Page Two.
THE SALEMITE
Saturday, October 31, 1931.
The Salemite
Published Weekly by the Student
Body of Salem College
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE
$2.00 a Year :: 10c a Copy
EDITORIAL STAFF
Editor-in-chief Sarah Graves
Managiny Editor .. Mary Louise Mielcey
Associate Editor Frances Douglas
Local Edit >r I atsy McMullen
Feature Editor Marian Caldwell
Feature Editor .... Dorotliy Heidenreich
Poetry Editor Martha H. Davis
Literary Editor Margaret Johnson
Music Editor Mary Absher
Society Editor Susan Calder
Sports Editor Nancy Miller
REPORTERS
iatrice Hyde
Mildred Wolfe
Zina Vologodsky
Mary Miller
Miri
1 Stev
BUSINESS STAFF
Advertising Myi
Asst. Adv. Mgr.
Asst. Adv. Mg
Asst. Adv. Mg
Asst. Adv. Mg
t. Adv. Mg>
Bean
lith Claire Leake
Martha Bothwell
.... Grace Pollock
Mary Sample
, Isabelle Pollock
Emily Mickey
isst. Ad. Mgr. Mary Catherine Siewers
Hrculation Mgr Sarah Horl
isst. Circ. Ig \ n Shufc
Isst. Circ. Mgr Rachel Bray
LITTLE THOUGHTS
FOR TODAY
Rules For The Road
Stand straight;
Step firmly, throw your weight:
The heaven is high above your
Be strong:
Sing to your heart a battle
Though hidden foemen lie in
Something is in you that ean
smile at fate.
Press through:
Nothing can harm if you are
And when the night comes,
The earth is friendly as a
mother’s breast.
—Edwin Markham.
PARAGRAPHICS
Better keep your head inside
door tonight and all your valuables
(?) safely hidden. ’Cause
goblins ’11 get you if you c
watch out”!
Ye FMitor and Managing Editor
received much inspiration and what
not (mostly the latter) from the
North Carolina Collegiate Press Con
vention held at Duke University last
week-end. Thanks, Mr. Ed Thomas,
for the lovely time had by all.
Looks as though A. Preston will
always walk away (pardon, ride
away) with the Blue Ribbon in the
annual horse show. Congratulations,
you equestriennes, Anna, Susie, Lib
The Salemite cordially welcomes
the various new members of its staff.
Congratulations—and our sympathy !
It seems that congratulations are
in order this week. We enthusiasti
cally offer them to Doris Kimel, ’32.
OPEN FORUM
2'he Salemite is your paper!
the proper emphasis on the pronoun.
For some years past, the paper has
been run exclusively by the staff,
with little co-operation from the
student body as a whole—after fre
quent and numerous requests for out
spoken and constructive criticisms
and written Open Forum articles.
Tliis year the staff is anxious
impress upon each student that the
paper is hers, yours, or any Salem
student’s. In order for the Salemite
to be a true representation of Salem
College life, it must have contribu
tions in its columns from persons
other tlian staff members. It is the
desire of tliose who are in charge of
the publication that it shall be a
medium, so to speak, through which
may be expressed all opinions,
ments and views on any subject of
collegiate interest.
The staff is responsible for s
ing material for the entire paper,
except one column tliat is, through
the college year, to be devoted
clusively to tlie use of the remain
ing members of the student body
And the idea, by the way, is not tc
have the column just for justice’s
sake, but to give students the oppor
tunity of expressing themselves
openly, instead of festering griev
ances or comments among their im
mediate group.
Student leaders, this is the col
umn to use to inspire the student
body to uphold student honor and
self-government, to arouse some
and enthusiasm for sports, to develop
interest in “Y” work and in the
rious publications.
Students, this is the column to
to express your “pet gripes” or your
personal dislikes. Or you may even
have some nice things to say about
the new improvements on the
pus—cafeteria breakfast, smoking,
or bridge. Or a word for, or against I
the new self-government at Salem.
These are just a few suggestions.
Come on, break down, and write us
an Open Forum article! If you
don’t we might say something to
make you mad so you will have to
defend yourself or your interest in
this column.
Tiiis is your Open Forum column.
Are you going to allow it to remain
blank.? R. S. V. P. in next week’s
Salemite.
ARE WE LETTING OUR
HONOR SLIDE?
We made a wonderful beginning
of our lionor system, but was it oi "
a beginning? Have our fifteen
twenty minutes after liglit bell
September now dwindled miraculous
ly to a very indefinite but conven
icnt “minute or so”? Did we strain
the gnat when we had only a few
call downs, and then swallow the
camel when our number of call
downs was approaching its limit
Is signing up when we go beyond
limits as important now as we be-
;d it to be a month ago? Is
giving oneself a call-down considered
issy”?
Tlie Honor System at Salem
;t in its infancy, and its presence
still a temporary feature of
Salem’s student government. This is
crucial period! Whether a gen-
or a snooping honor system is
instituted at Salem College is a ques-
which depends on our own con-
ice,—or lack of conscience. The
honor of future Salem students rests
)ur honor—or dishonor. Which
sliall it be?
Dear; it was not ray fault
Tliat we should chance
neet each other then.
I could not help myself
Although I knew I dreamed
Of Love too late:
It was not Choice, beloved;
But you were you—
And Time and Place were Fate!
—Isabella Hanson.
I - IP © IE T IR y - i
“HE WHO BUILDETH—”
I built a house
A house of cards
A house of cards on a sandbank.
I lined with dreams
With futile dreams
My house of cards on a sandbank.
F’or music I liad Laughter
For beauty I had Love
I talked not of hereafter
I walked with eyes above.
There came a storm
A sneering storm;
Oh ! House of cards on a sandbank
That wreck of hopes on a sandbank.
For music I have Weeping
For dreams—Realities—
And out of chaos, reaping
White Trutli and—Memories.
THE CHANGING SKIES
^ow once again the retreating year
Throws down her roses as she
flies,
^he corn is cut, and through the
Go winds with stronger, harsher
The melody of summer’s song.
The green, the bloom, the fruit are
The boughs are bare where lately
The golden children of the sun.
But now my joy goes with the year.
No more I greet the changing
skies.
Dank is my mind and blown and
bare
And something more than summer
dies.
The lovely bird that gives sad ton
gue
To joys it still half dwells upon,
We 11 soon forget what it has sung.
Shall I forget when all is gone?
THE AFTERMATH
Those eyes that once I called divine
I now declare are the other kind
And the sound of his voice
That gave me a thrill
Now gripes me and chills me fit 1
kill
I said he was deep and a man (
lettres, belles.
But now I swear he’s an imbecile.
What cause you implore
My opinion to lower ?
No, he didn’t desert me.
Divorce me, nor hurt me.
It wasn’t his manners, his looks, nc
his station—
—The darn Prof. flunked me o
examination!
—Julia Meares.
HALFWAY DOWN
Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn’t any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I’m not at the bottom.
I’m not at the top;
So this is the stair
I always
Stop.
Halfw'ay up tlie stairs
And isn’t down.
It isn’t in the nursery.
It isn’t in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
“It isn’t really
Anywhere!
It’s somew'here else
Instead!
—A. A. Milne,
In When We Were Very Young.
PENANCE
I tore mj- heart out by its roots
A sacrifice to my one Goddess, Love.
But many victims knelt ahead of me
I had to wait—
While drop by drop
The Oozing crimson of my Happi-
Spilt on the marble slab of your
cold soul.
—Isabella Hanson.
Week-End Travels
In the Realms of Gold
“Much Have I Travelled in the Realms of Gold”
Only a few people, for some indefinable reason, read short
stories, other than in magazines. Yet the short story is not unlike
a beautiful garden, some of them holding all the beauty the author
had in him to achieve. This fact is true in the volume Great
Modern Short Stories, collected by Grant Overton, In this, one
fmds work from many of the outstanding literary men and women
of the day.
“Paul’s Case,” a story by Willa Cather, is the best example of
absolute reliance on the material -which the author had at hand. She
merely arranges it for color in texture but that is all. W. Somerset
Maugham writes “The Letter" more for the stage. As a complete
short story it is rather too bare. Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”
has been pronounced by critical authorities to be the best short
story in the English language. This is the longest story in the
book and deals with ships and life at sea.
Music is an ever interesting subject for reading and writing
because one continually comes across new facts and every work, no
matter how thorough the author may be, is incomplete, in many re
spects. Thus John T. Howard in his book Our American Music
only attempts to bring information about the music that has been
written in tins country; and it is not a history of musical activities
except on the conditions that have produced the composers of each
Howard deals with the composers and the immediate facts con
cerning each: he also elaborates upon the marked rise in American
music. This book would not only interest the students in musical
research but even the casual reader because of its free style and
numerous illustrations.
Tlien last, but by no means least is Shadows on the Rock by
Willa Cather. The setting is a new one for Miss Cather, yet she
deals with it in her customary style. The book is laid in Quebec, the
city on the rock, during the seventeenth century. It deals with the
religious and everyday customs of the French Candians, all com
bined into a charming love story.
Great Modern Short Stories Grant Overton
Our American Music John Howard
Shadows on the Rock Willa Cather
THE WITCHES DANCE
A streak of purple lightning zig
zags across the sky. There is a long
rumbling peal of thunder. Twelve
gongs strike—heavily—slowly. Then
the night is peopled with moving
beings. Tall, ugly witches, astride
shaggy brooms ride through the air.
I'iery eyes of prowling black cats
blaze here and there; bats, blindly
fumbling through the air strike
against each other with a soft thud.
Eerie sounds fill the night. Helter-
skelter all the world of witches and
evil spirits dart and fly—on their
way to a deep, dark cave.
Within the cave the atmosphere
is heavy—a smoky, transparent blue.
At one end a hideous witch stands
stirring the contents of a huge black
pot. The smoldering embers of the
fire throw a ghostly light on her
liorrible, wrinkled face. Two shaggy
teetli come into view as she mutters
strange words to herself. One by
one, she pours the poisonous looking
contents of many bottles into the
pot and slowly stirs them.
Now a wierd, swishing noise is
heard outside. The spirits are as
sembling, High crooked voices . .
Piercing laughter .... The thud of
brooms falling against the wall.
The head witch gives a signal. In
an instant the spirits have whirled
into a frenzied dance.
A purple streak of lightning zig
zags across the sky. Then a rumbling
peal of thunder crashes through the
atmosphere. Witches, on with the
dance for it is Hallowe’en night!
WHAT PEOPLE ARE
READING
CASTLE SKULL
By John Dickinson Carr
In publishing Ca.Me Skull, Har
per’s has published one of the best
mystery stories of tuj.iy.
Until the very last gasp, the au
thor shields the ;.layer and keeps
the reader in utter ignorance of the
outcome. About seventeen years prior
the beginning of the story, Ma-
er, a world-famed magician, had
been pulled out of the Rhine River.
Wlietlier the motive was suicide or
murder liad never been decided. Mr.
Carr endeavors to explain and solve
the mystery of the death of Maleger.
In order to do this he introduces
to Bercolin, a French detective,
whom one of the world’s richest men
:aged to solve the death of
Alison, actor, Myron Alison
had been shot five times and then
burned to ashes on the ramparts of
the weird Castle Skull, which derived
its name from its artchitectural form
suggesting the head of grinning
death. Into the book Mr. Carr also
puts a rival detective, Herr Baron
Sigmiund Von Arnheim, who belongs
to the German school of detectives.
Between the two detectives there is
a humorous conflict.
The book, a complicated mys-
tery, which the author unravels skill
fully, has just been released from
the press.
MATTHIAS AT THE DOOR
By E. A. Robinson
Edwin Arlington Robinson, Ameri
ca’s greatest living poet, has just
published a new poem, “Matthias at
the Door.”
When the poem was carried to the
publishers, the MacMillan Company,
Robinson surprised them by making
a very unusual request. He greatly
fears that Matthias will be mispro
nounced. If it is incorrectly pro
nounced, Robinson fears that the
rhythm of his lines will be ruined.
Therefore, he made a request, which
was granted, that the pronunciation
of “Matthias” be put in parenthesis
under the title in the first publication
of the poem.
Mat-tlii-as” is the pronouncia-
tion which Robinson intended.