalmers issued a memorandum to KU deans, department heads, and program directors, concerning University-related trips. Assurances of equal treatment of all races should be gotten in writing, if necessary, he said.
Chalmers is not asking for apologies, or trying to clear up the "misunderstanding," or hoping that such a thing won't happen the next time. Instead, he is saying firmly that there is not going to be a next time. If the host can't guarantee fair and equal treatment then KU students are not going to be the guests. It's that simple.
A few years ago Robert Penn Warren said, "To wait for the regeneration of feeling is sentimentality, a self-flattering indulgence and an alibi . . . One of the surest ways for an intellectual recognition to change feelings is to put the recognition, in however minimal a way, into action."
Chalmers has obviously taken this very important step. He is not waiting for feelings to change; the time for waiting has long passed. Action is the only appropriate response and Chalmers' action was particularly encouraging.
Joe Naas
Is it drugs or us?
By MIKE SHEARER
Arts & Reviews Editor
Yes, Sen. Dodd, it would be very pleasant indeed if we could prove that the soldiers who comitted the My Lai massacre were suffering from what you call "marijuana toxic psychosis."
But there is a predominant fear among many of us who have been leery of the military for some time now that you are wrong.
When Newsweek quotes Col. George S. Patton admitting that he does "like to see the arms and legs fly," we become worried that maybe what you would like to believe is the effect of drugs is really the effect of degenerate savagery, brought about by a military which
concentrates on pure war and leaves the thinking and the feeling up to someone else.
"What people don't like to believe is that there is a real thrill in killing people," says Dr. Peter G. Bourne, who has served in Vietnam.
The truth is, Sen. Dodd, that the war in Vietnam is affecting our soldiers in a way far worse than marijuana could. Vietnam is bringing out a savagery which will not build men, as the Marine recruitment posters would suggest.
Vietnam is bringing out the savagery which is killing men.
And you, Sen. Dodd, might begin to consider remedies to the sin of having a passionless military and stop chasing shadows.
Sorel's News Service
A Czar is born
WASHINGTON—Attorney General Mitchell has acted to bar Belgian Marxist Dr. Ernest Mandel from revisiting the U.S. Mr. Mitchell and his wife are evidently more than a little concerned about a Communist take-over here. As Mrs, Mitchell remarked in a CBS interview on November's Washington antiwar demonstration: "I don't think the average Americans realize how desperate it is when a group of demonstrators, not peaceful demonstrators, but the very liberal Communists move into Washington ... my husband made the comment to me, looking out the Justice Department it looked like the Russian revolution going on."
Readers' write
Please advise Mr. Sokoloff that spiders have 8 legs and that ants and flies have 6. We highly suggest that Mr. Sokoloff enroll in our bugs and boys course (Entomology 5).
To the editor:
Entomology grad students
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★ ★ ★
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To the editor:
I notice that the movie "Alice's Restaurant" is given an R (restricted rating) and "The Undefeated" with John Wayne and Rock Hudson is given a G (general audiences) rating. "Alice's Restaurant" impressed me as a portrayal of a group of people struggling to show compassion and concern for each other. "The Undefeated" is a blood and guts production which romanticizes shooting, fighting, and other kinds of physical violence as the way to settle conflicts.
It is difficult for me to accept that we must protect our children from watching human beings attempt to help themselves by loving and caring for each other and yet suggest that it is all right to watch men act out their most violent impulses in the most destructive way possible.
What do we expect to happen to children when it is implied that shooting and killing are more virtuous than attempting to show love and concern for each other in our struggles for survival?
Sydney O. Schroeder, M.D.
Watkins Hospital
To the editor:
I have become increasingly disturbed by the so-called "fairweather" fans who belittle our team and its members and coaches during each of football games. At the game with Missouri the jeers and insults rang out particularly annoyingly from all sides around me. And, strangely enough, these were KU fans who were leveling the verbal attack at our team, rather than Tiger fans. As far as I can see, no one outside the university has been nearly so critical as those within its circle. Does this make sense?
I must confess to my off-and-on discontent with our effort, but it has been largely with students, not the team. In spite of the score against Mizzou, our Jayhawks played their most outstanding offensive game of the season. The team played well and the band marched and played well in its patriotic salute to Missouri, our conference's representative to the Orange Bowl. And those fans who cannot recognize and appreciate this effort on the part of all the players, coaches, cheerleaders, and numerous behind-the-scenes people to create a lively Saturday afternoon entertainment for students who are busy doing other things are missing nine-tenths of the game. Our team is made up of people, largely the same people as last year. And they represent our university. The University of Kansas is hardly less for having a 1-9 football season than it was before the season began. Indeed, this season has been a true test of fan support (one that has been largely failed).
My best thanks go out to the members of the team, and the coaches, particularly Pepper Rodgers, who have had enough to worry about without being the absorbers of the brunt of a lot of student hostility that feels compelled to caluminate and be little a 1-9 team (especially if it is their own).
From all this an essential question arises that should be answered concerning our effort this past season. Are we so hung-up about winning that we cannot accept defeat on the field? If we cannot, then we had better reappraise and reconstruct our present values. And just remember that we, as fans, are the largest part of the "team," and we failed this season in performing our job. What's our excuse?
David Radd
Idaho Falls, Idaho junior
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