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Summer Session Kansan Friday, July 9, 1965
Negro Morality
During the question period after nearly every speech I make around the country, there is always a statement from the audience about the problems of the civil rights movement and "Negro crime." They block traffic, violate the laws of trespass, engage an entire police force to control their freedom-riders, sit-ins, marches, and protests; and furthermore the arrests of Negroes for crime is vastly out of proportion to their numbers; etc.; etc.
I do not believe that Negroes should receive preferential treatment when arrested for crime or when their conduct is challenged by authorities. It is necessary, however, to make the point that crimes committed by Negroes are usually the crimes of the poor, easily recognizable as the crimes of the slum and the ghetto.
NEGROES HAVE NEVER scuttled a ship, or sank one without warning. They never looted a city's treasury, padded construction costs of highway or courthouse, or watered the milk; they never got a kickback for drugs sold to our own
men in embattled Viet Nam; they never dispossessed a tenant and put his bedstead out on the sidewalk; they never sold faulty wire or bullets to their government during a war, or rigged prices, or hired call-girls to influence purchasing agents, or conspired to establish phony bids for government contracts; they never cornered the shares of Northern Pacific, nor watered the stock of the Erie Railroad; they never locked out their employees or called the National Guard to protect scabs and fire on pickets; and in all the history of the United States there is no record of Negroes ever having lynched a white man.
Now it could be argued that they did not commit any of these crimes because they have been successfully separated from the open society, and that if they had had the chance they would have done all these things...
Maybe. But at this point in our history no one can prove it. By Harry Golden, The Carolina Israelite July-August, 1965
Need for 'Classic Conservation'
President Johnson's Message on Natural Beauty lifted the spirit of conservationists everywhere. There is hardly a detail of the message that a conservationist could quarrel with. Nevertheless, a nagging doubt persists. "Our conservation must be not just the classic conservation of protection and development," said President Johnson, "but a creative conservation of restoration and innovation."
Restoration of areas already blighted by man is an increasingly important conservation objective, and deserves more attention. But "classic conservation" needs more attention too, and the president's heavy emphasis on de-uglification tends to de-emphasize the necessity of preserving areas that still remain in something resembling their natural condition. The emphasis on restoration as opposed to preservation was reinforced by the White House Conference on Natural Beauty in mid-May, which might more accurately have been called the Conference on Man-Made Blight.
Grand Canyon — Proposals for one or more unnecessary dams within Grand Canyon proper, which would impair the national park and monument and threaten the integrity of the National Park System itself, are being pushed
Without depreciating the importance of restoration, or denying the considerable conservation accomplishments of the Johnson administration, it must be noted that "classic conservation" projects of the utmost importance are hanging fire at the very time when the administration is making "natural beauty" a catchword. Consider:
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within the Johnson administration. Perhaps the most famous example of natural beauty in the nation, Grand Canyon can be saved but cannot be restored. This is a case of "classic conservation" or no conservation at all.
North Cascades—An investigating committee of the Department of the Interior reported in 1937 that "the area is unquestionably of national park caliber, is more valuable used as such than for any other use now ascertainable, and should receive park status. . . It will outrank in its scenic, recreational, and wildlife values any existing national park and any other possibility for such a park within the United States." Today, 27 years later, this matchless area still awaits the protection of park status. There is less to be saved than there was 27 years ago—or one year ago. But there is more to be saved than there will be in another year, and what remains ought to be saved now. The scars left by logging and mining cannot be quickly or easily healed, if they can be healed at all.
Redwoods—Our generation is the last one that can save fairly extensive stands of virgin redwoods for the nation. At the current rate of
cutting, all unprotected virgin timberlands will be gone in 30 years. But President Johnson, who had earlier expressed his support for a redwood national park, asked only for "a study on the desirability" of such a park in his natural beauty message. While the administration studies, the subject of its study is fast disappearing; lumbermen are denuding whole watersheds in potential parklands. The temptation, of course, is for lumbermen to cut first and fastest where the "danger" of a park is greatest—taking what they can while they can, and perhaps inflicting enough damage to foreclose the possibility of a park altogether. Stands of virgin redwoods, once destroyed, are not restorable. The situation calls for "classic conservation" or capitulation.
Programs to control man-made blight—air and water pollution, junkyards, billboards, overhead wires, and the like—deserve every citizen's support. But if either restoration or preservation is to get priority, the priority should go to preservation. Each passing year increases the opportunities for restoration, but diminishes the opportunity to save shrinking remnants of truly natural beauty.
—Sierra Club Bulletin
The People Say...
Editor:
In reference to pour recent column in the Summer Session Kansan (June 29) on KU track signees, I would like to make a correction and refer you to an omission.
In this column you omitted from the article reference to Kenny Gaines of Kinsley, Kan., who was one of the top high school track stars in the state and one of the best high jumpers in the nation. It should be noted that in May, 1965, he signed a letter of intent to KU. You erroneously gave Ron Schrader the class "B" record at 6'-5". This is false as Kenny holds the class "B" record at 6'-7¼" which is the best jump ever in the state for any class. Also he holds the state class "B" record in the broad jump at $23'-4\frac{1}{2}$ and won the high hurdles for a third gold medal at the state meet which Kinsley won
in class "B." His best time in the hurdles was 14.5. He also ran a 50.5 440 on the mile relay which placed third.
ON THE weekend of June 20,
Kenny went to Sacramento, Calif.,
to compete against the top high school high jumpers in the nation.
He placed fourth with a jump of
'6"-6".
The omission of the name of a future great KU track star is extremely shocking. I hope that it will be corrected. An irate KU track fan.
Science Camp member. (Ed. note: Our information was based on releases from the KU Sports Publicity Office. Sorry for any omissions or inaccuracies. We and the Sports Publicity Office stand corrected.)
James Breedfeld Kinsley high senior Science Camp memb
BOOKS
THE GYPSY MOTHS, by James Drought (Crest, 60 cents).
Among the young writers capturing attention of both critics and popular readers is James Drought. His "The Gypsy Moths" is a tense and exciting and shocking story of circus aerial performers. And he writes out of his own experience with such a group.
In "The Gypsy Moths," Drought describes the day-to-day travels of the three-man circus as it travels through the farmlands of the Midwest, with tragedy at the end of the road. The audiences as well as the performers come under the scrutiny of the authors.
Ghost Town
BOOK REVIEWS
WE SHALL OVERCOME, by Michael Dorman (Dell, 75 cents).
Thorough, documented, and, as the author himself admits, somewhat prejudiced, "We Shall Overcome" is a book that is entitled to a good many readers, even though it lacks the literary qualities that might have made it a significant work.
It is the story of one year of racial strife, 1962-63, starting with the story of James Meredith entering the University of Mississippi and ending with three other Negro students—whose names will not go down in history like that of Meredith—entering the University of Alabama. The writer is a reporter for Newsday, that excellent daily paper on Long Island.
Dorman does not write from the sidelines. He was there, through the Mississippi, Birmingham and Alabama riots. He interviewed the leader of the Ku Klux Klan. He was with the reporters who, taken with such organizations as SNCC, formed their own organization, SCREW, for Southern Correspondents on Racial Equality Wars. He observed Meredith and Cleve McDowell and the quiet young man who enrolled at Clemson and the three students who enrolled at Alabama.
HE WAS IN THE TOWN of Faulkner, and this impressed him, for Faulkner's own attitude on the racial conflict was still being discussed, and Faulkner's writing brother, John, was still living and was expressing himself as a segregationist. But John Faulkner's own son was in the National Guard outfit that was federalized during the Oxford disturbances, and Dorman greatly admired him.
It is inevitable that there are heroes and villains. Ross Barnett and George Wallace emerge as stained—self-stained—as ever. Bull Connor of Birmingham remains the very symbol of segregation. Nicholas Katzenbach, now attorney general, is a kind of hero, as are many of the reporters and the Negroes who play major roles here.
It is a good piece of reporting. More than adequate journalism, as a matter of fact, and a book that could be read with profit by many Americans.
Great praise attended the appearance of this novel recently, and it is one that genuinely merits such praise. For it is historical fiction at its best, not the "Forever Amber" or even the Thomas Cainstain kind of fiction but something closer to "Man on a Donkey" or "The Ides of March."
Gore Vidal seemed the unlikely man for the job, such plays as "The Best Man" and "Visit to a Small Planet" being more in his line. "Julian" is Vidal's interpretation of the career of the pagan emperor who fought against Christianity in fourth century Rome. The style is smooth, the characterizations are believable, and there are pace and excitement throughout.
JULIAN, by Gore Vidal (Signet, 95 cents).
You'll find court intrigue, sweeping military victories, humor and vivid description. Readers should rejoice that the novel is available in this inexpensive edition.
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THE POEMS OF FRANCOIS VILLON, translated by Galway Kinnell (Signet Classics, 75 cents)—An attractive little volume that gives you the French version on one page and the English on the facing page. The book is both for the sentimentalist who still thinks Ronald Colman and Francois Villon are the same guy and for those who love lavish romantic poetry, this dating to five centuries back.
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BREAKTHROUGHS IN PHYSICS, by Peter Wolff (Signet Science Library, 75 cents)—An original edition that goes back for 23 centuries and provides selections from seven great men who brought on scientific revolutions. The names: Archimedes, Galileo, Pascal, Newton, Huygens, Von Helmholtz and Einstein.