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University Daily Kansan Tuesday, Jan. 13, 1959
False Hospitality
This is the greatest country in the world. Its people are good and thoughtful concerning other nations and wish them to resemble America.
To prove how really good we are,we refused a student from Nigeria service in a restaurant while he was on a Christmas trin.
What sort of an impression do we give foreign visitors who are ejected from our restaurants?
How can we expect foreigners to accept our way of life? How can we accept or believe in it ourselves?
Segregation is a blight on society. It is not confined to only one area of the country. It is
not confined to just restaurants and other places of business.
Essentially it boils down to Americana. If our white-skinned citizens were willing to eat and associate with the slightly darker brethren, restaurant owners would not complain about the added business. Fear of business loss would disappear and so would this aspect of the segregation problem. Soon even the bigots would disappear.
We can not make other countries respect or idolize us when we continually insult their visiting citizens by refusing them service in our restaurants.
—Martha Crosier
TV Westerns Warrin'
When TV westerns begin to draw their six-guns on each other, a feud in the horse-opera's history looks eminent.
Such a feud may have begun in Sunday's episode of "Maverick," a satire on the popular western, "Gunsmoke."
Such a battle may turn into a war reminiscent of the cattlemen vs. sheepherder conflicts of 90 years ago, only this time the villains won't be riding black horses nor will the good guys be wearing white hats.
This time the villains will be a different kind of killers—TV scriptwriters out to purge their
rivals. In doing so they may destroy themselves.
The hero of such a modern range war would be the man who pays the bills—the sponsor. Like the old prospector who has finally struck it rich, but must defend his claim against bandits, the sponsor would be in a position to lose his gold mine. Instead of battling a gang of ruthless claim-jumpers, he could find himself fending off irate viewers who dislike seeing their favorite marshal made the object of not-too-subtle satire.
The risks could be great. But so could the rewards. It might alienate some western fans; a purge would be good for TV.
Jack Fenton
The Four-Year Sleep
Complacency is a terrible disease! Yet this disease has infected the current American student generation.
One of the most important deficiencies in American higher education today is the absence of student motivation toward learning.
Not only are most students apathetic toward intellectual life, they flee from it, seeking endless diversion, both in and out of the classroom. They are in a state of intellectual adolescence from which they may never mature.
Students are not intellectually tolerant as their complacency might appear, only gullible; not skeptical, only suspicious; not sophisticated, only apathetic; not humble, only confused, and worst of all, not at all enthusiastic or curious.
There seem to be two causes for this intellectual apathy.
First, the vicious circle of college prestige values. Few people can find incentive to intellectual achievement in a society in which purely intellectual activity is given such scant recognition. Incoming freshmen are made aware that the
road to success and status in the college community is social, not intellectual.
The second reason for the lack of interest in the world of intellect can be found in the social background from which most of us come—a context in which intellectual achievement has little meaning.
College has become four years of polishing which a young man must undergo before he can get down to the real business of bourgeois life—the attainment of material comfort, economic security and social prestige.
But a college education is not just this "polishing" process.
The student should come to college as a person who has some responsibility for carrying the values and knowledge from his institution into the streams of society.
It is for education of the student in these matters that the college exists. It is he who has the talents and the questions. It is in him that the education happens if it happens at all.
—Pat Swanson
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"WE ONLY NEED TO IDENTIFY TH FACE."
The Democrats brought a donkey to the inauguration of Gov. George Docking in Topeka yesterday. It got there about an hour before the parade "to give the Democrats a lift."
Now we know the Democratic party is the party of the poor, working man. It can't even afford automobiles.
Short Ones
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and became a weekly newspaper.
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
Malcolm Amplegate Manage
Malecol Applegate ... Managing Editor
BUSINESS DEFEATMENT
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bill Irvine   Business Manager
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Al Jones  Editorial Editor
By Calder M. Pickett
Assistant Professor of Journalism
MEN OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA, by Bernard Jaffe, Simon and Schuster, $6.95
In these confusing days of Lunik and the International Geophysical Year, as science probes the universe and introduces concepts almost as shattering as those of Newton and Copernicus, the layman needs a book like "Men of Science in America," a completely resolved and expanded version of a book published by Jaffe in 1944.
A revision obviously was needed. A year after the original publication the nuclear age entered our consciousness with the blinding explosion over Hiroshima. In late 1957 Sputnik I shattered whatever complacency remained in the era of the atom.
We can find in a book like "Men of Science in America" the exciting story of the predecessors of Von Braun, the story of men who entered frontiers as wondrous as the polar ice cap entered last summer by the Nautilus. We can also find considerable understanding of the role of these scientific pioneers in the societies of their time, their meaning in history.
What Jaffe offers is actually a running story of the development of science in America. Though he presumably restricts his book to 20 notable figures, he spends much time with their contemporaries and with contemporary events.
Some of the individuals that Jaffe considers most significant in our scientific past are Thomas Harriot, Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Thompson, Thomas Cooper, Constantine Rafinesque, Thomas Say, Joseph Henry, Matthew Maury, and others.
In view of Jaffe's effort to incorporate the histories of other scientists into the text, it seem to me that he has told very well the story of science. Inventors, for the most part, he treats incidentally.
His story of pre-20th century developments is especially intriguing. Here is the giant Franklin, who was a scientist, journalist, philosopher, statesman, inventor, and wit. Here is Constantine Rafinesque, who opened frontiers in botany. Here is Matthew Maury, the South Carolinian who charted the ocean lanes, and constructed a topographic floor of the North Alantic.
Later in the 19th century there is Louis Agassiz, the Swiss emigrant-naturalist, and most vehement hold-out against Darwinism.
It is in dealing with figures of the 20th century that Jaffe becomes at times too technical, at times too complex. A novice can understand much of his story of Thomas Hunt Morgan and genetics, and Herbert McLean Evans and hormones. But Edwin P. Hubble's adventures in astronomy, and Ernest O. Lawrence's exploration of the atom, can become heavy going.
This, however, is actually no criticism. It is an admission of ignorance. But such an admission probably isn't too damaging, for "Men of Science in America" so thoroughly tells its story that of necessity it must include highly technical data.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN READER. Simon and Schuster. $2.25.
Here is a comprehensive paperback edition of some of the most significant articles to appear in the Scientific American in the past five years.
There are 12 general sections in the book, embracing subject matter in the fields of space, the structure of the earth, the structure of matter, atomic energy, the origin of life, genetics, the virus, stress (including articles on ACTH and cortisone and the pituitary gland), animal behavior, the origin of man, the brain and the machine, and sensation and perception.
In the early 19th Century, Felix Mendelssohn, youthful German composer, created one of the world's greatest single acts of faith in God, his oratorio, "Elijah." This very famous work was presented last night by the University Chorus in Hoch Auditorium.
By John Husar
Last night's performance of this work can be called conductor Clayton Krehbiel's triumph. His chorus of over 200 voices was more than equal to the huge task of production. He guided the large group through not only lovely melodies, but difficult and deeply contrasting harmonies as well.
The composer pieced together a number of quotes from the Bible, plus a few of his own, to make a story—a kind of patch-work story, but one as magnetic and compelling as any chronicle of the power, wisdom and love of God. Mendelssohn's music is extremely beautiful in that it captures the heavenly end earthly passion, longing, suffering and triumphs, and manifestations of nature.
In such an oratorio, the chorus takes a number of roles. Mr. Krebbiel's expert interpretations of these roles lend each a certain body or identifying characteristic that one finds in only the best trained groups.
If there ever was a question as to baritone Jack Davison's leadership among KU singers, there is none now. While the other soloists sang difficult parts—sang them well—Davidson's smooth, professional voice made his equally difficult part, as Elijah, seem effortless.
Conralto Beverly Runkle Benso's strong, but lulling voice was particularly effective in the moving passages of An Angel. Martha Odell, soprano, sang the role of The Widow exceptionally well. Bruce Gardner, tenor, although a bit throaty at times, commendably did his job as both Obadiah and Ahab. Jane Carr competently accompanied.
The fiery, alive chorus, the capable soloists and the marvelous conductor combined to form one glorious, harmonic sound.
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