Page 2 University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Dec. 9.1953
Latest Cop Trick Slows Up Students
The traffic situation on the campus is a mess. Not only are intersections jammed with cars, but with students on their way to class.
With an increase of problems the traffic office has seemingly taken a new outlook on campus traffic regulations.
Two years ago a campus traffic director said, in answer to questions about proposed traffic lights, that students should have priority in crossing intersections.
According to this officer, who is no longer on the campus, this was the main reason a system of traffic lights at the intersection of Mississippi street and Campus drive was no good. There are undoubtedly other reasons, but the idea of lights slowing students on their way to class was of paramount importance.
What a change! Today the car, not the student, has priority. Instead of one traffic director, there are two at the main intersection.
It seems that one has the duty of directing traffic, and the other the job of daring students to cross until they get the signal.
No one questions the fact that we want a safe and accident free campus. But are students criminals?
One incident: A student, on his way to class, had to go from one end of the campus to the other. He had to wait at the intersection for about three minutes.
Suddenly, a car turned left onto the campus from Mississippi street. The student, on the south side of the street, saw there were no cars coming and crossed the street. He didn't have the signal of our blue and black-clothed protector.
He didn't get far. The other campus cop caught him a little way down the sidewalk. He grabbed him by the arm and swung him around, hardly with any affection or manners.
He then pushed the student across the street and made him wait. The word pushed is used in the literal sense, with a hand in the middle of the back every time the unfortunate student slowed down.
Now police aren't men known for their chivalry of shining manners, but then neither are students known for being a lot of low crooks fit only to be pushed and shoved around.
Right or wrong, even a student has some rights and one of them should be protection from bullying.
Now the student was in the wrong, that we admit. However, it gets mighty tiresome waiting for a line of cars, several blocks long, to pass. This often means being late to class.
By actual count, over 40 cars have been allowed to pass from one way, before the other lane of traffic gets a chance to move. This involves times of up to four minutes.
Students have reported much longer time and many more cars but the figures listed we know to be fact because we counted the cars and timed the flow.
There is a problem, but there are other ways of answering it than making students late to class and having a cross-if-you-dare game every time you change classes. —Ken Coy
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick,Bibler
Books:
"Ed and I have been drafted Professor Snarf—So it looks like we'll have to drop your course."
B. Eric Amberl. New York.
Albert A. Knopf. 1953. 246
THE SCHIRMER INHERITANCE.
George Carey is an intelligent, wealthy, smug member of an old Delaware family. Franz Schirmer is a Prussian sergeant in the Napoleonic wars. These two widely differing characters have brought together in the latest Enic Amber novel, "The Schirmer Inheritance."
Readers of the new novel who recall those magnificent Ambler thrillers of the pre-World War I period—“A Coffin for Dimitrios,” “Cause for Alarm,” “Background to T danger,” and “Journey into Fear”—will be somewhat disappointed, for Ambler has lost his old sense of humor, look-alike duggery, situated in roomskuddling in both the drawing rooms of European capitals and the scummy side streets of southern European cities.
But the book is still a thriller, and intensely absorbing. There's a faint reminder of the earlier books in late-in-the-book episodes in and around Salonika, Greece, and in the rugged mountains on the Greece-Yugoslavia border.
What it's all about is the efforts of the aforementioned George Carey to find a missing heir. Carey gets out of the service, joins an influential Philadelphia law firm, and is given the unwelcome assignment of looking for a possible heir to the $$ million Schneider fortune, amassed by a soft drink magnate and left by his wife.
But the assignment is not simple, for Schneider is not the original family name. The great old ancestor of the Schneiders was one Franz Schirmer, who deserted during the Napoleonic wars, sired several children—both legitimate and other wise—and then changed his name. The descendants of the Schirmer side of the family are the only ones still alive (or thought to be so) at the time Carey takes on the task.
His search leads him to Paris, where he picks up an attractive, brandy-swilling. German hating Yugoslav girl who is engaged as his interpreter. He goes to West Germany, to Switzerland, and finally to Greece, to look for the only surviving Schirmer, a Nazi sergeant reported missing, and then killed, in an ambush during Hiter's unsuccessful invasion of Greece.
"The Schirmer Inheritance," like the earlier books, has political overtones. Ambler, though never a Communist, was a strong foe of both Nazis and Fascists in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Now his villains—though there aren't many—are Communists.
Ambler is also contributing his skill to another field these days—the motion picture. Those who saw "The Cruel Sea" recently may have noticed his name on the list of credits, as scenarist. R.D.
New Ambler Book Falls Short of Other Efforts
THE LOST DUTCHMAN MINE by Sims Ely. (Morrow): E l y firmly believes in the existence of "The Lost Dutchman Mine," an almost legendary and fabulously rich gold working which has claimed the lives of at least 20 searchers in the past 70-odd years. In this book, he presents an imposing body of evidence to support his belief.
The Dutchman traditionally is located in the Superstition Mountains, a fantastically-tangled range 40 miles east of Phoenix, Ariz. Ely believes it was discovered by the Spaniards—perhaps as early as the 16th century—and worked extensively by Mexicans and Apaches during the 19th century. So far as is known, no one has succeeded in locating it since 1881.
Five Americans are believed to have seen the mine at various times, but only one of them—Jacob Waltz, for whom it was named—lived very long afterwards. One of the others was killed by Indians, two were killed by a cave-in in another mine.
A sixth man who may have known the Dutchman's location fled Ariz. to escape murder charges and never returned.
Ely and the late James Bark sought the mine intermittently for 25 years, until advancing age forced them to give up the search.
"Let the younger generation hunt the Dutchman . . . " Bark said shortly before his death. "Someone, someday will fit the parts together more successfully than we have done. Good luck to him!" . . .
MARGARET OF AUSTRIA.
Jane D longh, (Norton) tells of one of the remarkable women produced by the "man's world" of 16th century Europe—daughter of one emperor, aunt of another, wife of a succession of kings and princes, and a ruler of whose ability none of her illustrious relatives need have felt ashamed.
Margaret, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Maxmilian, was by turns a pawn and a player in the game of royal marriages that made the Hapsburgs for a time the most powerful family in the world. In the interest of high policy, she was "married" at three to the crown prince of France, only to be cast aside soon after he ascended the throne as King Charles VIII; she was later married in rapid succession to the Crown Prince of Spain and Philibert, Duke of Savoy, neither of whom long survived.
In Savoy Margaret learned something of the art of statcraft, but she was not until later that she was really launched as a ruler—regent of the Netherlands for her youthful nephew, later the Emperor Charles V. She filled this post with skill and wisdom, and it was hers for most of the rest of her life.
Jane D. Longh, now Dutch cultural attache in London, wrote Margaret of Austria during the wartime occupation of her homeland. It was translated into English by M. D. Herter Norton. Author and translator together have done a smooth and skillful job of recreating the tangled affairs of four centuries ago as a backdrop for their principal character . . .
Today's Driving Philosophy Gives Accident Rates Boost
When asked the meaning of the traffic lights, one applicant for a driver's license said "the red light means stop, the green light means go, and the yellow light means go like hell to beat the red light."
How many times have you seen a driver put on an extra burst of speed to get through an intersection before the yellow light turns red. On the other hand, how many times have you seen a car, waiting at a red light, shoot out into the intersection the instant the light for the other direction turns from green to yellow.
Amusing, perhaps, but this seems to be the philosophy of many drivers on our roads today.
Put these two elements together and what do you have? A smashup with both parties claiming the right-of-way in the ensuing law suit, not to mention possible death or injury to the occupants of the cars.
What is your philosophy concerning the yellow light? Do you take it as a warning that the light is
about to change, as you are supposed to. or do you zip on through the intersection, happy in the knowledge that you have once more beat the system?
it's the former, bravo. If it's the latter, we'll see you in court sometime—if you can make it!
John P. Holland built several submarines before the Holland which became the first undersea craft accepted by the U.S. Navy. One early model was powered by a steam boiler made out of a beer barrel.
While dancing to the Eisenhower Waltz, according to a Democrat choreographer, the dancer takes one step forward, two backward, hesitates, then sidesteps.
Daily Hansan UNIVERSITY
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HE DON'T KNOW NO FRENCH
HARLY AT ALL, SO HE KIN TEACH
PERTY CLOSE TO NOTHIN' BOUT
THAT AN' AB.SOLOOT NOTHIN'
BOUT THEM OTHER FOREIGN
TONGUES...A GOOD UNSPEAKABLE
MAN.