KU
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY kansan Serving KU For 77 of its 101 Years
77th Year, No.137
WEATHER
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
The U.S. Weather Bureau predicts mostly fair skies with a gradual warming trend tonight and tomorrow.
Wednesday, May 17, 1967
Blaze guts FIJI house
fire gutted the Phi. Gamma Delta fraternity house, 1540 Louisiana, early this morning.
"It's all gone as far as I'm concerned," Lawrence Fire Chief F. C. Sanders said about 3:30 a.m. He stood watching his entire 32-man fire department battle the flames.
NO DAMAGE estimates were readily available, although it could easily run more than $250,-.000. Although no one was injured, most of the men escaped with just what they wore on their backs.
Members of the house were routed out shortly after 2 a.m., after early attempts failed to douse the blaze which started in a second floor closet.
Faulty wiring was speculated to be the cause of the blaze, the official cause was listed as "undetermined." Three fraternity members first started a bucket brigade. The fire in the closet "hit the third floor and it burnt like paper," one man said, and then they evacuated.
Sanders said the fire was coming through the north roof when he arrived about 2.30. Although the firemen were using "every piece of equipment we have," according to Sanders, they complained of insufficient water pressure.
"LACK OF SUFFICIENT pressure on our first lines let the fire get out of hand," Sanders said, pointing to a large hose atop a ladder truck. There wasn't enough pressure to pump water to the nozzle held by a fireman on the extended ladder.
Sanders said the fire was "just too much for us."
One fireman sat on top of the aerial ladder for about 45 minutes before enough water pressure could be built up to effectively use his hose.
A crowd of 500 gathered and everyone offered assistance to the men. Fraternity president Curtis Heinz, Topeka junior, said many of the men had even left their wallets and checkbooks behind.
BUT THE LOSS which worried the men more than the cameras, tape recorders, clothes and an expensive shotgun were the term papers and books. Many partially finished term projects burned in the flames.
One member almost cried as he pointed to his room where geography relief maps he had worked on for three months were being engulfed in flames. He had just one and a half maps to finish.
Another fraternity member just gazed on. After all, he sighed, it had been his home for four years.
The automobiles in the parking lot were at one time endangered by the blaze. They were removed. Many of them had to be pushed up the driveway as either the drivers could not be found or their keys had been left behind.
Over 100 places have been
EVERY fraternity on Mount Oread opened their doors to the men. The Phi Kappa Psi house members brought two cases of doughnuts. Another house provided hot coffee.
found for the men of Phi Gamma Delta to stay for the remainder of the semester in other Greek fraternities, which have volunteered room, board, clothing, and places to study.
"By 9 o'clock this morning, we had contacted all the other Greek houses," Dennis Taylor, Rancho Cordova, Calif., junior and president of the IFC, said, "and received this tremendous response."
Furniture saved from the blaze is being stored at the Phi Delta Theta house.
Many of the scantily clad Fijis went to the nearby Theta Tau house for warmth. Others tore rocks from their retaining wall to break out windows so streams of water could get to the fire.
Thirty-six of the 61 members of the house spent the night in temporary quarters in Templin Hall, opened by University officials.
Heinz said that he plans to ask the other fraternities on Mount Oread to house the men the rest of this year, so that they might be able to share books to study for finals.
Bob Radcliffe, chapter advisor,
said the house was insured for
$300,000. He added that the Phi Gams will be in a new house a year from next fall but that no formal plans had been made.
(See Blaze guts . . . page 5)
-UDK Photo by John Marshall
PHI GAM LOOKS AT REMAINS
A Phi Gam surveys what used to be the freshman dorm in his fraternity house. All that is left now is crumpled, smoldering iron and charred, wet wood.
Step is taken in fair housing
Bu RUE CHAGOLL
The first step in securing a fair housing ordinance for Lawrence was taken today with the formal presentation of a draft proposal at the city commission meeting.
The commissioners today listened to a 45-minute discussion-presentation by proponents of the ordinance.
Mrs. Eugene Wallace, chairman of the Human Relations Commission, which prepared the proposal draft, opened the presentation with a letter, addressed to Fred Six, member of the Human Relations Commission, expressing KU's position on the proposal.
Member disillusioned
Mayor Richard H. Raney requested that presentation be limited for sake of time and said negative discussion will be heard at a later date.
THE TEXT of that letter, in full, follows:
I have been asked by Mr. Richard Dulin, a member of the Lawrence Fair Housing Coordinating Committee, to express to you the position of the University relative to the proposed Fair Housing Ordinance which the Human Relations Commission has submitted to the Lawrence City Commission.
"Dear Mr. Six:
First I would point out that the University and all University groups in conformity with policy established by the State Board of Regents are prohibited from engaging in any discriminatory practice which is based on race, religious faith, or national origin. Thus the rules regarding the housing of students in University residence halls or University-related living units are consistent with the objectives of the proposed ordinance.
Second, I would assert that many of the kinds of faculty members the University seeks to attract and to retain prefer to live and work in a community that does not condone the types of discriminatory practices which the proposed ordinance seeks to prohibit. In recent years, increasingly, we have found that prospective faculty members inquire about the attitude of the Lawrence community toward racial and similar types of discrimination. In all such cases the inquiry was based upon the desire of the prospective faculty member to live in a
(See Step is . . . page 10)
Slams ASC ethics
By JOHN MARSHALL
In a speech "for the good of the council," Will Hardesty, Wheat Ridge, Colo., junior and newly elected ASC member, said he had
been "severely disillusioned by student government at KU" as a result of testimony and statements made to him by past and present council members.
Anti-war groups plan 'picket-vigil'
A rally protesting U.S. involvement in Vietnam will be staged Friday on the steps of Strong Hall. After the rally demonstrators will march to Memorial Stadium and conduct a "picket-vigil" of the Chancellor's ROTC Review.
The parade will begin at 2:45 p.m. in X-zone parking lot and march past the Kansas Union to Strong Hall.
By PAUL HANEY
The rally is sponsored by the Kansas Peace Forum, the KU Vietnam Committee, the Student Peace Union and the Women's League for International Peace and Freedom.
A LETTER to members of the organizations said the purpose of rally will be to "gather as much support as possible around the slogan: Mr. President, please stop the bombing now, and seek immediate negotiations."
Rally participants will be asked to sign a telegram to President Johnson bearing the slogan.
THE ANNOUNCED PURPOSE of the ROTC review picket is "to protest the draft, university complicity with the war effort, the war itself and American foreign policy in general."
"I HAVE COME TO BELIEVE that the public has been led actrav by the wheeling and dealing of KU's student representatives and leaders." Hardesty said.
Hardesty said he believed the "student politicos had maneuvered people in and out of office with offers of money, positions of power, and other unethical promises."
Hardesty stood and made the speech to the 13 council members who remained at the meeting.
AFTER NEARLY THREE hours of parliamentary debate on an amendment to an amendment to ASC Bill No. 8, the amendment passed.
The amendment retains the dean of men, dean of women and the dean of students as members of the ASC disciplinary committee.
The amendment states,however, that the dean of men, dean of students or the dean of women are not to be chairmen of the committee.
NEITHER THE DEAN of men nor the dean of women are to sit on the committee during cases in which they have had prior involvement.
The ASC presented former Council chairman Jim Prager with an engraved gavel for his "outstanding service to the Council during the past year."