Page Two.
THE SALEMITE
Friday, May 13, 1938.
^alcmitc
Published Weekly By The Member
Student Body of Southera Inter-Collegiate
Salem College Press Association
SUBSCRIPTION PRICE ; ; $2.00 a Year : : 10c a Copy
EDITOBIAL STAFF
Editor-In-Chief Helen McArthur
Associate Editor Alice Horsfleld
Business Manager Edith McLean
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
News Editor Mary Thomas
Junior Editor Sara Harrison
Sports Editor Emma Brown Grantham
Music Editor - Helen Savage
Staff X“ssistants:—
Mary Louise Phillips Madeleine Hayes
Betty Sanford Sara Burrell
Elizabeth Hatt Lee Eiee
Sue Forrest Josephine Carmichael
Margaret Holbrook Katherine King
Mildred Minter Eunice Patton
Katherine Snead Geraldine Baynes
Hannah Teichman
FEATURE DEPARTMENT
Feature Editor Tillie Hines
StafF Assistants:—
Eleanor Sue Cox Frankie Tyson
Betsy Hill Jackie Ray
Nancy Suiter Mary Charlotte Nelme
Mary Lee Salley Mary Davenport
Lena Winston Morris Peggy Rogers
Betty Bahnson Forest Moseby
Kate Pratt
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Assistant Business Manager Bill Fulton
Advertising Manager Prather Siak
Exchange and Circulation Manager Grace Gillespie
ADVERTISING STAFF
Carol Cherry Patty McNeely
Louisa Sloan Margaret Patterson
Jane Kirk Elizabeth Winget
EXCHANGE AND CIRCULATION STAFF
Alice Kinlaw Millicent McKendrie
Sybil Wimmer Lucile Stubbs
Buth Schnedl
>957 M«Mber 193*
{^sodded Gslle^de Press
Dutributor of
Gofleeiale Di6est
RKPRKSCNTKD POfI NATIONAL ADVKRTI6ING BY
National AdvertisingService, Inc.
ColUg* Publisksrs RfPftstntativt
420 Madison Ave. New York. N. Y.
Chicago • Boston - Los Angeles - San Francisco
BUILD UP THE
LIBRARY
The gifts that our library has received recently remind
us of the constant interest of friends and former students in our
school. Within the last few weeks, four people have given
books and others have promised their gifts to be made in the
future. This is, we believe, the beginning of a steady increase
in our number of books and we thank those who have presented
to us gifts of such lasting quality. To show them that we ap
preciate their interest in our library, we must, ourselves, at
tempt to build up our collection. This, we may do if we, either
as individuals or as groups, give a few books when we can.
—G. B.
SUNNING
Look around you on any of these warm sunshiny after
noons, and what do you see scattered around on Salem’s lower
campus? You see a display of sun-bathers, nicely.oiled, hoping
shortly to become nicely tanned. You will discover ,however,
that the girls do not stay out for such long periods at a time,
as they did in former years. Pads come and go, and it is no
longer smart to bake oneself black, for experience has taught
that to acquire a smooth golden brown skin is far wiser and
less painful. So come on girls, take a few minutes from each
afternoon to sun yourselves — but remember, wear something
over your halter as you go down and come back up.
B.
m FAVOR OF GBJBATER EXPRESSION
OF STUDENT OPINION
Whispering campaigns have never been very profitable,
and furthermore, etiquette codes dictate that it is impolite to
talk behind other people’s backs. Therfore the “Salemite”
advocates the policy that if you want to fight, come out into the
open to do so. In other words, express your opinions in print
where others may read them and answer if they wish.
The editorial page of the “Salemite” is for the purpose
of expressing student opinions. There must be people on the
campus outside of the Salemite Staff who have ideas about things
around them or suppressed opinions that they would like to
expand upon. There has been, in our opinion, a decided lack of
expression among the students on the campus lately. Silence is
golden only when it is not carried too far.
A college newspaper supposedly represents the student
body. There are always a number of minor — and occasionally
one or two major-subjects of discussion going around the cam
pus. They crop up at dinner tables, in the Green Room, in dorm
itory bull sessions. Bring them out and let the rest of us discuss
them with you. —^H. McA,
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I AT I3ANCCM I
A SHROPSHIRE LAD
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
—^A. E. Housman.
THE FLAW IN PAGANISM
'Drink and dance and laugh and lie,
Love, the reeling midnight through,
For tomorrow we shall die!
(But, alas, we never do.)
—Dorothy Parker.
I LITTLE WORDS I
I ' ^
I When you are gone, there is nor bloom nor leaf |
I Nor singing seat at night, nor silver birds; \
I And I can only stare, and shape my grief \
I In little words. ^ i
I I cannot conjure loveliness, to drown I
I The bitter woe that racks my cords apart, |
I The weary pen that sets my sorrow down I
I Feeds at my heart. I
I There is no mercy in the shifting year, |
I No beauty wraps one tenderly about I
I I turn to little words — so you, my dear, |
I Can spell them out. |
I —Dorothy Parker. |
SHiiniiurttiniiaiHiiHiuiinuiiiiiHiHEiinniiiminiiuiMiiiHniiiinuiiiiaiiiiiiiMiHniiiiiiiuNiDiiHiiiiiuiniiiniiuiiiaiiiiiiuiiNc^
DEAN VARDELL MAKES MUSICAL NOTES
ON CUFFS
As pre-publicity for the annual Festival of American
Music at the Eastman School of Music, on April the twenty-first,
a column of comments by the composers to be featured in the
concert appeared in the Rochester paper. Among these com
ments the words of Dean Vardell stood out as indicative of the
methods of composers in general. They are as follows:
“Sometimes harmonic ideas spring from the midst of
nothing. Immediately I write it on my cuff, so I won’t forget
it. Later on, a twist of the wrist and it begins to bear melodic
shape and rythm.
“Sometimes I can see what is coming next, but other
times I have to write what I know isn’t right and come back
later to revise it.”
To say that he writes the ideas on his cuff, is a very
modest and rather clever way of saying that he keeps a sketch
book and writes ideas down as they occur to him. According
to the genius of the individual, ideas that contain a germ of
originality and beauty waiting to be developed frequently, or
occasionally flash across a musician’s mind. Very often, if they
are not captured at the time, they are gone forever. This meth
od, the sketch book method, of retaining musical ideas, has been
used by many composers, among them Cesar Franck. And most
music students of Salem College will agree that “What’s good
enough for Cesar Franck is good enough for me.”
Of all composers only a comparatively few have been
able to conceive an entire composition at once in its final form.
This is certainly true in our own age when musical material
and forms are immensely more complicated, and less standard
ized. So in speaking of having to revise his work, Dean Var
dell doubtless spoke a generalization for all modem com
posers. Anyone who listened to his Symphony No. I on the
night of April the twenty-first must have realized that it was a
well polished work. Undoubtedly every phrase had been care-
reworked, and some sections probably had been revised many
times.
Mr. Vardell modestly omitted to say that not only the
writing on the cuff of musical ideas and careful revisions of
compositions make a successful composer, but a sound and com
prehensive musical background is also essential. A musical idea
may be present, but without a thorough knowledge of material
and form it never takes shape. It is a certainty that the Sym-
'phony No. 1 of Dean Vardell would never have been heard with
out that aforementiond musical background.
—^Tom Houts.
PULITZER
PRIZE WINNERS
ANNOUNCED
Fiction —
The Pulitzer Prize Awards were
announced at the Annual Dinner of
the Columbia School of Journalism
on the first Monday of May. The
fiction award went to John P. Mar-
quand for “The Late George Ap-
ley. ” Mr. Marquand, who will be
forty-five on his next birthday, was
born in Wilmington, Delaware, and
went to school at Cambridge and
Harvard, graduating from Harvard
in 1915. He has written eleven books
and numberless short stories.
“The Late George Apley” was
first printed as a serial in “The
Saturday Evening Post,” and ap
peared later in the book stores in
January, 1937. This book is the first
“literary” novel by a professional
writer who had previously written
expert entertainment. Mr. Bernard
De Voto in *'The Saturday Review
of Literature” found Mr. Mar
quand’s depiction of the Brahmin
way of life in Boston very effective.
Also he spoke highly of the satire of
the book.
Drama —
The Drama Award was given to
Thornton Wilder for “Our Town.”
Mr. Wilder is already well known as
a novelist, having been awarded the
Pulitzer fiction prize in 1928 for his
novel “The Bridge of San Luis
Rey. ’ ’ In spite of his ventures as a
novelist, it has been Mr. ^ril^0r^s
ambition since his college days at
Vale to achieve success a dra
matist.
“Our Town” is an unconvention
al play, produced, as a number of
other playa this season, without
scenery, with much of the action
given in monologue form by a chorus
and commementator combined in the
person of the excellent actor, Frank
Craven.
History —
The Histary Award went to Paul
A. Buck for his book “The Road
to Reunion,’ ’ which tells in an objec
tive and impartial way of the cul
tural conflict and propaganda of the
post-bellum period in the North and
South. The book has been highly
praised by scholars who are capable
judging Mr. Buck’s historical ac
curacy; yet it has also been found
eminently readable by the less schol
arly readers.
Biography —
regard to the Biography Award
an unprecedented situation arose.
The award was split between Odell
Shepard for “Pedlar’s Progress”
and Marquis James for “Andrew
Jackson.” Mr. Shepard’s volume, a
life of Bronson Alcott, has already
won a prize for being chosen from
among 387 manuscripts in Little,
Brown, and Company’s Centenary
Contest as the most interesting un
published American work of non
fiction which is soundly based on
fact. Mr. James’ book is a two-vol
ume biography of President Jackson.
This is the second book by Mr.
James to win a Pulitzer Prize, the
first having been awarded him in
1930 for his “The Raven; A Biogra
phy of Sam Houston. ’ ’
Poetry —
The youngest of the prize-winners,
and the only woman among them
was Marga Zaturenska whose vol
ume “Cold Morning Sky” won for
her the Pulitzer Poetry Prize. Miss
Zaturenska was born in Moscow in
1901 and spent the first ten years
of her life in Russia. At fourteen
she was at work in an American
factory. In the “Saturday Review
of Literature” Louis Untermeyer
wrote of “Cold Morning Sky” that
in every way this book was a finer
collection than her first one,
“Threshold and Hearth,” published
in 1934.
“It’s a good thing graduates get a
sheep skin when they leave school
for they will need an extra skin
when they get out in the struggle of
real life. ’ ’ An Alabama Polytechnic
Institnte student newspaper editorial
columnist makes an old saw into a
cutting remark.