Page 2
University Daily Kansan
Monday, May 4, 1964
The Great House:
Brittle?
Red, Red. It's Red They Say:
A fossil is a hollow and crumbly thing—sapped by the ages of its life substance until only the skeletal form remains. An engineer would not think of building a structure of fossils, for they lack the essential tensile strength and flexibility needed to bend without breaking when conditions change.
FOR INSTANCE, Jim Johnston, new president of the interfraternity council, left me with the distinct impression that the IFC was going to do as little as possible about fraternity-soriority racial integration. In fact, at one point in the discussion, Johnston said that the IFC should stay out of the area of integration entirely. Fraternities should not be coerced into or pressured into integrating, Johnston reasoned, because any coercive force threatened Greek independence—in fact, the entire Greek system of choosing whom they please as members.
After the panel discussion on fraternity-soriority discrimination Wednesday night, I wondered if the great Greek House at KU is not a house made of fossil.
When pressed further about the role of the IFC, Johnston pulled out the rush pamphlet and pointed to two pictures of a president of a Negro fraternity sitting down with the white fellows. Maybe the IFC thinks they've got a tame one. Anyway, having a Negro in the IFC rush pamphlet indicates that Greeks are very open-minded about the question.
Johnston, like many of the good brothers, seems to be pre-occupied with the precious little Greek right to discriminate against whomever they want—incidentally, to discriminate against Negroes.
ART DOUVILLE, chairman of the Human Rights Council, moderated the panel. Douville, a sophomore, explained that the role of the HRC was to study the "problem" and bring the different sides together to talk it over. The HRC is a branch of the ASC-i.e., an official body of the student government. The HRC this year has, according to Chairman Douville, taken a poll, talked to the Plaza Club about its nasty discriminatory policies and sponsored the enlightening and stimulating discussion of Wednesday night. Well and good.
In fact, this is the approach needed. KU could talk about fraternity-sorority integration for the next ten years and become as backward in relation to the country as, say, Barry Goldwater. It seems increasingly clear that the HRC means talk, poll, discuss. And this HRC talk-talk approach doesn't come out as even fruitful conversation.
The much-vaunted HRC poll was, in my opinion, invalid. There was something like a 62 per cent return on the questionnaires, and most of the questions were directed. Example: "It is best that Negroes have their own fraternities and sororites since they have their own particular attitudes and interests which they can best engage in together."
BOB STEWART, newly-elected president of the student body, stated that he substantially agreed with Chairman Douville's definition of the role of the Human Rights Council.
Douville then cited the power of "moral suasion," the chancellor's policy catch-phrase on discriminatory matters. Again, well and good. Moral suasion might make some progress, but the IFC and HRC seem to think that moral suasion means doing as little as possible. The moral suasion approach would seem more acceptable to the anti-segregationists if there was evidence of these august governing bodies doing a little moral persuading.
IF MORAL SUASION fails, if fraternities are not integrated, then anti-segregationists' last course will be to demand that the university administration set a deadline for pledging non-Caucasians on a quota basis—a policy which has not been advocated in the past. Deadlines have been set at Berkeley and Colorado University, and there is no guarantee that such a thing would not be done at KU if Greeks continue to unanimously exercise their right to discriminate on the basis of skin pigment.
The Greeks and the IFC and the Greek-dominated student government might do well to sway their ranks to integration, if for no other motive than enlightened self-interest.
The Greek system of pledging would be wrecked if a quota were set. The great Greek building as it exists today would come tumbling down.
This could only happen if the Greeks and Greek-oriented student government continue to just talk, if the Great House continues to muddle along, if—to state it bluntly—the Great House is built of fossils.
Notes from the past...
Tom Coffman
In olden society, everything was different; unity and uniformity were nowhere to be met with. In modern society, everything threatens to become so much alike, that the peculiar characteristics of each individual will soon be entirely lost in the general aspect of the world. Our forefathers were ever prone to make an improper use of the notion that private rights ought to be respected; and we are naturally prone, on the other hand, to exaggerate the idea that the interest of a private individual ought always to bend to the interest of the many.—Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840
Dailij Mansan
Founded 1889, became bweekly 1904
stimulus. 1899, daily. 1910
triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912
Member Inland Daily Press Association
presented by National Advertising Service.
18 East St. New York 22, N.Y.
New service: United Press Interna-
tional. Accepts semester or $5 a year. Published in
Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during
the University year except Saturday.
Accepts examination periods. Second class
postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
Far Side of the Hill
By Tom Coffman
The glare of TV camera lights . . . suspicion of subversion cast about recklessly . . . the inquisitorial voice: "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?"
It takes a certain mentality to ask the "Are you now, or have you ever been . . ." type of question. It is the kind of mentality which sees a commie hiding behind every rock and rill.
THIS MENTALITY EXISTS among a segment of the KU community. The last time it popped up was around election week when the rumor spread across campus that the KU Liberal Action Committee, a new student group, was affiliated nationally with the Socialist Labor Party, which was defined as a communist-front organization—in other words, KULAC came out sounding like a front.
A great many people around election time asked me questions about KULAC in a way that I imagine a medical patient asks his doctor if he has TB or cancer. The fact that KULAC advocates an intensive liberal platform, that it advocates a change of attitudes in certain areas, made KULAC suspect in the eyes of the establishment.
In fact, KULAC is not closely affiliated with any national organization, although several of its members belong to Students for Democracy Society—a national liberal student organization. KULAC's principal areas of interest are civil liberties, civil rights, peace and multi-lateral disarmament, and 20th century morality.
THE KULAC RUMOR is but a small incident among many which have persisted at this center of enlightenment.
The most frightening incidents have come from state legislators who have banded together to insist that the KU faculty be investigated for the purpose of turning out teachers who spread "un-American" ideas among the students. The attempted "pink" purges represent a real threat to academic freedom. Apparently the faculty does not take it lightly. For instance, a 165-member American Civil Liberties Union chapter operates in Lawrence with strong faculty support.
In turn, the KU incidents are but minor reflections of the strand of thought which runs through the national mentality to suppress anyone who is not, as Mencken put it, a "100 per cent American."
Huge votes continue to roll up for undeclared GOP presidential candidates. In the Massachusetts primary Henry Cabot Lodge won by a seven-to-one write-in margin over his closest contender —Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona.
Gov. William Scranton won the Pennsylvania primary with 211,533 write-in votes over Lodge's 71,580 write-in votes. Nixon followed with 33,219 write-in votes, then Goldwater, Sen. Margaret Chase Smith and George Romney.
Lodge's prestige as a potential candidate was greatly enhanced because of his good showing in Scranton's state.
Goldwater continues to claim that he is nearing a first-ballot nomination at the GOP convention in July, but it is difficult to see the validity of his opinion. It sounds, in fact, like a band-wagon ploy.
The Lodge-Scranton-Nixon write-ins seem to indicate a clear rejection of Goldwater's rightist extremism. Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, the other prominent declared candidate, is lagging so badly as to not be considered a force in the platform-making at the convention—as he was in 1960 when he forced a compromise platform onto Richard Nixon.
WE ON THE RIGHT ARE AT A LOSS TO UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF THE WORD "RADICAL" AS USED IN THE PHRASE "RADICAL RIGHT."
THE TERM"RADICAL"
IN THIS CONTEXT CAN
ONLY BE DEFENDED
WHEN APPLIED TO
WHAT OUR SOCIETY
PRETENDS TO BE,
NOT WHAT IT IS.
RECENT ROLLS CITING NORTHERN WHITE REACTION TO THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT ILLUSTRATE HOW LITTLE THE NATION IS INTERESTED IN EQUALITY WHEN A MIDDLE-CLASS, WHITE CROSS SECTION IS NOT INVOLVED.
AFTER ALL DOES NOT THE RADICAL RIGHT STAND FOR PRINCIPLES. THAT MOST AMERICANS, ONCE THEY ARE COMFORTABLE, GENERALLY SUPPORT: -
SO THE RADICAL RIGHTS PRO-
GRAM IN THE INTEGRATION
FIELD DOES NOT DIFFER
FROM THE REAL DESIRES
OF THE MAN ON THE
STREET. HOWEVER, IT
DOES DIFFER FROM
WHAT THE MAN ON
THE STREET HAS BEEN
TAUGHT HE SHOULD DESIRE.
i.e."I'VE GOT MINE,
YOU GET YOURS" ?
IN THIS CASE, AND OTHERS, THE RADICAL RIGHT CAN BE CALLED "RADICAL" ONLY IN THE SENSE THAT IT DEPARTS FROM OUR OFFICIAL BELIEFS, NOT OUR PRIVATE ONES.
ONCE WE GET PEOPLE TO VOTE EMOTIONALLY INSTEAD OF RATIONALLY WE WILL WIN IN A LANDSLIDE.
$ [ 1 + 2 ] \times [ 3 - 4 ] $