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University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, Feb. 19, 1963
ASC-Afghanistanism
When the All Student Council elections roll around next spring, the student body should give careful consideration to government by anarchy.
The best variety would be an off-beat derivation of the classic no-vote, general strike theory. We should elect a candidate who would promise to do nothing and then live up to his promise. It would be a refreshingly honest approach.
Not that there is anything particularly wrong with the All Student Council voicing its opinion on the way that the University of Mississippi is run; it's the sort of thing every clear-thinking American should do—a moral obligation.
THE PRESENT SYSTEM gives birth to platitudinous talkie-talk during the campaign, but about the only campaign words that ever find their way into action concern safe issues or issues so far away that KU students get none of the benefits, assuming there are some.
HAS THE ASC done anything to smooth out the student reserved seat plan for football? Its last action was to approve a plan whereby students would buy their seats for football in return for a guaranteed, reserved spot.
But what about the student body at the University of Kansas? Are the matters directly affecting KU students too mundane to deserve consideration by the ASC?
The plan works somewhat less than perfectly; there are no officials to remove a person who has commandeered another's "reserve" seat, to pinpoint one flaw.
If the ASC would stop writing resolutions for a little while it could arrange for students to
sell their used books at the Kansas Union Book Store at some other time than during final week.
How do we know this? Mr. James Stoner, manager of the bookstore, said that he knew of no reason why at least one day after final week could not be set aside for buying students' books when it would be more convenient for the students.
But there is a minor catch: the ASC members of the governing committee should bring it up. The ASC would have to stop writing resolutions to Mississippi long enough to take care of KU students' interests.
IT'S NOT THAT the ASC is incapable of doing something when the members so decide. It's just that they decide a resolution on Mississippi is more important than a student at KU being able to sit in his "reserved" seat.
The noise created during elections is almost unbearable, not to mention predictable. The candidates concentrate on deprecating the opponent; it is insane to expect them to address issues which might have a meaning for KU students.
For this reason it is suggested that we turn to Student Anarchy. If the student body president was elected on a campaign promise of Guaranteed Do-Nothingness, nothing would change, but it would be more honest.
THAT WAY, WITH the student body fully aware that the ASC and its leader is pledged to do nothing, the ASC could go about its normal business of doing nothing without having to take time out for pretensions.
But it's too much to hope for; all the sap that rises in the spring is not confined to trees.
—Terry Murphy
The Week in Review
This was the week of Lincoln's birthday, a week when, as historian David Donald puts it, it is necessary to get right with Lincoln. It is a necessity for all politicians, but especially Republican politicians.
Whether getting right with Lincoln automatically means raising hell with the Democrats is another matter. We are accustomed to hearing Republicans damn the Democrats on Lincoln's birthday and the Democrats damn the Republicans on Jefferson's birthday. The year before a presidential election is
always an especially good time to remind the party faithful that the rascals who are NOT in office can do a better job than the rascals who ARE.
LET US TURN to the party orators as a starting point for this weekly adventure into the London fog that constitutes today's news. Let us start with a Nebraska senator named Carl Curtis, who told the Grand Old Party in that usually Democratic state Missouri that the nation is uneasy because of Kennedy's fiscal and foreign policies—which he termed reckless,
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
power-grabbing and expensive.
Let us hear Rep. William E. Miller, a New York congressman who doubles as Republican national chairman, who told Kansas Republicans — on the safest Republican ground in the nation — that the country is headed for disaster and that his party "will win in 1964 or lose our last opportunity as free men."
I WOULDN'T REPEAT LAST NITE'S PERFORMANCE AT THE DOOR, WORTHAL - MY HOUSE MOTHER IS WATCHING YOU."
Let us consider that—without checking this point scientifically—Republican orators must have been saying similar things last week in 49 other states. And lest we forget the other party, we must turn to another speech of last week, in which a Democrat, Sen. Stuart Symington of Missouri, told Jackson Day guests in Springfield, Mo., that this nation has regained world leadership and is rapidly moving ahead.
Has the winter been too long, the weather too harsh, the days since the Cuban crisis too fraught with problems? One need not look carefully in the nation's press for stories that could only puzzle a visitor from outer space. In a country known for its crass materialism, its veneration of the second-rate, its preference for the Beverly Hill-billies over the Philadelphia Orchestra, one could puzzle over the current craze over art.
A columnist noted that one of the great moments of history took place recently when the Mona Lisa passed Whistler's Mother on the Jersey turnpike, both paintings in this country through courtesy of Charles de Gaulle. Art has become a commodity in international diplomacy — an export like Sophia Loren, Louis Armstrong, Danny Kaye, or the Porgy and Bess
(Continued on page 3)
New Africa Tries U.S. Diplomats
The last three years probably have brought sleepless nights and bleeding ulcers to American diplomats concerned with African affairs.
Since 1960, a vintage year, more than 20 nations have become independent in Black Africa. The history of American relations with these new nations since that time has been a tangled mess of hurt African feelings and U.S. diplomatic faux pas.
THE PEACE CORPS, for example, is still trying to forget the "post card girl." Margery Michelmore. She wrote home about living conditions in Nigeria, and a riot resulted when the Nigerians read her remarks.
The State Department is having a terrible time explaining to Africans what a "senator" is after Sen. Allen Ellender of Louisiana laid about 40 eggs on his recent African tour. (He made the mistake of saying publicly what most diplomats say only in private.)
In many instances, what happens to Negroes in this country has immediate repercussions in Black Africa. Many a diplomat feels his hand become sweaty when an African asks him about Oxford or Little Rock.
MUCH HARM has been done, also, by racial discrimination against visiting Black African United Nations delegates who try to eat in restaurants on the road from New York to Washington.
It has often appeared that the charges made in "The Ugly American" about the State Department's lack of skill and diplomatic know-how are true.
But adding greatly to the garbled, unsure Afro-American relations are two things quite beyond the control of U.S. diplomacy: the Africans themselves, and critics of the "New" Africa in the United States.
That picture persists today, perhaps with just cause. As one writer has said, "in the interior (of Africa) men still live in bush huts. Some wear skins, some walk naked. But elsewhere, there are television sets and modern homes."
UNTIL RECENTLY, the only picture Americans had of Black Africa was one of hot jungles and scantily-clad natives—a land where Tarzan roamed and lions abounded. The African was a child, living in squalor and Stone Age simplicity, just as his ancestors had for a thousand years.
For many people in the United States, the idea of independence for Black Africa is ridiculous. These critics point to African states with populations in the millions—and only a dozen or so college graduates. They point to the literacy rates in most Black African states, sometimes as low as 10 per cent.
THE LACK OF stability in Black Africa adds fuel to these critics' fires. In Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah lives in constant fear of assassination, and it was only a few months ago that Sylvanus Olympio, the pro-western leader of Togo, was shot and thrown on the steps of the American embassy.
In Nigeria, the largest of the Black African states, the government of Abubakar Balewa is continually threatened with revolt.
When the British gave Ghana its independence, they left a cash reserve of $700 million. It has now been depleted to $210 million.
The leaders of the Black African states must overcome superstition, ignorance and disease to raise their countries up. The jump from the pages of an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel into the mechanized 20th century is a long one, and one that calls for patience.
The rise of Black Africa will be slow and painful, and the future of American diplomats seems to hold more sleepless nights and more bleeding ulcers.
THE UNITED STATES has a vital interest in Africa. With the potential power of Black Africa yet to be tapped, the next few formative years are significant. It may be important to be on friendly terms with Black Africa when that power potential is fully realized. In addition, the Russians and the Chinese Communists are becoming increasingly active in Africa. It is thus important to the United States that the Black African states remain pro-western, or at least neutral.
And in spite of Sen. Ellender and Co., it just might be worth it.
—Zeke Wigglesworth
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