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The KANSAN Comments...
PAGE SIX
Labor and Government
The serious strikes that have developed in the defense industries just at the time when the United States needs increased production for her promised aid to Britain and her own defense have focused the nation's attention on the problem of solving labor relations.
TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 1941.
The main lines for governmental action are in oppositiion to the labor policy which has been existant for a number of years. If labor and industry are to achieve the greatest possible output, the President should allow the new National Defense Mediation Board to intervene in any labor dispute on its own motion instead of having to wait for the Secretary of Labor to refer disputes to it.
Congress should provide a law making it necessary for employers and representative employees in vital defense industries to give at least 30 days' written notice of any intended change in rates of pay, hours, or working conditions. This would give the Mediation Board time to prevent a strike. The only possible action for the medaition machinery now comes after it is too late to prevent the loss of thousands of man hours and the inevitable slowing down of defense production.
The Board, along with representatives of labor, employers, and the public, should devise some flexible formula to aid in determining fair and reasonable wages during the present emergency.
The Wagner Act should be amended to illegalize coercion against employers or against non-union workers to balance the legal prohibition against intimidation or coercion of unions and union members. An amendment is needed revising the provision of the Wagner Act which makes it impossible for an employer ever to discharge men on strike, regardless how long the strike lasts. If the defense program is to be successful, employers must be given the power to put their plants back in production if labor refuses to accept the recommendations of the mediation machinery.
Mass picketing during strikes and armed company guards to quell disorder must be prohibited. Necessarily then, the government must provide adequate police protection for the preservation of order during strikes. A new cooperation between local and federal authorities must exist before strike control can be efficient.
The American people must drop their emotional attitude toward the present lobar problem and consider the question of revising labor laws intelligently. Those persons who fear that every labor strike is the outbreak of communism in America must not be allowed to wipe out the long-sought gains of labor by making strikes illegal. Nor must labor forget that America's ability to satisfy her present defense production program will be one of its biggest gains to laborers as individuals.
Soil Defense
To persons familiar with the processes of getting things to grow, national defense means not merely resisting possible invaders but preserving the soil itself. The Friends of the Land, organized a year ago, have decided that this kind of defense is also an emergency and deserves attention now. In the first number of its new quarterly, The Land, which is just off the press, it issues its "Manifesto" over the signatures of its president, Morris Llewellyn Cooke, and others.
"Over vast areas," it declares, "we stand confronted wtih defaced landscapes, depleted
water supplies, grave dislocations in the hydrologic cycle and an all but catastrophic degradation of soil and man. Soil displacement is followed by human displacement. Soil debility soon removes stiffening lime from the national backbone, lowers the beat and vigor of the national blood stream, and leads to a devitalized society. No matter which political party gains ascendency as the years go by; whether we remain at peace or go to war again, this fact will remain: So long as we keep scrubbing off, blowing off, killing off our topsoil, business and social conditions in this country will remain fundamentally unsound."
The new organization proposes to study, to spread information, and to cooperate with agencies in this country and abroad toward the common purpose of keeping the land fertile and of making it possible to feed a healthy civilization. The program looks far beyond these troubled years. Its aim is better living for every individual—not a special compensation for a privileged minority.
OFFICIAL BULLETIN
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Vol. 38 Tuesday, April 15, 1941 No.124
Notices due at Cancellor's office at 3 p.m. on day before publication during the week, and at 11 a.m. on Saturday for Sunday issue.
COLLEGE FACULTY: The April meeting of the Faculty of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will be held Tuesday, April 22, at 4:30 in the auditorium on the third floor of Frank Strong Hall—Deane W. Malott, Chancellor.
JAY JANES: There will be a meeting Wednesday at 4:30 in the Pine room.-Genevieve Harman.
K. U. UNIT OF K.S.T.A.: The K.U. Unit of the Kansas State Teachers Association will meet on Thursday, April 17, at 4:30 p.m. in room 115 Fraser Hall—R. A. Schwegler, President, K.U. Unit.
SENIOR AND GRADUATE WOMEN: Senior and graduate women are cordially invited to a tea given by the American Association of University Women at the home of Mrs. J. J. Jakosky, 1120 West 11th, on Thursday, April 17, at 3:30. Dean Mary P. Van Zile of Manhattan will be the guest speaker.-Mrs. Waldemar Geltch.
SENIORS: Please fill out the senior activities card for your Jayhawker senior picture before April 18, at the Jayhawker office in the subbasement of the Union building.-Bob Woodward, business manager.
W. S.G.A.: The W.S.G.A. Council will meet tonight at 7 o'clock in the Pine room...Nadine Hunt, secretary.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Student Paper of THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Lawrence Kansas
Publisher ... Gray Dorsey
EDITORIAL STAFF
Editor-in-Chief ... Ken Jackson
Editorial Associates : Arthur O'Donnell, C. A. Gilmore, Mary F. McAnaw, and Eleanor Van Nice
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Bety Editor... Helen Houne
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For Education Motion Pictures Approved
---And Entertainment
By MIRIAM ABELE
It's wonderful to be able go to to class and see a movie at the same time. Ask any male member of Prof. Allen Crafton's motion picture class who his favorite movie actress is, and before thinking, he may choose Mae Marsh or Lillian Gish, instead of Hedy Lamarr.
The motion picture course was first included in the college curriculum last spring after a great deal of research and study by Allen Crafton, professor of speech and dramatic art. The two-hour course consists of one lecture and one movie showing a week. On Monday afternoons at 3:30, Fraser theater is a popular place; many who are not members of the class are on hand to watch the "flickers" of the early 1900's.
It is difficult to believe that April 23 will be only the forty-fifth anniversary of the showing of the first motion pictures in the old music hall in New York City, which once stood where Macey's department store now is located. In Fraser theater, students viewed some of those early pictures which lasted only a few minutes.
Although Frase: theater is poorly suited for movie showing, it is probably elaborate in comparison with some of those early movie theaters. They were usually poorly ventilated and dirty store buildings with plain kitchen chairs set up in rows for the customers. Shows lasted for about 20 minutes, and there was quite often a jingling piano accompaniment for the action on the screen.
Reaches 45th Year
Silence Distracts
A distracting element for the audience in Fraser theater watching the early movies is the dead silence that attends the film. The Metro
lion roars fiercely but noiselessly, and no sounds issue from the mouths of the enraged sailors aboard the battleship Potemkin. When "Birth of a Nation" was shown, a student attempted to follow the thick musical score which accompanied the picture. Although she went at top speed, she fell behind and was still playing Amos and Andy's theme song during the thick of the battle between the North and the South.
"Birth of a Nation," which was filmed in 1915, is generally considered the most important picture ever made. It earned for the screen its right as an art. Costing the huge sum of $100,000, it was called a monstrosity by the critics, but it ran for twelve years. It was not shown in Kansas, however, because of its prejudice for the South. Recently, Michigan lifted the ban on the picture, more than 25 years after it was released for public consumption. Producers to Hollywood
In 1913, two years before "Birth of a Nation" was filmed, there was no movie industry in Hollywood. Soon, three eastern producers, Jesse Laskey, Sam Goldwyn, and Arthur Friend, were attracted by the low cost of land and wages, and the wonderful climate of Los Angeles. They rented an old barn, turned it into a movie studio, and started the first motion picture company in Hollywood. Soon other barns were transformed into studios, and before long, the film industry was securely established in Los Angeles suburbs.
ROCK CHALK TALK
By HEIDI VIETS
The Attorney-General recently sent Sheriff Charles E. Banning a clipping from the April 4 issue of this column telling how Ralph Burson won $55 in jackpots from slot machines at Brick's and The Cottage one night.
The sheriff went into action. After careful consideration he shut down lids on jackpots of the local nickel-gobblers so that now you cannot win more than $5 at a time. No matter how many times you shove in a coin, there will be no more heavy odds, no more big money.
This may be fine for the machine owner, but what is the advantage to a student with nickels smoking in his pocket?
The University band did more than toot on its tour last week. Take the case of John Anderson, for instance. Tuesday night the concert was at Independence. Band members were assigned to private homes for the night, John drawing the home of the dean of the junior college.
After the concert he went out to celebrate. When he came in at 4 o'clock, the dean and his family were in bed with all doors locked.
John spent the night outside.
During the trip wisecracking Wally Kunkel lost his voice, to the great delight of the others riding in his bus.
The radio comedy team Tom and George has hot competition in the rapid chitchat of Tom Manion and George Bartholow, as anyone who knows either or both of them will tell you. We suggest them for a Dandelion Day Benefit Program.
Theta Margaret Anne Reed's Easter egg turned out to be a live little duck, the gift of Bunnyrabbit Stanley Lind, Sig Alph. She named it "Alph" and took it home to Fort Scott, where it took up temporary residence in a fish pond.
Jerry Holy, exchange student, had moved into the Phi Psi house when the boys had their traditional wet towel fight on the dorm the night before Easter vacation.
It all started when Larry Winn started a siren screeching.
Jack Parker, who had taken his trombone to bed with him, joined in the noise. Then, when everybody awakened, they got the hose and started some fun, which finally turned into a wet wetel party.
Jerry Holy must have wondered how he would get his beauty sleep the rest of this year.
This is a story Prof. N. W. Storer enjoys telling his astronomy classes: A middle-aged woman who was writing an article on sundials came to him for some information. During the conversation she told him about a certain sundial with a broken indicator. Professor Storer was curious; he did not know there was a sundial at the place referred to. He went with her to the spot. She pointed to a manhole cover.
Se in fu ter i Cons Signe Attes Appr