 Swift, the beer that's made Milwaukee famous, presents the Halls of Ivy, starring Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Coleman. Good evening. This is Ronald Coleman. And Benita Coleman. Inviting you to join us again on the campus of Ivy College is the guests of our sponsors, the brewers of Schlitz Beer. The taste of Schlitz, the taste so many people prefer, has made Schlitz beer first in sales in the USA. If you like good beer, do as millions of people are doing all over the nation. Ask for Schlitz, the most popular beer in history. That's a Ronald. Welcome again to Ivy, Ivy College that is in the town of Ivy USA. Autumn is the season beloved of poets, football coaches, painters, wholesalers of woollen goods, and at least one college president. Dr. William Cawthunter Hall of Ivy takes a moment from his multifarious beauties to stand at the window of his living room with his wife Victoria. I've never seen the crease so brilliant here, Toddy. Doesn't mean anything. Now darling, what do you mean? Does it mean anything? I suppose it indicates that the arboreal supply of chlorophyll must have diminished with a little more celerity than usual. There we go again. Silly question, silly answer. But really though, I mean, it doesn't mean anything like thicker shells on peanuts or longer hair on weasels. Well you know, tough winch though. My darling, the three choicest words in the English language are spoken by you. I love you. And the three most distasteful they're spoken by me are, I don't know, but in this case I don't. I thought you lived with the Indians once. Didn't you learn anything? In the first place, my sweet, I didn't live with the Indians. I merely wanted to. Because at the time I was an enthusiastic anthropologist. Well, if you wanted to, why didn't you? You always said people ought to do, say, be and think whatever they wanted to within the limits of decency and the law. Yes, I know, but I didn't seem to have the knack of living on cornmeal and fried jackrabbit with a drink of water every two weeks. I sometimes wonder, with the world headed for possible catastrophe, whether we shouldn't inaugurate a cost-impersonal post-atomic survival. You mean, like, how to remove spots from your leopard skin? How to distinguish the edible wild carrot from the inedible deadly nightshade? How to snare a wolf? Oh, well, don't need a choice in that. That's too elementary for an ivy girl. Yeah, I overheard an example of it today. Oh, where? On the sun steps of the library, a boy said to a girl, hey, calm face, and I'll meet you someplace this summer. And what did she say? Well, she said, it's possible I spent the summer under a flat rock. And I thought he'd slunk away, humiliated, and crestfallen. Oh, my darling, I doubt if there isn't in South Deadly enough to wither a college boy. For anyhow, I saw the two of them 20 minutes later in the malt shop, very cozy, over a soup pack. I beg your pardon, over a what? A soup pack. He's two spoons in a big dish of four kinds of ice cream, six kinds of flavoring, cherries, marshmallow, and salted nuts, a dollar and ten cents. Well, the ten cents I've heard is to call an ambulance. But why is this fantastic confection called a soup pack? It's an abbreviation for suicide pack. Victoria, my beloved, without you to infiltrate the campus and report these tribal customs to the would-be anthropologists. Oh, good heavens, look who's coming up the walk, in a high dungeon with a top-down, Mr. Wellman. Oh, doesn't he look healthy? I don't think it's very modish of him to wear a purple face for the brown suit. What happened to his chlorophyll? He should be the first to lose it, spending so much time out on the limb as he does. Let's both wait a minute, he's been swarming in the hall. Morning, Mr. Wellman. Morning, Mr. Wellman. Morning is right. We should all be wearing it. Wearing cloth, Mr. Wellman. Morning, Mrs. Hall. Morning. Morning, Mr. Wellman. Morning, Mr. Wellman. Morning, Doctor! Great! This is no occasion for Dr. Larrick. I said we should all be wearing morning, and that's exactly what I meant. Dignity on this campus is dead. Dead, Dr. Hall, dead! Take off your hat, Victoria. Mr. Wellman, if I didn't know you were the kind of man who always understates the situation, I'd say you were over-dramatizing this one. Flattery has never swerved me from my goal, Mrs. Hall. Well, in this particular case, Mr. Wellman, what is your goal? My goal is the elimination of the Entropology Department, or at least an admonishment to re-evaluate it. Well, anyway, something must be done about it. Well, it's one of Dr. Hall's favorite departments, Mr. Wellman. I know that, and it only emphasizes the disgraceful activities, the importance of it. It has bitten the hand that treated it, and I... Mr. Wellman, is it? Well, let's pass the generalities and get to a specific. What is the indictment? Do you know a student named Thomas Finley? The one who wrote the article about Ivy College. No, just a moment, please. I read the Finley article, and I enjoyed it immensely. The boys are sharp critics. Is that all you can say about us when he has so thoroughly attacked the alumni, the football management, the professors, the fraternity system, and you? You, Dr. Hall, didn't you read what he said about you? Well, that's the part he enjoyed the most. I thought it demonstrated a rare discernment and a definite kind of courage to say that the president of Ivy was too prone to consider the students as individuals and their problems as his own. The president, according to Finley's view, should be more aloof, more inaccessible. Pronounce should be Olympian. His activities closed in mystery, thus enhancing his authority. I... I disagreed with it completely. Well, something must be done about it, Dr. Hall. Something drastic. No class assignment in anthropology could excuse such an attack on this institution. At the very least, he must retract the article and make no help on our property. No. No? That's what the man said, no. Mr. Wellman, please listen. I'm listening, but I warn you, I disagree with what you're going to say. Oh, probably. And a prime example of tree censorship at its lowest level. Now, as one I certainly do not agree with many of his conclusions, I can only applaud his efforts and the courage of the Ivy Bull in printing it. Well, I must say, Dr. Hall, your attitude is the most... This is anarchy, Dr. Hall. Anarchy. It is treason to attack this institution. Mr. Wellman. Yes, Mrs. Hall. I'm sure the Ivy Bulletin would be happy to print your side of the question if your remarks would be printable, I mean. You meet for the chairman of the Board of Governors at this college through bandy words with a young... to so forget my dignity as to argue in print with a... No. A thousand times no. On the contrary, I shall demand a retraction. I shall demand his dismissal on the grounds of insubordination and ask the Board to see that you, you, Dr. Hall, are reprimanded for encouraging this under-graduate interaction. Good day. Attempt this in a pinhead if I ever heard one. Can he do anything? Why doubt it. But with the Wellmans of this world one never knows. He's a vigilante at heart, if any. And he's always eager to form a lynching party. That freedom of speech and freedom of the press, they're sort of involved here too, aren't they? Oh, definitely. In which connection I agree completely with the late Sintler Lewis. What did he say? He said that everything that is worthwhile in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit. And that the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and of silencing them forever. Yes, Miss Sintler is well-new, the function of free expression. Vicki, do you know what happens when a safety valve is tied down over a full head of steam? Boom! Yes. Yes, dear. Boom. Here he is, criticism. He met with calm, scrutiny, and reasonable defense. So I shall invite Finley to have dinner with us. Hand me the phone, will you, darling, so I can ask him... I can ask him if I was prepared. Have a kiss. I never do, and you always are. I must say it gives me a splendid sense of domestic security. Having enough to eat in the house always gives me one, too. Hello. Will you please locate a student named Thomas Finley for me? Yes, yes, this is Dr. Hall. No, no, no, no, Finley. Finley. F as in fearless, I as in independent, N as in noteworthy, L as in liberty, E as in enterprising, and Y as in... Yankees, four to three. Yankees. That's right, yes, thank you. That's a very happy little smile you're wearing, doctor. You really enjoy these little freaky, don't you? Yes, I'm afraid I do. What does that word do you use? Freaky, plural of fakers. Is it, um, is it legitimate? Probably not, but you've always said not to be a slave to the dictionary. Use it to make the word you say. And that phrase justifies itself you always say. An orthodox digger of expression is preferred. The prophet Alice, you say. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I am convicted by my own eloquence. Well, I just like to have you know I treasure everything you say. And I didn't know that when you were hanging on my every word that you'd used them to hang me with later. I would have been more careful that Dr. Hall's residence. Oh, yes, yes, yes, I did. Can you join Mrs. Hall and me for dinner here tonight? Yes, I thought we could discuss the article in the bull. And a possible bull in the article. You know, sometimes when a man goes into a barbershop, especially Doc Fish's barbershop on the Ivy campus, he may get more than just a shave. For example, the other day I noticed Dr. Chair was empty, so I... Well, howdy, Doc. How about a shave? Get right down, Mr. Gardner. You're lucky I'm free. And I'm lucky because I wanted to talk to you. You know, I never realized quite what you were getting at when you talk about the uniform taste of Schlitz beer. And then, it hit me the other day, it's just like the barber in business. Well, sir, a man picks his barber for reasons of his own. You know what I mean? Why, yes. And every time he goes to get his haircut, he expects the same kind of a job. Well, sir, what would a customer think? If every time I cut his hair, I cut it a bit different. Well, I... He'd go find himself another barber. Now, with beers, folks look for one that like for reasons of their own. And they expect the same case every time they pour a glass full. How about a hot towel? Oh, fine. Schlitz beer I found out has the same dandy taste, bottle after bottle, year after year. And because of that, the folks who ask for it regular are never disappointed. A fella that likes good beers bound to try Schlitz sometimes. Right? Well, here's one, Tim. I can't hear you. Where do I take the towel off? There. What'd you say? Well, I said, right. Schlitz is first in sales in the USA because of its fine taste. And because of the bottle after bottle uniformity of that taste. People just naturally get the finest when they get into the habit of saying, Schlitz, the beer that's made Milwaukee famous. Right, Doc? Right. As we return to the halls of Ivy, we find the halls and their guest, Thomas Finley, having asked for dinner coffee in the living room. Mr. Finley is a student anthropologist who wrote a rather devastating article on Ivy College and stirred up a campus whirlwind. As he so well says, I've noticed a little late, Doctor, that the anthropologists who write about the bet don't do it till they get home. I should have gathered my facts about Ivy College and then gone to the bet and written them there. It's a very sound procedure, in retrospect. As it is, our own High Lama demands your expulsion, excommunication, and if possible, your immediate execution. With a condemned man, yes, or another cup of coffee? Oh, yes, thank you, Mr. Hall. With my opinion, Dr. Hall asked me over. I seem to have lost quite a few friends in the past 72 hours. Ah, but don't forget you've added at least two admirers. Really? That's kind of surprising. Well, how so? Well, that you didn't take the monograph personally. I mean, as a personal attack, but it wasn't an attack. It was a critical evaluation of university life. I found it quite instructive. Well, you seem to be the only one who thinks so. And I guess you should complain most since it's your college. No, no, no, yours just as much as mine. Besides, if I'd taken every bit of criticism personally... There would have been another Mr. Wellman. And there are in Starley too many Mr. Wellmans in the world already. One. Well, what did you expect your monograph to accomplish, Thomas? Well, to arouse a little self-examination. Get some discussion going. You implied that the average Ivy student is more interested in getting a diploma than in getting an education. They look at a diploma like it's a deed to a piece of land or a guilt-edge bond that they can clip coupons from the rest of their lives. And because they're more interested in the prize they get than what they learn, all the shortcuts are used. All the easy courses. The college model is get in, get by, and get out. But Mr. Wellman implies that you've shaken the very foundations of all things near and dear to him. He is suffering grievously from contusions on his complacency. Well, here we cover. He's what the students call an easy bruise but a quick heal. You wish you'd quite a challenge, Thomas. When you said the average Ivy student doesn't know why he or she is going to college. Well, I believe it, Dr. Holder don't. Some go because their brother or uncle did or because their father wanted them to or because it's socially important to go. But always to please somebody else. To be liked because if you're liked, you get by in the world. Why are you going to college, Thomas? Well, to know why so many of us are angry and selfish, I guess. To find out if I can why we're all fighting so hard to be exactly like everyone else or the other way around to make everyone be like us. Well, Thomas, as opposed to Clarence Wellman, I'm always delighted to meet with a spirit of doubt and inquiry. The world would get a lot farther with doubting Thomas' and with carping Clarence's. You wouldn't be interested in retracting anything you wrote in your monograph, would you? Impossible, Dr. Holder. It's only a rhetorical question and merely for the record. Now, we'd better make some battle plans. Who wanted me to withdraw my paper? Now, Thomas, of all the people at this university, who stands on the advanced outputs of learning and shouts in loud, clear tones, make way for yesterday? Mr. Wellman. The one, the only, and we hope the last. Yes, but I've never met the man. In a word, don't. Go your fine man, a fine man, mind you, in his way. But almost everything seems to be in his way. But Mr. Wellman is chairman of the Board of Governors. Well, now really, Thomas, after the consideration Dr. Holder has shown you this evening, that was a very cruel thing to remind him of. Well, I must affirm a thing, and that Mr. Wellman will lose interest in this issue because the most important yearly event in his life has just begun. Oh, don't tell me he's going to retire from the Board. Bless his little heart, his very little heart. No, it's not that. It's something that has a deeper and more profound influence on the limited but energetic life of Clarence Wellman, the football season. Of course! The Ivy Backfield will block you out of his mind, Thomas. My football to Mr. Wellman is... Ah, maybe you'll have a chance to talk to him after all, Finley. I better make some more coffee or the dash of soothing syrup. Hello, Doctor. Am I being enough at you? Ah, Mr. Merriweather. No indeed delight to see you. Come in. I just happened to be passing this way on purpose and wanted to pay my respects to Mrs. All while I was wearing my best necktie. Ah, Victoria, here's the lower left-hand corner of our potential triangle. You're admired, Mr. Merriweather. Oh, Mr. Merriweather. It's so nice to see you now. Come on in, Mr. Down. Ma'am, you're a sight for weary bifocals. Several times this summer I started to write you a love letter and sneak it into your mailbox, but I couldn't spell frustrated and my wife wouldn't help me. All, how could you be so selfish to take this woman out of circulation for eight weeks when you know that I... Oh, beg your pardon. You have a guest. Yes, I think you two revolutionists should meet. Mr. Merriweather, this is Thomas Finley, an anthropology major. How do you do, sir? Glad to know you, Finley. Any friend at the halls is... Finley, you're the fellow who wrote the article in the Ivy Bowl and held this sacred institution up to mockery and scorn to quote a certain member of the board. Yes, he's a culprit, Mr. Merriweather. Do you want him to blush? For what? For yanking the tails out of a lot of stuffed shirts? No. Now I'm blushing. I didn't mean you, Bill. If your shirt bulges, it's only because you're so big hearted. Finley, take hands. Whoa. Thank you, Mr. Merriweather. You mean you don't think I'm a dangerous saboteur? Son, I think you're a very healthy infant. Mind you, I don't agree with everything you popped off about, but you certainly stirred up a mayor's nest. Being a fairly stable character myself, I've always been against mayors having nests. Statements of principle, which I shall remember, and cherished. And probably quote. No, no. Anyway, it's nice we have one member of the board who doesn't think this young man should be boiled in printer's ink. If the football coach catches him, he'll be fried in rubbing alcohol. Well, I don't remember being particularly unkind to the coach. Over emphasis on football, yes, and commercialism and sports. You mean you haven't heard about our star quarterback, Nitro Needham? Well, I haven't. Has Nitro exploded, too? Well, we better have some more coffee, Thomas, and you, Mr. Merriweather. Ma'am, just talking to you is stimulating enough without adding caffeine. And while I hate to be the bearer of Bill Tidings, it seems that Mr. Nitro Needham has gone into a huddle with himself and refuses to play any more football till he decides why he is going to college. Oh, my goodness, and he was headed right for the All-American. Well, Finley, you've really started something. That you didn't realize that self-examinations are the hardest ones to pass. You made a football player wonder, wonder where his real goal was. Well, it's very gratifying, but I hope I haven't overdone it, considering I'm here on a scholarship. Maybe if I hadn't stirred up such... such... such wrecky... Such what? Racky, plural of wreckus. Never heard such a word. Usage makes the word, Mr. Merriweather, and that phrase justifies itself. An orthodox figure of expression isn't his word. Thank you, Victoria. I'm glad to help any time. Mr. Merriweather, have you discussed this thing with Mr. Wellman? It might better be said that I listened to a 20-minute howl of anguish from Clarence. Among his more quotable remarks were that, in the person of Finley, we have been nourishing a viper in our bosom. Made me stop twice on the way over here to get a little snake bite remedy. He also said that, between him and the Alumni Association, they'd find a way to cancel Finley's scholarship. And I'll find a way to see they don't find a way. Clarence also suggested, in a well-modulated screen, that if Finley wanted to criticize Ivy and let him go to Harvard or Princeton, if he could get past our blacklisting... Blacklisting? What a horrible... Excuse me, ma'am, let me finish this while I can remember the more temperate aspects of the harangue. Clarence said that if Finley didn't get married, if Finley didn't get meet him back on the football field, he'd turn the anthropology department into a gymnasium. And that hereafter, he'd keep a sharp eye out for any ungrateful student who would think so low as to kick his mater in the face. Alma, that is. I'm sorry I can't give you a more verbatim summary, but there's a lady present. Well, I think the summary was quite adequate. And quite a wintery summary, too. Oh! Yes, I could feel the chilly blast. Oh, look, Dr. Hall, Mr. Maryweather, if it would save either of you any discomfort or embarrassment for me to resign. Now, Finley... Sir? Yeah, listen, in your article, you indicated a belief that a college president should remain more inaccessible and render more Olympian judgment. Well, yes, sir, but... Well, it's my present Olympian judgment, subject, of course, to reversal, that for a college president to encourage a retreat from honest criticism would be to abdicate in favor of reaction and timidity. I wish I'd said that. This college, Finley, this college, like all good colleges, is dedicated to the principle of knowledge through inquiry. If we encourage none but popular opinions, no cost but the safe one, no approach but the orthodox, without praise, we would be false to our concept of an educational institution. I take pride in having among us the students who has the courage, the initiative, and the insight to point out a line of self-examination and revaluation, which can only be a healthy influence on... on... I'll take care of this point killer. Dr. Hall's residence. Oh, hello, Mr. Elman. Tell him we're talking to the viper. I will say, Mr. Wellman stays with us. For me, Victoria? Yes, but something's gone wrong. He's being sweet. Must be a bad connection. Uh, yes, yes, Mr. Wellman. You say that Mitro needed his father. Well, yes, but we... Well, yes, I... Well, yes, I... Well, thank you, yes, I'd be delighted on the first tea at nine o'clock. Good night. You're playing golf with that leatherhead? What happened to the Kansas? The tycoon with the typhoon? Yes, and what about Needham's father, Mr. Halsey, if it's any of my business? Oh, it's definitely your business, Fenley. It appears that Mitro talked it over with his father, who was so pleased to know that his son would take time out from football to think that he is sending Mr. Wellman a generous check toward the new stadium. He thinks that a college which feels secure enough to withstand a little criticism must be quite an institution. In addition to this, World Topics magazine is reprinting your article in full with a six-page spread on Ivy College under the title A College Exams Itself and gets an A for Integrity. A for Integrity, that must be wrong. So, Fenley, you've been acquitted. Go and sin no more. Oh, brother, Needham worried, son. You'd have got a hung jury if I had to supply the rope myself. Oh, well, that settles that. Well, darling, everything's wonderful. What do you so gloomy about? Well, as Mr. Wellman's fault as usual, it's rather disconcerting to don one's armor, mount the charger, raise the bugle to sound the charge, and find oneself drowned out by the enemy's rendition of I love you truly. This Mr. Wellman must be an interesting character. I'd like to know more about him, in an anthropological way, of course. No publisher would handle it. You'd have to write the whole thing in asterisk. Yes, Fenley. When writing about our Mr. Wellman, take a hint from Studded King's verse. A writer owned an asterisk, and kept it in his den, where he wrote tales which had large sales of frail and earring men. And always when he reached the point where copying censors lurked, he called upon the asterisk to do his dirty work. Is the Malkati Victorian? The halls of my days, the barringness of Mrs. Ronald Coleman has been presented by Schlitz, a beer that made Malkati famous. The taste of Schlitz, the taste so many people prefer, has made Schlitz beer first in sales in the USA. Why don't you too enjoy the most popular beer in history? Next time, every time, ask for Schlitz beer. Now here again our Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Coleman. I want to remind you of the urgent need for blood by our armed forces. The love of fair play and justice is in the blood of every American. And it is only fair and just to give our fighting men some of yours to fight for you. Just contact your local Red Cross unit and do make a point of remembering. And so good night from our sponsor, the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and it's thousands of friendly dealers throughout the nation. Good night.