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(Ed. Note: Life Erred)
Next to dieting, more seems to be written about courage these days than about any other discipline necessary to our national survival. Even though in matters of courage (as in matters of diet) there is sometimes a considerable difference between what we should do and what we do do, it is helpful to be reminded of the need for bravery in troubled times. In this respect, we have always found the editorial page of Life magazine to be not merely helpful but positively exhilarating. Scarcely a week goes by in which either an individual or an entire population is not urged to reaffirm some ancient princeiple and, if need be, to march in its name over the edge of the nearest precipice. Sad to say, events of the past few weeks have raised some doubts in our mind as to whether Life is ready to take the plunge along with its loyal readers.
Wednesday, November 8. 1961 University Daily Kansan
LIFE HAS NEVER had much use for the John Birch Society, which Life characterized last May as "shot through with escapism and desperation defeatist." Even more recently, Life also ran a short paragraph on one of the Birch society's sympathetic fellow organizations called the Christian
Anti-Communism Crusade. Life described the crusade's leader, Dr. Fred C. Schwarz, as a man who "praches doomsday by Communism in 1973 unless every American starts distrusting his neighbor as a possible Communist or "comsymp," and noted that "his local steering committees have often included known Birchers." The story was pegged on a planned revival meeting soon to be held "with full hullabaloo and political portent in Los Angeles."
The Los Angeles revival took place as scheduled, but apparently there was something of a hullabalo in New York, too. According to a rather gloating report in Human Events, after the paragraph on the Schwarz group appeared, "... a strong reaction against Life arose in the Los Angeles area, with a write-in drive against the Luce magazine as one of the features; reportedly a rain of protest from readers and advertisers descended on Life headquarters in New York." Whether or not the write-in drive had anything to do with it, Life underwent a sudden change of heart on the subject of Dr. Schwarz. At another anti-Communist rally staged recently by the Crusade in the Hollywood Bowl—
"Hollywood's Answer to Communism$^{3}$ —Dr. Schwarz shared his stage with C. D. Jackson, a vicepresident of Time, Inc. and the publisher of Life, who had flown in for the occasion from New York. "Regretfully," Jackson told the audience, "my magazine published an oversimplified misinterpretation. I believe we were wrong and I am profoundly sorry. You have in Dr. Schwarz a man who has dedicated his life to fighting Communism through knowledge of its techniques."
THE SCHWARZIAN method of fighting Communism was set forth that same evening by W. Cleo Skounes, former chief of police in Salt Lake City and a regular lecturer for the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade. It included such steps as severing diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, withdrawing from the U.N. unless its charter is revised, and demanding a full-scale investigation of the U.S. State Department. To the best of our recollection, Life has never seen fit to support any of these ideas, but we can't be sure. Maybe we missed the point of all those editorials about courage.
(From The Reporter Magazine, Nov. 9.1961)
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the took world
By Calder M. Pickett Professor of Journalism
TOM JONES, by Henry Fielding. Vintage (Random House). $1.25
TOM JONES, by Henry Fielding. Vintage (Random House), $12.5.
Some books, by their gith or reputations, scare off the reader.
"Tom Jones" is one of these. Despite the urging of a friend, who actually read this book aloud to his wife over a period of several months, I refused to read "Tom Jones." I remembered the complaints of college friends who had been required to read it.
Now I have read "Tom Jones" (this comment is in partial answer to faculty acquaintances who keep asking, "Do you actually read all those books?"). It took discipline and will-power, but I wish to report that it is one of the most enjoyable novels I have ever read.
NOW I LEAVE ITS LITERARY IMPORTANCE to the specialists, after commenting briefly that for being perhaps the first modern novel it is still one of the best. I'll approach it as a vastly amusing, perceptive, engrossing story of a young man who's no better than he has to be.
All along we know that things will turn out all right and that Tom finally will achieve social status and be allowed to wed his dear Sophia. But the fun is along the way, the torturous paths of 18th century England that Henry Fielding takes us down, the inns and the woods and the bedrooms.
"Tom Jones," as novel or as central character, spends much of its time in bedrooms. Fielding came a century before Victorianism, and he is unblushing about the amorous exploits of his hero, and other folks as well. The book spends much of its time in country inns and taprooms.
Worth Repeating
LET ME CITE JUST BRIEFLY some of the enjoyable episodes and characters in the novel: Squire Western, looking for his runaway daughter but dissuaded by the sound of baying hounds; the same squire, convinced that the gurglings of his grandchild are almost as beautiful as the sound of dogs on the chase; Thwackum and Square, those semi-villainous types who indulge in endless arguments about the nature of man; the involved story of the Old Man of the Hill; Tom winning through and triumphing over the evil Blifil.
On Jesuit colleges: Our students come to us conditioned by the postwar atmosphere they breathe, the only one they have ever known. For most of them that atmosphere creates a close association between a degree and a future salary. It is a far cry from the days when university graduates were expected to be teachers, statesmen, gentlemen of leisure, or clerics. The value of the classical tradition for such was always fairly obvious. Today it has to be sold to a resisting public—Robert I. Gannon
****
On college presidents: Fifty years ago the presidents of our older institutions were dignified and scholarly men in immediate contact with their handful of pre-war students. Now we have to find the type that can stay out late and wake up cheerful on the alkaline side, eat rich food and keep the figure down, shake hands like a Rotarian, pass the tambourine and keep the peace among hundreds of faculty members—when and if he happens to meet them.—Robert I. Gannon
Letters
CRC on Housing
We the members of the Civil Rights Council feel it necessary to reestablish our position in relation to off campus housing which is listed by the University housing office.
We are heartened by the increased interest of the administration in relation to this problem. We sincerely hope that their efforts will result in a significant increase in the number of rooms and apartments available on a non-discriminatory basis.
It is our belief that this problem involving discriminatory renters can be solved as it has on other major campuses of America. Among these are: Colorado University, Iowa State University, Illinois University, Cornell University and Ohio State University.
These progressive Universities have taken a positive step in refusing to list renters who discriminate on the basis of race, religion or national origin. We believe that Kansas University should take an active stand toward discriminatory renters and all forms of discrimination that involves students.
George Buford
Chuck Menghini
Co-Chairmen of CRC
Poetry Corner
Unimportance of Poetry
O'Flaherty crashed and burned.
They found him.
Geyerman disappeared from the dark security.
Of the landing pattern itself. Nor will they.
Bequeath a greater occasion or paradigm.
Formalities of old salutes and echelons
Waver on intervening air. Their lines
In patterns no longer traced by arms or planes
Recur by chance in the artist's polygons.
Old elements of the scenery which endure
Where heroes died in memorable postures
Are causes neither by attitude nor distance.
It is language where these accidents occur.
—Arvid Shulenberger
Short Ones
Familiarity breeds contempt -- and children. -- Mark Twain
It Looks This Way...
By Pam Christiansen Shawnee Mission junior
A few weeks ago, President Kennedy was host to the president of a small country in Scandinavia which shares a common border with Russia. This country, Finland, has a population of four million and occupies an area smaller than the state of Texas. Yet, this small nation is one of the most respected countries in the world.
FINNISH PEOPLE HAVE LIVED UNDER the threat of Russian domination for centuries, yet they remain today one of the most fiercely independent peoples on this earth. They have struggled and fought with their bare hands and an indomitable will to maintain their freedom. They have retained their spirit under the crushing demands made upon them by Russia and stand today as the only country that has ever paid off its war debts.
No one reads very much about Finland these days. No one wonders much about what will happen to this tiny nation which has so successfully maintained peaceful relations with both the Communists and the West. We on the KU campus are too busy thinking about the MU game or mid-semester exams to think seriously about the tremendous threat to both Finland's freedom and our own.
PERHAPS THE FOLLOWING LETTER from a Finnish college student will help to wake up some of the complacent people on this campus. She is typical of the Finnish youth of today. Read it and think about it:
"Today has Russia done one of her 'good deeds' to mankind. They say that an explosion took place this morning and it might mean the 50 megaton bomb.
"We have been warned against the radioactive rays and told what we have to do in case of emergency. All church bells will be rung as well as factory pipes and sirens. However, there is no great danger yet. But today we received a note from Russia telling us what we are expected to do. Be naturally on the side of the Russians against Germany. It is thought generally that it might not be long before the Russians invade our country. Well, this is only vague supposition. One never knows.
"I feel studying is of no use now when the world situation is so serious, but one must do something."
No, my Finnish friend, we do not know how awful it feels to fight on the wrong side. We do not know how it feels to fight at all. We scuttle around in our unimportant lives driving new cars, going to parties, complaining about the draft and hanging people in effigy.
NO, MY FINNISH FRIEND, we don't know how you feel and we won't until every last one of us is annihilated because of our stupidity and complacency, or until EVERY LAST ONE OF US STARTS TO THINK AND ACT!
From the Newsstand
The Human Comedy
Simply because it lacked sophistication in its humor, Princeton University's humor magazine, the Tiger, has bit the literary (such as 'twas) dust. The Jest Journal was eighty.
It can be easily understood that humor, as much as panties and motor cars, should move in the changing tide of human fancy. American humor has had an unusually sharp transmutation, possibly because of the changing waves of immigrants bringing from various corners of the world their own native sense of wit, and the American's inherent passion for changing tastes.
A SORT OF RECORD OF American humor was the subject of the DuPont Show of the Week on NBC-TV recently. The record was more in the speed and style of the old 78 records than the new $33^{1/2}$ type. As swiftly and lightly as a row of giggles it skipped over the years of American humor with as much emphasis on history as a cigarette commercial. While MC George Burns managed to throw in an ample portion of his old-time vaudeville bit with spouse Gracie Allen (typical bit: about the aunt who was a snake charmer in the family's backyard circus, but, since she was afraid of snakes, tied worms together) most of the great contributors to what has become typical of American humor were absent. Not even mentioned were performers like Jackie Gleason, Martha Raye, Olsen and Johnson, George M. Cohan, Robert Benchley, James Thurber, Imogene Coca and Sid Caesar, Lum 'n Abner, Amos and Andy, Ed Wynn, and numerous others.
THAT THESE OVERSIGHTS were in tv's own field, and the other broadcast medium, radio, give some indication of the even broader oversight of humorists in the newspaper field such as Harry Golden, Bennet Cerf, Elbert Hubbard, and all the comic strips from Polly and her Pals, through Toots and Casper and Hambone, to Peanuts.
resistant M material
Whether frolicsome and corny or sophisticated and vague, the newspaper has been a contributor and a recorder of American humor, and in its pages can be noted the vastly changing taste of American laughter. It can be noted—even in the comics—that humor is a little slighter, a little more serious now than in the old days.
Princeton's Tiger may be replaced with a serious and solemn magazine devoted to the more sophisticated student. Can this mean that the healthy ring of laughter, American or otherwise, grows more hollow daily?
—Publishers' Auxiliary, Oct. 7, 1961
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