PAGE EIGHT
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
DECEMBER 11, 1946
Two Former Kansans
Walter Johnson, Pitching Ace And Damon Runyon, Writer, Die
New York. (UP) -Damon Runyon, the Broadway story teller, died Tuesday night in Memorial hospital after asking the guys and dolls on the big stem to see that there was no fuss over his passing.
Friends said there would be no funeral services, that Runyon's body, at his request, would be cremated at an undisclosed time. He had asked that his ashes be strewn over Manhattan Island by his friend, Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker.
Runyon was 62. His physicians announced that he died of cancer. He had been unable to talk since a throat operation in 1944, but swapped wiscracks and opinions with his associates on a pad of paper. He entered the hospital Friday, and had been in a coma for 24 hours when he died at 7:06 p.m.
Runyon, bespectacled, given to soap-brimmed hats and flashy clothes, was famous as a short-story writer, was a syndicated columnist, but considered himself primarily a reporter.
His literary style was salted with Broadway slang. His success was in his characters, Harry the Horse, Louie the Lug, Joe and Ethel Twerp, Regret the Horse-player, Apple Annie, and Little Miss Marker. It was the film portrayal of the latter that lifted Shirley Temple to stardom.
He wrote a play, "A Slight Case of Murder," in collaboration with Howard Lindsay. Friends said Runyon began writing short stories during the depression because he needed extra money, and never spent more than two days working on one.
Runyon peopled his stories with characters he met in the night in Broadway spots in the 40's and 50's. He once said:
"A piece I wrote about canary birds got more response than anything I could write, about a real serious subject. You'd be surprised how many men own canary birds."
Runyon's career led to Manhattan, New York, from Manhattan, Kansas, where he was born Oct. 4, 1884, the only son of Alfred Lee Runyon, an itinerant printer, and the former Elizabeth Damon. He was named Alfred Damon Runyon. The first part of his name was knocked off by a sports editor because it made his beline too long.
His last big story was the Louis-
Corm fight.
Runyon wrote his first news story when he was 12 for his father, quit school when he was 14 because he was poor in his studies, fibbed about his age, got in the army and fought in the Spanish-American war. He rode as a jockey, managed a baseball team, got a job as a reporter on the Pueblo, Colo., Chieftain, and worked his way up on the Denver Post, Denver News, San Francisco Post, and New York American, where he was hired in 1912.
At his bedside when he died were his son, Damon, Jr., his business agent, Paul Small, and Eddie Walker, a fight manager. Runyon also was survived by a daughter, Mary. His first wife, Ellie Regan, a Denver newspaper woman, died in 1931, and his second wife, Patrice Del Gridier, a dancer, whom he married in 1932, obtained a divorce last year.
'Students Must Share Directories,' Hitt Says
"If you don't get your student directory by Christmas vacation chances are you will not get one," James Hitt, registrar, reported to day.
Half of the directories have now been distributed, and the rest are in the registrar's office waiting to be called for, Hitt said. There will not be enough for everybody, since only 7,000 were printed, and it will be necessary for many to share their copy, he continued.
By Tuesday afternoon the first books from the binder were exhausted, and distribution was halted until the last of the directories were received from the binder this morning.
Washington (UP)—Walter Johnson, who rode to baseball immortality on his fabulous fast ball, passed on to the biggest league of them all.
Death, caused by a brain tumor, claimed the "Big Train" at the age of 59 and plunged four decades of baseballdum into mourning — from the major league executives who knew and loved him to the grade-school sandlotters to whom he was only a legend.
The magnificent heart that never conceded defeat in a pitcher's battle, finally yielded Tuesday night.
Death came to the one-time pitching ace of the Washington Senators in the stillness of a white-walled hospital room only a few miles from Griffith stadium, the ball park where thousands—from presidents to peanut vendors—once roared tribute to his hurling genius.
The fabulous fireballer, whose achievements are recorded in baseball's "Hall of Fame" at Cooperstown, N.Y., did all his major league pitching for the Senators. He broke in with them in 1907 and closed out his active playing career in 1927 after suffering a broken leg in spring training.
In that span, the big raw-boned right-hander from Humboldt, Kan. fashioned one of the greatest pitching records in baseball history.
He won 414 games, a record surpassed only by Cy Young. Those triumphs, achieved with a team that finished in the second division during 15 of Johnson's 21 big league pitching years, earned him the nickname "Big Train"—he always was pulling his teammates through without much support.
He compiled an all-time major league record of 113 shutouts.
It was Johnson's blazing fast ball that inspired the famed, and unanswerable, baseball alibi — "you can't hit 'em when you can't see 'em."
And it was his high hard one that brought him a big league strikeout record that hasn't even been approached—3,497. His strikeout victims included all of the mightiest American league sluggers of his time-Shoeless Joe Jackson, Ty Cobb, Eddie Collins, Babe Ruth, Harry Heilmann, Tris Speaker, George Sisler, Lou Gehrig, Jimmy Foxx.
Though best remembered for his pitching, Johnson also was a fearless hitter. A long ball hitter, he frequently delivered the blow that won his own game.
After he hung up his pitching glove in 1927, Johnson turned to managing. He piloted the Senators from 1929 through 1932, and ended his major league career managing the Cleveland Indians from 1933 until August. 1935.
Johnson then retired to his Maryland farm. In 1940, he ran for congress from Maryland on the Republican ticket. But his fame as a baseball player was not enough to carry him through in a traditionally Democratic district.
L. R. Laudon, professor of geology, will give an illustrated lecture on his recent trip to Alaska to the student chapter of the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences at its regular meeting at 7:30 tomorrow.
All aeronautical students are to attend the meeting, which will be held at 210 Marvin. Billy Lash, chapter president, said today.
Laudon Will Speak To Aeronautical Students
Registration Place Changed For Pre-Medic Exams
Registration for professional aptitude test for School of Medicine applicant will take place in room 2A, Frank Resthall, not room 24, T. E. Christensen, of the University guidance bureau, said today.
Registration hours are from 8 a.m.
to 12 noon and from 1 to 5 p.m.
Monday through Friday. Registration
must be completed by noon Dec. 27.
UN Drops Arms Count
Lake Success, (UP)—The United States, Russia and Britain agreed tentatively today to drop their demands for a count of the world's armies and armaments, and passed on to the all-powerful United Nations security council responsibility for taking early steps to disarm and ban atomic weapons.
Los Angeles. (UP)—An official announcement by the U.S. army said today that its first rocket plane, the Bell XS-1, has been successfully test flown.
Rocket Plane XS-1 Flies At 'Crawling' 550 M.P.H.
Designed to rocket man beyond the speed of sound, the ship was dropped from the belly of a B-29 bomber Monday.
Secretary Anderson added that a downward trend may develop during the latter months of next year.
New York. (UP)—Retail food prices apparently have reached their peak and begun to level off, Secretary of Agriculture Clinton P. Anderson said today.
Food Prices At Peak
Nazi Deputy Is Found
Stockholm. (UP)—The newspaper Afontindingen said today without giving the source of its report that Martin Bormann, long missing Nazi party deputy, now is living in South America.
Washington. (UP) — The CIO threw into its wage drive today an independent analysis claiming that "lush" 1946 corporate profits of 25 billion dollars justified immediate 25 per cent wage increases to workers—without new price increases.
C.I.O. For Wage Increase
The University travel bureau is trying to get rides for carless students who want to go home for Christmas. They's had 30 applications from prospective riders, but none from persons wanting to share their cars.
Car-less Students Want Rides Home
Have a heart, you guys with the shiny convertibles.
Pipes Blow, Mobs Gather; It's The Indian Rope Trick
Meteors which flashed across mid-western skies kept state police departments and airport officials busy but left K.U. students undisturbed,
The meteors were first reported at 5:20 a.m. Tuesday by a woman in McPherson who told police she had seen a blazing airplane fly over the city and crash at the edge of town. At Garden City the meteor was reported to have made a loud whistling sound as it passed over the town and army filers from a nearby field were up to search for a plane crash.
K. U. students must have been studying Tuesday night.
'Which Way Did They Go, George?'
He agreed that the music is necessary to the trick and added that he suspects it is used to "hypnotize the spectators."
Did you ever wonder how the Indian rope trick is done?
Prof. N. W. Storer, department of astronomy, missed the spectacle and only one student, Robert Casad, College freshman, reported to Professor Storer that he saw the meteor whiz across the sky about 7:20 p.m. Tuesday.
Professor Storer is a bit skeptical about, this "loud whistling" noise.
To a suggestion that American jazz be tried for the trick, Dwen conjectured, "I imagine the rope would refuse to budge."
Preliminary music, played by the madari and his associates on their crude homemade pipes, acts as a sort of fanfare to draw a crowd for the performance, he said. Music employed during the trick is similar to gypsy tunes.
Inder Mohan Dewan, 21-year-old aeronautical engineering student from India's Punjab province, says he can't explain the trick, but he has seen it performed.
That's often the delusion a person experiences when he sees a meteor," he explained. "He's excited and certainly believes he hears the noise. It's a psychological reaction."
"As long as the music continues, the rope appears to rise, but if music is intermittent, the rope will rise and fall proportionately," he said.
Those applications are for rides to places all over the country, and the riders are willing to help pay their expenses. If you're interested, call Carol Tarrant, at 290.
"Madaris who perform the trick claim to make the rope issue out of the ground by calling on their gods through the medium of pipe music," he said.
And quite an illusion, at that, apparently. Dewan said that some madaris can elevate a rope as high as 40 or 50 feet.
Traveling from east to west, the meteor was seen in Kansas City, Hutchinson, Wichita, Little River, Strong City, McPherson, and Garden City.
"If the rope doesn't actually rise then the whole thing is an optical illusion," he says.
Dewan said he doubted that a flat
Dewan explained the madari as an itinerant magician who makes his living performing the rope trick and other stunts in Indian cities where ever he can gather a crowd.
note on the madari's pipe would produce crazy gyrations on the rope. If it did, madari would frequently find themselves in an awkward position since a small boy usually shinnes up the rope at the climax of the act; and a wavering rope might be disastrous for him.
When a performance ends, spectators toss coins to the madari and his associates. Most of them, however, are very poorly paid, unless they are experts on the rope trick.
As to how long a performer can make the rope stay up. Dewan answered, "that depends on the performer's stamina—blowing that pipe appears to be pretty hard work."
Making the rope remain rigid is the essence of the trick, according to Dewan, but the technique is a "trade secret which only the performers know."
He observed that the trick takes steady nerves, and ventured the opinion that it might require "plenty of concentration, too."
Do madaris ever have rope-raising competitions? Never, Dewan said.
A strong, heavy Ganges rope about two inches in diameter, is used for the trick, and the higher the rope is raised, the harder it appears to be to make it stay up, he said. When the rope gets so high, the madari and his associates blow faster and harder on their pipes.
"Some of the people of India fear the madaris and because of their 'magical' powers, they are often accused of setting fire to buildings," he said.
115 Chairmen Will Form Clubs To Boost K.U.
Newly appointed county chairmen of the Statewide activities commission will hold their first meeting at 4 p.m. tomorrow in Frank Strong auditorium, according to Elizabeth Evans, county club chairman.
Christmas plans will be discussed, and a general outline of projects for the year will be explained, Miss Evans announced.
The county chairmen will organize K.U. students from their own county into a club which is to serve as a K.U. promotion service to interest Kansans in their University.
Zeno A. Gould, Ann Stanton, Marilyn McClure, Ruth Payne, Cleo Addington, Ruth Brown, Gera Lee Kreider, Veldah Harkness, William Johnson, Shirley Holge, Althea Voss, Jo Ann Hepworth, Dyight Gilkison, Marchita Henricks, Joanne Cockreham, Toby Walker, Raymond Cooper, John Wayland, Duane Carpenter, Wayne Dassow.
Hilda James, Robert Thayer, Virginia Pond, Wilda Williams, Kenneth Bellamy, Marjorie Brown, Margaret Eberhard, Bernice Brady, and Laird Campbell.
County chairmen are Eunice Carlson, Dorothea Thomas, Park Pennington, Morris Shull, Rayburn Werts, Howard Ryan, Mary Hoffman, John Moorhead, Mary Jo Moxley, Donald Baumunk, Elizabeth Sifers, Harold Beck, Sara Stryker, Lee Schloezer, Russell O'Hara, Alice Hobbs, Donald Price, Dineen Somers.
Anna Lou McAllister, Joan Lippelman, Norvell Osborn, Carolyn Hill, Ruth Walters, Marjorie Burtscher, Kathy Culley, Joan Manners, Mary Burnett, Norma Guthrie, Ardella Ringwalt, Joan Anderson, Virginia Cooper, Dean Foster, Kathleen Sheridan, Bonnie Chestnut, Lorraine Rumsey, Wilbur Koehn, Mary K. Webster, Billve Simmons.
William Scherer, Jack Beal, Gordon Chapple, Dorothy Bruce, Rosemary Jarbose, Bonnie Eickelberger, Nancy Jolly, Joan Raney, John Bennett, Web Sister, Patricia Fleming, Joan Vermillion, Donald Blackman, Venita Inloes, Marjorie Hampton, Kittie Nite, Frank Moore, Mary Clark, Francis Spencer, Emalouise Britton.
Francis Nifon, Pill Zellers, Joe Beeler, Virginia Powell, Robert Franklin, John Crump, George Eisenhardt, Philip Fee, Joan Larson, Harla Debs, Laura Schmid, William Smith, Jr., Jo Ann Nelson, Mary Sue Fletcher, Helen Harkrader, Grace P. Witt, Patricia Harris, Donald Diehl, Alvin Ritts, Ray Pleasant, Margaret Wright.
NVT
In the starting round of the women's intramural basketball tourney, held Tuesday night in Robinson gymnasium, the Greek teams dominated the winning margins in five of the contests.
Kappa Kappa Gamma swamped Jollife hall by a 40-2 score, while Gamma Phi Beta edged out Chi Omega with a 17-14 decision.
14-8. Following the KU-Idaho varsity game tonight, Kappa Alpha Theta will oppose Delta Delta Delta and Alpha Chi Omega will meet Fostor hall at 9 on the Robinson courts.
The Delta Gamma's trounced the Independent six, 20-11, and Alpha Delta Pi kept a nine-point lead over Sleepy Hollow to finish with a 17-8 final tally.
Corbin hall led Harmon Co-op in a one-sided game with an end score of 29-11. Miller lost to Sigma Kappa, 14-8.
Greeks Dominate First Women's Basketball
Shooting Films Shown
The showing of two films on marksmanship was attended by 39 persons Tuesday night in the drill hall of the Military Science building.
20