ONLY IN AMERICA
BY HARRY GOLDEN
The Canadian Jewish News, Wed , Oct. 12, 1960 - 3
FOR A YEAR-ROUND EDUCATION
In the South the nine-months school year is quite recent. It is less than 30 years old in spme of the Southern states. This does not mean necessarily that the South was less interested in education than the rest of the country. It is merely a remnant of our last agrarian civilization. From the late 1880's on, the school children were usually released from school to gather crops. Basically, summer vacation goes bact_to the spring planting and harvest schedule.
Today there are few crops to gather. A man works hard to support a family; people work in factories and in offices and look for-wardx,with great pleasure and joy to that two weeks" vacation.
_____Yet we let the kids out of school in the
early part of June and they do not have to return until after Labor Day.
They stand on the street comers and after a few weeks on the street comers they begin to push each other and from pushing each
Why now?
That Sauk Center, a town that bitterly opposed Lewis's pungency, would rename its Main Street to rest its fame on that pungency about Lewis's powers as an novelist, which were considerable, but what happened to Main Street? Today's Main Street would not only surprise Sinclair Lewis, but his heroine Carol Kennicott as well.
Carol kennicott found Main Street ugly, dirty, medicore, and clannish. Main Street was devoid of beauty, architectural or spiritual. Carol Kennicott had a deep instinct for culture. On Main Street she found only an ingrained philistmism, a Philistinism so boring and stifling that it led her husband into a cheap adultery and forced her at last to take refuge in Washington, D.C.,'^uring the first World War. The novel concluded with Carol Kennicott returning home determined to live with Main Street even if it couldn't live with her.
Carol Kennicott lives in every house along J .J , , , , Main Street today. Carol Kennicott is ubiquit-
other they decide to push someone else and ^„ ^^^^ opera, the dance, and the
they are at loose ends. By the time the dog- ,0^.31 ppgtj.y sessions.
Did this improve Main Street?
Captains Of Cammerce
A Close-up
Marks And Spencer
days come along in August what amounts to an explosion takes place in some of the large cities.
Let them go to school the year around. This v.ould be good for the students and teachi-ers. We must remember that the teachers, too, are at loose ends. Thousands of them wander off and after a couple of weeks visiting, they too do not know what to do with themselves. The greatest joy is when you have a weekend to yourself. When you get up in the morning and every day is a holiday you feel utterly useless.
This old remnant of the agricultural society should be eliminated. The teachers need pay for year-round 'service. The best system might be to stagger a four-week vacation for both teachers and students, two weeks in spring and two weeks over Christmas and New Year's. The jchool term like a term for everj'body else should be the year around. If we had an extria month of schooling devoted 'solely to languages, we could produce bilingual citizens within a generation.
WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MAIN STREET?
Sauk Center, the model for Sinclair Lewis's Gopher Prairie, has renamed its Main Street ■The Original Main Street." This was the last thing they would have thought to do when Lewis'.s novel was published 40 years ago. They did not even contemplate this change 30 years ago wlien Lewis won the Nobel Prize for literature. V
Marks & Spencer are probab- duction problems, and operate ly the best-known Jewish trid- their own laboratories to test ing enterprise in Britain, and its Chairman, Sir Simon Marks, probably the most famous Jewish business man. The firm is known aill over Britain for well-made, competitively priced men's, women's, and children's weafTand food, sold through 237 stores. Through offering to people of all incomes ranges
materials, dyes, and so on. They never take a firm's entire out-Put: this would leave the supplier with only one customer. It would also cut off his contact with outside markets which can be valuable to Marks & Spencer.
N. Corah, the Leicester firm.
People
would say at least she improved it architecturally, but the opposite is true. On some of our Main Streets we now have huge tstablishments with statuary by such artists as Nagouchi. And all the Carol Kennicotts in town kept applauding with the result that a serious student of modern architecture can easily discover contemporary architecture is just as badly design- Penny Bazaars, ed, as nonfunctional, and as foolish as anything the Victorian builders dreamed up.
After Lewis left her, Carol Kennicott stopped growing. At least the Carol Kennicott of 1920 had a Sinclair Lewis; the Carol Kennicott of today reads more but it all means less and ishe ha£ no Sinclair Lewis. No satirist or critic has really touched on the foibles of "the Original Main Street." He lists its sexual dalliances and catalogues material possessions, but the dalliances are too pleasant and the possessions too comfortable for Carol Kennicott to get angry or give them up. What has happened to
Main Street is that where the Every Thursday —-- -------
Club of Sauk Center refused to read Sinclair jears. he was associated with Lewis because he had hurt them, today there is | Israel Sieff, a former school-no on to hurt the Cultural Arts Committee, 'friend. Now Vice Chairman. Is-
What happened to Main Street is that Carol Kennicott never realized she had faults, too. She got too interested in reform to realize she was in her own way as superficial as what she wanted to reform.
clothing of a standard which are probably Marks & Spencer's only the ricb could previously biggest suppliers. Corah are a afford.-Marks & Spencer have amily concern dating back to helped to engineer a profound the eighteenth century, and social revolution. 1been linked with Marks &
Thanks to Marks & Spencer, fpencer for over thirty years, typists can dress as well as deb-;^i the depressed pre-war years utantes, and Sir Simon ^Ia'-ks;Corah could afford to spend has helped to break down the ^500.000 on machinery because clothing barriers of women's class divisions, just as Sir Montague Burton did for mens. In the 1880*s Michael Marks.
of Marks & Spencer's assured demand for its products. Since the last war, Corah have developed rapidly and are now an immigrant from Poland.:: one of the biggest hosiery mak-reached this countrj- and set- ers m Britain.
tied in Leeds. There, and in neighbouring market towns, he opened stalls called Marks' Sooii he took Tom Spencer, a Yorkshire salesman, into partnership, and by the time of Michael Mark's death in 1907 — Spencer died two years previously — the firm owned 70 bazaars in every part of the country.
Young Simon Marks was only 19 when his father died, and had joined the firm onl.v a short time before. In 1911 he became a director and live years later Chairman. At this time and throughout the following
A smaller company whose products are sold through Mark's & Spencer is Sirling Knitting, of Southport. Marks & Spencer have been Stirling's biggest customers since the company was founded in 1924,
and Stirling is now well known for its women's jumpers and cardigans and children's jerseys. Typical of a Marks & Spencer's supplier, all Stirling's yarns are subject to continuous laboratory check and control systems.
This-link between manufacturer and retailer is Marks & Spencer's most striking contribution to Britain's economic progress. Marks & Spencer buy from over 1,500 suppliers, and have particularly close links with several companies. Sir Simon has been more successful than any other retailer in integrating these two sides of industry. Using the St. Michael mark, he sells good which are almost 100 per cent British.
For the textile trade Marks & Spencer's orders have
been great They can buy cloth- has become a byword in in-es with the advantages of high ' dustry. By questioning every quality and low price, which' accepted piece o fadministra-
manufacturers and retailer working together can, achieve.
Sir Simon and his colleagues have also affected British business in at least three other important ways. First, Marks & Spencer have shown the importance of using business profits for improvements as well as expansion. They spend over £4 million a year on additions and extensions to existing
tion, but without sacrificing staff, Marks & Spencer saved £4 million a year in the running of the business. By eliminating or simplifying forms, the group-did away with 26 million pieces of paper a year, an annual weight of 120 tons.
Thirdly, probably most important yet least tangible. Sir Simon Marks has brought a high
stores. They will continue 'degree of enthusiasm into busi-spending at this level until'"<^ss. This enthusiasm, which each major tsore has reached very different from the Am-
the standard of the best, seen in the new Edgware Road building or the highy successful Marble Arch store.
brought a continuity which had of internal economy in a busi
erican drive for efficiency, has introduced somethihg of the artist>3 zeal into the Marks & Spencer boardroom. All, the board devote their energies ex-Secondly, Marks & Spencer clusively to Marks & Spencer-have revealed the importance none hold outside directorships.
not previously been known. For Lancashire's textile mills, Marks & Spencer were a;i important stabilising influence, with their long-term orders which now run to over 100 million yards a year. Benefit to the consumers has
ness, the need to question accepted routines and check the trend towards internal empire-building, which is so common among large industrial concerns. Sir Simon's campaign which began in 1956, to cut out internal waste and inefficiency.
Their capacity for hard work and absorption in the business is 'summed up by Sir Simon's statement; "There is not a single detail of the business which bores me."
iCopyriKht 1960, by The Canadian ' Jewish News and The Jewish Chronicle I News Ser%-ice)
The Lyons Den
By Leonard Lyons
Gore Vidal interrupted his cable. It read "No Price Too
(Copyright (C), 1960, by Harry Golden and The Canadian Jewish News)
Human Relations
By Dr. Rose N. FranzUau
Too Old To Go Steady
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QUESTION: I have been going steady with a boy for three years. I am 18 and he is 21. I really love this boy, but he does things to hurt me. For example, he promised me an engagement ring for my senior prom. When it came close to my prom, he said I'd get t for my birthday. Now that my birthday is coming near, he says that he's not ready to become engaged. He says even if we become engaged now, we won't get married for another three or four years.
Do you think that is a good idea to let this thing continue this way for another three or four years?
He makes a fair living and I'm willing to work to make ends meet. He also says he's ashamed of me, but insists that he loves me. My mother is getting disgusted with his actions and keeps telling me to break up with him. I am also getting disgusted but I still love him. I'm very confused about the whole thing.
ANSWER: In the very question you ask about whether it is a good idea to let the relationship continue for another three or four. , years, you have really given your own answer.
At 15, when you started the relationship, you v.ere still in the process of changing and becoming a woman emotionally, just as you changed and grew phy\sically and physiologically. Although change widens the horizons, opens new areas of interest, and brings new privileges tnd freedonis, it can also be a frightening and threatening process.
At such times, the youngster wants something old, familiar and exclusively hers to hold on to. Some youngsters revert to the childish, dependent behavior of former years. Others pick scmethirig or someone in the present to hold onto. This is what going steady means for ~many youngsters.
He may not like being treated like a husband before he is even a fiance.
• * *
Another possibility is that he is ashamed of
himself and of what he ha's demanded of you for his emotional convenience. Many boys woo girls and urge them to engage in love-making, and then sit in judgment of them because they gave them what they wanted. They become ashamd of the very behavior on the part of the girl which they stimulated and encouraged.
To clarify some of your confusion, you ought to stand back a bit from the scene emotionally so as to get a better perspective of the situation.
If and when he begins to see you in a different light, as a person of whom he can be proud, you might consider entering into a lasting relationship with him.
rael Sieff married Simon Marks's si'ster. and his own sister married Simon Marks.
Success of this partnership is clear to see: Mark., & Spencer now sells over i'130 million-worth of goods even.- year, com pared with merchandise valued at not much over il million 30 years ago. It serves seven million customers a week, and during five weeks at the end of la'st year its stores carried out over 60 million separate transactions.
How has this success been achieved? Thfe answer, largely, is by a unique methotf"bf cooperation between the manufacturing and merchanting sidei
of industry. Marks & Spencer j .^pend $25,000 . . Mrs. Unlei^
Congressional campaign to fly to Germany on the weekend for the opening of his hit play, 'The Best Man", at the Berlin Festival . . . Paul Newman is faking lessons from Tyree Glenn, on a trombone borrowed from Conrad Janis, for his movie role in "Paris Blues" . Harry Oppenheimer, the South African diamond king, and chief supporter of the anti-white supremacy Progressive Party, will address the Council on Foreign Relations in N.Y. October 17.
• L. Arnold Weissberger, who once worked for the late, great lawyer, Samuel Unter meyer, tells this story about him — of how his saving 25c for one cabled word made him
High."
• NBC-TV has accepted David Susskind's 90-minute spectacular on Eugene O'Neill, 'The Life and Work of an American Genius." It will include portions of plays never seen'on TV or in films . .. Mrs. Suss-kind, incidentally, can't get back the $10,000 in jewelery stolen from her and recovered by the police. The jewels are in custody until the alleged thieves are tried ... A California group is distributing auto-posters "Neither for President."
• The Otto Premingers are busy refurbishing their newly acquired town house. Mrs. Pre-minger showed her husband the wallpaper suggested by the
Jackie Gleason said about ernor's 3-ycar-old daughter, who Charles Chaplin: "Sure he's explained: "I forgot to kiss you great, but I'd like to see how good night,"
long Chaplain would last, doing one TV show a week, live",. . . Isaac Stern finished a concert in Geneva Sunday, flew to N.Y. to open the Philharmonic season at Carnegie Hall, and then flew right back for a London concert.
In his long speech at the UN Fidel Castro complained about inhospitable treatment from N. Y. hotel operators. The fact is that Ralph Bunche telephoned William Zeckendorf about accommodations for Castro. Zeckendorf wouldn't have been interested in a mere few rooms, but when he heard it involved 85 people he couldn't
can provide assured sales out lets for clothing manufactures, and Sir Simon Marks has a.'-ranged it so that his stores will take between 60 and 70 per cent of the output of a number of textile companies. In return
meyer cabled him from Europe about a Gobelin tapestry she'd found. The price was $25,000 and she wanted to know if she should buy it. "No," was Unter-meyer's reply. 'Trice too high." But when she returned from
for solving the firms' selling Europe she brought the Gobelin problems, and reducing the need for a sales and advertising programme. Marks & Spencer specify within close limits the | she'd disregarded type and quality of the goods! Mrs. Untermeyer
tapestry. When the lawyer asked why
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Two In A Tub
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QUESTION: I have a son, 7, and a little girl, 4. On occasion, in order to get them out quickly, I have been bathing them together. My neighbor thinks this is a terrible thing.
ANSWER: Usually, after the age of awareness of the bodily differences between the sexes, it is not adviable to bathe a brother and sister together. Seeing each other in a temporary state of nakedness while dressing or undressing is a normal experience which every child has on occasion. But participating in an activity like bathing in a common state of nudity is not advisable. In the tub or shower, bodies meet and touch. This can stimulate impulses and desires that had best be kept quiescent.
which they buy. They lay down standards, give advice on pro-
though she was heeding wish, and showed- him
his reply, 'said she his his
decorator for the nursery —.resist this challenge In logistics:
a toys and animals motif. "No" Preminger decided for the baby soon to be born, "I don't want our baby in vulgar surroundings. We'll have plain walls with a simple Picassos."
• Leonard Bernstein has written a totle song for the film version of "West Side Story" . . . Fidel Castro may have thought he was entertaining Langston Hughes at dinner —but Hughes was in Wcestport that Friday night, writing the tenth version of his play. "Tambourines' for Glory."
He quickly arranged for 10 suites and 123 rooms at the Commodore, free. But Castro declined.
Marc Blitzstein, is moving to Rome to finish his opera about Sacco and Vanzctti for the met . . . George Axclrod says he agreed to write the screen play of Moss Hart's "Act One" just to make sure Hart will get him two tickets for "Camelot" . Adlai Stevenson was the "house guest of Gov. Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin. At 5 a. m. Stevenson wa sawakened by the gov-
• Fannie Hurst walked down Fifth Ave. recently, saw a crowd on the street and tried to .find out what it was about. She learned that a movie was being filmed there, and stared at Susan Hayward — when a production assistant stepped between them and said: "Lady-, would you mind getting out of the way? . . . Miss Hurst asked the name of the movie, and he said: "Back Street" . . Fannie Hurst, author of "Back Street," got out of the way.
• TRAVEL NOTE: Bobby Fischer, the young American chess champion, finally has been able to accept the invitation to play in Iceland's 60th anniversary chess tourney. His transportation expense problem was solved: Harvey Breit, the playwright, gave him ihe money from the plane trip.
• DRAMA DEPT.: Arthur Miller is opposed to any advance publicity about the plot of his movie, "The Misfits." He dislikes any discussions about the plots of his works. , Miller said: "I once tried to explain "Deah of a Salesman" in 18 different ways, and couldn't."
iCopyntrht, The Canadian Jewish N<.ws and New York Post/
Elizabeth Taylor — Mike — Eddie Fisher
Their Full Story
The
Lives Of Mike Todd
AROUND THE WORLD WITH ORSEN WELLES
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(This is the eighth in a series of twelve article.s based on the book, "The Nine Lives of Michael Todd", by Art Cohn. published by Random House,
New York.)
Orson Welles had been fascinated . by Jules Verne's Around the World in Eight.v 'Dayis since he was a boy in
pose I've been lucky, and part of my luck is a pet superstition: I have to have a script, even a bad one. Here it was two weeks before rehearsal and Orson was still ad-libbing the script.
I complained to Orson and he said something to the effect that he bad heard I didn't need
Th3_ difference in age between the two sib- Renosha, Wisconsin, lings is an ,additional fac or to be considered , Mike'was no less, intrigued j
n-r with fhp niffprprifo in cov Vmi.. nhJM nf '
a 'script in some of my cultural achievements, like "Star and ■Garter."
"I don't mind if the script is in my head," I said, "but I do iif it's in.your head,"
along with thedifference in sex. Your child of he mafwho ^r^^^^^^^^^ ^ $4,000 cash into
7 has attended school full time for a year-or ?y.TZrW ^^e show and I walked away
There ai-e many disadvantages as well as advantages, to going steady. Although the young-stei's-will protest with sincerity and devotion that the steady of the moment is really going to be the steady of a lifetime, they know full well that this is not necessarily true.
Because they are insecure, they make de-inands on the boy friend. Ofttimes such premature demands are made as a,way of "breaking off the relationship., This gives the other person the opportunity to reject them. Although it may hurt to be rejected, it is still easier than feeling guilty for breaking up a relation-: ship which they had promised would last forever. / ■■ Though you are the one who complains" about the boy and about the fact/tKafKeTioesn't want to formalize or legalize the .relationship, ^ the truth may be that it i's really you who. don't want to follow through. Biy asking for too ^-:.-„^much, too soon, you get the "No" that you r. really want.
It is not clear why this boy who says he loves you is ashamed of you. But the fact that I.c has this feeling and says so out loud shouid certainly give you pause. What he may : mean .by this remark is that, you relate-in an Irnmature,; possessiv;e manner to him in public;
year-or
more and is a big boy, not only physically but in comparison with his sister's stage of emotional development. He will give up for the
next four or five years the kind of questioning, 4,ad ever attempted.
about sex which she is still going through. His physical growth at this time takes a sudden, big_spurt. The -youngster is busy feeding his rapidly growing body and. expending his physical energy along with it.
around the world.
Welles' conception of Verne's clasisic was as daring and more extravagant than ainything he
pire.. "No thank you," he ^6-fused with the precise mi^xuire of formality and repugnance. This is the story of how two
Around this age, a boy doesn't jike girls, |ust
as the girls do not like the boys. Until pre-adblescence, they behave as if the opposite sex didn't exist. For a boy, therefore, especially when he is older, to be bathed with his little sister can be, on the one hand, both a sexual stimulation and a challenge and, on the other hand, a demotion to him.
Little girls have many interpretations as to whj' they have one organ less than little boys. The most common one is that they, too,
were born with this organJbut,4or some reason, som"rone strUckVn oifwelLK probably because th^y^were bad>it was taken away from them. This-makes themX^feel inferior to the male, ndt only because they have less but also because they were punished, in 4his Vv'ay. ■ A •, ,■. ■ . ■
' (Continued on.:page seven). ,
His PhileSs Fogg, who wagered he cculd girdle the globe in eighty, days, was the finest flower of the British —upper class: gallant, intrepid, ever urbane.
In Egypt, when ordid purveyors of vice offered him a lovely dancing girl,^^ogg's manner was a credit/to the Enii.
from it. "Around- the World" would be a bigger and better show than Billy Rose's "Jumbo," I was sure, and it would lose even more money. -
Welles- Version
I originally offered "Around the World in Eighty Days" to Mr. Mike Todd, but after some time, when it became apparent that among other things, be was in no position to provide finances, I was forced to take dver^^e responsibility of this myselfV--,;. '
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Around the World: cost two
geniuses were reduced to one. hundred fifty thousand dollars
Todd's Version
One day Orson came up with an idea for our Out West scene:
when it opened its tryout at Boston, and Welles was drawing only an actor's minimum salary. After six weeks of try-"How do you do that on the out,.itropene'd at. the Adelphi
stage?" I asked. • "You haVe no imagination, Todd," Orson replied. I never had a" musical that
Theater in.New York.
"It is a perfect musical, ex-, trayaganza." John Chapman raved. "It is a damm good show
•played les^than a.year I sup-1and certainly like . .nothing
BY ART COHN
I you've ever seen before," the 'late Wolcott Gibbs concurred. "It's a spectacular roughhouse. a fine musical cheese dream 'and I was delighted."
The other critics seemed to have watched a different show. They found it awful.
The calamity lost more than three hundred thousand dol-I lars, a new record for the 'course.
j 5. :? »
Mike Todd had gone to bat
four times since coming home ! from war and had struck out ; three times. He had gotten to ' first base with Hamlet on an
a'ssist from Maurice Evans. It. , would run an additional two 1 years on the road and, stripped
of Toddian extravagance, would
make money. •
Bobby Clarke vs. Moliere
"The Would-Be Gentleman" closed after, seventy-seven performances; It took in $9i()00 its last week, iand could have run longer. Bobby Clark offered to cut his salary but Mike would not permit it.
"January Thaw" died after forty-four performances and he had hot even gotten to Bcston-with . "Around the World in Eighty. Days." . . ' /
He was pressing. If he had not lost his touch he had misplaced it. His wife, Bertha, added to his woes.
"The Mike 'Todd divorce is held in abeyance," a columnist reported, "because Mike can't afford the half million dijllars. the lady requests for liis freedom."
The story was relatively accurate. It would be an uncontested suit. Bertha would receive a cash settlement — not the half million dollars quoted, but one htmdred thousand dollars in two payments.
Up In Getttral Park
Mike's last production before
minutes." Ashton Stevens began his review. "Up in Central Park" is more than the best you have ever given this city, it is one of the most original shows I have ever seen."
It was a day oiF rejoicing for the Goldbogens.
The show probably could
going to Europe with the army | have run a year, at least, but
was Up in Central Park. The musical, with a book and lyrics by Herbert and Dorothy Fields arid music by Sigmund j Romberg, was baseil on Boss Tweed's mid-nineteenth cen-
Mike had other plans. He was impatient to complete his parlay: New York to Chicago to Hollywood. He was going to take over the Hollywood Bowl
He
iweeas imu-.n.i^...^^^ -^^-^^^^ "Up in Central Park." ^'U^?^'^.3^J'!^:!?^!^::i>^s gLg to revolutionize the
York City With a great expanse
of park, at vast profit to himself- and his pais.
Up in Central Park took in $311,292 for the first 'six weeks, an all-time record for Broad-_i;<
motion-picture industry. And
he was going to- claim Joan Blondell. _
He planned carefully and confidently, as if he were the
way. It would run 504 perform- master of his fate.
ances, gross four million dollars in New York alone and show a net profit of tvventy thousand dollars a week.
The Problem of Bertha
He planned as if he could , deny his emotions and govern It was this that kept. Mike' his estranged wife, Bertha's. He. going during his strike-out had forgotten the, twenty St. period. The show wa'.? Broad-, Valentineiis Daysj that had way's top money-maker of the passed since the one on which season when he closed it on he had married Bertha. He was April' is;; ^^^JD^^^ the fact unaware of a fuse that had that it had dazzled New York, been burning those twenty-he was apprehensive about years. . ■ ,/ taking it to Chicago. .1 The Old Home Town The city was filled wi'.'i u•^• happy memories for hini;
He defied the odds and opened the show at the Shu-bcrt Theater.
"^/'Tliank you,: Mr. Todd, .for one hundred and thirty joyous
Copyright, 1958, by Marta Cohn, executrix of the. estate of Art Cohn, deceased.
(In the ninth article of this series, appearinie next week,. Bertha Todd makes a dramatic' exitO. • ...