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University Daily Kansan Monday. Oct. 24, 1960
Guest Editorial
Nixon Finishes Fast
A little less than a month elapsed between the first of the Great Debates and last Friday's final encounter. Something over 200 million viewers have been exposed to the prime spokesmen of the contending parties. It has been fashionable to suggest that these debates were little more than "personality platforms" for the two participants, that few, if any, opinions would be changed by their efforts. These critics seem to indicate that the great American public is either too sophisticated to be swayed by the spoken word this late in the political proceedings, or worse, that the voters are too apathetic and stubborn to allow new facts to alter their past prejudices. We suggest that the series is too recent to allow any such judgments of their total impact.
FRIDAY NIGHT RICHARD NIXON AND Senator Kennedy kept their fourth television "rendezvous with destiny." Without unduly extending this Rooseveltian personification of fate, Friday night's rendezvous was more successful for Nixon than for Kennedy.
Kennedy, having been accurately apprised of the strong image he presented in the first debate, has failed to augment this advantage in his successive appearances, while the Vice President, recognizing the weakness of his initial impact, has constantly and successfully striven to improve his weaker points and enhance his strong points. As a result of the waxing and waning of their respective image building campaign, the fourth debate presented the American public with the strongest and most attractive Nixon of the series.
Although it is doubtful that it was so planned by the TV technicians, it seemed that the closer proximity of the lecterns resulted in the leap of a communicative spark between the opposing candidates. At one point this dynamism even succeeded in eliciting a smile from the visibly tired Senator from Massachusetts.
IT HAS BEEN APPARENT THROUGHOUT the campaign that Jack Kennedy has tried to assume Franklin Delano Roosevelt's mantle of ethos. In the first debate one could almost see a spectral cigarette holder jauntily clenched in the Senator's teeth. Perhaps his failure to maintain the "FDR assuredness" of the first debate can be traced to the physical wear and tear of the campaign trail. Kennedy's hurried, staccato delivery failed to project the reserved strength so often equated with charismatic leadership.
A source-count of quotations throughout the Great Debates indicates Nixon's desire to be identified with Dwight Eisenhower, even to the point of his adopting delivery cadences similar to those of the President. His repeated efforts to establish his trustworthy frankness in the use of such phrases as "let's set the record straight" is reminiscent of Eisenhower's press conferences.
THROUGHOUT THESE DEBATES WE felt that the opportunity to view a candidate listening to his opponent's comments and to see his responses in these cut-away shots helped a voter to make an informed evaluation. To have these opportunities substantially reduced at the request of one candidate's advisers (Nixon looked too haggard for some in the first debate) was an unfortunate concession by the mass communication media.
Although it may seem relatively trivial, we
can't help but criticize Kennedy's staff for allowing him to continue mispronouncing the names of certain Southeast Asian countries, Laos and Thailand, throughout the Great Debates.
In the opening statements, Nixon's organizational structure enabled the audience to follow his thoughts easily. This contrasted with Senator Kennedy's "shotgun" approach. In formal debate parlance this is called "point debating"; rather than establishing a cohesive framework, the debater simply picks salient, often unrelated points, and hammers away.
In the first debate, Kennedy appealed to the pioneer spirit and insisted on America moving forward to new frontiers, while Nixon countered that the administration had never really been standing still. Three debates later the American public has been given much support for these positions by their respective proponents; however, the issues themselves remain unchanged. Both men agree on the national purpose and goal. But Kennedy feels that the Republican program has been ineffective in keeping pace with Communist expansion; Nixon argues that his party's program is the only one that can assure America's future world leadership.
IN OUR OPINION THIS DEBATE SAW THE diminution of the Quemoy-Matsu question as a main campaign issue. When the question was first brought up neither candidate seemed over anxious to prolong his comments on the problem. John Chancellor's insistence upon a specific answer to the question resulted in little but verbal thrusts and parries.
Cuba replaced Quemoy-Matsu as the "island issue" of the fourth debate. Nixon said that Kennedy was "dangerously irresponsible" in his suggested approaches to the Cuban difficulty; whereas Kennedy charged that the administration failed to recognize the Communist influence in the Cuban revolution even after repeated warnings by its own ambassadors.
A new issue concerned the candidate's approach to disarmament negotiation. On this question it was mostly a matter of timing which separated the opponents. Mr. Nixon called for action on limitation of nuclear testing prior to the new president's taking office, while Mr. Kennedy suggested a rapprochement at the Geneva conference table after the inauguration.
In the closing minutes of the fourth debate, Richard Nixon once more demonstrated his inability to resist using emotional appeals. God, youth, freedom, ideals, feelings, and faith punctuated his summation speech. His final, intimate question, "What can you do?," was a complete change from rationality to sentiment.
WE HAVE TRIED TO VIEW THESE DEbates in the light of classical rhetorical doctrine and modern communication theory. All criticisms and judgments resulted from the measuring of these specific speech communication situations with the instruments of formal debate and rhetorical criticism. In formal debate there is no such thing as a "draw" — neither was there a draw in the series of Great Debates. However, greater historical perspective, until November 9th,1960 at least, is needed before the victor is clearly discernible.
-Wil Linkugel and Frank E. X. Dance Assistant Professors of Speech
Assistant Professors of Speech
Editor:
After due consideration I feel it my duty to inform the UDK that a grave injustice has been done to the Men's Residence Association. In your article of Sept. 28th concerning the Syracuse Pep Rally you emphasized the role the KuKu's played in arranging this rally. In fact, you even placed a picture of Walter Brauer, president of the KuKu's, at the beginning of the article.
... Letters ...
It might be of interest to you to learn who provided this rally for the student body. Most of the money for the entertainment and refreshments was supplied by the M.R.A. The work on posters for advertisement was done entirely by M.R.A. members. All arrangements were made by M.R.A. representatives. What then have the Kuku's contributed to this affair? They have given us the fine picture of their president, and most assuredly their fine name. But they have excelled themselves in taking so much credit for a pep rally in which they have put forth so little effort.
The M.R.A. is a new organization trying to find its place on the KU campus, but if this is an example of how it is to be accepted then I say, may a plague be on all your houses.
Bitterly,
Arthur Miller
Pittsburg sophomore
Editor:
We have just read the article in the October 19 issue of the UDK concerning Templin's Sunday "dress" dinner policy. However, Templin is not the first university men's dormitory to initiate such a policy. Ace (Grace) Pearson has had such a policy from the first Sunday of the semester. We assumed anybody would dress up for Sunday dinner. Also, we have special etiquette concerning our housemother's presence at meals.
We hope that other university men's halls will take action along the lines of Ace Pearson's precedent.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
Sincerely.
The Men of Ace Pearson
From the Magazine Rack-
McCarthy Recalled
"... It brought back, as a chance event in the daylight world can cause a spasm of fear by recalling an ancient nightmare, the full horror of those years in Washington, when the whole framework of confidence and national dignity was crumbling, which it was my unhappy privilege, in company with many others, to record.
"I had to go to the State Department every week and throughout 1953 and 1954 one could see the morale of its officials falling like a sinking barometer as Dulles threw one victim after another off the sleigh in an effort to stop the wolf, and in the Pentagon it was even worse. McCarthy and his shadow pervaded every corner of Washington life during those years, and I can remember a reception for the Queen Mother at the British Embassy at which the sole topic of conversation from Supreme Court Justices to Third Secretaries was whether McCarthy would show up to shake her hand.
"WHENEVER one went to the Capitol, one always encountered him sidling or blundering down a corridor with his bulging brief-case full of meaningless photostats, the furtive boozy smile, the slap on the back (he always called me Wilson but he knew I was a journalist and therefore worth greeting), and the air of a small boy acknowledging that he was up to mischief, which made it impossible to preserve the dignified hostility that should have been one's proper bearing. The most humiliating thing of all was that I knew I could always make the front page, even of a sophisticated British newspaper, by writing about him, so I wrote about him, conforming to the cruel Gresham's law of journalism that 'bad news drives out good.' (There was at one moment a co-ordinated attempt by the leading American newspapers deliberately to relegate him to the back pages, but it lasted less than a week, for the man was news even though he manipulated it.) Not the least of his powers was his ability to bring out the worst in oneself, and he ruled, like other demagogues, by his skill in sowing confusion among his enemies."
(Excerpted from a review of the book "Senator Joe McCarthy" by Richard Rovere. The reviewer is Alastair Buchan, whose review appeared in the April 1960 Encounter.)
UNIVERSITY DAILY Hansan
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17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
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