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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 26, 1949)
Some Suggestions Home sweet, sweet home! I wonder where it is today? Probably home is moving down the middle of Kinkaid street if you can’t find it on the spot it rested last night. Eugene is becoming a great monopoly board. A turn of the card, and you move a house two blocks east or two blocks west. We're waiting to receive three free shares of B & O rail road stock. But in lieu of something lucrative like that, we'd be enter tained to see the University buildings shifted around the board a bit. The skeleton of the new wsmen’s dorm could be toted off to the graveyard, and the Eugene hotel, a ready-made dormi tory, put up in its place. McArthur court, the Igloo, we’d put on the glacial ice sheet down by the highway. As for quonset huts, we’d string them end to end down thirteenth street to see how far they would extend, and—it’s irAnv WAtrO R T-T Raising Kane Campus Liberals--East and West By Hank Kane This column is straying from the safe field of attempted hu mor and good-natured satire to the ruckus over the discharge of the three University of Washing ton professors on grounds of Com munist party membership. Let's look at the problem from the student’s viewpoint and leave the issue of academic freedom to the pundits. When a professor participates in minority organizations the community associates his views with the institution of which he is a member. The pnmmiinitv does the same From Our Mailbag Letters to the Editor (All letters to the editor must bear the writer’s .eunature. Names will be withheld at the writ t-r’s request. Because of space limitations the . editor reserves the right to withhold such com fnunications as he sees fit. All letters should be concise and to the point. The editor of the limerald solicits opinions and constructive criticism from both students and faculty mem bers of the University of Oregon.) “HYPOCRISY” fTo the Editor: The dismissal of the three Washington professors has elicit ed well-deserved publicity in the press. The reports have been fair; yet, so far, no paper—with the exception of the Emerald, which lias been remarkably noncommit tal-*—has ventured to comment editorially on a matter that af fects every American who values Iris freedom. The issue is whether a man has the right to hold any opinion un der 'the sun, or whether he is lim ited to certain opinions--the one held by the government of his country, or opinions not too dif ferent from them. Furthermore, if a person holds a position of re sponsibility, in that he must teach others how to form independent judgments of their own, does that limit the nature of opinions lie may hold ? Those questions are loaded, I admit. But judging from the con clusions arrived at by the faculty and president of Washington uni versity, some people need more than just loaded questions to see the difference between straight and crooked thinking. It is a shame that the president <if an institution of higher studies should sink to the level of such hypocrisy—I refuse to ascribe his actions to sheer stupidity. He claims that his reason for dis missing the professors is that they had not come out in the open with the fact that they believed in the communist doctrine. I hasten to tell the public, therefore, that I am a member of the United World Federalists. Or is that a type of organization that one need not disclose one's mem bership in? In other words, the fact that they believed in com munism, as opposed to some other doctriner-did have something to do with it after all. Sincerity cannot possibly hurt any state. If it does, there must be something intrinsically wrong with that state. If professors any where are forced to teach what they themselves do not believe, there can be no progress. Presi dent Allen is very far from the truth himself when he says that “a communist is incompetent to teach the truth." A communist with his tongue in his cheek, how ever, is as incompetent to teach the truth as is President Allen to speak it. It has been suggested by some that the dismissal was due to the general incompetence of the pro fessors and other reasons that had not been revealed. If this is true, the University of Washing ton is all the more to be censured. That would be hypocrisy of the highest order. In that case, what have the professors been doing at the University for the past twen ty years? Finally, the president of the University of Washington cannot differentiate between communism and being a Russophile. Or else he is deliberately confusing' the two. This, too, is inexcusable. He states that the philosophies of Eby and Ethel “were honestly held and divorced from the com munist dogma.” Does that make sense? Communists who do not hold the communist dogma! No, President Allen, something is obviously rotten in the State of Washington. You are afraid of the truth. There are many sin cere students of politics who do not consider communism the an swer to our political and econom ic problems. There are others, just as sincere, who believe com munism is. I do not agree with the latter. !iJr/j Oregon W'Emer alh The Oregon Daily Emerald, published daily during the college year except Sundays, Mondays, holidays, and final examination periods by the Associated Students, University of Oregon Subscription rates: $2.00 per term and $4.00 per year. Entered as second-class matter m the postoffice, Eugene, Oregon. BII T. YATES. Editor VIRGIL TUCKER. Business Manager Bob Reed, Managing Editor Tom McLaughlin, Ass’t. Bus. Mgr. Associate Editors: June Goetze, Boblee Brophy, Diana Dye, Barbara Hey wood Advertising Manager: Joan Minnaugh UPPER NEWS STAFF tan Turnbull, News Editor Don Smith, Ass’t Managing Editor oai King, Sports Editor Ann Goodman, Ass't. News Editor Dick Ci onn i. Sports Editor Tom Marquis, Radio Editor UPPER BUSINESS STAFF Helen Sherman, Circulation Mgr. Virginia Mahon, Assistant Adv. Mgr. Eve Overbeck. Nat’l Adv, Mgr. Donna Brennan, Asst. Adv. Mgr. JC:i l.emotn. Sale* Manager jack Schuaidt, Asst. Adv. Mgr. 1. *>lie l'oo/c, Assistant Adv. Mgr. Cork Mob!c>. A'- 't i; t Ad\. Mg' . Yet I will say with Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.” L. John Martin DANGEROUS PRECEDENT To the Editor: In the past several days, con siderable controversy has been aroused by the suspension of three University of Washington professors and the placing of three others on probation by the board of regents of that institu tion, for alleged Communist ac tivities. When our universities begin ex ercising thought control, we can fear for our cherished academic liberties: in our headlong flight from communism, we fall into equally dangerous fascism. Although I am unequivocally opposed to communism, I feel compelled to protest this curtail ment of our freedom of thought and of speech. Such thought con trol is diametrically opposed to the ideals on which this country was founded, as expressed in the Bill of Rights, and more recently in the Atlantic Charter. When a student has reached college age and is mentally fit to attend a university, he should be able to make up his own mind— when presented with all sides of a question. But if he is to be shel tered from communism and lib eral ideals, why should he be ex posed to the fascist theories which are apparently agreeable to the Washington board of re gents ? This is a dangerous prece dent to set. George Dorris Guatemalan School Has Summer Work The University of San Carlos of Guatemala is planning a summer school for North Americans to be held in Guatemala City this sum mer. Spanish arid Latin American lan guage, literature, and institutions will be the principal attractions while classes in Mayan civilization and Guatemalan folklore will also be available. Classes are to be on both graduate and undergraduate levels. The faculty will include profes sors from both this country and Guatemala. This will be the third annual session, and will be held from July 1 to August 19. CORRECTION The program “Suspense” will I*e heard at 6:00 p.m., EST on CBS Thursday and not on ABC as was listed in yesterday’s Amer ican Airlanes. “The Jo Stafford Show” is heard on ABC at 6:30 p.m. PST, Thursday. when students turn their campus into a political battlefield, using the prestige of the school for their private ends. The outstanding example is that of the City College of New York. It has the unenviable repu tation of having the largest or at least the most vocal Commun ist student cell of any college in the nation. In the past the issue has split the campus, with many of the best students transferring to oth er schools when they learn that because of the college’s reputa tion prospective employers often refuse to hire CCNY graduates. If a student ignores the odor of campus politics, his parents who think a college is a place to study and not a forum for Marx ist dialectics, prevail upon him to exchange his school. The result is that with the weakening of the majority through transfers the leftist mi nority is no longer controlled by the conservative element. This doesn't help the publicly supported college when it asks the legislature for appropriations. The University of Oregon does n’t receive unfavorable publicity of this nature because campus leftist groups are so small that they don’t dare to show their colors because of the conserva tive majority’s probable retalia tion. Transfer students from other sections of the country, especially the East, note with surprise this lack of political activity. Students don’t riot and hold “protest demonstrations’’ when an anti-Russian picture like “The Iron Curtain’’ was exhibited downtown. They did in New York City. One reason for the predomi nantly conservative views of the University student body is that it is composed of predominantly re cent eastern European origin. Thus a University of Oregon student may enroll for a course in, say, American governments, and discovers that the professor « is teaching socialism instead of American government. It is all right with him until he learns that the tests are based on the lectures instead of the textbook. Our student quickly cures his incipient case of high blood pres sure by simply changing his sec tion to that of a professor who is old-fashioned in believing that a professor should teach and not preach. The same principle applies to the OSC leftist group which al legedly wishes to “investigate” the "Daily Barometer’s” editorial policy. It is assumed they dis like the present policy and want to change it to fit their views. They forget that, even if they succeed, if the readers dislike a paper because of its slant they either will not read that paper or will take steps to change the editorial policy. It’s true even on a “free’ cam pus newspaper. This columnist was a staff cor respondent on the "Pacific Stars and Stripes” in Tokyo about three years ago when two of the editors were removed because they fol (Please turn to page seven) -Footnotes Reds on the OSC Campus— 'So What?' Says Callahan By MICHAEL CALLAHAN Today’s footnotes concerns a small dose of college history, an immoral book, three political par ties, and a large question. All wrapped up with a few brickbats, it is addressed to the president and student body of Oregon State college. According to the latest word from our downriver neighbors, “certain OSC students are on that campus for the sole purpose of converting students to the cause of Communism." That was from student body prexy Tom House. Further, OSC President A. L. Strand declared that "we un doubtedly have some ((red activ ity) . . . hence it is gratifying to see the responsible student lead ers recognizing the situation and thus taking steps to guard against.” OSC must be a regular hotbed of revolutionaries. About this time I begin to get a little skeptical. If there are neo phyte communists on that cam pus, I say “so what?” It would be more dangerous if there were n’t. A few pages of recent history bears me out on this. Back in the late 1890's, when stolid old Queen Victoria was laying down the rules in Eng land, the British people were about as moral as poor humans could be. Stuffy prudism was the code of the day, and only gay young blades would think other than along the straight and nar row So what happened ? Conspicu ous on every Oxford dressing ta ble were illustrated copies of the “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam," a most' wicked book. Further word has it that the more pro grfissive young gentlemen at Eton and Cambridge read Oscar Wilde every night before bed time. That was dangerous radicalism if ever there was such a thing, and aroused no end of comment. Now take the matter of the three political parties. After the first Big Unpleasantness, Eng land was rocked by the news that certain ..Oxford ..students ..had formed a party, not to investigate student newspapers, but rather to openly preach traitorous dis loyalty to King and country. This Student Peace movement held mass meetings, posed for newspaper photos . . . and served quite honorably in the govern ment and armed forces in time of national emergency. Or, with a short hop across the Atlantic, consider American col leges as hotbeds qf student radi calism from 1919 to 1940. Every thing from black anarchy to Nazi fascism and goldfish eating was preached with great sincerity. Quite an odd mixture, but it was to be found on almost every cam pus. Yet today, very few of our fathers today keep big red flags folded neatly away in their at tics, waiting for The Dad. How does all this relate to OSC and “red” activity on that cam pus? President Strand, as long as there ..are ..dissatisfied, .liberal minded students on your campus, you can consider your adminis tration successful. As long as young men and women keep a skeptical eye onn “classic” truths and open-mindedly try things for themselves, then they will be edu (Plcase turn to page seven)