UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers. SEPTEMBER 15,1978 'No' to ASK KU students, whether they like it or not, soon may see $2,500 of their fee money spent for a lobbying effort billed as the voice of the college student. Students may have noticed, however, that as the Student Senate prepares to vote next week on a provisional membership in Associated Students of Kansas, no one has stopped to ask those who would pay the bill whether they want ASK to represent them. Nor has anyone stopped to consider whether it is fitting for student fees to be spent on a chase for state taxpayers' money. The cost of belonging to ASK, if KU becomes a full-time member, would rise to about $10,000. ALTHOUGH ASK has sought KU's "prestige"—that means money—for years, not until Mike Harper, student body president, struck a deal with the ASK hierarchy for a reduced-cost trial membership did KU's joining ASK appear likely. Previous KU student government administrations wisely saw joining ASK as a wasteful dilution of KU student lobbying. Some doubts that inter-school rivalries would dissolve Harper's deal were cleared recently at an ASK retreat. At the retreat, leaders from other Regents universities and Washburn University agreed that KU's backing would compensate for KU's potential pushesiness within ASK. Wichita State and Pittsburg State universities have approved KU's provisional membership, and the other member schools are likely to follow, except, perhaps, Kansas State University, whose student representatives may refuse to permit KU's replacing K-State as the most powerful school in ASK. As petty as such possible politicking might be, K-State's rejection of KU could be a welcome veto if the KU Senate approves of ASK. As financial contributors to ASK, KU students would be linked to lobbying in the Legislature for such diverse goals as a 3-cent cigarette tax, voter registration by mail and decriminalization of marijuana. IT IS ALREADY questionable whether KU has enough common interests with members to join ASK, rather than just cooperating when lobbving interests do coincide. It is even more doubtful that the varied elements of the KU student body will find their concerns accurately represented through KU's influence in ASK lobbying programs. Student lobbying will never reach its potential to impress legislators with the same approach favored by the high-powered, big-money special interests. THE STUDENT SENATE would more fairly serve its constituents by focusing its support on KU's own Concerned Students for Higher Education, which could develop into a helpful conduit of students' individual or collective wishes. By contrast, ASK, as a cooperative venture among sometimes rivaling members, will always tend to homogenize student concerns—compromising KU students' positions until they no longer resemble students' true onions. The Student Senate's upcoming vote should to pour money into ASK whether be a resounding "no." Sen. George McGovern, D-D.S., is not the source of every damm fool idea that comes tumbling half-baked out of the political oven that is Washington, D.C. It only seems that way. Perhaps that's because McGovens'd damm fool ideas are, well, so damn foolish. Economics refutes wheat cartel idea Take his suggestion a couple of weeks ago that armed force might usely be used to convince the ruthless Communist regime in Germany to behave more deceitly and humilly. McGovern's invasion plan attracted more attention for iron than substance. It was McGovern, running for president in 1972, who so thoroughly deployed the United States' attempt to control the destiny of another Southeast Asian nation. The three Senate sponsors went to Canada in July, at taxpayers' expense, to mull over the issues of a trade agreement described as mildly encouraging. Any cartel would also have to include Australia and Argentina, which together with the United States could control 80 percent of world wheat exports. NOT ONE to rest on his foolish laurels, McGovenn, along with two senators less renowned for their foolishness, Henry Rutherford and Andrew Mont., this week proposed a wheat cartel. Their folly was cautiously joined by three Kansans on congressional agriculture committees, Republican Sen. Robert Dole, Democratic Democrat, Republican, and Dan Glickman, a Democrat. The senator, hopelessly naive as usual, was undoubtedly well-intentioned. He had a very bad case of the difficult, but an invasion of Cambodia was so fraught with danger—and so patiently aburd—that it could universally be damned after a good round of hoots and roars. The cartel, borrowed of course from the oil exporters, would involve an international agreement to set a fixed minimum price for crude oil. The cartels are farmers (crude oil farmers) could sell abroad at a better price. Unlike his invasion, McGovern's wheat cartel won't be shrugged off with catcalls, particularly in Kansas and other wheat states. It and it needs some explanation of its foolishness. LIKE IT or not, international trade involves fundamental economic principles. Try as they may, and they have tried mightily, legislators cannot change economic laws, by whim or flat, regardless of how fool with institutional arrangements. A demand curve will always slope downward; higher prices less will be bought at lower prices. Carter should take energy initiative NEW YORK—As the largest energy consuming nation in the world, the United States should be leading the way in establishing energy priorities and proposing policy alternatives. Unfortunately the Carter administration and Congress have shown little inclination to agree on a manageable approach. N. V. Times Feature President Carter's proposed tax on domestic crude oil, designed to raise its cost to world prices, has been declared "dead" by key members of Congress. Sixteen months after the president launched his national energy plan under the banner, "the moral equivalent of war," the energy issue has slipped to the back burner on the congressional list of priorities. Rv.JOHN C.SAWHILL Less than two decades ago the United States was self-sufficient in oil supply and was a large oil exporter. During the 1970s, this country has become the world's largest net importer of oil, increasingly dependent upon nations that imposed the embargo of 1973-74 and have controlled world supplies and prices since that time. Even the natural gas compromise is in trouble, requiring liberty by the president, and it is but one ingredient of Further, President Carter pledged at the recent Bonn summit that the volume of oil imported in 1978 and 1979 would be less than in 1977. To discourage excessive consumption of oil and encourage the movement toward coal, "The United States remained determined that the prices paid for oil in the country shall be raised to the level by the end of 1980," he said. IT IS IMPERATIVE, to the United States and her allies, that President Carter honor this commitment. A reduced demand on imported oil by the United States would soften prices or minimally reduce their rescalation worldwide, but any increase in our demand would maintain prices at the current high mark or accelerate their increase. the prevital U.S. role is the trust of a soon-to-be-released study by the Trilateral Commission, a private policy organization composed of representatives from 15 European countries, Jann. Canada and the United States. exerting a strong downward pressure on prices. The report, "Energy: Managing the Transition," cites the U.S. policy of maintaining artificially low domestic energy prices as the single most important failure in coping with the worldwide energy problem. And McGovern undoubtedly will view falling domestic wheat price with great alarm and come up with a damn fool idea about domestic price supports. But he will again run head on into economics laws. Artificially high prices must yield a surplus, most likely to be stored at taxpayers' expense. However, President Carter has the power to solve the bulk of this problem. He can reduce oil imports—the principal factor in the U.S. trade deficit, a record $37 billion for 1978—strengthen the sagging dollar overseas and be an impetus to international efforts to conserve energy. He must use this authority despite his increasing unpopularity with the electorate. ACTING UNDER the Energy Policy and Conservation Action of 1975, which imposes controls on U.S. oil prices, the president is granted discretionary authority, as of June 1 next year, to remove those controls. That would permit domestic oil prices to rise, perhaps during the following year or so, to the world mark. In fact, the president could initiate this action immediately. The same legislation that requires controls on domestic prices through next June provides flexibility in setting the ceiling on these prices. To ensure flexibility to suppress oil below those required by law. Ultimately, U.S. oil prices must be raised to the world mark. The Trilateral Commission report urges all countries to insure that their oil prices are reflective of world prices, but the U.S. is by far the most laggard. Although the average world price is $14.50 a barrel, the average domestic price is $10.45 and some is priced as low as $7.23 a barrel, less than 40 percent of the world price. Raising domestic prices would encourage countries to provide incentive for consummation curtail import and limit OPEC's prices increases, thereby helping to alleviate the pressures felt by our allies as well as strengthening the American economy. rresident Carter still believes in the national energy plan, now is the time to act decisively. As long as the U.S. persists in holding its energy prices below prices in the rest of the world, oil imports will continue to increase. The inevitable result will be continued uncertainty in world financial markets, erratic fluctuations in the value of the dollar, stagnant economies in most industrialized democracies of the West and the mounting pressure from throughout the world, particularly in less developed countries. Rick Alm The key to a broad based economic recovery in the West is the development of a comprehensive U.S. energy policy, which President Carter can initiate immediately to convince the rest of the U.S. oil imports will no longer continue their upward spiral. ONE STEP further: McGovern will then look at the bulging storehouses in America and the empty belles abroad. He will, with humane grace, insist that should not be permitted much longer than another dam for it. More than half of the wheat in international trade is bound for backward countries. The poorest wheat importing countries, unable or unwilling to pay the higher prices, face unpleasant prospects in farmine and its consequences, instability and poverty. For the American farmer, there is at least the possibility that so much less wheat will be produced actually decline. How he fares depends on the price decided upon and how well the cartel hangs together to enforce it. Worse still, if the crop is depleted, the dumped back into the domestic market, But haven't oil sheds become rich by exploiting the very same laws? Certainly, but oil is not wheat. In technologically dependent countries, there is no satisfactory substitute for oil. It must be acquired at any cost. Western civilization grinds to a halt. countries comprise to raise the world price of economies by purchased. Laws of economics will allow countries to ULTIMATELY, however, there is starvation. A hungry nation can import corn, rice, soybeans or other grains. John C. Sawhill is president of New York University and former federal energy administrator. McGovern will propose distribution of surplus American wheat to the hungry in other countries and bust his wheat carrel—an unlucky victim of economics laws again. Now. Menachem . . . either you share with little Anwar or I'll take away your arts and crafts. Staff Cartoon by DAVE MILLER Lack of new information reveals futility of JFK assassination hearings "I'd like to forget what I remember most about the first grade, but I'll never be able That's all I remember about Friday, but it's more than I care to remember. I came back to school after lunch one Friday in November 1963 and a boy named Galen ran inside yelling something about the president being shot. After nearly 15 years, controversy centering on President John F. Kennedy's assassination still exists. It's time to move ahead and quit lining on that death. But unless all questions surrounding empathy's death are answered, it's unlikely that they will ever be asked. NEW REPORTS on the assassination were given, but testimonies showed little change in the ways in which by experts in the areas of chemistry, pathology and ballistics, most testimony still supported the 1964 Warren Commission statement that Kennedy was shot from behind. The commission's findings, still disputed by persons who think Kennedy was killed in a conspiracy, were that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating Kennedy, by firing three shots from a sixth-story window in the Texas School Book Depository. Just last week, new hearings began in Washington, D.C. by the House Assassination Committee. The hearings, conducted by the Associated Press, could count taxpayers up to 8 million. MUCH OF the controversy centers on the "single-bullet theory," which maintains that the president was struck by two bullets from the right rear, one of which could have been shot at. The president was struck Texas Gov. John Connally, who was riding with Kennedy in a Dallas parade. Although cries of conspiracy still exist, they seem to be fading. Throughout most of the hearings, only about one-third of the room's 258 seats were filled. Most of these seats were occupied by witnesses and their families, a strong indication that people are not fully aware, seemingly endless search for answers to questions about the assassination. One onepause dissenter, pathologist Cyril Wecht, says that a single bullet would have to have shown more deformity than it did after striking both Kennedy and Connally. But even Wecht agrees that the two men were struck from the rear. Eyewitnesses still argue that they heard shots from a grassy knoll to the president's right. Conspiracy theorists say a second gunman fired from there. But Connally and his wife testified that he heard no shots from the grassy knoll. Many questions still nag and the hearings, all of them, have done little to dispel those questions, which probably never will be answered. EXHAUSTIVE STUDIES have been done not only by the Warren Commission and House committees, but also by private individuals who have written many books, articles and papers on the subject, with many different conclusions. However, after 15 years of an almond- constant search and the drain of millions of orchards, it is time to move on. Letters Policy A Pacemaker award winner the University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and telephone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should be sent to the home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansan reserves the right to edit letters for publication. 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