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University Daily Kansan
tuesday, March 17, 1953
Little Man on Campus
by Dick Bibler
Don Moser
Random Thoughts
We realize that we are about to put a request into the Building and Grounds department at a busy time of the year.
This is the time when no spot of ground on the campus is sacred. A tree that is in front of Lindley may be stuck in front of the Union five minutes later, or some piece of ground that was grassy one day may be a cement walk the next day.
Our request is tied up with this cement walk situation. We see that the department is putting a walk in between Green hall and the corner of Mississippi and Jayhawk drive. We have no objection with this as it will probably save students walking a whole 20 yards.
Our beef is that if they are going to put in a walk, why not put it some place where it would be useful. For years one of the worst spots on the campus has been almost completely ignored.
Anyone coming down the stairs behind Strong hall and trying to get to the grove leading to the Union know the spot. That short area from the stairs to the path becomes a mire at the slightest drizzle. Once in a while a couple of hands full of gravel are thrown over it, but with the next rain the gravel just sinks in and disappears.
The other spot on the campus that is badly in need of a walk is the stretch from Oread hall to one of the walks leading to the Union. This is completely submerged in mud during most of the spring forcing Oreadites to walk half way around Lawrence to get to the Union.
As we said earlier, we realize that this is a busy time of the year for the shrubbery detail, but we do wish they could take a little time off to perform a really useful task.
We think the math professors should take all of their classes to Topeka. The Roberts hearing would afford them a chance to see how something that starts as a straight line ends up as a closed circle.
We love to read the stories in the Sunday supplements that tell us how shy and retiring the movie stars are. It makes us wonder who all these people are that crowd into the Hollywood night spots.
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A student says there is not enough dancing room in the new Union. We guess he is right, all we have is the ballroom, Trail room, Kansas room, and Sunflower room. The least the Union could do is have all the seats taken out of Hoch and make it a Union annex.
holidays and examination periods, 0. Entered second class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., Post Office under act of March 3, 1875.
Heritage of Fear May Ruin Chances For Unified Europe
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The European Defense community, so badly needed for a free world, is both held back and driven by the same force—fear. As long as this condition remains, the EDC is doomed to failure even if it is eventually formed.
Fear is the blockade to the forming of the EDC. Its seeds were sown about 700 years ago when Germany and France first began taking opposite sides in Europe's struggles. However, the enmity between these two nations may be extended even further to the Treaty of Verdun signed in 843 A.D.
This treaty divided Charlemagne's empire into two nations, one culturally Latin and the other culturally Teutonic. The first break between France and Germany came in the 13th century, and in modern times lasting marks were left on these countries from the wars of Francis I of France and Emperor Charles V of Austria, the Thirty Years' war, the wars of Louis XIV, the Seven Years' war, the Napoleonic wars, the Franco-Prussian war, and the First and Second World wars.
Since France is the chief "culprit" in holding up EDC, it is the First and Second World wars that are of prime importance. French memory of German boots trampling on their soil in these two wars is still strong. Every French village still has a monument to those killed from 1914 to 1918.
This same feeling exists today. The French want England to join the EDC so that it doesn't become German-controlled. Since they realize England probably won't join EDC, their foreign minister, Georges Bidault, suggested putting feelers out to the Germans on the idea of turning the proposed
M. Heuillard had sworn with his comrades in the Flossenburg camp that if he got out alive he would dedicate himself to seeing that Germany never again be permitted an army. He was the only one to get out alive.
"I do not want my sons or grandsons to be incorporated as comrades with the tyrants and butchers of their father," he told the assembly. When he had finished, the entire assembly rose and with Gaullists, Communists, Socialists, Radicals, Conservatives, and Catholics united on the floor for the first time since liberation, it cheered him with an animal-like frenzy.
A little over a year ago, Frenchmen screamed the fact that World War II is fresh and bitter in their memory. Georges Heuillard, dying as a result of his treatment at a German concentration camp in Flossenburg, was carried to the rostrum in the National Assembly of France.
European Army High command into a strictly administrative body which would be subject to a council of prime ministers which could make decisions only by unanimous vote. The fear here is evident, and it is this fear that is holding up the EDC.
"Beware the Germans! Beware the Germans," he cried. He declared their interest to be eternal: to thrive, to rearm, to reunite, to turn again on France and demolish her.
At the same time, fear is forcing these countries France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg—to unite. It is particularly driving France and Germany.
This fear is derived from the United States threat to leave these countries to their fate if they don't unite. France also is afraid that if it rejects membership in the defense community, it would lead eventually to the dreaded German national army.
This fear may be stepped up now that the United States has sent James B. Conant, Harvard educator-scientist, to Germany as high commissioner. How the United States hopes to benefit by this move when German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer already has based West Germany policy on EDC hasn't been explained. The only logical answer can be that Conant's presence in Germany will serve to remind the people of the threat encountering them.
Adenauer has tried hard enough. He took Secretary of State John Foster Dulles' speech at face value and warned his people that stalling on the EDC could be fatal. At the same time, he is afraid France may blow up the possibilities of this union by insisting on certain provisions before ratification. It would seem Mr. Conant is more needed in France.
However, there is one ray of hope. This is Christianity and particularly Catholicism. It was strongest when Robert Schuman was foreign minister of France.
Mr. Schuman and Mr. Adenauer are strong Catholics.The Catholic church has become a strong influence in both countries.
These two men knew and trusted each other and, inspired by common religious political faiths, they led their countries in the idea of a European Defense community united by a strong religious faith.
M. Schuman is no longer France's foreign minister. He has been replaced by M. Bidault, who led French underground forces against Germany in the last world war.
But M. Bidault also is from the Catholic party in France and since M. Schuman and M. Adenauer already have laid the foundation for a possible EDC, M. Bidault's religion may influence him to trust Mr. Adenauer as M. Schuman did.
It must, for trust must replace fear if EDC is to become a reality and if it is to be perpetuated.
Bob Noa
Soviet Politics Eased Molotov Out of Power
The appointment of V. M. Molotov as Russian foreign minister under new Premier Malenkov seems to the Western world a kick upstairs for Mr. Molotov, who reasonably could have been named premier to succeed Mr. Stalin.
V. M. Molotov, "the old timer," has been working for Russia and the Communist party for nearly 50 years. The younger Mr. Malenkov, however, has a personal machine to back him in the premiership; Mr. Molotov has only his record of past service.
V. M. Molotov joined Nicholny Lenin and the Bolsheviks in 1906 to follow the Marxist revolution against the Czar. He changed his name from Scriabin to Molotov ("the Hammer") to escape imperial
police several times. Even the new name didn't help, since he was caught and exiled to Siberia twice by the Czarists.
After the first exile he helped found the then illegal Pravda in St. Petersburg (Leningrad) in 1912. In 1915 he was exiled to Siberia again for his part in the Revolution, but he soon escaped and returned to St. Petersburg to build up the Communist party machine.
Soon afterward Josef Stalin and Mr. Lenin returned from Siberia,
and Mr. Molotov handed over the powerfully organized party machine to Josef Stalin. In return for Mr. Molotov's support, Josef Stalin worked him into the secretariat of the Central Communist committee in 1922, then in 1924 into the Politburo, top council of Russian leaders. In 1929 V. M. Molotov was elected to the Presidium, Communist executive committee.
From Russian premier (1930-41)
Mr. Molotov stepped down to become vice-premier when Josef Stalin took over his position in 1941.
Mr. Molotov became foreign minister of Russia in 1939. With Joachim von Ribbentrop, German minister, he signed the Russo-German non-aggression act. Mr. Molotov pushing tactics against the Balkans and Abdullah Hitler to invade Russia sooner than he had planned, in 1941.
After the German invasion Mr. Molotov, obstinate and unbending in his UN views, abruptly walked out of a Marshall plan founding conference in Paris. Shortly afterward Russia began planning a Council for Economic Mutual Assistance, dubbed by Western observers the "Molotov plan."
Until recently there seemed little doubt that Mr. Molotov would eventually succeed Mr. Stalin as premier. The two were friends and held similar beliefs because of their close daily association.
Pictures of Mr. Stalin and Mr. Lenin, which had hung in every public building, had been replaced by pictures of Mr. Stalin and Mr. Molotov together to prepare the Russians for Mr. Molotov's access to power when Mr. Stalin died.
—Mary Eetz