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University Daily Kansan Tuesday, Jan. 17, 1961
A Record Questioned
The recent burglarizing of the photography bureau and the theft of the two Rembrandts has aroused my curiosity about the efficiency of our campus police.
I remembered numerous unsolved crimes but I could think of only one which had been solved. To satisfy this curiosity, I went to the Kansan files to search for stories of campus crimes. The clips from the past two years confirmed my suspicion.
From crimes committed during this period, $15,403.86 in actual cash or the value of the stolen articles remains unrecovered. The record is not completely black. A sofa and several bicycles have been recovered. Also two boys were caught while stealing car batteries. Still $15,403.86 is a rather large sum to have on the books un-recovered.
THERE SEEMS TO ME TO BE THREE possible reasons for such a large sum to still be in the hands of criminals. The first reason is that the criminals are extremely intelligent or lucky or a combination of both. The second reason is that the police are incompetent or extremely unlucky or a combination of both. The third reason is a mixture of the other two. The criminals are intelligent and lucky and the police are incompetent and unlucky.
Whatever the cause it makes for a hopeless situation for KU students. We realize that if anything is stolen from us we probably will never see it again. It is rather disheartening to have so little faith in our public defenders. But this is the status they have earned in the last two years.
In looking back through the files I wondered just how many crimes didn't find their way into the pages of the Kansan. But the ones found put the total sufficiently high.
THE UNRECOVERED ITEMS INCLUDE:
hubcaps ($20), transistor pocket radio ($35).
electronic tubes ($37.36), car battery ($15),
several billfolds (no value given), cash from
second Field House robbery ($146.50), checks
from the second Field House robbery ($70), eight
tickets to the Syracuse game ($28), a professor's
purse and contents ($24), briefcase and contents
($25), five bogus banquet tickets ($10), a forger
at the Delta Sigma Phi house ($110), two Rembrandts (valued by the Nelson Atkins gallery at at least $2,000), 400 programs for the Nebraska game sold at 25 cents each ($100), undisclosed amounts of change from various vending machines, professor's purse and contents ($50), first Field House robbery ($6,845), two sofa cushions ($50), a string of cat burglaries ($237), items from cars ($200), ash trays ($8),
records ($15), more vending machines ($20), equipment and money from various departments ($100), the cat burglar again ($100), skeleton ($150), posters ($165), shoplifting in the bookstore one year ($2,500), cat burglar at the Kappa Sigma House ($125) and the photo lab ($2,218).
It seems almost impossible to believe that the programs for the Nebraska game, which were sold at the stadium, couldn't be recovered. Some of the other items may take a little thought, but most anyone would have thought to send a couple of men out of uniform to the stadium to hunt for 25 cent programs. Yet they were not recovered.
I FIND IT HARD TO PASS OVER THIS appalling record lightly. Maybe our campus police are only good for directing traffic and ticketing cars, or maybe they aren't getting the leadership necessary. Or maybe some agreement should be made with the K.B.I. to investigate robberies, or another man hired to cover this. One thing for sure, the blame for this record lies somewhere in the west end of Hoch Auditorium.
Ralph Wilson
Mr. Abels Answered Editor:
Open letter to Mr. Abels.
Dear Mr. Abels:
I read an excerpt of your article in the January 16th issue of the University Daily Kansas.
It is not an easy task for me to write this letter. I am not a "well-known editor and publisher"; I am not a speaker; I am not as mature as you seem to think you are. As a matter of fact I am not even an American.
I came from a place compared to which the Bronx, N. Y., this hotbed of treason, is peaceful, narrow-minded, and conservative.
I AM FROM BUDAPEST, Hungary. You are a well-traveled, intelligent man, (I found out from your article you got as far as Bronx, N. Y.). I don't have to tell you what sort of a place Hungary is. But before you write in your paper that I am actually a communist influitor who's only objective is to apply a "highly organized and carefully directed scheme to stir up trouble in the university and in our community" and thus devitalize this strategically, economically, socially, and educationally so very important metropolitan area of Lawrence, I might say that I am in political exile here because of my participation in the anti-communist Hungarian revolt in 1856. And that both of my parents and myself served prison terms under the communists for political reasons.
...Letters...
We, Mr. Abels, do not fight for our right to drink, we fight for a cause, for an ideal.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . ." This includes the Negroes also. Maybe we are immature idealists when we hail these ideas, but we are proud of it. This principle holds true for the Bronx, N. Y. as well as for Lawrence, Kansas. The "Civil Rights agitators and peddlers of hate and violence" must have found their way into Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas and the Supreme Court also.
YOU SEE. Mr. Abels, the United States is looked upon by foreigners as the land of freedom, and the land of equal opportunities, and this would not be so if people like you were in the majority here. One must wonder about freedom when certain sections of buses are off limits to Negroes, when a Howard-Johnson restaurant refuses to serve a high official of an African country while on a goodwill-mission in this country, and when a tavern, open to the "public," can afford to select its customers on the basis of the color of their faces.
You write the following in your article: "The Negroes had won their way into better jobs . . . " This is exactly what they have done. They have won their jobs
and didn't acquire them through equal opportunities. They are required to prove over and over again that they are worth as much as our white master-race.
Your article is a very good example of demagogism, however it is far from perfect. If you are interested in supporting your thoughts I can recommend highly such a work as "Mein Kampf" by Adolph Hitler. As supplementary reading, perhaps you could look up some articles and speeches by Sen. McCarthy and Joseph Stalin.
Andrew Katai Elizabeth, N., J., graduate student
(Editor's note: Andrew Katai was among those KU students who staged a sit-in at a local tavern last Thursday night.)
In Friday's paper you reported that, when asked about the student sit-in, I allegedly commented: "I knew nothing about it — and if I had known, I would not have approved."
Daily hansan
--tion of various facilities — including taverns — here is through the small group method, such as was employed at the tavern in question before the sit-in. It is pointed out that the average person or couple does not normally spend an evening out with 45 or 50 friends . . . and that it is more than likely four to six persons.
Comment on Sit-Ins Editio
University of Kansas student newspaper
Telephone VIking 3-2700 Extension 711, news room Extension 376, business office
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, 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.
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone VIking 3-2700
Extension 711, news room
Managing Editor
Just to keep the record straight:
The first part of your report is correct, i.e., I did not know about the sit-in in advance. The second part is a misinterpretation of my comments. I delinquently did NOT state that I would have approved or disapproved of the sit-in. As to my reported comment at the police station: I did point out that there is an essential difference between a person's private home and his business. A man can invite to his home whomever he wishes.
A public business, though it may be privately owned, does not—in my opinion—have the right to refuse service to anyone because of his race, creed, or country of origin. To do so, I firmly believe, is a violation of moral integrity, common decency, the spirit of the American Constitution, the basic intent of Kansas anti-discrimination legislation, and all that American Democracy is supposed to stand for at home and abroad.
Ray Miller
Harry Shaffer
Harry Shanter
Assistant Professor
of Economics
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
"I SURE AM GLAD I FOUND OUT ABOUT HER! I CAN'T STAND A GIRL THAT'S STRONGER THAN I AM."
Guest Editorial
May Good Sense Rule
Things are not so organized, and there is not this singleness of purpose, on the other side of the fence. Thus there is the chance trouble will develop, providing there is a wrong combination of circumstances and emotions at the wrong time.
Unfortunately an important issue like racial integration at any level generally pairs drastic opposites: Those who don't want to make any progress, ever, and those who want to make it all at once. So pre-aligned are most individuals that too often the steadier type of guidance which prevails and benefits many other causes seems almost non-existent.
The end result is that the air is constantly charged, and the situation is ripe for conflict, not only of an ideological but of a physical nature.
THE GROUP - PRIMARILY students — pressing the integration movement of certain facilities in the community is pledged to non-violence. Its members say that while they may be persistent in the quest of their goals, they will remain peaceful at all times. This is encouraging.
This is the situation in which Lawrence now finds itself, following the Thursday night sit-in demonstration at a local tavern. It is not a pleasant prospect, but there is good reason, for hope that sanity will prevail at all points of variance between the two poles and that unfortunate incidents of a violent nature can be avoided.
Sincere and dedicated though the integration group may be in its pledge of non-violence, unfortunately this group does not exercise full control over the situation. Thus the danger of ugly trouble persists.
THEEREFORE, LET US HOPE the citizenry is as eager to avoid physical conflict as are the integrationists, and that both sides conduct themselves in such a way as to avoid it. If this can be done, the suitable level for a harmonious meeting of the minds may be achieved after all despite the wide range of philosophies involved . . .
There are those who believe the way to peaceful, orderly integration of various facilities — including taverns — here is through the small group method, such as was employed at the tavern in question before the sit-in. It is pointed out that the average person or couple does not normally spend an evening out with 45 or 50 friends . . . and that it is more than likely four to six persons.
Student leaders — and some of the adults who prod as well as advise and guide them — give every indication there will be more sit-in type of activity until certain goals have been achieved. The frequency cannot be forecast, since even the integration groups may not have any long-range plans.
All sound-thinking persons will agree this is the only sure route to valid progress.
But whatever the developments, it is fervently hoped that the demonstrators will stick to their policy on non-violence and that other citizens will show the same dedication to common sense.
SOME OF THE STRONG ADVOCates of integration and civil rights here are quick to say that a demonstration like Thursday's sit-in could be more harmful than helpful and that it gives the impression of a bully going around looking for a fight.
(Excerpted from the Lawrence Journal-World, Jan. 14, 1961.)
Perhaps operators of public-type facilities like taverns would be wise to serve small integrated groups — which are often test groups — as they appear, providing their behavior is compatible with that of other customers. Then there is no great cause to give rise to large group demonstrations. This may well be the surest way to bring about orderly, peaceful, harmonious integration in the long run.
SOME CITIZENS PREFER TO take the head-in-sand approach toward this subject, acting on the false assumption that if you ignore something long enough it will go away. This is unlikely in this case, however, and perhaps the best advice for everyone is to learn to live with the development.
Worth Repeating
Let those who object to birth control declare themselves in favor of higher mortality instead. The world's present population problems could be solved for a long time by a few mass famines, by a world-wide repetition of the Great Plagues or, for that matter, by a few well-placed H-bombs. Do we want to see them solved this way?—Dennis H. Wrong