Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 10, 1951)
0, Daily •34nita Holmes, Editor Don Thompson, Business Manager it Could Happen Here Ten thousand tons of TNT ripped open the Bonneville Dam yesterday. Students at the University of Oregon started a mass pil primage homeward, leaving the campus largely deserted . . . A stray blockbuster put a large cavity in the Eugene air port, dropped there by Soviet bombers that swung southward. spanking new two million dollar Student Union build ing at the University (it’s now closed) becomes a hospital ward. A communique from Military Headquarters (it s the old faculty club, asks everyone to remain calm. Industrial Portlahd gets a pasting from Naval launched air craft—and University dorms and fraternities and sororities open up their doors to wandering evacuees. No, all this isn’t exactly science fiction or pseudo make-be lieve. It’s a straight-forward indication of what the Univer sity of Oregon may face in the event of war. Dean Sidney W .Little, coordinator of campus civilian de fense, says the UO will be able to assume its war-time duties ■ on 24 hours notice, after the end of this month. Little says that if a bomb were dropped in the Northwest, or even possibly the country—the UO would immediately be come a defense service. Classroom work would be either sus pended or greatly modified, unless you were a pre-flight stu dent. This is grim stuff. Maybe you believe its unnecessary, or maybe you feel things have been moving too slow as it is. The realities of war have not hit citizens living here in this • country and on this campus yet. But we’re getting a taste of it—just in case.—T.K. Does Oregon Need NAACP? Is a campus organization of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People needed on the Oregon camp us? That question was weighed last week at a meeting of a doz en or so students, some of them members of the NAACP on the campus last year. The ’49-50 group died because of inter nal dissension, graduation of members, and general apathy on the part of both colored and white students. The four or five remaining members are considering re organization. Several oppose it, several strongly favor NAA ■CP at Oregon. Opposition to revival has the strongest case. A colored stu dent who is charter-holder of the old organization strongly be lieves that the 17 or IS Negro students on the campus are not interested in NAACP here. As colored students, they have no grievances against the administration. The discrimination they face comes from indi vidual students, but tolerance cannot be legislated. No NAA CP can erase a mental set or 20 some years of background which says “you’re superior to the black and yellow people. ’ This lack of interest by the colored students and absence of immediate problems on the campus stands strong gainst re organization of NAACP. However, educational work could be done, several students argue. And those favoring NAACP here say there are pro jects such as establishment of a course on history of the Negro, hiring of a colored professor at Oregon, organized movements against discriminatory clauses in fraternity and sorority char ters. Anyway, there was enough disagreement within the meet ing of the 12 students to warrant a test of all-campus interest in NAACP. They decided to hold an open meeting (definite time and place will be announced soon) to find out how many .Webfoots are interested. NAACP will plead its case there. THE DAILY to the Student Affairs committee for postponing action on whether to discontinue desserts until all ramifications of the question are studied. Student opinion was truly con sidered. THE OREGON LEMON... to students who don’t call the Oregana office if their name is misspelled or omitted from the rigger’s Guide. May they boil in their gripes when the Oregana comes out with incorrect names. College Morals—A Series Petting—One of a Few Appreciable Changes This is the fifth in a se ries of articles on the college students of 1950—their out look on life, their moral codes and behavior, their changing standards. The se ries originally ran in the New York Post. By Max Lerner It may surprise some people to know that young people in col lege lead a relatively restricted sexual life. The figures in the Kinsey volume, based on extend ed case interviews with 8,500 men and 8,000 women, show this fact to be true beyond any reasonable doubt. Kinsey has thus far re fused to give any summary fig ures about the women, until his next volume appears. But the fig ures on the males show that, when compared with the same age-groups on the high-school and grade-school level, college boys are far from leading the wild and Bacchanalian lives that are so often attributed to them. The important fact about the college population, both for the boys and girls, is that they are constantly aware of the moral code, even when breaking it. This does not mean that they are able to live like saints and ascetics until marriage legalizes a full sexual life. The repeated point that the Kinsey volume makes is that the biological impulses may be dammed up at one end only to burst out at the other. The young people on the col lege level have found a way rela tively to the other groups—of staying technically within the moral code, of salving their con science to some extent, of not jeopardizing the prestige of the girls in the group in which they will eventually marry, and at the same time of. getting sexual re lease. • * * The most important form of --Letters— The Campus Answers Nothing Controversial Emerald Editor: I have followed your editorial page and your editorial policy with deep interest in the past three years, and now I have read a statement which gives The Ore gon Lemon to "far right Repub licans who have kept Oregon’s Wayne Morse off the Senate for eign relations committee.” My political views are of no consequence in this letter, nor am I ignorant of the fact that it is quite correct to write personal views on controversial subjects on an editorial page of a private newspaper. However I believe that you have no right to taint our news paper with your political beliefs. I believe that you have done this by implying that to be a far right Republican is wrong and that such men are bad for our coun try. In most newspapers the staff derives this opinion-giving right through private ownership, thus making the opinions not official but personal. This is quite under standable. But here at Oregon you are not working for a small group of private individuals but, in effect, us—the students at the University of Oregon. You are usihg our organ to print your views on important subjects in which there are great varieties of opinions. As I see it, the func tion of your page is to inform and to write opinions on which there is no, or little, serious contro versy. William A. Mansfield Just Deserts Emerald Editor: The current moans and groans against the oppression of super vision of student affairs is just a little late to receive any real sym pathy. We are now burdened daily with elaborate complaints against the administration, the state liquor commission, and any one else who has curtailed some of the “rights” of the students. These complaints would be truly justified if the student body was composed of adults. Such is far from the case. Let’s go back a little. Remem ber the beginning of last fall term? As far as beer drinking goes, things were wide open. Stu dent conduct certainly did not tend toward moderation. The fi ascos of Homecoming and the Freshman bonfire did nothing to endear us to the hearts of the ad ministration or the people of the state (and we musn’t forget, this ..is a state institution) There were many more lesser known instan ces of trouble, usually to minors, where beer or other liquor was involved. Even at this time, the administration was willing to let the students handle the problem. Meetings were held and discus sions with student leaders were long and verbose, but the plan failed. Why? Because the stu dents refused to accept respon sibility for their own actions. Any amount of privilege entails a certain amount of responsibility. If you refuse the latter, why should you have the former? On the other hand, if there is a sincere desire on the part of the student body to do something constructive and stop griping at the inevitable consequences of their actions, they should cease blowing off steam, roll up their collective sleeves, and go to work and prove they mean it. But, it’s far more easier just to complain and I strongly sus pect this is where the matter will end. Sincerely, Richard Laing such, release—not statistically, but in the attention it gets from commentators On college morals, and from students themselves— is petting. Its importance must be found, as Kinsey puts it, not in quantitative terms, but “as a means of education toward the making of socio-sexual adjust ments.” And he adds that “pet ting as a source of outlet has ac quired vogue only in more recent decades.” One of the notable facts about petting is that it represents one of the few respects in which sex ual behavior seems to have chang ed appreciably from the genera tion of the mid-nineteen-tweri ties to the present one. In spite of world wars and tensions, eco nomic depressions, periods of moral disillusionment and of mor al crusade, the pattern of actual behavior seems to stay pretty much the same from one genera tion to another. But there arqifc few shifts of emphasis, of whidffl the greater frequency of petting to-climax is one. Such is some of the factual ma terial. What its meaning for the students and for us may be is quite another matter. The ques tion of meaning is one on which no two psychiatrists are likely to agree with each other, and neith er of them is likely to agree with whatever implications Kinsey draws from his own material. I think it is dangerous to con clude that the sexual life of the college student is a badly frus trated one. In an essay on “Sex on the Campus,” Prof. G. M. Gil bert of Princeton writes: “The bulk of the nation’s leadership.in all fields today comes from the rank of the college population, but society seems to demand pro longed sexual frustration as the price of training for such leader ship.” Prof. Gilbert goes on to suggest as a solution the encour agement of early marriages while the students are still in col lege. I doubt strongly both the con clusion and the solution. One can be frustrated just as much from later unhappiness from a choice of mates made too early as from a period of experiment and ad justment while waiting for a ca reer and marriage. Nor do I find (Please turn to page three) It Could Be Oregon “Now let ’em try dribblin’ all th’ way down th’ court!”