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University Daily Kansan
Friday, May 18, 1962
The Seating Plan
The All Student Council, at its meeting Tuesday, officially approved three changes in the operation of the football seating plan. These changes include the random selection of seats instead of the first-come first-served principle used last year, the placing of a 25-seat limit on blocks and the elimination of single game tickets.
Although these three changes should help correct some of the problems which showed up last fall, there is another problem which as yet seems to have received no attention from the ASC athletic seating committee.
This problem is that of enforcement of the reserved seating plan. One of the most important benefits from the plan theoretically was the elimination of the need to arrive at the Stadium several hours before game time in order to get a good seat.
AS IT TURNED OUT, however, students who arrived later than thirty minutes before game time found their seats already taken. This was especially evident in sections where blocks consisted of only two or four seats, and probably was not such a problem in areas occupied by large Greek blocks, where seats were freely traded within blocks.
The problem arose because nobody seemed to have the authority to enforce the reserved seating. At one game, a student and his wife were observed arriving about fifteen minutes before game time. They found their reserved seats at the 45-yard line already had been taken. Unable
to obtain their seats, they summoned a Pinkerton guard, who made several half-hearted attempts to persuade the offenders to give the seats to the rightful owners. He was unsuccessful and left with the comment that there was nothing he could do.
THE COUPLE, of course, were forced to take seats which were much less desirable than those which they were entitled to have.
This was not an isolated incident; it occurred in the same general area at several games. Similar experiences occurred in other sections, according to reports.
A member of the ASC athletic seating committee has said that the Pinkerton guards have authority to enforce the reserved seating plan. A number of incidents last fall, however, indicate that neither the guards nor the audience understand this fact.
Although the seating plan was opposed by many students when it was first proposed, many of its former opponents will agree now that it has worked better than expected. The faults which showed up last Fall can be excused because it was the first year the plan was in operation.
The changes by the ASC are attempts to correct some of these faults. The problem of enforcement, however, also hurt the smooth and fair operation of the plan and should be looked into by the ASC athletic seating committee.
Clayton Keller
THREE PLAYS, by Horton Foote. Harvest (Harcourt, Brace), $1.45.
FOUR CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN PLAYS, edited by Bennett Cerf. Vintage (Random House). $1.45.
There is a kind of poetic magic in the television plays of Horton Foote. Dramatic purists might hoot at the idea of giving serious consideration to these dramas, but it might be argued that they rate quite well alongside other contemporary literature.
And that includes the contemporary literature Bennett Cerf has assembled in his Vintage volume—Paddy Chayefsky's "The Tenth Man," Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun," Lillian Hellman's "Toys in the Attic," and Saul Levitt's "The Andersonville Trial." Some of us look back with nostalgic fondness on the era of mood pieces done for television by Robert Alan Aurthur, Horton Foote, Chayefsky, Rod Sterling and so on. This was the "theatre" of many Americans.
Foote's "Roots in a Parched Ground" compares favorably with Agee's "A Death in the Family" and McCullers' "The Member of the Wedding" as a story of growing awareness in childhood. As for Foote's "Old Man" and "Tomorrow," the first is a splendid interpretation of Faulkner's convict-in-the-flood chapters from "The Wild Palms," and the second is also from Faulkner, a warm and lovely story of the stern folks of Frenchman's Bend, Miss.
Now, as to the plays in the Cerf volume, "The Tenth Man" is an engrossing and beautifully done story of a dybbuk in 20th century New York, "A Raisin in the Sun" is a winning story of very real people looking for a way out of their slum-home-prison, "Toys in the Attic" is a powerful but in a sense thin story of incest and emotional cannibalism in a southern family (old stuff for Hellman), and "The Andersonville Trial" is a grim and well-done story of the trial of Henry Wirz. These suffer by comparison with some drama of recent years, but by and large they make for good reading.—CMP
From the Magazine Rack
Celtic Twilight-A Study in Censorship
Ireland—Eire—is a land of paradoxes, of course; but with regard to book banning, the situation is more than merely paradoxical—it is ludicrously inconsistent, if not downright pernicious. These are strong words, but I believe the attitude of the Irish Censorship Board justifies such epithets. My own introduction to the Irish censors occurred last summer when I visited Dublin for several days. Across the road from Trinity College is a large bookstore, and when I entered it I saw a large notice to the effect that from time to time banned books might inadvertently appear on the shelves, and that customers should kindly draw the staff's attention to such items so that they could be promptly removed and destroyed.
I WONDERED vaguely what sort of banned books they had in mind—visions of De Sade, Harris, Miller, and the Olympia Press floated through my mind—but when I asked if these were the sort of items that were not de rigueur, the assistant chuckled and showed me several issues of the official Register of Prohibited Publications.
A quick glance through these remarkable publications convinced me that an Irishman could never acquire (at any rate by purchase) first-hand knowledge of modern English, American, and even Irish literature. I made haste to obtain copies of these terrifying lists from the Irish Stationery Office for more leisurely and detailed study, lest this initial unfavorable impression was erroneous. Alas, my surmise proved to be only too accurate. Here are a few of the forbidden works (in several cases only a representative work is mentioned, so things are even worse, if possible, than the list suggests):
André Gide* "If it Die"
Sinclair Lewis* "Cass Timberlane"
"Ann Vickers"
Pearl Buck* "The Patriot"
E. Hemingway* "The Sun Also Rises"
"Flesta"
Wm. Faulkner* "The Sound and the Fury"
"Sanctuary"
"As I Lay Dying"
P. F. Lagerkvist* "The Dwarf"
"The Marriage Feast and other stories"
George Orwell "Nineteen Eighty-"
John Steinbeck "East of Eden"
"Tortilla Flat"
Norman Mailer "The Naked and the Dead"
James T. Farrell "Studs Lonigan"
Truman Carroll "The Grass Harp"
J. D. Salinger "The Catcher in the Rye"
Tenn. Williams "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"
Kingsley Amis "Lucky Jim"
"The Uncertain Feeling"
James Jones "From Here to Eternity"
Francoise Sagan "Bonjour Tristesse"
"A Certain Smile"
Lin Yufang "Famous Chinese Short Stories"
W. S. Maugham "Far and Wide (9 Novels; vol. 1)
"Far and Wide (9 Novels; vol. 2)
Iris Murdoch "The Flight From the Enchanter"
Aldous Huxley "Authe Haze"
"Ape and Essence"
Joyce Cary "The Horse's Mouth"
John Dos Passos "Nineteen Nineteen"
Richt Aldington "Death of a Hero"
Robt. P. Warren "All the King's Men"
"At Heaven's Gate"
Margaret Mead "Growing up in New Guinea"
Male and Female
Angus Wilson "Hemlock and After"
James G. Cozzens "By Love Possessed"
Bernard De Voto "Mountain Time"
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald "Tender is the Night"
Emile Zola "Therea"
"Earth"
"Restless House"
"The Kill"
Shalom Asch "The Mother"
Erich Maria Remarque "Three Comrades"
Jean-Paul Sartre "Intimacy and other stories"
André Maurois "Lella, the Life of George Sands"
- All of these writers have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, but this obviously did not influence the Censorship Board.
Lesser writers of the realistic school have a hard time in Ireland, and just about every novel of Erskine Caldwell is on the banned list. Georges Simenon is similarly a favorite target, and the fates of lesser mortals such as Mickey Spillane, James Hadley Chase, and many, many more are also sealed by the censors.
IN ALL FAIRNESS, with regard to Spillane and Chase and others of the same general type, perhaps the Board is on reasonably solid ground. There are some other decisions for which one could find it in one's heart to forgive the Censor-ship Board, for example, the banning of Grace Metallious "Pevton Place" and Hedda Hopper's "Under My Hat." I personally would miss neither. More serious bannings, however, include Samuel Beckett's "Molloy," several novels of Colette,
So the list goes, volume after volume, page after page, of what one can only called inspired stupidity.
most of Henry Miller's works (perhaps understandable), D. H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterly's Lover" (perhaps even more understandable), Edmund Wilson's "Memoirs of Hecate County" (still banned, incidentally, in New York state), and several of Alberto Moravia's novels.
The Censorship Board cannot be accused of showing a chauvinistic preference for the works of Irishmen — Oliver St. John Gogarty's "Mr. Petunia" and "Going Native" are banned and so are Sean O'Faolain's "Midsummer Night Madness" and Brendan Behan's "Borstal Boy." Curiously enough, I could not find James Joyce's "Ulysses" on the banned list, and I had the impression that it could actually be bought in Dublin, so obviously some hope remains for the future.
WHENCE COME the mighty powers of the Censorship Board? What criteria do they employ in arriving at their, to say the least of it, odd decisions? The powers of the Board are laid down in the Censorship of Publications Act, 1929, and, more important, in a similarly named Act, 1946: "to make further and better (!) provision for the Censorship of Books and Periodical Publications." Section 2, subsection 1, of the 1946 Act states that "there shall be a Censorship of Publications Board consisting of five persons."
In regard to the powers of this Board, Section 6, subsection 1, of the same Act states that "the Censorship Board shall examine every book duly referred to them by an officer of customs and excise and every book in respect of which a complaint is made to them in the prescribed manner by any other person and may examine any book on their own initiative." Subsection 2 of this same Section is of particular interest:
When examining a book under this section, the Censorship Board shall have regard to the following matters:
a the literary, artistic, scientific,
or historic merit or importance,
and the general tenor of the book:
b the language in which it is written:
c. the nature and extent of the circulation which, in their opinion, it is likely to have;
d. the class of reader which, in their opinion, may reasonably be expected to read it;
e. any other matter relating to
the book which appears to them to be relevant
them to be relevant.
Finally, Section 7 of the 1946 Act states:
If the Censorship Board, having duly examined a book, are of opinion
a. that it is indecent or obscene,
or
b. that it advocates the unnatural prevention of conception or the procurement of abortion or miscarriage or the use of any method, treatment or appliance for the purpose of such prevention or procurement.
and that for any of the said reasons its sale and distribution in the State should be prohibited, they shall by order prohibit such sale and distribution.
ONE CAN APPEAL against the banning of a book, as the 1946 Act provides that there shall be a five-member Appeal Board, consisting of a judge (or lawyer) as chairman and "four ordinary members." The Appeal Board is thought to be slightly more liberal than the Censorship of Publication Board, and from time to time appeals may indeed be successful. It is possible,
therefore, that one or two of the above titles may now be available, but the situation is still not a desirable one and is essentially as stated.
So there it is; and one could, of course, discuss the interpretation of this Act **act nauseam**. Suffice it to say that the list already given of important contemporary literature currently banned in Ireland suggests that "the literary, artistic scientific or historic merit or importance, and the general tenor of, the book" have received scant attention during the Board's deliberations, and that if Ireland is to be worthy of her great literary heritage a more liberal attitude toward book censorship is not only desirable — it is obligatory. Meantime, we in the United States should give thanks for such literary freedom as we now enjoy, and be ever alert lest we be enveloped in the equivalent of Ireland's dreary Celtic twilight of unreasonable and unwarrantable literary censorship.
(Excerpted from an article by L. R. C. Agnew, professor and chairman of the department of the History of Medicine at KU, which appeared in the March 1962 Kansas Business Review)
Daily Hansan
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, trineweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912 Telephone VIking 3-2700 Extension 711, news room Extensions 726, business office
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