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University Daily Kansan Monday, May 19, 1958
KU Humor Survives Notorious Past
WOW!- Ronald Miller, Kansas City, Mo. junior, looks at a campus humor magazine, which is one of many that have appeared on the KU campus. The magazines come and go with their financial and censorship difficulties, but the University has hardly ever been lacking one. (Daily Kansan photo)
Men Tip Scales With More Force
Men! Thoughts of final week getting you down? The little girl friend seem over-domineering these days? If anything is bothering you at all, you can take consolation in the fact that your gender in general have been getting taller and heavier over the past 25 years.
E. R. Elbel, professor of physical education, and Jerome Barland, Beloit graduate student, are now working on a study that will shed a little light on just how the growth of man today is different from the man 25 years ago.
Prof. Elbel are said statistics show students are 16 pounds heavier and 1.72 inches taller on the average than students in 1898.
Prof, Elbel said each of these factors has changed in man except the ability to expand the chest.
The studies have included six factors; height, weight, chest expansion, chest contraction, waist, and the difference between chest expanded and contracted.
Some of the reasons given for this growth include:
1. A greater cross-section of the population lives longer.
2. The nutrition of the student is much improved over what is used to be.
3. In 1808 it wasn't necessary for the large man to go to college since he could easily get work at jobs where manual labor was necessary. Thus the students at college were only those who were too small for manual labor.
4. There are better health and living conditions now than there were in 1898.
Another figure emphasizing the growth of man in the last 50 years is that in a period from 1907 to 1912 less than five per cent of the 18-year-old students entering the University were six feet tall or taller.
In a period from 1948 to 1952, over 25 per cent of the 18-year-old students entering school were six feet tall or over.
The study program at KU is unusual in that it is one of the few that divide the entering students into groups of 18, 19, 20, 21 age groups.
The study data comes from information the Student Health Service receives when the student enters KU.
Prof. Elbel said those taking the most interest in the study of the changes in man are groups such as the Association of American Men's Wear, the Bureau of Standards, Sears Roebuck and Co, and Montgomery Ward.
He said that such firms as these are very interested in getting the latest trends on how man is developing.
Gives Union Color TV Sets
Frank R. Burge, Union director and Mrs. Kathryn Carr Giele, Student Union Activities director, accepted the gifts from Bryan Putman, Hallmark's Kansas City, M.public relations representative and Bob Payne, manager of the new Lawrence Hallmark factory.
Color TV has come to the Kansas Union to stay. Officials of Hallmark Cards, the company that loaned sets to the Union six times this year, made a gift of two 21 inch colored sets.
One new set is in the Music and Browsing Room. Mr. Burge said the other one would probably be installed in the main lounge. When the Union is expanded both sets will be in the enlarged Music Room.
Six live plays including "Green Pastures" and "Dial M for Murder" were shown at the Union on five color TV sets loaned by Hallmark.
Educator Picked For Ike's Science Group
Herbert A. Smith, professor of education has been appointed to President Eisenhower's Committee on Scientists and Engineers, which is organized to find effective methods to use in educating more scientists and engineers.
There was a little furor over Squat magazine this spring when the All Student Council objected to the magazine's content, but Squat's troubles were minor when compared with the tribulations of KU humor magazines over the years.
The whole process apparently started in 1914, when the first issue of the Sour Owl was presented. The magazine had been prepared secretly in The Daily Kansan office by night, and took its name from the "owl" type-setters.
The Owl Publishing Co. later gained sanction as the Sour Owl representative committee, and in the spring of 1924, Sigma Delta Chi, professional journalistic fraternity, was given command of the magazine,
Prof. Smith will attend the committee's 10th meeting since organized May 28 in Washington, D.C. at the National Science Foundation.
The Sour Owl rolled along, and in 1924 a part of the magazine was used in a national newsreel shown in 3.000 theatres. In 1925, The Daily Kansan reported that "motion picture interests are seeking exclusive film rights" to the Sour Owl.
With SDX members in service in 1944, the ASC (composed largely of college women in those man-starved years) decided to resume publication.
An issue was published in November 1944, and was banned from the U.S. mail after a postal investigation. The University administration stepped in, and loud letters of protest against the magazine appeared in The Daily Kansan.
Chancellor Deane Malott notified the Sour Owl staff that no staff member listed on the title page "shall participate in any further activity or hold any office whatever, or any employment, in any student activity or any department of the University."
Bitter Bird Appears
The Sour Owl disappeared after its abortive attempt of 1944, and another publication, the Bitter Bird, came into existence. The Bird had troubles, too, but mostly of another nature.
In 1947, an investigation of the Bird's finances was made, and it developed that the editor owed $500 to the printers and $204 in other debts.
Since the unpaid bills were charged to the editor rather than the magazine, the ASC permitted the Bird to continue publication under new managemet, but the Bird was on trial again in 1949.
The ASC Publications Committee took up the cudgel on a complaint by the Associated Women's Senate—on the grounds the AWS "does not believe the questionable material represents the type of humor desired by students in a campus magazine."
It was only a matter of time until the axe fell, and fall it did in 1950. The dean of men and the dean of women joined in requesting the Bitter Bird to discontinue publication
Meanwhile, the competition was getting fierce. The Sour Owl had resumed publication in 1948 amid cheers of the populace. The Daily
Kansas reported the Owl "started
online like examination crib notes."
Bird Gets Axe
"Two years' experience has indicated to us that there is a place on the campus for only one humor magazine," the deans said.
With administration sanction and the competition out of the way, it seemed the Sour Owl would go on forever, but it was not to be.
In 1955 Squat magazine rose up as a new competitor.
In May, 1956, the last issue of
should be examined today. Call for appointment. Any lens or Prescription duplicated
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1025 Mass. VI 3-2966
Sour Owl was published. It wasn't planned as a swan song, but the material was such that both Sigma Delta Chi and the Sour Owl staff wrote apologies to Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy, the University, and all individuals concerned.
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