Page Two.
THE SALEMITE
September 26, 1947.
P^ix^ct....
... of all departmental clubs initiating
this year’s activities should be the unification
of meetings. There is a definite need for an
Activities Night at Salem on which all clubs
will have meetings scheduled without too much
conflict.
Dr. Jordan suggested this plan last spring
and it is hoped that all clubs on campus will
take quick and decisive action this fall to avoid
the chaos that results when the calendar is
crammed with club meetings and extra-cur-
ricular activities.
Another improvement might be 'the in
auguration of a Pay Day each month or at
some regular interval. Club dues, campaign
pledges and even personal debts shoijld be
collected with uniform efficiency and lack of
embarrassment.
Mo^ . .
. . . has been said about “being aware”.
Tub-thumping editorials have almost no effect
on arousing student interest in “things”.
But the fact remains that each year a
graduating class leaves Salem to go into the
wide, wide world. Every student herfe is a
potential voter, a potential civic leader—even
a potential office-holder.
Too often college students tend to become
self-contained. The resources at hand are taken
for granted; the obstacles to be surmounted
are overlooked. School becomes a self-centered
occupation—academically and socially. Issues
are ignored unless they concei-n us directly.
We completely lose “the broad view”.
Along, with book-larning and social de
velopment, there is, a definite need on Salem,
campus for awakened student interest in
national affairs—in the realm of contemporary
educational, social, and political problems. We
• seem to forget that opinions, decisions, and
actions of college students could be often great
forces for improvement in the world today.
The years that we are in college are the
valuable years for planting the seeds of interest
that will grow into the trees of action.
£ditan>:
“I want a blazer” has fast become a slogan
of Salemites. White is a good color, but have
you stopped to think about those girls who
have worked for 50 points in athpletics and
value those blazers awarded them by the A. A.?
All should realize that Salem does need a
blazer, but that a white blazer for continual
college wear would be unpractical, and that
another color or a tweed would be,more suit
able and cheaper.
Dissenter
Published every Friday of the' College year by the
•Student body of Salem College
Downtown Office—304-306 South Main Str^t
Printed by the Sun Printing Company
OFFICES
Lower floor Main Hall
Subscription Price—$2.75 a yeai;
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Edttor-in-Chief Peggy D'avis
Associate Editor Peggy Gray
Assistant Editor Nancy Carlton
Assistant Editor
Make-up Editor
Copy Editor
Feature Editor .
Music Editor ..
Sports Editor
- Carolyn Taylor
Margaret Carter
Laurel Green
Mary Porter Evans
- Margaret McCall
Gloria Paul
Editorial Staff: Gat Gregory, Nancy McColl, Peir.ano
Aiken, Betsy Boney, Marilyn Booth
Editorial Assistants: Dot Arrington, ^Mary Bryant,
Zetta Calirera, Debbie Darr Sartin, Ann Dungan,
Barbara Folger, Emelyn Gillespie, Frances Gules-
ian, Susan Johnson, Elizabeth Lee, Jov Martin,
Mary Motsinger, Joan Carter Read, Andy Rivers,
, Betsy Schaum, Peggy Sue Taylor, Ruth Van Hoy,
Barbara Ward, Amie Watkins, Fran Winslow.
Filists and Typist: Betty Holbrook.
Pictorial Editor: Ruby Moye.
Business Manager
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Eliza Smith
Reviewer Scans Novel;
Finds Gus Not So Great
^le4AJ-
by Catherine Gregory
A short statement to Freshmen, Transfers,
and the few Pinheads who. have forgotten dur
ing the summer:
This column is a weekly feature of the
Salemite, given by the liberal and enlight
ened editors who, recognizing the smolder
ing flame of genius in a cla'ssmate, re
solved to give impetus to its development
by providing a space for transient
thought, witticisms, and inspired musings
of, the said classmate.
The title derived from the fact that
the author is haunted by delusions of small
thangs which sit under the furniture and
peer at her as she writes.
The more literate of you will also recog
nize the clever paraphrase of John Mason
the article in Life about English ghosts? The
And speaking of thangs, have you seen
tlie article in Life about English gosts? The
subtitle of the article runs—“Britain has long
enjoj-ed a monopoly of screaming heads, trans
parent young maidens and ectoplasmic dogs
which pad about on squashy feet”. This is a
masterpiece of journalistic writing. What,
could be worse than a screaming head? Dr.
Hall, the veddy, veddy Britisher, assures us
that there are natural causes for all, and he
relates the story of the Tinkling Bells of Bot-
tomley Hall. It seems that they were not
ghost sounds at all, really, but only mice with
bells around their necks. And how did the
mice get bells around their necks? Why, the
caretaker’s wife, who was a “bit daft,” put them
there. And why did she put them there ? Well,
at that point the class bell rang, and we never
found out, but it still seems a jolly old horror
tale to me. It’s not every day that a care
taker’s wife . . . but let it pass.
Seriously though, if you like my column,
stop me in the hall and tell me so. After all,
I have'a growing young ego to feed, and rhap
sodies of ecstatic praise make me childishly
happy.
^n.iendilUfi
Assistant Business Manager Jane Morris
Advertising Manager Betsy Schaum
Assistant Advertising Manager Mary Hill
Circulation Manager : Virginia Connor
Once a tiny web was spun
Silvery, glist’ning in the sun
And though unseen, and silently,
The days enlarged the little web
into eternity.
It reached into my soul
It entwined about my heart - - -
A force fhat was transparent.
Yet I knew it was concrete
And binding me.
Within a reeling world
Drunk with misery
I clung to the silvery threads,
Hoping to miss my share
Of this dispair.
But in the distance far away
A storm approached growling in the dark
Then fJod with a mighty thunderbolt
Tore this futile masterpiece
To shreds upon the ground.
Susie Knight
LOOKING BACKWARD
47 YEARS AGO
From th^ November;^ 1900, issue
of The Hesperian, one of the two
forerunners of The Salemite:
We extend to our subscribers
and friends a very hearty greeting
and solicit their patronage for an-
' other year.
Mr. Clewell reads aloud to one or
• another of the Room Companies two
or three evenings out of the week.
He has just finished reading “The
Gryp of Honor” by Brady, to the
Seniors.
The Fair is over! And we are
truly glad. We were given one day
and that was all sufficient for the
purpose of seeing the sights, or at
least that part that our teachers per
mitted us to see.
37 YEARS AGO
From the November, 1911, issue of
The Ivy, another Salemite fore
runner:
New girls and old girls came trip
ping down the broad veranda steps
arm in arm and gow'ned in all the
dainty rainbow tints of summer
dresses. It was the evening of*
September twenty-fifth and the
Christian Association was holding
out a friendly hand of welcome to
brilliant with its many lights and
all the new girls. The campus was
the evening was soft and warm,
.lust the kind for a promenade to
the music of the Salem band.
If woman is man’s lost rib, then
an old maid must be a spare-rib.
30 YEARS AGO
From the February, 1918, issue of
The Ivy:
Dear Miss Letty:
I have often wondered, much to
my embarrassment, when taking a
girl to an ice-cream parlor should
one ask her to have a second saucer?
Ignorant
Dear Ignorant:
If she looks hungry or wistful
—yes, by all means.
LOOKING FORWARD
From the September 21, 1972 issue
of The Salemite:
This year’s Freshman Class ar
rived yesterday in their pastel-
colored rocket ships, to be greeted
by several hundred Wake Forest
boys. The boys, accompanied by
Mrs. Rondthaler, conducted the girls
over a tour of the campus.
The girls were taken to their
rooms where they were bathed and
refreshed by their individual hand
maidens. The rooms, w'hich are
soon to be rebuilt, consist of a
bedroom, living room, bath and small
kitchenette.
From the September 23, 2022
issue of The Salemite;
Fre.shmen were picked up by the
Salem Express at their homes and,
among Cokes, plush-cover#d seats
and the latest movie magazines, they
were taken to Salem College, where
GUS THE GREAT by THOMAS W.
DUNGAN. 703 pg. Philadelphia,
Pa.: J. B. Lippincott Co. $3.50.
by Peirano Aiken
For two successive afternoons,
with the kind consent of the Messrs.
Snavely and the nourishment of a
box of Lorna Doones, we perused.
700 pages of what we expected to
be the biography of a great Gus.
^Ve were, therefore, unprepared to
find ourselves swept swiftly and
artfully into a : gossipy character
panorama of everyone from Gus
mother’s brother-in-law to his part
ner’s adopted daughter. Ofcourse
novels have subplots, but this book is
really a collection of fairly well"
written short stories held together
with a paragraph here and there
about Gus himself, who serves the
purpose of a kind of literary glue.
But he spreads very well. Gus,
or A. H. Burgoyne (named by an
impartial mother after both his pos
sible fathers) was a newspaper
worker, a race-track owner, a rich
man of leisure, and above all a circus
owner. He loved people, elephants
and money—all in large numbers.
But probably his greatest love was
Gus. For that matter, only one
character in the bbok, a minor news
paper man, ever thought about any
thing beyond the orbit of his own
life.
In the hoardes of people whom we
come to know intimately many are
stereotypes: the fat girl who sits
all day dreaming about romance;
the girl .who likes all men “as a
spectacles and love scenes without
money-making business men, all sim
ilar. The only character who stands
out as an individual is Willie Krum-
mer, a sinister lion-tamer, who is
little less lovable than Heathcliff
of Wuthering Heights.
Despite all its irregularities, Gus
the Great is a refreshing story. If
you ’re able to forget all about liter
ary quality; if you’d like to ramble
around circus tents and printing
offices, taverns and hotels, murder
species;” and a few cold, stingy,
being seriously affected by any of
it, glance through Gus the Great.
Atie4iiia*t!
Tryouts for the Salemite staff
■will continue throughout next week.
Assignments are posted on the bul
letin board in the Salemite office.
The deadline has been postponed
until Wednesday, September 30, at
6 p. m. Both new and returning
students who are interested in writ
ing for the paper try-out.
they began Freshman Orientation
which lasted twenty minutes.
The Seniors, after parking their
planes in the special lots provided
^or such, could be seen giving their
professors instructions on how they
wanter their assignments given out,
what textbooks they wanted, and
■ how many classes a week they were
interested jn.
Qertrude Cleans House
by Prances Gulesian
In the very early morning it
shouted I am going to be a lovely
day and so I jumped out of bed
and onto the floor and into ^my
clothes and then downstairs to drink
my coffee the sun was shining shin
ing shining oh so bright and soon I
put out the clothes to be dried in
the sun by the sun the clothes
I mean and then there was the
living room what a dirty living room
I said to myself but it is all in the
subconscious it toojc me a long
yes a very long time to sweep and
dust out my subconscious, air out
my subconscious for it was untidy
untidy and noi; a bit neat what a
hard job job job and then on to
the porch oh what a porch an open
porch a sun porch a very nice porch
indeed but also a’ porch that very
much needed cleaning very much
with the mops and with tlje brooms
and with the dustcloths and with
other implements I am completely
yes wholly not familiar with I spent
one two three four five hours in
the sun the sun porch then lunch
I had an egg frtjm a chicken which
is a hen which came first the chicken
or the egg I fried my egg it
was very good one cigarette and
then back to work must not waste
time time is precious time is scarce
time is not cheap by the time I had
finished it was late by the clock on
the ctock it said it was very very
late and I was very very tired
and I said to myself I said Gertie
this is not for you the housework
it is not for you not for you no
never I decided that I should
stick stick fast stick tight to a rose
is a rose is a rose