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Summer Session Kansan Friday, August 2,1963
State Money
It must be easy for the Kansas Legislature to raise all the revenue that is needed.
Otherwise, why should it give away several million dollars each year to the banks in the state?
IT WORKS LIKE this: State funds are divided into two major classifications-active and inactive deposits.
The state board of treasury examiners just recently voted to transfer $18 million from active accounts to inactive accounts. That raises the total of state funds in inactive accounts to $106 million.
This $106 million of tax payers' money is in Kansas banks. The State of Kansas should have little trouble in finding a home for this money. The banks pay only 1 per cent interest on 80 per cent of the money.
THE KANSAS City Star of July 29 reports that this money is then invested by the banks in government bonds earning around $3 million on the taxpayers' money.
This makes banking in Kansas a rather preferential profession. The taxpayers pay through the nose so that it can be used by bankers.
It doesn't have to be that way. Private accounts draw 4 per cent interest, some places $ \frac{4}{1} \mathrm{\frac{1}{4}} $ per cent.
IF THE Legislature would raise the rate of interest 1 per cent, according to the Star, it would bring in an additional $1 million.
But the Legislature doesn't have to stop at 1.8
per cent interest. The president of the state's largest savings and loan association recently offered to pay $4\frac{1}{4}$ per cent interest on state funds deposited with his organization.
There is no reason why taxpayers' money should not be paid at least 3 per cent interest, especially on inactive funds.
AS IT NOW stands, the banks holding active account funds pay no interest at all. This account amounts to between $20 and $30 million.
As already mentioned, this public handout to the banks must lead us to believe that the Kansas Legislature has more money than it knows what to do with.
That is a bit of sloppy management on the part of the Legislature. If any of the legislators want to loan me more than $100 million at .8 of one per cent interest, I stand ready.
IF THIS practice is good for state taxpayers' money, it should be good for the legislator's money. It is doubtful if any of them are that liberal with their own money.
That is how it stands now. The Legislature says the state is hurting for revenue, yet it "loans" out more than $100 million at token interest rates.
If you don't like the present situation,you might try talking to your representatives. They could change it.
Then again, maybe there is a reason why the taxpayers' money must go begging. If so, it would make interesting reading.
Terry Murphy
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Dear's View on English Pro
Dean's View on English Pro Miss Gustafson submitted a letter to you which she said is directed to the faculty of the English Department and concerns the English Proficiency Examination. I believe the readers of the Kansas may wish to have a few items of additional information which, in my opinion, are necessary before one can discuss the pros and cons of the English Proficiency Examination.
First of all, one ought to exonere the Department of English. The examination has not been conceived by the faculty of that department, it is not administered by the Department of English, and, in fact, its grading is not a function of the Department of Engligh.
As is true of all other academic requirements, it is the faculty of each individual school that determines whether or not the English Proficiency Examination shall be a requirement for graduation from that particular school. Thus, Miss Gustafson, as a senior in the School of Education, might well have asked the faculty of the School of Education whether the requirement should be continued. The Department of English as an organizational unit does not determine this and its individual members participate in a decision with regard to the English Proficiency Examination only as they, individually, take part in the deliberations of the faculty of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Rumors about the problem created by an allegedly excessive failure rate on the English Proficiency Examination keep cropping up every year. They are frequently dramatized by relating instances of individuals who have failed the examination on several successive occasions or given a wholly absurd cast when it is related that students of unusual excellence or students carrying outstanding editorial responsibilities have been found to have submitted inadequate papers. One needs to remember, however, that students who have performed at the level of A or B plus in freshman English at the University of Kansas are not required to take the examination; hence, any percentage figures that may be used
are skewed to begin with; they are percentages not of all students but only of those who, not having qualified for exemption, presented themselves for the examination. Further, percentages are likely to include people who have previously failed the examination.
The examination has been required by most schools in the University for eighteen years now. The several faculties, in agreeing that such an examination should be required, were concerned primarily with the tendency of students to treat good writing as if it were something only English courses can or should demand. This is not say that the faculty as a whole or individual members of it would be prepared to defend the examination as the best possible way of achieving this result; much time and thought has been given to possible alternatives. Many of these would be not only difficult to administer but might well prove more burdensome than the fairly simple and not particularly time-consuming device of writing a brief essay.
francis H. Heller
Associate Dean
Reports Say Russia Offers India Missiles and More Fighter Planes
LONDON—(UPI)—The Soviet Union was reported to have offered India guided missiles that could be used in the event of renewed aggression by Communist China.
The offer also was said to include radar equipment, transport planes and training facilities. The Soviet has been shipping MIG jet fighters to India for some time.
(IN NEW DELHI, foreign and defense ministry spokesmen declined to comment. It was pointed out, however, that discussions are continuing in Moscow between the Soviets and an Indian arms-shopping delegation.)
Sources here said it appeared to
The indicated Soviet offer coincided with mounting reports of Chinese troop concentrations and the massing of Chinese warplanes all along the northern border of India.
QUALIFIED Communist diplomats here have hinted that the Soviet had warned Peking it would not consider itself bound by the Sino-Soviet mutual defense pact if China became involved in an aggression as the result of Peking's militant policy.
be a calculated Moscow move to counter Anglo-American military aid to India, which provides for allied air exercises and weapons.
The Western allies closely followed reports of an alleged new Communist Chinese military build-up, said to include up to 1,000 warplanes around newly-constructed airfields in Tibet.
The airfields at Tsonadzong and Rima were understood to be capable of handling heavy jet bombers. Both are close to India's North East Frontier Agency (NEFA) which was invaded last year by the
ACCORDING to the latest information available here, the Soviet has shipped six MIG21 fighters to India and is to deliver six more. The deal for the MIGs was concluded before China's attack. Moscow's decision to go ahead with the shipments angered Peking.
Chinese.
The United States and Britain, while extending military aid to India, have been reluctant to provide supersonic jettifiers which the Indians are anxious to acquire. Sources said India may be turning to the Soviet Union now for such planes.
Observers here said the Soviet apparently has dropped restraint in providing help to India since the Moscow-Peking rift exploded into an exchange of name-calling and insults after the unsuccessful "peace" talks earlier this month.
YOU'RE ENTITLED,' by Harry Golden (Crest, 60 cents).
That wise and witty philosopher of the Carolina Israelite has compiled another collection of his remarkable personal journalism. Here is some of the most refreshing and singular writing in America today. Harry Golden writing for us on almost any subject that comes to his active mind.
Like the presidency: "Woodrow Wilson proved a college teacher could be President and Harding proved that a 'good-time Charlie' could be President. Calvin Coolidge proved you don't have to say much and Herbert Hoover proved you don't have to do much. Roosevelt proved a man could be President as long as he lives and Truman proved that just about anyone could be President. Eisenhower proved that you don't even have to have a President and John F. Kennedy seems intent on proving that you had damn well better be the President."
And many other matters as well that flew out of the Golden typewriter. This is fine reading, straight through or random sampling.-CMP
HOW TO WIN AT CONTRACT BRIDGE IN 10 EASY LESSONS, by Richard L. Frey (Crest, 60 cents)—a handy guide for America's bridge enthusiasts, a good many of whom are right here on the KU campus. Frey offers here a complete Goren point count and latest official changes. Goren himself provides an introduction.
WELCOME TO THEBES, by Glendon Swarthout (Crest, 75 cents) a new and contemporary tale by the author of such diverse books as "They Came to Cordura" and "Where the Boys Are." The situation involves a Hollywood writer on the way out who is searching for a new best-seller and gets involved in sordid small-town doings, as well as in his own personal problems.
THE SOUND OF BOW BELLS, by Jerome Weidman (Crest, 95 cents).
Here is the latest best-seller by Jerome Weidman, as slick and as absorbing as those novels which have preceded it. Weidman has a good feel for the American idiom, and especially the New York idiom, and he describes here the efforts of an East Sider to get to Sutton Place, to become a great writer and resist the numerous temptations along the way.
Is it Weidman's own story? Like the other novels, "The Sound of Bow Bells" shows that the promise shown by Weidman in the 1930s remains unrealized, that he is a good writer but far from first-rate. But as a story-teller he is one of the best.
SHAKE HIM TILL HE RATTLES, by Malcolm Braly (Gold Medal, 40 cents)—This is a paperback original, set in San Francisco, describing a musician who gets himself involved with a girl in a coffee joint and a spoiled society dame who picks him up while she's out slumming. A book for the cats, if that's what they're still called.
Summer Session Kansan University of Kansas student newspaper 111 Flint Hall
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912. Member Inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays, and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Bibler
"DON'T WORRY ABOUT TH' CHAPTERS WE SKIPPED — I BELIEVE I'VE COVERED THEM ADEQUATELY IN THE FINAL."