Page 2
University Daily Kansan Tuesday. Feb. 10, 1950
The Journalist's Ideal
There have been many newspaper editors. Editors of large city and town dailies. Editors who have stomped and stormed. Editors who have been forgotten. Editors who were never looked up to for leadership and in awe.
Why then is the late William Allen White, editor of a small town daily, the man we honor today?
Mr. White's influence was felt not only throughout Kansas but throughout the nation. His editorials such as "What's the Matter With Kansas" and "To an Anxious Friend" were reprinted in newspapers across the country. It was mostly through his crusading that the Ku Klux Klan was ended in Kansas.
As Ben Hibbs, editor of the Saturday Evening Post, wrote following Mr. White's death in 1944, "His mouthpiece was no larger than most of ours, and yet he made himself heard around the world. He was living proof that it is not the size of the job but the size of the man, that counts."
Mr. White once said he took all his editorial ideas from the Bible. Yet he seldom quoted the scriptures in his editorials.
He fought intolerance, whether it was in the form of the Ku Klux Klan or the politicians who attacked Al Smith because he was a Catholic.
Here was a man who believed in ideals. A man willing to stand up for the underdog. A man we still look to as an ideal journalist.
Martha Crosier
Terrible Timing
Women's rush descended upon the campus this last weekend. And with it came the usual freshman fears and senior tears.
Make that extra fears and tears. It was hard enough on sorority women to make a change from oral to preferential bidding at the beginning of this year. At that time the women thought they had seen the last of drastic changes in the rushing system.
Now there is another change—freshmen are being pledged this spring, and transfers next fall. Add one more rush week to the lot.
The higher-ups say that these changes are necessary and inevitable. If so, why weren't they made at the same time? Granted, some changes will be made from year to year, but making a few changes is a bit different from discarding the whole system and starting anew.
The University is concerned about housing for upperclasswomen. This seems to be the basic
reason for pledging freshmen instead of sophomores. This problem could have been mentioned a few months earlier. What if rush is changed again next year? Might as well. Sounds like fun.
The rush dates are set so sorority women and rushees have to do their most important rush jobs in the middle of midsemester examinations. A good rush demands a lot of work and time. So does studying. This work and time can not be successfully divided between rushing and studying for examinations. Yet, both are important to a Greek house. Scholarship and membership are the two basic reasons for a Greek house's existence, and it is extremely difficult to give intense concentration to both at the same time.
All this means that there are going to be many extra tears and fears for the next five weeks. It will be very interesting to see which will win out—the important or the urgent. Lots of luck!
Proposed Bill Needed
The Kansas legislature took a step in the right direction Friday when a bill was introduced which would abolish the State Board of Motion Picture Review.
We take off our hats to this bill and the men who proposed it. The time is ripe for Kansans to be relieved of the 46-year-old law which authorizes a small group of appointed reviewers to dictate what the rest of the state's citizens should be allowed to see.
The board's operations are not only costly to the people of Kansas and the movie industry and its distributors, but it is in violation of the First
and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.
The aim of the proposed measure is straight. And if the legislators themselves are aware, it will succeed.
The passage of this proposal will take some fast talking on the part of our more modern thinking senators and representatives. But as elected voice of the people back home, it is the legislator's responsibility to see that the discriminating taste of Kansas people is given an opportunity to function.
Let the people, not a committee of four, choose the entertainment for themselves.
—Pat Swanson
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS BY BIBLER
HERE'S YOUR NEW OFFICE — JUST A STONE'S
THROW FROM THE BOYS DORM."
Short Ones
Two accidents resulted on the Kansas Turnpike recently when a truckload of pigs bolted loose from their overturned vehicle and got in the way of oncoming traffic. Apparently there is more than one type of "road hog."
Three neighbor states have banned the import of Kansas cattle except for slaughter purposes because of a current outbreak of a disease called cattle scab. The states refusing Sunflower quadrupeds are Oklahoma, Nebraska and Colorado.
Dailu hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
become biweekly in 1904,
tr跃群年 1908,
Telephone VIking 3-2700
Estorion 711 - rooms room
Extension 711, news room
Extension 376, business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association.
Associated Collegiate Press. Repres-
ented by National Advertising Service.
420 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y.
News service; United Press International.
Mail Service; University holidays.
Barson $4,500. 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 post office under act of March 3, 1879.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Douglas Parker Managing Editor
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bill Feitz Business Manager
EMPLOYMENT DEPARTMENT
Bill Tischler
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Pat Swanson and Martha Crosier,
Cooper
William Allen White
To an Anxious Friend
By William Allen White
(Editor's note: The following is a reprint of Mr. White's Pulitzer Prize winning editorial. It appeared in the Emporia Gazette July 27, 1922.)
You tell me that law is above freedom of utterance. And I reply that you can have no wise laws nor free enforcement of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people—and, alas, their folly with it.
But if there is freedom, folly will die of its own poison, and the wisdom will survive. That is the history of the race. It is proof of man's kinship with God.
You say that freedom of utterance is not for time of stress, and I reply with the sad truth that only in time of stress is freedom of utterance in danger. No one questions it in calm days, because it is not needed. And the reverse is true also; only when free utterance is suppressed is it needed, and when it is most vital to justice.
Peace is good. But if you are interested in peace through force and without free discussion—that is to say, free utterance decently and in order—your interest in justice is slight. And peace without justice is tyranny, no matter how you may sugar-coat it with expedience.
This state today is in more danger from suppression than from violence, because, in the end, suppression leads to violence. Violence, indeed, is the child of suppression.
Whoever pleads for justice helps to keep the peace; and whoever tramples on the plea for justice temperately made in the name of peace only outrages peace and kills something fine in the heart of man which. God put there when we got our manhood. When that is killed, brute meets brute on each side of the line.
So, dear friend, put fear out of your heart. This nation will survive, this state will prosper, the orderly business of life will go forward if only men can speak in whatever way given them to utter what their hearts hold—by voice, by posted card, by letter, or by press. Reason has never failed men. Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world.
... Letters ...
Editor:
It was unfortunate that the ten young ladies whose letter to the editor was published in Friday's Daily Kansan were deprived of their opportunity for a swim Wednesday night.
For many years it has been the policy of the physical education department not to open the pool for recreational swimming at the time of home football and basketball games. It was the belief (apparently mistaken) that KU students would want to support their teams at home contests.
Since home basketball games are almost invariably scheduled on Monday or Saturday nights, it did not occur to us to publish the fact that there would be no swimming on the one Wednesday night of the year when a basketball game was scheduled. We apologize and hope the young ladies will forgive us and have many enjoyable swims on Wednesday nights hereafter.
One fact brought out in the letter, which concerns us greatly, is that the door to the pool from the men's dressing room was left unlocked. We have prided ourselves that no one ever swims in the pool without a lifeguard being present.
Apparently, those responsible failed to lock the door after varsity swimming practice. Leaving the pool door unlocked is inexcusable and we are taking steps to see that it does not happen again.
Henry Shenk, chairman
Physical education department