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THE RECORD
Friday, November 29, 1963
Fund Raising Programs Are Key to Small College Future
An Indian summer day and a visit to the campus by a group from St. Catherine's college can produce
inspiration; but this? From left, are Mark Thelen, Dave]Heimer, Jim Tegeder and Bill Mella.
Requiem
Seven days ago the corridors of the dormitories were empty and quiet except for the sustained drone of radio announcers' voices. In the rooms radios were turned up loud and knots of silent, incredulous students sat listening, gradually comprehending as reports accumulated affirming the news of the death of President Kennedy.
Most of the students were told as they left classes, in front of the dorms, outside the quadrangle, on the walks beneath bare trees, by others who had heard the first bulletins. For this generation, the assassination was at first virtually incomprehensible; there had been no precedent for us. The campus was very quiet.
Throughout the weekend it was much the same. Hour- by hour reports were heard, passed on, pondered over, and as the panorama of events became clearer, the effects on St. John's students were of seriousness and wonder. Strained attempts at ordinary cheerfulness just did not work in this extraordinary context.
The eulogies are over. Further comment on those days, the events, or the man himself seem anticlimactic. It was enough that most of those here felt or sensed that they had been brushed lightly but terribly by history. ££ Pete Traskey
On Second Thought
by Edward Vogt
**Don't part with your illusions; xohen they are gone, you may still exist, tyM*!lbul you have ceased to live.
—Mark Twain
'"^Ironically enough, Mark Twain failed to heed his own advice: in his later years he became a misanthrope. But at least his despair came after his youth, not during it, as is often not the case with many of today's young students and writers. It is indeed a sad afEair to witness the defection of the young idealist to the camp of the skeptical aged. Yet the popularity of such writers as William Golding (The Lord of the Flies) and Evelyn Waugh (Brideshead Revisited, The Loved One), the appeal of heartless and caustic films such as Mondo Cane, all seem to point to an alarming tendency of modern youth to join in the attack on idealism. Critical and disillusioned attitudes on the part of the young, though sometimes sincerely held, nevertheless constitute a betrayal of a cause which must look primarily to youth for support. Whence comes optimism if not from the young? And what magic word can restore the hope of the rising generation once it has been blasted?
Perhaps youth does not realize its responsibility to the world and to itself. Or, more likely, youth Edward Voat does not think of itself as a specific corps in society, but rather as imperfect tadpoles passively awaiting maturation. The customary division of society into the wealthy, the bourgeoisie, and the poor, is an artificial one. It has no real basis in the nature of the individuals considered. More appropriate would be a distinction between age groups, since age so often determines outlook and objectives. Those members of society past the age of 50 tend, in general, to be the policy setters; those from 30 to 50, the synthesizers of a future program not yet in power; and those from 18 to 30, the stokers of a furnace of internal energy that is to drive them through the disillu-sionments of coming years to the status, with age, of new policy setters. Of course these groups are not isolated; they influence each other in varying degrees, but the basic characteristics of each remain quite distinguishable. One group must not abandon its own responsibilities and usurp the perrogatives of any other.
If the world is today in terrible straits (and what age has not been?), then it is not youth that is to despair of present condition, for youth is not responsible for them. Youth's task is to propose and to prepare. Certainly, criticism is to be expected from the elders of our society; when the power to achieve has diminished, the tendency to condemn becomes more pronounced. But let the aged mourn, the young must look to New Horizons.
On Sunday, Dec. 1, St. Benedict's college will present pianist Berenice Haspert. The program begins at 8 p.m. The following evening at 8:30 St. John's Symphony orchestra features James Oallahan performing Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor, a very moving work. Don't miss this one.
KENNEDY Continued from p. 1
Stephen's church, a small, newly-built church less than 20 minutes from the White House on Pennsylvania ave. where he stayed during his visit to Washington. President Kennedy frequently attended Mass at St. Stephen's. By design, he always sat at the end of the pew. The Secret Service wouldn't even let him go to communion in public because they would be unable to protect him if he walked to the front of the church."
"When I returned to St. Stephen's after eating at a friend's home Friday evening, I learned that Father Duffy, an assistant at St. Stephen's, was taking part in a vigil the priests of Washington planned to keep with the body as long as it lay in the White House. I asked if I could go along."
The two priests arrived at the White House at 6:40 a.m. Saturday. Because Father Paul had not registered in advance, there was a delay while a White House gate guard telephoned for necessary clearance. "The guard flashed a strange smile when he read the name Marx on my identification and I could see that it made him think of the alleged assassin and his Marxist philosophy.
"We were into the East room where the body was lying in state. In the middle of the room was a catafalque four or five feet tall on which the flag-covered casket was resting. It was the same catafalque Lincoln's body lay on.
"Many members of the White House staff and Secret Service men came through while I knelt there," Father continued. "One of the mourners was the White House chef. He was dressed from head to toe in white and he removed his'tall white chef's hat as he entered the room. Like many others, he made the sign of the cross and wept as he left the room. I must admit that I found it very difficult to pray during the time that I knelt there.
People the world over mourned President Kennedy, but to the people of Washington he held a position even more special than the presidency—he was a neighbor. "All the people acted as if they had lost a personal friend— as if something had gone out of everyone's life. I didn't hear their opinions because no one spoke. Everything was silence. It seemed like a time when everyone wanted to be alone with his personal thoughts."
As Mary Haworth remarked to Father Paul that Friday afternoon when the startling news of the shooting was announced, "People always kill their gods." To the people of Washington, D.O., at least, the saying had a special significance.
By Jim Smorada
"It does appear almost certain that the role of the Catholic college in the total educational complex will decline in the near future," states Dr. Edward Henry in an article in this month's issue of Today, a magazine to which he has contributed previously.
Dr. Henry is head of the university development fund and a professor in the political science department, a position he has held for the past ten years. Reasons for Decline
Dr. Henry continues, "...one prophet of doom has predicted that not more than a dozen or so small private institutions will survive with high quality by the end of another decade." For this Dr. Henry has cited several reasons. First, small, private colleges are unable to maintain a large, well-trained, lay faculty. Secondly, the college must contend with today's inflating costs of salaries, buildings and maintenance. These costs spiral upward and cut into the college's small incomes efficiently, leaving with them little capital with which to expand. And finally, he points out that "Catholic colleges must face an increasingly critical appraisal by a new generation of Catholics who demand the best in education and who will not settle for any college merely because it is Catholic."
Students, even today, are being siphoned away from small col-
leges due to the increased tuition fees and the corresponding growth of the less expensive '' Junior colleges." And good students are also being diverted to larger universities because of the greater aid to the student through scholarships, the lower tuition fees and generally better facilities. Small College has Merit
However, the professor sees a value in small college education, particularly in the small Catholic colleges. Their contribution to our society is seen as a "vital ingredient" that can not be lost, and if lost, cannot be easily replaced. He sees the Catholic institution fathering "the fusion of the humanistic ideas of the Greeks and the supernaturalism of the Judeao-Ohristian tradition." This fusion is needed to produce the 20th century's "whole man."
Future Bright
Dr. Henry sees a fruitful future for the small college, the privately supported college, if financial support can be gained by more efficient fund raising programs effecting both private firms and the federal government. Even more, he notes the dedication, with which religious communities have maintained and staffed the colleges. For this dedication our society owes a debt. These communities have seasoned the American society with the "vital ingredient" of Christian humanistic learning.
Letters to Editor
Incongruity
The Minneapolis Tribune for Sept. 12 reported that a Negro graduate of Notre Dame university had not been allowed to become a member of one of the councils of the Chicago area Knights of Columbus. Four of the top five officers of the council resigned in protest to this action by members of the council. The Supreme Grand Knight, Luke Hart, has taken this occasion to restate that there is not, nor should there be, a racial test for membership to the order.
The St. John's University council has sent the following letter to the remaining officer of that council:
Dear Fellow Knight:
The St. John's University Council is most deeply concerned with the much publicized action taken by your council in refusing Negro Joseph Bertrand admittance into the Knights of Columbus.
We understand your right to refuse membership to any one individual. Perhaps the most disturbing news ot this council is the deplorable fact that of some 40,000 Knights in your councils in Chicago you have not one Negro member. We echo the thoughts of John A. McDermott of the Catholic Interracial Council in
saying: "We find it hard to believe that this is a coincidence."
So in all humility and in the fraternal spirit—yet with the utmost urgency—we ask you to remember that one basic tenet of the Catholic Church as well as the Knights of Columbus, charity. We ask you to take immediate action to rectify this shocking situation.
Sincerely,
The St. John's University
Council 5136
by unanimous consent
Regrets
Dear Editor:
I heard the sad news of the assassination of President John Kennedy with a great shock. The death of President John Kennedy is an irreparable loss not only to the people of the United States of America but also to the people of the world.
I send my heartfelt sympathy to all the members of the Abbey community, to all present students of St. John's University and to my fellow American alumni. May his mighty soul rest in peace and may his spirit continue to move this great nation conceived in liberty.
Alphonsus Okibedi '63
THE RECORD
Published semi-monthly in October, November, February, March and May, and monthly in January, April, June, August, September and December by the students of St. John's university, Collegeville, Minn.
Subscription rate: $1.00 a year.
Entered as second class matter Jan. 30, 1920, at the post office in Oollegeville, Minn., under the act of March 3, 1879.
Editor..................................................Pete Traskey
Managing Editor.........................................Tom Super
News Editor.............................................Jim Franck
Copy Editor.............................................Pat Barrett
Photo Editor............................................Jim Worms
Sports Editor...................................Gary Hackenmueller
Sports Staff.................Jerry Maher, Jerry Petry, Greg Speeter
Photographers........................Glenn Reinardy, Paul Luedtke
Layout..............................................Henry Roehrich
Reporters: Stu Lang, Jim Worms, Dick Merrill, Joe Pilon, Tom Nord,
Dave Beckley, Jim Hanlon, Tom Martin, Joe Getty, Jim Marrin,
Dennis Hynes, Jim Wagner, Jim Smorada, Larry Richardson,
Denny Williams, Frank Pintozzl, Bill lacono, Joe Coyne
Advisers.............Father Alculn Slebenand, OSB, Mr. Lee Hanley
