4
Tuesday, March 25, 1975
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN
Editorials columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Metric aid needed
A thousand years have elapsed since King Edgar of England measured from the tip of his nose to the end of his outstretched hand to standardize the length of a yard. Edgar's foot, of course, became the standard measurement for the foot, and the distance between the knuckles of Edgar's royal thumb became the inch.
When one of Edgar's subjects needed the exact measure of a foot, but the King wasn't around, he would place 36 barleycorns end to end.
end.
As imprecise as King Edgar's measures were, they were adequate for the everday transactions of the Dark Ages.
Among industrial nations today, the United States alone clings to the system of weights and measures that King Edgar helped establish. All other industrial nations have adopted what is commonly called the metric system, with accurate measurements in International Units," or simply SI, based on the French Systeme Internationale.
Government authorities estimate that the United States may be losing as much as $10 billion annually in international trade because our system of weights and measures doesn't conform to the rest of the
Twice in the last three years Congress has refused to endorse a
changeover to the International System. Now Congress is again considering legislation to implement SI.
The major stumbling block for the changeover is the tremendous cost. It may cost me much as $50 billion to meet the targets to the International System.
Labor leaders and small businessmen are opposing the changeover until Congress and the President agree to make the tools President Ford, however, wants a changeover without such government aid.
Former President Nixon's refusal to allow a government subsidy was in large part responsible for the two Congressional rejections of SI. Mr. Ford is willing to compromise, SI may go down to a third defeat.
If and when a compromise is reached, the United States will undergo a conversion period of about 10 years, during which time calories, quarts and degrees Fahrenheit are adjusted to degrees Celsius. About the only measurement that won't be changed is that of time.
Conversion to SI is generally considered inevitable. President Ford should take a more flexible position than his predecessor in regard to government subsidies so that at last we can be on our way.
Steven Lewis
Sitting down with a group of mayors these days is like attending a wake in Disneyland. The mourning gets so mixed up with the make-believe it's hard to handle when to cry and when to laugh.
Not that any sane American can doubt that our cities have some incredible problems that seem certain to worsen in the coming months of economic distress.
Woeful mavors want dole
BUT YOU LISTEN to these mayors, as I did a few days ago, and you find them skirting some of the truly grim realities.
Mayor Joseph Alioto of San Francisco shocks you with a report that one person out of 10 afflicted by COVID-19 afflictant is now on welfare, with another 10 per cent living on Social Security. It means, he said, that almost a third of San Francisco lives in a subsistence level.
THE MAYOR of Gary, Ind,
Richard Hatcher, says that despite grinding unemployment
the Hatchers can predict a long, hot summer of
violence, a la the 1960s. Hatcher says a new the style of rebellion is already under way—meaning
rebellions in robberies and burglaries.
Another mayor talks about how heroin is back on the streets in plentiful supply, with police trying to keep it down in his town in the last few months.
And yet another mayor says that cities' tax bases are eroding and their revenue sharing funds are dwindling to
mayors if they see a ghost of a chance of having $$$ billion given to them (instead of putting it into a tax cut) when the cities
By Carl Rowan Copyright 1975 Field Enterprises, Inc.
the extent they must lay off policemen, firemen and other workers—all at the same time they are being offered a pittance of money for public service jobs.
Newark's Mayor Ken Gibson evokes groans with the report that his city collects an $1,000 annual property tax on a $20,000
You have guessed that these mayors were in Washington looking for money. They want a direct outlay of $5 billion from the federal government, arguing that this is a far more efficient and effective economic step than a tax cut ("people will just put it in their savings accounts") some amount. Mayor Perk of Cleveland explains passionately that the federal government "drains some $3 billion from my area every year" and that all he's asking for is some of that money back.
You recognize all this as the true, desperate world of urban America. The make-believe begins only when you ask the
House, the Congress and the state legislatures are saying that they won't give priority to the cities because there aren't many votes for them in the cities.
at the marys. There is just no evidence that, unlike the Republicans and Democrats before him, Ford is going to allocate federal dollars without an eye toward pleasing the people most likely to vote for him.
But then, just about all the mayors are smart enough to know this. I rather suspect they are operating on the hope that they say loudly enough, often in small talk, and cares about the cities," then Ford himself will begin to believe it.
Readers respond
It was tragically clear that the Nixon administration put the cities way down on its priority list. The mayors are now saying that things have changed and others have not. We have us believe that Ford administration sees the problems and needs of the cities as transcending all considerations of race and politics.
Nice idea. If it works.
That's where my weeping over the cities turns to laughing
Data doubted
To the Editor:
I would be very interested in examining the data of the exhaustive study Steven Lewis referred to in his editorial, "Biblical balderdash," on the social relevance of the Bible.
While Lewis' goal of criticizing poorly founded objections to the Equal Rights Amendment is commendable, his ends aren't justified by his means.
Although the Bible and the works of great philosophers may not provide a moment-to-moment schedule for our daily lives, I can't accept his views. I don't little use because "we are entering the age of scientific observations."
The value of the Bible and other works written thousands of years ago is that they are a means of teaching us to think and make our own moral hidgments.
To satisfy my curiosity, what are the "dozens of more useful books today" to which Lewis referred?
Robert Schmisseur
Robert Schmisseur
Lawrence Graduate Student
Service offered To the Editor:
The passages of the Bible quoted and cited by Lewis may be taken out of context of the story from which they were drawn.
More criticism of 'Biblical balderdash'
I am a professional journalist.
I have worked for seven
newspapers and two radio
stations, and my work on the
strength of my writing.
For the past year I have been reading stupid editorials, written with tortured rhetoric and illogical argument, by your writers, Steve Buser and Steve Lewis. Now nice is nice but Lewis is 17 varieties of a bungal cavity or so I feel.
and I am tired of suffering his folly.
Apparently you have no journalism students working for the Kansan who can write interesting editors. Why not fire yours and hire ours? If you promise to break it gently to your teacher, you will be tolerant as a writer, I will write some editorials for you.
are populated more and more by racial minorities, and when some politicians in the White
Mark R. Edwards
Mark R. Edwards
Larned Graduate Student
Why Me?
To the Editor:
Acts 9:4 (paraphrased)
Chris Haas
Leaward Freshman
"Steven, Steven, why are you persecuting Me?"
Aid unwelcome To the Editor:
Concerning the editorial, "Biblical balderdash," by Steven Lewis, in the March 19 Kansan—if you are really interested in the ERA, please refrain from writing more editorials such as this. Your narrow, dogmatic statements rival those of the people you are putting down. Your own immaturity is showing.
Erma L. Morgan
President
Lawrence Business and
Professional Women's Club
The Bible, as I view it, is a catalog of human values set down by so-called inspired men in form. A sense of ethics or need for human harmony is the motive behind these writers. The Bible tends to be a classic for all times. Yet, as we all know,
Another view
To the Editor:
history books, written by historians, are subject to hearsay error and value judgments. We can only assume that the inspired men were indeed inspired.
I am suggesting that maybe a large part of the Bible is a good resource for this question, and that its construction is a piece-together. Since the Bible is indeed a collection, who decides it will be put into a scripture-dified to be put in the Bible?
To get the most from the Bible, I think we should use our own good judgment and interpretation with an open mind to the possibility that some biblical literature may be unqualified or inaccurately interpreted.
Tony Pickert
Tony Pickert Kansas City. Kan.. Senior
I would like to comment on the editorial, "Biblical balderdash," written by Steven Lewis. You are probably aware, Steve, that you certainly opened yourself up for attack with such a forceful opinion about the Bible. But I'm not going on purpose. Well, I'm not going to attack you, nor will I try to defend the Bible any more than I will try to defend God. He can handle that.
God loves him
To the Editor:
What I want to ask you is, Why have you rejected the love of God? It is He that made you, Jesus, the one who knew that God loves you; God demonstrated His love for you, Steve, by giving His Son, Jesus, to do for you. If this is true, then Jesus is important than knowing God. If this is false, then this Jesus is the biggest hoax ever created, and the book that tells about it is nothing but "balder-dash."
If you really want to find contradictions in the Bible, then turn to the most important even
in the Bible, which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Disprove that and you can throw the whole Bible away, for that is what Christianity is based on. If you find that it's wrong, you should God loves you, Steve. Then you can come to know the "living Word." Jesus Christ, and His word will become alive to you.
Thad May
Prairie Village Sophomore
The anticrist To the Editor
His latest editorial, "Biblical baldderash," is no exception. In it, Lewis has taken the Equal Rights Amendment and used it as his springboard for an onslaught that I found on offensive and illogical against the Bible.
For two semesters, Steven Lewis has filled the editorial pages of the Kansas with essays that appear to have but one purpose—to tear down the moral structure of American society by attacking the Christian faith.
Lewis states that the Scripture "contains a lot of primitive nonsense" and is full of conflation. The book is reading with a closed mind.
If one is searching for contradictions, one will find them—whether they exist or not. The Bible must in an open mind before anyone can hope to gain any sort of understanding of its meaning. Attempting to comprehend Scripture in and among ourselves as attempting to explain the color blue to a blind man. I might also call attention to 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is inspired by God..." and must, in all its parts.
Lewis further states that in the hands of certain people the Bible becomes "a cruel and vicious weapon." This, however, is the fault of the Bible, according to Scripture. There is no more reason to throw out the Bible because people have misapplied it than
Many of the "contradictions" of the Bible simply result from the individual reader's scope of understanding. 55-8, 9, states, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways My ways," declares the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than clouds, so are higher than your ways. And My thoughts than your thoughts." Man's perceptions are obviously not all—encompassing as are the clouds, but somewhat similar to a child who can't understand why it doesn't always rain when there are clouds. His comprehension is simply not great enough to understand this "con-
there would be to chuck every chemistry book on campus if a student misapplied a formula in detention, blew up Malott Hall.
Finally, Lewis states that "the Bible serves only to impede the maturation of humanity." But what is mature about a rising crime rate, falling morals and an increasing cheapeaking in the values of humanity? Fifth of the "maturity" we will achieve by throwing the Bible out the window, I would prefer America remained in its adolescence.
Jonnie Gamba
Osage City Sophomore
`MAN, THE ONLY NICE THING ABOUT GOING NOWHERE
  IS THAT YOU GET THEE FAST'
Burke's America waning
**Term life, if you may.**
an anniversary piece. The dateline is London, March 22, 1775. The occasion: Edmund Burke's speech on conciliation with the American colonies.
"in this character of the Americans a love of freedom is the predominating feature
Two hundred years have passed since Burke moved the adoption of his resolutions in Commons. His desperate, 18th-hour purpose was to force England couldn't win, and toward that he marshaled a brilliant argument of reason, sentiment and fact. His resolutions failed, of course, and less than a month later on April 19, came the decision of Lexington and Concord.
BURKE WAS 46 that spring. He had been re-elected to Commons a few months earlier as a member from Bristol. As an acknowledged leader of the opposition, he was just growing into those magnificent powers of thought and speech that would serve him to whom he invoked in 1797. "Burke to whom conservatives look today as the fountainhead of their philosophy. His insights, like good wine, grow better with the years.
"The proposition is peace," said Burke. "Not peace through the medium of war; not peace to be hunted through the longest intrigue, the endless negotiation; not peace to arise out of universal discord, fomented from principle, in all parts of the empire. It is simple peace, sought in its natural and in its ordinary bounds."
BURKE PLEADED with the king's ministers to consider both the advantages of peaceful trade and the uncertainties of distant war. But there was a third consideration as to America: "I mean its temper and character."
which marks and distinguishes the whole. This fierce spirit of English colour is often English color, probably in than any other people of the
By James Kilpatrick (C) 1975 Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
speech thus to cut off its arms and legs for purposes of concentration. The great Whig was the first English writer, and the English language like some
earth, and this from a variety of powerful causes."
Burke went on to define six influences that contributed to the American's love of freedom. First, of course, was their inheritance as Englishmen. This included certain convictions as to government and manners and manners figured in the general American spirit, Education, especially in law, had rendered the colonists "acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defense, full of resources." Finally, "three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them" and this distance necessarily weakened the Crown's authority.
As one consequence of this "fierce spirit of liberty," said Burke, Americans "aurgur misgovernment at a distance and snuff the approach of a new kind of ever-breathe. The rebellious colonists wouldn't abandon their love of freedom; they scarcely could be prosecuted individually on criminal charges: "I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a man with an unlawful course was to yield to the American spirit, and to make just concessions toward self-government and peace.
It does an injustice to Burke's
virtuos at a bell tower. Few statesmen have matched his ability to capture ideas in phrases that ring and echo.
These echoes should give us
pause today. What has become of that "love of freedom" that 200 years ago marked the American character? Is it still strong, still lively? Does our temper still embrace a "fierce spirit of liberty" as the melancholy anchors us, no. As a people, we are less independent, self-reliant, less passionately dedicated to personal responsibility than we were two centuries ago.
Burke couldn't make his speech today. The American character has softened, weakened, grown feeble with age. As we enter theicken stage, he might be able to reflect soberly on why that spirit has been diminished, and how it may yet be regained.
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