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University Daily Kansan Wednesday. May 5. 1954
KU Grad Receives Top Honor for Newsman
To a University graduate has gone one of the highest honors that can be given newspapermen, a Pulitzer prize for local reporting.
Alvin S. McCoy, Kansas correspondent of the Kansas City Star, this week earned the prize for a job well done, a bit of undercover work that was largely overlooked by most newspapers and magazines throughout the nation.
Mr. McCoy, a Star reporter for 24 years, was awarded a $1,000 prize for his series of exclusive stories which led to the resignation under fire of C. Wesley Roberts as Republican national chairman.
Only a few area newspapers picked up his expose in its early stages but Mr. McCoy's constant ferreting for facts forced other papers to pick up the story, thus letting the rest of the nation in on the fine job Mr. McCoy had done.
Last year's Kansan board dinner speaker, Mr. McCoy broke the Roberts story last February. Six weeks later, when a special committee of the Kansas legislature said it was "firmly convinced that there had been a violation of the spirit of the law" by Roberts, the chairman resigned his high political post.
Mr. McCoy discovered that Mr. Roberts had received a $10,000 fee for the sale of an insurance company building in Norton to the state of Kansas, definitely not in the spirit of the law and making him a person unfit to hold the high GOP office.
Freedom of the press and the peoples' right to know never will be seriously challenged so long as there are reporters of the caliber of Mr. McCoy. —Stan Hamilton
Bill to Prohibit Liquor Ads Another Dry Control Attempt
Scheduled to be heard by the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce this month is a bill that would prohibit the transportation in interstate commerce of advertisements of alcoholic beverages.
This bill is simiar to one introduced in the Senate in 1952 which failed by one vote.
Not only would this bill stop liquor advertising in national magazines and newspapers of general circulation, it would also stop the advertising of alcoholic beverages on any radio station or network program that could be heard in more than one state.
The supporters of such bills seem to think that the way to lick the liquor "evil" is by keeping the public from knowing the stuff is for sale. A rather ambiguous assumption to our way of thinking.
Although to a certain extent, extensive advertisements may tend to make a small percentage of the people indulge who would not ordinarily do so, we doubt if they have any very great effect.
Most people have rather strong feelings on the subject; they either do or they don't, and seeing a liquor advertisement isn't going to sway many people's judgment.
On the other hand, the liquor business is a competitive industry, and legislation to curtail the industry could work a hardship on a fairly large group of workers in that industry.
The liquor advertisements that reach the public are paid for by different producers, each boosting his own product, and are not aimed at "driving to demon rum" the poor innocents of our country.
Nobody complains at the advertisements of the various producers of motor cars, but one might say if people didn't drive cars they wouldn't have wrecks.
In the final analysis it all boils down to an attempt by a small segment of the population of this country to legislate morals for the rest of the people.
This legislation of morals was tried in the days of prohibition, and it didn't work. Do the sponsors of this bill think people have changed that much in such a short time?
-Don Tice
Maybe the Communists are sincere in their bargaining for Far Eastern settlements at the Geneva conference, but to us it looks like nothing but more Dienbienphoey on the part of the Reds.
Major Parties Historically Similar
Like Tweedeldum and Tweedeldee, the Republican and Democratic parties have often been identical, history shows. And in oscillating from conservative to radical, both have met the other coming and going, and both have parked on measures previously supported—then abandoned—by the other.
First, the party similarities today: These can be found in nearly every two-party system and particularly in the heterogeneous U.S. Since labor, farmers, minorities, business and many other interests must be combined within only two parties, and since both parties must try to attract as many interests as possible to have a majority, similarity is almost inevitable.
Party differences today can be similarly explained. There is a contrast in constituent income. Since 1892, the Democrats have been the party of the less affluent, and the Republicans have been the party of wealth. Although both parties embrace all income groups, one could probably say that the center of gravity in the Democratic party is toward those with less material wealth.
support, although some political experts took over that that racial group is switching to Eisenhower. In the 1952 election, however, they were behind Stevenson almost to a man. Depression conditions and Roosevelt's executive order banning segregation in wartime industries brought them to the Democratic party, despite the fact that a Republican President, Lincoln, freed them from slavery.
One fundamental difference has predominated however. Since the inception of the present-day Republican party, it has remained steadfastly conservative, although varying in degree of conservatism. In contrast, the Democratic party is now and has been since the late 1800s the party of liberalism, that term being defined as open-mindedness and readiness to accept change.
There is a difference in party constituency in educational level. In 1948, 70 per cent of the nation's college graduates voted for Dewey. But this may well be a subsidiary of the former difference—for a college graduate has enhanced income possibilities and may vote Republican for that reason.
from slavery. These are differences in party constituency. There are also great differences between the individual members of each party. Some Democrats are often far to the right of liberal Republicans—and many members of both parties stay close to the middle of the road.
But due to the difference in constituency, the groups they include, and the issues they embrace, the Democrats are liberal, and to the left in social reforms and economy regulation, while the Republicans tend to balk at both ideals. Foreign policy differences have tended to disappear, with the advent of President Eisenhower's "bold, new foreign policy."
Republicans pick up much of their strength in the rural areas. Only one city in the U.S. of more than a half million population went Republican in 1948. That was Cincinnati. The larger cities almost always vote Democratic.
Another difference is the treatment of minority groups—which, again, cannot be entirely separated from the urban Democratic predominance because most of the minority groups—other than Negroes—live in cities. Traditionally, the Democrats have been the party of, sometimes by, and nearly always for, the minorities.
And, there are historical bases for each of these differences. The Democratic belief in the beginning was liberal—at least, liberal for its day. Thomas Jefferson trusted only a few to vote, it's true, but Alexander Hamilton trusted hardly anyone.
Andrew Jackson attracted liberal sentiment during his Democratic regime, and latter-day Democrats learned—via the unhappy route of several decades out of national office as Southern landowners brought the party rightward in the 1860s and lost elections—that liberalism was a winning thing to stand for. William Jennings Bryan's economic liberalism never won, but his policies were inadequate, because many persons still thought of the party as one that caused the Civil war. Woodrow Wilson's international liberalism won only because the Republican party was split by Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moosers, but Franklin D. Roosevelt's political and social and economic and international liberalism—stuck a responsive chord in depression-weary America. And the slogan now—or before the last election which was really a contest of personalities—is "Liberalism pays." —Letty Lemon
The Democratic party draws heavily on Negro
(Editor's note: This is the first of two articles by Letty Lemon on the background, similarities, and differences of the Republican and Democratic parties.)
Good Horse Gets 'Heave'
There once was a noble horse, acclaimed by all other horses as a great scientist-horse.
This horse, we'll call him Dobbin, was somewhat of an eccentric and an introvert, until one got to know him, that is. Actually he had spent much of his life studying in horse schools and hadn't had much time to devote to the lighter things in life. Let the devil-may-care horses gambol and play, he thought. I am out to do things for all horsehood.
Now Dobbin had been chosen by high officials in the horse nation to develop a powerful new weapon to combat pesky horse flies. He already had made his name by inventing a super-bomb to combat mosquitoes. It was dangerous to horses, yet, but they considered it worth the risk to wipe out the mosquito menace.
Dobbin looked with awe at his new task—his horse sense told him this might once and for all be the end of horse flies, but also could be the end of the horses!
But, being a trusty horse, Dobbin went about his new business with the vigor for which he was noted. And he succeeded in producing the new repellent—the HF-bomb, HF for horse fly, that is.
But then the important and supposedly wiser horses found that Dobbin had been seen with horses of a different color, a color not worn by the best of horses. Dobbin was given his pink slip and was rebuked publicly in the newspapers and by officials:
—Stan Hamilton.
He denied not that he had been friendly with the off-color horses. He just wanted to be friendly with all horses. Today Dobbin is back in his pasture where curiosity seekers peer at him and judge him even though it is he who is given credit for finding a way to rid the world of mosquitoes and horse flies.
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every afternoon during the University year except mid-April and examination periods. Entered second class matter Sept. 17, 1910 at Lawrence and under act on March 3, 1872.
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