Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Jan. 6, 1955, edition 1 / Page 2
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THURSDAY, JANUARY 6, 17; PAGE TWO THE DAILY TAR HEEL ! . Magic Saturday ' 'afternrjon, ' WLJNOTVs test pattern will be replaced by a program, and North Carolina's first educational television station will be on the air. The months and years of planning that see their fruition Saturday have not been free of discord for the plarmers. There i serious disagreement between those who would make of WUXC-TV a clear window into the University for the people of the state and those who would rose-stain the window make the station merely a medium of a musement. That disagreement has not been resolved as the University's television station prepares to begin operation. As a result, a large seg ment of WUNC-TVs most valuable asset the faculty members have been alienated from the whole idea. It will take a long per iod of serious work to bring them into the project. WUXC-TV can do a number of useful things. It can bring more and better cultural programs to those who want them; it can bring high school , and college courses into the' homes for adults; it can telecast great speeches, great drama and music; it can teach I rners and housewives and craftsmen and businessmen, liberate thousands of people from ignorance by providing the state with pro'iiruiis of a higher level than commercial stations and networks are, by and large, will ing or able to provide. It cannot, as we see it, nor should it, com pete with the Jackre Gleason show as a medi um of pure amusement. It cannot and we say this with due deference to one of the sta tion's sincerest protagonists it cannot be a Kollege of Musical Knowledge and justify its existence. Long before educational television was dreamed of. men conceived the University of North Carolina as a great center which would affect the cultural course of the state and the whole South. The Extension Divi sion, the Institute of Government, the great sweep of foundations and divisions, grew up around that conception. WUNC-TV is properly the latest, and greatest, of those extension agencies. If it forgets that, it will be a disgraceful and monumental flop. Let it hold to the idea of a University dispensing truth and beauty and it can be the revolutionary device which will take all the intellectual resources that have been pain stakingly formed and assembled in Chapel Hill and make them available to every North Carolinian. . . Policeman, Spare That Collie! This is one for George, -who's in trouble with the cops. They've got him down on the Humane Society's death row with no bail, no lawyer and no trial in prospect. In ten days, unless somebody outside of town adopts him, George takes the last walk. The charge against him nipping at peo ple's heels. Some of us aren's so sure he's guilty. The Humane Society's humane and diminutive treasurer, Mrs- A. M. Jordan, has been scurrying about trying to hang the count on some of the other collies in Chapel Hill, and with some success. It could have been the one with the white spot on his back or the one with the hooked nose. Students (and we might add, cops) have a hard time telling the dogs apart. They call 'em all "George." Iut the real George, as always, catches collective hell for the misdeeds of the multi tude. It was the real George who caught a face lull of birdshot last year; it's the real George they've got penned up, with chloro form in his future. Kill George? He who has marched in Every ' Beat Dook parade for four years? He who has appeared on the stage of the Forest Theatre and Memorial Hall, who has attend ed class, caught breakfast in the Y Court, become a patron of the arts (at Person Hall) and letters (the Intimate Bookshop)? Kill the unassuming, courteous collie who was re cognized only two years ago by President Gray from the Kenan commencement plat form along with the other notables of that occasion? You may as well tear down the Old Well or root up the Davie Poplar. We have faith that Mrs. Jordan and the spirits that protect the cherished monuments and institutions ol, mvxi will not let it happen. The official student publication of the Publi cations Board of the University of North Carolina, where it is published s ' daily except Monday. ' . y '''"' examination and vaca tion periods arid sum mer terms. Entered' as second class matter at the post office in Chapel Hill, N. C, un der the Act of March 8, 1879. Subscription rates: mailed, $4 per fear, $2.50 a semester; delivered, $6 a year, $3.50 a semester. Must HIovq CI r The Land Of Dark Screens And Darkness Louis Kraar ONCE MORE I journeyed into the darkened living room with voluminous videos. It was over the holidays that I sat and watched televis ion. And I'll probably have to w a i t. for another holiday to find time for figuring out J what draws and holds people to the glowing screens. Some of the programs shown on TV are notable, but they are exceptions to the tripe that parades across the 16-inch kal eidoscope daily. Programs like "See It Now," "Toast of the Towns" and "Omni bus" are of the notable variety. They are consistently interesting and clearly illustrate what TV can do. But the gang of crime stories, panel shows, and second-rate stuff that imposes on listeners each day is disgusting. --..-.-.SS--- SS, . y , f PERHAPS I don't understand television, I kept telling myself, remembering that etiquette in this day forbids conversation at any time other than during com mercials. So in quest of further know ledge about this medium of ap parent mediocrity, I read an ar ticle by a TV man called "Tele vision Faces Life." "Americans spend more time looking at television than they spend doing anything else, ex cept eating and sleeping," the Esquire magazine article de clared. The Esquire piece added that this is not the "whole answer" because "if it were, Lili St. Cyr could replace Katharine Cor nell." What this had to do with TV, I wasn't, sure. But obviously the article was pointing out that pimply because something has a wide audience, this doesn't mean it's good. Then the article talked about the great strain of mass produc tion of television and the fact that some shows were very "in tellectual." But the paragraph that held me, perhaps like a TV fan on Saturday night, was the one: "The TV target is the man who doesn't read widely or, if he does, never reads the editorial page; the man who doesn't dis cuss or, if he does, confines his contention to the Dodgers or Notre Dame . . ." This seems to be the crux of the whole problem. The televis ion shows are aimed at the low est common denominator. Cer tainly no television network could exist on mere "intellect ual" programs, but a raising of the level might help even the "TV target." Chape t(tU . Site tf rtie l?nivrfW North .trolina ; ;:; wbh firti oteed 'm lw in Jaiuuiry Editor Night Editor for this Issue CHARLES KURALT Eddie Crutchfield BEFORE LONG the University will be in the television business, but it will also still be in the education business. I'm talking about WUNC-TV, the Consoli dated University's educational television station. Perhaps this venture into high frequency teaching will bring to the air shows on a higher level than the typical tripe of com mercial stations. If it can pre sent educational shows that are interesting and interesting shows that are still educational the University's station will supply the upper level needed by TV. Other University stations have set a high mark in the medium. Dr. Frank Baxter of the Uni fctersity of SouthjHrn California has brought Shakespeare to a television audience, and he has made the bard live. I have watched Dr. Baxter's show, and it's like inviting a ur bane visitor into your home for a pleasant chat. There's nothing pedantic or obscure about the way this man brings books alive. And he even tells an occasional joke. The University has lecturers as skilled as Dr. Baxter, so I'll be waiting for educational tele vision and hoping. A New Hydra Or A Great Ambassador? Ed Yoder Those who think that the art of vituperation has been lost w 0 u J d have , begn heartened , ' at the scathing speech I heard A ine outer uay on the dangers t of television. . ' The sepaker w a s watching - the rhythmic flashing of the red lights from WUNC-TV's new tower. In one hand he. held a dog-eared copy of The Golden Bough. With the other he swept a damning fist upwards and shook it toward the dark frame work that rose above his head. "Television!" he sneered. "It's like a new American Hydra with, a nose that spurts the flame in which all the literacy of the world will be burnt to ashes. And at every stroke of (he sword on its body, a fiercer and bigger offspring appears beside it." There is a measure of truth in all bad things that can be said of television. The great lot of it. reaching a peak in the boring vocal marathons of Arthur God frey, is not worth watching. There is a measure of truth, too, in the belief that it wall destroy literacy and the art of conversa tion. The heartening counterbal ance tq that belief, however, is that mass communication media, from Marconi's wireless to the silent movies of the "Perils of Pauline" stripe, were condemn ed in their time as the same mes sengers of destruction. Aldous Huxley probably has many of the same dim potential ities in mind when he describes the society of Brave New World. There, where truth and beauty have been junked as 'dangerous beasts, the closest thing to li terate entertainment is not tel evision, not the movies but "feelies," an extension of moving pictures enabling the viewer to participate in all the sensations pictured on the screen. No one in Brave New World, except "Our Ford," the director, and "The Savage," a Rip Van Winkle from Twentieth Century morals and mores, has ever read Shakes peare. It is, of course, well to be a ware of the dangers of televi sion an element on the way to replacing Lenin's religion and Hemingway's bread as "the opi "ate of the people." But that fear is always tempered by the idea that the tension between tele vision and a dying art of conver sation or literacy will, in time be resolved. The spring will snap and moral equilibrium will re turn. The effect feared by extreme critics of television is the pro duction of a sterotyped, illiter ate, stupid crew of H. L. Menck en "boobs." Boobs, interestingly enough, were not thought by Mencken to be the potential off spring of mass entertainment. Not silent movies, not the neglect of books but the democratic form of government, to Mencken's strangely twisted mind, was the culprit that helped to breed the boob a fantastic dunce of whom Mencken wrote: "What he knows of histology, or protozoology or philosophy or paleontology is precisely nothing .... Even those applied sciences which enter intimately into his everyday existence remain out side his comprehension and in terest. . . . He knows no more about chemistry than a cow and no more about biology th-an its calf . . . He is more ignorant of elementary anatomy and phy siology than the Egyptian quacks of 4000 B. C. . . . Greek, to him, is only a jargon spoken by boot blacks, and Wagner is a retired baseball player. He has never heard of Euripides, of Hippocra tes, of Aristotle or Plato. ... He doesn't know what a Doric col umn is, or an etching, or a fugue." . . . a producer of boons or boobs? The point is easy enough to see. The Hydra of television whose nostril flames threaten to burn the literacy of the world to ashes is, as well, an animal that can produce the boob with ease. Right now, in fact, it is converting thousands of unfor tunate victims of the pre-equil-lbrium era of television into boobs. All of the foregoing more or less describes the Chapel Hill academic climate, the bed of nails, in which WrUNC-TV must now try to rest. Even the adjec tive, "educational," does not soften the language with which the new television station is de nounced. The outstanding char acteristic, in fact, of an educa tional television station is that it will not, in the truest sense, educate. A more elevated form of television it can produce introducing good music, Euri pides, Wagner, Plato, and even histology into the family circle. But a substitute for books, class es, and stimulating people it can never be. Given all that, however, there is a very definite and valuable function which the new educa tional television may fill espe cially for the Chapel Hill branch of the University. The University of Chapel Hill has been, and must continue to be, a big brother to the other two branches of the Consolidated University. Here, a much older tradition, a freer, more unconventional and health ier academic climate has existed and must continue to exist. The University of Chapel Hill, lacking the cities of Raleigh and Greensboro to form a medium and a buffer zone between it and the people of the state, as a re sult has been more or less set apart from the general thought and action of the state. A television station which will begin to introduce the faces, the thought, and the characteristics of the true University to the cross-section of citizens in North Carolina can play an important role. It can become an ambassa dor, an intermediary, between the large University and the peo ple of the state who support it and without whose good will it can't get along. That great advantage will per haps transcend and eclipse the drawbacks of television as a gen eral threat to literacy, as an educational instrument that can never be truly educational. By that virtue, it may become a pro ducer of boons and not boobs. The Year Of The Global Great Debate' Stewart Alsop WASHINGTON The Ameri can and Soviet governments ap pear to have one thing, at least, in common. Both governments are internally divided about the direction their foreign 'policy should take, now that the basic decision to rearm W'estern Ger many has at long last been made. The evident suggestion that the Soviet government is div ided on this question is, as al ways, fragmentary and incon clusive. But it' is a good deal less so than usual. When Ambassador Charles E. Bohlen returned to Moscow rec ently, he reported back that the sense of tension had measur ably increased there in the few days since he had left. The Bri tish Ambassador, Sir William Hayter, who also returned to Moscow at about the same time, reported back to London prec isely the same thing. One obvious reason for this tension in Moscow was, of couse, the French voting on the Ger man rearmament issue. But an other reason also appeared, when long editorials about the future of the Soviet policy were published just before Christ mas in Pravda and Izcestia. Izvestia is the organ of the Soviet government and is thus accounted the mouthpiece of Pre mier Georgi Malenkov. Pravda is the organ of the Soviet Com munist party, and is thus ac counted the mouthpiece of N. S. Krushchev, Secretary of the Par ty. The two papers took almost diametrically opposite lines. Izvestia called for a continua tion of essentially the present policy increased emphasis on production of consumer goods, and a "co-existence" policy a broad, and a return to all-out priority for heavy industrial production, which means arms production. The next day, Pravda publish ed another long editorial, and this time Pravda fell in line with Izvestia, By knowledgeable Rus sians as well as foreign observ ers, this episode was universally taken to mean that there had been a basic disagreement on policy as between Malenkov and Krushchev, and that this dis agreement had been settled In Malenkov's favor. The, episode was further taken to mean that the Russian rulers wished to make known the ex istence of the disagreement. The purpose was, presumably, partly to remind the West that the Soviets could adopt a tougher line if they wanted to. But an other purpose certainly was to give Krushchev, as it were, his day in court, and to remind the Russian people that no one had inherited -all the powers of the dead Stalin. It is quite genuinely true, in the view of Bohlen and all other foreign observers, that there is still no single absolute dictator in post-Stalin Russia. Moreover, the extent to which the Soviet rulers though notably not the ruled feel free to disagree with each other is remarkable. There is a good deal to sug gest, in short, that a "great de bate" of sorts is in progress within the Soviet government. No one, of course, believes that the essential objectives of the Soviet regime have changed. But it is natural that the Soviet rulers should debate whether the "soft" policy which achieved a triumph in Asia and almost achieved a greater triumph in Europe, has not about played itself out, now that the French have at last agreed to the rearm ament of West Germany. Malenkov's recent equivocal remarks about the desirablility of a four-power "meeting at the summit" further suggests that the issue has not yet been fully decided. The v Soviet rulers, ap parently, simply have not made up their minds whether such a meeting would serve Soviet pur poses, since it is now seeming ly impossible further to delay German rearmament. A great debate is also, of course, in progress within the American government. This de bate also concerns whether it is worth trying to negotiate with tlje Soviets, now that the Ger man rearmament issue is pre sumably settled; and if so whe ther this is the time to try ft. On one side are those who bel ieve that the Soviets at least share the West's interests in avoiding mutual incineration; and that it is worth trying to agree on a set of ground rules to this end. At least to some extent, President Eisenhower in clines to this view as does British Prime Minister Sir Win ston Churchill. On the other side are those who have strong doubts about the value of any negotiation with the Russians except on the most limited and specific issues. Sec retary of State Dulles entertains "these doubts and British For eign Secretary Eden shares them. Thus a kind of global great de bate is going on, in Washington, in Moscow, in London. No doubt it will be settled one way or an other before this year ends. Copright, 1955, New York Her ald Tribune. Inc. All Quiet Along The Potomac jl. ft 1 1 I I II III! A LAST YEAR'S MF.SSAGF. TO CON(.KI . . . uhat will be the political 'state of le un,.,n' Noo, G, 1956- "rtte wHkiit4 Post - Eisenhower Failures To Get Full Treatment Doris Fleeson WASHINGTON The Democrats opened an in tensive campaign to regain the While IIoii.se at pre cisely twelve noon yesterday when Yiee-Preskier,' Nixon banged his new ivory gave!, the sift ol' India, to call the 84th Congress to order. Until the polls close on November 6, I9afi, Dem ocratic strategy will be directed toward separating in the public mind President Eisenhower, the pop ular military leader, from President Eisenhower, the civil and political leader. The former they will let alone. They hope through remorseless analysis as issues and occa sions arise to show that the limitations of the kdt-r diqualify him for a second term. Their strategy implies that they expect him t i run again. That is just what they expect: fi'ern what they have seen they think he cannot sav no to a draft. ' ' For very sincerely Democrats believe that the President is the major and almost indeed the onlv political asset of the Republican party. If they were Republicans they would arrange a forced draft themselves. For the same reason they believe their strategy is purely a matter of survival. They see no way to avoid a certain build-up el' the President bv enacting most of his lo'islat ion. since they would offer it ii he didn't. They IV, ! compelled to shift their ground to the proposition thai no program is any better than the people who administer it. There are very few important dissents in the party from the new strategy, only arguments abou' how it should be executed. Southern conservative-; are among those who feel most deeply that the President has been put to work for which he is not suited. The Rayburn opinions which were ;iccid n tally made public at New Orleans are a fair state ment of the general view. Only time will show whether such stratcgv can be executed according to plan and whether the public will oblige by making the requested distinc tion. Nothing iike it has been tried lately. For 20 years most Republicans attacked bo'h the two Democratic Presidents and their works wfi line impartiality, reserving their greatest scorn t-r the "me-tooers" in their party. Their system worked badly until the erosion of time and the errors of the Democrats invoked the Eisenhowe; landslide. Democrats will do what they can in this Connie-; to capitalize on farm discontent, Republican fac tional differences, the "giveaways" of natural re sources and apprehension about cuts in deteris-. Any failures in the Administration, as the l,ad jinsky case, .will get the full treatment. They still think their problem boils down t Eisenhower, the Chief Executive. Thev haw no illusions about their, task. They think he" has had a very long honeymoon with his good qualities rr.av nified and advertised, his shortcomings wuielv ex cused. Their argument is that the presidency is not a popularity contest. If it were they think Ei.enhou r well might win it r.o matter what the opposite", proved. They insist that the people can and wis! accept what they call a calm, honest and realist! presentation of the Eisenhower philosophv an I character. "And if the people won't," said one veteran poii tician, "we've already lost in I9.r,n." Progress Harry Golden In The Carolina Israelite When I think of Norman Thomas, the Son h3ader of the United States, I have to smile II Sori, f TT th? ea,",y S"Usts that one ,, f S oa r WOUld rt'ceive birthday telem from The Reader's Digest and from Herbert II... But thats the way of the world. . . Mr Tlmm.i tn?th 3tw a.b0Ut but U is onp hundre.1 per truth-that Franklin D. Roosevelt smashed the cialist Party in America by taking over its ,m- ;. The hercsy of today is the rock ri! conservatism of tomorrow. i U'. '! s.
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Jan. 6, 1955, edition 1
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