Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Jan. 16, 1954, edition 1 / Page 2
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PACE fWd THE DAILY TAR HEtr SATURDAY, JANUARY U ,1954 JohnD'sBigA There's a syndicated column of radio event we can't remember which featuring as its title, "Words to Live By." Recently we read some words of John D. Rockefeller III which seem to us words to live by. Mr. Rocke feller asks us to: 1. Refrain from a tendency to impose our ideas or way of life on other peoples. 2. Evince as much willingness to learn from them as help them. j . 3. Acquire a knowledge of their needs, aspirations and accomplishments. 4. Recognize that the success or failure of one people increasingly affects all and is the responsibility of all. The Four Fundamentals, Mr. Rockefeller calls them. We don't know of a better foursome. From The New York Times Neither Snow Nor Hard Words Ervin F. Spratt, postmaster at Elkhart, Iowa, not far from Des Moines, does not make rounds, but if he did we trust that neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night would stay him from their swift completion. Mr. Spratt was appointed postmaster at Elkhart (pop. 249) in 1944. He maintains the post office in what our dispatch describes as his "sundry shop." His wife assists him. Mr. Spratt, who does not claim the protection of the Fifth Amendment when asked whether or not he is a Democrat, has a modestly good thing in his postmastership. - , But Mr. Spratt is a man of moral courage. In spite of the gathering mass of evidence that it is far better for a man in public em ployment to do practically no thinking and to talk about nothing at all except the weath er, Mr. Spratt is said to have expressed doubts, as to the ability of the Postmaster General. He is also accused of not liking! President Eisenhower as much as the Post Office De partment assumed that he would. , A postal inspector charges that he called the President a "blank, blank, blank, blank," and threatens to see that he (Mr.' Spratt) is removed. Mr. Spratt denies that he called President Eisenhower or Mr. Summerfield a "blank, blank, blank, blank." He refuses to resign. We think that President Eisenhower and Postmaster General Summerfield might well ask not what Mr. Spratt's personal opinion of them is but whether or not Mr. Spratt is delivering letters or causing them to be de livered in the Elkhart neighborhood in spite of weather conditions or the time of day or night. Membership in the Democratic party ousrht not to affect the fate of fourth-class postmasters, such as we assume Mr. Spratt to be. We hope that his and Mrs. Spratt's pub lic employment will continue, that the mail of Elkhart, Iowa, will continue to be swiftly delivered, and that the Spratts will long be able to buy all the fat and all the lean that their respective appetites require. The official student publication of the Publi cations Board of the University of North Carolina, where it is published daily except Monday, examination and vaca tion periods and dur ing the official Sum mer terms. Entered as second class matter at the post office in Chapel Hill, N. C, un der the Act of March 3, 1879. Subscription rates: mailed, $4 per year, $2.50 a semester; delivered, $6 a year, $3.50 a semester. b l opera in doors m' Jamutry V i V Editor ROLFE NEILL Managing Editor . - LOUIS KKAAR Business Manager AL SHORTT Srortc; Hitnr TOM PEACOCK News Editor Associate Editor Feature Editor Asst. Spts. Eds. Sub. Manager Cir. Manager Asst. Sub. Manager Asst. Business Manager Society Editor Ken Sanford Ed Yoder Jennie Lynn Vardy Buckalew, John Hussey Tom Witty : Don Hogg . Bill Venable Syd Shuford the Monkey Ted Rosenthal Certainly The Monkey in the Moon, the Playmakers' premiere . production of Tom Patterson's comedy, cannot be called an un qualified success. Set in a small southern town, its plot is a reworking of a pretty worn motif Sam and Lucy Lee son, middle-aged, comfortable but bored, are contrasted to their yard-boy, Willie, who though shiftless and improvident, living day to day, seems to enjoy him self. A crisis arises because of Lucy's desire to visit uninvited the Lee son's recently-married son, and Sam's refusal to dismiss Willie, whom she doesn't like, In anger she leaves, and during her absence an obvious and rather unnecessary sub-plot carries Sam to the point of adultary with an attractive widow Myra, a business client of his. At the last moment, a chance phone call from his son brings them to realize their in tention is purposeless, and with a hackneyed "no, its not good" sort of speech from Myra, they part she returning obstensibly to a "fine man" in New Hampshire. Eventually Lucy comes back; the Leesons' marital difficulties are resolved and things again rosy. Probably the weakest part of the play is theme, (it didn't need one), which would seem to be that negroes' easy manner of life can teach the perhaps too "civilized" whites something about how to be happy. The great flaw if this is the assumption that Willie and Cally (the Leeson's maid), both perfectly believable as individuals, are good genera lizations of their entire race, and that Sam and Lucy are typical of all whites. We don't believe that any two people are suffivient evidence for so sweeping an implication. Although it could use a good deal of tightening it moved rath er slowly, tending to drag the play was very funny in spots, and succeeded in entertaining much of the time. It's unfortun ate that some of the better lines, (judging from the audience rea-; ction up front) were inaudible where we sat, farther back; per haps this will be improved in the remaining performances. William Trotman was excellent as Willie he captured the amal gam of Uncle-Resmusesque and casually lazy, lecherous, and extra admirable elements, which com bined in that character. His poise, conception of Willie, and flair for humour were satisfying. Marion Fitz-Simons as Lucy, Lloyd "Borstelmann as Sam, and Martha Hardy as Myra were all more than adequate, although perhaps Mr. Borstelmann was a little too intense in his inter pretation of Sam's reactions to a given situation and Miss Fitz Simon's characterization 01 Lucy was a little too broadly comi?. Mary Anne Blair may have been awful as Cally we don't know if her consistent, but con sistently exaggerated caricature of the maid was her fault or that of Director Foster Fitz-Simons; in either case the part was badly slap stick. William Long's set was attrac tive and convincing, and the technical aspects costumes by Irene Smart, lighting by Barbara Treat, and sound by Mack Pres slar were well-handled. It seems to be an axiom of the theatre that the whole may be greater than the sum of its parts. With all its deficiencies, while The Monkey in the Moon wasn't hilarious, it was on the whole pretty amusing, and con sequently enjoyable. 'Come In, Ezra-How's The Weather Out There?' Advertising Manager Eleanor Saunders -Jack Stilwell EDITORIAL STAFF Bill O'Sullivan, James Duvall, John Beshara, John Taylor. NEWS STAFF Charles Kuralt, Dick Creed, Joyce Adams, 'Fred Powledge, Tom Lambeth, Jerry Reece, Ann Pooley, Babbie Dilorio, J. D. Wright, Jess Nettles, Leslie Scott, Jid Thompson, Richard Thiele, Chal Schley, Dave Elliott. BUSINESS STAFF Dick Sirkin, Dave Leonard, Don Thornton. Night Editor For This Issue: Ken Sanford Letter To A Fraulein Life Magazine Dear Fraulein: Your dilemma was discussed in Lewis Gannett's book column recently in the New York Herald Tribune; for the benefit of those who came in late, let's recapitulate it briefly. A university student in Munich, you met there ' some Americans associated with the Crusade for Freedom the organization of our National Com mittee for a Free Europe to send truth behind the iron curtain. These Americans struck you as self less and dedicated. But then you read .several novels by William Faulkner and John Steinbeck's Cannery Row and you were appalled by the pic tures they gave you of our country and its citizenry which were so at variance with the types of Amer icans you had met. What American books, you wanted to know, would explain the thoughts and backgrounds of those dedicated Americans? Your dilemma, dear Fraulein, though inter esting, is by no means unusual. For some while now many American readers have been themselves pretty startled at the pictures of American life drawn by American novelists. It has been pointed out that our good fiction writers have seemed to feel like giving up on their country long before their readers have felt like doing so. This, however, is not a recent development: American fiction of merit started turning pessimistic about 70 years ago. No doubt your American advisers over there have recommended Huckleberry Finn as a trurer delineation of the American spirit. Well, it is a great book and you should certainly read it, if you haven't already, but don't let them kid you about its author, Mark Twain, who was probably as pessimistic about American life as all our contemporary fiction writers put together. It was not until after World War I, though, that pessimism among our major fiction writers really got pumping. We were in an economic boom during the 1920's, and the predominating theme of nearly every good novelist was the futility of it all: nothing really mattered any more, nothing. But when the economic depression came in the 1930's, our fiction writers dropped despair and snatched up literary rocks and brickbats, which they hurled at stuffed dummies labeled Capitalism in a dreary succession of what came to be known as "strike novels," many of them written in avant garde style, too boring or difficult to unsnarl. Our entry into World War II ended the mili tant pro-labor trend in our fiction, for it was dis covered that even Capitalism might come in handy if democracy was to be preserved. But when the smoke lifted, a number of our fiction writers especially the younger ones turned out books arguing that just about every officer in our Armed Forces was a caste-ridden, sadistic beast toward the enlisted men he commanded. Consider the following quotation: "It is a source of continual astonishment to me that the nation which has the world-wide reputation of being the most optimistic, the most gregarious, and the freest on earth should see itself through the eyes of its most sensitive members as a society of helpless victims, shady characters, and displaced persons. ... In novel after novel one encounters heroes without honor or history; heroes who suc cumb so monotonously to temptation that they cannot truly be said to be tempted at all . . . heroes whose sole moral virtue is a stoic endur ance of pain and disaster." That, dear Fraulein, was written by W. H. Auden, a great British poet and critic who is now an American citizen. In short, few of our good fiction writers have ever had a sunny slant on their native land. We have had writers to burn who have been almost un bearably sunny, but what they have written has been largely trash. It is therefore difficult to rec ommend first-rate American fiction that would help solve your dilemma. You might try The Yearling by Marojrie Kinnan Rawlings, H. L. Davis' Honey in the Horn and, for the America of another time, My Antonia by Willa Cather and the works of Booth, Tarkington, a greatly underrated novelist. But here's a suggestion. Why not, for the time being, drop our fiction writers as your tutors in learning something of the backgrounds of those Americans who struck you as dedicated?, A fiction writer, no matter how great, never speaks for his country; he speaks merely for himself. Turn in stead to some of our poets and writers of non fiction. Read John Broivn's Body by Stephen Vincent Benet and Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. For more background on this Civil War period (and nobody can hope to understand our country with out knowing something about it) read Benjamin P. Thomas' one-volume Abraham Lincoln, Reveille in Washington by Margaret Leech and the writ ings of Douglas Southall Freeman. Then read The Education of Henry Adams. This is a lot of read ing, dear Fraulein, and all serious stuff, so for relaxation we prescribe soothing draughts from A Subtreasury of American Humor, by E. B. and Kathrine S. White. As to some recent works that might ease your dilemma, we advise that you consult Charles A. Lindbergh's The Spirit of St. Louis; also Frederick Lewis Allen's The Big Change, which tells what happened to this country in the last half century. Finally, read The River and the Gauntlet by S. L. A. Marshall. It describes the U. S. Eighth Army's defeat in North Korea when it was over whelmed by the Chinese Reds. That may seem a strange recommendation, but nothing in our day can convey to you better what is back of those dedicated Americans you met P o G O HEM vvg a&,6o? m Tm ON. A COMICBOOK THAT PX? WITH GKACg, GAI6T ANP GUFFAW 1 PUNNO COMICBOOKS TEST eggMd UNFAIK NOTHIN' UNPAID, eie-w&xs just TREATING THEM Alt AUK&- NOW KINDLY SELECT THE ONE THAT AS MOST VZOll. IF I GOTTA CHOO&P,! THIS ONE'S FUNNIP6T. WAS?2ANT YOU rf'd I APVCAT VS CZASS WIL TLL oopsoeeyMieTAtfsNLY.i H ANPH? YOI MY COPY OF TH& CONGRESSIONAL f&COBB IUU9TKATIN& IT IN COLOf? -PANEL By PANE I JSXCSUEM COMB, LBT9 (KT AGAIN, wK. ' 1 The Eye Of The Horse Roger Will Coe (THE HORSE was mincing daintily past Bingham Hall, the English Department's new.H. Q. We won dered if he had been among the detractors of the English Department of late in The Daily Tar Heel? "Fur from it, Roger.'me lad," The Horse denied. "I have spent pleasant and pro fitable hours studying Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, Joyce, Por ter, Mansfield, Huxley, under the kindly, patient and erudite direc tions of Dr. Harry Russell and Dr. Talbert." Hah! Combing over dead bones and laboring over ancient tomes? What good was that for, say, Crea- tive Writing? "A lot of good," The Horse stated. "The best equipment a writer can bring to his scrivenings is an ability to criticize his work intelligently. What better way is there to gain critical facility than to con the works of the great masters of our language, or of those acknowledged to have something extra on the ball point pen?" Oh? The Horse was going to do a Modern Canter bury Tales, perhaps? Or a nouveau Hamlet? Or a Finnegans Re-a-Wake? "You miss the point," fThe Horse yawned, haunch ing down on a step. "Chaucer painted word descrip tions which were at once vivid and brief. Shakespeare brought out character by opposing it to other charac ter. Joyce's facility with words was well, James Joyce was Mencken with a Brogue. Huxley's chapter links and his tongue-in-cheek restraint were edify ing, and still are." Okay, okay, why not study modern American au thors? "I might unconsciously attempt to copy them, or even worse, I might succeed in copying them." Was this a reflection on James Jones, Hair-Chest Hemingway, Saroyan, Sinclair Lewis, others? . "Heck, no," The Horse snorted. "But, I thought we were speaking of Creative Writing, not Imita tive Writing. Let me tell you a story of a writer who . sedulously memorized Ring Lardner's vocabulary and his studied grammatical quirks until he actual ly spoke like Lardner's characters and even started: to dress like them. And, to be sure, he then pro ceeded to write like Lardner. Just to make every thing nice and even, he scrivened scripts and posted them post-haste to prudent publishers who manu factured magazines containing Lardner lyrics that then sold successfully to rapt readers. Boom, he got them back poster-haste. In high dudgeon, he charged into the editors' offices and ranted that his stuff was just like Lardenr's, and he challenged them to deny it." And did they deny it? "Nope,"' The Horse shrugged. "They agreed hearti ly. And they added that when they wanted more of Lardner, they knew where to get in touch with him. 'Go forth, thou author, and be thyself,' they admo nished the chagrined chap. 'Write what you know in your style and in your settings. Maybe we will buy your creations, but we will not buy from you Lard ner's re-creations." Did not modern writers count? "At all opportunity, they should study their suc cesses," The Horse said. "But only in so far as the study is to note that originality, daring, deft art, flawless technique and true-to-life situations and dramatic exposition are the keystones of those suc cesses. Further and bes'ond, maybe James Jones and Truman (Yoo-hoo!) Capote and Walter Saroyan have written deathless prose. There isn't any ques tion that Chaucer and Shakespeare did. .And corn me not that corn that they are creations of English departments to further steady employment in En glish departments." Maybe, but was this practical? "Ever hear of Winterset?" The Hose waved a jeering hoof. "What was that but Romeo & Juliet Under The Brooklyn Bridge, with a tetch of Hamlet and a gob of who knows what else thrown in for good measure? All it did was to cop a Pulitzer Prize three hundred and thirty-five years after its original author had copped the then version of the Pulitzer, give or take six years. Good theatre is good theatre, compelling drama is compelling drama, tradgedy is tragedy, then and now." Well, take Mickey Spillane, now. "Mickey created something, and he has a lot of emulating emirs emanating in his emancipated wake," The Horse agreed. "It has been established that whodunits are in such demand that Spillane's spit-and-images have wide sale as swiftly as they can copy Mickey's style and out-gore him in gory happen stance. Me, I regard this as forgery. And once again, we were talking about Creative Writing, no? Why did he keep repeating that? "Some people appear to lose sight of this," The Horse pointed out. "There just is not any way a character can walk into a classroom called Creative Writing and by some process like the ceiling falling atop him, come out a Creative Writer. Market in formation can be dispensed. The wrack's of Formula that magazine stretch writers on can be learned. Fast starts, ept flashbacks " "More graceful than inept," The Horse supplied, "can be demonstrated. The art of the double-twist at the end can be detailed. This is no more than polishing and preening for the market. The basic stuff of a story must be there, first. Even what a story is can be transmitted, explained, elaborated on. But the real gripe is, as Mrs. O'Horse once point ed out to me, something as entertaining as it is tragic." And that was? "You go to an opera," The Horse expounded. "You like the opera. Do you rush home and try to write an opera? Or, you attend a symphony. Do you say, 'Hey, now, I'll write myself one!' Or you see the George Washington Bridge. Do you sit down and start to draw plans for a similar, or better bridge?" That was silly! "So, is deciding you can write a book silly, just because you have read one," IThe Horse said. "People break down into three types: those who can origin ate; those who can copy what has been originated; and those who can do neither. Now, you take me." "Wump!",said Mr. Wump, from a nearby bush.
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Jan. 16, 1954, edition 1
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