Page 2
University Daily Kansan Monday, Oct. 12, 1953
IUS Magazine Gives U.S. Black Eye
Recently the All Student Council got from Prague, Czechoslovakia, copies of the World Student News, a magazine published by the IUS, International Union of Students—that might be called "independent" in Russia, "Red-Bolshevik" in America, or "not-anticommunist" in Britain.
Among the contributors of the issue there are English, Chilean, Italian, Portuguese and Indian students. A Russian wrote a report of a friendly tour of Great Britain that he made with a delegation of Russian students, invited by the National Union of Students of England, Wales and North Ireland. However, it will be starling for a KU student to see how much news of this pro-Communist paper actually comes from the American field.
First, the official invitation to the USNSO (U.S. National Student Organization) to attend the Third World Student Congress in Warsaw, Poland. The invitation—our readers know that it was rejected by the USNSO—has a rather humorous
beginning. "We fully realize that there are questions on which U.S. students have views different from those of the International Union of Students or their fellow students in France, India or the USSR . . . But these differences . . . render more precious this cooperation for increased international understanding."
There is also a letter from a student of the University of Michigan, saying that "the peace news is also excellent for keeping one abreast of IUS activities in the struggle of peace." No identity of the student is given. There follows a long story about Charlie Chaplin and the banning of his movies "from many states of the Union," even though they were just condemned only by institutions and organizations.
The magazine has also excerpts from a speech that Lucille Press, "a young American woman from New York," gave at a student convention in Vienna. One of the main issues was, of course, the investigations of U.S. colleges. "The witch hunt
against education has brought forth resistance in campuses across the nation. At the University of California in Los Angeles the student executive voted their 'emphatic disapproval of any interference with freedom of thought' . . . At Rutgers university, in New Jersey, most of the College of Pharmacy students demonstrated against the dismissal of two of their professors." There follows disapprovals of "political" firing of teachers, uttered by students of the University of Toronto, Canada, and of Wisconsin.
This news goes to students who have experienced different kinds of political investigations in their partly or entirely Communist countries. They will easily associate the American witch hunt with the full-fledged persecutions they know, and they will not be likely to feel the difference in degree between them. They will think of America as one of the many nations where one gets into trouble if his thoughts don't coincide with the bosses' thoughts.
As any decent Communist paper, the magazine cannot get along without a tip about the problems of the American Negroes. Among various information, it reprints an appeal of a YWCA convention stating that "the stalemate in providing legislation on the federal and state levels has made us fall short of the goal that every American citizen, regardless of race, sex, economic status or nationality, shall receive equal justice before the law and does not suffer the indignities of segregation and discrimination."
About the economic difficulties of Negro students, the magazine prints that "the ONLY Negro student attending Louisiana State university had to leave school because he couldn't afford to continue." No doubt that the same Communist paper would gladly reprint Ken Coy's editorial about the KU Negro students. At least Ken gives more figures.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
Al Traldi
"Now that we've boiled your paper down to this relevant material, I think you're ready to re-write."
---
ASC Needed to Head Anti-Segregation Move
Plans are now under way for Lawrence to celebrate its centennial. One hundred years of building and living have created a city here on the Kaw.
However, after 100 years, the people of Lawrence still persist in holding to one of the worst vices of society—secregation.
It has virtually been crammed down the throats of students who attend the University!
Here students gather from all over the United States and many countries of the world. Some of the sections represented have a poorer record, as far as civil rights are concerned, but many have a better one.
Regardless, students must go along with segregation. It is, first and last, a practice of the city of Lawrence, and not of the student body.
There are few if any cities in Kansas that have such a black record for respecting civil liberties. This is partly due to the lack of respect shown to many people who visit the University, the people who find it necessary to explain their skin
color in order to be served in city restaurants.
The time has come for the student body to speak out for the respect due its friends and the friends of the University.
Since this problem of civil rights concerns the students directly, it is a problem for the ASC. It would be impossible to put all the work onto the backs of the already busy ASC.
Many campaigns have been carried on in the past, but they have been quickly forgotten. One important fact on these attempts has been leadership
However, it could provide the essential leadership. It could direct the activities of the many organization leaders gladly participate in the movement.
With such organization it would be much harder to put off student demands with half-way remedies. It would be more difficult to embarrass students with an outmoded, backwoods superstition that shows nothing but an inability to think logically.
Ken Cov
United States Seen as Loser In Pending Egypt Agreement
In Cairo a spokesman has announced for Premier Mohammed Naguib's government that Britain and Egypt have reached an agreement in principle on the Suez Canal dispute.
If the United Nations declared an act of aggression threatening world peace and requiring action had occurred anywhere, the base would be available to Britain automatically. But, unless a war broke out, the United States would be left with
If an Anglo-Egyptian agreement is signed, more of the burden of defending the Middle East will rest on the United States. United States aid to Egypt—for one thing—is part of the price Egypt is asking before signing an agreement.
Defense plans will have to be readjusted once British troops are withdrawn. The British would evacuate the base within 18 months.
Under the proposed agreement, if Egypt or any other Arab league nation is attacked, Britain would be allowed to recovey the base at once.
Britain and Egypt would consult on reoccupation, should Turkey or Iran be attacked.
The first life insurance company in the United States had this title "The Corporation for Relief of Poor and Distressed Presbyterian Ministers" in 1759, a publication Widows and Children of Presbyterian Ministers." It was established in Philadelphia in 1759 by the Synod of the Presbyterian church.
the task of defending another essential area of the world.
—Elizabeth Wohlgemuth
Daily Transan
University of Kansas Student Newspaper News Room KJ1.251. Ad Room KJ37.32
Member of the Kansas Press Assn. National Editorial Assn. Inland Daily Press Representation by the National Advertising Service, 420 Madison Avenue, N.Y. City. Mail Subscription rates: $3 a semester or $6 a year. Printed at Lawrence, Published in Lawrence, Kan. every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. Unpublished. Entered second class matter Sept. 19, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., Post Office
EDITORIAL STAFF
EDITORIAL STAFF
**Editorial Assistant:** Jessie M. Betz
**Editorial Assistant:** Tom Stewart
NEWS STAFF
Executive Editor Clarke Keys
Managing Editors Ken Coy, Rozanne
News Editor Platt Chien Keen
News Editor Eileen Floyd
Society Editor Velma Gaston
Sport Editor Don Tice
Sports Editor Ed Howard
News-Editorial
BUSINESS STAFF
Adviser ... Calder M. Pickett
Business Manager Gordon Ross
Retail Adv. Mgr. Ed Smith
National Adv. Mgr. Jane Merretta
Circulation Mgr. Susan Berry
Classified Mgr. Ann Awinsworth
Business Adviser Gene Bratton
Name Withheld Letter Writers Like Anonymity
That many persons are afraid to be identified with their opinions is reflected by the current tide of "name withheld by request" letters coming into the Daily Kansan.
Because we feel this way, we feel the writer most to be admired of all the writers who have commented on the segregation issue is James Blair, college senior. Blair took a pro-segregation stand—one which many would endure, but one to which few would place their names. Although we disagree completely with what Blair said, we cannot help but accord him greater esteem than some other writers of letters—including those who think as we think.
Recent Daily Kansans show that the latest target for writers of anonymous letters is the segregation issue being explored by Ken Coy and others. This is, admittedly, a touchy question for me, but I quote for one to show sincerity in his beliefs on a matter than to place his name beneath what he has said?
What reasons can a person have for using such device?
We find nothing to admire in the person who lashes out at one of the "burning" issues from the shield of anonymity. By refusing to identify himself with the stand he has taken on a controversial matter, the writer as much as places himself among those who least deserve to be heard on the question.
Certainly, the one excusable motive for submitting an unsigned letter is that the writer might suffer from having his name attached to what he has written. However, we feel that this is the case in an almost-non-existent percentage of the examples.
Probably the most common reason for not signing a letter is that the writer is lacking in the courage to underwrite his convictions. When this is true, an unsigned letter (which is read by just as many as a signed one) is a cheap, foolproof escape mechanism.
The segregation question also provides numerous examples of the cheapest category of "name withheld" correspondents. These are the persons who write in a grand and fiery manner, exhorting readers to do this, to denounce that, to demand, to refuse, to snatch up the sword of freedom, etc., but refuse to sign their names to their letters.
Undoubtedly, many persons who disagree with the theme of this editorial will interpret it to mean that we hold other's opinions in contempt. This is not so. The whole question of stating opinion reduces itself, we think, to a matter of self-respect.
Tom Stewart
100%