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University Daily Kansan Thursday, Sept. 27, 1956
KU Freshman Coed Runs Up $450 Back-To-School Bill
The secret's out girls and dollar-conscious boys are going to take advantage of it. No longer will your enticing wiles be viewed with only a romantic eye—the financial eye will be in there also, totaling what your upkeep amounts to and how it might fit into a family budget.
Now KU males know that only about 800 KU freshwomen, as opposed to freshmen, spent around $350,000 for back-to-school necessities and extras and this averages out to be a round $450 per female student. A relative figure may be applied to the average woman in the other htree classes also since it is doubted if daughters lay off the old man once they get such a rousing good start on him.
The revelator of this tally on first-term coeds is the Gilbert Youth Research Co., which recently sent representatives to KU, as well as 45 other campuses, to interview the champion buyer in the back-to-school set—the freshman coed.
The survey revealed where the new coed's $450 went also. An average of $383 was spent for wearing apparel, $42 for room decorations and $25 for work and play items like cameras, stationery, radios and fountain pens.
One out of seven freshmen coeds bought an evening gown and only one out of 12 bought evening slippers, but this doesn't mean college social life is declining. Four out of five purchased dresses and the same number got dressy high heels.
Professors, just for the record, might be interested in knowing that one out of four purchased alarm clocks.
With these statistics staring them in the pocketbook, how many male students are going to continue enjoying the cute dressing habits of their women-friends without questioning the supportability of same?
—Ray A. Wingerson
Elvis Presley Has Acting Ability?
So you don't like Elvis Presley. Well neither do a lot of other people . . . but. He must have acting ability or he couldn't convince his teenage audience he's the dumb slob type he isn't. Elvis Presley is living an act as surely as Johnnie Ray cried a "Little White Cloud" full of tears every time he sang at the peak of his career.
The entire business of being a "hood" whose sense of gentlemanly conduct was not acquired from Emily Post, is of course a carefully conceived plan to assure Elvis a "rich" though perhaps short career in show business. In other words, Elvis has hit upon a gimmick and is playing it for all it's worth.
If you're one of the people who can tolerate his singing but wish he would calm down and use
his throat rather than other parts of his anatomy, just remind yourself that without this sensational display, Elvis Presley would like as not be with some small town truck line and driving one of the "low priced three."
Becoming a success in show business today requires a little more than talent. It's a place where everyone cheats and unless you cheat too, you'll always be wearing the dunce cap.
You think he'll come tumbling like Humpty Dumpty one of these days? Maybe so, but if he has the ability, talent and material upstairs he has shown thus far in his young career, he'll survive the fall. He will be accepted by dads of teenage daughters, and even college professors, along with the Frank Sinatras and Johnny Rays.
Movie Review
—Evelyn Hall
'The Bad Seed' Better In Print Than On Film
Mother, a fabulist in her own right, once told me (just prior to the arrival of my little brother) that one should never swallow watermelon pits unless a bonafide member of a Hitler Youth Camp. So it was, with my somewhat naive conception of the original "bad seed," that I tippy-toed into a local popcorn palace last night to see the film biog of a little butcher that would make even Swift & Co. ingane with iaulously.
"The Bad Seed" by Maxwell Anderson, from the book by William March, concerns the homicidal anties of a precocious eight year-old Jack the Ripperess (Patty McCormack).
At the outset, Patty pays pennies to participate in a pupil's public picnic and proceeds to poke a playmate in the puss until a Pike's Peak puffiness is paramount. Passion then possesses the petite pigie and she pinches "Punchy'y" penmanship pin and then pushes her pal into a pool. After the pinning ceremony, she passes peppermint and patters pacifi-cally home to her paranoiac progenitress. Pretty potent so far.
But this is only the beginning in a round of handiwork by the juvenile killer that would make Richard III blush in innocence.
Not having had her follow-up course in biological science, the mother (Nancy Kelly) fears her little witch is a genetic "boo-boo" traced from her grandmother, who also was a congenital murderess and who used to take tickets on the 9:38 p.m. broom from Perth, Australia.
From this point, the overly long (two hours) story relates the quick demise of several more of the child's "friends." Not only has she earlier pushed an elderly basket case off a balcony, but she also contemplates sending (from John Cameron Swasey) 200,000 poisoned chocolates to our armed forces overseas.
The plot not only thickens and sickens, but turns to concrete when, while the melodramatic mother is debating turning state's evidence, the miniature Marquise de Sade charcoil-broils a moronic handyman who has discovered all.
Finally Miss Kelly (the last to be convinced) concludes that Kukla, Fran, and Ollie have led her darling astray and that she is "different." As the model modern mother, she benevolently slips Little Miss McCormack a mickey in her nightly cup of blood, then, like Whistler's mother rising, is "off her rocker." In a fit of pique, she plunges into her laundromat in a final suicidal attempt.
However, mommy goofs both assignments, for the child survives (but is ultimately struck down by a bolt of lightning from the censor's office), and the tired Miss Kelly reappears damp-dried for the incongruous curtain calls that are offered to a now-empty theater. Don't forget to blab the surprise ending to your friends.)
Henry Jones as the Pitdown hired hand has transformed his stage portraiture to the screen more definitely than the others in a nearly "all-original" Broadway cast. Reliable Evelyn Varden provides the comic relief as a Freudian neighbor, just as Elene Heckart furnishes dramatic relief in her original role of the alcoholic mother of the murderess's dead playmate.
Parents will be delighted to learn that their children may still see this well-beloved fairy story when it makes the rounds of the second-run houses. For, as a product of the American educational system, the lovable little heroine is an object lesson in that she will completely kill the controversy over "Why Johnny Can't Read."
Mervyn LeRoy directs but doesn't compose, create, or move the camera throughout. However, he is ably assisted by the new Italian "special effects" technician, Giono Coprolite.
Barred From Own Ideas
A House Military Affairs Committee turned up an odd-ball situation recently when questioning the Secretary of Air.
Security rules are certainly necessary in our military establishment—but sometimes they bring some pretty weird results.
It seems that there is a particular scientist, quite brilliant, who is also quite individualistic and eccentric. Because of past associations, he has not been given top security clearance by the Air Force. But he works for the Air Force in many research problems.
Tom Sawyer
The man has the type of mind that turns up new concepts in handling problems. His solutions to various problems faced by the Air Force have been brilliant and far in advance of his colleagues. Since his solutions are so good, they are immediately classified top secret.
Since the man is not cleared to handle top secret matters, this means that he can no longer handle his own ideas. When technicians work on these ideas, they cannot consult with the inventor—because he isn't cleared.
Why Not Try Mortimer?
But we had always thought that such suggestions were made in jest, until we read a statement by the Bicycle Institute of America.
The Minidoka County (Idaho)
News
A good many people on the KU campus have suggested that students start riding bicycles to beat the parking and traffic problems.
MILWAUKEE—(UP) — Charles Willard McCarthy petitioned the circuit court to change his name to Charles Patrick Murphy. He told the court he could not stand being called "Woodenhead," because his name was the same as Edgar Bergen's famous dummy.
It says that bicycle traffic jams are becoming commonplace at campuses (okay, campi, if you prefer) all over the nation.
Just Browsing ...
The Daily Trojan, official newspaper of the University of Southern California, had this to say:
"We have seen the University make many efforts to provide parking lots, but as fast as buildings were razed and ashplait laid, we have seen the lots fill to excess. Student councils discussed the problem last fall, and, as one solution, suggested bicycles for the students living on campus. The Daily Trojan recognizes this solution as both practical and vital. It is a student solution for a university problem."
The newspaper then conducted a very successful "Bicycle Week" during which students rode bikes instead of cars to the campus.
Here's A New Dog Story
EAST LOS ANGELES, Calif. (UP) — Dogcatcher Donald Baird reported that he was bitten by a woman as he attempted to impound her dog.
We can see it now—happy, romantic couples breathlessly pedaling up 14th Street hill on their way to a Student Union Dance, and then happily coasting home just before closing hours.
Of course, such a plan. if it ever got started here, would undoubtedly sweep the campus, much like the Ivy Lengue look, pink-and-choreal, Elvis Presley, and a few other fads of the past.
Sure—It's Snakebite Remedy
And the North College-Corbin-GSP gals riding past Green Hall, with the lawyers congregated en masse on the steps, hoping for a brief glimpse of a shapely knee.
Sure—it's Shakenebie Kennedy KNOXVILLE, Tenn., —(UP) Stella B. Baker, arrested for hoarding 66 half-gallon jars of moonshine in her home, told police she thought it was "medicine" used by one of her boarders.
Of course, nobody could pedal a bicycle up any of the Lawrence hills when there's snow or ice on the streets, but that wouldn't make any difference. Nobody can drive a car up the hills under those conditions.
And this bicycle plan has another advantage, besides the well-known good-exercise and easy-to-park benefits.
In the first place, the system of
panking permits would have to be changed, because the mechanically-minded students would undoubtedly remove the fenders and all other decoration from the bikes, giving them a hot-rod effect.
And secondly, and most important, a bicycle plan would probably drive the campus police crazy. Reason? There's no windshield on a bike, and obviously no windshield wiper. Therefore, the overworked traffic officers would be forced to stay up half the night figuring how to give a parking ticket to a bicycle.
Excuse us while we run down and pick up a couple of fox tails for our handlebars.
—Dick Walt
Michigan farmers receive most of their income from dairy products.
Daily Hansan
Extension 251, news room Extension 376, business office
University of Kansas student newspaper Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, riweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912.
Member Inland Daily Press Association.
Associated, Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service. 420 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. N.Y. service: United Press. Mall subscription rates: $3 a semester or $450 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan.; every afternoon during the University year after Saturdays and Sundays; University holiday holidays and examination periods. Entered at second-class matter Sept. 17, 1910; at Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Dick Walt              Managing Editor
Margaret Armstrong, Gerald Dawson,
Larry Stroup, Louis Stoup, Assistant Managing Editors; Kent Thomas, City Editor; Fleecia Fenberg, Assistant City Editor; Jane Pecinovsky, Telegraph Editor; Daryl Foster, Gerald Thomas, Robert Riley, Assistant Sports Editor; Betty Jean Stanford, Society Editor; Dona Seacat, Assistant Society Editor.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Ray Law
Jagger ... Editorial Editor
David Webb ... Associate Editor
USINESS DEPARTMENT
BUSINESS Todd Crittenden Business Manager Lee Gould Advertising Manager; Joe Court National Advertising Manager; John Switzer, Classified Advertising Manager; Wayne Helgesen, Circulation Manager.
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