PAGE SIX
EDITORIAL
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1940
The Kansan Comments -- EDITORIALS ★ LETTERS ★ PATTER
--and it is better they buy it here than that they go to the city, drive half-drunk all over the country, and endanger many lives.
YOU SAID IT
Opinions expressed in these letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors of the Kansan. The editorial page will, each Friday, be given over completely to the publication of communications from students and faculty members.
We Need Wassermanns!
To the Editor:
Following in the wake of progress, Kansas University has accomplished in the last two or three years the introduction of the Wassermann test into the border routine of the student hospital. The nation's fight against syphilis and other venereal diseases has manifested itself locally by the accomplished fact that students on this campus may take a Wassermann examination at the student hospital at their request.
This is certainly an improvement on past practice, but would it be asking too much to have the Wassermann test included as one of the items in the regular required physical examinations? This would certainly be a forward step, and progressive student opinion is squarely behind it. It would be quite nice to have Kansas assume the position of one of the leaders in this coming reform, instead of one of the die-hards—as is the case entirely too often.
To the Editor:
GERALD BANKER.
We're not the sort of students who like to set up a howl over any and every little trouble without just cause, but when we've been on the hill for two or four years, and all library heads and assistants know us by sight as well as name, we think we should be allowed to check out a book when we have not brought our activity books or identification cards with us.
How to Identify Readers
We know that the original purpose of having students present identification on asking for a book was a good idea—when it began—but the thing has gone too far.
★ ★ ★
When many of us who live a good way from the hill forget our cards, we are left with nothing to do but go after the card or do without the book we want. It is not always so easy to get a friend to check the book out on his card.
So we suggest the following method of handling such forgetful cases. When a student fails to present his identification, let him sign another card, as well as the book card. This second card may be kept in a separate file, and the name checked off when the borrow returns. It might also be advisable to require such absent-minded students to furnish verbal proof of registration in the University.
And replacing the book on the shelf because we can't show registrar's proof that we are who we are does no one any good. Saving the book makes it no better or worse for the next time. They're here to be used.
U-NANIMOUS.
The few dollars a month this service would cost would be worth much to any deserving student who gets the job of handling the file, and besides, several hundreds of students would feel much more happy and relieved.
We bleed for Mr. Palmer. We believe that the presence of a respectable bootleger in a college town is entirely excusable—in fact, an asset. The deal is that students who drink are going to get it somewhere,
The article in Wednesday's Kansan headlining the arrest of Robert Palmer was in our opinion distinctly bad taste. In the first place, by the time the Kansan reached our homes the news wasn't news, and we'd already begun wondering where to buy our liquor for this weekend. In the second place, Palmer is a student on this hill, and headlining such news is not the best publicity for the school. But since the Kansan did go so far with this news article, we feel it should by all means have listed someone else from whom we may buy our liquor from now on.
To the Editor:
Mourn a Dying Race
So in the future, Kansan, let's have complete coverage. University publicity needs a break; so do we who drink.
DISTRESSED DRUNKARDS.
Tax the Voter?
★ ★ ★
To the Editor:
According to information from Washington, the administration hopes to be able to steer a test case on the legality of the poll tax into the supreme court for a ruling in time to be effective in the next presidential election. Legality of the poll tax was upheld by the court in 1937 in a decision written by the late Justice Pierce Butler, in a case originating in Georgia. But the complexion of the court has undergone considerable change since that time and a new test might produce a different result.
Invalidation of the poll tax would free thousands of voters, principally in the southern states, of a petty levy that has seemed, to many, to be arbitrary. But that is not the aim of the desired test, which is to enfranchise other thousands who, as a result of the tax, do not vote at all.
A case which may serve the purpose is in process of determination in Tennessee, where a voter who had not paid the state poll tax demanded and was refused the right to vote, so he began suit.
These would add quantity to the electoral outpouring but they would add little to the quality of the electoral consensus. In the states where the poll tax has been long established, the tax receipt is viewed in the light of a certificate of citizenship or a visible token of political identity. The industrious and thrifty make sacrifices to possess it. Only the shiftless, ignorant and indifferent do not prize it, yet it is they who would benefit most by the hoped for emancipation.
Still, the tax appears to operate to modify the principle of popular rule, and the remedy would therefore seem to be to raise the general level of voting intelligence and civic interest instead of penalizing the unqualified.
RUTH OATMAN
While Neville Chamberlain considers the death penalty for persons responsible for leakage of important information to the enemy, posters around London advise citizens to "Keep it under your hat. Lives are lost through conversation." Picture back yard gossips cringing in terror, listening for the sound of marching feet, while they review in detail every word of what they told Mrs. Smith-Jones this morning.
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS OFFICIAL BULLETIN
Vol. 37 Friday, Feb. 9, 1940 No.87
FIRESIDE FORUM: George Waggoner will review "Grapes of Wrath" at the meeting on Sunday evening, February 11, at 7 o'clock at the home of the Reverend J. F. King, 1100 Ohio. Transportation will be provided for those who find it more convenient to come to the church.-Lorraine Polson, publicity chairman.
KAPPA PHI: There will be a cabinet meeting at 7 o'clock tonight at 1209 Tennessee. We will have a tea for new Methodist girls Sunday afternoon at 1527 Massachusetts.-Mary Rohe, publicity chairman.
MEN'S STUDENT COUNCIL: Because of the basketball game, the meeting for Monday, February 12, will not begin until 9:15.—Irving Kuraner, secretary.
Subscription rates, in advance, $3.00 per year, $1.75 per semester. Published at Lawrence, Kansas, daily during the school year, event Monday, and Saturday. Entered as second class office at Lawrence, office at Lawrence, Kansas, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
READING INSTRUCTION STUDENTS: Go to room 18 Fraser Saturday or early Monday to get the hour of your class. Sessions start Monday.-B. A. Nash.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Official Student Paper of
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Lawrence, Kansas
ROCK CHALK TALK
School teaching sometimes isn't fun. But school teachers sometimes are funny. At least several members of the University faculty have been wisecracking between the dull announcementes of opening class sessions. Some of the jokes have caused a riot of laughter and some have caused a riot. Here are a few that students considered worth repeating;
Bu HARRY HILL
Prof. Byron Sarvis asked psychology students:
"Why do radio announcers have small hands?" Then he popped this catch line:
"Wee paws for station identification."
★
Prof. C, J. Posey disclosed in a geography class that light travels at a rate "somewhat faster than you can in a model T Ford."
"But sometimes the noise may make you think you're going 186,000 miles per second," he added.
★
Students in propaganda and censorship heard Prof. Richard Eide announce that the English were making a diving suit for King George so that he might review the British navy.
★
Discussing political, economic and social problems which America faces today. Prof. Hilden Gibson quipped to his social science survey pupils.
"If he doesn't live too long, Democracy may outlast Rep. Martin Dics."
★
Prof. Ross Robertson had his favorite first-of-the-semester story on the tip of his tongue when he faced his price and distribution students in Bailey chemical laboratory. But a quick glance told him eight flunkers from a previous p. and d. course were in the group. So Professor Robertson just let the first consonant trick/ *a*
vowelless down his chin.
And it's probably just as well Everything smells in the chemistry building.
★
★
Dan Partner of the K. C. Star's sports staff writes: "The reason a K. U. football player with pugilistic ideas couldn't find Bob Bush, the Lawrence sportswriter, was because Bobby was confined to his bed as the result of an infected throat."
Dear Sir: Confcious say girl who wears moccasins in slush make good squaw-k.-S. S.
★
Add miracles of this modern world: The "Pot of Gold" no longer is at the end of the rainbow. "Tums" has moved it to the receiving end of a long distance telephone call.
The Independence (High School)
Student confesses "they laughed,
when we walked onto the dance floor,
with a bucket of water. They didn't,
know we were going to swing it."
★
The reason he was after Bobby was Dan Partner.
Yes, that poem yesterday was mine. The trouble was they lost the final line.
The Daily Texan boasts that Dr. Homer Price Raimey, Texas U. president, has 23 activities besides his presidential duties. Let the Texan wait until Doctor Rainey has made as many speeches in five months as our Chancellor Malott has. Then they can really brag.
★
★
$1.75 buys 75 Kansans during the second semester. Keep informed!
Nocturnal Cacophony--
Physicist Seeks Perfect Phonograph Needles
Long after most of the campus has gone to sleep, shrill whistling sounds stream from the lower windows of Blake hall. But few people realize that from this disturbance, an invention may arise which may save the general public thousands of dollars each year.
By Hal Ruppenthal, c'42
Investigation of the cause found Dr. Seville Chapman instructor of physics, experimenting with his latest hobby, phonograph needles. Dr. Chapman says that few, if any, people know specifically what makes records wear. It is known that the friction of the needle on the record wears the needle. But what makes records wear is still definitely undetermined.
Dr. Chapman has experimented with steel, chromium, sapphire tipped, and cactus needles. Each type is tested on a record approximately a hundred times. Difference in the wear-ability is greatly noticeable. "Cactus needles," Chapman pointed out "give poor reproduction." For longest wear he recommends the sapphire needles.
Many of the records used in his needle testing play only a single tone. The tone, from this, can be plotted on a chart and correlated results made for each needle.
Dr. Chapman has found it best to carry on his hobby in his extra hours after midnight, on Sunday, or other odd times.
/
---