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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, April 17, 1963
JFK vs. Steel Industry
The current situation in the steel industry gives some interesting insights into the gospel of the presidency according to St. Kennedy.
From all outward appearances President Kennedy is de facto head of the steel industry as well as of government. The Chief of State and Industry role has popped up before, but usually during time of war or financial crisis.
A YEAR ago President Kennedy squelched a price increase, but then the situation was quite different. The President had used his influence to avert an industry-wide strike—a strike that would have played havoc with the entire economy. To do this he got the unions to cut their wage demands with the understanding the industry would not increase the price of steel.
That was a year ago under conditions peculiar to the time. Now, under considerably different conditions, the President is taking similar though less stringent action. This time there is no threat of strike to be averted. Neither is there an agreement to hold prices down in return for modified wage demands.
A week ago, Wheeling Steel Corp. announced an average price increase of $6 a ton, the same increase that President Kennedy stifled a year ago. Then Lukens Steel Co., the nation's 20th largest producer, announced increases ranging from $5 to $7 a ton on six products. Yesterday, Republic Steel, the nation's third largest producer, followed suit with a $5.3- $4 a ton price increase on some carbon steel products.
WHETHER THE President can block further price increases remains to be seen, but it is certain that he will try. A year ago, the steel industry thought the President swung a big enough club to back down without an open fight. Whatever the President's club was, he did not have to use it last time. It may have been the Attorney General's office, which could bring a great deal of pressure to bear to the steel industry through anti-trust and labor laws. Whether he actually would have resorted to this sort of harassment cannot be said because he did not have to. At any rate, the industry was not then willing to risk a head-on collision.
A year ago the President had an even bigger club than the attorney general's office. He had public opinion. Everything was clearly defined. It was just like one of the old western movies on television. President Kennedy was wearing the white hat and riding the white horse, and the nasty old industrialists were wearing black hats and riding black horses.
THERE SEEMS to be some doubt about who runs the steel companies. if the directors elected by the stockholders run the steel companies, then it is up to them to decide whether the prices should be increased now. If the President runs the steel companies, then it is his decision.
The price increases announced by Republic Steel are on "selected products," which may meet the approval of the President. The steel officials seem content to try to second-guess the President's wishes instead of making their own decisions. Whatever his club may be this time, it apparently is still big enough.
— Dennis Branstiter
WRITERS IN TRANSITION. by H. Wayne Morgan (American Century, $1.65 paperback; $3.95 cloth).
BOOK REVIEWS
The casual reader, untrained in the dialectic of literary criticism, might enjoy this group of essays on seven American writers. H. Wayne Morgan makes no significant pretensions here, contending that basically what he has written are "appreciations."
There also is no particular theme, no attempt to group proliterarian novelists or social novelists. Morgan observes that he ranges from the austerity of Edith Wharton to the primitivism of Sherwood Anderson, from the formal style of Ellen Glasgow to the looseness of Thomas Wolfe, from the fatalism of Stephen Crane to the optimism of Hart Crane.
The seventh of the writers with whom he deals is Willa Cather. Morgan believes that each of his seven writers was a spokesman of cultural transition as well as literary artist, that each had a definite vision of his role as writer. He also notes that each was distinctively American.
VERSIONS OF CENSORSHIP, edited by John McCormick and Mairi MacInnes (Doubleday Anchor, $1.45).
Here is an exceptionally good anthology of basic documents and commentaries on censorship. McCormick and MacInnes go back to Milton's "Areepagitica" and move up to modern cases of censorship to offer readings that offer almost a panorama of the problem.
"Censorship and Belief," "C censorship and Fact," "C censorship and Imagination" and "Self-Censorship" are the categories the editors have selected. They analyze the basic work by Milton, discuss Milton's intolerance of Catholicism, and move on to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, Galileo and Spinoza.
In "Censorship and Fact" they consider the writings of Hobbes and Sir Julian Huxley and the recent Oppenheimer case. This section also includes analyses of censorship and the news, and there are writings here by Jefferson, De Tocqueville, Horace Walpole, Zechariah Chafee Jr. and commentators on the sale of "pernicious material."
In "Censorship and Imagination" the subject matter deals with Henry Miller, D. H. Lawrence, Germaine de Stael, George Orwell, and Shaw. "Self-Censorship" has Freud's "Dream-Censorship" and a section from Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov."
Kansas Sets Pace With Mental Health Program
By Rose Ellen Osborne
It is no longer considered either a sin or shame to be mentally ill.
Modern drugs, therapy and more widespread public education have changed the public concept of mental illness. Mental disturbance is now regarded as comparable to physical illness.
THIS NEW public awareness of the scope of the mental health problem has prompted various studies and legislation aimed at the rehabilitation of the mentally ill.
In 1955 Congress provided $1.5 million to finance a nationwide study of the mental health problem in the United States by the Joint Commission on Mental Illness, a group of experts representing 36 national organizations. They published their findings in 1961 in a booklet called "Action on Mental Health."
The commission termed the majority of U.S. mental hospitals "dumping grounds for social rejects, rather than true hospitals." It found that more than half of 500,000 patients in 277 hospitals were receiving no actual treatment, but only custodial care.
IT FOUND patients chained to their beds in Alabama. Mississippi boasted one psychiatrist for every 6,000 patients. All over the nation they saw mental hospital wards where patients had been "put away" with no hope of ever leaving the institution.
The patient has a 50-50 chance of recovering the first year. After the fifth year of hospitalization his chances for release are 99-1 against release.
"Shabby treatment of the many millions of the mentally disabled" was the subject of President John F. Kennedy's February message to Congress.
KENNEDY, WHOSE oldest sister is mentally retarded, advocated a financial stimulant that would permit expansion of the outpatient program to relieve crowded hospitals and establishment of community health centers.
Like the joint commission, Kennedy suggested that the biggest step toward solving the problem could be taken by establishing local community mental health centers in the community at the grass-roots of American society.
KENNEDY ASKED for $4.2 million in 1964 to plan community centers. Building would begin in 1965 under this plan with the federal government financing 45-75 per cent of the first costs and providing grants to pay the staff's salary temporarily.
"If we launch a broad new mental health program now, it will be possible within a decade or two to reduce the number of patients now under custodial care by 50 per cent or more," the President said.
Kansas now has 14 community mental health centers in 13 cities. Centers are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Emporia, El Dorado, Humboldt, Ottawa, Johnson County, Wyandotte County, Atchison, Garden City, Salina, Toneka, and Manhattan
Harvey, Crawford and Bourbon Counties have declared their intent to establish centers and each is now levying a tax.
THE KANSAS community mental health centers are all locally supported by a one-half mill levy on property owners and by fees which are determined by the size of the patient's family and his ability to pay.
The centers are manned by a psychiatrist, psychologist, and
psychiatric social worker team intended to serve a base population of 50,000. Cities requesting clinics need not have a population of 50,000, but populations smaller than 50,000 increases the financial burden on property owners, says Sue Ellermeier, information representative for the Kansas Bureau of Community Mental Health Services.
Miss Ellermeier, a psychiatrist, a psychologist and a psychiatric social worker make up the bureau. Working under the Kansas Board of Social Welfare and the Division of Institutional Management, the four staff members travel from community to community to help establish mental health centers.
ALTHOUGH THE community mental health centers are locally controlled, the bureau often acts in an advisory capacity.
Lack of funds has made it necessary to locate centers in old run-down buildings and reconverted homes.
"Like Karl Menninger, we believe we can cure people in a barn if we have the staff," Miss Ellermeier said.
KANSAS IS considered a
UNIVERSITY Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904,
changing from a weekly to a bi-weekly
University of Kansas student newmaner
Telephone Vikling 3-2700 Extension 711, news room Extension 376, business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service. 18 East 50 St. New york $2. Y. International. United States International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and holidays, and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
Fred Zimmerman ... Managing Editor
Dennis Braustiter ... Editorial Editor
Jack Cannon ... Business Manager;
leader in the field of mental health. But, according to a study by the American Psychiatric Association, Kansas is barely above average in the amount of funds it devotes to its mental hospitals.
Concerning patient care and personnel relationship Kansas is first in the nation. The average rate in the nation is 57 per cent. Kansas has a rating of 196 per cent. Kansas has 202 staff members per 100,000 persons.
Part of this can be explained by the location of Menninger's in Kansas. The private hospital has the reputation of being one of the best in the country.
BUT THIS figure is deceptive, warns Miss Ellermeier.
Treatment at Topeka State is based on the principle of psychoanalysis. Letha Swank, public information officer, said. The hospital does not employ an analyst. Patients who desire this kind of assistance must seek private help.
"There is a rapid turnover of psychiatrists. Menninger's place many in state institutions for their residency. As soon as their residency is completed, they leave the state," she said.
Staff members do not have the facilities to help patients gain deep understanding of their problem. They can only provide the means for the patient to express his repressed emotions and perhaps alleviate his anger, Miss Swank said.
Kansas has also been one of the first among the states to take the lead in experimenting with the open door policy in hospital wards. The movement to unlock the mental hospitals began in Scotland in 1949. After World War II Britain began opening the doors of its wards. New York, Delaware and Kansas tried the experiment in the
U. S. and were pleased with the results.
MANY PATIENTS at Topeka have freedom to roam the grounds. Some are allowed to go uptown shopping. Others have part-time jobs or attend high school or college classes.
The hospital has a dramatic group which takes plays out-of-town. Participation is voluntary after the patient has consultation with his doctor to see if acting suits his particular case. The hospital also sponsors excursions of busloads of patients to Kansas City to visit the art gallery.
Some mental patients awaiting transfer to a state hospital are confined in iron-walled prisons with bars on the windows. Even one night's stay in such a place creates a deep psychological impression on the patient and adds to the trauma of the experience.
KANSAS IS far ahead of many states in the field of mental health. It has three psychiatric hospitals located in Topeka, Larned and Osawatomy and three schools for the retarded in Parsons, Winfield and Topeka. Thirteen communities have established community health centers. KU has an excellent mental health clinic for college students and a guidance bureau where students may go to "talk through" their problems.
And still the old ways hang on in many states.
FORMER MENTAL patients still have difficulties securing jobs. Friends and relatives in many instances continue to treat them with curiosity and care.
The public is aware of mental health, but more education, funds and facilities are needed if the United States is to down its number one disabler.
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