80th Year, No.37
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
Tuesday, Nov. 4, 1969
Chancellor refuses BSU queen demand
By CAROLYN BOWERS and KENNETH CUMMINS Kansan Staff Writers
Chancellor E. Laurence Chalmers Jr. refused the Black Student Union's (BSU) demand to crown a black Homecoming queen in a confrontation Monday.
The group pressed their demand, first made in a meeting Friday, during a 20-minute session in the Cancellor's office.
The 40 students demanded that the black queen be crowned during halftime ceremonies of the KU-Colorado football game Saturday, when the University Homecoming queen will be crowned.
The BSU first discussed their demands downstairs, then decided to confront Chalmers, who was in a meeting at the time.
Referring to the Chancellor, Jerry Mumford, Lawrence sophomore and BSU vice-president, said, "He's downgrading our women by placing them second to white women."
One student referring to the administration said, "To them we're just a bunch of kids and we don't even belong."
Although the matter of a black homecoming queen seemed trivial, Mumford said, it was a start for black persons toward gaining their place in the University.
One student said that not all the black students had tickets to Saturday's game.
"We'll get even if we have to crash the gate down," another remarked.
We're going to have our queen, one way or another." Mumford said.
Then a student suggested going upstairs to see the Chancellor.
"He skipped town," John Spearman, Lawrence sophomore, said.
"We'll go upstairs and wait," the student replied.
"You might be waiting until next June, Spearman said.
Several students then voiced approval of the idea and a group of about 25 marched upstairs.
Filing into the Chancellor's private office, they waited for Chalmers, who left a
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Photo by Joe Bullard
Chalmers listened, but refused
Chancellor E. Laurence Chalmers Jr. listened as Darryl Bright, Maywood, Ill., senior and Black Student Union president, demanded the crowning of a black Homecoming queen.
Nixon rejects hasty pullout
WASHINGTON — Leaders of antiwar demonstrations scheduled later this month ridiculed President Nixon's war policy speech as disappointing and insulting, predicting that his comments will only drive more protesters into the streets.
"I think, in a sense, the speech is a clear impetus to our efforts to bring large numbers of people to Washington," said Ted Johnson, a leader of the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. That group is sponsoring a Nov. 13-15 march on Washington.
Apollo 12 launch set
Conrad and lunar module pilot Alan L. Bean, 37, are scheduled to land on the eastern edge of the moon's Ocean of Storms Nov. 19 while command module pilot Richard F. Gordon, 40, remains in lunar orbit in the command ship Yankee Clipper.
CAPE KENNEDY—Apollo 12's astronauts plan to set out on a 10-day mission next Friday that will start returning scientific dividends from America's $25 billion moon flight investment.
Lebanese conflict ends
JERUSALEM—Their two-week conflict with the Lebanese officially ended. Arab guerrillas today returned to the Viet Cong-like war to regain Arab lands occupied by the Israelis.
WASHINGTON (UPI)—President Nixon Monday night rejected demands for a hasty U.S. pullout from Vietnam and appealed to "the great, silent majority" of Americans to support his course of carefully staged withdrawals keyed to Communist activity.
In an eagerly awaited, 33-minute speech broadcast nationwide from his White House office, the President pledged he eventually would get all American forces back home. But he warned that a "precipitate withdrawal," was not possible.
Nixon said he had a timetable for removing all U.S. combat troops from Vietnam, but refused to make it public. If he did, he said, the Communists would simply wait "and then move in." The timetable could change, he added, if the Communists increase their assaults significantly.
The reaction to Nixon's appeal for greater domestic support of his policies was predictable.
House Republican leader Gerald R. Ford endorsed the President's message completely and declared: "We must not have an American Dunkirk in Vietnam." But Sen. Albert Gore, D-Tenn., said American hopes had been "raised and cruelly dashed."
Ted Johnson of the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which is organizing a protest march on Washington Nov. 15, said it was "a war speech, not a peace speech," one that was "an insult to the intelligence of the American people."
Unlike his May 14 Vietnam address, which stressed a negotiated settlement with mutual troop withdrawals, Nixon's speech Monday clearly revealed his growing lack of faith in the possibility of progress at the Paris talks.
He appeared at times to assume there would never be a mutual withdrawal or a diplomatic settlement of the war. Instead, he concentrated on his flexible plan for gradual U.S. disengagement under conditions that would leave the Saigon government strong enough to hold its enemies at bay.
Even before he was inaugurated, Nixon said, he made two private offers to Hanoi through an unnamed individual for a rapid settlement of the war. Other private initiatives were made in Paris, through the Soviet Union and through other secret channels, he said.
"The effect of all the public, private and secret negotiations which have been undertaken since
the bombing halt a year ago and since this administration came into office on Jan. 20 can be summed up in one sentence—no progress whatever has been made except agreement on the shape of the bargaining table."
Nixon warned that if Communist infiltration or American casualties increase while the United States is trying to scale down the fighting, "it will be the result of a conscious decision by the enemy" that will be met by "strong and effective measures."
The President replied in a conciliatory tone toward youthful demonstrators demanding an immediate end to the war. Yet he made clear that war decisions (Continued to page 13)
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Candidates battle in off-year state and city hall elections
By United Press International
Candidates for two state governorships and a handful of big city mayorships fired their final campaign shots Monday on the eve of today's off-year elections.
In addition to the governorship races in New Jersey and Virginia, city hall battles are on tap in New York, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Detroit.
President Nixon has personally involved his political prestige in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections which observers view as nip and tuck. Nixon made a one-day campaign swing into New Jersey on behalf of the GOP candidate, Rep. William T. Cahill, who is opposed by former Gov. Robert B. Mevner.
The President also went into
Virginia to endorse the Republican contender, Linwood Holton, who is trying to capture the governorship for the GOP for the first time in a century. Democrat William C. Battle, the son of a former governor and Kennedy administration ambassador to Australia, opposes Holton.
The New York City mayoralty battle is a three-way contest in which incumbent John V. Lindsay has forged into the lead as an independent-Liberal candidate after being rebuffed in the GOP primary earlier this year.
The New York Daily News poll which is known as an accurate barometer predicted Lindsay would roll up 48 per cent of the vote compared to 27 per cent for
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