University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Dec. 2, 1953
Benson's Position Rests in New Plan
"Big Wheels" from the Republican party in Washington are casting dubious glances at newspaper reports about the new farm plan of Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson.
This isn't to say they won't give any plan he brings forward a chance but they have taken the attitude that he had better pull the trick if he expects to keep his job.
Mr. Benson has never been quite sure just where his appointment came from in the first place, and he has certainly never fared well with the nation's farmers. In all probability Benson's name was mentioned to President Dwight D. Eisenhower by Gov. Thomas E. Dewey or Milton Eisenhower, the President's brother.
Above all, Mr. Benson has never been a politician. He is an expert on agriculture and a man well qualified for the job he holds.
His plan of doing away with price supports has never found favor with the Republican policy planners, who want him to outpromise the Democrats, or with the farmers, who just want to be safe.
Mr. Benson hopes to substitute a program that will keep the economy of the farm program from collapsing for the present price support program. He blames the price support program for putting so much surplus into government storage and keeping goods off the market.
He wants to give the farmers a program where they can be guaranteed a certain price for part of their produce and let the rest sell on the open market for free-market prices.
It is because of the high price of labor and production that U.S. farmers feel they can't take any loss by selling to low priced markets.
This way Benson hopes to get a trickle of our surplus to countries that can use it. Naturally they can't pay our high prices. This is where the problems come in.
Mr. Benson has the support of a lot of high agriculture organizations and many farseeing, intelligent people. But will the average farmer accept any complicated form of price support program where they won't have as many safe guarantees?
Whatever the farmers of the U.S. do about the new farm program soon to be presented to the nation, will largely decide the fate of Mr Benson. —Ken Cov
Spread of Delinquency Blamed on Idle Time
Authorities agree that juvenile delinquency is spreading. It now crosses the tracks and involves children from the wealthy and middle class families.
Crimes are being committed by children not because of need but because they have nothing better to do with their idle time. Cities and parents must realize their responsibility and provide something to occupy the child's time.
Crimes are becoming more violent and the age of the offenders is lower, Dr. Martha M. Eliot, chief of the United States Children's bureau, estimated that 385,000 children between 10 and 17 were brought before courts in 1952. The Federal Bureau of Investigation noted that more than half of all automobile theft arrests were children under 17.
The renewal of bloody gang warfare with teenagers using clubs, knives, guns, and homemade grenades highlight the trend in delinquency patterns.
Murder and robberies are not the major problem. Gang wars and vandalism are the major problems. Children don't have anything to do so they fight each other or destroy other's property.
Vandalism is another serious problem. In Chicago, school damages ran to $1,000,000 last year. In New York, vandalism in the parks cost $222,000 and these acts weren't all committed by underprivileged children, but children from very comfortable homes. In Atlanta, four boys released the brakes on twenty cars parked on hills "just to see them crash."
Boys gangs such as the Nazi Storm Troopers club, the Diamond gang, and the River Rats were broken up by New Orleans authorities.
The only way to break up these gangs permanently is to substitute a program of supervised play and recreation. Letting children use their time constructively is the best way of breaking up gangs.
Punishment won't always correct the problem because teenagers may only act again in revenge.
The first responsibility, of course, lies with the parents to instill a wholesome respect for other individuals and other's property in the child.
Where parents fail, schools and the community must try to help the child. Many cities offer psychiatric help for problem children.
To stop this increasing trend of juvenile offenses the whole community must realize that children must guidance and provide that guidance.
THE LIGHT IN THE FOREST.
By Conrad Richter, New York:
Affred A. Knopf, 1953. 179 pages.
BOOKS: 'The Light in the Forest Is Saga of Indian Wars
—Elizabeth Wohlgemuth
For anyone who has become saturated with movie pap about the Apaches and the beleaguered fort, the good Chief Cochise, or the historical novels that are set chiefly in the bedroom, "The Light in the Forest" will be an experience in good reading.
The author is the already recognized Conrad Richter, whose trilogy consisting of "The Trees," "The Fields," and "The Town" (1950 Pulitzer prize winner) is one of the finest things on American pioneer life. Readers also might recall his excellent book of the Southwest, "The Sea of Grass."
Richter's "The Light in the Forest" also might be compared with A. B. Guthrie's "The Big Sky," which more than any book since "The Trees" truly evoked a feeling of what America was like in the days before it was despoiled by wagon trails, railroads, and all the other commerce that marked this country 100 years ago.
There is the feeling of the vast forests, untouched by civilized man; the rivers and the wild animals; the proud Indians and their poetic feeling for all about them; the hurried, disorderly forts and villages that sprang up on the edge of the forests, unwanted by the red man.
"The Light in the Forest" is a mere novellete, but one that does not need to bow before the heavy tomes of 800 or so pages. It is a story of True Son of the Delawares, who was kidnapped by the Indians from his white parents in the mid-1700s. Then, in the midst of a successful white expedition against the Indians, True Son is forcibly returned to his home and parents.
But he wants neither. His love is for the forests so thick even the sun is not always visible. He is like a
wild animal suddenly thrust into a menagerie. He rejects all he sees about him, and longs for the wilds, always planning for the day of his return.
The climax of "The Light in the Forest" is forced upon the reader—a climax of great strength. It is a logical ending to the story of a youth who has known two worlds and is torn between both.
-RD
Sardi's, by Vincent Sardi and Richard Gehman (Holt).
Vincent Sardi was born in northern Italy nearly 68 years ago. After a turbulent boyhood during which his frequent runnings-away earned him the nickname "The Vagabond." he studied briefly for the priesthood and worked as a deckhand and a domestic servant before he found his true calling in the fashionable restaurants of London.
Dinner With the Commendatore by Mario Soldati (Knopf) is a rich study of human sentiments with the turtness of Italian realism and humor. The Commendatore is a retired opera impresario. The book is really three stories as he reminisces The first tale, "The Green Jacket," is of a great conductor and the deception he played on a kettle drummer which haunted his life. The second, "The Father of the Orphans,"
He came to the United States in 1907, and met and married a compatriot, Eugenia Pallera. In 1921—the year he became an American citizen—Sardi opened the restaurant on 4th street just off Broadway which he has built into an American tradition. The first Sardi retired five years ago, but his son is carrying on.
is a biting penetration of a free
strikes and of the lies on which
goodness can rest. The third, "The
Window," is a tight drama of a 20-year-old love on which a woman lives without hope . . .
Among the better reference books released this fall is *Collier's World Atlas* and *Gazetteer*. This handsome big book is the result of co-operation between Rand McNally and Collier's. It contains 128 pages of large, full-color maps with location and population of all important cities printed beside each map—a real time-saver. The 265-page Gazetteer section lists 75,000 geographical names and describes 5,000 of the most interesting cities of the world.
Sardi's, which Sardi wrote with an assist from Richard Gehman. is to a considerable degree an informal history of the American theater as well as his own story...
Short Ones
It looks like President Eisenhower and his close associates in government are getting tired of Joseph McCarthy. They might even "force" the former war "hero" to go back to his home state and make butter.
The English proficiency examination is really a good thing. It gives fine arts students a chance to find out that clutching isn't a term always used when driving a car.
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. . .
At first we didn't think much of the new Kansas license plate colors of black and white, but now after we think about it, Kansas has little else to talk about since the drouth.
The state of Kansas made public recently the interesting fact that November traffic deaths were below the total for that month last year. That means we better get on the ball and do better. A lot of people goofed last month.
An interesting headline for the Kappa Kappa Gamma socrity winning the Campus Chest percentage drive would have been "Kappas Win Chest Drive."
. . .
The planet Mercury revolves about the sun like the moon around the earth, presenting always the same face to the sun, says the National Geographic Society. Mercury's temperature in consequence stays over 800 degrees Fahrenheit on one side and near absolute zero on the other.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bible
"How's about getting somewhere's outta sight—That's the second Prof, that's looked in here and fainted."