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University Daily Kansan Thursday, Nov. 8, 1962
'What's Goin'on Here?'
It was really embarrassing.
A foreign student asked a fair and logical question, and the best I could do was stand there displaying my best egg-on-the-face expression.
IT WASN'T THAT he phrased the question with ridicule calculated to be critical of an American tradition. His curiosity was aroused and he simply looked to a native American son for an explanation.
He asked. "What are they doing?"
That's all. He didn't ask, "Why," he just asked, "What." A fair question—it deserved an honest answer that should carry a logical explanation.
BUT, TELL ME, what explanation can be made for the crowning of a Homecoming Queen that is staged on the front steps of Strong Hall with all the savoir faire and finesse of a used-furniture auction?
Of course, being a stranger to American customs, the student didn't realize that it was peculiar for such a high honor to be bestowed before an audience of approximately 200 transient class-goers, half of whom could neither see the 10 candidates nor hear the master of ceremonies.
And for the girls, condolence. This crowning moment of exhilaration or disappointment (three winners, seven un-winners) offered all the opportunity for grace of a field hockey match.
BECAUSE THE CEREMONY WAS held between classes,the candidates were dressed in their goin'-to-school togs.Not that they look bad in their school clothes—no, siree, not bad at all. But for the love of Pete,who ever heard of a Queen being forced by circumstances to begin her reign in a pair of bobby sox and a skirt and sweater?
But that's quibbling—to make a plausible explanation of Homecoming to a student not acquainted with American traditions and ceremonies it is necessary to deal with elements more basic to the phenomena.
So I told him that Homecoming is the occasion celebrated annually at colleges and universities where all the alumni come back to visit once again the hallowed halls where they were intellectually outfitted to meet the demands of a cold, cruel world.
MY FOREIGN STUDENT friend seemed to accept this part of the explanation, so I was heartened to become more definitive on Homecomings by added certain other details of the phenomenon.
I told him how all the fraternities, sororites, and dormitories spend hundreds of dollars and
many, many hours building crepe paper yard decorations and floats, and by that time it was clear that, once again, he was wondering, "What are they doing?"
Well, having gone this far, I went on to tell him about how everyone dresses up and goes to the football game and, not wanted to leave out important detail. I added that lots of the people take whiskey or vodka or some other kind of booze to the game so they will be able to get swacked out of their gourd (as, drunk out of their mind). I told him that this is an important part of Homecoming.
Well, as you might imagine, by this time he had given up; but then I began to wonder, "What are they doing?"
WELL, I WENT BACK to the start where we crowned the Queen on the steps in front of Strong Hall, and with this dignified ceremony in mind, I tried to look at the whole grand picture.
First of all, it can be said that Homecoming is the time when a very attractive and charming girl is chosen to reign as Queen.
But aren't there hundreds of other equally attractive and charming girls at KU who did not even have a chance to be considered for the honor because they are outside the inner-circle of politics which controls the selection of a girl to represent the entire University?
Well, that's quibbling again—let's move on.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
THERE'S NO ARGUMENT against the idea that it's fine for the alumni to come back to the alma mater once a year. That's the basic excuse for the attendant sideshows.
As for yard decorations and floats, well I guess it's their time and money. They can expend both without license or sound reason if they desire.
But couldn't the time and money be better invested in establishing a works which would be a lasting monument to their devotion, sweat and sacrifice?
AS FOR THE FOOTBALL GAME and the boozing, I'm at a loss. The game is fine, but the boozing and sometimes—attendant fighting defys explanation.
So, my bewildered friend, here it is: Homecoming is the time when a girl is crowned Queen; organized houses spend great amounts of time and money erecting crepe paper monuments; the alumni make their annual pilgrimage, and everyone goes to the football game and gets swacked and looks for fights.
Think not? Then just look around this week-end and ask yourself, "What are they doing?"
Here is one of the forgotten novels of American literature. Cooper, Hawthorne and Melville have crowded it aside, yet it should be studied first of all as an example of the Gothic (Elsie is right out of Poe) and second for its comments on predestination and Puritanism.
ELSIE VENNER, by Oliver Wendell Holmes (Signet Classics, 75 cents).
It admittedly is a fuzzy story. Elsie Venner is a girl whose mother was bitten by a snake, and Elsie has strange, snakelike characteristics (though she also is strikingly beautiful). She alone has the power of calming the snakes who live on The Mountain, and her stare is known to turn schoolmasters wild.
The story is by turns fantastic and funny. One feels little compassion for Elsie, and one wonders about the theme, because Holmes, an arch-critic of predestination, seems to believe the nonsense of the central theme.-CMP
THE FARM, by Louis Bromfield (Signet Classics, 75 cents).
It is difficult to class "The Farm" as a novel. What it does is to set forth the changing patterns of life on an Ohio farm, through four generations, starting with the dreaming yet realistic Colonel MacDougal, a primitive lover of the land in the tradition of Jefferson and Rousseau, and ending with Johnny, who tells the story, a young man who realizes that the land has given way to the forces of industrialism.
The book is almost primitivist in its approach to the soil. Bromfield was convinced that in nature, in the simplicity of life on the land, man's best could be realized. His villains are the materialistic New Englanders of the Protestant ethic, bringing their grasping ways to the virgin land of the Western Reserve.
It is slow-moving, with scarcely nothing happening, yet it is full of exceptional portraits, and it deserves study in the important field of the literature of agrarianism—CMP
Letters
Amidst the current interest in the Peace Corps, let us remember the exciting opportunities for service in this country and overseas long offered by the churches to people with skills in medicine, agriculture, education, social work, and many other fields. The modern missionary movement has modified its approach, but it still offers the double opportunity for humanitarian service and for evangelistic witness. Such opportunities exist for short periods of two and three years, as well as for a lifetime.
Churches Serve Overseas Editor:
Mr. Wiggins in his enthusiasm did an injustice when he rated the concern based on religious motivation in the same category as interest in people for reasons of economic exploitation, military alliance, or political power. Humanitarian service by itself is valuable, but can there be a higher motivation than the desire for the well-being of the whole man, for his spirit as well as his body and mind?
The experiences of the Peace Corps in the selection, training and utilization of its volunteers will add to the large body of such knowledge built up by years of missionary and other private programs and by government activities. It drew its procedures from this past experience, and is one more link in the chain.
Placed in its context, the Peace Corps is seen as one of several worthwhile possibilities for service to be investigated.
Moma Millikan
Lawrence
1953 KU graduate
"PROBABLY THE BIGGEST PROBLEM FACING YOU YOUNG STUDENTS IN COLLEGE TO-DAY IS: WHERE TO FIND A PARKING PLACE FOR YOUR CAR?"
Food Crisis Won't Bring Red Regime's Downfall
By Scott Payne
Note to those who think that reports of famine in Communist China presage the imminent downfall of the Red regime: Forget it.
It just won't happen.
Chinese history is studded with rebellion and overthrow of rulers. In the past year, all the symptoms of an approaching explosion within China have been evident.
Refugees have been streaming into Hong Kong. Macao officials have reported hearing explosions in Kwantung Province that indicate the presence of saboteurs. Stories of brutality, starvation and unrest have followed the floods of Chinese leaving the mainland.
THESE SIGNS have so worked on Chiang Kai-shek, Formosa's Crusader Rabbit, that he recently renewed his perennial prediction of the "Holy Expedition" across the Formosa straits. But the old man is living in a dream.
Last year, the Chinese people were approaching a rebellious mood. But the Peking government saw what was coming and acted. The regime junked Party Chairman Mao Tse-tung's "Great Leap." This was an ambitious program similar to Premier Stalin's first five-year plan.
The "Great Leap," which was to overtake western economy within 15 years, was a chaotic drive for more of everything. It kept millions of peasants working 18 hours a day working crude steel smelters and digging faulty irrigation ditches.
BUT WITH SIGNS of widespread unrest, China's communal system was reformed rapidly. Working hours were reduced. The government introduced the profit motive to encourage peasant initiative. Small plots of land have been doled out to millions of peasants.
The regime also dropped the sweeping birth control program that it initiated in 1957. Only recently have the government-controlled newspapers begun to issue warnings against early marriages and "too many children." The
B
Chinese press also is printing detailed instructions on the use of contraceptives.
The major consideration in Mao's new economic arrangements is, of course, in the area of food production. At the beginning of the "Great Leap," minor increases were noted in food production.
BUT FOR THE last four years, China has undergone natural disasters which have been catastrophic. Rain and high wind has destroyed wheat crops in some sections of the country, while drought has ruined rice growth in other areas. Flagues of insects have consumed millions of tons of grain.
Because of the food shortage, it has been necessary to reverse the traditional economic Communistic production priorities. The emphasis now is first upon agriculture, then light industry. Heavy industry will have to wait.
Mao Tse-tung and his regime are now fighting the battle of the minimum—simply to feed the Chinese population. If the new, decentralized agrarian system works, two or three good harvests should see the Feking government ready for another "Big Leap." Such an effort, with the active support of 500 million well-fed men and women, probably will surpass all expectations—and fears.
If China's poor showing in agriculture continues, it will be years before problems caused by food shortages can be overcome. Even at this rate, however, the "Great Leap" made relatively significant strides in industrialization of China, which was no more than a feudal state in 1939. But the government expects the new economic arrangement to work.
OBVIOUSLY, MAO is counting on the enthusiastic support of the masses of the Chinese people. Equally obvious, he has the support he needs. The Mao regime could not hope to dictate to the Chinese masses if they opposed his will. Even the modern $2\frac{1}{2}$ million-man Communist Chinese army could not stop the explosive, savage anger of 600 to 700 million peasants.
Daily Hansan
University of Kaasas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone VIII 3-2700
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