‘Hang your clothes on a hickory limb, but don’t go near the water.”
That pretty nearly expresses our advice to Corvallis-bound Webfeet, at least so far as manifestations of school spirit are concerned. Cheer, cheer, please cheer deliriously while Bjork and the boys bait the Beaver, but when we’ve won the game — we hope — let’s show the humbled men of the Orange good sportsmanship. If we lose — heaven forbid — let’s show the starters we can take it. In either case let us not permit our spirit of rivalry to express itself in the vandalism that has marred our relations with the college in times past.
There was a time when the orangemen thought the proper display of school spirit meant painting the Pioneer and dynamiting the concrete “O” on Skinner’s Butte and when the Webfeet thought Corvallis streets must run with lemon and green paint if the big game were to be fittingly celebrated. Those were the dear old days.
Today, although some mite of paint has been spread by the more irresponsible students without official censure, the townspeople of Eugene and Corvallis and the administrations of the two institutions frown upon such effusions of spirit.
Last year, owing largely to a friendly visit to Eugene by Jack Graham, OSC student body president, a truce on vandalism was arranged, and the big game came off without any material damage either to the properties of the two schools or to their respective spirits.
Dr. Boyer, who admittedly raised as much hell as the next lad in his undergraduate days, pointed out before the Beaver-Duck clash last year the change in public opinion of interscholastic vandalism. “We can’t stop a lot of underclass barbarism,” he declared, “but let us do our best. A savage demonstration will destroy the good will which marks our present relations. I am going to be sitting next to President Peavy at the game, but I am not going to turn around and swat him — just as at a banquet I wouldn’t pull on the tablecloth and turn the gravy over in his lap.”