Page 2
University Daily Kansan Thursday, May 14. 1953
State Hot Potato -
by Dick Bibler
Ned Hears Brer Josh's Tale of Woe
Editor's Note: This is another in a series of editorials on the Kansas flood protection mission, and the stories and factions and have given viewpoints of staff members and others. The following editorial were by a member of the Kansas Kanast队. The given columnist views.
Poor Uncle Josh! He lives up in the Blue Valley north of Manhattan. And the federal government is contemplating yanking Josh's land, that land he has built up, right out from under him.
Of course if the government goes ahead with its plan to construct the Tuttle Creek dam, it will make some concessions to Josh. Such as paying a fair price for the land that eventually will be inundated by the backwaters from the dam.
(Confidently the Washington bigshots are offering more than Josh ever thought he could get for the land. Then they will give him six months' notice before he has to move).
Furthermore, when he's ready to move, the government will help him by furnishing army trucks to transport his possessions. They know that new locations for farms will be somewhat hard to find, so they're even going to help Josh get relocated.
Of course Ned was appreciative of Josh's state. But Ned has what he thinks is just a little more sorrowful story to tell. In fact he had an experience two years ago to make his story a little more real.
But all these helps aren't soothing Josh much. He thinks the whole idea smells.
Josh was telling his sorrowful plight to his brother, Ned, who lives three miles north of Eudora in the Kaw river bottom.
You see, Ned's farm was right in the middle of the 1951 Kansas river flood. He lost everything, his home, his stock, his equipment, his crops for two years—just about everything.
Someone told Ned he had to move, too. But they gave him six hours' notice instead of six months. The notice came in a frantic phone call at 2:30 in the morning. No government trucks were standing by to cart away his equipment or furnishings. He had to search out friends to stay with for some time.
And when the water went down, Ned struggled through the muck and mire to get back to his home—a scene of complete desolation. Oh the government helped him some to get back on his feet, sure. But Ned sure lost some dough of his own.
Then it was pretty hard for him to sit back and listen to the powers sitting up on hills tell him that he never should have settled in the floodplain anyway because this disaster was bound to come along sooner or later. In other words, he was to live in the hills and come down to farm the land that might get flooded every other year.
Ned knew that frame houses are liable to burn, but he went on and built one anyway because he figured some means of protection would be afforded.
No, Ned thought that his story was just a little more powerful than that of his brother Josh, although he didn't tell him so to his face.
Now Ned knows that a dam such as Tuttle Creek won't put an end to disastrous floods such as 1551. But he does believe that such a dam will lower the flood enough so that he, and his neighbors, can handle it themselves.
You know, for every Josh up in the Blue Valley, there are 10 Neds down in the Kaw Valley. Yessir, the Neds have the majority, but they must not have the voice. —Clarke Keys
Isn't Student Apathy Natural?
There has been some speculation on the lack of student interest in their government, but not much logical comment. Actually, though, isn't this apathy natural?
They come to college expecting to find themselves on the frontier of civilized progress. They toy with economic theory, and condense their new ideas into a perspective giving them a better approach to business methods, then go home and find that merchants hold to "what was good enough for Uncle Gus is good enough for me."
They take a little philosophy and then find themselves ostracized in their community for not carefully phrasing their questions about local religious beliefs.
They learn about progressive educational techniques in elementary schools and run smack into inadequate or mis-emphasized methods of knowledge-gained evaluation in their own school.
Then a school election comes along and they turn in hope to the attitudes and progress of their immediate would-be leaders. After all, if the "old fogies" are just talking about adapting new ideas to old methods, or vice versa, maybe the real progress is to be in the present generation.
So what do they find? Quibbling over petty politics. Narrowmindedness. Everyone with an ax of some kind to grind, even if it is a valid one such as having a good extra-curricular college record.
Even their own generation is
In psychology the student has learned that an overcompulsive parent usually aggravates a child into the opposite action he has been ordered to follow. Then, in response to the problem of "organized cheating" in college life, the student government reorganizes the wrist-slapping committee, usually called the disciplinary committee, to investigate cases and assess penalty
perpetuating the further hindering of the slow wheels of progress. Unselfishness and cooperation are nice words, but maybe they should be redefined.
Any intelligent person knows the value of thought and understanding. In this case in his own environment, then, the student would expect a progressive attitude to be of this sort:
"It's too bad these people didn't learn, either in their home or in lower schools, that the whole attitude of something f-or-nothing destroys character and moral fiber, and puts an automatic limit on how far they can eventually get in
He doesn't find it. If the new bicameral All Student Council were to begin its operations with programs emphasizing foresight, cooperation, and a chance for active participation in their government by the crowd it is representing, student interest would again fan into a good blaze.
If it doesn't change from its old stereotype, the bedrock foundation of a better form of representative government will accomplish nothing.
At present, a large proportion of students are asking, "Why go to college at all, it's just a glorified trade school for memorizing old ideas?" They can see mistakes most easily. Those stand out. But do something, show them some program, give them an apathy will keep to natural interest.
honest day-to-day living, BUT THEY HAVEN'T LEARNED IT SO FAR, so for gosh sakes let's accept the fact, operate from there, and apply our knowledge."
Take note, you politicians.
Bill Foose
Ice Cream & Lepers?
Little Man on Campus
They don't pretend to know the best promotion techniques.
One can't help but admire the students of the American Pharmaceutical association for their efforts in promoting the drive to raise funds to alleviate the plight of lepers in Korea.
Their posters are crude—but sincere. Their goal is good. Their efforts have been tireless. Their work should be rewarded.
They found they couldn't solicit funds on campus because of possible interference with the Campus Chest drive, so the students have pinned their hopes on an ice cream social to raise the funds.
They have done all the work so far. They have stumbled and groped at times, but they have always moved forward.
From now on, it is up to students and townspeople. The homemade ice cream and cake will be available in Clinton park tonight.
All that's needed now is an ap-
petite.—Bob Stewart
University of Kansas Student Newsage News Room KU 251 Ad Room KU 37
"And now the chairman of the judging committee to introduce th' queen and her attendants."
Reds Shift Emphasis To Rice-Rich Thailand
Two international events—truce talks in Korea and swift advances of Communist-led Viet Minh troops through the jungles of Laos post a major threat to anti-Communist forces in Asia.
The Communists, who began treating the truce talks seriously when Washington began planning an offensive, are stalling for time—the inestimable benefit they have derived from the truce talks since their beginning in July 1951. The Communists want time to rehabilitate airfields, communications, bridges, and other installations in North Korea.
The two actions are related—not coincidental. They indicate that in Communist strategy of world conquest Asia has a high priority and to the enemy the talk of peace is not an end but a means to an end.
The truce and drive in Laos means a transfer of the main weight of the Communist threat in Asia from industrial Japan, the real prize behind the Communists' attempted Korean conquest, to rice-rich Thailand.
Having averted the danger of an American offensive and gaining time to reconstruct, the enemy is free to transfer some of its units from North Korea to Southeast Asia where Communism has not yet been "contained," as in Korea, and where concentrations of armed men are in good positions to influence the "rice politics" of Asia.
The Japanese moved into the area in World War II because they had to have rice. Chinese Communists are in the same difficulty. They cannot feed their own people, yet must pay Russia in agricultural commodities.
Thailand is the major rice-producing region of Southeast Asia. It exports big surpluses. The Chinese Communists are supporting the Viet Minh armies in order to get closer to this region, which is politically unstable.
The fact that the Communists' need and want this rice is supported by intermittent reports of famine.
The economic objectives coincide with the political objectives for Thailand, and, to a lesser extent, Burma are politically and militarily weak. —Rozanne Atkins
A vote in favor of the recent winds was cast recently by the dude who stands by the windy intersections.
Headline writers rue the day when the dam controversy is resolved. It'll take half the fun out of life.
Member of the Kansas Press Assn. National Editorial Assn. Inland Daily Press Represented by the National Advertising Service. 420 Madison Avenue, N.Y. City.
Mail Subscription rates: $3 a semester or $4.50 a year ago. Send a semester to Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. Unsubscribe by clicking on "Entered second class matter" Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., Post Office
under act of March 3, 1879.
"THUG EMULATI'CLEOPATRA
WHO BARBED UP AND DOWN THE
NILE PAST THE GREEK A ROMAN
EMPIRES WHICH WERE THE NAT-
TIONAL AND AMERICAN LEAGUES
OF THE DAY -----