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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, May 24, 1961
Peace Pact
Pass the peace pipe, it's time for a treaty.
And as the pipe is handed from KU to MU, the first steps in improving student relations are taken.
The KU Student Council took the first steps in establishing a meeting to quietly and intelligently discuss the problems that have arisen during the past year. They have shown more concern over the present situation than has MU, but they will need more than a pat on the back.
Next fall the ASC will present a plan to the students and it will need the support and cooperation of the students, the administration and the alums attending the games.
No one knows just now what plans will be presented by the two schools, but one thing is certain: if a solution is not reached soon and the fights that result after the games are not ended, athletic contests between KU and MU could be temporarily suspended.
The MU student council is now studying a peace pact which they will present to the student body next fall. If the pact, which is similar to the agreement made with K-State in 1956, is accepted, the goals should no longer be to see how many punches can be placed squarely on the opposition's nose.
Both teams are recognized for their outstanding performances on the football field. It is neither complimentary nor sensible for them to be known for the fighting that takes place after the game.
The fistfights that have occurred are blots on the reputations of both institutions and it is up to the students to erase them as soon as possible.
If a plan cannot be agreed upon by the two universities, the responsibility of avoiding future outbreaks rests in the hands of the students.
Next fall's football game is here Nov. 25. To avoid fighting then, the student leaders from KU and MU who met last Saturday, considered asking the National Guard for help.
The KU-MU problem may be serious, but it is not ready for the National Guard. College students are expected to be mature adults, able to control their reactions without the aid of outsiders.
Carrie Merryfield
Dietitians Criticized
Editor:
I was greatly interested in the article about the food served in the dormitories. I have lived in JRP for three years now, and for at least two years we have had food committees whose purpose it is to relay the residents' likes and dislikes to the dietitian. For two years these food committees have been miserable failures. This is not because the food committees did not take their job seriously, rather because the dietitian refuses to pay any attention to the suggestions. In fact, this year a new group of interested students took over the responsibilities of the food committee when the latter failed to achieve edible results. For some reason I feel the food has improved slightly since this renewed interest has appeared.
However, the lack of communication between the residents and the dietitian (or, the apathy of the dietitian) is still evident. Some cases in point:
1. for three years the iced tea has been indistinguishable from iced water in color or flavor. After at least three food committees it is still indistinguishable.
2. for three years we have been served salad with some variety of cactus "to make it look pretty." After many complaints we are still served cactus in our salads.
3. for three years we have been served some horrible concoction which is passed off as "syrup." After three years of complaints we are still served this mysterious substance known only to the dietitian.
The list of these small points goes on and on, but they all serve to point up the fact that it is not communication which is lacking, but rather cooperation.
Sincerelv.
Jim Toussaint Kansas City junior
. . .
Demonstrators Out of Line Editor:
Concerning the recent flasco to the Eighth Street Tavern by four members of the Civil Rights Council. I would like to express a few viewpoints. I do not doubt that the various non-white races are being hindered, or that racial prejudice is widespread throughout the world; nor do I question the right of these
minority groups to strive for equality. If this is the rising up of the oppressed Lawrence Negro, then they are to be applauded and encouraged.
However, this is not the rising up of a castigated and oppressed Lawrence Negro population, but rather the highly questionable actions of several attention seeking, outside nonconformists, who wish to parade to the world their intellectual initiativeness. There are a few taverns in this town that prefer not to serve colored people. So what! Is this any reason to focus nation-wide attention to this "widespread segregation" at the University of Kansas. Racial prejudice exists here, but is minimal compared to the rest of the nation and should be treated as such.
I would like to say that Mr. Kurt's action in this and past incidents in no way reflects the opinion of the freshmen medical school class, but rather the contrary...
"WELL, I SEE YOU DIDN'T GET HIM TO RAIGE YER GRADE."
Robert J. Siemens
Lawrence first year
medical student
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
Editor:
I attended the Minority Opinion Forum featuring Mr. Shaw and "Fair Play for Cuba." Later Friday evening, I chanced to see the editorial in the Lawrence Daily Journal-World entitled "Cuba's emissary." One paragraph in this editorial particularly struck me. It reads as follows:
"Students, such as those who go
UNIVERSITY
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(Continued on page 3)
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By Calder M. Pickett Associate Professor of Journalism
TYPEE, by Herman Melville. Bantam Classics. 50 cents.
The black mood that one finds in "Moby Dick" appears only occasionally in "Typee." There are frequent discursive paragraphs about the damned human race, but generally speaking, "Typee" remains an idyll, and a book that one cannot ignore in the utopian tradition of literature.
Some may view the book as another protest of an alienated individual. I doubt that Melville was "alienated" when he wrote "Typee," but he may have been getting that way. Basically he had a good story to tell; he knew that such stories of exotic other-worlds always fascinated readers. Along the way he had some sharp comments to make, of course.
MELVILLE TOLD his story, which, despite its autobiographical nature smacks at times of fancy, in an era when utopianism enthralled many Americans. The young sailor found among the islanders of the Marquesan group a society which had not yielded to industrial civilization or the encroachments of the missionaries.
His conclusion was that the people among whom he lived, with their brief cannibalism (which doesn't trouble him much), tattooing, and happy pursuits, were happier, though less intellectually inclined, than other peoples.
"THE NAKED WRETCH who shivers beneath the bleak skies, and starves among the inhospitable wilds of Tierra del Fuego, might indeed be made happier by civilization, for it would alleviate his physical wants. But the voluptuous Indian, with every desire supplied, whom Providence has bountifully provided with all the sources of pure and natural enjoyment, . . . what has he to desire at the hands of Civilization? . . . Let the once smiling and populous Hawaiian Islands, with their now diseased, starving, and dying natives, answer the question."
"Typee" is of interest on two levels—as a novel of social protest, if that's what it was, and as an adventure story. As the latter it remains an exciting, absorbing tale, one that has provided us many of our stereotypes of the south seas, one that has observations of considerable interest for either mid-19th century or mid-20th.
SO BIG, by Edna Ferber. Avon, 50 cents.
By Calder M. Pickett Associate Professor of Journalism
This is the grandmammy of the literary soap operas, and still very readable. It has proved itself through many publications since 1924, the year in which it won the Pulitzer prize, and film-goers have sobbed through movies starring (in talkie versions) Barbara Stanwyck and Jane Wyman.
"So Big" is set in Illinois, and describes a hard-working farm girl named Selina Peake who makes a living taking vegetables to the markets of the growing metropolis of Chicago. She sends her son through college, and he ultimately grows away from her—all in the pattern of Helen Trent and company.
But "So Big" is better than it sounds. No matter how superficial the books of Edna Ferber may be, there is earthiness and vitality and a good grasp of changing and growing civilizations. She makes the reader feel the pulse of Chicago, much as Carl Sandburg was doing in his poetry.
By Calder M. Pickett Associate Professor of Journalism
Hollywood is about to make a movie concerning Merrill's Marauders, the 5307th Composite Unit that fought in the jungles of Burma. One of the marauders wrote this excellent history of the unit, and Crest now makes it available in paperback.
Among new paperbacks:
THE MARAUDERS, by Charlton Ogburn Jr. Crest, 50 cents.
During that terrible jungle war, as the 5937th faced Japanese artillery, an American voice boomed out, "Where the hell are the other five thousand, three hundred and six composite units?"
IT WAS A GOOD QUESTION. HERE IS A RECORD OF bravery and stupidity and incompetence. Nobody here is trying to be a hero, but many succeed. The 5307th was caught in the political warfare of Chiang Kai-shek, Chennault and Stilwell. Its men were sent back into battle when they should have been sent far from the lines.
This is an eloquent commentary on death. "The realization these people mean to kill you strikes you as if no such possibility had entered your head before. They mean to kill you!"
IT IS A DESCRIPTION OF THE JUNGLE, A SOLDIER SINGING "Paper Doll" while about him "There is the earthy, faintly acrid odor of the jungle floor, the heavy air, the sweet, chlorinated taste of the treated water. . ."
And it is a statement about the difficulty of fighting a war in a strange land, "as alien as a temple of weird gods, where your death, having no relevance to your own world that you can perceive, would seem as futile as it would be unbearable."