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University Daily Kansan Thursday, May 15, 1952
Editorials
University Library Needs New Ideas
In the near future the University of Kansas will have a new librarian. He is Robert Vosper, former University of California associate librarian. It is hoped he will make some badly needed changes in the present library setup.
It is hoped Mr. Vosper also will bring some new ideas about the use of books. At present, books are stored in dusty stacks and never touched by the hands of undergraduate students. Perhaps Mr. Vosper will feel books are to be seen and used instead of endorsing the present stack-and-store plan.
Many of the books which are quietly decaying in the stacks are considered to be too "valuable" and "ireplaceable" to be used, and are hidden away in the stacks from the prying and inquiring eyes of the students in quest of knowledge. Many undergraduate students working on important research papers are barred from important material because the stacks are closed to those who need the material.
Undergraduate students are not allowed access
to the stacks regardless of the importance of their mission. Graduate students, often with less important research projects, appear to have at least some rights to the stacks. But even they must be accompanied to certain stacks. Oftentimes they are forced to waste valuable time waiting for someone to conduct them to the desired stacks.
A gripe of many students is the method of checking books out to students, then recalling them before their due date because some professor desires to use one or two pages as reference material or wants it put in the Green room. The student is forced to return the volume regardless of how much he needs the book for his own work. Can this be considered fair practice to all parties involved?
Let's hope a new program will be introduced that allows students a greater use of the library and its important works. The library is maintained for the purpose of letting students use it and its contents.
—Maurice Prather.
Letters:
Says Segregation Is Subject Needing Airing
Dear Editor
Thank you for running the series of stories on the Wesley foundation's attempt to persuade the Hill eafe owners to admit Negro students. It is a subject which needs airing.
The point of view of the restaurant proprietors is understandable, if regrettable. They hesitate to offend their white customers and thus lose money.
If their restaurants were situated in an area in which their customers were chiefly conservative and middle-aged, with rigidly set patterns of thought, there would be no point in discussing the matter. However, their establishments are located in a university community, that, more than any other in Kansas, should be a "hotbed" of democratic thought.
I am not connected with the Wesley foundation, nor have I seen the petition. But I believe that the justice which they advocate is the only reasonable course that democracy can take.
If any one of the four restaurant owners would be brave enough to remove their restrictions, L for one, would patronize it to the exclusion of the other three.
Margaret Thompson college sophomore.
Says That Shearer Side-Stepped Issue
Dear Editor:
Debater Shearer has side-stepped the issue in his attempt to score a lebater's point against FACTS party. The main issue is this:
Ahe A. S. C. Constitution requires a two-thirds approval by the Council of candidates for Associate Justice of the Student Court.. Since one party rarely controls by a two-hirds majority, this means that the candidates have to be acceptable to more than one party.
This has two desirable results; first, it assures the non-political nature of the Court; second, it produces a Court in which all elements of student government have confidence. The main issue in this case is that Kent Shearer would not be Justice in which FACTS can have confidence—and for obvious reasons. Can anyone think after reading Shearer's letter that he could be inclined to give FACTS a air hearing in any dispute.
At the same Council meeting in high FACTS refused to confirm hearer, we did confirm Warren
Andreas, last year's Pachacamac candidate for President of the A. S. C. There is no question that Warren is pro-Pach, but at the same time FACTS feels that he will be impartial in his judicial opinions.
As for the tangent onto which Shearer led himself in his impassioned outery, a few cold facts might be of interest. In the first place, Shearer's assertion that "a clear majority of those present and voting favored my candidacy" is simply not true. The vote was 15-12 against him. (I was at the meeting; Kent was not.)
Secondly, his allusion to "the Coop-Socialist Study club-Upstream clique" as the backbone of FACTS, aside from its similarity to the rentals of a certain Wisconsin Senator, is laughable. Of approximately 160 students living in Coops, twenty-one are FACTS members, and rarely are there as many as five at any one FACTS meeting. If this is domination, I'll eat my Daily Kansan. The Socialist Study club president reports that it has six active members, and I have never seen more than two at a FACTS meeting. Bill Howell, president of Pachacamac party, is the Treasurer of Upstream. Is this the group on which FACTS is "highly dependent" for continued support?
Thirdly, the suggestion that FACTS disapproved Shearer's candidacy in order to put in one of our own puppets is ridiculous in view of the fact that such a "puppet" could never gain the necessary support of Pach, just as Mr. Shearer did not gain the support of FACTS. No less ridiculous is the proposal that FACTS was paying off a political debt. Just what quirk
of Mr. Shearer's ego makes him think he is that important? The smear tactics which he attempted to use against FACTS demonstrates clearly enough why FACTS failed to confirm him.
Will Adams FACTS representative.
Will Adams
Urges Swear Words Not be Condoned
Dear Editor:
The tennis meet at K-State last Saturday revealed at least two things about the sunken condition of athletics and universities in general.
The first is, of course, the "ultimatum" of K-State coach Thompson which is illustrative of the lengths to which some people will go just to be the winner.
But the second is even more deplorable. With a burning indignation I read of the feud between coaches and players together with some of the vocabulary employed. This may be making an issue out of an apparent trifle but the statement of Crawford, KU's tennis ace, that Thompson was trying to "nail us to the Cross" is about the height of blasphemy against God even though he may not have meant it as such. He was well deserving to lose his first match of the season.
This reminder is not directed at only one person but against a large number of our students and faculty who make use of and condone almost any vile language and swearing without ever giving it a sane thought. What sort of regressive beastly behavior is this anyway? Doesn't our voluminous dictionary provide ample words to avoid such slandering of sacred things?
Herb Friesen
"Why don't you hold your breath and count to ten?"
Maj subscription rates: $3 a semester or $4.50 a year (add $1 a semester in Lawrence). Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays and examination periods. Entered as second class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., Post Office under act of March 3, 1879.
Why Should Students Vote in Elections?
Dear Editor:
I am asking for help in order to answer some questions of mine. In the recent student elections a great flurry was made about students going to the polls and exercising their right to vote.
I am going to be concise. Why should I vote in student elections? I can't see that we as students have any real control at the University as it seems that our student government is nothing more than a carry-over from high school imitation government.
So will someone give me an intelligent answer to the broad question, "Under the present system, what good is student government at the University of Kansas."
Darrell Kellogg college junior.
Draper Misquoted Student Writes
Dear Editor:
Every field has its standing jokes. In the field of political science one of these is the inability of lower classmen, and far too often, students in general to distinguish between the concept of an economic system and the concept of a government.
An economic system is one thing. A form of government quite another. Like apples and drugstores, they can't be equated. But the
question always arises:
"Why is this so when textbooks and instructors alike are prefectly agreed and definite on this, as on few other points?"
There are some who find an important part of the answer to this question by postulating that the organs of information that circulate widely, consciously or unconsciously, make this confusion of terms in both their reportorial and interpretive materials, with the result that their readers unconsciously have a mental set which influences their thinking and hearing.
Perhaps a bit of supporting evidence on the latter connection is the article in the Daily Kansan on Hal Draper's remarks at the Upstream banquet. Mr. Draper is quoted as saying "... the question which should be occupying our attention is what is going to take the place of capitalism. This form of government is in its twilight . . ."
Mr. Draper did not say that. But the important point is the reporters, obviously without malicious intent, unconsciously heard him say it and then, again unconsciously, perpetrated the confusion of terms by the article.
At the very least, this insight seems to give some insight into the complex problem of why it is difficult to get any clear, rational thinking done by those who depend on the media of the press for their raw materials.
Ann Mari Buitrago graduate student.
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