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University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, May 5, 1964
Valuable Gift
Rare Books
Despite Kansan editorial praise, the senior gift of a rare book collection for the library has not won universal acclaim.
“What good are rare books anyway," asked some usually enlightened members of the faculty and the student body. "All they do is sit around and gather dust."
THOMAS R. BUCKMAN, director of Watson Library, justified the rare book collection in this wav:
The quality of a university is measured by the quality of its library. Students and even faculty members move on, but the fund of knowledge of the library remains.
Rare books are the "heart of the university library, the core of its research collection," Buckman said. Acquiring this kind of material fits in with the university's goals of preserving, disseminating, and creating knowledge.
SCHOLARS FROM THIS PART of the country frequently use the special collections of the KU library, which has been consulted by mail by the British National Museum and the Vatican Library.
Granted that the special collections are valuable to scholars and to the prestige of the university. But how do they benefit the run-of-the-mill KU student or faculty member?
Contrary to what most people believe, the special collections department is open to anyone, from freshman to distinguished professor. Now on the top level of the stacks, the department is
getting ready to move to new quarters downstairs in June. Consequently, this spring it has been open only in the morning.
THE BOOKS MAY NOT be checked out, but any of the books, manuscripts, or maps may be used in the air-conditioned room. It is because the materials are fragile and difficult to replace that they may not be circulated.
They are sent out on inter-library loans, however, to as distant places as Australia.
A Noble Cause:
The rare books the senior class has given the library will be purchased from antiquarian dealers from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, or abroad. They will probably be chosen to strengthen present collections, such as those on ornithology, 18th century English, Continental, and American imprints, typography, and 19th and 20th century English literature and history.
IN A NEWLY PUBLISHED pamphlet, "A Guide to the Collections," Buckman wrote, "The University Library's Department of Special Collections, established little more than ten years ago, offers . . . an unusual range of carefully selected books, manuscripts, and maps for the use of qualified students and scholars. From the beginning these collections . . . have demonstrated their increasing utility in teaching and formal inquiry, and their power to stimulate productive thought. The considerable resources in evidence here . . . will continue to enhance the opportunity for study and intellectual discovery."
— Margaret Hughes
East-West Rapport Fades on Red Birthday
Two weeks ago the United States and Russia agreed to cut back production of uranium for war purposes. The move was hailed as a step toward peace and observers reported that relations between the two countries were growing warmer.
Last week, during which communism celebrated another birthday, the United States and Russia were shaking their missiles at one another again.
This time it involved U.S. inspection flights over Cuba. Premier Khrushchev said continued U.S. violations of Cuban air space "can have disastrous consequences". Prime Minister Fidel Castro said, "We will defend our sovereignty, whatever it may cost and wherever it may happen." He said he is willing to seek a peaceful solution, but if the Americans want war "There will be war."
Foy D. Kohler, U.S. ambassador to Russia, reaffirmed President Johnson's view that this country has the right to continue the plane flights over Cuba because Castro has refused on-site inspection to confirm the withdrawal of Soviet missiles.
Kohler said that under the agreement with Premier Khrushchev in 1662, at the time the first Russian rockets were first placed in
and then withdrawn from Cuba, the Kremlin agreed with the late President Kennedy that inspection should continue.
But Premier Khrushchev was assailing friend as well as foe. The crack in the wall of world communism grows bigger. Last week it was reported that the Russians invited the Red Chinese to attend the May Day celebration in Moscow, then withdrew the invitation. In the meantime Moscow is applying pressure on other Communist parties to agree to a world meeting of Red leaders next fall for a showdown with the Chinese on the issue of tactics for expanding Communism. The other Communist parties, however, are not too keen about the idea.
A demonstration in Czechoslovakia marred the May Day celebration by the Communist nations. About 3,000 students battled police in Prague in what, according to diplomats, bordered on open revolt. About 15 leaders of the demonstration were arrested and jailed.
But there were other trouble spots around the globe last week. Communist terrorists sank a U.S. aircraft transport in Saigon, South Viet Nam, on Friday and guerrilla attacks continued.
Observers say that the situation in South Viet Nam is brighter now than it was six months ago. Lt. Gen. William C. Westmoreland, named to become commander of US forces in Vietnam in August, is determined to fight the Viet Cong guerrillas during the upcoming rainy season, normally a time when government forces are completely ineffective because of their heavy equipment.
Fraternal warfare continued to split the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. A Greek Cypriot attack on St. Hilarion, a Turkish Cypriot-held castle overlooking a strategic pass in the Kyrenia mountains, increased the tension between the warring factions. The U. N. peace force, limited in its ability to intercede in the quarrel, could only
Cyprus Torn
Saigon Terrorized
duck the bullets aimed at them and ask the two sides to negotiate a cease-fire treaty.
Coalition Restored
Souvanna's statement followed a joint British-Soviet declaration demanding the restoration of the coalition government under Souvanna. Those two countries and the U.S. have sharply condemned the coup by rightist officers which paralyzed the government.
Prince Souvanna Phouma, premier of the shaky Laoatian coalition government, announced a merger of the country's neutralist and right-wing faction. He expressed hope that the pro-Communist Pathet Lao faction would "follow the same path."
Last week the island of Zanzibar united with Tanganyika to form the United Republic of Tanganyika and Zanzibar. Julius K. Nyerere moved to contain the Marxist faction on the island by putting Sheik Aebid Amani Karume in control. Karume is regarded as one of the few uncommitted African nationalists in Zanzibar's former revolutionary government.
And Charles de Gaulle is upsetting his Western allies again. France announced that she was withdrawing her officers from NATO naval headquarters. The move, a further step in De Gaulle's program to make his country independent of her allies, is not of strategic importance, but it does show the further weakening of the Atlantic Alliance.
Except for bloody race riots in Nashville, Tenn., the nation was relatively quiet last week. The struggle over the civil rights bill continued in the Senate. The debate broke out in a "heated exchange" between Sen. Jacob Javits, (R-N.Y.), and Richard Russell (D-Ga), over the jury trial amendment offered by Sen. Thurston B. Morton, (R-Kv).
Sen. Paul H. Douglas, (D-II), cautioned the Senate against amending the bill too much because "it may be erecting obstacles" to final passage of the civil rights bill. It is doubtful that the House would pass the Bill if it were changed greatly.
Voting on the amendments is expected to begin this week.
We Must Not Fail! etc.
Most people's mailbox is cluttered with bills, free samples, giveaways and other such unwelcome nonsense. The mailbox of a newspaper, for the most part, is junked with propaganda. One has to be fascinated with bizarre thoughts and bizarre approaches to open it.
This dramatic bit came in the mail yesterday from Whittier College. It is so unexceptional that is exceptional—if you follow.
HEADED "STUDENTS FOR NIXON," the blurb is addressed "An Open Letter to the Voters of America."
"We call on you for help in a demand of grave responsibility, in a demand for leadership; we call on you as the most informed public in the world, the most intelligent audience produced for a progressive mankind in the history of the world; we call on you from a small private liberal arts college to elect a President from these United States—to elect Richard M. Nixon.
"Who are we to make such a request and ask your help? We are the product of the greatest war on earth . . . the babies left by fathers who went to fight . . . cold war period. Ours is a peculiar heritage and one we are proud of . . .
"Yet soon, our new voices will be raised...
"Let us now join hands . . . etc."
Like, this fellow should write editorials for someone—maybe, say, a college paper?
George Lincoln Rockwell, who drew a crowd of 2500 when at KU, popped up a week ago harassing civil rights supporters.
A student group had gathered at the Abraham Lincoln memorial in Springfield, Ill., with the avowed purpose of keeping a vigil until the Civil Rights bill is passed by the Senate. Rockwell and six of his Storm Troopers, according to a K.C. Star item, distributed racist literature at the memorial and heckled the students.
They were arrested by police for demonstrating without a permit. Rockwell said when he was here that getting himself arrested was one of his principal tactics.
BOOK REVIEWS
I WONDER AS I WANDER, by Langston Hughes (American Century, $2.45; cloth, $4.95).
The first volume of the autobiography was entitled "The Big Sea." This second volume is in truth a tale of wandering, a story of the thirties and a dramatic depiction of one man's adventures.
Among American Negro writers Langston Hughes looms large. His poetry has been read by two generations; his autobiography, of which this is the second volume, is an important document of the life of a leading literary figure.
Hughes takes us to Cuba, Haiti, the Soviet Union, Siberia, Japan, and Spain during the Spanish Civil War. His encounters are with the great and the small of his time, and he chronicles a world then on the way to violent war.
Like many Negroes, Langston Hughes was aware of the force of the Communist movement, and he was asked by Arthur Koestler why he did not become a Communist in this time of ferment. For Hughes, communism was too confining, too disciplined, an idea which could control the independence of his thought and expression. No Communist, he studied the movement in Russia, and his wanderings gave him insights into other ideas as well that were so significant in the thirties.
"I'm Feeling A Little Better Already"
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