+ EMERALD EDITORIALS +
It's Spring
It’s spring term again. You can tell by the
weather.
You can also tell by looking at the stu
dents. The mid-year tiredness is. still there,
but people are becoming more hopeful, for
this is that legendary term when one lets
everything go and has a good time.
Anyway* that's what we’ve been hearing
for all these years. Actually, you have to
work just as hard to get grades, there are
tons of activities, and the weather usually
isn’t good enough to permit picnics (defi
nition : a type of party to whch everyone but
Oregon students takes food) down by the
river.
For the campus politicians, it’s the busiest
time of the year. Junior Weekend, the year's
biggest single activity, also takes much time.
Duck Preview also occurs.
And whoever started the legend about
spring term forgot to tell the instructors that
this is the party time of the year when there
shoulld be no assignments.
But spring term is largely in the mind.
Everyone will talk himself into thinking that
this is the term when we have fun, so we
probably will.
It’s Spring term.
May The Best Win
The death rattle of the Senior Ball was
drowned out last term by the blare of
victory trumpets marking the highly suc
cessful Military Ball. But in 1952, the last
Military Ball was such a flop that the stu
dent affairs banned it from the all-campus
social calendar. What does this prove?
We think it proves that it takes more than
tradition to make a dance a success. First
it takes enthusiasm, and promotion. .And
in the case of the Military Ball the novelty
and the free band probably helped. The Sen
ior Ball had none of these assets.
Let’s take a quick look at the status of
the Senior Ball at present. The senate has
gone on reoord as favoring its discontinua
tion. This does little more than give next
year’s class a kind of excuse to not have the
dance. We favor stronger action. Let the
Senior Ball be banned by the student af
fair? committee.
Then to get back in the social lineup, the
backers of a future Senior Ball would have
to petition the student affairs committee for
reinstatement. They would have to show
both planning and enthusiasm. And after
this effort, it seems like they would do their
utmost to make the dance a success. This is
basically what happened in the case of the
Military Ball.
Now let’s carry this line of reasoning one
step further. Why not put all the dances in
hock. Using winter term as an.example—the
student affairs committee could decree that
.there w'ould be one all-campus dance. Then
all interested groups, seniors, KOTC stu
dents, etc., could petition the committee for
the honor of putting on winter term's one
all-campus dance.
This gets at the basic campus problem—
TOO MANY ACTIVITIES! We would
start with the presupposition that we would
have ONE all-campus dance (including the
Military Ball) and then let the best dance
plan win.
It is our suspicion that the Senior Ball was
more of a flop than usual because students
were saving up to go to the Military Ball.
With our plan the ONE competitively se
lected dance would have no competition to
vie for the activity spotlight.
We have made the point of referring to
the Military Ball as an all-campus dance.
It is a farce to try to disguise this dance as
a departmental affair when more than 1000
Oregon males are in the “department.”
It’s like saying "Let's have a dance for
everybody who takes P.E.” If the Military
Ball comes back next year (and if it’s as
good as this year’s, it should) we strongly
feel that a spade should be called a spade
and the Military Ball should be called an
all-campus dance.
Of course, there’s always the chance that
the Military Ball won’t be a success every
time. Maybe the novelty effect will wear
off, or there will be no free band, or the
ROTC department will lack enthusiasm for
promotion. In that case fine, put the Military
Ball on ice for a while and bring in a different
dance winter term. But let’s not have more
than one dance winter term and let's have
that dance be the best.
We are intersted only in cutting Oregon’s
activties to a reasonable number. We want
the activities that remain to J>e the best. And
we believe the plan of prelimiting the number
of activity spaces for term and then fitting
the best activities to those spaces may be
the answer. We hope the senate and the stu
dent affairs committee will seriously con
sider this plan.—(D.L.)
Footnotes
We hope President Wilson doesn’t decide
to take up golf and establish a putting green
on the quad. We'd hate to see a resolution in
the ASUO or faculty senate calling for the
abolition of the campus squirrels.
* * *
Speaking of squirrels, we naturally think
of the former terror of the campus pampas—
\\ aldo. We thought of Waldo while reading
about the squirrel incident in Washington
and again while sunning ourselves during
spring vacation on the University of Cali
fornia campus—where the only unbusy peo
ple are the campus dogs. (This disjointed
train of thought was only inserted so that
we could mention Waldo and the squirrels,
for the Emerald wouldn't be the Emerald
without some mention of the ex-111 >OC.)
INTERPRETING THE NEWS
Confidence Can Mean Peace
By J. M. ROBERTS
Associated Press News Analyst
One little promise made in con
nection with French ratification
of the Western European Union
accords, if kept and, projected
into the future, could mean more
to Europe than all of the alli
ances these nations have ever
signed.
It came from a jubilant Chan
cellor Adenauer of Germany, “the
German government," he said,
“will do everything in its power
to merit the confidence of the
French people and to further de
veloped French-German rela
tions”
The treaties, the Chancellor
said, will make a future German
French war impossible. In them
selves, they won’t. They never
have. But if the two nations could
really establish confidence, that
would.
Use Unity as Lever
The Chancellor spoke against
the larger background of fast
moving American and European
efforts to follow-up ratification
of the treaties with a new ap
proach to Russia, using their
new-found unity as a lever.
Now that she has been beaten
on the treaty issue—with ratifi
cation by the United States, Den
mark and the Benelux countries
expected to be routine—the West
was hoping that Russia would at
last get down to realistic nego
tiations on such issues as German
reunification and an Austrian
peace treaty.
Russia can still come into ne
gotiations with the demand that
the allies trade off prospective
German power for agreements
which, if kept, would mean peace
in Europe. She might keep the
whole business up in the air for a
long time by such tactics.
Won’t Stay Disarmed
But in the long run she and the
allies would both know that a
nation such as Germany will not
be kept disarmed indefinitely in
an armed world. And the allies
will know that no peace of in
definite duration can be made
with a Russia which clings to the
Communist doctrine of world
dominion.
Nevertheless, new negotiations
are no win prospect, even if, from
the allied standpoint, their only
result is to demonstrate again to
the French and Germans that
there can be no dr agging of feet
in implementation of the treaties.
A DAY AT THE ZOO
A Stirring, Tragic
Tale of a Young Poet
By Bob Funk
Emerald Column'll
The violets are red,
I wish the hell 1 was in bed,
Drop dead.
Gordon Gatherroal Gordonson
sat at his typewriter, tragically.
I am a poet, he was thinking, and
a poet in the middle of the night
without a muse is tragic, he
thought, tragic
like -like a tree
iv i t h o u t any
•Mip, no, that's
n o damned
?ood; like a
tree on a hill
side a blos
soming tree on
a hillside with
Jilt t hf* nimuinn.
ate wind to stir its branches and
arouse love-fragrance from the
little cups of color. That was bet
ter. He was like a blossoming
tree. Whut a hell of a thing to
think you are; he would be social
ly ostracized if anybody knew I
thought I was a blossoming tree
with love-aroma ready to be stir
red out of little cups of color.
Colour, the Henglish way.
He typed out DAM DAMN
DAMUAI-L very rapidly on the
typewriter. I got a naked bulb
above me, 1 haven't shaved to
day. there is a half-eaten apple
on tha desk that smells like the
good earth never, and it's half
past three. There is no reason
why I shouldn't be poetical as all
grape-juice.
Something itched. He reach
ed inside his shirt to scratch
himself, but the itch-pluee had
shifted around and he never did
find it. He tore a button off
instead and said a euaaword
very loud. It sounded funny. A
voice despondent In a midnight
room, he said to himself, when
nature Ne'er intended such a
sound to find. Reception in the
darkened ethers of the night
When only love hath eyes, and
truth Is blind.
What a crock, he said to him
self. It was a lot belter if you
could make up these little blurbs
and then know- them for what
they were, little crocks of waste
matter distilled from rotten
grapes. Rotten grapes? Green
grapes ? Neither way was any
damned good. He wrote XY Z
INCIDENT on his typewriter and
then wrote
Little green grapes
Is like 1’il green apes
Clinging to vines
In the summertlnes
When the big blond sun
Spells F-U-N fun
In zeon lights
Through tropical nights
and I wish I knew a girl named
Mabel whose skin was like sable
and who was ready, willing, and
able, to set the table with pep
permint leafs and aperitifs.
If you were any sort of a
male, he thought to himself,
you would not lie trying to
write this• voinlty poetry and
would ko to bed and dreum
hImiiiI Imselmll season. If you
were any sort of a male you
would not have signed up for
u course that rrqurles you to
write poems.
That is, if you were any sort
of a male. Any sort of a whale.
In a south-sea gale. Ah, out It
out. He thought he would call up
that gill and ask her If -he would
like to go out and get some kiss
ing <>n the mouth Saturday. He
would say, hello, baby, I under
stand you have a strain of I-atin
blood, and since I am a good
neighbor I would like to take you
out to some secluded Ren-dess
vouse like Hendricks Park and
kiss you more or less tentatively
on the mouth. RSVR, Gordon
Gathercoal Gordonson.
Only then he remembered that
It was the middle of the night
ami that she win not a jioet, hut
a BA major. an<l would lx* in bed.
Maybe he would call Pat up
irmteud. Pat wouldn't think any
thing about It, because he'd been
pinned to Pnt once and whs in
ured that was the word, inured
-to this sort of thing. She was
pinned to somebody else. now,
and he could call her up and any,
Pat, are you really happy ? 1 was
juat lying awake, Pat, thinking,
is Pat really happy? And I
thought, boy. you nhould call Pat
up and tell her Happy Thanks
giving Merry Christman Happy
New Year Big Rod Juicy Valen
tines Day and all those things
you haven't told her because
you're not pinned any more.
Only be guessed he wouldn’t
call. Maybe If he turned around
and pretended he didn't really
ha\e to write three poems to
turn in tomorrow whatever
helped you write poems would
be off guard, and then he
could turn around and write
three poems surprisingly, sud
denly, succinctly, and then go
to the hell to bed.
Instead, he bit off some of the
smelly apple. It'll kill me, maybe,
and then I can be buried in the
Poet*' Corner. He died at h.»
typewriter, hla left index finger
on They could paint "4c"
black on the typewriter and
never use it again. The Gordon
Gatheicoal Gordonson Memorial
“ft.”
"Hell,” he said out loud. It
sounded nice. Hell. You could say
hell alt you wanted to in the
(continued on page seven)
or'ecjor?
MEQCLD
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