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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, May 19, 1965
What Would Howe Say?
Like it or not, students are demonstrating these days. They seem to be taking an interest in things other than the words chalked up on a classroom blackboard.
This extra zeal on the part of students who have protested several times this semester has brought forth strong criticism from some Kansas editors who think students should stick to their books.
One of these Kansas publishers in the old days was the controversial E. W. Howe of the Atchison Globe, who had definite ideas on how state-supported educational institutions should be administered.
The great temperance crusade in Lawrence
has ended. The girl students at the university decided last fall not to go with any male student who carried a smell of liquor concealed on his person. Three girls refused to join the crusade, and ministers and church workers preached to them and at them for their wickedness in 'encouraging the Demon Drink.' The result is what may be expected: when the other girls saw how popular these three girls had become with the boys, they broke their necks to serve punch at parties, and to keep a dish of cloves handy. If the girls will begin a crusade on the sweat-odored young man in a football sweater, they will be indorsed by the state. The young man who belongs to a banjo club should also be outlawed."
The People Say...
Dear Sir:
Dear Sir:
MONDAY'S DAILY KANSAN carried a report of the national teach-in on Viet Nam and of the KU faculty panel discussion that followed it. Since the part dealing with my statements was partially garbled up and quite misleading, I would appreciate it if you would permit me to repeat here my thoughts on the matter, as I conveyed them to the audience last Sunday:
I shall speak to you today, not as a professor to students, not on a matter on which I have any special competence or on which I even know more than you do. I shall speak to you today simply as one human being, one American to another on the moral issues involved in our actions in Viet Nam as I see them.
At the beginning of his comments, Professor Scalopino (from the University of California who defended our present policies in Viet Nam) praised Professor Kahin (from Cornell U., the main speaker for the critics) for having presented his case without undue emotionalism.
Since, to me, the issue is primarily a moral one, I cannot be unemotional. I was not unemotional when I learned that hundreds of thousands of people perished in Stalin's slave-labor camps: I was not unemotional when I became aware that millions of people died in Hitler's concentration camps; I was not unemotional when members of the OAS shot women and children in the streets of Algiers; I was not unemotional when defenseless Negroes were mowed down in South Africa. I am even less unemotional now, for in all the other
instances I could hate the governments or groups which committed these horrors. But in this case, it is my country, my government! Moreover, it is the government I voted for, the President I campaigned for, the man who wasn't going to be trigger happy, who wasn't going to practice brinkmanship as presumably was the intention of his opponent, Barry Goldwater. This time it is our government under whose orders villages are burned, young boys in the Viet Cong are machine-gunned while swimming across a river, and two countries other than South Viet Nam are submitted to brutal bombardments. It was our government, which, in an hour of extraordinary mercifulness decided to resort to the use of gas which doesn't kill, but merely chokes, causes diarrhea, and incapacitates "temporarily"—a procedure which, in my opinion, is not likely to have beneficial effects on pregnant women, newborn babies, and old men!
The Communist cause has much that appeals to underdeveloped countries; if nothing else, Communism has at least proven that it can bring about rapid economic growth. Our cause, presumably, had always been a moral one: we supposedly stood for democracy, for freedom, for justice. But during the last election, certainly, the American people voted overwhelmingly against the foreign policies we are enacting at this very moment. As this debate today has proven, opinions are still divided. Even Professor Scalopino could only state that he is "very doubtful" that the majority of the people in South Viet Nam are proViet Cong, and that he has "the
strongest feeling that most of the Viet Cong leaders in the South give their primary allegiance to Hanoi." Is this not a rather weak foundation for policies such as ours? And it need hardly be reiterated that any talk about our defending "freedom" and "democracy" in South Viet Nam is pure nonsense, for neither has existed under Diem or under any of the military dictatorships that followed him.
In this country, even the most cruel mass murderer, whose crimes have been witnessed by many, is given a trial—an opportunity to defend himself. No one can claim that in Viet Nam we were under such immediate pressures that we had no time to present "our" case; on the contrary, we have had years to do so. Still, we did not call upon the UN, the International Court (and I have no competence to judge whether this particular agency has any jurisdiction in a case like this), or any other international agency which has jurisdiction to decide the issue. Instead, we set ourselves up as the accuser, the judge, the jury, AND THE EXECUTOR.
In one of his last rebuttals, Professor Scalopino, referring to the Communist Chinese, said that "we must learn to deal with people who say: 'Unless you agree with me, I'll kill you.'" To me, the most horrible aspect of the entire situation is that at least in the case of South Viet Nam (and perhaps also in the case of the Dominican Republic) such a statement can now, with some justification, be made by the other side against the United States.
Harry G. Shaffer,
Assoc. Prof. of Economics
"You Fellows Want To Get Into The Ball Game Or Sit In The Grandstands?"
BOOK REVIEWS
FRANKENSTEIN, by Mary Shelley (Dell, 45 cents); DRACULA, by Bram Stoker (Dell, 60 cents).
These two have been teaming up in the movies and on television for a good many years now, but readers ought to know that they are more than Hollywood concoctions. They even might be called classics; among horror stories it's hard to think of anything that tops them.
"Frankenstein," for today's generation, may be slow stuff. Mary Shelley, wife of the great poet, fashioned this one in the days of the Gothic melodrama. The story is somewhat different from that which we have been accustomed to, and it should be noted that the monster is a sympathetic character (as he was in part in some of the old Boris Karloff movies). "Frankenstein," if it has done nothing else, has given us a symbolic term that the scholars love to use to demonstrate the point that man has become the victim of his creations.
ghastly old castle that is a prison for a captive Englishman. And prowling around is that old vampire bat, Dracula, who lives on the blood of human beings.
"Dracula" is a delightfully wild tale that takes place in the forests of Transylvania, where there is a
Bram Stoker used the "journal" form to tell his story, a literary device that had proved quite successful for Wilkie Collins. The book is much longer, much more detailed, and much better-written than the incredible tale Mary Shelley unfolded early in the century.
PUTHAM'S DARK AND MIDDLE AGES READER, edited by Harry E. Wedeck (Capricorn, $1.95).
In a handsome paperback volume, Harry E. Wedeck presents an anthology of short writings that cover art and literature in medieval Europe. These are works on history, geography, social life, trade, chivalry, biography, fantasy, legend, magic, science, religion, philosophy, scholarship and poetry. The scholar of this period will find the book a fascinating guide and corollary to histories. The kind of thing found here has seldom been made available in other volumes.
Coup-Weary Vietnamese Holding Elections
By Phil Newsom UPI Foreign News Analyst
SAIGON-In Viet Nam's ancient royal capital of Hue astride the Perfume River, a street banner pays tribute to a Buddhist monk who incinerated himself a year ago in an anti-government demonstration. Another banner proclaims elections at the end of this month. Both have significance.
And in Saigon, 430 miles to the south, in a quiet air-conditioned office on Thong Nhut Reunification street an outwardly serene man labors amid the crossfire of Buddhist, Catholic and military rivalries to give to South Viet Nam the political stability it must have to win over Communist Viet Cong aggression.
A more vigorous U.S. military police against Communist aggression from the North and limited successes of the new government have given rise to a cautious optimism that a record of failure in South Viet Nam may yet be reversed.
He is Prime Minister Phan Huy Quat, a former foreign minister and veteran of a succession of governments which followed the fall of slain President Ngo Dinh Diem.
The new government, in office since last February, has ordered elections to be held May 30 in all towns, districts and provinces that are secured from the Viet Cong.
Orders Elections
The Buddhists, whose fiery self-
destruction and violent demonstrations in the streets of Hue and Saigon toppled or helped topple six governments after the fall of the Ngo Dinh Diem regime in November, 1963, for the moment are quiet.
The two South Vietnamese generals without whom it is said no government coup can succeed, both have declared their support for the new prime minister and say that his is a good government.
Both Catholic and Buddhist leaders have promised the government their cooperation. Neutralism, on the rise during 16 months of political chaos, is receding.
They are Maj. Gen. Nguyen Chanh Thi, energetic commander of I. Corps in the north, and Maj. Gen. Nguyen Cao Khi, commander of the air force.
Buddhist leaders once suspected of seeking a peace with Communist North Viet Nam at any price, had warned Buddhist youth against Communist-inspired peace groups and have strongly denounced Communist aggression.
The Viet Cong fights a faceless war. It may be a grenade tossed into a crowded Saigon restaurant or a sudden ambush alongside a highway.
Weary of Coups
Both declare they are weary of coups.
And a campaign to win defectors from the Viet Cong is having at least some small success.
But he is a sophisticated fighter.
In the provinces which they control, the Vict Cong levy the taxes, run the schools and function as an organized government.
His table of organization includes a government in being ready to take over, from the hamlet, district and province to the highest level.
They excuse terrorism as the fight against a government which is the enemy of the people.
Among a people tired of more than 20 years of war and neglected by their government, they find willing listeners.
Find Listeners
writing instellers.
Their battle, fought with the active support of Communist North Vict Nam under the guise of nationalism and with the more indirect support of Red China and the Soviet Union has the same goals as that of the South Vietnamese government supported by the United States.
States. More than geography, the fight is for control and the loyalty of a people.
people. When a cholera epidemic threatened provinces under their control in the Mekong River delta not long ago, they distributed anti-cholera vaccines.
But when persuasion fails, then terrorism also is a ready weapon.
Viet Cong kidnapings in the first 28 days of April alone totaled more than 500. In many months, kid-
and anno
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napings and assassinations against the civilian population run over 1,000.
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EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
A Final Test
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Leta Roth and Gary Noland Co-Editorial Editors
Prime Minister Phan Huy Quat told this correspondent in an interview that South Viet Nam is a "final test" between communism and the free world. And he regarded his own first assignment as one to convince those not already convinced of the true nature of the Viet Cong, to provide security and then to win their loyalty.
Provincial, district and local elections are a first step.
And as part of this effort the United States will put $285 million this year into economic aid over and above the military effort.
In this effort, more than 300 American civilians risk their lives to assist the Vietnamese at the provincial level and below to set up agricultural, health, educational and other programs.
The Americans are special targets of the Viet Cong.
As a result of American efforts a thriving textile industry now employees 80,000 persons on a payroll of around $2 million per month.
Other Goods
Also manufactured are batteries, tires, paints, nettings and pulp paper.
per. It is the second prong of a U.S. effort which might clearly be called clear-and-hold.