ME roun
'THE MICHIAN
DAILY
NUnNEZSDAT. "OCTOBER 16.11 i ''
.AEE-Ut-V ._ aY OC.BE_ 1? '..P
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Published every morning except Mondfay ,
during the University year by the Board in
Control of Student Publications.
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Phones: Editorial, 4925; Business, 21214.
EDITORIAL STAFF
Telephone 4925
MANAGING EDITOR
ELLIS B. MERRY
could not survive. At least it
would have provided an easy and
painless place to pick out the earn-
est, able students from the drifters,
and cast the latter loose upon life's
waters.
It would also have effected a
compromise between the taxpay-
ers, who could show some sort of
a diploma in proof of the filial in-
tellectuality, and the proponents of
true higher education, who could
pursue the holy grail of knowledge
without having to carry along the
sluggish gray-matter of several
thousandmental dead-beats.
The University college will prob-
ably arrive at some date in the fu-
ture when its relations with the
other colleges have been thorough-
ly studied and perfected, and when
funds are at hand for its adminis-
trative expenses. Until then some
other means. should be gradually
developed to separate out the id-
lers before they have wasted their
whole four years hindering the
workers. A very definite stiffening
of junior year standards has been
suggested, and should not prove
wholly unavailing.
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About Books
RHAPSODY IN GREEN
Studies on Six Plays of
Eugene O'Neill, by Alan D. Mickle
Horace Liveright, N. Y. C.
Price $2.00
t.
Editor.....................George C. Tilley
City Editor...............Pierce Rosenberg
News, Editor........... George E. Simons
Sports Editor ........Edward B. Warner, Jr.
Women's Editor........ ,.... Marjorie Follmer
Telegraph Editor ......... George Stauter
Music and Drama ........WilliamJ. Gorman
Literary Editor...........Lawrence R. Klein
Assistant City Editor....-Robert J. Feldman
Night Editors
Frank E. Cooper Robert L. Sloss
William C. Gentry Gurney Williams, Jr
Henry J. Merry Walter Wilds
Charles R. Kaufman
Reporters
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Charles A. Askren
Helen Barc
Louise Behymer
Thomas M. Cooley
W. H. Cranej
Ledru E. Davis
Helen Domine
Margaret Eckels
Katherine Ferrin
Carl ForsytheJ
Sheldon C. Fullerton
Ruth Geddes
Ginevra Ginn
J. Edmund Glavin
Jack Goldsmith
D. B. Hempstead, Jr.
James C. Hendley
Richard T. Hurley
ean H. Levy
Russell E. McCracken
Lester M. May
William Page
GustavmR. Reich
John D. Reindel
Jeannie Roberts
Joe Russell
Joseph F. Ruwitch
William P. Salzarulo
George Stauter
Cadwell Swanson
Jane Thayer
Margaret Thompson
Richard L. Tobin
Beth Valentine
Harold O. Warren
Charles S. White
G. Lionel Willens
Lionel G. Willens
J. E. Willoughby
Barbara Wright
Vivian Zimit
BUSINESS STAFF
Telephone 21214
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A. J. JORDAN, JR.
Y Assistant Manager
ALEX K. SCHERER
Department Managers
Advertising...Hollister MabIy
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Service.... . ..George Spatet
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Assistants
Howard W. Baldock
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obert Crawford
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Lawrence Lucey
George Patterson
Norman. Eliezer
Anson Hoex
Robert Williamson
Thomas Muir
Charles Sanford
Lee Slayton
Roger C. Thorpe
William R. Worboys
Jeanette Dale
Bessie V. Egeland
Bernice Glaser
Helen E. Musselwbite
Hortense Gooding
Eleanor Walkinshaw
Alice McCully
$orothy Stonehouse
Dorothea Waterman
Marie Wellstead
Night Editor-HENRY MERRY
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1929
TRUE HIGHER EDUCATION .
However much we would like to
see Michigan lead a determined
battle by the universities of the
United States against the insignifi-
cance of college educations as they
are machined today, we recognize
certain disabilities placed upon a
state university. The University of
Michigan is not in a position dras-
tically to delimit her enrollment
because her policies must to a cer-
tain extent be sensitive to the
wishes of Michigan's citizens.
This is not a pity; it is a fact.
If the University is to exist at all,
she must do so largely through the
generosity of. therstate's taxpayers
as recorded by their representa-
tives in Lansing, and the effective-
ness of their displeasure in pulling
taunt the purse strings scarcely
needs further exposition after the
birth-control episode of recent no-
toriety. Their wishes are further
safeguarded by the Board of Re-
gents whose members, by stand-
ing two at a time for election, sub-
mit the University's broader pol-
cies to popular approval every two
years.
And with the idea so prevalent
that four years at college is a sine
qua non of financial success, it is
unreasonable to expect the majori-
ty of taxpayers to probe the theo-
ries and traditions of higher edu-
cation and find that their sons and
daughters are not fit subjects for
the refining influences of Ann Ar-
bor. Whatever may be said in cas-
tigation of slapping on cultural!
varnish and graduating without
dishonor students who cannot even
spell English, this majority of tax-
payers, partly from parental pride
and partly from ignorance, cannot
be persuaded that four years at an
institution engaged in this process
is more of a hindrance than a
help.I
So Michigan, before she can
make her A.B. degree a sign of
sincere work and cultural attain-
ment, must make some concession
to the die-hard taxpayers who de-
SMUT HOUNDS
The American life today is full
of ironies for the professional and
academic world. Ranking high
among these is the turn of the
hand of chance which allows clerks
in the customs office to dictate to
the American people their literary
tastes. It has been the unexplain-
able privilege of these civil service
"commoners," while disguised as
messengers of the Goddess of Pur-
ity, to censor books which, in their
limited discriminating sense, they
thought to be immoral.
This privilege has its serious side.
There should be a wall of prohibi-
tion against obscene trash which
might be dumped on the American
market for moron and adolescent.
It enters the ridiculous side -how-
ever, when the custom subordinates
in the Treasury department hold
up their hands against such mas-
terpieces of the world's literature
as Bocaccio's "Decameron" and
Voltaire's "Candide" simply on
basis of their portrayal of the
homely side of life.
But while some of official Wash-
ington and their assistants make
such a facetious use of their pow-
ers, it is gratifying to note that
there are others, namely a majority
of the working Senate, possessed
of open minds. Recently, 38 Sen-
ators, which included Michigan's
Couzens, and excluded Michigan's
Vandenberg, voted over 36 fellow
legislators, to strike out of the pro-
vision in the Tariff Bill, relative to
prohibition against importations,
all books except those "urging for-
cible resistance to any law of the
United States."
The underlying aim of the Sen-
ators was not to open the national
doors to immoral literature. It was,
on the other hand a very refined
purpose, namely to place the power
of determining what is immoral,
in a judicial agent with a sense of
discrimination more sympathetic
to literature, than custom office
clerks, hired primarily to detect
smugglers.
There are possibilities that this
amendment to the tariff bill may
not endure its travels through the
legislative labyrinth. But, should
it or not, the stand of the 38 Sen-
ators has made the scholarly mind
a bit less cynical of the political
mind. There is at least some
chance that America's literary
tastes shall not continue to be
dominated by Comstockian smut-
hounds and their agents, the
clerks in the custom house.
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PROTECT THE U. OF M. STADIUM
(Detroit Saturday Night)
Feeble-minded aviators duplicat-
ed their performances of the past
few football seasons at Ann Arbor
last Saturday during the U. of M-
M. S. C. contest, two planes flying
over the stadium during the game.
One, which circled overhead sev-
eral times, was so low that persons
with eyesight below par had no dif-
ficulty in discerning the name of
its owner and its numerical disig-
nation.
Federal regulations prohibit fly-
ing over an open-air assemblage
at a height of less than 1,000 feet
and provide a fine of $500 for vio-
lation. If officials of the University
of Michigan Athletic Association
desire to halt this criminal disre-
gard for the safety and lives of
the spectators, they can make an
effective start by filing specific
complaints with the Detroit office
of the department of commerce
aeronautic division in the Free
Press Building, Cadillac 5953.
01
Mr. Mickle's ecstatic appreciation
of six of Eugene O'Neill's plays-
Anna Christie, The Hairy Ape,
Great God Brown, The Fountain,
Marco Millions, and Strange In-
terlude- scarcely does justice to,
the title. Most certainly his work
can not be termed a study, if the
Word study presupposes scholarly
and careful research into sone spe-
cial, problems to be found in O'-
Neill's work. It:cannot be loosely
termed criticism, sfor the writer is
awake to no fault or shortcoming
in O'Neill, even in the piece on
Strange Interlude.
There is too much rhetoric in
Mr. Mickle's writing and too little
honest facing of the exercise be-
fore him. To establish O'Neill on
the summit of dramatic heights,
he with one fell swoop condemns
Shaw, Barrie, and Galsworthy, and
says: "But the writer, with a head
full of Shakespeare and Ibsen, re-
fused to accept them as being
great." And with this elimination
he couples O'Neill with Ibsen as
the peerless and only modern great
since Shakespeare, forsaking quite
unreasonably Bjornson, Strindberg,
Hauptman, and Suddermann.
In predicting O'Neill's future, a
matter that drew thousands . of
words of speculation after the pub-
lication of Strange Interlude, he
sums up the problem in five in-
trepid lines. "How far Eugene O'-
Neill will yet go, who can say? He
is quite a young man still, and al-
ready he stands, in the opinion of
this writer, stamped by this play
(Strange Interlude), if by no other,
as easily the first dramatist of the
present age."
Music And Drama
THIS AFTERNOON: At 4:15
in Hill Auditorium, Palmer
Christian offers the second or-
gan recit& ini his annual ser-
ies.
TONIGHT: In the Lydia
Mendelssohn theatre, Play Pro-
duction offers the first drama-
tic morsel to the ecanpus, A. A.
Milne's play "The Truth About
Blayds."
* * *
THE MIRACLE
The long-heralded spectacle pan-
tomime from Europe, imported by
the intrepid Morris Gest and
shown in New York 'and a half a
dozen other cities, seems really to
have captured Detroit. People are
flocking to the great cathedral. The
Monday evening crowd was enthu-
siastic and demanded a speech
from Morris Gest who rose to the
occasion with characteristic cun-
ning by saying that he really be-
lieved the Detroit production was
the finest he had yet offered either
here or in England.
There is fascination in the eve-
ning that begins with the tolling
of cathedral bells and chimes. The
Olympia has become a mysterious
and dimly lit cathedral. Balcon-
ies and chancel form a semi-circle
around ;the vast stage over one-
hundred feet wide and seventy feet
tall. A great, gothic sanctuary lit
i with rose windows and in the cen-
ter a splendid altar, seen through
a colonnade. An old Gregorian
chant sounds from the lips of cowl-
ed monks and robed nuns at the
start of the long processional.
The, long intricate story of the
vicissitudes of an earthly Nun's life
is told without words, though the
sounds of the mob and at the end
a recitation of the Lord's prayer
break the silence. The handling of
the masses of performers in pan-
tomime is one of the masterpieces
in stage technique.
* * *
For THE SPONGERS
For the second time this season
patrons of the Detroit Civic The-
atre are getting a pre-view of one
of those things-a play that is
headed for Broadway. William A.
Brady is sponsoring John Leices-
ter's new 'play, "The Sporigers" and
is planning to take itto New York
after its run in Detroit Leicester
has used for his drama a type char-
acter as farmilar ,as Babbitt and
1 gives a god slice of modern Amer-
ica family-life..
The play is the saga of Jimmy
Parker, the only original sponger of
the family, in whose footsteps his
three children are fast following
The children have been taught to
sponge on Great Uncle John. His
death precipitates their effort to
cast off the siackles of their in-
corrigible father and to stand on
their own feet.
* * *
MADAME LOUISE HOMER
A Review by Lee Blaser
If we cannot have Martinelli the
I Metropolitan has plenty more. Or
so .the adage seems to go; Louise
Homer last evening opened the
Choral Union series distinctly not
in her best voice, or rather with
too much voice. It is somewhat a
sorry thing when the best vintage
is saved for the last in the best
Canaan tradition. This happened
in the last encore of the evening-
when she tried to turn the per-
formance with a last minute de-
noument of modulation. Regret-
ably part of the audience had bolt-
red.
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* * *
BLOWN FUSEj
Dynamo, by Eugene O'Neill
Horace Liveright, N. Y. C.
Price $2.50
' To persons still hot in their in-
sistance that Mr. O'Neill is the
greatest dramatist since Shake-
speare, the appearance of Dynamo
will strike them with the effect of a
cooling "shower.' Strange Interlude
was a, trifle too rich a; morsel and
spoiled the taste of too many peo-
ple. As a result, Dynamo seems
rather flat and unseasoned.
Were it an ambitious- play that
fell short of its mark its ineffec-
tiveness would be excusable, at
least from an artistic standpoint.
But there is none of the tense dra-
ma that was so marked in Beyond
the Horizon, Emperor Jones, and
Strange Interlude. There seems to
be no attempt at drama. There
is just the young lad who has been
raised by his God-fearing father
in an atmosphere of holy right-
eousness, who fall in love with the
daughter of his father's atheist
enemy, who leaves the family cir-
cle, who returns a Man, worship-
ping Electricity as his God, and
finding, of course, that his mother
has, died in the interim. He be-
comes a fanatic on the subject that
the Ultimate is to be found in elec-
trical power. He tries to convert
his mistress and her mother to his
creed, and of course they,, who first
drew him from the church, cannot
comprehend him. When a miracle
he expects the influence of the Dy-
namo to work fails, he electrocutes
himself on the altar of his mad
faith.
There is something fatuous and
empty about the, whole play. In
the first place O'Neill has nothing
about which to build. The charac-
ters, all of them, are trite, stock
creatures who utter the expected
platitude. The theme of the play
holds nothing, and the moments ofj
suspense, are few and artificial, as'
when Reuben tests himself before
the Dynamo to see if he can re-
sist seduction by the charm and
desire of Ada. In fact the little
emotion excited is caused by a fla-
grant flaunting of a sort of totem-
pole of sex'by O'Neill in the face
of the reader. There is that weak-
ness all through, as though O'Neill
had wrung himself dry withJ
Strange Interlude. Even his sym-
bolism in connection with the he-
ro's father strikes ineffectively
against v lightning rod of intel-
ligence The father, despite hisj
faith in the God of his fathers,
fears the .,,ghtning that becomes
the God,; of. his son. And the
speeches that purport to contain
the power and drama may be ep-
itomized in Mrs. Fife's speech that
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As with a great many artists
coping with our architectural mon-
strosity, Louise Homer overshot the
mark. The vastness of the place!
was not quite so large as the vol-
ume hurled into it.
The dramatic scope of the pro-
gram was designed for a Ponselle,
Galli Curci or for at least a much
younger woman. Mrs. Homer's
best number was one of her hus-
band's compositions, "Sheep and
Lambs." In the others she at-
tempted the same, Gypsy Sohigs
that Sophie Braslau sang in the
last MaypFestival;' and with'no
more success. A fiery younger
dramatist could carry it off, per-
haps Louise Homer herself in her
younger days-not now.,
No, the tonal quality was there,
the volume was there-but stage
presence and lack of fitting the
voice to the occasion were regret-
able. As was the not too sympa-
thetic accompaniment of herj
PREFERENCE IN SEATING WILL BE GIVEN TO
THOSE WHOSE APPLICATIONS ARE DATED
OCTOBER 16TH OR EARLIER.
4
Tickets for Entire Series
$3.50-$300-$2o50
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
ORATORICAL
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ASSOCIATION
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