Page 2
---
University Daily Kansan Tuesday, Oct. 11, 1960
ASC's Great Opportunity
Now is the time for action. Seldom in the history of the University have the representatives of the student body had an equal opportunity to make a positive decision and pull themselves from the dredges of mediocrity usually reserved for such institutions.
Controversy has raged for a week on the issue of what the All Student Council should do with its membership in the National Student Association. Not one of the persons arguing the pros and cons of the organization wants to pull out. They are seeking the best course of action, and it seems in this case that the best course of action is simply action.
THE TWO MAIN POINTS NOW BEING argued are that KU does not have a sufficient amount of representation of our ideals and philosophy in the making of the NSA policy and that Ron Dalby, student body president, has once again stepped out of line in saying that he represents the student body with his opinion on a particular matter. Dalby's main point that KU does not have any authority in NSA is well-taken, but his examples of what is wrong with the organization are certainly open to debate. This debate, which now condemns Dalby for his stand, could easily be squelched and remedied.
The first positive step to be taken has to come from the ASC. The council should make up its mind that it is going to stay in NSA and be a truly active member. Questions of sit-ins, freemail exchange with Russia and such must be discussed in the ASC. These members consistently criticize the student body head for his remarks at conventions. This could easily be avoided by giving the president a firm foundation to base his views on. The ASC must consider each of these matters now in question separately and establish its own feeling. These questions are the matters which vitally concern our future and should be the topic of some discussion, instead of the old
standbys like student apathy, parking and closing hours taking up the entire meeting.
ONCE THIS PROCEDURE IS ESTABLISHED, the ASC will become one of the most envied organizations on the campus. It will attract persons other than those interested in campus politics. The decisions, whether they are liberal or conservative in regard to the other members of the national organization, will give the University's representative a solid base from which to intelligently discuss the problems at various conventions.
If the decisions reached by the ASC are more conservative than those adopted by NSA, then the decisions should be sent to other schools with similar learnings and gain KU support before the annual convention rolls around. With a number of schools in accord on basic questions, there should be little doubt but what KU will have its voice in NSA. In addition, KU will have taken the initiative and become the leader of this group — certainly a point to be taken into consideration.
IT WOULD BE ADMIRABLE IF ONE OF the two, or both, of the campus political parties would integrate these suggestions into their platform. It would be a basic issue or plank and give people running for office a chance to say more than I will do my best when campaigning. Here is the opportunity to make something big and worthwhile of the ASC. The body could stir considerable intellectual fervor on the campus and make KU students much more aware of the troubles of the world around and about them. The Daily Kansas will take a close, studied look at the individual issues and particulars of NSA to a greater degree in subsequent editorials. We only hope that we aren't the only ones on campus taking the time and effort to study the issues and see exactly what benefits NSA has to offer and how to capitalize upon them.
— John Peterson
Dalby Does It Again
Dalby has done it again. He has once more made himself the spokesman for the University on an issue about which there is much difference of opinion. Furthermore, he has done this in such a way as to leave the impression that his statement represents the opinion of the majority of the student body. One might even conclude that he is speaking for the Administration when he says, "KU is in the middle-of-the-road leaning toward a conservative viewpoint."
It is apparent that among other things, our student body president is suffering from an acute case of "power-hunger." His chief complaint with the NSA seems to be that KU (meaning Dalby) cannot assume a role of leadership, at least of the minority. I have always labored under the apparent misapprehension that leadership, in a democracy, was earned or at least freely given. But then, I guess Dal-
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1880, became biweekly 1904,
trieweekly 1908, daily Jam 16, 1912.
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, NY. Represents national 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 counsel for university. 7, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
Telephone VIking 3-2700
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Ray Miller ... Managing Editor
Ayler Heller, Jane Boyd, Priscilla
Barron and Carrie Adams, Assistant
Managing Editors; Pat Shelley,
Suzanne Shaw, City Editors; John
Maedonald, Sports Editors; Peggy
Kallos and Donna Engle, Society
Editors.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT John Peterson and
Bill Blundell
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Mark
Manager
Mark Dull Business Manager
by doesn't know much about the democratic concept of majority rule. It seems a bit childish to severe connections from a group, which even Dalby admits had some advantages, because you can't have your way. Being a great advocate of "reason" it would seem a much more adult attitude on his part to try by "reasonable" means to bring the majority to his way of thinking.
Dalby lists as one of the chief reasons for withdrawal from NSA an opposition to demonstrations, which to quote him "— are not the way to get things done. They only show the inability to deal with the problems of the country." Yet, what is withdrawal under protest If not a demonstration? In making such a statement; he demonstrates a deplorable ignorance of 20th century history. Has he ever watched a political convention, or a football pep rally, or a labor picket line? Such demonstrations are quite common, and all are staged for the same reason, to attract support for a particular cause. Is Mr. Dalby against this type of demonstration too, or is it just demonstrations concerned with civil rights?
How long must the student body tolerate the irresponsible conduct of its student body president, before something is done to put a more responsible individual in this position of leadership?
Finally Mr. Dalby cites a list of schools which have withdrawn from the NSA, all southern schools except one. Included in his list is the University of Alabama — of Autherine Lucy fame —; is this the example Mr. Dalby would have us follow?
Marvin W. McKnight Lawrence senior
Non-Representative Editor
Open letter to Dalby;
money for blue coats and a few special-interest groups who keep themselves well represented on the ASC. As a result I have considered it a more or less normal bureaucratic cancer having a relation to the student body analogous to that of the Athletic Corporation of the University faculty.
However, you, Dalby, whoever you are, have broken my traditional non-interest in unimportant affairs. Perhaps it is because I can't consider the question of the equality of man as an unimportant issue. Never, never presume, Dalby, to represent me on a local, regional, or national level as not advocating peaceful attempts to further the equality of man. I sincerely hope that you don't represent the average student at the University. I'm sure that you would have gotten some interest in student elections if you had stood firmly on a plank of, for example:
Normally student government is of little or no importance to the average student. In anything of importance it rubber-stamps administration policies (because, I assume, it has no choice) and votes
"I stand for a perpetuation of the depressed conditions of the American Negro. I hope that the Negro will do nothing, peaceful or otherwise, to improve his social and economic level. What is good for Southern Missouri is good enough for KU."
You people who want interest in student government should try taking important stands before an election. If you are a racist, take your stand. If not, let it be known and act it. I think you'll get student interest. But now ... Don't tell the world that I'm against sit-ins. I'm doubtless confused but I thought Missouri's attempt to carry Kansas with the South failed years ago and, brother, I hope your attempt to carry KU with the Southern universities fails too.
If the issue with NSA is sit-ins then don't pretend to represent the voice of KU students until you have heard it loud and clear in an honest (impossible request) student referendum. Then speak out and represent. As it is, you can only misrepresent.
Don R. Vesper Lawrence senior
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
"I'VE WAITED FIVE YEARS FOR SOMEONE TO ASK ME THAT QUESTION."
From the Magazine Rack
Why We Can't Read
"It is generally conceded that both Johnny and Jenny are poor readers, certainly inferior to their parents at the same age. I should like to suggest a totally different answer to the question 'Why . . . read?' From any of the answers hitherto proposed, in brief the influence of mass media...
"Mass media are not strictly speaking new. Manuscripts were reproduced by hand as needed from ancient times. Public readings by a poet of his poetry, recitals, presentations on the stage, were essentially all of them media for the diffusion of the written word. The great difference in modern times is that our media are massive and also unfortunately cheap, nasty, and deafening. Johnny gets no opportunity to read. Whatever he does at school he does not learn to read there. He has no opportunity for practicing reading at home, and his practice at school is limited to a very few of his waking hours. Writing he voluntarily almost never does. And instead of reading, he listens to the spoken word on radio, or, more likely, combined with a visual presentation on television. With few exceptions all that he hears or sees, or both, is not only a bad influence on him, but makes him totally disinterested in reading anything, anywhere, at any time. No wonder he and his sister cannot read...
"Provided you have the proper receiving apparatus (and who has not?) anyone young or old, literate and illiterate, deaf and dumb (at least for television) the blind too (at least for radio) can receive it. Only to those few unfortunates who are blind, deaf, and dumb is this new 'book' a book sealed with seven seals. But who among the younger generation is so virtuous, so wisely trained, or instinctively so aware of what is at stake that he will prefer to sit down to read a book, a hard book, rather than watch television, go to the 'shorties' (so-called) movies?...
"But I return to my contention that so long as young people glue themselves unrestrainedly on our modern mass media of communication, so long will they be poor readers or utterly incapable at reading. There are other reasons, crackpot theories of teaching reading, poor standards of achievement and accomplishment, total misunderstanding of the nature of education. These are being argued back and forth by others, and I gladly leave it to them. But I warn all publishers of books, and other prints, that other matters are involved, that what is going on now is leading to its logical end; no books are going to be written, bought, sold; they will not even be printed."
"One parting shot. I never look at the glossy paper magazines. They try to throw dust in my eyes (MY EYES if you please) by trying to snare me to look at advertisements that I do not normally read at all—when I want a thing, I go and buy it. Worse still, like television, they have retreated to days before the invention of true writing, mere pictures, which say little and say it badly, for a picture is inarticulate.
"Most news broadcasts last five minutes. Of necessity they must be incomplete, if not biased. Give me a decent article, in a decent newspaper, written by an unprejudiced reporter who knows how to write, and I can read two columns in five minutes, and be much closer to truth and fact..."
(Excerpted from an article "Why Can't Johnny Read" by Joshua Whatmough, chairman, department of linguistics, Harvard, in the July, 1960, issue of the "Nieman Reports.")