North Carolina Newspapers

t:UI I ,H 1.. TACC TV0 THE DAILY TAR HEEL THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5.. 193? No Extension Ilir Inst piece of .sinilicnnt legislation to It Mts(iml to Coiiicm is the proposal to extend llu- Sclectiw Service system lor two .idclif itii.il c.iis p.,M tl,c cxpii'atioti dale of June ol tins e.u. I liis law has paitiiular lelcv.uiic to col lege students who have a j;icat part of their lntiue laid out More theni, and many of uhom have to determine tli.it future in terms ol their olli;;ation to the United States mili taiy. In sim.le teims, the draft law does not woik, nor is cllcctiu in promoting a strong milit.ny in the atomic ;vc. Moreover, it is destine tic in tenus of the creative lives of many who could he quite c relive. As it stands now .N.ooo.ooo is I ei n,:; .spent to induct an average of tluee people per loatd annually, money that wotdd he well to .spend elsewhere on the defense system. 1 uither, the system itself has weaknesses and complications. Indeed, as it stands now it is sue kin- into the military the Iravkbone of the country the unmarieds of a-e sit on the .ncin-e. These are the people who arc just he.ninnin a career, for the most part, and who ate herd from the familial ties that would leaxe them in ;v position not to ad Name tapidly in the woikiu world. T01 the college student, the draft is es pecially Ind. lor as a military advisor -i"t Amheist College pointed out in a recent is sue of I lie Nation, college students by and I.iirc aie looking for leal ways to avoid the halt. So, students Ret mat lied prematurely, and once manied aic ured to have children so that they will hae the requisite number ol dependents to be ineligible in pe.ieetimc. Most of these people are in a position where tliev can neiihei alfoid ;p wife or a family, and in a position whcie the financial drain of a family may ncll hint their career. In olhri c asrs, students who would pt of it fiom uoikin in society for a year or two liae to attend r.nluate school immediately after their college cneer ends with the main idea ol avoiding the draft. Incquiiies exist still fuither when one sees that in many iiual clistiicts the volunteer late is such that no person is drafted in en tile yeais. so that the quota system serves to keep a stall ol people busy Tor 110 apparent puiposr, since the c lassilic ation and rc-tlassi lieatiou nets 110 entrants into the service. Other urban aieas have no lerruits and higher epiotas, so that it is at the present time advisable, il one lives in the city, to move into the country the M)int hcic bc 1115 that a supposedly equitable draft system is far horn equitable and is a- drain on the taxpayer as well as providing several useless jobs, sci vices which could well be rendered in other aieas of government. It should also be jointed out that the Selec tive Sci vice system that now exists is far from selective, in that thcic is only one real Selec tion th.it an individual may make. This se lection is whether to enlist or take one's chain rs with the draft and seek legitimate methods of (lodiu that draft. Once induct ed a person finds out that be is put into that position which be most qualilicd Tor. In the typical amusement of things a col lege ;iadu..:e in physics may be drains tic uc lies or fixing telephone lines, while per sons of no education are Riven IurIi respon sibility. Ibis lends to foster an unwieldy incompetence. I iiidly. coiisidciatiou must lie made for the diicclion tow.nd which seivices should be beacliiiR. I his direction is up. The coun tiy is moving towaid the space ac rising a LaSdle. and eih;"ps 1 1 icy rrriht try rising an iiitcnoniiticnt.il ballistics missile instead. 'I he ac ol the foot soldier is at least partial ly Rone, and the need to keep a lare stand imy is almost non-existent. This is not to say that theie is not a need foi tiaincd military pcisounel. but it is to siv that continuation of the piesent law is wion:;. I heir are scvnal shoiccs open to the gov riumenf. I he liist ancl most obvious is Uni versal Militaiy Training for a sboit period immediately alter hili school graduation or dcp.ututc. The second is a reinstatement of the (;. I. bill in an elfort to get volunteers which siiiely would come under the program, since thcic ar fully aoo.tMio students in the United States capable of doing college vvotk, but unable I inane ially to atend. I in.vlly, if the piesent system is continued in anything like its present foim, it should be modified so that individuals can serve the country in government woak according to their individ ual ability. Under this plan a chemistry grad uate could wotk in a research department of the government for two to three years, some thing that would both profit the military and the individual. At present the system is wrong, but it is not pu4t corcrction. u On Reading Matter Sidney Dakar Quite frequently some student sends a letter to the editor of the DTI I and complains of the poor quality of the editorial page. Some say it is too intellectual, some that it is intellectually barren. We need more like those that arc complaining. At least, I assume, that they read the editorial page, which is, by the way, open to any and all that feel that they could do better than those who try. The sad truth is that most Carolina students never get further than the sport's page and Togo when they read any newspaper. There is nothing wrong with sporting activities; they are very excellent for enjoying our free time. Some students, however, havo sports on their "minds" all day. These people know all the "vital" statistics on their favorite athletics. This is a frightful tendency as far as I am concerned. While the world is falling in on us, while our whole value system is being threatened by the aroused masses of the world, while Russian students arc diligently study ing the science of H-bombs and ICBM's 16 hours a day, seme of our future lepders at Carolina spend a long breakfast (and sometimeF lunch) talking only about last night's game. It is interesting to learn who won the game and maybe even the exact score, but to spend hours discusaing the game is for children and for those who know nothing more important of which to talk. I am of course excluding those who make their living with sports, such as coaches and professional players. It is conceivable that the lowest type of manual laborers might spend the better part of the day discussing shotting and batting averages, but not college students! The future leaders! We are not the masses; we arc supposed to be the chosen few, but this is probably a myth that will soon be exposed. Our editor has been overly generous with columns from othtr sources than here on campus. He has frequently printed articles from many of the learned journals and newspapers. It is not im portant that the reader agree with all of the views that are pre sented. Most of the articles arc written not specifically to make the student change his mind but to make him think, to reconsider judg ments that he might have thuoght final. The most thought-provoking essays can appear on the editorial page and there will not be a murmur of any sort amoving the students, but let the editor put Togo or Fcanuts in a new spot or omit them completely (God for bid!) and the postmen will be working overtime forwarding the angry and indignant letters to the editor. Right now the U. S. is rich and powerful, but we will do well to remember that this was accomplished not by us but by the sweat and toil of our fathers and their fathers. Some people in the pre sent generation have come to believe that God actually favors Americans over all others. Ask them about any "of our most pressing world problems and they will merely reply that "everything will come out all riaht in the end." At the risk of sounding trite, I will say that "God helps those who help themselves." The United States will not automatically remain powerful in the future. It will require a serious mental and physical effort on our part. History will determine if the present generation of college stu dents will have met the challenge that has been arrogantly flung in their faces by the Russian leaders and students. "The moving finger of fr.te writes, and having written, moves on. All of our pious pleading will not change it, nor all of our tears wash out a word of it." "Don't Let Anyone Say We're Not Making Progress' A 1 &,T - --c.5i. tr'-ft" 1 ZWA 1 J.". 1 Letter Notes In Review Arthur Lessing The presentation of passion in music finds wide ly divergent expression in the music of our Western world, for it can never merely be presentation, bat must be digested and formed within a composer's idiom and musical concern. In music, we never con front passion as it is, but rather are given a met amorphoses of passion which incorporates it with all else that is given by the composer. Miss Iren Marik's piano recital in Hill Hall last Tuesday even ing was a study of such a metamorphoses. To be specific about Miss Marik's personal mu sical equipment, there is little doubt that the artist showed herself to be a serious pianist with a thorough if limited range of artistry which pro vided her performance with an outspoken care for detail, a certain depth of tone production, and, unfortunately, a lack of intellectual conception necessary to hold her artistic concern in focus. In short, her stature as a pianist overwhelmed at times her stature as an artist; however, there were many moments during her recital when there result ed a happy reunion between these two, making her concert an event of considerable musical in terest. The Siloti arrangement or Bach's Organ Prelude in G Minor demonstrated not a metamorphoses of passion into the musical terms of Bach's personali ty, but the false imposition of nineteenth century romanticism on a musical style that is neither suit ed nor should be available to such an intrusion. Instead of metamorphoses we were given a con glomerate of parts unnaturally held together. The very difficult Beethoven Sonata that follow ed shows a passion that, inbedded within the com poser's peculiar spiritual development, as shown in his music, is not so much purified as turned in the metamorphoses toward depth rather than exuber ance. Here, romantic passion becomes the energy for an exploration of its opposite. The Sonata in C Minor (Opus III) with its two complimentary move ments, as if one sets up the challenge of the task of metamorphoses and the other the answer, shows passion in progress toward spirit in its most pro found sense. The second book-of Debussy's "Images" presents the metamorphoses of passion into mobility. For Debussy, movement itself expresses his musical con cern, but passion is now the musical counterpart of Bergson's elan vital. Editor: During the break between semesters, several persons had items stolen from their rooms in Cobb Dormitory. The thief evidently has a pass key and can open any room in the building. I was one of the unfortunate ones. My practical ly new typewriter was taken from my room, 333 Cobb. If the person that took the typewriter re turns it, no questions will be asked, and a reward will be given. However, if the typewriter is not re turned, ancl if either I or the police find who has it, I will sec that the thief is prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I am waiting for its return. George A. Weaver Spectrum: A Literary Anthony Wolff We are confronted - those of us v.ho care to be - with two maga zines, both of the genre known as "little magazines." One of them, THE CAROLINA QUARTERLY, has been around for ten years or so. The QUARTERLY is the parish of UNC publications, despite the fact azme , 3W,3 '1 : -v t that the , students contri bute collective ly to its sup- p 0 r t through .student fees. That they con tribute the lit tle support they do is due not so much to any genuine con cern for the magazine or the .standards which it represents as to a guilty desire to share in its quality without having - God for bid! - to read the damn thing. The idea is that the QUARTER LY, originating as it does from UNC under the aegis of each and every one of us, casts a glow of cultivated respectability over all our dissipation and fraudulent edu cation. For most of us, it is one of those things which we would rather not have around, much less pay for, but for the fact that like a leather-bound set of clas sics standing elegant and un-. touched on a shelf, the QUARTER LY gives us the iippearnncc of an intellectual depth to which we are unwilling - and perhaps un able - to attain. Our second literary magazines is the new-born SPECTRUM, the first issue of which appeared lat month. No sooner did it make its modest debut than one of our more straight-laced student lead ers let out a high-pitched and out raged yelp - "SPECTRUM IS OB SCENE;" whereupon this unpres uming little publication sold out a rather large first printing in a matter of hours. Rumor even has it that a number of copies were sold into the limbo of the frater nity houses, thus depriving several genuine bohemians of their copies. It is not surprising that our no ble solon's imitation of a South ern Methodist minister reviewing LOLITA from the pulpit had the happy effect which: it had - one is left to wonder, whether he is so politically naive as to believe that his charges could have any other effect than the one they had; and, the obvious answer to that one be ing "no,' one is then left to won der at such things as the state of local politics, the moral's of our leaders, cc. Nor is it surprising that this charge of obscenity, like all such charges, was all pious hot air. In the first place, obscenity is a dif ficult charge to make against any art work, cr even any pretended art work: art is perhaps by defini tion exempt from such considera tions, except in Boston, and other papist strongholds. Chapel Hill is not yet under the influence of Pa pal Bull. In the second place, SPECTRUM is so weak minded, so devoid of any energy, that it could not pos sibly offend anyone who can sit through a deoderant commerical without blushing. The word "shit' appears once, on page 42; and that poor cuss has long since be come so insipid that it passes for more-or-less proper speech in most sorority houses (though the Pan Hell Handbook doesn't mention it). And this isolated word is the worst thing in the magazine. There is no erotic literature, no mention of any serious amorality, nothing even good enough to be seriously disturbing or depressing. The magazine as a whole may be said . a lack that blind, smug cheer which has vitiated whatever was valuable in our Protestant Puritan heritage, but that docs not make it obscene to any but those who must grin to conceal a spiritual vacuum. SPECTRUM is not, then, the "squeeze your nuts and open your face" sort of publication, such as HOWL and other "BEAT" publi cations are: it is interesting to see that HOWL, the Book of Common Prayer of the Beat, is parodied in SPECTRUM. If SPECTRUM is neither a cam pus PLAYBOY nor a local voice of "beat" romanticism, what is it? Unfortunately, on this question criticism breaks down: as a whole, t least, SPECTRUM is not much of anything, and if its contents are representative of the best literary effort being produced on this cam pus, then we have no need for a campus literary magazine at all. E"en the magazine's title denies the possibility of any internal con sistency. Taken individually, the stories and poems in the magazine have little to recommend them. Some are plain frauds, without any form or content. This is a sweeping generalization, but it applies with out reservation to most of the poe try and some of the prose. The difficulties of the poetry - difficul ties mostly of formlessness and mcaninglcssness rather than of form and meaning - evaporate easily under analysis; unfortunate ly, the poems disappear with the difficulties rather than gaining sub stance from them. For this reason, the poems in SPECTRUM are un available to criticism of any seri ous sort; even parody is out, for they parody themselves quite well. The only two which make any sense at all - indeed, the only two which will stand still for inspection -are Dennis Parks' "Why We Should Make Love In The Streets" and Parker Hodges' "The Glory That Was Rome." Of the two, Mr. Parks' piece is by far the better, but both of them are so trite in conception, language and diction, having already been well done by Eliot, or Pound or Cummings or somebody (and quite possibly ev erybody), that they seem pale and limp. At least Mr. Parks seems to be trying to write poetry rather than sloppy prose, which is more than can be said for Miss Berry, Mes srs. Hodges, Blume, Benjamin (who exhibits a flair for the dott1 ble negative in the very first line, thus demonstrating a fasionable knowledge of Middle English poetic conventions), or even Editor Parks himself in his other contribution about the delights of congress in the bathtub. Robert Bell's "Ululate" (Lat. "Howl") is the only criticism in the magazine, an attempt to pa rody Ginsburg's famous rail against American society. Unfor tunately, the poem which is pa rodied is so vulnerable that Mr. Bell's failure is compounded. "Howl" has only the most rudi mentary form, and its language is anything but precise or eclectic: it should parody easily. On second thought, however, it becomes clear that the original comes so close to parodying itself and the whole genre to which it belongs that further parody may in fact be im possible. At any rate, there would always be the danger of confusing the poem and the parody. Mr. Bell neatly avoids this danger by miss ing the poem entirely. Alone, his own work has no merit. There are tour prose pieces, three short stories and one "short briefstory." This last is a more-or-less delightful little exercise in nonsense, enhanced by its no non sense approach to nonsense rather than the pretentious approach ex hibited by the rest of the work credo: meaninglessness is our meaning, and it is best expressed by meaninglessness). "George Eds Girl" is the lead story in the magazine, and a prime example of the "Look, Ma! I'm a wierdo" school of fiction. The only requirements for admission are a superficial knowledge of J. D. Sal inger - i.e. the ability to imitate his language, if you don't come by it naturally - and an underlying raaw kishness about such nauseating people and situations that the flip prep-school inarticulateness is ne cessary to protect the reader from the story. The substance of this particular story is good enough to warrant a more skillful treatment. Gail Godwin and Anne Higgins are the two remaining authors, both of them less "arty," more direct than their companions-in-print, and both of them so obvious in their intentions that their stories lose ' almost all artistic effect and become simply illustrated essays of two familiar patterns of human frustration. Neither author has much skill in characterization, probably be cause for the mo:t part each is writing about people whom she has never met, and so she resorts to steroetypes. The fault is illustrated by the difference between Miss Godwin's believable treatment of the college girls with whom she is familiar and her stiff, cliche sketch of the two elderly "art lovers." Both stories are superficial be cause the value which each pre sents as important is never fully explored. Miss Higgins' symbol for freedom is a rather ridiculous one. At least one hopes that she is not suggesting that $5000 be granted every student who wants to go mountain climbing; and yet Mr. Smith's refusal to heed the stu dent's plea is supposed to rep resent a self-betrayal. Certainly this idea should be explored, pre ferably by Mr. Smith rather than the reader. Miss Godwin also fails to per form the "reality testing" neces sary cannot borrow the fifty-cents admission fee from a store run by a friend who allows him to charge his meals; and, despite the piti able situation of the frustrated lit tle man, it is also legitimate to ask, "So what?" (The same question seems to be posed by the whole magazine.) The art work, consisting of some scetches for sculpture by Robert Howard of the UNC art faculty, is very fine. It seems to be out of place, however. Mr. Howard is an established sculptor and a profes sional artist, and it seems unfair to juxtapose his work with the stu dent contributions. At any rate, his sketches are certainly the best feature of the magazine, even though they are out of place. A last word about format: it would be a good idea if SPEC TRUM, now that it has enough money, would group all of its ad vertising in one place instead of using it for page breaks. The pres ent arrangement is not very satis fat tor3r. The next issue is looked to for great improvement. Certainly it is to be hoped that better writing than this is being done on this campus. Such writing should be encouraged and published, and SPECTRUM is ready, waiting, and in dire need. Note: The Carolina Quarterly will be reviewed in this column as soon as the reviewer recovers from Spectrum.) Bartok's Suite Opus 14 is an early work, and, curiously enough, still retains the influences of List's' romanticism and Richard Strauss's chroma ticism. Yet, for Bartok, passion is no longer roman tic as it is for his teachers. As the final movement of the suite, a "Sostenuto" well demonstrates, the composer has changed passion into the mysterious that was to become fundamental to his personal musical idiom. Mystery, as the metamorphoses of passion, and rhythmic motive, the other element basic to his idiom, both serve the total metamor phoses of his music as complimentary forces. List's "Berceuse"' and "Valee d'Overmann" show the unabashed spread of passion as metamorphosed into the freedom of romantic style. With little mel odic material at his dispossal, List makes passion serve as freedom and creates a kind of music that exhibits it with full color, even though for us in 1959 it seems all a bit confusing in form. Thus the metamorphoses of passion into spirit, mobility, the mysterious, and freedom gives each composer that sense of music that makes it under standable as human and meaningful. Miss. Marik's playing was succcsful in doing just that. tEije iBnity Car eel The official student publication of the Publication Board of the University of North Carolina, where it is published daily except Monday and examination periods and summer terms. Entered as second class matter in the pesi office in Chapel Hill, N. C, under the act of March 8 1870. Subscription rates: $4.50 per se mester, $8.50 per ear. Editor ft J. V CURTIS CANS Managing Fditors CHARLIE SLOAN. STAN FISHER News Editor Associate Editor Business Manager Asst. Ady. Manager Arts Editor Coed Editor Sports Editor RUSTY HAMMOND Assistant Sports Editor Advertising Manager Circulation Manager Subscription Manager BOB WALKER AVERY THOMAS Assistant News Editor Chief Photographers ANN FRYE - ED ROWLAND Z WALKER BLANTON JOHN MINTER Z ANTHONY WOLFF - JOAN BROCK - ELLIOTT COOPER FRED KATZIN - ED RINEIt - BILL BRINKHOUS PETER NESS Sight Editor 0. A. L0PE1 -