It's a Fact-
Kansas GOP Needs a Man
The Kansas Republican party is in a dither now looking for a new state chairman to replace C. I. Moyer, who was appointed Monday to be regional director of the Small Business administration.
The new state chairman will be picked by the state Republican committee (composed of the county chairmen and vice-chairmen), probably at a party dinner in Topeka early next month.
The job will not be a simple one. With the Kansas party split in two, it will be almost impossible to find a man to satisfy both sides. The two factions have pulled farther and farther apart with each new issue.
The election of Fred Hall as lieutenant governor when he was opposed by Gov. Arn and the Eisenhower-Taft question in the 1952 pre-convention period were two issues which helped bring about the present split. The Wes Roberts affair last year was another, and state internal affairs have furnished many other points of difference between the two groups.
Governor Arn and the state house group would like to be able to name the new chairman. By doing this they could build up party strength and win a better following in the primary election next August. The other group, led by Lieutenant Governor Hall and former governor Alfred M. Landon, is just as eager to name THEIR man.
Mover managed Arn's campaign for governor in
1950, but fell away from the party-in-power in 1952 with his early support of Eisenhower for President. At the same time, he has kept in good with Senators Schoeppel and Carlson and with national committeeman Harry Darby so well that they OKed his appointment to the federal position.
One of the foremost prospects for state chairman now is McDill Boyd, Phillipsburg editor, who was recently appointed executive secretary to Gov. Arn. Boyd is executive secretary of the state committee, but to become state chairman he would have to be named chairman of his county. He would have the backing of the Arn faction if he should announce his candidacy for the position, but so far he has not.
Before the primary election last year there was talk of removing Moyer from the position and replacing him with Boyd, but the proposed test of strength seemed a little risky just before a primary election and nothing was done.
Senator Schoeppel, who is expected to announce his candidacy for re-election next year, and Senator Carlson will do everything they can now to ease the situation and pick a new chairman peaceably.
No matter how they quibble, both sides of the party realize that a further rift in their ranks in Kansas could give the growing Democratic party just the opening they're looking for.
Marv Betz
BOOKS: Newspaperman Stars -- Same Old Stuff, Though
THE WIRE GOD, By Jack Willard. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1953. 348 pages.
Newspapermen, when they write books about newspapering, just don't write good books. They often do well when they write about other things, but—contrary to the idea that one should write about a subject one understands—they don't do well with books about their own life.
Factually the books are adequate. Gene Fowler's "Trumpet in the Dust," while a melodramatic tale, wasn't Hollywood journalism. "The Kansas City Milkman" was a good story about the workings of a press association, but it wasn't good literature.
What all this leads to is that a new book, "The Wire God," also isn't much of a book. Critics have been kind, especially newspaper critics, for the book was written by Jack Guinn, assistant city editor of the Denver Post, and Willard Haselbush, Post city editor. Newpaper critics should be fair with their own kind, to counteract the public's reaction, if for no other reason.
"The Wire God" is a bitter expose of the shemanigans of one George Truett McCord, born of a Bible-chanting mother and whiskey-on-the-sly drinking father in French
Point, Tex. George is a strictly pedestrian type, but he gets sharper all the time, and more opportunistic.
He learns Morse code and gets out of French Point, ruins a girl in Houston, heads for Fort Worth and eventually Dallas, and makes his way to the big midcontinent headquarters of World Press (AP, UP, and INS are all mentioned, so don't get ideas) in Kansas City. At book's end he is general manager of WP and winning peace prizes.
McCord smacks of the magnificently low-down Sammy in Shulberg's "What Makes Sammy Run?" But Sammy was a classic type, believable, too, and McCord is just another stinker. It's easy to cheer when one of McCord's victims gives him a kick in the teeth, but it's hard to believe that McCord is really true.
The book is full of the stereotypes found in "The Hucksters" and "Sammy" and "Milkman" and other books of the genre. There are the faithful girl and the wife who lives on a diet of martinis and various other women in a state of dress and undress. McCord is right out of "An American Tragedy." A Texas publisher calls his pals "Stud" and himself "Chili" and casually飞 his plane from Fort Worth to Juarez on pleasure jaunts.
There's good newspaper talk in
"The Wire God," and Jack Willardhe of the double identity—undoubtedly wanted to deliver some resounding blasts at press associations. Whether the casual reader will go for the jargon is debatable. But let's just hope the boys write some more books, and maybe someday that great American novel. Somebody's got to do it sometime. —RD
THE DEEP SIX. By Martin Dibney. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1953. 321 pages.
Take a Navy-bred captain who's a few shades better than Queueg of "The Caine Mutiny" or the skipper of "Mister Roberts." Take an earnest young ensign who loves to paint and has a girl friend in New York and who sounds quite a bit like Willie Keith. Toss in Frenchy Shapiro, straight from the ghetto; Dooley, who was scared by a firecracker when he was a boy and is now a gunnery officer; Fowler, a Negro steward's mate who loves to fire the guns.
Combine these with a character known only as the exec, a shipboard fascist; a lovable doctor named Blanchard who's usually drunk; an Armenian named Slobodjian who claims relationship to all Armenians, and a vicious ensign named Edge who needs a good psychoanalyst.
"The Deep Six" is also a book that culls from "The Caine Mutiny," "Mister Roberts," "The Captain," "The Cruel Sea," and "The Distant Shore" only the worst. Even the name of the girl, Stella, is stolen from "The Distant Shore."
Where would you get such a variety of slobs, and how did we ever win the war with all these horrible ships and men patrolling the Pacific? Werent there any good ships and good captives? —RD
That's the combination that makes up the crew of an Aleutian-based carrier during the war. "The Deep Six" is the ocean itself.
Page 2 University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Oct. 21, 1953
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LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
"On the other hand it's good to have a student like Worthal in class. It completes th' other end of th' 'curve.'"
Byrnes Racism Blocks Civil Rights Progress
Gov. James F. Byrnes of South Carolina, also a member of a United Nations committee on civil rights, has seemingly set up a "double standard" for the rest of the world and himself.
But there are probably fewer people who would sanction any proposals coming from Byrnes.
His latest comments on civil rights issues were against Russia. There are few people in the United States who would defend the Russian control of their satellites or the persecution of the people of Europe.
Byrnes told the Russian government that they must respect the rights of the people of Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria before they could get any support to get these countries into the UN.
Byrnes, it should be remembered, is the man who said he would close the schools of South Carolina if the Supreme Court abolished segregation in schools.
The administration certainly left itself open for that one! And what did they gain? Perhaps a few votes from some of the politically teetering Southern states.
Jacob Malik, Soviet delegate to the UN, naturally retorted, "Look at your own state first, Mr. Byrnes."
What did we loose, not only from the recent remarks by Byrnes but by his appointment? We lost a tremendous propaganda advantage to the Russians.
Malik cited press reports that Byrnes is a person who violates human rights in the United States and is referred to as "Racist No. 1."
Byrnes' statements on Russia came after the Russians had proposed a plan to push through the appointment of the three satellites to the UN. Byrnes claimed that Italy and Finland deserved admission to the UN on their own merits but rejected the Soviet bloc.
Perhaps the Allies have won a victory in the UN but they have lost the respect of many common people in the satellite nations. We should remember the old saying, "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw bricks." —Ken Coy
To the Editor:
Of late, there has been quite a bit of squabbling over school spirit. It seems that everyone is so heaped up over the football team that hardly anyone notices the cross-country track team.
Letters
This is my second year here at KU and I have yet to see any kind of a rally for the track team. I think that the cross-country team is doing its share of spreading the good name of KU over the United States and the World.
It just seems to go unnoticed that the cross-country squad has a victory string of something like 24 straight meets. I wonder just how many of the students on the Hill know this. I'll bet there aren't many.
There is a cross-country meet scheduled with Drake university here on Monday, Oct. 26. I wonder how many students will be down to watch the meet and exhibit a little of that "school spirit."
Last Friday the cross-country boys went down to Oklahoma for a triangular-dual meet with Texas and Oklahoma A&M. Our boys came out on top winning over such boys as Eckhoff, Landqvist and Heard. Pretty good job but nobody seems to care much.
Harold Heir
How many people were down to see the boys leave and how many were there to welcome them back? What are we going to do about this?
College Sophomore