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Friday, October 14, 1977
University Daily Kansas
Union's 'roots'
Photo courtesy of University Archives
on April 30, 1926. This photograph, taken from Dyche Hall, looks northward up Oread Avenue.
Pomp marked the laying of the cornerstone of the Kansas Union
The London Times reported on May 28, 1927, "The wish to applaud Captain Lindbergh for his feat is, in fact, universal." And so it seemed.
By KATHY TAYLOR
Staff Writer
Lindbergh flew into fame
Lindbergh, a 25-year old aviator, landed his frail spirit of Saint Louis in Paris 33 hours and 29 minutes after taking off from the airport, where his person to cross the Atlantic ocean nonstop.
F. Scott Flitzergerald wrote of Lindbergh, "For a moment people set down their glasses in country clubs and speakeasies and thought of their old best dreams."
By living his dreams, Charles A. Lindbergh had become the ida of the world.
THE NEW YORK Times said, "An adventure of which myth and legend are made was ended yesterday when Sim Linderbeg was lifted from the tiny cockpit of his plane in Paris. The dream of a boy had come true. His roaring plane . . . became a silver ship of fancy which caught the imagination of the world."
There were adventures before and after him, but none captured world admiration quite like Lucky Lindy. He started with no problem and said he sought nothing but was offered all.
Lindbergh's flight was very much a solo project. He spent and raised his own money,
Looking back ...50 years
MYRON T. HERRICK, U.S. Ambassador to France in 1972, wrote, "Lindbergh was not commissioned by our government any more than Lafayette was by his. A nation which breeds such boys need never fear for its future."
designed the plane and route, selected the time and place of take off. He all made it.
"He was needed and he came at the moment which seemed exactly preordained. He was needed by France and needed by America, and had his arrival been merely the triumph of a great adventure the influence of his act would have gone no further that have other great sporting and commercial achievements."
Fitzhugh Green wrote, "Perhaps the world was ripe for a youth with a winning smile to flash across its horizon and by the brilliance of his achievement momentarily dim the ugliness of routine business, politics and crime."
WHATEVER THE reason, the fact
mains that there was a definite Lindberg
phenomenon matching nothing the world had ever seen.
Lindbergh made his flight to advance the field of aviation and succeeded in being one of the most effective world ambassadors ever known.
He was taken to heart by the world. A diplomatic bag ever carried so stupendous a document as this unaccredited messenger bore.
It was not only what he had done, but the way he did it and the way he behaved afterward. Historian Frederick Lewis Allen said, "For years the American people had been spiritually starved. Something people have never experienced themselves and with the world, was missing from their lives. And all at one Lindbergh provided it."
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Heroes,not issues affected '27 grads
Staff Writer
October, 1927—the Supreme Court annulled the Teapot Dome oil lease, Al Smith was running for president and a revolution was crushed in Mexico.
These were some of the big news stories 50 years ago. But it's hard to find a college newspaper that covers it.
In October 1927, the world was at peace, the economy was booming and students were growing.
Una Babb, 708 Mississippi St., a 1927 alumna of the University of Kansas, said recently, "We didn't have a whole lot of burning national issues then. Before the Depression, things were very good. Coolidge was president and everything was cool."
PROHIBITION HAD been in effect for seven years, but it was not an issue with the judges.
Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo
"We had all been warred that alcohol could make you blind or painless." Babba insisted. "You were in a group of people tried me. Some students made beer, wine and baddish gin, but there wasn't too much."
Vanzetti were executed in August 1827, and editorialists in the Nation and the New York Times still were debating the issue in October.
Babb remembered the case, but said, "I don't think people paid that much attention to it. We just didn't get ruffled about issues."
IT WAS A YEAR of heroes, not national issues, according to John Hohenberg, professional-in-residence in the KU School of Journalism.
Baba Ruth hit 69 home runs in 1927, and boxers Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney fought for the heavyweight championship in September.
Hohenberg, who graduated from Columbia University in 1927, said students enjoyed sports, speakeasies, plays and poetry.
"College was one grand and glorious party," he said. "But we were living in a
Hohenberg, said that the euphoria and optimism people felt in 1927 left the notion of being a victim.
"It was a wonderful time to be alive, young and in New York City," he said.
LEVIS Changing With the Times
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