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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, March 21, 1962
The New Party
Action, the proposed third campus political party, has issued a tentative platform calling for All Student Council action on numerous controversial issues. What the final draft of the platform will contain is uncertain. This is to be decided at subsequent meetings, the first of which is being held tonight.
MANY OF THE proposals deal with major topics, such as an investigation of the House Un-American Activities Committee, support for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, withdrawal of recognition from living groups at KU which discriminate on the basis of race or religion and re-affiliation with the National Student Association.
The new party seems certain of getting the 1,000 signatures required for recognition as a campus political party. It will therefore be a factor in April's elections.
Action has not selected candidates for the spring elections yet, but it undoubtedly will when the membership has solidified and decided on the final form of its platform. But it is obvious
that it will be able to take effective action on its platform only with the active cooperation of the established campus political groups, since they will be operating without a majority (assuming the party does win some of the offices up for election next month).
THE NEW PARTY is interesting in that it represents an attempt to take action on controversial issues through the established political organization. This is something that has not been done as consistently as possible. The existence of pressure groups or independent organizations working with controversial issues should not be considered as necessarily bad, however. They have often performed useful services and will undoubtedly continue to do so. The group that brought "Operation Correction" to KU is a good example of this.
Thus far, Action is developing as an energetic new political party. The fact that it appears willing to deal with controversial issues is a good sign. It may serve to vitalize an All Student Council that is too often apathetic.
-William H. Mullins
Public Health Insurance
By Ron Gallagher
One of America's most frequently debated domestic problems that of compulsory health insurance-is a problem solved long ago in Norway.
Norway has offered a government medical insurance program for over fifty years and recently extended its plan to include the entire population.
It is interesting to talk to Norwegians who delight in pointing out that the gloomy coating the American Medical Association (AMA) smears on proposed medical plans in the United States does not characterize the Norwegian program.
IN FACT, Jannik Linback, Oslo Norway graduate student, whose mother is a doctor, has said the health plan in his country works so well that even extremely conservative groups have long accepted it.
Linback takes issue with statements that the AMA makes equating any type of health plan with socialized medicine. "Its a matter of definition, of course, but I can't hardly see how it (the Norwegian Plan) is socialistic," he said.
The doctors are not employed by the state in the Norwegian plan, as they are in any system of socialized medicine.
Linback thinks that possibly the AMA has been misrepresenting the facts of compulsory health insurance for selfish reasons. "It is evident that this association is out for monetary profit," he said. "I should think a medical association would be interested in something other than profit. They don't seem to be concerned with the health of the country," he concluded.
HE PRESENTS a list of the stands the AMA has taken on issues of public welfare to document his statement. The list appears in the March 1962 issue of the Progressive. It includes opposition to such programs as compulsory smallpox vaccination, public immunization against diphtheria, federal aid to reduce infant and maternal deaths, the Social Security Act, public venereal disease clinics, voluntary health insurance, school health services, Blue Cross, government medical care for dependents of men in the armed forces, workmen's compensation and the Red Cross blood bank.
Linback views medical aid for the aged as the logical starting point in a system of compulsory health insurance. He said, "I can't see how anyone can oppose it from a rational point of view."
Jannik Linbaek
In tracing history of the Norwegian plan, Linbaek stated that it was initiated in 1909 to cover low income groups that were unable to afford membership in private plans. It became so popular that other groups were added until today even foreign nationals living in Norway are covered.
ALTHOUGH THE AMA has often stated that the doctor-patient relationship would be adversely affected if the United States should institute a health plan, Linback says that this has not happened in Norway. "People have a full choice of doctors," he said. "And doctors have an opportunity to establish a successful practice."
He said that in Norway the people can get the medical attention that is necessary. "They can go to the best specialist in the country, if they need to."
Doctors in Norway have established a set of normal rates for most of the services usually performed by a general practitioner. However, this rate schedule is only a guide, and the doctors are free to charge any rate they wish. "They are bound only by professional ethics," Linbaek explained.
He said that the doctors in Norway are in no way restricted. They may practice the type of medicine they want and may practice it wherever they want. Norwegians are never required to go to a certain doctor. He said that the competition between doctors is every bit as keen as it is in the United States.
LINBAEK SAID that the Norwegian medical profession has never opposed the health plan. He said it has the complete support of the Norwegian medical associations.
He said that most Norwegians consider their health insurance plan as the best possible program and therefore do not favor taking the step to socialized medicine. He said that there would be no logic in taking this step since Norwegians "already receive maximum benefits."
the took world
By Calder M. Pickett Professor of Journalism
THE HARBOR, by Ernest Poole (American Century, Hill and Wang, $1.45).
This fine novel falls in between the reform literature of early 20th century and the proletarian literature of the 1930s. Ernest Poole won the first Pulitzer Prize for this book, which, though it is the story of radical unrest on the waterfront, also is an enduring poem to the waterfront where the conflict takes place.
The hero is an idealist who tries to resolve the conflict in his mind and heart between the poverty-stricken and the people with whom he had grown up. His conflict makes for a dramatic and vivid story, and one that is a hallmark in the literature of protest.
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founder, became bweekly newspaper,
1004, weekly newspaper, 1009
Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East St. St., New York 22, N.Y. Eight East St. National Press International. Mail subscription for semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during University year except Saturdays and Sundays. Examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
Telephone VIking 3-2700
Extension 711 news room
E-mail: extension.711, news room
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Extension 711, news room
Extension 376, business office
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Ron Gallagher  Managing Editor
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Bill Mullins  Editorial Editor
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Charles Martinape ... Business Manager
The Chosen Ones
I am one of the few unorganized (housing bureau terminology) who managed to procure a decent seat at the Limeliters concert. My good fortune of sitting downstairs was due only to conniving tactics and the generosity of one of my former students.
The purpose of this message is not to judge the calibre of the performance (since many members of the "cultured and urbane audience" no doubt will) but to protest the inability of many of my friends to do so. That is, why were there 20 empty seats within a coin toss of mine, when tickets were "all sold out."
BLOCK SELLING seems a bit unfair to the many who are not members of a block. Especially in this case when the demand was so great, block selling to insure against loss (This is not the reason?) borders on paranoid behavior. Since we other people must suffer this discrimination in distribution, the least the SUA's chosen people could do was give us a chance at seconds.
Those of you who didn't use your tickets might at least have the decency to release them for resale, even if only at the door. Could you be so charitable as to give us second choice next time?
Ellis Vaden Couch Prairie Village graduate student
ROTC Criticized Again Editor:
Some days ago I claimed that this country was unduly militaristic. One manifestation of this, I held, was the existence of ROTC programs. For this reason I argued that universities should get out of the military business and leave that to the military, which means restricting military training to military bases. Mr. Dobbies questions my claims, holding that ROTC programs do not indicate undue militarism. I should like to clear up a few things.
One definition "Webster's Collegiate Dictionary" gives to the word "militarism" is "the spirit which exalts military virtues and ideals." My claim was that this country was "undly militaristic, which is to say that there is too much exalting of military ideals and virtues, that it exists beyond necessity. How do I know? Well, how does anyone know? One looks, or as Mr. Dobbs puts it, "Ye shall know a tree by its fruits." If I want to see how much exaltation of military virtue and ideals there is, I look at what is going on. When I do this, one of the things I see is ROTC programs. I see people in uniforms learning how to be soldiers. And this takes place outside of military bases.
I CANNOT get inside anybody's head. If ROTC programs exist I assume they are for the purpose of promoting the exaltation of military virtues and ideals. This seems to me to be the only meaningful way to speak of such a spirit. A nation is what it does (and so it is with people). "Ye shall know a tree by its fruits."
Mr. Dobbs claims that the ROTC cadets are well behaved. This is supposed to be an argument against militarism. Everybody says that. No doubt the Russians think their troops well behaved, and the Nazis and Japanese probably said that of theirs. The fact is that we have people parading around in uniforms who are not even official soldiers, and all this on a university campus. This is the fact a nation looking at us sees. This is the "fruit."
I think that a nation is not unduly militaristic when that nation keeps a minimum, consistent with national defense, the spirit which exalts military virtue and ideals. This can be accomplished in two ways: (1) by having as few men as possible in military training, and (2) having military training confined to as few places as possible. My whole argument is that we are violating this second point.
IT IS NOT necessary that we have military training (in whatever amount) in universities. It is not necessary, I maintain, because it would be no calamity to national defense were universities restored completely to their nonmilitary functions. The military can cope with the dissolution of ROTC programs. It might require effort, but it is just this kind of effort that is needed if trouble is to be avoided. What we must try to do is minimize this military spirit, and one way this can be done is through its confinement. And this does not mean significantly weakening ourselves militarily. I never equated "military strength" with "undue militarism," as Mr. Dobbs claims I did.
Edward Lopatin
Bronx, N. Y.
graduate student
* * *
American Friendliness
Editor:
I have been in this country since September, 1961; I had come once before in the summer of 1950. And I was most surprised when I read in the issue of March 16 of the UDK some of the comments of the foreign students concerning American hospitality. I believe they were most wrong and unfair when they referred to the hospitality in this country as being comparable to hospitality in any other country.
MANY THINGS HERE, as in any other part of the world, can be subject to criticism, but no one should be ready to deny that your hospitality is unique. The way I was welcomed, greeted, accepted cannot be compared with any experience I had before in any of the foreign countries I previously visited.
To be considered on the spot as an old friend in a home you have never visited before, to be able to feel really at home and happy when away from your own friends and family—this is something for which the Americans have a secret of their own.
Anyone who has travelled in Europe will never deny how hard it is to be "admitted" and then "accepted" in a French home. Even though the situation is slowly improving, it is still a "tour de force" for a foreigner to be treated as a real friend within less than two or three years.
I KNOW THAT many of the foreign students will reply to this by saying that even if the American hospitality is wonderful, it does not mean anything, because it is superficial, and that everyone is over-nice, sweet and friendly right away. Maybe they should try harder, and then they would find out that there is something besides and beneath this sometimes too spontaneous friendliness.
I wish every foreign student on this campus had been fortunate enough to enjoy the experiences I had and am having here.
Francoise Moreau
Paris, France
* *
Kansan Accused of Error
Editor:
I would like to call attention to a rather serious error made by the reporter who covered the last meeting of the Civil Rights Council.
I am afraid that I cannot accept credit for the quotation that was attributed to me (UDK, Thursday, March 15, 1962), because I happened to be quoting someone else at the time. I am quite sure that this error was not intentional on the part of the reporter, but had the quotation not been taken out of context, and had the proper punctuation marks been used, this error would not have occurred.
Brian O'Heron Torrington, Conn. senior
Short Ones
It has been the fate of all bold adventurers and reformers to be esteemed insane. — George B. Cheever
When a man seeks your advice he generally wants your praise.— Chesterfield
The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.-Charles F. Kettering
The strongest symptom of wisdom in man is his being sensible of his own follies—Rochefauld