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Summer Session Kansan Tuesday, July 30, 1963
Swells: Ground Variety
Word has it that there is a ground swell of conservatism among the youth of the United States.
One of the largest swells noticeable in the ground on university campuses has been the YAF. The letters stand for Young Americans for Freedom.
LIKE THEIR MORE extreme big brother organization, the John Birch Society, the YAF advocates playing hard-nose political football. They have had their fill of wishy-washy Liberal mismanagement. The country is headed toward mass slavery and ruination. YAF wants to save us.
Being an outraged opponent of mass slavery and ruination, this outfit sounded better than fried chicken and gravy to me.
But after a little investigative work, I find that the freedom which they value the most is freedom from rational thought.
IN PLACE OF trying to convince the public of the wisdom of their thinking by means of rational discourse, the YAF takes the short cut of the better-known propaganda devices.
An editorial written by a summer-traveling disciple of The Word appeared in the July 25 edition of the Kansas State Collegian. Disappointingly, the author's name was Art; I had hoped it would be Peter or Paul, much more in keeping with the tradition of Biblical teachers.
Now Art uses one of the more clever propaganda devices: the half-truth presented as the whole. The target for this treatment was the book of essays published in 1962 entitled The Liberal Papers.
RIGHT OFF, you know that it is a subject which would make any blue-blooded American see Red; Communist Red. All Liberals are slightly pink; Art expects everyone to operate on this hinted-at suggestion, and in his instance, assump-
Well, Art is shook because these pink-thinking Liberals (especially the present Administration) have sold us out—defense-wise that is. But Art registers no surprise at this bit of treachery. Why, everyone knows that the pinkos in the Administration sell us out at every given opportunity. After all, didn't FDR start World War II?
But all that FDR business is ancient history, and Art is addressing the dilemma of 1963. Art is shook because some of the proposals in The Liberal Papers have been adopted into national policy.
THE TREACHERY of treacheries which Art tore into in the editorial was the dismantling of U.S. missile bases encircling the Soviet Union. To hear him tell it, that rat Kennedy has turned into a Judas goat.
Well Art is 100 per cent correct about the dismantling of our missile bases; the Jupiters are gone from Turkey.
But being bent on proving a point without regard for all available facts, Art has painted a picture as close to reality as a mural painted by Picasso in a drunken seizure.
ART NEGLECTED to mention that before the missiles in Turkey were dismantled, Polaris-firing submarines were stationed in the Mediterranean Sea.
And because he opposes the pinkos who swapped the vulnerable, obsolete Jupiter missiles, he chooses to ignore this little bit of pertinent information:
Our capability to strike the Soviet Union with missiles was greatly increased by substituting the Polaris missiles for the land missiles.
ON SECOND THOUGHT, it may be unfair to question Art's motives. Perhaps he believes what he says. It's possible.
But if it is ignorance of the Jupiter-for-Polaris swap which caused the exclusion from consideration, the danger which Art represents only increases.
It is bad enough to be harangued and propagandized by unscrupulous zealots who tell only the side of the story which best serves their cause.
WHAT IS WORSE. is to be plagued by zealots convinced that they are right in a light which has no foundation in the complete set of facts.
Why wouldn't Art and his fellow YAF's know that the land missiles were dismantled only after the Polaris was substituted? Is it too much trouble to gather all the available facts?
Art and his fellow YAF members are right about one thing: It is important to be informed, especially in the missile age.
BUT HERE IS A piece of unsolicited advice to Art and other ground-swelling people, be they conservative or liberal: If you can't get the facts straight, you had better stay on the sidelines. Leave the affairs of state to the professionals.
If Art and his friends are calculating distorters of the truth, then let them register with the FBI as agents of ignorance.
The editorial by Art has this to say: "As young people, we have the most to lose by remaining aloof from matters politic."
That's right; we have almost as much to lose by remaining aloof from matters politic as we have to lose from the influence exerted by uninformed zealots who travel the country spreading half-truths.
Terry Murphy
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Bibler
"NAW-HE-IENT TH' COACH! HE PAGED TH' ENTIRE BACKFIELD ON AN ENGLISH EXAM JUST BEFORE TH' GAME!"
Vic Takes Cost Out of Travel
THE BOY. Vic (last name withheld by authorities), is an off-and-on resident of the Shawnee County Parental Home. His parents are separated and his mother is an alcoholic.
TOPEKA —(UPI)— Not many people could make it from Kansas to New York on 50 cents and return via non-stop airplane.
But a sad-eyed, 15-year-old Topeka boy whose hobby is just wendering seems to have pulled the stunt off.
The saga of Vic began a year ago when juvenile authorities sent him to his father in another state. He returned to Topeka on his own, stayed in the parental home about two months and then was placed in a boys home in Kentucky.
Vic homed in on Topeka early this year, saying only, "the kids there made too much noise."
WHEN HE couldn't find his mother. Vic headed south for the winter.
Juvenile authorities in Winston Salem, N.C., picked him up and put him on a bus to Topeka.
vic was apparently ready to come home again. He arrived four hours late on the wrong bus and explained that he had changed buses "to see a part of the country I hadn't seen."
FOUR GREAT COMEDIES OF THE RESTORATION AND 18TH CENTURY, with an introduction by Brooks Atkinson (Bantam Classics, 75 cents)—a reprint of a classics volume of several years ago, with a detail from Hogarth's "The Rake's Progress" on the cover. The plays in this volume are Wycherley's "The Country Wife," Congreve's "The Way of the World," Goldsmith's "She Stoops to Conquer" and Sheridan's "The School for Scandal."
THE HOME BOOK OF BARBECUE COOKING, introduction by Myra Waldo (Crest, 50 cents)a guide that offers more than 200 recipes for summer cooking. Included are recipes for steaks, chicken, fish, hamburger, frankfurters, kabobs, sauces and salads.
THE OTHER I, by Yael Lotan (Bantam, 50 cents)—a story of incept, to put it quite bluntly, about a brother and sister and an old deserted house and the lives that followed.
THE WONDERFUL CLOUDS, by Francoise Sagan Bantam, 50 cents)一 novel of last year now in paperback. Francoise Sagan who was so dashing and daring a decade ago, seems a staid old woman now, though she has greatly matured. The novel deals with a jealous American and his French wife.
THE MINISTRY OF FEAR, by Graham Greene (Bantam, 50 cents) one of the best novels of intrigue ever written. Unlike many writers, Graham Greene always succeeded, in his "entertainments," in injecting a point of view, and this novel, which dates to the period of World War II, is absorbing and meaningful.
FLIGHT FROM ASHIYA, by Elliott Arnold (Bantam, 50 cents)—a novel timed for release of the film of the same name. Arnold, who also wrote "Blood Brother," tells about Americans in Japan, especially about one, trained to hate Japanese, who finds himself in love with a Japanese girl.
GIDGET GOES TO ROME, by Frederick Kohner (Bantam, 40 cents)—a novel based on a screenplay, which is a switch, and a rather frightening one. Gidget really gets around. How does one comment on such a book?
THE HELLER, by William E. Henning (Bantam, 50 cents)—a book of the postwar period that has gone through numerous reprints. Ostensibly it deals with a girl who grew up—too fast, as the cover invitingly puts it.
THE NOVICE, by Giovanni Arpino (Bantam, 50 cents)a strange little novel, translated from the Italian, dealing with a young nun and a bachelor. It is simply written, scarcely more than a short story.
MI AMIGO, by W. R. Burnett (Bantam, 40 cents)一a tough tale of the Indian wars in the Southwest, by one of the earliest practitioners in the hardboiled school. This is good summer reading for those who prefer an uncluttered mind.
OPIUM FLOWER, by Dan Cushman (Bantam, 40 cents)—an international adventure that seems inspired by the James Bond books. Laos is the setting, and opium peddlers are the villains.
CAPROCK REBEL, by Will C. Brown (Bantam, 35 cents))—a novel of the old West, about two men chained together, literally and figuratively.
SIGNS OF THE LABRYs, by Margaret St. Clair (Bantam, 40 cents)—a new science fiction novel, dealing with the earth after it has been struck by plague.
Summer Session Kansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
111 Flint Hall Telephone Vlking 3-2700 Extension 711,news room Extension 376,business office
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.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Managing Editor ... Terry Murphy
Staff Writer & Editor ... Linda Machin
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Business Manager ... Bob Brooks
FACULTY
Adviser ... Prof. James Dykes