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University Daily Kansan Tuesday, Sept. 22, 1964
Bookstore Refunds
Education Investment
During the past several days this writer has heard a number of students voicing complaints and questions about a statement printed on the back of the cash register tapes from the Kansas Union Book Store.
This statement reads: "A portion of your refund has been pledged to support N.D.E.A. Student Loans."
The questioning students wanted to know by whose authority the money had been pledged and why. Some felt it to be a high-handed and arbitrary action.
Actually the program, unanimously recommended by the All Student Council and passed by the executive committee of the Memorial Corporation, benefits a great many KU students who find the cost of a college education burdensome.
Last spring the decision was made to reduce Kansas Union Book Store refunds from eight to five per cent during the next four years. This reduction of three per cent amounts to about $22,500 annually. This money will be used to pay a loan that matches federal money made available to KU through provisions of the National Defense Education Act.
Congress recently increased the maximum amount of money that each school may use from $250,000 to $800,000. One-ninth of this money must be supplied by the participating school. The $90,000 freed by the refund reduction over the four-year period will insure KU's full participation in the federal loan program.
At the time the decision to cut the refunds was made, Laurence C. Woodruff, dean of students and chairman of the executive committee of the Memorial Corporation said, "Members of the executive committee of the Memorial Corporation voted unanimously to use part of the patronage refund for this purpose, and we are pleased that the Kansas Union can be the means by which students will receive in this way not only the $22,500 a year they ordinarily would have returned in refunds, but approximately $900,000 in loans next year."
This program puts the students in the position of investing in their own education. The plan seems to be a wise investment for KU and the future.
Ho-Hum, Campaign Boring
Thank heavens, the presidential campaign of 1964 has only six more weeks to go.
It's not the excitement that's killing us, but the utter boredom of watching what appears to be a terribly one-sided contest.
If the polls are right—or even nearly so—Barry Goldwater simply has no chance of beating Lyndon Johnson in November. Of course the polls could be wrong. They have been before. But this time the popularity gap between the two candidates is so wide that—barring some unexpected earth-shaking development—it probably can't be closed.
In a way, this is unfortunate. The nomination of Barry Goldwater at San Francisco was expected to bring new vitality to a Republican party said to have been dominated by the effeet Easterners.
Furthermore, Barry is a cardcarrying conservative while LBJ, despite the family wealth, is at least an off-and-on liberal. The President is self-described as a "prudent progressive."
So here we had all the makings of a true test between two widely divergent philosophies. This is something the conservatives have long demanded on the theory that they have actually been disenfranchised in recent presidential elections when Republican candidates differed only in degree from their Democratic adversaries.
But look at what has happened. Goldwater, the conservative, is now being called a radical. And Johnson, the liberal, is getting unprecedented support from the usually conservative business community.
Confusing, isn't it?
I suspect that what we are witnessing is a triumph for the long, almost unbeatable "peace and prosperity" theme.
President Johnson has everything going for him. The gross national product continues to grow, corporations report record earnings, workers are getting fat contract settlements and the elderly foresee comprehensive medical care provided by a paternalistic government.
The other major factor favoring Johnson is that we are no longer a conservative people in the sense that so many Goldwater admirers believe we are.
It is all very well to denounce the onrush of socialism. I have done so myself in the years when it seemed possible to curb the growth of big government and the federal controls which now directly affect the lives of every individual.
Yet most of the reforms advocated by Norman Thomas, oft the Socialist's candidate for president, and the first Sen. Robert LaFollette, have long since been incorporated in the platforms of both major political parties.
So we are not about to sell any elements of TVA or repeal the welfare state. States' rights is still a slogan but becomes meaningless when those proclaiming their fealty to this cause invade Washington looking for federal grants.
On the question of which party can best secure the peace, the conclusions are not so easily determinable. Goldwater is right in saying that we are at war in Vietnam. Yet our involvement there began under a Republican administration.
President Johnson is understandably uncomfortable a b o u t Vietnam. His sensitivity over Cuba was shown when he struck from his remarks in Miami any mention of that unhappy island.
Sharp criticisms can and should be made of our foreign policy. But the challenger must offer constructive alternatives to those policies if he is to be believed.
Thus far in the campaign, the mood of the country seems to be that although the Kennedy administration flubbed the chance to clobber Castro and found no solution to South Vietnam, this is not the time to let a new man experiment with world tensions.
Part of Barry Goldwater's difficulties arise from an accumulated record of loose remarks and intemperate actions.
He was doing well at San Francisco until his now famous phrases on extremism first offended and then drove away badly needed support from the so-called Republican moderates.
These hurts have never been healed, though Eisenhower, Nixon, Gov. Scranton and Nelson Rockefeller are going through the motions of party loyalty. But others, notably Sen. Kenneth Keating of New York and Michigan's George Romney have yet to endorse the Goldwater-Miller ticket.
Other than a few friendly steps at the GOP summit conference at Hershey, the Senator from Arizona has pursued the lonely road. This is a Goldwater campaign and is being waged according to Barry's dictates. Make no mistake about that!
Barry Goldwater seems strangely unconcerned over these defections which might have been avoided by making the slightest concessions in language at the Republican convention.
Quite apart from the unenthusiasm for Goldwater shown by many Republican politicians, the Senator is drawing criticism for his advocacy of a voluntary social security system.
The Goldwater theory is that every citizen should have the right to choose a retirement plan which best suits his individual needs through a choice of savings, securities, private insurance or social security.
At first thought, this sounds good. But the economic facts indicate that any substantial withdrawal of citizens from the social security system would ultimately plunge the system into bankruptcy. "Should this happen," says economist Sylvia Porter, "the cost to the American economy would be incalculable."
Nor is Sen. Goldwater on better ground in proposing an automatic five per cent cut in individual and corporate income taxes in each of the next five years.
For it is impossible to foretell what the national needs may be during this period. And the plan would cut taxes even in an inflationary swing when restraint is needed.
This is a strange doctrine from a man who voted against the 1964 tax reduction and the 1962 investment tax credit for new equipment purchases.
These are some of the reasons why many normally oriented conservatives view Sen. Goldwater's program as "too radical."
Others think his off-the-cuff statements on world affairs reveal both a shocking lack of knowledge and an impetuosity which might needlessly involve the United States in world conflict.
Meanwhile, President Johnson is basking under the warm sunshine of newspaper endorsements and the mass defection of Republican business and financial leaders to the Democratic ticket.
I believe that Barry Goldwater would be a more responsible President than is indicated by his campaign. But the doubts continue to linger and this is what troubles the American people.
Business tycoons appear untroubled by the progressive capture of local and state governments by the unions. They find in Johnson a President sympathetic to their views and eager to hear their problems.
Unlike John F. Kennedy, often unjustly maligned as the "enemy" of business, Lyndon Johnson has much of the business community convinced that he is a defender of free enterprise and fully understands the need for a prosperous economy.
The next six weeks will generate a good deal of nonsense on both sides and presumably considerable acrimony as this campaign progresses.
In a word, they see no good reason to "change the management."
I doubt that very many votes will be changed but it is in the American tradition to listen to the dialogue and hear out the debate.
To most of us. Election Day will come as a decided relief to the tedium.
JOHN S. KNIGHT
"I Hate To Spoil Your Banquet, Sir, But You Have An Urgent Call From Viet-Nam"
BOOK REVIEWS
Jane Austen is not for readers of this hurly-burly world, but for anyone who wants to be taken back into the rural English countryside, when it took days to get from Northamptonshire to Portsmouth, when acting out plays could be a preoccupation of the young people, when being properly married was the greatest aim in life for a girl, a book like "Mansfield Park" may be just the ticket.
MANSFIELD PARK, by Jane Austen (Signet Classics, 50 cents).
It is more serious in tone—almost grim for Jane Austen—than the other novels. Fanny Price is not of good family; she is a kind of Cinderella, though her bad stepstisters have become cousins, and the evil stepmother is a busybody aunt. Fanny gets the good prince, too, though he seems to be coming to her on the rebound after an unfortunate affair with a woman of little principle.
The style, the charm, the wit, the perception of this provincial writer are as pronounced in this book as in the other novels.
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THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF COOKING, edited by William I. Kaufman (Dell, $2.95, in four-volume boxed set)—A classy-looking, exciting set of books that give more than 1,000 recipes, from 69 nations. The recipes are adapted to American kitchens. Kaufman has broken this down into recipes of (1) the Far East and Near East, (2) Italy, France and Spain; (3) Northern Europe and the British Isles, and (4) the Caribbean and Latin America.
- * * *
GREAT TEAMS OF PRO FOOTBALL, by Robert Smith (Dell, 60 cents)—A compilation of players, plays and games. There are eight pages of pictures from pro ball. Smith goes back to offer stories and portraits of celebrated names of the past.
***
TYPEE. by Herman Melville (Signet Classics, 60 cents).
Another American classic, of interest on two levels, is out in a new volume, with a cover that looks like a Gauguin. "Typee" was Melville's first book, a story of four months among primitive South Sea islanders. It is a story of adventure but also an indictment of civilization. The author minces no words in showing what happens when these peoples are corrupted by the influences of "civilized" men.
He describes Polynesian tribal life, includes adventure and excitement, lore of the sea, and perhaps a bit of imagination, even though the story ostensibly is true throughout.
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