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University Daily Kansan Tuesdav. May 16, 1961
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Guest Editorial
The Times on 'Abolition'
The film entitled "Operation Abolition" is an official production of the House Un-American Activities Committee dealing with the demonstrations against it during hearings in San Francisco last May.
IT GIVES A MISLEADING IMPRESSION that the demonstrators were organized and directed by Communists as part of a campaign to abolish the committee—with the implication that all who oppose the committee are Communist-inspired. Defense Department purchases of prints for its libraries, and a great increase of its sales and public showings, make essential a full understanding of the film's accuracy and origin.
The pictures in the film feature almost exclusively the disorders that occurred. They give special prominence to the inexcusable disruptions at the hearing by a few Communists and others charged by the committee with being such. The fact is, however, that the demonstrators were almost entirely students who were peacefully, though noisy, protesting what they believed to have been the committee's unfair and unconstitutional conduct and its refusal to admit them to the hearing room packed with friends of the committee.
THE ONLY VIOLENCE SHOWN IN THE film is that of the police in ejecting many of the protesters from the City Hall. But every one of the sixty-four who were arrested by the police has since been found innocent of wrongdoing by the courts. Neither the picture nor the commentary gives any firm evidence of Communist direction or control of the bulk of demonstrators, as is charged by members of the committee who appear on the film.
NOT ONLY IS THE FILM ITSELF REPRE-hensible, but so also is the way it was made and is distributed. It is composed of cuttings—chosen without regard to sequence—from pictures made by the broadcasting companies and subpoenaed by the committee. These were turned over to a commercial company to make the film. More than 700 prints have since been sold by the company at $100 each. This whole un-American operation by the Un-American Activities Committee is evidence not of the need of its continuance but need of its abolition—a course we have urged before.
New York Times May 8,1961
Rectification
I want to make it clear that I have never said that the Guatemalans had any communist revolution. The point that I stressed was that the counterrevolutionists and invaders used the same old argument of "communist infiltration" to carry out their reactionary purposes.
In reference to the article:
"Questionnaire shows U.S. students fear communism in Latin America," May 4.
In the fourth paragraph it said: "... He said that the successful counterrevolution against a communist revolution in that country (Guatemala)..."
Eduardo Eichberg
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Special student
* * *
CRC Story Criticized Editors:
An "Editors Note" preceding the May 11 story on the Civil Rights Council stated: 'The Council also conducted more than an hour's business in closed session and did not report its actions to the Kansas."
The Civil Rights Council met in closed session for five minutes, if that long, to iron out last-minute details on an informational survey that will be available to the press next week. The meeting itself was short; it lasted no more than an hour.
There was no Kansan reporter at the meeting—only a representative from KUOK. As a fellow journalist, I reported to the Kansan all details of the meeting that I would consider newsworthy, as
... Letters ..
I have done several times in the past.
Those items that were not reported to the Kansan included a discussion of whether the Council would continue during the summer under its present leadership or whether new officers would be elected; a discussion of when would be the best time to elect officers for the coming year; a discussion of publicity, projection arrangements in regard to the showing of The White Paper on May 18 and a discussion of the Kansan's inaccuracy in stating Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority members' feelings about living with white students.
If the Kansan wishes to print all of this type discussion, I might suggest they send their own reporter to the meeting. I have a column to write for the Journal World on Wednesday evenings and half a million other things to do.
This kind of irresponsibility is difficult to justify - even for a UDK alum.
Carol Allen
Class of 00, School of Journalism and member of the CRC
(Editor's Note: The CRC "executive" meeting, which precedes every meeting, has been defined by that group as open and free of conflicts. If you do not assign a reporter to the meeting because we fail to make a distinction between what the CRC terms an open and closed meeting. The editor's note says, "Do not be distracted by missed Miss Allen to explain whose report it was. Although undoubtedly accurate, by virtue of her membership in the CRC, she is in thepective of the proceedings could be considered as completely detached.)
Cold-War Vets
Editor:
We, the Veterans of the Nebraska campus, have recently banded
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press.
Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22,
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$3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
Managing Editor
John Peterson... Managing Editor
Bill Blundell, Carrie Edwards, Lynn Cheatum and Ralph Wilson, Assistant Managing Editors; Tom Turner, City Editor; Bill Sheldon, Sports Editor; Sue Thieman, Society Editor.
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone VIking 3-2700
Extension 711, news room
Extension 376, business office
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Frank Morgan and Dan Felger ... Co-Editorial Editory
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
together in an organization founded for the betterment of the University and of the students themselves
John Massa ... Business Manager
Our primary concern at this time is the passage of Bill H.R. 2558-S349, commonly called the "Cold War G.I. Bill."
We are conducting an intensive campaign through letters and through our Lincoln businessmen.
President, NU Vets
Our primary weapon, however, is the letter. We write our hometown newspapers, our families and friends, and those who represent us in Washington, as well as our President.
Again, and above all, urge your readers to write.
We urge you to print these facts so that those concerned on your campus may also organize and perhaps provide that bit of support which will turn the tide for education.
Donald C. Bennett
By Augustine G. Kyei Ghana graduate student
Poetry Corner REFLECTIONS ON THE HILL
Do remember KU,
Lest you don't remember
What nourished your ambitions
And spurred you
With lofty dreams
To lofty duties.
Do remember KU,
For, within, you too shared
The wicked freaks
Of the seasons:
The summers of inferno,
The sub-sub zero hands
Of winter;
Too, the mutiny
In skies heavenly,
Unleashing usurping
Zephyrs of less majesty—
Kansas weather, remember?
Further, the kaleidoscope of faces
Plaguing the mind's eye—
Dimly without forms:
White, black, yellow;
Black, yellow, white;
Yellow ...
Who, which, where, what;
Who, where
Was he, she from?
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
Thereon you plunge headlong
Gazing without seeing!
This sequel to tokens
That only fan the wounds
Of friends long lost,
Of Beauty Hill deprived,
Of KU you
May never see again!
Augustine G. Kyei 4/10/61.
"I WISH ALL MY PLAYERS COULD HAVE A CLASS WITH PROFESSOR SNARF!"
By Calder M. Pickett
Associate Professor of Journalism
THE WAY OF ALL FLESH, by Samuel Butler. Premier (Fawcett), 50 cents.
Though its shocks were intended for a much earlier generation, there is much in "The Way of All Flesh" that still can give the reader a start. Samuel Butler wrote of the Victorian era, but his comments on society, the church, marriage and the family relationship have relevance today.
Briefly, the novel depicts the pilgrimage of Ernest Pontifex, heir to a monstrous family tradition, son of a Church of England rector. The father is the kind of person who devours his children, who tries to maintain a relationship with them chiefly so that he can exploit and control them.
Besides that relevance, the book, despite frequent side journeys that are somewhat frustrating, has fascination and style. Butler can penetrate rapier-like to the heart of a problem, at least as he views the problem. And his wit is at all times cutting.
Ernest's rebellion is slow in coming, but after an unfortunate experience as curate and six months in prison on a confused morals charge, he breaks with his family. Though the father himself had "cut off the boy without a cent," he can't break the familial tie. But Ernest can, and does, and the reader, who has borne with Ernest through pages of humiliations, cheers.
The story is told by an old friend of the family—an old friend who sees all along what the father, Theobald, and the mother, Christina, are like. He is a critic of society long before Ernest takes on that role. Of the good churchgoers, he writes: "They would have been equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practised."
This novel is a well-rounded one, full of excellent portraits. Perhaps the most compelling is that of Christina, with her endless fantasies, her dreams of greatness, of seeing her children recognized among the mighty, but especially recognized as children of Christina Pontifex.
By Calder M. Pickett Associate Professor of Journalism
THREE COMRADES, by Erich Maria Remarque. Popular Library, 50 cents.
It could be the story, perhaps of a conquered people at any time. Bob, Gottfried and Otto are German soldiers, returned from the war, running their little automobile business, working on fast cars, drinking much rum and living—like Fitzgerald's or Hemingway's characters—for today, for tomorrow they may die.
Our peculiar obsession with the 1920s is evident in another resurrected volume, one which appeared in 1937. It is Remarque's "Three Comrades," a pointed story of the lost generation in Germany. The famous author continued his attack upon militarism in this story, and at the same time he described the decay and disillusionment of Germany after World War I.
IT IS A LOVE STORY AS WELL, AND A POIGNANT ONE, that of Bob and Patricia, grasping at their moments together. Patricia has tuberculosis, and she is dying, and this makes her desire to live for the moment a desire like that of Lady Brett of "The Sun Also Rises," or Daisy of "The Great Gatsby."
Remarque pulled few punches in this novel, which he wrote in an essentially anti-militarist era. It was fashionable to oppose war, and join the Veterans of Future Wars, in the mid-1930s. There was a good audience for this novel, and it holds up quite well as one that should enthrall the college-age generation of 1961.