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University Daily Kansan Thursday, March 25, 1965
Nonlethal Gas
From reading the papers and listening to pacifists, one might think the United States government is participating in the premeditated "gassing" of hundreds of Vietnamese.
So-called "gas war" protests have burst forth from just about everywhere. A 50-year-old prejudice still prevents governments from using more humanitarian methods of warfare.
When it was first disclosed that the U.S. was providing a nonlethal gas to the South Vietnamese troops, the loudest outcries of horror came from U.S. citizens.
The reaction elsewhere was mostly hostile too, except for a few sensible remarks from three British newspapers.
Britain's biggest daily, The Mirror, asked this question: "Which is the lesser evil?
"The bomb which makes mincemeat of a man or the gas which knocks him out with distressing but not lasting discomfort for the afternoon?
"Death at noon—or sickness?"
Daily Mail commentator Bernard Levin said: "What the Americans have done is to take in public the first halting step toward something that has eluded mankind since mankind existed—a war that does not kill."
Warfare without killing is almost unimaginable. But if we come to accept new techniques of warfare, mankind may yet survive.
If we learn to accept a "war that does not kill," maybe we can then learn to accept a world without war.
— Gary Noland
Guest Editorial
How Long, O Lord, How Long?
"For a long time we have been told, occasionally by men of the highest office, that you cannot legislate changes in the human heart. You can; we have. Because laws, enforced, compel changes in human conduct. New conduct develops new habits, and new habits develop new attitudes, since man to live within himself, must justify his conduct to himself. Action does change feelings, an old lesson of history, an old principle, I believe, of psychology.
never, or psychology.
"In this lies the seed of the ultimate triumph for human justice and for the true equality, mutual recognition and respect."
— Eric Sevareid November 26,1963
At the heated climax of the long summer of 1963—the monumental "March on Washington"—more than a hundred thousand Negroes were moved to cry, "How long, O Lord, How long?" At the time that appeal seemed to me a sign that the most patient, most enduring race in American society had finally lost faith in the white man. They seemed to be saying that no longer would they be content with the words of promise so often proved to be empty; no longer would they believe the white man's laws would be enforced, for they too had so often been merely crumbs thrown by a troubled national conscience.
Today, nearly two years after that August day in Washington, the Negro at the University of Kansas might well be driven to ask. "How long?"
TWO WEEKS AGO A BRAVE AND VOCAL minority made a stand, and as a result it appeared that the University was ready to take some long overdue steps to remedy a bad situation. A committee was established to formulate "... legislative, regulatory, and persuasive procedures" to assure "equality of opportunity in every form." By the end of last week it seemed that progress had indeed been made. The chancellor had signed ASC Bill #7, the political football of the year; and despite an almost paranoiac effort from Flint Hall, encouraged the adoption of an amendment to that bill restraining campus publications from doing business with segregationist advertisers. There also seemed to be a serious effort underway in the housing office to expunge from the approved listings all landlords who practice discrimination and to screen new applicants more closely. Those who were negotiating for the Civil Rights Council had the feeling last Friday that all of their gievances would be settled shortly after the holidays, including the touchy Greek question. But then the Board of Regents got into the act.
IN THEIR MEETING ON FRIDAY,THE REGents heard Chancellor Wescoe's interpretation of the civil rights movement, commended his conduct of the recent demonstrations, and reiterated a nice-sounding policy of equality.
The Board then proceeded, not to encourage Dr. Wescoe to continue his "fruitful" talks with the CRC, but to negate his power to act by decreeing that they, not the chancellor, would investigate and rule on fraternities and other off-campus housing. This decision constitutes a full turnabout from the Regents' stated policy of leaving such matters to individual administrators.
A Regents investigating committee will be appointed and will doubtless spend months compiling data that can be in the end little more than trimming for the evidence already in the hands of the CRC and UHRC members. Only when they have made their own study will the gentlemen in Topeka again consider the matter. Have no doubt that by the time a ruling is made by the Regents the snow will again be deep and the birds will again be South. It is not beyond speculation that we may even have a man on the moon, as well.
FROM THIS RADICAL SHIFT OF RESPONSIBILITY it seems evident that the Administration's decision to place the fraternity-sorority issue at the bottom of UHRC's agenda was a crafty piece of strategy, indeed. The chancellor seems to have decided that the financial and political pressures on this item would be too great for his shoulders alone, and that the bureaucratic machinery in Topeka could delay the question for months.
However, Dr. Wescoe, who has just returned from sunny Florida, still looks good. He made a lot of promises built around a very liberal-sounding statement of principles. But now the Board of Regents, through Mr. Bubb's resolution, has taken the case out of his hands, and it seems that even the publications amendment and the stricter housing practices are useless because the Administration no longer has the power to define discrimination, and furthermore has been ordered by the Regents to continue to deal with Greeks and realtors at the pre-demonstration level.
WHAT ALL THIS MEANS IS THAT A HUNDred and ten people went to jail for nothing; administration officials, faculty members and students have wasted a lot of time at the bargaining table; and the UDK can continue to tout the virtues of wall-to-wall segregation in its advertising columns. The only tangible result has been ASC Bill #7, the least controversial of the demands.
Something is drastically wrong on this campus, and anyone willing to look around and think for himself knows it. We had only hoped that the chancellor would take the first steps in creating a climate in which fear and prejudice would wilt with time. It now seems that he has succeeded only in further insulating those who thrive in this atmosphere.
The People Say.
long. O Lord, how long?
William D. Lynch Jr.
Washington, D.C., sophomore
How long, O Lord, how long?
DEAR LEMONS,
I HAVE BEEN A FAIRLY COMPLACTENT member of the University student body for 3 years, but due to the events and editorials (see Larry Hammond's letter to the editors, page 2, UDK March 15), I feel compelled to take a stand. Let me state at the onset that due to the present ASC (All Student Council) policy on civil rights I feel that I am no longer represented by them. I challenge the ASC to bring civil
Dear Editors:
rights legislation and proposed censorship of the UDK advertising policy to the vote of the entire student body. I feel that these policies are approaching a "tyranny of the minority."
Hammond's remarks on sororities and fraternities imply that there be established a set of "laws" by which we "must" choose our friends and living companions.
I feel that the ASC or the CRC
or the UHRC, definitely minority groups, have no right to choose which advertisers can make their appeal to the general student body through the UDK. They (the civil rights people) seem to want to fight segregation by segregating against it. Do the UDK staff, the fraternities, the sororites and the students, who feel as I do, have no civil rights?
Jerome M. Hughs Bucklin senior
"Don't Be Getting Any Ideas That YOU Have A Right To Vote"
The People Say...
Dear Sir,
I HAVE ATTENDED KU FOR the past four years and have had to restrain myself innumerable times from writing letters to the UDK concerning one issue or another. I'm afraid I must now lift this self-imposed interdict to answer the letter of Mr. Greg Sipe. His arguments verge on the vapid while his Christology is comparable to that of a little old lady who teaches Sunday School at First Middle Class.
Dear Sir:
Furthermore, I would ask you what nice platitudes "silly and foolish Jesus" was using when he stormed into the Temple (not the Chancellor's office), overtured the tables (which I don't recall happening in Strong) and drove out the money lenders (Dr. Wescoe's secretarial help was not lashed, even once)?
I would agree, Mr. Sipe, that the Bible records no instances of Christ carrying a picket sign. He also is not on record as preferring brand X over all others, getting five more miles per gallon with a gasoline having Superpush, etc. The point is that Christ didn't do any of these things because they are relatively modern innovations. But, contrary to what you would have us believe, Christ did express himself forcefully within his cultural setting.
"So all silly and foolish Jesus did was to go out and talk to people and show them that to be a Christian was a fine thing," is probably the most ridiculous sentence in Tuesday's UDK. Mr. Sipe, I would recommend that you read Matthew 10:34-35 where Christ states that "I have not come to bring peace on earth, but a sword. I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother . . ."
If you will examine the scriptures closely, you might abandon some of your flippant attitudes and discover that Jesus was somewhat more of a fighter than you imagine.
I would further suggest that you
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carefully consider the parables of this man who never fought and only went about talking to people. I would refer you to The Parables of Jesus by Joachim Jeremias as a study aid. Jeremiays says that "The parables are not—at any rate primarily—literacy productions, nor is it their object to lay down general maxims ('no one would crucify a teacher who told pleasant stories to enforce prudential morality'), but each of them was uttered in an actual situation of the life of Jesus, in a particular and often unforeseen crisis . . . they were predominantly concerned with a situation of conflict, they correct, reprove, attack: for the greater part, though not exclusively, the parables are weapons of warfare."
So, Mr. Sipe, I would agree that "Christ made it without a picket sign" just as readily as I would agree that the Negro will make it without turning over any tables in the Temple. For goodness sake, realize that there is a slightly different setting today than there was at the time of Christ. I commend to your thoughts the idea that today Christ just might be seen on a picket line, expressing the gospel of love in a contemporary setting, using contemporary methods.
R. J. Smith
West Plains, Mo., senior To the Editor:
I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED the penetrating analysis of early Christian history made by Mr. Sipe in Tuesday's "The People Say . . ." Aside from a few untoward references to Jesus, I find his approach to the American Dilemma disturbingly significant and significantly timely, or something. Writing in his unusual and imaginative style, Mr. Sipe has presented us with several intriguing insights that will, no doubt, open a broad avenue for scholarly investigation.
John G. Jewell
John G. Jewen
Philadelphia, Pa., freshman
Dailij Hänsan
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EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Leta Roth and Gary Noland Co-Editorial Editors