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University Daily Kansan
Thursday, Nov. 12 1964
Their Life is Politics
Americans who have followed the recent news reports of the attempted overthrow of the Bolivian government may well have been surprised to note the important role of students in that uprising.
THE SPARK WHICH set off the general rioting and other disturbances in that country was, in fact, the death of a member of a group of students who were rioting in the country's second largest city, Cochabamba.
To persons in North America and to students in the United States in particular, it may seem somewhat unusual that students should be the first participants in a movement to overthrow the government.
Yet, in Bolivia, the students were indeed the first participants. For after the killing of the student in Cochabamba, the country virtually exploded in rebellion. Unions, miners and all sorts of dissatisfied persons soon got into the act, and with the students continuing to take an active part, threw the whole country into a general state of unrising.
INDEED, IF ONE will recall accounts of other Latin American political disturbances—the Castro revolution in Cuba, for example—one will note that students also played an important part in those movements.
To understand the reasons behind active student participation in the politics of Latin American countries, one must examine in some detail just how the student fits into the political framework in Latin America.
Perhaps the greatest factor in the emergence of the student as a political power figure in Latin America is that there the student is a member of an educational elite. The vast majority of the population of Latin America is uneducated. The masses of uneducated people look, therefore, to the students for guidance in their political decisions
S. WALTER WASHINGTON, U.S. Foreign Service Officer expressed, in an address, his interpretation of the attitude of the masses toward the student in Latin America.
"An important characteristic," Washington said, "of Latin America is that the many uneducated have a respect for the few educated. The students, those who are just entering the ranks of the educated, are looked upon as the ones who have the best knowledge of the past and are the most capable of charting the course for the future. Their views on politics are listened to by the uncultured, whether it be the military who have risen from the ranks or the poor who live in huts on the hillsides."
BY UNDERSTANDING this opinion which the masses of people in Latin America have for the student, one can better understand why it is that students who present a cause to the public are likely to find support.
Given the fact that students are respected in Latin American countries, one may well ask why it is that students there are inclined to exert their influence in politics. American students, with or
without the respect of the American public, are not, as a rule, likely to attempt to exert political pressures.
To understand the political bent of Latin American youth, one must first examine their upbringing.
ONE MUST RECOGNIZE, of course, that the vast majority of Latin American students are young men. As young men, they enjoy a position in the family which is quite different from that held by their counterparts in the United States. In their early teens, the Latin American boys achieve a position of prominence within the family structure which enables them to assert themselves to a great degree.
The Latin American boy, according to Washington, "... is encouraged to assert his ego in every way possible, especially in political discussion which is one of the main topics in every home."
This interest, coupled with a sometimes volatile state of affairs within the government of the Latin American government, makes the respected and followed student a logical source of political activity.
STILL ANOTHER SITUATION exists in Latin American countries which inclines students toward political activities. This situation lies within the schools.
In Latin America, students have, in general, a great deal more influence in the control of their schools than do students in the United States.
Student politics play an important part in the control of the schools. Since student politics are, then, actually important in the affairs of the Latin Americans, it is easily understood why interest in politics is keen.
THE REAL IMPORTANCE in Latin American student politics lies in their overlap with the politics of the country itself. Rather than having separate campus political parties, the Latin American students align themselves with the various political movements within their countries.
The political activity of young Latin Americans is not simply a form of recreation nor is it always simply the result of strong political convictions of the students. On the other hand, many of the students are active in politics in the hope of future employment in government positions. Jobs are, in fact, scarce for many Latin American graduates—especially those with degrees in the humanities.
When one understands that the future employment of the Latin American college graduate may well depend upon his political activities as a student, one can better understand the student's political zeal.
The basis for the Latin American student's political activity is, obviously, quite concrete and practical. With this in mind, one can easily see that it is not surprising to note that students play an important part in revolutions and other political movements in Latin America.
Marshall Caskey
The Way of a Man's Vote
The big power play pooped out in the home stretch.
SOMEHOW ONE has the feeling that the Republican Party must feel like the managers of a huge company who see their bid for consumer support ignored to the point where they wonder about taking out bankruptcy proceedings—or, at another extreme, applying for a government loan.
Sen. Barry Goldwater has vowed to retain the leadership of the Republican Party. This public declaration probably will make the Democrats sleep well at nights, and a number of Republicans to toss and turn in their beds.
GOLDWATER wanted to be President. His desire was of such magnitude as to be frightening. He had been campaigning for years. He masterminded an almost militant organization that swept the San Francisco convention like a conquering army,
POLITICAL observers are coming up with explanations from right and left. Politicians are already beginning to make public announcements carefully worded, of course, with the help of the best public relations counsel.
But in the last poll of all, Goldwater's "groundswell movement" washed back over the Republican Party like a tidal wave.
Gov. William Scranton's attempt for the nomination was more or less comparable to the bleat of a sheep in the wilderness.
The Kansas wheat farmers, according to the election results, supported President Johnson, the first Democratic candidate they have supported since the Great Depression.
Less than a year ago, the wheat farmers voted almost unanimously to take away wheat controls and throw their product upon the open market to get any
price they could get. But President Johnson went ahead and formulated a farm program in spite of their seemingly rigorous opposition against it. And in the heat of the campaign, he sent Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman to the Midwest.
Wheat farmers are in the spot they are in, he said, because they are too efficient. Agriculture has reached a great degree of efficiency in the U.S.
FREEMAN used the Public Information approach.
He also quoted statistics with which no one could argue. He pointed out that without government price supports, the farm income as a whole would have been reduced as much as a third. A farmer can be independent as he pleases, but when his files income taxes every year, there is no way in the world he can ignore the government checks.
Tom Hough
BOOK REVIEWS
PARADE'S END, two paperback volumes containing (1) SOME DO NOT . . . and NO MORE PARADES, and (2) A MAN COULD STAND UP—, by Ford Madox Ford, and LAST POST (Signet Classics, 95 cents for Volume 1, 75 cents for Volume 2).
This may be the new cult, but if so it is to be welcomed, and it likely will last longer than the one for Nathanael West. The books appeared in the twenties but the tetralogy was not to be published in a single edition until after Ford's death. There has been considerable interest in Ford, with these books and also with "The Good Soldier," for he was a perceptive social critic as well as a writer of considerable power.
The books are about the decline of an age, as seen through the eyes of the hero, Christopher Tietjens. Tietjens takes part in the great war of 1914-18, is torn by conflict with his wife, and must make a choice between the past and the new age, a time which he does not like.
The settings move past the battlefields of the war to the drawing rooms of Huxley and Waugh, to the hospital, the countryside. The canvas is a broad one, for Ford has conceived something on Sistine Chapel lines. A casual, easygoing world ended with the assassination at Sarajevo; Ford knew this, and he is able to paint, in these four books, the contrasts between the two worlds in which he had moved.
DOMBEY AND SON, by Charles Dickens (Signet Classics, 95 cents).
There probably isn't a more sentimentally moving episode in fiction than the death of Little Paul in "Dombey and Son." This is a tear-jerker but also an absorbing book, heavily over-caricatured, of English society in the 19th century.
It's a social book, too, for Dickens had become concerned about the conditions in his society. There were villains lurking in all the streets, and the life of a child was likely to be a bitter and cruel one. "Dombey and Son" is about a businessman, the hope he has for the ailing son, who dies too soon, and the misery in which the surviving daughter, Florence, lives because she is the rejected.
But there is a happy ending. Dickens can be depended upon for that; after all, his readers in the popular magazines would toss him aside if he made life too grim and miserable. So that will make pleasant reading for those of you who don't want the dark side of life all the time, even though these pages give you far more darkness than light.
Dailij Hänsan
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