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University Daily Kansan Thursday, Feb. 21, 1963
Vandals Miss Target
A new craze has taken hold of students here: hurling beer cans and stones through the windows of the traffic control stations located on the perimeter of the campus.
This is big stuff. It is an open display of rebellion against oppressive authority. Throwing beer cans through windows is the highest embodiment of the revolutionary spirit.
But it just happens also to be rather expensive.
JUST WHOSE WAGON do the beercanthrowing revolutionaries think they are fixing? The money to fix the windows does not come from the pockets of the much-hated campus police, or even from the paycheck of the oppressive administration.
If the anguish-venting strong-arms stopped and thought they would realize that the taxpayers of Kansas foot the bill. And unless the beer can throwers have been imported by a foreign agency, their parents are included among the taxavers of Kansas.
Perhaps the vandals have taken a basic course or two in social psychology or sociology and believe that the windows are symbols of the oppressive forces stultifying Free Will and Individualism.
Whatever their motivation it is time to cease and desist. However accurate their throwing arms may be, they miss the target. They bite their collective nose to spite their face.
IF IT IS REVENGE they seek, they should go to the source of their problem, which is rooted in the number of cars at the University.
Where then should they strike to resolve the problem? Let us think big. How about beer cans through the windows of the offices of General Motors and Ford Motor Co?
After all, as the two leading producers of automobiles, their handiwork has been instrumental in the surplus of cars at KU.
But perhaps there is still a better solution. Although it would be painful, it should bring success.
The first step would be to drill in the skulls of the malcontents a hole large enough to permit a hypodermic needle to reach the brain.
Then all that would remain to be done would be to shoot a few cc's of Jonas Salk's polio vaccine into the trouble area.
Surely it would work; it prevents paralysis of the limbs. Maybe it could cure infantile paralysis of the brain.
—Terry Murphy
Southeast Asia
Chinese Loyalty Questionable
By Jerry Musil
The overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia constitute a political problem with pronounced economic overtones.
An overseas Chinese is a person whose ancestors were born in China and were citizens of that country, and who migrated to some other area of the world. But the distinguishing feature of the overseas Chinese is not their foreign birth or that of their parents and ancestors, but their continued identification with China.
AN OVERSEAS Chinese, even though he does not maintain or claim citizenship in either Communist China or Nationalist China, does not seek or even accept naturalization in the country he lives in.
The Chinese in Southeast Asian countries retain close ties with their Chinese ancestry. They form purely Chinese organizations, support their own school system and encourage marriage only within their group. They are a nationalistic group, but their loyalties are outside the country of their residency.
There are between 10 to 15 million overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. The earliest known Chinese migrations to Southeast Asia have been traced as far back as the third century before Christ, during the Han dynasty. But the period of greatest migration was around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.
THE OVERSEAS Chinese, because of their resistance to assimilation and questionable loyalties have caused considerable political problems for the host governments. The loyalty of the Chinese in case of a clash with China is a vexing and unresolved problem for Southeast Asian governments.
A degree of Communist sympathies can be expected of the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. The reason most often cited for this fascination for Communist China is its position
of increasing power and influence in world politics and especially in Asia. The Chinese in Southeast Asia can observe the effect of Red China on the smaller and weaker Southeast Asian countries and feel proud of the position of their motherland. They associate themselves with that power. They believe that the powerful Red giant will look out for their interest in Southeast Asia.
Communist and Communist-sympathizers are most often recruited from the Chinese communities in the Southeast Asian countries. This is really not too surprising. The Chinese usually comprise the poorest urban class and are ripe for the promises of Communism. And since they still consider themselves Chinese, they naturally would choose the government of the homeland. This makes them vulnerable to the appeals of Communist China.
ALTHOUGH THE overseas Chinese worry the governments of the countries in which they live, these governments cannot control the Chinese population because of the hold the Chinese have on the economy.
In almost all the Southeast Asian countries, the Chinese have gained control of the economy. Their natural acumen for business led them into banking and other businesses. At first, they were welcomed by the host countries because of the shortage of trained natives. But now their stranglehold on the economy coupled with their possible
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, become biweekly 1904,
published monthly 1936.
loyalty to the Red giant has caused the countries to take a cautious second look at their Chinese populations.
THIS SAME statement could be made for other nations in Southeast Asia. Any stringently enforced restriction of Chinese business activity would wreak havoc with the business structure, unless adequately trained substitutes for the Chinese were provided and the state assumed control of the economy.
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In South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem has tried to incorporate the Chinese into the Vietnamese community. He has offered citizenship to the Chinese and has lifted many of the trade and business restrictions against Chinese participation. But he has not been very successful.
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Many of the countries have taken harsh restrictive measures against the Chinese. William Skinner, an American who has made a detailed study of the role of the Chinese in the Thai economy, found that there are 200 Chinese leaders who, by means of business associations, interlocking directorates and intermarriage, control the major part of the Thai economy.
Extension 711, news room Extension 376, business office
BOTH THE Chinese Communists and the Chinese Nationalists recognize the importance of gaining the allegiance of the overseas Chinese. And both countries have made overtures for their loyalty.
Red China, for instance, has established an Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission which is under the direct control of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Through this commission, the Communists have infiltrated the Chinese-supported schools and from there have moved into trade unions, secret societies and political organizations.
The Nationalists have sent textbooks which are on their "approved" list to the Chinese schools. And they accept about 4,000 Chinese students for study on Formosa each year The
(Continued on page 3)
Clarity Clashes With Euphemisms
Some strange things are being done to the English language. Newspapers are finally beginning to use raped instead of euphemisms like "attacked" or "assaulted." And others have finally conceded that dead persons have died instead of "passed on."
But the "attacks" and "assaults" on the language continue.
"PUBLIC SERVANTS" are leading the pack in their drive for titles that sound nice instead of describe the work performed. Tulsa and New Orleans have been particularly creative in this area.
Downtown New Orleans policemen are now called "community relations officers." And the Tulsa municipal dog catcher is called the "city humane officer."
Both these titles have the two main qualifications for a good euphemism. They sound "nice" and they do not clearly describe the things they represent.
THE MAN WHO dumps cans of garbage into a garbage truck is no longer a garbage collector. He has been raised to the exaulted position of sanitation engineer. The man who shuffles down the hall pushing a broom is no longer a janitor—he is a maintenance engineer. And the junk man is now called a salvage engineer.
Another area loaded with titles meeting these qualifications is engineering, a profession whose subdivisions are steadily increasing in number. The standard classifications of electrical, chemical, mechanical, civil and aeronautical engineering are being smothered under a deluge of euphemisms trying to take on some of the prestige of the engineering profession.
All the euphemistic titles do not try to hide under the more prestigious name of a respected profession. Some of the nation's new "professionals" are satisfied to merely dress up their less than high sounding titles.
Hair dressers call themselves beauticians and cosmetologists. Telephone operators are called "secretaries of communication" by an Illinois telerehone company. And in Milwaukee, the hod carriers have decided that they are mason laborers.
The euphemism game is not all new. In 1928 the National Fertilizers Association changed its name to the National Association of Plant Food Manufacturers.
EUPHEMISMS PENETRATE even the rarified atmosphere here on the Hill. Daily Kansan ads tell the reader where he can purchase his "favorite beverage," whatever that might be. There is reason to suspect that this beverage is beer, although this word will never be found in a Kansan ad.
A more reputable example concerns students from other nations studying at KU. Someone has decided that they should be called international students instead of foreign students. This new label implies that these students have no country, which surely is not the case at all. There certainly is nothing derogatory about calling a foreign student a foreign student.
This eupherism cannot justify itself even by claiming to sound "nicer." It merely replaces a clear identification with vague substitute.
Something worthwhile might be accomplished by a movement to clarify terms that are now obscure. But precision in the English language is already sufficiently difficult without clouding those terms that are now clear.
We language engineers are having enough trouble now.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
"PUT YOU NEVER WEAR A SWEATER TO CLASS—HOW DO YOU EXPECT TO PASS THIS COURSE?"