University DAILY KANSAN
STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Thursday, Oct. 31, 1946
44th Year No.28
Lawrence Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas
Hospital Annex 'Not Enough' If Epidemic Breaks
Bed space in Watkins memorial hospital, even with the addition of a proposed ward annex, still will fall drastically short in case of a major epidemic, Dr. Ralph I. Canuteson, director, said today.
A major epidemic, such as might be caused by a great number of flu cases, would require from 200 to 250 beds for a community the size of KU., he said.
The capacity of Watkins is 60 beds normally and 80 under emergency conditions.
Even with cots set up in the halls the hospital could provide less than one-third the necessary beds.
"We now are entering the seasonal epidemic periods," Dr. Canuteson said. "They usually extend from November until March."
The daily average of patients at Watkins, he added, is about four bed patients per 1,000 students, or about 32 for the present enrollment.
During a seasonal epidemic, Dr. Canuteson added, the ratio jumps to from 10 to 15 patients per 1,000 students. In a major epidemic, there are 25-30 bed patients per 1,000 students.
The construction of a temporary building of 30 x 100 feet, he estimated, would provide an additional 40 beds, raising the Watkins emergency capacity to 120 beds, ample for seasonal epidemics.
To provide the 200 to 250 beds for a major epidemic, Dr. Canuteson said, temporary bed space will have to be arranged in Sunflower barracks or in campus dormitories.
"The addition of bed space does not provide the needed expansion in stair space," he added, "That is being taxed to capacity with the present enrollment."
WEATHER
Kansas—Mostly cloudy, occasional showers and thunderstorms in southeast half today and tonight. Warmer in northwest quarter today. Little change in temperature tonight.
It All Went Black For Diners At Union
The raspberry pie and succotash looked just alike in the Union last night—unless you had a cigarette lighter when the lights went out.
An overload of electricity at the power plant forced a switch to be pulled about 6 p.m. An electrician was called before the lights went on again 15 minutes later.
The cafeteria was jammed with diners in the two cafeterias and the fountain, and two private dinners were in progress. Miss Hermina Zipple, Union director, said today.
No damage resulted, Miss Zipple added, but many dinners were delayed until plates became visible.
Jam Sessions Planned In Union For Sundays
Sunday night jam sessions in the Union was the main item on the roster at the dinner meeting of the Union executive board Wednesday night. Tentative plans are to have those every Sunday night, Joan Woodward, chairman, said today.
A jam session featuring vocalist Sidney Dawson and a four piece band will highlight the Sunday activities in the Union from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Kansas room.
The music room will be open from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday. The Pine room will be available from 1 to 5 p.m. for those who wish to play bridge. They are asked to bring their own cards.
The social committee announced plans for a carnival to be held Nov. 23. Specification of boots will be announced later.
The Union has taken over the sponsorship of the Modern choir, Miss Woodward said, but the choir will retain its original student directors.
Religious Council To Meet
The Student Religious council will meet at 4 p.m. next Thursday in Myers hall.
Little Man On Campus
By Bibler
U. S. Banks Helped Cause Inflation University Finance Professor Says
New Yell Tryout At Rally Today
The Pi Beta Phi sorority and the Sigma Nu, Delta Chi, and Kappa Sigma fraternities will introduce new yells at a pep rally at 4 p.m. today as the result of elimination tryouts Wednesday night.
The yells contest is under the supervision of the traditions committee of the All Student Council. Four out of the eight cheers submitted were chosen by the executive committee of the Ku Kup pclub to enter the final tryouts today.
The rally will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. in Hoch auditorium. Classes will not be dismissed, Chancellor Deane W. Malott announced.
Deane W. Hazeen, BSc.
The Miller hall skit, first place winner in the Homecoming "hullabaloo" convolution will be presented.
Pep songs and yell will be given and music will be furnished by a pep band composed of members of the University band.
Cash prizes will be given to the two winners of the yells contest, to be chosen at the rally.
Hogan's Cast Is Off But He Won't Play
The results weren't too good.
Bill "Red" Hogan's cast came off his broken leg this morning.
"It just wouldn't be worth it to have 'Red' play much ball this season." Dr. Robert Allen, football team physician, declared. "At least, not before the Missouri game Nov. 28."
Coach George Sauer and the K.U. football fans had hoped that Hogan would be ready to go for the Kansas State game, Nov. 16.
"If he doesn't take care of it, an accident could mean that Hogan would have to go back into a cast for two or three months, and stand the risk of some permanent trouble."
"He has a well-healed fracture now," Dr. Allen explained. "If he takes care of it, he'll have no permanent injury there, and he'll be able to walk all right."
The log bus shelter across from Bailey laboratories is nearly completed. C. G. Bayles, superintendent of buildings and grounds, said today.
Hogan has two years more competition at K.U. His leg was broken during the game with Denver, Sept. 27, and the team has missed his sparkling quarterbacking and passing since then.
Rain has prevented carpenters from working on the two shelters which are being rushed through before bad weather begins, he said.
Thursday Rains Are Just Chance—Honest
Campus Bus Shelter Nearly Completed
Bus patrons will have to stand inside the shelters, because benches are not planned. Mr. Bayles added.
A gravel walk and the second laver of roof will be the last step.
Must be Thursday, it's raining again. For the past four Thursdays the "uniform of the day" has been raincoats and shrunken hats. C. J Posey, retired professor of geology, says, however, the weekly rains are merely chance happenings and that we are not victims of a vicious cycle.
BY BILL HAGE
(Daily Kansas Managing Editor)
Do your meals cost more now than before the war?
Has your rent gone up in the past six years?
Are you getting less than 100 cents worth of value from your dollar?
If your answers are "yes," a K.U. professor says you can blame the commercial banks of the nation for a lot of your trouble.
And the average commercial bank—with qualifications—was a World War II "profiteer."
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whose study on Kansas commercial banks was published this week by the K.U. Industrial Research foundation
TWO. Increased the difficulty of price controls.
The University man is L. J. Pritchard, associate professor of finance, commercial $ \textcircled{4} $
The nation's banks, Mr. Pitchard said, increased their profits nearly 100 per cent during the war, and are now averaging more than a dime profit on every dollar of capital investment—a rate higher than nearly any other type of business.
ONE. Contributed to the rise in prices.
At the same time, he stated, the economic services of banks have decreased in importance. Professor Pritchard now questions the justification of these high profits.
Specifically, the professor maintained that through their credit "creating" activities, banks since 1939 have:
THREE. Raised the national debt higher than it otherwise would have been.
The K.U. educator declared banks formerly helped business by risking their own good credit to back private enterprises whose credit wasn't so highly-regarded.
Now, he pointed out, banks get most of their profit from interest on federal bonds. As a result, they are doing little more than trading their own inferior credit with Uncle Sam, whose debts are backed by the U.S. treasury.
(The Daily Kansan today asked Professor Pritchard whether his study didn't indicate that the nation's banks were the profiters of World War II, much like the munitions manufacturers of World War I.
"Their result has been the same, but their method certainly has been different," he answered. "You see, the unusual profits of the banks are due to their peculiar institutional setup, and certainly not to any connivance.
("Our banks are making high profits because of the negligence of congress, which didn't pass adequate national tax measures, and which didn't provide methods for financing the war deficit through non-bank sources.
("There's another difference, too—the profits of the munitions people stopped after the first World War, but there's no end in sight for these banking profits after this war.")
The K.U. study applied particularly to Kansas banks.
"But what is true of Kansas commercial banks is true of banks in the other 47 states," the author pointed out. "The nation's banks must hold themselves responsible to a considerable extent for the country's economic difficulties for a long time to come."
In 1945, however, 58 cents of every dollar's worth of assets were in bonds, while loans were a little less than 11 per cent of the total assets.
To support his claim that banks are doing less and less to aid private enterprise, Mr. Pritchard ponited out that:
In 1939, loans made up 34 cents of every dollar's worth of assets in Kansas banks. Bonds accounted for only 27 per cent of the assets.
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Banks have been the main cause of inflation, the professor said, because of their war-financing activities.
"Through these activities, they have enlarged the effective money supply by something like 100 billion dollars since 1939," he explained.
"That money isn't in actual cash—there aren't that many more dollar bills around—but it is in the form of deposits which can be converted into cash at any time.
"It isn't money in the sense of hand-to-hand currency, but it is in the form of deposits against which checks can be written."
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If you were a Kansas banker, here's how you'd go about picking up some of the easy money from Uncle Sam.
You want to buy some federal bonds. (Since the second War Loan drive, banks haven't been allowed to buy bonds directly from the government, but they have continued to do so indirectly, and the net effects are the same.)
You take the bonds, and in effect give the government permission to draw checks on your bank.
This is called "creating" a deposit.
So far, everything is even.
Now, under banking laws, you must hold a reserve above a certain percentage of your desposits (liabilities). This reserve-asset usually is cash or money due from another bank.
You then mark the bonds up as assets and increase your liabilities the same amount.
In Kansas, that amount is 15 per cent, and half of it may be in government securities, which the federal reserve bank would buy in a hurry if the local bank needed cash.
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All right, here's your bank. Suppose you had $100 in deposits, $15 in cash for a reserve for the deposits, and $85 worth of other assets, such as loans on real estate.
Theoretically, you can't "create any deposits because your reserve is only enough to cover the existing deposits.
But now the joker in the Kansas law comes up.
You buy $100 worth of bonds. You "create" a $100 deposit for Uncle Sam, take your $15 cash and $15 worth of the bonds and mark them "reserve." Now you still have enough reserves and, better still, you're drawing interest on $100 worth of gilt-edged U.S. treasury bonds.
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You've put out no money, but you've given the government a lot of credit.
So Uncle Sam spends this money, and the people getting the checks proceed to despoit them right back
It's all a big and complicated circle, with consumer getting gipped on his buying, but with the bank pocketing plenty of profit.