Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 9, 1943)
IiJ!linill!!l!lllllllllllllll!ll!inilll«lllll!lllllillllll!!lllnilllllll!!ll!ll!!l!l!!ll!lli!!llini!lllllllllllll«ttlllllll!llllll!lll!IIUI!IVIIIIinUII>H!iiniUlnil!nilIi!li!ll!il!Ill:lli!lUIII!l]ll!!!ll!lllllllll!!iniUIII Dregon W Emerald MARJORIE MAJOR ELIZABETH EDMUNDS EDITOR BUSINESS MANAGER MARJORIE YOUNG ARLISS BOONE Managing Editor Advertising Manager ' ANNE CRAVEN News Editor _ Charles Politz, Joanne Nichols Associate Editors editorial board Edith Newton Norris Yates _ Shirley Stearns, Executive Secretary Pvt. Bob Stephensen, Warren Miller, Army Co-editors Carol Greening, Betty Ann Stevens, Co-Women’s Editor’s Bill Lindley, Staff Photographer Carol Cook. Chief Night Editor Norris Yates, Sports Editor Published daily during the college year except Sundays, Mondays, and holidays and final examination periods by the Associated Students, University of Oregon. Entered as second-class matter at the postoffice, Eugene, Oregon. _ Alai <§a tf-unvuf,. . . A lesson in democracy came to the University Saturday night. She sang on the stage for an all too brief hour or two*, and went her way. Marjorie Lawrence opened her program with an area by Russians, three other Germarf, two Frenchmen, a Spaniard, an Angled zed German. She cor tinned it with works by three and an American woman. All these pieces were presented side by side, irrespective of nationality. Encore numbers included compositions from France, Scotland, and Australia. But the significant fact about the concert is that probably not one among the nearly 2,000 students, soldiers, and others who attended gave the matter a thought, nor saw anything re markable in the representation of such a cosmopolitan group of composers. For America it was not a remarkable program. 3u other times it would not have been remarkable for most of the rest of the world. But in view of our present world of blood and fire, it would be well il we would stop to realize how for tunate we Americans are in regard to the arts, and how liberty or bondage in them directly reflects conditions of freedom or bondage in peoples. How many of you remember that sprightly Broadway pro duction of a few years back entitled, “I d Rather Be Right ? This little comcdv satirized the president, the first lady, and much of the rest of our government to a fare-thee-well. The paintings and pottery of emperor-worshipping Japanese repose in our largest art museums and galleries, constitute some of their most prized items. The movie, “Mr. Smith-Goes to'Wash ington” took a healthy punch at government corruption to be come one of the prime examples of freedom of expression in .the grimy arts. >]s * * * These are rather obvious examples that serve to illustrate n fact which is before us as plain as the noses on our faces, and vet is missed bv most of us. If you think the subject too self evident to bother discussing, consider the contrast in Atiss Law rence's program had it been given under an American dictator ship, No Wagner- —he married a lady of Jewish blood. No Schu bert—he was a draft dodger, although you could hardly blame him, considering the discipline and conditions prevailing among the armies of his day. And no " W altzing Matilda as an encore —it might encourage the soldiers to complain about their packs. Sounds ridiculous? ^ on bet it does. But ridiculousness hand ed the reins of power, turns abruptly into tragedy. Let Ameri cans he caught napping' some day and have to live under this sort of regime, and they would find it not so funny. —N.Y. Jlittle CfOJCMtjit ia /IdJz . • . ])cspite Shakespeare's cautioning, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be," we all borrow things sometimes. We borrow a quarter or a kerchief or a Kleenex. Nor do we usually, as the bard warns, "lose both loan and friend." Sometimes, it is true, the loan is not paid hack. Hut we know, and the borrower un derstands, that when it’s our turn to go a-borrowing, we will seek our debtor and demand of him what we want. That's what most everyday, small time borrowing amounts to—the lending back and forth of little things like notebook paper or the use 'pf a pencil. There is never am serious expectation that these [things will he returned—never even any real desire that they should be. Hut everyone knows this without discussing it— there is always an obligation between student and student to help when help is asked. JYrhaps, though, we should discuss it—that obligation to help fellow students when help is asked. Recently we’ve been forgetting that obligation we owe to students everywhere— not just to those from whom we've borrowed things, or those from whom we mav possibly borrow something sometime, but till students. That obligation to help other students goes beyond ^lending" them a cigarette or showing them how to do an as signment. The obligation one student owes to another is deeper Sind more fundamental and more important than the above The Cutting Room B?EiLL BUELL The scene is Nevada. The date is 1885. But “The Oxbow Incident” is a typical western movie in set ing only. It is an intense psychological study of an extremely unpleasant but typically American social phenomenon—the lynching—of the men who make up the lynching mob, and of their victims. Sleepy Opening The story opens one sleepy afternoon in a sun cracked cowtown. An excited messenger brings a story that a local rancher has been murdered, his cattle stolen. The sheriff is out of town. In spite of the pro tests of the local judge an illegal posse is formed to find and hang the killers. In the middle of the night the missing cattle are found, and with them three strangers who are accused of the crime. A hasty mock-trial follows in which only 7 of the 23 men present vote against immediate execution. The victims are allowed to live until daybreak, then hung from a great misshapen tree. The Wrong Men As the posse rides away from the scene of the execution the legal sheriff overtakes them with the news that they have punished innocent men. Although this is a story filled with violent ac tion, the emphasis is not upon the action itself but but upon the psychology of the men who take part in it. In the hours between the forming of the posse and the actual hanging, the character of every man in the mob is scraped bare. Henry Fonda plays a stubble-bearded, whiskey gulping, sexually frustrated cowhand who realizes the injustice of the situation but is too afraid of his own skin to protest very strenuously. Harry Davenport, a mild-mannered storekeeper, protests actively but ineffectively. Frank Conroy, as the sadistic civil war veteran, dresses up in his Confederate major’s uniform to lead the mob. William Eythe plays his effeminiate son who hates the idea of violence but 1° no weak willed to cross his father. Also in the mob are a slobbering, iroron;. sad dist who ties the hangman’s knots; a '•c/nand whose dominating thought is to avenge the murder of 'his friend; and a Negro preacher who cSmes along only to pray for the dead men’s souls, and to sing- spirituals in front of their limply swaying bodies. Producer Lamar Trotti and Director William Wellman achieve in “The Oxbow Incident” a unity of mood seldom attained on the screen. That mood is dark, somber and one of grim foreboding and smoldering violence. With the exception of the tattered ends of an old love affair of Fonda's, which are dragged into the picture for no apparent rea son, every speech and action contributes to the general effect. “The Oxbow Incident” is not a “pleasant” pic ture, but it is a very fine one. It is stark in its real ism, penetrating in its psychology, serious in its intent. UO Fix-it Plant Is Always Busy Down by the railroad tracks at 1193 Onyx street stands the establishment that keeps the physical wheels of the Univer sity well oiled. Although a 10 year old grey wooden barn-like structure with an uninteresting aspect, the University physical plant contradicts this conclusion upon investigation. “Presided over” by the man with the eye-shade storekeeper, Ben Wechsler, the physical plant is the most popular place on the campus when anything goes wrong with electrical, mechani cal, or plumbing facilities in so rorities, women's dorms, and the halls and fraternities occupied by soldier students as well as the University buildings. Leaky bath tubs, “overstrained” lecture stands, and blown fuses, are just daily routine to the plant’s two plumbers, three to four carpen ters, and three electricians. Too HIucli Business War conditions (arrival of the army trainees, priorities, etc.) have doubled the business at the plant and caused great difficulty in obtaining plumbing equipment, copper, iron, and steel especially. The main section of Oregon’s fix-it headquarters is given over to “storage.” Under this general classification is amassed a col lection of utilitarian Americana that is a second-hand man's dream. Lawnmowers, stoves, ta bles, a couple of cement mixers, pipes, bolts, soap, fire extin guishers, shovels, doors, chairs, and wire fences, not to mention a complete hardware store and Reports have reached us of a rugged weekend spent by both civvies and army men alike. The Holland and Eugene hotel did a rush business Saturday night, due mainly to army pay-day, no doubt. Gathering at the ever-popular room from Persia, were a pair of Sigma Chis, including Bill Johnson and Bill Lilly of the junior ROTC. machine shop, provide variety of surroundings. No humans have as yet been reported permanently missing in this maze of equip ment, although the men who take the yearly inventory were once not heard from for three days. This Room’s Full, Too On the second floor is a room filled with little-used articles— old class records, files, a dusty Vietrola, football bannei’s, traf fic signs, spotlights, stools, iron chandeliers, and clock cabinets. In a corner a “Men’s Pool’’ sign leans against a bathtub ar tistically draped with rolls of lemon and green crepe paper em anating from boxes on the floor. Here also are stored asbestos, cork, and window glass of all shapes and sizes. Articles stored by the army at the plant include piles of blan kets, mattresses, and a demon stration airplane motor—M.S. Carey Woofter, Glenville State college, West Virginia, has on display more than 385 arrow heads, spearheads and Toma hawks. mentioned borrowing-lending1 arrangement, which is, however, typical of-ihat underlying and more significant obligation. The phrase “to help fellow students when help is asked” means all students everywhere who arc in real need of help. Throughout the world today there are thousands of students whose need is so great that we in our comfortable rut cannot comprehend it. Students have been driven out of their schools by Herman and Japanese bombers. Students are living in mountain caves, and in buildings half-destroyed by bombs. Students are studying in blacked-out cities. Students are near starvation because their subsistence diets will barely sustain life. That is the obligation of students to other students—to help when help is asked. It is an obligation which cannot be denied or shirked. It is ever-present and continuing. The obligation will last while the need goes on. The \\ orld Student Service fund is continuing its Uni versity of Oregon campaign. While we still can. let us give our fellow students a helping hand—that is the most important thing students can lend each other. —J.N. was iNavy uigm, rnua^-iit the Eugene hotel officers’ club, with one-striper-s Bill Loud, Beta, and Bill Skade, Phi Delt, show ing off snappy uniforms to their female companions. Quite an Affair The Spencer hall (-alias the Pi Kap house) shindig turned out to be quite an affair also. Puerto a cenfcozing entry system, of the “shipyard workers” ent found themselves in the base ment instead of the dance floor. Man shortage or not, freshman Milt Spar’ks found it tough keep ing track of his date, lush. TD ■ mr pledge Marilyn Rackow. Two in-the-service Delts who returned to the campus for a visit last week, got mighty red faces when they went up to take a look at their old house, Birch lodge. As they approached the doorway, a figure streaked across the living room in a fetching knee-length nightgown, with a large pink feather on her pin curled head. Matters weren't im’ proved much when President Georgia Dussin explained that the apparition was just Dorothy “Frenchy” Hermans’ dressing appropriately for fun night. In the Best Circles jf They're still doing it in the best circles—getting engaged, of course. Check the sparkler ADPi Betty Davis received from Lieu tenant Jim McGuire—it’ll knock your eye out. The Chi Os list a new ATO pin among their ranks—donor is Ed Allen, while recipient is blonde •Dorothy Shepherd. Strictly “Strictly. Instrumental” and “strictly smooth” was the Haw thorne lodge dance last Saturday eve. Musical notes, large and small, silver and black, covered the walls, while a musical score ran up the stairway. Practically ■an all-blind date affair, it turned out dreamily, we hear tell .And for a “purely platonic” friendship, Gloria Marchi and Gail Meyers friendly.