Issue in Viet Nam American Dilemma
The bombs bursting in Viet Nam and the victory a day pace of the American forces there is rapidly becoming the major American political issue. Unfortunately nobody seems to have any real solution to the problems posed by the war.
PRESIDENT JOHNSON talks vaguely of unconditional negotiations, but in practice any final terms of negotiations no matter how unconditionally begun, are likely to prove unsatisfactory to one side or the other.
THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE government is not willing to accept the Viet Cong into any government, and the Honolulu conference showed that the United States is not likely to force an unacceptable peace on the Saigon military government. Under these conditions peace talks are probably a waste of time.
BUT THE United States persists in the dream that the Viet Cong and Hanoi can be convinced through a show of American force that they cannot win, and that a continuation of the war would be far too costly for them.
IF THE United States is going to get out of South Viet Nam within the foreseeable future, this country is going to have to accept the possibility of a communist government there. If that possibility does not exist for the Viet Cong, maneuvers at the bargaining table are going to be futile.
CERTAINLY THE bombing of North Viet Nam is more a political move to demonstrate to North Viet Nam the potential cost of opposing the United States than a military move. So far, however, the bombings have caused the North to increase its efforts, rather than convince them of certain defeat. That a further continuation of
bombing in North Viet Nam would bring the war any closer to the conference table seems doubtful in view of the operation's year-long history.
WITH BOTH sides still unwilling to negotiate, the prospect is for the war to get bigger. American military commitment, already at about 200,000 men, may double this year, and increase three-fold within two years. Consideration is being given to using American ground forces in Laos to block supply routes from the north, and the American commitment to Thailand is likely to also be increased. Escalation appears more likely the longer the war lasts.
BUT, IN SPITE of the unpleasant course that American policy seems to be taking, there is little else that Johnson can realistically do. Unconditional American withdrawal is not politically attractive at home, and would certainly, at the very least, prove unsettling to anti-communists throughout Southeast Asia, not particularly a stable area in the best of circumstances.
LIKEWISE, NEGOTIATIONS which would eventually permit the Viet Cong to rule the country would prove unsatisfactory at home, and probably couldn't be achieved anyway without selling out those Vietnamese that have allied themselves to us.
THE ONLY SOLUTION currently acceptable is victory through American arms, followed, hopefully, by rehabilitation of the country by Saigon. That course, with all its risks of escalation, all its uncertainty, and all its costs, mostly carried by the Vietnamese whose country is being wrecked, is far from ideal, but it is the only one open.
—Justin Beck
Weakness in Kansas rights act
The Kansas Act Against Discrimination, passed in 1953 and amended in 1961, 1963 and 1965, is a comprehensive law prohibiting discrimination against any person because of his race, national origin or ancestry. It prevents such discrimination by employers, labor organizations, governmental agencies, schools and places of public accommodation.
It is an admirable law. In reading it, one feels that full utilization of it and enforcement of it would do much to bring about true equality in the state of Kansas.
But the last section of the law (44-1014, Kansas Statutes) provides a terrific jolt to one who has been reading through the law and taking heart in its provisions to prevent discrimination. That section reads:
"44-1014. Act inapplicable to adherents of certain religious creeds. This act shall not apply to any member of or adherent to a religious creed whose tenets or practices include a refusal to recognize the flag of the United States of America or a refusal to serve in the armed forces of the United States of America."
Apparently, in a surge of patriotism and righteous indignation toward anyone whose idea of patriotism differed from that then current in the Kansas
Legislature, the members of the legislature decided to go on record as feeling that certain religious groups which questioned the pledge of allegiance or advocated pacifism are somehow "un-American."
Such a decision, however, was probably made by only a handful of the men in the legislature. The majority of the representatives and senators, presumably, would refrain from giving statutory expression to such feelings, even if they shared them.
The presumption is that the legislators are fairly well informed about some of the basic principles of American government—a presumption which admittedly seems on the face of it to take too much for granted.
It does not take a sophisticated student of political science to see that the last section of the Kansas Act Against Discrimination flagrantly violates two well-known provisions of the United States Constitution, the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
If nothing else, section 44-1014 obviously violates the "equal protection" provision—and it does not take much more than a general knowledge of the Constitution to spot the conflict.
This section of the law should be revoked. If the legislature does not show the good sense
to do it, the courts probably will have to do so.
But perhaps more importantly, the ridiculous addendum to the antidiscrimination act should make our senators and representatives acutely aware of some of their shortcomings and determined to try to do something about them.
First of all, they should learn to rely less on the revisor of statutes. As it works now, at least, one man has the responsibility of looking at all proposed bills and advising the drafters if they are properly drawn. When the rush becomes great, which is most of the time in a legislative session, he simply does not have time to do his job properly.
Second, the legislators should learn to protect their reputation as fairly intelligent men by doing their homework. This may be difficult, for a huge amount of legislation piles up until the last few days of the legislative session.
Third, 44-1014 might be taken as a hint for our legislators to be more skeptical about amendments and bills offered at the last minute. This section sounds like a half-baked amendment, very/possibly offered in that mad three-day rush toward adjournment.
We send our representatives to the legislature with the expectation that they will exercise their best judgment in making laws for us. (Even though we sometimes doubt that their best judgment is very good.) We should insist that they do everything in their power to meet this expectation.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
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Represented by National Advertising Service, 13 East 50 St., New York, N.Y. 10022. Mail subscription rates: $4 a semester or $7 a year. Published and second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. University holidays and examination periods. Accommodations, goods, services and employment advertised in the University Daily Kansan are offered to all students without regard to color, creed or national origin.
— Walt Blackledne
2
Daily Kansas Monday, February 21, 1936
" SO MUCH FOR WHAT'S EXPECTED OF A "C"
STUDENT— NOW IF YOU WISH TO EARN A "B" " "
West point cheating
'The low estate of public morals'
Louis La Coss, a 1911 graduate of KU and head of the William Allen White Foundation, died Thursday of heart disease. He had worked for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat for 42 years, until his retirement in 1958.
BUT FUNDAMENTALLY what happened at West Point reflects a present distorted attitude toward old-fashioned honesty and integrity that pertains not only in our schools but in America's social and political life.
For 11 of those years he served as editor of the editorial page, winning, in 1952, the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing with "The Low Estate of Public Morals" a commentary on the dismissal of 90 West Point cadets, many of them members of the football team, for cheating.
The discharge of 90 West Point cadets for cheating at examinations is only one facet of the many-sided problem of moral disintegration nationally that is causing many persons to wonder whether America is going down the path of decay that caused the Roman Empire to fall. It is a sobering thought. But the facts must be faced.
THE WEST POINTERS were dishonest. They cheated. Some did so because they couldn't play football and keep up with their studies. Others who were not athletes cheated because that was the easy way to make passing grades.
TIE EXCUSE of the athletes accents the abnormality of thinking in many institutions of higher education as the part sports should play in college life. The necessity of having a good team to assure big revenue to build a bigger stadium to make more money has led many of our colleges into the evil devices of buying players, of competing in the open market for a star halfback. Some colleges have recognized the error and have deemphasized sports, as should be done.
IT IS SEEN in the high places in government which after World War II practiced plain deception on the people. We were told no secret agreements had been made with anybody. Later we discovered pacts were signed at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam that made the Korean war inevitable.
AT WEST POINT the incentive was a bit different because Uncle Sam foots the bills there, but there was the incentive for the individual to "make" the team that was tops or near it in the nation. So, if practice on the field interfered, cheat a little and make the necessary grades.
IN THE NEW DEAL era was born the idea that an administration can perpetuate itself in power by buying the voters with handout money. Remember how Harry Hopkins tapped the WPA till to win an election in Kentucky?
DURING THAT era was born the fiction that cites and states as well as individuals need not look to their own resources or ingenuity to survive—let Washington do it. Out of the motting of depression and political trickery came the insidious thinking by millions of Americans that hard work is positively silly; that if one does work, do the least possible, draw the biggest pay possible—and strike for more.
The youths, such as the West Pointers, with whom we are concerned today, were babies then. They have grown into manhood in an environment of take-it-whee- I-find-it entirely elit to the American tradition. They are the unpretty fruit of the mistakes of the past two decades.