+ EMERALD EDITORIALS +
Congratulations, Bud...
. . . We're glad you won.
And we’re sure you’ll do a good job, that’s
why we backed your candidacy.
It's going to be a big job, probably the big
gest on the campus; bigger yet because of
the sad state of disrepair into which student
government has fallen.
As this is written, only the first returns
are in—but it’s safe to say that the vote
was around 2000, or not quite half of the
students on campus. And this poor show
ing was made despite good weather.
Part of your job—though we hope you'll
devote less time to it than to the issues at
hand—is to find out what makes it that way,
and perhaps to remedy the situation so that
it doesn’t reoccur.
A major reason we voted for you was be
cause you have the drive to carry out the
things that were written in your platform.
There will be times when you’ll probably
seem to be beating your head against a stone
wall. We hope you won’t quit, because if you
keep at it. we think you can win, just as you
did last night.
You had a good opponent—we had a heck
of a time trying to make a choice. And he’ll
be a good vice-president. The 380 votes by
which you won make up a good margin, but
it’s close enough so you know you had a
battle.
This leads to another reason why we
voted for you—at the coffee hour in the
SU and again when you spoke to the Em
erald editorial board, we got the subjective
feeling that you would be more represen
tative of a greater number of students—
we hope you won’t let us down.
Incorporate some of the UIS platform
planks—they had some excellent ones.
But more of that later.
Anyway, congratulations.
A Moment’s Pause
Let us pause for a moment's silence. The
Oregon Honor Code is, for all practical pur
poses, dead.
The honor code and vestiges of it have
been with us for about five years. It came
before the students in the 1953 general elec
tion—and it won, but by a margin of rough
ly 51 per cent to 49 per cent, a margin not
sufficient to justify adopting the code.
The last real attempt to give the Uni
versity of Oregon an honor code came in
the Fall of 1953 in the form of a little
pamphlet called “The Oregon Way,” try
ing to impress the students, especially the
new ones, with the idea that an honor code
was a significant part of “The Oregon
Way.”
The Honor Code would have been quite
a thing. It would have replaced what the
booklet called a ■ police-state" system with
what we think would have been a “thought
police” system. That is. rather than have
gruff, mean professors overseeing the test
ing of the slaves, we would all watch our
neighbors, waiting to see one of them
cheating.
When you saw someone cheating, you
tapped a pencil to warn him. If he persisted
in his nefarious practice, you called the in
cident to the attention of another person.
Pretty soon the whole room would have ap
parently been tapping.
Presumably also, a person with the men
tality of a cheater would have still been
cheating. He might have been the good-guy
type, however, and joined the tapping.
From this .you proceeded in one of two
ways. You could tell the violator that he
was to report to the Honor Council within
24 hours, then report him ifhe had not done
so; or you could report him yourself, in
writing.
Something akin to the student traffic
court, only having jurisdiction over honor
code violators, would then try the person
and pass on his guilt or innocence.
Xot only did the court accompany the
honor code, there were also the test files,
about the last hangover of the honor code
hassle.
These have been a problem because no
body wanted them. When the honor code
committee was finally disbanded last fall,
the senate had the test files on its hands.
A committee went to work to see if any
body would take charge of the orphan test
files—nobody would.
The new senate will be asked to approve
the abandonment of the test files. We hope
they will approve the idea.
The files are the last hangover of some
thing that wouldn’t have worked. The
honor code sounded nice, but under the
surface, it didn't really mean much.
We re glad to see it gone, but we’re paus
ing to commemorate it for a moment.
That pause to consider the thing will, we
hope, prevent another attempt to bring the
honor code to Oregon.
Footnotes
Guess w e ll have to go back to complaining
about the coffee and the service at the SU
now that they've fixed our favorite door.
* * *
Today is a day to relish—it’s Mav 5, 1955
or 5/5/55, a day that won’t coinc along for
another century.
IHTERPRETING THE MEWS
The Quemoy and Matsu Problem;
Should the US Negotiate or Not?
BY S. M. ROBERTS
AP News Analyst
Nationalist China's reiteration
that she will not evacuate Que
moy and Matsu and that she will
“never" confer with the Chinese
Reds is an important roadblock
in the way of any American ne
gotiations with Peiping.
Te the casual observer it
may appear that Taipei is
mercy producing big words,
subject to change if the United
States chooses to apply the
screws. To a limited extent—
limited by the reluctance of
the United States to use coer
cion—that might be true.
The practical effect of the
Nationalist stand, however, is on
the attitude of the Reds them
selve.s. There has been some
thought the Reds, in the midst
of a sweetness and light cam
paign to convince Asia that it
need not fear aggression from
them, might make a cease-fire
deal. This thinking has revolved
around giving them enough to
save face for them — perhaps
giving them the small islands
and promising to hold a confer
ence on political settlements af
ter the shooting was stopped,
as was done in connection with
the Korean truce.
The world Communist move
ment for its own purposes, is
going all out for conferences
these days. The promise of the
islands might be less important
to them than the promise of a
political conference.
But if Chiang persists in re
fusing to meet the Reds, and the
Reds persist in refusing to meet
Chiang, a good part of the rea
son for U. S.-Peiping talks will
have evaporated before arrange
ments for them can be made.
There is, of course, doubt
that the Reds intend to follow
up Chou En-Lai’s Bandung
suggestion for a eonference.
He may have been hoping only
that the United States, eager
for peace and anxious not to
give the appearance of leaving
any stone unturned, would ap
pear as a supplicant. That
would enhance the show of
strength put on by tweaking
a great power’s nose in the
matter of the imprisoned fliers.
If the United States wants to
go ahead with negotiations with
the Reds in the face of these
uncertainties, the decision will
have to be made whether the
prospective results will warrant
coercion of the Nationalists as
the Rhee government was co
erced in South Korea. That type
of operation is always difficult
for the United States to under
take.
A DAY AT THE ZOO
Spring Is Still Spring;
The Sleeper Sleepeth
By Bob Funk
EnHiild Columniit
Spring is all things to all
things. To birda, it Is a time to
go scrounging around on the
ground trying to find worms to
pull out by their hind enda, and
then wondering if this Is really
the hind end or the other end,
or if worms have two hind ends.
For worms, it is a time to tunnel
ing around in the ground aer
eating things; and on weekends,
aid in the seduction of fish whose
mammas never told them.
For people, spring Is more
complicated. For the philosopher
it is time to think about My
Problem; the Horrible Superfi
ciality of it Ail; and When You
Really Think
About It. For
i o m c persons,
ipring is a sort
if big vitamin
pill, and it does
-O them every
hing that a vi
tamin could If a
vitamin could
lo everything
. h e manufac
lurer says in me isaiuroay Kve
ning Post. And for other people,
of course, other things happen.
Fun things and otherwise. The
scene is
A RIVERBANK, in the far West
Time: 3:30 p.m., Tuesday. May 3.
1955.
A group of people are sif
ting around getting somewhat
damp on the bottom. As we
approach we see that they are
THE PIRPLE-AX'D-KOMBER
SHADES PHILOSOPHER;
THE GIRL WITH THE OVER
ACTIVE THYROID; THE
CON S T A X T BLABBERER;
and a fourth person who ts
asleep and never identified.
“I doubt if 1'U even make
Kwama.” the Constant Blabber
er Is saying as we come up. "I
was in lots of things, but half
of them, you know, they never
even took pictures for Oregana,
and some of those old prune
faces they got in there would
n’t vote for me anyway, YOU
know—”
“There are the thinkers and
the non-thinkers,” the philoso
pher interrupted, looking out
over the river. “Sometimes I
wonder how X can stand it, with
all this insincerity. The farther
you go from San Francisco, the
more insincere everything be
comes, seemingly. Kant said ”
“And. then I said, kid, if you
don't make it, I’ll just about
cry, all the activities you been
in; and you know, she should
really get in if they’re really
fair, only I’ve heard lots of
things.”
Meanwhile, the Overactive
Thyroid girl was bouncing up
and down like a basketball
that couldn’t get over the
dribble habit after basketball
season. “Let’s all swim across
the river, gang,” she kept say
ing in a cheerleader voice. “It’s
not really cold. The first per
son back gets to be first up
the tree in the tree-climbing
race.” She kicked .the asleep
person, but he or she only
mumbled and turned over.
"Everything runa on. Just like
the river," the Philosopher Hold.
“I don't know when I’ve been in
such a terrible mood. It’s that
class; that professor; when I
come out of there I am abso
lutely depressed. Any thinking
person would be. Talk about in
tellectual honesty, there is no
intellectual honesty north of San
Francisco. Why, there are three
Republicans on the faculty, ntul
1 hear they're hiring a fourth
next year."
"Maybe for bridge," the Con
stant Blabherer said comforting
ly
The thyroid lady emerged
dripping from the river and
shook a fine spray all over
everyone. "Its really great,
gang." she said. "The jvalet s
really warm after you g< t used
to it." They looked over at the
water and rmiled weakly. The
thyroid lady was already racing
herself up a tree, yelling ath
letic things all the way up.
"You can never tell." the blah
erer said. "I might even get a
date for the Junior thing us the
prom. I guesa. There's this really
cute boy. he sat neat to me in
comp the first term only I had
to take that term over so that
separated ua, see, and so he
started going out with this girl
that's a room-mate of Beverly's,
and I whs always seeing him
downstairs in Carson "
ossIp,” hr said. Thr phll
owiphcr ■utld, that in. “I hii«
Just thinking, gossip and wine
arr aiikr in that they arr
>M>th iKTSklniuilly distilled from
sour grapes, and iinprovr with
agr. That'* very trur, don't
you think?"
"Er. sum but I wm always
spring him downstairs. arr. and
oner I. it was rrally funny I
walked up to him and said,
you really come around here a
lot. you must like the soft chairs
or something, and you should
have seen him blush. WELL., this
was all while he was going out
with Beverley, she flunked out
last term and got married or
maybe she's working in Port
land. It was Ann that got mar
ried - "
Which dissertation upon the
boyfriend of the late Beverly
was rudely interrupted by Miss
Thyroid, who came up and slap
perl the philosopher a good thunk
on the back. ''You guys just
gonna sit around all day and
waste all this good sunlight?
You ought to see the view from
the top of that tree I was just,
up! Can see clear to Weyerhaus
er!'’
This electrifying information
felt upon more or less deaf
ears. The philosopher was hop
ing that the tide would come
In so that they would base to
go home, or at least move;
hut then he remembered they
weren’t at the beaeh.
‘‘I could use a hamburger,”
the blabberer said. The thyroid
one mumbled something about
working up an appetite; she was
doing push-ups. The philosopher
turned up his watch two hours,
and they went home.
Probably the asleep person
went home with them. I forgot
to ask.
oreqon
P020LD
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