KANSAN COMMENT
Marshmallow day
Wednesday was a bid day for revolutions.
Wednesday was a big day for revolutions. At an outpost at the Fraser Hall entrance, five strikers sat, ready to plead with students and faculty going inside. Not for very long though, because, given a little backtalk, they lost interest. Repression, they said, was the evil of the hour.
"Your professor's next," they said, "then you."
The idea, the fruit, went dry quickly. Squeeze hard, there's no more substance in it. Get lost, fella, go on inside; I'm going to try this next guy and replenish this ephemeral but so beautiful matter that makes this strike what it is.
In the afternoon, at Strong Hall, more than a thousand students watched the strike's leaders tell what it was all about, and not to get violent and watch yourselves all around, please.
Wednesday night, Abbie Hoffman told of the day's "marshmallow revolution."
At Potter Lake, the "pleasure fair" wound on throughout the afternoon; the hours went slowly. Hoffman first appeared there, students gathering around to hear; not hearing because of the blasting band, but sitting and watching. An official U.S. Navy parachute was passed over the heads of the group around Hoffman. The band played, rhythm contrapuntal to the undulations of the parachute.
About 4 o'clock, the wind began to blow, the shadows lengthened and the air grew colder. On the side of the hill, above the rock group, sat a man in yellow golf shirt and faded blue jeans. He held a garden snake and stroked it intermittently. The band finished one song, applause rippled across the crowd, the snake-man looked up dazedly and yawned. People came, people left.
Hoffman's speech at Allen Field House fell flat. Only in reference to the war in Vietnam could he receive any exuberant applause. The right wing was there, the center was there, so was the left and so was evangelistic fervor.
Hoffman told of Abe Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin and angered the blacks.
"We're gonna destroy capitalism and with it, the twin devil of the protestant ethic," he said.
Asked outside the field house why ne had come, he replied "I'm here to rake up bread."
"We're gonna raise 500,000 stoned people to see that Bobby Seale don't get convicted," he shouted.
"This place is a drag," he said. "I'm going to Dallas, Tex."
After his speech, he said the strike was "ineffectual."
It appeared that Hoffman couldn't quite understand the strike leaders' quest to keep things non-violent. He was aware, of course, that revolution can't be made by the small percentage of the population that his cohorts and he comprised.
But he seemed to be promoting an idea he had explained earlier:
"We got to attack this country's authority, not its power. We can't attack America up in the sky, 'cause we ain't got no B-52's."
That, he said, was what the Seven had done in Chicago.
But at KU, even the attack against authority didn't come over. Students went to class, shunning the weak protestations of the sign carriers.
Three thousand stood at Strong Hall, but most did so out of curiosity. They were bored by the "Pleasure Fair." They obviously weren't ready for revolution. For that matter, neither were the strike leaders and their fellow parlor revolutionaries.
And, as this little marshmallow affair flunked Hoffman's test, so may the next.
KU isn't ready for a revolution. Perhaps the country isn't either.
Wednesday's strike only served to point out the radicals ineptness, both at finding an issue and in carrying through.
KU is a lot safer than many here and in all the little Kansas towns suspect. The University isn't going to fly apart at the seams yet.
Because Wednesday was a bad day for revolutions.
—Monroe Dodd
hearing voices—
To the editor:
Recently there appeared in the UDK, an article regarding student reaction to an all volunteer army. Some expressed negative sentiments, to a degree, but most reaction seemed to be favorable. This leads me to write in reaction to the possibility of such an army.
We are all well aware of the inadequacies of our present draft system, the main one being the conscription of persons against their will. No doubt a volunteer army would remedy this problem, but what would be the effects of this action, or more significantly, what COULD be the effects?
on an extended basis, to fit into the structural hierarchy, in this case, the military. Lines of power and support on an increased scale, would then be drawn vertically within the military structure, and allegiance would be entirely to the commanding officer or direct superior, rather than to the idea, or "ideal" of a democratic America. This could mean different generals, with different bases for power, vying with one another, and ultimately with the administration, for complete power (a la Catch 22). The situation might then become one familiar to many developing countries, that of civilian versus military government.
The chance that this would happen is only a possibility of course, but it seems to me to be a
The volunteers would be analogous to the Junior executive in a large corporation. They would no longer be temporary variables, required for short service, but would probably remain
real possibility, and one that has not been examined by most students who have voiced opinions. Prudence has always been a virtue, one that we should not now forget. The present draft system is by no means perfect, and structural changes need to be made (perhaps even to the point of a professional army), but I am not one to jump out the window of a burning building without knowing first where I will land. I am one who would not like this nation to move, as James Lawson says it might move "towards her own latent final solution—a racist Fascist state which will make Hitter look like a Sunday school troublemaker."
Dick Muther Kansas City, Mo., junior
$ \textcircled{2} $David Sokoloff 1970
'Yes sir, this is one of our most profitable oil rigs!'
Washington window
No blue-collar takers
By ARNOLD SAWISLAK
WASHINGTON (UPI)—"The average parent believes his offspring is infinitely better off making $95 a week with a white shirt on than he would be making $135 a week with coveralls and dirty fingernails.
That observation comes from William Winpisinger, vicepresident of the Machinists Union, as one explanation of the shortage of automobile mechanics—variously estimated at 100,000 to 200,000 in the United States.
It points up an attitude that may already have caused a national problem of major proportions. It is the feeling that it is demeaning for a man to spend his life working with his hands; that only "brain work" carries status and financial reward.
National Need
The problem is that despite the predictions of the automated society to come, the nation needs such workers—from hod carriers to telephone installers—and will be in trouble if no one will take such jobs.
Of course, the first part of the problem is to provide the wage incentives that will make it possible for a man or woman, however unskilled, to maintain a decent standard of living and be able at least to see the way to a better existence.
Some skilled hand work jobs now offer good pay, but frequently it is maintained at the cost of "protective" barriers that create artificial shortages of workers. It remains to be seen if electricians and plumbers, for example, will be able to maintain high pay scales if all the obstacles that now exist to free entry into those trades are removed.
One Answer
One answer for this would be for the economy to commit or require itself to pay a living wage for every full-time job from the bottom up. That is the underlying theory of minimum wage laws, but at present they are far from any such goal.
Part of the problem is getting some recognition—if only of the "jawbone" variety—from men in high-status positions.
President Nixon, announcing a program to expand construction worker training, said "one of our great national needs is the need to restore pride in a craft and to promote the dignity of skilled labor."
It seems, however, that more than ringing oratory is needed before our society begins to have genuine respect for good work, whether done in white or blue collar. It may be that the law of supply and demand will do the job.
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