University Daily Kansan
Page 3
Tuesday, Feb. 18, 1964
Liberals Respond
Editor:
Tom Coffman's editorial in last Friday's Daily Kansan was irresponsible, insulting, and highly unfair. Coffman discredited campus "ultra-liberalis" by blaming them for the general crowd reaction to the speakers at the KU-Y Forum last Thursday.
The People Say..
My first criticism to Coffman's pronouncement is his use of the term "ultra-liberal." He states, "the ultra-liberals preach tolerance ... the sanctity of free speech... academic freedom." Is this Coffman's concept of ultra-liberalism, a position that he obviously views with great distaste?
I ATTENDED the meeting Thursday with several friends after we had participated in a picket line for free speech and academic freedom. We constituted the group that Coffman referred to as the ultra-liberals. I am especially anxious, therefore, to know precisely what Coffman means by his labels. Communists? Socialists? He'd better not. But then why the use of the word "ultra" unless Coffman deliberately wants to smear a legitimate and responsible liberal element on campus? Coffman leaves himself in a position that demands much further explanation.
As for the meeting itself, it certainly didn't approach the image Coffman tried to create. It was not a "jam-pack, tension-filled zoo," nor did anyone go "beserk," nor did the meeting grow to "frenzied proportions." The only incident that came near to getting out of hand came when one of the speakers (Braun) said, "I think Negroes can do some jobs as well as white men. For example, Negroes can run gas stations." At that remark a Negro girl nearly broke down. Rightly so. Surely Coffman doesn't think her reaction was provoked by "ultra-liberals."
WHILE THE REST of the meeting did not merit Coffman's panicked description, admitted there was a certain amount of booing. But again it would hardly be fair to attribute this reaction to any
one group. The crowd was infiltrated with several individuals of the far right—imports from Topeka and Kansas City who were making as much noise as anyone else. More important, I feel that the most audience disturbance arose from intellectual apolitical types, who were so astounded at what they were hearing that they found it hard to suppress their reactions.
Frankly, I found nothing wrong with the audience responding in this matter. It did not obstruct the speakers' opportunity to reach the audience, as Cofiman falsely reported it did. The only force that inhibited their right to speak was Tom Moore, who moderated the meeting and found it necessary to cut them off occasionally to preserve coherence.
Unobstructive booing by the audience is perfectly justified to me in open political meetings of this sort. Both speakers expected it. If Coffman would have talked with them he would have learned that they both felt they had been treated well, and that no one had denied their rights during their stay here.
To better understand this position, perhaps Coffman should have read the "Worth Repeating" quotation which was featured in the same page and issue of his editorial: "He who is silent is understood to consent."
CLEARLY, COFFMAN'S unfortunate editorial was unjust, ill-motivated, and misleading. But perhaps Coffman uses such tactics because he is scared. Scared of the kind of people with enough courage and conviction in the democratic approach to social life to get on the picket line, to serve time in a Birmingham jail, or to even arouse distaste among the do-notings of Kansas University, including her newspaper editors.
In summary, perhaps it is fitting to mention that a large group of KU's "ultra-liberals" are going to Kansas City this weekend to help in a voter registration drive. One might wonder what Tom Coffman will be doing then.
Lee Byrd Salina sophomore
Dear Brother
Evidently Mr. David Newcomer is "Greek." To me his letter to you clearly indicated this. Mr. Newcomer feels that Tom Coffman's editorial, "Dear Sister," misses the whole point of the Civil Rights question. The Civil Rights Issue is, "Greeks," a question, to me, THE PROBLEM. Mr. Newcomer should have read the editorial. Mr. Coffman wrote a good editorial, however, he made no proposals as Mr. Newcomer seems to think.
Mr. Newcomer thinks that the problem is to eliminate all formal discriminatory clauses in Greek organizations. What Mr. Newcomer forget is that the Plaza Club, swimming pools and all new residential areas in Lawrence, and The University of Mississippi have NO formal discriminatory clauses. These places and thousands more are still a problem. Therefore, Mr. Newcomer, once he looks beyond his wooden paddle, can see that the discriminatory clauses are not THE PROBLEM, and that discriminatory practices are THE PROBLEM.
Mr. Newcomer called fraternities and sororites private organizations. They do not seem very private when they need such facilities as the Union, the Business Office, the Dean of Men's Office, the Dean of Women's Office, the university's mailing list, clerical work, publicity staff, and the Housing Office. Private organizations, with all their members students, can not use the Union as do the fraternities and sororites. I know, I tried!
George Ragsdale Kansas City senior
Cigarette Sales
Kansas law states that minors are forbidden to purchase cigarettes. According to the Feb. 11th UDK, the employees of the Kansas Union do challenge some purchasers if they appear to be under 21. So what? The Student Union Concessions has cigarette vending machines in the snack bars of the freshman women's halls. And how many freshman women are over 21?
Miriam Kangas Wichita freshman
News Highlights—
(Continued from page 2)
Kennedy. Late in the week, Melvin Belli of San Francisco, chief counsel for Ruby, suggested he may seek evidence surrounding the assassination. The defense will plead that Ruby suffered temporary insanity at the time of the shooting.
***
The news analyst is likely to find growing repetition in events in other countries. News of the Indonesia-Malaysia quarrel seems little different from that in past weeks. Fighting men continue to die in South Vietnam. And, though huge headlines are seized for developments there, news from Cyprus has the ring of recent history.
On that is land, so frequently newsworthy in the past decade, there were new outbreaks of heavy fighting as a cease-fire came to a sudden end. At Limassol, Greek Cypriots and Turks fought a five-hour battle. All this occurred as American and British diplomats tried to establish international peace on the island.
The following day, President Mackarios rejected the U.S.-British plan, and said he will take the Cyprus question to the United Nations. Fighting continued sporadically, and two days later the issue reached the U.N.
On the summit level, the United States and Britain also were conferring last week. Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home of Great Britain was in Washington, talking with President Johnson. Their thorniest issue was that of Cuban trade, with the U.S. trying to persuade
the British to refrain from any trading with the Caribbean nation.
* *
Though the Cuban question remained unresolved, the conferences between Home and Johnson generally were believed to be friendly and fruitful.
For six years or more Cuba has been prominently and almost constantly in the news. Last week brought word that no more families of military or civilian personnel will be sent to the Guantanamo naval base on Cuba, and that dependents will be sent home over the next two years. The other development concerning Cuba: an inter-American commission has reported that Cuban actions definitely are endangering democratic institutions in Venezuela.
Another Latin American development came in a report from Panama to the Inter-American Peace Committee that a memorandum signed in 1962 committed the United States to renegotiate the 1903 treaty under which it operates the Panama Canal. The United States said there is not and never had been such an agreement.
- * *
The week brought, finally, significant stories from European countries. At the 17-nation disarmament conference in Geneva, the Soviet Union proposed that all nations agree to a simultaneous slash of 10 to 15 per cent in military expenditures. Also at Geneva, a Soviet disarmament negotiator, Yuri I. Nossenko, defected to the West, an action that brought a demand by the Soviets that the Swiss return him. Later the U.S. approved asylum for Nossenko.
Dailü Mänsan
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