What's Inside?
Fleecing foreign students,
see editorial page. . . UP rebuttal,
see p. 4. . . KU's
World Affairs Week, see p.
3.
kansan
Serving KU for 76 of its 100 Years
LAWRENCE. KANSAS
76th Year, No.38
Weather
The United States Weather Bureau predicts partly cloudy weather for tonight and Thursday. The low tonight will be in the mid 30's.
Wednesday, November 10, 1965
East Recovers from Big Blackout
NEW YORK—(UPI)—The biggest short circuit in the nation's history demonstrated today how vulnerable America is to a single mishap. It brought hardship to 30 million persons in eight states and Canada—and a hopeless snarl to New York City transportation.
Power was virtually restored throughout 80,000 square miles plunged into darkness at 4:28 p.m. CST Tuesday. But, with the lights back on, new troubles mounted.
Even with service restored, the cause of the massive power failure remained an incredible puzzle, one that could take days, perhaps weeks, to solve. The failure produced fright in darkened cities—and anger in Washington.
- Stretched from Ontario to
THE BLACKOUT:
southern Pennsylvania, producing a cold, dark and sometimes fearful night for a sixth of the nation's population.
- Stranded 800,000 persons for five hours and more in black subway tunnels beneath New York. Thousands of persons, unable to reach their suburban homes, spent the night in smoky hotel lobbies or bars.
- Caused President Johnson and congressmen to call for a fast and full investigation aimed at finding the cause and finding a way to see that it never happens again.
- Established the proficiency with which the nation's defense system swiftly switched to auxiliary power systems to keep vital communications open and the nation's defense posture up.
- But made the nation realize how easily it could be plunged into crisis by a single unexplained accident.
Today, almost 12 hours to the minute after the lights went out, power was restored in most of New York City. But it came too late to avert a massive transportation snarl that promised to keep millions of people away from work.
THE NEW YORK Board of Education said schools for the city's one million children would open—but urged youngsters who normally use public transportation to stay home.
HAVE KU STUDENTS been fooled? Perhaps it's the ants who have been busy piling up dirt on the site of New Fraser not the workmen.
Elsewhere, one death was blamed on the power failure.
James A. Brown, 76, died after suffering a heart attack while fighting off an intruder who broke into his home during the black-out.
In Washington, a congressional expert on power was plainly angered by the crisis. "I had no idea anything like this could happen," said Rep. Walter Rogers, D-Tex., chairman of the power subcommittee of the House Commerce Committee. He explained that Congress had been assured by experts that such a thing could not happen. "Well," he said, "somebody was mistaken, because it has happened."
IT WAS A miserable night for New Yorkers. When the power
☆ ☆ ★ ★
LBJ Acts to Relieve Power Crisis in East
JOHNSON CITY, Tex. —(UPI)— President Johnson was bumping along a country road near his ranch Tuesday when he heard the incredible bulletin on his car radio. The entire northeastern United States was blacked out by massive power failure.
Quickly the Chief Executive snatched up a microphone under the dashboard and called the communications center at his ranch.
IN SPEEDY succession he talked from the car with three key men in Washington—Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, Buford Ellington, director of the Office of Emergency Planning, and Joseph Califano, special assistant to the President and one of the Chief White House trouble shooters.
Even as Johnson drove toward his ranch home beside the Pedernales River, the frequently slow wheels of the huge federal establishment began to turn rapidly.
THE CHIEF Executive was as amazed as many of his fellow countrymen that a mechanical failure could plunge the most populous section of the country into darkness, immobility and in some places, terror. And he wanted to know why.
AT WHITE HOUSE press headquarters in the Driskill Hotel in downtown Austin, Tex., Press Secretary Bill D. Moyers and his staff began relaying word from the President and the federal government to the rest of the country. News wires and broadcast lines from the hotel carried to New York, Boston and Philadelphia details of the power failure which many of those involved in it did not know.
Johnson put the Defense Department to work opening military airfields to commercial planes unable to land at their regular airports. Army Corps headquarters were ready with everything from portable generators to medical supplies.
Vote Turn Out Light As Fall Elections Start
Voting began this morning in the All Student Council living district elections. Students can cast their ballots at polls in the Kansas Union, Strong Rotunda, and Murphy Hall.
Vote totals as of 11 am. today. In the ten living districts were fraternity, 140; sorority, 46; men's small residence halls, 33; men's large residence halls, 122; women's small residence halls, 7; women's large residence halls, 95; freshman women, 71; professional-cooperative, 9; unmarried-unorganized, 67; and married, 23. Freshman class officer votes totaled 207.
VOTING WILL continue through 6 p.m. today and 6 p.m. Thursday. Votes will be counted Thursday night and early Friday in the Statistical Service at Summerfield Hall.
There are three trays of ballots at each poll and eight trays of dean's cards listing name, address,
and classification of voting students.
One of the big problems in any KU election is how to keep from losing all of the IBM pencils. Because of this, 12 dozen IBM pencils have been distributed. These are kept sharpened at all times
WORKERS AT the polls also cause numerical problems. There have been 250 ID cards readied for the poll workers.
More than mere numbers is involved in this election. There are people. People wearing "We try harder" buttons, and driving around in cars with a big red UP on them.
There are other people who are not wearing any buttons but who are driving around in their cars with Vox Populi on the side.
And there are still other people who are waiting impatiently for the news. They will not know until tomorrow night whether or not they will be members of the ASC.
failed, 800,000 subway riders were trapped in blackness. Hours later, the last had inched their way through tunnels, one by one, and into eerie streets lighted only by automobile headlamps and the flashing red lights of patrol cars and ambulances.
In the Empire State Building and other skyscrapers, elevator riders waited for five hours or
At Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y., male students took advantage of the dark to invade a co-ed dormitory and stage a pany raid. Campus police broke it up.
more for rescue. At last, workmen swinging sledge hammers smashed through the walls of elevator shafts and of the elevators and freed them.
Caught up in the suffering were millions of the people over an 80,000-square-mile area, in all or part of New York state, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and a large swath of Ontario province in Canada.
In Massachusetts' Walpole State Prison, 300 convicts rioted for four and one-half hours and were finally subdued by teargas.
The Pentagon reported defense communications lines untouched by the trouble because of auxiliary power systems. But government experts were certain to reapprise the nation's vulnerability in view of the widespread chaos.
THE LONG NIGHT made heroes of ordinary men. With whisles and flashlights, men stood for hours on street corners, trying to get traffic moving. Hospitals pleaded for ice to preserve their blood banks. Strangers took strangers into their homes for the night.
The crisis spawned fear from the start. All over New York City, rumors of an imminent Russian attack were heard. Fear fed on the mystery. In Times Square—the Great White Way gone black—banks of teenagers called out: "The Russians are coming."
New York Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller was stranded in a circling airplane for a time. Finally he landed at LaGuardia Airport, was stranded in traffic and—reaching his Manhattan office building at last—climbed 15 flights of stairs.
the governors of Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, and Rhode Island also ordered out guard units.
TWO FORMER Washington officials and a former U.S. senator were stranded on the 52nd floor of the downtown Pan Am building. They were ex-Sen. Kenneth B. Keating, R-N.Y., William P. Rogers, attorney general in the Eisenhower administration, and Kenneth C. Royall, secretary of the Army under the Truman administration. They finally bedded down for the night.
Surgeons at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York were in the midst of brain surgery when the power failed. They finished with the aid of an emergency generator.
Bellevue Hospital nurses went to a church and brought back hundreds of votive candles to work by.
Manhattan's Grand Central Station was jammed with frustrated commuters. They waited for hours before telephone booths for a chance to call their families to tell them they did not know when they would be home.