Summer Session Kansan Tuesday, August 1. 1961
Berlin Exodus
The East German government in an unprecedented statement last weekend, told the world what everybody has known for years: that the tremendous mass exodus from the Soviet zone has not only embarrassed Communist leaders but crippled the country as well.
East German officials, who apparently have pushed the panic button, acknowledged for the first time that the flight of thousands of young people, teachers, doctors, technicians, scientists, farmers and laborers has raised serious doubts concerning that Soviet-dominated nation's ability to survive.
IMAGINE THE EFFECT A COMPARABLE situation would produce in Kansas City or Lawrence. What would happen, for instance, if all the workers at the Ford plant, or all the faculty members at KU left their respective communities in one fell swoop? Or think of the problems that would result if all of the doctors and lawyers were suddenly to vanish into the night. Obviously, those left behind would be in trouble.
One reason why Berlin has been in the news for so many years is the fact that the city presents such striking contrasts. West Berlin, along with the entire western sector, has been, and still is, booming and bustling. New buildings are going up every day, more jobs are being created, take-home pay is soaring, shops are bursting at the seams with new goods, etc.
EAST BERLIN, ON THE OTHER HAND,
is dull and drab, in most respects little changed
from its sorry condition in 1945. The Russians know this, and so do the people who have to live there. It's no wonder why so many of the latter have taken the short trip to freedom just across the way.
In short, comparing East and West Berlin is similar to comparing Saks Fifth Avenue with the corner ready-to-wear in East Dullsville.
From a prestige standpoint, this disparity has played into Western hands with fruitful results. No matter how loud the Reds may boast about their alleged triumphs in some parts of the world, they can't laugh off the fact that their way of life has proven to be strictly for the birds in East Berlin, especially when that way of life has been forced to exist side-by-side with capitalism.
IN THE LONG RUN, SOMETHING HAD TO give—and that's one of the main reasons why Berlin is such a touchy spot today. Nobody knows what will happen. Perhaps the whole affair will blow over in a month or two. Perhaps a limited "brush-fire" war will break out.
Regardless of the eventual outcome, President Kennedy made the right move when he looked Mr. Khrushchev in the eye and said "This is it. We won't be pushed any further."
It has been said many times, but it's worth repeating now: about the only force the Communists respect is force itself.
That's what they're meeting today. The free world is praying that this will be sufficient.
—Chuck Morelock
British, Germans Allies Now But WWII Scars Still Remain
By Phil Newsom,
UPI Foreign News Analyst
Sir Winston Churchill sat in silence in the House of Commons earlier this month and heard in silence an announcement that a German Panzer battalion soon would be training in Britain.
Whatever his feelings on the matter, he scarcely could have failed to reflect on the changes wrought by history.
FOR IT WAS IN THIS SAME HOUSE OF COMMONS 21 YEARS ago that with these words he rallied his people against what seemed an imminent German invasion from across the channel:
"We may show mercy, we shall ask for none. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets. We shall never surrender."
But, if Churchill was silent, others were not.
Lord Beaverbrook's mass circulation newspapers, the Sunday Express, the Daily Express and the Evening Standard attacked the plan fiercely.
A nationally circulated petition to be presented to Prime Minister Harold Macmillan demands that the plans be canceled.
Dock workers along the Kent coast pledged to boycott the disembarkation of German troops.
South Wales miners promised a "mighty demonstration" in September, the month scheduled for the German battalion's arrival.
The German troops will come to Britain under NATO auspices for a three-week firing exercise at the Castelemartin tank range in Wales.
WAR MEMORIES HAVE DIED HARD IN BRITAIN and British defense officials have been forced to take note of public opinion. War Secretary John Profumo told British territorials encamped at Castelemartin that Britain had an obligation to help her NATO allies, in this case West Germany.
THE GROWING GERMAN ARMY, crowded up against the Iron Curtain border, is hard put for training grounds.
Last fall, Bundeswehr units went to France on maneuvers, and more troops followed last spring.
The independent Manchester Guardian admitted that "a certain degree of anti-German feeling would exist in this country whatever policy the West German government pursued. The memories of two world wars cannot be expected to evaporate overnight."
But the Guardian also linked opposition to the training program to the same forces which opposed the agreement to permit U.S. Polaris submarines at Holy Loch in Scotland and to the left wing forces which have been demanding that Britain disarm unilaterally.
Britons have reacted coolly to German visitors before, and many say frankly now that they do not want to go to war over Berlin.
That is one of the reasons why the British government is not moving with the same haste as the United States in the present threatening crisis.
West's Plans Hazy Now
WASHINGTON — (UPI) — President Kennedy's effort to forge a coordinated military-diplomatic offensive on the Berlin issue is being hampered by uncertainty over just what the major allies will be willing and able to do.
Some officials estimated it would be at least October before the Western powers are in a position to take the diplomatic initiative by proposing specific formulas to take the heat off the crisis.
—French President Charles de Gaulle's new troubles in Tunisia, combined with continuing uncertainty in Algeria, have cast some doubt on how much more French strength in Europe can be counted on for the proposed stiffening of the allied military posture.
They believe this would be soon enough. The view was that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev would not force matters to the breaking point until he has gotten through the October meeting in Moscow of the Communist Party.
Officials emphasized that the allied military buildup must be well begun before any diplomatic steps are taken so that Khrushchev will realize that the West really means business.
The officials privately acknowledged the uncertainty of several factors:
—Britain's new austerity program, with her demands that West Germany pay a greater share of the cost of British troops stationed on the Rhine, has cast another element of uncertainty into the picture.
-West Germany will not be in a position, until after the September elections there, to move really decisively in either the military or diplomatic field.
-U.S. officials believe Khruschev may not really be convinced of Kennedy's stern intentions until the proposed military increases actually go into effect.
SUMMER SESSION KANSAN
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Chuck Morelok and
Ron Gallagher ... Co-Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Chuck Martinache ... Business Mgr.
--by Marcia Davenport, Scribner Library. $14.45.
In lush, sentimental style, Marcia Davenport told in 1936 the story of a great opera singer. It is a warm, human story. One may wonder why Scribner's has chosen to issue it in paperback form, however, for it is no classic, and it has numerous weaknesses.
... Books in Review . . .
By Calder M. Pickett Professor of Journalism
THE PRAIRIE, by James Fenimore Cooper. Doubleday Dolphin,
$1.45.
A few years ago, before the cult of American civilization became established, it was fashionable to mock Cooper. Now we suddenly find that one of our first men of letters had been powerfully important in building an American image.
Henry Nash Smith tells us this in "Virgin Land," and the book he cites in particular is "The Prairie." One can read "The Prairie" for a lot of things, and if he doesn't care too much about the lack of logic and the presence of far too much coincidence, he will be entertained, even though he scorns the ornamental of the language and the unreality of the situations.
"The Prairie" finds Natty Bumppo an old man, heading west shortly after the Louisiana Purchase. He becomes mixed up with a party headed by Ishmael Bush, a man of civilization who defiles the prairie country at the same time that Natty Bumppo enriches it. Ishmael is placed in powerful contrast to the Rousseau-like Pathfinder, the noble man of the woods. Ishmael is everything bad about civilization. Natty everything good about nature.
This is one level on which to read "The Prairie." It is good to find that Cooper has stature again; it is even better to read him and enjoy him. His pioneers, his woodsmen, his redmen may be unreal, but they helped to build a mythology of the plains and woods that endures to this day.
***
OF LENA GEYER, by Marcia Davenport. Scribner Library. $1.45.
Lena Geyer was a Bohemian peasant girl with a rare genius for singing. Through her own toughness and combativeness, and with the help of several persons who sensed her greatness, she enraptured the capitals of Europe and, as a song in "Carnival!" goes, "con-founded the Orient as well"—though "Orient" should be changed to "America."
Her heyday was what Walter Lord calls "The Good Years," the period from the turn of the century to World War II. In that time she had a glorious love affair with a French duke, sang under the baton of Gustav Mahler, became a great star in Vienna and at the Metropolitan and the idol of Americans in little towns all across the land—including Salina, Kan., which is singled out in a dramatic episode as having some of the worst cooking in the country.
"Of Lena Geyer" could have special appeal to readers who want sentiment, who want simple writing, who are weary of the writings of the early sixties. The novel belongs in another era, though it makes good reading in this one.
*****
THREE PLAYS, by Sean O'Casev. St. Martin's. $1.25.
As one reads these plays — "Juno and the Paycock," "The Shadow of a Gunman," and "The Plough and the Stars" — he becomes overwhelmed with the grimness and the tragedy of Dublin life as O'Casey saw it in the 1920s. He becomes even more overwhelmed with the significance of Irish nationalism, for all three of these plays are full of the Irish Republican Army, of British raids and noble deeds and staunch green Irish pride.
O'Casey labels all of these tragiedies, and so they are. But "Juno and the Paycock," the story of a lazy, blustering, hard-drinking Irishman, his hard-working wife and socially aspiring daughter and constantly lamenting son, also is comedy. It is the vivid description of what happens to a family of low station when money — even though it is just mirage money — comes on the scene.
"The Shadow of a Gunman" is ironic tragedy, as two weak men become involved in Irish Republican activities and help to bring death to a spirited young girl. There is little to the play. There is much to "The Plough and the Stars." Here we see the tragedy of an Irish wife, stronger than her husband, who loses him in the Easter Rebellion of 1916, and loses her own sanity.
*****
THREE PLAYS, by Eugene O'Neill. Vintage (Random House), $1.45.
A volume of 376 pages, with small type throughout, would seem to be able to accommodate more than three plays. But these three plays are epic, particularly two of them, epic in size and epic in scope. Random House has collected what may be O'Neill's three best (with the possible exception of "Long Day's Journey into Night").
They are "Desire Under the Elms," "Strange Interlude" and "Mourning Becomes Electra." The latter two are not the conventional three-acters. "Mourning Becomes Electra" actually is three plays, and "Strange Interlude" is not much shorter.
All are enacted on the New England stage — dark, somber tragedies. "Desire Under the Elms" is the grim tale of a woman's impact upon a family of men, and of the horror that follows. "Strange Interlude" is a tricky exercise in Freudian psychology, with the thoughts of the characters, as well as their spoken words, being voiced for the audience. And "Mourning Becomes Electra" is the tragedy of Orestes, set within a New England family.
*****
THE CONSTANT IMAGE, by Marcia Davenport. Cardinal Giants, 50 cents.
Marcia Davenport has written a modern tale, set in Italy and dealing with an American divorcee who falls in love with an Italian. It is difficult to become sympathetic with either character. The Italian ostensibly is teaching the American woman how to appreciate love and the sanctity of marriage through the means of an affair. This is all hard to believe. It just doesn't happen, or it at least shouldn't.