Thursday, April 18. 1968
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
3
Even more letters to the editor
Lacking physical space and labels for race
To the Editor:
What is it going to take to get the administration to correct the grave injustice that is being done to the students and doctors who have to put up with the cramped and inadequate accommodations at Watkins Memorial Hospital?
Is it going to take a petition of all 15,000 students and an additional number of faculty to bring about the complete renovation of this antiquated structure?
Surely a University which is able to build a 15-story skyscraper, a new science building, a new gymnasium, and other additions presently under construction, should be able to set aside some of this money toward the construction of a bigger, and in the long run, more economical, hospital. What better investment could be made than in the health of the future leaders of Kansas and America?
Space is so cramped in Watkins that when the nurse walks down the hall she has to walk a zig-zag course. When a wheelchair has to be moved down the hall the people waiting to see the doctor have to stand to let it get by. The records are so numerous that they have to be kept on several floors, and the pharmacy is so small that medications that should be there, are not, for lack of space.
Watkins at present is barely meeting the basic needs of the students. With increasing enrollment even this will become an impossibility.
Watkins is a service to the students, much like the Union, however unlike the Union it is unable to provide the services that it is meant to provide. In order to provide adequate service the following things should be done:
Library gets new director
New director of the 1,250,000-volume KU libraries will be David W. Heron, now director of libraries at the University of Nevada at Reno, Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe announced Wednesday.
Heron will assume direction of the libraries, which include Watson Library and the soon-to-be-completed Kenneth Spencer Research Library, in July.
Heron has been director of libraries at the University of Nevada since 1961. Born in Los Angeles in 1920, he earned the bachelor of arts degree from Pomona College in 1942, the bachelor of library science degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1948, and a master of arts degree from UCLA in 1951.
Heron has served as library adviser to the University of Kyukyus in Okinawa and is a member of the library associations of America, of California, and of Nevada. He and Mrs. Heron have three children.
Good Luck KU Track Squad in the 43rd annual KU Relays
from
2. Decrease the work load of the doctors.
1. Increase the bed capacity in proportion to the number of students registered on campus.
3. Revamp the filing system and provide more room for storage of the files.
Lawrence Auto Service
Goodyear Corner
10th and Mass.
VI 2-0247
6. Provide for the hiring of more registered nurses.
4. Make the emergency room more accessible.
7. ETC.
5. Increase the size of the pharmacy.
The above are just a few of the things that need to be done and a step in the right direction would be a provision for a new hospital building.
What will this require? It will require the cooperation of the Government, the Board of Regents, the Alumni, and the Students to provide the money and backing necessary for the construction of this vital building.
The Alumni want a better University and the classes are looking for projects to undertake. Why don't we channel some of this energy and money into improving the health of the students by building a new hospital?
Instead of being the joke of campus, Watkins should be the center of health care and the time to make it what is should be is now.
Harry Steven Dalke Cherryvale senior
- * *
To the Editor:
A lot of ink has been spilled since the murder of Martin Luther King about the relationships between blacks and whites, and it is likely that the outpour of such journalism will continue until the matter can one day be laid to rest. Some of the writing has the appearance of factual reporting, but much of it seems to be hollow rhetoric.
Letters Policy
The University Daily Kansan encourages signed letters to the editor for publication. They should be typed and contain the writer's classification and home town. Letters are subject to conservative editing by the Kansan staff. Libelous statements will not be printed. Send letters to the editorial desk, 112 Flint Hall.
Please limit length to about 250 words.
I am hesitant to add my pen to those that are wagging. Nevertheless, there is one point that is seldom mentioned which I would like to touch upon. That is, if there is indeed a need verbally to categorize human beings, there has to be a better method than the one based on skin-color or primogenitors. Question: what are the products of the union of an African and a European or the mating of a Jew and a Gentile? If the question is irrelevant, than I suspect that our insistence on labelling people either black or white is absurd.
For many people there is a fundamental difference between each of the "races," and they must all be kept separate in name if not physically. Thus there are numerous terms, varying in degree of politeness, for anyone having one or more relatively recent African ancestors. The conditions imposed on classifying one as "white" are much stronger. Although they are quite vague, it seems that they require that all or nearly all of one's ancestors be European, with the additional negative condition that none be African.
The hope has frequently been expressed, as it was by Dr. King, that someday all people would be judged according to character and not by the whimsy of blood-line. If this is to be so, there must come a time when we confine all references to color to a description of the physical world and eliminate them from our evaluation of human worth. Oh, there could still be "black" humor, "white" lies and "yellow" journalism, but not coexistent with a categorization of people along these lines.
Charles Snow
Rush Springs, Okla., graduate
Dr. Benjamin Spock
The noted pediatrician currently charged with conspiracy to disrupt the draft defines his position on the illegality of the war in Vietnam . . .
Sunday, April 21
8 o'clock p.m.
Hoch Auditorium
Free Admission
STUDENT UNION ACTIVITIES FEATURED SPEAKERS