KANSAN
79th Year, No.48
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
Thursday, November 21, 1968
UDK News Roundup By United Press International.
Mine blast traps 78 men
MANNINGTON, W. Va.-A fresh explosion at 11 p.m. last night rocked a huge coal mine where 78 miners were trapped by a series of blasts and fires that raged along a four-mile stretch.
Twenty-one men escaped the first and largest blast, which occurred about 5:30 a.m. EST.
Rescue attempts previously had been put off at least until Thursday morning because of smoke, fire and the threat of additional explosions.
Grad student draft eased
WASHINGTON — Draft director Lewis B. Hershey has advised local boards to allow drafted graduate students to finish their school term before they are required to report for induction, selective service headquarters says.
The new policy was adopted Tuesday to ease the impact of the draft on the students and the nation's graduate schools.
Feb. 15, on the advice of the National Security Council, Hershey ordered an end to academic deferments for graduate students other than those in medicine.
B-Office won't move
KU's Watson Library will not house the University business office as had been earlier proposed.
Provost James R. Surface said he called the Kansas Board of Regents, meeting at Ft. Hays State College in Hays, to inform them and Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe that the cost of the proposed move would be too high.
Surface declined to state the estimated cost—given him yesterday by the Buildings and Grounds Department—but said the expense of the necessary remodeling and moving would be "way beyond our means."
Discussion of transfer of KU's fiscal department to the area vacated by the Department of Special Collections was on the Regents' agenda but was removed after the phone call. Surface said.
The move was considered for the cramped business office after the completion of Spencer Library gave the University a surplus of library space.
Surface said plans called for the move to be made only if the costs were within the budget.
The former special collections area in Watson Library encompasses approximately 6,000 square feet on the east end of the library basement. The Department of Special Collections is now housed in Spencer Library.
"We were worried it wouldn't be within our means all along," he said.
Unofficial reports of the proposed move provoked some opposition among faculty and library personnel. A petition circulating in the
Council delays code vote
Final action on the proposed University Senate Code by the University Senate Council has been delayed until after Thanksgiving vacation, Ambrose Saricks, chairman of the Senate Council, said last night.
The Code was to have been passed by the council in time for a University Senate meeting Oct. 29.
Voting on the Code by the Senate Council has been delayed repeatedly by extended discussion of amendments, Saricks said. 'The Code was passed by the All-Student Council (ASC) last week and some observers had predicted Senate Council action at a meeting tomorrow.
The Senate Council has not released the texts of its amendments. The ASC passed several amendments, including one calling for open meetings of the University and Faculty Senates.
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences read:
"The library is the academic heart of the University and we regard the utilization of library space for any non-academic purposes to be wasteful and detrimental to the needs of the University as a whole."
David W. Heron, director of libraries, said last week, "the disadvantages of the move for the library are quite obvious. We could use the space, of course." But he said other departments "are in quite serious straits" and the decision "should rest with the Chancellor and the Provost."
Heron said plans were being considered to locate bound periodicals or government documents in the special collections area. Surface doubted that anything along these lines could be done this year for lack of funds.
In other action, the Board of Regents:
Named the proposed KU humanities building Wescoe Hall, in honor of Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe, whose resignation is effective June 30,1969.
Named the new health, physical education and recreation building at Ft. Hays State College Cunningham Hall, in honor of retiring president Morton C. Cunningham.
Max Bickford, executive officer of the Board of Regents, said last night no decision had been reached regarding a replacement for either Wescoe or Cunningham.
Harrison strikes out at 'racist' law schools
The nation's law schools are citadels of racism, Leonard Harrison told KU law students yesterday.
Harrison, director of Ballard Community Center in Lawrence, was one of nine persons charged several weeks ago on seven felony counts, including assault and kidnapping of two employees of the Wichita Model Cities Program.
The Regents will meet in Wichita on Dec. 12.
"I'm charged with a law that has never been utilized in the state of Kansas," Harrison told the students, who met in the Moot Court Room of Green Hall.
"Can the existing forces put Leonard Harrison away because he tried to save the black personality? If I can be put away, then the streets are not safe." he said.
Harrison and the eight others are said to have made the alleged attack because the Wichita Model Cities Program did not hire a man they had chosen for a responsible position in the program.
Laws which are used to help one race and destroy another must be changed, he said.
"I challenge all law students to work for social justice through law," he said.
He called for more law students like the "freedom riders." These were a group of students, lawyers and others who worked to build legislation supporting integration in the South, in the early 1960's.
Both blacks and whites must believe in black power. Harrison said.
"If you're black and don't believe in black power you're either insane or a damn fool.
KU is largely responsible for racial problems in the Lawrence community. If more black students from Lawrence would attend KU, the black community in Lawrence could develop its own leaders, he said.
"When this law school, this University and this community address themselves to these problems, there will be no more need for Leonard Harrisons and Ballard Centers." he said.
"The same goes for whites," he said.
"Even black leaders are picked by whites. Dr. King was an instrument made by the white media. The white press made Eldridge Cleaver. The white middle-class college student financed him," Harrison said.
The white community has done much to shape the black power structure, he said.
Black power doesn't mean militancy any more. It means survival. Harrison said.
(Continued on page 24)
KSU vetoes joining NSA
Kansas State University students yesterday overwhelmingly voted not to affiliate with an allegedly far-left student organization.
K-Staters voted 3,731 to 943 not to join the National Student Association (NSA). NSA membership at K-State was dropped in the early 1960's because NSA was once a front group for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). NSA reportedly had been taking money from the CIA since 1952.
KU dropped its NSA membership in 1961 because of the CIA scandal. Last year, the All Student Council (ASC) voted to re-enroll KU in NSA, but the K-State refusal to re-join NSA was more controversial.
Comparative advantages of NSA membership were the focal point of the K-State controversy.
Opponents, pointed to NSA's "new left" political nature, citing
(Continued on page 24)
Electrical needs grow
Some older KU buildings must operate at reduced operating levels during the coming year because an outdated power system cannot supply present electrical load requirements.
R. Keith Lawton, vice-chancellor in charge of operations, said yesterday that growth of the University and increased research requiring more sophisticated equipment have increased KU's power needs "exponentially."
But Lawton emphasized that KU is in little danger of a massive power failure.
"Unless there is some major disaster, our emergency power outage is not likely to persist for very long."
The immediate problem lies in the inadequate size of KU's central
transformer. However, Lawton said. "major power supply capacity revisions are planned and in process."
Lawton explained that all KU buildings erected before 1961 are connected to central power supply which comes from a single transformer located near the south edge of the campus. The transformer receives electricity from the Kansas Power and Light plant and distributes it to various buildings.
Since 1961, buildings have been equipped with individual transformers which supply nearly three times as much power as is presently available for older buildings, Lawton said.
The old transformer supplies each (Continued on page 5)
Photo by Mike Gunther
Getting out to vote
Voting for her choices for freshman class officers, Nancy Pile, Louisville, Ky., freshman, deposits her decisions in the ballot box. Turnout for the elections which are continuing until 6 p.m. today was termed "moderate, but not as heavy as it should be." by Bill Ebert, Topea sophomore and co-chairman of the ASC elections committee.