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University Daily Kansar Monday. Sept. 21, 1959
47
Nikita Khruschev's visit to this country is bearing up well under the close scrutiny of our indefatigable press corps. So far, no one is quite sure what to make of the Red leader and his deft answers to the Americans' pointed questions.
Washington Melodrama
At the moment Khruschev is doing quite well. His warm manner and polite inquisitiveness is gently appealing along with the superficial sincerity and optimism he brought with him. And no one is making the mistake of calling Khruschev's presence conciliatory in any way. The threat of his great power is enormous and he is being handled with that thought in mind.
Therefore, while the Soviet leader is making his rounds of the United States issuing statements of hope for peace on one hand and reminders of a firm Russian policy on the other, a good question to consider is of the benefits this visit may engender.
Exactly what is to be gained from an exchange visit between Ike and Khruschev? A furthered understanding of these two war-bound nations? It can be assumed that Khruschev is already quite aware of America's potential; possibly to the extent that Ike knows Russia. He certainly knows more than most Americans know about their own country.
And what is a good-will tour? Theatrically it is a means of showing concern and friendship toward another nation or group of people. It is
merely a device whereby a foreigner can prove to a bunch of natives that he is (1) real, and (2) able to think and feel just like anybody else.
But there is more to this good-will business than the usual theatrical segment. The important diplomatic end—the understandings to be effected across the conference table — is unfortunately being given a second chair. The Russian premier is spending more time reviewing that Americana which he already knows and displaying himself to the curious public than getting down to a brass-stacks conversation with our president. His talk to the United Nations in New York only reaffirmed his known positions. There is nothing new about disarmament.
If nothing revolutionary in the way of world policies happens as a result of Khruschev's visit can we then assume that the like will come from Ike's trip to Russia next month? There will be agreements and dissensions, but no concessions. At this late stage of the cold war, neither country can afford to step from its previous strong position. International prestige won't allow it.
Then this episode is providing little more than a hope for communication, understanding and change. A faint hope. The entire idea of an exchange between Ike and Nikita seems to be little more than a form of that trite American tradition—appeasement. It's kind of like the result of stomach butterflies a player suffers before the big game. — John Husar
A Note of Tragedy
School is beginning on a tragic note at the University of Southern California as a result of childish hazing and initiation practices. Because of immature ideas and practices one student, Richard Swanson, is dead and many others will be affected directly or indirectly by his death.
Requiring a person to swallow a quarter-pound of raw liver, as Swanson was, is ridiculous enough, but when it results in death, then it is unpardonable. It would have taken only one fraternity member brave enough to step forward and tell the story to the ambulance driver, to have given Swanson a chance for life. As it was the driver had no idea that a piece of meat was lodged in the student's throat.
The Greek system once again is shown to the public as groups of irresponsible "boys" and "girls" who have not yet grown up. But not only the Greek houses are under fire, but also
Now the members of Kappa Sigma fraternity at the University of Southern California are on university probation, the national organization has been asked to remove its chapter from the campus and a black mark has been placed upon college students in general before the school year has barely gotten underway.
Tragedies such as this many times show the manner in which groups are judged by small irresponsible groups within them. Student who have come to learn, must suffer because of the actions of those who have but little interest in the learning process.
colleges and universities for allowing such practices.
At the University of Kansas we have been lucky. Due to the work done by the All Student Council, The Inter-Fraternity Council, Pan-Hellenic, and many other leading groups connected with the University, and led by a modern administration we have emphasized scholarship and community projects, and de-emphasized such practices as hazing and childish pranks.
The guilty students at USC were placed on university probation; here at KU they would have probably been told to leave. Our administration will not, and should not, tolerate such practices. We belong to a university which is a leader in the field of education and are proud of it. We have no patience toward an immature group which could degrade our institution or one of the organizations within it as was done at the University of Southern California. -Lee Lord
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"WITH SO MANY NEW FACULTY COMING IN - YER LUCKY YOU EVEN 607 AN OFFICE."
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904,
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University of Kansas student newspaper
Dailu Hansan
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Jack Harrison ___ Managing Editor
Carol Allen ___ Dick Crocker, Jack
Morton and Ding Dick Crocker, Jack
Managing Editor Rael Amos,
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vertising Manager
It Looks This Way...
By George DeBord
I've just purchased a haircut and a new dog, so I'm ready for this opening day of the new semester. I have no new clothes because I could not decide which type of buckles to get on the trousers. You can get buckles on the sides, buckles in the rear, and a few small ones in front. Not one buckle is in the least bit functional, but you must have them to be part of the old group. Madison Avenue has so decreed.
Charlie Brown has survived the addition of a little sister to his family, and he is back at the books so I guess I can make it even if the advertising men say I'm completely out of it with the 1956 style trousers.
Welcome back to the University of Kansas and welcome if you are new here.
I have no advice for freshmen. There seems to be an ample supply of attractive young women in the class and this should compensate for the pains of orientation.
It isn't quite true that the dog mentioned was acquired by purchase. But I have spent so much money keeping the fleas off her and getting distemper shots, that I consider her paid for. Her name is Nike—after the rocket. She is slow, undependable and poorly designed.
There isn't much to report around the University yet. However, you can tell that the college population has returned simply by walking down Massachusetts street. All the bartenders and barbers are smiling.
Yes, I realize that this is a stupid name for a dog. But then this is a pretty stupid mutt. She will probably grow up to be a philosopher. . . .
However, Nike trains well. We played catch the other day. I threw the ball and she ate it. What an appetite. She has eaten one shirt, her collar, three pairs of shoes, a can of dog food and two copies of "Lady Chatterly's Lover." She has no desire for higher education. She walked right past the University catalogue to get to the Lawrence book.
Study well, relax hard. Requirements are stiffer than ever.
From the Magazine Rack-
Can We Be Confident?
"Who can be confident, as liberals have generally professed to be, of the inherent goodness and perfectibility of man in a generation which has witnessed the extermination of millions of human beings in Russia, in China, in areas which fell under Nazi and communist rule, either because of crazy dogmas of racist and nationalist domination or because of equally fanatical fantastic schemes of social and economic reorganization?
"Who can plausibly prescribe material prosperity as the sure cure of social evils when record rates of adult crime and juvenile delinquency in the United States go hand in hand with the highest achieved level of general living standards? In the light of the now proved and notorious weaknesses of American public education, especially at the intermediate level, who can parade with assurance the old liberal educationist shibboleths that all children are equally educable or subscribe to the 'progressive' theory that children are best left with a minimum of guidance and control and that basket weaving, clay modeling and baton twirling are just as valuable culturally as the intellectual disciplines that make for precise knowledge, clear thinking and lucid expression?...
"But one reason for lack of interest in such schemes is that many have failed and serve today chiefly in the role of accusing scarecrows. And it is in this connection that conservatism has a very real and important message for contemporary man, dispelling his illusions, exposing the shortcuts that invariably lead into blind alleys, showing that the truly good society is never a creation of theoreticians, however glib, or of passing laws and adopting constitutions, however, persuasive. It is a slow, organic process, in which experience, intuition, feeling have their place along with pure reason. . . .
"The term liberal in Europe still means one who favors private initiative in economic life as well as political and civil liberties. But in America for the last quarter of a century the good ship Liberalism has been boarded by a pirate crew of nearsocialists and state interventionists who repudiate every principle of classical liberalism. Historically liberalism has been associated with attempts of the individual to free himself from arbitrary state coercion. But current American 'liberalism' would place the individual in a new straitjacket of state aid and state control, state handouts and state confiscatory taxation. It would completely obliterate the fine picture of the self reliant individual who accepts state aid with the greatest reluctance, which often recurs in de Tocqueville's classical work on the early American Republic, 'Democracy in America.' ...
"There are some signs that the United States may be ripe for a revival of faith in conservative values. The bestselling book on student sentiment in the thirties was 'Revolt on the Campus,' by James Wechsler, written from a decidedly leftwing viewpoint. The bestselling book on the same subject in the fifties was William F. Buckley's 'God and Man at Yale,' which attacked the Yale administration for favoring leftwing views in economics and being insufficiently concerned with religion. Student and alumni groups with conservative aims are making their influence felt on a number of campuses."
(From Modern Age; A Conservative Review, Vol. 3, No. 3, an article by William Henry Chamberlain, "The Conservative Message for Our Time," pages 300, 301, 303, 306.)