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University Daily Kansan Tuesday, Dec. 6, 1960
Our Gravest Challenge
What are the implications of interposition in the South today? This is the ultimate domestic question in the United States today. Interposition is the "Old South's" last stand in its tragic fight against integration. This fight, trumpeted by the blasts of the Southern states' legislators, dates back to the days when the United States Constitution was formed. The question today is the same as in 1787. Did the members of the Constitutional Convention design a strong, dominating union, or was the ultimate power of decision left in the hands of sovereign states?
STATE SOVEREIGNTY IS THE ANSWER the South persists in giving. But it takes a blind man to see that interposition—the state's intercession between the federal government and the citizen—is not recognized by the federal courts and that the sovereignty of the states in regard to the Constitution does not exist. Countless times the federal courts have reiterated the dominance of the federal government.
Arkansas, Georgia. Louisiana. These are the states that are leading in the South's "last-gasp" stand against racial equality and justice. Rational arguments against segregation to these people are meaningless. The Southerners care little what the idealistic points of integration are. These people, raised to believe that the Negro is a person who is not to be associated with and several steps down the social ladder, find it hard to accept integration.
BUT THE HARDNESS AND DIFFICULTY these people have in seeing the path past mothers demonstrating in the streets, a minister having to lead his child to school make the challenge of the utmost importance. There is no hope for preserving the system of "separate but equal" schools and segregation in the South. This must be realized.
The United States is in a domestic crisis and
the need for statesmen of the highest caliber is badly felt. Instead of state legislators striking out in blind fury at the President-elect of the United States as in Louisiana, sound and reasoned debates are necessary.
The United States, in its ideological fight with the Communist Bloc, is seeking the freedom of peoples throughout the world. Our leaders are telling these people that the American way of life is the best. But can these leaders of newly independent and underdeveloped nations believe this when such inequality exists throughout the South and this inequality continually is broadcast to the world?
Will the United States be a shining example of equality and justice to the "neutral" nations and—to the enslaved peoples of the World? Or will the United States continue to be a nation which cannot find the courage to practice what it preaches—equality and social justice?
The South today needs more leaders such as Ralph McGill, publisher of the Atlanta Constitution, who has been calling for the South to see the inevitability of integration and accept it. This acceptance would stamp out the deep hatreds and animosities which develop through crises as exist in New Orleans today.
IT IS FAR TOO EASY FOR THE EDITorial writer in Kansas, not directly associated with the problem, to call for peaceful integration. But the need for this solution is so great that moral opinion must be brought to bear on the leaders of the "Old South." These Southerners have as great a challenge to face today as any group of men in the history of the United States has ever been confronted with. The wisdom and maturity of the answer that the legislators of the Southern states give to the people will have a great bearing on the progress of the United States for many years to come.
- John Peterson
Let's Count All the Votes
Editor:
... Letters ...
"...the American people may well again face the reality of having a president elected in their name without majority support" said Bill Myers in his letter to the editor published November 15. He went on to say that it is the electoral college that may deny the people the right to elect a president by popular vote.
In the November 29 issue, I read in another letter that the American electorate needed a "check of some sort" because, in spite of today's mass media, Americans are not "well-informed" enough, apparently, to be trusted with the task
of electing their leader. John Hodge went on to say that the present electoral college is not a satisfactory "check." Is he advocating the creation of an even more undemocratic method of muzzling the popular vote than the outmoded and antiquated one already in use?
I agree that the American public is not yet "all-wise or all-knowing." But if this condition must be met before electoral college-type checks can be abolished and truly democratic election processes used, I think it's safe to say that this country will never be ready for true democracy.
not be considered the only criteria for electing a president. However, can letting one or two votes cast in California or Illinois carry more weight than 50,000 votes cast in Kansas or Maine be considered a better criterion?
Few people would dispute the fact that today the world is involved in a struggle between Communism and Western democracy. Certainly, democracy as practiced in this country is far from perfect. However, if we consider this to be sufficient reason to put the wheels of governing progress in reverse, we'll be taking the first step towards a Communist victory.
It may also be true that 50.5 per cent of the popular vote should
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
'ARE TH' BOYS TAKING US TO SEE THIS PICTURE IN A THEATRE OR A `DRIVE-IN'?''
Instead of making a farce of democracy by building into it checks to protect uninformed people, whom I hear make up most of the population, let's attack these problems more positively. If such well-educated, well-informed and know - what's - best - for - themasses people would come off their pedestals of superiority and help their fellow Americans improve and strengthen true democracy, America will be better able to come through this struggle with Communism undefeated.
Eileen Maddocks
Lawrence freshman
Short Ones
It is good to see that the Strong Hall rotunda is now completed, but it presents problems. Students lose at least three minutes of travel time between classes trying to decide which side of the rotunda to walk around.
KU's sports events provide plenty of means for the chubbier students to work at distributing their weight. During the football season they swung their arms back and forth, and now with the advent of the basketball season, they'll be stamping their feet.
---
. . .
Gov. George Docking's friends will soon find out if they are really his friends when Christmas card time comes again.
"The time has come,' the walrus said, 'to speak of many things.'"
... Books in Review ...
By Calder M. Pickett Associate Professor of Journalism
If so many of us had not had "Silas Marner" foisted upon us in our sophomore year in high school, we probably would have a different attitude toward the grand old book today. The old miser of Raveloe stands alongside the Ancient Mariner, Antony and Brutus, Maebeth, Sir Launfal, plane geometry and biology as the impositions of lower education upon youth.
SILAS MARNER, by George Eliot. Signet Classic, 50 cents.
Silas is a familiar symbol. He is as clearly the gold-hoarding miser of literature as Enoch Arden is the man who returns from years lost at sea to find his wife wedded again. These are figures that are readily recognized by many readers, who know that Romeo and Juliet symbolize love midst warring families and that Fagin is a name for one who teaches the ways of crime to the very young.
"SILAS MARNER" is back with us, in a Signet Classic, with one of those handsome covers that characterizes this somewhat new series. The story is not so deadly as it was in 1936 — or much earlier to many people, of course. It has a rustic charm and quality of the fairy tale about it. Searchers for literary symbolism will find much here, for does not Silas lose his gold and return to his lonely cottage to find that a golden-haired child has replaced his money? A happy ending, too, with words almost out of "A Christmas Carol":
"Oh, Father," said Eppie, "what a pretty home ours it! I think nobody could be happier than we are."
The drunken robber of Silas meets his death in a fall into an abandoned quarry pit. Silas, who had come to Raveloe after being wrongfully accused of theft, is restored to grace. He finds his money.
NO WONDER THIS little story has cheered so many generations of high school English teachers!
But it is the image of Silas the miser that persists, and even in high school we called close-fisted friends "Silas." Here Silas counts his gold coins.
"He spread them out in heaps and bathed his hands in them; then he counted them and set them up in regular piles, and felt their rounded outline between his thumb and fingers, and thought fondly of the guineas that were only half-earned by the work in his loom, as if they had been unborn children — thought of the guineas that were coming slowly through the coming years, through all his life, which spread far away before him, the end quite hidden by countless days of weaving."
AND, WHEN HE finds his money gone, there is this unforgettable description:
"Again he put his trembling hands to his head, and gave a wild wringing scream, the cry of desolation. For a few moments after, he stood motionless; but the cry had relieved him from the first maddening pressure of the truth. He turned, and tottered towards his loom, and got into the seat where he worked, instinctively seeking this as the strongest assurance of reality."
Dailu Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triviewly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone Viking 3-2700
Extension 711, news room
Fax 504-542-8000
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Member Inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press,
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$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
Ray Miller ... Managing Editor
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
John Peterson and Bill Blundell ... Co-Editorial Editors