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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 10, 1947)
Page Two — THE BATTALION, College Station (Aggieland), Texas, Saturday, May 10, 1947: Welcome, Parents ... Aggies always get excited with the prospect of someone they know and love visiting the A. & M. campus. Parents will see their children at their best this weekend, fiercely proud of Aggieland and its traditions. Their sons will point out famous old buildings on the campus, where students have come in quest of knowledge since 1876. They will re cite inscriptions on buildings like Guion Hall, and the chem istry building, and will tell the brief story of Lawrence Sul livan “Sully” Ross, our first president, “soldier, statesman, and knightly gentleman.” But while here, dear parents, observe more than just the buildings, the fine displays set up for AE Day. Come to the Sports Day events, and watch how Aggies stand behind their athletic teams. Try to hold back the shivers up and down your spine as the Cadet Corps marches in review. Try to catch some of the “Spirit of Aggieland”. That spirit is one of the major things this school has to offer, and Aggies re alize it after they’ve been here only short weeks. We want you, parents, to attend to catch a part of the spirit in two short days. Place for Educator? ... Four men compose the “top brass” at A. & M. College under the present administrative set-up. They are the pres ident, the executive vice-president, the vice-president for en gineering, and the vice-president for agriculture. Usually the president of A. & M. is either an engineer or agriculturist himself. Would it not be better, rather than having two engineers or two agriculturists among our top executives, to have an educator in that group? After all, an educator is a “Brain engineer,” a profes sional man trained in the field of teaching just as rigorously as the engineer or agricultural specialist is trained in his field. Such training, such abilities, are badly needed at A. & M. right now. Gibb Gilchrist, now president of A. & M., is an engineer. The post of vice-president of engineering is vacant due to the death of J. T. L. McNew. We believe that instead of filling that vacancy, we should. ask the legislature for per mission to employ a vice-president in charge of educational processes. Under such an arrangement, whenever the president of this college is an engineer, we would have vice-presidents for agriculture and education; when the president is an ag riculturist, we would have vice-presidents for engineering and education; when (if ever) the president of this college should be a professional educator, we should have vice-pres idents for engineering and agriculture, as a president. Such a disposition of top college posts would produce a much better balance of talent than we now have. It is important, however, that our vice-presidential edu cator be no namby-pamby; not a man who has a long line of degrees, but lacks discretion or tact. This post should go to a man with “public personality”—the ability to speak effectively to groups of thousands. Yet he must be able to confer with a single student in an office equally well. This same ability to deal with people is essential in deal ing with the faculty. Rather than the executive vice-presi dent being head of the faculty, as it now stands, our vice- presidental educator should be responsible for leadership among the faculty. There will be some die-hards who op pose new teaching methods and philosophies, and if the “dead wood” faction is not keeping abreast of the times, the ex ecutive educator should have the power to remove them. Another important qualification is the ability to under stand what seems important to young people. The way Dr. W. H. Alexander does, for instance. Some people are born with an instinct to do just that; those without the instinct can seldom acquire it. A. & M. now faces the greatest challenge of its seventy year history. We have an ugly episode to live down. Yet it is possible that in the next few years, A. & M. may be great er college, in all ways, than it ever has been before. To help achieve this goal, we believe that A. & M. needs a vice-pres ident for education. Writers Have Their Say... Newspaper comment on A. & M. troubles has been var ied. Characteristically, the columnists have been better reading than the anonymous “letter” writers who took time out from the Greece question to pontificate on the woes of our college. Walter Doney, publisher of the Bryan News, in his “Dog House” column has condemned two practices which he disapproves: closed meetings of the Board of Directors, and commercialism in college operations. Doney, an Aggie- ex who left the campus in ’17 for WW I, feels that all ses sions of the Board of Directors should be open to the public, who after all are the “owners” of Texas A. & M. This is a good idea, and the Battalion approves, but we know that the directors would then have to hold closed committee meet ings, or other private sessions, in order to talk turkey. Doney also deplores the fact that the A. & M. Creamery supplies Gate stores with milk, in competition with private dairies. Lynn Landrum of the Dallas Morning News was the “pet peeve” of cadets on the campus as long as he harped on hazing, giving a picture of sadistic youngsters using the pad dle 24 hours a day. But the final article in Landrum’s se ries was the most profound challenge to A. & M. students yet issued. Landrum pointed out the need for engineers and agriculturists, trained sufficiently in military matters to be able to cooperate intelligently with military forces, who might go throughout the world as representatives of Amer ican “know-how,” bringing up to scratch the agricultural and mechanical culture of those parts of the globe which we are having to take under our wing. Landrum states that of all American colleges, Texas A. & M. is best equipped to turn out such men, who might well mold the future of the world. The Battalion The Battalion, official newspaper of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas and the City of College Station, is published tri-weekly and circulated on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday afternoons. Member Plssoaoted Gr>Ue&»ate Press Entered as second-class matter at Post Office at College Station, (Aggieland), Texas, under the Act of Congress of March S, 1870. Subscription rate 4.00 per school year. Advertising rates on request. Represented nationally by National Advertising Service, Inc., at New York City Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Allen Self Vick Lindley Charles E. Murray J. K. B. Nelson Corps Editor Veteran Editor —Tuesday Associate Editor -Thursday Associate Editor ..Saturday Associate Editor Sports Editor David M. Seligman Paul Martin ______ „ Larry Goodwyn, Andy Matula, Jack Goodloe, Bill Halcomb, Earl Grant .Sports Writers Wendell McClure Advertising Manager Bill Brown, Maurice Howell Advertising Assistants D. W. Springer ^Circulation Manager Elden W. Golden Assistant Circulation Manager William Miller, Ben Schrader, Wm. K. Colville, Walter Lowe, Jr., Lester B. Gray, Jr., Carl C. Krueger, Jr., Mack T. Nolen, Robert P. Ingram, Claude Buntyn, Bruce Hartel, Richard Alterman ..Reporters Spread of Labor . . . Management Feeling For Upper Hand by H. W. Spencer With the advent of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 labor attained the upper hand over man agement. Unhesitatingly, labor has used that power to tne best advantage for the past twelve years. Now the pendulum swings in the opoposite direction, with management once again feeling for the handle of the big stick. This is evidenced by the fact that in 13 states there are new laws which seek to bar or regulate closed shops. In a closed shop, no worker other than a union member can be employed. These and oth er states strive to restrict picket ing, to outlaw secondary boycotts and jurisdictional strikes, to pro hibit public-utility and municipal employee strikes, to require union financial reports, to forbid check off of union dues from worker’s pay envelopes and to sue for dam ages for violation of contracts. Al together, 29 states now have en acted laws that curb union powers to some degree. ★ Legislatures in over half of the states have acted in such a way to oppose union leaders, not to mention the controversial House- approved Hartley Bill and the less harsh Senate bill in Congress at present. The closed-shop ban, as it re lates to employment practices of employers, is the most important of all the labor-control measures now being enacted by the various states. This ban, to date, centers mainly in Southern and Central States, while unions are free to negotiate closed shop agreements in most industrial states. In order to realize the import ance of the anti-closed-shop cam paign it should be noted that over 11 million workers are subject to some form of compulsory unionism. This includes union-shop contracts and maintenance - of - membership contracts. The union-shop, pecu liar to the coal industry, under which a worker must join a union after he is hired, is one step below the closed shop. The maintenance- of-membership form, operative in the steel industry, is a system which requires workers to remain members of a union for the life of a contract if they do not resign within a specified time. ★ For employers operating i n states banning the closed-shop such powers, following, may be afford ed: they can hire anyone they please, union or nonunion; they can shift men from one department to another without the unions permis sion; promotions of employees will come when the employer feels such is justified, the specified period of apprenticeship can be scrapped; and union black lists which deny jobs to workers who have incurred union disfavor irrespective of the worker’s value to the employer may be ignored. Union leaders are not taking what the opposition offers sitting down. Already in some states they are endeavoring to force the issue in the courts. Here, union leaders seek to invalidate these laws on grounds of interference with right of contract and that they are in conflict with the Wagner Act. The union view is that an employer has certain employment rights but the worker has a right to decide the terms under which he sells his la bor. PENNY’S SERENADE W. L. Penberthy Sunday is Mother’s Day — one of the days in each year when we pay special tribute to the grandest person in the world. Of the many blessings we enjoy in life, I am afraid that some times we do not fully realize and appreciate just what our mothers mean to us. I personally do not think that men are capable of fully realizing the part played by their mothers in shaping their lives and futures until they are married and are fathers and can observe the b e- havior of their wives toward their children. I have seen a lot of good people come from a home where the fath er was not up to standard, but I have seen few from homes where the mother was below par. During the war I heard a psy chologist state that surveys made by the Army showed that our best soldiers came from happy families. Who could have more to do with the happiness of a family than “Mama.” I think it is fine that we have a day on which special tribute is paid to our mothers, but I think it would be finer if we could do some little thing each and every day so that to her Mother’s Day would not be a day of special trib ute. Penny Operation Crossroads . . . Reports of A-Bomb Cloud Circling World ‘Foolish’ X-Ray Photos May Assist In Fossil Finding By Science Service WASHINGTON, May 9 —- Washington scientists who were at Bikini take no stock in reports that a cloud of radioactive materials is still circling around the world, making high-altitude airplane flights unsafe. They have the support of other scientists who have made lifetime studies of the atmosphere and its ways. All observers who watched the A-day burst at Bikini recall how the glowing, peach-colored pillar of cloud climbed up to the clouds and above them in a few minutes, but was torn into fragments by cross winds and rendered unrecog nizable in less than an hour. It4 is hard to imagine that the pro cess of disinteg-ration, that set in so rapidly, could have slowed down enough to permit the sur vival of any cohering pieces of the cloud now. Col. Benjamin Holzman, Army officer who served as senior aei'o- logist throughout Operation Crossroads, stated that he had calculated the probable course of the diffusing cloud, based on the known prevailing air currents over the Pacific. In six or seven days, according to his figures, what was left of the cloud must have reached the Gulf of Alaska. From there, harried by the stormy westerly winds, it would probably have been scattered over the northwestern part of North Amelrica, unrecognizably diluted with the general atmosphere. This probable course of the cloud in the first few days of its existence rendered improbable the claims of a few scientists in California and Texas that they recognized its remnants, by high er recordings on their sensitive in struments, as early as July 4 and 5. Other scientists, one pair as far away as New York, were un able to find traces of the supposed cloud over the United States, when according to Col. Holzman’s data it was due at the north end of the Pacific. Ordinary tendency of any body of gas to spread and diffuse it self into neighboring gases must have spread the radioactive rem nants of the Bikini bursts evenly throughout the vast ocean of air that surrounds the whole earth, declared Dr. W. J. Humphreys, air physicist who has been connected with the U. S. Weather Bureau —JUNIORS— (Continued from Page 1) portation Agency, and a Veterin ary Corps. Coloney Meloy also stated that the minimum strength of the basic units would not be under seventy-five men, with about 30 freshmen to the outfit. This will mean there will be' approxi mately thirty-six “outfits” on the campus next fall. Plans also include the reorgan ization of the Ross Volunteers, originally initiated as a crack military unit to serve as an hon or guard, according to Meloy. Juniors were reminded that the Federal Inspection will be held here May 21-23. BERKELEY, Calif.—X-ray pho tography may be used to unearth fossils of primitive man by the University of California South Africa Expedition. Experiments are now being con ducted at Berkeley with samples of limestone from South African caves in which specimens of fos sil man are believed to be imbed ded. Radium is also being tested for the same purpose. Samples of the limestone were brought here by Wendell Phillips, leader of the expedition, who re cently returned from Africa after completing preliminary arrange ments for the expedition’s arrival there this summer. The well-equipped expedition will attempt to recover complete specimens of “man-apes” found recently in three locations near Johannesburg. Skulls and frag ments of the man-ape have been recovered in mining operations in the caves. It is believed the “man-ape” may bridge the gap between modem man and his predecessors, which may be as much as three million years old. SALESMAN WANTED! A good opportunity for college men. Open ing for neat and aggressive men to sell Vita- Craft Aluminum Utensils in their own dis trict through leads in spare time, as well as full time. Never sold in stores. Sales ex perience unnecessary. We’ll teach you. Good income for the right man. Contact the A. & M. Placement Office If Interested. THE VITA-CRAFT COMPANY OF TEXAS 336 West Davis, Dallas 8, Texas for more than 40 years. The great er part of the Bikini cloud that spread itself through the lower atmosphere has by now been washed down into the soil or the sea by rain and snow. In the unlikely event that some of the cloud got up into the stratosphere it may still be there, but certainly not “all in one piece.” Dr. G. R. Wait of the Car negie Institution of Washington, student of radioactive and elec trically charged particles in the air, characterized the new alarm ist report as “completely fool ish.” He also could not see h(«y a mass of gas forming a cloud could keep from practical world wide diffusion in the course of nearly a year. There is one other factor that could be expected to render the once radioactively “hot” cloud at once harmless and unrecognizable. That is the short life of most radioactive elements. While some, like radium, remain radioactive for millions of years, most radio active atoms break up or change into non-radioactive forms in a few days, or even a few hours or minutes. While part of the new elements created by the Bikini bursts is undoubtly still “hot”, probably a larger part is already “dead”. Doggett Appointed to ED Staff for September Term HONOR MOTHER ON MOTHER’S DAY BY ATTENDING YOUR CHURCH FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH College Station SPECIAL SERVICE—11 O’CLOCK A Mother’s Day Gift to the oldest and youngest mother present. B. C. Doggett, Shreveport, has been appointed an instructor of engineering drawing starting Sep tember 1. Doggett will receive his degree in industrial education this month. Opens 1:00 p.m. Ph. 4-1181 Air Conditioned SATURDAY LAST DAY! JOHN WAYNE — In — “Flame of Barbary Coast” PREVIEW TONIGHT (11:00 P. M.) — Also — SUN., THRU THURS. Humphrey Bogart Lisbeth Scott Starred in “DEAD RECKONING” A First Run Feature Mother’s Day FLOWERS THE LOVELIEST MOTHER’S DAY ' GIFT is a bouquet of our exquisite flow ers. Phone your order in or come in and make your selection. AGGIELAND FLOWER SHOP College—Phone 4-1212 “Our Flowers Say It For You” Fossil Display On Exhibit in Museum A fossil palm display, collected by the geology classes has been placed in the front vestibule of the college museum, H. B. Parks, curator, has announced. This dis play will be open to the public through May 30. This exhibit contains a large por tion of a palm leaf, like the pal- meto, which grows as a native in the lower places of Brazos County and counties eastward. Other items making up the display are petrified parts of palm stumps and logs. Most of the wood has changed into silicon quartz. “Some of these are beautiful in color and are being used at present by jewelry manufacturers as sets for rings and as stage jewelry”, Parks said. PAL HOLLOW GROUND BLADES ARE MADE IN U.S.A., CANADA, BRITAIN AND SO. AMERICA.SOLD THE WORLD OVER FRIDAY - SATURDAY FREE! FREE!! Saturday 10 a.m. Matinee The Screen Classic “YOUNG TOM EDISON” Starring MICKEY ROONEY SUNDAY - MONDAY ERROL FLYNN ELEANOR PARKER “NEVER SAY GOODBYE”