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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1042
The KANSAN Comments...
Is Deferment Patriotic?
Figures released by the registrar yesterday show that the University's enrollment is eight per cent under that of last year. To the college man who did come back, this emphasizes once again the difficult question, "Should I have enlisted, too, or am I justified in trying to finish college first?"
A great majority of those gone from the campus this fall are men—men who are now serving under arms. Many were drafted. Some enlisted. Some probably assumed home-front jobs on farms, in industry—jobs which desperately needed men.
But more than two thousand men did come to college. They did so with hte full approval of army and government officials, who repeatedly have urged students to stay in school. Many, however, did so feeling that their consciences did not approve.
It is easy for college men to gain temporary deferment. Both the army and navy are welcoming enlistment in their respective reserve corps. But the student is forced to ask himself, "Is it patriotic?"
Payne Ratner, governor of Kansas, gave the most emphatic "yes" to this question yet heard. Speaking in Hoch auditorium yesterday, the Governor decried spur-of-the-moment enlistments on the ground that the armed forces needed men who are trained, not the mere force of unlimited man-power. Institutions like the University of Kansas, the Governor pointed out, can give that training.
So, stay in school men. Study with a patriotic purpose,and you will give the University a chance to say she did her part.
The Covert Second Front
As the hard-pressed Rusisans demand a second front of their allies and their allies equivocally promise one soon, it would appear that the Reds an dthe British have both overlooked, if not forgotten, a second front which already is in existence.
In the hills of Yugoslavia, General Draja Mihailovitch leads a well-armed, thoroughly organized army of patriots which are keeping an estimated army of 250,000 Italians and 10,000 Germans (exclusive of Gestapo and SS agents) from the Russian front.
Those Yugoslav patriots—Chetniks they call themselves have been nipping at the heels of the Axis mongrel since the fall of their native land a year and a half ago. Today they hold one port and almost 20,000 square miles of Yugoslavia.
Mihailovitch has built a strong and evergrowing army—men who withdrew to mountain strongholds to employ hit-and-run tactics against a superior foe.
By a meticulously laid plan, the basic organization of the Chetniks was completed long before the Nazi vanguard overran the country. Secret arms and uniform depots, separate from those of the regular army were established and supplies were cached there.
Drawing from his experience in past campaigns, Mihailovitch is conducting hostilities in Yugoslavia by the tactics of "invisible war." His rules are: strike simultaneously at points far distant as possible from each other; never concentrate too strong a force at one place; operate near the enemy's main lines of communication; never remain long in one place.
Town after town of German and Italian troops have been obliterated by the Chetrak's tactics of swooping down upon an outnumbered enemy garrison, destroying it, and retreating to the hills before reinforcements could do retribution.
So spirited has Mihailovitch's "invisible war" become, that the Christian Science Monitor terms it a "sustained offensive rather than a guerilla campaign. "The Italian radio itself admits fighting the Yugoslavs is "a task demanding great sacrifices."
Despite German attempts to squelch it, the Chetniks organization functions with thorough accuracy. Provisioning, recruiting, and consolidation of important areas moves smoothly along with two goals in view: control of Yugoslavia's "unoccupied area" and support of Allied war plans.
Mobilization still continues. More patriots join Mihailovitch each week, and his forces are liberating prisoners of war from the Nazi concentration camps to swell their ranks.
Hunger and German threats of starvation failed to vanquish the Yugosiavs;Mihailovitch informed London that nine tenths of his army was able to work in fields in an area under his control to help meet the food problem.
Equipping a large and rapidly growing army is Mihailovitch's biggest problem. Small amounts of equipment have been seized from the enemy in surprise raids, but these are insufficient to replenish stocks drained by more than a year of war.
Cattaro Bay on the Dalmatian coast has been wrested from the Axis and strongly fortified with an invisible cordon of guns and machinegun nests. Here is the solution to the supply problem. Although the Mediterranean is dominated in this area by the Italians, submarines can land equipment at the ports bordering on the bay.
The 17 divisions of Axis troops Draja Mihailovitch deters from the Russian front greatly impeded Hitler in his attempt to knock out the Russians before winter. This may be the weak spot the Allies have been probing for to develop a major second front.
OFFICIAL BULLETIN
OFFICIAL BULLETIN
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Vol.40 Tuesday, September 22,1942 No.3
Notices due at News Bureau, 8 Journalism, at 10 a.m. on day of publication during the week,
and at 11 a.m. on Saturday for Sunday issue.
MAKE-UP PSYCHOLOGICAL EXAMINATION: The make-up psychological examination will be held in Hoch auditorium Friday, Sept. 25, at 3:30p.m. This will be the last examination until the summer session. A H. Turney
CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP GROUP which previously met in Watkins Library will meet in the Pine Room of the Union Building. Thursday noon from 1:00 to 1:20 p.m. throughout the coming semester.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
If you are a Christian, you will want to be present. Everyone welcome! David Boylan, chairman.
Student Paper of THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Lawrence, Kansas
EDITORIAL STAFF
Publisher ... John Conard
Editor-in-chief ... Alan B. Houghton
Editorial Associates ... Maurice Barker, Mary
Eleanor Fry, Bob Cole-
man, J. Donald Keown
NEWS STAFF
Managing Editor... Bill Feeney
Campus Editors... Virginia Tieman, Dean Sims,
...
Sports Editor ... J. Donald Keown
Society Editor ... Barbara Batchelor
News Editor ... Joy Miller
Sunday Editor ... Ralph Coldren
Exchange Editor ... Eleanor Fry
DEAN SIMS
Gamma Phi Verlee Reece came home with a new hat yesterday, much agog with its splendor. Pulling it out of the box, she put it on and posed for roommate Marian Miller.
"Would you believe it," questioned Verlee, "I bought it even without trying it on?"
Marian eyed the hat cynically.
Maryey cried the last syllable.
"You should have," she said.
The Pi Phi and the Phi Gam pledge classes walked out on the active chapters last night.
The Pi Phi pledges left havoc in their wake as they took with them on the trip all the silverware belonging to the sorority house, save the spoons. So the actives ate their dinner with spoons and (horrible but undoubtedly true) fingers.
The Phi Gam freshmen were content with merely taking all the light uses from the house.
The two pledge classes concluded and climaxed their spree by dacning it a local jell-joint-sans shoes.
thecoloporectomyonectomyudermatoidectomy
Anyone with its meaning might call Charlie before he ruins a perfectly good Watson library in his search for it.
Charlie Roos, college junior from Lawrence, claims to have in his possession the longest word in captivity. It goes something like this "per-neccoleporectomyomecterdymatomueoosomisitis."
Rod Russell, business junior from Iola, immediately spoke:
In Prof. John Ise's Economics of Land class, the question this morning came up concerning the importance of the influence of nature on a man as he works in the city.
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"Basically, if it weren't for nature, man wouldn't be here at all—let alone working in the city."
(This kid, with such intelligence, will probably crack the course for an A).
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QUESTION: What fraternity pledge class and what sorority pledge class, both living on West Campus Road, are planning to walk out tomorrow night?
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Love Life
Columbus' Love Life
The bulk of the present-day historical writers should refer to themselves as archaeologists, because they are always digging for skeletons in some great personage's family closet. This is a natural reaction, a pendulum-like revolt against the custom of canonizing famous men and bestowing upon them an other-worldly aura.
The modern cynic tries to reveal his characters as sharpsters or dullards who were swept into fame on Lady Luck's coattails. In this respect, Rafael Sabatini, (author of "The Sea Hawk," "Captain Blood," and others) executes a pleasing bit of fence straddling in his latest historical work, "Columbus."
Although a devoted father, Columbus was not aware of his own physical grace or the charms of a beautiful woman (no triangle situation, of course, his first wife being dead before the story begins; he was a shrew, but oftimes too hot-headed and single-minded for his own good, never dull, always human and likeable.
Sabatini portrays the Admiral as a visionary with his head in the clouds and both feet on the ground a man who sincerely believed himself to be the agent of God in finding a new world to convert to the Faith, but who wasn't doing it free of charge.
The author gives little space to the actual voyage into the unknown sea. The crossing is almost anti-climatic. Most important is the attempt of the Venitian nobles, who control the Mediterranean gateway to the wealth-filled East, to frustrate Columbus' plan for a westward voyage.
To achieve this end, the Ventilants employ an attractive Spanish dancer.
Exposes Skeleton
Beatriz, to relieve Christopher of a certain valuable chart of the world, given to him by the great Italian mathematician Toscanelli. This chart of Toscanelli's merely confirmed the views of Columbus, but the mathematician's name was more highly regarded by the thinkers of the time.
With Toscanelli's chart as a clincher, and with the Moors finally driven from Spain, the king and queen finally shell out the necessary funds, and in 1492 Columbus sails the ocean blue with a cutthroat crew. The trip is described briefly but graphically.
A historian may challenge some of the details in this new version of an often-told story. He will not, however, challenge the fact that Sabatini has taken a cut-and-dried tale and made it live again.
Beatriz becomes so wrapped up in her work of wamping Columbus that she forgets about stealing the chart, so two Venitian hoodlums do the job. Consequently, Columbus appears before a committee chosen by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain without Toscanelli's backing and is refused aid in the undertaking
Then Beatriz, who took part in the burglary to save a worthless brother from slavery, but now deeply in love with Columbus, tells of her part in the plot, assists a friend of the explorer to intercept the two thieves and bows out of Columbus' life
The adjoining town houses of President Roosevelt and his mother, the late Sara Delano Roosevelt, have been purchased by a committee of citizens for use as a community house by Hunter college students.