PAGE SIX
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 1942
The KANSAN Comments...
The Rights of Labor and the War
It has long been a truism that war necessitates sacrifice, and sacrifice for everyone, but there is no reason why labor should be forced now to give up all the progress it has been able to make in the past ten years.
Speaker Rayburn of the House has been the last to come out in favor of extension of the work-week to 48 hours. The law at present provides for a 40-hour week, as it did when the existing contracts were signed. Capital knew this when it agreed to the terms, and made adequate provision for it.
A case in point is that of Jack and Heintz company, the president of which admits a salary boost from $25,000 to $100,000 in 1941, and a bonus for each employee with a yearly salary of more than $10,000. The obvious reason for these huge bonuses was to avoid payment of excess profits taxes. The firm manufactures airplane motor starters for the government. It has made a profit of $328 on each sold to the navy, and slightly less on those sold to the army. The firm holds exclusive patents on the starter, and the navy reported that it was unable to obtain competitive bids for this reason.
Capital is losing no money by conversion of its plants to war-time production, and it is ridiculous to expect labor to give up its rights that capital may profit more. If the laborer is forced to work 8 additional hours each week before being allowed to collect his overtime wage, then all the valuable social legislation of the Roosevelt administration has gone for naught.
Every voice is raised in the hope that labor trouble can be averted for the duration. The majority of the press of the country hopes that labor can be kept in line long enough to "finish our job." Labor may expect to grant concessions, but so must capital. This new manifestation of greed on the part of capital will not have the effect of cementing relationships between the two parties concerned in delivering the goods to win the war.
It is probable that such persons as Rayburn, and the myriad other one-time liberals who now clutter up the pages of newspapers and the floors of assemblies while they spout freely of the lack of "cooperation" from labor in the war effort, are merely the dupes of big producers. For certain reasons, best known to themselves, they have suddenly found it to their advantage to espouse the cause of the persecuted capitalist.
Certain civil liberties must be forfeited in war-time. The scale of living suffers certain set-backs. Many people who see some way to profiteer will do so. Capital in the past has never been reluctant to make the best of a war. After many years of being sold on the labor market, the worker has finally come into his own. Labor will not give up the rights it has acquired.
Music Has Power—To Disturb
Every student on the campus has, at some time or other, had a class in Frank Strong hall. During his attendance at this class, he has, in all probability, silently or vociferously condemned all fine arts students to a better life—at least a distant one.
Since practice rooms are a necessary evil for music majors, why could they not be made soundproof? Everyone who has been concentrating on an experiment, working a problem, or translating a difficult passage only to have
the train of thought broken by a sudden trill from an ambitious soprano, realizes the need for soundproofing.
Not only in Frank Strong hall itself, but in Hayworth hall, student concentration lags as distraction occurs in the form of piano scales, operatic runs, and tenor tremolos. The only appreciable difference here is that the piano, violin, and voice minple into an unharmonious jangle. This does not lead to appreciation of the arts.
This disturbing element has been commented upon, not only by students and faculty, but by visitors on the campus, and one visitor in particular—Alec Templeton. Though he referred to it in a whimsical way, the source of the disturbance is still in existence, and will remain an unnecessary distraction until one of three things is done:
1. Soundproof all practice rooms.
2. Exile all fine arts students to Siberia.
3. Exile all other students to Siberia, and
3. Exile all other students to Siberia, and let the School of Fine Arts have the place
—T.M.
OFFICIAL BULLETIN
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Vol. 39 Tuesday, March 24, 1942 No. 109
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.
Tau Sigma will meet at the regular times this week.
—Anna J. Hoffman, Pres.
W.S.G.A. Election Tea, Wednesday, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
Men's Lounge, Memorial Union building. All University women are invited.-Lois Worrel, social chairman.
Jay Janes will meet Wednesday at 4:30 in the Pine room of the Memorial Union building. Please wear uniforms for installation of officers.—Genevieve Harmon, President.
Everyone interested in the YMCA Conference at Estes Park this spring is invited to attend the Estes Jamboree at 5:30 p.m., Saturday, March 28, at Henley House. Topics for the spring conference will be discussed at the meeting. For further information call Marion Heworth.
SIGMA XI. The regular March meeting of the Kansas Chapter of Sigma Xi will be held on Tuesday, March 24 at 7:30 p.m. in Blake hall. Dr. Robert M. Dreyer, Assistant Professor of Geology and Mining Engineering, will speak on "Geophysical Investigations in the Tri-State Zinc and Lead Mining District." The Board of Electors will meet on Wednesday, April 8. Nominations should reach the secretary no later than April 4.-W. H. Schoewe, Secretary.
SCHOLARSHIPS: Applications for scholarships for fall, 1942, should be made in Room 1, Frank Strong Hall, before April 1.—Lela Ross, Executive Secretary.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Student Paper of THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Lawrence, Kansas
NATIONAL EDITORIAL ASSOCIATION 1942 Active Member
Publisher ... Kenneth Jackson
EDITORIAL STAFF
Editor-in-chief ... Charles Pearson
Editorial associates ... Maurice Barker and
Floyd Decaire
...
Floyd Declare Feature editor ... Bill Feeney
NEWS STAFF
Managing editor ... Heidi Viets
Campus editors ... Betty Abels and Floyd Decaire
Sports editor ... Chuck Elliott
Society editor ... Saralena Sherman
News editor ... Ralph Coldren
Sunday editor ... John Conard
United Press editor ... Bob Coleman
BUSINESS STAFF
Business manager ... Frank Baumgartner
Advertising Manager ... Wallace Kunkel
Advertising assistants ... John Harvey, Charles
Roos. LeMovee Frederick
Rock Chalk Talk
BETTY WEST
What with the Dine-A-Mite burning Sunday night and Wiedemann's in a state of inundation the eve of Saturday, who could reasonably doubt that saboteurs are at work upon our poor old beat-up coke joints? The installation of an office of Jelly-Joint Defense is imminent.
Ever since Jack Engel and Bob Berridge, Pi K.A. Field and Stream boys, thought they spied a 17-inch bass in Potter's last week, the local crawdads and salamanders haven't had a moment's rest. Hours that formerly used to be absorbed in cokes now find them frantically tossing bass plugs with ecclesiastical invocations.
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You can put your snowsuits back in the mothballs, children, for Spring is here when:
Harriet Hutchinson and Ray Evans delight the Jayhawk clientele with their enraptured moonings. . . when on Sunday afternoon a couple on their way up Indiana street will pause directly in front of the Phi Psi house and embrace enthusiastically and with abandon . . . when the perennial illac bush in Center Ad goes into a sharp decline from being sniffed at so much. . . when the Union Fountain Bill Overton_stars greeting his customers in his shirt sleeves once again.
More aluminum up there less in new telephones -for VICTORY!
Many materials used in telephone making are listed as "critical" for war purposes. Bell Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric have redesigned apparatus and changed manufacturing methods to employ available materials.
Take aluminum. The reduction in its use in a year's telephone output is enough to build 294 combat planes. This program has been replacing critical materials at an annual rate of 7,747,000 pounds. Though it grows steadily more difficult to maintain as shortages increase, the program helps to meet the greatest demand in history for military and civilian communication equipment.
Western Electr
... is back of your Bell Telephone servi