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University Daily Kansan Friday. April 27.196
The New ASC
The All Student Council elections which ended Wednesday placed a majority of the best qualified candidates on the Council. This is encouraging for the reason that one of the major failings of the ASC in the past has been the quality of many of the representatives on it.
But there were some candidates, apparently elected on the basis of popularity, who are poorly qualified and who will have to develop considerably if they are to meet the responsibilities of their offices. This is a challenge that some may meet if they make the effort to aid in the projects before the ASC.
THOSE PROJECTS are important and varied. The Current Events Committee has not been organized or begun to function yet. It can be an active and beneficial committee once its members are appointed and it begins carrying out it duties. The Human Rights Committee is only beginning its work. Some of the ASC committees need to be more active and some have yet to function.
THE EFFECTIVENESS of the New All Student Council will depend to a great extent on the number of active, interested representatives that Student Body President Jerry Dickson appoints to the various committees. His appointments will be one of the key factors and the prerequisite in making student government more active.
Charges that the ASC has been inactive and remote from the students have been made in the past. They are still made. And the fact that less than half of the students on campus vote in ASC elections is one indication that these charges are at least partially correct.
But if the ASC becomes more active and reaches the student with such groups as the Current Events Committee and by trying to deal with student problems and issues (including the controversial ones), students will undoubtedly take a greater interest in the ASC. This is clearly the path the ASC must take if it is to reach the students and have meaning for them.
William H. Mullins
Administration Stand Criticized Editor:
The historical position of the administration of the University of Kansas towards the issues involved in the rights of students in minority groups is, I think, one from which little pride can be derived. Such a position is, of course, a position on social values; that such a position is also a position concerning educational values as well is often overlooked. The oft-repeated unwillingness of the University to use its weight in breaking down the bars of discrimination against its non-white groups makes any claims to greatness by the University ring with a slight degree of hollowness.
For, it seems to me, a university can only claim greatness justly when there is first, a devotion to the persual of truth, and second, a devotion to the eradication of ignorance. The greatness of a university does not reside in the size of its enrollment nor in the number and height of its new dormitories. But the greatness of a university does reside in how effectively the traditions and ideas of the liberal arts and sciences are purveyed to the students, because these traditions and ideas define Man and all men in relation to each other — these traditions and ideas provide in their definitions no solace for the whining and simpier proffered by half-truths nor refuge for the suspicion and arrogance proffered by ignorance.
THE RELUCTANCE of the University to actively attempt to eliminate the discriminatory clauses only serves to perpetuate and to give comfort to the attitudes of prejudice that characterize much of the collegiate fraternal system — attitudes that are conceived in parochialism, that are nurtured by ignorance, and that flower in an intellectual restrictiveness that, with a maximum of generosity, can be labeled only gross stupidity. In the classroom little credence would be given, I believe to "truth" de
...Letters..
fined by these attitudes, and yet, is not this the substance of "truth" offered by the administration as testimony for the justification of its case?
The temerity that is exhibited by the administration in issues of this kind is slightly sad. With such constituting the tools of leadership, it might be well to remember that as long as the social philosophy of the Greek houses is allowed to provide for the student body the interpretation of the relationship between Man and all men, the almost canonized phrase "Hartwood on the Kaw," will remain humorous indeed.
Richard C. Fox
Hamilton College '55
Lawrence graduate student
CRC Sleiman
CRC Slammed
Editor:
Ive put up with the drivel that is dished out by the CRC as they play with their tinker toys long enough.
Now, by writing one simple letter (UDK, Apr.16) expressing my own opinion (and that of most sensible people) I've suddenly been changed from a Christian to an amoral child beater and litter bug by the "Menghine Clan."
It seems that these rabble rousing, self-annotated Thomas Paines, can't take it as well as they dish it out. Of course, if I ran about the campus muttering glittering generalities, I wouldn't like to be attacked either — as a matter of fact, I'd be afraid to be criticized.
When this group of "moralists" first started roping across the countryside hurling accusations, I thought it was at least composed of college students, but no, the first time they were told, "you can't have your own way," they went crying "mommy" to the personally distasteful (to me) NAACP.
IF THE CRC is so morally correct in their stand, why do they need so much help in proving it. If the Negro race wants to be an
equal, why don't they go out and earn the respect of other racial groups and therefore the right of equality.
It seems that almost every group fighting for the rights of the Negro is headed by and composed chiefly of whites. Why can't the Negro do his own drum-beating if integration is what he really wants? Or he being forced into "integration drives" by these super-enthusiasts called the CRC? Yes Miss Rice, when this is the case, I do think that you are "funny, strange, queer, and unusual." If you and your kind would stop your silly babbling, integration would come naturally — if and when the Negro is ready. By your actions, you are not getting people to "wake up," you are only causing greater friction and more resentment.
MY PREVIOUS letter dealt with both local and world-wide situations. If you would've read it more carefully I'm sure you would've seen this. Therefore, in reference to your letter, you spent your entire time bickering about the technicalities of a minority and completely avoided the issue at hand — what makes it "democratically" or "morally" right to force group A to give up their rights so that group B can have more? May I suggest the Campus Reading Clinic?
In conclusion, I'll tell you what's wrong with the resemblance between the CRC and the NAACP. The NAACP has a history of stirring up trouble whenever they want something. I am ashamed of having a group of troublemakers like this on campus. Are you proud of belonging to one?
Incidentally Miss Rice — if you want to discuss local issues, I have never heard of you or one of your race starving or freezing to death at KU. Nor have I seen any of you running around with exceptionally long hair.
Ken Costich Chicago junior
A Bircher's Warning
A. Well, I don't care for any of those Harvard people Kennedy has got in his group.
Q. What do you think of John Keyne's theory of economics?
O But Keynes is dead—he's an English economist.
A. Oh—I was thinking of Galbraith. I read his Status Seekers and thought it poor. (Ed. Note: Vance Packard wrote The Status Seekers.)
Q. I notice your book-store here. What books do you recommend for Americans to read?
A. Well, Hoover's—J. Edgar Hoover's—"Masters of Deceit." Welch's stuff (Robert Welch is founder and president of the John Birch Society)—some reprints of Goldwater speeches. National Review and Human Events are good too...
Q. DO YOU FOLLOW Welch's claim that Eisenhower was a "conscious Communist agent?"
A. Look at the record of Eisenhower, or any President since Roosevelt and tell me they weren't helping the Communist cause. Roosevelt gave them Europe. Truman gave them China. Eisenhower gave them Cuba. And just watch Kennedy because he'll give them what they want too...
Q. Did you prefer working in the Society when it wasn't so publi-cized?
A. Well, once you become effective they get after you. You know the press of the country is controlled by Communists.
Q. If the press and government of the country are controlled by "conscious communist agents" why isn't the U.S. in Russian hands now? It seems if they have all this working for them we wouldn't be any threat to them?
A. Well, it's part of a plan. They've got to get the F.B.I. and the Army now and then the people.
Q. You believe there's a plot to destroy the F.B.I.?
A. Definitely.
Q. Welch says the U.S. is 70% Communist now—if that's the case do you have any chance of succeeding?
A. Well, he didn't say it was 70% Communist. But it's 50-70% Communist and if the people start to think straight we'll beat them...
Q. THEY WOULDN't let Tshombe into the country to address that rally in New York. Do you have any opinion on that?
A. The State Department is against Tshombe. Look at their U.N. policy—they're out to unify the Congo under the Reds.
Q. What does the John Birch Society plan to do to stop this?
A. Well, we can't do much except tell the American people what's going on. How they're being stabbed behind their backs.
(Excerpted from an interview by Art Harger with the president of the Oregon Chapter of the John Birch Society that appeared in the April 15 Oregon Emerald)
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