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Page Two
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Sunday, January 15, 1956
;Smai - v narv 15.1956
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
WO,. #%WY tw' % O Y 0-1 14'.0W
Fitzgerald's Illusion
Woman With a Mission
Japanese Social Worker Intends
To Do Something About Birth Control
(Continued from Page 1)
team. 'And in his second year of
prep school at Newman he served,
though not with great glory, on
the football squad.
Although there is a conflict in
Fitzgerald's own stories ("Triangle
Club vs. Football") of how he came
to choose Princeton for his col-
lege, Arthur Mizener, in his biog-
raphy of the writer, The Far Side
of Ppradise, gives this angle on
the question: "On (one) occasion
(Fitzgerald) said it was seeing Sam
White beat Harvard (in 1911, 8-6,
by scoring a touchdown on a
blocked kick) which decided him
for Princeton . . . 'I think what
started my Princeton sympathy,'
he said on another occasion, 'was
that they always just lost the foot-
ball championship. Yale always
seemed to nose them out in the
last quarter by superior "stamina"
as the newspapers called it.'"
On passing the entrance exams
at Princeton in the fall of 1913,
the first word Fitzgerald sent
home was this wire: ADMITTED
SEND FOOTBALL PADS AND
SHOES IMMEDIATELY PLEASE
WAIT TRUNK.
Vagaries of Fame
COMPLETE failure greeted the
handsome, fair-haired one
hundred thirty-eight pounder's
renewed attempt to achieve ath-
letic prowess-this time at the
crucial moment of his projected
football career at one of the
mighty Big Three schools. In an
article written many years later,
Fitzgerald admitted that the pads
sent in response to his wire were
"the shoulder pads worn for one
day on the Princeton freshman
football field."
The young, eager boy vitally
needed the recognition and re-
spect of his fellow classmates. And
at Princeton football was the most
glorious and most direct manner of
achieving this. Campus literary
groups and publications offered the
second best opportunity. So, fail-
ing at the first, young Scott, who
had had some early success with
stories and plays, turned promptly
to the second.
It was at this moment that
Fitzgerald and football as he has
always envisioned it) formally
parted company. And simultane-
ously a historial introduction took
place between the freshman from
St. Paul and a student theatrical
organizationrcalled the Triangle
Club. Through Triangle Fitz-
gerald scored his first major local
successes. It provided him with
his big start-and that was all he
needed. Thereafter, he moved
rapidly ahead on his own.
MORE THAN any other writer
of his time, Fitzgerald filled
the role of Recorder of the Gen-
eration. Beginning with his firsk
novel, This Side of Paradise, which
was published when he was still
23 years old, he turned his critical
glance back on himself and ob-
served in a detached manner,
through the eyes of Fitzgerald the
"participator," the fashions, the
customs and the beliefs as well as
the loves and the pleasures of the
youthful members of the "Jazz
Age."
A Kiss Bestowed
Objectively
And Fitzgerald maintained
throughout his peculiar double
view: that of the man who throws
himself into the spirit and direc-
tion of his time, but who at the
same moment is fully aware of the
long-range, objective value of the
kiss he is bestowing, of the new
<song he is singing, of the clothes
he wears. Because a large part of
his work was essentially autobio-
graphical, many of the events of
Fitzgerald's life are immediately
recognizable in and can be fol-
lowed through his novels and short
stories. In this respect we observe
the great irony of his invaluable
gift of double vision.
He clearly saw himself as a fig-
ure operating within a set of cir-
cumstances, and he was to the end
loyal to his Irishman's romantic
ideals. As a result indictments of
his own personal shortcomings and
insufficiencies (which were not,
one is forced to admit, few) began
to appear, unmerc4fully drawn,
early in his work. He probed and
exposed for all to behold some of
the most profound problems of his
conscience.
However, one tragic phase of his
experience remained free from ex-
posure (and therefore, by infer-
ence, from subjection to Fitzger-
ald's rigorous program of "self-
understanding") until quite late
in his life. That phase was the one
that harbored the long-guarded
image of himself as a football
hero.
THE football image bobs up to
the surface periodically during
the decade and a half of his most
consistently productive period. In
1920, in This Side of Paradise, the
"memory book" of his adolescence,
Fitzgerald wrote this evocative
paragraph:
"The game with Groton was
played from three of a snappy, ex-
hilarating afternoon far into the
crisp autumnal twilight, and
Amory (the Fitzgerald-image in
the story) at quarterback, exhort-
ing in wild despair, making im-
possible tackles, calling signals
in a voice that had diminished to
a hoarse, furious whisper, yet
found time to revel in the blood-
stained bandage around his head,
and the straining, glorious hero-
ism of plunging, clashing bodies
and aching limbs. For those min-
utes courage flowed like wine
out of the November dusk, and
he was the eternal hero, one with
the sea-rover on the prow of a
Norse galley, one with Roland and
Horatio, Sir Nigil and Ted Coy,
scraped and stripped into trim
and then flung by his own will
into the breach, beating back the
tide, hearing from afar the thund-
er of cheers . . . finally, bruised
and weary, but still elusive, circl-
ing an end, twisting, changing
pace, straight-arming . . . falling
behind the Groton goal with two
men on his legs, in the only touch-
down of the game."
And later, in the mature demon-
stration of his art in 1925 with
The Great Gatsby, we see that
Fitzgerald's old feelings about
Princeton and football are still
solidly lodged and a part of his
thought. In that novel, Tom Bu-
chanan, the unfaithful husband of
Daisy, the woman Gatsby loves,
is given an -additional, private
dimension as an antagonist by
Fitzgerald when he describes Bu-
chanan as having been "one of the
most powerful ends that ever
played football at New Haven."
And New Haven, we recall, is the
school that always seemed to nose
out Princeton in the last quarter
-by superior stamina...
"But It's No Use"
BY 1943, in the very midst of his,
intense relationship with Cris-
ler and Princeton, and rather late
in his career as a writer, the glor-
ious football hero image finally
burst. It burst when at last it,
too, was subjected to the corros-
ive attack of the then depressed
and disillusioned author's un-
merciful introspection.
In Deember of that year Fitz-
gerald published a piece on in-
somnia called "Sleeping and
Waking." The familiar gridiron
hero dream was brought to the
surface in its old form for the last,
tormenting time.
"'Once upon a time (I tell my-
self) they needed a quarterback
at Princeton, and they had nobody
and were in despair. The head
coach noticed me kicking and
passing on the side of the field,
and he cried: "Who is that man
-why haven't we noticed him be-
fore?" The under coach answered,
"He hasn't been out," and the
response was "Bring him to me."
'We go to the day of the Yale
game. I weigh only one hundred
and thirty-five, so they save me1
until the third quarter, with the
score-"'
--But it's no use-I have used7
that dream of a, defeated dream
to induce sleep for almost twenty1
years, but it has worn thin at
last."
Frustrated Hero
Turns Devoted Fan
SIGNIFICANTLY, however, we
note that it was during this
period' of disillusionment (which
promptly led to his "crack-up",
his arrival at a state of "emotional
bankruptcy") that Fitzgerald was
outwardly demonstrating his most
frantic devotion to Princeton and
football.
We can hardly doubt that the
dream had been thoroughly shat-
tered for him. His own confession
speaks eloquently enough on that.
Nonetheless, something was driv-
ing him to a display of even more
of the enthusiasm and devotion
he had felt in the past.
This paradox should not be dif-
ficult to resolve. Perhaps now, in
view of what we have observed of
the man, the cause for his unnat-
ural, unreasonable attachment to
his school's football fortunes is
already clear.
What must have happened to
Fitzgerald was this. His long-
cherished , illusion of personal
football glory was gone. His in-
exorable, destructive bent for self-
analysis and criticism had finally
caught up with the dream and de-
stroyed it. And the loss of the old
imnage .of gallantry created an
understandable void within his
being.
Apparently, then, what he tried
to do was fill that inner deffic-
iency with corresponding external
matter. Fitzgerald's immediate
response, therefore, was to grasp
--desparately-for the symbol of
what he had lost, for the spirit
of the game of football.
So, early in the morning, the
phone would begin to ring . .
Some Reasonable
Some Fantastic
"SOME OF the ideas Scott used
to suggest to me over the
phone were reasonable," Fritz
Crisler recalls, "and some were
fantastic. Once he came up with
a scheme for a whole new offense.
Something that involved a two-
platoon system. He seemed really
to believe in it and he urged me
to give the system a try.
"I wrote him that I'd use his
idea if he'd agree to take full
credit for its success or full blame
for its failure. He Wrote back and
said that, after thinking it all
over, he thought we'd better hold
it in reserve.
"Another time he got me out of
bed in the middle of the night to
unravel an elaborate fantasy he
had imagined about a Harvard-
Princeton football game that was
to be fought by two teams of ants
-the red ants and the black ants.
The members of the actual teams
would adjourn to the stands and
watch the spectacle while they
sipped tea.
"The idea was to save the pl -
ers all the effort they would have
spent playing a match that the
ants could just as well fight out
in their" own private rivalry. It
was a fantastic thing, but clever.
He'd gone into the characteristics
of the two types of ants and had
it arranged so that Princeton, re-
presented by the black ants, was
predetermined to win.
"Scott sounded at the time as
if he were halfway convinced of
its practicability. Some time later
I think he actually published a
story about it. Looking back,
though, on the whole series of
phone calls he made, such a clear,
organized expression of his feel-
ings was exceptional and rare."
And Later-.
A Detached Artist
"THE ANTS at Princeton" was
published in Esquire in June
of 1936. The fanciful episode of
the ants remains a lucid example
of how Fitzgerald had by then
managed to objectify his modifiedE
feelings about the game. He was
able to write about them not as
the gilded imaginings of theo
would-be hero himself, but ratherJ
as the polished, finished product1
By JANE HOWARD
Daily Associate Editor
ONSTANCE Kamii is a young
woman with a mission.
Equipped in June, 1957, with
her master's degree in Social
Work, she plans to return to Japan
with one major purpose: "going
around and screaming about birth
control."
It's hard to envision the de-
mure, soft-spoken Pomona Col-
lege graduate screaming about
anything, but the sincerity of
Connie's plans is beyond question.
Planned parenthood, she's -con-
vinced, is one very important
means of combatting Japan's dras-
tic over-population problem.
The problem sounds simpler than
it is. Japan, smaller in territory
than California, has a population
of 87,200,000, with less than 20
per cent of the land under culti-
vation.
Most Japanese women, she ex-
plains, work in the fields, "right
along with the men," and have had
little opportunity, for enlighten-
and explain the situation," she
claims. "Women, especially in the
rural areas, are too uneducated or
too shy to go to clinics."
She credits Margaret Sanger for
outstanding contributions to the
situation. "Armed with loads of
information about drugs and con-
traceptives," Connie explains, "she
was the first American woman ever
to address members of the Japan-
ese Diet."
CONNIE came to Ann Arbor on
one of several Barbour Fel-
lowships, given annually to Ori-
ental women. To her this was
the most attractive of many of-
fers she got after her Phi Beta
Kappa key and bachelor's de-
gree from Pomona College in
southern California.
Her campus home is a league
house. But more often she's found
studying at a library or en route
to -Toledo, where work at a social
service agency helps to prepare
her for her planned parenthood
career.
As an eyewitness to Japan's
fight, defeat and occupation, Con-
nie has wartime memories which
still are vivid. "Pearl Harbor,"
she recalls, "came as a huge sur-
prise to us." Most Japanese, in
her opinion, felt and feel no per-
sonal guilt for the war.
"We were disillusioned with the
militarists, and didn't know until
too late what was going on. Loy-
alty to the emperor and to our
parents were the bywords," she
adds. "Guidance was authoritar-
ian, and people were conditioned
to do whatever they were told."
THE war is also accountable for
Connie's personal agnosticism.
She hasn't been affected by Chris-
tianity, which she describes as
"fashionable, because everything
Western is" in Japan.
Amazing to the skeptical Jap-
anese, she says, was the Ameri-
can occupation, which brought
benevolence instead of the ruth-
lessness they expected. "Mac-
Arthur," she adds, "was and still
is revered by the Japanese Ms a
substitute for the emperor.
"He replaced a need( and he
knewewhat he was doing) for a
godlike figure of godly status."
BUT COMMUNISM, too, bene-
fited from the general libera-
tion of political parties and in-
stitutions in the transition period.
Withdrawal of American support,
Connie contends, would send the,
wavering Japanses to Commun-
ists for aid, although "the people
have tasted ennough political free-
dom not to want to give it up."
The surging it
has been man
another facet
life-fashion.
The look, bort
the East, is' si
of course, silk
simplicity touc
elegance.
Expressive of 1
flattering Chir
narrow dress v
claims to a WC
on the sides fo
it produces an
"close nonfit,"
Pictured here
the resounding
theme. The sh
complimented
of jacket in st
and brocaded
-Daily-John Hirtzel
CONSTANCE KAMII
ment about population increases,
to which they add by bearing an
average of five babies per fam-
ily.
AN EUGENIC protection law
passed in 1948 to legalize
abortion hasn't helped much. Abor-
tions in Japan aren't free, but any
woman who can establish an eco-
nomic or health 'reason for having
one can get it cheaply. Passage
of the law has led to about two
million abortions per year.
Connie's part in the fight
against overpopulation, she af-
firms, must be done on an indi-
vidual, woman-to-woman basis.
"You've got to sit down with them
--Illustration by Coralyn Fitz
Table of Contents
PAGE ONE-F. Scott Fitzgerald & Football
PAGE TWO-Constance Kamii, Social Worker
PAGE THREE-The Rise of Richard Nixon
PAGE FOUR-England's Queen: An Everyday Monarch
Hi Fi vs. Serious Record Collecting-,
PAGE FIVE-Campus Leaders in Six Classifications
PAGE SIX-House Spirit in Gomberg
Rebels and Scholars in the Union
PAGE SEVEN-The Oriental Fashion Influence
PAGE EIGHT-The Downfall of the Old Whitney
of
an artist-stylized and de-1
tached.
The mysterious internal adjust-
ments of his soul which ultimately
produced this type of expression
--so far removed from that of the
time when the game and its glory
were his dream, his constantly re-
lived and consoling dream-must
have caused Scott Fitzgerald much
untold sorrow. At a time when all
the rest of his world seemed to be
toppling at his feet, it had provid-
ed some escape for him.
The true degree of hurt to Fitz-
gerald is difficult for us to im-
agine. We can only accept the
fact that he suffered deeply; first,
because of the real frustration.,
and later because of the disinte-
gration of his calming, soporific
dream of athletic heroism.
There is, however, another hypo-
thetical loss to be considered. It
is this one. How great would have
been the loss suffered by the lit-
erature of American experience if
Fitzgerald had instead won the
gratification and the recognition
he desperately desired on the
Princeton fields of glory; if, one
day, the Tiger coach had actually
seen young Scott-as the boy had
dreamed-kicking and passing on
the side of the practice field and
cried: "Who is that man? Why
haven't we seen him before? Get
him a uniform and send him in!"