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University Daily Kansan Monday, March 7.1968
Thought Control
With the recent withdrawal of several universities from federal aid programs under the auspices of the Federal Defense Act, the whole controversial topic of loyalty again has been thrown open to public debate.
To what lengths can the federal government go to determine the security of the United States? Is it an invasion of civil rights to force any person to sign a disclaimer affidavit and loyalty oath for a federal grant, loan or scholarship?
Several heads of institutions of higher learning have decided it is wrong for the government to do so. In order to understand their reasoning it is necessary to attempt to evaluate the concept of loyalty legislation as enacted by the federal government.
L. A. Nikoloric, in his essay The Government Loyalty Program, maintains that it is not the purpose of the program to find out who is loyal or disloyal to the United States.
Concerning the President's Executive Order 9835, initiated in March, 1947, he says:
"President Truman has stated that it is aimed at 'potentially disloyal' persons, who, because of attitudes and ideas they entertain today or subscribed to yesterday, might in the future undertake action contrary to the best interests of the United States."
By this definition a person may be ordered to appear before a hearing committee to answer not for his crimes, but for his thoughts, actions in the past, and personal beliefs.
Mr. Nikoloric maintains that a judicial safeguard is being violated by this type of federal action, that safeguard being that "one cannot be
punished for merely considering the commission of a crime, or for thinking in such a way that a body determines that one might undertake action contrary to the law."
Mr. Nikoloric finds that loyalty hearings have violated the following additional judicial safeguards:
1. The right to have a reasonable notice of charges.
2. The right to cross-examine and confront one's accusers.
3. The right of judicial review before punishment is meted out.
4. The right to be judged by an impartial tribunal.
These, he says, are rights which are traditional in free societies and are being abandoned in the face of hysteria.
"You are charged with having associated with Communists or with persons or organizations in sympathy with Communism."
We would be inclined to say that such "trials" could not take place in our democracy if cases were not on the records proving that they have happened.
When this charge is read to an individual, he is automatically guilty until he proves to the satisfaction of the inquiry board that he is innocent. Even if he is cleared he is branded in the minds of "good Americans" as being a security risk and un-American.
Re-read the charge inserting the word capitalist. Is it not similar to the charge that has been read to thousands of persons accused of disloyalty in Communistic countries?
Adult Behavior
University students cry out to be treated as mature adults with all of the privileges and considerations that go with such a position.
To be treated as an adult, one must act as an adult. An important quality of genuine maturity is a display of common courtesy, which is too often found wanting among many of the KU population.
Some cases in point:
- A woman student slipped on the ice in front of Strong Hall this week and fell to the sidewalk, scattering her books around her. Seven other students gaily stepped around her, laughing at her plight, before a professor came to the rescue and helped her to her feet.
- A stream of traffic was moving out of Lindley Hall after 1 p.m. class dismissal and one of the students was knocked backward a few steps when the door was slammed in his face by the student preceding him.
- Two professors were discussing a problem in their office when a student walked in and interrupted the conversation, without excusing himself.
Webster's Dictionary defines courtesy as, "An
This doesn't sound like much of a chore when written into words. Why, then, do so many people slip up when it comes to actual performance?
act of favor or kindness performed with politeness."
One excuse that has been given is that many students are so wrapped up in their own thoughts and problems that they occasionally are not aware of their actions. But no matter how deep in thought they are, they never fail to notice when someone is discourteous to them. Does this give them the right to return these actions to those around them?
Another excuse is that everybody is in such a hurry all of the time that they don't stop to think about what they are doing. Yet they stop to think about what the other fellow is doing when courtesy is lacking.
A few seconds each day devoted to extra care and consideration for those around you will never disrupt anyone's day. Yet, without this care and consideration, you conceivably can cause several hours of distress and inconvenience for your associates.
The next time the balances are weighed, will they be in your favor?
Dailuhansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
— Carolyn Frailey
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912
Telephone VIking 3-2700
Extension 711, news room
Extension 376, business office
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 $$ 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
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
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
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.
***
Two.U.S. statesmen were recently traveling in Central and South America. It's funny all the news concerned one of them and we heard nothing of the other.
Nixon probably will receive a record vote in the New Hampshire primary tomorrow. This should once again prove that the majority is not always right.
Short Ones
By Jack Harrison
***
One snowstorm doesn't make a winter — as we have learned. It seems to take five or six.
Congressmen have investigated every suspicious and dastardly situation around. Why don't they check into this weather we've been having.
Wint Smith ceaselessly blasts our "free-spending, inflation economy," yet he defends a 700 per cent markup for drug manufacturers. Evidently Wint's support or non-support of spending depends on who's raking in the cash.
By Thomas M. Gale Assistant Professor of History
CASTRO, CUBA AND JUSTICE, by Ray Brennän. Doubleday, $3.95
It is edifying to take another long look at Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba. In these dark days of Cuban-United States relations we can with profit remind ourselves what kind of fight Castro carried on in Cuba and what kind of government he overthrew.
This survey of the Cuban Revolution by Ray Brennan, a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, is different in approach from the book on Castro and Cuba by Jules Dubois of the Chicago Daily Tribune. Brennan's book is more personal, it gives more intimate details and personalized glimpses of the revolution; it is more graphic, especially in describing the tortures committed by the Batista regime, and generally, it is more sensationalistic and journalistic in style. Brennan does not plumb the purposes and hopes of Castro before he became successful as deeply as Dubois, nor is he as thorough in his descriptions of Castro in Bogotá and Mexico. Both authors, however, take a similar view towards the failure of United States diplomacy in Cuba during the Batista regime, the failure of the press in the United States to know what was really happening in Cuba, and both authors attempt to explain to North Americans the reasons for the war crime trials.
Brennan's book did not come out until October, 1959, which gave him seven months longer to observe the Cuban scene than Dubois had in his work, and enabled Brennan to include a chapter summing up the revolution, where he commented on some of the events after its success. One only wishes this chapter were not so brief.
Of special interest in this last chapter is a reprinting of part of a report by David Binder in the Harvard Law Review on the war crime trials. Brennan, like almost every writer who was in Cuba during the revolution and later witnessed the trials, is strongly sympathetic with their purpose and activities, while the reaction to them in the United States was hostile and probably was the principal early reason why much of the press turned against Castro. Brennan appreciates the need in Cuba for agrarian reform, and his reaction to the labeling of the reform as communistic is:
"History shows us that any sweepingly progressive reform measures have been called 'communistic' by many critics, well meaning perhaps, but often mistaken. To read some American newspapers back in the early 1930's one might conclude that unemployment insurance, old-age benefits, parity price guarantees for farmers, investment and banking regulations, the rights of working people to join labor unions, came directly from the Kremlin.
"Those reforms have been accepted as part of the American way of life, and Castro believes that his farm program likewise will become an accepted thing in Cuba."
Just how strong are the Communists? Brennan repeats Castro's denials of communist influence in his regime. On Castro's postponement of elections to four years Brennan quotes Castro as saying, "Well, after the war against Spain was won in 1898, the United States maintained a protectorate over Cuba until 1902. We held no election for four years. Is the situation different now?" And on the resignation of President Urrutia in July, 1959, an event bitterly criticized in the United States, especially by Dubois, Brennan states there were disagreements between Castro and Urrutia almost from the start. The deliberate and slow-moving Urrutia could not satisfy Castro's demand for fast action. These explanations are not completely satisfying, but they throw light on some difficult decisions in Cuba.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"—BUT WHEN YOU SAID YOU WOULD BRING OVER YOUR
WHEELS' AN GO TO A MOVIE — I THAT YOU MEANT —"