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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 20, 1950)
Battalion Editorials Page 2 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1950 TCU Students and Followers, Welcome . The student body of Texas Christian Uni versity tomorrow will follow an old tradi tion set up by this school many years ago. For they, en masse, will make a “corps trip” to A&M for the varsity game tomorrow af ternoon. To the TCU student body, staff and friends, we say “Welcome!” The door of this institution is wide open and the carpet has been laid out for your visit. The corps of cadets and student body as a whole will have a chance this weekend to repay with interest the warm hospitality and enthusiastic welcome given our students by that school last year. Between TCU and A&M there is definitely a need for friend ship and cooperation. Our relations during years past have been strained by isolated in cidents detestable to both groups. Relations could be allowed to grow cum ulatively worse, or they can be directed into channels of good will. Naturally, we prefer the latter. For this reason, A&M tomorrow will at tempt to cement good relations with the TCU student body. A delegation of our students will greet their students, our yell leaders will greet their cheer leaders, members of our student government will greet TCU’s govern ing body, the A&M student publications staff will meet with their student publications group, and of course, our varsiy will greet the Frog team. These meetings and greetings will help to place both schools a step nearer the ulti mate goal—to expand and increase bonds of friendship and unity between A&M and TCU. But the ultimate goal cannot be reached without the joint cooperation and efforts of both student bodies, each desiring to attain that perspective. Truman’s Asiatic Policy Speech No one seemed surprised but many were disappointed with President Truman’s Asi atic foreign policy speech last Tuesday. Al though the broadcast was lengthy and con tained many high-sounding phrases, it ac tually failed to answer any specific foreign policy questions. Truman warned Russia that the United Nations were ready to resist aggression with armed force. But he failed to point out just what parts of the Orient the U.N. will furnish protection. Mr. Truman promised to help the Asi atic countries to “attain and defend their in dependence.” Contrast that statement with his recent explanation that the U.N.’s de fense of Formosa was only a temporary thing brought about by the Korean situation and would cease as soon as the U.N. troops gained the upper hand in Korea. Just what can the China Nationalist government be lieve ? Probably, only that Formosa is mere ly a pawn in international politics, and as such, may be traded at any time for certain international concessions. The Truman administration has proved itself one of the most politically influenced of all time. And the little man from Missouri never misses a chance to fire some political shots. While most of the world waited to see what concrete plans had emerged from his Pacific conference with MacArthur, he devoted much of his speech to political “pats on the back.” Said Truman, “We are strong because we never stop working for better education for all our people, for fair wages and better living conditions, for more opportunities for business and better lives for our farmers. We are strong because of our social security system, because of our labor unions, because of our agricultural program.” Was it merely by accident that Truman failed to mention that the main reason we are strong is our capitalistic, free enterprize economy? Nearly all military scholars say the United States was victorious in World War II because of our vast industrial power. No; it was not accident. It would not be profitable for the welfare-statist, so cialistic Fair Dealers to commend private industry. Veto Proofing the United Nations If the United Nations Political Commit tee has its way, aggression is definitely on the way out. A veto-proof plan to stop ag gression anywhere in the world has been ov erwhelmingly approved, and all delegates concede that this is the most progressive step the U.N. has taken since its founding. Adoption of the plan was conducted by the committee chairman, Roberto Urdaneta Arbelaez of Columbia, on a paragraph by paragraph basis. Formal committee approv al of the “plan as a whole” is now pending. The only opposition to the key provisions came, as usual, from the Soviet bloc. * Secretary of State Dean Acheson out lined the plan on September 20, and the key provision is the one that gives the General Assembly power to take military action when the Security Council is stymied by a Rus sian veto. The next provision authorizes “peace patrols” to investigate scenes of po tential crisis. If the Security Council fails to keep peace for any reason, any seven of its members can call the General Assembly into sssion. U. S. delegate, John Foster Dulles led the ten-day fight for adoption of the plan by the Committee. Dulles also described this plan as the result of the lessons the free world has learned in Korea. U. S. delegates saw that action in the Security Council dur ing the first part of the Korean crisis was possible only because the Russians were boy cotting it at the time. This fact brought about consideration for this plan tha enables the U.N. to act in spite of a Russian veto. Will Consumers Tighten Belts, Or Eat More? By OVID A. MARTIN Washington, Oct. 20—(A*)—Will government restrictions on install ment buying and credit for houses, automobiles, television and radio sets, refrigerators and similar items send Americans on another eating spree? Or will they tighten their belts and cut down on expenditures at the corner grocery store? These questions are being pon dered by government farm offi cials as they prepare the govern ment’s farm production program for 1951. The answers—if known —could save much official sweating over the possibility of shortages or surpluses, price controls and price supports. Officials recall how Americans stepped up their eating habits dur ing the last war. As supplies of manufactured items grew smaller and smaller, consumers spent a lalger and larger share of their incomes for food. Better Diets Bought Many people not only increased their total consumption of food, but bought better quality diets. Many who had eaten little meat, dairy and poultry products became big consumers of these foods. Meat consumption jumped from an an nual average of 126 pounds before the war to 150 pounds during the war. The average undoubtedly would have gone even higher had meat supplies been larger. Something of the same situation is developing now. Needs of the defense program threaten to cut down on stocks of electrical ap pliances, automobiles, houses and the like. Likewise, recent govern ment action requiring larger down payments on houses and on install ment buying of appliances and equipment is designed to reduce spending for such items. Income Increasing On the other hand, national in come is increasing under the in fluence of defense spending. Some economists predict the national in come will be $20,000,000,000 higher- next year than this. The question faced by farm of ficials is this: will much of the money which otherwise would have been used to buy appliances and houses and much of the increase in national income be diverted to purchase of bigger and better diets ? If so, agriculture will need to boost its production level in cer tain lines — particularly meats, some fruits and vegetables and possibly mil kand poultry. Or, on the other hand, will the credit curbs cause many people*to cut down on food buying in order to meet the more rigid require ments of installment buying? If so, the present level of farm pro duction migh be large enough and perhaps too large in some lines. Some officials believe this latter possibility is more likely to be the case. Food Buying Still Up Consumer food buying still is far above the pre-war level. Conse quently most persons could trim their grocery budgets and still eat as well as they did in the 1930’s. At the moment, top agriculture department officials lean to the be lief that no sizeable increase in food demands are likely in the near future. They say that today the family market basket can be filled at prices lower than the lowest ceil ings that could be put on. They say that if present food prices were replaced by the lowest ceil ings possible under the law, the cost of living would rise rather than fall. READY TO GO BOOM From the City Desk . . . A Sizeable Income For Our Coffers . By Joel Austin I! v From Where I Sit . . . Old, New Films Tops In Technical Skill ... By Herman C. Gollob Last Monday night witnessed the initial meeting of the A&M Film Society, a new campus organization devoted to the presentation of a history of the motion picture by showing those films considered landmarks in the movie industry. What transpired that evening has been duly set down for posterity’s sake in a recent issue of this astute journal and relegated to the files, where it is no longer news, but history. However, we should like to dig through the archives to the cracked, yellow pages of the October 17, 1950 issue of the Battalion and garnish the succulent Society report with a few retrospective marginal notes of our own. Preparatory to the screening of several monumental si- lents, there was shown a March of Time entitled “The Movies March On.” This traced the development of the film from its awkward infancy to its present day status as a major in dustry and art form, and was quite effective as a summary of the Society’s purpose and intentions for the coming year. Letters The Battalion Lawrence Sullivan Ross, Founder of Aggie Traditions ’’Soldier, Statesman, Knightly Gentleman” t The Battalion, official newspaper of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, is published five times a week during the regular school year. During the summer terms, The Battalion is published oui times a week, and during examination and vacation periods, twice a week. Days of publication are Monday through bh-iday for the regular school year, Tuesday through Friday during the summer terms, and iuesday and Thursday during vacation and examination periods. Subscription rates $6.00 per year or $.50 per month. Advertising rates furnished on request. tt c ?F tr , ibu J tions b, e made by telephone (4-5444) or at the editorial office, Room 201, Goodwin Hall. Classified ads may be placed by telephone (4-5324) or at the Student Activities Office, Room 209, Goodwin Hall. T a Associated Press is entitled exclusively to the use for republication of all news dispatches cred ited to it or not otherwise credited in the paper and local news of spontaneous origin published herein. Rights of republication of all other matter herein are also reserved. ‘'Entered as second-class matter at Post Office at College Station, Texas, under tUe Act of Congress of March 3, 1870. Member of The Associated Press Represented nationally by National Ad vertising Service Inc., at New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. DAVE COSLETT, CLAYTON L. SELPH Co-Editors John Whitmore, L. O. Tiedt Managing Editors Sid Abernathy, Jerry Zuber Campus News Editors Frank N. Mamtzas Sports Editor Joel Austin Qty N ews Editor Today’s Issue John W hitmore Managing Editor Jerry Zuber Campus News Editor Ralph Gorman Sports News Editor Joel Austin City News Editor T. M. Fontaine, Carter Phillips Editorialists Bob Hughson, George Charlton, Tom Rountree, Leon McClellan, Raymond Rushing, Wayne Davis, Robert Veoable, Herb O’Connell, Norman Blahuta, John Hildebrand, Jerry Fontaine, Jack Fontaine - , — News and Feature Writers Emmett Truut, Jerry Clement, Bob Hendry Cartoonists Ray Williams, Roger Coslett Special Assignments Sam Molinary chief Photographer Herman C. Gollob Amusements Editor Ralph Gorman, Ray Holbrook, Harold Gann, Joe Blanchette, Pat LeBlanc, Dale Dowell, Jimmy Curtis, Chuck Neighbors, Fred Walker Sports Writers Bob Hancock. John Hoiiingshead, Tommy Fontaine, James Lancaster Photo Engravers Rooms in Denton Editor, The Battalion: I would like to list my rooms with your college for Aggies visit ing in Denton over the weekends. Will you please post in the dor mitories that I have five rooms open on weekends. These rooms are posted at TSCW. Mrs. Philip Chance Denton, Texas ‘Negro Exclusion On Way Out’ Washington, Oct. 19—(A?)—Fed eral Security Administrator Oscar R. Ewing said today this may be the last year of Negro exclusion from American universities. In an address prepared for a meeting of presidents of the Negro land grant colleges, Ewing said that “scarcely a month passes without some tangible reminder from our courts that discriminatory practices in the colleges and uni versities must end.” “The year 1950 may well have heard the death knell for second class citizenship in America’s in stitutions of higher education,” Ewing said. “I for one hope so for otherwise we are playing right into the hands of democracy’s enemies. Every in justice committed here in the Uni ted States against racial ot reli gious groups becomes grist to the Communist propaganda mill.” Brief parts of “Birth of a Na tion,” “Four Horsemen of the Apo calypse,’’“Big Parade,” “Flesh and the Devil,” “The Jazz Singer,” “Emile Zola,” “The Covered Wag on,” and other movie milestones were included in this short, giving the audience an opportunity to re call or “discover” immortals such as Garbo, Fairbanks, Gilbert, Bara, Dressier, etc. Then followed two hours of that type of childish and grandiloquent melodramatics characteristic of the early cinema. Naturally, the ex- For example, “The Great Train Robbery,” first of the great West erns and the first film to tell a story, was essentially the same as four out of five horse operas that daily besmirch our screens, partic ularly those of the Roy Rogers and Randolph Scott variety. The train robbery, the discovery of the trussed-up railroad clerk, the informing of the law, the chase and the last-ditch gunfight — all just as familiar today as they were in 1903. Were it not for technicol or, sometimes imaginative camera work, an extended plot made to in clude a love affair between hero and heroine, and a horse that can spell out the Hippocratic oath in Morse code with his hooves, “The And if you think Lassie is good, you should have seen “Rescued by Rover.” The canine protagonist in this suspensial epic has, like bis successor, an intelligence equal to that of an Oxford professor and aggerated actions of the cast elicit ed guffaws from those present. Lu dicrous they certainly were, and primitive. But other than from a' technical standpoint, no more so than a majority of our modern screen endeavors. It might be said that the difference between a pre ponderance of present-day movies and those of yesterday is simply that today’s average photoplay carries mediocrity to a higher de gree of perfection, while our few outstanding films achieve this same perfection with ideas not very much more ingenious than earlier ones. Great Train Robbery” would be hard to distinguish from “Sundown in Wyoming.” Recently John Whitmore, chief copy boy in charge of changing our typewriter ribbon, commented on the fresh and corking imagina tion contained in the recent science- fiction fantasy, “Destination Moon.” Strangely enough, the pos sibilities of a venture to the moon had been recorded by Hollywood as far back as 1903 in “A Trip to the Moon.” The ability to conceive of a world different than our own is not a modern trait. What sepa rates “Destination Moon” and “A Trip to the Moon” is more a crudity of production, due to a lack of technical know-how, not any infe riority of inventiveness. physical dexterity matched only by Lex Barker. This four-legged equivalent of Cornel Wilde saves a young baby who has been kidnap ped by first sniffing his way to (See CINEMATICS, Page 6) Things are beginning to hum around the City Hall these days. With the recent action taken by College Station city officials on the electricity proposition in this city, there are going to many other factors to consider before the question is thoroughly ironed out and all work is finished. The City of Bryan, who for many years has played a major part in supplying all or parts of College Station with various utilities, has come into the picture lately. The Bryan city dads don’t exactly like the idea of losing the steady income they have had from College Hills electricity subscribers. Who would like to lose $15,000 a year ? That’s what their net income from College Station electricity in vestments is reported to be from a gross of $30,000 annually. But now that the College Station city council wants to offer all is citizens the benefit of new rates which they have established, Bryan commission members have waked up to the fact that their investment is in jeopardy. In fact they now see there was no bluffing on the part of the local council when negotiations were begun with the Brazos River Transmission Cooperative several months ago. Although we can’t say exactly what the proposals are, the Bryan commission has offered the local councilmen a deal that may be too much to resist. Bryan would like to sup ply the entire city with electricity and also sell their lines to the City of College Station. So now we will wait and see what is to be done by the Bryan group. Local officials decided yesterday to return the question to the Bryan Commission for further information from them. As we said, none of the facts in the proposition can be released at present, but when the College Station city council convenes again next week, most of the details should get a vary thorough hashing. One commendable thing which the local group has done, incidentally, is their determined effort to get prompt action on the matter, but at the same time not act hastily on any thing which might bring about some undesirable circum stances later. After all, everyday they hold up action on this deal, money is going into Bryan that could be used to fatten the coffers of this city. In Passing ... Shirley Brown, twelve year old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. E. E. Brown was taken to the Waco Crippled Childrens Sospital this week with Polio. Shirley’s case marks the third in a series of cases diagnosed as polio for College Station children in the last few weeks. John J. Sperry, who himself has a child in the Waco hos pital with polio, said that of the six patients in the ward there early this week, three of them are from College Station „ —hard to believe, yet true. Dr. David E. Brown, head of the Brazos County Health Unit, said he knows of nothing which the recent illness can be attributed to. He said in many cases, methods of sewer disposal- have a large bearing on the spread of polio. He added however, that as far as he knows, sewer facilities in College Station are adequate enough to prevent such condi tions. News About the City . . . Mayor Ernest Langford and City Manager Raymond Rogers leave for Austin today to discuss legal technicalities with state officials for calling a revenue bond election for electricity extensions in the city. Langford saiid yesterday that he had no idea what the bond amount would be if the election could be called, but nevertheless, the details of the matter are so intricate that the conference in Austin is necessary, Langford said. Letters To The Editor Editor, The Battalion: Last night the Student Senate met in special session primarily to discuss the confusion which occurred at Kyle Field during last Saturday’s game Your senators evolved a plan which should prove satisfactory. Token tickets have been distributed to corps seniors for admit tance to their section of the stadium. Civilian students are safe from outsiders encroaching on their section in that student activity cards must be presented before they may enter. There is no way the rules set down by the Senate can he enforced other than by an appeal to your Aggie decency to fellow students, when asked to move, if you are sitting in the wrong section. This plan will function properly if, and only if, we, the student body,- co-operate. Bill Parse, President The Student Senate L IL ABNER THE SIGHT OF YOU, A GENUINE WOMAN, GAVE ME THE STRENGTH TO ESCAPE//'- THEY CAPTURED ME TWELVE YEARS AGO/.'' By A1 Capp OH, VERY SMART. IN STUO/ING OUR PLANET THEY DISCOVERED OUR MOST POPULAR LITERATURE WAS THE ‘'FEARLESS FOSDICK"COMIC BOOKS.''.'' SO THEY SUBSCRIBED — BUT THEY COULDN'T UNDERSTAND IT// SO, WITH THEIR INTERPLANETARY MAGNET THEY SNATCHED ME UP HERE TO INTERPRET , rr FOR TWELVE HOW D'YO’ YEARS I'VE BEEN \ FIGGER EXPLAtNING THOSE WE KIN FEARLESS > GIT FOSDICK COMIC A OFFA BOOKS TO 'EM/.'' ^ THIS ME—THE PRESIDENT ) HERE OF THE-s 0 B/>- ANTI- J PLANET?! COMIC BOOK LEAGUE ' r LFL ABNER CAN HOLD 'EM OFF WITH THI' CAN OPENER// THEY'RE IN MORTAL FEv of wrr By AI Capp