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University Daily Kansan
Monday. Nov. 15, 1954
Real Equality Goal Of Court Decision
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . . they are endowed with certain unalienable rights . . . life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
Thus it is summed up for us in the Declaration of Independence—the American idealistic dream—too idealistic. It didn't take into account the prejudices which can be harbored in ignorant minds.
This declaration of freedom grew out of discontent—discontent for overbearance, expressions of superiority, which hit at the very heart of the patriots. Everywhere shouts of freedom rang out. Freedom—for everyone but the slave.
Then a statesman appeared on the scene—a figure who brought much controversy with him to the White House. He, like the patriots of the Revolutionary war, was motivated by the intense desire to gain freedom—but freedom with no exceptions.
Abraham Lincoln legally won a victory when the Emancipation Proclamation was resolved in 1865—won a victory to an extent. The Proclamation stated in essence that facilities for the Negroes may be separate if they are equal to those afforded the whites.
"This separate but equal" clause, down through the years, has given rise to an inexhaustible amount of discrimination. Everywhere it is seen, in our social system, housing system, and most of all in our educational system.
In most southern states, the educational appropriations for instance, per capita for white children, far exceed those for Negroes. Often colored teachers are paid less than whites with similar qualifications.
The results of these inequities on the masses of Negroes are often deplorable. Separate schools fail to prepare the child for life in a democratic community. Separate schools provide the fuel for discrimination.
Perhaps the idea that this situation of the Negro and the white was clearly not democracy as we like to boast of it urged the nine justices to decide on May 17, 1954, to do away with this myth known as "separate but equal."
Thus democracy won another great victory, but this time the victory was won without firing a single shot. The nine justices of the U.S. Supreme court ruled unanimously against segregated public schools. —Karen Hilmer
'This Week at KU'
An opera and philosophy lecturer are standouts in this week's full schedule of events at KU.
Opera Today Tops Bill Of Varied Events Here
The Goldovsky Opera Theater production opening the 1954-55 Concert Series course at 8:20 p.m. today in Hoch Auditorium is an opera for people who shy away from "long hair stuff." The New England Opera Theater will present a modernized version—re-written in idiomatic English—of Rossini's "The Barber of Seville." The Christian Science Monitor has hailed the new version "a masterpiece of operatic reconstruction." It's an event one can hardly afford to miss. Students will be admitted on ID cards.
Three one-act plays will be presented at 8 p.m. today. Tuesday and Wednesday by the Studio Theater at Green Little Theater. Only 50 cents admission is charged for an evening's entertainment. Geoffrey Moore, exchange professor from England, will continue his series of lectures on "The Spirit of Modern Literature" at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Strong auditorium with a disussion of T. S. Eliot.
A Yale University philosopher ranked in the same class with William James, John Dewey and George Santayana will be on the campus for three days this week. Dr. Bland Blanshard, first of this year's Humanities lecturers, will speak on "The Scholar and the Gentleman" at 8:20 p.m. Tuesday in Fraser theater, and to English classes on "The Art of Reflective Writing" at 3 p.m. today in Fraser
Student Union activities will sponsor a Records dance in the Trail Room of the Union at 8 p.m. Wednesday. The Museum of Art continues to present its fine series of Record concerts at 12 noon and 4 p.m. daily, and will show two films on art Thursday at 7:30 and 9 p.m. "Orpheus," a French film with English titles, is the Film series offering at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Hoch auditorium. The traditional and inspiring All-Musical vespers will be presented at 3:30 p.m. Sunday at Hoch.
Schweitzer's Mission is to Love,Serve
Albert Schweitzer is probably the most gifted genius of our age, as well as its most prophetic thinker.
A doctor four times over—in philosophy, in theology, in music, and in medicine—he was earning three of these distinctions while in his twenties, an age when most men are still serving their apprenticeship, in one.
What is rarer still, his practical achievements and manual skill have kept pace with his scholarship. He is a surgeon, a self-t a u g h t architect and builder, an agriculturalist, an organist a n d consultant in organcraft. He h a s proved his ability further as an administrator.
A. Schweitzer
ministrator 1] n founding, organized in maintaining a hospital in the tropics.
Perhaps many persons of college age today, although familiar with his name and his work in Africa, did not really know of the greatness of Albert Schweitzer until he was awarded the Nobel Peace prize for 1952.
What is the background of this man? At 30, he astonished Europe by renouncing brilliant careers in music and theology to study medicine. Driving himself relentlessly, he became a doctor of medicine, a surgeon and a student of psychiatry. At the same time, he was curate at St. Nicholas church in Strasbourg and published two brilliant, explosive theological works: "The Quest of the Historical Jesus" and "Paul and His Interpreters."
Then, on March 26, 1913, at 38, he and his wife out for French Equatorial Africa to build a hospital in the jungle at Lambarne. Since that time, this hospital for the benefit of the natives in that area has been his chief concern, although his other careers—if anything, have been enhanced through the years.
For the most of the past 41 years, he has worked in his jungle hospital, healing the sick and making Lambarene a universal symbol of reverence for life. And here, is stated the greatest of all of Dr. Schweitzer's thoughts and works.
Respect for life! Respect for all that breathes! In this idea Schweitzer sees the real solution of the question of the relationship of man to the world. He is the missionary who has understood the true object of missionary endeavor—to bring light to those who sit in darkness, and to redeem oneself by atoning for the sins of Christendom.
There is no sentimental piety in Schweitzer, no fanaticism. He goes his way calmly, and is full of humor. But everything he undertakes is animated by an incredible gentleness.
To Albert Schweitzer, the meaning of his life in the jungle is not unlike that of the rest of the world—wherever sacrifice, courage and service are needed, there is your Lambarene.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
The weaving of Harris tweed is entirely a cottage industry, says the National Geographic Society. To meet standards set by the Harris Tweed Association, the cloth must be made from "pure virgin wool produced in Scotland, spun, dyed and finished in the Outer Hebrides and handwoven by the islanders at their own homes."
Georgia Wallace
"Naw, he wasn't the hero of the game—he got his pants ripped off on the last play."
'Across College Campuses'
They're Talking About K-State, Yale, Cornell
Lee Ruggles writing in the Kansas State Collegian Nov. 5 says he thinks "a lot of people are missing the boat" in the current furore over the article, "Can Our Teachers Read and Write?" in Harper's magazine by K-State's Dr. James D. Koerner. "There is little reason to object to Dr. Koerner's raising the question of whether the competency of his 28 class members is any indication of the ability of a large number of teachers in our primary and secondary schools," he said. "Our only question is what if his contentions are correct?" . . . and "What we would like to know is that if Koerner is correct what is being done to remedy the situation?"
"Berry Patch" columnist in the Cornell University Daily Sun says he is "forced to disagree" with the recent stand of the Yale Daily News in support of the prohibitive order issued by the United Press female sportswriter. (For the uninformed: the sole female on the UP sports staff, Miss Faye Lloyd, was denied the right to sit in the pressbox during the Army-Yale football game on a recent Saturday.) It seems the Cornell Daily's female sports editor has already been allowed to shatter tradition by sitting in such a sacred sanctuary. Pointing to woman suffrage and female competition with the male in almost every field today, the Cornell "Berry Patch" writer noted that "precedents no matter how long established and apparently entrenched are due to fall."
One of the most elaborately planned hoaxes in college newspaper publishing was carried out last week by some enterprising members of the Cornell University Daily Sun staff. A long-standing football rivalry with Syracuse University led to the hoax—the publication and distribution of a phony issue of the "Syracuse Daily Orange." A Cornell society calling its "Ithaca's Only Syracuse Newspaper" worked several weeks to duplicate DO typographical style, learn the rival newspaper's schedule of publication, etc. More than 6,000 copies of the bogus paper were printed and distributed on the Syracuse campus one day of the hoax. Featured were stories proclaiming "Grid Scandals Rocks Hill as NCAA Acts," "Morning Raid Uncovers Drinking at Residences," and "Gallup Predicts Win for Cornell Tomorrow." Syracuse U. readers said they thought it was "the best copy of the DO this year," and paid up to $1 for hard-to-get extra copies. The real DO came out two hours later. A fictional account of how "pranksters" published the fake paper was carried in the Cornell Sun the same day.
Dot Taylor, Amy DeYong