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University Daily Kansan Tuesday, March 7. 1961
A Look, But No Leap
As soon as Dwight D. Eisenhower moved into the White House eight years ago, he proclaimed to the American people that peace with Russia could not be achieved overnight. Since then, the years—and the Russians—have proved the validity of his theory. Eisenhower, by refusing to place much stock in the "one grand gesture" philosophy of foreign relations showed good judgment in his dealings with the U.S.S.R. Now President Kennedy, by playing coy with Russian "feelers" for a summit conference, is exercising the same wise caution.
LAST WEEK MOSCOW MOVIE-GOERS and TV watchers viewed films of two presidential news conferences in which the President was asked by newsmen if he would meet with Khrushchev if the latter visited the United Nations. This was the first time the Russian people learned that Khrushchev was thinking of coming to the United States. The showing of the films was an unprecedented gesture in itself. It seems highly unlikely that the idea of Khrushchev coming here would be put in the Russian minds unless it is to become a fact. Lately, Soviet diplomats in Washington also are reported to be spreading the idea that the Soviet Premier would like to visit here.
A proposal to meet at the summit would probably grow out of any of Khrushchev's addresses at the General Assembly.
The answer the President gave to the newsmen—I haven't heard that he's coming yet"—
perhaps gave the Russian people the impression that Khrushchev will be welcome here, but that the initiative for the visit lies with him. This would cement the image of the Russian headman pulling all the strings for a summit in the Russian minds. It is an image that suits the Russian diplomatic effort, both in that country and throughout the world.
IF KHRUSHCHEV CAN SHORE UP THE image that he alone can determine if there will be a summit it will help him build the idea that he can grant world peace with one grand gesture of benevolence—if the West "comes around." President Eisenhower realized that world peace can come about only when tangible results can be seen. It is hopeless to attempt to set up a world-wide disarmament before, for example, Pathet Lao troops in Laos agree to stop fighting. President Kennedy too realizes that it is necessary to tread on footpaths before it is possible to walk on the highway.
The President's answer that he did not even know if Khrushchev was coming to speak at the UN shows that Mr. Kennedy is not going to jump at the chance to play into Russian hands should the Soviet Premier snap his fingers. A meeting at the Summit might lead to the lessening of world tension, but it is difficult to do much more than this. By playing coy with Khrushchev's hints for a summit meeting, it is in reality the President who is testing the Russians.
Dan Felger
Misunderstood
Editor:
My felicitations to you for suggesting that the CRC must be a failure since it has failed to solve all the problems of race discrimination on the campus and in Lawrence — immediately. You will pardon my cynicism if I doubt the sincerity of such a strange compliment.
How many of the students and faculty of KU realized before, that 84 per cent of off-campus housing discriminates on the basis of race, and 100 per cent of our barber shops? At least in part, the more active interest of the ASC and the Lawrence City Council, in the problem of race prejudice, is due to this agitation.
IN ASSERTING THAT THE CRC should "solve" everything connected with race conflict, you misunderstand the major purpose of the CRC, which is a real investigation and documentation of the nature and extent of racial discrimination on the campus and in Lawrence.
HOWEVER, IT SEEMS THAT the tender stomachs of your editors cannot stand this unpleasant information. They would rather see the investigation of race discrimination transferred to more "responsible" hands—that is people sufficiently responsible to let them forget—for the next 100 years.
Moreover, three years ago, the Vox party abolished the Human Relations Committee of the ASC, at a time when race relations were
worse, and last year the President of the student body elected by their party, came out against the sit-ins.
Why? Obviously in the absence of the CRC, there was a general ignorance of the extent and severity of this problem. Further, it might be asked, if the new Human Relations Committee of the ASC, useful as it certainly is, will play the same active role in promoting the exercise of the legally-protected civil rights of students who might be discriminated against?
THE ATTITUDE OF THE EDITORS of the UDK reminds me of of the jury in Soerates' trial when the Athenian democracy objected to the ideas of this self-conflessged gadfly; hemlock was recommended! For the benefit of non-classical students, poison hemlock induces gradual paralysis, the view of the espouement by the UDK of a form of gradualism which has already taken 100 years, this really seems very apt.
Denis Kennedy
Dublin, Ireland, graduate student
--should have concentrated longer on one aspect of the overall problem.
I think perhaps your editorial brought out one valuable point, anyway; and that is that we on the Council have tried to do too much at one time. Perhaps we
Editor:
I would like to comment briefly on the editorial, "CRC Should Stop," in the March 2 edition of the UDK.
CRC Speaks Up
Nevertheless, I do think that you are being unrealistic in judging the CRC on whether it has "solved" the problem of discrimination in Lawrence. This is a big problem for any group to tackle, especially a small group of college students! If we should ever really "solve" this problem which has plagued mankind for centuries, we would certainly deserve a real pat on the back!
However, the fact that the task is a formidable one is no reason for not trying, for not doing our best to bring problems caused by discrimination out into the open and exerting what pressure we can to alleviate them. I'm sorry to disappoint the editors, but I think I speak for the members of the Council when I say that we won't be disbanding for some time.
Alan D. Latta Wichita junior
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Some Impressions Corrected Editor:
Your account in last Thursday's Kansas of my review of the Rosenbach biography leaves some mistaken impressions which I would like to correct.
There were a good many things the doctor liked besides high prices — for example, whiskey, women and good stories.
The price at auction of the Alice in Wonderland manuscript (actually its prototype) brought 15,400 pounds sterling — bidding started at the figure printed in the Kansan.
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
John Peterson ... Managing Editor
Frank Morgan and Dan Felger ... Co-Editorial Editors
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Business Manager
John Massa
Finally the Doctor is not to be remembered because of any vague musings over the "antiquity" of books, but rather for the fact that he played a major role in building some of the greatest scholarly libraries in this country: the Huntington, the Folger, the Widener, the Pforzheimer and many others without which American scholarships would be poor indeed.
The formation of the great Huntington Library alone, in the short space of fifteen years, the Doctor modestly called "an achievement greater than the building of the pyramids or the Panama Canal." I think he was right.
Thomas R. Buckman Associate Director of Library
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
"PROF SNARF MUST HAVE A TERRIFIC MEMORY—75 IN MY CLASS IN HISTORY AN HE NOTICES EVERY TIME I SKIP."
By Calder M. Pickett Associate Professor of Journalism
AMERICAN HERITAGE, February 1961. $3.95.
There's quite a shift in the new American Heritage, a tongue-in-cheek article about "Braddock's Alumni" by an advertising man. The author becomes obsessed with his topic, and in his rivalry with his boss begins to uncover all the celebrated names who participated in the disaster.
“Are you aware,” he says to his wife, “that Presley Neville, the son of General John Neville, married Nancy Morgan, the daughter of General Daniel Morgan, his old comrade in arms?”
"THAT'S NICE, DEAR," SHE REPLIES. "WE MUST INVITE them over some evening."
This magazine sometimes takes itself so seriously that it's a pleasure to report this gay little item. But to balance it there is another recital of something quite familiar to all of us. "The Storming of the Alamo" is old hat, as was the story in the last issue of the destruction of Lawrence by Quantrill.
American Heritage editors obviously are most impressed with their series called "America and Russia." And the seventh installment is a good one—the story of how the United States reacted to the Revolution of 1917, of our ambassadorial incompetents in the Russian capital, of the impact on the rest of Europe when Russia left the war. Not surprisingly, the article is by the versatile William Harlan Hale.
ANOTHER EXCITING ARTICLE DEALS WITH PHILADELPHIA, the city the author, Marshall B. Davidson, calls "American Athens." Here truly was a capital of culture that in its heyday was the city of Franklin and Penn, Benjamin Latrobe (who gave it its famous pumphouse), David Rittenhouse, Benjamin Rush, the exiled Joseph Priestly, Benjamin West and Francis Hopkinson. A fine portfolio of paintings adds to this bright display.
"The Working Ladies of Lowell" deals with the experiment in American industry wherein farm girls fresh from the fields of Massachusetts lived in cultural communion and worked long hours at the mills. "Professor of the World's Wonders" is an interesting description of Agassiz, who influenced a whole generation and excited many young people into observing the world about them.
For the western enthusiast, the publication includes "What a Sight It Was!" Here is a picture story about William de la Montagne Cary, who went west in 1861 and painted the frontier—a "fire canoe" steaming up the Missouri as Indians watch on the shore, an Indian widow mourning the death of her husband on the plains, Indians shooing grasshoppers into a fire, an angry buffalo toswing a brave high into the air, bull buffaloes fighting on a cliff, a winter supply train, a trapper loading up at the trading post and a boundary survey rowing up the big river.
Poetry Corner
Spontaneous Piece On The '50s in America
Decade crinched by Mr. Moneybags
TV mansorrow decade
Decade made sick by comedians
Insurance gold plane blowup decode
Decade with Harvard standing guard
TIME decade...
— by Gregory Corso