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rwE Green Caldron 



A Magazine of Freshman Writing 



Mary E. McDougle : Scoop! . . 1 

Delores Goepfert : My First Venal Puncture . . 3 

Lillian Vidovich : My Favorite Relative 4 

Phyllis Rarick: Fourth-Grade Celebrity 5 

Bee Kinch: A Child Speaks 6 

Bernice Richter: "12 Million Black Voices" by Richard Wright 8 

Fred Lederer: The Last Half Hour 9 

Helen Lepovitz : / Don't Feel That Way Anymore! 11 

Geraldine Sutzer : "We or They" 12 

Elaine Sell: Hardships of War Correspondents in World War I 14 

James Carruth : Don't Trust First Impressions 20 

Mary Homrighous : Brothers! 21 

Joyce Osborne: Don't Call It "Shell Shock' 23 

Nancy Gray: Saturday Night 27 

Elaine Sell: Police Station on Sunday 29 

Rachel Davidson : Goodbye 30 

Robert Groll : Return to Nature 31 

Norman Smulevitz : Hydrophobia 32 

Leonard McClish: The Endless Trail 33 

Matthew Glenn: Embarkation 35 

(Material written in Rhetoric I and II): Rhet as Writ .... 36 



VOL. 14, NO. 1 OCTOBER, 1944 



UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



JLhe Green Caldron is published four times a year by the 
Rhetoric Staff at the University of Ilhnois. Material is chosen 
from themes and examinations written by freshmen and students 
in the Army Specialized Training and V-12 Programs in the Uni- 
versity. Permission to publish is obtained for all full themes, 
including those published anonymously. Parts of themes, how- 
ever, are published at the discretion of the committee in charge. 

The committee in charge of this issue of The Green Caldron 
includes Miss Constance Nicholas, and Messrs. John Bush- 
man and George Scouffas, Chairman. 

The Green Caldron is for sale at the Information Office, 
157 Administration Building (West), Urbana, Illinois. 



THE GREEN CALDRON 

copyrighted 1944 
BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

All rights reserved 
No part of this periodical may be repro- 
duced in any form without permission in 
writing from the publisher. 



Scoop! 

Makv E. McUouglk 
Rhetoric II, Theme 14, 1943-1944 

I STOOD AND REGARDED THE DOOR WITH AWE. IT WAS A 
\cry ordinary door except for a sign which read. "FABIAN SEVIT- 
SKV — N0'AD.\nTTAN'CE!" The famed conductor of the Indian- 
lolis S\Tnphony had just completed a concert in our local auditorium, and 
as my first assignment for the high school newspaper I was to interview 
him. My hands clenched and unclenched ncr\(iusly. and I chewed my lower 
lip for moral supix)rt. 

"I)(tn't be a jerk!" snap|K*tl Kuilnc. <»nc oi liic iw(j inentis who had come 
I'.ickstage with me tci iMjJster my spirits. "Jeepers. if I had a chance to talk 
to a celebrity I wouldn't just stand here looking like an anemic goldfish." 

"Sure!" chimed in Anne. "Besides, you can't think only of yourself. 
I hink of the pai>er. They're dependiiiL' on nou lo \n.\ a L'^nd st(»r\ . aiul xnn're 
•ing to back out on them." 

'V«»u have no school spirit.* said Kuthic. grieved. 
' Woidd you go in with me?" I demanded indii-iiaiitlx . 
Well-II. " faltered Ruthie for a moment. 

'.'^nre thing!" Anne burst in finally. "We'll all go in st> you wont be 
ared. and we'll get to meet him in the Ixirgain." 

Before we could discuss the matter any further, a plump, suave man 
ipped from the dressing room and said in a silky voice, "Members of the 
, :ess may enter." 

"M'gosh," I thought. 'Tin a member of the press — imagine that ! " 
Amidst a throng of hard-bitten rejxjrters I was shoved and pushed along 
into the dressing room. Knowing that my friends were at my heels, I was 
no l(jnger nervous. Contidently. I elbowed myself through until I stood right 
before the celebrity, himself. 

"CJet a load of that." I whispered to Ruthie. 

She didn't answer, so I turned around to find her — no Ruthie, no Anne, 
no anybody except me and a lot of people I didn't know. Helplessly. 1 
clutched my pencil and pad of paper. 

Mr. .Sevitsky didn't help in calming my panic. He was attired in a long. 
lil.ick evening cape which covered his black dress-suit. His hair was a shiny 
bhie-black and grew down into sideburns. His intense, black eyes were 
shadowed by thick, black brows. "Egad!" I thought suddenly. "He looks 
I \actly like Dracula!" It wasn't a comforting thought. 

The interview began as Mr. Sevitsky asked us what papers we repre- 
nted. "NcivS'Gazctte," boomed a deep voice; "Evcniny Courier," came 

[ 1 ] 



2 The Green Caldron 

another with assurance. When my turn came I squeaked out in tlie best 
voice I could muster, "The Urbana High School Echo" — then, as an after- 
thought, "Sir." An undercurrent of amusement flitted through the group. 
Even Mr. Sevitsky smiled, but to me it seemed a menacing leer. 

Tn my confusion I dropped the pencil upon which I had been diligently 
chewing. Gallantly, Mr. Sevitsky stooped to retrieve it. At the same moment 
I also bent down to find it. Our heads met with a resounding crack. Dazed, 
Mr. Sevitsky reeled backwards and was steadied by his press agent. I re- 
clined on the floor for a split-second, then hurriedly scrambled to my feet 
as pin wheels spun in my head. 

"My dear young lady, are you hurt?" inquired Mr. Sevitsky, without a 
trace of displeasure. 

"Golly no — it was a pleasure," I murmured foolishly in confusion. The 
crowd of reporters could no longer restrain themselves, but broke into 
hilarious laughter. I could feel the red starting at my ears and creeping 
swiftly over my entire face. 

When the laughter had subsided, the questions began, and I industriously 
scribbled bits of nothing in my notebook. Mr. Sevitsky finally turned towards 
me and inquired kindly, "Would you care to ask about anything?" 

"Heavens no," T responded, in what I supposed a gracious manner. "I've 
heard more than enough !" 

Once again I had blundered. Miserably I listened to the laughter about 
me. As far as reporting went, I was an all-time flop. 

The interview ended and we started out. Before I reached the door, 
however, Mr. Sevitsky put his hand on my shoulder. 

"You have never had an interview before?" 

"N-No, sir!" I croaked. 

"You do not do badly — not badly at all — run along now." 

I stumbled through the door. Ruthie and Anne each grabbed one of my 
arms and started to question me rapidly. 

"Were you scared?" 

"What did he say?" 

Haughtily, I drew myself up to my full height — which wasn't much — and 
answered with dignity, "Naturally I wasn't scared, and he said plenty which 
you may read in the next issue of the Echo." 

I professionally placed the pencil behind my ear as we started to walk 
away — a reporter was born ! 



October. 194 1 



My First Venal Puncture 

Delores Goepfert 
Rhetoric II. Theme 3. 1943-1944 



<<pnp^ODAY YOU'RE GOING TO LEARN TO DO VENAL PUNC- 

I tures. Since you may have to do an emergency Kahn or a cross- 

-^ match for a transfusion, you'd better know how to draw blood." 

ly head felt light, and my stomach fluttered. To my mind came the 

.cmory of my own blood test. Dr. White had said, "There's nothing to it. 

I II take 5 cc. of blood, and you'll never know it." I didn't. I was lying flat 

I 111 the floor, oblivious to venal punctures, when he had fmished. 

What if someone should faint when I took blood from him? What if I 

should? It would be easy to kill someone. If I should let the syringe slip 

art and then inject air into a vein, someone would have a fancy death. I 

uld see his eyes dilating, his body thrusting forward convulsively, his 

ice turning livid with his gaspings as the clot came to his heart. 

^_ "You'd better know how to draw blood." I wasn't sure I wanted to learn, 

but since it was a case of or else — I picked up my tray with its cotton, 

alcohol, tournicjuet, and syringe and prepared to do my first venal puncture. 

"You can practice on me. The technique involved is very simple ; I can 

tell you what to do as you're doing it to me." 

The thought of doing my first puncture on my boss made my knees 
sound like castanets, but I decided I'd not be prejudiced about whom I'd kill. 
"Clench your fist, please." I picked up the tourniquet, stretched it around 
her upper arm, anil hoped I hadn't pinched her. With my left index finger 
and thumb, I stretched the skin of the forearm ; with my right hand, I 
swabbed the vein with alcohol, took the syringe, shoved the needle through 
the thick dermal layer of the skin and felt for the actual puncture of the 
vein. I couldn't feel a thing. Had I missed the vein? Had I gone through it 
to the tissue? 

Before I had time to be afraid, the blood rushed in, swathing the plunger 
with its black-redness. With my eye on the needle, and my knees keeping 
up a conga beat, I pulled slowly, slowly on the plunger. The deep red liquid 
rolled thickly back, back to the 5 cc. mark. With my eye still on the needle, 
I grabbed the loose end of the tourniquet and let it fall to the floor. Calmly 
I placed the cotton over the needle as I removed it from the vein. 

"Double up your arm, and keep your hand open," I heard my voice say. 

I forced the blood into a sterile tube and rinsed the syringe. As I washed 

my hands, the soothing effect of the cool water over my wrists couldn't 

comjiare with the effect of what my boss was saying: "That was the 

smoothest puncture I've ever felt; you didn't forget a thing." 




The Green Caldron 

My Favorite Relative 

Lillian Vidovich 
Rhetoric I, Final Examination, 1943-1944 

,NE MEMBER OF MY FAMILY CLAIMS ABSOLUTE Dis- 
tinction, being different not only from all other Vidoviches, but 
from the rest of the world as well — owning an unequalled, charm- 
ing, and unique personality. He is my thoughtful, absent-minded, and kind- 
hearted Uncle Johnny, who takes life as it comes, always giving, and never 
asking anything in return. He is as meek as a lamb, and you can tell his 
insides just turn to putty when my three-year-old cousin Marthanne hugs 
him. This is really quite a sight, since he weighs all of two hundred pounds 
and has a reputation in the Carnegie Steel Mills of being "the toughest 
foreman on the line." His muscles bulge and his chest expansion surpasses 
most others, yet when his thick, black hair curls up in little ringlets when 
he perspires, and he looks out at you with his big, dreamy, brown eyes, you 
get the feeling that this is a man who couldn't hurt a fly. 

Uncle Johnny believes in the old saying, "The best things in life are 
free." He gets most of his pleasure when he strolls through the country, or 
plays with the children or the dog. As a result, he is quite a contrast to my 
other, well-dressed uncles, who have put their money to good use, owning 
now both automobiles and summer cottages — one even recently having pur- 
chased a small plane. Each payday, Johnny still turns his pay check over to 
my grandmother, arguing patiently, "But I don't need it!" Of course, my 
grandmother doesn't offer too much resistance. 

One of the most charming tricks of his personality, however, is his 
amazing aptitude for daydreaming. Every so often at dinner, someone will 
initiate a particularly interesting topic of conversation that highly excites 
everyone. No one is surprised when Johnny remains calm, cool, and quiet, 
emitting no sound save a few occasional grunts. And when the excitement 
has subsided, and the topic has been shifted three times over, Johnny finally 
rises and says, "Yes, Dan, you are absolutely right. I am in perfect agree- 
ment." This sudden awakening is usually followed by howls of laughter from 
the family, and the tips of Johnny's ears turn scarlet; but it is not long 
before he joins in the laughter. 

Johnny is forty-three years old, but Grandmother still waits up for him 
when he goes out. Of the ten people in the family, he is the only one who 
rates this annoying privilege. Normally, this would irk any man, but he is so 
good-natured that when he gets home, he merely chuckles, kisses Grand- 
mother on the nose, and sends her up to bed. I am continually amazed at 
his congeniality. 



October, 1944 5 

Fourth- Grade Celebrity 

I'lIVLLIS IvARICK 
Rhetoric II, Theme 11, 1943-1944 

CATHIE." 
I knew it must be Mildred, but I felt disinclined to wait, and so 
ignored the call. 
"Wait for me. W'a-a-ait !" 

She knew I had heard that time, so I stopped. I didn't even turn around, 
but stood motionless, looking straight ahead and thinking of some nasty 
remark with which to greet her. Mother had insisted that I take an umbrella, 
and I was still cross. 

"Slow-poke," I sulked as she approached, and was about to say more 
when she interrupted me. 

" 've got something to tell you!" She was excited. "A new girl's coming 
from Lincoln School." 

"What's so wonderful about that?" I retorted with feigned boredom. 
'Her name's Wanda somcthing-or-other, I think," she added, downcast. 
"Wanda Lee?" The umbrella was forgotten. "You mean that Wanda is 
coming to our school? Are you sure? How do you know?" I barraged her 
witli questions. 

Mildred was a bit confused and asked where the fire was. She was new 
that year and couldn't have been expected to know about Wanda. Learning, 
however, of the newcomer's broad fame, she too became excited. 

We told everyone we met, and before we reached school we had gathered 
a small convention of girls. Although Wanda Lee's mark of distinction was 
familiar to every school girl for blocks and blocks, not one of us had 
ictually seen her. 

"Do you s'pose she'll have a chaulTeur drive her to school?" 
"She'll probably be stuck-up." 
"And be teacher's pet, too! " 

Arriving at school, we divideil into groups to await her coming and to 
discuss her more fully. Mary thought she would be late and Dottie didn't 
think she would come at all. Then Miss Benkendorf came out with a pig- 
tailed child. 

"Children, this is Wanda Lee," she said, pushing Wanda forward and 
telling us to show how happy we were to have her come to our school. 

We were a little disappointed because W^anda had freckles and brown 
braids and because her clothes weren't nicer than our own. She looked as 
scared as Helen had the day before, when she led us in prayer at Sunday 
School. Even so we stood in awe before her. Her cousin had lived next 
door to .*~^hirley Temple! 



6 The Green Caldron 

A Child Speaks 

Bee Kinch 
Rhetoric II, Theme 2, 1942-1944 

ASA CHILD SEES, HE SPEAKS. HE DOES NOT ADD TO OR 
A^ subtract from what meets his eyes, or go into realms of description; 
■''^^ -^ he tells simply and beautifully about what he encounters in his fan- 
ciful everyday world. 

My younger brother, Johnny, like all other children of five, had a ytry 
small vocabulary; and in order to express his ideas he had to make every 
little word that he possessed count. 

Size to Johnny wasn't to be measured by inches, feet, or yards, but by 
comparison to objects he was familiar with. One day he came scurrying into 
my bedroom, and, pouncing on my bed, informed me of a new discovery. 

'T have found a toad," he announced proudly, "and he is very beautiful 
with legs like a fried chicken." 

Knowing I was expected to show interest, even at eight o'clock in the 
morning, I asked him, "How big is he?" 

Johnny's eyebrows laced together in childish concentration, and his reply 
came slow and deliberate. 

"Well, he isn't as big as a coal and he isn't as small as a dust. I guess he 
must be the size of a baby stone." 

I knew that most ordinary toads were approximately two inches by three, 
excluding legs, but I also knew that the "size of a baby stone" was much 
more descriptive of Johnny's toad. 

Many times I would take Johnny on hikes with me. He would trudge 
along without saying a word, but I knew that his mind was wrapping itself 
around all the hidden secrets of country life that are visible only to a child's 
eyes. 

One day he was particularly quiet; and as I was afraid that he wasn't 
enjoying himself, I asked him if he wanted to go home. His answer, very 
abrupt and to the point, was simply "No." Hoping then to get him into a 
more talkative mood, I began a lengthy explanation of why I liked the 
country. Johnny, apparently disgusted with my trite descriptions of nature, 
finally said, "That isn't why I like the country." 

"Why do you like the country, then, Johnny?" 

"I like the country because it's so peaceful. Out here the quiet just goes 
sliding along." 

With that he was silent once more, but I felt that all the writing about 
why people like the country^ had been compressed into one simple, childish 
statement, "Out here the quiet just goes sliding along." 



October, 1944 7 

Johnny, different from most five-year-olds, rarely showed interest in do- 
mestic animals; so, I was surprised one afternoon to find him stretched out 
■n the living-room floor, studying our large grey cat. The cat was lying 
circled in a chair across the room, unaware of the intent, black eyes staring at 
her. Since Johnny ignored me, I sat down, hoping to find a reason for the 
sudden interest. Soon Johnny called to the cat, and as she lazily slipped across 
the room to him, Johnny's face told me that he had made a new discovery. 

"Did you know. Bee, that a cat sleeps fat and walks thin?" He was right, 
of course. I had not before realized that our cat really looked like quite a 
chunky bit of meat when she was curled up asleep, but that the instant 
she stretched out her body to take a step she looked lean and lithe. 

According to Johnny, Abraham Lincoln looked like a kind man because 
he had "happy eyebrows." Babies were nice because they were "soft like 
milkweed silk," stuffed olives were olives "with little red tail lights," and 
rain "winked in the puddles." 

Many people feel that a child does not worry about any one thing very 
long because his mind is not yet mature enough to accept the ugliness of 
living. I feel that it is because a child's mind is too full of the sweetness and 
beauty he finds in the common life surrounding him. He makes beautiful by 
thoughts and words the things that an adult mind would find ugly and 
Ictestable. When a child speaks, the world becomes richer in beautiful 
expression. 

Shorty's Sister 

"EV^ERYBODY SMOKES EL GARCIO CIGARS." As Shorty Wikler read 
:hcsc words, he pounded his fist into a tattered catcher's mitt. "I ain't got nothin' 
.:,'aiiist those cigars, but some folks have a lotta crust buildin' an advertisin' 
sigiit)oard right in the middle of our ball field ! How do they expect us to lick the 
Killers Sunday if we're gonna hafta dodge |X)sts every time someone slaps a 
t1y ball ?" 

Shorty, who had just turned twelve, spat into his mitt, stuck his tongue out 
it his younger sister, and muttered, "Aw, hell!" 

Both surveyed the sign seriously. At length, the little girl looked up at her 
brother. "I know. It's all my fault!" she blurted. "Everjthing that happens to 
your ole team, you blame on me. Why don't you pick on some of the fellas?" 

With that disgusted look which only an older brother can give, he countered, 
"Listen, Bagg>', I hate to see ya bawl like this, but you know how many times 
I've told you to stay away when we're playin' ball. When you come around, 
sumpin's bound to happen. You're a jinx, that's what you are! Now scat!" 

When Shorty got home that night, Bagg)' was nowhere to be seen. In the 
parlor he heard his Mom and Dad conversing softly. He learned that Baggy had 
left soon after dark, declaring she had something important to attend to. "The 
damn jinx !" he said, as he slipped under the covers. You see, he didn't know that 
Dad's new ax was gone, too. — Sid Freedman 



T 



The Green Caldron 

12 Million Blac\ Voices 

by Richard Wright 

Bernice Richter 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1943-1944 

rrr^HE negro problem is one that has been con- 

sidered again and again, but never, in my estimation, has it been dealt 
with so forcefully and clearly as it is in Richard Wright's 12 Million 
Black Voices. Speaking always in terms of zve and us, for the author is him- 
self a Negro, Wright relates the folk history of the Negro in the United 
States in prose as beautiful and as stirring as poetry. Interwoven in the pages 
of the book are numerous photographs which were secured, selected, edited, 
and arranged by Edwin Rosskam. These photographs, placed dramatically 
and effectively throughout the book, aid immeasurably in telling Wright's 
story. They, as much as the written words, show deep understanding of the 
black race's courage and pain, hopes and fears. Thus, together, Wright and 
Rosskam weave this narrative. 

Since the Negro problem is a complex one, Wright simplifies the matter 
by disregarding that group of Negroes who have lifted themselves above 
the rest. He does this not because he underestimates their achievements, but 
because he considers them as exceptions and the remaining majority as 
normal and typical. It is the common Negro who is dealt with in this book. 

Wright begins his tale with the enforced departure of the contented 
Negro from his African civilization and carries it through to the hardships 
and discriminations he endures today. Three hundred years are spanned 
in his tale of cultural devastation, slavery, physical suffering, unrequited 
longing, abrupt emancipation, migration, disillusionment, bewilderment, un- 
employment, and insecurity. Wright's story tells simply and effectively that 
the countless discriminations against the Negro must stop; that this country 
cannot exist half slave and half free; that the Negro deserves and must 
have a share in the upward march of the country he helped build with his 
own hands. 

Throughout his existence in the United States the Negro has been used 
as a tool to build up the white man's power, but he has never been allowed 
to share in the white man's wealth. As a result of this, the white man, in 
comparing his gentility to the Negro's degradation, decided that his was a 
God-sanctioned, white civilization. There arose a paternalistic code of casual 
cruelty toward the Negro which has become a national tradition, dominating 
all black and white relations throughout the country to this day. The feeling 
is that the Negro should rightfully be held in subjugation. 



October, 1944 9 

There is irony in the fact that those who deny the Negro his rights are 
wilHng to imitate his songs, dances, and clothes fashions. That is because 
so many white people feel, down deep in their hearts, just as the Negro 
does. In the songs of the Negro there are a hunger for life, a love of the 
sensual, and a feeling of fear and uneasiness. "Swing" reveals the tension 
of his life, and "boogie-woogie" his nervousness and exhaustion. His love of 
color goes into clothes. People say that only the Negro can dance. But white 
people do not believe that the energ)' and the talents of the Negro can also 
be applied to industry, finance, education, aviation, and art. 

The one hope that the Negro clings to is an image of what life can be 
i(jr him. All he wants is a fair deal — the right to earn his living and live in 
peace without being constantly reminded that his skin is colored. Certainly 
he has earned the right to have an equal share in America. Especially 
now, when the cornerstone of our creed in the present war is the equality 
f all men, are racial injustices a menace. 

I believe, as Wright does, that America would be a stronger and greater 
nation today had the Negro l)een allowed to participate in her national 
growth, and that she will be stronger and greater in the future if he is 
jivcn the opportunities he longs for. 



The Last Half Hour 

Fred Lederer 
Rhetoric I. Therm 13, 1943-1944 



T 



nr^HE DAY HAD BEEN SCORCHING AND HAD TAKEN AL- 
most an eternity in ending. And the night was even worse. It lay like 
a warm, moist, woollen blanket, choking and suflfocating all move- 
ment. The "orderly station" buried deep within the hospital walls simmered 
in the heavy night air. The "girlie" pictures seemed to wiggle and dance on 
the walls, and the paint itself appeared to change its colors alternately from 
bright yellow, to pale orange, and then to red, reminding the boy of soup 
boiling on the stove. Within the station sat three men around a wooden 
table, two older men and a teen-aged boy. The older men were playing 
rummy, and the game seemed to the boy to be very uninteresting, as both 
players would lean back in their chairs after every play and blow heavily 
as if fighting for air. The time passed sluggishly. Finally the clock struck 
11:30. The boy raised himself slowly from the sticky surface of the chair 
and walked silently over to the open window and leaned out. Above him, all 
was quiet in the mammoth hospital, towering far up into the torrid dark- 
ness. Here and there, small lights blinked quietly on and off, and the spar- 
kling of the pin points of light created a moving pattern on the dark surface. 



10 The Green Caldron 

"Enough's enough; I'm tired of this whole damn racket," said the red- 
faced orderly, wiping the perspiration from his arms and head with a red 
bandanna. "Say, listen. Bill, you're not doing much. Will you finish this 
trick for me? If Miss Wood calls, tell her I'm in the West Building. Man, 
I certainly need the sleep, and tomorrow looks like a scorcher." And with 
that, the larger of the two men at the table laboriously got up, adjusted his 
white outfit, lighted a cigarette, and walked out. The slamming of the swing- 
ing door echoed and resounded down the long corridor, and then quiet 
settled down again. 

"Tell ya what, Johnny, you don't mind if I do the same, do you? Every- 
thing's quiet tonight, and Emergency said it didn't want those trays from 
the sterilizer till tomorrow an}^vay. The only thing left is that polio in 405 
East Wing; they need more serum and may call down for it later. Oh, ya, 
the morgue called and said to get that report on Mr. White, but there's no- 
body down there now, so leave it at the desk." Again the door slammed and 
the echo jumped and rebounded down the corridor. All became quiet, except 
for the buzzing of a lone unhappy fly looking for candy. Then far in the 
distance the deep, resonant sound of a car came through the window, and, 
trailing it, the high-pitched scream of a siren. The boy sat upright, forget- 
ting his dreams ; he pushed a movie magazine aside and reached for the phone, 

"Orderly, orderly, emergency at ambulance entrance, emergency ambu- 
lance entrance." A feminine voice coming shrilly over the loudspeakers 
system broke the brooding silence. The boy jumped up quickly and bolted 
through the door and down the long corridor filled with odd-shaped shadows 
cut by the fluorescent lighting. The boy ran past the physical therapy de- 
partment, past the X-ray and blood laboratories, and onto the ambulance 
entrance platform. "Here, Johnny, get the surgical cart and plenty of sheets 
and the large, ten cc. syringe," whispered the nurse to the boy. Silently the 
boy sped on his errands and was back in a few moments. The white cart 
with its spotless sheets and covering stood next to the ambulance. Com- 
petently the boy wheeled the cart up to the rear of the ambulance, whose 
door now swung open. A tall interne on emergency duty motioned to the 
boy, and together they lifted the patient onto the cart. A white, stricken 
face glanced upward for a moment and quickly buried itself in a pillow. "It's 
a miscarriage with hemorrhage, Johnny. Get her up to Operating in a hurry 
and take the chart with you. Hey, the surgical assistant's off tonight and 
they're going to need you to pitch in. How about it?" And with that, the 
interne hurried away to call the Night Surgical Nurse. 

Later, while the cart moved quietly along the floor, a low soft whistle 
escaped the boy as he glanced upward at a large clock on the wall. And the 
words, "Only 12:00 now. What a night!" were faintly audible to the nurse 
accompanying the cart. 



October, 1944 11 

I Don't Feel That Way Anymore! 

lIliLEN LePOVITZ 
Rhetoric II, Final Examination, 1943-1944 

IL'SED TO HAVE THAT FEELING ABOUT HIM, BUT IT IS 
j^(jnc. Have you ever had first impressions of a person that made you 
catalog him as one distinct type or another and no more? I did. I at- 
tended one week of rhetoric classes, and thought, "That rhetoric instructor 
is a rhetoric instructor and no more." Xow, I have changed my tune. I sing, 
He's a rhetoric instructor and he's human, too!" 

A new college — a new instructor — rhetoric after a lapse of time — I 
really didn't know what to expect. I went to classes and discovered that I 
should have expected grammar study, spelling again, and no end of compo- 
sition. The instructor came to classes as regularly as I did. He was punctual 
and always in the same good humor. At every class meeting he took roll in 
the same deliberate manner. Assignments were always definite and precise. 
Whatever work he assigned for one hour was discussed and taken care of in 
one hour. 1 fe explained grammar rules, he dictated spelling words, he lectured 
on how to write book reviews, he read book reviews, he explained deductive 
and inductive reasoning, he defined exposition and dwelled ujion it, and he 
talked about narration, description, and argumentation. It was routine 
rhetoric, definitely routine and definitely rhetoric. Then came a terrific 
rhetoric lantlslide! 

Some will say that first impressions are lasting ones, but I am now 
ipable of defying that statement. My impressions of a rhetoric instructor 
liave not lasted. During Rhetoric 2, I found out not only that my instructor 
knew rhetoric, but also that he was human. In Rhetoric 2, I discovered that 
his interests were not in rhetoric alone. He could talk politics, he could 
lecture on the Bible, and he had read a great deal on public utilities. On one 
occasion, he knew that Leoncavallo had written "I Pagliacci." When dis- 
cussing sports, he not only knew of present day sportsmen, but he was also 
acquainted with those of years gone by. When I questioned the authenticity 
of my research reference, he knew whether it was authentic or not. He 
entered into discussions of the war and its campaigns. He quoted statistics 
on unemployment. Whatever the subject brought up in class, he showed 
himself interested and well informed in it. .Xnd his knowledge did not sub- 
merge his humanness. 

When I had a conference with him, I found it as simple to enjoy a cig- 
arette with him as with a close friend. If he didn't agree with my theme 
subject, his defiance was pleasing and interesting. When he incorrectly 
pluralized louse as louses, he laughed at his own mistake. I learned that he 



12 The Green Caldron 

can ask you about your boy friend, and remember anything you may say. 
If he doesn't agree with you on a topic of conversation, he will argue with 
you. He is human in his choice of food for breakfast, too. He even reads 
the paper over his breakfast table, while he has his after-meal cigarette. He 
has loved ones in the service, and he has letter writing to do. 

Rhetoric 2 may have presented its principles of rhetoric and composition 
to me; it also acquainted me with an instructor with a heart. A toast to the 
man who lives not in rhetoric alone, but who has delved into various and 
numerous subjects, and who laughs easily, argues firmly, defies pleasingly, 
and talks interestingly. 



tcTT T '-m •>•) 



We or They 

Geraldine Sutzer 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1943-1944 



F^IVE YEARS BEFORE THE TREACHERY OF PEARL HAR- 
bor, when America was blissfully oblivious to all but her own snug 
borders, one man sat down in New York City and contemplated her 
future in connection with the discrepancies of the peace in 1918, her rela- 
tions as a democracy with dictatorships, and the inevitability of a second 
world war. Not only a keen intellect and a piercing vision made Hamilton 
Fish Armstrong aware of these vital matters, but also an unusually broad 
background of political and professional years abroad in the company of 
elected leaders in all corners of Europe; of trusted and revered kings in 
their glory; of attic-confined ex-premiers; of magnetic, showy, and con- 
vincing dictators; of thundering, passion-ridden, cause-conscious crowds; 
and marching men — "shouting or grim, desperate for bread, entranced by a 
slogan, on fire for a leader, in delirium for freedom won, in relief for 
freedom lost." 

As a man who had watched such a confusion of struggling men and 
systems, he wrote a speculation, We or They, of the relative merits of 
democracy and dictatorship, of the possibility of ever establishing tolerable 
relations between the two, and of the duration of such an arrangement. 
Armstrong realized the vantage point which his actual experience abroad — 
in 1918 as Acting Military Attache of the American Legation at Belgrade, 
Serbia, and in 1921 and 1922 as a special correspondent in Eastern Europe — 
gave him; and through the medium of this book and others such as 
The Nezu Balkans, Where the East Begins, Foreign Affairs Bibliography, 



October, 1944 13 

Hitler's Reich, Europe Betzveen Wars, Can We Be Neutral.'', The Foreign 
Policy of the Powers, etc., he did his best to inform the American public of 
the threat to their position in world affairs, a position both superior and rare. 

Although all of Armstrong's books were powerfully written, authentically 
derived, and reasonably presented, they had little eflfect on the people as a 
whole. It took a sneak plan, a below-the-belt punch, the loss of American 
life and blood to awaken America. 

In his attempt to clarify America's status in relation to other forms of 
government, Armstrong stated, "Most Americans, ranking governments by 
their ability to afford the greatest number the greatest material good, still 
consider democracy best able to do this, and without the spiritual sacrifice 
which the dictators exact." Then he proceeded to air his suspicion of the 
instability of the then-peaceful relations with the query, "Can tolerably satis- 
factory relations ever in fact be established between i>eoples free and peoples 
in chains? Is not the gulf too wide?" He believed that as the tide rushed 
on from one vortex to another — the invasion of Manchuria, the Dolfuss 
murder, the scrapping of Locarno, the fall of Addis Ababa, Fascist planes 
over Madrid — the question became more acute. Even though tolerable rela- 
tions be established, can it be for long? Is not the gulf too deep? 

Even in 1937, Armstrong predicted our present war as the only logical 
outcome, for with the radical changes made by dictatorships, within their own 
borders, and with their semi-camoullaged intentions toward other nations, 
it was only natural there would be misunderstanding. 

To impress further upon his reader the absolute and final superiority of 
democracy, Armstrong waived the few worthy economic changes made by 
dictatorial governments, and the beautifully glorified opinions of themselves 
i<i the "Master Races," to expose the loss of individual wills and separate 
tiestinies — crushed irrevocably under the steamroller of the totalitarian state. 
\\ ith startling clarity and truth he clinched his argument thus, "We must 
guard zealously the rights of our scholars and teachers to carry for>vard the 
stream of civilized thought; love art for art's sake and honor science when 
it seeks the truth; and encourage and protect the rights of assembly and 
speech and the freedom of the press, remembering what a wise Chinese 
philosopher says, that 'while the Fascists regard the press as a nuisance 
and therefore suppress it, the believers in democracy also regard the free- 
dom of the press as a nuisance and thank God they have so glorious a 
nuisance.' " 

BIBLIOGR-\PHY 

Hamilton Fish Armstrong. If'e or They. New York: MacMillan, 1937. 
Who's IVho .-Imong North ./Imerican Authors. Los Angeles: Golden Syndicate Pub- 
lishing Company, 1939. 
IVho's IVho in New York. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1938. 



14 The Green Caldron 

Hardships of War Correspondents 
In World War I 

Elaine Sell 
Rhetoric II, Theme 9, 1943-1944 

IT WAS DURING THE GREAT WAR THAT NEWSPAPER COR- 
respondence ceased to be a happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care type of job 
and came to be recognized as a practical business. Floyd Gibbons, 
Richard Harding Davis, and some of the other members of the "old school" 
were among the very first correspondents in Europe after the Bosnian 
assassination of 1914. They roamed the Continent in characteristic manner, 
picking up stories right and left v^ithout method. Gradually, however, re- 
strictions were laid, and the patented, 20th Century news correspondent 
arose. He was tested and tabulated on military records and was subject to 
regulations on all sides.^ This stereotyped way of securing news would have 
been completely colorless had not some of the men and women who covered 
Europe during the Great War injected the vividness of their own personali- 
ties into their dispatches. Irvin S. Cobb, John T. McCutcheon, Heywood 
Broun, Webb Miller, Ring Lardner, and Will Irwin were only a few of the 
men whose dispatches the nation read with relish. America, used to the 
lavish extravagance of Richard Harding Davis, considered the life of a war 
correspondent an exciting and glamorous business but came gradually to 
realize that the job of news gathering was not always easy. 

News gathering during the war involved a great many problems, but per- 
haps the one which was foremost in the minds of the correspondents was 
that of getting to the front. Most men eventually agreed that coverage from 
Paris could be much more thorough and accurate than a front line report, 
but the urge to get to the point of action drove each newsman to seek a way 
to the battlefront. Early in the war, as reporters, feature men, and adven- 
turers swarmed into Europe from the United States, all newspaper men 
were considered civilians and were treated as such if found around the lines. 
Those captured by the French were driven back to Paris, but the British 
were somewhat more lenient.^ Germans, Austrians, French, and British 
allowed occasional, well-guarded trips to the front. These days of free lanc- 
ing and independent work soon passed, however, to be replaced by a time 
referred to by correspondents as the "dark ages."^ It was a time when re- 

^William G. Shepard, "The Free Lance and the Faker," Evervbody's Magazine, 

XXXVI (March, 1917), p. 346. 

'William G. Shepard, "Confessions of a War Correspondent," Everybody's Magazine, 

XXXVI (February, 1917), p. 172. 

'Shepard, "The Free Lance and the Faker," p. 2)2)7. 



Octoh.-r. 1944 15 

striciions were especially iu-avy, and newsmen could only sit in Paris or 
behind the German lines and transmit official communiques. With the com- 
ing of the American Expeditionary Force, correspondents were accredited.* 
The men who were chosen to travel with the American army were allowed 
almost complete freedom i>ehind the lines, whereas the men with the British 
and French armies were accompanied constantly by Press Officers. Irvin S. 
Cobb, who covered the war for The Saturday Ezcning Post, reports, "Espe- 
cially the French doubted the dependability of journalists, their own journal- 
ists included."' Cobb goes on to tell how the French maintained two bureaus 
to issue front line permits. One was a civilian bureau, the other was com- 
posed of military personnel, and the chief duty of each was to countermand 
orders issued by the other." 

The big decision of whether to journey to the front in the (}uesi ui iront 
line features and a chance of a correct interpretation of the battle, or to 
remain behind the lines in the hope of receiving more complete news, lay 
with each correspondent individually. William G. Shepard, reporting for 
the United Press, often found himself up against the fact that the Great 
War was too big to be seen. He tells of one time when he journeyed 
forth, discontent with inaction in Paris, only to sj>end several days at 
Villers-Cotterets, write three insignificant features, and return to Paris. He 
discovered several days later, from an official communique, that Villers- 
Cotterets, while he had l)een there, was the pivot of a turnini; movement in 
the battle along the Aisne.' Often the American people knew, through com- 
muniques, of military actions long before the reporter in the midst of the 
battle was able to clarify his facts sufficiently to file a story or even to 
understand the situation himself.* 

With the influx of Americans into Europe at the start of the war came 
many men who were seeking adventure and who sacrificed their personal 
integrity in order to send to the American people wildly imaginative stories 
of chaos on the Continent. They sent back stories of German atrocities in 
Belgium which were so wild that responsible correspondents could not 
match them. The stories of honest men seemed tame compared to the won- 
derful talcs of the fakers. In one instance, when several responsible men had 
discovered a way to get through the French lines by buying a ticket to 
Dunkirk and laying low in a railroad station until the train left, a faker was 
informed of the scheme. The whole situation sounded interesting to him. and 
he promptly made it the subject of a personal narrative — telling how he had 
gone to Dunkirk — and cabled it to the United States. The stor)-, which was 
completely faked, found its way back to France, and several correspondents 

*Frank L. Mott, American Journalism (New York, 1941), p. 620. 

•In in S. Cobb, Exit Laughing (New York, 1941), p. 175. 

*lbid. 

'Shepard, "Confessions of a War Correspondent " r> 172. 

*lhid., p. 175. 



15 The Green Caldron 

were blacklisted by the French government.^ The fakers not only misled the 
American people and caused them to suspect the ability of the capable cor- 
respondents, but also annoyed authorities so much that privileges had to be 
denied to all newspaper men. 

Added to the difficulties of securing news in Europe was the always 
present element of personal risk and hardship for the newsmen. For the 
most part, the correspondents were not in the front line of danger, although 
those men assigned to field headquarters of the press section always fol- 
lowed the battles and were situated in the town nearest the fight where 
telegraph facilities could be obtained. Another factor which led to danger 
was the ever-present desire for a new twist to an old story. Men went over 
the top in raids just to be able to tell America how it felt; others flew over 
the lines to record the sensation. One man flew from Frankfort to Berlin 
just after the armistice was signed so that he could turn in his story of how 
it felt to be the first Allied representative in Germany. Maude Radford 
Warren, who wrote for The Saturday Evening Post, is often said to have 
seen more actual fighting than any other woman in France, just so that she 
might be able to write intelligently about it.^° 

As a result, both of their daring and of their routine reporting, many 
correspondents were killed and injured. Henry Beach Needham of Colliers 
was killed in an airplane crash, and Patrick L. Jones of INS drowned on 
the Lusitania.^^ Floyd Gibbons lost an eye, Walter C. Wiffen of AP was 
wounded in Russia, and Robert T. Small of AP almost lost his life in 
the Somme.^^ 

When not in actual danger the newsmen often submitted to much in- 
convenience and personal hardship as they covered the war. Don Martin 
of the New York Herald died of exposure and overwork, and many more 
men who were unable to take the rigorous life came near to dying from ill- 
ness contracted from exposure due to their rundown physical condition.^^ 
But these men were the front line men — the men who cabled daily stories 
to the syndicates and major newspapers of America. For the feature men, 
the men who wrote only mail stories, the men who covered special assign- 
ments, and the men who traveled with regular divisions, life was not so 
hard.^* William Shepard, in one report, says, 'T slept in forty different beds 
in Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and Galicia in a total 
of sixty consecutive nights, and not one bed was a poor one."^^ F. Tennyson 
Jesse, woman feature writer for Colliers, does not report any acute personal 

*Shepard, "The Free Lance and the Faker," p. 337 ff. 

""War Correspondents' Job Was Not a Soft Snap," Literary Digest, LXII (July, 

1919), p. 67. 

"Mott, op. cit., p. 621. 

'=OUver Gramling, AP ; the Story of News (New York, 1940), p. 267. 

""War Correspondents' Job Was Not a Soft Snap," Literary Digest, p. 68. 

^*Ihid. 

"Shepard, "Confession of a War Correspondent," p. 180. 



October, 1944 17 

discomfort — only a general disillusionment: "There is no glamor about a 
war correspondent's life. It is simply depressing, with a deadly depression 
that eats into the soul. For the few times one makes good with a fairly big 
story there are weeks of profitless waiting, of gloom, rain, squalor and 
maddening uncertainty."" 

Once the hardships of securing the news were successfully combatlcd 
there remained only the censor's blue jHrncil ami erratic cable conditions be- 
tween the war correspondent in Europe and the news editor in America. 
Censorship was especially unsj-mpathetic and stupid in the early days of the 
war.'" This may have been partially due to the fact that American newsmen, 
their country still uninvolvcd in war, were extremely hostile to any censor- 
ing of the facts. One example of the delays to which dispatches were subject 
concerns a dispatch sent by a Paris corrcsjwndent of an American pai)er 
on August 2. It was soon forgotten in the crush of more urgent news until, 
> •; \ ist 23, the correspondent got a note from the censor in Paris, where 
liiL ...:..>.urs were said to be more human than in London, to the effect that 
the message filed August 2 was rejected by the censor." In the early days of 
the war the reporters were sworn enemies of the censors. William Shepard 
said, "The censors were afraid of the corrcsix)ndcnts and the corresjwndents 
were afraid of the censor."'* The newsmen used their ingenuity to try to 
Inrat the censors as often as jx^ssible. On one occasion Shejiard transmitted 
an entire stor)' in slang;'** Fred Ferguson of the United Press succeeded in 
informing his New York office of Archie Roosevelt's injur)' by a crj^itic 
cable telling them to phone Oyster Bay.*' 

Censorship eventually began to be run on a much more tenable basis. The 
British and French plans were basically the same. Each country allowed 
five accredited correspondents to travel with the armies. Elach corresix)ndent 
had a Press Officer, who accompanied him constantly and was his censor. 
The corresi)ondent couKl not go anywhere without the consent of an officer 
or speak to any members of the troops unless an officer was present." 
Frederick Palmer, who went abroad first for Everybody s ^fagazine, was 
chosen to represent all the American SNiidicates with the British army. I^ter 
Palmer wrote the section of the United States Field Service Regulations 
dealing with war correspondents, and he became chief American censor for 
si.x months.'^ Under the American system the promotion and suppression 
of publicity were placed under a common direction, and censorship was more 

"F. T. Jesse. "Trials of a War Correspondent," Colliers, LV (March 20, 1915). p. 21. 

".\Iott. op. cit , p. 623. 

""StilliiiK War Corrcsponilcnts." Literary Digest, XLIX (September 26. 1914). p. 585. 

"William G. Shepard, "Forty-Two Centimeter Blue Pencil," Everybody's Magazine, 

XXXVI (April, 1917), p. 481 ff. 

"Ibid 

"Webb Miller. / Found No Peace ^.\cw York. 1936). p. 85. 

■"Work of the War Censor," Literary Digest, L\II (April 20. 1918). p. 50. 

•Mott. o/>. cit., p. 623. 



18 The Green Caldron 

liberal than under the British and French systems. To become an accredited 
correspondent under the American system the reporter had to produce a 
bond of $3,000, and deposit a fund of $1,000 with the Adjutant General in 
Washington to be drawn against for his expenses in the field. The corres- 
pondents could rent cars for $60 a week. As far as privileges were con- 
cerned, the reporter had the same freedom of movement within the American 
war zone as a local reporter has in New York City. Dispatches were always 
brought to the Press Division by the correspondent, who sent them, if 
approved, in person to New York.^* Webb Miller pays perhaps the highest 
tribute a war correspondent can pay to a censor when he says, "The Ameri- 
can censorship at the front during the World War was in the hands of men 
who knew their business. "^^ 

In the da3^s before American militar}^ censorship the correspondent wor- 
ried not only about passing the censor, but also about favorable cable condi- 
tions for the transmission of his dispatches to America. Government mes- 
sages always took precedence, and there was an extremely great amount of 
government business. Urgent rates didn't exist, and the syndicates began 
filing dispatches at the commercial rate of twenty-five cents per word. 
Filing at this rate caused a great rise in daily cable tolls, and yet was not a 
dependable means of transmission. Stories to New York were from seven- 
teen to fifty-two hours on the wire. Some stories never reached New York 
at all. One message from the Russian capital was sixty-two days in transit.^® 

Perhaps the condition that was hardest for the conscientious war corres- 
pondent to accept was the continual criticism which reached him from 
America and England. T}^ical of the accusations was one made by Mr. 
Aaron Watson, a distinguished British publicist, who accused the American 
press of inaccuracy, prejudice, and uninterest in its work.^" Professor Robert 
Herrick, back from the war zone, launched his attack against the American 
correspondents by saying, "I have come to the firm belief that no corres- 
pondent or civilian writer has witnessed any real battle of this war. They 
have all faked more or less obviously. The front is no place for a reporter. 
Even if by accident the reporter should find himself present during some 
action he would not know enough to know what it means, still less what 
significance it had in relation to the vast whole."^^ In the face of these attacks 
the American foreign press as a whole attempted to uphold its integrity. 
H. Perry Robinson, a British correspondent, defended the whole trade by 
saying, "In so far as we may fail to satisfy the public, it is by our inherent 
incapacity, not by any failing of honesty of purpose or of earnest endeavor."^^ 

'^"Work of the War Censor," Literarv Digest, p. 52. 

"Miller, op. cit., p. 40. 

^^Gramling, op. cit., p. 267 flf. 

""American Press on the War," Literary Digest, LI (September 11, 1915), p. 528 ff. 

""'Skeleton in the Newspaper Closet," Literary Digest, LI (September 18, 1915), pp. 

292-93. 

^H. Perry Robinson, "The War Correspondent and His V/ork," Nineteenth Century 

and After, LXXXII (December, 1917), p. 1215. 



October, 1944 19 

Perhaps the war correspondent didn't, as people at home often said, ever 
see much war, but he was constantly embroiled in many minor wars of his 
own. He fought the censor, he fought the cable man, he fought disease and 
danger, and, for the most part, he fought the very people he was serving. 
But, in spite of the newspaper man's difficulties, America is generally con- 
ceded to have been the nation best informed on the progress of the war. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

"American Press on the War." Literary Digest, LI (September 11. 1915). 528-529. 
Cobb. Irvi.n S. Exit Laughing. Indianapolis. New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1941. 
Gramung, Oliver. AP; the Story of News. New York, Toronto: Farrar & Rine- 

hart. 1940. 
Jesse. F. T. "Trials of a War Correspondent," Colliers. LV (March 20. 1915). 19-21. 
Miller, Webb. / Found Xo Peace. New York: Simon and Shuster. 1936. 
MoTT, Frank L. Ameriian Journalism. New York: MacMillan and Company. 1941. 
Robinson, H. Perrv. "The War Correspondent and His Work.' Minelcenth Century 

aMrf.'///rr. LX.X.XH (Dccemhcr. 1917). 1205-15. 
Shepakk, William G. "Confessions of a War Correspondent," Everybody's Magazine, 

XXXV! (February. 1917). 168-181. 
SiiEPARii. William G. "Forty-two Centimeter Blue Pencil." Everybody's Magazine, 

XXXVI (April. 1917). 470-482. 
SiiEPAKH. WiLUAM G. "The Frci- I-ance and the Faker." Everybody's Magazine, 

XXXVI (March. 1917). 337-349. 
"Skeletons in the Newspaper Closet." Literary Digest. LI (September 18. 1915). 592-93. 
"StiflinK War Correspondents." Literary Digest. XLIX (September 26. 1914). 585. 
"War Corresptmdents* Job Was Not a Soft Snap." Literary Digest, LXII (July 19, 

1919). 67-70. 
"Work of the War Censor on the Field and at Home." Literary Digest, LVII (April 

20. 1918). 46-53. 



Bullfight 

A bullfijjht is not a s|>ort in the .American sense of the word. It is not a con- 
.c>t between the man and the bull but a tragedy with these two playing the lead- 
ing characters. The bravery of the bull is much admired, and his conduct during 
the fight is applauded or jeered by the crowd just as is the man's. The most 
dramatic scene, of course, is the death of the bull. He can be killed a right way 
:i wrong way. An incorrect killing takes place when the matador cxix)ses him- 
It as little as |x)ssible. keeps away from the horns, and places the sword in the 
bull's neck. In the correct method the matador, after he has tired the bull with his 
cape work, holds the mulcta in his left hand close to the bull's face. As he slowly 
lowers it. the animal's head will follow; and when the bull is in precisely the 
■.:ht position, head lowered and feet together, the matador holds his right arm 
: aight, passes his body over the horns, as close to them as possible, and sinks 
the sword slowly between the shoulder blades. The two are then seen as one, an 
intense, passionate picture of life and death. — Lynn Woodward 



20 The Green Caldron 

Don't Trust First Impressions 

James Carruth 
Rhetoric I, Theme 10, 1943-1944 

IT WAS ALL OVER. HIGH SCHOOL WAS FINISHED, AND I 
was on my way to the University of Illinois almost without realizing it. 
After years of anticipating and worrying, I was still almost completely 
unprepared to face the ordeal of entering a new world and of meeting count- 
less strange people. It wasn't until I had actually got on the train that I 
fully realized that I was entering school a week late, with no idea of how 
or where to begin. With this realization came an even more terrifying 
thought. I was going to enter, as a stranger, a house full of boys who were 
already used to each other. Furthermore, I had forgotten the address and 
would have to depend upon chance and a kindly taxi-driver to get me there. 
However, because Champaign isn't a large city, and people actuall}' are 
friendly, I managed to arrive in a wholesome state of mind. 

I glanced at the house as I stepped out of the taxi and then hesitantly 
trotted up the walk. The door was wide open and inviting, but at this mid- 
night hour no one was there to greet me. Inside, I set my bags down noisily 
and stood there for a puzzling moment until I saw a bulletin board with my 
name and room number on it. Once I had found my study room I was 
afraid to leave it, but realizing that I couldn't stay there all night, I bravely 
walked out into the hall and stopped dead. Two strange boys, also frozen to 
attention, were watching me. 

One of them at last managed to blurt out, "You must be the new boy!" 
All I could manage in return was a gurgle and a nod. He offered to guide 
me to my bed in the dorm. When we had located my little bed in a corner, 
he remarked, comfortingly, that I was fortunate to have a bed in such an 
out-of-the-way spot where the drunks wouldn't trip over it. So with this 
thought in mind, I settled down to a series of unpleasant mental pictures, in 
place of sleep. The pictures didn't remain mental long. 

Some of the fellows had been out celebrating their first week at Illinois 
with a riotous beer party, and they began to stumble in about fifteen minutes 
after I had gone to bed. My hearing and my imagination worked overtime 
to give me an idea of what was happening. The yells and laughter were 
transformed into roars. Noisy preparations for bed sounded, to me, more 
like a brawl than anything else. The snatches of conversation which I over- 
heard were enough to make anyone wonder. 

"Was Al really crying on your shoulder, or was he just faking?" 

"Boy, that Kenny was certainly funny, running around burning every- 
body with his cigarettes!" 



October, 1944 21 

"Is Glen still lying on his face on the front porch, or did someone drag 
him in?" Altogether, it was enough. My first impressions were terrible. 

The dawn came for me the next morning at breakfast. I felt better when 
I saw a lot of fellows near my own size and age, but I was wondering when 
the older and bigger guys who had been drunk the night before were going 
to come down. It was a happy moment when I realized that everyone was 
already down, and that the "big drunks" of the night before were only the 
friendly fellows with whom I was having breakfast. 



Brothers ! 

Mary Homrighous 
Rhetoric II, Theme 5, 1943-1944 

BROTHERS ARE THE ABSOLUTE END! AT LEAST MINE 
I are. Just because of some silly little accident that wasn't my fault, 
they have positively refused to take me sailing in their "C" boat again. 
In fact, they have forbidden me ever again to come within arm's distance 
of the old thing. 

It all happened last August 31, the day of the final sailing races for the 
season. Pete and Johnny, my brothers, had gotten up before dawn cracked 
to see that their boat had not been sabotaged during the night. They were 
dead-sure that the Lucky Lady, under their masterful guidance, was going 
to come in first. Of course, that was the third successive year that the two 
of them had been dead-sure, and in 1941 and 1942 they hadn't even placed. 
But if at first . . . 

On that fateful day I was just in the middle of my second dessert, when 
Pete and Johnny combined forces and dragged me away from the lunch 
table. Without a word they forcibly led me to the pier. At first I thought 
they were going to drown me, because I had made some slighting remarks 
about their sailing abilities; but they just quietly, if threateningly, informed 
me that I was to be the Lucky Lady's mascot. Please note this: they asked 
me; I did not ask them. As no answer was necessary, we jumped into the 
boat and took her over to the Community Pier, which was to be the starting 
point for the race. On the way over even Pete and Johnny noticed that there 
was a very high wind, but they figured that they would let Nature take her 
course. 

Fifteen minutes later the race began. When the pistol was fired, all ten 
of the boats lunged forward as if they had been pushed. For the first half- 
a-mile we all remained quite even, but then Lucky Lady, along with 



22 The Green Caldron 

Queenie, X, and Red Star, went out in front. Pete and Johnny positively 
glowed with pride when that happened. Even I smiled, for there I was mas- 
coting a potential winner. 

Suddenly the wind became worse. I, sitting on the side of the boat, 
port, exactly where I had been placed so that I would be out of the 
way, had to hold on for dear life. My pigtails bounced on my back, and my 
red blouse was so filled with air that I rather resembled a pillow. My blue 
jeans whipped about my legs. Pete and Johnny began to mutter; I heard 
something about "light sail" and looked up. I am not exactly an old salt, but 
I realized that Lucky Lady's sail was too light for the wind. I found myself 
wishing that I had done my mascoting from shore. 

Then my mascot spirit came to the fore ; I mumbled, "Let it hold ! Let 
it hold!" But my prayers weren't enough, probably because I prefer to sleep 
in bed rather than in church on Sunday mornings. The sail ripped, and the 
wind shrieked through the hole. As if a ruined sail weren't enough, the 
mast began to creak fearfully. I looked at it lovingly, hoping that it too 
wouldn't fail me. It bent terribly; then it cracked in two, and the upper, 
useless half swayed downward pointing right at me. 

I certainly was not responsible for what happened next ; I have no idea 
how it came about. All of a sudden I found myself in the water underneath 
the boat. Moreover, I was attached to something. I struggled furiously, 
kicking and stroking, but I couldn't get loose. As I kept on swallowing more 
and more water, I began to see horrible pictures of myself as fish food. 
When approximately one atom of oxygen remained in my lungs, two 
familiar, if watery, faces came into view, and two pairs of hands snatched 
my flailing arms. The hands yanked, and I stretched. The hands yanked 
again, and I was free. I rose to the surface, and the hands pushed me into 
the unLucky Lady. Pete and Johnny pulled themselves back into the boat. 

Just as I was discovering that my jeans were backless, Pete and Johnny, 
looking only a little the worse for the mission of mercy, let out a horrible 
groan. I looked up to see not just three but all nine boats stretched out 
ahead of us. Once again I found myself wishing that I were back on shore. 

When we arrived at the finish line, half-an-hour later, Pete and Johnny 
picked me up by the elbows and dropped me on the dock. As no one was 
within earshot, they informed me in unprintable syllables that I was never 
again to come near their sacred ship. Never on any condition. 

In my defense I wish to say that I am not a witch, who by my cursed 
presence caused the sail to rip, the mast to break. And I am not of such a 
perverse nature that I would deliberately attach myself to a ship's rudder 
and damage it. But Pete and Johnny are in complete agreement about such 
things: everything that happened that terrible day was my fault — all of 
which goes to prove that brothers are the ultimate ! 



I 

I 



October, 1944 23 

Don t Call It "Shell Shock" 

Joyce Osborne 

Rhetoric 11. Theme 8, 1943-1944 

THE SOLDIER LOOKED TO THE FRONT AGAL\, AND 
just as he did so, he heard the most terrifying sound he had ever 
heard in his life — the loud, malicious scream of a big shell — louder 
than any he had ever heard. Its scream froze and nauseated him, weakened 
his legs, and made him breathe a most devout, heartfelt prayer, "O my 
God, don't let that hit me!" 

He dropped — crumpled up, completely collapsed on the ground. Rut he 
did not get there fast enough. As he was falling, the whole world blew up. 
It was indescribable, that crash of sound, so loud one could not hear it. It 
seemed to hit him all over at once — everything seemed to stop functioning 
altogether. He got to his feet, his head throbbing, his ears banging, and his 
legs wobbling a bit as he tried to get his balance and stay up. He put his 
hand to his head in a dazed way, to wipe away from his mind the fogginess 
that seemed to surround it. 

Another crash came and knocked him down. Again he got up. The blue 
layers of smoke were lying all about him. layer on layer, quiet and still, with 
the trees showing in between. He turned around, and still he saw those 
horizontal layers of blue smoke. He couldn't think, or move away from 
where he sttK)d.^ 

In 1918, this soldier would have been tagged "shell shocked." and given 
the general, inefficient treatment then used. "Shell shock," as it was origi- 
nally used, was correct enough — it meant injury or concussion caused by the 
blast of an e.xploding bomb. T.ut gradually the term came to include almost 
every variation of neurosis or hysteria. The expression was caught up 
quickly by the public and became established before the harm could be 
prevented. When it had been accepted officially, medical officers were forced 
to use it, mainly because they did not feel justified in making a more defi- 
nite diagnosis for each case which was different from all the rest. They 
felt that by tagging the soldier "shell shocked" they would spare him the 
shame and anguish of having his condition described as a mental disorder. 
Actually, the effect produced often caused the soldier's condition to be- 
come worse. 

In this war, shell shock is not mentioned. Soldiers are tagged "mentally 
e.xhausted." Rut it is not possible to wipe out shell shock by forbidding it a 
name. Instead we recognize the separate disorders which were all included 
under that general heading. 

"'Shell- Shocked and After," Atlantic Monthly, CXXVIII (December, 1921), p. 739. 



24 The Green Caldron 

When doctors find cases which have been caused by the blast of an 
explosion, they call them "blast concussion." This condition is to be expected 
after an explosion and has nothing to do with mental or moral virtues. In 
blast concussion, there is actual injury to the body fluids, especially those 
of the brain. In fatal cases, hemorrhages have been found throughout the 
brain substance.^ 

But it is not this division of shell shock that we are most interested in, 
for only four to ten percent of all the shell shock cases of World War I 
were caused by the blast of exploding shells. All the rest were emotional 
disturbances and mental disorders.^ It is these emotional cases which have 
challenged doctors and psychiatrists to search for an effective treatment of 
war neuroses. In this war, the emotional factor is being recognized as one 
of the most important, and treatment for "traumatic war neurosis," as it is 
now called, is being developed on the war fronts. 

The question is raised: Why, if only a few of the shell shock cases of 
World War I were actually caused by exploding shells, were so many 
thousands of broken, hysterical soldiers sent back to the United States to 
fill our mental hospitals? Many authorities argue that war does not increase 
the ordinary types of mental disease, and that it has not produced any 
unheard-of forms. But why were there so many more cases than we have 
in peacetime? 

In order to answer the question, we must remember that one of the 
greatest sources of breakdown is intense and frequently repeated emotion. 
In civil life we experience grief and anxiety, but we are given time to be 
relieved of our worry; we can get a night of sleep to help us carry on the 
struggle the next day. To the soldier, sleep may be impossible, not neces- 
sarily because of his mental state, but simply from the lack of opportunity 
because of the disturbances going on around him. The emotional strain is 
continuous — it keeps up night and day for months. 

In previous wars, this strain found an outlet in face-to- face fighting. The 
soldier's fear and grief were lost in the anger and excitement of a personal 
fight with a personal enemy. But in the last war and in this one, soldiers 
have not been given this one vent for their pent-up emotions. Each man 
must lie in a shallow trench, waiting for an enemy he cannot see, realizing 
that any moment he may be shelled or strafed by machine gun bullets. Add 
to this emotional strain the grief of seeing comrades killed or wounded. 
Then when a shell does explode near-by or he is buried by a mine explosion, 
the soldier's will snaps and he becomes a victim of war neurosis. The 
symptoms differ with each man, depending upon his mental and physical 
condition and upon the incident which becomes "the last straw." 

"'Shell Shock of First War Now is Blast Concussion," Science Nezvs Letter, XL 

(August 30, 1941), p. 142. 

'Lord Southborough, "Shell-Shock," Living Age, CCCXV (October 14, 1922), p. 71. 



October, 1944 25 

The effects of neuroses are as pathetic as they are horrible. Imagine 
yourself on a visit in a base hospital in France in 1918, going through a 
ward of shell shock patients. Some of the men cannot see; others are deaf 
or mute. One man suffers a complete paralysis of his right side. Nearly all 
have a tremor of some sort, and many stare wildly when spoken to. The 
nurse tells us that, in their dreams, the patients relive their horrible expe- 
riences, jumping out of bed to crawl under, seeking the safety of the "fox- 
holes." Sometimes they start up in the middle of the night, weeping, their 
bodies bathed in sweat as they dream of being chased by Germans with 
bayonets, or of losing the trench in a fog and being unable to get back. Loss 
of memory is not unusual among shell shock victims, and recovery is as 
sudden as the loss. 

When doctors in World War I met these symptoms, they were be- 
wildered. They knew that a few cowardly men were pretending the symptoms 
of shell shock so that they might get away from front-line fighting. Because 
of these few, the true neurosis victims suffered harsh treatment. They grew 
worse as they were given tedious, annoying work, and were called "yellow" 
by the other men. They were given bitter medicine, and were allowed no 
visitors, no mail. It was thought that, if they were pretending, they would 
choose to return to their units rather than endure such suffering. Because 
of this harsh, inefficient treatment, few recovered. Their neuroses became 
fixed and they were sent back to the United States to become public charges. 

When it was too late, the doctors realized that the men were not malin- 
gerers, but true sulferers of war neuroses. Determining not to make the same 
mistake in World War II, doctors experimented with new t>'pes of treatment. 

During the Sicilian Campaign, victims of war neuroses were given 
sedatives, fed well, and kept well under soldier, rather than patient, disci- 
pline. Under the hypnosis produced by barbiturate drugs and their sodium 
salts, the patients were persuaded to tell their nightmare stories. Then a 
psychiatrist explained to them what had happened and why, talking heart- 
eningly to bolster their egos. After a few weeks' rest (or often only a few 
days' treatment) many of the men were much improved, showing no signs of 
the worst neurosis symptoms, but only two percent of the patients could be 
returned to the front.* 

Then in South Africa, two doctors, Majors Hai^son and Tureen, experi- 
mented with ninety-five cases by treating them right at the front within the 
sound of guns, under frequent air raids. They gave them the quick "talk 
treatment," using drugs to loosen their tongues if they were backward. Of 
these cases, sixty were returned to duty within four days. When forty- four 
of these men were checked again in three weeks, all but five had seen hard 

*F. C. Painton. "There Is No Such Thing as Shell Shock," Reader's Digest, XLIII 
(October, 1943), p. 61. 



26 The Green Caldron 

fighting and were performing adequately. Most of the remaining thirty-five 
men were able to do rear-line duty.^ 

An example of the effect of this new type of treatment was related by 
Dr. Hanson: "A young tank driver had been in constant fighting for many 
days. At the battle of Kasserine Pass the tank's sergeant, his head out of the 
turret, was struck in the face by an eighty-eight shell. The headless body 
fell back into the tank beside the driver. The youth stopped the tank, 
climbed out and began to run around and around, wringing his hands. He 
was brought to us crying and physically worn out. We gave him sedatives 
and food, and explained to him what had happened. At the end of four 
days he returned to his unit and fought through the rest of the campaign."^ 

Although it is too early to know what will be the outcome of treatment 
administered in this war, the immediate results have been encouraging. 
Colonel Perrin Long, formerly of Johns Hopkins, now on the medical staff 
in North Africa, has this to say on the subject: "The greatest achievement 
of medicine in North Africa is the development of a durative treatment that 
is redeeming war neurosis cases either for combat duty or for useful non- 
combatant work in the rear. Best of all, these fellows can and will be dis- 
charged into peacetime life able to make the adjustment and do pro- 
ductive work."^ 

We can only hope that time will prove Colonel Long's statement. 

T. C. Painton, "There Is No Such Thing as Shell Shock," p. 61. 
""Spit It Out, Soldier," Time, XLII (September 13, 1943), p. 60. 
'Ibid. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Lord Southborough, "Shell-Shock," Living Age, CCCXV (October 14, 1922), 69-74. 
Painton, F. C, "There Is No Such Thing as Shell Shock," Reader's Digest, XLII 

(October, 1943), 59-63. 
"Shell-Shocked and After," Atlantic Monthly, CXXVIII (December, 1921), 738-749. 
"Shell Shock of First War Now Is Blast Concussion," Science News Letter, XL 

(August 30, 1941), 142. 
"Spit It Out, Soldier," Time, XLII (September 13, 1943), 60. 
Starr, M. A., "Shell Shock," Scribner's, LXIV (August, 1918), 183-187. 

Snow Broom 

The snowstorm created a new Chicag-o — round-eyed and innocent. Traffic 
noise became a soothing lullaby that brought back memories of children's 
prayers. Purity fell on tenement fire-escapes, concealing corroded stairways and 
their miserable landings. Hidden were the filthy roof-tops, grimy gutters, the 
dirt and squalor that arc the big city. Not washed clean, but covered with a 
superficial splendor, much as a trollop covers old powder with new. Also gone 
was the hurry, the mad scramble to be forever doing something or going some- 
where. Snow-blind shoppers staggered against the wind, groping their way with 
unseeing eyes, or stood shivering in doorways — waiting. Old and young, hawk- 
ers and millionaires, thrown into a fleeting equality. — Carol Quimby 



October, 1944 27 

Saturday Night 



T 



Nancy Gray 
Rhetoric I, Theme 13. 1943-1944 

Jnr^HE SILENT, REGULARLY BREATIUNG MOUND BE- 
ncath a heap of covers stirred half-heartedly at the pressure of a 
hand near the top of the quilt. 

"Wake up, Mary," said a voice from a particularly dark spot beside the 
bed. "It's eight o'clock!" 

As the silhouette padded out of the room, the mound of covers slowly 
shifted and the body beneath drew itself into them, like a turtle, to cherish 
the warmth for a last delicious moment before springing out. Her right foot 
made a tour under the bed and caught a slipper with a toe. Not finding the 
other in the dark, she limped out of the frigid dormitory, the cold floor 
biting at the skin of her bare foot. 

Her eyes became accustomed to the insistent brightness of her room, 
and she squinted first at her roommate standing, half dressed, in front of 
lur mirror, and then at the clock on the wide window sill. She had an hour. 

An hour and I'ill will be here! She sat down on the edge of the day bed 
to wonder luxuriously what the night would hold. Saturday night was the 
most wonderful night in the week. It was one time when you could forget 
about school and work ami exams, and even the little pangs of conscience 
that rule you during the week couldn't make you sorry you were having a 
good time. 

"Hey, there, moon face — you've got a date at nine o'clock." 

"I'm getting ready." 

Bill had never seen her in a formal. She hoped, oh, how she hoped 
she'd be lovely. She caught up the skirt of her white chiflfon dress and let its 
cool folds slide between her thumb and finger. She Hung the bottom of the 
skirt over her shoulder to see again how the white made the remnants of 
last summer's tan glow. A graceful step brought her to the mirror. The 
sudden vision of wrinkled flannel pajamas and tightly curled hair shocked 
her mind and body into action, and she threw a towel over her shoulder and 
headed for the shower. 

The water hissed out at the turn of the chromium handle, and its hot 
beating on her skin lulled her mind. Dum dee dum dee dee — dee dum dee dee 
dee dum. The strains of a waltz played haphazardly on her vocal cords as if 
too much bent on getting out to bother with technicalities. Finally she 
tensed her muscles as if to ward off a blow and turned on the cold water. 
At that precise moment her buzzer sounded and she howled that two such 
things should happen at once. 



28 The Green Caldron 

"What time is it !" she yelled frantically to her roommate as she scram- 
bled out of the shower, groping for the soap with one arm and embracing a 
wet towel with the other. 

"It can't have been that long! He must be early!" 

With the concerted action that comes with long practice, the two girls got 
Mary ready. While she put on her stockings, her roommate tore the bobby 
pins out of her hair, collecting them in the palm of a closed fist. Finally they 
zipped her into the beloved dress and she stepped back to see as far down 
as she could in the high dresser mirror. 

For a last precious moment, she stood in front of her mirror and sur- 
veyed herself. Her hand went to her hair to smooth a strand that didn't 
need it. She wet her fingers, drew them across her eyebrows, and leaned 
close to scrutinize the edges of her lipstick. 

She picked up her wrap and moved toward the door, half turning when 
she got there. 

"Bye, Mildred. Am I all right?" 

"You're wonderful. Have fun." 

She started cautiously down the stairs, gaining assurance on the way 
down. On the second flight, she let go of her skirt and straightened her 
shoulders. Just before turning into the reception hall, she paused, took a 
deep breath, lifted her chin, and let herself down, step by step into the hall. 

Bill was in the living room fumbling indifferently with a pile of records. 
She stood there behind him for a moment, remembering the way he looked 
from the back. Sensing her presence, he turned, expectancy charging his 
whole face. She walked over toward him and his eye followed her as if she 
were a lodestone. 

"I am right," she thought fiercely. "He thinks so — I can tell." 

The thought warmed her and she said with an assurance which had 
sprung from his admiration, "Hello, Bill. Am I late?" 



Swimming Race 

The starter grasped his gun and raised his arm. "Swimmers on the mark — 
ready" — Bang ! With a tremendous splash all six of us hit the water together, 
though I, true to form, had fallen in whereas the others had dived. I immediately 
straightened out and began swimming furiously to make up the loss I had suf- 
fered at the start. My kicking legs thrashed up white foam as I slowly but 
steadily gained on my opponents. Reaching the edge of the pool, which was the 
half-way mark, I executed a very neat spinning turn and headed back towards 
the finish line. My breath came in gasps, my arms felt like lead, but I kept on, 
certain of a victory. As I crossed the finish line and slapped the edge of the pool 
amid a thunderous ovation, I saw the scorekeeper put his megaphone to his lips 
and heard him say, "Forty-yard free style won by Clemens, Crane Tech. Second, 
Wilson, Roosevelt; third. Pilfer, Steinmetz !" By the way, my name's Holden. 

— IMerrill Holden 



October, 1944 29 



Police Station on Sunday 

Elaine Sell 
Rhttoric II. Thtme 2. 1943-1944 



T 



rrr^HE POLICE STATION WAS OF GRAY STONE; ITS REGU- 
lation blue watch lights cast a garish gleam through a gray Sunday 
afternoon. High, irregularly chipped stone steps led through the 
battered wooden door upon which the characters "ISth District" were faintly 
visible beneath the most recent coat of paint. The solid, semi-circular desk, 
complete with cubby holes, iron railing, and an artistically lettered sign which 
proclaimed to all comers that Sergeant John L>Tich was on duty dominated 
the room. Across the dusty, deeply scarred and marked bench adjacent to the 
side of the desk, a reporter lounged soddenly, reaching over occasionally to 
tickle the belly of a smoke-colored kitten. Behind the desk Sergeant Lynch, 
his face reflecting sultr)' discontent, rcpwrted dutifully to his captain and 
resettled himself into gloomy letharg>-. The telet>-i)e machine, which trans- 
mits reports of city lawlessness, clicked on endlessly behind a door decorated 
with a bulletin on policemen's compensation flanked by an extravagant Petty 
drawing and a gaudy notice warning all to refrain from spitting, except in 
cuspidors. In one comer the occasional drip of water from a dirty, outmoded 
drinking fountain punctuated the damp mustiness of the room. The flat 
surface of the desk was completely covered with an accimiulation of odd 
items: a battered coffee pot, surrounded forlornly by several even more 
dented tin cups, telephones, mammoth volumes labeled conspicuously ".Xcci- 
dents," "Thefts," and "Miscellaneous," a multitude of reports and records, 
anonymous in the litter, and, over all, a layer of dust which added an 
appearance of unconcern and complete timelessness. 

Occasional sounds broke the rhj^hmical dullness of the ticking. Three 
men, two bearing violins, the third sheltering a horn beneath his coat, who 
had traveled unbailed and unnoticed across the floor and down the stair^vay 
to the "lockup," contributed the strains of "There's a Beautiful Garden of 
Roses" and other evangelical h>-mns to the pervading gloom. Once or twice 
the jangle of the telephone bell evoked a movement and a disgruntled "Dis- 
trict 15" from the Captain. The stillness deepened after each interruption. 
The reporter fell asleep, and the smoke-colored kitten curled up sluggishly 
on the Sunday comic section under the desk. 



30 The Green Caldron 



Goodbye 

Rachel Davidson 
Verbal Expression lA, Theme 6, 1942-1944 

I AST MARCH MY BROTHER RICHARD, AN INSTRUCTOR 
at Camp Davis, North Carolina, came home for a short furlough. 
•^ When his furlough was over, he had to report to his company, 
immediately after which he was to go overseas. We all realized that when 
he left we would be saying goodbye to him for a long time — maybe for 
years, and maybe forever. These thoughts made it very difficult for Richard 
and my family when it was time for him to leave. 

The first mistake we made when he left was to go to the depot early. 
We had almost an hour to wait in that dingy and dark depot before the 
train was to leave. My parents, my sister, Richard's wife, Richard, and I sat 
on the straight and uncomfortable benches vainly trying to keep up a 
cheerful conversation, but it was no use because everyone knew any cheerful 
talk was artificial and forced. Every once in a while there would be a dead 
silence, in which everyone, I think, could read Richard's thoughts. He sat 
there staring at his hands, thinking over each detail, realizing only too much 
that these were the last moments he would spend with us for a long time. 
As we sat there in silence, once in a while he would raise his eyes and 
stare at someone as if he were trying to memorize each detail of his face 
so that his memories would be clearer in the days to come. 

Finally the train pulled into the station and all of us went through the 
crowds to go with him to the train. Then for a few minutes we stood there, 
making a last attempt at being cheerful as he told us all goodb3^e. But when 
the conductor called "All aboard," the worst happened. His wife and mother 
couldn't control their emotions any more and began sobbing. It was very hard 
for him to control his emotions but his pride forced him to. He acted very 
unconcerned and almost angry with us. It hurt him very much to do this 
because he knew he was hurting us, but it was the only way he could tell 
us goodbye without breaking down too. At last the train pulled out with 
Richard standing on the platform, waving nonchalantly. When the train 
pulled around the curve, Richard must have thought it was out of sight, for 
he put his head down in his arms on the railing. For a brief second we saw 
him like that and then he was gone — gone for no one knows how long. 



October, 1944 31 

Return to Nature 



T 



Robert Groll 

Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1943-1944 

rrr^lIE EXPERIENCES WHICH THRILL ME TIME AND TIME 
again always seem to be closely associated with the great outdoors. 
I shall never forget the first primitive lean-to I made. 

The evening shadows were long and slanting as I reached the top of a 
small knoll, equipped with ax, hunting knife, food, and a sleeping bag. Two 
straight young saplings furnished support for the beams of my lean-to. 
The structure was completed in thirty minutes. I made certain that the leaves 
slanted downward, to shed the rain which might come. 

As I lay down under the shelter, my mind was clear. My mood was a 
thoughtful one. I watched the .smoke from my cigarette curl slowly upward, 
a trivial incident in ordinary life — that night in the woods it was fascinating. 
How strange and interesting all the movements and sounds seemed to me. It 
was as if all my senses were keyed to an acute pitch — noticing each moving 
leaf, and hearing all the forest sounds. I sensed the cave-man's deep appre- 
ciation of fire as the coals from my cooking fire cast weird light patterns on 
the tree boughs overhead. A rustle in the brush made my |>()uii(liiii,' luart 
burst with an.xiety. It was my first night out alone. 

I rolled over on my back, finding the uneven ground extremely dis- 
couraging to sleeping. I began to think of my friends, my home, my church, 
and finally of life itself. I sought an answer in the starlit sky, in the fresh 
earth under my head. In an unusually clear manner the answer came to me. 
The riddle of life cannot be solved. Man is bom to eke out his existence, 
exactly like all other animals. He is not better or worse than other forms 
of life. 

Such heavy thoughts possessed me all through that hot September night. 
They were unusual to my light nature. I can explain them only as results 
of my "return to nature." I can imagine that these were the thoughts running 
through savage brains many years ago. What more important thing can one 
think about than the question of life itself? 

Many times during the past few years I have yearned for a certain knoll 
in the forest near my town. With my mind clouded with the superficial prob- 
lems of production, money, war, movies, and clothes, I have found a certain 
relief in thinking of my escape from the caustic modem life. I think of my 
lean-to in the woods, and I am glad that I have a retreat to nature where I 
can focus my mind on such problems as have troubled man throughout the 
ages. My "returns to nature" are infrequent now, but when they occur, I 
know that their effect is priceless in stabilizing a troubled mind. 



32 The Green Caldron 

Hydrophobia 

Norman Smulevitz 
Rhetoric II, Theme 11, 1942-1944 

FOR SOME MONTHS PAST I HAVE WITNESSED THE 
meeting of an irresistible force and an immovable object. The irre- 
sistible force is my desire to have my twelve-year-old cousin, who 
is temporarily in my care, take a bath. The immovable object is Robert him- 
self, who keeps as far away from a bath tub as is possible in a modern and 
urban society. Belonging as I do to the sex which even in the time of 
Solomon washed to its elbows, I found it hard to believe that there was 
anything congenital about a boy's desire to avoid water. Given a dirty boy, 
warm water, plenty of soap, and a fluffy dry towel, why shouldn't there be 
a bath, I asked. I was soon to learn the answers — many answers. 

At first the reasons were prosaic. Robert didn't think he had time for 
a bath before school. By the time we finished arguing on that first morning, 
Robert was right; but the next morning I filled the tub, and before Robert's 
eyes and wits were fully opened I had him hustled from his bed to the bath- 
room door. The results were indifferently good, but by the third morning 
Robert had discovered that by dawdling long enough he could make himself 
late for school, and so the morning bath was tacitly abandoned. 

After the first week I capitulated to the extent of compromise. Now 
some nights are bath nights, and some are not. On the latter, our apartment 
is as serene as a convent garden; but on bath nights the train dispatcher 
at the Illinois Central Station is not so busy as my cousin is. All the clubs 
to which he belongs hold long sessions; teachers assign extraordinary 
amounts of homework; visitors and telephones are imminent from dinner on 
past bedtime. As each excuse wears thin under what I strive to make a 
hard and cold brown eye, more imagination develops. The most elaborate, 
though least successful flight of fancy, was a sprained ankle carefully 
bandaged by Robert about an hour before bath time. In his opinion the 
bandage could not be removed; in mine, especially after I caught him 
limping with the wrong foot, a good soaking in hot water was just what 
Robert's ankle needed, not to mention the rest of him. 

Properly handled, boys take to water like ducks. Maybe this is true. 
Exhausted as I am from a two months' sanitation campaign, I can summon 
strength for only two random shots: first, the greatest king of ancient Israel 
picked out the bo3^s from the girls by the amount of water they did not apply 
to their bodies; and, second, six out of ten women wishing to usher them- 



October, 1944 33 

selves from a depressing world jump into a river, whereas most men prefer 
a dry exit with a pistol. Maybe some boys are different, but I doubt it. 

In fact, I am beginning to wonder if the magnificent impulse that started 
man on his upward climb through the ages was no more than a normal 
masculine reaction to the repugnant water found in primordial ooze. 



The Endless Trail 

Leonard McClish 
Rhetoric I. Theme 13. 1943-1944 

'^sTT^OU WILL NEVER QUIT THE ROAD, JUST WAIT AND 
II see." I scoffed at him, and we separated at the next road junction. 
-^ I did not like him, for he had poor ideals and almost no goal in life; 
but the words he spoke were true. 

I have known many of his kind, wanderers all through life. There are 
two kinds of wanderers, those who travel physically and those who travel 
mentally. Those who must confine their search of the world's wonders to 
their own brain we call scientists; we call those who are brazen enough 
actually to explore the world, minus education and worldly goods, tramps. 
Both are alike in one respect: they search the trail of daily life seeking 
something which is beyond, some invisible medium in which there will be 
happiness. 

As a boy I followed the railroad tracks which ran through our town. At 
first I would follow them only to a certain spot; later I would go a little 
farther, and a little farther, until it took me all day to make the trip. The 
trip took more and more time because I always wanted to see what was 
around the next curve. Even now I cannot look down a broad concrete 
speedway without asking myself what lies beyond the distant farmhouse 
or hill. ' 

As a young man, but very much like a little boy who has found means 
to realize his fondest desires, I have traversed thousands of miles into all 
kinds of country. I have walked over snow-covered mountains, trudged 
through the north woods, tramped over the desert. Yet something is still 
wanting, and there is yet some intangible desire that I must fulfill. It does 
not lie around the bend of the tracks, but it does lie ahead, on the road of 
human thought which only a well-trained mind can traverse. 

Now I must travel down the long road which the scientist must follow, 
the mental road. That is what I want because my two feet cannot satisfy 
my desire to know what lies beyond. I can watch other people as they stumble 
along, and I can laugh at them or take heed, and not make the same mistakes. 



34 The Green Caldron 

But all this is only to attain this unpredictable goal. At times I think I see 
the image of what I am seeking, but it always fades into the mist and the 
road is as black as the night that lies on either side of the day. But while 
I am in the darkness I have the consolation of knowing tomorrow will bring 
some new future to the present, and make an unforgettable memory of the 
past. 

My rough friend was right when he told me the road would always call 
and beckon to me. It surely must be a hypnotic gaze that makes me cling to 
its trodden path, when I do not always realize that joy and laughter are 
ahead. My life is "but a camp beside the roadside of new, high hopes, the 
quest unfinished, and the endless, resistless urge of the Almost." 



The Silver Dragon 

There within a sword's cast slept the creature, its body quiet save for the 
twitching of its tail and the even pulsing of its lungs, still save for the faint 
swishing of the dozen silver strands of hair at its tail-end and for the sighing of 
its breath. Its silver armour caught every sun beam and shied it into our faces. 
Its slim body, curled among the stones, reflected now the gray rock and ecru 
sands, now the sea and the blanched wave-crests of the deep sky, the lilac-winged 
gull; yet it was ever silver. Two delicately curved horns projected above a low 
knoll which hid the beast's head. They were two miniature poles in ivory, taper- 
ing side by side to points without breadth. 

The gracile line of the creature broke only to show one silver hind-claw, 
three-pronged, to show the soft, shell-pink pit of its crooked forefoot. A triple 
row of bumps columned down its back — bumps shrinking from three great 
bubbles above its shoulders to three silver peas on its tail, all perfectly matched 
as pearls in a necklace. Its armour was like lace — coarse to include its hips, 
intricate as it merged into belly. Each flawlessly fashioned link fitted in a pattern 
of lozenges and rhombs and poly-shaped wedges. — Phyllis Rarick 

Airplane Pilot 

I watched him as he drank his tea, and I seriously considered smashing the 
tea pot over his ridiculous mop of rusty-red hair. For Jupiter's sake, didn't this 
dope realize that he was going on a suicide ride? Talking about the shortage of 
sugar and the relative merits of English and American tea ! Perhaps I was on 
the wrong side of the fence? Maybe God had somehow or other switched people 
and it was he that was to parley with the servicemen and I that was to climb 
into that airplane that sat but fifty yards away, the airplane that had caused the 
death of four men in the past five weeks. I glanced at him and my heart beat 
furiously for this ruddy-cheeked Englishman who had walked into that door 
just three days before and who would probably never walk in again. Johnny sat 
across from him rattling out wind directions, statistics, calculations, and warn- 
ings. Johnny was All-American. He never would have sat like this — not Johnny. 
He would have pored over books and calculated to the minutest detail his chances 
of survival. But the Englishman just sat there, paying no attention to the eager 
advice being offered. He finished his cup of tea and looked up at me. 

"Best cup of tea I've had in the States." — Esther Falkoff 



tobcr. 1944 35 



Embarkation 

Matthkw Glenn 
Rhetoric I. Theme 11. 194^-1944 



I 



rrr^llJ-: TIME WE ALL \\M) BEEN \VA1TL\G FOR AND Ex- 
pecting had arrived — embarkation! Months had been spent in antici- 
pation. Now at last we were actually shouting "Here!" in answer to 
the I'irst Sergeant as he made the final check. He was making sure no one 
let his homesickness get the better of him. One of the men could actually 
see his house, as the ferry which had carried us chugged its way to the load- 
ing docks. 

Everyone was happy while on the ferry. The men were cither singing to 
the accompaniment of the band as it played Over There in a lilting manner, 
or making jokes about the I'attery Clerk as he struggletl, sweat, and cursed 
in an attempt to force his way through the tangle of massed (i. l.s and 
etjuipment. His plight was no laughing matter, for besides his own gear he 
was further burdened with the field desk. Anycnie would have laughed, how- 
ever, at the way his helmet kept banging ilown over his eyes, antl the way 
his barracks bag would roll off his shoulder, securely anchoring him until 
it was again j)recariously j)erched on his rather narrow shoulder. Vcs, it 
was a happy crowd, but the mood changed. 

Perhaps it was the size of the loading shed and the accompanying feeling 
of insignificance that subdued the jovial mooil. The shed was gigantic. I 
still can't get the idea out of my mind that there were clouds in the top of 
it. Maybe the thought that the huge ship which squatted beside us would soon 
be carrying us far from the familiar and tangible way of life had something 
to do with it. Whatever it was, everyone seemed to sink into a trance. Each 
man was steeped so completely in his thoughts he became oblivious to the 
activity about him. 

This probably accounts for my own dreamlike memories of that experi- 
ence. My own thoughts were a jumble of excitement, anticipation, calm, and 
dread, with a few distinct recollections of irrelevant details. I distinctly 
remember thinking that all women are alike as I watched two nurses, nattily 
attired in dress uniforms, frantically searching through piles of luggage for 
their own belongings. The tlock hands were duly irritated. One of the 
privates in my section seemed to have a great affinity for the coffee anil 
doughnut vending Red Cross girl; he seemed to think that if he didn't get 
one more heli)ing he would never eat again. I had a difficult time getting 
him back in line before we moved into position before the gangi)lank. Most 
of all I remember the feeling of complete isolation as 1 walked up the 
gangplank. Each man. as his name was called, would shoulder his barracks 



36 The Green Caldron 

bag. hitch up his pack, take a firm hold on his overcoat, twist his rifle around 
to keep it from gouging his thigh, and start the ascent. As he boarded the 
gangplank, the man would emerge from the gloom of the shed to be vividly 
illuminated in the glare of the floodlight which hung above. He would 
momentarily be the focus of thousands of pairs of eyes, until he disappeared 
in the dark, cave-like hole in the side of the ship. The gangplank couldn't 
have been over twent3--five feet long, but it seemed like a mile to me. 



Rhet as Writ 



As its striking point cannot be accurately predicted by the Germans, the j 
robot bomb's victims are more often than not, men, women, and children, j 



I would be up to my elbows in soap-suds and you would be drying them, j 



Hawthorne had a very unhappy boyhood as his father died when he was 
four. 

• • • • 

The book also serves to broaden the mind of the person who thinks that 
onl}- a good German is a dead one. 



As far as I ever knew she had never even looked at a man, but as things 
turned out it was obvious that she had. 



in this great man-made park [Forest Park] there is a fine zoo which con- 
tains animals from all walks of life. 



One evening the bartender was having a little trouble with his woman. I 
sav his woman because she wasn't his financee or even his girl friend. 



At this remark, I began laughing and planting osculations over his kind, 
old face. 



HE Green Caldron 

A Magazine of Freshman WriMgWR^rv Or THE 

DEC 1 2 1944 

Marjorie Higgins: The Roxy Was a Lady 1 

Phyllis Catharine Rarick: Fairy Tales — Brothers Grimm ... 2 

Charles Hopp: How I Write a Song 4 

Jerry Kharasch: Pacifism in India 7 

Robert C. Dodson: Aiding Nature 13 

Esther Falkofif: Riding a Sun Wagon 15 

Norman Smulevitz: The American Folly 17 

Marjorie Higgins: My Town 18 

Pierce Rosenthal : Speaking of Speaking 19 

Sara Linsley: George Washington Carver — American .... 21 

Marie Dugas: My First Unknown 27 

Mary Ellen Neville : U.S.O.'s—Let Us Keep Them 28 

Phyllis Catharine Rarick: Dishes 29 

Harry Kantor: Butchering a Steer 31 

Gwen Zollo : Hands Off! 32 

Mary Babcock: Road to the West 33 

Lewis Odcn : The Snake and the Sash 34 

Mary Louise Worley : Why Isolationism Must End 35 

(Material written in Rhetoric I and II) : Rhet as Writ .... 36 

VOL. 14, NO. 2 DECEMBER, 1944 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



JLhe Green Caldron is published four times a year by the 
Rhetoric Staff at the University of IlUnois. Material is chosen 
from themes and examinations written by freshmen and students 
in the Army Specialized Training and V-12 Programs in the Uni- 
versity. Permission to publish is obtained for all full themes, 
including those published anonymously. Parts of themes, how- 
ever, are published at the discretion of the committee in charge. 

The committee in charge of this issue of The Green Caldron 
includes Miss Constance Nicholas, and Messrs. John Bush- 
man and George Scouffas, Chairman. 

The Green Caldron is for sale at the Information Office, 
157 Administration Building (WeSt), Urbana, Illinois. 



THE GREEN CALDRON 

copyrighted 1944 
BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

All rights reserved 
No part of this periodical may be repro- 
duced in any form without permission in 
writing from the publisher. 



The Roxy Was a Lady 

Marjorie Higgins 
Verbal Expression lA, Theme 2, 1944-1945 

I STOOD FOR A MINUTE AND LOOKED UP AT THE CANOPY, 
now blank and unlighted in the twilight, waiting for the neon blaze that 
would bring it to life. Six o'clock. The box office opened at six-thirty. 
I could wait until six-fifteen and still have time to count the change and 
arrange it in the machine, drop the ticket rolls in their slots — adults on the 
inside, children on the outside — and write the opening numbers on the blank 
face of my report pad. Then, after the seven-fifteen rush (Why do people 
always get to a movie at seven-fifteen, no matter what time it starts?), I 
could fill in the other information: competition, weather, name of feature, 
length of shorts, film companies. 

I unlocked the door and went into the lobby. It was dark and quiet and 
cold. I didn't reach for the light switch in the foyer but instead sank into 
one of the seats in the back of the auditorium and looked at the half-lighted 
stage. I squeezed my toes into the crack in the seat in front of me and con- 
tentedly breathed in the pulsating, noisy silence of the showbusiness in 
the air. 

The Roxy had the faded beauty of an old lady. She had less than four 
hundred seats and only two aisles, and she was old and cheap and dirty. 
Her gaudy finery was ancient and torn and tarnished. Her purplish velvet 
curtains were moldy with age; and her carpets, once luxuriantly thick, were 
threadbare and full of ragged holes. Her house lights were a comfortable 
conglomeration of colors, thrust into sockets without a thought for design 
or beauty. Here and there one was frankly missing. Her wide-spaced 
leather seats were patched and full of sagging rents and occasional pro- 
truding springs. Her walls, once painted yellow and blue and deep maroon, 
were streaked and stained to piebald obscurity. The low partition behind 
the last row of seats was spotted with uniform round smears of hair oil. 
She smelled of peanuts and popcorn and cheap perfume. She had the dim, 
mystic glow of all theatres. Her walls were saturated with the laughs and 
tears of bygone audiences; and now, in the early dusk which was her real 
night, the far-oflF laughter rustled along down the aisles and through the 
empty rows of seats, whispering gaily and fading off into a hushed stillness. 
She was almost alive, that Roxy, the way all theatres are. 

She was warm and human and gay. She was a painted hussy with a 
happy, loud laugh and eyes that smiled and beckoned. Inside, here in the 
auditorium and out in the lobby, she was friendly. The lobby had a few 

[ 1 ] 



2 The Green Caldron 

scrubby potted trees, and a bold doorman in an ill-fitting purple uniform. 
But the tiny foyer, with its green, rather oriental lights, had a certain opiate 
air, a vibrant half -reality which was absent in the lobby. Out front, she was 
painted and dressed like a naughty, brazen vamp. When the lights were 
snapped on, she seemed to slip into a daring evening dress covered with 
glittering spangles. Her marquee lights winked a flirtatious invitation, and 
the steady glow of the red, yellow, and white bulbs of her canopy gave her 
an unreal, dazzling glamour. 

Her little boxoffice was bright and noisy with the sound of coins clap- 
ping against wood or jumping metallically through the change machine. The 
painted one-sheets in their lighted shadow boxes were thrilling promises. 
Inside and out she had an exciting, disquieting quality, an air of amused 
omniscience, a warm, satisfied glow. She hummed happily to herself a 
special, gay, merr}^-go-round sort of song. It seemed to ripple in and out 
the doors, to dance around the corners, and swirl gaily in the air like a half 
imagined elf. . , . 

"Marge !" I started and scrambled to my feet. "Hey, let's have a light !" 
My boss always made his entrance as if he had crashed through the roof. I 
dodged past him into the boxoffice and started to count the change. Twenty 
quarters, four half-dollars — okay. 

The staff began to arrive; the ushers shouted boisterous greetings and 
bounded to their places. Then the outside lights flashed on, and all the 
Roxy's charm came back in a twinkling. The music began to drift into the 
tiny glass cell again. 

"How many, please?" "Tha — nk you!" 



Fairy Tales — Brothers Grimm 

Phyllis Catharine Rarick 
Rhetoric II, Theme 9, 1943-1944 

A FAIRY TALE IS A JOURNEY INTO THE LAND OF STAR 
/=^ lilies and enchanted dew drops and sunbeam castles, into the land 
-^ where brave knights kill dragons with fiery tongues. It is a stay in 
the land of rewards, for the good receive coffers of rubies, and the bad, the 
curse of the elves. Although it may have ugliness, beauty must be supreme; 
a fairy tale must leave behind pleasant thoughts. It must be touched by the 
power which makes fairies and witches and pixies. A tale is not of the fairy 
lands unless within it kind deeds are rewarded with happiness, and cruelty 
with misery. 



December, 1944 3 

Because they do not fulfill these requirements, many of the tales of the 
Brothers Grimm are really not fairy tales at all. They spring from unpleas- 
antness. There is the tale of Hans, who, after seven years of labor, received 
a ball of gold. On his way home he exchanged his gold for a horse, then 
his horse for a cow, and his cow for a pig, and so on until at last he had only 
a whetstone. Before long he lost the whetstone too, for he let it fall into a 
well. Perhaps this seems ridiculously humorous at first; however, it is melan- 
choly to see how foolish some people are, how easily influenced or de- 
ceived. It is depressing to know that some have as little faith in their 
knowledge as did Clever Elsa, who came to believe that she was not herself. 

Many of Grimms' so-called fairy tales disclose a world whose powers 
are no different from the powers of our own world. Xo magic snuff. No 
wishing wells or scarlet eagles. The story of the child who stirred his par- 
ents to love his grandfather is a charming story, but it is no fairy tale. The 
story of the three sluggards is amusing, certainly; yet it is no fairy tale. 

In Grimms' tales the whole reward often goes to the scoundrel. The cat 
who through deceit devoured its companion mouse's share of fat, and then 
ate the mouse for complaining, suffered no harm. Nor did the fiddler who 
without cause wedged the feet of the wolf in a stump, and suspended an 
innocent fox from two trees, and fastened a hare so firmly that had it made 
one move its head would have been cut off. 

Nor would the fairy judges have ignored the deeds of Chanticleer and 
his comrades if they had been concerned with romantic rules. Chanticleer, a 
cat, an egg, a duck, a pin, a needle, and a millstone went to visit a friend. 
Finding their friend — Mr. Korbes — gone for the day, they entered his home. 
The cat curled up by the fire, the duck lay down by the well, the egg rolled 
itself in the towel, the pin stuck itself into the cushion, the needle sat on the 
pillow, and the millstone laid itself over the door. When their host came 
home, he commenced to build a fire, but the cat threw ashes into his face. 
The duck squirted water at him. When he came to wash, and when he seized 
the towel to dry himself, the egg rolled out and stuck in his eye. He sat 
down, but the pin stuck him. .Angered, he threw himself across his bed; there 
the needle scratched him with its point. In a rage he rushed to the door. The 
millstone then fell on his head and killed him. From this incident the Grimms 
conclude simply, "What a bad man Mr. Korbes must have been." 

1 have here considered the stories of the Grimm brothers as to whether 
they are fairy tales, not as to whether their imagery is exact or their plots 
are original. I have been concerned with them as fairy tales, not as allegories 
or tales of adventure. And having judged them, I find that many are not 
fairy tales at all. The brothers could accurately have ended many tales as 
they ended one — "Now, that's the way of the world, you see." Truly the 
tales are in the way of our world, not in the fashion of fairyland. 



4 The Green Caldron 

How I Write a Song 

Charles Hopp 
Verbal Expression lA, 1943-1944 

JUST AS YOU WOULD FIND IT PERPLEXING TO CONVEY 
to me how you read, I find it equally hard to relate to you how I write 
a song. Reading — you have read ever since the first grade. It has become 
such a common, everyday practice that you think nothing of it and find 
yourself at a loss to explain just how you do read. Well, I have written 
lyrics, which can be set to music, for such a long while that it, like reading, 
has become a habit with me. I find it difficult, therefore, to tell you how I 
write a song. But I will try. 

There are many different types of songs or lyrics, just as many different 
types as there are ways of writing them. Sometimes I may start with a title, 
a catchy little phrase like "a hit with a miss" (I made a hit with a miss, 
when I came across with a kiss), or I may take an everyday saying for a 
title and compose a whole song just from that. On the other hand, I can be 
moved by some beautiful, happy, or melancholy thought; write a song about 
it; and spend as long a time as it took me to write it thinking of something 
to call the fool thing. Once in a while I take a simple sentence — for instance, 
"I walk this way quite often." Then I think of all the pleasant memories I 
have when I walk a particular way, I assemble them into a lyric with a 
certain pattern, and there I have it. 

This pattern is important. There are a number of patterns to follow, but 
the one I use the most, and it is used most often in song writing, is the one, 
two, bridge, three type. I'm sure you could recognize it in a dozen or more 
popular songs today. "Sunday, Monday, or Always" is a fine example of 
what I'm trying to explain: 

Won't you tell me when, 
We will meet again, 
Sunday, Monday, or always? 

If you're satisfied, 
I'll be at your side, 
Sunday, Monday, or always. 

Those are the first two verses. Then we have: 

No need to tell me now what makes the world 

go round, 
When at the sight of you, my heart begins to 

pound and pound. 



December. 1944 5 

That is the bridge. The third verse, 

What am I to do, 
Can't I be with you. 
Sunday, Monday, or always? 

is identical, in plan, to the first and second verses. Now, perhaps you see 
better what I mean by the one, two, bridge, three pattern. 

Keeping these two things in mind, what I shall write about and how I 
shall write about it, I could compose a song for you right here, now. It 
should prove interesting. 

I'm not especially moved by any thought this morning, and it is a little 
early for some catchy phrase to take hold; so I'll just take some ordinary 
everyday expression like "Howdy, Chum" or "Good morning" — yes, "Good 
morning." Now, that's quite ordinary, isn't it? Then, what is more natural 
than saying. "How are you this morning — this good moniing?" Yes — it is 
quite simple. Looking about me, I might add, "The sun is high and the sky 
is blue — blue, you, through, to — ?? So I say good morning to you." Well. 
I've written the first verse. Now that will Ix.* my model, for tlie second and 
third verses will be of the same rhjTne scheme. 

A little work on the second verse, and I have, 

Good morning, good morning. 
What a lovely good morning. 

"What - a - love - ly - good - morn - ing" is a seven syllable phrase. It is of 
seven syllables ^>ccause the corresponding line in the first verse, "How are 
you this good morning?" also has seven syllables in it. I could add or sub- 
tract syllables to suit my needs. In the sentence "How are you this good 
morning?" I might say. "And how are you this very fine morning?" That 
would give me ten syllables. If, on the other hand, I wish to cut it down, 
I'd drop out the "are." making it "how* you" — which would be a contraction 
for "how are you." I might leave out "good." al.so. The sentence would then 
rrad "How' you this morning?" The thought is there but in fewer syllables. 
Let us imagine I have completed the second verse — now for the bridge. 
The bridge may be of a different rhyme scheme, rememl)er? However, it 
should have something in common with the title. Now, I'm thinking of good 
morning. "Wake up — wake up ! There's a lot to be doing — get up. Can't you 
hear the cock a-doodle-doing?" There! No, that's poor. Thoughts run 
through my mind — "Get up! It's time you were rising — rising, idolizing, 
harmonizing!" 

The birds were up long ago. 
Can't you hear 'cm harmonizing? 
In other words, don't you know 
It's time you too were rising? 

Yes. we like that, Mr. Hopp — very much. 



6 The Green Caldron 

More ideas rise and fall within my brain. I write the third verse, follow- 
ing in its plan that of the first and second verses. Now, I have finished. 

And we have: 

Good morning, good morning ! 

How are you this good morning? 

The sun is high, 

And the sky — is blue. 

So, I say good morning to you. 

Good morning, good morning ! 

What a lovely good morning ! 

I feel quite smart, 

And my heart — does too. 

So, we say good morning to you. 

The birds were up long ago. 
Can't you hear 'em harmonizing? 
In other words, don't you know. 
It's time you too were rising? — So, 

Good morning, good morning ! 
Can't stay in bed all morning. 
The day is bright. 
And the night — is through. 
So, it's a good, good morning that's waiting 
for you. 

That's how I write a song. 



Drive-In 

It isn't a pretentious place — just a small frame building with a glaring neon 
sign which reads, "Terry's Bar B Q." It isn't the sort of place which should draw 
crowds, either, but it does. Its parking lot is always packed, and its walls seem 
to bulge from the noise and people within. No, the drive-in isn't fancy or 
impressive, but I like it. 

I like its noise: the rhythmical ring of the pin-ball machine, the sweet-hot 
blare from the nickelodeon, the clatter of dishes in the kitchen, the clink of 
glasses, the unintelligible mixture of laughter and conversation, the impatient 
horns of the drive-in customers. 

I like its people. I like the way the waitresses swing their hips and flirt with 
the truck-drivers who frequent the place. I like the way the short-skirted, tight- 
sweatcrcd school girls jitterbug on the six-by-six dance-floor. I like the way the 
boys with crew-cuts gyp the pin-ball machine out of forty free games. I like 
the way the traveling salesmen spike cokes from quart bottles of Calvert's Special 
— holding them under the table, of course, so that they won't be seen. I like the 
way mascaraed wenches bum drinks and cigarettes from these men and get a 
free — well, almost free — ride home. I like the way Tilla, the one and only, strolls 
in at two A. M. and says, "Get the Hell out, it's closing time." 

Yes, I like Terry's and I've given you my reasons. But I almost forgot — it 
serves good barbecues, too. — Doris Dee Lantz 



December, 1944 7 

Pacifism in India 

Jkrky Kharasch 
Rhetoric II. Theme 8, 1943-1944 

INDIA, THAT VAST AND PROLIFIC SUB-CONTINENT OF 
some three hundred sixty millions of people, roughly one-fifth of the 
human race, of innumerable races and creeds, has for many years been 
the focusing-point for a great number of eyes. The curious and the con- 
cerned have turned their eyes toward India to watch its vast, disorganized 
conglomeration of people attempt to settle their own internal (lis[)utes as well 
as those of international proportions which have been forced on them. The 
pacifist and the lover of peace also have looked toward India, for they see 
here, and only here, the embryo of the ideal for which they hope and strive. 
Throughout the disputes, the disorganization, of the seething melting-pot 
which is India, this embryo has been nurtured, has grown until it can no 
longer be ignored, but must, on the contrary, be carefully watched and un- 
derstood by all the nations of the world. For India is now, cither consciously 
or unconsciously, develoi)ing a weapon which may be capable of attaining that 
toward which civilized man has striven for hundreds of years: the brother- 
hood of all mankind. Thus, India has become a great scientific experimental 
station, striving toward an ultimate goal, independence; developing a ma- 
chine with which to attain it, non-violence; and meeting difficult obstacles — 
England and a lack of organization. Just as scientific discoveries often find 
applications other than those for which they were intended, so may the 
"machine" of this great "experimental station" be some day made to bring 
about not only independence, but also lasting peace on earth. This must be 
stressed, however: the nature of India's struggle is purely political; it is 
essentially, except for one man, a struggle for separation from an imperial 
jiower that seems severe and oppressive. To gain a fuller understanding of 
this, one must know more about the nature of the Indo-English struggle, 
about the pacifist method in India and how it is being applied today, about 
the militaristic tendencies which exist now in India, and about the actual 
pacifislic tendencies in India, especially those of one man, Mohandas K. 
Gandhi, 

The struggle between India and England began in the days of the English 
East India Trading Company, whose exploitation and autocratic rule "sowed 
the seeds of Hindese nationalism."* It was against this rule that India fought 
what she called the War of Liberation in 1857, better known as the Sepoy 

'H. T. Muzumdar, "History and Growth of Non-Violcnce," The Conscientious Ob- 
jector, IV (August, 1942), 3. 



8 The Green Caldron 

Mutiny, which resulted in defeat for the revolutionists. However, this war 
became the foundation for a political movement in 1885 for the purpose of 
liberating India by "political and constitutional methods."^ This later as- 
sumed a more forceful form under the pressure of the extremists of this 
political party, now called the All-India National Congress, who demanded 
"swaraj," or complete self-government, and who agitated this with bombs 
and bullets. The result was a partial success for the Congress, in that the 
partition of Bengal (1907) was annulled. Later, in 1917, the "war to end 
wars and make the world safe for democracy by extending the right of self- 
determination to all nations,"^ filled India with hope. She was then promised 
by Montagu, then Secretary of State for India, "progressive realization of a 
responsible government in India." After contributing 1,500,000 men to the 
Allies, more than all the British dominions combined,* India found that the 
British government had no intention of giving self-government to the people 
of India. 

There followed then the launching of a nation-wide, non-violent, non- 
cooperation movement led by Gandhi, and this resulted in the arrest of over 
40,000 patriots; in the great Amritsar massacre of 1919, in which nearly 800 
Indians were killed and twice that number wounded;^ and finally, in 1922, 
in the arrest of Gandhi, who was released two years later. Not long after his 
release, Gandhi "retired" from politics and toured India for the purpose 
of finding ways to secure its economic independence. This he did by stimu- 
lating the village industries and by establishing branches of the All-India 
Spinners Association,^ which did not help in improving Indo-English rela- 
tions. In 1930 Gandhi launched his famous "March to the Sea," a nation- 
wide non-cooperation movement in direct violation of the British Salt Law, 
which again resulted in numerous arrests and imprisonments — notably that 
of Gandhi, who was released one year later. The following period up till 
1939 was occupied in "Silent revolution and social reconstruction."^ 

Today, India uses against England the same technique which she found 
most efficient in the past: that of non-violence. This type of resistance can 
be conveniently divided into stages:* the first stage is that of refusing to 
join the issue on the field of battle and of assuring the aggressor of good 
will; the second stage is essentially an exploration into the aggressor's bill 
of complaints; the third stage is a sincere offer of cooperation with the 

^Ihid. 

*Ibid. 

*Lin Yutang, "India and the War for Freedom," New Republic, CVII (August 24, 

1942), 218. 

'Ibid. 

'Muzumdar, op. cit., p. 3. 

'Ibid. 

*H. T. Muzumdar, "Indian Non- Violence at Work." The Conscientious Objector, IV 

(August, 1942), 1. 



December, 1944 9 

aggressor, and a strict examination by the oppressed of his own arguments; 
and the last stage consists of a propaganda campaign aimed at the people, 
stimulating them to direct action, that is, non-violent direct action, often 
called "Satyagraha." 

Hy declaring India a belligerent at war with Germany on September 3, 
1939, the British Government completely ignored the resolutions which the 
All-India Congress had been making since 1935, stating that "India would 
be no party to any future war in which England might be engaged, except on 
India's own terms, by the free will and the consent of her jjeople." This put 
Gandhi, who had no desire to lend aid or comfort to the Axis, in a delicate 
position, for to put obstacles in the way of Britain's war eflfort would be 
tantamount to helping the Axis. He therefore planned to obtain two ob- 
jectives: (1) to proclaim to the world that India was forced to participate 
in the war, and (2) to tell the Axis that India would not help them, either 
directly or indirectly. Gandhi achieved both these objectives at once by call- 
ing upon the Congress cabinets, which were functioning in eight provinces, to 
resign; at the same time he proclaimed his policy of "not embarrassing the 
British war effort." This meant in effect that he was not asking the people of 
India to obstruct the operations of the British-Indian army. 

This program was met by the British Government with rigorous war 
measures and denials of ordinary freedoms. When Gandhi insisted upon 
the right of freedom of speech, and when his appeal was denied, a campaign 
of individual and civil disol)edience was launched, which resulted in the 
imprisonment of many leading Congressmen, such as Xehru and Azad, who 
were later (December 7. 1941) released by England under pressure from the 
United States.' 

The Cripps mission to India, a notable example of Great Britain's habit 
of giving with one hand and taking with the other, failed, and with its 
failure brought the situation in India to a head. On May 2, 1942, the 
Working Committee of the All- India Congress adopted a resolution of non- 
violent resistance which stated: "The All-India Congress Committee is con- 
vinced that India will be able to attain her freedom through her own strength 
and retain it likewise. The present crisis as well as experience during the 
negotiations with Sir Stafford Cripps makes it impossible for the Congress 
to consider any schemes or proposals which retain even a partial measure 
of British control and authority. Not only the interests of India but also 
Britain's safety and world peace and freedom demand that Britain must 
abandon her hold on India. It is on the basis of independence alone that 
India can deal with Britain or other nations. "'^ When this solemn warning 

•H. T. Muzumdar, "The Crisis in India." Fellowship. VIII (September, 1942), 143. 
•7Wrf, 145. 



10 The Green Caldron 

failed to accomplish the desired results, the same Working Committee 
ratified, on August 7, 1942, the "Quit India" resolution which Gandhi had 
submitted to them in July at Wardha. This resolution urged Britain to 
withdraw, definitely, its authority from India and to transfer governmental 
power from British to Indian hands. In addition to ratifying the "Quit 
India" resolution, the Committee invested Gandhi with full powers to launch 
the non-cooperation movement for India's freedom, but this was nipped in 
the bud when England arrested Gandhi and the Congress leaders.^^ 

The foregoing account has attempted to show that India was not always 
a practitioner of non-violence, but chose this merely as a convenient and 
necessary method of dealing with a nation more powerful than she. However, 
there are still military tendencies in India today. These tendencies are found 
to exist in high places in India, Jawaharlal Nehru being representative of 
the group. Nehru, who may one day succeed Gandhi, said after India was 
declared by the decision in Whitehall to be a belligerent of Germany: "Only 
a free and equal India can cooperate of her free will; until that vital change 
is made none of us have the power to make the people of India enthusiastic 
for a war that is not theirs."" In the parleying with the British Government 
he said: "The Congress has invited the British Government to state its war 
and peace aims clearly, and particularly how these apply to the Imperial- 
istic order and to India. India can take no part in defending Imperialism, 
but she will join in the struggle for freedom. . . . This is no small offer 
India makes, for it means the ending of a hundred years of hostility between 
India and England, a great turning point in world history and a real be- 
ginning of the new order we fight for."^^ More recently, Nehru promised the 
American emissary, Louis A. Johnson, that if Britain agrees to an Indian 
Defense Minister, the Congress will accept the British ofTer of post-war in- 
dependence, and India will "fight all comers."^* 

Nehru is by no means the only advocate of such sentiment as this. 
Although the plan for the future independence of India which Sir Stafford 
Cripps carried to New Delhi was a failure, his mission was not altogether 
unsuccessful. In a letter to Cripps, Maulena Azad, president of the All- 
India Congress Party, declared: "We are agreeable to postponing the 
entire issue, so that the largest measure of unity may be achieved in the 
present crisis for India's defense. "^^ This was substantiated by Nehru's 
promise that "we are not going to embarrass Britain's war efforts in India, 
or those of our American friends who may come here."^^ 

"Ibid. 

"Carl Heath, "India: Acid Test of Democracy," Fellowship, VI (February, 1940), 19. 

"Ibid. 

"Freda Kirchwey, "India's Zero Hour," Nation, CLIV (April 11, 1942), 414. 

""What Next in India?" Nation, CLIV (April 18, 1942), 448. 

"Ibid. 



December. 1944 11 

India itself is of primarily militaristic tendency. The United Nations are 
fully backed in their war by such organizations as the All-India Free Moslem 
Conference, and many of the most popular elected Moslem officials, such as 
Allah Bakhah, Sir Sikander Ilyat Khan, and Tazlul Hug, are for full par- 
ticipation in the war.*' Again, despite the non-cooperation policy which the 
All-India Congress has pursued till the end of 1941, there has never been 
any difficulty in recruiting for the Indian army more volunteers than it has 
been possible to equip. The military forces now stationed in India are large. 
On December 7 the Indian Army was in the process of being expanded from 
a million to a million and a half.'* 

No, it is not toward all of India that the pacifist and lover of peace may 
look, but rather to one man: Mohandas K. Gandhi. Within him and his fol- 
lowers, who are not so numerous as many would suppose, lie the true seeds 
of non-violence for the sake of non-violence. In his "Sermon on the Sea" 
in 1909, Gandhi said: "Passive resistance, that is, soul- force, is match- 
less. . . . Physical- force men are strangers to that courage that is requisite 
in a passive resister."" And again: "The non-violent experiment of the 
Congress will have been vain if when India awakes from the present fear 
she does not show to the world the way of deliverance from the blood bath. 
The criminal waste of life and wealth that is now going on will not be the 
last if India does not play her natural part by showing that human dignity 
is best preserved not by developing the capacity to real destruction but by 
refusing to retaliate. I have no manner of doubt that if it is possible to train 
millions in the black art of violence which is the law of the beast, it is even 
more possible to train them in the white art of non-violence which is the 
law of regenerate man."*° 

Here is wherein our hope lies. 

BIBLIOGRAPhri' 

"Civil Disobedience and Revolt in India," Catholic World, CLV (September, 1942), 

746-747. 
CoATMAN, JoH.N. India: the Road to Self-government. London: Allen and Unwin Ltd., 

1941. 
Day. a. E. "The Terrible Meek," Fellowship, VI (January. 1940), 3-5. 
Desai. Mahalev. "Gandhi Talks to F. O. R. Ambassador," Fellowship, VIII (October, 

1942), 163. 
"Gandhi's Address to All-India Congress Party," Fellowship, VIII (March, 1941), 

39-40. 
"Gandhi and the War," Nation, CLV (July 25, 1942), 63-64. 



"Michael Straight, "Is It a People's War?", New Republic, CVII (November 16, 1942), 

6^. 

"D. W. Mitchell. "Can India Defend Itself?", Nation. CLIV (April 18. 1942), 453. 

"A. J. Muste, "Gandhi and the Future," Fellowship, VIII (June. 1942), 93. 

"J. H. Smith, "Gandhi Stands Firm," Fellowship, VI (May, 1940), 72. 



12 The Green Caldron 

Gandhi, M. K. My Appeal to the British. New York: John Day Company, 1942. 
Gandhi, M. K. "My Seven Points for a New World Order," Rotarian, LX (February, 

1942), 14-15. 
Gregg, R. B. The Power of Non-Violence. Philadelphia, London: J. B. Lippincott and 

Company, 1934. 
Heath, Carl. "India: Acid Test of Democracy," Fellowship, VI (February, 1940), 

19-20. 
KiRCHWEY, Freda. "India's Zero Hour," Nation, CLIV (April 11, 1942), 414-415. 
Mitchell, D. W. "Can India Defend Itself?" Nation, CLIV (April 18, 1942), 453-454. 
MusTE, A. J. "Gandhi and the Future," Fellowship, VIII (June, 1942), 91-93. 
MuzuMDAR, H. T. "The Crisis in India," Fellowship, VIII (September, 1942), 143-145. 
Muzumdar, H. T. Gandhi the Apostle: His Trial and His Message. Chicago: Universal 

Publishing Company, 1923. 
Muzumdar, H. T. "History and Growth of Non-Violence," The Conscientious Ob- 
jector, IV (August, 1942), 3. 
Muzumdar, H. T. The United Nations of the World. New York: Universal Publishing 

Company, 1942. 
Nehru, J. N. The Unity of India. London: L. Drummond, 1941. 
Shih, Hu. "India Our Great Teacher," Asia, XLII (May, 1942), 323 ff. 
Shridharani, K. "British Democracy's Acid Test," Fellowship, VII (March, 1941), 39. 
Shridharani, K. "What Cripps Faces in India," Nation, CLIV (March 28, 1942). 

365-367. 
Smith, J. H. "Gandhi Stands Firm," Fellowship, VI (May, 1940), 71-72. 
"Solution for India," Nezu Republic, CVII (August 17, 1942), 191-192. 
"What Next in India," Nation, CLIV (April 18, 1942), 447-448. 

Recipe for Popularity 

What makes a boy popular? That is an interesting question in this year of 
our Lord, 1944, when men are at a premium and one v^^ould think that the mere 
quality of masculinity would insure at least moderate social success for any boy. 
Somehow it does not. There may be fewer males around, but most girls reserve 
the right to be fussy about those who still circulate. Of course, a generally favor- 
able appearance and a pleasant personality are the two most important attributes 
a boy can have. Unusual good looks are welcomed, but not expected, and a sense 
of humor is essential. Poise and a certain amount of self-assurance are necessary, 
although the latter can easily be over-done. When this happens, the result is 
often that sleek, super-sophisticated product known as the "smooth, Latin type," 
the creature who slithers around campus mentally twirling an imaginary mustache 
and murmuring, "Ah-ha, me proud bee-uty !" to every female he meets. Boys 
often object to the girl with the glamour complex, who regards the world mourn- 
fully from behind a blonde (more or less genuine) cascade of hair, whose 
cigarette droops from her mouth at a forty-five degree angle, as she determinedly 
tries to look sultry, but they forget that naturalness is just as attractive in a boy 
as in a girl: he may fancy himself a big, brawny man of the world, but she 
knows he's not quite nineteen. In all, the popularity of a boy, as of any one else, 
depends largely on the amount of effort he makes to acquire it. If he works at 
it consciously, and has the necessary raw materials to begin with, any boy can 
manage to get by. — Lois Rudnik 



December, 1944 13 

Aiding Nature 



T 



Robert C. Dodson 
AST. English 11, Theme 9, 1944-1945 

rrr^HE purpose of this theme is to give the reader 

some idea of what to do in performing a Caesarian operation on a 
guinea pig. You may ask, "Why perform such an operation on a 
guinea pig?" or "When will I ever have to do such a thing?" My answers to 
these questions are, "In performing such an operation, a future surgeon 
will gain some idea as to what he may be up against. The average person's 
chances of ever having to oi>erate on a guinea pig are about one out of a 
million." 

Some of the factors that lead to the need for Caesarian operations on 
animals are malformation of the pelvic region, improper or insufficient de- 
velopment of the animal, and paralytic diseases that prevent norm.il nuisiular 
action. 

The gestation period of the guinea pig is from sixty-live to seventy tlays, 
depending upon the size of the litter. The larger the litter, the less time it 
takes. About eleven days before parturition, the pubic bones begin to sepa- 
rate and the vagina and vulva enlarge, becoming very soft and pliable. 
Twenty-four hours before birth, the two mammary glands fill up with the 
colostrum or first milk. The sow usually begins labor from two hours to 
twenty minutes before her young start arriving. During this labor period 
she will squeal, grunt, bend in the middle and heave, and sometimes jump 
around every time .she has a pain. 

Keep her under observation until the vulva bursts open and the amniotic 
fluid flows from the vagina. When this happens, place her on the operating 
table and work quickly. Make every move count, as little lives are at stake. 
Apply a chloroformed cloth to her nostrils and keep it there until she has 
gone absolutely limp and there is no movement of any kind. Then gently 
turn her over on her back, being very careful of her bulging sides. Take a 
sharp pair of shears and cut the hair on the belly short enough so that it can 
be shaved off. Then shave a strip about one and one-fourth of an inch wide 
and about three inches long, starting about one-half inch from the navel and 
extending straight toward the vulva. Be careful that you don't cut one of 
the mammary glands. Then sterilize the abdomen with alcohol. Use a very 
sharp knife or razor to make a one and one-half to two-inch incision in the 
skin. Spread the skin back and make another incision in the abdominal wall. 
Do not cut too close to the navel, however, as you are liable to cut a large 
blood vessel, causing the animal to bleed to death. Use some sort of clamps 



14 The Green Caldron 

or other sterile device to hold the wound open. You will be able to see the 
lower part of the uterus. Very carefully make an incision in the uterus, 
extending it from halfway from the vagina, to about one inch along each 
uterine horn, making a cut resembling a Y. Gently stroke the animal's left 
side to move the first young down for birth. The reason you start with the 
left side is that the young on the left side are usually the first to be born. 

When the first one comes to the opening you have made, gently lift it out 
and, holding it to one side of the mother, remove the amnion from its head 
and allow any fluid present to drain. Do not sever the navel cord until pulsa- 
tion has stopped and the young one is somewhat active. He will probably start 
kicking and gasping. When he does this, finish removing all the amnion and 
allow the navel cord to sever naturally. Have someone wrap the youngster in 
some warm flannel cloth while you finish the operation. If there are more 
young, empty the left side before you start on the right unless the young 
move down naturally. Take care of them as quickly as possible and then, 
with a sterile, elongated wire loop (preferably piano wire), try to remove 
the afterbirths. You must be exceedingly careful now, as you may tear them 
loose when they are not quite ready and thus tear the uterus or cause 
hemorrhage. When you have the afterbirths successfully removed (be sure 
you have one for each young) proceed to close all incisions. 

For the uterus, the best kind of stitching material is animal tendon. It 
must be of very fine diameter and absolutely sterile. Use a drawstitch and 
sew the incision as straight as you can. If 3^ou have any sort of internal dis- 
infectant like surgical powder or sulfa drug, sprinkle some over the incision 
area. Remove your clamps from the abdomen and sew up the muscle tissue 
with the same kind of material used on the uterus. The reason for using 
animal tendon is that it is usually absorbed by the body and does not need 
to be removed. For the skin, however, you may use a fine, high quality, 
white silk thread and a crossover stitch which can be easily removed. Be 
sure to use your disinfectant powder on each stitching. It will aid in pre- 
venting infection and in stimulating tissue growth or healing. When you have 
the animal sewed up, apply a dressing and bandage the wound. 

When you have finished with the operation, remove some of the colos- 
trum from the mother's mammary glands with an eyedropper and give a 
little to each of the young. Then very carefully place the sow on her stomach, 
in a clean box with clean straw. When the effects of the chloroform wear 
off, and she is feeling pretty good, you may give her her babies. Allow her to 
drink a little warm water when she revives, but don't give her too much. 
About half a teaspoonful will be sufficient. Also give her a small portion of 
fresh lettuce and barley. 



December, 1944 15 

Watch her progress for about a week, and change her dressings daily. 
After a few days the stitches may be removed. When she has sufficiently 
healed (in about ten days) you may remove the bandages entirely and let 
her eat all she can. Be sure that the babies are getting enough milk. If not, 
when they are about three days old, you may give some of them to another 
mother, who will not know whether they are her own or not. When the 
babies are three weeks old, they will be weaned and may be taken away 
from the mother and put with others of their own age and size. 



Riding a Sun Wagon 

Esther Falkoff 
Rhetoric II. Theme 9, 1943-1944 

NOW I WAS REALLY FLYIXG! I HAD BEEN UP IN AIR- 
plant'S before, but this was the first time in earnest. And it was the 
first time I had a chance to see how a flier flies. 

iMy instructor's face was reflected back to me by his rear-vision mirror. 
His behavior seemed all wrong; he didn't act the way a man should act who 
keeps himself up and alive by his own wits. He didn't seem wide awake and 
ready for any emergency. Me sat up there in the blue, his shoulders slumped, 
looking nowhere in particular with a faraway expression, half-sad. half- 
bored, listening into himself. 

My altimeter showed two thousand feet when his voice came through: 
"She's all yours." He held up both his hands. Now I was going to control 
my own flight. I quickly once more thought over the working of the con- 
trols, all I had found out about it since I had been an awe-struck girl read- 
ing about what fliers do. I took new hold of the stick and waited for the 
excitement to start. For an airplane surely would not stand for a girl from 
the street, unlicensed, bespectacled, a $5.60 flier, at its controls; it would now 
buck or skid or slip or rear up or capsize or stall or tailspin or nose dive 
or do whatever else airplanes did. 

But it did not. It barged straight ahead, unconcerned, fool-tolerant. I 
made a few tentative moves with the stick, and the wings wiggled obediently. 
This fact produced a considerable emotional kickback. It usually does, in 
first-flight students. Just because the ship actually responds to stick and 
pedals the way kids' books said it would, you think you are a natural-bom 
flier, gifted with knack. Just because you fill all the land below with im- 



16 The Green Caldron 

portant noise, you feel that you are quite a proud specimen of mankind. 
There is nothing to hit; whichever way you swoop or swerve, no harm can 
result; and that produces a sensation of freedom, suddenly, like an injection 
of some drug. 

His voice came through the rubber hose: "Go ahead and fly." I now saw 
his hands resting on the cowling. It was not his will I was feeling. It was the 
ship's. I relaxed my hand to feel for this will. My flying career had begun. 

Feeling my way, I pulled the stick back toward me against the ship's 
resistance, exploring what might be that way. She nosed up willingly 
enough. I held on; she became heavy in my hand, and to hold her up I had 
to come back farther and farther with the stick. The ship protested with a 
steady pull. The instructor also protested. Some quick hard knocks came in 
the stick. They sided with the ship, away from me; and the voice said: 
"Don't freeze on the stick." I allowed her to come down from the cloud, 
and she became obedient again and light to the touch. 

I pushed forward into the ship's resistance, wondering what I would stir 
up in that direction. Distant farmland rose up before me, then a small town 
that lay in the middle distance, then a nearby green field. I held her pointing 
at that field. The engine roared, and the stick became stiff and fought back 
roughly. "What are you diving her for?" The voice was peremptory. I let 
the stick snap loose, and she came up like a roller coaster. I became conscious 
of my stomach. So did the instructor of his. "Steady," said the voice. But it 
wasn't so easy; once disturbed she danced around and I was working all 
three controls, always a half beat out of rhythm. 

The stick wrenched itself out of my hand with a circular jerk; he had 
taken over. With a few slams he put her nose and wings where they belonged. 
It was much the way a Bavarian waitress slams your beer in front of you: 
"Take it." 

I tried to keep her there. In this position she was willing again, almost 
too obedient, too sensitive. I had to guide her with two fingers and small 
motions, as if I were writing. 

She kept jittering. I was too heav>--handed. He told me to take my hands 
off the stick entirely, and hold them up, and he did the same thing himself; 
we spent the last few minutes that way. It looked silly, or rather, it would 
have looked silly, had there been anyone up there to see us: two people 
barging through the sky with hands uplifted, like a couple of ancient Greeks 
in prayer, riding a sun wagon that vibrated and smelled of exhaust. But I 
could see the ship do its own flying, the nose hunting slowly for its own 
level, and finding it, the wings steadying down. In my hands, I could feel the 
solid force of the airstream which held us up. 



December, 1944 17 

The American Folly 



Norman Smulevitz 

Rhetoric II, Theme 9, Summer, 1944 



I 



nr^IIERE IS SOMETHING CURIOUSLY PARADOXICAL TO- 
day in the changed relationship between the book and the film world 
in which Americans live. Once — and not many years ago at that — 
many of us picked up a book or went to the movies for an hour or two of 
escape. Hut the war has reversed that. Today we live in what is actually a 
world of escape and take a brief dip into reality every now and then in our 
diversions. 

When you read on-the-spot reports such as Guadalcanal Diary by 
Richard Tregaskis, or Queens Die Proudly by W. L. White — when you read 
these books, and others like them, you are strangely lifted out of the 
fantastic and unreal world that is America today and plumped into a world 
where basic values are at stake, where blood is flowing in mounting torrents 
to keep the meaning of America alive. 

The contrast is even more striking with motion pictures — perhaps be- 
cause the film is a much more comjiact and dramatically etTective vehicle 
than the b(K)k. You go to see a film such as "In Which We Serve," or 
"Desert Victory," and come away dazed because your brief excursion into 
the real world of 1944 has been full of raw stuff; blinking because it is 
difficult to get adjusted again to the world you actually have to live in and 
work in. This world is much different from the one you saw when it took 
shape on the screen. This world — that is, the American world today — is an 
incredible world which no word describes so aptly and tragically as the word 
"escape" — in the sense that we are detached from the needs of the present. 

Does "escape" seem too harsh when applied to America? How else would 
you describe a nation that is in a fight to the death, yet thinks it can afford 
the luxury of interminable wrangling, pulling, tugging? How else would 
you describe a nation wiiere there are men in Congress who regard as their 
main enemy not Hitler but the President of the United States, and who 
count as a supreme triumph anything that will embarrass, hamstring, or 
obstruct him? How else would you describe a nation where efforts to stabilize 
wages and prices and taxes are constantly thwarted because each group 
wants the other group to make whatever sacrifices have to be made? And 
finally, how else would you describe a nation where there are race riots and 
devastating and irresponsible strikes? 

Don't take comfort in the notion that this is the American way. This is 
not the American way, unless we are to say that the democratic way is dis- 
integration and insanity. Can it be that when it comes to a showdown we 



18 The Green Caldron 

haven't got what it takes? Can it be that a nation born in the blood of free- 
dom's battle has so far wandered from its heritage as to be ignorant of the 
bold requirements of continued freedom and self preservation? Can it be 
that all these internal explosions will serve only to pave the way for the 
destruction or overthrow of American democracy at home without a single 
enemy shell, bullet, or bomb touching our shores? If so, we had better call 
the boys home now, for there is nothing left for them to save. 



My Town 

Marjorie Higgins 
Verbal Expression lA, Theme 1, 1944-1945 

IN 1905, BRIDGEPORT, ILLINOIS, WAS A SWAGGERING 
young boom town, soaked with oil from newly-drilled wells and ecstati- 
cally dazed by prosperity. The streets were full of "oil Johnnies" in knee 
boots and smooth-talking strangers with bulging briefcases. The merchants 
charged double prices and got them. Everybody had a derrick in his back 
yard, and a few had producing wells. Slapped-together shacks mushroomed 
impulsively, and Bridgeport soon became the biggest town in the county. 
Then, gradually, the boom era passed. There were no new wells to drill, and 
the old ones had settled into a mediocre maturity. Reluctantly, the towns- 
people gave up their idea of a fountain of perpetual wealth. The "oil 
Johnnies," gypsy labor who follow always in the wake of the derrick, drifted 
on to greener pastures; Main Street became an almost deserted road between 
the rows of shabby houses. Many of the downtown buildings were empty, 
their windows smeared over with white paint. 

Bridgeport began to take a new interest in her surrounding farms, and 
wagonloads of grain were brought daily to the elevator by Gray's Feed 
Store. Nevertheless, the main occupation of the citizens remained in the oil 
fields. By now, the devil-may-care driller or roughneck or roustabout, who 
drank and fought his way through the boom days, was replaced by the 
sober, solid employee of the Ohio or the Big Four, who attended one of the 
three or four local churches and boasted about his new Ford. Oil workers 
were no longer outcasts but had become mayors, members of the school 
board and of the Lion's Club. They still are. 

Since boom-days, Bridgeport has become very much like any other small 
town north of Cairo and south of Chicago. It is the sort of place of which 
one wonders, passing through it on a train which does not stop there, how 
anyone could be born and live out a life and die contented in such an insig- 



December, 1944 19 

nificant, dormant hamlet. There is no mail delivery, no taxi service, no daily 
newspaper, no hotel since the ancient, decrepit Dukes, a relic of the boom, 
burned down a year or so ago. Outside the churches, social life is limited. 
l>ridgeport has one motion picture theatre, one bowling alley, two drug- 
stores, a few assorted saloons and restaurants, and no library'. 

The streets have a small-town cleanliness. There is a fairly large park, 
the scene of the annual l^wrence County Fair. The schools are attractive 
and well-kept, neither better nor worse than one would expect them to be. 
The people are American farm or small-town stock. There are few 
foreigners, Negroes, or Jews. There is the same petty clique, the "four 
hundred," that Sinclair Lewis photographed in Main Street, but most of the 
people are unaffected and friendly. They like to play pinochle, know all about 
everyone else, and quote Gabriel Heatter. 

But, typical though it may be, Bridgeport has one distinguishing feature. 
The carefree, adventurous flavor of the boom-time has never quite left it 
for the people who can wistfully remember the good old days. Nobody who 
knew Bridgeport thirty-odd years ago calls my town a hick town. 



Speaking of Speaking 

PiKRCE Rosenthal 
AST. English 62, Theme 1, 1944-1945 



^\'ERY MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD WHO HAS EVER 

^ passed through the gates of Ellis Island for the first time has be- 

come acquainted with a new language — a language considered by 

many to be among the most difficult in the world. It is with well deserved 

pride that so many foreign born Americans boast of their ability to speak 

English. 

L'n fortunately there are a few aliens in America, who, after living here 
the longest portion of their lives, cannot speak a word of our language. 
And a strange phenomenon is this, indeed, since the mastering of English 
seems but a microscopic pa^-ment in exchange for the innumerable benefits 
and opportunities the "melting pot" has given them. For this small minority 
I have nothing but disgust and shall therefore ignore them. 

There are, however, millions of eager Americans who put forth an un- 
mitigated effort to become proficient in English. Nevertheless, with all their 
ceaseless efforts, these "step-Americans" find it next to impossible to con- 
ceal their various accents and foreign idiomatic expressions when speaking 
English. Probably the worst offenders — and the most humorous in their 



20 The Green Caldron 

murdering of the "King's English" — are those whose original language was 
Jewish. In fact, all the outlandish arrangements of words and humorous 
Jewish dialects that one might suspect are gross exaggerations used merely 
to add an extra comedy note to some radio program are, in reality, very ac- 
curate reproductions of the real thing. Being of the Jewish faith myself and 
having had daily association with many immigrants of my race I have been 
on the receiving end of battered up sentences on many occasions. 

Probably the most frequent distortions of the English language by these 
well meaning Jews are caused by their constant desire to pronounce v for 
w or w for v, to add an h before all words beginning with a vowel and to 
substitute ^'s for a's. Why some person should want to attend the "Vork- 
man's Wictory Ball in honor of the late Helexander Voollcott" is a mystery. 

Another common error made by these people is their excessive use of 
the reflexive. Sentences such as "Vash yourself de hends and sit better 
yourself down by the table" are merely literal translations from the Jewish, 
since there are no such things as "words understood" in the language. Also, 
since many of these people think in their original language and translate 
word for word, such sentences as "It's by me in de house a broom, I should 
sveep it de floor," or "It's by Uncle Pincus in de stomach pains what he 
never hed it before" are not uncommon. 

Not quite so common are the various original expressions they use to 
express their opinions and emotions with greater ease, incidentally making 
it easier for their friends to understand. One of the most picturesque original 
expressions I've ever heard was often used by a surprisingly well educated 
woman who, although she found it easier to speak Jewish than English, was 
forced to use the latter most of the time. Any time she found herself dis- 
turbed by someone, she would blurt out, "Oi, you're making from mine life 
a 'God-damit'." 

No doubt the most amusing manner of tangling up the English language 
is the way in which Gertrude Berg (creator of "The Goldbergs" and por- 
trayer of Mollie Goldberg) does it in her daily soap opera. "Rosie, go throw 
an eye in the soup" or "Jake, button up your neck — it's cold out" are but 
two of her gems. And again let me remind you that these phrases are not 
mere radio quips, but real dialectal language taken from homes in our 
country which house just such interesting people as Mollie Goldberg. I can 
offer no reasonable explanation for these hacked up sentences, other than 
that Mrs. Goldberg, in her desire to use English colloquialisms, becomes a 
bit confused. 

Yes, these American Jews, along with their other adopted brethren, 
were confronted with a new and difficult language when they left Ellis. 
Although in their efforts to overcome the difficulty they are very often 
amusing, they show a sincere desire to merge into the life of America. 



i 



December, 1944 21 

George Washington Carver — 
American 

Sara Linsley 
Rhetoric II, Theme 15, 1943-1944 

IT HAS BEEN SAID OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA 
that none from their number has ever created anything that has not been 
surpassed by a white person working in the same field. And it has been 
said that most of those colored people who have been recognized as leaders 
in this country have been of the mulatto race, and that it has been the white 
blood in them that has made them great. The common belief is that the 
Negro has not equal native intelligence with the White. 

The purpose of this paper is to present the life picture of an ebony black 
Negro who rose out of slavery, made every sacrifice to obtain the best edu- 
cation, gained a slow recognition of being the greatest agricultural chemist 
in a world of white men, antl opened new opportunities for American 
Negroes. George Washington Carver demonstrates that in human ability 
there is no color line. In 1939 Carver, in being awarded the Roosevelt medal 
for distinguished service in the fieKl of science, was introduced to two 
hundred dinner guests in Theodore Roosevelt's New York home with these 
words: "I have the honor to present not a man only, but a life, transfused 
with passion for the enlarging and enriching of the living of his fellowman 
... a liberator of men of the white race as well as the black; a bridge from 
one race to the other, on which men of good will may learn of each other and 
rejoice together in the opportunities and potentialities of their common 
country."* Black and White alike honor this American. 

From the beginning the odds were against him. He had no family name, 
and there was no record of his birth. His fatiier died soon after he was born, 
and he never knew the face of his mother — did not even know the facts of 
her death. 

The story of his early childhood he was able to find out in part from 
the plantation owner to whom his parents were slaves. He was born in one 
of the many one-room shacks on the Moses Carver plantation near Diamond 
Grove, Missouri, in about the year 1860. In 1865, the year of the Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation, secret societies came up from the South — Knights of the 
Golden Cross, bushwhackers, and guerrillas — and jungle law prevailed. It 
was the year that the nightraiders ran loose in Missouri, destroying build- 

'Rackham Holt, George Washington Cancer, (New York, 1943), p. ii. 



22 The Green Caldron 

ings, and railroads, seizing household belongings, personal belongings, and 
Negroes. And it was in that year that young George and his mother were 
stolen by a band of nightraiders. They were carried into Arkansas. Moses 
Carver hated to lose his property, so he sent a small sum of money and a 
three-hundred-dollar race horse to the thieves to be traded for his slaves. 
But by the time the band was overtaken, the mother was already disposed 
of, and George, a sickly child from birth, had a bad siege of the whooping- 
cough. The thieves were glad to get rid of the sick child and willingly traded 
him for the horse. 

Mrs. Carver had loved George's mother, and so, when the child was re- 
turned, she adopted him into the Carver family. He was named George 
Washington because of his straightforward honesty' about the same sort of 
incidents as the cutting down of a cherry tree. 

Because he was frail, he was not put into the fields, but allowed to do 
household chores. He was allowed to roam the nearby fields and woods, 
where he showed- a love for plants and animals. During these hikes he first 
began to know his Creator and he got his first insight into the workings of 
nature — his first insight into the power of God and God's plan for his own 
life — the study of growing things. 

He was allowed to attend a neighboring school for slaves. When the 
Civil War was over and freedom was given the slaves, George had finished 
the local school; and Moses Carver urged him to continue his schooling, that 
suggestion being all he had to offer the boy. 

After he had saved a little money, he gained admission by mail to the 
University of Iowa — only to be rejected when he arrived, because of his 
color. He opened a small laundry' then and saved enough money to go to 
Simpson College at Indianola, Iowa. He washed, scrubbed, cooked, and 
housecleaned his way through his junior year there and then went to Iowa 
State College to finish four years of agricultural studies. 

While at the Iowa State College, Carver took Henry Wallace, then just 
a boy, along on field trips. "He was such an inquisitive little youngster," 
Carver said. "He wanted to know everything about every plant." The two 
retained a lifelong friendship — Wallace as Secretary of Agriculture, and 
Carver as a leading agricultural chemist.^ 

About the time of Carver's graduation from the Iowa State College, 
Booker T. Washington, at his Tuskegee Institute, was looking for a man to 
make possible economic freedom for the Negro farmer. Although he wanted 
an all-Negro faculty, he was about to decide upon a white man for this job 
because he had been unable to find a Negro trained in agricultural chemistry; 
and then he heard of young Carver. Carver accepted the position of Head of 
the Department of Agriculture at the Tuskegee Institute. 

•"Goober Wizard," Literary Digest, CXXIII (June 12, 1Q37), 21. 



December, 1944 23 

When Carver arrived in Tuskegee in 1896,'' there was little for him to 
work on and nothing to work with. Washington wanted an agricultural 
laboratory, but there was neither equipment nor money. He wanted a uni- 
versity farm — the soil was infertile. He wanted grass on the campus — there 
was only sand. 

Today in the glass case in the Carver Museum there are the materials 
which made his first laboratory. For heat he rigged up a salvaged barn 
lantern. His mortar was a heavy kitchen cup. He made beakers by cutting 
oflF the tops of old bottles gathered from the school dump.* The soil he re- 
claimed with soil from nearby swamps, and on those acres produced two 
sweet potato crops a year and harvested Alabama's first bale-to-the-acre 
crop of cotton. 

Dr. Carver insisted that this start- from-scratch formula will work any- 
where. "The Southern people, if they had the vision, could control the 
markets of the world," said Dr. Carver." All through his Tuskegee days he 
was working with the Southern farmer, trying to show the way to new 
crop yields. 

Formerly the South had looked upon the peanut as a nut to be sold at 
circuses and ball games. The farmers refused to be caught with an over- 
supply. Dr. Carver showed them, however, that all sorts of articles could be 
produced from this little underground nut. 

When the Hawley-Smoot tariflf bill was up before Congress, Southern 
farmers were asking that the peanut be named an article on which an import 
tariff could be charged. Dr. Carver was sent to talk to the Ways and 
Means Committee on the merits of the peanut. After he had spoken for the 
allotted time, there were shouts for "More," and the congressmen demanded 
that he finish the amazing story of the worth of the peanut. Dr. Carver then 
talked for an hour and forty-five minutes — and the committee wrote the 
peanut into the tariff bill of the United States. A triumph for the Southern 
farmer brought about by Dr. Carver. 

r.efore walking out of his laboratory for the last time, Dr. Carver had 
wrung over three hundred products from the peanut." He made it possible 
to shave with j^eanut shaving cream, write with j)eanut ink, bathe with 
peanut soap, equip the family car with peanut rubber tires, insulate the 
house with peanut shell insulation. He produced a massage for the face in 
the form of a beauty lotion, a dye for clothing, and an aid for the cure 
of infantile paralysis. In the peanut he found the ingredients for making 
milk, butter, cheese, candies, coffee, pickles, flour, and breakfast foods. 

Asked about his work with peanuts. Dr. Carver replied simply, "I take 

•S. High, "No Greener Pastures," Readers Digest, XLI (December, 1942), 73. 

*lhid. 

*"Gool)er Wizard," Literary Digest, p. 21. 

•Basil Miller, George Washington Career, (Grand Rapids, 1943), p. 121. 



24 The Green Caldron 

a handful of peanuts and look at them and say to my Creator, 'Why did you 
make the peanut ?' Then I find out why by taking the peanut apart. I separate 
the water, the fats, the oils, the gums, the resins, the sugars, the starches . . . 
the amino and amido acids. There ! I have the parts before me. Then I 
merely try different conditions of temperature and pressure — and the results 
— well, you can see for yourself !"'^ Out of this talk he repeated many 
times has come a yearly business for the Southern farmer amounting to a 
guarantee of a billion dollars. 

From the sweet potato he made more than a hundred products, among 
them flour, meal, starch, paste, vinegar, shoe bleaching, ginger, ink, rubber 
compound, dyes, molasses, wood filler, and caramels. During the first World 
War, Dr. Carver fed the students at Tuskegee sweet potato flour, and, after 
much urging, sent samples of the flour to Washington. As a result, it was 
shortly thereafter recommended for wheatless days. 

From shells of pecans he yielded seventy different dyes for silk and 
cotton. Okra fibre he used for paper, rope cordage, strawboard, matting, and 
carpets. With the soybean, the pomegranate, the chinaberry, and ordinary 
clay, he worked miracles equally amazing. 

When he was lauded for these accomplishments his comment was always, 
in effect, "No miracle, simply a revelation of the proper method to use."^ 
Carver always felt that God was only using him to reveal these hidden 
mysteries for the good of humanity. 

And throughout Carver's life, although he could have been fabulously 
rich, he cared nothing for money. He never commercialized his discoveries. 
He was this kind of idealist: "If I could be sure my experiments would be 
used to aid humanity that really suffers, I would have given them all away 
long ago."^ His money he used to help Negro students, and his small fortune 
of about $33,000 he left to the Carver Foundation — a research laboratory 
for promising young Negro chemists. 

He built his career upon an earnest search for the will of the Creator 
and a careful study of the Bible. He looked to it for guidance and believed 
it with all his heart. Dr. Carver felt that it was a divine mission for him to 
be at Tuskegee. He said, "Booker T. asked me to come here and to let down 
my bucket. I did come here. I did let down my bucket. And every time I've 
pulled it up, it has been brimful and running over — running over. God has 
been mighty good to this poor old Negro."" Always in speaking about his 
work he was sincerely humble about his success, and always attributed all 
credit to God. 

'Stewart, "Carver of Tuskegee," Scribners' Commercial, X (May, 1941), 12, 13. 

^Miller, op. cit., p. 121. 

'Stewart, "Carver of Tuskegee," p. 16. 

"J. S. Childers, "Boy Who Was Traded for a Horse," American Magazine, CXIV 

(October, 1932), p. 113. 



December, 1944 25 

All his life, Carver had worked alone in the laboratory — he was too 
deeply engrossed in his experiments to communicate the secrets of his work 
to any of his assistants. In 1935 a young Xegro, a Cornell graduate, was 
made assistant to him. And Dr. Carver, then in his seventies, saw how in- 
terested and capable he was and realized that he should leave his work in 
the hands of some young, ambitious person. Austin W. Curtis was the 
person. Dr. Carver welcomed him not only into his laboratory, but also into 
his heart. He believed there was something providential about the coming 
of this serious young man. He was proud of him and loved him, taught him, 
and depended upon him as if he were his own son." To Curtis he left his 
laboratory and his work. Dr. Carver had been one of the first examples of a 
Negro who created something which surpassed the Whites' experiments in 
the same fieM — and here was another Negro, just as capable, to open the 
way further for Negro youth. 

Dr. Curtis heli)ed in the establishment of the George Washington Carver 
Museum on the Tuskegee campus. The Museum houses some of the evidence 
of Carver's full and rich life. Besides the scientific collections and geological 
specimens. Carver hung seventy-one of his paintings in a little side room. 
Many were painted with home-made colors. He was proudest of his picture 
of four peaches painted with pigments made of Alabama clay. The paper he 
painted on he made from peanut shells, and the frames for his pictures he 
made out of corn husks. Also included in the Museum are exhibitions of his 
work in embroidery and crocheting, and gorgeous woven rugs. 

In June, 1937. a bron/e bust of Carver was unveiled at Alabama's Tuske- 
gee Normal and Industrial Institute. It was paid for by Carver's admirers, 
black and white — and many there were in the North and the South — mostly 
by one dollar subscriptions. 

Ry the year of his death, 1943. eighteen schools had been named for him, 
and he had received honorary awards from the Catholic Conference of the 
South, the Variety Gubs of America, the Progressive Farmer, the Univer- 
sity of Rochester, Simpson College, the Honorary Birthday Committee of 
the Thomas .\. Edison Foundation for the Advancement of Science and 
Education. Kappa Delta Pi Honorary Fraternity, and Franklin D. Roose- 
velt. When an award came. Carver accepted it graciously — and went back 
to work. 

George Washington Carver is remembered today because of his mar- 
velous discoveries in agricultural chemistry and because he probably did 
more than any other man to rehabilitate agriculture in the South. He is 
renowned as America's greatest Negro — a Negro who was born in slavery, 
witnessed, as a child, a horrible K-nching of a colored person, was refused 
admittance to a college on the ground of race, was treated as a slave by his 

'Holt. op. cit., p. 307. 



26 The Green Caldron 

employers all through his bread-earning days at college, and was made to use 
the freight elevator and barred from hotels and restaurants even at the 
height of his fame, when traveling about on lecture tours. He was seldom 
allowed to forget he was a member of a despised race. He was personally 
sensitive and often hurt, but he took it like a Christian; he tried twice as hard 
to make the way easier for the youth of his race. And he helped open the 
way for racial tolerance and good will below the Mason and Dixon line. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

"Black Leonardo," Time, XXXVIII (November 24, 1941), 81-82. 

Childers, J. S. "Boy Who Was Traded for a Horse," American, CXIV (October, 

1932), 24-25. 
"Goober Wizard," Literary Digest, CXXIII (June 12, 1937), 20-21. 
High, S. "No Greener Pastures," Readers Digest, XLI (December, 1942), 71-74. 
Holt, Rackham. George Washington Carver, New York: Doubleday Doran, 1943. 
"Let Us Pray," Christian Century, LVII (April 3, 1940), 445-446. 
Miller, Basil. George Washington Carver, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1943. 
"One of Our Greatest Americans," Commonweal, XXXI (April 16, 1943), 645-647. 
"Peanut Man," Time, XXIX (June 14, 1937), 54. 

Stewart, O. "Carver of Tuskegee," Scrihner's Commercial, X (May, 1941), 12-16. 
"Temple of the Peanut," Netvsweek, XV (February 26, 1940), 42-44. 



Apple Blossoms and the Pragmatist 

Those who accept the world in general without question probably enjoy life 
in their own way. They are "nature's children," so to speak. While they miss the 
fine points, they enjoy the unified whole. When a shower of apple blossoms is 
swept down by a breeze, they don't need a knowledge of botany or wind currents 
to appreciate the beauty. Those who seethe with knowledge may be possessed by 
a desire to present a scientific explanation of every natural occurrence, to analyze 
in detail even the simplest of ideas, to rationalize, in essence, everything. Chances 
are that those who sit back watching the mad world tear by in its hurry to get to 
no one knows where will never suffer from nervous collapse. Life can come and 
go when it chooses. Apple blossoms are fragrant tossed in the air. 

V. LORENE CaROTHERS 



December, 1944 27 

My First Unknown 



T 



Marie Dugas 
Rhetoric II. Theme 12, 1943-1944 

nr^HE WORD UNKNOWN MAY BE A CHALLENGE TO EIN- 
stein and Russell but not to me — at least, not since I enrolled this 
second semester in Chemistry 5, Theoretical Qualitative Analysis. 
For, sadly enough, "unknowns" are the basis of the graded laboratory work 
in Chemistry 5. 

The object, I ha<i been repeatedly told in my preliminary experiments 
before my first unknown, was to analyze its contents. Hy the shade of 
William Albert Xoyes, I tried to do this. But the difficulties I encountered 
in my first unknown would have made even Madame Curie a little doubtful 
of her scientific calling. 

From the beginning, I found no encouragement in this endeavor. 
Bef(jre I couKl even acquire the unknown from the stockroom, I was orally 
quizzed by my laboratory instructor as to my intentions, honorable or other- 
wise, toward the unknown. Would I smell it? Would I taste it? Heaven 
forbid! It might contain arsenic. What would I do if it didn't dissolve in 
water, in hydrochloric acid, or in aqua regia? By this time I u.i«; frantic with 
anticipation of what might go wrong during the analysis. 

But. at last, my instructor handed me the "unknown" card ami with a 
dramatic wave of her hand, which I assumed to be her official blessing, sent 
me stockroom-bound. 

I brought the unknown back to my laboratory desk and murmured a 
plaintive prayer under my breath before beginning the analysis. 

I diluted. I evaporated. I perspired. I added hydrochloric acid, am- 
monium, hydroxide, hydrogen sulfide, and a little of everything else that was 
handy before me. Aha! Xo Group I or H. I tasted the unknown, waited 
five minutes. Aha ! No arsenic. By this time I was jubilant over my good 
results. 

But then ! In an effort to remove a crucible containing the unknown 
from the ringstand over the Bunsen burner with a decrepit instrument 
(which the chemistry department proudly claims to be a forceps), I spilled 
my unknown — my work of the last two hours. I became feeble with anguish. 
I called on the lords on high to witness my sad fate. I was sick with despair. 

There was no time to do it over. I must hand it in today. From my pre- 
vious analysis, I knew there must be one of two things present — sodium or 
potassium. I ran to the supply shelves about the room. I compared every 
sodium and potassium compound with my unknown. There ! There was 



28 The Green Caldron 

one like mine. I scribbled sodium on my report card, and with a sudden burst 
of courage went to the stockroom to have it graded. 

It was right ! It had been sodium chloride — just plain salt. 

Yes, since chemistry and unknowns have come into my life, I have aged 
considerably. In fact, I have acquired eleven gray hairs, one for each of the 
unknowns during the semester. 



U.S.O.'s — Let Us Keep Them 

Mary Ellen Neville 
Rhetoric I, Theme 12, 1943-1944 



T 



PHT^HE UNITED SERVICE ORGANIZATION IS OUR 
country's answer to a call for a home away from home for members 
of our Armed Forces. It has developed into a wonderful thing and, 
in most cases, has received wholehearted cooperation from many communi- 
ties. A great deal of expense has been necessary to equip the U.S.O.'s, as 
well as to carry on the supervised entertainment that goes on in the various 
clubs. Behind all this are the volunteers who willingly give time and energy 
in order that the U.S.O. may function. 

What is to become of the U.S.O. after the war? Will it cease to exist? 
Yes, as far as service men are concerned, the need will be over. But, what 
of another very important group for whom there is just as urgent a need 
for the same type of planned recreation? This group is our teen-aged boys 
and girls of America. 

In my opinion, the very best thing to do with the U.S.O.'s throughout 
the country is to convert them into "Teen Towns." The equipment is all 
there, and the willingness to serve our teen-aged boys and girls should be 
just as great as to serve our men in uniform. 

Proper recreation for teen-aged children may well be called a problem 
instead of a cause. The problem has become more acute during war time 
because adults have, in many cases, placed the children in the background. 
Mothers and fathers are not attempting to maintain home environment con- 
ducive to good character building. Consequently, in too many communities 
these minors seek their recreation in roadhouses and bars. 

The U.S.O.'s in the country are equipped to give the younger generation 
the same kind of entertainment they get in their wanderings from tavern to 
tavern. They may dance and partake of refreshments. The only difference 
is that the refreshments will be non-alcoholic. Many U.S.O. centers have 
facilities for a wide assortment of games, good books, and good music. Many 



December, 1944 29 

special kinds of entertainment are planned for service men, and I see no 
reason why the very same arrangements could not be made for boys and 
girls of teen age. 

As adults, it is our duty to look ahead. We are putting forth an all-out 
effort for the men who are fighting for freedom and a world of peace. When 
peace comes, we should put forth just as much effort for the youth who 
will be the men and women of tomorrow. 

The U.S.O.'s seem the logical means to a wonderful achievement. These 
clubs have served and are serving their purpose and so let us keep them. 
The only thing that should be changed is the sign on the door to read 
"Teen Town." 



Dishes 



Phyllis Catharink Rarick 
Rhetoric II. Theme 4, 1943-1044 

IT WAS JUNE AND WE HAD PROMISED TO DO THE DISHES 
all month if we could go to Camp Drake. Although neither of us was 
particularly fascinated by the idea of doing dishes for a solid month, 
neither of us had expected a month quite so disagreeable. 

We began our duties with a zeal, a zeal, however, not to do the job well 
and honestly to earn our "campship," but to rush through a necessary, yet 
not enjoyable task. We began a campaign to cut down the number of dishes 
used each meal. No egg-cups. No saucers. No butter knife. No individual 
creamers. No salad plates. One spoon per person per meal. Have you ever 
tried to eat a grapefruit with a teaspoon or cereal with an orange spoon? No 
pitchers. We even tried to establish a community knife, but the family 
refused to take turns cutting their meat and buttering their bread. 

Because I could wash dishes twice as fast as Betty could, I was always 
the washer. I'ecause I had not her patience and deliberation and was twice 
as remiss, the number of chipped plates increased. When one noon I chipped 
the large rose platter. Betty rebuked me in her mild manner. I, rather 
pei)pery, refused to continue washing; she, afraid that she had hurt my 
pride, refused to take my place. And so the dishes stood. The water grew 
cold. Grease c(jllected around the edges of the pan. The dirty skillets became 
stickier and stickier. 

We were as determined that evening, each in her own stand, as we had 
been at noon. The more stubborn Betty became, the more certain I was that 
I would never wash another dish for her; and the more resolute I grew, 
the more evident it was that she would never yield. 



30 The Green Caldron 

In desperation Mother told us that we would have to take turns doing 
the dishes alone. Neither lost honor with this decision. 

But thenceforth we had to be asked individually to do the dishes after 
each meal. It was not because we did not expect to do them but because 
the one whose turn it was hoped Mother would forget who had done the 
dishes last and ask the wrong girl. Tearful were the times this happened. 
Among all our childhood sorrows nothing brought tears so easily or raised 
our indignation so quickly as the request to do the dishes two times in a row. 

One afternoon Betty and a friend made candy. Since it would be my 
turn to do the dishes that night I told her she would have to wash all the 
utensils they had used. She said that she was sorry, but that she had to go 
for a walk. I said that I was sorry, but I would have to throw them on the 
floor, then. And she went for a walk. And I had to throw the dishes on 
the floor to show her I was a woman of my word. 

As punishment I had to do all the next day's dishes. I denounced Mother 
as unjust and confided to Betty that I was going to run away. She thought 
Mother a hardened person. I had to throw the dishes on the floor or be a 
liar. She promised to help me with the dishes; then we would both run 
av/ay in the night. Of course we didn't carry out our plans because we 
didn't wake up, but for one whole day no mother could have been in greater 
disgrace than ours. 

Our secret antipathy soon dissolving, dish washing returned to a more 
normal level. In my turn I watched to see that as few dishes as possible 
were used; and Betty, when her turn to do dishes came, policed the table. 
No extra fork, no extra glass escaped us. What suffering there must have 
been under our rule ! 

The peak of our career as dishwashers came in the last week. It was my 
turn to do the breakfast dishes; but, as we ate, soapsuds and draining racks 
seemed so distant that I gave no thought to the extra saucers. I recollect that 
Mother was secretly relieved that there were no comments about the 
egg-cups. 

Then I noticed Betty buttering her sweet roll. From force of habit I 
thought, "Sweet rolls don't need to be buttered, especially with a clean 
knife!" Betty continued buttering her roll, not realizing what she was doing, 
and looked at me so unconcernedly that I felt the sudden urge to stop her. 
I grasped what came to my hand first and hurled it. 

My wrath passed as quickly as it had risen. I was immediately sorry. 
Betty just stared at me, her mouth and eyes round with bewilderment. I 
had missed her, but behind her a great apricot had slapped the wall, then 
fallen to the floor. 

Suddenly we burst into laughter. All our petty concerns and bickering 
and broken tempers seemed ridiculous. War was over. 



i 



December, 1944 31 

Butchering a Steer 

Harry Kantor 
Rhetoric II. Theme 13. 1943-1944 

OXE DAY. AS WK WERE EI XISHING DINNER, MR. RACKE 
said. "Well, my brother will be here in a few minutes and then we 
will butcher a steer." I was immediately interested. 

■ Can I help?" I asked. 

"Yes," he said, "and there is Walter coming now." 

We went out into the yard, met Walter, and the three of us walked over 
to the barn. The first thing we did was to rig up a block and tackle in the 
center of the barn. Mr. liacke then put a halter around the neck of the steer 
which was to be butchered and led him into the cleared space under the block 
and tackle. He took a small rifle and, putting the barrel between the eyes of 
the steer, he fired. Nothing happened. He tired another shot at a spot two 
inches lower. Again, nothing happened. This evidently called for a consul- 
tation. Mr. Hacke an<l his brother stepped away a few feet and began to 
discuss what to do next. As they were talking, the steer collapsed, but he was 
still alive. Mr. Hacke then fired another shot into the skull about one inch 
lower than the i)lace where the last shot had gone. This time he hit the vital 
spot, for the steer had a convulsion, blood ran out of his mouth, and he died. 

We took a bucket and, holding the animal's head so that the throat was 
over the bucket, Walter slit the throat. The blood that gushed out into the 
bucket was so hot that steam rose from it as it flowed. Now came the hard 
work. We tied a rope around the animal's head, attached the end to the 
block and tackle, and started to lift the animal off the floor. The steer weighetl 
alxHit 1200 pounds and the three of us tugged with great effort to lift him. 
As part of the l)ody was raised off the floor, the strain became greater and 
progress was by inches. We finally succeeded in lifting the body comjjletely 
oflF the floor. Walter then took a sharp knife and cut the hide from the 
throat straight down the center of the body. Mr. Backe and I pulled on the 
edge of the hide, and Walter cut between the hide and the flesh. This was a 
very tedious job as the hide clung stubbornly to the flesh. It took about an 
hour for us to get it off. The hoofs were next. 

Walter then cut the body open down the middle. The intestines came out, 
fell to the Hoor. and began to swell. They increased in size so rapidly that, 
for a moment or two, I thought there would not be enough room in the barn 
for them. Mr. Backe told me that this was caused by the gases in the intes- 
tines. When they made a pile more than twice as big as the steer, I was asked 
to put them into a wheelbarrow and take them out to the hog lot. There were 
two wheelbarrow loads. The pigs also got the bucket of blood. While I was 



32 The Green Caldron 

doing this, Walter cut the body into quarters. We carried the quarters, the 
head, the liver and the other edible organs into the cold cellar. Everything 
was hung up to cool until the next day, when Mr. Backe sold three quarters 
to the neighbors and Mrs. Backe made one quarter into canned meat. 



Hands Off! 

GWEN ZOLLO 
Rhetoric II, Theme 1, 1943-1944 

A BSORBED, I WATCHED THE FLY CREEP ACROSS THE 
/=^ shiny red of Grandfather's forehead, pause, brush its feet, and then 
•^ -^^ start down the lined parchment cheek toward the open mouth. 
Grandfather slept and snored. Soon the fly would reach the dark hole from 
which those noises rumbled. Something had to be done. I raised my hand 
and slapped — slapped hard, as hard as my eight-year-old strength would 
permit me. 

From that episode, and the bitter meditations in the lonely bedroom 
where I was left to repent of my sins, I learned a lesson. It is a simple one. 
It is to let things slide. All around me I see people trying to push obstacles 
out of the way, or to put a hand to another's plow. But I sit still and watch 
and am lazy. If I am tempted to take a part, if things — people who chatter, 
situations that embarrass, yes, lessons that refuse to become clear — get in 
my way and tempt me to fretful action, I think of the fly on Grandfather's 
cheek and withdraw. 

There are people living today who think that it is wrong to kill other 
animals— even poisonous snakes or man-eating tigers. That is a philosophy 
which I can understand. It is a philosophy of letting things alone, of with- 
holding the hand, of watching life go on, content to let it go its own way, 
fulfilling its own purpose, whatever that may be. Perhaps this is a lazy man's 
creed. Perhaps it is a way of trying to justify purposelessness. I don't know. 
The real test of whether I could hold firmly to my belief may be yet to come. 
It may be that some time — on some dark night, when despair and futility 
fill me, and I yet cling to life — it may be that on such a night I may pause 
by a dark pool and see there a man drowning. Will I lift my hand and 
then withdraw it ? Or will I plunge into the dark pool and pull the man back 
to the undesired shore, to the unwanted earth, simply in order that he may 
watch the illusion for yet a little while before he returns finally to the dark 
waters ? 



December, 1944 33 

Road to the West 

Mary Babcock 
Rhetoric II. Theme 2. 1943-1944 



T 



^IIERE IS AN OLD DIRT ROAD THAT STRETCHES TO THE 
West. It has its beginning in our front gravelled driveway, passes our 
west orchard, and then goes on and on westward. I like this road, 
although I have never reached its end. Too many things interest me along 
its way. The terminus seems unimportant. 

In summertime the road is loveliest at twilight. The descending sun 
seems about to roll down from its distance towards me. It makes black and 
white images of the Jack-pines on the next hill. When the sun has dis- 
appeared and the moon is out, the willows on my right and left turn their 
silver leaves a thousand ways in the cool light. 

During autumn the roadside is a myriad of scents and colors. When I 
was a child I often picked "bouquets" — I call them that though they were 
mostly weeds of brightest colors — and took them home with me. There were 
brown-eyed Susans, daisies, and mysterious puri)le flowers. The goldenrod 
was plentiful; it was generally surrounded by a barricade of bees. 

The road was used in winter as a trapping-line by my huntsman brother. 
I can't recall his catching anything spectacular except one fo.x. That "catch" 
occurred on a Christmas morning at the "Big Brown Hole." This has always 
been a place of mystery to me. It is a clay-hole about a quarter of a mile 
from the orchard and at the foot of Big Hill. Each year the opening of the 
Hole has been gouged a little larger by its inhabitants. It was interesting to 
investigate tiie m<nnid of clay at the entrance. Sometimes I found footprints 
of the various animals and birds that had run across it. 

In a patch of wild raspberry bushes atop Big Hill lies the Big Tree. It's 
only the trunk of an oak that was felled years ago and left there to rot 
into the soil. The inside of it now makes a tunnel for rabbits to run through. 
X'iolets grow ruggedly under the nearby brambles in the springtime. 

The first mile of my road West ends abruptly. A clump of willows on 
one side and a creaky old fence post on the opposite side lean towards each 
other. There's a windmill a few feet from the post, and on windy days it 
grinds and groans as the wheel tries to force the ancient shaft wheel to 
pump just one more trickle of water into the tank. I have learned to drink 
from the tin cup that hangs on the side of the pump. Once when I was too 
short to quite reach the spout, I leaned far over the tank and fell in. 

My road to the West goes a long, long way. Someday, maybe, I'll have 
travelled it to the end; but now it's more fun just looking for excitement 
along its way. I often hope I never reach the end. 



34 The Green Caldron 

The Snake and the Sash 

Lewis Oden 
Rhetoric II, Theme 13, 1943-1944 

IT ALL HAPPENED SEVERAL YEARS AGO WHEN I WAS 
spending my summer vacation in a small camp deep in the interior of 
the great North Woods. The last rays of daylight were fading away as 
my friend, an Indian youth, and I went to our cabin. The night was going 
to be cool and we needed our blankets for our camp-fire session. I pulled my 
blanket from its place in the corner, and as I lifted it to my shoulder some- 
thing fell to the floor. Instantly a whirring rattle vibrated the air. I froze 
and the walls seemed to close upon me. There at my feet, coiled and full 
of death, lay a dreaded snake. Somehow, during the day, a great timber- 
rattlesnake had found his way into our cabin and had made his bed on my 
blanket. I was helpless. If I made even the slightest move, he would strike. 
My only hope was in my friend's actions. 

I was amazed when my Indian friend did not run for help. He only 
stood there looking at the snake, and then a smile appeared on his lips. 
Next he did a very strange thing; he took off his bright red sash. Holding 
the sash before him, he slowly came towards the snake. He stopped about 
three feet away and slowly, ever so slowly, extended his arm until the red 
piece of cloth was just above the serpent's head. 

During this time I was standing there with every muscle in my body 
tense. I was facing death and my friend wanted to play games. I don't 
really know whether I was more frightened or more doubtful of my friend's 
sanity. I was wondering what good my friend's actions would do me, when 
I suddenly noticed that the snake was slowly turning from me to the bright- 
colored sash. 

As the snake was attracted by the cloth, my friend's hand began to move 
from side to side. Slowly, back and forth, back and forth moved the red 
sash. The eyes of the snake could not lose sight of it for a moment. As the 
cloth moved, so did the serpent's pointed nose, trying slowly to reach it. 
The cloth moved slowly, very slowly away, always moving back and forth, 
back and forth. The farther away it went, the closer it came to the floor, 
the snake's head still following it. 

I was astounded. The coil of death at my feet was slowly uncoiling and 
moving away from me. When the snake was fully uncoiled, my friend 
stepped to one side of it. While he moved the cloth with one hand, he 
reached down with the other and grasped the snake's head just behind the 
massive jaw. It was now helpless and I was still alive. I had had a strange 
experience and had learned a great lesson. 



December, 1944 35 

Why Isolationism Must End 



WS' 



Mary Louise Worley 
Rhetoric II, Theme 7, 1943-1944 

LU WAR 1 LEFT US WITH ENORMOUS PROBLEMS, 
the problems that World War II will leave us will be greater 
still ; this is a much greater war than the last. We shudder when we 
look at the complete devastation of some of the theaters of war, but let us 
face this picture, and not turn away as we did twenty-five years ago. Thirty- 
five countries have been conquered by the enemy and many others, still 
unconquered, have borne the brunt of the war. Citing the city of Naples as 
an example of the deplorable state so much of Europe is in today, may I 
point out the following: the civilian water supply is completely polluted by 
the issue from the demolished sewage disposal pipes; all electricity, transpor- 
tation, and telephone facilities are inoperative; and hardly a building is safe 
to enter because of the shaken foundations. Turning attention to the rural 
sections affected, we find that in Denmark 20 per cent of the cattle, 60 per 
cent of the hogs, and 70 per cent of the chickens have been destroyed, accord- 
ing to John C. Mueller, a Danish government official. The soil, although 
producing greater crops than ever, is in the worst possible state because of 
the lack of fertilizer and the little time given to its care; agricultural land 
is "pock-marked" by the explosions of countless bombs. The results of such 
destruction are evidenced in the extremely poor health conditions of these 
victim countries. In Denmark, because of the lack of dairy products, the 
children are suffering from tuberculosis, and all are stunted in size, being 
small and thin. W^idespread epidemics of typhoid, dysentery, and malaria 
are now ravaging Europe. 

Are we going to ignore these facts and declare that they are none of our 
business? If the humanitarian aspect does not appeal to us, the cold fact 
that such epidemics abroad threaten the health of our nation, should arouse 
us. May I quote Hiram Motherwell, authority of economics, who wrote this 
for Harper's, "There is only one important source of food for Europe — the 
Western Hemisphere." Are we then going to withhold this help? 

The problem of transportation with all its ramifications is also an im- 
portant part of the picture. Holland, which had one of Europe's most pros- 
perous navies, is now stripped of four-fifths of its fleet. Norway has lost 
one- fourth of its merchant marine. So these countries will be dependent 
not only on our food resources, but also on our transportation facilities. In 
dealing with land travel, we must face the fact that hardly a road is still 
intact, bridges have been destroyed in great numbers, and locomotives have 
been bombed out of commission. 



36 The Green Caldron 

The reconstruction problem is so huge that it is almost beyond intelligent 
comprehension. The rebuilding of all old buildings, the creation of new 
homes for those people now dispossessed, the reconstruction of bridges and 
roads, the clearing of canals and ports now encumbered by sunken ships, 
will be problems of vital importance immediately following the war. Then 
the fact that many of the conquered countries are stripped of their man 
power places a double importance on outside aid. 

Sir Stafford Cripps, the English diplomat, has stated: "One thing is 
sure, that the United Nations must, at the end of the war, undertake inter- 
national regulation of the production and distribution of the essential raw 
materials." How true this is ! The world has shrunk through the miracles 
of science to such dimensions that isolationism is no longer practical or 
probable. It is for us to make it our business what happens to the destitute 
countries of Europe, or we mock ourselves when we declare that we are a 
Christian nation. International cooperation is necessary for the prosperous 
new world which we are fighting for, a world of "peace on earth, good will 
towards men." 



Rhet as Writ 



Some people criticize this Sinatra craze that girls are having but if you 
want to know it is really a help to parents to have their girls' mind occupied 
with that instead of thinking about smoking or drinking. 



• • • • 



Men and women now walked down the aisle to receive diplomas — not 
youngsters. 



• • • • 



She descended gracefully (he hardly noticed her father) causing her 
satin dress to sparkle in the waning sunlight of later afternoon. 



• • 



But as I get older and watch both papers using the time old adage "Time 
will tell," I find that the Tribune with its slant outdoes the Sun with its 
point of view. 



• • 



In my opinion as a died-in-the-wool Roosevelt man, I think that in No- 
vember we will have an oddity in the White House — a fourth term president. 



It takes many persons to make a world ! 



Honorable Mention 

Joan Brons — The Case of the Missing Reader's Digest 

Nancy Bruce — A War Correspondent's Day 

May Callas — A N ever-to-Be-For gotten Scene 

Ben Duster — The Ever-Alert Military Police 

Nancy Evans — Humoresque 

Audrey Hufford — Mrs. David's Purpose 

Joseph La Palombara — Bismarck and the Unification of Germany 

Sara Linsley — A Houseful of Brothers 

Barbara Moody — This Is Haiti 

Oradel Nolen — American Negro Poetry 

Roberta Polk — Madame Curie — Her First Forty Years 

Robert Saint Clair — On Success 

Norman Smulevitz — Wild Life in Wisconsin 

Wilda Zilm — The History and Romance of Fingerprinting 



i 



HE 6REEN Caldron 



A Magazine of Freshman Writing 



Margaret Haygood: Ghost Town . . 1 

Victoria Prodan: Little Girl on a Bench ? 

Lois Schlecter: A Lesson in Spanish 
Caroline A. Barrett: The Concerto ... 

Bernice Richter ; Japan's Propaganda War 7 

Muriel Burke: Neutrality — The Only Course for Eire .13 

Beverly Haferman: I Liked That Place . 14 

Jane Buescher: Hidden Memories 16 

Richard Shifrin: Into the Storm . . 18 

Jane Buescher: Country — Sunday Morning . . 19 

Lois Rudnik: Adelaide M. . . . 20 

Caroline A. Barrett: The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra ... 22 

Pvt. Calvin Ryan : Rejuvenate the AST RP 27 

June Nixon: "Powder Monkey" in an Office 28 

Jesse Davies: There Is a Dark Side 29 

Mary Lou Rohling: Uncle's Last Fling 31 

Paul Olson : The Gentle Soul ... 33 

(Material written in Rhetoric I and II) : Rhet as Writ .... 36 



VOL. 14, NO. 3 MARCH, 1945 



UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



Th 



.HE Green Caldron is published four times a year by the 
Rhetoric Staff at the University of IlHnois. Material is chosen 
from themes and examinations written by freshmen and students 
in the Army Specialized Training and V-12 Programs in the Uni- 
versity. Permission to publish is obtained for all full themes, 
including those published anonymously. Parts of themes, how- 
ever, are published at the discretion of the committee in charge. 

The committee in charge of this issue of The Green Caldron 
includes Miss Constance Nicholas, and Messrs. John Bush- 
man, Ben Porzak, and George Scouffas, Chairman. 

The Green Caldron is for sale at the Information Office, 
157 Administration Building (West), Urbana, Illinois. 



THE GREEN CALDRON 

copyrighted 1945 
BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

All rights reserved 
No part of this periodical may be repro- 
duced in any form without permission in 
writing from the publisher. 



Ghost Tow^n 

Margaret Haygood 
Rhetoric II, Theme 6, 1944-1945 

IF YOU SHOULD GO TO FLORIDA THIS WINTER YOU 
would see many wonderful sights. Each Sunday the Chicago Tribune 
runs column after column describing the exotic charm of this land of 
"sunshine and flowers." If I were to be your guide on this trip, however, 
I should want very much to show you a particular place in the middle of the 
state which you will not find mentioned in any of the glowing and alluring 
accounts sent out by the Chambers of Commerce. This place has a past, and 
a past that wouldn't make good publicity for a state that brags of "eternal 
sunshine" and mild winters. "Ghost Town's" only claim to renown is the 
mention made of it by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in The Yearling. 

I remember that when I first moved to Gainesville, Florida, and heard 
the story of "Ghost Town," I thought it was a local myth. "You must drive 
out and see it," said a friend of mine. I had seen ghost towns in the movies 
of the West, but I was not prepared for the intimate glimpse into the past 
afforded by this Florida ghost town. 

My trip was planned for an afternoon in late spring. Eight miles out 
from Gainesville, on the Palatka Highway, we came to a dirt crossroad 
with a sign which read, "Left, Windsor — Right, Island Grove — Straight 
Ahead, Hawthorne." We took the left. It was a beautiful, wide country road, 
bordered with giant oaks whose branches, festooned with gray moss, met 
overhead to form a canopy. The sun shone through the trees in patches, 
making quaint patterns on the road before us. Birds darted back and forth, 
and a squirrel scampered across our way; but of human life and habitation 
we saw no sign. We rode on and on. Suddenly there was a sharp turn in 
the road, and before us was a double-lane drive with a grassy parkway in 
the middle. Settled back among the trees, on both sides of the road, were a 
number of houses, set fairly close together. They were not the rambling, 
rough structures that one usually sees in the back country in the South, but 
large town houses of the late Victorian period, with many gables and eaves 
scalloped in fancy designs. Elaborate bannisters hedged the many verandas, 
and upstairs windows sported ornamental balconies. Each house had its 
flower garden, now a tangled mass of yellow jasmine and purple lantana. In 
one garden a rambling rose vine was choking an iron figure of Cupid with 
drawn bow. 

Further on we came to what had evidently been the community center, 
for there was a small building with a faded sign plastered above its door, 

[ 1 ] 



2 The Green Caldron 

announcing to the world that this was the "U. S. Post Office — Windsor, 
Florida — erected 1885." Across the sandy road was a low, rambling struc- 
ture with a wide porch, equipped with benches. This was the village em- 
porium, and faded lettering in the windows advertised "Staple and Fancy 
Groceries" and "Drygoods and Notions." 

Leading off Main Street were other streets on which were more Vic- 
torian models. Down one street we found a gloomy schoolhouse, and further 
on a quaint little church with its burying ground to one side. It was a small 
village, of not over fifty houses in all. They were washed clean of paint by 
the rains of many seasons, and bleached a soft gray by much tropical sun. 
Everything was wonderfully preserved, and being off the beaten path it had 
not fallen into the hands of vandals. Roaming livestock kept the weeds 
and grass to a minimum height. I kept looking about as if expecting to see 
someone come out of one of the houses, but there was not a soul to be seen. 
How had this all come about? 

Part of the history of Florida's growth and of the settlers' trek south- 
ward started from this section. It was here that Northerners came, after 
the reconstruction period, in search of gold, the gold hidden in the orange, 
grapefruit, satsuma, and kumquat. Hawthorne, Rochelle, Island Grove, and 
Windsor were the center of the citrus industry in 1897. Windsor was the 
smallest of these early settlements. 

The wealthy northerners had built themselves comfortable homes and 
imported the latest in conveniences and machinery. As money rolled in from 
the sale of fruits shipped to northern markets, more land was bought, more 
fruit trees were planted; as far as the eye could see, there were beautiful, 
flourishing groves. The new settlers were pleased with their new home, for 
the winters were mild and the summer pleasant. But that was before the 
"big freeze" in November, 1898. In that section of Florida, even today, time 
is reckoned by that freeze. 

Out of the northwest rushed a mighty cold wave, headed south and east 
across the western plains. There was no weather bureau to publish daily 
predictions, no radio to issue last minute warnings. The trees were heavy 
with golden fruit ready for the picking. True, the sky towards the northwest 
was overcast, but the growers "figured" they were in for only a "spell" of 
wet weather. They went about their tasks of shutting things up for the 
night, for the wind was high. "Well, I guess our Indian summer's about 
over," they said. After supper the thermometer read fifty degrees; by morn- 
ing it said forty. The growers began to drag out their smudge pots and to 
pile pine and oak wood at intervals throughout the grove, just in case. At 
three in the afternoon, the temperature was at freezing. Smudge pots were 
going strong, and fires had been lighted on the north edge of the groves so 
that the wind could carry the heat through the trees. The growers and their 



.\farch, 1945 3 

iamilies worked all day and ail night keeping up the fires. The temperature 
had fallen to ten degrees by the morning of the second day and remained 
there for two days; smudge pots and occasional fires could not heat a grove 
against such cold. 

Everything was lost, for not only was the fruit frozen, but also the trees 
themselves were killed. Citrus fruits could not be grown that far north. The 
growers deserted that section like rats deserting a sinking ship, and moved 
farther south, below the frost line. Thus, the "ghost town" of Windsor 
stands as a monument to experiment and progress, while Florida tries to 
forget this blot upon its escutcheon of "sunshine and flowers." 



Little Girl on a Bench 

Victoria Prodan 
Rhetonc I, Theme 2, 1944-1945 

1USED TO SEE HER QUITE OFTEN WHEN I CROSSED 
through the park on my way home after work. She was always huddled 
on the same iron bench swinging her thin legs slowly back and forth. 
She was a rather plain little girl about eight or nine years old. Her dresses 
were faded and the sleeve bands were too loose for her arms, indicating that 
her clothes had probably been handed down from a chubby older sister. 
Thin wisps of hair straggled to her shouMers, and over the top of her head 
crossed two scanty braids that pulled her scalp tight enough to raise the skin 
at the sides of her temples. 

She had a lonely face. Her features were small and pale. Her lower lip 
drooped slightly even when she was not talking to her doll. Her nose looked 
as if it had forgotten to finish growing. I cannot describe her eyes for I 
never saw them. At times when I passed by, she would be talking silently 
to her rag doll; however, she was' usually looking down at the ground, 
clutching the doll tightly in one hand. When she was sure no one was watch- 
ing her. she would gaze wistfully at the noisy children playing hop-scotch 
a few feet away, entirely unconcerned with their small observer. If anyone 
came near, or one of the children chanced to look in her direction, she would 
immediately become interested in tying the ribbon on her rag doll's head. 
After I had seen her a number of times, I began to greet her with cheer- 
ful remarks about the pleasantness of the afternoon. She always answered 
nie by nodding her lowered head, and sometimes an expression almost like 
a smile played upon her lips. Although she never spoke, I caught her watch- 
ing for me to turn in the park; and as I approached her bench she would 
start swinging her feet more rapidly. 



4 The Green Caldron 

A Lesson in Spanish 

Lois Schlecter 
Rhetoric I, Theme 6, 1944-1945 

IT WAS THREE O'CLOCK, AND THE BEGINNING SPANISH 
class was in session in Room 116. That is to say, it had met, for no class 
is actually in session when its members are as far removed from the 
classroom as those in this group were. The Senora, who had learned Spanish 
in a similar high-school study group, droned on in her North American 
Castilian. "Estoy, estas, esta," she said. "Estamos, estais, estan. Remember 
that 'estar' is used when referring to location or temporary condition." Feet 
scraped; a queer one hummed almost inaudibly to himself. A head dropped 
down on its desk as the owner promised himself to study the grammar 
especially hard that night after supper. An atmosphere of complete resig- 
nation filled the room, except in a rear corner where three Spanish speakers- 
to-be were struggling to keep the spark of life from going out. This spark 
did not lack for fuel and was rapidly fanned into being when Luisa poked 
Conchita between the ribs with her pencil and whispered, "Let's write a 
story, huh?" Conchita rather unsuccessfully suppressed a small yelp (she 
was very ticklish) and nodded her approval. Pancho was included in the 
little story-writing deal, the object seeming to be to write part of a sentence, 
fold the paper over, and let the next person finish it. Pancho, while waiting 
for his turn to write, had located an imaginary bug which he followed with 
his eyes as it flew over the head of the teacher, those of his classmates, and 
finally came to rest on a wall. He watched it as it crawled up the wall, skirt- 
ing a colored map of Mexico and a gaudy picture of two Spanish dancers, 
and waited until it got half-way across the ceiling before he shot it down 
with a machine gun, also entirely imaginary. Staring, he allowed it to drop 
to the floor, then pretended to spit on it. The girls were appreciatively dis- 
gusted, but forgot the incident as they unfolded the paper which was the 
story and began to read it. Conchita read it and shook with held-back 
laughter. Pancho read it and grinned as he handed it to Luisa. She giggled 
and whispered, "Look, it says, 'The policy is "Our men shall not fight over 
hot dogs." ' " She put her hands over her mouth and sat there shaking for 
a moment. Then, " 'It was Christmas, and the sky was filled with great, big, 
baby buggies.' Isn't that a scream?" They squirmed and laughed, retelling 
the amusing combinations in their creation. 

The Senora lectured on. Her voice was tired, and her eyes as well. She 
had them fixed on some distant spot above the students' heads. " 'Ser' is 
used," she said, "in stating a definite fact. Soy, eres, es, somos, sois, son." 



March, 1945 



The Concerto 

Caroline A. Barrett 
Rhetoric II, Theme 4, 1944-1945 



T 



nr^HE CONCERTO IS AN INSTRUMENTAL COMPOSITION 
designed to display the skill of a solo artist. There is almost invari- 
ably accompaniment by an orchestra, although Franz Liszt's "Concert 
Pathetique" for two pianos and Robert Schumann's Sonata, Op. 14, pub- 
lished as a concerto without orchestra, are exceptions. The concerto, how- 
ever, demands more than mere technical brilliance from the artist. He must 
be thoroughly competent in ensemble playing and show good musical judg- 
ment as well as demonstrate his virtuosity. 

The classical concerto is written in a form called "sonata," which means 
that it is in three parts and states themes which are later developed and 
recapitulated. Thus the concerto is linked with the symphony in form, but 
with the all-important solo instrument to lend contrast. 

The piano has always l)een compo.sers' greatest favorite for concertos, 
the very nature of the instrument making it well fitted for contrast with the 
brasses, strings, and woodwinds of the symphony orchestra. Beethoven 
wrote five superl) piano concertos, while Mozart has many more to his credit. 
F^erhaps the greatest concertt) is Beethoven's D major concerto for violin 
and orchestra. We might find it hard to believe that this magnificent compo- 
sition was so poorly received at the first performance that it lay forgotten 
for many years, were we not told that the miserable premiere was played 
without rehearsal, the soloist sight-reading the score. This concerto was 
written for Franz Clement, a prominent musician of Vienna during Bee- 
thoven's time, who, in addition to reading the manuscript at sight, proceeded 
to play on the same program a set of variations with the violin held upside 
down! The other stringed instruments are featured in concertos also; 
Dvorak's 'cello concerto is a modern favorite. Mozart has a concerto for 
flute and one for bassoon, and Shostakovich has an interesting arrangement 
for piano, trumpet, and strings, which he calls a piano concerto. 

Concertos are written for more than one solo instrument, and are then 
known as double or triple concertos. The A minor concerto of Brahms, for 
violin, violoncello and orchestra, is a very well-known e.xample of the double 
concerto. 

Although there are modifications of the form as settled by Mozart, the 
general lines of the concerto remain the same. There are three movements. 
The first begins with a tutti passage which serves as an introduction and 
presents the principal theme or melody. This tutti always ends in the original 



6 The Green Caldron 

key, and not in the dominant, or the relative major, as is the case in a 
sonata. The solo instrument enters with either the principal subject or a 
brilliant introductory passage. A repetition follows with the themes being 
divided between the soloist and the orchestra. The themes are next expanded, 
with the solo instrument playing an obbligato or merely elaborating on the 
orchestration. A return to the original subject leads into the cadenza. 

The cadenza is a solo passage in which the artist is allowed to give a 
demonstration of his virtuosity to astonish and amuse the audience. It could 
be improvised by the player or previously composed, either by himself or by 
some other person. The soloist is expected not merely to show off his execu- 
tion, but also to display skill in dealing with the subjects of the movement. 
A cadenza consisting entirely of extraneous matter would be altogether 
faulty and out of place, regardless of its technical brilliance. Beethoven, 
outraged by the irrelevant musical material often introduced by the solo 
players of his day, sometimes wrote out very explicit instructions for his 
cadenzas. In his concerto in E fiat, Op. 73, he wrote out his own cadenza in 
full with the note, "Do not make a cadenza, but go on at once to the fol- 
lowing." A usually hasty recapitulation by the full orchestra ends the 
movement. 

The second movement, written in any slow tempo, closely resembles the 
corresponding movement of the sonata, but occasionally the variation form 
is used. The usual song form consists of a principal theme, a second theme 
of demure quality, and a return to the principal theme involving exact dupli- 
cation. The solo part is of an extremely florid character, weaving in and 
out around the orchestra. 

The finale of a concerto is mostly in rondo form, consisting of a principal 
theme and several incidental themes. After the statement of the main theme, 
each of the secondary melodies is voiced, but there are periodic returns to 
the chief subject. Mozart often introduced changes of tempo for variation, as 
in his E flat concerto (Kochel, 271), which has a minuet in the middle of the 
finale. Short cadenzas were also frequently introduced in the last movement. 
In Beethoven's concerto in G, Op. 58, there is a pause for the insertion of a 
cadenza, but there is also the special direction, "The cadenza to be short." 

Franz Liszt made radical changes in the classic form by linking together 
the movements by means of themes running through the entire composition, 
giving the feeling of one tremendous movement instead of several short 
ones. Saint-Saens and Delius have made use of Liszt's form, but other mod- 
ern composers, such as Dvorak, Grieg, and Bruch, follow the classic pattern 
still. One of the most amazing twentieth century compositions is a concerto 
by Arthur Bliss for piano, tenor voice, xylophone and strings. Fortunately 
such works are sporadic. 



March, 1945 



Japan's Propaganda War 

BeRNICE RlCHTER 
Rhetoric II, Theme 12, 1944-1945 



-EQUALLY AS GRIM AND DETERMINED AS JAPAN'S WAR 
^ with material weapons is her psychological war with words. Through 
^^^ the medium of a strong propaganda organization run by three Tokyo 



agencies — the Army, the Navy, and the P>ureau of Information — Japanese 
leaders attempt to create certain reactions in public opinion.* The energies 
of Japanese propagandists are pointed in three main directions — at the 
Japanese homeland, elsewhere in Asia, and at non-Axis nations. The Japa- 
nese propaganda experts recognize the fact that each of these three groups 
requires a different psychological approach. And their job consists in finding 
the right propaganda line for the right group. 

The propaganda to the Japanese mainland concerns itself with keeping 
the Japanese people content and ready for new sacrifices. Thought control 
is a necessary precaution. There must be no dangerous thoughts. News- 
papers, magazines, books, movies, and radio programs are heavily censored, 
and what finally reaches the Japanese citizen is largely propaganda. Under 
the Japanese Peace Preservation I-aw, revised twenty years ago, anyone can 
be imprisoned if he so much as thinks the Constitution should be altered or 
that private property is wrong.^ The general subject of "exterminating 
hostile ideas" was treated in a June, 1943, issue of Koron (Public Affairs), 
One writer reproved police for dealing too gently with a teacher whose 
offense was that he dissented from the view that persons holding opinions 
different from those sanctioned by the government ought to be shot.^ 

The other approach that the Japanese propagandists employ at home is 
that of constant references to "spiritual power." Here, in twentieth century 
Japan, is the mystical concept that is such a paradox to her modern ships, 
guns, antl planes. Superstitions, witchcraft, and emperor worship are played 
upon to arouse in the Japanese people a kind of patriotic nationalism needed 
to win the war. The Japanese people are assured of the everlasting protec- 
tion of the gods. They are led to believe that the air over Japan is filled 
with 800,000 kami, or gods, including the spirits of all the emperors, and 
that all Japanese have kami blood in their veins.* The shrine of Yasukini, 
which contains the ashes of all the Japanese soldiers killed in battle, is of 

'"Slant-eyed Haw Haw," Newsweek. XIX (February 9, 1942), 36. 
'"Control of H. Jujino," Fortune, XXIX (April, 1944), 208. 
*Ibid., p. 207. 
*Ihid., p. 157. 



h 



8 The Green Caldron 

prime importance in the promotion and maintenance of civilian morale. The 
spirits of the dead soldiers are said to become, through such enshrinement, 
immortal "nation-protecting warrior gods."^ To the Japanese, Yasukini is a 
great inspiration and an eagerly accepted solace. 

The "spiritual" condition of the Japanese civilian finds its counterpart 
in the training of the Japanese soldier. The basic creed in the Army's 
spiritual training lists the principal soldierly virtues as loyalty, courage, and 
obedience. In his book Japan's Military Masters, Hillis Lory quotes a Japa- 
nese military official as saying: "The Imperial Army of Japan attaches more 
importance to spiritual training than to the art of war. Moral strength is 
greater than physical force."® 

General Tojo himself has said: "This great spiritual power ... is con- 
stantly flowing through the veins of 100,000,000 [Japanese]. . . . Because 
we have this spiritual power . . . unsurpassed by any other nation . . . we 
will always win."' But recently, Japan has not always won, so her propa- 
gandists prepare the people for a "spiritual victory." This is a state of 
thought which will leave them convinced that they have not lost when they 
actually have. A Tokyo war review home front feature, describing the loss 
of Kwajelein in February, 1944, called it a "spiritual victory." It said: "In 
this protracted war it is only natural to experience changes on the fighting 
fronts. . . . Spiritually speaking, we are winning over the enemy."^ 

This emphasis on "spiritual victories" when material weapons prove in- 
effective may indicate that the Japanese leaders realize that their chances 
of victory are fading away. Other evidences of the Japanese psychological 
groundwork for defeat are the increased use of the emperor as a symbol to 
rally the people, and the decreased use of the method of notifying families 
of dead soldiers. The latter is done lest the extent of Japan's casualties be 
revealed and public grief accumulate to the harm of public morale. Conse- 
quently, the Army now enshrines only a portion of its dead at Yasukini.^ 
Also significant is the pessimistic note that has appeared in the propaganda 
line. "Unless the decisive war-time internal structure is renovated and 
strengthened," one domestic commentator said, "we shall not be able to nip 
the enemy's efforts in the bud."^ Commentators at home have exhorted 
Japanese girls who are not already working to go into war plants. Said one: 
"The girls of enemy America make up a third of the employees of the 

'Ibid., p. 159. 

•Quoted in John Beaufort, "Japan's Propaganda Front," Christian Science Monitor, 

April 22, 1944, p. 3. 

'Ibid. 

'Ibid. 

"'Control of H. Jujino," loc. cit., p. 159. 

"Selden C. Menefee, "Japan's Gloomy Home Front," Nation, CLVII (November 20, 

1943), 585. 



March, 1945 9 

Douglas Aircraft Company. When you hear that the hateful Fl\-ing For- 
tresses are made by these girls, can you women of Japan remain idle?"" 
This new approach may be a ruse to awaken the Japanese people to the 
struggle, and it might also mean that the Japanese realize that the victor)' 
of the United Nations is imminent. 

Elsewhere in Asia, the principal purpose of the Japanese propagandists 
has been to arouse fear, unrest, and hatred for the white man. The Japanese 
have kept in mind the fact that all the Far Eastern countries have, within 
the past century, accepted or had imposed upon them the institutions of 
western civilization as an alien addition to their own traditional cultures and 
that they have all either been subjected by the imperialism of western powers 
or seriously threatened by it in the fairly recent past.'* The Japanese claim 
that their only interest in the Far E^st is in "liberating Asia from Western 
Imperialism." According to one official, speaking of the "China Incident," 
Japan has never invaded China; she has only helped China to drive the 
"aggressors" from Chinese soil." 

Stirring slogans are employed by the Japanese to cover up their own 
aggressive intentions — "Anglo-American Imperialists" must be overthrown 
to build "a new decisive structure" in the "Great East Axis Co-Prosperity 
Sphere" and to free Elast Asia from "white capitalism," for "Asia should be 
for the Asiatics."** That is how Japan's ambitions are stated in her propa- 
ganda to the Far I-last, but the Japanese know that the real meaning of 
"Asia for the Asiatics" is "Asia for the Japanese." 

One of Japan's best propaganda weapons in the Far East is the racial 
argument. Our deep South serves the same purpose in anti-American prop- 
aganda as India does in anti-British propaganda." Tokyo attempts to prove 
that we are fighting for the perpetuation of inequalities and race discrimina- 
tion. Our immigration Liws are held up before the Chinese and Indians to 
prove our dishonest}' in claiming to fight for a free world. The evacuation 
of West Coast Japanese-Americans is referred to frequently. India hears 
wild tales of Japanese-Americans being hacked to pieces by white mobs, 
their houses entered, their women attacked. Race riots and other instances 
of race prejudice in the United States are highlighted in Japanese broad- 
casts. A Manchurian broadcast beamed to Asia summed up the Japanese 
racial propaganda line in one sentence: "Democracy as preached by the 
Anglo-Americans may be an ideal and noble system of life, but democracy 

"Ibid., p. 584. 

"M. Carter. "Short Wave Weapon," Asia, XLII (.April, 1W2). 249. 
"Seldcn C. Menetee, "What Tokyo Tells the World," Christian Science Monitor, De- 
cember 19, 1942. p. 5. 
'*Ibid. 
"Selden C. Menefee, "Japan's Propaganda War," Asia. XLIII (March. 1943). 167. 



i 



10 The Green Caldron 

as practiced by the Anglo-Americans is stained with the bloody guilt of 
racial persecutions and exploitation."^® 

Another device the Japanese propagandists employ is the appeal to 
nationalism through the exploitation of symbols and personalities which 
already have some following in the Far Eastern countries. In China, the 
distinguished Chinese traitor, Wang Ching Wei, has been hired by the 
Japanese to head the "Chinese Government" of China. ^^ In Thailand, 
Premier Luang Pibul Songgram is publicized as the spiritual leader of the 
country, and posters appear showing the Thai Premier and General To jo 
exchanging salutations. In the Philippines, the Japanese trade on the repu- 
tation of General Emilio Aguinaldo, aged hero-patriot, although experts on 
the Philippines doubt that he has been cooperating with the invaders. ^^ True 
or not, the use of his name is undoubtedly effective propaganda. 

The Japanese go in heavily for the picture and cartoon variety of prop- 
aganda in the Far East. Many posters are extremely clever in their use of 
words to describe opposites. In China, a poster attempting to break down 
Chinese national patriotism shows a peaceful Chinese family scene in a 
country field with the message that life is simple and what is the use of a 
government. Another poster reads, "Growing New China makes the heaven 
and earth always bright and prosperous. "^^ The Japanese have pictures to 
show that a few minutes after batches of handbills are dropped over China, 
not one remains in sight. The Chinese run and pick them up and appear to 
be very amused. The real reason for the enthusiasm of the Chinese, says 
M. C. Ford, is that paper is one of the things the Chinese don't have much 
of, and the Japanese "paper-raids" come in handy.^'' 

Every occupied country in Asia has its "Cultural Relations Commission" 
because the Japanese are purportedly apostles of culture— as long as it in- 
cludes only things Japanese or pro- Japanese. The "Cultural Relations Com- 
missions" release such titles as "What We Should Learn from Japan."^^ 

Japan does not omit the religious appeal in her propaganda to the Far 
East. She realizes its importance to the people of Asia. Japanese forces were 
instructed to make friends with the Bhuddist monks when they moved into 
Burma. They managed to have the ceremony of the signing of a pact between 
Japan and Thailand take place in the chapel of the Emerald Bhudda in 
Bangkok. In the Philippines, the appeals to Catholicism are a principal 
weapon. The initiation of diplomatic relations between Japan and the Vatican 

"Selden C. Menefee, "Japan's Racial War," Nation, CLVI (February 6, 1943), 203. 

""Propaganda by Japanese Puppets," Life, IX (September 30, 1940), 58. 

"Menefee, "Japan's Propaganda War," 168. 

""Propaganda by Japanese Puppets," loc. cit., p. 60. 

'"M. C. Ford, "Jap Propaganda Amuses the Chinese," Colliers, CX (October 17, 1942), 17. 

"Menefee, "Japan's Propaganda War," 169. 



March. 1945 11 

is used as proof of official Catholic approval. Catholic bishops and authorities 
are quoted as favoring the "New Order in East Asia."^^ 

Unfortunately for the Allied cause, Japanese propaganda in Asia has 
succeeded in convincing a considerable group of Asiatics that whatever the 
hardships entailed by Japanese occupation, these are preferable to race 
discrimination imposed by the white man. 

Among the non-Axis countries, the Japanese propagandists seek to foster 
uneasiness, suspicion, and mutual distrust. In the United States, in particular, 
they are following the strategy of "divide and conquer." They hope to dis- 
rupt our national unity and split us away from our Allies. They have tried 
to drive a wedge between the United States and I^tin America. Isolationism 
is encouraged and attempts are made to convince us that Japan has no 
designs on the W^estern Hemisphere, that we have no moral right to inter- 
vene in Asia, and that, in any case, we cannot possibly defeat Japan. When- 
ever possible, American historians and statesmen are quoted to prove 
their points. 

Radio broadcasts are one of the principal propaganda devices the Japa- 
nese employ. The Japanese radio broadcasts that reach us are similar to 
our own programs. They consist of news reports, music, playlets, talks, and 
lectures. I'ut whereas our stations hope to sell us soaps and breakfast foods, 
the Japanese stations hoj)e to sell us a point of view. The news of the pro- 
grams is a mixture of threats, bogus stories, and extravagant claims. In its 
efforts to attract a United States audience, Tokyo has developed the trick 
of broadcasting names of United States prisoners and personal messages. 
Because the prisoners are not trusted to speak directly to America, their 
messages are transcribed and edited. The prisoners are forced to say they 
are well-treated. American officers, when they have been required to say 
something flattering about Japan, have produced some meaningless master- 
pieces. C)ne officer, for instance, said only, "Whenever I hear the school- 
children at play across the street, I think of my own dear little Patsy. It is 
gratifying to realize that schoolchildren are the same the world over."" 

Japan is always happy to find useful mouthpieces in the United States 
to carry on her propaganda. In September, 1942, two Americans and one 
British subject were arrested and convicted on the charge of failing to 
register with the State Department as agents of a foreign government. They 
confesseil that the Japanese had agreed to back their publication. The Living 
Age, if they in turn would print at least one article a month favorable to 
Tokyo, and occasionally publish material ground out by the Japanese officials 

*'Ihid.. p. 168. 

""Japs Use U. S. Prisoners for Propaganda," Life, XIII (September 14, \9A2), 26. 



12 The Green Caldron 

at the Consulate.^* The Japanese also attempt to incite United States 
Negroes against their government. Three pro- Japan Negro organizations 
have been uncovered in Chicago. In New York, December, 1942, four 
leaders of the "Ethiopian Pacific Movement" were convicted of sedition and 
conspiracy to commit sedition. ^^ 

As far as the United States is concerned, however, most American ex- 
perts in propaganda agree that the number of people who are affected di- 
rectly by Japanese propaganda is not great, although their potentiality for 
trouble is. Director Lloyd A. Free, of the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring 
Service, has stated that the real danger of Japanese propaganda is "that it 
serves as a model for propaganda circulated by agents and sympathizers 
on the spot — whispering campaigns, pamphlets, platform speeches and the 
like. Thus it reaches a secondary audience whose proportions cannot be 
determined."^® 

Herein lies the difference between the effect of Japanese propaganda in 
the United States and Latin America. In Latin America, experts agree, 
propaganda hits nearer the center of the target. The dominant line that the 
Japanese propagandists employ here is that the "colossus of the North" is 
gobbling up the Latin American economy and that the good neighbor policy 
is simply a blind for Yankee imperialism. President Roosevelt is vilified as a 
power-mad war-monger. The United States is depicted as being under anti- 
Catholic influences and as having ominous designs of destroying Catholicism 
throughout the world. Japanese invasions have been sold as holy crusades for 
the preservation of the faith. The Japanese appeal to Catholics is very 
effective, since Latin Americans are predominately Catholic. It is this line 
of religious appeal that our own propagandists find most difficult to combat. 

The Japanese have proved their skill on the battlefront. In this, their 
propaganda war, they are an enemy no less dangerous and cunning. The job 
of undoing the danger that Japanese propaganda has caused must be fought 
in kind, with words, and supplemented by deeds, 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Beaufort, John. "Japan's Propaganda Front," Christian Science Monitor, April 22, 

1944, p. 3. 
Carter, M. "Short Wave Weapon," Asia, XLII (April, 1942), 248-50. 
"Control of H. Jujino," Fortune, XXIX (April, 1944), 157 ff. 
Ford, M. C. "Jap Propaganda Amuses the Chinese," Colliers, CX (October 17, 

1942), 16-17. 
"Japs' U. S. Mouthpiece," Newstveek, XX (September 14, 1942), 38. 
"Japs Use U. S. Prisoners for Propaganda," Life, XIII (September 14, 1942), 26-29. 

""Japs' U. S. Mouthpiece," Newsweek, XX (September 14, 1942), 38. 

"Menefee, "Japan's Racial War," 203. 

**Cabell Phillips, "War of the Air Waves," The New York Times, December 28, 1941, p. 12. 



March, 1945 13 

Meneff.e, Selden C. "Japan's Gloomy Home Front," Nation, CLVII (November 20, 
1943), 584-585. 

"Japan's Propaganda War." Asia, XLIII (March, 1943), 167-169. 

"japan's Racial War," Nation, CLVI (February 6, 1943), 203. 

"What Tokyo Tells the World," Christian Science Monitor, December 19, 

1942, p. 5. 

Phillips, Cabell. "War of the Air Waves," The New York Times, December 28, 

1941, p. 12. 
"Propaganda by Japanese Puppets," Life, IX (September 30, 1940), 58-60. 
"Slant-eyed Haw Haw," Neu-surek, XIX (February 9, 1942), 36. 



Neutrality — The Only Course 
for Eire 

Muriel Burke 
Rhetoric II, Thentt 8, 1944-1945 

OXE RELATIVELY MINOR POINT WHICH IS BEING 
heatedly discussed is Eire's stand of strict neutrality. Eire has re- 
fused to give aid to the United Nations. She also has refused to 
help (jcrmany or any other enemy nation. Under the strong, able hand of 
Eamon De Valera the Irish Eree State is sailing through these very troubled 
times under what seems to be a very dangerous policy. 

What moral right has Eire to take this rigid stand? Should she yield to 
the demands of the side with which she is most sympathetic? Surely she 
wishes to see defeated the forces that are against the principles the "fighting 
Irish" are famous for. This is the only side of the issue most of us see in our 
arguments against the Irish inaction in this war. 

Justifiable as this stand seems, there is another side to the question. If 
we can only look impartially at the situation Eire is in, we can clearly see the 
reasons for her present attitude. 

Ireland is a small nation, geographically located twenty miles west of 
England. The bases that would so ably serve the United Nations would be 
even more beneficial to Germany. The Nazis, who need only the faintest 
shadow of an excuse to invade, would be very glad to seize upon any aid to 
the United Nations as a break of neutrality. There are only two courses 
open to Eire. One of them is to allow England's army to fortify the coast 
and England's navy to patrol the surrounding waters. The other course is 
to be sure Germany never has the necessary shadow of an excuse. Ireland 



14 The Green Caldron 

struggled against English domination for seven hundred years. It is not 
reasonable for her to give up any of her newly won independence while 
there is any alternative. 

True, it is possible for either England or the United States to overcome 
Eire's small army and her two-ship navy. But it would be awkward for 
either of these two nations to explain such invasion in the light of one of 
the chief principles of the Atlantic Charter. This principle involves the right 
of small nations to exist. One of the chief causes of blame against Germany 
is her invasion of whatever small country it is to her political or military 
advantage to invade. 

Any trade regulation, any partiality to one nation's envoy to another 
nation's disadvantage, any refusal to harbor refugees, any persecution of 
these refugees — in short, any favoring one side and discrediting of the other 
side is considered a breach of neutrality as defined by International Law. 
Most of the attacks against Eire have been made because she refused to give 
up certain naval bases and because she would not refuse to harbor political 
refugees. Yet she could do neither without bringing herself under the attack 
of whatever country her action would harm. 

England's army is full of Irishmen who, as individuals, have enlisted in 
the fight for decency. But these same Irish soldiers in Britain's army would 
defend any attack upon Eire's right to determine her own political and eco- 
nomic advantage. And in the light of ultimate freedom for small nations 
their stand seems justifiable. 



I Liked That Place 

Beverly Haferman 
Rhetoric I, Theme 1, 1944-1945 

BLOOD RUSHED FROM THE GASH RUTH HAD JUST RE- 
ceived from a baseball bat ! The little fellow who had hit her turned 
a sickly green and sat on the ground; I tried helplessly to support 
her when Eckie's voice cut through the panic we had aroused. 

"Put her in a car, and let's take her to the doctor. My gosh! Can't you 
kids see she's bleeding; that thing needs stitches — C'mon !" 

We filed into the car like robots; Wendell got behind the wheel; and it 
seemed to hit all of us, suddenly, that we were four miles from a doctor's 
office; and that cut was bleeding terribly. I shall never forget that ride to 



March, 1945 15 

the doctor's! The car tore up the road; and we swayed from one side to 
another. I was sitting in the back holding a rag over Ruth's head with 
nothing to watch but the coloring of the rag, and the blood slowly moving 
down her face and m}' arm. 

W'c pulled up to the office the same instant the doctor's car arrived, and 
I felt limp with relief. The boys exchanged worried words with the doctor, — 
I heard Harold tell him it was pretty bad. When he told us to bring her in, 
we helped her out of the car as if she were a china doll. Ruth, who hated to 
be babied, greatly resented that soft treatment. 

We brought her into the office and helped her onto the cot. Harold took 
one long look at her white face smeared with blood and retired to the 
waiting room. Wendell, Eckie, and I decided to stay — I had to hold her 
hand. Except for the doctor's one-word commands to his nurse, things were 
very quiet in the office. Since the door was open, we could hear conversation 
in the waiting room. All of us concentrated on the conversation because not 
one of us was really able to watch the actual stitching. 

After Harold's departure we heard him sit down rather abruptly and 
remain quiet for several minutes. Then the real glamor of the situation must 
have hit him l)ecause he began to tell what had happened. 

"The kid swang the bat right into her. She stood there and didn't know 
what had happened. 1 ran up to her and pushed a rag over the cut; you 
could've wrung blood out of it in a couple of minutes. Then I told Wendell 
to start the car, and we brought her in to the doctor's." 

"Where are the rest of the kids?" 

"I don't know, I guess they're in there. I had to have a smoke. I guess 
I he doctor can manage all right." 

In spite of the seriousness we felt, Wendell, Eckie, and I smiled. 
The street door opened as someone entered the waiting room. Harold's 
voice again. 

"Say, you know Ruth Haferman. don't you? She just got hit with a 
baseball bat; knocked her tlat. I saw that she was brought to the doctor's 
because one look at that dent, and I knew it had to be stitched. She'll be 
marked for life — boy, I'll bet Thompson feels plenty awful! He hit her. He 
couldn't even stand to look at it." 

Eckie poked me, and we knew there would be no limit to Harold's tale 
now. It got bloodier with each opening of the door, until I had to look at 
Ruth's face to gain assurance. He had my poor sister nearly dead! 

The stitches were in, and we left. The rest of us felt jellyish, but Harold 
was raring to go — until he saw the bloody bandage. 

Harold fainted! I took Ruth into the car and the boys carried Harold 
back into the office. I was beginning to like that place. 



16 The Green Caldron 

Hidden Memories 

Jane Buescher 

Rhetoric I, Book Report, 1944-1945 

COLONEL LANSER HAD KNOWING EYES. HE DIDN'T 
have the customary blank expression that the soldiers of the invading 
army wore. He was middle-aged, slightly gray, hard-looking. He had 
the bearing of a soldier, but his eyes were different. 

In Steinbeck's The Moon Is Down, the commander of the invaders 
represented the author's idea of a typical German leader in his second 
offensive struggle. Lanser was not the blind, inhuman officer that his col- 
leagues were. He was tired from lack of sleep and numerous worries, but 
he remembered the Belgium and France of twenty years before. He knew 
what war is. 

But even Colonel Lanser realized that he was a soldier with a job to do. 
He tried to put from his mind the horrors, the costly mistakes, the treachery, 
the suffering, the futility. Over and over he attempted to convince himself 
that his task was merely to follow orders, that this war would be different. 
Colonel Lanser was a curious mixture of a man with a mistaken idea of 
democracy, a man who believed in his cause, a sympathetic leader, and a 
man with knowledge of the worth-while things in the world. 

In his talks with the representatives of the conquered people, Lanser 
seemed to be a true leader from a nation where duty to country, blind obedi- 
ence, absolutism, and insignificance of individuals have been drilled into the 
minds of the people. From all outward appearance, he had no idea of the 
true meaning of democracy. When the mayor of the conquered town said 
that people would not like an order of the Colonel, the latter replied, "Always 
the people ! The people are disarmed. The people have no say." He did not 
realize that under the democratic system the people act together as a unified 
authority. 

Colonel Lanser's belief in the physical power of his country never 
flinched as he talked to the conquered men. He told them that resistance was 
foolish and that it caused needless bloodshed. On the surface, he seemed to 
believe this point of view, but in conferences with his subordinate officers 
he showed definite signs of being skeptical. Beneath his veneer of assured- 
ness, he couldn't help remembering Belgium and France. When, in private 
quarters, his officers boasted of mastery of the land, the Colonel reminded 
them that the enemy was still in the world. He recalled what the others 
forgot. In trying to instill this same feeling in his men, he said, "Defeat 



March, 1945 17 

is a momentary thing. A defeat doesn't last. We were defeated and now 
we attack. Defeat means nothing. Can't you understand that?" 

Once one of Lanser's men dared to insinuate that he was afraid. The 
leader, remembering scenes and people that were not good to remember, 
made the significant remark, "I'm tired of people who have not been at war 
who know all about it." All the officers were more restrained, more resource- 
ful, than their men, but deep within their souls lurked the same fears, 
strains, weaknesses. The sound of enemy airplanes cracked their spirits 
within, but on the outside they remained confident. 

At times, Colonel Lanser admitted to himself the shortcomings of his 
superiors. He found himself hoping frantically that the Leader actually 
knew how soldiers felt. He had no choice but to obey his orders, even though 
the high command didn't seem to realize what he gradually came to know — 
that the conquered nation was not made up of stupid people. "I'm a good, 
loyal man," he once said, "but sometimes when I hear the brilliant ideas of 
head(|uarters, I wish I were a civilian, an old, crippled civilian." 

Regardless of his personal feelings about the conduct of the war, and 
war itself. Colonel I^nser showed remarkable qualities of leadership toward 
his men. He knew how they felt; he had been under the same pressure 
twenty years before, and it was not something he could forget. He tried to 
make them see, as he did, that there are no friendly people, no peaceful 
country, when homes and lives of families are at stake. He wanted them to 
realize their own inabilities, but he also had the capacity to project himself 
into their places. 

Lanser could relax when he talked to his men. He was quick to see the 
humor in a situation, and his chuckle often put the officers at ease. He was 
as ready to praise as he was to reprimand. He demanded respect when he 
thought it was necessary but usually dispensed with formality. His greatest 
attril)ute as a leader was his readiness to grasp a situation, diagnose it, and 
act accordingly. He knew each of his men so intimately that he could easily 
help them overcome their misgivings. When asked why he was rough on 
one of the olTicers, he explained, "I had to be. He's frightened. I know his 
kind. He has to be disciplined when he's afraid or he'll go to pieces. He 
relies on discipline the way other men rely on sympathy." When Lanser's 
men became sullen or belligerent, he often knew what was troubling them 
before they expressed their troubles. In several kind and well-chosen words, 
he doctored up war-shattered minds and gave assurance to his men. 

Because of prevalent propaganda, we are apt to regard the invading 
soldier as a beast having no characteristics of a human being. The charac- 
terization of Colonel Lanser dispels this theory, for even he has regard for 
the manly courtesies of life. When forced to execute a man of the conquered 
city, he felt genuinely sorry and expressed his sympathy by giving the victim 



18 The Green Caldron 

freedom to speak his mind before he went to his death. In the concluding 
chapter of the book he also showed an appreciation and knowledge of 
literature. 

He was a man of suppressed memories. He, alone of the officers, had the 
ability to see beyond the conquering and slaughtering which was his job. 
Colonel Lanser had knowing eyes. He had the bearing of a soldier, but his 
eyes were different. 

Into the Storm 

Richard Shifrin 
Rhetoric I, Theme 2, 1944-1945 

IT WAS A BITTER NOVEMBER NIGHT THAT I STEPPED 
into as I left the warm house. From the inky-black sky above a chilling 
rain was falling. The icy droplets were being whipped by a piercing 
wind, which rattled the windows of the houses and whistled with an un- 
earthly sound through the barren trees standing like gaunt skeletons. By the 
dim yellowish light of a solitary street lamp, I could make out the naked 
branches outstretched to the heavens, with an occasional dead brown leaf 
remaining as a vestige of summer foliage. Below the gnarled old trunks, the 
twisted roots could be seen clinging tenaciously to their hold in the frozen 
soil. The group was covered with a coating of cold, muddy slime stirred Up 
by the rain; it would be frozen solid and covered with frost well before 
morning. 

The sidewalks and street, beaten clean by the rain of everything except 
several muddy foqtprints left by the few persons with the hardihood to 
venture out on such a night, and dotted with little puddles into which the 
raindrops splashed as they fell, were practically deserted. At infrequent 
intervals, an automobile came dashing over the rain-swept pavement, its 
headlights gleaming like those of some nocturnal monster. Even more rarely, 
I could discern the shadowy silhouette of an unusually bold pedestrian loom- 
ing up out of the murky gloom; looking closely, I could notice his head bent 
forward into the blast of the wind and could hear above the weather the 
shrill whistling with which he attempted to keep up his spirits on this 
wild night. 

As the mournful whistle of the midnight train drifted through the storm, 
I forced my mind away from the squares of bright yellow light shining 
through the windows and the thoughts of warmth and shelter they suggest. 
Turning up my collar in a hopeless attempt to protect myself against the 
biting wind, I set out on my lonely tramp through the night. 



March, 1945 19 

Country — Sunday Morning 

Jane Buescher 
Rhetoric I, Theme 2, 1944-1945 



I 



rTP^ME PEOPLE SQUINTED AS THE SUNLIGHT BROUGHT 
back a sense of reality to their stiff bodies and dulled minds. There 
were a few who walked down the church steps with renewed vigor 
and resolution, but Mr. Wagner, the preacher, had not put enough zest into 
his sermon to inspire the majority of his congregation. 

After the service was over, the day itself did much toward arousing the 
spirits of the country folk. The summer had not yet reached that still stage 
when branches cease to quiver, the air hangs like black velvet, and conversa- 
tion is carried on in muftled tones. A soft breeze crackled the Sunday School 
papers, and Grandma Barrett put on her jacket. 

The congregation always stood around in the churchyard and talked 
following the benediction. If Mrs. Koenig should find it necessary to go 
home and fry the chicken before her husband had talked to his friends, the 
farmer would consider his day incomplete. The church bell clanged once, 
filling the air with its vibration, and then again, again, again. In tight bunches 
gathered women of varied ages — some had attended school together fifty 
years bef(jre but still delighted in sharing confidences. Farmers, their 
leathery faces and hands protruding from neatly-pressed suits, discussed the 
need for rain. Near a gnarled elm stood a scattered group of little girls 
taking care that their clothes did not become soiled. One tiny blonde, who 
was the proud possessor of new patent leather slippers from Kixmiller's 
General Store, would stoop down and dust them ever}- few minutes with a 
crumpled while handkerchief. A group of high school girls gazed admiringly 
at Joe Miller's boy, who had a fourteen-day leave from the Navy. Most of 
the fellows from Freelandville had joined the Army. 

r.ut it was the multitude of little boys that least noticed their change in 
attire. To them it did not matter that their calloused feet were clad in 
0.\ fords, that their ears were scrubbed clean, that they wore Sunday suits in 
place of sweaty overalls. Unlike the legendary urban youth, they didn't 
stand in a corner and shift their weight from one foot to the other. They 
laughed and they shouted. They tripped each other, and they whistled at 
the older girls. These future farmers, who worked in the fields with the men 
all week, took time to be children. 

Then others were laughing, planning, arguing. The people were becoming 
accustomed to the sound of the bell. Mr. Grabbe began to crank his 
model T, and the motor hesitantly started, then shook the car so violently 



M 



20 The Green Caldron 

that Mrs. Grabbe almost flew out. The crowd thinned somewhat, as several 
families crossed the road and drove from the field that served as a 
parking place. 

The cars began to leave more steadily, and a few men started trudging 
up the hill toward town. The last car to go turned into the cemetery lane; 
white gravel crunched beneath the tires. The church bell pealed three more 
times; then all was still. 

The sexton slowly pulled shut the heavy church door and shuffled down 
the dusty road. 

Adelaide M. 

Lois Rudnik 

Rhetoric I, Theme 6, 1944-1945 

ISS ADELAIDE M. WATKINS, INSTRUCTOR OF 
English and supervisor of the school newspaper, is one of the most 
picturesque individuals on the faculty of Tohee Township High 
School. She is short and dumpy, with small, colorless eyes set close together 
in a round, wrinkled face. Her graying hair is short and curly, and she often 
runs her pudgy fingers through it so that it stands on end. She is careless 
about her clothes: her dresses are often ill-fitting, and their colors are seldom 
harmonious. Miss Watkins is proud of her posture. She steps briskly through 
the halls, her head up and her shoulders back, her hair shaking from the 
force of her walking. Because most of her weight is concentrated above her 
waist, she sometimes resembles a top-heavy sailing vessel scudding along 
before a high wind. 

Miss Watkins has a reputation for eccentricity, and she does her best to 
live up to it. She is admired by high school journalism instructors through- 
out the state for her superior teaching ability, business acumen, faculty for 
criticism, and capacity for hard work. She is also known for her cleverness, 
brilliant sarcasm, and ability to project herself. She believes in teaching by 
surprise. When asked by the assistant news-writing teacher to explain some- 
thing to his class, she bursts into the room, states in a few terse sentences 
the information which the man has been trying to put across for the entire 
hour, crisply exclaims, "God bless you, my children !" sets her lips in a thin, 
straight line, and vanishes with a sharp click of the door. 

Nothing pleases her so much as a well-written theme or a newspaper 
article showing signs of originality or creativeness. She likes to read aloud 
and often submits her classes to the slow torture of her cracked voice and 



March, 1945 21 

exaggerated, dramatic emphases. She is proud of her ability to produce a 
good newspaper, and is never reticent about telling the staff members its 
faults, and other people, its merits. 

A streak of childishness in Miss Watkins' nature mars her character. 
She is absurdly sensitive, and sulks for days if her staff forgets about her 
birthday. Her favorite students can do no wrong, while those she dislikes 
can justify their e.xistence only by writing good themes. She is often tactless 
and needlessly insulting when she intends only to live up to her reputation 
for eccentricity. Something about Miss Watkins leads one to think she may 
be covering up feelings of inferiority by determinedly maneuvering for the 
limelight. She works hard for attention, and often tells her troubles to her 
favorite students, mutely demanding sympathy. 

The student members of the newspaper staff show a variable regard for 
her. The newer reporters look up to her with awe, worshipping her almost 
as they would a goddess. She holds their literary futures in her hands, and 
to them she is a supreme being. The older students know her better; they 
have seen her faults as well as her virtues. To them she is known familiarly 
as "Addie." They mentally disagree with all she says, and it is fashionable 
to dislike "Adelaide M." 

Most people who are closely associated with Miss Watkins admire the 
woman, no matter how often they alternately despise, admire, hate, respect, 
and fear her. The dynamic force of her personality cannot be ignored, and 
one must respect her boundless energ)-. I worked with Miss Watkins for 
years, sometimes loving her, often hating her. Although it is easier to think 
kindly of her when she is at a distance, she will always remain one of the 
most unforgettable characters I have ever known. 

The Common Bond 

Shriek .... a shrill, sharp blast pierced the air. Two seconds later masses 
of scurrying people hurried toward the outskirts of the town. Their goal was 
the hills beyond that rose majestically out of the horizon and seemingly offered 
protective covering. 

Quietly and solemnly the crowd gathered in the caves called air raid shelters. 
Each entered and nodded mechanically to those around him; each took his place 
against the walls; and each began to feel himself strengthened by a common fate. 

The ominous roaring and purring of far-off engines brought instant silence. 
Everyone groped for someone else's hand, hopefully seeking and drawing courage 
and energy from human contact. 

As each thunderous blast shook the earth, the walls of the cave trembled 
and the crowd pressed closer. Then, just when the strain seemed about to snap, 
the welcome gong sounded the "all-clear." 

The crowd filed slowly out and again each nodded to his neighbors, a nod 
of understanding and gratitude. — Betty Lee Sing 



22 The Green Caldron 

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra 

Caroline A. Barrett 
Rhetoric II, Theme 12, 1944-1945 

IT HAS OFTEN BEEN SAID THAT THE VIENNA PHILHAR- 
monic was the world's finest orchestra. Perhaps this is true — who can 
say? It is true that Germany has produced the world's greatest musicians. 
And as a center of German culture since late mediaeval times, Vienna had 
for centuries occupied an influential place in the musical life of Europe. 
Haydn as a boy was a chorister in Vienna's St. Stephen's. Schubert was born 
in Vienna, Mozart lived there, and Beethoven gained his fame when he 
came from Bonn to the Austrian capital. Both Czerny and Otto Nicolai were 
Viennese, and Brahms lived there for thirty-four years. ^ The orchestra 
certainly had excellent musicians. The members were recruited from the 
Kaiserliche and Konigliche Hofoperntheater, with only a few artists from 
elsewhere hired to complete the sections.^ 

At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was great need for music 
in Vienna. The great lords had about played out their parts as patrons, 
and their small orchestras were by no means up to the new music. The 
new music itself had appealed to the people, but it seems that no one 
had thought to organize an adequate orchestra to present the great sym- 
phonies. It certainly did not bother the Beethoven fans, or anyone for that 
matter, that there was no great organization to interpret the music. Bee- 
thoven's and Mozart's works were performed by well-meaning dilettanti. The 
playing of the orchestras was confused at best — it is improbable that much 
thought was given to the music. A concert was entered into with a spirit of 
adventure; it was a gay affair in which almost anything could happen.^ 

In Thayer's biography of Beethoven there is a description of the first 
performance of the Ninth Symphony, which Beethoven himself conducted. 
Or, rather, he beat time and turned the pages of his score. Beethoven was 
stone deaf, and the orchestra (all of seventy-five players) had been instructed 
to take its cues from the concertmaster. At the end of the scherzo the audi- 
ence burst into applause, but Beethoven stood, still turning the pages of his 
score, until a friend turned him around to bow. Imagine what the per- 
formance must have been like, despite the applause. To grasp the musical 
standards of Beethoven's time, picture a first performance of a new 
symphony by a great modern composer at which a deaf man is placed on the 
conductor's stand. The average concert of today has a perfection and a 

'"Vienna," The Encyclopaedia Americana, 1943 Edition, V. 28. 
'Heinrich von Kralik, Die Wiener Philharmoniker (Vienna, 1938), p. 20. 
*Ihid., p. 11. 



March, 1945 23 

beauty that would have been inconceivable to an eighteenth-century audience. 
The great masters never really heard the works which we take for granted.* 
It was the Beethoven symphonies which were responsible for the organi- 
zation of Vienna's great orchestra. Otto Nicolai, conductor of the Vienna 
Opera Orchestra, founded the Vienna Philharmonic Society in 1842 for the 
purpose of giving adequate performances in Vienna of the Beethoven 
symphonies. The first concert was presented on the Monday after Easter, 
March 28, 1842, in the grand Redouten-Saale in which Beethoven had 
conducted the out-of-tune woodwinds, raucous brasses, and dreary strings 
of the orchestras of his day.' The first program: 

Beethoven: Seventh Symphony in A 
Chcrubini: Aria from "Fanisca" 
Beethoven: ".Xh pcrfido, spcrgiuro !" 

INTERMISSION 

Beethoven: Third "Leonore" Overture 

Mozart: "Non tcmcr, amato bene" 

16th Cen. Melody: "La Romanesca" 

Cherubini: Duet from "Medea" 

Beethoven: Overture "Consecration of the House" 

The orchestra was. of course, conducted by Nicolai." 

For many years the Philharmonic concerts were highly irregular affairs, 
resting solely on the initiative of men like Xicolai and Professor Hellmes- 
berger (director of the opera after Xicolai's death). Not until January 15, 
1860, was the first subscription concert given, with Karl Eckert conducting. 
The season consisted of eight subscription concerts and one special concert 
for the benefit of the orchestra's i)ension fund.^ 

During its entire history the Vienna Philharmonic Society remained 
truly "philharmonic." The meml)ers did not earn their livelihood from the 
concerts — they were all either members of the opera orchestra or professors 
at the Conservatory. The concerts were a monument to the members' love of 
music. Conductors led the orchestra by invitation only — no manager closed 
the deal in his office. And in the course of time virtually every great name 
in the history of conducting led the Philharmonic' 

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra's first great era began in 1875, when 
Hans Richter succeeded Franz Jauner as director of the opera and leader of 
the Philharmonic concerts. Richter had been a chorister in the Court Chapel 
in Vienna, and was one of the most richly gifted and most experienced of 

*Deems Taylor, 0/ Men and Music (New York, 1938). p. 70. 
'Heinrich von Kralik, op. cit., p. 16. 
*Ibid., plate facing page 20. 

"'Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra," Groi'e s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Re- 
vised Edition, 5. 
'Richard von Perger, Denkschrift, 1910. 



24 The Green Caldron 

conductors. His interpretation of Wagner and Brahms was supreme.^ Be- 
cause he was such an outstanding Wagnerian, there was some anxiety that 
he might depart from the conservative traditions of the Philharmonic 
Society. Such anxiety was groundless, however, and Richter's regime was an 
outstanding period. His first concert in 1875 and his last concert in 1898 
featured Beethoven's great "Eroica" Symphony. ^° 

During the Richter era, the Brahms-Bruckner conflict arose and subsided. 
In March, 1863, Brahms himself led the orchestra in his first Serenade, fol- 
lowing an argument in which Dessoif (conductor from 1860 to 1875) drove 
his baton through the score and stormed out of the rehearsal. When Brahms 
undertook the rehearsal he calmed the orchestra with the following short 
speech: "Sie haben mein Werk abgelehnt und ich kann Ihnen nur sagen, 
wenn Sie Vergleiche mit Beethoven ziehen wollen: eine solche Hohe wird 
nicht mehr erreicht werden. Aber mein Werk ist hervorgegangen aus meiner 
besten kiinsterlischen Uberzeugung. Vielleicht werden Sie doch sehen, dass 
es nicht ganz unwert ist, von Ihnen gespielt zu werden. "^^ In November, 1873, 
Brahms directed the orchestra in the premiere of his Haydn Variations. 
Under Richter's baton came the first performances of the Second and Third 
Symphonies. 

Richard Wagner led the Philharmonic on several occasions; one of the 
most notable performances was that of May 12, 1872. The Program: 
Beethoven: Eroica 

INTERMISSION 

Wagner: Overture and Venusberg Music, "Tannhauser" 
Wagner: Prelude and Liebestod, "Tristan und Isolde" 
Wagner: Wotan's Farewell and Magic Fire Music, "Die 
Walkiire" 

Following Hans Richter, came Gustav Mahler in the fall of 1898. By 
unremitting zeal and tireless enthusiasm he brought the Viennese opera and 
symphony orchestra to a high state of perfection, but the strenuous work 
which he exacted from all earned him the title of "tyrant" and made him 
many enemies. Mahler began his reign, like Hans Richter, with the "Eroica." 
At that concert, his imperious nature was already evident: late comers were 
left outside locked doors, and those who attempted to leave after the scherzo 
of the "Eroica" were foiled as Mahler gave the signal for the finale's 
tumultuous intrata immediately. 

"'Hans Richter," The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, V. 23. 
"Heinrich von Kralik, op. cit., p. 39. 

"Ibid., p. 32. You have spumed my composition, and I can say to you only that when 
you make comparison with Beethoven, such heights will never again be attained. Yet 
my work was produced from my sincerest artistic conviction. Perhaps, indeed, you will 
see that it is not entirely unworthy of performance. 



March, 1945 25 

Felix von Weingartner, who became conductor of the opera and phil- 
harmonic in 1908, did not have a particularly happy career. He said that 
taking of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra post had caused him many 
disappointments. Never before had a conductor been welcomed with such 
sincerity, hut Weingartner felt the people disliked him.^^ Nevertheless, only 
Weingartner could have been able to return the orchestra to the age of 
DessoflF and Richter, and the philharmonic concerts rose to unequalled 
heights under his direction from 1908 to 1927. Professor Burghauser 
(former first oboist and president of the Philharmonic Society) claims that 
Weingartner had no equal as a conductor of Beethoven, though he had short- 
comings in the modern idioms. Columbia Masterworks has recorded all of 
the Beethoven symphonies with Weingartner conducting, and only Toscanini 
performances can approach the incomparable W^eingartner readings of these 
s\Tnphonies. 

During the twenties and thirties, the list of Philharmonic conductors in- 
cluded — besides Weingartner — Richard Strauss, Franz Schalk, Wilhelm 
Furtwangler, Willem Mengelberg, Klemcns Krauss, Hans Knappertsbusch, 
Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, Erich Kleiber, and Arturo Toscanini — to 
mention only the most celebrated names. 

Tours were given all over Europe, and in 1922 the Vienna Philharmonic 
Orchestra made a concert tour of South America. Austria, at that time, was 
in danger of being swallowed up by larger nations; so, although Vienna 
missed her magnificent orchestra, the sacrifice was greatly compensated for 
by the goodwill gained in America. Weingartner himself made all of the ar- 
rangements. Performances were given at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de 
Janeiro, the Teatro Solis in Montevideo, and the Teatro Colon in Buenos 
Aires. The tour lasted three months, and ever>'Avhere the performances were 
great triumphs." In Buenos Aires the Philharmonic presented Wagner's 
"Ring" operas with such famous singers as Lotte Lehmann, Helene Wild- 
brunn. and Alice Mertens. Serious German music was accepted with under- 
standing in South America, and the newspapers were especially enthusiastic." 

As the orchestra had every reason to be satisfied with the artistic as well 
as the material success of the trip, another tour was arranged the next year. 
Walto Mocchi and Arthur Hohenberg made plans this time, for Weingartner 
(lid not go on this journey. Richard Strauss was the conductor, and the 
Strauss works had first place on the programs. Armin Tyroler, then oboist 
of the Vienna Philharmonic, wrote a colorful travelogue which he presented 
in \'ienna after the tour. He told the story of the orchestra's playing a con- 

"Ibid., p. 78. 

"C. F. Pohl, Festschrift (Leipsig, 1925), p. 61. 

"Heinrich von Kralik, op. cit., p. 85. 



26 The Green Caldron 

cert in Bahia although the conductor, Richard Strauss, had already sailed for 
home. Professor Wunderer was elected to conduct the orchestra. Wunderer, 
mistaken for Strauss, received such a tremendous ovation that he and his 
colleagues could not bear to disillusion the audience by telling them that the 
marvelous performance was led by Wunderer instead of the famous Richard 
Strauss. ^^ 

In later years, the Vienna Philharmonic Society began the custom of 
awarding the title "Honor Member" to outstanding conductors, soloists, and 
patrons. Five conductors achieved this honor: Weingartner, Richard Strauss, 
Furtwangler, Walter, and Toscanini. Richard Mayr, who for decades sang 
the great bass solo part in every performance of the Beethoven "Ninth," 
Elisabeth Schumann, Lotte Lehmann, Emil von Sauer, and Wilhelm Back- 
haus were soloists awarded the title. Only one member of the orchestra held 
an "honor-membership": Arnold Rose, the patriarch of the Orchestra. In 
1881 he entered as a violin player. In 1884 he was second concertmaster, 
and following Jacob Griin's death, he became first concertmaster — a position 
he held until the end, in 1938. 

The Philharmonic's subscription concerts were continued without inter- 
ruption until the sixteenth of January, 1938, at which concert Bruno Walter 
conducted Mahler's Ninth Symphony. The concert scheduled for the twen- 
tieth of February was cancelled because of the Nazi unrest. In March the 
Nazis arrived and the old Philharmonic Society broke up. The Nazis have 
continued to hold "Philharmonic" concerts, having collected enough addi- 
tional musicians to replace the Jews who were released and the members 
who could not tolerate the new rulers. Those who remained with the or- 
chestra are the true musicians who refused to allow political situations to 
concern them. Hugo Burghauser is now in this country, as is Friedlander, 
who plays with the Pro Arte Quartet. Hans Knappertsbusch is supposed to 
have conducted the Nazi concerts for some time. Though he was not in 
sympathy with the Nazis, he had a tremendous personal following which they 
could not alienate. Willem Furtwangler conducts the Berlin Philharmonic 
Orchestra and, quite possibly, some of the Vienna concerts also. 

There may never be another orchestra with the grand traditions of the 
Vienna Philharmonic Society. Although we shall probably have finer or- 
chestras in the future, the old orchestra members live in the glory of their 
past and remember the words from "Palestrina": "We are the descendants 
of those who were educated by Beethoven. Above the sound of our orchestra 
Brahms and Bruckner wrote their symphonies. Great composers and con- 
ductors have taught and led us. But we know that the roots of our strength 
lie in our native city, Vienna." 

''Ibid., p. 86. 



March, 1945 27 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

"Hans Richter," The Encyclopaedia Brxtannica, Eleventh Edition, V. 23. 
Krai.ik, Hf.inkicii von. Die IVietter Philharmoniker. Vienna: Wilhelm Frick, 1938. 
Percer, Richard von. Denkschrift. 1910. 
PoHL, C. F. Festschrift. Leipsig, 1925. 

Taylor, Dee.ms. Of Men and Music. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1938. 
"Vienna," The Encyclopaedia Americana, 1943 Edition, V. 28. 

"Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra," Croze's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Third 
Edition, V. 6. 

Rejuvenate the ASTRP 

I'vt. Calvin Ryan 
A. ST. English 62, Theme 9, 1944-1945 



T 



rrr^HE ASTRP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS IS TURN- 
ing, or shall I say has turned, out to be a big joke. As far as most 
of the teachers and civilian students are concerned, the ASTRP is 
composed of a grouj) of so-called "dummies," or "kids" of seventeen years. 
I am strongly in favor of revising the ASTRP, so that the teachers and 
especially the civilian college students would look up to anyone who is in 
the i)r()gram. 

The first step toward revision would be to make the qualifying test much 
more tiifficult. There are entirely too many men in the Army program who 
should still be in high school. If the (|uali lying test were made harder, the 
Army would then have the "cream of the crop," and a goal might be made 
for those who complete the course successfully. 

My second step toward revision of the program would be to raise and 
set a certain grade standanl. What good is a man going to be to the Army 
if he gets all "D's" in college? One- fourth of the students here get "D's" in 
two or three classes a semester. Therefore I believe that a student who is in 
the ASTRP should be compelled to make a "C" average. 

My last step toward revising the ASTRP would be to require strict 
discipline at all times. Have you ever noticed how the ASTRP boys march 
on the campus? They walk along whistling at girls, making wisecracks at 
civilians and fellow men — and all out of step too. I've often wondered 
whether the ASTR's are boy scouts or soldiers. I'm sure that if the Army 
made them march in military fashion, the University of Illinois would 
really be proud of its ASTRP unit. 

If all three of my suggestions were enforced, I'm confident that the 
college students and teachers would look up to anyone in the ASTRP, and 
it would be an honor to be chosen to go to college under the Army's super- 
vision. And any student who attended college under the Army would be a 
greater asset to the Army, to his country, and most of all, to himself. 



28 The Green Caldron 

Powder Monkey'' in an Office* 

June Nixon 
Rhetoric I, Theme 5, 1944-1945 

HE WAS AN OLD MAN, WITH PALE, RHEUMY EYES AND 
a three-day stubble of white beard on his martyred, bovine face. On 
his unkempt white head he wore an ancient hunting cap that no 
longer pretended to possess color, and on his frail shoulders hung an old 
Mackinaw, so dirty its plaid was no longer distinguishable; his trousers 
seemed to be stiff with grease and grime, and his shoes (safety shoes, fur- 
nished by the company) were apparently the only durable things he owned. 

"Yes, sir?" I asked, with a minimum of politeness and a maximum of 
patience and waited for him to find words with which to state his business. 

"This the in — shar'nce office?" he queried huskily and with pseudo- 
timidity. In his near-sighted old eyes gleamed an innate suspicion of all 
stenographers, and his mouth, weakened with age, curled down at the corners 
in stubborn defiance. 

"Yes, sir," I stated and waited again. 

"I been off sick." 

"You want to make claim for disability benefits?" I asked wickedly, 
knowing the words would mean nothing to him. He nodded his head with 
the sunny optimism of his class, that believes a positive answer will eventu- 
ally get results. 

"Do you have group insurance?" I asked. Once more he nodded, but 
past experience cautioned me to make a thorough check on his statement. 
I squinted at his badge to find out his name and clock number, and looked 
for his record card in the file. That checked. 

"How long were you ill?" I inquired. 

"I been sick 'bout a month." 

"Were you absent from work all that time?" 

"I been off four days now." 

"Have you returned to work yet?" 

"I'm goin' back this shift; doctor says I can." I set my jaw firmly and 
prepared to disillusion the poor fellow. 

"I'm sorry, sir," I explained, with all the kindness I could muster, "but 
you won't be able to collect any benefits, since you have to be absent from 
work for more than a week." 

"But I been sick!" 

"I'm sorry, but your policy specifically states that you cannot collect 

*Note: "Powder Monkey" is an uncomplimentary name for a munitions worker. 



March, 1945 29 

benefits unless you have missed more than seven days' work. If you'll read 
your policy carefully. . . ." He turned dumbly away and shuffled out of the 
office. He wasn't angry or resentful; but I knew too well the dumb submis- 
siveness with which he accepted the stem decrees of the Powers-That-Be, 
typified in this instance by a humble clerk in an insurance office. 

Angrily and impatiently I returned to my typing and hit a wrong key 
with a vicious splat! I hated myself for having had to crush the old man's 
hopes, and I hated him because I realized I probably felt more poignantly 
about the incident than he did. I reached for an eraser and began briskly to 
rub out my error. 

"Damn!" I thought wrathfully. "Why do these people have to be so 
ignorant !" 



There Is a Dark Side 

Jesse Davies 

Rhetoric I. Theme 11. 1944-1S>45 

IF THE ATTITUDE OF THE SOLDIERS WHO ARE FIGHTING 
this war was as bad as that of many of the workers in the munitions 
plant where I was employed, we would now all be heiling Hitler and 
watching his goosesteppers march down Fifth Avenue and Wall Street. The 
attitude was like a plague, spreading among the workers; it seemed that only 
the administrative branch escaped. Those affected didn't "give a damn" 
about their jobs or the production goals. W'hen part of the plant shut down 
because of lack of materials, the workers cheered and hopetl that the shut- 
down would last a long time. During the cheering no one thought about the 
amount of explosives that could be produced during the time the shutdown 
would last. The amount was large, the need for the explosives great, and 
yet they cheered and joked about the coming short vacation with pay. 

This feeling was responsible for many costly accidents. One welder lost 
both his legs because he neglected to inspect the pipe he was welding. The 
pipe was filled with T.N.T. that exploded from the heat of his torch. An 
explosion costing the government several million dollars would not have 
happened if an operator had not dozed off during the monotony of his 
repeated operations. As it happened, he was adding the acids and other 
ingredients when he fell asleep. He awoke suddenly, looked with horror at 
his temperature gauge, and fled from the building. The resulting explosion 



30 The Green Caldron 

cost the plant one-twelfth of its former production. I can remember clearly 
the screams of a man who was being drenched in fuming sulphuric acid. A 
workman on the previous shift had reversed the connections on the unload- 
ing pipes of a tank car filled with acid, causing a great pressure to be built 
up inside the car. When the air vent was released, acid, not air, came out, 
and caught the worker in the gusher of 109 percent acid. He paid dearly 
for the careless attitude of another. 

A person not understanding the conditions under which the men worked 
probably wonders why such an attitude existed. Perhaps some of the causal 
factors can be seen by comparing the two years 1941 and 1944. In 1941 
living costs were not very high, rates of pay for the workers were good, 
and the work was not too hard because there wasn't the manpower shortage 
there is now. In 1944, however, living costs went high, the rates of pay 
remained the same, and there was three times as much work because of 
speeded up production and labor shortage. Another thing to discourage the 
worker was the fact that women were being hired and placed in the jobs 
that would otherwise give promotions to men. The women were paid less; 
so the men could not claim seniority rights. This, perhaps, caused more ill 
feeling between the managers and the workers than any other factor, 
although there were many more. ]\Ien who worked double shifts, or sixteen- 
hour shifts, so that production could be maintained despite the labor short- 
age, ate in the plant cafeteria because they could not carry enough food in 
their lunch boxes to last them. The white collar workers eating there resented 
their presence and an order was issued that the operators, or common 
workers, would have to eat in the area of their jobs. The food was brought 
to them from the cafeteria in trucks and on the way it became cold and 
undesirable. This unfair discrimination between the "white collars," or ad- 
ministrative workers, and the operators was never to be forgotten, and it 
also added to the growing friction between management and operation. 

The company operating the plant was continually contradicting its aims. 
For instance, safety first was the topic of mass meetings and much emphasis 
was placed on the workers' welfare and safety. In contrast, the company 
seldom acknowledged safety suggestions from the workers. The company 
did quite well in keeping operating costs down by restricting promotions 
and carefully checking time cards, but they lost more than they gained 
through the wasting of material. T.N.T. was shipped to distant parts in 
white pine boxes and the empty boxes were sent back for re-use. Instead of 
being re-used, however, the boxes were burned by carload lots. Then during 
an acute shortage of boxes the plant lost time and the result was the plant's 
failure to meet the goals during the invasion of France when explosives 
were badly needed. 



March, 1945 31 

Most war plants were built on the cost-plus basis. The contractor building 
the plant received a percentage above the cost of construction. This resulted 
in the wasting of much money and material that is very difficult to get 
today. I once saw a crazy thing happen. I saw a bulldozer covering over a 
deep trench filled with kegs of copper nails, fireproof slate siding used on 
buildings, sheets of half-inch lead used for the floors of buildings, and tons 
of steel pipe used to convey acid. This material cannot be bought by every- 
one today and its cost is enormous. Buildings were torn down and rebuilt 
because they were not spaced properly to the exact foot. Bridges were blasted 
and rebuilt because they did not line up with their roads when the roads were 
built at a later time. The American people's money flowed as freely as the 
Kankakee River that cut through the plant. 

It is little w'onder the workers hesitate before signing up for war bonds. 
It is little wonder, also, that the workers complain about their income tax, 
and try to cut it down wherever possible; for it is difficult to stand by and 
see your own money squandered. I have not tried to justify the attitude of 
the worker, for I realize the fact that any attitude that is a hindrance to our 
war eflfort is unjustifiable. I have, instead, tried to bring out some plausible 
causes and results of this attitude. I have tried to explain that the workers 
were embittered by the unfairness and dishonesty of a modern industry. 



Uncle's Last Fling 

Mary Lou Rohling 
Rhetoric I, Thnw 4, 1944-1945 

i:\ .MV FATHER WAS A BOY OF TEN, HIS OLDEST 
and wealthiest uncle, Emile, a gay old blade of fifty-six, loosed his 
earthly bonds and flew with the angels toward the pearly gates (we 
hope!). Before his death, Uncle Emile had specified that his mortal remains 
were to be cremated. Under no other circumstances were his nephews to 
receive a penny of his money. 

As there were no crematories in Holland at the turn of the century, his 
body had to be shipped across the border into France for cremation. A week 
after the shipment had been made, my father's older brothers, William. Jan, 
and Lucien. left for France to bring Uncle back to his final resting place, 
a tiny shelf in the family mausoleum. 




32 The Green Caldron 

The trip to Roubaix was uneventful. They saw the morgue-keeper, paid 
him the fee, and were given a rather large bottle which, they were told, 
contained all that was left of Uncle Emile. William observed that there was 
still half an hour before train time. Accordingly they made their way to 
a small cafe. There, in its dimly lighted, smoky interior, they proposed a 
toast to Uncle Emile, who, in his place of honor under the table, could 
scarcely be expected to appreciate their sentiments. They talked awhile, 
smoked a cigar, and then, discovering that they had but a few minutes in 
which to catch the train, grabbed their hats and coats and dashed hurriedly 
down the street to the station, each thinking that the other had the bottle 
containing Uncle's ashes. Poor Emile, lonely and forlorn, lay in state, still 
under the table. 

By the time the train reached Belgium, the boys had discovered their 
error and made arrangements with the conductor for the return trip. After 
what seemed endless hours they reached Roubaix once more. They ran up 
the little side street and into the cafe. The bottle was gone ! They accosted 
the waiter and, in their excitement, demanded to know where Uncle Emile 
was. After the preliminary confusion, during which the waiter furiously 
denied ever knowing Uncle Emile, William explained that they were looking 
for his ashes, in a bottle. Leading them to the back room of the cafe, the 
waiter pointed out the metal tubs where the empty bottles were discarded 
and told them to look for Emile there, if they chose. 

After an anxious ten-minute search, they found the bottle, or rather what 
was left of it, broken, in one of the tubs. Uncle Emile was strewn all over 
the bottom of the tub. William instructed Jan to search for another suitable 
receptacle while Lucien and he gathered up the ashes. Jan returned in' a 
moment with what he termed "the most appropriate bottle" he could find. 
They placed the ashes in it and returned with them to Holland. 

When questioned by my grandfather about the propriety of such a con- 
tainer for Emile's remains, the boys answered that Uncle wanted it that way. 
So now no one thinks it's queer to walk into the famih^ vault and see on a 
shelf in the back a bottle plainly marked: Chateau Yauem, 1883 (the best 
sauterne in all France), and under this label a gold-letter placard: 

Bernard Emile Berger 
1846-1902 
May his spirit rest in peace. 
Amen. 



W: 



March, 1945 33 

The Gentle Soul 

Paul Olson 
Rhetoric I, Theme 3, 1944-1945 

HKX MY SISTER HELEN CAME RUNNING HOME AND 
told us the news about Carrie Syler, I guess we made more 
noise than at last year's Fourth of July picnic. It was too exciting 
to keep still about. Carrie had gotten married ! 

There wasn't one of us who didn't think she was the kindest lady in the 
world, next to our own mother, and I know we weren't the only ones in 
West Hancock who thought so. She lived in a big, unpainted house on 
Emery Street, where almost every afternoon she was visited by someone on 
his way home from school. 

The first time I met her was when I was in the fourth grade. I had 
stopped to throw some rocks onto her porch; she came to the door and asked 
me to come in. I don't know why I didn't run, but for some reason I wasn't 
scared. I thought she might pull my ears, but I was willing to risk it in order 
to see what she wanted. She told me I ought to be kind to her because she 
wanted to be kind to me, and right then we became friends. She always 
offered her guests peanut butter kisses and played songs about heaven for 
them on the piano. With her light blue eyes and yellow hair, she seemed so 
much like an angel that one look from her made you suddenly feel sorry for 
every mean thing you ever did. When her visitors left, she gave them 
Methodist Sunday School papers. 

It was on such a visit that my sister learned of Carrie's marriage. 

A few older people useil to talk about her as though they were making 
fun of her. Whenever they si)oke of Carrie's going to every funeral in town, 
they used to laugh and say, "I guess the old girl isn't any too bright." Those 
of us who knew her best, though, never saw anything to laugh at. We 
happened to know that Carrie cried at every funeral whether she had ever 
heard of the one who died or not. and I guess there's nothing so funny 
about that ! 

l^verybody thought it was wonderful that she was married. Her husband 
was a French Canadian whose name we couldn't pronounce, but we made 
it easy by calling him Camel Romeo. He had roomed in her house for years, 
and some people said it was a good match. I noticed they usually snickered 
when they said it. though, and I couldn't see it at all. Carrie was tall and fair, 
and Camel was short and dark and had a big nose. Anv'way, it didn't matter 
as long as Carrie was happy. 

For about a year and a half after the wedding day we hardly saw them 



34 The Green Caldron 

except on Sunday afternoon, when they drove up Racecourse Hill and back 
again in Camel's Saxon. Carrie had stopped going to most funerals and even 
missed the big one at the Norwegian Church when "Pastry" Xelson died. 
We didn't see her much at her house either; it seemed very different with 
Camel around all the time. He just sat reading and looking angr>'. Then 
one day he chased everybody out and said that it was his house and he would 
decide who could come in. We never went there again after that, even 
though we knew Carrie wanted to see us. 

People had thought for quite a while that something was wrong, but 
still it came as a surprise to everybody when they learned that Camel was 
going to divorce her. Then it came out that he had been courting Mrs. 
"Pastry" Nelson, and it was said he wasn't satisfied with the money from 
Carrie's rooming house and wanted to get into the pastry business. He 
thought it a fine system to have a woman make the meat pies while he sold 
them. After two and a half years, then, Carrie's marriage was finished. 

It was a Saturday morning when they went off to the county seat. My 
cousin and I were going down Emery Street toward the canal when the car 
came down the drive. Carrie was wiping her eyes. I\Irs. Savoy, who lived 
next door, was the only one who saw them come back. She told Mama that 
afternoon that when they returned, Camel had run into the house and come 
out again with all his things. She said he looked all red and excited and that 
Carrie was crying as though she were crazy. Mama had a way of making 
people calm down, and although she didn't know at first if she really ought 
to, she finally went over to see Carrie. 

When she came back an hour or so later she told Papa all about it. As 
she was talking to him, he started to grin and get red and choke up, but a 
look from her made him serious again. Mama was not the kind who would 
laugh at anything like that, but poor Carrie couldn't keep it secret herself, 
and it was joked about long afterwards. She and Camel had never known 
that a marriage license alone was not enough. There was no divorce because 
there had been no wedding. 

By that time I was too big to be visiting ladies on my way home from 
school, but I walked by the house a few weeks later. I saw the door closing 
behind my youngest brother and several other children, and it gave me a 
good, comfortable feeling. I felt sure things had worked out very well 
after all. 

As I turned the corner I could still hear her playing the piano and a shrill 

chorus singing, „„, ^ . , 

1 here arc treasures in heaven. 

There are treasures in heaven. 

There are treasures for chi-ildren 

in heaven ..." 



March, 1945 35 

Music Room 

Almost as if this bantering music were an entrance cue, a slight, baby-faced 
girl clicks into the room. She walks kicking her heels impudently almost in time 
to the beat of the skipping violin bow. She is an outsider. There is usually one 
present at every music hour and it is interesting to notice these people whom the 
music does not touch. She sits now with one heel planted firmly on the floor, the 
other swinging merrily and quite effectively. She is reading a newspaper, but not 
really, for her brown, squirrel's eyes dart over, about and around the edges of 
the paper at the people — more specifically, the men in the room. The look is hard 
and cold, keen and calculating, a look that somehow does not belong to a baby- 
faced girl. She is ignored, even by the frolicsome notes, and she feels that she is 
an outsider — the music has escaped her — she knows she doesn't belong and I 
don't think I shall see her here again. But suddenly, without warning, the 
strings break into the swift, moving melody, and the scherzo comes to a sharp 
pizzicato stop. 

Now each one unconsciously prepares himself for the finale. They all know 
what is to come, yet their faces bear the joyfully expectant expressions of a 
child seeing the circus for the tenth time. It is not disappointing — its sublimity 
at once thrills the heart . . . lifts it higher, higher until one must catch his 
breath for fear of soaring so high he must finally drop into fathomless space. 
But no, there is no sudden dropping but a smooth delicious rippling descent that 
carries the heart in sweet pain to its former place on earth. There is a raucous 
movement, an interruption — heads jerk up impatiently. The baby-faced girl kills 
her cigarette with two insolent scarlet-tipped fingers, runs a quick comb through 
her hair and flounces out just as the music reaches its first climax. Her action is 
disturbing, but not for long. The melody has triumphed again, this time louder, 
forcefully with complete orchestra and violin. Louder and louder the music 
thunders, unashamed. Now it swells into deep, sonorous tones . . . now slowly, 
slowly it comes to its husky finish. It is ended. — Adele Herzog 

A Lesson in Psychology 

I consider the preparation for the production of a play one painfully long 
psychological venture. Whether or not the actors are experienced determines the 
method of psychology. If the actors are experienced, the rehearsal period must 
be carried out with an air of great importance. The actors, especially if they are 
seasoned veterans of the junior play at high school, must be treated with defer- 
ence by both the members of the faculty and the other students. This produces 
a hateful little clique of egotists who irregularly honor the school by their at- 
tendance in classes. 

If, however, the actors are inexperienced, the effect of the novelty of the 
activity may require either of two psychological treatments. For example, with 
the one who seriously considers himself a potential Gary Cooper, one must dis- 
cuss the aspects of his part — whether, in his one and only entrance, he should, 
as he sets the tray on the table, bow humbly or with English stiffness. With the 
other new actor, who may lightly cast aside compliments on her own acting, and 
glibly enumerate the faults of the others, one is often left no alternative. With 
such an experienced critic, one must agree ! — V. Lorene Carothers 



36 The Green Caldron 

Rhet as Writ 

He [Chiang Kai shek] . . . goes to bed early and arises even earlier. 



• • • • 



My birth was a very calm event. It occurred during a pause in the con- 
versation while Mother was canning tomatoes. 



• • 



Being born of healthy, intelligent parents gave me a fine chance of 
developing likewise. I inherited my dad's big feet, but mother in turn made 
up for it by passing on a good set of teeth. 



• • • • 



Industry in Russia is very poorly ran. A Kremlin is in charge of each 
factory. This Kremlin is appointed by the Government. 



• • 



Remember Life is what you make it so let's make it something unfor- 
gettable. 



• • 



By reading the book you learn how people work themselves from the 
bottom up, the hard way. 



• • • 



Wealth consists of mines, machinery, farms, and factories used in 
further production of mankind. 



• • • • 



On this ship was a massive wench and cable. 



• • • • 



He was as clean as a freshly scoured pan, and his face was like its 
shining bottom. 



• • • 



There have been many fine people in this world that in being on their 
death bed, lost confidence in themselves and passed on. 



• • • • 



Let us strike the axe where it will do the most good — the American 
parent ! 



Honorable Mention 

Lawrence Borns — Development of the Gerrymander 
in the United States 

Sister M. Bronisia — Radio in Education 

Muriel M. Burke — Business Ambassador 

A. Ansell Gopaul— T/iere77 Be a Hot Time 

Leslie Henriques — Education for Peace 

Iris Herbrig — A Child Is Born 

Lila Jones — Cannibalism 

Raymond Jordan — Retrospection 

Ben Lcviton — Philosophy of Marx 

Lorraine McCluny — War Dogs of World War J 

Heinz G. Neumann — Journey to Freedom 

Sally PUStr— Batter Up! 



• r . o-4'c*jrc^ I £^a<. 



[HE Green Caldron 

A Magazine of Freshman Writing 

uixivxrvciii u 

Jane Buescher: Vacation 1 

Marjoric Higgins: "Cakes and Ale" by Somerset Maugham ... 5 

Harlow B. Staley: Postwar Aviation 7 

William Schopf: Sunset on Guadalcanal 14 

Ernest Orcutt: ", . . until the day I die" 16 

Lucille Serepinas: Coal Dust 17 

JackLangan: Boots and Saddles — 1945 20 

Margaret Shepard : Dogs Have Gone to War 22 

Jo Ann Ator : Gold Inlay 26 

Herbert J. Shaner, Jr. : Factory — Wartime 28 

Beverly Lippman : Art — Made to Order 33 

Tsutomu G. Arai: In Features Only 35 

Adelaide Jauch : A Year in the Yukon 37 

(Material written in Rhetoric I and II) : Rhet as Writ .... 40 

VOL. 14, NO. 4 APRIL, 1945 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



JLhe Green Caldron is published four times a year by the 
Rhetoric Staff at the University of Illinois. Material is chosen 
from themes and examinations written by freshmen and students 
in the Army Specialized Training and V-12 Programs in the Uni- 
versity. Permission to publish is obtained for all full themes, 
including those published anonymously. Parts of themes, how- 
ever, are published at the discretion of the committee in charge. 

The committee in charge of this issue of The Green Caldron 
includes Miss Constance Nicholas, and Messrs. John Bush- 
man, Ben Porzak, and George Scouffas, Chairman. 

The Green Caldron is for sale at the Information Office, 
157 Administration Building (West), Urbana, Illinois. 



THE GREEN CALDRON 

copyrighted 1945 
BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

All rights reserved 
No part of this periodical may be repro- 
duced in any form without permission in 
writing from the publisher. 



Vacation 

Jane Buescher 

Rhetoric I, Theme 5, 1944-1945 

JANICE DE LANO FOLLOWED HELEN TOWARD THE MID- 
dle of the car, and sat down beside her on the dusty stuffed seat. As the 
train slowly pulled out of the University station, Janice realized that this 
would be her first Christmas away from her home in New York, but she ad- 
mitted that the thought of spending the holidays on a midwestem farm was 
far from unpleasant. 

"It was so swell of you to ask me down for the vacation, Helen. You 
know, when I came here to school, I knew that I wouldn't be getting home, 
and I sure appreciate your family's hospitality." 

"Oh, that's all right, Janice," said Helen. "We're glad you are coming. 
Of course," she added, "this won't be anything at all, compared to what 
you're used to," 

"Don't be silly. Why, I've never really been on a farm before, and I can 
hardly wait to see everything." 

"Oh, it's all right." 

"It will be so wonderful to have a little time to relax." 

"Well, sometimes it gets kind of boring if you're used to it." 

"How soon will we get there?" 

"I made it in about an hour at Thanksgiving time." 

"Will your folks meet us at the station?" 

"My folks and the whole rest of the town, probably." 

"It must be nice to live in such a friendly town." 

"Yeah." 

Janice settled back to watch the scenery change to a blend of farmhouses 
and large fields. 

"Gee, everything looks so good." 

"Good? Yes, I guess it does." 

They paused to watch a little fellow across the aisle gnaw on an immense 
Jonathan apple. Janice closed her eyes. She recalled the things she had heard 
about Christmas dinners in the country. Why, there'd surely be roast turkey, 
and dressing. And maybe they'd have pumpkin pie with whipped cream! 
This would be a real, honest-to-goodness treat. She opened her eyes, and 
noticed a concerned look on Helen's face. 

"Something the matter?" 

"Oh, no. I was just thinking." 

They pulled into Bicknell at 5:56, and Janice and Helen were the only 
two passengers to get off the train. The station was exactly what Janice had 

[ 1 ] 



2 The Green Caldron 

hoped it would be. The dirty-brown building looked as if it had not been 
painted since it had been built, and the concrete steps leading to the door had 
settled decidedly on the right side. At the end of the brick platform stood a 
man and a woman with a half-grown boy. 

"Look, that must be your family, Helen." 

"Hello, Dad and Mom!" she shouted, and then remembering Janice, she 
pulled her friend toward them. "This is Janice De Lano. Janice, my father 
and mother. Oh, and this is Peter." 

"How do you do, Mr. and Mrs. Borgmeier. I'm very glad to meet you 
both, and Peter, too." 

The buxom woman patted Janice on the shoulder, and said, "We're 
awfully glad to have you come. Helen mentions you in every letter from 
school." 

Mr. Borgmeier said, "Hello, Jean," and then turned to his wife. "Let's 
get going. I have all the milking to do after supper because Bill is so drunk 
he can't stand up." 

They started toward the car, and Janice heard Helen whisper to her 
father, "Dad, her name is Janice, not Jean, and why did you have to say that 
about Bill?" 

Helen's brother didn't bother to whisper. "What's the big idea of saying 
my name's Peter? Pete is plenty good, and if you don't like it you can — " 

"Pete, shut up. For heaven's sake, she heard you." 

"Well, tough." 

"Janice, don't mind Peter. He's in a terrible mood." 

"Oh, that's all right. Gee, is that the general store you were telling us 
about ?" 

"Yes, that's Shaeffer's. It's not very nice from the outside, but they have 
some pretty good things there once in a while." 

Mr. Borgmeier climbed into the driver's seat and waited for the rest of 
them to get into the car. "Dad doesn't always remember his manners when 
he is in a hurry, do you. Dad?" 

"Huh?" 

"Never mind." She hurried on, "That's the freezing unit over on our 
right, Janice. It's the only one in the county." 

"Is that right?" 

"Yes, and there's the big dairy that buys all our milk. It probably isn't 
much, though, compared to the ones in New York." 

"Why, I have never seen one before. This is really interesting." She 
looked out the window at several of the farmhouses. 

"That's where Uncle Carl lives," said Pete when they passed a mustard- 
colored house. 

"Hasn't he painted the house yet?" asked Helen. "I thought he was going 
to do it this fall." 



April, 1945 3 

"Never heard him mention it," muttered Mr. Borgmeier. 

"There's our place," said Mrs. Borgmeier, pointing to a one-story frame 
house just around the bend in the road. 

"Oh, it's wonderful ! It looks like I thought it would. Why, there's even 
a white fence," said the delighted Janice. 

"Well, we like it," said Helen. "Perhaps next spring we can fix it up a 
little better, but you know — with the war and all, and materials so hard to 
get, well — " 

"Is that a dog in the front yard?" asked Janice. 

"Sure," said Pete. "That's Mutt. We've had him for a long time. If his 
fleas just weren't so bad — " 

"Peter!" 

"What's wrong with you. Sis?" 

"Oh, nothing, but why not tell Helen something about school?" 

"What's your trouble, anyhow? There's nothing to tell about school." 

"Oh, all right. Just skip it." 

Janice looked quite amused and smiled at Pete with understanding. 
Helen grabbed Janice's arm and quickly said, "Come on. Let's go in the 
house." After they were walking up the walk to the front door, she ex- 
plained, "I just can't do a thing with Peter. But I guess boys will be boys." 
She laughed nervously. 

"Where did the rest of the family go?" asked Janice. 

"Oh, I guess they must have gone in the back way." 

The house was as neat as Janice had ever seen a house, and every bit of 
furniture from the sagging davenport to the mahogany rocking chair looked 
completely comfortable. Just looking at it gave her a feeling of relaxation. 

"I suppose this isn't much like New York, is it?" asked Helen. 

"No. but it certainly is perfect. And I think your little brother is ab- 
solutely darling." 

"Well, Peter means well." Helen turned and asked, "Would you like to 
unj^ack your things, Janice?" 

"All right. But why don't we help your mother first? I'll bet she has a 
lot of extra work to do, with me here." 

"Oh, you don't have to help, Janice. I'll help her, and when you get 
through, call me." 

Janice began to unpack her clothes and hang them on the hangers which 
Helen had put out for her. She took her time, and sniffed the barnyard 
smells that had come in through the open window. A rooster crowed. 

She finished emptying the suitcase and walked toward the bedroom door, 
above which hung an immense shotgun. As she wandered into the spacious 
hall, she heard Helen and Mrs. Borgmeier preparing supper in the kitchen. 

"Wouldn't you like to come into the parlor, Jean?" asked Mr. Borgmeier, 



4 The Green Caldron 

who had taken off his shoes and rolled up the sleeves of his sweaty blue shirt. 
Little pieces of straw scattered from his overalls and made a trail across the 
hall where he walked. 

"I'd love it." She followed him, and paused as he reached for the black 
photograph album which lay on the table next to an antique-looking floor 
lamp. 

"Thought maybe you'd like to see some pictures." 

"Why, that would be swell !" They sat down on the davenport and opened 
the book to the first page. 

"That's Aunt Minnie Kettlehoot, when she was married. Hasn't changed 
a bit in all these years." 

Janice watched the man as he eagerly told about his many relatives. 
"This is just like I thought it would be," she mused. 

"Dad !" Helen rushed into the room, looked at the couple sitting on the 
sofa, and looked at her father very seriously. "I think you'd better get 
washed. Dinner is almost ready to be served." 

"Supper's kinda early tonight, isn't it?" he asked, as he slowly rose to his 
feet and walked from the room. 

"Has Dad been boring you with that old family album? I told Mother 
that she should put it in the attic. I think we're about ready to eat, Janice." 

They walked into the dining room, and. Helen noticed that her father 
had already sat down at the table. Obviously the best silver and dishes had 
been used, and candles at both ends of the table were the only lights in the 
room. Pete rushed in, sat down, and whistled audibly. 

"Holy Christopher !" 

"My, everything looks perfect," said Janice, eying a steaming platter of 
ham and eggs and a large bowl of apple butter. She thought that it had 
been several months since she had had ham and eggs. These looked delicious. 

"It's too bad that we couldn't have something good for the first night," 
said Helen, "but Mother just didn't have time." 

"Why, this tastes wonderful, Helen. I wish we had food like this at 
school." 

Pete and Mr. Borgmeier ate heartily, and Janice did the same. Helen 
toyed with her food and gave Pete dirty looks every time he placed one 
or both elbows on the table. 

"Helen suggested that I make a French custard pie for dessert," said 
Mrs. Borgmeier, when the main part of the meal had been completed. "I 
guess I should have made pumpkin, because I'm afraid it isn't so good." 

Mrs. Borgmeier was right; she should have made pumpkin. The ensuing 
ten minutes were embarrassing for Janice and the Borgmeiers alike. 

"Whoops!" said Pete, as the French custard dripped from his fork. 
"Kinda runny, isn't it ?" 



April, 1945 5 

Finally they rose from the table, and while Mr. Borgmeier milked the 
cows, the girls helped with the dishes. At length, they all sat around in the 
parlor and listened to a news broadcast, while Mr. Borgmeier smoked his 
pipe. 

"I'm having such a wonderful time, Helen," Janice whispered, during 
the commercial. 

A bit of music ended the program, and suddenly Mr. Borgmeier yawned. 
"Well, it's eight-thirty." 

"We can stay up longer if we want to, Janice," said Helen. 

"Let's go to bed, kiddo. It will be so super to take it easy and get a good 
night's sleep." 

"It's too bad we're not nearer town, so we could go to the movie," said 
Helen. 

After they had finished getting ready for bed, Mrs. Borgmeier came in 
and said goodnight, and then tiptoed from the room. 

"Girls who live in the city are lucky," said Helen, as she reached up and 
turned out the light above the bed. 

Janice rolled over and smiled as she remembered the time when her 
brother had produced a small, green garter snake at her sixteenth birthday 
party. 

Cakes and Ale 

by Somerset Maugham 

Marjorie Higgins 
DGS lb, Theme 1, 1944-1945 



rrp^O A GREATER DEGREE THAX MOST WRITERS, SOMER- 
I set Maugham is best when he is autobiographical. Cakes and Ale is 
-^ one of his best books because it is one in which he draws upon his 
own experience for material. It is not so good as his best novel, Of Human 
Bondoije, because the stor>' of Philip Carey is essentially Maugham's life, 
which, once written, could never be entirely re-used. It is rather significant 
that these two books, generally considered Mr. Maugham's best, follow his 
own experience more closely than do his later works, which the critics say 
have fallen off in quality, best-sellers or not. It may be that his departure 
from autobiographical themes — he is now planning one novel about Machi- 
avelli and another which is set in sixteenth-century Spain — accounts for the 
slump in his work. 

Cakes and Ale is one of the English author's earlier books, and parts of 
it could have been copied from his own diary. The setting in the clergyman's 






6 The Green Caldron 

disciplined household, the residence in London, the hero's writing — all are 
too familiar to Maugham readers to require elaboration. 

Besides the autobiographical style. Cakes and Ale illustrates other 
Maugham characteristics: his critical attitude toward other authors unless 
they are long dead; his rather cruel habit which Mary M. Cohen called 
"depicting living people with what often has seemed calculated malice." 
Cakes and Ale is a satire which has been taken as a libel on both Thomas 
Hardy and Sir Hugh Walpole. The man who owes so much to Daphne du 
Maurier is Maugham's plugging, fawning novelist, Alroy Kear. Kear pro- 
vides the background for the series of flashbacks of which Cakes and Ale is 
composed, by attempting to sponge material for his discreet, distorted biog- 
raphy of Driffield (Hardy) from the narrator, obviously Maugham. 

The story concerns an English novelist and his ex-barmaid wife. The 
wife, Rosie, is usually involved in a series of affairs which she explains 
away like a true follower of Omar with, "Enjoy yourself while you have the 
chance, I say; we shall all be dead in a hundred years and what will any- 
thing matter then?" Her husband, Driffield, seems not to mind, as long as 
Rosie stays with him. He even draws on his observations of her experience 
for parts of his novels. Rosie is the most interesting character in the book. 
She is likable, but one doesn't worry about her. When she runs away with the 
least charming of her "gentlemen friends," you don't care at all. She is "not 
a woman who ever inspired love," wrote Maugham. "Only affection." At 
another spot in the story he says her life "had no effect on her character; 
she remained sincere, unspoiled, and artless." He has made her seem so to 
the reader. 

Even so brief a review of the story must have presented another 
Maugham quality — the familiarity of the situations and characters. Over 
and over again he uses the same setting, the same people. "It is true," writes 
Jerome Weidman in his introduction to an anthology of Maugham's work, 
"that in almost every Maugham book or story there is a girl whose beauty 
is so great that she takes your breath away, or a young man who is not out 
of the top drawer, or a barrister who will never set the Thames on fire, or 
an irascible old gentlewoman who comes down on people like a thousand of 
brick. ..." But he goes on to say that Maugham is a man "who can 
arrange the simple words and phrases, the cliches, if you will, of our language 
in such patterns that they stare up at you from the page with freshness 
and excitement." He thinks the triteness in some of Maugham's work is 
merely the result of its realism. 

One of Mr. Maugham's theories is that a novel should not attempt to 
instruct the reader in psychology, sociology, or theory. It should entertain, 
and if it does not entertain, it is a bad novel. Cakes and Ale is a good novel. 
It is Somerset Maugham at his entertaining best, which is quite good enough 
for me. 






April, 1945 7 

Postwar Aviation 

Harlow B. Staley 
Rhetoric II. Theme 12, 1944-1945 

•:fore world war ii the aircraft industry was 

comparatively young but fast-growing industry. At that time it 
was considered chiefly a national, rather than an international, re- 
sponsibility. Naturally there were problems, and they were solved individu- 
ally as they arose. Gradually a national policy for aviation was worked out. 

As the industry expanded, international airlines were established. Again 
problems arose, and again they were solved individually. Deals between 
countries were made for reciprocal flying rights and between companies and 
nations for the privilege of running commercial airlines in foreign countries. 
Pan American Airways, the first American company to enter the inter- 
national field, could fly into thirty-eight countries. The United States had 
reciprocal agreements with England, France, Canada, and Colombia. Ger- 
many, England, the Netherlands, and France also had landing agreements 
with many other countries.^ 

World War II has developed aviation to such an extent that a whole new 
series of international routes will spring up after the war. This brings up a 
new problem: What type of control should there be over international air- 
lines? Such a large international enterprise will require some regulation, but 
it should be regulation which will not stifle development. There are several 
aspects to the problem. In order to insure safety, an international agreement 
on technical standards had to evolve. In order to prevent ruinous competi- 
tion, some sort of regulation to prevent the creation of excess facilities was 
necessary.^ 

The political, and most important, phase of the problem concerns what 
is called freedom of the air.^ Should we have complete internationalism or 
unrestrained freedom of the air? Freedom of the air would be competition 
with a minimum of controls. Its advocates picture it as bringing vast ex- 
pansions and improvements from unrestrained commercial enterprises. On 
the other hand, the advocates of internationalism claim that their policy 
would insure world peace and develop sound air transport.* Actually the 
whole setup closely resembles a rat-race with everyone looking out for his 
own interests first. ^ 

'J. Kastner, "Postwar Air," Life, XV (November 1, 1943), 101. 

»F. H. Page, "The Future of the Sk\-ways," Foreign Affairs, XX (April, 1944), 404-6. 

•/fc.rf.. p. 407. 

* S. G. Cameron, "International Air Transport," Canada Forum, XXIV (October, 
1944), 155. 

* Kastner, loc. cit. 



8 The Green Caldron 

The final result will probably be some sort of compromise between the 
two schools of thought. Four gradations of freedom of the air, as given by 
F. H. Page in "The Future of the Skyways," are as follows: 

"(1) The right to fly over a country without landing. 

"(2) The right to land and refuel, but not to deliver or pick up passen- 
gers, goods, and mails. 

"(3) The right to land and to deliver and pick up passengers from and 
for other countries. 

"(4) The right to land, and to deliver and pick up passengers, goods, 
and mail."® 

Another important problem, chiefly national in character, is whether to 
use a "chosen instrument" or have several companies of the same country 
operating in international airlines. Connected with this are the questions of 
government ownership and subsidies. 

Geography will obviously play an important part in postwar aviation. The 
influential factor will be the distribution of the world's trading areas. Europe 
lies near the center of trade. The United States, South America, South 
Africa, and the Far East lie farther out. The importance of this is evident 
when the fact that costs vary almost directly with distance in air transporta- 
ion is considered.^ Various nations or their possessions are on main routes, 
giving them an advantage. Yet no nation has a monopoly on air routes. The 
three most important "strategic areas" are probably Alaska, Labrador, and 
Soviet Eastern Siberia. They can all, however, be by-passed if necessary.® 
Perhaps the most notable of the new routes will be those which skirt the 
arctic both east and west of the United States. Contrary to popular belief, 
none of them will cross the North Pole, which is often the shortest, but 
not the most efficient, route between northern cities.^ 

In Washington the State Department policy has followed the views of 
the American airlines which are holding out for virtual freedom of the air. 
These powerful companies, confident of their own ability to circle the world 
with a network of airlines, entertain no thoughts of real international control. 

In the fall of 1943 the Civil Aeronautics Board sent questionnaires to 
"qualified persons," seeking the answers to various questions of postwar 
aviation. The majority of those answering these questionnaires believed that 
the government should not participate in the ownership or management of 
airlines or create a national corporation to operate the international air 
routes. This opinion was expressed by seventeen domestic airline opera- 
tors and American Export Lines.^° The Civil Aeronautics Board then gave 

* Page, loc. cit. 

'J. P. VanZandt, Geography of World Air Transport, pp. 4-5. 
» Ibid., p. 42. 

* Kastner, op. cit., p. 100. 

"M. H. Froelich, "Report from Washington; Aviation's Postwar Problems," Flying, 
XXX (August, 1943), 196. 



April, 1945 9 

notice, by its proceedings, without boldly grasping the issue, that the "chosen 
instrument" policy was practically out in favor of competitive operations 
on international routes." But the "chosen instrument" is still not a dead 
issue. Many of its advocates are in high places. Pan American Airways, 
which would become the "instrument," plans to sell forty-nine percent of its 
stock to the government. This would make it a quasi-official airline which 
would represent the United States in foreign air transportation.^^ 

The Civil Aeronautics Board continued to make plans. Early in July it 
announced twenty new routes which it "tentatively concluded" would be de- 
sirable for operation by American carriers. On August 1, hearings were 
begun for the authority to operate these extensive routes.^^ The chief route 
to Asia will be through Alaska, north of the bad weather of the Aleutians. 
This way is shorter than the southern island route for points as far south 
as Darwin, Australia. On the Atlantic side the route will also be north 
through Labrador. This is the shortest route from points as far south as 
Texas to most points in Africa. Our whole southern border is a gateway to 
Central and South America. Mere nature has been lavish with her island 
stepping stones for intermediate landing points." 

The United States, however, holds no chain of bases to give it an ad- 
vantage in the postwar air. Only in the Pacific, with a series of island bases, 
can the United States really stretch out. Even southward our last base is 
Panama. If all of the skies were closed, the United States would be in a poor 
position for operating international airlines. We might, by making deals with 
France and Portugal, be able to obtain bases which would carry us around 
the world. Otherwise, the use of British bases will be necessary." 

Six months after the war, the United States loses control of the bases it 
has built on British territory." In May, 1944, England's cabinet member in 
charge of aviation. Lord Beaverbrook, told the House of Lords that the 
United States could not use for civil aviation the Western Hemisphere bases 
which England leased to us for ninety-nine years for military purposes." 
Of course, some countries which cannot develop their own international air- 
lines will be eager to be on the routes of other nations. They will give flying 
rights to the nation which will give them the most efficient service. The 
United States is a rich trading center, and therefore they will be eager to 
have reciprocal flying rights with us." But in the long run we must depend 

" Cameron, op. cit., p. 158. 

" Froclich, o/>. cit., p. 71. 

" Cameron, loc. cit. 

" VanZandt, op. cit., pp. 31-37. 

"Kastner, op. cil., p. 102. 

"Ibid., p. 101. 

""American Plan." Nezvszveek, XXIII (May 22, 1944), 70. 

'• Kastner, op. cit., p. 102. 



10 The Green Caldron 

upon efificiency and technical superiority to offset our greater flying distance 
from the world's trading centers.^* 

After the war the resources of the United States for flying will exceed 
those of any other nation. The government is already operating the greatest 
air transport in the world — the Army's Air Transport Command and the 
Navy's Air Transport Service. This is accompanied by a vast world-wide 
development of ground services. The government also owns thousands of 
airplanes which can be converted to commercial transport use — both of the 
main line and feeder type. Most of the airplane plants now manufacturing 
military planes can easily be converted to civil aircraft. The question is, "Will 
the government be willing to turn its vast resources over to private industry 
after the war as it did after World War IP''^" 

Canada is pressing for a high place in international air transport. On 
April 2, 1943, the Prime Minister stated that the government intended to 
take full advantage of Canada's geographical position and develop aviation. 
Flying privileges which had been granted to other countries were to be termi- 
nated soon after the war. He also said, "The government sees no reason for 
changing its policy that Trans-Canada Airlines is the sole Canadian agency 
which may operate international air services." ^^ 

On March 17, 1944, the Canadian Government tabled a draft at the In- 
ternational Air Transport Convention which envisioned an International Air 
Transport Authority with the structure of normal international organiza- 
tions.^^ The Canadian plan includes international strait jacket control of 
service frequencies, rates, and national passenger and cargo quotas.^^ The 
reason for Canada's fight for internationalism, which is directly opposed to 
the United States' desire for free air, is obvious. She is afraid that without 
restraint the American airlines would offer competition which would drive 
Canada out of the sky. After the war the United States will need Canadian 
bases, and this is Canada's strongest bargaining lever. Canada controls the 
important northeastern route to Europe. This advantage, however, could be 
eliminated by technical developments increasing the range of aircraft.^* 

Canada will not be lacking in bases and ground services after the war. 
Soon after Pearl Harbor, the United States spent $90,683,000 for airfields 
in Canada. Canada spent another $31,600,000. Canada was to be reimbursed 
by the United States, but its government resolved that no foreign country 
should own vital facilities in the Dominion. Canada will pay the United 

" VanZandt, op. cit., pp. 4-5. 
*" Froelich, loc. cit. 
" Cameron, op. cit., p. 155. 
»= Ibid., p. 158. 
" "American Plan," loc. cit. 

**"CAB Study Indicates Lines of Postwar Air Horse Trading," Newsweek, XX (Octo- 
ber 25, 1944), 72. 



April, 1945 11 

States $76,811,500 for the estimated value of the United States' investments, 
thus bringing her investment in these vital routes to about $110,000,000.^^ 

To Britain, keeping up with the rest of the world in international airlines 
is imperative. Her revenue from shipping and other accessories to foreign 
trade are vital to her. Before the war Britain was involved in forty percent 
of the world's international trade. British shipping firms are seeking control 
of the airlines and are in favor of free air. At first Britain had agreed with 
Canada's plan, differing only on details. Then, in April, 1944, Lord Beaver- 
brook, the United States State Department's Assistant Secretary, Adolf 
Berle, and other experts held a conference in London. Soon afterward, 
Beaverbrook announced to the House of Lords that the Canadian plan had 
been abandoned in favor of the American plan. On the same day he revealed 
that the United States had promised to supply Britain with transport planes 
after the war, while Britain was returning to peacetime production. It was 
all still in the doubtful stage. Britain is also beginning to favor competition 
on international routes over the "chosen instrument."^" 

Great I'ritain is the only nation which could operate a world airline under 
a closed sky. Her possessions stretch around the globe and are within flying 
distance of each other. The only gap is in the Pacific, where Britain needs 
Hawaii.*' 

In October, 1944, the British Commonwealth held a conference in Mon- 
treal. At its end a communique was issued stating that the representatives 
had agreed on the desirability of international authority, air services con- 
necting Commonwealth Countries, and a Commonwealth Air Transport 
Council. Charts of proposed routes were approved and technical committees 
submitted reports to be approved by the individual governments. Nothing 
bound any nation's action in the United Nations Conference in Chicago in 
November.** 

This was the way the three nations most concerned, the United States, 
Great Britain, and Canada, were lined up when the Civil Aviation Confer- 
ence opened up in Chicago in the early part of last November with ap- 
proximately fifty nations participating. A. A. Berle, Jr., Assistant Secretary 
of State, opened the conference.-" The objectives were threefold: to set up 
an international civil authority to coordinate commercial aviation policies; to 
decide on technical regulations; and to draw up operation plans and minimum 
rates.^" 

According to the statement made by Mr. Berle at the conference, the 
L'nited States believes in the sovereign rights of a nation to control the air 

""Airways — for War & Postwar," Business Week, November 4, 1944, p. 116. 

*• Page, op. cit., p. 412. 

" Kastner, o/>. cit., p. 103. 

""Empire Air Plans," business Week, November 4, 1944, p. 117. 

""This Is Our Air Policy— So Far," Aziation, XLIII (December, 1944), 119. 

""World Trade— The Postwar War," Business Week, December 9, 194*, p. 15. 



12 The Green Caldron 

above it. A definite stand was taken against a powerful international govern- 
ing body.^^ United States delegates insisted on the right to make bilateral 
agreements, which would give the United States an advantage over other 
nations. Also, most of the air transport business begins here. Great Britain, 
knowing this, demanded a control of routes with British and American air- 
lines on an equal basis. The conference was split wide open by the opposing 
views of the two countries.^^ 

Finally the United States delegates won a partial victory. A draft pro- 
posal was adopted to be submitted to the governments of the nations repre- 
sented. The draft calls for the following: 

"(1) Creation of a world assembly to coordinate civil aviation, with 
every nation — large or small — allowed an equal vote, but with actual busi- 
ness between sessions of the full assembly to be handled by a smaller elected 
council. 

"(2) Technical regulations, through the council, which will provide for 
such things as uniform landing signals, w-eather reports, airport facilities, and 
quarantine regulations. 

"(3) Agreement on air routes to be negotiated on a bilateral reciprocal 
basis, rather than allocated on an international control basis as desired 
originally by the British, and with the individual countries determining the 
frequency of their schedules. . . . 

"(4) Agreement on minimum rates in order to avoid cutthroat competi- 
tion and subsidy wars."^^ 

Another statement made by Berle during the conference was that this 
country would make transport planes available to nations that recognize 
"the right of friendly intercourse" when the military situation permits. This 
was to be done without discrimination.^* After a month and a half the con- 
ference closed. 

The real battle between the United States and Great Britain will not come 
until after victory. In the meantime the United States and the nations which 
support its proposals (most of the Western Hemisphere) will proceed with 
bilateral deals for routes. Britain and its supporters (mainly the Empire and 
Western Europe) will probably form a multilateral plan to bargain as a unit 
or with a fixed set of demands. This could freeze us out of certain areas. ^^ 

Another problem which will come to the front after the war is what to do 
about commercial airline services to Germany. The best solution would prob- 
ably be to inaugurate routes to which all nations would have access. The 
entire ground organization would be put into the hands of the United Na- 

" "This Is Our Air Policy — So Far," loc. cit. 

" "World Trade — The Postwar War," loc. cit. 

"The War and Business Abroad," Business Week, November 4, 1944, p. 119. 

•* "World Trade — The Postwar War," loc. cit. 

« Ihid., p. 16. 



AprU, 1945 13 

tions. This would be an experiment in freedom of the air, and could form a 
pattern to be extended later. It would also give the Allies a commercial inter- 
est in preventing Germany from rebuilding her air fleet soon after the war.** 

" Page, op. cit., p. 408. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

"Airways— For War & Postwar." Business lleek (November 4. 1^44). 116. 

"American Plan." Xeusucek, XXIII (May 22, 19+4). 70. 

"Anglo- .American Disharmony." \nv Rfpublk, CXI (December 11. 1944), 781. 

"Aviation Agreement with Franco." Xrw Rf public. CXI (December 11. 1944), 119. 

"Bcaver-Berle Progress," Tirm. XLIII (.April 17. 1944), 22. 

"CAB Studv Indicates Line of Postwar .\ir Horse Trading," \ewstefek, XX (October 

25. 1944), 72. 
Camero.n. S. G. "Intenutional Air Transport," Canada Forum. XXIV (October. 1<M4), 

155. 
-Empire Air Plans," Business HWk (November 4. 1944). 117 
"Free Air." Titm, XLIII (May 22, 1^44), 36. 
Fboelich. M. H. "Report from Washington; Aviadoo's Postwar ProMem*;-" Fh-inj. 

XXX (August. 194J). 71. 
Kastxee, J. "Postwar Air." Liff. XV (November 1. 1943). 100-106. 
Page. F. H. "The Future of the Skywavs." Foreign A pairs. XX (.\pril. 1944). 404-I12. 
"This Is Our .\\t Policy— So Far." Aiiation. XLIII (December. 1944). 119. 
\'anZamit, J. P. Geography of World Air Transport Brookland: Brooklings. 1944. 
"The War and Business Abroad," Business Week (November 4. 1944). 119. 
"World Trade— The Postwar War," Business Week (December 9. 1944). 13-17. 

"Usted Es en Su Casa" 

To the Spaniard, his home is literally his castle, into which admission is not 
readily granted. For example, let us say that you are calling on a man in Madrid. 
The houses all look alike with plain, unprepossessing faces and huge, solid, brass- 
studded doors. If your visit is being made after sundown, you call the sereno 
who has charge of this immediate neighborhood, and you notice a bunch of 
enormous keys hanging from his belt. These keys unlock any door on his street. 
He manipulates the knocker and presendy you find youi^elf looking into a p>air 
of eyes through a slit in the door. After your name and business are stated, the 
sereno unlocks the door and you are taken by the ser\ant to his master. 

"Where, then." you ask me. "is the world-famous Spanish hospitality?" Ill 
get to that. Our idea of hospitality differs considerably from that of the Span- 
iards. It was an old American custom of the pioneer days to give every stranger 
a hearty welcome and a "make yoreself at home." Theirs is a different concep- 
tion. They might almost call our hospitality promiscuousness. A Spaniard might 
sit all afternoon with chance acquaintances, drinking "cafe real" and gossiping. 
But later, when the time for parting comes, will he ask them to his house? 
Hardly ! His home is his retreat, his place of seclusion for himself and his family. 

And yet. when once you prove yourself to be a true friend, you are accepted 
on such terms as are very seldom encountered in English-speaking countries. 
You are truly made a part of the family circle, and there is nothing that any 
of its members will not do for you. You finally realize that when a Spaniard 
pronounces the formal greeting. "Usted es en su casa" (which simply means 
"You are in your home"), he is paying you his highest possible compliment. 

— Lynn Woodward 



14 The Green Caldron 

' Sunset on Guadalcanal 

William Schopf 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1944-1945 

FIVE DAYS OF PURE HELL. FIVE DAYS OF ROARING, 
flaming death, with men screaming, fighting, and dying suddenly 
and horribly. 

Hell-cats and torpedo bombers in a finish fight overhead screamed in 
wing-tearing dives, or plunged with shattering explosions into the oily, 
congested ocean. For five terrible days the United States Navy lashed out 
with every gun she had. Navy planes bombed and strafed. The Japs died 
in hordes. They fought as only desperate, cornered men can fight. And 
through the middle of that blood-crazed melee, the fighting marines slogged 
to a bloody, costly victory. 

We died a thousand awful ways before we secured that battle-scarred 
island. Stumbling and splashing through the cold water, we crawled, waded, 
or swam toward that bitterly contested shoreline. But for every drenched, 
shivering marine who flung himself prone on the narrow strip of land, still 
alive and game, there were three other American boys who were only lifeless 
hulks — ragged, pitiful bundles of khaki that would never laugh or fight again 
— water-logged corpses floating out to sea to be listed as "missing in action." 
Here was man gone berserk, hurling all the violent forces of destruction 
at his command against his brother man. Here was chaos, a place of utter 
devastation, a living hell. 

But this was our easy assignment. This was only the island of Tulagi, 
The colonel had told us how lucky we were. Our detachment would not run 
into much resistance. Only a couple of hundred Japanese soldiers to clean up 
and then on to Guadalcanal. But when we waded into that easy assignment, 
we found not two hundred Japs, but four thousand waiting for us. And we 
paid for the mistake with our dead and dying. We marched over the piled 
bodies of our own dead because it was an order and because there is no such 
word as retreat in the Marine Corps. Perhaps we who lived were not the lucky 
ones. If we had known what was in store for us, we might have chosen to 
be listed among the dead or missing. But we didn't know. We were going to 
take this "damned island," and then we were going to sleep for a year. And 
there are men who are sleeping, sleeping forever. Maybe it sounds foolish 
to say that those who died were the lucky ones, but we who lived were truly 
the unfortunates. Bearded, dirty, hungry ghosts we were. Far from the 
glorious and victorious heroes you read about in the newspapers, we were 
just a bedraggled lot of weary men. We were stunned, some of us sick, and 



April, 1945 • 15 

all of us a little crazy, I think. We had been through what no words can tell 
about. Our minds could not and will never grasp the horrors of that fiendish 
nightmare of war. And all we wanted was a shave, a cooling bath, and some- 
thing to eat. 

All we wanted — All we got was "Bloody Hill," in our next objective, 
Guadalcanal. 

It was suicide all over again. It was something that had to be done and 
we who were left had to do it. We might have rebelled, but we were too 
tired. We just picked up those familiar rifles and marched out to die all 
over again. 

When it was all over we read about it in the papers. We found out what 
we had done and why. The Japs were awake by then. They had an airport 
from which they were striking again and again with disastrous effects. Over- 
looking the airfield was a long, high hill. Strategically located on top of the 
hill was a big, sixteen-inch naval gun with which the Japs stopped every 
advance. That airport was the last desperate hope of the enemy, and they 
were determined to hold onto it. "Big Mike" we called that huge gun, and we 
all knew him and respected him before we took that hill. We couldn't face 
him. He mowed us down like so much hay. Our only alternative was a flank- 
ing movement up the sides of the hill, which would bring us under the 
range of "Big Mike" and give us a chance to meet the Japs. Once we cap- 
tured that final point, the battle for possession of the island would be over, 
e.xcept for the mopping up of snipers. The Japs knew this and threw in 
every man, gun, airplane that they had available. Another huge dog fight 
took place. Planes, screaming, diving, zooming madly, chasing one another 
with machine guns blazing, roared over the hill and out to the ocean. We 
started our flanking movement and they met us halfway. They had to stop 
us, so down they came. We had died before. We had seen the Japs die and 
had seen bodies pile up, but we had never seen anything to compare with 
this. They came down in hordes, and they died that way. Men fell and were 
covered up with more dead men on falling. It was kill or be killed. We didn't 
think. We didn't feel. We fought in a subconscious world. Occasionally the 
screams of the dying, or the incessant rattle of a particularly annoying ma- 
chine gim penetrated the haze of one's mind. But for the most part we were 
merely trained robots of destruction, to kill or be killed. 

A small group of men finally gained the top. That spelled finis for the 
Japs. They were caught between their own machine guns, a devastating cross- 
fire from which there was no escape. "Big Mike" was silenced once and for 
all. Later came the flame-throwers, and the last of the Japs were routed out 
of the tunnels and pillboxes. When the battle was ended, the only Japs that 
remained were the dead ones. The rising sun had set on Guadalcanal. 



16 The Green Caldron 



cc 



until the day I die'' 



T 



Ernest Orcutt 
Rhetoric I, Theme 2, 1944-1945 

PTT^HAT SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 7, 1941, WASN'T 
any different from the thousands of other Sunday mornings that had 
preceded it. The navy yard was quiet and peaceful with a few yard 
workmen coming and going, changing from the graveyard shift to the day 
shift. Great, sleek warships, painted battle-gray, lay to, sleeping at their 
mooring buoys, or tied up at the many docks. It was a particularly lazy day, 
hot and tranquil. The time was approximately six o'clock in the morning. 
The only sounds that could be heard were from the shrill, echoing boat- 
swains' calls as they piped all hands to chow. There was hardly any move- 
ment of the water except the gentle lapping of small waves at the ship's sides 
which accentuated the Sunday lassitude. 

With their morning meal finished, spotless, white-clad sailors began to 
appear on the weather deck, some leaning on the lifelines casually looking 
into the water below, some lying and sitting on the equally spotless deck, 
bleached white with countless scrubbings. There was hardly any talk between 
them because, as was usual on all such mornings, everyone was thinking 
about home and his family. After a short while of reminiscing they started 
to straggle below decks again to get ready for liberty in Honolulu, which 
began at eight o'clock. 

I was sitting on some bitts on the starboard side of the fantail, "shooting 
the breeze" with a shipmate and sipping an all-too-hot cup of "mud" when 
the stab in the back came. Coming over the purple mountains toward Pearl 
Harbor were countless planes with peculiar markings on them. We didn't 
know of any flying drills that day or have any idea why they were up there. 
We were soon to find out. They came in at a very low altitude — very fast. 
It was then that all Hell broke loose. God must have been asleep in Heaven. 
Dive bombers came down and started dropping bombs on the ships; torpedo 
bombers came in close to the water, dropped their deadly tin fish, then 
zoomed sk}-ward. The air was full of flying bombs bursting on and around 
the warships. The water was full of torpedoes, deadly fish rushing to the 
kill. Through all this we remained stunned, hardly believing our eyes and 
wishing that we had no eyes to see with. 

A direct bomb hit amidships and the terrifying screams of dying men, 
our shipmates, brought us to our senses. The Japs had attacked Pearl 
Harbor; unbelievable, yet true. Immediately, over the amplifying system, 
came the call to general quarters, "All hands man your battle stations." This 
was repeated over and over again. Almost simultaneously with the call every 



April, 1945 17 

man was at his station. We didn't wait for the command to "commence 
firing," as we had done so many times in practice. This was the real thing. 
By this time fire had broken out in a number of places, doubhng the task. 
Jap planes were coming at us from all angles of the clock, bent on strafing 
the sailors that had battle stations topside. Men began dropping all around. 
Their war had begun and ended within a space of minutes. The remaining 
men e.xpected to join them at any time, but prayed silently, hoping to be 
spared to carry on the fight until every last Jap was dead. 

Fur}- and hate mounted so high in every man in the fleet that it proved 
ver}' fateful for a number of unlucky Japs shot down. Every Japanese that 
survived the crash was torn apart by the infuriated sailors. Xot one came out 
of the water alive; or if he did, his head was crushed in. teeth kicked out, 
and arms and legs torn from their sockets. The unbelievable treachery of 
the attack had sprung all the inhibitions of the human beings who a few- 
moments before had been men of Sunday peace. 

When the remaining planes had gone, men continued to fire their guns 
into the air at an\thing. mostly at nothing. Shock benumbed reason. 

Some ships were sinking at their moorings with just the top of the fore- 
mast above water, others were zigzagging crazily across the harbor, and 
still others were blowing up from magazine explosions. The water was now 
covered with a thick blanket of oil about four inches in depth. Men were 
swimming, trying to keep their heads above it. 

This is a small part of the scene at Pearl Harbor that lalciul day. The 
number of men and ships lost will remain a secret until this war is ended, 
but the toll was great. December 7, 1941, will be with me until the day I die. 



Coal Dust 

Lucille Serepinas 

Rhetoric I. Theme 11, 1944-1945 

TF.X YEARS AGO. WESTVILLE, ILLINOIS, WAS A PROS- 
perous coal-mining town inhabited by Lithuanian immigrants, strong, 
healthy individuals, unafraid of hard work. Naturally, these p)eople 
gravitated to the coal mines, where most of the work required no skill and 
yet paid well. At a glance, one could tell Westville was prosperous. Most 
of Main Street was newly paved; the walks were broadened; a new hotel was 
built; bright neon signs went up above almost all the stores; and each Sat- 
urday night. Main and State Streets were thronged with old and young alike. 
The coal mine was of the greatest importance to this settlement, for 
without it, the town would not have existed. Bunsunville Mine w-as only two 



k. 



18 The Green Caldron 

miles away from our house; but we could hear the mine's shrill whistle as 
if it were only in the next block. I well remember how, as a little girl, I was 
awakened at five o'clock each morning by this whistle which indicated that 
the men on the night shift had finished working. I knew that in another 
hour, my father, who worked on the day shift, would be lowered down into 
the deep shaft of the mine. Therefore, each working day at five in the morn- 
ing, Mother and I got up to prepare Father's breakfast, which required 
some time and effort. A miner could not be expected to have only a cup of 
coffee and a roll; his strenuous day ahead required that breakfast be the 
heaviest and best meal of the day. After breakfast. Father and the other 
miners caught the "5:45 train." Two hours later, as I trudged to school, I 
noticed the deep silence which had befallen the town. 

I was happiest during the summer, when school was not in session. Then, 
the other miners' children and I arose early, packed a lunch, and hiked to 
"No. 4 Hill" to watch the sun rise. "No. 4 Hill" had been a coal mine fifty 
years before; it was a steep but rather ordinary hill. Here and there were 
patches of red clay and slate deposits, over which the grass did not grow. 
We children never tired of climbing this hill, for each time we would choose 
different paths up and see which one of us would reach the top first. 

When the sun climbed high in the sky and became quite hot, my friends 
and I rolled down and followed the adjoining railroad tracks to Jenkins' 
Ford, where there was a natural "spring." After drinking our fill of the cool 
water, we took off our shoes and splashed around in the soothing creek. By 
that time, we had such enormous appetites that our sandwiches seemed 
inadequate. In that case, we would fill our stomachs on the wild strawberries 
which we gathered on the way back home. 

Often, I walked to the house of my best friend, which was next to 
Bunsunville Mine. Together, this friend, Jenny, and I would explore the 
exterior of the mine. We tried, many times, to persuade a miner into taking 
us down into the interior; but whenever a mine official saw us loitering 
around the elevator, he chased us away. There was always the danger that 
we would fall into the open shaft. Father had once told me that when he 
looked up from the bottom of the shaft, he could see the stars when it was 
daylight outside. I always wanted to ride to the bottom of a shaft and find out 
if Father was telling the truth. 

Although Jenny and I were restricted from the most mysterious section 
of the mine, the open shafts, we amused ourselves by watching the "coal 
cribs" running up and down the less inclined side of the slate pile which was 
directly over the mine. Actually, these cribs carrying coal from the surface 
of the mine to the freight cars were approximately ten feet long and five 
feet wide and deep. But from the cinder-covered ground at the very bottom 
of the slate pile, where my friend and I stood, the cribs looked like the toy 
cars we had got for Christmas. 



April, 1945 19 

On the way back to Jenny's house, we passed the huge dynamo which 
drove blasts of fresh air deep down into the mine. These dynamos "sput- 
tered-and-thugged" all day long. Even inside Jenny's house I could hear the 
continuous faint murmur of the great machines. 

The coal dust was everywhere in and around the mine. And on some 
days, a south wind would carry the dust into the town itself. Such days were 
great nuisances to everyone. Mother declared that whenever she had her 
wash on the line outside, the wind would always change its direction and 
bring the gritty coal dust. Just before a thunderstorm, when the wind came 
in gusts and whij)ped around corners, the town's people rushed to their 
homes and shut all the windows and doors. After the rain, when the coal 
dust had settled on the wet sidewalks or else was flowing sluggishly in the 
gutter, everyone would come out of his shelter again to resume his chores. 

Nothing about Westville fixed itself so vividly upon my mind as the 
return of the miners from work, each evening. Whenever I heard the whistle 
of the four o'clock train, I ran out and swung on the front gate as I waited 
for Father to come down the street. I could see the miners come wearily over 
the hill from the train station at the end of Main Street. Some marched 
four-abreast and greeted me jokingly as they jiassed by; others shuffled 
along in pairs discussing bits of news; but most of them walked silently 
alone. I could never make out who the men were, because their faces were 
as black as the coal; only the whites of their eyes showed. The only way I 
could distinguish Father, at a distance, was by his stride. At a closer range, 
I recogni/.ed him by the way his carbide lamp was perched on the top of his 
head; the other men's lamps were pulled low over their foreheads. Also, 
Father's aluminum dinner pail, which he slung over his right shoulder, 
shone brighter, I thought, than all the other dinner pails. 

A dinner pail is to a miner what a stethoscope is to a doctor, and a slide- 
rule is to an engineer. A miner is judged by the condition his pail is in. For 
instance, "Old Man Allen," as the town's people called him, was a heavy 
drinker who, on the way home from work, dropped in at all the saloons. He 
was very undependable, never keeping his word or promise. Old Man Allen's 
dinner pail was rusty at the hinges, carelessly smashed in at the sides, and 
deeply imbedded with coarse coal dust, indicating that the pail had never 
been thoroughly scrubbed. In contrast. Father's pail was so shiny that I could 
see the reflection of my face on the lid. In spots, the aluminum would wear 
away and reveal a ding\' greyness; but the pail was clean. 

After the miners got home, silence, as in the early morning, would again 
creep over the town. It is this very silence that I have craved for each 
evening, ever since I moved to the noisy big city. But the peaceful, quiet 
evenings and the homecoming of the miners are the only things I nostalgi- 
cally look back to, for Westville today is not what it was ten years ago. The 



20 The Green Caldron 

miners have grown old, and most of them are on pensions. Their children, 
the younger generation, seeing no promising future in the mine, have gone 
away to larger cities. The town's streets and walks are badly in need of 
repair; most of the neon signs have been taken down; almost all the store 
windows have been smeared with white paint; and on Saturday nights, Main 
and State Streets are deserted. 

My family and I consider ourselves fortunate to have left Westville for 
a larger city which holds a more promising future. But often, I look back 
at the "reliable past" and think of the happy childhood I had in that little 
mining town. 



Boots and Saddles — 1945 

Jack Langan 
Rhetoric II, Theme 9, 1944-1945 



T 



inr^HE OTHER DAY, WHILE THUMBING THROUGH A COPY 
of one of the weekly news-magazines, we ran across a bit of news 
that set our blood pounding and a warm glow creeping over us. 
Tucked away in a column headed "War Miscellany" was a short paragraph 
stating that the first shipment of horses had been delivered safely to units 
of the First Cavalry Division in the Philippines and that mounted elements 
of that division might see action in the near future. 

To the average reader this short bit of information might seem unim- 
portant and slightly anachronistic, perhaps evoking the comment that horse- 
cavalry went out with the Mexican Border incident in 1916. To us it meant 
much more, possibly because of our having served nine months with the 
Seventh Cavalry Regiment of the First Cavalry Division during the early 
part of the present conflict. 

Be that as it may, it wasn't for sentimental reasons alone that we lauded 
the entry of the horse-mounted units into the present wartime operations. 
Something more than sentimentality caused an able military strategist and 
tactician like General Douglas MacArthur to call upon the services of man's 
oldest war-machine — the horse. 

Since the advent of Nazi panzer techniques in the first year of the war, 
the American people and the armchair military experts have cried for the 
total abolition of horse units in our army. The twenty or so cavalry divisions 
that made up our mounted services in 1938 were, one by one, mechanized in 
full until by the spring of 1942 only the First, at Fort Bliss, Texas, and the 
Second, at Fort Riley, Kansas, remained predominantly horse outfits. The 
cry was tanks, tanks, and more tanks. All this in spite of the fact that 



April, 1945 21 

the first Nazi troops to enter Paris were mounted, that next to the airplane, 
the horse did more to help the Nazi conquest of Norway than any other part 
of the Prussian war machine. 

In 1940, during United States Army maneuvers in east Texas and west 
Louisiana, the rapid advance of the mechanized "Red" Army was halted 
on the flats of the Sabine River by torrential rains which turned the plains 
into a quaj^mire. The "Blue" Army commander, calling on horse-drawn 
artillery from Fort Sill, Oklahoma, moved his pieces up where no tank, 
truck, or tractor could go and placed the "Reds" under such terrific theo- 
retical fire that the battle was over and won in three days. Horses did that. 

When MacArthur and his l)eleaguered army made their last-ditch stand 
on the peninsula of Bataan in the spring of 1942, their tanks were woefully 
inadequate in the thick forests and jungles. The trees were too big to push 
over and too close together to go between. MacArthur said, "If I had one 
fully equipped horse-mechanized division we would get out of this trap." A 
break through the Japanese lines and into the hills in the north of the island 
and those men might have had at least a chance to survive, instead of dying 
like rats in a trap. Horses could have done that. 

Don't misunderstand our argument. The horse cavalry as it used to be 
is through. The tank is master at the game of fighting on the go — in most 
places. For terrain such as we fought on in North Africa, horses would 
have meant suicide. P>ut for terrain like that in the I'alkans, for instance, 
or Greece, where the roads are nothing but paths and the hills are all at least 
45° angles, the horse will always remain king. Horses fit neatly into our 
modern army portce system, whereby the horses and men are loaded into 
trailer- vans and hauled swiftly as close to the front as the ground and high- 
ways permit, then unloaded and mounted for the journey to the battle line or 
for reconnaissance. 

The modern trooper is, in reality, a far cry from the hard-riding, saber- 
swinging follower of Custer that most Americans envision at the mention of 
the word "cavalry-man." He is a specialist, an infantryman that gets where 
he's going on horseback rather than by truck. No better argument can be 
given for the maintenance of at least three horse-cavalry divisions in our 
modern army than the words of the master strategist and founder of 
present-day warfare tactics, General Nathan Bedford Forrest. In our own 
Civil War this great Confederate leader said, "The battle belongs to him who 
gets thar fustest with the mostest men !" If horses can get you there "fustest" 
on certain types of terrain, then there's still a place in 1945 warfare for the 
most colorful of the branches of the army, the cavalry. 

It does us good to think that, somewhere in the Philippines, this morning 
a bugler will place his bugle to his lips and blow — "Boots and Saddles 
—1945." 



22 The Green Caldron 

Dogs Have Gone to War 

Margaret Shepard 
Rhetoric II, Theme 12, 1944-1945 

($6^^^^ HIPS AWARDED SILVER STAR FOR GALLANTRY IN AC- 
(( tion." This caption appeared in many newspapers during November, 

^^^ 1943. Chips is a dog, one of the many ex-pets of our nation that are 
now fighting side by side with our soldiers on the fields of battle. 

This war is not the only war in which man has made use of the dog. All 
through history the dog has played an active part in conflicts. As far back 
as 4000 B.C., dogs were used by the Egyptians, who kept them on the 
beaches to repel invasions. The Greeks, the Romans, and the Celts armed 
their "pets" with spiked collars and breastplates and sent them into the 
midst of the fighting to make direct attacks upon the enemy. Even during 
the Riff Campaign in Spanish Morocco, dogs had a role to play. The Riffs 
dressed them in turbans and "jellabas" and sent them out on the plain. From 
far off, the dogs looked like crouching men, and the Spanish invariably fired 
at them. It was a cruel way to use the animals, no doubt, but it disclosed the 
position of the Spanish, and so helped the Riffs. ^ 

Frederick the Great, during the Seven Years War, was the first to see 
the value of dogs in modern warfare. He used collies as sentries, ambulance 
aides, and messengers. Since then, dogs have been used extensively. They 
became famous during World War I as Red Cross dogs. Because of their 
acute sense of smell and hearing, they could find the wounded much more 
easily than a man could. They were taught to hunt only for wounded soldiers 
and to disregard the dead. First Aid kits were strapped around their necks, 
and the injured helped themselves if they were able. The dogs then tore a 
piece of clothing from the men and ran back to the kennels. Stretcher- 
bearers, upon receiving this notice, rescued the disabled soldiers from 
the field.2 

For the past ten or twelve years, the Germans have been training at least 
200,000 dogs for army work. Before Pearl Harbor, they shipped 25,000 of 
these trained dogs to Japan.^ Therefore, the Axis countries have been far 
ahead of us in equipping themselves with a force of army dogs, for it was 
not until 1942 that the Americans conceived the idea of a canine corps. 

It was at a cocktail party that the idea was born. There, Harry I. Caesar, 
an investment broker; Mrs. Milton Erlanger, an owner of dog kennels; and 

' Robert C. Ruark, "Have the War Dogs Been Good Soldiers?" Saturday Evening Post, 
217 (November 25, 1944), 93. 

" Genevieve Parkhurst, "Dogs of War," Reader's Digest, 32 (February, 1938), 82. 
•"Wanted: Dogs for War," Reader's Digest, 41 (August, 1942), 88. 



April, 1945 23 

Henry Stoecker, her kennel manager, developed the plan which was officially 
recognized by the War Department in April, 1942. Dogs for Defense, as 
they named it, is a non-profit organization which has been set up to recruit 
the eventual corps of 50,000 service dogs. It has turned to the American 
public for three things: (1) money, which would help cover the administra- 
tive expenses; (2) dogs which would fit Army specifications; and (3) train- 
ers, experienced or not, who would undertake to teach the code of standards 
to qualified dogs.* 

Since its beginning, many amateur and professional dog trainers have 
oflfered their services to D. F. D. Henry Stoecker, one of the instigators, 
well-known for teaching dogs police work, trained the first group of dogs. 
Together with Mrs. Erlanger, he wrote a manual as a guide for all trainers — 
a manual now used in twenty canine camps, where D. F. D. volunteers, such 
as Carl Spitz and Robert Pearce, trainers of movie dogs, and also many 
other noted trainers and dog fanciers are putting the dogs through their paces. 

The (lualifications for admission to this corps are so rigid as to eliminate 
a large percent of those canines whose owners wish to give them up to the 
army. To compensate for this, the War Dog Fund, an honorary organization, 
was founded for those who have 4-F dogs. The entry fee may be any amount 
the person wishes to pay, but the more he gives, the higher the rank for his 
dog. There are over 20,000 dogs in this civilian canine corps, with ranks of 
private all the way up to full general or admiral. This money goes to Dogs 
for Defense to cover their processing expenses.^ 

The processing, or basic training for an army recruit, lasts six weeks. It 
is during the first three weeks that the trainer can tell if the animal will make 
a good soldier. F.ut before the dog can begin his training, he must pass a 
rigid entrance examination. He must be a healthy, ambitious dog, not more 
than five years old, stand eighteen to twenty-eight inches at the shoulder, 
and be a pure-bred or a cross-bred animal so that the trainers will know his 
inherited instincts.* He must be intelligent, remember what he has learned, 
and, above all, be willing to use his knowledge. If the dog passes this 
examination, he has a serial number tattooed in his ear and becomes the 
property of the United States Army. 

His training then begins. For six weeks he goes through the routine of 
learning the four basic commands. For one and one-half to two hours daily, 
or until he loses interest, the dog practices these commands. The dog's name 
always precedes each command: 

1. "Heel." The dog remains close to the left of the handler. This is to 
keep [he man's right hand free. The trainer presses down on the dog's head 

* Joseph Israels, "Soldiers on Leashes," Saturday Evening Post, 215 (September 5, 

1942), 57. 

'"Dog Admirals," Newsweek, 21 (February 15, 1943), 30. 

•Joseph Israels, op. cit., p. 20. 



24 The Green Caldron 

or neck and repeats "heel" over and over until the dog understands. He 
must learn to do this w^hile sitting, standing, or walking. 

2. "Stay." The dog remains motionless, sitting or standing. The trainer 
uses firm pressure of his left hand to keep the dog in place. The dog must 
remain there, whether the man stays or goes away. 

3. "Out." The dog ranges in any direction indicated by a wave of the 
instructor's hand. 

4. "Come." The dog must return to the handler, wherever he is. The 
dog, to be taught this command, is put on a leash, which is yanked when the 
word "come" is uttered.^ 

During the last week of training, the dog becomes acquainted with the 
man he is to work with hereafter, his soldier-master. The two, together, then 
leave for finishing school. Here, the dog is assigned to a special duty, and he 
has a few weeks in which to perfect the lessons given him. 

A sentry dog is the most needed and goes through the most rigid train- 
ing. He must learn to be suspicious of all people but his handler. He must 
give warning of approaching persons by coming to attention and emitting 
an inaudible growl which warns only the handler, who keeps his fingers at 
the dog's throat, and can feel the pulsations. If he is ordered to attack, he 
must do so without hesitation. After accomplishing these tricks, he has to 
do them in the presence of all sorts of distractions, from chickens to actual 
gunfire. Then he must learn to perform in complete darkness, since much of 
his work will be done at night. ^ 

The Red Cross and messenger dogs are not given the "commando" course 
(attacking human beings). When a Red Cross dog finds a wounded man, he 
takes the "brinsal" in his mouth. This is a leather-covered stick suspended 
from the dog's collar. With this as evidence of his discovery, he reports to his 
base. He then leads medical corpsmen back to the wounded soldier. The idea 
of the brinsal was adopted in this war, because, in 1918, the dog sometimes 
became so excited when he found a wounded man that, in tearing off a piece 
of clothing, he further injured the soldier.^ The messenger dog goes through 
a regular obstacle course each day. No obstacle can be too hard for him. He 
swims rivers, scales walls, crawls through dense underbrush and under 
barbed-wire entanglements, and makes his way through the heaviest traffic 
of city streets. He never pauses to fight, chase cats, play with children, or 
accept food from strangers. Nothing must interfere with his errand.^" 

Dogs are used for many other purposes, too. They are taught to ferret 
out land mines, follow the trail of an escaped prisoner or spy, carry packs 
of supplies and ammunition, and string telephone wires. 

'Avery Strakosch, "Canine Corps," Collier's, 3 (January 2, 1943), 32-33. 
'Joseph Israels, op. cit., p. 21. 

* "Training Dogs for Defense," Popular Mechanics, 78 (July, 1942), 89. 
"Frederick Simpich, "Your Dog Joins Up," National Geographic Magazine, 83 (Janu- 
ary, 1943), 95. 



April, 1945 25 

When the dog has finished his training, he is ready for active duty. Some 
dogs stay in the United States to guard essential factories and warehouses. 
Others go right into combat to apply what they have learned. 

Over here, the dogs have done a commendable job. In one case, a Dal- 
matian sentry dog probably saved many lives and much valuable property by 
his alertness. He was pacing a wharf at a West Coast city with his soldier- 
handler. Suddenly he came to attention. When the soldier searched the pier, 
he found nothing. I'ut the dog was insistent, so the soldier finally hailed a 
passing harbor patrol. The trouble was soon discovered, for a Jap in a row- 
boat was routed out from beneath the pier. With him were all the tools 
needed for a good job of sabotage." 

Overseas, also, the dogs have proved their worth. In the jungle they have 
done their best work. Caesar, a German shepherd, is a good example of the 
help the dfjgs have given our soldiers. Caesar landed on Bougainville with the 
Marines in the first assault. On the first day. he was the only means of com- 
munication between Company M and the battalion post. He carried messages 
and cajJtured Jap papers for nine round trips, a total of thirty-one miles (two 
trips under gunfire). Shortly after, when he and his master were advancing, 
Caesar heard the click of a grenade. He ran into the bushes and caught the 
Jap's arm in mid-air. The grenade dropped and exploded, killing the Jap and 
wounding Caesar in the hip and side." Duke is another dog that has become 
famous in the South Pacific. He is called the "Sergeant York of the dog 
world." At New Guinea he "flushed" fifty Jap snii)ers. and at Cape 
Gloucester the number was eighty.'' 

In the Euro|)ean theater of war, dogs have been u.sed extensively. Chips, 
the dog mentioned at the beginning of this paper, landed at Blue Beach, in 
Italy. A hidden machine g^n nest was causing a lot of trouble for our 
soldiers, but Chips found it. ran into the hut. and singlehandedly eliminated 
it. He was awarded the Silver Star for this deed, and stood proudly at 
attention while the division General pinned it on his collar." 

Xot always do the dogs have such good luck, however, for sometimes 
the owner of a dog sent into action will receive a letter from the War 
Department, stating: 

It is with rc.ii:ret that I write to inform you of the death of , 

donated by you for use in connection with the armed forces of the United States. 
It is hoped that the knowledge that this brave dog was killed in the service of 
our country will mitigate the regret occasioned by the news of his death." 

"Avery Strakosch, loc. cit. 

"Paul Hcaly. "Our Animal Allies," Popular Mechanics, 82 (August, 1944), 33-34. 

^*Ibid.. p. 34. 

""Chips; Gallantry in Action," Time, 42 (November 22, 1943), 72. 

"Temple Fielding, "Dogs of War — the K-9 Corps," Reader's Digest, 44 (January, 

1944), 118. 



26 The Green Caldron 

When the training of these dogs was begun, the D. F. D. promised to 
return the pets after the war, their disposition unimpaired. But now, official 
orders rescind that promise. The parting is final when the dogs are given to 
the army, for the United States plans to have a large unit of war dogs on 
hand.^® Thus, this training may go on for many years, and dogs will continue 
to show themselves as good fighters. 

" Avery Strakosch, loc. cit. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

"Chips; Gallantry in Action," Time, 42 (November 22, 1943), 72. 

"Dog Admirals," Newsweek, 21 (February 15, 1943), 30-31. 

Fielding, Temple. "Dogs of War — the K-9 Corps," Reader's Digest, 44 (January, 
1944), 117-118. 

Healy, Paul. "Our Animal Allies," Popular Mechanics, 82 (August, 1944), 32-36. 

Israels, Joseph. "Soldiers on Leashes," Saturday Evening Post, 215 (September 5, 
1942), 20+. 

Parkhurst, Genevieve. "Dogs of War," Readers Digest, 32 (February, 1938), 82-84. 

RuARK, Robert C. "Have the War Dogs Been Good Soldiers ?" Saturday Evening Post, , 
217 (November 25, 1944), 18+. 

SiMPiCH, Frederick. "Your Dog Joins Up," Natiotial Geographic Magazine, 83 (Janu- 
ary, 1943), 93-113. 

Strakosch, Avery. "Canine Corps," Collier's, 3 (January 2, 1943), 32-33. 

"Training Dogs for Defense," Popular Mechanics, 78 (July, 1942), 88-89. 

"Wanted: Dogs for War," Reader's Digest, 41 (August, 1942), 88. 



Gold Inlay 

Jo Ann Ator 
Rhetoric I, Theme 8, 1944-1945 

F ALL MY EXPERIENCES AS A DENTAL ASSISTANT I 
think I most enjoyed seeing Doctor make a gold inlay. It is an 
operation calling for the utmost skill and dexterity of even the best 
dentist, and I consider Doctor one of the best. 

After I had slapped a napkin around the v^^ould-be sufferer's neck and 
prepared the necessary instruments, Doctor took over. The first step was 
to prepare the tooth for the gold inlay; this requires a great deal of drilling., 
and polishing, but isn't very painful. After such an interval I brought Doctori 
the blue wax, which he slightly heated and slipped into the prepared cavity; 
When the wax had been put into place carefully and had set, the tediouss 
part of the business started. With an instrument not as large or as big around 
as a pin, Doctor attempted to remove the wax without injuring its shape. This; 
is called "drawing the wax pattern." Successfully completing this, he dis' 
missed the patient and told him to return several days later. For me, thei 
fun was just beginning. 



O" 



April, 1945 27 

This tiny piece of blue wax, so perfect and delicate in form, must be 
transformed in some manner into a gold inlay, fit for a human mouth. The 
first time I saw this done, I watched open-mouthed as Doctor swiftly placed 
the wax pattern on a tiny pin-like sprocket attached to a small base. He 
heated a small bowl of plaster, a fine type used only by dentists, and began 
to place minute particles of it on the wax pattern with a brush. It was a 
difficult process, for there must be no air bubbles to mar the inlay's form. 
When a cylinder had been placed over the sprocket and completely filled 
with plaster, the job was turned over to me. The plaster hardened and set. I 
then removed the tiny pin-like sprocket, and inverting the cylinder so that a 
tiny air passage reached up to the wax, I placed it on the electric stove. Here 
the wax melted and disappeared, leaving a perfect mold for the inlay. 

Again Doctor took charge. He took several squares of gold, placed them 
in an asbestos-lined plaster dish and applied intense heat with a blowtorch. 
Meanwhile I had fastened the plaster mold to the centrifugal machine. Then, 
I turned to watch the melting gold. First it was a brilliant orange, but as the 
heat grew more intense, it finally turned into a beautiful molten, silver liquid. 
Doctor placed it in a little plaster dish with a tube leading to the entrance 
of the air passage of our mold, set in plaster. He then wound the machine 
around and around, much as a child winds himself in a swing. At a center 
point. Doctor suddenly let loose, and with a loud "swoosh" the gold was 
forced into the air passage and into the mold by the force of the unwinding 
machine. 

The gold still sizzling hot. Doctor grasped the mold with forceps and 
drojjped it into a pan of cold water. It sizzled and boiled for a few minutes, 
exploiling the plaster mold and hardening the gold pattern simultaneously. 

It was then my job to search through the pan for the gold inlay. After 
dunking it in acid, we finally had a complete gold inlay, an exact replica of 
the wax pattern we had drawn. 



"I Dislike ..." 

I dislike the radio comedians who begin, "Funniest thing happened to me on 
the way over to the studio tonight . . . "; the concerts that feature a voice with 
a "purple hush." saying, "The house lights dim. the orchestra is tuning up, and 
the leader takes his usual place"; and the sinijer who insists on thanking: you 
"on behalf of myself and the boys in the band." I dislike the pro<jrams that are 
always saluting somebody. It's beg^inning to sound a little silly. It's either the 
Spars of the Hotel Lincohi. or the Brooklyn Navy Yard, or the Paper Bag Com- 
pany of Fall River. I dislike the younj? lady who says her name is Moitle Glutz 
and that she comes from Brooklyn. Cheers, screams, whistles, low moans, and 
that noise they make with their feet in the balcony, herald this simple confession. 
"Well, well, folks," booms the quiz master, "I guess there must be somebody here 
tonight from Brooklyn." — Rosemary Tornelle 



28 The Green Caldron 

Factory — Wartime 

Herbert J. Shaner, Jr. 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1944-1945 



pnpqilERE WAS IN THAT VAST EXPANSE OF WIRES, MA- 
I chinery, and oil-soaked floor very little room to do anything but 
■^^ stand at one's machine and endlessly, monotonously turn the shiny 
steel crank around and around — around and around all day long except 
when this boring, tedious procedure was punctuated by the rest periods, the 
noon hour, and the four o'clock signal to quit for the day. Nothing to do 
during that time but keep half one's mind on the little spinning piece of 
metal that was in the machine and the other half on odd little things. After 
working in such a place for three months, one found the little things that he 
could attach his mind to becoming scarce. Hugo's mind constantly was. 
trying to imagine and fathom the hours of labor and tons of materials that 
must have gone into this gigantic product of man's brain. To him, the beams ^ 
that tangled and interwove their way across the three-block-square roomi 
were symbols of the power that America possessed. He often tried to count 
the tens of thousands of electric wires that ran from the machinery to the 
main power circuits above. He became panicky when he imagined himself one 
of the men that were called upon to find out why and where a machine had! 
been suddenly cut off from its source of power. 

Hugo, who had been working in a bakery for the last twenty years,, 
thought that this was a grand adventure, a place of enchantment. Neverthe- 
less, he disliked turning the shining steel crank. But he swelled with pride.' 
when the trim, blonde secretary scrawled "machinist" across his first unioni 
card. Of course, Hugo could not do anything to his lathe but switch it on and I 
off and turn the crank. Whenever anything went wrong with his huge charge,, 
he would scurry down the narrow path that ran between the countless^ 
machines and tell the "bossman" his plight. The same thing would happeni 
every time. Mr. Varnosky, the big Polack that wore a suit to work, would! 
grab the interfactory phone, dial a combination of numbers, and then spill! 
out hurriedly in his broken English, "Send a feller to fix no. 422 in sectioni^ 
two. Yeah, she's busted." 

The little baker would look up at the big Polish fellow with an apologetic,, 
half frightened expression on his small face. The "bossman" would them 
try to cheer the little fellow up and be firm with him at the same time; afterr 
all, he was a "company" man now. He couldn't simply say that the company- 
could afford to pay for the blunder, as he would have said had he not beeni 
a foreman. He had to stick up for his company, for he was on salary now. 
The phone would ring and the difficult minutes between foreman and work- 



April, 1945 29 

man would be ended. The little German cook would then go back to his 
machine and await the man that was being sent to repair it. He would stand 
and wait as if he were a special man that had nothing more to do — just stand. 

The plant during the day shift was a mass of human beings going one 
way and another, and to any spectator it would seem that these people had 
nothing better to do than walk about the huge birthplace of bomber motors. 
Men from the front office in business suits, white shirts, and gay-colored ties 
moved slowly down the large corridors with worried, excited expressions 
on their freshly shaven faces. Hugo often remarked to the little Jewish 
fellow that worked next to his machine that he thought more people walked 
about than worked. Hut just the same he, himself, loved to turn off his 
machine, hike up his pants, and join the throng that filled the wide alley-way. 

One could certainly tell that times were good when he ventured into 
one of the large restrooms that were placed conveniently about the large 
plant. To go into any one of them was like going into an entirely diflferent 
world, for it seemed that it was being used for everything except for what 
it was intended. In one corner, particularly on payday, some were flipping 
coins high up into the air, catching them, and slapping them on the backs 
of their hands. This action would be followed by a chorus of obscenity and 
the exchanging of coins. They were not tossing pennies; why be so cheap 
when everyone has shiny quarters and half dollars? Hugo often watched, 
but he never offered to participate. Even a quarter was a lot of money to a 
baker. In another corner a group of men were bent over little yellow cards. 
It was in this comer that the men foretold the collegiate football scores. 
A half "rock" on four teams brought eight bucks. On the days that the 
football cards were not in circulation the bookies were represented by racing 
sheets. Hugo knew that the bookie did not drive a LaSalle and go to Florida 
because he did not make money. Yes, the "can" was a wonderful institution. 
It was crowded eight hours of every day, for everyone went down at least 
three times a day at twenty minutes a trip. It was a scene of laughter, dis- 
order, and profanity framed by a thick cloud of cigarette smoke. Men tossed 
for quarters and forgot the war. 

One of the people that bustled down the main corridor of this huge 
arsenal of defense every day was Jim Smith from the tool room. It was his 
job to handle all of the interplant orders that came into the tool room. 
When he was going down the hall, he was on his way to the heat treating 
department with a cart full of tools that had to be tempered before they 
could be finished. He would walk with a brisk step accompanied by a whistle. 
Of course, no one that was not within five feet of him could hear him 
because of the shrill noises of reluctant steel being carved by even harder 
steel at the huge "buUard" machines. He was only eighteen, and, therefore, 
the men of the tool room thought they had a natural right to hand him ad- 
vice, regardless of whether it was wanted or not. 



30 The Green Caldron 

To Jim Smith, working at Buick Motors Division was a "lark." It was a 
simple way of earning sixty dollars a week. He regarded working there as a 
great experience in meeting different types of people. He did not intend to 
work there all his life, but this was merely a bridge on the road. Most of 
the men in the plant had worked in plants like this all their lives; he was 
going to stay only until September. Besides, he felt sorry for the people that 
worked there. He couldn't see, as they did, paying for a six-thousand-dollar 
house with his entire life's work. He came from the wrong side of the tracks. 
He had eaten too well during his brief eighteen years. 

When Hugo came into the plant in the morning, he would go to his 
locker and place his carefully packed lunch on the top shelf, change into his 
oil drenched overalls and shoes, and go out into the cream tiled corridor. At 
ten minutes of eight this three-block hall was a moving stream of blue- 
uniformed women and apron-clad men. There were three such halls, and all 
of them spanned the width of the entire building. Hugo would edge over to 
the stairway nearest his section of the plant above and talk to Fred Kudhal. 
Their conversations frequently included the fact that they were damned 
tired of getting up at six-thirty in the morning and coming to work when 
it was still dark. 

One morning after Hugo had changed his clothes, he found big, dark- 
haired Fred waiting for him with an excited look on his large face. "Morn- 
ing, Fred," said Hugo in his bakery shop friendliness. 

"Hi ya, 'Ugo. Did ja hear what happened to one of de big guns yes' 
day?" Without waiting for an answer the big fellow bubbled excitedly on. 
"Well, dat guy, by de name of Sagerman, in the tool room — !" 

"Didn't catch the name," interrupted Hugo. 

"Sagerman, ya hoid of de bird," repeated Fred, impatient to tell his story. 
"Dat Jewish foreman in de tool room came to de plant drunker dan a dilly. 
De cops wouldn't let no drunk guy in no matter who he said he was. Damn 
good for de Yid." 

"Are they going to give him the boot?" said the little German, who was 
not very excitable, even by such news as this. All of the employees liked to 
see the "big wigs" get into trouble. 

"Yeah, dat's w'at I hoid dey was goin' to do ta de Hebe," replied Fred 
with a satisfied air. "Ya know, sometimes I t'ink dat guy Hitler has de right 
idea of killing off dose damn Jews. Dey want every damn t'ing a fella has, 
and dey still ain't satisfied." 

Hugo, seeing the little Jew, Max, said nothing. Besides, a German that 
had only been in this country for twenty-five years watched what he said. 
He also remembered that Fred was absent quite often, because he was so 
tight that he could not sit up. The sounding of the bell caused the whole hall 
to move toward the stairway and work. 



April, 1945 31 

At the other end of the same line that Hugo was in, Jane Johnson sat at the 
bore-mill machine. She came from the north side of Chicago and was proud 
of it. The huge mechanical nightmare placed fifty tapped holes in an alumi- 
num "head" in one operation. She felt as if she were really doing something 
when she placed the "head" on the machine and pressed the button that sent 
the fifty drills in the precisely correct position. She did this day after day 
in the hope that her husband, who was in Africa with the Army, could have 
his job back after the war. 

Since Jane was so young and good looking, Jim Smith found it easy to 
stop and talk to her on his way to the heat treating department. Jane liked 
to talk to him, because he was either too stupid or too shy to bring up some 
of the things the married men did. In this way each found out what was 
going on in the other's part of the plant. Jim admired the way in which she 
had so much faith in the part she was playing in the war effort. She was also 
probably the only person in the plant that would not buy an illegal gas, shoe, 
or butter coupon. That was the quality that made her one of the plant's most 
effective bond sales girls. It was during the Fifth Ix)an drive that her 
husband was killed. 

Hugo had the habit of looking up at eleven o'clock every morning. 
Eleven o'clock meant that in one-half hour he would go down to eat. There- 
fore, he would pick up a piece of cloth and begin to wipe the oil off his 
hands. It always seemed to him that the last half hour before lunch was the 
longest half hour in the day. He shut his machine off about one-half minute 
before the bell sounded and started down the aisle. The bell would sound, 
and he would forget that he was no longer a young man. for he would run 
down the machine-walled path toward the stairway and lunch. 

The lunch room was one of the most interesting places in the huge fac- 
tory. It was a large room that was equipped to handle a thousand people 
every twenty minutes. There were five separate lines to the gleaming, food 
laden counters. From the counters to the opposite wall, tables and chairs 
were placed in long, even rows. These were soon filled by the hungry men 
and women. The fact that they had only twenty minutes in which to eat is, 
in itself, an apt description of the scene that took place there every noon. 

Hugo sat at a table near the rear of the cafeteria with Max, Fred 
Kudhal. and several others that worked in his department. They discussed 
everything from the war situation to the spats with the "little woman." One 
of their favorite topics of conversation was the activities of their great 
benefactor. President Roosevelt. President Roosevelt, according to the husky 
Italian, was the man that took the wrinkles out of their bellies. If the half 
hour before lunch was the longest in the day, the twenty minutes for lunch 
were certainly the shortest; but the instant the bell rang, a shuffle of chairs 
officially ended the period. 



\ 



32 The Green Caldron 

When the four o'clock bell rang out its dismissing note, everyone surged 
toward the lockers and time-clocks like a herd of stampeding cattle. It took 
fifteen minutes to get one's car out of the parking lots that spread the full 
length of the plant on either side. On Friday, payday, it was even worse. On 
this day everybody made a mad dash for the nearest saloons that had huge 
amounts of beer to meet the thirsty workers. 

Hugo did not ride with his driver on Friday, for he had no desire to 
wait at the tavern two hours for the man to go home. He just stuffed the 
check in his pocket and took the bus home with the explanation, "Christine 
will take care of it." He often had to take the bus on Saturdays also, for 
that was the big day at the track. 

Although the members of the Buick Motors Division were receiving 
more money now than they had ever gotten in their lives, they bought things 
which under ordinary circumstances they would not have thought of buying. 
However, Christine had seen too many days when Hugo had had hardly 
enough money to buy flour for his bakery, not to put some of his weekly 
earnings away for the days that were to come. Jim Smith's money went into 
the bank. Fred Kudhal and many others like him also put their money in the 
bank, but their bank was their stomachs — beer was the money. 



Mr. Andrew H. Lang sat at his huge desk in a luxurious office, peering 
at a letter and thinking of the huge plant that would respond to his every 
wish. He thought of the three hundred and forty-six days it took to build 
the Buick Motors Division plant and start it producing. To those he proudly 
added the measly one hundred and sixty-five days that it took to get the 
gigantic womb producing at peak. His mind ran over the days when this mag- 
nificent factory was nothing but a prairie and a blueprint. He recalled, as 
he sat looking over the sea of cars in the parking lot, how he ran giant ad- 
vertisements in papers from coast to coast in order to get the necessary 
man-power. He bought up the land for miles around, put it into the hands 
of realtors, and sold it to the people that were going to work in his plant. 
He laughed at the six-thousand-dollar houses strung out for miles around 
the plant. He swelled with pride when he thought of the visit the President 
of the United States paid to his motor plant. He even shook hands with 
one of his own employees that day. He wondered who the lucky fellow was 
— Stamokosky or something like that. He relived the day on which the plant 
was awarded the Army-Navy E for having broken production goals. As he 
continued to look at the paper he held, he thought of his home in Michigan 
and going back to it. He suddenly sat up and once more assumed the charac- 
teristics of Andrew H. Lang, President. He clicked the switch on his desk 
and told the office force to prepare to lay off fifty per cent in all departments. 
Hugo still turned the shiny steel crank and waited for four o'clock. 



Afril, 1945 33 

Art— Made to Order 

Beverly Lippman 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1944-1945 

FOR YEARS I HAVE BEEN INTERESTED IN THE TYPE OF 
art that average, middle-class people buy for their home. I compared 
the taste and knowledge of art that people displayed when they se- 
lected their pictures, with the knowledge of art that I had received at many 
art schools; and I arrived at certain conclusions. First of all, I decided that 
I could duplicate, with very little effort, the type of pictures that were 
bought. Secondly, although I would have my selling prices lower than those 
of the department stores, I could still make a large profit. 

Thus my business began. In a few months I made ten pictures which were 
quickly sold. My customers not only bought the pictures but also served as 
agents for other customers, simply by displaying my pictures in their own 
homes. People who came to these homes saw them, admired them, and 
wanted copies for their own walls. As my business improved and I became 
more adept at my work, I was given ample opportunity to formulate more 
conclusions about the art taste of average people, and thus I learned more 
about how to paint pictures that they would buy. 

First, I found it advisable to know the {person for whom I was planning 
to do a job. In this way, I was able to discover his taste in art, and by paint- 
ing what pleased him, I was certain that he would buy my picture. People 
react strangely to art. Many average people, after hearing the comments of 
their neighbors, decide that they, themselves, dislike modern art without even 
looking at it. If they do look at it, they scoff without even attempting to 
understand what the artist was trying to express in his masterpiece. It is a 
definite fact that few people, if any, actually know the exact emotions that 
an artist has when he paints an abstraction or any other modern piece. If 
the layman, however, would at least attempt to acquaint himself with some of 
the problems of space-breaking, either by trying to make a modem picture 
or by reading authoritative explanations of the problem, he would soon learn 
to respect such art and would no longer consider it comparable to a child's 
scribbling. At the other extreme, there are many people who claim to love 
modern art. Actually, they like it because they consider such art the "rage." 
They extol its qualities because in their eyes and in the eyes of their neigh- 
bors, it is the thing to do. These people would be completely lost if they were 
asked by art authorities why they liked the pictures they bought. 

Unfortunately, the favorite type of picture of the majority of people is 
that which is as photographic in appearance as possible. If a tree looks like 
a tree and an apple looks like an apple, the painting has fulfilled its require- 



34 The Green Caldron 

ments as an art piece, and is considered pleasing. This type of art appreciator 
also likes pictures which extol "beauty," whether it be in a landscape or in a 
room interior. 

When you have decided in which group of art appreciator your customer 
belongs, you have completed the first step of a particular job. The actual 
selection of subject matter is easy. Usually, the person liking photographic 
art will take you up to the art department of a store, and, with an awed 
expression in his eyes, will triumphantly point to his ideal picture — usually 
a copy of a vase and perhaps two oranges. Then you go home, find your own 
vase, add a banana to the arrangement, and strive for the same realness of 
effect that the picture in the department store had. Sometimes, a person has a 
pet subject, such as Chinese prints, which you can interpret to your own 
liking. I prefer this latter method. 

Before you begin your work, the customer and you decide upon a price 
for it. This is not a difficult problem because you can gauge according to the 
prices charged by the stores. If you feel that your customer can afford it, 
you can probably charge the same price that stores do for the particular type 
and size that you are painting; if you have any qualms concerning your 
customer's financial status, you should lower the price. 

When you have chosen the subject matter, you need to consider the 
medium in which you are going to paint it. As the average layman who is 
buying the picture is unfamiliar with such things as the types of paint, this is 
usually the problem of the artist. It can be decided upon by preference only. 
You will probably choose the medium in which you feel you do your most 
effective work in the shortest time. The most popular media for pictures in 
the average home are oils, water colors, and temperas. I usually do the 
majority of my pictures in water color or tempera. 

The supplies that have to be used while painting a picture are well-known 
to those who work in paints. For water colors and temperas, I always have 
a large jar of clear water, a few pieces of absorbent cloth, a few fiat pans in 
which to mix paints, good sable brushes ranging from the smallest to prac- 
tically the largest in size, and a complete set of paint tubes that are well filled. 

It is always difficult for you to decide when your picture is completed. 
When you are painting a picture for a person, you are faced with the prob- 
lem of whether or not your results will please your customer. You want to 
please yourself, too. So the question arises as to who is to be pleased first. 
You do not want to lose your customer by painting the picture in a manner 
he will not like. I take a chance; I paint my picture until I, myself, am 
thoroughly satisfied with the results. So far, I have not lost a customer. 

I have enjoyed my little business immensely, although I have discontinued 
it since I have come to college. It takes a lot of time and patience, I will 
admit, but I have still found my avocation amusing as well as profitable. 



April, 1945 35 

In Features Only 

TsuTOMU G. Arai 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1944-1945 

DI-XEMBER 7, 1941, IS ONE DAY THAT WILL LONG BE 
remembered by all who live in America because of the changes it 
brought into their lives. Especially is this true of the Japanese 
Americans, called niseis. Very few people know what we have to overcome 
and how we feel about the situation. 

We have oriental features but our souls are American. We were bom 
in this country, and the seed of democracy was planted within our hearts. We 
were educated to understand and to believe in democracy. We studied, 
worked, and played with other Americans. The seed of freedom was just 
sprouting when Pearl Harbor was headline news. Like the rest of the world, 
we were surprised. Shock and fear followed, and in our hearts there was a 
feeling that someone had just stepped on the seed that was developing into 
a firm belief in democracy. People stared at us, cursed us, and called us 
names. People we considered our best friends turned away from us. Our 
parents were interned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the grounds 
that they were considered dangerous enemy aliens. Thus our homes were 
split. Day by day the order to evacuate the West Coast was imminent. 
Because of this constant threat, we sold our houses cheap, gave away our 
furniture; and as we worked to clear our properties, we could always notice 
the heartbroken look on the faces of the older generation as they saw every- 
thing they had built crumble before their eyes. 

But the younger generation wondered if this forced evacuation was to 
be carried out. Was it just to treat innocent citizens the way the govern- 
ment was treating us? We were in no position to argue or protest. The 
marker "A Jap is always a Jap" was placed on us — our features are oriental. 
Deep inside our hearts that little seed of democracy was uprooted. 

Evacuation came like a sudden storm in March. 1942, and within three 
months, all of the Japanese were evacuated from the West Coast. Out of 
every three Japanese, two were American citizens. No charges had been 
filed against us, nor were we tried by any court. Evacuation was on racial, or, 
perhaps more accurately, on ancestral grounds. It was the largest single 
forced migration in American history. 

Relocation centers in which we were placed were not normal communi- 
ties. With barbed wire fences and strict military police guards, the camps 
took on a prison look. Because of the evacuation order, friends and families 
were split, homes were abandoned, and businesses were closed. The pleasant, 



36 The Green Caldron 

equal American way of life was a thing of the past; and the future was only 
a hope, and no longer an assurance. 

In January, 1943, the Japanese American combat teams, the 100th and 
the 442nd, were being organized. This was the step that proved more than 
anything else that the niseis are a willing and loyal group. 

In one section of the nation, a call for 1500 men was made for these 
teams, but more than 9600 volunteered. Then, suddenly, the Selective Service 
began to induct the niseis into these units. Many in the group were opposed 
to enforced enlistment because of the treatment we were receiving, but a 
logical conclusion was reached. Prior to December 7, we lived a normal, 
simple American life. We had the best of education. We ate, played, worked, 
and worshipped as we pleased. Yes, accepting the induction would be wise, 
for it was a chance to fight side by side with other Americans to restore the 
rights we once held. 

The organization of the combat teams was started, and induction was in 
full swing. My cousin was inducted, and from his letters I can clearly relate 
the feelings and achievements of the fighting units. While the boys were 
training in the States, the niseis had to take a lot of abuse from Jap haters. 
The uniforms didn't mean much to these trouble makers — the boys in them 
did not look like Americans. Yet, they trained. Finally the day came when 
they were to show their loyalty to the people of their country. From known 
data and statistics, we learn that the 100th and 442nd, of the Fifth Army, 
landed and established the beachhead at Salerno in Italy, and have taken part 
in every major action. In their battalion of 1300 men, they have more than 
1000 Purple Hearts. I am going to quote a nisei soldier writing in Colliers, 
because he shows the feelings of every Japanese American: "We aren't like 
the Japanese and German troops who fight only because they are sent some- 
where and made to. We know what we are fighting for — for our country, 
like other American boys. We are fighting a little harder because we are 
anxious to let people know we are good Americans, so that our families 
would be better thought of and better treated back home." 

Yes ! In Italy they tried so hard to prove their loyalty that fully two- 
thirds of the battalion became casualties. 

Because of the outstanding loyalty of the combat teams, we at home are 
being granted the rights that were once ours. The seed of democracy in our 
hearts is sprouting once more, and the future seems a little more assuring. 

Today you will see service stars hanging in the windows of most of our 
homes. Our mothers are wearing service pins with stars to indicate that their 
sons are serving their country, and in the casualty lists of the daily newspaper, 
you can see a name like Akiyama beside John Doe. Regardless of our color 
or creed, we are fighting with the sincere belief that democracy will one day 
mean that all men are created equal. 



April, 1945 37 

A Year in the Yukon 



T 



Adelaide Jauch 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1944-1945 

nr^HE SILVER- BODIED CANADIAN PACIFIC AIRLINER 
settled itself on the runway. 

"VVhitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada," said the pilot. "End of 
the line. End of the world." 

As I stepped off the plane and looked around, I was sure he was right. 
This was the end of the world, this dusty little town, a huddle of log cabins 
and ramshackle houses, completely surrounded by the quonset huts and bar- 
racks of Army and civilian construction camps. And this was to be my home 
for the next nine months. In my purse was a contract which said I was to 
work for the Dowell Construction Company, Alaska Hif,'hway contractor, 
for that length of time. I had signed it of my own free will, anticipating 
adventure and excitement. But this sense of anticipation was lost, lost in the 
sandy dust that swirled about me. Well, they had told me about the dust and 
the mosquitoes, a family of which had already discovered the back of my 
neck. But they had lied when they said it would be cool here. A July sun 
was beating down, and my woolen suit and sweater were uncomfortably 
warm. I was angry. I was disapi>ointed. I was homesick. 

The room to which I was shown, when I finally arrived at the camp 
itself, only served to heighten my disappointment. It was small and bare, 
containing only a chest of drawers, a desk, a straight-backed chair, and a 
narrow cot, covered with a rough Army blanket. It smelled of fresh paint 
and green wood. I was certain I could never call it "my room." 

The next morning I reported at the barnlike office building and was put 
to work typing inventories. I protested that I was a stenographer but was 
merely told that the inventories were important. This calm statement of fact 
jolted me out of my depressed, self -pitying mood. I may have accepted the 
job for the novelty and the fun; but I had been hired to work, and work 
I would. 

Monotonous as the inventories proved to be, I found myself actually 
enjoying the working day. There was an easy informality about the office. 
Executives and clerks intermingled, laughing and joking, ridiculing one 
another's home states, telling outlandish tales of the size of the mosquitoes 
and the rigors of a Yukon winter. But, above all, there was a job being 
done, and there was pride in doing that job and in being part of an historic 
and daring project. 



38 The Green Caldron 

And while I was discovering enjoyment and pride in my work, I was also 
finding the novelty and fun I had anticipated. 

The camp itself was a novelty. Row after row of barracks, office build- 
ings, machine shops, a postoffice, a recreation hall — it was a little city in 
itself. All meals were served in messhalls, and the cooks were more than 
accommodating in providing m.id-afternoon and evening snacks and picnic 
lunches. All of the fruits and vegetables were canned; we ate powdered or 
whole eggs, and powdered or canned milk. But skilled cooks worked at 
making the food palatable, and sixty girls, who averaged a gain in weight 
of five pounds each, will testify to their success. 

The women's barracks were presided over by two matrons who saw that 
we got up in the morning and got to bed sometime during the night. They 
were ever ready to advise or console. Little by little, conveniences were added 
— a washing machine, a bathtub, a recreation room which became a nightly 
center of activity. In spite of its bareness, the "Kitten Kennel," as it had 
been styled, became home. 

The natural beauties of the North constantly awed me. The most lone- 
some soldier, the most hardened laborer were entranced by the Northern 
Lights as they moved magically across the sky, disappeared and returned, 
pale green and yellow, rose and lavender. The snow-capped mountains, the 
sun rising over them and giving them a rosy halo, the long, long winter 
nights, the twenty or more hours of daylight in the summer, more than com- 
pensated for the dust and mosquitoes, the ankle-deep mud in the spring, 
the sub-zero winter weather. 

The town of Whitehorse itself proved interesting and novel. A remnant 
of the Gold Rush days of the 1890's, it was saved from becoming just 
another ghost town by its railroad, which is an important link in the trans- 
portation system of Canada's northwest. At Whitehorse the Lewes River, a 
tributary of the mighty Yukon, becomes too swift and narrow to be navi- 
gable; here the river traffic is transferred to the narrow-gauge railroad which 
snakes its way along the sides of mountains one hundred and ten miles to 
Skagway, Alaska. The population of Whitehorse is about six hundred in 
normal times; its streets are narrow and unpaved; its walks are of board. 
Because of its isolated position, it had more to offer than the average town 
of its size, but it was unable to accommodate the thousands of demanding 
Americans who descended upon it. 

The three hotels — the biggest one, the cleanest one, and the one that had 
bugs — were filled to capacity. The restaurants were crowded every night with 
highly paid construction men looking for something, anything, to spend their 
money on, and "Spam-weary" soldiers seeking steaks. Crowds lined up in 
front of the Whitehorse Theater to see a two-year-old movie. The depart- 



April, 1945 39 

ment stores were cleared of heavy clothing before winter set in. Souvenir 
shops were open day and night selling Indian-made moccasins, mastodon 
ivorj- and gold nugget jewelry, and souvenir pillow covers at prices way 
above their value. Little shacks were erected one week and open for the 
sandwich-and-coffee trade the next. A new theater was erected, complete 
with neon lights, and the "98" Ballroom came into existence — the "98," 
which charged a couple two dollars, a stag three dollars, and gave an un- 
accompanied girl one dollar. 

From the looks of the town one would have thought that it provided the 
only source of amusement, but this was not true. One of the construction 
camps had weekly dances, another had its own theater, and they all had 
parties on various occasions. Each Army company had regular dances and 
movies; the Red Cross had a club for enlisted men and their guests; there 
were officers' clubs and non-coms' clubs, and two orchestras, composed of 
Army personnel, to provide music. 

I have often been told that it was this social life which kept the American 
girls happy. I can speak of keeping up a soldier's morale; but I cannot deny 
that it was fun. When it's twenty-to-one in favor of the men (or should I 
say the girls?) no girl is a wallflower. And no girl was. There was a dance 
someplace five nights of the week, and girls were urged to go without dates 
to give everyone a chance. If dancing became tiresome, there was a picnic 
or a drive on the highway in a jeep or other Army vehicle. There seemed 
to be no end to the quaint and interesting things to see around the country- 
side: Lake La Barge, made famous by the poems of Robert Service; Car- 
cross, home of Jack London; Kluane Lode, where the Highway was dedi- 
cated; the Whitehorse Rapids; Miles Canyon, where so many goldrushers 
lost their lives; the deserted copper mine; Ice Lake, fine for fishing and ice- 
skating; Indian villages; Indian cemeteries. 

Amid surroundings and activities such as these I had no difficulty ful- 
filling my nine-month contract plus three months more. 

Eventually the time came for me to leave, and I boarded the funny little 
train that was to take me to Skagway. From Skagway I would go to Juneau 
and take a boat to Seattle, and after Seattle there would be home and 
family and a delayed college education. The future was not dull, by any 
means, but I could not look ahead; I could only look back. I could think only 
of this dusty little town and the friends I was leaving, I would never see 
most of those friends again, and the happy times and unusual experiences 
we had shared were now but memories. Just one short year ago I had suc- 
cessfully battled tears of regret upon arriving. Now I was battling tears of 
regret at leaving. But these were different; they could not be conquered. 



40 The Green Caldron 



Rhet as Writ 



He took his office in 1919, the year before construction began, but 
through his tireless efforts he died in 1924. 



• • 



He works at the telegraph office as the assistant to Mr. Grogan, the 
operator and drunkard. 



• • 



Meddling with older fellows was my hobby, and many an afternoon I 
would come home with the scares of battle. 



• • 



I want to live on a farm with my husband and children and common 
beasts. 



• • 



I was proud to feel myself a clog in this great machine. 



You will also meet extraordinar}-^ characters such as Bustle McQuistion, 
whose moral standards were raised just high enough so everyone could see 
what was hidden below them. 



• • 



These springs are not affected by the . . . hot desert waists of Africa. 

• • • • 

She was a pulcherious blonde, with eyes of blue, who walked slowly. 



• • 



Soon after the success of several series of Zanuck's productions, he and 
Warner Bros. spit. 



• • 



I frankly think it good to change one's hair so long as it sticks to the 
environment. 



• • • • 



A coach's personality is what brings men out of the game on stretchers, 
with pulverized faces, broken limbs, and heaving lungs. 



Honorable Mention 

John Bloomfield — Married Life and College 

Equatorial Nightfall Aboard a U. S. Transport 

James Brand — Squirrel Hunt 

David Brierley — For Muscular Development — Weight Lifting 

Robert Cushman — Getting into Character 

William Ditzler— TAe Cottrell Precipitator 

Feme Douglass — Bertha 

John Flanagan — Whittling 

Emil Freireich — The Common Cold 

Shirley Gloger— TAe Tarnished Buddha 

Romona Hart — The Strength of My Father 

Madelyn Lang — / Watched a Colt Grow Up 

June Nixon — Good Fencing 

Ernest Orcutt — A Queen Dies 

Frank Pacelli — "George" 

Eudice Tourk — Behind the Music of Shostakovich 

Jo Ann Wetzler — The Dress Suit 



aYuC4^ 



^twre 



[HE Green Caldron 



A Magazine of Freshman Writing ''' ^^F.^i.iiy qp r 



'^OV 61945 



Joseph J. Brankey: Ring, Collar, and a One, Two. Three ... 1 

June Nixon: Riposte and Touche 4 

Eugene Rezwine: The Duel in the Short Shrubbery 

Produced by R. L. Stevenson 5 

Frank Pacelli: Hello, George 6 

George Piatt: Top Newsman 8 

John Spiegler: Attack! .10 

Ernest Orcutt: A Queen Dies .... 12 

John Bloomfield: Equatorial Nightfall Aboard a 

U.S. Army Transport 13 

Mary Kathleen Keneipp: The Conflagration of London in 1666 14 

Frances Wilmeth: Music Therapy 21 

Anne Mines: Mushrooms on Exhibit 23 

William L. Raby: The Crash 25 

Jo Ann Wetzler: The Dress Suit 28 

Jean Lopin: Mr. Smith Blushes 29 

John Flanagan: Whittling 31 

Audrey Edson: High School Sorority ism — A Plague .... 33 

Kathleen Eads: Remember This — Remember This 35 

Leo Segedin: Let's Be Fair to Student Labor 36 

Miriam Graham: Age of Thunder by Frederic Prokosch .... 38 

Nancy Bruce: The Plant 39 

Gladys Sorensen: And Before Breakfast 39 

(Material written in Rhetoric I and II) : Rhet as Writ .... 40 



VOL. 15, NO. 1 NOVEMBER, 1945 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



JLhe Green Caldron is published four times a year by the 
Rhetoric Staff at the University of lUinois. Material is chosen 
from themes and examinations written by freshmen and students 
in the Army Specialized Training and V-12 Programs in the Uni- 
versity. Permission to publish is obtained for all full themes, 
including those published anonymously. Parts of themes, how- 
ever, are published at the discretion of the committee in charge. 

The committee in charge of this issue of The Green Caldron 
includes Miss Constance Nicholas and Messrs. Ben Porzak 
and George Scouffas, Chairman. 

The Green Caldron is for sale at the Information Office, 
157 Administration Building (West), Urbana, Illinois. 



THE GREEN CALDRON 

copyrighted 1945 
BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

All rights reserved 
No part of this periodical may be repro- 
duced in any form without permission in 
writing from the publisher. 



Ring, Collar, and a One, 
Two, Three 

Joseph J. Bkankev 
Rhetoric I, Theme 4, 1944-1945 

A FEW YEARS AGO WHEN DAIRY FARMING, I BOUGHT A 
purebred Holstein bull calf. Ink, as we later called him, was ex- 
- tremely handsome. He was beautifully marked, had a very straight 
back, a tine head and was put up in a truly regal manner. Needless to say, 
I was very, very proud of him. I had always been wary of bulls, even young 
bulls, but Ink — well, I almost loved him. 

Fine cattle were more to me than pretty girls — at that time. Every day 
Ink was put through his training program, for I hoped to show him at the 
fairs. By the time he was a year old, he knew the meaning of Giddap and 
Whoa. He later learned to back up like a horse, to walk very slowly like a 
king, and to trot, to canter, and to gallop with the speed and force of a 
thundering locomotive. I smile with pride in thinking back to the time when 
we used to race down our driveway, he a good two thousand jiounds of 
hurtling bull, and I merely a hundred-seventy-pound human being. What a 
sight it must have been — Ink pounding along, his massive head way above 
mine, and our feet flashing in a whir like a fast turning automobile wheel. 
What fun we had! How we both used to draw in great breaths of air, how 
our chests heaved after our efforts. 

Now Ink wasn't much different from other bulls in at least one respect. 
He was a bull and had ideas of his own occasionally. After we had started 
some particular part of his training, it was always my rule to finish it; I'd 
never give in, no matter how long it took. A bull should not get the idea 
that he is master, if one is going to handle him correctly. Another must is 
that a bull should be dehorned. Accordingly Ink lost his horns as a yearling, 
and also according to custom was presented with a nose ring. A year later 
this light ring was exchanged for a very substantial brass ring in keeping 
with his size. It was so large that one could get three large fingers in it and 
allow plenty of freedom for Ink's nose. Another part of his jewelry was a 
strong, shiny, chain collar used in leading him about. 

Well, Ink and I led a joyous life for some time. We'd see each other at 
feeding time when he would hungrily lick up his silage and ground feed and 
munch his pea green alfalfa hay. He would slurp and gurgle water from the 
automatic drinking fountain at his side. Sometimes he would become ex- 
asperated with being in the barn and would violently shake his head and 
stanchion so that the whole building rang. 

[ 1 ] 



2 The Green Caldron 

One morning while preparing to milk I noticed that Ink was absent. 
Hmmm, I thought, he's broken out of his stall. Wonder how far he's gone. 
Hope not far; got to get the milking done before the milkman comes. After 
scouting around a little, I saw the old boy standing about an eighth of a mile 
away in the alfalfa field. Well, it was his feeding time, and allowing a 
mature bull to run about the country wasn't ethical even if it was Ink; so 
I started out to bring him home, nerving myself while walking in order to 
have maximum strength and thinking power ready when we met. I had no 
fear of him; I was merely going to bring him back, put him in the barn, and 
feed him. 

While walking I noticed how nice and green the alfalfa was that year; 
it was well advanced and the prospect of a heavy crop was good. It was at 
this time that I noticed that Ink was not cropping the luscious legume, but 
was standing sideways, looking at me with a strange and ominous glint in 
his eyes. His head was held high, with crest acutely arched and muzzle 
turned inward. As I came closer he let his tongue hang out, dripping saliva, 
and emitted a deep, rumbling grumble from the caverns of his chest and 
throat. In his eyes I could see lightning as of an approaching storm. 

I was in no mood to be frightened and was determined to win him back. 
Why shouldn't we be friends? We had done so much together. And, after 
all, I came out to bring him back, and we were going home together — that 
was all there was to it. 

"Hello there. Ink, old boy," I said. "You're a good old fellow, aren't 
you?" As I spoke I rubbed his silky hide and ran my fingers through the 
longer, curly hair on the top of his neck. Ink relaxed a bit, probably did 
some thinking and became more at ease. With smooth, sure movement I 
put the fingers of my left hand in his nose ring and took firm hold upon 
his chain collar with my right. "Come on. Ink, old boy, let's go home," I 
said, and we started down the hill towards the buildings. 

Ink was inclined to go, and then again he wasn't. He walked along 
easily for a little way, then walked stiffly. Finally he wouldn't walk at all, 
and suddenly balked and wheeled upon me with surprising alacrity for an 
animal that size. But I was ready for him. I had long studied his behavior 
patterns and learned how to protect myself from his various methods of 
attack. Once more everything was under control and we started. Several 
yards farther again Ink wheeled. We stopped, agreed a second time, and 
started off. Apparently Ink didn't like being over-ruled, for he became 
desperate and wheeled again, again, and again. 

We were not covering distance very fast as our path described a wild 
circling in a general direction, something like the movement and path of a 
tornado, but by this time w^e were near the bare ground by the barn, and I 
thought, we've come this far — with any luck we ought to be in the barn soon. 



'"^ USmv 



nr 7 IT 



November. 1945 A/Dl/ /> 3 

About this time old Ink seemingly reached the coiy:Lision that I was too 
small a ruler for his mighty, muscular body and began a spa^ififedfilj- a^t^ck_ 
of wheeling, lunging, and attempted butting. At this same instant I realized'"' '^ 
his conclusion and prepared for the attack, still holding to his nose ring and 
chain collar. He may be a good friend, but under the circumstances this is 
an all-out fight, and anything goes in order to "bring him to time," I thought. 

We went at it fast and hard — Ink wheeling, lunging, butting. I wheeled 
with him, spoke to him, tried to calm him. He wouldn't be calmed. The battle 
became wilder and more deadly. I threw my every muscle, every nerve, my 
full mind and all my energy into combat. T buried my fist in his side again 
and again; I twisted his nose ring — but to little avail. As I held his ring and 
collar, he swung me about like a cork on the end of a line. It was all I 
could do to keep my feet. Finally he drove me to the ground. His hot breath 
blew in my face, his eyes bolted fire, his great head mauled my own head and 
chest. A dull knell of defeat rang through my entire being. It was no use; 
the odds were too great. I seemed to be outside of a transparent shell, look- 
ing in u[X)n myself. To me things looked desperate for that fellow down 
there. If ever he was weary of life, now would be a good time to move on. 
For an instant I was lost, but the instinct of self-preservation came to my 
rescue; I struggled frantically and regained my feet. I was furious to think 
that I may have given up and that Ink should "take" me. We're going to 
the barn yet, old boy, I thought. After I regained partial control, we started 
.'i<:ain, but not for more than two steps — we went at it again. 

There was little sound in our strife except for the scuffing and pounding 
of the dusty ground with our feet. We went this way and that, up and down, 
with me falling to my knees, getting up again, twisting his ring until my 
fingers were torn and bleeding, hammering my nerveless fist into his ribs, 
breathing with great, rapid gasps, trying to figure out how to whip him. 

Suddenly all power seemed to drain away and I knew that I could not 
last much longer, that I needed help urgently. Never before or after have 
I called for help, but I did call then in a clear, ringing voice that surprised 
me. The next moment I was down again, fighting madly, with Ink's head 
coming down, again and again, his front feet trying to trample me. This was 
bad, very bad. The end could not be far off. My body fought on by itself. 
F.verything was confused and hazy. I felt nothing. 

Dimly I could hear someone yelling. I must have been on my feet, for he 
was 3'elling. "Run. Run!" In a split second the thought of continuing the 
battle and putting Ink into the barn came to me; I did not want to give up. 
In the other half of that split second I reasoned that the carpenter, who 
was working on our farm and was yelling to me, knew best under the 
circumstances. Breaking loose, I ran around a haystack and under a 
fence just in time to get out of Ink's onrushing path. He stood at the 
fence, glaring triumphantly as I staggered into the barn. 



4 The Green Caldron 

Riposte and Touche 

June Nixon 
Rhetoric I, Theme 4, 1944-1945 

MARK AND LEE FOUGHT FIRST; HOWARD AND I WERE 
the two judges; and Bruce officiated as referee. To all appearances, 
it was an uneven fencing match, since Lee had a "reach" of at least 
one foot more than Mark and was decidedly more agile; but Mark had a 
wrist of steel (as I had discovered in previous encounters) and remark- 
able endurance in his short, stocky Saxon body, while Lee was slender and 
inclined to fatigue himself with unnecessary movements. Their foils crossed 
over the referee's. 

"Step back," commanded Bruce. Each stepped back a pace, so that there 
Avas a distance of about a foot between the rubber tips of their foils. 

"Fence !" came the referee's signal. The two foils crossed again with the 
anticipatory whisper of tempered steel, and the two opponents watched each 
other closely, each seeking for a weak point in the other's defense. 

Suddenly and recklessly, Lee lunged at Mark, who easily parried the 
blow and riposted quickly to score the first "touch." Twice more Mark, 
aided by his opponent's overeager impatience, "touched" Lee with un- 
hurried ease. 

The two tired contestants gladly exchanged places with Howard and me. 
I was not very willing to make the change, however; in fact, I was scared. 
Howard was a very good fencer, despite a physical handicap of which he 
supposed me ignorant; and I had early learned that I could expect no quarter 
from him simply because I was a girl. 

As our foils crossed over Bruce's, my lips were already parted by the 
quick breath of excitement, and through my mind flashed one thought, 
"Don't take the offensive; you'll do well if you just maintain a good defense." 

"Step back!" came Bruce's command from a great distance, and we 
stepped back a pace with a half-saluting movement. 

"Fence !" Our blades slithered together: mine, quivering with uncertainty, 
his expertly feeling for the weakness in my guard. Behind the large mesh of 
his mask I could see his gray eyes fixed calmly and confidently on the trem- 
bling tip of my foil. "Why doesn't he lunge?" I thought, and in desperation I 
began the encounter with an exploratory lunge. With a barely perceptible 
twist of his wrist, Howard parried my awkward attempt and scored the 
first "touch" with what seemed a lightning-like riposte. 

I was surprised and provoked at my lack of skill. "Careful, girl," I 
admonished myself. "Keep your guard up, and don't take your eyes off his 
blade!" I rested patiently in the approved crouching position, and he was 



November, 1945 ' 5 

forced to take the initiative and lunge. To my amazement, I parried the 
manoeuvre with a fair degree of skill and speed, and managed a riposte, from 
which he had to retreat. My confidence grew apace, and I essayed another 
lunge, which was unwise: for the second time his blade leaped toward me and 
touched smartly the heavily padded jacket I wore. 

"Now, that's enough," I promised myself, unconsciously drawing my lips 
back from my teeth in contempt of my unskilled fencing. "You're not going 
to let him score the third 'touch.' " 

To my complete amazement, Howard did not "touch" me for the third 
time. Compelled by his vastly superior skill to maintain a steadfast alertness, 
I contrived to match every manoeuvre he made. We fenced relentlessly until 
I felt my breath drive into my lungs in short, stabbing gasps, and my knees 
tremble with the constant, cramped movement. I was determined, however, 
not to ask for quarter, but to continue, if need be, until I collapsed. As my 
determination renewed my strength, Howard stopped and confessed breath- 
lessly that he was unable to "touch" me the third time. 

Although he had undoubtedly won the match, it was highly gratifying to 
me to realize that I had made winning difficult for him. My supreme thrill, 
however, was Rruce's pleased smile and rather self-conscious praise. 

"That was good fencing, June; I think you're beginning to get the idea 
of it." 

The Duel in the Short Shrubbery 

Produced by R. L. Stevenson 

Reproduced by Eugene Rezwine 
Rhetoric I, Theme J, 1944-1945 

A CTING LIKE A VETERAN MAGICIAN IN THE MIDST OF 

>^^\ a conjuration, Mr. Henry waved the last lump of plum pudding away 

-^ -^ with his silver spoon. He patted his lips deftly and opened his mouth 

to speak. The Master made a magnificent leap from his chair to the top of 

the table, landing on both feet, well astride the asparagus. 

"Enough!" he bellowed, and his cheeks puffed. "It is a duel; my life or 
yours. I must have satisfaction !" 

"But, gentlemen, gentlemen," I cried, "there are still the tea and 
crumpets." 

Both men resumed their former positions; I helped to wipe some of 
the vegetable ofT the ^Master. They gobbled up the crumpets, and I filled them 
up with tea, but soon they were saturated and could hold no more. I could 
see the inward fire of the Master flare up again. 



6 The Green Caldron 

He pounded the table with his bony hand, shouting, "Henry, you can't 
escape me forever. I own all Ballantrae, and you are not the one to sit in my 
chair. We will settle this with cold steel, now!" 

And I swear that the Master licked his chops as he jumped gleefully 
up and down like a happy bumpkin. I rushed up to the men and shouted 
in the Master's ear. 

"Sir," I cried, "the evening paper has arrived." 

The Master looked at me dumbfoundedly and turned immediately to the 
stock report. 

Time clapped its hands; another hour elapsed. 

The Master threw down the paper with a crash and stomped over to 
Mr. Henry, grabbing him by the collar. 

"Henry!" he yelled, looking magnificently into his brother's face, "you are 
a threat to my existence. You make my life miserable. I'll have your head!" 

Walking coquettishly into the room like a coy maiden, I spoke out 
softly, "Cigars?" The Master was the first to approach me; he took a hand- 
ful of the weeds. Both men walked out into the moonlit garden; I followed 
with a receptacle for the ash. The Master took final breath of his cigar, 
tossed it beautifully onto the green, as though he had practiced considerably. 

He produced two swords of deadly length and, presenting one to Henry, 
roared, "Vile creature that thou art! We shall have the moon to judge this 
combat, and the shining stars to jury it. Think not of the future, Henry, 
for you have a river to cross and a mountain to climb before you can walk 
in the valley of certainty. In this game the loser is destroyed. En garde!" 

I stepped under the arch formed by the crossed blades and said in a 
gentle yet firm voice, "Master, bed-time." 

We re-entered the house in single file: the Master, walking dazedly, led; 
I, fully conscious of my role, followed him; and Henry, defiantly chewing 
on a blade of grass, brought up the rear. 



Hello, George 

Frank Pacelli 
Rhetoric I, Final Examination, 1944-1945 



inr^HE DAY BROKE BRIGHT AND HOT. THE BLISTERING 
sun, beating down on the New York pavement, made me lazy. The 
day had just begun, and it was going to be a long one for me — an- 
other monotonous day of knocking on theatrical agents' doors and receiving 
the inevitable answer. It was sometimes good to hear "Sorry, no casting 



T 



November, 1945 7 

today," just for the sake of variety. The latter always sounded like an invita- 
tion to come back and try again, whereas "No" always reminded me of 
"Get out, and stay out!" 

I had been trying to get a job in the theatre for nearly five months, and 
thus far I had had no luck. I was tired of pounding the same old beat. I 
was weary of being refused the chance at least to read for a part. 

I'll take the day off, I thought. That would build up my morale, which 
by this time was well crushed. I had tifty cents, and with that I could buy 
the town, or the part of it that I wanted. There was Central Park, where I 
could feed the squirrels, and The Museum of Modern Art, where I could 
feed myself the food I really wanted. 

I spent my first nickel on a "coke" at the corner drug store. I picked 
up the morning newspaper, which someone had left lying on the table, and 
glanced through the Theatre Neivs. Gordon Hughes! That name struck a 
familiar note. Oh, yes! A friend of mine once told me to see Mr. Hughes, 
but the only trouble was that Mr. Hughes was "not in." I read further. It 
said that Mr. Hughes was casting TJic Fatnilv. I knew there was a part in 
it for me. 

"Now is the time to see the elusive Mr. Hughes." I thought, and with 
that I gulped my "coke" and rushed out the door. 

The Biltmore Theatre was dark, but I opened the stage door and walked 
in. No one had arrived yet. I sat in the center of the dark stage for what 
seemed like hours. Shortly, the theatre lights went up, and there stodd Mr. 
Hughes, not ten feet away from me ! 

I tried to explain, but my throat seemed constricted. He poppetl ques- 
tions at me. I couldn't answer. Finally, I mentioned Earl Ebi, the friend 
who had once told me to see Mr. Hughes. Mr. Hughes was not in the least 
impressed. He stared at me for a few minutes, pulled a script out of his 
brief case, and said, "Read the part of George, right now." 

"But, Mr. Hughes ..." I started. 

"You're an actor, aren't you?" he clipped. 

"Yes," I said. 

"Read," he said. 

"Rut, I've never seen the part," I answered. 

"Read," he said. 

I picked up the script and read George with all I was made of. It was 
now or never. I cried, I laughed, I shouted. I was George as I saw George. 

When I finished, Mr. Hughes the Great came toward me. He came and 
stood right before me. He stared at me for about three minutes. 

"Hello, George," he said. 



1 



The Green Caldron 



Top New^sman 

George Platt 
Rhetoric II, Theme 7, 1944-1945 



1 



^HE BEST WAY TO UNDERSTAND WHAT MAKES THE 
modern top-notch war correspondent is to study the life of one of 
the leading personalities of the business. Just such a man is Quentin 
Reynolds. He has been in the field of foreign reporting for twelve years 
with Collier's magazine, ascending to this top-rank position after years 
spent as a "legman" with New York papers. 

F. E. Rechnitzer portrays Reynolds as boy, college student, reporter, and 
war correspondent in his book War Correspondent — the Story of Quentin 
Reynolds. And he has a real story to tell. With a warm, though slightly 
overdone, enthusiasm that makes the tale an enthralling eighty minutes of 
reading, he traces the life of Reynolds. 

In 1919 Reynolds graduated from Manual High School in Brooklyn, his 
birthplace. Seventeen and eager to enter Brown University the following 
fall, he first decided to make some money. The chance presented itself in 
the form of a job as a tool keeper on a steamship sailing between New 
York and Antwerp. He insists that it was the one hundred dollars a month 
and keep that influenced him most. But if what he has done since is any 
indication, there is little doubt that a hankering for adventure and the sight 
of far places was already making itself felt.^ Now at the age of forty-three, 
Reynolds has covered stories for Collier's in Germany, Norway, England, 
Russia, Persia, Africa, South America, Italy, and many other places. 

At Brown, Reynolds found that he could put words together very 
adeptly, although his spelling was atrocious. He had started in the sports 
field of the newspaper game while in high school, writing for the Brooklyn 
Section of the New York Evening World. At Brown he wrote up fraternity 
sports for the Providence Journal and majored in English because of his 
knack for writing. The conviction to be a newspaperman grew stronger 
within him. He had never noticed his urge to write until one day an English 
professor had called him into his office to discuss one of his papers. The 
professor cut it to ribbons as being too wordy and loosely constructed. He 
asked Reynolds if he had ever thought of writing for a living. Reynolds said 
he had not. The professor told him that it was one way to make a living 
sitting down. That appealed to the young Reynolds. Many times later in life 
while running for a slit trench to duck Nazi bombs, or while riding, cramped 

' F. E. Rechnitzer, War Correspondent — the Story of Quentin Reynolds, New York: 
J. Messner, 1943, p. 12. 



November, 1945 9 

up, in the nose of a Boston bomber so that people back home could read 
about how it felt to fly on a night raid over German-occupied France, he 
thought about how he was making a living sitting down. 

To understand Reynolds, himself, involves the reading of what he has 
written. Reynolds' personality is in every story — warm, understanding, gen- 
erous, and very human. He lacks a sharp critical sense, but his emotional 
warmth gives him special insight.^ And Reynolds is emotionally warm. He 
has a heart as big as himself, as the write-up in his college annual said when 
he graduated.^ He is the forerunner of Ernie Pyle in the writing of human 
personalities into the news. At Dieppe, when the Canadian and British com- 
mandos made their famous bloody raid, Reynolds was aboard a British 
cruiser to write up the battle. What he wrote about this raid showed that 
although he was impressed by the efficiency of the raid, he was attracted 
more by the human beings involved in it. He gave a vivid, understanding, 
personal story of the gallantry, tragedy, and humor he witnessed.* It was this 
style that made him an excellent sports writer before he became a foreign 
correspondent. This is evident in his yarn "The Makings of a Baseball 

Reynolds learned to be careful when writing. His ability to find a story, 
hang on to it, follow it through, and authenticate it is illustrated by an 
article he did on a boundary dispute between Haiti and Santo Domingo. It 
looked like one of hundreds of such petty boundary disputes, but Reynolds 
found out that there were bloody, hushed up hostilities going on in the 
border regions of the two countries. He refused to take hearsay evidence 
and trekked through the bush himself to get the facts, see the wounded and 
dead, and interview those who had escaped the massacres. It took him 
several weeks to get the story, but it scooped all the papers when he sent 
it in. His tenacious diligence had paid off. 

Another attribute of Reynolds' character is his unswerving belief in what 
is right and his hate for what is wrong. He hated Hitler and the Nazis ever 
since he went to Berlin as foreign correspondent for Collier's in 1933. He 
stood by England through the hard days of the blitz, when the luftwafFe 
was dropping everything it had on London. Many reporters wrote England 
oflF the books in those days, but Reynolds did all he could to encourage and 
aid her. He woke up unbombed American city-dwellers with his tales of the 
destruction wrought in English towns by the Nazi sky-raiders. He endeared 
himself to the hearts of the British, something few American newsmen have 
done. In other countries, he "has maneuvered his highly flavored personality 
into the role of an unofficial U. S. ambassador-at-large."^ 

'"Ambassador from Brooklyn," Time, 42 (Nov. 15, 1943), 70. 

*Rechnitzcr, op. cxt., p. 8. 

*Quentin Reynolds, "Dress Rehearsal," Reader's Digest, 42 (June, 1943), 121. 

•"Ambassador from Brooklyn," Time, p. 71. 



10 The Green Caldron 

Reynolds began at the bottom of the ladder. He had the ability, the 
breaks, and the persistence to make good. He has written five widely read 
books: Dress Rehearsal, The Wounded Don't Cry, London Diary, Convoy, 
and Only the Stars Are Neutral. His stories in Collier's are read by millions. 
His voice over the radio is familiar. He has given the running commen- 
taries on such motion pictures as "London Can Take It" and "A Day in 
the Life of the Soviet Union." He is held in the highest esteem by his 
journalistic colleagues. But the thing that makes Quentin Reynolds the great 
journalist he is, is his unaffected interest in humanity. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

"Ambassador from BrookljTi," Time, 42 (November 15, 1943), 70-1. 

Rechnitzer, F. E., War Correspondent — the Story of Quentin Reynolds, New York: 

J. Messner, 1943. 
"Reporter Beneath the Bombs," Newszveek, 17 (January 27, 1941), 52. 
Reynolds, Quentin, "Boy in a Spitfire," Reader's Digest, 2>7 (November, 1940), 19-21. 
Reynolds, Quentin, "Dress Rehearsal," Reader's Digest, 42 (June, 1943), 121-36. 
Reynolds, Quentin, "The Makings of a Baseball Hero," Reader's Digest, 2i2> (July, 

1938), 17-19. 



Attack ! 

John Spiegler 
Rhetoric I, Theme 3, 1944-1945 

THE MUD-LADEN SOLDIER SAT ON A GASOLINE TIN, 
waiting for the signal, his rifle cocked and loaded at his feet. His 
eardrums were splitting from the tremendous barrage that had started 
up three hours before. Every muscle in his body was tense, every nerve cell 
on edge. Throwing down a soggy cigarette with a grim, deliberate motion, 
he tried to think of something other than his imminent departure from the 
comparatively safe shell hole. 

"Why can't that damned lieutenant blow his whistle and get it over 
with ?" he muttered. 

The thunder was rising in pitch now, reaching a point where the man 
thought he would start crying if it did not stop, and then another sound 
pierced his mind. Mechanically he picked up his rifle, checked his cartridge 
belt and his clip to see that they were full, and rose, just as he had been 
taught twelve months before. 

Clutching a stump at the edge of the hole, he laboriously pulled himself 
out onto the grass above; around liim were his fellow warriors. The men 



November, 1945 11 

on both sides were advancing slowly, crouched over their weapons as if to 
hide them from some unseen eyes. Now and again planes would shoot by 
fifty feet overhead, just blurred sounds. 

An uninvolved observer could have seen this man's jaw muscles relax, 
his face become blank, his eyes tuna to glass marble orbs never wandering 
from an imaginary sight just ahead. Now he was in the right place at the 
right time. This is what he had been trained for during sixteen months of 
hot, gruelling, Texas desert. 

He moved forward steadily, slowing down now and then to sidestep an 
apparent booby trap or stray rifle that was of no use to anyone any more. 
He plodded onward, firing aimlessly at some invisible target ahead of him, 
and tr\'ing not to look at the faces of the men lying wherever he stepped for 
tear that it would be someone he knew. 

His immediate objective, an artillery embankment, was in sight already 
a few hundred yards ahead. Now he could see flashes of fire at the crest 
of the ridge, and he sensed vaguely that they were meant for him. 

Half the distance was covered by this time, and he began to return from 
his trance, into the world of emotion and rational thoughts. Glancing acci- 
dentally into a new shell hole, he suddenly saw a familiar face, half buried, 
looking up at him. Losing all his composure, he lowered his gun and jumped 
down into the shallow pit. He tried to speak, but nothing came out of his 
paralyzed li])s. Abruptly another figure loomed up at the perimeter of the 
hole, and a gruff voice said, "Come on, soldier, get going. The medics will 
be along in a while and get him." 

He climbed slowly out of the hole, his eyes still fastened on the face in 
the mud. It was only by a supreme effort that he was able to tear his eyes 
away from the scene behind him. Rut even that was of no avail, for the face 
still lingered before him and he was unable to drive it away. All that he 
could think of was himself, lying there in the dead man's place, with blood 
and dirt splattered over his face. 

At this moment, some three hundred feet in front of him, a man, very 
much like himself except for a slightly different uniform, was pulling the 
short white lanyard of a field piece. A low whistle slowly rose in pitch until 
it reached a crescendo that threatened to burst the universe. The soldier 
heard this sound and instinctively threw himself to the ground. "Now," he 
thought, "my face is buried in the muck, but at least I am still breathing." A 
tremendous explosion rocked the field, and when the smoke had cleared 
away and the dust had settled again, he became aware of a sharp, burning 
sensation in his side. The butt of his rifle was slippery with some thick, 
sticky substance, but he was afraid to look down and see what it was. Find- 
ing that he could stand up, he painfully continued his stoical advance upon 
the objective. 



12 The Green Caldron 

A Queen Dies 

Ernest Orcutt 
Rhetoric I, Theme 3, 1944-1945 

IT WAS NEARING MID-AFTERNOON ON A BEAUTIFUL 
tropical day, a day too perfect to be spoiled by what was to come. 
The sea was unusually calm except for a few ground swells. All 
hands were taking sun baths on the topside deck, drinking in the sun which 
had been absent for a number of days. It was a perfect day for forgetting 
the war. 

Like a bolt out of the blue it came — the explosion rang in our ears. 
Sailors began shouting excitedly, "Look at the Wasp, she's caught a 'fish.' " 
"Where? How?" "Well, here we go again." Almost at once came the 
familiar sound of the bugle and the "clang, clang, clang" of the general 
alarm, and the words, "All hands man your battle stations on the double." 
Sailors scrambled quickly to their feet, running swiftly and surely in the 
direction of their battle stations. The old man gave the order, "Full speed 
ahead, full left rudder." The ship shot ahead like a suddenly released spring. 
The change in speed made her great, proud body tremble. 

The other ships in the task force began to fan out over the ocean, leaving 
boiling water in their wake. Our only thought was to get away to a safe 
distance. 

The aircraft carrier Wasp had been in the very center of the task force, 
the center being the safest place — so we had supposed. The rest of the task 
force had been spread around her like a brood of chickens around the 
mother hen. The big lady had been wounded, though, and that was all that 
was on our minds. That was our last fleeting glance of her — dead in the 
water, helpless, with great red flames licking at her port side from the ugly 
gash at the waterline to the topside. It was a direct hit in the gasoline 
stowage amidships. The explosion went up through officers' quarters and on 
up through the flight deck. Men could be seen pushing burning, exploding 
planes off her decks, throwing hot ammunition overboard, and fighting the 
fire with many hoses, but all to no avail. By now she was listing badly to 
port, her flight deck almost dipping in the waves. 

Without warning, like adding salt to her great wound, two more tor- 
pedoes hit amidships. These new explosions nearly broke her back. Tears 
came to our eyes as we saw this great, proud lady helplessly wallowing in 
the swells unable to fight back, just having enough strength to keep afloat. 
We were powerless to help her. 

We changed course and lost her for awhile but picked her up again 
later. The picture had changed since then, with magazines exploding, men 



November, 1945 13 

jumping overboard, some with lifejackets, some without. Some of the men 
were sliding down lines so fast that their hands were burned, while others 
helped shipmates who couldn't help themselves. 

Darkness was setting in, and the captain gave the order to change course. 
We were to leave the Wasp to her fate, a cruel thing to do, but one that had 
to be done for the safety of the rest of the ships. 

The last look I got, she was listing badly, almost keeled over and afire 
from stem to stern. Explosions from magazines rocked her from time to 
time. Slowly but inevitably she was dying. I turned away with tears in my 
eyes and a lump in my throat. 



Equatorial Nightfall Aboard a 
U. S. Army Transport 

John Bloomfield 
Rhetoric I, Theme 2, 1944-1945 

A T DUSK, IF YOU ARE FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO GET A 
f^Sl position on the upper deck near the rail, you will see the blazing sun 
-^ -^^ quench its blistered tongue in the cool, blue Pacific. The sun, with 
the horizon as a tangent, seems to be operated by a pulley. It looks as 
though it disappears in jumps; and you are certain it is being lowered, at 
regular intervals, inches at a time, until it finally drops completely from 
sight. The afterglow is an azure sky, tinted by withering red. From time 
to time, sunbeams pour through narrow openings, magnificently reflected on 
the water. 

.Shortly after this, the night surprises the sea with its quick blackness — 
an unwelcome guest that cannot be ignored. Then, suddenly, the siren breaks 
the silence of the night. The public-address system bellows, "Lights Out!" 
This means that all the portholes and exterior doors must be closed, all 
lights, including cigarettes, must be extinguished on deck. Everyone must 
go below. 

While making your way along the narrow passages and down the steep 
stairway below, you meet a group of guards going on night duty. To make 
room for passing, you stand erect and very close against the bulkhead. 
While doing so you come almost face to face with your "Guardians of the 
Night." Upon every partially bearded, weather-beaten face, you see the ex- 
pression of determination. 

You retire with a feeling of complete security. 



14 



The Green Caldron 



The Conflagration of London 
in 1666 



Mary Kathleen Keneipp 
Rhetoric II, Theme 12, 1944-1945 



Night came, but without darkness or 
repose, 
A dismal picture of the gen'ral doom ; 
Where souls distracted, when the 
trumpet blows. 
And half unready with their bodies 
come. 

Those who have homes, when home 
they do repair. 
To a last lodging call their wand'ring 
friends: 
Their short uneasy sleeps are broke 
with care, 
To look how near their own 
destruction tends. 



Those who have none, sit round where 
once it was. 
And with full eyes each wonted 
room require ; 
Haunting the yet warm ashes of the 
place, 
As murder'd men walk where they 
did expire. 

Some stir up coals, and watch the vestal 
fire. 
Others in vain from sight of ruin run; 
And, while thro' burning lab'rinths 
they retire. 
With loathing eyes repeat what they 
would shun. 



The most in fields like herded beasts lie down, 

To dews obnoxious on the grassj^ floor ; 
And while their babes in sleep their sorrows drown. 

Sad parents watch the remnants of their store. 

— John Dryden 

UNDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1666, DIDNT BEGIN AS AN EXCEP-j 
tionally unusual day. At two o'clock in the morning the familiar cry 
of "Fire ! Fire !" meandered dovi^n some of the crooked and narrow 
streets — and then silence. The people of London were too much accus- 
tomed to fires to be very much upset. If they had known what was to come, 
they might have prevented London's most destructive and mysterious fire. 
The fire broke out in the King's baker's house in Pudding Lane,^ a lane 
composed of a line of old houses that ran unevenly down the hill toward: 
the Thames River, and that were made of old and dry timber, coated with; 
pitch, and built very close together, thus making the street very dark and; 
unwholesome.^ The commodities there were not very valuable, but they were 
so bulky they could not easily be removed.^ 

'Richard Lord Braybrooke, ed.. Memoirs of Samuel Pef>vs, Esq. F.R.S. comprising 
His Diary from 1659 to 1669, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1936, p. 314. J 

'George Walter Bell, The Great Fire of London in 1666, London: John Lane; the 
Bodley Head Limited, March, 1923, p. 21. 
*Dr. Gideon Harvey, The Citv Remembrancer, Vol. H, London: Printed for W. NicollJ 
in St. Paul's Church Yard, 1769, pp. 41-42. 



November, 1945 15 

The fire progressed slowly until it reached the outbuildings of the Star 
Inn across the street. These buildings were filled with hay and other highly 
combustible material, which the fire greedily consumed, and from there 
proceeded rapidly down Pudding Lane and Fish Street. The cellars along 
Thames Street, which was adjacent to Fish Street, were filled with tallow, 
oil, spirits, hemp, and similar combustibles, making this quarter of London 
favorable above all others to the spread of the fire.* 

A number of other factors greatly aided the spread of the fire. The sea- 
son had been very dry, and there was a fierce eastern wind which literally 
blew the fire through the city. The heat from the burning buildings was so 
intense that the men were unable to get close enough to the fire to fight it.' 
But had they been able to get nearer, they would have had no water to use, 
because the Thames Water-house had burned during the early part of the 
morning.® 

Sunday afternoon the buildings above and below the bridge were burn- 
ing furiously, and the fire was continuing, totally unchecked, through the 
city. By Sunday night it had reached Cannon Street and was heading 
toward the center of the city on the hill. It was reported the next morning 
that three hundred houses had burned during the night.' 

At first the people of London were so benumbed by the fire that they 
hardly stirred to extinguish it. Instead they ran about like distracted crea- 
tures, crying out in great alarm. Everyone was trying to remove his house- 
hold goods in boats or carts. Those people by the river who could not obtain 
boats threw their goods into the water with the hope of salvaging them 
later. They were clambering from one pair of stairs by the water-side to 
another, trying to stay near their homes as long as possible. Sick people were 
being carried away on beds. The Lord Mayor in Canning Street said to 
Pepys, "Lord! what can I do? I am spent: people will not obey me. I have 
been pulling down houses; but the fire overtakes us faster than we 
can do it."* 

Monday the fire consumed Grace-church Street, Lombard Street, and 
part of Frenchurch Street. It then started through Cornhill, one of the 
larger and more spacious streets. Samuel Pepys, who was attracted by the 
fire as a moth is attracted by a light, persuaded the King to bring some 
workmen from Deptford to tear down the buildings surrounding the Naval 
Office to save it.° However, some shortsighted men, among them aldermen, 

* Bell, op. cit., pp. 23, 24. 

'William Bray, ed.. The Diary of John Ez'eh'n, Vol. II, Washington: M. Walter 
Dunne. 1901, p. 21. 

• Bell. op. cit., pp. 28-29. 

' Braybrooke. op. cit., pp. 314-316. 

"Braybrooke. op. cit., pp. 314-315. 

'Clara Marburg, Mr. PePys and Mr. Evelyn, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania 

Press, 1935. pp. 13-14. 



16 The Green Caldron 

would not permit their houses to be pulled down, thus directly aiding in the 
tragedy.^'' Thus the fire continued its speedy itinerary, and by Monday night 
it had swept through Dowgate and Old Fish Street into Watling Street. It 
went through Threadneedle Street, up Walbrook, and up Bucklersbury, 
meeting at Cheapside. Its spread was amazing." 

The greater part of the city was completely consumed Tuesday. This 
included St. Paul's Cathedral, the Inner Temple, Fleet Street, Old Bailey, 
Ludgate Hill, Warwick Lane, Newgate, and Watling Street. Melted lead 
was running down the streets in a stream, and the pavements were heated 
to a fiery red, stopping all passages, and making it impossible to get near 
enough to fight the fire.^^ 

The fierce eastern wind, which had commenced Sunday, became quiet 
Wednesday, and the raging fire became more gentle. More houses were 
blown up with gun-powder, and by Thursday the blaze was extinguished. 
Its progress had been checked Wednesday at seven o'clock by the Temple, 
but it took much longer to quench it. However, it was not completely dead 
until March, 1667. Smoke and small fires were seen by Pepys on September 
17, December 1, January 16, 1667, February 28, and March 16.^^ 

After the conflagration, there was a thick cover of dirt lying around 
the stumps of walls and heaps of what had been houses. It was everywhere, 
for the fire had disintegrated tons of solid materials.^* Everything made of 
metal had been melted by the vehement heat, and all by-lanes and narrow 
streets were filled with rubbish. ^^ Cleaning up the city was an appalling task. 

The losses of London were tremendous. On page 20 (below) is an esti- 
mate of the losses in pounds.^® 

Among those buildings not mentioned in the list were the Mermaid 
Tavern (popularized by Ben Jonson and frequented by Jonson, Shakespeare, 
Beaumont, Fletcher, Dr. Donne, Selden, and many others), St. Sepulchre, 
the College of Heralds, ^^ St. Magnus, and Boar's Head Tavern.^* 

The true cause of the fire was never determined by the Londoners. Some 
said it was because of the negligence of the people of the house where it 
began. ^^ But according to the baker, the oven had been drawn at ten o'clock 

'" Bray, op. cit., p. 22. 

"Harvey, op. cit., pp. 10-11. 

" Bray, op. cit., p. 21. 

" Braybrooke, op. cit., pp. 319-320, 324, 344, 360, 366, 370. 

" Bell, op. cit., p. 172. 

" Bray, op. cit., pp. 24-25. 

" Harvey, op. cit., pp. 32-33. This information varies slightly in different books. 

" Marie & Charles Hcmstreet, Nooks and Corners of Old London, New York: James 

I^ott and Company, 1910, pp. 20, 29, 30. 

" Bell, op. cit., pp. 24, 50. 

'" Harvey, op. cit., p. 64. 



November, 1945 17 

that night, and, upon having occasion to light a candle about twelve o'clock, 
he had noticed there was not enough fire in the bakehouse to kindle the 
match. He said that it was impossible for any wind to have come into the 
room and fanned the embers. When he had been awakened by the smoke 
just before two o'clock the next morning, he had seen that the fire was not 
near the oven and chimney. He, his wife, and his daughter had escaped 
through a garret window.^" 

Sir Thomas Crew, after hearing the report of the committee for ex- 
amining the burning of the c\ty, thought it was certain that it was done by 
plots. It was proved by several witnesses that there had been attempts to aid 
the fire.^^ Various strangers, Dutch and French, were imprisoned during 
the fire because it was thought that they had contributed maliciously to it.^^ 

When it was discovered that the water supply had been cut oflF, Bishop 
Lloyd accused one Grant, a Papist. It was related that Grant was interested 
in the Countess of Clarendon, who had asked him to help in a plan to burn 
the city. He was to shut off the water supply, as he was on the board that 
governed the water works at Islington. The Sunday before the fire broke 
out, Grant had gone to the water house and, having had authority to view 
the works at any time he pleased, got the keys to the place where the heads 
of the pipes were located and shut them all off. When he had left, he had 
taken the keys with him. Upon being accused, Grant denied that he had 
turned the cocks, but the officer of the works affirmed that he had. Grant 
confessed having taken the keys with him, but he said that it had been 
unintentional.^^ However, despite these suspicions it was obvious that the 
actual cause of the lack of water was that the Thames water, raised by the 
wheels at the bridge, had been cut off.'* 

Dawes Weymansel, a justice of peace, said he had seen and stopped a 
man who was entering the city at the Temple Bar with his pockets filled 
with flax and other materials for aiding the fire. A company officer of the 
Trained Bands, Michael Marsh, arrested a foreigner who was carrying a 
dark lantern which. Marsh conceived, had been made to lay a train of 
powder. It was then full of powder.^'' 

"I saw the fire," Thomas Middleton, a surgeon, told the Parliamentary 
Committee, "break out from the inside of the Laurence Pountney steeple, 

'" Bell, op. cit., p. 22. 

"' O. F. Marshead, ed., Erer\bod\'s Pepys 1660-1669, New York: Harcourt, Brace and 

Company, 1926, pp. 382-383.' 

" Harvey, op. cit., p. 40. 

"Ibid., pp. 58-59. 

" Bell, op. cit., pp. 73-75. 

" Ibid. 



18 The Green Caldron 

when there was no fire near it. These, and such observations, begat in me 
a persuasion that the fire was maintained by design."^® 

Since the fire occurred at a time when the hot weather had dried the 
timber in the buildings, where there were so many timber houses, where the 
shops were filled with combustible matter, and when the wind blew from 
that corner toward the rest of the city, it was suspected that the Papists 
had plotted it. It was known that the Papists would not consider it sinful 
to burn a "heretical" city. The Lord Chancellor (Earl of Nottingham), in 
a trial during which no evidence relating to Papists had been included, 
gave judgment against Viscount StaflFord: "Who can doubt any longer that 
London was burnt by Papists ?"^^ 

Pepys found in an April, 1666, edition of the Gazette, that several per- 
sons had been tried for their lives and had been found guilty of a design of 
killing the King and destroying the government. They were to accomplish 
this by burning the city. The day intended for the plot had been September 
3. Naturally, when the fire started on September 2, many people became 
suspicious. ^^ Lady Carteret found a piece of paper blowing around which 
she showed to Pepys. It said, "Time is, it is done."^^ 

Some confessions were made. Bishop Kennet gave the following ac- 
count: Only one person was put on trial at Old Bailey for being the 
incendiary, and he was convicted by his own confession, and executed for 
it. This man was Roger Hubert, a French Huguenot of Rohan in Normandy. 
Some people said he was "non compos mentis," and that he actually had 
enjoyed being hanged as the greatest villain. Others said he had been 
penitent, and that after his conviction he himself had led them through the 
ashes to the spot where the first house to burn had stood. ^^ Edward Taylor, 
a boy of ten, when examined, spun a wild yarn about his father, uncle, and 
himself throwing two fire-balls made of gunpowder and brimstone into 
an open window of the house in Pudding Lane. He said that they had set 
fire to a number of houses in Thames Street and Fleet Street and to the 
Royal Exchange.^^ 

As England, at the time of the Great Fire, was at war with France and 
Holland, it was believed that one of those countries had willfully set fire to 
London. One excited fellow rode down the streets crying, "Arm ! Arm !" It 
was also falsely reported that four thousand Frenchmen and Papists were 

" Ibid., p. 41. 

" Harvey, op. cit., p. 57. 

" Braybrooke, op. cit., p. 347. 

" Ibid., p. 358. 

'" Harvey, op. cit., p. 59. 

" Bell, op. cit., pp. 199-200. 



November, 1945 19 

in arms and coming to invade the city.^^ Rather than be caught totally un- 
prepared, the militia was fully armed and sent out, and the fleet that was 
out stayed very close together.^' 

The King thought it was "God's judgment." Sir Edward Turner, Speaker 
of the House of Commons, thought that it was God punishing the whole 
nation. A few people thought that it was the King, because he seemed to be 
enjoying the fire so much.^* However, most opinions are not acceptable, as 
the minds of the people had been altered by all of the excitement. When evi- 
dence of the city's being burned by design was presented later to the com- 
mittee of the House of Commons, it was declared void of credibility.^'^ 

To keep the future generations, as well as the people living at that time, 
from forgetting the dreadful visitation, a monument, called "The Monu- 
ment," was erected in 1680 as nearly as possible on the site of the origin of 
the fire.^' The inscription on the lower pedestal of this monument read: 

This pillar was set up in perpetual remembrance of the most dreadful burn- 
inj^ of this protcstant city, beg^un and carried on by the treachery and malice of 
the papish faction, in the beginning of September, in the year of our Lord 1666. 
In order to carry on their horrid plot for extirpating the protestant religion and 
old English liberty, and introducing papery and slavery." 

Another kind of memorial appeared on a house near Pie Corner where the 

fire was extinguished: part of a carved figure of a child with the inscription 

which is now obliterated, but which originally read: 

This boy is in memory put up 

of the fire of London 

occasioned by sin 

of Gluttony. 1666." 

Not only was the conflagration of London commemorated by a monu- 
ment, but it was also observed by setting aside certain days for fasting. The 
first ilay was October 10, 1666, then September 2, 1667, and from then on 
the second of every September.^" However, the people whose homes had 
been destroyed by the fire needed, and wanted, nothing to remind them of it. 

Thus fell great London, that ancient and populous city ! London ! which was 
the queen city of the land; and as famous as most cities in the world! and yet 
how is London departed like smoak [sic], and her glory laid in the dust! How 
is her destruction come, which no man thought of, and her desolation in a 
moment I*" 

*" Ibid., f.p. 31. 41. 

" Braybrooke. op. cit , p. 321. 

** Harvey, op. cit., p. 53. 

" Ibid., p. 66. 

- Ibid., pp. 67, 73. 

" Ibid., p. 63. 

" Hcmstreet, op. cit., p. 30 

" Braybrooke, op. cit., pp. 329, 433. 533. 

** Harvey, op. cit., p. 16. 



20 The Green Caldron 

ESTIMATE OF LOSSES IN POUNDS 

The Royal Exchange 50,000 

13,200 houses at 25 £ rent at the low rate of 12 years 

purchase 3,960,000 

87 Parish Churches at 8,000 £ each 696,000 

6 consecrated chapels at 2,000 £ each 12,000 

The Custom-house 10,000 

52 halls of companies, most of which were magnificent struc- 
tures and palaces, at 1,500 £ each 78,000 

3 city gates at 3,000 £ each 9,000 

Jail of Newgate 15,000 

Four stone bridges 6,000 

Sessions-house 7,000 

Guildhall, with the courts and offices belonging to it 40,000 

Blackwell-hall 3,000 

Bridewell 5,000 

Poultry Compter 5,000 

Woodstreet Compter 3,000 

Toward rebuilding St. Paul's church, which at that time was 

a new building, the stone-work being almost finished... 2,000,000 
Wares, household stuff, monies and moveable goods lost and 

spoiled 2,000,000 

Hire of porters, carts, wagons, barges, boats, etc., to remove 

wares, household things, etc., during and after the fire.. 200,000 

Printed books and papers in shops and warehouses 150,000 

Wine, tobacco, sugar, plums, etc., of which the city was very 

full at that time 1,500,000 

Cutting a navigable river to Holborn-bridge 27,000 

The Monument 14,500 



Total losses 10,730,500 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bell, George Walter. The Great Fire of London in 1666. London: John Lane; the 

Bodley Head Limited, March, 1923. 
Bray, William, ed. The Diary of John Evelyn, Vol. II. Washington: M. Walter 

Dunne, 1901. 
Braybrooke, Richard Lord, ed. Memoirs of Samuel Pepys, Esq. F. R. S. comprising 

His Diary from 1659 to 1669. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1936. 
Harvey, Dr. Gideon. The City Remembrancer, Vol. II, London: Printed for 

W. Nicoll, in St. Paul's Church Yard, 1769. 
Hemstreet, Charles & Marie. Nooks and Corners of Old London. New York: James 

Pott & Company, 1910. 
Marburg, Clara. Mr. Pepys and Mr. Evelyn. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania 

Press, 1935. 
Marshead, O. F., ed. Everybody's Pepys 1660-1669. New York: Harcourt, Brace & 

Company, 1926. 
Thornbury, Walter. Old and New London. New York: Cassel & Company, 

Limited, nd. 



November, 1945 21 

Music Therapy 



M' 



Frances Wilmeth 
DGS lb, Theme 7, 1944-1945 

USIC THERAPY IS THE TREATMENT OF PHYSICAL 
and mental ills by means of music. Music as a therapeutic device 
begins where medicine ends. The latter prescribes for the physical 
man; the former seeks to restore balance to the person as a whole. Music 
not only bolsters the morale and spirits of the sick but also tones up their 
bodies.^ 

The history of music therapy dates back to the ancient days of Greek 
and Roman splendor. Apollo, the Greek god of music, was also god of medi- 
cine. Hippocrates, the "father of medicine," took his mental patients to the 
temple to listen to soothing strains of music. Aristotle ascribed its beneficial 
effects to an "emotional catharsis." The French Voltaire satirically claimed 
that we go to the opera chiefly to promote digestion. By the thirteenth 
century the Arabs had equipped their hospitals with music rooms. Florence 
Nightingale brought music to hospitals during the Crimean War. And thirty 
years ago William James used it at a mental hospital in Boston. 

Today many hospitals are experimenting throughout the United States 
on the effects of music upon their patients. An official of the Walter Reed 
General Hospital in Washington, D. C, in a report to Etude magazine, said, 
"In reality the program of Applied Music at Walter Reed is, and will be for 
some time to come, in the purely experimental stage. Attempts are being 
made to determine if possible whether any constant factors can be arrived 
at in the use of music, with particular reference to psychic disorders. Of 
course, this being a medical installation, the experiment naturally must pro- 
ceed wholly along scientific lines. The burden of the proof must therefore 
lie with the experimenters, who are working in collaboration with Army 
doctors. The medical profession, although open-minded, is quite the hardest 
of any organization to convince; but once such proof has been offered it 
will be able thereby to withstand attack."^ 

In spite of this almost pessimistic attitude of the medical profession, 
many people have become interested in this field. Helen Cartwright, who 
has done much work in army hospitals, states: "This much we do know, 
however, from immediate observation of hundreds of cases, that in many 
instances the right kind of music, rightly administered, does show beneficial 

"D. K. Antrim, "Mi:sic Therapy," Musical Quarterly, 130 (October. 1044), 409. 
'Quoted in Helen Cartwright, "The Healing .<\rt of Music," Etude, 63 (February, 
1945), 81. 



22 The Green Caldron 

results. When one has seen the morale of a ward raised; when he has seen 
tired, fretful patients relax and fall asleep, and has heard many say, 'Thank 
you, please come again soon,' he may well feel that a good day's work has 
been done."^ 

In experiments on the effect of music on the human body, it has been 
discovered that music increases metabolism, increases or decreases muscular 
energy, accelerates or decreases breathing, increases or decreases pulse or 
blood pressure, influences internal secretions, lowers the threshold of sensory 
perception, and affords a psychological basis for the generation of emotions.* 
Music has been used as an antidote for pain in the operating room and the 
dentist's chair. For severe pain lively, loud music of pronounced rhythm is 
best, whereas calming music is used for nervous breakdowns, or sleepless- 
ness. Some hospitals have substituted playing music in the evening for 
sedatives. 

In war hospitals fast, rhythmic music helps soldiers regain the use of 
arms and legs that have been in casts. Men with artificial or injured legs 
are made to march and dance. Familiar tunes such as "My Old Kentucky 
Home," "Old Black Joe," or "When You and I Were Young, Maggie," are 
played in insane asylums, "But music is not a specific for mental disorder. 
There is even the danger that the wrong music may be used by patients to 
express and reinforce delusional ideas."^ 

Music therapy is also used on maladjusted children. This is especially 
true in the Children's Psychiatric Ward of Bellevue Hospital in New York, 
where m.any nervous, shy, over-pampered, defiant, and illegitimate children 
are brought. Dr. Loretta Bender, psychiatrist in charge, has said, "I am 
quite convinced that our music activity reaches the subcordial center of the 
brain, where other activities do not, and thereby helps to integrate the per- 
sonality that is going to pieces in these children."^ Active participation in 
the making of music is often considered more effective than mere listening, 
for group performance develops a spirit of cooperation and fellowship, thus 
helping the patients to overcome their inhibitions. 

The playing of instruments is also used in the treatment of dental defects. 
The late Dr. Robert Summa, an orthodontist of St. Louis, used a flute to 
correct an undeveloped chin, a double-reed instrument for a short upper lip, 
the clarinet for a receding upper arch, and, for the most common malforma- 
tion — a protruding upper arch — the bugle or trumpet.'^ 

Today, "medical institutions are slowly but surely waking up to the 
necessity for research in this field of musical therapeutics. We are prob- 

*Cartwright, op. cit., p. 110. 

* Antrim, op. cit., p. 411. 

""Music Used in Therapy," Science Digest, 17 (January, 1945), 77. 

* Quoted in Antrim, op. cit., p. 417. 
' Antrim, op. cit., p. 418. 



November, 1945 23 

ably at the dawn of a great era in the treatment of disease. The fact that 
eminent physicians are constantly contending that the functional diseases 
which are the result of disturbed mental states and emotional stress are far 
more numerous than is generally known indicates that the calming effect of 
music will be employed more than ever in the future."* 

"Helen Cartwright, "More Musical Therapeutics," Etude, 63 (March, 1945), 136. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Antrim, D. K., "Music Therapy," Musical Quarterly, 130 (October, 1944). 409-20. 
Cartwright, H. G., "The Healing Art of Music," Htude, 63 (February, 1945), 81. 
Cartwright, H. G., "More Musical Therapeutics," Htude, 63 (March, 1945), 136. 
Maier, G., "Musical Therapy," Etude, 62 (November, 1944), 624. 
"Music Used in Therapy," Science Digest, 17 (January, 1945), 77. 



Mushrooms on Exhibit 

Annk Hines 
DCS lb. Theme 6, 1944-1945 



I 



Pnr^HE NEWEST AND PERHAPS THE MOST INTERESTING 
section of the Museum of Natural Histor}' at the University of Illi- 
nois is the mushroom showcase. It is really an injustice to call this 
"modified part of the woods," which was completed about two weeks ago, 
only a showcase, because it is much more than that. It is an artificial repro- 
duction of nature at her loveliest in one of the most educational exhibits 
T have ever seen. When I first saw this mushroom exhibit, I was very favor- 
ably impressed by the originality that its creator had shown, then by its 
beauty, and finally by its very close resemblance to actual scenes in nature. 
I learned that this project had been planned and executed almost entirely 
by Dr. L. A. Adams, Curator of the Museum of Natural History, and so 
I went to see Dr. Adams to get the full details. 

"It all started," he began, "about twenty years ago when I discovered 
that people were actually interested in mushrooms." People used to come 
to his house late at night with bucketfuls of mushrooms, wanting to know 
what species they were and whether or not they were poisonous. Dr. Adams 
believed that if people were really as much interested in mushrooms as they 
appeared to be, a section of the museum should be set oflF for their display. 
He did not want an ordinar}- showcase of pictures or of preserved mush- 
rooms — he wanted something "alive," something that everyone would be in- 
terested in, whether or not he was actually concerned about mushrooms. 

A little over two years ago, the actual work was begun. First, the species 



24 The Green Caldron 

of the mushrooms to be used had to be obtained and wax casts made of each 
of them. There are forty species shown, all of which are native to this state. 
The mushrooms are all made of wax, and they are excellent reproductions 
of the real things. Some of the mushrooms used for models were grown on 
this campus. One of these is the "dog stinkhorn" or mutinus canintis. One 
of the most beautiful of the mushrooms is the amanita muscaria, a poisonous 
plant. Several other plants which, I believe, especially stand out are the 
"white death cup" or "earth star," the giant pufif ball, and the lepiota. 

After the mushrooms were gathered, the problem arose of obtaining the 
natural setting. In the right corner of the case is a beautiful log which 
Dr. Adams and his associate found only after a long search through many 
woods. "We looked at over a thousand logs before we found this one," Dr. 
Adams said. "It's a beauty." The log, however, was not as long as Dr. Adams 
wanted it, so a plaster supplement was made, connecting the log to a painted 
continuation of it on the background. It is an excellent job of art work, and 
many noted critics have been unable to tell where the log itself ends. 

Next came the task of obtaining the grass and the leaves. Much of the 
grass used is actual grass which was collected from the University campus 
in summer and preserved in formaldehyde and glycerin. The remainder was 
made from pine needles and split palm leaves. Every piece of grass had 
to be put in individually. This took about six months. The leaves are all 
actual leaves which were gathered in the fall, dried for six months, and 
processed so that they would not dry out. Dr. Adams calls this process 
"embalming the leaves." 

The various flowers, which are made from wax, were put in solely for 
the purpose of decoration. There are only two species present — the red and 
white trillium and the lady slipper, an orchid. 

The showcase itself is located where it is so that no natural light can 
reach it. There are no windows near, and only the artificial light in the case 
lights the exhibit. The background of the case was painted by an art student 
on this campus. Excellent work was done in "killing the corners," a trick 
often used in this kind of work to camouflage the corners and make the 
scene look natural. 

The last problem Mr. Adams had to overcome was that of labeling the 
mushrooms. Botanists insisted there must be labels, but Dr. Adams insisted 
there would be no labels in his woodland scene. "It's supposed to be natural," 
he said, "and there are no labels in nature." Finally, as a compromise, pic- 
tures of the scene were taken and hung directly above. The mushrooms are 
labeled there, and those that are poisonous are marked by a skull and 
crossbones. 

This woodland scene is, as I have already said, very realistic. There are 
even various insects — flies, beetles, and locusts — placed on several plants. 
Everything in the scene is made to look exactly as it does in actual life. 



re 



November, 1945 25 

The Crash 

William L, Raby 
Rhetoric I, Theme 4, 1944-1945 

EAR MOM," THE KID WROTE, "THIS ISN'T A BAD 
place here. The sick bay is small, but it's almost like a miniature 
hospital. The Chief says that a small place like this is the best place 
to learn to be a corpsman, and he should know. He has been a Chief 
Pharmacist's Mate for quite a while now, I imagine, as he has hashmarks 
all over his sleeve, 

"Everj^body here is quite informal. They all call the commanding officer 
'Skipper,' except when they are addressing him, of course. 'Skipper' is the 
Navy name for the commanding officer of a ship or station. All of the crew 
call the chief either 'Chief or 'Doc,' and to tell the truth I don't even know 
what his name really is. Both the 'Skipper' and the 'Chief act pretty hard 
boiled, and that's the way I'm going to try and act 'cause it seems to be the 
best way to get along in this outfit. The Chief seems to be a little nervous 
right now. as he is pacing up and down the hall and smoking cigarette after 
cigarette. I ." 

A prolonged shriek split the air, interrupting both the kid's letter and the 
Chief's pacing. 

"Crash alarm," cried the Chief. "Come on, kid, we've work to do." 

Side by side they sprinted out to the ambulance. The night had come 
alive. Sirens were shrieking, gears were grinding, voices were shouting, and 
headlights and searchlights were cutting through the moonless dark. To an 
uninitiated person, like the kid, this was just a mass of confusion, but 
behind the seemingly aimless activity there was an orderly purpose. 

The ambulance roared away behind the Skipper's jeep. Between bumps 
and jolts the kid could see the intent, almost tragic expression that the dash- 
board lights revealed on the Chiefs face. 

They had gone about a mile. All about them stretched the swampland, 
and far ahead the reflection of a large blaze could be seen in the sky and 
on the taller trees. The jeep came to a standstill. 

"Hey. Doc!" yelled the Skipper to the Chief. 

"Yes, sir? What in hell's wrong?" 

"It's pretty damn bad going in here. Think we ought to try it?" 

"You know who's in that plane, Skipper?" 

The commanding officer stood there looking at the Chief for a moment. 
His face seemed full of pity, but the kid decided it was just an illusion 
created by the headlights playing on him in the dark. 

"Okay, Doc, we'll go through. You lead the way," said the Skipper. 



26 The Green Caldron 

Cursing at the delay with every bit of vocabulary picked up in thirty 
years of service, the Chief reached down and connected the front wheel 
drive. The headlights were useless, or almost so, as the ambulance went 
ploughing ahead in second gear. Trees and bushes went down before it as it 
pushed along. 

Sometimes they almost stopped, but the Chief always managed to tear 
the ambulance loose from the ooze that was all around them. The kid tried 
to wipe his brow and smash at the insects that were on him, but the Chief 
just gripped the wheel and played on the ambulance for the utmost in 
performance. 

"Light me a cigarette, will you, kid?" 

"Sure, Chief." There was a pause, then a click. "Here you are." 

"Thanks." 

It was quiet in the ambulance again, except for the cracking of trees and 
bushes, the roar of the motor, and the steady "sclutching" noise of the 
wheels. 

They burst through a thicket and into full sight of the wreck. All they 
could see was a mass of flame roaring up from a little island. The ambulance 
pulled up on the comparatively dry land, and the Chief slowly got out. Just 
as slowly, he walked over to within ten yards of the wreck, and stood there 
with his hands shielding his face. 

The jeep came "put-put-putting" up. 

"It's no use, sir," said the Chief as he shufifled over the blackened swamp 
grass. The glare of the fire made him seem a garish, wavering figure. 
"They're cooked, and they're still in there; I could see them." 

"God damn it, Doc, I'm sorry," and the Skipper turned away to bellow 
at the fire truck which had just come up. 

The Chief sat with his forehead pressed against the steering wheel for 
over an hour. It took that long to put the fire out. Finally the blaze was 
reduced to smoking embers. 

"Go on, kid," said the Chief wearily, "pull them out. That's the medic's 
job." 

White- faced and with taut features, the kid walked over to the shambles. 
He looked in and saw a twisted, blackened, and shrunken form with the 
general outline of a human being. There were no hands or feet, for the 
bones must have dried too fast and the appendages burned away. There was 
some sort of white stuff oozing out of a long fissure in the head. 

Gingerly, the kid's hands reached under the armpits. He pulled his 
hands loose even as he touched the corpse, and stood there looking at the 
wet, charcoal-like substance that clung to his fingers. Sweat stood out on 
his face, and then he turned away and vomited. 

"That's okay, kid, I'll do it," said the Chief, but there was a hollow note 
in his voice. 



November, 1945 27 

"Let me detail somebody to do that, Doc," pleaded the Skipper. 

"No, sir. This is medical department business. I'm the medical depart- 
ment here, and so it's my business." 

Slumped over on the running board, the kid felt rather than saw the 
Chief put first one body and then the other in the back of the ambulance. 
The fire truck crew stood by, wide-eyed, and watched the Chief move back 
and forth in the triple glare of the headlights. 

"God," someone whispered, "how can he stand it?" 

The Chief slammed the rear door of the ambulance and climbed into the 
driver's seat. 

"Come on, kid," he said. "We're going." 

As they inched their way back through the swamp, the kid recovered a 
measure of his spirits. He was a bit ashamed of his breakdown. 

"Poor suckers," he said cockily. 'Well, they got to expect that when 
they're flyers." 

"Shut up," said the Chief savagely. A moment later he half-turned and 
looked at the kid. "I'm sorry, lad," he said. "I didn't mean to hurt you." He 
paused for a few moments, and then continued, "I don't blame you for 
getting sick. It's never pleasant, but it's something you have to get used to. 
This crash has made me fully as sick as it made you, but in a slightly 
different way." 

"Yeah," thought the Chief, "it's a different way. Just yesterday the boy 
came up to me. 'Dad,' he said, 'how'd you like to have a daughter-in-law?' 
I told him that it wouldn't exactly break my heart. 'Well,' says he, T'm 
marrying Alice next month.' 

"Then this evening the Skipper calls up and tells me the boy has volun- 
teered for this night flight. Xow I'm carting him back to sick bay in such 
a condition that a pimply faced hospital apprentice faints when he looks 
at him." 

They drove along in silence. The Chief gripped the wheel desperately; 
his cigarette sent out little sparks. 

"God." said the kid finallv. "but those two messes stink up the place." 



Don't Wait to Live 

In these years of war and bitter hatred, we often become so engrossed in 
wishinc: for the future to come that we forget "the present we have always with 
us." Our thoughts, ambitions, and hopes are all directed to the time when things 
will be as they were. And so we go to a dance and enjoy ourselves until we 
happen to think, "If Bill (or Bob or Jack or Jim) were here, I'd be having so 
much more fun." And our evening is ruined. We go home to wait for the end 
of the war to enjoy ourselves, while life goes marching endlessly past us. The 
war alone, however, is not to blame for this state of mind. We have always more 
or less wished our lives away, forgetting the present in our anxiety for the 
future. — Mary Auce Royle 



28 The Green Caldron 

The Dress Suit 

Jo Ann Wetzler 
DGS Ih, Theme 2, 1944-1945 

AS FAR AS I K\i CONCERNED, THE RACIAL PROBLEM 

yfc^ which is perplexing poHticians and troubling sociologists was settled 

-^ -^ something like four years ago. It took less than two minutes to 

settle it — long enough to walk from the elevator in the Hudson Building 

to the door of the radio studio where Mother worked. 

It was a school holiday and I had come down to have lunch with Mother. 
Returning to the studio after lunch, we rode up in the elevator with Donald, 
who sang on Mother's program. Donald received more fan letters than 
anyone else on the staff. Women, young and old, adored him; taxi drivers 
ran through red lights in order to get him to the studio on time when he 
overslept; newsboys, bankers, and bootblacks called him by his first name. 
It wasn't merely that he sang love songs in a peculiarly personal style, or that 
he had a lean, hungry-looking face and an arrogant manner. Donald 
possessed that intangible quality known as "personality." On the air, 
"emceeing" in the Jackson Hotel ballroom, riding bareheaded in his canary- 
colored convertible, or perched on a stool in Walgreen's, Don attracted 
attention. It was partly because of the way he dressed. 

His suits were always of the latest cut, the finest fabric. His shirts were 
custom-made, and never was he seen without a flower in his coat lapel. 
Donald liked yellow. Some folks said he had good reason to. There was a 
streak of it up his back, for, in spite of his popularity, there were many 
whispers about his personal reputation. 

However, Mother liked Donald in an amused, tolerant sort of wa}^ 
although she got angry with him at times. One of these times occurred when 
he showed up for her program on New Year's morning still wearing his 
elegant dress-suit, slightly rumpled, and with the front of his white shirt 
covered with lipstick. He sang slightly ofif-key and had to hang onto the 
microphone because he was still very drunk. Mother sent me home that day 
and said she had changed her mind about letting me study for radio. 

But getting back to the day on which the racial problem was solved. On 
that day, Donald was very cheerful and sober. We stepped into the elevator 
together, and instantly several people called out, "Hi yuh, Don!" The 
colored boy, Sam, who worked in the shoe-shining parlor downstairs, was 
in the elevator, too. He was carrying some shoes in his hands, apparently 
returning them to a customer on one of the floors above. 

As the elevator stopped at our floor, Donald turned to Sam. "Did you 
have a good time at your shindig last night?" he questioned. 



J 



November, 1945 29 

Sam's face broke into a pleased j,^rin. "Yes suh. Mr. Don," he chuckled, 
"ah sure did. A swell time, thank yuh, sir." 

"Sam out stepping last night?" Mother asked as the elevator door 
clanged behind us. 

"Yes," Don answered, "it was hot stuff, I guess. He wanted to borrow 
my dress suit for the occasion." 

We were walking down the long corridor to the studio door by then, 
Mother's heels making a sharp tapping sound as she matched her step with 
Donald's long stride. I was tagging along behind, but I saw the amused look 
on Mother's face as she said, "Well, did you lend it to him?" 

Donald had the door to the studio open hy then, an<l entered without 
waiting for Mother and me to go in first. 

"What do you think?" he answered, looking quizzically over his shoulder. 

"I don't know," Mother said in a quiet voice. "Did you?" 

Donald turned sharply, "Of course I did. We're the same size, aren't we?" 

Yes, they were the same size. That was correct. 

Mother walked into her office without saying another word. She took 
off her hat very slowly and put it on the filing cabinet, then stood in front 
of the window, looking into the alley-way between the buildings for several 
minutes. When she turned around, the corners of her mouth were curved 
upwards in the way they do when she is pleased and proud about something. 



Mr. Smith Blushes 

Jean Lopin 
Rhetoric I. Theme 6, 1944-1945 



MR. SMITF 
uuv high « 
lensed gla 



SMITH HAS BEEN THE HISTORY INSTRUCTOR AT 
school for several years. He is short and thin. His thick- 
glasses, added to his dark hair, dark eyes and features, help 
him look studious and distinguished. The members of his classes have seen 
him in only three suits: one brown, one black, and one grey; and, as well as 
they can surmise, he has only five shirts: two white ones (because he 
couldn't wear one as often as he does and keep it clean), one grey, one tan, 
and one with blue stripes. He is a rather young man, and the timid look 
on his youthful face makes the girls describe him as "cute" or "precious." 
Whenever he overhears any of these remarks, Mr. Smith blushes. 

Mr. Smith's blush is a familiar sight. He blushes at almost every occur- 
rence. His countenance turns from white to pink, then to red, which spreads 
rapidly over his face, neck, and ears. He tries desperately to divert attention 



30 The Green Caldron 

to someone else. During the interval the flush recedes from his cheeks, and 
his face resumes its normal color. 

Mr. Smith has a bulletin board in his classroom. On it he posts the pic- 
tures and clippings pertinent to the period his classes are studying. He 
labors religiously at this collection. Each picture or clipping is fastened 
with a tack at each of its corners, and all are arranged in orderly rows or 
are grouped according to their subjects. Each row or group is in chrono- 
logical order that one may have a comparatively complete picture of the 
period from a close study of Mr. Smith's bulletin board. He often works 
late after school on this project, and can be seen leaving the building quietly 
between 5:00 and 5:30 p.m. He tries to leave unnoticed, but if he happens 
to meet anyone on the stairs, Mr. Smith blushes. 

Mr. Smith likes to argue. It is very unusual when a whole class period] 
is spent on the lesson assigned. The hour will begin with a discussion of the! 
lesson. The discussion will develop into an argument. This argument will 
lead to another topic. A recitation beginning with the causes of the de- 
pression may end with a heated debate on the advantages of socialized medi- 
cine. With chagrin he realizes that he has not covered the text subject, andj 
looking at the innocently grinning faces of his students, Mr. Smith blushes. 

Mr. Smith is very restless. He is constantly walking about the classroom,! 
pausing now and then to sit on a corner of his desk. When he does use the] 
chair provided, he tilts it backward or makes it rock. He likes to play with] 
pieces of chalk. He throws a piece into the air, catches it, and begins again. 
Very often he drops a piece, and it shatters into tiny fragments. As he leans] 
over to retrieve any reasonably large segments, Mr. Smith blushes. 

Mr. Smith rarely enters into any social activities. He will occasionally! 
chaperon a school dance, but he prefers to stay at home with his invalic 
mother. When he does attend, however, he will place himself in a dark] 
corner and will not move until it is time to pick up the coke bottles, turn outj 
the lights, lock the doors, and go home. 

Mr. Smith is afraid of the girls. He gets along very well with the fellows,! 
but girlish giggling and chattering annoy him. He involuntarily backs awayj 
when the girl in the front row is reciting. Coy glances and brilliant smiles] 
frighten him. A girl need only look at him, and Mr. Smith blushes. 

I must visit Mr. Smith at the high school when I go home. I can see| 
myself now. I walk up to him and say, "Hello, Mr. Smith." 

He shakes my proffered hand and says timidly, "Hello, Jean. How do| 
you like the University?" And then, of course, Mr. Smith blushes. 



November, 1945 31 

Whittling 

John Flanagan 
Rhetoric I, Theme 2, 1944-1945 

OF ALL THE HOBBIES THAT MEN MAY CHOOSE, THAT 
of working wood with a knife is one of the most fascinating. Any- 
one who desires to may participate, for the necessary implements 
are few and inexpensive. An ordinary jackknife and a piece of wood are 
the fundamental essentials, although there is a variety of knives available 
that are made especially for whittling. 

My paternal grandfather is an avid enthusiast of this particular pastime, 
and well can I remember the many hours I spent watching him work. Hours 
flew by like minutes as we would sit together in silence. The onl}- sound 
was the "szzp! szzp!" of Grandad's busy knife. His favorite retreat for 
whittling was under a large oak tree out in the country. Somehow the 
roaming, angular branches above, and the gnarled roots poking their noses 
out here and there like children playing hide-'n'-seek seemed to inspire him. 

Monarch was Grandad's dog. "Mon" seemed to me to be utter perfection 
in "caninity." He was the most beautiful collie I have ever seen. A gentle 
air of quiet dignity pervaded any scene of which he was a part. His glisten- 
ing coat of ivory and tan. his small delicate feet, and his perfectly shaped 
ears were the outstanding points that heralded the approach of "the trio" as 
we would go through town toward the tree. 

Some of Grandad's notable works include the presidents of the United 
States in walnuts, a circus menagerie in peach seeds, and his calendar. I 
have no recollection of watching Grandad carve the presidents, which un- 
doubtedly constitute the best work he has ever accomplished. Each one is 
carved from a walnut', and the furrows on the surface of the nut are taken 
to jierfect advantage to create the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Each figurine 
is a masterpiece in itself, but the complete set is something on a still higher 
order, a chef d'oeuvre. 

A careful study of the set instantly reveals Grandad's politics, for some- 
times he allowed his opinion of the particular individual he was carving to 
guide his knife. Not that any one is a caricature; each is a superb likeness, 
but a line of the face or the expression on the mouth clearly indicates 
Grandad's opinion of the individual. The most intriguing piece is the bust 
of Grant. It seems Grandad caught the strength that was Grant and ex- 



32 The Green Caldron 

pressed it even through the beard. The Hne of his jaw, though not obvious, 
suggests a fighting man with strong convictions. 

The first things I can remember Grandad carving were the animals. This 
amusing collection includes a bear, a dog, a donkey, an elephant, a hippo- 
potamus, three monkeys, a parrot, and a tiger. Each figure is complete to 
the most minute detail. The bear's mouth is open in a savage snarl and each 
tooth is distinguishable. The nails on the dog's feet, the ribs showing comi- 
cally through the donkey's side, the fragile trunk on the elephant — all of 
these trivial details are included. 

Fond are my memories of the summer days when I would hear Gran- 
dad's whistle for "Mon." Then he would stroll over to where I was and 
ask me if I cared to go for a walk. His calabash clamped firmly between his 
teeth, his pockets full of peach stones, knives, and a small rasp, he would 
start out, flanked by a magnificent collie and a towheaded youngster. The 
small, minor details still cling tenaciously to my memory. The smoke rolling 
from Grandad's pipe like that of a steamboat fighting a strong current, 
"Mon" snapping viciously at the irritating flies, the hot, dry dust sifting 
caressingly through my toes, as barefooted I ambled along in the gait com- 
mon to ten-year-old boys — all these things are always with me. When we 
would reach the tree, Grandad would settle himself down on the soft grass 
with a manner of dignity approaching pompousness. Dogs go through a 
unique procedure to lie down, and "Mon" was no exception. First he would 
glance around to see whether he had picked the best spot; then, satisfied, 
he would turn around three or four times, lowering himself slowly as he 
did so. I, being an innocent youth ignorant of the importance of the for- 
mality of properly seating oneself when preparing to observe whittling, 
merely sank down in the fashion most convenient at the time. 

The calendar was a novel pastime my grandfather had. Every day he 
would whittle out a link in a wooden chain. Since the war has made wood 
scarce, and he can no longer obtain the kind in the right size, he has dis- 
continued the calendar. When soft white pine was available. Grandad would 
buy a piece about four feet long and an inch square. For every day in each 
month there was a link. Sundays and all other holidays were larger links 
of the chain. 

More than anything else I enjoyed the "man-to-man" chats we had in 
the shade of the rambling oak tree. Many and varied were the subjects of 
our conversation, and if I possess any definite philosophy today, I owe it 
entirely to those discourses with Grandad, 



J 



November, 1945 33 

High School Sororityism — 
A Plague 

Audrey Edson 
Rhetoric I, Tlteme 11, 1944-1945 



T 



Pnr^HE LAVISHLY FURNISHED LIVING ROOM WAS 
crowded with extremely dressed girls. The oldest of these was scarcely 
seventeen, but if a casual onlooker were to make a guess at the aver- 
age age, the number would probably be nearer twenty-one. Scattered about 
the room were several very anxious girls. Their faces were overly animated, 
and their conversation was too feverish. These young women were rushees 
to one of the many high school sororities. They were eager for the prestige 
and position which admission would bring to them. 

Joan Simon, an active member of this select group and therefore one 
of the objects of the rushees' heroine worship, sat in a large brocaded chair 
near the fireplace, talking quietly to Helene Shaw, one of the rushees. Helene 
was worried and nervous; her small, piquant face showed the strain of 
forced vivacity; she stuttered from the ctTort of making a good impression. 
Joan glanced at her from time to time. Finally she asked, "Helene, wh}^ do 
you want to get in so much?" The younger girl looked at her for a few 
puzzled moments, and then her eyes lighted up. 

"Oh," she said, "I'd just give anything to wear that pin." 

Just those words — no mention of sisterhood, no mention of making 
friends. She just wanted to wear the pin. 

Joan reflected for a moment on her motives for wanting to join the 
sorority. Stripped of false ideals, the motives were pretty much the same: 
a desire for prestige, and a desire for an enlarged social life. 

"Okay," thought Joan. "I'll try my hardest to get Helene in." 

Joan was a new member though; she had never participated in the game 
of blackballing. So she smiled at the rushees; she was kind and gracious and 
encouraging. 

It was an unwritten law of the sorority that the rushee speak to every 
member, and it was terribly nice if she could remember their names. After 
all, there were only fifty girls. 

Joan looked over the twenty-odd rushees. There was a confident one, 
babbling to her best friend, who was an influential member, about the swell 
date she had had the night before. Joan walked over to the girl. "Betty 
Baker" was written on her name tag. Joan introduced herself and sat down 
nearby. Betty's lips, painted well over her lip line, moved up and down, pro- 
ducing a torrent of conversation in sentences beginning predominantly with 



34 The Green Caldron 

the first person singular. This rushee seemed poised. She was familiar to the 
members and was secure in the possession of a "steady," who was calling 
for her after the tea. How differently she acted from the majority of 
rushees ! Joan, who had resolved never to blackball a girl, felt a moment of 
spiteful desire against this cocky little adolescent. 

Joan looked at her small, gold watch; it was three o'clock. The rushees 
would be leaving soon, and the meeting would start in earnest. 

"So long, Joan, thanks for everything." Joan turned; there was Helene, 
a soft, hopeful look in her eyes. 

"So long," said Joan. "I'll see you soon again." Helene looked properly 
hopeful, and left, following the other aspirants to the high station of 
pledgedom. 

This was the third rush tea. Of the remaining girls, many must be ex- 
cluded once and for all. This was the last time that many of them would 
ever attend a meeting of this sorority. Those who would be accepted would 
receive the coveted pledge pin; the others either would forget about the 
affair or mope about, depending upon the amount of common sense they had. 

Joan's thoughts were interrupted by the voice of the social secretary 
reading the name of the first rushee, Phyllis Allen. There were no comments, 
except an occasional whisper about the cuteness of Phyllis's brother. Betty 
Baker was also admitted. 

Suddenly the voting was interrupted by the insistent ring of the phone. 
The president answered it and came back presently with an odd look on 
her face. "That was Arlene Wheeler's mother," she said. "Mrs. Wheeler 
said that Arlene came home crying and insisting that she hadn't been ac- 
cepted. Mrs. Wheeler said that Arlene would think she was a failure if 
she didn't get in." Excited murmurs greeted this announcement. The sorority 
decided to vote on Arlene immediately. One girl put in a blackball. Joan 
wondered whether there would be anymore; she needed only three to be 
excluded. The girls were silent. Joan relaxed against the wall. From her 
position on the floor she was rather well hidden from view% and she had ex- 
cellent opportunities to study these teen-agers. Joan wondered whether they 
had some special facility which gave them the wisdom to judge their con- 
temporaries. She decided that if the girls did possess such a gift, they had 
it well hidden. 

The blackballing continued. Rushees were discarded as ruthlessly as a 
rayon stocking with a run. Some girls weren't "sorority material." Joan was 
beginning to think that "sorority material" was as rare as nylon. Snobbish 
Linda Wolff rose and blackballed Helene Shaw. A yelp of protest came 
from Joan, who wanted to know why. Linda declined to give any reason 
other than that "I don't care for the girl and I don't want her for a sorority 
sister." Joan was a little "sick" of the procedure by now and was glad that 
it was almost over. 



November, 1945 35 

A few more girls failed to make the grade; the remainder were counted. 
Nine girls of the twenty had been admitted. Nine girls were now privileged 
to go through the period of pledging; nine girls would have the honor of 
carrying out the ridiculous whims of the members for two or more months. 
The willingness of the pledges to fulfill these stupid duties proved their 
loyalty to the sorority. The pledge rose when a member entered the room, 
and she did not reseat herself without the member's permission. The pledge 
carried a member's books home, or carried her shoes to the shoemaker. The 
pledge did all this willingly. Joan knew, for she had gone through pledging. 
Now she was a member and could look at her high school sorority from the 
inside. She found it nothing more than a weak imitation of its big sister, the 
college sorority. Joan knew now that that organization which preached 
sisterhood was in reality practicing segregation. 

Joan's head ached when she thought of those eleven disappointed girls. 
"Damn it," she swore, on her way home. 



Remember This — Remember This 

Kathleen Eads 
DGS la. Theme 4, 1944-1945 



T 



inr^'I''' LOCKKR ROOM WAS PACKED THAT NIGHT WITH A 
milling, rushing throng of graduates-to-be. Everyone was putting on 
caps and gowns and talking, shouting, or even shrieking to friends in 
the large room. It was a madhouse of chatter under the glare from the big 
lights on the ceiling far above us. 

"Anybody got an extra bobby pin?" ' 

"Hey, Alice, come here a second!" 

"Gee, this is fun !" 

The last exclamation probably came from me. To tell the truth I didn't 
exactly know how I did feel about graduation. I knew I was glad, but I 
felt that maybe I was expected to be sad. Or maybe I was really sorry to 
see the past fade so fast. Was I going to be afraid of my future? Should 

I be? I mean . "Well, really!" said something within me. "You knew 

long before now that you would feel like this. You always have on other 
occasions of the like. You thought this all out weeks ago, and you know that 
the best you can do is just look happy." That's what the something said to 
me, and I felt terribly ashamed. I detest all that melodramatic talk about 
"little voices within one's self," and I hate to admit that I possess one myself. 
Anyhow, I did as I was told and talked a blue streak just as if I were 
deliriously happy. 



36 The Green Caldron 

The line formed and all the lost were found just in the nick of time. The 
music began and so did we. We started slowly and marched through aisles 
lined with parents and friends with whom we exchanged stealthy winks and 
grins of recognition. Then we reached our seats. The rest of the evening 
went by in a solemn and sedate manner except that all the time the some- 
thing, the voice, within me kept saying, "Remember this — remember this; 
it can't happen again." At last, quietly and seriously, we went to the stage 
for our diplomas. "You're supposed to remember this," came the ever-ready 
whisper. "Everyone else does." I wondered how soon my cap would fall off. 

"Goodbye," I said to my best girl friend just behind me. "And good 
luck, in case I don't see you for a while." She said, "Oh, I'll see you this 
summer, I guess." I haven't seen her since. 

The lobby was packed and I saw a pushing, wiggling crowd of graduates, 
friends, parents, relatives, neighbors, teachers. Oh, so many people ! 

"Congratulations !" 

"You looked swell!" 

"Goodbye ! Good luck !" 

"So long — see you soon !" 

"Mother— Hey, Dad! Here I am!" 
It was as if a whirlwind were spinning people in and out of every door and 
whirling many, many voices out to anywhere and everywhere. 



Let's Be Fair to Student Labor 

Leo Segedin 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1944-1945 



B 



ECAUSE OF POOR LABOR CONDITIONS ON CAMPUS, 
efforts were made toward the creation of a federation of working 
mini students. These efforts encountered the opposition of certain 
members of the student body of the University who argued that there was 
no need for a union. Labor conditions, they said, were not bad enough to 
warrant any unified action to remedy the situation. Let us discuss this 
argument in the light of existing information and see whether it is justified. 
First of all, are working conditions fair to students? From what I have 
learned, I would say, "No," for the following reasons. Wages on the Uni- 
versity of Illinois campus average slightly above forty cents an hour. The 
national government considers any wage below fifty cents an hour as sub- 
standard and has established fifty cents an hour as a minimum wage 
wherever it has jurisdiction. The University of Illinois wage average, there- 
fore, is far below the national standard for satisfactory wages. Even in com- 



November, 1945 37 

parison with other state universities, the University of Illinois is put in an 
unfavorable light. For example, the University of Wisconsin has established 
fifty cents an hour as a minimum wage. 

There have been some pay raises, of course. There are in the school's 
budget specific allowances for raises in wages. These apply chiefly to regular 
outside help. When the wages of the regular help are raised, those of the 
student are raised proportionally. It has been the custom, however, to keep 
student wages at approximately half those of the regular help who do the 
same kind of work. This great variation in the pay for the same work is, 
of course, unfair. 

The unfairness of these tactics naturally influences the working hours 
of a student. Most students do not work for the fun of it. They work be- 
cause they must pay for at least part of their expenses. Low wages mean 
long hours. Many students have had to maintain two or more jobs in order 
to continue their education. A student's time is valuable; the longer he 
works, the less time he has to spend on his studies. Conditions such as these 
on a university campus are obviously not conducive to the development of 
a successful student, and so in the light of these facts it is rather difficult 
for anyone to maintain that working conditions are satisfactory. 

It would be possible, however, for a union of student workers to bring 
about the desired improvements in working conditions. More than anyone 
else, the student worker is aware that the problems do exist, but only as a 
unified group would student workers be able to accomplish anything. A de- 
mand for a minimum wage of at least fifty cents an hour could be made, and 
the students would be strong enough to support their demands. A system 
of fair working hours and fair wages could be established. There are times 
when student workers are unable to tend to their jobs. In such emergencies 
a union could guarantee labor to the employer. A system such as this would 
benefit both the employer and the student. The emyiloyer could be sure of a 
job bcinj,' filled at all times; the students who desire to work for short periods 
of time would be satisfied. 

A federation of student workers is not something entirely new on a 
university campus. The high wage standards of the University of Wisconsin 
are due to the organized efforts of a student union, and the same can prob- 
ably be said for several other universities. Any unified efforts of Illinois 
students, therefore, would not be blind and groping as several people seem 
to think. Rather, such efforts would be based upon the knowledge and ex- 
perience gained bv other unions — student unions as well as other labor 
ortjanizations. 

The final success of any federation of working Illini students, however, 
will depend upon the serious support of the students themselves. Without 
support, no organization can possibly be successful. 



38 The Green Caldron 

Age of Thunder 

By Frederic Prokosch 

Miriam Graham 
Rhetoric II, Theme 6, 1944-1945 

FREDERIC PROKOSCH'S AGE OF THUNDER IS AMPLE 
evidence that beautiful writing is not enough. Few living writers can 
handle the English language with more distinction than this poet 
turned novelist. Even Thomas Mann has paid tribute to the Prokosch prose. 
But, I think Prokosch's isolated talent of turning exquisite sentences or 
fashioning fabulously beautiful passages (sometimes several pages in length) 
actually destroys his chances of achieving greatness. His character develop- 
ment, plot construction, and even intellectual honesty tend to disappear in a 
purple mist of liquid syllables. 

Prokosch's novel pictures the life and death struggles of the maquis in 
the Haute-Savoie during the years of French underground resistance. Jean- 
Nicolas, a loyal parachutist spy, dropped for vague reasons of collecting 
information, dreams his way toward the Swiss border on a magic carpet of 
Prokosch philosophizing. Later, Jean-Nicolas is betrayed to a German 
officer by a shadowy caricature named Robinson. That this Robinson or the 
German commandant would entertain and edify this obvious spy with long 
and rather juvenile philosophical essays sounded unreal to me. 

I do not believe that three mountain gangsters who waylay Allied sympa- 
thizers would talk like three versions of Prokosch while planning the murdei 
of Jean-Nicolas. And I do not believe that Susanna, the convenient virgin' 
who tosses the conventions aside like the "winter garment of repentance" 
upon meeting Jean-Nicolas, would talk or act as she did. In fact, the whole 
novel is Prokosch any way you cut it. 

Incidentally, logical readers who have an eye for detail will want to 
know why the Swiss border was always a line of hills as these poetic 
escapists approached it, and how it suddenly became a river when they 
reached it. But Prokosch, in his illogically slap-happy approach to the prob- 
lem, undoubtedly thinks such matters are beneath his attention. Personally, 
I think Prokosch better stick to poetry. 

The only good points I can see about the whole book are the beautifully 
written passages and the romantic backdrops. However, the reader wants to 
know how the maquis operated, how the Germans and the collaborationists 
countered their efforts, and what men would do, think, and say under such 
circumstances. It is here that Prokosch evades the issue and covers it up 
with his philosophizing. 



November, 1945 39 

The Plant 

I can remember a time when my mother's daily trips to meet my father after 
he had finished work held a great fascination for me. Father works at a large 
oil refining plant, the sight of which once filled me with awe, but which has long 
since become simply "the plant." 

Every day during the summer months Mother and I would park in the hot, 
unshaded lot amid other cars full of waiting wives and children. Before us was 
the electrically controlled gate of the high iron fence that surrounded the plant, 
vigilantly watched over by a uniformed guard. The gate would slide back fre- 
quently to admit a lumbering red tank truck with TEX.A.CO across its fat sides, 
or Homer Etchison and his team of roan Belgians and his clattering wagon. 
From the squat brick clock house at the left of the gate came the ding of the 
time clock as homeward-bound workers streamed past it punching time cards. 

In one direction the tank farm spread out, its storage tanks looking like 
gigantic shiny silver pillboxes gleaming in the afternoon sun. In another stood 
clumps of high towers and strange frameworks of stills and other complicated 
and mysterious structures. In still another direction, parallel with a stagnant 
creek, ran several tracks on which were gray tank cars expectantly awaiting the 
wheezing engine that would round them up and send them on their way. High 
above all of this an electric sign frowned down through the smoke, steam, and 
oppressive, oily-smelling atmosphere to spell out THE TEXAS COMPANY and 
to hold aloft its neon red star and great T trademark. 

.After we had waited fifteen or twenty minutes, my father would appear from 
around a corner of the new, brick office building, walk past a jumbled heap of 
blackened oil drums and pieces of machinery, enter the clock house, pass through 
the gate, and greet us with his customary smile and "Hello. How's things?" 
Texaco's best products pulsed through the engine of the car as we turned our 
backs on the plant for one more day. — Nancy Bruce 



And Before Breakfast 

It was a bright cheery morning, and it made the kitchen, despite its lack of 
intelligent arrangement, a pleasant place to prepare breakfast. I watched the two 
eggs fry. They were for my brother, who always had to have his eggs done 
specially; he had convinced me that I was the only one in the family who could 
do them properly. Mom was fussing at him about going too far with his food 
obsession, and I knew that he was just leading her on with a word of protest here 
and there. Going to the door, I noticed that my father hadn't come to breakfast 
yet; so I called him again. This time we heard him starting to move around. 
Returning to the stove, I saw that the eggs were done and, putting them on a 
plate. I placed the dish before my brother's appreciative eye. Upstairs, suddenly 
and violently, my father began sneezing. Hardly had the sound died away when, 
like tiny staccato footsteps, came the sound of something walking. My brother's 
face was one of sheer amazement and choked mirth. Turning in his seat, he 
gasped, "Daddy's teeth !" There at the turn of the step lay a grinning upper plate 
laughing back at us. Never have I heard anyone laugh as hard as we did, so 
sudden and startling was the unexpected vision. My father, on coming down 
stairs and picking them up, asked sourly, "What's so funny about it?" Silence 
fell, but as I placed his plate before him, the eyes of the family met over his head 
in suffocated laughter. — Gl.\dys Sorensen 



40 The Green Caldron 

Rhet as Writ 

One day I stopped, sat myself down, moved back and looked myself over. 



Memories are started in many ways. Some are started by objects, people, 
songs, sayings, etc. but they all end in personal thoughts or opinions. That is 
all memories is, the recalling of people, places, and things. The easiest and 
best time is at night in bed when every thing is quiet. This is where you 
loose sleep but have the nicest ones for these usually have more sugar on 
them than salt. Any time in the day they will pop up and you think, "Oh 
remember !" 

• • • • 

If an island lacks active mammals which are their natural enemies, it will 
have no occasion to fly and it may use this extra energy to grow in size. 



Off they pedaled down the street on the tantrum. 

• • • • 

She wonders why she did not marry him at times. 



• • 



Boys and girls seem to be going to the more sloppy side of the clothes 
line. 

• • • • 

If you have ever played football you have undoubtedly experienced a 
weak, sick feeling in the pit of your stomach which is present at the begin- 
ning of all games. 

Robert Young played the role of the flyer whose face was badly dis- 
figured with great emotion and understanding. 



Some [of the girls] are married and others quite busy. Still they have 
that moral effect on me, though not as much as the boys. 



Some people go into the war trying to remember what your girl looks like. 



Honorable Mention 



Gerald Bernstein — The Fourth Wonder of the World 

Lois Anne Braden — Button, Button, Who's Got the Button? 

Robert K. Croll — Hypnotism, Black Sheep of the Sciences 

Charles Endress — Battle for Vincennes 

Ethelyn Fink — Imp of the Perverse 

Elizabeth Ann Gaebe — Dragonseed by Pearl Buck 

Jack Gomberg — Living under Pressure 

Romona Hart — The Strength of My Father 

Lillian Gilbert — The Goateed Fuehrer 

Doris Holsman — Our Japanese Americans 

Betty F. Lipari — Napoleonic Regime in Italy (1796-1814) 

Charles G. Moertel — A Date for the Prom 

Charlys /. Moser — A Glance at the Great Toscanini 

Heinz G. Neumann — Master of the Baton 

Betty Lee Sing — Shih-hua Shan 

Marilyn Stern — The King of Swoon 

Walter F. Stuenkel — A Short History of American Glass 

from 1609-1900 



'HE Green Caldron 

A Magazine of Freshman Writing 

^ IHE LIBRARY OF THE 

Jane Buescher: How I Didn't Learn to Type . .QFC 1. 1 J9.45. 1 
Joseph J. Brankey: A Man and His Farm . ^j.^jyi-^^.M-^r i^u.riUI^* 

Robert A. Adkisson: Mixed Farming Is Good Business .... 8 

Jean Lopin: The Faust Legend 10 

Jean Lopin: The Devil and Dr. Faustus 17 

Anonymous: The Voice with a Smile 19 

Beverly Haferman: Let's Help Mary Smith 21 

Donald W. Bahr: Working on the '400' 23 

Ethelyn Fink: "Imp of the Perverse" 26 

Romona Hart: The Strength of My Father 30 

Robert Cushman: Getting into Character 31 

Eugene Kolen: The Paramecium 33 

Jack Comber g: Democracy Under Pressure by Stuart Chase . . 35 

Ernest Orcutt: The Longest Battle in Naval History 36 

Lois Anne Braden: Conscription? — No! 38 

(Material written in Rhetoric I and II) : Rhet as Writ .... 40 



VOL. 15, NO. 2 DECEMBER, 1945 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



T. 



HE Green Caldron is published four times a year by the 
Rhetoric Staff at the University of IlHnois. Material is chosen 
from themes and examinations written by freshmen and students 
in the Army Specialized Training and V-12 Programs in the Uni- 
versity. Permission to publish is obtained for all full themes, 
including those published anonymously. Parts of themes, how- 
ever, are published at the discretion of the committee in charge. 

The committee in charge of this issue of The Green Caldron 
includes Miss Constance Nicholas and Messrs. Ben Porzak 
and George Scouffas, Chairman. 

The Green Caldron is for sale at the Information Office, 
157 Administration Building (West), Urbana, Illinois. 



THE GREEN CALDRON 

COPYRIGHTED 1945 
BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

All rights reserved 
No part of this periodical may be repro- 
duced in any form without permission in 
writing from the publisher. 



Ho^v I Didn t Learn to Type 



Jane Buescher 
Rhetoric I, Theme 8, 1944-1945 



I 



nr^YPING, I WAS LED TO BELIEVE WHEN I WAS A SOPHO- 
more in high school, is very necessary if one intends to go to college. 
At that time, when the various typewriter companies were still able 
to sell their products, a magazine was hardly complete without an advertise- 
ment telling the reader the joys and advantages of owning such a machine. I 
read them all with much interest. "College professors definitely prefer the 
typewritten page." . . . "The student who types his themes receives better 
grades than does the one who hands in papers which are difficult to read." 
. . . "Anna Jones says that she could not get along without her typewriter." 
I was convinced. 

My next task was to convince my father that I should own my own type- 
writer. Quite correctly, he maintained that it would be a definite waste of 
money to purchase one for me, since I did not know how to type anyhow. I 
solved that by enrolling in a first-year typewriting class the next fall. By 
this time it was impossible to obtain a typewriter, but I was determined to 
learn anyway. 

The class was a large one. I guess most of the typing classes were. The 
school had purchased a hundred and thirty new office models of several 
popular makes of machines a few years before, and these were arranged on 
tables in three rooms. Most of the students in my class were future secre- 
taries and all of them were seniors. 

During the first class, when all the others were ready to begin, I was 
still fumbling with the process of inserting the paper. The idea was to hold 
the paper in the left hand in back of the black roller, and then twirl a knob 
on the right-hand side until the paper was visible in front. I found that my 
paper always whirled around all right, but one side usually stuck up farther 
than the other. I finally disregarded this, since the other forty-nine students 
were ready to begin the first lesson. 

I opened my book to the first page and sat waiting for instructions. It 
was at that moment that I discovered that instead of containing the usual 
letters and numbers, the keys before me were glossy black. Perhaps I had 
been cheated ! However, a quick glance around me showed that all the other 
typewriters were constructed in the same manner. It was a rather severe 
shock to me, but I realized the prestige it would give us later when a visitor 
walked into the room and found us typing away while gayly discussing our 
weekend dates. I was impressed by the thought. 

Generally speaking, the first few days were rather easy. We were told 

[ 1 ] 



2 The Green Caldron 

to place our fingers on the second row of keys beginning at the bottom. 
Our teacher coyly referred to these as our "home" keys. Large charts 
showed us what these keys were, and in a few days we were reasonably 
familiar with them. Next we learned to strike a "home" key, the key above 
it, and then come back "home." Exercises followed in quick succession: 

juj juj juj juj kik kik kik lol lol ;p; ;p; 

frf frf frf ftf ftf ded ded sws aqa aqa fgf jhj 

fur jug jug fur fur fur jug jug jug kid kid kid. 

It wasn't very difficult when you were on your own, but the catch came 
when the whole class worked in unison. The teacher would shout out the 
letter we were supposed to hit, and the idea was to find it as soon as the 
rest of the class did. Somehow I always managed to get behind and I had to 
catch up in some manner. Thus, when the other machines were completely 
quiet, a gentle tapping could usually be heard coming from the direction of 
my table. It was rather embarrassing. 

The day we began using the shift key, I nearly sprained several of my 
fingers. That teacher has learned by now never to give a student credit for 
knowing in advance a solitary thing about her subject. When explaining how 
to make a capital letter, she told us to place our little finger on the shift key 
while striking the letter we wished to capitalize. She neglected to mention 
that if the key is to be struck with the right hand, you should shift with the 
left hand. I repeatedly tried to do both with the same hand. I mastered the 
art of making a capital letter only three days after the rest of the class. 

Before too long, we were writing complete sentences. This, along with 
the little drills, was continued for about a week before the next step was 
reached. Somehow, I still have a grudge against the day we were first timed 
on the typing of a paragraph. The thought made me extremely nervous, and 
from the time the teacher said "Begin," to the time she yelled "Stop!" my 
hands quivered as I typed as fast as I could. During the minute, I typed a 
little over a line. We were then told how to compute our rate of typing. 
Until that time, I had never realized how important errors were. By the 
time I had finished subtracting ten points for each mistake, I found that I 
had written a negative twenty-seven words. I decided that I was worse ofi 
than if I hadn't taken the test; I tried to cut down the quantity of my 
mistakes. Several days later I actually showed some positive results, for I 
quit going in the hole and began typing an average of two words a minute. 

Timed tests became more numerous, but I never liked them any better. 
The worst blow of all came when the teacher began to make us hand in our 
papers. She also informed us that we could not erase mistakes, and that any 
paper with a strikeover on it would get a zero. We were crushed. 

If I had known what I soon learned about timed tests, I doubt whether I 
would have taken the typing course. The short tests were bad enough, but 
the ten and twenty minute ones were absolute misery. My hands became 



December, 1945 3 

clammy; my stomach did flip-flops. And then we were told to start. Fifty 
shaking people began to bang like mad on their machines, and the noise was 
astounding, to say the least. Sometimes I'd lose my place in the copy, and 
I'd become so panic-stricken that I couldn't think. Once in a while the 
fellow next to me would get furious and yank out his paper several times 
during a test. This was usually accompanied by a volley of disconcerting 
words, which sometimes became incorporated in my own paper. 

Several things could happen during one of those tests, each of which 
would result in a low grade. I think that the worst was when I got my 
fingers oflf the "home" keys without realizing it; the net results were terrific. 
Typing the same sentence twice was also bad for the score, and caused many 
a bad paper. Then there were all kinds of little things that could ruin a 
perfectly good attempt. Wrong indentations, failure to double-space, not 
making a dash correctly, hyphenating a word in the wrong place, having 
the ribbon come out, typing too close to the bottom of the page — the 
penalties for these and many others made my life miserable for a whole year. 

Another thing that was able to turn a sane student into a raving maniac 
was the copy we had to type. Usually it was new material, but this fact did 
not bother me so much. The trouble lay in the fact that the stories or 
articles were written about such dull subjects: 

The beaver began to gnaw away at the base of the tree, and continued until 
a grasshopper approached him. 

"I say." said Mother, as she ran to the neighbors with a cup of sugar, "I do 
believe it looks like rain." 

Right along, the teacher kept adding information about other parts of a 
typewriter and their uses. I absorbed most of the information, and. by taking 
slight glances at the students around me, I did quite well. On the last day of 
school, when I supposedly knew ever}'thing about typing wills and business 
letters, putting in ribbons, tabulation, and stencils, I was given the class 
period in which to type anxthing I wished. The result was a letter so bad 
that I couldn't even send it to my friend. I found it the other day, and after 
reading it over, I began to wonder if I really did learn to typewrite that 
year. The middle section went like this: 

"Well, this is queer. Today, it is the bast say of schook (1811 try again) 
schood (mope, again) school. Any how our typing teacher said that we 
could take tine to write a letter to anybody we wanted. So here I sit typing 
away. Gee, I feel so wongerful. The last day of schook. (Oh, my gosh) 
schook/.,) '( '$"# school YiPee; 

"I hear that You called up home the other noght. You know I have a 
passion for that shift key. Well I'll learn. Sonfident aren't I? I hope you 
engoy this, acuse you shouls see what I8m going through. Un case you can't 
reak this, I guess I'd better write in ink. 

"Gee, I can't say what I feel on a typewriter. Sonehow it isn't the sane." 



W: 



The Green Caldron 

A Man and His Farm 

Joseph J. Brankey 
Rhetoric II, Theme 11, 1944-1945 

"HEN I ACQUIRED THE FARM, IT WAS SEVERELY 
run-down, eroded, overrun with noxious weeds, grown over with 
brush. It was stony, hilly, and had a clay soil with an impervious 
subsoil. The buildings were dilapidated, and the yard was a sea of mud in 
the wet seasons. Then I began to rebuild. 

Many of the operations of rebuilding the farm went on simultaneously. 
While we were working on reclaiming the land, we were also repairing and 
painting; we wired the house for electricity, newly papered it, and had a 
new roof put on. Also, we graveled the yard. 

In the fields the problem was much more difficult. As my folks were not 
farmers, even though we had lived on a farm, and as I was not yet eighteen, 
I had an experienced soil rebuilder come to look over the problems and 
advise me. His only advice was to tidy the place up a little, get some green 
crops on it, and sell it immediately to some city man. I did not take his 
advice, for I was enthusiastic and, I admit, ignorant. So I started to rebuild 
the farm Vv-ith the knowledge I had obtained from reading and observation. 
People had alwaA^s taunted me with the idea that such a plan could not work 
out, especially w4th me at the helm. 

The first move was to test the soil for acidity. It was found to be quite 
acid and possibly capable of growing alsike clover, the legume which is most 
tolerant of an acid soil. As growing legumes is one of the first steps in soil 
rebuilding, I sowed alsike clover with a nurse crop of oats. A nurse crop 
holds the soil with its roots and protects the other crop from extreme sun- 
light until the latter is established. 

I can see the fields now as they were when I first pulled into them with 
a tractor and disk. They were generally covered with a growth of last year's 
crop of cockleburs. Some of them were taller than the tractor. Others, on the 
hills, were dwarfed. Here and there were large oval patches of Canada 
thistles as well as scattered small groups. Then, too, there was the nice green 
quack grass, which was as general as the thistles. Quack grass is a thickly 
rooted grass which smothers out crops and pollutes them with its seed. Many 
other assorted weeds were to be found over the entire farm. The pasture 
was very weak and generally grown up to bull thistles, mullein, farmers' lice, 
Canada thistles, and brush. 

The small fields were seriously eroded with many bad gullies, some of 
them large enough to hide a small cow. Especially on top of the many hills 
were found multitudes of assorted rocks ranging from the size of an apple 



December, 1945 5 

to that of a kitchen stove. Most of the slopes had the top soil removed by 
washing and were nothing but subsoil. The fallen down fences and fence 
rows were grown up with brush: hawthorns, sumacs, vines, and crab apple. 
The sixty-acre farm was traversed by four main creeks, fed by the gullies. 
What a mess ! I>ut — it was inspiring in that it offered a challenge to my 
ingenuity. Let 'er RIP! 

First I tried to see the good points of the situation, to find what the 
farm had that was good, and to use it as the nucleus of my rebuilding. 

In the early spring I worked steadily, picking up rocks and cutting 
brush. I saw that the gullies would have to be healed and that dams made 
of material from the brush, rocks, and other things at hand would help. 
Therefore, we turned these things into an asset in the form of dams. At 
stages in the gullies we drove stakes into the ground and wove the slender 
sumacs between them. In front of these dams we placed old straw and 
manure, weighted with rocks. We left spillways in the dams, and behind 
them we placed more stones to prevent gullying by the overwash. Then, the 
dams l>eing completed. I sowed alsike clover and timothy seed in the gullies 
to help establish a vegetative cover. A neighbor who helped me for a time 
told me he thought it was foolish, and that it would "like as not fail." We 
went on anyway. 

As spring progressed I disked the worked land and sowed oats and 
alsike clover. Along with these crops the cockleburs, thistles, and other 
weeds were to grow, for there was no way to get rid of the vast number of 
weed seeds on the ground. 

Next I did a quick makeshift job of repairing fences so that cattle 
could be turned into the pastures. I burned the many seed heads of the bull 
thistles to prevent the seed from being blown around. The grass came up 
weak and sickly. It, like the rest of the farm, was in poor condition. 

Then it was back to cutting brush, working on fences and on the endless 
job of hoeing thistles. Gol — dam ! How I sweated on the other end of that 
hoe ! Was I glad when we got a power mower ! I would murderously and 
relentlessly run that mower through those disconcerting weeds. It is the 
repeated cutting of these thieves, just as they are about to set seed, that kills 
them, and that I did wherever they were concentrated. 

Finally harvest came. The oats were a sorry sight. Did I say oats? 
Rather I should say cockleburs, thistles, and other weeds. Fourteen acres 
yielded only nine bushels of weedy, stinking oats to the acre, while twenty- 
four acres were so poor that I mowed them to cut the weeds. The yield of 
nine bushels per acre did not pay for the combining. 

The second vear went much like the first. I built dams, repaired the old 
ones, cut brush, picked up tons and tons of rocks, fixed fences, and began 
experimenting with strip cropping and terracing with an automatic leveling 
device I built on the tractor. Strip cropping is planting, across the slope, 



6 The Green Caldron 

bands of different crops, alternating between cultivated and non-cultivated 
crops such as corn and hay, respectively. Terracing is the building of level, 
concentric ridges of earth around and on the hills to catch run-off water and 
the soil it carries. 

The alsike clover that was sown for seed the previous year was purged 
of thistles and other weeds as much as was practical. The crop was not too 
poor, but the price at which we had to sell the seed was low, and accordingly 
the year's expenses were barely covered. 

I could see that I would need more technical farm training to get the 
farm going in any reasonable length of time, so I attended the University 
of Wisconsin Farm Short Course for two winters. Here I learned much 
about soil conservation, fertilization, new and better plant varieties and 
their growth requirements. Following the first year at school I put as many 
of these ideas into use as possible. I fertilized the fields with lime and phos- 
phate. I bought a combination grain drill, which sows commercial fertilizer 
with the seed. I bought the better producing and disease-resisting crop seeds 
and treated them for various fungus diseases. I prepared the soil as nearly 
as possible to suit the needs of the crops to be grown. 

This year I sowed the farm mainly to oats again because oats do better 
on poor soil than some other crops and because they tend to be soil con- 
serving. Mixed with the oats was alfalfa and grass seed. As the land had 
been fertilized with lime, phosphate, and commercial fertilizer, I reasoned 
that it might raise a fair crop of alfalfa, which demands higher soil fertility. 
Alfalfa, as you know, is a high producer of hay and a good soil improver. 

In this year the oats were much cleaner and yielded about fifty bushels 
per acre. Things were going much better, and the neighbors began talking 
among themselves. They saw I was getting results on "the poorest farm 
in Homer township," but still thought I was crazy. The next year was to 
make them talk even more. 

In the fall I went back to the University of Wisconsin and returned the 
following spring just "raring" to go. I began with the same general work: 
new dams built, old ones repaired. Some of the gullies by now were almost 
filled and could be driven over. By careful sodding I formed a grass water- 
way to protect them from washing. I built new terraces, that proved to be 
very valuable. The neighbors laughed at the rings around the hills. I cut 
more brush, picked up more stones and made a stream crossing of them, tore 
down old fences and built new ones. To add humus to the soil and thus 
increase its fertility I plowed under the legumes over most of the land, 
hauled manure to the slopes, where the soil was poorest. With the aid of 
the new grain drill I sowed hundreds of dollars' worth of commercial ferti- 
lizer with the new crop. This grain drill was the only one of its kind in the 
area, and was dubbed "another of the 'professor's' fool ideas." This tool 
was one of the major helps in rebuilding the farm. 



1 



December, 1945 7 

At the time of harvest that year, the picture was very different from 
earher scenes. The fields were quite free of weeds, and there was a golden, 
waving sea of oats, a bumper crop! The neighbors couldn't believe their 
eyes. "Surely there must be some mistake: it couldn't happen on this farm. 
The oats probably weren't as good as they looked anyway." But they were. 
They yielded an average of eighty bushels per acre; and the alfalfa that I 
had sown with the oats — it was even and healthy. Xo one around had as 
good a stand. The alfalfa which I had sown the previous year was fine too. 
It had, instead of the usual two or three tons per acre, yielded five tons per 
acre! This puzzled the farmers. Maybe this "professor," as they called me, 
had something, but they weren't ready to admit it. no siree. "He'll run 
amuck yet," they figured. "He can't do it again. Something will happen." 

In this year I began to make a little money. Back debts had to be paid. 
If I hadn't been living at home I don't know what I would have eaten. 
Every cent I had went into the battle to bring the farm back and to prove 
that it could be done. Its success meant almost my life to me. 

Now the fifth year was different from the previous years in that I 
bought even better seed oats. They were the newest development of the 
University of Wisconsin and were smut and rust resistant as well as high 
yielding and sturdy. I planted corn again for the second year. I worked at 
dams, terraces, grass waterways, fences, brush, weeds, and rocks as usual. 
I rented adjoining land and sowed it to oats. The farmers grinned to them- 
selves upon seeing me working in the field by the road. "Why, that land 
ain't raised a crop in five years and it's so ditched that a horse would break 
a leg in it. This is where the 'professor' will make his mistake." I applied 
the same treatment to it as to my own land. I treated the gullies and poured 
on a suitable commercial fertilizer with the new variety of oats. 

The season that year was bad for oats; it was cold and rainy. Most of 
the fields looked sick, but the "professor's" oats didn't look so damn bad, 
did they? The new variety of oats, with the help of the sustaining com- 
mercial fertilizer, was paying off. The fields were an even carpet of green. 
I hoed weeds anfl thistles constantly, repaired ditches made by the over- 
abundant rains. .Summer came. The oats and all my crops were in wonderful 
shape. The plowed-down legumes made the corn grow tall, and the alfalfa 
was green and dense. The fences were new, and hardly any sign of brush 
could be seen. The terraces and contours lay guarding the hill soils. Dams 
were ready to check gully-washing rains. Grass waterways protected the 
places where gullies had once been on the rampage. 

When harvest time came, the oat field in the rented land by the road, 
like all my other fields, was clean and golden. Through the country many 
oat fields would yield practically nothing because of the hard, cold rains, 
because of the disease brought on by the weather, because of the hot, dry 



8 The Green Caldron 

summer. True, my oats were not what they could have been, but were good 
for the year. 

As we began to combine, farmers stopped to see the new variety of oats, 
to see what the crop had done under the hard circumstances. The seed was 
a deep gold, was plump and above the standard by many pounds per bushel. 

The barrier was broken. The farmers ordered seed oats from me as we 
combined. They had a different way of saying "professor" now. Farmers 
came to me to find out how I did it, to find out about gully control, about 
commercial fertilizer, about terracing, about new crops, and, as I was a fairly 
successful dairyman, about dairy feeding. The goal had been reached, the 
game won! I could look back with pride to the road that brought me: the 
years of disappointment, of poverty when I couldn't feel right when I bought 
even an ice cream cone; when I played the tough game of getting rid of 
brush, rocks, weeds, ditches; when I sweated building dams, terraces, fences; 
when I bent under the hundreds of bags of commercial fertilizer; when I 
ached from loading many, many loads of manure and many loads of rocks 
and stone. Yes, I could look back then, and I look back now and chuckle 
to myself; it could be done and I did it. 

Though I have moved from that neighborhood to better land, I still have 
a warm feeling for "Homer township, the place the Lord forgot when He 
made the world." And when I go back they still remember me as — "the 
professor." 

Mixed Farming Is Good Business 

Robert A. Adkisson 
Rhetoric II, Theme 10, 1944-1945 



I 



nr^WO SEPARATE AND DISTINCT METHODS OF FARMING 
are employed here in Illinois — mixed farming and grain farming. 
Mixed farming is the production of both grain and livestock. Most of 
the grain is fed to the livestock and then sold as pork or beef. In grain 
farming, on the other hand, crops are raised and sold as such. There is 
little, if any, livestock. Which of these two types of farming is the better 
business? The answer depends on the issues of profit, soil maintenance, 
and ease of work. 

In the first place, mixed farming is more profitable than grain farming 
in dollars and cents. By raising twenty bushels of corn, feeding it to a hog, 
and selling the hog, a farmer can get several more dollars for his corn. If 
he could not, he would not raise hogs. It is the same with beef cattle. The 
favorable ratio between the price of feed and the price of live pork and beef 
is a source of profit to the mixed farmer. 



December, 1945 9 

Secondly, mixed farming will maintain the soil, whereas grain farming 
will deplete it. Upon the maintenance of a good soil successful farming de- 
pends. The soil is like a bank. If you make withdrawals constantly without 
making any deposits, you will deplete the bank account. So it is with the 
soil. If a farmer raises a crop and sells every bit of the crop directly, he is 
making a withdrawal and no dei)osit. But in mixed farming, a crop of corn, 
for instance, will be fed to livestock on the farm, right down to the last ear. 
As the animals grow, they make manure — tons of it. This manure is col- 
lected and taken back to the land — a deposit that will almost counterbalance 
the withdrawal effected by the growing of the corn. 

Furthermore, mixed farming maintains the soil because of the many acres 
of hay crops recjuired; livestock must have hay and pasture. The legumes, 
like clover and alfalfa, that fulfill these hay and pasture needs are great 
soil-maintainers. Thus they ])erform a double duty. On the average mixed 
farm, one- fourth of all tillable land will prol)ably be in soil-building legume 
hay crops. 

In the third place, a mixed farmer can handle his field work in a season 
unfavorable to field work better than a grain farmer can. Having one- fourth 
of his land in hay crops, he has less field work of the type that has to be done 
all at once. For instance, in April, cattle feeder Jones will have only 100 
acres of spring plowing to do instead of 120 acres because his "back twenty" 
is in clover. In October, he will not have to crowd the threshing of the 
beans on the corner into those few good days, because that field is alfalfa 
which his spring pigs have been eating all summer. These examples show 
that mixed farmers are in a better position than straight grain farmers to 
handle their field work in unfavorable weather. 

Hecause of higher profit, greater maintenance of the soil, and more 
adaptability to adverse conditions, mixed farming is better business than 
grain farming. 

Wild Is the West 

Cowboy movies are the favorites of small boys. The ordinary stories con- 
tain one handsome cowboy, a pretty rancher's daughter, one slightly tarnished 
sheriff, a gang of rustlers, and a herd of cattle. The highlight of the picture oc- 
curs when the hero clatters up on his white stallion, after the crime, and shrieks 
to the rancher's daughter, "Which way'd they go, gal?" "They went that a-way!" 
is the reply, and off dashes the cowboy in mad pursuit, pausing, if he is a singing 
cowboy, to rip off a few bars of "Oh, Bury Me Not on the Lone Prair — ee," 
for the benefit of his admiring audience of one. When he overtakes the rustlers, 
as he invariably does, a wild fight ensues, from which the cowboy emerges 
victorious, with the entire gang roped, tied, and bellowing for mercy. Notwith- 
standing: the struggle, the hero's ten-gallon hat is still perched rakishly upon his 
head. His final love scene with the rancher's daughter is cut mercifully short: 
ten-year-old boys do not appreciate romance. — Lois Rudnik 



10 The Green Caldron 

The Faust Legend 

Jean Lopin 
Rhetoric II, Theme 12, 1944-1945 



rrpiHE IDEA THAT A HUMAN BEING MAY SELL HIS SOUL 

I to the devil in exchange for supernatural powers is an old one. It has 
"^ aroused a terror in mankind throughout the world, but it has served 
as a source of inspiration to poets, writers, composers, and musicians 
through the ages. 

In most of the stories on the theme a man bargains his soul to the devil 
in exchange for some supernatural power or greater knowledge. After pro- 
viding several exploits and adventures for his victim, the devil puts an end 
to his career by claiming his bond. In a few versions the man repents in 
time, and the devil is cheated; but usually the ending is a tragic one. 

Readers and audiences have been held by the story of Faust, although 
in whatever way the tale is told, the supernatural element is its peculiar 
characteristic. Dorothy Sayers says, "For the 'two hours' traffic of our stage,' 
we must indulge in the 'willing suspension of disbelief.' We must accept 
magic and miracle as physical realities; we must admit the possibility of 
genuine witchcraft, of the strange legal transaction by which a man might 
sell his soul to Satan, of the actual appearance of the Devil in concrete 
bodily shape. The Faustus legend is dyed in grain with the thought and feel- 
ing of its period; nothing could be more characteristic than its odd jumble 
of spirituality and crude superstition; of scripture and classical myth; of 
Catholic theolog>^ and anti-clerical humanism; of the adventurous passion 
for, and the timorous distrust of learning."^ 

The Faust theme arose from sixteenth century beliefs, antagonisms, 
superstitions, and struggles that are unmistakably impressed on the legend. 
Faust was the symbol of restless forces in people, a craving for withheld 
knowledge. This was the time of the Renaissance, when Europe was awak- 
ening from the era of the Dark Ages. The revival of learning furnished the 
common people with new names to link with sorcery in place of the old 
Merlin and Virgilius. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were rich in 
superstitious legendry; the people still half-believed in spirits. 

The Faust legend was not the first of its kind. Its forerunners include 
the legends of Simon Magus and Cyprian, magicians whose remarkable 
feats led to their tragic fates. Another forerunner is the story of Theophilus. 
In this legend is given the first detailed account of a compact with Satan. 
The date of the story is unknown, but it was carried into Europe in about 

'Sayers, Dorothy L. The Devil to Pay, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 
1939, p. 5. 



December, 1945 \\ 

1500. Theophilus, a vicar, declined the offer of a bishopric. The new bishop 
who accepted the position put the vicar out of office. To regain his post 
Theophilus signed a pact with the devil, and with the latter's help secured 
his former position. Soon after this he repented his rash action with Satan, 
and a vision of the Virgin, forgiving him, appeared to him. When the story 
was told to the bishop, he called a day of worship. Thus the devil was 
cheated, and Theophilus returned to the ways of God.' 

However, it was not from the Renaissance state of mind and these pre- 
vious legends alone that the Faust legend was derived. The principal source 
was a real man whose name was Johannes Faust. Melancthon, a German 
Lutheran reformer who lived from 1497 to 1560, is our chief authority on 
the Faust legend. He said that it was possible there had been another person 
of this name of some local reputation in the fifteenth century. The name 
itself was not unusual. It signifies "fortunate; of good omen." A certain 
George Sabellicus, a vagabond, babbler, and rogue, who called himself a 
prince of necromancers, was also known as "Faustus minor."' 

The hero of the popular stories was one Johannes Faust who was born 
in the late fifteenth century at Knittlinger, near Wittenberg. His parents 
were very poor, but with some money left him by a rich uncle, he first 
studied medicine, l^ter, at Cracow, he studied magic, which was openly 
taught as a part of the regular curriculum, and he received his Doctor's 
degree while there. No definite facts are known of his life, but there are 
many contemporary writings which shed a little light on the nature of what 
he was doing. Faust traveled a great deal and was well known throughout 
Germany as a physician and necromancer. His deeds were petty and fraud- 
ulent; he was constantly being driven out of one city into another. Augustin 
Lercheimer's Christlich Dedencken tells of Faust as a homeless schoolmaster 
in Kreuznach under Franz von Sickingen. He fled his duties at this place 
because he was guilty of sodomy.* The city records of Ingolstadt of the 
Wednesday after St. Vitus* Day, 1528, include a Dr. George Faust on the 
list of banished persons, while the Nuremberg city council record of May 10, 
1532, states that Dr. Faust was refused safe conduct.^ The University of 
Heidelberg matriculation book shows a Johannes Faust ex Simern, but we 
are not sure whether this is the same person.® 

Through his magic powers, Faust was able to make many prophecies. 
One of these, concerning the capture of Munsten by the bishop in 1536, was 

' Palmer, Philip M. and ^fore, Robert P., The Sources of the Faust Tradition, New 
York: Oxford University Press, 1936. pp. 76-77. 

'Taylor, Bavard. Translation of "Faust" b\ Goethe, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and 
Company. 1900. \'ol. I, p. 338. 
* Palmer and More, op. cit., p. 119 
*Ibid.. pp. 90-91. 
Ibid., p. 81. 



12 The Green Caldron 

correct; and another — that 1540 was a bad year for expeditionary troops in 
Venezuela — proved true. His name was mentioned in the account book of the 
Bishop of Bamberg for the year 1519-1520, and in the Journal of Kilian 
Lieb of July, 1528, for having made certain astronomical predictions." 

Because of his various deeds, Faust became the chief subject of many 
local stories. It was said that he was accompanied on his travels by two 
devil attendants, a horse and a dog. These assumed human shapes to do his 
bidding, and, through them, Faust accomplished many wonderful things. 
While teaching Homer at the University at Erfurt, he promised his stu- 
dents a sight of the characters of the works. Priam, Hector, Ajax, Ulysses, 
Agamemnon, and Polyphemus were said to have appeared. Another incident 
was that of a flying trip to Prague on his remarkable horse, which was 
really an incarnation of the devil. His servants were known to have served 
his guests wonderful meals consisting of rare fruits, savory meats, and 
excellent wines of many varieties.^ 

One of the favorite stories of Faust was the one in which several guests 
asked Faust to produce a grape vine. Faust did so, warning each guest to 
seize a bunch and have his knife ready, but not to cut the bunch away until 
he gave the signal. Their knives poised in their hands, ready to cut away 
the luscious grapes, the guests waited. Suddenly, after one movement of 
Faust's hand, the vine vanished, and each guest was left holding his own 
nose, with his knife poised above it!^ 

Johannes Wier, in his De Praestigiis Daemonum (1564), writes that 
Faust claimed the devil as his brother-in-law, and that upon one occasion, 
seeing an old man with a heavy black beard, Faust looked down quickly for 
claws upon the man's hands and feet, because the old man appeared so 
much like his relative.^" 

The only action of Faust's that was known to have failed absolutely was 
an attempt that he made to fly to heaven. A crowd had gathered at Venice 
to witness the feat, but after rising into the air, Faust had fallen to earth 
again. The people said that it was evidence that God was triumphant over 
the devil." 

Sometime around 1540 Faust passed out of notice. There were no 
authentic death notices, but, as usual, many stories were created by the 
people about his death. Johannes Manlius in Locorum Communium Col- 
lectanea said that, before he died, Faust had warned his landlord not to 
be frightened by any events which might occur during the night. At mid- 
night the ground and house shook terribly, and the next morning Faust was 

' Ibid., pp. 87-96. 
'Ibid., pp. 108-119. 
'Ibid., pp. 123-126. 
'"Ibid., pp. 105-107. 
" Ibid., pp. 99-100. 



December, 1945 13 

found lying on his bed, his face turned to his back. Everyone said the 
evil of sorcer>' was shown by the tragic death of Faust, and that at last, 
after his many strange experiences, the devil had killed him. It was also 
believed that Faust had sent spirits to plague those who had done him ill 
during his life.'" 

The contemporary evidence of Faust's activities ceased about 1540, and 
the development of the Faust legend began. The first tangible sources that 
we have are a manuscript notebook by Christoph Rosshirt, a teacher at 
Sebaldus School, Nuremberg, and a Latin manuscript collection, both written 
in 1570. A "Wolfenbiittel Manuscript" appeared between 1572 and 1587. It 
contained the career, adventures, and exploits of Faust, but some of these 
incidents were clearly taken from the lives of other magicians. The manu- 
script is of no literary value as the descriptions are taken directly from 
another work on travel. It makes an attempt to warn others against imitation 
of Faust. This was the type of manuscript that furnished the form and 
material for later printed Faust books. '^ 

The first life of Faust appeared in September, 1587, written by Spiess 
of Frankfurt. The wide acceptance of this original form of the legend led 
to the printing of a second edition in 1588. The great popularity of the 
story resulted, in 1588, in a low German edition by Balhorn. In Berlin, in 
1590. an enlarged account, derived from Spiess, was published, and the 
last Faustbuch of the Spiess tyjje, the eighteenth edition, was dated 1598. 
The next year brought the publication of another Faust work, by Widman, 
in Hamburg. This one was larger and contained many elaborated and 
moralizing comments. 

During the seventeenth century, interest in the legend died. This was 
due in part to the Thirty Years' War, to the more rational attitude toward 
witchcraft, and to the spread of drama. However, the story was revived 
by Dr. Pfitzer's revision of Widman in 1674. The last of the German 
Faustbuchs was Faustbuch des Christ lich Meyncnden, a shorter account 
whose first dated copy read 1725. There were many condensations of this 
last work, the last, in 1797, being the one that was known to Goethe. 

The Faust legend did not remain a German legend but was very soon 
translated into English, Dutch, and French. An English ballad appeared in 
1588, a translation in 1590, two Dutch translations in 1592, and a French 
translation in 1598.'* The English version of Spiess's Faustbuch was a free, 
inaccurate rendition — a poor translation by an unknown writer — but its 
importance lies in the fact that it was the source for Marlowe's Dr. Fatistus, 
which opened the series of Faust dramas. 

"Ibid., pp. 103-105. 
"Ibid., pp. 129-130. 
"Taylor, op. cU.. pp. 339-344. 



14 Tlie Green Caldron 

The exact date of Marlowe's Tragical History of Dr. Faustus is not 
known, but scholars have assigned it to 1592, for its source, a translation 
of the German Faustbuch, is known not to have been published before that 
year. This is the earliest dramatic version of the legend that is known, 
although some say a German play existed before it. However, there is no 
proof to back up this supposition, and Marlowe generally gets the credit for 
first using the theme in a play. The earliest edition is a quarto printed eleven 
years after Marlowe's death. It contains some passages (notably the comic 
scenes) which may have been added by another writer. A later edition, 
further enlarged, appeared in 1618, and still more additions can be found in 
later publications of the work. 

Not only for its theme and characterizations is Marlowe's drama known, 
but also for its almost perfect form. Interspersed with prose, "Marlowe's 
mighty line," blank verse, is used to great advantage. He took the legend as 
it appeared in original German forms, and his Faust meets a tragic end at 
the hand of the devil at the appointed time. 

This play was given widely in England by English players, who later 
traveled on the continent. They played both German and English plays, and 
Faust was one of their best. The first continental performance of Faust was 
at Graz, in 1608, and there were later performances throughout the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries. When the eighteenth century turned toward 
French dramatic models, Faust was crowded from the legitimate stage into 
the puppet theatre. The first presentation of this kind was in 1746, the last 
regular staging in 1770, in Hamburg. The puppet plays became very popular, 
especially among the lower classes, through the nineteenth century. ^^ 

Without doubt the greatest of the Faust works is the one by Goethe. 
It was begun in 1773, was not completed until 1831, when Goethe was in 
his eighty-second year, although parts of it were published during this 
period. No wonder, then, that this manuscript, which was born in the mind 
of a twenty-year-old youth and which was not completed until that youth 
had reached old age, is considered a masterpiece ! 

Goethe wrote subjectively, Faust and Mephistopheles being the opposite 
poles of his own nature. He includes in his drama several episodes con- 
cerning Margaret, a beautiful girl with whom Faust falls in love, that are 
not found in the original versions of the legend. These episodes are his own 
creation, and Margaret is taken partly from "her namesake, whom Goethe, 
as a boy of sixteen, imagined he loved, and partly from his betrothed . . . 
for whom he felt probably the strongest love of his life, at the time these 
scenes of his Faust were written."^® Bayard Taylor says, "It is not the least 

" Palmer and More, op. cit., pp. 239-241. 
" Taylor, op. cit., pp. 282-283. 



December, 1945 15 

of Goethe's deserts that, although in his youth, 'a new Faust was announced 
in every quarter of Germany,' he took up the theme already hackneyed by 
small talents, and made it his own, solely and forever." 

The original Faust theme is varied somewhat by Lord Byron in Manfred, 
a dramatic poem. Byron disclaimed having read Marlowe, and he wrote of 
Goethe: "His Faust I never read, for I don't know German; but Matthew 
Monk Lewis, in 1816, at Coligny, translated some of it to me, and I was 
naturally much struck with it; but it was the Staubbach and the Jungfrau, and 
something else much more than Faustus, that made me write Manfred. "^^ 
This is the story of a man who seeks forgetfulness, but can not secure it 
from spirits, nature, man. witches, the destinies, or the spirit of his de- 
[>arted love. Xot even finding oblivion in the church, Manfred, whose 
tortures have all been on earth, finds forgetfulness in death. 

Modern adaptations of the legend have varied it still more, but the 
theme is clearly recognizable, an<l the sui>ernatural element remains. One of 
the most familiar of the modern versions is The Devil and Daniel Webster, 
by Stephen Vincent Benct. This is one of the interpretations in which the 
devil is cheated of his bond, the soul of farmer Jabez Stone — this time by 
the wit and eloquence of Daniel Webster. Dorothy L. Sayers's The Devil to 
Pay is a very recent rendition, written in prose and blank verse, with a touch 
of comedy in some of its scenes. This. too. does not end as tragically as 
older versions, because Faust, while in Mcll, may still have a glimpse of 
the Heaven above. 

Such an immortal story and popular theme could not help leaving its im- 
print on music. The music first used in the puppet plays led to greater 
musical works by many composers, among whom the best known are Spohr, 
Donizetti, Berlioz, Schumann, Gounod, Boito, Wagner, and Liszt. The finest 
settings of Faust in music are the "Faust" overture of Wagner, and the 
"Faust" symphony of Liszt. 

Spohr's 0[)era Faust, completed in 1813, was first performed in March, 
1818. It was given in England in 1852 at the request of Queen Victoria and 
Prince Albert, and it was very successfully received.'^ Schumann's "Faust 
Scene," composed between 1844 and 1853, is a succession of scenes from 
Goethe. The text follows Goethe's verbatim. Hector Berlioz's symphonic 
cantata, "The Damnation of Faust." was inspired by the reading of Goethe. 
When first produced on December 6, 1846, it was a failure, but careful 
revision made later performances more successful." 

" Introduction to Byron's "Manfred" in Dobbie and others (eds.) A Book of English 

Literature, New York: Macmillan Company, 1942, Vol. II, pp. 214-215. 

"Hoechst, Coil Roscoe, "Faust" in Music, Gettysburg, Pa.: Gettysburg Compile Print, 

1916. Vol. I. pp. 13-14. 

''Ibid., pp. 38-41. 



18 The Green Caldron 

Since it might well appear the vendor had 

No title to give, barter, sell, exchange, 

Mortgage or pawn or otherwise dispose of 

Crown property. Well and good. But in the interim 

(To wit, the four-and-twenty years expired) 

This Mephistopheles, by his own act . . . 

The treatment of the major part of the legend is the same in both plays — 
the calling up of Mephistopheles, the signing of the devil's bond, the visit 
to Rome and the Pope, the attendance at the court of Emperor Charles V, 
and Faustus' taking Helen of Troy for his paramour. There are differences, 
however, in the interpretations of the various characters, and in the ending. 

Marlowe's Faustus is the same man throughout the play, while the 
Faustus in The Devil to Pay emerges as a younger man after the bond is 
signed. The old Faustus reappears in the final judgment scene. 

The treatment of Helen of Troy is decidedly different in the two plays. 
Miss Sayers's Helen figures throughout the play, appearing many times. 
Marlowe's Helen appears only once, the staging techniques not showing her 
face, though his tribute to her has become a famous passage in English 
literature. 

Wagner, Faustus' servant, is teamed with Lisa in The Devil to Pay, and 
together they try to draw Faustus away from his evil doings with the devil. 
Marlowe's Wagner does not play so prominent a part, and the appearance 
of good and evil spirits trying to dissuade and persuade Faustus is used 
throughout. 

Mephistopheles is much the same in both plays. Besides representing evil 
and being Lucifer's representative to Faustus, he becomes the joker, enabling 
Faustus to swallow a wagon of hay and a span of horses, make flowers 
bloom at Christmas, cut off and restore his leg, draw wine from a table, 
beat guests at dinner, play vulgar tricks upon the Pope, souse a horse- 
courser in a pond, present grapes in January, and do other, similar tricks. 

The end of the play presents the main difference in the two works. Miss 
Sayers ends her play with a judgment scene, some passages of which are 
somewhat comical, lightening the seriousness of the situation. Her "devil is 
cheated of his bond, but receives his precise due." Faustus follows Mephis- 
topheles into Hell, but the judge admonishes the devil with "God is not 
robbed; and I will bring mine own as I did sometime from the deep of the 
sea again" and 

Thou has claimed thine own, 
It is thine. Burn it. Touch not my good grain. 
I shall require it at thy hand some day. 
This is similar to the resolution of the demands of Shylock. The last words 
of the angels are hopeful, also, for they are, "But he himself shall be saved, 
yet so as by fire." 



December, 1945 19 

Although Marlowe's sympathies are clearly with Faustus, he ends his 
play tragically. The last scene is very dramatic. The slow striking of the 
clock adds suspense, and the lightning and thunder which accompany the 
twelfth stroke are the signal for the entrance of the devils. Faustus' re- 
sounding last words, 

Ugly hell, gape not! come not, Lucifer! 
I'll burn my books! — Ah, Mephistophcles ! 

are more stirring than the tranquil words of submission of Miss Sayers's 
Faustus — "From the deep of the sea." 

Dorothy .Sayers's interpretation of the supernatural legend makes for 
light, comparatively easy reading, and would doubtless prove moderately 
successful as a stage presentation. However, one feels more strongly the 
greatness of Marlf»we's drama. The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus will 
be read and played long after The DctH to Pax is inttTiied on tin" shelf of 
forgotten twentieth century plays. 

The Voice With a Smile 

Anonymous 

Rhetoric 1, Theme 11. Summer, 1945 

WIII.X 1 FIRST SAW A TELEPHONE SWITCHBOARD, 
ihf hundreds of little, blinking lights before me seemed to hold a 
mysterious challenge. 1 took that challenge, and I began a solution 
of that mystery — I became an Illinois Bell Telephone operator at a small 
town switchboard. 

Five weeks were required for a thorough knowledge of local and long 
distance operating. This training consisted of actual supervised work at the 
switchboard and in note-taking. 

The first two weeks were consumed in finding which plug went where, 
which was zv and which was r, and which lights meant what. A great many 
mistakes were made, and a great many tears were shed those first few weeks. 

After ringing wrong numbers for two weeks, I was taken into the 
inner sanctum, the operators' day room, and the supervisor began giving 
me my toll training by use of notes. For two hours a day I would sit there 
scribbling furiously on small, yellow toll tickets. Every possible toll call 
was e.\plained and noted. My notebook grew and grew and my memory 
reeled and reeled. Would I ever remember it all ? 

My great moment came when I picked up a plug to begin my first un- 
supervised long-distance call. I had all the information before me on the 
familiar yellow ticket, and now I must put that information into use. After 
consulting rate and route books, I found the way to get Mr. Robinson's call 
to Sacramento was to go through Peoria, St. Louis, and San Francisco. 



20 The Green Caldron 

I tested all my Peoria circuits and rang in on a clear circuit. An unrattled 
voice came chirping over the line, "Peoria." How could she be so damned 
calm when I was nearly shaking off my perch ! 

Overcoming my phobia, I whispered, "St. Louis," in my individual death 
rattle. After an interminable length of time St. Louis shouted, "St. Louis, 
are you through, are you through?" 

"Through! What do you mean through? I'm just getting started," my 
mind shouted. 

Then I remembered it was all part of the telephone lingo, and I 
responded, "Mx your Rx." 

Minutes passed while I waited for a clear trunk to the Rx. During all 
this I was answering local calls and biting my hangnails. 

At long last the Rx operator was reached, and she rang San Francisco on 
my Mx precedence. San Francisco was nc (no circuit) to Sacramento, so 
I just held. San Francisco held the circuit, I held the key, and Mr. Robinson 
held the bag. 

San Francisco secured a circuit, and I told Sacramento to ring "Long 
Beach ni-un-se-ven-tu-fo-wer." She obliged, and the party answered. Fol- 
lowing a few routine questions, I hooked Robinson and Sacramento together. 
Only timing the ticket, clearing the circuit, and figuring the charges re- 
mained. Oh joy! I had succeeded. Life was once more beautiful. 

After this I lost my fear of operating and actually began to enjoy it. 
One bright afternoon when I was doing my dreary duty I accidentally caught 
the words "criminal assault." Immediately all else was disregarded, and I 
began to listen to a conversation between a reporter and a sheriff. Negro, 
rape, gun, night. Camp Ellis all came blaring over the line to my ears. My at- 
tention was riveted, my hair stood on end, and my eyes protruded seven 
inches from my eyebrows. Just as the sheriff launched into full detail, my 
bugging eyes spotted the supervisor bearing down full speed toward me. 
Quickly I started picking up numbers. I was saved from involvement, but I 
was disappointed that I didn't get to hear all the gory details. 

Not long after this I came very close to losing my job by talking back 
to a soldier. The U.S.O. had one pay phone which was in use constantly. 
On this particular night I had two calls to Massachusetts and three to near- 
by towns. I was "waiting on" one of the calls to Massachusetts for the 
number to answer. At that moment the U.S.O. pay station light blinked. I 
answered cheerily, thinking it was one of the fellows wanting a report on 
his call. Instead, the voice of a drunk came indistinctly over the line. He 
wanted a call to a near-by town, and he wanted it right away. I explained to 
him that there were others ahead of him, and that he would have to wait. 
Explanations were useless and only served to irritate him. Finally I very 
politely but firmly told him I did not care whether he ever got his call. 



December, 1945 21 

The next day I felt the results. The boss called us all into the day room 
and gave a nice speech. She reminded us that we were "the voices with the 
smiles," and that we must not fly off the handle. As we left the room, I 
vowed I would do it again if the situation ever demanded it. 

In August my senior year of high school loomed ahead. My parents and 
I decided that I should deprive the telephone company and the general 
public of my telephone service. Soon I was an ordinary telephone sub- 
scriber with only an income tax blank and a notebook to remind me of my 
ten months of plugging numbers. 



Let's Help Mary Smith 

Beverly Haferman 
Rhetoric II, Theme 8. 1944-1945 



P'^rp^ONIGHT I TALKED TO MARY SMITH. YOU'VE PROBABLY 

I never heard of her. She is certainly no campus beauty, nor is she so 
"^ developed socially that she is the chairman of some very important 
committee on campus. Mary Smith is a short, rather plump, dark-haired 
girl in pre-med. She is a .second-semester freshman with a 4.8 university 
average. This is a high averafjc in any school, but it is especially good for a 
pre-med student. 

Being a pre-med student with a high average does not explain Mary 
Smith. Her high average is of interest, but I want to talk alx)ut her as a 
person. I would like to show what makes her outstanding and why I think 
she should be given the chance to stay that way. 

Mary Smith, as I said before, is a second-semester freshman. She is 
twenty-three years old and has completed a business course; she is prepared 
to do secretarial work any time she wishes. Mary comes from Kentucky, 
near the Virginia border. There are ten other children in the family and 
very little money. Like the rest of the family she had no educational plans 
beyond grade school. But she wanted to be somebody; she did not want to 
settle down in the Kentucky hills and raise ten more children in poverty. 
Mary decided to go on to high school. 

So, after staying out of school a year, Mary entered high school as a 
freshman. She worked her way through by getting aid from the National 
Youth Administration, and she told me that she doubted whether there was 
ever any other student who squeezed her textbooks and teachers so hard for 
every drop of knowledge. 

When Mary was graduated from high school, she realized that there was 
a force somewhere inside her that wouldn't let her stop learning. She didn't 



7Q The Green Caldron 

I tested all my Peoria circuits and rang in on a clear circuit. An unrattled 
voice came chirping over the line, "Peoria." How could she be so damned 
calm when I was nearly shaking off my perch ! 

Overcoming my phobia, I whispered, "St. Louis," in my individual death 
rattle. After an interminable length of time St. Louis shouted, "St. Louis, 
are you through, are you through?" 

"Through! What do you mean through? Fm just getting started," my 
mind shouted. 

Then I remembered it was all part of the telephone lingo, and I 
responded, "Mx your Rx." 

Minutes passed while I waited for a clear trunk to the Rx. During all 
this I was answering local calls and biting my hangnails. 

At long last the Rx operator was reached, and she rang San Francisco on 
my Mx precedence. San Francisco was nc (no circuit) to Sacramento, so 
I just held. San Francisco held the circuit, I held the key, and Mr. Robinson 
held the bag. 

San Francisco secured a circuit, and I told Sacramento to ring "Long 
Beach ni-un-se-ven-tu-fo-wer." She obliged, and the party answered. Fol- 
lowing a few routine questions, I hooked Robinson and Sacramento together. 
Only timing the ticket, clearing the circuit, and figuring the charges re- 
mained. Oh joy! I had succeeded. Life was once more beautiful. 

After this I lost my fear of operating and actually began to enjoy it. 
One bright afternoon when I was doing my dreary duty I accidentally caught 
the words "criminal assault." Immediately all else was disregarded, and I 
began to listen to a conversation between a reporter and a sheriff. Negro, 
rape, gun, night. Camp Ellis all came blaring over the line to my ears. My at- 
tention was riveted, my hair stood on end, and my eyes protruded seven 
inches from my eyebrows. Just as the sheriff launched into full detail, my 
bugging eyes spotted the supervisor bearing down full speed toward me. 
Quickly I started picking up numbers. I was saved from involvement, but I 
was disappointed that I didn't get to hear all the gory details. 

Not long after this I came very close to losing my job by talking back 
to a soldier. The U.S.O. had one pay phone which was in use constantly. 
On this particular night I had two calls to Massachusetts and three to near- 
by towns. I was "waiting on" one of the calls to Massachusetts for the 
number to answer. At that moment the U.S.O. pay station light blinked. I 
answered cheerily, thinking it was one of the fellows wanting a report on 
his call. Instead, the voice of a drunk came indistinctly over the line. He 
wanted a call to a near-by town, and he wanted it right away. I explained to 
him that there were others ahead of him, and that he would have to wait. 
Explanations were useless and only served to irritate him. Finally I very 
politely but firmly told him I did not care whether he ever got his call. 



December, 1945 21 

The next day I felt the results. The boss called us all into the day room 
and gave a nice speech. She reminded us that we were "the voices with the 
smiles," and that we must not fly off the handle. As we left the room, I 
vowed I would do it again if the situation ever demanded it. 

In August my senior year of high school loomed ahead. My parents and 
I decided that I should deprive the telephone company and the general 
public of my telephone service. Soon I was an ordinary telephone sub- 
scriber with only an income tax blank and a notebook to remind me of my 
ten months of plugging numbers. 



Let's Help Mary Smith 

Beverly Haferman 
Rhetoric II, Theme 8, 1944-1945 



T 



"^OXTGHT I TALKED TO MARY SMITH. YOU'VE PROBARLY 
never heard of her. She is certainly no campus beauty, nor is she so 
developed socially that she is the chairman of some very important 
committee on campus. Mary Smith is a short, rather plump, dark-haired 
girl in pre-med. She is a second-semester freshman with a 4.8 university 
average. This is a high average in any school, but it is especially good for a 
pre-med student. 

Being a pre-med student with a high average does not explain Mary 
Smith. Her high average is of interest, but I want to talk about her as a 
person. I would like to show what makes her outstanding and why I think 
she should be given the chance to stay that way. 

Mary Smith, as I said before, is a second-semester freshman. She is 
twenty-three years old and has completed a business course; she is prepared 
to do secretarial work any time she wishes. Mary comes from Kentucky, 
near the Virginia border. There are ten other children in the family and 
very little money. Like the rest of the family she had no educational plans 
beyond grade school. But she wanted to be somebody; she did not want to 
settle down in the Kentucky hills and raise ten more children in poverty. 
Mary decided to go on to high school. 

So, after staying out of school a year, Mary entered high school as a 
freshman. She worked her way through by getting aid from the National 
Youth Administration, and she told me that she doubted whether there was 
ever any other student who squeezed her textbooks and teachers so hard for 
every drop of knowledge. 

When Mary was graduated from high school, she realized that there was 
a force somewhere inside her that wouldn't let her stop learning. She didn't 



22 



The Green Caldron 



know exactly what to do, but she decided that business school was the 
answer. She borrowed money from her aunt, studied, and went through 
business school in record time. Then she got a secretarial job and advanced 
until she was secretary to a high official in a big firm. 

Mary pinched her pennies and saved money. She paid her aunt for send- 
ing her through business school, and she amassed the fortune of twelve 
hundred dollars. This looked like a gold mine to her. With this, she decided, 
she could get through the university and fulfill her fondest dream, which, 
Mar>' had discovered, was not taking letters for an important business execu- 
tive. She would go to the best medical school around — the University of 
Illinois— and study to be a pediatrician. 

Mary finished her first semester with the realization that her bank ac- 
count was badly diminished. She had studied every possible second and 
worked for meals at the Union Building, but still her money went fast. She 
could get no scholarship because her home was in Kentucky, and after she 
had paid her tuition and bought her books for the second semester her re- 
sources were badly depleted. 

She saw another break. Her roommate was specializing in dietetics and 
was going to the Woman's Building to let the teachers experiment with her 
diet. She asked Mary if she would like to go on a low nitrogen diet — they 
furnished the food. Mary went on the diet and ate a few concentrated 
cookies a day; drank fifty cubic milliliters of lemonade, and one hundred and 
fifty milliliters of distilled water. This diet was terribly tasteless, but Mary 
stayed with it; best of all she saved money. 

Last night Mary confessed she had quit working. It made her too tired 
to study properly. Her bank account has dwindled considerably, and she 
wants to go to summer school. There are still three hundred dollars in bonds, 
but that is all; and her family needs help, too. 

That is the story of Mary Smith to date, but it is not the end. At least 
it should not be the end. A girl who has a good grade average like Mary's, 
and a girl who has fought hard for every little particle she has should 
he given the chance to go on with her schooling. The United States govern- 
ment gives scholarships to veterans, and rightly, but what about soldiers like 
Mary Smith? She's made retreats and come back swinging. She has been 
fighting all the way for those back home. 

Can't something be done about a girl like that? Can't the state or federal 
government issue scholarships to deserving students with a 4.5 average 
who haven't the money to go on? How about our politicians doling out 
their scholarships to girls with a story like Mary Smith's rather than to Jean 
Jones, who meekly asserts she has a 3.0 average, but whose parents have 
been Ke[)ublicans. whose grandfather never split a ticket, and who, as soon 
as she can vote, will vote straight Republican. 



December, 1945 23 

Working on the '400' 



D 



Donald W. Bahr 
Rhetoric II, Theme 11, Summer, 1945 

URIXG THE SUMMER OF 1944 THREE OF MY FRIENDS 
and I held jobs on the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad diners. 
Altogether we completed twenty-nine trips, including several to 
the coast. I myself made six runs to Los Angeles and two to Omaha. To the 
regular crew members it seemed quite unusual to have four boys from the 
same town working with them, antl so we were known as "the Palatine 
Kids" among them. 

Palatine is a small Chicago suburb through which the Wisconsin division 
of the Chicago Northwestern runs. Because the railroad was conveniently 
close and paid well, all of us had had previous part-time jobs with the com- 
pany. Just before our vacation began, we inquired about summer jobs and 
were promptly hired in the Commissary department after a vigorous physical 
examination. After being classified fourth class cooks, we were instructed 
briefly in our duties and told to expect a call within two days. When I told 
my parents, they both disapproved and argued that it would be too hard 
and monotonous. But I was not to be deprived of my chance of traveling on 
my own and being paid well for it too; so I managed to convince them 
] to let me go. 

After thirty-six hours of anxious waiting, I was called to report that 
night ready to leave on the "400' — City of Los Angeles. This train is one 
of the best and fastest on the line. I had often worked on it, while it was 
in the station, and knew it well. It is completely streamlined and Diesel- 
driven. All the cars are furnished with the most modern equipment, even 
to polaroid glass in the windows and air conditioning. It usually has two 
sections, each with ten cars. I found out later that one of my friends was 
going out on the other section. 

I arrived at the station one hour before train time and immediately 

signed in and began work. With the second class cook, I went down to 

the commissary kitchens, which are located under the station. They are 

equipped completely, for it is there that all bread and pastries are baked, 

1 meat and vegetables for the first meal on the train prepared, and the menus 

for the complete trips drawn up. Behind these kitchens are large storerooms 

well stocked with all types of canned foods and non-perishables. After 

I receiving his menu for the trip, the cook and I went into the storerooms to 

I get all the necessary items listed. All of the canned food for the trip had 

I to be loaded on because we made no stops long enough for reloading 



24 The Green Caldron 

anything but perishables. After he had signed out all the supplies we went 
up to the train just fifteen minutes before the departure. 

Then I saw the kitchen for the first time. Everything was made of stain- 
less steel and was immobile. The small room was a masterpiece of compact- 
ness. Everything had its own place and was immaculate. The inside wall was 
completely lined with a low, glass-doored refrigerator, the top of which 
served as a work table. Opposite this were a built-in dishwasher and rinsing 
tubs. Between these against the narrow wall was a stove with a large oven 
and opposite this a door to the diner. All around the top of the room were 
cabinets, and on the outside wall another door. The diner itself was very 
luxurious, as was the entire train. The next car was the cafe lounge, a low 
cost snack restaurant, which was also handled by our kitchen. 

Just a few minutes before train time the already prepared food for the 
first meal was brought up. It needed only to be heated and served as soon as 
we pulled out. This was done to facilitate immediate service and to prevent 
the kitchen from falling behind in its preparations. We picked up similar 
supplies in the four main stops along the way, Omaha, Cheyenne, Ogden, 
and Salt Lake City. Together with this final load of supplies came the chef. 
He was a tall, grey-haired man who seemed a little cramped in the small 
kitchen. However, he had been working at his trade several years and 
seemed to enjoy it, as he was very jovial. The second class cook was much 
younger and had worked his way up in only a year. Both were very skillful 
and produced very attractive dishes. The chef did most of the preparing 
and cooking of meat while the cook prepared salads and vegetables. I 
did several small jobs in preparing the food, but my main duties were to 
keep the dishes and the kitchen clean. 

There were five waiters and a head waiter in the diner and five additional 
workers in the cafe lounge. Although the head waiter was in command of 
the crew he wasn't the highest paid worker. The chef received the largest 
salary, for in general kitchen workers are higher paid than waiters. How- 
ever, the latter always receive a great amount in tips. Their tip money far 
surpasses their salaries, and many times on this trip they made as much 
as fifteen to twenty dollars or more on tips in one day. As far as the wage 
scale goes both the chef and the cook are above the head waiter, and the 
fourth class cook above the waiters. 

At exactly 6:00 p.m. we pulled out of the Northwestern Chicago sta- 
tion and were soon roaring across the western flats of Illinois and Iowa. 
Much to my surprise, people began coming into the diner just after we 
left, and the first meal lasted till 8:30. I noticed that as the kitchen began 
to function, although there was no hurried work done, everything was done 
precisely and punctually with the various courses always ready when needed, 
Despite rationing and shortages, the dinners seemed to have suffered little. 



I 



December, 1945 25 

Roast beef, lake trout, and fried chicken were the main dishes offered, each 
complete with four other courses. 

When the diner closed, the two conductors came in to eat. They talked 
with me while T heljicd pick up the dishes. Both were very encouraging and 
friendly. During the meal I had become swamped with dishes, but I gradu- 
ally developed a system which got them under control. We worked till 10:00 
cleaning the kitchen and utensils and preparing breakfast. Because gambling 
was not allowed, the crew usually went to sleep early. By 10:30 the entire 
crew had unrolled their mattresses on the tables and were asleep. Although 
we arrived in Omaha at 2:00 a.m., I did not wake up. The cook, however, 
was up to receive our second batch of supplies, which included bakery goods 
for breakfast and prepared food for lunch. When I woke up at 5:30, we 
were well into Nebraska, and at 6:20 we pulled into North Platte. Between 
meals, when the work was completed, I watched the scenery of Wyoming, 
Utah, and Nevada pass by. My biggest thrill was my first sight of a 
mountain. 

Although traveling was probably at its best on the '400' it was still far 
from pleasant on the war-loaded train. All seats were reserved, but the train 
was still overcrowded because three extra cars to handle service-men were 
added on to each section. The diner reflected the crowded conditions of the 
train. People often waited forty-five or more minutes to eat. There were 
many wives with babies on the train. Without the patience and friendliness 
of the hostess and the conductors, conditions would have been much more 
trying. The service-men were the best passengers. They kept the others 
amused with their impromptu singing and antics. 

Some forty-two hours later we arrived at our destination, Los Angeles. 
The entire crew trooped away for their two-day rest. Most went to regular 
boarding houses and cither rested or celebrated. However, those who did 
celebrate made certain to return to work sober. My friend and I went to stay 
at a small ujjtown hotel. From there we visited parts of Los Angeles. Our 
leave was soon up, and at 12:15 p.m. two days later we started on the return 
trip. As usual, we stocked in the necessary provisions before leaving, but I 
found the Los Angeles Commissary department wasn't nearly as well- 
stocked as Chicago's. 

On the return trip there were far fewer service-men, and as a conse- 
quence the train was much less crowded. In Wyoming and Nebraska the 
entire Platte River Valley, which we went through several times, was flooded. 
Several times we were forced to move \cry slowly because the water had 
almost reached the track bed. Although held up by the flood we still got 
back to Chicago in less than forty-four hours. It seemed good to have com- 
pleted a mission to the coast, for now I could be termed a "dymno," which 
in railroad terminology means an apprentice. 



26 The Green Caldron 

"Imp of the Perverse'' 

Ethelyn Fink 
Rhetoric II, Theme 12, 1944-1945 

ALVADOR DALI IS A MYSTERYMAN. TO FATHOM THE 
depths of his mind is almost an impossibility. His surrealist art is a 
reproduction of the mystery of his mind, equally as unintelligible. 
This "imp of the perverse" has given to the world a creative touch that has 
transformed reality to illusion. What has happened in his life that has made 
him so eccentric in the eyes of the public — that has made him so oblivious 
to custom and normality? 

Dali was treated differently from most children. He was a badly spoiled 
child and many of his whims were abnormal, even homicidal. Only a few 
years after his introduction to the world in 1904, in the Spanish town of 
Figueras, he came running home to his parents to explain gleefully that he 
had just pushed his playmate from an unfinished bridge to the rocks below.^ 
The child was severely injured; Dali felt no remorse. Never a day elapsed 
that his doting mother didn't exclaim, "What do you wish, sweetheart? What 
is it you want?" At one of these queries Dali answered, "A king's ermine 
cape, a gold scepter, and a crown." He got it. 

Salvador despised all other children, but he wanted to be admired by 
them at any cost to himself. At school he was the only child to be brought 
hot milk and cocoa in a magnificent thermos bottle wrapped in a cloth em- 
broidered with his initials. He was always surrounded by children less 
fortunate than himself, and he did his best to keep them in constant re- 
minder of the fact. He often wore a rich looking sailor suit with a thick gold 
insignia decorating it. And he always carried a flexible, bamboo cane with a 
silver dog's head. 

As a result of his peculiarly regulated childhood, he became opposed to 
all system and principle. Ha person were to say "black," Dali would imme- 
diately counter it with "white," for no other reason than to rebel. H an 
elderly person were to bow with respect, our young Salvador would spit ! 

At the age of fourteen the imp began his attendance at the Academy of 
Fine Arts in Madrid. Here he puzzled his teachers by his only really con- 
scientious ability: his remarkable talent for reproducing the works of the 
masters with a touch of his personal satire. He "doodled" over all his books 
and papers and was expelled from school for insubordination. 

In 1927, when surrealism became the rage in Paris, Dali began eagerly 
to exhibit his subconscious in the form of small canvases. He sold every 

•M. Cowley, "Imp of the Perverse," New Republic, CVIII (January 18, 1943), 88. 



December, 1945 27 

picture. He even began to write surrealist poems and helped produce the 
first two surrealist movies, "Le Chien Andalou" (with emphasis on pianos 
covered with carcasses of dead monkeys) and "L'Age d'Or." 

This Paris experience started Dali well on his way. He was in his early 
twenties and suffering from all the abnormalities listed by the nineteenth 
century Viennese physicians, including sadism, masochism, hysteria, hypo- 
chondria, and something he calls "compulsive maniacal psychosis."^ This last 
infliction was something Dali nursed throughout his life — a sort of complex 
that he was going mad. He succeeded in making this fact evident to the 
world. At the age of twenty-nine a girl complimented him on the beauty of 
his feet. Says he, "I jumped up, my mind clouded by an odd feeling of 
jealousy toward myself — knocked my admirer down and trampled on her 
with all my might." A still more unbelievable truth that illustrated .Salvador's 
perverse character was an episode in Paris. Dali saw a legless blind man 
sitting on his little cart, tapping the sidewalk with boundless self-assurance. 
The sight was so repugnant to Salvador that he went up to the blind man 
and gave him a kick that sent him scooting all the way across Boulevard 
Edgar-Quinst.^ 

The year 1934 saw a slight, dark, restless chap with a "clipi>ed cine- 
mactor's mustache and the eyes of a crystal gazer" become the dictator and 
tyrant of the Paris art world. "I saw Paris transformed before my eyes in 
obedience to the order I had given at the moment of my arrival."* Dali had 
made perversity a new religion. The whole society of Paris clamored at his 
heels in worship. In this same year, Julian Levy, an art dealer, discovered 
him and introduced him to the United States. At once Dali created a sensa- 
tion. The populace was hungry for something unique. His famous picture 
of the drooping timepieces became a temporary Rible. 

The following summer, Dali, on a trip to London, appeared at a lecture 
dressed in a deep-sea diving suit with a jeweled dagger at its belt, carrying 
a billiard cue, and leading a pair of Russian wolfhounds. His only explana- 
tion was, "I just wanted to show that I was plunging deeply into the 
human mind."'' 

I'ack in America, Dali outdid himself at the Xew York World's Fair. 
He not only exhibited his painting ability, but he also demonstrated his talent 
in other fields. He wrote and presented a ballet about a red-wigged Tristan's 
love for Isolde, with music by Wagner and Cole Porter. In addition, he 
wrote a scenario with Harpo Marx, whose picture, along with Mae West's, he 

» Ibid. 

•"Not So Secret Life," Time, XL (December 28, 1942). 30. 

* M. Cowley, op. cit., p. 89. 

' M. Block. "Salvador Dali." Current Biography, New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 

1940, p. 219. 



28 The Green Caldron 

i 

had painted in Hollywood. Dali was firmly convinced that the Marx i 
Brothers' pictures were representative of surrealism.® 

One of the most famous Dali outbreaks occurred a short time after the 
World's Fair. The Bonwit Teller store was displaying in one of the windows 
a Dali creation. Dali, enraged because his display had been rearranged, 
attempted to destroy the fur-lined bathtub in the window. He smashed the 
plate glass and toppled into the street. 

When one hears of these almost fiendish outbursts occurring frequently 
in Salvador Dali's life, he finds it hard to believe that this creator is entirely 
sane. He once said of himself, "I tried every possible means to go mad or 
rather doing ever}1:hing in my power to welcome and help that madness 
which I felt clearly intended to take up its abode in my soul." Gala, Dali's 
wife, was largely responsible for preserving what sanity he had. Salvador 
met Gala when she was the wife of the surrealist poet, Paul Eluard.'^ To 
impress the Eluards, Dali decided "to get himself up very elaborately." He 
tore his best silk shirt to shreds, shaved his armpits until they bled, trans- 
ferred blood to other parts of his body, turned his bathing trunks inside out, 
placed an enormous red geranium behind one ear, put a pearl necklace 
around his neck, and finally smeared his whole body with goat dung and 
aspic. Whether or not the Eluards were duly impressed. Gala married 
Salvador. She taught him a measure of reality and self-confidence, and, most 
of all, that his wildest dreams could be realized in the external world.^ 

Dali's life has often been labeled "nightmare." Dali himself once made 
a statement that explains perfectly his hallucinations: "... at night I 
always dream of extremely agreeable things, and it is precisely when I am 
perfectly wide-awake, in broad daylight and in contact with practical life, 
that most of my hallucinatory nightmares have always occurred. While the 
substance of the real nightmares of other people is purely imaginary, I may 
say that the substance of my imaginary nightmares is utterly real."® Dali 
admires nothing that is natural or normal and almost nothing that is strictly 
human. 

Dali finds it perfectly natural that the public cannot understand his paint- 
ings. "I do not understand them myself at first, and then I begin to grasp 
the symbols, though there are often symbols which I can never explain.' 
Among the most frequent of his symbols, the most interesting is the 
"fetishistic" crutch. It may be traced to a crutch found in an attic of a tower 
from which Dali intended to throw a girl. Says Dali, "It was the first time 
in my life that I saw a crutch. . . . The superb crutch ! Already it appeared 
to me as the object possessing the height of authority and solemnity. . . 

' Ibid. 

' "Not So Secret Life," loc. cit. 

"H. P. Lazarus, "Dali's Autobiography," Nation, CLVI (February 6, 1943), 212. 

•"Nightmare Journey," Life, XVI (March 6, 1944), 18. 



December, 1945 29 

[It] communicated to me an assurance, an arrogancy even, which I had 
never been capable of until then."*" 

Salvador's works certainly reveal his serious belief that an artist can 
create as he pleases. "F)edside tables, sometimes cut out of the plump flesh 
of nurses sitting on the seashore, fried eggs slithering down banisters, 
dripping telephones, limp watches, and wrecked automobiles brimming with 
flowers" are only a few examples of his inventiveness and playfulness. He 
tells his eager public, by way of an e.\])lanation, that these things represent 
"the horrors that have beset him from infancy to the present."'* 

Opinion on Dali is seldom unanimous. Some critics are convinced that 
he is crazy and wasting a real talent. Still others believe that he is an 
"amusing opportunist." I'ut there is one point upon which the majority 
agree, even his fellow surrealists. That is that Dali is a superb draughtsman 
and a master of colors. "He paints with the most exquisite delicacy the 
most vulgar subjects. ... It is fascinating how he can be so good without 
being so great."" 

Xo matter what one may think. Dali. whatever else he is. is a forceful 
character. I le does nut hesitate to display his beliefs, perverse as they are. 
1 le limits his relations with the real, i)ractical world to almost nothing. He 
rebels against all that is fixed and customary. Once when Dali was refused 
the right to disjilay one of his lurid creations, he indignantly proclaimed the 
whole purpose of his work: "Artists and poets of America! . . . Loose the 
blinding lightning of your anger and the avenging thunder of your paranoiac 
insi)iralion."'^ Dali wants to smite the world with his imagination. His work 
is "beyond life and death. It is beyond everything."" 

""Not So Secret Life." lor cil. 

" H. M. ChevaliiT, "Salvador Dali as a Writer," Saturday Re'Aew of Literature, 

XXVIl (April 15, 1944). 15. 

" H. P. Lazarus, op. cil.. p. 212. 

"M. Block, he. cit., p. 90. 

'* Ibid Quoted from Edward .Mdcn Jewell of the New York Times. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

"Artists in U. S. Exile." Fortune, XXIV (December, 1941), 110. 

Block. .Maxine, "Salvador Pali," Current Biography, New York: H. W. Wilson Co., 

1940, pp. 90, 219-220. 
Chf.v.m.ier. H. M.. "Salvador Dali as a Writer." Saturday Ret-iew of Literature, 

XXVII (April 15. 1044), 14-15. 
Cowley, M.. "Imp of the Perverse," Nezv Republic, CVIIl (January 18, 1943), 88. 
Garrf-ld. F. O., "Salvador Dali in Daliland." Saturday Rez-ietu of Literature, XXVII 

(April 15. 1944). 15. 
Lazarus. H. P.. "Dali's Autobiography," Nation, CLVI (February 6, 1943), 212. 
"Nichtmare fourney," Life. XVI (March 6, 1944), 17-18. 
"Not So Secret Life." Time, XL (December 28, 1942), 30. 
SoBY, James Thrall, Paintings, Drazvings, Prints of Salvador Dali, New York: The 

Museum of Modern Art, 1941. 




30 The Green Caldron 

The Strength of My Father 

RoMONA Hart 
DGS la, Final Examination, 1944-1945 

■y FATHER'S STRENGTH IS NOT PHYSICAL. NO, IN- 
deed, because, you see, he has not walked for more than eighteen 
years. At the age of twenty-nine a great calamity befell him, and 
his body started slowly wasting away. It was not easy to take for one so 
young — for one who had just begun his life — for one who had the respon- 
sibility of a wife and two very small children. I can only imagine the mental 
turmoil he must have suffered. 

But with more will power than I have ever seen in any other man, my 
father overcame his affliction. Not physically, understand, but mentally and 
spiritually. I think I can say that he did more than overcome his affliction; 
he rose above it. I have never seen my father walk. His condition has grown 
steadily worse until now he cannot even move his hands or arms. His only 
enjoyments in life are his radio, his pipe, his family, and his friends. Yet, 
strange as it may seem, I have never heard him complain about anything, 
and he never talks about his condition unless someone mentions it to him. 
Then he passes it ofT with, "Well, I could be a lot worse than I am." 

My father has a host of friends. They often marvel at his cheerful mood 
as much as I do, but no one ever pities him. He would be insulted if any- 
one ever did show him the slightest bit of pity. Sitting there in his wheel 
chair, he looks directly at all who come to see him. He is interested in every- 
thing, and his variety of friends is just as wide as his variety of interests. 
Old schoolmates (both men and women) come to talk about things that 
happened long ago. Legionnaires come to talk of conventions, prize fights, 
baseball, and war. The young boys home on furlough from the Army or 
Navy never fail to stop at least once during their short stays at home. Daddy 
is always an intimate friend of the paper boy, who stops for a chat about 
baseball while delivering his papers. Girl or boy friends of mine and Carl's 
go to see him even when Carl and I aren't at home. Now his latest, so I 
hear, is the little eighth grade girl who lives across the street. She confides 
in him all her troubles with her school work and her boy friends. She spends 
the evening with him many times while Mother goes to a movie. Perhaps 
she is helping to fill my place, and how I do envy her! One of my fondest 
memories is the many hours I've spent with my father. 

I cannot say that my father is the backbone of our family; my mother 
deserves at least half the credit for being that. I can say, though, that he is 
the brains, because even though his body is in a state of slow decay, his mind 



December, 1945 31 

is not. }Ie has a great aptitude for figures and he solves problems for us 
faster in his head than we can solve them on paper. They are just little 
things like adding the grocery bill, or figuring how many yards of material 
will be needed for a pair of curtains. Or maybe we'll have him read the 
blueprints to find where to hang a new picture. Yes, they're just little things, 
but they help us as well as him. He is never happier than when he is making 
us happy, because his family is the greatest of all his enjoyments. 

My father has strength — great strength. I repeat: it is not physical; 
it is something much greater. It is strength of mind — strength of spirit — 
strength of character! 



Getting Into Character 

Robert Cushman 
Rhetoric I. Theme 9, 1944-1945 

WIIi:X I RETURNED FROM MY THANKSGIVING VACA- 
tion. I found that I had something additional to be thankful for. 
The mini had released the news of the Romeo and Juliet cast, and 
I had been fortunate enough to get a role — that of Tybalt. 

Jim Carruth and I had tried out together a week before. We had gone 
to see a .Mr. I^hattuck. who was — we were told — in charge of the produc- 
tion. He put us through a very unusual tryout. Beside reading parts of the 
play, we had to pantomime fencing, boxing, and tennis. We had to left 
profile, right profile, kneel, bow. and even carry an imaginary sack of rocks. 
I realized later the reason for all these seemingly stupid actions. A person 
must get into character to do justice to his role, and to do this, he must not 
only know the lines, but he must also have good stage presence. 

The first rehearsal was devoted to an informal read-through of the play. 
I knew nothing about Tybalt's character; I even pronounced his name 
"Tie-bait." Because of this ignorance, my first reading was horribly inept. 
Thoroughly disgusted with my lack of ability, I consulted Mr. Shattuck. I 
asked him just what kind of a guy Tybalt was. 

His answer was to the point. He said, "Well, Bob, Tybalt was a mean 
s !" 

This answer kindled the spark of Tybalt in me, and at each rehearsal, I 
learned more about him. Eventually he worked into my own character, and 
I began to "feel" the part after the first couple of weeks. Tybalt's lines show 
that he is quick to anger, and they show his bitterness toward the Montagues. 
Every line, sharp, and hateful, helped to paint his picture for me. 



32 The Green Caldron 

Learning all that I could about Tybalt's character, I set about to make 
myself as nearly like him as possible. His few lines were easily mastered, but 
correct emphasis had to be put on each word. I had to develop a hate — a 
genuine hate — for some of the actors in the production. After one per- 
formance, I was asked whether I was really angry at Jack Clay when I told 
him, "Romeo, the hate I bear thee — -." 

Actions on stage denote a very important part of Tybalt's character. I 
had to master quick, precise, and confident movements, and to carry myself 
in a haughty, superior manner. Above all, I had to make my eyes show hate. 
This I accomplished by glaring "out of the corner of the eye." My face had 
to be "set," the chin in, the eyebrows down, and the lips drawn into a thin 
line. These movements are very important because most of Tybalt's acting 
is silent and is done with movements, expressions of the face and eyes. Ex- 
amples of this acting are shown in the ballroom scene where Tybalt is being 
repressed by Capulet, because he had tried to start a fight with Romeo; and 
in the third act when Tybalt returns, after killing Mercutio, to finish off 
Romeo. 

The hardest, but most important, task I had was to forget that I was 
fighting with friends on the stage and to fight with the intent to kill. From 
one of Mercutio's speeches I had learned that T3^balt was the great fencer 
of the play and that he fought "one, two and the third in your bosom — ." 
This knowledge made me feel a little egotistical. It was the same egotism 
that Tybalt has throughout his part in the play — the feeling of resentment 
that inferiors were allowed in his presence. I had to show this feeling 
through realistic swordsmanship. When I fought with Jim Wood (Benvolio) 
I had to be out for blood, which, incidentally, I drew: Jim has scars on his 
hands to show that. 

After I had myself in character, I thought nothing could possibly im- 
prove my Tybalt. I was wrong! Make-up, lighting, staging, and costumes 
add much more character to any role. 

Make-up artists gave me a mustache and beard, not unlike those of 
d'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers. My costume — the one I liked the 
better — was a leather outfit with a red sash around the waist. "Buccaneer" 
boots, armor collar, yellow gauntlets, and an "Anzac" type of hat completed 
this costume. Wearing it made me feel the part at least a hundred per cent 
better. 

The staging was well suited to the costumes, and I could imagine the 
crowned heads of England sitting out there in the "Globe Theater" watch- 
ing my performance. Tybalt and I were one. Thus, when I shot across the 
stage in Act I issuing the challenge to Benvolio, "What ! Art thou drawn 
among these heartless hinds — ," I was just putting to use the results of a 
long, tedious process, so necessary in the production of a play — that process 
known as getting into character. 



December, 1945 33 

The Paramecium 

EUGK.NE KOLEN 
Rhetoric I, Theme 9, 1944-1945 

VASTLY MORE ABUNDANT THAN ANY OF THE MORE 
notable inhabitants of fresh water is the paramecium. Wherever there 
is fresh water containing dead organic matter, the paramecium, slip- 
per-shaped in form, may be found. But all too few people have seen this one- 
celled animal, because it is microscopic. 

For the beginning zoolog>' student this minute though complex micro- 
organism offers an exceedingly interesting study. In its one cell there are 
various structures which aid in and carry on many body activities. Among 
the principal ones are a gullet into which food is taken, a mouth or cyto- 
stome, two contractile vacuoles for excretion, a micronucleus which aids in 
reproduction, a macronucleus which is the center of body activity, cilia for 
locomotion, and trichocysts or "stinging cells" which help protect the animal. 
As one peers into the microscope for his first look at the paramecium, he 
is surprised to see how rapidly the almost transparent animal moves. With 
an undulating motion of the cilia, which are located around the body, it is 
capable of travelling at a remarkable speed for its size. Through closer ob- 
servation one will notice that the slitlike gullet, which is located in the 
middle and to one side of the animal, seems to be moving from one side to 
the other. However, if one realizes that the paramecium is cylindrical and 
transparent, and that it moves with a rotating motion, he will more easily 
understand how the animal's gullet could appear in different places. 

Besides acting as the locomotive structure of the paramecium, the cilia, 
or minute hairlike structures covering the outer surface and mouth of the 
animal, are vital for its food-getting. Around and inside the gullet there is a 
lining of cilia. These create a current which travels through the gullet, carry- 
ing with it many bits of dead organic matter to the mouth, or cytostome, 
a saclike structure also lined with cilia. These cilia force the water and food 
particles to the blind end of the cytostome, creating such a pressure that the 
end of the cytostome breaks off, forming a food or water vacuole. A vacuole 
is just a bubble in the protoplasm of a cell where food or water is found. 

Digestion, circulation, respiration, and sensory stimulation are not carried 
on by specific structures. The general body surface secretes the enzymes of 
digestion, and this food is circulated by diffusion throughout the body 
surface. Like all higher animals the paramecium needs oxygen, but again it 
is the general body surface which acts as the respiratory structure. There is 
no definite nervous system, or even any sensory structures in the para- 
mecium, but several stimuli do affect the animal in some way or another. 



34 The Green Caldron 

The principal stimuli which may elicit response are mechanical disturbances: 
change of temperature, light, chemical stimuli, and electrical stimuli. There 
possibly is a definite sensory structure, but as yet it has not been discovered. 
Here again it seems to be the general body surface. 

Extremely close observation w^ill uncover the most spectacular metabolic 
process of the Paramecium, its method of excretion. At either end of the 
upper side of the paramecium may be seen two contractile vacuoles. One 
moment they seem like short pointed stars with a large center, and the next 
they appear like extremely long pointed stars with a very small center. Fur- 
ther investigation will show the reason for this phenomenon. The central or 
principal vacuole is large when it contains much waste from the body. The 
outlying or accessory vacuoles are small and stubby when they empty their 
wastes into the central vacuole. When the central vacuole becomes too large, 
it bursts, and all the wastes are let out of the body, leaving the central 
vacuole in a contracted state. Then the accessory vacuoles begin to expand 
and collect more wastes, and finally they empty into the central vacuole. 
Thus the accessory vacuoles function alternately with the central vacuole. 

Like all other one-celled animals, the paramecium has considerable ability 
to regenerate or remake lost parts. This striking capacity is apparent in the 
almost instantaneous regeneration of the walls of the central vacuoles and 
the cytostome. As long as parts of each nucleus are present, a complete 
regeneration of the animal is possible. 

Binary fission or simple cell division is the method of reproduction in 
the Paramecium; yet it is not enough for its maintenance of reproductive 
ability. A process known as conjugation must occur from time to time to 
rejuvenate the sickening animal. This process involves the transfer of part of 
the micronuclei of the two individuals. It is accomplished when two para- 
mecia attach at the cytostome, lose their macronuclei, and have their micro- 
nuclei divide in two, and then in four. Three of the micronuclei in each 
disintegrate, and the one left in each divides into a large stationary part, and 
a smaller moving part. The two moving parts transfer from one animal to 
the other, and unite with the stationary parts. The paramecia then separate, 
and the macronuclei appear again. The stationary micronuclei represent the 
female, and the moving represent the male. If nothing interfered externally, 
the Paramecium could be immortal; in fact, it has "potential immortality." 

Death of the paramecium usually occurs from some climatic change, 
from lack of food, or from its greatest enemy, the one-celled didinium. Like 
a little warrior warding off the terrible dragon, the paramecium fights 
bravely, jabbing his trichocysts or "stinging cells" into the larger didinium's 
hulk. But unlike the happy warrior, the poor paramecium is usually engulfed 
by the didinium. However, no matter how many of the little paramecia are 
destroyed, they are sure to remain one of the most plentiful animals on earth. 



December, 1945 35 

Democracy Under Pressure 

By Stuart Chase 

Jack Gomberg 
Rhetoric II. Theme 3, 1944-1945 

IX THE HECTIC PERIOD IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE 
disaster at Pearl Harbor the entire nation was aroused to forgetting 
petty differences, and opposing factions united against the common 
danger. But in a very short time afterwards these different groups aban- 
doned national unity in favor of furthering their own selfish interests and 
desires. 

It is concerning these special interests, called pressure groups, that 
Democracy Under Pressure was written. The author, Stuart Chase, is a 
famous economist and liberal statesman. He is in an especially good position 
to know and understand this difficult subject because of his many years 
spent as chairman of important government agencies. Mr. Chase's chief 
purpose in writing the book at this time is to make each citizen fully aware 
of the extent to which his life is affected directly by the activities of the 
three most important pressure groups, "Big Business," "Big Labor," and 
"Big Agriculture. " 

Each of these three groups has at one time or another taken advantage 
of the critical wartime conditions to advance its own ends and purposes, 
usually at the e.\i)ense of the rest of the [jublic. Thous^h differing sharply as 
to desired goals and generally representing conflicting economic groups, 
they still employ the same methods to achieve these goals. 

First of all they establish lobbies in Washington and in the state Capi- 
tols and city halls. Then they attempt to get favorable candidates elected to 
office and inlluence those alrcatly in office. Once this is done it is a simple 
matter for them to achieve their main purpose — influencing legislation. All 
government officials are under a constant barrage of pressure to vote the 
"right" way. Failure to do so might mean the loss of countless votes in the 
ne.xt election. 

Powerful organizations, such as the National Association of Manufac- 
turers or the large labor unions, spend huge sums on propaganda campaigns 
in favor of such things as "free enterprise" or the "closed shop." Some econ- 
omists go so far as to suggest that another house of Congress be established 
to represent solely economic interests. Then the members of the present 
houses of Congress would be free to represent truly their respective 
populations. 

Mr. Chase does a remarkable job of analyzing these complex pressure 



36 The Green Caldron 

groups objectively, although he does not fully tell us whether these organiza- 
tions are harmful or beneficial. 

Democracy Under Pressure does accomplish its purpose of exposing 
these groups to the general public. Nevertheless the fact still remains that 
these pressure groups and super-monopolies are daily growing larger and 
more powerful. Whether they will dominate postwar economy, or whether 
the government will intercede and act as a huge consumer's pressure group 
in the benefit of the majority is yet to be decided. 



The Longest Battle in Naval 
History 

Ernest Orcutt 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1944-1945 



T 



^HE BATTLE OF THE KOMANDORSKIE ISLANDS WAS 
not only a major sea engagement but a miracle as v/ell. For surely 
it is a miracle when a great fighting ship lies dead in the water, 
mortally wounded, and then comes back to life to defeat the enemy. It is also 
a miracle when three small, brave destroyers make a suicide torpedo run on 
ships that outweigh them ten tons to one — and succeed. 

This strange battle took place on a bitterly cold March day in 1943, north 
of Kiska and east of the Russian owned Komandorskie Islands. 

Our task force was steaming in the dusk before dawn — one heavy 
cruiser, one light cruiser, and four destroyers — looking for any Jap convoys 
that might be trying to reinforce Kiska. The admiral's flag flew on the light 
cruiser. My battle station was trainer in number one turret on the heavy 
cruiser. It wasn't long before our lookouts reported a number of ships' masts 
on the horizon, these masts later proving to be two Jap transports with 
destroyer escorts. Upon sighting us they shifted course, we in turn shifting 
ours to parallel them. A few minutes later more masts appeared. These were 
warships and not merchantmen. It was a Jap task force made up of two 
heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, and six destroyers. The odds were now 
two to one in favor of the Japs. The only thing we could do was to hit 
and run. 

The first salvo came from the leading Jap heavy — as we reversed our 
course — straddling but not hitting us. Following that were three salvos, all 
close. It was then that our main battery guns opened up, our fourth salvo 
hitting the leading Jap heavy on her forward superstructure, setting her 
afire. Our sixth salvo hit her again, and she retired from the fight to lick 



December, 1945 37 

her wounds. It wasn't long after this that we received our first hit. The 
shell exploded below the waterline, causing the ship to lurch violently. We 
exchanged more salvos, each Jap salvo coming closer and closer. We owed 
much to our captain, who maneuvered the ship on a zig-zagging course. 

The ship again jumped and heaved, and we knew this time that we had 
been hit severely. This second hit had pierced the hull and entered the fire- 
rooms. The water was rising rapidly, men were manning pumps, and damage 
control parties were trying to plug up the hole with an^-thing that was 
handy. But still the water continued to rise; the boilers would soon be out 
of commission and we would be dead in the water. The water was up to the 
shoulders of the workers now — the ice-gray waters of the Bering Sea — 
and the propellers shuddered to a stop. 

The captain then sent a message to the admiral on the light cruiser, tell- 
ing him that our sjjeed was zero and asking for a destroyer smoke screen. 
Immediately a smoke screen was laid down around us to hold off the Jap 
force and to enable us to repair our engines. To further the confusion, our 
after turrets were running out of ammunition. To remedy this, shells and 
powder had to be carried from the forward turrets, aft. The Jap salvos 
were inching up close to our fantail. They scored their third and fourth hits 
amidships on the superstructure deck with devastating effect. 

The captain calmly passed this word over the announcing system: "Well, 
boys. I guess this is it. Stick to your stations and we will go down fighting." 
My whole life passed before my eyes. Death was close beside me and my 
shipmates. I started shaking uncontrollably and praying, as did every man 
on board. Silence was complete. Men were looking at each other with blank 
expressions on their faces, too bewildered and dumbfounded to speak. 

The admiral then signaled three destroyers to make a torpedo run on the 
Jap force. It was a suicide run but had to be done. These three brave little 
shii)S starteil out at full speed, each man on board knowing that he would 
probably not return. White plumes of foam showed from their sterns as 
they drove forward toward the Japs. The range was closing between them 
until only nine thousand yards remained. There was a sickening roar and 
the destroyer leader received a hit, slowing her down to half speed. She 
turned and in turning let go her sleek, silver "fish," in one last effort at the 
leading Jap ship. One torpedo scored a hit and the Jap force turned tail and 
retired over the horizon. They had had enough. Our three little ships had 
saved the day. 

By this time we had our steam up and were going ahead slowly, steadily. 
We returned to our home base that night with the knowledge that we had 
won over and turned back a numerically superior Jap fleet. We couldn't 
praise the boys on the destroyers enough. We had been prepared to die, 
and they had given us back our lives. 



38 The Green Caldron 

Conscription? — No ! 

Lois Anne Br-\dex 
Rhetoric II, Theme 9, 1944-1945 

BEFORE THE HOUSE ^HLITARY AFFAIRS COMMITTEE IS 
. the May Bill, which, if passed, would establish permanent peacetime 
conscription. The powerful groups now supporting this bill are in 
favor of compelling ever\- young man (Mrs. Roosevelt wants to include 
women too) of seventeen to devote a year to a militar}- training program. 
They argue that such a program would have many benefits : militarj-, health, 
economic, and educational. Unfortunately, these supporters of the May Bill 
seem to regard compulsory militar}' training as a prize package, a kind of 
patent medicine that is good for many ailments — take it and you can't 
lose! They think it's grandmother's reliable sulfur and molasses for post- 
war Uncle Sam. But let's examine their arguments carefulh". 

Their militar}- argument is one of national securit}" the countr}- needs 
compulsor}' militar}- training after the war in order to police certain parts 
of the world, to protect itself against aggression, and to prevent future wars. 
But there are other means more effective than compulson.- peacetime mili- 
tary training for purposes of policing, defense, and war prevention. This 
compulsor}' training, instead of adding to our security, would greatly under- 
mine it. Adopting such a program now would reveal a lack of confidence 
in the general international organization and would imply distrust of other 
nations who might then doubt whether the United States is in realit}' a 
peace-loving nation. Those nations, in turn, might increase their own arma- 
ments for protection's sake. 

So, as you can see. militar}- training offers no assurance of peace, but 
instead builds a basis for war. Did not war first blossom in a militarily 
trained Europe ? The most heavily militarized nations in recent histor}' have 
had the least security against war. 

The health argument is that compulsor}* military training would improve 
the health of the nation by providing healthful living, vigorous physical 
training, and needed corrective medical treatment. I believe physical benefits 
would be more soundly established if the same money and care were used 
throughout the country by civilian agencies. Health is gained not so much 
by a year's militar}- training as by attention to the physical needs of boys 
and girls through infancy and childhood. Only the physically fit would be 
included in such a program, anyway. Far better health for the nation would 



December, 1945 39 

be secured through a national health program for people of all ages. Presi- 
dent McPherson (Town Meeting of the Air, April 27, 1944) said, "It is not 
true that military training is good physical education. I have that on the 
authority of the man who put in the physical education program at West 
Point . . . who said that the use of a musket or militar>' drill for that pur- 
pose was not nearly as effective as a well-regulated, first-class gj-mnasiura 
and physical education program." 

The economic argument — that conscription would reduce unemplo}Tnent 
by draining a group of men and young women from job competition — is not 
a sound one. Instead of safeguarding the rights of labor, conscription can 
easily become a threat to its freedom. It's entirely possible to take away the 
right to strike simply by calling workmen to the colors and then ordering 
them back to work under military command. Daladier, former premier of 
France, did just that in the early stages of the war recently ended. By sup- 
porting conscription Americans would favor being placed in danger of such 
a threat and would subject themselves to an increased heavy tax burden. 

As for the education argument — I say military training is a serious inter- 
ruption to the course of study through high school and college. It will cause 
many young men to lose initiative and enterprise. Would you be enthu- 
siastic about another year's delay in preparing for a profession requiring 
three or four years' training beyond college? And concerning the educational 
values — it hardly seems necessary to undergo a year of military training to 
become an army cook, or a navy bookkeeper. Civilian schools are better 
training institutions than the army for skills and traits needed for demo- 
cratic citizenship today. 

Should this May Bill, then, be allowed to saddle youth, which has had 
no voice in the decision, with a system that would have such lasting effects 
upon its future? Definitely not! Youth should be given a peace program 
which would insure the Four Freedoms. Does peacetime conscription insure 
freedom of religion, the right of man to serve the highest ideal he has? On 
the contrary, conscription recognizes no higher duty than military obedience 
to the state. Does it insure freedom of speech? Military discipline destroys 
individuality antl the right to speak freely. Does it insure freedom from 
want and from fear? No! Conscription increases fear by maintaining the 
war system and increases want by taking men away from productive 
occupations. 

It's our future the May Bill is planning, so let's voice our opinion of it 
before it's too late. We mustn't let the bill pass. Let's write our senators and 
representatives today ! 



40 The Green Caldron 



Rhet as Writ 



I think rhetoric is necessary, because it is usually expected for a college 
graduate to carry a conversation without making dramatical errors. Without 
rhetoric a student wouldn't be prepared to meet the demands of the public, 
because you establish contact with your good english. Rhetoric gives a stu- 
dent courage and power to express himself with words that will entrance 
the listener. I am sure of this oppinion, because the tmiversity of Illinois 
seems to agree with me. 

• • • • 

They fought against an enemy who was out for victory and would take 
no for an answer. 

His thoughts leak out as strange inductions. 



General Mac Arthur said the men had taken him out of the jaws of death 
and that he would forget it. 

• • • • 

The only possible change in rushing I can suggest is that girls could be 
rushed by the fraternities. I think we'd stand a much better chance of getting 
in there. 

• • • • 

The food in the army was good and healthful for you could see it on 
our faces. 

• • • • 

Among the various impressive expressions on the girl's faces, many Ahs, 
Uhgs, and Ohs could be heard. J 

• • • • 

The question of delinquency is being discussed widely today so that we 
may try to curb it. However, in order to be able to clear the country of de- 
linquency it is necessary for the breeding of it to be discovered and then 
stopped. 



• • • 



I will admit I didn't have too many dates anyway but . . . my dates 
were strictly with the female sex. I managed to be satisfied like everyone else. 



The thing that keeps this story from being pure fiction is that it is not 
fiction, but history. 



HE Green Caldron 

A Magazine of Freshman^>j^i|ipg,^j,y „^ ,,^^ 
* APR 1 1946 

Wilbur Mentzer: Objective — Iwo Jima 1 

Caroline Maddox: The Night Class ... 5 

William Louis Raby: The Bonus Expeditionary Force .... 6 

Jean Knapp: The University of Illinois and Its Nlfi^ifiei . l^-iur^ 12 

John Sunderland: Labor Unions — A Necessity ... 14 

Shirley Ackerman: Mr. Coletti ".'''.'*-:'^^! . . . -.-fg- 

Mary Jane Wilson: Mrs. Kramer's Palace 19 

Donald W. Becker: The War Hawks 20 

Ann Rees: The Traipsin' Woman's Singin' Gatherin' 22 

Caroline Maddox: Youth by Joseph Conrad and 

The Inheritors by Conrad and F. M. Hueffer 26 

Joseph Robert Deshayes: Firefighters — Urbana Style .... 28 

Mary Lou Solomon: A Night in December 31 

Robert Singer: Yeah, Joe Made It, But— ! 33 

Earl J. Wolf : Friendship — Taboo 35 

James E. Zemek: "Prospect of Whitby" 36 

Ben Duster: M. P. at Work 37 

Rose Enevold: Dance of Death 38 

Robert T. Cloud: Victory Cafe 39 

C. D. Orphan: Next to Valor 40 

(Material written in Rhetoric I and II) : Rhet as Writ .... 40 

VOL. 15, NO. 3 APRIL, 1946 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



JLhe Green Caldron is published four times a year by the 
Rhetoric Staff at the Universitj- of lUinois. Material is chosen 
from themes and examinations written by freshmen in the Uni- 
versity. Permission to publish is obtained for all full themes, 
including those published anonymously. Parts of themes, how- 
ever, are published at the discretion of the committee in charge. 

The committee in charge of this issue of The Green Caldron 
includes Miss Constance Nicholas and Messrs. Robert Geist, 
John Hamilton, Ben Porzak, and George Scouffas, Chair- 
man. 

The Green Caldron is for sale at the Information Office, 
157 Administration Building (West), Urbana, Illinois. 



THE GREEN CALDRON 

copyrighted 1946 
BY the university OF ILLINOIS 

All rights reserved 
No part of this periodical may be repro- 
duced in any form without permission in 
writing from the publisher. 



T 



Objective — Iwo Jima 

Wilbur Mentzer 
Rhetoric I. Theme 11, 1945-1946 

rTT^HE SUCCESSFUL INVASION OF IWO JIMA. WHICH MILI- 
tary strategists called the most heavily fortified island in the world, is 
an excellent example of intelligent planning by staff officers, thorough 
training by unit commanders, and the indomitable spirit of the individual 
Marine. Iwo Jima will forever stand as a monument to the Marines who 
gave their lives to take it that others could live their lives — free, without 
fear. 

The decision to invade Iwo Jima was made by the joint Chiefs of Staff 
as a primary requisite in the furthering of the war against Japan. The 
island, which lies about 700 miles from Japan, was considered by the Japa- 
nese to be a strong point in their perimeter of homeland defense and they 
fortified it accordingly — to the extent, in fact, that they boasted it would 
take a year for one million men to capture it. Although the Chiefs of Staff 
recognized the hazards that would accom[>any an invasion of this fortress, 
they were convinced that the island was of such strategic importance that 
an amphibious operation should be launched against it as quickly as possible. 

The advantages of possessing Iwo Jima were carefully estimated. High 
on the list of offensive advantages were the airfields the island would pro- 
vide. These airfields could be used as bases for our fighter aircraft, enabling 
them to protect our long-range boml)ers flying from the Marianas. Our 
B-29's could use the fields for emergency landings if they were disabled in 
an attack on the Japanese homeland. Furthermore, there existed the distinct 
advantage of depriving the Japanese of the use of these airfields, from 
which their fighter craft launched attacks on our bombers en route to Japan. 

The Fifth Marine Amphibious Corps, which had been activated as a corps 
only a short time before this operation, was selected for the task of taking 
Iwo Jima. Of the three principal units of this corps — the Third, Fourth, 
and Fifth Marine Divisions — two were veterans: the Third had been at 
Bougainville and at Guam, the Fourth at Roi-Namur in the Marshall Islands 
and at Saipan-Tinian in the Marianas. The Fifth Division was compara- 
tively new and had seen no action as a unit. Although it was formed with a 
nucleus of veterans from other divisions, the majorit>' of its personnel were 
men as yet untried in combat. I was a member of "F" Company. Second 
Battalion, in the 27th Regiment of the Fifth Marine Division, and was in 
charge of a ritle platoon. 

The men in the Fifth Marine Division first became aware of impending 
action in December, 1944. W^e were then based on one of the large islands 

[ 1 ] 



2 The Green Caldron 

of the Hawaiian group and had been training there in routine drills and con- 
ditioning hikes for several months. Our training schedule had been of such 
general nature that the most persistent rumor in camp was that we were to 
be used as occupation troops in Japan, and that we would stay at our present 
camp until the surrender of that nation. 

Early in December, however, "things" began to happen. Our training in 
the field set into a definite pattern, new equipment began to appear, and we 
received a number of new men, who brought our company up to full fighting 
strength. To the men in the ranks, the best indication of a forthcoming cam- 
paign was the sudden emphasis placed on the practicality of life insurance, 
which was fully outlined by our commanding officer. 

We began our embarkation on the morning of January 10, 1945. Our 
ship was a rusty L.S.T.^ that had never been intended for use as a troop 
transport. Aboard this ship we were told that we were to hold practice land- 
ings for several weeks and would then transfer to a large transport for the 
trip to the staging area.^ At Saipan, which was the designated area, we would 
return to the L.S.T. for the final stage of the journey to our objective. Ac- 
cordingly, we transferred to a large transport on the first day of February, 
1945, and began the trip to Saipan. 

A meeting of all staff N.C.O.'s^ and officers was called immediately after 
our arrival aboard the transport vessel. Here we heard the first official state- 
ment that our destination was Iwo Jima. The Second Battalion's commanding 
officer, Major Antonelli, fully outlined the operation, particularly that part 
with which our company was concerned. 

The island, Major Antonelli said, had a total area of eight square miles. 
The Fourth and Fifth Divisions were to land on the west beach, near the 
northern end of the island, while the Third Division would stay aboard ship 
until needed. The three airfields on the island, two of them operative, the 
other in the final stages of completion, were named Motoyama Number One, 
Two, and Three. Motoyama Number One would be the initial objective of 
the Fourth Division; the Fifth Division was to bisect the island at its nar- 
rowest point and capture Mount Suribachi, an inactive volcano at the ex- 
treme southern tip of the island that rose almost perpendicularly to a height 
of 500 feet. The 28th Regiment was to attack Mount Suribachi; the 27th was 
to cross the Island. "D" day was to be February 19, and "H" hour, 0900.* 
The battalion intelligence officer told us that the Japanese had 14,000 men 
(actually 20,000, as we learned later) on the island, that they had been forti- 
fying it for several years, and that we could expect daily bombing raids from 
the enemy. Later, the medical officer told us of the plant lice that infested 

' Landing ship, tanks. * A staging area is an advanced, temporary base. 

* Non-commissioned officers. 

* "D" — Day of debarkation, or day invasion would begin. "H" — Hour of landing on 
the island. 0900 — 9:00 a.m. 



April, 1946 3 

the island, carriers of a deadly form of typhus. At the close of the meet- 
ing, the Major wryly commented that the only bit of optimism he could offer 
was the possibility that the Japanese might surrender without fighting. 

We arrived at Saipan twelve days before D day and changed from the 
large transport vessel back to the L.S.T. that would take us to Iwo Jima. 
This ship carried the amphibious tractors in which we would be taken to 
the beach, and a considerable amount of supplies for the invading troops. 

Once again we began to work with aerial photographs and scale models 
until every man knew exactly the place he would land, what he would do, 
and how we intended to work as a unit. Weapons were checked again and 
yet again, and all faulty equipment was replaced. We had long since satisfied 
ourselves that we were ready for anything, but briefing and inspections 
helped pass the time, which was beginning to hang on us like a shroud. 

Early reveille was held the morning of February 19, and a breakfast of 
ham and eggs was served us. We could hear the sounds of naval gunfire and 
could occasionally see a distant flash as the guns of our warships continued 
the bombardment that had begun three days before. As the morning darkness 
lifted, the men gathered at the rail to watch our warships pour tons of ex- 
plosives on Mount Suribachi, which we could faintly see through the mist. 

Since we were in the second wave,"^ H hour for my platoon was to be 
three minutes after the first wave had landed, or three minutes after nine 
o'clock. We loaded into the amphibious tractors at 0730 and left the ship a 
few minutes later. Again instructions were given, and bantering conversation 
was freely exchanged. We rode in circles until 0830. when we formed a 
line behind the first wave and started for the beach. As ranking man in our 
tractor, I was to give the men a "stand by" signal one minute before we hit 
the beach. I noted with a great deal of satisfaction that the first wave had 
landed and were scaling the first parapet, about fifteen feet from the water. 
Then the tractor's cleats ground onto the beach, and I grabbed my carbine, 
climbed over the side, and yelled, "Let's go!" 

The purpose of my platoon was to support "F" company, so we scram- 
bled over the parapet at the beach and began climbing through the coarse 
black sand to a previously arranged organization point. By this time mortar 
fire was falling among us like raindrops, and the machine gun fire was like 
a continuous roll of drums. I reorganized my platoon as well as possible 
and started the men toward our first objective. 

We had been on the island about five minutes when I received the first 
casualty report. Robert Johnson, leader of the second squad, had been killed, 
and two of his men badly wounded, when a mortar shell exploded in a shell 
crater with them. We made the wounded men as comfortable as possible and 
pushed on up the hill. Halfway up we found our company "pinned down" 
by machine gun fire from the crest of the hill. In the first half hour we had 

* In an invasion, a wave is an echelon of men. 



4 The Green Caldron 

moved forward only 300 yards, but we could already notice that the 
artillery and mortar fire was being concentrated on the beach, and that most of 
the fire we were receiving was from machine guns and rifles. 

At 0930 our tanks began landing, and a few minutes later they were 
giving us supporting fire. With the tanks supporting us Avith machine gun 
and cannon fire, we moved forward again, meeting with less opposition as 
we went along, but we were forced to halt our advance in mid-afternoon, 
as we had outdistanced the units on our flanks. After waiting a short time 
for our flanking units to appear, we began building a defensive position for 
the expected night "Banzai" attack. However, our artillery and naval gun- 
fire kept the Japanese from organizing an attack, and so we spent a com- 
paratively quiet evening. A report of our company's casualties in the cam- 
paign, taken at the end of the first day's fighting, listed 18 men killed and 
70 men wounded. 

The 25th Regiment, on our right flank, had met with strong opposition 
but came abreast of our lines early in the afternoon of the second day. When 
the front lines were straightened and ready, an attack was ordered, to com- 
mence at 0800 the next morning. At 0700 the morning of February 21, 
our artillery began firing a barrage that lasted for an hour, and then, ac- 
companied by several tanks, we began advancing. W^e moved to the northern 
tip of Motoyama airfield, started on, but were hit by a heavy artillery and 
mortar barrage that halted us because of the severe losses we were receiving. 
That night we were reinforced by a supporting company, and the following 
morning our company was replaced by one of the companies in reserve. The 
total casualties of our company up to that time were 154 men wounded and 
56 men killed. 

About ten o'clock in the morning of the fourth day we received the en- 
couraging news that the 28th Regiment had captured Mount Suribachi, and 
that our flag had been hoisted from its highest peak. Everyone was jubilant, 
and some of the men celebrated by burning several b3^-passed blockhouses in 
our rear area. The sight of our flag, coupled with the knowledge that the 
28th Regiment was now free to help us, raised our morale immeasurably. 

Into the front lines again, a few days later, where we remained until our 
company was no longer useful as a fighting organization. Four days later 
the island was officially declared ours, although isolated pockets of the enemy 
were still active. Out of the original 230 men who began the campaign with 
"F" company, only 27 remained, and of this remaining 27, 5 had returned to 
fight again after receiving wounds earlier in the action. 

Of the three divisions participating in the Two Jima operation, the Fifth 
Division had suflFered the heaviest losses, having lost about 8,000 men. The 
Fourth Marine Division had lost 5,409 men, and the Third Division, which 
had held one regiment in reserve throughout the operation, had lost almost 
3,000 men — a grand total of 16,163 casualties. 



April, 1946 S 

The Night Class 

Caroline Maddox 
Rhetoric I, Theme 7, 1945-1946 

A BOUT NINE ONE EVENING WE HEARD THE WIND, 
/tj\ which had been raging about the roofs since long before class began, 
■^ -^ broken suddenly by great torrents of rain. The black skylight slant- 
ing down one side of the room flashed white, and was black again. There 
was one crack of thunder, then only the roar of water pouring down on the 
roof above us. A stir of excitement had gone through the class with the 
first burst of rain. There were about a dozen of us there that night, with 
our burdened easels and benches scattered among the empty ones in a quite 
irregular fan shape around the model's stand. We had been working silently 
until the rain began. Now we looked around at each other, smiling, and 
laughed at a remark someone made about umbrellas, not because it was 
funny, but because we wanted to laugh t<jgether. An almost tangible warmth 
enclosed us. I knew suddenly that I loved these people and that I would 
remember this moment a long time. I looked around the familiar studio, 
past the posing model and the group of easels, at the rough brick walls, 
shadowy under the rafters, and shadowy in the cluttered corners. On one 
end of the wall farthest from me there was an arched doorway into a dark 
little jumble of a closet. Above the door was a hexagonal clock whose pen- 
dulum hadn't moved for years. A shallow glass case on the same wall shel- 
tered several prints, and some more prints, framed, were along the wall, 
filling the space as far as the row of coat hooks where a few faded smocks 
were hanging. The wooden sliding doors beside the hooks were closed, so 
that I couldn't see the stair landing outside it. Leaning helter-skelter from 
lloor to wall below the row of prints and below the limp smocks, were stacks 
of canvases and boards. 

The room was quiet again under the steady murmur of the rain. Every- 
body seemed to be working again. There was Dick over by the wall con- 
centrating so hard he looked glum and ludicrous in his long butcher's apron. 
I looked at him, wanting to laugh. He turned and grinned back at me. There 
was dumpy, red-smocked Miz' Davis, swinging her short legs from a high 
bench, smacking her lips vapidly, peering at the model like a bright-eyed 
little beaver; and French Helene was silent for once, looking wistful and dis- 
couraged. In a minute she'd cry out, "Oh dear! I can't get the eye." Gray- 
haired Mr. Gregory would tell her, again, kindly, to keep on looking at the 
model. There was Mr. Wolf son squinting down his nose, completely satis- 
fied with his work, and Paula, my sister, puzzling over her drawing; young, 



> 



6 The Green Caldron 

red-haired Race with the sober gray eyes, and incorrigible Warren, and all 
the others. 

I stared at my drawing a moment, then slid off my stool and went quietly 
to the door of a little alcove behind me. The little room was dark except 
where the light edged the doorway, faintly touching the paint-splattered sink, 
and outlining the palettes laid carelessly along some shelves. The rain was 
louder in the dark closet, the warm darkness pungent with the smell of 
paint, turpentine, strong soap, old paint rags. It was to see the night that I 
had come. I stepped in, bent down to the two small windows low under the 
room, swung them both open into the night. Wet air blew into my face as I 
looked away down to the deserted street and the black wet garden behind 
the gallery. I heard someone in the other room sing out, "Rest !" Bustle and 
chatter broke loose. I stood up, wiping my hands on my smock, and went 
back into the big room. 



The Bonus Expeditionary Force 

William Louis Raby 
Rhetoric II, Theme 12, 1945-1946 

IN THE MIDDLE OF KEY BRIDGE, WHICH SPANS THE 
Potomac River between Virginia and the District of Columbia, a tat- 
tered, bloody, red-eyed group stood. At either end of the bridge, police 
were stationed to see that the sovereignties of their respective political bodies 
were not violated.^ The people that stood on the bridge were part of the 
army of almost twenty thousand which was being chased from the District 
of Columbia. Virginia did not want them; no state wanted them or would 
take them. They had been characterized by the President of the United States 
as rebels. Their homes had been burned, the possessions they could not 
rescue destroyed, and they had been gassed, sabered, bayoneted, and chased 
by the United States Army. It was the night of Thursday, July 28, 1932, 
often referred to as "bloody Thursday." The men on the bridge were vet- 
erans of the first World War, part of the scattered thousands who had con- 
stituted the iionus Expeditionary Force but a few short hours ago. Now the 
B. E. F., its camp on Anacostia Flats, and its petitions to Congress were 
being dissolved. The events of that Thursday and of the months that pre- 
ceded it were quickly forgotten by most of the nation. Few persons today 
either remember or want to remember the story of the bonus army. 

The veterans' march on Washington first hit the country's headlines in 

' "Victory of Anacostia," Neiv Republic, August 17, 1932, p. 20. 



April, 1946 7 

May of 1932, when a group of veterans from Oregon passed through St. 
Louis. ^ It was soon no uncommon sight to see groups of veterans with or 
without families travelling through the country in the direction of Wash- 
ington. Even while the police, the veterans' organizations, and most of the 
politicians tried to discourage the migration, its size continued daily to 
increase. The veterans had what they considered a legitimate demand, and 
they were going to Congress to present it. There was nothing they could lose 
by trying, for they were out of w(jrk, had been for months or years, and 
were mostly penniless. Sleeping on a park bench in Washington seemed as 
good to them as sleeping on a park bench in their home towns. So they 
marched, and fought, and hitched their way to Washington to ask Congress 
for their bonus. 

Their demand seemed reasonable to them. Congress had already voted 
them a bonus in the form of certificates maturing in 1945.^ But they wanted 
the money to be given to them then and there. Hungry, homeless, out of 
work, they figured that by 1945 the money would be of no use to them ex- 
cept to buy llowers for their graves. Besides, they argued, if they had the 
money they would spend it, and that might act as a stimulant to business. 
And more than that, more than any logical reason that they could advance, 
going to Washington was doing something. They had been idle for a long 
time, and this at least was something to do. So they moved on Washington, 
congregated there, and built .semi-military camps there. 

The camps they built were reminders, grim reniinilers and ironic, of the 
(lays of the war.* There were company streets lined with huts made of 
materials taken from the dumps of the city. The family that found an old 
automobile body lived in a mansion. They had their officers who governed 
the camp, their M.P.'s who enforced the rules, and their messes where they 
ate the food donated by sympathetic citizens and organizations. The food 
was barely enough to keep their bodies alive, but that was all they needed. 
Sanitary facilities were meager.' Two fire hydrants furnished the camp at 
Anacostia Flats with water. Two fire hydrants for over three thousand 
people! And means of waste disposal was just about as inadequate. But they 
stayed there, made speeches to each other, and presented their request to 
the Congress of the United States. They stayed, and more and more kept 
constantly coming. 

They kept on coming, and kept on lobbying for consideration of the 
bonus. At last Congress heard them.* The Patman Bill, which had been 
tabled since May 6. was brought to a vote in the House on June 15, and 

' E. F. Rrown, "Bonus Army Marches to Defeat," Current History, September, 1932, 

". 6P4. 

'\V. Davenport, "But the Dead Don't Vote," Colliers, June 11, 1932. p. 10. 

*J. Dos Passos, "Veterans Come Home to Roost." Neic Republic, June 29, 1932, p. 177. 

' "Human Side of the Bonus .•Xrmy," Literary Digest, June 25, 1932, p. 28. 

' Brown, op. cit., p. 686. 



8 The Green Caldron 

passed. The day of June 17 was a tense one, for the Senate was debating 
the bill. All Washington was afraid of what might happen if the bill failed 
to pass. Over fifteen thousand veterans were massed in front of the Capitol. 
The day passed and still no decision had been reached. A vote was taken that 
evening, and the bill was defeated. Murmurs of protest and anger rose from 
the crowd. They surged about restlessly, but quietly dispersed. Washington 
breathed a sigh of relief. Now that the bill was defeated, they thought, the 
B. E. F. would go. 

The B. E. F. did not go, though. They stayed on. Xobody wanted them 
there, there seemed little that they could do, but they stayed on. Most of 
them had no place to go. Only one hope — vain and doomed to failure — was 
left — to have the bill reconsidered. Since Washington, and especially po- 
litical Washington, was embarrassed by their presence. Congress on July 7 
passed a measure which would advance funds for transportation home to all 
veterans who decided to take advantage of the offer." The cost of this trans- 
portation home was to be deducted from the bonus when it was paid. In the 
first three days after this measure was passed, five hundred veterans took 
advantage of its provisions. In that same three days, a thousand new 
veterans arrived in Washington. 

No, they would not go, it seemed. An election was coming up, though, 
and the B. E. F. was not the best publicity for anyone connected with it. 
And so it was decided to make them go. On July 25, orders were issued to 
General Glassford, head of the Washington police, to evacuate the B. E. F.® 
Glassford, who had nothing against the B. E. F., questioned the wisdom of 
the orders. They were repeated. Although the bonus army was given until 
August 4 to leave the District, they were forcibly ejected on July 28. 

On the morning of the twenty-eighth a contractor's gang started to tear 
down some abandoned government buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue that 
were being occupied by a group of the bonus marchers.^ The veterans gath- 
ered around and heckled the workers, who were under police guard. Someone 
threw a brick, and it seemed as if the long-awaited trouble was at last going 
to break out. General Glassford, who was present on the scene, fortunately 
averted the threatened riot. That afternoon, however, another brick was 
thrown and a melee started. One policeman opened fire into the crowd of 
veterans, killing two of the bonus marchers before Glassford managed to 
halt him. The two deaths seemed to quiet things down, but someone — 
Glassford denied that he was responsible — had sent for the troops.^" Sec- 
retary of War Hurley, under instructions from President Hoover, ordered 

' F. C. Springer, "Glassford and the Siege of Washington," Harper's, November, 1932, 
p. 648. » Ibid., p. 653. 

•p. Y. Anderson, "Tear Gas, Bayonets, and Votes," Nation, August 17, 1932, p. 138. 
'* Springer, op. cit., p. 653. 



April, 1946 9 

Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur to "surround the affected area 
and clear it without delay."" 

About four-thirty in the afternoon the troops came down Pennsylvania 
Avenue.'^ Crowds had gathered, both B. E, F.'ers and home-going govern- 
ment workers, and they cheered the troops. But the cheers died suddenly 
as the troops rode into the crowds, pushing them back with the flats of 
sabers and the striking hoofs of horses." The men of the P). E. F. were 
driven back towards Anacostia, where tear-gas detachments loosed their 
bombs on the massed men, women, and children. Infantry with fixed bay- 
onets pushed them back, foot by foot, to the camp on the other side of the 
District. And then, when they reached the camp, they pushed them through, 
firing the flimsy huts as they went. All evening the Army went on with its 
glorious mopping-up operation. 

Forcibly kicked out of the District of Columbia, the veterans could yet 
not leave." Neither Maryland nor Virginia would allow them to enter; state 
troopers were there to make sure that they did not leave the District into 
either of those states, the only ones that border on the District, and the Army 
was behind them to make sure that they did leave the District. Finally, about 
four in the morning, in the midst of a dismal rain, the Marylanil authorities 
granted them permission to pass through the state if they would do so as 
rapidly as possible.'* A refuge had been promised them in J(ihnstown, Penn- 
sylvania, by the mayor of that town, and it was there that many of them 
headed.'® 

Hate and abuse met them on the road. Hoover had said that they "were 
not genuine veterans, but Communists and persons of criminal record."" 
At one place, a group asked for food. The reply was brief, curt, and to the 
point: "We can't give you any. The President says you're rebels — don't you 
understand? You're all outlaws now."'* And that was the general attitude 
of the nation towards them for some time. The remnants of the B. E. F. 
were scattered over the countryside. A few thousand were headed for Johns- 
town, Penns3'lvania. 

Though the mayor of Johnstown had invited them, the civic leaders of 
that city wanted nothing more than to see the B. E. F. as far from their 
neighborhood as possible. State police were stationed on the edge of town 
to see that few of the survivors of Washington ever found Johnstown.'® In 
spite of obstructions, however, over a thousand veterans managed to reach 
the asylum offered by the charitable mayor. It was there that they had their 

" Brown, ol>. cit.. p. 687. "Ibid. ".Anderson, op. cit., p. 138. 

""Victory of Anacostia," loc. cit., p. 20. 

" M. Cowley and S. Brown, "Flight of the Bonus Army," Nexc Republic, August 17, 

1932, p. 13. '• Springer, op. cit., p. 655. " Ibid. 

" M. Cowley and S. Brown, op. cit., p. 14. '» Ibid. 



10 The Green Caldron 

first pause since "bloody Thursday," and were able to think back and get 
really mad. 

"I used to be a hundred percenter," one ragged veteran said, "but now 
I'm a Red radical. I had an American flag, but the damned tin soldiers 
burned it. Now I don't ever want to see a flag again. Give me a gun and I'll 
go back to Washington! "2" 

"Yeah," muttered the scattered thousands, "we're gonna' get guns and 
go back to Washington !"^^ 

There was menace in these people who had had their peaceful actions 
met by force. There was bitterness in the eyes of men who had saved the 
republic a few years before, but whom the republic declined in turn to save. 
But a thousand, or ten thousand, or twenty thousand scattered, leaderless, 
weaponless men do not make a revolution. Yes, they were going to get guns 
and go back to Washington, but they did not. There was no one to come 
forward and show them where to get the guns, how to march on Washing- 
ton, or whom to use the guns on, and so they scattered to the middle and 
the four corners of the country. They had asked for help, and the answer 
had been gas bombs, bayonets, sabers, cavalry, and fire. They in their turn 
had no retaliation. There was only the hate, the cold, white, clammy hate 
that lay like a lump on the souls of many. There was nothing that a hate of 
that kind could be used on, yet it was there like a cancer, spreading in the 
souls of men. 

What is written above seems to cover the facts of the bonus army. 
Thousands of words were written at the time of those events and later about 
various aspects of the Bonus Expeditionary Force. These ranged from 
passionate denunciations of the actions of the government, and sometimes of 
the whole American system of living, to almost as passionate support of the 
government's method of dealing with the B. E. F. Of the two extreme points 
of view, those who denounced seem to have had more of reason and truth 
in their writings. Most of those who supported, even the two official gov- 
ernment reports on the case, are contradicted on their main points by 
the facts. 

Both of the government reports attempted to establish that the men of 
the B. E. F. were not only not veterans, but were Communists and crim- 
inals. The report of Secretary of War Patrick Hurley was the first to be 
issued. Though completely contrary to the facts that even the newspapers and 
the screens of the nation's theaters had spread, the report was never cor- 
rected or withdrawn.^^ Seemingly to bolster the discredited Hurley report, 

" Ihid. " Ibid. 

" "OfTicial Misrepresentation of Eviction of Bonus Marchers," New Republic, August 

24, 1932, p. 29. 



April, 1946 11 

Attorney General Mitchell issued a report that was much more plausible. Its 
main errors were not in what it said but in what it neglected to say.^^ For 
example, Mitchell's report stated that of 4,723 men who were fingerprinted, 
1,069, or 22.6%, had been arrested. No mention was made of the fact that 
only 829 of these men were ever convicted, or of the probability that many 
of the offences committed were minor ones, such as vagrancy. Under the 
vagrancy laws of most states, practically every person in the bonus army 
was a criminal, for all of them were vagrants. Using that type of reason- 
ing, Mitchell would have been perfectly justified in stating that the bonus 
army was composed entirely of criminals. Kven that, though, would hardly 
have been an extenuating reason for the actions of "bloody Thursday," for 
even such menaces to society as vagrants are entitled to certain of the rights 
of citizenship. 

""Political Gesture; Mitchell's Report on the Bonus Army," New Republic, Septem- 
ber 21. 1932, pp. 139. 140. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Anderson. P. Y., "Tear Gas, Bayonets, and Votes." Nation. Aup\ist 17. 1932, pp. 

138-140. 
"Bombs and Bayonets for the B. E. F.." Literary Digest, August 6, 1932, p. 3. 
"Bonus Army," C ommon-u-eal , June 15. 1932. pp. 173-174. 
"Bonus Expeditionary Force," Christian Century, August 10, 1932, p. 974. 
"Bonus Exjieditionary Force." Nezv Republic, July 27, 1932, p. 27i. 
Brown, E. F., "Bonus Army Marches to Defeat," Current History, September 1932. 

PI). 684-688. 
"Causes of the Washington Disturbances." Nation, August 24, 1932, p. 154. 
CowLF.v, M. and Brown. S., "Flight of the Bonus Army," New Republic, August 17, 

1932, pp. 13-15. 
Daveni-ort, W., "Battle of the Heroes," Colliers, September 23, 1933, pp. 12-13. 
Davenport, W., "But the Dead Don't Vote." Colliers, June 11, 1932. pp. 10-11. 
Dos Passos, J., "Veterans Come Home to Roost," Ne-w Republic, June 29, 1932, pp. 

177-178. 
"Human Side of the Bonus .Army." Literary Digest. June 25. 1932, [>. 28. 
"In the Rear of the B. K. F. During the Washington Battle," Nnv Republic, August 

10. 1932, p. 326. 
Morrow, Felix, The Bonus March, New York, International Pamphlets, 1932. 
"Official Misrepresentation of Eviction of Bonus Marchers." Nc~<.v Republic, August 

24, 1932, p. 29. 
"On to Washington with the Bonus Hikers," Literary Digest, June 11, 1932, p. 8. 
"Political Gesture; Mitchell's Report on the Bonus Army," Nezc Republic, September 

21, 1932, pp. 139-140. 
Springer, F. C., "Glassford and the Siege of Washington," Harper's, November, 1932, 

pp. 641-655. 
Springer, G., "What Became of the B. E. F.," Survey, December 1, 1932, pp. 640-642. 
"Veterans: Senate Votes More Pay," Newsweek, March 10, 1934, p. 8. 
"Victory of Anacostia," A^^tt' Republic, August 17, 1932, p. 20. 

Ward. H. S.. "Hurley and the Bonuseers," New Republic. November 9. 1932. p. 359. 
White. O. P., "General Glassford's Story," Colliers, October, 1932, pp. 10-11. 



12 The Green Caldron 

The University of Illinois 
And Its Negroes 

Jean Knapp 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1944-1945 

PEOPLE OF OTHER COUNTRIES HAVE BEEN LED TO 
believe that the United States is a country where "all men are cre- 
ated equal." Those are the famous words used by Abraham Lincoln 
when his efforts to free the slave succeeded. He thought that at last the 
problem of every man's being free and equal had been solved. The emanci- 
pation of the Negro was a great step in this direction, but there are more 
steps to be taken. Ever since the first slave was brought over from Africa 
in 1619, Negroes have been looked on as an inferior race. This feeling, so 
strong at first, has been lessened; but, even now, there is a discrimination 
made. We have lately been at war against the "superior" races. Too few of 
us realize that a war of the same general type is going on within our own 
country — a war of racial prejudice. 

The education of the Negro has been greatly hampered by this racial 
prejudice in many of the colleges — especially those in the South, where there 
is even no suggestion of equality. There the only college education available 
to the Negro is in segregated institutions. The reasoning behind this is not 
just, but at least the practice is consistent and the Negro knows where he 
stands. The situation in the Northwest is much different — there is no discord 
whatsoever. The Negro has the same opportunities for an education as the 
white man has. The Middle West, however, has not made up its mind one 
way or the other, and the Negro is at a loss to know just what his place is. 
An illustration of this discord is found here on our own campus. 

Although the great majority of Illinois students live near the campus, 
you will not find any Negroes living in this area. Most of them live in private 
homes in the colored section in north Champaign. Because of the distance 
from the campus to their homes, it is almost impossible for the students to 
return to them between classes or for lunch. Out of necessity, the Union 
Building and one or tv/o drugstores have become their eating places. Such 
conditions are certainly not up to par with those that most of us take for 
granted. 

Because there isn't a Negro church or foundation on the campus and 
because the white churches do not care to have a mixed group, most of our 
Negro students do not go to church. Some of the students go to the town 
churches, which lean towards the old revival-type services and, therefore, 



. ipril, 1946 13 

are not the kind of churches that the Xegro student, usually on a highly edu- 
cated level, prefers to attend. 

What types of recreation do the Negroes have? Are the University's 
social and sport activities open to them? 

Movies are probably high on the recreation list. The prevalent habit in 
all of the nearby theaters is to segregate the Negro audience from the white 
audience by reserving a special area in the balcony for them. The municipal 
pool in Crystal Lake Park has gone a step further and does not even allow 
the Negroes to swim. The mi.xers and parties sponsored by the University 
are open to everyone, and some Negroes attend these. If they were made to 
feel more welcome, many more would be glad of a chance to be participants. 
Although the orchestra, band, chorus, etc., are also open to any student, a 
Negro who tries to become a member is treated as an intruder and conse- 
quently does not get very far. This condition is far better, however, than 
the one which exists in sports. Negroes are not allowed on baseball, basket- 
ball, tennis, and swimming teams. They are. however, allowed to try out 
for track and football. Just why the line has been drawn is not known. It 
would seem that if a student were good enough to take part in a football 
game he would be just as eligil>le to play in a ba.scball game. 

Our faculty is unprejudiced as far as the Negro student is concerned, 
ach student has the opportunities that the others have. For the Negro, 
this is the saving grace. If it were not for this imjHJrtant factor, the educa- 
tion of the Negro would gradually be extinguished. There are, however, no 
Negro members on the staff, and there probably never will be. 

The Negro student is also uncertain of his status in the military life on 
the campus. ROTC is a requirement for all men during the first two years of 
I ollege. The next two years are not compulsory. A Negro student, however, 
is not allowed to take this advanced work. This is very illogical. W'hy make 
a student take ROTC for two years and then make a complete turnabout and 
make it impossible for him to become an advanced cadet? There are no 
Xegroes in the V-12 unit, and there will be none in the naval ROTC. The 
ASTR's have several Negroes in their ranks. These Negro students sleep, 
eat, study, and play with the white fellows, and the cooperation and friend- 
liness between the two races prove that it is very possible for an equality 
to exist not only here at the University of Illinois but also throughout the 
country. 

The Negroes are outnumbered, discouraged, and unable to solve the 
problems. It will be only through the combined efforts of the faculty, the 
churches, and all students that an equality of the white and black races can 
be established and maintained on our campus. 



14 TJic Green Caldron 

Labor Unions — A Necessity 

John Sunderland 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1945-1946 



I 



rrr^HERE SEEMS TO BE CONSIDERABLE ANTAGONISM 
towards organized labor, and, oddly enough, the feeling runs very high 
among the students of this university. This feeling appears to be based 
on inaccurate information, information gathered from a press hostile to 
labor. Since most newspapers of the country are themselves business enter- 
prises, or are financially dependent upon business through advertising, it 
follows that their attitude is one of opposition to organized labor. 

It is a rather well-established fact that unionism is the result of unfair 
practices on the part of employers toward their employees, practices which 
could be combatted by labor only through the united efforts of many. In the 
present controversies, as in many of the previous ones, this fundamental 
truth has been lost sight of. I need not relate the conditions which existed 
at the beginning of unionism, and which gave rise to labor organizations, to 
show the need for organized labor. More recent happenings within my own 
experience will suffice. 

During the summer of 1929, I was employed as a buffer in a factory 
which manufactured automobile accessories. My work consisted of nickel- 
buffing Ford name plates, which were made of steel with polished and 
nickel-plated edges. The buffing operation brightened the plated edge. I was 
paid forty cents per hour and buffed from forty to fifty plates an hour. I 
could have finished from sixty to seventy-five plates an hour, but the worker 
next to me, who was receiving sixty cents, was buffing only from sixty to 
seventy-five plates; it was an unwritten law in that shop that you produced 
in accordance with your rate of pay. This was more or less a universal prac- 
tice — so much work for so much money. 

The company attempted to increase production; when exhorting the 
workers to greater efforts failed, they adopted a piece-work system of pay- 
ment for all production work. The rate for buffing name plates was set at 
twenty-nine cents per hundred. This meant that to earn forty cents an hour 
I would have had to produce approximately one hundred and twenty-nine 
pieces an hour, or more than three times as many as before and almost twice 
as many as it was possible to do. The rates for work throughout the shop 
were comparable to that on my job. Consequently our earnings were cut in 
half. We had no way of combatting this situation other than by quitting work. 

Another abuse of piece-work systems, common before the war, was 
practiced in "group work." A group usually consisted of two or more em- 



April, 1946 15 

ployees who worked together and whose total earnings were divided. Since 
it was necessary to close production lines down occasionally, particularly on 
week ends, it was customary to use this time to finish all work that had been 
started and to "clean up" any odd lots or pieces that had been moved aside 
during the regular production period. Since this clean-up work frequently 
did not require a full crew, most of the workers were laid off, and only a 
few were retained. Although it was impossible to maintain production stand- 
ards while closing down the line, the earnings of the group, which were 
built up during the course of regular production, were distributed, not only 
over the regular production hours, but over those of the clean-up period as 
well. In the event the group earnings were above base rates, the workers 
who went home contributed to the payment of the wages of those that 
remained. 

Another abuse that was common not long ago was the pay-period 
guarantee of base pay; that is, workers were guaranteed a certain rate per 
hour for every hour of attendance during a pay period. When employed on 
{jiece work, the worker might build up bonus earnings in the first half 
of the pay period and then be assigned work on which it was impossible 
to make base rates. In this event, the bonus earnings were used to make up 
the deficits on the less remunerative jobs until they were exhausted or losses 
were fully made up. Actually, then, the worker was paying himself for a 
part of his work. Unions of the present day would not tolerate such prac- 
tices; in fact, because of these practices the workers of many factories be- 
came organized. 

Favoritism and arbitrary dismissal of workers have been frequent causes 
of dissatisfaction of employees and have resulted in the organization of many 
unions within factories. Discrimination between workers with regard to wage 
rates has been the most common, liasic starting rates were established, and 
from this point increases depended on how well the employee could talk. The 
case of my co-worker and me in the automobile accessory factory is a fair 
example. I could have done, and for a while did. as much work as he; yet 
his rate was fifty percent greater than mine. The foreman was his uncle. 

In July of 1939, after five years of service, I was discharged from a job 
for the stated reason of unsatisfactory work. Of course I believed, and still 
believe, that I was treated unfairly. I had been at my job five years, had 
become a veteran worker; and I know that my proficiency did not slacken. 
Now, it does not take a company five years to discover unsatisfactory work. 
But all of that is beside the point. Had I been a union member, the union 
would have demanded full and particular reasons for my discharge and 
would have given me a chance to state my case. If I had been found innocent 
of the charge against me, I would have been reinstated. 

Before the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act, employees on a so- 



16 The Green Caldron 

called salary, that is, wages paid by the week or month, were frequently obliged 
to work many more than the scheduled hours. Factory clerks, timekeepers, 
stock-room attendants, and tool-room employees were usually paid salaries 
rather than wages for the simple reason that it was then possible to have 
them work additional hours without additional pay. I was frequently forced 
to work until late at night and then to report at the regular starting time 
the next morning. Failure to do so would have resulted in discharge, and, 
although I was never discharged for this reason, some of my co-workers 
were. 

One morning, a short time after the Fair Labor Standards Act became 
effective, I overheard a conversation between the plant manager and the elec- 
trician. The electrician had been working several overtime hours a week. 
The plant manager was earnestly telling the electrician that such long hours 
were injurious to his health. Yet many times before the passage of this legis- 
lation, this same electrician had been obliged to work more than the normal 
number of hours; in fact, I remember instances when he was called in at 
two and three o'clock in the morning to do some emergency repair work. 
No consideration was given to his health at that time. Had he failed to work 
the required number of hours or refused to report in when called, he would 
have been replaced by someone who would have complied. Employers became 
concerned only after employers were legally obliged to compensate employees 
for excessive hours of work. The plant manager was concerned for the 
pocketbook of the company and not for the health of the electrician. 

On the other hand, there is no question in my mind that some of the 
methods employed by unions and some of their practices are to be deplored. 
"Feather bedding" seems to have become a common practice. Feather bed- 
ding consists of demanding that more workers be used for a given task than 
are actually required. On one occasion, it was necessary to move a time 
clock from one location to another. In accordance with union regulations, 
it was necessary to use three men for this task: an electrician to disconnect 
the wiring, an operation which consisted of removing a plug from its socket; 
a carpenter to remove the clock from the wall, which required the removing 
of four screws; and a trucker to transport the clock to the new location, 
where the carpenter put it on the wall and the electrician inserted the plug. 
One man could have done this task as quickly as three. This childish practice 
increases costs to employers and tends to strengthen their anti-union feeling. 

That unions should demand maintenance of membership agreements in 
their contracts is evidence of their abuse of their present power. To expect 
and demand that an employer collect dues from union members and remit 
these dues to the union is hardly within the realm of reason. The discon- 
tinuance of these demands would greatly improve the relationship between 
employers and union representatives and members. 



April, 1946 17 

The present conflicts between unions and employers have arisen because 
the unions are making use of a favorable situation to gain some of the de- 
sired improvements in wage scales. Many people believe that labor had a 
field day during the war and should now be willing to revert to pre-war 
wage scales. It is undeniably true that labor, as a group, had higher gross 
earnings during the war period than in any previous period. But what was 
the source of these increased earnings? The large earnings were due pri- 
marily to the long hours put in by labor and not to base-rate increases. Basic 
wage rates were advanced in accordance with the Little Steel Formula — that 
is, approximately fifteen percent over the base of 1941. By now reverting 
to the standard forty-hour week, workers do not receive wages in keeping 
with the cost of living, which has advanced from thirty to thirty-five percent 
above that of 1941, the base period. It is for the purpose of adjusting these 
differences that labor is now fighting. 

The time is now right for union activity because, as a result of increased 
employment and the consequent increase in union memberships during the 
war, union treasuries are more nearly adequate to wage a long struggle than 
ever before. Further, wartime savings of workers can be used for main- 
tenance during the strike action and can thus relieve much of the hardship 
that usually accomjjanies strikes. The present reconversion of industry to 
peacetime production also offers the unions a favorable opportunity for 
exerting pressure. A manufacturer who fails to settle wage issues before 
reconversion is comi)lete(l will |ir()l)ai)ly find himself out-distanced by com- 
petitors. 

Unions are also at this time allenipting to correct conditions that grew 
up during the war, conditions that went unchallengetl because labor had 
given its no-strike pledge. It can hardly be denied that, in general, labor 
lived up to this pledge rather admirably. This fact is forgotten by those 
persons who delight in pointing a linger at the number of strikers during the 
war. The newspapers played up the fact that at times sixty thousand workers 
were out on strikes. When compared with the si.xty-two million job holders, 
sixty thousand is a pitifully small representation of labor. While labor was 
living up to its pledge, some employers took advantage of the situation to 
postpone and forego settling differences which arose. One example which 
bears out this statement is that of a company which, even though the War 
Labor Board certified the bargaining agent for the employees in August of 
1943, stalled off contract negotiations until the end of the war. In spite of 
this action, the employees remained on the job. As soon as the war ended, 
however, they struck. Many of the strikes which have occurred in the short 
time since the end of the war have been called to settle such differences and 
to get contracts negotiated. Had there been no war, these strikes would have 
been called one or two at a time and would not have resulted in the com- 
motion they are now causing. 



18 The Green Caldron 

That the organization of labor is necessary to combat the unfair practices 
of employers seems to me to be well proved. Labor has no other way of 
gaining any improvements in its position. It seems, however, that there 
should be some common ground on which labor and capital can meet and do 
away with the abuses practiced on both sides. However, in the absence of 
such a common ground, if we must choose between the evils attendant upon 
unionism and those practiced by capital before the labor unions gained their 
great strength, then, by all means, let us have labor unions. 



Mr. Coletti 

Shirley Ackerman 
Rhetoric I, Theme 5, 1945-1946 

I FIRST CAME FACE TO FACE WITH MR. COLETTI WHEN I 
was a sophomore in high school. I was startled at first to realize that he 
looked like a cross between a kewpie-doll and a grizzly bear. Since then 
I have become accustomed to his odd appearance; it is unnoticed when in 
spirited competition with his other peculiarities. However, let your mind 
create this man. He is very short, very dark, and very broad. He wears his 
black hair parted in the middle and drawn down on the sides to form a 
definite spit-curl over each temple. Under his shaggy eyebrows, shrewd 
black beads twinkle. On the end of his rather obvious nose rests a pair of 
horn-rimmed bifocals. There is always a very faint smile playing on his 
lips, but the rockiness of his jaw belligerently contradicts his friendly mouth. 
Always wearing the same brown suit, but a variety of brilliant ties, he is an 
arresting specimen as he ambles to classes. 

In front of the pupils, however, he is something to fear. A bit on the 
eccentric side, he often stops recitation in order to inquire about someone's 
health, or whether everyone is happy. During examinations he paces the 
aisles between the desks, and if he should see someone pondering a question 
or even slightly hesitating, he runs over, pounds the student's forehead with 
his forefinger, and screams, "Think, man, think!" 

Mr. Coletti is as unpredictable in his study hall as in the classroom. A 
boy who generally slept through study periods was sleeping through his. 
When Mr. Coletti saw him, he got down on all fours, crawled to the boy's 
seat in the back of the room and earnestly bit him in the leg. No hard feelings 
were involved — at least on the part of Mr. Coletti; he rather enjoyed cre- 
ating a sensation, and completely forgave the culprit. 

Without him, high school would have been boring; with him it was a 
game. Every day we would ask, "What will Mr. Coletti do today?" And 
every day we would get a new answer. 




April. 1946 19 

Mrs. Kramer's Palace 

Mary Jane Wilson 

Rhetoric I, Final Examination, 1945-1946 

AVE YOU EVER HAD A THOROUGHLY DULL, UNINTER- 
esting Sunday afternoon turn unexpectedly into an Event? My 
family had made a practice (before rationing) of going for a drive 
on Sunday, and while the excursions were pleasant, they were much alike 
week after week. Occasionally, however, we discovered an especially beauti- 
ful view from the top of a high mountain; or a natural phenomenon such 
as sink holes, a canyon, or a huge spring; or, more rarely, a herd of deer 
grazing in a clearing surrounded by deep woods. We learned to turn from 
the highways and seek out "back" roads, for scenery and natural beauty 
were never advertised in Pennsylvania. The natives* attitude was stolid — 

Yeah, it's always been there" — when we exclaimed about a recent dis- 

overy of ours. 

One day, however, we forgot to look closely enough to tind beauty very 
near our home. While we were driving along a back road bound for a swim, 
someone exclaimed, "There's a boat on Kramer's Pond!" Since the jjond 
was a tiny, artificial one which was used in winter for ice-skating, we had 
supposed it was unused in summer. Yet, unmistakably, there was a boat 
moving slowly across the further side. By common consent, we turned to in- 
vestigate. When we had drawn closer, we were amazed to see a plump little 
woman surrounded by dozens of beautiful vari-colored water lilies in a flat- 
bottomed boat. She smiled as she saw our amazement, climbed out, and 
waved us into the hut close by. Pink-cheeked and breathless, she hastened 
to unfasten the door and ushered us in. The scene that she revealed when 
she lit an oil lamp and held it for us (for the hut was ver>' dim) was aston- 
ishing. On the floor, on the rough bench along one wall, on the rickety chairs 
— everj'where stood wooden buckets and tubs literally filled with water 
lilies. There were pale pink ones, and yellow ones, even bright red ones, all in 
various stages of closing into tight buds for the night. Despite the rough 
surroundings, the scene was beautiful. 

Finallv, turning to the woman, we inquired about her business. She ex- 
plained that the lilies had started as a hobby. The pond had been unused 
during the summer months until she conceived the idea of growing the 
flowers there. Her tiny little rowboat was built especially for her to use in 
the shallow pond when the blossoms were ready to be picked. In the hut, 
which had an earth floor and was therefore damp enough to preserve the 
delicate flowers, she arranged them first for her own pleasure and later for 
sale. Centerpieces were easiest, she explained. In a shallow bowl chosen by 
the hostess, she floated only two or three large blossoms, which made a 



20 The Green Caldron 

simple but perfect addition to any table. Recently, she had been approached 
by friends of shut-ins or convalescents for a "different" arrangement. She 
had found that a single blossom in an inverted glass bowl was popular. 

We finally turned to leave, but with a lift which always follows an un- 
expected pleasure. A "different" hobby which had turned into a life work — 
that was beauty also. 

The War Hawks 

Donald W. Becker 
Rhetoric II, Theme 7, 1945-1946 

A MERICANS HAVE ALWAYS BELIEVED THAT THE WAR 
/=^^ of 1812 was a direct result of the English Orders in Council and 
-^ -^^ Napoleon's Decrees of 1807, acts which were aimed at our trade 
as a neutral.^ Included in these acts was the "impressment of American 
seamen"^ by the English. However, the sections of America devoted to trade 
and commerce voted against war with England. It should be obvious, there- 
fore, that some other force must have influenced America to declare war 
against England. This force was exerted by the "War Hawks." 

President James Madison, struggling with the international situation, was 
trying to get both England and France to rescind their obnoxious Orders 
and Decrees and to preserve peace. But the election of 1810 resulted in the 
defeat of many old Congressmen of pacific views, who were replaced by 
fiery, young men, impatient with the peace policy. These men of the Twelfth 
Congress (1811-13) were to become known as the "War Hawks." 

Among the leaders of the "War Hawks" were Clay and Johnson of 
Kentucky, Calhoun of South Carolina, Grundy of Tennessee, and Porter of 
Western New York, men from the West and South, the regions least 
affected by British interference with commerce. Yet, these men advocated 
war with England. "Their enthusiasm for war may be attributed partly to 
their youthful exuberance — they were nearly all young men — but as 
spokesmen for their sections they envisioned concrete advantages as the 
fruit of war."^ 

The "War Hawks" were especially aroused by the opposition of the 
Indians, led by Tecumseh, who were resisting the advance of the whites in 

' During this period England and France were at war. England was a naval power 
and France was a land power; therefore, they resorted to economic warfare. Since 
America owned most of the ships provisioning these countries, economic warfare re- 
sulted in a direct blow^ to America. 

'The English would hoard American ships, claim some of the sailors were English, 
and imprison them. 

*J. T. Adams, ed., Dictionary of American History, Vol. V, New York: Charles 
Scribner's and Sons, 1940, p. 403. 



April, 1946 21 

the Xorthwest. They beheved that the British in Canada were aiding the 
Indians by supplying them with guns and ammunition. 

"Little by little the 'War Hawks' fanned the llame of the 'war spirit' in 
Congress."* This "spirit" was steadily rising, not so much in the commercial 
centers of New England, but "along the frontier from the Green Mountains 
to the Kentucky Blue Grass, and thence eastward into the Georgia Uplands. 
These were the regions of 'expansionist enthusiasm,' the strongholds of the 
'War Hawks.' "* 

There seems to be little doubt that the "War Hawks" aimed to get more 
territory. "Men of the Xorthwest commonly held the British resfjonsible for 
their troubles with the Indians (exemplified in the activities of Tecumseh 
and the bloody encounter at Tippecanoe, Xov. 7, 1811) and expected to end 
these difficulties by tlriving the British from Canada. Southerners planned 
to conquer Florida from Spain, Great Britain's ally. Thus the 'War Hawks' 
represented the expansionist aims of the frontier."' 

During a house debate on armament of merchant shipping, the war party 
frankly revealed their designs ujkju Canada. Mr. Porter, chairman of the 
committee, speaking on December 6, explained that in addition to the injury 
which American privateers could inflict upon British commerce, "there was 
another point where we could attack her, ancF where she would feel our 
power still more sensibly. We could deprive her of her extensive provinces 
lying along our borders to the north. "^ 

By the end of the spring of 1812, the whole frontier was insisting that 
the British must be expelled from Canada. To influence all of Congress the 
"War Hawks" took up the war cry of "sailors' rights," but it was really the 
expansionist aims they had in mind. Add to this a strong third factor that 
made them advocates of war. Grundy of Tennessee dwelt upon the ])ar- 
ticular advantage the Westerner would derive from war. "We shall drive the 
British from our continent — they will no longer have the opportunity of 
intriguing with our Indian neighbors and setting on the ruthless savage to 
tomahawk our women and children."* Thus they welcomed war because they 
"thought it would be the easiest way to abate Indian troubles."® 

On June 23, 1812. Parliament repealed the Orders in Council, but it was 
too late; the news did not reach America in time. Five days earlier the "War 
Hawks" had their way: America had declared war on England. 

*J. T. Adams, The Epic of America, New York: Blue Ribbon Books, Inc., 1931, 

pp. 142-143. 

' T. A. Kraut, ed., .'/ History of American Life, Vol. \', New York: Macmillan Co., 

1944, p. 189. 

* Adams, Dictionary of American History, p. 403. 

'J W. Pratt, Exfyansionists of 1812, New York: Macmillan Co.. 1925, pp. 50-51. 

*lbid., p. 51. 

•Edward Channing, .-/ History of the United States, Vol. IV, New York: Macmillan 

Co., 1917, p. 456. 



22 The Green Caldron 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Adams, James Truslow, ed., Dictionary of American History, Vol. V, New York: 
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940. 

Adams, James Truslow, The Epic of America, New York: Blue Ribbon Books, Inc., 
1931. 

Channing, Edward, A History of the United States, Vol. IV, New York: Macmillan 
Co., 1917. 

Elson, Henry William, History of the United States of America, New York: Mac- 
millan Co., 1937. 

Kraut, Johx Allen, ed., A History of American Life, Vol. V, New York: Macmillan 
Co., 1944. 

Langer, William L., An Encyclopaedia of World History, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin 
Co., 1940. 

Pratt, Julius W., Expansionists of 1812, New York: Macmillan Co., 1925. 



The Traipsin Woman's 
Singin' Gatherin' 

Ann Rees 
Rhetoric H, Theme 7, 1945-1946 

N THE SECOND SUNDAY IN EVERY JUNE, OVER 
thirty thousand people come from near and far to the Traipsin' 
Woman's Cabin in Boyd County, Kentucky, eighteen miles south 
of the city of Ashland along the Mayo Trail. They gather in Lost Hope 
Hollow to witness the annual performance of the American Folk Song 
Festival. To the audience, this is an opportunity to get a close-up of the hill 
people in their natural setting, and to hear their music sung and played in 
its native simplicity. To the participants, the Festival, or "singin' gatherin' " 
as they call it, is their chance to participate in a tournament of ballads.^ 

The person who conceived and developed the idea of the American Folk 
Song Festival is Jean Thomas. Jeanette Bell Thomas was born in the Ken- 
tucky foothills. Her father was one of the hill people, but her mother was 
an "outlander"^ who insisted that they live in Ashland. Jean attended high 
school there, and after graduation was employed in a hardware store. Luckily 
for the future of Kentucky music, Jean's education had not included much 
mathematical training and, since her job required bookkeeping which she 
could not do, she was soon discharged.^ She had paid a deposit on a portable 

•Paul Kennedy, "Minstrels of the Kentucky Hills," Travel, 79 (June, 1942), 14. 
' "Outlander": any person not born in the hills. 

'Dorothy Thomas, "That Traipsin' Woman," Independent Woman, 13 (June, 1934), 
169. 



O' 



April, 1946 23 

typewriter and was contributing to the support of her mother, for her father 
had died several years before. Therefore, she was not in a position to hesi- 
tate in accepting work as a travehng court stenographer.* Because her job 
made it necessary for her to "traipse with a passel of lawyers through the 
hills," the hill people called her the Traipsin' Woman.' At first the hill 
people were hostile toward her, for, added to their natural distrust of 
strangers, they found it hard to accept the fact that a woman could be as 
independent as she was.® 

Jean spent her first night in the hills at the home of "Uncle" Lije. The 
knowledge that the room next to hers was occupied by Babe Vinton, an 
accused murderer whose trial she was to attend the next day, so frightened 
her that she was unable to sleep. As she lay in bed, fearing for her life, she 
heard a wistful song echoing through the valley beneath her windows. In- 
stantly, she was out of bed, fear forgotten, and snatching her pad and pencil, 
she began to take down the words of the ballad.' 

This was Jean's first actual contact with mountain music, althougli she 
had been led to an interest in it before this time by her former music teacher, 
with whom she had spent many hours discussing the Elizabethan ballads that 
had come from Scotland and England to the Kentucky hills and remaiiieil in 
their original form there." 

The next morning, Jean was startled to find that the singer of the night 
had been the man who was being tried, Babe Vinton. She was so obviously 
pleased when he was acquitted that she attracted the interest of Granny 
Arimathea Kearey.® Granny Kearey soon became a self-appointed guardian 
to the Traipsin' Woman, and from then on Jean had easy access to any of 
the mountain ballads she tlesired, for no mountaineer would refuse a request 
of Granny Kearey 's.'° 

For nearly a year, Jean traveled through the Big Sandy River country 
with the court. Even though the people were now very friendly and she had 
developed a great interest in their music, she became restless and decided to 
go to New York. In New York, she did secretarial work for such theatrical 
people as Gloria Gould, Lillian Gish, and Cyril Hume. Attracted by the 
glamour of Hollywood. Jean went to the West Coast, where she found work 
as a script writer. When the novelty of this work began to wear off, she 
realized that she was homesick for Kentucky, so she packed up and went 
home. 

Once again Jean traveled through the hills with the "Corte" and, in her 
spare time, listened to the music of the hills. While she was in Hollywood, 

* lean Thomas, The Traipsin W'oviati, New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1933, pp. 

11-14. "'Voices of the Hills," Neics-.i.'eek, 11 (June 6, 1938). 24. 

'Jean Thomas, "I Don't Favor no Traipsin' Wimmin," American Magazine, 107 (May, 

1929), 59. 'Jean Thomas, The Traipsin Jl'oman, pp. 22-23. 

"Dorothy Thomas, op. cit., p. 169. *Jean Thomas, The Traipsin Wotnan, pp. 55-57. 

'"Jean Thomas, "I Don't Favor no Traipsin' Wimmin," p. 59. 



24 The Green Caldron 

she had seen many movies in production that concerned Negro and Indian 
music. The more she heard of Kentucky ballads, the greater grew her desire 
to give people every^vhere a similar opportunity of hearing them. However, 
Jean realized that to take these ballads out of their natural setting w^ould 
destroy much of their beauty.^^ In 1929, when Jean attended the traditional 
"singin' gatherin' " with Granny Kearey, she knew at once that this was 
how she wanted the world to see and hear Kentucky music. 

With the aid of her mountain friends, Jean produced the first American 
Folk Song Festival in 1930.^^ This "remembrance from an old world to the 
new"^^ has now become nationally known. Its advisory board has included 
such people as Irvin S. Cobb, Deems Taylor, Stephen Vincent Benct, Erskine 
Caldwell, and Carl Sandburg." A national society has been formed that has 
as its main interest the continuation of the Festival. 

Tradition and simplicity are the keynotes of the American Folk Song 
Festival. An amateur note is purposely introduced in order to preserve this 
atmosphere. To open the performance, a piper leads a group of girls, 
costumed in clothes suitable for the Lincolnshire dances they perform. These 
girls have been chosen as the prettiest in the Kentucky hills.^^ Following 
them come overalled men, women in gingham Scottish plaids, and children 
in hand-woven linsey-woolseys.^® The participants gather on the rough 
wooden platform which extends before the Traipsin' Woman's log cabin, 
and the singing begins. The aim of the Festival is to build a picture of 
mountain life as it has existed since the beginning of the seventeenth 
century. The music includes all of the songs that concern their birth, their 
"infares" and their "funeralizin's." Also included in the program are play 
songs used in apple butter boilings and corn huskings, and the typical story- 
telling ballads that relate family differences. Each song is sung by the person 
who is recognized by the hill people as being most capable of singing that 
particular selection.^' The performers accompany themselves on their dulci- 
mers, guitars, banjos, fiddles, and harmonicas.^® Thus, as the program draws 
to a close, the audience finds that it has a picture of mountain life. It joins 
the hill people in singing the final ballad, one of the saddest and most be- 
loved, "Down in the Valley": 

Down in the valley, valley so low ; 

Hang your head over, hear the wind blow. 

Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow. 

Hang your head over, hear the wind blow. 

" Dorothy Thomas, op. cit., p. 188. " Kennedy, op. cit., p. 15. 

" Dorothy Thomas, op. cit., p. 169. " Kennedy, op. cit., p. 14. 

'° Dorothy Thomas, op. cit., p. 169. " Kennedy, op. cit., p. 14. 

" Dorothy Thomas, op. cit., p. 188. " Kennedy, op. cit., p. 15. 



ApHl, 1946 25 

Build me a castle, forty feet high, 
So I can see him, as he goes by; 
As he goes by, dear, as he goes by, 
So I can sec him, as he goes by. 

Roses love sunshine, violets the dew, 
Angels in heaven, know I love you ; 
Know I love you, dear, know I love you. 
Angels in heaven, know I love you. 

With the conclusion of the Festival, the mountain people return to their 
work for another year, and their good friend, Jean Thomas, returns to hers 
of lecturing, writing, and traveling up and down the Big Sandy, visiting with 
her mountain friends and ever increasing her store of ballads. Then once 
again will come early summer, when it is time to set out along the Mayo 
Trail to Lost Hope Hollow for another American Folk Song Festival. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Kennedy. Paui.. "Minstrels of the Kentucky Hills," Travel, 79 (June. 1942). 14-15. 
Thomas, Dorothy, "That Traipsin' Woman," Independent IVoinan. 13 ( lunc, 1934), 

169, 188-189. 
Thomas, Iean, "I Don't Favor no Traipsin' Wimmin," American Magazine, 107 (May, 

1929)', 58-60. 
Thomas, Jean, The Traipsin' H'oman, New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1933. 
"Voices of the Hills: Traipsin' Woman is Rallyin)^ Kentucky Minstrels Ai^jain," 

Newsweek, 11 (June 6, 1938), 24. 



"True-Life Drama" 

In my opinion, there are six main kinds of movie stories. The first of these 
is the "true-life drama." This type of picture attempts to portray ordinary 
American life. It supposedly shows the everyday problems of a normal family. 
The heroine of the story is usually a mature but surprisingly beautiful woman 
with an ideal husband and children, a luxurious home, and a sweet, noble disposi- 
tion. During the course of the movie everything goes wrong: her husband 
deserts her for another woman, the mortgage falls due. her daughter elopes 
with a married man, and Junior takes up marijuana. But do these troubles phase 
our lovely heroine ? Not one little bit ! She merely squares her shoulders, blinks 
a tear from her eye. and. with a trembling smile, goes on with life because "she 
must." Eventually, her husband comes back to her and pays the mortgage, her 
daughter returns, explaining that she was only joking, and the man who was 
"tolling Junior marijuana moves on to a new location. As the picture ends, all is 
nee again sweetness and light, and the audience is left sobbing happily. This, 
according to Hollywood, is a true picture of American life. Fellow citizens, how 
do we manage to live through it? — Lois Rudnik 



26 The Green Caldron 

Youth by Joseph Conrad 

and 

The Inheritors by Conrad and F. M. Hueffer 

Caroline Maddox 
Rhetoric I, Theme 9, 1945-1946 



T 



P^TP^HE PEN IN JOSEPH CONRAD'S HAND IS A POTENT IN- 
strument. It creates almost magically intense moods and characters 
with appropriate settings and plots. This is especially evident in the 
volume called Youth, which includes three stories — "Youth," "Heart of 
Darkness," and "The End of the Tether." In The Inheritors, written in 
collaboration with F. M. Hueffer, the creative effort seems less powerful. 

"Youth" is the tale of a voyage on the ill-fated Judea, a true yarn from 
Conrad's own experience. As he says in the Author's Note, it is a "feat of 
memory ... a record of experience [which] in its inwardness and out- 
ward coloring begins and ends in myself." The tale is so nostalgia- 
drenched that the reader cannot help thinking it must have been Conrad 
who "joined" the grimy, leaking, undependable old freighter for his first 
voyage to the East. With the motto "Do or Die" fading on her stern the 
coal-laden old cargo ship met obstacle after obstacle and still limped on 
toward Bankok. Bankok — magic name to the youth who shipped as second 
mate ! To him the dangers and hard work of the journey, storms, leaks, 
delays, the final disaster, all were the romance of living. "There was all the 
East before me," he said, "and all of life, and the thought that I had been 
tried in that ship. ..." 

The flavor of "Youth" is unrestrainedly nostalgic. Of the next tale, 
"Heart of Darkness," the author says, "Anybody can see it is anything but 
the mood of wistful regret, of reminiscent tenderness." It, too, is based on 
experience, but "pushed a little (and only very little) beyond the actual 
facts. ..." Its "sombre theme had to be given a sinister resonance, a tonal- 
ity of its own, a continued vibration that, I hoped, would hang in the air, 
and dwell on the ear after the last note had been struck." Indisputably, the 
sinister resonance effected by the story of a trip into the brooding darkness 
of Africa does dwell on the ear. The man who piloted a little steamer up 
the river to rescue the keeper of an ivory .station felt the spell of "an empty 
stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest . . . the stillness of an im- 
placable force brooding over an inscrutable intention." Years later he shud- 
dered at the remembrance of that vast wilderness which drew white men 
into its depths and then closed pensive, enigmatic darkness around their 
futile lives. 



April, 1946 27 

The last tale in the book is neither as emotional as "Youth," nor as spell- 
binding as "Heart of Darkness." "The End of the Tether" is a gentler story 
of an old captain. Captain Whalley is a memorable character — a gentleman, 
a man who faced misfortune with all his dignity and strength. The only aim 
of his last days was to help his daughter, who had married an invalid. To 
help her he sold his last ship and lived a short while on land, feeling useless 
and idle, knowing he would soon have to start spending the last five hundred 
pounds which he had hoped to send to his daughter. To save the money for 
her, he — who had been Dare-Devil Harry Whalle\', captain of clipper ships, 
discoverer of new sea routes, for whom an island had been named — took 
command of an old steamer, the Sofala, in partnership with a misanthropic 
engineer. He bore the bitter unfriendliness of the engineer, bore everything 
for the sake of his daughter. Even when a terrible catastrophe began to 
destroy his greatest faiths — in a just God and in his own strength — he 
strugglerl on, until he was finally at the "end of the tether." 

The Itilicriiors is called by its authors "An E.xtravagant Story." It is as 
different from Youth as land is from sea, yet the man who brews the spell 
of the sea and of strange settings does almost as well with the strangeness 
of an idea in The Inheritors. 

Conrad and HueflFer have conceived the "Inheritors" as a race of people 
who inhabit the Fourth Dimension, a "plane — invisible to our eyes, but 
omnipresent." The Fourth Dimensionists are, in their "unrealizable infinity 
of space," a "race clear-sighted, eminently practical, incredible; with no 
ideals, prejudices, or remorse; with no feeling for art and no reverence for 
life; free from any ethical tradition; callous to pain, weakness, suffering and 
'.cath. ..." They are to inherit the earth (because their own dimension is 
becoming too crowded) by materializing among us and destroying our whole 
social system. Our system is to "break as a !)eam snaps," because wc are 
worm-eaten with altruism and ethics." 

It seems strange to me that people who live in the infinite space of the 
Fourth Dimension can need the earth. However, the "extravagant story" is 
credibly presented. The hero, an ordinary and unsuccessful author, learned 
about the Fourth Dimensionists from a chance acquaintance along the road 
to Dover. He thought the \oung lady who walked beside him through the 
;ifternoon had a strong imagination, and he refused to accept as truth her 
unemotional description of the race. He was so much intrigued by her 
strangeness and her shadowless beauty that when they came to the place 
where they must part, he asked whether they were to meet again. She 
answered, "Oh, very often." Even then he did not realize that he was 
doomed to become one of her tools in a huge Fourth Dimensionist plot 
involving great statesmen of England and France. 

The plot is full of political intricacies which might make dull reading if 
thev were not mingled with personalities — the hero (defenceless, and mud- 



28 The Green Caldron 

died by his love for the girl); the girl, with her intense, translucent, dispas- 
sionate beauty; all the men whose lives are to be ruined by the Inheritors' 
plans. 

More than the characters or the startling ideas of the book, I enjoyed 
such flashes of Conrad's word magic as these: 

". . . gleaming mist hung in the ragged hedges." 

"Her figure faded into darkness as pale things waver down into deep water." 

"Remembrance of the common at Stelling — of the glimmering white faces 
of the shadowy cottages — was like a cold waft of mist to me." 

The Inheritors flows along rather lightly, in contrast to the intensity of 
the stories in Youth. I prefer the undiluted Conrad magic of Youth. 



Firefighters — Urbana Style 

Joseph Robert Deshayes 
Rhetoric II, Theme 6, 1945-1946 

ILLY HARVEY AND ME, WE'RE THE ONLY TWO MEN 
still livin' that was on the first Urbana Volunteer Fire Force," said 
Charlie Defimbaugh as we chatted about the days when Urbana 
thought itself enough of a town to have a fire department. "Yes, sir, I was 
quite a man back in those days. It was in 1870 if I remember rightly. Yes, 
yes, that's right. I was just thirteen when I joined. I came eighty-eight 
yesterday. We was just a forty-man bucket brigade then, but we got some 
attention in 187L The city voted us a hose reel and hand pump. We was 
a pretty sight in those bright uniforms runnin' to a fire and draggin' that 
equipment behind us." 

The city made a good investment in that pump and hose reel, not to 
forget the twelve buckets that completed the tire equipment. Funds were 
also made available with which each volunteer fireman would be paid three 
dollars and seventy-five cents for every three months tliat he didn't miss a 
fire or a meeting. 

On the same day the great Chicago fire broke out, LTrbana had its great 
fire. It started when some boys were burning the legs off chinch bugs in a 
barn on High Street, between Race and Broadway. At one o'clock on the 
afternoon of October 7, 1871, the volunteers, called from their homes, 
hastened to the fire department, then located at the place where the Plaza 
Hotel now stands. Those forty firemen pumped and sprayed throughout the 
night trying to quench the flames. A brigade of women passed buckets of 
water to the ])umps and empty buckets back to the Bone Yard. "I've laughed 
about it many a time," Charlie said, laughing once again. "Yes, sir, those 



B' 



April, 1946 29 

women were industrious. Fact is, all but a quart of each bucket of water 
had gone up in steam by the time it was dumped into the machine. The fire 
raged on for six blocks north and spread to two blocks wide when it got to 
Main Street." The last embers were put out on the morning of the eighth. 
It had burned out at the I. B. and W. Railroad, now known as the Big Four. 

In 1875 Urbana voted to start putting in water mains. These were a big 
help to the firemen because it had been quite a job for ten men on each side 
f the hand pump whenever a fire lasted ver)- long. 

Colonel Busey took office as mayor of Urbana in 1880. He had been in 

;'!icc three mnnths when the volunteers' August meeting was to take place. 

layor Busey ordered the men not to hold that meeting, because, he reasoned, 

the men would get a keg of beer, and trouble would follow. "Him sayin' that 

hurt mc," Charlie said. "So me and one of the other boys just g! i uv» and 

alked out." That was the beginning of volunteer walkouts. Soon Mayor 

Busey organized a regular force of firemen, whose chief was Mr. Coucher. 

A small volunteer force was still on call. 

In 1897 Urbana purchased its first horse-drawn fire wagon. During the 
first years, horses were rented from the Urbana Livery Stable, hut in 1902 
funds were raised for three teams and two more fire wagons. In 1907 a new 
record was set with a horse-drawn fire wagon; when an alarm was sounded, 
the firemen were out of bed, in the wagon, and out of the station in eleven 
seconds. 

Around 1908 the Urbana Fire Department was moved from 107 N. 
Broadway to its present location, 116 \V. Elm. This station in 1913 housed 
the first motor-driven fire engine to be seen in Champaign County. It could 
travel about thirty-five miles per hour. Once the University fire chief ac- 
cidentally threw the switch of an alarm box located where the Illini Union 
Building now stands. With that fire engine the boys were at the alarm box 
in ninety-two seconds. 

The present chief, Mr. Pittman, has been in the service of the Urbana 
I'ire Department for twenty-six years. His father was assistant chief of the 
department when they worked a one hundred and forty- four hour week. 
Chief riltinan, for that matter, worked twelve years under this same system. 
Xot until 1931 was the twenty-four hour day, six-day week, and ten-day 
imual vacation changed to a two-platoon system. Under the two-platoon 
system ten men are divided into two shifts. Each five-man shift works 
twenty- four out of forty-eight hours. That is an eighty- four hour week. 
Whenever the duty platoon is called out to a fire, the off platoon is called to 
the station to stand by. The fireman draws $162.50 a month, the same pay as 
that earned by the city policeman who works only forty-eight hours a week 
at much less boring work. The men in the duty platoon are not allowed to 
go over fifty feet away from the station during the twenty- four hour shift 
unless they are called to a fire. The old ten-dav annual vacation has been 



30 The Green Caldron 

increased to two weeks. After twenty years' service, if he is fifty years old 
or over, the fireman can retire on one half of his salary. 

At present the city owns one hook and ladder truck and two trucks con- 
taining booster tanks. These latter trucks travel seventy miles per hour and 
weigh seven tons each. For the purchase of new fire equipment, the city 
must float a bond issue. The latest purchase of fire engines for Urbana was 
in 1940, when the two trucks which carry their own water supply were pur- 
chased for $17,350. 

When a call of fire comes into the station, the desk clerk sings out the 
address, and the men are off to the fire. Meanwhile the desk clerk calls the 
University and Champaign Fire Departments as well as the Urbana Water 
Works, giving them the address of the fire and instructions to stand by. If 
necessary, the water works boosts the line pressure to eighty pounds, from 
the average water main pressure of fifty pounds. Chief Pittman said, "We 
can get to a fire nine blocks away from us in one minute. The one thing that 
gets me are those excited people who call up and rave on about 'My house 
is on fire' but don't give an address. I've got a solution to the problem though. 
Make 'em mad, I say, 'What in the Hell's your address?' They cool down 
right away and tell me, but they argue after we're at the fire and have it 
under control that it took us fifteen minutes to get there." 

There are approximately two hundred calls a year, most of them in the 
winter months. The chief said to me, "There have been as many as seven 
calls a day, but on the other hand two weeks have gone by without turnin' a 
wheel. Of course we have false alarms. About three a year, they average. 
Believe it or not, they are usually turned in by some crazy co-ed who wants 
to see the fire engines." The Urbana Fire Department averages seven annual 
calls from outside the corporate limits. It will answer these calls as far as 
five miles out of town and east of the Illinois Central Railroad if the person 
calling has a fire clause in his insurance policy demanding city fire protec- 
tion. Since the cost of this clause is slight it pays every out-of-town property 
owner to have one. The insurance company pays the city clerk one hundred 
dollars for each out-of-town run the fire department makes on its client. 

Urbana's latest fire of any size was in 1943. The basketball finals were 
in progress, and the firemen did not start to bed until about eleven o'clock. 
One of the men took a look around at a quarter to twelve, and all seemed 
well; but just as the last man was going to bed he saw that the Piggly Wiggly 
Store just across the street was a raging furnace at the rear. In less than a 
minute, water was on the fire, but because of faulty alley and building con- 
struction the fire raged on until practically the entire lower floor of the build- 
ing was gutted. 

Chief Pittman stated, "We consider ourselves lucky if we can get to a 
fire before it's out of control, but we consider ourselves luckier that the 
Urbana force has never lost a man while on duty." 



April, 1946 31 

A Night in December 

Mary Lou Solomon 
D. G. S. la, Theme 5, 1945-1946 

I AWAKENED SUDDENLY, NOT KNOWING WHY. THE AIR IN 
my room seemed tight and dry; I sensed danger. As I looked through 
the French windows that faced the north, the darkness of the night was 
intensified by a strange glow in the distance. Just as my eight-year-old mind 
was trying to grasp the phenomenon, the door opened. Daddy, dressed in 
pajamas and robe, came in and sat down on the edge of the bed. 

"Darling," he said, "we're going for a drive now, so let Daddy help 
you with your robe and slippers." 

"But it's night!" I cried. "Why are we going now?" 

He didn't say anything but picked me up in his arms and walked over 
to the north windows. I must have cried out, for his grip tightened around 
me. As far as I could see, the mountains, a block behind our house, appeared 
to be tumbling with flames. The scope of the fire was far reaching, but it 
hadn't approached the foothills which faced our house. The two houses at 
the head of the block, directly below the mountains, then drew my attention. 
The flames shone through their front windows, making them resemble cat's 
eyes glittering in the night. .Shivering, I drew closer to Daddy. 

"Let's get a robe on you," he cried — and looking back, "If it only 
weren't for that damn wind !" 

When he helped me dress, I began to notice disturbances in the house. I 
could hear Mother calling Maida, our week-end guest, and the sound of 
scurrying feet. Daddy was explaining to me that the car was jiarked in the 
drive and that I was to wait for tiiem there. When we came into the hall. 
Mother was there with her arms full of small boxes and packages. 

"We don't have time to pick up much more, Florence," warned Daddy. 
"That wind could sweep down in a matter of minutes once it started blowing 
southward." 

"Yes, I know. I'm just getting a few things. Maida !" she called. 

"Here I am, here I am!" And she bustled out nervously, two long braids 
streaming behind her. The queer procession filed out to the car, which stood 
strong and protective in the driveway. 

"You won't need to wait by yourself now; we'll not bother with any 
more," Daddy whispered to me as I was tucked into a corner of the back 
seat. 

He had started the engine when a dismal howl came from our backyard. 

"Bounce!" I screamed. "Don't forget Bounce!" 

Mother opened the car door and hurried down the drive. A few minutes 



32 The Green Caldron 

later she reappeared with Bottnce straining at his leash. Quivering an4 still 
whining sr>ftly, my beloved Dobennan pinscher snuggled on the floor by my 
feet, resting his head on my knees. Somdiow, I felt calm, knowing h« came 
to me for protection. 

As Daddy eased the car out of the drive, we all turned our faces toward 
the north. Great sheets of flame spread eastward, while tails licked down the 
mountains behind our house, 

"There's no stopping her now," prophesied Dad, "Hell of a lot of good 
those fire breaks do; that wind just fans the flames rij^t orver them." 

Fire engines screeched up the street, spitting gravel to the side of the 
road. Motorcycles preceded them, their sirens wailing. The heat from the 
fire was more intense now; my face felt dry and prickly. We hadn't had rain 
for weeks, so the dried underbrush encouraged any spark. 

"They'll have to call out the I.os Angeles fire engines for this," Dad 
stated, "Our Glendale Department can't b^in to check such a fire. Probably 
some careless UkA with a cigarette," he mused. 

.Suddenly Mother l>egan to laugh. "Maida, what in the world do you 
have in your hand?" 

We all looked at the ball of Christmas twine she gripped tightly. Smiling 
' ' ' ' -. she confessed, "I just grabfjed the first thing, I guess," and ! '-r 
f. showed confusion. 

Gfjing down the main highway for almost a half mile, we caroe to the 
home of my great-aunt and uncle. 

"fxt's stop to see if Ella and Albert are all right," Mother urged As 
we stopped in front, we saw them standing on the lawn, their gray hearls 
turned toward the mountains. 

As he stepped out of the car, Dad said, "Yr/u can't keep the fire away 
with those," There they stood, each holding a hose and spraying the 
shrubbery. 

"No," admitted Uncle Albert, "but we mijg^ be able to save some of 
those rose trees from ruin. The fire won't come down here, bat the heat 
might kill them." 

"The winrl's changing to the srjuth, just as I expected." Dad warned. 
"There's nothing to stop it from coming down here now." 

"F'erhaps," Uncle said, "but we'll stay. If it gets too bad, we can leave 
in f/ur car." 

We left them standing like two sentinels guarding a fortress. The wind 
had increased in its violence; it carried pebUes and pieces of vegetation in 
its wake. Occasionally cinders swe^^t by; and smoke, thick as any California 
fog, filled our lungs. Others, fleeing their homes as we had done, were 
motoring down the road. Curious spectators had arrived to watch the njght; 
however, 1 felt only resentment for them. All of us were cpmpeOed by some 
inner desire to watch our enemy as it leaped across the mountains. Faces 



=.fnJ, 1916 .v' 

re<i5cd against car winuows were horritievi. \et unable to turn away. Some- 
Mi explained that the tire had started in Sunset Canyon a tew miles to the 
\\ est. Dad >\-as somber now, not sa\nng much. I knew that he was wx)rried, 
nd any excitement that remained quickly turned to fear. 

The sky was ha^y but ligliter when we returned home four hours later. 

l>y some miracle, the wind had again changed, but this time to the north. 

vt had been saved just as the flames had reached the - a 

y. Dad thought that the heat wouldn't be too noticeal .. so 

returned home. Rose trees snapped in half and a dangling a>\iiing were 
ce of the wind's destruction. .\s the car turned up the drive, my e>"es 

cd the house for other changes. To mc ■': v.i.vn! • , •i\m", 'i :3n.1 

ippiness — my o>vn world. 
"Is it the same?" I asked. 

"Of course it's the same," Mother comforted me. "The t^ame didn't 
touch our house" Rut a sense of insecurity' had entered my heart; doubt 
filled mv mind. Was it really the same? 



Yeah. Joe Made It. But — ! 

Robert Singer 

Rkft^ffu: I, Tkrm4^ 4, I04S'T946 

OUR ORCHESTRA WAS ORGANIZED JUST FOR THE FUX 
of it. The abilities of the bo)-s, addevi and multiplied, and then 
doublcvl. would probably neN-er r ■■' •^- - .ibilitA' of Benny (wxxinian's 
Ivmd boy, but we had fun. Every Satu: : we'd get tt^ether in roll's 

\sement, sutmeone would carr>- in pretzels and beer, and away we'd go. The 
. "r< would l>e the old ones: "Melancholy Raby," "Stardust" "Margie," 
..> 11 Street" — all old standard stulT e\-er>\)ne knows so ^-ell. 
The instr\nnentatk>n was novel: a piano, twx> accordions, drums, guitar, 
-^^x. and trumj^t. It doesn't sound lik-e much of a combination, and I guess 
: wasn't. We were nondescript musicians at best. Music >vas our hobby, 
^t the fire of our lives. After all. v^-e were only an assortment of mechanics, 
orks, and tool and die mak-ers. Still, ojice \^-e tacklexl something — say "The 
■^heik" — \-ou could be pretty sure we'd get through it — one way or another. 
And I suppose we owed a lot of that to Joe. He was our trumpet man, 
maybe just a little bit better than the rest of us. His solos weren't at all 
reminiscent of Harn*' James, or Runny Berigan. Xo, those men ^^■ould be tar 
from \-our mind as, and if, j^ou listened. WTiat he sounded like was what 



34 The Green Caldron 

you think you'd sound like after a year or two of hit and miss practicing. 
Still, he did have a certain drive and punch, and an enthusiasm that v^e 
always missed when he wasn't there. In fact when he wasn't there, it was 
almost just too bad. The beat would drag, my sax would honk, and Bill 
would get his accordion opened about two feet and crash it closed. No, we 
needed Joe to exist. Everything seemed to fall into place when he came. The 
nights he wasn't there, we'd give up, put away the instruments, and just sit 
around and play records. 

Well, one night Joe rushed in saying he'd booked us for a job at Kom- 
blondurgowski's saloon — for Saturday night. Naturally we roared our 
protests: "Dammit, Joe, we told you — !" "You know we ain't good 
enough!" "What if you don't show up?" Somehow, he overcame all of our 
arguments and obtained our reluctant consent. Joe, in a high spirit of antici- 
pation, led us so well that we forgot our fears and we began to chatter of 
how well we'd go. We broke up late, everything arranged for Saturday night. 

When Saturday night came, we were all set up in G. (Gregory) Kom- 
blondurgowski's saloon. All, that is, but Joe. We sat there and tuned up, 
but didn't dare to play. And that made it tough. Gregory's customers were 
fellows from the steel mills; their girls worked at the local Harvester works; 
and they were a simple, direct sort of people who knew what they wanted. 
Just then, they wanted to hear some music — and no delay. The atmosphere 
became more and more unfriendly, and we quaked and shivered. Finally, 
gathering up our courage, we labored into "Stardust." And then — disaster ! 
Bill was taking the lead and had just reached that high "G" he had to hold 
for four beats, when he decided to clear the wind out of his accordion. The 
resultant discord so frightened me, I bit through the mouthpiece of my sax 
and started to honk. Everyone on the floor stopped in amazement and dis- 
gust; above the disapproving grumble of the crowd rang Bill's nervous cackle 
as he knocked over his music. We stopped, and sank back praying for Joe. 

Just then he came, carrying his trumpet, all ready to play. 

"Joe," we whispered, "where the hell have you been?" 

"At the dentist's," he puffed. "Had a tooth pulled." Hastily we reorgan- 
ized ourselves, and with Joe ready to take the lead. Herb gave us a slow 
four beats to set the tempo for "Time on My Hands." With a flourish, Joe 
swept the horn to his lips and blew. "Bloof, bloof, blowf," went Joe. He 
couldn't play! His jaw was so numb from the dentist's anesthetic that all 
he could do was blubber into the horn. 

So, like the Arabs, we packed up our instruments and silently stole away. 

After that, our enthusiasm gone, things never seemed the same. Now, 
years later, I've heard that Bill has sold his accordion, that Herb's kids have 
broken his drums, and that Joe's a bugler in the army. 



April, 1946 35 

Friendship — Taboo 



M;: 



Earl J. Wolf 
Rhetoric I, Theme 7, 1945-1946 

CREW AND I ARRIVED IX ENGLAND ALONG WITH 
Art Mosley's in July of '43. Both crews liad gone through combat 
training side by side here in the States and had developed a re- 
markable spirit of friendship. Since we were all assigned to the same bom- 
bardment group, we were very happy about the whole deal. 

The officers of these two crews composed one of the most happy-go- 
lucky, hell-raising bunch of fellows that our squadron had seen in quite 
some time. For the first few weeks no one went anywhere without the other 
seven. No matter what the occasion — eating, flying, sightseeing, ale-drink- 
ing in local pubs, bull sessions — this gang of ours always stuck together. 
We even arranged to have our quarters in the same H.O.Q. I can't begin to 
express the strong bond of friendship that existed among us. 

This friendship was a forceful thing — and we all knew it. It was seen 
and felt by many of the other fellows in the outfit, and it was the topic for 
discussion in more than one bull session. Some of the older combat men had 
a deathly dread of it, but none ever bothered to explain why. We all figured 
that they were either jealous or just snobbish, for they had completed more 
missions than we. This attitude didn't worry us at all; in fact, after we dis- 
(iivered their attitude, we went around together raising more hell than ever. 

Then came the first raid, which was both a shocking blow and a rude 
awakening to those of our gang who survived. Now don't get me wrong. 
The raid was what we had lived and trained for, and we were all very eager 
to get into combat. After the mission was completed, we landed; and as my 
ship rolled to a stop, Paul Coad, Frank Ramsey, and I jumped out and ran 
over to Moe's ship, which had been hit pretty badly. Over the target area 
Jake Frasier, Moe's navigator, had been killetl instantly by a piece of flak 
through the head. Red Heap, Moe's bombardier, was also in bad shape; he 
had been wounded in four places. When the "meat wagon" came up, we 
helped to load the two fellows and then climbed in to go with them to the 
field hospital. This was the gang; where one went we all went. 

Up in the club about two hours later, when the rest of us were sitting 
around in a daze, I slowly began to realize just how terrible it is to have a 
close friend in combat. This sitting around thinking was bad enough, but 
the worst came that night. I don't believe any of the gang got much sleep; 
I know I didn't. My thoughts were of Jake — never again would we have 
thai slim, slow-talking Texan with us — and of Red Heap, lying alone in 
Ihe base hospital. 



36 The Green Caldron 

Twice more we went out on raids, and then it happened to both our 
crews. Moe's plane caught a direct flak hit in the bomb-bay and blew up over 
the target. No one in the ship had a chance. In my crew, Ramsey, the navi- 
gator, was killed by a piece of flak through his head, like Jake. This left only 
two of the group, Paul Coad, my bombardier, and me. 

It was very lonesome at first — just the two of us — no more laughing, 
hell-raising gang as in the old days, a month ago. Sure, there were replace- 
ments, and most of them were damn swell lads, but Paul and I had learned 
our lesson well. Our friendship was something that we could do nothing 
about now, but we had made up our minds that as long as we remained in the 
combat zone there would be no more real friends. Oh, I don't mean that we 
walked around like mummies; we talked, laughed a little, and got drunker 
than usual with the rest of the lads — but never again did we allow ourselves 
to develop the kind of friendship that had existed between the members of 
our original gang. 



"Prospect of Whitby'' 

James E. Zemek 
Rhetoric II, Theme 5, 1945-1946 

N THE EAST BANK OF THE THAMES, IN THE TEEMING 
slums of Limehouse, lies one of the most unusual places that I have 
ever seen. It is a public house called the "Prospect of Whitby." The 
"Prospect" is right on the river, the pilings supporting its back porch sunk 
in the turgid waters. This particular "pub" has been the scene of murders 
and riots, but though its reputation is not at all savory, visitors never fail 
to get a thrill out of merely entering it. From the standpoint of local color, 
the "Prospect" probably outranks even the fabled "Cheshire Cheese." 

Years ago, during the heyday of the East and West India Companies, 
the "Prospect" was built near the West India Docks to accommodate thirsty 
sailors fresh off their ships, and to the present day it has been serving them. 
Of course, its war-time customers, instead of bringing loads of tea and 
spices from the Indies, undoubtedly were more used to bringing food up 
through the Channel over the protests of the Messerschmitts and the big 
guns of Calais. The "Prospect of Whitby" still serves a large number of 
Lascars, of course, and they are what make visits to Limehouse so risky. 
The Lascars are big, strapping Indian sailors who are definitely better left 
alone. It would be false, however, to say that they don't give a priceless 
atmosphere. 




April, 1946 37 

The "Prospect of Whitby" serves an excellent brand of ale, as the writer 
can testify, and it is positively a rich experience to walk into the "pub's" 
smoking room, lay down your 1 s. 6 d. and get a pint of bitter, or mild 
and bitter if you prefer. Then, a quiet stroll into the public room (under the 
suspicious stares of the Cockneys with their pulled-down caps) brings you 
to the relics of the past. There are krises from Singapore, dirks from Aden, 
daggers from China, spears from the Andamans. There are skulls of poor 
unfortunates fished out of the Thames, and, most recent relics, bomb frag- 
ments of the Hun (Limehouse suffered terribly from the blitz). With a 
little tact, you might be able to get a sea story from an old Cockney tar 
provided you see that the telling of it doesn't make him dry. All through 
your visit at "Prospect" the diminutive Thames tugboats keep up their 
tooting, and if you don't exercise moderation you find yourself longing for 
the life of the sea with a terrific intensity. 

If you visit the "Prospect of Whitby" in the afternoon, and you later 
observe the light of day failing it is very wise to depart before total darkness 
sets in. At night Limehouse is verv' unhealthful for those who "don't belong." 
The visitor to London, however, who goes to the trouble of seeking out this 
lamous old pub will never regret it. The clement of danger involved is en- 
thralling, the memory priceless and to be cherished. 

M. P. at Work 

Uncle Sam's Military Police are a quiet, inconspicuous, highly trained group 
i>f men who are constantly on the alert for anything out of the ordinary and 
whose keen eyes seldom miss the smallest detail. Never did I realize this fact 
until last Wednesday evening. 

My R.O.T.C. drill period comes on Wednesday from three o'clock until five 
o'clock. Federal inspection was to be held the following Friday, so we marched, 
marched, marched, and marched some more. I was dead tired after leaving the 
Armory, and when I got home I did not feel like changing my clothes. I merely 
took off my blouse, belt, and cap. I had a pretty important letter to get off that 
evening and, after writing it, decided the best thing to do was to mail it at the 
sub-postal station. Without a further thought I headed for Jackson's Drug Store, 
where the station was, and posted my letter. 

I then remembered that my 100-watt light bulb had burned out and that I 
needed another one. There were several brands: Mazda, Ken-Rad. V-Ray. I was 
contemplating which to choose when I felt someone tap me gently on the 
shoulder. From out of nowhere an ordinary-looking soldier had appeared. He 
quietly showed me a badge and said in a low voice, "Military Police, bud. Are 
you in the army?" 

Then I remembered. I was still wearing my G.I. pants, shirt, and tie — but 
no blouse, belt, or cap. I stammered, "No sir, the R.O.T.C." 

"Got any credentials or identification?" was the immediate reply. 

I quickly produced my wallet and showed him my student identification card 
and my duplicate receipt for my R.O.T.C. uniform. He took a quick glance at 
them, asked my age, and returned my papers. With a whispered "O.K.," he 
vanished as suddenly as he had appeared. — Ben Duster 



38 The Green Caldron 

Dance of Death 

Rose Enevold 
Rhetoric II, Theme 5, Summer, 1945 

IN THE LATE SPRING ONE MAY SEE THAT STRANGE BUT 
joyous tragedy, the dance of death of the May flies. They come into 
the world for a day, dance and frolic themselves to death, and are gone. 

The dainty May fly is a strange creature. It eats nothing from the time 
it hatches until the moment of its death. It doesn't even possess a mouth 
with which it might eat if it cared to. 

Equally strange is the birth of the May fly. The original egg is laid by a 
May fly two or three seasons before the emergence of the adult. The egg 
sinks into the bottom of a body of water and there hatches into the larva, 
which keeps growing and developing into higher forms. The skin or shell of 
the larva will not stretch; when it becomes too tight to hold the growing 
larva, it bursts open and a new and looser one forms, which is worn until 
it again becomes too tight. It, likewise, is burst and discarded. Eventually 
the larva starts upward toward the surface. As it reaches the surface of the 
water, it again loses its skin; what emerges this time, however, is a dainty 
May fly, very different from the water creature it was a few moments 
before. It used to breathe through gills like a fish; now it breathes air, and 
would drown if it were thrust under water. 

The new creature stretches its wings and flutters away to a near-by twig. 
Again it sheds its skin, even to the covering of its wings. It is strange in 
this also, since scientists say that it is the onl}^ creature which sheds its skin 
after it has acquired wings. Then it flies away on its endless dance until the 
time of death. 

Out there in the sky, the May fly finds its mate. The two frolic together 
for about an hour. Then they part, and each goes on and on, endlessly, until 
the last bit of vitality in its body is spent. 

It is on this day of the dance of death that the May flies lay their eggs. 
Many May flies head inland, congregating about the street lamps and other 
bright lights that attract them. These fail in their purpose. Eggs, unless they 
are laid over water, will not hatch. However, most of the May flies fulfill 
adequately their reproductive function. They float up and down in the sun 
over the water, directed by instinct to plant their eggs where they will have 
a chance to hatch into other generations of May flies. Then, exhausted, they 
drop to a watery grave. 

Their duty is performed, their final mission accomplished, and their 
dance of death completed. 



April, 1946 39 

Victory Cafe 



rrp^H] 

1 1 



Robert T. Cloud 
Rhetoric I, Theme 4, 1945-1946 

fnr^HE TOW'X WAS DARK. ONLY A FEW FEEBLE LAMPS 
burned in the houses along the street, and the sordid interiors gave no 
invitation to ask directions. A dog started barking at our heels. A 
kick, a squeal of pain, and he ceased to annoy us. This was a dirty little 
town on Mindanao; this was civilization, our first in many months. Some- 
where around here was the Victory Cafe — but where? The soft tinkling 
of a piano gave us direction and led us to a large shack set up about fifteen 
feet on posts. Joe went first, then Al, and I followed last up a flight of 
rickety stairs and under a newly painted sign, I'ictory Cafe. 

The place was far from crowded; a few F"ilipino girls were dancing 
together to a hybrid tune played on a battered piano. More girls were sitting 
about sipping drinks and all were obviously familiar with the life of 
prostitution. 

The only males we saw were the Filipino piano player and two American 
soldiers drinking at one of the tables. They waved us over and offered drinks. 
We accepted. It was medical alcohol and grapefruit juice. A few more 
rounds, and ever}lhing looked brighter. Soon the Victory Cafe was a nice 
place. 

I drifted over to the piano player and was fascinated by the resemblance 
between his big white teeth and the keys of the piano. I pulled up a chair 
and requested song after song. He was pleased with all the attention and I 
was starved for music. I fed him cigarettes, the boy fed me drinks, and we 
all enjoyed the music. Everybody was happy. 

More fellows came in. More bottles were passed around. The other crews 
had found the Victory Cafe and things began to happen. A football game was 
in progress on the dance floor; a long forward pass — and a bottle went 
through a window pane. A soldier was throwing tables and chairs out a 
window; he was showing his newly acquired girl friend how to play bom- 
bardier. A conga line weaved its staggering way across the room, up on a 
chair, over a table, onto another chair, and then back to the floor. The 
couples that had gathered in the various dark comers didn't even look up. 

Everybody was happy. I fell asleep. 



40 The Green Caldron 

Next to Valor 

I always did think that Bob was sort of a "funny" guy, but I never realized 
how "funny" he really was until that night on the lines. 

When we were taking our basic back in '42, we had a "falling out" because 
of some misunderstanding on his part and stupidity on mine. I didn't like him 
mainly because he was from northern California and I didn't like Californians. 
"Bob Seitzermen is my name and anyone that doesn't like it can go to hell," were 
his exact words the first time he greeted the company. But after that he was as 
quiet as could be and never griped about details, or KP, or insolent sergeants. 
Even when I was sergeant and ordered him around, he didn't say much. I knew 
he didn't like me, but I wasn't worried. 

Maybe that's why I was so surprised when he offered to follow me on a 
dangerous and important raid — dangerous enough to kill Bob and important 
enough to save many American lives. Maybe that's why I used to think about 
Bob when I was flat on my back on some cot in a base hospital on Guadalcanal. 
He never went out and got drunk like the rest of us, he never had a decent re- 
mark for anyone, he never wrote or received any letters from home, he never 
carried a picture of some girl in his wallet, he seemed to hate his very existence. 

Last I heard, the army was looking all around for a relative of his to accept 
a Silver Star, a Distinguished Service Cross, and a Purple Heart for Bob's valor 
in action. 

Sometimes I wonder how Bob is doing up there, but don't worry about it too 
long. I would have paid plenty, though, to see the look on old St. Pete's face 
when he opened those pearly gates and heard Bob exclaim, "Bob Seitzermen is 
my name and anyone that doesn't like it can go to hell !" — C. D. Orphan 



Rhet as Writ 



All of the gasoline stations are closed or just too lazy to come out in the 
cold and drizzling w^eather. 



If dead, I'd look in Who's Who in America. If alive, I'd look in the Dic- 
tionary of American Biography. 



• • • • 



Oh, Bob, you perfect little angle. 

• • • • 

Her golden hair shines as it simmers dow^n her back. 



• • • 



The basis for all factors considered on w^hy I am a Baptist is why 
shouldn't I be one. 



Honorable Mention 

Murray Babcock — Development of the Sikorsky Helicopter 

Margaret Durham — Old Muddy 

Fred Elesh — It Floats Through the Air ! 

Ned Fleishman — Mickey Mouse as a World Figure 

Stephen Honet — Lines — Just Beginning to Fade 

William Jolly — Heavy Water — Its Discovery and Significance 

James Kessler — Release from the Army 

Mona Lee Kessler — Mask and Wig 

Pauline Longworth — Train-Crew Legislation 

James Milne — Lost 

Myron Reynolds — The Causes of General Benedict Arnold's Treason 

Alice Ross — A Walking Shadow 

Millicent Simonds — A Treatment of Sherwood's Idiot's Delight and 
There Shall Be No Night 

Julia Stahl — Chippendale Furniture 

Ross Titus — Magna Charta — Its Birth and Significance 

Robert Wallace — Airmen's Unseen Enemy 

Edward Wickersham — The American Press on the Atlantic Charter 



(2^ -^^^ ^(i(^4jU^ . 

HE Green Caldron 



A Magazine of Freshman Writing 

" 'HRAftY U^ IML 

MAY 2 I'l. 

James Rominger: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes 1 

Lillian Gilbert: "The Goateed Fuehrer" 3 

Carlo Ghilarducci: Childhood in Tuscany 11 

Jack M. Campbell: "Klonker" 13 

Caroline Maddox: Rain on Saturday 14 

Daniel Deitch: Liberation from the East 18 

George J. Moody: Basic Training — Oh! 20 

Harold Pendleton: Anatole France by Joseph Axelrad .... 22 

William Grubb: More Than Human 23 

Caroline Maddox: The Drafting of an Aeronautical Chart ... 25 

Robert C. Wallace: Airmen's Unseen Enemy 27 

Bi77 K. /////; Objective — Guadalcanal 28 

Alice Ross: . . . Walking Shadow 30 

William Gothard: The Political Disgrace of 1876 32 

Rhet as Writ 39 



VOL. 15, NO. 4 MAY, 1946 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



JLhe Green Caldron is published four times a year by the 
Rhetoric Staff at the University of IlHnois. Material is chosen 
from themes and examinations written by freshmen in the Uni- 
versity. Permission to publish is obtained for all fuH themes, 
including those published anonymously. Parts of themes, how- 
ever, are published at the discretion of the committee in charge. 

The committee in charge of this issue of The Green Caldron 
includes Miss Constance Nicholas and Messrs. Robert Geist, 
John Hamilton, Ben Porzak, and George Scouffas, Chair- 
man. 

The Green Caldron is for sale at the Information Office, 
157 Administration Building (West), Urbana, Illinois. 



THE GREEN CALDRON 

copyrighted 1946 
BY THE university OF ILLINOIS 

All rights reserved 
No part of this periodical may be repro- 
duced in any form without permission in 
writing from the publisher. 



Smoke Gets in Your Eyes 

James Rominger 

Rhetoric I, Theme 4, 1945-1946 

I MAD BEEN CHOSEN, BUT IT WAS NO HONOR. A FLIP OF 
a penny had determined the choice. It was a duty which had to be 
performed, and I would do it. I collected the necessary cash from 
my four comrades, and, with last-minute shouts of "Good luck" ringing in 
my ears, I strode confidently toward the store. My confidence halted at the 
door and refused to go further. There was notiiing to do but go on without it. 
I slunk over to where the proprietor was standing; without looking at him, 
I pointed into the case between us. "Mr, er-uh, could I have a package of 
cigarettes?" I blurted out as I "plunked down" fifteen old, dirty pennies on 
the glass counter. 

"What you want them for, keedo?" the man asked suspiciously. 

I was trying to act casual about the purchase, but I was shaking like a 
leaf. The proprietor probably thought I was palsied at a very young age. 
The look of guilt in my eyes had melted and run over my entire countenance. 
I tried to answer, but nothing came out of my open moulh. Every muscle 
in my body was tense. I felt the heat from a multitude of imaginary eyes 
gazing ui)on me in shame. I wanted to turn and run, but the fifteen pennies 
were scattered over the counter. Finally, I was able to stammer something 
to the effect that I wanted them for my dad. 

"Did your pop give you this money?" the proprietor inquired, growing 
even more suspicious. 

"No," I said proudly. "That's our money." 

I suddenly realized my mistake and tried to cover up. I managed to say 
something that put across the idea that my sister and I had saved the pennies 
and were buying Dad a package of cigarettes for his birthday. It was late 
in July at the time, and my dad's birthday had been in early May. Also my 
dad smoked cigars rather than cigarettes, but luckily the storekeeper knew 
nothing about my dad's personal affairs. 

"O. K.," he said gruffly, "but the only brand we got for fifteen cents is 
John Paul Jones. I don't know whether your poppa will like them or not." 

I assured him that Dad would like them all right, grabbed the package, 
and ran out of the store. 

My fellow conspirators were eagerly waiting for me just outside. We 
scurried across the street and down the alley, finally arrived at our hideout, 
which was an old, deserted barn in the center of a city block. After the 
necessary discussion of my episode in the store, we solemnly proceeded into 



[ 1 ] 



2 The Green Caldron 

the barn. Hurriedly tearing open the package, each of us nonchalantly 
took a cigarette. Although we were really old hands at the game of smoking, 
this was our first whole package. We had practiced on butts from the street 
gutters for several days, and so we proceeded to light up skillfully wath 
our two hands cupped. We always carried plenty of matches because one of 
the gang usually burned three or four matches per cigarette. The poor fellow 
was cross-eyed. 

As the smoke curled up toward the cobwebbed ceiling, we began to 
pretend we were gangsters in a hideout. We let cigarettes hang carelessly 
from the corners of our mouths. We snorted nicotine-laden fluid through 
our tender nostrils. Our baby-blue e3^es turned a ghastly, villainous green. To 
accentuate our appearance as rough and tough men of the underworld, we 
constantly flicked the ashes from the rapidly dwindling cigarettes. To ex- 
press great emotional distress, characteristic of gangsters, we slowly raised 
the cigarettes to our lips, took long, nerve-quieting puffs, and threateningly 
squinted our eyes. As we exhaled a slow but continuous stream, a hazy, 
far-awa}^ look came over our eyes. One fellow got an especially hazy look 
and "passed out." We conversed in a low monotone as if we were planning 
a sneak attack on a peaceful, law-abiding family in the loft. We spat inces- 
santly on the dirt floor. 

The illusion was complete in every detail, but the slightest disturbance 
from without immediately shattered the illusion. At the sound of approach- 
ing footsteps, each of us would prepare immediately to douse his "cig." 
Luckily nobody came near the place that day, but we were alert for any and 
all sounds. 

We smoked the cigarettes beyond the stub stage until we almost had the 
ashes themselves in our mouths. A couple of us burned our fingers in our 
Scotch efforts. Then, dramatically, we threw what was left toward the floor. 
Sometimes the remains disintegrated and disappeared in mid-air, solving 
our problem of destroying the evidence. If the butt hit the floor, we 
stomped it out of sight. What was left of the pack we hid in the tile foun- 
dation and cautiously emerged from our lair. The sweet-smelling fresh air 
was welcome, but it instantly made us conscious of our own sweet-smelling 
breaths. We chewed on blades of grass, ate green apples, and blew our 
breaths in one another's faces to test their sweetness. We then "broke up" 
and set out for our respective homes. It rained that night, and our cigarettes 
were ruined. But we dried out the tobacco and ingeniously used it for 
pipe smoking. 

We were finally forced to give up the whole smoking affair. First, we 
were afraid of being caught and punished. Second, we lacked the necessary 
funds for such an expensive pastime. And third, we didn't want to stunt 
our growth. After all, we were only eight. 



May, 1946 

"The Goateed Fuehrer'' 



T 



Lillian Gilbert 
Rhetoric II, Theme 12, 1945-1946 

nr^KAVEL HAS CEASED TO BE A NOVELTY TO US. THE 
great improvements in transportation during the past years have so 
lessened distances that we no longer marvel at going from Chicago 
to New York in tliree or four hours. But, unfortunately, our delicate minds 
cannot as yet comprehend a journey to heaven and back in seven minutes, 
a journey William Dudley Pelley claims to have taken. 

Although he was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, Pelley, the son of a 
Methodist clergyman, received his education in Springfield. When he was 
seventeen, he left school for the glamor of the business world. His entrance 
into the paper-manufacturing industry was timely, and he earned $75,000 
by the age of twenty-one.' A few years later Pelley owned and directed 
several evening newspapers in New England. As a newspaper publisher, he 
cultivated his interest in journalism and learned the fundamentals of print- 
ing and the tricks of writing that he was to use in later years in an avalanche 
of literature stressing racial discrimination, anti-Communism, and pro- 
Nazism. Intentionally or not, William Pelley schooled himself well for his 
life's work. 

When World War I broke out in 1914, Pelley was surveying Protestant 
missions in the Far East for the Methodist Centenary and the Rockefeller 
Foundation. He joined the Red Cross in Siberia and worked in Czechoslo- 
vakia and White Russia. It was in Siberia that he realized how "World 
Jewry" was plotting to enslave the gentiles.* The Russian Revolution in 1917 
convinced him that the Reds, backed by Jewry, were dangerous. Perhaps it 
was Pelley 's close association with future Nazis which led him to believe 
that prominent Aryans would be alive today if it were not for Jew-admin- 
istered poison.^ In this theory, he agrees with General LudendorfT. com- 
mander of the German Army, 1914-18, and Adolph Hitler. They said the 
German Army was never defeated on the field of battle, but rather by tricky 
diplomacy and a stab in the back by the Jews. I wonder to what Pelley is 
attributing the German defeat in 1945. He can hardly blame the Jews, as 
they were practically extinct in Germany before the United States entered 
the conflict. 

' Samuel Lovinson, "Pelley's Kampf," Avicrica, New York: Donbleday, Doran, 

Christian Century, 57 (April 10, 1940). S: Co., 1940, p. 177. 

478. ' Stanley High, "Star-Spangled Fascists," 

'Harold Lavine, The Fifth Column in Saturday Evening Post. Ill (May 27, 

1939), 8. 



4 The Green Caldron 

After the war, Pelley returned to the United States and lived a normal 
life as a script writer in Hollywood. He wasn't very successful, and, typi- 
cally, he blamed the Jews for his failure. When the Welt-Dienst attacked 
Hollywood as the center of Judaism, and Fritz Kuhn demanded a "thorough 
cleansing of the Hollywood film industry of all alien subversive elements," 
Pelley wrote an article in the Liberation entitled "Who's Who in Holly- 
wood — Find the Gentile."* 

Then the miracle happened ! On a warm spring evening in April, 1928, 
William Dudley Pelley died and went to heaven. What is unusual? Many 
people live good lives and are admitted to heaven after their death. However, 
Mr. Pelley returned to earth to tell us about it. He wrote a number of arti- 
cles entitled "Seven Minutes in Eternity." He told how two young men in 
white uniforms caught him up as he traveled through "blue space." His 
conversation with the inhabitants of the other world informed him of the 
after-life and heaven. After his "lesson," he was whisked away by a blue 
vapor and awoke in his Hollywood bed feeling ilF — no doubt from the 
strain of his journey. 

Now came the change in Pelley 's life. He was no ordinary man that God 
permitted to live on earth. He said of himself that "A prophet of God and 
the head of a New Christ Government has come to earth." He told how he 
received messages from the Great Pyramid on the right bank of the Nile 
River, "which is a great allegory of spiritual values."*' He forswore tobacco, 
liquor, coffee, and tea and decided to serve his country by saving it from the 
Jews and Communists. He won't die again until 1962, and by that time the 
world should be running smoothly. His articles gained him a large number 
of followers who were worried about their souls after death and wanted the 
"low down" from one who had been to heaven and knew. These fanatics 
later became the nucleus of the Silver Shirt Legion of America. 

Pelley also informed the people about his right-hand man, the Oracle, 
who protected him from the plots of Jews and Communists. The Oracle is 
a little ghost that dictated Pelley's book, No More Hunger. According to 
Pelley's (or the Oracle's) plan, poverty would be eliminated by converting 
the United States into one great corporation representing the wealth of the 
nation. Every citizen would have an annual credit of $1000, would be a 
stockholder, and would share in the dividends. One city in each state should 
be reserved for the Jews — a sort of "Beth Haven"; or else the Jews and 
Negroes could live on reservations with the Indians. In this book Pelley also 
says that Roosevelt is really Rosen feldt, of Dutch- Jewish ancestry, and that 
WPA aid was denied American-born workers.'' The Oracle was evidently a 
little confused when he dictated this information, which cannot be proven. 

* Michael Sayers, Sabotage, New York " Lavine, op. cit., p. 173. 
and London: Harper & Brothers, 1942, 'Levinson, op. cit., p. 477. 
p. 227. ' Ibid. 



May, 1946 5 

For the next few years, Pelley continued writing about eternity and the 
after-life. While publishers shuddered at his name, his following increased. 

On January 30, 1933, the day after Hitler took over the Third Reich, 
Pelley organized the Silver Shirt Legion of America, inspired by a conver- 
sation with Hitler via thought waves." With their headquarters in Asheville, 
North Carolina, the Silver Shirts soon ranked high among the "Star-Span- 
gled Fascists" and were looking forward to der Tag in the United States. 
Pelley claimed he wasn't pro-Nazi at his trial in 1942, but on June 22, 1933, 
he wrote to Henry O. Spier, Nazi agent and editor in New York, "The 
adroit thing to do is let a spontaneous American movement be born here 
that has exactly similar principles and precepts to Hitler's, that shall be 
American in character and personnel, and that shall work shoulder to 
shoulder with German aims and purposes."* He also offered to print Nazi 
literature on a reciprocal agreement. The extent of subversive movements in 
the United States was little realized by the American people before Pearl 
Harbor. By that time, our enemies were so deeply entrenched that we had to 
battle fiercely to rout them out. 

The Silver Shirts grew so quickly that they were divided into nine 
district organizations covering twenty-five states: the New England, Man- 
hattan, Cajjital, I'acific, Southern, Gulf, Great Lakes, Prairie, and Mountain 
districts.'" The local groups, "Councils of Safety," were composed of ten 
members each. Every member signed an application card giving his height, 
weight, physical disabilities, and previous military exijerience. It was a well- 
centralized organization. Each local group had its liaison officer, who was 
responsible to the state liaison officer, who in turn was subordinate to the 
executive committee.'* Pelley, as national commander, A. H. Topler, comp- 
troller, and Roy Zachary, secretary and "field marshal." composed the 
executive committee. Since Pelley had five votes and Zachary and Toplar 
only three votes between them, all policies were decided upon by Pelley.'* 

The group's main function was to read Pelley's speeches and distribute 
copies of Pelley's Weekly. However, the Silver Shirts became linked with 
the P)lack Legion, which was organized as a military group and divided into 
squads. Each squad was given a "patriotic assignment" such as flogging, 
arson, or murder and was checked upon so that the work was well done." 
The Silver Shirts came to resemble the Ku Klux Klansmen, and became 
closely allied with the German Bund as Pelley often addressed Bund 
meetings.'* 

•"Tarnished Stiver Shirt," Newsweek, "High, op. cit., p. 8. 

19 (April 13. 1942), 29. " Lavine. op. cit, p. 184. 

'George Britt, The Fifth Cnlumv 1 .<; " lolin Roy Carlson, Undercover, Phila- 

Here. New York: W. Funk, Inc., 1940, delphia: Blakeston Co., 1943, p. 275. 

pp. 112-114. "Britt, op. cit., p. 112. 
"Lavine, op. cit., p. 184. 



6 The Green Caldron 

No detail was lacking in the organization of the Silver Shirt Legion, 
even to uniforms. That "there is something about a uniform" w^as realized 
by Adolph Hitler, and Pelley borrowed Hitler's psychology when he de- 
signed the Silver Shirt uniform. It consisted of a silver-colored shirt with 
a red L over the heart. 

Pelley agreed with Father Coughlin and in an article about him wrote, 
"This past week, the aggressive Father Coughlin went on the air . . . and 
delivered what amounted to the prize Silver Shirt speech of the year." This 
speech was referred to by Christian leaders as fostering anti-Catholicism 
by encouraging anti-Semitism.^^ And when the America First Committee 
entered the scene, the Silver Shirters had a new "pal." They climbed aboard 
the Committee bandwagon as Pelley exalted the men that were rescuing 
America.^^ 

Roy Zachary, the "field marshal," predicted in 1938 that by 1939 the 
Silver Shirts would consist of 1,000,000 members. They would be a "huge 
reserve army to fight behind the established police force," a conquering 
host in the war on New Dealers, Jews, and Communists. Zachary encouraged 
the people to join the National Guard and arm themselves in preparation 
for the battles that were to come.^'^ This same man threatened in 1939 to 
assassinate the President "if nobody else will."^® Mr. Pelley evidently chose 
his associates well. 

The Silver Shirts became troopers in the enemy's fifth column. For his 
excellent work in their organization, Pelley was made an honorary member 
of the Deutsche Zentral of the Germanischer-Bund, or the German League, 
whose headquarters were in Chicago. He said this honor was "in recognition 
of his work for the purging of our nation of its subversive elements, mali- 
ciously undermining the federal constitution."^^ Obviously his job as a 100% 
American was now to translate Nazi propaganda into American patriotic 
terms. 

Pelley's activities did not cease with his organization of the Silver Shirts. 
He had many other irons in the fire. 

Immediately after his organization of the Silver Shirts, Pelley formed 
Galahad College, his "Foundation of Christian Economics," in Asheville. 
Since he sold unregistered stock and represented the college to be in sound 
condition, he was convicted in 1935 for violation of the North Carolina 
"blue sky" security laws and was given a two to three year suspended 
sentence pending good behavior.^" 

Another enterprise was the Pelley Publishers, Inc. In 1936 the company 
was bankrupt, but in 1939, it expanded suddenly, purchased a bank building 

"Carlson, op. cit., p. 56. " Britt, op. cit., p. 114. 

" Sayers, op. cit., p. 206. =" "Silver Shirt, Stripped," Time, 39 (Feb- 

"Britt, op. cit., p. 113. ruary 2, 1942), 20. 

"Carlson, op. cit., p. 173. 



May, 1946 7 

for a site, and was soon publishing two magazines, one monthly and one 
weekly. Pelley was a great promoter, and there is no way of knowing who 
financed him. The money might have been a German subsidy that was 
smuggled in on German boats.^* After all, Pelley Publishers, Inc., was listed 
on the Nazi "Roll of Honor."" 

An example of Pelley 's work is his message to the American people in 
the Galilean in January, 1942. He declared that "the German and Italian 
declaration of war served the United States right." Two months after Pearl 
Harbor, he wrote, "The typical American . . . gloats when any of the Axis 
powers reports success abroad — even against our own forces. "^^ The post 
office protested these declarations, and Pelley suspended publication.^* In 
January, 1942, he also said he thought "the President would be convicted of 
being responsible for this war. . . . With the Xips controlling our Western 
Coast, maybe Hitler will be welcomed not as an enemy, but as a friend. "^° 
In that statement Mr. Pelley exhibited his pro-Nazi and anti-administration 
tendencies, and showed he was a leader in the "Roosevelt Impeachment 
Movement." One of his article headlines was "Four Million Militant 
Women Getting Congress Aid for Roosevelt Impeachment."*® 

In 1936, I*elley ran for President on the Christian party ticket, with the 
campaign slogan "Christ or Chaos !" "The time has come for an American 
pogrom," he said. "When I'm President, I'll incorporate the Silver Shirts 
into a combination of a federal army and police force. I'm going to do away 
with the Department of Justice entirely."*' Since Pelley's main foes were the 
Jews and the Communists, he combined his hatred for both by interlocking 
them with each other. Einstein is a Communist and the former head of the 
Communist party in Paris according to Pelley. Russia is Jewish and financed 
by Kuhn, Loeb, and Company. He hated Mussolini and described him as a 
Jewish Caesar till Mussolini began persecuting the Jews. Evervthing that 
Pelley disliked became associated with Jewry in his mind. He said, "The 
word Aryan simply denotes the white race at its summit of perfection."** 
Victim of this mania, Pelley was putty in the hands of the Nazis, for part of 
the Nazi psychological warfare was to divide the Americans, gentile against 
Jew. W^erner Haag, second-in-command of the Friends of New Germany, 
reported to his Berlin superiors in a letter written on September 23, 1933, 
"It's child's play to make good anti-Semitics of the Americans."*® In printing 
the propaganda of the Welt-Dienst, Pelley aided the Germans. 

This "dynamo of subversion" is a short man who wears a goatee, has 
hair streaked with gray and eyebrows artificially darkened. Such vanity for 

"High. op. cit., p. 7. =* Carlson, op. cit., p. 283. 

** Carlson, op. cit., p. 133. "' Sayers, op. cit., p. 157. 

** "Milquetoast Gets Muscles," Time, 39 ''Carlson, op. cit., p. 151. 

(April 13, 1942), 20. =»Levinson, op. cit., p. 478. 

** "Tarnished Silver Shirt," op. cit., p. 29. ''Sayers, op. cit., p. 143. 



8 The Green Caldron 

the man who was to save America! John Roy Carlson says of an interview 
with Pelley, "The most unforgettable impression was his handshake — the 
sweatiest, unhealthiest, clammiest handshake I ever hope to experience. . . . 
He smelled of decay."^° 

What he lacked in personal appearance, however, Pelley made up for 
with his vicious pen. In his comments in his Roll Call, he showed what, in 
his opinion, made a man great. Praising Stephen A. Day, he said, "He takes 
his place on the patriotic honor roll along with Charles A. Lindbergh, 
Senators Gerald Nye and Burton K. Wheeler, Dr. Jacob Thorkelson and 
more."^^ When Congressman Thorkelson of Montana blamed the war on the 
Jews and said, "Do not forget it will require the same medicine to cure the 
United States that brought about the cure in Germany," Pelley saluted him 
by writing, "Thank God, a new star of patriotic inspiration is arising over 
the horizon of Capitol Hill in Washington."^^ 

"Democracy is Jewish," said Pelley. "The New Deal — the Jew Deal is 
the last straw ! I get reports. Violence is on its way. When it comes, we will 
be ready for it."^^ (No doubt, these reports came from the Great Pyramid.) 
Pelley had no faith in mob rule, unless his mob was ruling. The Silver Shirts 
were out to start a mass movement and attack those Americans who could 
be emotionally swayed. This appeal to the emotions was one of their strong- 
est weapons. Pelley's brochure advertising the anti-Semitic forgery Protocols 
of Zion, in which the Jews are supposed to state their plans for world con- 
quest, was mailed to the American public in envelopes franked by Congress- 
man Hamilton Fish.^* As for the violence, perhaps Pelley meant the associ- 
ation of the Silver Shirts with the German-American Bund, the Christian 
Mobilizers, and the Christian Fronters. Armed bands roamed the streets of 
some American cities looking for trouble and generally making themselves 
obnoxious. All these subversive organizatiohs were indirectly working 
together and striking for the same goal. 

Finally Pelley's activities came to the attention of Robert B. Barker, a 
Dies Committee investigator, who reported Pelley to the Committee in June, 
1939. Conveniently, Pelley decided to disappear for a while, and the Dies 
Committee subpoena couldn't be delivered. But the fugitive didn't remain 
under cover very long. In February, 1940, Representative Frank Hook of 
Michigan inserted into the Congressional Record certain letters linking 
Mr. Dies with the Silver Shirts. Pelley then appeared and said, "None of 
these letters were written by me, composed by me, or signed by me ... I 
am giving Martin Dies an absolutely clean bill of health."^^ 

"Carlson, op. cit., p. 150. " Sayers, op. cit., p. 193. 

" Mid., p. 231. ""Fish Fry," Time, 35 (February 19, 

"Britt, op. cit., p. 113. 1940), 17. 

" High, op. cit., p. 8. 



May, 1946 9 

The following day, Pelley was called before the Committee. When asked 
if the Dies Committee investigation would ruin the Silver Shirts, he replied, 
"Yes, sir . . , and with my blessing . . . you've gone ahead and done a 
good job. ... If the Dies Committee goes ahead, my work is done."'" 
Appearing to enjoy his confession, he said, "If the Silver Shirts achieved 
their aim, I would have become leader of the government and would have 
put Hitler's policy into effect." He further confessed that he was anti-Semitic 
and agreed with Hitler regarding the Jewish element. 

On January 28, 1941, David Mayne, research worker, admitted forging 
two letters attempting to show Dies' friendship for the Silver Shirts. For 
these letters, Mayne received $105 from Gardner Jackson, then legislative 
representative of Labor's Non-Partisan League, who gave them to Hook. 
Representative Hook apologized to the House when convinced the letters 
were fake.'' 

A disastrous year for Pelley was 1941. In April he was arrested and was 
to return to North Carolina to face violation of his parole charges. When 
his bail was revoked, his attorney said the revocation was "a murderous 
assault on American civil liberties and an attempt to institute totalitarian 
methods in courts of the United States."" On January 21, 1942, he was 
sentenced to two to three years for violation of his good behavior proviso. 

On July 23, 1942, Pelley and the Silver Shirts were indicted by the 
Washington Federal Grand Jury on charges of conspiracy to provoke revolt 
within the United States Armed Forces by distributing false statements. The 
case was tried at Indianapolis. One of the Government's chief witnesses was 
Dr. Harold Lasswell, propaganda analysis expert with the Library of 
Congress, who testified that 1,195 German propaganda statements were 
listed in Pelley 's publications. Boxes of German propaganda literature were 
found in Pelley 's home." 

Denying that he was anti-Semitic and pleading for his constitutional 
right and his freedom of speech, he said he never wrote "a damn thing in 
the magazine that Boake Carter, 'Ironpants' Johnson, Father Coughlin and 
many others haven't also said."**' He and his attorneys tried to prove that 
the United States was bankrupt. And he also maintained that his publica- 
tions weren't intended for army camps because he didn't want to incite the 
soldiers to rebellion. 

Justice finally triumphed, and on August 13, 1942, Pelley was sentenced 
to fifteen years in prison. Perhaps today he is amusing himself in conversa- 
tion with the inhabitants of the other world, or in interpreting the messages 

**Ibid. "New York Times, August 1, 1Q42, p. 3. 

"New York Times, January 28, 1941, p. *° "Milquetoast Gets Muscles," op. cit., p. 

21. 20. 

"New York Times, April 18. 1941. p. 16. 



10 The Green Caldron 

from the Great Pyramid on the Nile. For the next few years, the "Goateed 
Fuehrer" will be safe behind locked doors and iron bars — a just recompense 
for a traitor to the United States. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Britt, George, The Fifth Column Is Here, Xew York: W. Funk, Inc., 1940, pp. 112-114. 

Carlson, John Roy, Undercover, Philadelphia: Blakeston Co., 1943. 

"Enemies Within," Xe-cvsweek, 18 (December 29, 1941), 25. 

"Fish Fn," Time, 35 (Februar>- 19, 1940), 17. 

High, St.\xley, "Star-Spangled Fascists," Saturday Evening Post, 111 (May 27, 
1939), 7-8. 

Lavtst;, Harold, The Fifth Column in America, Xew York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 
Inc., 1940, pp. 171-191. 

Levinsox, Saml-el, "Pelley's Kampf," Christian Century, 57 (April 10, 1940), 477-478. 

"Milquetoast (kts Muscles," Time, 39 (April 13, 1942), 20. 

New York Times: January- 28, 1941, p. 18; April 18, 1941, p. 21; April 5, 1942, p. 25; 
August 1, 1942, p. 3; August 6, 1942, p. 4; August 13, 1942, p. 4. 

"Pelley and the Prosecution," Xeu- Republic, 107 (August 17, 1942), 189. 

"Pelleyponnesian War," Xeu- Republic, 107 (August 10, 1942), 157. 

Pelley, \\'illiam Dudley, .Vo More Hunger, Asheville, North Carolina: Pelley Pub- 
lishers, 1936. 

Sayers, Michael, Sabotage, Xew York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1942. 

"Silver Shirts, Stripped," Time, 39 (Februar>- 2. 1942), 20-21. 

"Tarnished Silver Shirt," Newsweek, 19 (April 13, 1942), 29-30. 



Sorrow 

During May of my senior year in high school a member of the faculty, who 
had been a very dear friend of mine, died suddenly. She had been out in the 
school garden demonstrating to a class the best method of turning the soil in 
preparing it for planting when she suffered a heart attack. When told of what had 
happened I was incredulous. Certainly there was some mistake. I had seen her 
that very morning — had thought at the time that after my classes were over for 
the day, I would go to her office and spend some time talking with her, a habit 
I had formed early in the year. When I was finally convinced of the truth of the 
report, what was actually an overwhelming sorrow seemed a succession of emo- 
tions. At first the apparent injustice tore at my soul, and there arose in my mind 
countless questions searching for an excuse, a justification of what had happened. 
Why did it have to be she, a person who knew the meaning of understanding, 
of truth, of life, a teacher from whom one learned more than merely the subject 
at hand, a brilliant and gracious woman? Next I found myself hating everyone 
who had known her, people, I felt, who could have prevented the tragedy. I hated 
the head of her department, who, in my eyes, had been directly responsible for 
the heaviness of her exhausting program; I hated her friends, who should have 
protested when it became obvious that she was being overburdened; I hated her 
students, who, I thought, were stupid, unappreciative dullards, unworthy of her 
teaching. The third surge of emotions was purely selfish. The realization that 
there would be no more afternoon chats, no more half-serious, half-sportive dis- 
cussions, no more early-morning bird trips together with dew still glistening on 
green fields, was an intolerable one for me. My life had lost one bright light, one 
sustaining ray of hope. — Camille Placzek 



May. 1946 11 

Childhood in Tuscany 

Carlo Ghilarducci 

Final Examination, Rhetoric II, 1945-1946 

I SHALL NEVER FORGET MY CHILDHOOD, ELEVEN SUNNY 
and J030US years spent far away from here, in a fertile Tuscan valley 
near the Italian Riviera. Many people may say that perhaps I belong 
where I was bom, or that if I long so much for my native land, I should go 
back to it. But my difficulty in forgetting my childhood and my longing for 
the land of my birth are normal reactions experienced by every human being, 
and when I think of my childhood I must remember Tuscany. 

Tuscany is a hilly country. The particular section where I lived was the 
Serchio Valley, in the province of Lucca, three miles to the east of the 
capital city, which incidentally bears the same name. The Apuan Alps, deep, 
massive, majestic, rose to the north and hid the Po Valley. To the south 
stood the meeker, greener Pisan Mountains. On the Pisan Mountains we 
felled Christmas trees in the winter and gathered mushrooms in the summer. 
The adults carried on business and social intercourse with the mountain 
people, trafficking in wine, corn, chestnuts, and other produce; but we chil- 
dren thought of the mountains in terms of panoramas to behold — on both 
sides of the peaks — and heights to conquer. Generally the excuse to our 
parents was that we had to get Christmas trees for the priest's prescpio. 

I can remember that we went to school only during the morning, from 
about eight o'clock to noon. School was strict, and the teacher used the 
straight-edge for other purposes than drawing straight lines. Before us, on 
the front wall, behind the teacher, hung a crucifix between portraits of the 
mustachioed and brassy Victor Emmanuel and II Duce in mufti. II Duce had 
a deep look in his eyes, and at first he used to scare me; no matter where 
I sat, he wouldn't take his eyes off me. The teacher told us weird stories of 
adventure and romance about him, and soon the entire class got to like him. 
The scholastic year ended in June. I remember very little of my summer 
vacations except that my mother regularly took me to my uncle, Father 
Banducci, whose parish was at the foot of the Apuan Alps, and asked me to 
live with him for a good third of the vacation time. Since he was an invet- 
erate hunter and a trainer of birds, we often went hunting together after 
mass. My uncle was indeed a man with insight; he never let me tire of his 
hospitality. When he thought the time had come, he said, "Better hop on your 
bike and get yourself out of here. Carlo." And I returned to my family 
and friends and joined once more the junior soccer team. 

As gold tinged the leaves, we sensed the end of summer. Lamely we 
trudged to the schoolhouse; sighing, we sat under the all-embracing look of 



12 The Green Caldron 

II Duce. We knew him now; we had inquired from our grandfathers about 
him; he had done strange things, great things. HoHdays of national impor- 
tance were celebrated around the end of October and the beginning of 
November. October 28, the anniversary of the March on Rome, was fol- 
lowed by November 4, Armistice Day. On these days all the little boys 
donned their black-shirted uniforms. I was the patrol leader. With the red 
stripes properly sewn on my fez and sleeve, I led my mates in formation past 
the grandstand, where the officials from Lucca, haughty, black-shirted, looked 
at us as II Duce did from the picture. There was something contemptuous 
in their countenances. We boys knew it. They wanted to give the impression 
that they were not subordinates, that they too could look at us as he did 
from that picture. But somehow we knew better, and we returned their 
haughty looks. 

Then came Christmas, followed by New Year's Day, and, soon after, 
the two weeks of Carnival which ended February. Each of the good farmers 
celebrated carnival-time by killing a pig. Early in the morning the first 
squeal awakened me. I got up and looked at the half-sun peeking from 
behind the hill, and without washing, or wearing any shoes, I dashed in the 
direction of the squeal. Upon arriving, I witnessed the most thrilling episode 
that an Italian youngster could wish to behold: a farmer killing a pig with 
an ice-pick. The poor animal ran around with the ice-pick in his heart, 
squealing and snorting like a fire-truck, to the amusement of all the boy 
spectators. Soon other squeals were heard, and before long every pig was in 
his last agony. This was the morning of Mardi Gras. 

Mardi Gras I remember vividly — the busiest day of the year for the 
Tuscan farmer. Each skinned and dressed his pig, made sausages and 
mortatelle and salami. All boys and girls loved to watch their elders pack 
the meat the coming night. 

On Mardi Gras clowns, harlequins, and unimaginable other masks pa- 
raded through the streets. We heard of carnivals in the big cities, Venice, 
Naples ^- we heard of the floats and costumes and decorations — and cele- 
brations. And the priest from the pulpit never ceased warning the youths 
that "the day will come when". . . that "during the weeks preceding Lent 
and Easter people should busy themselves with occupations more profitable 
to the soul than carnivals." I got the impression that the older boys and the 
men, except grandfathers, paid little heed to the good priest, but I didn't 
care. I was too young to attend carnivals anyway ! 

Easter, Italy's greatest religious feast, follows Mardi Gras: colored eggs, 
rabbits, religious processions, and the priest discharging bolts upon the sin- 
ners of Mardi Gras. I always wondered how the priest could find out by 
Easter Sunday what had happened on "fat Tuesday," until it occurred to 
me that he heard confessions. 

Soon the summer vacation started again, and again I tramped about with 



May, 1946 13 

Father Banducci. I have treated only the perennially normal routine of the 
Tuscan farm boy, disregarding political and military campaigns during this 
time. This story is not only my story, but that of the average boy from the 
Serchio Valley. So I'll never forget Tuscany — not because of my profi- 
ciency in catechism, which won me a trip to Rome, nor because of many 
other individual episodes which I experienced during those eleven years; but 
because of the feasts and parties that have been celebrated for countless gen- 
erations, about which one hears, in the wintertime by the fireside, from his 
grandfather. I'll never forget Tuscany because of the good priest who 
seemed to know everything about what everyone did and made me wonder 
whether he was a seer. I'll never forget Tuscany because of the all-encom- 
passing look of that picture to the right of Christ behind the teacher. 



cc 



Klonker'' 



Jack M. Campbell 
Rhetoric II, Theme 3, 1945-1946 

1 FIRST HEARD THE WORD "KLOXKER" IN 1937. A TRUCK 
driver called his truck a "klonker" and aroused my curiosity. He told 
me the word had been in use among truckers for a few years and was 
used quite often, especially by cross-country drivers. Later the term became 
more significant to me when I heard it in the conversations of Army Air 
Force personnel. 

Broadly speaking, a "klonker" is a machine that repeatedly fails to func- 
tion properly, but the term is usually limited to a description of a truck or 
an airplane. The appellation is based on the mechanical performance history. 
But it is often used loosely to refer to any vehicle that is either worn out 
or otherwise unsatisfactory. For example, a plane that develops mechanical 
quirks suddenly, or before it should, is a "klonker." Then, too, an old worn- 
out plane is usually a "klonker." 

A "klonker" is the black sheep of mass production that never performs 
like its brothers. From the day the airplane rolls off the assembly line till it 
crashes, is shot down, or condemned to a just grave in the junkpile it is not 
so fast as it should be. Too, it may be difficult to control, have awkward 
flight characteristics, and be in constant need of repairs. 

When I was a pilot in a B-24, Liberator, squadron we were unfortunate 
enough to have a typical "klonker" — 066. When new, it spent more time on 
the maintenance line than two ships should; it did not improve as it became 
older. I flew 066 on a mission to Vienna, and I do mean to Vienna, be- 
cause we did not return all the way home. I needed extra power and luck 



14 The Green Caldron 

to get off the runway. Then followed five minutes of filHng the bomb bays 
with leaves and twigs before it would climb. We vibrated to the target using 
increasingly higher power settings to stay in formation. There was the usual i 
hell over the target — the "rally"; then we were headed for home. The 
crew reported a few "flak" holes and minor damages which did not inter- 
fere with flying the ship. Soon, however, the superchargers started cutting 
out, only one of the mechanical difficulties we had before we landed. We had 
to drop out of formation, and for the next few hours we had fighters, gas, 
weather, and so on to worry about. Fortunately we got into a British fighter 
strip in Northern Italy. 

Later, 066 was fitted with some new engines and did fly a few more 
times before crashing. "Klonkers" of this type caused the word to be 
embellished, often, with a few of the more choice descriptive adjectives. 

A "klonker" can also be the result of too much imagination on the part 
of engineering officers. During the war a pictorial magazine contained an 
article about a B-24 that was made at an overseas base. This happened in 
my group. The forward half of one wrecked airplane and the rear half of 
another were added together. The sum was a "klonker." I suppose in the 
pictures the machine looked like any other B-24; but the magazine failed 
to mention that the thing flew like a drunken duck. I "waddled" that plane 
around the sky one day and spent the next day drinking cognac and writing 
a letter to Headquarters explaining why it should be permanently grounded. 
It was retested and grounded. 

The word "klonker" is slowly gaining popularity in army slang, and, if 
returning veterans use the word in civilian life, it may eventually find its 
way into the dictionary alongside "jeep," "blitz," and "bazooka." 



Rain on Saturday 

Caroline Maddox 
Rhetoric I, Theme 2, 1945-1946 



T 



PTP^HE DOORS BANGED SHUT AFTER US, AND THE OLD 
streetcar rattled off downhill. We darted across the stream of traffic 
in its wake and ran like children down steep cobblestones to the 
canal. Panting, we landed on the shaky footbridge over the slow water. 

"Look!" Paula groaned, leaning on the rusty bridge rail. "Look at that 
sky!" 

"Well, it isn't going to rain today," Charles insisted, and we all three 
turned around, scanning the heavy sky for a patch of blue. But there was no 
blue and no sunshine. Charles picked up the swimming bag from the planks, 
and we trailed down three steps onto the tow-path. Brushing past Queen 



May, 1946 15 

Anne's lace and coarse purple clover, we walked along silently, still hoping 
the sun would come out. I was thinking of all the sunny days we had come 
along this path before, going toward the river and the canoe house. I heard 
a sigh behind me. 

"Last summer," Paula said, "remember?" 

I was about to say, "Remember the watermelon?" when Charles turned 
half impatiently, 

"Paula, it isn't good to live in the past." 

"Oh you do, yourself!" she retorted. 

"I never live in the past." 

The old dispute was as finished as it had ever been, with most of the 
arguments on both sides left unsaid. I was on Paula's side; I, too, liked to 
•") back to familiar places and relive old happiness. We both wanted this 
iturday afternoon to be as perfect as the ones we remembered. But the sky 
was brewing thicker between us and the sun, and a damp unsteady wind was 
blowing. I knew it was useless to hope that we could paddle up the river to 
our "waterfall," swim from a strip of sand along the woods, and lie blister- 
ing on the warm rocks as we used to do. Still — I wanted to remember. 

We passed under the great steel arch of Key Bridge and along the hard- 
packed path. There was another little bridge to cross; then the path branched 
away from the canal to a flat white stone at an opening in the weeds. We 
stopped and saw how suddenly the stone stairs plunged down the bank. 
From the top they always looked impossibly steep, but with one impulse we 
ran down the steps together, landing chaotically on the cinders at the bottom. 
Straight across the abandoned railroad track we ran, and into the weathered 
white doorway of the sprawling canoe house. The old dimness greeted us, 
and the old easy smell of wood and river water. The stairs were tumbling 
up the wall on the left, and cracked uneven floor sloped out under canoe 
racks on the right. A few people stood around. Several brown-shouldered 
boys were lifting canoes onto the racks. Nothing had changed at all. 

I couldn't help remembering. I remembered the river glinting in the sun, 
the paddles tlasliing, Charles singing lustily, and Art's black eyes squinting 
against the bright sky; but it didn't help any to remember Art and sunshine, 
for beyond the eaves of the boathouse the wide Potomac was solemn and 
grey. The sky hung unmoving. Charles, who had walked out onto the pier 
to look at the clouds, was talking to an old man. Leaning against a post, 
placidly, the old man "reckoned there wouldn't be no more canoein' today," 
and as he spoke, the rain began. It quickened the water and sank into the 
dry grey pier as fast as it fell. There was confusion and shouting as things 
were dragged up the long dock to shelter. 

"Xo more canoes going out today," a boy told us as he passed. 

We looked at each other blankly. 

"Well — ," Charles began, and, hunching his shoulders, grinned suddenly. 



16 The Green Caldron 

"Let's do something!" I said. We took a last look around the room and 
walked out into the rain. 

Aimless and happy, we wandered up along the shore, while the rain fell 
thicker. We walked on wet cinders, through wet clumpy grass, across soften- 
ing earth. Sometimes a branch, shaken by a swirl of wind, shed water on us 
as we passed. Paula's hair began to cling to her forehead and curl up imp- 
ishly; mine hung down as straight and stringy as willow leaves. Charles 
had soon rolled his trousers up around his calves. With his shoes in one 
hand and our bag of swimming suits in the other, he swung along. 

"U amour est enfant du Boheme!" he sang. His wild tenor pranced 
through the French, and when he came to the place where he knew only the 
English words, we joined him. "Love is only a wood-bird wild — " Paula 
began lagging behind. Finally she stopped altogether. 

"There's the river," she said. "I can't stand not being in it!" She sat 
down on a stone and looked across the gentle slope of bank to the water. 

"Ya, we're all wet anyhow," I added, sitting down beside her. 

"Hell, kids," shouted Charles, "let's go !" And he flung his shoes into the 
crotch of a Cottonwood tree. Pulling ofif his limp shirt he stripped to his old 
brown trunks. Skinny and brown, with his hair standing up on his head in 
short wet spikes, he stood grinning like a wood sprite. Paula and I tossed 
our shoes onto the heap in the tree and found a path into some big-leafed 
weeds. There, sheltered from the river and the path by mist and leaves, we 
squirmed into our dry swimming suits and folded our wet clothes haphaz- 
ardly into the duffel bag. Our hair was almost dripping; the big leaves 
around us ran water; our feet and our faces were glistening wet. Everything 
was wet except the suits. 

Charles was about to leap off the bank as we came out. Yelling, "Allons, 
Car'lina!" he grabbed my hand and we all three hit the water together. 
Charles ducked and swam, his feet churning like a paddle wheel, his head 
well under. Paula struck out from shore with hardly a splash. I lunged out 
beside her, pulling with long strokes against the cool current while the river 
tugged at my hair. Ahead was the low island, desolate through the rain, 
with broken stumps and limbs hanging out into the mist. The rain fell stead- 
ily from greyness into grey water. I let my feet sink under me and pull me 
down, idly; then dared to open my eyes. Bottomless twilight was closing in. 
In swift terror I blew out all my breath, shot to the surface, and swam 
noisily toward shore until my knees scraped sand. Panting, I climbed up to 
sit on a tree root which crooked out over the water. I heard bare feet slap- 
ping wetly along the bank behind me, and Charles leaned silently against the 
tree, staring over my head at the river. From the grey-brown shallows Paula 
rose dripping, exulting in the cold clean wind. The river eddied past, and 
through wet branches the rain kept dropping. 



May. 1946 17 

Teacher's Pet 

I recall the day of our final examination. George was excused from the test 
because of his excellent work during the year in Tactful Politeness and because 
he was such a good boy. George never faltered when called on in class. When 
he did not know his subject, he talked very rapidly and sounded quite elegant 
On the few occasions that the teacher seemed dubious of the answers, George 
pleaded his cause like a frustrated "D.A." to a cold jury. 

During the year, many facts of history and geography were changed by 
George's misstatements. When he said Cuba was in the East Indies, the teacher 
said he meant the eastern part of the West Indies. Even if George did say the 
American Revolution was fought in 1785, he did have the correct century. 

George loved attention, and he received a great amount of it during the 
semester from both the class and the teacher, although only the latter's was of 
any good to him. — Edward DEcaNCEK 



Thelma — Waitress 

Thelma is a waitress. Of course being a waitress is just temporary. Thelma 
is really an actress. She is just working as a waitress until her big chance to act 
comes along. She has read a lot about actresses' being "discovered" while working 
as waitresses, so she doesn't mind her job at all. 

Thelma never misses a chance to show her talent. When she walks up to a 
customer's table, she "slinks." Thus she shows her excellent figure and her ability 
to play sultry roles on the stage. While taking the customer's order, she gazes 
upon him with deep, smoldering eyes and replies to his questions in a low, throb- 
bing voice. Her voice shows her ability for heavy, dramatic parts. When she 
brings the order, from which something is always missing, she changes over to 
the musical comedy type. Thelma bounces up to the table, does a few dance 
steps, sings under her breath, flashes sparkling smiles, and in general shows her 
bubbling personality. — John Mahoney 



My Earth Nest 

One afternoon in early summer, I set my fish lines along the bank of the 
lake and returned into the woods to wander around. Near the base of a sixty- 
foot oak tree, I came upon a fuzzy young jay bird which had fallen from its 
nest. I saw that the nest was far out. on a slender limb, and I knew I could never 
place the bird back in the nest; therefore I dug a tiny cave under a root of 
the oak, lined it with dry buffalo grass, and placed the bird in my earth nest. I 
then took a handful of small sticks and worked them around the door of the 
cave until only a tiny air hole remained for the bird to breathe through. I went 
down to my fishing poles and returned with my can of worms. Using a small 
split willow branch, I fed the blue jay all the worms it would eat so that it would 
stop calling, for by this time the two parent blue jays were humming around in 
the branches above my head. I carefully covered the air hole to my earth nest 
with a thick hickory brush to keep a stray dog from digging it out. 

— Frankun Hamilton 



18 The Green Caldron 

Liberation from the East 



o 



Daniel Deitch 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1945-1946 

N A WARM JUNE DAY IN 1944 WE BEGAN TO HEAR THE 
distant sound of artillery fire. We American prisoners-of-war had 
long waited in silence, isolated from the world, for the day of libera- 
tion. Those intermittent rumblings and distant blastings seemed to be build- 
ing a bridge of sound across to us. They were the notes of a herald's trumpet 
announcing the coming of peace and freedom. 

Not only did those sounds raise in us high hopes of liberation; they 
demonstrated an important fact to us, the fact that things do change after 
all. The many months of prison life had inscribed upon our consciousness 
the impossibility of change. Thus it would always be: roll call, cabbage 
soup, and roll call, from day to day, year following year. And even though 
we subconsciously felt the future would bring freedom, we could not deny 
the reality of our daily existence. But when the sounds of gunfire reached 
our ears, we knew that the mighty Red Army had burst into the Hitlerian 
fortress and that the hour of liberation was drawing closer. 

Heydekrug, the town near which our camp was located, is in East 
Prussia and very close to the Lithuanian border. The camp itself was 
divided into three sections, one for British, one for Canadian, and one for 
American prisoners-of-war. All the men, with few exceptions, had served 
in the Air Forces. Some of the British had been captives for five years, but 
the Americans were mainly newcomers, most of them having been captured 
within the past year. 

About a week before the Russian drive began, the invasion of France 
had taken place. The news reached us via the grapevine and was confirmed 
the next day when a German newspaper bearing the headline Die Invasion 
Hat Degonnen was circulated through the camp. Everyone was excited; 
some of the English wept; but most of the men tossed jokes back and forth 
over the double fence separating the British and American compounds. As 
important as the invasion was, however, the Russian drive concerned us 
more because we were right in its path. 

News and rumors — mostly rumors — were always the high points of 
the day. Our own "official" bulletin, based on B. B. C. broadcasts, was 
secretly read in each barracks. It came from the British compound, where 
there was said to be a hidden radio receiver. Other news came from the 
German newspapers which were given out from time to time by the Ger- 
mans themselves. New prisoners were always closely interrogated for the 
latest "poop." The verified news, that news confirmed through German 



May, 1946 19 

sources, we plotted on a map. When the Germans admitted the fall of 
Kaunas, we knew that the Russians were only one hundred kilometers to 
the east of us. And several days later, Vic, with his infantryman's sensitive 
ear, estimated that the Russians were about forty-five kilometers away. Vic, 
one of the few infantrymen in our camp, was a short, stocky lad from New 
Jersey who had been captured at Salerno. 

At roll call that morning it was announced that the camp was going to 
be evacuated. All men in E, F, and G blocks in the American compound 
would leave that afternoon. H block and the Canadians would leave the next 
morning. The British would follow later. Since the Germans allowed quan- 
tities of Red Cross food and clothing to be distributed, scarcity changed to 
abundance. Formerly, it was difficult, if not impossible, to get a toothbrush; 
now everyone had two or three. New G. I. shoes were given out, but most 
men, anticipating a long march, didn't take them. The piles of discarded 
clothing grew rapidly. 

In my barracks everyone was in high spirits. Ed Jurist, a tall, handsome 
fellow, wearing his new, clean clothes, was explaining in exaggerated panto- 
mime how he would arrive in the States. "Here I am getting off the boat," 
he was saying as he tossed his kit-bag on his shoulder. "Mother, Dad, and 
the family doctor are waiting with a wheel chair. And here I come dashing 
down the gangplank, a picture of health. . . ." Everyone laughed. Shorty 
Robison pointed with pride to his new roll of toilet paper. He had tied it 
with a string to the head nf his bunk. "P.r.uitifiil stufT!" he exclaimed. 
stroking it lovingly. 

The men in my barracks were fortunately J^art of II block and would 
remain behind overnight. It seemed to us that every hour's delay increased 
the chances of our being liberated. Every hour brought the Russians closer. 
Meanwhile E, V, and G blocks were j^reparing to leave. The men were 
cheerful and kept saying that they wouldn't get very far. "Why, we're 
probably cut off already!" they optimistically asserted. Strangely enough, 
they came marching back several hours later. The Germans said they would 
leave early the next morning. Again our hopes were raised, and we cele- 
brated that night in my barracks by cooking a big meal of spaghetti, pota- 
toes, and spam. For dessert we had bread and jam, and coffee. Outside we 
could still hear the distant rumble of gunfire. That night more than one 
G. I. went to bed expecting to wake up a free man. 

The next morning all was quiet. E, F, and G blocks were already empty. 
A melancholy hang-over-like atmosphere prevailed. At noon the German 
guards in their shabby, green uniforms came in and lined us up. During 
the march to Heydekrug, a particularly mean guard at the end of the 
column was pushing and clubbing the stragglers with his rifle. 

At Heydekrug we were crammed into boxcars. From a small window I 



20 The Green Caldron 

could observe with great satisfaction that the German civilians were fleeing. 
The train took us to Memel, which lies on the Baltic Sea. There we were 
packed into the hold of a dark, ugly freighter; and several hours later, the 
ship set sail, bearing its load of miserable, disappointed G. I.'s to a new 
prison camp. 



Basic Training — Oh ! 

George J. Moody 
Rhetoric II, Theme 2, 1945-1946 

IF A HARMLESS-SOUNDING PHRASE COULD CONJURE UP 
visions of a full-fledged bogey-man, then to a great number of ex-G.L's 
the term would be "basic training." Basic training is the initial period of 
breaking-in which army recruits get immediately after induction. During 
World War H American soldiers were given from a few weeks to three 
months of this, depending on the time available. 

"Basic," as soldiers soon learn to contract it, includes training in the use 
of weapons, in military sanitation, discipline, and courtesy, and in the care 
and cleaning of everything military from Sherman tanks to scrub brushes. 
From the dyed-in-the-wool army viewpoint this period is defined as "gettin' 
the damned civilian out of 'em." It is a complete reorientation from civilian 
standards to military. It is a continued succession of shocks, each with the 
impact of ice water from a fire hose. One of the rookie's few blessings is 
that he is so bewildered that his senses are only half-functioning anyway. 

It is in the mind of the G.I. that "basic" has its richest meaning. What 
does he think of it? Someone has said that the basis of soldier humor is 
self-pity. After the first week of army life our brand-new soldier casts 
about and discovers that he, and he only, is the prize "sad sack." It is a 
tragedy that in its completeness becomes comic. At times it requires a 
humor truly English in its degree — that of the hunter who, when cornered 
in a very small tree by a very large, hungry bear, laughed till the tears 
came because it was so very funny. 

The rookie's normal reaction to his new uniform (either of the two 
army sizes, too large or too small), K.P., top-sergeants, blisters, and his 
own inadequacy in "right flanks" and "about faces" is a slightly psycho- 
pathic but loud guffaw. Of course some take a different attitude: they either 
try to drown the situation or jump off second floor landings or commit hara- 
kiri with a bayonet laced to the bed post. 



May. 1946 21 

What sort of thing could bring about such exaggerated reactions? Per- 
haps a typical day of the trainee's life will give some indication. Let us take 
as our day the middle of the second week. The initial shock is over. The 
individual's privacy has evaporated into thin air; he is convinced there is 
no small detail of his personal affairs which the army does not consider its 
business. He has been made to look ridiculous in a fatigue suit and a cloth 
hat that droops around the edge like a bonnet. Pie has been given a serial 
number large enough to produce a feeling of insignificance. And he has 
assimilated the rudiments of military protocol — that corporals are addressed 
as "Corporal," while his own title varies from "Hey you," to the more 
merciful Smith or Brown. 

Does the big day begin with a cooing voice awakening him to a break- 
fast of bacon and eggs and his morning paper in the kitchen nook? The 
time when those things happened seems far away. The scream of the C.Q.'s 
whistle yanks him unceremoniously from the remaining privacy of his 
dreams. "Rise and shine; daylight in the swamps!" the C.Q. yells, not 
too happy himself at having to get dressed fifteen minutes early. In ten 
minutes the company is dressed and standing in ranks for reveille. It is 
pointed out to our hero that his leggings are on the wrong legs and that 
his left blouse pocket is disgracefully unbuttoned. 

The formation is dismissed for breakfast and he hopes the coffee will 
be good. However there is a transportation tie-up — and no salt for the 
potatoes and the eggs. He begins to appreciate such womanly skills as bed- 
making after barely completing his before-work-call. The first hour of 
training is calisthenics. Audible crackling noises and groans accompany a 
series of push-ups, ballet-exercises, and a waist reducing fast quarter. 

"Men, there is a parade at nine o'clock. You have five minutes to change 
uniforms and clean your rilles." One week ago this feat would have been an 
impossibility, but in five minutes the rookie bursts from the barracks with 
the prescribed uniform, snapping smartly to attention with a violence that 
shows his newly acquired ambition to be a good soldier. 

At ten there is another quick change of uniforms and a practice period 
in simulated range firing. A little mud never bothers a military man, so Joe 
wallows first in kneeling position, then squatting, and finally flat on his 
stomach, training his weapon on the target. Next there is a class in military 
courtesy, which clarifies his social position, or lack of it, and in which he 
and another rookie must practice approaching each other and saluting. The 
war seems irrelevant and far away. 

There is some ingredient missing in the noon meal also, but a different 
one this time. 

The afternoon begins with a ten-mile hike. One man makes his appear- 
ance with a lot of equipment hung here and there on his person, making 



22 The Green Caldron 

him look like a poorly-harnessed horse. His helmet hangs over one eye, 
Princess Eugenie style; some sort of contraption is dangling below his knees 
by a loose strap, and he is trying to complete this surrealistic toilet on the 
move. Of course it rains during the hike. 

Tired, and not happy, the group returns for another quick change act 
with shower, shave, and clean uniform for retreat ceremony. Joe's rifle 
passes inspection and he looks forward to an evening of relaxation at the 
beer garden. But it just isn't in the cards; there are diphtheria shots for 
everyone immediately after dinner, and a training film which must be seen 
from seven to eight-thirty. Do we blame him if he gives up now? 

Often, a G.I.'s definition of basic training is not printable. At least, at 
the end of the period he feels that the worst is over. Months later, ducking 
slugs in a foxhole, he will nudge his buddy and say, "So you think this is 
rough; you should have taken basic with my gang." 



Anatole France by Joseph Axelrad 

Harold Pendleton 
Rhetoric I, Theme 2, 1945-1946 

IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT A BIOGRAPHER MUST PRACTICE 
inflexible self-restraint if he is to give an accurate portrayal of his sub- 
ject. Though this rule generally holds true, that it is fallible is adequately 
proven by Axelrad's Anatole France. Axelrad's love for French culture, and 
especially for that portion of it depicted by Anatole France, is apparent 
from page one. But it is a love which enhances, rather than distorts, the 
factual data concerning the life of the old master. 

Axelrad's warmth and admiration are transmitted to us as we are drawn 
a picture of a life rich in experience. We are shown France, the student 
who preferred the Parisian bookstalls to a geography class; France, the 
librarian who preferred reading to cataloguing; France, the husband who 
preferred a mistress to a wife; and France, the writer who preferred an 
interesting digression to an interesting plot. That Anatole France did much 
"rolling" along unconventional byways is true, but, contrary to the old 
proverb, he "gathered moss" in great quantity. It almost seems that from 
the time of his birth in 1844 to the time of his death in 1923 nothing escaped 
his gentle, tolerant eye; and from all he saw, Anatole France formed his 
philosophy of skepticism and irony. Whether he wrote as a critic for 
Le Temps or as the brilliant satirist who conceived Penguin Island, his 
skepticism and irony always characterized his words in a humorous, under- 
standing, questioning way. 



May, 1946 23 

When one questions ever}'thing, he is sure to run aground frequently, 
and Anatole was no exception. In 1922 all of his works — Thais, Revolt of 
the Angels, The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, etc. — were placed on the 
Index Librorum Prohibitorum by the venerable old Catholic Church. 
France's reaction was typical of what his reactions had always been: he was 
unaffected. As a matter of fact, he was somewhat pleased to join the ranks 
of Spinoza, Bacon, Gibbon, Hugo, Renan, Voltaire, and all the rest who 
were "outside the pale" of the church. 

It is difficult to choose a paragon from the many gems in Anatole 
France's works. But I think it in the interests of justice to include a few of 
his words, which, to me, are evidence of a delicate and comprehending 
nature rather than a vicious one. Reading them, I find it difficult to under- 
stand how an\^hing offensive could be construed from such wise words: 

"The history of the world may be abridged from many volumes to one 
sentence: They were bom, they suffered, and they died." 
"Without illusions men are incapable of greatness." 
"One generation will laugh at what the previous one adored." 
"I would rather do an immoral act than a cruel one." 



More Than Human 

William Grubb 
Rhetoric I. Theme 8. 1945-1946 



W: 



HEN THOMAS A. EDISON STARTED WORK ON HIS 
first incandescent lamp, he was confronted by four problems: 
electricity must be admitted into the bulb, light must get out, 
heat must not melt the bulb, and air must be permanently kept out. Bulbs of 
glass fulfilled these requirements exactly. He sent to the Coming Glass 
Works in Corning, New York, for such bulbs in which to house his glowing 
filament. 

The glass blower at Corning had little difficulty in making these bulbs. 
He attached a bubble of glass, looking like red-hot taffy candy, to the end of 
a six-foot steel tube. This fluid drop he twirled around his head until centrif- 
ugal force pulled it out into a long pear. The glass blower fashioned the 
bulb into shape by puffing into his tube, by patting the bubble with a paddle 
of burned wood, and by rolling it on a steel table. When the glass began to 
congeal, he snipped it off with a pair of shears. A moment later it solidified 
into the desired bulb. 

From this hesitant start the demand for bulbs grew to a million a day. 
Though a good glass blower with a helper could blow 1500 bulbs a day, it 



24 The Green Caldron 

became apparent that if the demand was to be suppUed, a machine must be 
built that could increase production. 

The glass blower must control the sagging and flowing of the glass, the 
pressure of the air entering it, and the twirling of the pipe. If something 
goes wrong he must blow or twirl faster or slower to restore balance. Could 
an inanimate machine develop the skill to do this? By carefully studying 
and measuring the reactions to temperature and dozens of other properties 
of glass, men made a machine that could control the process with scientific 
precision, and thus proved that scientific control can achieve a result that 
was thought possible only by means of human skill. Only through the use of 
such machinery is a low-priced bulb possible. 

In a modern glass-blowing machine a stream of glass flows from a brick 
faucet in the side of a brick furnace, down between two steel rollers which 
flatten the glass stream into a ribbon. One roller, which has indentations in 
its surface, leaves thick buns of molten glass spaced three inches apart on 
the ribbon. These glass buns remain hot longer than the neighboring thin 
sections. The ribbon is carried along on a chain of steel plates, and in the 
plate under each glass bun is a hole, through which the molten glass sags to 
form a constantly growing pear-shaped drop. When each drop has grown to 
an inch in length, a moving nozzle clamps down over the top of the bun 
and gently blows air against the hot glass so that it will expand and thin out 
into a bubble. Shortly thereafter two half-molds rise up from opposite 
sides to accompany the glass bubble; they close together about it as it moves 
along. These steam-lined molds, spinning rapidly, soon round the outside of 
the bubble to the desired shape, while the inside is constantly pressed 
outward by air entering from above. Only steam and air touch the bulb until 
the glass freezes solid. Then the two halves of the mold open and return to 
repeat the process on another bubble. 

When the finished bulb reaches a certain place, it is broken loose from 
the glass ribbon by a smart tap from an automatic mallet, after which it is 
deposited on a wide asbestos belt. There, with hundreds of its fellows, it 
rides through a long oven, where it is heated to relieve strains which might 
later cause breakage. The bulbs coming from the oven in an endless stream 
are inspected and packed by nimble-fingered girls. The glass ribbon whose 
former bun sections are now holes returns to the furnace for remelting and 
reworking, with the possibility next time of finding itself in a bulb instead 
of in the discards. 

At one instant glass is pouring out of a furnace in a molten stream. A 
few seconds later this same glass is frozen into bulbs exactly the size and 
shape wanted. It would be incorrect to say that a machine which can do this 
is almost human. So far as glass blowing is concerned it is more than 
human — its abilities are those of 2000 men. 



May, 1946 25 

The Drafting 
of an Aeronautical Chart 

Caroline Maddox 
Rhetoric I, Theme S, 1945-1946 

THE ACTUAL DRAFTING OF A MAP IS PROBABLY ONE 
of the simplest operations in the whole process of map making, but 
it is no less important that the draftsman be careful and accurate 
than that the compiler be sure of his material. 

The draftsman needs to know practically nothing about how the map he 
is to draft has been compiled. He is given the finished "compilation" of in- 
formation gathered from surveyings, aerial photographs, and other maps, 
in the form of an accurate drawing in color pencil of the rivers, contours, 
towns, roads, and railroads which are to appear on the finished map. 

The draftsman has four sheets of acetate, a semi-clear. Ikwible material, 
on which are printed grid lines (meridians and parallels) corresponding 
exactly to the grids on the compilation. The usual procedure is to draft each 
kind of feature on a separate sheet, named for the color in which it will be 
printed on the finished map. Drainage — rivers, lakes, and shorelines — goes 
on the "blue plate"; towns, railroads, and names are drafted on the "black 
plate"; roads have their own plate, sometimes called the "grey"; contours, 
sand areas, spot elevations compose the "brown." 

Drafting begins with the registering of a clean sheet of acetate over 
the compilation, and fastening the two securely with tape. Registering is 
the process of fitting the grid lines of one sheet e.xactly over the grid lines 
of another. It is important for the accuracy of the map that each plate 
register perfectly with the compilation and with the other plates. Otherwise 
a road may be drafted on the wrong side of a stream, or a town be higher up 
on a mountain than it actually is. Perfect registration is not always easy 
to attain, since acetate has a tendency to shrink and expand a little with 
changes of weather. When two plates do not exactly register, it is necessary 
to shift one of them regularly during the drafting, concentrating first on one 
small area, then on another. 

The drainage or blue plate is usually drafted first, since it is assumed 
that shorelines and rivers are the immutable bases on which hills, towns, 
and roads grow. On Aeronautical Approach Charts the lines of drainage 
are the finest on the chart, drafted with a sharp crow-quill pen. Good drafts- 
men learn to keep an even flowing movement in the lines. Some swear a rigid 
pen point is best, and some prefer a more flexible one, but all agree that 



26 The Green Caldron 

when the line is shaky (on an early Monday morning), the pen, not the 
hand that guides it, is to blame. 

Contours are the next finest lines, drafted of course on a separate plate. 
They are usually (on Aeronautical Charts) drafted at thousand-foot inter- 
vals. The thousand- foot contour encircles the base of a hill; the two- 
thousand-foot line makes a wavering circle inside the first line, and so on 
up the hill or mountain to the very peak, which is marked by a dot and 
numbers indicating the highest elevation. The draftsman is at liberty to im- 
prove a little on the compilation of the contours. Where a contour crosses 
a stream there is usually a "nose," or dip in the contour, pointing back to the 
source of the stream, indicating that the flow of water has worn away the 
earth. It is the draftsman's duty to be sure the noses are turned properly 
upstream and that they rest symmetrically on the drain. 

For some reason the pen used for drafting roads is called a "contour" 
pen, although it is almost never used for drafting contours. The proper name 
of the pen is often preceded by violent adjectives, for it is a tricky instru- 
ment. Theoretically it has been designed to make firm lines of even width. 
It is split like a ruling pen and adjustable to wide or narrow lines, but unlike 
the ruling pen, it is curved and turns in a swivel. The swivel arrangement 
is to help the draftsman swing around curves and draft in any direction 
without varying his line weight by changing the angle of the pen. In the 
hand of a competent draftsman (a Texan, for instance, who is good at 
hanging on to slippery steers), the swivel works perfectly. The ink flows 
smoothly, laying firm black roads across the chart. In less sure hands the 
pen wobbles, digs into the acetate, or suddenly skates off sideways. How- 
ever, if the draftsman can establish a rapprochement with his contour pen, 
he has little else to worry about on the road plate. 

The black plate requires less drafting skill than any of the other plates. 
Only the railroads, drafted like roads with the addition of ties, need to be 
done by a skilled hand. Instead of lettering the names himself, the draftsman 
uses "illuminate type." If he has sent his order to the printer far enough 
in advance, he receives a number of sheets of wax-backed cellophane on 
which all the names for the chart have been printed. The waxed side of 
the cellophane is protected by heavy paper, and the names are printed along 
in straight rows as if they were paragraphs in a book. The draftsman, with 
a knife and triangle, cuts between the rows so that the cellophane, still cling- 
ing to the paper backing, is in strips. Then he can cut each name from the 
strip as he needs it, lift it from the paper by sliding his knife under the wax, 
and lay it like a label on the chart. Pressed by a warm thumb or the blunt 
handle of a knife, the wax-backed illuminate sticks firmly to the chart. 

With four plates completed, the chart is sent to the checkers, and the 
draftsman begins wondering how soon it will be back for corrections. 



May, 1946 27 

Airmen's Unseen Enemy 

Robert C. Wallace 
Rhetoric II, Theme 3. 1945-1946 

IT IS A SUMMER DAY IX 1944, AND FROM A EUROPEAN 
base a flight of American heavy bombers has taken off to bomb Ger- 
many. This is not an unusual mission as missions go for these combat 
flyers. The formation arrives at its target, and through a heavy flak barrage 
the planes drop their bombs and then begin the journey home. 

All of this has been routine, but suddenly in one of the ships something 
a bit unusual takes place. The bombardier has called the crew members on 
their interphones to have them check in as they are required to do at regular 
intervals. From the nose to the waist everyone responds quickly. But when 
the tail-gunner is called, he does not answer. The bombardier knows that he 
can not be wounded, for only five minutes earlier, and off the target, this 
same gunner had checked in. He calls the tail-gunner again, but there is no 
response; and there will not be one, for the gunner is lying dead inside his 
turret. 

Anoxia, the lack of oxygen in the human system, has claimed an(jther 
of its victims from among the high altitude flyers. 

Anoxia strikes suddenly and acts swiftly. Its victim rarely knows that 
anything is wrong. He apparently feels all right until he passes out, and 
then it is usually too late to save him, for at high altitudes he will die in less 
than five minutes. Anoxia may occur at any altitude above fifteen thousand 
feet. To someone witnessing a victim of anoxia, its symptoms are quite ap- 
parent. The first noticeable sign is that the fingernails are blue. Soon after- 
ward the victim becomes quite giddy or incoherent, like someone well under 
the influence of alcohol. Perhaps just before the victim faints his hands and 
fingers twitch considerably. 

Anoxia, in flying, can be caused by a variety of circumstances. It may 
be due to the mechanical failure of an oxygen system or an oxygen mask. 
On combat missions enemy action by flak or fighters may unnoticeably 
damage part of the oxygen system, causing the flyer to lose his supply of 
that precious element. Perhaps a poorly fitting mask or the flyer's own care- 
lessness will bring about the same result. At ver\' low temperatures the 
moisture exhaled by the flyer may freeze and clog the inlet to his mask. Any 
of these circumstances will surely cause anoxia if it is not detected in time. 

Whatever the cause, anoxia is a deadly menace to anyone flying at high 
altitudes. It is a silent, stealthy killer, lurking in the sky, waiting for all who 
would carelessly ignore its presence. 



28 The Green Caldron 

Objective — Guadalcanal 

Bill K. Hill 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1945-1946 

BUT \V.\RS ARE NOT ST-\RTED BY MEN WHO HAV^ 
I trudged endless weary- miles in pursuit of the enemy, men who have 
used water\- foxholes for beds that might at any instant become 
their graves, or men who have fought thirst and hunger through hot, steam- 
ing, disease-infested jungles. Wars are started by men who do not know. 
They do not care. 

I joined the Marine Corps in Januar)-, 1941, and had I known what lay 
ahead of me, I would have been a scared marine instead of a proud one. I 
saw how a powerful fighting machine is built Daily routine started early 
with morning exercises. Then came inspections, parades, forced marches, 
more inspections, parades, extended order drills, and more inspections. One 
could not say that life was dull, but it was certainly not very pleasing to 
men who had been accustomed to the freedom of civilian hfe. ^len who 
had been heavy and short-winded lost weight and developed sinewy muscles. 
Men who had been lean gained weight and looked healthy for the first time 
in their lives. AU began to think and act alike. Above all they learned to 
obey orders, the most important factor in any military organization. Life was 
not easy but training was necessary for the coming battle at Guadalcanal, 
about which we knew nothing. Our training was completed after many prac- 
tice amphibious landings on the beaches of sunny Southern California. 

On July 1, 1942, our ship headed westward, but we couldn't imagine 
what was going to happen. At noon that day the following announcement 
came over the loud speaker: "Attention aU hands! Attention all hands! 
This ship is now on a war mission." Everyone sighed deeply, and I think 
that everyone breathed a word of prayer. The first few days from San 
Diego were rather enjoyable, but as we neared the equator our feelings 
changed. The sleeping compartments were poorly ventilated and the air 
became suffocating. The fresh food supply diminished; the men became 
irritable from the close contact with their fellowmen. A strong fighting 
spirit gradually rose in everyone. At the Tonga Islands, two aircraft carriers 
and their complement of fighting ships were added to our convoy, and we 
proceeded westward- At the Fiji Islands we held a full-scale dress rehearsal 
for our coming operation. This was a test to see how fast we could imload 
food, supplies, and equipment and put them ashore on an imknown beach- 
Since this maneuver was a success, we left the Fijis and headed northwest 
We were joined by additional troopships and several more men-of-war. Our 



4 



jy, 1946 29 

convoy now consisted of scvenU'-two ships, the largest number :na: nzd 
ever been assembled to this time. 

Our destination was still a mysterj' to us, but on the fifth of August our 
minds were relieved. Pamphlets giving a thorough description of the Solo- 
mon Islands were passed out to all hands. These pamphlets told about the 
terrain, the jungles, the possibility' of wild animals, and the many dreaded 
tropical diseases. That afternoon all hands were called topside. The com- 
mander of the task force stepped out on the boat deck with a worried look 
on his face. 

"Gentlemen," he began, 1 see that ail oi you have read the pampnieis 
that have been passed around. Well, I ^'ant to explain the situation as it 
stands now. We have told you about the terrain, the jungles, and the diseases 
of the .So!' !t we have not mentioned the >t the Japs. To be 

truthful, V. know much about them ov. There are a few 

natives, but I can't say whether they arc friendly or not. There cannot be 
many Japs, but there are a few who wi" Me. The casualties will 

be few if each of you obe>-s orders as y ne past This operaticm 

:st be successful if we arc to prevent the Japs from entering Australia, 
a prec.' • the nat- hoot and ask ques- 

ts later. . _ , --nty of a: . scarce. Remember, 

lows, the only good Japs are dead ones and make sure they are dead. 
That is all. and may God bless each and even** one of you." 

For men whose business was war, we knew ven»' little about this opcra- 
n. and our equipment was so \cry inadequate that it scares me to think 
'Ut it now. Nevertheless, we had been aboard ship so long that e^'er>x>ne 
mted to disembark, even if he had to fight the Japs. 
Later we were given the finer points of the operation. We were to be in 
reserve for use in any position or on any island. We were told that the oper- 
ation could last no longer than one week and that we had supplies for thirty 
days. The landing was to be made on the seventh of August, so we had all 
day on the si.xth to prepare. We did nothing except pack gear, clean rifles, 
and roll our bedding. Most of the fellows wrote letters, many with the pre- 
monition that they had seen home for the last time. 

We pulled into the harbor at Guadalcanal and Tulagi at 0627, .\ugust 7, 
1942. The men-of-war had arrived sooner and had already begun shelling 
the beaches. Since this \*-as a novelty- to us, as many as were permitted were 
on the top decks watching. The carrier planes then took up the assault by 
bombing and strafing strategic points that had not been touched by the big 
guns from the ships. By this time all landing craft had been lowered into 
the water and were waiting to be loaded by the first wave of the landing 
party, -\round ever>' transport circled a small contingent of landing craft. 
Rope nets were lowered over the sides and orders were passed to "stand 



30 The Green Caldron 

by." The order, "First wave over the side and into the landing boats. Good 
luck, fellows, give 'em hell !" came over the loud speaker. In a few minutes 
the first three waves of men were ready to hit the beaches. Word was passed 
that successful landings had been made on Gavatu, Tulagi, and Florida 
Islands. 

This was encouragement enough to prepare us for the next announce- 
ment: "Enemy planes approaching from the north! All hands below decks! 
Gunners man your battle stations !" In a few minutes the battle was on. 
Guns blazed, Jap planes began to fall, shrapnel flew in all directions. The 
battle ended almost as fast as it started. Only one enemy plane had escaped, 
but we had lost a transport. During this air battle I saw my first casualty, 
I also saw my first hero, a boy who shot down a plane that had tried to 
crash against our decks. 

It was now our turn to go ashore. While we were headed for the beach, 
the red flare went up. The marines had landed and had the situation well 
in hand. 



. . . Walking Shadow' 

Alice Ross 
Rhetoric II, Theme 3, 1945-1946 

There was no moon, no stars, no lights at all on the pier. On one side 
were the wind and the sea, and on the other, darkness. Even the blank old 
warehouses that lined the dock had merged into black. Joe shivered as his 
foot sank in the sponge of a rotted plank. If only there were some sound 
besides that of waves slapping hopelessly against the pier and the beat of 
his own footsteps. He tried to soften the "bark" of his heels by balancing 
on the balls of his feet as McClellon did. 

McClellon — friend, fellow-boarder, and compatriot; a Scotchman, with 
a hard Scotch brogue and an equally hard head; a man who did not believe 
in signs such as NO LIQUOR OR LADIES ALLOWED IN ROOMS, 
or PLEASE CONFINE TOBACCO JUICE TO RECEPTACLES PRO- 
VIDED; all that was McClellon. Joe remembered going to McClellon's room 
once for a drink. There was nothing unusual in the room except the book- 
case — unusual because one did not expect to find books at a Seventh Street 
rooming house — other things, yes, but not books. There were Ibsen's "Doll 
House," "Emperor Jones," "The Little Foxes," and "Watch on the Rhine"; 
Crime and Punishment, Alone, The Great Hunger, and Men from Nozvhere. 
They said one could tell what a man was like from his books. Joe wasn't 
so sure. 



May, 1946 31 

The wind whipped his thoughts back to the pier. He wished there were 
mother way to reach the house — a street with lights, laughter and noise, 
a street that gave the appearance of normality. The dock, like many other 
things, was different at night. A post rose out of the blackness and Joe 
recoiled instinctively. He was too close to the water. Still muffling his steps, 
be moved in toward the warehouses, away from the guide posts and the sea. 
It was then that he saw the shadows, two mounds of intense black on the 
spot from which he had retreated. They were swaying shadows, moving as 
though pushed by some outward, evil force. Ecstatically intertwined, they 
bent down, back, and up again. Joe stood and watched them, his mind dulled 
for a moment. He almost smiled because the shadows looked not unlike 
Dvergrown "kids" imitating an Indian war dance. But as he watched, with- 
out sound one of the shadows bore the other upward, then dashed it onto 
the pier. Involuntarily, the lifeless mound rolled into the water below. 

Joe's half -smile faded and his mind clicked shut. Quickly he walked on. 
He would not admit that it had not been an Indian dance, that the shadows 
liad been live men and that only one of them still was. "No point in getting 
mixed up in something like this," he thought. There was no point in calling 
the police. The victim would never be found — nor would the assailant. 
A.gain quickening his pace, Joe passed the ne.xt three guide posts safely. 
(\nd then, with a sort of edgeless fear, he heard footsteps that were not 
his own. He steeled himself to turn around and face their owner, and his 
beart stuck in his throat. Out of the darkness came the shadow. That it was 
Ihe shadow, Joe had no doubt. Only when it was abreast of him did he 
realize that it had been mincing forward on the balls of its feet. "Well, thirr, 
Joe," it said, "and may I walk home with 'ee?" 



'Musical" 

Another type of movie is the "musical." This is especially popular during war 
because it eases people out of a humdrum existence and transports them into a 
^ay, new world of lights, color, and brilliance. Take one popular comedian, a 
^ood-lookin,[( singer, several dozen beautiful girls, and a well-known band. Com- 
bine with one inconsequential plot and you will have a modern musical comedy. 
Characters in musical movies are famous for their extraordinary talents. Have 
you ever known a singer to waste time practicing a new song before he sings it 
to the lovely leading lady? Of course not. He glances at the music, ripples over 
a few chords on the piano, and pours his entire romantic soul into his song. 
Magically, an orchestra is heard in the background, accompanying the singer. 
No explanation is offered for this extraordinary occurrence, and the audience 
assumes that Guy Lombardo was taking his boys for a walk and stopped on a 
street corner to earn a little extra money. The strains of the music float through 
the window, and the singer, of course, takes advantage of his opportunity. 

— Lois RUDNIK 



32 The Green Caldron 

The Political Disgrace of 1876 

William Gothard 
Rhetoric II, Theme 12, 1945-1946 

THE YEAR 1876 WAS THE MOST NOTABLE YEAR IN THE 
period of American history between the close of the Civil War and 
the beginning of the war with Spain. It was the year which marked 
the last of our important Indian outbreaks — the conflict in which General 
Custer and his men were massacred at the Little Big Horn. It was the year 
of the great Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, marking the one hun- 
dredth anniversary of the birth of our nation. And it was also the year 
which saw fraud and corruption at the polls bring about a disputed election 
which put our form of government to the severest peacetime test it had 
ever been called upon to endure. 

On election day, November 7, 1876, Samuel J. Tilden, governor of New 
York and Democratic candidate for the Presidency, was a 5 to 4 favorite 
to defeat the Republican candidate from Ohio, Rutherford B, Hayes.^ Almost 
singlehanded, Tilden had exposed and scourged the evil Tweed Ring of 
New York City, sending the corrupt Tammany Hall thieves to prison or into 
exile. Elected governor of his state, he continued his attack upon corruption, 
regardless of party, in a manner which earned him a reputation as a fearless 
champion of clean government. Hayes, the Republican standard bearer, 
though a wise and honest man, lacked the colorful background of his oppo- 
nent, and he was immeasurably handicapped by the black eye which Presi- 
dent Grant's two terms of graft and corruption had given the Republican 
party. 

The early election returns indicated a closer race than had been antici- 
pated, but around seven o'clock in the evening it was announced that Tilden 
had carried the Empire State, giving the Democrats a comfortable margin.^ 
By eleven o'clock it was learned that he had also carried New Jersey, Con- 
necticut, Delaware, Indiana, and the doubtful border states of Missouri, 
Kentucky, and Maryland,^ an indication of a possible Democratic landslide. 
Tilden, needing 185 electoral votes to be elected, had received 184 by mid- 
night, with the returns from four western and three southern states not yet 
in. Hayes retired, feeling that he had lost the race, and later recorded in his 
diary, "From that time I never supposed there was a chance for Republican 
success."* 

' Alexander C. Flick, Samuel J. Tilden, * Hamilton J. Eckenrode, Rutherford B. 

New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, Hayes, Statesman of Reunion, New 

1939, p. 323. York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1930, 

^Ibid. p. 178. 

*"The Scandals of 1876," Colliers, 80 
(September 17, 1927), 19. 



May. 1946 33 

Just as the final edition of the New York Times was going to press, its 
columns containing the sad concession of Tilden's victory, the editor re- 
ceived a note from Senator Barnum, chairman of the Democratic National 
Committee, asking for news from Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina. 
John C. Reid, the news editor, was quick to see the opportunity offered by 
Barnum's intimation of uncertainty, for if the Democrats were not sure of 
these three states there was still time for Republican claims. The presses 
were stopped at once and the returns revised in such a way as to put the 
nineteen votes of Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina in the Hayes 
column, giving him 185 votes to Tilden's 184.'' 

Believing that the situation was not correctly understood by the Repub- 
lican party leaders, Reid hurried to their headquarters in the Fifth Avenue 
Hotel. Although the committee rooms were empty, he found a member of 
the Republican committee, and the two of them decided to go over the 
returns, state by state, before waking the national chairman. Since Reid's 
count was found to be correct, they awakened Zachariah Chandler, the 
national chairman, and told him of the situation.® The returns clearly showed 
that Tilden had been assured of 184 votes, Hayes of 166; in the doubtful 
column were 7 votes from South Carolina, 4 from Florida, and 8 from 
Louisiana. Tilden needed but one vote to cinch the Presidency, while if — 
and it was a big if — Hayes could carry all three of these doubtful states, 
the Presidency would be his. 

The national chairman, suddenly alive to the possibilities at hand, sent 
Reid to the nearest Western Union office, and the following message was 
sent to the Republican governors of South Carolina and Florida and to the 
Republican candidate for governor of Louisiana: "Hayes is elected if we 
have carried South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. Can you hold your 
state? Answer immediately." Later in the day Republican Chairman Chand- 
ler sent out the famous telegram: "Hayes has 185 electoral votes and is 
elected."^ 

To this claim the Republican leaders consistently and stubbornly adhered 
until the end. And thus, out of a city editor's crazy notion, was born what 
was in some respects the most trying predicament which any democratic 
government has ever faced. 

Immediately after making the unfounded claim of Republican success. 
Chandler rushed strong members of his party to the three doubtful states 
in order to apply as much pressure on the final outcome of the vote as pos- 
sible. Rut the Democrats had acted just as quickly, and as soon as special 
trains had transported these appointed "overseers" from each party to Flor- 
ida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, the mad scramble for votes began. 

"The Scandals of 1876," loc. cit. Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers Com- 

• Paul L. Haworth, The Haves-TUden pany, 1906, p. 50. 
Disputed Presidential Election of 1876, V^-rf. pp. 51-52. 



34 The Green Caldron 

In the face of the carpetbag government, the Florida voters gave the 
Democratic tickets, both state and national, a small majority.^ The strategy 
of the Republican managers was to prove fraud in casting or counting votes 
so that the Board of State Canvassers would decide in favor of a Republi- 
can victory. The Democrats were determined to hold the triumph they had 
won at the polls. Both parties began to collect affidavits by the hundreds to 
prove the corruption and dishonesty of the opposition.^ This phase of the 
election was quite as crooked as the misuse of the ballot box. 

The Board of State Canvassers was composed of Secretary of State 
S. B. McLin, a Tennesseean who had deserted the Confederate Army and 
was now a "scalawag" Republican; Comptroller C. A. Cowgill, a physician 
and a carpetbag Republican; and Attorney General W. A. Cocke, a Virginia 
Democrat.^" This board began its work on November 27 in the presence of 
the "visiting statesmen" of both parties, the Republican Governor Stearns, 
and his Democratic opponent, G. F. Drew. It exercised authority to accept or 
to reject returns, received documents of protest, and heard witnesses.^^ 

On December 2, while the board was still deliberating, Manton Marble, 
one of the visiting Democrats, sent a telegram which typified the fraud 
connected with the Florida canvassing board. It was addressed to Colonel 
W. T. Pelton at the Democratic National Headquarters and read as follows: 
"Have just received a proposition to hand over at any hour required Tilden 
decision of board and certificate of Governor for $200,000." Evidently 
something went wrong with this attempt to sell the nation's highest office, 
for, at a private session on December 5, the partisan board converted the 
Tilden majority of 93 into a Hayes majority of 294, and thus gave the state 
to the Republicans. The next day the Republican electors met, cast their 
vote for Hayes, had it certified by Governor Stearns, and sent it to the 
President of the Senate in Washington. ^^ 

But G. B. Drew, the Democratic candidate, insisted he had been chosen 
Governor and appealed to the State Supreme Court for a recount. The order 
was given, a recount was made, and Drew was declared elected. After he 
was sworn in, the new secretary of state, the new comptroller, and the new 
attorney general met as the new Board of State Canvassers and declared 
the Democratic electors chosen. The Democratic electors met at once, voted 
on January 19 for Tilden, and sent their certificate, signed by Governor 
Drew, to Washington.^^ 

Though certain details of the canvassing differed, the situation in South 
Carolina and Louisiana was essentially the same as it was in Florida. Whole- 
sale corruption, intimidations of Negro voters by the tens of thousands, 

•Flick, op. cit., p. 344. '"Ibid., p. 716. 

•William W. Davis, The Civil War and " Haworth, op. cit., p. 65. 

Reconstruction in Florida, New York: "Flick, op. cit., p. 346. 

The Columbia University, 1913, pp. 715, "Davis, op. cit., pp. 728, 733-736. 

716. 



May, 1946 35 

political assassinations, and extensive rioting gave the canvassing boards in 
these two states ample opportunity to swing the vote in either direction. 
Members of these boards played one party against the other, and in Louisi- 
ana the cost of bribing a canvasser rose from $200,000^* to well over the 
million dollar mark. As in Florida, the canvassing boards of these states 
contained a majority of Republicans, and ultimately they discarded enough 
Democratic votes to give the Republicans a majority. The Republican elec- 
tors met, cast their votes for Hayes, and sent their certificates to the Senate. 
And, following the precedent set in Florida, the Democratic electors met, 
disregarding the verdict of the canvassing board, cast their vote for Tilden, 
and dispatched it to Washington.** 

Few people in the United States today have even the faintest conception 
of the gravity of the situation existing during the winter of 1876-77. In the 
end the question at hand was settled peacefully without leaving many traces 
that could be remarked by future observers. But at the time probably more 
people dreaded an armed conflict than had anticipated a like outcome of the 
elections in 1860-61. 

In fact, it was difficult to see how the dispute could be settled in any 
other manner. Both parties seemed equally determined; both professed to be 
thoroughly confident of the justice of their cause. There was intense bitter- 
ness on both sides, but especially on the part of the Democrats. Just when 
they were certain that they had broken the long reign of the Republican 
party, a Republican conspiracy had hatched to thwart their legal right to 
office. Threats of force were freely indulged in, and the phrase "Tilden or 
blood" appeared in the New York Times.^^ 

Finally, in an effort to remedy the crisis. Congressional committees and 
subcommittees for investigation of the dispute were formed and sent to the 
states in dispute. There they examined witnesses of all kinds, conditions, 
and colors, and after several weeks of work accumulated 13,000 pages of 
testimony, which are of great value to the historian, but which exercised 
little or no influence upon the outcome of the controversy. Each committee 
and subcommittee brought in two reports. Since the House had a Democratic 
majority of seventy-four, the majority members of its committees reported 
that the electoral votes of Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina rightfully 
belonged to Tilden; the minority members, from the same committees, re- 
ported opposite conclusions. The same state of affairs prevailed in the 
Senate, except that since it had a Republican majority of seventeen, the 
majority reports were favorable to Hayes, the minority reports to Tilden.*^ 

As time passed, it became apparent that the critical point of the whole 
contest lay in the question of the power to count and declare the electoral 

"See page 34. It appears that $200,000 "Flick, of), cit., p. 358. 

was a standard rate. " Haworth, op. cit., p. 177. 

"Haworth, of. cit., p. 112-116. 



36 The Green Caldron 

vote, for despite the Congressional investigations two sets of returns had 
been received from Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina. Unfortunately 
the constitutional provision on the subject was so indefinite as to leave 
room for decidedly different interpretations. The Constitution provides that 
the certificates of the votes of the electoral colleges shall be transmitted 
sealed to the seat of the government, "directed to the president of the 
Senate," and that "the president of the Senate shall, in the presence of the 
Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the 
votes shall then be counted."^^ Upon the interpretation of the last clause 
seemed to hinge the question of who was to be the President of the United 
States. If, as some of the Republicans contended, the clause meant "counted 
by the president of the Senate," then there was little doubt that Mr. Ferry, 
who was a partisan, would decide that the returns sent in by the Republican 
claimants constituted the true vote and would declare a majority of one for 
Hayes. If, as the Democrats asserted, the counting was to be done under 
the direction of the two houses, a deadlock seemed likely to ensue. Such a 
deadlock, they contended, would throw the election into the Democratic 
House. One Democrat slyly suggested a "compromise" whereby the two 
houses would vote together on the issue, but this was quickly squelched by 
the Republicans since their majority in the Senate would be overcome by 
the Democratic majority in the House by the comfortable margin of fifty- 
seven votes. ^^ 

For a while circumstances were favorable for the advocacy of extreme 
measures by hotheads in both parties, but fortunately the men in Congress 
whose patriotism rose above their partisanship proved equal to the situation. 
A bill was introduced in the House which provided for a constitutional 
amendment placing the count in the hands of the Supreme Court. Though 
it failed to pass either house, it was important because it marked the first 
step toward placing the decision in the hands of a designated group. 

On January 15, 1877, Henry B. Payne, Representative from Ohio, intro- 
duced a measure which, if approved, would create an Electoral Commission 
composed of five Senators, five Representatives, and six Supreme Court 
justices to be chosen by lot, whose duty it would be to settle all disputes in 
connection with the electoral count. 

Selection of the justices by lot caused immediate criticism, and so a new 
plan was proposed providing for the selection of five senior associate jus- 
tices outright. It was understood that two were to be in sympathy with the 
Republicans, two with the Democrats, and that this group of four was to 
decide upon the choice of the fifth justice. Since there remained on the 
bench four justices with Republican leanings, and a fifth. Judge David 

""The Hayes-Tilden Electoral Commis- '" Haworth, op. cit., pp. 177-200. 
sion," Atlantic Monthly, 72 (October, 
1893), 522. 



May, 1946 37 

Davis, an Independent who had remained neutral throughout the entire dis- 
pute, it was more than Hkely that Davis would be chosen to round out the 
fifteen-man commission. Going on this assumption, the two houses of Con- 
gress met, and by an eight to one ratio, passed the Electoral Commis- 
sion Bill.=^° 

The bill was signed by President Grant, and the nation rejoiced, Repub- 
licans and Democrats alike. The Democrats, however, ceased their celebrat- 
ing two days later when the Chicago Tribune announced that Illinois' 
Democratic Governor Palmer, acting on the advice of the Democratic party 
in Illinois, had chosen Justice Davis to fill a vacancy in the Senate. Happy 
to escape the unpleasant task of serving as odd-man on the Electoral Com- 
mission, Davis accepted the senatorship, stating that he was now a member 
of the Democratic party and was no longer an Independent.'^ 

The following day the House chose as its members Payne, Hunton, and 
Abbott, Democrats, and Hoar and Garfield, Republicans; while the Senate 
selected Edmunds, Frelinghuysen, and Morton, Republicans, and Thurman 
and Bayard, Democrats. At the same time the designated judges — Clifford 
and Field, Democrats, and Strong and Miller, Republicans — offered the 
fifth place to Senator-elect Davis, but he promptly declined it. The judges 
then named Justice Joseph P. Bradley of New Jersey, a Republican, as the 
"odd-member" of the fifteen-man tribunal." The Electoral Commission was 
now complete with eight Republicans and seven Democrats. 

On February 1, 1877, the two branches of Congress met in the hall of 
the House for the count. The diplomatic gallery was filled by the ministers 
of foreign lands, and other galleries were crowded. On the floor were many 
distinguished guests and visitors. As the clock struck one, the doorkeeper of 
the House announced the Senate, whose members entered the hall. Ferry, 
President of the Senate, took the Speaker's chair, called the joint session to 
order, and one of the most important meetings in American history began." 

The votes of the states were announced in alphabetical order. The certif- 
icates of Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, and Dela- 
ware were opened and counted without incident. Florida was called, and a 
hush passed over the great hall. The certificate giving four votes to Hayes 
was read, and it was formally objected to by Field of New York. Sargent 
of California and Kasson of Iowa objected to the second Florida certificate. 
The chair then announced that the papers would be sent to the Electoral 
Commission for decision, and the Senate withdrew. 

For seven days the Commission discussed the Florida case and, in par- 
ticular, the question of the Commission's authority to go behind the state 
returns. 

"Flick, of. cit., pp. 382-383. "/bid., p. 221. 

" Haworth, op. cit., p. 219. " Flick, op. cit., p. 387. 



38 The Green Caldron 

Before the decision on Florida was reached, it was whispered that Judge 
Bradley would vote with the Democrats on the Commission. Consequently 
there was much rejoicing among the supporters of Tilden. However, on 
February 8, 1877, the Electoral Commission voted 8 to 7 not to receive evi- 
dence by going behind the state returns; and two days later, after arguing 
the case for hours behind closed doors, it decided by the same strictly 
partisan vote that Hayes' electors in Florida should be counted. Democrats 
at once denounced Bradley as an "unjust Judge" and accused him of accept- 
ing a bribe, but the simplest explanation of Bradley's action is that his 
judicial impartiality was submerged in partisanship, and his vote was what 
his party expected. 

The count continued in joint session until Louisiana was reached. Again 
an objection was made to the certificates, and the evidence was handed to 
the Electoral Commission. 

After five days of deliberation the Commission held that "the Tilden 
electors' certificate was signed by McEnery, who was not governor, that the 
Returning Board's decision was final, and that no fraud had been proved." 
On February 16, by the customary 8 to 7 vote, the Commission awarded 
Lousiana to Hayes. 

The next day the count was resumed. South Carolina was reached, and 
objections sent the case to the Commission. Democrats made no attempt to 
defend the Tilden electors but argued that the vote should be thrown out. 
Republicans defended their own certificate and submitted their case without 
further argument. On the last day of February, 1877, the Commission an- 
nounced to the joint session that the votes of South Carolina should be 
added to the Hayes fist. 

At four in the morning on March 2, two days before the prescribed date 
for the inauguration, the Senate marched into the hall, and ten minutes later 
Ferry announced to the crowded gallery and to the nation that Hayes, hav- 
ing received 185 votes to Tilden's 184, was duly elected.^* 

While the outcome of the great controversy was for the most part a just 
one, the contest was unquestionably contaminated by many deplorable inci- 
dents. No true patriot can contemplate without shame and regret the terrible 
outrages upon the Negroes, the frauds committed by election officers, the 
violence of party feeling, the attempts to purchase returning boards and 
electors, the questionable conduct of leaders on both sides, and the partisan- 
ship displayed by the members of the Electoral Commission. 

Yet there were other aspects which revealed in the American people 
characteristics that are beyond praise. A bitter dispute which might have 
ended in civil war was settled without a resort to arms because the people, 
even in the face of this great political fraud, had confidence in the machin- 
ery of the government and in the men on whose shoulders rested the enor- 

" Ibid., pp. 390-395. 



May, 1946 39 

mous burden of settling the dispute. A great party had gone down to what 
most of its members believed was a foul defeat, yet it accepted the result 
without a struggle in order to do what was best for the country. Though the 
stormy atmosphere produced by the controversy lingered a while in Ameri- 
can public life, it has finally subsided without leaving any appreciable scar 
on American politics or upon our Republic. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

"Another View of the Hayes-Tilden Contest." Century, 86 (June, 1913). 192-201. 

"Comments on the Hayes-Tildcn Contest," Century, 86 (June, 1913). 285-287. 

Davis, William Wilson, The Ciz-il War and Reconstruction in Florida, New York: 

Columbia University, 1913. 
EcKENRODE, HAMILTON J.. Rutlterford B. Hayes, Statesman of Reunion, New York: 

Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1930. 
Flick, .Alexander C, Samuel J. Tilden, New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1939. 
Haworth, Paul L., The Hayes-Tilden Election, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 

1906. 
"Hayes-Tilden Contest." Harpers, 114 (March. 1907). 557-567. 
"Hayes-Tilden Contest for the Presidency," Century, 86 (May, 1913), 3-20. 
"How Hayes Became President," McClure's. 23 (.May, 1904). 76-88. 
"Scandals of 1876." Collier's. 80 (September 17, 1927), 19-20. 
"The Hayes-Tilden Electoral Commission," Atlantic Monthly, 72 (October. 1893), 

pp. 521-538. 



Rhet as Writ 



When I consider the above mistakes plus some others, it will all boil 
down to the fact that it is the cause of disinterest or just trying to get by, 
because yet today their remains the fact that the taking of this course is 
still a means toward an end and still not caring whether I make a D or A 
but only whether I pass or flunk is only the interest I have for this course 
because my true interest is numbers and their association to each other and 
not with the association of words and ideas of words which would make my 
other courses easier, if I had a control over my English or rather rhetoric. 



Breakfast was over and out to the barn I stammered. Here the first thing 
I had to do was fill a pail of warm water from the water heater and add to 
it a tablespoon full of disinfection. Then placing the empty milk cans and 
pail of wjfter on the wheelbarrel I moved into the barn. 



Soon, I shall be buzzing from flower to flower as the other bees do. 



Honorable Mention 

Grace Barker — Our Educational System 

Regina Bojanowski — I Shall Never Forget 

Helen Chernikoff — Long Distance Telephone Department 
in Chicago 

Paula Companion — Camp Shows, Incorporated 

Rovert Davlin — A Night Patrol 

Adora Del Grano — Incident 

David Ford — The Glory of a Champion 

Frances Friedman — Will Rogers : Typical American 

William Gothard — The Westinghouse Time Capsule 

Donald Graf — Greater Integrity in Cinema Art 

Les Houser — Weather or Not 

Dona Kite — Land of Israel 

Ben Lawless — A Supposition 

Carmen Leonard — A Blue Suit Coat 

Charles Lessing — Homecoming 

William Raby — Technocracy : Its Rise and Fall 

Herzl Ragins — Mom's Siberian Seal Coat 

James Shafter — Chaff 



[HE Green Caldron 

A Magazine of Freshman Writing 

JAN i „- , 

Anonymous: Operation — Confusion 1 

Anonymous: Joe Bruggs — Graduate 4 

Barbara Long: The Massacre of St. Bartholomew 7 

Charles Lessing: Homecoming 10 

James F. Kessler: Post-war Retrospect 11 

Arthur R. Gottschalk: Paris. August 23, 1944 13 

Addison Coodell: Fighter Sweep 14 

Victor B. Robin: The Mechanic 16 

Mona Lee Kessler: Twenty Million Painted Dreams 18 

John L. Kline: The Debt 23 

Ben Lawless: Interlude 24 

Mortimer Hitt: Lincoln the Soldier 27 

Robert E. Davlin: Night Patrol 32 

Willis Masemore: Chowringhee Road 35 

Thomas S. Pool: Will Russia Cooperate? 36 

Theodore McCarty: An Open Letter 37 

Rhet as Writ 40 



VOL. 16, NO. 1 OCTOBER, 1946 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



Jl HE Green Caldron is published four times a year by the 
Rhetoric Staff at the University of Illinois. Material is chosen 
from themes and examinations written by freshmen in the Uni- 
versity. Permission to publish is obtained for all full themes, 
including those published anonymously. Parts of themes, how- 
ever, are published at the discretion of the committee in charge. 
The committee in charge of this issue of The Green Caldron 
includes Miss Constance Nicholas and Messrs. Robert Geist, 
John Hamilton, Ben Porzak, and George Scouffas, Chairman. 
The Green Caldron is for sale at the lUini Union Rook- 
store, Champaign, Illinois, 



THE GREEN CALURON 

Copyrighted 1946 
BY CHAS. W. ROBERTS 
All rights reserved 
No part of this periodical may be repro- 
duced in any form without permission in 
writing from the publisher. 



N 



Operation — Confusion 

Anonymoi's 
Rlu'loru I, Theme 11. 1945-1946 

OW IS THE TIMK TO ALTKR THK ARMY IXTO A HETTER 
and more consistent orjjanization. The first logical step in making 
the Army an honorable profession for persons above the status of 
nincompoop is to eliminate brass-hats who would feel more at home spear- 
ing wastcpaper for the Chicago Park District. As it now stands, the Army 
is a refuge for befuddled, pompous old goats who can not cope with the 
uncertainties of civilian life. Many f)f the officers lounging around on the 
public payroll are leaders in name only; they do not know their j(ib; they re- 
main in positions of command until their stupidity l)orders on criminal negli- 
gence. Most of these Scotch-and-soda windbags are museum pieces of past 
wars, and their stock answer to any criticism is, "1 knew the Army when 
things were rough; you men have it soft. ... 1 remember back in 1918, 
etc." Man\' of the incumbent old "rhinos" are in charge of operations and 
; training programs about which they know little or nothing. ( )wing to the 
reverent atmosphere surrounding many of the commissioned gold-bricks, 
their mental development ceased decades ago. Training programs are often 
inadequate and erratic because the "big ilog" is better informed on ix)ker 
than he is on training techniques. Some people deny that the Army needs 
an overhauling, but my own personal experience dictates the contrary. 

Eor fourteen months the Army trained me to be a bomber pilot. The 
training was intensive and accelerated because of the need for well-trained 
men without delay. Everything was proceeding according to schedule until 
suddenly the Army forgot the "will-trained" stipulation. During my tran- 
jSition period from the earth to the air, 1 Hew in Piper Cubs and primary 
jbasic trainers, and advanced trainers. Gradually and systematically I moved 
up into the higher horsepower brackets until I was qualified to fly a twin- 
engined trainer having 450 H. P. It was now that the Army threw away the 
recipe. After graduation in March of '44, I was sent to Tonapah, Nevada, 
for training as a co-pilot with a crew on a H-24 Liberator. (Because of its 
smooth, graceful contours the Lib is referred to as the "pregnant foot- 
locker.") 

The Lib is powered by four 1200 H. P. Pratt and Whitney engines — 
that's a leap and a small jump from 450 H. P. — and of all heavy bombers 
the Lib is the most difficult to handle. The alleged purpose of "phase train- 
ing" was to familiarize me with this heavy bomber. The flying time I com- 
piled, the technique 1 acquired, and the proficiency to which I attained de- 
pended upon the first pilot, who was to teach me to fly the R-Two Dozen, 

f 1 1 



2 The iiri'cn Caldron 

also affectionately known as the Consolidated I'anana lioat.* 

Landings, take-offs, formation and instrument flying, and emergency 
procedure constituted the curriculum — supposedly. After three months 
of. flying 1 had made one landing and two take-offs, and had flown for ten 
minutes in close formation, which is the key to survival in combat flying. 
Of actual practice in emergency procedure I had none. 

Early in July of the same year, a captain took command of the crew; he 
allowed me to fly as pilot on two or three flights before we went overseas on 
July 18. Having developed nimble fingers from flipping toggle switches, and 
shiny breeches from 200 hours of "sand-bagging,"^ I was ready for combat. 

After four missions our pilot was removed from the crew and given a 
job as a squadron operations officer. This promotion came as the result of 
hard work, honest endeavor, and the kind assistance of a fraternity brother 
up in group headquarters. Without a pilot, it was six months before we 
had eleven missions behind us. All the while, I was developing sundry cal- 
luses in vulnerable places. 

Then came my golden opportunity, my shining hour, my bid for glory, 
my chance to smear a 1^-24 all over the English countryside. The operations 
officer said to me, in meaning if not in words, "Watson, we realize that as 
a pilot you stink, but unless you take over we shall be forced to split up 
the crew and fly you as spares." Flying as a spare is a horrible fate; there- 
fore, I graciously consented to accept this promotion to the left seat. (He 
immediately put away the buUwhip and threw the shackles into a foot- 
locker.) From that day forward the good Lord assigned His most capable 
angel to look after the most pitiful pilot in the Eighth Airforce. 

The only noteworthy event during my brief transition period came when 
I blissfully tried to land in a snowdrift. Not much damage was done to the 
plane; but the colonel informed me, "We are here to bomb the enemy; we 
are not conducting a transition school for co-pilots!" I agreed — no argu- 
ment on that score. 

When 1 became chief throttle-jockey of our airborne boxcar, I was drunk 
with power and determined to make my guardian angel tarn his flying pay; 
I amassed a record of terrifyiiig "firsts." My first experience with pro- 
longed formation flying came on my first combat mission. My first pre- 
dawn take-off in a Lib took place with a full load of gas, bombs, guns, and 
ammunition. My first night-landing came after an eight-hour mission in 
rain and fog. My formal introduction to the intricacies of instrument flying 

' The Lib is a very fine aircraft, 

A stratosphere bathtub no less, • 

It never b<jthcrs the target, 

But for ten miles around what a mess ! i 

(Tune: .\ly lionnie Lies Over the Ocean) > 

'Going along for the ride; not logging any pilot time. 



October, 1946 3 

occurred in the worst weather I*!n},'lan(i had seen in years; on one mission 
we lofi^t^d five hours of actual instrument time in snow, rain, and icing con- 
ditions. "Ii!mergcncy procedure" meant nothing to me until two engines on 
one side cut out simultaneously over the Cierman lines. 

As if my ine.xperience were not enough of an obstacle, our group was 
l>Iagued by commanding officers of dog-catcher caliber. The first C. O. had 
done most of his flying back in the Middle Ages — the early thirties, that is. 
1 U' was suffering from the illusion that aviation had not changed since then. 
( )ur second colonel came to us from a photo-reconnaissance group and 
knew nothing of the deep dark secrets of heavy bombardment, and he didn't 
care to learn. He, too, had pet theories which went out with the barn- 
storming pilot of the late twenties. Throughout the confusion of parading 
toninianding officers through the post, the group operations officer was 
\ aliantly trying to manage the bomb group e.xactly as he managed his barber 
shop back in Racine. The tonsorial e.xpert was eventually sheared of his 
powers but not until he had succeeded in winning the I). F. C. for leading 
tlic group over avoidable flak. His successor was an energetic young poli- 
lu ian, whose claim to fame rested on his ability and willingness to consume 
two breakfasts in order to be with the colonel. 

It is possible that our base was an exception; perhaps gross negligence 
in choosing leaders was not prevalent throughout the Army; however, if 
such incompetence existed in the most technical branch of the Army, I 
cringe at the possibilities in other branches. 

The Army system, as it stands today, breeds lethargy and deadens initia- 
tive. Promotion, too often, is only for the obsequious ^x>litician. High-rank- 
ing officers who are unqualified for leadership are merely rearranged rather 
than removed. 

(leneral Doolittle's committee has made a step in the right direction, but 
[until the Army is made an honorable profession worthy of patronage, by 
I the placing of qualified and efficient men at the head of an efficient organi- 
zation, the incongruous old Army system will continue indefinitely. 

War and a Boy 

One Sunday cvcninj,'^, I was swimming in a hotel pool. Bleary-eyed, I arrived 
home in time for dinner. As I entered the house. I sensed something wrong. My 
mother was weeping; my uncle was swearing; and I stood dumbfounded. As I 
glanced upon the wall 1 noticed the time and date — 5:05, December 7, 1941. 
They told me it was war! Of course I had read about wars in school, had learned 
of tyrants and heroes, had even been forewarned that another war miyht occur. 
Yet, to me, it was still just a word in li'chstcr's Dictionary, and. in a great part, 
I imaj^ine it still is. Boys, but a little older than myself, were Koing off to war, 
some of them never again to see the homes they had left. I spent a sleepless 
ni};ht dwelling upon my future. Was 1, too. to ^o off to war? What was war? I 
awoke the following morninjL; worried and undecided. What was it all about? 

— Stephen J. Honet 



4 The GrccM Caldrot 

Joe Bruggs — Graduate 

Anonymous 

Rhcloric J, Theme 3, 1Q45-1Q46 

IT WAS HALF-PAST-FIVE ALREADY, AND JOE BRUGGS WAS 
driving his bicycle home Hke mad. I'll bet Mom will be in a tizzy because 
I'm late again, he was thinking. And I can just hear Pop saying: 
"Today, of all days, son — your graduation day — you could have been on 
time for dinner." With Pop it was always "today, of all da}'s." If it wasn't 
Rotary meeting night, it was bridge with Mom at the Stipes. Always some- 
thing. And Beth, the kid sister, will probably give me the X-ray eye as soon 
as I walk in. As sure as God made green apples she'll tind something to 
criticize. Lucky thing I remembered to get my hair cut this afternoon. Why 
do they keep treating me like a kid? Don't they realize a guy seventeen has 
to get out with the fella's once in a while. Now, take Nick Chappers' folks. 
They never bothered about him. Geez, he could keep his own hours; came 
and went as he pleased. I'll bet his folks wouldn't miss him if he went away 
for a whole week. 

As he pedaled, Joe kept swallowing air by the mouthful, and exhaling it 
through his teeth. Already his esophagus felt like a peanut whistle, and his 
tongue like burnt cork. But some time ago Joe discovered that his mother 
had a dual sense of smell: one like all other people's and a second one for 
the sole purpose of detecting cigarette smell. So what if I did smoke a few 
cigarettes in Rocky Dobbs' garage. For Pete's sake, it was embarrassing for 
a guy to have to admit he still had to sncok a drag. Gripes, do they want a 
giant in the house? I'm 5' 9" now. Just gotta get a job this summer, and 
then 1 can as.sert myself in that house. That's it! A job would really do the 
trick. That would o|)en their eyes and make them see me as a man. 

Joe wheezed his way down the driveway into the back yard. Gotta keep 
on the ball now. Maybe even apologize to them, and be extra nice to Beth. 
Can't ri.sk not using the car for ])rom night, day after ton\orrow. Yipes, 
m)t that. Not after the terrific i)lans 1 made with Rocky for that night. It 
was the car that cinched his date with Peggy MacGregor, and didn't the lads 
envy him for that, ^'ep. he'd act just like a lamb when they bawled him 
out now. 

As he entered through the kitchen, '-e noted happily that they wouldn't 
have much time for lecturing, as the clock pointed to 5:50 and he had to he 
at the school by seven. Strangely, his family greeted him like a loving son 
and brother. No reprimands, no digs from Beth, no nothing. Ah!. so they've 
decided to be psychological with me. As if I can't see through it all. But this 
suits me just tine. Have to hand it to them though; they sure can i)ut on an 



October. 1046 ' 5 

act. Pop talking to me man to man, like I was a business associate or some- 
thing; Mom, all dressed up and beaming like she was chosen to be queen for 
a day; and Beth looking as though Mr. Anthony had just solved all her 
problems. Anyway, the dinner is super. Roast beef with mountains of mashed 
potatoes, and my favorite dessert, strawberry shortcake. Roy. my Mom is 
the best cook in the world. 

* * * 4: 

After dinner a quick shower. First a shave, but might as well let the 
shower run so they won't hear the electric Schick downstairs. They still don't 
understand about this shaving business. Even Beth, with her X-ray eyes, 
won't admit that there is a stubble. Whatta life. 

Mom has all my clothes laid out. My new gray herringbone with the 
semi-drape; the loud tie I picked out by myself; and the latest in Scotch- 
grained shoes. Hmm! clothes certainly make the man. Mom comes in as 
usual to inspect and correct. She straightens my tie, tugs at my coat, and looks 
at my fingernails. Beth enters with a bottle of smelly stuff. But, nix, that's 
where 1 draw the line. Women! Sometimes they're an awful nuisance. 

Pop drives me to the school, which is only seven blocks from home. The 
exercises don't begin until eight, so he'll go back to get Mom and Beth, and 
they'll return later. We pick up Flash Buckles on the way. ju.st like I prom- 
ised him. He gets in and right away T know that his sister won out, because 
he smells like Wool worth's perfume counter on a humid day. I edge up 
closer to Dad l>ecause that stuff is contagious, and I don't want to be razzed. 
Maybe Flash should have sat in the back seat. 

When we get to the school most of the fella's are there already. They all 
Hook different somehow. We all try to appear casual in our unaccustomed 
iget-ups. Not one will admit that he is excited. We goof around the halls for 
awhile and whistle after some of the girls going upstairs. They look silly in 
their high heels, ^'specially Maisie Niel.son with her piano legs. Miss Brook, 
our math teacher, calls for us to come up.stairs. .She helps us with our gradu- 
ition robes and gives us last minute instructions. Pm glad it's Miss Brook, 
because she's a good Joe. I'll never forget how she let me retake my math 
final so I wouldn't Hunk out. 

At eight sharp we march down the middle aisle of the auditorium, while 
the school orchestra plays "Pomp and Circumstance." I feel like a freak, 
»nd all 1 can think of is: Why don't they open some windows! 

As soon as 1 take my seat on the stage I spot my family up front in the 
ludience. Aunt Mary and Uncle Ben are with them. They're sitting up poker 
straight and everybody looks so serious. Like dead pans. Flven jolly, round 
Jncle Ben. Say, he'll l)e' good for at least ten bucks tonight. Maybe even 
:wenty. But the program begins. 

More music. 1 can't keep vc\\ eves oflF Fats Thompson sweating over the 



6 The Green Caldron 

bass fiddle. The invocation. A speech by the mayor. Then Anita Cranmer, the 
class valedictorian, gives out. I almost have her speech memorized myself 
from all the rehearsals. Boy, she's a spook. Straight A student, but still a 
spook. Wonder if anyone is taking her to the prom? 

It seems that a century passes while I sit listening to speeches. That 
President Wilson who delivers that boring, long-winded baccalaureate ser- 
mon sure doesn't do his college much good. I feel the Vitalis melting all 
over my scalp, and I want to take off my tasseled cap and scratch my head. 
This is enough to drive a guy bugs. Rocky Dobbs in front of me makes 
creaky sounds on his chair every time he recrosses his legs. Nick Chappers is 
having one time trying to keep awake. His head keeps jerking 'til I think it 
will fall off his neck. To the right. I notice that Maisie Nielson has slipped off 
her shoes. Wouldn't it be funny if she couldn't get them on again in time and 
had to walk across the stage in her stocking feet? There's Pegg>\ Gosh, how 
does she manage that cool-as-a-cucumber look? Roy, T'm a lucky guy. She's 
the best looker in the class. 

Suddenly, a slight commotion, throats being cleared. Those called go 
forth to receive their diplomas. Joseph Bruggs. Hey, that's me. I get up feel- 
ing like a dead tree trunk, but I make my way across the stage and my 
voice sounds clear when I thank Principal Watkins while he shakes my hand 
and hands me the scroll. It feels pretty good in my hands. I feel kinda 
strange. Sorta half glad and half sad. 

Then it's all over. Everyone rises and we sing the school song. I don't 
know whether I'm relieved it's all over, or whether some parts of the 
speeches soaked in, but I sing the old "Purple and Gold" like crazy. 1 have 
to admit, it was a swell four years. 

My folks meet me at the exit. All the parents seem to be talking at once. 
Congratulations fly all over the place. I want to wash the sticky lipstick off 
my face. In the confusion Mom hands me a gift box. The nifitiest flat, gold 
pocket watch with chain, inscribed "To Joe, from Mom and Dad, 6/15/44." 
Beth gives me just the identification bracelet I'd been hankering for. And 
Uncle Ben really comes across. 

Pop says: "The house is yours, Joe, so invite your friends over. Mom 
has the icebox jam full, and Beth has borrowed all the latest jive records we 
don't have at the house. The old folks will stay out of your way." Whatta 
family. Whatta doggone swell family I got. 

Hobo vs. Tramp 

A hobo is not to he confused with a tramp. A tramp is a hobo fallen from 
grace; he is beyond the pale of hobo society and society in general. The tramp 
will stoop to skulduggery that definitely is not genteel. To a hobo the line between 
genteel and general skulduggery is clearly defined. Indeed, any hobo is indignant 
if he is called a tramp, for the tramp is the criminal of the hobo world. 

— Arthur Radziewicz 



October. 1946 7 

The Massacre of St. Bartholomew 

Harbaka Lon(; 

Rhrtnri, 11. Thcwr 7. /W5-/Wrt 

I A UGUST ()V 1572 WAS To WV. A MONTH (JF CELEBRATION 
yfc^ for the people of France. The years ^^{ religious strife and conflict 
•^ -^^ were seemingly at an end; ff)r the King. Charles IX. and Admiral 
I Coligny, leader of the Huguenots, had hecr)mc reconciled. Paris was pre- 
paring for a week of festivity. The King's sister, Margaret, was to be mar- 
I ried to Henry, King of N'avarre and another Protestant leader, on August 
I 18. The wedding was to l>e followed by days of feasting, and from all parts 
lof the country Catholics and Huguenots alike had been invited. Then, too, 
the Feast of .'st. Martholomew was to be celebrated on August 24.' 

There were some in the city, however, who were in no mood tor merry- 
making. Foremost among them were the ^ueen-mother. Catherine de Medici 
ami her follower, the Dukt- of Guise. For ytars Catherine had striven 
t" he the dc facto ruler of France. After the death of her husband and 
(lining the reigns of two of her sons, she had had an incessant struggle with 
numerous factions for supreme executive iM)wer. When, at last, her third 
son. Charles, ascended the throne, Catherine In-lieved that the [Mjwer was in 
lu r grasp; for Charles was easily swayed and should be readily molded to 
h( r views. Hut the vacillating Charles was also influenced by the strong and 
i( rvent Coligny. Although fearing for her own supremacy. Catherine did 
not object to the accord between the King and Coligny as long as it did 
n.it conflict with her plans. When, however. uiM>n her return after a short 
absence from the country, she found that Coligny had prevailed upon 
Charles to declare war on Spain, she decided that it would be necessary to 
suppress the growing jxiwer of the Huguenots or face the absolute ruin of 
Ikt famil).- 

e'harles at tirsl refused lo listen to Calherine's harangue on the dangers 
which threatened him from within and without, and. which, according to 
h( I and her leaders, could l>e averted only by Coligny"s death; but he was 
hnally persuaded and gave the order that Coligny be shot.' 

On Augu.st 22 Coligny was tired upon and wounded, though not fatally. 
1 he Huguenot leaders were furious and clamored for vengeance. Catherine, 
n.)\v thoroughly frightened, hastily called a council at which it was decided 
to kill all the Huguenot chiefs except Henry of N'avarre.* 

imbrxdge Modem History, Vol. 3, p. 19. 

:\ Chambers. The Hook of Pays, Vol. 2, p. 261. 
'Maurice W'ilkinsun, "The I'robicm of St. Bartholomew's .\[assacre," Dublin Review, 
174 (.'\pril-Jiinc, 1924), 202. 
* Cambridge Modern History, loc. cit. 



8 The CrccH Caldron 

Early in the morning of August 24 as the bells of Paris began to ring 
for the Feast of St. Bartholomew, armed bands of Catherine's leaders 
began the massacre. As the houses containing the Huguenots had been 
marked during the night with white crosses, the afifair proceeded swiftly. 
The authorities, who had been warned, made no attempt to intervene, and 
the Paris mob needed little encouragement to lend its aid to the slaughter/*- 
One party led by the Duke of Guise went at once to Admiral Coligny's 
house. The Admiral offered no resistance, and in a short time his body, 
horribly mutilated and hardly recognizable, was thrown down to the Duke 
of Guise, who stood waiting in the court yard. The blood was wiped from 
the face of the corpse, and Guise, picking at the body, said, "Yes, it is he; 
I know him well."® 

Catherine's aim had been accomplished; but now the mob was in a wild 
frenzy, and the massacre soon exceeded the bounds upon which she and 
Charles had calculated. Tt became a wholesale butcher of Catholic and Protes- 
tant alike. Five hundred men of rank, many women of high birth, and many 
members of the clergy were murdered; and, as if the crazed people needed 
more excitement, the military director, Marshal Tavannes, rode through the 
streets with a dripping sword crying. "Kill! kill! F>loo(lletting is as gf>nH 
in August as in May."' 

The streets were filled with heaps of naked, bleeding corpses, and cart- 
loads of bodies were conveyed to the Seine. The living were tied hand and 
foot and thrown off the bridge. Even the children were victims. An infant, 
as yet unable to walk, was dragged through the streets by a cord tied about 
his neck. One man boasted of killing four thousand with his own hands.* 

These ghastly killings continued for two days, and similar massacres 
occurred at Meaux, Orleans, Troyes, Rouen, Lyons, and Toulouse." After 
the final outbreak at Bordeaux, which happened several weeks later in 
October, it was estimated that over tifly thousand people had been killed.'" 

For a short time the massacre was considered to have been necessary 
in order to bring peace to France through the destruction of P^rotestantism. 
The court won the congratulations of other Catholic countries, and Pope 
Gregory XI 11 celebrated it by striking a medal." Soon, however, it was rec- 
ognized that Catherine's policy of "self interest of princes" rather than 
religious discord had been the primary cause of the massacre, and all luiroj)'' 



^bid., p. 20. 

•Henry White, The Massacre of St. Bartholomei>.''s .Day, 1572, Preceded b\ a History 

of the Religious Wars of the Reiyn of Charles IX, p. 409. 

'//).(/., p. 417. 

• Ibid., p. 425. 

" Arthur Tilley, The French Wars of Religion, p. 30. 

'"Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 10, p. 193. 

" Ibid., p. 194. 



October, 1946 ^ 

was shocked.'^ Had Milloii lived a hundred years earlier, no doubt he would 
have written. "Avenjje, () Lord, thy slaufjhtered saints . . ."'^ to express 
horrified public o|)inion. Charles became remorseful and tilled with horror. 
To his surgeon he contided. "I feel like one in a fever, my body and mind 
are both disturbed; every moment whether asleep or awake, visions of 
murdered corj)ses, covered with blood and hideous to the sight haunt me."'* 
Today the massacre is looked upon not only as an obviously wicked deed, 
but also as a great blunder; for. justified or not. it has been a theme of re- 
proach against Catholics ever since. 

" Ibid., p. 193. 

"John Milton, "Sonnet on the Late Massacre in Piedmont." 

" Chambers, op. cit., p. 262. 



BlKLIOGR.ArHY 

Acton, LoKi>. and others (cds.). Cawhndiie Modem History. Camhridi^e: The I'nivcr- 

sity Press. 1907. \'oI. 3. pp. 19-20. 
Blknf.t, Gir.BF.RT. The Mn.K.Knere of S/. HartholoweXK'.^ Pay, 1572 London: Kose and 

Crown in St. Paul's Church Yard, 1678. 
Ch.m^bkks, R. The Book of l>ays Philadelphia: .1. H. Lippincott Co., 1914. Vol. 2, 

pp. 257-67. 
Eneyclopaedia of the Soeiat .Seienees. New York: The Macmiilan Co., 1933. Vol. 10, 

pp. 193-94. 
F.M.i AM', SviviA Lknmk. 7/ic .Uirv.fi;. rc «/ S / Horlh.ilonieiK: Lomlon: .1. I.onn. l>d., 

1938.' 
MoKAN. Cariiinai. Patkick r<""HA.NCi><. The S"/ Hnrtholome-,,- .\/.(.v.v<(, r.-. 2tth of Juuust, 

1572. Dul.lin: Browne and Nolan, 187.5. 
Til I KV, Arthur Ai'i.ustcs. The Irriieh liar.'; of Helii/ioii. New York: The Mac- 
miilan Co., 1919. 
\\ MITE, Hk.nry. The Ma.fsaere of St. Hartholonieu'.^ Ihiy. 1572. I'reeeded by a Ih.ftory 

of the Relidtou.y ITcjr.f of the Rei<in of Chorle.K IX New York: Harper and 

Brothers, 1871. 
Wii.KiN>M)N, Mairice. "The ProMem of St. Bartholomew's Massacre," Dublm Reiiex<; 

\ol. 174, (April-June, 1924), 191-218. 



In the Still of the Night 

Big Sand Lake lay nioiioiiless before me. Only the liohhini; of a shadowy 
raft rose from the dark lake to break its smooth, level surface. Rii)plelcss. wave- 
less, the lake was asleep. A ((uarter moon reflected i)ale silver light to the edge of 
the shore. The glittering lane of water, surrounded by vague darkness, made me 
think I could walk up to the cdiie of the shore, ti|)toe lightly up the shiny path, 
and sit on an end of the crescent-shaped moon. 

Sand, cooled by the night's moderate temi)erature, bordered the lake. I felt 
the damp, fine grains push between my toes and thought how the same sand, hot 
and fiery, had almost burned the soles of my feet that afternoon. I dug my feet 
deeper into its moistness. 

Suddenly I wanted to laugh. That I was looking at water at two o'clock in the 
morning was really funny. 1 stuffed a handkerchief into my mouth and choked 
down a giggle. Big Sand Lake was still very (piiet. — Janf. Mk iif.i. 



^^ The Green Caldron 

Homecoming 



OURS HAD 
Eleven day: 
Hcintzelma} 



Charles Lessing 

Rhetoric I, Theme 1, 1945-1946 

URS HAD BEEN A FAST AND UNEVENTFUL CROSSING. 
,'s before, we had boarded the navy transport General 
:lman at Yokohama — needless to say, without misgiving — 
and now we were within sight of land for the first time since then. Very 
low on the horizon we could see a dark blue streak, broken here and there 
by valleys or low-lying clouds. 

Some of our fellow passengers had been waiting more than three years 
for the sight. Now they crowded the decks and found new fue! to light the 
excitement in their eyes, excitement that seemed to overflow and infect all 
those on deck. The energy thus created was expended in various ways. Some 
of the more boisterous men danced a little jig and then hurried from passen- 
ger to passenger, clapping each on the back and shouting the good news that 
somewhere beyond that blue streak was home. The more inhibited watchers 
just stood with hands in pockets, grinning. There was nothing for them to 
say that would have been appropriate. Others stared and at intervals mut- 
tered some audible ejaculation that broke from their silent thoughts. Soon all 
were quiet, dreaming again the things they had all dreamed so frequently 
during the last several months of expectant waiting. 

The weather was clear and bracing. For most of the vo3'age it had been 
cold and dismal; a light snow had fallen on two consecutive days. Today the 
weather was cooperating with other events to add pleasure to our home- 
coming. The sun was bright, the wind low, and the air just chill enough to be 
refreshing. 

Gradually the dark blue streak grew in the water and turned green. Soon 
we could pick out mountain ranges, their highest peaks capped with snow. 
Several islands glided past, and about one o'clock we entered the mouth of 
Puget Sound. 

The mountains had opened up here to let us through. Their lower slopes 
stood bright and warm in the sun, clothed in green for the most part, but 
here and there fringed with brown. Then came the welcoming seagulls. They 
approached in their characteristic long, level glide, turned back at the stern, 
and kept a constant air patrol over us until nightfall. 

Darkness closed in quickly in the Sound, and with it came fog. Up ahead 
we saw a dim glow from the lights of Seattle, but now everyone was too 
tired and cold to show any excitement. The fog closed in, but the glow 
ahead grew brighter and larger. 

We must have rounded a bend or passed an island, becau.se suddenly we 



October, 1946 ' H 

.oiiid Mc tlic lij,'hts ill Seattle, mistily encircled with halos. One entire hill- 
side seemed sprinkled with lijjhts. As we drew nearer they assumed a more 
:)rderly desij^n, and we could trace streets as they marched up one ridge, 
:lipped. and reappeared on the next. Then we could distinguish between 
signs on the water front. Dominating the harbor was an enormous red neon 
sign advertising Magnolia gasoline and oil. There was no mi.staking it — 
this was the United States. 

liefore daylight we were again on deck to watch the sun rise over the 
mountains. The morning, however, turned out shrouded in foggy silence. 
All the usual noise and bustle of a busy harbor was muted, and the night 
a;ave way to a timid daylight. 

The city slumped on its hillsides and was a di.sappointment. Two tugs 
chugged slowly alongside our tall ship and began nudging us toward the 
docks. Two trucks marked "American Red Cross" huddled alongside the 
dock shed, and several portly ladies wearing Red Cross armbands waved 
igaily as we pulled in to tie up. 

At the otner end of the dock stood a long line of olive-drab trucks, their 

kCxhausts breathing light wispy steam, waiting to start us on the second leg 

of our j(nirney toward home. The first gangplank hit the dock and was 

immediately filled with a line of debarking soldiers, all much more sober 

ijthan they had been the day before. This was old stuff to them — they had 

walked otT ships before. Xot a single one of them stooped to kiss the good 

earth as some had done elsewhere. They were glad to be back, but this 

w.i^n'l "home" yet. They were eager to climb into one of those trucks and 

U'ct started. The sooner, the better. 



Post -War Retrospect 

Jamks F. Kksslkk 
Rlu-toric I. Theme A. 1945-1946 

IF THE FOLLOWING FEW WORDS WILL BE OF USE TO 
anyone about to enter one of the branches of service, then I shall be 
glad to have written them; for anything written in vain is like a radio 
I'l lying in an empty room. Entrance into, and life in, the service is unique 
tn say the least. With that statement I can safely estimate that ninety-five 
l>i rcent of all servicemen both active and released will agree. 

However, to come to the point and to give the reader a few pertinent 
i.K ts, let me start by saying that 1 was selected by some of my neighbors, 
much against my will and probably theirs, to leave a well-organized life and 
embark upon a year's military life. This took place in 1941, ante helium. 



12 The C'Tcen Caldr 

And at that time my first impression of the Army was something like thisf 
"The big shots in Washington have to make a showing, so here 1 am. Who 
selected the characters to operate this clambake in the tirst place? How can 
1 expect to get anything from a life like this? Might as well resign myself 
lo a blank space in m\' life known as 'The Army.'" These thoughts were 
kept active and even strengthened by the men around me. As a matter of 
fact, to show the state into which my mind had wandered, 1 volunteered for 
overseas service; and, as slated ))reviously, that was before World W^ar II 
had shaken the world. 

There was a certain ps\chological cfifect in volunteering as I did. Al- 
though the Army had predetermined a year of my life, 1 attempted while 
in the Army to predetermine the rest of my life. In other words, I asked 
for it and so could do no complaining. And, strange as it may seem, I found 
less to complain about. Friends seemed closer; T made new and lasting 
friendships. Senses of value changed. 1 looked forward to smaller things 
and was content with them; a couple of letters from home, a new moving 
picture, the satisfaction of washing my own clothes — these things made me 
realize what 1 had to do to remain stable wliile away from home and over- 
seas. What else could 1 do about it ? 

The one thought that overshadowed all others was that this could not 
last forever and that some day we would return to that so-called organized 
life we had left. I reserved a certain portion of my mind for civilian thoughts 
and ideas. Knowing that Army life definitely was not my forte, I devised 
this scheme with the thought that should I ever return to civilian life, that 
was the portion of my brain which would carry me through the readjustment 
period; and the "Army" portion of my brain would be relegated to an in- 
active status with no trouble at all, gradually to be outweighed by the ever- 
growing "civilian" portion. Probably an unorthodox method, which, never- 
theless, is working admirably. 

To return to some facts, what I prefer to call the intermediate stage of 
my Army career ended simultaneously with the ending of hostilities in 
Europe. I had tried to shape my destiny, and now the time for which I had 
])lanned was here. Once the fact of release dawned on me, 1 had to settle a 
mental cf)nllict: the relative security of life in the Army vied with complete 
independence and its attendant problems. 1 {leci<led I had had enough of 
Army security. 

So, after seemingly endless orientation, processing, inspecting, and sign- 
ing papers I found myself a civilian faced with the problem of what to do 
with myself. Actually it turned out to be not so much a problem of what to 
do with myself as of how to carry out what I had already set for myself to 
do. There was, and still is, the problem of thinking for myself; the realiza- 
tion of being completely independent is quite gigantic. 

1 believe that now 1 have a proper perspective on my Army life: the 






October, 1946 J3 

rvice has left me both benefits and disadvantages. For instance, as far as 
Health is concerned 1 have certainly gained much, and I am referring to 
thmgs other than weight. My al.ihty to accept and make the most of differ- 
ent situations has increased. On the other hand, there is the fact that man- 
ners and social graces grow lax under Army surveillance. Speech is reduced 
to its simplest form in the Army, a form of which I do not approve for 
civdian conversation. I have to weigh the.se and other factors to derive full 
\.ilue from them. 

Kelea.se from the Army has made me realize that anv one of the .services 
can improve one's health and give him friends, memories, and unusual ex- 
periences. .Such things will last a lifetime. 



Paris, August 23, 1944 

AkTHI k R. Ci()TTS( HALK 
Klutoru II. TJunir It. VN'>-l'Jlft 

J OK RAXLEY AND 1 Wl-.RF. COXHKI-.l) WITH NORMANDY 
dirt and laden with a two weeks' growth of beard in addition to the 
traditional M-1 rifies. steel helmets, foul-smelling gas-impregnated 
fatigues, and other (i.I. acces.sories. Further, one could detect a strong scent 
of cognac surrounding us if he so desired. No one .so desired. A strong .scent 
of cognac surrounded everyone, and everyone was seeking a scent of 
champagne. 

We were tired of being kissed bv aged men and wet l).d)ies. We were 
weary with the stories of the "misunderstoctd" French collaborators who 
sought protection. We were apprehensive about French souvenir hunters 
seeking anything in our possession. We no longer cared about patting the 
backs of the well-meaning members of the 1". F.l. and having them pat ours. 
We desired women and drink, and we hunted for a (|uiet cafe. 

Our journey led us through narrow, winding cobblestone alleys bedecked 
with bunting and populace. Surging crowds snatched at us. beamed at us, 
and shouted Vive VAmcriquc at us. Hands congratulated us. extended to us, 
enveloped us. We were made welcome in the Parisian fashion. . 

Down the cheering Boulevard Mauiiclinc, down the crowd-filled Champs 
Elysccs, past the famous Arc dc Triomphc stumbled Raxley and I, two 
Americans in search of some compensation for the murderous hedgerows of 
Normandy. 

Champagne flowed at every street corner. Water glasses filled with sticky 
red liquor were downed in toasts to Roosevelt, Churchill, De Gaulle, and 
Stalin — then to France, the F.F.I. , the Fourth Division, the English, New 



14 The Green Caldron 

York City, and as many United Nations as any particular crowd could re- 
member. Raxley and T kept remembering fewer and fewer nations as the 
evening wore on, then fewer and fewer leaders. Later we just cheered and 
drank to anything anyone said. 

We forgot about women; we forgot about quiet cafes. We didn't even 
mind being kis.sed by old men and wet babies. Baxley rather enjoyed it and 
became so jubilant that, at one point, he kissed several of them back. I was 
too occupied at giving shrill night-piercing whoops to realize how ridiculous 
he k)oked. 

Suddenly it was dawn, and 1 had a headache. Baxley had disappeared. I 
wondered how I got on the steps of ihe Place de l' Opera. I faintly recalled 
imitating Caruso to the accompaniment of an urging mob. I wondered if my 
outfit had moved out of its bivouac area; 1 began walking down empty, 
littered streets. So this was Paris ! 1 wondered what lav ahead. 



Fighter Sweep 

Addison Goodell 

Rhetoric I, Theme 2, 1945-1946 



A ND IT CAME TO PASS THAT BEFORE THE SUN WAS 
A^^ risen, the night orderly went forth out of his place* to the abode of 
■^ -^^ the birdmen and roused them each in turn. 

And he said, " 'Tis the fourth hour and briefing comes before the dawn," 
And he retreated in haste, for he was wise in the ways of the birdmen. 

And the birdmen cursed him loud and long, for his tidings were of no 
great joy. 

For the sweep was to come they knew, and only the keen were glad. 
And the keen were few. And the keen grew fewer at the fourth hour of 
the day. 

And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth and great unhappi- 
ness in that place. But a fear for their commissions was in them. And they 
went. 

And as they went, there came unto them he of the great intellect who 
is the I.O., who was known by other names also. 

And one of the birdmen said unto him, "What is this thou hast done 
unto me? Wherefore hast thou beguiled me?" m 

And the I.O. said, "Thus it is done in our country." And holding up a 
ribbon of blue and of gold, he spake, "Fulfill this week and we will give thee 
this, also for the service which thou shalt serve with us another seven years." 



Oitohrr. 1946 IS 

Hut the birdmen departed saying, "What manner of poppycock is this 
whereof he speaketh? The law of avera^^es getteth us all in the end. So 
be it." 

"Verily, verily," said the others, "amen." 

For they were not happy in the service that day and the pouches of 
their eyes gave witness. 

And they went into the Holy of Holies which is called the Briefing Room. 

And as they entered therein, each in his turn looked upon the writing 
on the wall, for such it was. And after each had looked at the lines thereon, 
they said one to the other. "This cannot be." Hut soon one came among them 
known as Graywall, who said. "It is .so." And all was quiet as the tomb of 
the prophet. 

And he gathered his Hock unto his bosom and spake earnestly of course 
and of K.T.R. And they comprehende<l him not. I'ut he was wise and 
comprehended for them all. 

Then he pointed to the ma|) and said. "Heboid this Alpine heap and this 
pillar, and be witness that 1 shall not pass over this heap lest the petrol 
giveth out. For the Air-Sea-Kescue maketh not light of early reveille. .Xnd 
the Forts must be shepherded by our birds." 

And all that were there concurred saying, "X erily, it is so." 

And then Graywall .sent messengers before him to his brother Trune in 
the land of the R.A.F. 

"Forsooth," said he, "the ."^pits will be welcome ere the sun setteth this 
day." And it came to jkiss that he knew \\li«reof he spake. 

And draywall said unto them. "Hegone. for the hour of pressing draws 
near." And thus they went to the jeeps and the jeeps to the dispersal. 

.Xnd the head birdman cho.se his liock for the day, and some he hus- 
banded for yet another day. And some whom he left behind secretly re- 
joiced and prai.sed the Lord. And those that went forth were called one's 
and two's and were given colors for each to know the other. And number one 
shared his jamoca with numl)er two saying, "The Lord watch between me 
and thee while we are ab.sent one from the other." And thus they drank 
saying, "Cheers," one to the other. 

And it came to pass that each of the birdmen went forth to his bird and 
was amazed at what was contained therein. lUit at the hour of pressing, each 
of the warbirds drew the breath of life and thundered forth in i)ower and 
majesty — save one which went not. And that birdman then heal his bird 
with his hands and kicked it with his feet, but it went not. Thus he stayed 
home and wrote the necessary form. 

Hut all else went to the proper place to tly away, and he of the check- 
ered Hag sent them off. And all tiew off save for one who pranged for lack 
of revs. 

"Woe betide him who prangeth," saith the prophet, "for he curseth him- 



16 The Green Caldron 

self and his children and his children's children." 

And the birds went on their journey and came to the land of the people 
of the caste, and all was serene. And he who was known as Tablet spake to 
Graywall of ten plus and twenty plus. Hut the others attended him not. 
believing he spake of the balloon barrage, and he clucked to himself. 

And it came to pass that the Forts were clobbered beyond the heap, as 
was the custom in those days. But all was serene with our birdmen- 

And someone said, "Thou hast a Focke-Wolfe on thy tail." And each of 
the birdmcn went this way and that way to see whereof he spake and each 
was lost unto the others. And one said, "Where art thou, lilue Two?" And 
the other replied, "Lo, I spin out and am lost unto thee." And another said. 
"Wither goest thou. Red One?" And the Red One answered, "I lome. ff>r my 
cockpit hath smoke." And yet another spake of homings. 

And Graywall said, "Where be ye? For the time cometh that the big 
friends (for as such they were known in those days) be gathered together 
and shepherded to the waters." Hut the others heard him not, or heeded him 
not, for each thought only of getting out of that place. 

And they went home by divers routes, each roosting in his own good time. 

And again they gathered unto the Holy of Holies, where (iraywall told 
them of the evil that had been done. 

And he gave them hell in general. 



The Mechanic 

Victor B. Robin 
Rhetoric I, Theme 1, 1945-1946 

A BLINDING, WHITE-HOT SUN BEAT DOWN ON THE 
coral airstrip. Shimmering heat waves rose irregularly and formed 
little mirage-lakes. From across the strip came the purr of a truck or 
jeep hurrying home. The strip itself was quiet; the only moving thing on it 
was the figure of a man on top of the wing of an airplane. 

He knelt on the cowling atop the engine with his head and shoulders 
buried in the accessory section behind the engine. Small twitching movements 
of his body were accompanied by sounds of metal on metal and a steady 
stream of profanity. It was monotonous profanity with undertones of 
sincerity. It was the swearing of a man familiar with swearing, who found 
that it best expressed his feelings, a man who knows that no one is listening 
and is angry at the thought. It was the profanity of a man resentful of being 
alone, resentful of having to work, resentful of having to work alone in the 



October, 1946 17 

heat. It was an outlet for a man provoked and angered by close quarters, 
sweat in his eyes, slippery tools, bruised knuckles, and his other aches and 
pains. Only once the noise stopped; then one hand came out of the engine, 
and coaxed and coached by a few grunts, found a new tool and returned 
to work. 

At last the man stopped w(jrk, pulled himself out of the engine, replaced 
the cowling, gathered up his tools, let himself down off the wing, put the 
tools in a toolbox, and then paused to wipe the sweat out of his eyes. 

On the ground next to the toolbox lay a pair of neatly folded army pants; 
on top of the pants lay an army towel; on top of the towel lay a letter, a 
watch, a pack of cigarettes, and some matches. The man took one of the ciga- 
rettes, lit it, and let it dangle from a corner of his mouth while he read the 
letter. Apparently he had read it before, because he skipped the first page 
and smiled while he read something on the bottom of the second page. Then 
he refolded the letter and put it back on top of the towel. 

He stood there under the wing looking out over the ocean. He had short 
blond hair, which had been bleached out by the sun, and he was burned the 
color of shoe leather. He wort- a peaked cap, shorts, light-weight moccasins, 
and a pair of sun glasses. Only the army pants and airplane served as clues 
that would identify him as a soldier. 

When he finished the cigarette, he picked it apart and scattered it on the 
coral under foot, grinding the lighted part under his shoe. Then he put the 
watch and cigarettes in the toollxjx, tucked the letter in a pants pocket, and 
spread the pants and towel on a carefully chosen spot under the airplane. 
He selected the best looking spot and carefully felt for all the lumps of 
coral that stuck up through the cloth, casting them aside one by one as he 
found them. When he had spread the cloth to his satisfaction, he took off 
the sun glasses, pulled the peaked cap down over his eyes, lay down and 
went to sleep. 

The airplane and the crew assigned to it were going to fly a mission in 
a few short hours — a mission from which they might not return; but he 
had nothing to do with that. When they took off from the strip, that plane 
would be in the best mechanical condition possible. His work was finished. 
He slept soundly. 

Mrs. Sword-tail and Her Progeny 

One day Mrs. Sword-tail surprised everyone by producing one hundred and 
fifty little Sword-tails. I had always supposed. thouKh I had never thought much 
about it. that fish might have twins or triplets, or even eight or nine as dogs 
do. but this event completely floored me. Little did 1 know about the famdy hfe 
of Sword-tails, for no sooner was her family complete than it started to dis- 
appear. Apparently she agreed with me that triplets were enough, because three 
is the number she left. At least she wasn't selfish about it; she mvited the 
neighbors in and they all had a feast. — George L. Clark 



18 The Green Caldron 

Twenty Million Painted Dreams 

MoNA Lep: Kkssler ■ 

Rhetoric II, Theme 12, 1945-1946 

AT ANY GIVEN TIMP: OF THE DAY AT LEAST TWO MIL- 
Z^ lion American housewives are listening to a soap opera.* Although 
-^ -^ these universally popular dramatic serials have a daily listening 
audience of over twenty million women, little thought is ever given to the 
industry necessary to produce the hundreds of daily serials that are broad- 
cast over nation-wide hookups.^ Yet, the soap opera programs constitute 
the largest and costliest assembly-line production of entertainment in the 
radio industry. NRC and CBS have estimated their combined incomes from 
the sale of air time for soap operas at thirty million dollars annually — far 
more than any other type of program brings in.^ One soap manufacturer 
sponsors sixteen serial stories at an estimated annual cost of fifteen million 
dollars."* These are fabulous figures, but they are not as fabulous, relatively 
speaking, as the figures concerned with the actual production of a soap opera. 

The majority of the shows are created, written, and produced by adver- 
tising agencies and then presented to the broadcaster for network production. 
One of the largest agencies is that of Blackett-Sample-Hummert. In their 
offices on Park Avenue, or at their home in Greenwich, Connecticut, Frank 
and Anne Hummert produce sixty-seven radio shows per week, sixty of 
which are soap operas — sixty soap operas at the rate of twelve per day, 
five days per week! The Hummerts dream up and dictate a "story line" for 
each show, defining the plot and suggesting appropriate dialogue and char- 
acterization. For instance, this is a story line for a recent half-hour episode 
of "Mr. Keen": 

Scene one opens with the nice old lady, sweet, dear, and lovaDie . . . coming 
to see Mr. Keen and telling him that her husband has disappeared. . . . Mr. Keen 
asks if her husband had any enemies or any reasons for disappearing^. She says 
no. He asks if she thinks ... he might be dead — as she said he wasn't feeling 
well. She says that she feels that he's alive and Mr. Keen can find him. ... In 
scene two we show the little old lady and her accomplice had done away with the 
husband 

This story line, or skeleton, goes to a subsidiary Hummert organization. 
Air Features Incorporated, where a staflf of twelve extremely anonymous 
writers, six women and six men, grind out the actual dialogue. These 
writers, whose job it is to pad and develop the pre-w^itten story line, are 

'J. K. Hiitchens, "Are Soap Operas Only Siuis?" New York Times Magazine, March 

28. 1943, p. 19. 

'"Daytime Classics," Time, 40 (November 30, 1942), 45. 

' Hutchcns, loc. cit. 

* "Story of Mary Marlin." Life. 17 (September 11, 1944). 67. 



Oclobcr, 1946 19 

paid trom one hundred and twenty-five to two hundred dollars a week per 
soap opera. After Air Features Incorporated has developed the story line 
into a complete story, the finished product is sent back to the Hummerts for 
a final check. After this final check the story is returned to Air Features, 
where it is cast and made ready for production. 

To the layman it might seem that the most difficult problem mass-pro- 
duction writers have to face is that of variety and originality. One would 
think that they w<juld run the gamut of ideas within a few months. But 
getting new and different ideas seems to be the least of the script writers' 
worries. Soap-opera writing has other problems, peculiar to the trade. Find- 
ing names for hundreds of characters is one really troublesome task. Frank 
Hummert says that he has given up trying to create names. When he needs 
a few new ones, he just goes for a walk and copies some from shop signs. 
The Hummerts also have a great deal of trouble keeping the dialogue of 
their shows fresh. Script writers don't seem to last l(jng under the strain of 
mass-production creation, and inevitably they fall into a rut of cliches and 
colloquialisms. One writer who lasted for seven years set the all-time en- 
durance high for Hummert employees. Since one of the most appetizing 
aspects of the soap operas is the suspense created, the biggest problem the 
writers must face is that of keeping the slorifS from ending. They can't 
afforil to sap a story of its interest by t<M> serious a clima.x. They must keep 
the story going ! ' 

Not all soap operas are production made, however. "The Goldljergs," 
for instance, is written, produced, and directed by one person — Mrs. Herg. 
For most of the last fourteen years, Mrs. Herg, wife of a consultant on sugar 
technology and mother of two children, has ground out her soapy,' five-times- 
a-week masterwork for I'roctor and (iamble to the tune of five thousand 
dollars a week. Besides writing, directing, and producing the show, Mrs. 
Berg plays the leading role, that of Molly Goldberg. She has written three 
thousand si.x hundred and forty scripts (about si.x million words) for "The 
Goldbergs." This sounds like a great deal of work, but it hasn't been all in 
vain, for now, at the age of forty-two, Mrs. Berg is a millionaire. She has 
a ten-room duple.x in Manhattan and an estate in Bedford Hills, New York, 
The Princeton University Library has asked Mrs. Berg to send it scripts 
of her show to keep as permanent references of one of the best serials now 
being broadcast. .Since radio scripts are mimeographed, and a collection of 
these daily scripts would soon cause the archives to overflow, it is hoped 
that one representative script per week will serve the purpose.** 

There are many who produce seemingly impossible amounts of material 
in this thriving soap-opera business, but the one who has honestly earned her 



•"Hummerts' .Super Soaps," Ncx^'sweek, 23 (January 10, 1944), 80. 
•"Gol'Ibergs at Trinceton." Time. 41 (April 26. 1943). 40. 



20 T^l^f Orcen Caldron 



title of "yueen of Soap Opera" is Irna Phillips, thirty-nine-year-old spinster 
earning five thousand dollars a week. She writes five soap operas which are 
equivalent tc; over twenty-seven novels a year, and she meets every copy 
deadline on the dot — a genuine literary mill. She writes the episodes a 
month or six weeks in advance, her only assistants being her two secretaries. 
In her Lake .Shore Drive apartment, she dictates the stories to her secretaries 
by enacting each line, changing her voice to denote the various characters. 
The episodes and plots are recorded on large charts which help to maintain 
the continuity of each of her five stories. Although outstandingly successful 
as a writer. Miss Phillips broke into radio as an actress. One day her studio 
told her that script writing was the coming thing in radio for women, and 
fired her. I'affled, but determined, she dreamed up and sold her first soap 
opera, "Painted ])reams," which started her off on what seems to be an 
endless career." 

The writers, however, aren't the only ones who are making small for- 
tunes from the soap operas. The actors and the radio stations are making 
sizable profits too. The radio actors' union scale is twenty-one dollars for 
each fifteen-minute preformance plus added fees for rehearsals and repeat 
broadcasts. This scale enables an actor who may be making three or four 
appearances weekly on each of several serials (and many of them do) to 
earn from three hundred to five hundred dollars per week — not bad for 
actors whose names their public seldom knows. The weekly production cost 
of an average fifteen-minute daytime serial is two thousand dollars plus the 
radio time cost, which comes to about nine thousand dollars for a network 
hookup of approximately sixty stations.* 

As the networks expanded to nation-wide hookups, the popularity and in 
turn the listening audience of the soap operas grew to the present-day figure 
of some twenty million housewives." The vast number of people whom these 
dramatic serials reach and the fundamental emotions with which the dramas 
deal have inevitably afifected American housewives. 

Producers, physicians, and psychiatrists have vehemently argued the good 
and bad physical and psychological effects of the soap operas. The pro- 
ducers' answer to the argument that the soap operas deal with stories that 
are too sad and too depressing is, "No troubles, no story — the family in- 
volved would be just an ordinary, everyday family." They believe that the 
appeal of soap operas is due to more than just the fact that misery loves 
company. They presume that most people are more preoccupied with the 
unhappy aspects of their lives and recollections, and the uncertainty of their 
futures, than they are with the endurable or, in rare cases, the downright 
happy status quo of the moment. They presuppose that not only the secret 

'"Queen of Soap Opera," Newsweek, 20 (July 13, 1942), 60. 

* Hutchcns, lor. cit. 

" "Da;^time Classics," lor. rit. 



I 



i 



Orfnbcr. 1946 21 

and subconscious mind of wcjmankind, but the conscious mind itself, is 
packed with more memories of loneliness and frustration and unrealized 
romantic reverie than with memories of past delight or present fulfillment. 
Since the women of the daytime audiences are having physical and psychic 
problems that they themselves cannot understand and are unable to solve, 
radio presumably takes them into their own problems or, better still, into 
problems worse than iheir own, <jr it takes them away from their problems. 
It gives the listeners two constant, and frequently simultaneous, choices — 
participation or escape — and lM>th work.'" 

Ahh(jugh Dr. Paul I-;i/.arsfeld, direct(jr of the Office of Radio Research 
at Columbia University, does not seem to consider the mental and physical 
state of American women to be as serious as the producers have described 
it to be, he does, however, believe that women get two gratifications from 
listening to the daytime serials. First, the serials seem to provide an escape, 
a daydreaming which carries them away from their daily lives. Second, and 
almost the reverse, women use the stories as a source of guidance in their 
private lives. About forty per cent of the listeners say that the serials help 
them solve their own problems. These people have given actual, concrete, and 
detailed instances in which they have dealt with S(Kiety more successfully 
because they have listened to the soap operas." 

The vVomen s Institute of Audience Reactions has found through its 
surveys that women have several reasons for listening to soap operas: 
(1) soap operas make work seem lighter; (2) they provide guidance, help- 
ful philosophy, and inspiration; (3) they supplant reading, saving time and 
eyes; (4) they provide pleasant escape and lake their minds off their per- 
sonal troubles; (5) they create pleasant anticipation and suspense; (6) they 
satisfy their natural appetite for entertainment, particularly dramatic enter- 
tainment; and (7) they help to dispel loneliness.'' 

Pychiatrists. however, have arrived at different conclusions. There are 
those who think the potential effect of the daytime serials debilitating. The 
stupendous amour* of wishful thinking, self-pity (through identification 
with characters whose misfortunes resemble one's own), "phony" philosophy, 
and neurotic egoism which the women affect after listening to many soap 
operas is viewed with alarm. Dr. Louis Herg, psychiatrist and formerly 
physician to the New York Department of Health at Welfare Island, says, 
"The constant listener to the forty programs studied can become as morbidly 
fond of his fantasy world as the user of the opium pipe that brings momen- 
tary surcease with drugged dreams. . . . The state of anxiety they create 
is the very same over-an.\ietv which is the end of all enemy propaganda, for 



"Max Wylic, "\Vashl)oard Weepers," Harper's Monthly, 185 (November, 1942), 633. 
" Hutchciis, loc. lit. 
» Ibid. 



22 7^^'t' Green Caldron 

it lays i!;^ groundwork tor civilian panic in emergencies, and saps the pro- 
ductive energies of the atiHicted in(Hviduals in all their essential efforts. "'■' 

Wisely, radio producers realize that the success of American radio does 
not depend on a handful of critical psychiatrists. Radios are in fourteen 
million American homes where there are no magazines, eight million where 
there are no cars, thirteen million where there are no telephones, and si.x 
million where there are no bathtubs — a total of forty-one million homes of 
America's poor. "Radio to be free must be radio for all people." Producers 
know that if all programs were on the entertainment level of the critics, 
radio would be ruined within a year.'"* Indeed, the producers do know their 
business. Trouble is apt to be more dramatic than mere pleasant existence 
is, and well they know it. As in the theatre, tragedy is easier to write and act 
than is comedy.^'' Knowing their audiences, producers usually make sure 
that the trouble-makers in the stories are men. Naturally, this goes over big 
with the women. Soap opera writers constantly use the oldest interest-hold- 
ing device in playwriting — suspense; Friday's chapter, the last chapter of 
the week, is designed to leave the listeners in a lather of excited anticipation. 

These and many more tricks of the soap opera have earned for the trade 
such critical catcalls as "unmitigated tripe," "as corny as succotash," "they 
have scummed the emotional sewers."'" Nevertheless, as Dr. Matthew N. 
Chappell of Hooper's Surveys logically points out, "If the amount of 
sponsor's products sold is any indication, the daytime serial is just about 
the greatest molder of attitudes, beliefs, ideas, convictions, and behavior of 
women that we have in our society. . . . ^^ 

'* Hutchens, loc. at. 

"Wylie, loc. cit. 

" Hutchens, loc. cit. 

""Scented Soap," Neii'szi<eek, 22 (July 5, 1943), 110. 

" "Daytime Classics," loc. cit. 

IJlHLIOGKArHY 
"Daytime Classics," Titne, 40 (November 30, 1942), 45. 
"Goldbergs at Princeton," Titne, 41 (April 26, 1943), 40. 
"Hummcrts' Super Soaps," Nezcsweek, 23 (January 10, 1944), 79-81. 
HuTCHKNS, J. K., "Are Soap Operas Only Suds?" Neiv York Times Magazine (March 

28, 1943). 19. 
"Queen of Soap Opera," Neivsi^^'eek, 20 (July 13. 1942), 59-60. 
"Scented Soap," Nci,.'.szceek, 22 (July 5. 1943), 110. 
"Story of Mary Marlin," Life, 17 (September 11, 1944), 67-68. 
Wyi.ie, Max, "Washl)oard Weepers," Harper's Monthly, 185 (November, 1942), 633-638. 



Betrayed 

The story is told of a small hoy, who. when told of Christ's trial and death, 
asked, "Where was the Lone Ranger?" To that boy, the Lone Ranger (every 
Thursday night from 8:30 to 9:00) was a reality; God was much more distant. 

— Charles Hallam 



October, 1946 23 

The Debt 

John L. Ki.ink 
Rhetoric I, Theme .?, 1945-1946 

WK WERE A MERRY GROUP THAT NIGHT AS WE RODE 
the bus into town. We had just finished Pre-Flight, and now we 
had our first pass to go to Los Angeles. Our squadron had planned 
a party for us. The band had been hired, and dates had been arranged with 
extras from some of the film studios. 

The earl)- part of thr evening was uneventful. We all drank too much. 
At midnight the band had gone; and. as the bar had closed at eleven, I was 
beginning to sober up. A very pretty girl was sitting alone at one of the 
tables, and I walked over to her. 

"I lost my date," I said as an introduction. 

"Leave her alone. .She's with me," came from someone l)ehind us. 
1 turned and found that it was a kid named Rogers from our squadron. 

"That's for her to decide," I replied hotly. 1 knew then that 1 had made 
a mistake, for he lurched at me with both drunken fists swinging wildly. We 
grappled in what was nothing more than a drunken brawl. The gang jumped 
in to break us apart; and we became a thrashing, milling mob. Then Rogers 
broke loose with one arm and sent a big fist crashing against my nose. My 
head swam, my nose throbbed, and blood spurted all over my .wonderful new 
uniform. 

My eyes glared hatred as I .screamed. Til pay you back, Rogers. Someday 
\'\\ pay you back for this!" 

The M.I'.'s came, and I soon found myself back in the barracks. I 
couldn't forget Rogers. The more I thought about the incident, the more I 
hated him. 

In a few days we shipped to a new airfield to take Primary Training. 
My interest in flying soon crowded the hatred back into a dark corner of 
my mind, where it smouldered unnoticed. Time pa.-^sed quickly, and we were 
soon through with Primary and on our way to I'.asic Training. 

1 didn't like Uasic Training from the first day. for there I again met 
Rogers. He had the bunk above mine. We ignored and avoided each other 
as much as possible, but Fate wasn't through with us yet. We drew the same 
fiight instructor and were scheduled for buddy-rides toward the end of our 
Basic Training. 

A week later I came down from a solo hop at five minutes after two. I 
remember the time, for I was scheduled for a formation ride with my in- 
structor at two. As I was thinking of a good excuse for my tardiness, I 
noticed a group of students talking excitedly and pointing to a column of 



I 



24 



The iircen Caldron 



smoke east of the tield. 

"What happened?" I yelled. 

"Crack-up on take-off," someone answered. 

"Who was it?" 1 asked. 

"Hetch." 

I was stunned. "Hetch!" I ^'asped. "He was my instructor. I was sup- 
posed to Hy formation with him this period. Who did he take up?" 

"Rogers." 

I felt sick. Slowly I trudged hack to the barracks. My head was swim- 
ming. The kid in the bunk above me was dead, burned to a crisp. His uniform 
hung beside mine on the rack. I had hated him. He had Hown in my place 
and now he was dead. 

Kangas came in and sat down on the opposite bunk. He had been Rogers' 
best friend. 

"You didn't like him, did you?" he said. 

I couldn't answer. 

"You said once that you owed him something," he persisted. 

"Yes," I choked, "I owe him something." 



Interlude 

Ben Lawless 
. Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1945-1946 

IT WOULD NOT BE RIGHT TO SAY THAT FRANCE IS NOT A 
beautiful country. Even in the midst of a war that tears at her very 
vitals, her poplar trees grow straight and tall along the country lanes and 
her fields are rich with grassy abundance. Yes, France is beautiful this time 
of year if one takes care not to notice the holes that dot the fertile land 
like angry boils, and the splintered trees that resemble grotesque monsters 
among their proud neighbors. 

War is a very distinguished visitor. Little towns and hamlets that have 
remained almost unknown for centuries suddenly, amid the crackling of 
rifles and crashing of high explosives, become centers of world-wide interest. 
Their fame still lingers after the fighting has moved on, but they are left 
dead, their silence broken by the occasional falling of a loosened timber or 
the crowing of a rooster standing on the crumpled remains of a shattered 
fence. 

An orchard meticulously lined with apple trees is disfigured by the 
chaotic hand of war into a smoke-filled battleground crowded with men who 
carry death in their eyes and a great weariness in their hearts. A peaceful 



Oitohi-r 1946 25 

old farmhouse is suddenly transformed into an inferno of noise and color. 
Long red fingers reach out from its windows and seek the weaving figures, 
half hidden in the tall grass and drifting smoke. 

yueer chirping sounds fill the air and men fall lifeless, their eyes open 
and shocked at the death they have found. Yet Other men go on to take the 
house, and the hill behind the house, and the hill after that one, until they 
all fade into one vast mountain, unforgettabU- in their memory but blessedly 
softened by the thick veil of time. 

During a lull in the fighting, the new replacements arrive, their uniforms 
still smelling fresh and clean, and their equipment stiff with newness. They 
all, of course, believe the war will be over in a matter of months, and for 
some of them it will l>e. I'or some of them it may last only a few l>ewildering 
moments which will be cut short by a small fragment of lead or an e.xphxsion's 
concussirm. For others it may last months or years until their minds lose 
track of time and their stooping bodies resemble robots, obeying automatically 
and without question the endless succession of orders coming from distant 
and incomprehensible worlds. 

The soldiers, straiigely old in the dim -light of the shelter, do not seem to 
notice newcomers. A man is slumped down in his light pack, industriously 
cleaning his nails. His bearded chin moves back and forth in his mechanical 
absorption. Another rests heavily against a wall, staring intently at a 
trickle of water running down the length of the floor. He says nothing and 
sees nothing except the thin stream winding erratically before his gaze. In 
a corner two shadows are thrown into high relief as they touch a match to 
their cigarettes. Their features are indistinguishable with only their eyes 
and grimy foreheads showing in the glow from the match. The new men 
huddle together near the door, shuddering slightly at the sound of the shells 
overhead. Some stretch out with their helmets under their heads, but for 
the most part the group remain intact, whispering among themselves. The 
quiet is oppressive and settles over the thirty men like a heavy blanket. 
There is nothing to do but wait. Four long hours of waiting, and then once 
more the attack will be resumed — four hours in which a lot of thinking is 
done and many cigarettes are nervously smoked and flipped away — four 
precious hours that dwindle rapidly, much too rapidly, and set the dreaded 
minute gradually nearer. 

"Got a cigarette, Mac?" one of the new men asks of a man sitting next 
to him. 

"Huh? Yeah, yeah, sure. Here," says the older man rubbing his face. 
"Here's a light. Been in long?" 

"Long enough, I gueSs. How's it been going out there?" 

"Not too bad. You'll be okay. Just stick close and watch your step and 
you'll get along all right." Then, as an afterthought, he adds, "We oughta be 
going up pretty soon now." 



L 



26 Tlw a re en Caldron 

They lean back inhaling the smoke deeply. The still figures in the room 
.stir restlessly. 

"You guys been given the dope about what's comin' off up here?" asks 
the man smoking. 

"Sure," answers another of the recruits, crawling over from his position 
near the door, and then lowering his voice as if the shells outside might hear. 
"We got it from the lieutenant when he brought us up. Most of us are in the 
third squad, he says." 

"Yeah, that would be right. All except for the new li.A.R. man and his 
ammo bearer — they go in the first." 

At the far end of the room a man inspects his rifle for the second time 
and absently brushes a bit of mud from the barrel. Others rise painfully to 
their feet and begin collecting their equipment. 

"We should be startin' in a couple of minutes," a voice says listlessly. 
"Which one of you guys is gonna help me with this load of grenades? I 
ain't no damn pack horse." 

"Wonder where the lieutenant is?" another voice breaks in. "He shoulda 
been here by now." The speaker peers anxiously through the small door. He, 
too, is young and disreputable-looking in his clothes of mud and fabric. 

"Well," continues the listless voice, "maybe tonight we'll be sleepin' in 
a nice bed and drinkin' cases of Frog wine." His tones are half ironical and 
half hopeful. ^ 

"Why not ask for a steak dinner and a beautiful babe while you're at 
it?" interjects a man still hidden in the darkness. "Hell's bells, might as well 
go whole hog as not." 

Then the door is darkened by the frame of the lieutenant as he stoops 
to enter. 

"All set, men?" he asks. "You new guys know where you belong?" A 
murmur of assent runs through the group. Slowly they start shuffling toward 
the door, 

"Now remember. We take the hedgerow to the right of the road and 
follow it until we meet resistance. The rest of the company will be on the 
left, and E company will be to the right. Got it? Okay, let's go." 

One by one the men run through the narrow opening and down to the 
hedgerow. The sun is shining very brightly, and the trees are bending slightly 
in the wind so that the steeple of the church is visible in the distance, rising 
magnificently to the sky. The intermittent shelling has ceased altogether. A 
bird sings a few notes experimentally from its shelter in the trees and then 
bursts into full melodious song, the echoes of which dance along the little 
valley out of hearing. 

Yes, it is very beautiful here this time of year if one is cautious and does 
not observe too closely. 



October, 1946 27 

Lincoln the Soldier 

MoK'i iMi-k I In r 
Rhrlon, II. Theme 12. I'JI.'i-l'J l^> 

A;iii(>L(.ii Ai'.KAiiAM i.ixcoi.x sim:.\t i-ii- rv-()\i-: days 
ill tlic armed scrvict" of the L'nilcd Stak'S. in llu- I'lack Hawk War, 
frw writers have more than meiitionetl the fact, probably because of 
the j^^eneral lack of authentic accounts and the meaj^'er w(»r(hnj( of official 
reports and records of this phase of his career. 

Lincoln was yet to be recoj^Miized by the world when hostilities broke out. 
To be sure, he already had made a name foi- himself in New .Salem and 
Sanj,Mmon County. Me was noted for his skill in athletics, particularly in 
wresllinj;, a sport in which he had held his own aj^ainst all comers,' and he 
already was making; plans for his political career. - 

Carl Sandburj,' su^j^ests that Lincoln enlisted for iwn leasons: liist. he 
would soon lose his clerkinj,' job; and second, "he was runninj^ for the lej,'is- 
lature; a war record, in any kind of war, would count in politics.'"' Whatever 
may have been his motives, the fact remains that Lincoln, on the twenty- 
first of April, 1832, enlisted in the militia, which was at that time called into 
the service of the national government.* 

Lincoln was chosen captain by the men of his company, in accord with 
tile custom of those d;i\s. .\n inlercslinj^ ;icc<»inri of his election is j^iven 
' by Leonard .^wett: 

! Toj^'ithir with tlu' talk ni i>ri;ani/injL: a company in .\\\\ SaKin, I)iiiaii the 

talk of inakinfj Lincoln captain of it. His characteristics as an athktc hail made 

something; of a hero of him. . . . Mm whin the day oi orpanization arrived, a 

I man who had been cajHain of a real cr)miiany arrived in his uniform, anil assumed 

' the organization of the comjiany. The mode of it was as follows: ,\ line of two 

was formed hy the c<mipany. with the parties who intended to he candidates for 

! officers standinjj: in front. The candidate for captain then made a si)eech to the 

men, tellini; them what a gallant man he was, in what wars he had fouiiht, hied 

I and (bed, and how he was ready a.i;ain. for the i^lory of his country to lead them. 

' Then another candidate: and when the speech-makin.u was ended, they com- 

i manded those who would vote for this man. or that, to form a line l)ehin<l their 

j favorite. . . . 

I When the real captain with his reuinuntals came and assinned control, 

' Lincoln's heart failed him. lie formed in the line with the l)o;s. and after the 
1 speech was made they he.u^an to form behind the olil captain, hut the hoys seized 
j Lincoln, and pushed him out of line, and In'tian to form behind him . . . and 
I 

'Leonard Swctt. "Mr. Lincoln's Story of His Own Life," Rcwhthccttcc.^ of Abraham 
Li«<y/»i, pp. 463-464. , 

I 'Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln; The Prairie )'ears, Vohinic \, p. 134. 

'Abraham lancoln. Muster Roll of Captain Abraham Lincoln s Company. 



28 The Green Caldron 

when they counted back he had two more than the other captain, anil he hecanie 
real captain."' 

His captaincy was the tirst electf)ral job he ever held, and in his own words, 
it was "a success which gave me more pleasure than any 1 have had since."® 

That Lincoln was obviously untrained and inexperienced in the ways of 
the military is evidenced by an account of his drilling his company during 
the tirst few days of his service. The men were marching across a field, 
formed in what today most probably would be termed a "company front," 
when they came to a gate at the edge of the field. Lincoln, unable to recall 
the proper command for getting the company into a column, shouted, "This 
company is dismissed for two minutes, when it will fall in again on the 
other side of the gate!"' 

Lincoln's ignorance of drill regulations was not the only thing that 
caused him trouble. He was arrested and his sword was taken away from 
him for a da\- because he broke a general order that forbade the discharge 
of firearms within a radius of fifty yards from the camp.** It may have been 
that he was not familiar with the orders or that he was careless in judging 
his distance. Whatever the reason, he showed clearly that he was not taking 
his responsibilities very seriously. 

Lincoln's company was not amenable to discipline. To his first order 
he received the reply. "Cio to the devil, sir."" The attitudes of the men are 
, described very well by Theodore Pease: 

Allow the man u horn they had recently honored by electing captain — a man 
whom they knew thoroughly as no better than themselves — allow such a one to 
take advantage of his ])osition to direct an action undesirable to them? Incom- 
prehensible I To the recently elected captain this point of \iew seemed entirely 
reasonable.'" 

Yet another example of the obviotis lack of discipline is witnessed by the 
following incident. One of the men broke into the officers' ([uarters one night 
and stole a quantity of liquor which he shared with his comrades. When 
the army began to march the following morning, the men of Lincoln's 
compan\- dropped out right and left tnilil only a few remained in the ranks. 
It was late in the evening before the etitire company was together again. As 
a result of the investigation that followed, Lincoln, though innocent of com- 
plicity in or knowledge of the affair, was arrested and forced lo undergo the 
humiliation of wearing a wooden sword for two (la\s." 

This theft may be partl\' excused on the groinids that the men were not 

^ Swett, loc. cit. 

'Koy Edgar Api)lenian, editor, Ahraluim Liiiruln From His (h^-ii Words and Coil 

temporary Acoutttx, j). 2. 

'.Sandburg, o/i. <i/,. p. l.SS. 

"William H. Hcnuion and Jesse W. Weik, llerndon's Lincoln, p. 95. 

^'Norman Hapgood, Ahroham Linroln, the Man of the f'eof>le, p. 32. 

'"Theodore C. I'ease, The Centennial History of Illinois, \olume 2, p. 161. 

" Herndon. o/>. cit., jjp. 95-9(). 



Octobi-r, W46 29 

given adequate rations. Lincoln's company, helwren April 25 and Mav 17, 

received the following: 

Corn 1 18 hn., 18 pecks I'dwdcr 1 keg 

>feal 10 (Its. 1.ea<l 50 lbs. 

Flour 1 hhl.. 252 Ihs. Flints 265 

Brea<l 66 Ihs. Camllcs 20 

Salt 42 Ihs. Tape 144 \ ds. 

I'ork I hhl.. 160 Ihs. Jinckets ^.50 

Whiskey IO1/2 gals. CotTcc Mnilers 7 

Sacks 48 Tin I 'ans 7 

Blankets \ Tin Cni"' 16'" 

Soap (Amount ini readable | 

Some authors have mentioned that the men would make expeditions to near- 
' by farms, and return loaded down with sundry items of food. This seems 
entirely probable, for there were, including Lincoln and his lieutenants, 
j seventy men in the comjjany. One can readily see that the rations listed above 
' would hardly suffice for that number of active men for a period of twenty- 
three days, let alone the additional ten days of their enlistment during which 
time no rations were drawn. 

The closest contact Lincoln liad with the Indians during the war was with 
an old Indian who had a safe conduct from Cieneral Cass and who was 
captured by some of the men. They were about to kill the aged savage, but 
Lincoln intervened and saved his life.'^ There are several accounts of this 
episode by various rej)utable authors, but as none of them is documented, 
it ma}' be a|)ocryj)hal. 

(Jn the twentN -seventh of May. Lincoln's conii)any was demobili/ed at 
Ottawa, Illinois, because of the increasing dissatisfaction of the men.'* 
Lincoln and several (»f the other men from his company rc-enlisted tor a 
period of twenty days in Captain I'.lijah lies' company of Independent 
Rangers,'' a company composed of generals, colonels, captains, and other 
distinguished men of the disbanded army. It was an unique organization — 
the men had no camp duties and could draw rations as often as they desired; 
their arms and equipment were of the best. In the final analysis, Lincoln was 
much better off as a private in this company than he^iad been as captain of 
liis old organi/.ati«)n."' Captain lies' company saw no action whatever during 
the twenty da\s of Lincoln's enlistment. In fact, though many historians 
have written about the war. and more still have written biographies of 
Lincoln, there is no account of his individual actions during this eidistment. 
Lincoln's second period of enlistment ended on the sixteenth of June, 
anil although he re-enlisled the same day. he was not actually mustered into 



'■' William Thommas, Oimrtrr Mtislcr's Hmik, \y 14. 
" l.la .\l. Tarhcll. The l.arly Life of .-Ihnilmin Luholii, p. 141. 
"Isaac Klliott, AdiuUiut Ccncniis Kcf<ort. Volume 9, p. 100. 

'■•(ieneral Robert .\n«lerson, Mu.<l,r Roll.'!, etc., elc. Black t/in<-k ll'ur 1832, p. 7. 
'Tarbell. o/>. cit.. p. 144. 



Y 



30 



The Green Caldron 



service again until the twentieth.'" The officer who mustered Lincoln into 
service the second and third times was Major Robert Anderson, later to be 
commander of Fort Sumter during the early part of the Civil War. From 
his own account: 

I also mustered Abraham Lincoln twice into the service and once out. He was 
a member of two of the Independent companies which were not brijjaded. The 
first time I mustered him into the service was at the mouth of the Fox River, 
May 29, 1832, in Captain Elijah lies' company. ... I mustered him out of the 
service at the "Rapids of the Illinois," June 16, 1832, and in four days afterwards, 
at the same place, I mustered him into service a.nain in Captain Jacob M. Early's 
company. ... Of course 1 had no recollection of Mr. Lincoln, but when Presi- 
dent he reminded me of the fact.'^ 

Surely if Lincoln had had any of the qualities of a good soldier he 
would have been remembered by some of the officers, such as General Ander- 
son, and most likely would have been promoted. Many of the accounts build 
up Lincoln's accomplishments during his military career into proportions far 
beyond what seem to have been the actual facts as illustrated by surviving 
primary sources. The very fact that he remained a private during his second 
and third enlistments speaks for his military abilities. 

" Anderson, o/". cit., \>. 23. 

'"General Robert Aiidcrson, Letter dated May 10, 1870 to I'.. B. Washhuni. p. AVi- 



BIBLIOGRAI'HY 

Anderso.n, GENEKAr. RoiJERT. Letter dated May 10, 1870 to E. B. Washburn. (MS; in 

State Historical Library, Centennial Building, Springfield, 111.) 
Andf.rso.n', CiENEKAi, RoBRRT. Mustcr Rolls, etc., etc., Black Haivk ll'ar 1832. (MS; in 

State Historical Library, Centennial Building, Springfield, 111.) 
Apple.man, Roy Eixiar, editor. Abraham Lincoln From His Ou')i Words and Con- 
temporary Accounts. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1942. 
AitNoi.ii, Isaac N. Address; Noietnber 1^, 1868. Chicago: Fergus Printing Co., 1877. 
Arnold, Isaac N. The Life of Abraham Lincoln. Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Co., 

1901. pp. 34-37. ^ 

Barber, Iosei'H. War Letters of a Pishanded Wdunteer. New York: Frederic A. 

Bra<ly. 1864. 
Barrett, Joseph H. Life of Abraham Lincoln. New York: .Moore, Wilstach and 

Baldwin, 186.S. pp. 37-46. 
Br(K)ks, Noah. Abraham Lincoln and the DoiK'ufall of American Slavery. New York: 

G. P. Putnam Sons, 1908. pp. 33-41. 
Brooks, Noah. Abraham Lincoln; I lis Youth and Early Manhood. New York: G. P. 

Putnam Sons, 1901. pp. 58-61. 
Brow.n'e, Francis F. The Eierv-Pav Life of Abraham Lincoln. Chicago: Browne and 

Howell Co., 1913. pp. 33-40" 
Collections of the State Historical .Wocietv of Wisconsin. Madison: Ucmocrat Printing 

Co., 1898. \'olume 14, pp. 118-136. " - ' 

Dunne, Edward F. Illinois; The Heart of the Nation. Chicago and New York: Lewis 

Publishing Co., 1933. pp. 320-343. 
Elliott, Isaac H. Adjutant General's Report. Springfield: Journal Co., 1902. Volume 

9, pp. 100, 173. 170. 



^ October. 1946 31 

FoRU, (lOVKHNOK Thomas. A History of lllnwts. Chicagi): R. R. Donnelley and Sons 

Co.. 1945. Xoliimc 1. pp. 142-253. 
HAP(.ooit, NokMA.N. Abraham Liiuohi; The Man of the l'eof<le. New York; The Mac- 

millan Co., 1900. pp. 31-34. 
Hf.knik).n, V\ii.i.ia.m H., and Wf.ik, Jkssf. W. Uerndon s Liiuoln. Springfield: The 

Herndon's Lincoln rnblishing Co., 1921. X'olume 1. pp. 92-101. 
li.ES, .\Iajok Elijah. Sketches of Early Life and Times. Jspringficld: Springfield Print- 
ing Co.. 18X3. pp. 42-51. 
Lincoln, .Abkaham. Muster Roll of Caf>tnin Abraham Lincoln's Company. (MS; in 

State Historical Library, Centennial ntiilding. Springfiehl, III.) 
MaijONK, Thomas I. "Soldiering with Captain .Abraham Lincoln." American Legion 

Weekly. Febrnar>- 6, 1925. pp. 5-6. 18-19. 
Moses, John. Illinois, Historical and Statistical. Chicago: Fergus Printing Co., 1895. 

pp. 357-378. 
Nlon.AV, John (i., and Han, John. Abraham Lincoln; A History. New York; The 

Cenlnry C<... 1914. Volume 1. pp. 87-100. 
Peask. THtt)iioKE C. The Centennial History of Illinois. Chicago; A. C. McClurg and 

Co.. 1919. \'ohime 2. pp. 1.50-172. 
Report and Collections of the Slate Historical .'Society of Wisconsin for the )'ears 

1877. lH7fi. and 1H79. Madison: David .Xtwood. 1879.' pp. 309-321. 
Report and Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin for the )'ears 

1883. 1884. and 1885. Madison: Dem<Krat Printing Co., 1888. pp. 167-176, 184-212. 
.Second Annual Report and Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin 

for the Year 1835. .Madison: Calkins and Pron<lfit, 1856. pp. 326-364, 393-414. 
S.MITH, CiKOHLE V\'. History of Illinois and Her I'eofle. Chicago and New York: 

American Historical Society, Inc., 1927 X'ohnne 2, jip. 110-157. 
Smith. Hknmv. "Indian Campaign of IK.^2." Military and S'a:al Magazine of the I'nited 

States. .Angnsl. IKU. pp. 321-333. 
Tarbki.l. Iha M. The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln. New York: S. S. McClure, 

Ltd.. 1896 pp. 134-155. ' 
Tarbfi.l, liiA .M. The Life of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Lincoln Historical 

Society. 1900. pp. 73-88. 
Thommas, William. (Juarter Master's Book. (MS; in State Historical Library, 

Centennial Mnilding. Springfield, 111.) 



Bula Village Government 

An executive conuniitee forms the nucleus of the jiovernment of a Bula 
villajifc; at the head of the executive committee is the chief, the eldest brother of 
the prior chief. Members participatini,' in ^governmental affairs are his brothers, 
his sons, and his brother's sons. Kach committeeman is concerned with some 
problems of the villaiie. (^ne is the supervisor of the fishing: detail, whose sole duty 
is to keep the villagers supplied with sea foods. Another is a member in charjje 
of the village vegetable jilantations — plantations where taro, tapioca, and other 
tropical vejjetables necessary to the native's life are grown. He is also in charge 
of the orchards of orange trees, papaya trees, mango trees, and breadfruit trees. 
Another committeeman operates the native commissary — a store where all in- 
coming business is transacted. There, the natives can buy their kava, a South Sea 
beverage — a beverage, unlike our alcoholic sort, that affects the sensory nerves 
of one's limbs. Some members head the export division of the village. This 
division sells the straw mats manufactured by the natives and the excess fruits 
grown by the villagers. Usually the chief's eldest son supervises the working 
hours; he sees that laborers begin work at an early hour and stop before the 
sun becomes too unbearable. — Robf.rt C. Mleiircke 



^2 ^/jt' iircen Caldron 

Night Patrol 



O 



ROBKRT K. DaVLIN 
Rhrtori, I, Theme 4, 1945-1^46 

X A COLD, DAMP NIGHT WK HUDDLED TOGETHKR IN 
the cellar of a (ierman house. "Here is your route outlined in red," 
Major Bowman snapped in his noted militaristic manner. "You will 
leave from Outpost 26 on an azimuth of 315° at 0215. Your patrol will con- 
sist of seven men equipped with five M-v3 submachine guns, two M-1 rifles, 
two hundred and fifty pounds of nitro-cellulose, plus fuse and detonatiii); 
caps, and a '300' radio. 

"Your mission is lo reconnoitcr the route outlined oti this map," Major 
Bowman continued, "and proceed to this bridge marked A3. According to 
intelligence reports, this bridge is guarded on the southern flank by a dug- 
in machine gun emplacement. You are to overcome, if necessary, this em- 
placement and blow up the southern end of the bridge. Sergeant Collins 
from Battalion Headquarters will direct the placing of the explosives and 
the setting of the fu.se. After this is done, 1 suggest that you return over 
the same route, if ])ossible. Lieutenant Meyers will be in charge of the patrol. 
All of you men ha\e volunteered for this patrol, and 1 don't consider it nec- 
essary to imjjress upon you the dangers involved. Are there any (juestions?" 

1 asked the major for ihe radio code, vvhereuj)on he drew from his field 
jacket a typewritten sheet of code, lie instructed me lo memorize it — then 
destroy it. 

The instructions seemed lo be sutficieiU, and so the major left our cellar 
and returned to headquarters. It was now 2245 — we had three hours and 
a half left to wait. We each looked over the large map before us and at- 
tempted to fi,\ the important landmarks in our memory. I'-ach knew the 
inii)ortance of the mission and the possibilities of never returning. However, 
we thought of the promised week of vacation behind the lines, if the in- 
vasion were successful, and were all determined that nothing would go wrong. 

The men checked their equipment and ammunition to satisfy themselves 
that everything was in good working condition. Ray Mitchell found his riHe 
dirty, and energetically began cleaning it thoroughly. 1 checked my M-3 and 
allowed it to pass inspection. The radio was checked and no defects were 
located. 

After we were all satisfied that our equipment and ammunition were in 
good condition, we lay on the Moor and attempted to get S(»me much needed 
rest. 

At 0145 we were all awakened and told that we had but thirty minutes 
before we were due to leave Outpost 26 Hurriedly, we secured our ecjuip- 



Oc tuber, 1946 33 

merit and cHml>ed the cellar steps to the outside. 

A hiast of cold wind quickly t)anished the thouji^ht of sleep that still 
lingered about me. The ground was covered with white. The narrow street 
was bordered by bomb-devastated homes, their jutting scars accentuated by 
their cloak of snow. The silence of the early morning gave me the feeling 
that evil eyes were glaring from every corner and crevice that the darkness 
shadowed. 

We made our way down the short street to the eiul of the village. From 
then on we walked in single tile through a path in a wooded area until we 
came upon Outpost 26. After giving the password to the guard, we closed 
in together around Lieutenant Meyers, who gave us the last-minute instruc- 
tions: "Now remember that our primary mission is to put that bridge in a 
million pieces, and our secondary mission is to mop up any outposts that we 
run across along the way. We've got to be damn careful not to cause any 
disturbance on the way there or we may never see that bridge. r>e careful 
not to make any noise, and don't fire unless it's absolutely necessary. I f any- 
thing happens to me. Sergeant Deker will take command. Are there any 
(|uestions?" 

Seven figures cloaked in white snow suits began to make tlicir way 
through the heav\ snow toward enenn -held territory. The hrst scout in the 
tile was a shcjrt, brawny Mexican, Pedro Miranda, from 1*",1 Paso, Texas, 
who was as quick as he was consi(lered handsome by his numerous female 
admirers. Miranda had never been known to lead a patrol into a trap. His 
eyes pierced the darkness as if it were day. His ears were incredibly able 
to distinguish between friendly and enemy sounds. When his M-3 sputtered, 
it s|)uttered death. 

Behind Mir.inda was Lieutenant .Meyers, who never shunned a hght, 
and who was e(|ually eager to begin one. 1 followed next with the "300" 
radio on my back, constantly checking with headcjuarters and giving our 
position. The other four followed behind me, carrying the explosives. 
Sergeant Deker brought up the rear. 

We had not traveled for more than five hundred yards down a small 
valley when Miranda gave us a quick signal to "hit the ground." As soon as 
my face made contact with the soft snow, a machine gun to our left front on 
the side of a hill began to blaze away at us. The tracers passed over our 
heads and buried themselves in the snow beyond us. We were spotted. If we 
moved, we had one chance in a hundred of leaving the valley. If we re- 
mained, it would be but a matter of minutes before we would be subjected 
to mortar fire. 

Nervously I reported oiir predicament to headquarters. 1 gave the position 
of the machine gun and pleaded for immediate artillery support. For a period 
that seemed to cover a life's span, I waited for our first artillery shell. 
Finally it came, landing about one hundred yards behind the emplacement. 



34 The Green Caldron 

Quickly I radioed the correction, and within a minute two rounds fell about 
ten yards from the target, obliterating our opposition. 

Lieutenant Meyers immediately gave the order to continue to our objec- 
tive. His intention was to regain lost time while the Germans were still 
confused. We pushed on down the small valley until we came within sight 
of an asphalt-covered road, at right angles to our route of advance. 

As Miranda neared the wood, he again motioned for all of us to hit the 
ground. We immediately dropped and lay there wondering for over two 
minutes before we discovered the cause of the signal. Passing before us, and 
not more than ten feet from Miranda, was a column of nearly fifty German 
infantrymen. After we were certain that they were beyond hearing and 
seeing distance, we quickly cros.sed the road and continued toward our 
objective. 

After we had covered about a quarter mile without further interference, 
we saw the steel structure of the bridge loom up before us. According to the 
intelligence reports that we had received, we were heading directly for the 
machine gun emplacement guarding the southern end of the bridge. Lieuten- 
ant Meyers then gave the order to halt where we were while he and Miranda 
investigated our position. The remainder of the patrol crouched in the snow 
about two hundred yards from the southern end of the bridge, while our 
patrol leader and our scout converged upon the bridge from its flanks. We 
dropped all of our excess equipment in the snow behind us, as we prepared 
to lend any needed assistance if it became necessary. The rhinutes sped on 
and my heart raced in nervf)us anticipation. My knees, in their bent posi- 
tion, began to cramp as the muscles strained. I hurriedly mumbled a short 
prayer and strained my ears to catch the first sound of activity. Out of the 
still night came a faint groan. T shifted my feet and froze in a rigid position. 
The safety on a rifle behind me snapped as it was released. Then there was a 
clearly audible "tap-tap." Recognizing our prearranged signal, we swiftly 
but quietly gathered our equipment and hurried forward toward the bridge. 

Fortune had been kind. Hoth guards that had been placed upon the 
machine gun had fallen asleep at their posts. Lieutenant Meyers had insisted 
that their sleep be permanent. He used eight inches of cold steel on one and 
Miranda silenced the other in a similar manner. 

While we took positions immediately to protect Sergeant Collins as he 
placed the explosives beneath the steel structure of the bridge, I radioed 
our progress to headquarters. It was only a matter .of a few minutes before 
the explosives were handed down to Collins, the fuse was set, and the charge 
was lighted. 

We had covered almost five hundred yards of our return route before 
the sky was suddenly illuminated by a crimson glow. As I turned to look 
back, the blasf of the explosion shook the ground. The men lengthened their 
stride in their hurried return to the safety of our lines. 



October, 1946 35 

Providence guided our tootsteps and we soon reached Outpost 26. I 
breathed more easily as 1 radioed, "Love birds returned O. P. 26. Mission 
accomplished. Warm up the coffee. Will report immediately. Over." A voice 
replied, '"'S'our roost is ready and your coffee is hot. Truck on in. Roger 
a,nd out 

Chowringhee Road 

Willis Maskmokf, 
Rhclorii I, Theme 2. 1^45-19-16 

IREMEMHKR THI-: CLATTERING CLAMOR OF TRAM CARS; 
the sweaty, panting bodies of half naked rickshaw boys, racing for 
countless destinations; the rumble of hundreds of voices, all babbling at 
once in a tongue foreign to my ear; massive oxen struggling with their 
heavy burden through the street; bicycles darting in and out; the glint of a 
silver hub and a yellow axle on an open Victoria; and a few ancient motor 
cars, converted to charcoal, chugging laboriously along. 

Nor will I forget a half-starved beggar huddled at the foot of a monu- 
ment to the grandeur of his sovereign; a child yanking my pants leg and 
screaming for a one ur two anna piece; a beautiful Hindu woman, veiled 
and clad in a pure white sari; a sea of big black umbrellas sheltering the 
teeming masses from the scorching noonday sun; a policeman, impressive 
in his red fez, directing the hopelessly snarled up traffic; shiny black fore- 
heads, each adorned with a jewel or daubed with a red, white, or green dot; 
merchants barking their wares and tempting the unsuspecting into the dark 
interiors of their dismal little shops; a barber plying his art by the curbstone; 
mourners carrying their dead to be burned; and many arms covered with 
heavy silver bracelets of strange and intricate design. 

There, too, were the smells — some delightful, some repugnant, some 
strong, and others tantalizingly faint. There was the tangy odor of coffee 
being sold in the street; of incense, fish, fresh fruit, little cakes on a griddle, 
and a sweetish stuff that was sold on dark green leaves; the smell of heat and 
crowded people; of tepid sewer water standing in an open main; of dung 
from the sacred cows; the brittle mustiness of antique ivory; the dry, dusty 
smell of baskets for sale in an old bazaar; the moist watermelon odor of a 
cobra being charmed by its master; and at night the very faint odor of sus- 
pense — perhaps mystery — of the darkness itself. 

Yes, to me Chowringhee Road is a conglomeration of vivid details, a 
marvelous montage of sights and sounds and smells. To the natives of 
Calcutta, Chowringhee is just another street — a daily scene in their daily 
lives. 



-^^ . The Green Caldron 

Will Russia Cooperate? 

Thomas S. Pool 
Rlu'luric II, Senii'sler Examimitinn, Sutnnicr W46 

FROM ALL THAT APPEARS IN OUR NEWSPAPERS THESE 
days, the average citizen concludes that Russia has no desire to co- 
operate with the other world powers. Some of our more enlightened 
citizens consider that it is only a matter of time before Russia's uncoopera- 
tive attitude will plunge the world into a third great war. 

I am not pro-Russian, I do not agree with Russian political philosophies, 
and I would not like to live with the Russians or have them live with me. I 
am not, however, of the opinion that the Western powers are wise, or, in 
many cases even justified, in the attitude with which they have gone into 
their relations with Russia. 

The Western powers have pursued a policy of isolation or hostility 
toward Russia ever since the days of the Red Revolution in 1917. They 
gave active and non-active support to the Tsarist White Russians and after 
the close of World War I gave support to Polish aggression. At this time 
the Russians were losing land to the Western powers and getting nothing in 
return but scorn. Russia was not even invited to the conferences at Paris and 
Versailles, nor was she invited into the League. 

Finally, with the threat of Hitler and Mussolini in the middle thirties, 
the Western powers sought the friendship of Russia. They got it. The busi- 
ness before the League at that time was that of disarmament. All the powers 
of the righteous League were squabbling over the extent to which they might 
be armed. Russia came into these meetings with a plan that she was prepared 
to support and abide by. It provided for almost total disarmament of all 
the powers. "Out of the question, of course! Who wants to disarm?" ■ 

On every move that the U.S.S.R. has made since her creation, she has 
been barred by a jealous England and a fearful France. She has had to 
yield to the power politics of England, France, and the United States. She 
has simply come into her own since the war. She is in a position to outpower 
the "strong men" of the capitals of the world who were such "men of ac- 
tion" all through the past decade. 

The strong men, our vociferous leaders, are getting what they have asked 
for for the past twenty years. They now try to excuse themselves to us with 
cries of "Red peril," "aggression," "Communist threat," and "Russia will 
NOT COOPERATE." 



October, 1946 37 

An Open Letter 

Theodore McCarty 
Rhetoric II, Theme 9. 1945-1946 

May 17, 1946 
Mr. JOHN STELLE, National Commander 
American Legi(jn 
Dear Sir: 

As commander of the American Legion, you art- naturally interested in 
the welfare of all veterans; therefore, 1 am writing you my opinion on the 
proposed payment of a cash Ixjnus for World War 1 1 servicemen. 

The bonus payment would be harmful rather than helpful to most 
veterans, and I think you will agree that anything which destroys the initi- 
ative, ability, and self-contiilence of the young men of America is detrimental 
to the future welfare of our country. 

For the past several months, the American Legion has been backing the 
proposal of a bonus f<jr veterans of \\'(jrld War II. Many politicians and 
citizens favor this bonus, but others, like myself, disapprove of such a pay- 
ment. The politicians realize that their jobs depend upon the voters, and 
since many of the v(jters are veterans, one easily understands why such 
emphasis is placed on obtaining their gcKxl will by handing them a cash 
payment. A great majority of the veterans favor this bonus because they are 
selfish or shortsighted. They seem to think that they are entitled to have 
everything they desire just because they are e.\-servicemen. This selfish 
attitude will cause them to v(Jle for any politician who favors e.\cessive 
benefits for the servicemen. 

When the Selective Service Act was passed, 1, like thousands of other 
men, was not too pleased with the idea of spending a year in the army. We 
went into service because we had t(j, and we reluctantly became a part of the 
army. When war was declared, our attitudes changed from reluctance to 
complete agreement that it was the job of every able-bodied citizen to do his 
part for L'ncle Sam. This idea of doing one's part has aroused comments and 
criticisms from many veterans. Obviously all of us could not stay in this 
country; neither could all of us go overseas. Many people who wanted to go 
abroad had to stay here, and many who wanted to stay had to go overseas. 
There are people, both in the service and out of it, who did not do their full 
share towards winning the war, but the majority of the people did all they 
could to bring about our victory. 

I spent two and one-half years overseas and one year in combat as an 
infantryman. I do not think I exaggerate or brag when I say that I performed 
my duty as far as I was able. I t>ought bonds and still have them. Several 



38 T^^^ Green Caldron 

hundred thousand other servicemen did the same thing. While 1 was over- 
seas many of my friends worked hard and faithfully without a vacation in 
order to provide the materials of war. It would appear that most servicemen 
and civilians fulfilled an obligation to their country by doing as much as 
they were capable of doing. If both groups did their duty, why then should 
veterans feel that they are entitled to a bonus? Why shouldn't civilians be 
entitled to a bonus? Clearly civilian workers must have done their job well 
or we couldn't have had the materials of war. Many veterans overlook the 
fact that civilians performed their duty as well as the front-line soldier. 

Most veterans feel that civilians made enormous sums of money during 
the war. Wages were high, but the cost of living was also high, a fact which 
many people overlook. The average civilian worker was never paid an ex- 
orbitant salary. It is true many skilled workers did make a high weekly wage, 
but those workers were employed at that job for several years to enable them 
to have that skill. The hourly wage didn't increase much, but the overtime 
hours brought an added income. 

The United States serviceman was among the world's highest paid. 
Though he did not receive a high weekly wage, he received free clothing; 
free food, which was the best in this country; free medical and dental care, 
which many men would otherwise never have obtained; a place to live; and 
an insurance policy which provided the maximum of protection for a mini- 
mum of cost. 

While in the army, I suffered many hardships, but I do not feel that I am 
entided to anything extra in the way of a bonus. Like millions of others, I 
was merely performing a necessary job. It was our duty to fight for our 
country as much as it was the duty of the defense worker to provide our 
weapons and equipment of war. It is true, the defense worker continued in 
his profession while our life in the service interrupted our normal occupa- 
tion, but I do not think a flat bonus payment to each veteran will pay for the 
interruption of his career, or for the time he spent away from home, or for 
the hardships he endured, or for the loss of limbs and health. In recognition 
of the veterans' needs and welfare the United States Government has passed 
the G. I. Bill in an attempt to restore the serviceman to his normal way of 
life as justly and quickly as possible. This bill enables the veteran to secure 
an education to fit him for a position in the future. If it weren't for this 
legislation, thousands of men would not be attending the universities today. 
I think that four years of schooling should be enough bonus for anyone. 
For those veterans who do not attend school, on-the-job instruction enables 
them to learn a trade while receiving pay equal to the skilled craftsman's. 
If the veteran doesn't want either of'these benefits, he may secure his old 
job with full seniority guaranteed him. When a civilian stopped working, 
his seniority stopped. The government is considering a housing bill to enable 



October, 1946 39 

veterans to purchase low-cost homes and also a terminal-leave bill for en- 
listed veterans. 

From any viewpoint, it would appear that the veteran has had his share 
(if benefits, but the State of Illinois proposes to pay a cash bonus to every 
veteran. 

The attitude of many veterans is this: "Give me all that I can get as 
long as it doesn't cost me anything." Actually, this proposed bonus is charity 
or an indirect method of begging. After the state pays the bonus and the 
veterans have spent the money, the veterans will then start a campaign for 
a national bonus. The more people receive, the more they expect. The pro- 
])(jsed bonus would give many veterans the idea of getting something for 
nothing. It would create a desire to receive something extra without doing 
anything to earn it. 

Many veterans do not realize who pays for a bonus. The answer is the 
people. Since veterans are citizens, they will help to pay for any bonus they 
receive. Each time a person buys cigarettes or attends a movie, he will be 
helping to pay for this bonus. The people of this nation are taxed enough 
already. The national debt now amounts \o $1,985 per person. Instead of 
increasing this tax load, we should l)e finding ways to lower taxes and to 
eliminate our debt. 

A cash bonus will not only increase the public debt, but it will decrease 
the moral standards of many young men; therefore. I urge you to consider 
seriously the proposed bonus, and to publicize completely the economic sig- 
nificance of such a payment, not only f(»r the veteran, but for the whole 
nation. With the facilities of your great organization at your disposal, it 
would be a worthy service to our country if you plan a program to educate the 
veteran to the full consequences of a bonus payment. 

Yours truly, 

Theodore McCarty 



Confusion: Army Style 

Army contusion is totally different from the ordinary type such as nii}i;ht 
result in a bargain sale of vsomen's nylon stockinj^s where each unabashed woman 
participatinii in the free-for-all is doini; her little bit in addm.n to the general, 
over-all melee. It is. rather, confusion insti;,'ated by a confused person. It is, hurry 
up and wait; pack up. we won't be leaving: for months; and take-off. the mission 
is cancelled. It is doinji thinjjs, just anythintf. and then undoini,' them so that they 
can be done again. It is a nightmare of disorj^'anization, ambiijuous orders, and 
unplcasantrics all thrown together. — Robf.rt F. Kric; 



40 .The Green Caldron 

Rhet as Writ 

She has no friends or near relatives and doesn't attempt to make any. 



Mexico should have some form of civiHzed industry but not to the ex- 
tent of hindering the nativity of its human being. 



• • 



The tv^^o vices which are predominant in the colony are gambling and 
immortality. 



• a • • 



Conway ended up in a Chinese missionary suffering from amnesia. 



• • 



When the time came that I could no longer go to camp as a camper, I 
returned as a counsellor. In most cases, it was in the capacity of craft di- 
rector, and so I had a few years of experience in teaching the fascinating 
trick of making things yourself behind me. 



• • 



The U. S. has a larger area per square mile than England. 



He still hated women. In his opinion, they were nothing but scheming 
little wrenches. 



I was rejected because of the loss of the two teeth over which I had ho 
control. 



• • 



The noun "language," pronounced lang' gwij, is derived from a mixture 
of Old French, Latin, and Methodist Episcopal words meaning "tongue." 
Language in Old French and Methodist Episcopal was spelled "language," 
and in Modern French, "languge." 



"HE Green Caldron 

A Magazine of Freshman Writing \ 

■{ 

JAN \ 



Richard Haag: Casablanca to Tripoli 1 

Stanley Burt: They Were There 3 

Robert A. Chittenden: Kriegie Craftsmen 5 

Clifford Loomis: Geruma Shima 8 

Earle Hanks: Maybelle 9 

Alice Jordan: Our Basement 10 

Charles R. Brown: The Camera Eye 12 

Barbara Long: King James: American Monarch 14 

Douglas Dales: The "Little" Magazines 20 

James Hiser: Filipino Barber Shop 21 

William Gothard: The Westinghouse Time Capsule 22 

Sandor H. Cohen: Civilian Status 26 

William N. Edwards: Contact Lenses 29 

William Louis Raby: Technocracy: Its Rise and Fall .... 31 

Lillian Rosputynski : The House on East Penn 34 

Dwight B. Mitchell: Little Hoiman 37 

Robert T. Cloud: Nov. 13. 1943 — bad weather 39 

Rhet as Writ 40 



VOL. 16, NO. 2 DECEMBER, 1946 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



T. 



HE Green Caldron is published four times a year by the 
Rhetoric Staff at the University of Illinois. Material is chosen 
from themes and examinations written by freshmen in the Uni- 
versity. Permission to publish is obtained for all full themes, 
including those published anonymously. Parts of themes, how- 
ever, are published at the discretion of the committee in charge. 

The committee in charge of this issue of The Green Caldron 
includes Miss Constance Nicholas and Messrs. Robert Geist, 
Edwin Robbins, and George Scouffas, Chairman. 

The Green Caldron is for sale at the Illini Union Book- 
store, Champaign, Illinois^ 



THE GREEN CALDRON 

Copyrighted 1946 
BY CHAS. W. ROBERTS 
All rii/hts reserved 
No part of this periodical may be repro- 
duced in any form without permission in 
writing from the publisher. 



Casablanca to Tripoli 

Richard Haag 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1945-1946 



T^jpWlE NAMES WERE READ OFF AT THE NOOX EOF 

I Eighteen of us were "alerted" to be flown to Tripoli. The 

■^^ come sooner than we had expected. Tack Metzeer and 



THT^HE NAMES WERE READ OFF AT THE NOOX FORMATION. 

le orders had 
:pected. Jack Metzger and I put our 
heads together to find a way to have one last look at Casablanca. Between 
UN. we gave birth to two ideas, which we "cried" to the proper authorities. 

Jack wanted to buy some film, and I had to pick uj) a watch that I had 
Kit to be repaired. These ruses were accepted on the condition that first 
\sr were to pack our stuff and drop it at headquarters. We packed pronto. 
1 he "sarge" then surprised us by giving us our passes and the keys to the 
■inpany jeep. After stopping in our area and collecting a few empty wine 
itles, we sped from Camp Don B. Passage in a cloud of dust. We brought 
the bottles back filled with sparkling Burgundy and allotted a canteenful 
ti> each of our buddies. 

That night, the eighteen of us got little sleep. We had a royal bull-session 
which ended, as bull-sessions often do, with a heated discussion about re- 
hj,'i(jn. Those who had "hit the sack" were rudely aroused by the merciless 
C O's. whistle. In considerable confusion, we loaded into two six-by-sixes 
.111(1 shivered all the way to the airport. After the guards at the airport 
entrance waved us on, we pulled onto the runway and stopped under the 
uiiig of a C-54. Down the strip we could dimly see the forms of B-25's, 
laid out like men on a chessboard — pawns to be played by the Tenth Air 
I (»rce in the battle of Burma. 

After a stretch, a smoke, and a roll call, wc climbed into the i)elly of 
the plane. Our baggage was loaded. Before we were seated in the bucket- 
srats, we noticed that we were sharing the ride with two factory- fresh B-29 
tiigines. 

Most of us were going up for the first time. I shall never forget the 
ihrill of it. After the crew passed up the aisle between us, things began to 
happen up front. After a while came the high-pitched crescendo of a mag- 
neto; it ended with the number three engine bursting into life. One after 
another the engines roared into action. Blue flames streaked from the ex- 
haust. After the warnnap period, we taxied to the end of the strip. The 
brakes were tested and applied. We could hear the electric engines whir as 
tlie Haps and the rudder were checked. Safety belts were fastened, and Jack 
looked at me. his lips curved in a thoughtful smile. Each engine was given 
tull throttle in turn, and the ship vibrated in anticipation of becoming air- 
liorne. All the engines seemed to respond perfectly to the touch of the pilot. 

[ 1 ] 



2 The Green Caldron 

Then all four were "revved-up" in a deafening roar. Just as it seemed the 
plane would tear itself apart, there was a lurch, and we thundered down the 
runway, past the B-25's. Before 1 could realize it, we were airborne. The 
ground dropped away. 

Some of the boys must have been frightened because I heard some sighs 
of '•elief as we removed our safety-belts. The C-54 climbed a long arc over 
the city and its harbor. We had a last look at the French battleship, the once- 
mighty Jean Bart, which now lay against the breakwater — rusting in the 
dark. sea. We dipped a wing and banked toward the sun, which was just 
coming over the brink of the world. I shall always remember how Casablanca 
looked from the air that morning. I forgot about the houses of vice, the 
crowded cabarets, and the reeking mcdina, or native section. The city looked 
immaculate and organized, and no sin seemed possible there. 

The whitewashed villas cast long shadows, and the olive groves became 
uniform. The open country came, and it passed slowly beneath us; the land 
became less fertile; the rolling hills grew sharper. 

As the sunlight began to find its way into the valleys, they appeared to 
lose their depth. Soon we were flying through wispy strings of mist, the 
beginnings of clouds. When I was a child, I recalled, I thought that clouds 
were composed of smoke and that they moved around the earth in a definite 
cycle. The clouds choked in around us and soon swallowed us up. The wings 
began icing up, and the air became turbulent. The plane no longer seemed tn 
be the complete master over its element. I was strangely fascinated by the 
buckling and bending of the wings as they absorbed the shocks of the storm. 

The plane was nosed over slightly, and soon we broke through into the 
world of sunlight. Just ahead a solitary mountain lofted its cap of pure snow. 
This majestic peak, in the Atlas range, was one of the few landmarks on the 
route to Tripoli. We seemed to pass so closely that I watched to see if the 
snow was disturbed by the prop-wash. 

Jack Metzger motioned to me; together we went up to the cockpit, 
where we enjoyed a smoke. 

While we smoked, the terrain below us changed a great deal. The land 
lay full in the sun, and barren, with outcroppings of stone and occasional 
dunes. Small wonder, I thought, that the Berbers and the Islamic peoples 
were of a fierce and wild nature — small wonder, that the Islamites had 
chosen for their flag a field of green. 

Feeling tired, I stretched out in the aisle and rolled up in a blanket. 

I found my canteen and took a long, slow "pull." I sloshed my tongue 
around in this grape juice and forced its richness between my teeth before 
swallowing it. A warmness radiated through me. I remember thinking about 
the rise and fall of the Carthaginians, and then about the Battle of Tours. 
I contemplated that 1 n.ight now be a Mohammedan had not Martel's forces 



ember, 1940 3 

been the stron^^er. 1 remembered that the Arabs had devised the term for 
zero, which is the basis of our numerical system. This was the solution to 
the problem which had proved to be too much for the Greeks or Romans. I 
thought of caravans falling prey to bearded horsemen, and of blue-eved 
Moors, and veiled women, and of dusky dancing girls. . . . The steady hum 
of the plane lulled me to sleep. 



They Were There 

Stanley Rlkt 

Rhetoric II. Theme 6, 1945-1946 

WALKS-ON-klVKR. TVVO-FINGKKS. DICK WASH/.KIK. 
and others of the vanishing tribe of full-blocnled Indian never 
read our history books, but if they did. they would disagree with 
the way we have written up many episodes in our western expansion. They 
would certainly disagree with the conventional story of Custer's last stand, 
and particularly with the legen<l of his cunning and l)ravery. He certainly did 
not e.xhibil cunning when he led his men into a trap set by the 'ndians. or 
bravery in the manner of his death. These men should know what really 
happened at the Hattle of the Little Hig Horn, for they were there. 

It is common knowledge that, after a forced march, Custer reached the 
Little I'.ig Horn River with his Seventh Cavalry, and after dividing his 
forces, attackcil the enemy village. We also know that he met with an over- 
whelming number of Indians, and was forced back to a small hill where his 
command was completely w ipetl out. 

The Indians would agree with this, but many o\ the details as we know 
them do not agree with those Dick Washakie, son of the famous Shoshone 
chief, told my father, for a time the Indian Agent for the Shoshone and 
Arapahoe tribes in Wyoming. 

"Ask him to go on," Dad said to the interpreter. After the translation, 
the venerable Indian paused to gather up his thoughts, and then slowly began 
to speak from the past. 

"1 was a scout for (leneral Terry when Long Hair went out to find 
Sitting Hull's camp. Long Hair wanted to travel fast, so he left all his artil- 
lery with Terry. He didn't even take his saber. Long Hair was always in a 
hurry. Always sh(nving otf. " 

"VN'hat was Custer to do when he found the camp?" 

"The plan was for Long Hair to watch the village, count the warriors, 
and wait for Terry to arrive with the artilUrv and reinforcements; then they 
would attack the village together." 



4 The Green Caldrot 

Dad interrupted to ask if Custer had met any Indians on the way. 

"I do not think so. He sent no messages back, and we never saw hii 
again. Terry began following soon after, but we could not go so fast becaus 
of the artillery. When we neared the Little I')ig Horn, something wj 
wrong — but we did not know what." 

Washakie paused to remember, then continued slowly. "We found some 
soldiers who told us they had been attacked by a large army of Sioux, Crows, 
and Arapahoes. They didn't know where Long Hair was, so we began 
looking for him. We could see where a large camp had been at the edge of 
the river, but there were no Indians around. They had gone north." 

"What did the battlefield look like when you found it?" Dad wanted to 
know. 

"When we found Long Hair, there were many bodies about him, and 
many dead horses. All the bodies were stripped and scalped and cut up. All 
except Long Hair. They didn't touch him." 

My father asked what had happened at the battle. Washakie explained 
that he knew only what Two-Fingers, who had participated in the actual 
battle, later told him. 

"Sitting r.ull was a wise medicine man. When he learned from his scouts 
that Long Hair was coming, he set a trap for him by hiding his warriors in 
the brush along the river, leaving only the old men and women and a few- 
braves in the camp. When Long Hair saw how w^eak the village was, he 
started across the river to attack. W^hen he was in the river, the braves 
charged, and killed many soldiers before they could retreat to a small hill." 

"Where was Sitting Bull during the liattle?" Dad asked. He was now 
completely absorbed in the story 

"Sitting r>ull was not a warrior. He was a medicine man and was not in 
the battle. Sitting Bull told his braves to kill all the soldiers except Long 
Hair. He wanted him to use in bargaining with the government." 

"Then why was Custer killed?" Dad asked. 

"When all the soldiers were dead, the warriors rushed in to grab Long 
Hair; but before they could reach him, he raised his pistol to his head and 
killed himself." 

The Indian paused to emphasize his last sentence, but my Dad couldn't 
wait. 

"Why did they mutilate the bodies?" 

"The braves did not do that. After the battle the squaws stripped the 
bodies and scalped them. The men did not do that. They did not touch Long 
Hair because Indians are afraid of a man who kills himself. He has evil 
spirits." 

With that he was through. Dick had told his story of the Custer massacre 
as he knew it. Though Dick's version isn't in our history book, the old 
Indian was sincere, and his memory sharp. I am inclined to believe him. 



IKrcnihcr, 1946 5 

Kriegie Craftsmen 

RoBKKT A. Chittkndkn 
Rhetoric II. Theme 6. 1^45-1^46 

MOXOTOXV AND I'.()RP:D0M DOMiXATI.I) THK *,IVES 
ot prisoners of war - - krief^ies (contraction of the (ierman word 
krici/S(/cfaM(/cncn ) — at the German Luftwaffe camp, Stalajj Luft 
III, Sa^'aii. (iermaiiy. The krie^ies had all too few of the material things of 
life and much too much time on their han<ls. In every room of every bar- 
racks of each of the four compounds, a former pilot, bombardier, or navi- 
gator was appointed the ofticial tinsmith, and someone else was elected to 
the responsible post of ccK)k. Since time was so plentiful, they spent many 
hours perfecting their respective techniques. Through necessity the two 
worked in close cooperation. The Cioons — the kriegie equivalent of Ger- 
mans — issued uncooked vegetables but no cf)()king vessels. The cooks had 
nothing to work with, other than large porcelain pots, and there weren't 
even enough of these to go around. .Since the only available metal was the 
tin cans in which Red Cross food was packaged, the tinsmiths set to work 
i.ishioning pans and utensils from salvaged f«)od tins. 

1 he vari(jus tinsmiths normally used the same method for preparing the 

cans for conversion into useful articles. The tops and bottoms were removed 

with one of the precious Tioon-issue table knives. The seam along the edge 

of the can was opened up, and the tin was hammered into a flat sheet. After 

the rough edges were trimmed, the sheet was cut to the desired size. When 

several tin sheets had been prepared, the craftsman joined them together to 

form one large piece of material. He did this through a series of overlapping 

I joints which were secured by placing the Hat side of a knife blade on the 

I seam and pounding it out with an improvised wooden mallet. The large tin 

sheet was measured and cut according to the shape and size of the vessel 

desired by the cook. After the material was folded at the corners and the 

seams tightened once more, the baking pan was given a watertight test, while 

fourteen hungry roommates assured their resourceful buddy that he had done 

a tine job. Usually a few droplets of water revealed the presence of one or 

I two slight leaks, but they were sealed by foot! particles after the pan had been 

■ used several times. Naturally the first few utensils made by the self-made 

tinsmiths were crude. After a little more e.xperience, however, the craftsman 

; usually produced pans which were truly pieces of skilled workmanship. The 

I complete lack of adequate cutting tools caused the finished product to seem 

even more ingenious. 

One enterprising kriegie perfected a soldered seam. The idea itself wasn't 
I revolutionary, but the method devised to do the job was. Two pieces of 



6 The Green Caldrc 

equipment necessar}' for the soldering process were fashioned from tin. The 
first was a small burner with a wick. Rancid butter — obtained from the 
scarce Red Cross food parcels — was used as fuel. It was pre-heated to 
cause it to flow through the wick, where it burned with a cool yellow flame. 
A blowpipe — the master stroke — resembled a bean blower with a cone- 
shaped tip attached. Solder was obtained in tiny amounts from the lids of 
corned-beef cans. Thirty or forty lids were placed in a stove. The melted 
solder, collected and poured into a crack in the floor, formed a long, thin bar. 
The flame of the burner was placed between the article to be soldered and 
the tip of the blowpipe. When the tinsmith blew through the tube, the oxygen 
from his breath created a hot, blue, pointed flame. This flame was directed 
on the metal surface while solder was applied. That particular technique, gen- 
erally used for welding operations, proved to be a very effective way to solder. ; 

After the immediate need for pots and pans had been taken care of, the 
smith usually started experimenting with his own pet ideas for the produc- 
tion of a few luxuries. Cracker grinders were made from the inevitable tin 
can and a few scraps of wood. A large can, its surfaces perforated from the 
inside with a nail, served as a grinding surface. It was mounted on an axle 
and revolved by a crank. It proved to be a great improvement over the im- 
provised conventional grater, which usually was responsible for torn finger- 
nails and bloody finger tips. 

Another luxury, the kriegie washing machine, was usually referred to as 
the pogo stick. It consisted of two cans, of diflFerent sizes, one inside the 
other, mounted on the end of a stick. A novel valve arrangement permitted 
air to be forced from the cans as the stick was pushed down into a bucket of 
clothes. On the up stroke the resulting vacuum caused the heavy, wet clothes 
to cling to the cans momentarily as they were lifted away from the bottom 
of the bucket. When the load became too much for the vacuum to hold, they 
were released and dropped back to the bottom of the pail. The agitation 
caused by rapid strokes of the pogo stick removed dirt more easily and more 
effectively than the conventional "backbreaker" method. 

Fuel was very scarce at Sagan; consequently, any method for utilizing 
more of the heat was accepted with great joy. A small stove with a super- 
charged draft was constructed. As usual, it was made from tin cans. A 
wooden wheel revolved and drove a smaller wooden wheel at a ratio of about 
one turn to twenty. On the same axle with the small wooden wheel was an 
impeller, a fan-shaped arrangement with about eight or ten blades. The impel- 
ler was encased in a housing, complete with a tunnel which directed the flow 
of the forced draft through the grate of the stove. The arrangement resulted 
in quicker heat at higher temperatures and also increased the supply of 
available fuel. Green sticks, old shoes, pine needles, or practically anything 
else of questionable value could be eflFectively burned. 



December, J 946 7 

Other items such as pancake turners, egg beaters (not that there were any 
fresh eg^s). and the like were turned out in wholesale lots. At the end of a 
month the c(H)ks were well ecjuipped with labor-saving devices. 

Many of the craftsmen turned their newly developed talents into a 
hobby. They produced, for example, picture frames, cigarette cases, and 
pipe racks. C^ne kriegie built a steam-driven boat two and a half feet long. 
It contained a boiler, two steam-driven turbines, two propelling screws, and 
all of the necessary handmade tubing and fittings. On her maiden voyage in 
a fire jxwl she crossed the thirty feet under her own power, and against the 
wind at that. 

The kriegies took such pri<le in their projects that a real spirit of com- 
petition developed. I'Lach man struggled to improve his designs and work- 
manship. Eventually a contest was scheduled, and prizes were awarded for 
the most useful, the best constructed, and the most novel of the entries. 
First prize was a couple of packages of American cigarettes, something 
really worth the effort. Xon-smokers participated for the pleasure derived 
from tinkering and for the honor of being recognized as the compound's 
best craftsman. 

The room cook was, of course, as important as the tinsmith and fre- 
quently as ingenious. Food was scarce. Although the Red Cross parcels 
helped immeasurably, they were never adequate. As a result, the cooks 
endeavored to make what was available as tasty as possible. 

Most of the food was prepared in the usual manner. Carrots and kohlrabi 
were boiled, potatoes were mashed, and the heavy (ierman bread was toasted; 
however, the same dishes time after time became monotonous. A search was 
on for new ways to prepare the same old issue. The Goon ration of uncooked 
barley was soon transformed into a tasty dish. The grain was boiled for 
several hours until it had absorbed a large amount of water and increased 
its bulk considerably. It was then poured into a pan and allowed to set over- 
night. After twelve or fourteen hours it had the consistency of corn meal 
mush. The solidified mass was sliced and fried. A small amount of coarse 
Goon sugar in water was boiled into a thin syrup. The hot fried barley 
covered with syrup made a first-rate breakfast for palates which longed to 
be tickled with something different. 

By cutting a few meals to the minimum, we could accumulate a small 
food surplus. On a special holiday such as Thanksgiving or Christmas, the 
surplus was "bashed" — the kriegie equivalent of "shooting the works" — in 
order that everyone might have food enough to feel somewhat satisfied at 
the end of the meal. 

The most remarkable culinary achievement was the preparation of 
macaroni and cheese. Tough, large Canadian crackers, from Canadian Red 
Cross food parcels, were soaked overnight in a thin mixture of powdered 



8 The Green Caldron 

milk. When the crackers were sufficiently softened, salt and American cheese 
— from American Red Cross parcels — were added. The "macaroni" was 
baked until enough water had been evaporated to give the proper consistency. 
This variation was well received. 

American ingenuity in World War II has been praised often and loud. 
This ingenuity, directed toward unpublicized ends, paid big dividends to the 
first force which invaded Germany in the Second World War. Uncle Sam's 
ten thousand nephews at Stalag Luft III maintained high morale by spending 
their time in attempts to better their existence. Reading and sports con- 
tributed a great deal to the task. Pounding tin cans into useful articles and 
preparing more appetizing meals, however, were the most practical and 
necessary of the kriegies' varied activities. 

Geruma Shima 

Our small boat bumped as it hit the sun drenched, shell cluttered beach on that 
scorching, cloudless day in August. The ramp dropped, and there, about one 
hundred yards inland, we saw the small primitive town of Geruma. Nestled in the 
heavy umbrella-shaped guno trees, like Easter eggs spread out in a green tissue 
paper nest, were the rounded, sloping, red tile roofs of the houses. 

As we approached, the cool damp air of the village eased the burning in our 
throats and nostrils, and we could hear the bleating of sheep from within the walls 
of the courtyards. The cool shade of the guno trees was as refreshing as a dip 
in the sea on a hot summer day. The winding narrow ox cart streets were formed 
by eight-foot-high stone walls that surrounded and secluded the homes and court- 
yards of the local dwellers. Within these walls, the small one-story mud and clay 
houses, a goat pen attached to the far end, were now as they had been for 
centuries, unchanged by the rumbling turmoil and progress of the outside world. 
The fish nets hanging neatly on small wooden peg's on the inside of the walls were 
the same kind as were used by the fathers, grandfathers, yes, and even the great 
grandfathers of the present g:eneration. In the shaded courtyards, little children 
played now as they did before the discovery of the new world. Progress, the 
'improved way to an unimproved end, was unknown to these people in their litde 
shaded oasis. — Clifford Loomis 

The Meaning of Life 

To me, while in combat, life connoted sorrow, grief, hate, bitterness, disil- 
lusionment and discouragement. It meant that my senses, a part of life itself, 
could torment me, that I could freeze in bitterly cold fields and forests. It per- 
mitted me to be wet and muddy and dirty and feel wet and muddy and dirty. It 
allowed me to be stung by fear and tortured by the death and smell of death 
around me. It empowered me to experience the anguish of the dire monotony of 
continually moving and attacking as in capturing a clearing leading to a forest, 
capturing a forest leading to a cluster of farmhouses, capturing the cluster of 
farmhouses guarding a ridge, capturing a ridge guarding a clearing. 

— Arthur R. Gottschalk 



December, 1946 

Maybelle 



W: 



Earle Hanks 
Rhetoric I, Theme C, 1946-1947 

HEX I WAS A SMALL ROY, MY SISTER AND I USED 
to go every summer to a small farm my parents owned. There 
we lived with the tenants until we were called back to town by 
school. Our main interest was not, as you might think, in chasing chickens, 
riding horses, and doing all the other things city children on farms are ex- 
pected to do. Much to the exasperation of Minnie, our tenant's wife, we 
spent most of our time listening on the party line. When we came back in 
the fall even more pale than when we went away, our parents, expecting us 
tanned and healthy, never failed to be disappointed. Instead of running and 
playing in the sun. we spent our every free moment at the telephone. 

About a quarter of a mile down the road from our farm lived a lovable 
character who labored under the atrocious name of Maybelle. She was a 
very i)lump old maid with a huge bosom which shelved several dime-store 
brooches and two medals that proclaimed to all the world she was White 
County's Champion Angel- food Cake Baker. She wore these signs of victory 
and leadership everywhere, and it was a common rumor that she hung them 
around her neck on a string when she bathed. I am sure that she would 
rather have appeared in public without her petticoat than be seen without 
them. 

She had a small income — no one knew just where it came from — upon 
which she fared very well. She seemed never to work except to feed her 
pets and herself. Her time, as was ours, was spent listening to the conversa- 
:ions of her neighbors on the telephone. She was a most accurate authority 
Dn the comings and goings of the people in our community. If any busine.ss 
I person did involved using the 'phone, it was understood that Maybelle. and 
subsequently the whole community, would know about it. 

I remember once when my sister had a fish bone caught in her throat and 
we were frantically calling for the doctor, ever-present Maybelle calmly cut 
in to announce, "Well, let's see. Early this mornin' he went out to see about 
Old Lady Jenkins's gall bladder, and from there he went to see about Xat 
Taylor's oldest girl and her tonsil operation she had done last Tuesday. 1 
reckon about now he ought to be out at Effie Potter's lookijig at her fifth- 
born. He's supposed to go see Sal Burnside, but she ain't no more sick than 
I am, so if I's you I'd jest call Potter's and tell Doc Stanley to come right 
over." Sure enough, when we called the Potter farm, we found the doctor 
there and willing to come to our house and extract the bone that was causmg 
5o much trouble. 



10 The Green Caldron 

No matter how much we listened, we could never know as much news as 
our friend, Alaybelle; moreover, because of the few small chores we were 
required to do, we spent some time away from the telephone. That was not 
so with Maybelle. She had a bell installed outside her house so that she could 
catch any call that came while she was outdoors. 

Xaturalh", w^e often speculated on how she made her living. Our onlv 
clue was that every Wednesday afternoon at four o'clock a black sedan 
would stop at her house for about ten minutes. Neighbor women, anxious to 
solve the mystery, would drop, in unexpectedly on Wednesdays and stay until 
four and after. However, there must have been some prearranged signal 
between Maybelle and her unknown visitor, for when she had company, the 
black sedan never stopped. 

This mystery was not solved until the fourth summer I had visited there. 
Then it was suddenly revealed to the whole community why it was that 
Maybelle listened to the telephone conversations so religiously. Someone, 
somehow, discovered that Maybelle was selling the news she heard on the 
party line to the county paper. She was in disgrace ! The neighbor women 
refused to speak to her. Also, prejudiced judges, whose wives were on the 
party line, gave the prize at the county fair to some other woman's cake. 
Maybelle was never cjuite the same again. 



Our Basement 

Alice Jordan 
D.GS. lb, Theme 2, 1945-1946 

UR BASEMENT, IN THE FOURTEEN YEARS COVERED 
by my memory, has led a rich and colorful life. It has no outstanding 
features and is much like other cellars; only what other basements 
do, our basement does a little more enthusiastically. When it rains, other 
basements grow damp and possibly leak a little, but ours becomes a raging 
whirlpool, and my father is forced to don his hip boots for an excursion 
into the unknown to unplug the stopped-up drain. 

The first time such a phenomenon occurred, my mother and I were home 
alone and unprotected while a violent electrical storm crashed and raged 
outside. Our terror reached untold heights when, suddenly, from the depths 
emerged a sound which seemed to be produced by some monstrous creature 
stumbling around in our basement. We dashed for the cellar door and bolted 
it. Then summoning all the composure and courage at our command, we 
peeked down the clothes chute, only to see a large collection of milk bottles 



O 



December, 1946 H 

crasliiii}^' toj^cther as tlicy were whirled about in the dark waters beneath us. 
Since tlien we have learned to meet such occasions calmly and to unplug the 
drain as soon as possible. 

And then there was the episode oi the mud puppy. A mud puppy is a 
small ami)hil)ian, green in color and covered with black spots. Ours was 
between four and five inches long. Mud puppies are partial to dampness; so, 
naturally, our basement was equipped with one. His only activity was to 
crawl out of his hf)le jiunctually at eight o'clock every night and to crawl in 
again an hour later. One of our favorite pastimes in the evening was to 
watch the mud puppy. We tried to get down to the basement either at eight 
or at nine, for between times he just sat, and we didn't consider it fun to 
watch a sitting mud puppy. It was much more e.xciting to see the little green 
slimy thing half squirm and half crawl across the floor. IJut this form of 
entertainment passed abruptly from our lives, for one sad day'my mother 
read that a mud puppy's bite was poisonous. With the welfare of her family 
at stake, she decided it was best to plug up the mud puppy's hole and 
terminate his nightly excursions. 

In the i)ost-mud puppy era came Mr. Stenlein, who managed to brave 
the unfavorable climate and lived in our basement periodically over a span 
of years. He was the vagabond type and would depart suddenly for Texas, 
California, or just any place as soon as the rainy season approached. Not that 
1 blame him. for existence in our basement during the rainy season would be 
comparal)le to residing permanently in a shallow swimming pool. Often when 
Mr. Stenlein departed for destinations unknown, he would forget to tell us 
that he was leaving. However, we could count on his return after an absence 
of about three months, at which time he would quietly move in again, and 
my father would say in resigned tones, "Well, he's back again." My mother 
would ])reten(l not to hear. 

Perhaps I should explain that my mother was the "discoveress" of Mr. 
Stenlein. and that she felt it her duty to protect him whenever my father 
spoke unkindly of his drifting tendencies. Atitique furniture, of which my 
father is not fond and which my mother collects with enthusiasm, was the 
main reason for her defending Mr. Stenlein. 

A section of our basement had been given over to the housing of ell sorts 
of derelict tables, chests, chairs, and beds — all in need of refinishing. Some- 
where back in Mr. Stenlein's mysterious past had been a period of employ- 
ment as refinisher in a large furniture factory. But age had worked upon 
his vision, making this kind of labor impossible for him. My mother's furni- 
ture, however, numerous as my father said it was, wasn't too much for 
his eyes. 

He also was the sole possessor of a secret formula for a miraculous 
furniture polish and used our basement as his headquarters for brewing and 



12 The Green Caldron 

bottling great quantities of the stufif. Then he sold it from door to door to 
finance his long excursions. My father lived in constant terror of Mr. 
Stenlein's putting the wrong constituents into his polish and blowing us all 
up. He always managed to go for a walk whenever the fumes of brewing 
furniture polish were in the air. 

Mr. Stenlein, like the mud puppy, wasn't destined to become a perma- 
nent fixture in our basement, for it has been about five years now since he 
last set out on one of his trips; and my father has finally stopped sniffing 
the air for furniture polish fumes upon entering the house. 

Since Mr. Stenlein, the basement has led a rather uneventful life, the 
only new^ additions being more antiques. However, the other day my mother 
hesitantly informed my father that she had found a yard man, w'ho would 
like to live in our cellar. His name is Grover Cleveland Bishop, and my 
mother listed as one of his good points the fact that he knows nothing about 
furniture polish. Mr. Bishop is moving in next week. 



The Camera Eye 

A Review of 1919 by John Dos Passos 

Charles R. Brown 
Rhetoric II, Book Review 1, Summer 1946 

DOS PASSOS HAS SET DOWN A KALEIDOSCOPIC REVIEW 
of the causes and effects of World War I and the peace that fol- 
lowed, frankly tossing his indictment at the feet of capitalism and 
politics. He specifically names the Morgan interests. Royal Dutch Shell, and 
Standard Oil. In one thumbnail sketch of J. P. Morgan he writes, "War 
and panics on the stock exchange, bankruptcies [are] good growing weather 
for the House of Morgan." The author also indicates that whatever "Mr. 
Morgan suggests" became White House policy. He portrays Woodrow Wil- 
son's rise as "the most powerful man in the world," and traces the bewilder- 
ment of Europe and America as "Meester Wilson" allows himself to be 
"trimmed in a three card game called the Council of Four , . . [with] oil 
as trumps." 

The pillar-to-post lives of his characters serve only to hold the montage 
together. Throughout the novel he reveals the ordinary citizen caught in a 
web of circumstances spun by ambitious profiteers and politicos. "If you 
objected," he says, "to making the world safe for cost-plus democracy, you 
went to jail. ..." Describing Wilson's homecoming, he writes, "The men 



December, 1946 13 

ill overalls, the workingstiffs let him pass in silence after all the other blocks 
(if . . . patriotic cheers." 

Hy means of interpolative devices entitled "The Camera Eye" and "News- 
rfc'l" the author serves up a staccato, sans-punctuation account of the 
war years, employing snatches of popular sonj^'s. newspaper headlines, and 
speeches. His camera eye prohes acutely into Paris and \ew York, Nice and 
Rome. Constant irony adds humor to an otherwise sober report, as when 
he proclaims, "11,000 registered harlots said the Red Cross Publicity Man 
infest the streets of Marseilles." 

With this discoiuiected array of facts Dos Passos manages to leave the 
impression that war is a grand, drunken, pointless brawl. His novel is full 
of slackers, conscientious objectors. Rabelaisian soldiers, and frustrated 
\(tuths. It may be true that he has chosen atypical characters and situations, 
tail he illustrates convincingly the futility and the "c'cst la guerre" attitude 
among the multitude. As one character declares, "Fellers, this war's the 
t>ij^gest . . . graft of the century, and me for it and the red cross nurses." 

There are few faults in the author's style, but effective as "Camera Eye" 
and "Xewsreel" are, they seem almost too incoherent for pleasant reading. 
( <>nsc(juently a reader is tempted to skip them and thus lose a mass of back- 
j^round ccjlor, contrast, and humor. In addition, Uos Passos has communist 
tendencies which will put most readers on the defensive, and the novel at 
times approaches burlesque in its cynical treatment of mankind's motives 
and conduct. 

However, his last chapter alone makes the book worth reading. As anti- 
war propaganda, "The Unknown Soldier" is particularly appealing. The 
author quotes President Harding, who spoke of Joe Doe as "... a typical 
soldier of democracy [who] fought and died believing in the . . . justice 
ol his country's cause." Dos Passos' idea of the Unknown Soldier is — 

They picked out the pine box that held all that was left of cenie, menie, 

minic, moe . . . Make sure he ain't a dinge, boys, a guinea, a kike . . . 

How can you tell a guy's one hundred percent when all you've got's a sack 

full of hones and some buttons stamped with the screaming eagle? 

Yes, Dos Passos has his faults, but he rarely fails to be convincing. One is 
strongly tempted to substitute 1946 for 1919. 



Boredom in Myitkyina 

Boredom? Same, identical, monotonous routine, day after day after day. 
Occasional Big Thrill: GI outdoor movies three times a week. Poker. Pinochle. 
Bridge. Craps. The dusky Burmese gals look whiter every day. No. We're going 
home, sometime. We'll be doing the same thing today and tomorrow that we did 

yesterday and two weeks ago yesterday. "Major W sure had a nice-looking 

nurse in his jeep last night." "Yeah? I read a good story." — John R. Spencer 



14 The C recti Caldrov 

King James: American Monarch 

Barbara Long 
Rhetoric II, Theme 12, 1945-1(^46 

"Some wanted to rule, whose fathers had not been kings. ..." 

Glf.nw AY Wf.stcott' 

AT THE NORTHERN END OF LAKE MICHIGAN, ABOUT 
/=^L fifty miles south of the Straits of Mackinac, lie a group of twelve 
-^ --^^ islands known as the Beaver Islands. Although small — the largest, 
Big Beaver, being only twelve miles by six — they have great natural beauty, 
with heavily wooded slopes rising to over forty feet above the blue-green 
waters of the lake. There, almost a hundred years ago, lived and ruled the 
only crowned king in America, James Jesse Strang.^ Strang was a strange 
and fascinating character: loved and revered by his followers as "apostle, 
prophet, seer, revelator, and translator";^ likened by his enemies to Judas, 
Cain, and Lucifer;* but acknowledged by all who knew him to be a man of 
great talent, fearless and capable in debate, and equal to any man in general 
knowledge.^ 

As a child in New York State, Jesse, who later changed his name to 
James, was small, frail, and sickly. His teachers thought him stupid and 
snubbed him unmercifully. He made no friends among the children, lacking 
the strength to join in their rough and tumble games. Left to himself, he 
read all the books he could find, memorizing whole chapters of the Bible and 
becoming "such a master of geography that one might fancy that he had 
traversed the length and breadth of the earth, and his knowledge of universal 
history was regarded as unlimited."" 

A term at the Fredonia Male Academy provided him with his first op- 
portunity to excel. "He became aware of the fact that he thought faster and 
straighter, had a greater store of knowledge, more self-control, more elo- 
quence, and more passion than any boy in school. . . . On the debating 
platform he became invincible, ruthless, superb."' Slowly there grew in his 
mind the conviction that he was destined for some high and unusual calling. 
He longed passionately for fame: " 'Fame, fame alone of all the production 
of man's folly may survive.' "* 

' Quoted in O. W. Ricgel, Crozcu of Glory: The Life of James Jesse Strang, p. 1. 

' Walter Havighurst, The Long Ships Passing, p. 147. 

* Charles Backus, "An American King," Harper's iWew Monthly Magazine, 44 (Sept., 

1882). 557. 

'Henry Legler, "A Moses of the Mormon.s," Parkman Club Publications, 2 (1897), 126. 

° Riegel. op. cit., p. 218. " Ibid., p. 9. ' Ibid., p. 1 1. ' Ibid., p. 17. 



December, 1946 15 

During his young manhood, Strang was energetic and active. He taught 
school, dabbled in politics, debated, trained with the militia, lectured on 
temperance, and participated in the social life of the community. At the age 
of nineteen he began an intensive study of law, which gained him admittance 
to the Michigan bar in 1836. Shortly afterward he married Mary Perce, the 
daughter of a I'aptist clergyman, and it seemed for a time that he would 
settle down to a conventional family life. However, his restlessness returned, 
and he sought a new outlet for his talents in Burlington, Wisconsin. 

Strang was introduced to Mormonism in January, 1844, by a group of 
itinerant missionaries, who persuaded him to visit Nauvoo, Illinois, where 
Joseph Smith was then at the zenith of his power. Conversion came prompt- 
ly, for the religion offered full play to his peculiar talents. Smith soon 
recognized the force within the new convert and rapidly promoted him.® 
Within a week after baptism he received an appoiiltment as elder, and three 
months later he was vested with authority to establish a branch of the church 
in Wisconsin. He entered into his missionary work with zeal, winning 
several hundred converts. W^hen Joseph Smith was murdered at Carthage, 
Illinois, on June 27, Strang felt ready, although a member of the church for 
only five months, to assume the mantle of the dead prophet. Although he 
pushed his claim vigorously, basing his alleged appointment on a letter from 
Smith, he was immediately denounced by the leaders at Nauvoo as a forger 
and imposter and was excommunicated; but for a time he was one of the 
chief contenders in the struggle for leadership, which ended in the triumph 
of Rrigham Young.'" 

Strang was not discouraged or undone by his excommunication. His 
followers in Wisconsin still maintained his right to leadership, and with them 
he started a colony at Voree. His plans called for "a strong benevolent 
theocracy, which would give him unlimited power and at the same time be- 
stow upon his subjects the blessings of Strang-enlightened government. . . . 
In Strang, social altruism and the lust for personal power could not be 
separated. ... He inevitably became a reformer-dictator, noble in social 
vision and thoroughly unscrupulous in the practical task of establishing and 
maintaining his power."" Anyone who could possibly be made useful in 
building the colony was welcomed. His converts included all types of hu- 
manity. On one extreme were the simple-minded religionists, superstitious 
and hysterical; on the other were shrewd, selfish adventurers. In between 
lay alf kinds of good and bad. Many of his highest officers were chosen from 
the rowdiest elements. He hoped to give his followers a communistic econ- 

• Charles Strang, '\\ Michigan Monarchy." Historical Collections, 18 (1892), 629. 
""An American Kingdom of Mormons," Magazine of Western History, 3 (April, 1886), 
645. " Riegel, op. cit., p. 63. 



u 



I 



16 The Green Caldro 

omy, but for a time he had to deal with the capitaHstic world and borrow^ 
money where he could. Since he believed that the colony must be totally cut 
off from Gentile interference in order to absorb his doctrines unmolested, 
he preached disloyalty to the government; and, as he gained more converts, 
he grew more and more hostile toward civil authorities.'^ It was during this 
early period that he voiced many revelations and announced that he had 
uncovered a number of sacred plates similar to those found by Joseph Smith. 
As translated by Strang, these plates gave instructions that the Saints found 
a communistic order, build a temple, and erect a home for their leader.'^ 

After a couple of years Strang realized that Voree would never be the 
ideal colony for which he had planned. He fought dissension within and 
outside his organization. The different interests of his people had led in- 
evitably to controversy and revolt, and their misunderstandings were height- 
ened by outside interference. It became apparent that the conditions which 
had driven the Mormons from Nauvoo were threatening Voree and that it 
would be just a question of time before Gentile influence would annihilate 
it. Therefore, remembering a beautiful Michigan archipelago which he had 
seen during his earlier travels, Strang announced that he had received a 
revelation to rebuild Zion on Beaver Island. He believed the island to be an 
ideal choice for a seat of power — far away from civil officers whose views 
might differ from his own, yet close to a profitable line of traffic. There were 
excellent fish in its waters, abundant forests for lumber, and its soil "needed 
but to be scratched to yield in multiplied plenty."'* 

Early in May a party of five men, led by Strang, landed on Big Beaver. 
The white inhabitants at the trading post met them coldly and refused to 
give the group either food or shelter, for they feared that if one Mormon 
entered, many more would certainly follow. For weeks Strang and his men 
lived on wild leeks and beechnuts, with the few scraps that could be picked 
up from the traders' kitchens. Finally, two or three of the men having been 
given work at the post, they were able to lay in supplies and build a cabin. 
The first wedge had been entered. And Strang now felt that it was safe to 
leave them while he journeyed east to obtain more converts. 

Slowly at first, but with ever increasing momentum, his followers moved 
to the island. The first two years were filled with hardships and suffering. 
The traders' attitude had become definitely hostile. Seeing their fishing 
grounds invaded and their commercial supremacy threatened, they refused 
to sell the Mormons provisions and carried out a general program of ter- 
rorism. But the building of the kingdom continued. Acres were cleared and 
planted, a road was cut through the forest, a cabin was erected to house the 
printing press, and the saw mill ran night and day to supply lumber for 

'= Ibid., p. M flf. 

" Kimhall Young, "Strang, James Jesse," Dictionary of American Biography. 

"I.cglcr, op. cit., p. 130. 



December, 1946 \7 

houses. By July, 1850, Strang had finished the Book of the Lazv of the Lord, 
his translation of the plates which he had found in Wisconsin and which 
served as final authority on all social and theological matters. On its author- 
ity, he announced that God had commanded that he be crowned King, and he 
fixed July 8 as the day of his coronation.'' 

Strang assumed his royal powers in the tabernacle, a building eighty feet 
long and only partially completed at that time. He entered the building 
dressed in a robe of bright red and accompanied by his council, the twelve 
elders, and the minor orders of the ministry. The ceremony was performed 
bv George J. Adams, president of the council, a former actor, who succeeded 
in making it a colorful affair. Its climax was reached when Adams placed the 
crown, a metal circlet with a projecting cluster of stars, upon Strang's bowed 
head.'" 

Thus began the reign of King James. His word was supreme, and his 
followers asserted that his was the only valid government on earth. Discipline 
was strict. The use of coffee, tea. tobacco, and liquor was prohibited; and 
prostitution and lewdness were discountenanced. The women were com- 
manded to dress in blouses and bloomers. Saturday was decreed to be the 
Sabbath, and attendance at church was compulsory for all who were phys- 
ically able. Any who might violate the royal commands were punished with 
lashes given at a public whipping post.'" 

Rowing to expediency. Strang discarded the communistic ideal which he 
had advocated at V^oree. The Saints were allowed to hold title to their lands, 
but they were required to pay one-tenth of all that they raised or earned 
into a public fund which was used for improvements and the care of the 
poor. No other taxes were levied. Schools flourished, and the printing office 
from which Strang published the Northern Islander became a source of 
strength for the colony.'** 

Although at Voree Strang had been outspoken against polygamy, his at- 
titude changed rapidly after he had met and fallen in love with Elvira Field, 
a dark-eyed school teacher. After another revelation, he assured the Samts 
that it was God's will for them to have more than one wife; but the practice 
was not especially favored by the majority of his subjects. None took more 
than three wives except the King, himself, who finally had five. This limita- 
tion was partially due to economic conditions, it being necessary for a man to 
have the means and ability to give his wives adequate care if he wished to 
have more than one. 

Strang also made a complete turnabout in his former policy of nonresist- 
ance and pacifism. "The gospel of turning the other cheek . . . had been 
tried and found wanting. . . . Whosoever persecuted a Saint on Beaver 

"KieKcl. op. ill., p. 160. " Lcglcr. o/>. nt.. p. 138. " Havighurst, op. cit.. p. 150. 

"Strang, op. cit., p. 633. 



18 The Green Caldron 

Island did so at his peril. . . . "^^ As the Mormons continued to gain in 
number and cover more territory, stories of their violence and cupidity were 
told in distant parts of the lakes. They were hated and feared, and vessels 
nearing the islands doubled their lookout in distrust of the Mormon 
"pirates."^" 

Complaints were made to the United States government, and Strang was 
arrested on charges of piracy, counterfeiting, and robbing the United States 
mail. He was tried and acquitted at Detroit, after pleading his own case as 
one " 'persecuted for righteousness' sake.' "^^ 

While believing that he was a law unto himself, Strang was shrewd in 
making use of the machinery of the civil law to advance his aims. Twice he 
was elected to the Michigan legislature; and, through his elTorts, the counties 
of northern Michigan were reorganized so that the Mormons were able to 
control all of the offices of the county in which Reaver Island was located. ^^ 

Externally, Strang's power was at its zenith by 1856; internally, he faced 
conflict. Jealousy sprang up between him and the more intelligent of his 
disciples. Polygamy was a source of discord and was used as an excuse for 
revolt against his rigid discipline. The women rebelled at having to wear the 
bloomer costume. Two of his subjects, Thomas Bedford and Alexander 
Wentworth, who had received public discipline, determined to do themselves 
what the courts had failed to do. They decided to kill Strang as soon as it 
could be done with safety. The opportunity came when the U. S. S. Michigan 
returned to the island with a warrant for Strang's arrest. As he accompanied 
the master of the gunboat to the pier, the two disgruntled subjects sprang 
from behind a woodpile and fired at him. The King fell, mortally wounded. 
He died on July 9 at Voree, where he had been taken after his assassination. 
His assailants surrendered at once to the gunboat and were taken to Mack- 
inac Island, where they were greeted with enthusiastic cheers by the people, 
who treated them as heroes. They were never brought to trial. 

The Saints on Heaver Island were left to feel the full fury of an angry 
Gentile mob, which burned the tabernacle, sacked the "Royal Press," and 
drove the subjects from the island, confiscating for themselves the property 
left behind. 

Strang's death meant the end of his kingdom and his church. He had 
failed to name a successor, although he knew that he was dying. His fol- 
lowers scattered, making no attempt to continue his work. Soon his name was 
forgotten, except on the shores of Lake Michigan, where stories concerning 
"King Strang and his pirates" were told and retold for many years. 

'•Riegel, o/> cit., p. 141. '" Havighurst, op. cit., p. 151. "Ibid. 
" Young, o/-. cit., p. 124. 



December, 1946 19 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

"An American Kingdom of Mormons," Magazine of Western History 3 (April 1886), 

645-51. 
Backus. Chaklks K., "An American King," Harf>er's Neic Monthly Magazine, 44 

(September. 1882), 553-59. 

BeauI-F., John, Life in Utah: or The Mysteries and Crimes of Mormonism. Philadel- 
phia: National Publishing Co., 1870. pp. \22-2S. 

Havighurst, Walter, The Long Shifs Passing: The Story of the Great Lakes, New 
York: The Macmillan Co., 1942. pj). 147-54. 

Lecler. Henry E.. "A Moses of the Mormons," I'arknian Club Publications, Milwau- 
kee: The Parkman Club. 2 (1897), 115-79. 

PoppLETON, O., "The Murder of King Strang," Michigan Pioneer and Historical So- 
ciety, Historical Collections, Lansing: Robert Sniitli and Co., 18 (1892), 626-27. 

Qi'AiFE, Mii.o, The Kingdom of Saint James, New Haven: Yale L'niversity Press, 1930. 

Rk.my, Jii.es, a Journey to Great-Salt-Lake-Citv. London: W. Jeffs, 1861, Vol. 1. pp. 
407-12. 

Kie(;el, O. W., CroiLn of Glory: The Life of James Jesse Strang, New Haven: Yale 
University Press, 1935. 

Stranc, Chari.es J., "A Michigan Monarchy." Michigan Pioneer and Historical 
Society, Historical Collections, Lansing: Robert Smith and Co.. 18 (1892). 626-27. 

You.NC, Kimball, "Strang, James Jesse." Dictionary of .-Imerican Hiograf'hy 

Feeding Time among the Guppies 

I had had my fish about two weeks when someone asked me, "What do you 
feed them ?" 

"Oh," I mumbled, "do you have to feed them?" 

The next day I went to my fish dealer and brought some food home. It comes 
in several grades: fine powder for "fry," as baby fish are called, medium for 
larger fish, and coarse for adult fish. The package I brought home said nothing on 
it but "Fry," so I fried it. it came out in big greasy lumps which I dropped into 
the water. I watched in glee and wonder as the fish nibbled at the lumps, for it 
had never occurred to me that fish ever ate. I was almost right, for they never 
ate again. — Geor(;e L. Cij\rk 

He Made It! 

Chaos broke loose when it was first announced in the house that Alfred, our 
house's professional idiot, had made the Green Caldron. Many studious boys had 
worked hard on themes but had never received the honor. Why should Alfred, 
the nitwit, the gadabout, the numskull, the guy who never let us study, have such 
an honor ? 

Wait! Who started this malicious rumor? Why, Alfred, of course! Fifteen 
minds flashed to the fact that it was a lie. Proof was demanded. 

-Alfred went to his room and came back with a pencil-written theme and the 
latest issue of the Green Caldron. Yes, there it was. Under the title "Rhet as Writ" 
appeared Alfred's statement: "One day my dog was gone for two days." 

— David Lovell 



20 The Green Caldron 

The "Little'' Maga2,mes 

Douglas Dales 
Rhetoric II, Theme 4, Summer 1946 

IN THE PAST FEW YEARS INCREASED CONCERN HAS 
arisen over the fate of the Httle magazines, which are shoved into the 
odd corners of the magazine racks and are consistently avoided by the 
masses. The odds against these literary ventures are great in spite of their 
remarkable influence in the world of letters. Such important little magazines 
as Poetry, Others, The Little Review, and Transition have managed to keep 
their heads above water long enough to be accorded the rewards of fame; 
and they persist as an unyielding phenomenon of modern publishing. 

The little magazines are voices crying out in the wilderness. They are 
quick to express the emotions of the intellectual advance guard, and exhibit 
a daring that is frequently terrifying. The woodcuts on their covers are 
artistically contemptuous, and their formats often exhibit a pleasantly bizarre 
typography. Their titles are strange and provocative: Broom, Anvil, and 
Angry Penguins. 

In the last half century miscellaneous and fascinating slogans have ap- 
peared on their banners, slogans of regionalism, neo-classicism, eclecticism, 
and proletarian culture. Their experimental crusades are intended to acquaint 
writers with all sorts of new and different expression. They are to the lit- 
erary world what the Medical Journal is to medicine. The little magazines 
print articles, stories, and poems which could not sanely be printed anywhere 
else. Collier's is seldom in the mood to accept experiments in language such 
as the "stream-of-consciousness" style of Joyce or the word-symbolism of 
Edith Sitwell. The little magazines are delightfully free of the hidebound 
conservatism of the more popular magazines. 

Although the little magazines are not prosperous enough to pay for the 
contributions of their writers and though many of them die out after the 
publication of the first few issues, they feature the work of many important 
writers who value the opportunity of working in an atmosphere in which | 
they can breathe deeply and freely. Writers whose books are selling by the 
thousands, or playwrights who are regularly featured on Broadway, still 
feel the urge occasionally to let down their hair and experiment with new 
forms of literature without exposing themselves to the wrath of the public. 

So the little magazines heroically go about their business. They often 
make the mistake of becoming too freakish and of occasionally printing 
work that appears to have crept out of caved-in minds; but they also have 
the cold, clear vision of a mountain climber. They make no apologies, but 
let their messages fall where they may. 



Decnnbcr, 1946 21 

Filipino Barber Shop 

James Hiser 
Rhetoric I, Theme 2. 1945-1946 

FOR SOME UXKXOWX REASOX. A MERCHAXT SAILOR 
when he is in the states never has time for such a minor chore as a 
hairtut. When the tollowinfj event took place, I was abroad with 
the L'. S. Merchant Marine. 

My ship was lyin^ peacefully at anchor in the harbor of Leyte Island, in 
the Philippine j^roup. It was a hot, sultry day. The mercury had climbed to 
around one hundred five degrees; nevertheless, T decided it was time for me 
to "fjet my ears set out." 

When the sun had almost reached its peak in the cloudless sky, I was 
slowly plodding down a narrow, dusty village street toward a small, dimly 
painted sign which read, "HAIR CUT 1 TI^SO." From the appearance of 
Ithe other shops in the village, I certainly did not expect an elaborate set-up; 
|so I was not greatly surprised wht-n I came to a very primitive hut. 
i I stepped beneath the overhanging shade made of bamboo poles thatched 
with palm leaves. The owner of the shop appeared and cordially invited me 
in. He was of stocky build with broad shoulders. His skin was swarthy, and 
bis teeth Hashed brilliantly white in the noon sunlight as he cast his friendly 
smile upon me. Like many Filipinos, he wore only a pair oi soiled white 
shorts, confined at his waist by a belt. 

I seated myself in the barber chair, which was only a rickety, straight- 
lacked affair made of bamboo placed on a wooden box in the center of the 
room. Directly in front of this throne hung a dingy, blurred mirror, sus- 
jended by ropes from the roof. To my right stood a square table, upon which 
■ested the barber's only tools — a pair of clippers, a dirty-looking comb, and 
razor. As I cast my eyes downward, I was somewhat surprised to find that 
he floor was still in its natural state — dirt. It also showed evidence that 
lair had been cut here before. I noticed now for the first time an opening at 
he rear, over which a piece of gray material was draped. I'vidently this 
irchway led into the living quarters of the barber. 

From time to time, a naked, undernourished child about four years old 
vould come out from behind the drapery, stare wide-eyed at me. and then 
Hsappear. Several times a lean-flanked hog .scrambled through the shop, pur- 
ued by a dog. A little breeze constantly swung the mirror to and fro. 

Finally, when the ordeal was over, I stepped from the throne and gave 
nyself the once-over in the looking glass. 1 could hardly believe the story 
hat it told. Many a barber in swanky shops in the United States could nr-t 
ave matched this master's skill. It was really a sleek hair cut! 



II 

22 The Green Caldron 

The Westinghouse Time Capsule 



William Gothard 
Rhetoric II, Theme 7, 1945-1946 



^^VER SINCE ARCHEOLOGISTS AND HISTORIANS TURNED 
~^ their talents to deciphering the unrecorded past, human beings have 
^ " ^ dreamed of simpHfying the problem for scientists of the future, by 



deliberately preparing a message for them. For many years this was nothing 
more than an idle dream, since science knew too little about the effects of 
time to design confidently a vessel for the future. Finally, during the early 
months of 1938, engineers of the Westinghouse Electrical and Manufacturing 
Company decided that technological advances in the field of metallic alloys 
had progressed far enough to enable them to undertake the task of building 
a Time Capsule capable of lasting five thousand years — a period of time 
almost as long as that of all recorded history.^ 

The first step toward the completion of this great project was, quite 
clearly, to form a Time Capsule Committee, which, in turn, could establish 
subcommittees to study the various questions relating to the plan. The 
committee was carefully chosen from the nation's leading archeologists, 
historians, and technical and scientific men;^ and it went to work immediately 
in order to have the capsule ready for display at the Westinghouse exhibit 
at the New York World's Fair, which was scheduled to open in a little over 
a year. -^ 

After careful deliberation the committee was able to divide the entire 
project into three problems: ( 1 ) how to build a vessel capable of lasting five 
thousand years; (2) how to leave word of its whereabouts for historians of 
the future; and (3) how to select and preserve its contents.^ 

A subcommittee headed by M. W. Smith, Westinghouse manager of 
engineering, undertook the task of solving the first problem — that of de- 
signing and constructing the Time Capsule.^ The biggest task of this depart- 
ment was to find a metal or a metallic alloy of considerable hardness to be 
entirely resistant to corrosion. After much research involving complicated 
chemical experiments, they discovered a new alloy of copper,. Cupaloy,^ 
which most nearly fulfilled the specifications. 

For reasons of strength and convenience, the Time Capsule is shaped like 

'G. Edward Pendray, "The Story of the Time Capsule," Annual Report of the 

Smithsonian Institution, 1939 Edition, p. 533. '' Ibid., ^. 534. 

"The Westinghouse Time Capsule," Science, 88 (Oct. 7, 1938), 326. * Ibid. 

''Composition of Cupaloy: copper 99.4 per cent, chromium 0.5 per cent, silver 0.1 per 

cent. 



December, 1946 23 

a torpedo, seven and one-half feet long and eight and three-eighths inches in 
diameter. The outer shell consists of seven cast segments of Cupaloy, 
threaded, screwed together tightly, and sealed with molten asphalt. The 
walls of the Cupaloy segments are one inch thick, thus leaving an inner crypt 
six and three-eighths inches in diameter and six feet nine inches long. The 
crvpt is lined with I'yrex glass, set in a water-repellent petroleum base wa.x. 
Washed, evacuated, and filled with humid nitrogen," an inert, preservative 
gas, this glass inner crypt is a perfect container for the "cross section of our 
time." as its contents might well he called. 

The second great problem, that of making reasonably sure that arche- 
ologists of 6939 would know of the historical treasure consigned to them, 
was solved by preparing a l'(X)k rjf Record of the Time Capsule and dis- 
tributing copies of it to libraries, museums, monasteries, convents, lamaseries, 
temples, and other places of safe keeping throughout the world.' 

The Hook of Record was prepared after detailed consultation with li- 
braries, museum authorities, printers, and Uxjkbinders; and suggestions for 
binding were obtained from the ofhce of National Archives, the New York 
Public Library, the American Library Ass<K:iation. and other sources. The 
United States Bureau of Standards provided specifications for permanent 
paper and inks. And. in order to secure the greatest possible strength, each 
of the 3.650 copies which were printed was sewn together by hand with 
linen thread." 

The Hook of Record tells how to calculate the date when the capsule 
should be opened, by use of the Gregorian, Chinese, Jewish, Mohammedan, 
and Shinto calendars, and by astronomical time if no calendars survive." Also 
given in the HcKjk of Record are ( 1) the exact latitude and longitude of the 
capsules well, calculated to less than an inch; (2) directions for locating the 
capsule with electromagnetic finders in case geographical changes in five 
thousand years should falsify the latitude and longitude figures; (3) an in- 
genious Key to the English Language devised by John P. Harrington, of the 
Smithsonian Institution, which, by means of simple diagrams, explains the 
peculiarities of luiglish grammar and shows how each of the thirty-three 
sounds of English is pronounced; (4) messages to the future from three 
famous men of our time: Dr. Albert Einstein. Dr. Robert Millikan, and 
Dr. Thomas Mann; (5) a table of common measures in the English and 
metric systems, including a statement of the length of the standard meter m 
terms of the wave length of red cadmium light — a constant that will never 

•Pcndray, op. cit., p 534. 

'"For 6939 A. D. Readers," Ne^.-sxceck. 12 (Sept. 26. 1938). 439. 

• Pcndray, of>. lil , p. 536. 

•"Five Thousand Mile Journey," Time. 36 (Sept. 30, 1940), 59. 






24 The Green Caldro 

vary, no matter what other systems of measurement are in use five thousand 
years from now."' 

Choosing what was to go into the limited space of the Time Capsule cr^-pt 
proved perhaps the greatest problem of all, for nothing short of an enormous 
gallery of vaults could accommodate all the objects and records of any 
civilization. The Time Capsule Committee turned for advice to archeologists, 
historians, and authorities in virtually every field of science, medicine, and 
the arts; and on the basis of their suggestions, thirty-five articles of common 
use, ranging from a slide rule to a woman's hat, were chosen." Also included 
are about seventy-five samples of common materials, ranging from fabrics 
of various kinds, metals, alloys, plastics, and synthetics, to a lump of an- 
thracite coal and a dozen kinds of common seeds. ^^ 

These material items are, however, only supplementary to a voluminous 
essay about us and our times, reduced to microfilm. On three and one-half 
spools (1,100 feet) of this film, ten million printed words and more than 
one thousand photographs were reproduced. Resides depicting such expected 
details as how we live, what we eat, and what our religions and philosophies 
are, the film contains a dictionary of slang, Hoyle's card rules, the World 
Almanac, a Sears, Roebuck catalogue, excerpts from the Encyclopedia 
Britannica, and excerpts from all kinds of newspapers and periodicals. '- 

Once these articles were assembled, the next step was to label them, and 
then place them into the Pyrex crypt. All objects were wrapped with heavy 
rag ledger paper, tied with linen twine, and labeled again on the outside of 
the wrapper. Then, according to weight, with the heaviest article on the bot- 
tom, each object was placed into the crypt, and all spaces between objects 
were cushioned and made firm with glass wool. 

Immediately following the packing, the Pyrex inner crypt was placed 
upon a glass-lathe, heated, and sealed. The air was then drawn out through 
a small opening, the contents were washed with inert gas, and the crypt was 
filled with nitrogen, to which just enough moisture was added to equal the 
humidity of an ordinary room. Since its contents are fully protected from 
corrosion and decomposition by the removal of oxygen and excess moisture, 
it is expected that the articles will be as fresh five thousand years from now 
as they were the day the crypt was sealed. 

The final step in the preparation of the capsule was the insertion of the 
glass crypt into the Cupaloy shell. After being wrapped in several layers of 
glass tape, the crypt was inserted, held in place, and waterproof wax was 
poured in around the glass. "Shrink-fitting" the final Cupaloy joint was then 
accomplished by chilling the heavy cap to several degrees below zero with 
dry ice, then turning it into place on tapered threads. When permitted to 

^^ Book of Record of the Time Ca/^sule, pp. 10-48. " Pciulray, o/>. cit., p. 537. 
" For complete list of contents, see Ibid., pp. 541-553. 



December, 1946 25 

warm up to tlu- same temperature as the rest of the capsule, the metal 
expaiuled and caused tlie threads to seize so tightly as to form an air-and- 
water-tight joint. 

At hij^h noon on September 23. 1938. the precise moment of the autumnal 
equinox, A. W. Robertson, chairman of the board of the. Westinghouse 
Electrical and Manufacturing Company, c(jmmitted the Time Capsule to 
fK)sterity with these words: "May the Time Capsule sleep well. When it is 
awakened five thousand years from now, may its contents be found a suit- 
able gift to our far-off descendants."''' 

Many tjuestions have been asked about the Time Capsule project, the 
foremost one being how it will be protected from thieves or persons whose 
curiosity is greater than their sense of obligation to the future. This problem 
of keeping the Cai)sule safe from vandals is well taken care of by the site 
selected for burial, .'^unk fifty feet below the surface of the ground in 
swampy soil, it can be recovered (»nly after an expensive and difficult en- 
gineering operation costing many times the possible material worth of the 
capsule and its salable contents. 

A ten- foot bl.ick granite monument, marking the exact location of the 

Time Capsule in Mushing Meadow Park on the old site of the New York 

world's I'air, was dedicated at nooli on Tuesday, September 23, 1941. An 

inscri|)tion on the base of the shaft reads: "The Time Capsule, deposited 

j fifty feet beneath this spot on Sei)tember 2}>, 1938; preserving for the future 

I a record of the history, faiths, arts, sciences and customs of the people then 

alive. Scientists and engineers designed it; scholars chose its contents; the 

Westinghouse bJectrical and .Manufacturing Company placed it here at the 

[beginning of the New York World's Fair, 1939-1940, to endure for five 

thousand years."'* 

!"//'i(/.. p. 339. 

[""The Westinghouse Time Capsule." .V<iV»i,.-. lU ( Sipt 12, HMD, 231. 



HIBIJOC.KArHY 

Hook of Rciord of the Time Cntsulc. New York: Westinghouse Electrical and >fanu- 
facturing Company, 1938. 

"Five Thousand Year Journey," Time. 36 (September 30, 1940), 59. 

"For 6939 A. I). Readers," A'ews7<-Ci'k. 12 (September 26. 1938), 28. 

I'KM.KAV, C. KhWAKi., "The Story of the Time Capsule," Annual Report of the Smith- 
sonian Institution, 1939 Kdition. 

"Time Capsule Huried Under World's Fair," Fotular Science. 133 (December, 1938), 
112. 

"The Westinghouse Time Capsule." Science, 88 (October 7, 1938). 326-7. 

"The Westinghouse Time Capsule," Science, 94 (September 12, 1941), 231. 



26 • The Green Caldron 



Civilian Status 

Sandor H. Cohen 

Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1945-1946 



T 



P^TT^HE BARRACKS WERE HOT. THE TROPICAL SUN WAS 
beating on the tin roofs. Electric fans served only to circulate blasts 
of hot air. Naked bodies sprawled on wet sheets. Limp cigarettes 
dangled from moist finger tips. It was too hot to move, 

"What you gonna do when you get out, Johnny?" 

"Park my fanny on an iceberg." 

"Naw — I mean it. Greg says he's going back to school. He only has a 
year to go." 

"So what !" 

"I'd like to go to school, too, but I guess if the war lasts five more years 
I'll be pretty old. Hell, I guess I'll marry Ruth if she's still around." 

"What for? Thought she learned to fold Navy blues." 

"Don-know — she's not a bad kid." 

"I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna get a good job and put in 
for some high living." 

"What kinda job?" 

"Hell, the guys on state side are all pulling down dough. I guess the 
boom will last a few years after the war, and I intend to make my kill." 

Soldiers staring at low ceilings — thinking, wondering, hoping. 

A standard piece of equipment, a question, an echo through boats and 
barracks all over the world: "What will I do when I get out?" I had talked 
about it and wondered about it since my entry into service. I did not feel 
that the world was obliged to cut a path for me. I would not ask for a free 
ticket when I got home. I would only ask recognition for doing a man's job 
in a creditable manner. Four years in the army had given me a wealth of self- 
confidence. I felt ready to start building my future. I was ready and im- 
patient, but within myself I knew I wouldn't be given the opportunity. The 
folks back home were too far away. They couldn't see their sons becoming 
men on the double. 

***** 

"Good to have you home. Son. Here, have some of your mother's good 
cooking." 

"Pass the salt and pepper." 

"You never seasoned my food before." 

"Sorry, my tastes have changed." 



December, 1946 27 

"By the way, a lot of your young friends are married. What are you 
going to do now that you're out?" 

"The folks will be over this evening and you can tell us all about the 
war. Tell us about the empty cot next to you. What are you going to do now 
that you're out? School starts next week." 

"Hello, Uncle Joe. Good to see you." 

"Hello, Tom and Betty. Good to see you." 

"Hello, soldier. Whai akk vou goinc. to do now that you're olt?" 

Twenty-eight years ago our fathers came marching home victors of 
another battle. They took oflf their uniforms and tried to get back to their 
old ways of life. They had their difficulties, but they forgot. People didn't 
realize that the modern >oIdier is no different from his father. They were 
perplexed when their sons said they wanted to loaf for a couple of months. 
Sure the war has changed a lot of the boys, but not mine. My boy is the same 
sweet child we sent awa}'. I felt as though I had just returned from a two- 
weeks' vacation at scout camp. 



"You may go in to see Mr. Morgan now." 

"Hello, John, how's the old soldier. It sure is good to see you. What are 
you going to do now you're out? Guess you'll be anxious to get back to 
school. We've done some expanding around here since you left. I tell you 
this war has kept me pretty busy. .Sometimes I wish I'd been in the good old 
army. We've got another kid working part time in your place. By the way, 
if you don't get into school right away let me know. Nothing 1 wouldn't do 
for a vet. We'll find some little chore for you to do." 

"Good day, Mr. Morgan." 

I did not expect to step into an important job. I only asked a chance to 
get a start. I asked for a j^lace where a man could learn a job and advance 
according to his ability. 1 was offered the same opportunities as a kid just 
out of high school, for that's what I was in their eyes. 



"What can I do for you ?" 
"I'd like to see some suits." 

"This way, please. Here is the only one we have in your size." 
"Jeez, what the hell are they packing potatoes in these days?" 
"You're lucky to find one that fits you." 

"I've been dreaming of civilian clothes for four years — but this." 
"You won't do any better. Of course if you want to pay the price I can 
tell you where to go." 

"I can tell you where to go for free !" 

I had heard the pretty speeches on how we were going to curb inflation. 



28 The Green Caldron 

T had been thankful that men were thinking about this important problem 
Only by saving the value of our dollar could we prevent the inevitable 
depression. As I walked from store to store I seemed to feel the hope of 
national economic security slipping from our control. I thought of the 
greedy little men who would have food on their tables through a depres- 
sion — men who were pushing prices to the top by withholding merchandise, 
causing strikes, and operating black markets. T thought of these men who had 
done their share to cause the war, and who were so little affected by it. 1 
longed for the simplicity of army life. 



"I've decided to go back to school." 

"Good, I think you've made a wise decision, Son." 

"Decision hell — I'm just following the line of least resistance." 

I can't complain. The powers are giving me a chance to obtain a fre( 

education. Here is your free ride, Mr. Veteran. I open my eyes. Does anyj 

one give anything away? Is this the gag in my mouth? Am I being put ouj 

to pasture while a bunch of incompetents run my country? What was sai< 

about the veteran running the show after the war was over? 

I feel like a traitor. I know that with an education behind me I will be 
more fit to do my share, but will there be anything left to w^ork with? Yes, 
Mr. Veteran, take your free education, organize your little clubs and drink 
your beer, stay on your campus and make your noise. The voice of the 
campus is the voice of youth. The voice of youth is a raucous sound, and we 
don't intend to have the dignity of our politicians disturbed by it. Do not 
worry. Older and wiser heads are sailing your ship. Omit the fact that we 
let the kids pull us off the rocks when our navigation was a little oft'. 

I am told that I will be in a far better position to face the world when 
I get out of school. What happens if I come out an inexperienced college 
graduate at a time when there are long lines and babies have swollen bellies? 
People forget those things. They forget depression as soon as their stomachs 
are full. They forget war as soon as the parade is over. T won't forget — 
I'll remember trying to sleep next to an empty bunk. 



Labor Situation a la Hobo 

The thou.nht of the hobo is for today — tomorrow is yet to come. He wishes 
an e.xistence unfettered by the bonds of a conventional society. His inclination 
to work is slifjht. If he sees a man at his chores in the hot sun, he is distressed. 
He will pity him, sympathize with him, or even shed tears if the laborer is reduced 
to that state; but to give support other than moral docs not enter into his thoughts. 
Labor is beneath him and only strict compulsion will cause him to stoop to it. 
Labor, in the sense of its monotony and compulsion, is to him one of the bonds 
of conventional society. — Arthur Radziewicz 



Dec em her, IV-fO 29 

Contact Lenses 

William X. I",o\\ ards 
Rhctoru II. Theme 4. 1945-1946 

TODAY THOUSANDS OF' PEOPLK Tfli: WORLD OVER ARE 
enjoying better vision than they have ever had before, with the aid of 
a little-known but very important optical development — contact 
lenses. These lenses serve the same purpose as ordinary eyeglasses, but are 
made and used in an entirely different manner. 

Contact lenses are simply ovately molded piecrs of optical glass or plastic 
which are ground to the necessary dimensions required by the eyes of the 
"patient." Since the eyes of each individual vary in shape, size, and degree 
of refractive error, a separate mold must be made for each eye. The eyeball 
is "frozen" in its socket with a special solution, and then is covered with a 
pasty compound; after the mr)ld has been allowed to harden for three to five 
minutes, it is removed with a suction cup. The other eye then gets the same 
treatment. Finally, when l)oth molds have been made and removed from the 
eyes, a solution counteracting the first one is put into the eyes to "thaw" 
them out. 

The molds furnish the e.xact shape and size for the final material used, 
usually either glass or plastic. The resulting lenses are ground very exactly 
and. after being test-fitted for accuracy, are ready for wear. Now comes the 
crucial point in the process, for if the lenses, no matter how exactly ground, 
are not fitted properly, the wearer will not be able to see. As the name 
implies, contact lenses fit close to the eyeball, with the ground i)ortion cor- 
responding in size and position to the pupil of the eye. However, a liquid 
solution is needed between the lens and the eye. so that the lens will not stick 
U) the eyeball and thus be both difficult and painful to remove; for this 
purpose, a mixture of bicarbonate of soda and distilled water is used. 

Let us assume that the left lens is put in first. Holding it in the left hand 
between the thumb and forefinger, with the convex surface supported by the 
index finger, the wearer fills the lens with the solution. Then, l)ending at the 
waist to avoid spilling the liquid, and at the same time holding the eyelids 
apart with the right hand, he places the lens against the eyeball, slides it under 
the upper lid. and then pulls the lower lid over it. 

Obviously, considerable practice is necessary to do this correctly. If the 
above procedure is not followed, bubbles will appear in the liquid, causmg 
distortion and a lack of clarity. Then, too, the wearer must experiment with 
various proportions of the mixture to determine the length of time the lenses 
may be worn before they cloud or before the Huid causes the eyes to smart. 
Once the proper mixture is determined, it is simply a matter of time untd a 



30 The Green Caldron 

tolerance for the lenses is acquired. Normally after about four months tht 
wearer is able to use them all day, every day, though at the beginning he 
usually cannot wear them more than three or four hours without discomfort. 
With the aid of a special suction cup provided for the purpose, the user can 
remove the lenses at any time simply by placing the cup against the lens and 
pulling downward and outward. 

One reason for wearing contact lenses is the fact that since they are 
transparent, they are unnoticeable to anyone unaware of their presence. 
Many stage, screen, and radio stars wear them, unbeknown to their audi- 
ences. In addition, contacts are worn by many athletes, pilots, and others 
whose professions are such that the use of ordinary glasses is impractical. 
Since, by being worn much closer to the eye than are ordinary "specs." this 
type of lens makes for better sight correction, it more efficiently answers the 
needs of most people with poor eyesight. Contact lenses also appeal to people ^ 
because they cannot be broken easily, being made of plastic. fl 

Because the initial cost of contact lenses is so high as to discourage 
replacements, people who own them are not likely to lose them. At the present 
time, the prices range from one hundred to one hundred seventy-five dollars, 
exclusive of the eye examinations; the variation in price depends on the 
amount of labor required to grind and polish the individual lenses, a task 
which requires a highly-skilled workman. Some people might consider the 
price excessive, and perhaps it is; however, as skilled labor becomes more 
available, and more efficient techniques are developed, the price will go down. 

Personally, contacts are more than worth their cost to me, in that I am 
now able to participate in all sports without fear of breaking or losing them; 
another factor I like is that regardless of heat, rain, or snow, the lenses will 
not cloud up as will ordinary glasses and therefore are desirable for all 
outdoor activities. 

In conclusion, it might be said that with the increase in the number of 
people wearing contact lenses, will come a corresponding decrease in the 
use of ordinary spectacles. These new lenses have proved their effective- 
ness; they represent a big step towards scientific simplification of one of our 
biggest problems, that of accurately correcting poor eyesight. 

Critic for the Intelligentsia 

The critic, of the intcllijjcntsia type, looks down on everything that is popular 
with the masses, just on general principles. As he sees himself, he is a fortunately 
enlightened mortal whose divine right and duty it is to sit upon his throne, be 
it ash can or Chippendale, and to decide for others what is to be considered good 
or bad in music, art, literature, or any other of the fine arts. His public, as he 
sees it, from the millions who may read his column down to the one or two who 
may be so unfortunate as to be trapped into a conversation with him, are either 
enlightened fellow aesthetes, or morons. In short, he is an intellectual snob, and 
no snob is quite as nasty or narrow as an intellectual one. — James H. Kane 



December, 1946 31 

Technocracy: Its Rise and Fall 

William Lolms Raby 
Rhetoric II. Theme 7, ]^45-]^4(i 



I 



Pnr^HE YEAR WAS 1932. THE WORLD LAY IX THE THROES 
of a fearful depression. The peoples of many of the countries of the 
earth were appalled by what seemed to them the hopelessness of 
the future. In (icrmany, millions of men and women were flocking to the 
standard of Adolf Hitler, following the only man who seemed to be march- 
ing towards a definite goal. In the United States, much the same sort of 
thing was happening, only on a smaller scale, and in a more temporary man- 
ner. Technocracy was the topic of the moment, stirring bitter opposition on 
the one hand, and an almost religious fervor on the other. What was this 
thing that the American |)e(iple graspi-d at ff)r a few short months, and 
whence did it come? 

The term "Techntjcracy" was coined l>y an engineer named Smyth. In 
.March. 1919. he published an article entitled "Technocracy — National In- 
dustrial Management." According to Mr. W. H. Smyth. Technocracy "im- 
plies scientific reorganization of national resources and energ)-. coordinating 
in<lustrial democracy to fit the will of the people."' Also in 1919 there was 
published a book by Thorstein Yeblen. The Engineer and the Price System, 
which stated many of the points that were later to make up the Technocracy 
of the "thirties."^ 

Hut the Technocracy that was to become a national issue did not actually 
make its start until 1920. when a number of engineers, together with b(Jth 
social and physical scientists, banded together in a voluntary and private 
organization to study the functioning of the social mechanisms of the North 
American continent. The director of this group was a man named Howard 
Scott. ^ Thorstein Yeblen. the author mentioned above, was one of the mem- 
bers.* Little was heard from this group for twelve years. Then, in Nation 
magazine on September 7, 1932. an article entitled "Towards a New System: 
Technocracy's Report" was published. Three months later the storm broke. 
Technocracy was on the lips of the American people, and in their publi- 
cations. 

Howard Scott became one of the men of the moment. His every word was 
hung upon, and an interview with him was a prize to any publication. For 
years, he had been buttonholing people, talking Technocracy to all he could 

"Technocracy: Definition and Origin." Nation, 135 (Dec. 28, 1932). 646. 

' E. H. Chaffee. "What Is Technocracy?", Christian Century, 5>0 (Jan. 4, 1933). 11-13. 

'Ibid., p. 12. *Ibid., pp. 11-12. 



32 The Green Caldron 

get to listen, and had been overjoyed when a few Hnes were devoted to his 
subject in a newspaper. Now it was all changed. The depression, with its 
suffering and disillusionment, had routed orthodoxy, and heterodox ideas 
seemed less crazy. Technocracy was the most important idea of the day.^ 

Only one article, though, was ever published under Scott's name. As the 
tide of words increased to a flood, he was prevailed upon to edit an article in 
Harper's magazine. Tt was titled, "Technology Smashes the Price System." 
In it were set forth three weaknesses in the existing price system: 

1. The mechanics of placing purchasing power in the hands of the consumers 
is the exchange of money for the consumer's time (or labor) and technology is 
reducing the total amount of time required. 

2. The working of the price system has forced the manufacturers to reduce 
the total number employed rather than to distribute the amount of time required 
among the total number of available workers. Technology has now advanced to 
the point where it has substituted energy for man hours on an equal basis and 
where the distribution of human labor becomes impossible. 

3. Through increased investment in machines — made necessary by the in- 
creasing rate at which they go out of date — the manufacturer is forced to re- 
duce the proportion of his costs which go to labor. This again inexorably works 
against the increase of wages and the distribution of time." 

This view of things, that the price system had broken down, was immedi- 
ately challenged by the voices of industry. Said James D. Mooney, President 
of General Motors Export Corporation, as quoted in the Literary Digest: 
"The breakdown of 1929 was not a mechanical breakdown. It was caused by 
a lack of understanding and respect for economic laws."' 

Howard Scott, and other persons connected with Technocracy, did not 
escape attacks. These ranged from smears on Scott's private life to doubts 
cast upon his standing as an engineer.* These could not, however, com- 
pletely drown out the charges made by Technocracy, or the things it said 
it could give. 

Technocracy had five main points: 

1. It is possible to deal with the perplexing economic facts just as science 
has already dealt with the physical facts of nature. 

2. Social change should be measured by the per capita rate of energy 
conversion. 

3. No solution of the unemployment problem is possible under the price 
system at the rate machines are replacing men. 

4. The debt claims against industry (returns on investments) are absurd. 

5. There is a remedy. Let the technicians run the industries for the 
benefit of society, without the interference of profit-seeking businessmen.® 

•F. L. Allen, Since Yesterday, New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1939, p. 89. 
•"Technology Smashes the i'rice System," Harper's, 166 (Jan., 1933), 139. 
'"Technocracy; Boon, Blight, or Bunk," Literary Digest, 114 (Dec. 31, 1932), 6. 
•Chaffee, op. cit., p. 12. 'Ibid., pp. 11-13. 



December, 1946 33 

"The revolutionary shift from manual to machine labor has given us a 
new world. Realization of this fact puts Utopia within our grasp." Thus 
sjKike E. R. Chaffee in the Christian Century. It was this Utopian dream that 
luld the people and stirred their imaginations. All about them they could see 
desolation and suffering, and yet they had the same machines and the same 
workers that they had had in 1929, when the boom had reached its crest. 
Clearly, there was something wrong with the existing order of things. 
Technocracy told them what was wrong, and promised them a world in 
which all could share in the higher standard of living brought about by the 
machine age. With a minimum of labor, they would be able to live as only 
those in the higher income brackets under the old system could live. Industry 
would be operated so as to benefit all of the people, and not just a few. This 
was the appeal that Technocracy had. Its drawback lay in the lack of a 
definite plan. The evils of things as they were, were all pointed out. The way 
things should be was shown to the people. There was, however, only a vague 
plan for obtaining Utopia. 

Hamstrung by its lack of a blueprint for achieving Utopia, and shouted 
down by its opponents in industry. Technocracy waned. It went, as far as 
the public was concerned, almost with the same speed it came. Whether it 
has really died out is another question. Perhaps the next depression will write 
the final chapter of the story of Technocracy. And perhaps, if there is an- 
other depression, Technocracy will have a plan. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Allen, F. L., Since Yestcrdaw New York: Harcourt. Brace, and Company, 1939, pp. 

89-92. 
Babson, R. W., "Don't Let Them Kid You," Collier's, 91 (March 4, 1933). 10-11. 
Chaffee, E. B., "What Is Technocracy?", Christian Century, 50 (Jan. 4, 1933). 11-13. 
Smyth, W. H., "Technocracy; Definition and Origin," Nation. 135 (Dec. 28, 1932), 646. 
"Technocracy: Boon, Blight, or Bunk?", Literary Digest, 114 (Dec. 31. 1932). 5-6. 
"Technology Smashes the Price System," Harper's, 166 (Jan., 1933), 129-142. 



Sartorial Contrast 

Half's dress is always at one of two extremes. When he chooses, he can 
dress far better than the average student. His array of gabardines, flannels, 
tweeds, coverts, and worsteds would put to shame the entire stock of some small 
clothier. You feel positively uncomfortable in his sartorial shadow. When he 
approaches, you can see his eyes travel over you from your $4.50 saddle shoes to 
your $2.95 plaid shirt, and his disapproval shows. He makes no comment, just 
looks with disdain etched into his features. On the other hand, when Hale chooses 
to stagnate in a sweat-shirt that won the war of 1812. a pair of moccasins that 
are held together by a strong will, and a pair of slacks that could walk by them- 
selves, no power on earth could convince him that he isn't dressed properly for 
everything but a king's wedding. — Victor B. Robin 



34 The Green Caldron 

The House on East Penn 

Lillian Rosputynski 
Rhetoric II, Theme 6, 1945-1946 

A CROSS THE LOW SLOPING ROOFS, THE SUN, SPREAD 

^^\ in all its splendor, created a great panorama of red and gold. A horse 

■^ -^^ and buggy clattered down the narrow, brick streets and stopped in 

front of the oldest mansion which the small town of Hoopeston claimed for 

its own. 

A young woman in her early twenties stepped from the carriage onto the 
curbstone, tied the reins around the hitching post, swept aside her driving 
veil, and mounted the wide, stone steps leading up to the spacious front porch 
of the mansion. Taking from her bag a small key, she unlocked the heavy 
oaken door and disappeared from sight. 

Those passing by could hear the tinkle of china and silver as the servants 
prepared the evening meal. Laughter floated from within, and one would 
think that here, beyond a doubt, lived an exceedingly happy family. Some- 
where in the house, the light chords of a then popular song were blended by 
young eager voices. 

An old man, slowly walking home from work, looked enviously at the 
great house sprawled luxuriously over a half-acre of land and surrounded 
by rich, green shrubs. 

At the head of the dining room table, Emmett L. Tyler gazed across the 
broad expanse of white linen at the members of his family. Mrs. Tyler, who 
sat at the foot of the table, was small, dark, and still lovely at fifty-two. To 
her left, Clarice, the young woman whom we watched enter the house, 
lingered over her dessert. Across the table, Emmett Jr., twenty-four, having 
finished before the others, slouched in the fragile white chair. 

An outsider would have thought it a pleasant picture, but this was an odd 
family. Clarice, selfish and self-centered, thought of nothing but the further- 
ance of Clarice; young Emmett was a spendthrift — an undependable, lying, 
egotistical upstart. The head of the family, called E. L. by his business asso- 
ciates, was a bitter, penny-pinching old man. He couldn't remember ever 
having had a friend, because he considered friendship an incumbrance in his 
moneyed world. 

So, the four of them sat sipping fine old wine taken from Mr. Tyler's 
wine cellar. Through the silence that always follows a good dinner, the dull 
thud of the brass knocker echoed through the high ceilinged rooms. Foot- 
steps sounded across the highly polished hardwood floor of the hall, and 



I 



December, 1946 35 

voices were heard as the maid cf)nferred with the caller. The great door 
closed, and the maid entered the dining room. Excusing herself she said, 
"A telegram for you, Mr. Tyler." She left; silence fell, and the clock took 
over the conversation as three faces were turned to the man at the head of 
the table while he opened the yellow message. 



Thin piano wires of rain lashed the sky to the earth, a dog barked, a 
cock crowed, and the day had started. A newsboy hurried from house to 
house throwing the town's ten-page daily on every porch. 

Soon the neighboring houses showed signs of life; curtains flapped in the 
early morning breeze, and smells of bacon and coflfee were wafted through 
open kitchen doors and wintlows. 

Mrs. Holmes, preparing breakfast, discovered that her coffee bin was 
empty and slipped into a fresh apron before running next door to borrow 
some from the Tylers' cook. As she bustled up the back steps, across the 
ivy-covered porch, and into the sunny kitchen, she thought it peculiar that 
there were no signs of life. 

No one was in the kitchen, nor was there anyone in the dining room. In 
fact, the dinner dishes of the night before were still on the table, and the 
candles had burned down completely, the wax spilling over on the crystal 
candlesticks and onto the snowy linen. 

The shades were drawn in all the rooms on the first floor. The stuflFy 
smell of cooking mingled with the odor of wine antl cigar smoke. The front 
door stood open, and the breeze had blown one of Mrs. Tyler's prized china 
figurines from a small mahogany table which stood near the foot of the 
winding staircase. 

Perhaps it was the silence — call it premonition — that sent Mrs. Holmes 
to the telephone to call the police. Whatever it was, she felt, beyond a doubt, 
that something was wrong. 

When the police arrived, there was a handful of neighbors grouped near 
the door, curiosity displayed on each sleepy face. Several hours later, 
the police had completed their investigation, which had, in more ways than 
one, proved fruitless. 

They had discovered this: the family had left during the night, probably 
before midnight; they had taken only those things which they could carry; 
their servants had been paid and discharged without explanation. No attempt 
had been made to lock the house or even to straighten it up. The Tyler 
women had left a good part of their jewelry and many of their heavy silk 
and satin gowns. An imported cigar had burned out in the ash tray; a half- 
packed valise lay on the great mahogany desk with legal papers and docu- 
ments scattered near it. 



36 The Green Caldron 

The desk chair was overturned, and the picture concealing the wall safe 
above the desk was askew. The tiny door of the vault was open — the interior. 

empty. 

***** 

Today the mystery of the Tyler house and its occupants remains unsolved. 
In 1897, the City National Bank of Hoopeston and the Prudential Insurance 
Company took over the property of Emmett L. Tyler. 

The passer-by sees only a shattered shell of a house, badly in need of 
paint, broken windows, and rickety stairs leading up to a shabby front porch. 
The brass knocker, once dazzling to the eye, is tarnished. It has been touched 
by nothing but the cold fall rains and the sleet and snow of winter. The once 
beautiful gardens have been conquered by Queen Anne's lace and wild violets. 
The fish pool in the side yard is a vacant eye staring unblinkingly at the sky. 

Even today people guess and wonder and sometimes laugh nervously as 
they pass the rusted iron gate. It has been said that late at night a pale, 
flickering light can be seen through the dirt-streaked panes of glass. At such 
times, people like to think that one of the Tylers has returned in search of 
something. What, no one knows. 

Every year, on the twenty-ninth of September, the old house creaks and 
groans as though inhabited by a thousand devils. On this night, people claim 
that they have heard low voices and the tinkling of silver against china. 
Those more imaginative swear that on such occasions soft eerie chords of 
music and the sound of people singing have issued forth into the dim autumn 
twilight. Few people venture past the squeaky old gate after dark, and 
mothers forbid their children to play there in the great spacious gardens 
surrounding this house of mystery. 



School Days 

We returned to Germany to continue our schoolinij;. For our protection we 
had to report to school earlier than the others, were dismissed earlier for lunch 
and in the afternoon, but by the time we neared our homes the other grammar 
schools were dismissed also. If our walks in Switzerland had been peaceful and 
beautiful, these walks home were horrible and fri^ihtcninji. Bad names and 
rhymes were yelled at us; stones, dirt, and bags were thrown at us; our coats 
were pulled off; our feet were tackled; Jewish boys were slapped; one of us 
always had a bloody nose. 

We Jewish children never walked home alone. We would take different routes, 
but if we did not meet one "gang" of youngsters we met another; the same sit- 
uation occurred after classes in the afternoon. Often Jewish boys, who were 
"picked on" more severely than girls, were absent from school the foUowinj;- day 
because of injuries they had received. Once in a great while some child's parent 
would accompany us, but to no avail. The attackers either ran away after hurting 
us, or went right on as before, since they knew no Jew, young or old. could ever 
do anything harmful to them or their family. — Ruth Heilbronner 



MY OUTFIT, 
the line durii 



Dccemhir, 1946 VI 

Little Hoiman 

Dwit.HT Pi. Mitchkll 

Rhetoric II, Theme 6, 1945-1946 

WHAT WA.S LKFT OF IT. WAS FULLED OFF 
ing February of '45 so that we might rest, pick up re- 
placements, and prepare for another death-dealing drive against the 
W ehrmacht. We were sent to Holland, where we were given places in warm, 
friendly Dutch homes. The Dutch people did not have much, but what they 
did have, they were willing to share with us. It was a pleasant, comfortable 
atmosphere and they treated us as friends. That means a lot to a man from 
combat where he meets nothing but enemy. We relaxed ff)r the first time 
in months and scraped and soaked ourselves clean of the mud, stench, and 
bearded growth that had accumulated on our bodies. We were free from 
the pounding concussion of the shells and the plaintive whine of the singing 
shrapnel and bullets. It was wonderful an<l we soaked it in. 

The second day there, several of the boys got hold of athletic equipment, 
and we went to a field to play some good American baseball and line up a 
few boxing matches. It was good to get the feel of a bat in our hands, swing 
it lazily as we walked to the plate, and then prepare to lash out at the arching 
ball as it dropped across the plate. For our grandstand of cheering rooters, 
we had the kids from the village, who watched with wide-eyed enjoyment 
and laughed for the first time in months as they saw the fun of good clean 
sport. I swung at. threw, and caught the elusive baseball for hours until I 
was about done-in. After the game, I put on my battle jacket, hitched up 
my ammo belt, slung my ritle to my shoulder, and drifted towards my new 
home. As I crossed the field, I saw a mob of yelling kids that formed a 
circle around several of the boys. I mosietl over to see what all the com- 
motion was about. 

As I reached the circle. I saw Sergeant T.erry holding a pair of boxing 
gloves over his head as he yelled, "Take it easy, you guys. You'll all get a 
chanct." The kids jumped. sh<»uted, and pushed as they grabbed for the 
gloves .so that they could fight among themselves and show off their strength 
to the worshipped American soldiers. Here was a chance for them to play 
a game. Berry finally chose two lucky lads and brought them to the center 
of the ring. They were about ten years old. their faces glowing in anticipa- 
tion of the sport that was to follow. "One of you Joes act as this little fel- 
low's second." shouted Berry. I shoved my way to the smaller of the two 
boys, dropped my rifle, unhitched my ammo belt, knelt to the ground and 
fitted "little lloiman's" glove to his outstretched hand. As 1 put on his 
gloves, 1 looked over my boy. His clothes were patched and torn, and he 



38 The Green CaldrorA 

was underfed. He wasn't very big, even for a kid of ten. When the gloves] 
were on, he could hardly move his arms. It was his eyes that held me. His 
face was beaming and his limbs were quivering with thrill while those big blue 
eyes of his sparkled with inborn intelligence and excitement. 

I finished tying his gloves, patted his back and said, "OK?" His face 
was pulverized by a big grin as he answered, "OK," and went to the center 
of the ring to meet his opponent. The first round he slugged it out with 
the other kid while I yelled instructions. The fellows laughed and the other 
kids screamed in excitement. At the end of the round, I straightened his cap, 
dried his face, and gave him instructions when I found that he could under- 
stand English. As soon as it was time for the second round to start, the little 
rascal ran out swinging before his opponent even came out of the corner. 
It was exciting to watch him slug and be slugged with childish recklessness. 
When the fight was over, "Hoiman" was sporting as pretty a shiner as I 
had ever seen. I could hardly take his gloves off as he wriggled and jumped 
and told me of what he would do in the next fight. 

By the time I had finished taking off his gloves and washing his eye, the 
fellows were gone with all the kids taking after them. I stooped to pick up 
my gun, but "Hoiman" beat me to it and slung it to his shoulder as he 
babbled on about the fight. "Little Hoiman" was a sight walking along carry- 
ing my gun. It was as long as he was tall, and he had to lean to one side to 
keep the butt-plate from dragging on the ground. As we walked toward the 
village, we talked of his family, my family, boxing, baseball, and a million 
other things. I was surprised at the fluency with which he spoke English. 
"How come you speak English so well, Hoiman?" 

"In Holland, we all learn English in school. My mother and father 
wanted me to learn English as they knew that the American soldiers would 
come and drive the Nazis from our country." We had reached my tempo- 
rary home, so I took the rifle, said good-bye, and went in to shave and 
wash up. 

About chow time, I came out of the house and formed with my platoon 
to march to the kitchen. As I fell in, I saw "Little Hoiman" frantically 
waving to me from the sidewalk. T waved back. That was all he needed for 
an excuse to run over to me. The platoon sergeant gave us "Forward march." 
"Little Hoiman" took my hand and marched oflF with me. When we fell out 
and formed a chow line, I held on to his hand. I could see the poor kid was 
terribly hungry. Why shouldn't I share my food with my friend? After 
"Hoiman" and I had finished eating and he had washed the mess gear, wc 
went for a walk. We just walked and talked. People in America would have 
thought I was taking my kid brother to the movies. 

It got so that every day "Hoiman" and I would go for our walk after 
we had had our chow. During the afternoons, we would go behind a hill 



December, 1946 39 

and lie in the sun as T eluded the search of the first sergeant. It was pleasant 
being with the kid. He was a likable chap and gave me the companionship 
I needed. I no longer made good friends in the company. I found that it 
didn't pay. The fellows were always getting hit. and when a good friend 
gets hit, it takes something out of you. "Little Hoiman" and I were pals. 

I'll never forget the day we left. It was early in the morning, and I 
hadn't seen the kid. We were loaded on the trucks that were pointed towards 
the Front. As the convoy jumped to life and headed for the miserable hell 
of combat, I heard a high voice above the motors, yelling. "Dwight. Dwight." 
I looked over the side of the truck and saw "Hoiman" running alongside 
with his hand stretched up for mine. I leaned over and touched him as we 
pulled away. The little Dutch kid disappeared in the distance. God bless him. 



Nov. 13, 1943 — bad weather 

Darkness covtrcd the earth, but over the mountains faint rays of light marked 
the dawn of a new and beautiful day. V'oices and the din of a jeep as it bounced 
alonj(^ the air strip broke the stillness of early morninj;. The jeep pulled up and 
stopped in the shadow of a transport plane and five vague fijjures got out only 
to disappear into the plane. X'oiccs could be heard again as lights flashed on 
inside. 

Oil?" 
Check!" 
•Gas?" 

"F'ull tanks !" 

"Hey, what's the heading?" 

A boy looked up from a scramble of maps and charts, gave the pilot a big 
smile and then replied, "Better take a one-twenty true." 

The pilot nodded in satisfaction and everyone turned to his job. The pilot 
and co-pilot checked instruments and prepared to start the two giant enjjines. 
Navigator and radio operator talked softly, as they made their required pre- 
flight inspections. The subjects of conversation were always the same, food, girls, 
or home. This morning their thoughts were of home, and each man took turns 
telling a little story of his early life. Pre-flights completed they sat back and 
quietly waited for the pilot to check with the tower. 

"Tontuda Tower, this is four one seven baker requesting taxi and take-off 
instructions." 

Each man pressed his headphones a little tighter to catch the reply. "Four 
one seven baker from Tontuda, taxi to east end of strip. You are number one 
and clear to go." 

The engines roared and slowly the plane moved along the taxiway to take 
her place at the end of the strip. She pulled onto the runway and gathered speed 
for take-off, then slowly rose into the air. The motors became faint and then there 
was silence aj^ain; that was the last time anyone ever heard of four one seven 
baker. 

Weather reports for Nov. 13, 1943, tell of bad weather. 

— Robert Taylor Cloud 



40 The Green Caldron 

Rhet as Writ 

"Consist"ency: 

People who smoke cigars consist almost entirely of businessmen. 

Most of the social smokers consist of women. 

When I have my home I want a larj,fe living room consisting of a fireplace. 



• ' • 



Elmhurst is a city of sixteen thousand people lying fifteen miles west of 
Chicago. 



• • • • 



You pass through the revolving door and are met by one of the armed 
guards who hastily scans faces and official passes as streams of diplomats 
clutching briefcases and office girls greeting each other enter. 



After eating some it still tastes as good as the first piece which you had 
eaten, even to the last. 



Large automobile factories were turning out plains. 



• • 



When hit from flak and out of formation, the navigator is one of the moS 
important members of the crew. 



This experience was truly a mild stone in my life. 



It wouldn't be much out of order to see a baggy sweater and a pair ol 
blue-genes on your campus hero or glamor boy. 



\ 



Honorable Mention 



Dorothy Anderson — Place of Residence: Hospital Ward Fourteen 

Ruth Boggs — The Sweet Life 

Stanley Burt — Pancho Villa, Badnnan and Hero of Mexico 

Robert James Bonner — Yes! I Can Swim 

George Deane — Agglutination 

Dorothy Jean Ehrhardt — What Our Farm Means to Me 

Virgil D. Esworthy — A Constitutional Study of Illinois Under the 
Virginia Regime 

William C. Flanagan — A Problem in Deciphering 

Frank S. Foster, Jr. — My Father Taught Me — What? 

Chester Guziel — The Shark 

Robert Haebich — Les Miserables 

Melvin E. Hartzler — Six Yards of Concrete 

Mitsuru Hayashi — Sound in the Movies 

Lloyd Kuntze — A Review of Alone 

Kenneth L. Lindsay — Freedom Road 

Frank LoeffJer — Jazz 

John Rubinelli — Sand in Their Shoes 

Jay A. Wade — The Sad Sack 

M. E. Wilson — My Dislike for Rhetoric 



j 



[HE Green Caldron 

Y OF THE 

A Magazine of Freshman Writing 

^ CF (LLieois 

Earnest F. Nelson: My Trip Through Hate 1 

Robert E. Campbell: We Need Action in 

Combating Racial Prejudice 2 

Irwin Kipnis: The Liberators ... 4 

Donna Holsman: George 6 

Stephen Lambdin: For the Future — Teleraa 7 

Jean Moore: Heroines Step Down 8 

Marge Halvorsen: Hov/ to Spend a Quiet Four Weeks .... 10 

Lee Caldwell: "Torchy," the Terror of the Tower 12 

Howard D. Koontz: American Vendetta 14 

Anonymous: Lost Men 18 

Albert L. Hall, Jr.: Temple Episode ... 19 

William E. Dye: Ich Spreche Deutsch 20 

Eugene J. Newberg: Anoxia 21 

Marge Halvorsen: None But the Lonely Heart 

By Richard Llewellyn 23 

John W . Davis: I'll Never Learn 25 

Morton Berman: Program Annotation and Pure Music .... 26 

Mary Annis Crawford: Spiritual Resurgence in Russia .... 28 

James B. Kinch: The Master of Ceremonies 32 

Robert W. Weber: I Chose Freedom 33 

Melvin Schultz: Giz 34 

Richard Kasten: New Year's Eve in the Army 36 

Neil Hebeisen: The Infantryman 37 

Ted Kendrick: Death 38 

Rhet as Writ 40 

VOL. 16, NO. 3 MARCH, 1947 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



JL HE Green Caldron is published four times a year by the 
Rhetoric Staff at the University of Illinois. Material is chosen 
from themes and examinations written by freshmen in the Uni- 
versity including the Navy Pier and Galesburg divisions, and 
the high school branches. Permission to publish is obtained for all 
full themes, including those published anonymously. Parts of 
themes, however, are pubUshed at the discretion of the committee 
in charge. 

The committee in charge of this issue of The Green Caldron 
includes Miss Constance Nicholas and Messrs. Robert Geist, 
Edwin Robbins, and George Scouffas, Chairman. 

The Green Caldron is for sale at the lUini Union Bookstore, 
Champaign, Illinois. 



THE GREEN CALDRON 

copyrighted 1947 
BY CHAS. W. ROBERTS 
All rights reserved 
No parts of this periodical may be repro- 
duced in any form without permission 
in writing from the publisher. 



My Trip Through Hate 

Earnest F. Nelson 

Rhetoric II, Final Examinalion, 1946-1947 

MARCH 21, 1941 — THIS WAS THE DAY THAT MY EVENT- 
ful trip began. Wanting to do my share for this country, I volun- 
teered for the Army Air Forces, and began the training for an 
airplane engine specialist. The job wasn't hard. I was thoroughly enjoying 
myself until the day the sign — "Niggers don't drink this water, Whites 
Only" — appeared over the water fountain. The culprit was mustered out of 
three thousand soldiers and given a sentence of si.x months, but the incident 
started me wondering, "What will I encounter?" 

It wasn't until si.x months later that I began to realize fully my predica- 
ment. We were sent to Maxwell Field, Alabama, about one mile and a half 
out of Montgomery. When I arrived there I was startled by the signs. Above 
the train station one sign said. "The Cradle of the Confederacy"; on the 
side of a restaurant a sign said, "Keep OtT These Grounds, Niggers"; and 
over the doors of the station were signs which later became familiar, "White 
Only" and "Colored Only." "Can this be true," I thought, "in America?" 

When we reached the air field, the M.P.'s were lined up along the streets 
at twenty- foot intervals from the gate to our camping area, which, inci- 
dentally, contained the only tents in sight. The explanation given our squad- 
ron commander was, "Niggers have never been here before, and we want 
to keep down disturbances." After a few weeks at this field, I wanted to 
move on to Tuskegec, our home field, that was still under construction. The 
Post Exchanges refused to sell me anything "to be consumed within the 
establishment." They even refused to sell me after-shaving lotion because, 
as the saleslady put it, "You-all don' need this lotion do you-all? We only 
are supposed to sell it to white boys." Seeing the situation, I decided to go 
into town and purchase my toilet articles. The first pass issued was the last 
that I wanted. I made the grave mistake of sitting down in the front of the 
bus. It wasn't until about three hours later that I realized my error, and then 
I couldn't see daylight for the bandages about my head and eyes. 

Incidents like this occurred often during our two months' stay at Maxwell 
Field. The one that impressed me, second to my beating, happened when 
one of my buddies and two civilians were drawing cards to see who would 
buy beer. A policeman passing by the tavern saw the cards and phoned for 
the police wagon. Booking my buddy as an accessory after the fact, they 
carried him to jail. It wasn't until two weeks later that we were notified of 
his being there. His fine — that was the funny part. They had charged him 
twenty dollars, but the fine was thirty-two dollars and a half. For each day's 

[ 1 ] 



2 The Green Caldron 

work, he received one dollar; for each meal, he paid fifty cents; and he re- 
ceived three meals a day. This was the justice granted Negroes in the Cradle 
of the Confederacy. About two weeks later, I was on my way to Tuskegee. 
I knew that anything I might encounter there would be trivial to those 
things encountered in Montgomery. I was happy. 

A week after arriving in Tuskegee one of our nurses was traveling 
home. She got on the bus in Tuskegee, and after three miles the bus driver 
asked her to stand up. "Why?" she asked. "Because niggers don't set next 
to white folks," he answered, and proceeded to beat her. Nothing was ever 
done about the incident. Why should it be? "A smart nigger woman had got 
her just receipts," was the only comment heard among the white people. 

I went through eighteen months of this kind of "Hell," and 3^ou may rest 
assured that I was glad to leave for overseas duty. I did have at least one 
factor in my favor overseas. The German uniform would be different from 
mine, and I could fight back. 



We Need Action in Combating 
Racial Prejudice 

Robert E. Campbell 
Galeshurg Division, Rhetoric II, Theme 8, 1946-1947 

"HAT DO YOU DO WHEN A NEGRO SITS DOWN NEXT 
to you on a bus or train? If you think as do the majority of your 
fellow "Christians," you squirm in your seat and wish you were in 
a different seat. You push your newspaper in front of your face as if it 
were shameful to be sitting there. If you are not so narrow-minded as the 
majority of your fellow "Americans," if you do not squirm, but act just as 
you would if a "white" had taken the seat, then it is you for whom these 
words are written. 

It is not enough that we merely recognize the intolerance dealt Negroes 
today and mutter to ourselves, "My, my, what a pity. It just isn't right," 
then, with a shrug of the shoulders, dismiss it from our minds. Too many 
so-called "combatants" of racial prejudice limit their battle to just such 
an act. 

If we are actually to combat racial discrimination, we must first under- 
stand why so many whites believe as they do — that they are better than any 
Negro — that the white race is superior. 

We may trace such feeling to several sources, but all these sources have 



W 



March, 1947 3 

one thing in common: they are man-made, worldly things. There is no such 
thing as a natural instinct of racial prejudice. In evidence of this, I ask you 
to watch two young children, one white, one colored, playing together. You 
will see no sign of discrimination whatsoever because there is no discrimina- 
tion. They are too young to have been taught racial prejudice. The influence 
of parents, of the entire world, in connection with racial discrimination has 
not reached these two children. They play together as men were meant by 
God to live together — bearing no prejudice because of a difference in color. 

Therefore, we may say that racial discrimination is not natural; it is 
drilled into men by men. It is not inborn; it is taught. On the other hand, 
racial tolerance and complete equality of race is natural; it is inborn. It must 
be reinforced in the home, in the school, and in the everyday relationships of 
life in order to drive out the fallacy of racial prejudice which has dominated 
man for ages. 

This is no small problem. It has become a menacing factor to the preser- 
vation of democracy in the United States. Race riots have cost the lives of 
many thousands of United States citizens, and the persecution of Negroes 
in the South has become a black mark of barbarism in the history of our 
country. 

Now don't shrug your shoulders and say, "It's true, but it's been that way 
forever. What can I do?" Whether you realize it or not, there is something 
you can do to help solve the problem which has arisen from racial prejudice. 
It will be no small job. As I have said before, it is no small problem. 

It is your duly as a citizen of the United States, as a Christian, as a 
believer in the rights of man. to fight every evidence of racial prejudice 
which you may encounter. If you are a parent, do not allow your child to 
become discriminatory towards those of a different race. If you are a teacher, 
stress the meaning of democracy in its sense of equality between men. If 
you are a writer, blast every sign of racial prejudice which crosses your 
path. If you are a speaker, use your every power of influence to sway your 
audience from the ignorance of race hatred to an attitude of understanding 
and race equality. If you are a factory worker, back the Negro's cause, if it 
is a just one, in order to equalize him in the eyes of management. If you 
are an employer, hire the Negro, if his work is good, instead of turning 
him down because he is black. If you believe in the Christian faith, in the 
equality of man, in the United States of America, sit next to that Negro 
on the bus and let him know you are with him and not against him. 

If you recognize the fallacy of racial prejudice, then show your fellow 
man where he is wrong in believing the white race is superior. Since racial 
discrimination is not born in a child, see that it is not forced onto the 
children. Give the Negro an even break, for he has been dealt some foul 
blows, and he is your brother in the eyes of God. 



The Green Caldron 

The Liberators 



Irwin Kipnis 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1946-1947 



rrr^HE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF 
I America won a military victory in World War II, but defeated the 
"^ principles for which they fought by not carrying them out in practice. 
To the peoples of the German and Japanese dominated countries of the 
world, the American serviceman was a symbol of democracy and a repre- 
sentative of good will. They regarded him as a man who respected the 
rights and ways of life of others. They regarded him so because his govern- 
ment vouched for him. And why not? A person must believe in something, 
and when everything else has failed, why not believe in the advance billing 
of the American serviceman. Their hopes for liberation arose with this 
belief, and they became very optimistic in looking forward to the day of the 
American occupation. Victory and occupation came. Optimism flared momen- 
tarily but soon subsided. The American serviceman was suddenly trans- 
formed from a democratic idealist to a disillusioned cynic. This was 
especially true in the South Pacific. The beliefs in such ideals as, for 
example, property rights and the pursuit of happiness were destroyed by 
the acts of our men. This sudden change can be attributed to the overseas 
rotation system and to the lack of orientation of the American servicemen. 



Early in 1942 the War Department set up groups of well-informed men 
known as the Counter Intelligence Commission, CIC. It was the duty of 
these groups to inform the fighting men of the terrain they were to fight 
upon, the types of persons they would meet in battle, and what not to eat 
on the various islands. It is quite evident that CIC succeeded in bringing 
these points to the attention of servicemen, but it is also apparent that CIC 
made no effort to inform the servicemen of the friendly peoples they were 
destined to meet. 

As the war progressed, the members of the American Armed Forces 
began to meet the inhabitants of the South Pacific. Some of our servicemen 
who considered themselves far wiser and far superior called these inhabit- 
ants "gooks," a nickname used to describe their supposed inferiority, il- 
literacy, and moral degeneracy. Yet, all over the Pacific, incidents occurred 
that demonstrated that the natives possessed qualities of character that 
were in contrast to the connotations of their newly acquired name. 

The Marines landing on Guam in the summer of '44 were amazed to 



March, 1947 5 

find that the Guamanian guerilla forces spoke English. As the Marines made 
their way through the island they found scientitic dairy farms, truck gardens, 
and schools. Their surprise turned to respect, and the combat men began 
cooperating in every way to help better the natives' living conditions. 

An Army Air Corps sergeant on Guam was racing against time in a jeep 
to reach Harmon Field, a large B29 base, where he was scheduled to leave 
on a bombing mission. While he was driving through a short cut on a portion 
of the island which was infested with Japanese snipers his jeep developed 
motor trouble. After several long minutes of frantic tinkering with the 
motor, the unarmed sergeant, deciding fate was against him, gave up. 
Suddenly there appeared a young native lad who had been watching the 
sergeant's predicament from a small cave in the immediate vicinity. Walking 
up to the sergeant in a military fashion the native lad saluted and said, 
"I can fix. Sir." The sergeant, willing to try anything once, gave his per- 
mission to the young native, and ten minutes later the sergeant appeared at 
Harmon Field. 

Yankee ingenuity failed the Seabees when they were landing supplies 
on Kwajalein, but Polynesian ingenuity solved that problem and kept the 
supply lines moving. A bottleneck had been formed by an "M" boat loaded 
with two gasoline generators when a crane used for lifting heavy objects 
was put out of commission. While the Seabees sat pondering their new 
problem, their Polynesian native workers disappeared onto the island. About 
fifteen minutes later, they returned with five large logs, and while the 
Seabees watched in amazement, they placed the logs under the generators 
and rolled them out onto the beach. 



Military conditions were beginning to improve all over the world for the 
American Armed Forces, and a long dormant rotation system was put back 
into operation. The older and more responsible fighting men were replaced 
by new recruits in every theater of operation. For some unknown reason 
the Counter Intelligence Commission failed to acquaint these new recruits 
with the various incidents that had gained the fighting man's friendship 
and respect. In every port of embarkation fictitious stories were told about 
the "gooks," and prejudices were formed rapidly. The peace loving natives 
were unprepared for such men, and soon the entire South Pacific became a 
playground for vandals and rowdies. 

A group of sailors stationed at the Xaval Operating Base on Guam 
en route to a recreation center passed a native banana plantation. After 
surveying the ripened bananas and deciding their needs to be greater than 
those of the plantation owner and his family, the sea going gourmands 
began to raid the plantation. After a good portion of the ripened bananas 



6 The Green Caldron 

had been cut away, the sailors were discovered by the plantation owner and 
his son. To escape being reported to a nearby shore patrol station, the Navy 
men severely beat the elder native and his child, and left the scene singing, 
joking, and enjoying their stolen delicacy. 

Letters from American servicemen to their senators were being sent 
daily on the issue of accepting Hawaii into the Union. Each letter contained 
reasons against the admission; each letter explained the unfriendliness of the 
Hawaiian "gooks" to the American servicemen. No explanation of the 
cause of this unfriendliness was given; the fact that the American service- 
men regarded and treated the Hawaiian women as prostitutes was suddenly 

forgotten. 

* * * * 

Little has been said regarding the conduct of our occupational forces. 
A popular orchestra leader caused a flurry when she assailed the morals of 
the occupational troops in Japan, yet silence prevailed when a well-known ■ 
movie star referred to the natives as "gooks." Military government officials 
realize the danger of permitting such acts of rowdyism and vandalism to 
persist — shown by a recent demonstration of Chinese college students 
asking "the American Beasts" to go home — and are asking the Counter 
Intelligence Commission to set up a more extensive and better orientation 
program. 



George 

In the first place, I shouldn't even try to define George. Defining George is 
like selling peanuts and popcorn in front of the Parthenon or spitting from the 
top of Mount Vesuvius. It is pure sacrilege. But every time I try to think of a 
clear, concise definition of a cow or an apple or a foul ball I hear a harsh, com- 
pelling whisper, "Define George." There is no way out. I must define George. 

George isn't much to look at. Most of the time you can't see him at all, but 
sometimes when you hear the rain against your window or bite into a big piece 
of lemon pie it comes to you in a flash — George is here. 

You're sitting in the library trying to read, comprehend, and outline pages 
three to twenty-eight in The Psychology of Normal People. The words blur; the 
light goes dim; the chair reels. There is George dressed in dungarees and a white 
T-shirt, lying in a field of clover three feet deep, reading Rupert Brooke. 

You're standing in line for supper. You're cold and you're hungry and you 
wonder why you didn't stay home and get a job at the "A and P." You lift your 
eyes into the hills, and what do you see? George is sitting on a private cloud, 
eating a Thanksgiving dinner served by three butlers and seven maids. 

Ah, George. How can he be defined with tired little words on standard 
paper? He is the soft winds and rains; he is a cherry coke and a red sweater; 
he is the pleasure and pain of wanting, wanting something you know you never 
can have. — Donna Holsman 



March, 1947 7 

For the Future — Teleran 

Stephen Lambdin 
Rhetoric I, Final Examination, 1946-1947 

YOU ARE STANDING ON THE EDGE OF A FLYING FIELD. 
The visibility, along with the ceiling, is zero. The fog is so bad you 
can scarcely see thirty feet in front of you. Faintly at first, then 
louder and closer, the drone of an airplane fills the air. It seems to be 
circling the field. Abruptly there is no sound, only dead silence. A faint 
whistling sound comes closer and closer. There is the squawk of rubber on 
concrete, and very shortly the plane looms up in front of you. 

How did it happen? How was this plane able to land in a fog so thick 
that ducks could almost swim in it? Let us go up into the control tower. 
There we see a man with a microphone staring at a six-inch circle of glass 
in the front of a huge and complicated switchboard. This is radar, specially 
adapted to landing planes. A dot of light moves across the circle of glass. 
The man speaks into the microphone. Abruptly the dot changes directions. 
As the man talks, the dot shifts ever so little on its course across the glass. 
Suddenly it stops. Another plane has landed. 

This system of blind landing has the advantage of requiring no special 
equipment on the plane itself other than a two-way radio. The largest air- 
liner or the smallest private plane can use it. 

It is five years later, and you are Hying a medium-sized cargo plane to 
Chicago. The weather closes in. You reach down and flip a switch. A round 
glass lights up. It reminds you of one like it that you saw five years before 
in an airport control tower. A picture with the important details of the 
country over which you are flying appears on the glass. There are also a 
couple of dots on it. One dot has a circle around it and represents you. It 
moves across the glass, and just as it is about to move out of sight, the 
picture changes. Now you see the next section of land you are about to fly 
over. The process is repeated. Just as the circled dot is about to move from 
sight again, a red light flashes. That means that there is already a plane in the 
next section at your altitude. You circle till tlie light goes out and then 
move on. 

This amazing development is already in the experimental stage. At present 
it is known as "teleran." It requires much equipment, both on the ground 
and in the plane, as it is a combination of radar and television. The radar in 
each section picks out every plane in that section, then radios the planes and 
asks electronically the altitude of each. The equipment in the plane replies, 
and then the correct picture is sent to the proper plane by television. The 



8 The Green Caldron 

ground equipment will not allow two planes at the same altitude in the same 
section. If one altitude is full, it will tell which altitude is empty. It also sends 
pertinent details, such as wind velocity and direction. This information ap- 
pears as writing on the circle of glass in the plane. 

Yes, these are amazing developments. Are they leading to the obso- 
lescence of pilots? No, but they will make flying much easier and safer. 



Heroines Step Down 

Jean Moore 
Elgin Branch, Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1946-1947 



T 



P'lr^HERE WERE MANY PEOPLE BACK HOME WHO 
thought that an assignment as a flight nurse in the Pacific was diffi- 
cult and tiresome. There were others who thought the task was 
glorious and heroic. Both of these groups were mistaken. Our job was 
comparatively easy and extremely interesting. Variety gave us an advantage] 
over the nurses on the ground: we were never in one place more than a few 
days; we never cared for the same group of patients for more than twelve 
hours; each new plane load of wounded brought new diseases and injuries 
as well as new personalities to sharpen our wits and develop our ingenuity. 
The place we thought of as "home" was Hickam Field, Oahu. Here we 
lived in fine houses with tiled baths, electric refrigerators, and hardwood 
floors. Rare and beautiful tropical flowers grew in abundance all around us. 
We were allowed two or three days of this luxury between our flights to less 
civilized spots where we collected our wounded and flew back with them. 
When we went "down under," we made the flight in one almost continuous 
trip of twenty or thirty hours with stops for only gasoline and food. On 
these trips we had no duties and could read, sleep, or play cards with the 
crew or other passengers. Upon arriving at our destination, we were given 
at least twenty-four hours' rest before starting a flight back. The return 
trip was well planned so that we had an average of eight and a maximum 
of twelve hours in the air with each load. We were then relieved by a fresh 
team who made the next leg of the flight. 

Patients to be flown out were carefully chosen by flight surgeons. Each 
plane load was well worked out. There were never so many seriously ill | 
patients in one group that we were unable to give them adequate attention. 
The four tiers of litters on either side of the cabin were arranged so that- 
heavy casts were on the bottom, dressings that required frequent care were 



March, 1947 9 

on the second and third levels, and boys who could move about and care 
for themselves were at the top. Psychoneurotic patients were limited to five 
and were securely restrained toward the rear of the cabin where they would 
cause the least disturbance. There were always a few ambulatory patients 
who were very willing to help us with those who needed attention. 

The attitude and responsiveness of the wounded aboard our planes made 
our duties a privilege and a pleasure in spite of the heartaches we often felt. 
While we prepared for take-off, the boys would seem tense and nervous under 
their covering of constant joking. As the uneventful routine of taking-off 
and preparing for the cooler high altitudes proceeded, their tension would 
gradually relax. One by one they would drop off to sleep or talk quietly of 
many things: "Remember the day we landed at Garapan?" "Tough, but 
Tinian was worse." "Too bad the marines and army got into that fuss." 
"Where do you think we'll jump to next?" "Anybody got a deck of cards?" 
Then they would begin a game of cards, and we would think that the situa- 
tion was well in hand. And so it would be except for an occasional jarring 
note. Once, for example, we had a young marine who looked about seventeen 
and stared blankly into space refusing to talk. Finally, after a good deal of 
chatter on our part, he spoke reluctantly. "I've been out here eighteen 
months. A while back my outfit took Guam. Me and my gang ran across a 
couple of bottles of Jap stuff. Tasted good and we jjolished it off. The other 
guys are dead. Me, I'm blind. Yeah, those dirty devils had spiked the stuff 
with poison. Sometimes I can see a dark light, but that's not what's worrying 
me. How can I tell my mother I'm blind from drinking? She and Pop never 
took a drop in their lives. Think they'll understand?" Our answer, "Sure, Bill, 
mothers understand a lot more than you think. Don't worr}%" seemed inade- 
quate but apparently reassured the unhappy boy. 

The nurses who were stationed on one small island for months that often 
stretched into years had warped ideas of the Pacific area and of their value 
to anyone. The tiny island on which they lived made them feel isolated and 
alone and useless out in the middle of a big puddle of blue water. Flight 
nurses moved constantly back and forth from island to island and were able 
to see the beauties of the deep blue ocean dotted with little green and white 
islands. We were also able to see the plan of things which made each person 
a necessary cog in the huge wheel of war as it turned slowly toward victory. 

Flight nurses were given too much flattering publicity for the small part 
they played in the Pacific Theater. Our job was not difficult, our hours on 
duty were not tiresome, our work was planned to make our tasks as uncom- 
plicated as possible, and our rewards were both spiritual and financial. No 
ground nurse and certainly no fighting man can make such a statement. Let 
us, then, put the flight nurse down into her proper place as a minute part of 
an immense picture. 



10 The Green Caldron 

How to Spend a Quiet 
Four Weeks 

Marge Halvorsen 
Rhetoric I, Theme 7, 1946-1947 

O YOU WANT TO PRODUCE A PLAY! SOUNDS SIMPLE, 
doesn't it? Perhaps it is — in the professional theatre. There the pro- 
ducer has a milHon and one stooges running around for him so that all 
he has to do is give the orders. However, when you produce a show — just 
an amateur production — there are no stooges awaiting your beck and call. 
You have no stage manager, costume manager, lighting technician, prop- 
erty manager, director, make-up manager, publicity chairman, house chair- 
man, and so on, and so on, and so on. You have to be all those people 
rolled into one besides being all the subheads and crewmen. If you are 
lucky, you have a staff of sixty people, including your cast, and no one of 
those sixty has had enough experience to be the manager of any one depart- 
ment; consequently you are the goat. 

First of all you must design the set for your production (since you have 
no scene designer), noting carefully the choice of colors — blue, cold; red, 
passionate; yellow — absurd, isn't it, but quite necessary. 

Having successfully struggled through the "designing stage," you come 
up against the construction problem (since you have no construction man- 
ager). About the same time construction gets under way, direction comes 
along, so you have to divide yourself in two or run from the paint shop 
to the rehearsal stage all day long. 

Duck, because here come some more headaches ! In order to make a 
production profitable (the sole purpose of producing any play in the first 
place), the public must know what is going on, when it is going on, and 
where it is going on. In other words — publicity ! You must call all the local 
newspapers and plead with them to write up an article on the play. Then 
comes poster publicity, word-of-mouth publicity, and any other type of 
publicity that you can think of. 

But wait ! You'd better divide yourself into quarters because along with 
publicity you have to take care of the business end. You must line up a 
printer for the tickets and programs, get the ushers and ticket takers 
signed up, number the seats in the auditorium, and arrange for places to 
sell the tickets. 

From now on you not only stay up all day working on the production — 



March, 1947 \\ 

construction, direction, publicity, business — but you stay up all night poring 
over costume books, searching for the right costume for so and so, making 
sure that the colors will harmonize with the set, and rummaging through 
the costume chest for a few remnants that can be sewed together and made 
to look like an old Spanish shawl. 

Now what? Well, the set is almost finished, the play is shaping up, 
publicity is getting along fairly well, business is ready to get under way, 
costumes are being made, ripped up and made over again, and — oh, yes! 
What good are the set and actors if there is nothing on the stage for the 
Thespians to eat from or sit on? Properties. What do you need? Now let's 
see — a desk, a round table, a sofa, two twin armchairs, and a floor lamp. 
Oh, let's not forget hand props like a cigarette case, a table lamp, pictures 
for the walls, a vase, flowers. 

The set is finished and ready to be put \.\\k 'Get some braces, hold leg 
number two, take the eye up, screw the braces, set her up, foot it," plus a 
few magic words not fit for print, and the set is up. Now you move in the 
props that you have managed to wheedle out of your dear friends, and 
you have a semblance of a living room. What good is a scene if none of 
the audience can see it? Lights! "Get out the gelatins, bring me some baby 
sjkMs, put on lx)rder number two, fade on number six spot, put on the 
hanging lloods, up with the foots," — and then just hope. 

Comes dress rehearsal night. Set, props, lights, costumes, actors — well, 
what do you know, we forgot something. Ha! Ha! Xo make-up. You madly 
dash around putting base seven on Joe, number four on Beatrice, blue 
shadow on Hetty, white lines on Jack, powder seven-and-one-half-R on 
Mabel. ICverything is all worked out now, including you. 

Curtain! Dress rehearsal is on. You squirm through the whole play 
listening to people "fluff" their lines, watching light cues come on in the 
wrong place, noticing the whole set tremble when Joe slams the door, biting 
your fingernails to the cjuick when P.etty rips her costume. WHiat a pleasant 
evening ! 

You spend all night fixing over a few costumes, changing the make-up 
chart, putting more braces on the set, making out a light cue sheet, adjusting 
the dimmers, rearranging the furniture, and changing a few lights. Before 
you know it, the j)erformance time has arrived. Once more the mad last 
minute rush, and then the brave shout. "Curtain!" 



The play is over. Everyone is congratulating the actors on their fine 
performances; a few tell you what a nice play it was and what a pretty set 
"you children" made. You crawl off into a corner to try to collect all your 
separate parts. 



12 The Green Caldron 

"Torchy,'' the Terror of the Tower 

Lee Caldwell 
Rhetoric I, Theme 5, 1946-1947 

A AIONG THE STUDENTS, SHE WAS KNOWN AS "TORCH Y," 
/=^ the terror teacher in the Tower; in class she was meekly and respect- 
-^ -^^ fully called Miss Austen. Her dynamic dual personality combined a 
harsh, sarcastic strictness and a quick temper with a sweet, sorrowful senti- 
mentality. Because she taught sophomore speech, a required course, no one 
graduated from our high school untouched by a stinging remark from her 
sharp tongue or a kind wish from her big heart. 

My earliest impressions of "Torchy" were formed by tales heard from 
the sophomores who delighted in terrorizing the freshmen. We were plagued 
with experiences of students who were bitterly ridiculed in front of their 
classmates by her biting comments. She mimicked their voices, scoffed at 
their speeches, and scowled sourly at their attempts at humor. They made 
us fear her long, impossible assignments, warned us that she never gave 
A's, and that at any time she might call on us to entertain the class with an 
impromptu speech. 

And then I saw her in the hall — her red hair (which it was rumored 
was dyed in order to provide a good excuse for her hot temper) piled in 
tight curls on top of her definitely up-tilted head. Her skin was chalky white. 
There was no smile on her face; she wore a scowl which confirmed the tales 
I had heard. She carried her tall, slender, neatly dressed body regally. As 
she stalked by me, I was instilled with a dread and fear of her which per- 
sisted throughout high school. 

With wobbly knees I mounted three flights of stairs to her Tower room 
the next year and met Miss Austen. The sophomores had been right; she 
was cruel. She gloried in belittling our speech efforts; she made us miser- 
able with nasty criticism of our stage presence; she laughed at us as we made 
fools of ourselves pantomiming "Is this a dagger I see before me?" In the 
middle of a speech, she shouted, "Put your feet together!" or "Wipe that 
chessy cat grin off your face !" After giving a speech, we were forced to 
remain on the platform while she insisted, "What's terribly wrong with her, 
class?" Reluctant members made feeble comments — "Well, I thought her 
speech was pretty good." "You know perfectly well you didn't think any 
such thing," interrupted Miss Austen while both pupils cringed. Football 
players were constantly reminded of a lost game; or, if they had played well, 
she inquired, "Why don't you show off as well on this platform as you do 
on the football field?" 



March, 1947 13 

Her childish temperament was evident on days when she sulked all 
period, speaking only to call on students to give speeches. When she lost 
control of her temper, she stood before us with piercing eyes, deathly pale 
face, tightly clenched fists, and spoke in a tense, taut voice, "You people 
make me so angry that I'd like to hit each one of you HARD ! You're stupid, 
lazy and — and I don't care what happens to ANY of you!" An electric 
silence enveloped the room as she glared steadily at each one of us until we 
could almost feel the sting of her eyes. Then, a sly smile curled the corners 
of her lips, turned into a loud, throaty laugh, and we knew the tempest was 
over. For the rest of the period, she couldn't be sweet enough to us. 

Her excellent voice and knowledge of acting gave her the job of Junior 
I 'lay director. Between scenes during rehearsals we were sometimes able 
to draw aside her outer coat of aloofness and find underneath a friendly 
person. We soon discovered that she was eager to know us better, that she 
could laugh at a joke, and that she had a warm, s>Tnpathetic heart. On stage, 
though, we still felt her cutting sarcasm if we forgot a line or missed a cue. 
Two days before the play was to be presented, she walked out of rehearsal 
in a huff, saying, "I'm through with this whole damn play!" Ten minutes 
later she was back, tearfully pleading with us to "get into character." 

It was while we were seniors in her rhetoric class that we learned of her 
sentimentality. While severely lecturing us on our lack of school spirit, she 
changed the subject to how much high school would mean to us later, and 
then told us what wonderful times she had had in high school. The most 
vivid eNample of her sentimentality, I remember, took place on the first day 
of a month. As she tore the past month off the large calendar in front of 
the room, she turned to us with tears in her eyes. "Do you seniors realize 
how quickly this last year is going? It makes me feel so old when I re- 
member how gangling and awkward you were as sophomores in my speech 
classes and now you're all grown-up seniors and practically graduated. ..." 
By the end of her lecture, she had convinced each of us that nothing finer 
could happen to us than to start high school over again, including her 
speech course. 

I pieced together enough of the fragments of her stories of her life to 
realize that she had been the only girl and youngest child in a large family. 
She had grown up with her brothers and without the close friendship of any 
girls. Evidently, she and her father had been very close, for after his death, 
she felt lost. Unmarried at forty (only an appro.ximate guess) and possessing 
an anti-social personality, she was content with teaching school. 

Those of us who knew both sides of Miss Austen's personality grew to 
admire and respect her, not only for her able teaching and strict discipline, 
but also because we truly enjoyed this dual personality. 



14 The Green Caldron 

American Vendetta 



D 



Howard D. Koontz 
Rhetoric II, Theme 13, 1946-1947 

URING THE MIDDLE YEARS OF THE NINETEENTH CEN- 
tury, everyone in Kentucky knew that convictions for murder and 
manslaughter were extremely difficult to obtain because of poor pros- 
ecution and lenient juries. It was the knowledge of this fact that led to the 
greatest blood feud this country has ever known.^ 

Writers disagree as to the real cause of all the trouble which existed be- 
tween the Hatfields and the McCoys around 1880. Some say that it resulted 
from the death of Harmon McCoy during the Civil War; others contend 
that it resulted from an argument over a hog; and still others insist that the 
courtship of Janse Hatfield and Rosanna McCoy touched off the whole affair. 

When the Civil War broke out, Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield joined 
the Confederate forces, and Harmon McCoy became a Unionist. Shortly 
before the war ended, "Devil Anse" killed Harmon McCoy in one of the 
minor battles,^ and it was not long until everyone in Kentucky knew that 
"Devil Anse" had carved the first notch on his gun. Not long after the end 
of the war, Hatfield met Harmon's father quite by accident as the former 
was en route home. A short argument followed because McCoy disliked the 
air of importance displayed by Hatfield, who had attained the rank of captain. 
Even though they did not come to blows, a definite dislike for each other 
resulted.^ 

Everything went along rather well until 1878. During this period, the men 
of Pike County, Kentucky, didn't take too much care in keeping up their 
stock. So, at various times they would go out into the hills to gather all the 
stock stamped with their particular brand. Floyd Hatfield had just completed 
this task one day when Randall McCoy rode up to his pig pen, declared that 
Hatfield had one of his hogs, and said that he was determined to get it back.* 
Since Randall McCoy always let the law settle his disputes, he took the case 
to "Deacon" Hatfield, who was justice of the peace. Many testified as to 
the ownership of the hog, Selkirk McCoy even testified for the Hatfield 
cause, but, nevertheless, "Deacon" Hatfield did what he thought was right 

' W. Child, "Stalking the Biggest of Big Game," Everybody's Magazine, 20 (March, 

1909), 427. 

'"Life Visits the Hatfields and McCoys," Life, 16 (May 22, 1944), 108. 

'Jean Thomas, Big Sandy, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1940, pp. 177-180. 

*Ibid., p. 181. 



March, 1947 15 

and awarded the verdict to McCoy. While the Hatfields looked on in anger, 
Randall carried the hog from the courtroom under his arm.^ 

This decision did not sit right with "Devil Anse," but by election day in 
1880, all differences had been forgotten. Members of both families were 
drinking whiskey from the same jug when Janse Hatfield, the eldest son of 
"Devil Anse," noticed a pretty young McCoy standing nearby. Thus began 
the courtship of Janse and Rosanna McCoy, the attractive daughter of 
Randall. Although "Devil Anse" would not permit his son to marry a McCoy, 
he did not object if she remained under the same roof with his son, 
unmarried." 

Almost immediately, Janse began to court other women, and Rosanna, 
who was going to become a mother, was persuaded by her sisters to return 
home. However, in order to avoid violence, she kept her secret. Janse per- 
suaded her to return to his house, but when he again neglected her, Rosanna 
went to live with her aunt, Betty McCoy. Janse visited her from time to time, 
but once he lingered too long. Talbert, Pheman, and little Randall seized 
and tied him, and then carried him away on horseback. It was their intent to 
even the score with Janse for mistreating Rosanna. but the aim was never 
realized.^ Rosanna informed "Devil Anse" what had happened, and he took 
immediate action by gathering a band of Hatfields to search for Janse. They 
accomplished their aim. released Janse, and sent the three McCoys home at 
the point of a gun.* 

As time went on, neighbors quarreled among themselves, but relatives 
seemed to be drawn closer together. The Hatfields were no exception. Bill 
Staton, brother-in-law of Elliston Hatfield, met Sam and Paris McCoy while 
hunting squirrel one day. Staton threw a large rock at Sam's head and then 
shot Paris in the chest. A hand-to-hand fight followed, and Sam McCoy, who 
was only fifteen at the time, fired and killed Staton.® Paris surrendered to the 
law and pleaded self-defense so convincingly that even Justice Hatfield had 
to release him. Sam, who had tied to the mountains with Elliston Hatfield 
in close pursuit, was brought back, tried, and also acquitted of the murder 
charge." 

On election day in 1882, the Hatfields and McCoys were drinking together 
again. Talbert recalled a loan of one dollar and seventy-five cents made to 
Elias, son of Floyd Hatfield, and tried to collect. Elias denied the debt; 
Talbert knocked him to the ground, and was arrested by the constable; but 
he was released when Elliston called him several unpleasant names." Elliston 
jumped at Talbert, and a knife fight followed as both fell to the ground. 
When Elliston picked up a rock to crush Talbert's head, Framer McCoy 

•John L. Spivak, The Dei-ils Brigade, New York: Brewer and Warner Inc., 1930, 
pp. 33-39. 'Thomas. o/>. cit., pp. 183-189. 'Ibid., pp. 189-192. * Ibid., p. 195. 
•"Two Razorbacks and the South's Biggest Feuds," Literary Digest, 68 (March 12, 
1921). 47. '"Ibid. "Ibid. 



16 The Green Caldron 

shot him. Talbert, Framer, and Randall Jr. were arrested and taken to jail.^^ 
When "Devil Anse" arrived on the scene, he ordered a group of his men to 
storm the jail, capture the prisoners, and hold them until the fate of Elliston 
was revealed.^"'' 

When Randall McCoy heard of the capture of his three sons, he told his 
family not to start violence by trying to free the prisoners. Then he went to 
the spot where the three boys were being held and informed the Hatfields 
and his sons that he was going to Pikeville to get the authorities. In the mean- 
time, Mrs. McCoy went to the Hatfield home and pleaded with "Devil Anse" 
to let the law settle their dispute, but he said that if Elliston died, her sons 
died too." 

"Ole" Randall was unable to get any action from the authorities in Pike- 
ville, and before he returned, the Hatfields had murdered his sons. A 
coroner's report stated that the boys had met death by a person or persons 
unknown. Even this didn't stop Randall's faith in the law. Each time a crime 
was committed, he would go for the authorities, but they would refuse to 
prosecute. Many times he pleaded to the governor of Kentucky and in turn 
to the governor of West Virginia, the state in which the Hatfields lived, but 
permits to return the criminals to Kentucky for trial were never awarded.^^ 

In spite of his numerous failures, Randall kept the indictments alive from 
1882 until August, 1887, when a new governor was elected in Kentucky. Im- 
mediate action followed. Governor S. B. "Honest Buck" Buckner appealed 
to Governor Wilson of West Virginia, but his message failed to gain its 
purpose. Governor Buckner then sent for Frank Phillips, one of his most 
capable men, and instructed him to get results in the quickest way possible. 
Phillips ignored the governor of West Virginia, and, with the aid of several 
McCoys, he brought two Hatfields back across the West Virginia line into 
Kentucky.^^ "Devil Anse" was furious when he heard that Phillips was get- 
ting members of his family illegally, and in order to protect himself and his 
family against such raids, he ordered the entire family to dig broad ditches 
around their houses and to construct drawbridges.^'^ 

Many attempts had been made upon the life of Randall McCoy, but each 
had failed. "Devil Anse" and his crew had evaded the law for five years, and 
they disliked their opponent's latest move. As a result, they decided to or- 
ganize a few of their clan and put an end to the main source of their 
worries.^* 

" Spivak, op. cit., pp. 83-88. 

""Two Razorbacks and the South's Biggest Feuds," p. 51. 

"Harold Wilson Coates, Stories of Kentucky Feuds, Knoxville: Holmes-Darst Coal 

Corporation, 1942, pp. 215-220. 'Uhid., p. 222. 'Ubid., pp. 223-227. 

""Life Visits the Hatfields and McCoys," p. 110. "Coates, op. cit., pp. 226-228. 



March, 1947 17 

At midnight on the first day of 1888, "Cap" Hatfield headed a mob with 
their minds set on killing Randall McCoy and anyone else who might be in 
the way. Randall's house was fired upon, entered, and then burned, but he 
managed to escape. Two were killed in the raid, and Randall again set out 
for Pikeville, still placing his faith in the law. This time his words did not 
fall on deaf ears.'® 

Phillips' posse went into West X'^irginia to round up the offenders of the 
law and bring them to Kentucky for trial. However, the United States 
Supreme Court started habeas corpus proceedings to get the criminals back 
into West Virginia. In spite of this writ, the McCoys eventually won out. 
Two Hatfields were hanged, and many of their clan were imprisoned for 
life." 

The McCoys wanted to stop fighting, but the Hatfields sought revenge 
against all who had helped the McCoys track down members of their clan.^^ 
Nevertheless, e.xcept for minor skirmishes which took place after 1888 in 
Kentucky, the only events of violence were those relating to the operation 
of the coal mines.** 

If Kentucky had had a better system of education and more qualified law 
enforcement officers, these feuds could probably have been eliminated. There 
was just no one there to serve as mediator for the rival clans. Since the death 
of "Devil Anse" in 1921, several cases have been presented which show what 
can be accomplished if tlie law is enforced and if all parties put their faith 
in the law. 

In 1912, Ed Callahan was shot from ambush as a result of a feud with 
the Deaton-Smith faction which had lasted more than twelve years. Instead 
of continuing this feud, his daughter, Mrs. Qifton Cross, set out to obtain 
evidence to convict the assassins, without their knowing that they were being 
investigated. The evidence she presented was so clear-cut that fifteen were 
indicted for their crime." 

About the same time in 1921 that "Devil Anse" died Judge Hiram John- 
son of the twenty-seventh district called two feuding factions into court. 
State troops were called into court to protect the feuders from each other 
and to protect the court from the feuders. On the fourth day, Judge Johnson 
appealed to each side to have faith in the court, assuring them that any 
trouble which might arise would be settled legally. After his brief plea, both 
parties shook hands and again called each other by their first names. Since 
this method worked so well, Judge Johnson repeated it in many later cases.** 

" Spivak. op. cit., pp. 193-199. "Coates, op. cit., pp. 234-237. 

** "Two Razorbacks and the South's Biggest Feuds," p. 55. 

"Spivak, op. cit., pp. 310-325. 

""Avenging Her Father's Death." Literary Digest, 45 (November 9. 1912), 864. 

»* "Ending the Feud Without a Rifle." Literary Digest, 72 (^larch 18. 1922), 36. 



18 The Green Caldron 

In 1921, another family moved into the house previously occupied by 
"Devil Anse." On one of the vt^alls, they found the domestic motto, "There 
is no place like our home." Just below this, one of the new tenants wrote, 
"leastwise not this side of hell."-^ 

The last meeting between the Hatfields and the McCoys took place in 
1944. June Hatfield, great-granddaughter of "Devil Anse," and Susie McCoy, 
great-granddaughter of Randall McCoy, met on a train bound for Elkton, 
Maryland. Both girls were going to get a job in a defense plant, and after 
learning the identity of each other, they decided to get a room together. The 
arrangements proved to be very satisfactory and within a few months, June 
decided to marry a McCoy in order to help keep the peace between the two 
families.^^ 

""Two Razorbacks and the South's Biggest Feuds," p. 55. 

**"They Ain't A-feuding No More," American Magazine, 137 (June, 1944), 133. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

"Avenging Her Father's Death," Literary Digest, 45 (November 9, 1912), 864. 

Child, W., "Stalking the Biggest of Big Game," Everybody's Magazine, 20 (March, 

1909), 427. 
Coaxes, Harold Wilson, Stories of Kentucky Fends, Knoxville: Holmes-Darst Coal 

Corporation, 1942. 
"Ending the Feud Without a Rifle," Literary Digest, 72 (March 18, 1922), 36. 
"Life Visits the Hatfields and McCoys," Life, 16 (May 22, 1944), 108-110. 
Spivak, John L., The Devils Brigade, New York: Brewer and Warren Inc., 1930. 
"They Ain't A-feuding No More," American Magazine, 137 (June, 1944), 133. 
Thomas, Jean, Big Sandy, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1940. 
"Two Razorbacks and the South's Biggest Feuds," Literary Digest, 68 (Alarch 12, 

1921), 47-55. 



Lost Men 



Anonymous 
Galesburg Division, Rhetoric I, Theme 2, 1946-1947 

OUTSIDE THE DOOR A WHITE-CLAD ORDERLY SAT, HALF 
asleep, rocking perilously on the rear legs of his chair. Inside were 
men whose minds had found another world. For some, it was a 
world of beauty, a world of peace, free from fear and the noise of war. For 
others, it was a world of constant, hellish torment. 

A little man, with a tinge of gray in the hair about his temples, was 
sitting beside his perfectly made-up cot. Here was a man of God who had 
lost his faith — nothing was left. A short time ago, he had worn the uniform 
of an army chaplain. He had often raced with death to give assurance to 



March, 1947 19 

questioning, dying men. He had snipped small metal tags from dismembered 
bodies. He had seen men sweat with the toil of killing. He had lain awake at 
night amid the sound of distant bursting shells and dreamed of home and 
the smells of summer in Ohio. And now, at last, he had found a refuge in 
his dreams and a new unbounded faith, a faith in dreaming. 

A young man with a fair, almost feminine complexion, sat near the 
window, sobbing softly. A shock of soft, curly red hair lay gently against the 
hands that covered his face. This boy, for he was scarcely more than a boy, 
had been trained to pilot a medium bomber. He had enlisted at eighteen, to 
find the exciting feeling of mastery over space and time. He had found it. 
He had flown across the ocean to India. He had seen strange people and 
strange customs. He had lived in huts of mud and grass, and he had 
waited — he had waited for a vague something that at once meant fear and 
excitement — he had waited for the climax of his glory, or the abrupt finality 
of mysterious death. He had waitefl. and it never came. He, too, began to 
dream and woke up screaming. 

There were three other men in that heavy, .silent room. One stood leaning 
against the little-used game table and rhythmically moved his canvas-sandaled 
feet to the memory of West Point drums. Another sat and watched the 
jeering faces of one-time comrades appear and vanish in mocking repetition. 
The other had found blissful sleep. 

The orderly stirred. His chair creaked. He settled himself and went on 
dreaming. 



Temple Episode 

Albert L. Hall, Jr. 
Rhetoric I, Theme 3, 1946-1947 

A LMOND EYES CAUTIOUSLY PEER AT ME FROM BEHIND 
F^L black lashes and high, yellow cheek-bones, then are quickly averted, 
■^ -^^ once more to gaze down at the hot, loose gravel, scuffed by count- 
less wooden sandals. I am an unwelcome intruder in a sacred spot, the 
beautiful Hashiman temple in the tiny village of Kamakura, Japan, where 
hundreds of Shinto Nipponese come daily to worship. Trying to make myself 
less conspicuous, I retire a few yards from the wide approach to the 
auspicious temple and interest myself in observing the Japanese who are 
advancing singly or in groups to offer their prayers to their god. 

Soon a woman comes toward me with her tiny daughter, a miniature 
counterpart of the mother. They are both adorned in black kimonos, em- 



20 The Green Caldron 

broidered with gold, red, and green; both have their ebony hair tied in a 
neat knot above the nape of the neck; both wear the simple wooden sandals 
of the poor. They walk with hands joined, the woman wearily shuffling, the 
child patiently trudging beside her. 

The imposing edifice looms above them as they near it, its mass embel- 
lished by the intricacies of Oriental architecture. The altar itself, dwarfed by 
the structure which houses it, is located behind an iron grill at the top of a 
great flight of stairs, the sole means of access to the temple. Here, a few 
blocks from the busy markets of the village, all is serene. A silence hangs 
over all, broken only by the wind's gentle sighing in the surrounding 
tree tops. 

Woman and child make the tedious ascent to the altar of their god, 
where both kneel, hands pressed palm to palm over their breasts. The little 
one, uncertain of the correct procedure, glances warily at her mother to as- 
sure herself. After several moments of silent prayer, the weary woman rises 
and casts her meager offering of two small coins over the pale to the foot of 
the altar. Then she takes her daughter's hand, and together they slowly re- 
trace their steps without a backward glance. 

The awful silence persists, broken intermittently by the chirping of a 
lonely bird. I am left feeling very humble indeed by the simple but impres- 
sive ceremony. No matter what the religion, no matter who the god, it is the 
faith and only the faith that has meaning and importance. If there be a 
heaven, woman and child will trudge there, happily, until the end of time. 

Ich Spreche Deutsch 

Early one morning, I was rudely awakened by the first sergeant bellowing 
in my ear that the captain wanted to see me immediately. While wondering what 
I had done wrong, I struggled into my clothes and hurriedly plowed my way 
through the fresh drifts of snow. 

Arriving at headquarters, I found the captain standing very close to a small, 
glowing pot-bellied stove. He stared at me for a few minutes and then asked if 
I could speak German. I admitted I could, but had not spoken the language for 
several years. Pulling a book from his pocket, he thrust it into my hand and said, 
"Here is a book of military commands in German. Learn them and be ready to 
march the prisoners into camp when they arrive this afternoon." 

As I left the office, my head was spinning like a top. Sure, I knew German, 
but it was high school German; I'd never spoken to a real German before. 

By noon I had memorized most of the commands and started for the station 
with the captain and a detail of guards. Although we arrived almost an hour 
early, the captain immediately placed the guards along each side of the road just 
in case the train should by some strange accident arrive ahead of schedule. 

When the train finally arrived, the prisoners silently poured out and moved 
into orderly rows. Wondering if they would understand me, I took a deep breath 
and in my best voice of authority shouted, "Wer ist euer Gefangnenfiihrer?" 
Immediately one of the prisoners stepped forward, saluted, and in nearly perfect 
English, replied, "Group-leader Miiller reporting, sir !" — William E. Dye 



March, 1947 21 

Anoxia 

Eugene J. Xewberg 
Nairy Pier Dk'ision, Rhetoric I, Theme 4, 1946-1947 

JOHN NEWPORT AND I WAITED OUTSIDE THE LOW, 
squat building. Over the entrance hung a sign which read, 22nd 
HIGH ALTITUDE TRAINING UNIT, MAXWELL FIELD, 
ALABAMA. Two months as cadets in pilot training and we were finally 
going up for the first time — about seven miles up. The odd part about it was 
that we would never leave the ground. The decompression chamber simulates 
conditions above the earth. When the rest of the cadets that were to make 
the trip arrived, fifteen of us in all, we filed into the building. 

John and I had learned, from an upperclassman, that from each group 
two cadets were asked to be guinea pigs. "The trip is a lot more fun and 
interesting if you're a guinea pig," the uppcrcla.ssman had said. John and I 
decided we would volunteer. Inside the building a corporal met us and said, 
"Before you gadgets go in the chamber you'll have to listen to a short talk 
by the flight surgeon. Go into the lecture room and sit down." We went in 
and sat down. During the lecture the llight surgeon explained the purpose 
of the trip and what to expect. "The purpose of this trip is to impress upon 
you the importance of oxygen discipline," he said. "Anoxia, which is the 
lack of oxygen in the bloodstream, has no symptoms to warn the victim. 
It is a pleasant way to die. but Lm sure none of you are in the market for 
dying. So take care of your oxygen equipment and it will take care of you." 
He concluded the lecture by saying. "I'd like two cadets to help me demon- 
strate the effects of anoxia while on this — •" this was our cue, so John and I 
raised our hands. He stopped, smiled and said, "O.K., you beavers, and the 
rest of you report to the chamber." In his office he gave us a quick physical, 
and then we went to the chamber. When we arrived, the other cadets were 
already seated. The chamber was oval shaped and the fifteen bucket seats 
were arranged in a semicircle. Alongside each position hung an oxygen mask. 
Above each seat a number was painted on the wall. The numbers ran from 
1 to 15. The chairs numbered 11 and 13 were vacant, for they were the 
guinea pig seats. John was number 11 and I was number 13. 

The operator of the chamber was outside, but there was a triple layer 
plate-glass porthole throuj^di which he could look in. The flight surgeon, who 
was to go up with us, really controlled the trip. By means of hand signals he 
told the operator whether he wanted ascent or descent. 

When I sat down in chair 13 the flight surgeon came over and asked me 
to take otT my shirt. Taking a small microphone he taped it on my chest 
below my heart. The microphone was connected to an electric graph, mounted 



22 The Green Caldron 

at the end of the chamber, which would register my heart beats by means 
of electric lights. Then he took a small photo-electric cell and connected it to 
the lobe of my ear. This cell sent a beam of light through the lobe. As the 
oxygen content in my blood changed, the color of my blood would change, 
thus letting more or less light through. There was a graph for this also. The 
graphs, mounted next to each other, were labeled "oxygen content" and 
simply "heart." The other cadets would be able to observe graphically how 
the altitude would afifect me physically. 

"Everybody will put his oxygen mask on except number 13. He will 
go up as high as he can without oxygen,"" said the flight surgeon. He then 
signaled the operator to start the ascent and we went up slowly to avoid 
getting the bends. It would take about 45 minutes to get to 38,000 feet — our 
destination. Once there we were to stay an hour and then come down. Since 
it would take quite some time, magazines were passed out. At about 5,000 
feet the flight surgeon lit a candle and placed it at the end of the chamber. It 
had a long wick and the flame extended three or four inches above the candle. 
As we went up, the flame grew shorter. 

At about 20,000 feet I noticed a fly walking across the top edge of the 
magazine I was reading. I turned a page and he jumped oflf, intending to 
fly away. Although he beat his wings madly, it was no use. There just wasn't 
enough air to beat his wings against. He went into a nose-dive and hit the 
floor. He picked himself up, and I could almost see how bewildered he was. 
Bending over I gave him a nudge with my finger, and he ran across the floor 
a few inches again, flapping his wings. Although he got an inch or two oflF 
the floor, he fell back exhausted. Again he picked himself up, and by this time 
I imagined he was a pretty puzzled fly. The last time I saw him he was walk- 
ing back under my chair, probably going back to a corner where he could 
sit down and try to figure this thing out. 

At about 26,000 feet the flight surgeon came over and sat down on a small 
stool directly in front of me, with an extra oxygen mask in his lap. We all 
had throat mikes and earphones so that we could converse. I didn't really 
need a mike, but the rest did because their oxygen masks covered the lower 
part of their faces. According to the graphs my oxygen content was very low 
and my heart was working very hard. The flight surgeon asked me how I felt. 
I said fine. I really did, although my vision had failed more than 50 percent 
and my coordination was very poor. At the time I realized none of this. 

He handed me a pad and pencil and asked me to write my name and serial 
number. Although I scrawled them out, they looked as though they had been 
written by a child in fourth grade. Since nothing seemed amiss to me, it looked 
perfectly normal. Then he asked me to count to twenty-five up and back. 
This took me quite some time, but I made it. At about 28,000 feet he asked 
me to write my name again. This time the letters were about three inches 
high and I scrawled right off the edge of the paper. I was holding the pad in 



March, 1947 23 

my lap, and when I went off the paper I wrote a couple of the letters on 
my pants before I realized what I was doing. I was holding the pencil very 
tightly, and writing took all the concentration I could muster. Some of the 
other cadets were laughing so hard they had tears in their eyes. I couldn't 
figure out for the life of me what they were laughing at. The flight surgeon 
was now watching me very closely and was holding the extra oxygen mask 
a few inches from my face. The last thing I remembered was feebly trying 
to push his arm away and mumbling, "1 won't need oxygen for a long time, 
doc; I feel fine." Then I passed out. A few gulps of oxygen and I was back 
to normal. 

John provided his part of the entertainment at about 35,000 feet. The 
flight surgeon had him take his mask off. He lasted less than a minute. The 
greater the altitude the quicker you go. All in all, the trip was a success. We 
were definitely impressed with the dangers of ano.xia. 



7s[o7Te But the Lonely Heart 

By Richard Llewellyn 

Makc.k Halvorsen 
Rhetoric I. Theme 4, 1946-1947 



I 



Tir^IlE LAST BLOODY XOTES OF AGGIE'S FIDDLE BE GONE. 
He liked that song — proper smashing it was, He liked it. "None But 
the Lonely Heart." A bit melancholy, but He don't mind. He'll be all 
right. He'll get 'long bleeding well without Ma nor nobody. He'll be bleeding 
right, all right. 

He's Ernest Verdeen Mott, He is — Em, most blokes calls Him. 'Round 
Jim Mourday's — the flash boy — the blokes calls Him "Smasher." He 
busts windows good He does. That's what He's headed for now, smashing 
windows with them other mugs — easy money, blimey, easy money. He'll 
be sporting well off if He sticks by the flash guys; all the brides'll look at 
Him different like. He ain't just going to be Em Mott, good old Ma Mott's 
son, the bloke who wanted to be an artist like His pa. He's going to be big 
boss 'round here, someday. 

The melodious, melancholy theme of the book None But the Lonely 
Heart echoes in my ears — the broad cockney, singing low, steady. Richard 
Llewellyn has written another book, full of sympathy and human emotions, 
which can stand proudly beside How Green Was My Valley. There is not 
nor can there be any comparison between the two books, for each is 
splendidly real in its own way. Mr. Llewell\Ti has gone from the idealistic 



24 T^/t^ Green Caldron 

family life and ideas of the Morgans in How Green Was My Valley to the 
realistic, humdrum, get-along-somehow existence of Ernie Mott and of the 
"blokes" 'round him, just like him. From the moment you start reading 
None But the Lonely Heart, the characters so vividly depicted come alive, 
move about naturally, normally: Ern Mott, who spends his time loafing 
around the Fun Fair — comparable to our penny arcades with a juke box, 
shooting gallery, and gambling concession thrown in — and whose only 
ambition is to get rich as easil}'^ and as fast as possible; his tender, gentle 
Ma — ". . . as for laughing . . . she nigh on busted the windows. Funny 
sort of laugh it was, and all, very high and trembly, and proper loud, and 
she always finished up holding her mouth with one hand, and the two halves 
of her blouse with the other, shutting her eyes tight and holding her breath 
as though she thought something was going to happen to her, somehow" — 
who, although she is a thief as far as the police are concerned, believes that 
shoplifting isn't against the law, "It's only taking your rights from them as 
has more than they can handle"; and the unbelievable Henry Twite, Prince 
of Derelicts, hospitable, gentle, living in a world of his own making, a world 
of his own type of justice. 

When I first decided to read this book of Mr. Llewellyn's, I was a bit 
skeptical, for I remembered the long hours spent interpreting the rich Welsh 
language in How Green Was My Valley, but there is no difficulty in None 
But the Lonely Heart. It reads like Ernie Mott's thoughts, straight from the 
heart, direct. The cockney slang and colloquialisms make the description 
precise, clear-cut, colorful: "Your dial" (face), "bleeding," "proper smash- 
ing." One thing which is disturbing about the book is Mr. Llewellyn's 
constant use of capital letters when speaking of Ernie — He, His, Him. 
At first there is no apparent reason for the capitals, but, as you read further 
into this man's thoughts, you suddenly realize the meaning of the capital- 
ization. Ernie Mott is thinking, Ernie Mott is seeing, Ernie Mott is doing, so 
blast the definite antecedents. The intimate feeling between you and Ernie 
would be lost if Mr. Llewellyn always referred to him as Ern. In order to 
clarify who the speaker is and still preserve this casual feeling toward Ernie, 
Mr. Llewellyn has capitalized all things which refer to Ernie's person. 

If you wish to read a blow-by-blow account of life — first knocked down 
by the brutality of life and then gently lifted up by its beauty; if you want 
to read the "lonely truth" about life, simply expressed, by all means read 
None But the Lonely Heart. It's a proper smashing novel, it is. 

Arrival at Eighteen 

After all, when you are eighteen you are supposedly well on your way toward 
becoming a mature person and a solid citizen. You can come into an inheritance 
or run away and get married or go buy whiskey in low, lewd places. In short, you 
have arrived. — Donna Holsman 



March, 1947 25 

ril Never Learn 

John W. Davis 

Galeshurg Division, Rhetoric I, Theme 7, 1946-1947 



rip^HERE IS NOTHING UNUSUAL ABOUT THIS GIRL EXCEPT 

I that she doesn't seem the type to walk into a cocktail lounge unes- 

corted. Her clothes are neat and she wears them well. She has a cute 

thing on her head that could be called a hat; her make-up blends beautifully. 

Everything about her blends. Everything but her present environment. Being 

an audacious individual I walk over to her and blurt out, "May I help you?" 

A common and overworked line I admit, but now is no time to try one 
of my deluxe lines. I don't want a date, just an explanation. 

"No, thank you." 

A quick reply, but it holds a pleasant tone that means she is the friendly 
type — as long as I stay on my own stool. 

"Waiting for some one?" 

"Yes." 

"Husband?" 

"No." 

"Boy friend?" 

"No." 

"Girl friend?" 

"No." 

I am stopped. Here is a girl who is pretty, not married, engaged, or a 
pick-up. Who the devil is she waiting for? Oh well, I'll try again during 
my next intermission. 

Seated behind the piano I must be making some impression on her 
because she smiles. I tactfully nod my head. No sense in rushing this thing. 
Then she does a surprising thing. She speaks first ! 

"Do you know 'A Stranger in Town'?" 

What a spot for a cute answer. Waving aside the "corn," I start playing 
her request almost before she is through asking for it. 

I slow the number down and put loads of expression in it. She sits 
gazing at a spot three or four inches above my chin. Right into my eyes! 
I wish she wouldn't do that. Those eyes of hers have more expression than 
any music ! Something like her should happen to me on a lonely night. Hell ! 
Any night — lonely or not. 

I finish her number and quick, like a "bunny-rabbit," I start on some fast 
"boogie" to wake myself up. Maybe I can date this lass if her mysterious 
appointment isn't kept. 



26 The Green Caldron 

It is nearing "break time," and surely then something will happen. It does ! 

In walks a good-looking guy about fifty-two, a neat dresser — the kind 
that stands out in a crowd — a little gray above the ears, which helps all the 
more. Right up to my dream he walks. Oh, no ! Not one of those "big 
executive-secretary" deals ! I'll "moider" the guy. Then it hits me. 

"Nancy, golly kid, but it's been a long time !" 

"Dad—" 

What conversation ! It's like an amateur would write in a rhetoric theme. 

Maybe I should impress "dad" and get that date. I should live so long. 
Papa's grinning like the better half of those theatrical masks that are on 
every opera program. 

"How is the baby, Nancy? I can't wait to see it." 

Brother — I can ! You can't tell about women. Leave 'em alone and live 
longer, that's my slogan. 

Saaaay — Is that blond by herself ? It looks that way. Maybe — hmmmm. 



Program Annotation and Pure 

Music 

Morton Berman 

Rhetoric II, Theme 8, 1946-1947 

CONTEMPORARY COMPOSERS AND CRITICS HAVE Dis- 
played an ever-increasing tendency to utilize a relatively recent 
innovation in the field of pure symphonic creation: namely, the writ- 
ing of descriptive comment concerning a musical composition in the 
belief that these notes are essential for a thorough understanding of the 
work. This principle is completely opposed to the established idea that 
symphonic music is absolute music. Consequently, there have been among 
critics, composers, professional musicians, and even laymen, constant argu- 
ments as to the ultimate purpose of music. Of course, there is no set rule 
which states what the exact function of music should be. However, by 
placing music with art and literature under the general heading of Art and 
by comparing these three main types of creative expression, perhaps we can 
see more clearly the method of music as it differs from the methods of 
literature and art. 

In literature, we have feelings, moods, ideas, and st3'le all expressed by 
the writer through the medium of words. In art, which includes painting, 
architecture, and sculpture, ideas are expressed through the use of colors, 



March. 1947 27 

structure, balance, masses, and shapes. With music, expression is achieved 
through the use of melody, harmony, tone, rhythm, and composition. 

Now, if the reader, for a greater appreciation, needs illustrations or a 
musical background while reading a literary work, it is an indication that 
the author could have done a better job of writing. In fact, he has not fully 
succeeded in expressing himself and has had to resort to means outside of 
purely literary methods. Have not Goethe, Milton, Wordsworth, and T. S. 
Eliot maintained their standing primarily on the basis of their written words? 

In art, does the observer need a written program or musical accompani- 
ment to appreciate fully a painting by Goya, Van Gogh, Modigliani, or 
Picasso? Must one "read up" on Rodin before realizing the profound power 
of "The Thinker?" Stand before a structure built by Frank Lloyd Wright or 
LeCourbusier. A hundred-piece s^Tnphony orchestra is not essential or even 
desirable for a greater appreciation of a magnificent example of architecture. 

Yet with pure music there is a never-ending demand that the composer 
write program notes to go with his musical composition. Let us say, for 
example, that when Rach began his Second Brandenburg Concerto, his wife 
had just borne him an eighth child. Therefore, the master was transferring 
to his music the joy or annoyance (depending on his finances) which he 
experienced on the occasion. Is the listener's appreciation of this Bach work 
any deeper after he has learned of the incident? There are those who will 
bring up the example of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. Each of the five 
movements of the work has a sub-heading of a pastoral nature. Proponents 
of program content in pure music will argue that since Beethoven, who is 
probably the greatest composer in the symphonic form, felt it necessary to 
write a program for one of his major symphonies, then such a need should 
be recognized. However, the truth of the matter is that Beethoven never 
did write those sub-headings; they were composed by his contemporary 
critics and biographers ! Beethoven's means of expression in that S}Tnphony, 
as in all of his symphonies, were completely musical with no program 
connotations intended. 

Recently, after a recorded performance of Tschaikowsky's Fifth Sym- 
phony, a student in a music appreciation class asked, "What is the story to 
the work? What was the composer tr\nng to say?" The instructor explained 
that the music says whatever the listener wants it to say. When a composer 
uses an absolute music form, he is expressing purely musical ideas with no 
concrete or specific story or message to transmit. My attitude goes even 
further. Music should be listened to for its own sake. The objective listener, 
the one who can listen for the music's intrinsic value, can appreciate its true 
worth. Therefore, interpret music as you will, if interpret it you must. No 
program is necessary. 



28 The Green Caldron 

Spiritual Resurgence in Russia 

Mary Annis Crawford 

Rhetoric II, Theme 13, 1946-1947 

PRIOR TO THE REVOLUTION IN 1917, THE RUSSIAN Gov- 
ernment was closely connected with the Russian branch of the Greek 
Orthodox Church. Only religious marriages and divorces were recog- 
nized, religious education was taught in all the schools, and no anti-religious 
propaganda was permitted. Although the Church doctrines could not be 
questioned, its corruption was notorious, and the Orthodox Church was 
Russia's wealthiest institution. The Communists, when they had gained con- 
trol of the country, declared religion an "opiate" of the people, and imme- 
diately destroyed its high status.^ The Government took over most Church 
land and property so that the Church would be unable to function and, there- 
fore, could in no way stop the progress of the new Soviet power. 

Religious education was prohibited and religion could be taught only to 
one's own children. Religious marriage was deprived of its legal significance 
and divorces were very easy to obtain.^ Propaganda was encouraged to sub- 
stitute science for religion, an atheist society was organized, and paid propa- 
gandists published a weekly journal against religion.^ No religious books 
could be printed; even the printing of Bibles and prayerbooks was curbed. 
Daily and weekly papers brought forth anti-religious propaganda, anti- 
religious museums were opened, and anti-religious demonstrations were 
conducted. 

As religion was discouraged in Russia, the status of former high-ranking 
Christians was reduced to the lowest possible level and, unofficially, the 
Communists discriminated against active laymen. Believers could not join 
the ruling party, which granted all high positions to party members, because 
of the party's atheistic principles.* There was no alternative for the Christians 
other than to carry on during years of persecution, just as the Roman 
Catholics had sought refuge in the catacombs many centuries before. This 
maintenance of religious life did not represent the feeling of a minority, but 
VN^as of immense dynamic force.^ 

The Orthodox Church declined, but was never completely destroyed. Old 
church leaders accepted the break between Church and State, for they 

' N. S. Timasheff, "Religion in Russia," Current History, 8 (February, 1945), 105. 

' Ibid. 

'Jerome Davis, "Religion in the U.S.S.R.," New Republic, 112 (March 5, 1945), 330. 

" TimashefF, op. cit., p. 106. 

'H. Iswolsky, "Spiritual Resurgence in Soviet Russia," Survey Graphic, ZZ (February, 

1944), 113. 



March, J 94 7 29 

realized people would retain their religious beliefs. Of course, some prom- 
inent religious leaders disapproved of Communism, but the head of the 
former Orthodox Church declared that the Soviet Government had God's 
sanction and that, therefore, all strife by religious persons against the Gov- 
ernment must cease." 

After World War II. it was apparent that the patience and good judg- 
ment of the believers were rewarded. It had long been obvious that atheistic 
propaganda and attacks on the Church had been unsuccessful. Statistics 
showed that two-thirds of the adult rural population and one-third of the 
adult urban population had retained their faith. Even though churches were 
closed and the clergy were expelled, religion survived. "Roaming priests" 
went from village to village celebrating Holy Communion, performing mar- 
riages, baptizing children, and performing other religious rites.^ 

It was very disillusioning to the Communists that religion continued to 
be so vital in the lives of the populace. The attack was intensified in 1937 and 
1938, but the Government experienced no success; in December, 1938, the 
attitude toward the Church changed, and the Communists declared that 
Christianity was not detrimental to the individual.* The feeling of the Gov- 
ernment was expressed by President Kalinin, who stated, "We believe that 
religion is a misguiding institution and struggle against it by education. But 
since religion still grij>s considerable sections of the population and some 
people are deeply religious, we cannot combat it with ridicule."® 

The war heljted tremendously in the gaining of friend.ship between the 
Church and the State. Fighting in alliance with nations believing in religious 
freedom was an aid. hut the devotion of the Soviet clergy during the war 
was of even greater importance. When Hitler attacked Russia, the Russian 
Orthodox Church fully cooperated in the war effort; many parishes made 
large donations to the War Fund. The Government appreciated the attitude 
of the Church in aiding the war cause, and, three months later, anti-religious 
museums were closed and the publishing of anti-religious journals was 
discontinued. 

The Government became increasingly tolerant of religion, and in Sep- 
tember, 1943, Premier Stalin approved the proposal that a congress be called 
to elect a patriarch and to organize a council for purposes of church gov- 
ernment.^" Thus, the Russian Orthodox Church was again recognized as a 
national body. Religion was given a new and respected position; all religions 
— Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant, and not just the Russian Orthodox 
Church — were acknowledged. 

•Davis, loc. cit. ' Iswolsky, loc. cit. 'Timashcff, op. cit., pp. 106-107. 
•Hcnrv C. Wolfe. "Soviet Rapport With Religion?", Saturday Reznezt' of Literature, 
27 (June 10. 1944), 15. o u ie 

""Stalin to Permit Election of Head of Church," Christian Century, 60 (September 15, 
1943), 1029. 



30 The Green Caldron 

The revival of the Orthodox Church under StaUn was complete when 
the Archbishop of York went to Moscow bearing the blessings of the British 
churches. The Orthodox Church also blessed the Russian Government and 
asked all Christians to unite in defense of their faith." After his visit, the 
Archbishop of York stated, "There is an undoubted revival of religion (in 
Russia). Complete freedom of worship within their churches is granted to 
all religions. Anti-God propaganda has been suspended, godless museums 
are closed, and respect for religion is encouraged. The Orthodox Church 
has greater freedom than it ever had under the Tsars. The churches are 
crowded, though many are still closed or secularized. The change in the 
Soviet attitude toward religion is due to the recognition that religion cannot 
be eradicated, that a large proportion of the people of Russia are 
religious. . . . "^^ 

The Soviet Government aided religion in many other ways. The Church 
was permitted to open a theological seminary, where students could study 
the history of the Christian and Russian churches. Christian apologetics, 
hymnology, history of Catholic, Protestant, and Anglican churches, and 
other subjects. The adopted course of study was free and money was pro- 
vided for those needing assistance. ^^ The Government also formed a council 
for religion under the Council of People's Comissars, which united all faiths. 

Increased interest was shown in the Church among all the citizens; 
officers and also students from technical institutions began to attend services. 
Many new churches were opened, and, as early as 1941, there were 8,338 
churches, synagogues, and mosques in the U.S.S.R., and 58,442 ministers 
and priests.^* 

The Government further established its sincerity by publishing a religious 
book. The Truth About Religion in Russia. This book was published upon 
the presses that had formerly been used for anti-religious publications, and 
was the first book devoted to religious problems and religious life that had 
been printed in the Soviet Union since 1917. A thousand copies were sent 
to the United States so that Americans would realize religion was alive and 
was tolerated in Russia. The Government was aware that its attacks upon 
religion had created considerable ill feeling among other powers." The 
printing of Bibles and prayerbooks was also resumed at this time. 

The Church and the State were separated and, therefore, the State 
granted no special privileges to a certain religion. Buildings, however, were 
tax exempt and were provided free of charge by the Government. Protec- 

" "Restoration of the Russian Church," Christian Century, 60 (September 29, 1943), 1093. 

""Ten Days That Shook His Grace, the Archbishop of York," Time, 43 (May 8, 

1944), 42. 

" E. Downs, "Russian Orthodoxy's Oflfensive," Neivsweek, 22 (December 27, 1943), 70. 

" Stanley Evans, Churches in the U.SS.R., p. 87. 

"Bernard Pares, "Religion in Russia," Foreign Affairs, 21 (July, 1943), 644. 



March, 1947 31 

tion was also given to the believers so that they could worship without being 
offended or receiving jeers. The courts punished severely those who infringed 
upon the privileges of believers.'® In addition to these gains for the Church, 
in 1944, it was no longer illegal to teach religious education to groups of 
children. 

Relations were almost cordial between the Government and the Russian 
Orthodox Church, and the Church has expressed its appreciation of Gov- 
ernment aid. In like manner, when the head of the Church died two years 
ago, a high official represented the Government at the funeral. 

The comparison between Russian religion today and the situation in 
1922-1923, 1929-1930, and 1937-1938 reveals tremendous changes. Then the 
churches were considered as dangerous survivals of the past that should be 
exterminated, but now they are looked upon with favor and are considered 
valuable.'' Clergymen also enjoy equal rights with all other citizens; they 
may be elected to i)ul)lic office, which is the most important right of Russian 
citizens. 

Many believe that Stalin restored religious freedom to his people because 
it was necessary, during the war, to take away so much that they valued, 
and also because of his genuine love for the Russian people. By reinstating 
the Church as a part of Russian life, Stalin has removed a motive for internal 
dissension and has strengthened the si)iritual unity of the people. He has also 
removed the "atheist" stamp from the whole of the U.S.S.R.'* It is reassur- 
ing to know that any Russian may worship God according to the dictates of 
his conscience and also to know that this privilege will be maintained in the 
future. 

'• Evans, loc. cit. " Timasheff, op. cit., pp. 108-109. 

"George LaPiana, "The Vatican and Soviet Russia," Nation. 162 (May 4, 1946), 532. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

"Better to Leap." Catholic World, 158 (Xovember. 1943), 199-200. 

"Break-through." Time, 42 (December 27, 1943), 53-54. 

Davis. J., "Religion in the U.S.S.R.." Nezv Republic, 112 (March 5, 1945), 330-331. 

Dow.NS, B.. "Russian Orthodoxy's Offensive," Neu'S7i'eek, 22 (Deceml)cr 27, 1943), 70. 

Eui.AH, H., "Kremlin and \'atican," Ne-.c Republic, 112 (March 26, 1945), 416-417. 

Evans, Stanley, Churches in the U.SS R., London, Corbctt Publishing Co., Ltd., 1943. 

"Greater Opportunity for the Russian Church," Commomi;cal, 39 (January 7, 1944), 292. 

"Innocent .\broad?". Time, 48 (.August 26, 1946), 68. 

IswoLSKV, H., "Spiritual Resurgence in Soviet Russia," Surrey Graphic, Zi (February, 

1944), 112-115. 
"Kyrie Eleison," Time,A2 (September 13, 1943), 45. 
LaPiana. George, "The \'atican and Soviet Russia," Nation, 162 (May 4, 1946), 

531-534. 
".McMahon's Mission," Newsweek, 22 (July 12, 1943), 68. 
Pares, B., "Religion in Russia," Foreign Affairs, 21 (July, 1943), 635-644. 
"Restoration of the Russian Church," Christian Century, 60 (September 29, 1943), 1093. 



32 The Green Caldron 

"Rome-Moscow Truce?", Time, 45 (March 19, 1945), 58. 

"Russian Church Goes Into Aciion,"Commonweal, 38 (October 1, 1943), 575. 

"Russian Revival," Time, AA (August 28, 1944), 51. 

ScHWARZ, R. p., "Vatican and Kremlin," Fortnightly, 162 (December, 1944), 350-356. 

"Stalin to Permit Election of Head of Church," Christian Century, 60 (September 15,^ 

1943), 1029. 
"Ten Days That Shook His Grace, the Archbishop of York," Time, 43 (Maj' 

1944), 42. 

TiMASHEFF, N. S., "Religion in Russia," Current History, 8 (February, 1945), 105-110. 
"Up From the Russian Catacombs," Reader's Digest, 44 (March, 1944), 94-96. 
Wolfe, H. C, "Soviet Rapport With Religion?", Saturday Review of Literature, 27 

(June 10, 1944), 15. 

The Master of Ceremonies 

W. Somerset Maugham is a great story-teller. In The Razor's Edge he has 
not only told a story; he has played a part in that story. We might compare 
Maugham to a master of ceremonies in a night club. He introduces his characters 
as they are needed for the continuity of the plot and as suddenly drops them when 
their particular mission is completed. His main actors encore frequently through- 
out the book. And old Somerset, the author, just sits back at his table at a French 
sidewalk cafe and listens to his people tell their individual stories or expound 
their philosophies of life. 

Maugham is a great listener. He has to be, for many and varied people 
confess to him. Maugham uses little action in his book; he resorts to "flashbacks," 
he uses much description for the setting, he uses the troubled times after World 
War I for the background. But alw^ays present is Larry talking of his previous 
actions or Isabel speaking of her husband and the children. Maugham knows 
and states reality when realism is the mood of a particular phase of his story. 
To bring himself into more intimate terms with the reader he divulges some of 
his "love" life. He has a kept woman in Paris — kept by somebody else, however. 
An author presumably doesn't make as much money as a businessman. 

Maugham introduces his friends to the reader; he does not judge them. He 
asks the question and then answers it himself. But he always states that it is his 
own opinion or philosophy of what is right or wrong; and "you can take it or 
leave it." Maugham tells this story in the first person. And in doing so he doesn't 
become a boor — an unusual, remarkable feat. He uses understatement through- 
out and his characters never get up quite enough emotion to "blow their tops." 
This gives the plot tenseness all the way to the final page. It creates an atmosphere 
of impending violence, violence that never materializes. In one case there is a 
murder, but the actual killer is not important. And Maugham on the final page 
has the effrontery to say that he may have left his readers up in the air. 

— James B. Kinch 

Reaching for a Star 

About six months ago my older daughter. Donna, then two and one-half years 
old, was sitting with me by a big window from where we had a good view of a 
night sky. As fathers are prone to do, I was explaining the wonders of the stars. 
She nodded understandingly and requested, "Dit one for me !" I explained at 
length that it was impossible to get one for her because the stars were beyond 
my reach. She quickly countered, "Dit a chair." — Harijvn V. White 



o 



March, 1947 33 

I Chose Freedom 

Robert W. Weber 
Rhetoric II. Theme 7, 1946-1947 

N APRIL 3, 1944. THE NEW YORK TIMES REPORTED, 
"SOVIET OFFICIAL HERE RESIGNS." So ended the career of 
Victor Kravchenko in the Soviet government. This man, son of a 
hberal peasant, had started his career as a factory worker and had become 
one of the top engineers in Russia. He came to this country with the Soviet 
Purchasing Commission, and it was from this job that he resigned. 

Since the end of the war. there has been a rearrangement of thought 
on the Soviet government. During the war years we looked upon Russia as 
having a government somewhat similar to ours, or at least one that we could 
work with. Now that the smoke has thinned, we are getting a different 
picture. We are aware of the present foreign ix)licy of the Soviets, but 
we have had few glimpses of life inside Russia. Even during the war the 
"iron curtain" was never lifted. The few news reporters and government 
attaches who did remain in Russia for any period of time were so closely 
watched and restricted that their rejjorts have little value. The few men who 
have been permitted to enter Russia and move about with some semblance 
of freedom are in all cases very strong "liberals." These men, Earl Rrowder; 
Alvarez del Vayo. European editor of The Nation; and Harold Lasky, 
British liberal, have brought back glowing reports of the living standards of 
the Russian people and the progress that they are making. Kravchenko gives 
an account that tells of inefficiency, corruption, fear, starvation, and suffer- 
ing. Kravchenko. who climbed the entire distance of the social ladder in 
this "classless" society, is well qualified to present the suffering and fear 
at each level. 

Edgar Snow, in his The Pattern of Soviet Foxcer, makes the statement, 
". . . you are astonished by some major accomplishment requiring a high 
tlcgree of foresight and organization." Kravchenko, on the other hand, lays 
the success not to any planning but to the merciless use of labor. The 
increases of production cost millions of lives and were due not to skill or 
organization or foresight but to the long hours, low pay, impossible quotas, 
and threats of imprisonment and death to the workers. 

According to Mr. Kravchenko there are approximately twenty million 

prisoners in the X.K.V.D. (secret service) camps. Only about ten per cent 

of these are there for crimes of robbery or murder. The remaining ninety 

per cent are political prisoners, men whose only crime may have been a 

areless word of complaint against some new order. The treatment of 



34 The Green Caldron 

prisoners is reminiscent of that described in Jan Valtin's Out of the Night, 
the difference being that, as Mr. Kravchenko states it, "Germany tortures 
her enemies, and we torture and imprison our people." 

/ Chose Freedom is more than just a book, more than a history, more 
than an autobiography of a Russian official. It is a warning to all liberals 
who are advocating a socialistic form of government that in an effort to 
free people they may create a monster that may be far worse than the 
present evils. 

Kravchenko writes from a personal point of view. He has the advantage 
of having suffered from these abuses and has no need of the words if or 
maybe. He has merely to recollect, not imagine. 



Giz 



Melvin Schultz 
Proznso (Maywood) Branch, Rhetoric I, 1946-1947 

GIZ WAS MY BUDDY. WE "SACKED-IN" IN THE SAME 
compartment. We shared our successes, failures, ambitions, lockers, 
blues, socks, comic-books, money, and \vomen. We would have 
shared even Lana Turner, if that were possible. We fought constantly and 
yet were always at peace. We swore at one another, and the swearing was 
music to our ears. I often used to wonder how Giz and I were able to stand 
each other. We were different in many ways; yet, in spite of our differences, 
we were united. We were buddies. 

You either liked Giz, or you hated him. I liked him, for he was an 
unusual character. 

I think the most outstanding feature about him was his independence. His 
every action displayed it. It was his belief, his religion, his very outlook on 
life. He practiced it while others dreamed of it. Because of his independence 
he deeply resented authority. Often he would say, "No damn boat ensign is 
going to tell me what to do ! If he's any better than me, he's going to have 
to prove it! I'm just as good as he is any day! That damn gold stripe don't 
mean a thing! Why hell! I've served more years than he's been in 'chow- 
lines' !" All of us said that at one time or another, but Giz was one of the 
few who "stood up" for what they said. As a result, Giz was usually re- 
stricted. 

Giz's independence showed in many other ways. He would never do any- 
thing for a person if the person could do it himself. "Who was your slave last 
year?" he'd wisecrack. I don't mean to say that he would never do you a 



March, 1947 35 

favor. He was always doing favors for someone, but he would never do 
them to save the person from exerting himself. 

Giz was independent with his women, too. If one of them gave him a bad 
time he'd merely say, "Well, honey, if that's the way you want to be, it's 
O.K. with me. So long!" Then he'd walk away to scout greener pastures. 
Yes, Giz was independent ! 

Giz was loyal, too. He was loyal to his friends, his family, his girl back 
home, and Detroit. To him Detroit was Utopia. Valhalla, the Promised Land. 
All cities and states were merely suburbs of Detroit. "It's the oyily place to 
live," he'd say. He was loyal to his girl back home, as all sailors are loyal to 
some girl, somewhere. She was Diana, Helen of Troy, Venus, and St. Joan, 
all in one. She was his symbol of chastity, reverence, and perfection. She 
was cute, too. Giz would marry her someday. "Some day we'll settle down, 
buy a little restaurant and raise chickens and kids." Some day Detroit will be 
inhabited by countless Gizmoes, each with sandy hair, a pushed-up nose, and 
a walk like a lazy Southern darky. 

Giz was a liberty hound. He would hit the beach as long as his health 
held out. If he were restricted, he would go over the fence. If he had the duty, 
he would go over the fence. Sometimes he'd even go over the fence just for 
the exercise. Going through the gate meant squaring your hat and rolling 
down your cuffs. "I'll be damned if I'll square up for any seaman deuce," 
came often from his lips. 

Because of his liberty hound tendencies. Giz was always tired. Usually 
he'd average about twenty hours of sleep during the week. As a result, he 
missed many musters and slept through most of his watches. His fabulous 
luck saved him from serious consequences, but he could seldom dodge re- 
strictions. He would naturally resent authority as long as he was restricted. 
It was a vicious circle. 

Giz was a disciple of Walt Whitman, only he didn't realize it. He believed 
instinctively in the strong bond of comradeship, the constant worth of good 
men. the spontaneous practice of one's beliefs. He was never educated. What 
he learned he learned from life and experience; for philosophy as a study 
was unknown to him. His convictions were from the heart. He loathed decep- 
tion and intrigue. He was outspoken and often rude, but his thoughts were 
never hidden. There was no latent hatred in Giz, for his reactions were on 
the surface, like those of children. 

Yes, he was like a child in many ways — a grown, experienced, tired 
child. His actions were a strange combination of child-like enthusiasm and 
adult determination. He had adult desires, but satisfied them with the spirit 
of a child. His cursing, vulgar mannerisms and displays of wisdom were only 
a result of experience in a rough life. His spirit remained as uninhibited as 
that of a child. 



36 The Green Caldron 

New Year s Eve in the Army 



M' 



Richard Kasten 
Rhetoric I, Theme 2, 1946-1947 

Y FIRST NEW YEAR'S EVE IN THE ARMY WAS JUST 
another night of duty for me. Two months before, I had graduated 
from an army technical school with high hopes of becoming a 
useful soldier. Now, the day before New Year's, I was a yardbird. There 
were too many radiomen in the army; so I shovelled snow, sprinkled walks 
with ashes, and knocked off icicles that hung over officers' entrances. Now, 
New Year's Eve, I was a night fireman in a camp in North Carolina. My 
job required me to keep three stoves in squadron headquarters fired all 
night. I went on duty at 5:00 p.m. 

I had the Charge of Quarters and the Officer of the Day for company. 
At 5:15 the C. Q. told me to wake him up at three o'clock in the morning 
and then went to sleep at the desk. The O. D. said he was tired, and he 
ordered me to make the bed that was in the commanding officer's office. 
He, too, was soon asleep. Fine company ! 

I poured some coal in the stove and watched the fire spring to life. It 
was warm, and I felt cheerful for a moment. I closed the stove. The silence 
of the vast room with its sleeping men produced a chill which the fire could 
not disperse. A feeling of lonesomeness and the uselessness of life at the 
moment caused a depression which the warm fire could not comfort. I 
decided to read a book. 

Long and dreary hours passed. Suddenly two M. P.'s and a drunken 
soldier noisily entered. The drunk was left with me for disposal. He was so 
weak on his feet that a person could have knocked him over with a feather. 
In fact, it was Three Feathers that finally bowled him over — a whole quart 
of it. He cursed and kept saying, "The army is no good for nobody." I 
agreed with him and helped him to his barracks. I made his bed, and he 
plopped backwards onto it. As I tucked him in, he gave me a silly grin of 
comfort for my trouble. 

At 11:00 the phone rang. It was a soldier who had gone to South 
Carolina on a three-day pass. He wanted to know if there was a telegram 
for him. There was. It said, "Divorce granted yesterday. Emma." The 
soldier thanked me. 

At midnight I drank a coke from the coke-machine and said, "Happy 
New Year." Then I put more coal on the fire. 

I read again but couldn't concentrate on the book; so I wrote a letter 
to a girl friend in Wisconsin and told her how much her letters inspired me. 

At 3:00 I woke the C. Q. and helped him wake the K. P.'s. He rolled 
them out of bed and said, "Happy New Year! You're on K. P.!" 



March, 1947 37 

At 3:30 I woke the relief for the airplane guard. At 4:30 the airplane 
guard phoned from the hangar to inquire where his relief was. I woke the 
relief again and said, "You must have dropped over on your back and gone 
right to sleep." 

"Yeah, I must have," he said, yawning. 

At 7:00 my relief came. As I walked home, I passed several bluebirds 
chirping cheerfully. It was New Year's Day. 



The Infantryman 

Neil Hebeisen 
Elgin Branch, Rhetoric I, Theme 5, 1946-1947 



ripiHIS IS THE INFANTRYMAN, DOGFACE, GRAVEL- 

I grinder, or just plain Joe. He's been called everything and doesn't 
"^ seem to mind it. He's no beauty and doesn't qualify as a Hollywood 
hero. Lines etch his face and circles rim his weary eyes. Clothes hang 
dejectedly from his slcjuching frame. Their mud, wrinkles, and smell match 
his dirty, unkempt body. His is no Hashing smile. Instead dull tobacco-stained 
teeth peer out from the recess of his mouth. His face and neck bristle with 
month-old whiskers. 

His courage is not that of the heroes of fiction, for he is not a hero. 
He wants to go home, and heroes have an uncomfortable habit of ending 
up in a mattress cover. His courage is the dogged relentless type that carries 
him forward when every fiber of his l)eing tells him to hold back. It keeps 
him going after his legs have become leaden and his body feels as though 
the blood has been drained from it. 

He is a fatalist. "Wonder if I'll get hit?" is not his question. "I wonder 
when I'll get it and how bad?" is his thought. 

He is not a crusader. His is not a fight to save democracy. It's a fight 
to knock the other guy out so that he can get home. 

His greatest ally is his sense of humor, the adrenalin to the weakly 
beating heart of morale. Setting a machine gun upon a bar and dividing 
his time fighting and drinking are not tactics, but they make war more 
pleasant. Taking a jaunt through a sniper-infested town on a bicycle is 
foolhardy, but it touches his ludicrous sense of humor. "Die laughing" is 
quite a literal expression to him. 

He is first, last, and always an infantryman; yet he spends most of his 
spare time cussing his damned luck for getting him in the god-damned 
infantry. Don't make the mistake of agreeing with him. He allows no one 
the privilege of knocking his outfit unless he belongs. 



38 T^he Green Caldron 

Death 

Ted Kendrick 
Rhetoric I, Theme 3, 1946-1947 

HIMMERING VAPORS HUNG OVER THE CORAL AIR STRIP 
and danced in the light breeze. Bronzed men moved mechanically in 
search of shade in the empty parking areas. Trucks rested quietly in 
their motionless sleep while their drivers blew smoke from their cigarettes 
into the air. Shattered palm trees relaxed their shaggy branches and sighed 
softly. 

A wary land crab shuttled across a patch of sand. The squadron mascot 
watched but decided against the useless chase. 

Minutes and hours passed and the breeze vanished. The men shifted 
restlessly and strained to hear the drone of returning planes. The sleek 
mascot rose and stretched halfheartedly. He strolled among the ground 
crews but received no compliments. Cigarettes were thrown away half 
smoked. 

Like the rapping of a door knocker on a deserted street, a call came over 
the control tower radio. A low pitched voice reported the positions of the 
returning planes. Men stood up, painstakingly brushing imaginary dust from 
their soiled breeches. As if for common comfort, they banded together in 
small groups. There was no oral conversation. Faces and hands talked to- 
gether and were understood. 

Heads were jerked in the direction of the control tower as another voice 
began to talk. It was an urgent, rapid message; a ship had been wounded and 
needed help. The message was repeated over and over until the voice ceased, 
as if realizing that it was giving no new information. 

Men nodded to one another and relaxed as the faint moan of engines came 
to their ears. The control tower gave landing instructions and then hesitated 
as if wanting to give more help to the planes. 

Ground crews walked like robots to vantage points along the landing 
strip. Drivers checked and re-checked their trucks' motors. Men suddenly 
found their foreheads covered with small beads of sweat. They told one 
another it was the sun. They lied, and everyone knew it. Fire fighting crews 
donned their equipment and climbed to their places with hands gripping the 
hot steel of the trucks. 

Four B-24's suddenly were in view. Their engines became louder and 
louder until the island seemed to vibrate under their crescendo. Men stood 
transfixed, squinting their eyes in painstaking effort to notice something 
wrong. 

There was no circling of the air strip. The first bomber lowered its wheels. 



March, 1947 39 

It hovered for a moment over the coral and then relaxed. Tv^o distinct 
screams of the tortured wheels, together with a swirl of dust and smoke, 
testified that the plane had landed. 

Men ran to the ship, eagerly asking for news of the raid — and their 
ships. Each crew asked and was satisfied but one. This crew was grimly 
silent as it walked back to its station. 

The air was now filled with the roaring of planes. The control tower 
became an incessant stream of orders and directions. Planes landed close 
behind one another and taxied to their parking areas as if chasing each other. 
The air became a yellow cloud of dust as the slipstreams tore loose particles 
from the coral. Trucks and jeeps sped along the taxi strips like frenzied ants. 

Now all the planes were down, except one. As a prelude, the wind sud- 
denly rose and cleared the landing area of dust. All eyes were focused on 
the distant ship. A small stream of smoke was following the two starboard 
engines. Xo wheels were lowered and no parachutes flecked the sky. 
The entire crew was riding its ship in. 

The motor of the makeshift ambulance grumbled and came to life. 
The tense driver licked his dry lips as he discovered the ship had no landing 
gear in position. 

.Still the plane kept comiiii^ and loniiiii; and the smoke grew darker and 
small llames lapped at the windmilling props of the two engines. The entire 
right side was obscured as the ship came over the edge of the runway. 

It seemed to hang in the air as if steeling itself for the coming crash. 
Props grasped at the air as engines coughed. Slowly, reluctantly, the ship 
settled to the strip as if beaten and awaiting further punishment. Agonized 
screams pierced the air as metal and coral grated together. Dust clouds 
billowed up from beneath. Smoke mingled in the dust to enclose all but the 
nose and wings. Suddenly the tail veered up and the ship fell over on its back. 
A huge mass of orange flame enveloped the wreckage. Tongues of fire 
reached for the sky and sent swirling clouds of black smoke reeling through 
the air. 

Like a beast that has satisfied his hunger, the flames died, to leave a 
charred skeleton of a once sleek bomber. Men stared, but saw nothing. They 
moved, but did not know it. 

The land crab shuttled back across the patch of sand. The mascot 
watched, but did not chase it. 

Mac Awakens 

When "Mac" awakened in the morning, or, more often, in the afternoon, he 
would not rise in the same manner as you and I might. He would open both eyes 
very slowly, gasp weakly, and say, "Cigarette !" He immediately had a cigarette 
thrust into his mouth. After he finished smoking, and he felt strength flowing 
back into his system, he would say, "Beer !" — Melvin F. Ehrenreich 



40 The Green Caldron 

Rhet as Writ 

Daffynitions : 

Bibliography — a list of references from which a piece of Rhetoric 

has been taken. 
Who's Who — tells about every famous man all over. 



• • 



Because his personality is a greater part of him, it should be intermingled 
with a humorous side and a serious side, and used with desecration. 



He was a true gentleman with maternal instincts. 



• • • 



I could neither see the machine gun nor reach out and touch it, although 
it was only about fifteen yards away. 



• • • 



Dancing not only develops coordination but also encourages an instinc- 
tive attitude toward the opposite sex. 



• • 



If this fad keeps increasing at the present rate, the language, in time, will 
be forgotten and man will be as unspeakable as a baby. 



• • • • 



The obstacle that affronts me is how to get my wife out of bed. 

• • • • 

He is tall for a white-haired man of his age. 



• • 



The danger had passed, and so I settled back to enjoy the wind and 
weather, but not my wife. 



• • • • 



Polonius was a perfect character for the part [in Hamlet]. 



Honorable Mention 

Beverly Asplund — I Smell Zack 

Carla J. Bond — Deadline 

John J. Carroll — The Turn of the Screw by Henry James 

Delores Davidson — Quiz Programs 

Robert Hallock — A Grandson Comments on His Grandfather 

R. O. Hoffman — Displaying Prize Hogs 

Marjorie Martin — Childhood in a Village 

Ellen Meyer — I Am an American 

Marion Obermeyer — The Town Where I Was Born 

M. A. Poole, Jr. — Lusty Wind for Carolina by Inglis Fletcher 

Edward Singer — The Civilian Conservation Corps 

William Skorburg — Atomic Energy in the Coming Era 

James Skufakiss — A Reporter — Harold Cross 

Don Thurow — Migrations of the Maya 

Rodolfo D. Vergara — Antarctic Episode 



HE Green Caldron 

A Magazine of Freshman Writing I 

THELI8HA«Y0FTHE \ 

1 

^PR 1 1 1947 ; 

UKIVUSITT OF ILLmolS 
Rodolfo D. Vergara: Antarctic Episode 1 1 

John Sterner: The President Was Our Passenger 4 

Duane S. Dunlap: Tarnish 8 

M. Alan Poole, Jr.: On Thank- You Notes 9 

Carl G. Uchtmann: The Teapot Dome Affair 11 

Ellen Meyer: I Am an American 17 

John J. Carroll: The Turn of the Screw By Henry James ... 18 

Douglas Dales: For Whom the Bell Tolls 

By Ernest Hemingway 20 

Ethel N. Brown: Lamaism 22 

Robert Glass: The Oil Slick 26 

Jack E. Greyer: Undeniable Facts 27 

Paul M. Somers: No Middleman? 29 

Walter Rust: The Last Try 30 

William M. Morris: Another World 31 

Willard Schneider: Open Mouth — Empty Head 33 

Thomas S. Pool: Overshoes 34 

Margaret Stubbs: Four to Five Sunday Morning 35 

James A. Chapman: China Afternoon 36 

Carl W. Lee: If Babbitt Were Alive During World War II . . 37 

Rhet as Writ 40 



VOL. 16, NO. 4 APRIL, 1947 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



JL HE Green Calx)RON is published four times a year by the 
Rhetoric Staff at the University of lUinois. Material is chosen 
from themes and examinations written by freshmen in the Uni- 
versity including the Navy Pier and Galesburg divisions, and 
the high school branches. Permission to publish is obtained for all 
full themes, including those published anonymously. Parts of 
themes, however, are published at the discretion of the committee 
in charge. 

The committee m charge of this issue of The Green Caldron 
includes Miss Constance Nicholas and Messrs. Robert Geist, 
Edwin Robbins, and George Scouffas, Chairman. 

The Green Caldron is for sale at the Illini Union Bookstore, 
Champaign, Illinois. 



THE GREEN CALDRON 

copyrighted 1947 
BY CHAS. W. ROBERTS 
All rights reserved 
No parts of this periodical may be repro- 
duced in any form without permission 
in writing from the publisher. 



Antarctic Episode 

RoDOLFo D. Vergara 
Rhetoric I, Theme 3, 1946-1947 

RECENTLY, FROM THE PERSONAL FILES OF THE LATE 
English naval historian, Sir William Earl Winthrop, an amazing 
- story was uncovered, concerning a hitherto unknown saga of ad- 
venture and discovery. I refer to the discovery and subsequent destruction 
of New Worthshire Isle. Why this tale has been concealed is not clear; never- 
theless, the following events occurred. 

It was less than half a year after the renowned Captain Cooke had cast 
oflF on a voyage of discovery, his first, that a new squadron of the Royal 
Navy weighed anchor in Portsmouth harbor and put out to sea to take up 
the duties of patrolling the waters of the South Atlantic. Of the ships com- 
prising the squadron, the eighteen-gun sloop-of-war Worthshire must be 
singled out, for she played an important role in this tale. She was the smallest 
member of the group, and on this voyage her complement consisted of sixty- 
two officers and men under the command of Captain Oliver Truxton. 

The Worthshire's patrolling area was the waters between the Falklands 
and Patagonia. Sea duty as such was not exciting except, perhaps, in the 
weathering of occasionally severe squalls and sea storms. Nothing extraordi- 
nary' occurred until the end of the seventh month of patrol duty. It all began 
when a very violent storm struck the area with lightning-like rapidity. Ac- 
cording to Truxton's account, the storm raged for three days and the 
Worthshire was buflfeted severely. On the first day the tops of the main and 
fore masts were lost. The second day witnessed the disastrous loss of the 
foremast and fourteen lives. By the third day little rigging remained and the 
steering gear was almost ineffective. Thus, when the gale subsided, the once 
proud ship Worthshire was nothing more than a battered and leaking hulk, 
drifting like a derelict into the colder waters of the extreme south latitudes. 

After an intensive search by the other ships of the squadron resulted 
only in the recovery of the Worthshire's foremast, she was reported as a 
total loss with all on board. 

As the ship drifted farther south, the shock of the sudden exposure to 
the icy gales of the Antarctic added heavily to the hardships of the already 
exhausted crew. The spirits of the men rose, however, on the third day of 
their wandering when the familiar cr}' of "Land ho!" was sounded. Snow 
capped peaks indicated land as the ship nosed its way into a shroud of mist. 
It seems that Truxton noticed a trend of warmer temperature as the ship 

[ 1 ] 



2 The Green Caldron 

continued to drift, but the paradoxical phenomenon remained unexplained 
until the ship suddenly pushed its prow through the misty veil and out into 
the open. 

Imagine the crew's surprise and bewilderment, and the officers' no less, 
at the sight they beheld. For although there before them lay a barren land of 
snowy mountains, at the edge dead ahead of the ship rose an island of steam- 
ing jungle vegetation. Truxton's description was: "It [the island] was a mile 
long, and as we came around, we noted it to be one-half mile wide uniformly 
and that evidently a type of narrow land bridge connected the island to the 
mainland. Also, I noticed an overhanging cliff of ice of great size at the main- 
land's edge. The island itself was almost totally covered with vegetation 
of the type abounding in South America. Steam or vapor emanated from 
parts of the island with an unusual concentration at one end." 

Recovering his practical senses and reaching a quick decision. Captain 
Truxton ordered his remaining forty-eight crewmen to prepare for disem- 
barkment. The three serviceable long-boats were loaded with available pro- 
visions and firearms and twelve men each. The remaining thirteen lowered 
the boats away and stood by for the return of one of them. Disaster made its 
presence known again when a cry of alarm echoed from the Worthshire as 
the small boats neared shore. To the horror of the men, the Worthshire 
began to founder. Before a long-boat could reverse direction, the ship keeled 
over and capsized. It disappeared almost immediately, carrying eleven men 
with her; the two thrown clear were rescued. 

Upon landing, Truxton assembled his men, uttered a prayer of thanks- 
giving, and claimed the new domain for His Majesty the King of England. 
With unanimous consent the island was named New Worthshire Isle. Trux- 
ton then reorganized the men with calm deliberation; a camp was estab- 
lished and two scouting parties were sent out to explore the island. Upon 
return, they reported that no signs of human or animal life were evident; 
and one party reported strange pungent vapors rising from the largest ofj 
several cracks in the ground at one end of the island. This confirmed Trux-j 
ton's theory that New Worthshire Isle was volcanic, thus partially explaining 
the unusual situation. 

As the men partook of the day's last meal, a slight tremor in the grounc 
gave rise to speculation. Other tremors hours later gave rise to fears. Th( 
experienced Truxton recognized the warning of an impending earthquake.] 
Rousing the camp, he explained the possibility of new danger and proposec 
that they should find the land bridge and camp near there; in that wa] 
escape to the mainland would be at hand if anything happened. It was still 
night when they arrived at the bridge. The tremors were by now literall] 
shaking the island in its foundations. Truxton did not hesitate to give th€ 
order to cross; he at once led the single file in orderly retreat to the mainlands 



April, 1947 3 

A sudden explosion from the far end of the island scattered dust, rock, 
and vegetation into the air. A second explosion redoubled the efforts of the 
men to hasten the crossing of the narrow and rocky bridge. The party was 
midway across the half mile natural span when a third explosion kindled 
the island "afire" and caused the surrounding waters to boil. Particles of suf- 
focating ash filled the air, hampering the progress of the file. A series of ex- 
plosive outbursts rocked the island; and, as the men in the rear looked back, 
they saw that the isle had begun to sink. The scale of life and death tipped 
negatively again, for near the middle of the fleeing column the bridge was 
cleft in two, leaving a rapidly widening gap. The eighteen exhausted men 
trapped on the island side remained stunned until they were encouraged 
to swim the gap. All to a man made an attempt but only four succeeded; 
some of those who regained the stranded section of the bridge were last seen 
weeping. The remaining two dozen had yet to gain the solid rock of the main- 
land. Truxton urged the men to hurry lest their section of the bridge col- 
lapse; just as they were scaling the slope of the mainland, it did disappear 
below the waters. The sinking island was a burning inferno; and, when it 
was engulfed by the waters of the sea, it left a seething mass of steam and 
brimstone. To add to the clouds of gases, a ledge of ice had been shaken 
loose from the mainland and had caromed into the sea. 

The survivors gathered at the top of an ice covered hill to watch the 
dramatic ending of New Worthshire Isle. They watched silently as the debris 
settled and the roaring sounds dissijiated. Dawn began to streak the horizon, 
and there was silhouetted a ship ! As it drew closer, her colors identified her 
as a Portuguese merchantman; evidently it had been attracted by nature's 
recent pyrotechnical display. The survivors' wild gestures were answered 
by a cannon shot and the lowering of a boat to pick them up. 

Once aboard. Captain Truxton identified himself and his men. The 
merchantman was bound for England via Portugal, but was willing to land 
them at the Falklands. Truxton requested that he and his first mate be 
landed there but that the rest proceed directly to England. The request was 
duly carried out. 

Tragedy overtook the group once more. While plowing the middle of the 
Atlantic, the Portuguese ship was torn asunder in the wake of a freak storm. 
Details of the calamity are obscure, but it may be assumed that there were 
no survivors, at least not from the Worthshire group. 

Truxton and his first mate had related their tale to the naval commandant 
of the Falklands. but when they heard the fate of their mates, they pleaded 
with the commandant to keep their fantastic experiences a secret. Evidently 
the three did keep the secret to their dying days. It was Truxton who gave 
a deathbed account to Sir William. 



The Green Caldron 



The President Was Our Passenger 



np' 



John Sterner 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1946-1947 

Jnr^HE U. S. S. AUGUSTA IS ONE OF THE OLDEST HEAVY 
cruisers in our naval service. Her career has carried her through 
thousands of tons of water, and has filled her log with events to 
which the people of our country can look with pride. In thirteen years of 
service, the "Augie" has been the flagship of the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, 
the scene of the signing of the Atlantic Charter, a participant in the in- 
vasions of North Africa, Normandy, and Southern France, and, lastly, a 
prime factor in the "Big Three" meeting at Potsdam. 

Prior to July 7, 1945, the crew of the Augusta were not aware of their 
importance to their country in coming events. We had left Norfolk, Virginia, 
on the first day of the month and were now operating in Chesapeake Bay 
with an occasional "run" to the Atlantic Ocean for firing practice. From 
the radio reports we learned that a trip to Europe by the President was 
pending, but there was no suspicion concerning his mode of travel — no 
one knew. 

Numerous times I asked my division officer if he had been informed of 
our operations to come, for it was customary for the officers to tell their 
men of future trips. But now the "gold braid" seemed to be unable to advise 
us what our future would bring. I was told that we were to pass this week 
in firing much of our wartime ammunition, for the naval dumps were too 
overstocked to accept it. This explanation sounded reasonable to me and to 
the other gunner's mates. The fact that a ship's order was issued to the 
effect that we were to repaint much of the ship and scrape the paint from 
brass fixtures was regarded as a typical sign of a peacetime navy. 

On July 6, 1945, the Augusta sailed up the James River and moored 
alongside an army embarkation pier at Newport News, Virginia. Shortly 
afterward, working parties began to bring a large quantity of supplies 
aboard. A naval vessel's mooring alongside an army pier and beginning to 
take supplies aboard was cause for much "scuttlebutt." Another cause for 
much speculation was the changing of the working "uniform of the day" 
from dungarees to whites. The enforcement of naval regulations regarding 
this naval dress warned us that we were preparing for something "big." 
Later, the afternoon newspaper confirmed this suspicion by announcing that 
the President was to leave the country soon. Our officers immediately 
informed us of their precious secret. 

The ship's "plan of the day" for Saturday, July 7, emphasized that clean 
white-dress uniforms, clean white hats, and shined shoes would be the 



April, 1947 5 

uniform until further notice. When I was awakened at four o'clock in the 
morning, I dressed according to this order, downed a hastily eaten "chow," 
and fell into place in my division's ranks on the "well deck," which was to 
be the scene of the boarding of the Augusta by the Presidential party. The 
stage was set in a fervor of excitement and anxiety. The brass gleamed in 
the morning light; the deck showed the severe scrubbings we had given it; 
the marine detachment was formed abreast of the gangway; the senior 
officers, dressed in navy blues adorned with conspicuous rows of campaign 
ribbons, were assembled near-by, and my own and another division occupied 
the port and starboard sides of the "well deck." Preparations were complete 
for rendering full honors to Mr. Truman and his party. 

Ap[)roximately thirty minutes later, the Presidential train came to a 
stop on the enclosed pier. As the boatswain's pipe trilled and the officers 
and men raised their hands in salute, Mr. Truman. Mr. Byrnes, and several 
military aides climbed the gangway and descended upon the gray deck of 
an honored ship. After being welcomed aboard by the Captain and other 
senior officers, the party proceeded through a hatch leading to the officers' 
wardroom. Secret service men, newspapermen, and cameramen completed 
the procession aboard the Augusta. 

Immediately the divisions concerned hoisted the gangway aboard, cast 
off the mooring lines, and carried out the other tasks for getting under way. 
All divisions "above decks" stood at attention as we left Newport News 
and sailed down the Bay toward the Atlantic Ocean. The U. S. S. Phila- 
delphia, which had won renown as the "galloping ghost of the Sicilian 
Coast" during the war, departed from Norfolk and took the lead position 
in our two-shij) task force. She tlew the flag of Admiral Hughes, the com- 
mander of this Presidential task force. 

It was iKJt until the third day after departure from the States that the 
American people were informed of President Truman's presence aboard 
the Augusta. Knowing my father's staunch Republican attitude, I pictured 
a hurt expression on his face as he heard that the President was on the 
same ship as his son. Rut when the first mail arrived aboard the ship at the 
end of our journey, I discovered that my father was proud to learn that 
the President was on the Augusta. 

Our transatlantic voyage was completed in seven days; but in that short 
time, the crew discovered that a President need not be a snob. On two 
occasions Mr. Truman dined with us. I must admit that when he dined with 
the enlisted men, I enjoyed the most delicious navy "chow" that I had eaten 
while in service. Seated at a table which was surrounded by members of 
the crew. President Truman was very informal, talkative, and seemed 
pleased to eat a "gob's" baked ham dinner. 



6 The Green Caldron 

Another event of the trip which warmed the hearts of eight hundred 
enlisted men took place shortly after we had left Chesapeake Bay. Our 
commander-in-chief appeared on deck wearing a recently issued white hat, 
which is symbolic of all "swabbies." He wore the hat in the same manner as 
do most "boots," who are never informed as to how to put a "salty shape" 
in their hats. 

A personal experience, which I shall never forget, happened on the 
fourth day of our voyage. Early one morning while I was busily shining 
the brass fixtures on my gun mount, I noticed that Mr. Truman was enjoying 
his daily walk on the other side of the ship. As he walked athwart the ship 
and approached my mount, I came to attention, saluted, and nervously 
exhaled, "Good morning, Mr. President." The President returned the salute 
and replied, "How are you, son?" and continued his walk. 

Except when the President was out on deck before breakfast, one or 
more secret service men were with him constantly. His personal bodyguard 
was six feet tall, weighed two hundred and thirty pounds, could fire a pistol 
with either hand, was a master at judo, and had a very persuasive way 
about him. It is said that the President must always consult a secret service 
man before he travels an}^vhere. From my observations during the trip, 
I believe this statement to be true. 

The Augusta was approaching foreign shores, general quarters was 
sounded, and we displayed our wartime efficienc)^ to the Presidential party. 
All of the gun batteries were fired according to their size, from the eight- 
inch main battery down to the twenty-millimeter antiaircraft guns. When 
the firing was completed, the party inspected the ship and were informed of 
the various acts performed in preparing the ship for battle. As expected, 
Mr. Truman stopped several times in order to speak with the members of 
the gun crews. 

The following morning I came "topside" and discovered that we had 
entered the English Channel during the night. My thoughts drifted back to 
a year before, when the Augusta had last traversed the Channel. That had 
been during the landings in Normandy, when this same Channel had 
swarmed with boats and ships of all descriptions. We had been on a 
mission of war then, but now we were transporting our President to Europe 
to determine the policies of peace. 

In the late afternoon we passed through the Straits of Dover with their 
high, sheer white cliflfs revealed in all their splendor by the beautiful glow 
of sunset. Seven British destroyers and one cruiser joined our task force 
at this time. While the divisions of the Augusta and the Philadelphia stood 
at attention, the Britishers passed in review before the President of the 
United States. They formed an escort to port and to starboard as if to say, 
"We are beside you in war; we shall remain beside you in peace." 



April, 1947 7 

The morning of July 14, 1945, found our escorted task force at the 
mouth of the Sheldt River, which flows between the two Low Countries. 
During the voyage our destination had not been disclosed to us, for our 
officers had kept another secret very well. Many of the crew had believed 
that we were to take the President to German soil, but tliis belief was 
dissijjated when we saw Dutch windmills "to port." The small, neat, green 
farms and doll-like farmhouses of Holland and Belgium reflected the 
beauty of sunrise this cool morning. As the people of these two countries 
cheered and waved to us, I thought of the many times in the past when 
they had never known what concjuering nation would be the next to sail 
up the Scheldt River. 

When we approached a narrowing of the river, our escort turned about 
and steamed by us on their way back to the Channel. As each ship passed 
by, her men stood at attention and shouted a loud "Hip, hip, hooray," in 
tribute to President Truman. 

At noon the Au<justa and the Philadelphia moored alongside a long 
concrete dock in Antwerp, Belgium. The waterfront building lay in shambles 
from the intense rocket bombardment inflicted by the Germans at the close 
of the war. Xo other port city in Europe was more devastated than Antwerp. 
The city itself was bombed in scattered places while the docks and adjacent 
streets were thoroughly gutted. 

The army military police prevented the townspeople from swarming onto 
the dock, but army and naval officers, diplomats, and other distinguished 
persons were there to give the Presidential party a warm reception. We once 
again rendered full honors to Mr. Truman as he left the ship and walked 
down the gangway. He was greeted by the American ambassador to Belgium 
and General Eisenhower, who promptly escorted him to a waiting limousine. 

Fifteen cars formed a procession which crawled from the dock into the 
streets of Antwerp. As President Truman passed by us. he waved to a 
proud crew, and with him went a silent prayer for his success in laying the 
foundation for a lasting peace while at this Potsdam Conference in Germany. 



Battlefield 

.-\ battlefield is the most unattractive plot of land on earth. It is desolate, it is 
dirty, and it smells, yet men pay the price of blood and death to obtain it. At times 
it is quiet, quiet as a church on Monday morning. These are the times the nerves 
take over. What happened? What are they waiting for? Why don't they do 
something? What are they attempting? W^hen is it going to come? It contains 
the cries of men that are hit, asking for help, pleading for someone to put them 
out of their misery, someone to deliver them from this hell. The noise comes 
just before dawn and right after the sun goes down: one as a "Good-Morning," 
the other as a "Good-Nieht kiss." — Anonymous 



T 



The Green Caldron 

Tarnish 

DUANE S. DUNLAP 

Rhetoric II, Theme 15, 1946-1947 

BRIGHT, NEW SECOND LIEUTENANTS 
sauntered out of the auditorium and started puffing defiantly on two 
-^ hundred cigarettes. "Thou shalt not smoke out of doors" had been 
one of the ten commandments during cadet days, but all of that was over 
now that those gleaming gold bars had been pinned on our shoulders. For 
the past eight months we had dreamed of the day when the glint of gold bars 
would add to the sunshine of glorious graduation day. No more would we 
stand retreat in sweat soaked OD's or march to the mess hall and PX in 
formation. This was the fulfillment of the promise that had kept us going in 
classes, on PT and drill fields, and over obstacle courses. We were to be 
scorned no longer by PFC's, three-stripers, and "zebras." We had indeed 
arrived. 

I didn't take much time to pack that day. I was eager to be on the train 
heading for home, where I could count on much back-slapping from my 
parents and friends. I dashed as madly as my bulging B-4 bag would allow 
me to the railroad station to be first in line for train tickets. After several 
hours in line, I stood facing a tech sergeant who looked at me through the 
bars of the ticket cage and said, "You gotta name, Lootenunt?" I was sure 
I had; so I told him what it was. 

"You got seat nine, car thirty-two on the Pennsylvania Railroad, Loo- 
tenunt — sign here." 

"Wait a minute, sergeant," I said with dignity. "It's a long way to Chi- 
cago. Isn't it a Pullman?" 

"This may strike you as being rather peculiar, Lootenunt, but you also 
got a berth on a Pullman on the New York Central. It seems you sleep in the 
Pullman and ride during the day in a coach on another railroad. Hasn't any- 
body ever told you how to make out a transportation request ?" 

Was this why I had slaved for such a long time? Here I was being 
bawled out by a sergeant for making a perfectly human mistake in filling out 
a form. The chips were down. The prestige of my entire graduating class 
was at stake. I could- feel the eyes of my fellow graduates on the back of my 
neck. A hush fell and tension mounted as I prepared to make a quick come- 
back which would cut this insolent enlisted man down to size. "Yes Sir," I 
said softly. 

As I sat on my B-4 bag, waiting for the sergeant to come back from 
lunch, I brooded. He had told me to wait until he had eaten lunch before he 
would straighten out my ticket. I could still see the disappointed faces of my 



April, 1947 9 

former friends as they walked past me on the way to their trains. I didn't 
blame them. I hated myself. My day was no longer bright and filled with 
sunshine. A cloud covered the sky, and the sound of rain on the tin roof 
of the railroad station mingled with the lonely whistle of the train far in the 
distance. 

On Thank -You Notes 

M. Alan Poole, Jr. 
Galesburg Division, Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1946-1947 

1ETTER WRITING HAS ALWAYS BEEN A THING OF PAS- 
sion with me — I passionately avoid it whenever possible. I don't 
'^ really mind letters in general, but the writing of thank-you notes 
always leaves me in a complete state of frustration. They invariably go 
something like this: 
"Dear Aunt Bess, 

Thank you so very much for the jade shoehorn you sent me for Christmas. 
I think of all of you whenever I put on my shoes." 

No. that will never do. She'll probably get the idea that 1 think lier gift 
smells. I gues.s 1 had better say: 

"It reminds mc so much of my stay in China while I was in the Navy." 

That's a little better, I guess, but I'd better be careful. She always was 
rather sensitive — she might get the idea that I wish I were back in China, 
where her offering might have been lost before it got to me. I suppose it's 
best just to thank her for it and then continue with the news. 

News. News? There isn't any news, but I'll have to write her at least 
two pages. Ah, I have it ! 

"Someone stole the right front headlight off the car the other night while 
Dad was at work. It may sound funny, but Dad said that it was hard to drive 
the car only half lit up." 

Oh. oh ! I'll bet sure as heck she'll think that Dad was half tight. I guess 
I'd better change that to: 

"Someone stole one of the headlights from the car while Dad was at work 
the other night, so now we can't see where we're going so well at night." 

That's rather stupid, isn't it ? No one can see as well in the night. Besides, 
I don't suppose she cares whether we have any headlights or not. Anybody 
that would give somebody a jade shoehorn — imitation, at that. News. 
News. News: 

"We aren't doing anything around here. I did fall off the ladder the other 
day, but it didn't amount to much." 

No ! I certainly won't give her the satisfaction of agreeing with me there. 



10 The Green Caldron 

And the first part will just bear out her suspicions that we're lazy, so that 
will have to go. Hmmmmm. . . . 

"I haven't much to tell you in the way of news, as I've really been too busy 
to hear any." 

Whew! Not bad, if I do say so myself. She won't believe it, but it was 
still a good idea. I'll have to tell her something. About what would she like 
to hear? About school, of course: 

"We got our midsemester grades a couple of weeks ago, and they didn't look 
so bad. They grade on a five point system here. Five points is an A, four points 
is a B, three points is a C, and so on. I came out with a 4.67 average, so I feel 
pretty good." 

Perhaps it might be better to withhold the grades until the end of the se- 
mester. Then I'll know for sure, and she'll want to know too. If the finals are 
better than the midsemester grades, she will say that we can never improve 
ourselves. If they are worse, she'll feel convinced that I'm "just another 
flash-in-the-pan Poole." I know I can't win, but she couldn't see a white flag 
anyway, so 

"I can hardly wait until this semester's over so that I can get an idea how 
I stand in the eyes of the college instructors as to mental ability." 

Find something wrong with that if you can. She could — she'd say that I 
was depending upon the opinion of my instructors for my grade. I'll just 
have to forget about school, I guess. News — I wonder, do you suppose she 
would — oh well, I'll try it. No, I'd better not. I don't want to embarrass 
her by telling her what my friends gave me. She would be interested in what 
we did over the Christmas holidays, I bet. On second thought, however, 
Mother has already told her all about what the family did, collectively, and 
I certainly can't tell her about that date on Christmas Eve. That wouldn't 
go over with much of a bang. She still clings to the idea that almost all of a 
child's time home should be spent at home. That may account for her preju- 
dices now. 

Whew ! Two hours and I still haven't said anything. This can't go on any 
longer. I suppose I could send it as is, but it'd never pass Mom's censorship. 
Of course, if she didn't see it — I might also suflfer for it next year. She'll 
most likely send me a hearth broom or something, but that's a chance I have 
to take. Anyhow, I don't have to start worrj'ing until next year. 

Here's hoping she doesn't say anything in her next letter to Mom: 
"Dear Aunt Bess, 

Thank you ever so much for the beautiful jade shoehorn you sent me for 
Christmas. It was really awfully nice of you to remember me. 

Sorry, but I'll have to study now — exams are coming up. I will give you 
the news in my next letter. 

Thanks again ; be sure to let us all know how you are. 

'Bye now, as always, 
Alan" 



April, 1947 \\ 

The Teapot Dome Affair 



T 



Carl G. Uchtmann 
Rhetoric II, Theme 11, 1946-1947 

fnr^HE TEAPOT DOME OIL SCANDAL INVOLVED SEVERAL 
high government officials and has sometimes been called one of the 
most sordid affairs in American political history. Today, as we follow 
such investigations as that concerning the late Senator Andrew May, and as 
we hear Senator Bilbo's protestation, "I didn't get a . . . dollar," we might 
well look back on the prosecution of the Teapot Dome case to remind our- 
selves of a few of the difficulties encountered in investigating and proving 
such crimes of fraud against the government. This Teapot Dome scandal, 
which was in the courts and the headlines of the nation's newspapers from 
June 5, 1925, until April 6, 1931, resulted in the conviction of only one man, 
who served nine months and eighteen days of a one-year sentence and was 
assessed a fine equal to only one of the bribes he was found to have accepted 
— the only punishment finally administered by our courts during seven 
years of indictments and prosecutions. 

The evidence, though well hidden, was conclusive. Sufficient proof was 
found to bring from the Supreme Court the statement that the most involved. 
Secretary of the Interior Fall, was a "faithless public officer," and that the 
transactions had been "conceived and executed in fraud and corruption,"^ 
although at the time they were consummated everything seemed completely 
legitimate. The investigation also found that high government officials had 
neglected to pay serious attention to the biggest transaction in the Depart- 
ment of the Interior in four or five years. Even during the trial many other 
instances of incompetence in high places were uncovered involving men who 
were responsible for i)rosecuting the case.^ 

The name given the affair was adopted from one of the naval oil reserves 
which were discovered to have been illegally leased to private corporations. 
These naval oil reserves had been set aside before 1916 by Presidents Taft 
and Wilson, who were impressed by the fact that battleships of the navy were 
turning more and more to oil and wanted to assure it a supply in the future. 
Congress had supported this action and put the control of the oil in the hands 
of the Secretary of the Navy. President Harding, without Congressional 
permission, had transferred the reserves to the Department of the Interior, 
under public lands. This he had done despite the objection of Admiral 

'"The Record Stands," Nezvsu'eek, 24 (December 11, 1944), 28. 

*Daiigherty, a judge in one of the trials, was questioned in Senate hearings and found 
guilty of accepting bribes and selling pardons. See "Daugherty, Aegis of Justice 
Literary Digest, 118 (March 26, 1924), 333. Also, "America Waking Up," Nation, 126 
(March 29, 1928), 337. 



j2 The Green Caldron 

Griffith, and others, who had protested and said that "we (the navy) might 
as well say good-by to our oil."^ 

The Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Fall, had proceeded promptly to 
"dispose" of these valuable oil reserves on the ground that wells outside the 
navy's reserves were threatening to drain away some of the navy's oil. 
Instead of consulting the proper authorities to learn whether the oil was ac- 
tually being lost, or asking for funds to take out the oil and put it into storage, 
Secretary Fall had leased the reserves, Number one, in Elk Hills, California, 
and Number two, the Teapot Dome reserve in Wyoming, to private com- 
panies for exploitation. This was how we had practically given away the oil 
reserves which had been set aside for public wealth and national security — 
practically given away, because these leases to private corporations were 
found to have been contracted without competitive bidding, to be highly 
favorable to the lessees, and to have been let to men who financially aided 
Secretary Fall and the administration with generous "loans." All this had 
transpired during the short months of the Harding administration with only 
a select few men in the inner circle knowing the details. The investigations 
disclosing the unfavorable terms and the fraud began only after Fall had 
resigned from his position as Secretary of the Interior to return to his 
ranch in New Mexico after having completed two years of apparently 
uneventful tenure.* 

The investigation was started as a result of a demand by Senator 
La Follette, Sr. that the leasing of the navy oil reserves to private companies 
be investigated. La Follette had also delivered an address condemning the 
leases at the time of the consummation of the contracts. But no interest was 
aroused at the time; neither was there much interest in the investigation 
until Secretary Fall was caught in a false statement about the source of 
$100,000 with which he repaired and enlarged his ranch. 

The many difficulties encountered in finding the truth about the affair 
are told by Senator T. J. Walsh, who headed the Senate investigating com- 
mittee.^ The first thing discovered by the committee was the total disregard 
of the plain provisions of law. Senator Walsh criticized the unusual pro- 
cedures followed in the transactions and the many steps taken by men 
unauthorized to take such actions.® A reporter's testimony led to a suspicion 
of Fall's sudden financial rise soon after he became Secretary of the Interior. 
Since Fall was reluctant to explain the source of the money to improve his 
ranch, he strengthened the suspicion of the investigators. 

Finally, in a letter to the investigating committee. Fall explained that he 
had borrowed the money ($100,000) from his friend McLean, a publisher in 

•C Mertz, "At the Bottom of the Oil Story," Century, 108 (May, 1924), 85. 

* "The Record Stands," loc. cit. 

•T. J. Walsh, "True History of Teapot Dome," Forum, 72 (July, 1924), 1-12. 

• Ibid., p. 3. 



April, 1947 13 

Washington." Unable to find proof of the "loan," Senator Walsh went to 
Florida to get the details from McLean; he was amazed to learn that McLean 
was not the source of the "loan." Fall was caught in a lie; newspapers 
grabbed the story, and the public interest grew with the promise of a 
scandal. It was soon discovered that the money had come from Doheny, who 
had leased one of the oil reserves through negotiations with Fall while he 
was Secretary of the Interior. 

Still, the investigation lacked proof and was hindered by lack of interest 
and by lack of support from government officials, who followed the policy of 
ignoring anything discreditable to the Republican Party. ^ and by a peculiar 
disappearance of witnesses. Evidence was vague, and witnesses were always 
failing to appear. Colonel Stewart, the head of the Standard Oil Company of 
Indiana, fled the country when summoned to the witness stand; the head of 
the Prairie Oil Comj^any, another Standard Oil concern, with two of his 
subordinates, resigned his office and went to France; and the head of a 
mysterious Canadian Oil Company, who had had part of his assets traced to 
Fall, fled to South America." The trials were often delayed by the absence 
of important witnesses who were usually on vacations in Florida or Cuba. 

Despite the many obstacles and the opposition of "big money" interests, 
the truth slowly came out. It was found that beside the $100,000 "loan" 
from Doheny in 1922, Fall had received $269,000^° from Harry Sinclair, 
the lessee of the other oil reserve." Statements were made during the course 
of the investigation by both Sinclair and Doheny. to the effect that each 
expected to make $100,000,000 from the development of these oil reserves.*^ 

It was found that Doheny had first contracted to build oil reserves for 
the navy on Honolulu. He had received this contract with a bid that was 
the lowest of three bids. His bid, however, had consisted of a double bid, the 
second about $235,000 less than the first but including a preference for all 
the leases in Naval Reserve No. 1. This led to his being given the leasing 
of the Teapot Dome Reserve without competitive bidding, with conditions 
under which he expected to make $100,000,000. The $100,000 loan had been 
passed to Fall at the time of the first contract to build the oil reserve tanks." 

All these transactions had taken place nearly two years before the affair 
was questioned. Even after conclusive evidence of bribery and fraud was 
finally found, the helplessness of the courts in prosecuting the case delayed 
action for years. Finally, in 1927, the Supreme Court did recover the prop- 

' "The Record Stands," loc. cit. 

'"Plutocracy and Corruption," New Republic, 54 (February 22, 1928), 5. 

•"Teapot Dome Innocence Discovered," Literary Digest, 86 (July 4, 1925), 15. 

"Other sources give $269,100 as the amount. 

" "Conviction of Albert B. Fall, Former Secretary of the Interior," Current Historv, 

31 (December 20, 1929), 574. " Mertz, loc. cit. 

" Raymond Clapper, "E)oheny and Fall Face Justice," Nation, (November 24, 1926), 525. 



14 The Green Caldron 

erty for the government.^* It decided that the payment constituted a fraud 
against the United States government and rendered void all contracts. 
President Harding's order that the reserves be transferred to the Depart- 
ment of the Interior v^as not considered constitutional, but above his power. 
Thus the navy did regain its oil reserves, and this first court decision fore- 
cast penal justice for Doheny, Sinclair, and Fall. 

So many different suits grevi^ out of the investigation that they caused 
confusion in the public's mind. In spite of the fact that the suits of the 
government to regain its property vv^ere successful, the criminal prosecutions 
to convict the men involved v^^ere delayed so often that very little justice 
was efifected. As Fall faced trial, his defense built up a very elaborate story 
which appealed strongly to the jury and the public. 

The defense claimed that Doheny had taken the contract purely out of 
patriotism by bringing out the fact that Admiral Robinson had allegedly 
begged Doheny to ofifer to build a fuel reserve for the navy; that Fall's 
policy was justified because it had been entirely approved at the time, both 
by the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Denby, and by President Harding ;^^ and 
that Doheny had merely loaned Fall $100,000 as an old friend and fellow 
prospector.^*^ In attempting to prove that the $100,000 was a loan and not a 
bribe, Doheny gave a smooth story about the procedure. He testified that he 
had his son, E. L. Doheny, Jr., carry the "loan" to Fall in cash, in a little 
black bag, merely because he wanted him to get experience in handling 
money. To prove that he had received a note he brought out a note as evi- 
dence, but Fall's signature was conspicuously torn off. This, Doheny, with 
his imagination running wild, explained was in the possession of his wife, 
who was to keep the signature of the torn note so that in case either of them 
was killed, the other could always collect the note.^^ Of course, he would have 
the jury believe that the secrecy surrounding the "loan" was only to keep 
Fall from being embarrassed; furthermore, he reminded the jury that he 
had taken the contract purely out of patriotism — of course he had never 
thought of the $100,000,000 which he had previously admitted he expected to 
profit. He claimed that the contracts were kept secret because they con- 
cerned building oil reserves on Honolulu, and the Japanese might hear of it.^* 

The charges against Sinclair were for criminal conspiracy for arranging 
virtually to steal millions of dollars' worth of naval oil. He sweated his 
way through five years of Senate hearings and investigations but was never 
convicted, although he did serve two three-month jail sentences, one for 
contempt of Senate and another for contempt of a United States District 

""Teapot Dome Oil Lease Declared Void," Congressional Digest, 6 (November, 1927), 
319. " "Conviction of Albert B. Fall," lac. cit. 

••"The Fall Doheny Verdict," Nezu Republic, 49 (July 19, 1927), 240. "Ibid., p. 241. 
""Conviction of Albert B. Fall," p. 573. 



April, 1947 15 

Court." He never dared to testify personally, and the charge of contempt 
of Senate was for hiring a Burns detective agency to shadow the jurors, 
This resulted in a mistrial. He did serve his jail sentences,^" but was never 
convicted of the bribe-giving or of conspiracy. 

Thus the record stands. It seems that the evidence was sufficient to con- 
vict all three men, yet only Fall was found guilty of accepting the bribe, and 
he was given the minimum sentence, largely because of public sympathy for 
his physical condition.^' Doheny was acquitted six months later from the 
charge of giving this bribe. Through his appealing stories to a jury that was 
not capable of understanding the facts of the case, he convinced them that 
he and Fall were just old friends. So they believed that the "loan" was 
out of friendship, and the lease out of patriotism. Reporters found by inter- 
viewing the jury afterward that the majority understood only vaguely what 
the whole trial was about.*^ 

Sinclair served his six months of jail sentences, but was soon in business 
again to make $3,000,000 in an oil pool shortly after the trials terminated. In 
1944 he received a $155,000 annual salary and was eligible for a $37,000 
annual pension when he retired.^' 

The other two men did not prosper after the affair. Doheny spent his 
last years before his death in 1935 in retirement, sorrow, and illness. His 
health began to crack after an insane secretary murdered his only son, 
E. L. Doheny, Jr.'* Fall spent the remainder of his life trying to vindicate 
himself by placing the full responsibility on the navy and claiming that he 
did not interfere with navy power. In broken health, after serving his 
sentence, he returned to his ranch, which he had expanded to 750,000 acres 
during his prosperous tenure as Secretary of the Interior.'^ Even his home 
was not to be his own, for as soon as he was paroled from prison, Doheny 
interests — the same Doheny who had testified that he had loaned him the 
money as an old friend — foreclosed on this big ranch, claiming that the 
"loan" was due.*® Fall fought eviction bitterly and was finally allowed to 
remain in possession of his home and 100 surrounding acres. He died in 
1944 claiming that the Teapot Dome lease "was the most advantageous deal 
ever made by the government."*^ 

'•"The Record Stands," loc. cit. 

""Jury Shadowers in the Shadow of the Tail," Literary Digest, 19 (March 10, 1928), 14. 
" Fall attended the trial in a wheelchair and at the announcement of the verdict women 
screamed, his daughter fainted, and his attorney suffered a heart attack. See "Con- 
viction of .\lhert R. Fall," p. 573. 

""The Jury Explains," Nexv Republic, 49 (July 19. 1927), 239. 
""Raise for Harry," Time, 43 (May 29, 1944), 19. 

""Deward Lawrence Doheny," Xe-u-s^^-eek, 6 (September 14, 1935), Obituary. 
" "The Record Stands," loc. cit. ^ Ibid. 
""Fall, Albert B," Time, 44 (December 11, 1944), Obituary. 



16 The Green Caldron 

Although Senator Walsh, who investigated the affair, expressed his 
belief that corruption in high places is very rare, y^t cannot sanction such a 
lack of retribution. Although fraud in government may be a rarity, it should 
be severely punished when discovered. Will the cases before the bar of 
justice today be passed over as lightly as was the Teapot Dome Affair? The 
May case is already forgotten by the public. Bilbo's case is fading from the 
headlines, and punishment for either May or Bilbo is not foreseen in the im- 
mediate future. Is it the corruption in "big business," the faulty method 
of choosing government officials, or the inefficiency of our courts which 
spawns such affairs in America? 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

"America Waking Up," Nation, 126 (March 29, 1928), 2,Z7. 

Clapper, Raymond, "Doheny and Fall Face Justice," Nation, 123 (November 24, 1926), 

525-6. 
Clapper, Raymond, "Sinclair and Fall on Trial," Nation, 125 (October 26, 1927), 445-7. 
"Conviction of Albert B. Fall, Former Secretary of the Interior," Current History, 31 

(December 20, 1929), 573-4. 
"Daugherty, Aegis of Justice," Literary Digest, 118 (March 26, 1924), ZZZ. 
"Doheny, Edward Lawrence," Newsweek, 6 (September 14, 1935), Obituary. 
"Doheny's Side of It," Literary Digest, 86 (July 18, 1925), 8-9. 
"Fall, Albert B.," Time, 44 (December 11, 1944), Obituary. 
"First Blood in the Oil Fight," Literary Digest, 85 (June 13, 1925), 13. 
"Indictments that Failed," Literary Digest, 85 (April 18, 1925), 9-10. 
"Jury Shadowers in the Shadow of the Jail," Literary Digest, 96 (Alarch 10, 1928), 

13-14. 
"Lessons of the Scandals," Nation, 118 (March 12, 1924), 274-5. 
"Marines on the Teapot Dome," Nation, 118 (March 26, 1924), 274-5. 
Mertz, C, "At the Bottom of the Oil Story," Century, 108 (May, 1924), 84-91. 
"Plutocracy and Corruption," New Republic, 54 (February 22, 1928), 3-5. 
"Raise for Harry," Time, 43 (May 29, 1944), 19. 

"Rockefeller Condemns Business Trickery," Literary Digest, 96 (February 25, 1928), 11. 
"Sinclair Goes Free," Literary Digest, 97 (May 5, 1928), 7-9. 
"Sinclair Jury Explains," Nation, 126 (May 9, 1928), 535-6. 

"Teapot Dome Innocence Discovered," Literary Digest, 86 (July 4, 1925), 14-16. 
"Teapot Dome Oil Lease Declared Void," Congressional Digest, 6 (November, 1927), 

319-20. 
"The Fall Doheny Verdict," New Republic, 49 (July 19, 1927), 239-42. 
"The Record Stands," Newsweek, 24 (December 11, 1944), 28. 
"Verdict Against Fall," Literary Digest, 103 (November 9, 1929), 11-12. 
Walsh, T. J., "True History of Teapot Dome," Fortim, 72 (July, 1924), 1-12. 



Dorothy 

Dorothy is my neighbor — all six feet of her. She took a liking to me my 
second day with the movers and high-jumped the back fence, at the same time 
yodeling, "My God, I never saw one family with so much truck !" 

— Carla J. Bond 



ii 



April, 1947 \y 

I Am an American 

Ellen Meyer 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1946-1947 

NEXT!" SHOUTED THE FAT "S.S." MAN. MY MOTHER 
nervously pulled out our passport and handed it to him. The man 
with the black sign of the swastika on his arm read the informa- 
tion aloud: "Bom in Coblenz, hm ! Divorced, hm; two girls, eight and ten 
years old; first husband living in America, hm ! Going to Chile, via France. 
May I ask why you are leaving?" 

"We are going to see my parents in Chile, sir," said my mother hastily. 
The man of the gestapo did not listen to the remark; instead he shouted, 
"Next !" 

As the train moved on, the imaginary' line that divides one country 
from another seemed real to us. We realized that we had just closed one 
door of life, and opened another. 

The next phase of my life started with a beautiful boat trip, on one of 
the most luxurious ships in the world. X^iguely I remember the heavenly 
weeks I spent, the sights I saw, the fun I had. We passed by Bermuda, the 
colorful tropical island; Cuba, with its mixture of Latin and Anglican popu- 
lation; Haiti, with its large summer homes; Cristobal Colon, the entrance of 
the Panama Canal; Guayaquil at night; Callao, Lima's famous port; then 
finally Chile, my new home. 

I remember my arrival in Santiago, and the first day of school, when 
everything seemed so strange. However, the feeling of loneliness did not last 
long. Soon the foreign language and the new environment became familiar 
to me. The big white Swiss "chalet" with the huge well-kept garden full of 
palm and "palta" trees was after all my first real home. 

Thus I grew up, in a land where peace reigned; and. while other nations 
fought the bloodiest war of history, I looked at the symbol of peace, the 
Andes, which stretched their white peaks into the blue sky, guaranteeing no 
war with Chile's neighbor nations. 

My adolescence was a period of fun. I learned to swim, to ride, to ski, 
and I engaged in many other year-round sports. Even in summer there is 
snow on the "Cordillera"; even in winter the ocean is warm enough for a dip. 

Yet all the fun in the world does not make a person happy. I found out 
that I was much happier and more content with myself after a day full of 
work; yet no Chilean girl of the "upper class" (which still exists there) can 
work. This problem made me unhappy, but it was not the only one I had. 
Upon being asked the question, "What nationality are you?" my answer 
always had to be, "I am of no nationality; the one given to me by birth I have 



Ig The Green Caldron 

long given up." Secretly I longed to belong somewhere, because the feeling 
of not being wanted anywhere is the worst feeling a person can have. 

So I decided to leave Chile, come to the United States, and become an 
American citizen. For me this was not hard, because my father was Ameri- 
can, and I was still a minor. 

Six months after I had made this decision, I sat in the Pan-American 
Clipper bound for Miami. 

Behind me, I saw my mother's figure, standing alone on the big, wide, 
open field, waving a white handkerchief, and slowly disappearing in the 
distance. Behind me, I left my home; the town where I grew up; my friends; 
the peaceful life; the surroundings that I loved. Again I had closed one 
door of life. 

Five days later, I arrived at my destination. I found myself standing in 
front of a large desk, just as I had done eight years ago, and I again heard 
that familiar little word, "Next"; only this time it did not sound harsh at 
all. This time, as I handed in my passport, the man smiled. In the blank space, 
beside the word "nationality" he wrote the word "American." 

"I am an American" — the sound of it is like music to my ears; the 
meaning of it thrills me. I am at the point of opening a new door of life, and 
the key to it lies in the sentence: "I am an American." 



Tlae Turn of the Screw 

By Henry James 

John J. Carroll 
Rhetoric I, Book Report, 1946-1947 

HENRY JAMES, ALTHOUGH DEAD FOR OVER TWO DEC- 
ades, still remains one of the most controversial figures on the liter- 
ary scene. There can be little doubt about the obvious merit of The 
Turn of the Screw, however, although critics do like to rip it apart and 
search beneath every word for hidden meanings. 

In this story, we see the action of the elemental forces of Good and Evil 
through the eyes of a middle-class English governess, who tells us more 
than she apparently intends to in her role as narrator of a succession of in- 
cidents. It should be made clear at this point that while the governess tries to 
tell us there is a combat between these opposing forces, it appears at a close 
reading that there is only one element. Evil. 

The thread of the story cannot be said to hang on a plot if the word is 
used with its customary connotations. Rather we perceive the real action 



April, 1947 19 

through the change in the character of the governess. When the novel opens, 
she is the shy, typically Victorian daughter of a small-town vicar. She re- 
ceives her first position as governess from a handsome bachelor who is 
caring for two orphans. The house in which the children live is in the 
country, and one of the stipulations of her employment is that she never 
bother him about her charges. And so, after falling in love with him during 
these two meetings, the new governess goes to the house of which, for all 
practical purposes, she is mistress. The boy and girl prove to be almost 
impossibly beautiful, both mentally and physically. The happiness of the 
governess in her new environment is finally marred by the appearance of a 
ghost-like figure, who the old housckeei)er tells her is the "master's" dead 
valet, a particularly evil man. Soon her immediate predecessor puts in an 
appearance; she is also dead and was engaged in a rather immoral affair with 
the valet shortly before her mysterious death. The rest of the story concerns 
attempts of the governess to protect the children from these evil beings, who 
seemed to have had a strange hold over them in life. 

As the governess tells the story, the evil forces are what she is combating, 
but it seems pretty evident to me that she was actually being used by Evil, 
so that it was she, and not the apparitions, which eventually wrecked the 
idyllic happiness of the country manor. After all, it is only the governess who 
sees the apparitions. For instance, when she is knitting by the lake as the 
little girl plays, it's only the narrator who sees the ghost of the former gov- 
erness, although she accuses the child of seeing it and not admitting it. The 
rei)ressed love which she has for her employer is one of the prime factors 
which enable the evil forces to gain a hold over her, and the resultant fear 
and suspicion toward the children complete her downfall. The repressed love 
view gives the Freudians plenty to work with, and they see the whole book 
in the terms of symbols. Although the presence of a repression is definitely 
proven through a rather macabre love scene with the young boy, I cannot 
believe that this even approximates what James tried to convey. 

A famous critic once said that only a hasty or an insensitive reader can 
hurry over Henry James; it might be added that anyone who expects to get 
even partial value from one of his stories cannot peruse it hastily. He 
demands that his readers go slowly and assimilate his words as they go 
along; if one tries to hurry, he finds himself stumbling through what seems 
to be a maze, and soon discovers that he must retrace his path if he is to get 
any meaning out of what is going on. It is refreshing to find an author whose 
work was his life, who always strived for perfection, who would not and 
could not be contented with saying anything other than what he actually 
meant. True, he is often obscure, and a large dose of James can prove to be 
so much lead in the literary digestive tract, but certainly he is a joy to read 
after some of the pot-boilers which are being foisted on us today. If he 
lacks the final touch of greatness, it is because of his limited horizons; the 



20 The Green Caldron 

pensions and hotels, the upper middle-class and upper-class drawing rooms 
are his scenes. The people of England, of the continent, and to a slightly 
lesser extent of America, who inhabit these tombs of the living, are his 
subjects. 

The Turn of the Screw is another story placed in these limited regions, 
but even the very nature of what he sets out to do limits him in this instance. 
He does not attempt to solve or explain the motivations of the governess and 
why she is overwhelmed by these evil spirits; rather he shows us a psycho- 
logical quirk developing without the person's knowing it. It might be noted 
at this point that governesses are a very frustrated species of humanity; they 
are neither master nor servant, and they have the care of other people's 
children but not their own. So it is little wonder that twists of the mind are 
considered by some psychologists as an occupational disease of this class. 
James realized this at a time when psychology was little more than a vague 
medical term. 

As mentioned before, James did not attempt to do a book of epic pro- 
portion; his sole aim was to picture for the reader the evil force which the 
governess became through the mental twist — and he succeeded. One does 
not get the impression in this, as in some of his other stories, that there is 
much ado about nothing, that the author is too concerned over trivialities in 
a world where there are so many things of greater importance. 

James was a clever and brilliant craftsman, and he was definitely in form 
when writing The Turn of the Screw. Although the author classified it as a 
fairy tale, this novel is anything but pure escapism. If you like to dig into a 
person's subconscious thoughts, peer into the dark recesses of a mind, this 
book is for you, as it is for me. 



For Whom the Bell Tolls 

By Ernest Hemingway 

Douglas Dales 
Rhetoric II, Book Report, 1946-1947 

CIVIL WAR IS SAID TO BE THE MOST TERRIBLE KIND OF 
war — a heartbreaking struggle in which the common people of the 
same traditional background ironically are forced to fight against 
each other for causes often not their own. However, in Spain the issues 
rapidly became clear cut; and it was there that the importance of a fifth 
column first emerged as a characteristic of modern wars. It was in Spain 



April, 1947 21 

that the first modern example of guerilla warfare presented itself, and it 
was with a guerilla band that Robert Jordan, an American, went to fight. 

In 1937 the Spanish gutters were flowing with the blood of women and 
children, but Hemingway takes us out of this harrowing part of Spain. In 
the mountains the battles were fought out by hearty bands of men and 
women in the cold, clear air of reality. It does not detract from the bitterness 
of the battle scenes that they were waged in the bright sun. Much of the 
action in Spain was hopelessly muddled, and it is to Hemingv\-ay's credit that 
he was able to clarify the issues and contestants for those of us who remained 
outside of Spain and even aloof from Spain. 

Mr. Hemingway has very strong feelings about Spain, yet he does a 
very good job of controlling his emotions and seldom gets hot under the 
collar. This objectivity is characteristic of Hemingway in all of his books. 

He has written one of the finest anti-fascist stories on record. For a 
decade Hemingway had been very close to Spain and the Spanish people, 
and he treats his Spaniards with dignity and tenderness. Here were people 
fighting for more of the brief freedom they had had. Regardless of how 
wealthy and powerful her rulers became, freedom was one luxury .Spain had 
always been chary with. The short-lived Republic had given the people a 
taste of this freedom, and to defend it they were willing to die. 

One reason Heming\vay escapes the morbid in For Whom the Bell Tolls 
is the effective love story woven into the pattern of civil war. The animal 
love between Maria and Robert Jordan is one of the most refined in modern 
fiction. In the light of love even war can be justified. It is this love that seems 
to make Robert Jordan more humanistic than the Henry Morgan of A Fare- 
well to Arms. There is less emjihasis in For Whom the Bell Tolls on Jordan's 
personal plight and a greater elaboration of the predicament of society than 
in A Farezvell to Arms. Unlike Henrj- Morgan, Robert Jordan is not fighting 
because he has been hopelessly caught in the mesh of war and must cleanse 
himself of it, but he is fighting to blow up "the bridge ... on which the 
future of the human race can turn." 

Most of the books I had previously read about the Spanish Civil War, 
particularly Malraux' Man's Hope, left the definite taste of Spain's sickness 
in my mouth long afterwards. It was the same feeling of weariness, con- 
fusion, and nausea I was later to recognize as the inevitable symptoms of 
battle fear creeping over the mind, from which a person can never truly 
rid himself. Spain is still on the conscience of the world, and will probably 
remain there for a considerable time. Heming%vay's book is unlike the others 
(John Dos Passos' Adventures of a Young Man, Arthur Koestler's Dialogue 
with Death, Andre Malraux' Man's Hope) in this respect. After reading For 
Whom the Bell Tolls we are left with the impression that the real Spain did 
not die with Robert Jordan, or anybody else, but still breathes down the neck 
of General Franco. 



.Ld 



22 The Green Caldron 

Lamaism 

Ethel N. Brown 
Rhetoric II, Theme 14, 1946-1947 

AMAISM IS THE STRANGE RELIGION OF TIBET, DERIVING 
its name from the Tibetan lama, or "high one," title of the monks in 

■^ the higher ranks of the hierarchy. Although it has developed fairly 
recently in the history of the world, it is one of the most fascinating 
religions of all time. 

Until the seventh century the Tibetan religion consisted of a pagan ritual 
known as "Bon." It was made up almost entirely of the worship and 
pacification of the thousands of good and evil spirits which the people 
believed inhabited their country. At that time the Tibetans were nomadic 
barbarians, engaged primarily in hunting and herding. Since they lived in 
the open most of the time, it was quite natural that they should establish 
their demons in the forests, rivers, and sky that they knew so well.^ The 
result was some sort of spirit in every rock, tree, and river in the country. 
These spirits, still worshipped today, were held responsible for the crops, 
the weather, and all disasters, as well as the daily personal lives of the 
people. The early pagan worshippers represented their gods by a variety of 
hideous idols, and included in their ritual human sacrifice and even some 
sacrificial cannibalism.^ 

This was the religious state of Tibet in 640 A. D., when King Sron 
Tsan-gampo, the ruler of Tibet, married. As is quite often true with royal 
marriages this marriage produced a definite change. The wives, one a 
princess of Nepal and the other of the royal family of China, were both 
Buddhist, and under their influence the king became a convert. He introduced 
some of the Buddhist scriptures and directed the building of two monasteries, 
but the total influence of the religion did not assume very large proportions 
during his reign. ^ 

There lived in India during the following century a Buddhist teacher 
named Padma Sambhava, a sorcerer and preacher who believed in Mahayana, 
a superstitious form of Buddhism. When the king invited him to come to 
Tibet to teach, Padma accepted gladly, and upon his arrival there he found 
a perfect setting in which to foster his beliefs.* 

Legend says that when Padma first arrived in Tibet, he found the people 
tormented by hordes of demons. With the aid of his superior magical powers, 

' Sven Hedin, A Conquest of Tibet, pp. 276-277. 

' Cliarlcs A. Sherring, Western Tibet and the British Borderland, p. 76. 

• "Lamaism," Encyclopedia Americana, vol. 16, p. 664. * Sherring, op. cit., p. 81. 



April, 1947 23 

he fought these demons until they surrendered, and then spared them on 
the condition that they work for him and use their evil powers against his 
enemies. In payment for these services the demons were to be fed and 
worshipped by the entire country. Whatever we think of this story, . . . 
it is nevertheless true that Padma incorporated into his Mahayanist teach- 
ings many of the practices of Bon.^ This did not improve the religion 
in any way, but it did win more converts, for it gave to the Tibetans a creed 
simple enough for their untutored minds to grasp. True Buddhism, with 
its undefined principle of creation, was too abstract for them to understand, 
but even in its corrupt form it improved the existing Tibetan code by 
placing a higher value on human life.® It was the ecclesiastical system that 
Padma Sambhava founded that came to be known as Lamaism." The 
followers of this original group exist today as the Red Hat Sect. 

The new religion was well received by most of the Tibetans, but a few 
of them did not seem to approve of it. In the tenth century. King Lang- 
dar-ma, no doubt fearing the growing power of the faith, led a revolt against 
it. The attempt was entirely unsuccessful and Buddhism returned, stronger 
than before. But one of the monks, fearing another attempt to banish his 
religion, assassinated the king as a preventative measure. Although the as- 
sassination removed one trouble, it was the source of several others. Without 
a king the country had no central government, and all existing control 
rapidly disintegrated. Under these conditions the hundreds of independent 
Tibetan chiefs gained more and more power over their respective territories. 
They were quite belligerent and used their fighting strength to subject all 
with whom they came in contact. The monasteries, not wishing to be so 
dominated, began organizing in self-defense. They developed into practically 
independent communities with strong armed protection, and they were soon 
more to be feared than the lay armies.* With their generally superior in- 
telligence and training, the lamas have been able to maintain the influence 
that they gained at this time and have kept peace within the country for 
many years. The fact that fighting was opposed to their true doctrine did 
not seem to worry them at all. After all, did they not have all eternity to 
reach Nirvana?" 

Many of the Tibetan lamas live in the highly organized monasteries. 
These villages of monks are often quite large, one of the most important, 
at Dupon, being composed of about seventy-five hundred men. It is at Dupon 
that the Great Oracle of State is located. It is operated by supposedly in- 
spired lamas, and thousands of people consult it for a great variety of 

*J. Ellam, The Religion of Tibet, pp. 32-33. 

•Oscar Terry Crosby, Tibet and Turkestan, pp. 168-170. ' Ellam, op. cit., p. 31. 

•"Lamaism," Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 13, p. 605. "Crosby, op. cit., pp. 168-169. 



24 ^^^^ Green Caldron 

information. At the head of each of the orders, the Yellow Hats and the 
Red Hats being the most important, is a general, who supervises the mon- 
asteries of his order. Each of these establishments in turn has its leader, 
its officials for spiritual and temporal duties, and its four grades of monks: 
probationer, novice, fully ordained monk, and abbot. Above all of these 
are the "reincarnate lamas," supposed to be manifestations of deities or of 
dead saints.^" The two most important of these "reincarnates" are the Dalai 
Lama and the Tashi Lama. The Dalai Lama is usually regarded as the 
secular leader of Tibet although he takes part in the religious affairs also. 
The Tashi Lama, as a rule, is the spiritual leader, but so much juggling of 
powers and privileges has gone on in the last few years that it is rather 
difficult to name the specific powers of each man.^^ 

Some of the lower orders of monks live in lay villages and are very 
little different from laymen. The monks, whose one object is to reach 
Nirvana, or complete eradication of self, often retire to meditate in solitude 
in order to accomplish their purpose. They usually choose a cell in some 
fairl}' remote region for their meditation. The cell is absolutely dark and has 
a small stream or drain running through it. Close to the ground is an 
opening just big enough to allow a gloved hand to place a bowl of tsamha 
and some tea in the cell once a day. The first retirement lasts for only a 
few months. Then, after a period of study, the monk returns to his cell 
for three years, three months, and three days. The next time he returns, 
he is to remain until death. However, a great many of the hermits lose 
their minds before this last period.^^ 

"In Tibet religion always comes first, and God, says a Tibetan proverb, 
can only be approached through a lama. The monasteries are therefore the 
chief influence in the country."^^ Not only are the monks the leaders in 
religious affairs, but they also control the temporal activities of the country. 
The laity seldom take any active part in any worship services except for 
the private offering of butter lamps and ceremonial scarves and the use of 
prayer wheels and rosaries,^* The priests find it to their advantage to have 
the people depending upon them for their religious needs. As the lamas 
receive fees for giving advice, granting pardons, or conducting special 
services such as those for the forgiveness of sins and those for the dead, 
they of course wish to retain complete charge of such affairs. 

The lamist temples for worship are quite often a part of the monastery. 
The main floor is one large hall with a platform at the front, facing the 
door. On the platform, which is covered with rugs and pillows, sits the 

'" Sherring, op. cit., p. 247. 

""Panchen Lama Discovered," Time, 38 (July 14, 1941), 43. 

" F. Spencer Chapman, Lhasa, The Holy City, p. 213. "* Ibid., p. 195. 

" William W. Rockhill, The Land of the Lamas, p. 105. 



April, 1947 25 

lama who is conducting the service. The entire hall is filled with rows of 
red cushions before which are long, narrow tables on which to place the 
sacred books. Most of the services consist solely of the offering of food to 
the deities and the reading of these books. Some of these readings are for 
the good of the public and some for the members of the clergy. Special 
readings are often held at the expense of the wealthy, who are supposed 
to receive as much credit by having the one hundred and eight volumes 
read for them as if they had done it themselves. The forty-five thousand 
loose leaves which make up these volumes are divided among the lamas 
who are seated in front of the tables, and all begin to chant through them 
as fast as possible, stopping only to drink an occasional bowl of buttered 
tea.''' In the larger temples there is quite often an orchestra composed of 
horns, conch shells, drums, and cymbals. They perform their noisiest 
numbers for the services and vie with the chanting priests for the honor of 
being the most heard group in the temple. Although the laity do not take 
part in these services, they often watch them, and many women bring their 
babies to be blessed at this time.'" 

When either the Dalai or the Tashi Lama dies, it is the duty of the other 
to conduct the choice of a successor for the deceased lama.'^ This is done in 
a rather strange manner. The Tibetans believe that when a Grand Lama 
dies, his soul is reincarnated in a child born at about the time of his death. 
All children who were born near this time and whose appearance into the 
world was accompanied by any strange or unusual events, are gathered in one 
of the rooms of the deceased lama. There they are supposed to pick out 
from a group of objects those that belonged to the ruler. The names of the 
children who pass this test are written on slips of paper and placed in a 
gold vase. After one hundred of the high lamas have recited prayers over 
the vase for about a month, one of the papers is selected at random. The 
name on the paper is then announced before the entire monastery, and the 
child is proclaimed the new Grand Lama.'* 

None but the highest lamas are reincarnated in this manner. Ordinary 
mortals continue their existence by transmigration, the process of being 
born into a second life at the end of the first. The new life is a result of 
the good and bad deeds of the old life and is in no way affected by the 
parents of the new being.'" 

Lamaism is without a doubt too beleaguered by false practices and beliefs 
to be a pure religion, but it has accomplished some good, and as long as we 

' Ibid., pp. 103-104. "Sherring, op. cit., p. 256. "Crosby, op. cit., pp. 42-43. 
" Ellam, op. cit., pp. 42-43. " Sherring, op. cit., pp. 232, 237. 



25 ^f^^ Green Caldron 

highly civilized individuals so carefully avoid black cats and the number 
thirteen, we cannot afford to be too critical of our superstitious Tibetan 
neighbors. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bernard, Theos, Penthouse of the Gods, New York and London: Charles Scribner's 

Sons', 1939. 
Chapman, F. Spencer, Lhasa, The Holy City, New York and London: Harper and 

Brothers, 1939. 
Crosby, Oscar Terry, Tibet and Turkestan, New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1905. 
"Dalai Lama Rules Last Theocracy," Life, 18 (February 19, 1945), 35-36. 
David-Neel, Alexandra, Magic and Mystery in Tibet, New York: Claude Kendall, 

1932. 
Ellam, J. E., The Religion of Tibet, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1927. 
Hedin,' Sven, a Conquest of Tibet, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1934. 
"Lamaism," Encyclopedia Americana, 1941 edition, vol. 16, pp. 664-665. 
"Lamaism," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th edition, vol. 13, pp. 605-606. 
Landon, Percival, The Opening of Tibet, New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 

1905. 
"Lhasa," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th edition, vol. 13, pp. 989-993. 
"Living Buddha," Nezvszveek, 18 (July 14, 1941), 54. 
"Mahayana," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th edition, vol. 14, p. 675. 
"Panchen Lama Discovered," Time, 38 (July 14, 1941), 43. 

RocKHiLL, William W., The Land of the Lamas, New York: Century Company, 1891. 
Sherring, Charles A., Western Tibet and the British Borderland, London: Edward 

Arnold, 1906. 
"Tibet," The New International Encyclopedia, 2nd edition, vol. 22, pp. 256-259. 
Tucci, Dr. Giuseppe and Captain E. Ghersi, Shrines of a Thousand Buddhas, New 

York: Robert M. McBride and Company, 1936. 
Waddell, L. a., Lamaism, London : Luzac and Company, 1899. 



The Oil Slick 

The co-pilot was the first to sight the oil slick about fifty miles off the coast 
of Cuba, and we immediately turned off our course to trace it to its origin. It 
lay there some five thousand feet below us, its sullen black standing out against 
the vivid blue of the Caribbean Sea. The long, slender ribbon appeared to extend 
to either horizon, undulating throughout its length. It seemed not unlike the arm 
of some benign old octopus, lazily drifting with the current. And yet it had a 
sinister look about it, as if it had devoured its meal and, not satisfied, was 
searching for a new victim — calm, almost nonchalant, but capable of rousing 
itself with terrible savagery. As we dropped lower, it flattened out and blended 
with the sea as if trying to hide from a sensed, yet unseen, enemy. It lost its 
graceful lines and adopted a viscous appearance, looking more and more like 
a bed of freshly poured asphalt. 

The road came to an abrupt ending. Beyond was nothing but blue water. 
After minutes of intense searching we found the sole survivor, fifteen feet of 
mast rising out of the inky depths, maintaining watch over those who had gone 
down. — Robert Glass 



April, 1947 27 

Undeniable Facts 

Jack E. Greyer 
Rhetoric I, Theme 11, 1946-1947 

lOMETIME IX THE NORMAL SPAN OF HIS LIFE EVERY 
city dweller has the opportunity to visit a small town. Much to his 
amazement he finds that the streets are not lined with wooden side- 
walks, the bulletin board of the post office does not display reward notices 
for "Billy the Kid." the traditional lamplighter does not make his nightly 
rounds (although the village drunks still make theirs), the streets are not a 
mire of mud bordered by knotted hitching posts, and the steps of the local 
grocery are not littered by old characters with a "chaw" in their mouths and 
tobacco-stained beards on their chins. People living in small towns are quite 
normal, they do speak English, and for the most part they do not sleep 
with the pigs. 

The citizens of a small town are very closely associated because each 
person takes a personal interest in his neighbor and his doings. For example, 
Annabelle Noscysnout just happened to pick u[) the telephone receiver of the 
party line as Hatty Macintosh was telling Nellie Waterfield of the four dol- 
lars and fifty cents and the ten-gallon can of i)ickled pigs' feet her thirteenth 
cousin. Harry Ilardyback, had left her in his will. Annabelle, wishing to 
make her news sound a little more sensational, called Martha Wheelrut, 
moved the decimal point over one place, and added ten more gallons of 
pickled pigs' feet. By the time the news reached Betsy Bottle form, Hatty 
was the sole owner of four and one-half million dollars, seven yachts, one 
meat-packing corporation, a brewery, and an honorary degree in law. 

Yesterday our little town observed a very sad occasion. It seems that 
Sylvester Snodgrass, one of the local grocers, had noticed, as M. T. Van 
Featherstone HI was writing a check, that the balance on the check stub was 
surprisingly low. The following Saturday night at the weekly poker game 
in Reverend O. Misins' basement, Sylvester had hinted to the fellows that 
the pompous old gentleman was rapidly going bankrupt. Needless to say, 
within forty-eight hours creditors had gathered from far and wide and were 
fighting for a place in line at the door of Van Featherstone's palatial mansion. 
The once peaceful estate was now engulfed by snarling, little black-bearded 
men with outstretched palms. The excitement was a little too much for the 
old boy and he passed on to a quieter world leaving his dear bereaved wife 
and only son. M. T. Van Featherstone IV, a vast fortune of thirteen million 
dollars and twenty-six pairs of silk pajamas. 

Friendly neighbors in a small town are quick to give aid to unfortunate 
victims of disaster. 



28 The Green Caldron 

Georgie Arsonwell had been told by Corncob Satinson that to become a 
man he must smoke a five-cent cigar. Naturally it is the secret desire of 
every young lad to be regarded as a man and to be held in high esteem by 
some fair maiden. It vi^as W\ih. this thought in mind that seven-year-old 
Georgie lit up his five-cent stogie after his mother, father, and five brothers 
and sisters had gone to the movies. Soon Georgie's tongue crept far out over 
his lower lip, his tummy did flip-flops, and his face turned a beautiful pea- 
green color. As the feeling took absolute control, Georgie completely dis- 
regarded any rules for fire prevention that he may have known. With a mad 
dash he dropped the cigar on his mother's new pair of nylon stockings and 
ran for the bathroom. It was here that the firemen found the poor dear ap- 
parently overcome by smoke. When the rest of the Arsonwell family returned 
from the movie, "The Flaming Future," and found their bungalow a friendly 
bed of glowing coals, they were terrified. At the knowledge of the disaster 
which had met the Arsonwells, kindly friends and neighbors pooled their 
resources. By morning the Arsonwells had been given six portable outhouses, 
nine pup tents, one jungle hammock, fourteen gallons of cottage cheese, 
eighteen dozen frozen frog legs, one slightly moth-eaten horsehair blanket, 
four mouse traps, three gallons of liquid shoe polish, one baby bottle com- 
plete with nipple, six complimentary tickets to the movie, "The Flaming 
Future," five bushel baskets full of empty fruit jars, nine packets of safety 
matches, and a box of five-cent cigars. 

Small town forms of recreation vary greatly. They range from porcupine 
hunting to playing post office. At any rate, all forms of social entertainm.ent 
are enthusiastically attended. 

Jasper Jigalot was preparing for the annual barn dance he held in honor 
of the late Droopsy Woopsy, the only calf ever known to be born with four 
tails. Jasper had appointed himself chairman of the decoration committee, 
chairman of the entertainment committee, chairman of the refreshment com- 
mittee, and official bouncer. It was the night before the dance that general 
havoc broke loose. The tractor got out of control and did a beautiful job of 
giving his barn cross ventilation, Shep bit the hired man, six of the Jigalot 
children broke out with the measles, the hay mow collapsed, four cows 
presented him with "blessed events," his flock of six hundred sheep broke 
the fence and wandered over the countryside, the internal revenue man came 
to check last year's income tax return, the chicken house burned down, and a 
passing truck killed Jasper's biggest pig. The following night ever3^one came 
dressed in his Saturday's best to the big shindig. There were no decorations, 
there was no professional entertainment, and Jasper was too tired to bounce 
anybody, but in spite of all the misfortunes everyone enjoyed the delicious 
refreshments consisting of fried chicken and roast pork. 

As I have tried to point out, small town people are normal and very 
human. 



April, 1947 29 

No Middleman? 

Paul M. Somers 
Rhetoric II, Thenu 8, 1946-1947 

'''VTUTE BUY DIRECT FROM THE PRODUCER! NO MIDDLE- 

* * How often, in our country, we see these words in six-foot, 

red and black letters over the door of a "cut-rate" retail store. The average 
American immediately thinks that here is a place where he can save money. 
Maybe — but the odds, Mr. and Mrs. American, are that you'll get "gypped." 

Either one of two flaws is buried in the slogan. Either the "cut-rater" 
deals with producers with whom wholesalers won't do business, or if he 
deals with regular producers, you pay just as much as you do any place else. 
If the former is true, you save by buying an inferior product. Thus, you 
lower your standard of living right with your cost of living, so that you gain 
nothing. If it's the latter, the sign is still correct: he does deal directly with 
producers and he does eliminate the middleman, but — you save nothing. The 
price is the same. Let me show you. 

Under this system, the middleman per se is eliminated, but his function 
is still carried on — in the most inefficient manner. 

The assembling of a stock of goods is ordinarily taken care of by a 
wholesaler. The wholesaler, by virtue of the volume of his business, can 
maintain constant relations with producers the world over. From experience, 
he knows where and when to buy the best goods at the lowest price. He 
knows how much to produce so that none of the goods will rot on his shelves. 
The retailer, on the other hand, who is out to eliminate the middleman must 
search out the manufacturer of each item he needs. He will not know what 
the best time of year is to purchase his goods in quantity. He probably will 
not know the point at which gain from quantity discount and loss through 
stagnation balance each other; so he will either pass up a good discount or 
watch goods rot and spoil on his shelves. 

When goods are transported from the producer to the wholesaler, a 
whole boat, one or several railroad cars, or a number of motor trucks can be 
used. Because of this volume, transportation expense is noticeably de- 
creased. The "cut-rate" retailer will purchase smaller orders of goods which 
will require individual handling on ship or in boxcar or truck. All freight 
transportation lines charge more per weight or volume for these "less-than- 
a-carload" lots than they do for full carload shipments. Again our retailer 
eliminates the middleman's commission, but he increases his transportation 
expense. 



30 The Green Caldron 

The wholesaler also stores goods so that when there is a demand for 
them, he can furnish them to the retailer at a moment's notice. If the retailer 
is to assume that function also, he must do one of two things. Either he must 
purchase and maintain a warehouse of his own, or he must resort to the un- 
satisfactory alternative of ordering when the demand arises and hoping 
that the order is filled and the goods are delivered before the demand 
subsides. 

These are just three of the wholesaler's functions which the "cut-rate" 
retailer must assume if he is to completely "eliminate the middleman." When 
you look at the situation from this point of view, can you see how there 
could be any saving? 

The next time you see a retailer advertise that he has "eliminated the 
middleman," or the next time you hear a politician orate on the burden of 
the middleman, just laugh, or feel sorry for him, or get mad at him for in- 
sulting you. Those men either don't know the "birds, bees, and butterflies" 
of the economic life, or they don't think that you do. Whichever it is, you 
just go right ahead trading with a retailer who leaves the wholesaler's work 
to the man who can do it most efficiently and most economically — the 
wholesaler. 



The Last Try 

Walter Rust 

Rhetoric I, Theme 2, 1946-1947 

URE, YOU JUST FINISHED RUNNING THE HALF MILE. 
You're tired. That's your hard luck. It would have been much easier if 
you had gone to bed at a decent hour last night. Roll over on 3'our 
stomach and rest a while. No use looking for four leaf clovers. The kind 
of energy you need doesn't come from clover. You could have gone to bed 
early. She didn't have you tied. You could have left any time you wanted to. 
Certainly you're tired. Nothing you can do about it now. Should have 
thought of that last night. Two o'clock — that's no time to get in on the 
night before a track meet. 

"Joneson up, Roth on deck, Rust in the hole." Yes, the crossbar is at 11-9. 
One man has cleared it. This is your last try. You didn't have your steps 
down well enough on the last try. You'll have to get them better this time. 
Tired ? Sure you are. Whoops ! There goes Joneson. Too bad he missed. 
That's what you think out loud. Yes, you are glad he missed, aren't you? 

"Rust up." Go over to the side of the runway and pick up your pole. 
That's it — the second one from the left. Stick the pole in the box and get 



April, 1947 31 

your grip. Top hand on the space between the second and third sections of 
tape. Walk back to your marker. Remember, hit the second marker with your 
right foot. You have to clear this height. You're the last man and this is 
your third try. Joneson and Roth both missed. Joneson's steps weren't very 
good. Remember your steps. Second marker with the right foot. Relax. 
Relax ! 

"(>)K, Rust, let's go." Glad someone has some hope. "You gotta clear it 
this time." Sure. You smile to give him assurance that you feel good. You 
don't feel bad now. The rest you had refreshed you. 

You're at the end of the runway now. Third marker from the end. The 
one with the red taj)e on it. That's yours. Top hand on the space between 
the second and third sections of tape. Hit the second marker with your 
right foot. OK, lift up the pole. That's it, left foot first. Here comes the 
second marker. That's perfect. Right on the mark with your right foot. You 
can't miss this time. Whew, your legs are tired. Just like two rubber bands. 
Start lowering the pole, there's the box. That jar really hit you. Pull up 
your feet. Tuck up. Kick ! That's it. 

S])it the sand and sawdust out of your mouth. What's that you feel with 
the end of your tongue? You must have really hit the crossbar with your 
chin to chip your tooth. Was it worth the trouble it caused you to stay out 
last night when you should have been in bed? Oh well, too late now. 

What's all the grumbling about? Well, roll over and get out of the pit. 
Stolt deserved to win anyhow. What's that? The crossbar is still up? Pretty 
lucky. Oh well, maybe you didn't stay out too late after all. 



Another World 

William M. Morris 
Galeshurg Dhnsion, Rhetoric II, Final Examination, 1946-1947 

^yO ONE LIVES IN THE WORLD AS IT REALLY IS, A 
s. world of work, study, bad smells, sickness, and conflict, but in a 
"^ world of romantic characters, beautiful landscapes, noble deeds, and 
sometimes things which have no apparent value. 

When I was little 1 had a pal who went ever^^vhere with me. Life was 
one big contest between us, and we had values which meant everything. It 
was extremely important never to be "it" in tag, and we would chase each 
other for miles. One winter we made a snowhill and played "king on the 
hill," a game in which, as you know, the person able to push all others off 
the hill is king. The snowhill lasted all winter, and every time we went by 
we stopped for at least one contest. We started with equal chances by stand- 



32 The Green Caldron 

ing opposite each other and grasping each other's right hand. As spring 
gradually approached, the snowhill slowly melted, but nevertheless we always 
stopped, when passing, for a contest. This went on into the summer, until 
finally people could look out of their windows and see two boys coming 
down the street, suddenly step over to a certain bare spot, shake hands, and 
start struggling, whereupon one would fall down as though falling into a 
canyon. Up he would get, and off they would go arm in arm, laughing like 
imbeciles. 

Almost anyone can recall similar strange attachments to values, but most 
of us have been influenced also by books, or stories we have heard personally 
or seen in movies. Our hopes are based on them. In choosing a career or 
vocation we immediately think of ourselves as some romantic character, a 
cowboy riding off into the setting sun, a lumberman striding through the 
woods, or a Northwest Mountie herding a band of captured desperadoes. 

The world of the past seems immeasurably beautiful. Childhood to an 
adult is one long series of games, and the hard times of the past become the 
biggest jokes. When I was in third grade, for instance, I became sick while 
the others were learning to add and subtract. When I came back I was sent 
along with the others as though I had never been gone. Somehow I found 
out that adding was something like counting. I could get the right answer to 5 
and 4 by setting the 5 out to the left of my left hand (in my imagination) and 
counting 6, 7, 8, 9 up my fingers from left to right. This was a great dis- 
covery and served me for my years. Subtraction, however, was extremely 
complex, because it was so much harder to count backwards. In fact I never 
did learn to count backwards. Instead I had my hands laid out in an intricate 
series of amputations. To subtract 5 from 111 took the four fingers of my 
right hand plus the little finger of my left hand cut off from both hands plus 
the little finger of my left hand, leaving my left and right thumbs, to get 6. 

Those were trying times but no adult ever thinks of things like that. 
Childhood is nothing but fun in our other world. 

Some of us are so dependent on our other world of the past that we 
even live in the future according to experiences of the past, provided the 
two are separated by enough of the horrible present. My two years in Hawaii 
during the war are already beautiful in comparison to this frustrated life of 
slavery I am leading in college. Already I am planning to spend my old age 
in Hawaii, though I swore I would never return. 

So it goes with everything. I see my wife as something out of this world. 
I see my children as shining examples. I see myself as a great lover and a 
traditional character of some kind in my work. Now that I am a student I 
do not recognize it. Instead, I am way off in another world of the beautiful 
future or past, diving for pearls off a coral reef, making millions on the 
stock market, photographing elephants in Africa. 

No wonder it's such a queer world. There's no one living in it. 



II 



Al>ril, 1947 33 

Open Mouth— Empty Head 

WiLLARD Schneider 

Community High School (Crystal Lake) Branch, Rhetoric I, Theme B, 1946-1947 

IT WAS FREEZING COLD. WE HAD BEEN FLYING FOR FIVE 
hours over enemy territory and had been away from food for more 
than eight. We were at 26.000 feet and that means tight, uncomfortable 
oxygen masks. Nervous tension was high, because we were ahead of our 
rigidly kept schedule. That isn't like being too early for a train, but more like 
being too late to live. We had missed our second group of fighter cover 
because of the high winds. 

Now we were deep into enemy territory, even deeper than Germany 
itself, for our target lay in Poland. In the distance overhead we could see 
"con-trails" which meant fighter planes. 

The big, lumbering "queen of the sky" wheeled in stately formation as 
wave after wave of H-17's arrived at IP. From the "initial point" was a 
straight run to the aiming ix)int. This meant no maneuvering, no dodging, 
no evasion, but just plowing ahead through flak and fighters until the ob- 
jective was reached. 

Wu[) ! Wham ! Here came action. Flak batteries opened up on the 
formations, and the ugly, dirty, orange mushrooms of smoke and tlame 
kindled a deadly pattern in the sky. 

"Bombs away." came from the bombardier as the flock of mother hens 
clucked away after "laying some eggs" for the benefit of the Third Reich. 

Like a drove of bees the fighters were after us. up and down, over and 
under, swarming in and out. Occasionally flame would light the sky as a 
"queen" was laid to rest or as Uncle Sam slapped a "bee" down. 

In the midst of noise and confusion came crackling into my ears, "Hello, 
big friends. This is little friend. Are you well and happy?" It was the tra- 
ditional query of our escorting fighters. 

Men that had been without food for ten hours, that were cramped and 
uncomfortable, that were fighting for their lives, that were frozen stiff, and 
that were scared stifTer could only answer that question with, "Hell, no, you 
blockheads. W^e're surrounded by bandits." 

Suddenly an M. E. 210, one of the long-distance German fighters, bore 
in on our ship. I could see little flames dancing on the leading edge of his 
wings as he turned his guns on. I saw a line of holes move in from the end 
of our wing toward our gas tanks, and suddenly stop. I looked for the 
M. E. 210, but it was gone, and then we started to fly through its debris. 

When we made contact with our fighters, we could sit back and relax. 



34 The Green Caldron 

We landed at our home base on the heels of a crippled P-51 that was making 
a forced landing there. 

Later while we were standing in the operations shack, a fighter pilot came 
up to me and asked, "Are you the pilot of M for Mikef" Before I answered 
that question, I lit into him for the soft life fighter pilots lead. They could 
sleep several hours longer and returned from their missions earlier. They 
flew warmer planes and didn't have to worry about flying in formation. 
"Yes, I'm the pilot of M for Mike. So what?" 

"I just wanted to tell you that I'm the chap who got that M. E. 210 for 
you." 



Overshoes 

We were walking along that road near the Rhine at the usual ten-yard inter- 
val. I was in my regular position at the end of the last platoon in the company. 
Rumor had it that the fellows in the point company way up ahead were having a 
tough time getting into the next nondescript little town that the "Krauts" had 
selected to hold. 

When we were only about fifteen minutes out, everyone started to get the 
symptoms that always come. The sounds of a battle, the dead along the road, the 
cold wet feet, and the knowledge that you'll soon be in there yourself tend to 
cause tight throats and dry mouths. 

I noticed that one corpse alongside the road, further up the column, was 
getting a lot of attention from the men as they passed. I found out why; he had 
overshoes on. The same thing was passing through all their minds, the thought of 
how they would like to have the overshoes, but how they hated to rob the dead. 
I wasn't too tender about this. I hoped that no one ahead of me had as strong an 
intention to have those overshoes as I did. 

When I got about twenty yards from the dead kid with the boots, I made a 
dash for him and in a few seconds they were mine. I wished that some of the 
shrapnel had missed him, the part of him with the overshoes on anyhow. It made 
quite a hole in the side of one of them. 

I noticed that all the guys were checking their weapons. I put on my boots in 
a hurry, checked my own weapon, and entered the town with the rest at my 
usual tail position. 

I don't know exactly what happened next. There was a hell of a noise and 
that's all. How much time passed I don't know. I was wakened by voices and a 
tug at my feet. "These overshoes won't do this guy much good," one said. "No, 
and no other kind of shoes neither, from the look of it," replied another. 

I opened my eyes and saw a rough-looking fellow with a red cross on his arm 
leaning over me. — Thomas S. Pool 



April, 1947 35 

Four to Five Sunday Morning 

Margaret Stubbs 
Rhetoric I, Theme 1, 1946-1947 

FROM THE SOUTH ROAD A STREAM OF BLINDING WHITE 
headlights, demanding honis, and shrill cursing voices descends upon 
the city; the shrill din of the bars is smothered by the weary slam of 
their doors; the disgorged mass of soldiers and their girls of the evening 
hesitate noiselessly for a moment, then break into singing, scattered two- 
somes to gather the city and make it their own. Down the street parades a 
group of high school exi^erimenters, chanting their class song; the soft 
indefinite plosh of a poorly- juggled egg accentuates the splintering of a 
bottle aimed at the nude model in a store window. A dark crum[)ling mass 
melts against the solid courthouse and wrenches sobs for the soul he has left 
with his mother. From an impenetrable hallway a clinging shadow pants a 
scrambled. "Love you, love you, come with me, please come with me." A 
thick stumbled drawl pleads for the nearest way to the Field, "Please, have 
to be on K.P. six o'clock, K.P. six o'clock," and is answered with a derisive 
"Take it easy, bub, lotsa time, lotsa time," and the mocking laugh of an 
hysterical girl. Two M.I'.'s brandishing sticks, yelling, cursing, threatening, 
break up a fight between soldiers and sailors. The street is a crossroad of 
still shadows, blinking lights, and the hoarse, discordant jargon of mingling 
civilians and servicemen. Then suddenly the Field bus luml:>ers down the 
street, rounds up and absorbs flocks of drunken soldiers, and crawls off 
groaning under its burden. Saturday night is ended. 

The city pauses, soundless, scarcely breathing, as if held in a vacuum. 
It is as dark, as still, as timeless as a night in the desert. It stops, held in its 
tracks, and waits. Suddenly the first faint vestiges of the sun rise over the 
buildings. From the distance a soft chime peals a clear call. Slowly, miracu- 
lously, the city comes to life again. The pigeon families coo and answer, then 
float down from the courthouse to nibble stray popcorn and pretzels from 
the sidewalk. Outlined against the quiet rose sun, a small silver plane whirs 
and dips in early morning maneuvers. A skinny, sleepy kid rattles down the 
street with his wagon of early editions, begins his weak-lunged hawking. The 
rumble of a truck, the roar of a far-off freight train startle the stillness. A 
Sunday-clean nurse appears, smiles and gives the boy a dime for a nickel 
paper, and stands reading it unmindful of the debris around her. Two young 
church-goers pass by, giggling; they kick a stray bottle and scatter the pieces. 
The early morning "tripper" approaches and squeaks to a stop. The nurse 
gets on and the bus departs. Sunday morning is begun. 



36 ^^^ Green Caldron 



China Afternoon 

James A. Chapman 
Rhetoric II, Theme 1, 1946-1947 



K]rNHERE SEEMED TO BE NO MOVEMENT OR LIFE ANY- 

I where in the world. The sun, a glaring copper disc, coated everything 

"^ with a sticky layer of heat. Even the tiny Chinese village on the fringe 

of the great airdrome was lifeless, its usually busy citizens dozing under 

their thatched roofs. Along the sluggish stream which flowed beside the 

village a few dragonflies hummed from the tip of one reed to another. 

The only living person to be seen was an American soldier. He sat 
dozing on the edge of his gun emplacement, his head rolling slowly from 
side to side. Then his neck became cramped and he jerked upright. He 
stretched and his eyes automatically scanned the shimmering horizon. Noth- 
ing. Nothing but a hawk circling slowly over the low hills to the south. 

For lack of something better to do, the soldier focused his eyes on the 
hawk, followed its slow turns. The bird came nearer. It was moving slowly 
up the stream, searching for food. It dived once but rose almost immedi- 
ately. Now it was almost overhead. Suddenly, so quickly that the soldier 
jumped to his feet, the bird plummeted to the ground. There was a brief 
scuffle and a small cloud of yellow dust hung in the air. The hawk had 
caught a field mouse; it stood now with the dead mouse between its talons 
and let its beady eyes travel swiftly around the horizon. Then it went on 
with its meal. 

Somehow the hawk had missed seeing the soldier. It was a fatal mistake, 
for the soldier, raised on an Iowa farm, hated hawks with the inbred fury of 
all farmers. He reached behind him and felt for his carbine. Quietly he 
moved the bolt and snapped the safety catch, then raised the weapon to his 
shoulder. 

There was a shot, a brief fluttering which raised more yellow dust, and 
then silence. The soldier sat down again and began cleaning the hot metal 
of his gun. Along the stream the dragonflies hovered, hummed, wandered. 

On Order 

Order is a lovely thing. The spirit of an orderly household should calm all 
the senses. Anger should fade and worry die, and order deny the confusions of 
war and politics. The singing simplicity of a neat kitchen, a clean-curtained win- 
dow, a swept doorstep, a scrubbed hearth, should be a "tranquil well of deep 
delight," as satisfying as clean mended clothes or rosy children sleeping. The 
poet says all things that are in order "Shall seem more spiritual and fair, 

Reflection from serener air — " 

— Caroune Maddox 



April, 1947 37 

If Babbitt Were Alive During 
World War II 



B' 



Carl W. Lee 
Rhetoric I, Theme 3. 1946-1947 

AHBITT HAD RISEN EARLY IX ORDER TO BE AT HIS 
office in tlie Reeves Building in time for an early morning appoint- 
ment with Charles McKelvey, the contractor. He was not sure, but 
he had a slight suspicion that Charles McKelvey was going to ask him to be 
chairman of the committee for War Bond sales in the city of Zenith. He 
washed, dressed, shaved, brushed his teeth, and hurried down to breakfast. 

When he arrived at his office after an uneventful drive through the 
early morning rush, he was in good spirits. He was smiling broadly as he 
anticipated the honor of being named chairman of the War Bond Committee. 
He strode briskly through the outer office, nodding to all the employees. 
When he passed Miss McCioun's desk, his smile broadened. "Good morning, 
Miss McGoun," he beamed. "Has Mr. McKelvey arrived yet?" 

"No sir," Miss McGoun answered softly. P>abbitt knew very well that 
Charles McKelvey had not arrived, for their appointment was for nine, 
and it was now only eight-thirty. But George was rather proud of the fact 
that such an important man was calling on him, and he wanted to make 
sure everyone in the office was aware of it. 

That morning from eight-thirty until nine. Babbitt rustled the papers 
on his desk and smoked two big cigars in spite of the fact that he had given 
up smoking only yesterday. I'romptly at nine o'clock Charles McKelvey 
arrived. Miss McGoun ushered him into Babbitt's office and closed the door. 

"Good morning, Mr. McKelvey," George beamed. "What can I do for 
you?" 

"Well, Georgie," began McKelvey, "perhaps you've heard that I'm chair- 
man of the War Bond Committee for Zenith. Well. I thought that you, as 
one of our leading businessmen, would like to start this drive with a nice fat 
pledge, say about a thousand." Babbitt's face fell. 

"Now, Mr. McKelvey, I just don't see how I could manage a thousand," 
stammered George. "I've been buying War Bonds right along, and my 
expenses have been mighty high lately. Why, I've had to pay over three 
hundred dollars for some new tires just because the darned ration board 
wouldn't give me a certificate of necessity. Had to buy them from a fellow 
who charged me fifty dollars apiece extra, and since I ran out of coupons, 
I've had to pay four times more for gas for my car. I'm telling you I don't 



38 The Green Caldron 

see how I could pledge a thousand. Of course I could cash in a couple of 
the bonds I bought last time so's to make a thousand dollar pledge. Yeah, 
I guess I can pledge a thousand." Babbitt signed the pledge card, and Mr. 
McKelvey left. 

Somehow the day was not so pleasant as before. George stalked to the 
door and barked, "Cancel all my appointments for this morning. Miss 
McGoun." Babbitt slumped at his desk and thought how foolish it was to 
appoint anyone to the chairmanship of the War Bond Committee with as 
little "get-up-and-go" as Charles McKelvey had. 

The buzzer on Babbitt's desk vibrated earnestly, and Babbitt reached 
over and flipped the switch. He felt a little better now. He always felt a 
little better when he looked at his new inter-office communication system. 
It had cost a great deal of money, as had his car and huge twenty-four-tube 
radio, but it was worth it every time he flipped that switch with that air of 
authority and in a very executive manner said curtly, "Yes, Miss McGoun." 

"Your wife just called to say that Ted is home," Miss McGoun intoned 
in her business-like manner. 

"Well I'll be darned. First time he's been home since he enlisted," smiled 
Babbitt. "If anyone calls tell them I've gone for the day." Babbitt took his 
hat and coat and rushed through the outer office calling back over his 
shoulder to Miss McGoun, "Ted's home. First time he's been home since he 
enlisted." The frosted glass rattled as the heavy door slammed shut. 

Babbitt swung his car into the driveway which led to the corrugated 
iron garage. "No class in that shack. Have to build me a frame garage," 
he muttered to himself as he hurried into the house. "Well Teddy old 
fellow," he bellowed as he pumped Ted's hand, clapped him on the shoulder, 
and pulled him from the easy chair in which he had been sprawled. "You 
look mighty fit in your uniform. I always said a uniform does something 
for a man. You should have seen me in my uniform during the last war, 
but then of course I was a lieutenant." 

"It's good to be home, Dad," Ted returned as he glanced at the single 
chevron on his sleeve. 

"You're so thin, son. You don't look as if you'd eaten in a week," 
moaned Myra. "Come out into the kitchen, and I'll fix you a snack." The 
snack which Ted sat down to consisted of roast beef, baked ham, cold 
chicken, pickles, olives, milk, four kinds of preserves, cake, cookies, and 
his favorite pie, banana cream. "I don't know what this country's coming 
to," wailed Myra. "They tell us all the food goes to the army so that I 
have to tramp the streets from market to market to keep my family from 
starving. Now I find they're starving my only son in the army. Why, if I 
weren't a good friend of the butcher and grocer, and if we weren't able to 
pay therrt a little extra for the scarce things, I just don't know what we'd do." 



I April, 1947 39 

"Gosh," protested Ted, "I get all I can eat. I've gained eight pounds 
since I enlisted." 

"I'd like to take you to lunch at the Athletic Club," announced Babbitt. 
"We passed a rule that servicemen can lunch there any time, as long as 
they are guests of a member. You'd enjoy talking to 'The Roughnecks.' 
They've got some real ideas on running this war. Why, if those birds in the 
War Department would use a little common business sense they'd know 
that they'd get better results if they put a little 'zingo' in their official orders. 
Instead of just saying, 'Zero Hour 1200.' they ought to say, 'OK men, at 
twelve o'clock let's go out and get ourselves a mess o' Krauts. This one's 
for the folks back home, for good old Uncle Sammy. Let's give 'em hell.' 
.\n order like that would get results. Why, there's not a businessman in that 
whole lot at Washington. No sir, not a hard-headed businessman in the lot. 
The Athletic Club has appointed me chairman of a committee to write a 
letter to the War Department and give them a few of our ideas to help 
them along." 

"Gee, Dad, I'm sort of tired from riding on that crowded train all night. 
if it's OK with you and Mom I'll just go up to my room and take a nap," 
alibied Ted. 

"All right, reiurned Babbitt, iuii you don't know what you re missing. 
Real conversati(jnalists, those Roughnecks." 

Ted didn't come downstairs until nearly supper time. When he did come 
down, Babbitt was waiting for him. "Say, Ted, it's just about time for 
Cieneral Bloward to analyze the news. Now there's a fellow that knows this 
war business inside out." Babbitt streamed on as he whirled the dials of his 
huge twenty- four-tube radio, "I'll go upstairs and get the map that General 
lUoward sent out. It's really a honey of a map. Shows all the islands that 
are over a block long and all the towns big enough to have a name." His 
voice trailed off as he disappeared up the stairs. 

"Ted, you look like you've been pulled through a knot hole. Haven't 
had a good meal since you left home, have you?" complained Myra, who 
had just entered from the kitchen with a heaj)ing plate of sandwiches. 
"Here, eat these. They'll tide you over till supper." 

"But I " Ted settled into his chair. Mrs. Babbitt had already hurried 

hack into the kitchen. 

"I'll bring you some cake and milk in a minute," she called. Babbitt came 
thumping down the stairs. "Here's the map, son. This part here that shows 

the Myra, where's Ted?" Myra came in carrying a tray of cakes and 

cookies and a pitcher of milk. Tinka came into the house carrying her 
roller skates over her shoulder. "Have you seen Ted?" Babbitt asked. 

"Sure," said Tinka, "he's over at Eunice's house." 



40 The Green Caldron 

Rhet as Writ 

And there you are, a vicious mean bull made docile and gentle by giving 
him five minutes of your undivided attention. 



• • 



Like other bad habits though, I always resolve that I will try to do better 
next time. 



• • • 



Either I don't see the picture at all or I must sit through some concoction 
which is to be considered a poor effort on the part of those who are trying 
to uphold the unapparent value of the Motion Picture Industry to see the 
feature I cared to see. 



• • • • 



Saturday afternoon I was curdled up in a chair listening to the football 
game. 



• • • • 



Why shouldn't scholarship be awarded to boys with athletic abilities 
when scholarships are being awarded to boys with high intelligence? 



• • • • 



I stepped into the Pine Lounge. Could this talkative mutterance be true ? 



• • • • 



Daytime cereals provide an escape for a woman's frustrations and help 
solve personal problems. 



• • 



After snuggling up in the coroner all night, the dawn finally came. 



• • • • 



The thing I like most about fishing is the chance to relax by a gargling 
creek. 



I left for home with the thought of what a wonderful time I was going 
to have running through my head. 



Honorable Mention 

Ben Chilman — College Students 
John Curry — Man and Mind 

Grace Hartman — Keeping Them Contented 

\ 
Gilbert height — I Still Keep Time \ 

G. E. Modesitt — The Development of Non-Euclidean Geometries 

Marjorie Peabody — Ogden Nash's Merits 

Jeannine Rottschalk — The Essence of Femininity 

Arthur H. Stromberg — Hurricane 

Thomas Vanderslice — Best Movie of the Year j 

Robert Wiss — Cotton Pic'n I 



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