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University Daily Kansan Friday, March 10. 1961
A Chance Neglected
A speaker makes what is to him a casual statement. But to his listener it is more like a revelation. This was the case at the People-to-People dinner the Hallmark Foundation sponsored on campus Wednesday evening.
Aslom Faridi, a Pakistani now president of the International Club, was commenting on problems that foreign students often run into when they first come to the United States. He referred to the International Club and told how countries from each continent were represented. He added that the showing of Americans was awfully scant. He asked why this was so and said much could be gained from an exchange of ideas between KU and foreign students at the club's regular meetings.
The Pakistani asked why more KU students don't go to International Club meetings. This was the first time that it had ever been asked in this manner. The answer was obvious. Most KU students hold the belief that the International Club is for foreign students exclusively. To go to the meeting, regularly, or even at all, would be an intrusion by KU students on the foreign students' proceedings.
This is a common statement of fact and a just as common query. Why don't KU students help foreign students understand the United States? Then came the illuminating light.
Now it is clear. Foreign students would welcome Kansans at the meetings. Faridi said that foreign students also welcome students coming up to them anytime on campus and asking if everything is all right. He made the point himself. Most Americans believe that a person has no troubles unless he asks for help.
This may be true for Americans who aren't afraid to voice their troubles, but this doesn't seem logical in the case of foreign students. The foreign students, by their very position, are reserved and often reluctant to ask a student questions.
The revelation was clear to the listener as Faridi continued his talk at the banquet. Communications are none too clear between KU's average student and the foreign student. The answers seem to be something like this:
Yes, the International Club is open to all students, even Kansans.
Yes, foreign students are shy, but they would welcome a friendly question about their country or how they like it at KU.
Yes, the burden for overcoming the gap of misunderstanding between the foreign student and KU's Joe-college is on Joe-college.
The foreign student wouldn't be here if he weren't interested in exchanging views on cultures, customs and habits. He wouldn't be here if he only wanted to associate with other foreign students. The foreign student wants the most intimate connection possible with Joe-college. This is the foreign student's purpose in traveling thousands of miles to go to school. This is the purpose of People-to-People—to create better understanding between peoples of all nations through intimate, understanding acquaintances.
John Peterson
An Open Letter To:
Mr. Charles B. McMhale
President, The KU Young
Republicans
Dear Sir:
One is frequently misquoted in the UDK and I can only hope that you, too, have suffered at the hands of hurried and inexperienced reporters and editors. If this be the case you will agree that a notice appearing in the March 7, 1961 issue requires further qualification. You, Sir, are reputed to have asserted that the John Birch Society "is an organization dedicated to the elimination of communism," all by way of advanced billing that a Society representative will be speaking before the Young Republicans on the evening of April 11, and that a Society backed film, "Communism on the Map," is to be shown.
BELIEVING THAT ALL points of view must be aired in a democracy, early last fall I seriously, but unsuccessfully, attempted to find a faculty sponsor for students interested in forming an adjunct Birch group on our campus. This was after having carefully read the "John Birch Blue Book" and some other materials related to the Society's beliefs and actions.
Surely the John Birch Society should be heard on our campus. The members of the Society, I am convinced, do believe that they are working to "eliminate communism," but with the "Blue Book" as their bible, they would destroy democracy in the process.
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became blweekly 1904,
trifweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone Viking 3-2700 Extension 711, news room Extension 726, business office
Extension 71, news room Extension 376, business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Press and N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mall subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the summer and Sundays. University holidays and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
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.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Morgan and
Co-Editorial
Pan.Felsner
Edition Edit
Dan Felger ... Co-Editorial Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
John Massa        Business Manager
...Letters ...
I HAVE NOT SEEN the film, "Communism on the Map." However, a former student of mine who has been (and perhaps still is) affiliated with the Society has seen it. Judging from his description, all assertions that the "Abolition" film is a distortion of reality are insignificant when compared with the charges that might be hurled against the film you have booked.
If our society is to remain free, communists, fascists, anarchists and all other points of view deserve a platform and should be heard. One reads that the Birch Society bans outsiders from its meetings and rules out all opposition to the established line. I assume, however, that I may attend the April 11th meeting of the Young Republicans. Let the Hitlers and the Stalins talk, but in the sacred name of our liberties, let not reasonable men be responsible for unqualifiedly billing the Hitlers as anti-communists or the Stalins as anti-fascists. This they were, but only tangentially, for above all else their major goals were and are the elimination of the freedoms of speech, press and conviction everywhere.
Roy D. Laird
Assistant Professor Political Science
(Editor's note: We can assure Prof. Laird that the reporter quoted Mellwaine correctly.)
Urgent For "Cold War Vets" Editor:
--and
This is an urgent request from twenty-five veterans attending Utah State University.
We are requesting that the UDK have some information concerning and of interest to those students on your campus who are veterans and not receiving the benefit from the G. I. Bill. These students are called "Cold War Veterans".
Senator Yarborough (D., Tex) is presently introducing before congress, a new G. I. Bill for those who do not have this benefit and have been in the armed services since 1955. We at Utah State University have sent a written and signed petition to Senator Yarborough announcing our support and action we have taken. First, we have individually written to our Representatives and Senators asking their support of this Bill. Second, we have signed a petition and have encouraged others who are in favor of this Bill to do the same. Finally, we are attempting through this letter to reach "Cold
War Veterans' (those that don't have the G. I. Bill) at your University to gain their support for this Bill.
We urge the veterans of KU to take the same action that we have taken so that this Bill will be passed.
Action must be taken immediately as the Senate Subcommittee Hearings were begun the 28th of Feb., 1961. Address all correspondence, petitions and support to:
Senator Ralph Yarborough
Chairman of Senate Veterans Affairs Subcommittee
Affairs Subcommittee Washington 25 D C.
L. A. McCoy, Chairman "Cold War Veterans"
P. O. Box 246
We wish to thank you for your cooperation in this important matter. If we can assist you in any way, let us know.
P. O. Box 246
Logan, Utah
"Child Buyer" Defended Editor;
Ogan, Utah
Last Thursday the UDK published an interesting review by Professor Roy D. Laird of John Hersey's latest novel, The Child Buyer. In defense of the novel, I must disagree with the reviewer's assessment.
Hersey undertook the difficult task of writing fiction that is at once satire and a tragedy. Neither Hersey nor his gifted young protagonist Barry Rudd "Sucumbed to the claims of the practitioners of scientism," as Dr. Laird suggests. Hersey's satiic exposure of the New England adult community where Barry lives prepares us for the tragic choice Barry is constrained to make.
The creative youth himself is forced implicitly to choose between an inhuman world of profit and prestige mongering parents and teachers and living death within United Lymphomilloid. The entire intent of the book, I submit, is to make either choice fatal and unheroic. Hersey, like Hemingway, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, among many other current American writers, has confronted us with a tragedy that is more a warning than a purgative or enobling narrative. The responsibility for resolution is imposed very personally upon the reader.
The book has aesthetic defects, yet as satire, tragedy or polemic, it deserves a wide audience among teachers, scientists and students.
Robert A. Dentier
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
Assistant Director
KU Bureau of Child Research
Sound and Fury
Disagreeing on Disagreement
By Francis O. Okediji, Nigeria Graduate Student
Augustine G. Kyei, Ghana Senior
Part II
FURTHERMORE, OUR FRIEND MALIK WROTE: "I CAN-not see how the Americans can proclaim a magic solution for all these issues which would be satisfactory for all . . ." The Africans do not expect the Americans or any other country to provide magic solutions for their problems. When we say this, we do not mean that help from America or any other country is rejected. That the Africans do not expect Americans to provide magic solutions for their problems is manifested in their struggle for self-autonomy; in the conferences of their leaders to arrive at some kind of consensus while grappling with their differences; in some of their activities in the U.N., that international organization which they all support; and so forth. All these are manifestations of the fact that the Africans do not want to be spoon-fed.
Furthermore, our friend Malik wrote: "Let it also be admitted that the Africans, when the tables were turned against them, ignominiously failed to rise to the occasion . . .." Are you here referring to the turmoil and chaotic situation in the Congo? The Congo problem is so complex, that an intelligent explanation will not tend towards oversimplification. There are faults on many sides, and it will be rather too simple to put the whole blame on the Congolese. Belgium has its own faults too, and to substantiate our point, here is what Maurice van Hemelrijck, the former Belgian Minister for Congo said,
"(They) Belgium made two big mistakes in the Congo. First, we (Belgium) had a chance to announce our intention to free the Congo at the end of World War II when a new deal for Africa was in the air—we (Belgium) missed it. Second, we neglect to form a Congolese elite and to improve human relations between black and white—had we (Belgium) done this, the Congo might have been prepared for self-government." (Post, Dec. 3, 1960, p. 84.)
Further enumeration of faults on many sides are possible, but space does not permit.
WE WOULD LIKE TO ASK OUR FRIEND THIS SIMPLE question. What has motivated you to write these intellectual articles? Are you possibly trying "to win friends and influence people?" Or might it be a kind of "apple polishing?"
Our friend further mentioned that: "But most of us expect America to support verbatim the policies of our respective governments, no matter how foolish these policies may be." Firstly, we would like our friend Malik to give the African and Asiatic policy makers an excellent instruction on how to formulate "wise" policies. Secondly, if our friend understands the dynamics of the U.N., every nation in the U.N. wants its own policies to be supported by other nations.
Besides these points, which we have raised, it seems to us as if more statements of this nature abound in your "sentimental" articles. To make the whole refutation short, we will like to advise our friend to dig into facts, in order to avoid generalizations. An "egg-head" does not indulge in sweeping generalizations.
Say, Malik, how about a coffee break to join forces with the guffawy, noisy bridge players of the Trail Room tomorrow afternoon?