Extra: Kansas IS dry
Once again the issue of liquor by the drink is causing strife in the legislative halls of Topeka.
Sen. Norman Gaar, R-Westwood, and others are urging the legislature to allow the people of Kansas to vote on this "controversial" subject. In the context of Kansas it is controversial; however, in most other states it's not even an issue.
Opponents to the referendum include the Rev. Roy S. Hollomon, a Baptist minister and secretary of the Kansas United Dry (KUD) group. Another Kansas dry man is Rep. John Bower, R-McLouth, another minister, who has threatened to introduce a Constitutional amendment to return the state to prohibition.
The question is: How long do Kansas legislators and men like Rev. Hollomon think they can go on legislating morals?
The amendment may sound absurd but it is not totally beyond possibility. After all, look at the loyalty oath. Many states are getting rid of the loyalty oath because of the trouble it causes and the relative uselessness of it. Right in the middle of it all, Kansas adopted one. It is a waste of time to give all the reasons why prohibition doesn't work. Any history book or rerun of the Untouchables can tell you why.
Rev. Hollomon speaks in great platitudes about the evils of drink and cites statistics developed from social problems caused by increased drinking. Who said just because liquor can be bought by the drink, that drinking will increase? One wonders if Rev. Hollomon has ever read statistics about alcoholics who never leave their homes. Experts in the field have statistics that indicate the largest number of alcoholics are those who stay at home.
There is another side to the argument beside just wanting a drink. Liquor-by-the drink will increase the state's revenue collections tremendously. New licenses will have to be granted, sales taxes for both towns and state will increase and perhaps these will lift some of the burden of sky-rocketing property taxes.
Anyway, how can a state that is considering changing the classification of the possession of marijuana from a felony to a misdemeanor, seriously be involved in such heated debate over liquor by the drink.
In short the issue shouldn't even be an issue. Perhaps Rev. Hollomon and his group should be in a pasture somewhere west of here chewing their KUD instead of forcing it on the majority of Kansas citizens. (ATJ)
Reporters Notebook
Another enrollment foul-up a journalism instructor is puzzling a way of combining his instruction of photography with that of the 150 marriage and family students inadvertently placed in his classroom. It could make some interesting pictures.
The Mail Bag
The following letter from a Maryland woman was received this week by Dean Warren K. Agee, director of the William Allen White Foundation:
Dear Sir:
How could you give Walter Cronkite an award after he complained about the Chicago police on TV for all the country to hear.
Shame on you for wasting that award.
'What in the world has gotten into him?'
The Hill With It by john hill
I was reading an aboveground newspaper when an acquaintance named Sam Maritan joined me, wearing his usual button which emphatically stated "I don't know. I don't care. And it doesn't make any difference."
"Hi Sam," I quipped.
"Hi," was his sparkling rejoiner. "What's new?"
"Did you read about that girl that got sick and fainted in Strong Hall? A crowd gathered but nobody tried to help her"
"Well, after all," said Sam. "I mean I can understand. Nobody likes to get involved. That would take some time, probably two or three minutes. I can understand their reaction, since they probably figured it wasn't any of their business."
Good 'ol Sam Maritan, I thought to myself, big as all outdoors.
"Well, did you read about that student in Kansas City who was gunned down at a midtown intersection Sunday night? He ran up to passing cars to get some help but motorists just rolled up their windows, locked their doors, and drove away. He died, you know."
"Can't be too careful in a big city." Sam said. "Car doors should be locked whether you're in them or not."
One thing about a closed mind, I thought to myself, you always know what you're going to think tomorrow.
"Sam, for God's sake," I said, "You can't be ser-"
"Name-dropper," Sam said. If he ever needs a heart transplant in a hurry, they can use any specimen from my rock collection they want.
"What about whenever some guy climbs out on the ledge of a skyscraper and a crowd gathers? They always start chanting for him to jump! I suppose you think that's as it should be!"
"No, of course not," Sam said quickly, and I thought there might be hope yet. "And you're perfectly right," he said, "because it does happen every single time. It's almost trite for a crowd to yell for him to go ahead and jump. I was in a crowd of people watching a guy out on a ledge once and we certainly start chanting for him to jump."
Sam, there's just an outside chance you might be human. I thought to myself, not much of a chance but—
"We velled for him to set himself on fire."
I was still awed by this great humanitarian spirit, and didn't even say goodbye as he crossed the street, turned to say good-bye, and was struck by a cross-town bus.
I can still remember 'ol Sam laying there in the curb, vainly appealing for help from busy passer-bys who hurried past him, not particularly wanting to get involved . . .
Off the Walls
“God depledged."
"Lassie kills chickens."
"Eldridge Cleaver eats vanilla ice cream."
"Mayor Daley's new TV programs: Beat the Press Mace the Nation"
"Take my hand, I'm a stranger in Washington—Spiro T. Agnew."
“What is the sound of one hand clapping.”
Evans, Novak report
Russians favor Nixon, Paris peace talks
By Rowland Evans and Robert Novak
WASHINGTON - Despite the deadlock now blocking all progress at the Vietnam peace talks in Paris, the mood both in the Nixon administration and along diplomatic row here is anything but gloomy, for a most interesting reason: help from Moscow.
Reports have leaked out from time to time the past few months that the Soviet Union gave the U.S. vital help at tense stages of the negotiations that led up to the Oct. 31 bombing halt and breaking the deadlock over the shape of the negotiating table in mid-January.
But the full extent of that assistance has never been documented. Nor has the expectation within the new Administration that Moscow fully intends to continue if not increase its role as intermediary at Paris.
The Moscow line is becoming visible among Soviet and other
Communist diplomats in Washington in their effusive praise for Richard M. Nixon-who, before his nomination for President last summer, was viewed in Moscow as the devil incarnate. This strange love affair between the Kremlin and President Nixon, then, is one of the main reasons that, despite total Communist intransigeance at Paris last Thursday, U.S. policy-makers are counting on a negotiating breakthrough within six to eight weeks.
Soviet policy in the Vietnam war has been shrouded for years. Some U.S. diplomats have insisted that Moscow wanted the war to end out of fear that protracted fighting would enhance Chinese Communist influence in Southeast Asia.
Soviet officials privately informed U.S. diplomats in Moscow in early October exactly what Hanoi would concede as a response to the bombing halt. In January, intervention by Soviet diplomats in Paris, acting as a
result of inside information from Moscow, fixed the shape of the table.
The Moscow press is now filled with pro-Nixon stories, depicting the new President as a man of peace. Treatment of Mr. Nixon's inaugural speech and his first press conference last week was nothing short of euphoric.
This leaves in doubt how much Moscow can actually influence Ho Chi Minh, the North Vietnamese patriarch who has shown over two decades a notorious independence of foreign pressures by friend and enemy alike. Intelligence reports from Hanoi show beyond question that Soviet influence is higher in Hanoi today than at any time since large-scale fighting started in Vietnam. Conversely, the influence of Communist China is now at a low ebb in Hanoi.
Accordingly, the backstage mediation by Moscow to help produce a settlement in Paris is viewed here as likely to have a continuing influence
on Hanoi. Hardheaded diplomats, while ruling out any quick breakthrough, are hopeful that within six to eight weeks the present deadlock will begin to yield.
If it does not, President Nixon will be forced to try to break the deadlock by other means-possibly military re-escalation. Once that happens, the careful, behind-the-scenes work by the Soviet Union, coupled with its buildup of Mr. Nixon as a man of peace, will collapse. That is a development Moscow wants to avoid at all cost.
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