Daily Hansan
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
58th Year, No.147
Russia Behind Congo Leader
UNITED NATIONS, N. Y. — (UPI) — Russia today reiterated its backing for Antoine Gizenga's dissident government in the Congo and supported its call for a meeting of the Congolese parliament under protection of United Nations troops.
Tuesday, May 23, 1961
Soviet Ambassador Valerian A. Zorin told a news conference he would call for Security Council action if there were obstacles to the convening of parliament demanded by Gizenga, political heir to the late leftist Premier Patrice Lumumba. He said Russia does not recognize President Joseph Kasavubu as head of the Congo Government.
Gizenga has proposed reconvening parliament at the former Belgian military base of Kamina in Katanga Province with troops from Sudan, Ghana, Togo, Guinea. Mali and the United Arab Republic to reinforce the guard of an Indian contingent already there.
Tests for volunteers of Peace Corps projects will be given at 8:30 a.m. May 27 at the main post office in Lawrence.
The test will be given for those wishing work as elementary school teachers, teachers of English as a second language, agriculture or animal husbandry, engineers, surveyors, road builders, constructors of schools and farm buildings, community development projects, and health projects.
Zorin, in a letter today to Security Council President Daniel Schweitzer of Chile, demanded that the text of Gizenga's request be made public.
Zorin told correspondents Russia recognized Gizenga as "head of the legitimate government of the Congo."
A similar test will be given on June 5 to those wishing work as secondary school teachers of English, biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics. Candidates must have a baccalaureate degree by June 20.
Gizenga's letter to Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, requesting United Nations protection for the Kamina meeting, with only Ghana of the countries he specified now represented in the U.N. Congo Force, has not been made public by the United Nations.
President Joseph Kasavubu has Congolese parliament at Leopoldville.
A UN spokesman said that Gizenga's letter was unclear but he also acknowledged that the United Nations had not asked for clarification.
Peace Cords Tests
Last week, Zorin's demand for full information on current United Nations activities in the Congo resulted in a report by Hammarskjold, his first official public word in several weeks.
KU-MU Consider Peace Pact Plan
A possible peace pact and ways to better student relations between the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri were discussed last weekend by student leaders from both schools.
The proposed peace pact is similar to the pact accepted by Kansas State University and KU in 1956, which recognized the rivalry between the two schools and established peaceful relations relating to athletic events.
Roger Bridges, president of the MU student body, said his delegation to the meeting would take the pact to the MU students for their approval.
WAYS TO IMPROVE relations between students were suggested by both delegations. General approval was given to a plan to exchange editorials in the campus newspapers and alumni magazines.
The students also discussed organizing the student governing groups, fraternities, sororities and honor societies at each school to exchange meetings on game days to better understand the other university.
"We realize that a problem existed between the student bodies and alumni groups of each school after the football and basketball games this year," he said. "We want to see what we can do to prevent this violence at our football game here Nov. 25.
"STUDENTS FROM both schools are afraid if violence occurs again, we will have to break off athletic relations."
KU was represented at the conference by Eberhart; Jerry Palmer. E. Dorado junior, ASC chairman; Jan Wise. Kansas City, Mo., sophomore, ASC secretary; Larry Moore, Topeka junior, student body vice president; Bruce Bee, Mission junior, cheerleader and Carrie Merryfield. Minneapolis junior, assistant editorial editor of the Daily Kansan.
Jayhawker Queen Betsy
Movie star Paul Newman's selection of Elizabeth Gray, Topeka junior, as the 1961 Jayhawker Queen was announced at a coffee Sunday afternoon in the Regionalist Room of the Kansas Union.
Earlier this semester each organized house submitted a candidate for queen. Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe chose 10 semifinalists from these candidates. Photographs of these 10 semifinalists were sent to Mr. Newman who selected a queen and four princesses.
Jayhawker staff to honor the queen and her princesses and to present them each with a gift.
A coffee was given by the 1961
Russel D'Anna, Lawrence senior and editor of the Jayhawker, presented the queen with a gold charm bracelet containing a disc with a jeweled crown
The 1961 Jayhawker princesses are: Nancy Borel, Falls Church, Va., sophomore; June Owens, Al-tamont sophomore; Sherri Scogin, Prairie Village junior; and Katherine Eckels, Kansas City, Mo., senior.
Uneasy Calm in Alabama
WASHINGTON — (UPI) — An aide to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy said today there is "an uneasy calm" in the Alabama racial strife and the situation is "touch-and-go."
The Attorney General conferred early this morning with his top aide Byron R. (Whizzer) White who flew here from Maxwell Air Force Base where he has been directing operations of the force of U.S. marshals.
Kennedy ordered 200 fresh marshals into the tense area yesterday. Some of them acted as replacements for some of the 500 who arrived on
the scene earlier and some supplemented the force.
The arrest of four white men yesterday in Aniston, Ala., was considered part of a federal government drive to prosecute those believed responsible for the outbreaks. Officials refused to rule out the possibility of more arrests.
Weather
Partly cloudy tonight and to-morrow. Warmer tonight. Low tonight around 50. Highs tomorrow will be in the 70s.
National Collegiate Issues Don't Stir KU Student
(Editor's Note—This is the second of a series of articles on awareness among KU students—and American college students in general—of the social and political issues of the day.)
By Fred Zimmerman
Most KU students simply do not care about the issues that are exciting collegians elsewhere.
This is clear from the reactions of KU students to, for example, the Peace Corps, civil rights, the John Birch Society, and the student-led drive to abolish the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
INTEREST IN THESE issues, which is tremendous at other universities, has not caught on here.
Take the Peace Corps. Three months after President Kennedy announced the plan, 116 Princeton students had volunteered.
Recently the Daily Kansan asked several students at random if they would be willing to join the Peace Corps if they had the opportunity. Nearly all of them said no.
At KU, one woman had applied.
- "When I go abroad I want to go as a tourist—not a laborer."
- "I want to stay in this country. I don't want to go to some steaming jungle."
Typical comments:
- "I personally am interested in helping myself first of all."
Civil rights is another example. At a university in California hundreds of students contributed recently to a fund to supply money for students arrested in sit-ins in the South.
AT KU, the Civil Rights Council has rarely attracted more than 25 persons to its weekly meetings this semester.
What do students think of the CRC?
One student, when asked his opinion of the Council, said:
"They're all right, I guess, but I don't know why they can't leave well enough alone."
A letter-writer to the Daily Kansan said:
"FRANKLY, I'M ASHAMED to be connected with a university that permits such goings-on (as the CRC). Remember, when we get out into the world and say we are from KU, people will be thinking: 'What is KU? Ah, that's the place they have those trouble makers.'"
In March there was a brief flurry of excitement here during the national exposure of the John Birch Society. For a few days two freshmen talked about organizing a chapter of the Birch Society at KU.
ONE OF THE TWO, Ronald J. Reed, wrote a long and forthright letter to the Daily Kansan defending the John Birch Society. He began his letter by identifying himself as "the only true John Birch member on campus."
The letter elicited little response—pro or con. Even though six students met one night to consider opposing the KU Birchers, most persons at KU seemed not at all interested that the controversial society might come here.
AFTER SEVERAL mis-starts and considerable publicity, the National Student Assn. Committee at KU sponsored a showing March 30 of "Operation Abolition."
The film, a production of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, tries to establish that student demonstrators in San Francisco against the Committee were "Communist dupes."
The KU students who saw the film had a chance to reach their own conclusions about the controversy over its editing and message.
WHAT WERE SOME typical conclusions?
Two students seated behind this reporter at the showing made several comments about how "boring" the film and subsequent debate were.
During the film one of them said to the other:
"I don't see why everyone is so shook up about all of this."
Several students interviewed afterwards by a Kansan reporter expressed the same opinion.
"The WHOLE THING was a farce," one student said. "It was overemphasized on the campus, and I think it was a big disappointment for everyone."
(Tomorrow's article will feature comments from several campus leaders and observers concerning the apathy of KU students.)