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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, March 11, 1964
Model U.N.
A KU professor was telling his economics class about this spring's Model United Nations; "It says here the purpose is to learn about the countries and politics of the world. And all in two days. That's a bargain none of you can afford to miss."
BUT THE EDUCATIONAL phase of Model UN will be emphasized this year, according to the Steering Committee.
Several innovations have been made to encourage maximum delegate participation and learning. Each delegation is required to write a "Model UN term paper," due March 25, on the policies and problems of its country.
This paper should stimulate identification with the country's position, that delegations will vote and debate according to its country's policy, not their individual opinions.
INSTEAD OF THE Steering Committee's proposing areas for resolutions as in previous years, each delegation may submit a resolution to the Committee. On the strength of interest shown, the committee will list resolution areas for priority consideration by the General Assembly.
Another new feature this year will be the presence of an international student on the delegation of each country with a representative at KU. So a majority of the delegations will have
direct contact with a citizen of their countries.
BESIDES LEARNING about their own countries, Model UN delegates will find out about the structure of the General Assembly and bloc organization.
An international political figure will address the opening session.
If this year's Model United Nations lives up to its promise, it will be a worthwhile and educational experience for all students interested in international organization and world affairs.
Now about this humanity delegation. One could hardly argue the nobility of "wanting to represent the people of the world," or the validity of the statement, "Sovereign nation states have a tendency not to represent the interests of humanity as a whole."
Humanity Delegation
But the purpose of the Model UN is to simulate the real United Nations, which is not blessed with a delegation representing humanity. May we suggest that you with your noble desires sign up for a regular delegation and "emphasize humanitarian interests" from within?
Margaret Hughes
The People Say...
Only by Fighting
Mamma mia! Only to have been at the Military Ball! Such gallantry, gaiety, and politeness. ("Look buddy, open your own door. You isn't one of us.") The opaque blue and shady olive uniforms escorted their dates around, showing them what a unified, brotherly organization, such as ROTC, can really accomplish; a plush setting—the Kansas Union Ballroom; music by the renown "Airmen of Note"; and real intellect electrifying the air, ("My, you really look sharp tonight." "Thank you, sir." "However, next time use a little more Brasso on those buttons, O.K.?" "Yes sir, yes sir! I'm sorry sir."
But now that Un-Military Ball! I mean, what were those guys trying to do anyway? And in such a raunchy setting, the Don Henry Co-op. Gemuellichkeit? For the birds. And Herb Smith has nothing on Mulligan and his boys.
And all that silly bantering about world peace, civil rights, existence, and stuff. So what? Isn't man's ultimate moment embodied in a scene of a tired general, resting on a funny, gory shape, surveying with steely eyes a battlefield and quoting for posterity,
"We showed them boys. We won."
And all those able to speak, cry,
"Victory! Arrgh! We'll do it again."
So who cares about such junk as reading books, discussing issues, or stopping to think? Those SPU members (they were the sponsors—weren't they?) were really after a quick coin, selling kids' buttons with absurd slogans on them. They should have realized that buttons are made for polishing, just as minds are made for bashing.
And then that remarkable incident of the one punch. Bravo! After most of the people had left and the party was breaking up, there was this man, you see, who showed what a fraud the whole ball had been. He knew that things can only be settled by fighting, hitting, slugging! That's only sane. No doubt, the reporter and the photographer (UDK-March 9th), covering both balls, will endorse that, since their brains appear to be boggling with questions of ethics.
Andre Sedriks
Topeka sophomore
Don Henry
I would like to clear up a recent misunderstanding concerning the position of the Don Henry Co-operative House. I wish to emphasize the neutrality of the House and its members regarding various groups that hold functions here, the recent of which was KULAC and its Un-Military Ball.
* *
We rent our main lounge to campus groups which desire to have a meeting, party, or other
function on our premises, and which meet our requirements as to care of the house, hours to be observed, and the fee to be paid. Again we do not endorse nor oppose any campus group that wishes to hold a function here at its own expense. Any misunderstandings, inept behavior, or violence that occurs during a function on our premises can only be attributed to the organization having the function.
It is our policy that undesirable individuals, once detected, will not be allowed to return to any later function. We are concerned solely for the house, and our association with groups renting the main lounge is that of a neutral participant in a business transaction.
Neal R. Nelkin
Prairie Village freshman
Secretary, Don Henry Co-pp
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Military Education
During the recent semester I have observed the mounting attack upon the ROTC program with growing concern. My concern is not motivated solely by its threat to the nation's security but also by its eventual adverse effect upon the nation's domestic life.
As I read the letters to the editor and sense the agitation, I cannot help but ask myself if those who are supporting the "anti-military" appeal have ever asked themselves what might well occur if the ROTC programs throughout the nation were eliminated from the university curriculum. The answer often given is that the nation's defense efforts would be considerably weakened.
Although true in part, I feel this has been overly emphasized simply because the Department of Defense would immediately accelerate officer training programs on military reservations and have cause to enlarge the military academies. Herein lies the possible danger to our civil liberties. This drastic departure from our traditional reliance upon which has been generally termed the "militia system" could have the exact results so feared by the liberal thinker.
Consider what might happen if the military were allowed to assume sole responsibility for the development of military leadership. By divorcing the young college student from the campus we provide an opportunity for concentrated military indoctrination and enhance the possibility of the development of a military clique within the nation. Last year about 3,000 military leaders were commissioned by military sources whereas almost 14,000 were supplied by the nation's universities. Consider the possible consequences if these circumstances were reversed. By depending upon the university for a greater portion of military leadership, monolithic thinking is minimized and military vested interest is diffused.
In my opinion, it is the university ROTC program which continually compells the military establishment to reflect its popular character. In so doing, the program prevents to a large degree the development of a national military class.
For those who doubt the possible consequences of highly centralized military education, I would suggest a review of Professor Chih-up Liu's work, A Military History of Modern China. Princeton, 1956.
Edward J. Paris
Major, U.S. Army
Assistant Professor of
Military Science
Moral Myonia Mr. Schmidt:
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Dailij Fänsan
In/re your UDK article of March 10: pardon a value judgment, but you are intellectually and morally myopic. I shall be happy to meet you at any time and at any place to publicly discuss this.
John Garlinghouse Salina sophomore
111 Flint Hall
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"We're Agreed Then, That Viet-Nam As A Political Issues Must Not Be Neutralized"
Artist Thomas H. Benton Portrayed American Life
Gnome-like, bent 'n' bowed—weathered like the wooden cabins and leathered like the old sharecroppers, country fiddlers and miners that he depicted so aptly and often.
That is Thomas Hart Benton, 74 years old now, still painting and writing today the realism he once saw around him: "the raucous and robust, a violent and vulgar America." For, in the early 1900's, Benton wandered around this nation's interior etching in his youthful mind and sketching on paper all types of people, of places.
ALL HIS PAINTINGS, sketches, and lithographs express his boyish ways, his Tom Sawyer days in Neosho, Mo. His works recall the poverty-stricken economy of the Midwest as the 20th century barrelled in, leaving remnants of liberal democracy, idealism, western power, and populism.
This is what Tom Benton saw and this is what he painted: the Middle West, the Great Plains, and the Southern states in panoramic view. He came to Kansas City in 1935 from New York to make his permanent home in the Midwest. Some conservative Kansas Citians didn't like his brash realism. Some drew back at his agrarianism. They chose to ignore him—only an Ozark hillbilly, they probably said. Others accused him of fostering stale regionalism.
YET THE DECADES since the skeptical depression years have proved those criticisms largely invalid. In 1963, he was elected a member of the American Academy of Art. His paintings, murals and sketches have attracted a nationwide audience as they appear in both private and public collections from California to Missouri to New York. Today his works depict some folkways still struggling for survival from the Appalachians to the Orakes
Benton did paint hillbillies—people, if you please, and plenty of them. But more important, he brought culture in the form of art to Kansas City for the first time. Previously a mere railroad center with smelly stockyards, Kansas City began to change. A university, a symphony orchestra, an art gallery and institute appeared. And so did the already famous Thomas Hart Benton. He began preserving for posterity the memories of hard times, of crude times and cruel times that many wanted to forget.
Benton saw country fairs, rodeos, saloons, burlesque girls, and farmers whittling on bank steps. He saw oil, dust, death, and dawn. He saw square dances, plantations and cotton. He saw prayers and preaching, hard work and heartbreak.
But often tinted with humor, his paintings did not aim primarily to emphasize a spreading nation's deficiencies and regrets. Rather, Benton was choking in the smoke of recent industrialism, and clasping his hands over his ears at the oncoming clatter of mechanization. Gasping, he tried to reach once more the fresh air of the country, to see and hear again the unstunted growth of nature's creatures.
BENTON CALLED his autobiography "An Artist in America." More appropriately, the title should be "A Painter of America," for herein lies his contribution to our society. His murals and drawings are a sort of documentary-pages from the history of American life in the first half of the twentieth century. Like those contradictory, bygone days, his paintings are simple, straightforward. Yet they are as detailed, well-planned, and exciting as the first locomotive that puffed across the prairie "belching smoke."
parked across the plains, beckoning shoppers to farmers threw down their straw hats and shook their fists at the billows of black smoke left behind. "Damned old machines," they yelled.
Some people are still ranting about "damned old machines" in even stronger, louder language.
Thomas Hart Benton's murals recall when and how it all began. Linda Machin