Page 2
University Daily Kansas Thursday, Oct. 6, 1960
We're Ashamed
Saturday was a sad day for KU.
Sure, we lost a ball game, but there was no shame attached to that. If that was all that happened, there's be no need to write this.
But that wasn't all. The team certainly didn't let us down — but a sizable number of students who watched it did. They behaved like hogs at the trough, elbowing and jostling others, cutting into line ahead of those who were trying to observe the rules of courtesy — and who were shut out of the game for their pains.
One rightfully indignant reader said in a letter to the editor that he waited an hour and a half in a line that never moved because these boors rushed the student gate and disregarded those who were standing in orderly procession. After the gate was slammed shut almost in his face, our reader went home to watch the game on television.
Another reader also paid the price for courtesy. He did manage to get a seat — in the end zone. The boys who crashed the gate ahead of others were perched on the 40-yard line or thereabouts, enjoying the game from a vantage point they certainly didn't deserve.
This discourtesy is even more nauseating when you consider that thousands of KU parents and visitors from other schools and from out of state were not only witnesses to such unspeakable rudeness, but were victimized by it. And they couldn't go home and watch the game on
TV, either. What they think of the student body and the planning that went into the game seating is, as our reader said, probably unprintable. And we can hardly blame them.
It's too bad our students aren't capable of showing the courtesy to others demanded by maturity and good breeding. Saturday, they were little more than slobs — and we use that term accurately — and so we suppose they must be treated as such.
Let's work up a solution to the seating problem that would take care of the "slobs." Let's rope off the entire area leading to the student entrance and club the animals back into line when they get rowdy; or perhaps the Pinkertons could use their nightsticks on the gate crashers? Then again, maybe just a few shots over their heads would suffice.
We don't like to think there were as many "slobs" at the game as there appeared to be. We expected more from the student body than the atrocious behavior it displayed Saturday, but we're hoping that the gate crashers were a definite minority.
Anyone can make a mistake, and it was a big game; but if the mob scene around the student gates is repeated this year, the situation will call for a drastic remedy. The "slobs" will have to be dealt with by use of the only thing they respect — force, in the form of a University or ASC ruling with teeth in it. Bill Blundell
A Needle for the UDK
Editor:
The Daily Kansan is really to be congratulated on its front page article in Wednesday's paper entitled "John Anderson Tops Doing in City Poll" which, in my modest opinion, amounts to the most scientifically conducted political poll in the history of our country.
In order to arrive at a valid conclusion upon which scientific predictions could be based, the Daily Kansan undertook the tremendous job of polling no less than 45 (forty-five) voters. Of those polled, 22 stated that they would vote for Anderson, 12 that they would vote for Docking, and 14 were undecided. (Please disregard the fact that this does not add up to 45, but slight errors are unavoidable when one deals with such large numbers.)
From this "random" poll of a representative sample of Lawrence voters, the Daily Kansan was able to arrive at the conclusion that Anderson "holds almost a two to one lead" over Docking in Lawrence. I am certain that the only reason why the Daily Kansan failed to work the results out more exactly (at least to the third decimal) was the realization that such would be above the heads of the incoming freshmen who had not had courses in advanced statistics.
...Let<sup>4</sup>ers ...
But I cannot conclude this letter without admonishing my colleagues who teach Political Science, Statistics and Psychology to pay special attention to the brilliancy of the Daily Kansan pollsters who, from this opinion poll, were able to go far beyond predicting the outcome of the November election in Lawrence; they were actually able to arrive at conclusions concerning probable reasons for their predicted outcome of the November, 1960 gubernatorial race in Lawrence, among which they listed Docking's attacks on KU and Anderson's birthplace (Olathe).
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
"YES. TH' OLE FRAT IS GETTING BACK ON ITS' FEET SINCE TEX' PLEDGED."
Congratulations! Keep up the good work!
Harry Shaffer,
Assistant Professor of
Economics
(Editor's note; Prof. Shaffer has twisted the knife in a most sensitive part of the Kansan's anatomy. We agree that the poll would have been more impressive if 100 or more had been interviewed; but this is sometimes difficult to do under pressure of a deadline. Furthermore, the Kansan was careful to make no prediction whatsoever about the November election. As for the probable reason for Anderson's lead among those polled, we feel that the governor's attacks on KU and its former chancellor must necessarily have a great deal of bearing on local attitudes. As for Atty. Gen. Anderson, we were only speculating. A careful reading will indicate this.
We wish to remind Prof. Shaffer that the Gallup poll is based on a smaller relative sample than the Kansan obtained. However, this does not mean that the Kansan will be content to loll on its haunches, neglecting the opportunity to do as much as is possible. We shall continue to tilt at windmills, Prof. Shaffer; but we will try to take your implied advice and carry a heavier lance next time.)
University of Kansas student newspaper
1904, triviewly 1908, daily dan. 16, 1912
1908, daily dan. 16, 1912
UNIVERSITY OF TALAMAS
Dailu Hansan
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. Represented by national. Mall subscription rates; $3 a semester or $5 a published. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays and examination periods. Entered as application fee for post office under set of March 3, 1879.
Telephone VKing 3-2700 Extension 711 news room
Ray Miller ... Managing Editor
Carol Heller, Jane Boyd and Priscilla
Burton, Assistant Managing Editors;
Pat Shelley and Suzanne Shaw. City
Education, Ronald. Sports
Editor; Peggy Kallos and Donna
Engle, Society Editors.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Juniper Datacenter
Bill Blundell Co-Editorial Editors BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Mark Dull Business Manager
Rudy Hoffman, Advertising Manager;
Marlin Zimmerman, Promotion Manager;
Milo Harris, National Advertising Manager;
Dorothy Boller, Circulation Manager;
Dorothy Boller, Classified Advertising Manager.
International Jayhawker
We Saw Fidel
By Richard Val
(Editor's note: The following article was written by a KU graduate student who journeyed to Cuba this summer with a group of five friends from New York. This is the first of two articles. For personal reasons, the writer is using a pseudonym.)
Castro's revolution attracts not only American adventurers, confused leftist students, and the curious like us, but also French intellectuals.
So we went to Cuba by ferry from Key West, Florida, and spent a summer there. My friends were students from New York. We traveled by train from Havana to Sierra Maestra where the celebration of the 26 July revolution took place. For the press, diplomats and curious like us, there was a special train. Our neighbor on the train was the French novelist Francoise Sagan.
WHILE JEAN PAUL SARTE, WHO VISITED CUBA EARLIER, was sympathetic to the Cuban revolution and Simone Beauvoir called Castro a genius, F. Sagan kept her "Certain Smile" not only on the train but also face to face with Castro's revolution and shouting crowd.
F. Sagan looks much younger than she looks in her photos and less sophisticated. She is an attractive girl—too defenseless and delicate between barbudos soldiers.
She kept a Mona Lisa smile during the journey despite the fact her teeth are without any defect. She fought down the discomfort of her popularity and the long trip in hot weather complicated by head ache, otitis and boredom. A 10cc syringe didn't bring the relief of the otitis.
An Israeli artist showed a knowledge of mesmerism and massaged her temples while outside in the station a crowd was shouting "Fidel, Viva Fidel—Cuba Si, Yanki no."
This made us upset but the Cubans tried to convince us that this slogan is not against the American people, but against American monopolies. The psychology of these people is better understood by what happened to a group of our friends in Havana. There a crowd was shouting this slogan and saw the American students standing by. They changed the slogan this way:
"Cuba si, Yanki si" and pressed the students to dance with them.
LATER WE CHANGED THE TRAIN FOR AN OPEN TRAIN and then for open trucks which drove us up to the mountains where Castro gave a speech. This drastic transformation produced motion sickness and sunstrecke. Two girls got sick down the tracks and a Czech newspaperman fainted. But this was nothing in comparison with the Castro speech which lasted four hours in heat and sun. We suffered almost animal thirst.
But the Cubans looked happy and sunproof. Before a grandstand, militia and farmers marched while a lady from Peru tried to put a Peruvian cap on Castro's head. Castro was a baby kisser and hand shaker like any other politician. Soldiers who were in charge as his body guards strolled here and there and completely disappeared when the ice and water was brought to the grandstand. This was an ideal moment to kill Castro, but apparently nothing happened because later Castro gave his speech.
CASTRO DOESN'T BELIEVE IN TIGHT SECURITY measures and is almost careless. He claims that the people are doing the revolution, not a personality. It was unbelievable that we were admitted to the grandstand where Castro was without having our identification checked.
Castro is a strong built man with a Greek nose and one dead tooth in the front of his mouth. It seemed to us that he had no apparent mental disturbance except maybe a well repressed shyness. His position is unique. He is the son of a wealthy landowner and his family lost their property due to the agrarian reform. To the landowners he is a traitor to his class. To his enemies he is a Communist and to the Communists he is a bourgeois nationalist. For Cubans in New York he is a maniac; for Cubans in Havana he is a hero.
BELOW HIS GRANDSTAND, MILITIA WOMEN WERE SITTING with rosaries around their necks.
American newspapermen estimated the crowd there at 20,000 and Cuban newspapers at one million persons. So the psychology of reporting hasn't changed since the time of Herodotus. We don't know how many people were there—we didn't count them.
Worth Repeating
The need for new knowledge has not always been fully recognized by the authorities, as the story of Adam and the legend of Prometheus remind us.J. Robert Oppenheimer
As Mr. Stevenson discovered, the support of Harvard is not a sure sign of inevitable victory in a Presidential campaign.James Reston
Beyond the luster that poets continue to give this literary age, the excitement of books written thirty, forty and fifty years ago are, sad to say, still the only excitements—John Malcolm Brinnin
Society has become a great salesroom — and a network of rackets: the gimmick of success becomes the yearly change of model, as in the mass-society fashion becomes universal.—C. Wright Mills