THE MICHIGAN DAILY WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28,1
1934
Depression
For Dkekinson.
M ANY AN ECONOMIST has been
disredtedin these long, lean years
of depression. But Prof. Frank G. Dickinson of
the economics department of the University of
Illinois was apparently the originator of a system
of rating football teams that was to prove the
exception.
Football fans knew practically nothing about
the Dickinson rating system, much less that it was
the brainchild of an economics professor - which
ignorance was undoubtedly in its favor. Some were
vaguely aware that it was in some way designed
to give more credit to these teams which played
the more difficult schedules.
Because Michigan football teams have regularly
played tough schedules in recent years - and with
conspicuous success - the Dickinson ratings have
consistently favored the Wolverines. We certainly
had nothing to kick about, and most schools seemed
to accept the results as fair enough. The Dickinson
method was the only recognized objective way of
determining a national champion. It was undoubt-
edly the best system that had been advanced, and
it had worked admirably in practice.
Dickinson ratings for the Big Ten this year, as
announced Sunday, however, were sufficiently sur-
prising to give the Illinois professor a mild sort of
black eye and place him back once more among
his not so esteemed contemporaries in the field of
economics.
For his brilliant system - the system that had
worked so admirably in "normal" years -had not
judiciously settled any disturbing dispute, but by
some sort of freak had hoisted a defeated Illinois
team into a questionable tie with the Minnesota
outfit that is generally conceded to be the most
powerful in the country (excluding Louisiana).
Dear, dear, hadn't the professor ever heard of
Frankenstein?
As Others See It
The Burning Question
THE QUESTION before the world today is So-
cialism or Individualism. Is it best for the eco-
nomic and social good of mankind for the world
to pursue a course in which the individual strives
for personal achievement and gratification, leav-
ing his fellow men to take care of themselves as
best they may, or should mankind so arrange itself
that the common good is the main objective?
One important source of student information
on the question comes from the faculty. The battle
on this campus is waged energetically and bril-
liantly, but at the same time it adds to the confu-
sion concerning the merits of the two isms. A stu-
dent may go to his 8 o'clock class and hear the
Chicago Tribune lambasted, the individualistic
system of profiteering roundly berated, and the
New Deal praised to the high heavens.'Whereupon
he repairs to his 9 o'clock class wondering why
anybody could be other than an advocate of
Socialism, only to hear his 9 o'clock professor
state that the New Deal is a miserable failure, that,
it is attempting to erase the natural rights of
man, and that he is happy and proud to be able
to say that at least 40 years of his life were
spent in America as it should be.
We went through the process described above
innumerable times and finally reached the con-
clusion that the question depends on whether ac-
quisitiveness (individualism) is a basic human in-
stinct, or a secondary urge. If it is a secondary
urge and not an instinct, it can be moulded by
education.
Those who ascribe to Socialism tell us that one
of the outstanding merits of a socialistic system
is that every individual will be able to obtain a
station in life that will afford the most pleasure
to him. There will be a psychic income from work-
ing at a job that a person enjoys doing, thereby
reducing the desire for economic income. So far so
good, but when we ask them who will perform
certain undesirable tasks, they tell us that by train-
ing, Society can obtain persons who will even
enjoy collecting refuse.
The question, then, descends squarely on the
shoulders of education. When will education be-
come so universal that it will physically be able
to train every individual and detect the particular
capabilities of each _and every person? How soon
will the personnel of the educational process decide
that a Society which strives to promote the com-
mon good is superior to a system that places indi-
vidual gains before anything else? To the grade
schools, high schools, colleges and universities of
the United States falls a very large part of the
responsibility in determining whether this country
will, and when it will, adopt Socialism.
-The Purdue Exponent.
Thanksgiving Quick-Lunch
T HANKSGIVING DINNERS with families or
friends will be few and far between this year
if the present published intention' is carried out
by the university authorities - for classes are to
begin at 8:30 on the Friday morning following
Thanksgiving Day. This ruling makes it practically
impossible for more than a very small percentage
of the college enrollment to get home and back
without a damaging number of cuts.
The 1933 April "Undergraduate Announcement
Issue" of the Official Register of the University
said that in 1934 classes would not commence
until 10:30 on the Friday miorning following
Thanksgiving. The more recently published "Cat-
alogue Issue" says, in its calendar, that classes
will begin at 8:30. This change affords, practically,
a very short time for those who wish to get away
from Princeton for Thanksgiving. It is hard to see
why this quite innocent desire should be rendered
difficult of attainment for those who wish to go
home.
Perhans it is wrong to look a gift horse in the
COLLEGIATE
OBSERVER
By BUD BERNARD
A professor at the University of Kansas
once closed his lecture with an invitation to
his class to ask any question they might like
about the subject.
Silence. The professor, who was young at the
game, grew more and more embarrasse. The
silence deepened. Finally he said awkwardly,
"I will offer a cigarette to the first student
asking a question."
The silence only continued. It was frightfully
embarrassing by this time and the faces began
to shift hazily before the stricken professor's
eyes. Finally dimly he perceived a hand go up.
Relieved he pointed to the boy.
"What kind of cigarette?" asked the lad.
Here are a list of boners coming from Boston
University:
Ping Pong is a hairy ape.
Astronomy: The study of mules and their
habits.
Macadam: A French lady.
Exits: The center of the globe. "The world
spins on its exits."
Procrastination: A burgler who used to steal
watches in the 19th century, so that many people
called him the Thief of Time.
An English professor at the University of
California asked why horses weren't used on
the English stages in the days of Shakespeare.
A budding young columnist answered: "Every-
one knows at that time the stages were too
unstable."
After engaging in fisticuffs with police, more
than 500 striking New York City College students
burned the figure of President Frederich B. Rob-
inson in effigy at the base of the campus flagpole
recently. The strike broke out after smouldering
resentmhent among certain campus liberal and rad-
ical groups against the expulsion a month ago
of 21 undergraduates for staging an anti-fascist
demonstration during a visit of Italian students
had come to a head.
Here's a warning to the romantic students:
A professor of psychology at Western State
College has discovered that a kiss, by causing
extra palpitation of the heart, shortens the
average human life by three minutes. Well,
maybe it's worth it.
A Washington
BYSTANDER
By KIRKE SIMPSON
T HAT ADDED Democratic majority in the next
House instead of the net losses generally pre-
dicted before election may have special value for
the administration. With better than two-thirds of
the full House membership to call upon, it would
seem possible to make such changes in House rules
at the very outset as would ease the party leader-
ship task materially.
It takes only a majority of the, House to adopt
ruffs. Once they have been adopted, it takes a
two-thirds majority to change them. On that
simple parliamentary proposition hung a lot of
the Democratic leadership grief in the last ses-
sion.
The key rule is the so-called committee dis-
charge provision. When the Democrats came to
House power by a narrow margin in the 72nd
Congress they put in a rule requiring only 145
signatures to a petition to discharge a committee
from consideration of any bill. Theretofore it had
been traditional House practice to require a ma-
jority vote of the 435 total membership to force
a measure on the floor.
* *
rTHE "LIBERAL" DISCHARGE rule was carried
into the recovery Congress, although each
house makes its own rules. There is not that con-
tinuity in the House that pertains to the Senate
and which long has blocked recurrent efforts in the
Senate to choke off long-winded debate and fili-
bustering tactics by revision of the rules.
But for that liberal discharge rule, the last House
might have avoided a showdown on some of the
proposals most embarrassing to the White House.
Had there been an important reduction in Demo-
cratic strengthl in the next House, a chance of
restoring a hard-boiled majority vote requirement
to throttle asubstantial minority's demand for a
vote on any proposition, would be proportionately
reduced.
As it is there is a Democratic margin of nearly
three score votes more than a majority. Unless
that number joins with the Republicans to prevent
discarding the liberal discharge rule for the next
session, it will go by the board. Checking up on the
number of Democratic "wild men" of the new
House indicates that administration leadership
will have ample votes to re-establish rigid ma-
jority control, at least at the outset of the session.
THAT FACT MAY influence decidedly the march
of legislative events beginning in January.
Perhaps Postmaster-General Farley had something
of the sort in mind when he undertook to reassure
a nation-wide radio audience that the 74th Con-
gress, so completely dominated by Democrats,
would be "thoroughly appreciative of its respon-
sibilities to the party."
It can be argued that the Democratic newcomers
will think twice about bolting party leadership 't
the very start of their service. The overwhelming
majority of the more than 100 new members are
U
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WAHR'S
UNIVERSITY
BOOKSTORE
316 South State Street
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The Mi-eli-iam
Union ..
. announces a npecial
Thanksgiving Dance to
be given tonight froi 10
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until 1. Bob Steinle and r
the regular UNION band
will provide the music.
Don't forget ... (lancing
from 10 until 1 tonight!
$1.00 per Couple -
Milign 1Union Italrooii
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Why not gang up and
buy three subscriptions
to Esquire for $10.00?
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Gargoyle Office
Student Publications
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