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University Daily Kansas
Monday. Feb. 5. 1962
A Faulty Criticism
KU received some severe criticism during the week of final exams last semester. It came from a conservative senator in the Kansas legislature, Ford Harbaugh of Wellington. Sen. Harbaugh said on Jan. 23 that KU was encouraging "one political theory at the expense of its opposite."
To support his statement, Sen. Harbaugh presented a few facts. He pointed out that there was a controversy recently in "the press of the state" over the appearance of a Soviet official at KU's World Crisis Day. He might also have mentioned that the press severely criticized the Patrick Henry American Legion Post in Wichita, the group whose objection to the Soviet official triggered the controversy.
THE SENATOR also mentioned that two university students (their names are Scott Stanley, a former KU student, and Charles McIlwaine, Wichita senior) gave addresses over the state last summer "in which they stated that the university departments of economics and political science did not contain one conservative instructor." The senator might have mentioned that there is a relatively small number of people in these fields of teaching who are conservative. He might also have mentioned that the two students he quoted are ultra-conservative followers of Sen. Barry Goldwater and condemn any sign of liberalism almost automatically.
THE CHARGE that conservative thought is
not getting an equal opportunity is false. Recently a chapter of a student organization following the philosophy of Sen. Goldwater, Young Americans for Freedom, was established on the campus. Its effectiveness is limited only by whether or not students want to join it and participate in its activities.
Another student organization following a conservative philosophy, the Young Republicans, is also established and operating on campus. Thus the students have no difficulty in learning about conservatism if they want to avail themselves of the opportunity.
As for speakers that visit the campus to speak. Sen. Harbaugh would have found, had he investigated, that every conceivable shade of political opinion is represented by the speakers who have appeared at KU over the years. In contrast to the Soviet official who spoke, a member of the John Birch Society spoke at a Current Events forum.
IT APPEARS that the senator had rather spotty information. The university administration does not encourage one political theory at the expense of another. It encourages the voicing of all opinions and theories in order that the university community may be better informed and make its decisions intelligently. In doing so, the university is merely fulfilling one of its obligations.
—William H. Mullins
Some Newsmen the Kansan Missed
Editor:
My brother-in-law, Russ Townsley, editor and publisher of the Daily News, Russell, Kansas, has kindly forwarded to me the 50th anniversary edition of your newspaper, dated Tuesday, January 16, 1962. Perusal of the masthead reveals that the anniversary is not that of the founding of your newspaper, which was in 1889, but that of its conversion into a daily. In similar circumstances, most newspapers would be celebrating their 75th anniversary in 1964.
I am writing to call to your attention that I was not able to locate anywhere in the 16 page edition the names of four working newspapermen who either graduated from KU or are former students. I gathered from the head above it, and from the text of
Dean Marvin's story on page 2, that he was listing only those who had worked on the UDK during their days on The Hill. If that is so, perhaps there is a legitimate reason for passing up these four men, who are:
WILLIAM B. DICKINSON — Managing Editor, Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia, with the largest circulation of any afternoon newspaper in the U.S.A. A brilliant war correspondent in the Pacific for UPI during World War II. Dickinson was Foreign News Editor for the wire editor before he went to the Evening Bulletin, the publisher of which is the immediate past president of The Associated Press. My recollection is that Bill worked for The Kansas City Star before joining the then United Press in Kansas City, Mo., in the very early 30s.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
"SAY DIDJA NOTICE THAT NEW CHICK SERVING TH' DESERTS?"
CARLTON V. KENT — Known as Bill, son of the late, highly-esteemed KU physics professor, he is Washington correspondent for the Chicago Sun-Times, and has been for many years. He is a past president of the White House Correspondents Association and a member of the ultra-exclusive Gridiron Club. He, too, was a very able World War II correspondent in the Pacific, and it is my recollection that among his earlier connections were The Star and the Oklaoman. Mrs. Kent is the former Janet Murdet of Abilene.
THEODORE MORGAN O'LEARY — Ted is the Middle West chief correspondent for Sports Illustrated — an A-1 reporter and a superb writer. He had a distinguished career on The Star before turning to the magazine field. His home base is Kansas City, Mo., and his father was the late, brilliant English professor at KU.
JOHN H. MARTIN — A native of Kansas City, Kansas, he worked for some years for The Star before joining the AP and becoming a leading member of its European staff. He switched to International News Service (INS), and was Cables Editor before becoming Foreign News Editor, the post he held when INS was merged itup OM to formUPI. At that time John became a staff writer for the publication of United Aircraft Corp., Hartford, Conn.; PR director for United is Paul Fisher, who, with Martin and O'Leary, formed a trio of first class reporters and writers for The Star's morning edition who were at once the pride and despair of the eminent Charley Blood.
James Alan Coogan,
Supervisor of Press,
Radio, Film and TV,
Creole Petroleum
Corporation
Caracas, Venezuela
Short Ones
The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state; but this consists in paying no previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published—William Blackstone
. . .
Woman would be more charming if one could fall into her arms without falling into her hands. — Ambrose Bierce
the look world
By W. D. Paden
Professor of English Literature
.
RELUCTANT LAWMAN, by Edwin Booth; WARBONNET CREEK, by E. E. Halleran; SMOKE WAGON ROAD, by R. M. Roberts; GUNLAW HILL, by Frank O'Rourke. Ballantine Books; 35 cents each.
The last Western I read was "The Virginian," and the stories seem to have changed a good deal since then. In two of these books the hero kisses the heroine, once, in the middle of the story, without waiting for the last page. Horses are less affectionate than they were. Though in general the language is clean, the hero now says "damn" in moments of extreme stress. Whiskey is freely mentioned. On the other hand, it seems, evil is done west of Omaha only by Indians in war-paint, who stay in the middle distance, and in New Mexico only by deceptively inept middle-aged clerks from New York, who end in the calaboose, glum. There are no half-breeds. Horizons remain broad, the sage-brush beautiful, and emotions simple. The vocabulary is restricted to the scope of junior-high.
The fullest representative of the genre is "Reluctant Lawman." The hero returns to avenge his father, the late sheriff, and is offered the same job; he kills three evil-doers and shatters a bartender's elbow by a well-placed bullet while solving the mystery hanging over Gunsight. N.M. There are three beautiful women in the county: a blonde given to candid speech, a redheaded gambler who is secretly in love with the local banker, and a Mexican girl with attractive hips. The missing leaf from the late sheriff's diary is discovered under the newspaper-clippings tacked to a wall in the villain's room in the hotel. The story ends with the hero's angry and foolhardy defiance of the secondary villain, a walk-down, and the thunderous arrival of the posse. It could be called a detective story on horseback, set in a sparsely-settled region where the restraints of the law are perfunctory. It is concisely told, in spite of the large number of characters; a competent job.
"Warbonnet Creek" is the best story of the four. The hero drives a wagon-load of whiskey into Wyoming, actually in search of a whiskey-runner who killed his fiancée in the ambush of a government train nine years before; having been a lieutenant in the army, he becomes involved as a guide in the suppression of an Indian revolt. The army is convincing, and so are the Indians. The plot is compact, the dialogue honest, and the hero and heroine sufficiently credible people.
"Smoke Wagon Road" deals with the building of the Union Pacific Railway in western Nebraska. The author cannot describe violent action, writes vaguely about rifles and saddles, and shows a keen interest in draperies and well-waxed mahogany furniture: pretty clearly, a woman turning an honest penny. Not entirely honest, however, for in the final writings of the mishandled plot she transfers a consignment of fifty defective carbines from Omaha to a mining town without notice or possible explanation. Probably nothing less drastic could enable her to wind up the story, and at that point most readers will care no more than she.
These three books show that good stories can still be told, by the honest efforts of skillful craftsmen, about the Trans-Mississippi West before it was fenced in. The terrain is superlative, and many of the conventional characters and situations are still effective. But the plots have changed. These are not cowboy stories; there isn't a cow in the lot. The authors deal with financial skulldugery in a town just ahead of the extension of the railway, and military duty on the frontier, and glossy romance among the wagon-wheels, respectively. The old Western, like most genres, was not a single thing but a combination of things, and after a half-century of use it is well on the way to dissolution. One sign of this is "Gunlaw Hill," a farce set (probably) in Idaho. Two gamblers, one after the other, drop into Salvation Valley, where the inhabitants are awaiting the End of the World and the Translation of the Saints, on Sunday next. The saloon-keeper dispenses only milk and carrotjuice: when a man loses a hand in the poker-game he must pay up by reciting four lines of poetry. To be sure, things are less simple than they seem. The author, a skillful one whoever he may be, achieves a good deal of dry wit before he relaxes into a banal ending. Nothing like this, however, ever happened on Burnt Ranch, under the Tonto Rim, out where the West began.
Dailu Yansan
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
Managing Editor
Jon Gallagher Managing Editor Kelly Smith, Carrie Merryfield, Clayton Keller, Scott Payne, Assistant Managing Editors; Jerry Musil, City Editor; Steve Clark, Sports Editor; Martha Moser, Society Editor.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
**Bill Mullins** Editorial Editor
Karl Koch, Assistant Editorial Editor.
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Charles Martinache Business Manager
Hal Smith, Advertising Manager; Dick Kline, Classified Advertising Manager; Susanne Ellermeier, Circulation Manager; Bonnie McCullough, National Advertising Manager.