Open Minds Also!
Closed Doors Need Opening
Much more is involved in this business of student government than sometimes meets the eve.
Of course, any student can attend a meeting of the All Student Council, and by getting recognition from the chair can get himself heard. Provision has been made for referendum and recall proceedings, which can be used by anyone who can get a specified number of names on a petition. Very democratic, we call it.
The ASC, though, doesn't have a monopoly on laying down the law.
There are other groups having as much authority or jurisdiction, in certain areas of student affairs, as the ASC does. These groups often made decisions and regulations that would body more profoundly than any act of the ASC. A list of them would include the Associated Women Students, the Inter-fraternity council, the Inter-dorm council (though some may laugh at the idea), the dorm on right down to the Kansan board.
While we're casting brickbats about, let's keep a watchful eye on the government of our organized houses, which remove from $25 to $100 monthly from each resident's pocket.
All these groups perform necessary functions in such a refined and complex society as ours. Each of them can be—and generally is—a powerful influence for good, But, unwatched and unregulated by those whom they were created to serve, they can become irresponsible, tramping on an individual's rights without just cause and causing undue hardship. Occasionally, this happens.
True, the picture is complicated;
and for the average student, hard-pressed for time between 16 academic hours, 10 or 20 hours of outside work per week, and what recreation he can squeeze in, he may want to worth his while to bother with it."
He who thinks like that is cutting his own throat, and here's why;
A group empowered with authority will be responsive first to those whom it is most expedient to be responsible and who will follow the line of least resistance.
Its natural responsibility is to those over whom its authority will be exercised; and if they aren't interested in what happens to them, the authority body will turn to serving the interests of those who are. The solution: watch them—like hawks
Like Javhawks. that is.
Like Jayhawks, that is:
—Jim Baird
BOOKS:'Cap' Smith Falls Gently Off Self-built Pedestal
Captain John Smith, by Bradford Smith, (Lippincott); It has become the custom for biographers dealing with the semi-legendary figures in history to concentrate on proving how different from the popular conception they actually were—to smear George Washington, for example, or to whitewash Cesare Borgia. Smith began work on Captain John Smith (no relation) in somewhat this spirit, but he "who came to scoff, remain'd to pray."
The gallant captain is an obvious target for the debunker. Most of what we know of him comes from his own books, and a strange tale it is. He represents himself not only as the military savior of Jamestown, but as a professional soldier who fought bravely and with some renown in the Lowlands, Hungary and Transylvania as a slave of the Turks, or was part of his way single-handed back to safety over hundreds of miles of strange and usually hostile territory; as a sometime pirate, in time duly commissioned an admiral, and a pioneer explorer of New England.
Mr. Smith traveled widely and searched records in five languages in an attempt to determine the truth about his subject for the first serious biography of Capt. Smith that has appeared in 25 years. He found discrepancies in the captain's story; but so many of the senior Smith's statements which could be checked turned out to be essentially true that his present-day namesake is inclined to credit even what seems his wildest yarns.
In all conscience, the biographer cannot deny that the captain was a vain and obstinate man, inclined at times to exaggerate; but against this he can bring proof that his
subject was a wise, courageous and competent leader, who failed only in the things he was not allowed to attempt. . .
Ann Bridge's new book, A Place to Stand. (Maemillan) is a spy-type thriller with a third dimension of character development, laid in the Budapest of 1941—a setting so remote that the book has in some respects the quality of a historical novel.
Hope Kirkland was the carefree debutante daughter of an American businessman in the Hungarian capital when she found the two faked passports in a box of chocolates. They were her tickets of admission to the half-world of east European intrigue and to a series of hair-breadth adventures that brought her eventually to a secret police cell—and taught her the meaning of love.
Miss Bridge, who has traveled widely with her British diplomat-husband, was in Budapest during the period covered by the novel, the days when the first Nazi tanks rolled through the city and the first Nazi bombs burst over Belgrade. The local color which she weaves into the story is likely to cause acute nostalgia among those who knew the beautiful old Hungarian twin city in the days before the Nazis—and then the Russians—came. .
Roger Mhenenhi, at 45, was a man who'd spent his "whole life building up dams against every sort of knowledge and experience." He was a bank clerk who believed himself to be the last survivor of an old Cornwall clan, a man whose spirit remained in the 18th century though he was actually living in the
twentieth century, during the time of the second world war.
A chance meeting with a young American, Phil Menheniot, left Roger a moderately wealthy man when the American flier died, after making Roger his sole heir. Roger used the fortune to return to and restore his family's ancestral home in Cornwall, its adventures, that he belled him there are apt to sound Hollywoodish at times, but author Howard Spring does hold the reader's interest in The Sunset Touch (Harper). . .
A new look at Italy in relation to America is contained in The United States and Italy by H. Stuart Hughes (Harvard). The book is the 13th in a Harvard series called "The American Foreign Policy Library." Hughes writes warmly and sympathetically of Italian history and events today, showing an uncommon feeling for Italian moods and sentiments which have their influence on Italy's politics. He warns that Italy may drift far to the right in the effort to defeat Communism and urges lowered tariffs, special immigration quotas and U.S. aid to revitalize southern Italy and to help the Mediterranean ally solidify her uncertain democracy.
Ex-Queen Replies
To the Editor:
I am very sorry to hear that Dick Sheldon and Dana Anderson were disappointed in my representation of KU as Homecoming queen last year. As to having been chosen only on photogenic qualities, I wish they could have accompanied us on our appointments during those two weeks. Pictures were used only slightly in the judging.
HOPE YOU DON'T MIND ME POAC-
TICIN YOU RADIO JOB, UNCLE BALD,
WIN...TAINT HOOKED UP YET, BUT...
HERE GOES : GOOD AFTERNOON
HERE IS A IMPORTANT PRE-
GAME FLASH!
I think it is a shame to take away from freshman women the privilege of being a Homecoming queen candidate. As a freshman a woman's activities are pretty much limited and being able to be a candidate with the upperclass women was about the only contact that made us feel we were really a part of the school.
No one is sorrier than I at not being back in school this year, but I'm sure if Mr. Anderson would like to finance the next three years I shall be happy to return.
Mary Louise Lavy
Mary Louise Lavy 1952 Homecoming queen
Page 2 University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Oct. 7, 1953
Member of the Kansas Press Assn., National Editorial Assn., Inland Daily Press Association, Associated College Press Association, Advertising Service, 420 Madison Avenue, N.Y. City. Mail Subscription rates: $3 a semester or four months. Lawrence, Published in Lawrence, Kan.; every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. Universe holidays and examination periods, 17, 18, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., Post Office
at Lawrence, Kill. Post Office
under act of March 3, 1879.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
"Yes, one other time a student complained about an exam of mine. Now, what about last Friday's test?"
There'll Come a Time---
Classes are practically nonexistent. Space around a radio or a TV set is at a premium. For a time the worries of Plato and the techniques of Rembrandt are forgotten.
When World Series time rolls around each fall the afternoon campus takes on many characteristics of a deserted ghost town.
In years to come this problem, complete disregard of classwork, may be only a bad memory. Why? Naturally because of the progress of science.
Several days ago the "big wheels" of NBC heard an interesting report at an affiliate's meeting in Chicago.
Parts of the report concerned small radios. Imagine, no larger than a wallet and ultimately the size of a wrist watch.
Truly the age of the Dick Tracy skeptic has vanished!
So the classrooms are full. But pity the poor instructor, facing a sea of students, each with his head cocked ferociously to his wrist listening to the latest game results.
For example, imagine the abused date. With some handsome young man she goes for a stroll through the park on a moonlight night only to compete with Dragnet via the wrist. Egad, this could be serious.
However, the repercussions will probably be felt much deeper.
Alas, can the modern education system face such overwhelming odds?
Perhaps the modern world has at last created its Frankenstein.
—Ken Coy
Every day thousands of tourists arrive in Italy and go to the most picturesque places of the Peninsula. Merano, Venice, Florence, Siena, Pisa, Naples, Pompeii are cities that daily see people from all over the world.
Rome, in fact, is a place that not even Romans know very well, and when anybody believes he has seen everything, if he looks again he always finds something new.
Among these places, Rome is undoubtedly the greatest attraction, and if those tourists spend one day at Pompeii or at Siena, they usually spend a month to visit and take pictures of the Eternal City.
After a little, annoyed, he took no notice of what the other continued to say but at last, when he was quite worn out, interrupted the coachman with the following words: "New York would be a very antique city, too, if we do what you do over here. When your building falls down, instead of building another you fence that place and write on it," National Monument, entrance lire 100."
A few weeks ago an American tourist was driving in a horsecarriage to "Piazza di Spagna." The coachman took him continuously about the old buildings and the beauties of Rome. At first the tourist listened with pleasure.
Score One for Tourist
—Nello Giannessi
Our friend, the foundling bunny, plans to go to Washington. Says he needs a job, and he understands the Republicans are looking for some rabbits to pull out of hats.
Why all the furor about campus queens, Joe Schmoe asks. Why not import Marilyn and award her an honorary degree?
A speleologist is a cave explorer and expert, we learn. And all the time we thought it was a kinsman of the circus barker.