BOB FUNK
Good-bye, My Turtle Dove
As of about now a well known University of Oregon institu
tion is well nigh dead. Dead like a New Year’s resolution or a
tulip in January. We are speaking thus lightly of the United
Students Association—USA.
USA is a fighting phrase. Its utterance brings a lot of
campus political ghosts right up out of their graves, swing
mg. But there isn’t a whole lot left to fight.
Last week the four houses which represent
ed the Greek faction in this Independent
Greek party (Alpha Xi Delta, Lambda Chi
Alpha. Delta Upsilon, Sigma Alpha Mu)
asked to return to AGS, respectability, and
all-Greek harmony.
This means the practical end of Oregon’s
longest and most successful coalition party.
The party began in the spring of 1948. It was the brain child
of World War II veterans and other students who were not
■nuch impressed with Oregon’s political sheep. They were also
unimpressed by an old political booger-man. TNE.
TNE (for Theta Xu. Epsilon) was alleged to be working be
hind the exterior of the University’s most successful political
party, Greek Bloc. TNE was said to meet in dark, cobwebbv
places and plan bloody deeds (well, almost bloody). TNE
dealt out nominations like cards, and house votes were dutifully
delivered to the candidates.
The opposition party, the Independent Students Associa
tion, entered candidates in elections with great regularity,
and with great regularity lost. Things were somewhat feudal.
It was probably the influence of the veterans coupled with
Enlightened Womanhood (women had been running things
around here during the war) that gave rise to USA. Belliger
ant members of Greek Bloc houses held secret meetings out
at Amazon. There were other meetings with campus indepen
dent leaders. And then one night seven fraternities and soror
ities bolted Greek Bloc, and the next day one more. They
formed USA with independent students, and the spring
election was a three-party affair, with USA taking the
presidency.
Before it was done, USA had elected three presidents and a
iong string of other officers. It had injected some new thought
and some new ideals into Oregon politics.
But USA didn’t have a peaceful childhood. It was nurtured
on sour grapes and only an occasional plum. Its right hand
didn’t know what its left was doing—the party contained both
idealists and opportunists.
The political sheep played tag with USA. Some of the orig
inal houses jumped back over the fence, and some new ones
came in. There were a lot of questions that the campus ask
ed: did the fact that some houses deserted mean that USA
was no good? Did the sudden appearance of new houses on
the USA list mean new, dramatic idealism, or merely that the
boys had a candidate who might fare better in USA than in
Greek Bloc?
Some of us were hatchet boys. We pulled Greek houses out
of USA for a hundred reasons long since fogotten. There was
a lot of verbal rassling, and in the end the houses went back,
one by one.
Today there isn’t much left. Certainly not the sort of party
that wins at the polls. USA seems to be dying, but in dying it
has taken a lot of other things with it.
It has taken ISA, the old independent political party, which
in the end bowed out to USA as its representative.
It has taken TNE (probably), which was gloriously exposed
to public view in 1950.
It has taken Greek Bloc. Writhing in a new public conscious
ness, Greek Bloc has shed a couple of skins and a couple of
names, has been renamed Affiliated Students Association
which in turn was renamed Associated Greek Stundents.
These are important accomplishments. But the most im
portant accomplishment is lacking: the split between Greeks
and Independents politically still exists. At enlightened Ore
gon, how you vote still depends pretty much on where you
live, which is pretty silly.
Farewell, my lady love, good-bye, my turtle dove, so long
USA.
Orntan daily
EMERALD
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Julie Harris Praised
For Performance
In 'I Am a Camera'
By Michael Lundy
Having reviewed Christopher
Isherwood’s “Goodbye to Ber
lin” last fall, we thought it
would be in order to give our im
pressions of John Van Druten’s
interpretation of the stories in
"I Am a Camera," which ap
peared in Portland last week
end.
The play, which received the
New York Drama Critics
Award as the best play of the
season in 1951, was more than
anything else a vehicle for
Julie Harris, who seems cer
tain to become one of the com
pany of great actresses along
with Helen Hayes and Cather
ine Cornell. Her performance
was a brilliant succession of
shifting moods. She carried the
play; in fact she carried the
audience home' in her hip
pocket.
A “Mood Play”
Van Druten’s play itself, as he
readily admits, is a "mood play”
which was lifted almost bodily
from Isherwood’s series of
sketches about people in Ger
many during the disorganized
days of the early 30’s, pre-Hit
ler. Credit for the characters, the
situations, and most of the
drama, belongs to Isherwood.
Van Druten acted as a catalyst
in the transmutation of story to
play. But he did a fine job of
organizing the action so that the
play's pace never lagged; our at
tention never drooped for as
much as a minute.
We were disappointed by
only one aspect bf “I Am a
Camera,’ ’and that was Charles
Cooper, who plays Isherwood
himself in the road show, the
leading male. Whether due to
his interpretation, the direc
tion, or just the method of
playing before traditionally
disinterested Portland aud
iences, Cooper overplayed
practically all the times. He
showed none of the subtleties
of the character, and he didn’t
put across the changes in
thinking and understanding
which were written into the
part.
A Huge Child
He reminded us of a huge child
lumbering around the stage, and
it was impossible to imagine
that all those other interesting
and amazing people could have
any interest in such an insensi
tive lug.
The play, as the title implies,
is a series of impressions of Ish
erwood’s life and friend^, imper
sonally set down, without judg
ment, as a camera takes pictures
“recording, not thinking.”
Isherwood (Charles Cooper)
is a young British writer who
makes his precarious living
giving English lessons to well
to-do Germans. His personal
principles are high and cour
ageous, and he does not try to
impose them on the people he
knows. As the play progresses,
however, he is more and more
drawn into the lives of his
friends, and his consciousness
of the problems of the world
about him expands, until he is
drawn into their world and
loses his impersonality.
Her Talent—Men
Sally Bowles, played by Sally
Harris, is another English ex
patriate, an actress who has es
caped from her middle class
British parents and who is living
the life boheme in Berlin. Her
profession is acting but her tal
ent is men. She is a variegated,
glittering strand of tinsel, high
strung, unpredictable, and com
pletely captivating.
The* 'Shape-up'
NOTl
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