Wells River High School - Chatterbox Yearbook (Wells River, VT)

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RADIO VERSUS NEWSPAPER In this time of war propaganda and of election pressure we have to he careful concerning what we read or hear from the various news sources. The two principal sources are the radio and the newspaper. The radio is used more commonly than the newspaper for informitive news items and of late for noted reporters’ opin- ions on matters of importance. A chief weak point of the radio is in conformity with its chief attraction. It gives the listener an up-to-date survey, employing an announcer who strives to keep his personal opinion neutral. But often these reports are exaggerated, either by the announcer’s fallibility or because of the very fact that the listener may tune in just as the report is being given and get a wrong view of the real conditions. This happened when many tuned in to hear Orson Welles’ dramatization of an attack on the United States by Martians. The radio thus far has been kept impartial to po- litical or moneyed groups; this is safeguarded by the Federal Communications Commission. The radio is a less expensive method and is an asset to the person too lazy or busy to read. The newspaper is, in the first place, a written form from which you do not have to draw hasty conclusions but can re- read. Furthermore, the newspaper items you read are not cluttered up with commercial advertisements as in the radio, but have separate sections. Newspapers, however, as they are an older form of news and reading than the radio, have become partisan to one or the other of the political parties for the most part. Some have degenerated into the type that print nothing but court suits, scandals and murder cases. The edi- tore of the best newspapers contribute a number of literary 2

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THE CHATTERBOX Sponsored by the Senior Class Senior Issue June 1940 Editors Margaret Hatley ’40 Harvey Goodell ’40 Assistants Inella Brock ’40 Robert Winship ’40 Lucille Hesseltine ’41 Priscilla Merchant ’41 George Downing ’41 Benjamin Hanson ’41 Managers Reginald Rowell ’40 Frederick George ’40 William Plourde ’40 Kenneth Alger ’40 Wells River High School Directory Lynford Wells, Principal (U. V. M.) Science, Mathematics Jean Spear (Tufts) French, English, Latin Adelaide Lanphere (Skidmore) Commercial, Home Economics Richard Sprague (Bowdwin) Social Sciences Adine Harwell Music Carol Powers (U. of So. Calif.) Art Lois Stanley Intermediate Nora Darling Primary J. Stewart Garvin (Westminster) Superintendent Samuel Stanley Janitor School Directors—Louis W. Rowell, Lyman H. Wheelock, Ellen B. Goodell.

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gems to the public each day; they are carefully done attempts to disclose our problems and the needs of each community. —Robert Winship ’40 ANTI-VACCINATIONISTS Medicine has made a great deal of progress in the last century. This progress has been due to the men who have spent their fortunes, risked their lives and sacrificed happiness and comfort to work under all conditions all over the world in an effort to insure John Q. Public’s health. One hundred years ago people by the thousands died of smallpox, from which we can be protected today by the painless operation of a minute or so. It would seem that the obstacles of risking lives and money to prevent the recurrance of such a catastrophe were enough. This, however, is not the ease for there are a few of those in- dividuals whose time cannot be wasted for the trivial matter of a vaccination. To ask them to submit to a surgical pro- cedure at forty cents a person is intruding on their personal liberties, as Senator Tobey of a neighboring state, would put it. No, we musn’t inconvenience them even if it does mean allowing them to keep a rare disease from becoming extinct. There is nothing that we can do about it but there is consola- tion in the fact that eventually anti-vaccinationists will be eliminated by the disease. —Harvey Goodell ’40 HONOR ROLL In the past four marking periods, five pupils have proved themselves students of sufficiently consistent merit to appear on the first honor roll each time it has been posted: Seniors, Edward Bailey and Harvey Goodell. Junior, George Down- ing. Sophomores, Jeanne Lanphere, and Freshman, Elinor Rowden. Students joining these ranks three times out of the four were: Senior, Robert Winship; Juniors, John Hooker and Pris- cilla Merchant; and Freshman, Elizabeth George. 3