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University Daily Kansan
Tuesday. Feb. 14, 1961
No Plea This
It is always a little irritating to see pleas for different charity drives and campaigns appear in the news or editorial columns of newspapers. Mainly because our money is a little hard to come by and we hate to learn of others that need our money more than we do. So we quickly turn to another page in order to bury the thought that maybe we could give something.
WE ARE ALL FOR HELPING OUR MORE unfortunate fellow man whether it be through Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy or United Fund campaigns. But there are so many charity drives and they come so often that even though we are sure they are for worthwhile causes, we really dread hearing about another one.
So, to save the readers of these columns from the qualms of conscience and the irritation of the incessant pleading, we are not going to ask anyone to give anything to anybody at any time.
BUT IF WE WERE OF THIS MIEN, WE would have a perfect chance to do so right now.
We might say that there is currently a weeklong drive being conducted to solicit money for a very worthwhile organization . . . that this is the one "charity" whose funds go from the hands of students into the hands of others who need it more . . . that this is really the one time that students are asked to give.
We might reach deep into our shallow vocabulary to pull out words that would evoke
favorable feelings toward the drive and stress how urgently the money is needed.
WE MIGHT TRY TO SHOW HOW EVEN the most meager donation would benefit such diverse individuals as a student in Chile whose educational opportunities were halted by earthquakes last year, a medical student in Ghana who hopes to better the lot of his people by studying in America, the wife and children of a Cal Poly football player whose husband and father was killed in the plane crash last fall, a KU student who relys, in part, on loans from the University to make his way through school, or a family in an underprivileged country of Asia to whom a CARE package is virtually a cornucopia.
AND LASTLY, IF WE WERE TO WRITE about such stuff as this in an editorial column, we would mention that Messrs. Brubeck, Desmond, Morello and Wright may be observed rendering their version of le jazz on Sunday night at Hoch for those that go for this sort of thing.
We might say that the modest goal of the campaign would be realized if every person walking down Jayhawk Boulevard during an eight-hour period were to donate the equivalent of the price of a couple of cups of coffee.
But as we made clear at the first, we will not ask anyone for anything. And we promise that mention will never be made here of the importance, benefit or value of giving to Campus Chest. — Frank Morgan
Where's Richard
Today or tomorrow, President Kennedy goes before Congress for the fourth time since he took office. This time he will give the legislators a peek at his aid to education program before telling them how to act on it. He has been seen often on TV and frequent reports are given about his activities during off-duty hours—or at least Caroline's.
WE KNOW WHERE HE IS MOST OF THE time.
Former (not ex-) President Eisenhower is duffing it up at Palm Springs, California, enjoying the sun and leisure and stretching into his new role as a plain citizen. He plans nothing more than adjusting to his first touch of civilian life since his pre-West Point days.
WE KNOW WHERE HE IS.
Anybody seen Dick Nixon lately?
This is one of the stranger phenomena of American politics—the obscurity cloaking the vanquished presidential candidate. The man whose every sneeze and chortle were recorded prior to election day, finds he couldn't get into
print even if he joined the opposition party.
Where's Dick though? Here was the indispensable man the nation would not be able to do without, the experienced pilot at the helm, the man who knew the score according to the campaign oratory.
He's not completely lost. Jim Bishop, a syndicated columnist, found him in Florida waiting for someone to ask him what his plans were. If memory serves us right, the conversation went something like this:
"What are you going to do, Dick?"
"Run for governor in '62"
Rail for governor in 62
"Coming back for more in '64'?"
"Nope, '68'll be the best time."
"What are you going to do in the meantime?" "Run the Republican party through Hell or Goldwater."
SO THERE WE HAVE IT. DICK NIXON, at 46, is a long way from being through. With a little more seasoning based on his prospective frenzy of activity, perhaps the brass ring will be his on his next ride around.
Frank Morgan
University of Kansas student newspaper
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The professor who is really his own master is the only professor whose mastery matters.—McGeorge Bundy
From the Podium
We have a word in common usage today: the word "corn." This is a term of derogation; it suggests that our intelligence is being insulted, our emotions played upon falsely. Corn in the theatre is traditionally associated with drippy sentimentality, with a chocolate marshmallow fudge sundae, with a glossing over or ignoring of the truth. There has been a lot of such corn grown in the theatre and thousands have partaken of it—made into mush, heavily sweetened and served with thick cream.
Broadway's New Corn
Someone has suggested that we are growing a new kind of corn on Broadway. Our playwrights are deeply occupied with drug addicts, homosexuals, prostitutes, sadists, rapists and low-lives. These writers are glossing over the truth to the same degree but in another direction from the old fashioned school of playwrights; they are insulting our intelligence when they ask us to accept their thesis that this is life! They are playing falsely with our emotions when they ask us to shed tears over the sentimentality which is spread so thickly around Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman" or the dumb-cluck of a heroine in "Picnic." They are repellently callous or sickly sentimental. In some of the older corny plays, life was a sunlit meadow, fragrant with the smell of blossoms; in many of the present plays it is a snake pit and we are asked to pet the snakes.
THIS OVER-SIMPLIFIED survey brings up the question: If we are destined to have corn in the theatre, which kind of corn should we prefer? Is there any danger in surrendering to the sweetness-and-light school of sentimentality? Is there more or less danger in surrendering to the school of perverted sentimentality or sentimentality for the moral defaulters? Or is there no danger in surrendering to either?
In the modern theatre we have become conditioned to all sorts and degrees of perversion; we have become conditioned to the idea of lust as a synonym of love: we have become conditioned to violence; we have become conditioned to going into the gutter, not to clean it up but to take a bath in it. Few who are acquainted with our plays will dispute this conditioning. We have accepted an amendment to the seventh commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery. It now seems to read: I shall not commit adultery; however, it is all right to accept adultery in others, to even condone adultery in others and get a laugh out of it. Perhaps everyone is not accepting this amendment but few are raising their voices against it. Violence, perversion, illicit sex relations are no longer problems to be overcome; they are being offered to us as solutions, or at least as justifications or apologies for our behavior.
IN TENNESSEE WILLIAMS' recent success "Sweet Bird of Youth" the dope peddler who has made his living off women, walked down to the footlights and asked the members of the audience to identify themselves with him on the grounds that there is some of him in all of us. (The late Oscar Hammerstein stated in an interview that there was nothing of him in this dope peddler; and he felt outraged and insulted at this character's phony and ridiculous assertion.) But how many of the thousands who attended the play felt as Mr. Hammerstein did?
Sociologists tell us that the material found in our plays, and the way in which it is presented, is a reflection of our social life and acceptances. Others go farther: they say that the material and its treatment tend to mold our social behavior as well. How important is this assertion? Will a steady diet of O'Neill, Williams, Miller, Hellman and Axelrod tend to move us into a mild state of perversion or a mild indulgence in prostitution? Will continued violence on the stage condition us to the commission of violent acts? Perhaps the effect on the individual's moral behavior is very small; but it is perhaps true that the mental attitude engendered by so many of these plays does tend to create a frame of mind in which human life is regarded casually, in which traditional morals are ignored or scorned.
(Excerpted from a talk "The Moral Obligation of the Theater" by Allen Crafton, professor of speech, at the Lawrence Unitarian Fellowship.)
Reflecting more generally about what could be done for the best students at the best places to encourage more to become "reasonable adventurers," I have become convinced that what is happening now to some of the most gifted young is that they are pushed and encouraged from a very early age to play from strength rather than weakness. If they exhibit a mathematical or scientific aptitude in the eighth grade, they are moved ahead very fast in this field. As they enter college, their teachers look upon them as potential recruits for the graduate school. Our best colleges are becoming preprofessional and proto-graduate, even if they still regard themselves as liberal arts colleges. And the students never get a chance to explore their full selves.—David Riesman
America has a great advantage over the Communist countries in the kind of system we have, if we will only exploit the advantage. One of the sources of strength of education in a free country is that it can encourage independence and originality of thought. Unfortunately our public school system in some areas often fails in this respect. Teaching tends to be dull, dry and stereotyped. There is a tendency to avoid "controversial issues," to teach what is "safe" and generally accepted—Justice William O. Douglas