PAGE TWO
THE CAMPUS ECHO
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1958
GimP“5©Echo
Member
ASSOCIATED COLLEGIATE PRESS PRESS
The CAMPUS ECHO, official student publication at
North Carolina College at Durham, is published monthly dur
ing the regular school year. Subscription rates, $1.50 per
school year.
Second class mail privileges authorized at Durham, North
Carolina.
THEODORE E. GILLIAM Editor-in-Chiei
THOMAS L. CAMERON Managing Editor
FLORA SNIPES, SAMUEL C. FLOYD Literary Editors
RUTH ROYSTER _ ^ Editorial Assistant
GERALD SIMMONS, HAROLD HAUSER,
JOSIE SIMONS, SHERYL SCHOOLER Feature Writers
JEWELL DIMERY
VVONNE WRAY Circulation Manager
DAVID WALKER Advertising Manager
VFRNA T YNCH ' ZZ" Business Manager
CALLIS brown; CHESTER MALLORY Svofts°clnSltlr
JOHN HOLLEY Sports Contriouior
A Socratic Significance
One thing is evident in Boris Pasternak’s refusal to accept the
1958 Nobel Prize for literature: he has a respect for country,
countrymen, and law (though they may be in error) which super
sedes his regard for personal pride and safety. Although all sorts of
anathema have been hurled at him by irate and embarrassed Rus
sians, Pasternak, out of love for his native soil, conceded to the)
feelings of some representatives of his countrymen.
It is significant that over 2000 years ago a man, because of his
views, was persecuted and condemned to die by a law which he
thought unjust but which he upheld because of his overwhelming
patriotism. His life had been a model of virtue, dedicated to the
search for Truth, but his accusers, as well as the masses, did not un
derstand him or his philosophy. Of course, the “immortal” in mind is
Socrates, whose fame as a martyr and as a cause is ranked next to
that of Christ’s in the Western World.
Pasternak, according to reviews of his book, has written of the
world (the Russian world) as he sees it, with a view towards in
fluencing its improvement, not its destruction. For this he was
awarded the most distinguished prize a man can win for literature.
Because his novel. Doctor Zhivago, sheds an unfavorable light on
totalitarianism, Russians are “up in arms,” so to speak, and have
figuratively slapped his face for his su'pposed affront. In spite of
threats and urges of “Get out of the coimtry! You defile the very air
we breathe!” Pasternak has remained patriotic in his desire to stay
in the country of his birth.
Being 68 years old, perhaps he has reason enough not to want
to strike out and spread roots in alien land. At 70, Socrates realized
that very few years were left him; therefore, he chose to face death
rather than escape to another country. Though the similarity here is
not as grave as that which concerns Pasternak, it does, nevertheless,
bear out what' Roger Williams cautioned in The Bloudy Tenet: “All
men (should) prepare to be persecuted or. hunted for cause of con
science.”
It is to the credit of the United States that it has never frowned
}n such a direct manner upon its Nobel prize winners, who certainly
have not presented rosy pictures of American life. Among those
writers have been Sinclair Lewis, whose depictions of our Main
Streets and Babbitts certainly gained him unpopularity in some
circles here; T. S. Eliot, an expatriate who deplored the ascendence
of the “Common man” and the classless society and became a British
citizen; and William Faulkner, whose pictures of Southern deca
dence are critical of at least a section of the country.
While his book has some political implications, Pasternak does
not consider himself a politician and is not desirous of becoming in
volved in politics—another parallelism with the life of Socrates.
The main concern that thinking people should have over Paster
nak, at this stage, is that a major artist of the century has probably
been stifled, perhaps, at the peak of his creative powers. What g'ood
could life be to Pasternak home or abroad if he is not allowed
freedom of creation—and expression-in familiar surroundings? For
it is this on which the artist strives. Without this freedom, the artist
is best “sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.”
Silence Versus Sapathy
(Reprinted, The Columns, by Pete Baptiste, Westminster College,
Fulton, Mo.)
The great Albert Schweitzer, who seems to have achieved
serenity in a world which had forgotten this gift, was once asked
what he thought of the future of Europe. Schweitzer, musician,
doctor, and theologian, hunched his shoulders and said: “My
business is ethics, not prophecy. What’s the use of talking about it?
Perhaps all the talkers will be toppled in the end.”
There is danger in silence which becomes a habit, wherein
intellect atrophies. It is this problem with which critics of the college
students are concerned. Although Amherst psychologist Robert
Birney may be right in liis statement that college students are “too
concerned with their psychological well-being,” it does not seem,
that the student’s egocentricity stops there. His intellectual aims are
searching for a credo which will serve our complex existence.
Must we then, accused of “sapathy,” speak out to indict the
future, when the past has proven successful in creating a world
threatened by atomic destruction?
THE RAZOR'S EDGE
By FLORA SNIPES
Mudslingers at NCC can accuse another of
Aspiring to teach the truth, failing to deliver the truth?
instructors fail; One truth seems evident—the
Aspiring to be Truth Seekers, “Truth Seekers” were not sin-
students rebel; cere in all they wrote. Obvious-
A group of students (or a stu*- ly, they feared that they might
dent) who call themselves have been looked down upon
the “Truth Seekers” have under- or even expelled from NCC had
taken to examine our staff and they revealed their identities,
faculty. It seems that although The truth is that they really had
these students are seekers of the nothing to lose in either event;
truth, they are not givers of the for why should one want to re
truth. Whether their grievances main in an institution whose in-
are justified is immaterial since structors he has placed on pro-
they do not believe strongly bation because of their failure to
enough in their convictions to re- “deliver truth”, whose Dean of
veal their identities to the pub- Women he describes as not only
lie. “shrewd, obnoxious, domineer-
The “Truth Seekers” believe ing, and ill” but also a “slave
that certain members of our driver, an autocrat, a limp fail-
faculty “are not delivering ure, a destroyer of futures, and
truth” to the students of NCC. a Lady Machiavelli”, and whose
Through the President, he further believes,
aees however ’ desires to aid his staff in “en-
’ l slaving all women who come to
many great men ^ nCC for guidance and help”?
have failed to Feeling as they apparently do
sufficiently de- about conditions at NCC, the
fine truth “Truth Seekers” should transferi
Therefore,!: ‘ another institution without
cannot under- further ado.
derstand how a It is to be hoped that persons
group of imder- ^ who criticize the policies of
graduate collegg Snipes others will first consider why*
students can say what is truth the criticized person performs
and what is not truth. The truth his duties as he does. More
for Thales was water; for specifically, the “Truth Seekers”
Anaximenes—air; for Anaxago- should have realized that the
ras—infinity; for Heraclitus—| Dean of Women is responsible
fire; for Democritus—atoms; for for the behavior of hundreds of
Pythagoras — numbers; fori NCC coeds. If she cannot make
Socrates—virtue; for the so- rules governing these women, if
phists—rhetoric; and so on ad she cannot have aides to assist
infinitum. All these philosophers her in governing these women,
have had entirely different con- and if her voice carries no
ceptions of truth. Yet each one weight, how can she guide young
is remembered for his contribu- women in the proper direction?
tions to mankind. Who then can These questions I put before
determine what is truth? Who (continued on page 7)
BOOK REVIEW
Jazz Musician Tries To Fit In
By Flora Snipes
The Horn by Clellon Holmes.
Random House. 1958. 243 pp.
$3.75
Like many contemporary jazz
novelists, Holmes tells the story
of a jazz musician in the U.S.
who because of his countrymen’s
apathy to jazz as an art, cannot
fit in. Edgar Pool (better known
as “The Horn”) is a Kansas City
jazz fiend who ignores his hard
working parents’ pleas that he
prepare himself for a job offer
ing steady security to a Negro.
Edgar Poole is interested in
nothing but playing the saxo
phone.
“The Horn” reaches the top ol
the jazz world slowly and tedi
ously. But when he finally,
arrives, he becomes the idol of
the jazz world. Like Algrens’
Frankie Machine (The Man
With the Golden Arm), “The
Horn” is not able to resist the
“bottle” and the “weeds”. “The
Horn’s” reputation both as a
lady’s man and a swinging cat
becomes somewhat a Kansas
City legend. He is usually so full
of booze or so engrossed in his
music that he neither knows nor
cares what is going on in the
world outside.
To add a bit of Beat Genera
tion melancholy. Holmes finally
portrays Edgar Pool as a nar
cotics addict and a drunken dere
lict whose only pleasure in life,
playing the saxophone, has been
snatched from him. One night in
a cutting session, “The Horn”
yields his jazz proficiency to a
young jazz musician and soon
afterwards dies with the feeling
that he is isolated from the rest
of the world.
In shaping the pitiful course of
A! Capp's Humor
By Theodore Gilliam
At the 34th annual ACP Con
ference in Chicago, November
15, A1 Capp was the featured
speaker at the conference
luncheon. Instead of preparing a
speech, A1 Capp used a question-
answer address by having the
delegates submit their questions
a day before the luncheon. Dur
ing his speech Capp proved him-
self to be a master of wit and
humorous innuendo. Beginning,
he remarked that the great bulk
of questions concerned Daisy
Mae’s measurements; however,
he decided he “would leave
those to the. delegate’s personal
research and go on to the more
impertinent and irrelevant ques
tions.”
Q; Where do you get such mor
bid and depraved looking
characters?
A: From attending meetings
like this one.
Q: What effect would a super
highway have on Dogpatch?
A: It might bring Richard
Nixon.
Q: Why do you endorse certain
products?
A: Any product I endorse, I
have personally tested. For
instance, I think Wildroot
is a marvellous salad dress
ing and Cream of Wheat is a
good hair dressing.
Q: Why do you murder other
comic strips?
A: Out of sheer admiration and
boundless envy.
Q; Do libel laws apply to comic
strips?
A: I am embarrassed that you
ask.
Q; How is a comic strip
created?
A: I take a quick look at my
• daughter’s bills, my wife’s
bills, my own bills. I realize
that 1 must interest 60
million people who have 60
million differences, for in
stance, people who admire
Orval Faubus. I know that
love, death, and money are
fundamental and primary
interests of people; there-
Edgar Poole’s life. Holmes does
not allow the fact that Ede^ar is
a Negro to enter into the forces
which cause the musician’s
downfall. The typical sadness,
loneliness, the proximity of nar
cotics and alcohol, and the over
anxious desire to “arrive” are
rounds of Edgar Pool’s descend
ing ladder. Like Dorothy Baker
(Young Man With a Horn),
Holmes attempts to portray the
typical downbeat life of a jazz
musician. Baker contends that
her novel is “the story of the gap.
between the man’s musical
ability and his ability to fit it
into his own life; of the differ
ence between the demands of ex
pression and the demands of life
here below; and finally of the
difference between good and bad
in a native American art form,
jazz music”. Such is the gap
which Edgar Pool tries vainly to
bridge.
fore, I include them in my
strip. Of course, the defini
tion of these things are
broad. Death in a comic
strip might be the stumping
of a toe.
Q: How do you dare satirize
political figures?
A; It’s a choice of whom you
will murder. Some of the
most august political figures
are thrilled to be satirized.
They feel that they achieve
a certain immortality.
Q: How do you get a double
whammy? (Asked by a girl)
A: Just keep wearing that
sweater.
Q: How would you write L’il
Abner to appear in the
Russian Monthly and the
New York Times?
A: Lil Abner does appear in.
some Russian newspapers t«
show that they (Russians)
(continued on page 7)
LEHER TO THE EDITOR
Dear Editor,
It might appear that on our
campus the majority of the
men students are avid followers
of Jazz. If asked, what type of
music he prefers, the majority
would answer Jazz. Now, if he
prefers Jazz because he under
stands it and appreciates it for
its musical value, then well and
good. On the other hand, many
of the men students who sup
posedly “dig” Jazz, don’t know
as much about it as they know
about Chopin’s funeral march.
Has Jazz as a distinctive and
valuable music become a part of
what is fashionable or progres
sive on NCC’s campus? It seems
as if everyone “digs” Brubeck
and has the album “Jazz Goes to
College” (thanks to the record-
a-month club). In the College
Canteen the most frequently
played tune is “Topsy: Part II”,
among other popular jazz tunes.
I would like to suggest to the
men on our campus (especially
the pseudo-jazz fanatics) not to
stop with Brubeck and Kenton,
as far as learning and appreci
ating Jazz is concerned, but
broaden your scope of Jazz by
becoming familiar with other
great Jazz artists.
Sincerely,
Charles Thomas McNeil