PAGETWO
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN LAWRENCE, KANSAS
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Student Newspaper of the UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Member of the Kansas Press Association, National Editorial Association, and the Member of the New York Advertising Service, 420 Baldwin Ave. New York City
FEBRUARY 15, 1948
Mail subscription: $1 a semester, $4.50 a year, plus 2% tax (in Lawrence add $1 a semester postage). Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the school year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays, and examination periods. Send resume to Lawrence Sept. 17, 1910, at the Post Office at Lawrence, Kan., under act of March 3, 1879.
Above Boarding
Just before semester vacation, the Inter-fraternity council did a smart thing. Accepting the recommendation of the national council, it voted unanimously to ban boarding and hell week from fraternity programs on the Hill.
The vote was unanimous, but that is not to say there were no private regrets. A few fraternity men are honest enough to admit that they could see no harm in paddling; they were freshmen once and it didn't kill them. As actives, they look at the practice as all around good fun and an expedient disciplinary measure.
But even these men admit that paddling as a fraternity tradition had to go. Challenged from all sides to justify their existence, Greek letter organizations are far too busy defending their worthwhile goals to uphold the questionable traditions of beating and hell week.
Which is not to give the critics of Greek life the entire credit for this reform in the fraternity system. Undoubtedly the obvious foolhardiness of upholding such a target with the bull's eye so plainly marked had a great deal to do with the recommendation of the National Inter-fraternity council and the action of the local group.
However, fraternities on their own had come to question the now abolished traditions. As a matter of national policy, some fraternities long ago prohibited corporal punishment for pledge misdemeanors. Other organizations have taken care of the matter in local chapters; a number of University groups had privately substituted work hours and study camouflages for the maddle.
So the recent Inter-fraternity council action is not just a dip of the wing to an irate section of the public.
A statistician informs us that the chances of identical bridge hands being dealt in 18 trials are one in 350,000,000,000,000,000,000. At last—a figure larger than the national debt!
Some men may have been hurried a little in accepting this mature outlook, but in time, as a practical extension of fraternity ideals, the reform would have been effected anyway.
With enrollment high and houses scarce, it looks as if final week won't be the only time for cramming this semester. ...
The Station Needs a Break
Although there were no rehearsals and no broadcasts, the campus had a radio station last semester. Not KFKU with its educational features and panel discussions, but a student station with uninterrupted half hours of popular music and vox pop programs on the library steps.
Call numbers for the station were WAWM (William Allen White Memorial) and there were officers—general manager, program manager, research director, and promotion chairman. On the air from 7 until 8:30 p.m., station broadcasts were to be available to student houses only—a modern miracle of private transmitters and University power lines.
The plans were all laid in the classroom of the course, Radio Copy Techniques. Programs—serials, interviews, dramas, continuity—were written as class assignments. But the instructor never assigned the tasks of finding transmitters, installing transmitters, or selling advertising. So somehow, these things never got done.
And why? Well, mostly because the 13 students in the course happened to be students who were already too busy with other things—the Daily Kansan, the Jayhawker, the All-Student Council.
The radio station hit a common snag. It depended upon supporters who already had too many other interests; so it collapsed before gathering strength enough to utter a syllable.
Will anyone else take WAWM by the heels and shake it until it talks? We'll see this semester.
Radio Copy Techniques is not being offered again. And after one failure, the instructor who was in charge is in no mood to ask a student to be responsible for the station. But the idea of it all is still knocking around the campus—easy prey for anyone with ambition and time.
During a semester students are told they must plan their work and time in order to receive the greatest benefit from their courses. Yet at the close of the semester some professor always finds himself 200 pages short of covering the book and throws everyone in a turmoil by assigning what's left for the last week.
Basketball Coaches Lonborg and Meyer, of Northwestern and De Paul, this week suggested that the game be slowed down, hinting that "firewagon basketball has run out of gas." Didn't we hear the same idea from "Phog" Allen a year ago?
We wonder why Jimmie Byrnes doesn't take James Petrillo, head of the American Federation of Musicians, with him to the next foreign ministers conference? Petrillo not only gets what he wants without a compromise; he gets two of it.
It was predicted that the "Hollywood-styled" psychology prof. Dr James Coleman, might prove popular with the students. Well, his new general psychology class this semester has 109 students.
We would like to ask some economic authority just what effect General MacArthur's command prohibiting the sale of women as prostitutes will do to the balance of supply and demand in Japan.
When the shooting war was on, the public got a review of geography; now with the labor war, it gets a review of arithmetic.
Rock Chalk Talk
By MARILYN STEINERT
They call him "Wild Bill." Bil Shafer, Delta Tau, invariably bid one "something" when he is playing bridge. In order to find out if his bidding is legitimate, some of his Delt brothers stacked the cards on him while he was answering the phone one evening. The highest card he then had was a six of hearts. After carefully arranging it, Bill let loose with one heart.
With due apology. Dan Gardner, Winston Darkow, and Ben McKinley, Sig Alph's, are new waiters at the Chi O house. Although not too professional yet, it must be said the new hands help the girls down their food more rapidly — down their backs.
There is a Santa Claus. While George Cox, Phi Psi, was dancing with a girl one evening, he stopped suddenly and exclaimed, "I forgot to give you the present I bought at Christmas!"
Odd Odyssey. "This car will last about 10 more miles." Max Kennedy,
His partner was obviously pleased. Then George pulled out a match and gave it to her. "Here," he leered diabolically, "so you can pick your teeth."
Signa Chi, remarked to Mazzle Lane, Gamma Phi. But he was wrong. Nine miles later, a good kilometer from El Dorado, the back end fell out.
Being pulled into town backwards, Max toyed with the possibilities of spending the night in El Dorado, but finally decided to let the repair man have a free hand and go on to Ponca City. After all, Betty Jo O'Neal was waiting for them.
Thrown in for what it is worth: Max finally started the machine by blowing steadily in the gas tank.
Semester vacation over, however,
Betty Jo was saying nothing either
way about being glad Max pushed
on. While Max was driving it, the
O'Neal car stopped dead, causing a
great deal of trouble in the family.
Is that you. Charlie? Possibly stu dazed from finals, the other night Mary Jo Mercer stood outside the communal laboratory at Watkins hall knocking for admittance.
Immortality
All that glitter!— Astronomy 13 isn't the course Anne Scott, Theta, and Judith Tihen, Gamma Phil, thought it was going to be. They are the only two in the class—and Mr. Storer is such a family man.
Shackled in ice, the frail tree stood, its naked black branches creaking the agony of their frozen burden.
All night the maiden tree had suffered the storm with arms upflung, sobbing into the whipping, heartless wind.
And now it stood like a girl in chains, riveted in ice-armor, enduring, enduring.
Oh, ye Powers that be.
Give us more than futility, futility.
Endlessly, tirelessly, the snow drifted down across the window pane.
The flakes fell ceaselessly and noiselessly, silencing the earth with cottony froth.
Like balm that slipped down from the stars and filled the valleys and scars In calm and slow descent it brought the healing essence of all things not seen.
Oh, ye Powers that be.
Accept our wondering awe, humility.
JANICE OEHRLE
College Freshman
American College Quill Club
Long Lost
'Louisiana Havride' Ends
Building his machine with men from the highways and byways, Long conducted a fiery first administration. The Louisiana house of representatives impeached him, but the senate produced a round-robin with 15 signatures which said the
**EIGHT'S NOX:** Robert Maestri, mayor of New Orleans, was the last man in the Huey Long political machine to be arrested. He was cuffed, via the ballot box. The following article recalls the story of a machine end its "Louisiana Hurricane."
(By United Press)
With the defeat at the polls of Robert S. Maestri, for 10 years mayor of New Orleans, Huey Long's two-decade "Louisiana Hayride" positive conclusion This final blow on Jake Karp's career after Huey's machine hit the "big time" and 10 years after the "Kingfish"'s assassination.
He hariragued the backwoods folks about the maldistribution of wealth —this was to become his “Share the Wealth Plan,”—and on his 30th birthday he ran for governor. That was in 1923, and defeat did not daunt him. He ran again in 1927 and was elected.
The Huey Long epoch started out like a ball of fire, sizzling every second until its finish. Long was born a poor boy in the cotton town of La, but he soon outgrew his master La, and he soon career as a traveling salesman, he studied law at Tulane university and then tried politics.
With the impeachment test over, Huey decided in 1931 to run for U.S. senator. He was elected easily and began attracting nation-wide attention with his Washington tirades and filibusters.
When Tulane defeated Louisiana State university 14-13 in football, he had a bill introduced in the legislature outlawing the point after touchdown. Another time he offered L.S.U. star Able Mickel a state senatorship after an L.S.U. victory. Abe was under age and a resident of Mississippi, but that didn't matter.
Although on a hot Sunday night in 1935 the "Kingfish" slumped inside his state capital with several bullets in his body, the machine boys prospered in spite of their minor role in the scandal at Louisiana State university cent Federal investigators into the Louisiana political picture.
signers would not vote for conviction no matter what the evidence
But he continued to keep his thumb on the Louisiana legislature. Through his efforts Louisiana State university was built to great proportions to spite his alma mater, Tulane, where he had been refused a degree.
Dr. James Monroe Smith, installed by Huey Long as president of L.S.U. had been caught in some financial irregularities and had resigned. He and his wife could not be found. The president of a university had,
Few persons now living—possibly only one—know the contents of the collection given to the library more than 26 years ago by Robert Todd Lincoln, son of the Civil wartime president.
More Lincoln Secrets May Come to Light After Next Year
Not until July 26, 1947, and maybe later, will the public be told what the papers from the desk and personal files of the Great Emancipator reveal.
In giving the collection to the library, Robert Todd Lincoln specified that it be "carefully preserved from official or public inspection or private view" until at least 21 years after his death.
Washington. (UP)—In secluded stunks of the library of congress, secret work is progressing on a collection of personal papers which may yield new information on Abraham Lincoln's life and times.
The 21 years—Robert Todd Lincoln, onetime president of the Pullman company died here July 26. 1928 —expire July 26. 1947.
However, six months before his death the son wrote the library that it could proceed with indexing the "letters, manuscripts, documents and other private papers" to prepare them "against the time when they shall be opened to the public."
There has been much speculation, but no official explanation, as to why Robert Todd Lincoln conditioned his gift with instructions that it be withheld from the public for the 21 years. Most persons believe that he did this to prevent any possible embarrassment to men or women then living who were mentioned in his father's files.
One library employee, assigned to the job more than three years ago, is working alone on the indexing, he said. His listing was interrupted when the collection was moved to the University of Virginia for war-time security, but recently was resumed.
Students of Lincolnia, however, look for little startling from the disclosure of the collection's contents. They believe it will be of chief value to scholars in filling in the tapestried background of the Civil war era.
Eventually the collection will be microfilmed to provide copies for other libraries and, institutions, Evans said. Even this may be postponed until after July 26, 1947, to safeguard against any leaks.
Dr. Luther H. Evans, librarian of congress, reiterated that every precaution will continue to be taken to keep the contents secret until July 26, 1947.
A few others have contended the collection will reveal that a member of Lincoln's cabinet was in conspiracy with his assassin.
These theories, scholarly and otherwise, bring a constant trickle of inquiries to the library.
OFFICIAL BULLETIN
The College faculty will meet at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb.19, in Frank Strong auditorium.
Deane W. Malott
Dramatics workshop meeting 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Little theater, Green hall. Attendance required. Tryouts for style show.
Friday. Feb. 15
University Housemother's association meeting 2 p.m. Monday, Feb. 18, Myers hall.
Ten days later Dr. Smith was arrested in Canada and flown back to bouge to face charges. He said he'd be goat"—that he'd "spill the beans."
to use Basic English, taken it on the lam.
One by one the Long heirs were indicted, and convicted of various charges, some fantastic—like selling them at auction to the state two and three times.
A few escaped indictment—but all stepped down and out of politics. All except Robert Maestri, Longinstalled mayor of New Orleans. It remained for a young war veteran named DeLesseps S. Morrison, sion of an old Louisiana family, to defeat the last vestigio of the Long machine.
Vend