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University Daily Kansan
Friday. Jan. 8, 1960
The Chessman Case
Caryl Chessman has been sentenced to death for the eighth time.
The latest execution date for the 38-year-old death row author is Feb.19.
Seven times Chessman has counted the days left before his long walk to the San Quentin gas chamber and seven times he has been granted reprieves to continue his legal fight for life.
Chessman is a genius. His IQ of 178 is the highest ever recorded among inmates of the prison. He has used all his mental faculties in his legal battle. But now he apparently has lost the fight.
More stable minds have tried to aid Chessman. Justice John Marshall Harlan of the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 1957 decision staying Chessman's execution, said Chessman had been denied due process of law for nine years and had never had his day in court on the question of the correct court records of his trial.
He was tried, found guilty and sentenced to death by the sensational press, coffe-break lawyers and outraged purveyors of "justice," who screamed in anguish when their sentence was not carried out.
Public opinion was ripe for a witch-burning at the time Chessman was arrested. A red light bandit and rapist had terrorized lovers' lanes in southern California in early 1948. Chessman was picked up while riding in a stolen car which contained clothing reportedly taken by the red light bandit in a store robbery.
The police hustled in some of the victims, informed them that they were facing their attacker and graciously accepted recognition of Chessman as the monster.
Chessman was never charged with killing anyone. He was not sentenced to death for sex crimes, but for robbery. Under the state's Little
Lindbergh law, robbery could be defined as kidnaping, and a robbery in which the victim was inured was a capital offense.
The robbery-is-kidnapping interpretation of the law was eliminated by the legislature in 1950, but that was of little help to Chessman.
Chessman sought to prepare his defense from behind bars. He was given no help. He was not allowed to use law books and records which he needed. He was not allowed to interview possible witnesses.
At the trial he was not allowed to stand when addressing the jury, and he was not given a daily transcript of the proceedings. Most of the rulings by the judge were against Chessman.
The court reporter died during the trial. The prosecution aided the appointed substitute reporter in "straightening out" the trial record. Chessman contested the resulting record, but to little avail.
The case has brought out many controversies. Persons have spoken out against the "cruel and inhuman punishment" of repeated death sentences and reprieves. Others have questioned the entire concept of capital punishment. Persons who have studied the case say there is room for doubt that Chessman had anything to do with the red light bandit crimes.
But there is another point to be made.
Guilty or innocent, Chessman should have been given every opportunity to defend himself in court. Due process of law and "innocent until proven guilty" were somehow forgotten in the Chessman case.
The handling of the case by California law officials has been a sour reflection on our principles of justice.
—Jack Harrison
Beneficial Agitation
If one were to name the men who have most brightened the days of students at KU this semester, he would certainly have to place John Ise, professor emeritus of economics, at or near the top of the list.
Every time he has spoken, as at the Philosophy Club meeting Wednesday night, a refreshing breeze has swept across the Hill, clearing away our indifference to today's problems.
We were discussing this outspoken gentleman not long ago, shortly after he had delivered a scathing attack on the evils of advertising.
"This man is really something," we said.
One of our associates answered the question with the following story:
"But what does he do?" asked another. "What purpose does he serve with all this stirring up of issues?"
A group of fishermen in England had a problem. They were making tremendous catches of mackerel every time they went to sea. When caught, the fish were placed in a large tank of water to keep them fresh. But every time the ship headed back to port, the fish stopped swimming, became flabby and were unfit for market upon arrival.
The fishermen tried changing water on their catch. They tried adding oxygen. But to no avail. They could not keep the fish from turning sluggish. Often, many of the fish died.
Finally, the men went to an old-time fisherman with their problem.
"Do you know what fish is the natural enemy of the fish you are trying to bring back," he asked.
Yes, the men knew what fish fed on mackerel.
The old man then told them to put one of the predators in with the next catch.
The fishermen complied. And throughout the long voyage home, the mackerel swam furiously around their captive tank keeping away from their tormentor. When the fishermen reached port, their catch was alive and full of vigor.
The men made a handsome profit.
And so it is with John Ise. He keeps the people at this University stirred up and we all profit by his presence.
In this age of complacency and conformity, we need this kind of agitation to refresh our thinking and revitalize our existence.
He, and men like him, keeps us from becoming intellectually sluggish.
—George DeBord
Dailu Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
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 $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.
Jack Harrison ... Managing Editor
Carol Allen, Dick Crocker, Jack Morton and Doug Yocom, Assistant
Managing Editors; Rael Amos, City Editor; Jim Trotter, Sports Editor;
Carolyn Frailey, Society Editor.
NEWS. DEPARTMENT
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
George DeBord and John Husar ... Co-Editorial Editors
  Saundra Hayn, Associate Editorial Editor.
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bill Kane ... Business Manager
Ted Tidwell, Advertising Manager; Martha Crosier, Promotion Manager;
Ruth Rieder, National Advertising Manager; Tom Schmitz,
Circulation Manager; John Massa, Classified Advertising Manager.
Letters
Not an Issue
I don't believe the use of the loyalty oath and disclaimer affidavit deserve all the criticism they have received. It doesn't seem too unreasonable for the government to require the signing of such documents before granting a loan.
The opposition of a few, or even the majority, should not cause the loan fund to be refused. Why must a university, as a whole, either accept or refuse the fund?
The students in need of a loan should be able to decide if the signing of such an oath is too much of an infringement on their personal freedom. These young men and women should have the chance to do and think as they please. These free young Americans with the inquiring minds should decide for themselves whether or not the signing of such an oath is an insult.
—George Wesner Kansas City, Mo. senior
By Calder M. Pickett Associate Professor of Journalism
THE END OF THE AFFAIR, by Graham Greene. Bantam. 50 cents.
Graham Greene writes two kinds of books: novels and "entertainments." I like his entertainments: spies aboard tiny vessels in the Mediterranean, fascists trying to bomb British military installations, confidential agents carrying important messages out of Franco's Spain, blackmarketeers in penicillin in postwar Vienna.
Greene prefers his novels. "The End of the Affair" is one of them—a book with a message. The message is sin, and the wages of same.
For a man who is writing about religious aspects of sin Greene includes a lot of the kind of details that get D. H. Lawrence in trouble with the postoffice. In both "The End of the Affair" and "The Heart of the Matter" his protagonists are good Catholics, who know that they have sinned and that they must suffer. Along the way their sinning—which is of the bedroom variety—comes in for some frank exposition.
"The End of the Affair" is a triangular affair, first published in 1951. Unlike Lawrence's Lady Chatterly, Greene's Sarah must die. Greene's formula is as rigid as one prescribed by the Hollywood Production Code. The plot, however, has a good deal more nuances than, say, an extramarital adventure involving Lana Turner (who loses her man and repents, but doesn't have to take her own life).
More entertainments, please, Mr. Greene And this is no antiegghead plea. Greene always tells a story well, but Ruritania is more fun than a dreary London flat. And we need more Graham Greenes and Eric Amblers. After all, even in Greene's "entertainments" he usually was a good deal ahead of public opinion in his attitude toward the fascists who then were trying to overwhelm Europe.
From the Magazine Rack
"What has always been missing from George Gershwin's opera is what the situation of Porgy and Bess says about the white world. It is because of this omission that Americans are so proud of the opera. It assuages their guilt about Negroes and it attacks none of their fantasies. Since Catfish Row is clearly such a charming place to live, there is no need for them to trouble their consciences about the fact that the people who live there are still not allowed to move anywhere else. Neither need they probe within their own lives to discover what the Negroes of Catfish Row really mean to them. But I am certainly not the first person to suggest that these Negroes seem to speak to them of a better life—better in the sense of being more honest, more open, and more free; in a word, more sexual. This is the cruelest fantasy of all, hard to forgive. It means that Negroes are penalized, and hideously, for what the general guilty imagination makes of them. This fantasy is at the bottom of almost all violence against Negroes; it is the reason they are not to be mixed in buses, houses, schools, jobs; they are to remain instead in Catfish Row, to have fish fries and make love. It is a fantasy which is tearing the nation to pieces and it is surely time we snapped out of it. For nobody in Catfish Row is having fish fries these days, and love is as rare and as difficult there as it has always been everywhere else. They struggle to pay the rent, the life insurance, the note due on the bedroom suite, the TV set, the refrigerator, the car. They worry about their children. They begin to hate each other, they turn to mysticism or to dope, they die there."
(Excerpted from a review of the movie "Porgy and Bess" by James Baldwin in the September, 1959, Commentary.)
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"ONE OF THESE DAYS BETTER BUY A TEXT - TH"
BOOKSTORE MANAGER IS GGETT IN KINDA 'TD OFF,'