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Oregon W Emerald
MARJORIE M. GOODWIN
EDITOR
ELIZABETH EDMUNDS
BUSINESS MANAGER
MARJORIE YOUNG
Managing Editor
ROSEANN LECKIE
Advertising Manager
ANNE CRAVEN
News Editor
Norris Yates, Joanne Nichols
Associate Editors
EDITORIAL BOARD
Edith Newton
Shirley Stearns, Executive Secretary
Shaun McDermott, Warren Miller
Army Coeditors
Hob Stiles, Sports Editor
Carol Greening, Betty Ann Stevens,
Co-Women's Editors
Bill Bindley, Staff Photographer
Carol Cook, Chief Night Editor
Published daily during the college year except Sundaya, Mondays, and hohdaya and
final examination periods by the Associated Students, University of Oregon.
Entered as second-class matter at the postoffice. Eugene, Oregon._____
She 9 4. a . . .
Campus ‘‘BWOC’s” arc touring the circuit to aid the Uni
versity’s contribution to the fourth war loan drive. Main talk
ing point at first glance appears to be: support your house
candidate, so she can have a date with the handsome soldier,
•etc. etc.
At first glance, that is. Beneath the rah-rah and the keen
competition for the title “Bonds Away Girl”, this campus drive
is pretty serious. Deadly serious is a better description. For the
girls who run out the door when they see the mailman coming
down the street realize what their bond purchases mean to the
boy they write to. They know, better than anyone else, just
what could happen if that boy did not have the equipment he
needed, when he needed it.
* i|; * sfc
War has hit our generation the hardest of any. Oregon
girls have high stakes in an Allied victory because their sweet
hearts and their brothers will or will not return depending to
a great extent upon home front bond-buying. They are willing
to help where they can. In the current bond drive that help
means giving up the yew clothes and tucking away a bond.
It means war stamps instead of cokes—until the day that spe
cial soldier can come back to share a coke date.
Their stake is also important when they remember that
bonds they buy now will make a difference when depression
follows the war. Their future homes, their careers need just
such regular, bond-filled nest-eggs.
>}c :K *
When the “Bonds Away Girl” is chosen by bond sale totals
her house will be proud—because she is a symbol. She is a
tribute to all the suppressed hope and the loneliness which
comes from waiting for letters, from wishing very hard that
peacetime were here, that the soldier could come home. And
because of that, she is very important. She is Oregon’s way of
saying “Win the War!” M. M. G.
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• 4
The scrappy, pop-eyed Casanova on the front page of Es
quire might well become the symbol of a decadent era and
a part of the “good-old-days” philosophy of tomorrow’s remi
niscing. With a si}’, “Lemon-Punch” brand of humor, his
cartoons, prose, verse, short stories, and articles were as much a
part of the college scene as cokes . . . even to the feminine
element.
Postmaster-General Frank Walker has ruled that articles
in the magazine do not meet the requirements of being “origi
nated and published for the dissemination of information of a
public character, or devoted to literature, the sciences, arts, or
some special industry.” With this verdict, he has cancelled the
magazine’s second-class mailing privileges. Will the pulps come
under this ruling?
Speculation arises concerning “freedom of the press” . . .
whether a precedent will be established, depending on the
courts' support of his ruling, which will give the postmaster
general powers of censorship not held previously in any demo
cratic form of government. Political alarmists, now feeling the
prickle of "Mac Arthur-for-president” pins, wonder. Could it
affect political publications coming under the second-class
1 rivilegc ?
Is the pop-eyed Casanova, with his assorted Varga and
Petty girls obscene? That was the original question, finally
side-stepped by Mr. Walker. Roars of unobscene laughter
greeted court room exposure of "lewd and lascivious” material.
Five years ago Esquire had a more lusty tinge, and Casa
nova a boudoir smirk which might have deserved the action.
Since 1940, however, the magazine has acquired respectabilitv,
and Casanova a "Frank Morgan” type of leer.
Mr. Walker’s appointed board of three post office officials
decided two to one in favor of the magazine, after six months
f investigation and three and one-half weeks of testimony.
'.I'hen Mr. Walker reversed the decision. Even in time of war,
docs the postmaster-general hold this power? B. A. S.
Anvil
Chorus
I! By NORRIS YATES II
A very timely and pertinent ar
ticle in the latest issue of the
Music Educators’ Journal “gives
us pause.” It deals with the type
of music we Americans listen to
in wartime.
“Here we are, fighting a war,”
the article runs. “And what sort
of music do we listen to? Any
thing with healthy vitality, the
vigor of a free and fighting people
running through it? Not on your
life!
“We much prefer to cram cfown
our throats a lush, luxuriant, ro
mantic type of music coupled
with syrupy drivel that possesses
no strength whatsoever. Instead
of choosing musical entertain
ment with life in it, we pick out
the very worst type for a nation
at war.”
This article expresses the views
of quite a few of us to a “T”.
Moreover, it brings up some other
good points:
The taste of the modern student
for music begins with the "moody,
introspective Tschaikowsky.’’ The
“defiant gaiety” of Haydn, the
“dance-loving” Mozart, and the
“restless, triumphant” Beethoven
are among others mentioned as
being rejected wholly or for the
most part by the sophisticated
modern who must have fireworks,
elaboration, “sound and fury”
with his music.
Bach also is classed by the
Journal’s article among those re
jected “except when served up
with passionate sentiment a la
Stokowski, with orchestral sauces
that ruin the crispness and flavor
of the original.”
The article leaves some of its
meanings clouded, however. Does
everyone who is fed up with the
slushy, syrupy jazz of Sinatra and
the rest of his tribe want to switch
abruptly to songs of patriotic
propaganda that, while admitted
ly containing more life and fire,
are the purest trash, musically
speaking ?
The blast of propaganda now
being delivered at the American
public under the name of “music’’
has no parallel in our country’s
history. Some of us, at least, re
fuse to believe that a half or even
a tenth part of this is necessary.
The American people have shown
themselves to be patriotic and full
of energy. They don’t need to be
hypnotized into carrying on this
war.
But after all, just what, if any
thing, can be done about it? Well,
it seems to us that plenty can be
done. Almost all the people who
write music are competent music
ians. They know good music from
bad. And it is quite possible to
write good music even within the
cramping and discouraging forms
to which commercial necessity
limits the vast majority of com
posers. Therefore, the blame lies
partly with the songwriters. The
rest lies with the public, which
continually requests such junk. A
public needled by enough kickers
would demand a change.
A lot of students may wonder
if the problem is serious enough
to make such a kick about. We
think that it is. The taste of the
American public is proverbially
low. And it is in danger of slipping
lower due to the continued expos
ure to wartime “propaganda
music” and sentimental drooling.
Perhaps the alarm is only a
fancied one. Slips in taste during
wartime are often likely to be
followed by a corresponding rise
afterward.
But until the duration the pro
cession of m usical garbage
stretches behind and on ahead of
us, in the paraphrasing of a cer
tain popular instructor on this
campus, “ad infinitum, ad nau
seum”.
The Cutting Room
By BILL BUELL
Phosphorescent hoops dancing about on a dark screen,
chorus girls viewed through a constantly shifting kaleidoscope,
and constellations of bodiless heads dispersed upon a bright
blue background are typical of the absurdly fantastic technicolor
spectacles to which “The Gang’s All Here” resorts in an effort
to differentiate itself from all the similar escape musicals per
functorily manufactured by the - - - - - - -
Hollywood assembly line.
Most of these photographic
novelties for the sake of novelty
are as totally ineffective as the
beverage of the Lucky Lager
company labels “beer.”
The picture is as plotless as
“Finnegan’s Wake.’’ Hanging pre
cariously from the corners of a
hastily sketched love triangle
about a sergeant (James Ellison)
who “two-times” a chorus girl
(Alice Faye) are the assorted
musical extravaganzas and comic
interludes which constitute the
picture. Phil Baker, Carmen Mir
anda, Charlotte “the long-stem
med flower” Greenwood, and the
inevitable Edward Everett Horton
all endeavor to entertain by ex
hibiting their stereotyped person
alities and routines.
Swing king Benny- Goodman is
there too. His band provides at
mosphere for the night club
scenes, backgrounds for the vo
calists, accompaniments for the
dancers. Benny gets off a few
clarinet licks on that rock-solid
gutbucket favorite, “A Journey to
a Star.” He even sings.
But somehow or other, the pro
ducers neglected to include any
uninterrupted instrumental num
bers by the Goodman band.
Miss Faye, of course, is beauti
ful. This is the first time we ever
saw a girl appear in a sheer, strap
less, shoulder-exposing blouse to
do her solitary weekly ironing.
But then of course we don’t see
many girls doing their solitary
weekly ironing.
“She was so smooth she could
waltz around with a glass of beer
on her bustle and never disturb
the foam,” says Phil Baker as he
describes the former glamour of
the bovine Miss Greenwood.
That quotation has broad im
plications for the entire picture.
“The Gang’s All Here” is a smooth
production job; but it is so com
pletely outside reality that it
doesn’t disturb us in the least.
Pna and Cost
'January 13, 3^.4
To the Editor of
“The Cutting Room”
In your last column you took it
upon yourself to review “Lassie
Come Home”.
Would it be asking too much to
ask you on what basis you con
sider yourself a criterion of mo
tion pictures, and particularly a
judge of dramatic ability?
You literally tore the picture
apart with what I presume you
considered “snappy” comments,
on what a truly?,poor picture it
was. You then ended with a grand
flourish stating that, (if I may
quote) “even the dog was a better
actor than Roddie McDowell.’’^
Now really, better judges than
you believe this young actor to be
rather good in his line.
Instead of giving such poor
criticism, why dfl^Tt^you become
more proficient iniyour line—leave
others alone—!!! W‘
One-Tirjjte Reporter
is of
Los Angeles Times
P. S.: Let’s see thifcih print ? Huh ?
One hundred sight recent pe
troleum engineering graduates at
the University ofpTexas are now
in the armed services.
_ _r_
nr
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