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Summer Session Kansan
Tuesday, June 23, 1964
Tempest in the Ivy
A debate over academic freedom in Minnesota has begun to snowball following "extremist" statements by University of Minnesota political science professor Mulford Q. Sibley. Sibley's half-faceted suggestions to challenge the "monolithic, safe, middle orthodoxies" in American culture led to outbursts of anger from state legislators, the American Legion and a Republican backer of Senator Barry Goldwater running for re-election as St. Paul's public works commissioner.
A legislative inquiry into the University, which has been charged with condoning laxness and immorality, is under wav.
Sibley, who describes himself as a Norman Thomas socialist and a Quaker pacifist, set off the controversy last December when he wrote to the student newspaper in a half-jesting vein:
"PERSONALLY, I WOULD like to see on the campus one or two Communist professors, a student Communist club, a chapter of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, a Society for the Promotion of Free Love, a League for the Overthrow of the Government by Jeffersonian Violence, an Anti-Automation League and perhaps a nudist club. No university should be without individuals and groups like these."
Other complaints against Sibley allege that he does not accept the Virgin birth, is a socialist and an anarchist, a "close friend of Gus Hall" (general secretary of the Communist Party), a "tool of the Communists," and assigned books to his students resembling "Lady Chatterley and Her Love Affairs."
COMPLAINTS AGAINST the University itself ranged from criticism of "leftist" professors Sibley and Arnold Rose to a "filthy, indecent and immoral" short story in the campus literary magazine. A Republican State Senator has also attacked University president O. Meredith Wilson for apologizing to Premier Khrushchev when a Soviet flag outside a traveling medical exhibit was torn down. The American Legion has charged the University's Student Peace Union and its World Affairs Center with being Communist fronts.
In spite of this flurry of accusations, however, Gov. Karl Rolvaag and Lieut. Gov. A. M. Keith oppose the investigation. The chairman of the investigating committee has also pledged that the panel will not be used as a trial committee for Sibley.
THE MINNESOTA BRANCH of the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Association of University Professors, the Minnesota Board of Regents and the University's student body have gone on record against the investigation.
The MCLU resolution commended the Regents and the University for defending academic freedom, declaring that: "Any attack on the freedom of the students to consider ideas, even ideas unattractive to the majority of the community, is a denial of the primary purpose of education and an intolerable threat to the free society."
However, the Minnesota ACLU affiliate took sharp issue with the university when it banned a program of the Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative group, featuring a debate between Prof. Sibley and Peter Wheeler Reiss, a member of the John Birch Society. The university said that the debate could be interpreted "as a deliberate flaunting" of the state senate investigating committee.
THE UNIVERSITY'S student committee on student affairs expressed its approval of the meeting, but the university ban remained. The Minnesota CLU commented that the university's action was arbitrary and "deplorable as infringement of student civil liberties...
Finally, the MCLU has had to insist on a similar position at Washburn, Minn., High School, after the school's principal canceled an invitation to Sibley to speak before a politics club. Just to be fair about it, a discussion of Sen. Barry Goldwater's "Conscience of a Conservative" was also canceled.
American Civil Liberties Union Press Service
"Thumbs Off!"
Fine Drama Musical End Theater Year
NEW YORK — (UPI) — The 1963-64 Broadway theatrical season wound up in something like a small burst of glory, contrary to the usual weak finale.
By Jack Gaver
UPI Drama Editor
The last week of May brought in a fine drama, "The Subject Was Roses," and a musical comedy called "Fade Out—Fade In" that lacks something of being the greatest but which is, all in all, a generally happy entertainment because its star is Carol Burnett and it has Jule Styne melodies.
I have no doubt that the musical will "seel." Miss Burnett's television-nurtured reputation as a remarkable comedienne piled up a huge advance. The reviews, generally, accentuated the positive.
THE PLAY, at the Royale Theater, and the musical, at the Mark Hellinger, are well worth your patronage.
The play is a different matter. It is bad timing to bring in a serious, slice-of-life drama at this stage of the season unless there is a superstar heading the cast to bolster a worthy piece of playwriting.
But it is a beautiful job. A little over-long, perhaps, for what it has to say; a bit of unnecessary exaggeration in one department. However, these are minor flaws.
Gilroy, a veteran television scriptor who first came to stage attention two seasons ago with the off-Broadway "Who'll Save the Plowboy?" has a knack for the sensitive handling of commonplace persons in ordinary circumstances.
THAT ISN't the case with Frank D. Gilroy's admirable script. In fact there are only three actors, which automatically indicated that it has to be a rather quiet, mood-type piece of work.
IN "THE SUBJECT Was Roses," he takes that trite, weary subject of non-communication within a family group—here, father, mother and only son, who is just back from World War II—and makes it glow.
It will be a shame if the public doesn't latch onto this one. It is probably the best American play of the whole season, arriving, unfortunately, after all of the prizes had been given out.
MISS BURNETT'S musical is lavish, colorful and a little weak in the script department. But when she, Lou Jacobi, Jack Cassidy, Dick Patterson and the Styne-Betty Comden-Adolph Green songs are on, everything is fine.
In fact, a satirical look at that period in the movie capital is the main reason for the Comden-Green libretto besides giving Miss Burnett a chance to have a field day. She plays a plain girl in the chorus of a Broadway musical who gets out to Hollywood by mistake by a lecherous film tycoon who thinks he is sending a beautiful, sexy dish to be built into a star—and mistress.
It is practically worth the price of admission to see Miss Burnett—with the aid of Tiger Haynes—paradize an old Shirley Temple-Bill Robinson song-and-dance routine from one of those fantastic Hollywood musicals of the mid-1930's.
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BOOK REVIEWS
AMERICAN HERITAGE, June 1964 (82.95).
A Texas cattle driver, a frontier peddler, a mail man, a steel magnate, the country's first billionaire, a Boston Brahmin, and a Mormon saint with four wives, 30 children, and 207 grandchildren—each is the grandfather of one of the contenders in this year's scramble for the Presidency. In the June issue of American Heritage—Editor Oliver Jensen examines the amazing diversity of the people who bubble to the top of America's melting pot, by looking at each candidate's grandfather.
LBJ's grandfather, Samuel Ealy Johnson斯南, fought the Indians and drove cattle up the Chisholm Trail like many Texas ranchers. But he was rare among this hardy breed. He was prone to understatement. On Aug. 27, 1908, when the President was born, Old Sam rode around the countryside saying, "A United States senator was born this morning—my grandson."
MICHAEL GOLDWATER was a tall, burly man who was known in the Southwest as "Big Mike." He and his brother had emigrated from Russian Poland in the 1820's and launched the family fortune by selling hardware and clothing to goldminers. At one point, to collect a debt, they ran a mine called the "Vulture."
The present governor of Pennsylvania, William Warren Scranton, is the grandson of a strong-backed, strong-willed, iron and steel magnate. William Walker Scranton could lift a dead-weight ton; he was not afraid to lead his own workers into a striking mine; and he had vision enough to foresee the age of steel.
The name of John David Rockefeller is the most famous of the group. It is synonymous with oil and big business, but equally so with great philanthropy and well-managed money. John D. Rockefeller became the richest man the world had ever seen and performed a vital service to the U.S. economy as he showed the way to industrial organization and mass marketing. Today, if the news reaches him, he must smile to hear his grandson Nelson forced to insist publicly, "I believe in private initiative and private enterprise."
THE ARISTOCRATIC grandfather of the group is Henry Cabot Lodge, the elder. He was a Boston Brahmin, a fine historian, and elegant gentleman, and a U.S. senator who left his grandson a strong legacy of concern for public affairs. It is the elder Lodge who is usually blamed for preventing America's participation in the League of Nations. Mrs. Woodrow Wilson even called Lodge Wood a "stinking snake" for his attacks on her husband's plan to save the world.
Miles Park Romney, George Romney's grandfather, did not shirk his duty as a Mormon once he had received the call. Born in 1843, he devoted his life to his religion, his four wives, and his massive family of 30 children and 207 grandchildren. Popular and governmental pressure against polygamy forced Miles to flee to Mexico, where he died in 1902 at the age of 59.
GRANDFATHER NIXON is the contrast in this group. Mrs. Nixon has said that her husband comes from typical, everyday Americans who had to work for a living. It would be hard to argue with her estimate of the long useful, unspectacular record of the Nixons in America. The former vice-president's grandfather, Samuel Brady Nixon, was born in 1847 in Pennsylvania and died in 1914 in Ohio. During his lifetime he lived quietly, farmed, taught school, delivered mail, and remained "a common man untainted by aristocracy, unscarred by worldly success."
Other articles:
"Ten Nights in a Barroom," with a series of colored lantern slides of the story that put fear into so many hearts; "There Are No Indians Left Now but Me," dealing with Sitting Bull, last of the Sioux chiefs; "Mr. Hardy Lee, His Yacht," with lithographs describing the career of Hardy Lee, yachsman; "The Thundering Water," an entertaining picture story of the fabulous Niagara;
"Summer Sunday," about a lynching in Coattsville, Pa., in 1911; the FIRST Flag-Raising in Iwo Jima," another expose about
the famous incident; "A Yankee Barbarian at the Shogun's Court." another story about the celebrated Townsend Harris, and "Whatling Wife," book excerpt from a journal by Eliza Williams.
GABRIELA, CLOVE AND CINNAMON, by Jorge Amado (Crest, 75 cents).
This book made quite a splash when it appeared internationally almost two years ago. Critics gave it great praise, observing that a Brazilian writer of considerable talent had emerged onto the literary scene.
Gabriela is an innocent temptress who plunges a Brazilian town into all kinds of trouble. Her story is a charming and entertaining one, and its style is consistently delightful.
THE PYRAMID CLIMBERS, by Vance Packard (Crest, 75 cents).
If you're having trouble keeping up with Vance Packard books, this is the one that preceded the new one, which is called "The Naked Society." And this one knocks the coporations and the guys on the make therein.
Packard's target is the American executive and his charming wife who are clawing and climbing their way to the top, or trying to do so. As usual, Packard has enough perceptions to make the whole thing seem important. And more than other non-fiction writers who deal with similar topics, Packard knows how to entertain. That's why his somewhat superficial studies reach the best-seller lists.
LES MISEABLES, by Victor Hugo (Premier, 75 cents).
Probably an abridgment is the best way to read "Les Miserables," which is a vast blockbuster of a novel, normally around 1200 pages. This abridgment is a new one, of a little more than 300 pages. All the story is there, without the digressions of Paris history, the Napoleonic wars, the vast sewer systems, and all the other brilliant essays that mark the novel. If you don't know the story you just haven't been around long. It's still a tremendously moving novel, and this version may make it available to a lot of readers.
Joining three previously published volumes in "The Making of America" series is this excellent work by a professor of history at Northwestern University. The book chronologically precedes the others, all of which are under the general editorship of David Donald.
THE FORMATIVE YEARS, 1607-
1763, by Clarence Ver Steeg (Hill
and Wang, $5).
Many students find the early period of American history hardest to grasp, hardest to identify with. They will find this book readable and understandable. An important requirement is that a historian himself seems interested in his area; some historians of the colonial era seem to have wanted to hurry past it as rapidly as possible. Ver Steeg obviously cares about this time in American development.
Ver Steeg's approach is to try to show how the people of the American colonies became Americans. The culture of a people seems his concern more than the environment. Many historians have been interested in the differences of development between New England and the southern colonies. Ver Steeg rejects the idea that the harsh land of the north and the milder land of the South made the greatest distinction.
And in bringing the book up to the tremendous climax of the Seven Years' War he chose wisely in respect to the era considered. This is always a thrilling story, Wolfe and Montcalm contesting on the Plains of Abraham, and Ver Steeg tells it well.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE, by Shakespeare (Signet Classics, 50 cents); Richard III. by Shakespeare (Signet Classics, 50 cents).
Two more in the excellent series. The cover alone makes these stand out from other Shakespeare available in paperback. Special introductions are provided, with a discussion of Shakespeare's life and the theater of his time. There also are dramatic criticism, commentaries and a well-printed text.