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University Daily Kansan Monday, April 22, 1963
It's Hot in The Kitchen
It was my pleasure to attend the All Student Council meeting last week when the new student body president, vice-president and council members were sworn in.
As is traditional, outgoing members with words of wisdom were invited to speak. Two members did; Dean Salter, council chairman, and Raib Malik, a graduate foreign student.
SALTER RECOMMENDED that the council concentrate on dealing with matters that directly affect KU students. He suggests this as the best way for the council to become consequential in the students' lives.
Malik expressed a feeling of frustration—free from rancor or bitterness—over the attitudes displayed by the old council in regard to considerations of human relations. Malik said he is forced to assume, that from past council positions, the members believe either that there are no problems of human relations at KU, or that all the problems have been solved. Either assumption, Malik said, is inaccurate.
With the good intentions which always exist at times of inaugurals, it would have been easy to feel that a new avenue of council action for the future had been blazed.
BUT IN REFLECTION, the weight of history makes such an assumption unrealistic.
This aura of good intentions is quickly destroyed by recalling what happened during the business meeting before the swearing in of new officers and members.
The council was concerned with the procedure used to appoint the 150-odd members and chairmen to ASC committees. One group wanted to lessen the power of the student body president to appoint; another group felt the proposed change to committee recommendation would prove cumbersome.
THE DECISION made (old system retained) is less important than the very nature of the question. The council consumed its interests on a matter which clearly demonstrated partisan motivation—by both sides.
Both Salter and Malik expressed ideas which could make the All Student Council something more than the end result of machinations by campus political organizations. But again looking to past performances, the ASC of present likely will follow the pattern of partisan idioce.
And that, in part, explains why students care as little as they do about the business of student government.
JERRY DICKSON, outgoing student body president, had a closing statement which reflects another malady which afflicts the council. He displayed a sensitively thin skin, especially for a man who aspires to real-life political pursuits.
Dickson reminded the council that the University Daily Kansan is, constitutionally, a committee extension of the council.
After letting this delicious consideration settle through the room, he hastily added that he was not advocating censorship of the Kansan, but the message was clear:
The Kansan and its hotrod editors can be knocked down a notch.
AFTER THE MEETING, Dickson was asked what, specifically, was on his mind. He suggested that it is far simpler to sit down at a typewriter and criticize than to try to do something constructive. He is so right.
Pressed further for specific causes of complaint, he mentioned an editorial printed first semester which suggests that the student body president apparently has nothing better to do than run around in a white shirt and tie.
Dickson feels this is not a very meaningful criticism, and just as well could have been done without. Dickson is right. It was not a positive criticism, and doubtlessly more than a little unfair.
While it may be presumptuous and irresponsible to do so, I have a word of wisdom for Dickson. He cannot publicly criticize (even irresponsible Kansan editors) and expect it to be confined to his favorite battleground.
BUT GIVEN THE nature of editorial writers and their guaranteed privilege to comment on and criticize public officials, Dickson could do well to heed the advice of Harry Truman: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."
Then after having aired his views on the irresponsibility displayed on the Kansan's editorial page, he conjectured that his parting shot was "off the record."
IF THIS SEEMS to have an air of vindictiveness toward Dickson, so be it. If he doesn't know it by now, he should soon learn that as an elected, public official, he has chosen a limelit path not famous for bringing its travelers words of adulation from the press.
No one forced him to run for student body president. The man on the street faces no such criticism by "irresponsible" editors. Nor any of the enjoyable limelight. The facts are that you can't have the limelight without the criticism.
To return to the new ASC for a moment, here is another bit of unwelcome advice. Whatever you do as council members is likely to draw fire. But you stepped onto the battleground of your own free will.
DICKSON (AND OTHERS) displayed a displeasure with other positions and opinions expressed on the editorial page of the Kansan. The Wichita University issue was such an instance. It has been suggested that Kansan editorial position was harmful to the welfare of KU.
What Dickson must want the Kansan to do is fall in love with whatever may be his point of view. It is not surprising that Dickson felt no compulsion to criticize the Kansan when it decided to back him for student body president.
Well, that's how it goes; you win a few and lose a few. It is the same for the editors of the Kansan. If you doubt it, check the letters to the editor. I will pay a dollar for each word of praise from readers if Dickson will pay a nickel for each word of abuse. I will even leave out the words of "unfair" criticism.
— Terry Murphy
BOOK REVIEWS
A HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, by R. J. Forbes and E. J. Dijksterhuis (Pelican, two volumes, $1.25 each).
From the beginning of Greek science to the coming of modern industrial chemistry, these two Dutch professors of the history of science—R. J. Forbes and E. J. Dijksterhuis—have written a readable history that for the most part can be understood by the layman. Their approach is not social, not concerned with the ultimate impact of science and technology on society but with science and technology in a pure sense.
The first volume actually starts before the Greeks, showing how man in his most primitive state was experimenting and becoming interested in what he saw about him and what it might mean. The authors treat Greek and Roman engineering and technology, the rise of astrology and alchemy, science in the Middle Ages, the developments of medieval technology, the impact of Galileo, Descartes and Huygens on physics, and the significance of Newton.
In the second volume they treat post-Newton developments, strides in heat and sound, the coming of steam and new developments in astronomy, magnetism and electricity, steel, and recent developments in chemistry.
AMERICAN HERITAGE, April 1963, $3.95.
Though his presidency was perhaps the nation's most undistinguished, Warren G. Harding remains a subject of fruitful and disturbing historical research. The new American Heritage gives consideration to four unsolved mysteries of Harding's regime.
These are: (1) did Harding have Negro ancestors, as has been frequently suggested; (2) did he have an illegitimate daughter by a woman in Marion, Ohio; (3) did he die of a coronary attack, commit suicide, or was he murdered; (4) why did Mrs. Harding burn all that she could find of her husband's correspondence?
These are other articles in the new issue: "Doctors of the Frontier," concentrating on men who saved lives in the wilderness; "Eighth Wonder of Erastus Field," about a fantastic dream building by the New England primitive artist; "The Man Who Stopped the Rams," story of efforts to block the Confederacy on the sea; "The Saloon," a retrospective piece on the forerunner of the "bar" and "cocktail lounge"; "Pater Patriae as Pater Familias," dealing with Washington as father.
"Faces from the Past," a sketch about George Francis Train, a spectacular failure who tried to become president; "My Dear Selous," correspondence between Theodore Roosevelt and a British big game hunter; "Carl Bodmer's Unspoiled West," article with portfolio of pictures by Swiss artist; "Digging Up Jamestown," concerning archaeological findings in our own country.
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THE WORLD OF LINCOLN STEFFENS, edited by Ella Winter and Herbert Shapiro (American Century, $2.45).
Lincoln Steffens was the greatest of our muckrakers, but he also was a writer who participated in and covered many world revolutions. This anthology has a wide variety of writings by Steffens.
The editors have selected, for example, "Moses in Red," which treats the revolt of Israel in Biblical times as a typical political and social revolution. This has never been published. Also included are several fables, which Steffens wrote to express his then-controversial ideas.
Ella Winter, incidentally, is Steffen's widow. She and her collaborator deal here with the Mexican revolution, the Russian revolution, Steffen's reflections on fatherhood, the depression, lynchings, and sketches of such people as John Reed, Robinson Jeffers, Harry Bridges, Fremont Older, Lenin and Clarence Darrow.
* *
THE ART OF LOVING, by Erich Fromm (Bantam, 60 cents)—a famous work by one of the most thoughtful psychoanalysts of today. Fromm discusses how to overcome the fear of love, how to use love to conquer shame and anxiety, how to use love to release hidden potentialities, and how to make love an exciting and exhilarating experience.
Progress Comes Slowly and Unsteadily in Peru
By Terry Ostmever
The rise of Peru socially and economically has been a slow and tedious accomplishment, one that has been more frustrating than satisfying.
Being a typical South American country, Peru has seen many governments and cultural institutions come and go for hundreds of years. Many have been good, with able leaders, but each has fallen or merely ceased to exist and each time social and economic depression has returned to Peru.
SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT has always been a troublesome struggle for Peru, while economic development has had its ups and downs, mainly because it follows the governmental trend in the country.
Once, from 1845 to 1879, the internal institutions in Peru remained fairly stable, thanks to a strong military rule by Ramon Castilla. This internal strength was shaken somewhat following Castilla's retirement and the beginning
The social and economic setbacks resulting from this war lasted well into the 20th century and it was not until the administrations of Augusto Leguia in the 1920's that Peru underwent deep-felt economic changes.
SOCIAL IMPROVEMENT was faintly detectable at this time, but it did make some strides from 1930 on. Still, major changes in the Peruvian social foundation were hindered during the first half of the century by a rash of constitutional changes or new constitutions altogether.
of the Spanish war, yet it survived until its collapse during the War of the Pacific (1879-1883).
Internal strife is still evident in Peru occasionally, as it is throughout the continent, but in the last few decades the social and economical path in Peru has led steadily uphill.
A land of desert, mountains, and jungles, Peru has a population that varies according to economic, social, and cultural levels, and the part of the country inhabited. The country's populations is around nine million, a fourth of which is white, and another 450,000 consisting of jungle tribes.
THE WHITES and the mestizo live along the coast and among the
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cities of the Sierra and the Montana. They speak Spanish, are profoundly Roman Catholic, and the political, economic, cultural, and military power of Peru is theirs.
The Indian inhabitants of the Sierrra, mainly the Quechua and the Aymara, are only in part incorporated in the Western culture. Many of these people still live within their own cultural patterns, which is a modern form of a primitive type of social and family organization called the "ayllu."
ECONOMICALLY, AGRICULTural and mineral production have always led the way in Peru. In recent years forestry and fishing have become increasingly important industries, as has manufacturing.
The Peruvian economy has expanded greatly since the war, a trend which actually began in 1930. The
Since World War II, Peru has engaged in a great deal of trade with the United States to go along with an already large volume of trade with European countries.
national budget has increased considerably in past years, along with a decline in the foreign debt.
Peru's current economic problem, however, is rising public debt, which has been directly proportionate to the decrease in foreign spending. The country has devoted much of its funds to the deletion of the foreign debt and this is possibly the reason for only periodic services concerning the internal debt.
A L
TODAY PERU has made giant strides in transportation and communication facilities, such as highways, airlines, and shipping. A continued rise in electric power also has spread through the country.
The development of Peru economically has been steady, but socially the country is still struggling to overcome its remoteness and internal problems. The need for a stable government to direct and improve the Peruvian social order has at times been on the verge of fulfillment. Continued progress is gradually showing the way.
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