University Daily Kansan Monday. March 28. 1960
Vox Void
The effect of one-party politics was seen last week when Vox Populi presented its platform.
Maybe we should not expect too much with one party dominating campus politics. Yet, we were looking for some indication of what Vox would be working toward during the next year.
To put it mildly, we were disappointed.
Vox has released a seven-point platform. Two of the seven points could have been incorporated into any party platform that supports mother, television and the U.S. Constitution. Two more will continue policies that are now in practice. One point will establish an election every time a change in representative reapportionment is needed. Two additional planks of the platform actually have merit.
1. APPOINTMENTS TO the ASC committee should be made according to interest and qualifications. Thus they will be chosen from petitions submitted to a selection committee.
The text of the platform (complete with criticisms) states:
Does Vox mean that appointments are now being made according to interest and qualifications? We doubt it. But this point does need clarifying. All this says is that the new regime plans to continue a policy that was started last year. After the last election a screening committee was established to make committee appointments from those who submitted petitions.
2. WITH THE INCREASING distance between buildings on campus, the time allotted between classes would be lengthened.
This is a reasonable suggestion. The program will increase as more buildings are added to the campus in the next few years. Perhaps the ASC could look into the possibility of running a shuttle bus across campus or, better yet, the class schedule could be completely revised. This would probably mean extending classes past 5 p.m. or starting them before 8 a.m. But if this change is not made now, it will be inevitable within a few years.
3. STUDENT RELATIONSHIPS with Lawrence residents should be promoted by more good will between the two components of the Lawrence community.
Ah, yes. Wonderful idea. Simply wonderful. This cannot be classified as anything but a brilliant statement. We doubt if there is a single person on campus who would oppose such cooperation.
4. THE ASC NEWSLETTER should be continued on a broadened scale to keep the students informed on their government.
Good idea. The newsletter was started this year to inform the students of ASC activities. So far we have only seen one newsletter. If this method is going to be used to inform students, it seems a newsletter should be published at regular intervals.
5. VOX CANDIDATES will not use the ASC to promote personal ambitions. The representatives should devote sincere effort and time to express the interests of the students.
Hallelujah! No more social climbers are going to be allowed on the ASC. Of course we don't know how Vox is going to stop the infiltration of those trying to "promote personal ambitions." Perhaps it can instigate a type of loyalty oath which will require all Voxites to genuflect three times in front of the seal of Kansas before all Council meetings and swear they will sincerely strive for good student government at all times.
Let's go all the way and make the exchange free for all athletic events. And to hell with doing it for the public relations angle. Let's do it to save the students money.
6. ID EXCHANGES should be available for more athletic events at a smaller cost, thus promoting better public relations for the University.
7. REPRESENTATION OF men's University housing and women's University housing should be divided to assure representation of large and small university groups (separate representation of resident halls and scholarship halls).
Now this one looks pretty good. We don't quite see why the idea has to be put into the form of a constitutional amendment and then sent to the student body for a vote as Vox President George Schluter says. The constitution should be amended to correct for improper representation. If not, this is going to become an annual joke when the war babies start pushing KU's enrollment up to the predicted 15,000 in the next ten years.
So what happens? Do we have an additional election every year to see if the students want fair representation? — Doug Yocom
Danger on the Doorstep
(The following article is reprinted from the March 14, 1960, issue of The New Leader, weekly publication of the American Labor Conference on International Affairs. The article will be reprinted in the Kansan in three parts.)
By Harry Schwartz
One doesn't have to be in Cuba very long to realize that it is a troubled land, and a breeding place for what could be very great trouble indeed for the United States. The signs are plain enough.
Day and night in Havana's streets you see civilians—adults and children—receiving military training, and you observe with surprise that even youngsters of 12 and 13 are being taught to use
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
Jack Morton ... Managing Editor
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Douglas Yocom and
Jack Harrison ... Co-Editorial Editors
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Bruce Lewellen ... Business Manager
rifles. You read the Cuban newspapers and note how many of them carry attacks on the United States Government and American business, attacks which sometimes become as general as the statement in "Revolution," organ of the Castro movement, that New York is a city built on the sufferings of other people. You talk to an American rancher distraught over the exploitation of almost all of his 15,000-acre ranch, and watch the intensity with which he assures you that every day the "Communists" who approve such seizures are getting stronger.
YOU TRY TO QUIZ the manager of an American business in Havana and note his fear of talking to someone whose sympathies he isn't sure of. You interview a high Cuban Government official and he tells you, with steel in his eyes and his voice, that "we are supported by the workers, farmers and students of all Latin America, whatever their governments may say." And if you were in Havana last month when the Soviet Exposition was on display, you would have seen, as I did, the obvious admiration with which the throngs of Cuban visitors viewed the tangible evidences of Soviet progress on display there.
The dispatches from Washington confirm the impression of trouble. They tell of Government officials debating whether the U.S. won't have to send in the Marines to "clean up the Cuban mess." They tell of Senators demanding that the Cuban share of the United States market—Cuba's chief source of foreign exchange—be sharply cut or eliminated altogether. They even tell of discussions about whether it would not be wise to set up a high-power radio transmitter near
Miami so that the American point of view could be transmitted to the Cuban people. And when so responsible a reporter as James Reston recounts Washington fears of a Soviet-Cuban mutual defense treaty which would present us with the same dilemmas as American relations with Turkey and Iran pose to the Soviet Union, you know that really dangerous trouble may be brewing.
WHAT LIES BEHIND this growing tension and the growing anger of both sides? It is important to understand the issues, since much is involved for both sides. A hostile Cuba less than 100 miles from Florida presents obvious major security problems. United States investment in Cuba probably exceeds a billion dollars. The total volume of trade between the two countries exceeded a billion dollars in 1958. And the precedents being set in Cuba—and in Washington's reaction to what is going on in Cuba—are being watched intently throughout Latin America. At least some of the people watching, moreover, would like to repeat the Castro pattern elsewhere in the southern half of the Western hemisphere.
Unfortunately, on both sides understanding of the issues is beclouded by emotion, propaganda of interested parties, and sometimes plain bad reporting. In this country, many have already gotten the impression that Fidel Castro is a Communist and what we face in Cuba is simply a Muscovite advance post on our threshold. In Cuba, many people are convinced that this country is planning to "Guatemalaize" Cuba and soon the Havana streets will run red with Cuban blood shed by our hired mercenaries or by our Marines.
(Continued tomorrow)
Editor:
French Nationalism
I am quite amused at your attempt to defend the French colonialism. I wonder what that "reputation of a well-deserved French nationalism" means. Does it mean the minority rule of the French settlers over the Algerians even against their will? Does it mean that the French army is entitled to kill off all the Algerian rebels? Does it also mean that the Algerians must be forced to serve as an economic tool for the grandeur of France? Apparently, you have confused colonialism with nationalism. If any country tries to enhance her national interests shooting down the native people in other countries, it is not called a well-deserved nationalism, but a blood-dripping colonialism, which well-deserves an international whipping, if it deserves anything at all.
YOU ASSERTED THAT the French government is "giving independence to all her former colonies." No matter how much France has invested in Algeria, it does not matter to the Algerians. Algerians are not the descendants of Teutonic Knights and Algeria is not Brittany. Algeria is the country of the Algerians. If the French government is really so generous as to give away independence to all her former colonies as you have claimed, then why doesn't she give it to Algeria?
You also mentioned that the French government is proposing self - determination to Algeria. Does it mean that Algeria is not a colony of France? Putting this question aside, I would like to mention that this proposal has aroused a great skepticism among many people in the world. As you know so well, the French settlers in Algeria simply want to stay there, because they can enjoy all the colonialists' privileges. Won't they make sure that the Algerians do not want their independence? Isn't it also true that the French army in Algeria is determined to guarantee "the complete and sincere freedom" of Algerian election?
HOWEVER, IF SOME Algerians had built a hope of achieving their independence upon the promise of self-determination, this tenuous hope seems to have evaporated recently. After Mr. De Gaulle returned home from his last Algerian tour the other day, both Army spokesmen and Mr. Mauriac, the reporter who accompanied Mr. De Gaulle on the trip, had this to say. (Time, March 14) "The Algerian problem will not be solved for a long long, time. . . It will not be solved before the
final victory brought about by the French arms . . . France is determined to stay in Algeria . . .
She must not leave. She will stay"
If this report is true, the future of Algeria looks only bloody. If France is determined to stay in Algeria with her arms, the Algerians are even more determined to boot her out. The ugly fact for France is that Algeria is surrounded by the people who are very sympathetic to her national cause. Surely, they will not spare their moral support. Moral support means, of course, more arms in the hands of the Algerian rebels.
ONCE THE colonized people are determined to achieve their independence, you can never stop it. It has been proved so in the past and if I remember correctly, France herself has experienced it not very long ago, in spite of the fact that her army had better weapons and superior military knowledge. To imagine that this simple historical rule does not apply in the case of Algeria is as posterous as to imagine that the French nuclear test does not produce any radio-active fall-out.
France has ruled Algeria for many years, uninvited, unwanted and even roundly hated and I believe that this is the time for France to initiate a peaceful solution to the Algerian problem. There is only one solution and it is very simple. Simply, it is to give complete independence to Algeria.
If France is determined to stay in Algeria, that entails more tortures, more kidnapings, more battles and more bloodshed. While both the Algerians and the French are shedding blood, I will be shedding tears.
Yoshiharu Iha Japan Graduate Student
. . .
Correction
At the risk of annoying or embarrassing the pleasant young lady who reported my remarks at the Poetry Hour on March 10. I must make one correction. I did not say "that the main difference between their (Rilke and Brecht) poetry is that Brecht wrote his poems to be set to music." I did say that many of Brecht's poems were written to be set to music and that many of them have been turned into songs. The difference between the work of the two poets is apparent in many more important ways: ideological, psychological, sociological and philosophical.
Ian C. Loram Associate Professor of German
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"YOU HAVE YOUR ASSIGNMENTS TWISTED IF—THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A BOTANY FIELD TRIP—NOT BOLOGY."