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University Daily Kenson Friday, March 11, 1960
Castro's Comments
The Cuban situation is becoming more complicated every day. Last week Castro charged the United States with sabotaging a Cuban munitions ship in Havana Bay.
The charge was disturbing because it seems to be completely unfounded. There has never been any proof that the ship has even been sabotaged, much less by a citizen of the United States.
One can only guess what Castro is thinking. He has picked an inappropriate time to make an unbased charge against the country who buys most of Cuba's sugar. Congress will soon be faced with approving or disapproving the quota of Cuban sugar that the United States will import next year. Cuba's economy largely depends on growing sugar and having a market to buy it.
Newsman Marshall Bannell recently interviewed Ernesto (Che) Geuvara, the head of the national bank who wields almost as much power as Fidel Castro. In discussing the agrarian reform program, Guevara made the statement:
"We now have the promise of the economic help of the most powerful nation in the world
and we will pattern our economy on the system they have so very successfully followed."
Guevara probably referred to Russia and the agreement the two countries have signed. Although, Russia has agreed to buy only a token amount of sugar compared to what the United States now buys, Guevara seems to look upon the U.S.S.R. as an alternative market for all of Cuba's sugar.
A supplementary agreement may have been made privately by Anastas Mikoyan and Castro or Guevara.
If so, the United States may have a Russian ally less than 100 miles off the coast of Florida.
Economic warfare is considered reprehensible. Yet we wonder how many congressmen would advocate a partial cut in Cuba's sugar quota if Castro unleashes a few more serious charges against the United States.
We hope this never happens. Instead, it would be better if our diplomats would prepare for a Cuban trip complete with long negotiations to try to persuade Castro and Guevara of our good faith. — Doug Yocom
Russia Gains
By Carol Heller
Can Russia surpass the United States in total national production?
A KU assistant professor of geography says it is possible.
"Why not," asked Duane Knos, who teaches the Geography of Soviet Union class. He also is a business researcher with the Business Research Bureau.
"Russia is a bigger country than the United States, and you would expect it to have more natural resources and a larger population."
But Prof. Knos said it would be impractical to attempt to pinpoint how long it would take for such a development to take place.
"Actually, it is nonsensical for the Americans to criticize the Russians for being behind us—we are saying that the Soviet Union should have advanced as far industrially in 34 years as the United States has in nearly a century," he said.
"Russia is young industrially and it would take time and capital for the Russians to surpass us."
By time he meant that the Russians must start from a small industrial base and build up its production. By capital he referred collectively to factories, machinery and investment funds in the form of savings, which must be accumulated over a long period of time.
Prof. Knos pointed out that a country so vast as Russia encounters serious drawbacks in uniting its widespread resources for human utility.
He discussed two of the Soviet Union's most difficult problems:
its location and its size. Upon these major problems hinge related problems in industrial and agricultural production and transportation.
"The Soviet Union's northern latitudinal position on the globe is
DUANE KNOS
"Russia is young industrially..."
equivalent to the prairie provinces of Canada—it is not a question of Kansas farming conditions for the Russians," explained Prof. Knos.
"The Russians' agricultural base is small, because few or no crops can be grown on the northern
tundra, the taiga or the desert land."
The taiga is a forested belt running east-west-through the center of Russia, and the desert is located to the south of the taiga. These lands can be made productive only by expensive irrigation or fertilization.
Prof. Knos said that although Russia has great reserve resources in coal, petroleum and natural gas, the size of Russia becomes a problem because the resources are separated by many miles and often are not located where they are needed.
As an example, he explained that a coal field is located near the United States' steel center in the Pittsburgh-Youngstown area, but that ore must be shipped to the mills from northern Minnesota. This can be done relatively inexpensively by inland waterwaves.
But he said this transportation is not so simple in the U.S.S.R.
"Coal used in the ore fields in the southern Ural Mountains must be shipped by railway from the Karagonda area 1,000 miles to the southeast.
"The Russians' inland water system is inefficient because the rivers do not go anywhere."
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"THAT'S THY BODY I WAG TELLING YOU ABOUT WHO IS WORKING ON SOME SILLY SECRET EXPLOSIVE."
Prof. Knos said that the Russians must depend upon the railroads for 90 per cent of their transportation while the Americans depend on them for only 40 per cent.
"This is one reason why the Soviets are slow to develop their waste lands—they have no roads to ship out the produce," he said. "Their truck system is little more than an intra-city network."
"In our Capitalist economy we have many groups deciding how to administer scarce resources, such as determining what products to produce, how to produce them and how much to produce. But in Russia one central unit makes all the decisions."
Prof. Knos said that the Russians have an advantage in coping with their problems because of the gosplan — or the central planning agency.
Prof. Knos expressed contempt toward the idea of the United States "racing" the Soviet Union in consumer goods productivity.
"We must protect our position as a national power, but a race in the production of consumer goods doesn't mean a thing" he said.
"I don't begrudge the Russian people a high level of living."
Short Ones
That time you made a right turn from the left hand lane, don't let it upset you. You're probably just careless and not at all what the driver behind called you.
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We are convinced, at this stage of the game, that woman's intuition is usually nothing more than man's transparency.
the look world
By Calder M. Pickett Associate Professor of Journalism
GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. by Jonathan Swift. Signet Classics, 50 cents.
Why do people read "Gulliver's Travels"? For that matter, just who reads the famous 18th century classic? Marcus Cunliffe of the University of Manchester suggests in his forward to this new paperback edition that these are pertinent questions to consider.
The book is a tale that in part at least can capture the imagination of most readers. The very young, if they are spared the disquisitions on party affairs and Swift's obsession with the subject of bodily discharges, may read "Gulliver's Travels" as an adventure story that, to them, may top even Disneyland. More sophisticated readers may prefer, or say they prefer, to read the book as a bitter satire and a commentary on British politics.
Cast out this pessimistic view of man and "Gulliver's Travels" would not be what Swift intended it to be. But shorn of its philosophy it still is a soaring tale of adventure—a "Treasure Island" or a "Tom Sawyer"—where men, and little boys, can sail the seas, be admired by the world's tiniest people, be put on exhibition by the world's tallest, live on an island that floats in the sky, and talk with beautiful horses.
Swift was, of course, an associate of Pope and Bolingbroke, an important man of letters, an official of the Church of England. Knowing these things lends interest to the story of Lemuel Gulliver.
But I believe the book has survived chiefly as an exciting adventure story. Gulliver's experiences with the people of Lilliput, six inches tall, and the people of Brobdingnag, 60 feet tall, are the parts of the book we remember. His adventure on the flying island of Laputa, where deep-thinking 18th century eggheads have to be awakened by their slaves from daytime reveries, is too fantastic even for science fiction. His adventure on Houyhhnnms land, where Houyhhnnms, rational horses, are served by the Yahoos, people-like beasts, is essentially a polemic against the human race, an effort by this misanthropo to vent his indignation and blast away at the 18th century.
Man is a mess everywhere Lemuel Gulliver travels. Man goes to war on the island of Lilliput over the issue of which end of the egg should be broken. He is a court conniver on Brobdingnag as much as in the court of Queen Anne or Louis XIV. He is completely mixed up in his speculations on the flying island of Laputa (Swift obviously is getting in his digs at Rational Man here). Finally, he is the antithesis of rationality in the final episode, where horses are capable of reasoning but men are capable only of grovelling, stealing, whoring and killing—and serving the Houvhnhms.
Is "Gulliver's Travels" a book of the 18th century, in the mood of that celebrated time? Hardly. Lemuel Gulliver gets himself into situations as wild and incredible as those of Candide, but Swift is no Voltaire. Man is no exalted being who can use the gift of reason to solve all problems. He is a Yahoo, a beast, a mistake.
From the Magazine Rack
Harvard's Salaries
"Harvard (faculty) salaries have a wide range. In the nation generally, excessive emphasis on across-the-board increase results in serious wastes. In this connection, the recent attempts of the American Association of University Professors to rate universities on the basis of minimum pay in different ranks has the unfortunate effect, whatever its other advantages, of encouraging across-the-board increases. For a college to achieve an AA rating, the minimum pay for a full professor must be $14,000. But many are worth much less. Wide range at each rank gives the Administration some flexibility in adjusting pay to faculty value. The University seems to pay some considerations to market pressures, that is, outside offers. But the University also rewards its invisible, as Dean Bundy calls them; that is, those who are valuable and have high standing in the University though they are not well known elsewhere. That, despite varying demands, the average pay in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences is roughly equal confirms the view that Harvard professors are paid as much on the basis of their value to Harvard as teachers and scholars as on the basis of outside valuations."
(Excerpted from an article "The Economics of Harvard" by Seymour E. Harris in the Feb. 20, 1960, Harvard Alumni Bulletin.)
Dailu Hansan UNIVERSITAT
University of Kansas student newspaper
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone Viking 3-2700
Extension 711, news room
E-mail 276, blog site
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. Mall 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
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT Douglas Yocom and Jack Harrison
Douglas Yocom and Jack Harrison ... Co-Editorial Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bruce Lewellyn ... Business Manager