KANSAN COMMENT
P
Sorel's News Service
Saving The World for Hypocrisy
SAIGON—Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker, ignoring the fact that the United States has dropped more bombs on Vietnam (North and South) than on the Axis powers during World War II, assured his audience in a recent speech that "we are engaged in fighting a limited war, for limited objectives with limited resources."
hearing voices—
To the editor:
By dealing light-heartedly with a possible curfew by-product—a baby-boom—your editorial "Curfew Damage" has neglected a more distressing result of the ban: the temporary loss of our civil liberties.
While I recognize that serious civil disorders justify curfews and states of emergency, I don't believe that conditions in Lawrence have warranted such a response. Neither fear by merchants nor by university officials nor indeed the reelection plans of a governor are adequate reasons for confining the citizens of Lawrence to their homes. Violence to our liberties is no less damaging than violence to property; both should be protected. Instead we are asked to protect one at the expense of the other.
Who pays the price? We do-students and faculty. Surely the local merchants don't. The curfew has been planned with the cooperation of the Chamber of Commerce and the late Thursday curfew preserves that traditional shopping night.
What value is my right to speak if I am
threatened with arrest after a fixed time of night? What value is the right to bail if the city police threaten to arrest me for coming to the police station to pay bail for a student? How can I protest if I am not permitted to assemble? How can I exercise my freedom of worship if the police threaten to arrest me for celebrating a religious holiday?
We hear so many voices protesting violence and claiming the frailty of our institutions—yet where are these voices now when our civil liberties prove so fragile in the state's hands. Let the police power be used in a law abiding way.
The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders ("Kerner Commission") in declaring that the preservation of "civil peace is the first responsibility of government," added a corollary that "in maintaining the rule of law, we must be careful not to sacrifice it in the name of order." Yet law—our civil liberties—was the first thing sacrificed in Lawrence this week.
David M. Katzman History Department assistant professor
hearing voices-
To the editor:
This letter is written to protest the recent Kansan review of Justice William O. Douglas' book, Points of Rebellion. I do not believe that the reviewer had as full an understanding of Justice Douglas' motivations of the burning frustrations of the oppressed peoples of the world as he should have had. Justice Douglas wrote, for the current issue of the Evergreen Review:
"Violence has no constitutional sanction; and every government from the beginning has moved against it.
"But where grievances pile high and most of the elected spokesmen represent the Establishment, violence may be the only effective response."
I do not see how a thoughtful person can help but concur with this view. There are disturbing things about violence, but one of them surely is not simply that it's being used to destroy the Establishment. The Establishment must be confronted with violence if any change of any kind is to happen at all. A recent issue of the UDK contained an article which statistically demonstrated that positive social change had taken place more often on campuses in the United States where violence and disruption had taken place.
While I have read Points of Rebellion and have been present at one of his speeches, I surely am not qualified to explain Justice William O. Douglas' position for him. However, I find it extremely vital to try to explain to others what my interpretation is of what he says.
I feel rather strongly that: (1) violence (the destruction of human life or happiness by other humans in anyway) is a basic evil ideally to be avoided but realistically to be used most sparingly; (2) force is often necessary to effect change in a society where the elites' activities are all too often (a subjective judgment) based on purely selfish motivations; (3) that "force" means the destruction of human life or happiness, that force is violence. In other words those who want to create a situation where human happiness and creativity can exist may have to destroy the happiness and lives of those who are too selfish to share the earth's riches and their own personal talents with everyone as much as possible.
The only real (and Mr. Morrissey, that disappointed, probably-draft-exempted "Kansan Staff Writer" surely did not feel obligated to present his "constructive alternatives") alternative that anyone has been able to come up with control and limit man's selfish nature is to try to convince him to "love" his fellow man in some way. I am confident that millions of humanists of all kinds are trying, all the time, to try to change man's nature through this type of psychological evolution. Sometimes I strongly suspect that this tradition, that this humanistic movement which is trying to create less selfish individuals, is failing. Then, it seems to me that the only alternative is violence. Also it seems to me that this violence can only be an alternative if it is well thought out with goals, widespread support of the oppressed and the tools for effectively destroying those parts of the "Establishment" which are harmful and for building much more humanistic and (also) efficient replacements.
It seems that the "system could be changed peacefully from within" by prayers, the psychological evolution I refer to above and by simply getting more humanitarian laws passed if the following were true:
(2) those who control society now would or could be made to obey "lawful" commands simply by telling them that they are lawful, and
(1) the problems of the oppressed peoples of the world were not so urgent as to require "CHANGE NOW"
(3) if there was actually some progress taking place using the above methods.
Those who know anything about history and public affairs know that other high public figures have often written controversial tracts, in other words, Douglas' book cannot be called inappropriate on those grounds. The purpose of public leaders is not, as Senator Shultz and Mr. Morrissey indicate, to control social change; the purpose of public leaders is to provide the best possible opportunities for the most people to attain the most happiness.
It seems to me that none of the above has taken place and it appears unlikely that they ever will. Perhaps I am too rash.
My sympathy for the truly oppressed peoples of the world, and my own great personal frustrations which have come about because of that slavery they call the Selective Service System, have created a state of mind which is very receptive to plans which call for social and legal change. My problem (for to harm anyone is truly the worst deed) is that violence could be the only way to cause social and legal change. The violence of which I speak must not be wasted. More than the beautiful sky and the rich earth, human life and happiness must be conserved. However when people and institutions who control things are selfish then violence must often be used to get them from control.
Obviously Justice Douglas is motivated by the desire to save nature, to unite the oppressed by minimizing the political effects of the generation gap and the desire to let all men be freed from the shackles of others who act selfishly so that everyone may creatively cooperate with others to really build a better world.
Jen Lough Salina junior
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