Page 2 University Daily Kansas Tuesday. Nov.17, 1953
Demos Have Chance To Win '54 Elections
The Democrats can win in 1954!
They can win, not only a majority in the Senate and the House, but a step to the Presidency as well. They can win, that is if they play their cards right and continue to campaign as they have in the off-year elections.
For example, Sen. Joe McCarthy opposes anything that comes up in the administration, be it a Republican measure or one by the Democrats. To him the important thing is that he is against it. The Republican attitude toward their losses in New York, Wisconsin, and New Jersey will also affect their popularity. They credit the losses only with dealing with local measures.
One advantage the Democrats have is the Republican party, the party in power. The advantage is that the GOP still behaves as if it were the party out of power.
The Republican party, at least as it is working in the Eisenhower administration, is a negative party. Republicans have evidently been out of power so long they have forgotten how a party in power should act.
However, victories in California are considered a true endorsement of the administration. How long will the people stand for their local issues to be the political football?
Is there a political issue anywhere in the world that isn't a local one to some extent? To some
group it is local and important and they don't like to be told they are unimportant.
To win, the Democrats will need a solid South again. They can regain the South and they very likely will in the near future. A sensible selection of candidates will do the job.
The national organization should hit strongly at the GOP for its failure to carry out such campaign promises as civil rights legislation, farm aid, price supports, revision on the Taft-Hartley bill, foreign spending, and foreign policy.
Above all else the next election should be one for the little man. Just as Eisenhower was elected by small groups, after a personality campaign, the Republicans can be defeated by these small groups.
So far the administration has been a tool of large groups, for large groups, and by large groups. The voter won't be impervious to this trend.
Another thing the Democrats should hit hard is the idea of Republican "government by postponement." Humility is a fine thing, but how long can a party refuse to act on developments because they don't know enough about them.
If they don't know enough about it they shouldn't be in politics in the first place. Eisenhower is particularly bad about inaction, claiming he doesn't understand the issues.
Things are looking up for the Democrats who are beginning to sense that it is "time for a change." —Ken Coy.
Grange Wields Power Against Bureaucracy
(Editor's note: This is the first in a series of three articles detailing the role of the three top organizations now in the news because of the farm price controversy).
Representing the American farmer in the present farm controversy are three organizations—the Farmers' Grange, American Farm Bureau federation, and the Farmers' Union.
The Grange is the oldest farm $ ^{5} $
The Grange is the oldest organization and the one generally regarded as the spokesman for conservative farmers. The National Grange of Patrons of Husbandry was founded in 1867 as a secret order to enhance the social and intellectual life as well as the economic life of the farmer. The organization reached its peak about 1874 and since then has declined in popularity.
The organization is federal, with county, state, and local granges, and above all, the National Grange, which maintains a Washington office.
The Grange has an elaborate ritual with titled officers and characterizes itself as a fraternal society completely nonpartisan in politics. Titles in the order are given an agricultural color, such as pomona, flora, master, and patron.
The Grange has more of a moral tone than other farm groups. It was an early advocate of women's suffrage, temperance, and prohibition.
The organization has been the champion of dairy interests. The Grange has joined with many other farm groups in proposing restrictions, heavy taxes, and outright bans on margarine.
Federal supervision of a cooperative credit system is favored. Agricultural research, rural electrification, crop insurance, reduction of farm tenancy, and conservation and forestry services are among the other measures approved.
Marketing agreements and quotas and the use of cooperative farm organizations for adjusting and stabilizing markets to the farmer in order to bolster prices are generally favored by the Grange.
In the case of federal government subsidies to the farmer to maintain prices, the Grange has violently opposed them. The Grange is against federal bureaucracy and asserts that education and health are state and local functions. It recommends federal legislation to restrict strikes and labor-management disputes and curb union activities interfering with normal and essential food-marketing services.
Foreign trade, the group believes, is to be encouraged through the two-price system based on stability of world markets and facilitated through international commodity agreements. Compulsory military training is opposed in favor of a federally supported physical-fitness program.
Although it avoids political endorsements and the sponsoring of nominees of its own, the Grange is still a pressure group for presenting conservative agricultural thinking.
Letters
-Elizabeth Wohlgemuth.
Two short items concerning the Campus Chest drive have appeared in the "Public Occurrences" column on the editorial page of the Daily Kansan during the last week. The article appearing in the Friday, Nov. 13 paper read as follows:
To the Editor:
"The Campus, Chest, unfortunately, probably will not meet the goal again this year. There are too many people not satisfied with some plans for spending the money."
In checking with some members of the Kansan staff, I found that the criticism of "some plans for spending the money" probably referred to the Centennial fund which is be- ganned by the community Chest. There are two things that I would like to point out with respect to this:
1. The Lawrence Community Chest receives this year 5 per cent of the total raised by the Campus Chest. Of this 5 per cent, only a small part would go to the Centennial fund.
2. Most important, however, is the fact that the Campus Chest Steering committee has made special effort to help students be allotted to the Centennial fund,
It is unfortunate that the writer of the article had incorrect information and that this adverse publicity resulted. The steering committee has made every effort to distribute the contributions to worthy and diversified causes. At this stage of the drive we have every hope of meeting the goal of $5,000. With continued fine support from the Kansan as a publicizing medium, and the generosity of KU's 7,000 students, the Campus Chest of 1953 will "go over the top."
Dick Smith, chair-
man of the Campus
Chest Steering
Committee.
Sincerely.
A University of Illinois dairy marketing specialist says dairy
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
"You'd think they'd want a picture window like that in FRONT of their house."
Robin Hood Shifts From Green to Red
In what is the most drawn-out of all ripening processes, Robin Hood, the legendary hero of Sherwood forest, has somehow rid himself of his mantle of forest green and become a Red.
According to a lady official who has some say-so about which book should be used in the public schools of Indiana, the Robin L. story is "just the same old Communist line." Therefore, the lady says, it has no place in books paid for by the public to be put before our youth.
Well now, we ask you—
Robin Hood is about the last person we expected to be a pinko. The way we heard it, he was the victim of a bad environment, and tried to do his level best about correcting conditions. This meant, according to the book we read, taking money from those who had too much and distributing it among those who didn't have enough.
What the lady from Indiana objects to most pointedly is this robbing of the rich to help the poor spruce up a bit. We think she's being too harsh with Robin Hood. Certainly, taking money isn't strictly legal, but we know plenty of patriots in this country who do it constantly without being called Reds.
Of course, our research on the Robin Hood story is pretty sketchy. We read the book by Sterling, and saw the Errol Flynn movie. Perhaps the Indiana textbook guardian has dug a little deeper. She may, for all we know, have proof that Mr. Hood distributed a few pamphlets with the money he gave to the poor. Then too, he may have carried a "Save the Rosenbergs" poster.
This gal may have hit on something. From now on, we won't allow the name of Robin Hood to be mentioned. What's more, we're going to look into a few other supposedly pure storybook heroes. We've always had our doubts about this Peter Rabbit fellow.
farmers should drink more milk. If each of the 10,000,000 people who live on dairy farms had drunk one extra glass a day last year, they would have used enough milk to reduce the government's stock by one-third.
Among circus animals, zoologists rank the chimpanzee first in inteli-
license, the orangutan second, and the elephant third.
—Tom Stewart.
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