The KANSAN Comments...
PAGE SIX
Sunday, March 16, 1941
W.S.G.A. Elects
The Women's Self-Governing Association has elected Doris Twente president for next year. The Kansan congratulates Miss Twente on the honor which she has received.
For some weeks, the Kansan has criticized both the W.S.G.A. and the Men's Student Council, but there has been little criticism of persons. The Kansan believes that K.U. student government is failing to exercise one of its greatest potential powers—that of unifying the students on the campus and presenting an integrated front to those outside the University.
Under the present system, the problem of instilling loyalty to K.U. in students is difficult. The task would be greatly simplified by a combination council or at least a master council to coordinate and hold the upper hand over the two present councils.
We hope that Miss Twente will work for more progressive government. At least, new ideas should have a fair chance. So far this year, everything has been "tabled" that has the hue of progress on it. "Tabled" evidently means that the councils are afraid to drop the idea—and afraid to do anything about it. Perhaps next year things will be different.
But next year is a long way off. There is plenty of time left if the councils were really interested in doing something to justify their existence.
Women in Defense Program
"Women's most important work is the strengthening of community life and social well-being. The weak links in community life and social well-being may be found in the fields of health nutrition, recreation, and child care." This is the answer of Harriet Elliott, the only woman on the National Defense Advisory Commission, to the plea of women all over the country for some real part in the defense program.
Every woman in the University has a direct responsibility to her home community to strengthen its life and social well-being. This responsibility is a direct result of her educational advantages. The means of doing it are varied. It may be one of those suggested by Harriet Elliott.
It may be the Junior League, Girl Scouts, American Association of University Women, or the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's clubs. There are no limits to the opportunities for helping to strengthen the nation.
More important than front line guns is a unified, contented, well-fed nation. Miss Elliott says, "The better our homes are organized; the more service our schools, churches and local organizations can give our communities, the better prepared we will be to meet whatever demands the future may make of us." Like everything important, preparedness begins in the home.
Mother Nature and the City
The city is one of the most powerful sociological forces in our civilization, as well as the most nervewracking and heterogeneous. People in cities are overcrowded, do more rushing
Mad as a bride left at the altar is Mother Nature these days. For the past thirty years all her boy friends, the potential farmers of America, have been ditching her for the city, leaving her with an ever decreasing rural population.
around and have poorer health than the country mice. But people still move to urban centers and here is the crux of Mother Nature's bitterness.
One of the principal reasons why rural population looks to the city is the increase in the proportion of the people engaged in producing commodities and in rendering regular service. Another important factor is the decrease in the proportion of part-time agricultural workers residing on farms. We find, too, that the increase in the ratio of working years per capita to the per capita life span, puts another piece in the puzzle. This shows us that the amount of work a person is able to do over his lifetime is growing greater all the time.
A decrease in the amount of farm labor time absorbed in clearing, draining, and fencing land, as well as equipping it with structural improvements, has broken down the farming frontier.
Technological improvements and the luxury and leisure complex have turned the eyes of the farmer to the city. Another thing to add to Mother Nature's worry is the lessening importance of agricultural products in our nation's exports.
At the beginning of the century many immigrants took up agriculture as a livelihood; today anybody who leaves Europe is too worn out economically and spiritually to turn to farming.
And then if there's any doubt still remaining in Mother Nature's mind about the source of her misery she can always lay it at the feet of The Grapes of Wrath.
OFFICIAL BULLETIN UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Vol. 38 Sunday, March 16, 1941 No.107
Notices due at Chancellor's office at 3 p.m. on day before publication during the week, and at 11 a.m. on Saturday for Sunday issue.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE ORGANIZATION: The Christian Science Organization will hold a regular meeting Tuesday afternoon at 4:30 in the Pine room of the Union building. All students, graduates, and faculty members are welcome—Betty Charles.
COLLEGE FACULTY: The faculty of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will not meet on Tuesday, March 18—Deane W. Malot, president.
JAY JANES: There will be a Jay Jane meeting in the Pine room of the Memorial Union building at 4:30 Wednesday—Ruth Spencer Ashcraft, pbfident.
NOTICE TO ALL STUDENTS: Dr. E. T. Gibson will be available for personal conferences at Watkins Memorial Hospital on Tuesday afternoons from 2 to 5. Appointments should be made at the Watkins Memorial Hospital.—Ralph I. Canutesk.
MEN'S STUDENT COUNCIL: There will be a meeting of the Council Monday evening at 8 o'clock in the Pine room.Jim Burge, secretary.
YOUNG REPUBLICAN CLUB: There will be a meeting Tuesday evening at 7:30 in the Pine Room of the Union Building. New officers will be elected for the coming year—Bill Douce, Chairman.
W. S.G.A.: W.S.G.A. COUNCIL will meet at 7 in the Pine Room on Tuesday.-Doris Twente, Secretary.
Y. M.-Y.W.: International relations group will meet at 4:30 tomorrow at Henley House. Prof. S. Mickelson is to speak on Propaganda Analysis. Interested students are invited.—John Conard.
Y. W.C.A.: The annual Girl Reserve training course, open to all junior and senior girls planning to teach, will meet for the opening class Tuesday. Details may be obtained at Henley House or the office of Education—Mary Helen Wilson.
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 year except on Monday and Saturday. Entered as second payment for the fee of $29.00. Office at Lawrence, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879.
St. Patrick--More Than Snake Charmer
You know that he banished snakes and toads from Ireland, and that we wear shamrocks on March 17 in his memory. You now that he was an Irish Saint, and that his name was Patrick.
But did you know that he had the power of bringing darkness down upon his enemies at will, and that when he died his glory prevented for 12 days the falling of night? Yes, it's all so, if we are to believe the legends.
Jonathan Swift tells how he used to converse with the spirit of the good Saint while fishing on the sacred waters of the Sanctuary in Donegal. Swift describes Patrick as a "picturesque figure dressed scare-crowlike but with the features and tuft of the Emperor Napoleon III."
The Saint often told Swift the tales of the lake—how he had killed a wonderful monster, the greatest snake in Ireland, between two of the islands and the space was called the "bloody gap" ever since.
The Book Shelf
THE BATTLE FOR ASIA, by Edgar Snow. New York: Random House, 1941. (431 pages, with index.)
As the Sino-Japanese war limps through its fourth year, Edgar Snow writes a history and makes a prophecy. In The Battle for Asia, Snow the newspaperman reports fact; Snow the individual predicts.
The author, a Missouriian, 34 years of age and a correspondent of the London Herald, has written one other noteworthy book, Red Star Over China, which pictures Chinese politics before the outbreak of war and forecasts much of what has happened since. Continuing the analysis, Snow's second book describes and interprets the war and speculates on the future.
The Battle for Asia, which is really a battle for China, begins with the occupation of Peking by the Japanese. The war is off to an unhappy start. The "Nips" sweep past Peking, War breaks out in Shanghai. After a gallant but costly defense of Shanghai for three months, the Chinese fall back. Nanking is lost. Hankow falls. Canton is overrun. The Japanese control all of the important political and industrial cities in China.
The Japanese patiently wait for the enemy to surrender. After four years, they are still waiting.
This is Snow's story. He sees the war.
Walking along, one saw here and there a clenched fist fencing a hurried grave, or an arm or a leg or a smashed skull. Students of anatomy, you would enjoy this scene, this careless vivisect by a bomb. Right in the main road that had been the bus route where green vegetables came in to feed Shanghai, pedestrians passed unseeing on a bridge across a redoubt choked with dead. Live hand grenades studded the path where lines of farmers trod. There you saw an identification tag in the mud: Chang Yuming was represented by a piece of uniform, the rest of him in lupine dogs that ranged across the paddy full of worms.
Three things stand out in Snow's account of the war: the cracks and flaws in the Central government headed by Chiang Kai-shek; the effectiveness of the Communists, militarily, politically and economically; and the success of cooperatives under both factions.
You may not like Snow's controversial beliefs. In addition to sponsoring the Chinese Communists, a sponsorship seemingly justified by their record, the author asks for abolition of world empires, and he feels that the United States should enter vigorously into Far Eastern politics. He presents forceful arguments, but falls short of complete conviction. At times, Snow seems too hopeful in his prophecy. But his enthusiasm for world reform and gentle revolution is contagious. Surely every reader is aroused when he is shown the political and economic ulcers of a continent. Mr. Snow salves our pained sensibilities and nurses our idealism with optimistic "Ifs."
The Battle for Asia unfolds its dramatic story like a good newsreel. It is sound journalism. Snow is a good reporter. Though his personal beliefs seem to influence his account of the year, he is always convincing and colorful. This is current history, and making allowance for the author's nearness in time, it competently recorded.
Bill Overton, first year law and cook at Brick's, finds that customers are hard to please. One little blonde has given him a lot of trouble lately. First he had to strain her soup because vegetables were fattening. Then she wanted some buttermilk, but since she doesn't like buttermilk smell, it had to be put in a fresh bottle and recapped. Yesterday she wanted the raisins taken out of her rice pudding.
ROCK CHALK TALK
Marjorie Keeble, A.O. Pi pledge, has been receiving mysterious calls from Comrade X of the Phi Chi house. It seems that brother Phi Chi John Crutcher hasn't the nerve to speak for himself, so Mr. X is drumming up the business.
By HEIDI VIETS
Gregory Studer is having worries with his concession stand at the Rock Chalk Co-op. The boys are lugging in three-for-a-dime candy bars from downtown, putting them in Greg's box, and extracting cash for them from the change box.
Wilma Jean Hadden found herself flat on her face last Wednesday afternoon when she was going up the center Frank Strong steps with Jack Walton. Theta pledges fall hard for Sig Alph's, it seems.
Remember Larry Blair of Jayhawk Co-op, the boy with the open air Ford? His Model T was swiped three times in two days. He is even beginning to think it's valuable. Wild search last Thursday found the car two miles out in the country where "friends" had left it.
Studer wonders just who is selling candy to whom.
Alpha Chi's are having more bad dreams. Jeryn Anne Greene woke up the other morning with, "Tve had a bad night. I've been around the world."