Want a Soviet Pen Pal?
Here's a fine way for Scullins and Zilches to channel their
lust for quill and scroll.
The National Council of American-Soviet Friendship an
nounces a letter exchange between American and Soviet stud
ents. It is designed to “increase understanding and friendship.”
Although the National Council of American-Soviet Friend
ship is sometimes described as being the color of roses that are
not pink, white or yellow, giving it the benefit of the doubt
could be interested and beneficial in this case—when and if the
letters arrive from the Soviet Union.
(Incidentally, a professor on this campus who is a sponsor
of the Council emphatically denied that it is a Communist front
organization. He said that its purpose is just what its name im
plies. It has been smeared, he said, because officials in this
country do not want love wasted between the two countries in
the event of another war.)
Here’s how the project works:
The American student writes his letter and sends it to So
viet-American Friendship headquarters. He notes on the enve
lope that he would like to correspond with a medical student,
political science student (!) or what have you.
The council forwards the letter to the Soviet Union, and later,
it is said, the correspondence can be carried on without the in
termediary. Letters are in English.
The address is Student Division of the National Council of
American-Soviet Friendship, 114 East 32nd Street, New York
16.
If anyone has enough of the Columbus spirit to go through
with this, the Emerald would be interested in the result.—B.H.
Porchlight Parade
By lal Cauduro
With many coeds using “Ham
let" as an excuse for late permis
sion together with the balmy
spring nights there should be all
kinds of new developments . . .
hut I guess the bug is slow to
bite and the winter term rut is
mighty deep. . . .
Engagement announceme n t s
tire rolling in from all directions
. . . Alpha Gam June Hershber
ger is showing everyone her ring
from Pi Kap Dutch Reich . . .
Kappa Aiulre Manerud is now
planning her wedding with Phi
Psi Dave Kempston . . . and DG
Sally Cl ref e is dittoing with Sig
John Jones. . . .
Wonder why the gals who col
lect frat pins like they collect
charms don’t use Balfour for
their provider instead of the har
assed college Joes. . . .
Understand Delt Norm Morri
son is dickering for a patent on a
newly concocted drink that is re
ported to be more stimulating
than coke . . . chief ingredient is
shaving lotion. . . .
A casual combo that bears
watching is the Thet Casey
Jones and ATO Carl lteusser two
some . . . No place like home
(spelled Theta) ,eh, Carl. . . .
The latest cry of revolt ring
ing around the quad comes from
off-campus women . . . who will
be required to live in one of the
girls' dorms in the future . . .
Wonder what is causing so much
strain and embarrassment be
tween the Theta Chis and Chi Os.
A pinning of last week that we
lost in the shuffle was that of
Kebeeca Von Raiden of Susie
Campbell to Beta Dick YVaibel.
. . . Sunday will be Heidi Saehse’s
lucky day cuz she’s leaving for
L.A. where she will be married
to Bert Moore, Old Oregon edi
tor for last year . . . When the
1949 Oregana comes off the
presses way behind schedule the
cause can all be traced to the
past few days since Roy Paul
Nelson is on the quad again, and
Editor Trudi Chernls is going
around in a starry-eyed daze
oblivious of her surroundings. . . .
Zeta Hall's Beth Miller and Phi
Psi Virg Tucker are free-lancing
again . . . also DG Joan Hodges
and Sig Nu Bill Marker have
chilled. . . .
Speculation is reaching an all
time high as to when AXOJean
Miller will bo getting an SAE pin
. . . Jack Young’s match . . . also
in the same vein wonder when
Detta Daniels of Hen hall and Pi
K Phi Barney Barnes are going
to be pinned . . . this mooning
will soon lose its glamour. . . .
Just heard someone say ‘'Pic
nic’' . . . gotta go. . . .
Tilf Okkuon D vii v I'm kk m n. published daily during- the college ' car except Sundays.
Mondays, holidays, am! final examination periods I»v the Associated Students, I’niversity ot
Oregon. Subscription rates: SJ.Oi) per term and $4.00 per year. Entered as second-class matter
at the post office, Eugene. Oregon.
BILL YATES. Editor
Bob Reed, Managing Editor
VIRGIL Tl’CKKR, Business Manager
'l\>m McLaughlin, Asst’ Bus. Mgr.
Associate June Goet/e, Bohlee Brophy. Diana Dye. Barbara Hey wood
Advertising Manager: Joan Mima ugh
I’PPFR NKWS STAFF
Stan Turnbull, Xows F.vlitor
Tmn King. Spoils lulitoi
Dick ('tamer, Sports Falitor
Tom Marquis, Radio K-litor
Walter 1)<hKI. Feature Kditor
Warren Collier, Chief Night Editor
Don Smith. Ass't Managing Kditor
Ken Met/ler, Ass't News Editor
Ann Goodman, Ass't News Editor
Uri'fclH BUSINESS STAFF
Helen Sherman. Circulation Mgr.
live Over beck. Nat’l Adv. Mgr.
Bill Lemon, Sales Mgr.
J.eslic Tooec, Ass't Adv. Mgr.
Cork Mobley, Ass’t Adv. Mgr.
Virginia Mahon, Ass’t Ailv. Mgr.
Donna Braunan, Ass’t Adv. Mgr.
Jack SolmaiJt, Ass’t Adv. Mgr.
Traditions Are Fine; But
Down With This Seat Segregation/
To tlio Editor:
Hats off to your editorial! You expressed
thoughts which I have had in mind for a long time.
Up to now I have kept quiet because I have felt I
might be poking my nose in some place where it did
not belong.
Traditions are a fine thing, every college and
university should have them—good ones. But when
traditions become detrimental to the reputation of
their school and its student body, and foster the de
generacy of a school’s spirit, it is best that they be
abolished.
I have attended athletic contests all over
the country, but never before have I encountered
segregation of the sexes at athletic contests. One
scond thought, I take that back, I do remember a
similar siuation at a school back in the midwest.
The school was a junior high school and the boys
sat in different sections than the girls, but I at
tributed that to adolescent bashfulness. That was
a few years ago ana i will aamu rnai uie auuies
cent has changed considerably in regard to boy
girl relationships!
Hazing the officials is another sore spot, not
so much the fact as the vulgarity with which it
is employed. Tender ears have no presence in the
men’s section at Mac court. Giving release to pent
up excitement through cheering and screams—that
is forgivable, even commendable, it is part of the
game; but to heap barbarous abuse on the offi
cials and our opponents because we do not agree
with a decision—that is disgusting and cowardly.
I am in full accord with your suggestion for
the abolishment of the boy-girl seating segrega
tion at the University athletic contests. I believe
it would help to check the more repulsive type of
banter by the men and might conceivably help to
unite our spirits into more plausible manifestations.
Birger L. Johnson
-Raising Kane
Is Hol'w'd Hack Today's Shakespeare?
By Hank Kane
One summer day in Ashland a
young boy watched open-mouthed
the rehearsals for the Shakes
pearean Festival’s production of
“Hamlet.”
After the per
forma nee he ■
lushed home
and excitedly
told what he
had seen —
“ghosts, duels,
murders, and
pretty ladies
like in the mov
ies, only bet- t
ter.”
His discovery that Shakes
peare is exciting' was imitated by
those who saw the film produc
tion of “Hamlet” this past week
and were surprised at the humor,
profanity, and earthiness in this
tragedy.
There has been a tendency
to decry the usual run of Holly
wood pictures and call for more
“artistic” films like “Hamlet.”
What is overlooked i3 that
Shakespeare’s plays were the
Elizabethan equivalent of popu
lar Hollywood Westerns and who
donits, and were looked down as
such by the intellectuals who pre
ferred the classic Greek and Ro
man dramas.
It doesn’t call for too much
imagination to think of the young
Shakespeare crying in his Eng
lish beer because he was obliged
to write what he considered hack
plays to live instead of the ele
gant sonnets with which he had
begun his writing career.
Hollywood screen writers prob
ably say much the same thing as
they toil in the California gold
mines called the motion picture
industry.
But let us consider the unlikely
possibility that the works of a
prolific creator of Hollywood
Westerns like “Duel in the Sun”
is considered by later generations
to be sufficiently classic to be
studied in surveys of literature
and produced by television as the
flowering of America literary
genius.
Twenty-fifth century critics
will pontificate how the title role
of “Tex,” considered the great
est American classic, is the high
est aspiration of any actor, the
significance of the reliance on the
extinct horse, and the symbology
of the quick draw and the six
shooter.
Why the hero never kisses the
heroine will be the subject of as
much debate as the centuries-old
controversy over whether Hamlet
was insane or pretending insanity
to disguise his purpose.
Atomic Age audiences will be
tense during the gunfights, as
archaic to them as swords are to
us, and feel a lump in their col
lective throat as the hero rides off
into the sunset to the tune of “I'm
heading for the last roundup.”
But think of the difficulties in
volved in training an actress to
act as woodenly as Jane Russell?
From Our Mailbag
Letters to the Editor ? ^ '
To the Editor:
Any dispute between contest
ing parties, vis-a-vis, public or
private, always attracts general
interest, no less on a college cam
pus than elsewhere, I aver.
Certainly, the dismissal of cer
ain University of Washington
professors for Communist Party
affiliations and the subsequent
wrangle in the Emerald “From
Our Mail Bag” relative to the
rightness or wrongness not only
of the dismissals but of other
quite broad, if vague, references
to the dirty “capitalists,” on the
one hand, and to low-down “Com
munists,” on the other, would
bear my theory out.
However that may be, and re
gardless of the amount of heat
generated by discussion of such
all-inclusive topics—which I con
sider to be a healthy indication
that we are still a free nation—,
the dogmatists of both the Left
\nd the Right, plus many others
with minds too devoid of convic
tions to know the membership re
quirements of either of these “in
fallible" divinities, just plain do
not follow their own common
sense.
■Man is democratic; he is a ty
rant. Man is kind; he is also a
hard-knuckled, uncompromising
flintheart. He is modest; he is
ostentatious. Man is well-man
nered; he is a repulsive rowdy
also. He gives to charity; he also
plunders and destroys all that is
fine and beautiful.
In short, every man is. good,
but he is also bad; he is today
what he may not and probably
will not be tomorrow. Each of us
believes certain things, we are
proud of our convictions; and we
think that we know our needs
and limitations; but always we
face new circumstances tomor
row or next year which condition
us both to repudiate our old
modes of behavior and to accept
new ones, for better or for worse.
This is. I think, John Dewey’s
conception of cause and effect,
which, of course, the hierarchies
of the Left and Right would have
us common guys and gals ignore.
The totalitarian forces all over
the world would like to see noth
ing better than a division of to
morrow's leaders, today’s college
students, into two hostile extrem
ist camps, vituperating each oth
er wih ambiguous, stinging
names.
The totalitarians could then slip
in almost unobserved. Remember
the little man with a mustache
who once croaked: “Divide, then
conquer.”? That could happen to
us, but not if we stand united.
After all, you and I and the
next fellow are humans. Let’s not
let little differences, mistakes,
or issues break us up into irrecon
cilable factions. We’ve all gotta’
be pals.
Benjamin A. Benedict
Church Groups
Set Joint Meetings
“Our Chinese Neighbors” will be
the topic of Mrs. David Campbell
when she speaks to the joint meet
ing of Westminster and Canterbury
Club Sunday evening at Westmin
ster house. Mrs. Campbell will
speak in defense of Chiang Kai
shek.
The meeting will begin at 5:15 p.
m. when supper will be served. The
worship service, which will preceed
the speaker, will be led by Carl Sei
bel and Micky Campbell. Everyone
is welcome.
Under the Weather
Patients in the infirmary now to
tal eight, which is the lowest for a
number of weeks. Still confined are
William Morse, Emelie Jackull, Do
loris Thiel, Jean Lichty, Stan Turn
bull, Eddie Savoie, Howard Monroe
and Lois Glenn.