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University Daily Kansan Monday. Anril 10. 1961
'The Rugged Individual'
One of the most popular pastimes at least of the last half century has been the game of criticizing government spending. As a sport, it is one that is not monopolized only by Republican legislators. Many Americans enjoy getting into the act. Recently the Rotary Magazine took a potshot at those miscontents and handbitters in an editorial entitled "The Rugged Individual." Its content is both humorous and thought-provoking.
"It seems a young man lived with his parents in a public-housing development," the Rotary Magazine said. "He attended a public school, rode the free bus and participated in the free Junch program. He entered the service, and, after his discharge, enrolled in the State University on a GI loan."
THE EDITORIAL WENT ON TO TRACE the life of the young man as he bought a farm after graduation and obtained a Small Business Administration loan to go into business. It told of the birth of the baby in the county hospital and how the man then bought a ranch with the aid of another GI loan. The stock was fed during a hard winter with emergency feed obtained through the Government.
After awhile he put part of his land in soil bank and the payments helped pay off his debt. His parents, who had come to live on the ranch, lived comfortably through social security and old age assistance checks. Government electricity supplied light and pumped water on the ranch. One part of the ranch was cleared with government aid, the county agent showed the man how to terrace it and then the government paid the cost of a pond and stocked it with fish. The政-
ernment also guaranteed him a sale for his farm products.
BOOKS FROM THE PUBLIC LIBRARY were delivered to his door. He banked money which was insured by a government agency. When his children grew up, they too attended public schools, ate free lunches, played in public parks and swam in public schools. Since the man owned an automobile and a truck, he backed all federal-aid highway programs.
He signed a petition seeking federal assistance in developing an industrial project to provide diversification in the economy of his area. He was a leader in obtaining the new federal building and a new post office. He gathered together with some other men of his area who went to Washington to ask Congress to build a great dam costing millions in order that his area could get better and cheaper electricity.
"Then one day," the editorial concluded, he wrote to his Congressman:
"I WISH TO PROTEST EXCESSIVE GOV- erment spending and high taxes. I believe in rugged individualism. I think people should stand on their own two feet without expecting govern- ment handouts. I am opposed to all socialistic trends, and I demand a return to the principles of our Constitution."
One would be forced to admit, regardless of whether he were a proponent or an opponent of government spending, that the story told by the Rotary Magazine is enlightening. In an age of "isms," the tale is certainly an example of "hitting-the-nail-on-the-head-ism."
Dan Felger
From the Magazine Rack
The New Humor
PLAYBOY: Jules Feiffer, you're a member of the new school in a somewhat different sense: you put your social commentary down on paper rather than act it out on TV or the nightclub stage. But your humor directly parallels the new verbal comedy. What do you think accounts for the current development and acceptance of this type of humor?
FEIFFER: Well, World War II helped, but the Korean War really capped it. The rah-rah spirit was gone. There was a feeling of cynicism, of entrapment, of "what the hell kind of deal is this?" At those indoctrination lectures—you know, where they were explaining who was right and who was wrong —there'd be general laughter, or people just turning off their hearing aids. People still remembered what war was really like, so you couldn't glorify it. Plus the intrusion of nuclear weapons and the fear that America was no longer the big power that could lick everyone. The world had become so complex that the labels of left and right didn't work any more. And the left label was much more dangerous than it had been at any time since the Twenties — you couldn't be left and be respectable — all you could be was right in the middle.
The humor of people like Sahl and Nichols and May and Bruce, I think, represents the post-McCarthy period — although Sahl began in the McCarthy period, and he's probably greatly responsible for some of the change. This humor expresses a kind of reawakening of the American conscience and also of guilt feelings for the Fifties, when everybody just didn't want to be bothered — let Papa Eisenhower take care of us. Does that answer your question?
PLAYBOY: Beautifully. Bill Dana, you've written a good portion of Don Adams' comedy routines, you've written for the Steve Allen show, and most recently, you've scored as a comic yourself as that remarkable Latin, Jose Jimenez. As writer-performer, what do you think of this new school of humor?
DANA: It's probably cyclic in nature. It seems to me, if I remember my history correctly, that social commentary of this kind gained a lot of yardage even during Lincoln's era. I'm not trying to put a beard on Mort Sahl, but I don't think humorous social commentary is really something new. Like la ronde, it's just come around again. As in Lincoln's time, we are engaged in great civil strife. World problems, the likes of which none of us have ever seen before, have loomed up. It isn't really something that keeps me awake at night, to make a terrible confession. But I'm delighted that a good segment of the population is accepting people like Sahl, and that the Allen show was accepted as it was. I don't know why the hell it's happened, but I do know that it's happened before. This time, though, on the threshold of universal upheavals, we may soon be doing split weeks between Venus and Mars.
ALLEN: I think part of the reason for it is the world-wide uprising of youth. Everywhere you see rebellion among the young. In our own country, John Kennedy—a young man—is elected President. All the little mosaic bits fit together. Of course youth has always been in revolt to some extent, but never as it is today. And that, in turn, may be because the world was never in such danger. If you're twenty years old and just beginning to live, you have reason to be angry when you find out that the generation ahead of you may not leave a world for you to live in. Consciously and unconsciously, this disturbing awareness may well be adding more fire to this natural revolt of youth. It's no surprise that the new comedians all have something pretty bitter and critical to say. There may always have been a few of these guys around, but now there is a ready-made audience for them. The moment they're discovered, they're national heroes. And thank goodness for that, I say.
(Excerpted from a panel discussion "Hip Comics and the New Humor" in the March, 1961, issue of Playboy magazine.)
Support Capital Punishment Editor:
Letters
From the remarks reportedly made by an "unidentified English instructor from England" it seems that the English to a man support capital punishment in general and are impatient with defense on mental grounds. We have been absent from England for two years, but it seems doubtful that there is no longer debate over the ambiguous insanity laws on capital punishment. Moreover, recent British newspapers indicate that the furor over the principle of capital punishment is still rife.
It thus is presumptuous, to say the least, to generalize for the nation on such a subject; certainly we should like to be dissociated from the opinion given on our behalf, especially since we are two of the four English English instructors on the campus.
Ann and Michael Cornish Assistant Instructors in English
Short Ones
It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.—Robert H. Goddard
A lie has always a certain amount of weight with those who wish to believe it.—Elliott Warren Rice
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NEWS DEPARTMENT
John Peterson Managing Editor
EWS DEPARTMENT
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Frank Morgan and
Dan Felger Co-Editorial Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
John Massa Business Manager
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
Sound and Fury
Right to Left
The UDK recently published a letter from Carol McMillen (NSA Coordinator) in which she attacked me with an assortment of passionate invectives.
Playing the martyred saint, Miss McMillen is certain that I have dedicated myself to branding her a "leftist." I have never met this dear lady. But to ease her mind, I want to assure her that I don't think anyone who has read "Conscience of a Conservative," as she claims to, could be all bad.
Now to the issue! Regarding my comments before the Young Republicans' organization to which Miss McMillen alludes, had she been more meticulous she would have noted that the KU NSA representatives were not included in the accusation ("NSA being leftist")). I spoke of the national position of NSA. It is a fact that a national representative of NSA recently stated here at KU that the movie "Operation Abolition" falsely suggests that the students at the San Francisco riots were "duped by Communists." He further alleged that Harry Bridges (as pictured in the film) was not on the scene until three days after the riots.
Since both of these statements are untrue—according to a statement by Congressman Walters, chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and both the official report of J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, and that of the HUAC itself, there is considerable room to believe that there is a leftist in the woodpile somewhere.
When one notes that NSA passed a resolution at its national convention praising the Japanese students who rioted against President Eisenhower; when one discovers that the NSA Congress passed a resolution urging that the U.S. adopt a "unilateral" disarmament program; when we learn that the NSA approved a resolution calling for elimination of the loyalty oath, and anti-communist disclaimer provisions from the National Defense Education Act, one begins, Miss McMillen, to suspect some "leftist" tendencies by the National NSA organization.
Oh, I forgot the topper! Last summer, at the convention which Miss McMillen attended, in addition to all this liberal fun, the NSA plenary session approved a resolution praising the Castro government's Cuban Student Federation. Enough?
Well enough for me. I don't feel very proud of the fact that KU, as a member of NSA is represented by these policy statements. And, I hope that Miss McMillen doesn't either. But, instead of screaming in her letter to the editor that she is being deprived of her free speech, which she certainly isn't, perhaps she should have been explaining these decidedly leftist NSA resolutions.
Or, was she, perchance, hoping that no one knew about them? In that case, Surprise!—Scott Stanley, Bethel law student
From one whose phone often rings at odd hours of the day, I can assure you that today's students in the College are busy persons—in and out of the classrooms.
The individual traits and abilities which bring academic successes are also in evidence as students assume responsibilities related to student organizations, intramurals, living groups, parttime employment, social and cultural events.
Even though KU lights burn late and alarm clocks ring early, students thrive on the full but meaningful life which characterizes this campus community. In relation to our numbers, our problems are few.-Donald K. Alderson