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University Daily Kansan Tuesday. Feb. 3. 1959
Questioning Principles
Due to the importance of the principles involved in any type of censorship, and since the University community was recently affected by a ruling of the Kansas State Board of Review, the Daily Kansan today will start a series of articles on the board, its legal bases, its history, its past decisions.
The series will end with questions for the University community to ask itself. These questions
will be aimed particularly at the students of KU who will some day be the social, economic and political leaders of the state.
The Kansan has been given permission by the department of political science to draw freely from a master's thesis by Robert Lee Skinner, entitled "Motion Picture Censorship in Kansas." The thesis was completed last July and contains a survey of all but the most recent of the board's actions. —R. H.
Continent of Opportunity
South America has usually remained out of the spotlight in world affairs except in connection with outside visits, such as Vice President Nixon's gambol down there last year.
Yet South America is one of the economically rising areas of the world. It may still be backward in many aspects, but is becoming stronger in attempts to educate the natives and to improve the countries' standards.
Four prominent South American educators who visited the KU campus last week pointed out that tuition rates are being kept as low as possible in the Latin states, and the various governments provide nearly twice as much money proportionally as the United States does to their school budgets.
Parts of South America are unexplored. Known resources are only beginning to be developed The potential of these countries is great.
Students looking for areas of study might consider the many courses offered in this field. Research and study on South America is needed in the world's expanding society and would be rewarding for the student. —Martha Crosier
Editor:
The other evening a saga occurred to me as I was washing my tennis shoes. It is such a comforting note, so much an incentive to aspiring young college people, that I feel compelled to present it here.
Once there existed a kingdom called Psypoxia, a diminutive island country located in the center of an immense, brackish lake, over which stagnant vapours hung perpetually and enveloped the land.
When newcomers went to look about for their enlightenment, they found the air always too hazy, so murky that things were extremely ill-defined to their eyes. Indeed, some felt that it was only imagination which gave the illusion of anything remotely solid at all. Even the very earth felt spongy and loose about their visitors' feet.
Over the kingdom of Psypoxia there ruled a manly priest of such power and majesty that all little people trembled when he roamed about. His full title is too lengthy for this short tale, but abbreviated, it emerged, B-Symth, the administrator, Queller of Questions and
Chamnion of Scholarly Aloofness.
Champion of Schoolboy Adornments. It was on one especially dim and foreboding day called "En-roll-mant" that B-Smyth was interrupted from his usual pastime of clubbing symbolic ego-threats by the arrival of a fierce knight called Sir Just Anyone, who had rowed from the mainland under the banner of Realistic Motivation
B-Smyth did not appreciate this intrusion. He bellied in a loud voice to the knight, hoping to frighten him off. But he only aroused the mainland warrior's confidence. With no loss of time, the fellow charged, lowering Intelligent Career Planning, his noble staff.
Panic-stricken. B-Smyth, the Administrator, sought protection. He stroked his magic Ph.D. Degree, but nothing happened. He prayed for the benevolent intervention of "For-30 Deadline Rooles." Again, nothing.
The crafty priest felt that he had but one recourse. He hesitated to invoke such a method, because it tended to minimize the effects of his own religion. But B-Smyth knew well the forces he could release. He opened a worn book of
"College Boores."
Smiling wider now, the Administrator aimed the open face of the book squarely at the charging knight. The result was a triumph for Bureaucracy and a defeat for Intelligent Career Planning.
Already on unsteady footing because of the vague nature of Psy-oxian surroundings, the good knight waxed blinded by the hypnotic force of the printed "rootes." He saw his charge falter at first, then completely change direction.
The threat to the security of B-Smyth was over. When last observed, the reformed young knight was living near a brackish, foggy pond, attempting to set up a thriving "Schoolo" of his own, based on safe, sane "College Roofes."
Meanwhile, B-Smyth, the Administrator, puffed visibly, went back to thwarting imaginary egothreats and coveting his new buffer against ambitious young thinkers.
He was very happy and, indeed,
why shouldn't he be?
Arthur M. Harkins,
Ottawa senior
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"HE HAS TERRIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS—I'M SUSPICIOUS THE COLLEGE WHERE HE NOW TEACHES MAY BE TRYN TO GET RID OF HIM."
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904,
trivweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
Douglas Parker...Managing Editor
Al Jones, John Husar, Jack Harrison,
Jack McKinney, Jack Morton and Carol Allen,
Co-City Editors; George Delford and
Coley Bentley, Co-City Editors;
Harry Rittman, Joan Poire, an
int Sports Editors; Saundra Hayn,
Society Editor; Donald Neilson and
Nadine Whalen, Assistant Society
Editors.
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bill Feltz Business Manager Robert Lida, Advertising Manager; Howard Young, Classified Advertising Manager; William F. Kane, Promotion Manager; Paul Nielsen, Circulation Manager.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Pat Swanson and Martha Crosier Co-Editorial Editors
Censorship Series
Review Board 1 of 4
By Robert Harwi
Kansas is one of only four states in the country which requires films to be censored before they are shown. Film censorship began in Kansas in 1913.
The other three states are New York, Maryland and Virginia.
At one time or another, nine states have had censorship. Five censoring boards have run into either legal difficulties or snags in their administration. These five boards, in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Massachusetts and Louisiana, are no longer functioning.
It is difficult to estimate the number of cities with censorsnap because some with ordinances authorizing forms of prior restraint do not enforce them at all or enforce them only through the use of subsequent prosecutions. The figure is generally considered to be somewhere between 20 and 45.
The story of censorship of motion pictures in Kansas began on Jan. 29, 1913, when Sen. J. H. Snavely (R-Lyndon) introduced a bill which provided for the prior censorship of all films exhibited in the state.
The bill's proponents denied charges that it was an unconstitutional interference with interstate commerce and an abridgement of the liberty of opinion guaranteed by the First Amendment as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The bill's backers argued that the law was a proper exercise of the state's police powers. It was passed and took effect April 1, 1913.
The law provided that censorship be delegated to the superintendent of public instruction. Films that were considered sacrilegious, obscene, indecent, immoral, or such as to corrupt morals were to be banned.
On Jan. 23, 1917, Rep. W. T. Hughs (R-Plainville) introduced a bill which transferred censorship responsibility from the superintendent of public instruction to an independent board with three members. The name of the group was Kansas State Board of Review.
On May 26, 1952, the United States Supreme Court delivered its now famous opinion in the case of the Italian film of Roberto Rossellini, "The Miracle." The court held void, as a prior restraint on freedom of speech and press, provisions of a New York law authorizing the state censors to deny the commercial exhibition of a film on the grounds that it was "sacrilegious."
The ruling affected the Kansas set of laws by voiding the rule which prohibits films with "ridicule, adverse criticism, or abuse of any religious sect, or peculiar characteristics of any race of people, or any public official or law-enforcing officer."
Litigation on the monumental "Moon Is Blue" case began in Kansas in 1953. (This case will be discussed more thoroughly in a later article.) Two years later the U. S. Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Kansas Supreme Court. The U. S. Supreme Court decision allowed the film to be shown throughout the state.
The publicity resulting from the "Moon Is Blue" case focused considerable attention on the Kansas board. Futile attempts were made to abolish the board in the 1953 Legislature. Efforts were renewed in the 1955 session—and very nearly succeeded.
A bill, introduced to repeal an obsolete motor carrier registration act, was amended to repeal the sections of the statutes pertaining to censorship. The House and Senate passed it and Gov. Fred Hall signed it.
Friends of the Board of Review organized their forces to fight the bill. An injunction was brought to prevent the printing of the bill in the official Session Laws, contending that the law was a violation of the Kansas Constitution because it dealt with two subjects. The request to stop the bill was denied because of the Secretary of State's statutory duty to publish it.
Opponents of the bill appealed the decision to the Kansas Supreme Court. The Supreme Court held the bill violated the Constitution of Kansas and was void.
This was the closest that the Board of Review ever came to being legislated out of existence.
It Looks This Way . . .
By Donna Nelson
"This proves that grades are not indicative of what is learned in a course." said the student with 5 hours of D. "I didn't learn one thing in either one of those courses."
The seniors have been referred to as apathetic but the senior men, after gazing on the crop of senior girls, would like to eliminate the first "a."
In a recent survey of campus clubs, we found that the only meetings that boasted 100% attendance were those where the pictures were taken for the Jayhawker.
It does seem appropriate that after traipsing all over and around this beloved hill for 4 years, we get to walk down it.
A new Hollywood spectacular is about to be released. It's called "Adam and Eve" and has a cast of thousands.
Trouble strengthens character, the old adage says. So you see it isn't inefficiency that promotes problems and dilemmas during enrollment. It's just the administration's way of improving our character.
It's difficult getting back into the routine of classes when the only schedule we've been following for the past week has been the TV Guide.