Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 May 1949 — Page 8

’

THE INDIAN APOLIS TIMES

An and

"THE pc OF oLeNCa® York, Doubleday, $3.

That question too seldom i gards at least the thought of of entertainment.

problem. Hence the value of a book like “the Show of Violence,” by the New York psychiatrist, Dr. Fredric Wertham, Here is the clearest, the most intelligent and possibly the most sensational investigation of killing as a social disease yet written. 1 say “sensational” advisedly, since Dr, Wertham’'s wamivabis study contains a good deal of clinical material, particularly in his long chapter on Robert Irwin and the tremendously publicized + Gedeon murders of 1938. That chapter is not pretty reading, but it's something for serious-minded adults to ponder. » ” [J IN SOME PARTS of the United States, murder accounts for more deaths than tuberculosis. Statistically, someone is murdered every 45 minutes in this country, someone commits the “perfect crime” every .two hours and 60 per cent of murder cases never are solved. This is strong. stuff. In so far as we think at all about the soay we live in, we like to assume it's reasonably well governed. We like to believe justice Yveriakia evil-doers, murder will out and killers will eventually pay. the ultimate penalty.. . Wertham gives plenty of Eh to show that our assumptions are sadly incorrect. As things actually work out, laws are confused, the processes of justice are Influenced by politics ime public’ attitude towards

fluctuates between from the

ake and sentimentality. Murder is ‘& dangerous pl thing. It kills y people, But it's also a kind of luxury item, Dr. Wertham doesn’t stress that point, any more than he stresses the responsibility (or irresponsibility) of newspapers in making each new homicide a boost to circulation, 8 ® =

MURDER 18 DRAMA. It's the subject of a lot of great literature,

Subway in the ‘morning paper, Like all other first-rate discussions of big subjects, Dr. Wertham’s book makes the reader wish the writer had sald more. A few observations on prosecuting attorneys, with whom Dr. Wertham, as an expert witness, has had plenty of dealings, suggest a study of the prosecuting attorney as a great American myth. Usually on his way upstairs polit. fcally, the prosecutor (‘fearless exposer of evil,” etc.) is a genuine folklore character, Also usually, Dr. Wertham suggests, the prosecutor doesn’t help clarify the individual crime. The real problem in murder cases is to protect society, rather than to create a drama of revenge, which subtly tickles the mean impulses alk of us nonmurderers have, Heaven forgive us. # » »

IN AN AGE of penicillin, not| to mention the atom bomb, our society makes Italian opera out of murder, instead of treating it 88 a disease, Laws are so lax and practices are so unintelligent that some criminals, feigning insanity, get loose to commit more crimes, while genuinely psycho pathic individuals who come and ask for help are cold-shouldered. Robert Irwin, Dr. Wertham says, asked for medical help 10 times in the four and a half years before he killed three persons. The Irwin chapter, previously mentioned, is a sorry story of politics, medical quackery and other shabbiness familiar to anyone who gets inside dope. Indianapolis readers of the book certainly will draw parallels. As they should. The question

is not: “Lo, the poor, misguided criminal.

" The question is: Why was the crime committed? Can future crimes by the same person be prevented? Dr. Wertham has a ghamly story of a cannibalistic pervert who was carelessly discharged from asylum after asylum, only to resume his gruesome activity, Nobody but Dr. ‘Wer-

MARIAN COLLEGE

INDIANAPOLIS Resident and Non-Resident

| Study of Murder Is Important, Strong Stuff

By Fredric Wertham, M.D. New|

By HENRY BUTLER WHAT ARE the causes and cures of murder?

Novels and radio thrillers about homicide, plus newspaper dramatization of violent crimes, tend to obscure the

Intelligent

is asked in a society that remurder as an important item

tham had ever bothered to probe this man’s mind and reach some diagnosis of his dangerous disease, We think we're pretty smart, We can track down a Typhoid Mary or trace the pollution of a stream. But get us in an emotional deal like murder, and we're as archaic as we are modern. That's what Dr. Wertham is hammering at. A

HIS FINAL CHAPTER, “The Mathematics of Murder,” which previously appeared in the SBaturday Review of Literature, I think} is the best in the book. He touches on the guilt we all share for permitting potentially deadly conditions to continue-—industrial accidents, dust in coal mines, and 80 on, I think he could have expanded that, and I think he should, with a chapter on the entertainment value of disaster. There's something decidedly morbid about a society that permits known fire hazards to continue—almost as if in the hope that a big, julcy Winecoft Hotel kind of thing will be served up in the morning paper, with, as we say in the trade, “art,” meaning pictures. We all have the attitude I used to hear expressed when I was a kid: “I don’t wish a fire on anyone, but if it’s going to happen, 1 want to see it.” In a way, that is part of what theologians call our original sin. Although ts. totally diferent

all pl Whom le news- { |papermen and prosecuting attorneys should read, besides the psychiatrists who will do so anyway.

Compiles Report

Dr. Ruth Weintraub of Hunter College and New York University has compiled a report on anti-Semitism in the United States for the Anti-Defa-mation League. Under the title | "How Secure These Rights?"

the book is a recent Doubleday publication ($2).

Author Pens Tale of Youth

"AND-ONE TO GROW ON." By John Gould. New York, Morrow, $3.

JOHN GOULD has produced a book full of sweet nostalgia for

reader's own boyhood was not spent in a small Maine seaside town, He calls it “And One to Grow On" and spins it out in the fine style that made his “The House That Jacob Built" notable. He recreates the Ladies Aid food sales so vividly that the musty mixture of stale dust and rich cakes in a long-closed church basement leaves its tantalizing odor almost literally on the pages of his book. » » ”

HE TAKES small town characters—the “foolish fellows,” the old tale-spinners, the town drunk --that populate every village and gives them reality beyond the printed word. He gives schooldays an attraction they seldom have while they are being lived—from the weekly class in “speaking” to the thrill

Liberal Arts and Sciences Teacher Training Pre-Professional Courses

Cold Spring Rd. © WA. 73371

nt ert ed

WFBM—9:15 A. M. Sun,

of snuggling in the sticky softness of the annual hayride. John Gould still lives on the farm cleared "by his grandfather 200 years ago. If life there is an approach to what he depicts in his latest work, who can blame him?

Fletcher Pratt's

erals” first appeared in the In-

tantry Journal, these studies in [four weeks in the Deep South.

American command were written go octeq by Walter White of the for the general reader, not the National Association for the AdMr. Pratt has here analyzed the tactics of some of our great soldiers who have not always received their historical due.

specialist,

lost youth and regret that the

"Pastime" is the title of this through June 5

ing & Co. $50 pis in the 42d annual Indiana Artists Exhibition, currently at Herron Art Museum

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1949

of $ 150 Prize

(All Radio

RADIO PROGRAMS gr 2

THIS EVENIN 3 jo Program on Gentral Daylight Time) !

oil painting by Garo Z. Antreasian of Indianapolis, awarded the Keel-

~ Wi 1070 WIRE 1430 wish 1310 | WOW 159 | Ww-T00 Mutes) NBO | pe FM After 7:45 P.M! Bo Easy Does Lasste rai Fon With Duma © | Kew Linn Calling News—Easy Does it | DePauw University x .. doa Mead’ whreok Matinee ra .n Open Sesame . ~_ [Oniropractics -." ee a2 Melody Billboard | Honey Dreamers .a Sports : fad Edward Amold . ow Your Home Boautitel Scattorgood Baines fo Safely [Harlin Bros. .- oe Bomels Rawal) Galt Mashaitan Music (Luke Wallen Music for Dining | Voico of the Enquirer Kelly—flowm frank Edwards . Siraight Arrow Music So Rep. Jacobs Speaks | News Penn Relays Allon ilies Dick orgons [Dat Zen Jil Twesly Guesfions | Wwoed Siar Theater | Take 2 Chorms Sonsel ond Vise | Midwesiern Rayride Tako a Nomber (Truth or Consequences Famous Jury frets (Music for Saturdsy | Vic Dumone _ Hoosier ifs _ Hit Parade _ Relaxin’ Time Make Believe Bali's (wood Star Theater Guy Lombards Judy Canoe Indpis.-Columwbus a Trefh or Consequences 0 Sing 1 Again |Couniry if Parade |Domnis Dey _ National Bars Dance [David Rese Hf Parade 9% - - Mooi the Prass (Grand Ola Opry |indgls.Columbus |News Jody Canons «45 - . . - - » - Josse Crawlord ” “w 100| Gilbert Forbes Gene Kelly Allen Jeffries . Good Music Nowr | Denals Day JO 215; "ee ward Son Record Party Morion Downey Scores rags ay 130 > * Dancing Party Dance Bund . i. Grand OF Opry 45) Garwood Yan Orch. | Kelly Kiubbouse et i .- iw fT :00| Million § Pirly [Record Party Rws—-Sporinus Yariofy Hour Sign Off Nows-Peler Grant 11:4 . a - - Morton Downey 8:30 or ., oo. JL Sle ill ae Johny Long Orch. «45 . o - -» “w NBC Orchestra 4 - » » -

Book Cites

| | Generals

“ELEVEN GENERALS." By Fletch-{"IN THE LAND OF JIM CROW." New York, William

or Pratt, Sloane Associates, $5.

By ROBERT W. MINTON

Take Nathanael Greene.

ed all the British posts,

thelr ‘armies in two. ” ® »

MORE recently Gen.

less risks, that he took, cipated by Gen. Bradley.

there.

through.

Phil Sheridan,

of cavalry.

he deceived the enemy into think

forces. In the three years of his com

a mobile threat and pseudo foo soldiers.

ference some miles away, hi forces were surprised in camp and routed. Hurrying to them he met stragglers retreating. “Turn around boys, we're going back,” he said. And turning back with glee, they smashed the enemy in the decisive battle of Cedar Creek. Mr. Pratt's other generals are Anthony Wayne, Jacob Brown, Richard Mentor Johnson, John Buford, George H, Thomas, James Harrison Wilson, Charles Pelot Summeral and A. A. Vandegrift, not all names you'll recognize, but ones you'll remember after reading this fine book.

Signs New Contract Bert Andrews, author of “Washington Witch Hunt” and winner of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for Journalism, has signed a contract with Appleton-Century-

the Hiss-Chambers case and the Hiss trial. The publisher plans

ALTHOUGH the contents of “Eleven Gen-

He never won a battle, yet he won the campaign against Cornwallis in the South that softened up the British forces for Yorktown. He preferred to make an enemy pay a heavy casualty toll for victory pirather than to pay it himself, In 110 months Greene's 1500 men had

taken 3500 prisoners and split ‘ x =x

Omar Bradley's scholarly precision obscured his reputation as one of the great tacticlans of all time. Both in Africa and France he made his daring use of infantry ' {seem unspectacular, so thorough- ‘ lly correct was his intuition. Yet corroborated by all other careful most men would have avoided|investigators, the risks, calculated but nonethe-

His line was thin, but he knew he could destroy the German Army

“Let him come here it he wants to,” he declared. Proof of his anticipation was the removal of gasoline supplies 60 miles from the front, which prevented the enemy from replenishing its fuel after the break-

” ” » THE MOST wonderful of Mr. Pratt's eleven fighters was Little the 31-year-old officer who revolutionized the use He used them as mounted infantrymen who rode to battle, then dug in and fought on the ground. Time and again

ing his men were vast infantry

mand his horses: only charged three times. Mostly they acted as

Once while he was in staff con-

Pittsburgh Newsman Turns Spotlight on 'Jim Crow’

By Ray Sprigle. Foreword by Margaret Halsey. New York, Simon & Schuster, $2.50.

“RAY SPRIGLE, Pulitzer-Prize- said elsewhere, it- might be poswinning writer for the Pittsburgh|sible to get more and more people {Post-Gazette, wanted to find outithinking of Negroes as potential what “Jim Crow” means. customers. The profit motive conLast summer, he disguised him-|ceivably could help destroy the self as a Negro and traveled forievil of prejudice, which is what psychiatrists would call mass paranoia. Mr Sprigle says he was surprised to learn that Negroes, despite all their sufferings, do not hate white people. Naturally enough, they often fear and distrust whites. But the wisdom and insight they've gained from their long experience of mistreatment have helped them. realize white people also are the victims of an unhealthy society.—H. B. rc cpt ————— en ———

With him was a Negro companion

vancement of Colored People. The companion introduced Mr. Sprigle- to southern Negroes. in all walks of life, carefully maintaining the secret so as to insure complete frankness of conversation. In a way, Mr. Sprigle did in actuality what Laura Z. Hobson's fictional hero did in “Gentleman’s Agreement.” I might add that a B k D S film based on Mr. Sprigle’s book, “In the Land of Jim Crbw,” if oo ue oon anybody dared attempt it, would| #%u i i be vastly more sensational than: “Gentleman’s Agreement.”

MR. SPRIGLE'S. report, due out next Monday, is on the ab-| solutely imperative list for; readers with a social conscience. It contains stories Mr. Sprigle|: heard of humiliation, injustice,

swindling, beatings and un punished murder. Such stories,

form a dreadful tapestry of fear, which is the background of Negro life in the South. A Negro World War II veteran in a community dominated by ignorant, arrogant whites, decides he will at last exercise his right to. vote. He does, and it's the final act of his life, for he’s soon afterward shot “in self-defense” by whites. No redress, no punishment of the trigger-happy Jprotectors of “white supremacy.” Up here, north of what Mr. Sprigle says Negroes call the! “Smith & Wesson Line,” we are aware that such things happen down there, For some reason, however, we're less shocked than we would be if similar things were reported from Germany,

A shot from "Quartet," the J. Arthur Rank film based on four of W. Somerset Maugham's short stories, shows Mr. Maugham in one of the explanatory chats incorporated into the picture.

The stories, as Mr. Maugham wrote them, and the screen versions, prepared by R. C. Sher-

: (spelling, for in the days of Spen-

L Imost a war casualty—all undis-

Offers Bards’

Sweet Songs “ELIZABETHAN LYRICS." An

anthology. Edited by Norman Ault. New edition. New York, Sloane, $5.

THERE WERE sweet singers In Elizabethan England, bards who scragged for a living in the taverns and coffee houses and sold

meal or two in a small job in the retinue of a noble patron. No one knows how many of their classics have been lost in the carelessness of time but the best of what has come down to us is now reissued in Norman Ault’s classic anthology, “Elizabethan Lyrics.” Mr. Ault went to the original] texts for his selection, tracking down a work in the library of the descendants of a belted earl or a coroneted duke and deciphering it from the scrawled document itself. Wisely, he has converted it all into modern

ger, Sidney, Ben Jonson, and Shakespeare spelling was treated most casually. But all else is transcribed intact including the exciting use of now familiar words| _ n unfamiliar Ls vie

which seemed so right when the language was being born.

AL “THIS ANTHOLOGY was al-

tributed copies were blitzed in the London bombings. Sloane's has achieved a service by rescuing it. And in the words of the poet Jones in “A Handful of” Pleasant Delights” (1584): Wherefore, my friend if you. regard Such songs to read or hear Doubt not to buy this pretty Book, The price is not so dear.

Publishers Win Bet

Houghton-Minfilin came out on top in its annual wager with Little, Brown and Atlantic Monthly Press. The competition is held in each publisher's bestselling books of the past year in five categories: Fiction, non-fic-tion, juvenile, first novel, first nonfiction. The books whose sales figures won for Houghton-Mufflin are respectively “The Big Fisherman,” “The Gathering Storm,”

Japan or Russia. # " »

IN CASE we're tempted to feel| smug, Indianapolis permits silly -land petty restrictions to be imposed. Downtown eateries, which] proclaim in large signs, “We re-| -|gserve the right to refuse service,” nevertheless do a big Skeont | |

riff, will be published in a single volume May 19 by Doubleday.

sandwich business with Negroes t|One might imagine that this kind of semi-Jim Crow chaos could be sometimes even more puzzling s/and irritating than the brutally

Summer School—June 13=July 22

“Seabird,” “Raintree County,” and “Smile Please. . . .

ART INSTITUTE

Writes History

their precious manuscripts for a &

often | i

total policies down South.

than on the entire public-choo program for Negroes, » ” ”

economic status.

Mr. Sprigle lists the things) . southern Negroes most want and Teachers’ Course—Children's Class | need. The first is the right to life.| 16th an . I Down there, a Negro share-| d 4 Pennsylvania Sts TA. 1446 cropper dare not question a white| m= _— —— we— = landlord’s end-of-the-year accounting regardless of how dis-| ANNOUNCING— | honest it may seem. In large| ; areas, a Negro still invites death! : | fess, # Negto SHI Hiivites death) Indiana (enfral’s Summer Session |

Freedom to vote (we all know what's happened to civil-rights| programs) and better education] are next on the list of Negro needs. Mr. Sprigle says Mississippi spends more on transporting! white children in school busses)

GUNNAR MYRDAL and others, have suggested the importance of] helping the Negro improve his| With aid from|

Crofts for an objective book on chambers of commerce, as I've

Watercolor Painting—Drawing—Ceramics Graphic Arts

On the Air

KENTUCKY DERBY — Clem McCarthy and Bill Corum will describe the Diamond Jubilee rune ning of the turf classic of the year . .. WFBM, 5:15 p.m. "TWENTY QUESTIONS — Bil} Slater emcees the experts in a radio version of the old-fashioned parlor game . . . WIBC, 7 p.m. HOLLYWOOD STAR THEA. TER—Ronald Coleman will introe duce screen newcomer Terry Moore . . . WIRE, 7 p. m.—WLW, 8 p.m. TAKE A NUMBER-—-Rex Bare ney, Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher; Bob Cooke, New York Herald Tribune sports editor, and Jocko Conlon, National League umpire, answer questions from the radio audience . . , WIBC, 7:30 p.m. DENNIS DAY — Dennis imper« sonates popular singers after he {breaks the sound apparatus on his girl friend’s movie projector .. WIRE, 9 p. m.:—WLW, 10 p. m, MEET THE PRESS -—Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge (R. Mass.) will be interviewed by a panel of newsmen . .. WIBC, 9:30 p. m. BASEBALL—Luke Walton de seribes the game between the Coe jumbus Red Birds and the.Indians from Victory Field ,.. WISH, 8:30 p.m.

BUTLER UNIVERMTY PLAN NOW FOR SUMMER STUDY

Butler University offers summer sehool students a opportunity to begin or conte graduate or undergraduate work on degrees or teaching certificates. Four complete Summer Sessions will be offered.

May 16-June 3’ Regular Summer Session June 14-Aug. 5 June 14-Aug. 26 Aug. 8-26

Abel Plenn has written a documented first-hand-report history |*

of America, "Upon This Continent," which follows somewhat the unusual historical technique he developed i in "The Southern Americas.” "Upon This Continent" is a recent publication of Creative Age Press ($3.50).

Pre-Summer Session

Veterans' Semester Post-Summer Session

Pre-Summer classes are offered at convenient afternoon hours or on Saturday in the fields of botany, education, history and political science, psychology and sociology. Classes carry from one to three hours of undergraduate credit.

@ Sell (|

I TIT

CROSSWORD PUZZLE \

Answer to Previous Passie

Finny Creature

June 14 — August 5 Registration June 13 Classes in Religion, History, Education, English and Business

The Office

—

LISTEN TO,

to release the book §s soon as possible after the conclusion of | the trial,

On May 18 Duell, Sloan and!

Karl Vollmoeller, German expatriate who died last year. The story is based on a religious theme set in 18th century Europe. Mr, Vollmoeller was author of the

Pearce will release “The Last Mir-| acle,” a first and last novel by|