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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 1960)
Majority Report (Editor’s note: In an attempt to give a well-rounded analysis of Wednesday’s Charter Day Convocation attendance, we have allowed two opposing view points of editorial board members to be viewed here. The titles of the editorials are significant.) Certain dormitory officials put one over on the freshmen Wednesday by tricking them into attending the Charter Day con vocation. Dormitory students, both male and female, were assigned gates in which to enter McArthur court and were told that their dormitory counselors would be wait ing there to see which students attended. One dormitory counselor reports that roll was actually taken. THE PUNISHMENT, either actually threatened or inferred, was to be a trip to one of the dormitory officials’ offices for a little chat. This action seems harmless enough since every freshman should attend the Char ter Day activities. Those freshmen who did attend were very impressed with the pomp of the occasion from what we have been able to determine. But what about the University’s policy towards its students? Generally the Uni versity administration has adopted the at titude that students are adults when they come to the University and should be treated as such. EACH FACULTY member, for examp le, makes his own class attendance rules. While there is no official poll, it would probably be safe to say that the majority of the faculty feel that it is the student’s responsibility to attend. The same is also true of University assemblies and similar events. This is not, as true in our sister institu tion of the pasturelands to the north and, except for administration policy, need not be here. But considering this long standing liber al pqlicy, we wonder why dormitory offi cials suddenly took it upon themselves to change it. Traditions are fine and the tra dition of attending Charter Day should be encouraged, but perhaps the tradition of treating students as mature individuals is more important. HOWEVER, it is entirely possible that the fault does not lie entirely with those dormitory officials who instigated the piece of trickery. Much of the fault lies with those students whose anticipated lack of interest prompted the event. Perhaps, though, in the long run the greatest damage will have been done to the prestige of the dormitory system itself. What respect can a system expect if a rule is promulgated one day and retracted the next ? What happens if later this year it is nec essary to yell wolf again? Minority Report For once in the history of Charter Day a decent sized audience attended. It’s about time enough students showed up to give the impression that students are interested in something other than the chances of a date with a Carson girl. GRANTED, NOT EVERYONE showed up of his own accord. A little coercion was necessary on the part of the dorm counsel ors. For girls roll was taken, and for boys dorm counselors were waiting at the gates to see who didn’t show up. The penalty for not attending was for girls a conference with the assistant director of dormitories; there was no penalty whatever for boys. Maybe there should have been. If students are so indifferent to their University, per haps they have no place here. It is true that we come here to learn and that attending Charter Day will not help any classwork. People <lo not come to school for a lot of horsing around with traditions and ceremonies. OR DO THEY? CERTAINLY no one spends his entire college career behind books. Everyone makes it over to the SU once in awhile. In fact, some people make it away from the SU only once in awhile. Cer tainly the movie houses are not suffering from lack of student attendance. Somehow it seems that people who have time for so cial activities and other extra-curricular di versions should have time to attend Charter Day ceremonies; especially when they are excused from class expressly for that pur pose. The only unfortunate aspect of the “for cing” of dorm residents to attend the con vocation is that the forcing was necessary. Letters to the Editor i^meraui jsaitor: Congratulations on selecting the editorial under “Our Con temporaries” that appeared in Wednesday’s Emerald. Al though. the candidates’ religi ous beliefs, financial status, pub lic speaking ability, and poise may be of interest to the gen eral public-, they should not be elevated to major issues in the campaign. Tom Hoyt, Sophomore, Pre Law. * * Emerald Editor: Like many other loyal Demo crats, I hurried over to the li brary the other evening after the last Nixon-Kennedy debate, intent upon checking the records of any possible use of earthy tonguage in recent times by high ranking Republicans. I FELT that the diggings in this mine must surely be rich in view of all irritations and reverses that Republicans have suffered in recent years—rang ing from such petty annoyances as the cessation of the flow of gifts and favors from industrial ist tioldtine, to the blow up of so many of their most impor tant projects such as the Dixon Yates Power deal, the Vanguard I rocket, the A1 Serena timber mine, the Paris summit con ference, the president’s visits to Russia and Japan, our pater nal relationship with Cuba, and so forth. Our library staff prides it self on the completeness of the subject indexes, bibliographic and cross reference system. It is their contention that you can find information on anything— yes, anything, there. So it was with a confident smile that I ap proached the card catalog. FIRST, I TRIED to find the information under the general heading “Republicans.” This seemed promising as there was a whole tray and a half of cards. However I could find no sub heads such as “Republicans-use of profanity by,” “Republicans —colorful language of,” etc., though I tried every such lead I could think of. Perhaps, I thought, the infor mation desired would more log fcally be assembled under the general heading “Profanity,” under some such arrangement as “Profanity — presidential,” "Profanity — senatorial,” "Pro fanity—Republican,” etc., but it turned out that there was only a small handful of cards in this category, none of them rele vant to my problem. I did, however, run across an antriguing little volume by S. O. Bee, entitled Profanity Through the Ages in which were gathered together some of the most colorful expressions from all the civilizations of the past, including such choice phrases as the ancient Egyptians, Chi nese and Greek. (Editor’s note: We regret that we had to delete some Chinese writing, Egyptian hieroglyph ics and Greek words—not be cause we fear their meaning — because our printers could not find the appropriate type.) Soon I had forgotten all about the Republicans and was hap pily enriching my own vocabu lary oblivious of all else when (Continued on page 3) Little Man on Campus c-no* tra Two Voting Groups Make Election Outcome Unclear There are two groups exist ing now which make an early forecast of the presidential elec tion outcome impossible. They are the non-voting registered voters and the switch-party vot ers. THERE IS A movement, par ticularly in California, to ab stain from presidential ballot ing. mostly because of a feeling that neither candidate is suit able for the position. This movement has been featured in a leading magazine, The Satur day Review. With this abstain ing population of voters in many states, which may include vot ers who will fail to decide which candidate they want by Nov. 6, forecasts of individual states are impossible. It Is the electorially powerful states that are active in this campaign. It was started approximately two to three months ago and has been growing in momentum since. Hence, this facet creates a stigma in election forecasts and election actions more than any other factor viewable to this writer. It causes a catering to this group from both can didates and hence an unsurity of position in both camps. ANOTHER VARIABLE that can make early poll tabulation a grade A headache is that of the register-one-way-vote-an other-way voter. This is some thing that can best be shown by the example of California. In California the majority of registered voters are Demo cratic, and have been for the past two presidential elections. Yet the state has voted for the Republican nominee in the two previous elections and is ex pected to present their vote to Mr. Nixon. There are many states where this is the rule. Extreme cases are the south ern states which have almost a 60 per cent to 75 per cent ma jority of Democratic registra tion and yet seem to be tending to the Republicans and have in the past two elections. THERE ARE several factors that contribute to this tendency. First, these voters tend to ex ercise their freedom of choice and deviate from party lines during a presidential election more than at any other time. At this time conservative Dem ocrats and liberal Republicans will shift to the other party if their party goes too far from what they believe is right and the opposing party sticks to what is closer to their politi cal beliefs. At this time this kind of voter keeps his rcspec- . tive registration but votes for the opposite party's candidate. This exertion of freedom is one that can be quite disturb ing to the political analysis and result in several dozen head aches. Another reason for this switch in vote and continuance of party is that people are re luctant to break a tradition — such as registering in one party. This is sometimes called "op erational npathy" because of years of accepting party affili- , ation without the responsibili ties and participation that sup posedly come with registration. This could be nicknamed "rut ism,” but perhaps this is too smutty a tag. It exists, this complacency, and it is only a part of human nature, for once we are accustomed to some thing, the habit is hard to break. POLITICS TODAY are also more non-partisan than they were 20 years ago. This means that party lines are not so frigid and forebearing as they were 4 before. Politics have become, in most cases more statesmanlike, » and perhaps this very fact is the crux of the entire discussion here presented: both non-voting registered voters and party switching voters are, to this (Continued on par/e 3) OREGON DAILY EMERALD The Oregon Daily Emerald in published four time* in September and five day* a week during the school year, except dur* injf examination anil vacation periods, by the Student Publications Board of the University of Oregon. Entered as second clasH matter at the post office, Eugene, Oregon. Subscription rates: $5 per year, $2 per term. Opinions expressed on the editorial page arc those of The Emerald and do not pre tend to represent the opinion of thf ASUO or the University. KERNAN R. TURNER, Editor SI EVE MILLIKYN, Husiness Manager /IM BOYD, Managing Editor I ED MAHAR, News Editor LOUIS TURK. Advertising Manager DULCY MORAN, KEITH POWELL Assistant News Editors AL HYNDING, RON UUEL Sports Editors ARHAKA CHANTRY. Womru’s Editor DAVE SANDS, Photo Editor FRED ( RAFTS, Entertainment Editor EDITORIAL HOARD ell a?"? Turner. Tod Mahar, Keith Pow tv’.f. yS'ni^"K. Marge Langeiits, Fred C rafts, Jim Boyd, Ron Hnel. Gary Sula. liowaid McGlasson, Sue Hunter.
