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University Daily Kansan Thursday, April 16, 1959
Graduates Owe Debt to KU
In a few weeks more than a thousand students will become alumni.
During the transition period from student to graduate they will hear a baccalaureate sermon and a commencement address, which, if they follow the usual pattern, will remind the graduates of their responsibility to their God, to their society, to their country, to the world, and in this space age, to the universe.
But often, in the hurry to doff caps and gowns for working clothes, the graduate gets away from the campus without being reminded of his responsibility in the future to the University.
Schools such as KU can no longer be dependent solely upon the state for funds and the faculty and administrators for informing the public of the needs here at the University. Especially during the immediate years ahead will this school
need help from alumni, friends and industry if it is to keep the educational pace of the better universities and be ready to educate the increased enrollments of the 1960s.
Not a single student graduated has "paid his way" while he was here at the University in the sense that his tuition covered the costs of his education.
The responsible graduate realizes he owes a debt to his school which he can begin erasing the day he leaves the campus.
He can start off by being active and vocal in combating the anti-education sentiment that Kansas legislators were exposed to during the recent session. Then in future years the graduate can square the debt by loyal support of the University and enlisting others to the cause of higher education in this state and nation. —Harry Ritter
Tax Time
Yesterday was the deadline for filing federal income taxes.
The federal income tax since Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal has been an instrument of social reform as well as a means of financing government. Thus, through high taxes on high income and generous public works and welfare expenditures, the income tax has tended to reduce economic inequalities.
The graduated income tax, based on the politico-social theory of taxation, has been subject to long and bitter criticism. Opponents to the tax argue that:
1. The tax is socialistic and undemocratic.
2. It kills incentive and, consequently, free enterprise.
3. It results in too powerful a central government and in government policies dangerous to both a stable economy and to democracy.
Proponents, on the other hand, point out that:
1. Redistribution of wealth serves to accelerate our economy. This is because money shifted from high-income groups to low-income groups insures that a larger percentage of that money will be spent.
More consumption encourages more production and investment. It makes more jobs. More jobs in turn redoubles the acceleration of the economy.
2. A shift in wealth results in a more democratic society in that economic equality is necessary to political equality. Without economic
equality, those people with the favorable balance of wealth can unduly influence political processes.
Government by powerful vested interests can kill a republic.
Experience since the start of the New Deal has largely invalidated the arguments of the opponents of a sharply graduated income tax. There are still those reactionaries who would return to the policies of an earlier era, but their numbers are fewer and their voice is weaker.
The GNP (gross national product) is higher today than in the nation's history. The real income of the nation's people, as reported in the April 13 Newsweek, continues to rise. That means more suits, food, and refrigerators can be bought for the time worked by the people.
In short, the citizens of the United States enjoy a higher standard of living today than in any other period. This condition has resulted largely because of a government committed to planning the nation's economy.
That kind of government requires a high, graduated income tax.
People will complain about their taxes but their election votes will continue to embrace the governmental policies which make high taxes. The people have seen the results.
They know that the nation has come a long way since the income tax was ruled unconstitutional in 1894—and especially since the New Deal.
Larry Miles
...Letters ...
Editor:
I noticed in the Lawrence Journal-World Dean Woodruff's defense of the KU scholarship program which the Daily Kansan had described in a news article. I
wonder how many students and faculty members will call to the dean's attention that some clumsy writer on the paper has mistaken his position, or that he is guilty of some statistical miscues.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"Lotta absences—mus' be some kind of sickness goin' 'round."
Surely, the logic of the reply to the Daily Kansan is equally invalid. As I recall, the story said 17 per cent of the 157 athletes on scholarships have academic scholarships. That's the takeoff point for the dean, too, but from then on he compares apples with oranges, for he goes on to say that this is a swell percentage, for only 12.5 per cent of the student body has scholarships.
I recall the wave of indignant letters that swept over the Daily Kansan's reporter who compared fraternity and independent grade point averages and concluded the Greeks were smarter.
Well, if the college had us all on scholarships because of our ability to tote books around the campus and only 12.5 per cent of us got scholarships for our scholastic achievements, then the dean would have a point.
Since 17 is bigger than 12.5, as any dullard can see, the Daily Kansan was wrong.
But if my seventh grade math teacher is right, the dean has arrived at a false conclusion because he made the mistake of comparing dissimilar groups and considering them the same.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of bigger and better athletic scholarships. As the Daily Kansan's sports editor said some while back, let's give everyone on the teams a scholarship, not just the football players. But let's not engage in hocus-pocus to cloak what we're doing.
—Name withheld by request
Ninety-one per cent of all American individuals and families with incomes of more than $5,000 a year own cars.
It Looks This Way...
By Alan Jones
The campus elections are over for another year, just in time to prevent nausea.
The ballots are counted, Vox has a majority, and the activities men return to their usual rounds—publicity, parties, and publications.
As the dust settles amid the shards of apathy, a careless look over the shoulder reveals the shimmer of hot air wafting skyward.
And does it make 37 cents worth of difference who won? Not to me, and not to eight thousand other students.
The All Student Council, class officers, and the other churls and charlatans who have just shut up have done nothing for me, and nothing for eight thousand other students.
Vox and AGI boosted the Lawrence economy a bit by printing up campaign material, and the Daily Kansan got some front-page stories.
But what does politics have to do with a student and the education he gets? It has no more connection with learning than do the thirty-odd beefy men who ravish footballs on autumn Saturdays for the edification of alumni and drunks.
These are the positive accomplishments of the campaign:
1. Four or five students made criminals of themselves by stealing AGI posters from the printer.
2. Another crew played National Socialist and burned a few hundred Daily Kansans.
3. Both parties lied, labeled, and slandered to win control of the next year of nitwit student government.
What does—what can—the ASC do? Let's look at some committees.
The labor committee is bounded by law and regulations, and can't accomplish its goals, worthwhile or not.
The social committee? A farce. If students can't work up their own blasts, sans committee, we'd better board up the windows and use the buildings to store surplus wheat.
Housing? It's a problem. And the committee meets with solemn face, decides we have a problem, and let's check the number of Johns and carpets in organized houses. The unorganized students continue to pay exorbitant rent, commute, or live in rundown hovels they can afford.
Traffic and parking has done so well you can get socked with a $16 bite for overparking.
Publications, in theory, controls the Daily Kansan, Fowl, the Jayhawker, etc. The Jayhawker votes itself bonuses every year. Fowl is run according to administration wishes (when it comes out), and the Daily Kansan does as it pleases.
The parent organization is the ASC—enough to make you believe in heredity. It meets every two weeks, if it can get a quorum, and passes rules for the students.
What, then, is the purpose of this petty chicanery? Glory. Self-glorification and the greater glory of the house. For rush books, for impressing alumi, and for keeping the house in the spotlight.
And that, children, is the reason for student government—an intrenched, inept, expensive adjunct to sorority and fraternity life. A $7,000 toy for a score of people who don't even know what they're supposed to do.
With $7,000, you could buy about 450 kegs of beer, a dozen scholarships, or enough bubble gum to cover the entire campus.
Any of the above would be worth more than student government as it exists at KU.
Worth Repeating
It is always easier to believe than to deny. Our minds are naturally affirmative. —John Burroughs
\* \* \*
So far, about morals. I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
—Ernest Hemingway
Woman is woman's natural ally.—Euripides
A man says what he knows, a woman says what will please.— Jean Jacques Rousseau
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People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.—Jean Jacques Rousseau
Fate makes our relatives, choice makes our friends.—Jacques Delille.
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He who rebukes the world is rebuked by the world.—Rudyard Kipling
Dailu fransan
University of Kansas student newspaper
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone VIking 3-2700
Extension 711, news room
Extension 376, 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. Mail subscription rates: $3 a 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 second-class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan. post office under act of March 3, 1879.
News Department Douglas Parker, Managing Editor Business Department Bill Feitz, Business Manager Editorial Department Pat Swanson and Martha Crosier, Co-Editorial Editors