KANSAN Comment
Only skin deep?
Eight black singers made a hit record entitled "Beauty is only skin deep."
And nothing so aptly describes the New Jersey Street rehabilitation project.
Many KU students spent last Saturday restoring areas which didn't quite meet the white standard. They repaired houses to a point where they could drive down New Jersey street and not feel guilty about their affluence. While some residents of the slum area pitched in to help, some physically capable residents sat on their front porches and watched.
Chances are highly likely that a year from now New Jersey street will be the same shambles it was before the project started.
You can repair peoples' homes, paint their fences, and mow their lawns, but you cannot instill a sense of personal pride and responsibility in them.
Many of those residents cared about having their homes repaired, but many did not. These things hold a very low place on their list of priorities.
A mother with eleven children has little time to spend worrying about the conditions of the guttering on her house and she cares little. Instead she wonders how she is going to feed those children.
If we want to impose our white sense of values on these people the first question we must ask ourselves is "do they want them?"
Theoretically, the idea of New Jersey street rehabilitation is a good one. However, when you try to apply it practically—it just doesn't come off.
New Jersey street residents don't need or want 200 well-intentioned amateur contractors.
They need students willing to give up Saturdays to tutor their children who come from academically and culturally deprived homes. You cannot hope to appreciate what you've never had. You cannot learn something that you never knew existed.
Urban renewal is wonderful but before it can be successful minds and goals must undergo the same rehabilitation process. (JKD)
Readers' write
To the Editor:
With reference to the "Poor Kansas" article by JKD appearing in May 5th's UDK, let me say this:
I am unclear as regards the point of this article, for JKD begins by sneering at the voters of Kansas for electing a Republican legislature and a Democratic governor and ends by blaming the latter for "futility . . . at the expense of the people of Kansas."
Notwithstanding the forenamed article, the 1968-69 session of the Kansas legislature did end with substantially significant results, for example: 1) adoption of the new criminal code including liberalized abortion law; 2) approval of submission of proposed liquor-by-the-drink constitutional amendment to the vote of the people in 1970; 3) truth-in-lending law conforming with the Federal law of truth-in-lending; 4) 27 million dollar additional state aid to elementary and high school; and 5) 2 cents gas tax increase.
The latter two were passed over Governor Docking's veto. The Governor vetored these bills essentially because of the following: 1) the 27 million dollar additional state aid to school bill was without any provision to pay for it; and 2) additional roads can be paid by bonds and tolls, and additional gas tax coming in from the increase in the sale of gas which would result with the increased number of people using roads in Kansas as a result of the additional roads built, rather than being paid for by a gas tax increase; also included in this bill was the increase in diesel fuel of only 1 cent, unfair to the general public.
The utmost invalid and unsound statement made by JKD was: "Lowering taxes is the only way a Democratic candidate can make it in Kansas." Governor Docking did not campaign for lowering taxes, but against raising taxes through tax reform, this issue being paramount, partially as follows:
Exemptions on sales taxes given to some businesses shifts the burden unjustly on the rank-and-file citizen, and,
therefore, must be eliminated. Also the load should be shifted from ad valorem taxes to income taxes to be more equitable.
Joe Mikesic Kansas City sophomore
Joe Mikesic
To the Editor:
A word of solace is in order to those who despairingly believe that the "new left" has accomplished a major victory at K.U. by the election of Dave Awbrey to student body president. At first impression, this seems to be the case, but closer examination shows that: 1) the preponderance of interested K.U. students clearly demonstrated their objections to the political philosophy of Awbrey, and 2) even those students who voted in favor of Awbrey may have done so through motivations which were hostile to his political ideas.
The first of these propositions can be empirically demonstrated by merely looking at the vote tallied. Of the three candidates running for office, only two distinct political philosophies were offered. Those of Leffel and von Ende clearly fit into the moderate category to which the vast majority of college students adhere. Only Awbrey advocated a political position which could be termed clearly left of center. With these two choices in mind, almost twice as many votes were cast for the moderate political stance than were cast for Awbrey and his cohorts.
Support for the second of these propositions comes, supprisingly, from the U.D.K. Prior to the election, the U.D.K. editorial writer suggested that although the policies of Awbrey were idealistic and objectionable to many, his party should be supported in an effort to get some type of active student representation on the University Senate. This position apparently stemmed from the belief that $15\%$ representation on the Senate would render any moderately-oriented student representation impotent. Considering in-coming Chancellor Chalmer's remarks at a Sachem dinner that faculty members will almost inevitably follow the suggestions of students, and examining the
results of student demands at other universities, it is evident that the degree of influence which the students will exercise in the University Senate will be far greater than their proportional representation. Being unaware of this fact, and it is surprising that a U.D.K. editorial writer would be, a number of students voted for Awbrey's activist techniques is not his policies. Many students are going to be surprised if, instead of just keeping the faculty in the University Senate "on their toes", Awbrey succeeds in passing some of his new left policies.
A final word of caution to Mr. Awbrey. Before he dwells too much on his election victory as a clear mandate in support of his views, perhaps he should pause and reflect on the overwhelming number of students which voted to oppose his policies and the number of students who voted for him, but perhaps now wish they had not.
Respectfully submitted, Bob Ward Graduate, Law School
KANSAN
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Station 10
By JOHN MARSHALL
There were about 40 of them in station 10. Station 10 is a section of the Armed Forces Building in Kansas City where you stand around in your underpants waiting to see whether you are physically ready for Uncle Sam.
You don't say much in Station 10. You think.
You think about what the doctor at the end of the line will say when he looks at what the other doctors and examiners have stamped and written on your papers.
Like the dental examination: "Smile," the fat man who weighs about 400 pounds says. You smile. Fat stamps your paper "OK." You move on.
"OK YOUSE GUYS PUT THE SHIRTS BACK ON,
TAKE THE FOLDERS MOVE IT MOVE IT INTO THE
NEXT ROOM AND P--- IN THE BOTTLE."
"Gimmy that finger there boy. Come on boy, don't look at me that way, this lil' old test ain't gonna hurt much . . . I'll just stick you like this . . . why, who knows, you might bleed a lot more than that a year from now..."
"All right move on you guvs . . . "
Look into the eyepieces read the numbers . . . one thirty six; eighty four; ninety three;
"OK, now the letters."
rpqsntux.
"Man, you got great eyes."
Then on into the other rooms where you sit in the gray cubicles and try to figure out what a box with designs on the side of it would look like if you cut it up and folded it out. Or where a screw would fit if you took an engine apart and then tried to put it together. "... MOTHER IS TO DAUGHTER AS ---- IS TO SON . . ." English comprehension for the other half hour and you finish 30 minutes ahead of time and watch a boy who is a Canadian citizen figure the answers backwards to pass the time.
You stand there in Station 10, that sickly green room with all the guys in skivvies standing in line waiting. It is silent.
"You pass?"
You look at the blank spaces for the doctors' stamps. It says you have bad legs. "Guess not."
"Oh."
Everybody is thinking in the room that is bare except for the guys standing around and the army doctors at the end of the line in back of the tables. Last stop. This is where they say "QUALIFIED" or "NOT QUALIFIED."
The young men are standing holding their folders that tell what kind of physical and mental persons they are. The folders mean a lot to the young men standing around in Station 10.
The people holding the folders are thinking. The college men are cordoned off into another line and they are the saddest. They do not want to go. They would tell you that they have spent four years, sure, in college, but for what. Most of them are bitter and think about what their girls will say when they find out they have passed, or why they have been sectioned like cattle through the lines.
Most of all they are thinking about what the other fat man said before the mental test. "See that line up in the right hand corner?" he had said. "You men put the name of the next of kin there—that means who you want your body sent to if you die overseas or somewhere."
Somewhere, the men think. They do not even have a name for it any more. By the time you get to Station 10 you cannot even laugh about it.
You look at how long the line is before you get to the major. Not far. Better look and see that you are not fooling yourself. Yes it says here that they do not want me. You should feel good about it but you can't, really.
You can't really feel good about flunking the Army physical because so many of your friends and fellow human beings will pass, and you feel a little like you are deserting them. You feel a little sad because you know you will not have to wait for the letter asking you to come.
It is all thinking in Station 10. Many of the thinkers will graduate and then go. They do not know where they will go, really. Many places. They are thinking about it. They are thinking about college and graduation and how graduation this year is not something to look forward to.
It won't be for a long time.
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