KANSAN COMMENT
Justice: a weapon?
Julius Hoffman wasn't the villain of the Chicago melodrama.
Somebody had to be the judge; it didn't really matter who got the job. If anything, it was fortunate that someone as incompetent as Julius was on the bench, since he left several good points for appeal.
For this was a political trial—it was over before it began.
After a similar case, the Dr. Spock trial, John MacKenzie wrote in the Washington Post, "In political cases the outcome is predetermined 99 per cent of the time... The important decision isn't made by the judge, much less the jury. It's made by the policeman, or prosecutor, or politician who decides who is going to be arrested and what the charge will be."
The outcome is predetermined because the government is doing the arresting, the prosecuting and the trying. And it's also the government that is being challenged by men like
Dr. Spock and the Chicago Seven. How can objectivity be possible?
When the ruling order is threatened, it uses its own apparatus to eliminate the opposition. The government will rarely support a movement aimed against itself.
Clarence Darrow once said of the American Judicial system, "It is a serious reflection on America that this worn-out piece of tyranny, this drag-net for compassing the imprisonment and death of men whom the ruling class does not like, should find a home in our country."
In the Chicago case, as in all political trials, the judicial system became a weapon with which the ruling class could crush dissent.
Upon hearing the verdict, the defendants remarked that the real trial would be in the streets. Such a trial would be no less valid than the one that took place in the courtroom.
hearing voices—
Joe Naas
Global gangsterism
To the editor:
In view of the American Bar Association's opposition to U.S. ratification of the U.N. convention on genocide ("We wouldn't be here if we hadn't committed genocide" UDK, Feb. 24, 1970); and in view of continuing U.S. participation in the world's tradition of genocide, I would be grateful if you would reprint the following statement recently made by Jean-Paul Sartre in Peace News, London, January 30, 1970:
THE WORLD RULE OF GANGSTERISM
In order to conquer the Biaffrans, the nations of the world have allowed the prosecution of a slow war, of hunger and disease. They have tolerated a pseudo-Labour Great Britain and pseudo-Socialist Russia competing with each other to send the most efficient people and the most murderous weapons, to allow killers to operate under the most favourable conditions.
Mutilation, bombardment of hospitals and markets, murder pure and simple, not to mention the imposition of an almost complete blockade—nothing has been omitted from this war. And it has carried with it the approval of almost all African states, Arab states, the states of the third world, social-democratic states, fasoist states, and others—not to mention the Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant, who has given his murderous blessing to the great cause of united petroleum in Nigeria.
There can be no justification for such ignominy. It has no name, but by virtue of it, the Jews were turned into soap, and the Sudanese negroes into game. The South American Indians were slowly exterminated because of it, the
Kurds in Iraq were disposed of, and so were the communists in Indonesia. By virtue of it, millions of citizens have been deported by the Soviet Union, and tanks have been sent into Czechoslovakia.
The Biafran issue totalises all of this. But it also marks the beginning of a decidedly new era in human affairs.
An era in which any country will, in the face of any other, or all of them put together, be able to profess it is doing almost anything for the sake of virtually any principle it cares to name.
Let the killers and the stock-
phrase ideologists of the world rejoice. Their reign embraces the earth.
Judith Kahane
Sudith Kallane
Lawrence graduate student
★ ★ ★
To the editor:
Each year thousands of people flock to the Indianapolis 500 Memorial Day Race to satisfy their bloodlust. For this excursion, one must rent a hotel room for three days a year in advance, spend $25.00 on a ticket to the tracks, and waste $2.50 for each mint julep. Why go to Indianapolis to see bloodshed when one can get a much better price for a seat at 19th and Iowa in Lawrence, Kansas? Think of the revenue the state of Kansas is losing when we could erect bleachers at this intersection, maintain a concession stand, and guarantee a wreck or fatality and plenty of blood, since there are forty accidents here yearly. We would have it all over Indianapolis, which only runs once a year. We can sell hot dogs, soft drinks, pop corn, and programs to make it worthwhile for each spectator to spend his money in the lovely sunflower state. He
will be able to enjoy himself for one third the price of Indianapolis, and one tenth the trouble. Not only that, but there would be commercial appeal involved. Television and radio stations could vie for the rights to a live network broadcast. The lucky victims who survive the collisions could put their memoirs on the best-selling racks with such titles as "19th and Iowa—I Was There!" Such stories could only rank second to those of Edgar Allen Poe's chillers which have fascinated millions.
If only the city of Lawrence would observe this modest proposal, within at least five or six years the city would reap more than enough profits to be able to afford the installation of stop lights at 19th and Iowa that are now so much beyond that city's budget.
And there are such things as contributions, even though such an idea would demand that residents and city officials would have to open up their apathetic eyes. If each student at KU alone contributed one fourth of his T.G.I.F. money for this week, sufficient funds could be raised to buy stop lights and slow cars down. If even half the lives of people killed in automobile accidents were saved, it would be well worth the venture.
Marsha Bryan
Kansas City sophomore
Cathy White
Shawnee sophomore
To the editor:
Why do we have to buy it (Harambee) and the blacks get it free?
Mary Westerhaus Marion senior
Griff & the Unicorn
SOKOLOFF
David Sokoloff 1970
Sorel's News Service
Lord and Order
MONTREAT, N.C.—Billy Graham has thus far refrained from commenting on Administration proposals for "preventive detention," but a clue to his thinking can be found in the current issue of Decision, one of his house organs: "The Christian is going to be faced more and more with the need to maintain the delicate balance of social change on the one hand, and the loyalty to his country and to the system in which he was reared on the other. 'The powers that be,' the Bible says, 'are ordained of God' (Romans 13:1), and the Christian citizen is committed to uphold the law and order that is necessary for the functioning of society. Therefore, the Christian must be deeply concerned that a small minority element in society is out to destroy that order."
Alphabet soup and maybe an avocado
By MIKE SHEARER Editorial Page Editor
A classic, Mark Twain explained, is a book that everybody wants to have read but nobody wants to read.
Books, whether they be classics or popular reading, can be made attractive. Bright covers can sell books and lure minds into what is still the most rewarding media.
The binding of Lawrence's Public Library is more than frayed. The old building and all of its inadequacies are acting as a deterrent rather than a lure. The old facilities are keeping classics "books that everybody wants to have read but nobody wants to read."
The $1,575,000 bond issue tomorrow could bring Lawrence up to the level of several major Kansas cities and put it far ahead of others. Nothing should be more important to Lawrence than the maintenance of a very important educational tool—the library.
The price is high, but if the library isn't built now it will go higher. But the loss will be far more than monetary.
I grew up in rural Kansas and never saw a library until I was in the fourth grade. I missed many great children's classics, books which I hope to pick up after I reach senility. In Lawrence, there is no excuse for a child to miss the treasures that an adequate library could offer.
If you're a Lawrence voter, vote yes tomorrow
Do it for tomorrow
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