Page 2 University Daily Kansan Monday, Feb. 4, 1963 End Capital Punishment A bill has been introduced into the Kansas Legislature which proposes to abolish capital punishment. It should be passed; the arguments supporting the death penalty are tenuous, augering around the stone age philosophy of an eye for an eye. The willful taking of human life is totally repugnant to civilized man. This is true whether it be practiced by the State in the name of justice no less than when practiced by an individual. It does little to serve as a deterrent to crime and it certainly fails as an absolution of the criminal act. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT is barbaric and serves mainly to ignore the existence of the circumstances and conditions which contributed to causing the punishable offense. Capital punishment neither improves society nor purges society of the conditions which caused and will continue to cause man to break the laws. Capital punishment suppresses and discourages the use of science to accurately determine the cause of the criminal act and the use of this knowledge to prevent future crimes. Capital punishment acts to preserve a practice traceable to witch-burning and the Inquisitions. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT can have no place Capital punishment resigns society and man to the dogma that society and its members have progressed as far as they shall ever progress. in any society which purports to base its existence on reason and rationality. Capital punishment is the easy way out. A murderer or kidnapper is afforded the guarantee of due process of law; he is told what he is charged with; he is given legal counsel, whether he be rich or poor; his fate is determined by a jury of 12 peers; if guilty, all avenues of appeal are open. THEN, THIS SAME set of laws which affords each man this fair treatment, exacts justice in Kansas by marching him into a bleak warehouse room where he climbs 13 steps, a bag is placed over his head, a rope tightened around his neck, and finally he meets justice by a broken neck or strangulation. It is significant that this barbaric, animal act is carried out in a bleak warehouse. This practice could not stand the rightful repugnance that would result from publicly choking a human being. The warehouse at the Kansas Penitentiary need not be left unused. It would be an excellent spot to store the statute which orders the killing of human beings in the name of justice. —Terry Murphy THE IMMORTALS, by James Gunn (Bantam, 40 cents). Jim Gunn would be the first to deny that his new science fiction novel pretends to be anything more than science fiction. Yet, without contending for it any eternal status, this reader wishes to speak for it as a dark and incredible tale that makes some sharp commentaries on our society and its values. Like most books of importance it speaks to us about things which are of great importance to us. In this case, the things are life and death. His people are the possessors of frightening information, the fact that certain persons within our society have blood so constituted that, barring accident or violent death, they have immortality. This makes them valuable, but only to those persons who want this precious blood to ensure their own long lives. There results a vicious dog-eat-dog society in which the organs and the blood of sound and healthy individuals are fair game for doctors, men of science, and "wolf packs" that roam the countryside looking for victims. A fantasy, yes. But doesn't this book say something to us about our materialistic drives, our selfishness, our cultism about science or anything else in education that strikes our current fancy? This is a disturbing story. Like John Hersey's "The Child Buyer," it is a book that has subject matter we would rather not think about in these wild days of trying to compete with the Russians on every possible level.-CMP MASTERPIECES OF WAR REPORTING, edited by Louis L. Snyder (Messner, $10). * * Beginning with the 1939 assault on Poland, and ending with the death of Seyss-Inquart at Nuremberg, Louis L. Snyder has compiled accounts of World War II into an anthology that is almost flawless. If there is a fault it is in Snyder's seeming absorption with the European war, for accounts of Pacific battles are not nearly as numerous. Yet this is pit-picking. Besides being excellent journalistic accounts, these stories total up to a history of the war itself. There is little duplication, though to provide stories from the Russian side there are several stories by such persons as Iva Ehrenburg. Such radio newsmen as Edward R. Murrow also are over-represented. But many other writers are included here. They include novelists such as Hemingway, Steinbeck and Caldwell; correspondents such as Quentin Reynolds, Leland Stowe, Harrison Salsbury and William Laurence; radio newsmen such as William L. Shirer, Howard K. Smith and Eric Sevareid; photographers such as Margaret Bourke-White; theatrical critics such as John Mason Brown and Brooks Atkinson, and such diverse figures as Lippmann, Gertrude Stein, Rebecca West, Hugh Baillie and Carlos P. Romulo. There is only one story by Ernie Pyle. Edward Kennedy's controversial scoop of the Nazi surrender is here. Bernard Berenson tells about the destruction of works of art in Florence. Walter Cronkite goes on a raid over Germany. Kingsbury Smith describes the executions at Nuremberg. One would be hard put to find a best among these writings. But few can skip over the description of Buchenwald, or Laurence's story of the bombing of Nagasaki, or Lippmann's tribute to the dead Roosevelt, or the story of Hess parachuting into Scotland, or the vivid accounts of the battle of Stalingrad. Historians, journalists and casual readers—all will value this excellent new book—CMP Letters Letters to the Editor The following policies concern letters to the editor in the Kansan this semester: All letters must be typewritten and double-spaced. All letters should be limited to one typewritten double-spaced page. Longer letters will be published only if the editorial editor is convinced that the ideas expressed cannot be covered adequately in a shorter letter. All letters must be signed, although names will be withheld if sufficient reasons are given by the writer. Dennis Branstetter Editorial Editor Cheerleaders What did Terry Murphy's sarcastic rebuttal (Jan. 14, Ponderables) of the cheerleaders prove? It proved to me that the Daily Kansan staff sticks up for the Daily Kansan staff, right or wrong, giving Tim Hamill's accusation (that the Kansan acts more like an independent newspaper than an instrument of the school body, Jan. 8, Who Lacks School Spirit?) more ground to stand on. The article did not help to clear up the issue, but made it stink more. Why doesn't the staff reread the ASC constitution to find out to whom it owes allegiance — the Kansan writers themselves, or the student body? Jo Neff Wichita freshman UNIVERSITY Daily Hansan University of Kansas student newspaper Founded 1889, become biweekly 1904, 2005. Telephone Viking 3-2700 Extension 711, news room Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represen- ted by National Advertising Service. 18 East 50 St, New York, NY United States. International. Mail subscription rates: $2 a semester or $3 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and weekends, and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas. NEWS DEPARTMENT Extension 711, news room Extension 376, business office Fred Zimmerman Managing Editor Ben Marshall, Bill Sheldon Nickle Miller, Art Minter, Margaret Catthew Assistant Managing Editor Steve Rave City Editor Steve Clark Sports Editor Trudy Merseve and Jackie Stern Co-Society Editors Murrel Bland Photograph Editor Mike Miller Art Miller Margaret EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT Denver Editor Terry Murphy Assist Editorial Editor BADTMENT BUSINESS DEPARTMENT Jack Cannon ... Business Manager; Jim Stevens, Asst. Business Mgr; Joe Hammond ... Adjuvant; Ame Zabornik ... Circulation Mer; Brooks Harrison Classified Mgr; Bob Bohns National Adv. Mgr; Charles Brown National Adv. Mgr; Bill Finley, Merchandising Mgr. Rush Rat Race Strains Students See that KU coed with her mouth frozen into a concrete-like smile? She belongs to a sorority. She wants to frown, but she can't. For the past two days she has spent all her free time hiding in a closet and trying to frown. It's a little cramped in there, but if someone catches her frowning before rush is over, she may be investigated by the Panhellenic Unororitylike Activities Committee (PUAC). SHE HAS FOUND a closet without a telescreen, so she spends all seven minutes and 23 seconds of her free time every day trying to force her paralyzed facial muscles into a frown. Today she will try again despite lagging confidence. As if this problem were not enough, she also is unable to close her eyes. She has forgotten how. She asked three of her sorority sisters, but they have forgotten, too. One girl thought she remembered, but she has to use so much makeup to hide the dark circles around her eyes that she couldn't close them anyway. A PATHETIC SIGHT—that stonily smiling face chattering gayly in complete silence. She would like to stop going through the soundless motions, but she is afraid PUAC will think she has the wrong attitude. Even if she could remember, she couldn't tell anyone. She keeps trying to speak through her concrete smile, but no sound comes out. Her tongue moves, and her lips move a little in spite of the smile, but her vocal cords have been paralyzed by cigarettes, coffee and endless conversations. Happy silent movies to her. SHE WANTS TO pledge Beta Phi Delta. And all the Beta Delts want her to be in their new pledge class. But she can't tell them what she wants to do. And they can't tell her what they want her to do. This is all part of the big secret. Everyone just keeps on smiling and making small talk and giving nonsensical skits and laughing at the appropriate times and not laughing at the appropriate times. This is the way the game is played. See that freshman girl with the puzzled look on her face? She is going through scority rush. She isn't sure what is going on. But that's all right because she isn't supposed to talk about it anyway. Everything is a big secret. - * * Why? Because this is the way the game is played. Happy fun and games to her. THE RECORD GETS stuck here. His finals are over and he has somehow slipped through another semester without going on scholastic probation. He has had 14 hours of sleep for five consecutive nights and has taken a three-hour nap every afternoon. He eased through enrollment in only two hours without getting any Saturday classes, 7:30 a.m. classes, or 4:30 p.m. TGIF-day classes. See that KU male whose hands are shaking so badly that he can't light his cigarette? Happy fun and games to her. HIS CHECKING ACCOUNT, which had listed his total assets as minus 39 cents since two weeks before final week, has been replenished by relieved parents glad to see that their pride and joy has scraped one semester closer to the almighty diploma. With all this good fortune at once, why is he still unable to get a cigarette and a match at the same point in space at the same time? With all this good fortune at once, why is he still unable to get a cigarette and a match at the same point in space at the same time? His girl is involved in that mystic between-semester rite known as sorority rush. Enough said? Happy end of sorority rush to everyone. —Dennis Branstiter LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler "AT LEAST HE'S MY INTELLECTUAL EQUAL — WE'RE BOTH ON PROBABILITY."