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Wednesday, February 10, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
To An Anxious Friend
You tell me that law is above freedom of utterance. And I reply that you can have no wise laws nor free enforcement of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people — and, alas, their folly with it. But if there is freedom, folly will die of its own poison, and the wisdom will survive. That is the history of the race. It is proof of man's kinship with God. You say that freedom of utterance is not for time of stress, and I reply with the sad truth that only in time of stress is freedom of utterance in danger. No one questions it in calm days, because it is not needed. And the reverse is true also; only when free utterance is suppressed is it needed, and when it is needed, it is most vital to justice.
Peace is good. But if you are interested in peace through force and without free discussion — that is to say, free utterance decently and in order — your interest in justice is slight. And peace without justice is tyranny, no matter how you may sugar-coat it with expedition. This state today is in more danger from suppression than from violence, because, in the end, suppression leads to violence. Violence, indeed, is the child of suppression. Whoever pleads for justice helps to keep the peace; and whoever tramples on the plea for justice temperably made in the name of peace only outrages peace and kills something fine in the heart of man which God put there when we got our manhood. When that is killed, brute meets brute on each side of the line.
meets brave or even scary lips. So, dear friend, put fear out of your heart. This nation will survive, this state will prosper, the orderly business of life will go forward if only men can speak in whatever way given them to utter what their hearts hold — by voice, by posted card, by letter, or by press. Reason has never failed men. Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world.
William Allen White — Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial from the Emporia Gazette, 1923.
William Allen White (1868-1944) was a newspaper editor and author. He attended the University of Kansas, where he worked as a reporter and a printer. He was a founder of the National Progressive Republican League in 1911 and was an organizer with former President Theodore Roosevelt of the Progressive Party. In 1895, he bought the Emporia Gazette, after working on the Kansas City Journal and the Kansas City Star. In August 1896, White wrote another famous editorial, entitled "What's the Matter with Kansas?" The editorial lashed out at the Populist party and was reprinted in newspapers throughout the United States. White was named president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1938. Today is William Allen White Day at KU.
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THE PRESIDENT GETS HIS DUCKS IN A ROW
Ending contra aid is a bad omen
Congressional vote proves that tolerance of communism is growing
"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." - George Orwell
Add another to a lengthening list: the list of those who believed American help would save them. They litter the world by now — the Vietnamese and Cambodians, the Kurds and Hungarians. They learned better, as only the thickest of the contras will not learn from last week's vote against them in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Yes, it was a narrow vote against help for Nicaragua's anti-commist resistance, 219 to 211, but how big a vote does it take to kill hope? There are certain telltale signs of democracy's lack of resolve that have become familiar this terrible century: The neutrality acts in the 1930s. The congressional resolutions that foreclosed on Vietnam in the 1970s. This vote in the House was another. The message it sent is unmistakable. In Managua, the Stalinistas were dancing in the streets. They had reason to. The resistance to communism in Nicaragua may still be strong but it is crumbling in Washington. The Congress of the United States has demonstrated once again that it may not be much of a threat to this country's enemies, but it can be Hell on its friends.
The administration already had pared its request considerably before risking a vote. The scaled-down appropriation was almost an admission of defeat itself — $36.2 million, or about a seventh of what the White House once had indicated it would ask for the contras this year, and only a tenth of it in outright military aid. At best, such a package might enable the contras to continue the fight, not win. And in war, there is no substitute for victory. Douglas MacArthur tried to tell us that; we still haven't learned.
Paul
Greenberg
Svndicated Columnist
The Democrat's talk of coming back with a bill to supply only "humanitarian" aid. Ever heard of a communist dictatorship being overthrown by humanitarian aid? But even talk of overthrowing the Sandinistas is condemned as too harsh; we're supposed to be interested only in containing them, the way a physician should try only to contain a cancer. Nor must the Sandinistas be called communists, lest they be seen for what they are. It is difficult to say which course is more likely to assure defeat: to aim for a stalemate rather than a victory, or to refuse to recognize the nature of the enemy.
The little red junta in Managua doubtless will respond with more retractable promises about its devotion to peace and human rights. Those who want to believe the Sandinistas may have forgotten that these are not the first such promises they have made; they have yet to carry out their promises to the Organization of American States almost a decade ago.
Relieving the military pressure on Managua is supposed to make it more reasonable. Military pressure is what moved the Sandinistas to make the few and superficial concessions they have offered, but that is forgotten, too. (Democracies forget with lightning speed.) According to the Gospel of Jim Wrighteous, Nicaragua is going to be the first communist regime to peacefully negotiate its way out of power. I wouldn't bet the security of the hemisphere on it.
And what happens when the Stalinists turn the negotiations into a sham, when they clamp down on the little freedom they've allowed? In short, what happens when they break these promises just as they did the ones they made in 1979? Says Jim Wright, that tough negotiator: "If the government of Nicaragua were to misbehave in extreme ways, that would radically change the situation." Presumably it can go on to misbehaving in its usual moderate way and have no fear of American reaction. What would be extreme misbehavior for the Sandistas? Suppressing freedom of speech and of the press? Continuing to hold thousands of political prisoners? Setting their mobs on the opposition? No, they're doing all that now. Would they have to nuke Miami to get the Speaker's attention?
The uphost of Wednesday's vote in the House is that Soviet armies will continue to pour into Nicaragua while the relatively parous supplies to the contras are cut off. Congress is willing to send Stingers to the Afghan resistance but not to the contras; the latter have the ill fortune to be fighting communism in this hemisphere. If the vote in the House is any sign of things to come, and it is, you can start preparing the contras' memorial. It can bear the same, simple epitaph reserved for other late allies: "They trusted America."
Steel yourself for another round of moral kitsch about how this vote demonstrates a hopeful new direction for American foreign policy. Alas, there's nothing new this century about a democracy's closing its eyes and abandoning its friends. It's all about as new as Neville Chamberlain, and about as effective.
Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Pine Bluff (Ark). Commercial and a syndicated columnist, is here today to receive the 1988 William Allen White Award.
K·A·N·S·A·N
MAILBOX
I am writing in response to Doug Brown's letter in the Feb. 4 issue of the Kansan. The letter was titled "Gays Don't Have Rights." He is absolutely correct. Bigotry is ordained by God. Just look in the Bible, Discriminations 6:2, "... and American White Anglo-Saxon Protestant man was created to have dominion over the animals, foreigners and homosexuals."
Just look in the Bible
Doug Brown said it best. "The sin of sodomy is like a raging fire that sweeps through a forest." Words of wisdom such as these don't waltz, they get up and do the can-can.
Laith Naayem Bartlesville, Okla., freshman
Coverage is sexist
Do depictions of women and men in last week's issues of the University Daily Kansan represent the paper's view of sex roles in
society to the extent that readers must conclude that the Kansan sees women as vain, but unneWORSY, sex objects, and men as important authorities, leaders and scholars?
In five issues of the Kansan, plus the Kansan Magazine, men appeared in non-advertising photos more than four times as often as women. Men were shown running for office, judging moot court, directing laboratories, speaking on political and social issues, creating and appreciating art, removing dangerous asbestos and in several other important roles. Women did not fare as well. All week, only two photographs showed women engaged in substantive social activities (discussing AIDS and writing a column on human rights). Moreover, this bias cannot be attributed to basketball, football or the campaigns. When male dominated sports and presidential candidate photos are excluded, women still appeared only one-fourth as often as men.
The Kansan's depiction of women as vain sex objects is more evident in advertising than news. Women in ads occupied tanning booths, body shaping salons and aerobics studios. A woman could have the "Total Look," wear tiny bikinis and peek over a make-up mirror at "the man in her life." In contrast, a man was shown to "open new doors" to positions of authority in Student Union Activities, men outnumbered
women six to three in ads for Macintosh computers, and a male pharmacist distributed drugs in a Dillon's ad. What is most telling, however, is that the total amount of space devoted to news and sports photos of women last week was only a few square inches more than the space given to a single drawing of a nude woman as the object of a man's fantasy.
Like any other newspaper, the Kansan is made of bits and pieces. Although a few pieces are sexist or insensitive in themselves, most are legitimate news items or appropriately targeted ads. Taken as a whole, however, the Kansan seems to support the traditional view that men are figures of authority and status, while women should be the objects of male desire. In this, too, the Kansan is no different than most other papers. What makes the Kansan different is that it is a training ground for students who will be shaping newspapers for another 50 years. Will the Kansan be a place to apply innovative editorial and advertising policies to the whole paper as well as to individual pieces, or will the Kansan experience continue to teach that women are one quarter as newsworthy as men, and that women should be shown more prepared for the bedroom than the boardroom?
James T. Todd Lawrence graduate student
BLOOM COUNTY
- 1988 Washington Post Co
by Berke Breathed
EVEN AFTER THE EXCITEMENT DIES DOWN, IT LEAVES A LINGering BUBBLE OF NATIONALISTIC EFFERVESCENCE WITHIN THE BELLIES OF THE CRAFTY.
THE FAITHFUL.
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