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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 16, 1939)
-SATUKDAY, DEC. 16, 1939 PAGE 2 THE BATTALION The Battalion STUDENT TRI-WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF TEXAS A. & M. COLLEGE The Battalion, official newspaper of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas and the city of College Station, is published three times weekly from September to June, issued Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings; and is published weekly from June through August. Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office at College Station, Texas, under the Act of Congress of March 8, 1879. Subscription rate, $8 a school year. Advertising rates upon request. Represented nationally by National Advertising Service, Inc., at New York City, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Office, Room 122, Administration Building. Telephone 1-5444. 1939 Member 1940 FHsociated Golle&iate Press BILL MURRAY FT) TTOR-IN-CHIEF r.»RT?V WTiUTOT/R ADVERTISING MANAGER Aaaor.iata Editor E. C. (Jeep) Oatea Sports Editor _ Circulation Manager Intramural Editor Staff Photographer John J. Moseley Staff Artist SATURDAY STAFF Acting Managing Editor _ Asst. Advertising Manager W. C. Carter —.— A. J. Robinson Editorial Assistant Junior Editors Billy Clarkson Cecil De Vilbiss Senior Sports Assistants Jimmy James Junior Advertising Solicitors J. M. Sedberry G. M. Woodman Reportorial Staff J. W. Amyx, W. G. Bohning, P. H. Brown, G. M. Green, M. L. Howard, W. A. Moore. Jack McGarr, Leslie Newman. J. A. Shelton, Alden S. McKellar, E. M. Rosenthal, Lee Rogers. Town Hall and the Houston Symphony Orchestra That Aggies are not lacking in culture, and that they do appreciate the finer things in life was emphatically demonstrated Tuesday night by a capacity crowd in Guion Hall that applauded the Houston Symphony Orchestra to countless bows and five encores, and even then was anxious to hear more. And the audience really had reason to ap plaud, for to anyone with an appreciation of music, the orchestra was magnificent. Its program con sisted of a number of the best-known and best loved classical and semi-classical selections. Words cannot amply describe the beauty, the thrilling im pressiveness of the orchestra's rendition. The orchestra members expressed great satis faction and pleasure at all the arrangements made for their program and their stay here, and at the enthusiasm with which the Aggie audience received them on their second visit to this campus. They also stated that they were highly pleased that the Aggies were so well-behaved and “didn’t throw paper wads, and do other such tricks” as did the audience that heard the orchestra a few nights ago at the University of Texas. After their success thus far, The Battalion feels that Town Hall and its management are due the highest of compliments. This year stu dent manager Walter “Sully” Sullivan and his as sistants have succeeded in bringing to this campus the greatest aggregation of talent ever to visit A. & M. The Houston Symphony Orchestra, en thusiastic as was its reception, is just one of a list of great names in the entertainment world appear ing at A. & M. during 1939-40. Those that have thus far appeared include, beside the orchestra, nationally famous politician, and authority on public affairs, Phil LaFollette, and Serge Jaroff’s original Don Cossacks Choir (the latter at a time when schools all over the country were hearing other imitation Don Cossacks). Yet to appear are Max Gene Nohl, famous ad venturer, photographer, writer, lecturer, authority on sunken ships, and champion deep-sea diver; the incomparable Gladys Swarthout, world-famous star of opera, radio, stage, and screen; and a popular .awing band not yet announced. And so enthusias tic has been this year’s reception of Town Hall, that an additional program has been secured, for -January 19. Through the efforts of President Wal ton, Frank Baldwin, newspaper publisher, recently returned from travel in Europe, has been added to Town Hall. He will relay first-hand informa tion on what is happening in Europe today. The unprecedented success of Town Hall this year, due to its support by the student body, should make possible an even greater series next year. Christmas Seals Mean Lives The ever-constant fight against tuberculosis is one of the nation-wide campaigns which should receive wholehearted support from every student at A. & M. On this campus as on others, the unre lenting fight is brought to the foreground in the sale of Christmas seals. This year’s seals, designed in brilliant reds and blues by Rockwell Kent, author and artist, are really colorful. In addition to adding a cheerful note on each of the letters and packages you will send this month, the seals bear the message that one more person is learning about tuberculosis preventative measures, that by your contribution one more victim of the disease is being helped to combat his sickness. Health education and active warfare among those stricken by tuberculosis form the two sweep ing purposes of the program. Visiting nurses, special clinics, and maintenance of children in pre ventoriums are a few of the smaller, but no less important, services of the campaign which is being conducted by the Philadelphia Health Council and Tuberculosis Committee. The drive is obviously eommendiable. The fight is carried on during eleven months of the year unobstrusively without seeking your praise or support. In buying Christmas seals, you as A. & M. students will put into action the unanimous approval of the college on the tuberculosis fight. Probably the most disappointed man is the Con gressman who goes home to mend his fence and is given the gate. Phi Betta Kappa has started a drive to raise a scholarship fund of $300,000 for “the defense of freedom of speech and the humanities.” OPE IV FORE IVI Sweetwater, Texas December 6, 1939 President T. O. Walton, Agricultural & Mechanical College, Dear Dr. Walton: During my visit with my son at the college this past week, I had the pleasure of attending the A. & M.-Texas football game and it is indeed a pleas ure for me to write you this letter and to tell you how noticeable it was the few people that were drinking at the college and during the game. It is my good fortune to be over the State and have an opportunity of seeing a lot of football games and I saw less drinking at this one in a crowd of 40,000 people than I do at the average high school football game with an attendance of 5,000. I only saw one man that showed any indi cation of being intoxicated and not a single A. & M. boy did I see that even looked like he had had a drink, and I think this speaks well of A. & M. college. During my visit there I spent quite a bit of time in the dormitories visiting with the boys and never have I seen anyone boosted by the student organization like their present president. It is al ways a pleasure to me to visit the A. & M. Col lege. Yours very truly, B. N. ROBERTS. New York City, December 6, 1939. To The Battalion: A year ago I was perusing the sayings of the philosophers that the University of Texas says must be conned before they hand out a degree in journalism. I managed to outwrestle Aristotle and the bards and got a sheepskin. The Poo-Bahs of the Fourth Estate were sing ularly unimpressed by a college graduate who did sports and amusements for the Daily Texan, wrote, produced and directed the annual varsity show, and was drama editor for an Austin daily for two years. A pox on New York editors in their seclusion! I am submitting a bit of fact and whimsey as a weekly column to tell about the goings on along Broadway in plays, whiskey, music, drama, bands of the moment and the glamour gals that college readers might be interested in. I conceived the idea on remembering how much I should have liked to have had such for the Tex an. You may have one each week for the goodly sum of nothing. No catch. Let me know how it goes over. Sincerely, JOE WHITLEY * * * (Editor’s note: Readers are invited to give their opinions of Whitley’s column^ entitled “Broadway Collegian.”) Man, Your Manners— QUESTION: Is it proper to send informal Christmas greetings to persons that we ordinarily consider as formal acquaintances ? ANSWER: There is a tendency to make Christmas greetings less formal, and it is proper to send them to those we consider formal acquaint ances. (The following has been asked several time.) QUESTION: Which is proper, to put the hus band’s or the wife’s name first when having them printed or engraved on Christmas greetings ? There is no set rule as to which should be first, but Emily Post says, “It might seem more polite to put Mary’s name first, but John and Mary follows the conventional Mr. and Mrs. form.” QUESTION: Is it proper for a young man to give his girl jewelry? ANSWER: If you are engaged, you may give her jewelry—as much as your pocketbook affords. Knox College, the original “Old Siwash,” has been selected as the location for a series of “Old Siwash” motion pictures. As the World-Turns... By DR. AL B. NELSON Aid for Finland is on the way from many na tions of the world. Most of the aid is of non military character, however, and will be absolutely valueless if the Finns are defeated in the end. Not only would it be without value to Finland but the stores sent for the oppressed would then be used by the oppressors. Military Aid Needed: Most peo ple in the U. S. seemingly are satis fied to sit back and thank God that we are not as other people, we mere ly pity others who are not strong enough to care for themselves. We forget many times, that had it not been for military aid from overseas the thirteen colonies would not have won their in dependence at that time. Washington’s victorious army at Yorktown was largely composed of French regular troops and a French fleet made the vic tory possible. Newspapers over the U. S. are collecting money to aid Finnish civilians. The Dallas Morning News has already raised about two thousand dollars. John Nance Garner is to run for the presidency whether Roosevelt seeks a third term or not, ac cording to announcement of E. B. Germany over a national radio chain. Mr. Germany is one of the managers of the pre-convention campaign for Gar ner. A naval battle at last in which two British cruisers armed with six-inch guns plus one armed with eight-inch guns battled the German pocket- battleship Von Spee. The German ship armed with eleven-inch guns firing a broadside of 4,700 pounds, was defeated and driven to shelter by the lighter British ships firing a broadside of only 3,100 pounds. In spite of the facts as established by neutrals, the Germans claim a great naval victory! Nelson Off the Record “If only you looked like Robert Taylorl" By Ray Treadwell Guest Reviewer After an absence of six months quite an amount of fury can be stored up to expand on the movie industry, so here I come again as guest reviewer. Right at the present moment the motion picture industry is concen trating its forces for one of the most brilliantly conducted publicity campaigns in the history of film to bring out the $4,000,000 pic ture, “Gone With the Wind.” The campaign may not have the color to it that other campaigns have had but it will be designed to bring in cash-customers to the much- talked-of show. No matter how good the show, which is to make its debut next Thursday in the major theaters— maybe—the movie industry aims at only one point: that is to keep the movie in line with the book by making it a record-breaker in attendance just as the book was a record-breaking best-seller. That is just a point to keep in mind when reading press publicity or newspaper ads about “Gone With the Wind.” At the time of the last press release the film was still two hours and forty-five minutes in length and is a whole show in itself. Per sonally I want to see the show just to see how good a picturization of the book appears in Hollywood style. I think a vast majority of the people who read the book have definite mental pictures of the characters, and in true movie style the film characters will probably resemble the mental characters on ly in name. So much for that. • “BACHELOR MOTHER,” RKO Radio production, is showing at the Assembly Hall Saturday night. The picture is directed by Garrison Kanin and produced by B. G. Besylva from a story by Felix Jackson. Cast: Polly Parrish........Ginger Rogers David Merlin David Niven J. B. Merlin Charles Coburn Freddie Miller....Frank Albertson Butler E. E. Clive The picture has all of the at traction of a back-alley peep show just as did “Yes, My Darling Daughter.” To read publicity for the show one would think that it was slipped by the censer’s office in the dead of night as was the case of the publicity of the afore mentioned show. However, this is not the case this time because where “Yes, My Darling Daugh ter” fizzled after one walked in side the show. Ginger Rogers comes through with some outstand ing entertainment. If you go to this show with the expectation of seeing some real dirt you are going to be disappoint ed, but if you can rake the build up out of your mind and watch the action it’s worth the time and effort. WHATS SHOWING AT THE ASSEMBLY HALL Saturday, 12:30 — “THE HARDYS RIDE HIGH,” with Mickey Rooney and Lewis Stone. Saturday, 6:30 and 8:30— “BACHELOR MOTHER”— Ginger Rogers and David Niven. AT THE PALACE Sunday, Monday and Tues day — “ON DRESS PA RADE,” with the Dead End Kids and John Litel. AT THE QUEEN Sunday and Monday—“ON YOUR TOES,” with Zorina. The A. & M. Hillel Club was privileged recently in hearing Mrs. Rose Bernard of San Antonio present one of her well known pro grams of Jewish ceremonial, religi ous, and folk songs. Her entertainment, following a regular meeting of the club, open ed with presentation of the songs and chants of the Sabbath day. A group of familiar folk songs in English, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ara maic followed. The program con cluded with the music of the pre sent holiday of Chanaucha. A Norwegian shipping line has named one of its vessels “Tulane” in honor of Tulane University. BACKWASH “Backwash: An agitation resulting from some action By George Fuermann or occurrence.”—Webster. Seven more shopping days til Christmas. . . Santa Claus came to Bryan yesterday—but via the “modern” method. The whiskered one parachuted to earth from an airplane . . . Cadet Colonel Woody Varner has re ceived 17 letters from Texans in respect to his re buttal of Lloyd Gregory’s poorly Fuermann aimed shots at A. & M. Sixteen of the letters heartily endorsed Woody’s reply. . . Backwash here goes on record as advocating that women be allowed to remove their hats in theaters, auditoriums, and other public places. At last Tuesday night’s Houston Symphony concert the writer sat behind a prof’s wife whose hat made it a nip-and-tuck battle all the way in respect to who would see most of the concert —the hat or your columnist. The hat won!! . . . Another Aggie who has done his share of making the current Town Hall series the great success it has been this year is the series’ electrician, Carl Pipkin. • The All 1 American boner: In a recent showing of Para mount News’ All-American selec tion for the current season, pic tures of some thirty of the na tion’s footballers were flashed on the screen to show the audience how Paramount reached its final decision. Getting around to tackles, Marshall Robnett’s picture was shown as the announcer all- knowingly pointed out that the lad on the screen was none other than “Texas A. & M.’s ace tackle, Joe Boyd.” And speaking of All-Americas, how about this one for the nation’s first-ranking puzzle: The Associated Press football poll shows the Texas Aggies the top football team of the nation, yet the A. P. poll for the out standing team for any sport dur ing the year, which listed the New York Yankees as the leader, places Iowa, Southern California, Tennes see, and Cornell teams above the Aggies. • Add to Hitler stories: A teacher in the primary grades somewhere in England had request ed her charges to write a little letter to Herr Hitler, expressing such sentiments as their ten-year old minds might contain. She re ceived various replies, but the one that impressed her most came from a boy who lived on the other side of the tracks. “Dear Mr. Hit ler, sir,” he wrote. “Please do not kill our teacher, as we might get a worse one. Sincerely yours, Jim Hatchfield.” AH WOMEN tL Charlton Special to The Battalion from The Lass-O of T. S. C. W. Marion Guinn receives letters from England from a boy named Dennis. Recently he wrote: “I’m so sorry you were ill. The excite ment of the football match must have been too much for you. What do A. & M. and T. C. U. stand for? I guess Ancient and Modern and Texas Cities United. I wonder how far wrong I am. And by the way, what are drunk Aggies?” Janice Halsell, freshman, had heard that T.S.C.W.-ites and Ag gies dated a lot, but in her ten weeks at school she hadn’t met a single uniformed student. During the Thanksgiving holidays she had a blind date with one; therefore, she decided that the best place to meet an Aggie was in her home town. At the Rio Grande Valley Club dinner: Charlie Hamner and Kath leen Twenhefel, George Tillson, and Irlene Cook, Arthur Le Page and Eloise Allen. Seen in front of Austin Hall with Hamner Satur day afternoon were Roland Hass, Richard Moore, James Ragsdale, and “Red” Cecil. And here’s where the news angle comes in ... . there wasn’t a girl in sight! On the campus today will be Roy Martin, Shelby White, and Ted Weydell to discuss plans for the Southwest Texas Club’s Christmas dance with Eloise Hunt, Southwest Texas Club president here. Guests of honor at the dance will be the members of the T.S.C.W. club. Big event will be in Crystal City December 29. On the campus last weekend: Walton Lehmberg and Victor Koth- man to see Jewell Grosse and La Belle Schuessler; Woolie Streicher (ex-Aggie) to see Polly Norwood. B. Christian, who spends al most as much time on this campus as he does at A. & M., breezed in to Denton Monday night for a date with Jane Abbott, and is back again this week-end for the Adel- phian Club dance. And we hear that “Backwash” Fuermann will whip into Denton sometime today. Answers to the open letter to Aggies from “A Modern College Girl,” which appeared in the No vember Bat, are still filling the Lass-O editor’s mail box. We haven’t been able to find out who the Modern College Girl is, so we have taken the liberty of reading the letters you Aggies have writ ten. As to your opinions, more of you agreed than disagreed with her letter, but many of you suggested that our Modern College Girl fol low the Golden Rule if she expects to find a sincere Aggie. SUGAR BOWL BOUND Make The Trip In One Day HITCH-HIKE DAY AND NIGHT WITH A Reflection Emblem Get Your A. & M. Reflector from Keyes Carson 66 Milner SEE OUR SHOW WINDOWS When Buying Your Christmas Gift Come In And Let Us Help You Decide THE EXCHANGE STORE “An Aggie Institution’ J * i- V * J * * f 4 i ¥ 1 t * *