---
University Daily Kansan Wednesday, April 14, 1965
MU Housing
The administration at MU has abolished its approved off-campus housing list. The MU spokesman said the action stemmed from the fact that the city of Columbia now has adequate regulations to govern housing. This action also is apparently the reason for the end of the picketing at MU by the Congress on Racial Equality
I find it hard to believe that either CORE or the administration is satisfied with this solution to the problem of alleged discrimination in off-campus housing.
The solution seems to completely side-step the issue, the alleged discrimination. It does not eliminate the discrimination. It simply alleviates the problem for the administration. Under these circumstances, if there is discrimination, the university will not be responsible for it. That is no solution, it is a camouflage for one.
IF DISCRIMINATION in off-campus housing does exist, the university, as a state institution, could do much to alleviate it. But no, they just ignore it.
MU spokesmen have said that the order will affect from 10 to 15 per cent of the MU student body. It seems that the university is sacrificing
the help it could give to those students just to pacify CORE. It seems impossible that CORE could be satisfied with this pseudo-solution. It certainly could not solve the problem, from their view. It does absolve the administration of sanctioning alleged discriminatory practices. This certainly should not be the major point of their protest against the housing list.
The issue has been ignored and side-stepped too long. It must be handled. The housing list is a voluntary service to the students of the university. Because some protest a lecture series does not mean that the series should be abolished. It should be investigated and revised if necessary. The MU housing situation should be governed by the same principles.
If the university is genuinely concerned about discriminatory practices in their approved housing, they should begin to work with the problem not ignore it, as they are doing now.
The University of Missouri should have investigated the problem, to ascertain if the accusations made by CORE were correct. If they are, the administration should attempt to solve it, not ignore it.
The People Say...
—Leta Roth
Sir:
THE WORDS OF LETA ROTH on behalf of the Vietnamese War are the sorrisest propaganda, the veriest naivete.
Far from protecting ourselves or upholding our honor, our actions in Viet Nam are the strategic equivalent of the senseless tactics used by the British at the Battle of New Orleans. Those hapless redcoats marched straight up and unprotected into the fire of Andrew Jackson's well-entrenched troops, just because it would have been untraditional or "dishonorable" to play it cautious. Ironically, they had already lost the war at the time the battle was fought.
Similarly, we are acting the belligerent, unimaginative adventurers in Viet Nam, as if it were not true — as Justice Douglas made clear—that the white military man will never be welcome in yellow Asia.
If Mrs. Roth would read the SPU handouts, consciently culled from the responsible worldwide press, she would see that we are not protecting anybody in Viet Nam except some opportunistic, self-seeking leaders and a confused minority of common folk who don't know which way to turn. Our enemy is overwhelmingly the people of South Viet Nam themselves, who hate us for backing a tyrannical government for nine years.
If we would accompany our show of might with some genuine attempt to improve the economic and political lot of the common peasant, as some far-sighted Britishers did in Malaya, we would find the "enemy" deserting to our side in swarms, because then it would be their side as well. But we are not, and we are not, and nobody's doing anybody any good in this situation.
What we need in Viet Nam is a man who cares about the people of the land—someone like Chester Bowles in India.
Otherwise, and in view of the additional evidence of the stark unreality which reigns in the minds of MacNamara and his cohorts, such as the scheduled dismantling of our oceanic radar nets; we are only asking for international chaos and disaster by our prolonged presence in Viet Nam.
John Chappell
Topeka graduate student
John Chappell
THE STUDENT PEACE UNION has given the student body the opportunity to review the relevant facts and consider some theories relevant to the war in Viet Nam; few people bothered to read its statements. SPU provided students at KU with a place and a way to express concern and discontent with the escalation; not one non-SPU member joined last week's vigil. SPU gave the student body a way to register its vote against this unjust war; our petition to the President was distributed and signed by very few.
Editor:
The seriousness of the situation has been indicated in various ways, but few, very few, have bothered to stop chasing ducks long enough to notice what is happening in Viet Nam. All of which reminds this letter writer of the well known incident in New York City in which a small crowd complacently watched a man stab a girl to death without doing the slightest thing to assist her or even call the police. However, there is at least one major factor which might prevent one from an overly hasty judgment which lumps together those New Yorkers and these KU students and faculty: whereas the former were direct witnesses to the crime, the latter have had the formidable barrier of the American press between themselves and the war in Viet Nam. If the myth created by the State Department and proliferated by the press that the American Army is helping a free and happy people to defend themselves against an external invasion were in fact the case, the American presence in Viet Nam would indeed be a noble affair to which no morally and politically responsible person could reasonably object.
Political science students ought to be able to fit the situation in Viet Nam into the context of our relations with the underdeveloped countries as a whole. And reference to established facts ought, in itself,
But those who are participating in the process of education ought to know better than to believe everything they see in print. Common sense ought to suspect something phony when combat troops are called "peace forces," something reminiscent of Madison Avenue's contention that various brands of cancer sticks are "good." Higher criticism ought to take note of the odd relationship between the number of Communist manufactured arms the State Department claims we captured from the Viet Cong and the Pentagon's estimate of the total number of weapons captured during the same period.
to puncture the "defending freedom myth. (The interested reader is referred to Bernard Fall's authoritative study, The Two Viet Nams for background information. In the recent debate at KU on whether or not to stay in Viet Nam, both sides agreed that it was a useful source of unbiased facts.)
The President and the bulk of the American press have supported the civil rights movement, and that movement is achieving its objectives, albeit very slowly and painfully. The President and the press enlisted in the war in Viet Nam long ago, and that war is gradually expanding. Why do Johnson and his press support the just interests of the Negro people, but fail to support the equally just interests of the Vietnamese people?
The war will continue only so long as the myths which are used to justify it are uncritically accepted by an apathetic and irresponsible public, and no longer.
Charles Hook
CharlesHook
Lawrence sophomore
Dear Sir:
THERE APPEARED IN THE University Daily Kansan a picture of the proposed new Fraser Hall. Given, certain practical considerations impel the destruction of the older building and also functional aspects of the new; however, the building proposed is, beyond any doubt, one of the uglier eyesores yet perpetrated on this campus. It is almost equal to that fiaseo appended to Dyche like some rank tumor of mish-mash modernism.
As a student, I wish to protest. I hope something can be done to revise the plans, something resulting in a building more suitable aesthetically as well as practically.
Sincerely,
Kathy Powell
Hashinger Hall
Dailij'Hänsan
UNiversity 4-3646, newsroom
University 4-3198, business office
111 Flint Hall
Founded 1889. became biweekly 1904. triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912. Member Inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays, and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas. Accommodations, goods, services, and employment advertised in the University Daily Kansan are offered to all students without regard to color, creed, or national origin.
University of Kansas student newspaper
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Leta Roth and Gary Noland Co-Editorial Editors
"You're Really Rolling Up Quite A Record"
BOOK REVIEWS
THE AGE OF COMPLEXITY, by Herbert Kohl (Mentor, 75 cents); THE UNIVERSE AND DR. EINSTEIN, by Lincoln Barnett (Signet Science Library, 60 cents).
These new paperbacks may be placed together for consideration because the findings of Dr. Einstein have helped to make this an age of complexity. The first book is a Mentor original; the second first appeared in 1948.
appeared in 1940.
In "The Age of Complexity," Herbert Kohl suggests that philosophers of the West of today have a common heritage and a common goal. Kohl believes that such schools of thought as pragmatism, linguistic analysis, logical positivism and existentialism (please note, Western Civ. students) have in common the aim of investigating human existence as experienced in the modern age.
There are excerpts from the work of Heidegger, Russell, John Dewey and Sartre, all of which Kohl analyzes. He also shows how philosophy has touched other areas of western culture.
"The Universe and Dr. Einstein" is popular science writing that has had more than 800,000 copies in print. Lincoln Barnett wrote it so that it could present complex ideas to the layman, and it received a special National Book Award citation for its contribution to American letters.
The author studies the development of Einstein's concepts of the universe and relates them to the work of Newton and other of Einstein's predecessors. He explains the theories of Special Relativity and General Relativity, the Unified Field Theory, and the Photoelectric Law.
* * *
SICK CITIES, by Mitchell Gordon (Penguin, $2.25).
The question of urban life, debated from the platform and in newspaper editorials almost every day, is not a new one for Americans. Jefferson and Hamilton dealt with it in the 1790s, with Jefferson being the prophet of gloom and doom and Hamilton foreseeing a greater day with the coming of industrialization. Social reformers in the 19th century dealt with the city; the muckrakers and the naturalistic novelists spoke forthrightly of the ills of city.
Mitchell Gordon has provided a stark and unsparing look at urban life in "Sick Cities." We are given a grim look at the future, when much of America will look like Los Angeles—and that's a grim thought by itself. Air pollution, water contamination, lack of recreational facilities, decay of the downtown area, crime, noise, traffic congestion, school problems, fire problems, police problems, sewage and rubbish problems—all give a picture that suggests the inadequacy of efforts now being made to solve our urban questions.
There are more problems here, too, by implication and by outright statement. What all these things do to the human soul and the physical well-being is a question of deep concern. But Gordon is not merely moaning about the way things are; he offers suggestions. Suggestions about governments, about police protection, about traffic control. Thoughtful Americans will read this book with alarm, but also with hope.
* * *
TOM SAWYER ABROAD and TOM SAWYER, DETECTIVE, by Mark Twain (Dell Laurel, 45 cents).
Few adults are likely to read these, just as few adults read "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." Some scholars of Mark Twain may protest, but it's likely that these books, unlike many by the author, are really for the young.
"Tom Sawyer Abroad" takes Tom, Huck and Jim in a balloon across deserts and jungles. A particularly memorable passage concerns the boys' amazement that the countries over which they are traveling are not the colors in the textbook maps. "Tom Sawyer, Detective" finds the boys tangling with diamond thieves and becoming involved in a delightful courtroom scene.