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University Daily Kansan
Friday, Nov. 13, 1964
A New Choice
One would think that if last week's election meant anything, it was that the American people are not willing to accept the brand of conservatism championed by Sen. Barry Goldwater and his like. The Arizonan offered the voters "a choice, not an echo," and they made a choice in a magnitude not witnessed in decades.
WHAT HAPPENED TO the "silent voters" so loudly talked about before last Tuesday, the conservatives who went into hiding after Alf Landon's ignominious defeat of 1936? The truth is that there weren't any "silent voters," unless they can be called the moderates who flocked around the Democratic flag. And the "backlash" in protest of the Negroes' fight for equal rights—where was it? Except in the Deep South, where racism is still the only brand of politics practiced, there was no "backlash," only "frontlash" in almost unknown proportions.
So one could suppose that extreme conservatism is an unpopular approach to politics, especially in light of the respectable showing made by most moderate and liberal Republicans in the face of a massive defection of the party's votes to Lyndon Johnson.
And yet . . .
"I DON'T FEEL THE conservative cause has been hurt," Goldwater says. "I don't think we can build a Republican Party on their (moderate and liberal) concepts which, in my opinion, have no difference at all with the Democratic concepts."
And in New York, Richard Nixon says Gov. Nelson Rockefeller has "got his pound of flesh" for not giving Sen. Goldwater even stronger backing and thereby dragging the New York Republicans down to an even worse dunking in the election.
What Sen. Goldwater and Nixon are unwilling to admit is that most Americans don't want a rock-ribbed conservative, "anti" party.
FORTUNATELY, THERE IS AN influential bloc of leading Republicans who do see the realities of the 1964 election, and who realize that the only way to rebuild—not build as Sen. Goldwater says—the Grand Old Party is to steer it back to the great middle lane of the political road.
These men, including Gov. George Romney of Michigan and congressmen such as Rep. Bob Ellsworth of this district, have a difficult job facing them. One of the first tasks must be to rid the Republican National Committee of its Goldwater leadership. They also must infuse new leadership in Congress, which would mean the dumping of Charles Hallack, House minority leader.
SUCH MOVES ARE already in the wind. Gov. Romney has proposed an urgent meeting of Republican governors to consider the party's future, and the Michigan national committeeman, John Martin, has called for the resignation of Dean Burch, the $30,000-a-year national chairman.
Anyone concerned with the present imbalance of America's twoparty system can only wish these men luck. Judging from the results of Nov. 3, another four years of Goldwaterism could drive the GOP to the wall. It's too close already.
—Fred Frailey
BOOK REVIEWS
PIERRE, OR, THE AMBIGUITIES, by Herman Melville (Signet Classics, 75 cents)—Twenty-five years ago you could take American Lit. and come out with the impression that Melville wrote two books—"Moby-Dick" and "Typee." No longer. The symbolists, the young scholars skirting the fringes of our fiction for Americanist and Freudian meanings, have uncovered (they weren't really hidden, of course, but they were foreign to an age that preferred "The Vision of Sir Launfal") the other Melville novels, the short novels, and so on. No boys' book this—Melville is writing about evil, which, we are told, he also was writing about in "Moby-Dick." Whales, shmales, it's the symbolism of the wild chase that matters. The exploring Melville does here is largely in the mind and soul of its hero.
THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND, by William Makepeace Thackeray (Signet Classics, 60 cent)—A delightful stunt that Thackeyay pulls off, written in 18th century style and purporting to be the story of a man living in the days of, well, Tom Jones. Note, however, that this book well illustrates how the 19th century (in its literature, at least) had changed from the 18th—Henry is scarcely as loose-living a chap as Tom, or about anybody else in books written in that day. Henry Esmond's troubles and his adventures are as complicated as any Tom or Joseph Andrews had, and the book is a fine mid-Victorian effort to show how things must have been in Hogarthian England.
DRIVE. HE SAID, by Jeremy Larner (Delta, $1.55).
The literary magazines will be giving this one some attention, because it's the first Delta Prize Novel winner. The judges were Mary McCarthy, Walter van Tilburg Clark and Leslie Fiedler. They have chosen a book that is sharp in style but pretty dull in substance.
It will appeal greatly to those who have loved the beat literature of recent years and who think John Updike in time will replace Henry James as America's No. 1 novelist. It also has enough juicy sex and four-letter words to be meaningful to those who were taken with "Another Country."
Well, there are two heroes: Hector Bloom, who plays college basketball, and Gabriel Reuben, a young radical. Life is a deadly game to them, like basketball or, say, politics. The whole thing is shot full of symbolism and violence, and you can find commentaries on conformist America, revolution, fast driving, love, Zen Buddhism, the social whirl, and pacifism.
"And How Is Our Little Patient Today?"
Required Exercise
Editorial writers who drive to a point two blocks away shouldn't be talking, but it seems that KU needs some sort of compulsory physical education program.
And, it must be admitted at the outset, that KU usually draws applause from high school seniors and entering freshmen when it's learned the University requires no physical education like the other two state universities and several municipal colleges in the state.
PHYSICAL FITNESS, and the alarm about its status in recent years in the United States, should not be thought of exclusively in elementary and secondary school terms.
While most of its attention has been to these lower levels, the President's Council on Physical Fitness has said colleges should be required to:
- Give all entering freshmen physical achievement tests, with those failing required to take remedial physical education and those passing encouraged to take physical education courses stresssing sports skills and contributing to physical development.
- Require all entering freshmen to take medical examinations (KU fulfills this recommendation.)
- Require all students to take an examination in basic health knowledge with those failing required to take a course in health education.
With Americans gaining more leisure time each year, recreational sports are an important aspect of society. It seems that it is one of a university's legitimate obligations to help its students fit into such a society.
THESE SEEM like sensible and minimal recommendations.
While not urging the requirement that students take general physical education courses, it would be beneficial to require a certain number of hours in physical education courses stressing sports skills like tennis, golf handball, etc.
Speaking at last spring's annual Endowment Association board of director's meeting, Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe called KU's physical education program a "disgrace." He wasn't slandering Henry Shenk, capable chairman of the physical education department.
INSTEAD, HE was referring to Robinson Gymnasium, the campus' outdated physical education center which soon will be replaced by a new gymnasium south of Summerfield Hall.
It is hoped some sort of compulsory physical education program is included in the plans for the new gymnasium, one which should be large enough and up-to-date enough to handle such an obligation of the University.
Roy Miller
To walk across our campus on a windy autumn day with the cracking rustle of multi-colored leaves crunching under your feet gives you a feeling that cannot be described with words.
To gaze from the top of Mt. Oread as far as the eye can see to the soft pale blue mistiness of the ridges in the distance also creates an inner feeling that mere words fail to describe.
WHEN DARKNESS comes, the light of the Campanile and the twinkling lights of the city of Lawrence below us are also untouched by our meager language.
I don't believe I'm wrong in making a value judgment by saying that we do have a beautiful campus.
BUT, NO MATTER how close this brings us to reality, our present existence is in a pseudo-world. Consequently, I often wonder just where our values are developed. What values we do have when we arrive at college are either changed or eventually questioned to some degree.
And, no matter what new values we do develop they are not going to be adequate for the world without. Without what? The world without us, what else.
***
I do hope that everybody voted, though. I remember hearing someone speak of values developed in college. While voting may not be a value, it is a good habit to develop. I will take license and say from small habits, good things can develop.
WHERE IS the ASC going? As a matter of fact, where has it been? Don't get me wrong. I think the ASC is a good thing. The mainstream of college life at colleges everywhere follows its student government. I think sometimes though it might be better if student government followed the mainstream of student thought.
***
IF YOU can't think of anything to do this weekend try "West Side Story" tonight. Two and one-half hours of entertainment enjoyment is hard to find. "West Side Story" fills the bill.
AS YOU well know today is Friday the 13th. Beware of black cats, don't walk under ladders, rub your good-luck piece, and don't step on any cracks in the sidewalk. Your day and this weekend will probably be lousy.
The football game with Colorado could be tough. It certainly won't be a pushover. The fans could help their Jayhawkers by blowing their plastic horns only at half-time and during time-outs. Or better yet, leave the obnoxious things home entirely. School spirit is fine, but as it stands the quarterbacks can't scream the signals loud enough to be heard above the blare of the horns. Most of the horn-blowers remind me of kindergarten kids with a new toy.
- * *
Jim Langford
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
Roy Miller ... Managing Editor
Don Black, Leta Cathcart, Bob Jones, Greg Swartz, Assistant Managing Editors; Linda Ellis, Feature-Society Editor; Russ Corbitt, Sports Editor.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
EDITORIA
Jim Langford and Rick Mabbutt Co-Editorial Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
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John Pepper, Advertising Manager; Dick Flood, National Advertising Manager; John Suhler, Classified Advertising Manager; Tom Fisher,
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