PAGE FOUR Editorial Opinion Educated But Insolvent The Interfraternity Council has come up with an interesting—and potentially controversial—proposal to help solve the ever-present problem of debts owed a fra ternity by a member who has graduated. The proposal, which was sent to a committee after a brief discussion Monday night, is to recommend to the University that' diplomas he withheld from graduating seniors who owe money to their fraternities. Doubtless this threat could serve as a strong deterrent to those who would graduate in debt to their chapters—if the threat would ever be used. IFC members who favored the propcsal at Monday night's meeting seemed to want the University's action optional, at the request of the fraternity involved. But if the threat were optional, we wonder if it wouldn't be overlooked by many fraternities in the face of pleas and promises of future payment by the delinquent brothers. But there are other and more basic points which seem to reflect badly on the advisability of the proposal, optional or not. The first and most important is that the "crime" and the punishment are 'completely inconsistent. Graduation has nothing to do with debts owed a fraternity. A student's right to a degree is contingent on his academic output, and shouldn't be deprived him be cause of financial relations with his fraternity. A diploma is a certificate of educational achievement. not of financial solvency. If a fraternity wants to take action against a delin quent alum, it should do it in the normal legal manner. It could take a lien on his personal property—a more sensible and profitable move than withholding his diploma. Also, the University should not be Asked to condone a fraternity's financial practices that allow a student's delinquency to exist until his graduation. If the fraternity cannot take measures to prevent this delinquency from arising and continuing, the University should not be ex pected to pull the fraternity out of the fire on a last minute appeal. Fraternities should straighten out their financial matters themselves instead of asking the University to do it for them. Where the Yellow Went A Williamsport meeting of the Lycorning County chapter of the Pennsylvania Pure Water Association "blew up" last week when a number of doctors and dentists tried to transcribe the proceedings by the way of stenographers and tape recorders. Members of the organization, dedicated to the prin ciple that children shall not have finer teeth through fluoridation, said the doctors-and dentists had "no right" to barge into their meeting armed with tape recorders. The medical men said they were appalled at state ments they charged were made by "pure wate-" advo cates, including: "The Uniced States Public Health Service is interested in fluoridaticr only to kill off a large number of people over 65 so that Social Security benefits need not be paid." Some very sincere people oppose water fluoridation. But most of its opponents appear to be crackpots, who have advanced preposterous arguments against it, ranging from "mass medication" to "a Communist plot to poison our water supplies" to "a conspiracy by aluminum com panies to get rid of their waste materials." The people of State College can be thankful that their municipal leaders had the foresight in June 1954 to make the borough .one of the first communities in the state to help protect the teeth of future generations through fluoridation of water. Fifty-four Years of Student Editorial Freedom Otte Battu Tolltotan Successor to The Free Lance. est:lBB7 Published Tuesday through Saturday morning daring the University year. The Daily collegian 13 a student-operated newspaper. Entered as second-class matter July S, 1431 at the State College, Pa, Post Office under the act of March 3, MS. 'ell Subscription Price: $3.00 per semester SS.OII per year. ROBERT FRANKLIN Editor 00301 STAPP THIS ISSUE: Wire Editor. Don Caseiato: Copy Editor, Carol Blakeslee: Assistants, Helen McCafferty. Nitki WoHord, Katie Davis. John Black, Pat Cavan. Betsy Muley. Haney Schiffinan. Karen Basler. Sunni, Greenbaum, Emily Metier, Con/ie Lewis. Edit Chun. Sulk,' Hoover. THE DAILY COLLEGIAN, STATE COLLEGE. PENNSYLVANIA FRANK VOJTASEK Business Manages Washington Legend, Critics Of 'T.R.` Still Appear Lively By ARTHUR EDSON WASHINGTON (M—Of all our Presidents, none matched Theo dore Roosevelt in zest for living. Even this year, when the coun try is observing the 100th anni versary of his birth, the mental image that arises is a little blur red, possibly because it's hard to think of Teddy except full steam ahead. It's appropriate that even criti cism of the great man by his con temporaries takes on a lively, ro bust air. "That damned cowboy," the political boss, Mark Hanna, once called him. "A smart aleck. a rough and un couth person," said William Mc- Kinley, who had to take Roose velt as his vice presidential run ning mate. "What will happen to the coun try," Professor Woodrow Wilson of Princeton wondered after Mc- Kinley's assassination, "with that mountebank as president?" "Ho seems to be an interest ing combination of St. Paul and St. Vitus." said John Morley, British statesman and author. Anyone who strives to over come a handicap is likely to over do it. But few hay e equalled Roosevelt at overcorrection. A frail boy who liked to read, he looked like a natural for the indoor, contemplative life. Yet Roosevelt plunged into each day as if he were in the decathalon finals. He swam, he rode, he played tennis, he hunted, he hiked, he roughed it. - Even the White House didn't bench Teddy. He tried to get in two hours of vigorous exercise every day. He particularly liked to strike out across country ith othet outdoorsmen, climb ing or swimming anything they came to. "If we swam the Potomac, we usually took off our clothes," Roosevelt recalled in his auto: biography. "It is hard to come to grips with Theodore Roosevelt," Clin ton Rossiter, an authority on presidents, has said, "just as it is with any boy of six." When they do come to grips, historians usually put him in the upper fourth of the presidential class. He may have been the eternal All-American boy, but he left be hind solid accomplishments in conservation, in his uncanny knack to inspire others to work for good government, in foreign affairs. Gazette TODAY Air Force Glee Club, picture, 6:30 pan., HUB ballroom Conflict Deadline. 5 p.m.. 2 Willard Christian Fellowship. 12:45 p.m., 218 HUB Judicial Board. 7 p.m.. 218 HUB - Kappa Phi Christmas Banquet, 5:30 p.m., Wesley Foundation MI Council. 7 p.m.. 212 HUB Riding Club. 7 p.m., 217 Willard Senate Subcommittee en Social Affairs. 10 a.m.. 212 HUB Sigma Theta Epailon pledgee. pledge and off.;er initiations, 7:30 p.m.. Wesley Foundation TIM Council. 7 p.m.. 203 HMI Vice presidents of vromen's dorm units, p.m.. Simmons lounge Women's Choir. 8 p.m., HUB assembly hall Zoology Club, 7 p.m.. 113 Freer UNIVERSITY_ HOSPITAL Veronica Antrim. Pamela Baker, Karl Boyer. James Cole. Robert Doekstader, Gary Engtsnd. Remo Frangiosa. William Merman, Dorothy Harrar. Nathaniel John son. Norman Kahn. Gertrude Kelmling, Bart Klimkievcies, Ronald Kundla, Rhett bicGrill. Henrietta Michaels. Marlene Neff. Ruth Sa'amen. Diane Siegman, William Spangler, David Stekol, John Taylor, Ar lene Tomich, Sally Wenner, Margaret Bishop. Greek Week Committees Applications for Greek Week committee positions for the Inter fraternity Council may be picked up at the Hetzel Union desk this afternoon and must be returned by 5 p.m. Friday. Interviews will be held Sunday. Applicants will be notified of the time, Leonard Julius, general chairman, said. Leadership Training Class The Leadership Training class will hold its Red Tape Special at T tonight in 119 Osmond. Little Man on Campus by Dick Bib lat "Who said he won't change a grade?—l got him to raise this paper from a 'zero' to an 'F'." Take It or Leave It A Lonely And His A learned, self-taught scientist has been isolated from humanity for 33 years and probably will remain alone for the rest of his life. He's in solitary confinement at Alcatraz, the federal penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay. Robert Stroud was 19 years - old when he was sentenced in 1909 to 12 years in prison for manslaughter. In 1920 he was sentenced to be hanged in the yard of Leavenworth Peniten tiary, in Kansas, for killing a prison guard alter a fight. But after four years arid three trials, President Cal. vin Coolidge commuted the death sentence and Stroud was placed in solitary confinement for life. This story of his years in prison was taken from an arti cle in the December 1957 issue of Scientific American maga zine. The young prisoner began to study. He was nearly illiterate, since his formal education had ended after third grade. But he learned to read and write, and showed remarkable aptitude in his correspondence courses. Stroud was removed from his 9 by 12-foot cell for an hour each day to walk around a small courtyard. This was his only exercise. One day' after a violent storm he came across three fledgling sparrows. They had nearly drowned, and one had a broken leg. The lonely man received per mission to keep the birds in PE A N UTS - t ONLY SIX MORE D. Y 6 'it LUCY, NOW WOULD I t o BE 11 13•EETIOVEN's BIRTtICAIW YOU LIKE TO St* A TRUED! SIX- SIX- SIX—ONLY LITTLE SONE I . SIX MORE DAYS ILL.., WROTE? 4• . 1.. _ .4 \ ~,„. ... ~,,, .., , "'Il t; z.- -rnaiiirik-'0 . /Liam — -44b•Nidel. i lif , ,iii are , i .........i....... WEDNESDAY. DECEMBER 10, 1958 Man Birds by Pat Evans his cell and nurse them. They were his substitute for human companionship. Stroud read all the books he could find on birds. He experi mented and k ep t notebooks. Single-handedly and without any professional equipment he developed treatment for a mys terious disease which had puz zled ornithologists for years. He wrote articles which ap peared in bird journals. Fin ally, in 1931, his fame as an authority on birds moved pri son officials to give him some laboratory equipment, to pro mise him a microscope and to promise serious consideration for a parole in 1937. But his parole application was denied. His health had been failing for years, and in 1940 he barely recovered from _pneumonia. Prison officials be. came less tolerant of his work. They refused him even the small quantities of ice that he needed In his studies of avian pathology. A congressman _appealed to the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Stroud's behalf. The director replied by charging Stroud with being ". . . a very diffi cult individual who has been (Continued on page five)
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