The Oregon Daily Emerald, official publication of the University of Or.e«0U, pablished
daily during the college year except Sundays, Mondays, and final examination periods.
Entered as second-class matter at the nostnffice^Eueene, Ure.
Member of the Associated Collegiate Press __
BOB FRAZIER, Editor
BOB CHAPMAN, Business Manager
JEANNE SIMMONDS, MARYANN THIELEN, BARBARA HEYWOOD
Associates to Editor _
BILL YATES
Managing Editor
JUNE GOETZE, BOBOLEE BROPHY
Co-News Editors
DON FAIR
Co-Sports Editor
FRED TAYLOR
An Open Letter to Bill Yates
Dear Bill:
From here on the Emerald is yours. You are now privileged
to worry about the next 145 issues of the Oregon Daily. Prob
ably you will get a lot of good laughs out of your new job.
Certainly it will give you a lot of headaches, and unless you
are without a soul it will give you some real thrills.
By this time next year you will know the campus, and most
of the people on it. Lots of people will know you, too, and
most of them will stop you sometime during the year—on
13th street, in the co-op, or in the libe—and ask you why the
big intramural game wasn't in the Emerald, or what happened
to the campus calendar notice about the Whist club. You will
be polite, of course, and promise to attend to it. You will prob
ably forget all about it in an hour, then, and will go through
the year trying to avoid the person who stopped you in the
first place.
Sometimes you will wonder why people don t understand
that you are editor of the Emerald, not dean of men or dean
of women. Townspeople will write to you, or telephone you,
about what students have done—or what they are rumored
to have done—and they will expect you to do something. \ou
try to be polite.
Before too long you will sit down at your typewriter and
beat out an editorial that you think is good. Maybe its subtle,
clever, a little funny. You think its great. The next day on the
campus your friends will shout across the street: “Good edit
this morning.” You will glow with pride and smile a little to
yourself, and forget all the headaches you have. Then some
body will stop you and ask you “What was the idea of writing
that stupid drivel in the paper this morning. You will begin
to wonder.
You'll get mail. Very little of it will be the kind you like to
read. Much of it will be critical, and some of it will be down
right nasty. “What kind of illiterate hair-brains do they let
run this campus newspaper? If the Emerald is the voice of
the students, then why don't it reflect student opinion?” Such
things are usually unsigned, or are courageously signed “In
terested student.”
rrotessors in some oi your classes win iuuk cu yuu siyiy aim
make “funnv” little jibes about the Emerald. I he class will
laugh. But you won’t laugh because you will have heard the
same jibe in half your other classes, too. It won t make you
feel any better about staying up all night on Emerald business,
either.
You will be the head of a staff of alert and eager Emerald
workers. Some of them will be good. Some of them are just
activity kids tryng to get into Kwama. You’ll know which
is which by the end of the year, but it will fool you for a
while. You’ll know for sure when there is a big dance or game
some Friday night. The activity kids just won t be around that
night. Then you’ll hate yourself when you recommend them
for Kwama.
You’ll learn a lot of dirt about intrigue and back-biting in
high places. You won’t print all you know, because you can't
prove much of it, and because you have that old rule about
‘welfare of the University” before your eyes.
You’ll get tired—terribly tired. You'll want to go off to
the beach where there are no telephones and no people who
want favors. You’ll wish you had time to go to school like
the other kids. You’ll go to the library once a month to take
out an armful of books, and you’ll find yourself wondering
why all the drones in the study rooms don't make 4-points.
They have so much free time.
Sometimes you'll find that you have real power. Sometimes
vou'11 use it for a cause that you think is right, and the stu
dents will come through and support you. Then you feel good,
and feel that maybe the job was worth-while after all. As the
end of the term rushes toward you you’ll be a little mellow, if
a little slap-happy, and you will find yourself—against your
better judgment—wishing you could be around next year to
finish all the jobs you didn’t get around to this year.
And Bill, you better get the caster fixed on your swivel
chair. And if you get around to it, get a bottom drawer for
the file cabinet. And if you see the janitor around somewhere,
ask him about leaving the heat on late at night. You’ll need it.
Regards,
■frazicr
Lest Cry in the Beer
When the final period is applied to any production, be it a
movie, a building or a newspaper, it's authors usually pause
for a moment to regret that certain things weren t included,
excluded, revised or improved, during the actual construction.
And so it is today with the last issue of the Emerald for the
year that we shed a tear or two that we weren’t able to write
many of the fine standard spring term edits—mainly because
spring was a little late this year.
One of the first of these omissions to come to mind is the
sprinkler edit. Usually every spring as the grass and the
students begin to turn brown under the burning rays of the
sun, campus gardeners gleefully break out the sprinkler sys
tem to water down campus paths and their travelers. And
every spring term the Emerald has made light note of the
situation with each succeeding writer trying to find a new
angle and outdo his predecessor. This year we had one—but
we never got to use it so we'll tell it now.
During the year wre discovered a physical plant secret as
potent as the atom bomb. It seems campus gardeners were
no longer getting a thrill out of watching students get drench
ed with the standard type sprinkler so a new much more dia
bolical system was worked out. The physical plant wrns going
to install creeping sprinklers! This instrument of torture was
a long hole-filled pipe extending the width of the old campus,
for instance, set on a rollar arrangement. The fiendish device
would be automatically set each night at one end of the cam
pus and would then creep stealthily and drenchingly across
the lawn until it reached the far end. Surely a device of the
devil’s own hand! Fortunately Nature’s generous planning
of campus trees prevented this idea going beyond the draw
ing-board stage. The Emerald hastens to warn students to be
wary of any movement to cut down the old fir trees for the
next step is obvious.
Another highlight of spring term was the fertilizer edit. All
through the year physical plant men sneak around collecting
decayed garbage, smelly fish heads and the like just so they
can spread them on the lawns when the sun’s rays are most
intense. The combination of sun and fertilizer results in a del
icate aroma that is a far cry from Chanel No. 5—and the Em
erald, holding its nose, always makes comments. But. maybe
fortunately, spring was a little late this year.
We don't usually spend all our time spring term picking on
the physical plant and its work. Other fine edits that had to
be left out this term were the picnic edit, the class-cutting edit,
and the sun-bathing edit to mention a few, but it’s all over
now. And so, sniffing away the tears, we cover our typewriter
for the year with the sinking certainty that next week all these
things will happen and we won’t be here to write about them.
—M.E.T.
Some Tassel Truths
The audience is tense, the seniors nervous. The orchestra
is worn out from seven choruses of Pomp and Circumstance,
and the parents are fidgety from McArthur court’s hard
bleachers. We have projected ourselves ahead to June 13, and
graduation night is here.
Filing up on the stage carefully, self-consciously, the sen
iors clutch the diploma proffered them, then frantically fumble
with the tassels on their mortar boards, each graduate trying
to move the unseen tassel from the left forward square to
the right forward square before he leaves the platform. 1 hs
tassel flipped, he moves off stage, into the obscurity of post
graduate days.
But let us not forget the tassel—the all-important tassel.
In it is embodied the significance of graduation. The lowly
tassel, serving each year as the essence of graduation, is the
keynote of the ceremony.
Simple investigation at the University Co-op revealed tassel
truths long obscured by bigger graduation ostentations.
The tassel, without which graduation ceremonies would be
futile and four years of college ill-used, is a simple black thiead
affair, unless of course the degree received is a Doctorate,
in which case the tassel is pure gold metal made in France, or
unless the graduate is a member of Mortar Board, n which
case the tassel is gold thread. Or, of course, if the student is
graduating from a university where different colors signify
different majors, as white for art. green for medicine, orange
for science, pink for music, etc. However, without too much
fear of being misinterpreted, we feel we may say that the
tassel is a simple black thread affair.
It is made on an ingenious pattern, a work of skill and in
efficiency. Approximately 150 strands of a mercerized thread
about 15 inches in length are placed over a small round
wooden ball with a hole through the center. The threads over .
the wooden ball are pulled through the hole and knotted on the
under side, thus holding the threads in place. Then the threads,
now numbering 300 because they have been doubled over,
spread over the sides of the ball, extending to an approximate
length all around of seven inches. Over the little wooden ball
the strands are drawn tightly, and wrapped with more black
thread to hold them secure. The tassel is finished.
The tassel is secured to the mortar board, that flat unbe- j
(Continued from page three) J
Flight Training -
Positions Open
College students who qualify for
U. S. Air Force aviation cadet
pilot training still may qualify for
the class which begins flight train
ing on July 1 if applications are
made promptly, it was announced
yesterday by Lieut. Col. John W.
Watt, Jr.
Seniors to Get
Tickets June 1
Seniors are requested to pick up
graduation information on or af
ter June 1, according to Les An
derson, alumni director. He said
this includes three commencement
tickets for each senior.
The material will be available in
the alumni office, room 8, Friendly
hall. Office hours are 8 a.m. to noon
and 1 to 5 p.m.
Let us coif your hair into
the New Look for gradua
tion. Make an appointment
with us.
WAVE ROOM
BEAUTY SALON
130 E. 11th
Phone 1924
For Girls
"On the Go”
SEM-FREE*
MM
WITH PATENTED HEEL
These are the go
everywhere nylons—
beautifully seam-free,
perfect in fit. The Seal of the
Dancing Twins identifies the
hosiery with the exclusive, Tfy
patented heel* and Gussetoe,
secret of superb fit. And for KTfl
beauty ... no twisting seams! PT.PJI
Sold under leading brand
names at your favorite
hrbtrFit ■ turn-fit huff 1
college shop or store.
U. S. Pat. No. 2388649
EUGENE’S NEWEST
SELF SERVICE
LAUNDRY
R&R
WASHATERIA
Tumbler Dryer
8 A. M. until 9 P. M.
MONDAYS - WEDNESDAYS
FRIDAYS
8 A. M. until 6 P. M.
TUESDAYS - THURSDAYS
SATURDAYS
Other Hours by Appointment
DO YOUR LAUNDRY THE
CONVENIENT,
"Washateria Way"
2470 Alder Phone 5545-R