Wednesday, Feb. 26, 1964 University Daily Kansan
Page 3
Protests ROTC
March 6, the date of this year's military ball, is rapidly approaching and it seems reasonable that now is the proper time to initiate a protest about this event that has become a major annual social event on this as well as many other campuses. It is a sad commentary on KU that such a happening can continue year after year with little protest and even with little or no discussion or evaluation of its purposes and its deceptive appearance.
Editor:
The plain fact is that by any religious or moral standard the military is simply immoral. Killing in the name of defense becomes a virtue. About the time a boy enters high school he is subjected to a seemingly endless barrage of literature and enticements to enroll in this program. The enlistment posters show airplanes soaring into the blue and tell the prospective serviceman that this is really only a cheap and painless way to see the world. However, the moment he enlists (or is drafted) the true nature of the armed services comes forth; the teaching of death begins.
The military ball is a good example familiar to most students of the flashy side of the ROTC program. All cadets are given this opportunity to wear their dress uniforms and escort formally-attired coeds to a glistening and slightly unrealistic evening of military entertainment. My principle objection to this yearly fetish is that it only serves to obscure the true intents and purposes of the ROTC program. At these military dress occasions, the uniforms are clean and pressed; the brass gleams purely; the entire military establishment is given an air of complete cleanliness and legitimacy. In reality nothing could be further from the truth. The ROTC is nothing more than a junior branch of the military organizations and as such is engaged in activities absolutely unlike the polish of the ball. It is training men to commit crimes such as are in nonmilitary society punishable by death and repeatedly tells its participants about the "good" they are doing for society and glosses over the ugly activities that are carried out daily.
I hope that all those participants in the ball are fully aware of the other and more true side of the military. The promise of a glorious military ball is one major selling point of the ROTC program. For that reason I protest its occurrence on this campus as a university-recognized activity which is tremendously deceptive, covering up for a program which is in fact immoral.
Blueprints for the renovation of the KU grading and class systems have recently been put before the University administration, faculty, and students; specifically, I refer to these proposals:
Tim Miller Wichita junior
Blueprints
1) Use of an Honors, Pass, and Fail grading scale.
3) Optional class attendance.
O) Negotiations have also been mentioned.
2) L longer, more meaningful final examination, scheduled after a break between class weeks and final week.
3) Optional class attendance.
To myself, other students, and professors of my acquaintance, these proposals appear to be needed and an improvement over the system in use. We are concerned about the quality of education which this university can offer, not ten or fifteen years from now, when alumni, administration and the Board of Regents have agreed to try a watered-down version of the current proposals; not when 35 percent of the schools in the country have scrapped the present type of regulations for the better ones; but NOW, when it will benefit those of us to whom it will matter little within five years. Yet there is scarce hope for the institution of a system so new, so different from the one now used, because positive action is so slow.
The People Say...
Many argue that students would take advantage of any added freedom that such a new system might offer. Those students who are too
buried in Joe College life to realize that whether or not they go to classes determines whether or not they will know enough to handle a job other than pure drudgery until they die. To students who do realize this, the institution of the proposed systems would make KU a place to meet the future instead of just think wishfully about it. To professors, especially good ones who are not cemented into habits of the past, the challenge of such a new system is very attractive.
There was an article on the front page of the Thursday UDK headed "Kansas Growth Lags Nation's." Why? Partially because the Jayhawk is so bound in red tape that it is unable to use new ideas while they are still new.
Hopefully.
Carol Borg
Manhattan junior
Public Servants Editor:
After the KU-K State basketball game Saturday night. I arrived at the parking lot to find several tow trucks under the zealous direction of the campus police yanking away one car after another. The police say that these cars were illegally parked and a possible menace if Lindley Hall should burn down. However there are several inconsistencies in the rationale and the behavior of these guardians of parking spaces.
Secondly, cars have been parked in this manner at every game I can remember for the last several years. Not only that, it is common for the police, themselves, to supervise such parking under conditions when it is unusually crowded. The KU-K State game was attended by some 12,000 people. It is ironic that the police should suddenly make a decision that this is a dangerous situation, calling for all available tow trucks in Lawrence to restore tranquility.
For one thing, even though several dozen cars were filleted from the lot, it hardly made a dent in the huge mass of cars that were crowded there. Thus the action of the police was ineffective at best in the accomplishment of their ostensibly respectable goal.
But even if we accept the legitimacy of so belatedly making the decision that the cars in Lot C should be moved, it would have been a simple matter to announce over the Field House public address system that the cars should be moved by their owners. The lot would have been cleared in a few minutes (it took the duration of the game for the tow trucks to move a few dozen cars, one at a time).
This lot was left entirely without police supervision or traffic direction. It would have been painless for a police officer to inform drivers that parking would be limited. Perhaps our police are too steeped in concepts of "punishment" than in "prevention."
Several dozen, perhaps more, were put to substantial inconvenience because of this. Waiting in line at the campus police department while an officer painstakingly pecked out releases to the tow companies so that owners could claim their cars; finding someone to drive them to the location of their cars; paying the tow charge. Alumni, out of town guests, dates, and parents associate their anger with a University action that was thoughtless, unreasonable, and ineffective.
Sincerely, Stephen Goldfarb Graduate, California
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In Memorial:
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Eulogy to Escobar
1 am deeply bereaved at the death of Pedro Escobar. His death was not only a deep personal loss to his students and colleagues, but to this university and all phases of learning.
In my relationship with Pedro as his student and personal friend, I always looked up to him as a man of great and high ideals. He commanded the respect and admiration of all who knew him.
Pedro, a citizen of Mexico, regarded the U.S. and the late President Kennedy as the force to achieve world peace and international friendship among world citizens. He felt the loss of President Kennedy as much as any American. It seems strange that he died much in the same way as the late president. Speaking for those who knew him and loved him, his death deprived the world of another great man.
He stood for equal rights of all men and was dedicated to building a better world through knowledge of other people and their cultures.
Jack Carolan. Pennsylvania sophomore
Do You Want A "Governor's Student Advisory Commission?" Help elect McDill "Huck" Boyd governor. Hear "Huck" speak tonight, 7:30, Union
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