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University Daily Kansan Friday. December 3, 1952
Publick Occurrences BOTH FORREIGN AND DOMESTICK
CAMPUS
Clyde Lovellette and Wes Santee have probably been the best known students, nationally, on the campus in the past few years. However, they may have to share their position if Joan Gavin's picture appears in Life magazine.
Our vote says that the "symbolic" blue tree in Strong hall won't be any more popular with the students than last year's "pure" white. What's the matter with "symbolic green" for Christmas trees?
We see another tradition going up at the west end of the campus. We predict that everything from ink to pretty girls will go in the fountain and eventually it will become as renowned as Jimmy Green.
NATIONAL
Washington reporters are still getting a laugh out of Secretary Wilson. We wonder if the fun coming out of these press conferences will turn into another episode like that of the famous "dogs."
Look for an academy award to be given to Marlon Brando for his superb acting in the movie, "On the Waterfront." It is time that some real recognition be given to this fine actor.
All the President's men will have one heck of a time putting the Republican party back together again after it tumbles from the "back McCarthy" wall.
INTERNATIONAL
If the air or sea blockade to try to force Red China to release 13 American prisoners is pushed through by Republican Senate Leader William F. Knowland of California, we can be assured that Red China will strengthen its economic ties with Russia. West Europe, too, will be tempted to trade with Red China, which is an excellent center for European countries seeking an outlet for increased trade.
War-Causing Incident?
Wars begin with a series of incidents.
These incidents are not the cause of the wars; they are the stimulus to a nation's emotions. A nation will not fight a war until it is in a fever pitch of emotion.
The recent announcement by Communist China that 13 Americans are being held and are sentenced as "spies" is such an incident.
But the United States simply cannot afford to think emotionally about this announcement. Neither the United States, nor any other nation in the world, can afford a series of incidents leading to another war.
Sen. William Knowland (R.-Calif.) succumbed to the temptation of emotional thinking when he suggested that the United States place a blockade on the Chinese coast, acting through the United Nations if possible.
It ought to be done.
But a blockade is too near the emotional approach of the Big Third War.
The administration, by taking Sen. Knowland's suggestion, would be abandoning a hoped-for policy of co-existence. For the first time, the United States would be directly interfering in the internal economy of a Communist state. The danger lies in the precedent.
Understanding the oriental mind can at times be a difficult task. Very few Westerners have dared to think themselves capable. Red China's motive in announcing the imprisonment of the 13 Americans is certainly buried deep in the pages of international politics. There can be little justification of the act itself, even by the standards of applying pressure on the West. Red China is sure to alienate some of the world's now-neutral nations by its brutal action.
According to an international law agreement adopted after World War I—an agreement which the U.S. recognized although it did not enter a blockade, in order to be binding, must be "effective." In other words, U.S. ships would have to patrol the Japan, China and Yellow seas—one of the longest coastlines in the world.
And to keep the proposed blockade effective the United States would have to stop the ships of nations now friendly to democracy's side. The injury to these nation's trade might be remembered far longer than the incident which caused the blockade.
To the editor:
Ron Grandon
... Letters
As a female basketball participant I feel it is my duty to speak up against the article printed in a past issue of the Daily Kansan entitled, "Girls Basketball is Called an Abomination."
The writer of this article has made my job relatively simple through her analysis of something she obviously knows little about. Not only does she fall short on the number of players on a GIRLS' basketball team—the are six, you know—but the whole approach falls short of everything but absurdity to those who are familiar with the game and its advantages.
Agreed, her poll of desired aspects of the game are worth striving for though I seriously doubt that girls play basketball with the purpose in mind of developing the "feminine form divine." Her interpretation of these goals, however, leaves much to be undone and much more to be desired.
As for exercise, she agrees that this is good. I suppose there is some slight chance of injury to the "internal female," as she puts it, but in what type of physical endeavor isn't there this possibility. On the contrary, I don't see why physical exercise, which conditions and builds the body, would fail to do the same for this region.
"Teamwork is fine"—you bet it is. It's the quickest and most efficient way of getting anything done that requires collective effort; a basketball game is no exception. Quite conceivably the teamwork you learn on a basketball court can also be applied in later life. I am sure if the author's "beat the tar out of them" idea of teamwork pre-vailed at a girls' basketball game the hair, if not the tar, would literally fly.
The implication that girl basketball players are not just as interested in perpetuating their femininity as any other girl is an undeserved insult to the writer's own sex. Maybe the amasser of this information should have included in her poll just how many girls abstain from make up—because they play basketball—how many don't persuade their fathers that they need more clothes, and how many don't care to excite male approval, a few of the interests of the average girl today according to the writer of the article. Chances are if she had asked these questions she wouldn't have much evidence to back her implications that basketball players don't care for such things.
As far as forgetting attractiveness during a game, you can't exactly expect to come out of any strenuous exercise without looking a bit ruffed on the edges, but the unpleasanties needn't and shouldn't last long after the game is over.
we'll go along with your desire to see the male basketball season open because we like basketball, and next year we'll be playing again ourselves. How about bringing your views to a game sometime and see how they stack up.
To someone not understanding and appreciating ballet—the writer's prescribed substitute for women's basketball—the analogy made to women basketball players as "huge, hairy spiders, out waving their arms madly about hissing in the other team's face" might apply.
The account comes closer to describing the unathletic female who expends her physical energy gossiping and jesticulating to attract attention.
Diane Klepper College junior
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
'On the Waterfront A Significant Movie
Early this year, Kansan editors declared that they would refrain from commenting upon motion pictures, whether good or bad. The editors had been persuaded that a series of Harvard Lampoon-style comments on movies appearing in Lawrence had alienated local advertisers.
Apparently the policy of NOT referring to movies—good or bad has had little effect upon local advertisers. But the Kansan editors have concluded that failing to comment upon one current motion picture would simply be failing to comment upon something of definite significance.
That motion picture is Columbia's "On the Waterfront," still going strong in New York City after four months. Anyone seriously interested in the motion picture as an art form has an obligation to see the film. Anyone who wants entertainment should see it. For "On the Waterfront" embodies the very best of Hollywood, and none of the worst.
Its editing has the simplicity and shock of a foreign film. There are no cute cartoon characters chasing each other across the screen. There is powerful background music, from the Leonard Bernstein whose "Wonderful Town" was a long-run hit on Broadway.
You see the characters' breath in the still, frosty air, for "On the Waterfront" was filmed on the spot, and the high-paid talent apparently was exposed to the elements. You see a love scene between Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint which is just as erotic, real, and wonderful as real-life love scenes can be. You see a waterfront priest who should be able to convert even the most anti-religious, whose tough fist moves fast when a punch exfigher tells him to "go to hell." And you hear those once-forbidden words—uncensored by the Production Code of Hollywood that so often emasculates the industry's best and most honest films.
Best of all you can see integrity—of story, of acting, of purpose. Writer Budd Schulberg, had a reason for telling his story, and he told it beautifully. Director Elia Kazan moves his characters through their paces with precision, and their story comes out as stark and as true as a Greek tragedy.
And five actors—plus many of the toughs of the waterfront, including Tony Galento and Tami Mauriello—give out with performances that surely must take precedence over anything else done this year. Marlon Brando is convincing from start to finish, and surely his critics should be shuting up by now! His work is one of the best in years. Karl Malden as the priest and Lee J. Cobb as the rackets' boss are sturdy and forceful, one full of love for man, one full of hate. Eva Marie Saint is lovely without being beautiful and soulful without being hammy. And Rod Steiger is weak—as he should be—in the role of Brando's brother. —RD
University of Kansas Student Newspaper News Room, KU 251 Ad Room, KU 376
Daily Hansan
News Room, KU 251 Ad Room, KU 378
The Inland of Munday Press association, Associated Collegiate Press association, Represented by the National Ad-Association. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $4.50 a year (add $1 a semester if in lawrence). Published at Lawrence, Kan. Every afternoon during the University holidays, University holidays and examination periods. Entered as second class matter. Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan. post office under act of March 3, 1879.
EDITORIAL STAFF
EDITORIAL STAFF
Editorial  Editor... Letty Lemon
Editorial  Assistants ...
Dot Taylor, Amy DeYong