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University Daily Kansan Wednesday. March 28, 1956
Not A Politician?
Stevenson Spikes Own Cause
Unless the political candidate of today promises everything for ever and ever, he is considered a political freak. Adlai E. Stevenson, by this definition, is a freak's freak. That is why his campaign is going so poorly.
He is determined to qualify himself on broad issues because he knows there are no cut and dried answers like "reduce taxes." "rigid price supports" or "immediate desegregation." His stand on segregation is "gradualism." For such a stand he has alienated the North and the Negroes in the South.
Mr. Stevenson also has lost Negro favor in opposing the proposed amendment to deny federal aid to schools that refuse to integrate. Since there is only an emaciatingly slim chance of the bill leaving Congress with such an amendment attached, Mr. Stevenson realistically told Negroes, "You should not cut off your nose to spite your face."
He will not do otherwise because he doesn't believe otherwise. He has the honest and therefore politically liable reputation of saying what he believes. This quality of such statesmen as Stevenson explains the presence of so few of them in Congress. Many Congressmen would like to vote logically, but it simply isn't politically feasible.
Too often, to get elected, a candidate must lock up his conscience and put on his suit of stump-thumping self-confidence in order to win elections.
Mr. Stevenson's aim is not to win. His only aim is to fulfill his self-demanding quality for
sincerity and reason. Mr. Stevenson's sincerity and reason have won over professional groups, largely, and they happen to be the groups who can come closer to evaluating his qualities than the masses. But it's the masses who vote in candidates, and these are the people he hasn't been able to attract and capture.
To win the masses he would have to base his campaign on an emotional appeal. He has been begged constantly to do this, but he strictly forbids anything of the sort. He would have to deliver the "Give 'em hell, Harry," type of speech also but in place of this he prefers his involved sentences, intricate details, polysyllabic words and hand-hewn epigrams such as those used against Secretary of State John F. Dulles ("boasting of his brinksmanship—the act of bringing us to the edge of the nuclear abyss") and the one for "Republican . . . moderate progressivism" ("don't just do something! Stand there!").
Mr. Stevenson is in politics but not of it. Because he refuses to follow the time-proved methods of politicians, he has practically cut off the limb he is running on. He is too complicated, too aloof and too physically unimposing to do the successful campaigning of the stereotyped politician. Until he can fill in his deficiencies or until the American public can recognize a good man when it sees him, then the political scene is going to pass up the one and only man who will say with sincerity, "Of course, I'm not adequate to be President, but then neither is anyone else."
Ray Wingerson
Everyone Has Own Responsibility
World problems of today as seen by college instructors, news commentators, businessmen, and government officials concern such things as peace between nations, the Middle Eastern crisis, the foreign aid program, and segregation.
Many persons would agree that these are vital and distressing problems. But what causes these problems? Are love, gentleness, concern for others, understanding, or equality of opportunity responsible for the suffering of the world's people?
Inequalities may be intellectual, emotional, and physical as to color of skin or disability due to injury as well as to differences in ability. In regard to these characteristics, it is not equality per se that is unfortunate, but what is done with, or to, this inequality that often is sad. Unjust prejudice and personal lack of sensitive understanding of another may cause some factors to be weighed more heavily than they deserve.
There is, of course, much inequality in the world. Of necessity there must be inequality, for each person wishes to be an individual and to be able to use his individual talents. One man may be a doctor who uses his hands and skill to perform some delicate operation, while his brother may be a minister or a carpenter or a pilot for TWA. Each is a useful member of society so long as he is allowed to contribute his individual abilities.
No man or woman raised in a civilized culture would wish to admit that he wanted to make life harder or more unpleasant for his fellow man. But what does he feel in his heart? Perhaps his attitude is a socially unacceptable one which would be called by psychologists the "requirement of mourning." This is the demand made by the average or privileged person of the underprivileged one because he feels that person to be inferior, and expects him to realize his plight and to be unhappy or "mournful" because of it.
What does this lead to? In many cases it leads to a false feeling of superiority as the result of what may have been false evaluations. It is then one short step to resentment, aggressiveness, and actual malevolence and disregard for human dignity and worth.
Does this help the problem of human relations from which spring all the problems of the world? Each person should take a moment out to examine his real self. What about those beautiful humanitarian thoughts and ideas he has? If they are merely what he thinks—not what he does—they are only the thoughts of someone else which he recognizes as being morally "right." He cannot claim them as a part of himself.
A wise adage goes like this: "For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse the rider was lost, for want of a rider the army was lost, for want of an army the kingdom was lost."
The world may have a mass of huge problems that you as an individual person feel incapable of tackling. The world also has a little problem—you, your attitudes and the misunderstanding and suffering they may be causing. Are you capable of handling that problem?
For want of us and what we can do to further the fine art of human relations, a world may be lost.
—Nancy Collins
..Short Ones..
Dr. Harold Edgerton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a camera for the National Geographic Society that withstands pressure tests of 17,000 pounds to the square inch—more than the pressure of water at the bottom of the greatest known ocean depth, the challenger depth off Guam, where soundings show 35,640 feet or nearly seven miles.
We see that 45 students are going to Mexico for spring vacation. It would be a nice story if they were going to further their linguistic knowledge rather than just getting as far away from Lawrence as is possible in eight days.
Look for a mass movement to the city by the nations' farmers. It would be easier for them than sweating out the sliced, kicked, distorted, lengthened and postponed farm bill.
Daily Hansan
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Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays, and examination periods. Entered as second-class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at the college, post office under act of March 1873.
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Coal, oil, and the limestone essential to steelmaking are all three of fossil origin, says the National Geographic Society. Coal is the accumulated, digested and compressed vegetable debris of swampy lands. Oil is decomposed plant and animal life from ancient sea basins. Limestone is an accumulation of the skeletons of marine invertebrates.
A pheasant-like bird in Australia builds a nest, as big as a man's house, says the National Geographic Society. Using leaves, sticks and debris, Megapodius reinwardt constructs a home sometimes as much as 15 feet high and 50 feet in circumference. It lays its eggs deep in the pile where they are incubated by the heat of fermenting vegetation.