1957-03-25 — Page 4

Page

**Page

'THE'

LIBERACE

by

STORY

anton burney

THE CHINA MAIL; MONDAY, MARCH 25, 1957.

every-

The pitiless light that beats on the face of an international celebrity reveals

thing-and nothing.

No part of his life is sacred, or private, or undisclosed, If he doesn't If he smiles at a girl, they are to be married.

If his hair is going grey, then smile, they have quarrelled. it's dyed.

Buch relentless publicity is a part of the price of fame, and in this twentieth century every celebrity must bow to it, and pay; every celebrity, be ho sportsman, musician, painter, Congressman. Perhaps there are degrees in this publicity according to the relative popular appeal of the subject, but no colebrity escapes entirely, and some-like Liberace are preyed upon for twenty-four hours of the day.

But Lee

this considers

a legitimate charge upon genius,

ilke blazing

stur in

the

The Tight Rope Walking Premier

ST

-POPPA LOUIS

NT LAURENT is a lean, intent, man who regards politics with the slight distaste which endears him to the voters in n country where politics is regarded as a alightly distasteful subject,

Being Prime Minister of Canada is, for him, a public duty which must be dis-· charged as officiently and with as much decorum as possible. He makes no secret of the fact that he would far rather do something else.

He would, for instance, cheerfully go back to Laval University and teach law,

would

Q

more wild Laurier's old sext in Montreal

with arguments that says in provincial autonomy, It is not surprising, therefore, have been better suited to that even opposition politielang convention of lawyers. sometimes ask themselves with But the votern-even In alarm where Canada would get Montreal where they like their another Prime Minister with politics highly coloured and the samo command.

hot as red pepper-look to him at onces Ho

In a sense, this is the mani- festation of a colossal conceit firmly on Quebec's In Canada, s in any other democratie country, there are thousands of struggling pollii- cians Intent upon becoming Prime Minister. Most of them, Furthermore, regard the job Immensely desirable,

But in acolher sense, $1 Laurent's appraisal of his duty

to is a testimony

clear headedness.

is

09

therefore In

and

It may, indeed, be his duty to stay in office.

was "Poppe Louis," the just level-headed univers)

He has just celebrated his #eventy-th birthday and, father. though he looks as timeless as a sculpture, his career must necessarily be drawing to close.

Successor

A

His final test will come when Op- he chooses his succestor. position politicians take hope from the fact that he has not with men surrounded himself like himself.

And that, of course, may be hath his secret and his party's eventual undoing.

There seems little doubt that, lelt to

to his own devices, he would Have remained with the law.

In the House of Commons he showed little regard for the nicoides of political intrigue. He did not hedgo at question-time. He did not stuff his speeches with platitudes,

his

M.Ps. grudgingly at first came first to respect him and then to ilke him.

By the end of the war, reputation was made.

He moved from Justice to External Affairs.

in Д curious Canada position. As the world's third trading nation, Canada, by the war's end, necessarily exerted s considerable influence in world affairs.

Was

policy

VGA

Gra:lually, however, Lice he bocamo Prime Minister in 1048, he has turned foreign affairs almost to completely Lester Pearson ---- nid Pearson the brather

touch

been

evident, More

has

and

moro

domestic problems have been absorbing him.

The Liberal Party which leads is many things to many men-very nearly all things 10 all men.

As many political battles in Canada one

fought within the conitres of the Liberal Party as are fought out between the partits. Indeed, in a country where 11 reems even now unlikely that any other kurty will be able to govern for a very long time to come, the Important battles must be fought out within the party.

The party Poslan and dire need of a man who stands out above the melee, who can bargain, strike com brumlacs keep his tread. constantly weigh the oddit.

Nor is that all. Federal provincial rivalry plays

a major mle in the course of Canadian politics and French- English rivalry, however much

MacKenzie King was hard put

Canadians are richer in the background, is

to find talent in 1941 when present.

than ever before and"

demanding The

they are balance necessarily sent for St Laurent. He needed

Neither charge has very much Justice Minister- minister truth in it. At the end of

which only the federal Saxon, but polygot. St Laurent the things whic precarious.

„government can give

them has deliberately sought to keep Louis St Laurent can main-

who, in war time, would have

war, he encouraged American Rover?

social far reaching powers. He also investors who had grown fat in

-natiouni

services it polygot, to avold the Ameri- which will distribute the new can concept of the "melting tein that balance.

the war years to invest in son of a French-Canadian needed a French Canadian. father and an English-speaking The candidate had to be Canada. He also pressured them, wealth more fairly, educational pot." mother of Irish-Scots descent, someone who would command however, to set up Canadian opportunities which the poorer he grew up in French Canada national

would subsidiaries respect, who

Canadian provinces cannot provide, with

proved communications. the s but equally at home in both help still rivalry within

directors. languages.

party, and who would, above all. He has champloned the Com The power of the federal gov- keep his head.

monwealth as a kind of counter-ernment has been increasing weight in world affairs, a whether anyone has wanted It caution on the part of the civilising influence. But he has to increase or not.

Liberals themselves. insisted that the continuation of

not The the Commonwealth does

played with tenth-rate bands in for the stuffy halls, waiting break that

to seemexi never come. Has taken musle for als mistress, only to And her at times heart-breakingly exacting and capricious, and yet unwill- ing ever to let him go? These are wie moments they do not talk about when they tell us Liber nce is an immortal. Yet, with out them, no artist puts Immortality.

"I got my first job while

оп

11 Is the world's way of say-

this almost purple heaven of the entertain- was still af school." Lee reculls, ing Thank you,'

inent world. Fully grown "playing in a locul bar at night, terrifying interest

**_that's

his answer when people say, as they often do, "Aren't you sick of being stored at, followed, photographed?"

his

low him, haunts him, never But the brighter the leta go. light, the deeper the shadows casts. It reveals "everything"- and how often that means just nothing.

Consider Liberace, short yours ago he Tose above the horizon

A

fully and wonderfully matured. It brought a few dollars

No artist of our time has made our needy household,

1

into

and It

u more spectacular stride from gave me experience of incalcul-

"

that

IN EVERY SPHERE OF MUSIC, ONLY THE BEST

MAKE UP YOUR PARTIES

hear."

The

ever-

Ho had been very nearly most distinguished Canada's tnwyer for years before he went to Ottawa,

ho

As a French-Canadian, he can do things that 110 English- Many people had doubts about Canadian could hope to get away the wisdom of importing a 58 with. He can, for instance, tangle sear-old lawyer.

Quebec's redoubtable with

and Maurice Duplessis stamp

"FULL

St Laurent's strictly pragmatic.

He has been accused recently of selling the country out to the Americans and he used to be accused of being a dangerous Anglophil.

The face of Canada has been changing and so, almost, has the constitution.

im-

provinces, meanwhile,

But all this lias made tha balance ever more precarious while the absence of an opposi- tion party with any chance of power has necessitated extremo

Soon, St Laurent must go They may have hod more

But will doubts when he campaigned for consist in aping British foreign and particularly Quebec, have again to the people.

that he can face policy Lut in eveiving where been Aghing a rearguard action he decide

another four years of the tight for provincial rights. possible, a communal policy.

in- He fought for and was

Again, immigration is chang- rope? strumental in establishing the ing the nature of the population

prob Cclombo plan and he had much and posing ever-greater

Canada to do with determining the fuel form of NATO.

CIRCLE”

lems of assimilation. LES ARMOUR

is no longer French and Anglo-

Lenin's own party turns the clock back

A

no

이

HUGH LUNGHI

"Words followers

that

Lenin spoke to his student have an ironic twist

today'

***** B.B.C. London

and demands

power

the

bver

their

their

col

fundamentul reasons for student demn this Initiative on the part of the students but urges the unrest, which the authorities

Komsomol to "take over the either pretend do not exist or

the crowd in the wings la the able value: how to give of my ruther isolated splendour of the centre best for the job's

sake, Publicity reveals everything--

In this and nothing. It shows the artist age, where the while brillance than for the applause.

duzzled

bar how many of his fume so

it noisy, stuffy as he is, "warts and all";

was way to believe he had al- listened to the tinkling music? his dress,

for to and hard ways been there, appearance,

Flow many epared a glance friends,

his home; it cutches him way.

young people, Imagine the scene without him. the kid performer? I was part

the them, SPECTRE haunts the Communist regimes of vanced"

are had dared to compare the Soviet with the like the swimming,

publicity of the background, sleeping, An

Eastern Europe today. It is the fear of being students. For example, as early made an their time and energy, press unfavourably

press

Anoth T as 1047 students sees him, as a fixed, unfading bottles on the shelf. But it was banging lus shirt. It fof. And it is thus that

of the East Komsomol meetings, "volunteer" "bourgeois" Everything known, in star

this hard school that I repudiated by the coming generation. Every week now, Berlin Humboldt

sign of how Russian University work during vacations,

and striking that music can but learned

Communist were sentenced to If not every day, the authorities of one everything is revealed-all

imprisonment obligatory lectures.

are trying to free And the students a few essentials.

brought into every heart, oven,

country or another make publie complaints against their up to 25 years for conspiring authorities attempt to exercise themselves from the shackles of

Party control was gly It must be done the hard way.

by the And In complete

given Literary Guastic recently. Russia What use to record that this After a time, I found the rough young people, in particular against those studying at against the State,"

a circle of politically career and their future, Sometimes the complaints minded students at Leningrad give universities and colleges. personality drinkers would sometimes

Apparently they ure forming sorene, dominating few has known days that came close me a friendly word, a slap on take the form of threats sometimes of cajolery,

University were arrested and

own clubs, by-passing the Most of this authorities official Komsomol organisations. suddenly to despair? Has hud struggles the shoulder

acknowledge as they lurched

and seek TO THO to already that almost ended in defeat. Has out, I had compelled them

newspaper does not ef Communist By The students

remedy. But there- are more countries, of course, enjoy monopoly in causing the Thai bar was down near the

authorities trouble or in coming water-front, a tough, uncom-

out with revolutionary ideas. It

pass off simply as isolated leadership" of these clubs. It is across promising place looking

is one of the signs of a virile

"unhealthy

They clear the student bodies resist attitudes" Lake society.

406 the infiltration of the Party the dark walers of

By tradition 100.

arise out of intellectual frustra ind Michigan. Lee used to hurry students all over

Europe have

tion and the attempt of the bodies and a kind of struggle

The for power home at night, keeping a close often been the champions

goes on between Communist hand on those hard-won dollars! progressive causes

party to impose its

trade and of the Yet, in the drst Communist sent to forced labour camps in dogma on all aspects of intel- them. Trud, the Soviet an but the lade sturdy, Inde

underdog. Here, in England, for winning example,

and the first to rear 1931-52. But and pendent litle figure

cases like this lectual activity. It is no accident union organ, also reported known Oxford is

as whole generation under Com- though indicative were isolated that the first signs of student unprecedented case of defiance

une by student. bodies smile made him something of a

If there was any dissent, in Russia at any rate, authorities, the "home of lot causes,” And munism, that is in Soviet Russin, Phenomena. favourite in the dockside streets.

the debates

in the cultural field. of the University's there have been signs, for many cint of open protest against the appeared and he was never molested, even

debating society are well known

elders by the dead-end gangs that even for their expression of the most years past, of the young people's suthorities it seemed to express Following some of their thon were a feature of the big unorthodox ideas. But without sojection, of Communism. The self in purely negative ways among the Growing Solidarity

youthful American cities

for the students have we have

entinuslasm and revo- for example,

and the more Jazz

noreject

Bury Degun to re- "ecialist

in the lutionary fervour of the early vulgar artistic styles, and at the arts. This is the only aspect of The student coumeli.... of Polytechnic Leningrad way to disillusionment

It was openly

referred to In the Soviet

had defraded realities of life under Commun- or "hooliganism","

two officially styled. Then, last year press.

students who had been brought the terror ism during

quito suddenly it seemed

young press references and from eye to trial for what the . Deper economic hardships of the tand

and witnesses

such as Pollats and called "a drunken

debauche people, led by university ties. During the post-war

years

school students, high

foreign began to other of the cold-wer this expressed

students itect in Russia first in apathy mands.

make public protests

and de- have attended Soviet univer.ch cases indicato studente These assumed Cheir sities, it is known and boredom, and

that even in

la against the Party. By repre & general

mera most dramatic for in the lead- Russia the students have senting student unrest mainly as attitude of growing indifference to all things "official."

or "Debauchery During who this period the Soviet press was in all the satellite countries and of course, in the satellite coun- put public forever vainly

the urging

opinion against the Komsomol, the Young Commun- in Soviet Russia itself students tries the official press has ad In particular they have tried to pose the "workers" to the special

The

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(ON THE STACE)

21st. MAY, 1957 THURSDAY, 23rd MAY, 1957

TWO RECITALS ONLY

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Headache

Do not walt patiently for your suffering to end Jake. 182 tablets of CAFASPIN dissolved in half a glass of water, and headache will soon vanisha maj

CFASPIN

going back into history, we

* state

Laste o

Job with a local dance band Spain who have recently played years of the Soviet regime ave other extreme in juvenile crime the students' intellectual revolt the

At sixleen, he applied for a and was rejected. Another lesson learned. "I discovered that merit Isn't the only thing that counts, often prejudices for there are and pelty jealousies to be over- come which have nothing to do with an artist's ability. My dis- appointment on that occasion might have led to a result which

have would

wrecked

my

career.

that!

the example of the students In

such a prominent part in voicing

demands. And through popular out the whole of Europe it was the students who firge dem strated so vigorously against the Soviet aggression in Hungary.

Highly Favoured

at the

*€

Fit from indirect Soviet institute

solidarity

among

of the

ing role played by the Hungarian challenged the Party's authority Communist authorities try to

authorities in Communist coun- 1st Longue, to bestir itselz. 17o have become increasingly' out- mitted that the students have og Intellectuals”, “

untu

ליגם

din

Latent Ferment

Why, then. should How vividly I remember the

Lee refers to The tries show such alarm when the

the spoken against various incident

Satellite countries

regimes of the Commmmist system during Commimist unexpected rebuff. from

students there start thinking puppet

the past year.. methods and band, and how we walked the

aloud? The answer is to be copied, Russian night streets for hours ono

found not merely in the Com- tried to whip up enthusiasm for talking as youngsters willas

munist fear

Communism among the youth. of non-conformist

fairly If the bottom had suddenly fallen out of the world had ideas, It lies in the basle Com The Communists were

of success, Halost, the inist attitude to the rising shared his hopes without envy,

"WO

Little Stalin of generation.

the party of little.

Hungary for my own path lay along an- other slope of the mountain of arls and badn't I just soen one of my poems in a local journal So-for the moment the sky was bright for me, although eo dark for him. It was this aud sten darknew which, for just a few almost datal days, lod to Lee relaxing a lie in his practising,

svent unnoticed. „/

At

eninign" and the

of

them

on

the partSuch a

2

in

the

demanded abolition of

teaching

the polley the authorities marke Rusalan, language. In effect this switch

Cumpleto means a rejection of the twin atitude to young students, and piilare supporting the regimes is perhape measters of the namely the pdicial ideology of desperation felt by the authorl- "Marxism-Leninism" and "pro- ties. In 1901 Lonin wrote in Why should the latent fermont letarian Internationallam", the the revolutionary newspaper the future, and the future be 1950 that it would be "relakively

official euphoria Lor longs to the young," said Lenin easy to win over the young of dissatisfaction among young flota

pervience to Rumala.

In the the people in Eastern Europe come servic at the beginning of this century, unlike the re-education of

satelite therefore, the studenter

THO Government declares. it is no exaggeration to say that oder party whicula B to the muttace so denky and unrest is largely due to national- the students' protests against ite the Communists have always was "extremely difficult

event the Communists simultaneously? The answer lies lem. But both there and in arbitrary rule to be nothing many confidently staked their future in the on the young.

falled in Hungary for example, primarily in the breakdown of Russia it is also the result of a than debauchery. On the the membership of DISZ, the authority and the relaxation of rejection of the official ideology, one hand, wrote. Lenin the admits criminal the it

not so much that the government In 1920 Lenin wrote: "It Communist youth league was the terror which followed the is in fact the youth who 180,000 in 1951. By 1955 12 was Soviet 20th Party Conses and students all reject "Marxian political aims and attempte

although denunciation 01

kost Leninism as much, least of all political protests on the other events, Thcoa

of "Sociallen".

the so that a little cut on his finger are faced with the task of only embers had been Febrianty!

hand it trenta Many of them,

studenta building the Communist

ᏄᏪᎳ .

course, affected the Wolved in that period. In other

the Rundars simple debauchees in need of a whole especially The phrase coined by the And then, with the local

to describe the coming words 103,000 had left. The people yet the impact has been universities may still egard louson in discipline, Venin

to say that govern band's rejection still clouding

generation was the Next Work- picture was much the same in greatest on the students And themselves is true Leninista

merely rovented Swim his hopes, Lee had an oppor Shit (SMENA). Brought up in the other satellites, and the the reason for this is that the But what they reject utterly la

ibuo tunity of joining the Chicago

D Commstanist environment and trend continues. For example, students form a kind of micro- the Party's exclusive right to potence to deal with the Symphony Orchestra. I remem

Indoctrination freed from in the Johlava rogion of Czecho- cosm of the whole nation. In interpret Marxism-Leninlem or ton except by naked force. "It ber calling round for him, and

bourgeois prejudices, its men slovakis last year 36.new Com the communities are reflected indeed anything else. Hence, shows to all who have eyes Mom Liberace telling me he'd

bors would be the new genuine munist youth organisations were the disratisfactions and strivings the hitherto unprecedented debe and ears to hear zola gone off for an audition, and

["Soviet · men.” Children and formed, but at the same time 31 of the whole people. Although a mands by students for unrestrie Lenin, that it feels completely our happy chatter together

privileged group of society, they to access to other sources of insecure and trust only in the Mom's beat Tule kitchen way young people, and especially the had brolion up.

rising "Intelligentulo,"

Buffer the same icind of economic information thats the official artes power of the bayonetto, pro were, on

Sto were from the people at the back of the bungalow, He

the whole and by Communit On the whole, however, the hardships and lack of ainetlities.^and the criticlem of the offin wrath." came in while we were stlá

standards, given most favoured attitude of young people in They suffer under the bureaupres both during and since the revolution,, For Hungarian

In the countries of Eastern at any Eastern Europe, until last year tracy and petty tyranny of the talking, Interrupting, with treatment. In theory, "Momi I got the job!" and her

rate, they were the last section was one of sullen acceptance or Komsomol Parky om Above example, at the beginning of Europe, the wheel has turned exclled little gaap, "Oh, Leel"

of the population expected to at most passive resistance. There all they lack persones freedom: last month Trud admitted that full circle, Lenin's own Party MORE TOMORROW bow datelon with life in were it is true: ossed of political All kinds of chleation and cow University students in has turned the clock back half

# Communtat society;

opgauition ameng the pecu: “adéu","

in