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PAGE TWO
The West Georgian
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Published Bi-Weekly By The Students of
West Georgia College, Genola, Georgia.
ARNOLD IjOFTIN, Bditor-in-Chief
ANGELENE BARKER, Bus. Mgr.
CHARLES NEW, Managing Editor
Elizabeth Fannin Associate Editor
Charles Lang Sports Editor
Katherine Hooks Society Editor
Evelyn Porter, Merrell Traylor, Grace
Erwin, Betty Moss, Richard Lang—
Staff Members
MISS MARIK CAMPBELL ) Faculty Advisers
J. C. BONNER /
PROFESSOR WATSON
The sudden passing of Professor Gor
don Watson has saddened the hearts of
hundreds of West Georgia friends and
former students throughout the state.
The College has been deprived of one of
its most cherished leaders whose influ
ence and personality, industrious teach
ing, and high degree of professional
ethics, have left impressions that time
cannot erase. The discipline of his mind,
his kindness to children and to all peo
ple less fortunate than himself, and his
gentlemanly-living, stamped his person
ality on all those with whom he lived
and worked.
Mr. Watson came to West Georgia in
1933 and organized the English Depart
ment of which he was head. Prior to
that time he had taught at Emory Uni
versiy, the Georgia State College for
Men, and the Alabama State Teachers’
College. He had done graduate work at
Harvard and at the University of North
Carolina. He was a recipient of a Rosen
wald fellowship at the latter institution
inp 1937.
At West Georgia he was chairman of
the Student Activities Committee and
Director of the Glee Club. A high order
of scholarship pervaded his teaching
and his study. He was admired by his
former professors for his abilities and
his intellect, and by his associates for
his cooperative attitude and the cheer
fulness of his spirit.
The West Georgian should like to re
peat the words of dedication of the 1940
Chieftain: “We believe that he repre
sents those qualities ... of culture,
charm and graciousness with keen in
tellect, deep learning, and gentle but
effective leadership.” West Georgia has
suffered an irreparable loss in his pass
ing.
There are three or four extra copies of the 1941
Chief lain available for Summer School students.
Any student interested may get in touch with Mr.
J. C. Bonner, faculty advisor of publications, or
Speer Ramsey, business manager.
Henry A. Wallace, Sr., father of the present
Vice President of the United States, once visited the
present campus when it was an A. & M. School;
he ploughed two rows of cotton in the field west
of the campus while on his visit to Carroll County.
Aycock Hall, formerly the dining hall, has been
turned into a dormitory for women. At present it is
undergoing a sensational face-lifting operation and
will in time be one of the most attractive buildings
on the campus.
The West Georgian has won First Class Honor
Rating for the third consecutive year. The award
is made by the Associated Collegiate Press of which
the West Georgian is a member. No other Georgia
junior college paper has ever won such a rating.
The first State High School contest was held at
Temple, Georgia between several schools in this
area. The State Meet was later organized on the
pattern of this contest.
Georgia Problems
The editors have made no at
tempt to present a survey of Geor
gia’s history, but have selected
twelve studies which vary in sub
ject matter, in treatment, and in
appeal. Each of these essays has
been prepared by a former student
of Professor John Hanson Thomas
McPherson. This attractive little
volume is inscribed to Professor
McPherson in appreciation of fifty
years of service in the University
of Georgia.
The first two essays present
some interesting glimpses of the
religious, racial, and military fac
tors in the settlement of Georgia.
Five studies are devoted to ante
bellqm topics. Several of this
group are of exceptional merit. The
relation to the sectional strug
gle of the long drawn-out Seminole
conflict is well presented. The
account of Wilson Lumpkin’s deal
ings with the Cherokee Indians
contains some interesting reflec
tions on a subject that has been
frequently told. The essay on
“Agricultural Adjustment in Ante-
Bellum Georgia” gives a well
rounded picture of this subject.
The author has relied mainly on
agricultural periodicals. Agricul
tural editors, he points out, anti
cipated the philosophy of the New
Deal crop control, advised diversi
fication and fertilization, and
actually observed their campaign
for scientific stock breeding pro
duce results. Berkshire hogs and
Durham cattle have not yet at
tained the dignity and romantic
appeal of King Cotton, nor has
Bermuda grass, but scholarship is
just beginning to recognize that
the Ruffins, the Afflecks, and the
Spaldings have an important story
to tell. The author of this essay
is unquestionably on the right track
in suggesting that their story will
do much toward revising the ap
proach to Southern history. Geor
gia's current crop of political re
formers will profit by reading the
account of the ante-bellum strug-
Campus Spotlight
Elizabeth (Buck) Newsom
Born in Union Point, Georgia—
she won't state her age but we
can all guess. Loves to kill hogs;
star member of the Wolf Club.
Thirteen children in her grandma’s
family and she hopes to be right
behind her, if she can afford a
station wagon. Uses Octagon soap,
brushes her teeth with soda and
salt. Favorite song, “He’s in the
army now,” “Hootie’s very own.”
Gonna teach at Tallapoosa next
year. Been engaged twice (or so
she says) but the man found out
how she loves children, and would
not go through with it.
Alice Haney
Born in Calhoun where she fin-
Contrary to previous announce
ments, annual summer school Stunt
Night will be held on Thursday
evening at eight o’clock, in the
gymnasium. The following even
ing, Friday, July 11, will be the
occasion of the dinner dance which
will be held in the gymnasium; din
ner will be served by Miss Gross
man in the Dining Hall and danc
ing will begin at eight o’clock and
end at eleven. The Recreation
Board of the N. Y. A. organization
has been asked to take charge of
music and decorations and will be
official host to the occasion.
Mr. Richard Alexander, principal
of the Sand Hill Practice School, is
the recipient of a Rosenwald scho
larship for study at Peabody Col
lege, where he will remain for
the next nine months.
Mr. Edward Yeomans, supervisor
for the three rural schools affiliat
ed with West Georgia College in
the teacher training program, is
building anew house on the
road, near its junction with the
Bowdon highway at Beaver’s store.
THE WEST GEORGIAN
gle over legislative reapportion
ment. This perennial jockeying
for advantage, it is suggested,
might have “bred the pernicious
practice of creating superfluous
counties."
The political machinations which
emasculated Georgia reform move
ment of 1889-90 are refreshingly
described in an essay on the Alli
ance Legislature. The story of the
District Agricultural and Mechani
cal Schools is presented as a chap
ter in the evolution of the second
ary school in Georgia. The last
three essays are devoted to issues
of current political interest. Two
of this group resolve themselves
into earnest pleas in behalf of what
are considered desirable political
reforms, namely, county reorgani
zation and constitutional revision.
The account of local government
in the southeast is freighted with
impressive statistics which the au
thor presents with the zeal of a
crusader and the reality of a statis
tician. The case for constitutional
revision is predicated upon the
desirability of prohibiting local
and special legislation. The final
study traces the evolution of the
practice of judicial review and con
cludes with a defense of this prac
tice.
The authors have bolstered their
accounts with liberal references to
source materials. Especially well
documented is the entertaining
story of Henry Shultz’s failure to
make Hamberg, South Carolina a
successful competitor of ante-bel
lum Augusta. There ies an index, a
few tables, and several charts. A
single blemish has been observed:
On page 254 Merton E. Coulter is
written for E. Merton Coulter. The
University of Georgia Press has
added a significant volume to the
historiography of the South’s Em
pire State.
Review by Horace Montgomery,
State Teachers College, California,
Pennsylviana. Published in “Geor
gia Historical Quarterly,” June,
1941.
ished the eleventh grade. Blond
hair, blue eyes the first Cal
hounite ever to matriculate at West
Georgia. Member of the first fresh
man class, back in 1933. She has
spent every summer here since
with the exception of two terms.
Graduates this year. Uses Ipana
tooth paste, Lifebuoy soap, and
Coca-Cola, but has received no
offers from advertisers of these
products.
She likes teaching school
taught for several years now. Does
not care too much for men.. .least*
of her worries. Ma Fordham says
she sometimes talks and giggles
until two o’clock in the morning.
She is conscientiously opposed to
this Wolf business.
P. G. Wodehouse, in Berlin, is
to broadcast the amusing side of
life in Nazi concentration camps.
It is not believed any large num
ber of fan letters will be in Polish.
One hears nothing of the boys
of the war games bawling, “Kill
the umpire.” Anyway, it would
do no good; the fellow can declare
you dead.
Experienced tourists, these Nazis.
Even in the wilds of Russia they
seem able to find a one-day develop
ing service for the holiday snap
shots.
Hollywood’s rush to the colors
seems to consist of Jimmy Stewart.
We had expected the boys would
enlist in droves, to improve the
army’s appearance.
Williams college plans to gradu
ate 58 men this year with honors
degrees gained through independ-
Laid end to end, the rumors
coming from European capitals in
one day would lie.
TUESDAY, JULY 8, 1941
DO WEST GEORGIA STUDENTS
KNOW THEIR SECTION?
The South is not a homogeneous section. Even
a section called the Deep South extending from
Georgia to Texas means myriads of things to a
great many people. To the industrialist it is a vast
under-developed economic region with a great mass
of unskilled labor. To the sociologist it is a land
of millions of poorly housed and underfed tenant
farmers and mill workers. To the political scientist
it is a section noted for demagogues, the one-party
system, and systematic disfranchising of the Negro.
The average Southerner is oblivious to all the
controversy raging about his region. He is not par
ticularly interested in the possibility for fat profits
to be gained by increased industrialization. The
misery and poverty bred in the plantation system
are taken as a matter of course. Life in the small
country town goes its way lazily and comfortably.
If by some good fortune the prices of cotton and
tobacco rise, there will be more trade in general
merchandise and automobiles, but little change in
the tempo of life.
Those who have learned of the South in Erskine
Caldwell’s Tobacco Road must rightfully think it a
place of backward, depraved wretches whose lives
are lived on a plane a little better than that of a
beast. Jonathan Daniels in A Southerner Discovers
the South gives a running fragmentary picture of
many aspects of Southern life, but fails to penetrate
deeply the forces underlying Southern problems.
Gone With the Wind belongs to another civilization.
It is the kind of thing on which Southerners with
a romantic mind turn and look upon as the civiliza
tion that might have been.
It is in the small town business man and in the
small farmer who drives his wagon or antiquated
automobile to market on Saturday that the true
Southern way of life is found. These are the South
erners who control elections and launch reforms.
Therein lies an explanation of the spectacular nature
of elections and absence of any deep-rooted reforms.
The Southerners were not, as a rule, born in the
“big house.” Their parents were a hard working
farm people or small town storekeepers. The house
in which they were reared was modest and the
family large. These Southerners attended a small
country school for four or five months in the year
and dropped out before they reached high school
and found the curriculum so dull and unstimulating
that they failed to complete it. Education for them
was a means to attaining a position where they could
not be exploited. Hence there was a preference for
arithmetic and a neglect of English. A meager
knowledge of history was received from a dull but
partisan text book, written in New England for
Southern use.
The Southerner attends a Baptist or Methodist
church spasmodically. In summer after crops are
laid by he attends “big meeting,” visits with nearby
relatives, and in this way, finds diversion and a
social outlet which serves the purpose' of a vacation.
The Bible is accepted as infallible, but little time is
found to read it.
Family ties in the South are strong and divorces
are few. In recent years the size of the family has
decreased, but is still far above the national average.
The Southerner supports better schools for his
children, but resents the increased taxes to support
these schools. He is convinced that he does not
want his child to follow in his vocational footsteps.
Therefore, every effort is made to provide a means
of training the young away from the farm and
small town. Opportunities seem better in the city
and the Southern youngster, impelled by dissatis
faction with the economic conditions at home, seeks
to better his condition by going to urban areas. In
spite of all the advantages that an agrarian might
submit as reasons for remaining on the farm and
in the small rural town, the sons and daughters of
the average Southerner, as if led by the Pied Piper
of Hamlin, march away to find places in offices and
factories in the cty.
The average Southerner feels that he has been
trapped. He loves his farm and he gets along with
his neighbors. Yet he feels helpless in the face of
the economic problems confronting him. As an in
dividualist, he is Jeffersonian in his desires for no
governmental interference. Forced by economic
necessity, he votes for cotton and tobacco control,
but never ceases in his wailing that the new order
is destroying him. Economists, sociologists, and
politicians, - prescribe formulas and programs for his
deliverance. He usually settles the matter by put
ting his faith in the glamorous phrases of the poli
tician. Why not? The politician speaks his language
and places the blame at the feet of remote condi
tions and imaginary predatory groups. There is a
conviction that if there were only a law, all would
be better. But no relief comes, for the disease is
chronic.
In spite of difficulties and perplexities, the aver
age Southerner is not defeated in spirit. He is *
slave and hopeful. There maybe thousands around
him, as the share croppers and the unemployed in
the cities and villages, who have given up th e
struggle as hopeless. He still believes that in the
end he can win. Didn’t his fathers survive, and
conquer a wilderness? In the light of the past this
Southerner instinctively feels that he can survive-
If soil erosion, low prices and poor marketing con
ditions take him as their toll, he is capable of rear
ing children. These children will conquer by sheer
numbers the cities with their market places an
industries. Though ignorant of trends in birth rate
and population movements, his spirit ever sa> £ -
“Give me time and I shall take over your cities
with my children.”