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University Daily Kansan
Friday. April 22. 1960
Federal Aid
Opponents of federal aid to education warn us of the dire peril of "control" of education by the federal government.
This is an absurd excuse. It is absurd despite the opinions of voters in the third Congressional district of Kansas — who said in a recent poll that they do not favor federal aid to education and believe that it would result in "federal control of education."
NEARLY 8,000 persons replied to questionnaires sent out by Congressman William Avery. On the question of federal aid for school construction, 41 per cent favored it, 53 per cent opposed it and 6 per cent had no opinion. On the question of federal aid for teachers salaries, 27 per cent favored it, 59 per cent opposed it and 14 per cent had no opinion.
Forty-nine per cent of those answering the query said they believe federal aid will result in federal "control," 38 per cent said they did not believe it would and 13 per cent gave no opinion.
WE DON'T understand this sudden and irrational fear of control of education by the federal government.
The government builds almost everything but schools, and is far from controlling the many aspects of our economy on which it spends money. Congress annually votes billions for roads, hospitals, flood projects, military establishments, etc.
Why not for schools?
There will be no federal "control" of education unless such is provided for in the legislation setting up an aid program. Backers of such bills in recent years have pointed out that no provisions for control are included in the bills. There is no reason for not supporting a bill which clearly does not have "control' provisions.
We cannot continue to neglect our educational system. We need more teachers and higher pay for them. We need more classrooms, and we need them quickly.
SCHOOLS ARE overcrowded now and will be increasingly so as the pressures of the high birth rates of the mid-40's make their impact.
It was estimated by the Rockefeller Report on Education, issued in June of 1958, that "by 1975 our colleges and universities will face at least a doubling, and in some cases a tripling, of present enrollments."
We could quote statistics all day long showing the need for immediate financial aid to the schools. Some of this aid should come from the federal government.
We need to bolster our school system right now. And we are not justified in failing to act because of a silly fear of federal "control" of education.
Jack Harrison
'Sit-Downs' Giving Negroes New Status in Old South
By Harry Bailey Jr.
Fort Pierce, Fla.,
graduate student
The recent "sit-down" demonstrations among Negroes in the South signal the end of an era of "quietism" and herald the beginning of an era of new and militant Negroes crying out for recognition and a chance to earn for themselves a place in the sun.
The new Negro wants more than ever to be counted in. He wants to belong. He wants what other Americans have wanted deeply enough to fight and suffer for and what he too has fought and suffered for — he wants democracy. Most of all he does not want to be considered a separate entity to be discussed as if he were some strange phenomenon on the American scene.
THE NEW NEGROES — a great many of whom are participating in the "sit-down" demonstrations — are saying: "Wake up, white Americans. Don't let anyone brainwash you. We don't like to be segregated any more than you would."
The new Negro is aware of all of the delaying tactics, evasive schemes and gentlemen's agreements to ignore the Negro in his quest for equality. To these he would be moved to answer: "Stop fooling yourselves, Americans. In doing so you convict yourselves of a moral obtuseness which negates every principle on which our country was built."
The new Negro in his "sit-down" demonstrations is seeking not only equality at the lunch counter but also a condition in which a man may move up and down the strata of American social, economic and intellectual life without impediments with respect to race. He wants to merit his gains and losses on grounds of character, ability and neutral human factors without the stigma of separateness which implies congenital inferiority and limited potential.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
ACCORDINGLY, ALL that he asks, as Robert Carr has put it, is "freedom to enter the mainstream of American life." The "sit-down" demonstrations highlight and dramatize the urgency of his quest.
Someone will ask, "Are the 'sit-down' demonstrations legal and does the Negro have the right to be served at drugstore and dimestore lunch counters?" The answer is, in spite of local laws to the contrary, an emphatic "Yes." The whole problem of race distinctions and what is legal or illegal can be summed up in the platitudinous but apropos statement that what is required of man is required of the Negro and that what is due to man is due to the Negro.
THE SOUTH and America would be extremely naive in failing to recognize that these protests will not end until all America recognizes that the Negro is a human being subject to the same hopes and fears and passions of prejudice and faults native to all men.
The new Negro in his "sit-down" demonstrations realizes that the segregationists and other demagogues will continue to thwart his advance and yet so long as America continues to base her existence on the propositions that all men are created equal he will keep the faith and put his aspirations in the constitution and the courts and ultimately in the consciences of the people.
Short Ones
Having one political party on campus may not be so objectionable after all. The last election was probably the cleanest since the founding of our great institution.
By M. K. McKinney
Assistant Instructor of English
BROTHERHOOD OF EVIL: THE MAFIA, by Frederic Sondern, Jr., Bantam Books, 50 cents.
This is one of the most amazing books that I have ever read. And I am completely convinced that what Mr. Sondern has to say about the Mafia is true. Otherwise, I doubt that Harry J. Anslinger, Commissioner of the Bureau of Narcotics, Treasury Department, would have written the "Foreword." If anyone has been libeled, he has recourse to the courts.
THE AUTHOR writes in the "Preface," "The evidence on the Mafia, its background and operations is mainly in the fields (sic, files?) of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the Secret Service and the Internal Revenue Service . . . And we have two main purposes. One is to tell the story, and the history, of the Mafia as it really is ...(The second is to protect the many hundreds of thousands of Americans of Sicilian birth or extraction, most of whom are honest people engaged in conventional pursuits.) The reader is asked to remember that the terms Mafia and Sicilian are not synonymous."
I recommend this book unreservedly. If the whole story doesn't appear in this book—if the other side has a case—I should like to know about it. And I am sure that anyone else would like to know. Until I am convinced that there is another side, I shall have to assume that the author is right.
AFTER I READ this book, the dishonesties of the quiz shows, payola, and the fixing of parking tickets somehow don't seem important. But maybe these lesser crimes are but indications of why a crime syndicate can flourish.
THE AUTHOR BEGINS with an account of the meeting of the Grand Council of the Mafia at Apalachin, New York, on November 14, 1957, at the home of Joseph Barbara, proceeds to an account of "How the Mafia Came to America," tells of Capone, Luciano, and Costello, and ends with the proceedings of the Kefauver and McClellan Committees. Mr. Sondern says that the greatest difficulty in getting laws passed to curtail the activities of the Mafia is the indifference of the public, which has been caused by its inability to believe that such a brotherhood exists. For that reason, the above-named committees had some of their proceedings televised.
Mr. Sondern's style is not distinguished. It is dry, matter of fact, and colorless. He says what he has to say as tersely and as baldly as possible, seemingly to want to put down the story only "as it really is." The reader is borne along so urgently by the exposition and narration that he is hardly aware of such slips as misusing "infer" for "imply" on page 189 and writing "Murder, Inc... was unquestionably the invention of three dons: Anastasia, Joe Adonis, and Frank Costello. Actually, it was not an invention at all."
Today, today, O mighty Rome Should bring you modern praise; For all who dream must surely recall Glorious Rome and its founding day.
Ab Urba Condita or To Celebrate Rome's Birthday Which Was Yesterday
We, today, should stand in tribute For the Master of Ancient lands. Rome still reigns, a noble ruler. With traditions that have centuries spanned.
April twenty-first, some time ago. Romulus raised Rome's mighty walls. They stood for ages, a nation's bulwark, Surrounding heroes and justice's halls.
Rick Wertz Mound City junior
Daiu Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone VIking 3-2700
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Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50th St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence. Kan., every afternoon during the university year except Saturday and Sundays, University holidays, and examination periods. Entered as second-class matter Sept. 17, 1910; at Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
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