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University Daily Kansan Thursday. Nov. 10. 1960
A Day for the Lonely
Saturday, besides being Homecoming, is a holiday—but most people won't realize it. The stores will all be open, there won't be a brass band in sight (except at KU), the letter carriers will get the mail through in spite of rain, snow or surly dogs, and we wager not a single overstuffed toastmaster will be saying, "On this glorious day in our nation's proud history. . .." at some holiday affair.
No, it won't seem like a holiday at all. But though most folks won't be aware of what they should be celebrating, they have unknowingly applauded the idea behind this holiday every day for most of their lives.
YOU SEE, TOMORROW is Sadie Hawkins Day, when, in theory at least, the girls drop all pretenses of coyness and set out after the men of their choice. In turn, the men are probably glad to rest from their arduous pursuit of the female. They also are probably a little flattered to be on the receiving end for a change.
Every year on Sadie Hawkins Day, all the eligible males in Dogpatch are herded together, trembling with fear, and given their instructions by Marryin' Sam, the community's realistic but decidedly venal preacher. At the starting gun, the men begin running. Shortly after, Sam releases the howling pack of single women, who have until sunset to catch a man, any man, and drag him back to Sam for the "wedding."
Sadie Hawkins Day is the creation of the cartoonist Al Capp, whose zany Dogpatch natives lampoon the fits and foibles of our society so effectively. Dogpatch is peopled by improbable folks like Moonbeam McSwine, the dirtiest girl in the world; Hairless Joe, a red-bearded neanderthal giant who shares the awesome recipe for Kickapoo joy juice with his inscrutable Indian sidekick and, of course, Li'l Abner and Daisy Mae, who need no introduction.
IN CREATING SADIE HAWKINS Day, Capp, using ludicrous exaggeration, has thrown a cloak of laughter over the very real conflict between the sexes. At the same time, he has exposed the fallacy which often has made this conflict strained
and painful—the idea that the male must be the relentless, aggressive pursuer and the female the coy and timid object of pursuit.
For centuries the novelists and playwrights have fixed this relationship and crystallized the roles men and women must play in it. It was left for a cartoonist to show us effectively that men sometimes get tired of chasing women, or are too shy to, and that women sometimes would like to light out after the men of their choice without society raising its eyebrows.
Sadie Hawkins Day is a day for the lonely little people who are held motionless in the web of social custom. It's a day, too, for the high school sophomore who would just love to dance with the first-string tackle, but knows what others would say if she asked him; the career girl in the big city who has quietly adored an account executive in her office and despairs that he will ever notice her, or the farm girl who'd like to go to the square dance in town but can't get up the nerve to ask Zeke, who she knows is too shy to ask on his own.
Some of our underlying resentment toward the straitjacket social customs within which we are forced to operate is shown in our attitude toward movie vamps of the past and present. When Clara Bow, Theda Bara or Marlene Dietrich pranced across the screen, we gasped—and applauded.
WE ADMIRED THESE WOMEN for their honesty. We admired them for their willingness to flout convention, to do things we, in our secret hearts, often wanted to do ourselves.
So Sadie Hawkins Day touches something deep within us. It is a reminder that our roles in the pursuit between the sexes should not be as rigidly prescribed as they are, for this rigidity keeps many of us lonely and silent in a world ordained for the joys of good company. If those who stand guard over social custom and tradition were to relax their vigilance for just a moment, we're sure the lonely ones, the shy ones, would be only too happy to make every day a Sadie Hawkins Day. — Bill Blundell
New Face in Topeka
There has never been a third term governor.
The gubernatorial election in Kansas Tuesday proved that the people of Kansas do not believe in third term governors.
Only once before in the history of Kansas governors since 1859 has a gubernatorial candidate tried for a third term.
In 1914, Democrat George H. Hodges tried for the unprecedented third term against Republican Arthur Capper. Hodges was deed by a Republican plurality of 47,847.
JOHN ANDERSON JR. has made a reputation as one of Kansas' best attorney generals. In positive actions he has shown both ability and courage. He is young and forward-looking, a man of ideas for the progress of his state. By normal standards the quiet, reticent Anderson is not a campaigner, but he inspired confidence among the voters.
With the Anderson victory the
people of Kansas can look forward to progress in education. Under the leadership of Gov. George Docking for the past three and one-half years the progress of higher education in Kansas has been stymied temporarily.
Throughout the campaign, education was a main issue and Gov. Docking, rather than avoid the issue entirely, claimed credit for things he had not done.
An example of this is the 30 per cent increase in teacher salaries at the five state colleges and universities. Throughout the campaign the governor said it was through his efforts that this piece of legislation was passed.
FIRST OF ALL, the recommendation was passed by a Republican legislature without the governor's recommendation. In the last three budget sessions he only recommended (in order) a 4 per cent, 4 per cent and 5 per cent increase in teacher salaries. This adds up to only 13 per cent which
Anderson demonstrated throughout the campaign that he has a positive attitude toward education and will view the educational problems in terms of its future needs.
With the election of John Anderson Jr., as the new governor we may anticipate a return to sanity and stability in Kansas government.
—Susanne Shaw
the governor recommended in contrast to the 30 per cent passed by the legislature.
Dailu Hansan
... Letters ...
Editor:
A HARMFUL DELAY
University of Kansas student newspaper
I recently witnessed one of the most disgusting cases with which I have ever come in contact.
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
Managing Editor
Managing Editor
Carol Heller, Jane Boyd, Priscilla Burton and Carrie Edwards, Assistant Managing Editors; Pat Sheley and Suzanne Shaw, City Editors; John Macdonald, Sports Editor; Peggy Kallos and Donna Engle, Society Editors.
Rav Miller
John Peterson and Bill Blundell...Co-Editorial Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Business Manager
A member of our residence hall was stricken and was in need of medical attention as soon as possible. The resident director was immediately notified and she, in turn, called the Watkins Memorial Hospital for an ambulance. The resident director was told by a member of the hospital staff, that no ambulance could be sent until the name of the student was known. It was then necessary for the resident director to take time out to come downstairs and ask the name of the student.
As it turned out, the student was not affected by the delay, but I am wondering if the next student will be as lucky. As a hospital designed to serve the students on campus, the Watkins Memorial Hospital is defeating its purpose in causing a possible harmful delay.
I hope that the authorities can correct this injustice before any real trouble arises.
Arthur C. Colladay Hutchinson junior
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
"I UNDERSTAND WITH THE RANK OF "COLLEGE PRESIDENT" GOES THE RIGHT TO DESIGN YOUR OWN UNIFORM."
From the Magazine Rack
F
The Rush to College
"At the same time that a college degree seems to have become a prerequisite for advancement in almost any white-collar job, it is becoming more and more difficult to get into college, and the pressure on the better private and even state institutions is immense. The flood of applications has been swollen not only by the size of the 'war baby' generation but also because of the fact that more and more families want and expect to send their children to college.
"The RESULT is messy to an extreme. How can a college that has five times as many applicants as it has openings be sure of choosing wisely? How can anyone decide which youngsters will make the most out of a college education on the basis of academic records from vastly differing secondary schools, a few tests consisting of a mass-graded essay and some often ambiguously worded multiple-choice questions, and a twenty-minute interview with a junior dean to evaluate 'personality?' Some Eastern colleges also feel a need to select a freshman class that represents geographical diversity, which automatically gives the boy from Iowa a head start over the equally deserving boy whose parents happen to live in Westchester County. There are also a good many subtler pressures involved, the most innocuous of which is the attraction of old school ties.
"A NUMBER OF criticis of these somewhat capricious procedures propose that a greater emphasis be placed on standardized tests. But we know enough about the pretensions of those who prepare and administer tests on a massive scale to suspect that there is perhaps nothing more capricious and arrogant than such tests. Youth is still a time of unexpected, unpredictable growth. Shortly after the war T. S. Eliot returned to his alma mater on the banks of the Charles in Cambridge and, after observing the competitive race among the G.I.-bill undergraduates to convert good grades into good jobs with insurance companies, remarked that he was appalled at how hard the students were working; he apparently stood in some doubt as to whether the grinding preparation to parrot the desired answers on tests could be equated with what we like to call a liberal education. The situation has not improved. In fact, the unhealthy fear that each answer one gives may determine one's entire lifetime success or failure infects not only college undergraduates but also youngsters still in junior high and elementary schools who hope to go to college.
"Frankly, we do not know the answer. The only hope we see lies in the improvement of all our colleges—and the realization that many institutions that do not enjoy the social prestige of the Ivy League are already equipped to provide an excellent education to those who want it. To those who have been admitted to the college of their choice, we offer our congratulations. To those who haven't we offer the reminder that the real process of education can, at best, only start in the halls of learning and reaches its fullness only when the halls of learning are outgrown."
(Excerpted from The Reporter's Notes, June 6, 1960, Reporter Magazine.)
I mistrust the wildly original in the very young. I really do. They come to nothing. . . The real solid ones work up to a meaning and a tone and a signature of their own. . . It's the signature of your own that counts and I don't see any way of acquiring it except by continual work.-Phyllis McGinley.
Eating your cake and having it, too: this to a remarkable extent has been the American dream.—J. Kenneth Galbraith