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The BattalionSTUDENT TRI-WEEKLY NEWSPAPER
TEXAS A. A M. COLLEGEThe 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; also it 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, $3 a school year. Advertising rates upon request.
Represented nationally by National Advertising Service, Ine., at New York City, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Office, Room 122, Administration Building. Telephone 4-4W44.
Bob Nisbet ..................... ............... ........... ........ .......... . Editor-in-ChiefGeorge Fuermann _________ _____________ ____ Associate EditorKeith Hubbard .................................... ........... .. Advertising ManagerTommy Henderson .............................................. Circulation ManagerPete Tumlinson ..................... :.............. ............................. Staff ArtistP. B. Pierce, Phil Levine ........................................ s, Proof Readers
Photography DepartmentPhil Golman ........................................................... Photographic EditorJack Jones, T. J. Burnett, G. W. Brown,
Joe Golman, John Blair ................ Assistant PhotographersSports Department
Hub Johnson ..................................... ...... ........................... Sports EditorBob Myers ....................................................... Assistant Sports EditorMike Haikin, W. F. Oxford .................................. Sports Assistants
THURSDAY’S EDITORIAL STAFFGeorge Fuermann ................... .................. Acting Managing EditorGeorge Woodman .............. .......... Assistant Advertising Manager
Junior EditorsTom Gillis ................ ....D. C. Thurman ................... .. V. A. Yentzen
Reportorial StaffLamar Haines, John May, Z. A. McReynolds, J. D. Mehe-
gan, L. B. Tennison, Mike Speer, James F. Wright.___________
Synchronize ExemptionsAN UNDERGRADUATE who within the prescribed time completes all the requirements of a course except the examination may earn exemption from examination in that course provided he has a semester grade, exclusive of final examination of A or B, and is within the upper 25 per cent of the class as then constituted. A class as used above is defined as including all undergraduate students registered in a given subject with a single instructor.
The above paragraph is quoted from the book of College Regulations and is so done in an effort to encourage uniform practice throughout the campus.
Regardless of practice, the correct procedure is for each instructor to take all his sections in a particular subject and exempt the upper 25 per cent without regard to section.
There are several advantages to this system of exemption, but the reason given for carrying out the plan as specified is that in any one particular section there might not be enough A’s and B’s to satisfy the 25 per cent allotment, while in another section there might be an excess. The ruling was made in an effort to provide as many exemptions as could be made possible. The limitation to computing the 25 per cent from each individual instructor was made, obviously, to account for the differences in presentation and grading between instructors.
It is the opinion of The Battalion that usage of this rule should be “synchronized,” not that non- uniform usage would be disastrous, but that a rule is a rule and should be followed for that reason, if for no other.
ASCAPFEW SUBJECTS have inspired the columns of comment in the nation’s college press that have poured forth since ASCAP and the radio networks terminated relations.
Music, it seems proved once again, is a prime factor in the collegian’s existence, and editorial reaction, for the most part, has been clear-cut.
The Harvard Crimson in an analysis of the dispute points out that the main line of defense for the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers “is the fact that in the mid-twenties its light was recognized under the copyright law to assess broadcasters for etherizing its music. The society for a while was satisfied with a five per cent cut. But when networks incorporated and, finding themselves not liable to royalty fees, proceeded to juggle their books so as to lessen the amount paid by individual stations, ASCAP began to feel double- crossed. Hence the new contracts placing a seven and one-half percent dent on income from all chain programs. “On the other side of the musical fence,” continues the Crimson, “stand the networks, arguing that ASCAP has already dug too deeply into radio’s coffers and now seeks only to pursue its advantage. Furthermore, they say, charges should be made upon the music presented, with no blanket fee on all sponsored broadcasts.”
The Daily Kansan sees some good in the controversy, but closes on a note of impatience: “You maye have to go to the “Camptown Races” two or three times a day, but you do get to hear some of the really fine things of Stephen Foster that were formerly buried under the avalanche of popular music. Even so, we’d rather have our choice of the whole shebang. So, boys, please settle the squabble, and let’s get back to work.”
The Syracuse Daily Orange, the Cornell Daily Sun, and the Daily Nebraskan resent the public’s being “taken in” by the whole situation. The Sun says that “again the ugly head of the interclass struggle has risen, and meanwhile the people of the United States are suffering as usual.” The Nebraskan feels that “ASCAP’s monopoly seems not too healthy a thing,” and finds that “music lovers are getting angry at BMI for not having what they want and at ASCAP for denying them the right to hear their favorite songs.” •
The Daily Iowan hazards a guess that the public will force the networks to effect a settlement. “Eventually those of us who really enjoy our radio music will become tired of Stephen Foster, et al, and unless the new BMI can supply us with an increasing number of GOOD popular, semi-popular and classical songs to our liking, ASCAP will win its battle with the networks and increase in radio rates for its music, and the blessings of music-loving Americans who care nothing about the economics of the battle but who insist on their musical favorites. The fairness of ASCAP’s demands we will not discuss. Our only conviction now is that the day is aproaching when ASCAP music will return to the networks, and several millions of air-minded Americans will have brought it about.”
Back at Harvard, the Crimson concludes: “Just which party capitulates is a question to be answered by the listening public. If America’s 50,000,000 radio seta start turning more and more to ASCAP-
contracted independent stations and advertisers follow the trend, the networks will have to throw in the towel. But if the combination of the BMI, old American, and foreign tunes suits listeners’ tastes, the Society <5f Composers will find itself in an awkward position. Whatever the battle’s outcome, American music should emerge with a new lease on life.”
—Associated Collegiate Pres
Something To ReadBY DR. T. F. MAYO
STUDENTS INQUIRE every year as to the possibility of getting a course in philosophy introduced into our curriculum. Apparently a good many Aggies wonder occasional “what life is all about,” and would like some help in figuring out a satisfactory answer. Perhaps some day there will be such a course. Meanwhile, there is a good deal of light available from books which have been written with the express purpose of helping the ordinary man to formulate an intelligent philosophy of life.
One approach to the problem is to look at life, as a whole, through the eyes of a few great philosophical thinkers. Will Durant’s “The Story of Philosophy” is probably the most popular book of this kind. It is long, but it is lightly and chattily written. If you select it, don’t skip the chapters on Plato, Nietzsche, Spinoza, and Voltaire. It will leave you, probably, with your own philosophy still unformulated. But it will also leave you, I think, with a certain habit of looking for an intelligent aim—which, I take it, is the essence of the philosophical point of view. It should also leave you with some stimulating ideas from each philosopher.
Hyde’s “The Five Great Philosophies of Life” was written by a famous teacher expressly for college students. It explains very readably the philosophies of Epicurus, the Stoics, Plato, Aristotle, and Jesus, and tests them out by applying them to modern life. Clifton Fadiman’s collection, “I Believe” will give you, in ten or fifteen pages each, the points of view of about twenty distinguished contemporaries. It would be interesting to see with which of them you most nearly agree, and then to read after those most congenial to you.
If you prefer a book which attempts to work out a single philosophy of life for you, try H. A. Overstreet’s “The Enduring Quest,” which the author describes as “a search for a philosophy of life.” His little book “Let Me Think” is also an excellent thing for anybody to read who wants to form good mental habits.
“The Meaning of Right and Wrong,” by R. C. Cabot, tries to help you clear up some ethical questions. Durant Drake’s “Problems of Conduct” has passed through three editions, largely because college students have found it useful. “What We Live By,” by the French clergyman, Ernest Dimnet, has been a help to many inquirers.
Our own William Janes’s volume of short papers, “The Will to- Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy,” is one of the very best books of any kind for a thoughtful person to read. His topics include “Is Life Worth the Living?”, “Great Men and Their Environment,” and “The Importance of Individuals.”
Reading any one of these books will almost certainly turn out to be a fruitful experience, especially if you discuss it afterwards. Our education has been forced to spend so much time in teaching you people how to get what you want that it has sadly neglected the even more important question of what is worth wanting. This is a question which everybody must, in the long run, answer for himself. Isn’t it about time you were at least realizing that an answer is needed?
As the World Turns...BY “COUNT” V. K. SUGAREFF
IF HITLER INVADES ENGLAND. The comparative inactivity of the last several days on the western front has revived the question, “Is Hitler going to invade England?” Of course it is impossible to predict the answer to that question, but information coming from England indicates that thorough preparations are being made for the anticipated in
vasion. The British have been conducting special drilling for an invasion. Besides, they have mined the beaches and put up barbed wire entanglements. Machine gun nests have been placed at necessary intervals and concrete tank traps have been constructed two feet apart in the sand. Moreover, the British fleet stands guard as the first line of defense of the British Isles. The Germans will have to destroy the British fleet before they can successfully land an army in England.
The Royal Air Force will, also, be on hand to receive the invading Germans, and so far the R. A. F. has given ample proof that it can cope with the German dive bombers. The British have nine new types of air fighters that will be used if an invasion is attempted. In addition to these precautions there are two million men in the home guard and as many in the regular army.
These material preparations are supplemented by nation-wide training to unify the British morale. A leaflet entitled “We, the British,” which instructs the people what to do “If the Invader Comes,” has been distributed among them. The leaflet contains many detailed instructions. “Do not give any Ger- mar anything. Do not tell him anything. Hide your food and your bicycle. Hide your maps. See that he gets no petrol. If you have a car or motor bicycle, put it out of action when not in use. Make it useless to anyone but yourself. Do not believe rumors and do not spread them. When you receive an order, make sure that it is not a faked order. Keep Watch; if you see anything suspicious, note it carefully and report to the nearest police officer or military office. Think before you act. But think always of your country before you think of yourself.”
When Hitler starts his total assault on the British Isles, he will find them a veritable military camp. And with the increasing aid from the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and the South African Union, the German invaders may find the opposition more than they bargained for.
THE BATTALION -THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 1941
BACKWASH ByGeorge Fuermann
“Backwash: An aritation resulting from some action or occurrence.”—Webster.
The Private Life of A Champion’s Instructor ... You can’t see the walls of his office—they’re plastered with pictures. There are nearlife-size reproductions of Joe Routt, Joe Boyd and Jarrin’ Jawn Kimbrough—three lads who have play
ed a little football for the Texas Aggies. Dandy Dick Todd, another Aggie-great who’s doing his football on a commercial basis these days, is hang, ing in one corner of the room. Then there’s Matty Bell, an Aggie coach un-
Fuermann 1934> starinSdown above a color
picture of Kyle stadium, and there is a calendar on the wall, too. That’s just about a complete inventory of the place, except the two chairs, a bookcase and a small desk in the
Center of the room.If you’ve even seen a volcanic
cone rising out of a plain, then you know what kind of an impression the gentleman behind that desk makes when you walk in his office. His birth certificate says he’s Homer Hill Norton, and since that slip of paper was filled out he’s been knocking around as a steel mill worker, a pro baseball player and head nurse to the gridiron hopes of two of the nation’s football-minded colleges.
“Private life,” he laughed. “A football coach doesn’t have one.”
It was just about then that he opened one of the over-stuffed drawers of his desk. “Do ya see that?” he asked, pointing to half a hundred pieces of paper with funny little circles, x’s and marks on them. “That’s a batch of alleged sure-fire trick plays which fans have sent during the past three or four weeks.” He added that in the 20 years he has been coaching football he has never received a successful trick play from a fan, “but many of these ideas serve as suggestions which lead to successful plays,” he said.
Fan mail, to a coach who has a winning ball club, is something to write home about. Coach Norton averages 40 letters a day during the playing season. “All kinds of it,” he points out. “If we win, we get congratulatory letters—if we lose, we catch hell!” During the past season there was one fellow who was a better-than-average diehard pessimist. Each Monday morning Coach received a post card signed “The Miserable Grouch.” “He really was a grouch, too,” Coach said, “because we just couldn’t please him. Win, lose or draw, he was still unhappy.”
• • •A Florida Resort
Concerning his plans when his coaching days are over, Coach Norton is all-the-way certain. “I’ve
always wanted to run some kind of a resort in Florida, and that’s definitely my plan when the time comes that I will no longer be a football coach,” the genial mentor said. “But remember one thing, he added. “I’ll be coaching as long as I can keep going. I love the sport and the profession and as long as anyone will have me, I’ll be around a football field.”
A son of a Methodist minister and one of ten brothers and sisters, Norton’s philosophy in respect to gridiron warfare is almost unique. “It sounds trite for me to say that there is more to the game than just winning he said, “but I feel just that way about it. To me, the important thing is that we can help young men get a better slant on life through their participation on the athletic field. I doubt that I could be a football coach if I didn’t feel that way about it.”
His players, too, seem to understand his feelings in that connection. To a man, they’ll fight for their coach, and the return compliment on his part is as true as a plumb line—“The group of football players we have here now are the finest bunch of men I’ve ever been associated with,” Coach has said many times.
Affable, mild, gracious and amiable, Coach Norton is always willing to talk about his lovely wife, the former Mable Tilton. A talented musician and an expert organist, the two met in 1917 at a party and were married a few months later. “I think I was first smitten when she played one of her own compositions at that party,” Coach said. The name of the piece was “Dear Old Island” and it’s still the No. 1 song on Coach Norton’s hit parade.
“What do I think about pro football?” he mused. “Just this—if a boy has a future in the game and can make money at it, then he should grab the chance. But just to play to be playing . . . Well, it isn’t worth it.”
• • •Aggies—Grade ‘A’
When a fellow talks very long with Coach Norton he’ll sooner or later get the idea that Coach thinks a whale of a lot of the A. & M. cadet corps, its 216 piece band, its yell leaders, and the college’s former students’ association. These things always seem to be bobbing up in his conversation. “The cooperation which we coaches and the players receive from the student body is a great contributing factor to whatever success we have had,” he said. “I don’t believe that there is a place in the nation where I could go and fail to find an organized ex-students’ club.”
A typical gentleman of the old South, suh, Coach Norton was born in Carrolton, Alabama 43 years ago. He attended the Birmingham high school and the Birmingham-
Up and coming Rita Hayworth is at the Campus as the “LADY IN QUESTION” Friday and Saturday. Rita has been enjoying the public spotlight recently as a promising young star and has received reams of publicity to build her up. Her main asset for this honor are raven black hair, fresh beauty, and a good figure which she doesn’t mind showing off. This last asset has accounted for a good deal of the rise in the public eye.
“The Lady in Question” has a good background in the French middle class. Brian Aherne, star of “Good-bye Mr. Chips”, plays a small shop owner on jury duty who helps acquit Rita. He befriends her and his son falls in love with her. The catch of the story comes when Aherne finds he has given the wrong verdict.
This feature doesn’t move too fast; it is the simple story of common people, but it is well directed and performed. It’s quietness and human qualities make it a little better than the average show for drama.
The most unusual distraction this week will be the showing of the Mexican film “JALISCO NUNCA PIERDE” by the Campus Film Club tonight at the Campus. This xs the second in their series of foreign films which Aggies may attend and it should be worth the extra effort to see. Only the cream of foreign shows are presented by the club because the few they show are well selected. And just personal curiosity as to how foreign films are produced is something of a drawing card.
The film is produced in Mexico and has a good background of
Southern college where he lettered in football, baseball, basketball and track. Then he played pro baseball for the Birmingham team and has since been head football coach of the Centenary and Texas Aggie gridiron machines. The nearest he ever came to crossing the Mason- Dixon line occured when he was sold to the Columbus, Ohio baseball team in 1919. However, he asked to be placed on the voluntary retired list and never reported to the club. While at Centenary he tutored three undefeated teams—• in 1927, 1932 and 1933.
typical Mexican atmosphere. There are two young couples concerned in the plot. Their main problems are to escape the plans of their designing parents as to their marriages. This plot of a serious nature is made delightful by scenes at a fiesta in true Mexican style.
The film was selected by the club aS an excellent example of a Mexican production. W’hen it was shown in New York, the Times stated in its review of the film: “This exciting combination of exciting romance, clean comedy, and appealing music, is built a- round the simple story of how two young couples foil their well meaning parents matrimonial plans and have their own way in the end. There are no villians nor is there any blood spilled. At no time does the audience have to do anything except enjoy the singing, the jokes, and the feats or roping and horsemanship shown during the fiesta.”
With the Stamp Plan in full operation this winter and serving five million persons it provides new markets for more than $10,- 000,000 monthly for producers of surplus farm crops.
To be what we are, and to come what we are capable of coming, is the only end of life.
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