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Summer Session Kansan
Tuesday, June 30, 1964
Politics and Frustration
In 1955, when the "New Conservatism" was truly new and the most significant manifestation of the American right still seemed to be McCarthyism, Richard Hofstadter, a man of the left, suggested in "The Pseudo-Conservative Revolt" that the rise of the right was due to feelings of frustration.
Those who called themselves conservatives were people seeking status in American life, people either on the way up or the way down, socially speaking. They had gone through two decades of New Deal, war and Fair Deal and had found that Eisenhower Republicanism was no more satisfying than what they had seen under Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.
THIS IDEA OF SEEKING change in politics because of frustration is an interesting one. One can see why voters who had had to put up with Alf Landon, Wendell L. Willkie, Thomas E. Dewey and Dwight Eisenhower, all at least moderates within the Republican party, would feel frustrated, particularly if the more satisfactory candidate all this time—in their eyes—would have been Robert A. Taft. But aren't there frustrations for most Americans, no matter who occupies the presidency?
What could be more frustrating than the life a Negro American has had to live—segregation in a ghetto, poor jobs, little future, inability even to get a cup of coffee in the cheapest of white restaurants? What could be more frustrating than the life of the economically deprived, or the socially deprived?
WE HEAR THE PLATITUDINOUS term "American way," which seems to mean, according to some orators and newspaper columnists, an economic doctrine that's a combination of social Darwinism and John Wayne's winning of the West. The American way for millions of Americans has been something quite different from "free enterprise" or "capitalism." The American way for many has been as frustrating as having to live under a string of liberal presidents has been for the folks who want to impeach Earl Warren.
None of us gets quite what he wants out of government. John F. Kennedy was a conservative disappointment to many liberal Americans, just as Lyndon B. Johnson doesn't quite ring bells for some liberals today. We suggest that a certain amount of frustration will always be present—and necessary—under our system of government.
Tougaloo College in Mississippi Fights for Policy of Integration
(Editor's Note; Tougailoo Southern Christian College has been the target of controversy since many of its faculty members and students participated in anti-segregation demonstrations.
(Following a proposal by Lt. Gov. Carroll Gartin to investigate the institution Sen. Brud Dye of Grenada sponsored Senate Bill 1672, which would revoke the school's charter "in the public interest."
(Since many Mississippians are unfamiliar with the institution, the Mississippi Magazine asked Dr. A. D. Beittel, President of Tougaloo, to write on the background and aims of the school.)
I have talked with lawyers, and no one seems to be sure what effect revocation would have on our program. Our present plan is to proceed as usual, whether or not the revocation bill is voted by the Mississippi Legislature. If the bill should be passed, we should indeed find it necessary to fight it in the courts.
Although the lieutenant governor suggested that it may be possible to close down Tougaloo College as Highlander Folk School in Tennessee was closed down, he has made no specific charge that Tougaloo College has in any way violated the charter. Senate Bill No. 1672 does not charge that Tougaloo College has violated its charter, it merely expresses the opinion of the Legislature that the charter should be revoked "in the public interest."
REVOCATION of the charter itself would not cause the college to close. Such revocation may be followed by other legal steps directed toward the closing of the college. I am told that Highlander Folk School kept beer in a refrigerator which was paid for by the persons who took it from the refrigerator. Highlander Folk School was therefore charged with selling liquor without a license.
In 1869 the American Missionary Association (Congregational) of New York purchased a plantation of five hundred acres near Jackson and established Tougaloo College, which, according to the charter granted in 1871, was "to be accessible to all, irrespective of their religious tenets, and conducted on the most liberal principles for the benefit of our citizens in general." Southern Christian Institute was founded in 1875, with a campus at Edwards, and in 1954 was merged with Tougaloo College.
TOUGALOO COLLEGE is a member of and fully accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Although teaching and practicing human rights regardless of race
or color for 95 years, Tougalou College has no official or semi-official connection with the contemporary Civil Rights Movement. Some of the students and faculty members have been involved in the movement as individuals, not as official representatives of the college. A faculty member is not penalized for such participation so long as he fulfills his obligations to the college.
INTEGRATION is the policy of held against him if he is incarcerated for following the dictates of his conscience.
Students are not pressured to refrain from participation if they give proper time and attention to academic pursuit. In accordance with good academic procedure, no credit in sociology or chemistry is given a student for spending a month in jail. Nor is his jail record
the Tougalou campus. Tougalou College is the only "voluntarily integrated institution of higher learning in the state of Mississippi." The board of trustees, faculty, staff, and student body are integrated.
The college is the only educational institution in Mississippi where whites and Negroes do come together on equal footing. It is conscious of its responsibility for promoting communication between the races.
At Tougalo there is no machinery for screening faculty members, students, or speakers with Communist affiliations, capitalist affiliations, or religious convictions. We feel that a college should be a place of conflicting ideas and opinions.
A PERSON SO fixed in his ideas that he cannot change would not make a good faculty member at Tougaloo College, be he Communist or Baptist. We bring a variety of speakers to the campus. Dr. Ralph Bunche spoke on the campus last fall to an overflow audience. More recently, Mr. Andre Bovay of the United Nations spoke at a campus forum, and recently, Dr. Robert Penn Warren appeared at Tougaloo. Miss Pauline Frederick, news commentator, is expected in May.
The campus has served to provide a meeting place for the Mississippi Council on Human Relations, the Mississippi Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and the state meeting of the American Association of University Professors.
IN ADDITION to modest student fees, alumni contributions and other gifts, Tougaloo College is supported by the United Church of Christ, the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ), and the United Negro College Fund.
We educate hundreds of young people to teach in the public schools of Mississippi. We have a working agreement with Brown University to assist us in a development program which will elevate our faculty salary scale and provide for many new educational buildings and residence halls.
Tougaloo College's two million dollar plant has been paid for, for the most part, by contributions from beyond the borders of Mississippi. Of the annual operating budget of $800,000, nearly half is contributed by friends outside of the state of Mississippi. Tougaloo's annual $400,000 payroll is spent largely in the state of Mississippi.
Tougaloo College receives no tax support from the state of Mississippi. Yet, it saves the citizens of Mississippi tax money by providing higher education for 500 students, most of whom come from the state.
WASHINGTON — (UPI) — The gross national product, sum total of all the goods and services the nation produces, rose from $242 billion in 1940 to almost $600 billion last year, the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare reports.
GNP at $600 Billion
The book, "Business and Society," won one of five MacKenzie awards of the American Academy of Management. The books were chosen by a panel of businessmen and academic representatives.
A book by Joseph W. McGuire, dean of the KU School of Business, has been named one of the five best books about business published in 1963.
Dean's Book Praised
Summer Session Kansan
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BOOK REVIEWS
This man was once a literary giant, and no appraisal of American novels of the thirties can exclude him. The Studs Lonigan and Danny O'Neill books told us a lot about American city life and the attitudes and mores of the Irish Catholic population of Chicago. Farrell is still on that kick, unfortunately; "The Silence of History" is one of his weakest books, and it represents no gain in insight or ability.
THE SILENCE OF HISTORY, by James T. Farrell (Dell, 75 cents).
The book is designed as the first of a trilogy on a youth named Eddie Ryan. One may hope that the other two books will be better. Farrell has been a key name in literary naturalism and this book is as tediously naturalistic, if not more so, than even the books of Dreiser.
Eddie Ryan could be Farrell himself, perhaps, as Danny O'Neill seemed to be. Once again we read about an intelligent boy trying to escape his background and studying hard at the University of Chicago. The time is the twenties, so we cannot escape even the era of "Studs."
There is little dramatic conflict; the dialogue is dull. Farrell, like Dos Passos and Sinclair Lewis, seems to have lived long past his time.
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We are seeing a time of intensified concern over what is happening to the American landscape, and Lewis Mumford has been writing for many years about the forces of a technological civilization. This book includes 22 essays on the aesthetics of architecture and the problems of urban planning.
THE HIGHWAY AND THE CITY, by Lewis Mumford (Mentor, 75 cents).
Mumford appraises the merits of several specific buildings and shows how some cities have tried to come to grips with urban deterioration. He is a staunch advocate of regional planning.
This paperback deserves a wide readership. Its implications will prove troubling to thoughtful Americans.
JEWS, GOD AND HISTORY, by Max I. Dimont (Signet, 95 cents). Here is a big, forceful, entertaining history which deals with "the cliche of the persecuted Jew." The book had its genesis in 1956, when Max Dimont was lecturing about Jews and realized that he was dealing with stereotypes of a downtrodden, despised people through 4,000 years of history.
He then did his own interpretation of history, using modern sociological, economic and anthropological findings.
It is a dramatic story, one that both Jew and non-Jew will find informative and helpful.
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THE NEW YORK GUIDEBOOK, edited by John Kouwenhoven (Dell, 95 cents)—A handy and entertaining guide for folks planning to go to the World's Fair, or just to New York anytime. There are 21 specially commissioned articles by prominent New Yorkers, including R. Buckminster Fuller, Arlene Francis and Red Smith. The book has 14 pages of maps, a subway map, a map of Greater New York, and an index and directory.
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I. MICHELANGELO, SCULPTOR, edited by Irving Stone and Jean Stone (Signet, 75 cents).
"The Agony and the Ecstasy" has made Michelangelo a popular figure, and Signet has latched on to this popularity by issuing, on the 400th anniversary of Michelangelo's death and the year of the Pieta at the World's Fair, the first complete collection of the sculptor's letters to be published in English.
The editors arranged the writings chronologically, and provided background commentary. Michelangelo's sonnets are among the letters, which were written to the Medici, to creditors and debtors, artists, popes, his family, and his love, Vittoria Colonna.
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SARTORIS. by William Faulkner (Signet Classics, 75 cents).
A new edition of a lesser-known Faulkner novel becomes available with this "Sartoris." The book should be better known, for it gives a portrait of a vanishing society and a resurgent one as eloquently as the Snopes tales and "The Sound and the Fury."
The Sartoris family is an heir to the aristocratic tradition of the old South, and the hero, Bayard, indulges in acts of physical courage to try to prove himself. For the family, as for many of the characters in Faulkner, futility is triumphant.
The book was published in 1929. It has both a foreword and an afterword.
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THE CONCEPT OF THE CORPORATION, by Peter F. Drucker (Mentor, 75 cents).
Of special interest in this world of people concerned with organizational orientation should be this book by Peter F. Drucker, already recognized as a kind of classic about American business.
It is a study of the organization, structure, policies and social order of the big one—General Motors. The study is sociological in its approach, and is an understanding instead of hypercritical view of big business.
Drucker has been a management consultant for almost 25 years and is professor of management at New York University.
TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST, by Richard Henry Dana Jr. (Signet Classics, 60 cents).
This is protest literature, in addition to being an exciting story of the sea. Don't confuse it with the Alan Ladd movie of several years ago; this is a documentary story as factual and as embittered as some of the writings of Herman Melville.
Dana was a youth of good family, and a Harvard man, who signed on as common seaman aboard the Pilgrim for the voyage around Cape Horn to California. He wrote down his experiences and then published the book, which received legislative attention and helped to correct maritime abuses.