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University Daily Kansan
Friday, May 1, 1964
A Case Study for Humanists:
Ann Z
(Ann Z is a fictitious name in the following article. The author of this article I believe, similar to that of at least some on this campus.)
When Ann Z came to KU a little more than a year ago, her primary goal was a husband. The secondary objective was to study.
She had the notion that if she could but find a man, her power of concentration with the books would be incomparably higher. With this logic, Ann Z set out to fulfill goal one.
THERE WERE PLACES to find men and ways to find men, Ann reasoned, and she made herself available. But our heroine discovered that competition for men was high and a serious demand for 18-year-old brides was relatively low. To compete in the great game, Ann spent several of the precious hours everyday trying to make herself A-1 OK looking.
At last there was a taker, she thought. But alas! he turned out to be a passer-by, and her life went from bad to worse. The harder our protagonist tried to achieve goal one, the less she did about goal two—the books, you will remember.
HER PARENTS were informed about her lackluster pursuit of goal number two. She convinced them that her failures were due to home-sickness, a new environment and an inadequate educational background. She thought she would do better in the future.
No matter what she did, Ann felt, her GPA
would not slip below minus one . . . for Ann was a great thinker. KU, she had heard, usually made its facilities available to each student for at least a year.
AT THE END OF HER first semester, Ann Z found to her great delight that her reasoning had been correct. No matter what she did, her grades could go no lower than minus one.
But Ann was a girl of courage. Second semester represented a second chance. There was still hope in the corner of her spunky heart that she would be able to achieve both of her goals.
HOWEVER, HER SECOND semester did vary noticeably from her first. When she tried to study, she found herself of Joe or Robert or Johnny and wearing a bride's veil. She spent most of her time in places where she was likely to be seen by the mythical goal number one.
Finally her parents, who saved money by giving up cigarettes and liquor to pay the tuition, had to tell her to find a job to support herself. They no more wished to assure her a college status.
Unable to find financial support, Ann Z decided to leave the University and work. She felt sorry for the little she had achieved in school. But overall, she considered herself lucky not to receive a compulsory degree of double M.A. spelled MAMA...
- Vinay Kothari
Senators Chorus Their Objection On South Viet Nam Foreign Policy
The rigid taboo that has so long silenced high-level debate on our foreign policy in Viet Nam and Southeast Asia has finally been breached. True, there have been a few lonesome voices, such as The Progressive's, that have spoken out for a decade against what we called last month "a policy so sterile and self-defeating that it oustant have been buried long ago."
Now a whole chorus of Senatorial voices has openly and articulately raised doubts and objections concerning continuation of our Asia policy. Ironically, the beginning of open debate was inspired, in considerable measure, by France's imperious President Charles de Gaulle when he recognized Communist China and proposed to seek an end of hostilities in Viet Nam and neutralization of all Southeast Asia.
"I THINK THE best thing our country can do," said Senator Mansfield. "is reassess its foreign policy . . . face up to the realities of today, and not depend so much on the wishes of yesterday."
Senator E.L. Bartlett, Alaska Democrat, echoed Mansfield's position, emphasizing that France failed to find a military solution in Indochina a decade ago, as we are falling today. "It would seem evident," said Senator Bartlett, "that any possibility of obtaining a diplomatic solution should not be scorned . . . For too long our policies in Southeast Asia have been locked in rigid inflexible terms. For too long our response to any change has been dogmatic and absolute. We have lacked the flexibility to turn change to our advantage."
The Senate majority leader and Montana Democrat, Mike Mansfield, responded by urging the Administration to encourage rather than spurn French efforts to negotiate with Communist China for a settlement in Southeast Asia.
Senator Wayne Morse, the maverick Democrat from Oregon, asked, "When are the foreign and military policies of the United States going to move beyond World War II and the cold war.
"I am completely opposed," said Senator Morse, "to increasing the scale of our participation in the Vietnamese war. . . We should never have gone in. We should never have stayed in. We should get out."
Senator Allen J. Ellender, Louisiana Democrat, endorsed Morse's sharp opposition to our Viet Nam policy.
"I have been advocating such a course of action," said Ellender. "After my last visit there, I again stated that we should never have gone in there, and that we should get out. My advice was never heeded. That is my advice today."
SENATOR FRANK CHURCH.
Idaho Democrat and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, raised his voice in praise of President de Gaulle's efforts toward a negotiated settlement in Southeast Asia. In Senator Church's view, the United States risks becoming "a kind of Alice in Wonderland in world affairs" by basing its policies on myths such as the non-existence of Communist China.
The most vigorous protest came from Senator Ernest Gruening, the other Democrat from Alaska. In a major foreign policy speech in the Senate, Senator Gruening stated flatly:
"The time has come to reverse our policy of undertaking to defend areas such as South Viet Nam. . . All troops should immediately be relieved of combat assignments. . . A return of the troops to our own shores should begin."
"I think we should begin to talk candidly about the realities in the world," said Senator Church. "To the extent that American policy is based upon myth, we disserve ourselves."
There were spokesmen who defended current Administration policy with equal vigor, and some who indignantly denounced the critics for speaking out. Nor was there agreement by any means among the advocates of a change in the direction of our foreign policy as to which way we should go.
THE SIGNIFICANT FACT that at long last a debate has begun. Some light and fresh air have permeated the dingy, muggy, long-unexplored policies we inherited from the cold war, the McCarthy era, and the briskness of John Foster Dulles. Hopefully, the debate will continue until it steers us into a more promising course.
A few days after Senator Gruening had delivered his major policy address, Senator Morse rose in the Senate to denounce the press for "concealing" it from the American people.
"It is interesting to observe," said Senator Morse, "that The New York Times, the Washington Post, The Washington Star, and many
other newspapers have blacked out any news to the American people concerning the viewpoint of this very responsible member of this Senate.
"When the people of a sovereign state elect a person to the Senate to represent them and the state, one would think that even though the editors disagree with the Senator, they would recognize the importance of our foreign and domestic policy with respect to South Viet Nam, and that at least an alleged free press would practice that great constitutional right and guarantee by telling the American people the viewpoint expressed by a man such as Senator Gruening."
THE SENATOR from Oregon then revealed that he had "checked into the situation."
"I find," said Morse, "that correspondents in the press galleries submitted their stories. AP and UPI correspondents sent in their stories and they were fair analyses . . . Manuscripts (of the speech) were sent to the press galleries a considerable time ahead of delivery, and early enough in the day so that no editor could say they were received after the deadline."
This strikes us as a fair judgment. The press has a great responsibility, now that the long freeze on foreign policy debate seems to be thawing out, to provide the people with full and impartial access to the arguments. Anything less would represent a shocking betrayal of its role in a free society.
The Senator then drew his conclusions. "Some editorial forces in this country do not want to give the American people the facts about the shocking American program in South Viet Nam."
Dailij Fransan
- The Progressive
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University 4-3198, business office
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University of Kansas student newspaper
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rals and holidays and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
"See Our Man Has An Anti-Poverty Campaign Too"
From 'Beat' to Action: Campus Regeneration
The Peace Corps idea is spreading fast. Forty-six countries are now sending their young men and women into the world to help the poor countries, and a spontaneous volunteer student movement is also working quietly and effectively among the underprivileged children in our own cities.
The Student Education corps at Michita State university is merely one of many illustrations of this movement in the United States.
They had no money from the university, or the state, but a few of them reasoned that they might be able to deal with some of the worst of the children who came from broken homes and had no incentive to get an education.
It started more than a year ago on the assumption that serious college undergraduates might be able to help the harassed and overworked teachers in the poor districts of Lansing, Pontiac and other cities within 100 miles of the Michigan State campus.
NOW ABOUT 200 of these young college students go out as assistants to the slum school teachers several times a week. Some of them take on the backward pupils. Others work with the bright ones who are held back by the drones. A few go around the state with a "career caravan" illustrating the kinds of jobs that are available to students who do their work.
But the main thing is not so much to help the young laggards with their work, but to make friends with them and thus provide good examples that are not available in many homes.
The movement has now arrested the admiration of Gov. George Romney. He addressed a meeting of teachers from all over the state here this week to introduce the leaders of the State Education corps to a wider audience, and there is every indication that the movement will grow.
Like the Peace Corps, the student volunteers go only where they are invited. Any school within reasonable range of the university can get them to help if it will only pay eight cents a mile to bring a carload of undergraduates from the campus.
Nobody gets paid for the work, but David Gottlieb and Sandra A. Warden, who direct the corps, testify that they not only get all the volunteers they need, but that the volunteers themselves feel that they get as much out of the experience as the children they are trying to help.
THE LARGER government programs are directed at training the school drop-outs. The Student Education corps attacks the same problem earlier. "In a few years," the corps says, "these youngsters will be unequally represented in the ranks of the habitually unemployed and unemployable. The ultimate aim of the corps is to help prevent premature drop-outs by showing these children that education is the key to a better life, by providing needed inspiration and motivation to continue with their schooling."
This is not an isolated experiment. Similar activities are going on in other universities. Pomona college in California is another lively center. Gov. Terry Sanford of North Carolina is working with William Friday, president of the University of North Carolina, on a corps of volunteers to help the underprivileged, and Yale produced the Northern Student movement that is now active on many campuses not only in the field of education but of political action.
For example, more than 1000 students from various colleges and universities, most of them affiliated with the Northern Student movement, will be going to Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana this summer to live in Negro homes and help the Negroes register for the November elections.
Unlike his contemporaries in other countries, who were knocking over governments and leading the torrent of political change, the American student, it was said, wasn't engaged in anything and didn't care about anything.
Well, something is happening on the campus. In some ways these student leaders are ahead of the government. And when the Congress finally gets around to backing a domestic Peace Corps and backing President Johnson's "war on poverty," quite a few young American men and women will already be in the field.
James Reston, New York Times