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油画
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
TUESDAY, AFRIL 3, 1951
Thought for the Day
Life is not so short but that there is always time for courtesy. —Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The Editorial Page-
US Troops For Europe?
The great debate on troops for Europe has seemingly settled down to a clash between a miffed congress and an all-seeing executive force. And the stalemate isn't conducive to settled nerves among the peoples of Western Europe.
the peoples of Western Europe.
Congress is somewhat perturbed to think that the president would send U.S. troops to Europe without first consulting it. The president, of course, is thinking in terms of expediency—getting there firstest with the mostest. He says that congressional debate does not necessarily help our relations with other countries, and will certainly place this country's well-being in jeopardy in time of European emergency.
The president may be right in opposing congressional demands for limitations on the number of troops we will send to hold up our end of the Atlantic Pact. Our major military leaders think so.
Europe, with U.S. troop contributions, could be so strong within a year there would be "no profit for a Russian aggression," Gen. Lucius Clay told two senate committees in hearings on congressional limitations on troops to be sent abroad. He strongly opposed any such limitation.
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower told the same two committees that it would be an "error" if congress established a firm ceiling or a ratio system governing use of American troops in his command. He said that by unstinted Atlantic Pact co-operation, the defense effort should be "over the hump" in two years.
The general, now at his Paris headquarters, cautioned the senators not to be overly impressed by Russian propaganda regarding Soviet military strength. He said the West's international force could meet the Soviet threat with numbers "far, far below" those of the Soviet armies and could make "rather significant portions of Western Europe safe."
Military appraisers predict that 170 Russian divisions will move across Europe in the first Russian attack if, and when, it comes. They aren't counting troops from Russia's satellites. They further predict that more than 12,000 Soviet planes, up to 25,000 tanks, and thousands of rocket launchers and guided missiles would be used in an initial attack. It is against this force that 60 Western divisions are being planned to man a 660-mile battle line. The defense line would run across central Europe from Trieste to the Baltic.
The United States is undergoing a rapid build-up of its land forces and is scheduled to provide 10 divisions for the defense of Europe. Commitments from other countries would bring the Allied troops total to 120-division strength, the minimum needed to defend the 660-mile front. But all those troops aren't to be sent immediately. Defense plans provide that General Eisenhower will have at least 60 divisions and 15,000 aircraft at his disposal during the first week of hostilities. The rest would be in action within three weeks after D-day in Europe.
That's the situation facing the country today. All the while, congressional leaders are playing political cat and mouse in the ageold squabble between the executive and legislative bodies of our government. Joe Stalin should be happy.-Francis J. Kelley.
Francis Kelley
galley-west
One of the later children's books (for ages 3 to 7) can readily be interpreted as a modern fable with a roundabout jab at Senator Joe McCarthy. Written by Anne Vaughan, the book tells of a bragging whale that ran aground while showing off.
Nobody, least of all the minnows, disputed the whale's boast that he was the biggest thing in the ocean. But it was a different story when he bragged of being the smartest. Right away, trying to show off, the whale met his comeuppance in shallow waters, much to everyone's amusement.
"Whopper Whale" is a mild story, but it is pleasantly written in an easy vocabulary, printed in big type. The pictures show the hugeness of the whale and the wetness of the ocean in crisp, modern style.
Nearly all of the little people in a big world always enjoy seeing the big fellow taken down a peg. This story may also lead them to reflect on the futility of bragging and of taking one's self too seriously.
We highly recommend it for all the Joe McCarthys. Even they could get the point this author puts across.
Memo: Have you put tanglefoot bands on your elm trees yet?
Tip-to-students-dept.: When waving at a professor be sure the hand is at least 18 inches from the nose.
Did-you-know dept.: The K.U. flag flies to the right of the U.S. flag on top of Fraser hall.
MSCAndTheRisingSun
By LEE SHEPPEARD
(This is the first in a series of six articles on campus politics through the years by Lee Sheppard of the Daily Kansan staff.)
On Wednesday, April 11, an election will be held to choose a student government. The first such election at K.U. was held 42 years ago on May 6, 1909, when 389 men students met to elect the first Men's Student Council.
One of the first actions of the new M.S.C., significantly enough, was an act to regulate class politics, which had degenerated into a bitter light between fraternity and non-fraternity factions.
In 1912, because of a fictional fight, much of the original power of the M.S.C. was withdrawn by the University Senate, and was not returned until 1920. That action may possibly be traced to another incident which occurred in 1912.
The presidential campaign of that year aroused widespread interest on the K.U. campus. A pro-Wilson club was organized and reached a membership in the hundreds. Another group found several hundred more students to back Roosevelt. Then a pro-Taft element arose.
When its candidate for United States president was defeated, Pachacamac turned its attention to a more important realm of politics—campus elections. Its campaign organization was informal; members merely advised friends to vote for the candidates the society backed. Not until later did Pachacamac control the block votes of organized houses.
On Oct. 26, 1912, these men formed the Society of Pachacamac and adopted the rising sun as their emblem.
Then the society decided it needed a club house, so it rented an ancient stone building (now Don Henry co-op) that had been a livery stable after the Civil war. The inside was cleaned up and decorated; the windows boarded up, and padlocks placed on all the doors.
Now it happened that Beta Theta Pi was about the only fraternity not represented in the group, and here was all this mysterious activity right in the Beta's back yard. Presumably the Betas were miffed, because they have been a strong element in most anti-Pachacamac political parties that have been organized since, including the new F.A.C.T.S.
for the next 30 years, the Pachacamac "Inner Circle" was made up of both independents and Greeks, but it was always dominated by the fraternity men. In 1934, for example, the party's president and 17 of the 33 candidates on its ticket were independents, but the opposing party accused Pachacamac of suppressing "non-fraternity equality."
Pachacamac has never been known for lily-white political tactics. It was compared to the Tammany Tiger in a 1955 campus debate, but even Boss Tweed could have taken pointers from some of the Rising Sun party's machinations. Other parties through the years have accused the K.U. machine of poll blocking, ghost peeking, and even booth peeling, but the phrase "insufficient evidence" had a way of popping up, especially when the council was controlled by Pachacamac. And the internal revenue men were apparently too busy in Kansas City to help.
Since the All Student Council was organized in 1943 Pachacamac has been composed only of Greeks. Member fraternities have had a way of pledging independents who showed political promise with opposing parties. One man who was elected freshman A.S.C. representative on another ticket later became vice-president of Pachacamac.
The Kansan on Jan. 15, 1919, carried the headline, "Arrangements complete for anti-graft voting at elections tomorrow." Council members were stationed at the polls "to prevent crooked electioneering and voting." One of the poll guards, incidentally, was a Pachacamac named Arthur Lonborg.
In those days class elections were held in the fall, separate from the M.S.C. and Women's Student Governing association elections. Tickets were presented by classes rather than parties—"Representative ticket," "Crimson and Blue," "Fairisquare," "Cake-Eater ticket,"
"Status Quo Ante Bellum" (as it was before the war) were a few of them.
The campaigns were colorful, at least. A description from the Kansas on election day: "Campus walks were literally covered with campaign literature put there during the night. A little boy wearing campaign placards paraded on the Hill between the morning classes. Red Lupton made a stump speech at 11:30 from a platform erected near the law building. Candidates and their friends lined the approaches to the polls distributing campaign literature and making last-minute pleas for votes."
In 1922 another Kansan writer, after wandering among the candidates' billboards, reported that the candidates near Fraser formed a line "so heavy on both sides that it extended west as far as (old) Snow hall, and those who ran the quaintet received approximately enough cards to fill a coal-cuttle."
(Continued in Wednesday's Kansan)
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