Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 23, 1963)
Letters to the Editor I A Longer Break Kmcrald editor: Perhaps you are aware of the fact that in addition to the 50 ininutc classes on our catnpus there are also 2-hour and 3-hour sessions which are either semi nar courses or regular class meetings. Some of these mara thon sittings are held in the eve nings between the uncomfort able hours of 7 and 10 While attending one such 3 hour class 1 discovered that af ter two hours I failed to con centrate on the lecture- the rea son being that I got tired and hungry and needed some re freshment like a chocolate bar or a coke, to invigorate myself Most students on the campus eat lad ween 5:30 and 6:15 p in. and by nine, some of them, in cluding myself, need something to nibble and sip. It is customary to take a 10 minute break during these class e*. This break doesn't give one enough time to run to the SU or even the College Side Inn for a quick snack or even a cup of coffee. My purpose in writing this letter is therefore, to make a small suggestion. It will be real ly nice if the university authori ties or the ASUO arrange to in stall coke and candy machines in those buildings, including Allen Hall, where these marathon ses sions are held This wi.'l enable the students to refresh them selves during the 10 minute in terval "Food is God for the hungry man,' and with it (Food) even books fade into insignifi cance. Mohan Goei Graduate Student in Journalism • * * Fraternities Valuable Emerald Editor: In your article about hazing, dated Jan 21, you ask “why arc people who participate in such practices regarded as the so cially elite, as the leaders of campus life?" Why do you, Mi Editor, seemingly regard frater nity members as socially elite? Do you feel inferior to frater nity members? You shouldn't, but you should start accepting members as individuals not just “yes-men.’’ You have only stat ed one classification — the group. You forgot the indivi dual! I don’t think that you can find many fraternity members who think they are any better than any man on the street. Why are groups in fraterni ties so powerful to oppose as you state? Fraternity and sor ority membership does not in clude by any means a majority of the student body. You men tion sororities. What did they have to do with “llell Week?” Fraternity and sorority activi ties do not take away from school programs. These activi ties are scheduled so as to per mit participation of members in both without conflict. 1 bet you will find just as many frater nity men at a “bottom of the howl dance’’ as members of the student body at large, and yet the members of the student body at large are far in the ma jority on this campus. Do you think the initiation is the whole idea of a fraternity? Your typical “Yellow Press" buildup seems blind to other as pects of fraternal organizations. I do agree with you that many methods are unethical and im moral, though Something must be done about this, but why don't you remember the brother hood and citizenship fascilli tated by the fraternal organiza- ■ tion? Take a good look at our ath letic teams, our student politics, and other activities around cam pus. The names of fraternity and sorority members are ever present in ail activities. These are people interested in the University of Oregon If you have ever been around a fra ternity house you will know that the many members active in student affairs put these ac tivities and school work before their fraternity activities Most fraternities encourage this type of individual development! The general trend on this campus has been to try to clean up initiations in the past few years. Why don’t you open up your eyes to the fact that many “houses” have done much to - improve initiations. Most of the emphasis is on scholastic as pects and support of school ac tivities in many fraternity ini tiations. Why don’t you wake up and facilitate school unity and deal with topics in a more objective fashion Oh! 1 forgot You are pretty hard up for news, aren’t you? Marty Stryker, Freshman, Business Adm. * • * ( ampus Religion Emerald Editor: It is obvious from reading the Emerald that only a small number of students attended the religious forum week par. els and lectures last week. Ac cording to Monday’s paper. Jim Orrell, chairman of RF week, gave these as reasons for lack of student attendance: “insuffi cient publicity, student apathy, or student ‘busyness.’ ” Miss Greenwood offers the cute excuse that “students hear so many lectures in a week, they didn’t care to hear more." There surely was adequate publicity; in every issue of the Emerald last week were enough RF articles to offend the most hardy of us What more can Mr. Orrell want than front page coverage for a week? The cur rent fad is to blame all our ills on student apathy. Apathy is the lack of emotion or passion; are students unemotional and dispassionate? There are good reasons for this indifference— apathy is not a cause itself We can still put the blame on 'stu dent busyness" but it seems that those students who had any de sire to attend RF panels could easily afford an hour or two away from the books, particular ly during the second week of a new term Miss Greenwood s ex cuse is more amusing than be lievable. If religion was valued by students, they would look upon RF lectures and academic lectures from wholly different viewpoints and certainly with different feelings. May I offer an excuse? A good many college students do not want religion and, further more, have no need for it. Christianity shouts impossible ideas, curses all forms of earthly pleasure, preaches tradition for the sake of tradition, asks that we pattern our lives after that of a mythical figure older than Beowulf, opposes the dissemin ation of true facts about Com munism, expects us to under stand while it deprives us of reality, pleads with us to re spect a religion that has com mitted grievous sins against humanity, gives us such emi nent thinkers as Bishop Sheen (there arc three kinds of peo ple: good, bad and indifferent), Get Your Clothes Cleaner USE OUR 1 DAY SERVICE 821 E. 13th About Letters Letters to the editor must be signed and should include, if from a student, the writer’s year and major. If not from a student they should contain the writer’s position at the Univer sity or his address. There is no maximum length for letters but those under 360 words will be given preferen tial treatment. Letters should be typewritten and double spac ed. The Emerald will also publish intelligently-written columns of campus or more general interest either by students or faculty members. Columns submitted should also be double spaced. Preferred length is between two and three typewritten rages. looks with disdain at those who oppose it, invades a primitive tribe and ridicules its sacred be liefs, acts with immaturity in its pleas for “gifts and sup port.” gloats as it gives its an nual Christmas basket to some destitute wretch, announces a religious revival without telling us that what little membership gain there it is due to Christian izing the lower classes, cries out that there is one truth! This is the religion we are exposed to. Students arc not buying it. George Davis, Senior in Psychology. Hazing Defended Emerald Editor: The Army’s basic training program is, to a large part, built around practices which, on this campus, would certainly be con sidered to be hazing. These practices have been found to be a very convenient way of ac complishing certain goals, such as: producing a feeling of unity among the participants; encour aging a spirit of cooperation; promoting the emergence of in formal leaders in the mastery of a somewhat artificial task; pro ducing a feeling of unique ac complishment in those who fin ish. There are others; these are just a few. Informal initiations in frater nities are allegedly planned with similar goals in mind. Some initiations are foolishly run without adequate attention to these and other goals which are perfectly acceptable and de sirable in any society. As in the Army, unfortunate events have occurred in fraternity initiations which are regrettable even to the most wicked, sadistic, ster eotyped fraternity man. No ra tional person will excuse these happenings. Regardless of the admirability of the overall goals of Army basic training and fra ternity initiations, there exists the ever-present danger that an unthinking moment on some one’s part may result in tragedy. About two years ago, when the hazing controversy reached its last peak here at Oregon, the IFC Presidents’ Council adopted the policy of having the fraternities sign “We don’t haze” statements. Most of the houses signed one. Of course, these statements did not mean much because nobody was ex actly sure what “hazing” is. Were the fraternities to drop everything that even remotely involved physical or emotional hardship, or were they to in clude only these things as they were necessary for the accom plishment of the overall goals? Recently the State Legisla Canoe Fete Job Petitions Due Petitions are due Monday for all persons interested in work ing on Canoe Fete. Positions open are: techni cal—staging and props, lighting and audio, materials, labor, traffic control, and seating: pro ductions—floats, music, pre and post-Fete entertainment, and script; promotions—radio and SU, newspaper, flying speech and stunts, and display. ture has nicely solved this prob lem by defining “hazing" to in clude just about everything that occurs in an informal initia tion Presidents’ Council has chosen, perhaps quite wisely, to submit to public opinion (which is, of course, always right) rather to to try to in fluence it. Even with little re gard to finding a substitute for present initiations, the Council has recognized the necessity of immediate “reform,” which in volves measures which make the continuation of the old public image “hell week” impossible. These include: 1) Each frater nity must submit a complete outline of its initiation; 2) The hack paddle is completely out lawed. 3) Pledges will be re quired to spend their nights in dormitories without interference from fraternities. 4) Each ini tiation is subject to spot checks from an investigation team, con sisting partially of outsiders to the fraternity system. The fraternity system, in an effort to submit to pressures ap plied, has inflicted a wound on itself that will take some time to heal. Perhaps when this wound heals, and a new form of initiation is discovered, the sys tem will be better than it is now Perhaps not. This is an ethical question for which I, apart from some individuals, do not pretend to have the answer. But now, encouraged by the tantrum leading to the resigna tion of Ken Wilson, Tribunal chairman who is not even living I in a fraternity, there are forces which wish to rub a little bit of salt into this wound. President Flemming has decided to jump into the battle after the dust has settled by announcing his retro active policy to close all "guilty” fraternities. The Emerald has, as usual, jumped onto the anti Greek bandwagon by question ing the very character, morality, and motives of any individual who chooses even to think that perhaps initiations are not so evil as they are painted. I appeal to those individuals who, even in the face of one sided publicity against the fra ternity system, have managed to retain an open mind: Give the fraternity system a chance to solve its own problems. Give it a chance to adjust to having the beliefs of others forced upon it. All fraternity men were inde pendents once themselves. Can they really be so wicked now? Richard Stone, Grad, in Accounting. Editor’s Note: The Greek who is editor of the Emerald would like to point out: 1. The State Legislature has not defined hazing. 2. It’s a good thing for fra ternities it has not. P.O. Box 32033. Los Angeles, California ...something a little less serious by ted mahar RAW HIDE STORY Last term, in a weak moment. I foolishly wrote a review of a sacred American instiution called West Side Story. I said that the movie treated a serious social problem in a superficial and over simplified manner. (I should have mentioned that I saw the movie a second time because of the excitement in the photography, danc ing, and music.) One critic suggested that I write a musical. He probably figured I couldn’t do it. Well, I have a musical all planned. The first problem I found in writing a musical was a suitable theme about which to write happy, gay, exciting music. I looked over the successes of the past and present. There was “Oklahoma,” in which the villain, Jud Fry, burns to death in a haystack. There was “Gypsy,” about a stripper and the happy, carefree lives strip pers lead. There was “Oliver,” based on Dickens’ happy book about orphans being trained as criminals. There was “Carousel,” in which the hero died committing a crime, and whose orphan finally learned to hold her head up high and walk on, walk on, walk on. Thus inspired, I decided to write a historical musical. I thought first of Julius Caesar. What a great moment for a musical number when Caesar is cut down on the Senate steps by a group of his friends, I thought. Then there could be the battle of Actium, in which Marc Antony was defeated by Octavius. A great scene for a dance number. But I decided against it. Between Elizabeth Burton and Elizabethan Shakespeare, that ground seems to be pretty well covered. I decided I must strike out on my own. Then the inspiration hit me: Custer’s Last Stand. Of course! No one’s ever written a cavalry musical before, and certainly not about Custer. I mulled over what opportunities there were for songs and dances. There was the time when Autie (as he was known to his friends) graduated 34th in a class of 34 at West Point. He could sing a song entitled “Oh, what a miserable morning, oh what a muddled up day. I got a desolate feeling, nothing is going my way.” Then there’s an opportunity for a dance number at the Battle of Bull Run. During the dancing, Custer sings: “I want to flush those Rebs right out of my ranks. I’ve gotta fight those Rebs right off of my flanks, I’d like to slay those Rebs in bunches and groups, but first, where are my troops?” In a musical, of course, there is a great need for comic relief, and 1 have just the thing. I’ve decided that there are really some great potentialities for humor in the Last Stand. Yellow Hair (as he was known to his enemies) could be the leader of a soldiers’ band full of all sorts of comical instruments. Then in the hilarious final scene, all the soldiers would sing, while dancing and dying: “Seventy-two kazoos led the bloody rout, with a hundred and three Jews harps close behind. They were followed by rows of soldiers a-fallin’ all about, stag gering as if both drunk and blind.” When I'm finished with that I think I might tackle a Shakes pearian musical after all. Hamlet seems to have a few possibili ties .... But if Hamlet is a laughing matter. Dairy Queen is not. Out here in the west, where we take our enjoyment seriously, cool heads agree—Dairy Queen is cool. It tastes good and makes the inside of your mouth feel tasty. So, if you are planning a last stand, be sure to take along a lot of Dairy Queen.
