KANSAN COMMENT
Spiro on descent
After Facsimile Vice-President Spiro Agnew brilliantly compared America's radicals to animals and then said he would trade "the whole damn zoo for a platoon of the kind of young Americans (he) saw in Vietnam," I knew Agnew had finally come to understand Mark Twain's theory on Man's descent from the higher animals.
"I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the 'lower animals' (so-called)," Twain said, "and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me. For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals; since it now seems plain to me that that theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals."
A newly-found understanding of this Twain-
ian theory is the only explanation for Agnew's comparing American radicals with those species of beings which don't know napalm, nuclear armament, wiretapping, pollution or hate itself.
But in showing his new understanding of Twain's theory, Agnew has yet to make application of the advice implicit in the theory: that we should emulate the Higher Animals. For Agnew still seems to fit Twain's vision of Man as the unrepentant Lower Animal.
"In the course of my experiments I convinced myself that among the animals man is the only one that harbors insults and injuries, broods over them, waits till a chance offers, then takes revenge. The passion of revenge is unknown to the higher animals." Twain said.
Did Twain know Agnew?
Or was Twain merely a supercilious sophisticate?
Mike Shearer
The waves abate
A week having passed since copies of the Kansan took a dunking at Potter's Lake in an "act of conscience," as one participating black student called it, the waves have begun to abate.
There seems little need to drag out all of the issues again and stir up tension, but one issue still hangs heavy-at least in the air around the J-school. Several persons, including some persons whose opinions are extremely valuable, want to know why the Kansan responded to the action by taking up the black students' cause instead of criticizing the destruction of what took many man hours and many dollars to produce.
I don't think, as one friend suggested, that we equated blackness with blamelessness. I don't think we were reacting entirely as The Guilty White Liberal.
There are five reasons why I played the part I did in our decision to run the black students' controversial poem and our subsequent decision to criticize the Printing Service and the Kansan Board for censoring us:
1. ) We had been asked, very pointedly and rightly, what we had actually done to show that we had sympathized with the blacks in their dispute with the Printing Service. Unfortunately, we had very little to offer in evidence of our sympathy.
2. ) The power basis of the Printing Service, as printer of all major campus publications, made it a far more dangerous censor (with constant contact with publications) than the blacks (who obviously could not have kept up their censorship of the Kansan every day.) The censorship power of the Printing Service, which has since been curbed by the ruling of Atty. Gen. Kent Frizzell, would have had a much more direct and devastating effect on the freedoms of all students in the long run.
3. ) We sincerely did not want the issue to become, as it was inaccurately described in an Associated Press story, as a feud between the Harambee and the Kansan. The feud, if it must be described as one, was between students and the Printing Service. Although we regretted the confiscation a great deal (and not only because of the money loss—mainly because of the apparent loss of the confidence of some black students), we were unwilling to widen what we feared might be a campus racial split.
4. ) A hasty call for punitive action seemed, to me at least, neither our duty nor good advice. The University Disciplinary Board is the proper organ for deciding whether punitive action should be taken. Our main concern was not vengeance; it was that our circulation would begin again without unnecessary alienation of any students.
5. ) As writer Chuck Stone says, "I don't have to sit down to my typewriter every time a riot erupts and condemn violence, because I
hate and despise violence, murder, lawlessness ab initio—from the beginning." Without meaning in any way to compare the confiscation with any major form of violence, I believe that a certain amount of lawlessness was involved in the controversial act, a lawlessness which the participants intended to have an effect on all of us. In fact, the act did bring the censorship to the attention of those who were content to ignore it, but at the same time the act was a costly one—particularly to the Kansan.
Atty. Gen. Frizzell's ruling should make everyone's duties more clear and should help relax the tension we all felt last week.
Our intentions, however they might have appeared to those who thought we had lost all sense of reasoning, were good.
The effect of our actions may be told in the strengthening or in the weakening of student-student relationship.
-Mike. Shearer
Patriotic hymn
Here is a little relief from the hum-drum reports which every day cut down America's environment.
By JOHN GOODRICK
Grab a piece of apple pie and sing this familiar tune to the good old American "Yankee Doodle."
"Yankee Doodle went to town.
A riding in his internal combustion chambered, duel cam, double exhaust, high performance, V8 Chevy Super Sport.
Rolled up the windows, turned on the air conditioning, and dehumidifier to get away from industrial (of course) pollution.
He stuck a feather in his hat,
Sorel's News Service
Keep it up because remember "black is beautiful" and at this rate in a few years not only our downtown buildings will be beautiful, but also our residential homes and our lungs.
Yankee Doodle dandy.
And called it baloney.
Yankee Doodle keep it up,
Mind the music (otherwise known as noise pollution)
And your step (don't walk in Fairfax without a gas mask)
And with the girls be handy. (internal combustion chambered, duel cam, high performance V8's make you sterile!)
If you find it difficult to sing these words to "Yankee Doodle" and find yourself choking on your apple pie, try singing it to God Bless America or America the Beautiful. Most any true blue (now available only in sickly-green and off-yellow) AMERICAN song will do.
Strict Constructionist
IRWINTON, Ga.—"The defeatist and the isolationist of 1941 is a brother under the skin of the Communist front party of Henry the Treacherous Wallace today who plays Stalin . . . We shall not ever sit idly by while the sneaking and persistent efforts of the Communist snake slithers its way into the vitals of our nation."—From a 1948 campaign speech by Judge Carswell.
hearing voices—
The destruction last week of several thousand copies of the University Daily Kansan was an unwarranted act of vandalism as the Kansan certainly has no quarrel with any organization on this campus.
To the editor:
If the State or KU administration was the target it was also an ineffective action, as the Kansas receives no state funds.
The real losers were the students. They were deprived of a newspaper they had paid for. I fail to see how any individual or group would hope to accomplish its goal through theft of property from those whose support it is seeking.
If the University Printing Service was the target it was an ineffective action, as it is paid by the Kansan for the number of papers published. It doesn't make any financial difference to the University Printing Service if the papers reach the students or the bottom of Potter Lake. Distribution is carried out by students employed by the Kansan.
I do not feel it is the obligation of the Kansan Board to wrangle over the situation. The Kansan Board is not an administrative or student governing body. This is a matter involving the rights of the entire student body. There are duly elected student representatives charged with the obligation and responsibility to discipline those who would infringe upon student rights
I feel certain that the student Disciplinary Board will not sit idle and allow disruption at the hands of a few—but will take some disciplinary action to protect the interests of those whom they represent.
Mel Adams Business Adviser, UDK
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