Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 21, 1952)
Alore Snow Showers . . . • . . arc predicted for today. lUgli temperature, about 37 degree*. Ijih, 30. Volume I.Ill m daily EMERALD * err at first year oj Publication UNIVERSITY OF OREGON, EUGENE, MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 1952 Frosh Elections . . . • . . w ill be held W ednesday. A sample ballot appear* on Page &. NUMBER C3 Students Rally to Fight Pay Phones ------ - See Story, Columns 4 & 5 Wright Opens Religion Session, Asks Questions By Larry Hobart What are you? What is the uni veritc ? These were the questions posed ^Sunday night by the Rev. I'aul S. \Vright, Presbyterian leader, in the opening address of the four day Parliament of World Relig ions. Reverend Wright urged his audi ence of more than 300 persons gathered in the Student Union ballroom to ask themselves these questions as they participate in the parliament. "Religion starts when you ask ultimate questions." Mr. Wright declared. "The world today is suf fering from a gigantic anxiety complex. We must tackle the mess we’re in through religion." "Human convulsions wars, rev olutions snd unrest have taken rncn to the foundations of their lives," the religious doctor assert e/'/.-ate turn In tnnr nnhll Prof. Mills Dies Of Heart Attack Randall V. Mills, assistant pro fessor of English, died suddenly Friday afternoon from a heart at tack. Mr. Mills had been on the staff of the English department since 1938. He was 44. An authority on folklore and Western American transportation. Professor Mills hail written exten sively in this field. He was the author of two books on Northwest transpartation, "Sternwheelers Up the Columbia" and "Railroads jyown the Valley" published in 1951. He also contributed to many periodicals including Wester n Folklore and American Speech. Founded Folklore Group Deeply interested in Oregon his tory and folkways. Mr. Mills was founder and first president of the the Oregon Folklore society form ed in Eugene last October. He was named chairman of the Oregon committee for the collec tion of proverbial sayings of the American Dialect society in 1947 and in 1948 was made director of the Pacific Northwest for the so icety. ^.... -Professor Mills had been sched «w uled to address the Rocky Moun tain Folklore conference next July in Denver. In 1949 he was appointed asso ciate editor of Western Folklore . and was also named associate ed itor of Steamboat Bill of Facts that year. I OIH'CICU r OIK MUSIC Mr. Mills collected folk music, literature and art work, much of which is now housed in the Uni versity library. He was a member of the Philo logical association of the Pacific coast and the Modern Languages association. Pursuing his interest in folk dia lects, Mr. Mills spent time locating origins of Lane county place names. His studies led to the trac ing of influences responsible for speech patterns unique to the Wil lamette and Columbia river val (Please him to /'aye seven) CdUotUat,,, IT’S YOUR MOVE You re put ini; a dime today . . . and every day from now on unlrsti you get rid of I ho pay phonrs. Ion want action. And to know in what direction to channel that action you muni know whether your administration is going to openly lawk your efforts to rid yourselves of an unfair financial burden— the 10-cent phone call—or remain, as they have so far, noncommittal. lie know some members of our administrative faculty are behind us 100 per cent. We wonder about the other*. lie, the students, want to know where you, our administration, stands. Ar:d vie want Pacific Telephone and Telegraph, the public utilities commission and the people of the State of Oregon to know, too. Only when you, the administration, officially and not “off-the-record" state that you feel the imposition of pay telephones upon the students is grossly unjust, will we feel you have done your part. Then . . . and only then . . . will we know' what to do next. This is a matter for student-administration cooperative action. To gether we must fight. We may not he fighting only for ourselves, you know. The phone company justified their action here by saying OSO already had the phones. Couldn't they easily say to Washington or Idaho or Montana: "Well, they have pay phones in Oregon.” Letters to Emerald Demand Action; Committee Meets By Jim Haycox le tter- protesting t!.t- pay telephone situation poured into the Oregon Daily Kmerald office-'- over the weekend. fodiscuss the present telephone situation and means ot' carrying out the ASUO senate’s mandate of Thursday evening, the Oregon phone committee will meet today at d jam. in the Student Union. Alumni Attorneys Will Help Meanwhile, it was learned Sunday that several alumni at torneys believed Oregon has "a good case" against the Pacific I elephone and Telegraph company. The senate overwhelmingly pa-sed a motion Thursday to file a formal protest with the Public Utilities commission and con tact the governor ot the state, Oregon newspapers and the school administration for help. At the same meeting senators approved a move to withdraw from circulation a P.T.&T. proposal for an intra-campus tele p m m a w CARSON : “I Mill don't think you're Retting even with the telephone company, Mort.” pnone cxcr.ange and voted to givo the phor.e committee full support, secretarial, financial and legal. Hading Reports Dick Hading, chairman of the committee, said Sunday that some publicity information had already been released to Oregon newspa pers through the University's new:* bureau. He also stated that Oregon State college, presently battling with P. T. & T. over the possible installation of pay phones in fra ternities and sororities on that campus, would welcome joint ac tion with Oregon. < One senator said Thursday that OSC did not want interference from Oregon be cause OSC would not consider an intra-campus exchange as a com promise. i OSC Lawyers 'We can also get help from law yers hired by OSC and the OSC Co-operative managers associa tion,'' he said. “OSC wants us with them all the way. The idea that they don't is mistaken." Hading also said OSC had con tacted or had attempted to contact Gov. Douglas McKay already. “The situation is entirely differ ent here (than at OSC»," he ex plained. "We have co-ops and dor Please turn to page seven) TELEPHONE TROUBLES BEGAN LAST SPRING (Ed. Note: In order to pre sent the complete picture of the pay telephone situation since its beginning, the Emerald is run ning a two-day series on the de velopment of the situation. The following is the first of the ser ies, covering events up to the time immediately preceding the meeting held in Salem in Decem ber to discuss the problem.) By Al Karr First public indication that the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph company was going to install pay telephones in University living or ganizations came late last spring term with an announcement by the company. The pay phones would have ! come earlier, the company said, , but lack of equipment held up the I installation. PT & T told the Uni i versity two years ago that pay phones were bound to come. Previously Planned A confidential report from a sourse closely connected with the situation had previously indicated that the telephone company had been seriously considering putting in the phones for more than a year prior to the actual installation and the action was-liable to be taken at any time if students abused long distance regulations. (When dormitory telephones were on the I’niversity switch board exchange last year long-dis tance calls could not be made from a dorm through the board. The company said such calls had to be made through the downtown fa cilities.) Matter Allowed to Slide The delicate situation continued until last spring—then came the company's decision. A howl went up among students informed of the proposed move. Some plans were made to confer with the com pany's Eugene offices, about the proposal, but somehow the plans never came off, and the matter was allowed to slide. The telephone company was busy, however, and installed the pay phones in all fraternities, so lorities, dormitories, and wom en's co-operatives during vaca tion. When students returned to school fall term, they found tele phones with new numbers (begin ning with 5-9) and new charges (an added five cents per call) for personal calls. Business calls were to be made on non-pay phones (generally only provided in frater nities and sororities!. Installation Based on Tariff PT & T's basis for installing the pay phones was a more than 20 year old tariff ruling, originally requested of the state Public Utili tise commission by the company, and subsequently filed by PUC. (If the commission files a tariff re quest, it constitutes approval, in effect.) Three extracts from this PUC regulation provides the specific au thorteation for the installation, ac cording to PT & T interpretation. These extracts state: 1. Public service (pay phones) will be furnished in semipublic and public locations. (PT & T considers fraternal living organisations, dor mitories and co-ops in this classifi cation. ) 2. Flat rate service (non-pay phones) is not provided on public or semipublic premises where phones are accessible to the public in general. 3. Public -or semipu’olic places- - when private phones are used by the public and such establish ments as rooming houses, hotels, and apartment houses are to have ternities and sororities, and does not. semi-public coin box service upon request. So the pay phones were instal led. Some dormitories previously had pay phones, but flat rate phones were also available, the coin box service available when the regular phones were in use. Now neatly all living organiza tions (except the men's co-ops) had one. two, or three pay phones; some also had a flat rate phone for business calls. Every one’s Misinformed When Louis Eade. local man ager of the PT & T, was contact ed by the Emerald, he said Oregon State college had pay phones in its dormitories, fraternities, and so rorities. and Oregon was just next in line. Administration officials said they were told the same thing. But. as it turned out, OSC did r.ot have the coin box service in fra (Fu’cise turn to [•age three)
