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About The Texas Aggie. (College Station, Tex.) 1921-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 15, 1936)
THE TEXAS AGGIE. Published Semi-Monthly at the A. & M. Press, College Station, Texas, except dur- ing the summer months, when issued monthly by the Association of Former Students of the Agricultural and Mechan- ical College of Texas, College Station, Texas. 1.. A. Ubr, '17 President Tyree lL. Bell, 218s. ........000 Vice President E. E. McQuillen, ’20...Executive Secretary L.. B.. Locke, ?18............ Assistant Secretary Subscription Price $5.00 Entered as Second Class Matter at College Station, Texas E. E. McQuillen................ Publisher Directors Knox lee, #208... cccvecci fan. Marshall H.S KB -Deason, ’16:... » Li ns Port Arthur Joe M. McRevnolds, ’22....... ..__....Mineola F. D. Perkins, 97 McKinney W. B. Francis, ’15 Dallas Estil Y. Cunningham, ’10.......... Corsicana W. L. Ballard, ’22 C..iR. Haile, .’12.......0%...4. J... A. Stark, -’21 Elmore R. Torn, WoC. "Tortenee; 18... Li ete i iciteninn Waco Phil 'S: Groginski,«*16................. Fort Worth C.D. Dodson, 20Y..........co..c.clictimmetefinis Decatur T. B. Warden, ’03 Austin Pl EsBorfle, 23) i nlc inti Brownsville Marcus Gist, ’22 Odessa W."W. Whipkey.: 21L...........c.ouunmsens Colorado Oscar A. Seward, ’017..........cw.ie.... Groesbeck A. P. Duggan, ’95 Littlefield George G. Smith, ’30................ San Antonio Richard E. Homann, ’27.. Junction €. +1. Babcock, 17........... Beaumont Col. "Pi Ti. LDOWNE,: "TD tik eroriirmimismsiete Temple Albert G. Pfaff, ’27 Tyler T. W. Mohle, ’19 Houston EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ' 1.-A.'Ohz, 717 San Antonio Tyree L. Bell, ’15 Corsicana E.R. Torn ,’27 Taylor T. W. Mohle, ’19 Houston Oscar A. Seward, ’07 STUDENT LOAN FUND TRUSTEES 1.4. Uhr, “U7 San Antonio A. PF. Mitchell, 209.000 ccciiunrsissases Corsicana E. E. McQuillen, ’20............ College Station REPRESENTATIVES ON ATHLETIC : COUNCIL C. A. Thanheiser, ’01 Houston Albert G. Pfaff, ’27 Tyler THE BED OF PROCRUSTES An ancient Greek legend told of a robber named Procrustes, who made his captives fit into a certain bed by stretching those too short or amputating those too long. Usually there is a sort of teach- ing implied in Greek legends or fa- bles. Procrustes must be the patron saint of those who would have everyone think alike. He has a large following in Russia, Ger- many and Italy. In all three coun- tries it is unsafe to differ from the set standards of belief ordained by those in authority. Such leaders, of course, assume that their stand- ardized beliefs are the principles of a perfect system of society. By contrast, the Anglo-Ameri- can world, after centuries of pain- ful experience, climaxed from time to time by revolutions like those of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies, developed a system of gov- ernment that permits free thought and the free expression of one’s opinions. Unfortunately in both Great Britain and the United Stat- es there are numerous followers of Procrustes' who believe that, in this country for instance, the 130,- 000,000 of inhabitants should in religion or in politics all believe what the self-appointed censors think they should believe. These Procrusteans, of course, have the right to think as they do but they have no right to compel others to agree with them, com- pelling all to fit into the same bed. They are incipient Bolshevists or Reds or they are Fascists, either German of Italian in kind. If by chance they should dominate the Government in State or Nation they would develop fixed systems, ini- mical to democracy, even though they conscientiously believed that in so doing they were ‘“safe-guard- ing the bulwarks of society.” Yet nothing is truer than that social progress comes by the clash of differences in opinion, freely ex- pressed, resulting in the survival of the best in all and the elimina- tion of the worst in each. 3 In this country there is much ado about our high schools, col- leges and universities. Our Pro- crusteans charge that these are radical and un-American. As a matter of fact, students and teach- ers with very few exceptions are more truly Americans than are their accusers. These have fixed be- liefs and assume that society mov- es backward, not forward. From our higher educational institutions of today will come probably four fifths of tomorrow’s leaders, who will attain leadership because they are not afraid to think and to fol- low their convictions. So-called rad- icals, if oppressed, become worse and cranky. Left alone, they cor- rect one another’s errors and often become wise leaders. A wise Jew once said in sub- stance, “Let those men alone. If they speak falsely, their words will fail. But if they speak truly, they win, because God is with them.” , | though badly burned hope was held ‘thing that every economically lit- CARY NEBLET SMITH, ’34 Cary N. Smith, ’34, who died following an explosion at Gulf, Texas, on Thanksgiving Day, was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Travis L. Smith, Jr., ’98, 308 Hyde Park, Houston. He was employed by the Humble Oil and Refining Co., and was at work installing a gas meter when the accident occurred. Al- for young Smith’s recovery until shortly before his death in Hous- ton on December 15th. His many A. & M. friends join with the AG- GIE in expressing to his bereaved parents and brothers their deepest sympathy. TOMMY MAYO HIS COLUMN What becomes of our incomes, anyhow? A part, of course, is spent for goods and services such as buy- ing shoes and having them shined. The rest (darned little, if you ask me!) is “saved”. rk But what becomes of “savings”? (not only of yours, friend ex-Ag- gie, but of those of the big shots up North?) Well, the orthodox an- swer is, I believe, that it is the nation’s savings which, accumulat- ed in banks and elsewhere into large gobs, supply the necessary capital for building factories, open- ing mines, and in general starting enterprises which produce useful things for all of us and pay to us poor devils the wages with which to buy them and to lay up more savings to invest in starting more factories and so on ad infinitum. * * - My own childlike belief in this charming rhythm has been some- what rudely shaken by an article in the November issue of “For- tune” (of all places!), written by Dr. Harold G. Moulton, head of the infinitely respectable Brook- ings Institution. In “The Trouble with Capitalism Is the Capitalists,” Dr. Moulton summarizes the fruits of a gigantic research project re- cently completed in four fat vol- umes. What startled your corres- pondent in the article was some- erate person probably learned at his economics prof’s knee: That only a certain proportion of the nation’s savings ever gets into pro- ductive investment. x * si The rest (more than half of our total savings between 1922 and 1929) is “frozen” in safe deposit boxes, in investments in wild plac- es like Peru, and in various forms of sterile speculation which help not at all to increase our supply of useful goods or to give us more jobs and consequently more buying power. Tarr This was one jolt that Dr. Moul- ton, with the whole ponderous weight of the Brookings Institu- tion behind his punch, gave to my sense of economic all-rightness. Another blow came from the main ponit of the article and, indeed, of the whole Brookings study. ger Bae’ Capitalism works satisfactorily, as I understand from this article, just in proportion to the ease and promptness with which prices go down as profits and wages descend. If the prices of certain important kinds of goods go down fast enough, things eventually get so cheap that the nation as a whole can begin again to buy in large quantities, even with its diminished income. Then the old roller-coaster starts up the next slope, since to satisfy this reviving demand, fac- tories reopen and begin again to sprinkle wages into the parched pocket-books of the huge employee class. * * * Round Pegs In Square Holes The Aggie is in receipt of an- nouncements for Civil Service ex- aminations to cover the following positions; Senior Genetics (Hort- (Horticul- ture); (Horticul- ture); Physiologist (Horticulture); Pathologist (Horticul- Assistant Physiologist Cytologist Morphologist iculture); Associate ture); (Horticulture). These positions pay from $2600 to $4600 per year, and applications for the examinations must be on file with the Civil Ser- vice Commission not later than January 27, 1936. Also announced are Assistant to Technician (Forestry); Assistant Geophysicist; Accountant and Aud- itor; Assistant Accountant and Auditor; Senior Accounting and Auditing Assistant. Applications must be on file not later than Jan- uary 20, 1936. Campus visitors during the holi- days were Mr. and Mrs. Gordon R. Thomason, ’26, of Chicago, Illinois. Gordon is secretary-treasurer of the Chicago A. & M. Club and lives at 7669 Rogers Avenue, Chi- cago. He is with the Mason-Neilan Regulator Company. His work takes him over most of the mid- west. He reports that all A. & M. | men in Chicago were getting along satisfactorily and that they seem to be enjoying their life in the windy city. cally, anyhow) why we have al- ways climbed safely out of former depressions (1873, 1893, etc.). Pric- es were flexible in those days of small independent competitors. Whenever times began to get bad and incomes to go down, prices went down too, presumably be- cause business men tried to keep their worried heads above water by undercutting each other. * * Ed But, Dr. Moulton says, in these days of great monopolistic corpo- rations, prices stick. They refuse to fall as fas as, in bad times, they ought to fall. Hence they fail to reach the low level at which they might tempt people to begin buy- ing large quantities of the right kind of goods. And so the upgrade movement is painfully delayed if not permanently prevented. * * Ed It all seemed very sad, and I read along eagerly to find out the answer. (I quickened my pace, that is to say, to about the rate of speed attained by the faster types of snails.) ES sk * Alas! By way of solution, the good Doctor merely remarked, in more or less ringing tones, that this situation constituted a chal- lenge to American Business Men. Now, I take it that prices stick because the corportations, having largely abolished competition in certain key fields, are able to make them stay fairly high and find it profitable to do so. And after all, who can blame an outfit which makes steel, for example, if it seeks its profit in bad times in keeping prices high by making less steel? Who is there to tell such groups authoritatively to open the throttle wider, making more steel and selling it by lower- ing the price? Unfortunately, the apparently profitable process of cutting pro- duction would seem logically to in- volve the firing of a lot of people, and so of still further reducing the national buying power. But surely Capitalism rests on the principle that each man (or corporation) must seek, within the law, his own profit. So how can Dr. Moulton’s “Challenge to American Business Men” induce them to let prices go down unchecked—and thereby to lose good money, temporarily, at any rate. : Well, shall we abolish the wicked corporations and restore the free competition of the brave days of yore when men were men and prices were flexible? One answer is: Try and do it! Another is: With- out corporation organization we couldn’t to save our lives, get enough goods produced to satisfy our needs. All of which is very de- pressing to the hopeful reader of Dr. Moulton’s article. Perhaps, af- ter all, he (this reader, I mean) ought to have kept in his place and read a murder mystery to be- gin with. That would at least, in the end, have identified the mur- derer for him! (From The Dallas News) This, as I understand it, is (basi- | WEDDINGS Roberson - Saddler Announcement has been made of the wedding of Miss Nannie Faye Saddler to Mr. Clarence W. Rober- son, ’28, of Terrell. The wedding was solemnized on December 18, 1935. Mr. and Mrs. Roberson are at home at 604 N. Francis St., Ter- rell, Texas. Wright - Minter News comes to us of the mar- riage of Miss Mary Frances Min- ter, of Midland, and Mr. Alfred P. Wright, ’35, of Alice. Mr. and Mrs. Wright are at home in Houston at the present time. Beckham - Orr Miss Mary H. Orr, of Dallas, and Mr. Will C. Beckham, ’25, of Dal- las, were recently married at the Kessler Park Methodist Church of Dallas. They will make their home in Dallas. Shaw - Parks The wedding of Miss Janie Parks and Mr. Millard Shaw, ’35, of Spring Creek, was solemnized at the home of the bride’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. FP. Parks, of Farmersville. After a brief honey- moon, Mr. and Mrs. Shaw are at home in Lockhart, Texas, where Shaw is an engineer for the Soil Conservation Service located at Lockhart. ' Herren - Meyers This office has received the news of the marriage of Miss Geraldyne Elaine Meyers, of Detroit, to Mr. John C. Herren, ’29, of Tulsa, Ok- lahoma. Mr. and Mrs. Herren make their home at 1335 S. Rockford, Tulsa, Okla. Shepherd - Atwood The wedding of Miss Margaret Atwood, of Beaumont, and Mr. George W. Shepherd, ’33, of Beau- mont, was celebrated on November 15, at the First Methodist Church. Following a lovely wedding trip, Mr. and Mrs. Shepherd are at home at 2075 North Street, Beaumont, Texas. ‘Wheless - Green On November 16, Miss Frances Green, of Dallas, became the bride of Mr. Jesse H. Wheless, Jr., 26, of Dallas. Mr. and Mrs. Wheless are at home to their many friends at 3914 Ross Avenue, Dallas, where both are employed in the Resettle- ment Administration offices. Sloan - Munsey On December 12, Miss Eleanor Munsey, of Corsicana, became the bride of Mr. Robert E. O. Sloan, 27, of San Saba, Texas. Attending the couple were Mr. and Mrs. Paul Sloan, ’31, a brother of the groom. Mr. and Mrs. Sloan are at home to their. friends at Floresville, Tex- as, where “Bobby” is with the Soil Conservation Service. BIRTHS Mr. and Mrs. H. D. Murray, ’31, are receiving congratulations from their many friends over the birth of a little girl, born on December 24. Mr. and Mrs. Murray make their home at Leford, Texas and receive their mail at Box 839. R. A. “Bob” Kern, ’12, is president of Kern-Limerick Incorporated, 116 North Spring Street, Little Rock, Arkansas. The company handles road building and maintenance machinery, and contractors equip- ment and supplies and is one of the largest of its kind in Arkan- sas. While known as “Bob” in the Razorback state, Kern will be re- membered by his A. & M. friends as “Tramp” Kern, who was a star quarterback on the AGGIE teams of his day. S. Milton Stubbs, ’34, recently received his appointment with the soil conservation service and is lo- cated at Lindale. Ward W. Newport, ’33, has mov- ed from Bryan to Groveton, where he will be in charge of the rural resettlement administration prog- ram. A. M. “Bud” Emery, Jr. ’33, is with the Goodyear Tire and Rub- ber Company at Dallas. He and Mrs. Emery live at 4023 Hawthorne suggestions of A. and M. men. the writer given. and preferably short. SO OUR SONS CAN HUNT Dear Mac: Several months ago, while I was in North Dakota doing work on wild life preservation, you asked me to write about my experiences with the Biological Survey. This is the first chance I have had to com- ply. I started to work with the Bio- logical Survey at DeWitt, Arkan- sas on August 27, 1934. The work was to be on the lands of the White River Company, which were scat- | tered along the White River from above Clarendon, Arkansas to near- ly Arkansas Post, Ark. The country where we worked is overflow land, covered with vary- ing amounts of virgin timber, sec- ond growth timber, and under- brush, all timber being hardwood. It is situated in the White River bottom, but in the backwaters of the Mississippi. All streams be- tween the Mississippi, White Riv- er, and Lagrue Bayou were equal- izers, as the water would flow in different directions, depending on which stream was the highest. The country had been logged some by Fisher Body Company, but the main sources of living were fishing, gathering mussel shells, and some moonshining. The fish were catfish and buffalo. All river people lived in house boats, either on scow hulls, or on floater logs. All year round transportation was by motor boat, as a car could only be used in the river bottoms about six months of the year. Mail was usually delivered by the fish boat that ran twice a week. The main event of the year was the duck hunting season in the fall, when a lot of out of state hunters came in for hunting. This is a migratory refuge for waterfowl. The bottoms abound in shallow lakes, old cutoff channels, and some bayous for nesting places. Food is provided by acorns, wild grasses, and is within flying dis- tance of the Arkansas rice belt. The Arkansas rice belt around De Witt, Stuttgart, St. Charles, and Gillette was within 25 miles of any part of the refuge. The ducks eat waste rice, under weight rice from the thresher, and if the crop is not in before the main migration is on, will raid the shocks. This is an old but still somewhat isolated part of Arkansas. Arkan- sas Post was founded by La Salle in the 1600’s and was the original territorial capital of Arkansas. De Witt was over a hundred years old and was the county seat of Ark- ansas, County. St. Charles was possibly older than DeWitt, and had been an important place in steam boat days. It was the site of a naval battle in the Civil War in which the U. S. S. Mound City was destroyed with 166 killed. Has "declined since those days, but will be the headquarters of the refuge. At DeWitt and other towns in the upland, I found the people very friendly. Got along fine with the river people. However, in the bot- toms it is a breach of etiquette to ask a man his name or his bus- iness. Was transferred from Arkansas to North Dakota on April 26th, leaving DeWitt that day. Had a fine trip up till we got to Grand Forks, North Dakota. Ran into a snow storm at Devil’s Lake, North Dakota and was tied up two days by blocked roads. The night we got to Minot, the temperature was 17 below zero. That in itself was quite a shock for a Texan who never had seen zero temperatures. Was then transferred to Mohall, North Dakota, which is northwest of Mi- not, and thirteen miles from the Canadian border. Here we were to work in the breeding grounds of the ducks. The | kees, a few Southerners, (This column hopes to serve as a clearing house for the opinions, the ideas and the All communications must be signed and the address of Thev must he free from libel. personal abuse or critical personalities, Readers of THE ACGIE ave invited to express their views upon ducks nest in the Souris River val- ley and in pot holes on the prairie. The country is a flat level plain, except at the Souris River which is from thirty feet to one hundred feet below the surrounding plain and the glacial pot holes or small ponds on the prairie. This country is all glacial and is covered with as much as three hundred feet of glacial drift. Never did see any bed rock or stratified deposits as we know them. This is some of the country that was described in the Saturday Ev- ening Post in the spring of 1935. Had a time getting the dust out of my eyes, ears, and hair. Also had a time with the dust even working in a sealed transit. Was unable to see the sun for solar observations for several weeks at one time. Gave up field work in disgust several times on account of the dust. Some land here was ruined by wind eros- ion, and quite a lot of wheat and small grain blown out of the ground. The country is very flat, with the exception of near the Souris River where the prairie is gashed with steep sided ravines called cou- lees. The only trees are in parts ‘of the river bottom, and along the | pot holes in the prairie It is main- ly a wheat, flax, and ranching country. Is better at ranching than anything else. The government is buying the river bottoms, and what hill land necessary to round out the refuge. This is all sectionized land and is usually bought in square blocks of a regular subdivision of a sec- tion. They are building dams to flood portions of the valley, so as to restore nesting places. It is hop- ed also that the river water will restore ground water level on the prairies, and provide a resting place for sea gulls. The sea gulls destroy the grass hoppers which are far worse than any I have seen in Texas. Some of this land was drained about 1918, and has never made a good crop, and some of the land that was making good crops is now too dry. There are three CCC camps on the refuges now, clearing timber, building roads, and planting aqua- tic plants. They also riprapped the branch line of the Soo Ry where it crosses the refuge. They are trying to have things partly ready in the nesting grounds for the 1936 breeding season. The people where I was are most- ly Norwegians. Found a few Yan- some Irish, some Germans, and a few Swedes. The climate is cold most of the year. The ground did not thaw out till two weeks after Easter, and the first killing frost was the 30th of August. Ground was frozen by Oct. 20. Fires felt good in June, and had to be started again by Sept. 10. Left there November 23, and the thermometer had been as much as seventeen below. Was transferred to the Sabine Lake refuge, with headquarters at Orange, Texas. Have been working in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, around Hackberry, Louisiana, most of the time. This is a winter refuge. Am on the Orange-Cameron Land Company land which is known bet- ter to most Texans as Lutcher Stark’s land. This is muskrat and duck swamp. Will have to travel to work in a motor boat, and live in a trapping camp while on the job. Have not been on the job enough as yet to tell a lot about it. In my travels around, I have worked with G. E. McDaniel, Jr., 17, CBE, G 7. Harris, Ex. 23. Have run across several A. & M. men here and one ’33 Petroleum Engineer at Hackberry, Louisiana. Yours truly J. F. Kerr, "23, C.E. P. 0. Box 729 Orange, Texas. J. P. “Jake” Hamblen, ’25, is sales manager of the Southern Electric Supply Company, 1605 Preston Avenue, Houston. He re- ports that his company is prepared to do a big line of business this year. Donald C. Glass, ’33, has been with the Humble Oil and Refining Company since his graduation and at present is located at Greta, Tex- as. His mailing address, however, is 511 Castano Avenue, San Anto- nio.
