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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, November 4,1968
'Smear' tactics
The full page ad in the Thursday evening Lawrence Daily Journal World depicted a sweating property owner complete with ball and chain, holding up a crumbling street. On it were a Hell's Angel-type cyclist and a smartly dressed young man presumably identified as a college student by the appliqued flowers on the fender of his convertible.
The copy with the ad urged the Lawrence citizen to vote "yes" on the vehicle user charge which would tax every motorist of Lawrence $10.
The elected city commissioners, the primary backers of the vehicle tax, chose to publicize their cause with this clever little appeal to the prejudices of taxpayers.
At a time when United States citizens, including surely many Lawrence residents, are decrying the "smear" tactics used by almost every aspirant to public office in this campaign, the tax backers decided to scapegoat University students and blame rising taxes on them.
The ad fails to point out the fact that the KU student vehicle owner has no real say in the election. It fails to point out the absolutely beneficial economic effect of the presence of the University has on Lawrence. It fails to point out the fact that a significant portion of KU vehicle owners also live in apartments and therefore pay property tax as part of their monthly rent.
Moreover the ad doesn't even point out many of the reasonable arguments for the tax such as the rising costs of street repair and the need in Lawrence for such repair.
As University students, we're here partially to learn how to conduct ourselves as responsible citizens of the big "outside" world.
Is this tax backers example to KU students of responsibility, fairmindedness and maturity in conducting a tax campaign?
Alison Steimel
Editorial Editor
Letters to the editor
English classes, vehicle tax
To the Editor:
The article "English 1, 2, 3 Classes May Be Larger Next Fall," which appeared in last Monday's Kansan, unfortunately distorts some crucial aspects of a proposal I have made to the English Department's committee for freshman-sophomore English. Rather than correct the article point-by-point, let me summarize briefly my proposal as it now stands before the committee.
According to my proposal, all sections of the required English courses would remain the same size as they are now. Certain sections—approximately one-third—would gather regularly in groups of 4-6 sections to hear a lecture on the material by a full-time faculty member who would be in direct charge of the new teaching assistants handling those sections. Other sections of the same course would be handled by experienced assistant instructors as they are now.
Two points worth noting about this proposal: (1) It is not a new idea; many of the very best universities in the country have a similar plan in operation. (2) Because enough large classrooms are simply not available at
KU at the present time, it is unlikely that the proposal can be implemented within the forseeable future.
I should point out also that this proposal does not deal with the problem of shrinking graduate enrollment and the consequent shrinkage in the number of available graduate assistants because of the draft. That is a separate, though critical, problem. My proposal is directed at the need, as I see it, for greater participation in the required courses by full-time faculty members, and also for better and less onerous training for new assistant instructors.
Sincerely,
Sincerely,
James A. Gowen
Assistant Professor, English
To the Editor:
This letter is in reference to the advertisement for support of the vehicle user charge that appeared on page seven in the Thursday edition of the Lawrence Journal—World.
The accompanying picture that was included in the ad was in extremely poor taste. It depicted two hippie-like youths riding a motorcycle and a typical
"College Joe" following them on "Easy Street" which was being physically supported by a property owner. This no doubt is meant to imply that the students of the University of Kansas are sponging off of Lawrence residents. The ad gives the impression that the voters of Lawrence can retaliate by passing this tax which would force the students to pay for a substantial amount of the city's street repairs.
The proposed tax money would be used mostly for repairing the streets in the residential districts which few of the students would benefit from.
If the $10 tax is passed in this city as well as in a student's home town, that would amount to a total of $20 which is considerably more than the State of Kansas requires a vehicle owner to pay for the registration of his vehicle. This situation could occur quite easily and I think that it would be unfair to the students.
I sincerely hope that the voters of Lawrence will use a little common sense and defeat this measure as they did in the last election. Sincerely,
Joe A. Zink Larned junior
White fear gap
By Rue Chagoll
By Rue Chagoll Garden City, N.Y., senior
For someone with a severely warped sense of humor, it must really be amusing to observe the shock and disbelief among some Americans as the Wallace-for-President campaign continued to snowball right down to the finishing wire.
"I think the only thing to do if Wallace gets elected would be to move to Canada," someone said recently.
A recent editorial in the Tulsa Tribune exemplifies the fear which is beginning to grip the country as the Wallace dream gains more and more attention.
"George Wallace clearly promises a race war and an international upheaval which staggers the mind."
People ask themselves, "How can a thing like this be happening here?"
They couldn't be any closer to doing the right thing than if they were soliciting contributions for boat tickets to send every American Negro back to Africa.
When all of a sudden those heretofore tolerant Joneses next door come asking for your signature on a petition to put George Wallace on the ballot in your state you think, "My gosh, are these people right in what they are doing?"
It almost goes without saying that George Wallace bases his campaign on the fears of the working class. They'll be the first to feel the effects of total emancipation for the American Negro . . . it'll be their jobs, they think, not those of professors, doctors or Supreme Court justices, which will be in jeopardy.
As a writer in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch described the situation:
"He is a primitive man, and he identifies readily with primitive people. He gives them a welcome feeling that public affairs are not so complicated as they often seem; all you have to do is use common sense, and everything will come out all right. He tees off at 'intellectuals' who look down their noses at people, thereby fanning a spark of response in anybody who ever lost an argument. He attacks the news media, an easy target, and so establishes his empathy with all who ever got sore at a newspaper. He catalogues at length all the people he is sick and tired of, including anarchists, liberals, bureaucrats, college kids, Supreme Court justices and politicians; and so many people at one time or another have been fed up with so many others that his obscure resentments translate into an almost joyous mass hysteria of hostility."
But is it really hostility? I say no . . . it's nothing more than intense fear. Fear of the unknown and uncertain future for the common working man. And furthermore it's justified!
The real fault here, the real center of responsibility for this backlash to beat all backlashes, lies right among us: the college students, the news media, the bureaucrats, the Supreme Court justices . . . et al.
What has occurred is a complete failure to communicate. So wrapped up, we have been, in our cultural and intellectual progress that the working man in this country has become the object of scorn and ridicule in these circles. The working man has even been exploited by his own labor leaders.
Wallace's campaign does then capitalize on fear. Many call it hate, but the hate is for us, not for the Negro.
The common white worker needs to be reassured that he is not going to be thrust backward into the dark age from which the Negro is now beginning to emerge.
His solution is to remand governmental control to the states where the common man is a little more likely to be heard and consulted on the important issues. This just further serves to illustrate the utter failure of our national leaders to communicate the issues of the day and to provide a system for educating this man to the point where he'll be able to comprehend the pros and cons of these subjects.
And this had better be one of the primary objectives of the next man to occupy the White House. And that man won't be Wallace. He knows it. We know it.
But more important is what George Wallace has managed to "accomplish" in this 1968 campaign. He's created the widest gap ever between leadership and electorate in this country ... a mark that will last far longer than the four year tenure of a President.
But communications cannot be one-sided—to the whites alone. There must be a continuing bridge of understanding to the American Negro. For he's suffering from exactly the same illness. Riots will continue to plague the nation until he is shown how the bills passed in every session of Congress are to be implemented in his neighborhood.
Everyone must be made to understand that what this nation is experiencing today is indeed a very great period, a period of transition to an ideal of civilization higher than has even been attained by man. It cannot and will not occur overnight. We must have patience. But that does not mean we just sit by idly waiting to find some morning it has all been accomplished. Because this thing will be prolonged for as long as we are satisfied to stall it off with inaction.
But keep one thing in mind. There can be no turning back. George Wallace knows as well as all of us that we are long past the stage where there can be a return to the Alabama way of life.
And offer your sympathy to the man who honestly wishes that to happen.
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