KANSAN COMMENT
Commission Report: Already Condemned
The Presidential Commission on Campus Unrest, charged with the difficult task of offering insight and suggesting solutions for campus disorders, is expected to report its findings to the President next month.
KU awaits the report with more interest than most campuses, because an investigative team was sent by the commission to Lawrence after the tragic events of July. The team was preceded to Lawrence by one of the commission's members, Joseph Rhodes, who talked with representatives of every spectrum of the Lawrence community.
It is interesting and perhaps a revealing foreshadowing that both white and black militants, of the right and left respectively, denounced the commission at the time of its investigations in Lawrence.
A spokesman for a militant white group criticized the commission for overemphasis on legitimate expressions of discontent and dissent by students and others.
And a statement issued by the Coordinating Committee of the Black Community and the Brothers and Sisters in Blackness said the actions of the team of staff members had "defamed the integrity and dignity of the black people of Lawrence." Those actions included "consultation with the culprits . . . the Lawrence Police department."
Will the commission's report answer the questions that so many have been
asking about the causes and effects of campus unrest? Can it suggest workable remedies acceptable to legislators and administrators?
One U. S. senator has charged that the report will be a "flaccid whitewash" that could fan the flames of campus radicalism.
Additionally, it appears that, regardless of the report's probable warning against the dangers of counterreaction, this outgrowth of campus disorder has already taken its toll. In Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, legislatures have cut back on appropriations for higher education. And in Kent, Ohio, there will be a referendum this fall on the questions of cutting off the sale of 3.2 beer to minors and banning rock bands and other live entertainers from the city limits.
Having already lost (or never having had) the support and cooperation of many, including the Lawrence black militants and the conservative senator who believes the commission's report will only make excuses for campus violence, the commission faces a difficult task in getting people to listen to what it has to say.
For counterreaction is already running a seemingly irreversible course. And the small army of mindless proponents of violence who reject the system that created them will not be pacified by the report of an establishment-grounded, commission. —Bob Womack
Commission Member Joseph Rhodes in Lawrence
Cashing a Check in Lawrence Is Tricky Business
Many KU students find it hard to do many of the things that seem so normal to them when they are at home. For example, they cannot call very many restaurants in town for reservations on weekends because, with so many kids at KU, the restaurants say their revenue is higher when they take no reservations.
This is only one of the things that a student has trouble doing. Another of these things, and one which at times seems almost impossible, is cashing a personal check. The reason for a reluctance on some merchants'
account is rather simple. Some of the checks they have cashed in the past and then sent on to the bank have been returned to them with either "insufficient funds" or "no account" stamped on them.
Store owners are big losers when a check returns for any purpose. Not only do they loose the amount for which the check is written, but they also lose money in having an investigation of the person who wrote the check. One local merchant estimates that it costs him $5 to have each bad check investigated—and that is
just the minimum he can get by with.
But who is it that really pays for this expense? Area businessmen have followed the same practice that businessmen all over the country are following. They are charging more for all of the products they sell. Now, this may just be one percent which doesn't sound like much, but just think about it when it adds up.
'Sic 'em, Spiro?'
For every dollar that the merchandise would sell for, the consumer is actually spending $1.01. Now, think about how much money the student spends on clothes, cosmetics and food each month while he is at school. It adds up pretty quickly, doesn't it? Businessmen have developed many ways in which to fight the rise in "bogus checks." Many will only take checks for the amount of the purchase. Others will only take checks from Lawrence banks from college students.
Some stores require a check-casher to carry a card and present it whenever they want to cash a check. And, with very few exceptions, all stores require identification of some kind.
Last year the Douglas County attorney's office handled over 250 cases in court against people who had written bad checks. Most of them were
minor—only 33 were classified as felonies.
And even then, it cost the taxpayer, because those bogus check cases took up over 30 per cent of the court cases handled by the county attorney. That in itself takes a bad bite out of the taxpayer's dollar.
If caught, tried and convicted of writing bad checks, the penalties are stiff—and they couldn't be paid for by check.
What Lawrence needs is a computerized card for people who cash checks. A machine that could be as easy to run as an adding machine could be placed in each store so that every time a person wanted to
cash a check, the card could be inserted into the machine and, through a central computer at the bank, a check on the check would be made to tell the merchant whether the check-casher had any money to cover the check. The system could be hooked together with the use of telephone lines.
This would relieve tensions many of the local merchants have about cashing student checks and it would also save the student from unnecessary embarrassment By using a system like this, more bogus check writers could be found.
—Charlie Cape
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
An All-American college newspaper
Published at the University of Kansas daily during the academic year except
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NEWS STAFF
NEWS STAFF
News Adviser    Del Brinkman
Editor Monroe Dodd
Assistant Editor Cass Peterson
Campus Editor Tom Slaughter
News Editors Galen Bland,
Ann Moritz, Robin Stewart, Mary Jo Thum, Nila Walker
Sports Editor Joe Euland
Editorial Writers Charlie Cape, Bob Womack
Women's Editor Carolyn Bowers
Arts and Reviews Editor Marilyn McMullen
Assistant Campus Editor Jeff Goudie
Assistant Sports Editor Don Baker
Makeup Editors Ted Iliff, Craig Parker
Secretary Vicki Phillips
Photographers Ron Bishop, Greg Sorber, Mike Radencich, Steve Fritz
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