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EDITORIAL
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
TUESDAY,APRIL 16,1940
The Kansan Comments -- EDITORIALS LETTERS PATTER
Roosevelt: War Monger or Savior?
While President Roosevelt's Pan-American speech yesterday with its determination "to live in peace and make that peace secure" may give a ray of hope to Americans, the ghost of the bellicose "quarantine" oration given at Chicago in 1937 rises to haunt and to deny the President's words, branding him as a man who "hates war" but who hates aggressors more.
On October 5,1937, Roosevelt virtually declared war. With superb crusading zeal, the President jutted out his jaw to announce that the "good" nations must unite in "concerted effort in opposition to those violations of treaties and those ignorings of humane instincts which today are creating a state of international anarchy and instability from which there is no escape through mere isolation or neutrality." Great Britain, France, and the United States were the good nations, while Japan, Germany, and Italy—Russia had not yet turned cannibal—were the nations to be coerced into being good. The "good" nations are now at war with Germany. Does the President still believe in "quarantine"?
It is possible Mr. Roosevelt was bluffing. This naive country squire may have thought threats from a United States president sufficient to stop warlike nations. If so, he made a useless and harmful gesture. On the other hand he may have meant what he said at Chicago. Mr. Roosevelt sent representatives to the Brussels conference against aggressors, a conference in which our diplomats seemed to urge the British on against Japan with the prospect of the United States falling in behind; in Wilsonian style he held the Japanese strictly accountable for American life and property; he flaunted our navy in the face of the Japanese while proposing a large increase in naval armaments; and above all, he continued his preachments against the aggressors, preachments that have remained unabated to this day. If the President was bluffing, he gave every indication of having the power to back his bluff—with war.
Today, however, the situation has changed. Public opinion is overwhelmingly against anything that looks like participation in the European war. Election year prevents the war-like statements of 1937; the number of "bad" nations has increased making even the most zealous crusader think before making rash statements.
Most terrifying of all is the fact that in the President's hands lies the responsibility of whether or not 130,000,000 people will be plunged into war. Knowing this, President Roosevelt's statement that the American Republics could save eventual peace "only if we are prepared to meet force with force if challenge is ever made" assumes monumental importance. It is the President whose decisions, actions, and preachments can precipitate that
With all these facts confronting him, the President of 1940 has changed little from the President of 1937. The crusading spirit has been tempered by experience, but the belief that the United States can resolve the troubles of chaotic Europe remains. While making the sensible statement to the Pan-American Union that "Peace reigns among us today because we have agreed, as neighbors should, to mind our own business," Mr. Roosevelt harbors the desire to mind the business of Europe.
challenge. What the challenge is, no one knows. It could be invasion of the western hemisphere or a losing Allied cause. Until the progress of events reveals that answer the United States will never know whether it has had as president a war monger or a savior.
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The Nazis are raging over the picture that shows Sumner Welles and French Premier Paul Reynaud standing before a map that allegedly is an arrangement of the Reich's "Swan Song." At the worst, Welles and Reynaud could only be infringing upon a German copyrighted idea.
Last week two members of the Dies committee were arrested. It looks as though the worms were finally turning.
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The current Colliers' editorial page pours out paeans of praise to the United States youths who are enlisting for service in the war. The editors gave a lot of idealistic reasons for the enlistments but left out the chief reason: the youths are going because of a lack of anything to do in the U. S. More will go if they happen to believe Colliers' almost criminal poppycock.
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UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
OFFICIAL BULLETIN
Vol. 37 Tuesday, April 16, 1940 No. 129
JAY JANE MEETING: The meeting will be held in the Memorial Union building tomorrow at 4:30. All girls required to attend.—Ruth Spencer, president.
MUSIC ROOM: The music room will be open from 3:30 to 5:30 tomorrow afternoon and from 7:30 to 9:30 tomorrow evening.—Ernest Klema, chairman.
SASNAK CLUB: There will be a regular meeting at 7:30 Thursday evening, in the Kansas room of the Memorial Union building. Mr. C. S. Robinson, assistant superintendent of schools at Kansas City, Mo., will speak on "What a Supervisor Expects of a Physical Educator". All Physical Education majors are asked to attend.—Gene Billups, president.
SENIORS: Don't delay in placing your orders for announcements now on sale at the K.U. business office. The dead-line is April 27—John Oakson, chairman, senior announcement committee.
TAU SIGMA; Tau Sigma will meet tonight at 7:30
—Geardine Ulm, president.
SENIORS: All seniors who wish to reserve space in the senior section of the Jayhawker should fill out application blanks at the Jayhawker office before May 1.—Chad Case, business manager.
W. S.G.A. TEA; W.S.G.A. tea will be held tomorrow afternoon from 3:30 to 5 o'clock in the women's lounge of Frank Strong Hall. All women are invited—Jean Klussman.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Official Student Paper of
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Kpgwr
Publisher  ... Walt Meininger
EDITORIAL STAFF
Editor-in-Chief ----------------- Reginald Buxton
Associate Editors
Gene Kuhn  ... Betty Coulson  ... Jim Bell
Feature Editor  ... Virginia Gray
NEWS STAFF
Subscription rates, in advance, $3.00 per year, $1.75 per semester. Published at Lawrence, Kansas, daily during the school year except on Saturday. Entered as second class September 17, 1910, at the office at Lawrence, Kansas, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Monaging Editor ... Jay Simon
Campus Editor ... George Stitterley
Campus Editor ... Elizabeth Krenz
News Editor ... Stan Stauffer
Sports Editor ... Larry Winn
Society Editor ... Kay Bozarin
Sunday Editor ... Richard Boyce
Wokeup Editor ... Rocco Box
Write Edit ... Bob Trump
Write Edit ... Art O'Donnell
Business Manager ... Edwin Browne
Advertising Manager ... Rex Cowan
ROCK CHALK TALK
By Marilyn McBride
P. S.G.L. and Pachaacamac . . . two parties but not a clear cut issue between them, or at least not an issue that could be publicized. Campus politics is a small-scale model of national politics . . . mostly blamery and living up behind the coalition band-wagon. Professor Chubb sums up political parts in this adequate statement: "The Democratic and Republican parties are like two identical bottles ... with different labels . . . both empty."
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Last week Dean Moreau of Law School became a senior partner . . . he has a baby son. Some legal wit posted this notice on the bulletin-board at Green: "Wanted 81 godfathers."
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The War from the Side-lines: "Punch" magazine, the London equivalent of America's "New Yorker," says: "Morale is something invented about 25 years ago as an instrument of warfare which can be claimed by either side as belonging exclusively to itself and entirely wanting in the other side." In Paris L'Illustration says: "An army that goes forward is much more likely to be hit than an army which stays in a hole and shoots!"
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Can you imagine? 1) a jelly-joint without booths, a nickelodeon, cokes, and slot machines. 2) or spring 1940 on the Hill without moccasins, malott rumors, convertibles, corduroy
pork-pie hats, a tabloid Kansan, the Relays, and the new dorms under construction. 3) or conversation without mentioning Glenn Miller, the war, the weather, Bonnie Baker, Roosevelt, and people.
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Formula for a successful play:
Act I. Get your characters up a
Act II. Throw rocks at them.
Act III. Get 'em down.
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It is an odd world we live in, a man gets money, he is a grafter. If he keeps it, he's a capitalist. If he spends it, he's a play-boy. If he doesn't get it, he's a n'er-do-well. If he doesn't try to get it, he lacks ambition. If he gets it without working for it, he's a parasite. And if he accumulates it after a life-time of hard-work and dies without enjoying it, he's a sucker.
The Phi Psi's thorough-bred-dawg "Psi" has been voted campus menace no. 1 by the Building and Grounds committee because of his habit of eating the shrubbery.
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What they say: "Being educated means to prefer the best not only to the worst, but to the second best. It means in music to prefer Beethoven not only to jazz, but to Brahms. So it is in all forms of art, in athletics politics, in everything." (W. L. Phelps).
"Although I haven't had time for much flying lately and my pilot's license has since expired, I think that once the knowledge is acquired it is easy to remember to fly a plane," says Professor Hay.
University aeronautical training is probably one of the few in the United States that has the right to boast that its entire body can fly, even including the faculty who teach the ground courses. Prof. E. D. Hay, head of the training course, has flown some 10 or 12 hours since receiving his instruction 12 years ago.
Professor Hay took his flight training nearly 12 years ago, shortly after he came to the University as a professor of mechanical engineering. He received his instruction from two pilots of the Braniff airways in Kansas City. Completing the required course, he received his pilot's license.
Hill Air Training Hits 100 per cent E. D. Hay Is Influential
One of the high lights of his experiences in the air that Professor Hay tells about, is that of two years ago when a three-motored plane was taking up passengers around Lawrence. "Since I was the only passenger on the flight, the pilot let me take the controls for part of the flight," related Mr. Hay.
Rembrandt Original On Display in Museum
Did you know that the University owned the original Rembrandt etching "The Almsgiver"? This work of the Flemish master is a part of the William B. Thayer collection presented in 1917 and installed in Spooner-Thayer museum in 1926. It is now on display in the print room.
Though better known for his paintings, Rembrandt is also recognized as a great etcher. Just how many etchings may be credited to him is a controversial matter, but
they seem to follow a logical classification as to type. "The Almsgiver," completed in 1648, falls into a group of studies from real life of beggars and other such picturesque types.
"A Geologist's View of Europe and the Near and Far East," is the subject for a speech by Winthrop P. Haynes, chief geologist of the European division of the Standard Oil company, to be given at 8 o'clock tonight in room 101 of Haworth hr