Oregon W Emerald
MARGUERITE WITTWER-WRIGHT
Editor
GEORGE PEGG
Business Manager
JACK Ii. BILLINGS
Managing Editor
BILL YATES
News Editor
MARYANN THIELEN and
wAlt mckinney
Assistant Managing Editors
BOBOLEE BROPHY and
JUNE GOETZE
Assistant News Editors
JEANNE SIMMONDS
Feature Editor
DOUG EDEN
Advertising Manager
BERNIE HAMMERBECK
Sports Editor
BILL, STRATTON, WALLY HUNTER
Aasiatifct Sports Editors
DON JONES DICK BYFIELD
Staff Photographer Chief Copy Desk Editor
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 seeend class matter at the postoffiee, Eugene, Oregon.
‘Puddles’ Dried Up
“Puddles”, the campus humor magazine proposed by three
students, turned out to be stillborn. The educational activities
-board yesterday discussed the academic and artistic values of
such a publication and decided that, although an outlet for
student talent is needed, a humor magazine is not the ideal so
Jution. *
The board, of course, cannot interfere if the students are
determined to publish a humor magazine off the campus, backed
by their Own funds. However, the University will not under
write a publication of this sort. The reasons given are good:
1. A long range view indicates that a humor magazine
would not be successful over a long period of time in a town
of this size. It would be better not to launch one, than to
have one flop later.
2. Advertising is available now but is likely to drop as
prices fall. A monthly magazine dependent upon advertis
ing would tend to draw needed advertising from the Emer
ald.
3 Present publications can i>e utilized as an outlet for
student creative talent.
4. Humor magazines have proven successful on large
campuses where student living is not as centralized as it
is here.
Although turning thumbs down oh a publication designed
to sell strictly on its humorous content, the board acknowledged
the present lack of recognition for creative literary work by
students. It was understood that due to the shortage of news
print and typesetters the1 Emerald was unable to publish the
usual amount of contributed material such as critical essays,
short stories, verse, satire, and columns dealing with music,
art, and the theater.
The board expressed its emphatic approval of publication of
student-written material of literary merit in the Emerald as
soon as more paper and printers become available. Dean Kratt
of the music school proposed that the Emerald publish a regu
lar supplement expresslv designed as an outlet for feature
material of this sort.
The Emerald heartily concurs. We have long desired to
make the best student creative work available to the public,
but this has been prevented by circumstances beyond our con
trol. We know that students are interested in material of that
sort, including humorous contributions. When paper does
become available, we shall try to provide the necessary outlet
for which "ruddles” was intended.
Thursday the new parking lot at 14th and University sported
freshly lettered signs, "Student Parking Only,” and "Faculty
Parking Only.” One wonders where the enlisted men will
park.
MOTOR TROUBLE
Complete
auto repair
and service
WALDER'S
ASSOCIATED SERVICE
11 th & liilvard
Culture on the Coast
At the risk of giving free publicity to a more or less worthy
cause, there is one article in the new Pacific Spectator (Stan
ford University Press—$3.50 a year) that may be commended to
Eugene and University readers. See “The Sick American
Novel” by Sophus Keith Winther, University of Washington.
Those who have read Mr. Winther’s latest novel, “Beyond the
Garden Gate,” Macmillan, New York, 1947, will be forced to
agree.
The periodical is a new voice in Pacific Coast culture and its
list of authors indicates a good start. Such men as Cal s Max
Radin, Louis B. Wright, and Stanford’s Hugh Skilling, are
heavyweights that deserve to be heard. It will be interesting
to hear from Bernard DeVoto in the next issue, he of the Easy
Chair” who so sharply took the West to task in the last issue
of Harpers.
Similar in some respects to the Yale Review, the new publi
cation can fill a vital need here on the coast, if Westerners
read it. If it ends up in a few libraries, class magazine stands
and old gentlemen’s clubs, it will only fill part of the need. A
good many Easterners dismiss the West lightly as the land
of the bluff, hearty laugh, the Idaho potato and the technicolor
blonde. They may be right.
The West’s contribution to American letters has been too
little and too late. Georgia and Alabama, whose public schools
are far behind those of Oregon and Washington, have produced
more novelists, more playwrites, and more poets. California
still has a long way to go before she can compete with New
England as the nation’s cultural capitol.
By way of a start, let our professors and students get their
manuscripts in shape. Mail service between Eugene and 1 alo
Alto is speedy and the only way to get recognition in the highly
competitive field of letters is to earn it.
True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exist,
but what they mean; it is not memory but judgment. James
Russell Lowell.
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way 99 north.
Look for the long green
awning
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5-12 p.m. Saturdays
Closed on Sundays
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1-190 W. 6th
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