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Page Two The Chapel Hill Weekly Chapel Hill, North Carolina 126 E. Rosemary Telephone »-1271 or >*46l Published Every Tuesday and Friday By The Chapel Hill Publishing Company, Ine. Loris Grants Contributing Editor Jor Jones Managing Editor Billy Arthur Associate Editor Chuck Hauser „ . Associate Editor Orville Campbell - General Manager O. T. Watkins Aduemsmc Director Fred Dale Circulation Manager Charlton Campbell Mechanical Supt. Jtr.ierec! a* second-cku matter February ® 1923. at the pot toss ice at Cnapei Hill. North Carolina, under the act of March 3 1879 SUBSCRIPTION RATES In Orange County, Year 64.00 <6 month* 62.25: 3 months, 61.501 Outside of Orange County by the Year: State of N. C, Va., and S. C. 4.50 Other States and Dial of Columbia 6.00 Canada, Alexico, South America 7.00 Europe 7.60 Scolding of the Faculty Enlivens Book About the Kenan Professorships It is hard to make a book solid straight through, and to make it inter esting at the same time, but A. C. Howell has succeeded in this difficult task with ‘The Kenan Professorships." From the nature of his subject, he couldn’t be expected to produce a book to excite the readers, or envelop them in poetic fancies, or cause them to kick up their heels and dance. Such effects were not in his province. He had a serious enterprise to describe, and serious careers connected with the en terprise to review, and he performed this mission thoroughly and capably. He did some lightening and liven ing, though, and for this he deserves the applause of the public. After the author had gone along with his job, a few dozen pages 1 can imagine him saying to himself—if he had expressed himself in the manner of a hireling of the writing market: "I gotta put some pep into this book.” But he wouldn't phrase it that way. I’ll just imagine him saying the profes sor’s equivalent, whatever that is. Anyway, 1 am glad he was seized by that resolution when he came to the time to write the biography of Horace Williams, because here he took the op portunity to give the University faculty a hot little scolding. The biography be gins as, follows: “Unfortunately the minutes of the General Faculty contain no memorial to Horace Williams, perhaps the great est teacher the University had. It was a cruel oversight, ironical, as history can sometimes be. A committee was appointed at the,meeting of January 29, 1941. The chairman was Francis Brad shaw, one of ‘Horace’s Boys,’ and Pro fessor George McKie, a long-time col league, was the only other member. Mc- Kie died in June 1941 and Dean Brad shaw, soon swept into the maelstrom of the war, never presented his report. Quite unintentionally, the Faculty, sel dom truly admirers of the crusty philos opher, had its picayunish and not unwar ranted revenge on him for his frequent acid comments on their academic sacred cows, of book-making, research, labora tory, lecture, experiment, footnote, and bibliography. “Yet the record is available, and of all the fifty-three Kenan professors, living and dead, it is the most exten sive.” A later passage in the biography: “Horace Williams’ ‘boys’ were in the forefront of the state’s progress, they stood for truth and beauty in every battle with the forces of orthodoxy, conservatism, and reaction. But his col leagues were unimpressed and at times hostile. On the Faculty he was the bete noir, the ugly duckling, the non-con formist, like Socrates, or as Judge Win ston says, the Gadfly of Chapel Hill, always asking embarrassing questions, stinging with his acid tongue, taking the opposite side; of the great scientist, Venable, he said, ‘He knows his stew.' He was equally scornful of bibliography and library science. No love was lost between the philosopher and his col leagues; some thought him a humbug; some never could forget his business practices; some felt that his class was a glorified show with himself the chief performer, whose intellectual acrobatics brought down the house but lacked in tegrity. “Though he had hoped for it, he was not one of the first to be elected Kenan professors. It was, he said, ‘A dreadful blow,’ yet with his clear, analytical mind he should have foreseen it as he did the great panic of 1929. Only through his boys did Horace Williams obtain the coveted 'honor. He tells the story in his curious book, The Education of Horace Williams.” Here Mr. Howell quotes the passage in which Mr. Williams wrote of how “a group of my students led by that prince of young men, Graham Kenan, came to commencement to enquire into the matter. Professor Chase had be come President. He agreed with Mr. Kenan that I would 1m- made a Ke.nan professor at the next commencement. The action of my students was very pleasing. But 1 did not recover my feeling for the Faculty." There has never been in Chapel Hill a subject on which -people had. and ex pressed, such positive opinions as on the quality of Horace Williams. Os course I don’t mean that they were all wholly for him or all wholly against him. Some liked him as a teacher but not as a man. Some liked him as both. Some thought him almost divine. Some thought him a humbug and a show-off. Ft is a tribute to his distinctiveness, anyway, that people were not neutral about him. They either praised him or disparaged him. Mr. Howell says plainly what his opinion of Horace Williams is. Some of his readers will agree with him. Others will not, among these being some of the same men he scolded in his biography. 1 am not interested in expressing my ow‘n opinion now. What I am interested in is saying that I am glad Mr. Howell included in his book this spirited and entertaining chapter.—L. G. The French Like Faulkner’s Gloom The Mentor Book, “Highlights of Modern Literature," a collection of es says from the New York Times Book Review, contains one by Marcel Ayme entitled “What French Readers find in William Faulkner's Fiction.” Ayme has won many literary honors in his own country and several of his books have been published in the United States by Harper’s. Here are passages from his essay on Faulkner: “There is no writer in the United States who seems more American to us Frenchmen than William Faulkner. He is admired here by a large and fervent following.’’ “In reading his novels it seems that we get caught in a nightmare which is now and then penetrated by a fur tive and sinister glimmer of God, re flected in the murky waters of a de serted swamp. There is so much gloom, incurable misery, horror, and distress in this divine reflection tllat the first reaction of any sane-minded person should be to cry, ‘Let us hope with all our strength that God doesn’t ex ist, that the novelist has been mocking us, for otherwise this is too ghastly.’” “In Faulkner’s novels, the more cruel, brutal, bloodthirsty, lusty and wrathful the characters are, the more tangible is the presence of God. His universe is peopled mostly with crude, sometimes monstrous, beings;* and yet, although plunged in the human sub stance of fate, Benjy and Popeye, the idiot and the puny, are possessed by a superhuman force which we would say is that of God.” “It is strange that a man, in this case a novelist, should believe him self obliged to seek God on the lowest level, starting from the basest instincts, the most sordid dramas and unhealthy embraces, as if he were trying to concoct a visceral emulsion. Never theless it is this God who seems so at ease in struggles and fights, in drunken orgies, in blood and filth, who is the veritable God of the Bible, both wrathful and vindictive.” The Pleasure of Being President Washington: “I would rather be in my grave than in the Presidency." Adams, at the end of his term in 1801: “If I were to go over my life again, I would be a shoemaker.” Buchanan, in turning over the White House to Lincoln in 1861: “If you are as happy, my dear sir, on entering this house as I am in leaving it you are the happiest man in the country.” Cleveland, after having served one term, 1886-89, been defeated in 1888, and been elected in 1892 for a second term: “I look upon the next four years as a self-inflicted penance for the good of the country.” Selling North Carolina (Hickory Daily Record) . Up at Harvard University, a North Carolina club has been organized among the student body., composed, of course, of Tar Heels. The avowed purpose of the club is to THE CHAPEL HILL WEEKLY i Like Chapel Hill By Billy 'Arthur —tt:..— Sol Lipman inquired as to the whereabouts of his brother Jack the other morning by asking: “Have you seen my kid brother today?" * w * * Hap Perry was thinking about his projected trip to Florida when he figured he had better prepare him self for the worst. “How much.” he asked Shell Henninger who re cently returned from a trip down that way, “money will I need?" “Depends on where you're going to stay,” sug gested Bill Thompson. “Now that hotel at St. Peters burg. for instance. Costs $35 a day. I forgot the name of the place, but not the prices.” Hap flinched. “It's only open four months in the year,” Bill went on. “At those prices it can afford to stay closed eight months,” someone added. “There aren’t any $5 rooms in Florida,” Shell spoke up. “11l find 'em,” Hap declared. * * * n Kiwanians and Rotarians were enthusiastic about the meal L. B. Rogerson and his crew spread before them at the Carolina Inn last Tuesday night. “Bet the University lost monev.qn that meal,” one of them spoke up. “Yeh,” another yehed, “but the University will get it all back when it sends the Inn the bill for the lights it uses.” '* * * I telephoned one of the best friends—Mrs. John Umstead—l ever had in Chapel Hill. “Honey, you got any screening shrubbery I might have?” I asked. “Billy, darling!” she exclaimed, “you don’t mean to tell me you’ve begun gardening. J don’t believe it.” I told her the only yard work 1 was doing was trying to keep my Missus busy. The result of the call was that again I learned how generous she is, a quality I had discovered and re membered during arid since my days in the University. So, if anyone misses things in the Umstead garden, they can see them in the Arthur yard. My only hope is that we can keep them half as healthy and pretty. We’re grateful for our friends. Chapel Hill Chaff (Continued from page 1) wear it. The wooing of Anne Neville as told by Shakespeare is. "pure fiction,” says Mr. Wright, and that Richard slew Prince Edward at Tewkesbury is no more than a rumor. The Duke of Clarence was not drowned J in a butt of malmsey by two murderers at the command of Richard (a Shakespeare libel again!). The blackest crime charged against Richard is the murder of the two princes, his nephews, in the Tower. They stood between Richard and the throne. Who instigat ed the murders? “It may have been Richard,” says Mr. Wright. “He had reason to wish them dead, but nobody can prove how the little prin cess died ... It was long after ward that the chroniclers trumped up a ‘confession’ by Sir James Tyrell that gives the familiar story of the boys’ being smothered in their bed clothes and buried under a stair in the Tower.” Mr. Sea well was in -Chapel Hill a few days ago, having brought his daughter Brook to spend the Easter vacation and her ninth birthday with her grandmother, and he told me how the formal movement on behalf of Richard began. One night about a year ago he and some of his friends were at the Players, the fam ous dub on Gramercy Park, talking about this and that. Richard the Third happened to come into the conversation, and straightway the conjec ture was uttered in a daring tone that the ol’ boy was prob ably not as bad as he was painted. Well, something like that, anyway. Presently when it turned out that somebody in the company had been doing research into Richard’s char acter and achievements and wag sure he had been cruelly maligned, the discussion took on a serious purpose. The out come of it was that an ad vertisement was sent to the London Times announcing the organization of Friends of Richard the Third, Incorporat ed, and offering to enroll mem bers. “They get their papers in London hours before we do point up the opportunities and advan tages of North Carolina to New Eng land in general and to Harvard gradu ates and students in particular. The club will serve as a vehicle to help Harvard men find promising positions in the Old North State, and will be a central point of contact for North Caro lina industry and business to seek Harvard-trained brains and talent. It will be a central clearing house for in formation about Tarheelia. We like this idea a lot. It can be of tremendous worth—but we believe it in New York,” .said Mr. Sea well, “and I was dragged out of bed before daylight to re ceive a cablegram from a man in London who had read our notice and wanted to enroll. Since then members have come >in from all over the world. We have one <hajAer of the corporation in New York and one in London, arid people who want to help silence the .sland ers against Richard - can join either one. ' Natalie Hays Hammond, au thor of “Klizaljgth of Eng land,” is now in England ar ranging for the publication of a book on Richard the Third on which she has been work ing a long time. Having been the biographer of the Tudor queen has evidently not pre judiced Miss Hamrnond against the Tudors’ famous enemy, for, according to Mr. Seaweil, her book is going to contain startlingly favorable revela tions about Richard. Mr. Seaweil is legal coun sel for Tallulah Bankhead, Al fred I.unt, Lynn Fontanne, Ruth Draper, Russell Crouse, Howard Lindsay, and many oth er persons eminent in the theatre, but this is the first time he has taken up the cause of an historical character. His theatre clientele expanded rap idly after he became Miss Bankhead's counsel. His champ ionship of Richard the Third could certainly get him plenty of clients among historic characters whose reputations need mending if their ghosts could just communicate with him. But does he want any more such clients? I doubt it. Richard is probably enough. I can "see how there might be some fun in restoring the rep utations of persons who have come down in history as vil lains, but I shouldn’t think it would be a lucrative sort of practice. The Atlantic Amphibious Force, which celebrated its 14th anniversary on March 14, 1966, were known only by num bers until July 1955 when they were given the names of coun ties and parishes from the 46 states. can backfire, too, unless its leaders are adroit, diplomatic and objective. We hope they do not acquire the boastfulness of the Texan, as this is likely to alienate the very ones it is meant to impress. Neither should the dark spots in our economy be glossed over.'With a fair appraisal, and an un derstanding of the many attractions this State has to offer, a real challenge exists for these youths—they can do a real selling job, where it counts, and they have provided a good media for doing it. I r., -vvw-' [I The l Roundabout Papers L A - c. Dunn THIS IS LIKELY TO be a rather disorganized column be cause it's being written by ear —that is to say 1 am typing like mad in order to catch the deadline and 1 haven't the faintest idea what I’m writing abou't. So if you will bear with me until next week, at which time 1 shall have had a short vacation and will be feeling a bit more bouncy, 1 shall be obliged. » * * THOSE OF YOU WHO are aware of the fact that my dog vanished early this week will (at least you ought to) be glad > to hear that she returned early this morning. Her name is Cal purnia, though most people don't ffcel particularly bound to call her this, with the re sult that several drastic mu tations of Calpumia have turn ed up: California, Caledonia, Calypso, Callaway, Callapornia, and “Hey, you mutt!” She is black and tan and has a sky blue plastic collar with my name on it and if you see hei wandering around any more tell her I'm tired of having her go over the hill. Actually, I think she’s car rying on an affair with a hand some boxer or a strapping mas tiff who has a job as a watch dog. somewhere arid can’t leave his post. She’s gone off like this before and every time she back she looks a bit weary, although there is a sec ret gleam in her eye. She thinks I don't ;ee it, but I do. » * » DON' MARQUIS ONCE said “My heart has followed all my days something 1 cannot name.” Don Marquis being a poet, this seems to be an appropriate statement of why he wrote. H. L. Mencken, on the other hand, was slightly less concise about saying why he wrote: “All my writing serves only one end—to achieve for H. 1.. Mencken that feeling of ten sion relieved and' function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.” That’s pretty good, i sup pose. In ari effort to find out some more about why people write I read an essay by George (Jrwell The other night entitled, appropriately enough, "Why I Write.” I cannot re member anything about why Orwell wrote except his state ment that "I always knew I was going to be a writer,” which is dull. J asked Hilly Arthur about 17 seconds ago why he wrote. Hilly stopped battering his typewriter into pulpy submis sion long enough to shout (through his cigar), "I guess it’s the only thing 1 know how' to do.” Now I’m trying to think up a good clever answer to the question Why I Write. I don’t know why 1 write. Suggested answers should he mailed to Hox 271 care of me. LIT take care of them. At the Public Trough Hy J. I*. Husk ins Statesville Record & Landmark More and more people are opening their eyes to the dan ger inherent in a public wel fare system which puts a pre mium on the propagation of illegitimate children. For months we have been discussing the problem Down In Iredell while welfare “Clients” continued to turn up in tavern brawls and as world series spectators. Now there are signs others are beginning to recog nize the evil. A local grand jury has de cided to look into the prob lems at the suggestion of Cor oner Marvin Raymer. Even the Greensboro Daily News, usual ly blessed with a 16-ton social consciousness, recognizes edi-' torially “a rash of complaints” over the state. What has happened is this. We have allowed ourselves to be maneuvered into a position which makes it easier for the illegitimate to feed at the pub lic trough than for the legiti mate. We have actually reach ed the place where a married woman can be required to in dict her husband in order to On the Town By Chuck Hauser >:.■*.v | RICHARD KLIJCKHOHN, THE YOUNG MAN who killed a woman shopper by/discharging a pistol from his Raleigh hotel window, will spend one to two vears in the state penitentiary for stupidity, for that is what his crime really consisted of. He did not de liberately kill the woman whose body was torn open by the slug from his Luger. He did not willfully or pre meditatedly snuff out the life of a warm, living, flesh and blood and bone human being. He simply committed an act of unpardonable stupidity: he carelessly handled a loaded firearm. But because the woman’s death re sulted coincidentally from his act, he must cool his heels as a guest of the state of North Carolina at least until some time in 1957. I am inclined to agree that the original sentence of five to ten years was too harsh, and that the retrial sentence of one to two was fairer. I am equally con vinced, however, that a prison sentence had to be administered. It will give Richard Kluckhohn some time to think over what every person who ever lays his hands on a firearm must be conscious of: You. don’t point a weapon at any living thing unless you plan to kill. * * * * I HAVE ALWAYS ENJOYED WATCHING the fascinating phenomenon of our homegrown Commun ists scrambling to reconvert to the latest party line from Moscow, .especially when that line is diametrically opposed to last month’s, as sometimes happens. The biggest scramble of all is on right now, and the latest reversal from the USSR is so stunning that it will take the comrades a while to stomach it, I am afraid. The latest line, of course, involves the switch of Joseph Stalin from the role of hero to the role of villain. Ihe party line reversal has apparently caught even the boss of the U. S. Communists—Party Chair man William Z. F’oster—off guard. According to the New York Times, Foster wrote an article in the Daily Worker urging a “go-slow policy in re-evaluating Stalin’s role.” And Worker Fklitor Alan Max admitted candidly that he was “very much jolted” by the anti- Stalin propaganda now flowing from the headquarters of world Communism. Well, if the American Communists think they’re having trouble digesting this strange meal from Mos cow, let them consider the plight of the Russian Com munists who must assimilate the same thing and then struggle with the following bit of dessert: What is to be done with the carefully mummified body of Com rade Stalin which rests in hallowed proximity to the equally well preserved remains of Lenin in the fancy tomb in Red Square? Right ofl hand, it would appear to be too embar rassing to close the mausoleum, cart out old Joe, and then reopen the doors with only Lenin’s body on dis play and pretend that nothing’s happened. It might be easier to tell everyone that Nikolai was really a bum, too, and dump both boys at one fell swoop. Would save trouble later if the bosses decide that Nikolai must go, anyway. If both the mummies are villains instead of heroes, the government might just rename the mausoleum the “Moscow House of Horrors” or some such opprobrious soubriquet, and charge admission for people to come in and spit on the traitors. The popcorn concession alone could finance enough jet bombers to top the quota for the current five-year plan. obtain help for her children while a prostitute can get help for her illegitimate child with out having to point a finger in the direction of its father. .Suggest to a welfare official, from Dr. Ellen Winston down, that this encourages illegiti macy and you will get double talk. They will tell you on the one hand that it is not so and on the other hand that "no such studies breaking down cases in categories of wedlock and non-wedlock births has ever been made.” In the very next breath they will be citing figures to show that the illegitimacy rate has re mained constant for the past 20 years. Attempt to pin them down any further and you will dis cover "the obligation to pre serve the confidentiality of in timate information.” You are made to feel you are trying to exploit individual assistance cases and that only the wel fare worker stands between these poor unfortunates and a cruel public. In that connection, we want to quote a paragraph from the Greensboro Daily News Editorial: “As for the welfare depart ment, it should take a lead in turning on the heat. There is growing opinion that its checking and supervision are too lax, that it is more interest ed in numbers and case histo ries than in effective adminis tration and close, constant supervision. There ought to be some way—a change in law. if necessary—to make sure that money doled out in ADC grants goes for the purpose for which it is intended, that the children themselves get its benefits, that it is not spent by mothers in rousements and loose-living HOME OF CHOICE CHARCOAL BROILED HICKORY SMOKED STEAKS—FLAMING SHISKEBAB—BUFFET EVERY SUNDAY Tuesday, April 3, 1956 and neglect and that, above all, it not become a premium for increased illegitimacy and ir responsibility.” While the welfare people in sist no studies have been made at the local level, they can cite state-wide figures. They tell us that the proportion of •illegitimate births has remain ed close to 7.9 per cent dur ing the past two decades. The white rate, they say, is 2.5, the non-white 19.4. If true, that means that virtually every fifth non-white child is illegitimate. Well, let’s feed them and clothe them, but let’s not try to discover their identity or require their parents to Work. Rather, let’s foster the illusion they are as good as we are. That will make it all the easier when inte gration comes. “When a teacher of the future comes to point out to the youth of America how the highest rewards of intellect and devotion can be gained, he may say to them, not by subtlety and intrigue; not by wirepulling and demagoguery; not by the arts of popularity; not by skill and shiftiness of following expediency; but by being firm in devotion to the principles of manhood and the application of morals and the courage of righteousness in the public life of our country; by being a man without guile and without fear, without sel fishness, and with devotion to duty, devotion to his country.” —Elihu Root Here we are in the auto matic, atomic age and it’s just as much trouble as ever to change a typewriter ribbon. —C. A. Paul in Elkin Tribune.
The Chapel Hill Weekly (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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April 3, 1956, edition 1
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