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February 28, 1959 - Image 4

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Publication:
The Michigan Daily, 1959-02-28

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Sixty-Ninth Year
-- EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
"When Opinions Are Free UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
Truth Will Prey STUDENT PUBLICATIONS BLDG. * ANN ARBOR, MICH. * Phone NO 2-3241
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This ncst be noted in all reprints.

"Did They Say This Was A Balanced Budget
Or A Juggled One?"

FARM BUREAU OBJECTS:
Should U.S. Surpluses
Feed Hungry World?

LTURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1959

NIGHT EDITOR: SELMA SAWAYA

Legislators Ignore
Real Financial Solution

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AN APPALLING lack of talent and leadership money to last until June but it must also plan
In Michigan's Legislature has been obvious for an adequate sources of revenue for the fu-
for years to those who looked closely. This year ture when the cost of running the government
even the casual observer cannot help but probably will increase.
realize that Michigan is as lacking in wise po- But it is this long-range challenge to which
litical leadership as it is in dollars. the legislators as a group have not turned their
The point was vividly demonstrated Thurs- attention. Both the representatives and sena-
day when the legislators and the governor tors, Republican ones in particular, are trying
went off in half-a-dozen directions attempt- to find some immediate, easily accessible, large
ing to stumble on the right path to extra dol- source of cash that will give an easy answer
lars. Given their present scope of thought, they to the cash shortage. The Senate bond and
could stumble along until the millennium and two-year sales tax increase proposal is just
still never find the answer. the latest example.
The governor, blowing hot and cold on mort- It is hoped, however, there are not many
gaging the veterans' trust fund as an answer legislators who sincerely believe such a pro-
to the state's crises, ended two weeks of fence posal will do more than just postpone the
straddling and decided raising the state's crisis. In two years - or some other given
$250,000 debt limit was a better idea. Thurs- time period - the Legislature will be right
day, the House turned down use of the fund back where it is today.
and yesterday they rejected the second pro- PERHAPS the state can afford to wait a little
posal Characteristically, a Republican caucus longer for a revised tax structure that will
split up without .reaching agreement on any lnefoarvidtxsruuethtwl
pli. provide a new and large source of income -
lan. .although the danger signs already present
The major idea of the day came from the would seem to indicate otherwise - but even-
Senate where the GOP proposed a 100 million tually a modern system will be necessary.
dollar bond issue and a one cent sales tax in- Muaichigan has a carefully constructed plan
crease limited to two years. Part of the tax backed by extensive and expert study in the
would retire the bond issue. ' report of the Michigan tax study committee.
Before the legislators have seen the last of
THE COMING of Michigan's cash crisis has Michigan's financial problems they will prob-
been ignored, but not unheralded. Now that ably have to adopt many more of this com-
it has reached a head in the current fiscal year mittee's suggestions than they wouild like.
the Legislature faces an extremely difficult -DAVID TARR
dual problem. Not only must it find enough Associate Editor
SStaying Away

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CAPITAL COMMENTARY:
BReds M WaB
U... By WILLI.

By OVID A. MARTIN
Associated Press Farm Writer
WASHINGTON - A big issue
likely to confront Congress
this year is whether the United
States should do a better job feed-
ing the hungry abroad.
Proposals along this line are ex-
pected to be advanced for the
triple purpose of bolstering the
farm economy, disposing of farm
surpluses and strengthening the
American position in various parts
of the world.
, "Why not use our food surpluses
and our great farm productive
capacity as an instrument of di-
plomacy?" is an argumentative cry
likely to be made.
Such plans have a humanitarian
appeal as well as practical implica-
tions for a troubled domestic agri-
culture.
But they face strong opposition.
Backing for them is anticipated
from several farm organizations,
including the National Farmers
Union and some individual farm
commodity groups.
In the past Sen. Hubert H. Hum-
phrey (D-Minn.), a member of
the Senate Agriculture Committee,
has supported proposals of this na-
ture and could be expected to do
so again.
Leaders of the Farmers Union
have contended that much good
will could be developed for this
country if it were more aggressive
in feeding the hungry in backward
areas of the world. They argue
that money spent this way would
do much more toward building a
peaceful world than money spent
on weapons of war.
BUT SHARP opposition could
be expected to come from the
Eisenhower administration and
some other farm groups, particu-
larly the American Farm Bureau
Federation.
Administration farm officials
say the United States has been
giving, away or selling at special
rates about all the farm products
that can be disposed of abroad
without creating bigger problems
than would be solved.
A major objection to proposals
for broadening United States for-
eign food programs is the opposi-
tion to these programs by other
farm exporting nations and their
agricultural producers.
* * *
THE FARM BUREAU, in resolu-
tions adopted at its recent Boston
convention, said agriculture's pri-
mary task in the export field is to
develop dollar markets for its pro-
ducts on a permanent basis.
While this farm organization
took the lead in getting the present
surplus disposal law enacted, it
said in the resolutions that agri-
culture "must not become per-
manently dependent on govern-
ment export programs."
The Farm Bureau took the posi-
tion that broadened disposal pro-
grams would-delay adjustment of
United States farm production
from surplus to balanced produc-
tion and make such programs per-
manent. The Bureau said per-
manent programs of this kin
would not only be costly but would
help keep government in control of
agriculture, which it dislikes
Government officials raise *an-
other objection. They say there is
great danger that United States
benefit programs may develop
tastes and demands in some coun-
tries which could not be sustained
on a commercial basis because of

Saving Force
[AM S. WHIITE

COUNSELLING at the University definitely
has its deficiencies. Most students don't
know "whether they're coming or going." Stu-
dents who do know go in to their counsellors
to find out anyway. The ones who don't know
also don't know enough to go in and find out
what they're missing.
But counselling is "a very broad problem,"
as a member of the Literary College Steering
Committee recently put it. It is too broad to
be considered at any group discussion, he in-
dicated. Yet any one of its questions, like sign-

ing junior and senior election cards, is too
narrow to be resolved without some "overall
interpretation of deficiencies."
So the steering committee is being careful
not to make small waves for fear of setting
up a nice large storm. It has decided there
is little value in sponsoring a conference on
counselling. Maxim for the day: if you want
to give up the ship just don't go near the
water.
-NAN MARKEL

The H--- With 'Health'

AMERICANS are living the life of automa-
tion instead of animation, a symposium
presented by Boston University's Sargent Col-
lege recently was told.
The question discussed by the panel was "Do
Americans Have Sufficient Health and Energy
in This Modern Era?"
Man's anatomical and physiological struc-
ture is one designed for a life of dynamic physi-
cal activity, a professor of physiology said.

The dean of the college said that even step-
saving kitchens and swing-out seats on 1959
automobiles may be contributing to poor health.
However, girls on the Hill would gladly resign
themselves to the fate of missing out on colds,
pus and adjusting to the unavoidable "poor
ments picked up on their walk to central cam-
pus and adjustin gto the unavoidable "poor
health" to follow. Oh! for an insulated con-
veyor belt.
NORMA SUE WOLFE

WASHINGTON-The frequently
brutal dogmatism of the Rus-
sians, who often conduct foreign
policy negotiations in the tone of
enraged longshoremen mediating
their waterfront differences,
sometimes has its uses to the free
world. ,
At Geneva since last October 31,
the United States, Britain and the
Soviet Union have been conferring
for a "controlled ban" on nuclear
weapons tests. At every point when
it has appeared that some agree-.
ment might be in sight, Soviet
spokesmen have broken up the
game with quite impossible de-
mands and accusations.
Their unreasonableness has
served them right-and served us
well. It has been almost providen-
tial for us, if such a term can be
used in such a connection. For the
longer such an agreement is de-
ferred, the better off the United
States will be. And if it never
comes at all, short of a genuine
and general disarmament running
all the way down to infantry divi-
sions, we shall be better off still.
* *- *
IN A WORD, if we are to be
saved from entering into an ar-
rangement of the greatest danger
to our security, the enigmatic
idiocy of the Russians themselves
may well be the saving force.
Nearly everything in the atomic-
hydrogen field lies-and necessar-
ily so-under the cover of hush-
hush. Moreover, to seek to under-
stand what is going on even in a

high-policy way requires a layman
to traverse a vast and forbidding
swamp of technical jargon. All the
same, inquiry here establishes
some central, and most unpleasant,
facts.
For months at Geneva the West
has been running a terrible risk
that the Russians would suddenly
become sensible enough to go
along with some so-called. "reli-
able" test suspension. If they
should, the consequences to the
West could not be less than dam-
aging ,and they might well be
catastrophic.
"Damaging" would be the word
should We then take the first of
two alternatives-that is, hurriedly
to back out at the last minute
from such an agreement. In this
case, of course, we should suffer a
severe worldwide propaganda de-
feat. But "catastrophic" would be
the only word should we decide to
stay with the agreement.
For this would mean that the
free world, which is vastly out-
manned and outgunned by the
Soviet bloc, would be on the way to
losing the one form of superiority
which has thus far kept an uneasy
balance of military power. This is
our atomic-hydrogen superiority.
Take away this edge and the
masses of Russian divisions, the
"conventional" forces of war that
still can kill a great many people,
would overwhelmingly outnumber
those of the West.
It would be much as though an

island sea power in the old pre-
atomic days' had negotiated itself
into a position of agreeing to fleet
limitations while its larger land
antagonists remained free to call
up unlimited numbers of troops.
Even a two-year halt to nuclear
testing would tend to disperse the
irreplaceable technical forces we
now have working in the weapons
field. Too-and this is much grim-
mer-we have in fact already made
enormous mistakes in certain of
our supposedly foolproof scientific
assumptions underlying detection
methods. No man can possibly say
for certain that any future detec-
tion method proclaimed as abso-
lutely unbreachable might not
quickly turn out to be quite some-
thing else again.
* * *
FINALLY, it can be stated re-
sponsibly that American leaders
know perfectly well that any sus-
pension agreement would involve
an obvious, and undeniable, mili-
tary risk in exchange for highly
generalized possible gains. These
possible gains are called "impon-
derables"-meaning, maybe, some
advance in the worthy purpose of
easing cold-war tensions.
But it cannot be denied that the
risk is all to ponderable, indeed.
The burden of proof lies with stag-
gering and fateful weight upon
those who would suspend tests.
They have nowhere near proved
their case. They have only proved.
their great decency and their good
intentions.

lack of productive capacity and
purchasing power in world mar-
kets.
"A sudden withdrawal of the
United States programs would
create grave problems as well as
stir up great dissatisfaction with
this country," they said.
Some proposals may be made
that this country join a world food
bank for distribution of surpluses
to needy areas.
Some who favor greater dona-
tions abroad dislike the idea of
turning United States surpluses
over to an international agency.
They say this country would tend
to lose control over disposition and
would not get the credit to which
it would be entitled.
WORLD PROBLEM:
Give IUs
This Day...
By RAY SHAW
Associated Press Newsfeatures Writer
IN HUNDREDS of dialects and
languages around the world, the
words mean the same: "We are
hungry."
It could be called a universal
utterance, for two-thirds of the
world's population, or 1.8 billion,
are underfed.
For every well-fed person in the
United States; there are 10 others
in the world who are hungry.'
And unless ways to increase food
production are found, population
experts say the ratio will widen as
world. population continues to
spiral.
Last year 47 million people were
added to world population, raising
it to 2.8 billion. The population is
expected to be 3.4 billion in 10
years and six billion by the end
of the century.
** *
FOR EACH year's increase, 47
million acres of new land will be
needed. The Population Reference
Bureau, a private research organi-
zation, predicts this will exhaust
all cropland resources on earth
by 20000
What's the answer?
Some scientists have urged that
the sea be harvested more effici-
ently; there is hope that atomic
and solary energy may help in-
crease food production; there ,are
those who say land already in
cultivation could produce more if
greater care were taken with the
soil and better fertilizers used.
Plant diseases, insects, weeds
and rodents Post farmers in the
United States nearly 13 billion dol-
lars each yet.r, the Food and Agri-
culture Organization of the United
Nations says. Measures against
these crop killers, the FAO adds,
are more efficient in the United
States than in foreign lands where
the food problem ismost critical.
* * *'
JAPAN, because of its large pop-
ulation and small land area, has
been forced to become the world's
most successful nation in food pro-
duction, according to the FAO. The
nation produces 13,000 calories per
day for each cultivated acre while
the United States produces 5,000
calories for each cultivated acre,
the USSR 2,700 and India 3,000.
To be well-fed, an individual
needs from 2,000 to 2,800 calories
daily, depending on the climate
and energy used.
Japan, although most unsuccess-
ful in crop production, still does
not produce sufficient food for her
mounting population. The average
caloric need for the Japanese is
2,330, more than 200 calories over
the country's average daily con-
sumption.
The United States, United King-
dom, USSR, most of Western Eu-
rope and some South American
countries either produce or import
enough food to feed their people.

The great population centers in
Asia and the Far East are in the
most need of additional food pro-
India made progress in increas-
ing her food production during the
first of her five-year plans which
ended in 1956. But crop failures,
and an increased emphasis on in-
dustrialization, has the last two
years wiped out much of what was
gained, the FAO says.
Gains made in food production
in recent years, the Population
Reference Bureau says, "tend to
make the food-rich countries
richer and the food-poor countries
poorer by reason of mounting
population."
The research agency says that
unless birth rates are lowered in
those countries with the greatest
-food problems, "death rates will
rise, ultimately and inevitably" to
to check the population increase.
DAILY
OFFICIAL
BULLETIN
rhe Daily officiai Bulletin is an

.4

49

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f'

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INTERPRETING THE NEWS:
'The Sureness of Death'

By J. M. ROBERTS
Associated Press News Analyst
ARE THE PEOPLES of the earth to cry once
more the miserere, the plea, and the la-
ment, for man?
For years the free world has believed that
international Communism did not intend an
outright war in the face of powerful military
deterrents.
That has been true since the very first years
of the cold war, even in the last years of Stalin.
It has been buttressed by 'Nikita Khrushchev's
repeated assertions that his faction expected to
win by peaceful economic competition, not war.
But in the last few days, since the Soviet
Premier blew up his conferences with the Brit-
ish Prime Minister with a public denunciation
of practically everything that the West and
Macmillan stand for, worry has mounted.
THE SOVIET UNION and the United States
now assume the positions of the ancient
code, of two men tying their left wrists to-
gether in preparation for a knife fight to the
death.
In those days the fights frequently ended
with the collapse of both participants before
actual death.
&Mtn t gait Date
Editorial Staff
RICHARD TAUB, Editor
MICHAEL KRAFT JOHN WEICHER
Editorial Director City Editor
DAVID TARR
Associate Editor
Business Staff
STEPHEN TOPOL, Business Manager
CAROL HECHT .......... Associate Business Manager
RICHARD MARTENS ............ Advertising Manager
THOMAS CREED ...... ......... Finance Manager
RONALD BURKHARD ............ Accounts Manager

But no one knows now whether, in a modern.
war, even the most remote inhabitants of New
Guinea could survive.
In such case, in all sanity, it must be pre-
sumed that war will not be permitted to hap-
pen. ,
Harold Macmillan returns home in an at-
mosphere far more dangerous, on the surface,
than the one in which a predecessor, Neville
Chamberlain, returned from negotiations with
Adolf Hitler at Munich.
Yet public reaction in Britain is far calm-
er than in the United States. The press very
largely takes the attitude that the trip is not
a complete failure, even it it only adds knowl-
edge of the hopelessness of negotiations.
IN MODERN WAR there could be no sanctu-
aries such as the Chinese Reds enjoyed be-
yond the Korean border. Complete and utter
destruction must be the intent of both sides
from the first day, for none will know whether
the first day is to be the last.
Biological warfare might even surpass nu-
clear warfare in destructiveness, spreading its
effects far beyond the area of war and striking,
like fallout, long after the immediate battle
is over.
Berlin isn't worth it. Except in the light
of knowledge that if there is surrender of Ber-
lin it will be only the first step toward sur-
render of everything.
It would be the old story of man holding
death better than some things.
But the very sureness of death itself must
bolster the belief that the armed truce will
continue, with borderline skirmishes, because -
it must; that war becomes its own greatest
deterrent.
New Books at the Library
Mills, C. Wright - The Causes of World War
Three; NY, Simon and Schuster, 1958.
Schlesinger. Arthn -. The Conming of the

r

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
'Mind Molding' Called Conceivable, Not Factual

To the Editor:
UNLESS Dr. James V. McConnell
has evidence of which I am
not aware, his initial statement
(Michigan Daily, February 25,
1959) would be hard to defend on
the basis of limited generalization
from present psychological evi-
dence. This is not a picayune com-
plaint, because such a sweeping
claim is likely to influence the
way people think about psychology
in a way which is not justified in
the present situation.
Recall the statement, "Today
psychologists, given the proper
conditions, can change any normal
human being from what he is
into whatever you want him to
be." This is a present claim-"to-
day." There is an "out"-"given
the proper conditions." However,
that it has never been successfully
tried is not proof that it can be
done. The rest of the statement
says psychologists can change
anyone (assuming "normality") in
any and every way. I agree that
certain changes can be made to
occur. But not only is the geperal-
ity of the statement unsupported
by available evidence, consider one
area where it is almost certainly
untrue: ability (can you change
I.Q.=00 to I.Q.=190?).
To sum up, my feeling that the
statement needs to be qualified is
based on two points: 1) Psychol-
ogists have not demonstrated that

tual. The statement could never
be proven true, since to cover any
individual and any change would
require an infinite number of ex-
periments. As a body of evidence
accumulates, however, the state-
ment would be accepted or re-
jected with increasing confidence.
The amount of evidence necessary
for confidence, and the ways of
interpreting such evidence are at
least to some extent matters of
individual preference.
This much attention seemed
called for, because such a state-
ment might unjustifiably influ-

ence people either favorably or
unfavorably toward psychology
and psychologists. However, as-
suming the statement to, be true,
it is worth considering what the
individual and social implications
would be.
William Morrison, Grad.
Congratulations .. .
To the Editor:
CONGRATULATIONS on your
article (Sunday, Feb. 22) on
the University's television office
and some of its offerings. I suspect

Senimore Says

that all too few members of the
University community know how
big a contribution the television
office makes to University public
relations and television education,
or realize how great is its potential
for the future.
The article was called to my
attention by a colleague who
wanted to see the Alaska show and
was disappointed to find that it
was over by the time he read the
article. Assuming that features
like this one may be planned for
the future, and that are designed
to stimulate some active interest
as well as report events, would it
be worthwhile to get them out a
day in advance of the show they
report? (I suppose you preview the
shows and look over the scripts,
eh?).
One other problem: You quote'
me as saying, "Ever since man has
had to earn his bread by the sweat
of his brow, he has probably sung
while he worked," a statement
that most of your thoughtful read-
ers would question- (one did, in
talking to me yesterday) anddthat
my fellow folklorists would hoot at.
They know that most work songs
are of relatively recent origin, none
of them as prehistoric as that
statement would imply, and that
centuries or millenia of grunting,
shouting and chanting doubtless
preceded the first work song prop-
er. The script (and, I nope, the
sound track) says, "Singing and

Y
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