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University Daily Kansan Friday, Feb. 22, 1963
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Resolution Is Ludicrous
A resolution has been introduced in the Kansas Legislature to create a committee to investigate the activities of any group considered to "have an adverse effect on schools and education in the state."
If this is the real purpose of the committee, it should investigate the Kansas Legislature as soon as it gives the state's college teachers a 4 per cent salary increase this year. The national average increase is between 6 and 7 per cent, and Kansas already is behind. A 1961 survey of Kansas education found that the state would have to give its college teachers an immediate 20 per cent salary increase just to catch up with the national average.
THE DISCREPANCY between what Kansas college teachers' salaries ARE and what they SHOULD BE will hardly encourage good teachers to stay in the state, let alone entice good teachers from other states to come to Kansas.
Since it chooses to do nothing about this situation, the Kansas Legislature must certainly be considered to be a group whose activities "have an adverse effect on schools and education in the state."
The resolution to create this committee is the direct result of a blast by C. O. Wright, executive secretary of the Kansas State Teachers Association, against the condition of the Kansas public educational system and against the state legislators.
"THEY (KANSAS legislators) lack the social concept that it is the responsibility of the state to educate the children," said Wright when interviewed at the American Association of School Administrators convention in Atlantic City, N.J.
The wounded legislators wasted no time in firing a return salvo. The Kansas House education committee already has endorsed the investigative committee suggested by Rep. Robert Finney, southeastern Kansas industrialist and vice-president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
"For some time it has been apparent there is serious question about the leadership of the state teachers' association." said Finney. "If the conditions are as bad as Mr. Wright has been quoted as saying they are, we think the Legislature is entitled to know what the facts really are from him."
These are the reasons Finney has thrown out for general public consumption.
STATE SEN. LAURIN Jones of Dodge City, chairman of the Senate committee on education, was a bit more direct in his attack on Wright.
whom he charged with having "Hitler-like ambitions" to run education in Kansas.
"I have seen nothing in public print from a man who is in high educational circles, that has done more to harm education and the state," said Sen. Jones. "This has done Kansas irreparable harm, educationally and economically."
Of course, neither Finney nor Jones has a vested interest in Wright's charges. Any increase in taxes to improve the state public educational system would not hurt an industrialist like Finney. And the damage done the state image by Wright's statements is of no interest to Finney as a chamber of commerce officer. And Jones, as a state senator, has no vested interest in criticism leveled at the Legislature.
THE CHAIN OF EVENTS is almost ludicrous.
(1) Wright criticizes the Legislature.
(2) The Legislature assumes that since there is obviously nothing wrong with itself, something must be wrong with Wright.
(3) So a committee must be appointed to find out what is wrong with Wright.
This would be a purely investigative committee, for the conclusions are already known Wright is wrong. All the committee needs to do is investigate until it finds proof for those who are not quite convinced of the infallibility of the Legislature.
This committee is one of the most creative ideas to come out of the Kansas Legislature in years. It should be made permanent.
It could be called the House Uncomplimentary Activities Committee. But no, this might be confused with the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). A better name for the Kansas committee would be the Kansas Uncomplimentary Activities Committee (KUAC—pronounced quack).
THIS COMMITTEE could be ready at all times to investigate critics of the Kansas Legislature. Its job would be to find out what is wrong with these critics, for anyone who criticizes the Kansas Legislature must certainly be wrong. Such critics should be exposed before they can do too much damage to the state's image.
KUAC should start investigating all this nonsense before the Wright-thinkers take over the state and ruin the now-perfect Kansas Legislature.
—Dennis Branstiter
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
"WELL, AS HIG ADVISOR I PREDICTED HE WOULD GO FAR IN SCIENCE."
Letters
Liquor Laws
If the reasoning in your editorials in the Feb. 7 issue concerning the sale of liquor by the drink is followed, laws should be passed to allow:
1) Ten-year-olds to buy cigarettes
2) Fifteen-year-olds to buy liq- uor
5) Races on public highways and so on, since people do these things anyway.
Robert Wethington Anthony senior
3) Abortions for any reason
4) Gambling in Kansas
Short Ones
The non-conformist sees what is right and has the courage to speak up. Then he must realize he has to take the consequences. — Edwin Wilson
The toughest day in our lives comes when we leave the womb of family, friends and school and venture forth to live alone. The brave ones never turn back—Thomas Fox.
It is simply not possible for small oases of prosperity in the world to continue to exist amidst vast deserts of poverty without endangering storms that might engulf those oases.—B. K. Nehru
One Mistake Is Too Many
(Editor's note: This column is an open letter to the members of the Kansas House Judiciary Committee, who are now considering a bill to revise the state's capital punishment laws.)
Gentlemen:
You have before you today a bill which seeks abolition of capital punishment in the state of Kansas.
You are plagued from all sides by opposing views on this bill. Some insist that man is sacred; that no man—regardless of reasons—can take the life of another. Others seek only revenge, asking anew "an eye for an eye."
NO DOUBT some of your number have solidified their positions on this question. But these remarks are directed to those who have not yet become sure and confident in their opinions and who have not yet become devoid of feeling.
Gentlemen, if you believe in freedom, you cannot in the same breath endorse capital punishment.
If I were to poll you, man by man, seeking to find what it is which makes our system so fine and pleasing, all of you would answer "the freedom we possess."
HOW HAVE WE come to have this freedom? It has come to us, not overnight, gentlemen, but through a slow and painful process, lasting hundreds of years and encompassing thousands of seemingly uncohesive steps.
You have often heard of these steps, and on a 4th of July or on Lincoln's Birthday, you are the first to preach of their magnificence. The rights of habeas corpus, and of due process, and of judicial review—you know them all.
In the main, gentlemen, these processes have worked to an amazing degree of effectiveness. The rights of man have come to mean much more than mere philosophical dreams—they have become the law of the land.
But occasionally, these rights are led astray, and what is termed a "miscarriage of justice" occurs.
In British and American legal history can be found examples of men who have been tried, convicted—and then executed—for crimes of which they were innocent. It is here, gentlemen, that injustice tips the scales and justice is reduced to nothingness.
IT IS A marvelous truth that such instances are rare. But gentleman, one such instance is too many.
The irony here, gentlemen, is that such deviations need not occur.
When a man is executed for a crime he did not commit, our legal system, and the greatness that pervades it, becomes a mockery, and it is reduced to the barbaric state from which it arose. When innocent men die, justice is justice no more—it is damnation.
You have in your hands today the ability to make better that which is already great. You have in your hands that which you hold so sacred and so inviolate. You have in your hands the basic freedom of men—life.
No matter that 40 or 40,000 or 40 million murderers continue living. No matter that cries for vengeance harangue your ears. No matter—if one innocent man still holds life in his frame.
FOR IF THE innocent remain alive, hope also remains alive for their release from false condemnation. And it is this, gentlemen, that personifies freedom. It is this that you must preserve.
The case before you, gentlemen, is simple. If you believe in the essential dignity of man, and if you believe that man was, indeed, "endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights," you cannot search your heart and then vote "aye" for capital punishment. You cannot admit that capital punishment is right, nor just, nor tolerable.
It is said that no innocent man has gone to the gallows in this state. It matters not. If an innocent man is never executed in Kansas, it matters not. What matters is the knowledge that we in Kansas had the vision and the ability to provide against the damning fluctuations of fate.
It is utopian to hope that you gentlemen will pass this bill. But if ever an innocent man is hanged in Kansas, his death, my friends, will be upon your souls.
—Zeke Wigglesworth
Daily Transan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Extension 711, news room
Extension 376, business office
Telephone Vikking 3-2700
Member Inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $3 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. University holidays, and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
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