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University Daily Kansan Monday. March 14. 1960
Think, ASC, Think
There is a proposal before the All Student Council to disaffiliate with the National Student Association (NSA).
We have heard several arguments for dropping the NSA. Most of them conclude that KU is not gaining any benefits from its membership.
We agree. The University is not getting its money's worth. But after talking to a few ASC members, we can see why. They don't know beans about what the NSA does.
We are amazed at some of the Council members' lack of knowledge on this subject.
We talked to a few ASC members to determine what they knew about NSA. Most admitted they were uninformed on what the NSA does.
It is discouraging to ask your student government representatives about an organization from which they may disaffiliate at their next meeting and discover they don't even know what they are quitting.
The bill to disaffiliate was sent to the Committee on Committees for further study. This is all well and good. The bill deserves much further study.
But there seems to be a prevailing attitude among ASC members of "let the committee obtain the information and then report to us. Then we will be able to vote intelligently."
The NSA is a complicated organization. The Committee on Committees will have to present a long detailed report before the subject can even be superficially covered.
However, it should not be left to a committee to do all the research necessary to provide the Council with information. Since the NSA is costing the students $400 to $500 each year, each Council member should have a general knowledge of NSA policies, programs and procedures. We have concluded that they do not.
We also are critical of the logic the Council seems to be using on this issue. It seems to run like this: Whenever one is paying money to an organization from which no benefits are apparent, drop it at the first opportunity. Regardless of potential, it is present effectiveness that counts.
Using this same logic, we might conclude that
we should withdraw our membership from the United Nations. Its effectiveness is questionable and those we have talked to don't know much about it.
Perhaps the NSA campus travel bureau is not used. Give it a chance. Besides, it is only one program that the NSA sponsors. There are a couple of dozen more.
If communication between national headquarters and KU is weak, improve it.
NSA usually takes a liberal stand on political issues. It disapproves of loyalty oaths and discriminatory clauses in fraternities. It supports federal aid to education and believes a teacher should not be fired because he is a member of the Communist Party. The ASC does not have to follow the lead of the NSA. One can keep his conservative head buried in the sand forever if he wishes.
For the students' as well as the Council's information, we might point out a few advantages of belonging to this group. Those who care can obtain a complete file on the subject at the ASC office.
1. The NSA distributes information concerning the activities and problems of student governments at other colleges and universities across the nation. Strange as it may seem, many other schools have problems similar to ours.
2. The NSA is composed of approximately 400 colleges and has a membership of more than a million students. This becomes relevant when considering that it is powerful enough to lobby for federal aid to education and re-enactment of the G.I. Bill, and to represent students on the international level at the International Student Conference.
3. The NSA circulates a monthly newspaper, pamphlets and bulletins containing ideas on what a student or a group such as the ASC can do to improve the quality of his education.
4. The NSA has access to an advisory council composed of such distinguished American leaders as Reinhold Neibuhr, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, Erwin D. Canham, Harold Stassen, Ralph Bunche and Walter Reuther.
Doug Yocom
Where Are They?
Where are the politicians?
Where are the ambitious young Stevensons, Humphreys, Kennedys and, heaven forbid, Nixons?
The deadline for filing for spring campus elections is tomorrow, and we have no opposition party to challenge the boys in power. The university is mired in the doldrums of one-party politics.
Is there no one with enough initiative to rescue us from this dilemma? Will we never have a second party?
We won't hurl the old standby charge at the students. But maybe there is a bit of unconcern, disinterest, lethargy, stupefaction, dullness and other things around here.
And all this in the midst of an election year. Presidential candidates are dashing about the country, drumming up political excitement. The
actions of Congress make the headlines daily. Local politicians sling the mud. The air is tense between Topeka and Lawrence.
But KU remains a political desert in the exciting, exhilarating, and scintillating election year of 1960. We don't even have a second party.
For one thing, it's unfair to Vox Populi. With no competition, Vox will grow weak and deteriorate from lack of action. There'll be no bickering in the ASC, which will become a biweekly tea-and-cake society meeting, with members exchanging compliments as they rubber stamp party legislation.
KU will become a miniature Louisiana, with vigorous campaigning for the primaries, and dust on the ballot boxes come general election day.
We must have another party. Who will come forward to accept the challenge, and leave their footprints on the sands of time?
A Tradition Upheld
Jack Harrison
There is a deep and proud tradition associated with basketball here at the University of Kansas.
We would like to thank the members of the 1959-60 team for maintaining that tradition and adding to it. They showed a determination and perseverance far past what would normally be expected.
We can't be quite as enthusiastic about the performance of the fans this year. Many were loyal through the ups and downs of the season. But others deserted the team during its early season difficulties.
Head coach Dick Harp passed over criticisms hurled in his direction, taking it as a gentleman should. He said many times that "We've still got a chance for the title."
And each time KU slipped back of the conference leaders, it fought to the top again, finishing the season with a Big Eight co-championship.
Only the nation's top team, Cincinnati, led by the fabulous Oscar Robertson, could put KU on the sidelines as the post-season tournament field was narrowed to the nation's elite.
Derision would have greeted the radical Jayhawker fan who ventured in January that mid-March would see KU battling Cincinnati for the Midwest title.
an NCAA regional berth on the basis of a playoff victory over Kansas State, and an impressive showing in the regional.
But KU has that great basketball tradition. It is the tradition of James Naismith, Phog Allen, Clyde Lovellette, Wilt Chamberlain—and of Dick Harp, Bill Bridges, Wayne Hightower and their associates.
Thanks, fellows. You've made us proud of our university, its basketball tradition and the men who are building it. It's a good, warm feeling.
Jack Harrison
By M. K. McKinney
By M. K. McKinney
Asst. Instructor of English
MAN AND SUPERMAN by George Bernard Shaw, Bantam Books, 50 cents.
This little volume contains what I think is one of Shaw's best plays. In addition, it has an "Introduction" by Brooks Atkinson; "The Revolutionist's Handbook" by John Tanner, M.I.R.C. (Member of the Idle Rich Class); and "Maxims of a Revolutionist," which I assume was also written by John Tanner. The reader will soon find out in reading the play that this author is the chief male character. As if these weren't enough, the volume contains also a 31 page "Epistle Dedicatory," written by Shaw to his actor friend Bingham Walkley. If the reader has only seen the play, the chances are that he isn't acquainted with the third act, which is rarely if ever presented with the rest of the play, but which Charles Laughton's troupe toured the United States for several years, reading it under the title of "Don Juan in Hell."
Atkinson says that "Man and Superman" is about what Shaw calls "The Life Force," what Bergson calls "Elan Vital," what some call "Nature," and what others call "God." The author illustrates his thesis by the dialogue of his characters, among whom are John Tanner and Ann Whitefield. The chief action deals with Ann's use of, and Tanner's attempt to avoid, the trap of matrimony. What Shaw calls "romantic love" has nothing to do with their subsequent marriage—it is the Life Force making itself manifest. And the Life Force is trying to make man better through selective mating. Ann selects Tanner as her marriage partner, and this selection is in line with one of the tenets of Socialism. As Tanner says in the "Handbook," "The only fundamental and possible Socialism is the socialization of the selective breeding of Man; in other terms, of human evolution. We must eliminate the Yahoo, or his vote will wreck the commonwealth." The reader of the fourth book of "Gulliver's Travels" will get the implication of "Yahoo."
I can think of no better play with which to get acquainted with Shaw. The intellectually curious will be interested to see how the author develops his ideas, and if he thinks Shaw is writing nonsense, he will be forced, if he is honest, to examine and defend his own ideas.
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone VHing 3-2700
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Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 420 Madison Ave., New York, 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.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Managing Editor
Jack Morton Managing Editor Ray Miller, Carol Heller, George DeBord and Carolyn Frailey, Assistant Managing Editors; Jane Boyd, City Editor: Ralph (Gabby) Wilson and Warren Haskins, Sports Editors; Carrie Edwards and Priscilla Burton, Society Editors.
Douglas Yocom and Jack Harrison ... Co-Editorial Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bruce Lewellyn Business Manager John Massa, Advertising Manager; Mark Dull, Promotion Manager; Dorothy Boller, National Advertising Manager; Tom Schmitz, Circulation Manager; Martha Ormsby, Classified Advertising Manager.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
By Dick Bibler
THE FACULTY ... THE MISGUIDED STUDENT ... HIS WIFE