PAGE SIX
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
MONDAY, JANUARY 10, 1949
The Editorial Page-
The Electoral College
The new congress is scheduled to take under consideration a constitutional amendment which would abolish the electoral college. It is high time to abandon this archaic custom.
The present system was devised as the result of a compromise during the constitutional convention in 1780. One faction feared choice of the executive by the national legislature and one feared direct popular election. The electoral college, admitted at the time to be a temporary and artificial device, appeared to be the only solution. It has now endured 160 years.
Under this system, each state is allocated a certain number of votes, according to population, all of which are cast in favor of the candidate receiving the majority of popular votes in the state. Thus, the electoral college fails to be a reflection of the popular vote. If no candidate received a majority vote, the election is made by the house of representatives. This actually happened three times, when Adams in 1824, Hayes in 1876, and Harrison in 1888 were elected to the presidency when their opponents had recevied a large popular vote.
A reform of this system is long overdue. A start toward corrective action was taken in the 80th congress by the Lodge-Gosset resolution proposing a constitutional amendment. The new amendment would retain the electoral vote but abolish the college itself. The electoral votes of each state would be cast for the candidates according to the popular vote received.
according to the popular vote The merits of such a system are obvious. Every vote would count in the same degree and no candidate could possibly be elected without a majority. Under the present system, many capable candidates are automatically eliminated as possible nominees because they are not from large and crucial states. The entire campaign would assume a more national aspect as there would be less emphasis on winning special states.
The process of amending the constitution is long and cumbersome, requiring a two-thirds vote in congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states. Immediate action on an electoral amendment is necessary if the country is to enjoy the benefits of such a system by the election of 1952. —Martha Ann Nichols.
Candidate for the "Man of the Year" would be the student who walks up the 14th street hill, smoking a cigaret, and whistling "Rhapsody in Blue" between puffs.
Letters To The Editor
Proaress
Dear Editor:
Several weeks ago I glanced out my second story window on the Massachusetts street to see a somewhat elderly member of our Lawrence police department removing coins from parking meters. His procedure was simple: merely to take the coin box from the meter and dump its contents into a bag, fitted with a lock, which he carried over his shoulder.
Sometime later, again hearing the jingle of numerous small coins, I perceived this same policeman removing the coins from meters and dumping them into a steel can fitted with wheels so that it could be rolled along the sidewalk. No one can doubt that this innovation efficiently lightened the burdensome task of collecting parking revenue.
The third part of the story came later. Hearing the jingle of coins followed by the quiet roar of a motorcycle, I looked out and beheld, yes, the same policeman making his collections, and the repository can with its little wheels was there too; but there was a difference. This time the can was attached to the rear end of a motorcycle, and driving the motorcycle was younger man and obviously better fitted for driving motorcycles along the streets of Lawrence than was his elderly companion for pushing a can full of pennies and nickels.
The two guardians of the law placed a red (not Communist red) piece of cardboard on the windshield of a vehicle, and after stopping at a small cafe for a short time, continued their journey. All hall the progressive spirit of the Lawrence police department.
Daniel M. Kirkhoff,
Need Better Homes
College Senior.
Many home builders who are worried over increasing "buyer resistance" to their product need not look beyond the interiors of their own houses to find the reason for slackening sales. Even after due allowance is made for the reduced value of the dollar, it is obvious that the industry must offer a better value than it is now doing if it hopes to check a further decline in the market.
A study of some of the new residences quickly shows why the market has become "selective" and why certain groups of homes are standing vacant in the face of a continuing housing shortage. Tiny rooms, cramped quarters and poorly planned layout of space
are the rule rather than the exception even in dwellings built to sell for as much as $25,000. One of the complaints most often received these days from disillusioned home seekers is the failure of the builders to provide adequate closet space. Some of the smaller houses have virtually no storage room, a shortcoming which is more keenly felt because many of these homes are without basements.
In the frantic pursuit of shelter just after the war, anxious families by the thousands in every metropolitan area were purchasing such homes before the foundations were laid, but the sponsors are now learning lessons from competition and from the growing feeling that prices have advanced out of proportion to the value of the product. In this connection it is reassuring to note that some of the more reliable builders who have studied the needs of housewives and who recognize the value of satisfied customers by erecting satisfactory houses on conveniently situated sites are continuing to sell their output as rapidly as before.
University Daily Hansan
Student Newspaper of the UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Member of the Kansas Press Assn., National Essay Exhibition, and the Associated College Press. Represented by the National Ad-
batter-in-Chief ... Maurice C. Lungen
Managing Editor ... Hal D. Nelson
Asst. Man. Editor ... Anne Murphy
Asst. Man. Editor ... Hail Wiley
Girl Editor ... Robert Newman
Asst. City Editor ... Nora Temple
Asst. City Editor ... Patricia James
el. Editor ... Richard A. Larry Funny
Asst. Tet. Editor ... Robert D. Snail
Sports Editor ... Osmero L. Bartrell
Asst. Sports Editor ... Marvin L. Rowlands
 Society Editor ... Rosemary Rospaw
Business Manager ... Don L. Tennant
Advertising Mgr ... Don Welch
Circulation Mgr ... Ruth Clayton
Circ. Crc. Mgr ... Dean Knuth
Classified Mgr ... Don Waldenrath
Classification Mgr .. Yvonne C. Beck
Asst. Class. Mgr ... William E. Beck
Promotion Mgr ... Richard Reed
Distraught Chaplain
Senate chaplain Dr. Peter Marshall sounded a dismal note the opening day of congress. Custom dictates that he open each daily session with prayer for guidance of the lawmakers. Dr. Marshall says the senators arrive with their minds already made up, and asking Divine guidance seems futile. He's going to start praying for miracles.
The chaplain is unduly worried. Right after an election many solons descend upon the chamber blindly convinced they bear a "mandate from the pee-pul." May be some of them do, and a few of them remember. But if the Rev. Marshall bides his time, he will find the senators reverting to their usual florid forensics. Ere long they will be caught by the force of their own oratory into the side tracks, by -passes, bayous and legislative morasses. These mandates will be mauled by the bludgeons of verbosity. And there will be times when the distinguished gentlemen won't know where they are, we suspect.
Then the chaplain's petitions for guidance will be decidedly more appropos. Or maybe he had better pray for miracles after all!
-St. Louis Globe-Democrat
With most materials of good quality now readily available it is time the other builders improved their homes in keeping with modern living standards. It would be good business for them to do so; but over and above that consideration is their obligation to the public. Pleasing homes make happier people.-New York Times.
Railroad Representative Will Interview Engineers
C. G. Groves, representative of the Pennsylvania railroad, will interview January or June civil electrical engineering graduates, Wednesday in 111 Marvin hall.
The company is interested in students who are not more than 23 years old. However they will consider outstanding students who are under 25 years old. An interview schedule may be filled out in 111 Marvin hall.
Newest Thing In Atom Clock Bound To Get You To Class
All you have to do is wait a few billion years (47-billion possibly) and you can squint over your lorgnette at your partner at the bridge party and say, "My deah, you know I'm only one year old."
Washington—(UP)—This is exclusive for ladies of 40 and up.
Silly? Not if you are willing to wait.
This old world is slowing up to a
point where time is lagging.
- It all came out at a press preview
at the national Bureau of Standards
of a new atomic clock—the most
perfect timepiece ever developed.
Dr. Edward U. Condon, director of the bureau, explained that the good earth, in its trip around the sun, has been slipping gradually for a long time. As a matter of fact a day isn't a day, anymore. A year isn't a year.
After a few billion years the length of our day will be actually doubled. Instead of having a 24-hour day we'll have a 48-hour one. That doubtless will foul up all of the union contracts.
After some 6,000 more years, really a short time as billions go, spring and fall will move back a whole day. In 20,000 years, it is estimated, spring will start on the 11th of March, instead of the 21st. And in enough more years, if time doesn't run out on us, 40 or so years, will be one.
This new atomic clock, by the way, may get in the way of the rotation of mother earth and straighten her out on her course.
Dr. Harold Lyons, chief of the microwave standards section at the Bureau of Standards, said it was a somewhat radical departure from all conventional methods of measuring time.
This earth of ours, said Dr. Lyons, has been cutting some odd capers in the last few million years. For some unaccountable reason there have been fluctuations in the rate of its rotation. First, we find we have a longer day and then a shorter one—according to which century we look at.
But this new clock should fix everything.
So far the atomic timepiece, which has more gadgets keeping it ticking and tocking than a jet plane, has run with a "constancy better than one part in 20 million and already is being improved." By use of the power atomic system, one of these days we'll find it to be accurate to one part in 10-billion.
Which is getting pretty close to the right time.
The principle of the thing was developed by Dr. Lyons himself. He believes it should greatly improve astronomical observation, long-range navigation and communications systems, precise surveying and military man-making.
The Bus- (Adv.)
You'll still have to wind up the grandfather standup job in the front hall and restart the electric alarm after an electric storm. And maybe turn both of 'em up or back a few minutes each week.
But the atom is going to correct the errors mother earth makes as she rolls around the sum. Maybe.
Announcement A Bit Wrong
Grand Rapids, Mich.—(UP)—Visiting hours were nearly up when the following order came over the lead speaker system at St. Mary's hospital: "All patients must leave the building."
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