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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 15, 1941)
'J r | > i? » » r • * flP i f » * 4 ♦ I * x< < » DIAL 4-5444 STUDENT TRI WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF TEXAS A. & M. COLLEGE The Battalion DIAL 4-5444 OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE CITY OF COLLEGE STATION VOL. 40 122 ADMINISTRATION BLDG. COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS, SATURDAY MORNING, FEB. 15, 1941 Z725 NO. 51 Annual Freshman Ball Tonight Seniors Invited; Aggieland Orchestra Will Play for Event Highlighting the freshman so cial calendar for the year will be the annual freshman ball to be held tonight in Sbisa Hall with more" than 1,500 Aggies and their dates expected to attend. The Aggieland Orchestra has been secured for the dance and according to Ed Minnock, leader, the program will be one of the best that the band has ever presented. One of the outstanding events of the evening will be the featuring of trumpet player Raymond To- land, former first chair trumpet er with Harry James and his band. Toland, who is now head of the musicians union in Waco, has consented to join the band for one night only and this will be the only dance that he will play with the Aggieland Orchestra. Tickets for the dance are $1.10 each and will admit either a couple or a single person. Over 300 tick ets have already been sold. The dance will start promptly at 9 p.m. and will be over at mid night. Freshmen may obtain per mission for a late pass from their company commanders. Those fresh men without dates will be expected to be in within an hour after the dance. The committees appointed by Freshman Class President T. S. Parker includes: John Ball, Dal las; Robert Ledbetter, Waco, in charge of invitations; Donald Welch, Madil, Oklahoma; Neal Sanders, Corpus Christi, in charge of refreshments; Curtis Zahn, Dallas, and Edward Carr, Hous ton. Dr. Brechtel Will Present 4th Annotated Concert The fourth in a series of anno tated musical concerts will be giv en in the music room of the Cush ing Memorial Library Monday, Feb. 17, at 7:15 p. m. This program will be conducted by Dr. George Brechtel of the Eng lish department. This is one of a series of anno tated concerts given every Monday night by faculty members and stu dents who are interested in music. These programs, which are planned in advance, are confined to music which is included in the Carnegie endowment set in the library. Fac ulty members and students are in vited to attend these concerts which last one hour, Dr. T. F. Mayo, li brarian, said. Dr. Brechtel will present the fol lowing selections and explain them to the audience as they are played. 1. Brahms, Academic Festival Overture. 2. Beethoven, Symphony No. 8 (complete). 3. Prokofieff, Piano Concerto No. 3, First Movement. The general theme of the con cert series is “Music that I like and why I like it.” Dr. Mayo said, “The object of this series is to give students an opportunity to compare their own musical tastes with those which the various concerts will illus trate.” Robinson Announces Longhorn Deadlines Morton Robinson, editor of The Longhorn, said Friday that all pic tures of men for the military sec tion of The Longhorn must be made by 5 o’clock today. These pictures include all mem bers of regimental and battalion staffs, organization commanders, seconds-in-command, first ser geants, and all junior staff mem bers. Pictures of the junior staffs must be group pictures of the en tire staff. Half of Morale Booster Cadet Corps Now Has Music for Every Formation As Recently Organized Drum and Bugle Corps Functions Plans Completed for A. & M.’s National Defense Week Observance Civilian-Cadet Committee Pushes Local Drive to Aid Needy Britains The National Defense Weelrf- events and preparations being made pertinent significance to some of the cadets since the receipt of the questionaires from the War De partment concerning a contemplat ed one-year term of active duty for them. Although the questionnaire used the term “contemplated”, many of the students will view the proceed ings from a more serious viewpoint because of this probability. Most colorful of the National De fense Week Activities will be the full dress mounted review to be held by the corps of cadets at 4 p.m. Thursday, February 20. This review will be held on the old drill field west of Guion Hall and will be the first one this term. It is hoped that Gen. Gerald C. Brant, commanding general of the Gulf Division of the Air Service, will be able to attend the review. Battery D, Field Artillery, will be motorized for the occasion and Battery A will use the horse drawn equipment. The Headquarters troop of the Cavalry will be mounted. Those organizations to appear in the re view mounted were selected by the senior instructor of the reg iment concerned. After passing in review the units of cadets will be marched to Kyle Field and be seated in the north end of the stadium for ceremon ies in connection with the obser vance of Defense Week. President T. O. Walton and Lieut. Col. James A. Watson, commandant, will ad dress the corps and visitors on sub jects relating to defense. The idea for these activities in local observance of the defense (Continued on Page 4) Student Service Leader Visits Here Claud Nelson, Atlanta, Georgia, director of the World Student Ser vice fund visited the A. & M. campus Thursday and Friday in behalf of securing financial aid for students of countries left des titute by the present world conflict. The World Student Service com mittee is engaged in securing funds for students of such countries as China, France, Poland, Norway. Belgium, and the Netherlands. The purpose of the fund is to enable the students of these countries to continue their education during the conflict so that at its term ination they may resume their for mer place in national and interna tional life without having too great a gap of time to elapse. The committee is interested in aiding only those who have been left destitute by the war. Only internees in neutral countries, prisoners of war, of which there are 3,000,000, and refugees are to be aided by the fund. This work is being done in France, China, for refugees, and to prisoners of war in England, Canada, Germany, and German occupied territories. While on the campus, Mr. Nelson addressed a meeting of members of the Y Cabinet, Methodist Leader ship council, and a group of stu dent leaders at lunch yesterday. He is making a tour of the South west, speaking in Texas to Sam Houston State Teachers College, Huntsville, and the University of Texas besides A. & M. 24 Cadets Make-Up 2 Units Which Play Breakfast, Dinner For the remainder of the year, both the new and old areas will have music provided for meal for mations by the drum and bugle corps and the band. The drum and bugle corps will play for breakfast and noon meals, and the band will play retreat and night formations. The drum and bugle corps is made up of members of the band, based on their willingness and abil ity to play. The two corps change areas each week so that one will not have to play in the same place all the time. The band that plays for the new area is composed largely of members of the concert band, while the band at Sbisa Hall is made up of the remainder of the band. Arrangements for the drum and bugle corps to play were made by Lieut. Col. J. A. Watson, com mandant, and funds have been pro vided to pay the musicians. The drum and bugle corps was organiz ed to improve the appearance of the cadet corps in marching to meals, to furnish a uniform ca dence, and to increase morale, Col. Watson said. The bands will play five nights a week, Monday through Friday, except on special week-end occa sions when both bands will be com bined to play at one mess hall or the other. Two senior instructors have been provided to aid in the development of the drum and bugle corps. Bob Miller, Guy Johnson, W. U. Taylor. R. E. Alston, H. F. Ball, N. S. Madeley, and Lamar Haines com pose the buglers under Ed Floor -. Drummers in that corps are E. W. McClendon, G. W. Ferguson, A. M. Hinds, and R. M. Martin. Abbot Armstrong, E. B. Chat- (Continued on Page 4) Bernie Cummins Will Play Coast Artillery Ball Played Here Last Year for Composite Regiment Function Bernie Cummins and his orches tra has been selected by the Coast Artillery to play for its regiment al ball March 7. Aggies will remember this band as the number one band of the so cial season last year. Cummins and Anson Weeks led all other bands in a poll conducted by “Back wash” in the student body to de termine the best band of the year. Cummins played for the Com posite Regiment Ball last year. Winning first places is nothing new to Bernie Cummins and his band. Bemie’s band was started on its way to be a big “name” band when it won an audition of over fifty bands to select an orchestra to play for the formal opening of the Hotel New Yorker in New York City. Cummins has been a success in many of the most distinctive ho tels and night clubs in the coun try. The popularity of Bernie Cum mins lies mainly in the fact that he believes than an orchestra should play for the spot it happens to be in. Personally he likes swing, but he always tempers his music to agree with the particular audience he is playing for. Arrangements for the band were made by Harry Whitmore and Jim my Golston, Coast Artillery jun iors. 7 Legislators Here Friday to Meet With Walton Appropriations Committee Members Learn College’s Needs The me*mbers of the sub-com mittee of the appropriations com mittee of the Texas House of Rep resentatives spent Thursday night and Friday as guests of President T. O. Walton to discuss the fin ancial needs of the college for the coming year. Heading the sub-committee were W. T. McDonald of Bryan, repre sentative, Brazos county; and Sen ator J. Alton York also of Bryan and Brazos county. Other members of the sub-com mittee were Kirby Kelley of Huntsville, Woodrow W. Bean of Sierra Blanca, Mark Halsey of Lub bock, Joe Skiles of Denton, and E. J. Cleveland of Buda. W. O. Reed of Dallas, chairman of the House Appropriations com mittee, was supposed to be here but illness in his family kept him away. Managing Editor Above is Lovell Kilpatrick, San Angelo, who was appoint ed managing editor of The Longhorn by the Student Pub-'’ lications Board Wednesday af ternoon. Kilpatrick was ap pointed to fill the vacancy created when former manag ing editor was elevated to the editorship. Grad Students Annual Barbecue Scheduled Today Affair Set for Col. Ashburn’s Ranch Pejpinning at 4 O’clock A barbecue-picnic will be given for all graduate students and their dates at Col. Ike Ashbum’S ranch this afternoon and tonight. John Pasco, president of the graduate club, announced that transportation will be provided for all who do not have cars. Those who wish to take advantage of this offer should meet at Milner Hall at 4 o’clock at which time the party will leave for the ranch. Col. Ashburn’s ranch is located one mile southwest of the intersection of College Ave. and Carson street. Halloran Completes Deer, Cattle Survey Arthur Franklin Halloran, grad uate student in the A. & M. college department of Fish and Game, has completed a study of deer and cattle relationships on the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge which indicates a simpler method of tak ing the annual inventory of deer on the Refuge and the proper man agement of both deer and cattle on the area. Halloran discovered that it is possible to secure a fairly accurate estimate of the number of deer on the Refuge by'counting the deer (Continued on Page 4) Mrs. C. B. Campbell And W. A. Becker Are Co-Chairmen A. & M. students and residents of Brazos County will have an op portunity in the near future to ma terially aid the needy of Britain through the recently organized Bundles for Britain chapter of College Station. This local chapter was organiz ed as a result of a drive being sponsored by The Battalion and is headed by Mrs. C. B. Campbell and Cadet Colonel William A. Becker who are acting as co-chairmen. The objective of the chapter is to gather, classify and prepare for shipment all old clothes, shoes, sur gical supplies and other materials that the conflict in England has necessitated. A committee meeting was held Thursday night in Mrs. Campbell’s home to discuss the method of collecting the materials and pre paring them to be sent to the main office in New York City. It was decided to establish box es in each of the dormitories for the purpose of collecting tinfoil since there is a vast amount of this going to waste on the campus. The students are requested not to roll- the tinfoil as it must be pressed | flat before shipment. Tinfoil is used for a special type of bandages ) for infantile paralysis and serious injuries as well as the production of munitions. Methods of collecting clothing, shoes and medical supplies have not been worked out yet, but will (Continued on Page 4) Annual Houston Club Function Set for Sunday 11-Piece, All-Girl Orchestra Will Be Feature of Party The Houston and Harris coun ty A. & M. club will have its an nual cooky shower in Sbisa Hall, Sunday from 3 to 5 p.m., President James R. Lane said Friday. An 11-piece all-girl orchestra has been engaged to furnish music for the event. Many Houston A. & M. mothers will make the trip to attend the shower which will be the largest in the history of the occasion. Lane said. The Houston Mothers club is recognized over the state for its many activities. Mrs. Joe Spiller is president and entertainment chairman of the chib and Mrs. L. C. Downey is chairman of Sunday’s event. The officers of the Houston- Harris county A. & M. Club are: president, Lane; senior vice-pres ident, C. J. Bland; junior vice president, T. W. Grissom; treasur er, A. C. SoRelle; secretary, Paul Egner. Hell-for-Leather in the World of Adventure: West Point Cadet, Construction Boss, Railroad Builder, Street Paver, Miner and Soldier of Fortune - Meaning Col. Watson A Battalion Feature He won’t talk about his age, and it’s nip and tuck trying to get his life history, but if hell-for-leather adventure stories are to your lik ing, then it’s a cinch you’ll enjoy listening to the ups and downs of his life story—to the zip and zoom of his world travels. Lieut. Col. James A. Watson is the man I mean. Right now he’s busy tending to the military welfare of 6500 young Americans (most of them Texans), but it hasn’t always been thus. Formerly a West Point cadet, a construction boss, a railroad builder, an oil driller, a street pav er, a miner, a soldier of fortune and a half dozen other things, his mail now comes addressed to the commandant of the Texas A. and M. college. That’s not all, either, because he’s also the college’s professor ■f’of military science and tactics—fwhere which is just a fancy title explain ing that he’s head of the institu tion’s classroom work where mil itary science is concerned. When he’s not in eye or earshot, the Aggies forget about his titles and simply call him the “Bull.” But don’t get me wrong. The cadets have been calling command ants by that title since 1876. It’s more nearly a compliment than otherwise. Born in Ohio and the early part of his life spent in West Virginia, Col. Watson was schooled at the famed Andover academy in Mass., Marietta college in Ohio and the U. S. Military academy at West Point. Tampico, Mexico, was his first out-of-the-States stop after college. Oil was the reason, and there he stayed for two years. Pittsburgh got the nod on the next round Col. Watson did a year stretch as assistant to an uncle who was a building con tractor. It was just about then that the country surrounding Alberta, Can ada was opening up. Three years in one place was too long—Canada was the Colonel’s next stop. “Don’t ask me what I did there— I can’t remember. Anything and everything will just about cover it,” Col. Watson says of his Cana dian sojourn. Then came one of the blood and thunder chapters of his life. From the Alberta region Col. Watson journeyed to Alaska where he received work with the Gug genheim Mining Co. as a con struction foreman and camp sup erintendent. The Guggenheim Co. and a rival organization, the Philadelphia Co., were fighting a near-war for the three-4-railroad right-of-way through the" Copper River canyon. “That was a bloody affair,” the Colonel mused. “There were sev eral thousand men engaged on each side and the two corporations had employed adventurers and soldiers of fortune to lead the fighting. Most of the leaders had been of ficers in the Boer War and the devilish things they could think of were something to write home about.” One incident in particular the Colonel remembers well. The time finally came when the two railroads being built by the rival corpora tions had to cross each other, and the Philadelphia co. engineered an ingenious device which halted the Guggenheim construction work. It seemed that the two rail roads would cross at the base of a hill known as Bull Hill. A few hundred feet from the crossing the ■Philadelphia Co. securely tied an inch-thick steel cable. The other end of the cable was tied to a donkey engine located half way up Bull Hill—the Philadelphia Co. stronghold. At the crossing, two half-ton rails were tied to the cable. The result: When the donkey en gine stretched the cable taut, the huge rails gyrated crazily in a man ner which would have killed any hu mans in touching distance. More over, the Philadelphia Co. kept riflemen on 24-hour watch to pre vent the cutting of the cable. The Guggenheim Co. was stop ped! “The Guggenheims offered a thousand dollars to any man who would cut the cable,” Co. Watson reminisced, “and for two days no one in camp took them up on the offer—it looked like a cinch way (Continued on Page 4) Advanced Flying Quota Increased An increase in the quota of trainees for the advanced flying course offered at A. & M. has been announced by the Fort Worth office of the Civilian Pilot Train ing Service. Five vacancies will exist in this course. Any student who has com pleted the primary course or who has a private pilot’s license is elig ible to take the course at A. & M., Howard W. Barlow, head of the Aeronautical Engineering depart ment said. Additional eligibility require ments are that an applicant must complete by June 30, 1941 half the credit hours required for gradu ation. Applicants must also be reco mmended for the training by the institution at which they took their previous training. All persons interested are asked to report to the aeronautical en gineering department. Applicants need not be registered in school at present to be eligible, Barlow added.