PAGE SIX
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1951
Thought for the Day
As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. —Oscar Wilde.
The Editorial Page-
It's Sad But True
When a youth reaches the age of 21, he is proud to be a man, but a certain feeling persists that makes him wish he was still a child. On deciding to get married, a little voice warns him that there are responsibilities involved—crushing responsibilities. But he generally goes ahead and gets married. And so it is down through life. At every turn we see an easier course than the one we must follow. It gives us a certain satisfaction to contemplate "how easy it would have been," and "our sacrifice" gives us strength to face the hardships of the more difficult but right course.
This bit of philosophizing is by way of saying that our nation as a whole seems at times to act as an individual. When a national decision must be made, the voices that are heard across the land reflects those same fears of responsibility that we feel in deciding the course of our personal lives.
No, we shouldn't draft 18-year-olds—but, yes, we must. Military leaders say they make the best fighters. At that impressionable age, they learn faster, adapt more quickly, and are easier to mold. So we must sacrifice the youth of our country to war. Military necessity demands it. And now is the time to listen to military demands in military matters. It is hard to imagine a group of 40-60 years-old meeting the rigors required in sustained combat.
As for the other course: That can only be regarded as a regression to that wonderful childhood pastime of "escapism." We can not ignore the responsibilities that the course of events has so generously heaped upon our shoulders. America's richness in natural resources, our climate, the vigor of our people, and the traditions, right or wrong, that have become established have inevitably given us world leadership. We can accept the responsibility or turn away from it. Several escapes have been proposed. Among these are isolationism, Gibraltarism (a la Hoover), and the idea of establishing a "foreign legion" to fight for us.
The first and second proposals seem like the young man who on reaching maturity, says, "I was safe when I was a child, so why don't I keep on acting like a child." The third proposition is analogous to a man paying others to accept his responsibilities.
No, we shouldn't fight wars—but, yes, we do. We do if we want to keep what we've got. Some persons think that what we have isn't worth the struggle. Their brothers in thought are those persons who would pay others to do our fighting in a foreign legion. They say we are so rich and powerful that we can afford to buy protection—or is it weakness and corruption?
Nevertheless, every way must be examined, studied, and accepted or rejected. In the process we reach a fuller understanding of why we go on acting as we do. The voices of dissension are a welcome sound. They remind us that there is an easier way—one that we could have taken had we been less strong. They are the voices that make us strong.-E. J. C.
Dean Murphy's Statement
(The University Daily Kansan was unable to reach Franklin D. Murphy, dean of the Medical School, at the time Chancellor Deane W. Malott announced his resignation. The U.D.K. printed statements from the other ten deans of the schools expressing their regret in losing Chancellor Malott, and is happy to publish the following statement from Dean Murphy):
"Strong and deep tides of admiration, friendliness and personal affection tend to make difficult an objective evaluation by this faculty and its administrative officers concerning the departure of Chancellor Malott from the University. His stimulating and vigorous administrative policy, his continual rejection of the status quo, his appreciation of a university for the people, his recognition of the proper balance between men and materiel—these and many other things provide an indelible and permanent measure of the man as educator and administrator. They accurately explain the reasons for his regional and national prominence in the field of education. His appointment to one of the major academic posts of the nation produces in all of us a great sense of pride. But all of these things aforementioned are tangible, measurable qualities with a predictable reaction. Most of all we feel we are losing a friend—a warm, loyal, objective advisor. In short, the University loses not only an educator-administrator but a unique personality whose imprint upon the pages of University history is firm and deep."
A quote from the chancellor: "Further cancelled is the heating tunnel to scholarship halls now under construction." The University will have to beg the Summerfield scholars to live in the scholarship halls now.
So the Kansas State student council has billed the K.U. council for the repair of the State goalposts. The Manhattan group will probably receive a statement this week for the construction of one FM radio tower.
The Public's Pulse-
Box Tops, Dollars, And Hell
Dear Editor:
Thirty-four years ago we took a running jump into a war that was already in progress. A war for Democracy, a war to end war, a war to stop aggression. Our president said: "The final war for human liberty has come. America is fighting for no advantage or selfish object of her own but for the liberation of peoples everywhere from the aggressions of the autocratic force." And the Central Christian Advocate, a Methodist publication, came up with this: "We are in this war for one great purpose and one purpose only—to uphold the principles of Jesus Christ. Our sons have caught step with the Son of God. For the Entente, this war is the program of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It is carrying out His principles. Every American soldier is a divine force in the greatest spiritual enterprise of all the ages." And down at our church instead of singing, "Nearer My God to Thee," we bellieded "Johnny get your gun shoot the Hun on the Run Over There." I will not elaborate but things didn't turn out so good.
A few years later, in the memory of most of the school children, we joined up again, Praised the Lord, Passed the Ammunition and came home with the same result-multiplied by twenty. Now we are engaged in a little police action and are acting like we wanted to fight some more. We old men don't want to fight but we want to send the kids. The older boys being a little drier behind the ears, more obstinate, harder to discipline and train, we are trying to kangaroo the 18-year-old boy babies before they learn to talk back. We brag upon them, tell them how smart and important they are and what wonderful soldiers they make. Of course they are smart, they are important and they are wonderful. But they are not smart enough to vote, to take care of their property or mature enough to have a voice in anything of any importance. We see to that all right . . . all right.
Old age runs the country and we sacrifice youth for our own self hides.
"When we asked them to kill their brothers,
Or someone he killed
Or themselves be killed,
We said it was a war to end war.
Like cattle in shambles they went to the trenchss
Youth sacrificed for the sins of age, Like Sons of God, valiantly they wrought, Believing we told them truth."
We christians used to make fun of the heathen, savage pagans who sacrificed their children to the great god Moloch. Now we prepare the boys for battle with about as much sentiment as we farmers have in getting a bunch of steers ready for the slaughter pen.
A certain farmer took his combine to the field to reap his wheat. Both Mickey and Minnie Mouse, dressed in their Sunday best were in the field and Minnie got into the path of the reaper. Zip, swish, plop and Minnie came out of the spout all bedraggled and disheveled, her finery tattered and torn. Mickey standing near said, "Well, Minnie, what's the matter—what happened?" Minnie replied, "I don't know, Mickey, but I think I've been reaped."
Our 18-year-old boys are not ripe and I am not in favor of reaping them yet. We separate our boys and girls at the time of life when they should be choosing mates. At a critical time when they need our advice, sympathy, protection and help. Instead of helping them we draft the boys and put them right up into the battle where King David of old put Uriah the Hittite. We can produce guns, tanks and airplanes faster than can the Chinese and Russians but we cannot make soldiers faster. We cannot propagate the race with the physically deformed and the mentally deficient. Should that condition continue for 25 years we will be a push over for sure. If anyone can think of anything any dumber or anything that will send the country to perdition faster, I want to know what it is. I will pay one thousand dollars to the first one who sends in a plan that will do it quicker. Pin a box top to a dollar bill with your solution and send it to me by return mail. Tomorrow might be too late. The decision of the judges will be final, no box tops will be returned and Frank Spreier will be both of the judges.
England lost so many of her young men in World War I that she never recovered and probably never will. I can see ourselves facing the same sad and silly predicament. Will that be a mess. Nations are not conquered from without until they have disintegrated from within. Communism in China and Russia is not nearly so dangerous or fatal as is damfoolishness at home. Once before in history we sent the children on a crusade to "Save the tomb of the Saviour from the hands of the Infidel." Now we are trying to promote a return engagement to "Save the world from Communism and Sin." I'm agin' Sin all right, but I am not that fanatic about it.
I long since ceased to believe in everlasting fire in the hereafter but a couple of hundred million years in a good old orthodox christian hell would be about right for the ones who want to draft the kids.
Don't forget to send in those box tops.
Pawnee Rock, Kan.
Don't forget to send in those book tops.
Frank Spreier
Yesteryears
No Dirty Work
Only Boy In Class Wins $250
Readers of the Daily Kansan know that in doing this Coach Wheaton does not contemplate teaching the men any "dirty play-ing." Unintentional violations of the rules are inevitable, and if the officials do not detect them, so much better for Kansas.
Norwood, Mass.—(U,P) —William F. Pudsey, 17, is the only boy student at the Henry O. Peabody high school for girls. A senior at the school which teaches such ladylike occupations as hair dressing, sewing and cooking. Pudsey was awarded a $250 first prize by a clothing concern for his design of a woman's flare-backed lounging robe in tan and blue.
The area of the Pacific ocean is about the same as the combined extent of the Atlantic, the Indian, and the Arctic oceans.
(From the Sept, 28, 1914 issue of the U.D.K.);
A Lawrence minister, in his Sunday morning sermon, criticized a story that appeared in the Kansan last week to the effect that Coach Wheaton had decided that the footwear should no longer use crimson and blue jerseys because it made the men conspicuous to the officials.
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