Editorials
Kennedy Spirit lives
It was on a day much like this two years ago. There was a chill in the air and the autumn sun had just begun to come out at noon when you heard the news—John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the president of the United States, had been assassinated.
Reflection on the assassination easily brings to mind where you were and what you were doing at the moment you heard. The date, Nov. 22, seems forever etched in the history of our young minds. An assassination was an event we read about in history books, but we had never expected to live through one. Most of us had never even expected to experience a period of national mourning similar to that which followed the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The sadness of the assassination is that we continue to think of it as a day of ending. It is constantly referred to as the end of an era, the end of the reign of the "young prince."
YET, AN ERA DID NOT END. For we are the era, an era which began about 50 years ago and which encompasses the young in mind and in age. Kennedy was part of the era and representative of its emphasis on youth.
The Kennedy name lives on in this era. The Kennedy legislation is, for the most part, successfully through Congress and in effect. The
Peace Corps is a living realization of the Kennedy goals. The advancement in civil rights in the past year is evidence that the Kennedy fight for equality has not died. Lastly, there is the Kennedy image: the interest of youth in politics and the improved image of politicians.
Though historians and Kennedy intimates are just beginning an examination of the 1,000 days—Kennedy's term in office—most would agree that his work and leadership will insure him a place among the most competent of our presidents.
IT IS THE NEGATIVE approach, then, to think of Nov. 22 as a day of ending. A man died on Nov. 22, 1963; the man's name and work live on.
Jacqueline Kennedy has expressed a wish that someday it will not be John F. Kennedy's death that is commemorated, but his birth. The summer day on which John F. Kennedy was born was really the beginning of an era—the Kennedy era and our era.
When the sad recollections of Nov. 22 have disappeared, Jacqueline Kennedy may get her wish and the day which honors John F. Kennedy also will honor the Kennedy spirit of our generation.
Judy Farrell
The People Say...
Dear Editor:
YOUR EDITORIAL ON "MIS-guided Martyrdom" so clearly bears the hallmark of honest reaction to the events that I wish to try to react honestly.
To paraphrase your editorial, these men have obviously convinced themselves that they could, by their deaths, change Viet Cong policy on Viet Nam.
Many people have responded to their perception of what is going on in Viet Nam by going there and deliberately, willingly, albeit under military orders, putting themselves in the path of lethal weapons. Their wives, parents and friends who understand the nature and depth of their concern have given their assent to the possibility, even the probability of these men's deaths. And when they die we call them not martyrns, but heroes.
How far can one pursue the paraphrase?
One of the tragedies of our time is that we in the U.S. know so little about what is going on in Viet Nam. These stand in the way: the difficulty of gathering accurate reports, the management of news releases, the incongruities between Eastern and Western thought, and our own frequently scattered attention to the reports and the informed interpretations which do reach the pages of our newspapers and other media of communication. Our perceptions of the facts are further affected by our presuppositions about the meaning of life and the events of history.
OUR IGNORANCE MAKES it difficult to know which dying men are most truly serving the long term cause of truth. Perhaps these two deaths by self-immolation will stimulate people to look
more critically and more steadfastly into what is going on in Viet Nam, and into the validity of the presuppositions underlying American presence there. Anything that will make our activities there more realistic and our purposes clearer must be counted as helpful by both critics and supporters of our present course of action.
It is clear that this Quaker and this Catholic perceived the Viet Nam situation differently than those who offer their lives while seeking to take the lives of the enemy. Their act makes clear that this differing perception, which they share with many others, is as fervently held as is that of those engaged in and/or supporting our military action.
From Russia With Love
ONE OF THE MOST disturbing lines in your five paragraphs was, "But, it is equally horrifying because it will have no effect." Do you not suppose that many people besides you and me have been stirred by these 'martyrs' to reflect anew on what we are doing in Viet Nam, what goals we seek and what are the most appropriate means for reaching them?
Tom Moore Executive Secretary KU-Y
Tom Moore
A former KU freshman from Fairfield, Conn., is being held in the Topeka jail for failure to register for the draft. He had notified the Lawrence draft board that he did not plan to register, withdrew from the University, and waited in his room until his arrest.
It Used to be...
By Dorothy Elliott Nov. 22.1940
We were thinking..
The broad effects which can be obtained by punishment in man and beast, are the increase of fear, the sharpening of the sense of cunning, the mastery of the desires; so it is the punishment that tames man, but it does not make him "better."
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzche
2
Daily Kansan
Monday, November 22.1965
Illustration by Richard Geary
On The Side... Super ball bounces in
Leave it to the toy manufacturer's to come up with a juvenile play thing that appeals to no one except college students. Super balls are here.
Compressed with a new process to insure that each super ball is chock full of 50,000 pounds of energy, the super ball bounces over buildings, mystifies your friends, and makes enemies of the people in the apartment below and on each side of you.
Super balls really do work though, and they are amazing. But it seems like the material they are made of could be applied to some other more useful enterprise.
LET'S TAKE THE SUPER Sole, for instance. With material on the bottoms of your shoes, one could easily make short work of the arduous task of campus climbing we all have to experience.
The draft board will no doubt see the usefulness of this new material too. I feel it would solve the problem they have with draft card burners.
Not only would rubber draft cards be almost indestructible, but those who burned them would be easily found. A full-scale public draft card burning would no doubt leave a pall of heavy black smoke over the area making detection easy for whoever detects such things.
There are a few commodities made of rubber which should not be replaced by super ball material.
Eric Johnson
THE COMMON, ORDINARY, every-day typewriter platten would become deadly if made to be super-bouncy. A secretary, who had had a bad day and was perhaps a bit miffed at someone, might start pounding too hard on her typewriter keys and find the letters of her typewriter being repelled with so much force that the key would break off and impale her neck.
I am also reminded of a children's game called jacks.
I can remember when we wished we had a ball that would bounce just a little bit higher allowing us to get all those pigs in the pen or all of our eggs in the basket. The super-ball would do this, but might conceivably be dangerous on the rebound. I can see the headlines now:
COED'S JAW SHATTERED WHILE PLAYING JACKS
ADMINISTRATION BANS BALLS FROM CAMPUS
SUPER BALLS LABELED A COMMUNIST PLOT BY
CAMPUS FACISTS
CAMPUS COMMUNISTS CALL SUPER BALLS A FACIST PLOT
SPU DECRIES SUPER BALLS AS TOO VIOLENT
THE POSSIBILITIES are numerous.
-Eric Johnson
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