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Comments I
„ Where There’s Smoke,
There’s Ire
The Barometer printed a snappy
bulletin concerning smoking on
campus which the faculty secre
tory sent to the board of regents
(any similarity to the cigarette of
the same name is purely coinciden
tal) on January 27, 1890:
“Observations exchanged among
the members of the faculty con
cerning the increased popularity
among students of 'dried leaves of
the plant known as ‘Nicotiana. ta
hacuni' have deemed it wise to act
ia prohibiting' it from the prem
ises.”
FOOTBALL SCHEDULE IN
'45 was the banner headline on
Thursday’s University of Cincin
xiati News Record. In view of many
student requests for the'return of
intercollegiate football, the Cincin
jn/iti board of directors announced
that the sport will be resumed next
fall after a two-year suspension.
By JANE ELLSWORTH aiul
BETTY BUSHMAN
‘Dear Arise—’
To Half or Have Not
Half credit must be given to
Syracuse university, where the 1945
version of a gridiron machine will
be a six-man team. Regular inter
collegiate football has been aban
doned-for next year because of the
scarcity of men on campus.
On the Air
By SHLBERT FENDRICK
How does a great dramatic radio
show originate? We now take you
into the KOAC extension station
for the production of a radio pro
gram by our radio workshop group.
“Are you ready?" pants Bob
Moran, our director.
‘•Ready," I reply, clutching my
script close to me.
“Ready,” replies Eddie Lyons, as
lie vamps the mike.
“Ready,” reply Cay Shea and
Betty Miller as they dash for the
mike.
“Ready," replies Wally Johnson
an he hauls his sound effects into
tie loom.
“Ready," replies Bob Moran, car
nod away with himself.
Three to Get Ready
Then we are on the air. Not
really, of course, but our voices are
being carried over the loudspeaker
to the class in the next room.
Moran starts the music, tones it
down, and points at me. I start to
tell him that that is impolite, but
then I realize he wants me to
speak. Then, of course, I get mike
fright. With a mighty effort, how
ever, I shake off my inhibitions,
and begin mumbling off the script
into the mike. :
Soon we are in the midst of the
script. Wally Johnson runs madly
from one sound effect to the other.
Eddie Lyons jtf^rU'tsJ rewrite the
script, and the girls huddle to
gether for protection. Bob Moran
begins to tear his hair, discovers
lie can't spare any of it, and re
turns to the controls.
I’ulp-icide
As Cav finishes reading each
page of script she drops it to the
floor. As we proceed toward the
finish, the pile gets higher and
higher. Soon we are knee deep in
radio scripts. Soon we are waist
deep in radio scripts. (Long script i.
Then, just as we are threatened
wdh asphyxiation, we come to the
end.
Bob Moran throws himself over
the controls and sobs bitterly. Coy
clutches the mike for support. Ed
die clutches Cay for support. Wally
clutches Eddie for support. Betty
clutches Wally for support. By this
time, I have collapsed.
^ And so we go off the air,
Oregon W Emerald
T
ANNE CRAVEN
Editor
ANNAMAE WINSHIP
Business Manager
MARGUERITE WITTWER
Managing Editor
PATSY MALONEY
Advertising Manager
WINIFRED ROMTVEDT
News Editor
Jane Richardson, Phyllis Perkins, Viriginia
Scholl, Mary Margaret Ellsworth, Norris
Yates, City Desk Editors
Bjorg Hansen. Executive Secretary
Mary Margaret Ellsworth, Anita Young,
Co-Women's Page Editors.
Jeanne Simmonds, Assistant Managing Editor
Maryan Howard. Assistant mews r-unui
Shirley Peters, Chief Night Editor
Darrell Boone, Photographer
Betty Bennett, Music Editor
Gloria Campbell, Mary K. Minor
Librarians
Jack Craig, World News Editor
EDITORIAL BOARD
Norris Yates, Edith Newton
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 postoifice, Eugene, Oregon.__
Mote Pawesi to Ijou?. . .
‘‘Student government—did it ever exist?
Duke and Northwestern have asked themselves that question.
Oregon mav well examine its present governmental set-up.
The educational activities board makes all major decisions
concerning' publications, music, forensics, and all other money
making student functions. Eight faculty members and four
students make up the board.
The executive council coordinates student activities, such
as the rallv squad and the war board, supervises junior and
senior honoraries, and approves Oregana and Emerald appoint
ments made by the educational activities board. All ASUO
officers, two representatives from the sophomore, junior, and
senior classes, the president of AW S, and the editor of the
Emerald are members.
Until 1935 the control worked from the bottom up instead
of from the top down. The administration could veto student
action, but students initiated and organized activities under
the supervision of a graduate manager. The new system, of
course, has an obvious advantage in that plans doomed to fail
ure are nipped in the bud, and time and effort are not wasted
working on programs that will not materialize. On the other
hand, students are denied any real responsibility and are not
encouraged to develop new ideas and put them into execution.
When the system was reorganized, student finances were in
need of better supervision. Compulsory fees could not be
charged. The educational activities board and the athletic board
were created to solve the financial problem and to guide the
future handling of funds. They have succeeded in putting Uni
versity activities on a sounder basis.
Whether students are ready to take more responsibility in
their government is the question. The Duke Chronicle of
larch y says:
We believe that students, if given the chance, can govern
themselves adequately, because increased power will in turn
breed a larger sense of responsibility. . . . Student government
would be able to operate in a much more healthy atmosphere
if it did not seem that dire administrative edicts would be the
onlv alternative to a student-sponsored proposal which did
not prove to be sufficiently ‘constructive.’ Certainly many
forms of regulation of students would seem more reasonable
and less picavunish if they stemmed from students themselves
through a powerful, responsible, and respected student go\
ernment—which we have never had.
Oregon students had more power and responsibility once, and
lost it. Could we accept it now?
Keep, 0j^ the /?oa^. . .
Yes, it's spring', and being' outside is the best thing that can
happen to anyone, t he library seems too dull to stand. So what
do you do? You go outside.
Fine. If—if you don't decide that going outside should in
clude going out on the roof of the library. There are signs
on the roof that distinctly say no one is supposed to be on the
gravel. There is a door distinctly marked “fire escape which
is obviously to be used for no other reason. But still students
choose to ignore the signs. It isu t that the libiary officials
have anything against the great out-of-doors. The reasons foi
lin' signs are good, and failure to observe them can be very
disturbing to other people.
In the first place, the graveled roof of the library is not pre
pared for people to walk on, and it could be damaged seriously
if treaded on to any great extent. Furthermore, the roof is far
from sound proof, and every time someone walks across it the
sound is all too audible in the rooms below.
The libe has two porches where smoking is permitted and
which students are allowed to use. If these are crowded there
i> nothing to keep anyone from going outside—the lawn m
back of the library is an excellent place to study.
Some rules seem senseless and keeping them is liaid. 1 his
one about not going on the library roof is not. The reasons
for it are clear, and obeying it is showing appreciation for our
fine library and consideration for those who are studying below.
PnxUeAA-0-n. Gkalle*Ufe&
JPaudatian o-l tf-tomco
By WILLIS B. MERRIAM
Assistant Professor of Geography
I did not have the privilege of serving in the Spanish Civil
War as a “soldier of the cross,” and had I been in Spain during
that war, I most certainly would have served on the side “for
whom the bell tolls.” However, I am sufficiently disturbed over
the article by Robert E. Hinds in Tuesday’s Emerald, extolling
the saintly motives and character of Francisco Franco, to feel
that the article should be refuted
and that the other side, based on
the evidence of Franco’s record,
should be presented.
Franco is a Fascist; and if we
are fighting World War II for the
elimination of Fascism, then
Franco must be tried with the
biackest of the war-guilt criminals.
Any other attitude toward him will
result in losing the peace as surely
as our neighbors did in 1919.
Spain, during the 1920s and the
first half of the 1930s, was making
great strides in the direction of
what Dr. Isaiah Bowman, in his
“New World,” calls “the demo
cratic drift in Spain.” This drift
toward a popular front govern
ment, and the agrarian and social
reforms it attempted, was checked
and destroyed by Franco and his
backers, including the militarists,
reactionary capitalist interests, a
totalitarian church (whose action
was condemned by many of its own
adherents), the grandees, and other
powers of privilege and vested in
terests, restoring a system of hu
man exploitation which is intended
to keep the peasants of Spain in
poverty, ignorance, and misery.
Russia’s Part
There is no evidence that demo
cratic Spain was in the hands of
“godless Bolsheviks.” A few com
munists were in the ranks of the
popular front. Spanish peasant
leaders studied with interest and
hope the Soviet system, and Russia
did send meager aid to the partisan
army. The presence of these forces
on the leftist side does not, how
ever, warrant the conclusion that
the civil war was a communist
revolution.
“Germany helped Franco, so
naturally he values German friend
ship,” states Mr. Hinds, but other
wise, he infers, there is nothing
Fascist in Franco’s dictatorship.
By exactly the same reasoning it
can be shown that the Russian
people aided the Spanish peon’s
cause, so naturally they value Rus
sian friendship, without making
them all communists.
It is well-known that along with
open aid from the Fascist front in
Europe, Franco also employed
some 150,000 bloodthirsty Moors, to
kill thousands of Christian Span
iards “in response to an offer of a
chance to kill Spaniards in their
homes.” What a record on which
to glorify the character of Franco
as a “good Christian soldier!” For
that act he received the grand
laureled cross of Saint Ferdinand,
and placed on the tunics of feis
mercenary Moorish legions the
award of the bleeding heart of
Christ! What a price to pay for the
privilege of “going to church on.
Sunday” in Spain.
Survival of Christianity
Christianity will survive without
champions like Franco. Democracy
and the century of the common
man can never be attained or long
endure with men of his ilk in the
saddle. It is as correct to call Hit
ler a good Christian soldier as
Franco, wi,th his black record of
intolerance, duplicity, and sav^gP
barbarism.
I personally condemn all that
both of them stand for; and mil
lions of lives have been lost in this
war to back that stand. What
Franco is and represents must nev
er be allowed to survive in the
world of tomorrow.
"Amusing to Hilarious/’ Judges
Reviewer of Try and Stop Me’
By FABER O’HAGAN
TRY AND STOP ME, Bennett Cerf, Simon and Schuster,
1944, $3.00.
This is a wonderful book. It is exactly as sober as a cucko^
clock, as profound and mature as a peppermint stick. In this
cold, rainy, “unusual” spring weather it is well to have a book
which has been written with a light heart. Not even the most
determined searcher can find a
sinister, or even a serious, purpose
in “Try and Stop Me.”
Bennett Cerf has filled 368 pages
with quips and anecdotes roughly
organized under “The Literary
Life,” “Back to Hollywood,” “.Music
Hath Charms,” and similar head
ings. The tone of these stories
varies between the amusing and
the hilarious, and since one page
has little to connect it with the
next, the book may be read for five
minutes or five hours, as you
prefer.
The length of the stories ranges
from that of the five-year-old girl
who, on being taken to a concert,
was beautifully obedient to instruc
tions and sat quietly through two
intricate numbers before asking
"Is it all right if I scream now?”
to the much longer story of the
fabulous parrot who laid square
eggs, but couldn't talk very well
(all she could say was “Ouch").
The Effect of Humor
In evaluating this book a dis
tinction must be made between
anecdotes (narratives, usually
brief, having a beginning, a mid
dle, and an end, in the best Aris
totlian tradition), jokes, which are
things said or done to excite laugh
ter, and humor, the effect of which
seems to be solely to make one feel
good.
Technically speaking, I suppose
fine humorous writing makes the
reader feel so good he laughs for
sheer joy, but laughter is hardly
essential to humor.
The differences between these
forms are much easier to recog
nize than to define. Much of Dick
ens, for instance, is designed to
stimulate good feeling. On the oth
er hand, many radio comedians say
absolutely nothing that makes me
feel any better.
Few men have had as good op
portunities to collect such material.
At the moment Bennett Cerf is a
publisher (Rapdom House I, a col
umnist (Saturday Review of Lit
erature), a book reviewer (Es
quire), and an editor (council on
books in wartime).
His Environment
Most of his waking hours are
spent among men who know how
to put their ideas into words and
whose wits are always working
furiously. Most of them are cel
ebrities (people who don’t have to
be explained, as “my-mother-in
law” or ‘‘Mr. Quimp, who is iJBNi
suring the hall for new carpet
(Please turn to page jour)