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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, May 15, 1963
"Onward And Upward, But Not Too Far"
'Me-Tooism' Won't Win
Come on, Barry, quit being coy.
Why don't you toss your Arizona Stetson right into the middle of the Republican ring and run for President? Win or lose you can help the country.
The country needs an alternative to the devouring moloch of ever-bigger government. It needs a clear-cut choice between a high degree of individual freedom and the progressive loss of that freedom. It needs an option of destinations, not merely parallel highways to the police state
The misnamed "liberals" are quick to assure Republicans that if they adopt any course except "me-tooism" they will lose. And by following this advice too often the Republicans have slipped into a chronic minority party.
THEY NOW control only a third of the seats in the U.S. Congress and the governorships of only 17 of the 50 states. They have compromised and amended their principles until no one knows just what they stand for. In many cases they have merely offered to do as amateurs what the professionals are already doing to the country. No wonder that party is in trouble.
But the very weakness of the Republican Party presents its great opportunity. If you are desperate enough you can afford to be bold. There comes a time when there's no profit in timidity. As Marshal Foch said at the Battle of the Marne: "My right is driven in. My left has vanished. My center is hard pressed. The situation is excellent. I will attack at once!"
If the Republican Party hopes to preserve the nation from being trussed in a straight-jacket by power-hungry rulers it had better quit trying to outpromise the promisers. You can't lick at giveaways the boys who seem to think that most of the national wealth should be funneled into Washington to be re-distributed at their pleasure.
The Republican Party can only stand on broad principles. But these principles, properly stated, can make sense to a lot of Americans who are now hopelessly confused.
WE DON'T know whether a party standing on those principles can win in '64. But we're pretty darned sure that if the Republican Party doesn't stand boldly against the bureaucratic bear-hugs which are crushing us with love it won't win in '64, '68 or ever.
Republicans should examine their early history. Because a man named Lincoln stood on principle he was defeated for the Senate in 1858. And because he still stood on principle he was elected President in 1860. The party rose because it presented a clear alternative to the confusion of the Democrats a century ago. When have the Democrats been more confused than now?
We like Barry Goldwater because he represents an alternative. He has been too smart to take advice from people who never vote Republican anyway. He denies the progressiveness of progressive tyranny. He is, as he titled his book, a Conservative with a Conscience.
Whether such a candidate would win or lose, he would draw together the forces that fear and hate Big Brotherism, and in that new unity there would be power to slow or halt this menace. These forces are now scattered and leaderless. It's time to give them a banner they can follow.
Come on, Barry.
Get into the race with both feet—and fists.
— Tulsa Tribune
Worth Repeating
Slogans are both exciting and comforting, but they are also powerful opiates of the conscience. . Some of man's most terrible misdeeds have been committed under the spell of certain magic words or phrases.James Bryant Conant
Commune System Falters—Chinese Still Hungry
By Terry Ostmeyer
China, with its vast land and huge population, is a troubled country.
It is a country troubled politically, economically, socially, and most of all, agriculturally. China is almost entirely an agricultural country, consequently, any agrarian movement affects every aspect of its existence. Through the centuries the term "the people must eat," has been a very serious matter in China.
IN RECENT years, reports from this gigantic land—however reliable they may be—had shown that the peasant farmers of China had increased their production each year. Still, subsistence was meager.
Today the agricultural situation in China is worse. Out of an estimated population of nearly 800 million, four-fifths are farmers with less than two acres
Four successive years of crop failures and famine in China have narrowed the already thin line holding back internal discontent. Agricultural mishaps have brought a sudden halt to Communist Party chief Mao Tse-tung's, "great leap forward." The questionable production reports no longer arouse curiosity because they no longer are released.
THE INTERESTING fact is that all of this has happened during the years in which the Chinese leaders started a great movement to make their country one of the most productive in the world. The attempt has not been abandoned, but it has yet to achieve a sizable victory.
The movement began in 1950 when the Communists instituted
per farm. "The people must eat" has become more than a phrase among millions of Chinese peasants. It has become a battle cry.
Dailij Hansan
111 Flint Hall
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Fred Zimmerman ... Managing Editor
Ben Marshall, Bill Sheldon, Mike Miller,
Art Miller, Margaret Cathcart ... Assistant Managing Editors
Scott Payne ... City Editor
Trudy Meserve and Jackie Stern ... Co-Society Editors
Steve Clark ... Sports Editor
Murrell Bland ... Photograph Editor
NEWS DEPARTMENT
BEFORE LONG these communes included all the peasants throughout rural China, thus eliminating all private ownership. Members of the Communist Party held key positions in these communes and directed them through committees which controlled all phases of life.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
**Dennis Branstiter** Editorial Editor
**Terry Murphy** Assistant Editorial Editor
land reform. The land in China was redistributed and agriculture collectivized over much of the country.In 1956 it was announced that 90 per cent of the farming families in China had joined cooperatives which involved the pooling of land and equipment under unified management.
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Then, in 1958, came the reorganization which has become the most controversial institutions in all China—the People's Communes.
Jack Cannon ... Business Manager
Through control such as this the Chinese Communists seemed to have the situation well in hand, but the massive population continued to increase and the new development failed to keep pace.
The hated communes, which Mao Tse-tung called "labor armies," were almost abandoned in desperation a year ago, but suddenly in late 1962, Premier Chou En-lai proposed that even more of the peasants leave the factories and return to the farm. The Communists now have decided to concentrate more heavily than ever on agricultural production.
THE COMMUNES have still survived, but only in part. Now, new Chinese "production teams" flood the country. These peasants and their experience in farming have been given new freedom in an effort by the party to raise production.
The party's effort, however, remains ineffective. The problem of the food shortage has
been attacked with renewed vigor, but discontent has not died away. Hong Kong correspondents say the Chinese people are hungry, but not starving. To be hungry is enough, though. A great many of the people resent the party's bungling.
The communes once were even hailed as a short cut to "pure" communism, but they over-worked and oppressed the peasantry to the point that incentives have now almost disappeared in many cases.
THE EMBITTERED peasants have even managed to cheat the Chinese government by holding back crops supposed to be sold the party and spending more time on their own small plots of land. It is a token resistance and has little or no effect, yet the resistance and bitterness exist.
A mass revolt in China is very unlikely, though, since the country's army of nearly three million men is fed and treated better than the citizenry and no doubt would put down any uprising.
One possible danger to internal control in China is propaganda, and it too has only an outside chance of succeeding. This is propaganda from the United States and from a few of the Afro-Asian countries which surround China.
To increase the tension, the U.S. has played with the idea of aiding the Chinese with its surplus food, but the possibility is slim, not to mention the fact that China probably would refuse such an offering.
THE HUMILIATING setback in agriculture has furnished ample fuel for such propaganda, especially from the U.S. President Kennedy has stressed that "our food crisis is one of abundance, theirs is one of scarcity."
The largest amount of propaganda concerning agriculture comes from China's greatest rival, Formosa. The Nationalist Chinese have plenty of food and they do not hesitate to inform the people on the mainland about the fact.
THE CONSTANT stream of refugees who flock into Hong Kong every day nearly always give lack of food as their main reason for fleeing China. The Nationalists have taken advantage of this information and have devoted every means of communication to add salt to the wound.
The Nationalist Chinese farmers are among the most prosperous in Asia, and their private ownership has led to record productions. Whether this produces any effect on the peasantry in China remains to be seen. The facts are there for them to view if they can see.
The failure of the communes has cast a dark shadow in China and has been a critical defeat for the Communists. The successful land reform program in Formosa, where the farmers own the land they till, is no secret in China, a fact which makes matters worse for the party.
THE DREADED communes are almost gone in China, but the party continues to step up production throughout the country in every way imaginable. By now they know it takes more than just millions of laborers to make the land produce, yet the drive to increase agriculture goes on because the party leaders also know it will take only a few good years to set China back on firm ground.
Eight hundred million hungry and disillusioned people are a problem, but 800 million people who some day may be satisfied are also a problem—to the rest of the world.