University Daily Kansan Tuesday, March 31, 1953
New Editors Seek Fresh, Virile Ideas
Each eight week period brings a new editorial staff loaded with ideas, hopes, crushes, and copy pencils.
These staffs come into office prepared to face and comment on any pertinent problem which might arise. They don't view themselves as omniscient. Nor are they self-styled critics. In essence, they are only students with a trained eye for news items, and a flair for controversy and factual writing.
They have learned of the potential power of an editorial page, and realize that their writings might influence some persons constructively—and bore others.
They don't expect to please all the people all the time. They hope to make some people fighting mad, while raising a warm glow in others. In striving to increase the readership of their editorials, they still would rather not lower their efforts to the sensational, preferring to save such an approach to fight fire with fire.
New staff realize their limitations. They are aware of the newspaper traditions, and the prestige connected with the name of the godfather of this school—William Allen White.
Essentially, this new staff will welcome and strive for an exchange of strong opinion. It will open the editorial page to letters from readers, provided they are in good taste and meet space limitations.
This new staff will be opinionated rather than wishy-washy. And it hopes its readers will be the same. Strong and free interchange of opinion is the stuff and salvation of democracy.
It is the staff's hope that no ivory towers will be built around the editor's chair the next eight weeks.
With all this in mind, let's get to work.
Bob Stewart
New Red Leadership Shows In Peace Plan
This latest bid by the Reds for a truce in Korea appears to be far more than the usual "we want peace, let's be friends" statements issued with the blessings of the Kremlin.
The Communist offer is, in effect, a direct reversal of former stands on the forced repatriation issue. The Communists still claim that there can be no such thing as a prisoner who does not want to go home, but they now are willing to allow those who say they don't be to sent to a neutral party who will determine their future homes.
This plan, including the neutral party to handle the prisoners who don't want to go home, is a close paralleled to one offered as a resolution to the UN by the Mexican delegates. The Mexican plan never was referred to the UN for direct approval or disapproval, but stands a good chance of being accepted.
The plan that has been approved by the UN allies has a clause suggesting that prisoners not wishing to go home remain in the hands of a UN commission for no longer than 90 days. Thirty days later, they would be referred to the UN to be dealt with according to international law.
At any rate, the new proposal by the Communists offers a good chance to remove the biggest barrier to a cease-fire in Korea. The "about-face" from former policies shows the effect of the new hand at the Russian helm.
Things look a lot brighter.
—Don Nielsen
By JERRY KNUDSON
"I haven't any feelings one way or another. The investigations have been somewhat over-emphasized perhaps, but I am not concerned about them."
This was the response from an assistant professor at the University when queried recently as to a reaction on the loyalty investigation on schools being carried on by the House un-American activities committee under Chairman Harold Velde (R-III.).
While the statement that "the investigations have been somewhat over-emphasized perhaps" gives some indication that the professor has devoted at least a little thought to the issue, it would appear that otherwise he simply is not interested.
That, of course, is his prerogative—although we wonder if it speaks well for other members of his profession. Educators over the country have vociferously opposed the investigations or at least taken a definite stand on them—as did every other instructor interviewed here. While many of necessity have side-stepped the thorny question because of political footing, none, to our knowledge, has flatly declared that he was "not concerned" about the work of Rep. Velde's committee.
Our elders often cry that we, the "younger generation," are blandly lackadaisical; that we have no feelings on anything; that we avoid "going out on limbs." Yet here is one of the teachers of that generation who has "no feelings one way or another."
Attitudes such as this are the source of the still clinging "ivy-walled" aura surrounding university professors in the popular concept who supposedly take refuge in their own limited fields to shrink from the realities of the outside world.
We thought that bromide was undergoing long over-due death struggles. Now we wonder.
Have you heard about the boy from Texas who asked to write this column and change the name to "Tall Ones?"
POGO
University of Kansas Student newspaper
News Room KU 251 Ad Room KU 373
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EDITORIAL STAFF
EDITOR-INCHIEF Bob Stewart
Editorial Assistants ---- Chuck Zueger,
Don Nielsen
Cindy Dullett
NEWS STAFF
Clarke Keys, Jerry Knudson
News Editor ... Mary Cooper
Society Editor ... Rozanne Atkins
Asst. Sct. Editors ... Velma Gaston,
Chuck Hen
Sports Editor ... Chuck Morelack
Asst. Sports Editor ... Don Tice
Wire Editor ... Maurice Prather
Picture Editor ... Ken Coy
Victor Edmonds
Managing Editor...Bob Longstaff
Asst. Mgr, Editors...Bob Nold, Run Kull,
Nurkull, Srinikesh Jain...
BUSINESS STAFF
Business Manager         Virginia Mackey
Adv.-Promotion Mgr.      Patty Vance
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National Mgr.            Dan Landes
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Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $4.50 a year (add $1 a semester if in Lawrence). Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays and examination periods. 8. Entranced second grade. at Lawrence, Kan., Post Office under act of March 3, 1879.
Little Man on Campus by Dick Bibler
of March 3,1879.
'Say, Ed, notice how hard ole Worthal is hittin' their center?'
Court Actions Rebuild Faith In Student Rule
The Student Court demonstrated in its recent hearing of the University vs. FACTS trial that it is the most conscientious and responsible agency of student government on this campus.
The justices had to decide a problem made doubly difficult by the issues involved and the volume of public opinion voiced by the students, many of whom had already decided the case in their own minds.
It would seem the court decided the case only on the evidence presented and the All Student Council constitutional provision which had to be the law of the case.
The many spectators at the trial were impressed with the business-like atmosphere. Such might not be said at all times of the All Student Council. Chief Justice Kent Shearer, second year law, was the principal figure in setting the courtroom's
mood. He was at all times the unchallenged arbiter and disciplinarian of the courtroom.
The caliber of the law students who appeared as prosecution and defense counsel was, in the main, excellent. Although students, they demonstrated an attitude of professionalism throughout.
It is fortunate that this case was so closely watched by the student body. With student government scoffed at by many, the actions of the Student Court will do much to restore students' confidence in their ability to govern themselves.
—Tom Stewart
The Rev. C, Stanley Lowell, Methodist minister, who predicted March 8 that after schools "churches will be investigated for Reds by these self-appointed arbiters of true Americanism" sat back and said "I told you so."
The "pitless publicity" that the chairman of the House un-American Activities committee, Harold H. Velde, promised the Communists turned upon him when he announced in a radio interview that churches might be investigated for Red infiltration.
An immediate surge of protests arose from every corner, even from Rep. Velde's own committee, and the Junior Joseph McCarthy became the most controversial figure in the public light.
The committee is the only permanent full Congressional committee for investigating un-American activities. However, the committee is in constant competition with two other committees of this nature. They are the Senate judiciary council and the Security Council under William Jenner (R-Ind.) and the Committee on Government Operations Permanent investigation subcommittee under Joseph R. McCarthy (R-Wis.).
The House un-American Activities committee, which believes Rep. Velde to be over-anxious and sincere, met to insure the public that investigation will be begun by the chairman unless backed by the committee's nine members.
New Investigation Carries On Witch Hunt Tradition
Elected to Congress in 1948. Rep. Velde was named to the un-American Activities in 1949 when the committee, once under Martin Dies
As for Rep. Velde's voting record in the 81st and 82nd Congresses, it shows that although he has a strong desire to get ride of communism in this country, he is little concerned with the spread of communistic ideologies and power in the rest of the world.
(D-Tex), was made permanent by a vote of 186 to 208.
Rep. Velde constantly voted against the foreign aid program, for reductions for the Atlantic Pact nations in 1949, against the Korean Aid act and against the "technical knowledge and skills" portion of the Point Four program in the Foreign Economic Assistance act of 1950, and for economic aid cuts in the Mutual Security act of 1851.
Scandal, blackened reputations, and inexcusable mistakes like issuing the false statement quoting the Russian newspaper Pravda as saying "Ingres Mayer, Meyer, wife of Washougal Post," and written a pro-Russian letter in the 1947 "Soviet Russia Today" journal have marked Veldel's recent career
Just as Russia cannot gain democracy through its brutal dictatorial state, we cannot retain ours when certain "freedom loving officials" begin to practice the policy that the end justifies the means."
—Rozanne Atkins