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University Daily Kansas Wednesday, Sept. 21, 1960
Mum's the Word
Gov. George Docking, even in the face of a heightening gubernatorial campaign, again released his usual "no comment" earlier this week. This time the governor was asked his opinion of the $18 million emergency building recommendation proposed by the state Board of Regents Friday. This action was deemed necessary in light of unexpectedly heavy enrollments at the several state institutions. He said the decision would have to be left to the winner of November's election and refused to comment further on the matter — as if it were none of his business.
This was just one more move by the governor which, either knowingly or unknowingly, has cast about him the image of a man staunchly opposed to higher education in the state. Many people now believe the governor's philosophy on the state's higher education in negative and doubtful. This may be an unfair attitude. Time and again the governor has been asked for comment on the status of the state institutions, even offered the columns of this newspaper to express his views, but he has stubbornly remained silent.
This is not a phenomenon which has just burst upon the Kansas scene. Gov. Docking has consistently been in the headlines over his moves connected with state schools. Events moved to a head last year when KU's Franklin D. Murphy resigned as chancellor of the University. Dr. W. Clarke Wescoe was named his successor on a split ballot by the Regents with mainly Docking appointees voting against the new chancellor. Another incident was the governor's veto of appropriations by the legislature for more building at state schools. He also cancelled his speaking engagements at Kansas State University after a mock political convention there criticized him.
These facts are not enough to brand the governor as an opponent of higher education and learning — but they certainly give the general impression.
It must be remembered that Gov. Docking's veto of the building plan last year was in line with the recommendations of the Board of Regents. But his running verbal battle with former Chancellor Murphy did little to instill confidence in educators that the governor had their best interests at heart. In addition, Gov. Docking has said in the past that he would prefer the English or European system of education where only select groups receive higher education.
Despite this, Gov. Docking remains extremely popular with the state voters. He seems to have the rare ability to say and do things which are generally considered political suicide and still maintain the popular backing of the voters — in fact, he seems often to gain strength for his disdain of the state universities.
This is an election year, not a time for candidates running for the top executive position in the state to say that decisions should be left up to the winner and decline comment. The people of the state of Kansas deserve the right to know the governor's stand on higher education and his plans for the future. This is the American system. Candidates declare their position on pertinent issues and then the voters either accept or reject the proposals. Gov. Docking has consistently denied the voters this right. We certainly hope, before the campaign progresses too much further, that the governor will make known his beliefs — here or elsewhere.
John Peterson
Religion An Issue
Editor:
There are those who say that the religious issue in the presidential campaign is not a genuine one. Those who say so ignore historical fact. What have the popes said about such issues as Separation of Church and State, religious freedom, and liberty of conscience?
In Anne Fremantle's book The Papal Encyclicals, which bears the imprimatur of Francis Cardinal Spellman, we have the following facts: Plus IX proclaimed the right to suppress heresy by force, condemned Separation of Church and State, commended all Catholics to obey the pope rather than civil
authorities, denounced liberty of conscience, liberty of worship, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and public schools. Leo XII condemned secret societies. Clement condemned reading of the Bible. Pius VII declared the supremacy of the pope over civil authorities. Boniface VIII declared that no civil authority had the right to tax the Catholic church without its consent and that anyone doing so was automatically excommunicated (e.g., Peron). Pius X set forth the principle of the use of political power to achieve the ends of the church. Pius XI condemned public education.
In view of the stated position of
the Catholic church on these issues, it is evident that the religious issue is a genuine one.
Kennedy, in his Houston speech, made a step towards clarification of the religious issue when he stated a position on Separation of Church and State. Kennedy has also spoken of himself as a "loyal son of the Church." Therein lies a contradiction, since Kennedy's statements contradict the teachings of his church. Shall we believe Kennedy, or his church?
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
In the U.S., Separation of Church and State was won by a combination of secular and Protestant, as well as Catholic anti-clerical power. I cherish religious freedom, and will not let cries of bigot prevent me from carefully considering all of the issues and casting my vote accordingly.
"DONT DESTROY YOUR WHOLE FUTURE!! YOU MUST STUDY HARD RIGHT UP TO THE THANKSGIVING GAME!"
John W. Wyman
Lawrence graduate student
Dailu Hansan
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904,
triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone VIking 3-2700
University of Kansas student newspaper
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Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, National New service. United Press International, 37 West 40th Street, 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 Johnson University on September 17, 1910, at Lawrence Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Ray Miller Managing Editor
Carol Heller, Jane Boyd and Priscilla Burton, Assistant Managing Editors;
Pailey Ray and Stanne Shaw City Editor; Mark Mandaland Sports Editor; Peggy Kallos and Donna Engle, Society Editors.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
John Peterson and
Bill Rundell Co-Editorial Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
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EATON KU DAILY KANSAN
By Calder M. Pickett
Associate Professor of Journalism
MEN OF GOOD INTENTIONS, by Blair Bolles. Doubleday. $4.50.
71
Truman, for example, had become so wrapped up with the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the Berlin aflift, and the Korean War that he was not able to curb the excesses of Harry Vaughan, Wallace Graham, Merl Young and Donald Dawson. He also was inflicted with a misguided sense of loyalty, of course, a factor which Bolles also discusses at length.
EISENHOWER, BOLLES says, has been so detached from government and so enamored of the staff system that in essence he hasn't been on the job. But meanwhile government has continued to grow. The impeccable Sherman Adams of New Hampshire turned out, in the Bernard Goldfine affair, to be a man of clay like the rest of us. "I need him," Eisenhower said in one of the most tragically shocking statements of modern American politics, but Adams had to fall to the wayside.
His story in the earlier book was chiefly that of corruption in the Truman administration. Here he goes back to recall briefly such matters as the Grant era, the many evils of the Harding administration, the Truman scandals themselves. Then he hits hardest at the Eisenhower administration, which was to have been a white crusade, an era in which all candidates would be as clean as a hound's tooth — in the words of Our Leader himself.
The Roosevelt administrations, he feels, escaped corruption because the men in government were experimenting, and it would have been an insult to the great experiment to tamper with the democratic processes.
It will be futile for the Democrats to recite the Eisenhower record of scandals. The Democrats have been touched by scandal themselves (though Harding and Grant were Republicans, and only Truman, of the tainted lot, was a Democrat). But the record is there to recite — Federal Communications Commission, Dixon and Yates, Harold Talbott, Murray Chotiner, and the whole sorry Adams-Goldfine business that removed an otherwise talented man from government.
The journalist who wrote "How to Get Rich in Washington" has continued his pet theme of corruption in the nation's capital, and he makes a strong case for congressional control of independent agencies and for a limitation on the presidency itself.
In the falling, a leader emerged. Eisenhower for the first time assumed the responsibilities of the office. And in so doing he perhaps controlled, somewhat, the corruption that had tainted the administration that was to have been as pure as Ivory soap.
BOLLES FEELS THAT corruption has been at its worst in the administrations of Harding, Truman and Eisenhower. He traces this to the presidents themselves, whom he considers relatively weak in the office. He also traces it to the tremendous growth in the executive branch, and the preoccupation of 20th century presidents with world affairs.
CUT THE POWER of the independent commissions, where much of the corruption occurs, says Bolles. Allow Congress to fix the budgets, select commissioners, give definitions of rights within the commission. "The termination of the pretense that the independent offices are independent would restore the splendid symmetry of the original division of the federal government into three parts," Bolles says. "And it could speed the escape of the presidency from the shadow of corruption."
A librarian too often resembles a headwaiter showing one to a table in a large restaurant and too little resembles an artist having profound and passionate views of life, death, and immortality. Howard Mumford Jones