John Adams High School - Clipper Yearbook (Ozone Park, NY)

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A , M L . M wife l giflf' O - 5 A 1 A WWW? 9 MQ bsfwdqgg Aiifilzitowd 'I ,N 10 2,444 ww . 41 - te If Jnzfhd rfv -L F 'gs lil fry.. wt i fiq 'ex X. I tv 1 , s rx x 4,47 .Q 7 'Er Zh 5 l T- x - , ' i' ' ll ' J ' A .45 li, s I' i WL- ' ' 1 'tt -5. i J if D , A' Q A ffl bpd Tr lx -. -A X. x .. ' , Q15 ' V it I -vrlxllbt 1 Y K1 , 1, 45,3 1 . -,,,-33, 43, IN 1' NA is 11 I t X '- L walk filyul- .rr 75 - ,ea A 'il K A' iy O I A Nl. ' ii- Q' -I L-1 .iw I 1 Ad., 5 , N5 'ml f Vx ' 1 ' 1 f I Y H Q 4, x ' ' rl ' I .Is 'l , R. Y vi' 1 mfr- 5 J ll if l X ell 1 I ' JOHN ADAMS OZQNE PARK JUNE, 1954 WILLIAM A. CLARKE I fsliriiii IIA ' I ON THE BRIDGE OUR SHIP has come into port and our journey is at an end. We stand at the rail, and we reflect on all that has passed. We recall our first days on board, as Freshmen. We remember, with some misgiving, uniform examinations and the Regents. Our first days as Seniors are upper- most in our minds. How proud we felt when we displayed our large Sen- ior buttons. We remember the humor- ous things, too: the look of horror that the others showed as we rushed down the hall to show them, once again, our shining Senior rings. We remem- ber our excitement on Class Night and Senior Day. One event we will always hold dear, will be the glorious night of the Prom. As we stand at the rail, we reminise on the places we found for ourselves in the halls of Iohn Adams. These activities are where we found an out- let for our abilities, hopes and am- bitions. Tears well up in our eyes and a lump forms in our throats, because we realize that these activities and the many wonderful teachers who make them possible, will always be clear in our hearts. We want to thank our Skipper, and his able crew tor making our stay at Adams both a profitable and an en- joyable one. We turn, with faith and hope, to the future, and all that it holds, as we say goodbye from the graduating class of Iune, 1954. Monica Scimeca H I G H S C H O 0 L NEW YORK VOL. 14, NO. 4- PRINCIPAL COLUMBIA SCHOLASTIC PRESS ASSOCIATION GOLD MEDALIST 1954 5 I a n give '25 A ' l no g lgf l W . ,

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IN THE play, The Bonds of Interest, the Spaniard Benavente has woven an ingenious plot that carries a valuable moral. The scene is set in an unnamed European town in the late Middle Ages and the chief figures are a pair of rogues, master and man, who live by their wits without conscientious scruples. Coming to the place as strangers, they succeed in weaving them- selves so completely into the fabric of the community that the bonds of interest thus created in their continued success protect them against exposure and ruin. Too many influential people would be involved in their downfall to permit the truth to be known and the rascals to be seen for what they are. In this imaginary tale, Benavente has given us an excellent example of the complicated nature of many social. economic and political prob- lems with which we have to deal. Things are not ordered so simply that it is readily possible in a given instance even to distinguish right from wrong. For the further step of maintaining the right in full vigor while striking down the wrong, the difficulties grow by leaps and bounds. There is a term often in the mouths of left-wing adherents, over- simplificationu, that has value in this connection despite the questionable use of it by that group. In dealing with matters involving human beings, it is too easy to see issues as all white or all black with no intervening shades of gray. This tendency to which the young, because of their fierce logic and impatient zeal for justice, are particularly inclined is essentially over-simplification . Matters of controversy about which there is heated difference of opinion lend themselves to the sharply drawn contrasts of black and white. Yet, Descartes was correct when he said, Truth is rarely found in either extreme, but somewhere in between. To make matters even harder to resolve, the motives and the arguments of the parties to a con- troversy are a complicated pattem of good and bad, true and false. Similarly, it may be said that no nation wins a modern war, for the lives and fortunes of all nations are so intimately interwoven that a Carthaginian peace would drag down the victors in the ruin of the conquered. Hardly have armed hostilities ceased, when among the vic- torious people measures are adopted to revive the vanquished enemy. It is not pure generosity, but enlightened self-interest that prompted such action. The moral is that of The Bonds of Interest , for good and bad are so closely linked at many points that the surgeon's scalpel over an extended period of delicate probing is needed, rather than impetuous laying about with a broad sword. Intelligent study, patient analysis. careful weighing of all factors, these are the necessary procedures as both the cockle and the wheat are permitted for a while to grow until the time of harvest. That time of harvest must be the moment of calm and balanced reason that will give due value to all elements of the situation and result in a judgement in which there will be little or no over-simplification . In dealing with human problems, complicated as they are by almost inseparably involved good and bad elements, this slow, careful course is the only sure one to follow. The bonds of interest that tie us all so intricately together make the task exceedingly difficult at best. Five