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University Daily Kansan Tuesday. Feb. 21. 1961
The Battle Rages On
Three months ago the nation's newspapers were headlining accounts of the present-day Battle of New Orleans. Since that time, the fickleness of the news has coaxed the press from the old Southern city with the result that the fight now appears to be over. Actually, the struggle has grown more intense since then with the state legislature attempting to interpose its powers between the federal government and the people of Louisiana. Meanwhile, the Federal Government has been hacking away at this antiquated theory of interposition with vigor.
And in the center of the turmoil stands a bedraggled and bewildered School Board of the city of New Orleans.
IT WAS THIS SAME SCHOOL BOARD that obeyed the order of a federal court to carry out a token integration in city schools. But the two schools selected have not been technically integrated. At one school, one Negro attends with eight white students. At the other, there are three Negroes and one white student. The rest of the white students are being transported daily to a parish outside the board's jurisdiction. The cost of this comes from the Louisiana taxpayers' pockets.
The same state legislature that cheerfully pays the cost of the transportation is not so magnanimous when it comes to granting the New Orleans school board traditional funds for the operation of the schools, however. In the past, around 60 per cent of the money needed to maintain the schools has come from the state. While the state still grants this total, it has now been put into a special legislative fund from which
salaries are paid to all employees of the school system except those at the two schools where integration has been attempted. In yet another attempt to bring the school board to its knees, the state has continued to withhold money owed New Orleans by the Government for school milk and lunch programs.
Because of this financial coercion, the school board finds its position rather precarious. Money to operate the two integrated schools must come through local taxation. Taxes are paid in June and October, but the board finds its pockets empty now. In the past, it has been possible to borrow from banks and use the tax as collateral. But permission to grant loans must be obtained first by the banks from a state board-one controlled by Gov. Jimmie Davis.
NOT ALL THE POTSHOTS ARE BEING taken at the New Orleans school board, either. The state of Louisiana has been most anxious to move the influence of the Federal Government as far away as Alaska. In November, the Justice Department had to move into action to thwart an attempt to arrest U.S. marshals enforcing integration. Lately, the governor has been refusing to accept communications from the Federal District Judge. The state is apparently unafraid to flaunt the power of the Government in almost all cases pertaining to integration.
It has been said that the federal district judge can forbid the maintenance of segregated schools, but he can not compel people to integrate their schools. The difference seems small, but Louisiana segregationists have made it as wide as the Mississippi River that flows by New Orleans.
Dan Felger
Jack's Contract Regaled Editor:
Re: The article in the Feb. 7 edition dealing with the proposed contract for Coach Jack Mitchell.
We wish to add this small missive to the already immense shelf of comment on the deprived state of the American educational system. We surely do not wish to attack the character of the above-mentioned faculty member. However, it is most interesting and most reflective of the state of American education to note that Mr. Mitchell is listed in the University Catalogue (1959-1960) as an instructor in Physical Education. Yet we note that according to your article, Mr. Mitchell is currently receiving a yearly salary of $17,000. Talk of the renewal of this contract has begun some two years in advance of its expiration, and some persona ignota has suggested that this contract be made with this Instructor for life.
... Letters ...
WE ARE SO UTTERLY TAKEN aback by these revelations as to be hardly able to criticize them. We cannot believe that any institution of higher learning offers its faculty members contracts for life; but this is not the prime question. We have it on good authority that full professors at the University of Kansas are currently receiving a maximum of $14,000, and there are exceedingly few who even approach that extreme figure. This comparison should utterly mangle our American sense of shame. The victor on the athletic field is recompensed far more than the professor in his laboratory. The conqueror of Missouri is paid more than is the ancient history scholar. The builder of bodies receives more annual income than the builder of
minds. Our shame should, indeed,
be great.
The alumnus, the farmer, the housewife, and the student read daily of the crisis in education. President Kennedy decries our intellectual stagnation. We personally know, as perhaps do you, of faculty members who have left the campus for the sake of a better offer from industry. Can they be blamed? And? Jack Mitchell, B.A., instructor of physical education, gets his $17,000!
WE DO NOT CLAIM THAT the calamitous situation here at Kansas is at all unique. We can only observe, with a certain air of cynicism, that the Grand Republic is tottering on the brink of disaster, is threatened by a determined foe of a magnitude unparalleled in history, and is losing ground daily. Heads are wagged, fists are clenched, voices are raised. To no avail.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
"YES, I KNOW I'M GIVING TH' SAME FINAL THAT I GAVE LAST TERM— BUT THIS TIME I CHANGED TH' ANSWERS."
We would seem most presumptuous were we to suppose that by our writing action shall be taken. Far be it from us to rob Mr. Mitchell's children of their daily bread. We only lament, with genuine sorrow, the depths to which America has sunk.
May God none the less bless our native land.
John H. Swogger
Topeka senior
Russell D. Klomp
Detroit, Mich., junior
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
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triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
John Peterson ... Managing Editor
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Frank Morgan and Co.-Editorial Team
Dan Felger            Co-Editorial Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
John Massa   Business Manager
International Jayhawker
Democracy Revealed
By Ernesto Mendoza Vergara Filipino Graduate Student
An Asian student in the United States has two purposes. First, he comes to study the techniques and skills that have helped attain the material sufficiency of the West. Second, and this is the paramount one, he is here to learn the underlying concepts and ideals of Western democratic thought. These two purposes lead to a third kind of understanding—that of his own culture and its potentialities for the development of an indigenous democracy. Living in the West in the way it is lived by its inhabitants, he is brought to the realization that democracy is more than just a structural form that can be legislated or decreed by the strong man.
Democracy, he learns, is a way of life, a social system, a dynamic process, which is characterized by continuous experimentation, often successful and sometimes failing, and which is viable only because it derives its existence from the consent of the governed and because it is dedicated to the preservation of individual dignity and freedom. Equipped with this insightful understanding, the Asian student goes home and starts his democratic reform by clearing away the facets of the old tradition that would hamper the growth of democratic ideals and adapting the native cultural resources to the new democratic movement.
THERE ARE CERTAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EAST that make it difficult for the outright adoption of the Western brand of democracy. For example, in the mystic East, the introduction of scientific techniques is set back by the almost unshakable ties with ancient superstitions and religious beliefs. Because corruption, disease, and poverty are considered natural and godsent to test the faith in the Almighty or to punish the wayward, the Eastern man resigns himself to what he believes to be divine forces, whereas in the same case, the man from the West will exert a positive effort to correct his environment. For example, close-knit personal and family ties in the East seem to be in the way in achieving democratic efficiency, as can be observed in the nepotistic practices in the administrative service.
Democracy in the West, defined in terms of Western experience is not yet understood by most people of the so-called "under-developed" countries. We hope that further education and cultural interchange will hasten the understanding of the Western concept and lead to the adaptation, not the adoption, of Western ideals.
MANY FOREIGNERS HAVE A DISTORTED AND EXAGGERated picture of the United States, often not of their own making, for such a picture is drawn by propagandists or conjured through cheap Hollywood movies, vulgar literature, and indiscreet tourists. According to the stereotype, the American is a cold-blooded capitalist who earns his profits through manipulation of the market; a farmer wallowing in plenty, having wheat to rot in the barn and butter to turn rancid while the rest of the world starves; a moral degenerate guzzling whisky and listening to blaring jazz all day; of a hypocritical crusader who preaches equality to the world and maltreats the colored man at home, who wears his heart on his sleeve as he campaigns for the prevention of cruelty to animals but sends a human being to the electric chair. When a student comes to the United States, he carries these prejudices with him. Believing himself to be the morally superior, he takes a condescending and contemptuous attitude upon "this materialist," "this barbarian" and is prepared for the worst in putting up with him.
What does he find? For a time, he thinks his misgivings have come true. But slowly he crawls out of his protective shell into a new and exciting world. As he lives and eats and studies with the American, he finds his preconceptions false and baseless in many, many ways. He gradually loses his wariness. As a matter of fact, he finds himself adjusting to the atmosphere, losing even some of the values which he has held inviolate and dear to his heart. "Migosh! I'm getting Americanized," he says not with alarm but with pleasant disbelief.
HE FINDS THE AMERICAN SOMETIMES BLUNDERING but always honest and well-meaning. He realizes that the material accomplishment of this country has been possible only through high moral and spiritual ideals. He finds the American generous, good-natured, friendly, and considerate. He finds a people unwillingly burdened with the onerous, sometimes thankless task of bringing freedom to mankind. The stereotype of the easy-going American vanishes in thin air when he appreciates the seriousness and tenacity of purpose with which the American does his job. As he visits American homes and attends church services, he finds that Americans are extremely hospitable and deeply religious. Indeed, the various stereotypes crumble one by one like a house of cards and are subsequently replaced with another image: an American, still not a perfect infallible being, but more human and more compassionate.
When an Asian student returns to his country, he brings with him not only the new skills, but also the new understandings. He becomes an effective leverage point in destroying the caricatures of Americans in the minds of his people and replacing them with the reality which he has observed.
IN THIS ERA WHERE BATTLES ARE FOUGHT AND WON less in the front-lines than in the ideological battlefield, it is not enough for the West to send to the East technicians to develop the natural resources, arms to combat the enemies of democracy, of food to save the people from starvation. What the West can give to the East with more lasting and effective impact is to teach the latter the democratic way of life, for the greater lessons are not of things, but of the self.