(Reprinted from the Kansas State Collegian)
Big Seven Drawing May Revise Athletics
Last night the powers that be in the Big Seven conference spun the wheel of fortune to pick their representative to the NCAA regional basketball playoff without anyone stepping on the brake.
And once more, just as in 1950, the officials showed the Big Seven's keen powers of perception, this time by basing the decision on a drawing.
Only this time Kansas University lost.
Sure, KU beat Colorado twice this season, but don't forget Hawks, we whipped you guys twice in 1950 when you were selected over us. Only that time there wasn't a drawing. You won on your good looks by a three-man vote.
Which all goes to prove how much better a system the Big Seven now has for breaking a tie. We don't fool around with anything like a playoff game on a neutral court which would decide the better team. We either send three little men off into a huddle to pick the winner, or draw a name. And, Hawks, as you have now found, you have only a 50-50 chance of winning on a drawing.
A medium-sized room is adequate for almost any except the most prodigious toss. No longer do we need almost a hundred or so athletic scholarships. Who needs a hundred people at a drawing flip? Compete, hire paid coaches, lousex referees, and the
This could mean a new innovation in the field of athletics. We can settle all athletic contests by drawing out of a hat. No longer do we need a stadium and a Field House.
Chartered airplanes, high-paid coaches, lousy referees, and the multitude of other things that go to make up college athletics will be a thing of the past. All we need is one drawer.
All of which might jeopardize the office of executive secretary of the conference. After all, what would he do?
This is the way we pick our winners.
Not that we don't think Colorado should represent us. We do, and we wish them the best of luck. We just think that something should be done before this situation repeats itself.
—Lee Ruggles, Sam Logan
Water Trouble
Louisville. Ky. —(U.P.)—Mayer Andrew Broadadw recently agreed with his constituents that Louisville's water tastes bad. At a meeting of the Louisville Water Co., directors, the mayor confessed he uses bottled spring water at his home. The disagreeable taste and smell of the city's water has been blamed on bacteria detergents, and various industrial wastes in the Ohio river.
Underground
Redmond, Ore. —(U.P.)—City officials see the huge underground caves which extend beneath the city as a state park and a tourist attraction. But one resident has a different idea of how the caverns should be used. R. S. Roduner says the damp, dark caves are ideal for mushroom growing and he'd like to start growing them commercially if the city fathers would give him permission.
NATIONAL SAFETY COUNCIL
P.E. 80 Years Ago
Carbondale, Ill.—(U.P.)The physical education course at Southern Illinois University has come a long way from its founding in 1874. The first university catalog listed the purpose of the course as "to give grace and symmetry to the frame, and volume and culture to the voice."
West Warwick, R.I. — (U.P.)—West Warwick police have locked up many bads eggs, but a chicken only once. The chicken was found wandering around a city street. Police put it in a cell for the night.
Night Roost
UNIVERSITY Dailu Hansan
University of Kansas Student Newspaper News Room KU 251 Ad Room KU 376 Member of the Kansas Press Assm., Nate Assm., Ann Assm., Associated Collegiate Press Assm. Represented by the National Advertising Service, 420 Madison Avenue, N.Y. City, NY. Represented by the University $4.50 a year (add $1 a semester if in Lawrence). Published in Lawrence, Kan. every afternoon during the University university holidays and examination periods. Entered second class matter Sept. 17, 1910 at Lawrence, Kan. Post Office under act
'Old Hickory Typified U.S. Success Story
BUSINESS STAFF
Business mgr. Jane Megafinn
Administrative mgr. Ann Meyer
Nat. adm. mgr. Susana Berry
Classified adv. mgr. Wendell Sullivan
Circulation mgr. Rodney Davis
Burial mgr. Brandon
No man can live in the public memory for nearly two centuries unless he is worthy of a great place in history.
Executive editor    Shirley Piatt
Managing editor ... Tom Sawyer
Editor ... Ben Belt, Vgela Gasson, Ed Howard
News editor    Tom Shannon
Assistant ... Lely Lemson
Sports editor   Lyle Bronson
Assistant ... Dan Lambert
Society editor   Elizabeth Wohlgemuth
Assistant    Karen Hilmer
Music editor    Hugh Humphrey
News advisor    C. M. Pickett
NEWS STAFF
EDITORIAL STAFF
Editorial editor Chuck Morelock
Assistants Sam Teaford, Don Tie
This week we celebrated the birthday of a man born 193 years ago, in such obscurity that it has been impossible to definitely establish his native state. Andrew Jackson, the "first popular choice of a people well out of leading-strings and particularly bent on going alone," typified the American success story.
Having been lawyer, district attorney, judge, representative, and senator before he was 31 years of age, Jackson achieved the rank of major general before he became chief executive of his country. A man who received the Presidency of such a nation as this is bound to leave an indelible mark to be seen by all the generations who follow him.
Many are the wise and respectable critics who have said that Jackson's role as a President did not leave a good example. Such esteemed contemporaries as Daniel Webster and Thomas Jefferson foresaw the downfall of the country if "Old Hickory" became President. Yet he had an immense popularity with the people, and he was greeted in Washington with an ardor which amazed Webster.
"If you would preserve your reputation, or that of the state over which you preside, you must take a straightforward determined course; regardless of the applause or censure of the populace, and of the forebodings of that dastardly and designing crew who, at a time like this, may be expected to clamor continually in your ears."
In Andrew Jackson's own words may be found the secret of his greatness, and a people who have been so much in the hearts of centuries may well note his philosophy.
At a banquet on Jefferson's birthday, Jackson gave a toast to "The Federal Union; it must be preserved." "When the time came he took vigorous, if not altogether consistent, steps to preserve it" Thomas Wentworth Higginson said in his "History of the United States."
Jeremiah S. Black has said of "Old Hickory." "He was a soldier unraveled for skill and intrepity, a patriot pure and faithful, and a statesman uniting the greatest and best qualities of a republican ruler." In John Spencer Bassett's biography, Andrew Jackson is shown as a man "badly educated and provincial, whose passions frequently overcast judgment." yet he was so well endowed by nature that he broke over these impediments and became a man of distinction."
It is for this quality that we remember. Andrew Jackson. "Old Hickok underwent a fellow his business took a 'straightfit' determined course."
If the Russians launched an atomic attack over Washington, most of the politicians wouldn't bat an eye lash. They would be too busy feeding with McCarthy.
Page 2 University Daily Kansan Wednesday, March 17, 1954
-Amy De Yong.
We see where a local theatre is bringing back an old hit, "The Grapes of Wrath." They timed it just right—the dusters seem to be returning to western Kansas.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
"Oh. Snarf isn't such a bad teacher—I had his course almost two weeks before I dropped it."
Letters
Editor, University Daily Kansan
Dear Sir;
I can not agree with your editorial of March 12. The individual who wrote it just did not have all of his facts straight.
He said, "There is a doubt—a great doubt—that prohibition would do anything towards correcting the nation's problems." This "doubt" exists primarily in the mind of the liquor industry, their friends and those of their customers who are more interested in being "socially accepted" than in the welfare of the people as a whole.
The dripping wet YALE INSTITUTE OF ALCOHOLIC STUDIES has announced that there are approximately 3 million of these unfortunate people, not to mention that the millions of "problem drinkers" who are rapidly on their way to becoming alcoholics.
Prohibition, if enacted, would immediately bring a big reduction in automobile accidents. In the long run, it would bring about a reduction in crime of all kinds sharply reduce our divorce rate and increase our prosperity by taking the money now in the liquor trade and putting it in legitimate lines of industry and in the banks. Most important of all, it will eventually put an end to alcoholism and alcohols, persons who are of little value to either themselves or society, their lives completely ruined by the alcoholic beverage industry.
The editorial said, "Probably nowhere in history will one find a greater farce." The gentleman is in grave error. National prohibition accomplished everything its advocates claimed, and this in spite of a bitterly hostile press and extremely bad enforcement. It was a "farce" only to the dispossessed beer and liquor corporations and their friends who wanted the amendment repealed so that they could have
their liquor irregardless of the harm that was done to the community.
The writer admits the churches were strong supporters of prohibition but apparently feels that they are of little importance, an all too prevalent attitude today. He is wrong when/he claims that the public in general was against prohibition. For if this were true Al Smith would have been elected President in 1928. Prohibition was the sole issue in the 1928 Presidential campaign yet the wet candidate, a very capable man and governor of New York State, was badly defeated and the few states he did carry went Democratic only on the memory of the Civil War as these states, excepting Louisiana, had adopted prohibition before the 18th amendment was submitted by Congress.
The statement that "meanwhile, the public was being poisoned by bad and unregulated liquor" is the usual crocodile tear you get from those opposed to prohibition but I haven't noticed them shedding any over the victims of "legal" liquor. As for the criminals, they existed before 1920 and continued after 1933 but with the 18th amendment gone the large newspapers stopped giving them the publicity they received during the 1920's.
The great metropolitan newspapers of the nation were strongly opposed to prohibition and did everything they could to discredit it. Whenever some bootlegger was injured, while resisting arrest, the press wept over the man for days and in some cases even weeks. Yet if a person who wanted the laws enforced was killed, no matter how cruelly, that fact was either stuck inside the newspapers or ignored. The same thing applied to statements from prominent persons favoring prohibition.
As an example, Chief Justice William Howard Taft spoke at a Yale alumni luncheon on June 20, 1923. His speech praising the effects of prohibition was printed on page 10 by the New York Times while many papers didn't even mention it.
Prohibition did everything its advocates claimed it would do. Prohibition was a farce only to the small group which sought to destroy it, the metropolitan press, the ex-liquor and beer manufacturers and a bunch of scheming, self-seeking politicians. The depression gave them their chance and they took it, thus destroying the finest program ever adopted by this nation.
Yours truly,
Howard L. Lydick
first year law
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