KANSAN COMMENT
hearing voices Union in retrospect
To the editor:
The memory of KU's Classes of 1920, 1921, 1922 and 1923 was brought to the minds of thousands of KU students, past and present, Tuesday morning. For as we look at the desecration of the Kansas Union, one of the nation's greatest student traditions, respected by colleges and universities everywhere, has been scarred.
As a former KU student, I know that our minds now must turn to the rebuilding of the one campus structure that has always been so much a part of everyday life on Mount Oread. But at this same time, may I take a few minutes to remind today's students of the gutsy techniques and sweat that those classes, fifty years ago, put forth to build the Kansas Union?
Three years ago, this story was related to me by Dr. Forrest C. "Phog" Allen in a personal interview for a book that I was compiling on American traditions in school pep and spirit.
In 1919, America's bigger universities were enhancing their stature with construction of giant football stadiums and student union buildings to help attract attention and increase enrollment. KU was behind. Student committees had been fighting to replace a rickety 2,000-seat wooden stadium. Their funding appeals to alumni in Wichita, Kansas City and Lawrence had been ignored. It would take a million dollars. Too many people said, "Too much money. Impossible. It's never been done here before."
KU had a below-average football team in those years. Nevertheless, we were scheduled to play powerful Nebraska—some boys that outweighed us by over 20 pounds per man. Undefeated Nebraska. Awesome even in 1919. But KU went to Lincoln anyway. Astounding everyone, the Jayhawks outscored the big boys 26-20, but the last touchdown was called back. The game ended a 20-20 tie. But it was like a crashing victory. The KU student body was estatic. (Dr. Allen says this is an understatement!)
Riding on an unprecedented wave of enthusiasm, the football team returned to Lawrence. A cheerleader realized the occasion and rose to it. Receiving permission from Chancellor Lindley, yell captain Shirley K. Winsor (a male cheerleader, by the way) called an all-student assembly for 10:00 Monday morning
"KU is no longer a small, Midwestern prairie college," Winsor told the 4,000 students assembled in Robinson Gymnasium. "Our parents and alumni across the state have denied us a stairway to excellence; a new stadium." Cheers and the Rock Chalk chant. Then Winsor made the big push. The 4,000 students of the University of Kansas retired to classes that morning after having pledged $60-a-man to spark the fund drive. Close to a quarter million total.
The results: a student-led and managed campaign that ended with the building of the Memorial Stadium and the Kansas Memorial Union.
Students built the University of Kansas. Names of unselfish students dot the campus. Pearson. Douthart. Corbin. Ellsworth. Learned. Who dares to desecrate the students of the University?
There are more than a few who are asking that question this morning.
Randy Neil
9302 W. 87th Terrace
Overland Park
\* \* \*
To the editor:
Ron Chanutin's plea in the Kansan of April 24, was just what was needed to get me to pick up the banner for a "Vociferous Majority" so badly needed everywhere in this land. To see someone taking the courage to speak out gave me the courage to do the same.
I hope the curfews will make people realize what Negroes have had to put up with in this country for more than 300 years. Rev. Sundbye of the First Methodist Church had to make that completely clear to me; like he said, maybe you wouldn't have done anything anyway, but the fact that you weren't allowed to do anything made the dormitories, Greek houses, apartments and homes in Lawrence just like prisons.
As I see it, one must come to the realization that the seat of our problems is the refusal of so many, myself included at times, to regard their fellow human beings, regardless of color, creed, national origin, or sex, as fellow, and with equal right, inhabitants of this globe—as neighbors. To dislike or hate someone because he or she is different is ridiculous, all the more so because it is easy. To like or love people for what they are is most difficult, but, for me, that is what makes life such an adventure and challenge.
Leon M. Green Rapid City, S.D., junior
To the editor:
As a January 1970 graduate of KU, I am not surprised at the fire bombing that greatly damaged the south wing of the Kansas Union. What is surprising is the length of time it is taking for the great majority of the students to get involved in the problems at the University. I believe that they came to the University to get an education. But what they do not seem to realize is that actions like the Kansas Union fire work the greatest hardship on them. They are the ones who are being deprived of the use of the bookstore. Most want to see changes made at the University in both race relations and social responsibility. Unfortunately, a few such as those responsible for the fire bombing are not concerned enough with education and change.
I believe that repression and further denial of rights will be the outcome of the continuing silence of the majority, a few of whom know the individual or individuals responsible. To the guilty I can say beware of the anger of your peers, because once pushed to the active point they will be more difficult to deal with than any University administration could possibly be.
However, as long as this silent majority remains silent, it will continually be denied its rights and the University will remain a center of turmoil. The educational function of the University will be no more.
John A. Bouie
43 Jones St., Newark, N.J.
To the editor:
Who was this group—these individuals—whose demands were not met, whose rights were trampled, and what connection did they have to the Union fire? What rights, what privileges, what prerogatives were denied this group that burning the Kansas Union would retrieve? What deed done to these people was so intolerable that warranted the destruction of the rights, privileges, and opportunities of 16,000 people at the University of Kansas who might otherwise have used the Union facilities peacefully and productively?
Those whose actions resulted in the Union fire either by choice of deliberate action, or by chance of circumstance owe the people of Kansas, the students, and the Alumni the answers to these questions. Furthermore, the students, faculty, and citizens of Lawrence had best reappraise where they stand, lest the University be wiped out before the "slate is wiped clean!"
Gregory L. Lauver (B.A. Kansas 1969)
Northwestern Medical School
710 N. Lake Shore Drive Chicago
710 N. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago
Griff & the Unicorn
BY SOKOLOFF
$ \textcircled{c} $ David Sokoloff 1970
Carefully, Mr. Nixon
Washington window
'When I said we were withdrawing from Vietnam, I didn't say by what route.'
By STEWART HENSLEY UPI Diplomatic Reporter
WASHINGTON (UPI)—Events in Southeast Asia have reached a point where President Nixon must proceed with extreme caution lest he be trapped in the political quicksands that pulled down President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Expanded Communist military operations in Cambodia, together with the continued strategic position of Hanoi's forces in Laos, have underlined the fact that Vietnam cannot be dealt with in isolation.
The savage Communist military reaction against the Cambodian government which ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk has made it clear that what the United States must deal with in Southeast Asia is a war involving all Indochina and not just Vietnam.
That is why some high officials in the Nixon administration are willing now to admit that Nixon's Vietnamization program—even if it works—is the answer to only part of the fateful issue facing the President.
The idea of bolstering Cambodian forces to fight against the 40,000 Hanoi and Viet Cong troops in the eastern part of that country, while South Vietnamese forces attack them from the other side, has considerable appeal for military strategists.
However, the President and his top advisers must weigh the political consequences of such a move, which might well draw the United States into an even wider war in the area.
Secretary of State William P. Rogers has urged action by "the international community to protect and restore the independence and neutrality of Cambodia."
He has branded the 40,000 Communist Vietnamese troops that originally went into eastern Cambodia—using it as a sanctuary from the war in South Vietnam—as outright aggressors threatening the very independence of all Cambodia.
While providing limited military supplies to Cambodia, the United States has made its first effort to deal with the increased peril in Southeast Asia by psychological and diplomatic tactics.
Such a statement could be interpreted as laying the groundwork for justifying direct U.S. military intervention within the framework of the "Nixon Doctrine" proclaimed at Guam.
However, Rogers for the time being is using it instead as the basis for bringing new pressure on the Soviet Union and other countries which were involved in the Geneva conferences on Indochina to take a hand in the situation and try to force Hanoi to negotiate.
An All-American college newspaper
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Kansan Telephone Numbers
Kansas Telephone Numbers
Newsroom—UN 4-3646 Business Office—UN 4-358
Published at the University of Kansas daily during the academic year except holidays and examination periods Mail subscription rates: $6 a semester, $10 a year. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kan. 66044. Accommodations, goods, services and employment advertised offered to all students without regard to color, creed or national origin. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of Kansas or the State Board of Regents.
NEWS STAFF
News Adviser . . . James W. Murray
Managing Editor ... Ken Peterson
Campus Editor ... Ted Iliff
News Editor ... Donna Shrader
Editorial Editors ... Joe Naas, Monroe Dodd, Mike Rieke
Sports Editors ... Bruce Carnahan, Steve Shriver
Makeup Editors ... Charlie Cape, George Wilkens
Wire Editor ... Ken Cummins
Women's Page Editors ... Linda Loyd, Carolyn Bowers
Artists and Reviews Editors ... Geneleli Richards, Rich Geary
Assistant News Editors ... Wade Phillips, Hill Walker
Assistant News Editors ... Cass Sessor, Robin Stewart
Photographers ... Ron Bishop, Bruce Bernstein, Randy Leffingwell
Business Manager Jerry Bottenfield
Assistant Business Manager Mike Banks
Advertising Managers Larry Cates, Joan Bos
National Advertising Manager Oscar Bassinson
Classified Manager Shelley Bray
Promotion Manager Jim Huggins
Service Manager John Laglos