College News, 1931-04-29, Vol. 17, No. 20

              �'�
College News
Vol. XVII, No. 20
WAYNE AND BRYN MAWR, PA., WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 1931
Price: 10 Cents
The Enchanted April
Good Entertainment
M. Drake Stars in Cast Drawn
From Bryn Mawr and
Haverford.
MISS   DYER   IS   PRAISED
Halide Edib Describes
Westernized Turkey
Changed Position of Women Is
Unparalleled as Outcome
of Gradual Reform.
EQUALITY   ESTABLISHED
Although "The Enchanted April,"
being by Kane Campbell, is not so en-
tirely the result of home brewing as the
three one-act plays which preceded its
production in the Varsity Dramatics sea-
son, nevertheless, as presented on SatUXr-[xha4>e�-in
day night, it proves to be very good en-
tertainment.- The situation is, of course,
an old one, by means of which the char-
acters are brought into contact with each
other for the change in their destinies,
being virtually that of a house-party, used
to much advantage in "The Last of Mrs.
Cheyney" and "The Truth Game;" the
fact that, as in the present case, the house
has been rented by the party, as a com-
mon retreat from individual care, alters
the device but little.
It was in this portrayal of her cares
that Miss Grant's interpretation of Lady
Caroline Dester was most successful; she
was entirely as a spoilt, decorative young
"member of the aristocracy" who is so
bored by her mother"s attempts to marrv
her off that she welcomes the oppor-
tunity to escape even with total strangers
quite outside her class, and refuses at
first to acknowledge sincerity even when
she finds it. Miss Grant's interpretation,
however, especially in the emotional
scenes, as with Briggs concerning the
portrait, savoured too much of the petu-
lant child, and not enough of the mature
young lady, who, as a result of her ex-
periences, has some depth of motive in
Edib,     speaking
22.   in   the
First Winner
suspecting all professions of love.
Miss Putnam was not .forceful enough
as the neglected but adoring Rose Ar-
buthnot, whose refinement turns into
prudishness where it comes into contact
with her husband's popular novels. She
did, however, give great charm to the
part, which at all events called for so
little forcefulness that Mrs. Fisher, that
terrifying grande dame of London society,
was not roused by Rose; to whom, in
theory, at least, she must have objected, if
for no other reason than that she was of
another generation. Miss Dodge as Mrs.
Fisher {.William) had another oppor-
tunity to display her gift for comedy;
Miss Dodge was as amusing and convinc-
ing in her portrayal of the old lady, who
nevertheless cannot resist the humanizing
warmth of the "Enchanted April," as she
was in the slightly different delineation
of Egbert's "Humpty-Dumpty." She was
at her best in those moments of defensive
dignity, and as when, being unable to un-
derstand the maid, admirably portrayed
by Miss Waples, she remarks, "I speak
only the Italian of Dante."
The best performance of the evening,
however, was given by Miss Drake,
whose part, of course, admitted more
subtlety than that of Miss Dodge. Never
once did Miss Drake seem other than
Lottie Wilkins, the middle-class wife of
Mellersh Wilkins, solicitor, with all her
bubbling naivete, optimism and psychic
intpitions. She too showed a fine sense
for comedy, and, if anything, even added
to the humor of such lines as: "It (the
castle) has all the modern improvements
�electric lights, and battlements and
things."     Miss   Drake
Madame Halide
Wednesday night, April
Music Room of Goodhart, took as her
subject the development and Westerni-
zation of the social and religious as-
pects of Turkish civilization. The
-pusitiun of women is by
far the most important result upon
the social structure of Turkey, declared
Madame Edib. This change has no
parallel; it is not the outcome of a
struggle of a class for its rights; but
of gradual reform, and is more eco-
nomic than intellectual in character.
Islam is not only a religion; it is a
system of life in which every individual
is accountable for his every action directly
to the one God. Before the advent
of Mohammed, Arab civilization had
reached a low ebb; polygamy was rife;
women had no rights whatsoever; and
a new moral sense was needed. This
Mohammed supplied by the introduc-
tion of Islamic religion. Women's
position was much improved, although
the existing marriage laws constituted
an obstacle in the path of further ad-
vancement; polygamy was still
licensed; divorce was much easier for
the man than for the woman; and the
custom of seclusion had been adopted
from the Persians. The Turks did not
take over this civilization until two cen-
turies after they first came into con-
tact with it.
The taking of Constantinople has
been called "the losing of the Turks,"
for they began to copy the Byzantine
civilization and lost the simplicity that
had been their strength.   It was at this
Negro Intellectuals Stress Inequality of
Opportunity for Race in All Fields
Discrimination in Labor and Education Must Go�Demand Oppo-
sition to Segregation�Problem Has
National Aspect.
CONTINUED    WHITE - DOMINATION    THREATENED
A splendid conference poorly attended
was that on the Economic Status of
Negroes in Goodhart last Saturday. April
25. Less than a dozen Bryn Mawr stu-
dents were present at any one time.    In
addition to the Brjni_Maivr_&Iudfllll5..dcli;rJ.raa::.   ��<   the   Fellowship of  Reconcilia-
Continued on Page Three
Madame Edib Grants
Interview to News
�Photo, Charlotte Falrchild.
MISS M. CAREY THOMAS
President-Emeritus of  Bryn  Mawr  College,
in  whose honor alumnae award is  named.
Alumnae Prize Award
Will Be Broadcast!
Over a Thousand Visitors Are
Expected at Celebration
For Miss Addams,
Nations attended from Vassar, Johns
Hopkins. Swarthmore, George Washing-
ton. Howard University and Cheney
Normal School. A number of the col-
lege maids came. As a result of the
conference the Liberal Club has a deficit
of   forty  odd  dollars.
The speakers, all but one of whom
were Negro, included a number of the
most outstanding Negro intellectuals in
the country. Their speeches stressed the
inequality of opportunity for the Negro
in education, industry, politics, prestige,
standards of*, living. They suggested
political and industrial remedies. Some
of them expressed their belief in the ulti-
mate triumph of colored races over white.
Committee of the Society of Friends, and
Philip Randolph,' of the Brotherhood of
Pullman tar Porters, spoke. The most
important session was that in the eve-
nirig   (8-10)   when J.   B. Mathews,   Sec-
M'DONALD SENDS LETTER
seemed   so' com-
Continaed on  Page  Three
Send Him to Bates
"Flower   Cards"   will   be   sold
next wtek for the benefit of flutes
House. By sending these cards
instead of flowers to those in the
Mikado whom you wish to re-
member, you can help send more
children to the seashore this sum-
mer when they will need it so
much. The cards will keep fresh
much longer than flowers, and the
Bates House Committee will be
able to make summer work much
more cffectiTC ._________---------------
When requested to give an inter-
view to the News, Madame Edib's
reply was, "Fire away." Madame
Edib, whom many of us visualized as
an oriental smothered in veils, is on
the contrary an extremely cosmopoli-
tan person. She has traveled exten-
sively, speaks four languages fluently,
and her views are characterized by a
liberalism' that can come only from
wide experience in  many fields.
Our reporter refrained carefully from
asking Madame Edib "her opinion of
America," but she volunteered the in-
formation. The American audience is,
in Mme. Edib's opinion, a great stimu-
lus to a lecturer. Numerous as its
vices may be, it can never be accused
of inattention. Quick to register dis-
approval, it is equally prompt in mani-
festing its appreciation. "One feels
that, While one may not be approved
of, one is at least heard," declared
Mme. Edib. However, the quality in
American audiences which she particu-
larly enjoys is "their heckling." "I sel-
dom enjoy myself as much as when
I am being heckled," was her comment.
This is, to say the least, rather an un-
usual attitude for a lecturer to take
and only goes to illustrate the toler-
ance and good humor of "Turkey's
foremost woman."
When questioned as to her views on
co-education Mme. Edib replied that
while its advisability in preparatory
schools and colleges might be ques-
absolutely
A nation-wide hook-up of an hour and
a quarter will broadcast the ceremonies
at which the M. Carey Thomas"TJrize
Award will be conferred upon Jane Ad-
dams by Bryn Mawr College on Satur-
day afternoon, May 2. The broadcast
from 3 to 4:15 will be over WJZ and
associated stations and will be the first
ever made from Bryn Mawr College.
More than 1000 distinguished visitors
are expected at the ceremony and seats
in Goodhart Hall where the presentation
will be made are being allotted rapidly.
Both President Marion Edwards Park
and Dr. M. Carey Thomas, President
�&neritus, will entertain many of the visi-
tors at tea which will follow the cere-
monies. A tribute to Miss Addams from
Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister of
Great Britain, will be read by President
Park as part of the program which will
number among its speakers the dis-
tinguished names of Dr. John Dewey,
Professor of Philosophy at Columbia Uni-
versity; Miss Grace Abbott, Chief of the
Federal Children's Bureau; Miss Frances
Perkins, Industrial -Commissioner of the
New York State Department of Labor,
and Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, some-
time president of the National American
Woman Suffrage Association and some-
time president of the International Wom-
an Suffrage Alliance. The letter from
Mr. MacDonald to Dr. Park was received
yesterday and is in the Prime Minister's
own hand.   /
The M. Carey Thomas Prize of the
value of $5000 is awarded at intervals to
an American woman in recognition of
eminent achievement. The Alumnae As-
sociation of Bryn Mawr College in 1922
raised the sum of $25,000 *ln honor of
President M. Carey Thomas to found the
award. The prize was awarded for the
first time in June, 1922. to Dr. M. Carey
Thomas, and is being awarded this year
for the second time.
tinned, It was
universities.     "Men
and
necessary in
women   have
so much to offer each other in the held
of research and study, that co-opera-
tion makes possible advances which
would otherwise lie beyond the abili-
ties of either," was her opinion.
"The youth of America has always
impressed me as being extraordinarily
well balanced, and as possessing those
qualities which enable it to adapt itself
readily   to  that   which � is   new,"   was
Continued oa Pare  Three
Calendar
Friday. May 1 : May Day exercises
and scholarship announcements.
Saturday, May 2: Presentation of
the M. Carey Thomas Award to
Jane Addams at 3 u'lluik. �------
The conference was divided into three
sessions. Professor Patterson, of the
University of Pennsylvania, presided at
the morning session (10-12:30) which
was concerned with the subject of\Eco-
nomic Conditions of the Negro in Amer-
ica. The speakers were Walter White,
Secretary of the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People;
Alain Locke, of the Department of
Philosophy of Howard University, and
Ira Reid, Director of the Research De-
partment of the Rational Urban League.
The subject of the afternoon session
(2-4) at which Miss M. P. Smith, of the
Department of Sociology at Bryn Mawr
presided, was The Negro and Labor.
Alice Dunbar Nelson, of the Inter-racial
�ee �m
lion,   and   W.   K.   B.   duliois,   editor  of
Crisis, spoke.'
The speeches were in substance as fol-
lows:
Mr. Walter White
Although the race problem in Amer-
ica is largely economic, it has other
aspects, cultural, social, educational
and political. It.was not until the slave
trade that the idea arose, especially in
England and the United States, that
the white race is superior to the black.
To protect profits, scientific thought at
that time was prostituted.. The idea
of white superiority Jias continued .
with the exploitation of black
Recent   attempts   have   been
Whitaker's First Revue
Wins Crowd's Applause
French oral.
Varsity tennis team plays Vassar
at Vassar.
Friday, May 8: Glee Club presents
"The Mikado."
Saturday, May 9: German oral.
Tea dance.
Glee   Club   presents   "The   Mi-
kado."
Friday, May 15: Last day of lec-
tures.
Tuesday night, April 21, in the gym-
nasium, the College had an entertain-
ment which we might call "something
new and different," if the expression
were not too trite and inadequate to
apply to such a rip-snorting, synco-
pated song-and-dance revue as John
Whitaker's "Ravin' Rhapsodic"
The "Alabama Blue Blowers," the
orchestra "with the Southern Soul,"
led by Dave Brown, was unique in its
composition, including, as. it did, not
only a piano with Jethro "Jelly-roll"
Whitaker at the keys, two saxophones
and a banjo, but also an innovation in
the line of drum and cymbals,, namely,
a washboard, pie-plate and frying pan
struck by thimble-fingered Walt, and
what we think must have been a tin
can -with a funnel, blown by Bassoe.
They opened the program with
"Dinah" and  "I   Want a  Little   Girt"
Then the "Melodee Four" of W.
Johnson, A. Jenkens, William John-
son, and O. Stanley, who, by the way,
may be heard over the radio station
N. B. C. from the Walton Roof, of-
fered "Mammy," "You're the One I
Care For," and "Gonna Have a Happy
Time," with all the verve and snappy
syncopation one could desire, with
some boop-boop-a-doops and hot'cha's
thrown in for good measure.
This was followed by the orchestra,
now playing "Bye Bye Blues" and
"Old Man Blues." The dancing team
of John and Jelly-roll Whitaker to
the'tune of "Laughing at Life" shook
a mean foot at an audience of over a
hundred (and this despite Glee Club
rehearsals) which stamped and shouted
its approval.
Dave Brown not only leads the or-
chestra but also seems to be able to
tap and toe dance at one and the same
time in some pretty fast-moving steps.
He has been featured in "The Side-
walks of New York" and "Africana,"
and here we want to be quoted as say-
Caatlaaed on  Pa*e Threa
along
>or.
ade to prove She Negro brain an in-.
ferior one in order that there  may be
an   excuse  for   giving   Negro   children
less education than is given to white.
Many think that lynching ot Negroes
results only from the- sfssault of white
women. In less than twenty per cent,
of lynchings is this the case. Lynch-
ing is a means of terrorizing the Negro,
of "keeping him in his place." It has
grown along with the use of the cotton
gin and with the industrial Revolution.
Before the Civil War lynching was
rarer than it is now because Negroes
had a cash value.
In the South the Negro is disfran-
chised by various devices. He is de-
prived of opportunity for education by
the apportionment of school funds.
Where thirty dollars is allowed for a
white child, a little over one dollar is\
provided for a black. As the marginal
man in industry, the Negro is the first
to suffer from business depression.
The Negro problem must be.studied
both as an intra-racial and a national
problem. Until the problem is intelli-
gently discussed, there can be no free-
dom for labor here or anywhere.
Mr. Ira Reid
The criteria for an accepted eco-
nomic status are accumulation of
wealth, standards of living, political
activity, cultural contributions and
methods of production and distribution.
It is irritating to hear, as one often
does, of the great progress of the
Negro in the last sixty years when so
much greater progress is necessary- A
few Negroes have wealth but a Ford
could buy up the group. Standards of
living are very low. The death rate is
higher than, the high birth rate. _
Negroes are forced to live in areas of
deterioration. In education the doors
to the better schools and colleges are
closed. As the least stable group of
society. Negroes are hardest hit by de-
pression. White workers force him
out of even "Negro jobs."
The industrial schools for Negroes
are out of date. They do not teach
the problems of modern industrial so-
ciety. Educators are unwilling to take
Negroes all the way. The larger tech-
nical schools exclude Negroes. Those
Negroes who have been educated by
philanthropists cannot be provided with
the jobs for which they are fitted.
��*Ma
Lantern  Elects
Charlotte Einsiedler has been
elected the new Editor-in-Chief of
"The Lantern." From the Fresh-
man class Miss Bredt and Miss
Gam have been chosen for the edi-
torial board When Anne Bur-
nett returns next year she will be
the Senior member.