Es A—Page 2 University Daily Kansan Friday, Feb. 22, 1952 Daily Kansan Editorials White's Great Virtue Was Unfailing Honesty The general notion among readers is that if a newspaper's editorials are nothing else they at least should be consistent. Any deviation from the supposed policy of the paper brings some reaction—either complimentary or uncomplimentary, depending on whether or not the deviation agrees with the reader's ideas. We were startled, therefore, when we first found that Kansas' most famous editor, the man for whom this school was named, was anything but a model of consistency. William Allen White called 'em as he saw 'em, and didn't waste time worrying about what he had said in previous editorials. Readers of the Emporia Gazette weren't always pleased by what they read in the paper's editorials. Many of them thought Mr. White should have figured out some kind of a dogmatic set of principles dedicated to the great cause of consistency, and stuck to them come hell, high water. Populists or Republicans. Even some Kansas editors criticized Mr. White for being inconsistent and said the Gazette possessed a foolish editorial disposition. Yet the Gazette was consistent in one important respect—Mr. White believed in the almighty power of honesty, and if there was anything dogmatic about Gazette editorials it was their devotion to honesty. We think that devotion more than any other thing was responsible for the greatness of the Gazette and its editorials. Mr. White was, above all else, an honest man. His honesty is typified by the following reply he once made to a letter upbraiding him for being inconsistent. April 25.1923. "If a man is right today and wrong tomorrow, say so frankly in each case without malice, and yet heartily. A newspaper has one obligation and one only, to print the truth as far as it is humanly possible, and to comment upon the truth as candidly and as kindly as humanly possible, never forgetting to be merry the while, for after all the liar and the cheat and the panderer are smaller offenders than the solemn ass. "That is why we seem inconsistent to the mind that wears labels and sends out its thinking to be done by party, by church, or by groups or cliques or clans or crowds and factions. The fool's jewel of consistency is largely paste!" —J.W.Z. short ones There are some Republicans who obviously haven't gotten the General idea yet about elections. A government official says, "more scandals to come out." After all, you can't keep putting skeletons in a closet without losing a few bones in the process. A big food company plans to use planes to fly shrimp down from Alaska, and it's a shame too, after all the free publicity the boats have been getting. A St. Louis car dealer has had a number of bombs thrown through his showroom window. Prices have gone sky-high, but must the cars go with them? "Take away the fact she's Dean's list and what have you got?" William Allen White didn't make a very big splash when he enrolled here in September 1886. Maybe it was because he was sort of a fat, wise-cracking, good-humored youngster whom many people thought "too big for his britches." William Allen White's Days at KU Will White died in 1944, but he's still "pretty big folks" at the University of Kansas. The KU School of Journalism is called the William Allen White School of Journalism and Public Information. In 1944 the William Allen White Foundation was set up at KU in connection with the School of Journalism. The purpose of the foundation is to provide realistic teaching material for the University of Kansas and for all other colleges and universities offering work in the fields of communication, and to bring to KU for lectures leaders of thought in Journalism and related fields of communication. The record of Will White's work at KU is kept along with the transcripts of hundreds of other early KU students in the registrar's office at the University. It is recorded in a fine Spencerian script in black ink in an old ledger book. It is not a very impressive transcript. White entered the University as a freshman, in spite of a year and a half of college work which he had completed at the College of Emporia. He enrolled in geometry, algebra, rhetoric, Latin, history, botany, and chemistry during his freshman year. In his junior years he took rhetoric, English, Latin, English History, English Constitution, and history. His grades were not bad, but they were certainly not exceptional. He flunked solid geometry three times and because of those failures he did not meet his requirements for graduation. The rest of his subjects netted him about a "C" average. In three courses he was awarded only credit. William C. Stevens, professor emeritus of botany, was an assistant instructor in botany when young Will came to the KU campus. Mr. Stevens said that he didn't have White in any of his classes, but knew of him and also knew many of White's close friends. "I never heard him spoken of as an outstanding student," Mr. Stevens said. "He was known as a good fellow, a good companion, and as original in his ways, but he was not particularly outstanding as a student." White once wrote that in college he was a round-faced fellow full of fun, and of the type that instructors love to strangle for the levity that he showed in the classroom. Miss Maud Smelser, who is in charge of the Kansas collection in Watson library at KU, said recently that at one time she lived with Carrie Watson. KU's first librarian, who had known White as a student. "Mr. White spent more time as a student with the books in the library (although there were not many) than he did with his classwork. He enjoyed that more than studying," Miss Smelser quoted Miss Watson as saying. Mr. White once said, "If anything made me, it was Emerson and Whitman plus Dickens plus the King James version, with the realistic contemporary writers leading me on." When White first came to the University there were 419 students. The University catalog advertised, "A year might be spent at the University very comfortably for $185." Included in this figure was $15 for books and $10 for term fees. White's father died in October 1882. His mother worked to keep him in the College of Emporia, which he attended for a year and a half before going to KU, and came with him to Lawrence when he entered school there. She rented a little house and stayed in Lawrence all the time that he was in school from September 1886 to January 1890. Will White had worked for two years on newspapers before going to the University of Kansas. He worked on the Emporia News and on the Butler-County Democrat in ElDorado. While at KU he wrote for several others, among them the Lawrence Journal and the Lawrence Tribune, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and the Kansas City News. One year he was business manager for the University Review, and another year business manager of the University Times. He was editor of the College annual Helianthus in 1889, a copy of which is in the Kansas room of the University library. He failed to graduate because of his trouble with solid geometry and because he failed to get credit for his work at the College of Emporia. In later years (1934) he wrote to George O. Foster, then the registrar at KU, and asked what the chances might be of his earning an A.B. degree. He even considered taking some correspondence courses to make up the lacking credits. "Sometimes when you have nothing to do, look up and see how many hours I would need for the purpose of graduation. I might be able to take some correspondence work and make up my old A.B. degree in my declining years," he wrote to Foster. In 1940 he wrote, "On my 80th birthday I may go back and challenge the University to give me my degree and toddle across the stage with a cane, waving my false teeth at the faculty to show that I am a scholar, if not a gentleman." The University offered him an honorary degree in 1934, but he refused it saying that by granting him a degree the University would set a precedent that might be embarrassing. When William Allen White died, Chancellor Deane W. Malott of the University reviewed the fact that Mr. White had refused the honorary degree. "The University had not granted an honorary degree since the late eighteen-nineties. As a result of his refusal it has retained the policy to this day. For if it were not to grant one to its own William Allen White, surely there could be no other candidates, for no one is more enshrined in the traditions and the spirit of this University." —Ellsworth Zahn. Student Urges Year-Around Brotherhood Editor, Daily Kansan: As long as there have been Brotherhood weeks people have been lamenting the fact that we have to set aside one week to soothe our conscience instead of participating in a year-round campaign to stamp out bigotry. Joe Taylor's editorial in Tuesday's Kansas was in a similar vein. Without doubling Mr. Taylor's sincerity, I can't help but question the effectiveness of such editorsorial toward accomplishing the end of extending Brotherhood week . It seems that the proper purpose of Brotherhood week should be the setting up of an organization that would take action on specific issues related to the spreading of equality. At the very least, Mr. Taylor could have suggested giving support to the Brotherhood dinner being sponsored by the Lawrence League for Instead of writing about discrimination in Iowa and California (things we are not in a position to do very much about), if Mr. Taylor had written about discrimination at KU, in Lawrence and in the state of Kansas he would be helping to make issues more concrete so that a plan for bringing about changes could be inaugurated during Brotherhood week. Issues that could have been mentioned are: the discriminatory policy of the Inter-Fraternity council at KU; discrimination in Lawrence restaurants and theaters; and the need for an FEPC bill in the state of Kansas. Practice of Democracy (LLDP) in observance of Brotherhood week. Elliot S. Valenstein Graduate student. News Room Student Newspaper of the Ad Room KU 251 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS KU 376 Member of the Kansas Press Assn, National Editorial Assn, Inland Daily Press Assn, Associated Collegiate Press, and Intercollegiate Press Assn. Represented by the National Advertising Service, 420 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10036. EDITORIAL STAFF Editor-in-Chief Editorial Assistants ... Anne Snyder, Joe Taylor NEWS STAFF Managing Editor ... Ellsworth Zahm Assistant Managing Editors ... Helen Lou Fry, Ben Holman, Joe Lastelic, Jim Powers City Editor ... Jeanne Lambert Assistant City Editors ... 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