Let's Get Our Money's Worth Cutting down on activities appears to be only one reason, and perhaps not the main reason, for eliminating the Mortar Board and the Military Ball. It’s true that a cut in the activity load has been longly and loudly advocated by Student Affairs this term—notably by Mrs. Wickham. It’s true also that a student sub-committee rec ommended a decrease in the number of major activities, and that dances in particular are time-consuming projects. It has been estimated that to put on a successful Home coming, Whiskerino, or Junior Prom at least 40 committee men are needed. Each of these committeemen spend six to eight hours working on the dance. The general chairman and some committee chairman work practically full time on the project. In view of the time and energy expended on the dance, then, it is reasonable to suppose that the results must be satisfying to the committee workers and to the school as a whole. A good dance must be a financial success. The Mortar Board Ball and Military Ball have decidedly not been successful as crowd gatherers, and consequently have more often than not ended up in the red. Financial accounting of these two dances over the last seven years shows a steady deficit. The Military Ball has never made money. In 1949-50 it lost $800. That year the loss was so great that the University wrote-off some of its bill to Scabbard and Blade. The event has never lost less than $150, and in 1952 the honorary was left with $250 in unpaid bills. Mortar Board has been luckier, but the trend is against them. Since 1947 the girl-take-boy dance has regressed from a $600 profit, to a $250 deficit. The last two years it barely broke even. The Junior Prom and Homecoming lost money only once during this period, the Whiskerino record just about balances with this year’s receipts not totalled yet, and the Senior Ball ended up in the red five years out of the six. Dick Williams, student union director, said that although the Senior Ball is a consistent money-loser, he thinks there should be at least one major dance during Winter term. In the case of the class dances, Williams said, there is a good chance that the deficit can be made up. When a group as small as Mortar Board or Scabbard and Blade loses two or three hundred dollars, however, the prob lem of paying the bills takes on major proportions. In the case of Mortar Board, where proceeds are designated for other causes, the effort of a money losing dance is wasted. Oregon is not the only school whose all-campus dances are failures, according to Williams. He said it was the opin ion of student union directors all over the nation that there was a trend away from the big dance. Although most dances made money in 1946 when enrollment was at an all-time high, you can’t correlate success with en rollment, according to Williams. He said the University of Minnesota has the same problem we have. The orchestra doesn’t matter either, Williams said. Oregon pays less for big name bands than larger schools, and a small band doesn’t mean a small crowd. Since there is such a trend, and since figures don’t lie, we feel that the Student Affairs committee made the only prac tical decision, and the wise decision. The average student has too little time to waste the major part of three weeks on an activity that doesn’t pay off. A dance that flops is a dis appointment to all. We pay for our dances. And we want our money’s worth