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University Daily Kansan Thursday, March 17, 1960
We Lose Our Friend
A few decades hence our grandchildren will come to us and say: So you graduated in 1960? Wasn't that the year Murphy left Kansas? Well, why did he leave? And what was he really like?
"He was a good man," we will answer. "There was no better man in American education. He was intelligent, cultured, understanding — a rare man indeed. He knew what was important in this crazy world. He tried to serve his fellow citizens — but even there he butted his head against a stone wall. The state of Kansas wasn't big enough to appreciate him."
We will remember him then. We will remember him always.
He gave 12 years of his life to the University of Kansas. And what did Kansas give him? A limited budget and a conservative philosophy in which he was to shackle his ambitious and restless views of the vital role which education must play in the fate of western democracy and world civilization.
Why did he stay so long?
He was not in the game for money, or fame or position. He served the people of Kansas. But they rejected him.
Kansans like to play it cool, to hang on to their money and stick to the beaten path.
Why buy education? Its dividends are neither tangible nor immediate.
Dr. Murphy endured a stream of abuse and insult from the statehouse in Topeka. Many legislators and Kansas citizens lent him their support. But he had a rough go all the way.
How much harm can petty jealousies do to a state?
The people of Kansas may find out soon.
Will we take the departure of Dr. Murphy as added incentive to carry on his program, and push forward for top-grade education in Kansas? Or will we breathe a sigh of relief that the agitation for new things and new ideas has ended?
Daily Kansan staff members feel a personal loss as Dr. Murphy leaves the University. His attitude toward the newspaper, as toward all students, is one of stout defense of the students' right to express their opinions. He went to bat for us on many occasions, defending our freedom and expressing his confidence in us.
Dr. Murphy is leaving. We know he hates to go. We know the roots of the Murphy family are deep in this area. They leave with mixed feelings both sorrow and anticipation.
We begrudge them nothing. Dr. Murphy has given us more than we could possibly repay. We thank him for what he has done for the University of Kansas and wish him good luck in his new position.
It's St. Patrick's Day, and the Irish everywhere are jubilant. Let them cheer for the advancement of one of their more able brothers. He is taking a step up the ladder. He has deserved a move onward and upward for some time.
We hate to see him go. But we know he serves much more than Kansas has given him.
The governor said a few weeks ago that he could find many administrators of Dr. Murphy's equal. But we're not holding our breath until he does.
We will never get another man as good.
— Jack Harrison
The Wearin' o' The Green
By Elva Lundry
So you're not Irish! But, didn't you know, everybody has a little bit of Irish tingling in his veins on St. Patrick's Day.
Since the whole world has been declared Ireland's stage for the day, and since it has waited with anticipation for the "really good show" of the Irish, let's stimulate even the smallest "green" blood cells in our capillaries so we can see out this 17th of March with an exclamation of "Good Show! I felt a part of it. They meant every word of it!"
The stage in the U.S. on which all Irish-minded people are invited to play is a revolving one, showing as many factions of Irish influence as you can count Irish policemen on the corners of New York City. We, as Americans, have a privileged duty when it comes to celebrating this holiday. The first generations who settled here from many countries were determined to grasp tightly onto the old established
customs they already knew so well. However, the second generation, just as emphatically, usually tried to do away with all of the old ways for fear of being tagged "foreigner."
But, from the third generation on, we almost desperately at times, struggle to preserve the customs and traditions of every nationality which we weave into the uniquely varied American culture. In this adoption process the Irish refuse to be even slightly ignored. Our St. Patrick's Day celebration is just an American symbol, then, of the esteem we hold for the commingling of scores of nationalities which have given variety to the American dream.
It is only reasonable that St. Patrick's Day should have an international flavor. For you see, St. Pat was not Irish after all. He was probably born of Roman British parents in the fifth century and was taken captive as a slave by the Irish at the age of 16. Even
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
under oppression, however, he was able to develop a genuine affection for his captors. Although he did escape and go back home to Britain, he soon returned to Ireland as an ordained priest to convert his adopted people. He organized the scattered groups of Christians in such a way that the pagan kings no longer could attack him.
His devotion to those people who had once brought injurv on him, made such a lasting impression on the Irish that they have since been unwilling to miss connecting any advantage of Ireland with the patron saint. They have gone so far as to credit him with chasing out all the snakes that were noted even in pagan times to be completely absent from the Emerald Isle.
THOSE FELLOWS IN TH BUSINESS DEPARTMENT WILL STOP AT NOTHING TO BUILD UP THE ENROLLLMENT. "
Whether March 17 is the celebration of the birth or death of St. Patrick, or whether it has any actual connection with him at all matters not. What other time of the year would be so fitting for such a holiday? March — the most irresponsible month of the year — would as soon hit you with an icy cold wind, to remind you of the winter just passing, as it would warm you the next minute with friendly sun rays. March was made for the mixed emotions of a holiday like this — the emotions of carefree gaiety mixed with a sentimental devotion to an ideal. Four days before Spring Fever is declared is as good a time as any to wash the dull winter's film from your eyes—why not with a shamrock?
So, if you are Irish, congratulations! But if you're not, and whether you celebrate by praying in a cathedral in Old Ireland, by parading on Fifth Avenue, or by merely "feelin' the Irish within ya," go ahead and take advantage of this escape from the harshness of life. Don your shamrocks, join in "the wearin' of the green," and feel your part in the "really good show" of the Irish.
Short Ones
The Faubus-for-President movement was organized in Shreveport, La., Feb. 25. Attendance was about 325 persons. Now Faubus has only 29,999,675 voters to convince.
People are funny, you know. Heard about a man the other day who hadn't kissed his wife in 10 years but shot a fellow who did.
the took world
By Calder M. Pickett
Associate Professor of Journalism
POLITICS IN AMERICA, by D. W. Brogan. Doubleday Anchor, $1.45.
Here is a wise and discerning look at the American political system that stands a good chance of attaining status alongside the de Tocqueville and Bryce appraisals written in the 19th century. Another perceptive foreigner has observed our political folkways, oftentimes with charm and wit.
Brogan begins with an analysis of the character of American politics, with almost ringing praise for our Constitution which has weathered so many years with so few changes. He sees that the Constitution is an institution which is almost above suspicion, so venerated that he who would tamper with the ideas of 1787 is suspect to many.
America of mid-century may seem new to some, but to Brogan it retains institutions and concepts that were part of the scheme as early as 1792. Little of the Constitution has been altered, and even the party system—ignored by those who wrote our great document—existed in embryo. Even the Supreme Court had its powers at that time, though it took John Marshall to give full realization to these powers.
Brogan analyzes the party system, race and politics, machines and bosses, politics and morals, the national convention, the campaign, the President and Congress, and politics and law. Most of his observations have validity, although a few have become outdated by the course of events since the book appeared in 1954.
Brogan seems, for an intelligent observer, somewhat unaware of the role then being played by Sen. McCarthy and his fanatical followers. Also, though he was conscious that the Supreme Court was more and more concerned with matters of civil liberties, he was not able to benefit from the historical schools decision of May 1954. Again, he observes (perhaps with prescience), that Al Smith and the Democratic debacle of 1928 made the presidential candidacy of a Catholic practically impossible. Yet Senator Kennedy would seem to be at least a good chance, in the sping of 1960, for the nomination this summer.
Brogan believes that the "war between the races" is following the "war between the states" into history. We may hope that he is right, though the Senate filibuster of this session makes us wonder. "Hyphenation" remains an important aspect of political planning, especially in our great cities. It is not too long ago that three candidates for mayor of New York City—Impelliteri, Pecora, and Corsi—all had either Italian or Sicilian origins. And, much as the voters of Connecticut might approve Ribicoff's policies, it is unlikely that this capable governor ever could aspire to national office, for he is a Jew.
The analysis of Brogan in respect to politics and morals is good reading in a day when censorship continues to be approved by many Americans, and petition-passers still seem convinced that they can legislate morality. This outsider-looking-in writes wryly of our "noble experiment," of the situation faced by the Republican party in 1932, when it had played ball with the "drys" for so long that it once again was forced into a position of endorsing the decade-long farce.
Brogan would suggest that the idea of separation of powers, implicit rather than explicit in our Constitution, breaks down from time to time, and he in 1954 had not had an opportunity to observe for long a President who seemed to feel that his chief function is to suggest legislation to Congress. Brogan also feels that the House of Representatives has been so weakened by the prestige of the Senate that we no longer have a truly bicameral system.
And federalism, as it was envisioned in the 1780's, also has disappeared, he says. This has been due in part to the strengthened role of the central government. But another factor has been the American's loss of identification with a particular state. Original allegiance, it would seem, belongs in 1960 to America rather than to a state, though some staunch Texans—or even Kansans—would argue against such a supposition.
UNIVERSITAT
Daiu Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone Vikning 3-2700
Extension 711, news room
Extension 276, business office
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 Saturdays 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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