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University Daily Kansan Thursday, Feb. 26, 1953 Letters
KU Movie Series Worthy of Praise
Words of praise come few and far between, but we would like to extend some to the University officials responsible for the foreign film series which was begun the spring semester of 1950 with six films.
Generally, movies selected have been of a high quality with definite cultural and entertainment value. However, we feel that the series could both be expanded and include more of the film classics made in this country.
We do not go along with those who continually rave that ALL foreign films are so much superior to Hollywood's products. In the United States we see only the cream of the crop of the foreign output.
These outstanding foreign movies should be included in the series—as has been done with such pictures as "Great Expectations" and "Last Holiday" (English), "The Affair Blum" (Germany), and "Bicycle Thief" and "Shoeshine" (Italian).
We would like to see more of this type and less of the more obscure foreign films. Only through a program such as the series would one be able to see such American greats as "Birth of a Nation," "Sergeant York," and "My Little Chicadee" (the one clash between Mae West and W. C. Fields).
But out of the 36 movies that will have been screened by the end of this year, only three have been American film classics—"The Informer," "City Lights," and "The Navigator."
We also would like to see more pictures a year. Ten is a nice round number, but keeps one waiting too long for the next one.
Through a more carefully planned program the series over a period of years could offer a well rounded and very pleasant course in appreciation of the fabulous celluloid genie.
Jerry Knudson.
Republicans' Loyalty Above Common Sense
The Republican members of the House Ways and Means committee turned down all five Democratic proposals asking a delay in voting on the tax cut until the administration takes a firm stand on the problem and gives a report on the effect of the bill.
The Democrats asked for:
(1) Public hearings on the bill.
(2) Inviting of Hubert Humphrey, secretary of the Treasury, to give his views on the bill in a closed session.
(3) A committee request for a written report from the Treasury department stating the probable effect of the tax reduction on the budget.
(4) Deferring action until the director of the budget gives his views on the bill in a closed session.
(5) Deferring consideration of the bill until President Eisenhower gives Congress his own estimate of federal spending.
by Dick Bibler
Voting on the proposals followed party lines, with the 10 Democrats voting for them and the 15 Republicans voting against them. This is sheer bull-headedness on the part of the Republicans. The proposals sound good. There is no sense in cutting individual taxes unless we know that the country as a whole can afford it.
Bob Nold
POGO
To the Editor of the Daily Kansan:
It is doubtful if Sen. Joe McCarthy or any other member of his subcommittee has a listener's knowledge of the Voice of America broadcasts. To everybody who has, Chicago Tribune sees it, the Voice merely has been a shrewdly concealed subsidiary of Radio Moscow, came as rather surprising news.
Probe Could Kill Voice of America
This investigation which, I have to confess, still sounds like an odd joke to me, has a number of more serious aspects. It is hard to imagine that a politician of senatorial rank does not realize the damage he is doing to an institution whose success solely depends on the confidence it can instill in its audience. It is not made quite clear if the Voice is charged with having brought slanted news in the past or if its programs have been too objective and should be biased in the future; in neither case will its reputation be enhanced.
Leading American newsmen have every reason to show grave concern about the atmosphere created in their medium by the man from Wisconsin and the company he keeps. Broadcasts of the present hearings did not fail to relay some of this atmosphere.
To the Editor of the Daily Kang
Fortunately enough, it will be hard to prove that McCarthyism is identical with true Americanism. His self-assumed role as the "guardian of conscience", as a leading clergyman put it recently, would much rather have its proper place in the purges practiced so frequently under a different form of government.
A major offense behind the Iron Curtain is "objectivity". A strange crime indeed, for it means exactly what the term says; it is committed by seeing facts and interpreting news exactly as they are and not as the official party line wants them to appear at any moment. The majority of its victims are people who fail to follow the twists and turns of the party line.
Let us watch out if and when objectivity will be included among Sen, McCarthy's subversive activities, even though he might not include it in his terminology. To say that it has not as yet might even be called inobjective by many people.
So much is certain: If the Voice of America is to sell McCarthyism from now on, it will be doomed to failure.
Egon Sohmen
Austrian graduate student
Some kind of record has been broken. Three small boys woofed down 3,552 ice-cream cones last year—which means 1,776 feet of ice-cream. This is taller than France's Eiffel Tower and 304 feet taller than the New York Empire State building.
Daily Hansan
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Random Thoughts
We've recently heard about a college that demands that all applicants for graduation take a comprehensive oral examination over all the work that they covered in their four-year college career.
This thought started us wondering how that would work out in the universities, like this one, that require the student to take an agonizing amount of liberal art subjects.
Now for some reason or other students at most universities are forced to take a year's study of some language. The mastery of a foreign language we think is a fine thing, but it is quite obvious that at the end of one year a student would be lucky to make himself understood to a two-year-old child.
How much you learn is not the point though; the point is, how much is retained. If we were to have this exam and someone asked us to decline any simple verb in Spanish, we would just about have to take another year of Spanish to do it.
The same thought holds true for all the other various requirements. The various science course we expose ourselves to never stay with us. They hold so little meaning, that to try to grasp and remember all the facts is futile.
This is not meant as a tirade against the liberal education. On the contrary, we believe it has a very definite and important place, in education. Our objection is to the way that it is taught.
We started this article commenting on the test given by one college, we think, under the proper circumstances this type of test could be of value.
We think that if, in some way, the required liberal arts and sciences could be correlated with a person's major study, the program would have twice its worth.
Tying an obtuse subject up with something of value for the student would add greatly to its retention. The miscellaneous subjects then would have some meaning and would not be just another task to accomplish before graduation.
If some university would undertake such a program, then we thing that this oral exam would be the perfect ending for a college career. This exam would prove that a student really gained something from college and that he had not merely put in four years of useless meandering.
Now that all the fuss over moving the Seventh Fleet has died down, we are starting to wonder where it is. It doesn't seem possible that the Navy department could lose anything that big, but so far it has been sighted off Guam, Okinawa, Formosa, and the Philippines.
We see where a nurse got by with declaring her uniforms as tax exemptions but was turned down on declaring her girdle. That was probably stretching it a little too far.
With all the probes going on, we guess that KANU will be safe. As so few people in this area have FM radio receivers we guess they can say darn near anything and no one will hear it.
The press has been admitted to the Jelke trial, and it is times like this we wish we had a subscription to the East coast tabloids.
We can't wait to find out the outcome of the debate over Paix Americana, Britanica and Romana. It's not the outcome we are so interested in, as what it is all about.
The housing shortage in Washington might be eliminated by disposing of some of the file cases of triplicated, quadrupled, and sex-tupled forms.