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University Daily Kansan
Friday. March 14, 1958
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Experience Not Needed
The All Student Council is wrong—dead wrong—in voting the rule that student body presidential candidates must come from within the ranks of the ASC.
Those candidates are too few, and the reasoning some of them used in voting themselves into such a position is fuzzy, to say the least.
The student body president needs political experience, ASC members say, in order to satisfactorily carry out the duties of his office. The only way to get that experience is by serving a term on the Council. Hogwash.
If some freshman with no more political experience than that of voting in a high school election has enough ambition, enough courage, enough leadership—and enough votes—to stage a winning campaign, then he should be our next student body president. And if an ASC member, with all these assets, plus his invaluable "experience," can beat out the freshman, then he ought to get the job.
But the voters, bless their inexperienced democratic souls, should be allowed to make the choice.
Larry Boston
It Was Truly Professional
We have hinted from time to time that judging a college theater performance by professional standards was not possible. We said that in a college production one must consider the fact that the students are merely in a process of learning and that to criticize them as we would have to criticize professionals would be unkind. We were apparently wrong.
We could hear the hammering of the clean-up crew already striking the sets. It was sad to think that such a sparkling, almost faultless production had now breathed its last sigh.
It was not until after we had met the cast of "The Saint of Bleecker Street," and were on our way out of the Music and Dramatic Arts Building, that we realized a truly professional performance had drawn to a close.
We have in the past criticized the use of professional actors and actresses on the grounds that
they seemed to take leading roles away from the students, and that they were much too expensive.
It is our opinion that Miss Copeland, the guest star, added a great deal more than her mere physical ability to "The Saint of Bleecker Street." She was apparently able to inspire the rest of the student cast.
"The Saint of Bleecker Street" has been reviewed and to attempt it again would be to second the applause of those who have already praised it to the skies.
With the money spent to purchase Miss Copeland's talents, we are not now concerned. The production far transcended the realm of monetary values.
Congratulations "to the man to whom more than the lion's share of praise must go," Lewin Goff, director of the University Theatre.
Evelyn Hall
Letters To The Editor
Eligibility
In view of the letter under the signature of Bill Wilson which appeared in last Monday's Daily Kansas and of the editorial which appeared on Tuesday, I believe that further light should be shed on the issue of eligibility for student body offices. Both of these items presented a rather one-sided version of this issue.
The current eligibility requirements state that candidates for the offices of student body president and vice-president must have served on the ASC previously. This is a requirement which has been in effect for quite a number of years here at KU. It has been a part of our constitution since 1943 when the Men's Council and the Women's Council were combined.
Several strong points may be advanced in favor of the eligibility requirement as it now stands. Some students are continually complaining that our student government is weak and ineffective. Part of that weakness can be traced to inexperience on the part of those participating in certain capacities. I feel that it might correctly be stated that the effectiveness of student government is directly proportional to the experience of its members.
Why then is there suddenly such a clamor to do away with this requirement? It would appear that one of the campus political parties feels that the constitution should be revised to fit its own particular political situation. Constitutions are not written to be changed as the political situations may dictate from year to year. They are intended to prevail regardless of political developments which may occur from time to time.
This measurement of effectiveness can well be carried over into the area of the student body officers. The office of student body president can easily be considered a fifteen to twenty hour a week job. Considerable enthusiasm for the type of work involved must be possessed by the person who holds this position, enthusiasm which is not acquired on the spur of the moment, but is built up over a period of time through working in student government.
The point was made in Monday's letter that the President of the United States and the governor of Kansas are not required to have served on legislative bodies. This is true, but Kansas University is not the United States or the state of Kansas. We have a problem of student government that is peculiar only to our University. In any event, I seriously doubt that any man who has ever held either one of these positions has not had considerable administrative experience of one type or another.
If no qualifications are placed on the student body offices, political parties may be controlled by the same motives in selecting candidates for the ASC. In short, student body elections might deteriorate into nothing more than popularity contests.
The national political parties realize that it would be political suicide to run a man who has not had such experience. Past political history on our campus has proven that our political parties have not always run qualified people for student government positions. Instead, they often run inexperienced, even disinterested persons in the hope that they may add their living groups' support to the party. An example of such a political maneuver as this can be cited on the 1956-57 ASC, when an individual was elected and then failed to attend a single meeting.
The president of Vox Populi was a member of the committee which I appointed to study this eligibility question. In the committee deliberations he agreed with the merit of service on the ASC as an eligibility for student body president. However, he added that politically speaking he could not go along with the requirement and, should he have difficulty obtaining a desirable, eligible candidate, he would have to oppose this requirement. This, in a nut shell, seems to be the primary cause for the sudden opposition to the eligibility restriction.
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Daily transan
Misleading
John Husar's task is to inform people, who could not attend the performance, about what was going on, and to tell the people who made the production what kind of impression they made on the audience. John did a poor job in both respects.
Bob Billings Student body president
University of Kansas student newspaper
1904, February 7, 1908, daily, 16, 1972
friary 1908, daily, 16, 1972
It seems to be a permanent attitude of The Daily Kansan reviewer John Husar to "pull out all stops." He proved it not only in his former reviews on KU theatre productions, but unfortunately also in his review of Menotti's beautiful "Saint of Bleecker Street."
Telephone VIkling 3-2700
Extension 251 news room
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Memorandum Date
Associated Collegiate Press. Represented
by National Advertising Service
service. United Press. Mail subscription
Editor:
rates; $3 a semester or $4.50 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every after graduation. Saturdays and Sundays. University holidays, and examination periods. Entered as second-class matter Sept. 17, 1910. at the post office under act of March 3, 1879.
I feel that political interests are entirely responsible for the present attempts to change the eligibility requirements, and in the interest of a good and improving student government. I hope that the student body will realize the necessity of retaining this eligibility requirement which has been in effect for so many years.
Management Editor
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Del Halo
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Dick Brasel
Extension 251. news room
Bob Billings
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Ted Winkler Business Manager
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Del Haley Editorial Editor
Instead of writing about the opera itself and the characteristics of the production he gives a description of his own, sometimes rather strange feelings. Who, for heaven's sake, cares if Carmela "captured the reviewer's heart?" There were more important things to be said about Bonnie Dinsmore. Husar's reviews suffer from a lack of insight, and he obviously tries to replace understanding by striking words, which don't mean anything in regard to the opera. How can he for instance describe Miss Copeland's excellent singing by the horrible sentence: "She emphasizes her words, her voice and the orchestra (by the way, how does a singer emphasize an orchestra?) at precisely the right times," and her marvelous play by the clumsy phrase: "When she sang of God, her body went to heaven." And how can he put into print that "scrubby-faced Assunta ... was played with the charm of a Kansas sunrise"? Where is any relation between the ardently praying woman and a pretty Kansas sunrise?
One could make a list of John's misleading formulations almost as long as his whole article. I shall not set up this list. I think instead, I shall go to hear the "Saint of Bleecker Street" a second time.
Wolfgang Schonpflug
Heidelberg, Germany Graduate Student
(Editor's note - Many people have been complimentary about Husar's review.)
Quotes From The News
MOSCOW—Soviet party boss Nikita Khrushchev calling for direct summit talks:
"We tear diplomatic channels could turn into channels for endless correspondence and endless negotiations."
MARLBORO, Mass. — John F.
Francis, principal of Marlboro High
School, challenging the Daughters of the American Revolution for refusing to give a good citizenship award to Ilse Naujoks because she was a refugee:
"Ile is a good citizen of Marlboro High School. That's one of our functions here, to make good citizens and if we can't do that we might as well close our doors."
FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE
So let us today make a scientific survey of the two principal causes of marriage-personality need and propinquity.
The first thought that comes into our minds upon entering college is, of course, marriage. But how many of us go about seeking mates, as I like to call them, in a truly scientific manner? Not many, you may be sure.
Personality need means that we choose mates because they possess certain qualities that complete and fulfill our own personalities. Take, for example, the case of Alanson Duck.
As a freshman Alanson made a fine scholastic record, played varsity scrabble, and was president of his class. One would think that Alanson was a totally fulfilled man. But he was not. There was something lacking in his life, something vague and indefinable that was needed to make his personality complete.
Then one day Alanson discovered what it was. As he was walking out of his class in Flemish pottery, a fetching coed named Grace Ek offered him a handsome red and white pack and said, "Marlboro?"
"Yes!" he cried, for all at once he knew what he had been needing to round out his personality—the hearty fulfillment of Marlboro Cigarettes, the soul-repairing mildness of their fine tobacco, the easy draw of their unparalleled filter, the ease and convenience of their crushproof flip-top box. "Yes, I will take a Marlboro!" cried Alanson. "And I will also take you to wife if you will have me!"
"La!" she exclaimed, throwing her apron over her face. But after a while she removed it and they were married. Today they live happily in Baffin Land where Alanson is with an otter-glazing firm and Grace is a bookie.
Propinquity, the second principal cause of marriage, simply means closeness. Put a boy and a girl close together for a sustained period of time and their proximity will certainly ripen into love and their love into marriage. A perfect example is the case of Fafnir Sigafoos.
While a freshman at Louisiana State University, Fafnir was required to crawl through the Big Inch pipeline as part of his fraternity initiation. He entered the pipe at Baton Rouge and, alone and joyless, he proceeded to crawl north.
As he passed Lafayette, Indiana, he was agreeably surprised to be joined by a comely girl named Mary Alice Isinglass, a Purdue freshman, who, oddly enough, had to crawl through the Big Inch as part of her sorority initiation.
Chatting amiably as they crawled through Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York State, Fafnir and Mary Alice discovered they had much in common—like a mutual affection for licorice, bobsledding, and the nonsense verse of Arnold Toynbee. When they reached the Vermont border they were going steady, and when they emerged from the pipe at Boothbay Harbor, Maine, they were engaged.
After a good hot bath they were married and today they live in Klamath Falls, Oregon, where Fafnir is in the weights and measures department and Mary Alice is in the roofing game. They have three children, all named Norman. © 1958 Max Shulman
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Propinquity is sure to mean love when you put yourself close to a pack of Marlboros, made for your pleasure by the sponsors of this column.