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Wednesday, November 28,1973
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Unhealthy Competition
If you are not one of those people who made straight "As" since seventh grade you are headed for trouble in the professional job
The grim fact of life is that there are too many people competing for nearly every attractive vocation. And the competition for entrance to college is too tight; graduate schools is too tight for any but the most honored students.
A typical application has space for "honors including scholarships, which is large enough to include eutisburg Address, triple-spaced.
Law schools openly discourage average students by pointing to the astronomical number of hopefuls who applied last year and the 95 per cent of them who were not applyable. Law schools state that anyone with less than a .3.5 grade point average is automatically in the "deny range."
Today a "C" grade is just as restrictive as a "D" or "F" used to be. More than one successful lawyer has told me that he would not have been accepted to law school by today's standards.
William Keogh, associate dean of the Stanford School of Law, advised prospective law students at K.U. last week to avoid nontraditional grading systems. A pass-fail system only tells the law school that the course was passed. Evidently one must prove that he can earn an "A" in order to succeed.
In olden days a high school diploma was worth something and a college degree was a mark of success. In the 1970s, the must not only obtain a baccalaureate degree but must attend graduate school and ultimately earn a Ph.D. to get ahead.
The days of the Harvard graduate dishwasher are upon us. Whenever a student tells you that he is eager to get out into the "real world" 'you can be certain that he is not going to be or is nausea about the job situation.
The rise of the middle class and every parent's desire to improve the lot of his children have caused the overcrowding. The grocer wants his son to be a lawyer, not a grocer.
And who can blame him? No one wants to work along an assembly line or have some similar unpleasant job. But the proliferation of computers can create a cattheat atmosphere on college campuses and in the job market.
Professors seem to be amazed at the disdain many students have for a "B" grade. But one does not get the benefit of being made graduate schools by making "Ba."
Yet not everyone can get an "A," even if everyone deserves one. Because systems are rejected because they provide a standard of excellence.
The result is unhealthy competition. Employers and graduate schools can afford to be selective, but many talented people may fall victim to the crowded conditions and arbitrary standards of ability.
In a few years the United States should have the best educated factory workers in its history. That where all the "B" students will be
Heaven help the rest.
National Asset or World Trust?
The Food Question:
BY STEPHEN S. ROSENFELD
After a fall in 1972, grain production around the globe rose this year by about three per cent over the previous peak in 1971. But because world population rose in the same time, per capita grain production only held even if it didn't actually decline.
IN FACT, THE DIET of many, perhaps most, people in the world may have deteriorated as production climbed, for the reason that the rich—among countries and within countries—are better able to buy food than the poor are. News in gross
But, you may say, didn't the paper just say that world grain production has hit an all-time high and that the United States, Russia and even India have produced record harvests? The paper did say so and that's right. It was right. But that's not the end of the tale.
production. There is little such good acreage left. Putting marginal acreage into production, here or elsewhere, is so costly that it would be beyond the reach of the poor.
cluding the national day of gorging. But here we are, pushing farm exports like crazy rather than expanding our effort to replace food stocks and to help other countries grow more food themselves, permitting nutritional disparities to widen not only between the world's rich and poor but also between our own rich and poor.
WASHINGTON—Enjoy your turkey last week? You may take a modest bow for having eaten a kind of meat relatively efficient to produce. It takes only three pounds of grain (in feed) to produce a pound if turkey, against seven for a pound of beef.
The country seems prepared finally, if belatedly, to cope with the fact that consumption and production of energy in the world have gotten badly out of whack, but it has been slow to grasp the analogous fact that the same may be coming true of food.
Eating potato is like driving your car at a patio 50. It saves on a resource in indoor cooking.
Worst of all, whole world food reserves were decimated by the effects of bad harvests in 1972, and these reserves are not being rebuilt in the good harvests of 1973. Instead, production gains are going into current consumption. The annual income from the crops will demand, swollen by population increases and improvements in diet, rises apace.
In food, of course, the United States has the great advantage of being a marvelous producer. But we have yet to decide, or to discuss adequately, whether we regard this capacity as a national asset or as an international trust. It is the difference in broad terms between using food as a lever for our own purposes, economic or political, by matching the Arab oil market or one of a number of valuable commodities whose use must somehow be determined by nations acting in concert for their common good.
By FAWN M. BRODIE Special to the Los Angeles Times
Nixon, Jefferson & Burr
President Nixon, in his question-and-answer session with newspaper editors, repeated for the second time in recent weeks a major distortion of history in describing what he called the "Jefferson Rule."
—Jefferson sent no summary of any letter. Instead, he ordered his prosecutors, "voluntarily furnish on all occasions whatever the purposes of justice may require," and ordered the War Department to add another document might be relevant.
So there won't soon again be huge wheat stocks available if Russia comes back into the international grain market in a big way. The country is one of the world's humanitarian emergencies. Last year, after a bad crop, the world was on the brink of duress or catastrophe, depending on national situation, and this year after a good crop the world is also on the brink of dures
Nixon Among HST's 'Great Hates'
It is a fairly difficult choice that can be made only step by step over a period of time, which can't be avoided, and which will determine the kind of people we are.
—He sent all the specific letters and orders that Burr demanded, reserving only a letter from Gen. James Wilkinson to himself on Nov. 12, 1806, which he said “could contribute nothing” toward Burr’s acquittal or conviction, but release of which would be difficult.
production does not translate literally into good news in personal consumption. Since food prices have retreated only nominally by about 3 percent since 1974, they may be worse off than they were in 1974.
IN 1972, PEOPLE could accept, at least intellectually, the harsh Malusinian reality that population growth was exceeding growth in the available food supply. It takes mere mental effort to accept the same harsh reality in 1973, but it remains true. Perhaps it's being a spoil sport to bring the matter up following a week ina witness and that Jefferson defied the order. Not so.
By WILLIAM CHAPMAN
The Writers' Post
CONTRARY TO WHAT Mr. Nixon said,
the facts are these:
—When Burr demanded the entire letter, prosecutor George Hay freely offered to give the original over to the court for scrutiny and copying. Eventual publication of the letter in Wilkinson's "memoirs" showed that it did contain sensitive matter
We laymen in this field, looking at roof production numbers, still tend to blame weather for disappointments, to credit technology for successes and to assume that it will beat the weather over time. But this may be American provincialism, false.
"You remember the famous case involving Thomas Jefferson where Chief Justice Marshall, then sitting as a trial judge, subpenaed a letter which Jefferson had written which Marshall thought felt insulting to Burr. Jefferson refused to do so, but it did not result in a suit. What happened was, of course, a compromise in which a summary of the contents of the letter which was relevant to the trial was produced by Jefferson, and the chief justice of the United States, expressed capacity as chief justice, accepted that."
Bad weather, however, is considered automatic Russia's location and geography ensure it other onlayshots of drought. South Asian deforestation ensures other years of flooding there. Pacific overfishing ensures empty anchovy nets, and so on.
In his continuing effort to bolster his claims to executive privilege, the President pointed to the treason trial of Aaron Burn Hill and repeatedly repeated what he had said on Oct. 28:
Let us remember that Burr had tried to trick Jefferson out of the Presidency in 1801, had slain Alexander Hamilton in a duel and afterward, when still vice president, had secretly connived with British Minister Antoine Merry in developing a plan to split the United States in two along the Appalachian Mountains.
MOREOVER, A BIG CHUNK of the increment in American wheat production this year is owed to the one-shot fact that after 1972, good acreage long held out of production to discourage the growing of unmarkable "surpluses," was put back in
Productivity increases flowing from technology are no longer considered automatic. Indeed, in such a key crop as soybeans, advances are coming so slowly that the new industry will largely create creation of a research institute by us and the Chinese, the two big producers.
ANOTHER COMMON MISCONCEPTION about this case is that Marshall issued a subpoena demanding that President Jeanpierre come to Burr's trial as
The late Mr. Truman described these and other of the great hates of his life in a series of interviews 12 years ago when he was 77 years old. The interviews, many of which were taped, appear in a new book, "Plain Speaking," written by Merle Miller.
During the trial, everyone in Richmond knew that Burr had organized a group of confederates in Ohio, to whom he had talked passionately about his service Washington, assassinating Jefferson, taking over the U.S. Navy and sailing to New Orleans, from which point he hoped to mount an expedition to capture Mexico and place his daughter on the throne as empress.
Everyone knows that for a long time Mr. Truman didn't like Richard Nixon. But it now comes out that Mr. Nixon was one of only two people in the whole country Mr. Truman absolutely couldn't stand—the man abuses an obscure former governor of Missouri:
WASHINGTON-Harry S. Truman thought most generals were pretty dumb. He ranked Dwight D. Eisenhower as a weak battlefield general and a cowardly politician of the McCarthy era. And Douglas MacArthur was not "right in his heart." MacArthur was not "right in his heart."
Miller, aged 54, an Iowa native, has been a prolific writer of books and magazine articles since World War II when he was with Yank. He lives now in Brewery. N.Y.
M. TRUMAN WAS ASKED why he would be a pushover in many directions, she declared.
He called Mr. Nixon and former Missouri Gov. Lloyd C. Stark, who had accepted Mr. Truman's support and then turned against him politically, the "only two men in the
"Because Nixon is a shitty-eyed, goddamn liar, and people know it," Mr. Trump said when he got close to getting elected president in 1960. They say young Kennedy deserves a lot of credit for licking him, but I just can't see it. I can't see how the son of a bitch even
On June 13, 1807, Marshall simply ordered that a subpoena decesum be awarded to summon the President of the United States and any members as might have the papers mentioned." Burr's chief lawyer, Luther Martin, even agreed that the relevant papers might be sent by mail. Jefferson was not required any legal obligation to go to Richmond.
Had Burr, who acted as his own lawyer, forced Jefferson to come to Richmond, the country would have had the spectacle of the President of the United States being cross-examined by his totally discredited former vice president.
Rather than pointing to the Burr trial as precedent for some of their legal positions, President Nixon and his lawyers should find some aspects of its alarming. For instance, President Jefferson's own prosecutors, the Justice Department, Marshall, agreed on the general principle that the President could be subpoenaed as a witness.
THERE WAS NEVER any argument on this point save from Jefferson himself, who, in his letter to George Hay of June 17, read "I am sorry you cannot give a deposition under oath in Washington, but said that to leave the seat of government to attend any such trial—whether in Richmond, St. Louis or Mississippi Territory—will permit a nation without an executive branch."
OTHER FACTS GENERALLY NOT known are that John Marshall, who hated Jefferson, demonstrated his capacity for judicial impingement by going to a Richmond jury. He was also present. Later, Marshall ruled so narrowly on the evidence that Burr was acquitted. Historians, having access to the total conspiratorial record, don't acquit him.
President Nixon is clearly taking refuge under Jefferson's mantle—falsely, it seems to me. It is especially ironic since, when it comes to Mr. Nixon's subversion of the political figure of John F. Kennedy, the political figure in American history that the President most resembles is Armen Rohan.
Let us remember that, except for Burr's totally false accusation that Jefferson had ordered him slain, the president was never accused of lying, the president, never accused of distortion, lying, cover-up and subvert the Constitution. Any reluctance on his part to obey a possible so-called boona could not possibly be construed as evidence in any way, but Burr would be the crimes for which Burr was being tried.
(Fawn M. Brodie, a professor of history at the University of California at Los Angeles, author of "Thomas Jefferson—An Intimate Warning" to be published by Norton in January.)
whole history of the country that I can't stand."
In the interview, he repeated his account of how Mr. Nixon allegedly had called him and Gen. George C. Marshall "traitors". MR. TRUMAN'S WRATH, however, was bipartisan. When asked what was his biggest mistake as president, he replied:
when he and MacArthur flew to a meeting on Wake Island. They arrived simultaneously in separate planes and for some time each refused to land first, preferring that the other be on the ground to meet him. After it was settled, with Ted Kowalczyk the first person, she refused at first to join the party greeting Mr. Truman's plane.
"Tom Clark was my biggest mistake, no question about it. . . , that damn fool from Texas that I first made attorney general and then put on the Supreme Court. I don't know what got into me. He was no damn error," Clark said. "The Supreme Court. It doesn't seem possible, but he's been even worse. He hasn't made one right decision that I can think of."
"AFTER WE LANDED, there was a welcoming party there on the ground, but I looked out the window, and MacArthur wasn't there." Mr. Truman recalled.
Even after we stopped the engines and they opened up the door of the plane, the bolt came loose.
"So I just sat there. I just waited. I'd have
"I can't figure out how he came so close to getting elected president in 1960."
Another long interview concerned Mr. Truman's difficulties with Gen. Douglas MacArthur, whom he dismissed from command for insubordination.
"I fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the president," said Mr. Truman. "I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three-quarters of them would be killed, and I wasn't doing anything along like General Marshall," why, you've got to hang onto them, and I did."
MR. TRUMAN WAS ASKED about a speech in which MacArthur had proposed a deal with Japan to restore the Pacific. Commenting on that plan, Mr. Truman said, "I've given it a lot of thought, and I have finally concluded ... decided what I should do." He afraid, when he wasn't right in his head
"And there was never anybody around him to keep him in line. He didn't have him. He always knew he had a kisser. He just would not let anybody near him who wouldn't kiss his ass. So . . . there were times when he was . . . I think out of his head and didn't know what he was."
In another reminiscence of their bitter relationship, Mr. Truman recalled a time
"Finally, the son of a bitch walked out of one of the buildings near the runway there. He was wearing those damn sunglasses of his and a shirt that was unbuttoned and a cap that had had a lot of hard wear. I never did understand . . . an old man like that and a five-star general to boot, why he went up like a 19-year-old second lieutenant."
At their eventual meeting, Mr. Truman recalled, "I took one look at him and I said, 'Now, you look here. I've come halfway across the world to meet you, but don't know how to meet you,' and don't give a good goddamn what you do or think about Harry Truman, but don't even again给命令in-chief waiting. Is that clear?" His face has got as a beet, but he said, 'he indicated that we went talking about, and we went on from there.'
MR. TRUMAN SAID he had regarded Gen. Eisenhower as a "weak" field commander and as a political "coward" in the period when Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., was accusing people in government of being Communist sympathizers.
"I cussed old out McCarthy every chance I got," Mr. Truman told his interviewer. "He was nothing but a damn coward and was afraid of me. The only thing he ever did that I approved of was when he knocked down Drew Pearson.
"And when Eisenhower let McCarthy get with calling on Gen. Marshall a traitor. Why, that was one of the most shocking events in history," he troubled with Eisenhower . . , he's just a coward. He hasn't got any backbone at all, and he ought to be ashamed for what he did,
Mr. Truman disclosed that he had removed from Pentagon files correspondence between Eisenhower and Marshall concerning an apparent threat by Eisenhower
Mr. Truman continued: 'Well, Marshall wrote him back a letter of the like which I never did see. He said that if he . . . hadn't been so strong, he'd not only bust him out of the army, he'd see to it that never for the rest of his life would he be able to draw a peaceful breath. He said it wouldn't matter if he was afraid or wasn't. or even what country he was in.'
"WHY, RIGHT AFTER the war was over," Mr. Trump said, "he (Elsenwhern) wrote a letter to Gen. Marshall saying that he wanted Mrs. Elsenwhern to be who he wanted to come back to the United States and divorce Mrs. Elesenwhern so that he could marry this Englishwoman." It was an apparent reference to Kay Summerssy, who served as Elesenwhern in England during the war.
According to Miller, Truman paused during the interview, and then added: "I don't like Eisenhower, you know that. I never have, but one of the last things I did as president, I got those letters from his file in the Pentagon, and I destroyed them."
Miller said this week that he recorded the interviews during several visits to Independence, Mo., Mr. Truman's home, during 1961 and 1962. The material was to form the basis of a series of television documentaries. However, the series never was produced because the networks were not interested, Miller said.
Uncle Sam to Buy Compact Autos
The Washington Post
By MIKE CAUSEY The Washington Post
WASHINGTON-Bad news for Detroit's gasoline guzzlers.
Uncle Sam, the major cash buyer of cars in this country, plans to replace most of the sedans and 10-mile-a-gallon dreadnights in the federal fleet with four and six-cylinder compacts, which cost less and run cheaper.
The strategy calls for relatively rapid replacement of government automobiles. Eight of every 10 new cars purchased will be of the compact variety.
The General Services Administration (GSA), which manages 68,000 cars used by and assigned to other non-defense federal agencies, has advertised for bids on 4,518 compacts as replacements over the next year for larger older model cars.
THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT, which has even more cars and small trucks, also will be buying and leasing a larger proportion of cars although a ration hasn't yet been worked out. Limousine-type vehicles will become more scarce in federal motor pools, but there will still be enough to suure around VIPs.
In past years, the government has generally bought massive lots of cars, picking them generally from among the best bulk-price offers it jets. In some cases, auto manufacturers managed to unload huge quantities of vehicles that weren't doing so well in sales to the general public. If the government sticks to its new policy, the fuel economy of vehicles will become as important to buyers as the bulk price of cars.
The question is, will the government be
bv Sokoloff
Griff and the Unicorn
able to carry out its 'buy-mum' program, part of the President's overall plan to make it easier for parents to get
FEDERAL OPERATIONS such as GSA and the Pentagon will come under heavy pressure from car manufacturers who have heavy investments in production equipment used to crank out big cars. With the public demand for fuel, growing, manufacturers could be faced with relatively large stockpiles of big cars that nobody wants.
Congressman from auto manufacturing areas are already hearing from their leaders, the governors, and leaders, who fear the government shift to smaller cars will hurt or cripple business. If the government sticks to its guns, the fear of losing power will be composed of mainly connect cars.
Postal officials are also interested in smaller cars and stationwagons and are particularly seeking out front-wheel drive cars for improved traction in sections of the country where winter driving conditions are bad.
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