The Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 6, No. 31, Ed. 1 Friday, May 6, 1921 Page: 2 of 4
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PAGE TWO
IRE THRESHER. HOUSfON, TEXAS
THE THRESHER
A weekly newspaper published by the students of
Rice Institute, at Houston, Texas.
Entered as second-class matter October 17,1916,
at the Postoffice at Houston, Texas, under
the Act of March 3,1879.
Subscription Rates. .$2.50 per year, 10c per copy
Thresher Office-Room 104, Administration Bldg.
THRESHER STAFF 1MM1
HtU C. Qresham, '33 Editor-in-Chief
F. D. Hargis, '33 Business Manner
H. B. Upshaw, '31 Managing Editor
EOiTORlAL DEPARTMENT.
A. D. Batjer, '33 ^...News Editor
Lucy Zimmer. '31 .Associate Editor
Margaret Biackwei). '33 Assistant Editor
B. F. Payne, '22 Exchange Editor
Anah Marie Leiand, '33 Society Editor
E O. Arnold, '33 Feature Editor
BU8tNESS DEPARTMENT.
B. F. Mayer. '33 Circulation Manager
F. H. Guffy, '23 Ass't Circulation Manager
C. L. Dutton. '32 Advertising
Jake Henry. '33 Advertising
REPORTERS FOR TH)S <S8UE ARE:
H 8. Weidon Ben Mitchell
Chas. Swartz Aima Nentir
Virginia Atweil Dixie Dawson
L. Ehrenfeld Caesare Datniani
R S. Bickford K. T. Rowe
MAY 6, 1921. !
OUR CHANCES IN CONFERENCE MEET.
Though our chances in track have so decidedly
slumped with the loss of DoweH, Harlan and
Alexander within the past few weeks, a few op-
timistic remarks regarding our chances in the
Conference Meet are not inopportune. It can
readily be seen that most all of the points made
against A. and M. were from first places and
these first places we have continued to win con-
sistently against practically every track team in
Texas, and it is not assuming too much to thin^
that we should again outdistance these same
men in the Conference Meet..
Of course, we have not met Arkansas and Ok-
lahoma A. and M., but last year their strongest
points were their distance men, and we have no
chance to make points in distance events. It is
practically safe to presume that they will again
be stronger in distance races this year.
Last year the Conference Meet was won by
nb<iut 30 odd points, and if our sure point places
are as safe as we think they are, we have a fair-
ly good chance to take first or second place in
the meet. Of course, Harlan's 880-yard run was
a sure point winner, but in. Coleman he has a
worthy successor. Dowelt's 440-yard race was
a sure point winner, and there are slight chances
that he will be again in condition by the time
vhe meet. Alexander's sure "points in the
weights might have to be lost, depending upon
his condition.
However, we seem to have sure first and sec-
ond places in both of the short dashes, first and
a place in the pole vault, first in the shot put, a
place in the 880, first or a place in the broad
jump, a place in the 440. and probably places in
the 120-yard hurdles, and other events, of which
we think best to restrain our optimism. With
Dowel! and Harlan out, we have not such a good
chance at the relay, unless the Speedy Lindsey
should insist on risking his weak knee. It is
very natural that we will come far from doing
everything listed above, but even anticipating
that we are fairly successful, entertain no fur-
ther losses among our men, we still have a very
fair chance of winning honors in the Conference
Meet.
Inflated optimism, curiously enough, is often
worse than blackest pessimism, for in the latter
case, nothing is ever able to occur worse than is
expected. However, the plain facts seem to bear
out these genera! suppositions, and rather than
optimism, it seems to be "dope,"—with some-
times unfortunately, and sometimes luckily—is
never reliable.
-R-
MATERIAL FOR ORATORICAL CONTESTS.
The oratorical contests for the Wolters, Har-
ris and Shotwell medals will occur sometime this
month. In the past quite a bit of competition
has centered about the winning of these particu-
lar awards, the results of the philanthropy of
Messrs. Jake Wolters, I. Harris and W. I. Shot-
well, of Houston.
Speakers may enter with no special requisites.
An ideal manner for the contests to be waged
would be to have both of the men's and women's
literary societies enter one or more able' speak-
ers to represent them, and if this method is pur-
sued, elimination contests for the purpose of
chosing the representatives should be carried on
in the various societies at once. With the Rice
Forum and Congressional Club for the men and
the Pallas Athene and Elizabeth Baldwin Liter-
ary Societies for women, four excellent speakers
should be put forth at the very least, as well as
a number who have not affiliated themselves
with any literary society.
Other awards and prizes which should stimu-
late interest and competition in the contests are
the Lechenger silver cup for the winning debat-
ing team in the annual commencement contest
of the literary societies and the Wilson silver
cup for the winning team of the annual class de-
bate of the young women's literary societies.
While it is true that the present college gen-
eration is less given to the practice of pabMc
speaking and oratory, it will work to their dis-
advantage that this is the case. Every effort to
stimulate interest should be encouraged, an^it
is with this end in view, after a realization of the
value of the ability to speak on the floor before
an audience, that has prompted these benefact-
ors to annually donate cups and medals for win-
ners in oratorical contests.
DEFACEMENT OF THE BUILDINGS.
Rice Institute buildings are without question
the most beautiful ones belonging to any college
in the South. Every means is employed to keep
them in first class condition; experienced jan-
itors and gardeners are hired, whose sole duty
is to make them and the campus the most at-
tractive and best kept in Texas. They should
last forever and with good care will look well 200
years from now. The dormitories testify to
their structural superiority by the mere fact of
their existence after these few yearB of rather
rough using. They can stand the treatment but
are their looks improved with it?
Have you ever visited any of the other Texas
Colleges? Did you notice the dirty walls, the
pencil marked pillars, the penknife whittled
chairs, the cracked windows? Did you not com-
pare their looks with the immaculate halls and
cloisters of Rice, the balance in favor of Rice?
Of course you did.
Rice looks as if it were well thought of, as if it
received as much gare and thought as your own
home. Who in liis home would deliberately
scribble over the walls or with his knife carve
up the chairs and tables ? He who would must!
surely have little respect for the home or those
it shelters. Such is the co-ed who, while talking;
on the cloister, idly runs her pencil along the!
delicately traced imported marble; such is the!
ed who scratches his girl's initials over the chair j
during a boring lecture. Paper is cheap, use it;,
tear it up, save the girl publicity and the chair
disgrace.
Watch yourself and treat your scholastic home
whose cost is many times that of your own home
with respect and honor.
The privilege of attending school in these un-
surpassed buildings is given to you free. Show
your common manhood and womanhood by treat-
ing them right.
"A school is known by the students," has been
said so many times that it is platitudinous. Let
us not degrade Rice in any way, even in as little
a matter as scribbling the rough pillars along the
cloisters. ,
R
ON THE POSTING OF EXAM. SCHEDULES.
The posting of the examination schedules for
the term brings the majority of the university-
back to earth and to the realization of the hard
work lying before them and the completion of
the year. The examinations begin this month
of May, and every student who has braved two
stormy sessions should refuse to drop by the
wayside, but rather assume the role of hard
work and come out with their fortunate broth-
ers.
Particularly should the football men get down
to work, if they are at all shaky in any of their
subjects. Next seaauii witlt ttie excellent
coaches who will be here, and the great and valu-
able amount of material, there is no reason why
Rice should not walk away with the Southwest-
ern championship pennant. Of course it is un-
derstood that unless every man keeps off of pro-
bation, \<t'e will not have much chance to execute
this very deed, which has been in our hearts for
ten years.
To win the pennant against the superior num-
bers and wealth of material at both Texas and
3-A RICE
A. and M. will be a long, hard struggle. We will
need every man who has ever worn a football
uniform to do it.
So get down to work, students, and you will
have the rest of the summer to enjoy spring
fever!—and whatever other fancies may follow
in the wake of spring.
a
ATHLETICS FOR GIRLS NEXT YEAR.
I *
The girls' gym classes were an experiment this
j year. There was no attempt to draw up an or-
ganized schedule of physical training, with a sys-
tem of awards according, to attainment, as there
I was for the boys, and there were no permanent;
! teams competing for an intra-mural champion-j
[ship. The classes got a late start, and had to
quit early because of Mr. Mann's departure. Yet
jthe experiment proved a thorough success.
Without the organized competitive element
which made it interesting for the boys, the girls.
were enthusiastic and faithful in attendance.
They welcomed the opportunity for physical de-
velopment. The chance to get together was
{doubly valuable to them, because they are entire-
ly cut off from the opportunity for companion-
ship which dormitory life affords.
We sincerely hope that girls' athletics will be
gone into in a more serious and a more compre-
hensive way next year, that classes will be or-;
ganized early, and that real teams will be de-
veloped. Athletics are recognized as one of the
most important elements in a boy's school life;
they occupy nearly as important a place in the
life of a girl in any of the great girls' colleges^
The athlete, whether man or woman is, all other
things being equal, invariably saner, better bal-
anced, more efficient than the non-athlete.
Let us have some real athletics for girls at
Rice next year.
R
THE GEDDES LECTURES ON THE GODWIN
FOUNDATION.
Sir Auckland Geddes, British ambassador to
America, will be giving a series of lectures at
Rice during the coming week, May 11-18, on the
Herbert Godwin Foundation on Public Affairs.
Wm. H. Taft, ex-president of the United States
inaugurated the foundation last spring, and Sir
Auckland is a worthy successor to Yale's noted
professor.
Rice Welcomes the distinguished Briton, just
as she welcomed the distinguished
last year.
REGARDING RACE RIOT RUMORS.
When a fool nigger, who is incited by an in-
tellectual of his race, meets a rabid white who
is looking for trouble, a race riot is precipitated.
Luckily for everyone in this locality, the afore-
mentioned pair have not met. If it were not for
the seriousness of the consequences, the whole
affair could be looked at as a human farce. The
excited crowds who are eager to hear the "lat-
est" throng the streets and while attempting to
render aid, interfere with the actions of the po-
lice. The hurried attempts at preparation at the
last moment for the defense of the family: the
helter skelter of cars; the idiotic questioning of
police officers; the gaping, eager group hanging
on the street comer, listening to the blood-
curdling "thriller" of the veteran mob inciter
are indications of the gullibility and simplicity
of an impressionistic publip. A safe and sane
policy would dictate calmness and reserved
speech, and would manifest itself by rendering
aid to the authorities in a quiet, orderly man-
ner. If the agencies to prevent the causes of
race trouble are supported by the thinking
classes, the necessity to suppress the mob spirit
will never ayipe.
NO BETTER THAN THIEVING.
To the person or persons, Who, on two oc-
casions, have tampered with the editorials of The
Thresher before they are set up in type, this
article is directed. The columns of The Tresher
are open to the views of all such radical fanatics
who choose to write an open letter expressing
their stale opinions, over their probably un-
known names.
The person who resorts to the very under-
handed and dishonorable methods of which we
speak, commits a crime no less serious than
tampering with the mails, or in fact, thieving.
Not only was the idea of writing an editorial
under false colors extremely shameless, but the
spirit of the work, which would have had such an
THE "R" BOOK.
The "R" Book is quite the neatest piece of ad-
vertising that has been introduced to Rice stu-
dents as well as to high school graduates in some
time, and the "R" Book for 1921, just off the
press, certainly raises the standards, in regard to
this particular publication.
The book is complete, both regarding pic-
torial and reading matter, and presents in a most
effective whole, the resume of student activities
and athletic achievements.
The credit of the book is due to the ability of
E. V. Brown, secretary of the Student Associa-
tion, who was appointed by the Council to edit
the work. His work on the book merits the sin-
cere appreciation of the Rice student body. To
the Student Council/for conceiving the idea of
financing the book as a student affair and for
appropriating the money for same, some meas-
ure of thanks are also due. The pen drawings
and cuts made by Mr. John Clarke Tidden are in-
deed appreciated. The money came from the in-
cidental fee, which the students generously in-
cluded in the blanket tax of last year. Certainly
a similar amount should be included in the blan-
ket tax for next season, for the samp as well as
for similar purposes.
appeal to ignorant prejudices and would have so
undermined the policy of The Thresher, had it
not been found before it appeared, was even
more debasing.
Every effort to find the offender will be made
and the Honor Council will deal severely with the
culprit when found and is already carrying on an
investigation.
The liberty of writing a letter to The Thresher
has been used throughout the year, and every
letter which was signed has been published. Let
these persons give vent to their prejudicial views
on their own responsibility and not on the good
name and support of The Thresher.
Midnite Memos.
R
Someone has suggested that the
weekly election day be changed to
Tuesday because Monday is wash day.
Shorty Mayer is a yeU leader. He's
Hood, too. But no one man shouid
he made to do ait the work of getting
us to yet). A. & M. undoubted!)* has
the best system of cheering of any
schoo) in the state. They have three
yell leaders and compulsory ye)t prac-
tice.
"Race riot" said the track as Preach-
er Lindsey stepped off the hundred
in 9:3.
Lot's wife turned to salt.—Bible.
if our gir] ever turns to anything
it wit] be to sugar.
Van Brown edited the "R" book,
it is a mode! of ingenious and artistic
arrangement—truly a baby Campaniie.
Don't faii to get your copy and show
it to the high schooi fellows back
home.
R
"What is so rare as a day in JuneM^
A noiseiess Co-ed.
Due to reguiar attendance and long
iab. periods, an unusuaiiy email num-
ber of students are in danger of fail-
ing cloister courses.
The feilow who said the engineers
did everything at Rice will be a little
more careful of his speech when he
sees that Mayfete.
Following the iine of least resist-
ance makes rivers and men crooked.
One line of ieast resistance is not to
study for the coming finals. We are
not preaching. We are merely remind-
ing you that exams start in less than
three weeks.
"Writer*' C)ub to Hasf6 Open Meet"
(Thresher headline). WonHer what
they opened and where they got it?
What Makes the Firefly Glow?
^ ITOU can hold a RreHy in your hand; you can boil
water with an electric lamp. Nature long ago evolved
* the "cold light." The firefly, according to Ives and
Coblentz, radiates ninety-six percent-light and only four
percent heat. Mpn^s best lamp radiates more than ninety
percent heat.
An English physicist once said that if we knew the Rre-
Ry's secret, a boy turning a crank could light up a whole
street. Great as is the advance in lighting that has been
made through research within the last twenty years, man
wastes far too much energy in obtaining light.
This problem of the "cold light" cannot be solved merely
by trying to improve existing power-generating machinery
and existing lamps. We should still be burning candles if
chemists and physicists had confined their researches to the
improvement of materials and methods for making candles.
For these reasons, the Research Laboratories of the
General Electric Company are not limited in the scope of
their investigations. Research consists in framing questions
of the right kind and in finding the answers, no matter
where they may lead.
What makes the firefly glow? How does a iireHy's light
differ in color from that of an electric arc, and why? The
answers to such questions may or may not be of, practical
value, but of this we may be sure—it is by dovetailing the
results of "theoretical" investigations along many widely
separated lines that we arrive at most of our modern
"practical" discoveries.
What will be the light of the future? Will it be like that
of the firefly or like that of the dial on a luminous watch?
Will it be produced in a lamp at present undreamed of, or
will it come from something resembling our present incan-
descent lamp? The answers to these questions will dep<- d
much more upon the results of research in pure science than
upon strictly commercial research.
Gene
<Kh*
CampAqy
ectrac
r
NY.
as-KKB
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The Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 6, No. 31, Ed. 1 Friday, May 6, 1921, newspaper, May 6, 1921; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth229891/m1/2/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.