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University Daily Kansan Tuesday, April 7. 1959
Nervous Coeds Conform
A recent and limited survey of 10 University women reveals that six of them started smoking before entering college.
I think this is a good indication of the worth of our high schools. Although there is some argument whether or not this same generation of girls is prepared academically for college, this survey seems to indicate that they are pre-trained at least in the social vices.
And what difference does it make if a young freshman knows nothing of algebra or Spanish, as long as she is trained in conformity?
Conformity was a much-quoted word in the text of the article. Half of the women started smoking because "everyone else did." This reason smacks of that old American tradition, individualism.
I suppose that following the will of the majority is all right. If the thing to do is to drink beer on the lawn of Strong Hall, everyone should join in. If "everyone else" decides to burn down the Kansas Union, the thing to do is to gather kindling. If the group smokes, everyone should smoke.
Each girl told how she came to choose the brand she smokes. Here,pure scientific reasoning entered the picture:
One girl began smoking her brand last year. She's still smoking it. "I like them because they're mildest," she relates.
She smokes them because they're mildest, and she's never tried another brand. It's a good idea really, because it prevents conflict.
Another girl smokes the same brand because it is so mild she hardly knows she is smoking.
This put smoking in a new light for me. Apparently, the idea is to get the least possible taste and pleasure out of every drag. The perfect cigarette would probably be one that allowed the smoker to inhale nothing but filtered air.
Another girl chose her brand because everything else made her dizzy. This is more pure reasoning using elimination. Try them all. Then, when you find a brand that lets you stand and inhale at the same time, stick with it.
Several of the girls started smoking because they were nervous and wanted something to do. This is sharp thinking. Whenever I get nervous, nothing fixes me up like a good smoke. In fact, I kill off four or five every time I visit my doctor. He's trying to cure me of the shakes.
— George DeBord
Farm Program Fails
The farm subsidy program is a failure.
For 26 years, the program has wrecked United States foreign policy, encouraged over-production, and enriched the large wealthy farmer, while the small farmer scarcely has broken even.
The bill to the taxpayer for 26 years of the political legerdemain has been $18 billion. The government now owns over $9 billion of farm surpluses which costs $1 billion a year just for storage.
Two defenses of the program are usually advanced:
1. Agricultural potential which may be necessary in the future must be preserved.
2. The yeoman is the backbone of the nation's democratic way of life and must be saved.
Neither is a valid defense, because:
1. The world is filled with starving millions. The need for agricultural potential is not in the future, but now. The problem is not overproduction, but distribution.
The distribution problem has become worse because the farm program artificially inflates farm prices.
2. The yeoman is no longer the backbone of the nation's democratic way of life. He lost his independence 26 years ago, and is growing fewer in number.
The farm program has been inspired by fear of a so-called farm vote and a desire to preserve the small farmer's place in society just as it was 100 years ago.
Such a program is unrealistic.
There have been technological and agricultural improvements in the last 100 years which have enabled the farmer to multiply production with less effort.
These changes inevitably must alter the agricultural picture.
If farm prices were permitted to seek their natural level, the farmer would find it necessary to increase his acreage in order to make enough revenue to justify his large machinery investment.
If farm prices were permitted to fall, land prices would fall too. This would make the price of a 1,000 acre farm within the reach of one or two men. With today's farm machinery, one or two men is all that is necessary to farm 1,000 acres of wheat.
Technological improvements have caused like revolutions in many industries, but only in agriculture has the government attempted to halt the natural effects of those improvements.
The farm program is untenable, unrealistic, and unworkable. The government must allow the inevitable agricultural revolution to transpire as it has in industry.
The government must think in terms of alleviating the hardships of falling product and land prices which will follow the end of the program. But the program must be abandoned, for it has been a source of expense and trouble too long.
—Larry Miles
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"THAT'S TH' SCIENCE BUILDING — WE HAVE THE MUSIC CONSERVATORY OVER THERE—'AN' I THINK THIS IS THE GIRLS GAM!"
Poetry Corner
Signs of Spring By Geneva Mendenhall
Can Spring be far behind when her advance agents have posted such sure signs?
You have seen the balding knees on slacks and jeans as small boys crawl about a ring and call, "Vent cha taws."
You thought you heard a child moaning in the night until you knew it for that wall which spirals into the harsh scream of feline eestasy and pain.
You heard the muted accent of wild geese, and looking up, you saw the long V trailing north, the leader honking on his scattered scouts.
With the growing undercurrent of excitement in earth and air and sky, can you longer doubt that Spring is on her way?
Student Government
Worth Repeating
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong. Thomas Jefferson
Jobs of President
(Editor's note: This is the fourth in a series of articles on campus politics and student government. This article deals with the executive branch.)
The president and vice president of the student body will be chosen in the general election next week. They will be in charge of the executive branch of student government for the coming year.
Any person who has served on the All Student Council for one year or has notified the ASC of his intention to run by December before the spring general election is eligible for this office.
The president appoints members of all the faculty advisory and University committees. These include committees for Homecoming, commencement, convocations, the film series, freshmen orientation and the University calendar committee which schedules and compiles the year's activities, final examinations and vacations.
He appoints two student members of the athletic board.
He also appoints the members of the Student Court and student members on the University disciplinary committee, the two bodies which compose the judicial branch of student government.
All of his appointments must be ratified by a two-thirds vote of the ASC. He is responsible for carrying out any instructions given by the ASC and must present a written report to them three times a year.
He appoints the secretary of the Department of Student Welfare which includes the housing and labor committees, the chairman of the Campus Chest Drive, the co-chairmen of the campus leadership training council, the National Student Assn. campus coordinator and the members of the ASC health committee.
The president has speaking privileges in the ASC and may introduce legislation but he has no vote.
He is an ex-officio member of the Kansas Union operating board.
The student body president acts as a spokesman for KU students at various conferences. In this capacity he usually attends the Big Eight Conference, the National Student Assn.national and regional meetings.
Allen - lentz
By Barbara Solomon
ROMAN TALES, by Alberto Moravia, New American Library, (Paperback) 35c.
Most of the tales in this collection are vignettes depicting vividly an exciting moment in the lives of the central characters. Each story is related by a Roman laborer, but the situations vary greatly: a poverty-stricken workman and his wife attempt to abandon their baby in one of the churches in Rome; a taxi driver is told to drive to a desolate spot, where his passengers attempt to murder him and steal his cab; a young man informs his pitifully disfigured sister that her husband has just gone up on the roof to help the porter's seductive daughter "hang out her washing."
Moravia is very talented in describing the external appearance of his characters: "I have a narrow, yellow face, eyes of an indefinite, dirty colour, and a nose that seems to have been made for a face twice as broad as mine; it is big and long, and looks as if it was going straight down, and then, at the tip, it turns up like a lizard raising its snout."
Unfortunately, the emotional depths of his characters are never explored—in fact, barely touched upon. The characters describe the events and lamely add a few words concerning their reactions about which they have little insight. The result of this absence of insight is that a number of the characters seem to be annoyingly simple-minded.
Toned-down emotional responses are coupled with trite themes in several tales. In "Poor Fish" an extraordinarily ugly dish-washer is worshipped by an equally ugly scullery-maid, proving that love is indeed, blind.
In another story, one of the members of a group of young men who eat dinner together with great zest (and few manners) introduces his girlfriend into the group. The group quickly disintegrates, proving that a woman will soon bring disharmony to a group of bachelors.
Moravia is a skillful writer of entertaining stories, but his use of shallow characters and banal themes greatly limits the significance of "Roman Tales."
Dailu hansan
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