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Summer Session Kansan Tuesday. June 26, 1962
For a Progressive KU
Whenever the Board of Regents announces that a new building will be erected and an old one destroyed, there are usually several stirring editorials to the effect that it is a shame to replace such an established landmark on the KU campus.
This is ridiculous, and the Board of Regents and the state of Kansas are to be commended for modernizing KU and replacing outdated, useless buildings with newer ones that can better accommodate the rising enrollment.
THE FIRST tide of nostalgia came with the announcement that Fraser Hall would be razed and replaced. The latest wave is the announcement that Robinson Hall will be replaced and a new physical education building built across from Allen Field House.
TO BE CONVINCED that Fraser Hall should be torn down all one has to do is just take a quick 10c tour of the building. The stairs creak so badly that one questions whether he will make it to the next landing without the building collapsing. Faculty members are crowded into the office space available and there is more office space needed.
It is true that Fraser Hall is a landmark. Fraser, with its two flags flying, the American and the KU, has represented the University in pictures and on book covers. So, to pacify the sentimentalists, flags will be flown atop the new building.
And for Robinson Hall it's as bad or worse. The facilities are so limited that the KU intramural program is put to shame compared with other Big Eight schools. Walter Mikols is doing
a fine job as are other members in the physical education department, but better facilities are needed desperately.
The move by the Regents was a surprise one to some extent. It was expected that the new physical education building would be one of the last buildings to be built in the KU "Master Plan."
A PLAN that students contribute for the new building was introduced in order for KU to speed up the process of modernizing a campus.
When an automobile no longer works adequately and is run-down a person thinks nothing of trading it for a new, shiny, well-equipped model. There is no nostalgia at all in parting with the "old heap." Why then is there so much concern when the administration and the state appropriate money for a "new, shiny, well-equipped model."
The University of Kansas has an excellent administration and faculty, and many modern well-equipped buildings. There are, however, many improvements in facilities that can and will be made. Among these improvements are Fraser Hall and Robinson Hall.
KU MUST move forward.
The first time we ever heard Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe speak he used a quotation that has stuck with us. He quoted Satchel Paige (which he referred to as "that famous philosopher") who said "Don't look back, something may be gaining on you."
KU must look to the future and not look back at the past with its nostalgia and traditions.
Steve Clark
Guest Editorial
The Study of Man
Bv Blaine King
The proper study of man, someone once maintained, is man. His point was well-taken, but we submit that a study of woman by man, and vice-versa, is much more enjoyable, and, unless society's values have changed radically since we went home after spring semester, is really pretty much accepted behavior. Such study is even guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence — life, liberty, and pursuit.
But, last Saturday night the Student Union was faintly reminiscent of a mausoleum, one famous KU oasis looked more like the Mojave, and another was filled with people long past their college years. This leads to four alternatives: 1, Kansas City business is better than Wall Street says; 2, private parties abound; 3, couples are not doing in public whatever they are doing; or 4, more people are sitting at home than at any time since WW II, when everything in long pants was over-seas.
Now assuming that the last situation is the prevalent one, who is at fault? Traditionally, the male of the species makes the first move towards establishing mutual study conditions, and this is as it should be.
The egotistical male could never stand the shock of discovering that he is indeed the hunted and not the hunter. But sometimes the male finds himself handicapped. He may not know the name of some particularly delectable quarry; he cannot, then, call her. And it is considered a social faux pas of the highest order to call Corbin and blandly say to whoever answers, "Hi. Want to go dancing?" We know. We've tried.
Thwarted, our male prowls restlessly through the Union, four bars, three pizza places, and one drive-in. And then home he goes, growl-
mg, to a friendly six-pack and the latest issue of Playboy.
In the interest of sociological study, then, more men should get together with more women. (Unless, of course, the women prefer to sit at home and read.) And about the only way to assure the success of such a proposal is for the girls to migrate to one of those four bars or three pizza places so that when the restless male stalks through, he will meet something besides more restless males.
And you girls can more or less pick your own hunters. If you wear a skirt and blouse you are not likely to attract a hunter in baggy bermudas and a tee shirt. If you wear bermudas, you get bermudas.
Why then do women, who, it has been decided, are going to make themselves more available, almost invariably travel in packs? It can not be for protection. Women need protection against the male of the species about as much as an elephant does against a mouse. But the point is, the most advantageous number for hunting is two or less. Why do women persist in scaring the poor man to death?
Now on this next point we are completely mystified. Why is it that women, who can pick a poor man's mind at 30 paces, fail to realize one vital fact? Men are, in a very real sense, cowards. They will not attack superior forces. And men, independent brutes that they are, seldom travel in teams of more than two.
Worth Repeating
Let us, then, no longer sit at home like cloistered monks waiting for life to knock. Let us leave our cells and mingle in society for mutual study and consideration, in the hope that of our generation, history will say, "They studied rightly and well, and added immeasurably to the storehouse of human understanding."
The first and most important thing of all, at least for writers today, is to strip language clean, to lay it bare down to the bone. Ernest Hemingway
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If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it will lose that too.—Somerset Maugham
A Real War
"This," wrote Staff Sgt. Robert L. Gardner, "is a lonely, hot, dirty and filthy war over here. . .." He was writing to his 1941 high school classmates in Nashua, N.H., and he enclosed a small contribution to the annual class scholarship fund.
A few days later the killing of an American sergeant by Red guerrillas deep in the jungle of central Vietnam was announced from the United States military headquarters in Saigon. The parents of Sergeant Gardner learned the name of the victim the next day.
Yesterday the grim routine was repeated twice more: announcement of the killing in ambush of two United States Army officers, followed by notification of next of kin.
Officially, the United States is not at war. Sometimes this is called military training assistance. Sometimes it is called an anti-insurgency operation. But to the men involved in this disagreeable, frustrating and acutely hazardous mission, Sergeant Gardner's definition will do for all practical purposes. Six of our service men have been killed in action so far. They have died for their country as truly as though they had been engaged in a "real" war.-From the June 17 issue of the Baltimore Sun.
Short Ones
The historian, essentially, wants more documents than he can really use; the dramatist only wants more liberties than he can really take.-Henry James
Harry Truman once had a sage word of advice for statesmen and politicians who fretted under the stings of partisan criticism and the responsibilities of public office: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen and let someone else do the cooking."—William D. Patterson
SUMMER SESSION KANSAN
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Steve Clark and
Karl Koch ... Co-Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT Bonnie McCullough and Bill Woodburn, Co-Business Mgrs.
THE FINANCIER, by Theodore Dreiser. Dell Laurel, 95 cents.
Somewhere in the ranks of American interpretations of the rise of the robber barons this novel should stand high. "The Financier" is not as good a novel as either "An American Tragedy" or "Sister Carrie," but it is better than most Dreiser. To some this might sound like damning with faint praise. But this reader feels that buried in the murkiness and stilted writing of Theodore Dreiser are extraordinary power and insight.
"The Financier" is Frank Cowperwood, who rises to fame and fortune in traction dealings of post-Civil War Philadelphia. He was, then, like a good many others who were on the way up in the era of roughshod social Darwinism. Cowperwood is completely amoral. He is the great American brute, bound to rise to the top at the expense of all comers.
Considering the time in which the novel first appeared (1912), "The Financier" is shocking and explicit. Cowperwood's amours are bluntly stated. In these he is as casual as any animal. One always has the suspicion that Dreiser admires Cowperwood, and, considering the social compassion underlying most of Dreiser's writing, this is a troubling matter to consider—CMP
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UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Doubleday Dolphin Master. $1.45.
Why has this book endured? Why didn't it perish after it served its purpose in the 1850s? Why have its characters become American stereotypes—names known to thousands or perhaps millions who in all likelihood have never read the book?
It might be suggested that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" provided the stereotypes through the play version rather than through the novel. It also might be suggested that the novel is more than propaganda, that Mrs. Stowe created characters and situations who were able to rise above the absurd and sticky sentimentality of its time.
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A reading of the book much more than 100 years after it inflamed America reveals a rapidly moving plot, frequent editorial comment, considerable understanding of slavery as the special problem of the South (contrary to some assumptions, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is not anti-South), and a gallery of people who are likely to endure for another 100 years—Tom himself (and not the servile Tom who has become the symbol of fawning Negro subservience), the oh-so-good Eva, brave and lovely Eliza, the irrepressible Topsy, and that very representation of all that was evil in the slave system—Simon Legree. He is a monster right out of Gothic literature, as is his mysterious and blood-tainted plantation in the wilds of Louisiana—CMP
For "Uncle Tom's Cabin," besides being the great anti-slavery tract, was clearly in the tradition of 19th century sentimentality. But the tremendous feeling of compassion that is engendered throughout makes it more than wild melodrama.
This, in a sense, is too bad. A 20th century reader finds the remainder of Robinson Crusoe's travels through Europe, southeast Asia, and China and Siberia somewhat anticlimactic. This surely was not Defoe's intention, however. In 1719 (some years before the novel form really originated in England), it is likely that the story of Crusoe and Friday was to Defoe just part of the large and sweeping story.
As for "Moll Flanders," who was Defoe's other celebrated fictional creation, it is difficult to accept her story as a moralizing one. For Moll is a gay and gaudy gal, much like her 19th century counterpart, Becky Sharp. She has her troubles and she has her good times, and generally she is pretty philosophical about it all.
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ROBINSON CRUSOE, by Daniel Defoe. Doubleday Dolphin, $1.45.
MOLL FLANDERS, by Daniel Defoe. Doubleday Dolphin, 95 cents.
It seems incredible to report a first reading of "Robinson Crusoe," who must be one of the most celebrated fictional characters of all time. And it is startling to observe that Crusoe's stay on his fabled desert island is only half the concern of this great book.
One's imagination continues to be caught up by "Robinson Crusoe," even though he finds the incredibly detailed log of adventures somewhat monotonous at times. We can only admire, first, the ingenuity of this character and, second, the ingenuity of his brilliant creator (even assuming that Crusoe was created from life).
Her story is a true achievement in the tradition of the picaresque novel. It antedates (and may have inspired) "Tom Jones," who took his lumps as bravely and gaily as Moll takes hers. Moll tumbles in and out of beds and marriages with scarcely a qualm, yet she really isn't a bad one.
So this novel, too, is, like "Robinson Crusoe," still well worth reading in the sophisticated world of the 1960s. It is frequently funny, and it provides a good portrait of lower class (and occasionally upper class) society in the England and Virginia of late 17th century.-CMP
KIM, by Rudyard Kipling. Dell Laurel, 35 cents.
One either loves Kipling or, frankly, remains untouched by him. Kipling's "Kim" is, by reputation, a classic adventure story beloved by young and old alike. It is difficult to see how many young readers can be held by this puzzling tale. Reduced to elementary terms, it is exciting from a standpoint of plot. And the characterizations are good, as is the picture of teeming India of the 19th century.
But Kipling's style bogs down, and the allusions are mystical and over-literary and far too esoteric. One reads the novel with impatience, wondering why Kipling can't say things simply once in awhile.—CMP