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THE SUMMER SESSION KANSAN
Friday, June 21, 1968
Good committees
... yet no actions
Two months . . . two assassinations . . . another crime commission. President Lyndon B. Johnson has selected a brilliant group of well-known men to serve on his crime commission to study violence and crime in the United States—the violence and crime which led to the murder of two great men. But do these men have the time to waste?
This is the third crime commission the President has appointed, not counting the countless number of other committees established to investigate everything from civil disorders to water pollution. But what happens to the committee reports? Some of the time they are published in paperback, sometimes they make the Senate floor. But the suggestions go by the wayside.
John Lindsay, mayor of New York City, reports that as a member of President Johnson's committee on civil disorders he worked for seven months. Yet not one recommendation of the committee has become a reality. The same story is true of the other two crime commissions appointed. It is time to quit talking, and wasting good peoples' time and start listening and acting.
This Spring a small minority of dissenters on this campus protested the running of the University. Inspired by the Student for Democratic Society's doctrine of running a knife along a
brick wall until a weak point is found and then twisting, they objected to the University Senate Committees being void of a student voice.
A committee of twelve—six students and six faculty representatives—was appointed to study the question. They have already met five times and are actively involved in forming recommendations for the University. But unlike the United States government, the KU administration is listening and acting. These men are not wasting their time.
Three years ago another group of students staged a sit-in, in the Chancellor's office. They wanted seven goals to help eliminate racial discrimination on campus. Now the ban that the Kansan can not accept advertising from a firm or renter which discriminates and other of the protestors' goals are followed without the bat of an eye.
This University seems to be open-minded to compromise and change to squelch violence and demonstrations. It opens its door to committee recommendations and through the University Senate and the All Student Council acts.
It is now time that the United States Congress takes a lesson from some of its schools of higher education and open their doors to the recommendations of the committees they so highly praise when they are formed.
New Books
A fine run of paperbacks this month from Dell—from Alan Moorehead's brilliant history of the North African War to some old Agatha Christie and Dashiell Hammett mysteries. And summer's ahead, children.
The Moorehead book is The March to Tunis (Dell, 95 cents). Earlier Moorehead volumes were "Cooper's Creek, "The Blue Nile" and "The White Nile"; he is one historian who has the 19th century feeling for style and narrative pace. This new book is about the African fighting 1940-1943. It is a vast work, far more comprehensive than the relatively slight earlier books.
That vastly popular (with university students) oracle of contemporary affairs (he used to be popular with the parents), one Dr. Benjamin Spock, has collaborated with Mitchell Zimmerman on a sight volume called Dr. Spock on Vietnam (Dell, 75 cents). The book is flatly propaganda from a man who is scarcely an authority on world affairs, but he, of course, is on the right side—depending on where you're standing.
Len Deighton is back, the man who has provided numerous spy entertainments in recent years, from "The Ipress File" to "Billion Dollar Brain" (which was lesser Deighton). The new one is An Expensive Place to Die (Dell, 75 cents), and Michael Caine probably has signed the movie contract already. The super-agent this time is mixed up with painting and of course with sex. Deighton was better when he wasn't trying so hard to be Ian Fleming.
Now comes Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby (Dell, 95 cents). This
one is about sorcery in the 20th century, specifically in a New York apartment building. All kinds of strange things had gone on in that building, and then came all kinds of other strange things. This thing is headed for the movies, too—naturally.
There may be worse writers operating today; it's hard to think of the names just off hand. There are few who are getting richer. Than Harold Robbins, that is. The Robbins paperback is Stiletto (Dell, 75 cents). It's not new Robbins, but the theme is still there, coming in strong. Sex. And plenty of it.
Another new one is Alberto Moravia's Conjugal Love (Dell, 75 cents). The difference between Moravia and Robbins is not their subject matter (it's the same) but the fact that Moravia knows how to construct a sentence, and he knows the meaning and beauty of words. This one is about a love triangle, as the movies used to call it.
A new cartoon book, edited by Lawrence Lariar, Best Cartoons of the Year (Dell, 50 cents). It's worth a look. And two attractive Shakespeare volumes, with facing-page notes; Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Dell, 50 cents each).
About those old mysteries. Dashiell Hammett's The Dain Curse (Dell, 50 cents) goes back a long time but it's that rough, tough school in which he pioneered. The Christie is N or M? (Dell, 50 cents). It's also ancient, but it's by one of the best in the business.
The Story of an African Farm,
by Olive Schreiner (Premier, 60
cents)—A now-classic novel about
a young girl and her life in the South African veldt. The book was first published in 1883. The book shocked its contemporaries for its frankness, but it is most memorable for the beauty of its writing and the perceptions of its young author.
The opinions expressed in the editorial columns are those of the editorial staff of the newspaper. Guest editorial views are not necessarily the same as those of the opinions expressed in the Summer Session Kansan and not necessarily those of the University of Kansas Administration or the Kansas State Board of Reports.
The Summer Session Kansan, student newspaper at the University of Kansas, is represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 Street, New York, N.Y., 10022. Mail subscription rates: $6 a semester or $10 a year. Published and second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas, every Tuesday and Thursday. Subscriptions: merchandise, services, attractions, goods, and employment advertised in the Summer Session Kansan are offered to students without regard to color, creed, or national origin.
Executive Staff
Jack Haney
Joe Deng
Helen Owens
Robert Stevens
Stevourm
Dr. Leroy
by Dick Bibler
June 12, 1968
Business Manager
Office Manager
Managing Editor
Photography
The shocking gun-killing of another of our nation's finest leaders ought finally jar some sense into us as a people. We, who aspire to exert moral leadership in the world, are now universally condemned and even pitted. And so long as we refrain from enacting and enforcing strict gun control laws we stand condemned. We, the American people, must share the guilt for the brutal slaying of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King since—if for no other reason—we have made it easy for those deranged individuals to commit these cruel murders. They pulled the trigger, but it was we who put the weapons into their hands.
Business Manager
Letters to the Editor
Advisor ...
White's Wit and Wisdom
REPRESENTED FOR NATIONAL ADVERTISING BY
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A DIVISION OF
Dec. 15, 1931, Emporia Gazette
FAIR, FRAIL FLESH
She probably would shoot them for Peeping Toms.
We are frontiersmen no more. And no longer have we need of guns. The argument that firearms are necessary for personal protection and safety is no longer valid. Rather, it is the complete absence of all such weapons that is necessary for our safety. A nation that harbors the deep divisions, frustrations, and violence that ours does simply cannot afford to allow its citizens the privilege to arm themselves. Most other civilized nations have long ago recognized this fact. And statistics clearly show that in those enlightened countries that forbid their citizens to bear arms life is much safer than in this country. Unless we disarm ourselves, others of our political leaders will fall, and all men in public life will live in constant fear. Unless we outlaw in toto the possession of firearms, we will continue to stand by while thousands of our fellow citizens are assaulted by deadly weapons every year. It need not be so. It must not be so!
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
"TUITION WENT UP AGAIN THIS YEAR."
Six Baltimore, Md., women fainted Saturday when Lawrence Tibbett, motion picture actor, sang his "Cuban Love Song" at a relief ball.
READER'S DIGEST SALES & SERVICES, INC.
360 Lexington Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017
Emporia may be a hick town, but Tibbett, Rudolph Valentino and Clarke Gable couldn't make a member of the Emporia Women's Club faint if they made a charity appearance at her bedside on St. Agnes' Eve.
Programs of gun registration and restrictions against mail order purchase of firearms are a start in the right direction, but yet are clearly not enough. We should outlaw completely the personal possession of all firearms. Only law enforcement officials
should be permitted to carry guns. (And hopefully some of them may also be able to disarm in the future.) Some will regard this proposal as radical. No one likes to give up a privilege that he has had for a long time. But times have changed. And now, for the sake of sanity and safety, that privilege must be sacrificed. Because of the irresponsible and dastardly acts of a few, the many responsible gun owners must respond to the will of that still larger majority which demands that we give up our guns.
To those who would insist on the right or freedom to bear arms I would argue that the existence of any right or freedom is subject to the light of reason. The freedoms that we possess as citizens of this country are not inviolable. They were not God-given, but were secured for us by our Founding Fathers, who were plainly men. In establishing and maintaining politically guaranteed freedoms, our elected leaders have acted (and continue to act—it is hoped—) according to their rational judgment of the greatest good for the people they serve. In light of the events and circumstances of the past five years, can we rationally and conscientiously maintain that the right to bear arms is in the best interest of the nation? To my mind the answer can only be a resounding "NO."
There are those who argue that the murderer or assassin would still find a gun or would somehow commit his foul deed even if he was without a gun. I must concede only the possibility, but not the probability, of this. But there is no justification for our continuing to make it easy for the killer. As it is now, any person has available to him weapons with which he can easily and in a cowardly manner take the life of any other person. The ranks of potential assassins and murderers are increased many fold merely because we, by providing their arsenal, have made their task so simple. By outlawing firearms altogether political assassinations would become extremely difficult if not virtually impossible. Any substantial decrease in the accessibility of weapons will result in a corresponding decrease in the number of assassinations and murders. Surely this is reason enough to take decisive action toward disarming the people.
I am not sympathetic to the pleas of our outdoors "sportsman." It would seem that he has shot up enough of the "game" in this country and that he ought now to turn his attention to restoring and preserving our wild life. Should the hunter demand his right to continue his violence against animals, let him do it without guns. At the very least a strictly controlled system of gun rental and ammunition allocation could be worked out for him and for those who engage in the sport of marksmanship.
The point has been reached that the alternative to a national disarming is a national suicide. We are quite literally faced with the prospect of collectively shooting ourselves to death. In the five years since President Kennedy was slain in Dallas the rain of bullets has not ceased. Thousands of innocent people and several of our outstanding leaders have been cut down. Can we in good conscience allow this to continue?
We must act now to correct the dangerous situation. We owe it to the late President Kennedy, Senator Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and to their widows, and to ourselves, to do whatever we can to put an end to the outrageous slaughter that we have witnessed in our country. It is up to the Congress of the United States and the state governments to take effective measures to outlaw or at least to severely restrict the personal possession of deadly weapons, but it is our duty to make known to them our demands for this action. Let us speak out.
Sincerely,
Wayne C. McWilliams
Topeka, Kansas