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University, Daily, Kansan Thursday, May 13, 1965
Stifling Environment?
The timetable appears to be inevitably fixed. When students return to the Hill next fall, old Fraser will be no more. During the summer, the ball and chain will raze the old building for the new which has been the most controversial issue this semester.
OTHER ISSUES HAVE COME AND GONE. Civil rights stories have slipped to the back pages, and only an occasional letter arrives protesting the Easton firing. The Rick Mabbutt censure case which got the semester off with a big bang is now an academic question.
But the controversy over Fraser is still smoldering. Some things are more easy to reconeile than others. Just thinking about Fraser leaves one with a feeling of despair, because it is not an issue that will die with the exodus of students from the campus for the summer.
CHANCELLOR W. CLARKE WESCOE HAS said that plans must proceed on schedule because the University is acutely pressed for classroom space. One can sympathize with the Chancellor's dilemma. Crowded classrooms and inadequate facilities are detrimental to the academic atmosphere of a university. Under the cloak of necessity, maybe we should all accept the onward push of progress—meaning simple buildings for classroom space and faculty offices.
A mistake now will be moaned over for years. And there seems to be few persons who feel that it is not a mistake.
With rationalization, one can condone what is happening to campus architecture, but that would be pretty irrational rationalization. There are other things to consider in campus architecture besides constructions which meet with the standards of cold utility.
Kansas has produced little art and culture which has attracted the aesthetic minded. And in a culture-conscious age, we are demanding this. We are fed up with the culture void we have inherited. And if new Fraser is an indication of our future aspirations, we are hopelessly lost.
WE THING BIG, DREAM BIG, AND ACT big when it comes to building a big football team, a winning basketball team. We talk in terms of big salaries to attract the best coaches. When it comes to thinking about creating an atmosphere for our students, we become feeble-minded, unimaginative pawns of utilitarian progress.
An exception must be noticed. Last week Bernard Frazier, professor of architecture, proposed something truly imaginative which must have been the butt of many jokes in Strong Hall. An artificial, capped rock over the campus. Recessed gardens, fountains, shrub plantings. What a wild dream.
THOSE WHO WERE CRITICIZED FOR NEW Fraser asked for constructive criticism and suggestions. Well, they got it. But it has been met with absolute silence, which has become the strategic way to greet all criticism.
And a 60-day moratorium on all construction. A conference of outstanding and distinguished architects to study a long-range master plan.
Prof. Frazier's plan, if it seems impractical, is at least imaginative.
"Unless we believe in the education we are giving our youth and act according to our beliefs, we shall lose them. We shall lose them either to the prevailing mediocrity or to the siren's call that somewhere else, not Kansas, offers more to their future." Prof. Frazier was quoted as saying.
He said his plan was not so much that of a building, but of an environment.
As KU's centennial year approaches, we might ask what kind of an environment are we creating for future students. Will they live in an environment especially conducive to academic pursuits? Or will their imaginations be dwarfed and stifled by "seven-story buildings, with 96,000 feet of floor space and 29 classrooms"—the most outstanding features of the new Fraser?
Gary Noland
Red Speaker Ban Defeated In N.H.State Colleges
Editor's Note: The article below, reprinted from the American Civil Liberties Union bulletin, is of interest since Herbert Apheker, the national director of the American Marxist Study Institute, spoke here Tuesday, April 20, sponsored by the Minority Opinions Forum.
After a six-hour floor debate the New Hampshire House of Representatives defeated by a vote of 205 to 176 on March 11 a bill which would have barred Communists from speaking at state-supported schools. The controversy raged fiercely for weeks in the state. The American Civil Liberties Union strongly opposed the bill.
The fight started when, earlier this year, Communists Levi Laub and James Jackson spoke at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). Governor John King, a member of the UNH Board of Trustees, opposed the Board's decision to permit Laub and Jackson to speak. King then backed legislation, formally introduced by Rep. Saul Feldman, which would have forbidden any state agency or school to allow Communists or members of Communist-front organizations to speak.
There was immediate opposition from many prominent educators, including UNH President John McConnell, Dartmouth President John Dickey, ex-President of Wellesley Mrs. Douglas Horton, and 21 of the truestees of the UNH. The Student Senate of St. Anselm College said the bill was "blatantly and openly threatening to the principles of freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry." Also opposed was ex-Governor Sherman Adams, former adviser to President Eisenhower. In favor of the bill were many key legislative leaders, Governor King, the American Legion, and the ultra-conservative Manchester Union-Leader.
AS THE FIGHT wore on two major issues emerged: should Communists be allowed to speak at the state university and should the trustees or the legislature control the university itself?
Forrest Eaton, chairman of the Board of Trustees, said, "... it is extremely important that the trustees of the university should retain responsibility for the educational policy of all institutions in the university system." The Union-Leader retorted that the Trustees should be "rebuked by mere commoners for their own lack of common sense."
Sharp opinions on both sides were expressed as the battle was waged in the legislature hearings and in the press. Governor King wrote, "We don't have to be bitten by a rattlesnake to understand the power of his venom . . ." while President Dickey said, "Students must be given the opportunity to come face to face with the real thing. . .." House speaker William Peterson called the Feldman Bill "an anti-education bill, not an anti-Communist bill," but House Democratic Leader William Craig said that "Under the cloak of free speech, America's worst enemies could become campus heroes."
The ACLU's opposition to the Feldman Bill was contained in an opinion shared with the House Education Committee and publicly released. It noted a similar California law which was held unconstitutional in the California Supreme Court. The opinion stated: "The First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and association have a permanent and preferred place in our democratic system. Any attempt to restrict them must be justified by a clear public interest threatened not remotely or doubtfully, but by a specific, clear and present danger." The ACLU also cited objections based on due process, equal protection and prior restraint principles.
In North Carolina which has a law that prohibits Communists, and other speakers who have pleaded the Fifth Amendment, from using faeilations of public colleges, there is strong agitation for its repeal. The North Carolina Board of Higher Education recently called for its elimination as did the Chapel Hill Student Peace Union. Author Harry Golden said the law "degraded" the university of North Carolina.
Daili'Hönsan
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EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Leta Roth and Gary Noland Co-Editorial Editors
"Just So You Keep On Supporting Shooting In The U.S."
Wave The Big Stick
The big stick has been removed from the closet and the ghost of the vigorous man with the moustache and pince-nez glasses is once more walking about. His ghost seems to be whispering in the ears of our President and out come the same thundering words with a distinctly Democratic drawl.
TOO BAD THE NEW VOICE USES the same moralistic phrases and rationalizations that TR used. All these words really accomplish is to bring tears to the eyes of jingoists, flag-wavers, reactionaries, and people who think world diplomacy is something like a well-run fencing match where both opponents and good guys obey the immutable rules.
Haven't we attained the level of sophistication where we can end this phony play for emotions in the all too realistic world of 1965? The reason we went into the Dominican Republic was simple—we don't want another Cuba in our private lake, the Caribbean. Perhaps this isn't virtuous.
It is easy to label such thinking as immoral, materialistic, even Fascist, but we are dealing with the problem that has always faced our form of government—hard, nasty realities vs. moralistic principles. Unfortunately the best of principles have always sounded nice, but have never won a confrontation with a single nation--viz. Wilson. In other words, "Nice guys finish last."
Certain North Americans are frightened about the effect of U.S. intervention in the Dominican Republic on Latin American friendship. Many Latin Americans will always hate the United States no matter what we do.
WE ARE THE NATION WHOSE SHIPS SHELLED Vera Cruz because we didn't like what a mob did to an American shore party. Who chased Pancho Villa with our Army across his own country? Who fulminated a revolution in Colombia to give us the Panama Canal? Each time we claimed we were taking these steps in the name of "democracy."
Any action we take will cause some Latin Americans to hate us because they look for the "hidden" motive. Others will like us regardless of our "intervention." North Americans talking piously of "democracy" fool no one except North Americans.
democracy too no one except North Americans. It only shows the presence of the dualism in American thinking which is a necessity in the real world. The only answer we can honestly give to the Americans is that perhaps our "imperialism" is of a more benevolent nature than the "imperialism" that struck Hungary, Poland, or Tibet.
THE BIGGEST MISTAKE WE MAKE is saying that we're trying to enforce our particular form of "virtue" on the rest of the Americas with Marines and naval bombardments. We are not always on the side of the angels, because we have our own national interests.
In world politics, there is only one reality—protect your own interest. If some day a majority of the people of this country feel we should again "make the world safe for democracy" instead of protecting our own interest, we can elect another Wilson.
In any country it is impossible for the people to think realistically about forms of democratic government at the point of a gun. Perhaps if we point our guns first, then leave, we can prevent another Cuba. It may be shown that the Russians exhibit a reluctance to leave.
FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT, THAT GREAT BELIEVER IN democracy, once remarked about a Latin dictator, "Yes, I know he's a SOB, but he's our SOB."
At the present, our only job is to pick the SOB that is in our best interest and hope that he is in the best interest of the Dominican Republic too.
— Terry Joslin