Newspaper Page Text
ttije jMercer (Ulusier
MERCER UNIVERSITY, MACON, GEORGIA
May 12, 1961
Rithia McGlaun
EDITOR
Holly Woodruff
BUSINESS MANAGER
VOLUME XU No. 26
John Weatherly
MANAGING EDITOR
Jimmy Rachel*
NEWS EDITOR
Executive Editor
RALPH BASS, JK.
Staff Photographer
WARD LOWRANCE
Associate Editors
NANCY MINTER
GRANGER RICKS
LUCIAN ASBEL
LARRY MAIORELLO
HUGH LAWSON
Feature Editor
TIM GILL
Sports Editor
CHARLIE ETHERIDGE
Social Editor
MARY JANE CARTER
Circulation Manager
HARRIET NORRIS
News Staff: Nick Banks, Lynn
Holmes, A1 Rohn, Don Power, Bill
Engligh, Bill Scarbrough, Marjorie
Beene, Amy Garrison, Pope Hamrick,
Karen Kennedy, Lot Knight, Dick
Shiver, Margretta Wells, Elaine Mc
Leod
Editorial Assistants: Jerry Powers,
Alice Ann Gamble. Betsy Livingston,
Alice Joy Hall, Jimmy Jordan
Business Staff: Sandy Bridges,
Dan Bradley, Carole Rhodenhiser,
Jean Smith, Patricia Smith
Staff photo by Lowrance
Tommy Storey, president of SGA, presents gift from student
body to Dean Burts who has accepted a position with Davidson
College.
We Called Him Friend
Dean Richard C. Burts received a clock radio, a three clause reso
lution of appreciation from the student body and a twenty-five minute
“review" of a day in his life at Mercer. The program was delightfully
entertaining, the clock radio in good working order and the student reso
lution improved by the suggestion of a member of the English depart
ment, but somehow we are left with the strained awareness of our in
ability to handle the situation of Dean Burts' departure from Mercer.
How do you pay tribute to a man who has been Dean of Men and
Dean of Students and w ho has through it all retained an incredible
amount of student respect and affection.
We seldom analyze why we like a professor or an official
of the university. Rather, such a one is simply despised or ignored or liked.
In our unfairness we are concerned with the ability of a man to reconcile
his knowledge and capacities to our wayward stabs in the intellectual
community and to reconcile his ideas of society to our demands for an
artificial world where we can squeeze in all the activities and practices
which we brought from high school and shall take to Milledgeville. Above
all, we demand that such a person possess the rare quality of being able
to support a professor who we are sure is dead wrong or to require that
we come to summer school, 1961, when we had planned to graduate
June, 1961—yet to sustain his decision with a soft grace of concern.
Such a man, even if he is dean, is sometimes called a friend of the student
body.
The student body is an unpredictable, passive, somewhat cyni
cal group with a few isolated, over-enthusiastic members. We have
to be so to retain respect of our contemporaries and a negative sort
of sanity that alone can take us through four years at a university.
We label deans and profeasors because we can play the authori
tarian when we bestow labels. Professors and deans have all the
records and the final decisions but we bestow the labels.
We have given him a chapel program, a clock radio and a resolution
but most of all we have given him a label. We would have him carry it
with a deep sense of awareness when he leaves us to go to Davidson.
We have given resolutions before and we will prepare chapel programs
honoring other men; we will give the change in our pockets for other
gifts, but our special label we confer with discretion. We have called him
“friend” becuase he is a remarkable blend of the remarkable with the
remarkable.
u 1 v ' r ” T n s
LETTERS
May 9, 1961
Dear Seniors:
I wish to make a final appeal to you to support our class Gift Fund.
As you know from my letter, we hope to be able to give Mercer a sub
stantial sum when we meet for our 25th anniversary in 1986. The pres
ent thought is in terms of $25,000.
Our contributions will be invested in a life insurance policy. For
every $150.00 we invest we will have $10,000 worth of insurance. You
can see that we can certainly go beyond the $25,000 mark if there is
enough cooperation on the part of the entire class.
At the time of this writing I have received $800.00 in pledges. This
sum has been offered by a total of 87 senior*. It Is evident that there is
tittle cooperation on the part of many since our class has 888 members.
Bine* there is no minimum, I urge each senior to participate regardless
of amount It will be very meaningful to you in years to com*.
this is our last chance to function as a class. Lot’s males am admir
able showing—to be copied by classes to coma .
L E. Brown
Quo Vadis
Well, now that Commander Shepard has gone
on his jaunt into space and returned, amid much
fanfare and hoop-la, the United States can claim
to have beaten Russia at its own game—the
propaganda game. Elver since the Russians
launched Sputnik I in October, 1957, they have
crowed to the world about the magnificence of
Soviet scientific accomplishments and ridiculed
(with some justification) the American attempts
propaganda ha* had a great effect on American
to catch up in the race for space. And the Soviet
prestige, or rather the lack of American prestige.
But despite the spectacular achievements
of Soviet sputniks and luniks and the most
recent Soviet kero. Major Gagarin, the truth
is that the United States is actually contrib
uting far more to scientific knowledge and
understanding of the mysteries of space
flight than is Russia. The Soviets have of
course, been there first with the meat, and
may continue there for some time.
The main difference in the space efforts of the
two powers thus far had been that the Soviet con
centrated on larger payloads and more powerful
rockets, while the United States has emphasised
the gleaning of data through its superiority in
micro-instruments. And while we have probably
been more successful in our efforts than the So
viets in theirs, people all over the world are more
impressed by a five-ton satellite than by a ninety-
pound satellite, even though the smaller one may
have more effective instruments for recording
and transmitting data from space.
But what good has our scientific dedication done
us? We kept losing ground (at least in the eye*
of the public). So apparently the answer lies, not
in developing scientifically perfect devices, but
in giving better publicity to the ones we now
have. For example, take our Explorer XI—a
satellite containing a space telescope which will
be used to map the distribution of gamma rays
from cosmic sources in space. Explorer XI will
continue to transmit this invaluable tnformatior
for about three years. But almost nobody Is even
aware of this astounding feat, becenee the Bos- <\
sians sent a man into orbit three those around y,
the world and brought him safely back without M
gaining any new knowledge, except that it could „
be done. But then we dimmed Major Gagarin’s ^
deed by sending a man into a sob-orbital flight nl
which actually was far less of a scientific ace
plishment than the flight of Gagarin. Bat byL,
giving it the proper publicity before and after M
the flight the United States had, while not ac ,
tually catching up in the space race .at least
showed that there still is a race. ^
This leads to the diaquletiag snspidon that
in order for one nation to win the apace race
it must do lees than the other bat make a
bigger play on the propaganda ciremit. This is
not a new idea, either, for in 1958 Dr. Yea
Braun snggested a sab-orbital flight which
could have pre-dated Gagarin by a year. The
idea was shelved by space officials as a
"stunt.” But certainly it could not have bean
a bigger stunt than the one-half million dol
lar circus just ended at Cape ChnavsraL And L,
yet, while we learned lees from this stoat „
than from any of our previous shots, we gala- j,
ed more on the diplomatic front than a desea
scientific successes would have dene.
Where all this will end is hard to any. Ths n ,
next Soviet feat may be to send a ten-ton rocket
to the moon and back, whereupon we may launch hi
a non-sub-orbital rocket into the Florida skies t,
amidst the loud beating of the publicity drum u
and thereby once again eclipse the Russians’
deeds. The culmination of this may be when our gl
rocketry center is moved from Huntsville t* f,
Madison Avenue, and the Soviets in spite of t i
blasting the Kremlin into orbit will admit defeat fc
when we shoot the entire Eld Sullivan show into • *
well-publicized sub-orbital flight over the Carib
bean.
| Granger Ricks
Swinger of Burches
After listening to the last remarks of a student,
whose mind had been recently emancipated from
all the prejudices of his childhood, I took my leave
rather bo redly and started upstairs to bed. I was
bored because I had heard nothing for the past
week but talk of the John Burch society, the
heresy trials, and the newly formed NAACP. Be
sides, the nagging toothache that had been my
companion for the last couple of days had decided
that I should see a dentist; it stood screaming at
me.
The next morning I was awakened simultane
ously by both my tormenten of the previous
week. The tooth, by this time, was jaring my
whole body, and an enthusiastic student stood
over me reading excitedly about Mercer from an
article in the local newspaper. All the irritating
words were there: John Burch, The Patriot,
heresy, Christianity department, dragontail
twister. I spat out a few words of abuse at the
reader, which were ignored, and staggered pain
fully out of my room to find a dentist.
I noticed nothing as I was ushered into the den
tist’s office, except the strong odor of iodine
that hung about the aged dentist I wondered if
he had been drinking it
“Come in young man," he said in a loud overly
friendly tone with a sadistic cackle. “You gotta
toothache ?" I started to say no, that I had merely
dropped in to solicit his membership in the John
Burch society, but my nerve failed. I shivered and
answered yes.
“Which one is it?” After sitting down in the
chair, I indicated one of my lower left jawteeth,
the on* with the silver of which I was proudest.
He thumped it and said, “That’s gotta come out.”
He reached for the needle, and it was only after
he had perforated my gum with hundreds of min
ute holes that I noticed his hands were shaking.
As we sat around waiting for my jaw to die, he
began to inquire into my personal life.
“You go to school, sonny?”
“Yes Mr.," I replied, “More or less.”
“Where’s that?”
“Mercer,” I boasted, not pausing to think. He
pounced oh the name like a wild beast.
“Mercer! Are you mixed up in any of that stuff
that’s going on out there?” Fear rose in my heart,
and tortured recollections of recent conversation*
. passed through my mind.
“You nman all thoee new sidewalks they’re
building out there,” I threw oat, bat not aery
Wl
"Nol he shouted, “All that stuff the paper’s } 0
full of.” I began to feel nausiated. “About si in
them communistic professors that formed that th
club to attack that patriotic young fellow, win to
wrote that thing about John Burch.” It
Gagging I told him that I was not a member of Cl
the professor’s communistic club, but that I was lei
in an organisation that had planned to briof to
these faculty members before a tribunal justice «.
He made no comment about this at th* time, bsl si
began to dance excitedly around th* chair Is di
which I was sitting and continued his piercinc L
jabber. , p
“I know that Bill Glover,” he said, shaking hii di
first “I used to belong to his church until he ha! L
me kicked out. I don’t know any of th* rest, h * n
you? How about this Brewster fellow, Swinge U<
of Burches, I believe that’s what he’s called 1” ct
I answered that I indeed knew the Swinger d M
Burches, but that most of the students preferrd *'
to call him by his initials, SOB.
“How about my tooth now, Doe,” I
“Oh yes,” he said, bringing his war dance
an end. “How does your face feel?”
“Like ginger ale,” I replied.
He reached for his instruments, propped opd
ray mouth, grasped my tooth with his pliars,
began to tug.
Th* pain eras intense. Mentally I began to Is
suit bis mother in theological terms. Th* p«i
swelled and heightened in intensity. My mil
spun around in an ever-shortening circle until
crashed against th* stony center.
As I regained consciousness, I was aware of
burning boring sensation in the place whore a
beloved moler had stood, and th* infernal cd
tinued questionings of the sadist
“When do thee* professors com* up for trial
be demanded. 1 told him that we had planned
the middle of May, but that we bad to call it
because w* didn’t have enough money to
through with it
On hearing this, he reached in his moneyM
and palled oat a ten spot, and pressed it into
hand. I began to fell bettsr.
over there?”
“Listen,” he said, as I arose te go, ”<
still tend) those false doctrines about
“No,” I reassured him, “They never asanl
his name."
As I was leaving, th* pretty little nurse,
wont unnoticed by me as I entered, sqneae*
hand, and laughed impishly. It eras worth it
all : «