Page 4 University Daily Kansan, September 10, 1982 Opinion Tailor-made promises President Reagan came to Kansas yesterday with a speech tailored to a Midwestern audience. Unfortunately, his words were only window dressing for a theme on economic recovery that he has used since he ran for office. The president told 10,000 people at Kansas State University that, even though 11 million people are out of work nationwide, the economy was growing stronger. Quoting from the Bible to emphasize his point, he said that even the unemployment rate was beginning to turn around. "You may have read the passage in the Psalms which says: 'Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning' . . . Today, that long night is ending. We will see a new dawn of hope and opportunities for all our people.' He added, however, that his news would be "cold comfort to someone out of work." That news is also a cold comfort to university students, 7,000 of whom attended his speech, who will be leaving school soon and looking for jobs. Despite the president's confidence, those students may find the job market to be as tight or tighter as it is today. The president was telling his audience what he thought it wanted to hear, filling his speech with pleasantries about Kansas and fixing the blame for the economy on past administrations. His visit to Manhattan and Topea was just the start of a campaign trip to promote Republican candidates running for election in November. After he finished at K-State, Reagan flew to Topeka to attend a $500-a-person reception and a $100-a-plate luncheon to raise funds for the Kansas Republican Party. Students expecting to see joy in the morning anytime soon ought to recognize the president's rhetoric for what is: more campaign promises. Football fan's life isn't easy even facing winning season Tomorrow the football season, the real reason many of us came to KU, officially begins. Okay, you say, nobody in their right mind comes to KU for the football season. Basketball, maybe. But football? Well, look, even when KU has losing seasons, which is most of the time, there have been enough great players and enough fans to keep the Draft Stadium from becoming just another his PAC 12 game. And, byhey, KU's coming off a winning season this time. People are actually thinking about spending New Year's in Miami, and Sports Illustrated has even included KU in its pre-season issue. So what it most of it was about KU's investigation of KU, it's recognition right? With a little luck, and maybe a plane wreck between Nebraska and Oklahoma, KU might have an honest-to-goodness shot at the Big Eight title. Now the only problem I've got with all this is that it's the players who get all the publicity. TOM GRESS Okay, okay so they actually go out and put their knees and ankles on arms on the line for good at all. It's not easy being a fan. At KU, and I, suspect many other colleges, the football weekend is no three hours at the stadium, then home to watch Notre Dame play anybody on the game-of-the- Huh-uh. The football weekend is a tough, demanding regimen testing the physical conditioning of every fan, along with his or her elbows. And this season, a fan. A fan explained it to him, one pink one. "You think I like all this? Football means drinking from Thursday night until 2 a.m. Sunday morning. I'm hungover until the next game. "The only reason I start drinking on Thursday night is because I'm a business student, and we don't have classes on Friday. I sure as hell didn't want to do it, but I fill up my time. No way I'd rather get loaded." "But I'm getting off the point. You know what's really tough about these games? Deciding what to wear, I mean, it's a damn Sakh Fifa fashion show out there. Like the girl in front of you, you're very strong and confident, ruffulous, frilly blouses, her hair is just so, and you expect her to go grazing out to the 50-yard line at halftime, while the public address announcer goes, "Now modeling the latest in football-season apparel is Miss Molly Marpel, Mission Hills junior basketball team," Calvin Klein Gridiron Collection and one of the those frilly blouses by Bill Blass Stadium Design." Collection and one of those frilly blouses by Bill Blass Stadium Design. "And that's not the half of it. You think Frank Seurer's got problems worrying about whether he'll get his head torn on a blind-side tackle or Wayne Capers worrying about getting shorn in half when he hauls down a pass over the middle."Hey, I get to dodge and duck cups, ice and Bacardi bottles, and I don't get to wear a helmet or pads. "I mean like last year I'm sitting watching the game, minding my own business, mixing a little rum into my coke, and BAM! right in the back of the head, one of those cups that says MAKE IT FUN! I have has a picture of Don Dambrough on it open, fifty gall. It musta been Nolan Ryan up there. "Well, blood is spillin' out all over my new $28 white buttdown, and I turn around with my own cup, and I gotta fire at somebody, anybody! Next thing, it's like the Israeli air force showed up. Cups, programs, ice, shoes, freshmen girls, hell, right before I pass out I see the band trying to take out the section in front of it with its tubas. "I wake up in Lawrence Memorial, my hand's all wrapped up, they're pumping three pints of blood into me, and the doctor tells me I ought to watch the games from a less violent area. "So next game I get sites in the alumni section. And listen to this: One guy, he tells the people around him that he could only afford to donate to the chemistry department, that he didn't have enough to give to the athletic department. You know what happened? Everybody starts booming him! And then the cups fly. And these are grown men and women! As soon as the cups go I hit the deck. I look up, and the police are giving him an escort out of the stadium, and people are tripping and kicking him. "Finally the game starts and things settle down. Until the third play, Searser tries to hit Capers over the middle, see, and Capers, he just gets creamed by some defensive back that had to be the second coming of Jack Tatum, and Capers is just lying all over the astroturf, probably thought he was back in Florida at a Jai Alai match or something. "Course he dropped the ball. And some guy, two rows over he from me, some short guy wearing a striped tie, a corduroy jacket and horn-rimmed glasses, probably got cut from his high school football team as a water boy, he gets up and screams: 'HOW COULD HE DROP IT?' Next he screams: 'FIRE CAPERS!' FIRE FAM-BROUGH! FIRE BUDG!' all because Capers drops a ball he could've caught only if he had baited in stick-up the night before. "I've had enough, so I go home and listen to the game on radio. I get Tom Hedrick and he tells me how much character KU has, how much wisdom Fambrough has, what a foot Fucky Scriner has, everything but the score. I give up, I'm done. I'll just for the score on the Prudential Scoreboard." KANSAN The University Daily (USP 64-40) Published at the University of Kansas daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer session, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and final periods. Second-class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas 60456. Subscriptions by mail are $15 for monthly or $7 a week in Douglas County, Kansas 80425. Subscription within the county of student. Mail to: USP Education Services, 1300 W. 16th Street, New York, NY 10017. Through the student activity fee. months or £7 a year in Douglas County and $1 for six months or $1 a year outside the county. Student transfers are $1 a semester, paid through the student activity fee. Eller Business Manager Gene George Susan Cookey Managing Editor Steve Robbain Campus Editor Chandler Charny Campus Editor Mark Zieman Associate Campus Editor Assistant Campus Editors Sports Editor Coleman Loewen Entertainment Editor Production Manager Ann Wylie Markage Editor Ann Wylie Wire Editors Becky Roberts, Jan Bottle, Barr Ehl Wire Editors Japmurt Murphy, Anne Calvailo, Culbeh Dan Chief Photographer Harold Hugg Bookkeeping David Horback, Ben Bagliss Head Copy Chief Don Delplima Copy Chief Trevor Hamilton Staff Columnists Tim Sharp, Deanna Miles Staff Artist Tom Green, Hutton, Hal Klopper National Sales Manager Olivia Gommon, John Kowal Campus Sales Manager James Wenderson Campus Manager Matthew Langan Creation Manager Lance Schroeder Production Manager Ann Horberger Skill Artist Manager Feeling Mike Bamberg Tweakbook Manager Mike Bamberg General Manager and News Adviser Paul Jeans Administrative Manager It's 10 p.m. Do you know where your pages are? Older students would be better pages Corruption and stories about drug use and sex on Capitol Hill are not strange, but when they involve children, they are especially hard to ignore. As the nation learned this summer, young teenagers who serve as page in a congress need teachers and leaders. Pages are appointed by senior members of the House and Senate, usually from their home district. They must be between the ages of 14 and 17 in the House and 16 and 18 in the Senate. The pages then go to Washington, for a few months to a year, to run errands and deliver messages for congressmen. They attend a special District of Columbia school set up for the pages. The pages must find their own housing and provide their own food and recreation. Only white males — at least until 195 years ago — were appointed as pages. The program began in the early part of the 19th century, and the first senate page was Grafton Hanson. He was 9 years old when he was appointed by Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. In the Kansas Legislature, pages are younger, usually in junior high or high school. They spend only one day at the Statehouse and usually be accompanied by a parent or some other adult. They get a chance to meet their representative and senator and the governor while they run. They have an opportunity to meet the senator. Unlike U.K. pages, they are well supervised—each house has paid page supervisors. To be selected, the pages either write to their editors or believe it would be a page for a day by writing essays. The U.S. congressional pages, however, are usually from influential families with strong political connections and thus, congressmen often have to hard to subject the pages to strong discipline. Parents must submit a written statement "assuming full responsibility for the safety, well-being and safety of the appointee while living in the District of Columbia." This absolves anyone else from the responsibility, and any responsibility for her or for far-away parents to regulate their activity. Many parents, when sending their 18-year-old off to college, insist that their children live in dorms for their first year so that they will have the chance to learn and enjoy an escape from parental rules and restrictions. So too with the pages. They are essentially without supervision — and getting paid $8,227 a week. CATHERINE BEHAN year for their minimal duties. In some states it is illegal for a 14-year to work. Congress may have some serious re-evaluation to do about the pares system. The House Ethics Committee is looking into the problems and is expected to make changes in the system, which is what Levy Williams said was "the problem," according to his summer about sex and drugs on Capitol Hill. Some House leaders, including Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill, D-Mass., have suggested that Congress abolish the page system altogether and replace it with older messengers. This summer two pages said they had been involved in obtaining drugs and sex for congressmen — supposedly for special privileges beyond that of being a page. The most convincing tale, told by 18-year-old Williams, did not hold up under a lie detector test. He eventually admitted that his story was fictitious. He made up the stories to take the heat off himself because he was up against charges of theft. Williams realized that it is easy to ride on a congressional scandal. The public's low esteem for Congress makes it good breeding ground for the fruition of scandal. But many congressmen and their constituents have been more interested in the economy than in politics. I think Tip O'Neill's suggestion that Congress use older pages is a wonderful idea. Employing college-age students would be a very good solution for many reasons. When one is 14 years old, it might be hard to get a lot out of the job. For a college student, it can be difficult to do. First of all, there is the money. Many college students could use $8,000 for tuition for anywhere from a semester to four years, depending on the school. In this way, Congress would be getting messengers and at the same providing educational opportunities. Of course, that would not make cuts in Guaranteed Student Loans any easier to swallow, but it might look really good to the boss. Doesn't it then think highly of much that Congress does? Secondly, it would be a lot easier to let older kids be responsible for themselves than to have to set up dorms for the younger kids. College-age students could be responsible for finding their own housing, going to class, and refusing to do things that they wouldn't otherwise do, such as arranging drug sales, if the allegations had been proven true... Finally, the change would allow older students, who might well very know where their careers are going to make contacts and learn more about them. The new campus could even have the road for future congressmen. Not to mention that it would look great on a resume. Letters to the Editor Little Sisters defend fraternities' program To the Editor: In response to Adrienne Christiansen's Sept. a letter, "Little Sisters or wives?" we can appreciate the author's views, but as members of three separate Little Sisters, we think our reading will misunderstand As Little Sisters for the Delta Tau Delta, Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Triangle fraternities, we strongly object to the implication that sisters are "wives" and "slaves." The program is totally voluntary — no one girl is subjected to the role of maid, cook or anything else as a necessity. We have put out an effort to do favors for our big brothers, but in return we are granted the same. We have each gained a trusted friend and a strong relationship, not only with the campus, but also with the campus as a whole. Our brothers have helped us socially, academically and emotionally. Ms. Christiansen neglected to see past the face of the program to the inner workings of the relationships. As for the fact that one brother may have more than one Little Sister, the rest of the point should be clear; many houses simply have fewer men, and in an effort to welcome as many girls as possible into the program, some have two Little Sisters. Ms. Christiansen did not state whether she was personally involved in a Little Sister program herself or simply read the article in the Kansan. Therefore we did not discover whether her words were from experience or assumption based on her interretation We can only hope that anyone looking at the Little Sister programs here at KU will use an objective viewpoint when considering joining one. Melanie Corolis Dana Vechiola Delta Tau Delta Little Sister Dana Vechiola Chicago freshman Sigma Alpha Epsilon Little Sister Laurie McGhee Overland Park sophomore Triangle Little Sister vice president Team deserves support To the Editor: Good job, Gino! I want to commend the Kansan for trying to generate enthusiasm for the Javahaws football team. Since the majority of students are those who had to sit through loss after loss of football games two and three years ago, maybe that is why there is a lack of support from the students this year. They don't know what it's like to root for a winning team. With hope, they are not alone. This group is one of the major factors in making the promises of major sports writers a reality. To those who did not read Stippoll's article Sept. 7, he said, "Both Sports Illustrated and Playboy pick Kansas as one of the teams to win." And both newspapers pick the Jawahresa as THE team to watch." 'Granted, KU students had a reason to be apathetic two and three years ago, after teams like Nebraska beat the 'Hawks to a pulp. But after seeing KU play at NU in front of 75,000 screaming Nebraska fans last year, my skepticism turned to optimism and I converted into a loyal Jayhawk fan — and I'm from Nebraska! Now if I, a true red Cornhusker, can defect right in the middle of the Cornhusker stadium, surely the students of KU can get excited and realize that they can't pass up giving their undivided support to the most promising team in college football. It's all in your hands. KU fans, don't pass it! Heck, if Nebraska didn't have such tremendous crowd support, there is no way they could've accomplished what they have. And, (forgive me, Tom Osborne), looking at the two schools overall, students at KU have so much more to be proud of and to stand up and tell the entire world about, thatNU could ever dream of having, so Rock Chalk, Jayhawks! Grace E. Willing Grace E. Willing Omaha, Neb.. senior Letters Policy The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters.