UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
MONDAY, MARCH 8, 1948
PAGE SIX
The Editorial Page
Let It Grow
When the winter snows have cleared away, the campus is going to look like a Kansas cow pasture. The "short-cut takers" and the "get-there-quickers" have worn paths across the lawn in every spot where a calculating eye has been able to sight a route that will save a few steps. This is especially true of the areas around Watson library, Lindley, and Marvin halls.
More excusable, perhaps, but just as disfiguring, are the paths that have been worn beside the sidewalks. During the between-clases rush, students who are in a hurry gingerly skirt the crowds by walking on the lawns that border the sidewalks. The result has been ugly paths that disfigure the campus and probably depress the building and grounds personnel.
Give the spring grass a chance to cover up these threadbare areas on our lawns. The new grass will be pushing up soon, if you don't push it down. Step on the heels of the yellow just in front of you if you have to, but stay on the walk. Give up that short-cut you've been in the habit of making. If you help, we can keep our campus beautiful.
Landlocked Russia
The current Russian squeeze play on Turkey, Greece, and Iran is nothing new. Although the Communists would be the last to admit it, they are following the ancient czarist policy of trying to get "open water ports."
Russia is a landlocked nation. Although it has 31,000 miles of coast line, the ice-choked Arctic ocean forms the greatest part of it. Leningrad on the Baltic sea is closed with ice eight months of the year and, in event of war, is easy to blockade. Besides, it is almost 1000 miles through narrow channels to open water in the North sea.
Archangel on the Arctic ocean is closed almost ten months of the year. Odessa and Sevastopol on the Black sea are "open water ports," but they can be effectively controlled by closing the Bosporus and the Dardenelles. Even if the Russians did reach the Mediterranean, the British control the exits, Gibraltar and the Suez canal. Along the Indian and Chinese frontiers, deserts and high mountains cut off further expansion.
Today Russia is still trying to get "open water ports." In the event of war, she will probably strike to capture the Dardenelles and the Iranian ports on the Arabian sea. John S. Smith.
Peter the Great reached the Baltic sea in 1703 when he defeated the Poles and th Swedes. He annexed parts of Poland and Finland and the three states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Catherine the Great conquered the lands of the Black sea in 1795. Alexander II in 1878 nearly captured Constantinople and the Dardenelles, but Germany, England, and France stopped him by the Congress of Berlin.
Vladivastok on the Sea of Japan, and Port Arthur on the Yellow sea are the only two "open water ports" the Russians have. However, the transportation problem across the Trans-Siberian railroad makes their use impractical. They would be the first Russian territory attacker, and their defense would be almost impossible.
It's time that Henry Wallace found out that the tools of democracy are not the hammer and sickle.
Trying Times
Dear Editor,
As Thomas Paine so aptly put it, "These are the times that try men's souls." That phrase is as applicable today as it was at the time of the Revolution. Today we are faced with a crisis. Like our fore-fathers, we must face it squarely and resolutely.
The pattern of Russian expansion is reminiscent of the heyday of Hitler and 1939. About us we hear more and more, "Well, it looks like war is the only answer."
When we hear that illogical elicite, we should take it as a call to action. War is not and never has been the answer to anything. War is what happens when men stop thinking with their brains and start thinking with their biceps. War did not solve the problem of German, Italian, and Japanese aggression. It did unify the people of Russia and lay the foundation for the present crisis.
Some people are saying that this is the strategic time to begin a war with Russia. That may be correct, but let us look a little farther. Suppose we went to war with them. Suppose we won that war. What would we have accomplished? We would not be liberating the Russians as we were the Germans, Italians, and the Japanese. The Russians may be barbarians. They may accept the Eastern idea of the lack of value of human life. But in spite of these things they believe in their ideology. Their war against the Nazis unified them solidly behind Stalin. Another war would only unify them more. If we interrupt their regime, they, and some of the present occupied countries, would always think that it would have worked. If we are to defeat this ideology, we must hold it in check by peaceful means; so that when it falls of its own inability to succeed, the Russians will know whom to blame. This is the way to win the war—by never allowing it to start.
Harry M. Wardin College junior
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'Soviets Paid Slaves,' Polish Student Says
Slave laborers in Russia were paid for their labor, Edmund Kostka, Polish graduate student, told the Russian club recently.
"I received about 175 rubles a month." Kostka said. "One ruble would buy two pounds of bread and 5 rubles would buy about two pounds of sugar. On 150 rubles I could live pretty well."
When Germany declared war on Russia in June, 1941, Kostka was freed and could travel anywhere in the Soviet Union with the exception of about five restricted cities, he said.
From June, 1941 to February, 1942, Kostka traveled in Russia, saw the Black and Red deserts, picked cotton seeds, hitch-hiked, and rode on boxcars. On one collective farm, it was considered a low norm to pick 200 pounds of seeds a day. Kostka said that the best man in his group picked 30 pounds a day.
"Should a program of universal military training be adopted," is the question to be argued at a forum to be held at 8 p.m. Thursday at Liberty Memorial High school.
Col. John Alfrey, R. O. T. C. commanding officer, will present the affirmative argument, and the Rev. John Warren Day, dean of Grace Episcopal cathedral, Topeka, will argue the negative. Robert M. Davis, professor of law, will serve as moderator.
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