AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
PUBLISHER Alton F. Baker
EDITOR William M. Tugman. MANAGING EDITOR Alton F. Baker. Jr.
SERVICES Full Associated Press, United Press, Audit Bureau of Circulations.
The Register-Guard's policy Is the complete and impartial publication in its newi
pages of aU news and statements on news. On this page the editors of The Register
Guard offer their opinions on events of the day and matters of importance to the
community endeavoring to be candid but fair and helpful in the development of con
tsructlve community policy. A newspaper is A CITIZEN OF ITS COMMUNITY.
Entered at the Post Office at Eugene, Oregon, as second-class matter.
PAGE 4 EUGENE, OREGON, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1951
"They Have No Alumni Association'
In Oregon, as in every other state,
Mental Health is a very big public prob
lem. We have approximately 5,500 pa
tients in three big institutions the
Oregon State Hospital at Salem, with
more than 3,000 average; the Eastern
Oregon Stale Hospital at Pendleton,
with approximately 1,000; the Fairviev
Home at Salem, with 1300 mentally de"
ficient of all ages. We are spending ap
proximately $5,000,000 a year to oper
ate these institutions. Since World War
I we have spent $10,000,000 on new
buildings and equipment.
We have come a long ways since the
days when Dr. Richard B. Dillehunt,
then dean of the University of Oregon
Medical School used to preach about
"the dark continent of the mind," pre
'dicting that the day must come when
mental sickness would receive at least
as much attention as other forms of
disease. But we are still very far from
meeting all needs.
Robert B. Frazier, In his series of
articles in the Register-Guard shows
that in spite of all that has been ac
complished in recent years:
Oregon is still short of mental health
clinics, out-patient facilities where much
might be done to anticipate and prevent and
even cure menial disorders In the early stages.
There is a pathetic lack of facilities for
the adequate care and treatment of the men
tal disorders which accompany old age.
In many wards our hospitals are still
over-crowded.
We are woefully deficient In recreational
facilities for patients and In many cases of
the therapeutic facilities which aid the cure
of mental disease,
In October, a special committee of
the Portland City Club made a report
which criticized sharply some of the
conditions in our mental hospitals and
the rather haphazard procedures under
which many commitments are made.
This report drew fire from Lawson Mc
Call, secretary to Governor McKay, in
which he pointed out a few factual in
accuracies in the City Club report
guch as their statement' that the Ore
gon State Hospital was not accredited,
a condition which was corrected in
August. The City Club committee has
filed a supplemental report in which
they acknowledge some of the errors
but stick to their 12 major recommen
dations, the most significant of which
are:
Remove mental institutions from the su
pervision of the Board of Control (Governor,
secretary of state and state treasurer) and
put them under a State Mental Health Au
thority. .
Construct a large facility for the men
tally sick In Multnomah county.
Modernize the procedures for commit
ments. A state-wide system of mental health
clinics and a co-ordinated program of under
graduate and graduate training at the Medi
cal School and the state hospitals for those
who deal with the mentally ill.
Having visited the major institutions
at Salem, Mr. Frazier is merely report
ing on what he found. He thinks the
City Club reports may have been a bit
extreme at least in its implied criti
cisms, and he thinks the officials may
have been "a bit too touchy." The prob
lem, as he sees it, is to make the people
of Oregon realize the great need, and he
quotes Governor McKay as making this
sympathetic commentary:
'"The mentally sick have no active alumni
associations. If they did, the Legislature and
the people would have been more generous
long ago."
The problem is to make everybody
understand that it can happen to you,
and what is even more important, to
make people understand that by spend
ing more money on TREATMENT IN
TIME, we may be able to save much
of what we are spending now on per
manent care in vast institutions. We
may be able to restore thousands st pa
tients to USEFUL AND NORMAL liv
ing. We must shake off the taboo which
attaches to "insanity." A person is com
mitted, often an able and useful citi
zen, because his family and friends do
not know of anything else to do with
him. In most cases, they proceed to for
get him. He is hidden away and men
tioned in whispers. If he is lucky enough
to be cured and many are cured
there is a stigma, due to our IGNOR
ANCE. That's why these hospitals have
"no alumni." That's the problem.
Marquis Child's
As President Conant Sees It
The Bend Bulletin
For nearly a year and one-half the
Korean war has been going on and,
for the greater part of that time, the
American people have accepted the
ituation with a degree of equanimity
which has approached indifference. But
of late the war is being increasingly
felt, both directly and indirectly, in
nearly every phase of the nation's life.
It was only natural, therefore, when
James Bryant Conant, Harvard's great
president, spoke Friday at the convo
cation of educators held in Eugene on
the occasion of the stale university's
seventy-fifth anniversary, that the prob
lems which war lias saddled on the
institutions of higher learning should
receive prominent attention.
Dr. Conant recognized them in their
application to teachers and in their ap
plication to students. After defining
the theory of higher education which
is peculiarly American, that which con
ceives the functions of the university
as centering upon the preparation of
the individual fur understanding and
compatible living, he turned to com
munism which, when you get right
down to it, is pretty much the issue
in thus current war. An American fac
ulty is no place for a card-holding
communist, he declared, when he point
ed out that such an individual, because
of the party's record for persistent con
spiracy and downright dishonesty, is
definitely "out of bounds." For such
a one, he made plain, the defense of
"academic freedom" does not apply.
It was the sole exception, however, that
he would make.
That was plain talk, strong talk, Ihe
kind of talk that representatives of some
of our Pacific coast institutions have needed
to hear.
Dr. Conant faced facts just as real
istically when he considered the eco
nomic problems arising from the war
and recognized that those problems will
take harder work and a long-drawn
period of something akin to the Brit
ish "austerity" before there could be
any possibility of return to what we
have come to look upon as normal liv
ing. This period could go on for years
for a quarter, perhaps half a cen
turyhe warned, one of those things
which have now become unavoidable.
The need for continuing large scale
military preparedness would underlie it.
Some listeners with whom we talked
afterward professed to be somewhat
disappointed at what they chose to
refer to as the speaker's "lack of pro
fundity." Perhaps they meant by that
that ho did not parade the batallion
of technical terms at his command. No,
he did not. He used plain, interesting,
forceful English to get over some pretty
plain and not especially pleasant facts.
But the facts are those of the nation's
(yes, the world's) most baffling, most
far-reaching question today. 'He had
no panacea, for there can be none;
he stayed away from idealism, and
properly so, Facts were what were
needed, and he gave them.
CHILDS
Weapon Shifting
Calculated Risk
WASHINGTON The risk involved
in sending most of the weapons to come
off American assembly lines to Europe
to equip European divisions of the NA1U
was very carefully weighed by top offi
cials in me ueparimem
of Defense. One factor,
and one factor alone, was
in the end decisive.
The risk, of course, is
that these European divi
sions would be over
whelmed in an all-out
assault by Soviet Rus
sia. The mass of guns,
tanks and so forth provid
ed by the United States
would then be left on
European battlefields to be seized by
the Russians. America would have to start
more or less from scratch to provide
American divisions with modern equip
ment. The factor which makes it possible to
take this grave risk is the tremendous
change occurring In atomic weapons. The
latest atomic tests at Las Vegas, Nevada,
confirm what had already been pretty
evident.
The small atomic bomb is a practical
weapon to use against enemy troops in
the field. The-incidental effects atomic
radiation, etc. do not endanger the
forces employing the weapon.
NEW SMALL BOMB
Most important of all is what this
means to America's atomic stockpile. The
feasibility of the small atomic bomb means
that in effect the stockpile is quadrupled.
With an abundance of atomic weapons
they need no longer be hoarded for care
ful, calculated use against top priority
targets. As it was put by one military
man:
"We can drop them out of every plane
we've got and blast the army that any
enemy puts in the field."
This knowledge, incidentally, may well
be stilfenlng the determination of Ameri
can negotiators in Korea to refuse even
minor concessions asked by the Commu
nists. Whether these new small atomic
weapons will be available in numbers in
three months or six months is a top se
cret. But it is believed now to be a mat
ter of months rather than years.
So, in the view of defense planners,
Russia's mass armies can be stopped with
the revolutionary new weapon in a show
down. But to prevent such a destructive
showdown the creation of a western Eu
ropean army in the shortest possible time
is essential. This is the essence of the de
cisions taken in' the wake of Eisenhower's
visit.
MONET APPROPRIATED
Transfer to European divisions of the
American weapons requires no specific
authorization from Congress. The money
for the rearmament program was appro
priated under the broad interpretation that
it be spent to provide security for the
United States.
Responsibility for that security rests
with the joint ehiefs of staff and the Na
tional Security Council. The decision p
make the transfer could be taken in the
interests of America's own security. That
security could best be served by building
a western European bulwark as quickly
as possible through a radical shift in .the
allocation of weapons.
While this authority clearly exists,
President Truman has nevertheless been
advised to consult with top Democrats and
Republicans of key Congressional com
mittees on the new program. What is
likely to happen is that ranking members
of the Senate Armed Services and For
eign Relations committees will be called
to Washington In mid-December for con
sultations on decisions that, as now be
lieved, will be confirmed at the meeting
of NATO council in Rome next week,
Possibly the full committees will be in
vited to Washington, with the House For
eign Relations committee also included.
Since this drastic revision of the west
ern defense program was initiated by
Gon. Dwight D. Elsenhower, it is bound to
affect his personal fortunes and espec
ially since those fortunes are so closely
linked to politics here at home. Eisenhower
was undoubtedly motivated in part by
a desire to show greater accomplishment
in a shorter time. If he could return by
mid-1952 with that more tangible accomp
lishment well launched, his own position
would be strengthened.
ENEMIES ATTACK TLAN
His enemies will therefore impugn Eis
enhower's motives and in all probability
attack the plan itself. There were many
reasons, of course, why the revised pro
gram seemed of vital Importance. One
was the increasing strain being put on
the economies of Western Europe in the
effort to build armament facilities with
the cost of raw materials mounting in the
inflationary spiral.
To one reporter It has seemed that
even in this early stage of the change
over the American public could be given
far more information about what is be
ing undertaken. As so often in the past,
everything is being officially held back,
presumably on the theory that it must
be unveiled for public view as a com
pleted whole.
The basic decisions are being taken in
Europe, where American cabinet' mem
bers and their staffs, together with top
military men, are working to get the
broadest possible agreement on the new
approach to the defenses of the west. When
this appears in print, this reporter will
be in Europe seeking to learn what those
decisions mean.
ICopvniM. IMl. by Vnlll fatm Syndics. Inc.)
Woman's Intuition
IF YOU ASK we, - xC -we&xtfe-I
WOMV HEAR (. S&U-s
HIMSAVAMYTH4& ,V Skf?If I
In The Editor's Mnilliag
TOO LITTLE: TOO LATE!
LOS GATOS, Cal. (To the
Editor) A friend sent me news
clippings of Peter Horn's tragic
death and the accompanying edi
torial you wrote regarding traf
fic fatalities.
Although our family 'presum
ably is on sabbatical leave from
academic and civic duties there in
Eugene, I find I cannot refrain
from writing in regard to this
matter. I will add, however, that I
am not writing this letter for
newspaper publication necessarily,
but trust that through your con
tacts and influence, some sugges
tions I am about to make may
strike a responsive chord with you
or some civic-minded group in
Eugene.
This was the third Eugene traf
fic death that has meant more
to me than just a statistical item
in the paper. The tragic death of
young Michael McKenzie received
very little newspaper publicity or
police action, I believe, although
eye-witnesses verified that the 12
year-old lad was obeying traffic
rules and the 16 year-old auto
driver who killed him was not.
The death of Mrs. Armstrong
on East 15th Avenue bears down
on my conscience, for perhaps the
neighborhood could have pre
vented that unfortunate accident.
Two years ago, while I was act
ing as president of the Condon
School P-TA, our Executive
Committee tried, through the ear
nest efforts of the Safety Chair
man, to get the traffic section of
the Eugene Police Department to
place STOP signs on 15th Avenue
to insure safety for our school
children as well as the neighbor
hood itself. The efforts were met
with apparent indifference. Too
late, I can see now, that we.
should not have- accepted defeat
but should have circulated an
other of the famous Condon
School petitions for action. Is the
barn door locked now; that is to
say, does 15th Avenue now dis
play STOP signs at the dangerous
intersections?
Any penalties that might be
placed on the guilty persons who
have-caused traffic accidents are
of little avail after the damage
is done. Prevention of the acci
dents is the answer. In response
to the questions put forth in your
editorial, I would like to make
some suggestions for the better
ment of the situation as I see it,
striving toward prevention
through education and community
pctlon.
; 1) The value of auto-driving
classes in producing careful,
sound-thinking . and courteous
drivers has been proven beyond
a doubt. Unfortunately, learning
to drive by this means is prohibiive
in cost to many persons.
Could not this important . and
life-saving service,, therefore, be
provided through other and less
costly channels, such as the city
or the state traffic departments?
2) At the time of issuance of
new driving permits, each driver
should be required to view the
films showing the results of acci
dents when traffic rules have
been violated.
3) Eye-catching markers should
be placed at every spot where an
accident has occurred. (What a
long list ot statistics would be
revealed at each intersection on
East 15th Avenue, for example!)
Where death has occurred, a cross
should be placed. (The state of
Ohio uses this means of caution
ing drivers to take heed.)
4) Newspapers should not shield
its readers by a failure to print
revealing pictures ot bad auto ac
cidents. 5) Speed limitts should be stu
died. Allow drivers to proceed at
a fair speed where traffic con
ditions permit, but give plenty of
warning signals when speed lim
its change.
6) Lastly, why cannot some
service club, the Chamber of
Commerce or the Motor Vehicle
department undertake to put on
an intensive campaign to eradi
cate the "speed bug" and poor
driver from the road? Just as the
state of California stops all in
coming traffic to prevent its soil
to becoming infested from blight
ed fruit or plants, why cannot the
State of Oregon or even the City
of EUgene stop all motorists to ac
quaint them of the need of driv
ing safely to protect its citizens,
and when the information .has
been given, to provide the car
with a windshield sticker pro
claiming same?
Very truly yours,
MRS. KARL J. BELSER
--niiunnj
FLUOR rvp
EUGENE fT ,l
Just WHY , I10 tt Editr-
nity residents to be h! J?" V
a hoax thatwfllH
money and rmerv d
hoax that i ' the
hundreds of oxhvS1
uiuiKing water n, "
ago discovered that
catalytic asent l?" ;
and DhosnW. "H n't
stream combine to fott.l b;
enamel of teeth, ritt M
the fluorine that m.
and harden. . T. he
the teeth is not an if " '
fluorine., .v.. , ."Ut
'end to use
Th( fllinririA .
WAS an taZ."? PtJ
is altered i'
tens n the soil and &
organic flunri
quantities ',8e' Id
is the i I Zl SWV
a good effect
When the inorganic flu-,
comes in mnt
teeth it matebror,,!
on them and aetul'&i
aiKUYS THE ENAMeJ
........ OUUJCtu neaa wh!t
had to sav ahnut u
tain business interests made'
worthwhiln fnr . ... i. ' .
chemical, and scientific J!
groups to forget the facts tJ
Known.
How strone a hnlri j. a.
a w.u uw y,e .
minum manufacturing gentlej
have on the American pub
wny are so many officials, n
papers and ma?a7lni .
of the facts, or afraid to put
anything that mav hurt tw.
terests? We accept chlorine
our drinking water with!
tnorough. consideration of i
mate effect on the human iysi
Will Eueena and viHn!f .
dents do the same with Dil
GANIC fluorine .... wild
and useless by-product In iluf
num manufacture?
Why not make an TMPAffl
TIAL STUDY FIRST, the
decide whether we are to
shackled with this mat
R. H. CRAM
Dr. Elliot, Optometrist f
Eyes examined, ghssej fillet
62 W. 10th Phone 4-lf
VISIT OUB
LENOX ROOM
Largest single display of Lend
on the Pacific Coast
IIOFFMAXS
873 Willamette-
Officials over the nation have
cracked down on football pool tickets
making it quite clear they're not taking
any chances.
The elections over the country prob
ably reminded a lot of people not to
vote.
We suggest solitary confinement for
the first person who says, "Only a few
more weeks until Christmas."
An Ohio woman Identified a robber
who snitched her husband's pay envel
ope. Now she probably has it.
When you make promises to friendj
nd fall to come through, you arel
According to a college professor, a
man's laugh reveals his character. Espe
cially if he has heard the joke before.
THANKSGIVING EVE
"Girp fhiink to the Lord." Luke 2.-.1S
We link Thanksgiving with Plymouth
Rook . . . But Paul thanked God at
Antioch . . . While David sang his
thankful chord . . . And Anna "gave
thanks unto the Lord" . , . We find the
chief thanks-giver of all . . . Was Job.
who under affliction's pall . . , Could
find much to be thankful for , , , So
why can't we, In spite of war . . . Un
certain future and world privation
. . . for all we have be a grateful
nation?
JUL1EN C. HYER
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