Page 2 University Daily Kansan Thursday, Nov.13, 1952
HST-Soon Gone But Not Forgotten
"Did you ever have a load of hay fall on you? Pray God to help me carry this load." With that statement on April 12, 1945, vice president Harry S. Truman stepped up to the most important job in the world.
He did not want to become president and was not cut out for the job yet he has held the office during one of the nation's most critical periods and he has had to meet some of the gravest responsibilities in history.
He attained national importance as head of the Truman committee, a senate group to investigate national defenses. Primarily because of this national recognition, he was chosen when a compromise candidate was needed in the 1944 Democratic convention.
Compromise made him vice president and chance made him president in 1945 when Franklin Roosevelt died.
In the first year of his presidency, he had to make the historic decision of whether or not the Atomic bomb should be used to speed the end of World War II. Six months before he had never heard of such a weapon.
Threats of paralyzing strikes the next year caused him to seize the railroads and later to order an anti-strike injunction suit against John L. Lewis.
In 1947 he initiated the Truman Doctrine, forerunner of the Marshall Plan. Aid to Turkey and Greece through this program stopped a rising surge of Communism there.
His approval of the Berlin air lift in 1938 began a 24-hour shuttle of transport planes into the German capital that broke a Communist blockade. The same year he amazed everyone, except himself, by winning a general election in which he was not supposed to even have a chance.
His administration broke a traditional policy of no entangling alliances in 1949 by spearheading the North Atlantic Treaty organization. A year later he used his power as chief executive to order armed resistance to the Communist violation of the 38th parallel.
In 1951 he made one of the most controversial decisions of his administration and fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur as UN commander in Korea for failing to agree with the chiefs of staff on how the Asian campaign should be conducted. The same year he exposed himself to more controversy in a proposal to send an ambassador to the Vatican.
A dramatic statement that he would not be a candidate for the presidency has furnished an anti-climax for his administration. Also this year he seized the entire steel industry to stop a big steel strike. It was one of the most controversial moves of his administration and was the cause for at least one congressional demand for impeachment.
After seven years, President Truman is preparing to step down. His administration has consisted of fluctuations between sly caution and rash self-assertions. His wide range of reactions to the problems he has met has made him one of the most controversial presidents in our history. He has been called everything from "The undramatic man of drama" to "Key West's top tourist." His administration appears to some as being great, to others as being only passable and to still others as a national catastrophe.
He has often been accused of being a small man in a big job. No doubt this is true. He was a very common man in 1941 when he accepted the vice presidency and he had not changed much a year later when he found himself in the nation's highest office.
He has met the demands of his office by being one of history's hardest working presidents and by spreading authority all over Washington.
How well he has been able to surpass his limitations will be shown by history. "Verdicts of contemporary critics and historians rarely agree." Henry Steele Commanger has said.
Historian Commanger has added that he expects historians in the next 50 years to record Truman's administration as "one of almost uninterrupted and unmarried success."
The effect of President Truman's administration will be felt and recorded in history, of that there is no doubt. Neither is it doubted that the effect of his personality will be overlooked by the recorders.
Whether historians write Harry Truman off as great or weak, they will do well to remember him as a man who tried and record him as a man who grew.
—Roger Yarrington.
Short Ones
Now that everyone has decided who to vote for, they can start thinking about what to give Uncle Willie and Aunt Mary for Christmas.
One journalism professor wore a black arm band while he edited election returns favoring Ike.
The record breaking total vote in the general election indicates there are more and more people here becoming interested in good government. It's a good thing. There are more and more people on the other side of the ocean becoming interested in bad government.
A barber has come out with the statement that Truman, Eisenhower and Stevenson all had poorly trimmed hair for TV. That's what we like—attention to the important things.
One Man's Opinion
The Supreme Court ruled this week that segregation of Negroes from whites on trains and buses is unconstitutional. But one truthfully comment, "So what?"
By CHARLES BURCH
The truth is that the mere ruling by the Supreme Court actually does little to solve the much-discussed problem. "Jim Crow" laws and practices are the result of hate, ignorance, and often a false feeling of superiority.
In many cases segregation has become almost a "time honored tradition" which is often as unquestioned in some parts of the country as going to church on Sunday or voting Democratic.
Negro leaders are among the first to realize that it will take several years and many court cases before "Jim Crow" coaches and other similar means of segregation are removed completely. They also are among the first to agree that such actions and conditions simply can be bypassed by unconstitutional or passing "equal rights" legislation. Segregation is only a concrete result of abstract prejudices.
Three other cases dealing with segregation, this time in schools, are scheduled to come before the high tribunal soon. The cases are the result of segregation in Virginia, South Carolina, and our own free state of Kansas. In fact the Kansas cases come from the state's capitol of Topeka.
Actually the matter of whether Negroes and whites ride in the same coaches or not isn't the basic question, as either way, they both get to their destinations. The crux of the problem lies much deeper than this. It is a matter of philosophy and attitude which legislations and court decisions can not mold.
Such judicial and legislative action must reflect the attitude of the people. They can not successfully precede such changes in the attitude of people.
Letters
Freedom of Press May Be Fantasy
Editor of the Daily Kansan:
Back in the days when the Constitution of the United States was formulated, the founders of our nation had an odd idea that there should be freedom of the press. Such primitive figures as Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson advocated the policy that a man ought to be able to think and speak and write unhampered by law or prejudice, even if he represented a minority.
Today certain officials recognize the inadvisability of such a practice. These political and educational leaders feel that students of journalism have no right to completely and freely express their own opinions in the editorial columns of the Daily Kansan.
Certainly these key officials are in a much better position to determine for us the policies we should support than we are by reading varying viewpoints and deciding for ourselves how we will stand.
Let's not be deduced any longer—
that is, that story of the Four
Fringesians.
LaVonne Godwin education junior
A reporter and photographer at the Topeka Daily Capital saw a "fiery streak" in the sky while out covering a story. After a good deal of ribbing on their experience they have been "assigned" the flying saucer beat.
Herbert Hechenbleikner, Charlotte, N. C., has advertised for a large rattlesnake with "plenty of rattle." He wants to record the rattler for the benefit of little children who have never heard one. Poor kids.
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. Entered second class matter Sept. 1910, at Lawrence K., Post Office, unlawset act of March 3, 1879.
Initiative In Korea Is Ike's Purpose
There is a growing suspicion that the Communists haven't yet named their real price for ending the war in Korea.
In other words, that the debate over the prisoner of war issue is just another stall, which, even if settled on Communist terms, wouldn't end the conflict.
And since, neither on the battlefield nor at the truce talks, do we possess the initiative, we still must wait upon the Reds' convenience.
It is in attempt to gain the initiative that President-elect Eisenhower plans to visit the battle zone.
The problem that faces him is both military and diplomatic. Two theories lend support to the belief that, despite all the hue and cry, the prisoner issue is not the real one.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill has suggested that the Russians want the war to continue because it is to their advantage to keep our forces engaged in as many scattered areas around the world as possible.
The second is that the Chinese Reds themselves have not retreated one bit from original demands that they be given Formosa and be admitted to the United Nations.
In the overlapping diplomatic and military fields, Eisenhower apparently will find among U.S. commanders in Korea universal disgust over the deadlocked truce talks and the belief that the Reds will react now to nothing but force.
Incidentally, the same belief was voiced months ago by Vice Admiral C. Turner Joy, who first headed the UN truce delegation, and is echoed now by his successor, Maj. Gen. William K. Harrison.
On the stalemated battlefront, the President-elect will find this situation:
Six American divisions, a British Commonwealth division, assorted smaller forces from some nine other United Nations and the equivalent of 14 to 15 South Korean divisions, two of which have just been added.
Militarily it would seem Eisenhower has two choices.
Or, he could press toward a buildup of South Korean forces so that they eventually could take over the whole fighting line which then would remain at or near the 38th parallel.
Force, in any event, is costly and so the diplomatic approach still seems the best and cheapest if there is any hope for success.
But the very fact that we are openly anxious for a truce has increased Communist arrogance, and adds to the price of peace.
-United Press.
A beautiful (according to the UP) young movie aspirant slipped into what doctors said was a "trance-like" state last week when she listened to a crooner in a Las Vegas night club. The same thing happens on the campus every day when students listen to professors in class.
Wednesday's Capital reports "hearings will be held to take the testimony of two or more Hollywood figures." Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe, perhaps?
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