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University Daily Kansan Fridav. March 24. 1961
Good Show, Rivals ..
The Kansan salutes both parties on the platforms they have erected for the coming elections. They contain solutions that are both workable and acceptable to problems now existing at KU.
An examination of the platforms reveals that one party, perhaps, favors projecting the University towards greater regional and national recognition. At the same time it would cope with campus problems effectively. The other party would give priority to local and immediate problems, but at the same time make the University known nationally also. Which one is best? — the Kansan will not attempt to decide. Both platforms are well-written and far-reaching. Both platforms are attractive to the student who will cast his vote next week.
MOREOVER, BOTH PLATFORMS PROMIse that next year's ASC is going to continue acting in the same fine pattern set by the present Council. The collective activity and success of the present ASC has been admirable. Many problems were resolved, many others clarified so that members could at least begin to work toward solutions. With platforms to work from such as those recently published by both parties, the new ASC should be every bit as effective. And, it may be more so...
Problems such as the civil rights issue and the need for establishing better ties with other
peoples are not issues to be solved by kids, and the present ASC members and the prospective members certainly do not fall into this category. The old saying "Don't send a boy to do a man's job" is applicable to the problems the ASC will face. A boy could not have worked out methods to deal with problems such as civil rights and discipline. Yet the platforms of both parties contain possible solutions to these problems.
THE ASC, ACCORDING TO ITS CONSTITUTION, has a very definite function to perform in meeting problems pertaining to KU. The Kansas has a very definite function to perform also. The Kansan intends to see that each party lives up to its promises and sticks by its platform unless, of course, the platform is bypassed in order to serve the student better. The Kansan will help the ASC maintain its fine record of responsibility unshirked.
It's entirely conceivable that Max Shulman, the collegians' royal jester, might come to Mount Oread searching for an example of his stereotype of the comic, ineffectual student government. The Kansan grants this. But it would be a disappointed Mr. Shulman who would take the next train out of Lawrence. Our ASC isn't like his stereotype.
And the platforms of both parties indicate things are only going to change for the better. The Editors
Raised Eyebrows?
Yesterday eyebrows may have shot up on some parts of the campus when it was noticed that the Kansan has endorsed candidates in the coming elections.
The endorsements were made only after each candidate was intensively interviewed. The Kansas believes that in order to inform and to aid voters on Tuesday and Wednesday, recommendations will help make a choice. Most students are unable to interview the candidates and ask pertinent questions about how they would wear their
ASC hats. The Kansan, however, had this opportunity.
However, the Kansan wants to be the first to point out that the endorsements do not mean there is a great difference in the qualifications of the candidates. All are remarkably well qualified and highly competent. Any one of them would make excellent representatives to the student government. But those recommended have a slight edge on their opponents for the reasons listed.
The Editors
Who's a Leftist?
Due to the statement in the March 14, UDK by Scott Stanley, I feel that I should apologize for my denunciation of the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) as advocating the principles of the John Birch Society. Since my letter to Mr. Stanley was written before that particular issue of the UDK, I did not know the position of YAF concerning the John Birch Society.
However, Mr. Stanley has not given us his reasons for declaring that NSA has leftist tendencies. I again ask for a definition of leftist. He told me he is basing his statement on what Dan Johnston, NSA Program Vice President, West Coast, said in relation to the San Francisco Riots last Spring.
The controversial film "Operation Abolition" was the aftermath of that event.
Dailu Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
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John Peterson ... Managing Editor
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Managing Editors; Tom Turner, City
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...Letters ...
Mr. Johnston believes the students were not led or duped by communist agitators, but were protesting against the House Un-American Activities Committee for depriving American citizens of their freedoms as expressed in the Bill of Rights. Mr. Stanley believes the students were led by communists and that they were not concerned with the defense of the Bill of Rights because, in his opinion, HUAC does not rape the basic freedoms of our heritage. Apparently he is not acquainted with phrases such as: due process of law, guilt by association, innocent until proven guilty, the right to know one's accusers, and the freedom of political belief as stated in the Supreme Court's decision in the Watkins Case of 1957. Just because a person interprets the Bill of Rights per se does not prove that he or she has leftist tendencies.
If criticism of the methods of HUAC brands a person as a leftist, I am led to assume that a liberal concerned basically with human rights also has leftist tendencies. And remember, if a person has leftist or liberal tendencies he is misinformed, according to Mr. Stanley. Does this mean that liberals are misinformed or does this mean that if a person has a different opinion than the one supported by YAF he or she is a leftist?
I can't call YAF rightist and thus retaliate Mr. Stanley's charge because his organization has not outlined its principles in anything other than all inclusive general terms. But I do know two very important tendencies of this group. First they give the House Un-American Activities Committee their unfinishing support. Second, Senator Barry M. Goldwater, author of "The Conscience of a Conservative," is the best
known member of their National Advisory Board and is the leading spokesman of the "new" conservatism. If one reads his book with a semblance of objectivity, he will immediately recommend that the title should be changed to "The Conscience of a Reactionary."
Perhaps the most interesting bit of information I discovered in the last couple of days is that two of the National Advisory Board Members of YAF are directly connected with the Council of the John Birch Society and another member is connected indirectly. I am not saying that there is a definite connection between the two organizations, but I am asking anyone who is thinking of joining the YAF to seriously consider this coincidence. For the benefit of all who are wondering who the three members are, I will state their names and give some background information on them.
1. Dean Clarence Manion — Former Dean of Notre Dame Law School. Founded the Manion Forum which now reaches a radio audience of many millions every week.
Thev are:
2. Mr. Adolphe Menjou—Famous actor of screen, stage, and television. Also famous as an Anti-Communist patriot.
The above two men belong to and are advisers of both organizations directly. Indirectly affiliated is:
3. Mrs. Alfred Kohlberg—Her husband was a charter member of The Council of the John Birch Society.
The material used for this research is as follows: "The Blue book of The John Birch Society," Third Printing, Copyright 1959, by Robert Welch. The National Advisory Board Members of The Young Americans for Freedom."
Charles A. Menghini
NSA Committee Member Pittsburg junior
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
... Books in Review ...
By Calder M. Pickett Associate Professor of Journalism
THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Dell Laurel Books, 50 cents.
If one were to lampoon 19th century style, I suppose Hawthorne's great classic would be as good a place to start as any. As Mark Twain said of Cooper, he never uses one simple word where three complex ones will do the job.
"She had just placed another representative of the renowned Jim Crow at the window, when again the shop-bell tinkled clamorously, and again the door being thrust open, with its characteristic jerk and jar, disclosed the same sturdy little urchin who, precisely two minutes ago, had made his exit."
Or—
It's strange, too; one doesn't get that feeling while reading "The Scarlet Letter." And that novel is probably as stilted as this one.
"Phoebe went, accordingly, but perplexed herself, meanwhile, with queries as to the purport of the scene which she had just witnessed, and also whether judges, clergymen, and other characters of that eminent stamp and respectability, could really, in any single instance, be otherwise than just and upright men."
Yet, carping aside, "The House of the Seven Gables" has its unique fascination, style and happy ending notwithstanding (this is not to say that novels shouldn't end happily; it just seems absurd when one that has been gloomy for 300 pages ends happily). Like everything Hawthorne wrote, it has a point of view. This one suggests that the sins of the fathers are visited upon their children—a good Calvinistic viewpoint from a good New England Calvinist.
But Hawthorne puts aside the curse of old Matthew Maule, who was executed for witchcraft after the connivance of Colonel Pyncheon, the deadly ancestor of the Pyncheons of Hawthorne's day. He tells us, in fact, that medical science doubtless could account for the dire mode of death of several of the accursed Pyncheons (strange, I find myself using Hawthorne-like words in writing about the famous book).
It is all quite a grim tale, with a beautiful little heroine who could be, for all her elfin lightness, the Pearl of "The Scarlet Letter" grown up and living in another century. It has a handsome and charming hero, too, and a black villain, and two lonely old Pyncheons who live in the bleak old house that so well recalls the 17th century and the witches of Salem.
THEIR WEDDING JOURNEY, by William Dean Howells, Fawcett, 50 cents.
It is a stretch of definition to call Howells' early novel a novel. It is even more to print on the cover an endorsement from Theodore Dreiser, who called it "Howells' finest."
There is no plot as such. It is merely Basil and Isabel March, in their youth before they go to New York in "A Hazard of New Fortunes," on a wedding trip. From Boston to New York and up the Hudson, across to Buffalo and up to Montreal and Quebec. That is the trip.
IT IS CHASTE AND DULL AND VERY MUCH LIKE A travelogue. It also is pure Howells realism. If the book has any importance at all it is as a document in the realistic tradition, an effort to give an honest look without the trappings of romanticism.
If Howells had a wedding journey like this he must have been bored. No, it's probably what Howells would have enjoyed. Yet, despite all this carping, this is still a book that in its way is fascinating. If nothing else it is a picture of the Niagara country of almost 100 years ago, of Catholic Quebec seen through the eyes of a good Ohio Protestant, of people vacationing and honeymooning and living quiet—and always realistic—lives in an era that was not yet industrial America.