BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE COMMUNITY BULLETIN
College Year 10 Bulletin 25
Tuesday, April 13, 1943
CALENDAR
The students will meet in the Lobby of North Lodge this evening at 7:00 o’clock.
The Faculty and the Student Officers will meet on Wednesday afternoon, April 14, in the Kocher Room at 4:30 o’clock.
Barney Voigt will talk on Wednesday evening at 6:30 o’clock in the Dining Hall on “The Italian Gardens of the Renaissance”.
Trudi Straus, accompanied by Dr Jalowetz at the piano, will play Brahms Violin Sonata in G Major WWNC on Friday afternoon, April 16, 2:30-3:00. On the following Friday afternoon Dorothy Trayer and Frederic Cohen will give the Black Mountain College radio program. The major work on their concert will be the A Flat Major Variations by Schubert.
There will be concert in the Dining Hall on Saturday evening at 8:00 o’clock. Gretel and Edward Lowinsky will play Beethoven’s Frunling Sonata and Trudi Straus and Heinrich Jalowetz will play Brahms’ Violin Sonata in G major. There will be no concert the following Saturday evening.
Miss Eunice Century will talk on Sunday evening on “A State and Its Children” in Study 10 at 7:00 o’clock.
The Nineteenth Century class will read the two Strindberg plays, “Miss Julia” and “The Spook Sonata” on Sunday evening, beginning at 8:00 o’clock, in the Bentley apartments.
Erik Haugaard will give the next Monday evening (6:45) news summary and commentary.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Ted Dreier left on Monday on a business trip for the College.
“The Elves and the Shoemaker” by Charlotte Chorpenning has been selected as the children’s play to be given by Black Mountain College in Asheville at the Plaza Theater on Saturday morning, May 15. The cast of the play includes Aurora Cassotta in the leading role of Widget, an elf; Nancy West, Ruth Miller, Betty Kelley, Jeanne Wacker, Faith Murray, Shirley Allen, Mary Brett, Tanya Sprager, Suzanne Smith, Barbara Pollet, Junelaine Smith and Larry Fox. The play is now being produced in the Children’s Theater in Chicago.
The Interracial Conference, sponsored by the National YMCA and YWCA, will be held at Talladega College instead of at Lake Eden, in June.
Betty Brett has been selected by the students to complete the term of office of Herbert Oppenheimer as a student officer.
ALUMNI NOTES:
Bill Berry is now stationed in Nashville, Tennessee. His address is: A/C William C Berry, Group 1, Squadron A, NAAC (AAFCC), Nashville, Tennessee.
Oppy is now Private Herbert Oppenheimer, 14133800, Squad 33, Training Group 58, Keesler Field, Mississippi.
Bob Marden’s address is: Pvt Robert H Marden, 14101733, 58th Training Group, Squadron 32, Keesler Field, Mississippi.
After six months at Gundaloanal as a private, first class, in the Marines, Emery Whipples has been spending a short leave at his home in Concord, Massachusetts. He enlisted two weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Bertrand Richard has been reported missing in Tunisia. It is possible that he was taken prisoner.
Jack Kasik is now Lieutenant John J Kasik, stationed at the O Country Club, Building 2013- 3 A, Ft Monmouth, Red Bank, New Jersey.
BMC COMMUNITY BULLETIN, Tuesday, April 13, 1943- page 2
Bill Russell, who has been working in the Library of Congress, expects to be in service shortly. He is married to Fern Squier, who was a Rollins College when Bill was there.
A NOTE
New York City
May 6, 1943
My visit to Black Mountain College a short time ago was impressive and moving. I saw there a young and living organism, a school of the sort that walt Whitman had envisioned, a school for democracy, the pupils learning as much from each other as from their books. The place lived and breathed with vital personality, and it seemed to me that no pupil could live there without being deeply touched by some of the best qualities of our American civilization.
Sincerely, (signed) Clifford Odets
TWO LETTERS
From the Warden Rhodes House
Rhodes House, Oxford
February 23, 1943
Dear Kurtz,
Your question is difficult to answer, because it must inevitably depend so much upon speculation. My own impression be that what will be principally needed after the war for rehabilitation will be technical experts in such matters as food supply and medical aid. The first and most pressing question in all probability will be actual starvation and, almost certainly, wide-spread epidemics. For the rest, it seems to me that the best possible training that students could have for this work would be study of nationalities, Geography, European political history and the position of minorities. Naturally, the study study of language will also be most important, and this will arise specially in the Balkan countries, which will probably be the hardest hit of all, with the least power of recovery. Then, of course, there is Poland, which will be an immediate problem, unless it passes entirely within the sphere of Russia. So few people know that Balkan and Slavonic languages, that they would be, in my opinion, a primary form of equipment for relief workers.
With regard to the immediate measures to be taken for the relief or distress, ought not some information to be available from some of the Friends organizations and from people like Mr Hoover, who had experience in the last war? I imagine that plans must already be in preparation for relief, but I do not know any details about them.
I observe from a recent News Bulletin of the Institute of International Education that on December 21st, 1942, Stephen Duggan had a letter in the New York Times on Exchange Students and Post-War Rehabilitation. It might be of interest to you. It is reproduced in Bulletin No. 4 (January 1st, 1943) of the Institute. I should suppose that any general plans which are made should be concerted with Dugan’s organization.
The Master of University (Sir William Beveridge) expects soon to be going to the United States under Rockefeller auspices, raised in other places in the course of his tour. I accordingly mentioned it to him, and he has sent me an opinion which you may find interesting. It is, of course, private and ‘off the record’- not that there is anything confidential about it, but I shouldn’t wish to anticipate anything he may say in the United States. His opinion concurs with the rough ideas which I had myself formed.
I am very much interested in what you say about the part which is being played by Rhodes Scholars, and it coincides with the opinions which I hear from many other quarters.
All kindest regards from us both. I hope you still find time for your music.
Yours sincerely, (signed) C.K. Allen
BMC COMMUNITY BULLETIN, Tuesday, April 13, 1943- page 3
The Master’s Lodgings
University College
Oxford
19 February, 1943
My dear Allen,
Please forgive me for not sending back to you before the Black Mountain College letter (which I hereby return). I did not manage to deal with it before going to London and I have been pretty busy there.
The letter is not, of course, an easy one to answer. I am rather doubtful whether there is going to be much need for personnel from the United States and other non-devastated countries to go into the devastated countries after the war, except people technically skilled wither to keep the peace (this means soldiers) or in combating diseases (this means doctors) with their equipment in each case. There will be a shortage of doctors, but there won’t be a shortage either of engineers or of administrators generally, since all these countries will have plenty of manpower disengaged from fighting or servitude. What they will need in many cases will be to be fed from outside on lease-lend principles, while they are re-establishing their countries for production. I believe that the most important aim of general College education during the war is in the United States and here would be to produce appreciation of the fact that international co-operation must not end when hostilities and, or, rather, if it does, the object of fighting will be lost. The way of getting that into people’s mind is by study of history- of previous peaces and previous wars. Apart from that I should suggest to your correspondents to devote themselves to teaching as much as possible in America of the living conditions of Europe.
Yours ever, (signed) WH Beveridge
The Warden Rhodes House
FOR DISCUSSION
Senior Division Examinations:
Date
Names to add to committee
3p, one sided. Mimeograph on matte off white paper. Includes two letters, the first is by C. K. Allen to Kurtz. The second is by W H Beveridge to Allen. Staple in top left corner.
