Author: Houghton STAR

This is the fourth installment of an ongoing series that will investigate theHoughton Star archives.

If you would like to check out some old issues of the Star, they can be found in the periodicals stacks on the basement level of the Houghton Library.  The full college archives, also located on the basement level, are open to the public from 1-4 p.m. every Friday  afternoon.

The included on this page was originally published roughly seventy-five years ago, in a March 1943 issue of the Houghton Star.   

KNITTERS NEEDED

Think of the poor French children and refugees who are homeless, without friends and mistreated! Le Cerle Francais is sponsoring a knitting program in collaboration with the French Relief Society. All who are anxious to do their bit to alleviate the sufferings of the French are asked to cooperate.

Mrs. Woolsey has kindly consented to instruct beginners who are keenly interested in this project. Let’s get behind this worthwhile project. Bring out your knitting needles and let’s click together.

WOMEN TO BE USED IN PRINT SHOP FOR DURATION

Women students will have the opportunity to work in the college press during the coming school year and also during the remainder of the semester. Applications may be made to Prof. Willard Smith beginning today.

The local press is forced to change its policy of using only men workers in the print shop because of demands on the armed services for men. Among the jobs opened by this change are linotype and press operation, type composition and imposition, folding machine operation, and clean-up work.

The women who are accepted for these jobs will be expected to spend some of their own time learning the fundamentals of printing.

This is the third installment of an ongoing series that will investigate the Houghton Star archives.

If you would like to check out some old issues of the Star, they can be found in the periodicals stacks on the basement level of the Houghton Library.  The full college archives, also located on the basement level, are open to the public from 1-4 p.m. every Friday  afternoon.

The included on this page was originally published roughly fifty years ago, in the March 8, 1968 issue of the  Houghton Star.   

Well, what place does student power have in the institution and administration of policy at Houghton College? Those who recall the title of last week’s column might approach anything that follows with a suspicion that student leaders are nothing more than pawns of both the administration and the students, moved by the will and whim of either in any given situation. The characteristic of Houghtonians to make constant appeals to authority, often in preference to individual thinking, demands an authoritarian political structure at all levels of College affairs. It is the juncture between the students body and the faculty and administration the student government must deal with this characteristic.

The second factor in politics at Houghton is a direct result of the constant upward look for easy answers. Political apathy and status quo satisfaction are viewed by most students as distinctly separate, the former representing the students and the latter representing the “powers that be.” I submit that satisfaction with the present state of affairs by those who administer and apathy about the possibilities are of like kind. Both are offspring of the intrinsic attitude at Houghton—contentment with the answers handed down from the levels above, regardless of the degree of discontentment from the levels beneath.

Political apathy in one form of another seems to be exhibited at times in the faculty by an unwillingness to realistically review and revise policies on campus that are obviously inconsistent with their enforcement. For example, there are many “rules” in our present Student Guide which are never enforced. Then why keep them? Why cannot the Houghton community, both students and faculty, revise the Guide in light of the kind of place we both desire—apart from the fear of what the “constituency” or the absent Board might say? The Senate has not been entirely neglectful in suggesting changes; but her representatives in the past and present have been mindful of this prevalent attitude under which these suggestions may be smothered.

Nor is the student body free from a lethargic attitude toward student government, including those in supposed positions of leadership. It is true that dissatisfaction with the status quo prevails among students it is also true that there is a great deal of security and satisfaction to be found in mere dissatisfaction. This is especially true the disgust can be displaced from the original issue to those who represent the issue to those in authority.

Student government at Houghton is bounded by the attitude we have discovered and have attempted to describe here. The accusation of political anemia can be lodged only in the context of an understanding of this basic problem—and the apathy which it effects on all levels of the College.

—STUDENT SENATOR

This is the second installment of an ongoing series that will investigate theHoughton Star archives.

If you would like to check out some old issues of the Star, they can be found in the periodicals stacks on the basement level of the Houghton Library.  The full college archives, also located on the basement level, are open to the public from 1-4 p.m. every Friday  afternoon.

The included on this page was originally published roughly one hundred and one years ago, in the February 15, 1917 issue of the  Houghton Star.   

No longer is anyone in doubt as to the success of Prohibition. Already has the public-mind with loud acclim and with hand outstretched to heaven declared that Rum shal be no more. And why this extreme confidence?

First—Because of the world-sentiment against it;

Second—The legislative action taken by the governments and states;

Third—Because the right must win;

Not only have the belligerent nations adopted the no Rum propaganda, but other nations are petitioning for its destruction. The world as a unit is awakening, and thinking twice, loses its desire to remain a dupe or to permit others.

This very moment we have twenty-four states who have voted “no liquor,” and besides there is cold, bleak Alaska, and the “islands who lift their frouded palms in air” called Hawaiian. Then too, the District of Columbia has been voted and passed many other bills favorable to the advancement of prohibition. The spirit of America free from Rum is impelling, the victory is sure.

The press is especially intolerant against it. Not many papers are open for the advertisements of the liquor interests. No, their fight is lost!

Alcoholism must go for it is right that it should go. The Supreme Court has decided the constitutionality of the Webb-Kenyon Bill. The people are saying prohibition is right, old John Barleycorn is wrong. “Truth crusht to earth shall rise again.” The eternal heavens stand back of it. Righteousness will ever win. Booze will lose, is losing—nearly lost. And when she is once gone, her hope like Lucifer’s will be no more. Then strike with a hand of fire! Believe as we act, —for “to doubt would be disloyalty, to falter would be sin.”

—G. BEVERLY SHULTZ