Editorials
The Fighting 89th
Billed by Lyndon Johnson as "the fighting 89th" for its impressive record of accomplishment, the 89th Congressional session has reached the midpoint of one of the most productive sessions in American history. From civil rights legislation to medical care for the aged, from highway beautification to repeal of excise taxes, Congress erected significant legislative milestones.
WITH AN OVERWHELMING Democratic majority, President Johnson, the master builder of the Great Society, had little trouble coaxing the lawmakers to follow his legislative blueprints, with two notable exceptions. Senatorial conscience and deference to public outrage and sentiment squelched two of the most controversial topics in the Congressional session. The nomination of Francis X. Morrissey to a federal judgeship in Massachusetts and the proposed repeal of section 14(b) (right-to-work) of the Taft-Hartley law were committed to Congressional oblivion, at least until next year.
The legislators in first session of the 89th Congress were activators rather than innovators. While all the major bills passed were firsts in Congressional legislation, foundations for them have been debated for decades.
MEDICAL CARE FOR the aged, aid to elementary and secondary education, immigration law reforms, promotion of arts and humanities through federal aid, spurring Negro voting rights in the South, beautification of the landscape and controls on air pollution all became law for the first time.
A tidal wave of social legislation flowed into every corner of the country—the poverty war, medicare, funds for medical research, raises for
federal employees, increased social security benefits, pay boosts for everyone in military service, vocational education programs, expansion of drug controls and landmark bills for beautification of highways (a present for Lady Bird?) and aid to arts and humanities. The latter will probably be regarded in America's cultural history as one of the most significant bills ever passed. Until this year, the U.S. was behind almost every other country in official sponsorship of the arts.
Lyndon Johnson left an indelible imprint on American society. It was Lyndon's Congress, Lyndon's ideas, Lyndon's programs and above all, Lyndon's powerful coaxing, that shaped most of the important pieces of legislation. It was his Great Society that was shaped by the 89th Congress, and it will be left to history to say how much of the program was conceived by anyone but Lyndon.
BUT WHAT WAS NOT passed is as significant as what did become law, because it demonstrates that the 89th was not, as charged, a rubber stamp legislative body. Johnson's efforts for a teacher corps, repeal of right-to-work laws, merging the Army Reserves and National Guard, home rule in Washington, D.C., and closing of federal installations by executive order without Congressional investigation were unsuccessful in Congress.
President Johnson called the session "the greatest in the history of our nation." Whether or not he would have said this if Congress had not come across with much of what he requested is moat. But certainly there can be no doubt that this session's laws will affect America's social history for decades.
— Karen Lambert
The People Say...
Resist the Reds
DEAR EDITOR,
You who call yourselves pacifists, conscientious objectors, do you realize what you stand for and the magnitude of this position? When you stand with signs and placards protesting the war in Viet Nam and the draft law, do you ever think of what would happen if every single American male eighteen years of age and older suddenly agreed to join in your movement? Ponder the consequence of your pacifism.
NO COUNTRY HAS yet stopped the growth of Communism through isolationism or pacifism. By refusing to stand against Communism, one is, in effect, helping it along by offering no resistance to it. As it has previously shown, Communism does not lend itself to peaceful coexistence. You who place great faith in revolution, can you suggest a bloodless method of carrying one out against a power such as Communism? Or who among you can make a compromise with North Viet Nam without surrendering human beings to complete loss of the democratic freedoms you claim to cherish? Who among you would refuse to resist Communism if it threatened this country, the scene of your
The editors welcome letters of opinion from all Kansan readers. We reserve the right to edit all letters for style, content and unreasonable length. All letters must be signed. Opinions expressed in letters do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors.
many demonstrations against "injustices." By your actions, you are condoning, if not openly supporting, a form of government guilty of far more atrocities and greater imperialization than you will ever admit. By your selfish aims, you are killing off freedom in a world where freedom is life.
James Schleske Lawrence freshman
Cycle
One hundred years from today, imagine KU;
With different buildings, ideas and curriculum too.
But the student protest will still be around.
For, alas, New Fraser is being torn down.
John Hill
Lawrence freshman
It Used to Be...
By Dorothy Elliott
Oct.27,1915
Leona-d Liebling, editor of America's liveliest musical journal.
The Musical Courier, will be here to give a lecture-recital Oct. 30.
Nov. 14 will be University Sunday in Lawrence churches and it is hoped that 1500 students will attend.
With the British blockade encroaching on German commerce, the price of chemicals for the KU pharmacy department has gone up, and quantity of supplies on hand have gone down. Aspirin that formerly cost $3.50 a shipment is now $12.
Advertisement—"Oh, You Bonehead," an out-of-the-ordinary college football story by Ring Lardner, is in this week's Saturday Evening Post at Griggs.
Don Pierce, Jayhawk captain, turned in one of the greatest games a KU pivot man has ever played in the game Saturday. Although K-State won 20-0, Pierce was the outstanding lineman of the day.
Oct,27,1940
The homecoming decorations contest will stress originality and cleverness with expenditures not to exceed $15.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
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"It's A Start"
2 Daily Kansan Wednesday, October 27, 1965
BOOK REVIEWS Paperback Potpourri Gives Views of Culture
Society, culture, anthropology, economics, geography-quality paperbacks offer much in these lines. Of most interest, perhaps, are a number that relate to the rise of communism and the revolutionary impulse in the modern world.
One of the best of these is Crane Brinton's The Anatomy of Revolution (Vintage, $1.45), which is a kind of classic of its sort. Brinton has revised his work and has made a number of changes. It remains a volume that perceptively treats revolution in the modern world. Another volume is TheTrial Begins and On Socialist Realism, by Abram Tertz (Vintage Russian Library, $1.65). These are works of the Soviet literary underground that suggest there is still exciting thought in a repressed society. Both reveal the dilemma of the writer in modern Russia. Irving Howe has edited The Basic Writings of Trotsky (Vintage Russian Library, $1.95), a comprehensive work that will introduce to the general reader the work of the celebrated revolutionary. The collection is representative and ranges over most of Trotsky's career.
The American culture, which doesn't appeal much to Dwight Macdonald, is the subject of the writer's Against the American Grain (Vintage, $1.95). It is mass culture that displeases Macdonald, a man who is democratically oriented but who resents the many writers who, in his opinion, pander to the lowest common denominator. Yet how many readers can manage the people Macdonald prefers? He is a stimulating and infuriating commentator.
Jules Henry's Culture Against Man (Vintage, $2.45) is another look at the American character—an examination of our economic structure and its values, of family relationships, of schools, old age, war. Henry's view of our society is not as angry as that of Dwight Macdonald. It is an anthropological examination but also almost a tract in its appreciation of much of our society, even though he sees many things that he does not like. Henry Bamford Parkes' God and Men: The Origins of Western Culture (Vintage Giant, $2.95) is a striking reexamination of our cultural heritage as based on the traditions of the Holy Land and ancient Greece. It is part of a scheme to present western civilization from several standpoints.
There are a few places where the anthropologist does not range. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, in The Harmless People (Vintage, $1.65), makes an expedition into the bush country of Southwest Africa and offers an absorbing depiction of the primitive Bushmen and their burning desert society. Oscar Lewis, who wrote "The Children of Sanchez," offers another work. Village Life in Northern India (Vintage Giant, $2.45), which is embellished with tables, graphs and photographs to provide an exceptionally good cultural treatment. Elena de La Souchere's An Explanation of Spain (Vintage Giant, $2.45) is a description by a half-Spanish, half-French student of the modern Spanish nation, of the Civil War, and of recent developments.