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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, January 8, 1969
1969-down with death
Nobody died in the United States last year-by capital punishment, that is.
The number of executions has been diminishing rapidly in the past few years from an all-time high of 199 executed in 1935 to seven in 1965 (four in Kansas) to one in 1966 and, finally none in 1968.
This record, admirable in itself, also points out a contradictory fact in American opinion. Although the present trend seems to be towards law and order and a hard-line approach in dealing with criminals, a Gallup poll taken in 1967 said that the majority of U.S. citizens opposed capital punishment.
This, as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch pointed out in an editorial last week, correlates with the "fact . . . that there is absolutely no evidence that capital punishment deters crime, however much those who demand vengeance may assert that it does." The five states with the highest murder rates in the United States, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida and Mississippi, also lead in the number of executions per year.
The death penalty, however, does discriminate heavily against the poor, those who haven't the money for expensive and lengthy appeals and stays of execution. It also, especially in the South, discriminates against the black people, not only as a poorer class, but also in the number of death
penalty verdicts by juries on hard to prove cases such as rape.
The Legal Defense Fund of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has helped to reduce the death figure greatly. The Defense Fund concentrates all of its resources on capital punishment cases and currently represents about half of the 500 inmates of death row in the United States. The Fund hopes to soon be able to secure a Supreme Court finding that executions are a form of cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.
But last fall, a bill defended by Attorney General Ramsey Louis Clark advocating the abolishment of the death penalty never made it onto the Senate floor for discussion.
Already 13 states have abolished the death penalty and 73 foreign countries no longer have executions.
And although 1968's record was clean, 1969 could be marred by executions.
Since the majority opinion is against capital punishment and since it is neither a deterrent to crime nor fair to minority groups, nor humanitarian in the least, capital punishment should be abolished in the United States in 1969.
Alison Steimel Editorial Editor
Paperbacks
MIAMI AND THE SIEGE OF CHICAGO: AN INFORMAL HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC CONVENTIONS OF 1968, by Norman Mailer (Signet, 95 cents)—The best of the new paperbacks, and an original also available in hardback. Here is a truly beautiful piece of reporting, even though it is absolutely loaded with bias. And insight. The bias and insight are what make it great. Mailer has made himself an extremely informed and thoughtful commentator on the national scene, and here he surpasses himself.
The Miami section is dullest, but then was the Miami convention a pretty dull affair. A coronation, as he sees it. Mailer is particularly thoughtful as he wonders what can be happening to him: a lifelong, confirmed Nixon-hater, he has these strange flashes when he almost likes the man who was not yet candidate, let alone president-elect. He winds up still cool to Nixon. And a marvelously perceptive page when he feels impatience with Ralph Abernathy for keeping him waiting so long at a press conference and wonders why he must not get too angry simply because Abernathy is a black man.
And then Chicago, and again some fine passages. Mailer was a Kennedy man (Robert), he did not care especially for McCarthy, and he sees in McCarthy what many saw as the summer progressed: a basically conservative man with a limited concept of the presidency. Mailer thought it might be good if the Democrats could nominate Rockefeller and the Republicans McCarthy. He also has some moments of self-doubt here, for he decides that his role as reporter is too important for him to become personally involved in the hippie-yippie-McCarthyite demonstrations, even though he sympathized with these people.
Mailer has a few blind spots, in my opinion. He seems absolutely incapable of seeing any merit in Humphrey (his view coincides with that of Robert Sherrill, published last summer). He sees the shooting of Andy Warhol as one of a chain of
horrible circumstances of 1968 (why not list all the other murders and muggings as well, in any year?). His hatred for the American politician as a whole seems a bit forced and petty, though what he says about "politics as property" is extremely thoughtful. And finally one may ask, perhaps prudishly, why Mailer feels that he must be bold and brave in his use of what we squares used to term obscenities. He's old enough now that he doesn't have to prove himself this way.—CMP
SHOTGUN BOTTOM, by Bill Burchardt (Dell, 50 cents) Shoot 'em up stuff, about a guy named Frank Ledbetter, marshal of Wildhorse, and the problems he faces in his tough town.
The rock hound
Bach on Moog
By WILL HARDESTY
There's nothing unusual about SWITCHED ON BACH on Columbia-except the instrumentation. The entire album is played on a Moog (sounds like rogue) synthesizer.
And what comes out is excellent. The music sounds almost like it were being played by a symphony orchestra. However, there is always that little hint of tone which lets you know just two men are making all that music. It is a new form of music-actual, honest-to-God "electronic music." The Moog synthesizer hits its stride as an instrument.
The album is, as Robert Moog, creater of the synthesizer which bears his name, says, "... the most stunning breakthrough in electronic music to date."
Kenneth S. White
SWITCHED ON BACH, aside from being interesting because it is a new music form, sounds beautiful. The glorious creations of Johann Sebastian Bach, played well on a beautiful instrument, have to come out ear-pleasing.
"Like any musical instrument, it has extraordinary capabilities and maddening limitations," Folkman says. "Playing it beautifully requires as much skill, practice, talent and taste as playing any instrument beautifully, plus the need of a composer's ear for new and different sounds. Often two pairs of hands and several feet are needed to take advantage of all that the Moog synthesizer can do, but the instrument is constantly being improved."
A Moog synthesizer is, in principle, an over-grown electronic organ. The synthesizer has many more gizmoes and whatzits so the sound which is produced can be made to sound like almost any kind of real, live-in-the-flesh instrument-harp, strings, brass, piano, harpsichord, oboe, bassoon.
"Reconstruction," a new underground voice, is born; Mark Rudd is invited to speak at
SWITCHED ON BACH is 38 minutes of works by Bach played on the synthesizer by Walter Carlos with the assistance of Benjamin Folkman.
The musicianship on the album is good—the group is strong and heavy. The thing which wrecks the album is Reid's singing. Sometimes, he sings well and sounds something like Donovan. But most of the time, his singing is bad and he sounds like Wayne Newton or a shouting Wayne Newton. When he tries to be a "creamer," his singing turns into a shout, into a screech, into a horrible rasping on the eardrums.
BANG, BANG YOU'RE TERRY REID on Epic is the first album for the 19-year-old Reid and his trio. Hopefully, it won't be the last album the group does, but, even more hopefully, the next one will be better.
On December 16, the Daily Kansan showed signs of perception: Alison Steimel's editorial, "Remember the 'Forgotten Ones,'" summarizing Indian problems evoked at Haskell, was one overdue glimmer of responsible journalism. The series concerning Haskell student life and opinion, although slanted, was at least a mature attempt to enlighten, if merely to glimpse minority points of view, all too rarely presented in Lawrence newspapers.
Letter to the editor
Minority involvement
KU. All on December 16. May I now suggest that we admit boldly that our community is at a turning point in the reconstruction of possibilities for full life for everyone, irrespective of group or class? Do we want to act? A modest beginning: let us invite, as campus speakers, on Minority Opinion Forums or otherwise, representatives chosen by disadvantaged persons themselves (an authentic spokesman selected by Indian students, for example). In this way, I believe, we may begin to come closer to understanding, then real hard work toward all the improvements so desperately needed in living conditions, reconciliation and mutual sympathy, and a more decent quality of life in the United States. Let us try to remove some of the blinders "hiding" the sober realities of today's world from Lawrence.
To the Editor and the Lawrence community:
Wait to buy a Terry Reid album. If he settles down and improves his style, he could turn into a hard rock Donovan.
Are we in Lawrence, students townspeople, faculty administrators, honestly involved in helping minority groups to find at last some of the advantages of being fully alive?
A student newspaper serving the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas.
Published at the University of Kansas daily during the academic year except holidays and examination periods. Mail subscription rates: $6 a semester, $10 a year. Second class postage plate notice. Lawrence, Kansas 6664 accommodates students with a valid advertisement to all students without regard to color, creed or national origin. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of Kansas or the State Board of Regents.
THE MILWAUKEE JOURNA
'Remove J. Edgar Hoover? Would one lower the Washington Monument? Or dismantle the Statue of Liberty?'