PAGE 2
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
Puesday, 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
t-6444.
1939 Member 1940
Associated GoUe&iate Press
BILL MURRAY _
LARRY WEHRLE .
James Crits
E. C. (Jeep) Oates
EL G. Howard
“Hub" Johnson —
Philip Golman
John J. Moseley
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ADVERTISING MANAGER
Associate Editor
Sports Editor
Circulation Manager
Intramural Editor
Staff Photographer
Staff Artist
Ray Treadwell ....
J. W. Jenkins
Don McChesney ...
Phil Levine
THURSDAY STAFF
Managing Editor
Asst. Advertising Manager
Asst. Circulation Manager
Editorial Assistant
Junior Editors
George Fuermann .... — Bo' 5 Nisbet
Senior Sports Assistants
Jimmie Cokinos - Jimmy James
Junior Advertising Solicitors
L. J. Nelson - - A - J- Hendrick
Reportoriai Staff
Jack Aycock, H. D. Borgfeld, P. H. Brown, R- A. Doak, Jim
Dooley, Walter Goodman. Guy Kane, R. R. Mattox. R. Pearce,
R. G. Powell. Walter Sullivan, Delbert Whitaker. D. C. Thurman,
Murray Evans, Dow Wynn, Joe Taylor
“Wise Guys”
Now that most students are wishing for the
first time in four months that they had studied
along, the time seems propitious for a short sermon
on the matter.
For years among a majority of students on this
campus there has been an insidious stigma at
tached to studying, especially regular studying.
With them, it’s a great thing to boast, not how
much they study, but how little they study. To
pass a course without studying is a sly trick on
the professor. It's not uncommon at all to hear,
■“I haven't cracked a book in that course till yet.”
And the deplorable thing about it all is that this
is held to be complete justification for failing a
course. Asked why they “busted” such-and-such
course, they answer, “Oh, I didn’t study.” But that’s
no answer. The question goes behind that. Why
in the h—1 didn’t you study?
What did you come to this school for? Oh,
we know the answer to that one, too. You came
here for contacts. Well, if you wise birds would
open your economics textbooks and learn about the
universal laws of diminishing returns and diminish
ing utility, you would know that you could make
your contacts and study too, and come out fur
ther ahead than if you spent all your time whirling
about on social and contact business. If you don’t
understand why, suppose you exercise your dor
mant intellectual curiosity for once and find out.
It’s simply the old story that you get more good
from eating the first banana than from eating the
second, and so forth. The moral is that if you mix
your diet, you won’t get the rickets.
Of course, we’re not urging anyone to become
a bookworm. Ours is the case of the old-fashioned
preacher. He damned his congregation for their
sins, not to make angels out of them, but to get
them to be a little good. We condemn certain stu
dents for their indolence, not to make bookworms
out of them, but to get them to study a little.
Studying is not a waste of time. You’ll find
a great deal of unexpected good to come of it. A
storehouse of knowledge is a rather useful thing,
and there’s not much information you can’t find
a use for at some future time.
What we deplore are those empty-headed per
sons who go around bragging about their empty
heads. Invoking the spirit of rugged old Thomas
■Carlyle again, we shout to those indolent igno-
Tamuses, “Put some wisdom in those vacuous,
■cavernous craniums of yours while you may, or
•else you’ll rattle on with your fatuous do-nothing
philosophy until the end of your useless lives.”
—The Daily Texan
Crosswords or Courses?
Civil service examinations are the chief hope
of many job-worried graduates. This year’s tests,
however, with their emphasis upon “general apti
tude” worry a good many technical students who
know a lot about one field and almost nothing about
others. Foresters, for example, are thumbing
through dictionaries and working crossword puzzles
in a feverish attempt to improve their general
knowledge before the examinations are given. Their
specialized technical training will do them no good
unless they can first pass the general aptitude
part of the examination.
Civil service authorities are not to blame for the
unhealthy situation. They may be praised for forc
ing university students to become educated. For
nobody may fairly be called “educated” when he is
totally unequipped to deal with any problem out
side his specialized field. Specialization is valu
able only as it grows out of a fairly broad back
ground. No, the civil service examinations do not
create the problem. They merely point out its ex
istence and demand of students their solution.
The most obvious solution is a schedule of
courses designed to expose every student to a gen
eral education. The two main difficulties in the
way of solving the problem are the scarcity of
courses specifically designed to attract and ad
vanced specialist in search of broader knowledge
and the unwillingness of some department heads
to let their students “waste time” in other depart
ments.
The first problem can be solved by those who
design and teach courses. Most of them know they
can cram most of the essentials of their fields into
one-semester or one-year courses if they know their
classes will be composed of serious juniors and sen
iors seeking to learn a little about a lot of things
in a short time. Most of the present introductory
courses do not fill the need because they are intend
ed for freshmen and sophomores who expect to
take further work in the field, not for juniors and
seniors who have come to realize they have missed
something and want the cream of that “something”
quickly. But the courses could be arranged, and
the department heads who planned them would
find they filled a need.
The other difficulty arises from the natural
conceit of the specialist teacher who knows his field
well. He is a specialist because he thought his
field was most important. As he continues teach
ing, he comes to think it is all-important. Finally,
he insists that his students think it is all-important,
too, and resents their thinking they need informa
tion he is not qualified to give them. He is trapped
by the fallacy that traps many successful specialists
—if he is an authority in engineering, he thinks he
should be accepted as an authority in political
science, or literature, or psychology. Professors in
those courses, in turn, fail to see the value of a
general course in engineering for their students.
No immediate alleviation of the “specialized
inaptitude” evil is in sight. Candidates for this
year’s civil service positions may get what help they
can from reading, participating in extracurricular
activities, taking freshman courses, and working
crossword puzzles. All will help. If they get cross
enough now, someday they may not be so puzzled.
Lost: A Thumb
At least there is one group in the world not
opposed to the hitch-hiker, we are happy to hear.
According to a survey conducted not so long ago
by the Student Opinion Surveys of America, 80
per cent of the collegians go on record against
hitch-hiking laws.
Ask the average hitch-hiker, and he will tell
you that the whole world is against him, especially
that part of the world that rides around in automo
biles—with empty back seats.
A few unfortunate incidents and the wide pub
lication of them have well nigh ruined the hitch
hiking trade. There was a time, when automobiles
did not zip by so fast, that one wave of the
thumb would secure a “hop.” Nowadays, however,
the average motorist is afraid to pick up a thumb-
thrower, and that seems a shame.
The majority of hitch-hikers are harmless.
Many are college boys, innocent of anti-social act
or motive.
Nevertheless, many car drivers won’t take a
chance, and if the present attitude continues, per
haps the art of hitch-hiking will take its place
alongside the Egyptian skill of embalming its
mummies. —Clipped.
An aged Virginia negro was arrested for mak
ing counterfeit silver dollars. Federal agents who
made the arrest said he used pure silver in his
operations and there was more of it in the coins he
turned out than in those of the government.
* * *
A wife shot her husband because she “just got
tired of seeing him around.”
* * *
A colored minister in Tennessee told state
liquor control officers when getting a permit to
buy sacramental wine of his church that “If it’s
all the same to you, my congregation would like
to take out gin instead of wine. We all voted that
way.”
* * *
Was it worth it?—Since the first World War—
“the war to end all wars”—there have been about
60 other wars throughout the world. During the
World War an average of four men a minute gave
up their lives.
As the World Turns...
By “COUNT” V. K. SUGAREFF
Communism is parading throughout the land in
various forms. Like “Socialism” in the early years
of this century, Communism conveys a special
stigma. Yet, Socialism nowadays is a mild term.
No one, as yet, has given us a comprehensive defi
nition of Communism, and the
promiscuous use of the term is
giving Mr. Average American a
nightmare. In 1848 the Commu
nist party in Europe demanded,
among other things, a graduated
income tax and free public schools,
both of which we have adopted in
the United States. The party also
advocated the abolition of the right
of inheritance, a principle which we
incorporated in our graduated in
heritance tax. Communistic exper
iments are not a novelty in Amer
ican history. Seven religious and four secular com
munal societies have been in operation in the United
States at different periods of American history, for
example, the Dunkers, Separatists, Icarians, and
Brook Farm. It is possible that the spectre of Com
munism will not haunt us in the near future.
But, before the nightmare of communism shall
have spent itself, “some decent Americans may
have been unfairly smeared.” Take, for instance,
the consumer organizations which J. B. Matthews,
investigator for the Dies Committee, branded re
cently as Communistic, because they criticized false
advertising. Since Communists attack advertising
as a capitalistic institution, consumer organizations
are Communistic. So Mr. Matthews reasons. But,
the Federal Trade Commission is constantly fight
ing false advertising. The commission publishes
the names of the firms and orders them to “cease”
and “desist” their unfair practices. Is the F. T. C.
Communistic? Mr. Matthews’ logic is full of falla
cies.
* * *
60% of the world’s gold is in the United States.
If the present war should end in the defeat of the
Allies, many people would be concerned as to the
future of gold. At present gold is worth $35 an
ounce. Any appreciable drop in the value of gold
is bound to affect our monetary status unfavor
ably. Should Germany come out victorious, the
world might adopt the barter system. The barter
system has not been as efficient as some people
would have us believe. The totalitarian states are
not in a position to supply the world with all the
commodities that the peoples of the world need.
Moreover, even if the barter system should be at
tempted, it would be like substituting the wheel
barrow for the automobile. The world is not ready
to do that.
THE BATTALION
■THURSDAY, FEB. 1, 1940
BACKWASH
By
George Fuermann
“Backwash: An agitation resulting from some action or occurrence.’’—Webstar.
The way of things . . . Cadet
mail carrier Jack Calhoun often
comes across unusual addresses,
but the gem which came to the
Registrar’s Office last week almost
set a new high
even in Jack’s ex
periences. Ad
dressed to the col
lege, it read,
“Texas "A. & M.
College, Some-
jypjIHE. * where between
Dallas and Hous-
ton, U. S. A.” . .
Fuermann The Sbisa Volun
teers—an organi
zation composed of waiters in the
old dining hall—will have a page
in the Longhorn this year for the
first time in their history! . . . .
Aggie who is most consistently in
evidence at the Friday afternoon
Clambakes—Dick Hobbs. He’s on
ly missed one thus far ... With a
rather despondent look on his face,
an eco student was gazing out of
a fourth-floor window of the Aca
demic Building earlier this week r
“Don’t jump,” Johnny Smith warn
ed, “finals only come twice a year!”
. . . Factual statement to end all
factual statements: Jim Pridmore’s
statement that “Well, I’m exempt—
from exemptions!”
•
She didn’t like geography any
way:
A couple of pleasure-bent Aggies
—one of whom was a Cleveland,
Ohio product—recently dated an
equal number of local waitresses.
After exchanging the usual small
talk, one couple left the table to
dance, and, upon returning, the
Yankee was greeted by a fellow
cadet with a hearty, “How’s the
old Ohio kid doing?” No sooner
said than one of the girls turned
to the boys and in a very, very
suspicious voice demanded, “just
what is this anyway? First you
say you’re from Cleveland and now
you say you’re from Ohio.”
•
Fifteen more days:
Half a month more and Back
wash’s contest—one hundred words
or less on “What I Like (Or Don’t
Like) About T. S. C. W.-ites”—
is over. Any Aggie is eligible,
and the prize is a subscription to
The Battalion. If the winner is
already a subscriber, the magazine
and newspaper will be sent to any
address in the nation which he
designates.
And, once again, the committee
of judges: Chairmaned by gradu
ate assistant Troy Wakefield, the
other nine members include Henry
Houser, Joe Gault, Robert English,
Tom Richey, Mack Duncan, Der-
rell Pitts, Don Peterson, Bob
Lynch, Mick Williams and Willard
Clark.
Send your entry to the writer,
Box 2279, College Station. The
winning entry will be published in
the T.S.C.W. Lass-0 and The Bat
talion, and runners-up will appear
in a future issue of the maga
zine.
Approximately one-third of the
University of North Dakota stu
dents are Lutherans.
New York University has more
students (37,376) than any other
U. S. college or university.
The average attendance at a
college football game this year was
22,733.
AH WOMEN tL Charlton
Special to The Battalion from The Laaa-0 of T. S. C. W.
Successful new song of A. & M.
Jack Littlejhon’s “I’d Rather Be
a Texas Aggie,” is quite a swingy
little tune that we will probably
all be singing before long. We
hear that copies will be on sale
in the Ad. Build
ing soon and for
only four bits too.
•
And from A. &
M. again, we get
a postcard which
says: “I’ll have
you know that my
kiss is quite
noiseless, and no
one has ever com
plained of its
lack of sincerity.”
, / , Which all goes to
•jJ IJ show that while
Jones’ letter won
a dollar and a subscription, many
Aggies do not agree with what
she wrote. Another letter on the
same subject said that if Aggies’
dispositions were only as .bright
as the ten-cent shine of their boots,
it must be pretty dull, because
shoe shines cost two bits! (Why
get technical about this thing?)
From Colgate’s campus paper
we get this little item: “Here’s
chatter at its best. It seems that a
short time ago Bill Newcomb re
ceived a letter addressed to any
student at Colgate. It was from
some blossoming Texas bud, who
goes to T.S.C.W., the largest wom
an’s college in the world. She
seems to want company or letters
(by the way her address is Box
2393, Denton, Texas, and the
name is Nan Vineyard) and men
tioned the fact that there are three
thousand girls and no men at
T.S.C.W. Wrote back our gal
lant Bill Newcomb words to this
effect: “Sister, there are one
thousand boys at Colgate and any
one of them can handle three
girls!”
•
Last week’s column brought more
complaints than usual, and from
T.S.C.W. as well as A. & M. We
received eight anonymous letters
from Aggieland saying they did
not think the principle the Anti-
Aggie Association is based upon
is so darn clever. And Capps
dorm let us know in no subtle
fashion that they are AAA’s just
as much as Lowry girls are, what
ever honor that is. What seemed
a mildly amusing paragraph to us
turned out to be a bombshell to
many freshmen here. They must
be suffering from “finals fever.”
•
And still from the letter depart
ment: Charles Baker would have
his friends know that he’s just as
happy that Gloria Wynne is minus
an Aggie as she is. It seems that
my column last week made it ap
pear that he had been jilted. Oh
no, dear readers, not that!
Save Money On
VALENTINE CANDY
Read—
Aggieland Pharmacy’s
Ad. Saturday
No benefit show this week, but
there will be a show—and how.
Joan Bennett in “THE HOUSE
KEEPER’S DAUGHTER” is show
ing at the Assembly Hall Thurs
day and Friday nights.
An interesting sidelight on this
show comes from la Bennett, her
self. The studio put out publicity
on the show about the “daughter”
doing “things she hadn’t oughter.”
Joan objected very strongly to such
suggestive advertising, so, since
the studio wouldn’t revise their
tactics. Miss Bennett wrote let
ters and made phone calls to hun
dreds of women’s clubs over the
country urging them to boycott
the show and make speeches
against it. Did she get fooled!
That move was the best piece of
advertising the picture got. Wom
en she had called broke their
necks getting to the show. All of
which proves that Joan had better
take a lesson in psychology, Dr.
Winkler recommended.
The cast for the picture follows:
Hilda Joan Bennett
Deacon Maxwell-Adolphe Menjou
Robert Randall John Hubbard
Ed O’Malley William Gargan
WHATS SHOWING
AT THE ASSEMBLY HALL
Thursday and Friday—
“THE HOUSEKEEPER’S
DAUGHTER,” with Joan
Bennett, Adolphe Menjou,
and John Hubbard.
AT THE PALACE
Beginning Wednesday —
“THE REAL GLORY,” with
Gary Cooper, Andrea Leeds,
and David Niven.
AT THE QUEEN
Friday and Saturday —
“BEWARE OF SPOOKS',”
with Joe E. Brown and Mary
Carlisle.
BE NEAT
MAKE THE
AGGIELAND BARBER SHOP
A REGULAR STOPPING PLACE
AGGIELAND BARBER SHOP
Across from Post Office
COLLEGE MEN
Are you interested in a good hair cut? Come to
the new College View Barber Shop and let Mr.
Hardeman do it.
Aggies, it will be a pleasure to meet and to
serve you.
REMEMBER
COLLEGE VIEW BARBER SHOP
Opposite Main Entrance
Charles H. Hardeman, Mgr. Phone C-155
Hilda Swanson, whose mother
kept house for the Park Avenue
family Randalls, broke up with her
boy friend, Lefty Johnson, be
cause he had turned his law prac
tice into a tool of gangster Floyd
Martin. Almost immediately he
gets in trouble and is complicat
ed in a murder case. Robert Ran
dall takes the job of reporting on
the case and begins some private
sleuthing, and in the meantime
uncovers some interesting facts
about his housekeeper’s daughter.
North Texas Teachers College at
Denton has received a music set
granted by the Carnegie Corpora
tion of New York. The set in
cludes 1,000 records of music from
over the world, an electric phono
graph designed for small auditor
iums, 150 scores and 100 books on
music.
—
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