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Friday, March 4, 1977
University Daily Kansan
Comment Opinions on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Kansas or the School of Journalism
Hiss isn't U.S. hero
As one ponders the Alger Hiss legacy, there is a creeping feeling that the final chapter isn't yet written. The real story of this man, who is already assured of a unique niche in American history, hasn't yet been told.
Hiss said nothing during his two-day stay at the University of Kansas this week to change that impression. But his stay did drive home another impression: Americans with more sympathy than at any other time in the past quarter century.
WHEN HHSS trudged off to prison in 1950, the biting charges of Whitaker Chambers were still ringing in their ears of most prisoners. He was the most disturbed criminals; he was a traitor and Communist.
America is now a generation older physically and at least that much older mentally and politically. The tables have turned. Whitaker Chambers has become an obsessed old editor and Richard Nixon a self-appointed politician—at least in the public mind.
Perhaps it was Richard Nixon's
dislusioning Presidency that shifted the mood of America; certainly that played a major role. Nixon, the accuser, was caught on camera as his bast as revolting as angry. Hiss was accessed of.
The danger here is that we forget the grains of truth that there were in that deluge of political mud. The danger is that we are so used to seeing it as a martyr. He may well have been guilty.
BUT THE feeling runs deeper than that. The witch-hunting, Kremmlin-lhating, Cold War days of the 1980s seem just a little silly in these times of detente and human rights. We're embarrassed about what Richard Nixon, Whitaker Chambers and Joseph McCarthy said and did, and we're even more embarrassed about being so duped by it all.
We could certainly be justified in feeling sorry for Alger Hiss. It's quite another matter to forget what was said about him. Alger Hiss certainly wasn't the red lover that Richard Nixon painted him to be. But, as Hiss tours the country giving somber lectures, let's not again be duped into making him an American hero.
Whistle, students win
The campus whistle has been ushered back into the company of the Campanile, the Rock Chalk chant and all those other words of Kansas traditions in-good standing.
After it was silenced in a noble but unpopular experiment for the first few weeks of this semester, the whistle was brought back to life a few days ago by Chancellor Archie McGee, who uses a vivid voice chancellor. Classes will again come and go to the tune of its hourly blasts.
THE NEWS of the whistle's resurrection made more than a few students happy. But the real joy comes not from the mere fact that the whistle is back but from the knowledge that the decision to bring it back was based on the opinions of the students.
Dykes and Shankel made it clear at the start of the semester that the whistle was being silenced as an experiment. The weight of opinions on the new-found silence would determine whether the whistle would be shut down permanently.
And when the Student Senate included a question about the whistle on an opinion poll it conducted in conjunction with Senate elections, the administrators promised that they would look at the poll with great interest.
The results of the voting showed, not surprisingly, that students overwhelmingly favored bringing back the whistle. And, somewhat more surprisingly, Shankel immediately announced that the whistle would be dusted off and put back to use.
TO THE causal observer, this may not seem like a miraculous turn of events. But to anyone familiar with the college decision-making process, in which the opinions of students are often forgotten in the shuffle, the decision was immensely pleasing.
In simple terms, the students were at last allowed to decide a student issue.
Dykes and Shankel are to be commended for two things. First, they were brave enough to try to silence the obnoxious whistle that had signalled the end of classes for 64 years. Secondly, they were also brave enough to admit that the experiment was a flop after students expressed their unhappiness.
It's still nice to think that the University could function without all the racket the whistle produces. Things would be a little less toxic in the factory whistle rudely ticking off the hours.
But the point is that students wanted the whistle back and they got it back. That is, admittedly, a small victory, but it's a victory nonetheless.
THE FARAH Fawcett-Majors hairdo, the object of imitation and acid-throwing from coast-to-coast, and the object of hair extensions. Savalias (Koaj) are examples of hair's importance today.
Whether a person has hair seems immaterial these days. People, particularly students, seem content that hair is an organized thing and is no longer乱发 or seen as a class symbol.
As Dr. Brothers noted, bearded are experiencing a vague not seen or accepted readily since the years with this line, the turn of the century.
Hair, once the sign of a student revolution that somehow never materialized, and the subject of a long-running Broadway musical, has once again accelerated to the role of a sociological mode, a testament of the clyrical fashion of fashion.
LONG HAIR, BEARS (or near-beards as some derring-do moles sport) and a variety of other fur types worn because of preference
While Vern Miller, former Kansas attorney general, keeps the state safe from purveyors of smut and obceancy, State Rep. John Hayes, R-Hutchinson, is being in a backhanded sort of way to save us from marijuana, the killer weed.
HAYES HAS drafted a bill that would put a tax of five cents on every hundred rolling papers sold in the state. The bill would also require anyone who buys paper to give his name and address to the retailer who sold him the papers.
Hayes' unique approach to marijuana control is to tax and register buyers of cigarette paper.
Of course, the bill doesn't mention marijuana, and one is probably free to assume that Hayes is just trying to up some additional revenue for the state. There are some of us, however, who choose to read between the lines.
Letters
Hayes cov about marijuana curb
Death penalty is unChristian
When Dr. Joyce Brothers, the eminent psychologist, appeared on the Tonight Show the other night and said she thought men with beards were seen as torrisht, strong, intuitive and believably intelligent individuals. I had a feeling that I wasn't the only one whose speciality was especially a sign of radicalism or extremist tendencies, had changed.
We find Horvat's letter to be contradictory to Catholicism. We have no logic, ridiculing with dangerous reasoning already too prevalent in America today, and morally impure short, we find it initially smelly.
Horvat presupposes that all of society shares his view that a criminal must be "eliminated" in order to "save the whole of mankind." Horvat also Bible, and St. Thomas Aquinus to back up his contitions.
We, the undersigned, wish to make it clear, as Catholics, that John Horvat, president of Catholic Students for Justice, does not speak for all Catholics when, in his letter of March 1, he supports the death penalty as a legitimate and good."
Sure enough, as Horvat points out, God did say that "Thou shalt not kill." God does not argue semantics, does not argue the meaning of "thou". No one, an individual or as a whole, is accused of a whole of "society", has a right to kill. God said it first. He meant it. He gave no qualifications, no exceptions. Contrary to another one of Horvat's misconceptions, St. Thomas condone capital punishment. The passage cited from Aquinas is misrepresentative of the whole of Aquinas' works; Aquinas merely sought to justify the miserable religious and lower-class persecution against Aquinus, his appeasement of his contemporary papal and governmental superiors.
Even more disgusting than Horvat's unstated assumption that the Catholic religion is on his side, we feel is his portrait of capital punishment as "just, fair, chantable, and reassuring," and punishment is none of these things. According to Horvat, "society has a right to eliminate (the criminal) to save the whole of
To the editor:
society . . . man is part of society and as only a part is worth less than all of society . . . society as a whole has a right over the lives of individuals." If society were to have possible exception of God, is to decide who is worth less or more than any one other part of society? If society were to exercise this enigmatic "right" over each individual's life, that right would immediately mean more tragic, than any one crime ever committed.
modify that has gone unregulated too. Long how many youngsters have been injured by cars? And do we have any knowledge of these poor souls are? Of course not. Why? We've never registered the names people who buy airplane glue, that's why.
Hair ...the long and short of it
Capital punishment is illegitimate, uncharitable, unjust, and murderous, in our estimation. It is not the crime of God, but the Harvard contends, but the lack of all mercy and all forgiveness. Forgiveness is a right, and it has been taken away from every man and woman executed in America every bit of life a life has been taken away from the victim of a murder.
Presumably, Horvat, as a self-described devout Catholic, opposes abortion, and opposes it on the grounds that it is murder. The capital punishment be judgment any more less than murder?
Death penalty cruel
To the editor:
We ask you, Mr. Horvat, not to include the undersigned as Catholics among those on your miserable crusade.
Ussace.
John Count
Englewood, Col., junior
Nol Rueb
Atchison, freshman
Hawkeye School
Englewood, Col., sophomore
Edgardo Aguila
San Juan, Puerto Rico, senior
J. Alicia J. Alicia
Fairport, N.Y.; junior
It also may not have occurred to Hayes that his plan closely parallels gun control and gun registration legislation. Gun control, if anyone needs reminding, is a matter of policy. He opposed, saying it's an intrusion on their right to be arm-bearing citizens.
The letter viewing the re-instatement of the death penalty as a "charitable punishment authority comes from God"<sup>3</sup> (or, in the ploitation of the Bible and of the human rights of every human
But guns only kill people. Marijuana
can make their lives miserable. We must
stand up to it.
being. Horvats' view of capital punishment is a typical reaction of those who are reluctant to admit that society has a direct molding effect on its individuals and, therefore, we have a responsibility for each person in that society.
Capital punishment says that we as parts of the whole are ready to give up on the essential subject. I am not ready to give up on those elements. Nor do I feel everyone else is. As long as the subject is up for debate and has a point, I am secure with the statement my religion professes to. I am my brother's keeper. By the way, Mr. Horvat, I hear there politics which we mediate with me.
Whatever personal vindications society has a right to, does not mean that society is always correct in its decisions. Society will be wrong, crime, even murder, is a matter of social values held by a society. Instead of trying to deal with our fears of the social deviant, Horvat's group interests that we merely erase them.
At any rate, it's a comfort to know that Vern Miller and John Hayes are around. They'll make the state safe for our children and their children.
Society can only be as perfect as we make it. To demean the individual by saying he is important only as a part of the mass and that his individual needs aren't important is a blatant disregard for the importance of the individual.
If Horvat insists on using religion as a security blanket for Catholic students in their pretations, maybe he and his Catholic Students for Justice can relate to this one small phrase—I am my brother's
Let's take a look at the numbers: The present standard deduction for a single person is $1,700. For a married couple the standard deduction is $2,100 if filing jointly, or $1,850 each if filing separately, rather than filing jointly. A lot of the editorial mistakenly believes. It is clear that singles come out ahead.
If Hayes wants to cut down on marijuana smoking in the state, he needn't be so coy about it. He should simply have introduced a bill to stiffen laws against possession or this measure it's hard to imagine that this measure will do much good.
Sally L. Shaw
Topcka junior
The proposed standard deductions quoted in the tax tables of the states singles. The single person would take a standard deduction of $2,400, while the per-partner individual would be only $1,400.
his prodigious strength from it; to Rapunze, whose mile-long locks were the envy of everyone in the village, he took on today's Kojak, whose absence it holds some magnetic allure for the opposite sex and spells the demise of later-day villains on the streets of the Big Apple.
Taxes for singles To the editor:
The author of "Taxes sting singles" (Feb. 28) needs to get out his pocket calculator and try to figure out how to understand how income taxes
work. The present tax structure encourages single living, not marriages as the editorial states since the reverse was true.
BUT PERHAPS Kansans do want to be as purchasing rolling paper, which he bought from the marijuana cigarettes, which will in turn run their lives. And perhaps Kansans would also like to have a tax imposed on the same purposed. A hand card can be used for the same purposed.
Perhaps the obvious ignorance of the author of "Taxes sting singles" will promote a return to the policy of signing editorials. With the exception of Ms. Baxter, I assume that the entire editorial staff is in need of a course in basic tax preparation.
But this sort of logic can get a little bit out of hand.
So it looks as if the question of whether "blondes (and blonds) have more fun," "does she/har or doesn't she/har?" and "does our society may remain unanswered for some time...
For instance, perhaps Kansas should tax each deck of cards sold in the state and register the names of people who purchase them. After all, cards can be used for gambling, a sin almost as heinous as smoking marijuana.
Letters to the editor are welcomed but should be typewritten, double-space and no longer than 400 words. All letters are edited and may be condensed according to space limitations and the editor's judgment. Letters must be provided their academic standing and hometown; faculty must provide their position; others must provide their address.
McLouth Graduate Student
Anne Fraser
Letters Policy
And while we're at it, why don't we tax and register people who buy matches? Matches can be used for a multitude of sins. They can light those devious
Jerry Seib
Editorial Writer
marijuana cigarettes; they can be used to burn down buildings; they can be used to light illegal fireworks.
Be that as it may, the next time someone "gives in" you, you might consider it a compliment . . . They're only allys.
KANSAS should also attempt to control the sale of red light bulbs. We all know what red lights are used for. Junction City police might be immensely more vigilant than they fight against prostitution if they only knew who was lying those red lights.
Airplane glue is another evil com-
rather than to make a political or social statement.
Spring job interviews, always the catalyst to be shorn and clean shaven (as I became recently) are becoming times when employer and interviewer can "let their hair down" and
hairstyles and trends have progressed as fleecingly as usual. The latest long and short of it are typified by the locks of the instrumentioned. Ms. Harrison and those of Decobey Harpul.
OUR COMMERCIAL society
discuss employment potential rather than "splitting hairs" over what used to be known as conventional hair length.
Paul Jefferson
Editorial Writer
On the distaff side, women's
The Afro, once a sign of militancy, has been overwhelmingly accepted, blown up and toned down by virtually all segments of society in its quest for a fashionable identity.
has kept up with the seasonal fluctuations in the American affair with hair too. The cooler temperatures and colorings for long
hair have increased; and hair treatment centers, where hair buns are plugged into bald paddes have met with relative success. The hair products are rivaled by products and appointments to affect the "short and sassy look," and the recently-popular "macho" look hairstyle heads running around the stripe suit and sunglasses.
The status symbol of hair has always meant something but its meaning changes frequently.
FROM SAMSON, who drew
NAMED BY DAVID LEE COTT, IN LAUREN BARNARD
The BOY SCOUTS Have changed THEIR NAME to SCOUTING/USA Because "BOY" MIGHT BE OFFENSIVE ... EFFORTS are UNDERWAY to PURGE The WORD FROM the LANGUAGE:
BELLFeLLA
Day of the Boy Scout vanishing time now for Scouting/USA
The Boy Scouts of America are unofficially phasing out "Boy" from their name and phasing in "Scouting USA" as a name for their organization. They should be so progressive.
The Roy Scouts of America want to prove to the world that scouting is—to steal a phrase from the bowling commercial—for everybody. Wow, how much power does Howard liberal-minded and forward-thinking can you get? And only not do they want to change their name, they also want to change their image to something more contemporary, in a humanitarian, more "with it."
Wow! I don't believe it. This can't be the same Boy Scouts of America of your and my friend's. They are the Boy Scouts of America that taught you that a good American is one who keeps his fingernails clean and that a boy with a big mouth is one male who wears his Scouting kierchief to all meetings and who wouldn't cry should he be mauled by a wolf on a weekend camping jammer.
SCOUTING was synonymous with the American Wav.
Admittedly, I wasn't a member of the Boy Scouts long enough to know everything that was going on in my life. I was a Boy Scout for only three weeks. On my first five-mile hike, I saw a snake along the river bank. He vinced that there were better ways to spend my time.
But out of those three short weeks arose some startling revelations about how scouting worked.
For instance, if you wanted to
community services. He was junior assistant scoutmaster. He was an Enap Scout and a volunteer teacher. He was a credit to our troop
Stewart Brann
Editorial Editor
break into the power structure of your troop, you didn't do it by behind-the-scenes politicking and artful pandering to interest groups. Instead, you beat people up. My patrol leader was the ugliest, sweetest and stupidest guy in the entire troop. He also was the biggest enemy of my team, dreamed of becoming a Green Beret sometimes. No one dared question his credentials.
There were guys in my troop who had been members for two or three years, yet had virtually nothing to show for their work—just a few bad wages earned for them. They moved into a living home. One guy, however, wore a uniform loaded with merit bags from all kinds of
AND IF you wanted to make it to the supreme hierarchy of your troop, up there with the scoutmaster and the governing work and unrelenting dedication to the troop, as the scouting manual says. You did it by collecting merit badges, nothing whatsoever to do while maintaining work and unrelenting dedication.
and to American youth. He was the son of our scoutmaster.
Scouting did many things for many people. It fostered deep religious convictions in a young boy. When our troop had to share a favorite camping spot with the Catholic troop, the
Catholics found out just how deeply our convictions ran.
SCOUTING promised to educate the innocent young man about the ways of life. You wouldn't believe the textbooks we looked at inside our sleeping bags after lights out.
Scouting instilled a sense of responsibility in a maturing youth. When the scoutmaster found prophylaxis in his knapsack one night, the other guys said I was responsible.
Ah! Those were the days when a boy could join the Scouts and learn to be a man. It just be the same if anybody can join.
But I bet the camp-outs will be more fun.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
Published at the University of Kansas daily August 10, 2014. Subscriptions to June and July except Saturday and Sunday. Subscription prices are $3.95 for 66444 subscriptions by mail or $6 a semester or $8 per quarter. Two-year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $10.00 each.
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