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University Daily Kansan Thursday, May 2, 1963
"Dutch" Lonborg Stays
The Kansas Board of Regents last week used, to good advantage, an option which the Kansas Legislature made available to controlling agencies of state institutions.
Athletic Director A. C. "Dutch" Lonborg was retained in his position for another year even though he will this summer be 65 years old, the customary age of retirement for university department heads. In Lonborg's particular case, it was a wise decision predicated by the fine record which he has established since taking over in 1950.
BUT LONBORG'S extension of service also illustrates a growing awareness that there is no automatic signal which can, fairly and sensibly, be applied in determining when it is advisable to change leadership.
In the United States, there is an almost total worship of Youth. The totality of this worship requires spelling it with a capital letter.
Even if the callous "rewarding" of devotion with an automatic shunting to the sidelines is overlooked, the automatic retirement age is a senseless standard.
AS LONG AS A man or woman is still in full command of his or her full, vigorous mental capacities, enforced retirement is wasteful. Personnel directors will tell you that a person becomes more valuable as he gains experience and familiarity with his position.
Even though it is recognized that automatic retirement is wasteful, it still is blindly practiced annually by administrators who should know better.
The automatic retirement is the opposite of another ridiculous practice: tenure. While all
persons are entitled to reasonable insurance or job security, no one should continue command merely by dint of having command for a given number of years.
THE CLOSER ADMINISTRATORS move to deciding who shall command on a basis of performance and capabilities, the less talent shall be wasted among the work force, both young and old.
The argument is often tendered, by those who favor automatic retirement, that it is necessary if we want to best utilize the vigor and fresh insight of younger persons. Well, if this were so, then they are dragging down the prime mover of their theory: shuck off a man when he passes his peak of physical prowess.
Of course, this could be taken to ridiculous extremes. The plan to keep men in command only during their peak years of physical vigor could lower the automatic step-down age to 45.
BUT THE PRINCIPLE fault with the automatic retirement practice is this: Youth cannot be automatically equated with wisdom, knowhow or excellence.
Youthful vigor is fine. In fact, if a man still has youthful vigor of mind at age 80, he should remain in command.
The Regents made a wise decision in retaining Lonborg. The only weakness of the decision was that it was only for one more year. In all the talk of possible successors, it was quite odd that no one ever suggested that the candidates would be able to do as good a job as "Dutch" has done. The only consideration was that a new man would be younger.
Terry Murphy
Week in Review
Asian Red Threat Grows
The news last week made anyone subject to military service a bit uneasy as the Cold War ran a fever reminiscent of pre-Korean War symptoms.
Undersecretary of State Averell Harriman flew to Moscow, where he conferred with Premier Khrushchev on the problems rising from renewed fighting in Laos.
THE RED BOSS agreed — in principle — with President Kennedy that peace must be maintained in the tiny Asian country, which is smaller than the state of Virginia. It remains to be seen whether agreement in principle will be transformed into action to ease tensions. Harriman expressed guarded faith in the Premier's good intentions.
The leader of pro-Red forces in Laos reportedly has agreed to turn back all territory gained in fighting in the region of the Flain of Jarres.
The United States hedged any bets that this promise will be kept when it sent two U.S. battle groups of 3.000 men to neighboring Thailand. The U.S. 7th Fleet waits off shore with fighter planes and tactical nuclear weapons.
FUTURE ACTION on the problem is expected to center around talks co-chairmanned by Russia and Great Britain, the two countries which directed the 1962 parleys which ended open war in Laos.
Richard Nixon urged the President to "support" Cuban exile groups which want to oust Castro. Through a blockade or another invasion? No, the former vice-president said, but support must be given.
Another tension spot in U.S. politics, Cuba, fostered several unsolicited and pliatudinous bits of wisdom from the loyal opposition—the Republicans.
FELLOW REPUBLICAN Kenneth Keating of New York displayed a continuing affinity for counting Russian noses in Cuba from Washington.
The senator's latest on-the-spot tally shows no fewer than 17,000 Russian troops in Cuba. The President suggests that 12,000 is more accurate. Allowing for the approaching election, the true figure
probably lies somewhere between the two estimates.
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE McNamara continued his blunt exchanges with Congress last week. Yes, the secretary confirmed, the United States is susceptible to Russian rockets. But, he added, so are the Russians vulnerable to U.S. weapons, reports of American newsmen notwithstanding.
In short, the delicate balance of terror remains unchanged; both sides are vulnerable, the bidding runs high, and occasionally one side doubles—followed by a redouble.
NASSEER'S DREAM of a United Arab Republic which would encompass the entire Middle East appeared much closer to reality last week. Jordanian King Hussein was forced to name a new government and promise new parliamentary elections as riots erupted in favor of Jordan's moving closer to Nasser's sphere of influence.
Political analysts are undecided as to the meaning of Khrushchev's announcement that he "cannot continue forever serving both as head of state and leader of the party." Perhaps unrest in the Kremlin is indicated, with the implication that the 69-year-old Premier may be losing power. Or it could mean just what he said: as a mortal man, he sooner or later must taper off or quit altogether.
The Christian Democratic party, which controls the West German parliament, last week named Ludwig Erhard as the successor to Konrad Adenauer who retires next fall. This choice, which was predicted, pleases the United States and Great Britain Erhard is on record as favoring Common Market trade with the West on an expanded scale. This implies admission of Britain to the Common Market and, needless to say, runs contradictory to the views of French President Charles de Gaulle.
Royalist troops manage to sustain the King, but Nasser greeted feelers for talk from Hussein in his customary style: no monarchs welcome in the UAR.
RUSSIA SIGNED two trade agreements last week. One confirmed that country's comity of interest with Red China, and the other added credibility to reports that Brazil feels no allegiance to the United States and her Western allies.
The Brasilia-Moscow agreement calls for exchange of $600 million in goods over a three-year period. It could spell the end to any Brazilian hopes of a big slice of Alliance for Progress money.
With all the speculation over the damage the strikes have done to the economy, it was worth noting that the Department of Labor released figures indicating that illness and coffee breaks still take a bigger bite out of production than all the strikes combined.
A SMALL LABOR item in the news reminds us that the New York newspapers are not alone with labor problems. Boeing machinists' union members staged wildcat strikes after rejecting a company offer.
Also in New York, Presidential hopeful Nelson Rockefeller was feeling the heat of a major scandal within his own State Liquor Authority. Several men have been indicted and the digging continues.
THE BOOGIE MAN of Southern racists and conservatives, Attorney General Kennedy, applied a little salve to the wounds administered at Oxford, Miss., last fall.
The attorney general praised the strides made in Dixie in the field of civil rights; the Rev. Martin Luther King was not available for comment. He was in jail at Birmingham awaiting trial in a federal district court for violating a no-demonstration order at Greenwood, Miss.
The story which caught the attention of everyone in the country involved the death of a 35-year-old mail carrier from Baltimore. William Moore, a white man, was walking through Alabama on his way to Jackson, Miss., where he intended to tell Ross Barnett how he felt about desegregation.
Moore didn't make it. A less eloquent, more forceful segregationist expressed a different point of view with two shots in the back.
"We Have Discovered A Particularly Dangerous Piece Of Radical, Subversive Propaganda"
Superpatriots Threaten Individual Freedom
By Jerry Musil
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are the two most important liberties granted by the Constitution. These freedoms protect all the other liberties granted to all Americans—religion, assembly, petition, trial by jury, freedom from illegal search and seizure.
The other freedoms listed in the Constitution cannot hope to survive if these two essential freedoms are lost. The right of free speech and a free press defend the other freedoms when an attack is made upon them.
BUT THE freedoms of speech and a free press can also be attacked and are being attacked, especially the right to speak up on any subject that does not violate the rights of another person or present a "clear and present" danger to the government.
The greatest threat to the right of speech and a free press today comes from the extreme right wing and other extremists who feel that the country is in danger. These superpatriots feel that the Constitution must be protected from the Communist threat both from within and without.
Therefore, these protectors of "the American way" deny the right to give contrary views to Communists. The rightists also deny this right to anyone with ideas they feel are opposed to the American ideal.
UNIVERSITY Daily Hansan
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THEY FEEL that they, and only they, can save the American freedoms by restricting the use of these freedoms to groups whose views agree with their own. The right wing-feels that any ideas which try to change the status quo or attack institutions long acquainted with the United States are dangerous.
Perhaps the most famous, or infamous as the case may be, of these dangers to free speech and free press come from the John Birch Society on the civilian side and the House Un-American Activities committee on the government side.
There are numerous accounts of attacks by the John Birch Society upon persons whose views are contrary to its own. Its leader has even felt compelled upon to call some of the country's leaders, including a former president, "conscious agents of the Communist conspiracy."
SELF-APPOINTED protectors of the young feel that only they can save the youth of today. They censor books which they feel have "communistic or socialistic" views. These two terms are interchangeable to many right wingers.
Some recent examples of text-book censorship have been the activity of the Texas Daughters of the American Revolution and the John Birch Society to keep Albert Einstein's books from the library shelves.
Other groups have worked to keep the novels of Thomas Mann and Thomas Wolfe from reaching the impressionable minds of the young. They feel that the culture studies of Margaret Mead with their descriptions of loin-clothed natives performing the fertility rites of their tribes are a contaminating influence.
ONE BOOK was condemned because a simple count showed that the word "communism" was used more than words which signify the American way of life.
There is also the classic ex-
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