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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (March 23, 1943)
LITERARY PAGE We Are So Sorry, Dr. Kuo By MARJORIE MAJOR YOU are speeding- somewhere 1 in a train, perhaps, tonight .—we don’t know where. And your black keen eyes are just as black, and just as keen. Gnd as yoT watch the telegraph poles of America whizzing past, there is something we would like to say to you. . . . We are so sorry, Dr, Kuo, 'that we can't say these things otit loud—but perhaps you can hear our thoughts, or perhaps yon already know them. You spoke to us several months ■ago, Dr. Kuo, on “China and the World Conflict.’’ You divided your speech into what you called “Psychological" errors, and we 'smiled just a little over your pro nunciation of “psychological." First, you told us about China .and Japan, the history behind Pearl Harbor. You told us of the 1,000,000 demoralised Japanese troops in China. Oh.' you told us .many interesting things . . . and •wo settled back in our chairs, for .•this wasn’t going to be one of “those speeches,” one of those uncomfortable speeches, we ancon. Then you told us that China •was asking the United States for 1,000 light aircraft and 50 air transports. You explained that ■these would be important in turn ing the Japanese tide in China, You didn’t say much more about this, Dr. Kuo, but behind your words we saw Shanghai, •the seventh largest city in the world, burned to the ground ex cept for the street lights which burn every night like long yel low fingers reaching into noth ingness. We saw the long trek to the west of your refugees, we saw a coolie carrying the wreck of a railroad track toward that same west, to build something out of nothing. We took a brief glimpse at your sparse artillery and ma chine parts, and then looked at Japanese planes and guns. We say your young boys coming down out of their mountain vil lages to fight across burned rice fields and muddy rivers with swords, not guns—with swords. Then we suddenly realized that the amount you asked for was ex actly five per cent of what we send to Great Britain every month. And, Dr. Kuo, your request was as unanswerable as the deaths of your four million soldiers in the past five years. rr>HEN you began to tell us of " what you called the “Kipling policy," this policy, you defined as the conception held by Great Britain, France, Russia, Ger many, the United States, that Asiatic countries are large, ripe melons, to be plucked and sucked dry, and the husks thrown back to their people. As you defined tins policy, we thought of many things, Dr. Kuo. We say China not for the Chi nese. We saw your seaports in foreign hands, we say your wo men and children working as vir tual slaves under a foreign con tract factory system. We saw the <opium war with Great Britain, the Boxer rebellion, we sgw the marines bombing Hong Kong—• and we saw the wealthy foreign er eating his $600 dinner at a restaurant called “Le Bonne,” in Shanghai . . . where 10,000 starved every winter. And about then, we began to move a little in our chairs, we realized that our left shoe hurt, and that warm lunches were waiting for us. Most of us began to think of the cigarettes and the warm food, and the gay talk. And as we were thinking these things, what was it that you said, Dr. Kuo? Did you say “If these policies are continued after the war, China will be forced to the death to remove them?” The few of us who heard you, thought of many, many things. We saw a new, young China— growing up in a world far re moved from that of their ances tors, we saw your New Life movement, your hospitals, your young nurses. We saw your new passions, your new hates, and we remem bered your new-old rationality. We looked down the long path of your history, and we realized that your Great Wall is the only thing ever built by man that A New York Fairy Tale TILDA by Mark Van Doron, Hmi ry Holt and Company. $2.50. The year happened to be 194." . . , war a disturbing- background. The setting ? New York, with its fire escapes, apartments, ferry boats, baseball games, corpora tions . . . grand hotels. The scene begins . . . the curtain is raised on the figure of a man, leaning motionless over the rail of a ho tel fire escape. Across the court. Tilda, twenty-one. fair, placid and practical, is watching him, through binoculars, rather like a modern Lady of Shalott. It's fool ish, it's a waste of time, she tells herself. Why should she be so glad to spend a free half-day in watching- that mysterious fig ure ? Here is romance, timeless and lovely as over. The heroine is an air-raid warden, the hero an rroiy captain. For her he was clad in armor as shining ais, that which adorned the fairy prince. To him she was the image of his Wife, whom he mourned. And so they met . . . He calls her "Har riet,’’ his dead wife's name, and she.is too kind to disillusion him. How she cures him of his grief and rediscovers herself is a re freshing and touching- love story which should satisfy the reader who is not looking for profound inferences and deep currents of meaning. Perhaps Mark Van Doren saw suolt a man one day. with trag OUR BOVS WITH TUB CQtQRS edy in his face, looking into space. Or such a gill, delving' deep into a box of popcorn to find the trinket at the bottom, laughing into her lover's face. At any rate, he has created two characters, flung logic out the window, and made up a pretty romance about them. He does not suggest how it is possible for a man to recover from a deep personal tragedy within the short space of a week and to fall in love with a girl suf ficiently to forget his sorrow within that time. The realities of life do nor enter uuo tins uuvei— its function is to amuse and soothe—that it performs admir ably. For those who wish entertain ment and anaesthesia from the headlines, here is the solution. The background does have a sug gestion of war, but that is coun terbalanced by the simple routine of Tilda’s everyday life, which is depicted skillfully. Even the air raid warden duties hardly seem consequential. “Tilda” leaves one with a good taste in one's mouth.—C.G. ; Newly Elected Social Chairman • You will want your first dance to be a smooth success. Carefully designed danae pro grams will accent your theme and make your dance long re membered. Dance Programs of Distinction Valley Printing 76 \V. Broadway Phone 4/0 i ___ Potted I shape with ever-loving heart the clay of many-colored words, and turn my earthen idioms with care, till they acquire the sheen from thought that you, the customer, desire, and that will flatter most the room within your quiet mind. What more might you request of me beyond the beauty of design? —E. Claudine Biggs. could be seen from the planet Mars. And about that time, Dr. Kuo, we wished wc could have stopped you. Because, you see, we aren’t interested in you after the war. When the war is over, we want back our big, shining cars, and our Sunday trips into the coun try to see the signboards, and our big, vulgar homes, and our complacency. And, Dr. Kuo, we don’t under stand you. We don’t understand you any more than we under stand the drift of an iris petal, cr the tinkle of a wind harps, or the sharp bayonet of hunger, or r Literary Page Staff: Editor: Carol Greening Contributors: Marjorie Major E. Claudine Biggs the death-riders of disease and starvation. . . . And we are afraid of you . . . We are afraid of the day when we shall have to stand by some dead Chinese soldier and SEE that his blood is as thick, and as warm, and as red as ours . . . and that the earth receives it more kindly, because he knew her better. iL READ BOOKS TO BE EDUCATED But through the years Oregon stu dents have purchased far more than that quantity from the Co-op! The larger part of this money has gone for text books but thousands of dollars have been spent for general literature ir our trade book depart ment. BUY OR RENT ...BUT READ! 99