Page 2
University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Feb. 25. 1959
Docking's Gain, Our Loss
A close parallel may be drawn between the 1950 conduct of Gov. George Docking and the 1957 conduct of Gov. Orval Faubus of Arkansas.
Both men were serving second terms as governor, apparently beyond the need of political gimcracks. But Gov. Faubus intended to run for a third term, and hit upon school integration in casting about for an issue. Nobody knows yet whether Gov. Docking plans further political activity; but he too has found the schools a hot vote-getter.
Gov. Decking's gimmick is a slashing assault on higher education.
He has saved his major fire for the University, and has generally been more reserved in his comments on the other state colleges. And despite his attacks, he has carefully pointed out that the recommended budget was increased from last year, not cut.
In this way, he has made the University a renegade among Kansas schools, and preserved the appearance of reason by the small budget increase.
This procedure will cost the governor perhaps 300 votes in Douglas County, principally among the many faculty members who campaigned for him in 1958. They, not unnaturally, feel double-crossed.
But Gov. Docking will win many more votes in the rest of the state through his blasts at the University which has never quite been popular in the western part of the state.
To the eye of the western Kansan, the other
schools produce practical things—farmers, engineers, teachers. But the University, rightly or wrongly, has been labeled the ivory tower school. We are presumed to turn out useless people—philosophers, English graduates, theoreticians.
For this reason, Gov. Docking's course may gain votes. For the bricklaver or pipefitter likes nothing better than a ringside seat while the soft-handed intellectual gets his comeuppance.
Unfortunately, the governor's gain is education's loss
This may be unpalatable, but it is true. There is a subtle friction between the worker and the thinker, and many careers have been built on it.
We would be the last to deny that the University has its faults. We grant there are incompetents among the faculty. We do not automatically side with the administration.
But Gov. Docking has made no concrete suggestions. He has issued several blasts, so sweeping they cannot be disproved.
He has made no plans to investigate, no suggestions for cleaning up "the mess," consulted no one who could correct the faults.
In the absence of logical arguments against the University's stand, we must support the administration.
If the governor is sincerely interested in improving the school system of Kansas, we ask him to present a reasonable, working program for that improvement. The faults we have cannot be corrected by name-calling and bad temper.
Alan Jones
The Church's Role in Faith
The results of a poll published in Look magazine several years ago indicated 64 million Americans had no church membership. That figure probably remains about the same this year.
With Religious Emphasis Week, and students thinking a little more about religion, 64 million people may sound like an astounding number of persons without a church home.
But, as the article in Look suggests, these 64 million adults are not all without faith. They do not all live purposeless lives. Only a few are agnostics or atheists.
Some may have a different kind of faith—a faith that resists the conformity, the creeds, the ritual of the churches they have studied thus far. Others may frown upon denominational rivalries and factions. They have not yet found the church free from bickerings.
Another group may resist the church as a physical being. They consider it an unnecessary intermediary between God and man.
Some seek no official forgiveness to make them good Christians. They do not wish to judge the worth of their lives by the number of times they
have gone to a specific church.
This group of non-church-goers are not all wrong in their way of life, in their goals and in their beliefs about God and religion. Many have much in common. They just want to lead religious, moral and decent lives without joining a group and worshipping en masse.
They have the courage to stand up for their faith. They refuse to give their lives to something they do not wholly believe in, to something they cannot believe.
But, it does not mean these 64 million Americans will never become church members. There are a great many major denominations and an even greater number of branchings from these major groups. Many of these non-church members are still searching for the right branch.
Perhaps they will run across it some day. Perhaps some will find it during Religious Emphasis Week—a time for the sharing of denominational beliefs as well as a week designed to promote an understanding of the vital place of religion and spiritual values in personal life and society.
—Carol Allen
Pot Calls Kettle Black
Editor:
What are ethics? Do good ethics entitle a person in public office to use open slander, unsupported criticism, personal spite and crude mud-slinging politics against the operation of a public instructional institution by conscientious persons who are, almost without exception, his ethical and intellectual superiors?
Some KU students insulted Mr.
UNIVERSITY HANSAM
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904,
continued as bi-weekly 1925.
Telephone VIkong 3-2700
Extension 711, news room
Extension 376, business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association.
Associated Collegiate Press. Represen-
ted by National Advertising Servi-
ce and National Press Service.
News service; United Press Interna-
tional. 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. Periodicals holidays,
permanent holidays, second-class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at
Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1979.
Docking in Leavenworth. I do not intend to defend the ethics of their tactics. I do however, think that Mr. Docking was being absurd when he said, "If proper management was in effect at KU that incident over at Leavenworth would never have happened."
I must agree that there is some inefficiency and inaptness in the operation of KU, but it is not of the catastrophic proportions that Mr. Docking imagines. Furthermore, he is making absolutely no attempt to correct any weaknesses but is childishly trying to tear apart the great good which does exist.
And how is the ethical conduct of the students affected by this? The ethics we govern our actions by were mostly developed in the environment of our home communities. If those ethics are such as to threaten our state's colleges and universities with financial and reputational ruin because of political insults suffered by the governor, then by all means let us
The politics of a few persons causes Mr. Docking to conclude that "KU is a trouble spot in the state of Kansas and needs cleaning up."
correct the situation at its roots
This, of course, would call for a gestapo on very doorstep to see that all children are impressed with the undesirability of ever saying or doing anything contrary to the established political officials. This has been tried abroad, Mr. Docking, but it is contrary to the very spirit of a free and informed America.
There are some people in this state who do not share the views of their governor, but he must realize that this freedom is a part of our democracy.
And it appears that this school is also a victim of circumstance. Some KU students were in Leavenworth, A Kansas State student was killed in an auto accident driving from Leavenworth, A person who would use these obviously unrelated facts to influence his judgment of the ethics of the students and staff, and the financial operation of the University of Kansas can hardly be trusted to make responsible decisions affecting the present and future welfare of any one person, much less the state of Kansas.
Dale Gaumer Jennings senior
The Rev. Paul R. Davis
God, Self Go Together
By the Rev. Paul R. Davis Congregational Church
In these few lines written during Religious Emphasis Week, let me share several thoughts I have about students and religion.
First, I am encouraged to see students coming alive to the relation of psycho-therapy and religion. In student groups frequently this insight is coming to focus—that our awareness of ourselves and our deeper discovery of God go hand in hand. In fact, each depends on the other. And to know and appreciate ourselves is not to obstruct our devotion to God. It is rather to open to Him more fully our channels of love.
God is not so honored by our self-negation as by our self-affirmation. The heavenly chorus increases the volume when one of God's children discovers what a miracle he is and lives accordingly.
The second great commandment of Jesus is immensely important in this regard: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Presupposed here is that you do love yourself; that is, that you understand yourself, forgive yourself, and value yourself. In order to love, you have to have a self to share; and not a battered, beat-up self, but a self esteemed and worthy to be given away.
Students are talking about this idea. It is worth talking about. The self and God are certainly not the same. But they are found along the same highway of awareness.
Another hopeful development is that students are doing some solid thinking about the nature and the importance of the Church. There is a reaching out to the history and heritage of Christianity, a deep concern to be anchored by something tried and tested by centuries of religious experience. The Church is coming into focus in the minds of many students.
And evidence of this in student groups is the renewed interest in the Bible. Students are probing again the Biblical story, seeking a clearer understanding of people and the events of the Bible. And they are thinking about the Bible in connection with their present feelings and thoughts.
This is an exciting time to be alive. Socially and economically, the world is in revolution. And theologically this is one of the most dynamic eras since the high Middle Ages and the Reformation. The boom in first-rate religious publications is a remarkable thing. Religious classics, as well as the recent writings of top theologians, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, both liberal and neo-orthodox, are now available in inexpensive forms.
Students know this. They are reading. On the campus and in their churches, they are thinking and talking with each other about religion. And in their quest many are finding a faith to warm their hearts and guide them to God for years to come.
Allen - Lettz
By Alexandra Mason, Watson Library
TO KEEP THIS OATH, by Hebe Weenolsen. Woubleday. $4.50.
This tale is supposedly set in the period immediately preceding the accession of Henry II of England (1154 A.D.) and recounts the adventures of a young English noble, most improbably named Jesus Maria, who suffers from a delicate stomach. He invariably vomits and faints at the sight of blood.
This, as you might imagine, leads to all sorts of complications in the bloody age of King Stephen (especially bloody as portrayed by Mrs. Weenolsen).
Young Jesu Maria runs away from home, is taken in by a most extraordinary warren of "Silurian" coal miners in the Forest of Dean (or another place very like it), and within a very few years becomes both an accomplished coal miner and a most accomplished surgeon and medical doctor.
This last, which may sound just a trifle unlikely, is brought about by the efforts of a captive ecclesiastical physician-surgeon, graduate of Salerno and Monte Cassino, known as "Ole Monk."
Before the book is over our hero has treated, or helped treat, syphilis, silicosis, depressed skull fractures, hernia, cataracts, gan-grene, bladder-stones, influenza, broken bones, tumor of the liver, "rheumatid affections," nasal polyps, etc.
He also takes a few minutes off to indulge in politics and the usual bed-hopping of historical novels.
There is no reason to doubt that the author spent six years on this book (the dialogue is laboured enough to have taken six years); the dust jacket assures us that she did, and that she "learned all she could about the religion, surgery, and coal mining of the period."
By the laws of chance, Mrs. Weenelsen's book may be true; by the laws of fiction writing it is absolutely unconvincing and unexciting.