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University Daily Kansan Tuesday, March 27.1962
The Student Peace Union
Tonight an organizational meeting will be held by a representative of the Student Peace Union (SPU). The SPU is a young and growing organization that wants an end to the arms race and the growth of militarism. It suggests no quick or radical solutions and recognizes that there is no simple solution. Its statement of purpose reads as follows:
"The Student Peace Union is an organization of young people who believe that war can no longer be successfully used to settle international disputes and that neither human freedom nor the human race itself can endure in a world committed to militarism.
"Without committing any member to a precise statement of policy, the SPU draws together young people for a study of alternatives to war and engages in education and action to end the present arms race. The SPU works toward a society which will insure both peace and freedom and which will suffer no individual or group to be exploited by another. After years of bad faith shown by both East and West in disarmament negotiations, the Student Peace Union believes that to be effective any peace movement must act independently of the existing power blocs and must seek new and creative means of achieving a free and peaceful society."
THE GENERAL statement is one few people would disagree with. A program statement adopted at the 1961 National Convention of the SPU gives a more specific idea of what the SPU works for and the people who compose it. That program proposes limited unilateral steps toward disarmament, but emphasizes that such steps would be such that they would not constitute a crippling effect on U.S.military capacity.
The steps would be taken one at a time and each successive step would depend on reciprocal action on previous steps by the Soviet Union. Such first steps as ending the production and testing of nuclear and biological weapons (under U.N. supervision) and the withdrawal of military bases from one or two foreign countries are suggested. At the same time, multilateral negotiations would be initiated.
NO INDIVIDUAL chapter of SPU has to accept the 1961 program as its policy. Each chapter (and member) is required only to agree with the statement of purpose. The program is provided for information and to promote discussion.
The SPU is growing rapidly. This is an encouraging development, for it shows that students are becoming interested enough in the important issues of the nuclear age to join responsible movements such as SPU and contribute what they can to the solution of these issues.
The SPU's literature clearly indicates that its members realize the issue of disarmament is a complex one. Their statements touching on the military, economic and social problems of disarmament are evidence of this.
In terms of specific action on the question of disarmament, the nature of SPU necessarily makes it a pressure group. There is nothing inherently wrong or unusual in this. Farmers, the American Medical Association, labor unions and many other groups function as pressure groups to further their own ends. All of them have a right to present information and opinion to government officials and to conduct whatever nonviolent demonstrations they wish to organize.
THE SPU'S FUNCTION as a pressure group can be misused. This is one of the dangers of giving the local chapters autonomous status. But as a whole, SPU has indicated that it realizes the complicated realities of the arms race and is devoted to responsible action by its members.
Considered overall, the SPU is a positive development. Its actions and policies have been lawful and conducted in a responsible fashion. Provided it recognizes the various pressures operating on the leaders of the countries involved in the arms race, it can serve as a constructive and sane element in the often emotional and irrational controversy surrounding the disarmament issue.
—William H. Mullins
The Brotherhood Award
The National Brotherhood Mass Media award for editorials the National Conference of Christians and Jews presented to the Kansan today is both recognition of the efforts of the Kansan staff and a tribute to the entire University.
THE KANSAN is a student newspaper. It is owned by the students of the University and could not long exist without their support. As a student owned paper the Kansan owes its existence to the University administration, as do all similarly constituted organizations.
Thus the award that the Kansan has won reflects credit not only on those who are and have been actively engaged in its operation but also upon the student owners and the administration which have allowed it to do its job.
It has not always been easy for either the administration or the students to support the Kansan. The Kansan has taken positions that have been opposed to both administration policy and the thinking of a majority of students. Some Kansan opinions have even brought criticism from outside the University.
YET, THE STUDENT OWNERS and the University responsible for the Kansan's existence have always allowed the Kansan the right to express these opinions.
There is no doubt that a free and independent student newspaper can exist only where there is a university administration and student body that is strong enough to guarantee its operation. The history of the free press reveals that it has only been able to exist in an atmosphere where those with the power to control its existence have had the strength not to exert it.
There have been threats to the Kansan's continued operation as a completely free and independent newspaper. Some individuals, who contend that the Kansan is "irresponsible," have attempted to pressure those who can control the
Kansan into using this control to effect certain changes. These individuals invariably refer to the Kansan as "irresponsible." Is it possible that what they are really trying to say is that they do not agree with the Kansan? It seems that one man's "irresponsibility" is another's Brotherhood award.
THOSE NEWSPAPERS that attempt to do their job in their communities know well the same pressures that the Kansan has experienced from time to time. There is always the subscriber who cancels his subscription in disagreement with the paper's policy or the advertiser who threatens to discontinue advertising. Yet these papers continue in the job that they think important without yielding to those who bring pressure. For yielding would end the paper's free and independent policy and make it a tool of those outside pressures.
The Kansan won this award, in competition with the best commercial newspapers in the country, for daring to discuss problems that many would rather have left unmentioned. Since the Kansan began commenting on discrimination at KU we have noted that conditions, which were at that time comparatively good, have become better until today KU students are more tolerant than ever before.
BUT THE DISCRIMINATION problem still exists at KU. It is a problem that has met its solution in only a few places. Thus discrimination shall continue to be a subject for Kansan editorial comment until that day when equality of the races will be a fact rather than an ideal.
The Kansan is proud of this Brotherhood award and it hopes that its student owners and the University administration share this pride. This accomplishment is proof of the merits of a truly free university.
—Ron Gallagher
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
"I HAVE TWO BOOKS FOR MY COURSE. I GET ALL MY LECTURES FROM TH' BEST ONE...TH' LOUSY ONE IS MY REQUIRED TEXT."
Memo to Peace Groups
To begin with, the peace movement in America has become a reality and is gathering momentum. For the first time since Pearl Harbor, peace-oriented periodicals are burgeoning, increasing numbers of scholarly articles on disarmament are appearing, letters to editors are no longer dominated by professional patriots, ad hoc pressure groups are springing up, and even the allegedly apathetic college generation has been able to mobilize a massive demonstration in Washington.
Second, the peace movement is no longer the exclusive domain of pacifists, that is, of people who see only the moral issues of violence and refuse to establish a common ground for discussion with any who do not share their ethical conviction. Nor is the peace movement dominated by an "America is always wrong" attitude. There is in it sufficient political sophistication to dismiss the simplistic idea that either power is primarily to blame for the arms race. There is, in short, an increasing understanding of the inherent dynamics of the present impasse.
IN THESE two factors—a spontaneous growth on the grass-roots level and a respectable measure of political sophistication — lies the strength of the present peace movement. In the days to come, it will be important to use that strength wisely.
The "inherent dynamics" of the present impasse can be understood and intellectually accepted by anyone who is reasonably well informed and reasonably free from hate-blindness. We live in an international system pervaded by
scarcities, real or apparent. scarcity of resources, of territory, of prestige and, above all, of security. Moreover, we live in a climate of ideas in which all these tangibles and intangibles are implicitly believed to be "conservative quantities." That is, one nation's gains are interpreted as another's losses. As the adversary increases, or seems to increase, his security (having no basis for it but relative power), our security seems to decrease, and vice versa.
IT IS NECESSARY to understand this situation in order to appreciate the decision maker's predicament. The decision maker believes that he is tightly constrained to the vicious circle of threats and distrust. To put it concretely, the peace workers must realize that neither Kennedy nor Khrushchev is a warmonger or a fool. Each is largely a victim of perpetuated illusions (i.e., convictions of the other's inherent ruthlessness and duplicity). These illusions have become realities by virtue of the fact that each sides actions (which are overt and demonstrable) are motivated and dominated by these illusions and corroborate the illusions. The effects are reciprocal.
The peace worker must give expression to his awareness of this situation. As long as the national policy maker sees the peace worker as either blind to the constraints under which the policy maker must operate or in uncompromising opposition to the demands placed upon him, the policy maker has little choice but to dismiss the peace worker as naive or as dangerous. (excerpted from the March 24 Nation)
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904. triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912
Telephone Viking 3-2700
Extension 11, news room
0560-249-8960
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Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Managing Editor
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Bill Mullins...Editorial Editor
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Charles Martinache ... Business Manager