Kansan Editorials
University Daily Kansan Tuesday, Dec. 4, 1951
If further refutation of the outrageous attack is wanted, a review might be taken of a poll of Korean correspondents on the MacArthur dismissal by the Saturday Review of Literature. Eighty-seven per cent of the men polled felt Truman was right in dismissing the general. Fifty-two per cent thought the morale of the troops had not been affected by the removal. Thirty per cent thought it had been boosted and three per cent thought it had been lowered.
General MacArthur's former chief of intelligence Maj. Gen. Charles Willoughby, last week tagged six newsmen and three magazines with blame for the firing of his ex-boss.
General's Charge Brings Investigation
In the ensuing public discussions and investigations, little was said of the blame which must go to MacArthur for the defeat at the hands of the Chinese Reds. And yet it was his decisions, more than any other factor, which disqualified him as an adviser on global and Far Eastern strategy.
In the bloody retreat of the First Marine division alone, more than 5,000 men were killed, wounded or frost bitten. The Marines had advanced up to the Changjin reservoir on the Yalu on orders from the Army. Although the increasing frequency of ambushes warned them of considerable enemy concentration, they were told that only a division of Reds was in the area.
The individual newsmen involved have given a more than ample rebuke to the deposed intelligence officer. In doing so they have again bared the circumstances surrounding MacArthur's tragic strategy.
Willoughby charged that their "biased, prejudiced and inaccurate" news coverage of the Korean war had "created an atmosphere of tension, uneasiness and distrust between Tokyo and Washington." He defended MacArthur's strategy as UN commander.
On Nov. 25—a day before the Red onslaught—they were ordered to move on in spite of field reports of enemies to the south and west. They were ordered to attack the day of the Red offensive and for two days afterward in order to deflect the main enemy force from the Eighth Army. Two Marine regiments were sent against a dozen or more Chinese divisions!
The charges bring to the front a situation which has long been crying for investigation. That is a thorough review of the causes of the humiliating and unnecessary American army retreat from the Yalu river.
On Nov. 28, 80,000 to 120,000 Reds attacked and the gruesome retreat down "Nightmare Alley" began. The bitter details have been reported in the press and newsreels.
The man responsible for this and the other defeats are Douglas MacArthur and his intelligence officers—including General Willoughby. Instead of an intense grilling as to the exact motivations for his decisions, MacArthur was interviewed by the Senate investigating committee as an expert on Far Eastern policy. The debate speaks for itself.
At one point Senator McMahon did ask MacArthur about his judgment in recommending measures against Red China in view of his estimate at the Yalu. MacArthur replied that everything involved in international relations is a gamble, a risk, and the matter was dropped!
Because that which is sordid commands more attention than that which is good, college students today are definitely on the defensive. The white banner of American colleges must look ragge dto the beholder.
MacArthur said the Chinese would not enter the war and that their forces at the Manchurian border were no threat, that they would be slaughtered if they crossed the Yalu.
The country has been told by newspapers, magazines and movies that we have lost our integrity, our morals, thrive on "fixed" athletics, are social snobs, and are carrying on other ugly practices which even the big ears of the press have not caught but are willing to imagine plausible.
MacArthur, as did Willoughby, attempted to justify the lapse in intelligence on the grounds that aerial reconnaissance, which would have given them the number of enemy troops, was forbidden for political reasons. The joint chiefs of staff revealed, however, that MacArthur had led some to believe that by reconnaissance over the China coast, and in some cases inland.
WE PROTEST. This sudden upsweep of dirt by the press, radio and movies is dangerous because it is based partly on the truth. That there are cases of shady dealings in college sports, that there are many incidents of snobbery in Greek fraternities, that some students take illegal shortcuts to good grades, and that some have low moral standards cannot be denied.
Even if effective approaches to information on the enemy had been denied MacArthur, where did he get the sources for his recommendations at Wake Island? At this Oct., 1950, meeting, he told President Truman that the war would be over by Christmas. He even offered the second division for Europe!
Colleges On the Defense
What more cause need there be for an investigation?
— Ben Holman.
We feel justified in charging that periodicals are not really interested in correcting such evils through exposition, but are baiting the public for increased circulation. The stories are usually one-sided and well-advertised.
Thus we students of 1951 bear the burden of living down the charges heaped upon us from many directions outside our walls.
If our elders are sincerely concerned with this supposed degeneration of America's youth, the logical course of action is the encouragement of the real achievements of American colleges. Too seldom do magazines feature the scientific research, play productions, books, poems, and short stories of college students.
What large segment of society is not vexed by the vices of some of its members?
Our position is ironic when one looks back to the years when a student's primary concern was to meet the code of intellectual integrity which one accepted with the privilege of being an American college student.
—Cincinnati News Record.
Daily Hansan
News Room Student Newspaper of the Adv. Room
KU 251 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS KU 376
Member of the Kansas Press Assn., National Editorial Assn., Inland Daily
Press Assn., and the Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by the National
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EDITORIAL STAFF
Editor-in-Chief ... Alan Marshall
Editorial Associate ... Anne Snyder
NEWS STAFF
Managing Editor ... Charles Price
Assistant Managing Editors ... Nancy Anderson, Benjamin
Holman, Lee Shepeard, Ellsworth Zahm
City Editor ... Joe Taylor
Sports Editor ... Charles Burch
Telegraph Editor ... Don Sarter
Society Editor ... Katrina Swartz
News Adviser ... Victor J. Danilov
BUSINESS STAFF
Business Manager ... Bob Sydney
Advertising Manager ... Dorothy Hedrick
Assistant Adv. Manager ... Dick Hale
National Adv. Manager ... Bill Taggart
Circulation Manager ... Elaine Blaylock
Promotion Manager ... Ted Barbera
Business Adviser ... R. W. Doores
I saw your letter in the Daily Kansan of Nov. 9 and I agree with every word of it. Couldn't be that KU men, having grown so much faster than American industry, now appear "too big for their breeches?"
Dr. Charles A. Silen
Oak Park, Ill.
College '07
Medicine '10
Seven per cent of the pedestrians killed in urban automobile accidents last year were crossing intersections against the signal.
Backs Ise Charge
To John Ise:
Mail subscription: $ a semester. $4.50 a year, (in Lawrence add $1.00 a semester postage). Published in Lawrence, Kans. every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. University holidays and examination periods are on the Monday of March 17, 1910, at the Post Office at Lawrence, Kans., under act of March 3, 1879.
A New Brannan Plan?
The administration is almost ready to bring forth its 1952 successor to the controversial Brannan farm plan which was so bitterly opposed last year by some farm groups and later rejected by Congress.
For the past month Agriculture Secretary Charles Brannan and his aides have been checking the results of a "grass roots" survey conducted to see what the federal government can do to provide more help for small farmers.
The resulting proposals undoubtedly will be a major issue in the coming campaign. The administration will be making a determined effort to keep the rural votes it won in 1948.
Beginning early in the summer the Agriculture department sponsored thousands of meetings of farmers and others interested in agriculture. At these meetings they discussed the present government role in crop controls, price supports, farm loans and research programs.
Each local meeting was asked to submit recommendations which in turn were incorporated in county and state reports. These were due in Washington not later than Oct. 15.
A special committee made up of department officials and representatives of private farm organizations then began going over the reports looking for ideas to improve the present farm program.
Secretary Brannan specifically instructed the meetings that he wanted to know how his department might better serve the millions of small farmers who found it difficult to farm successfully. He spoke particularly of those who were handicapped by inadequate land, machinery, livestock or knowledge.
The nation would have a balanced farm production, he feels, if every acre of farm land were used for the purpose for which it is best suited, if every hour of farm labor were efficiently used, and if the latest farming methods were adopted.
He believes that if the productivity of the sub-standard farms could be increased, many of agriculture's problems which show up in demands for price supports and other financial aid would tend to disappear.
Although the details of the program have not been made public yet, they are expected to cause a good deal of controversy. Already the idea of the poll has incurred the opposition of the powerful Farm Bureau federation. Officials of that organization have refused to take part in the discussions and in many states have advised their members to remain aloof.
It is their contention that Brannan is wrong in attempting to inject the Agriculture department into the field of policy determination. They believe that the department should concern itself solely with administration.
But despite whatever criticisms are presented, two recommendations appear certain to emerge from the survey. First, it will be reported that there is needed a broader technical assistance program to aid the less efficient farmers. Second, the department will ask for a larger farm loan program designed to help such farmers to acquire land, machinery, equipment, livestock and the knowledge needed to operate efficient units. Joe Taylor.
Letters To The Editor Sophomore Class President Lashes 'Senior Superiority'
Dear Editor:
Many persons may have thought as they left Hoch auditorium last Friday night that the seniors had actually shown their superiority in the class contests held between the varsity-freshman basketball game and the Jayhawk Follies. This is wrong!
Not only did they show a lack of superiority but they also showed that in order to win, they had to use dishonest methods.
Let me enumerate a few of the events which took place Friday night that show the true caliber of the "skilled" seniors.
According to the Nov. 30 Daily Kansas, the "grudge battle" was to be held at the half time of the game. The apparent confusion of the M.C. and other seniors at half time and the fact that the battle was held at the end of the game makes it obvious that the seniors failed to make proper arrangements with the officials.
Contrary to the words of Woody Davis, master of ceremonies, "the seniors wear hats at all times," neither Woody nor the queen were
In the senior-sophomore contest which involved passing a ring from one pencil to another, the seniors gave themselves a decided advantage by using a much larger ring. The sophomores won in spite of the odds.
wearing senior hats.
In the "bag" race (named for the seniors), the seniors again stacked the deck. They locked the sophomore's suitcase and kept the key, and also gave them more clothes to don—more binding ones at that—shoes, etc.
The third contest was definitely to the senior's advantage. They having much bigger heads, could do the head-on-baseball-bat contest much easier.
The seniors had a time advantage, too. They had been practicing those skills for weeks, whereas the sophomores were notified at the scene of the contest.
All fair-minded persons can see from this that the sophomores are "among the living" and the seniors are "just a bunch of dead beats."
Marilyn Miller
Sophomore class president