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Summer Session Kansan Friday, July 16, 1965
Be Tolerant of Us...
Fiery youth in hot summers, topic of an editorial in the July 9, 1965, Kansan, was a treatise of nostalgic bewilderment on the activism of college youth.
The sentiments expressed were representative of most disillusioned, forty-ish liberals. But the author committed the eternal sin of adulthood: he generalized about youthful activists.
FROM TIME ETERNAL every human movement has had its extreme on right and left. Personalities have always tainted the motivation and morality of a cause. Yet, in retrospect, none of us would condemn the abolitionists, the suffragettes, the humanists and untold generations of "reformers" for the clearer image of justice they have given us. And they certainly had their share of rotten apples in the personality barrel.
Disillusioned liberals and confused elders, we ask only that you see our motivations and goals. Be tolerant of us. For, like the Church, our humanity may put us in error, but human and divine morality are on our side:
(1) For the first time in history, the younger generation has time to be concerned with the state of human injustice and poverty. We have full stomachs, cars, education and unlimited possibilities for skilled jobs. There is no depression and the nation is not embroiled in war. The major dangers to life and limb are reflected by highway statistics and the draft call.And we have plenty to say about the morality of the latter concerning Viet Nam.
WE CAN AFFORD to be human beings before we are knee-deep in crabgrass, diapers and mortgage payments.
(2) Contrary to public myth, most of us youthful activists have a creed. We are Christians, humanists or existentialists. And it makes no difference if we are "deciding for the whole world," concerned for the welfare of our fellow man, or heeding Christ's call to discipleship—our beliefs commit us to social involvement. We need no apologetics for that commitment.
(3) We see the tragedy of your situation and hope to escape it. Your motives were more economic than moral, and a depression and a warmuted your ideals. Many of you became embittered cynics; others were lulled into nostalgic reminiscence about their hell-raising days.
PERHAPS YOUR dampened enthusiasm also came from your lack of numbers. More of our generation is involved, and most of those who aren't give us their passive support. That's what morality does for a movement.
We can thank you disillusioned liberals for the heritage you left us. But we're saddened because you left us.
THEREWOULDNT be nearly so many battles left to fight if you had kept the drums beating. And perhaps your bewilderment about my generation wouldn't be as engulfing and guilt-ridden.
If you had stuck to your guns, you see, we wouldn't HAVE to be a Generation of Causes.
Jacke Thayer
The Voice of a Generation
To most of the present university generation, Adlai E. Stevenson was our chief ambassador to the United Nations and a man historically known to have run twice against Dwight D. Eisenhower for the presidency.
To some of us a little older he was the most inspiring political leader of his time.
We mourned and bemoaned the fact that the American voters did not have what we termed "the good sense" to choose him over Eisenhower. Many Americans preferred him in 1960 to John F. Kennedy, and some of them tried to put him over at the Los Angeles convention.
Stevenson came to us in 1952 as something refreshing after the platitudinous Republican convention that had just nominated Eisenhower and the worn-out years of the Truman administration that were just ending. He gave us an education in government in the 1952 campaign. He made us see that there was nothing inherently disgusting or disgraceful about being a politician. His wit and his good taste were the high points of the entire election campaign.
Someone, probably his advisers, tried to put him over in a different way in 1956, talking common sense to us over the barnyard fence, that sort of thing. We could believe it when Eisenhower talked about parity as he caressed a cow's back. With Stevenson it made him look uncomfortable, and it made us feel uncomfortable.
We thought he'd go on forever, hole in shoe and all. American life—and certainly American politics—are lessened by this good man's passing from the scene.-CMP
U.S. Is Chinese Target, but So Is Soviet
By K. C. Thaler United Press International
United Press International LONDON - (UPI) - Communist China's anxiety to get the United States out of Viet Nam is being matched increasingly by Peking's determination to remove the last
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remnants of Soviet influence from Southeast Asia.
RUSSIA IS NOW being accused of secretly passing to the United States detailed lists of its arms supplies to Communist North Viet Nam, and of aligning its strategy with that of the United States behind the backs of its Communist friends and allies.
China's anti-American designs in Asia have been discernible for some time, but lately its propaganda machine has been geared to an all-out effort to undermine Moscow's prestige in Asia.
It is as if the United States accused Britain of co-operating secretly with the Communist Viet Cong in South Vietnam Nam.
Albania in its official organ has gone on repeating the charges against the Kremlin's alleged ganging-up with the American "imperialists."
The enormity of the charge is self-evident and its potential damage to Russia incalculable.
AS IN THE PAST, Peking is using tiny Albania, its staunchest ally, as the mouthpiece for its attacks on the Soviet.
The Russians seem helpless against this type of campaign. All they have been able to do is to reiterate their willingness to help the North Vietnamese. An even tougher battle is being waged currently in the diplomatic sphere, in Hanoi itself.
DIPLOMATIC REPORTS from the North Vietnamese capital say Peking is pushing openly for the elimination of what remains of Soviet political influence over the regime of Ho Chi Minh.
Without really giving North Viet Nam a great deal of concrete aid, Peking has managed to intimidate the North Vietnamese government sufficiently to counteract politically the more sizeable Soviet assistance.
The Kremlin staged a comeback in Hanoi earlier this year when its leaders flew there for confidential talks. But the success was short-lived. Despite the fact that Soviet supplies have since been stepped up, Moscow's political influence in Hanoi is waning again.
THE LATEST indications from Peking point to Red China's firm determination to eradicate Russian influence from Southeast Asia and, more immediately, to prevent the Soviets from establishing themselves in Viet Nam as either a political or military factor.
This is yet another reason why Red China is opposing a Viet Nam peace conference. Peking fears Russia would play a key role at the conference table, along with the United States, and it does not want Russia to become once again one of the major guarantors of a political settlement of South East Asia, as it was at the 1954 Geneva conference on Indochina.
"Don't Be Chicken —— Let's Have Some Action!"
BOOK REVIEWS
DREISER, by W. A. Swanberg (Scribner's, $10).
So far, W. A. Swanberg has picked some of the most unlikeable of subjects for his biographies—dirty old Jim Fisk, the extravagant publisher William Randolph Hearst, and now Theodore Dreiser. And the author, who gave you some feeling for liking Hearst, never seems to suggest that his current subject is a man of stature, someone worth admiring.
Or the relationship of Dreiser, himself, to Clyde Griffiths, hero of "An American Tragedy." Dreiser's cheap and materialistic values were those that finally brought disaster to Griffiths. Yet the man never really received the education or the family environment necessary to escape personal tragedy of his own.
Then came success—of a sort. "Sister Carrie" was published but held back, for the most part, for almost a decade. The censors gave Dreiser considerable trouble, especially for the semi-autobiographical "The Genius.'" Dreiser made friends, notably H. L. Mencken, but didn't know how to keep them.
A POOR FAMILY, a pious father, a gay and loose-living mother, hard times, drifting from city to city, and Dreiser always looking for the quick, impressive, easy kind of job—this is the pattern. There was good fortune in a teacher who sent Dreiser to Indiana University. There was valuable experience on newspapers in the beginning days of yellow journalism.
Probably the people who read Dreiser's novels today are mainly students in American Lit. classes. There they plow through the awkward constructions and the ghastly grammar and the cumbersome paragraphs, but they still come out with (or they should, at least) an overpowering feeling for the man's strength and insights.
"DREISER," FOR THE MOST part, is not a conventional literary biography. It's about the man, not the books. Scarcely a plot line of the novels is provided, though we are led through the maze of Dreiser's dealing with publishers and fighting to get "Sister Carrie" recognized and suing Paramount Pictures for ruining "An American Tragedy." And we are pointed to real-life parallels—Dreiser's careful documentation of "Tragedy" and the relationship of "Sister Carrie" and "Jennie Gerhardt" to Dreiser's own sisters.
Yet always a giant in American letters. How his books call for the copy pencil! But the copy pencil might have ruined the substance of this hulking, unlovely giant, as it might have ruined Thomas Wolfe. Swanberg's biography gives us a nearly full picture of the man, and readers should find this a book worth reading and keeping.-CMP
HE HAD ONE LOVE affair after another. His marriage was a failure. He was a plagiarist. He was vain and grasping and domineering and selfish. He was politically naive, joining the Communist party late in life.
THE THIRD DAY, by Joseph Hayes (Crest, 60 cents).
The pattern actually is familiar; bright young man who suddenly realizes he doesn't know who he is and has the job of finding out. There's enough excitement here to last most readers through a summer evening of reading-if you can bust yourself away from the TV reruns.
Psychological thrillers are the standard thing these days, and Joseph Hayes, who wrote "The Desperate Hours," is one of the best practitioners of the genre. "The Third Day" has something else in its future—a big push because of the movie version coming soon.
WHAT NEXT, CHARLIE BROWN?, by Charles M. Schulz (Crest 40 cents)—Another collection of delightful episodes from "Peanuts," which is probably the best—and funniest—thing going in the comics today, and that includes "Dick Tracy."
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