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.
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