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University Daily Kansan
Thursday, Jan. 7, 1965
Impressions of a Man
A professor remarked last month that any adult who remained a vigorous sports enthusiast had not fully matured. This professor is as dedicated to the discovery of knowledge as few other men I know, and the death Sunday of KU sports publicist Don Pierce reminded me of the gulf which existed between the ex-professional football player and the academic community in which he worked.
TO DON PIERCE, you see, sports was everything. He was engulfed in it from early in the morning until late at night. He subscribed to more newspapers than probably any other individual in the university. But so far as I know, he was interested only in the sports sections.
"If it doesn't have to do with Big Eight football, then I'm not interested in it," Pierce is supposed to have said in his typical gruff manner to a student last year.
Another case in point is last Nov. 4. I had taken him by the elementary school near his home the evening before so that he could vote. The following day about 6 p.m. I asked Pierce what he thought of the election results. "Oh, the election," he finally said. "How'd it come out, anyway?"
DON PIERCE WAS contemptuous of some members of the school administration on the ground that they were slighting athletics. His desire, which even he admitted was impractical, was for athletes to receive four-year scholarships, and then be relieved of class requirements so they could spend their entire time in sports.
Perhaps the feeling was mutual. A former faculty member tells of the time a movement was afoot to glide Pierce out of his job. This came to the attention of area sports writers. The subsequent burst of praise for Don Pierce on sports pages across the midwest was something to see—and a subtle reminder that the men whom Pierce helped liked him very much, thank you. Pierce kept his job.
The important thing, then, was not that Don Pierce was out of place at KU, because he wasn't. His job was not to teach political science—or anything, for that matter—but to boost athletics at this school and to help sports writers cover the multitude of sports events.
There was one other thing about Don Pierce. Though he pitied and was slightly aloof from people like myself who would rather talk politics than football, he would go out of his way to help almost anyone. Thus he filed stories for me when I was ill and wrote to sports editors far and near on behalf of another young journalist, who will be graduated soon.
THIS HE DID, and his singlemindedness of purpose was as much an asset to his job as it was endearing to those who had known him long.
THESE ARE MY scattered impressions of Don Pierce. I lived partially in fear of this man, probably because he was a strange bear in this forest, but I would dearly love to see him glance up from his battered typewriter once again as I walk in his office and debate whether he should say hello.
— Fred Frailey
Jackson, A Strong President
Presidential power in the United States is assessed in many ways, but it is usually judged by the man who holds the office.
The power which can be exerted by any president is governed by the mood of the people, the cooperation of Congress, the time in history and the ability and desires of the man himself.
The nation will celebrate the birthday of Andrew Jackson, March 15. who has been assessed as one of the strongest and most dominant chief executives in the country's history. He was our seventh president.
Jackson was narrowly defeated in 1824 by John Quincy Adams. Four years later when Jackson was elected a new era was created and another came to an end. Adams had a difficult time with Congress partly because of his narrow margin of victory and partly because in the last two years of his administration he faced an opposition majority in Congress.
Jackson was the first chief executive since George Washington to be chosen in a manner involving Congress neither in nomination nor election. He was selected by presidential electors in state legislatures.
The state legislators were elected by popular vote so Jackson was believed to be the first popularly elected president.
He used this so-called mandate, as well as other things, to become the strong and powerful president that he was. He enjoyed the support of the House of Representatives, and committees were organized for effective co-operation with the administration.
The president's place in the American constitutional system was established during the Jackson era. Jackson made the presidency a "people's choice" and removed it from the hegemony of Congress.
The transformation of the presidency from a congressional to a popular agency was not accomplished without a tremendous and bitter struggle, however. The good thing about the transition was that it seemed to be a rallying point of the rural and laboring masses.
A real battle of presidential power erupted when Jackson vetoed a bill to re-charter the second Bank of the United States four years before expiration of its original charter. Jackson contended, among other things, that the bank proposal was unconstitutional.
President Jackson stated quite frankly that if asked he would have produced a bank bill both constitutional and expedient.
The audacity of the chief executive to make such a suggestion violently angered the Senate majority. Jackson, in his veto message, seemed to be saying that the three great departments of government—the presidency, the Senate and the House—should co-ordinate measures to determine constitutionality.
The Senate said the case of McCuiloch vs. Maryland had in effect decided than Congress could charter a bank. The Jackson Administration maintained that the case, as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, had not covered this particular bill. Jackson asserted that the opinion had no authority over the issue. The Whigs in the Senate could not see that Jackson was simply exercising bare presidential power.
After re-election in 1832 Jackson, thinking his bank veto had been vindicated, decided to withdraw public funds from the bank before the expiration of the charter. His attorney general, Roger B. Taney, told Jackson it was legal under the Constitution for the secretary of the treasury to withdraw the funds.
Jackson had to transfer one secretary of the treasury and fire another before he got one to withdraw the funds.
The ir e of the Senate Whigs boiled over again as they contested his power to remove a cabinet official who would not obey his orders. But Jackson said the Constitution gave him the power to control his cabinet. He stated further that nowhere in the Constitution did it say that the Senate could require him to account to it about communications between him and his cabinet.
Whig leader Henry Clay then introduced a resolution of censure against Jackson for ordering the funds withdrawn. The move back-fired, however, when Jackson, an astute politician, hit upon a more popular chord with the public as he accused the Senate of becoming an oligarehy.
Jackson told the Senate he knew the powers of the president under the Constitution and fully intended to exercise them.
His technique was different, as he gained his power by appealing to and manipulating public opinion. Jefferson had gained his power through close co-operation with the Congress.
Referred to as "King Andrew the First," Jackson sought and gained more power as a president than any since Thomas Jefferson.
Presidential powers gained during Jackson's Administration have not been lost. Modern presidents have used "public support" effectively. Abraham Lincoln had it during the Civil War. Franklin D. Roosevelt's "fireres chats" were another example of the public appeal technique to gain more power and endorsement of decisions.
Fees
—David J. Hanks
This time the increase is $15 a semester for Kansans and $50 a semester for non-residents, bringing the grant total to $137 and $337 a semester for next year. Now, in anybody's language this is money paid to be allowed to attend KUL.
"Tuition," according to good old Webster, whom we all learned to trust in Freshman English, is the price one pays for instruction and, assuming one is at KU to obtain instruction, it seems logical that the money he shells out to be enrolled here could be termed "tuition."
A student certainly can have nothing against top-commutative salaries for professors. After all, a course is only as good as the instructor teaching it, and our purpose here is to get as good an education as possible.
HOWEVER, since that nasty word is prohibited by state statute at "state supported" schools in Kansas we call this charge a "fee" and pay it anyway.
However, the question is who is supposed to be responsible for keeping these salaries competitive in what is called a state-supported school system.
WE COULD NEVER DENY that it takes money, and lots of it, to run a university or college and if they can afford it, most students are willing, after a certain amount of gripping to pay for the valuable return of a good education.
But let's stop kidding ourselves. Either the student is paying for this instruction he receives or he isn't and the state is. As long as the student is assessed the amount still needed for the operations after the state has allocated all it's going to, he is paying tuition—plain and simple.
WHICH STILL LEAVES us with a rather interesting semantic problem, a little reminiscent of Orwell's double-think. All we have to do as we stand in line to pay this tuition is repeat over and over to ourselves. "I do not pay tuition, I do not pay tuition . . ."
-Kay Jarvis
"We Ought To Get Some Idea From The Cast"
BOOK REVIEWS
THE COURSE OF THE SOUTH TO SECESSION, by Ulrich Bonnell Phillips (American Century, $1.75).
In the spring of 1932, the historian Ulrich Phillips gave a series of lectures at Northwestern University. These were called "The Course of the South to Secession," and they have been edited and assembled by another Civil War historian, E. Merton Coulter, to add to the vast literature on this subject.
Phillips was a southerner, born in the Georgia plantation country and graduated from the University of Georgia. His bias—if the word is not unfair—was southern, and in his writings he has treated the economic and social structure of the Old South.
These lectures concerned themselves with the development of a self-consciousness in the South, an idea that became the white supremacist notion that many adopted prior to the Civil War. What slowly evolved was a rationale, a defense of the institution of slavery, a belief that did not exist in any great sense earlier in the century.
It's likely that many readers will find the Phillips thesis hard to take. He is one of the staunchest defenders of the southern position. His view may have played a role in stands taken in recent years by intellectual backers of the segregated society.
THE WORLD'S LIVING RELIGIONS, by Archie J. Bahm (Dell Laurel, 75 cents)—A paperback original that is thorough and not at all sketchy in his depictions. Archie J. Bahm is professor of philosophy and comparative religion at the University of New Mexico and has been a Fulbright research scholar in Buddhist philosophy at the University of Rangoon and in the history of Indian philosophy at Benares Hindu University.
Bahm has a somewhat wide canvas, but he does not try to deal with all the splinter religions of Christianity, for example. He considers the meaning of religion itself, of primitive religion, and then breaks the book down into the religions of India: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Vedantism and Yoga; the religions of China and Japan: Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and Shintoism; the religions of western civilization: Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Humanism, and concludes with a discussion of what he terms "world religions and world religion."
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HATRED, RIDICULE, OR CONTEMPT: A BOOK OF LIBEL CASES, by Joseph Dean (Penguin, $1.25).
Here is a collection of readings that will be of special interest to students of both law and the press. Joseph Dean, says the introduction, is a "practicing barrister," and you can translate that if you have seen many Alfred Hitchkock movies. He has assembled cases that include famous figures and causes—Lord Alfred Douglas, Winston Churchill, Horatio Bottomley, Harold Laski, and the sons of the great Gladstone.
Dailiji Hänsan
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EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT Jim Langford and Rick Mabbutt Co-Editorial Editors