University of Kansas - Jayhawker Yearbook (Lawrence, KS)

Page 33 text:

FALL NUMBER, 1946 31 Smith Hall takes up quarters in the old Unitarian church. tion of action on the dent ' s part usually results in attempted eviction. These evictions may be plished by the troublesome legal process, or extra-legally, again by using Yankee in- genuity to let the student know he ' s no longer come. Like enforcement of most laws, the effectiveness of rent ceilings depends on plaints from those who have been asked to pay ceiling rent. For students who fear the results of a direct complaint to OPA, the K.U. Chapter of A.V.C. has vol- unteered to report such violations to the local price control office. Although few, if any, students are completely sat- isfied with their post-war homes, the housing lem is most serious for married students, particularly those with children, and for negro students. Housing officials can emerge from a maze of figures and dict that all unmarried students may be able to find housing in Lawrence one of these days. But married students will be riding that bus from Sunflower lage for several semesters. Married students find that those little bundles of joy complicate the housing problem considerably and complete the farce of at- tempting to subsist on $90 a month of subsistence pay. To remain within the bounds of accepted language, the best thing to say about negro housing is nothing. As in so many other matters, the negro ' s lot in ing is not a good one, and adds weight to the conten- tion that equal rights for the negro is seldom found outside the Constitution. Finding a place to eat is also a problem for the negro student, since the only acces- sible source of meals for negroes in Lawrence is the Union cafeteria. Privately operated restaurants refuse to serve food to negroes, although local officials fully drafted them as equals into the armed forces. The unavoidable conclusion is, You were good enough to fight for me, but not to eat with me. Such a conclusion is not easy to understand, except for those who can say one thing and believe another. Everett Bell, President of the Negro Student As- sociation, has said about all that can be said about negro housing facilities in one word, Lousy. The average negro room or apartment is much less tractive than facilities for white students. Those who have the job of thinking over University problems might well give some thought to negro housing. As long as it remains at present standards, housing for our negro students will be one of our primary worries. Jdualion cc ' 11 g,e and at-di p27.62.4a44

Page 32 text:

30 THE JAYHAWKER When construction is completed, three new emer- gency housing projects will accommodate another 310 single men and married faculty members. Under the east side of the stadium McCook Hall will house 64 men by November 1 in two dormitory rooms. Sunny- side addition, consisting of 186 four-room apart- ment s in 31 barracks type buildings, will house both married faculty members and students and single men by the start of the Spring semester. An H -shaped dormitory west of the stadium will house 160 men in single rooms by the end of November. Complete with maple floors and plywood walls, but without marble columns, this unit is the personal pride of Housing Director Youngberg. K. U. students, along with nearly everyone else, aren ' t writing any sonnets about their housing, but 9,000 of them have descended on Lawrence and vicinity and have found places to live. The Jay- hawker ' s present post-war home may resemble an army barracks or the hall closet back home, may be miles from the campus or may rent in the stratos- phere, but he can console himself with the thought Three makes a crowd when its study time at the Louis Kissinger abode in Sunflower village. that the situation won ' t get much worse and will probably get better. Students still unhappy about the situation and future prospects can always exercise that one of the four freedoms which permits griping. They can write their Congressmen; they can carry their troubles to the Housing Director; they can complain to the OPA; or in last resort, they can look up their old chaplain, and he ' ll probably hear their story and respond with words of comfort. That post-war dream house, or even a pre-war one, is still just a dream; and the competition from bowling allies, store fronts, war memorials and other non-housing construction is hard to beat. A complicating factor in the housing situation is the probability that without rent control many apart- ment and room rents would climb out of the reach of the average student. During the short lapse of price controls few rent increases occurred, but this lack of increases resulted mainly from the certainty that at least rent controls would be restored. The K.U. Chapter of the American Veterans Committee conducted a survey of climbing rents and attempted evictions during the OPA recess. This survey revealed scattered raises and threatened raises averaging 20% plus several cases of attempted evictions. If the pres- ent trend toward the lifting of price controls leads to the end of rent ceilings, students living in private rooms or apartments will face the costly prospect of bidding against each other for Lawrence ' s crowded facilities. Even with ceilings in effect, landlords have ap- plied American ingenuity to find more or less direct methods of ignoring them. Extra charges may be made for the furniture, use of electrical appliances, or other such extras. The landlord may require a deposit on the room, later to be forgotten, or may specify that the student ' s wife do a certain amount of housework to supplement the rent paid under the ceiling. In other cases the matter of ceilings has been completely avoided by failure to list rooms or apartments with the rent control office. These law violations can occur only with the co- operation of the student renter, although any intima-

Page 34 text:

32 THE JAYHAWKER A n d .Ava62. t, Ccdlee Au4i62)b, el a 4 lie 4elleue2 ate ala2k 62, 4e ineo,da4le. With the hustle and bustle of reconversion which has followed the most recent war there has come an ominous overtone in international politics. Another war, more vicious, more terrible, more destructive than can be imagined by man is inevitably in the offing! Uppermost in the minds of most thoughtful Americans is the fact that, although we fought to- gether for three years, the state departments of Russia and the United States are working at cross- purposes. Upon no subject yet discussed, except an expected lip-service to peace, have these two great powers agreed. And, under present trends in foreign policies, it looks as though the bald eagle and the bear will be fighting the battle to the end. It is impossible to discuss the Russian Situation without referring to ex-Commerce Secre- tary Wallace ' s recent political mouthings. War with Russia is inevitable if we pursue our present stand. Mr. Wallace made that only too clear. Perhaps some of us believe that the Russians are afraid of us. If that is the case, I believe that we had better think again. The Russians have no reason whatsoever to fear the United States if it should come to a clash of arms. The knowledge for making atomic bombs is either now in Russian hands or it soon will be. And their manpower is limitless. The United States has carefully built a wall of satellites to protect her should war come. Our tremendous wealth has made it virtually impossible for any Latin American nation, with the stubborn exception of Argentina, to do anything that would alienate the American State Department. They must trail along or forfeit American good will in the form of good solid American dollars. Great Britain is pitifully weak. Another war at the present moment, should she be forced to face that war alone for even a very short period, would wreck her entire national economy. The British Empire would split into a thousand little pieces. She has al- ready had to grant unwilling concessions to parts of the empire in order to guarantee American favor. Should the United States adopt a conciliatory view toward Russia, England would be forced to do like- wise. But there is no reason to fear that the United States will adopt a conciliatory attitude in Russian affairs. The people of the United States fear Russia and communism more than anything else on the face of the earth. Never was there such a fear of Germany before the war. Look at the facts. The America First Committee, embracing that especially popular Am e r i c an Charles Lindberg, wielded tremenduous power in our national politics immediately preceeding the last war. No such or- ganization wields such power now. We did not fear Hitler. We called the last war the Phony War . We do fear Stalin. We know the terribleness of the coming war. Under our present national thought process which makes it impossible for capitalism and communism to work together in the same world, we must, in or- der to preserve our nation, fight Russia. If we sin- cerely believe as a people that it is our God-given duty to dictate the conscience of the rest of the world, it is inevitable that Russia must fight us. We are engaged in a life or death struggle in that ancient game of power politics and history has proved that balance of power diplomacy can lead to only one conclusion—ultimate war. When the clash will come, no one can predict. That it is inevitable under a system of power politics, no one can deny. e J