4
Monday, November 9, 1970
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN
Kansas Staff Photo by MIKE RADENCICE
Representation: A Time To Act
There are those who would opt for the status quo, under any circumstance, at this University—and likewise a sizeable number who are committed to the orderly revision of the University structure.
The road to change and rational reevaluation of education is not an easy path to travel for either party.
The chuckholles and disrepair of the road often seem insurmountable and insurpassable.
The separate parties each share specific interests in a topic, student representation in this case, that oftentimes dredges the substance of the ever deepening well some choose to call the "University community."
I see then, two interest groups passionately lobbying separate causes they claim as their own—yet which are in fact identical—the maintenance of an excellent university.
It is as though both are wearing blinders and are concentrating so intently on the irregularities of the road that they have lost their perspective—and vision of the roads' end.
It is the task of the journalist then, to ask both interests to remove their blinders and listen to a hopefully dispassionate third-party question the motives of the two at feud.
Of the faculty I would ask—what in the appartition or equal student representation frightens you so? If you honestly believe that students are capable committee
members, as you so vehemently shout, why do you vote to limit that "input" to an impotent minority?
To my peers, I would question the validity of any representation at all, if we are unwilling to shoulder the added responsibility that equal representation on all committees entails—namely concern. If the faltering attendance at student senate meetings is an accurate barometer of our concern, then the validity of this question is indeed germane. It is difficult to win a gun battle with an unloaded gun.
It is becoming increasingly boring to listen to the argument, so in vogue, as to the real intellectual drawing card of this university—the honored faculty or the dynamic student population.
Common sense tells me it is a combination of the two. It is this dynamic, symbiotic partnership that gives this institution any claim to greatness.
To deny this relationship is to signal the death knell of the ideal we all seem to share.
A rapproachment is vital—yet the chasm looms even wider after the defeat, Thursday, of the motion asking for equal voice and vote.
This university has a fleeting chance to assume the vanguard in cooperative, progressive education through this proposal . . . but the time is painfully short and the spirit sickenly subdued.
—Tom Slaughter
American Housing: A Tragedy
By CRAIG PARKER
Konnep Writer
Kansan Writer
America in 1970 has much to be ashamed of. But nothing stands out more as America's greatest single failure than its inability to deal with the problems created by its urban centers.
One can conclude from the election results that the voters went out of their way in crossing party and even traditional ideological lines to seek out candidates assuring the voters they wouldn't hesitate to act as firmly as possible in any campus crisis situation. At least this was so in Kansas.
And nothing stands out more as a monument to our inability, as a nation and as individuals, to correct this failure than a hearing that heard their hearts that place three years ago.
A fresh look at what went on during those hearings casts a harsh light on the failure of American government, at all levels, and on American enterprise to cope with the unemployment, employment and education in the strongholds industrial and urban bright which scar America.
Nobody really paid much attention to the hearings when they took place. They weren't given air time on national television, the way they were in the past. They probably weren't considered very newsworthy. Just more blacks and Puerto Ricans had schools and jobs and rats in their rooms.
Kansans Strong on 'Law and Order'
The challenge now is for those on campus to kill this issue once and forever by not playing into the hands of those seeking an excuse to institute repressive measures against the free spirit of a university.
What is so tragic about the hearings is that little action of major consequence has been taken in the three years since. Not only were shortcomings illuminated; solutions were raised—only to be shattered and hopes were raised—only to be shattered by the hard truth of apathy.
Yet what that commission heard depicted an ugher, more entrenched side of the American Character than was ever revealed in the Refauer or McCarthy hearings.
Those who appeared before the commission generally had wide experience with city problems and were often leaders of social and political groups within the ghetto. Some were hauling experts, some told about poverty and hunger and some told about the great lack of jobs.
Throughout the campaign, Miller stressed his personal involvement in law enforcement—at one time, posing with a black eye he had received in a melee at a Wichita high school. He proclaimed his intentions to "clean up" the dreadful situation in Lawrence, and his much publicized arrest of George Kimball a few days before the election won him countless votes.
among university administrators about the direction the attorney general's office will take in the next two years with respect to the university.
In California, Ronald Reagan was able to win votes of Californians who were sending the liberal John Tunney to the Senate and the even more liberal Ron Dellums to Congress. Reagan won despite the failure of his promises to hold down state spending and a troubled legislative program. Once again he was able to win because he emphasized the issue of campus disorder
Shultz has acknowledged that his election while other top Republicans were losing was due to his projection of himself as a a "law and order" candidate, and he now becomes a top possibility for governor in two years.
★★★
The National Commission on Urban Problems, formed by President Lyndon Johnson, convened in September 1967 in a town with more cities to hear from a wide range of witnesses.
And there were some who were better known- Bayard Rustin, Charles Abrams, John Lindsay, Herman Badillo and Robert Kennedy.
So the people of Kansas have chosen a sheriff who has never practiced law for a lawyer's job. It will be interesting to see if Miller will find ways to live up to his tough campaign talk without tossing the Bill of Rights to the winds.
The most illuminating, lasting testimony before the commission was heard in Philadelphia on April 20.
There were unknowns—a mr. Carter who, although his grammar was somewhat faulty, spoke articulately of the need for building people when building a city.
The victories of Vern Miller and Reynolds Shultz in Kansas, along with that of Ronald Reagan as governor of California, should be evidence enough for anyone who doubts that exploitation of campus disorder is a powerful political weapon.
Miller's resounding victory was probably a shock to most students, and there is understandable concern
On the morning of September 21 the Commission, headed by Sen. Paul Douglas, met in the old Supreme Court Chamber in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. The experts
"The experts heard by the commission that morning set the tone for the entire hearings—a tone of despair and a warning that action was needed desperately."
The election of Miller to the office of attorney general by a 20,000 plus vote margin was a response to his campaign based entirely on a "law and order" theme. The voters rejected a Harvard educated lawyer, Richard Seaton, Miller's Republican opponent, for a two-fisted sheriff.
heard by the commission that morning set the tone for the entire hearings—a tone of despair and a warning that action was needed desperately.
Morton Lustig, a city planner associated with the University of Pennsylvania, pointed out that zoning is the main control "primarily by law." He also suggested policy," Lustig pinpointed harassment of potential buyers, delay, large-lot zoning and more. He also noted income groups from moving into the suburbs-
"None of the communities, of course, permit the construction of rooming houses or if small, efficiency-type apartments, which would take elderly and poorer people." Lustig said. He suggested that expansion of countyowers was one way to ease the problem.
—Bob Womack
Luxist finished his commentary with a few remarks about the need for greater equality in education in metropolitan areas, and the need for the suburbs to be less parasitic in relation to the core city, to be more supportive financially.
Dr. Leon Sullivan, a minister and city leader in the City of Brotherly Love, spoke eloquently to the commission about the imminent danger of urbanized urban setting and the inherent dangers in the city.
"I believe that you cannot rehabilitate cities without rehabilitating people; that you can build buildings, but unless you build people, the buildings will deteriorate."
Sullivan went on
"But we must never provide an eternal prop. You must never perpetuate poverty. In perpetrating poverty you sow the seeds of the poverty and your own life. You do not have to be done to assist a man toiled."
Many other witnesses followed that day, pouring out emotions and startling statutes.
Four-fifths of households with incomes
more than thirty-five per cent of the
population.
incomes and starting salaries.
Twenty-five yr. olds in Philadelphia with income less than $3,000
are eligible for the program.
In 1960, the median rent paid by families
earning less than $2,000 was $75 a month. The
The testimony was concluded with an estimate of two billion dollars a year as what would be necessary to meet housing needs alone in Philadelphia.
"The bold pledge of'a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family' made by Congress in 1949 has become a hollow mockery for three-fourths of the entire Negro population."
There was a need for 120,000 housing units available to those at the very bottom of the city.
The commission moved on to New York City, the prime example of America's "sudden new problem" that had been building up for 100 years.
"Poverty, unemployment, remoteness from decent paying jobs, inadequate training and health facilities, segregated and inferior schools, a lack of social interaction. And this system, nurtured both directly and indirectly by government at every level, breeds hopelessness and bitterness and sustains a sense of racial alienation so exaggerated in our cities now borders on catastrophe."
JACK E. Wood, former director of housing for the New York City Commission on Human Rights, spoke from a quarter century of experience.
"The bold pledge of a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family" made by Congress in 1949. "The world's most densely populated, fourteenth of the entire Negro population."
median rent in the $10-15,000 range was $88 a month.
Blood bluntly termed Congressional efforts at ghetto improvement "a finger in the dike approach" and called for an end to policies that led to discrimination and animosity, but do nothing to help create them.
It was in New York that the commission heard the most deserate pleas for action
Bayard Rustin, director of the A. Philip Randolph Institute and leader of the 1936 March on Washington, told the commission that urban problems were so entwined that they must be attacked under a master plan. Rustin said the "split, string and scotch tape" of the city's budget required $185 billion to be spent in the next ten years.
a native of Puerto Rico, Herman Badillo moved to the slums of New York city when he was 12 years old. In 1967, he was Borough President of the Bronx.
Baddio pointed out the Commission that in New York City over one million people live
in 43,000 tenement buildings that were concerned in 1901. He said that one renewal project underway, covering an area of 20 blocks, would coat about $200 million. He added that New York City needed to renew the block kits of dilapidated housing. He said New York City had $150 million of the federal Demonstration Cities Program funds was about enough to cover one block
Michael Harrington, author of "The Other America" and consultant to the government on poverty legislation, addressed himself to the concerns of financing future housing starts.
"The fact is," Badilb told the Commission, "the majority of the people in this city and state, and in the nation do not want to support cost, that is required to solve this problem."
Harrington said the private sector had made it very clear it wouldn't invest in sham buildings.
Harrington said that, to properly house itself, America would require 2 million units of new housing a year for the next 34 years. He said the nation's current programs of financing for the poor were running well behind when Senator Robert Taft had advocated in 1949.
He added that, when considering how much money would be needed to run the company in terms of a "Mortgage Plan for the poor" requiring an expenditure of two or three per cent of the gross national income.
The money is basically going to come from the Federal Government. *Harrison said.* "We have to make decisions. We have to invest money in things that involve social priorities and esthetic priorities."
Some of the best, simplest advice for the commission came from a man named Mr.
"Do something about it. Everybody is arguing. You want to build. You must start building a person first. You have to build a person first. A person is more important than the house."
"Our urban centers stand, not as a monument to apathy and incompetence, but to the opportunities and the promise of this country. They should be places where talent and initiative and ingenuity can flourish—not havens for the hopeless and for the defeated, but those who are brave enough to bite the gallt of an adult man, facing nothing but the gray dullness of an adulthood."
Then came the testimony of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, speaking compassionately but hopefully of those Americans about whom he cared so much.
"To the eyes of the white majority, this gap may appear to be closing . . . But his is not the world of the slum-dweller, not the dark and hopeless world where despair is a constant problem," he said. "The Commission of the extraordinarily high infirmity rate, mental retardation and tuberculosis rates in the ghetto areas. He succinctly painted the educational and employment opportunities that are—and are not—available to blacks and Puerto Ricans in the end of his statement, he outpaved hope for the future of an increasingly urban country.
This violence (in the cities) is not simply an ameless burst of savagery, not the product of outside agitators. It is brutal evidence of our failure to deal with the crisis of urban
America did not hear in 1967 when her tired, haddened masses cried out for help. It appears three years later that the nation has not still responded to her call. She more unnecessary suffering takes place.
"You want to build. You must start building a person first. You have got to build a man when you are building a city. A person is more important than the house."
America, and the failure to bridge the
pole between black and white Americans.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
An All-American college newspaper
Kansas Telephone Numbers
Newsroom--UN-4-1810
Business Office--UN-4-1358
obtained at the University of Kansas, where he specializes in holidays and examination paper makers. He is a professor, 14 years Second class postgraduate and 10 years second class postgraduate, good services and experience in research or national origin. Quinnies owns a private university in Kansas or the State University of Kansas.
NEWS STAFF
News Advisor Del Brinkman
Editor Monroe Dodd
News Editor Tom Slaughter
Campus Editors Matt McKenzie
News Editor Ann Moztz, Rob Stewart.
For Thomas J. Boillard
Sports Editor Joe Bullard
Women's Editor Marilyn McNabler
Editor Marylin Cbowers
Awards Editor Marilyn McNabler
Assistant Sports Editor Don Baker
Assistant Sports Editor Dan Baker
Secretary Craig Parker
Photographers Jim Helfman,
Jim Hoffman
BUSINESS STAFF
Business Advisor Mélad Adams
upper-level uverning Manager John Lajos
uverning Manager Bob Owens
kistant Adv. Mélad Adams
kistant Adv. Bob Owens
uvvering Manager Todd Smith
uvvering Manager Bob Owens
Member Associated Collegiate Press
'What's the matter? Don't you people believe in progress?'