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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, April 30, 1968
Reinforcing rationales
It's too bad that the letter sent to the Chancellor yesterday morning concerning the University's attitude toward student influence on policy does not have the stature to warrant an official reaction of some kind; the issues are worth raising and the implications are significant.
The letter "demands" that the Chancellor publicly repudiate two interpretations of the recent dialogue between Provost Francis Heller and students on April 23. At this time, according to the letter, Dean Heller asserted "that KU does not exist for the student, and that students are essentially transients, their commitment being of a passing nature and therefore the administration finds it exceedingly difficult to fit into its decisions the contributions of such individuals."
Whether or not this is what Mr. Heller said or meant, in the midst of a heated debate, is not the point.
But it does in a more general way raise some very good questions about the relevance of students in the eyes of the administration. And we would be as interested as anyone in hearing some official reaction to these points and their implications.
But that letter won't get the job done.
First of all, it's not signed. Second, it makes "demands." Then it states the ultimatum date,
without stating what will occur if the demands are not met.
I don't know about the students who drafted the letter ('scuse the expression) but I personally would have little respect for a chancellor or an administration that did exactly what an anonymous letter "demanded" that they do.
If the administration is really expected to respect these questions, they would have to be presented through something better than an anonymous, demanding letter.
An All Student Council bill structuring a committee to have similar dialogues with administrators, or a group of students with some indications that what they might say is representative meeting with the Chancellor, or at least signing the letter, would have more effect.
Submitting the letter in this fashion, when it is pretty obvious that the Chancellor is not going to follow the demands of an anonymous letter, appears to be a way of supplying rationales and justifications for viewing the KU administration as being completely unconcerned for the student and student rights.
This is a popular image to many students, but needs reinforcing from time to time through doomed gestures such as this.
— John Hill
Assistant Editorial Editor
Letters to the editor:
On ROTC and Dean Heller
To the Editor:
I am writing in response to several statements made by Dean Heller at the discussion held Tuesday evening. He has repeatedly said that the University is dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and truth. It is not, however, the "University" that is engaged in the pursuit of knowledge, but rather the individuals of the University. University funds are not allocated directly to knowledge or truth, but rather to the students and faculty dedicated to enlightening themselves and others. The students are an integral part of the University; the University does not exist without students, without pursuers of knowledge and truth.
Dean Heller says, "We find it exceedingly difficult to fit into the University decisions the contributions of individuals whose commitment is of a passing nature." A student's commitment to the University of Kansas may be transient, but his commitment to the pursuit of knowledge and truth does not end. A student may leave the University, but this is no reason why he cannot make a lasting contribution to the University during his stay; this is no reason why the students of many years to come cannot enjoy the fruits of his ideas.
Dean Heller says, "Give us credit as men of good will that we do take the students' ideas into account." I, for one, do not wish to be humored. I do not wish the ideas of my fellow students to be listened to with deaf and unresponding ears. A University dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and truth is indeed an ideal, but the failure to heed the voice of any individual is as well a departure from this ideal. Ideals can never be achieved except through
the individuals who are dedicated to them.
Louis Green Prairie Village junior
✩ ✩ ✩
To the Editor:
In response to the specious arguments of a vociferous minority, I feel obligated to take issue with some of the inane comments offered by Robert Cherry and Jay Barrish concerning the Ad Hoc Committee to Ban ROTC from Campus. The first comment deserving rebuttal involves the statement, "We feel it is a sad commentary on the University that it allows War to be taught as a trade . . .." War is not taught as a trade; given the new Two-Year Program the ROTC cadet spends approximately one-tenth of his college education on military subjects. Furthermore, ROTC stands for Reserve Officer Training Corps; its primary purpose is to produce the young officers needed for the defense of our nation in times of crisis. The majority of ROTC graduates do not make the military a career; instead, after a short period of active duty, they function in a reserve capacity while maintaining a civilian job or career.
Mr. Cherry and Mr. Barrish go on to make the trenchant observation that "One of the sicknesses of our society is its affinity for violence." They go on to say, "Allowing war to be taught as a trade in the unintellectual, unreflective, and restrictive environment of the ROTC curriculum is a part of this sickness." What these people seem to forget is that it is often the Reserve forces and the National Guard that have to go in and quell the violence. The military institution does not burn the cities and loot the stores. Without
ROTC, the rapid expansion of the American forces during the two World Wars, the Korean Conflict and other periods of national crisis would have been difficult if not impossible to achieve.
Mr. Cherry and Mr. Barrish maintain that ROTC is taught in an "unreflective, unintellectual, restrictive environment." I question the grounds on which they make this assumption if they have never taken one of the courses. Small-unit tactics, communications, military intelligence, leadership, logistics, and military law can be just as stimulating to some people as primitive mythology, medieval Latin, auditing, measurements, and marriage and family life to others.
To further refute the charge of an "unreflective, unintellectual, restrictive environment" I invite Mr. Cherry and Mr. Barrish to attend any of the remaining ROTC classes involving student discussions of the "Role of the United States in World Affairs." I imagine that the views expressed, without any fear of discrimination on the part of Military Professors, would dispel any notion of indoctrinated cadets. Many cadets are articulate in their criticism of our Viet-Nam involvement and the role of the U.S. as a world policeman; but they also believe that change is best secured through the ballot box, not flight to Canada.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY kansan
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
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If Mr. Cherry and Mr. Barrish still feel that ROTC produces mindless automatons, allow me to cite the results of a 1964 survey of various groups of national leaders. From the relatively small number of college graduates who had the benefits of ROTC training — approximately 5% — came 24% of our state governors, 15% of our ambassadors, and 10% of our Congressmen. About 28% of the key business executives earning between $100,000 and $330,000 per year had ROTC training while they were in college.
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If you try and force ROTC out of the University, then you are depriving the country of its heritage of citizen-soldiers. The integration of a University education and the small amount of ROTC training will be the best defense against a military caste holding no civilian values or ideals.
Michael T. Gravitt
Topeka senior
Cadet Colonel
Army ROTC
Kansan record review
'Mothers' are wild
By Bob Butler
First, a word of warning. The Mothers of Invention are weird. If you like Bobby Vinton (or if you can even stand him), the Cowsills, the Monkees, or any of the other Top-40 chicken rockers, or if you think the Temptations' version of "Swanee" is nice, you will not appreciate the Mothers.
If you are a white-collar conservative or religious or very moral you will despise them. Personally, I think they are one of the most inventive (if not popular) rock groups in America.
Their new album, "We're Only in it for the Money," points up why the Mothers do not get much support from Square America. First off, they're not wholesome. In fact, they're scatalogical. Take a look at the cover of the album. It's a takeoff on the foldout section of the Beatle's "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," only instead of the well-scrubbed boys from Liverpool in their crisp band uniforms we find seven of the ugliest men on earth dressed in women's apparcel. Most of them have beards. Using your imagination you can almost smell them.
Now, open the album and look inside. For anyone familiar with the Beatle's album this is a storehouse of laughs. In a wonderful satire of the Sergeant Pepper cover, the Mothers stand in front of a collage of faces. A bass drum announces, "We're only in it for the money." At their feet, spelled out, not in marijuana plants, but in watermelon halves, carrots, radishes and tomatoes, is the word "Mothers." Instead of a blue sky overhead, lightning flashes.
Now, to the music involved. Looking over the libretto, one realizes this is no ordinary album. Look at the songs: "Harry, You're a Beast," "The Idiot Bastard Son," "Take Your Clothes off When You Dance," and "What's the Ugliest Part of your Body?" No, this is no ordinary album.
It is, however, hilariously funny, musically sound, and socially stinging. The Mothers hate anything that is put-on. In their last effort, "Absolutely Free," they lampooned suburbia and its 'plastic people.' Now they're after the pseudo-hippy, as in "Who needs the Peace Corps?";
"Walked past the wig store
Danced at the Fillmore
I'm competely stoned . . .
I'll stay a week and get the crabs
And take a bus back home."
Or try "Flower Punk," sung to the tune of "Hey Joe":
'Hey, punk, where you goin' with that button on your shirt?
Hey, punk, where you goin' with that button on your shirt?
Well, I'm going' to a love-in to sit and play my bongo in the dirt
Well, I'm going' to a love-in to sit and play my bongo in the dirt."
The American woman is immortalized in "Harry, You're a Beast!":
... "The life you lead is completely empty
You don't even know what I just said
You paint your head Your mind is dead
THAT'S YOU: AMERICAN WOMANHOOD!
THAT'S YOU: AMERICAN WOMANHOOD!
You're phony on top, you're phony underneath,
You lay in bed and grit your teeth
MARCEA HOWE HOME
'MADGE, I WANT YOUR BODY!'
'HARRY,GET BACK"
'MADGE, IT'S NOT MERELY PHYSICAL.'
And so on.
'HARRY, YOU'RE A BEAST! "
But don't get the wrong idea. This isn't just a junk album. The Mothers are excellent musicians and arrangers, perhaps the best in rock. In New York City a Mother's concert sets off a wild rush of jazz and rock fans to the box office, and the usually critical New York press writes glowing reviews. It's just that the group doesn't take anything too seriously, not even themselves. Their songs are interrupted by shouts of "Flower Power sucks!"
So, if you feel you are musically open-minded, if you have a fairly warped sense of humor, and if you don't mind seeing yourself slashed to pieces by seven hairy men, you might try the Mothers on for size. But don't say I didn't warn you.
"Senator Kennedy, there's just so much a barber can do. . ."