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Tuesday, October 13, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
Landon
Continued from p. 1
author of the biography "Landon of Kansas," said, "He was an outstanding governor of Kansas from 1933 to 1937. All sorts of standard parts of Kansas government came from him."
Landon, who emerged as the GOP's bright hope for 1936 by being the only Republican governor to win re-election in 1934, received eight electoral votes. Walter Mondale received 13 electoral votes in 1984, the second-lowest number in modern U.S. political history.
Landon received 36.5 percent of the popular vote, the third-worst showing in a two-way race since the turn of the century. Davis in 1924 and James Cox in 1920.
Long afterward, he acknowledged that he knew on election eve he didn't have a chance. Yet, he never expressed any regret.
"You see, I had never planned a political career," he said. "With me, politics was not a vocation but an avocation."
He never sought office again.
Landon was born Sept. 9, 1887 in West Middlesex, Pa., the son of an oil explorer who began drilling in Kansas near the turn of the century.
Landon spent his college summers working with the oil field wildcatters, doing menial chores. He graduated from the University of Kansas and
then went back to the oil fields, this time on his own.
He digus first hole — a dry one — in 1910 and brought in his first profitable well in 1912 in Nowata County, Okla.
Landon met and married Margaret Fleming of Oil City, Pa., in January 1915 when he was 28 and on his way to affluence in the oil business.
She died $3 \frac{1}{2}$ years later, leaving him with a year-old daughter, Margaret Anne. Heartbroken, Landon joined the Army as a lieutenant and after leaving the service in 1919 went to Independence, Kan., to make a
A decade later, he married Theo Cobb, a Topea socialite who was fascinated by his politics. They had two children, Nancy, born in 1932, and John Cobb, in 1933.
Landon's activity in Republican politics — and his reputation as a maverick — dated to 1912, when he worked in Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose campaign. He won the Kansas governorship in 1932, defeating incumbent Democrat Harry H. Woodring, by 5,600 votes.
Landon gained a reputation for thrift and economy as the nation reeled from the Depression and the Dust Bowl. When the Kansas Legislature refused to cut his $5,000 annual salary, he returned 25 percent of
each paycheck to the treasury. He was elected to a second two-year term by 10 times the margin of his first race.
Landon was no shrinking violet when it came to sharing his opinions.
In his mid-80s, he would call party leaders and let them know what he felt should be done. They didn't always do it, but they listened to the "voice from the heartland," as Richard Nixon once described Landon's letters.
Landon had opposed Nixon's nomination for the presidency in 1968, but he became a staunch supporter once Nixon won.
Landon maintained an active schedule in later years. His eyesight began to fail, and his hearing grew so weak he found it difficult to follow conversations, but he continued to show great interest in events of the day. He had 10 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
Landon called Kassebaum's Senate victory in 1978 — when he was 91 — "the thrill of a lifetime."
"My whole record shows I was something of a maverick," he once said. "I've always been free to act as I wanted. It was my own personal decision, and I've never regretted it. I've rather relished my role."
Kansan reporter Virginia McGrath contributed information to this story.
Former KU instructor dies at 84
Rv a Kansan reporter
Memorial services for Mildred LeSuer, 84, a former Douglas County budget director and KU instructor, will be at 3.p.m. today at the Lowman United Methodist Church, 4000 Drury Lane. in Tooeila.
Ms. LeSuer died of cancer Saturday at a Toeika hospital.
She graduated from the University of Kansas in 1926 with a degree in economics. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Mortar Board at
She was an instructor at McPheron College before she returned to college.
director for Douglas County. She went on to become assistant state budget director and director of schools for state colleges and various states under the Board of Regents.
Mrs. LeSuer later became budget
Mrs. LeSuer also had lectured across the country on government and finance.
On Campus
French Table is scheduled for
today at Parlor C in the
Kansas State.
■ "Liberation Theology: The Gospel, Human Freedom and the People of God," a seminar, is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. today at Ecumenical Christian Ministries, 1204 Oread Ave.
Tryouts and practice for the KU Soccer club are scheduled for 5 p.m. at Bank Complex, 23rd and Iowa streets.
KU Hispanic-American Leadership Organization meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. today at the International Room in the Kansas Union
College Republicans meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. today at Alderdale
Kansas Secretary of State Bill Graves will speak.
"Women and Health Risks," a workshop by the Emily Taylor Center, is scheduled for 7 p.m. today at the Pine Room in the Kansas Union.
■ "Mishima," a video about a Japanese author, is scheduled for 7 p.m. today at Downs Auditorium in Dyche Hall
■ The fall concert of the University Wind Ensemble is scheduled for 8 p.m. today at Swarthout Recital Hall in Murphy Hall. Robert Foster will be conducting and Frederick Fennell is guest conductor.
On the Record
KU Fencing Club is scheduled for
8:30 p.m. today at Robinson Gymna-
tics
■ An AM-FM radio/cassette player valued at $360 was taken between 7 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. Sunday from a car parked in Heatherwood Court, Lawrence police reported.
A 16-speed bicycle valued at $335 was taken between 5 p. m. Friday and 4 p. m. Sunday from a residence in the Lawrence District on Main Street, Lawrence police reported.
A fraternity crest valued at $300 was taken between midnight and 2 a.m. Sunday from the lobby of the Cherry Hill Road, Lawrence police report.
An AM-FM radio/cassette player valued at $300 was taken between 8 p.m. Wednesday and 8:15 a.m. Friday from a car parked in front of building 20 at the Stouffer Place parking lot, KU police reported.
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A TRIBUTE TO COMPLACENT CAUCASIANS
In the University Daily Kansan's September 11th issue, staff columnist Jim Farquhar confesses to having "sat through a showing of 'Silent Scream' the movie . . . (which) gruesomely depicts what an abortion looks like from the inside out . . ."
Says Mr. Farquhar, "But while I watched the movie, I kept wondering what this scenario would look like without a sanitary hospital and a trained doctor on hand. Much more grushes, I'm sure. Oh what a sad movie this would be if producers had dealt with the child abuse that can occur because of unwanted pregnancies."
While admitting that abortion is a "gruesome" procedure, Mr. Farquhar supports its legitimation because illegal abortions and some child abuse are, in his opinion, "much more gruesome." Because Mr. Farquhar feels "The problem with an issue like abortion is that no one can talk about it without getting emotional," he thinks "right-to-life groups ... (who) have always had a penchant for melodrama" are feigning distress when they object to both septic and aseptic abortions.
Perhaps Mr. Farquhar now is considering the preposterous American Civil Liberties Union claim that life begins at birth. Or he may be wondering how syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman in the July 3rd Journal-World can cheerfully categorize as "good news" the astonishing opinion that even after another Reagan selection joins the Supreme Court "no one believes the Supreme Court would define the fetus as a human being." (Ms. Goodman then dances away without naming the species of which the fetus is a temporary member.)
But because Mr. Farquhar still considers an abortion "gruesome," he has yet to become one of those complacent Caucasians who praise, say, the present use of television, publicly funded economic development, and the superficially regulated sale of automobiles, liquor and guns, while dismissing any discussion of abortion as "just talk." He may even read the Roe v. Wade decision and discover, in Associate Justice Harry Blackmun's words:
The third reason . . . advanced to explain historically the enactment of criminal abortion laws in the 19th century . . . is the State's interest — some phrase it in terms of duty — in protecting prenatal life. Some of the argument for this justification rests on the theory that a new human life is present from the moment of conception. The State's interest and general obligation to protect life then extends, it is argued, to prenatal life. Only when the life of the pregnant mother herself is at stake, balanced against the life she carries within her, should the interest of the embryo or fetus not prevail. Logically, of course, a legitimate state interest in this area need not stand or fall on acceptance of the belief that life begins at conception or at some other point prior to live birth. In assessing the State's interest, recognition may be given to the less rigid claim that as long as at least potential life is involved, the State may assert interests beyond the protection of the pregnant woman alone.
When Justice Blackmun, who delivers the Supreme Court's judgment, implies in the first sentence that our government has only an "interest" rather than a "duty . . . in protecting prenatal life," he ignores the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments which prohibit anyone's depriving another "of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." In the second sentence, Justice Blackmun uses the word "theory" to classify the long-recognized fact that life begins at conception. Although Justice Blackmun concedes in the fourth sentence that the intrauterine being is alive, he then proceeds to describe this intrauterine being as a "potential life" in the sixth sentence.
When it is alleged that the fetus is a "person" deserving of Fourteenth Amendment protection, the Court admits: "If this suggestion of personhood is established . . . the fetus' right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the Amendment." But when presented with the "well known facts of fetal development" seven members of the 1973 Court inexplicably note that each reference to persons in the Constitution "has application only postnatally. None indicates with any assurance that it has any possible prenatal application." These jurists evidently don't know that most statutes prohibiting abortion were passed during and after the Civil War in response to pressure from American Medical Association members who realized life begins at conception and objected to snuffing it out.
Mr. Farquhar may be interested to learn that the pro-life contingent has produced another film about abortion entitled "Eclipse of Reason." Whereas "The Silent Scream," according to the February 2nd, 1987, Newsweek, "purported to show a 12-week-old fetus recoiling and writening in pain as it was being surgically aborted, . . . Eclipse of Reason' does not show the fetus's reactions . . . but . . employs advanced techniques, including a fetoscope — an intrauterine viewing device — and a camera positioned at the mother's feet. The resulting pictures of bloody fetal material being pulled from a woman's vagina and reassembled on a table are disturbingly stark and may prove hard for critics to dismiss as misleading."
Many complacent Caucasians are practical folk who object to discussing abortion because "that's just talk." These embodiments of industry would rather focus on the occasional activity which occurs in a golf game, lottery drawing, or shopping mall excursion, than engage in "pointless or fruitless discussion" (one dictionary's definition of "talk") about intrauterine life. But Mr. Farquhar still sounds willing to acknowledge that one of the reasons, in the words of the Constitution's Preface, "We, the people of the United States . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America . . . (is to) secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." William Dann
Of course, legal abortionists are held to be emotionally balanced physicians who simply want to "work." Each member of this utilitarian group's productivity is a function of the number of intrauterine beings whose age the abortionist accurately gauges so that he may choose the most efficient method of terminating the pregnancy.
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