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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, May 20, 1959
From the College Newspaper Rack
The Big Lie
From the Harvard Crimson.
There is no excuse for the way the Senate Commerce Committee is treating Lewis Strauss' nomination as Secretary of Commerce. There is no excuse for the Committee's not having presented a far longer, more detailed and more competently argued case against Strauss than its members have done so far. The prosecution of the nominee has been dangerously inept, and though Strauss' defense has been characteristically evasive, the case against his confirmation has been little stronger.
His role, as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, in undermining the 1957 disarmament talks has not yet been publicized, though there is every indication that he was the man most responsible for turning American policy into an unnegotiable sham. The frauds which he consistently practiced on the American public in the field of fallout danger and of test detection capabilities have not yet been exposed.
While the committee has concentrated on some of his more blatant failures in Executive-Legislative liaison, it has left untouched his record as a creature of the Strategic Air Command in the Oppenheimer case.
Although many of Admiral Strauss' most controversial activities stemmed from honest and respectable convictions, his tactics in support of these convictions have been those of the shyster. The wide-spread opposition to Strauss among physicists stems not only from antagonism to his beliefs, but also—and in the main—from a fear of his methods. In a position to make decisions of the greatest importance to the United States and the world, Strauss constantly refused to make the public a party to any of the broad policy arguments which he arbitrated. His abhorrence for candor is his major fault as a public servant. He cannot be trusted to tell the truth.
* *
The Quiet University
From the Colorado Daily:
The University of Colorado is gradually becoming a Sleeping Beauty in a world full of dragons and thorns. We find it a disturbing development.
Nothing today has spurred us to such charges; only as we have seen the University develop and heard its student and adult spokesmen have we developed our opinion.
A significant problem for the University society in coming years, quite apart from baby booms and educational television, is its tendency to speak too softly. We see a growing fear of being quoted—not misquoted; a fear of saying something wrong or unpolitic in public; a timidity in the face of critics and outsiders which a great university must not show.
This timidity is encouraged by, but not limited to, the administration. While we are certainly sympathetic to all that can be accomplished in the off-the-record meeting, we see a tendency to try to abuse the privilege of throwing out the public for the good of the institution.
Groups as diverse as ASUC, Faculty Senate, the new President's Forum and the Regents are guilty of such attempts. Such groups see the benefits of throwing the public out for the institution's good. But they do not see the harm caused by such actions to a climate of free public discussion, where being wrong and backtracking are not only accepted, but are often expected and encouraged.
Gradually the air of freedom becomes stale, lacking the winds of open dissenting and halfbaked opinion to revitalize it. We see the University becoming more tightlipped with each meeting. And the public sees a massive, sleeping organization, going its quiet way—hardly the true picture of a great University.
By Jerry Knudson Instructor of Journalism
THE RELIGIONS OF MAN by Huston Smith. Mentor, 50 cents.
This ambitious book springs from an educational television course on "The Religions of Man" given over KETC television station in St. Louis by the author in the spring of 1955. Smith sums up the major tenets of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.
His "final examination" poses three questions about the world's great faiths: (1) How do these religions fit together? (2) Are they all not basically the same—rooted in some version of the Golden Rule? (3) Or is it impossible to find all the important truths in any single tradition?
The author concludes: "For understanding, at least in realms as inherently noble as the great faiths of mankind, brings respect, and respect prepares the way for a higher power, love—the only power that can quench the flames of fear, suspicion, and prejudice, and provide the means by which the people of this great earth can become one to one another."
Fear and the Press
Several university newspapers across the land are fighting various forms of censorship and news suppression. At Texas Tech, a news story in the college's newspaper was suppressed by Tech's president.
The president told the student editor that he would be expelled if he published a picture of a story of a student effigy hanging of the president. The story was killed.
An editorial in the Colorado Daily recently attacked a growing fear on that campus—fear of being quoted, of saying something wrong or unpolitic in public.
And here at KU, the idea of censorship, not of the newspaper, but of a proposed magazine, was advanced last week in the All Student Council. Some members of the Council asked that proofs of the magazine be presented to the ASC in advance of publication. These members wanted guarantees that libel would be avoided and that the magazine would not become another Fowl or Squat.
What are intelligent, liberal-thinking college people coming to if they must fear any printed word?
Where is the traditional fire in the hearts of young men and women that demands truth and
burns for the protection of principles? It seems to have died out in all but a few.
And these few, some who happen to be journalists, now find themselves fighting not for the old principles, but for the right of expression. Their opponent is fear.
Franklin D. Roosevelt said in depression days that fear was the enemy Americans must defeat if they were to win that great economic battle.
We are now engaged in an even greater struggle than the depression of the 1930s. We are in a cold war with the powers of the East and our way of life is at stake. If we are to perpetuate our ideals we must cast off this shroud of fear. This fear has grown until it is commonplace to prohibit written and spoken words which attempt to draw Americans out of their shells of complacency.
If we are to advance the principles for which our nation stands, we must live up to them. In the past, our young men have given their lives to prevent other nations from taking our basic freedoms from us.
Freedom of the press is one freedom these men fought for. Let us not throw it away, carelessly, in the face of an unreasoning fear.
George DeBord
Honored Seniors Brought to 7
(Editor's note: This article brings to seven the number of seniors honored by The Daily Kansan. They were picked by a senior committee from nominations sent in by organized houses and activities. The final three will appear tomorrow.
While on campus. Jerry Simmons, Parsons, has compiled an impressive grade and activity record. Complementing his 2.7 grade average, Jerry is a Summerfield scholar and consistently on the honor roll. A chemical engineering major, he is a member of Sigma Tau and has been vice president of Tau Beta Pi.
Jerry Simmons
Marcia Hall
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS BY BIBLER
"OVER HERE, HENRY, I'D KNOW OUR BOY'S ROOM-ANYPLACE!"
A member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity, Jerry has also been president and vice president of the Student Religious Council, active in Statewide Activities, a member of Scabbard and Blade, and Alpha Chi Sigma, chemistry honorary. His selection to Owl Society and Sachem seem natural.
In his leisure time, Jerry enjoys football, music and hunting. As a Navy ROTC scholar, Uncle Sam has claim on his next three years as a Navy officer.
A June 21 wedding is in the immediate future for Marcia Hall. Coffeyville. But Marcia will return to KU again next fall to begin graduate work in English while her future husband teaches business and attends law school.
She has also been Military Ball Queen, attendant to the 1958 Homecoming Queen and the 1956 Kansas Dairy Princess.
Scholastically, Marcia is a Watkins Scholar and an honor roll student. She is a member of Pi Beta Phi. She was secretary of Student Union Activities this year and a member of Omicron Nu, home economics honorary, Pi Lambda Theta, education honorary and worked on the Campus Chest.
In her extra time, Marcia plays the piano, teaches swimming, rides her own horse and reads. She has counseled at a K-ETte camp for several summers. Plays and concerts also rank high on her list of favorite pastimes.
The Western Civilization program is finished for another year. So are a few seniors who thought they were going to graduate.
Dailu Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1880, become bweeklew 1064,
and became a university newspaper.
Telephone VIking 3-2700
Extension 711, news room Extension 276, business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service. 420 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. News service; United Press International semester or $4.50 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. University holidays, and examination periods. Entered as Lawrence on Sept. 17, 1810, at Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Douglas Parker ... Managing Editor
Al Jones, John Husar, Jack Harrison,
Jim Cable, Assistant Managing Editor
Jaime Jarton and Carl Ollen,
Co-Cit Editors; Garry Allen,
Doug Yoom, Co-Sports Editors;
Sandra Hayn, Society Editor.
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bill Feitz Business Manager
Robert Lida, Advertising Manager;
Howard Young, Classified Advertising
Manager; William F. Kane, Promotion
Manager; Paul Nielsen, Circulation
Manager.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Pat Sawanson and Martha Crosier. Co-
sident with Heart Hartwall,
Associate Editorial Editor