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Tuesday, October 2, 1973
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Shades of Credibility
The Washington seene has become cluttered with unidentified sources. Newspaper and magazine readers must be wondering why all the authorities refuse to have their statements connected with their statements.
Speculative journalism has increased the use of undesignated sources. Its justification is that unattributed news is better than no news at all. But after the Washington Post produced its stunning series *The Watergate Scandal*, concern over Watergate scans and the use of unnamed sources and the gossip proliferated to incredible proportions.
The news leaks and rumors that have been swirling around Vice President Agnew have produced a new batch of unidentified disclosures. A "source close to the Vice President," a "highly placed source," a "former senior ocean figure," sources "close to the investigation" and the famous "authoritative spokesman" were all quoted within one week in connection with the Agnew resignationossip.
The Associated Press, evidently trying to outdo its competitors, even began quoting a "source familiar with Agnew's thinking." The source specializing in Agnew's sexual or religious rites.
The next likely solution to the resignation dilemma would be to conduct a poll. The Gallup Poll might ask a random sampling of 100 people asking the question: "Do you think that Vice President Agnew will resign?"
If the majority answered in the affirmative, the dilemma would be solved for the press and, if he was not going up his mind, for Arnew as well.
The credibility of the unnamed sources might be tested in another poll. Certainly it has become a truism for American politics that candidates must be a poll candidate there must be a poll. Such a report might read thusly:
"A Gallup Poll released this week revealed a new crisis of public confidence in Washington's unidentified sources. Three out of four respondents indicated that they could no longer put full trust in these sources.
"Two thousand people, representing numerous ethnic groups and economic levels, were asked:
Do you think that the unidentified job done a good job as spokesman?
Yes ...21 per cent
No opinion ...
"The low ebb of public approval of these sources may be due to lack of confidence in government or Watergate and other scandals.
"Of course, the findings may reveal the natural tendency of Americans to distrust people who don't identify themselves.
"Those sampled were asked to choose their favorite sources:
Highly placed source ... 32%
Authoritative source ... 25%
Source close to the investigation and / or candidate ... 15%
Top aide ... 12%
Sidebar buffer ... 8%
Unknown source ... 5%
Senior Republican figure ... 3%
My favorite is "the source who should know."
The indulgent use of unattributed sources employed by magazines and newspapers invites this kind of frivolous analysis. But it is a dangerous game for the press to play.
A newspaper like the Washington Post risks its brilliant record of disclosures by its misplaced and exaggerated detective-work. If a newsman can uncover crime or expose villainy he does the society see, seeing his gross misconduct that concerning. Agnews resignation should be handled tenderly to protect the credibility of the press.
-Bill Gibson
Vice Presidency a Dubious Honor
BY CHALMERS M. ROBERTS Special in the West Morton Post
WASHINGTON—"The Vice President of the United States," observed Vice President Thomas Marshall in 1920, "is like a man in a cataleptic state; he cannot speak, he cannot breathe, and is perfectly conscious of everything that is going on about him." John Garner, who gave up the House *sj*'s aersisk for the vice president, remarked that "a great man is very president but he can't be a great vice president because the office itself is unimportant."
Whatever the fate of Spiro Agree, it is a fact that, with the exception of the eight vice presidents who became President (four of them by assassination of the President), most of those who have held the job have been elected to the presidency. Who knows anything about Daniel Torpkins, Richard Johnson, William King, George Dallas or Henry Wilson?
Of the vice presidents who never made it to the White House, two are famous for other reasons: Aaron Burr and John Calhoun. Burr was Thomas Jefferson's first vice president; in fact, Jefferson and Burr each received 73 electoral votes for
President in 1800 but neither had a major. So the House chose Jefferson and Burr became vice president. After that the constitution was changed so that the electors should vote separately for the two top offices.
WHILE HE WAS VICE president, Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel and he was indicted for murder in Bergen County, N.J., where the duff was fought. This would appear to be a precedent, incidentally, in the argument whether a president or vice president should be jailed and removed from office. Burr, who was never tried on the murder charge or on another charge in New York state of violating a law against sending challenges for duels, continued in office until his term expired. Indeed, while under indictment, he presided over the Senate during the impeachment trial of the Samuel Chase of the Supreme Court. Chase was acquitted three days before Burr's term ended.
Colcah was vice president during John Quincy Adams' one presidential term and during Andrew Jackson's first term in the presidency. He then served under President Jackson expired,
Calhoun resigned to enter the Senate to which the South Carolina legislature had elected him. Thus there is a precedent for a change in the Senate's circumstances were far different then than in Agnew's case. Calhoun, of course, was best known as the Senate's faye apostle of the southern cause, though he also served in the secretary of war and secretary of state.
ONE VICE PRESIDENT, William King,
who had been Senator from Alabama
and Minister to France, took his oath of office in
Cuba. He served under Franklin Pierce for a more 45 days before he died. Another vice president, Henry Wilson, died in the vice president's room at the capitol after serving three years during Ulysses S. Grant's second term. Three presidents died in office of natural causes; that was the case with only four presidents.
The selection of the 39 men who have held the second office has been, with very few exceptions, a matter of political bargaining, and so or so-called "balancing the ticket," either for reasons of geography or political philosophy. This has resulted in a good many vice president of nominal ability which, in turn, has meant that they had
less chance for the presidency on their own. Of all our No. 2 men, only four were able to get elected to the White House on the third ballot. Martin V. Buren and Richard Nixon.
Six vice presidents went to the Senate after they left the No. 2 post; Calhoun, John Brecknidge, Hannibal Hamlin, Andrew Johnson (after he had succeeded Abraham Lincoln as President), Alben Barkley and the late Richard Nixon, the oldest to become vice president (71), won the affectionate name of "veep." Brecknidge, at 36, was the youngest vice president, under James Buchanan. The oldest vice presidential candidate of a major party was Henry Davis, at age 80, nominated in 1904 by the Democrats.
A MEASURE OF the unimportance, perhaps, of presidential-vice presidential tickets as such is the fact that, in 47 elections, only in six were the first-term teams reelected: Washington and Adams, Monroe and Thompkins, Wilson and Marshall, Franklin Roosevelt and Garner, Nixon, Harper Roosevelt and Agnew, Nixon's injunction last year, break up a winning team?" worked for him, but it has not been the general rule.
"... Roadblocks have been set up and thus far the Vice President of the United States is believed to be pinned down in an area east of the railroad yard. Here is another bulletin: The President of the United States has apparently eluded law enforcement officers and is reported no longer held up in the White House,..."
So little have many politicians thought of the vice presidency that it was turned down on many occasions. Henry Clay could have had the job twice, in 1840 and in 1848, and in 1853 he would have been William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor, died in office. Hiram Johnson refused to run with Warren Harding in 1920; the post, and the presidency, went to Calvin Coolidge. In 1925 Frank Lowden rejected the nomination with Coolidge, in 1964 Sen. Robert F. Kennedy accepted with James Pole but wired the convention that he would not take it; Dallas got the job.
Benjamin Franklin, at the time the constitution was being written creating the vice presidency, is reputed to have suggested the title "His Superior most Great George Clinton." You George Clinton, who opposed the constitution, argued that there was no reason for the vice presidency and then served in the post himself.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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New Politics in Europe
The Washington Post
BY DERNARD D. NUSSITER
LONDON -Serious new politics, rooted in a demand for individual expression and hostility towards centralized power, have deeply emerged in Scandinavia and Britain.
These are the more civil regions of Europe, where citizens tend to be polite and still place a high premium on the human personality.
Since the Great Depression, their politics have followed a more or less simple model, nominal right against notional left, a social coalition that had a cohesive coalition against a labor party controlled by large unions. In office neither has behaved very differently from the other, promoting social benefits, high employment and education, investment, corporate and union bureaucrats.
But in the last 12 months this familiar political spectrum has been blown apart.
—Denmark -Anti-Common Market forces last year collected nearly two votes in five, despite the obvious and measurable cash benefits from entry and despite a strong government, union and business campaign in favor. Today, the ruling Social Democratic Party is deeply split and would suffer reverses in a general election.
Norway—Voters last year rejected theurgings of both big business and big unionsand defeated a bid to enter the CommonMarket, an entity notorious for its remote,bureaucratic control. Two weeks ago,thelong dominant Labor party suffered a blow in the election against all over the left and right flanks ofthe political landscape.
Sweden—Prestant Olof Palme's Social Democrats took a pasting last week and hung on power as a minority government. The one clear winner was the Center Party.
which has doubled its strength in ten years, crying "decentralization" and "green wave." The center, pulling from both sides, has now 99 seats, second only to Palme's 166.
—Britain—The Liberal Party, a spent force since World War I, is enjoying an astonishing revival. In the general elections three years ago it polled only 7.5 per cent of the votes. The latest poll indicates that the Liberals are winning an incredible 27.8 per cent, a scant one point behind Prime Conservatives. In an election today the Liberals would clearly hold the balance of power at least.
Clearly, those in power everywhere,
regardless of party label, are in trouble.
THE NEW POLITICS can best be seen in Britain and Sweden where the Liberal and Center Parties give it a voice. No such party exists in the United States, although curious new groupings, expressing only a distaste for the high tastes of the left, have insisted on surprising inroads into the traditional parties.
What is the shape of the new politics, or Britain's Liberals and Sweden's Center? They draw chiefly from middle class voters who are fed up with the two conventional labor and business organs. They tend to pull in their supporters than its Labor counterpart, but they put it down.
They attract a distinct minority of young people, a fringe that bears some resemblance to the non-ideological youths described by the Chion-Reich in "The Greening of America."
ABOVE ALL, THEY ARE markedly incoherent about what they are for and very clear about what they are against. The Swedish Center, for example, talks enlightened about the moral valorized power but would not touch the handful of huge, industrial and financial
corporations that dominate the Swedish economy. The British Liberals want to bring "power back to the people," but their leaders are stamily on the side of continued British membership in the Common Council and insistence of government by remote control.
the economic programs of the "new politics" parties could not pass an amendement to the government, but themselves themselves肥肥 focused. British inflation but urge who擒吓 cost increases through a new minimum wage and bigger social benefits. The Center promises to create 100,000 new Swedish jobs offers no clue as to how it is to be done.
THEIR APPEAL EVIDENTLY lies in the things they oppose. The British Liberals have been winning with candidates who are very liberal, garbage, schools, local police and the like.
The Swedish Center made huge strides in the last election by denouncing 'Palme's forced consolidation of local governments, bringing to a beautiful countryside by alterating cities.
At the national level, the party calls for directly elected Parliaments for Scotland, Wales and other regions. It calls for putting in place legislation that trains and canals, rather than highways.
Griff and the Unicorn
Similarly in Britain, Peregrine Worshorem of the Sunday Telegraph, the author says he possesses to a philosopher, dismisses the Liberal party as "much too good to be true." He contends that Liberals can't resist being threatened by a system required "bloody-minded ruthlessness."
The conventional labor and business parties do not know what to make of all this. One of Palme's advisers privately sneered at the Center before the vote on Sept. 16. He called them "nostalgic romantics, seeking to recreate a pastoral idyll that never was."
by Sokoloff
Guest Editorial
Time to Wade, Time to Think
There is an old and often repeated adage, used by parents everywhere, which says, "Have enough sense to stay calm," because it virtually impossible on this campus.
But great shades of childhood, who would want to?
The rain brings out color: yellow boots, gaudy orange capes, hats of all descriptions. It also brings back the true blue of faded dams soaked to the knee. Besides, it's romantic to share an umbrella with a loved one. A gallant gesture at that, since both parties will get wet in the process.
Quais is bac Goode doubtt Tenne Unive yester Fam Hawwl Mem before
And it's a challenge. Try to maneuver into position to pick up a copy of the Kansan over by Green Hall and back away without jabbing or being jabbed by
Far City :
Sioux
Dean
were
would
Jay Go
The umbrellas alone are a delight; especially those fantastic transparent bubbles. To look at the world through a "bubble-brella" with the rain streaking the plastic surface is to see the world through the eyes of Van Gogh.
The makin nesse a wea Volum
But the rain presents invisible threats a great puddle right in front of the Union defense.
those pointed demons of umbrellas.
Ah, in the days when we had time for wading in the paddles, and building dams to tide the gutter's flow. Now we have time only to jump clumsily across on our way to the waterfront. We are mature adults, here to exercise judgment on matters of great importance.
That's why we go to class in the
Jay his a Goode Saturo
pouring rain without raincrops. That is why we don't bother to buy umbrellas. And that's why we catch colds, why we cough and feel miserable.
Perhaps there is something to that old adage about staying out of the rain. It does have a figurative meaning which is often used with using good judgment, with thinking.
But the fact that we don't think enough, some of us, to fight back against the suggests that, in spite of ourselves, we have yet to leave childhood behind.
The very fact that we do think, most of us, about the price of ground beef, the energy crisis, Watergate or whatever, proves that we're on the right track.
Linda Hales
Readers Respond
To the Editor:
Never have I felt more confident of my ability in this regard than I did when I read "The Fate of the Man" by Stephen Crane for Men" in the Kansan on September 28. To carry the analogy with Socrates one step further, my purpose in writing this letter is to examine the positions they advance.
Just as did Socrates, I claim little or no wisdom. However I do, just as did Socrates, claim the ability, at least in some cases, to recognize what isn't wilt.
First of all, I would advise Doherty to either use words which she understands or else use a dictionary. She wrote: "Women's lib advocates would view Billie Jean's victory as vindication of all of Boby's earlier anything you can-do I-can-do better comments." One meaning of vindicate is to keep someone from doing something. Doherty, King's victory substantiated all of Rigg's claims. If this claim is true, then it is truly a man's world; we can't just lose.
No Wisdom in Sexist Writing
NEXT, PLEASE CONSIDER the unique philosophy of winning and losing that is implicitly presented in the editors' Note first of all that the battle lines were drawn strictly on sexual lines, i.e. men vs. women. Thus there were two groups of antagonists. Thus there must be one group would have lost and the other would, therefore, have won.
Yet in this match, according to the editorial headlines, we men lost yet the women won nothing. One is left searching for the "winner," i.e. whoever got whatever
Yet the women clearly didn't win anything, for even after the match Doherty ends up in the kitchen. It would seem inconceivable that a winner would serve KP.
Finally, and most importantly, each of the editorials was clearly sexist. First of all, both assume that the battle lines were strictly drawn on the basis of sex. Not only is that assumption exist in orientation it is also untrue.
nne men lost. I have decided that there was probably a hidden subservative group of a neuter gender and Communist leanings led to this conclusion by a similar conclusion seems unavoidable.
Secondly, many of the typical symbols of sexist thinking were evident in the editorials. Doherty's "friend" is the typical male. He is busterous and assertive in
I AM CERTAIN that there were at least some, if not many, males who would have been more than willing to escape the burden of the "male mystique"—just as I am certain that there were some, if not many, females who were perfectly comfortable in the match. You could also believe they would have liked nothing better than to have its validity confirmed in the match.
MEYER UNDENIBLY ESTABLISHES that the males lost by describing with tremendous paths their stolc attempt to deny the real pain and lasting damage. (I was really worried when the floor told me that while I was writening on the Floor King went to bed, I noticed that he was to find out, it was only my ego. Believe me, it could have been worse.)
maintaining a position which Doherty chastises him for in a motherly (isn't-be-cute) fashion. When he is proven wrong he storms out of the room.
DESPITE BEING RIGHT, Doherty then sees the error of her ways and realizes that "... my friend was absolutely right." Like a good girl she ends up in the kitchen.
Meyer draws the male stereotype with the stoeic male pacing and smoking cigars (as if a birth were expected on the court) and engaged in a continual struggle to win female affection. Meyer concludes by founding a secret club as a retreat for all males who know what they should do but women in the kitchen washing dishes and the men in the den smoking cigars and discussing their secret.
I WOULD LIKE to think that I have read these editorials on the wrong level of content and thus missed their true message. However, after reading and rereading them, I realize that their authors were unaware of the implicit sexist nature of their content.
FILMS ELLA FILMS ELLA FILMS ELLA FILMS SUA FILMS SUA FILMS
Therefore, I am quite concerned about the editorials, for if the issue of xiamen is ever to be resolved one way or the other the effect will be more severe than it might be rather than made ridiculous and confused.
Although most of us won't escape being sexually either male or female, perhaps we can escape the stereotypes of what it means to be masculine or feminine.
Gary L. Buckwalter
Turon Junior