4
Friday, September 10, 1971
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment
Money Power
Editor's Note: The third and final installment of a Kansan Series on the KU Endowment Association's investment policies appears on Page 1 of today's Kansan. Craig Parks of the series, presents here an editorial comment on the association financial practices.
"Power is secret, power is concentrated, power is nonaccountable."--Ralph Nader, 1971.
Ralph Nader seems to many Americans to be a 20th century Don Quixote, tilting at industrial windmills in a vain effort to make corporate America "accountable" for its role in consumer exploitation and in the degradation of the environment.
To others he is an example that you can beat City Hall.
Any single, isolated effort to understand and influence corporate decision-making in a highly industrialized culture such as ours, can be overwhelming. Approaching the complex, entrenched financial institutions which maintain control of the economy in an effort to reform corporate management appears futile, doomed to failure from the start.
A start must be made.
Discussing the investment policies of the Kansas University Endowment Association is such a start. The issues of social responsibility in education and investment will not be easily resolved. But the opportunity to
encourage a change in corporate management practices is there.
irvyn E. Youngberg, executive secretary of the KU Endowment Association, is a refreshingly honest man. Although presently opposed to social criteria in investment decisions, he seems open to the possibility of change in procedures if presented with a well-organized workable set of plans and goals. Youngberg cooperated generously in the preparation of the three articles concerning the Endowment Association.
A concentrated effort in several areas is the key to bringing about real change in this country. Other individuals and groups are working now to pass new legislation, to educate more people, and to set legal precedents in the fields of consumer protection, pollution, freedom of information, and employment practices.
Sen. Lee Metcalf, of Montana, who supplied the Kansan with the Endowment Association portfolio and other information from the foundation is only one example of the movement toward corporate responsibility.
Power in America—secret,
concentrated, irresponsible and
unresponsive financial power—must
be made accountable if significant
change is to take place in this
country.
And there's no better place to start than in our own backyard, with the KU Endowment Association.
—Craig Parker
Ballot Power
"Power to the People" need no longer be the meaningless chant of disaffected radicals.
For we now have at least one power—the ballot box. It seems, however, that KU students are slow to take advantage of this opportunity to wield considerable force in the Lawrence political system.
Only a few hundred students have so far registered to vote in Lawrence city elections. And that is a mighty poor showing.
Registering to vote is very easy. One must simply sign a piece of paper saying he is a U.S. citizen, at least 18 years old, a resident of Kansas for the past six months and a resident of his Lawrence address for 30 days. The process takes about five minutes at the city clerk's office. The office is open for voter registration on any weekday except 20 days prior to an election. Registration books will be reopened
Sept. 29, the day after a special Lawrence bond issue election.
KU students can list Lawrence as their permanent address if they plan to stay here for any length of time. Nine months a year, for four years certainly seems a considerable length of time.
The mind boggles when one considers the amount of power KU students could—at least theoretically—have in the city. Lawrence now has about 15,000 registered voters. That figure could almost double if KU students chose to vote here, not in their hometowns.
It could mean the election of city officials more responsive to the political philosophies and needs of students. It could mean more recognition for the KU student as a real person, not a mere "transient."
Yes, it could. But only if we make it happen. The power is there to be taken. It is time to take it.
Pat Malone
Readers Respond Wills Praised
To the Editor:
"In Patriotism's Defense," writer Garry Wills raises some interesting points. I definitely agree with Wills, both metaphysically and enristhemologically.
Essentially, Wills contends that Americans should not defend their country just for name's sake, if out of blind faith and blind love, without challenge or criticism. But, if one comes to terms with leaders, "one commits treason, if I choose, one commits treason—a moral treason."
The Vice President says, "Criticism of any government action or policy is masochism." I intercept this to mean: surrender one's mind? Why? So our lives can be guided by notions of the unknown, the unidentified, unproved, supported only by feelings, hopes and fear? This sounds a criticism psychological for 34-year olds with the conception of a "government policy" in Germany. As for the President's wish (wham). "We must be Number One!"; this sounds like an amiable desire. Yes? But a desire leads to a benefit, OK, which "group"
gits it this time? At whose expense? By what right? Ask yourself. In there such a thing as "group rights?" A group is only a number of people, the more rights they mean; meaning, there can only be Rights. Justify, in the face of the United States Constitution, rights granted to some men, but to not others! Oddly enough, this kind of reasoning (malpractice) seems to be snowballing.
My comment centers around this: I cannot accept or justify "naked" statements based on a doctrine such as—"it is right because I (or they or others or society, etc.) say so," as opposed to—"it is right because there is reason to believe it is right." The only thing one can hope for in making a statement as in "the right way" is that who am I to judge what is right and what is wrong"? The point is: "I see one's moral reason to challenge, then one should make moral judgment. If one chooses not to, observe who only can profit."
Gary Kaplan Hutchinson senior
Portfolio . . .
By Dan Whitney
James J. Kilpatrick
FBI Crime Report Statistics—"Grim"
WASHINGTON — "A policeman's lot," wrote W. S. Gilbert, "is not a happy one." Last week's FBI report on crime in 970 adds more discouraging dimensions to the old refrain.
In the whole of the report, one finds only a flickering hint that the picture may be improving; While the number of serious crimes is up, the rate of increase has slowed. In a few cities, such
as Washington, this rate has slowed significantly. But when that has been said, the best has come from the picture is unrelieved grim.
What we are witnessing, sad to say, is a failure of the whole system of criminal justice. Even the police don't have on favored crime suggest a terrible failure on the part of parents, schools and churches to
impress young people with the meaning of discipline and right conduct.
THE SYSTEM of criminal justice embraces policemen, prosecutors, the courts, and the correctional institutions. Their functions are to prevent crime, to punish crime, and to rehabilitate offenders. The system simply is not working.
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In 1960, police cleared 3.1 percent of the serious offences reported to them. Last year, they cleared only 20 percent. In four years since that, 78 percent were made for stolen auto or for burglaries. The police record was better in cases of murder (88 percent cleared) and assault (85 percent), but barely half in cases of the 1970 resulted in arrest.
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A number of factors, says the FBI report, have influenced the declining rate of solutions. The reports which have resulted in restrictions on police investigative and enforcement practices; increases of police workloads in criminal and non-criminal matters, riots, disturbances, marches, etc. The almost constant rate of police strength is not commensurate with the sharp increase in crime and the increasing mobility of those who commit crimes."
resumed their careers in crime, RICHARD NIXON deal with this situation in his 1968 campaign: "We have to stop this revolving door that spends emeralden men out into our streets."
Griff and the Unicorn
THE OVERWORKED and undermanned police departments might make a better showing if the system were
By Sokoloff
Plainly, the revolving door still spins. It is crowded with youngsters. Consider a statistic to break your heart: Twenty percent of all arrests last year for serious crimes were for persons
James J. Kipatrick, conscriptive Washington columnist, typhlisp crime in America as "grim." Kipatrick says the whole system of criminal justice in America may be possible, and may be in parents, the schools and churches, he says.
"Copyright 1971, Davd Sokoloff."
working effectively on up the line. Unhappily, the machinery of probation, parole and rehabilitation is working poorly. Last year saw 37,900 persons arrested on federal charges; of these, 25,800, or 68 percent, had been arrested before.
This depressing story of "repeats" emerges starkly from a special FBI study of 15,300 offenders who were released from the Federal criminal justice system. Roughly a thousand were acquitted or dismissed without trial; of these, 83 percent were rearrested within four years. The system had made no impression on them. In 1965, one in every 165 prisoners was probation; half of them went forth and committed new crimes. That year saw 4,400 Federal prisoners released on parole; within four years, 61 percent of the 3,100 prisoners released in 1965, having their time in prison, 75 percent immediately.
under the age of 15.
Drugs, as you might expect, have a lot to do with this appalling record. Last year saw nearly 9,000 children of 13 and 14 years arrested for narcotics use in 11 or 12 years old; another 177 were under 10 years of age. The FBI made a study of 2,500 police jurisdictions. In 19.0, they reported 243 girls under the age of 7 and 68 boys under the age of 14. Have other statistics to break your heart? Last year there were 11,420.
WHAT TO DO? More police will help. Tough judges will help. More enlightened and burdened people, but comes back to the point of beginning: Parents, schools, churches—the unseen but palpable attitudes of our whole society. When we have crime, can be reduced. It's as simple, and as feartifully difficult, as that.
(C) 1971 The Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.