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University Daily Kansan Monday. March 20. 1961
The Campus Politico
Campus elections are not far off, and candidates for the respective offices are girding themselves for the last few days of grueling campaigning. Between now and next Tuesday, days and nights will merge into a haze of coffee cups, cigarette butts, three a.m. telephone conversations and neglected textbooks for most of the campus politics. It's a ritual that never varies, yet few at the University view the proceedings with a jaundiced eye. Never, for some reason known only to collegians, are college elections boring. Sometimes issues for debate are readily available, while at other times... well, at least no one's brought up a proposal to make KU freshmen wear beanies in recent years.
THEN THE SMOKE BLOWS AWAY, INTEREST dies down and the campus politico stands alone. From this point until the next election, the road is both rocky and lonely. The campus politician must find time and ways to accomplish a number of important tasks: (1) Set up a smoke-screen to hide what he has or has not done. (2) Find some way to keep irate constituents from cornering him, (3) Increase his coffee capacity to the point where he automatically gains respect and the upper hand in midnight conferences. As if this weren't enough, he also has to either sacrifice sleep for study or convince the
man with the gradebook that this will be done sometime in the very near future.
IT'S A ROUGH LIFE, AND LESSER worthies might suddder at the toll it takes.
It's also a pretty thankless life, and to use a trite expression, "there oughta be a law." Day and night the campus politico has to put in long hours trying to accomplish those primary tasks listed. At the same time, he also is doing a pretty fair job of representing the students—here at KU, anyway. And finally, he has to make a record impressive and strong to stand on while blocking the jabs of those of us who delight in poking fun at him. A rough task, no thanks asked, and only one day every spring to honor his attempts. . . . "there oughta be a law."
YES, THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW, EVEN though one is not forthcoming. In view of this, however, there are a number of things that can be done. Let him borrow our cigarettes and fill our ashtrays to overflowing. Let him use our coffee cups—cold coffee will wash out in the morning. Let him prop his feet on our desks while he grabs a few winks of sleep—he has won them. And let him tie up the telephone and fill the room with others like himself who desire to serve us. It's nice to have people like that around.
Dan Felger
Disgustful Distortion
Editor:
Several months ago my wife was told that there was to be a film about Communism shown here in Baldwin. Since we both feel that everyone should be well-informed on the subject, we went. Our reaction to this film was one of disgust and anger. The film was entitled "Communism on the Map."
Since there has been much mention of this film in the past few days, I feel that, having seen it, I may be able to shed some light on it for those whose curiosity has been aroused by the charges and counter-charges leveled at it and the John Birch Society.
To use the word "distortion" in reference to this film is to be overly mild. I believe that at times in the film, the term "lies" would hit closer to the truth. The film is well-calculated to breed hysteria in those who are poorly informed.
The film traces the growth of Communism and its ultimate take-over of the world. Its avowed purpose is to rouse Americans to action to head off this take-over. The purpose, of course, is good, but I cannot condone the means at uses. To illustrate what I mean, I will list several distortions, half-truths, or false impressions contained in the film:
- The film makes no effort to distinguish between Communism and Socialism, and ignores the essential difference between them, i.e., that Socialism prefers democratic means and Communism revolution. Thus, it puts Socialists
and Communists in the same camp—all Reds.
- Following from this, it asserts that most of the European nations are immediate prey to Communism either because they have Socialistic tendencies or have Socialistic governments.
*Quotes Nehru as calling himself a "Marxian socialist"—thereby implying that he is a communist.
*Refers to the "so-called nationalist leaders" in Africa, and demonstrates that because they are all Reds, Africa is as good as in Communist hands already. (It would give the impression that Africa should remain a continent of colonies, because the colonial powers are anti-Communist.)
- Asserts that because of our Communist-infiltrated government and press the United States mistakenly supported Castro when we should have committed ourselves to Batista, who was a good anti-Communist.
- $\bullet$ Implies that the Bolsheviks alone were responsible for the entire Russian Revolution, including the overthrow of the Czar. No mention is made of the Kerensky government and the brief, though futile attempt at democratic government. The implication seems to be that the overthrow of the Czar of itself was bad because it opened the way for Communism.
- Paints a picture of the world in which Russia need only give a slight tap and the whole world
$\bullet$ Implies that Roosevelt knowingly handed eastern Europe to the Communists with full knowledge that they would impose Communist regimes.
**Asserts that when all other countries have fallen, we, too, will fall because our government is thoroughly infiltrated with Communists.**
will collapse like a stack of dominoes.
There is an element of truth running throughout the film, and many of the dangers pointed out are real. But the film so distorts these dangers as to make them much more imminent than they are. It ends with an appeal to action, but if world conditions are as black as the film would lead one to believe. I can see no profit from action. The world will go to the Communists anyway, because it is too far gone for us to do anything about it!
Throughout the film there is no mention of the evils of the Communist theory, there is only the name "Communism." There is no mention of how to oppose it, what it stands for, or why it is bad, other than that it is Communism. Thus, the chief need is left unfilled.
To make a sweeping indictment of so many peoples and groups as this film does is more than a distortion—it is a lie. There is surely much need for concern on our part at the sad state of world affairs, but there is absolutely no need for hysteria as this film seems calculated to create.
If the film is evidence of the attitude of the John Birch Society, then we should oppose that group as strongly as we do the Communists, for where the Communists seek to overthrow our society, the John Birch group seems to desire to maintain the status quo at all cost — the status quo as it deems correct.
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, trifweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone Viking 3-2700
Extension 711. news room Extension 376. business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 23, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $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
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Bill Peterson
Bill Blundell, Carrie Edwards, Lynn Cheatman and Ralph Wilson, Assistant Managing Editors; Tom Turner, City Editor; Bill Sheldon, Sports Editor; Sue Thieman, Society Editor.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Frank Morgan and Dan Felger ... Co-Editorial Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
It is their right to show this film, and to speak as they wish, whenever they wish, but in so doing, I can only feel that they are misusing and perverting one of our most cherished liberties—freedom of expression, for this liberty imposes the obligation to tell the truth. This the film does not do. Abuses of this type are as great a danger as Communism, for they may ultimately result in the collapse of our rights, by breeding hysteria, rash action, and narrow thinking. We should, and must, be informed on Communism, learn all we can about it, and fight it to the utmost of our ability. But we must do this with truth and in the firm application of the principles for which our nation was founded.
John Massa
Business Manager
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
John R. Swanson Baldwin junior
Insects After History
NOW-I HOPE THAT WILL BE THE LAST WE HEAR ABOUT
MA. LAWERCE WELK AND MR. GUY LOMBARDO."
From the Magazine Rack
Insects not only destroy lives, properties, and crops; they change history as well.
The mosquito, the louse, and the fly have felled empires and prevented others from being conquered, the National Geographic Society says.
WHEN MALARIA MOSQUITOES PENETRATED GREECE in 400 B.C., the brilliance of early European civilization began to dim. Records show that Greek farmers fled from marshy regions, causing food shortages that contributed to the decline of the national well-being.
The horsefly's relative, the tsetse fly, shaped the political division of southern Africa in the late 19th century. Flies carrying the parasite that causes sleeping sickness halted the Boers' northward expansion in Transvaal. Otherwise, the present-day Union of South Africa would probably have included Southern Rhodesia and Bechuanaland.
ENTOMOLOGISTS ESTIMATE THAT THE TRILLIONS OF chewing and sucking locusts, Japanese beetles, caterpillars, corn borers, bull weevils, aphids, budworms, and hornets ruin at least one tenth of man's crops and destroy more timber each year than forest fires and fungus rots. Billions of dollars are lost; billions more are spent to fight the pests.
LICE ARE AS POWERFUL AND DEADLY AS MOSQUITOES. Carriers of typhus, they thwarted Germany's hope of taking Hungary from the Turks in 1566. The insects not only dispersed the 80,000-man German army, but spread typhus in southeastern Europe.
The great Napoleon was a weakling when pitted against the louse. A typhus epidemic was a factor in his 1812 retreat from Moscow and Russia, setting the stage for his eventual downfall.
If a man chooses to build a frame house, termites may seek it out. One species can eat through concrete five inches thick. If termites leave a man's house alone, silverfish eat the pages of his books. Clothes moths ruin $25,000,000 worth of garments in the United States every year.
While countless insects may not be able to influence history, they make up for it by spreading misery.
But mosquitoes repeatedly saved Rome, which stood above malarial swamps. Many more invaders were killed by mosquito needles than by Roman swords.
Another generation of Frenchmen had been saved from disaster by horsefiles 20 years earlier. In 1792, a strong Prussian-Austrian army marched against the inexperienced army of the French Revolution. France was certain to fall. But the dysentery carriers struck the invaders, sending them back across the Rhine.
In the 1890's yellow fever mosquitoes defeated France's attempt to build the Panama Canal. Malaria mosquitoes delayed the Allied conquest of Sicily in World War II.
THE COSTLY FEUD BETWEEN MAN AND INSECTS IS doubtless as old as man himself. Beginning with the hand-slapping method and advancing to insecticides, man has never succeeded in eliminating any species. The insects, rapidly multiplying and constantly adjusting, can become immune to chemical poison.
New ways to combat insects are needed. Entomologists are experimenting with such techniques as sterilizing males and importing good bugs to kill bad ones.
(From the National Geographic Society Newsletter)
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