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University Daily Kansan Friday, March 26.1954
...Letters...
Dear Sir.
In reply to the article which Tom Stewart wrote concerning the I, F. C. sing, I feel compelled to say that if Mr. Stewart is going to make an ass of himself, at least don't do it on the front page.
For his information, the conductor of any group has a definite purpose in being in front of the group. All these conductors have individual idiosyncrosies which, admittedley, should not detract from the music. Many, many famous conductors do put on quite a show, but many of the "peculiar" body movements have a definite purpose in producing a musical effect.
I feel, as a conductor of one of the groups and after having taken several courses in conducting, that each of these people degraded in the article had something in mind for each movement. I realize that Mr. Stewart is very broadly educated, and literally a jack-of-all-trades, and is very busy being a country boy at heart, but I would like to see him take a group of untrained voices and after two weeks of moderate rehearsal, try to inspire them to sing their very best in a contest without making any unnecessary movements.
Fred Terry education senior
Grand Coulee dam in Washington is the largest concrete structure in the world says the National Geographic society. It is 4,173 feet long and 550 feet high from the granite bedrock on which it rests to the 30-foot-wide highway that crosses its top. It contains 10,230,762 cubic yards of concrete and weighs about 22 million tons.
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas Student Newspaper News Room KU 251    Ad Room KU 376
Member of the Kansas Press Assm. Nati-
onal Assm. Associated College Press Assm.
Associated Collegiate Press Assm.
Represented by the National Advertising Service, 420 Madison Avenue, N.Y. City.
Assm. Associate College Press Assm.
$4.50 year (add $81 a semester if in Lawrence). Published in Lawrence, Kan.
every afternoon during the University
viversity holidays and examination periods.
Entered second class matter Sept. 17, 1910
at Lawrence, Kan. Post Office under act
O MARCH 3, 1879.
BUSINESS STAFF
Business mgr. Jane Megafah
Administrative mgr. Mark Berry
Nat. adv. mgr. Susanne Berry
Classified adv. mgr. Wendell Sullivan
Circulation mgr. Reddus Davis
Circulation mgr. David Lennard
NEWS STAFF
Executive editor ... Shirley Platt
Managing editors ... Tom Stewart, Mary
Betz, Velma Gaston, Ed Howard
News editor ... Tom Shannon
Assistant ... Lelly Lemon
Kentonman
Society editor ... Elizabeth Wohlgemuth
Assistant ... Karen Hilmer
Assistant .. Dana Lengbengo
Telegraph editor ... Stan Hamilton
News adviser ... C. M. Pickett
INVESTIGATIVE STUDIES
Editorial editor ... Chuck Morelock
Assistants ... Sam Teaford. Don Tice
The Editor Sez
Chuck Morelock
Friend of ours us yesterday why we, since we're a J-School major haven't been roughing it with the now-famous "rover boys." The answer: We like the comforts of home too much.
Many, many years ago, when we were in the boy scouts (a subversive organization according to Sen. Joe) we looked forward to a weekend camping trip with great pangs of joy. Since then we have been inspired by spirit or have become too absorbed with the living conveniences provided by modern science.
Now, in our old age (21) we'd prefer to camp out in some dimly-lit cocktail lounge. This beats frying bacon and eggs around the old camps fire any day.
---
All coaches are expected to back their boys to the limit. But when they go to extremes, as did Rio Grande mentor Newt Oliver Monday evening, they're only hurting the players.
Pulling a team off the floor is virtually unheard of in modern day basketball. Its the equivalent of literally killing the umpire in baseball. When any coach becomes so victory-nudged that he is willing to subject his school to public ridicule, then he's out of bounds as far as character-building is concerned.
. . .
Idle thoughts department: Wonder what would happen if Kansas went wet all the way The Hawk's Nest could be renamed the Hawk's Room, equipped with alcoholic "goodies", olives, and organists. It might interfere with studying, but it would offer a great place to relax after finishing a tough exam.
This wraps it up for this portion of the semester. Starting Monday, the Kansan changes staff positions. Don Tice will be your new editorial editor. His assistants will be Letty Lemon and Court Ernest.
So adios, au revoir, etc. Its been real.
Short Ones
"Relics of Spain to be Discussed," a Kansan headline reads. Does this include Gen. Francisco Franco, we wonder. Is it the song goes—"Relics of Spain, adore you . . ."
That money the federal housing agency loaned to Eskimos for improving their igloos—could it be classified under frozen assets?
After reading an article in the Kansan about women shooting pool, those downtown billiard parlors may decide to install powder rooms.
The All Student Council has approved a minimum wage of 65 cents an hour for student employees. Evidently some of us were afraid they might pay us what we're worth.
Centennial: Not All Ballyhoo
One hundred fifty years ago, when the nation was pretty young and our sense of history was confined to ancient developments in Europe, there wasn't much talk about centennials.
But anyone who's been around for a few years knows this situation has changed. We've become anniversary happy in the United States. We observe 25 years since Lindbergh flew the Atlantic, 10 years since the fall of Bataan, 400 years since Coronado tramped through the Southwest in search of his legendary cities of gold.
We're now observing the 100th anniversary of Kansas becoming a territory. That event occurred on May 30, 1854, when the Kansas-Nebraska bill became an act, and "squatter's sovereignty" was established in the twin territories.
There's a grim paradox as we celebrate our birthday, for there was little glorious feeling of greatness about the land in 1834. Establishment of Kansas as a territory was not cheered throughout the then-young nation. It wasn't that no one wanted territorial status for Kansas, but that many didn't want such status under the terrible auspices of war.
How many people think about such things when they dress up western style, hear orations about our greatness, watch parades, and toast their forefathers is the question.
Here at the University there has been some talk about the centennial—too little talk, actually. A few persons have been alert to activity planned throughout the state. A few beards have sprouted in the last few weeks.
But only last week many students didn't know what the centennial was all about. Centennial
committeemen were becoming glum about the prospects of a successful celebration. Women in organized houses were said to laugh self-consciously at the idea of wearing blue jeans to classes for three days—their question was "why?"
Well, some will say there's no answer. They'll say that homecoming and the Kansas Relays call for special editions of the Kansan and for campus celebrations. Who wants to put out any effort just to celebrate a centennial? Such festivities are reserved for winning the NCAA.
But Kansans have something to celebrate this year, and something to think about. They've got far more than the persons who toast a statehood that came casually, as a matter of course. For they're living in a state that became a state in the hardest way possible, first through reluctant territorial status, then by way of war.
And they've got something else, a state that has achieved greatness but still has far to go. Descendants of the slavery-hating abolitionists of 1854 have made of some parts of their state a place where the Negro—defended in 1854—has little place in 1954. How ironic it was recently with segregation cases were argued before the Supreme Court—cases loaded in several southern states, plus Kansas.
The state that fought so vigorously against slavery in 1854, the state that was in the vanguard of the Populist movement of the 1880s—that state, as it celebrates its 100th birthday, should wonder, in 1954, whether its citizens in 2054 will look back and reflect on the paradoxes of centennials which pay homage but still show that much needs to be done. —Rolfe Davis