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University Daily Kansan Monday. March 26, 1962
The Political Clowns
The KU Young Democrats contributed the greatest measure toward hitting the heights of inanity with their recent elections.
Politics on the KU campus came close to achieving a new low last week.
The University Party and the newly formed Action Party made a lesser contribution, but a significant one by playing the game of "who took the plank," as though party planks were a sacred thing.
Action retorted that the plank in question was contained in two previous UP platforms, but that no moves had been made by UP to institute the platform in campus government.
The UP-Action conflict started with UP finding fault with one of Action's platform planks asking for expansion of All Student Council operations to include national and international issues.
NO DOUBT it was a lively week in campus politics. But there is considerable doubt if it was a profitable week for anyone concerned.
The president of UP replied that the planks reflect the ideas of the party membership at the time the platform is set up. He said the people who ran under these platforms (the ones to involve the ASC in national and international issues) are no longer in the party.
The UP approach is relatively sound. The Action retort implying that they should not be
criticized for a plank because another political party had it first only clouds the issue.
IT'S THE SOUNDNESS of the plank at present that should be the issue. Criticism between parties should be based on this, not on who had the plank first, or who took it with him when he left the party.
People voted who had received membership cards without paying the required fee. People voted who had established membership long after the Feb.21 deadline. People voted under assumed names.
Campus politicians bemoan student apathy, yet beg for it by actions such as the Young Democrat's election. The time is long overdue for a few changes in attitude and methods.
The KU Young Democrats held an election March 15 that was a pure farce. It judged nothing but the political manipulative ability of the candidates.
THE ELECTIONS were a mockery. They were an insult to this campus. Any faith that KU students may have had in campus politics has surely been shattered, or at least has taken a long step backward, because of this election.
Last Friday, a professor of law who was asked by both party factions to arbitrate the case, found the winning candidates guilty of an "improper course of conduct."
—Karl Koch
From the Newsstand
Red Speaker Ban Ended
The ban on speeches by known Communists on city college campuses was reversed yesterday.
The Administrative Council of the City University ruled that each college could approve or disapprove invitations to members of the Communist party. This is the same rule that had been in effect before the ban was imposed on Oct. 26.
IN REVERSING ITSELF, the five-man council cited a report on the issue by the Committee on the Bill of Rights of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. The report concluded:
"Accordingly, it is our considered opinion that faculty or administration of the City University is legally entitled to permit known United States Communist party members or officers to speak on their campuses."
The Communist speaker issue had come to a head with the revocation in October of an invitation to Benjamin J. Davis, then secretary of the Communist party, to speak at Queens College.
It is part of the more general issue of who shall and shall not be permitted to speak at municipal educational institutions.
Other incidents have arisen involving speakers or sponsors with viewpoints as disparate as those of William F. Buckley Jr., editor of The National Review; Assemblyman Mark Lane, Manhattan Democrat who had been indicted in Jackson, Miss., in connection with the Freedom Riders campaign, and Malcolm Little, a leader in the Black Muslim movement who calls himself Malcolm X.
THE NATIONAL REVIEW case, involving use of a hall at Hunter College, has been taken to the State Supreme Court.
At the time the ban on Communists was announced, the council said it had been based "upon the best and most competent legal advice the council could obtain."
Recently the council, made up of the university chancellor, John R. Everett, and the presidents of the four city colleges, preceded its formal agreement with the bar committee's finding with the assertion:
"The fact seems to be that excellent legal advice can be in conflict on this issue."
The council's conclusion was: "Until there is further judicial or legislative determination of this question, the educational authorities on each campus are legally free to approve or disapprove invitations to members of the Communist party of the United States as they were heretofore."
ANALYZING PERTINENT decisions of the United States Supreme Court, the lawyers committee found that "a member of the Communist party who spoke at an open meeting in which the student body and the faculty were invited would not commit a criminal act no matter how ardently he might argue his party's objectives."
And:
"A faculty or administration would not be violating the law were it to proffer a platform to a member or more than one member of the Communist party."
Recent decisions of the Supreme court, the bar committee said, hold that a speech "is not a criminal act unless it is made under specific conditions."
The high court has held, the committee continued, that "advocacy of forceable overthrow as an abstract doctrine is constitutionally protected speech."
"ADVOCACY VIOLATES the Smith Act only if it takes the form of 'indoctrination of a group in preparation for future violent action, as well as exhortation to immediate action . . . when the group is of sufficient size and cohesiveness, is sufficiently oriented toward action, and other circumstances are such that action will occur."
It appears clear, the committee found, that:
This came from findings in the cases of Dennis v. United States and Yates v. United States. The Smith Act is the popular name for the Alien Registration Act of 1940. Its provisions make it a crime to "advocate overthrowing any government in the United States by force or violence."
The law committee also asserted that criminal intent could not be imputed to the Administrative Council if it allowed Communists to speak. The council, the committee said, "would be seeking to further educational, rather than criminal objectives by giving students an opportunity to listen to and question committed Communists."
In The New York Times yesterday, a group of 212 members of the faculty at City College—including twelve departmental chairmen, forty-three professors, twenty-four associate professors and thirty-nine assistant professors — endorsed in an advertisement an editorial condemning the Oct. 26 Communist speaker ban as an insult to the intelligence of faculty and students.
And on Friday, more than 100 members of the faculty at Hunter College also protested the prohibition, which has now been rescinded. The Hunter group declared its opposition to "any ruling based on administrative discretion or disputed legal advice which would infringe on this most necessary freedom."
THE EDITORIAL had appeared in The New York Times on Oct. 28.
The "disputed legal advice" on which the Oct. 26 ruling was based had not been attributed by the council to any lawyers by name. Some who have followed the controversy closely note that at the time this advice was sought, the city was engaged in a Mayoral campaign. The Communist speaker issue, particularly in Queens, had strong political overtones, these sources believed.
Robert Glynn, Donald H. Kallman, David M. Levitan, Martin F. Richman, Alan U. Schwartz, George J. Solomon, Robert M. Blum, John Carey, Shirley Wingerhood, Murray A. Gordon, Samuel H. Hofadster, Louis Pollak, Herbert Monte Levy, Robert B. McKaye, Herman Schwarz, Jeanne R. Silver, Henry Spitz and Bruce M. Wright.
Yesterday's statement by the council included the text of the report of the Bar Association committee, but did not list its members. According to the library of the Association the Committee on the Bill of Rights is headed by William A. Delano. Other members were listed as:
(From The New York Times, Dec. 24, 1961)
Daily Hansan
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
Ron Gallagher ... Managing Editor
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Bill Mullins ... Editorial Editor
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LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
"GORRY, PROTHER HAMMOND, WE JUST DON'T HAVE ROOM
HOMEWHERE. IF THIS BOY IS AS GOOD AS YOU SAY—"
Menghini Replies to Attack Editor;
I am sure words cannot express the blow which I received as I read the slanderous statements made in Thursday's UDK about me. I sincerely believed that Mr. Eee and Mr. Patterson were good friends. We have worked closely together for the past five months. Never was there a hint of the gap that eventually was to develop.
Both realized that Action was to be a political party which would squarely face controversial issues. Both knew what the final decision probably would be in relation to the problem of discriminatory clauses which we discussed in November of last year.
BOTH KNOW that they were informed of every meeting, except the one held by the platform committee. Both know that they were informed of the happenings of each meeting they missed. Both know that there are only four planks (of 15) in Action's platform that were not discussed at the first organizational meeting. It was held in December. Both know that I have tried to keep this party from being anti-Greek. Both know that the method of individual membership is an attempt to construct a party along ideological and not living group lines.
If their purpose was to turn this party anti-Greek, they may have succeeded; it's too early to tell. If their purpose was to alienate me, they did. If they wished to split Action, they failed. If their purpose is to prove the old "Hill" dictum that "where one lives determines his ideology," I and many others are still not convinced.
WHY DID THEY make charges that they know to be untrue? I am not sure and would not attempt to say what their motives are.
These are my last public remarks on the subject. I shall be glad to talk to them privately, if they will talk to someone with whom they, apparently now have nothing in common.
Chuck Menghini
Pittsburg senior
* * *
I was at the Action meeting Wednesday night and have closely followed the party from its inception. I would like to make the following comments about the charges of Mr. Patterson and Mr. Bee.
Charges Against Action Contested
Editor:
Mr. Bee charged "the unstated goals of the party have become primarily an extension of Menghini's ego. His lust for power is fantastic." First, the goals of the
party are written in the party platform, which was distributed to the audience at Wednesday night's meeting. Secondly, I believe the charge that Mr. Menghini is interested in personal power is absurd. Mr. Menghini has no office in the party, and will not be a student at KU next year.
THE CHARGE that the control of the party is in the hands of a few is false. It was to be expected that the steering committee which founded the party was a relatively small group. However, the party's platform and candidates for office are subject to approval of the General Assembly, which is composed of all party members. The party membership is open to all regular KU students.
Action is not anti-Greek; it is anti-discrimination. There are several Greeks in the party.
ACTION HAS been courageous enough to take a stand on issues which affect all KU students. All KU students are interested in the efficiency of the Union, the student seating plan and the proposed traffic plan, to name three of the planks in Action's platform which are not covered in the platform of UP and which will probably not be covered in the platform of Vox.
Steve Long
Prairie Village junior
* * *
Kansan Article Protested
Editor:
Let me thank Mr. Musil for his romantic account of the life and times of KHP. But I must protest on three points. (1) My eyes are blue, not green. (2) My hair is dark-brown, rather than black. (I was actually blond when I was Mr. Musil's age.) (3) The reason that I did not become a student at the University of Southern California in 1947 was financial (I had no money, and SC is an expensive private school) rather than academic.
Klaus H. Pringsheim instructor of political science
Short Ones
It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is alway dull—H. L. Mencken
The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.—George B. Shaw
I think even a bad verse as good a thing or better than the best observation that was ever made upon it.—Thomas Gray