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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 8, 1947)
MARGUERITE WTTTWER-WRIGHT GEORGE PEGG Editor Business Manager BOB FRAZIER, TED GOODWIN Associates to Editor JACK Lk BILLINGS Managing Editor BILL YATES News Editor MARYANN THIELEN and WALT McKINNEY Assistant Managing Editors BOBOLEE BROPHY and BRUCE BISHOP Assistant News Editors JEANNE SIMMONDS Women'! Editor PAT THOMPSON Executive Secretary JUNE GOETZE Assistant Women’s Editor DOUG EDEN Advertising Manager BERNIE HAMMERBECK Sports Editor RTT.T, STRATTON, WALLY HUNTER Assistant Sports Editors ROGER TETLOW DON JONES Chief Night Editor. Staff Photographer Signed editorial features and columns in the Emerald reflect the opin ions of the writers. They do not necessarily represent the opinion of the editorial staff, the student body, or the University. Entered as second class matter at the postoffice, Eugene, Oregon. Top Secret Evasions, evasions, evasions. There is no valid reason for all this secrecy concerning the actions of the athletic board at its meeting' Monday night. The board members were instructed to keep quiet. Dr. Pallett has no comments, no affirmations, no denials. Everything depends on Dr. Newburn who had busi ness in Portland. Certainly no one on the board could have been so naive as to think that a news story of such interest would not leak out. Eernie Engel of the Eugene Register-Guard sat outside the board meeting room throughout the discussions, and later Dick Stritc phoned at least one member of the board to wheedle information. The administration evidently prefers to believe that the Associated Press story announcing the forced resignation of the athletic board was based on wild guesses. No one seems to have hit on the idea that the “leak” may have beeninten tional. Not Sudden The action of the board Monday night is the result of weeks of spadework. Things like that don’t happen suddenly. Whether it is true that the board resigned at Dr. Newburn’s re quest, or not; whether the board actually only presented a recommendation to Dr. Newburn that the ’board be allowed to resign, or not . . . the fact remains that the board still exists and will remain on active status until Dr. Newburn makes known his decisions. And there is little doubt in anyone's mind that the board will be liquidated. Dr. Newburn is the dealer and there's little doubt that the latest phase of this game is the dealer's choice. Maybe the cards were stacked too. At any rate, the board’s blanket resig nation will make Newburn’s subsequent actions smooth and easy, lie can announce the director of athletics and the new football coach without any interference from any one. That a director will be more efficient than an unwieldly board is unquestioned. That the new coach would have been Dr. Newburn’s man, board or no board, is also very possible. Why Hush? All this seems so natural. Why all the beating around the bush? Why the hush-hush? Secrecy about events that interest everyone always tends to make a mountain out of a molehill. This latest evidence of the University administration’s poor press relations or lack of understanding of how to handle the press should prove conclusively that a public relations director is as necessarv to the school as an athletic director. A man who knows the newspaper business and how to get around re porters, would definitely be an asset to Johnson hall. All the conflicting stories that have been published to date about the whole athletic situation only put the University in an unfavorable light. \ erv often the stories have been in accurate because of unnecessary reluctance to talk on the part of administrators who knew the real dope. Let’s have no more of this sort of poor public relations. The daitv news quizzes, which are the delight of the De partment of lournalistn at the l niversity of Indiana often bring nnnsnal answers. One professor asked his class "\\ hat are the Big and Little Inches?" A student answered with, “The Big Inch is what John L. Lewis wants and the Little Inch is what the government is willing to give him." The prof gave him full credit. It doesn't take long to make you hard-boiled after you’ve been in hot water a few times. Accent Still on Grades It is still too early for a tabulation of fall term grades as to living organizations, veterans, freshmen, or other categories. Mechanical difficulties in the registrar’s office have delayed the reporting of -individual grades until Friday. Hugh M^cI;ennaTf;‘,"Canadian writer and scholar, in an ar ticle in Maclean’s magazine last month, charged that in Ameri can schools the acceht is on grades instead of education. 1 here may be something in that charge. More students ask each other, “What did you get in survey?” than ask, "What did you learn in survey?” , . The influence of the old spirit of competition is as ap parent in out educational system as in society as a whole. We compete in sports, for jobs, stylish women, new cars, and chair manships. In college we compete for grades; it’s good train ing—in competition. This is not all bad, however. If tough competition last term tended to raise the campus grade level over pre-war years, it could hardly fail to increase the total amount of learning. Dr. Newburn observed recently that University scholastic requirements remain the same and that there is no plan for tightening them, but scholarship superiority and serious intent of veterans as a group have raised the level of competition. Added to the effect of the generally older and occasionally wiser veterans, there is*the group of out-of-state students who had to have a three point or equivalent to enter the University. These combined account for about 70 per cent of the student body. Many students, who found little comfort in learning their fall term grades, wondered about the scholastic requirements. But members of the faculty declared that they had held the line on requirements, and added that they were ‘ practically foiced to give more A’s than they usually do. That may not give'hnuch comfort to those who were on the other end of the grading scale, but there are a lot of Yan kees who don’t bear down until the competition gets tough. Excess Baggage Tom Kay is very efficient. He is probably the most ef ficient executive on the campus today. Anyone who has wit nessed a meeting of the ASUO executive council knows that. Boards in general seem to be in the limelight now. It may not be out of line to comment on the executive council, which is actually only ap advisory board to President Kay ... a board of yes-men, that is. That casts no derrogatory reflection on the board, or Kay, either.. Kay always dues what is right; the board naturally, ok a y s all his suggestions. So why have an execu tive council at all ? Take Tuesday's meeting, for instance. The positions of Dad’s Day chairman and of secretary-treasurer of the student body are pretty important. They surround their holder with a nice aura of prestige. Tom Kay. to save time -and discussion, recommended to the council the two men he approved for the position. The council, recognizing his efficiency and ability, nodded. And two capable men received the positions. We have no quarrel with this method of dealing with stu dent affairs. Perhaps Ted Hallock was right when he resigned because the “apathy” of the students he represented made his position both unnecessary and ridiculous. It would be quite fitting and proper if the ASUO council graciously resigned, as has the athletic board, and gave the steering wheel entirely to Tom ICay. If specially when Kay is so very efficient. Many a woman thinks she bought a gown for a ridiculous price when in reality she bought it for an absurd figure. I Telling the Editor" Not long ago my exchange copy of the Emerald carried a column which regretted the fact Oregon has become virtually a one-party state. This unhealthy condition, the columnist suggested, puts Oregon in a class with the solid South, Maine and Vermont. Since this dismal theme has ap peared frequently in recent weeks, I offer the following facts to show how widely this analysis misses the , mark: Unlike Maine, or Vermont, or the solid South, Oregon’s ground-level of Democratic and progressive sen timent is high, in fact it almost equals the Republican. Just no# the score stands, according to the Secretary of State, as follows: Republican, 300,201 Democratic, 280,304 Socialist, Independent, etc, 13,027 The proportion of Democratic registrations among Oregon’s hosts of new residents, among the 21 year-olds, and among returning vet erans, is considerably greater than the GOP. Franklin D. Roosevelt carried Oregon four times, even when Ore gonians swallowed their pride in Charles L. McNary in the 1940 Will kie-McNary race. Every time the cmps were down, and the issues fully and clearly pre sented, progressives have won, even against the . solid Republican press and organization of the state. The social-minded democracy of Franklin D. Roosevelt is now, and • has been all the time, the majority sentiment of Oregonians. It is up to those of us who cherish it to re- I establish two-party government^ reviving the Democratic party. No, Oregon is not hopeless. Ore gon politics needs only the services for the next few years of a few men and women, young or old, who will subordinate personal ambition to organize and maintain a fighting progressive Democratic party. Some of these men and women are proba bly on the campus at Eugene right now—and there might even be some on the Republican-smothered cam pus at Corvallis! Monroe Sweetland, Editor, Molalla Pioneer. NOW IN STOCK! ♦ Radios ♦ Hot Plates Heaters ♦ Coffee Makers ♦ Toasters New and Used Bicycles We repair Bicycles Bikes for Rent Campus Cyclery 796 East 11th By Mayflower Ph. 47S-9-* At The Right Prices At UNIVERSITY GROCERY 90 E.11th Phone 1597