Thursday, Oct. 20, 1960 University Daily Kansan
From the Magazine Rack-
Page 3
November Foreseen
"We hear on all sides that 1960 will be a year of fateful decision, perhaps a critical turning point in American history. I disagree. If we take a hard look at the way our politics actually works, we will see that the main political battle of 1960 has already been decided: liberals will win the presidential contest and conservatives will win the congressional contests. The election is more likely to produce a stalemate over policy than a meaningful decision as to the future course of American politics...
"We can understand our party system best if we see each major party divided into presidential and congressional wings that are virtually separate parties in themselves. They are separate parties in that each has its own ideology, organization, and leadership. In political outlook, the congressional Republican Party slants sharply to the right, and the congressional Democrats lean almost as far in that direction. The congressional Republicans are the party of the late Senator Robert A. Taft, of today's Senate and House minority leaders, Everett Dirksen and Charles Halleck. This party operates through the congressional Republican chieftains, the Republican campaign committees in both chambers, and through the congressional committee system, with its rule of seniority. Across the aisles, the congressional Democrats, headed by such men as Lyndon Johnson, Harry Byrd, John McClellan, and Sam Rayburn, operate ideologically somewhat closer to the center. They too have their apparatus of committees and procedures bolstering their power on Capitol Hill.
"The two presidential parties operate through very different institutions: the Democratic and Republican national committees, the national conventions, and the political organizations under them. Whichever party wins the presidency wins also the vast political power and machinery of the White House. Both parties have their heroes of old and leaders of today: Willkie, Eisenhower, and Nixon; and Wilson, Roosevelt, and Truman. But the main difference between the presidential and congressional parties is over policy; both presidential parties are more liberal and internationalist than both congressional parties.
"In a sense, every presidential contest turns more than the last one on issues of liberalism, if only because of the steady flow of voters into urban areas, and hence the ever-increasing need for expanded government. The impetus toward liberal emphasis in presidential contests is also intensified by the mechanics of the electoral college. We hear much about congressional districts being gerrymandered to overrepresent conservatives — which they are, of course; sometimes we forget that our presidential electoral system is gerrymandered in the opposite direction, toward liberalism. For, under that system, with its winner-take-all device, each candidate fights desperately for the large urban states, where the balance of power is supposedly held by organized blocs — labor, Negroes, and so forth — who tend to vote liberal...
"The real question facing us, then, is not so much who will win next fall's presidential election — a liberal will win it — but what the winner will do about his liberal commitments once he enters the White House. And what he will do, what he can do, will turn largely on the outcome of that other battle between the congressional Democrats and the congressional Republicans. And the outcome of this battle too can be clearly foreseen...
"Why will conservatives win control of Congress no matter how these local races turn out? One reason, of course, is that Congress overrepresents rural and conservative voters because of gerrymandering. Another is that most leaders of the congressional parties — notably the committee chiefs in House and Senate — are sure to hold their seats no matter what happens in national politics, for they represent one-party areas, as in the South and in rural sectors of the North and West, where there is no real competition from the opposition party and precious little within the dominant party. And even if any of these leaders did lose, their places in Congress would be taken in most cases by equally conservative men who had sat their way up the seniority ladder.
"Conservatives will win Congress next fall also because of the coalition system in House and Senate. No matter which party gains majorities on Capitol Hill, power gravitates toward the Old Guard leaders in each party, who get along better, ideologically at least, with their counterparts across the aisle than they do with the liberals in their own party."
(Excerpted from "White House vs. Congress," by James MacGregor Burns, in the March, 1960, Atlantic.)
The College Teacher
"What, after all, can college teachers hope to achieve during four painfully unsettled years in the life of a student? All that can be done is to set the stage hopefully for a lifetime of study. If a student develops the habit of reading with discrimination, he may be reasonably well educated by the time he is thirty. Independent study provides an impetus in this direction. At the very least, the independent study candidates learn their way around a library — a rare skill, I might add, among young and old.
"Through independent study students may win back their identity which rote learning kills off. I had a sobering lesson in the stultification of students recently. I asked a literature class I was teaching to read a background book and do a critical commentary. Paper after paper proved to be little more than a summary. With some exasperation I asked why this happened when I had specifically asked for critical impressions.
"It was safer that way,' students said. 'It's what we thought you wanted; it's what other instructors usually want.'
"How casually they forswear their own identities!"
(Excerpted from "American Colleges," by David Boroff in the April, 1960, Harper's Magazine.)
'Lady Chatterly' Goes on Trial
LONDON — (UPI) — A British publishing firm goes to court today to determine whether D. H. Lawrence's best-selling novel "Lady Chatterly's Lover" is obscene or a work of art.
American authorities ruled the novel — written in 1928 — was art and they allowed its publication in the United States.
Approximately 200 literary authorities, writers and those who feel strongly that Lawrence produced a work of art and not pornography offered to give evidence for the defense.
BUT AUTHORITIES in Britain, where literary critics often sneer at Americans for being "prudish," have other ideas. As a result, Penguin Books Ltd., which seeks to publish the unexpurgated edition of the novel in Britain, was hauled into famed Old Bailey Court.
Among them are novelists Aldous Huxley, author of "Brave New World Revisited," Kingsley Amis, and Lawrence's biographer, Richard Aldington.
The case came into the courts after Penguin published less than a dozen copies of the book in a paperback edition. They were picked up by Scotland Yard police and charges were brought against Penguin.
Red China's 1960 Production Stumbles Instead of Leaping
TOKYO —(UPI)— Red China isn't making any bones about it these days; there just wasn't any big leap forward in production this year—not to even talk about.
Peiping doesn't publish it for the world to read that the leap forward stumbled somewhere along the line, but there have been hundreds of clues—large and small—leading to this deduction.
The persons who know this best are the managers of tractor plants, party bosses in the communes and government functionaries in the steel mills. There appears ample evidence these "cadres" have been called on the carpet in Peiping to answer for the failure.
---
Evidence of this began to mount earlier this year when Red China announced that natural calamities had destroyed much of the 1960 food crop. After that there were no more announcements of exceeding production quotas.
The latest, published in the Peiping press today, tells of "progress in reaping late rice crops in Fukien, Kiangsi, Human and Szechwan provinces," some of China's most fertile areas. Progress, no more.
The same press reports, distributed by the New China News agency in broadcasts from Peiping monitored here, told of "great advances" in other Iron Curtain bloc countries.
They told of "overfulfillment by Soviet industry of the plan for the first three-quarters of this year." Papers headlined bonus production in Mongolian handicraft industries and successful wheat crops in Communist Albania. Harvests in Communist North Viet Nam and Hungary were marked out for special attention.
By comparison, Red China's achievements in agricultural production were accorded back page treatment.
Indications were that Peiping's rulers—rather than publicly admit failure—were holding the successes of "sister Communist countries" up as a goal for Mainland China.
At the same time, the Peiping press let it be known that laborers were wasting too much raw material for the amount of finished goods turned out.
News that several coal mines had increased output slightly was given page one headlines.
"The Peiping Peoples". Daily gave prominence to the campaign among steel workers in Chungking and Tsingtao for their increase in output." NCNA reported.
One-Stop Service
Check Your Battery!
Let us check your old battery; install a new sure-starting one if you need it! Remember, the battery is the lifeline of your car . . . don't neglect it!
CONVENIENT CREDIT TERMS
CREDIT CARDS
LEONARD'S
STANDARD SERVICE
706 W. 9th
ALTHOUGH an unexpurgated version of the novel has never been published in Britain, uncensored copies were printed in France, Switzerland, Sweden and Holland.
The novel was originally entitled "Tenderness" and depicted the love of Lady Chatterly for a virile game-keeper on her estate.
The trial was expected to be adjourned until Monday to give members of the jury a chance to read the novel, but they will not be permitted to take the book home.
Have Lunch on the Run with
PETER GUNN
Hi-Lo's
Fred Waring
NEW LP RECORDS:
Four Freshmen
Andre Previn
Jonathan Edwards
BELL MUSIC COMPANY
DOWNTOWN
HILLCREST
BHT
liquefoil
onl
marm
one
marm
onl
marm
onl
marm
-onl
marm
onl
marm
T1J