University Daily Kansan Thursday. Dec. 18, 1952
POGO
2
Election and Campaigns Voted Year's Top Stories
The election of Dwight D. Eisenhower as president was voted the biggest news story of the year by students of the School of Journalism in a poll sponsored by the Editorial class.
The campaigns of presidential and senatorial hopefuls which split the country into many camps took second place in the voting.
In February all the world mourned the passing of a man who had fought valiantly for his life. The death of King George VI left as deep a mark of grief in this country as it left in Great Britain. This year's installment of the Korean war has been one of bloody hill battles and uneasy quiet. The war has been an issue not only in Korea but throughout the world, causing hatred and fear to be spread into the smallest issues of the day.
The steel strike played an important part in this year's news. The long paralyzing strike choked off most of the country's production; then, in a dramatic move, President Truman put the industry under government control. The Supreme court fight followed this, and Judge David Pine handed down his momentous decision and returned the industry to its owners.
The Republican convention with its bitter fights, splits, and quarrels, and its unforeseen nomination of Eisenhower on the second ballot placed third.
The first three stories led by a big margin and the remaining seven placed so closely together that a few votes would have changed their position. The stories below are listed the way they finished.
The Democratic convention, though not as dramatic as the previous convention, was of great news value. The draft of Adlai Stevenson was almost background material for the stalling, maneuvering, and final death of the young liberal wing's fight for recognition.
The Korean truce talks stalled all year and were finally moved from Panmunjom to New York, with little effect until India entered a truce plan. For a while a split between the United States and England over the repatriation question seemed imminent, but Russia healed it by rejecting the plan.
The cabinet choices gave the country a great guessing game and there were few Republicans who were not mentioned as possibilities. Guessing came to an end when the cabinet announcement came. The announcements were followed quickly by the first Eisenhower-Taft split over the future Secretary of Labor Martin Durkin.
The tenth position went to President-elect Eisenhower's trip to Korea. Perhaps it is prophetic that the last story on the list may be among the top three in next year's selections.
—Don Moser.
Eisenhower Named NCAA Champions Win Man of The Year First Spot in Campus News
President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower and eight others in political and governmental fields captured all but one place in a poll taken by The Editorial class to name the top ten news personalities of 1952
Mr. Eisenhower, whose personality played a major part in the recent Republican election victory, is the No. 1 news personality. His Democratic opponent, Gov. Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois, was runner-up. Winston Churchill, leader of the British Conservative party, was third.
Other members of the top ten:
Of the entire ten, only Miss Monroe is not connected with politics or government. Politicians made news chiefly in the United States, but much of the world waited for the results.
Sen. Joe McCarthy (R.-Wis.), John Foster Dulles, and Trygve Lie, tied for 4th; President Harry S. Truman, 7th; Queen Elizabeth of the British Empire, 8th; Sen. Robert A. Taft (R.-Ohio), 9th, and film starlet Marilyn Monroe, 10th.
The Eisenhower story is one of a popular general persuaded to resign his commission, to return to the United States, place his name in state primaries and rally support against the No.9 newsgetter, Sen.Taft, who also had eyes for the GOP nomination.
Mr. Eisenhower's victory over Sen. Taft in the Republican convention, his campaign against the challenging Gov. Stevenson, and subsequent election to the presidency—the first time a Republican had won the office since the election of 1928—were all top news stories, bringing the Eisenhower name more and more before the public.
Selection of Gov. Stevenson as the second top news personality would have seemed unbelievable a year ago today. Most Americans were unacquainted with the name and record of the man who last summer was nominated Democratic standard-bearer—although he never sought the honor.
The extraordinarily high caliber of the governor's campaign speeches immediately made him the talk of the nation's press. His forthright efforts to "talk sense" to the American people endeared him to millions of previously-unknown persons.
Mr. Churchill, a world newsmaker since the turn of the century, again showed his astuteness and leadership in British politics to win third place.
Tied for fourth place in the poll were the garrulous anti-Communistic Sen. McCarthy, the secretary of state-designate John Foster Dulles, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations Trygve Lie.
Rampaging President Truman won seventh place. The Missouriian managed to keep his name before the public all year, by his decision not to re-seek his position, his support of various Democratic aspirants, his part in the steel controversy, his "whistle-stopping" campaign tour, and recent fracas with Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
In the No. 9 spot was Sen. Taft, who was frustrated last summer in his third attempt for the presidency by the nomination of Mr. Eisenhower.
Queen Elizabeth, destined to assume the throne vacated by her late father in England, was voted to No. 8.
Rounding out the top ten in a voluptuous manner is the hypermammiferous Marilyn Monroe, whose fame mostly rests on a combination of correctly-placed curves. Miss Monroe's climb into news prominence chiefly can be traced back to the publication of a nude calendar picture of the starlet—who said she had posed in such condition in earlier days when she "needed the money."
—Bob Stewart.
The series of stories which came from the mad, hectic weeks of the NCAA championship tournament was voted the top campus news story in 1952 by the members of the Editorial class.
Kansas winning the amateur championship and the enthusiastic rallies which followed spontaneously on the campus was considered to be the No. 1 story appearing in the Daily Kansan.
The tragic drowning of James A. Delphia and Bernard E. Rickers in Lone Star lake last May was voted the No. 2 campus story. Delphia and Rickers were homeward bound from an interfraternity pledge council picnic at the lake when their car went off the road and plunged into the lake.
Members of women's houses probably will not forget the third campus story—panty raids. The raids had their beginnings on other campuses but soon spread to Kansas. Little damage was caused at the University although there were many broken windows. The greatest damage was caused at the Alpha Delta Pi sorority house.
Kansas perhaps does not have many fast talking senators, but it does have big winds. The collapse of the partially-constructed Science building took the fourth slot in the big story poll. The Kansan reported the damage which set construction back six weeks was caused by a 70-mile an hour wind
Poor housing in upperclass women's houses rated the fifth spot in the poll. The Kansan first broke the story in October, and climaxed the drive with a double page picture story.
The controversy raised over the establishment
of an editorial board to review Kansan editorials before publication received the sixth position in the poll. Confusion arose out of whether the board was to be set up by the All Student Council or the School of Journalism, but the task finally was delegated to the School of Journalism.
The injury to Matt Murray and the subsequent drive to raise funds to help pay his hospital bill was voted into the seventh spot. Murray received a brain concussion in an automobile accident last February. A dance was given for his benefit following the Kansas-Kansas State basketball game.
The dedication and formal opening of the William Allen White School of Journalism in its new building was voted to the eighth position. Ceremonies for the dedication were held in February.
Racial discrimination rated the ninth spot in the poll. Involved were stories centering around a church youth group's efforts to investigate and abolish discriminatory practices against KU Negro students in privately owned campus restaurants.
In the political vein, the attempts to reorganize the All Student Council last spring was voted into the tenth spot. The reorganization plans concerned organizing the council with a membership from resident-districts instead of its present membership from schools of the University.
Eight of the 10 top campus news stories occurred last spring. Of the top 10 stories, at least four were given mention nationally.
—Bob Longstaff.
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas Student Newspaper
News Room KU 251 Ad Room KU 373
EDITORIAL STAFF
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Editor-in-Chief  Roger Varrington
Editorial Assistant  Charles Burch
NEWS STAFF
**NEW STARTS**
Managing Editor
Mar. Editors — Diana Stonebrenker
Mar. Editors — Mary Cooper, Bob
Managing Editor...Diana Stonebaker
Asst. Mgr. Editors...Mary Cooper, Bob
Stewart, Chuck Zuegner
Max Thompson
City Editor...Dean Bosch
Society Editor...Jeanne Fitzgerald
Sports Editor...Nielsen
Asst., Sports Editor...Clarke Keys
Telegraph Editor...Chuck Marelock
Picture Editor...Dan Sartz
News Advisor...Victor Dunlouy
BUSINESS STAFF
Business Manager  Clark Ackers
Advertising Mgr.  Elbert Spivey
National Mgr.  Virginia Mackey
Circulation Mgr.  Patricia Vance
Promotion Mgr.  Tom Breckenridge
Promotion Mgr.  Landez
Business Adviser  Dole Nale
Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or
$4.50 year (add $1) a semester if in Lawrence). Published in Lawrence, Kan, every afternoon during the University year except
Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays
and weekends. In second class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence
Kan., Post Office under act of March 3,
1579.
It will be next March or Apru before Publisher's Weekly lists the 10 best books for 1952, but speculation among readers and critics has begun already.
Revised Bible Leads News in Book Field
Undoubtedly the biggest news in books was the publication of the new Revised Standard Version of the Bible, the product of 15 years of scholarship. Next to the Bible on the bestseller list was "A Man Called Peter," Catherine Marshall's warm biography of her husband, the late chaplain of the U.S. Senate.
All in this all year, there were few major disappointments among publishers and, said Time magazine this week, a lot of good entertaining reading for just "plain readers."
In a class by itself was "Witness". Whittaker Chamber's painfully honest and brilliant report on the Hiss case.
In fiction the big sellers were the
big names—Hemingway, Waugh,
Steinbeck, Ferber, and Costain.
Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" was a beautifully written fishing story in praise of the courage of man and the nobility of nature. The story—appearing in Life magazine and as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection—had the greatest immediate audience ever reached by a serious novelist.
Evelyn Waugh's "Men at Arms" was the fine first installment of a trilogy about men and war.
John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" is sullen, violent, and powerful—about a woman who operates a brothel in a small California city.
Thomas B. Costain's "Silver Chalice"—long, dramatic, and inspirational—was a novel revolving around a silversmith who tries to mold a suitable receptacle to hold the Holy Grail.
3