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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 29, 1948)
Are You Qualified to Vote Next T uesday? By DON McNEIL With muddled minds and con fused ideals we’ll go to the polls Tuesday and vote for or against men and proposals of which we know practically nothing. Allegedly, we’re of the higher intellectual order; we are the r elite who will handle America’s problems of tomorrow. How sad ly lacking we are. i Two will get you twenty that 75 per cent of the people on this campus do not understand the Constitutional Six Per Cent Tax Limitation Amendment. And an other 10 per cent do not even i know the measure is on the bal lot. ~ .4.. !;. Remember the poll taken by i the enterprising Emerald writer .last year? He called up 10 or 12 houses and asked the person an swering the phone whether he knew who Ernest Haycox was? Or Eldon Johnson? Or Dick Neu berger? An alarming percentage professed ignorance. We also remember a quiz pro gram with the jackpot question, “Who is the chief justice of the U. S.? (Right after Vinson's ap pointment). Buzzers rang like mad and three of the nine con testants answered, “Harry Tru man,” four answered with the for mer chief justice and two had the question right. Before we tackle the question, “How intelligent and qualified is the electorate,” let us quote a passage from the penetrating cynic, H. L. Mencken: . . . The average man “can imagine nothing beautiful and he can grasp nothing true. When ever he is confronted by a choice between two ideas, the one sound and the other not,, he chooses al most infallibly, and by a sort of pathological compulsion, the one that is not.” One would think that, being in an academic atmosphere, we would be stimulated and chal lenged by world issues. We are not. The apathy which we will carry out into the working world with us is bred and fostered right here. The opportunities for learn ing and making conclusions about vital issues are all around us. Clubs, idea groups, party antics, and a number of interested stu dents in our midst afford excel lent possibilities. But we go merrily along, skip ping the editorial page, refusing to pick up a magazine not tabbed for required reading and form our limited conclusions on the basis of billboard slogans, caustic re marks of professors, and nice, glossy pictures of the candidates. The Voters’ Pamphlet is a good thing, yet we’re amazed and ap palled at the tremendous amount of uncommitting balderdash and pure guff emanating from the candidates’ pages. We are fur ther bewildered and frustrated by the technical and complicated gibberish set forth in arguments for and against the measures. But that’s our fault because we have n’t explored the issues, nor kept track of the candidates before election time. No wonder we can t meet them now with a semblance of intelligence. If we, in this academic atmos phere, cannot get interested in the basic issues when we are ex posed to them every day because of the very nature of our studies, how can we expect to do so later on? Furthermore, how can we ex ■peet the great mass of the people to be intelligent enough to vote on proposals and candidates when their real interests are making a living and just getting along ? We are the so-called leaders, by virtue of our advanced train ing and schooling. If we fall down on the job, how can we ex pect the businessman, mill-work er, miner, and clerk to vote in telligently on anything more than affects their, directly ? The retort is often heard, “Well, how do you think we’ve progressed so far if it hadn t been for the populace somehow choosing the right from the wrong and the good from the bad?” Sordid pages in our history and a look around us prove that we haven’t progressed very far in man’s relation to man. We don’t have many laurels to stand on. To hit at apathy and indiffer ence wherever and whenever it rears its head is not too idealis tic. We had better get interested in politics and international af fairs if we want to survi.ve. Now the question, “If we don’t feel qualified to decide on certain issues and candidates, shall we vote anyway?” You might, I will not. Perhaps next time we’ll both know more what the election is about. That Up-Turned Nose This is nn annlop-v for uD-turned noses. It is, though, a 1 plea to campus newcomers for tolerance toward their more tarientiated brethren. I, The Emerald has received a number of letters of late laying charge of snobbery on the heads of Joe College and Betty i Coed of Oregon. In addition, we’ve heard this complaint verbally many times. Usually the gripe is from a transfer student. “Everybody here is so hard to get acquainted with. You’re introduced to them once, and when they meet you again, they don’t speak | to you.” ji There are persons who appear to make a deliberate effort ■ to forget a face once they have seen it. We’ve met them, too. i But in most cases, we believe, you can chalk seeming snob? ! * bery up to other causes. Coming to Oregon is like moving to I i a new town. Whether you like it or not, you probably will be forced to go more than half way in making new friends. 13 The old dogs in a college or town are established already, I i and probably are not suffering from any feelings of loneliness, jj The new resident, then, has to sell himself. In addition, students have no way of detecting the lonely , heart when they meet him on campus. Probably they would i| be ready to play the gracious host to a new student if they ; I knew that he was just that. But for all they know, he has ■' been at Oregon five years longer than they. Here are two more reasons for seeming snobbery. (If they ;! seem trivial, remember that many things that loom large ! I really are attrituable to minute motives.) Some folks are absent minded. Their thoughts, as they walk along the street, are way up at thirty thousand feet. Others are near sighted—and don't laugh, for any near sighted person will tell you that he lives in dread of “cutting” acquaintances. j A final word. If a person is deliberately avoiding you, then he is expending more effort on you than it would take to speak every time he sees you. So be flattered. B. H. I; ir , Throughout your life, never forget those people who, with ! half your opportunities, would have been ten times better in your field. From the masthead of “The Mississippian,” Uni versity of Mississippi. II --— The Oregon Datiy Emkratd. published daily during the college year exeepy Sundays, Mondays, holidays, and final examination periods by the Associated Students, University of •Oregon. Subscription rates: $.’.00 per term and $4.00 per year. Entered as second-class matter (: DILI- YATES. Editor Bob Reed, Managing Editor VIRGIL TUCKER, Business Manager Tom McLaughlin. Adv. Manager Associate Editors: June Goetze, Bobolee Brophy, Diana Dye, Barbara Heywood, l’PI*ER NEWS STAFF Don Smith. Assistant Managing Editor ____ Evelyn Nill and Aun Goodman j iGlenn Gillespie. Sports Editor Assistant News Editors Vinita Howard. Women’s Editor Jo Rawlins. Research Director • Bob Funk. Church Editor Tec Arthur. Research Assistant * J i ;Mike Callahan, Stan Turnbull Co-News Editors UPPER BUSINESS STAFF Virginia Mahon. Assistant Adv. Mgr. Donna Brennan, Asst. Adv. Mgr. _ _ _ Jack Schuaidt, Asst. Adv. Mgr. Joan Miumaugh, Assistant AJv. Mgr. Beth Miller, Circulation Mgr. I've Overbook, Nat*! Adv. Mgr. Sally Waller. Assistant Adv. Mgr. Looks Like Dewey in a Walk Here By BILL WAS MANN When Eugeniar.s go to the polls November 2, they will vote just about this way: Dewey . 69% Truman .26% Wallace ami Thomas. 5% The above is the result of a representative sample of over 400 voters selected from the reg istration files for this city. Every 50th card in the files was noted, the person contacted and ques tioned as to his presidential pref erence. A11 of the work was done by students in the 10 and 11 o’clock sections of a Tuesday statistical laboratory as an exercise in meth ods of gauging public opinion. About 90 per cent of the polls of this size will fall within four or five percentage points of the actual picture. On this basis there is a very good chance that Dewey will get between 65 and 75 per cent of the Eugene vote. The results as tabulated by the class are: Dewey .62% Truman .:25% Wallace. 2% Thomas .2% Undecided .-.9% The figures in the first table were obtained from those in the seoond table by assuming that the undecided voters would vote the same as those who were will ing to state their preferences. Compared with the latest na tional poll by the Gallup organi zation, Eugene isn’t exactly a “Magic Town”; in other words the figures for Eugene don’t con form to the national percentages, which show less span Detween tne two leaders. As these percentages stack up, there isn’t much left to be said. It will be interesting to make a comparison between the Stat Lab Poll and the final result. We’ve often thought that this sort of thing could be used to great ad vantage even in a place as small as Eugene. There isn’t a city ad ministrator, who, day after day, would not give his left arm to know how people feel about de cisions which are up to him to make, sans benefit of public opin ion. The students in Mth 325 are certain of the ground upon which they stand. Appended to their findings is this note: “Anyone wishing to wager on Truman car rying Eugene should contact a member of the statistics class.” 'Twould Only Cost Nickel or Dime By KIRK BRAUN The last home game of the year is practically upon us, and so far the closest thing to an original idea that the rally squad has come up with was that “knickers and cap” get-up for the USC game. It wasn’t a bad idea, but it wasn’t enough. There hasn't been a new yell, a new song, or a new maneuver on the part of our oversized rally squad in several years, but they have shown a little more life late ly than they did at the beginning of the season which is something in their favor. Well, we don’t like to criticize too harshly without offering some sort of suggestion for clearing up this situation sjo we’ll offer one idea. However, it's an idea the success of which depends entire ly upon the student body and not the rally squad. Although it seems as if the rally squad should have at least been offering some tiling in way of ingenuity. Credit for the idea goes to Sophomores Ann Goodman and Anita Holmes and it is simply this: The five and ten cent stores downtown sell little plastic ducks with whistles in them. The ducks are yellow and are about two inches long and a couple of inch es high. The whistle isn't very loud but if some 5,000 students all blew on them at the same time, it certainly would make a lot of noise, and it certainly would be a unique kind of noise. These littie ducks only cost something like a nickel or a dime and certainly every Oregon stu dent could afford to spend that much on a little bit of fun and foolishness. Bill Stratton once thought of the idea of equipping every Ore gon student with a bonafide duck call, which would have been ter rific as far as noise was con cerned. But the things cost quite a bit of money and it’s pretty hard to put across an idea that involves such an outlay of money by the individual students. ELECT Stanley R. Darling MEMBER of Eugene Water Board, Ward 1 Trained and Experienced LAWYER, age 39, Oregorn born and educated Graduate, U. of O. Law School Experience Includes: Legislative Representative, League of Oregon Cities; At torney for Bonneville Power Adm., Attorney in Charge of Oregon Office U. S. Dept, of Justice, Lands Division; Spec ial Lecturer in Law, U. of O.; 3 Years as Eugene’s first Municipal Judge. Favors Continuation of Water Board Policies Which have given Eugene's water and power utilities national recognition and outstanding success. Pit Adv. by Sidney W. Claypool, Sec. Darling for Water Board Committee