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University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, May 22, 1962
Positive Steps
The past few days have seen the Kansas Board of Regents take several positive steps toward progressive education here and at Kansas State University. These steps come two months after action which appeared to be regressive in nature.
On March 16 the Regents tabled a motion to reduce the School of Journalism here to a department and make the department of journalism at KSU a part of the department of English. Friday the Regents approved a report on journalism education at the two schools and thus gave approval to the two programs.
The actual reasons why the Regents initially considered reducing the status of journalism at the two state schools have not been aired yet, but apparently the reasons against the proposal were sufficiently substantial that no action was taken.
BUT, NOT only did the Regents place a stamp of approval on journalism education at KU and KSU, but it also reached out to several other areas and made progressive decisions which should make KU a better university.
The authority to continue negotiations on locating the Peace Corps project involving Costa Rica at KU and the further investigation of the proposed student life insurance program are examples of what the Regents can do in making KU known throughout the nation. Both the Peace Corps and insurance plans are unique in their respective manners and their implementation here would draw considerable attention to the University and add to that which was received at the awarding of the Woodrow Wilson Fellowships.
ON THE LOCAL level, the approval of additional money to be used for married student housing and another men's dormitory is a step to a larger and more adequate physical plant, which is necessary for any outstanding university.
The recent action of the Regents does not come as a surprise but it is a good example of cooperation between one of the state institutions and its governing body in achieving university goals.
-Bill Sheldon
The Effects of Disarmament
The present level of military expenditure not only represents a grave political danger but also imposes a heavy economic and social burden on most countries. It absorbs a large volume of human and material resources of all kinds, which could be used to increase economic and social welfare throughout the world — both in the highly industrialized countries, which at the present time incur the bulk of the world's military expenditures, and in the less developed areas.
There appears to be general agreement that the world is spending roughly $120 billion annually on military account at the present time. This corresponds to about one-half of the total gross capital formation throughout the world. It is at least two-thirds of — and according to some estimates, of the order of magnitude as — the entire national income of all the under-developed countries.
It is important that countries, in preparing to disarm, should take stock of the various resources that disarmament would release for peaceful uses. In the major military powers, military production is highly concentrated in a few industry groups. In those countries that rely upon imports for their supplies of military goods or in which the major part of military expenditure is for the pay and subsistence of the armed forces, rather than for their equipment, the resources devoted to military purposes consist essentially of manpower and foreign exchange.
THERE ARE so many competing claims for usefully employing the resources released by disarmament that the real problem is to establish a scale of priorities. The most urgent of these claims would undoubtedly already have been largely satisfied were it not for the armaments race.
Increased personal consumption might well absorb a large share of the released resources. A substantial portion of them, however, would be used for expansion of productive capacities because only such expansion can provide a firm basis for further increases in consumption. In the less developed
countries, the utilization of released resources for capital formation must be considered vitally important.
Social investment is an important alternative both to private consumption and to industrial and agricultural investment. Its claims rest partly upon the clear urgency of the direct need for improved social amenities, and partly upon the fact that growth of industrial and agricultural productivity is dependent upon development in education, housing, health, and other fields.
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Disarmament would raise both general problems of maintaining the over-all level of economic activity and employment and specific problems in so far as manpower or productive capacity might require adaptation to non-military needs. In the economic life of all countries, shifts in the pattern of demand and in the allocation of productive resources are continually occurring. The reallocation of many productive resources which would accompany disarmament is in many respects merely a special case of the phenomenon of economic growth...
THE RELEASE of scientific and technical manpower would make it possible to encourage programmes of basic scientific research in fields which have hitherto been neglected. Disarmament would also open up possibilities for joint international ventures of an ambitious kind, such as the utilization of atomic energy for peaceful purposes, space research, exploration of the Arctic and Antarctic for the benefit of mankind and projects to change the climates of large areas of the world.
Thus, though it would take active decisions by Governments in the light of national and international needs to set in motion the necessary programmes for employing the released resources, it seems abundantly clear that no country need fear a lack of useful employment opportunities for the resources that would become available to it through disarmament...
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Hypothetical studies on the assumption that military expenditure is replaced wholly by increases in expenditure on other kinds of goods and services suggest that in the event of very rapid disarmament some six or seven per cent (including the armed forces) of the total labour force in the United States and three and one-half to four per cent in the United Kingdom would have to find civilian instead of military employment or change their employment from one industry group to another. These shifts would be small if spread out over a number of years and would be greatly facilitated by the normal process of turnover. The higher the rate of growth of the economy, the easier the process of adaptation...
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MUCH ATTENTION has already been given in the industrialized private enterprise economies to the methods by which total effective demand can be maintained. Monetary and fiscal policy could be used to offset the effect of a shortfall in total demand that might result from a decline in military expenditure to the extent that it were not offset by a rise in civil government expenditure. Bearing in mind that a substantial part of military expenditure would probably be replaced by other government expenditure in most countries, it may be concluded that the maintenance of effective demand in the face of disarmament should not prove difficult...
IN A DISARMED world, a general improvement could be expected in the level of living, including an increase in leisure. With the end of the armaments race, governments would accord social objectives a higher priority. The psychological, moral and material evils of compulsory military service and of stationing troops away from their homes would be avoided; so would the danger that security considerations and the armed forces might play an extensive role in forming the values of the community. Scientific cooperation and the arts would benefit from an extension of international exchanges.
The Consulative Group is unanimously of the opinion that all the problems and difficulties of transition connected with disarmament could be met by appropriate national and international measures. There should thus be no doubt that the diversion to peaceful purposes of the resources now in military use could be accomplished to the benefit of all countries and lead to the improvement of world economic and social conditions. The achievement of general and complete disarmament would be an unqualified blessing to all mankind.
(Excerpted from the 1962 report of the United Nations on the Social and Economic Consequences of Disarmament)
By Calder M. Pickett Professor of Journalism
FROM STATE CHURCH TO PLURALISM, by Franklin Hamlin Littell. Doubleday Anchor, 95 cents.
Here is an exceptionally fine essay on the role of religion in American history. In clear terms, without resorting to confusing and dogmatic language, Franklin Hamlin Littell carries us from the rigid theocracies of early New England to 20th century America and the presence of an incredible grouping of religions.
He notes that state churches persisted until long after the Revolution, that even Thomas Jefferson was far from departing from a state church for Virginia. He describes religious repressions in the colonies, the excitement and confusions attendant on the Great Awakening and the impact of Jonathan Edwards, the growth of mass evangelism, especially of the Methodist Church.
He tells us of the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh Day Adventists, of Catholicism. Littell contends that the religious "dialogue" in modern-day America is a good thing, for it might help to break down the fears and prejudices aroused by earlier tendencies in our religious life.—CMP
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CITIZEN OF NEW SALEM, by Paul Horgan. Crest (Fawcett), 50 cents.
Were it not for the occasionally lilting language and the lovely illustrations, this sketchy treatment of the young Lincoln would have little value. Paul Horgan succeeds in the interesting conceit of presenting Abraham Lincoln in his Illinois background without ever mentioning his hero's name.
This is a book which is bound to do more in the field of legendmaking than anything else. For this is the general tone. The Lincoln we see here is the mystical Lincoln and the all-American Lincoln, loving Anne Rutledge, roughing it up with a bully named Jack Armstrong, working in a store, studying law, fighting in the Blackhawk War. But aside from the writing and the pictures there is nothing new.-CMP
3 GREAT FRENCH PLAYS, selected by Vernon Loggins, Premier (Fawcett). 50 cents.
(Fawcett), 50 cents. CLASSICAL FRENCH DRAMA, edited by Wallace Fowlie. Bantam Classics, 60 cents.
It is becoming more and more possible to build up a library of the world's great drama in inexpensive paperback editions. Here, for example, are seven famous plays from France's great era in drama—the 17th and 18th centuries up to the Revolution.
A confession must be made about here—the comedies are much better reading than the excessively ornate tragedies. Moliere, in particular, with his wild comedy "The Hypochondriac," one of the funniest things in all literature, or "The Intellectual Ladies," which 300 years ago did a fine job of demolishing the feminists of his time.
Marivaux's "The Game of Love and Chance" is more strained, and depends more upon mistaken identity and such. Beaumarchais' "The Barber of Seville" is hilarious, but not up to Moliere. As for Corneille's "The Cid" and "Polyuecute," Racine's "Phaedra," these are undoubtedly great drama (albeit a bit confusing at times), but they suffer alongside the wild Moliere.—CMP
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AN ANATOMY FOR CONFORMITY, by Edward L. Walker and W. Heyns (Prentice-Hall Spectrum, $1.95) - a discussion by two psychology professors of the meaning of conformity in society. The interpretation is semi-technical, and the authors offer suggestions on the production of conformity either for good or evil.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
"I AGREE WITH YOU THAT SHE ISN'T VERY BRIGHT. AND I GAVE HER AN "A" TOO."
I