University Daily Kansan
Mondav. Nov. 11, 1957
Decoration Daze
Homecoming is fast approaching and soon the active members of the fraternities will be entering into what started out as a pledge class project: the building of a gigantic, moving, boiling, howling, go-getting, homecoming display in front of their houses.
Hundreds of dollars will pour out of the coffers of the organized houses to build these tributes to the death of the Missouri Tigers as the KU Jayhawk jumps up and down on his battered head.
Yet committees of fiends, sadists, propagandists and optimists will devise new methods of torturing him.
That poor Tiger is probably just beginning to recover from all the frying, boiling, popping and just plain cooking that it received in KU pots just two years ago.
Already professors have been warned that Friday before homecoming would be a bad day to
schedule exams, since no one will be there, or if they do come they will sleep through class after being up all night in the freezing-cold night air to finish their Homecoming contributions.
There'll be anxious moments before the deadline, as the moving parts receive their first test and grind half the display up before someone turns the motor off.
Then finally the hour has arrived, the deadline has been reached, pledges collapse, actives smile proudly thinking how they helped by holding the stepladder, then all wander off to celebrate. Phonograph players are wound up. Public address systems blare music, screams and KU victory songs to the unsuspecting passerby. The displays begin their spasmodic, halting movements whether operated by pledges or an erratic motor that refuses to co-operate.
If the thing actually works and the house is lucky,the members might even get a trophy.
Letters To The Editor
. . .
Critic Critique
With the publication of Evelyr Hall's recent editorial criticizing the use of professional talent in the University Theatre's production, we felt that the editorial page of The Daily Kansan had reached the final pinnacle of inanity. But we were wrong. Upon reading W. Duke Howze's letter "refuting" Miss Hall's statements, we realized that a new track record for vapid writing had been set.
We were pleased to hear that Jerome Kilty had been hired to play Falstaff in Henry IV. The University Theatre has finally taken a step in the right direction, after more than two years of unreelled mistakes. It is a faltering step, to be sure, and will not be intelligently carried out, but it is enough to lift our sagging hopes that good theater may eventually come to KU.
Mr. Howze's answering letter imuises us. He asserts that there are 70 people watching him rehearse each evening. It does not surprise
us that there are actually 70 people in the cast, University Theatre director Lewin Goff, master of theatrical irrelevance, is noted for his super-sized casts (the cheaper-by-the-dozen theory, we assume). But, unless theater discipline has suddenly appeared at KU after years of absence, most of those 70 people will be out on the fire escape necking or otherwise engaged, and not watching Mr. Howze, much as he would like to have them watch.
Miss Hall believes that having to take secondary roles in deference to hired professionals is injurious to the kiddies in drama and music. She is wrong. The use of professionals in student productions is standard policy for most professional music and dramatic schools. Theoretically, KU maintains professional music and drama schools. (At least, the University Theatre insists that it wants to be judged on professional standards.)
The Howze tongue could not have been far from the Howze cheek when he wrote that the actual performance "is only a small fraction of the total acting experience." Mr. Howze is an actor, or considers himself such, and has his inherent portion of ham, he loves his own voice. Or, perhaps Mr. Howze is studying to be a professional understudy.
He questions Miss Hall's qualifications as a critic of the University Theatre because she is not an actress. By this token no journalist should be allowed to criticize the policies of President Eisenhower, because none of them has ever been president.
George Edwards Kansas City, Kan. graduate student
Need Spirit
Editors:
Wednesday an intramural football game getween the Lawyers' Jim Beam team and the Engineers' Chicken Pickers occasioned more spirit from both spectators and players than I have seen on campus
this week for the much more important KU-K-State varsity game.
Some people lost their tempers, true; primarily because both teams and their rooters had enough interest in the game to want to win. Neither team nor its fans had any interest in hornonking parades promoting an LMOC.
A coach got fired. One of the reasons was his inability to overcome the apathy which has infected this campus. To become the University of Chicago of the West is, I suppose, a fine idea. However, I don't believe the student body is quite up to it.
If we're going to have a football team, and expect that team to play like anything more than a bunch of paid performers, perhaps at least a small proportion of the energy that has gone into LMOC and Student Union Carnival campaigns could conceivably be channeled off in the direction of Saturday's football game.
Eleven men playing for their own personal pride alone are not nearly so strong as one team playing for a desired goal. As proof of this, I give you Oklahoma. Responsibility for this attitude must be equally shared by the student body; the team, and the administration.
C. E. Cornell
Mission 2nd year Law
We see that the ASC is considering a program to increase awareness of foreign affairs. First they should acquaint the student body with the ASC.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
By Dick Bibler
"PHGSST—DID OLE MUSCLE-MOUTH TAKE ROLL TOPAY?"
The first state university to admit women as well as men was the University of Utah, founded by Brigham Young, when it first opened in 1850.
Association Members and Daily Press Association.
Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 420 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y. News service: United Press. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $4.50 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. University toll-free phone number: 1-800-767-9260, as second-class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
1904, prizewsky 1908, dolly Jun. 16, 1821
Extension 251, news room
Extension 376, business office
Telephone VIking 3-2700
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Bob Lyle Managing Editor Marilyn Mermis, Jim Banman, Richard Brown, Ray Wingerson, Assistant Managing Editors; Bob Hartley, City Editor; Patricia Swanson, Lee Lord, Assistant City Editors; Leroy Zimmerman, Telegram Telegraph Editor; George Anthan, Malcolm Applegate, Sports Editors; Mary Beth Noyes, Society Editor; Martha Crosler, Assistant Society Editor.
A lot of people may conclude from the President's speech on Nov. 7 that, except for the moons and a few months' lag in ICBMs, we're ahead of the Russians militarily and scientifically.
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
U.S. No Long Shot
Harry Turner Business Manager
Kent Lefebvre Advertising Manager; Jere
George National Advertiser;
George Pester, Classified Advertising
Manager; Martha Billingsley, Assistant
Classified Advertising Manager; Ted
Schmidt, Advertising Manager; Steve
Schmidt, Promotion Manager
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
We don't believe that's true. The Russians aren't talking, but it's unlikely that they are leading in moonbuilding and dragging their feet everywhere else. Science doesn't work that way.
Editor's Note
Larry Boston ... Editorial Editor
John Del Hailey...Jim Sledd, Associate Editors.
There is a whole group of major scientific fields involved in satellite work: aerodynamics, propulsion systems, metallurgy, navigation and guidance systems, fuels, monitoring systems, and many more. We think we must assume the Russians lead us in most, if not all, of these fields. After all, they have two moons in the upper atmosphere. They didn't get them up there with sleight-of-hand.
They may not lead by much; we are to launch moons in a few months. But the effect is cumulative; a break-through in a new field of science leads to other rapid advances, and an initial difference of months may mean an advance of years in the next great stage of development. The next stage in this case is the moon; the real moon.
Now this doesn't mean we must throw up our hands in despair and ask for peace terms with the Russians. It means the U.S. must step up its work in those fields if we are to remain on even terms with Russia.
Right now, if the bookmakers on Broadway are giving odds on the Moon Derby, they must have the Russians backed down to pretty short odds.
-Alan Jones
Some confusion resulted from a picture published in Friday's Kansas showing Sen. John Kennedy autographing a student's book. The picture was placed intentionally, for purposes of makeup, above an editorial headline entitled, "Jerks Of The Week."
Unfortunately, a line separating the picture and the editorial was not seen by some readers. The editors of The Kansan wish to make clear that they did not intend to label Sen. Kennedy and the young lady as "jerks."
WE CAN RECORD ANYTHING! The IMPOSSIBLE Takes A Little Longer
Make arrangements early for sound effects for your Homecoming displays. We also have P.A. systems to rent.
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