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WAL VACUUM TOWEL THICKNESS
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
SUNDAY, JANUARY 11, 1942
The KANSAN Comments...
MARS AND LITERATURE
By W. D. PADEN
Assistant Professor of English
A little more than one month ago our nation entered into a war which will in all probability last for a number of years. We may ask, what effect will the war have upon literature. There are several parts to the answer.
Many people will read more than they usually do, in an attempt to escape from the problems and doubts of their daily lives. This will not affect literature very much, for the books that people read in such circumstances are, far more often than not, below the level of real literature. Publishers will probably provide a flood of novels that require a minimum of attention and afford a maximum of release. Some of these books will achieve sudden, wide, and transitory fame. At the same time and for the same reasons the theater will be given over to musical comedies and elaborate reviews; the movies will turn to slapstick force and self-confident heroism. It is difficult to imagine how the radio can become more maudlin than it is. If the war continues for two years, the heroes will gradually lose some of their inhibitions, the comedies will become broader, and chorus girls will wear less, and novels will follow the general trend. In other words, as tension grows, people will demand and receive facilities for greater release. Such changes cannot be prevented, and it is a waste of time to lament them.
A comparatively small number of people will read old rather than new books. This will be true because most of the older books that are available are unfortunately of considerable literary value; that is, they induce within the reader a heightened perception of reality, the very thing that most people will not desire.
Little literature will be published, for little will be written, during the war. This will be true no matter what course the war may take. Men and women will have unusual experiences that will shake them out of complacency and show them the world in new lights—sometimes joyous, sometimes terrible. But experience is not in itself a sufficient basis for literature. Only when experience has become meaningful—when it has become part of a pattern of values—is it the raw material of art. During a war, few people have time or opportunity to evaluate experience in the larger ways. The literature which has been affected by a war is always published after the war has ended. And of course a certain amount of literature is never written because young authors have been killed.
In general, we may say that a modern war is very bad for literature. A century ago, when an army contained only a small proportion of the young men of a nation, and that proportion had been, except for commissioned officers, drawn from the uneducated classes, a war might scarcely touch the intellectual life. Nowadeys a major war extinguishes creation in the arts and very largely in the sciences.
Literature, then, will become another of our post-war problems.
Company Coming
Private letters to Kansans from relatives and friends on the West Coast contain the information that they may be coming back to Kansas soon. The blackouts make them uncomfortable. The planes overhead might turn out to be Japanese. There is talk of evacuating the women and children from the coast cities.
Kansas looks mighty good from those cities.
Kansas folks are hospitable. They will need to be if the coast areas are attacked. Kansas will do her best to take care of all comers and any day company may arrive unannounced.
Kansas is a dandy state to live in any time, but just now she is certainly tops. The center of the United States is within her borders. If there is safety anywhere, it is here.
The California climate is fine this winter but it isn't attracting visitors. They say the roads are full of cars headed East.—From the Winfield Courier.
English censors announce that literary kisses (X's) will be allowed at the bottom of letters so long as they are not in rows, as these can be used as code. As Sherman said, war is hell.
OFFICIAL BULLETIN UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Vol. 39 Sunday, January 11, 1942 No.69
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.
ARCHERY CLUB will meet Tuesday afternoon at 4 o'clock in Robinson gym—Lloyd Johnson, Secretary.
SIGMA XI: The regular January meeting of the Kansas chapter of Sigma Xi will be held on Thursday. Jan. 15, at 7:30 p.m. in Blake hall. Dr. J. D. Stranathan, chairman of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, will be the speaker. Initiation will be held for newly elected members. A full attendance is requested.-W. H. Schoewe, Secretary.
Men students who desire to apply for Templin, Battenfeld, and Carruth Hall Scholarships for the second semester should do so at once. Application forms may be obtained in Room 1, Frank Strong Hall—Men's Residence Halls Scholarship Committee, Gilbert Ulmer, Chairman.
The Psychoiology Club will meet next Monday at 4:30 in Room 21, Frank Strong hall. "The Southard School for Exceptional Children" will be the topic discussed by Dr. Mary O'Neill Hawkins. Every one interested is urged to come.-Mary Lou Holloway, Program Crm.
There will be no meeting of the American College Quill Club this Thursday. Manuscripts of applicant members should be turned in to 201 Fraser by Monday of next week in order that they may be acted upon before the meeting Jan. 15—Jean Sellers.
LOAN SCHOLARSHIPS: There will be a few loan scholarships available for use during the second semester. Application should be made in room 1, Frank Strong hall, before Jan. 15.-Lela Ross, Executive Secretary, Committee on Aids and Awards.
MEN'S STUDENT COUNCIL — The next regular meeting will be on Monday, Jan. 12, 1942, in the Pinc room. The meeting will start promptly at 8:00 p.m. and terminate shortly thereafter.—Fred Lawson, Secy.
EDNA OSBORNE WHITCOMB SCHOLARSHIP: Application for the Edna Osborne Whitcomb Scholarship for second semester, 1941-1942, should be made in Room 1, Frank Strong hall, before January 15. This scholarship is open to women students majoring in the department of English.-Lela Ross, Executive Secretary, Committee on Aids and Awards.
NOTICE TO ALL UNIVERSITY STUDENTS -Dr. E. T. Gibson is at the Watkins Memorial Hospital each Tuesday afternoon from 2 to 4:30 P. M. for discussion with students on problems of mental hygiene. Appointments may be made through the Watkins Memorial hospital. Ralph I. Canuteson, Director, health service.
ALL STUDENTS graduating at the end of the first semester who expect to teach should secure blanks and complete a registration in the Teachers' Appointment Bureau immediately. It is probable that a considerable number of vacancies will be received during the holiday season—H. E. CHANDLER, Secretary.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Student Paper of THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Lawrence, Kansas
Subscription rates, in advance, $3.00 per year, $1.75 per semester. Published at Lawrence, Kansas, daily during the school season, on Saturday and Saturday, sponsored as second class matter September 17, 1974, post office at Lawrence, Kansas, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Rock Chalk Talk
DEAN OSTRUM
With a maximum of noise and a minimum of quiet, Miller hall's Joy Miller dashed frantically into her Reporting I class Friday morning fifteen minutes late. She slid to her seat and made a mad scramble for her text.
"What's the matter, Miller," calmly inquired Professor Verdun Daste,
"did you get up too late?"
"I got up at seven," Joy panted.
"Well that's nothing. I get up at eight and still make my eight-thirty Daste informed her.
"I brush my teeth," Joy jibed.
Delta Gamma's are on an 18-hour diet for the American Red Cross; With a hungry look in her eye, D. G. Sherry Johnson informs us that her sorority has dropped anchor on a new idea. The girls are going without desert with their meals for a period of eighteen days and giving the proceeds to the cause.
Someone's bound to lose, but it's not likely to be the Red Cross.
Last year's Sigma Chi pledge class Friday night gave a smack and sweater party up above the Blue Mill. And quite a party it was.
According to reports, the ex-pledges let their hair down, had a nice quiet game of poker, danced, and played post office.
Refreshments were furnished by Theta pledge Lila Jean Doughman and her date, Jack Beck. The two served double-bubble gum.
A smacking good time was had by all.
Kappa Sig's are doing it the easy way. Pledges Bob Held, Jerry Ward, and Lester Hunter, Friday night, serenaded Theta's by telephone.
K. U. women who are never satisfied with a man they've been going with and continually search for something better can perhaps profit by this bit of verse:
"The Perfect Man"
There is a man who never Drinks, nor Smokes Chews, nor Swears, Who never Gambles, never Flirts And shuns all sinful snares. He's paralyzed.
There is a man who never does Anything that is not right;
His wife can tell just where he is At morning noon and night.
He's dead.
Red Cross Serves In War And Peace
By JOY MILLER
The modern Red Cross with its hospital units, refugee shelters and flood relief, is a far cry from the crude relief tendered wounded soldiers on the battlefield of Solferino in 1859, but the underlying principle of helping suffering humanity has never changed.
The Red Cross was born on the plains of Lombardy when a young Swiss neutral, Henri Dunant, organized volunteer peasant women into a band of nurses for giving aid to the wounded at the battle of Solferino. The injured Austrians were cared for along with the victorious French and Italians, for to Dunant, "all men are brothers."
In order to keep such scenes of carriage from being repeated, Dunant appealed to kings and leaders, advocating the training of neutral bands of people to be ready in times of war to offer their services to the armies.
American Society Formed
In 1863 an international conference met at Geneva to draw up plans for Duntal's society. The emblem was to be the reversed Swiss flag—red cross on a white ground. Within five years, 33 nations had organized Red Cross societies and were registered with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva.
In America, the Red Cross was organized by Clara Barton. She had worked uneasingly to relieve suffering on the battlefields in the Civil War, and had learned of the Red Cross while traveling in Europe to regain her health following the war.
Miss Barton returned to the United States, and after a year's constant activity, saw the government ratify a treaty by which the American Red Cross was registered at Geneva.
Aids Disaster Victims
Soon after its organization, the American Red Cross found its help was needed for victims of Michigan forest fires. A year later it aided Mississippi and Ohio river flood sufferers. The Spanish-American War was an outstanding field of activity for the Red Cross. In 1897 John K. Elwell, a Douglas county, Kansas, man, became Miss Barton's secretary and helper.
In the tidal floods in Galveston in 1900 and in the San Francisco fire and earthquake, the Red Cross turned the help of the whole country to the aid of the stricken cities.
In 1905 President Roosevelt approved a charter which gave the American National Red Cross the backing of the United States government. The President of the United States is always the president of the American Red Cross. Activity in World War I
The greatest test of the Red Cross came during World War I. It turned over to the government 45 base host-<br>country to your request.
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