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University Daily Kansan
Friday, Feb. 26, 1965
Goodbye, Fraser
Chancellor Wescoe announced this week that Fraser Hall would be razed in June.
A long-standing tradition of KU will be razed, when Fraser Hall will finally become the victim of progress. It is unfortunate, but no doubt necessary, that Fraser must go. As Chancellor Wescoe pointed out, the building is not safe, in part, now.
Fraser, which once housed all classrooms and all University offices, is now bulging at the seams with students and professors' offices. The building, built in 1872, was supposed to meet the needs of the University for fifty years. It has served 43 years past its time.
ALUMNI WHO COME BACK on game days will always remember Fraser, even if the new structure does not resemble the old building.
Strong Hall used to be called the "ad" building, but Fraser has always been called Fraser.
The flags which are so familiar to KU students have not always flown from the twin towers. Before World War I, the American flag was only flown on national holidays. The Chancellor's flag flew from the tower during registration, and the football pennant on game days. Weather flags were always flown from the other tower.
As Keith Lawton, vice chancellor, once said, "Fraser is a tired old building." There is the nostalgic wish that Fraser could be preserved as a museum. However, with the space problem KU has become engulfed in, the denial of this wish is understandable.
If Fraser must go, then it must go. But it's still too bad.
A Slice of Ca m-pi
By Jim Langford
A friend of mine, Conway by name, tore into my room the other night shouting expletives I cannot even begin to remember. Even if I could, I'm not sure I would want to.
After he calmed down, and we established the fact that he had been searching for me for weeks, he told me his story.
It seems Conway was sitting in the Union a few weeks back and a girl, no description, just a girl had handed him a little pamphlet.
But, getting back to the specifics of Conway's "white paper," it more or less called the United
TEARING through his harangue of the pamphlet and the girl I discovered that the pamphlet was actually just a little white sheet. Conway called it "A minority white paper on stupidity."
States a bunch of warmongers. It was the old war cry, or one that is becoming an old war cry, of "let's get out of Viet Nam." "We have no business there."
Poor Conway just doesn't understand.
He feels that if we stay in Viet Nam, no matter what we lose in the way of lives is a price well paid if we stop the cancerous spread of communism from North Viet Nam. He told me that the price has already been paid for staying there, and now we're just building up interest. Of course, Conway also thinks we should move into the North and drive the,"vile vermin back into the nest of weeds from which they wandered."
OF COURSE CONWAY is slightly prejudiced. He lost his father and an uncle at some island called Guadalcanal in the 40's and a brother in Korea. He
told me that he feels that they kinda paid for something with their lives and he gets pretty gushy and patriotic after after.
But, then, Conway is a pretty strange person.
He said, "It's too bad some of these kooks work harder at tearing down our system of government than they do at strengthening it.
"But," he added, "if they ever get drafted, maybe getting their hair cut will enable them to see better."
CONWAY THEN decided he better go. He mumbled something about some type of revolution that has swept the college campus.
He said one thing during the course of our conversation that I think bears repeating. "We're at the bottom of the ladder right now in Viet Nam. There's only one way to go and that's up."
The People Say
Dear Sir:
IT WAS INDEED A PLEASURE to hear about Mr. Robert Boyd's disappointment in the student body at KU ("The People Say," Feb. 23). Being a fellow Texan, it is comforting to note that students here generally take a more restrained view of athletics. It is true that in Texas the students and citizenry are quite avid sports followers. Indeed, while Kansas City worries about the municipal bonds, businessmen in the Lone Star State concentrate on making the football coach happy. What Mr. Boyd does not realize is that some KU students recognize that athletics are entertaining but that, in truth, a football or basketball game is nothing more than a modern manifestation of tribalism and savagery.
But Mr. Boyd has failed to see spontaneity and enthusiasm where it does exist. Has he ever tried to wind his way among the family picnickers in Strong Hall between 11:30 and 12:30 Monday through Friday? What more could one ask for in togetherness? Even the dogs which are always present add to the joy of the outing. The problem is not that the student body is "stuck up"; it is not "stuck up" enough. This gusy type of folksiness that Mr. Boyd seems to want may be all right for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and Sam Houston High in Houston, but I don't see how it could be useful here at the University. Students can identify with one another in the goal of scholarship rather than a tribal ritual in Allen Field House.
Mr. Boyd doesn't seem to know that a university's reputation can never be enhanced by its athletic program. For years, people remembered Michigan State as the Big Eight school with a whiz football
team and heroes with Slavic names. They did not remember that hundreds of National Merit Scholars chose that university because of its sound academic curricula. Harvard did not get to be Harvard on the gridiron. This is not to say that we should mimic the Eastern schools, for KU is a public institution, but every KU student can take pride that his university is noted as one of the finest teaching universities in the nation. Sports should be continued, because there would probably be a revolution without them.
Last, we might add that the popular conception of a Texan (size 4 hat, size 50 coat, and size 13 AAA shoes) is incorrect.
Lester D. Langley,
Borer, Texas,
graduate student
Terry L. Smart,
Houston, Texas,
graduate student
Sir:
Last Friday you published a letter by a Mr. Harkins imprecating Miss Hellerstein as cheap, trivial, immature, hypocritical and "a mockery by association of real dissent." One could discount his jejune vitriol as splenetic cackle, a noise typical of dusty-brained graduate students. But this would be unfair. I am certain that Mr. Harkins is the "concerned student" his letter implies—though only with "crucial issues" of "real dissent." COLO-COP must be one of these "crucial issues," exciting him as it does.
The depth of Mr. Harkins' perception is amazing. Without his insightful comments I would never have discerned Miss Hellerstein's menace—that she is a subverter of True Significance. Doubtless not
It is paradoxical that she could be so dangerous and still merit a Kansan editorial. A more sensitive index of safety would be hard to find. Unfortunately, Miss Hellerstein was also a safe target for Mr. Harkins's spittle.
only the Daily Kansan, but the entire university, has suffered intellectual decline.
Granted, Mr. Harkins is no lethargic student. He displays, with fervor, the outstanding characteristics of KU graduate students—petty viciousness.
Yours sincerely, Robert Anthony, Liberal junior
Dailij Hansan
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"Harold, Do You Think Some Day We'll Have All The Comforts Of Hume?"
Editor's Note: Beginning with this issue, the Kansan will feature a weekly column by Robert Ellsworth, the Congressman from this district.
U. S. retaliatory strikes against North Vietnamese positions are supported by the overwhelming majority of the Congress. Our forceful reactions to Communist aggression are designed to show that aggression does not pay. There is, of course, some risk that the war in Southeast Asia may escalate; but there is much greater risk in letting the Communists get the impression that their aggressions pay dividends.
The Republicans in Congress, by the way, have been much more unified in their support of the President than have some Democratic Senators, who seem to be calling for measures that could lead to our being pushed back to Pearl Harbor.
South Viet Nam
The closing of the Kansas City, Mo., Veterans Administration Regional Office is a hasty and questionable decision. It is all well and good to take actions that will increase operating efficiency and reduce spending. It is an entirely different story, however, when this action also involves great inconvenience and denies thousands of people the services provided by the VA Regional office.
Veterans Administration Closing
In the proposed closing of the Kansas City Veterans Administration Regional Office there is no mention made of the fact that the service to veterans, which is the sole reason for the existence of the VA, will be greatly reduced in addition to widows and dependent children of veterans in the western half of Missouri and the ten northeast counties of Kansas. In the past the VA has determined the location of its regional offices on the basis of veteran population. With well over a million people in the Kansas City metropolitan area, and many more large cities within a fifty mile radius of Kansas City, it seems doubtful to me that the closing of this office is a justifiable action. From eastern Kansas there are over 70,000 veterans who depend upon the Kansas City Regional Office for its services, not to mention their dependent children or the widows of veterans in this area.
OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT facts will prove that the Kansas City office is doing more work and rendering more service to the veterans of the Kansas City area than the St. Louis office is doing for its own area. I think it is particularly important also that this is the only case anywhere in the nation in which a larger office will be merged into a smaller office. In addition to the cost involved in moving many of the facilities from Kansas City to St. Louis and establishing the St. Louis office, there will be a waste of $85,000 for the remaining six months rent to be paid on the Kansas City office facilities. The Kansas City office has done an outstanding job, due primarily to the devotion and hard work of almost 200 employees from around the Kansas City area. Many of these employees will be without a job when the merger takes place, and there is as yet no significant indication that anything will be done to assist them.
There are far too many areas in which needless cost and effort are involved which make it impossible to justify the closing of the Kansas City VA Regional Office.
HPL