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University Daily Kansan Monday, Oct. 29, 1962
The Aroused Public
New York is a city where almost anything can happen. Much of what happens there isn't worth remembering. But a truly momentous event occurred there recently—an event with profound implications for the modern American.
The facts, without embellishment, are these: On Wednesday night a group of about 100 hot, tired and crushed subway riders "highjacked" an I. R. T. subway train. The action was precipitated when riders wanting to get to one station were dumped at another station with a promise from the station manager that a train for their destination would be along.
ONE RIDER reported the incident this way: "Each time a train pulled in, the station-master promised us the next would be ours." After a long wait, when the promise continued to be unfulfilled, the crowd simply boarded a train and sat, arms folded, until the train was rerouted to their destination.
The implications of this mild revolt at the grass roots against the ultra-organized, impersonally mechanized, and bureacratically controlled society, which is engulfing the individual had better not go unnoticed. Great upheavals from tiny irritations grow.
The villain in this episode is not important. It is but a representation of the many modern-day institutions, utilitarian and even benevolent to a
degree, but also capable of ruthless disdain as regards the feelings of "little people."
THE SIGNIFICANT lesson of this story is in the reaction of the anonymous "little guy." The story demonstrates that, far from being a timid animal who can always be ground into a conforming pulp, "the people" can still initiate action to redress a grievance.
The I. R. T. could just as easily have been cast in the role of Big Business, Big Government, Big Labor, or Big Education. The lesson is still the same. You can only push the drones so far. Then watch out!
Vance Packard and other contemporary critics to the contrary, the American people clearly are not ready to give up their revolutionary heritage and acquiesce to becoming mere functionary robots in a vast megalopolis.
Admittedly, the I. R. T. revolt probably will not take its place in future history books along with such demonstrations of the independent spirit as Shay's Rebellion. But such incidents have a way of sparking chain reactions.
IT WAS A HEADY experience for those who took part in the uprising, forcing a giant to toe the line. Said one New York rebel: "I was proud. I felt like a prisoner."
The warning sign has gone up.
—Richard Bonett
Romney's Personality, Image Important in Michigan Contest
By Dennis Farney
(This is the third in a series of articles on gubernatorial and congressional contests in the 1962 election.)
"Part Romney's hair in the middle, put a turtleneck sweater on him and a football under his arm, make him 21 instead of a remarkably well preserved 54, and there you have a college hero of the era of Frank Merriwell at Yale—courgeous, right-thinking, true blue."
That's how Stewart Alsop describes George Romney: devout Mormon, political conservative, president of American Motors, and Republican candidate for the governor of Michigan.
ROMNEY, WHO STANDS a good chance of becoming the Republican candidate for President in 1984 if he can win this race, faces Democratic incumbent John Swainson.
Swainson, a 37-year-old veteran who lost both legs in a land mine explosion in World War II, squeaked to a 40,000-vote victory in 1960 and now appears to be running behind Romney.
A poll conducted this week by the Detroit News shows Romney ahead by four percentage points, a decided improvement over his May position, when he trailed by eight.
With both candidates now campaigning hard in the metropolitan Wayne-Oakland County complex,
the election appears to hinge on these factors:
- Romnev's personality.
- Romney's own brand of conservatism vs. Swainson's emphasis upon state social welfare programs and federal aid in the form of jobs.
- Swainson's appeal to Michigan veterans.
- The political power of Walter Reuther and Michigan's organized labor.
- The impact of President Kennedy's appearance in Michigan.
- And, strangely enough, the weather.
Romney's biggest asset, Alsop writes, is his personality and the clean-cut "image" he projects. He conveys. Alsop writes, "an almost overpowering impression of earnestness, conviction and just plain goodness."
ROMNEY, for example, fasted and prayed for 24 hours before announcing his candidacy last February. Some considered the episode nothing more than a "political stunt," but Romney appears to have really meant it.
When newspapers played up the incident, Romney angrily explained that it is a Mormon custom to fast before making important decisions and added that it was a "private, not public, affair."
Somewhat balancing Romney's
Daily Hansan
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
Scott Payne ... Managing Editor
Richard Bonett, Dennis Farney, Zeke Wigglesworth, and Bill Mullins, Assistant Managing Editors; Mike Miller, City Editor; Ben Marshall, Sports Editor; Margaret Calcart, Society Editor.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
The latter pledge has an especially strong appeal in the unemployment-plagued Upper Peninsula mining area. Swainson carried 12 of the 15 Upper Peninsula counties in 1960.
TO A CERTAIN extent, at least, this race is a conservative vs. liberal contest. Romney, a corporation president, is concerned about what he calls the "enormous aggregations of power" in both big industries and labor unions, but especially labor unions. This power, he says, undermines local initiative and invites federal intervention in the economy.
Clayton Keller and Bill Sheldon ... Co-Editorial Editors
appeal is Swainson's appeal to the veterans in Michigan. There are an estimated one million of them in the state and they represent a probable pro-Swainson bloc.
Swainson has stressed the need for state minimum wage and medical care programs, and promises to work to attract more federal projects to Michigan if elected.
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Charles Martinache ...
Jack Cannon, Advertising Manager; Doug Farmer, Circulation Manager; Gene Spalding, National Advertising Manager; Bill Woodburn, Classified Advertising Manager; Dan Meek, Promotion Manager.
WHILE EMPHASIZING Democratic minimum wage and medical care programs, Swainson labels the Republican Party as one which "turns its back on the weak and aged."
The Romney-Swainson race also is a test of organized labor's power in Michigan, and more specifically, a test of the power of United Automobile Workers President Walter Reuther. Although Reuther and Romney are close friends, and despite the fact that Reuther called the 1961 American Motors-UAW pact the "most significant and historic collective bargaining agreement ever signed in the United States," Reuther has thrown his support to Swainson.
This is important, because observers feel that Romney, to win, must cut into the heavily pro-Democratic labor vote in Detroit.
IN A SENSE, the campaign also is a test of President Kennedy's ability to carry Democratic candidates to victory on his coattails.
Kennedy toured Michigan earlier this month and, Cuban critis permitting, plans to return again early in November.
And finally, there's the matter of the weather on election day. Observers feel that if Swainson is to win, he must draw a heavy vote in the normally Democratic cities. Fair weather would mean a larger vote—and Swainson, now trailing in the polls after watching a once-comfortable lead evaporate—needs all the sunshine he can get.
THE COURSE OF EMPIRE. by Bernard Dvoto (Sentry. $2.65).
Among paperback reprints of the past few years, this magnificent history should rank near the top. It is a beautiful volume, one which has the enduring quality of a hardback. The printing and illustrations are exceptional. As for the writing—well, it's Bernard DeVoto, and when it came to writing the history of the West no one could top him.
DeVoto's love for the land about which he wrote is apparent in every paragraph. This is a book with epic sweep. DeVoto shows us here how manifest destiny was achieved, how it was a concept with validity right from the earliest conquistadores and Frenchmen looking for the Northwest Passage.
This story begins with those Spaniards in the Southwest, with the celebrated Cabeza de Vaca and Coronado and later Escalante. DeVoto then describes the carving out of the continent—Cartier, Jolliet, Mackenzie, and, most significantly, Lewis and Clark. Their story is the greatest of the epics described here.
Particularly fascinating is the interweaving of fact and legend—and myth, such as the recurring myth of the Mandans, who were believed by many to be descendants of early Welsh explorers. The myth of the Northwest Passage itself hangs over the entire story, and one realizes why this was a dream that absorbed so many for so long a time—CMP
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PULITZER PRIZE READER, edited by Leo Hamalian and Edmond L. Volpe (Popular Library, 95 cents).
This volume is a literary curiosity. Unable to obtain rights (this is the reader's assumption, at any rate) to the specific works which won for some writers the Pulitzer prize, the editors have taken anything at hand. So we have some real freaks here, interspersed with some good writing, and some prize-winning writing.
It is a bulky volume, and it is difficult to mention all the writing included. There is work here that won the Pulitzer prize—a chapter from Michener's "Tales of the South Pacific," one from Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny," one from Drury's "Advise and Consent." There is an excerpt from Parrington's "Main Currents in American Thought," one from Sherwood's "Roosevelt and Hopkins," one from Lindbergh's "The Spirit of St. Louis," and so on.
By themselves these aren't bad. Labeled as prize-winners they are frustrating.-CMP
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THE AGE OF FABLE, by Thomas Bulfinch (Mentor, 60 cents). THE AGE OF CHIVALRY and THE LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE, by Thomas Bulfinch (Mentor, 75 cents).
In these two volumes is incorporated the great lore of mythology which has been so significant in literature of the western world. Beautifully printed and conceived, and taken directly from the celebrated retellings of the old legends by Bulfinch, they are a must for those interested in building up a library of the classics.
Included are the stories right from the Greek Gods and the Norsemen up through Robin Hood and Richard the Lion-Hearted. All of them are here, in all their exploits. For those who have not heard of Bulfinch, he was a son of the great architect, Thomas Bulfinch, and wrote his books in a 30-year period while he was a bank clerk in Boston.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
SC canr soul fetus
I IUST WANT TO MAKE SURE HE GRAPES HIS OWN EXAMS
I NEVER SEEM TO DO WELL ON MACHINE SCORED TEST.