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University Daily Kansan
Friday, Feb. 7, 1964
Me—Tooism
Barry Goldwater has already raised the issue of difference between the two major political parties with his "me-tooism" charge made against Rockefeller.
The Democrats at present are silent on party differences, waiting to see who the GOP candidate is likely to be.
A favorite complaint of independent voters is that there is no real difference between the two parties.
However, even if the most liberal Republican candidate is nominated there are important historic differences which make a real difference of tone and emphasis in today's parties.
There have been only four major political parties in American history. The Federalists and Whigs are gone. The Democrats and Republicans remain.
The Democrats, the oldest political party in the world, date back to Thomas Jefferson and the Jeffersonian Democrats, or anti-Federalists.
The anti-Federalists stood for an agrarian economy, diffusion of wealth, freedom from industrialization, states' rights, and a strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution. The party's philosophy favored debtor sympathy and viewed man optimistically.
The Federalists favored a diversified economy, commerce, a strong central government, government by an elite, and a loose constructionist interpretation of the Constitution. The party ideology was sympathetic toward creditors and had a pessimistic outlook toward man.
Today's Democrats don't favor an agrarian economy. Their strict constructionist ideas went out when Jefferson bought Louisiana. But they do still occasionally plead the case for states' rights. They favored diffusion of wealth under FDR, and cherish their image as the party of the common man. The liberal element of the party still clings to the optimistic view of man.
The Federalists collapsed and were succeeded as the opposition party, first by the Whigs, and then by the Republicans. The Republicans favored commerce and a strong central government. They backed the central government against states' rights through the Civil War, and they aided commerce and business by pushing the protective tariff, taking up where the Whigs left off.
Another difference between the two parties is their elements of strength. The Democratic party started as a combination of the rural southern factions and the laboring elements of the north.
These two elements remain the basic strength of the Democratic party.
The Republican party sprang up quickly between 1854-56. Its diverse elements were bound together by the slavery issue. The party was sectional from its beginning, and has remained so. It has never been a national party in a geographic sense, and won't be until significant inroads are made in the southern bloc.
Original Republican strength came from a coalition of free-soilers, Know-Nothings, some labor and anti-immigrant elements. Theodore Roosevelt was the last Republican president to weld the elements of the original party.
The present Democratic party has been able to mold a coalition of these diverse groups: Southerners, city dwellers, the poor, labor unions, hard-luck farmers, immigrants' children. Negroes, white supremacists, the young, the least educated and the most educated.
Present Republican strength comes from the North, rural areas, suburbia, the wealthy middle class, business, good-luck farmers, old stock, the middle aged and college graduates.
There is no question that the Democrats are dominant in large metropolitan areas. There are indications of growing Republican strength in the suburban areas.
suburban areas. Democratic policies generally favor reform and spending; Republicans favor maintaining the status quo and saving. This is an obvious over-simplification, but the generalization seems valid for the parties as wholes, though it could not be applied to each and every member or faction.
applied to each other. Studies reveal other subtle differences in the parties' areas of strength. The increasing average age of the population generally aids the Republicans. So does the increasing educational level, although this is variable, making generalization dangerous. Increasing numbers of women voters aid the Republicans, as do the growth of metropolitan areas and the general conservatism of the nation.
The Democrats are aided by the Negro vote and by the big city vote. Reapportionment of state legislatures will generally aid the Democrats by reducing exaggerated Republican rural strength in some areas.
No one would seriously argue that the Democratic party of Alabama is the same as that of California. The same holds for the Republican party. Nevertheless, these subtle differences should not be overlooked or downgraded.
Ralph Gage
Sorority Voting
Editor:
As a sorority member I feel that I must set you or your source of information correct about the voting procedures in a sorority. The all important point made was that concerning the final, so-called "unanimous" vote. As a matter of fact, one blackball is not nearly sufficient to eliminate a girl from rush; if that were true, no sororities would have any members at all, for there will always exist personal differences that may influence one person and not the next. More importantly, we do not in the final voting even know how our sisters are voting themselves. It is done, as a general practice, by secret voting. Therefore, your information—which may be true in the boys fraternity race—is incorrect.
correct.
Don't sell KU sororities short. They not only provide sisterhood—and soon that sisterhood will extend across the race barrier—for hundreds of girls, they provide leadership opportunities for those who will not express themselves in a crowd; they provide encouragement when the work piles up and it appears that failure is imminent; they provide the possibility of the deepest friendships that can be realized.
Prairie Village sophomore
Anne Donald
The People Say...
Plaza Club
Editor:
Editor.
We the undesigned, members of the Kansas University faculty, protest the discrimination by the
Plaza Club against our students on the grounds of color. We urge all faculty and students who are members of the Plaza Club to withdraw their patronage.
J. A. Piekalkiewicz
Manuel Sechnorhorn
Stuart Leim
Wm. O. Scott
Robert Keiffer
Beverly Boyd
Melvin Landsberg
Floyd Sorowik
Wm. R. Allmon
Kenneth B. Newell
Jack B. Oruch
Merrell D. Clubb
D. E. Patterson
Ann Shannon
Lynn H. Nelson
Donald C. Emmons
Richard F. DeGeorge
E. Jackson Baur
E. G. Erickson
G. M. Maranell
J. C. Titus
R. L. Stauber
George W. Brown
Edgar Wickberg
Grant K. Goodman
Timothy G. McDonald
John G. Clark
John C. Greene
Charles L. Stansifer
Klaus Pringsheim
Congratulations.
Editor:
The residents of Mitter Hlan are to be congratulated on their fine stand for humanity in their refusing to patronize the Plaza Club in the light of the club's discriminatory polices.
I sincerely hope that the young ladies acted because of their realizations of the injustices practiced against the Negro and not only because of the injustices practiced against three members of their living group who just happened to be Negro. If so, this is good. It means that part of this university is coming into its own in taking a positive step in ACTING against the injustices that enslave our society. The Miller Hall residents have had first hand experiences of the fact that racial discrimination enslaves all of us, whites as well as Negro. We can NOT be FREE and JUST in our society today. Tomorrow, maybe. Today, NO! Miller Hall could not have used the facilities of the Plaza Club in all fairness and due respect to the residents.
The university's housing department and University Daily Kansan have taken similar stands in their refusing the use of their facilities to those persons who have chosen to discriminate on the basis of race. All three of these stands are commendable and similar stands should be carried out throughout the university.
I think the university should refuse the use of its facilities to any person or organization that has chosen to discriminate on the basis of race. Particularly those persons and organizations over which the university has some control. If the fraternities and sororities are included then so be it.
George Ragsdale
Kansas City senior
@1964 HERBLOCK
THIS ALSO APPEARS POST
"I Don't Know How YOU Feel, But It' s Making ME Nervous"
BOOK REVIEWS
WASHINGTON COVER-UP, by Clark Mollenhoff.
Mollenhoff, a Pulitzer prize-winning Washington correspondent who will visit KU Monday, discusses secrecy in government, his thesis being that "news management" and concealment of information from Congressional investigations leads to corruption and fraud in the executive branch.
Reviewing secrecy in the federal government since George Washington's presidency, the reporter shows there are no clear precedents or court decisions that support the right of administrators to deny Congressional committees access to their files.
Executive-branch concealment hindered investigations of the Teapot Dome and tax scandals, Senator McCarthy, and the Dixon-Yates contract development.
A crisis in governmental secrecy arose in May 1954 when President Eisenhower instructed Defense Department employees not to testify or to produce records in the Army-McCarthy hearings, claiming "executive privilege."
The Eisenhower administration continued to use this precedent for six years to withhold information in other cases.
Mollenhoff views the first year of the Kennedy administration as promising more openness in executive affairs, but cautions that the alleged "muzzling" of military officers may set another dangerous precedent in administration secrecy.
In the last chapter, Mollenhoff suggests specific laws that should be passed to insure the Congressional and public right to information on the functioning of government. MH
The Kansan editorial page reprints all letters to the editor that are of somewhat general interest, do not violate libel laws, advocate violent overthrow of the government or otherwise violate standards of good taste.
readers should limit letters to 300 words.
The "Comment" column is open to readers who wish to express their opinions at length on subjects of general interest.
Articles submitted for "Comment" will be selected by the editors for publication. Contributors need not agree with Kansas editorial policy to have their work published.
DailiY Hansan
111 Rint Hall
University of Kansas student newspaper
UNiversity 4-3646, newsroom
UNiversity 4-3198, business office
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904,
trieweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Member Inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 40th Street, New York, NY United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon at Lawrence Bookstore, Saturday and Sundays, University holidays, and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas
from the morgue
On March 28,1950,the Interdorm Council and the sororities included in Panhellenic Council made recommendations to the Panhellenic rush committee on four possible rushing systems for freshman women.
The recommended systems were as follows:
Immediate rushing-by which freshman women would be rushed during the summer and at the beginning of the fall semester;rushing deferred until the beginning of the spring semester;rushing deferred until the middle of the second semester,when an informal rush week would be held the first weekend after mid-semester grades were due; and rushing deferred until the beginning of the fall semester of the sophomore year.
It was decided that the freshman women would have to live in freshman dormitories beginning with the year 1951, regardless of the system chosen.