Wanted: Western understanding
An American Marine in 1943 watched in horror while Japanese soldiers, on a distant cliff, lined themselves up to be beheaded by their officer, to escape capture.
And yet only a few years before then, the same Marine watched Japanese throw coke bottles at an ampitie in a Tokyo baseball park.
SOMETIME IN the 1920's a Chinese general, named Feng Yu-hsiang, gathered several thousand of his troops on an open field and sprayed them with water through fire hoses. He then, with a pistol slung in his belt, pronounced them Christians.
An American B-29 in 1945 dropped an atomic bomb on a town called Hiroshima—a town many Western missionaries had boasted about, because it contained so many converted Christians.
Last summer 30 to 40 thousand Indonesians were machine-gunned, stabbed, and beaten to death by gangs of teen-agers, so that they could have a military democracy.
IN JAPAN Odo Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyosni have as much meaning to Japanese children as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson mean to American school children.
In the 1930's when Hitler's "Brown Shirts" were causing trouble in Germany, Chiang Kaishek's "Blue Shirts" were doing pretty much the same in China.
THESE ARE but a few small examples of a very complex and long history of an area called the Fart East, Chop-suey, Mr. Moto, Charlie Cham, honey buckets, the Dragon Lady, and chop-sticks are not part of that history.
Neither is Pericles' funeral oration in defense of democracy, or Cicerio's discourses on Roman
law, or the Magna Charta, or the words of Voltaire part of that history.
Perhaps it is not necessary to interpret the current events in the Far East, because a man named McCarthy raised his huge, bloated head and shouted "point of order," and raised the banner of pure Americanism against a word—communist. That he neither found nor convicted any communist is history.
BUT, IF HE accomplished nothing else, besides making a mockery of American beliefs and proving he could bully the United States Senate, he found a magic word.
His magic word is a seemingly simple explanation for spending billions of dollars on a small war, and for sending thousands of American teen-agers to mortal combat, while the rest of the country cries out for higher wages, higher profits, betters cars, and sends boxes of cookies to "our boys" in Viet Nam.
AT THE SAME time the President seeks some way for an exchange of airline services between the United States and Russia, while American-made planes are shooting down and being shot down by Russian-made planes and anti-aircraft guns. It does not seem to make sense.
The Far East is an area where Western Democracy and Western Communism have far less meaning than a full bowl of rice and two strong live sons to work the soil. If the Far East has democracy or communism as the United States or Russia hopes to see, it will be by name only, designed to suit its own unique Far Eastern political, economic, and historical needs.
By JOHN LOVEKIN
DECLARATION!
Dear Powers-that-Be;
What this campus needs is a good dose of destructive criticism.
We mean criticism which cuts to the quick of the faults of this place. We mean criticism which is blatantly objective and forthright. We mean criticism which turns every way like the sword in the story of Adam and Eve. We mean criticism which is cold, hard and direct.
WE GET FED up with the advocates of so-called constructive criticism. Those people are so interested in diverting direct attack against themselves and their personal niches that every dissent is viewed as a frontal assault against
Americanism, womanhood and the establishment.
SO WHEN we discover something that doesn't measure up to our infantile standards (by your definition), we begin to dissent. And you reply, "Now you don't understand." Or even worse, you may say, "Come on in here son and we will talk this thing over." Talk. Talk. Talk. That's all that happens when we dissent.
SO COMRADES, let's get on with the destructive criticism. Let's begin ignoring those superficial feelings which may get hurt. Let's start going out on a limb and cutting away the dead wood from ourselves and our institutions.
LITTLE MAN ON.CAMPUS
"YES, I KNOW I'M GIVING TH' SAME FINAL THAT I GAVE LAST TERM BUT THIS TIME I CHANGED TH' ANSWERS."
Our call today is for some brave soul to ignore the subtly restrictive voices of our elders and take a bold new step into the dim and fearfully regarded world of honestly destructive criticism.
YOU SEE. we don't know all the answers. But there are problems which we can define even though we, by ourselves, cannot supply the solution. You powers that-be, have, however, even stopped us from exposing problems with your continual reference to our responsibility as being one of "constructive criticism."
WE ARE NOT psychologically tied to any organizational or personality structure. We are merely affected by it. Doesn't that in some small manner qualify us to raise some criticism. Why should you expect us to supply the answers? You haven't been able to. In fact, most of your time is spent perpetuating problems because you won't listen to us as we try to point them out. When we do expose a problem, we are simply dismissed because we are hard put to answer, "Well, what would you do?"
Our criticism is largely destructive because we don't know all the positive answers. But the destructive criticism, we believe, often can serve a very positive function.
Pardon our arrogance, but that latter question is irrevelant.
No, we don't want your job. We just want you to do it a little better. We want you to open your eyes to your prejudices and biases. We too want to make a contribution to society. But when we are not allowed to do even a simple thing like criticize destructively, we wonder what the older generation has come to.
Pyrrhus and Cineas
Daily Kansan
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editorial page Tuesday, October 25, 1966
Spotlight on state elections-Ⅱ Battle royal in Illinois
The pall of brutal murder that hung over the Illinois U.S. Senate race in early October has long since lifted—and a political battle royal has taken its place.
By DAN AUSTIN
Before Sept. 18—the day Valerie Percy, daughter of Republican hopeful Charles H. Percy, was found murdered in her bedroom—the re-election of long-time Democrat incumbent Sen. Paul H. Douglas seemed guaranteed.
NOW, NOBODY in Illinois is taking bets on one of the nation's most significant Nov. 8 contests.
When the mourning period ended Oct. 10 with a speech by Percy to the City Club of Chicago, both political camps aimed their guns at Illinois voters.
Although a three-week moratorium on campaigning was declared by Sen. Douglas after the death of Percy's daughter, observers at the time spoke of a decisive "sympathy" vote for industrialist Percy.
IT WAS SOON clear that Sen. Douglas, a 74-year-old former economics professor seeking his fourth straight Senate term, supported President Johnson's domestic economic and Viet Nam policies.
Percy, who once was a student under the then professor Douglas and who at the age of 47 was chairman of the board of Bell & Howell, charged the President with bringing "ruinous inflation" and spoke vaguely of an all-Asian conference to end the war in Viet Nam.
CONFUSING THE simple issue conflicts between the senator and Percy was the entrance of Waukegan mayor Robert V. Sabonian into the fray as a write-in Independent Democrat.
Mayor Sabonjian, 50, a product of the much vaunted "white backlash," had won fame for halting the three-day Waukegan race riots. (He opposes open housing and stands with that political catch-all, law and order.)
AS CAMPAIGN FLURRY increased, candidate Percy was quoted in the newspapers as saying he was "sorry" Red China was not a member of the United Nations.
That remark, made to a Northwestern University student, set off a word explosion in both camps.
Already "tainted"—in the words of his more conservative supporters—with a liberal streak, Percy aroused the ire of Illinois right-wing Republicans with the favorable mention of Red China, but he also won some backing from pro-Douglas liberals.
SEN. DOUGLAS, with a stroke of unwitting political genius, was stating his distrust of the Chinese at the same time Percy seemed to promote them. The senator's campaign staff was in ecstasy.
With the Viet Nam issue toned down—both candidates were really advocating the same hawkish-doveish policy—the Red China issue became the crux of the campaign.
Previously, Sen. Douglas had been losing support to Percy in Southern Illinois, especially around East St. Louis. In fact, several political observers had noted that if Percy gained significantly in this area, he would win.
BUT BY OCT. 19 the senator had begun to blitz Southern Illinois voters with anti-communism (and anti-Red China) speeches. He also directly attacked an obscure piece of the Percy platform—the all-Asian conference.
With backlasher Sabonjian of Waukegan (who apparently will pull equal but insufficient votes from both candidates) out of the way, and with the veteran Senator's renewed campaign in the southern part of the state, the Percy-Douglas race will go right down to the wire.
OVERSHADOWED by the senatorial race, aukwarm campaign for the U.S. House is also on the Illinois ticket this year.
Of the 24 Congressional seats, 13 now belong to the Democrats. The other 11 are Republican.
That 1966 political phenomenon, the white backlash, may cost the Democrats one and maybe two representatives in the Chicago area. Already several Chicago Democrats have been forced to oppose open housing in order to keep their heads above water.
Illinois does not have a gubernatorial contest this year.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
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Serving KU for 77 of its 101 Years
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Managing Editor
Business Manager
Patrick Murphy
Jack Harrison, Eric Morgenthaler
NEWS AND BUSINESS STAFF
Assistant Managing Editors Judy Faust, Joan McCabe, Robert Phillips Steve Russell
Barbata Phillips, Steve Rosen
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