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University Daily Kansan Tuesday, Feb. 18, 1964
Fewer Playboys
Today's college students study harder, party less, marry sooner, and vote more conservatively than the student of a few years ago, according to a nationwide survey in the Feb. 17 issue of "U.S. News and World Report."
The significant changes in U.S. colleges constitute a "revolution on the campus," the magazine states. Representative statements;
"Students today are better. Fewer are playboys. They know they can't afford to be. They realize that they must work hard to stay in college and their future depends on doing good work. Competition has become more intense." John W. McConnell, University of New Hampshire.
"There's not one half the rah-rah that I knew in College. There's an intensity, a nervousness we wish they didn't have. We would like to find some way to get them to relax."—James Denison, Michigan State University.
"If I read the signs aright, we are in for a vastly increased mental-health problem in our colleges."—John D. Black, Stanford University.
"I wish we could be sure that the students' seriousness is due to a love of learning. But I am
afraid that much of it is rather a compulsive competitiveness. I have a feeling that students today are more ulcerous and neurotic."—a West Coast educator.
"Fads are less in evidence. The campus dance with a big-name band is almost nonexistent now. Even fraternity life seems to have less appeal. And the students don't make idols of the football heroes like they used to. In fact, there don't seem to be heroes on campus now."—from Duke University.
"The main change that I think people would notice if they came back to campus after a long absence is the way the boys and girls pair off. Many couples never date anyone else. If they go to a dance, they do not even exchange dances. I try to tell them what they are missing, but it's no use. It seems to be against the code to switch around very much."—dean of women at a New England college.
"The students today like to call themselves conservatives. Back in the '30s, students wanted to be liberals."—John A. Hannah, Michigan State University.
Fraternity Trapped
The Sigma Nu fraternity, the only KU Greek house with a written racial discriminatory clause, is faced with a dilemma similar to that of the frying pan and the fire.
The Civil Rights Council (CRC) has promised to picket the Sigma Nu's during rush next fall if the clause is not struck down; and the Sigma Nu's have little chance of getting their predominantly Southern national organization to repeal the "white" clause.
The affair began last Wednesday when the CRC petitioned the Inter-Fraternity Council (IFC) to withdraw recognition from any Greek house which still has the clause in their constitution next August. In other words, the CRC was asking that Sigma Nu not be allowed to participate in fraternity rush.
The IFC refused to accept the CRC recommendation. In answering the CRC petition, the IFC referred to chapter seven of last spring's ASC bill which says that force should not be used to eliminate the discriminatory clauses at KU.
The CRC decided that its only recourse was to picket.
If the CRC goes through on its promise, the Sigma Nu rush program will probably suffer because of the unfavorable publicity which the picket would reflect on the fraternity.
The KU Sigma Nu chapter worked to repeal
the clause at their national convention two years ago, but failed. There is another convention this summer, but—according to the Sigma Nu president—there is little chance that the clause will be repealed. The number of southern chapters far outweighs the number of northern chapters. In addition, the alumni of each chapter in the Sigma Nu organization have one vote for every two votes cast by each local chapter.
If the Sigma Nu acts independently of their national organization to kill the white clause they would probably lose their charter.
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What it adds up to is the fact that Sigma Nu is trapped between an inflexible national organization and the increasing militancy of people opposed to racial segregation in fraternities and sororities.
The Sigma Nu's situation is regrettable, and I write about it only because it is a tangible symptom on the KU campus of a national situation.
Although most of the national organizations have agreed to strike the discriminatory clause, they are—in fact—choking in other ways the attempts made by Greeks themselves to end segregation. Certain KU Greek chapters have learned this all too well in recent weeks.
Tom Coffman
"Just An Experiment, Senator At This Point, Anything's Worth A Try"
The tradition of the Nightshirt Parade, which continued for about 50 years, was initiated from the following incident in 1902 when Frank Strong was chancellor of the University:
from the morgue
After the team had won the first football game of the season that year, elated students gathered in front of the chancellor's home. The chancellor appeared in his nightshirt and led the throng in a jubliant dash down Massachusetts St. His garb set the precedent of the annual rally.
In the parade, all freshman women were required to wear jeans and pigtails. The rest of their costume was left to their own discretion. The men's garb was the casual nightshirt or pajamas.
The evening rally used to start from the Kansas Union, and was led by the university band to Massachusetts St. through the business district, and ending in South Park. — Vinay Kothari
Highlights From the News; U.S. Recovers From Shock
Three months after the assassination of President Kennedy an Associated Press writer sat down and endeavored to comprehend the national mood. He found, from nationwide AP surveys, that Americans are recovering from the shock and looking optimistically toward a future of greater prosperity, peaceful racial relations and amity among nations.
The writer, Hugh Mulligan, recorded what seemed to be optimism about the trouble spots of recent weeks, optimism about conditions in business, but concern about poverty amidst plenty and concern about morality in America, "the condition of the American soul and whether family life in America is undergoing a subtle revolution that may unravel the whole fabric of our society."
As Americans looked back on 1963 many would agree with Angelo Picardi, Boston concert singer, Mulligan believes. "No matter what it else happened in 1963," said Picardi, "I don't suppose we'll remember it by any anything else except as the year in which President Kennedy was assassinated."
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Cautious, thoughtful optimism keynoted the views of many in the world last week. But on Ash Wednesday, as the Lenten season began, Pope Paul VI spoke from the Vatican and said these serious words:
"Ideals are in crisis; philosophy has been replaced by calculations of immediate utility. Fears that things are worsening, as if this were inevitable, overcome the spirit, while spiritual and moral gains no longer are in fashion
"The sword of the spirit seems to have been left in the seaboard of doubt and spiritual confusion. Exactly for this reason, the message of the religious truth must be made to resound with the greatest strength."
***
It was a week for oratory, for Republicans, paying annual homage, "got right with Lincoln," and Democrats, who must wait for the birthday anniversaries of Jefferson and Jackson, could but reply. But President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke to 85 field officers of the Internal Revenue Service and sounded off on what he called "the belly-achers."
This country has its problems in the world, said the President, but times have been a lot worse. "All we can do is expect to do what is right, what is honorable, what is enlightened, and that we are doing," he said.
* *
Historians — social historians, at least — might devote a sentence some time to the mid-February invasion of America. Parents, critics, music-lovers, professional waiters of gloom and doom—all had something to say about the four boys who came over to get their revenge for the defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga and the victory of Jackson at New Orleans.
The invasion, or infestation, was by the Beatles, rock-and-roll singers whose hair hides much of their heads, and whose singing sounds approximately no worse than a quartet of, say, Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, Fabian and Frankie Avalon would sound. Parents should relax. They have lived through similar times, and the Beatles will get even richer and be as famous a year from now as Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. Ten years hence, people will ask, "Who were the Beatles?"
It was surprising last week to note that the civil rights bill actually had get to the Senate. The House, whose members from Dixie are numerically overwhelmed by members from elsewhere, passed the bill—a relatively strong measure with a key section banning discrimination in public accommodations.
And even though it is election year, or perhaps because it is election year, the civil rights bill faces stormy days in the Senate. Columnist W. W. Kenworthy of the New York Times found civil rights debate reasoned and thoughtful in the House. He suggested that congressmen may be realizing that the civil rights issue is not primarily sectional but is national, that problems face northern cities as well as the South.
There will be civil rights controversy for years to come, no matter how many bills are passed. Disturbances continued last week, notably in Tuskegee, Ala., where the entire white student body boycotted Notasuluga High School in the face of desegregation. In a nearby community a bomb threat closed the integrated high school.
It is obvious as this year's political conventions near that civil rights will be a significant issue. That famous non-candidate, Richard M. Nixon, spoke in Cincinnati and took a moderate position on civil rights, observing that boycotts and mass demonstrations will damage the cause of the Negro.
He appealed to Negroes to reject extremism and follow responsible leaders. Whether the Nixon strategy will be successful is of course undetermined as of now.
* *
As Nixon delivered his key talk, a Gallup poll gave Nixon his widest lead in recent months over other Republican presidential possibilities. Nixon had 31 per cent as the first choice of Republicans, compared with 20 per cent for Sen. Barry Goldwater, 16 for Rockefeller, 12 for Henry Cabot Lodge, 7 for Gov. William Scranton and 5 for Gov. George Romney. Rep. William E. Miller. Republican national chairman, said Nixon will have to get into the contest officially by May if he hopes to be in the running for the nomination.
Sen. Margaret Chase Smith of Maine was in neighboring New Hampshire, shaking hands and deciding to campaign vigorously for the nomination. And Sen. Goldwater was in Reno, Nev., where he used a local metaphor to criticize President Johnson. The President is "in real trouble" in foreign affairs, said Goldwater, like a "fellow that just cramped out six times in a row" at a Reno dice table.
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The President took a trip last week, too. He was in St. Louis for the city's 200th birthday celebration, and he was greeted by more than 100,000 persons. Security was tight along a 20-mile motorcade route, and Johnson made a speech attuned to city folks — vowing to help cities in offering every child a neighborhood, schools and environment in which he would be proud to live.
The President made another smart political move in Missouri—he named Stan Musial, retired right fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, head of the national physical fitness program. "Stan the Man" worked vigorously in the Kennedy campaign in 1960, and will succeed another famous sports figure. former Oklahoma Coach Bud Wilkinson, who is going to run for the Senate as a Republican.
* *
A cloud continues to hang over the Johnson administration — the Robby Baker scandal. Mrs. Smith said in New Hampshire that she did not intend to exploit the issue; she would draw the scorn of Cowles newspaperman Clark Mollenhoff, who said last week that the Republicans are missing a bet in not seizing the Baker affair.
Controversy still attends the role of Don Reynolds, Washington insurance agent whose testimony brought the name of Johnson into the Baker inquiry. A special counsel for the inquiry, L. P. McLendon, last week that he had been denied access to papers on Reynolds, which he said had been marked classified by both Defense and Justice Departments.
* *
It was a week of new developments in two other inquiries. In Chattanooga, Tenn., the government completed its case against James R. Hoffa, head of the Teamsters union, who is on trial on a charge of jury-tampering.
In Dallas, Judge Joe B. Brown ruled that Jack Ruby must go on trial for the murder of Lee H. Oswald, accused assassin of President
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