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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, March 24.1965
Bread or Might?
It was announced yesterday that the U.S. has begun to use non-lethal gas in the Viet Nam war. The gas temporarily paralyzes its victims, making them incapable to fight.
The morning's papers were crammed with rebuffs, criticisms and hand-slapping about the U.S. action. Both Communist and non-Communist nations chorused their resentment and horror.
We are not fighting in Viet Nam because we want to conquer it. We are not fighting because we are warmongers and want to cause a full-scale war. These reasons sound obvious, but there are some who would dispute them.
WE ARE FIGHTING in Viet Nam because we are trying to protect a people and a nation from a form of government which we consider wrong.
We have been in Viet Nam for about ten years. The government in power at that time asked the United States for assistance. We are giving it. We are now continuing to honor the pledge we gave them at that time.
There has been loud criticism about the fact that the United States is still there. There is the argument that the government which was in power then is not in power any longer. Some say we should leave because of the danger of escalating the war to an unstoppable point.
It would seem that the reasons given are built on an expedient basis. Should the U.S. leave simply because it is now more convenient and safer to leave than it is to stay? Should we leave because there is a danger that the Communist nations will withdraw a truce that is, at its best. highly unstable?
WE CANNOT OPERATE our foreign policy in a cloud of uncertainty as to who is going to get mad at us next. We have made a commitment to the people of South Viet Nam. We cannot back out now simply because it is expedient that we do so.
The United States is also in Viet Nam for selfprotection. Asia is in the balance. If South Viet Nam falls, it is an educated guess that the rest of Asia will soon follow if we do not take some kind of action. We cannot stand by and watch the whole of Asia become Communist, if we value our survival as a democratic nation.
There is the argument that we should give them bread rather than armies. Bread would not stop infiltration across the border from the north. Bread would not win the war for South Viet Nam. It is an empty gesture if the might and honor of a nation does not back it up. We cannot feed them if they are not alive.
The argument for withdrawal would be a return to the isolationist theory that was prevalent in the United States following World War I.
We cannot leave Viet Nam. We have made a commitment and for our own sakes, if for nothing else, we will have to stay. We are not sacrificing American lives for political ends, we are sacrificing them for the survival of a principle upon which our country was founded.
- Leta Roth
The People Say.
To The Editor:
AFTER READING THE ARTICLE entitled "SPU President Scatters Blood" (UDK, Thursday, March 18). I decided the prerequisites necessary to belong to the SPU were to be immature and obnoxious. Many of the articles that I have read in the UDK (including letters to the editor written by SPU exponents) substantiate this, i.e. plans of picking the Military Science Building and sending a petition to President Johnson, etc. It is a true shame that this small nucleus of college students on our campus, including many who have not yet attained the voting age, are so eager to attack the policies set forth by the elected leaders of our country, especially policies which involve the use of our Armed Forces.
The only terms the Communists are used to listening to at the conference table are their own. When peaceful persuasion is fruitless in the subversion of free governments, Communist actions will include coercion, terrorism and guerrilla warfare to gain control of a free country. Being the leading nation in the world, the United States, in order to uphold all the ideals that we stand for, must use its military strength as the backbone of its foreign policy to answer the challenge of Communist aggression in places as Korea and South Viet Nam. Remember, it is the men of our Armed Forces who pray most of all for peace, as they will bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.
The cadets, midshipmen and personnel of the ROTC Instructor Groups do not formulate the foreign policy of our country, so why should they be the recipients of the childish acts by such groups as the SPU. In case the SPU does not know, the role of our Armed Forces is to guard our country and to preserve the way of life that we all have learned to love. In my mind, to keep the United States strong and at peace, during times when military weakness in the face of Communist aggression could result in overt war or the surrendering of our principles and freedom, is not wrong.
I am sure that if those dedicated workers of the SPU spent their time more effectively in such worthwhile endeavors as studying to further the educational needs of our country, and less time in getting their names in print, they too would be contributing to a patriotic cause much as the members of our Armed Forces have done since 1776.
Bernard E. Stalmann Jr.
Ligonier, Pa..
graduate student
Sir:
Last week I heard an ABC news report and I have just finished reading the latest issue of "Newsweek" (March 22, 1965, p. 48) about recent demonstrations on campus concerning racial discrimination in fraternities and sororites. It depresses me to find this is still so pertinent on campus—I can recall this was discussed when I attended the university. It seems quite obvious to me that the time has come in which the usual sensitivities of various Greek organizations have been tolerated long enough. The events in Selma, the consequent nation wide demonstrations and protests, etc., indicate the hand writing on the wall. The University of Kansas has no place in partnership in any system granting university benefits to housing arrangements that discriminate.
Now I realize I am "out of touch" with current campus affairs and do not know the explicit demands of students involved in the demonstrations, nor do I mean to imply that the degree of any discrimination involved here is of the same
magnitude as Selma. However I am currently a Woodrow Wilson Teaching Intern at a Negro college and am undergoing an education that, among other things, is teaching me the results and meaning of systematic discrimination. To think that the University of Kansas—students or administration—could in any way support the existence of any degree of discrimination through policies on fraternities and sororities is particularly repugnant to me and a negation of the liberal education offered by the university. I urge both students and administration to derive a final solution that assures an end to any discrimination that may exist in Greek organizations on campus. I would also hope that charges resulting in the arrests be dropped.
David Earl Sutherland Class of 1961 Norfolk, Va.
Sir:
Dailij Yfänsan
UNiversity 4-3646, newsroom
111 Flint Hall
Your newspaper could be more exciting if you adequately reported KU track wins. For instance, two years ago when the KU track team won the Outdoor Big Eight, the UDK put in something to this effect. "It seems incredible, but KU won the Big Eight."
University of Kansas student newspaper
Then, last week-end when newspapers all over the United States reported fully the exciting National Collegiate Athletics Association in Detroit, Mich., the UDK, our University newspaper, reported inadequately this event in a pint-size article on one of the last pages. Where were you, sports staff? KU looked great in that meet!
You're missing a bet, buddies.
UNiversity 4-3198. business office
Member inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York. 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.
The KU mile relay team came in fifth but broke the KU school record by running 3:17.4. But you, apparently not thinking it important enough, didn't even mention the relay team in your article. Also, Herald Hadley, former KU Cross-Country Captain won, yes, won the two mile race in National competition and through that race, is now an All American. Where were you gentlemen?
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Leta Roth and Gary Noland Co-Editorial Editors
These men represented KU, but did KU, represented by the University Daily Kansan, give the KU track team the necessary backing? No! You used as your heading, "MU Tops In Indoor Track" and stuck it in the back.
Why don't you begin printing for the students of KU instead of for yourselves?
Dede LaGree
Oklahoma junior
Connie Bohannon
Leawood junior
BOOK REVIEWS
CITIZEN TOUSSAINT, by Ralph Korngold (Hill and Wang, $2.25).
One of the most exciting and celebrated episodes in the history of the western hemisphere was the Haitian rebellion led by Gen. Toussaint Louverture. Toussaint is the subject of this two-decades-old biography by Ralph Korngold. As we consider the significance of the black-white relationships in the world today this book has even more importance than it had in 1944.
Toussaint was likely a true genius, one of the great leaders his race has produced. His story is not just that of rebellion, for Korngold provides the background of this amazing man. Toussaint was a slave for 47 of his 59 years. The years of slavery, the background of piracy as a Caribbean way of life, the way this man developed into leadership are detailed well.
The insurrection helped to set the stage for the United States purchase of Louisiana, Korngold believes. Resistance movements like that of Toussaint helped make the hemisphere free of European influence. Henry Adams wrote that it was necessary to subdue rebellion for the French to succeed. Toussaint won his battle, and perhaps this representative of the Negro race helped the American people develop their nation.
* * *
THE SENTIMENTAL YEARS: 1836-1860, by E. Douglas Branch (American Century, $2.45).
Social histories have been the delightful branch of historiography in recent years. Away with the dry political, and even the military, histories. We are coming to understand more about man through the heretofore insignificant things he has done than through the mighty things that used to occupy most of the pages in history books.
This book is scarcely a new history, however, it dating to 1934. E. Douglas Branch has chosen the 25 years between Jackson's leaving the presidency and Lincoln's entering it for the scope of his story. The Civil War brought a rude awakening from the quiet years America had known.
It was the Age of Progress, when there was still some optimism carried over from the Enlightenment, but it also was the romantic age of Emerson and Thoreau. Much of our literature, most of our fine arts, were still of the sentimental variety. Realism was decades away. Greek statues, Gothic buildings, success stories, temperance movements, massive landscapes, sweet poetry—these were the stuff of the times.
Illustrations and newspaper-magazine cartoons of the age help to give us a picture of what it must have been like to live in those pleasant days. Many readers-not just the history students-will want to spend time with this book.
* * *
HENRY JAMES AND THE JACOBITES, by Maxwell Geismar (American Century, $2.95).
This book, it should be noted, is not for the James cultists. Henry James has been riding high in literary criticism; Maxwell Geismar is trying to shoot him down. Seldom does a literary work (one recalls Van Wyck Brocks writing of Mark Twain) try to shatter a figure in quite this way.
The reputation of James, it would seem, is like a house of cards. Geismar would tip it over. Even the major novels aren't worth the time or attention they get—"The Ambassadors," "The Golden Bowl." "The Wings of the Dove." James even had a dirty mind, we are told, in "The Psychology of the Keyhole."
It would seem that if Henry James is really a key figure that the reputation should be able to withstand the attacks, and Geismar is a literary critic of enough stature that his views deserve attention. Brooks Atkinson, at the time of the big controversy over the book, lined himself up with Geismar, commenting that he agrees that James is not a major writer but merely a major entertainer. The cultists might think this over.