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University, Daily Kansas Tuesday, Nov. 15, 1960
A Rotten System
Ever since last week's campus primary elections took place, complaints of one sort or another have been filed with the Daily Kansan. The multitude and variety of these complaints give rise to the question of whether the elections were responsibly conducted and organized sufficiently.
MOST OF THE complaints have little reflection upon the present political parties on campus or the personnel conducting the elections, but reflect on the inadequacy of the system. The major complaints concerning the primaries were:
- Poll workers from both parties were insufficient in numbers and were not properly acquainted with the procedure and rules.
The election commissioner, an ASC appointee, should be a non-political figure instead of a member of one of the two political parties.
UP and Vox should vote at separate polling places and even, perhaps, at separate times to take away any chance of mixup on the voter getting the right ballots.
- More than one-eighth of the ballots cast were declared void. The percentage should not be so high in a community of educated voters.
— Elections are nearly sacred in their function in the United States and they should more closely resemble that appearance on campus.
— The primary election should not be closed so that only party members may vote, but should be open to all interested persons.
THE STRIKING THING ABOUT THESE criticisms and complaints is that most of them seem to be valid. The conclusion that almost automatically follows is that the primary election system should undergo close study and then possible revision.
Another facet of the primary election under fire is that the individual vote totals were not released by the ASC election commissioner. This is necessary because of the inconsistency in vote totals released by the two party heads and the election commissioner. A breakdown would help alleviate this and at the same time keep the students informed as to how their particular candidates fared in the primary.
There are two points listed above that go beyond simply criticizing the procedure of the elections. First, the election commissioner should be non-political in regard to the parties involved. Regardless of the integrity of a person, when irregularities in voting do occur, they necessarily reflect upon the commissioner to an extent. This change would alleviate any chance that one party might exercise undue advantage over the other in either the primary or general elections.
THE OTHER POINT IS THAT ELECTIONS in the United States are the basis of our governmental system. If the elections are tainted, then people tend to lose faith in their elected officials and government suffers from lack of cooperation and devotion to the officials and their programs. Elections on campus should be no different from elections throughout the nation. They should be conducted as efficiently and with as little chance for error as possible.
Certainly the charges and countercharges from both parties that have appeared on the Daily Kansan's front page concerning the election last week point up the need for either changes or revision in the present system. There are several concrete suggestions listed above and it is hoped that the All Student Council will undertake the investigation of the campus election system and see what improvements should be made.
- John Peterson
At the Movies
VARSITY: THE MAGNIFICENT
SEVEN: COLOR
This film is a typical shoot 'em up Western with the usual emphasis on action and de-emphasis on plot. It could just have a easily been shown as a TV late show, but the acting and staging were too good.
Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen, TV "Bounty Hunter," give the show a certain amount of class. Brynner acts the part of the cool, collected gunman that nothing riles, who never loses his hat through falls off walls and numerous gunfights and whose sideburns look awful short throughout the movie.
But who has ever seen a gunman that wasn't cool and collected? The gunfights were the highlight of the show. Take it from an avid Western fan — they were superb. But in between the movie dragged.
"The Magnificent Seven" were all mean, tough-bitten guns for hire. Somehow, through the efforts of Brynner, they decided to drive a band of marauders away from a Mexican village for $20 and their subsistence — hardly the bargain the typical Western hero would go for.
To make a long story short, the heros protected the village, got four of themselves killed, married another off, with the remaining two leaving the village, the traditional wandering Western gunfighters — Brynner and McQueen.
To be sure the movie has its high points, but only the person who habitually enjoys Westerns will
think this show a good one and entirely worth his time. The words to describe it are typical and mediocre. — John Peterson
... Letters . . .
ELECTORS UNNECESSARY?
Editor:
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
It is a shame that a country which claims to support freedom and democracy still denies the right of the people to elect a president by popular vote. The electoral college which is used in this country is a rather poor substitute for a true democratic process. It has been amply demonstrated in this election as it has in elections before that the American people may well again face the reality of having a president elected in their name without majority support.
"I UNDERSTAND HE'S UP FOR RETIREMENT NEXT YEAR."
I THINK IT IS high time that the people demand to have their votes recognized as the deciding factor in electing a president. Why should the voices of 67 million people st111 be funneled through the electoral college? With our modern balloting systems and our elaborate communications network, the old, worn excuses for the existence of the electoral college are no longer applicable.
The situation which developed in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi should not be allowed to occur again. This type of political manipulation is intolerable in a free society, and yet we take no steps to curb the system which promotes such misuse. People across the country are finally beginning to awaken to the problem of racial discrimination at the voting booth, but they still seem to be sound asleep to the even more flagrant injustices heaped upon them by the inadequacies of our present electoral system. Even if the electoral votes were cast as nearly as possible in accordance with the majorities' wishes, one vote in California could theoretically have more significance than 50,000 votes in Kansas.
IF THE ASC and other campus organizations would like to leave their ivory towers and charge windmills, now is the time.
Kansas City junior
"I DON'T THINK HE REALLY CARES WHO WINS!"
From the Magazine Rack
Our Psycopathic Gangs
"It is a truism that criminal organizations and criminal activities tend to reflect social conditions. Just as surely as the Bowery gang mirrored aspects of the 1900's, the Capone mob aspects of the 20's, and the youth gangs of the depression elements of the 30's, so do the delinquent gangs that have developed since the 1940's in the United States reflect certain patterns of our own society."
"The following quotation indicates the tone and ethos of a representative gang of today, the so-called Egyptian Kings, whose members beat and stabbed to death a fifteen-year-old boy named Michael Farmer in a New York City park not long ago.
'He couldn't run any way, 'cause we were all around him. So then I said, "You're a Jester," and he said, "Yeah," and I punched him in the face. And then somebody hit him with a bat over the head. And then I kept punchin' him. Some of them were too scared to do anything. They were just standin' there, lookin'."
"ONE IMPORTANT difference between the gangs of the past and those that now operate on our city streets is the prevalence of the psychopathic element in the latter. The violent gangs of the 20's contained psychopaths, but they were used to further the profitmaking goal of the gang, and were themselves paid for their violence...
"Frederic Thrasher's famous analysis of Chicago gangs in the mid-20's describes another group that bears only a limited resemblance to the violent gangs of today. Thrasher's gangs.
... broke into box cars and 'robbed' bacon and other merchandise. They cut out wire cables to sell as junk. They broke open telephone boxes. They took autos for joy-riding. They purloined several quarts of whiskey from a brewery to drink in their shack...
"NOR DO THE GANGS of the 30's and early 40's described by W. F. Whyte in 'Street Corner Society' bear much resemblance to the violent gang of today. The difference becomes strikingly evident when we compare the following comments by an Egyptian King with those of Doc, the leader of Whyte's Norton Street gang.
'I just went like that, and I stabbed him with the bread knife. You know I was drunk so I stabbed him. (Laughs) He was screamin' like a dog. He was screamin' there. And then I took the knife out and told the other guys to run...'
'Nutsy was a cocky kid before I beat him up... After that he seemed to lose his pride. I would talk to him and try to get him to buck up... I walloped every kid in my gang at some time. But I wasn't such a tough kid. I was always sorry after ...'
(Excerpted from "The Violent Gang" by Lewis Yablonsky in the May 1960 Commentary.)
Daily 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, 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.