Naamani defends Gus Hall's appearance
by IRENE SPRADLING
According to Dr. Israel Naamani, chair­man
of UL's Political S~ience department, it
is with .. an undercurrent of uneasiness and
resentment on the part of several faculty
members, administrators and even students"
that a 197 3 presidential candidate will be
greeted at UL.
Scheduled to speak next Monday night
at 7:30 in Bigelow Hall, Gus Hall is pres­ently
the secretary of the American Com­munist
Party .
Long plans
UL's Political Science Honorary Society
has been planning Hall's appearance since
last semester. While in Louisville on one of
his campaign endeavors, Hall and the So­ciety
started the arrangements , that were
finalized three weeks ago. First class air
travel and necessary expenses while here will
be provided for Hall and a companion.
The administration carries no censorship
powers on students' choice of speakers, yet
out of courtesy, Naamani mentioned to
them that the American Communist Party
leader would be speaking. Several faculty
members reacted squeamishly when he men­tioned
it at lunch one day. He explained
further.
"sense of insecurity"
"There was no overt opposition to Gus
Hall's appearance on the campus. It is this
sense of insecurity and parochialism that
bothered me ."
When Republican Mayor Lugal of In­diana
polis spoke here last semester, there
was no feeling of objection among the uni­versity
community. Apparently, speakers
such as this are encouraged at UL more
readily than people who go under the cali­ber
of liberal.
"We are satisfied with only crumbs of
truths," said Naamani. "We hav~ to assemble
all political dialects, economic expressions,
theological orientations, ethnic idjoms to
Louisville
Cardinal .
GUS HALL:
a profile
by MARTY KASDAN
The current of the "Academic Freedom
Meets the Communist Threat" serial revolves
around the speaking engagement of Gus Hall
here at UL. Just who is this fear-inspiring in­dividual,
anyway, and how deeply is he in­volved
with the downfall of Mom and Apple
Pie? To begin with, Gus Hall is the General
Secretary of the Communist Party, USA,
and was its presidential candidate in the re­cent
election.
Hall was born in 1910 in Minnesota , of
Finnish immigrant parents. He left school
at the age of 1 5 and worked as a lumberjack
and a steelworker. He joined the Commun­ist
Party in 1927, and shortly thereafter re­ceived
his only other formal education , a
two-year post-graduate course at Moscow's
Lenin Institute. He has since held a number
of positions before being elected to his cur­rent
status as General Secretary.
Hall's work with the Communist Party
has gotten him into legal troubles more than
once. He served eight years in a federal peni­tentiary
for violation of the 1940 Smith
Act, which equated open association with
the Communist Party with intent to violently
overthrow the American government. He was
also fined $500 for possession and use of ex­plosi'ves
in a steel strike.
In the 1972 election, Hall ran for presi­dent
on a platform proposing massive public
housing construction, elimination of income
taxes for families earning under $1,500 a
year, massive reductions in military and de­fense
spending, more taxes on corporations,
an annual income base for all families of
$6,500 a year, and the appointment of An­gela
Davis as Attorney General. Hall's run­ning
mate , Jarvis Tyner, was one of two
minor party vice-presidential candidates who
was black.
During the campaign , Hall frequently
blasted both Richard Nixon and George
McGovern. While campaigning in Louis­ville,
Hall called the Nixon administration
"one of the most reactionary, racist and
corrupt governments in the history of the
United States." At another time he stated
that if Nixon were re-elected that he would
become even more reactionary. For the
record , Gus Hall received 392 votes in
Kentucky .
A & S S~udent Council
needs better participation
by ALEDA SffiRLEY
Unless more students express an interest
in Student . Council functions, all Cou~cil
meetings will have to be suspended. A
suspension of meetings would mean that all
Council dealings would have to be channeled
through their office - instead of through
an elected body of student representatives.
As many as three dozen students are
needed; the Council has vacancies on all
;,najor committees and also there is no
Council secretary. Joint Council presidents
Rickie Coomer and Allen Falk announced .
that the Council meeting times could be
altered if a majority of representatives ex­pressed
discontent with the present weekly
Tuesday meetings at 4 p.m.
For anyone interested in becoming a
Council representative, applications can be
picked up at the Dean of STudents office
or they can present their candidacy before
next Tuesday's meeting. Mr. Coomer also
noted that beginning next Monday, the
Council would be soliciting nominations
for outstanding classmen and outstanding
faculty. Applications for these are also
available in the Dean's office, he added.
spell out American democracy on this cam­pus.
If Nixon can meet with Chou-en-Lai and
with Brezhnev, we certainly should ha~e no
compunction to meet with Gus Hall."
Naamani believes that this university's
fear of the unknown stems from traits that
he considers quite beneficial to an academic
community.
"This is a wonderful university . I have
been here nearly 25 years. I wouldn't ex­change
this university for any other institu­tion.
It has warmth, coziness, a minimum of
controversy and throat cutting.
"no challenge"
"But such wholesomeness breeds medi­ocrity.
There's no real challenge. We are
plagued with a provincial contempt for new
ideas. We have our contingency ethics, we
turn them on and off according to our
biases. We have a myopic disregard for
present day realities and freedom of
speech."
After Hall's speech, which is expected to
last about 40 minutes, a five-member panel
will probe him \\'ith several questions that
will elicit more than just the standard Com­munist
Party information.
Follow up panel
Members of the follow-up panel include
Tom Haile, president of UL's Young Re­publicans;
William L. Jones, Associate Pro­fessor
in Political Science; Bob Schulman,
of WHAS's "One Man's Opinion;" Belinda
Stanley, a senior in political science; and
Addison Talbot, professor of sociology.
Naamani explained that UL's Board of
Trustees didn't have anything to do with
forming a follow-up panel, "but they were
pleased when they found out about it."
Questions from the general audience will
come after the panel discussion. The Politi-cal
Science Honorary Society's President
Regina Monseur will act as mistress of cere­monies.
Monday night's speech will have local
news coverage. It is free and open to the
public.
PIO phot011'8Ph by John......._.
Homemade Toys
The iatest in homemade educational toys gets a workout from three University of
Louisville day-care center children (from left) Wendy Currier, 4, Tracy~ Talbott, S, and
Barry Coffey, 3. The toy, along with several others, was constructed by U L Speed
Scientific School freshmen as a class project for Speed's Engineers' Days Feb. 18
and 19. The event wm be free and open to the public.