Page Two
THE SALEMITE
February 1, f 957
Salem College journalists—established and potential—are reluctant to
step into the vacancy left by the now departed author of Around the
Square.
Some have compared this vacancy to a chasm which cannot be bridged.
Many feel that when this particular columnist left she drained the
campus of whatever wdt and expression was here. Everyone will miss
her weekly commentary.
We may be able to persuade somebody to replace her. Watch and
see. .
Meanwhile, she and three other ex-members of the Junior class are
planning for a semester in Geneva, Switzerland.
There is naturally a great deal of romanticism and e.xcitement attached
to the sudden decision of these four girls to spend a semester abroad.
But there are some bare facts which are facing the girls and which
the present-Salemites-with-high-hopes should consider.
hirst, because the plan was spontaneous and, for the most part, snow
balled between Christmas and exam time, the faculty and administration
could not see fit to sanction the trip. As a result, the four girls had
to withdraw from Salem and will be considered for re-admission by the
standards committee when they apply next fall.
Dr. Hixson has expressed her desire to assist any student in planning
a junior year abroad provided this is done sometime during the pre
ceding semester and taken for an entire year of study.
A second set of bare facts, which may be overshadowed by the glory
of the thing, is first the uncertainty that admission to the university in
Geneva wall be possible. And, if so, wdiether or not all courses will be
taught in English. And, if so, which courses will be taught at all.
We will hear how all these things turned out. Our best wishes are
with these girls.
And here, our hope is that prospective sojourners plan early, and
rationally, and through the office of the academic dean.
The month since Christmas has been a hey-day for movie-goers.
There is a peculiar breed of movie-w'atchers on campus.
These people, probably in the majority, have adopted as their pass
word, “plot.” A good movie has a plot which offers reversals . and sur
prises and suspense. Therefore, it must be contrived.
And yet, these watchers say a good movie must be “natural.” Pre
sumably, this means that there are some unpleasant scenes and details
which seem “true-to-life” but everything works out all right in the end.
Members of this breed would not walk fifty bricks to see the movie
version of Oklahoma. It is unrealistic for the actors and actresses to
break into song in the middle of a love scene.
But it is realistic (natural) for the wild young sister in Written On
the Wind suddenly to realize, on the wdtness stand, that she must stop
being revengeful and be content to wear flannel suits and manage her
father’s millions.
Giant was “realistic” because “that Texas dust almost choked me
sitting there in the theatre.”
In spite of the gruesome details therein, Baby Doll was banned by
the breed because of lack of plot. “Nothing happened.”
When you go to your next movie and come back to the dorm, keep
quiet. One word about the plot, or how “everything turns out,” wall
ruin the whole thing for the people wdio stand firm and declaini, “If
I know w'hat’s going to happen, w'hy go?”
Beyond The Squore—By Carol Campbell
One
changes wdiich
this columh last went to press was
the replacement of Sir Anthony
Eden by Harold MacMillan as
Prime Minister of England,
Eden’s fall came as a surprise to
no-one. It W'as not only that he
had had highly miscalculated a
matter of vital national policy in
the invasion of Suez, he had also
strained the U. S. alliance as it had
never been strained before, divided
his country and succeeded in block
ing the Canal he had thought to
sieze. His main failure had been
that he simply could not rectifj
the damage he had dQne, Eden’
career was clearly the shortest and
most melancholy Prime Minister
PRESS
Published every Friday of the College year
by the Student Body of Salem College
Subscription Price—$3.50 a year
OFFICES—Lower Floor Main Hall
Downtown Office—304-306 South Main St.
Printed by the Sun Printing Company
Editor-in-Chief ...
Managing Editor
News Editor
Feature Editor
Faculty Advisor
Business Manager
Advertising Manager .
Circulation Manager
Pictorial Editors
—Jo Smitherman
... Carol Campbell
... Miriam Quarles
— Marcia Stanley
.... Miss Jess Byrd
Ann Knight
Martha Jarvis
Peggy Ingram
Dottie Ervin,
Nancy Warren
Make-Up Editor Jeane Smitherman
Assistant News Editor,
Mary Ann Hagwood
Assistant Business Manager,
Suejette Davidson
Students Revolt; Salem’s Aid Needed
This is a true story released
through The International Com
mission of the United States Nat
ional Student Association.
* *
His name is not Istvan Laszlo!
That was merely the name he used
as a key student military comman
der during the Hungarian revolu
tion.
Up until a few weeks ago he
was a student of forestry at the
L'niver.sit3' of Sopron near the
Austrian border. Today, under his
assumed name, he is traveling
through the United States on a
U. S. National Student Association
tour of American campuses. He
has come to tell the story of the
students of Sopron and the events
of Hungary’s October days.
Revolution in Sopron began with
a protest meeting, Laszlo and
around 150 fellow students met
October 19th and decided that the
time had come to press 12 student
demands tvhich had been ignored
by the Hungarian young Com
munist organization (DISZ).
Po.sters and leaflets w'ere dis
tributed at night and the meeting
was held in the town hall of Sop
ron three days later. According to
Laszlo almost the entire town
lurned out.
The students called Budapest b>*
telephone and found that similar
student action had taken place all
over Hungary. Together, they
agreed to hold silent demonstration
marches of protest. In Sopron the
march was peaceful. In Budapest
they were fired upon and the
Revolution was on.
Students surprised an emergency
meeting at the local Communist
H e a (1 q u a r t e r s and took them
prisoner.
Laszlq called the officers of the
Army garrisons around Sopron to
come to what was now his office.
When they came he asked for
arms. Most gave them wdllingly;
those who refused were put in
prison. Laszlo, without realizing
it, was now military governor of
Sopron.
In a truck carrying medical sup
plies, Laszlo tried to visit his
family in Budapest. From a dis
tance he could see his neighbor
hood in ruins. Russian tanks pre
vented him from getting closer.
Back in Sopron he found himself
and his troops ringed by Russian
troops. The Russian commender
insisted that they were only there
to resist American invasion and
would soon leave. That night So
viet troops attacked. The revolu
tion was taking its new course.
I.aszlo led his troops into the field.
Near morning Laszlo was noti
fied that a high official had been
picked up on the road to Budapesti
She was Mrs. Anna Kethly, a So
cial Democratic member of Imre
Nagy’s new government, returning
to the capital from Vienna. She
wanted to go to Budapest. They
could not take her. If she could
not go on, she said, she would go
to the United Nations. The stu
dents wanted to send one of their
number with her. They chose their
leader.
Laszlo and Mrs, Kethly crossed
into Austria on the 4th of Novem
ber and arrived in the United
States around two days later.
Remaining behind, the student
rmy fought on to keep the border
into Austria open for fleeing refu
gees.
It is to his fellow student-soldiers
that Laszlo has said he wishes to
return after his four week tour.
Rut it will be to Austria and not
to Hungary that he will return.
Laszlo s pre-revolution experien
ces give an indication of what life
was like in post-t^'ar Hungary. He’
and his famiK- li^•e in Budapest
and It is for their sakes that he
keeps his actual name secret today.
While still in the Hungarian equi
valent of the high school he was.
of the most monumental in Britaih’s history.
has occured after The elegent, sad-eyed, half-
American grandson of a Scots ten
ant farmer who follows Sir An
thony is now faced with the task
of restoring self respect to the
Tory Party and reestablishing con
fidence between his country and
the United States. Mr. MacMillan
believes in closer economic and
political ties between Europe and
England which would make her a
better ally to America and, al
though an acknowledged Socialist,
he believes that right now, is the
time for individual economic op
portunity for the people of Eng
land.
A wartime friend of President
Eisenhower’s, the new Prime Mini-
.ster is extremely pro-American and
the majority of his countrymen
seem confident that he can lead
England forward to greater sta
bility and prosperity.
The World
The situation in the Middle East
may be described as concerning
two main controversies. One is be
tween the Arab and Israeli nations
who are haggling over the question
of Israeli troops withdrawing back
to their borders. The Israelis say
they won’t move until the U. N.
protects the borders and Egypt is
shouting for them to get out of
her territory.
The other conflict is between the
United States and the U. S. S. R.
Our challenge to Russia is seen in
the recently launched Eisenhower
Doctrine which is an attempt to
throw the weight of the U. S
against Soviet military and political
penetration of the Mid-East. Rus
sia’s response so far has been
vigorous propaganda attack against
our country, especially in Egypt.
Obviously, a knowledge of the
isenhower Doctrine is essential to
any kind of understanding of the
foreign situation. This program
which is now before Congress for
approval, would 1) authorize the
President to use U. S. armed force
if necessary against Communist
aggression in the Mid-East, and 2)
authorize the President to spend
$200 million a year for economic
and military aid projects to win
over the Arab states.
The reception to the plan in the
Mid-East is mixed. Iraq, Iran
Turkey are pleased, but Egypt
Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria
have been cool. Eisenhower is
banking on the visit of King Saud
of Saudi Arabia this week to con
vert him to his program and help
dissolve Middle East resistance
The reason why Ike’s plan has
not been 100% received is that the
Middle-Eastern countries still as
sociate the U. S. with Britain and
h ranee, they resent our support
m helping to establish the Israeli
nation a few years back and they
know we’re really interested in
blocking Communism, not in
spreading nationalism.
Criticism of the proposal in Con
gress IS that it does not deal with
actual problems like the Ar-d->
lyael .,„d
much on Arab support. Congress-
"'nr* about
as secretary of his class, called
upon to attend the “democratic”
e-xpulsion of a fellow student. The
mandate of his class had been to
speak out against the expulsion,
and when he did so the meeting
broke into such a great disorder
that the Communist Party official
coukLnot go through with the ex-,
pulsion. The boy subsequently
disappeared and was never seen
again. Istvan Laszlo was expelled
from the DISZ.
Later reinstated, he went to the
remote University of Sopron. His
political discontents continued.
With a group of about twenty
friends he shared his ideas about
the state of Hungary. He joined
the University newspaper, rose to
assistant editor, and was fired for
writing articles that took too criti:-
cal a line. Again he was expelled
from DISZ and received a kind of
notoriety from being the only stu
dent at Sopron who was not a
member.
The Secret Police picked him up
for a questioning and beating. Re
leased two days later, he resolved
to stay out of further trouble, bu'.
soon reports of the Petofi-circle of
ivriters, poets and universit\r stu
dents began to arrive in Sopron,
d heir criticisms of the regime
along artistic lines, which attra^’eted
Budapest audiences in the thous
ands, again aroused his feelings of
protest and led him and his friends
to call the_ meeting of Cctober 19th.
ba.em, in cooperation with the
sociology department, is sponsoring
a campus-wide clothing drive for
Hungarian refugees. Each house
president is in charge of collecting
tor her dorm.
Any organization that is looking
for a project should note that now
IS an excellent time to begin one
RelieT"^'"*'”" Hungarian
the $200 million aid projects-Ly-
;.ng the)- don’t want to “buy a pio-
m a ..poke”, A committee headed
- , Carolina’s James Rich-
Middl" situation in the
1 connection with
Adminis
tration, after It IS passed by Con
gress. It IS generally believed that
plan will go through because
Congress is afraid of what may
happen m the Middle-East. ^
The Nation
A more recent proposal by the
President concerns the ever in
creasing^ problem of our need for
more schools. Ike .vants Congress
to jiass a bill which would enable
a grant-m program for school
budding ammimting to $1,300,000,000
and $750,000,000 for /the purchase
of local bonds. The main sourc
of disagreement here is the inj
gration issue which interfered witl
a similar bill proposed last year
When Secretary of Defense!
Charles E. Wilson accused f|, B
National Guard of harboring draft *
dodgers during the Korean con
flict, repercussions were heard ij
forty-eight states. In ansew to
Wilson’s charge which was give,
before the Armed Services Con,
mittee in the House of Represent
atives, Major General Ellard A
Walsh, President of the National
Guard, screamed that it ' was ,
“d— lie” and that National Guard
ers are making themselves avail,
able for service, not dodging it
Conclusion: trouble for the Penta
gon’s proposed program that wouW
require National Guard enlistees
to serve six months of actual dutv
unless they had had previous mill
tary training.
Well, New York’s Mad Bombei
has been caught at last. And the
culprit is a smiling little man by
the name of George P. Meteskv
from Waterbury, Conn.' Metesky’s
career began in 1940 when IS bombs
which he planted in Consolidated
Edison Co. W’ere never reported, he
decided to turn to such places as
theatres, hotels and subways for
recognition. At the same time he
wrote numerous letters to the press
and the victimized public places
airing his grudges and revenges.i'
When the Journal American finallyl
ran a front page plea to state hisi
grievance he complied with a letterf
that said he had been injured while
working at Consolidated Edison)
and the company had blocked hist
attempt to get compensation.
He should never have writtenl
that letter, for a search into the!
I company’s files revealed his iden--
tity and George is now awaiting!
a rather serious trial. '
One of the most serious threats)::
to our nation’s security is the ever!'
prevalent spy activities of the Com-li
munist Parly in America. Theirj
highly organized crusade to over-)-’
throw democracy was dealt a bloivr
last week when the F. B. I. took
three New Yorkers into custody-
on charges of conspiring to obtain
for Moscow ‘documents connected
with the national defense of the
United States,’ Authorities believe
that these three were once con
nected with a very successful spvl
nng in Washington, D. C, headed,
by \. M. Zubilen, the man who)
was once described by J. Edgar
Hoover as “Russia’s masterspy in
North America.” '
People
The strain is over at last and
Princess Grace is now a mother,
t s a girl, —- eight pounds, two
ounces, —and the country of Mon-
oco IS -'safe at last.
For the first time in seven years,
m star Ingrid Bergman “set foot)
on American soil.” Stepping off a
plane from Paris where she is star-‘
ring in a French version of Tea
an Sympathy, the star appeared!
more beautiful than ever and was!
greeted by a flock of ch'eering
ans. She stayed for only 36 hours
to see the matinee of My Fair
Lady and pick up the New York-
. ' ™ s “best actress” award
or her work in Anastasia. Then
1'e the wind, which she says
blows this way and that”, Miss
Bergman was gone.
Music lovers all over the world
were shocked^ and saddened by the
1 brilliant Arturo Toscanini.
With his death came the end of
an era ^ for this man was our
neatest link with the immortal
a lan romantics. The man who
learned Verdi from Verdi himself)
who was an inspiration at .all times [
o t le musicians he directed and j-
emanded performances never short ■
'^i kgfeetion can never be re-
P.ace , just as he- will never be
forgotten.
Entertainment
T\,o plays opening on Broadway
I Eugenia, starring Tal-
*«lah Bankhead, adapted from the
temy James’ novel, “The Euro-
peans and an experimental version
ot Hamlet with Siobhan McKenna
fame. Eugenia
fe mi last week at
® beatre and ! heard it was
pretty good.
(Continued on Page Three)