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University Daily Kansan Friday, March 7, 1952 Letters:
Editorials
Some Important Facts About Tonight's Game
We doubt if many students realize just how important a Jay-hawker victory in tonight's Kansas-Kansas State basketball game is to Coach Phog Allen and his team.
Sure, you can easily say you realize the importance of winning this game, but we'd like to bring to light a few facts revolving about this showdown.
First of all, tonight's game is for the Big Seven championship—barring an unexpected upset in the final conference games Monday night. In those games Kansas will play Colorado and Oklahoma will play Kansas State. Kansas and Kansas State own identical 9-1 conference records.
But you must look beyond the Big Seven championship picture to see how really important tonight's game is to both Kansas and Kansas State.
By winning tonight's game, Kansas could breeze through the Western Regional play-offs in Kansas City and Seattle to meet the Eastern Regional winner at Seattle for the NCAA title on March 26. By the same token, K-State could quite easily accomplish the same feat by downing the Jayhawkers. It seems unlikely that any NCAA tournament team is capable of offering any tougher opposition than Kansas State will throw at Kansas tonight.
We feel that Kansas is capable of winning the NCAA basketball championship with a break here and there plus 100 per cent student support at tonight's game.
In fact, this year's NCAA cage champions will have an added opportunity to gain international fame as a possible United States Olympic entry.
Tonight's game can be regarded as the "nation's top collegiate game of the year." Never in the conference's history has a basketball game attracted so much interest and publicity.
Thousands of basketball fans will be watching seniors Clyde Lovellette, Bob Kenney, Bill Hougland and Bill Lienhard for the first time, thanks to television, after being able only to read about their accomplishments for the past three years.
Here are some other important reasons why a KU victory could be doubly sweet.
By defeating Kansas State and Colorado, the Jayhawkers would posh a 22-2 season record, their top season record of all-time.
The game will mark the "grand home finale" for Kansas' Big Four-Lovellette, Kenney, Hougland and Lienhard and John Keller, who has turned in a terrific job down the home-stretch.
Let's make sure these seniors get their last home victory tonight the sweetest one of them all. Kansas was undefeated in 1950 at home and a victory tonight will again give Lovellette & Co., a clean sweep at home. Bob Nelson.
Short Ones
Yale university recently received a five million dollar gift from the Old Dominion foundation, founded by Paul Mellon. That's a lot of money to come from just one "mellon."
The National Association of Manufacturers has entered the magazine field, having come out with a 25-cent pocket-sized magazine, U.S.A., The Magazine of American Affairs. The NAM has said it is willing to spend $190,000 on the monthly, which will not contain advertising. This might lead to a slight cut in the NAM's Washington lobby.
Time magazine reports that "as a final measure of thoughtfulness the Portuguese government clapped Lisbon's 400 beggars into jail during the NATO conference." Possibly Congess could accomplish more if the lobbyists were guarded a little closer.
If President Truman's proposed budget of 85.4 billion dollars were piled up in silver dollars, it would cover 152,935 miles. That's nearly as many miles as President Truman has traveled to and from Miami Beach.
The pronouncing alphabet used by the armed forces of U.S., Britain, and Canada during World War II has been changed. The British must have had a hand in it as "bravo" has replaced "baker" and "Juliett" now is used instead of "Jig." The British not only are taking money out of our pockets but now they're putting words in our mouth.
English More Practical Than Parley Vous
I have read the letter appearing in Monday's Daily Kansan concerning foreign language requirements and must confess I agree in part.
As Mr. Flowers stated, every individual needs a strong neutral background of contact with the various "pure" branches of knowledge, including a language "not one's own."
Dear Editor.
However, the issue regarding foreign language study as a requirement has been side-stepped again. The earlier editorial, as I recall, suggested that individuals need to master their own language first of all.
Why spend two semesters studying another language when college students can't use their own language properly? Two more semesters spent on good, solid, basic English grammar would be far more practical—for musicians as well as journalists.
Mr. Flowers' inference that a person who doesn't learn a foreign language is more fit to run a totalitarian machine than be a member of a
democracy is ridiculous. Foreign language study doesn't create "mental self-sufficiency." Furthermore, Germany required three languages in its schools before Hitler's rule, but that didn't prevent a totalitarian system.
But, according to some, America may be headed for the rocks because not enough people have learned to think intelligently. They do not know, French or German.
I'm not denying the cultural values extant. But mastering one's own culture, including his own language, is far more important.
Of course, Mr. Flowers doesn't need any more grammar study. He is a true genius. His concluding sentence contained 115 words and used 21 lines of type. Perhaps that is what he meant—"an individual able to think—intelligently."
James Lowell, Graduate student.
P. S. I'm not bitter. I have a degree in English, have studied French two years, German and Spanish one year each, and am very happy.
New Soviet Law In Poland Lets Peasants Own Farms
The draft of the new Polish constitution gives Polish citizens only one right which Soviet citizens do not have—the right to own individual farms.
In every other important matter the provisions of the new constitution are identical with that of the Soviet constitution of 1936.
According to the text of the draft published in Pravda, the newspaper of the Soviet Communist party, "the Polish People's Republic protected individual farms of working peasants and gives them help to avoid capitalist exploitation, aiming at increasing their production and well-being."
An emphatic indication of the real position of individual farmers as compared to those who have joined collective or co-operative farms is given in the paragraph dealing with agriculture:
"The Polish People's Republic gives special support and every kind of help to agricultural production co-operatives established on a voluntary basis as a form of collective economic enterprises."
The other rights of Polish citizens are to be exactly the same as those promised to Soviet citizens.
They will have "freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and mass meetings, freedom of street processions and demonstrations," but only approved workers' organizations are allowed to run printing plants, radio stations, and newspapers.
The citizens are guaranteed "inviolability of person and of the home," as well as the right to work, to rest, to receive assistance when unable to work, and the right to education.
Freedom of conscience and religion is also guaranteed, but the constitution threatens with punishment those who "abuse this freedom for the purpose of endangering the interests of the Polish Republic."
Supreme power in the republic is to be vested in the Sejm (parliament) but there is no provision for representation in this body of any opposition parties. When the Sejm is not sitting, the country is to be governed by a council of state having the prerogatives of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
In the same way as the Soviet constitution, the new Polish constitution undertakes to "grant the right of asylum to foreign citizens persecuted for defending the interests of the working class, or for their scientific activities or for their struggle for national liberation."
An additional provision of the new Polish constitution compels the state "to limit, push out and liquidate social classes which live by exploiting the workers and peasants." This provision is not contained in the Soviet constitution because the classes in question were liquidated in Russia before 1936.
An unprecedented fact in any similar document, the new constitution openly acknowledges the influence of Soviet Russia on the life of Poland. It says:
"The foundation of the existing people's government in Poland is the alliance of the workers and the peasants. The leading role in this alliance belongs to the working class as the most progressive class of society guided by the achievements of the Polish and international working class movement and by the historical experience of the victorious building of Socialism in the USSR, the first state of workers and peasants."
—W. A. Ryser, UP Staff Correspondent.
Comments . . .
Adrian College Reports Attempt To Rouse Opinion
The Adrian College World, (Mich.), reports its campus recently has been "flooded with anti-administration literature."
"Some crude writer has attempted to rouse student opinion" against the school administration, says the World.
The paper does not specify what these charges are, but says they "are serious and the evidence is at least voluminous . . . We the students of Adrian ask a full, satisfying explanation on the part of the administration to answer these charges."
It is not clear just how much control over the paper this committee plans to assume, or has the power to assume. Comments the Californian in a front page editorial:
"We shall endeavor to work with the president's Daily Californian advisory board and benefit from the group as long as it remains, as it has been set up, an advisory board. There are indications that the 13-man board does not wish to assume the functions of a board of censorship . . ."
The Californian ceased publication for 26 days after causing a furor by printing two pro-Russian letters. During this period a faculty-student advisory board was set up to supervise the paper.
Board Seeks To Regulate California Student Paper
Honor System At Virginic
Turns Up With Weak Spo
Students and faculty at the University of California are still trying to find a way to control editorial policy of the Daily California, while that newspaper is fighting the move all the way.
"Why is it that the honor system is not obeyed in Memorial gymnasium? Monday afternoon I had almost ten dollars stolen from my locker . . . and I know of similar things happening to others there.
The University of Virginia's honor system, considered one of the best in the country, is apparently a bit weak in one spot. An irate student writes to the Cavalier Daily:
"There is no other place here at the University . . . where one cannot leave one's possessions without being absolutely certain that they will be there when one returns . . ."
10 Cents Too Much For Coffee
Students at Hastings College (Neb), weren't too happy when coffee at the campus-canteen went up from 5 to 10 cents. A newspaper poll indicated the majority may very well buy their coffee elsewhere.