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University Daily Kansan Monday, Feb. 2, 1959
Plan for New Semester
The University Daily Kansan is entering its 47th year as a daily publication.
And with the advent of the new semester there are some new hands at the typewriters in the news room. Consequently enough changes and innovations will be made that a re-statement of The Daily Kansan's policies and objectives is necessary.
Our main objective is to emphasize the academic, cultural and intellectual opportunities available at the University of Kansas and to prick students into an awareness of these opportunities.
To those students and professors who take education with a grain of salt, who play only passive roles in the drama of learning, The Daily Kansan will direct its criticisms. To those for whom education is a vital, challenging and unlimited business, this paper will direct an editorial and news policy of encouragement and praise.
It all reduces to this. College education should not stop with the whistle, mid-term exams for
the IBM grade report. But for many KU students and some professors, it doesn't go far beyond these points. The Daily Kansan holds this precept: "If the University is to be great, its personnel must treat it as such."
The Kansan will not strive always to present the majority views of the KU student body. Instead it will spend editorial effort in bringing up issues, in making suggestions, in offering criticisms and commendations.
In a further attempt to increase its scope and worth, The Daily Kansan encourages faculty members and students to submit their work reviews, personal columns, guest editorials, poetry, essays, short fiction and letters. These may be written expressly for The Daily Kansan or may come from a class assignment.
In short, The Daily Kansan will emphasize academic and cultural activities this semester through its news, editorial policies and contributions of students and faculty.
Pat Swanson Martha Crosier
Win Friend, Lose Education
Another semester has begun.
What are you going to do with it?
That sounds very much like the old question, "What do you expect to get out of college?" Probably it is the same question.
The perennial answer is "to get an education" although polls tell us the most probable answer is "to learn to get along with people."
Not that there is anything wrong with learning to get along with people, but paying for books, tuition, and the other college expenses is a rather expensive way of doing it.
Students are more worried about being liked than in making good grades. Grades, of course, don't mean everything, but still they are a measurement of what a person learns.
In order to be well liked, the student assumes he has to behave like everyone else. He must socialize. No time is left for doing the outside readings assigned for his classes After all, one can learn a lot by just talking to people.
Sure, get education by osmosis. Why bother to do research in the library?
We can pass the course by just taking a few notes in lecture. A "D" is a passing grade. Do half the work and get half an education.
We come to college to have a four year long party before we have to go to work. We may make a lot of friends, but how small is the percentage that actually get an education?
—Martha Crosier
Dismal Note Sounded
Following close on the heels of the Soviet Union's launching of a tenth planet comes a scathing attack on American rocketry.
In a recent issue of Reporter magazine, Brig. Gen. Thomas R. Phillips, (Ret.) states that by 1961 or 1962 the Soviet ICBM will have neutralized the striking potential of the Strategic Air Command.
According to intelligence figures quoted by the general, the United States will have no ICBMs in 1959, while the Russians will have 100. By 1960 he contends that the gap will have widened to
30 versus 500. Projections for 1963 show the United States with 130, the Russians with 2,000.
With the additional threat of submarine launched missiles and inadequate warning systems, America's peril seems to grow daily. But there will be no war, he says, "until the Communists are sure that the West is too weak and confused to stand against them."
Although America's missile program is slow, it has made decided gains in the last three years. Such success must be an inspiration rather than a deterrent to future progress. —Jack Fenton
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"IN CONCLUSION — I HOPE MY LECTURE HASN'T BEEN TOO DIFFICULT FOR YOU TO FOLLOW IN YOUR TEXT — I EXPECT MY GLAGES WILL BE REPAIRED BY TOMORROW."
Dailu Hansan
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904,
triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone VIkking 3-2700 Extension 711, news room Extension 376, business office
University of Kansas student newspaper
Member Inland Daily Press Association.
Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 420 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y.
National, 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 attendance Sept. 17, 1910 at Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
Douglas Parker ... Managing Editor
Al Jones, John Husar, Jack Harrison,
Jacob Crompton, Assistants;
Jack Morton and Carol Allen,
Co-City Editors; George DeBord and
Dong Yocun, Co-Space,
Poier, Assistant
Sports Editors; Saura Hayn, Society Editor; Neil Neison and
Nana Whalen, Assistant Society
Editors.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bill Feitz Business Manager
Ben Lida Advocate
Howard Young, Classified Advertising
Manager; William F. Kane, Promo-
tion Manager Paul Nielsen, Circulation
Manager
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
From the Newspaper Rack-
Pat Swanson and Martha Crosier Co-Editorial Editors
A Banker's Budget
Gov. George Docking still is carrying his political rabbit's foot. He has proposed a banker's conservative budget for Kansas that calls for reduced sales taxes and less spending. On the surface, this program has appeal. The Democratic governor, who is contending for the advantage with a Republican majority in the legislature, has accomplished the political legerdemain of presenting Democrats as frugal and the Republicans as spenders.
To conservative Republican legislators who, in the end, must take responsibility for legislative decisions, this is a frustrating situation. Docking can claim credit for accomplishments and blame his foes for the failures.
The tight budget is theoretically attainable if one accepts all the governor's premises. He is on sound ground when he calls for combination of sales tax and general revenue funds. It is good accounting practice to delay distribution of the $12^{1/2}$-million dollar sales tax residue. The old June 2 distribution merely gave the local banks free use of state money for many months before it was needed.
The budget reflects a party campaign promise to repeal one-half cent of the $2\frac{1}{2}$ cent sales tax. This proposal is wholly political and unrealistic. Most legislators have no intention of tampering with the tax structure. The governor would be the most surprised man in Kansas if the legislature accepted this recommendation.
The governor is vulnerable—and his budget can take valid criticism—on two points. The tight budget makes wholly inadequate provision for state colleges and for a retirement plan for state employees. He rejects all requests by the board of regents for increases in faculty salaries, research funds, and a stepped-up building program. The governor's plan would take Kansas out of competition with other states in higher education.
In other fields the budget is sound and makes adequate provision for essential state services.
- The Kansas City Star, Jan. 27 Editorial, "A Banker's Budget for Kansas and Politics"
By Calder M. Pickett Assistant Professor of Journalism
THE HIDDEN PUBLIC, by Charles Lee. Doubleday, $3.95.
THE HIDDEN PUBLIC, by Charles Lee. Doubleday, $3.53.
OF LASTING INTEREST, by James Playsted Wood. Doubleday,
$3.50
The 1920's were a decade of significant phenomena in publishing. Hadden and Luce brought out Time, and Harold Ross the New Yorker. The Saturday Review of Literature began in that decade. So did Mencken's The American Mercury.
Far from the least successful venture was DeWitt Wallace's The Reader's Digest. And in another aspect of publishing, a notable success was the Book-of-the-Month Club.
These last two successes—the Reader's Digest and the Book-of-the-Month Club — are the subjects of Wood's "Of Lasting Interest" and Lee's "The Hidden Public," respectively. Regrettably, neither book tells very much. Either could have been written by a public relations man employed by the company.
Take "The Hidden Public" first. My first reaction was that if there was any earth-shaking story that all of us had been waiting for, it was the story of the Book-of-the-Month Club. However, there possibly is something worth writing about here. If so, Charles Lee was not aware of it. His title rings of the Madison Avenue evil, of subliminal advertising and "hidden persuaders," of a Riesman-type study. It's nothing like that. It tells very little about the "hidden public."
The best thing in the book is Part III, in which Lee merely lists selections, alternates, and dividends. This section took me back through the dozen or so times I've joined the club to get current dividends and bonuses like the 10 Churchill books and the "Doctor Zhivago," so I could name-drop with my colleagues.
As for "Of Lasting Interest," I must reiterate that surely there is something important worth telling about The Reader's Digest, and not just an inspirational sketch that is as soapy as "The Most Unforgettable Character I've Ever Met." The "unforgettable" approach is that used by Wood. DeWitt Wallace and his wife Lila are THE giants of 20th century publishing, if I interpret Wood correctly.
There must be some reason why so many millions still regard The Digest as something akin to the Bible, why high school English teachers, ignoring their own intellectual responsibilities, assign The Digest to their students.
There is some reason why important writers have freely worked for The Digest—a Max Eastman, or W. L. White, or Alexander Woollcott. Money? There was probably better money elsewhere.
There is some reason why a shocking article like "And Sudden Death," back in August, 1935, could have had a definite effect on cutting down highway fatalities.
What is most annoying about "Of Lasting Interest" is that aura of smug self-righteousness—the hallmark of The Reader's Digest itself—that pervades the pages.
And I am always annoyed by the pretension that a condensation—be it "War and Peace" or "Toby Tyler"—can be as good as the original. The Digest, perhaps, is largely responsible for this current publishing practice in America. Those chapters on the meaning of history are worth reading in "War and Peace," and so are Melville's chapters on whaling in "Moby Dick."