Page 2
University Daily Kansan
Friday, Dec. 11, 1959
New Political Party
A void in campus politics has been filled with the formation of the new Independent party. Since the fall of the Allied Greek-Independent party in October, a second party was expected to be formed to compete with Vox Populi. That the party is "strictly" for Independents brings a refreshing change to campus politics.
An Independent party will be a worthwhile experiment. If successful, it could bring an end to the student apathy prevalent on our campus for some time. But that apathy will be the party's main hurdle. In the past, the Independents have been noted for, even proud of, their disinterest in student activities.
There always has been a minority of independent students working in campus affairs. They have been outnumbered by Greek students in most organizations simply because the Greek houses happened to be full of activities-oriented students. Independent disorganization has kept silent the voices of the majority of KU students. But that disorganization has been the result of inaction, not the reverse, as many Independents like to believe.
So-called "Greek oppression" has not kept the Independents in the political minority either. It is wishful thinking to expect an inactive group to be on a par with an active group.
Before it can succeed, the new party will require two things:
Its issues must be fresh enough to warrant student endorsement of its candidates. It must compete on issues, not personalities. It will fail if it bases its attack on moot points, as have several unsuccessful parties in the past. It must provide an incentive for voters if it is to have their support.
The Independent party needs a strong leader, one who is familiar enough with campus life to be able to wrap his party into a solid unit and push it along a chosen path. Previous Independent demonstrations have foraged along scattered lanes, confusing the individuals involved and dissipating their power.
The party must expect a battle from the Greeks and Independents already aligned with Vox Populi. The vice president of the student body, a Vox member, is an Independent, as are close to half of the students occupying ASC committee seats.
There is no denying that the Independents have a right to equal representation. Their party has the potential to gain them whatever they desire. But it will take considerable effort on the part of the party leaders and strong backing by the members. John Husar
Need Graduate Club
Editor:
This letter is to bring to discussion a problem which I and several other graduate students have noticed and talked over; i.e., the problem of getting to know graduate students from outside one's own department. What I would ask is, why doesn't the University have some general Grad Club where it would be possible to meet and socialize with other grads?
At my undergraduate university, Wisconsin, there was such a club which had regular meetings, dances, a current events forum; the only requirement for 'membership' was that you had to have a degree.
If it would not be feasible for the University to start such an elaborate group, why then can't the Union have some receptions for the graduate students where people from different departments could mingle and get acquainted? Surely some such device as this could be used without prohibitive cost or complication. And perhaps it is high time that such a thing began.
If there are other graduate students interested in such a plan, I would like to invite them to contact me in the psychology department office (leave me a note there, Room 1 Strong Hall).
Here's hoping that some other interested parties can be found to back such a plan as this.
Bill Wahlin
Madison, Wisconsin Graduate Student
**
Correction
Editor:
Last Wednesday I made a speech before the faculty forum about my experiences as an exchange student in the Soviet Union last summer. The next day there was an article in the Daily Kansan concerning the speech. "Soviet Students Are Basically Different" read the headline. The first paragraph asserted that I contended that Soviet students are like American students in some ways but still are basically different.
This letter is being written to correct such an erroneous idea. The point I made before the faculty forum was just opposite to the one reported in the UDK.
I believe that we have much in common with Soviet students. Students in the U.S.S.R. are basically like American students but are different in some ways.
Eleven other American students and I spent three weeks in a Soviet sports camp with four hundred students. By the end of the three-week period I think that both Soviets and Americans learned an obvious lesson. The life blood of both Communism and capitalism is the human people who believe in them.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
Even though at times there was a seemingly-impossible gap between our political and social thinking, a common humanity formed some sort of bond. When the American delegation entered the camp for the first time, the Soviets thought we were capitalist spies and we thought they were brainwashed communist plants. Cautiously but surely we came to realize that hostility between nations is often augmented by unfamiliarity. Are Soviet students basically different? Not in my opinion.
Bob Nebrig Leavenworth senior
书 书 书
Quiet Agreement
Re: "Organized Men" by George
DeBord, Friday's Kansan.
By using the examples of the Russians' education, religion and politics, the reporter felt Mr. Nebrig emphasized the difference between the students rather than the similarities.)
Amen!
Leavenworth senior
(Editor's note)
Vassar senior
—Ken Megill
Dailu Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became bweekly journal 1904,
triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Telephone VIking V3-2700
Extension 711, news room
Extension 376, business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service. 420 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. Subscription: national. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the university year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays, and examination periods. Entered as admission form Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Jack Harrison ... Managing Editor
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
George DeBord and
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
George DeBord and
William B. Hollins
Husar Co-Editorial Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bill Kane Business Manager
How Do You Feel?
[ ] I support the use of the loyalty oath and disclaimer affidavit.
I oppose the use of the oath and affidavit, and feel the University should refuse the loan fund.
I am opposed to the oath and affidavit, but I believe we should continue to use the loan fund while working for the removal of the oath and affidavit.
Name ...
Hometown and class ...
Send to University Daily Kansan, Flint Hall.
By Calder M. Pickett
Associate Professor of Journalism
American audiences, write historians of the film, were repelled in 1920 by Robert Wiene's experimental film, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." So, according to these same historians, were other film producers.
They were repelled because what they were seeing did not fit conveniently into the Mary Pickford-William S. Hart-Douglas Fairbanks formula. Settings of the brilliant German film, instead of resembling Arthur Davies' paintings or a Norman Rockwell cover for the Post, bore resemblances to Duchamp or Picasso. It was too much for untrained audiences to have to accept over night.
A Film Classic
"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" is now recognized as one of the classics of film history. A University audience which saw the film Wednesday evening in the Museum of Art lecture room appeared to accept the film as such a classic.
It was offered as one of several films that describe the role of Germany in motion picture history. First there were a group of primitive German films—a sailing ship, acrobats, lightning striking a house. These were not movies in the 1959 sense of the word, but they were pioneering efforts in the days of Edison. Next there came a 1909 comedy, "Don Juan's Wedding," and a bit of trivia called "Misunderstood." These bear the same relation to film history as similar efforts produced in the United States. In the final two offerings of the evening there came the
films which loom truly larger in motion picture lore. Viewers saw one reel of Paul Wegener's "The Golem"—a picture in the classical horror tradition. Though much more stylized than later films, and possessing more meaning, "The Golem" provides the kind of thrill that came in that shocking scene when the monster in "Frankenstein" begins to stir, or the wrappings of "The Mummy" begin to unfold. This was an exciting and dramatic part of the show.
Finally there was "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." It is a tale told by a madman, but not until the last scene is the man's madness revealed. The plot itself is familiar. The hero describes the coming to a little town of a traveling fair, which includes Caligari and his somnambulist, Cesare. The appearance of Caligari is accompanied by two shocking murders, one of them a person whose death "at dawn" is foretold by the sleepwalking Cesare.
Caligari is a character of horror, overplayed in the accepted fashion by Werner Kraus. Conrad Veidt as Cesare (whose makeup foreshadows that of Bela Lugosi in the many "Dracula" pictures) is as frightening. The hero himself is no clean-cut American boy, and the heroine is a heavily made-up creature, portrayed by Lil Dagover, who resembles the old-time stills of Pola Negri or Theda Bara.
But the settings are the revolutionary aspect of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." Everything and everyone appears to be a symbol of degeneracy. Caligart's traveling wagon is a crazily twisted affair. The fair is a hodgepodge of cubist patterns. Village dignitaries work, bent over, on stools and desks high above the floor.
Quaint Museum Piece
We have become fairly accustomed in recent years to the surrealistic symbol, and we are sophisticated enough today to recognize the need for such devices in telling a story. Surely the box-office success of Hitchcock's pictures, such as "Spellbound," points to this fact. But 1919 was a different era in the film. It is a pity that other directors were unable to work with the then emerging ideas of art. Cubism, in a world of Jackson Pollocks, is almost old hat. "Nude Descending a Staircase" is almost as traditional as Whistler's Mother.
CO TeI
But not so 40 years ago. So "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" remains a quaint museum piece. But it is exciting, throbbing cinema, and one can see with little difficulty why it occupies so much space in histories of the motion picture.
wri col and