PAGE TWO
SUMMER SESSION KANSAN
TUESDAY, JULY 13, 1937
Comment
The Case of Mr. Smith
The late Mr. Smith was a typical American—typical as his name. Married a few years before the great depression began, he and his wife had participated in the gay feeling of the late twenties, and had taken it on the chin like everybody else in the early thirties. Their child, Junior, was a depression baby.
And Mr. Smith died as typically as he lived. For he was only one of 37,500 motor car martyrs whom we speed-mad Americans sacrificed last year.
In dying, however, at last he achieved a bit of distinction. It is not every person who is permitted to live after his back is broken and the spinal column sticks out through the skin for people to see.
Mr. Smith had that privilege. By some miracle he retained consciousness for a full hour after the car crash that proved fatal to him and seriously injured Mrs. Smith and Junior.
Not Worth Saving
But Mr. Smith knew his life was not worth saving, and perhaps that explains why he tried to end it quickly with a pistol he succeeded in snatching from the holster of a highway patrolman.
Mrs. Smith, his widow, was more fortunate. She escaped with part of her nose, and a scar that surgeons say will always be a livid red line across her left cheek. And Junior was luckiest of all: poor little beggar, all he lost—besides his father—was his left arm.
It must be admitted that the great American monster—motorized manslaughter — acted a bit conservatively in the Smith case. More often its death toll is two or five or even 10 at a time, with a proportionately higher number of bad injuries.
Higher Every Year
To say that the motor car death situation in America needs attention is to state the case mildly. It cries out imperiously for correction. If the death rate continues to climb as it has every year in the last 20, the time surely will come when an outraged citizenry, fearing for its very existence, will strike the motor car out of the American picture, regardless of the social and commercial retrogression such a step may bring with it.
Not that we don't know how to tackle the problem. Engineering and scientific genius have been as active in this matter—and as successful—as in any other, and all that lacks now is a vigorous program of application.
Five points of attack have been generally agreed upon: safe highways, enforcement of city traffic laws, safety education, limitation of driving privileges, and regulation of pedestrian traffic. They have demonstrated their effectiveness in every situation where they have been applied consistently.
Principle Is Unsound
Among cities, Evanston, a suburb
Most American highways would seem to have been built with the express purpose of hiking the death rate. The very principle of having two streams of speeding cars constantly meeting each other — with only a painted line on the flat concrete to keep them apart—is unsound. Time will be when all main trafficways will incorporate the principle of the "freeway," which has two separate lanes and no intersections.
of Chicago, has set a record in solving the motor car death problem. So successful has the Illinois city been, in fact, that municipalities all over the country send patrolmen there to learn how it is done. Evanston last year had chopped its motor car death rate to one-eighth of what it was in 1929. And what Evanston has done, any city can do.
Safety boosters hailed enthusiastically the recent Kansas law placing a definite limitation upon the number of automobile drivers in the state. The law requires a driver to pass a stiff examination each year before a new one-year driving license is granted. What with 45,000,-000 motor car drivers in America—almost a million for every state—laws of an equally severe nature must be adopted throughout the country before the death rate will diminish noticeably. Because 15 percent of these 45,000,000 drivers are involved in practically all accidents, and it is that 15 per cent—including the speed maniacs, psychopaths, morons and heavy drikers—which rigid license laws will eliminate.
Typically American
The motor car death situation is a typically American problem. It attests to the popular American philosophy of "get what you're after and to hell with the consequences." The consequences certainly have been hell. In this case the objective was a rather useless terrestrial speed, and the consequences—during the last 13 years alone—have been a loss of more lives than all of the fatalities in all of America's wars—from 1776 through 1918. Few people know that the late lamented World war, in spite of all the hullaballoo since, demanded only slightly more than 50,000 American lives.
And fewer still realize that the American motor car has wiped out more than 50,000 lives in the last 18 months.
Here is a campaign to which every American can give his whole-hearted support. It won't require too much time on the part of any individual, and those who become boosters for safety won't be damned as fanatics, either. The personal aspect, also, cannot be overemphasized: it is a campaign in which every man must fight—to save his own life.
Industry Takes Collegians On Big Scale at Good Wage From the Tobago State Journal.
Chicago's Graduate Placement bureau found average monthly salaries of $115 for 92 per cent of the graduates.
It is stated by the statistician that not since the Coolidge era have the graduates of June found jobs a plentiful as they have this year.
Yale placed 45 per cent of her graduates at average salaries of $120. Princeton reports that "anyone who wanted to land a job could do so." Harvard stated that the graduates being hired listed 15 per cent ahead of 1936, and Columbia said that "1937 will join 1930 as a peak year in the employment of graduates."
CONCERT SIDELIGHTS
The big industries have been outstanding in their employment of college graduates. United States Steel took 594 graduates from 91 colleges; American Telephone and Telegraph took 300; General Electric took 700; Goodyear Tire and Firestone took 110.
The Chicago Civic Opera trio in its concert here last Thursday night made everybody glad, even the weatherman, who ushered in the event with the first cool weather enjoyed by Summer Session Jayhawkers in many days.
Rarely, indeed, do natives of this section—in the summertime—have an opportunity to hear music such as filled Hoch auditorium. Both individual and group numbers established the three men as artists of uncommon genius and accomplishments. And the hundreds of listeners showed their intense appreciation by demanding six encores. Judging from the extended applause, a dozen more would have been equally welcome.
A point of great interest was the quality of the two string instruments used in the concert. Isadore Berger, violinist, played on his Stradivarius—perhaps the first seen or even heard by many in the audience—and Johan Lingeman, violoncellist, used a rare Nicolaus Amati 'cello which he is justly proud to own.
Waldemar Geltch, chairman of the violin department in the School of Fine Arts, commented at length upon the opening number, Tschalkowsky's "Trio in A Minor." It appealed to him particularly, he said, because it is so rarely played. Only once before had he heard it rendered in a concert.
An uninvited and somewhat unappreciated door-crasher at the concert was a lusty-voiced cicada ("locust" in common parlance), which joined in at an opportune time from high in the loft, and at one point achieved perfect rhythm with the three musicians on the stage. But its performance was brief.
Both Messrs. Berger and Lingeman addressed Pianist Leo Kopp as "Maestro," no doubt in recognition of his distinguished work as an orchestra conductor. And this was the more remarkable because he appeared to be considerably younger than either of his associates.
D. M. Swarthout, whose favorite instrument is the 'cello, was particularly interested in Mr. Lingman's fine specimen. Both musicians very willingly displayed their instruments on the stage after the concert, and answered a thousand and one questions from inquisitive onlookers.
One auditor at the concert, herself a fine arts student, was heard giving an unconscious and very deep gas at an especially thrilling moment in Maestro Kopp's rendition of "Nocturne in F Sharp Minor," by Chopin. Slips that pass in the light.
Many persons remarked at the noticeable expression—amounting almost, it seemed, to adoration—which 'Cellist Lingeman lavished on his instrument as he played. "It looked," said one, "as if he and the 'cello were entirely alone together, and glad to be so."
But the life of a musician on concert tour is not a soft one. After a brief rest Thursday night, the three men left Lawrence early Friday morning for Warensburg, Mo., where they were scheduled for a concert at 11 a.m. Their day's program called also for a concert at the University of Missouri, at Columbia, Friday night.
THIS and THAT By KENNETH KITCH
Might it not be said that the young lady in the East who is willing to listen to people's grivances and disap-pointments at so-much-per-hour is operating a "pet shop?"
This one is being told on Joe Giannangelo, maestro of the towels and check-room at the gymnasium: Walking into the check room the other day, he espied a stranger poking around-and-among things. He didn't know exactly what to do under the circumstances, but rather than create a scene he decided to let things ride a while and keep an eye on the chap. Finally, the man appeared to be through with his examination and Joe inquired: "Well, did you see everything you wanted to see?"
"Why, yes—I guess that I did," the man replied.
"Then," bristled Joe, "get out of here!"
Just then "Phog" Allen walked in the door. "Joe," he said, "I want you to meet Gwinn Henry."
An extremely appropriate motion picture title for some actors and actresses we have seen is one which has just been released: "Two Who Dared."
President Roosevelt's recent order to government departments that they must save 10 per cent of their current annual appropriations is a great deal like Grandpa Twaddle who used to warn his wife, "Hettie, you're spendin' too much on clothes. How about leavin' off some of them buttons."
Between denying reports of their approaching marriage or their approaching divorce, it must hustle some of these movie folk to find time for a little rumored quiet wedded life.
Scientists in Egypt have found an ancient horse which was buried in Thebes 15 centuries before the birth of Christ. We shouldn't mention it, but perhaps they've finally uncovered the source of restaurant steaks.
Things: Some of the journalism gang are dissatisfied with the title of this column. They feel that it is
Summer Session Kansan
Address All Communications to SUMMER SESSION KANSAN
EDWARD BARNETT ... Editor
EDWARD BARNETT ... Editor
Associate Editors
BILL TURNER ... M. J. CASKY
F. QUENTIN BROWN ... Business Mgr.
Telephones
Telephones Business Office K.U. 66 News Room K.U. 25
not modern in any sense of the word; that it's trite and overworked. Some of them claim that every high school paper in the country uses the same title for editorial gleanings of the "Hey, did you know—" type . . . It's a sad disappointment to learn that this ancient and honorable and revered and oft-used head has fallen into disrepute . . . The only consolation is that these same brash young people are getting tired of hearing about Washington and his father's cherry tree . . . They won't even listen to the dear old rhymes of Mother Goose, any more . . . "This and That" isn't a victim of age; it's a victim of modern lack of sympathy with tradition . . . But if our contemporaries insist on a change, perhaps they can suggest something better. The field is open. The first thing we know, we'll be writing under a heading something like: "Hot Stuff for the Summer" or "Luscious Libidos." Whew, it'll be a tough job to be modern.
Orals lists are complete in the School of Education, a little birdie says. The boys will soon be writing their own version of The Star Spangled Banner . . . Did you ever step into the home economics department corridor and take a look at the pictures of the University's war dead? Why hide the heroes away? They're the best sermon one can find on the campus.
Visit Here
Dr. Orville Mosher, professor of history at the Kansas State Teachers College of Emporia, spent Sunday in Lawrence as the guest of Dr. Sam Johnson, visiting professor of history at K. U. Dr. and Mrs. Mosher and small sons were also guests of Rosemary Blakely, graduate student.
HERE YOU ARE MEN!
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Wash Robes 1 Lot Wool Sweaters
SUMMER SUITS
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