Readers' day
In the past few weeks the Kansan has taken, according to our mail, some unpopular causes. We have not, because of space limitations, been able to print all the letters received in answer to editorial stands.
Today's page, except for this short column, is dedicated to those who have taken time to write a letter to the editor. It's time for group gripe.
The only way to solve the problems of society is through the free exchange of ideas. Unfortunately we cannot resist answering some of the ideas in letters received. Realizing that too much answering may deter readers from writing to the Kansan, we will try to hold it to a bare minimum.
In the past, the paper has printed an editorial and a few answering letters and then let an issue drop. This semester the issue will not drop. This is beneficial in two ways. It forces the reader to do more research and spend more time in composition of his letter. In turn, it forces the editorial writer to improve the quality of his argument. The beneficiary is the general reader who is then able to read sound arguments for both sides of an issue and make his own decision.
Enough of this. It's your page today. (ATJ)
Reaction to liquor by the drink
Letters
Reaction to liquor To the Editor:
In reply to the article by ATJ entitled 'Liquor as an Issue', I will say that not all KU students are so dumb as to accept his statements without an answer.
In the first place there are a good many valid reasons why Kansans want to keep more liquor out of Kansas. We have a place under the sun that is the envy of many states which have had open saloons all of their statehood. The smaller percentages of insanity, the higher ratings in education, incomes percentage wise, the minimum in unemployment as compared with other states and hundreds of other good reasons.
Evidently ATJ has never read the true story behind the repeal of the Prohibition. No he probably wouldn't be interested in knowing the truth. The small percent of crime as compared with even the first year after repeal, and all other realated vices of the liquor traffic. There are some real good statistics if you care to know the truth.
He says "as a direct result of prohibition, the U.S. experienced its most lawless periods." The bootleggers were a very small group and the kind that operate underground has always existed even before prohibition and were not the result of it. No, America wasn't crying for drink. It was forced on our young people. Be hones enough to read the real truth of James Farley and his notorious scheme.
Revenue through drink? Don't believe it. For every dollar Kansas would receive in revenue, it would spend $54(?) in extra police, court, jail and other costs in connection with the liquor traffic. To say nothing of the
excess crime and accidents and deaths.
People who are employed in places who manufacture or sell what is definitely known to be harmful to the human body, should be put out of work. There would be plenty of legitimate employment for all.
Yes, that is why decent students cannot go for all that "baloney" of lost revenue, lost jobs, etc. ATJ have you recently taken an inventory of KU students killed or seriously injured, in escapes that involved liquor?
It might interest you to take time to do a little researching on that subject. I have seen a few of the wrecks, have visited a few of the grieving parents, seen the disfigured faces of both boys and girls injured in these bouts. Yes, all from good old KU.
But thank God there are still a lot of decent people on Mt. Oread who just don't go for the stuff or the mob psychology of a few who don't care for life, limb, or even loss of property.
M. M.
(M.M..whoever you are.
It would take a full page to destroy the illusions of morality you create in your letter. You raise some absurd, but some interesting question which will be answered in an editorial later. ATJ)
To the Editor:
This is in answer to your editorial on "Liquor as an Issue." I wonder where you obtained your information. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been reporting for years now that crime has been increasing every year and this is with legalized liquor. You state that
the state would lose a lot of revenue with prohibition. Research done a few years ago in Michigan showed that the direct cost of alcohol to the taxpayer in the way of added police force needed, additional prison space, loss of property, increased welfare due to alcohol was five to seven times as much as the revenue received on the sale of alcohol. Law enforcement officials say that alcohol is involved in at least 50% of all crimes. They also say that alcohol is involved in from 50% to as high as 80% of all fatal automobile accidents. It seems to me that 25,000 to 30,000 lives a year is a pretty high price to pay for your privilege to buy and drink alcohol any where you want to.
If you will examine the facts you'll find that the issue is as much economy as it is morality. I resent having to pay higher insurance rates because of drunken drivers. I resent having to pay higher taxes to pay for the additional police force needed to take care of the increased crime due to drinking. And I especially do not like the drunken driver endangering the lives of me and my family on the highway.
Richard Marshall High School Principal Prescott High School
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 necessarily those of the University of Kansas or the State Board of Regents.
Security is a policeman without a gun
To the Editor:
What prompted me to write this letter was the shoddy little trick your "ATJ" pulled in the February 18th edition. How can you justify using your lead editorial, printed in nice big letters and announced with headlines, to "put down" Mr. Hansen's letter (on the gun issue) which was cramped over on the other side of the page under the cartoon? Were you afraid someone might read it too carefully?
ATJ addresses his editorial to Hansen's letter but goes on to ignore that letter's content. For instance, Hansen did not say that anyone did have business carrying a gun as is implied in the editorial. Or, what relevance do the 108 homicides in Kansas City have to the letter? Hansen and other opponents of traffic-ticket-givers carrying guns are talking about the KU campus (in the daytime) and not about that big mess
to the east. It is in the context of this campus that Hansen makes his plea to give man's "basic decency" a chance. So, ATJ, try tackling this less sensational but certainly more relevant realm.
Can you print the number of homicides, rapes and so forth that have been committed on KU's campus during the daytime? Can you show me a campus policeman who thinks that he could not break up a pot party or rape (on campus, in daylight) without a gun? Would you bother to print the number of shootings on MU's campus under similar conditions for, say,the last year and try to field the proposition "Would there have been more or less had the Campus Police not had guns?"
I could continue with this but what I really wish to criticise is the indiscriminate (or perhaps, discriminate?) use of your superior
facilities of large print, better placement on the page, not to mention exaggeration, to promote your views, instead of fact and reason.
John Monte Clark
Bartlesville, Oklahoma junior
To the Editor:
Campus Cops do need guns! Why? Because, when the college kid undergoes metamorphosis into a wildeyed, hypersexed killer and begins annihilating all life and property within his grasp, how else is he to be stopped but by being effectively gunned down.
Speaking from the heart, nothing, while on this insanely dangerous campus, makes me feel more secure than the sight of a contented, cow-eyed cop passionately fondling his iron. Because the administration anticipates student crime, otherwise
our campus controllers wouldn't need their rocosco, let me make a few suggestions: The .38 caliber police special is not an effective man-stopper. More reliable is the .44 magnum, which will not only kill efficiently but will also cause considerable mutilation upon impact with the human body. Wouldn't this create the desired impression upon other flagrant students?
If this doesn't get the job done, there is an alternative: The .600 Wesley Richards Nitro Express. This little jewel of a gun can blast holes in elephants the size of a man; effective range over 1,000 yds. Just imagine, with a silencer and our wonderful B&G clean-up crews, who could tell the difference?
Frank Sheldon Ottawa, junior
More about oaths and artauds
To the Editor:
Recently, there have been Kansan reports and editorial comments concerning the activities of the First Artaud Romantic Tautological Society and those individuals associated with this group. I wish to comment about one member of the First Artaud, Don Jenkins and some of my associations with him.
I met Don at Southwest High School in Kansas City, Mo., during the fall of 1963. We were then freshmen and soon became friends. It struck me that Don was extra ordinary, different—and that difference has separated him from most people and most groups with whom I have associated.
The difference seems to be
that Don, sensitive and appreciative to the problems concerning poverty and suppression of peoples, ideas, and "freedoms," is further willing, almost uniquely, to be heard and to demonstrate for changes in a society that appears antagonistic to change.
There seems to be a lack of communication between Don and the University. I think this situation is due to at least two considerations. One is that most of us feel secure and are willing to pursue modes of self-interest and to ignore many important social problems. Secondly, it appears that the white man can never understand Don's feelings. Having lived in a different environment, one could anticipate this lack of
communication and should be more sensitive to it. He is communicating through his classes in Western Civilization, black literature, protests at the Union, and in other ways that may seem less than obvious to most.
The editorial comments and reports published by the Kansan do not correlate well with my observations and feelings developed over my six-year association with Don. I hope those individuals exposed to the Kansan reports and editorial comments will consider some of my observations before forming conclusions about Don Jenkins.
Furthermore, I would hope that students might take the time to become somewhat more involved in at least recognizing
Michael Gordon
problems of less fortunate peoples.
Kansas City, Mo., sophomore To the Editor:
In the article about loyalty oats in the February 17 Kansan, I was amazed at how a writer could produce a four-hundred word essay on such a topic and give no basis for her statements other than pure emotional opinion.
To support the Constitution is not to say "... that they will do or say nothing in opposition to the governmental system ..." The writers of our Constitution, realizing that they would make errors and that changes would be needed, provided a means of amending that Constitution book can be found a clause in
In any Junior high government the Preamble which says "to promote the general welfare." In other words, although we have rights as individuals, those rights come second to the rights of the public in general. While the minority must have the right to dissent, the majority must rule.
I will agree that a loyalty oath for a National Defense Student Loan does appear useless now that the Supreme Court has opened the door to Communist teachers in our educational system.
In summation, if you are and are proud to be a United States citizen, it won't bother you a bit to say so in writing. That is unless it's too inconvenient.
Robert Duane Stukesbarv
Ness City freshman