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Summer Session Kansan
Friday, June 21, 1963
Misplaced Sympathy
Many persons are unhappy with recent developments at Alabama University where Negroes have been admitted.
And not all the unhappy ones live in the South. Nor are all of them segregationist bigots. They dislike the use of U.S. troops to "force" admission of the students into the school.
THEY FEAR THAT the government in Washington is moving toward an extension of powers which it has no right to exercise.
These people believe that the government in Washington has gone beyond its Constitutionally-relegated powers. Visions of a future police state haunt these people, and others besides.
They are wrong. President Kennedy has only done what is necessary to fulfill the oath of his office.
The Constitution guarantees equal rights to all citizens. Some men, such as Alabama Governor George Wallace, have acted to deny these rights to certain people.
IT IS INCIDENTAL to the President's duty that those who have been denied their rights are Negroes. The duty of the President of the United States is to guarantee equal rights to all. This includes Negroes.
The president has not overstepped his authority. If it appears that way, it is because his predecessors have not fulfilled the duties of the office.
Just the same, feelings of sympathy continue to exist for men such as Wallace. There is a lingering question as to whether what he has done is wrong.
THIS LINE OF reasoning is grounded in pragmatism. Integration, according to this line of thought, just won't work.
The proper point to consider is that it is segregation which will not work. Surely it won't require nationwide race riots to drive this point
home. The failure of segregation has been indelibly scorched into history; the Negro has had enough.
Still the feelings of sympathy remain. Perhaps such feelings are fed by a feeling for the "underdog" States Righters. The central government seems to have all the aces.
WELL, IF IT is a game they are playing those who feel sympathy for the "underdogs should look closely at the way Wallace and the boys are playing.
Those in the South who share the "underdog" views have practiced cold-blooded murder. One Negro leader, Medgar Evers, was shot in the back: ambushed.
Make no mistake. Gov. Wallace and his Mississippi counterpart, Ross Barnett, have shown that it is all right with them to kill Negroes.
STRONG LANGUAGE? You are right. But it is accurate.
If it isn't economic murder to stop a man from getting an education in this age of specialization, what is it?
Both Wallace and Barnett must accept responsibility in the death of every Negro and white person who dies as a result of the current battles. Behavioral scientists will tell you that strong leadership would have prevented much of the blood which has spilled.
THOSE PERSONS WHO feel sympathy for Wallace and Barnett should take stock.
Is it all right to murder a man in cold blood because he is black and prefers human rights over states' rights?
Is it right to deny a man an education because he is born black?
If you can answer, "No," to those two questions, you must answer the same to the question: "Is President Kennedy overstepping his authority?" — Terry Murphy
In the course of human events . . .
By Marick Payton
A View of Kirk's Philosophy
Much of the "education" administered to the young people of this country is concerned with teaching history on the presumption that historical knowledge will enable a person to understand his own age better. This generally correct but incomplete thesis is carried to its reductio ad absurdum by that most well-meaning conservative, Professor Russell Kirk, for he is so obsessed with the "wisdom of our ancestors" that he neglects to say
what criteria one should use in separating the wisdom from the folly. But, of course, Kirk does not want the use of a rational criterion. He suggests that "All that we can do is reawaken our consciousness to the existence of norms; to confess that there are enduring standards superior to our petty personal private stock of rationality."
PROFESSOR KIRK may have his pipeline. I do not. Mine was badly shattered in a playful moment of
"You Don't Understand, Boy—You're Supposed To Just Shuffle Along"
clear thinking several years ago. But, indeed, my course was set, even before that misfortune, when I chose the logical analysis of data received by objective observation (rationality) as the most reliable and, thus, profitable means of acquiring knowledge. However, here I have introduced another disagreement with Professor Kirk. I have proposed efficacy as the standard of judgment of human action, but Kirk states that "When I speak of a 'norm' (standard of human conduct), I do not mean a value . . . the quality of giving pleasure or satisfaction to individuals . . .."
The professor's criteria for judging human conduct were given him by his god; this is the crux of our disagreement. I once ask that ever-impertinent question, "Why?" And to the question, "Why should one believe in a god?" there is no rational answer, for the question asks of that defined as supernatural, and reason is only a tool for dealing with the natural universe.
WITHIN THE BOUNDS of reason my standard is right. Human action is purposeful: It seeks the realization of a desire. Thus, its efficacy in this achievement is implicitly the standard by which it is judged. As a matter-of-fact, Professor Kirk believes in his deity because he desires to—that is, because believing so gives him individual satisfaction. He acts to fulfill his desires. He cannot do otherwise.
I have not yet explicitly said why I think rationality the most practical mode of inquiry. However, to ask the question would presume its answer, for to ask it would be an act of rational inquiry. The criterion by which one must decide this question is experience. Most people find the evidence (of course, evidence is significant only to the extent that one's mind is functioning rationally) so overwhelming that they attempt to be reasonable about anything of significance. Still, they go to church on Sunday, trying to hedge their bet on common
(Continued on page 3)
THE ELEANOR ROOSEVELT WE REMEMBER, by Helen Gahagan Douglas (Hill and Wang, $5.95).
In the brief section she has written for this loving tribute to Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Gahagan Douglas concludes with a poem by Emily Dickinson, the final verses of which are these:
I went to thank her.
But she slept;
Her bed a funnelled stone.
With nosegays at the head and foot.
That the travellers had thrown.
Who went to thank her;
But she slept.
To look upon her like alive
But turning back 'twas slow.
Twas short to cross the sea
In that section, Mrs. Douglas tells the story of Mrs. Roosevelt from more than 23 years' knowing her. It is a beautiful and affecting piece of writing. For many who admired Mrs. Roosevelt, just as memorable will be the pictures, which were edited by Aaron J. Ezickson. They reveal this amazing woman's change from insecure bride to elder statesman of America. The final photograph, which is a graveside shot of the Kennedys, the Trumans, Eisenhower, VicePresident Johnson and others, reveals how this woman had come to be loved by so many people, great and small.
But the pictures of Mrs. Roosevelt with children, wounded veterans, United Nations trainees, young American Negroes, and Asians are the best. They demonstrate how this woman became the First Lady of the World.-CMP
A SIMPLE HONORABLE MAN, by Conrad Richter (Crest, 50 cents)—This novel, like most of those by Conrad Richter, is so small as to be little more than a vignette. But in his story of a rural pastor and his need to serve his fellow men he had no need to produce a vast saga in the fashion of a MacKinlay Kantor.
Besides being a moving portrait of a man, this recent novel also gives a convincing portrait of a still pastoral America at the turn of the century. Many readers will be reminded of the quiet beauty of Agee's "A Death in the Family."
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BEST PLAYS OF THE YEAR, by Robert Riger (Prentice-Hall, $4.95)—a photographic documentary of the 1962 professional football season in the National Football League by the photographer-author of another football pictorial, "THE PROS." This new book is to be an annual. It not only contains a photographic treatment of the season, highlighted by the championship game, but drawings of players in action, diagrams of plays, and a cohesive narrative complete the details of the season.
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FOUR GREAT ELIZABETHAN PLAYS, with an introduction by John Gassner (Bantam Classics, 75 cents)—A reprint of a 1960 paperback, with a bright new cover. The plays are the same: Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus," John Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi," Thomas Dekker's "The Shoemaker's Holiday," and Jonson's "Volpone." These are famous works from one of the brightest periods in the history of the drama.
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THE LIGHTS IN THE SKY ARE STARS, by Fredric Brown (Bantam, 40 cents)—Science fiction of about a decade ago, reprinted to capture the great interest in science and space today. Brown is best known as the author of hard-boiled detective novels; this book describes the efforts of a man's life-long struggle to understand and penetrate space.
FOUR SHORT NOVELS, by Herman Melville (Bantam Classics, 75 cents)—A real bargain for lovers of American literature. This is a restyled reprint, and the novels include "The Encantadas, or 'En-chanted Isles,'" "Bartleby," "Benito Cereno" and "Billy Budd, Foretopman." The last has achieved the standing of a major classic; the others are not so well known.
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THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER, by Philip MacDonald (Bantam, 50 cents)A thriller that has been made into a movie by the famous John Huston. It's about an unknown killer on the brink of committing his final crime. Some critics consider this one of the best mysteries ever written.
Summer Session Kansan
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