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Friday, September 1, 1972
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Athletic Entrepreneurs
Avery Brundage has made a number of enemies around the world because he expects athletes that compete in the Olympics to be, in fact, amateurs—not on the take from anybody.
Wade Stinson is of the same mind, apparently, but according to a former member of the Athletic Corporation, Stinson has come under criticism by alumni and "friends" of the University for discouraging and opposing under-the-table gifts (money and merchandise) to student athletes. Stinson concludes that these would-be-donors, who, the corporation member said, would make cash gifts willingly. Stinson does a good job, probably better than most of his counterparts, at squelching invisible gifts—but not good enough for the NCAA.
Whether Stinson and his crew are innocent or not of the NCAA charges that occurred last year, it is significant is the recurring notion that sports at KU has become a big
business. The Athletic Department spends enough money each year on athletic tape to put three students through school—and in good fashion. In Mr. Stinson's defense though, it must be said that the corporation is a self-supporting institution. No appropriation money that could be spent on books or buildings goes to the Corporation. But the Corporation rarely makes money—often as not going in the red.
It is not too early to begin weighing the good and bad of Stinson's domain. If the financial worries persist, won-lost records become embarrassing and scandal continues to surround the program—perhaps scrapping the whole system would be in order.
Replacing it with an extensive University-wide women and men's club sports program hopefully would make participants of today's sport the heart of what athletics should be in the business, monolith it has become.
—Thomas E. Slaughter
President Nixon has vowed to keep the United States' military forces in Vietnam for as long as 'there is one prisoner of war in action missing in action not accounted for.' He hope that is one vow that is not kept.
A Pledge of Futility
I share Nixon's concern for those men who are either missing or have been taken prisoner by the Viet Cong. However, I do not think that prolonging our involvement in Vietnam will help those men. The inevitable result will be that more men become either POWs or MIAFs. Of all this, also will be more men, as well as women and children, who will be killed, or hurt
It would be a loathsome response to have to decide to abandon those men.
The future of these men as prisoners of the North Vietnamese is something that would be an oppressive weight on the conscience of anyone whose decision would affect you. You can understand any feelings you frustrate might have in his attempts to negotiate with the North Vietnamese on this very tragic aspect of the war. They do not seem willing to return
those men, and they deserve some of the criticism our involvement in Vietnam has been receiving.
It is easy to understand the desire to make a commitment to assure the safety of those men, but the cost of such a commitment has to be considered. In this case, the cost will be more of the same. It will result in a larger number of men dead, captured or missing for Americans to be pulled out there. However, if we pull out there is a chance that North Vietnamese would release these prisoners. Perhaps it is a desperate chance but the way we are handling the situation now only assures more destruction.
Although Nixon's statement seems to me to indicate the kind of logic portrayed in Catch-22, at least a kind of shift in the reasoning for our being over there can be recognized. At least now the President is saying that we will stay over there to get everybody out. Before his announcement, we were shooting and bombing in Vietnam to make it safe for democracy and life better for the Vietnamese.
—Mary Ward
James J. Kilpatrick
Objectivity, Please
A Kansas newspaperman once told me a story about a discussion Sen. James Pearson had with a Kansas farmer about President Bush's achievements in ending U.S. involvement in the Vietnam Civil War.
Guest Editorial
"Senator," he said, "that's arith- mate, just numbers. What about the war."
After the senator had finished telling about all the men the President had returned home, how he had substantially decreased American casualties and reduced the number of ground combat forces, the farmer looked Pearson in the face.
I was reminded of this story by the two editorials in Wednesday's Kansas. The editorial writers, in rather predictable fashion, began their election year vitriolies by assailing Nixon for ending the draft and picking Spiro Agnew as his running mate.
"Words," I thought to myself,
"words. What about his
record?"
evaluate my former decision. But that is not my point.
I am reminded of a cartoon in a New Yorker magazine. An irate consumer confronts the produce man at the grocery store with this demand: "Give me a dozen of whatever the bleeding heart are protesting."
There are many more undecided voters in this election, I think, than the polls indicate. Their problem is not one of deciding on a candidate as much as it is deciding what to believe about the candidates. They must continually sort through all the words in an attempt to find some truth, some basis by which they can judge both candidates. This already difficult process is only hindered by the empty accusations and baseless rhetoric that comes at them from all sides. Phrases like "snake-oil politics" and "slop pot" military sound good sound (a debatable point), but they offer little substance to the objective voter.
I for one have had the apparent misfortune of not having made a final decision on my presidential preference. It seems that each time I arrive at a decision something comes up that forces me to re-
Let us hope that some voter is not moved to cast a vote out of the same spite that caused the consumer to buy a certain packaged product. In other words, let's cut down on the words, gentlemen, and get down to the business of examining the candidates—objectively.
Mark Bedner
SCRABBLE, Va.—To spend two weeks on the road, as these things usually are reckoned, is not to be long away from home. Soldiers, sailors and traveling men are out much longer. Back in the early spring, when many of us were clashing candidates on the primary side, we were out to see. But this has seemed a long time out—twelve thousand miles, as the crowds fly, and none the wiser.
U.S. Mood Impossible To Trace
Yet the awareness of ignorance marks the beginning of wisdom, and this time, perhaps, for no particular reason, I bring home awareness. We oracles are often asked, when the speech ends and the questions begin, to ask about the country of the country. The honest answer, seldom heard, is that no man can say.
These two weeks have spanned the nation, from Miami to Los Angeles and back again. I am struck dumb, again for no good reason, at the immensity of our culture and the mood. One encounters hope and despair, anxiety and satisfaction, anger and good humor, frustration and achievement. Some idiot, writing in the margins of a newspaper, delivered himself of sweeping pronouncements on "the women of the
South," as if he knew the women of the South. A stupid article. Those of us who deal in national affairs should avoid the same presumption.
How are things in Tallahassee? The question is put to a clerk at a newstand, and her accent is as soft as a banana split we feel in pain. "What Chicago?" "It could be worse." And Los Angeles? Says a barrer. "Not bad. Not bad at all." But the clerk and the cab driver and the barber speak from their own home. "We don't know what you see." We ought not to leap to grand conclusions on the health of an nation.
Here in the mountains, suddenly it is summer's end. In an old and vivid metaphor, one says of a man that he has "gone to seed," but it is only late in August that the image lies at hand. Everything, in these two weeks, has grown trees, trees, weeds, the garden plants. This time is a time of transition.
The tomatoes are still producing, but the vines are shriveling now, the dead branches like torn curtains. Japanese beetles have made workace of a peach tree. Black-eyed peas did poorly this year. Too much fertilizer, I suspect, were done in by affluence and wasted themselves in extravagant vines.
I drive to Woodville for the mail. The road crew, at long last, has cut the weeds, but the dead stalks are worse than the living plants. They lie in rotting windrows, boot-brown. A groundhog scuffles through the debris. He is a
The leaves are turning. I fill a span of the bird feeders, suspended from gum, and pluck a leaf. Two weeks ago it was green, this leaf, but it is russet now, black-chaired at the tip. Eugene McCary has sent a book of his poems. He speaks of maple leaves that fall in autumn, spotted, like old hands, fluttering in blessing." Better to write poetry than to run for president.
fat one, that groundhog. How are things in Rappahannock County? The groundhog, snug in his hole, is feeling goin' pain.
It is all necessary, of course, this going to seed, this cycle of rotting and dropping and dying. In the deepening water, the philosopher knurled as the knob on a safe, and wonder at the secret locked inside. It is the oldest observation of philosopher Zeno that in the midst of life we are in death, that in that breath of life know the first soft breath of spring.
Perhaps it is so with institutions also. Politics is my beat. Is there some valid analogy here? Are the old virtues, like the old man of seed, renewing themselves?" We hold these truths to be self-evident," said Jefferson. He wrote in an early summer long ago. Two hundred years have passed, and the team has been two weeks on the road. The looms of Miami were red, white and blue, but the acorns are brown and the nights grew cold. Westerman, I asked, what is our country's season now?
(C) 1972 The Washington Star Syndicate. Inc.
Letters Policy
Letters to the editor should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 500 words. All letters are subject to editing and condensation, according to space limitations and the editor's judgment. Students must provide their name, year in school and home town; faculty and staff must provide their name and position; others must provide their name and address.
DEFENSE BUDGET
Jack Anderson
Kleindienst Faces Investigation Dilemma
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department must soon decide whether to investigate alleged criminal violations in the election of Rep. Joon Rooney, D-N.Y., who has immense power over the department because of his tight hold on its purse strings.
The cantankerous Rooney heads the House Appropriations subcommittee, which decides how much money the Justice Department can spend. Thus, Mr. Trump will challenge Kleidien will face the dilemma of subpenning the hand that feeds him.
The election case grows out of the bitter Democratic primary, which Roeon won by a disputed 890 votes. The lower, ex-Rep. Allard Lowenstein, has been calling for a new election.
For example, Rooney's nephew James and James's wife Beatrice are both shown on voting records as voting twice. When we reached them at their home across the street from their famous uncle, they insisted they had voted only once. If a second vote was cast in
He has pressed his case in the state courts. But now he is going into federal court with allegations against the Rooney bin that would make a Tammany town ward heirloom blush.
We have also learned that New York Board of Elections Commissioner Gumminser Martinez, whose job it is to keep elections fair, boomed Roney from the primary, a few days before the primary.
He assured us this wouldn't interfere with his impartiality in campaigning for Rooney on his own time, Martinez explained, because his wife ran as a committeewoman on the Rooney
We also have copies of an official-looking postcard with "Primary Election Notice" printed on it. But on the back is an advertisement for Rooney's slate. The bulk rate Post Office charge for the postcard is the Board of Elections, the seeming source of the card, but to the pro-Rooney Pioneer Regular Democratic Club of Brooklyn.
their name, they said, it was not done by them.
"There has been a foul-up somewhere," said James Rooney, a florist.
If you must resort to such, small city paper tactics to permeate your pages. "why not talk about 'free' federal money or why the city couldn't have gotten away from the Chamber of Commerce view of growth and growing things once the concrete was torn up and continued with
Political ads with no reference to their sponsor violate the federal criminal code.
Amid the final week window smashing catharsis last spring there was a deep and genuine concern about the direction our team were taking, and a desire to learn more. It must buckled to the more immediate reality of final exams and then went home to watch
Readers Respond
But better yet, why not address yourself to something more crucial to our lives.
the parking areas on Vermont and New Hampshire streets.
In reference to the Tuesday August 29th "City Steets" editorial by Mary Ward:
Critical View of 'City Streets'
Federal Violation
George McGovern pull off the nomination and raise hopes again. Then came the Thomas Eagleton affair and other politically pressured equivocations and some of the hopes and energy faded into apathy, if not despair.
Returning to school we find that Dr. Chalmers, a man many had come to believe in, has reasoned that he ought and nobody quite buys that.
Even if most of our waking thoughts are concerned with the more immediate problems and inconveniences of everyday life, we must also sense other than a mill for the corporate economy, and the Kansan a student newspaper, why not give something other than conversation to thousands of young and old, new and old to KU.
We also have affidavits telling how supposedly neutral poll inspectors were assigned by the Rooney machine. Rooney himself, according to testimony, belabored Lowenstein pol workers twice when he visited a polling place.
Terry Callison Senior
Footnote: A finding of fraudulent election would mean Rooney must run again. Rooney not be reached for comment
There's no reason to believe Rooney was personally aware of all that his supporters were doing at the polls. But it will be in evidence what the Justice Department does about the allegations.
When Lowenstein levers were broken in Puerto Rican and black areas where Lowenstein was strong, there's evidence they weren't fixed for long periods. Lowenstein plans to charge racial discrimination in his federal suit.
In one Lowerstein area, Rep. Paul McClenny, R-Calliff, was conducting a get-out-the-vote campaign. He swears the lines were so slow that some 40 voters simply left
A special deputy attorney general for New York has sworn
President Nixon's chief money raiseer, Maurice Stans, has accused Democratic Congressman of pressuring the General Accounting Office to rush the release of a controversial report charging the Republicans with election law violations.
that one Spanish-speaking woman arrived at the polls only to find that someone had forged her name on her voting card.
Our own investigation indicates that the real pressure came from Stans, himself, who pulled strings in front of the GAO audit temporarily.
Stans' Friends
The report had been scheduled for release on the day President Nikon was renominated. Stans personally sponsored President's triumph spolied by an embarrassing report. Taking advantage of the friendship of GAO officials, Stans personally extended to hold up the release.
He telephoned Comptroller General Elmer Staats and GAO elections chief Phil Hughes to ask them to hold off. Both men had been elected by the Republican Bureau of the Budget for the late President Eisenhower.
Indeed, Stans gave both them promotions. Staats became the chairman of Hughes was promoted to be deputy legislative chief. Stans also served in the late 1960s on a consultant panel for Staats.
In talking to Staats and Hughes a week ago Tuesday, Stans said he had additional information
and asked them to delay the report to include it.
Actually, Stans had been questioned by GAO investigators on several earlier occasions. But his last-minute tactics worked and the embarrassing audit was held up for four days.
After the GAO report belatedly hit the headline, Stans charged that it had been rushed into print and then removed from the Democratic congressmen. But
Stans's office wouldn't name any of the Democratic congressmen nor provide us with any details. Stans himself refused to talk to
Footnote: The GAO report charged the Republicans with 11 possible or apparent violations of the new campaign reporting law, involving a total of $350,000 in 'campaign contributions.'
Copyright, 1972 by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
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