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University Daily Kansan Thursday, Oct. 15, 1964
One Theme Sublime
Well, dear reader, the time of year has finally arrived when this editor arises from his lethargic bed of peaceful repose to castigate in print that which violates his sense of what is right and what is wrong.
THE SUBJECT for today's diatribе is the English Proficiency Examination.
WHY?
Why, one night during the semester must students congregate for two hours extolling and criticizing such masterful topics as, "Is football replacing baseball as America's national pastime?" Or, other intriguing topics as birth control, the Warren Report and "A recent experience that has affected my life."
It seems as though three or four semesters of English is not enough for a student to develop some degree of proficiency in our native language.
Since it is a requirement that students pass the examination before they receive their degree from our esteemed institution of higher learning, the thought strikes me that it is a little ridiculous
for four years of work to be measured by a theme written in the space of a couple of hours in a classroom.
WHILE THERE ARE those people who will say, "So what, it's only one night during the semester and besides, what's one theme," I maintain the ridiculous is not sublime, just ridiculous.
THE ENGLISH PRO, as far as I can see is nothing more than a means for checking something. What it checks I'm not sure unless it's a student's proficiency in English.And as this seems to be the case, apparently somewhere along the red line of tape confidence has been lost in our English Department.
So, what do you do, dear reader? As the situation stands it seems that the only feasible means of recourse is to retire to a nice secluded spot where one can meditate without interruption and pray for divine deliverance from such inanities as the English Proficiency Examination.
And so, I retire to my bed of lethargy. Jim Langeford
The Maine-Vermont Switch
(The following article is the first in a series dealing with states and the nation in which it will be run along with the articles on campaign issues until the election.)
Is Barry Goldwater actually a Republican? Does he represent the GOP as its staunch members feel it should be represented?
According to current political leanings in the New England states, the answers to the above questions are emphatic "no's." An examination of probably the two most rock-ribbed Republican states in the country gives these answers validity.
THE ONLY TIME Maine has failed to vote Republican in a Presidential election was in 1912, when the Progressive vote split the GOP ranks and gave the state's electoral votes to Woodrow Wilson.
Vermont has never gone Democratic in a presidential election. In fact, these two states were the only two that gave their votes to Republican Landon when Roosevelt ran for his second term in 1936.
Yet these two strongest supporters of the GOP apparently will throw tradition to the winds in November and add their votes to the expected Johnson landslide.
A poll conducted by the Portland (Me.) Sunday Telegram on Sept. 20 gave Johnson 61 per cent, Goldwater 12 per cent, with the remaining 27 per cent undecided. The Oct. 2 issue of Congressional Quarterly called the political outlook in Vermont "doubtful," but said "Johnson seems to be leading now," reporting Goldwater's obstacle as the "coolness of the Republican party organization to his candidacy."
BUT THIS sudden and seemingly overwhelming transfer of political loyalty from traditional Republican to Democrat is quite likely to have more far-reaching effects than those on the Presidential election. Many political observers in New England feel that Goldwater's presence on the Republican ballot will greatly hamper the chances of the GOP's candidates for the gubernatorial and congressional offices in the states.
Traditionally in Maine and Vermont, thousands of extra voters, about 90 per cent of them Republican, have "come down out of the hills" to cast their one vote every four years, thus
giving the GOP the advantage in Presidential election years. But Goldwater's presence on the ticket, it is feared, may diminish the quadrennial GOP turnout and give the Democrats the edge. A look at the races in the two states may give this theory more meaning.
Vermont Gov. Philip H. Hoff (D) is running for re-election against Ralph A. Foote (R). Hoff was elected in 1962, a non-presidential election year, and thus became the state's first Democratic governor in 109 years.
But in this election year, when the Republicans would normally expect to regain the governorship, a number of factors seem to indicate Hoff's reelection. His incumbency, plus Vermont's economic progress under him, plus the Goldwater ticket, seem to put Hoff in a stronger position than the average Democratic candidate.
VERMONT'S RACE FOR the Senate seat open this year is between incumbent Sen. Winston Prouty (R) and State Sen. Frederick J. Fayette (D). Prouty defeated Fayette for the seat in 1958.
Prouty's moderate Republican image and attention to home state problems are expected to win him re-election by a comfortable margin, even if the Democrats do run strongly for President and governor. Vermont's other senator is George D. Aiken (R), re-elected in 1962.
Only one at-large seat in the House of Representatives is open, and Rep. Robert T. Stafford (R), former governor of Vermont, apparently is headed for an easy re-election victory over State Sen. Bernard G. O'Shea (D).
IN MAINE, the term of Gov. John H. Reed (R), elected in 1962, has not yet expired.
In the battle for the Senate seat, Sen. Edmund Muskie (D) is running for re-election against U.S. Rep. Clifford McIntire (R). The other senator from Maine is Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R), re-elected in 1960.
Muskie is favored to win reelection because of his proved pessus as a vote-getter in Maine, and the expected Democratic Presidential sweep. The Portland Telegram poll gives Muskie 58 per cent, McIntire 27 per cent, and the remainder undecided.
However, of Muskie's two easy victories as governor and one for the Senate, none came during a presidential election year. The GOP quadrennial turnout, or lack of it, could be a determining factor here as in other New England races.
BOTH SEATS IN THE house are open. In the first District (South), Rep. Stanley R. Tupper (R) is a strong favorite to win re-election over Kenneth M. Curtis(D). Tupper, a liberal Republican, has refused to endorse the Goldwater-Miller ticket.
In the second District (North), State Rep. Kenneth P. MacLeod (R) and William D. Hathaway (D) are engaged in an extremely tight contest. However, Hathaway's narrow loss in his 1962 bid for the seat, and the strong expected Democratic Presidential vote, give him the edge.
There seems to be little question as to who the next United States President will be. The question in Maine and Vermont is "How many GOP candidates will Goldwater take with him in his defeat?"
BULLETIN
—Russ Corbitt
MOSCOW—(UPI)—Premier and Communist Party leader Nikita S. Krushchev has been retired because of age and his posts taken by two aides, reliable sources said today.
There was no official confirmation.
Khrushchev was 70 last April 17.
HE HAS BEEN PREMIER of the Soviet Union since March 27, 1958.
The reports that Khrushchev was out as the Russian's top Communist swept Moscow after the Government newspaper Izvestia failed to appear on schedule tonight. The absence of Izvestia usually indicates that a major announcement is coming.
There were unconfirmed reports that First Deputy Premier Alexei N. Kosygin became acting Premier and Deputy Party Leader Leonid I. Brezhnev took over the Communist Party leadership.
"It Just Doesn't Fit In With My Library!"
BOOK REVIEWS
THE AGE OF RECONNAISSANCE, by J. H. Parry (Mentor, 95 cents).
It was a splendid age that J. H. Parry celebrates in this history of 1963, now available in an attractive paperback that includes several pages of illustrations. The era encompassed is between 1450 and 1650, when the nations of Europe were setting out to explore the world, spread religion, and get rich.
I
Instead of stressing only the adventurous names like Columbus, Pizarro, Balboa, La Salle and Cortez, the author, in line with recent historical approaches, stresses political, economic and social conditions. He sets forth the conditions for discovery, describing developments in ships and navigation and mapmaking; tells of competition between Spain and the other nations to gain a stronghold in the new world, and traces migrations to the new lands and the conflicts that developed.
* * *
WHITE MAN, LISTEN!, by Richard Wright (Doubleday Anchor, 95 cents).
The author most importantly points to a question which should concern all thinking Americans—what has been the loss to this nation because of the unrealized Negroes who have grown up here? He takes the colonial period poet, a Negro named Phyllis Wheatley, and uses her as an example: "Suppose the personalities of many Phyllis Wheatleys of America had been allowed to develop? What a different nation we might have been!"
"Would it not be better to have continents of Asians and Africans wedded to practical goals than have them arming and mobilizing to make the world accept them as men? We make the world in which we live. So far we've made it a racist world. But surely such a world is not worthy of man as we dream of him and want him to be."
Wright is best known as the author of "Native Son" and "Black Boy" and as the Negro writer who made a breakthrough for his race in the forties. In this book he analyzes, after trips to Africa and Asia, the relationships between white and non-white in the world. As a scholar himself he demonstrates how the white man gained his power and evaluates how this gaining of power has reacted on the black man and other minority groups in the world.
Thus wrote the late Richard Wright in his 1957 book, "White Man, Listen!" What he says could apply as well to the racial question in America, and it is timely and fortunate that Anchor Books has issued this volume at a time of ferment in America.
Dailij Hansan
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