"Didn't I Meet You In Korea Once?" Sixty-Ninth Year EDITED AND MTANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NMICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLIcATIONS STUDENT PUBLICATIONS BLDG.' ANN ARBOR, MICH. *"Phone NO 2-3241 AT THE CAMPUS: 'Old Man': Sad Product - ' " 4 + . r . = '" -rat Of Over-Ambition hec Opinlonh Are Free Truth WI FrewiU Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. URSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1958 NIGHT EDITOR: JOAN KAATZ Proposals for New Taxes: A Challenge To State Legislators WHAT KIND of men sit in the State Legis- lature? Rarely has any group had the opportunity to answer the question as explicitly as those men meeting in Lansing next month. The problems facing the state are big. The stature of the men facing the problems re- mains to be seen by their actions. FACING THE lawmakers is the challenge of lifting the state out of its financial mess. Tax revenue has been falling while needs have been rising. The state treasury is running a deficit and dragging on payment of bills. Meanwhile, the state's population continues to grow, increasing the burdens of the future. For the last couple of years, the State Legis- lature has declined to meet the challenge head on. "Hold the line" has been the cherished dike against new state taxes - and also, badly needed services. From time to time, when the pressures of expanding needs became too great, legislators have usually responded with an act here and an act there, leaving the state with an irrational, topsy turvy tax structure. Attempts to correct it or to gain additional revenue have been put off, pending a complete evaluation. BUT NOW, after 15 months of work by econ- omists from the state's universities and lay- men on the Citizen's Advisory Committee on. Taxation representing all segments of the econ- anxy, the state has an excellent guide to re- vising the tax structure. The proposed revisions would put the tax burden on an equitable basis, relieving the load carried unfairly by low in- Come groups, and provide relief for marginal businesses who would pay on the basis of prof- its, which may have little relationshp to thei now taxed property and machinery. And, the changes would give the state an additional $140 million dollars in state revenue to meet the needs of mental health programs, higher edu- cation and the other functions which depend upon state appropriations. The thorough study of the tax structure by the state's economists and the changes sug- gested by the citizens' group have been pre- pared and offered in an objective manner for the common good. It is to be hoped that the Legislature will consider the recommendations in the same W. jF ONE IS FORCED to express doubts, it is because of past history. Nearly every new tax proposal, especially if backed by Gov. Wil- liams, has been greeted with the immediate, al-, most reflex cry that business is being driven out of the state. The subject of taxation and the state's business climate has been a politi- cal football, played with political brawn rath- er than statesmanlike brain. And objections will probably be voiced to the new recommendations, focusing particular- on personal and corporation income taxes. Word of the committee's recommendations were leaked last week, reportedly by someone opposed to the provisions, and some members of the committee have been considering a mi- nority report. "HOLDING THE LINE" 'is a fine slogan and to be sure, economy in governmnt re- mains important. But the unpleasant facts of the state's economic life have to be faced and the imperative needs for education and health cannot be glibly sloganed away. Holding the line against taxes can also mean holding the line against progress and the fulfillment of the state's needs. The decisions of the next legislative session should answer more than a few questions about the state and about the members of its legis- lature. "FISH! I love you and respect! you very much but I must kill you before this day is out." wheezes Spencer Tracy. the old man, into the sea's tumult: and indeed, after endless trauma, he does. But greater than the task of killing the "beegest damn feesh in the sea" was the problem of trans- posing Hemingway's novel to the cinema, for his little fable is no more fitted for the screen than the poetry of Dylan Thomas. A' story so internal in its drama and metaphysical in its interpretation is ill-suited for a technicolor spec- tacular. "He was an old man," says the; soundtrack. "and he had gone 85 days without catching a fish." An old man, with a prideful, happy humility, and a little boy whose love is always present though he must leave the old man. But at last the noble marlin comes and the old man and the fish wrestle each other far out through the Antillean seas. And then the sharks, the ocean's scavengers, to touch the salt of bitter realism to the old man's triumph. But this is no phyrric victory for we can smile with the old man who was not beaten but simply "went out too far." This save for a single flashback to the old man's young- er, swarthy days is the entire movie. THE PROBLEM of transpos- ing novels into films is an old and essential one. Whether the cam- era can demonstrate the same in- nuendos and intelligences that the pen can is debatable. But if we are to accept the cinema as an art form we must assume that given the same themes and char- acters as a novel, it can produce a work as compelling and as meaningful. So whither "The Brothers Karamazov" and "War and Peace?" And what on earth happened to "The Old Man and the Sea?" The problem is further accent- ed in the present film for lengthy excerpts from the work are read above the action. Much of the time this is effective but in spots it lapses into absurdity (witness: Soundtrack - "The old man smiled" and Spencer Tracy will- igly smiles. soundtrack - "He lifted the harpoon" and Mr. Tracy, right on cue, obligingly lifts his bloodstained harpoon.) But more interesting is a comparison be- tween the power of Hemingway's lines and the perceptivity of James Wong Howe's camera. "Man can be destroyed but never defeated" says the old man and this is similarly true of Hem- ingway's themes. The movie be- comes a noble try, attempted by gifted but over-ambitious men, who, like the old man. "went out too far." They have taken an epic .nd made a travelogue. -Eli Zaretsky INTERPRETING: European .:,r I i CAPITAL COMMENTARY: The West By WILLI, Rides High AM S. WHITE / -MICHAEL KRAFT Editorial Director Baylor May Set Example IT IS ENCOURAGING to note that discrim- Saylor will consider the touchy integration inatory policies at segregated, Baptist-sup- issue in the cool, civilized manner which has ported Baylor University are being investigated. been urged, by all who favor a gradual inte- Student concern has been expressed over an gration process. incident in which a Baylor ticket official and What the outcome of this consideration will police forced a University of Texas Negro stu- be, of course, can not be ignored. If Baylor dent and his date to sit in the "Negro section" officials elect to continue the school's segrega- at a Baylor-Texas football game. The two had Lion policy it will be rather a blow, though not previously purchased tickets in the student an actual setback to the integration movement. section. The fact that at least some people on the Baylor campus, as indicated by the stand of Protesting voices were heard, not just from its student newspaper, favor a policy reversal the integrated University of Texas but from would leave hope atat at a later date the mat- Baylor as well. Both Baylor and Texas student ter will be reconsidered. newspapers editorially expressed their disgust A real victory may be chalked up, however, at the incident. The University of Texas Stu- if segregation is erased at Baylor. With all the dent Assembly sent a resolution to Baylor for- talk about turning public schools into private orally protesting the incident. Baylor officials schools so that they may be operated as seg- extended an apology and later made the an- regated institutions, it would be quite a slap nouncement that perhaps some changes might in the face to see an already private college be made. follow the direct lead of a public university and And it was as easy as that. There were no then to operateing on an integrated basis. burning crosses and no federal troops involved. -JUDITH DONER j TODAY AND TOMORROW 1 WASHINGTON - Perhaps the most fundamental shift in the balance of political power of this generation is unfolding wilh ever rising significance in the .Ameri- can West. Alaska's decision in its belated,, balloting to send two nev 'Demo- cratic Senators here has. had far more important results :than to swell the Democratic majdorities that had resulted from elections held across the rest of the coun- try on November 4. It means of course, tlat the new Senate will open in .Janlary with 64 Democrats to 34 Repub- licans. This is the largest margin of Democratic control shmee the high tide of the Franklin D.,Roose- velt era. *, . MUCH MORE MEANI NGFUL, however, is that Alaska, cmur 49th state, has not joined in a headlong western march to the De nocratic party that will have consequences extending many years into the fu- ture. Already, in the November 4 vot- ing, Democrats have swept through the Far West lfke a des- ert sandstorm. They haLd seized four entranched Republican Sen- ate seats in Wyoming, California, Nevada and Utah. They :now have consolidated an almost tptal con- trol of the whole vast' Prea run- ning from the ice of northernmost Alaska to the blazing heat of the Mexican border. Now a single Republi Can Sena- tor, Thomas Kuchel of California, survives on the whole Pacific slope. Moreover, Dergoc rats- are in effective control of Senate dele- gations running all the way east- ward to the Dakotas. Already, too, Far Western Sen- ators had held four of the most powerful committee chairmanships in the Senate dealing with the national economy - Hayden of Arizona, appropriations; Murray of Montana, interior and insular affairs; Magnuson of Washington, interstate and foreign commerce; Chavez of New Mexico, public works. * * * THE IMMEDIATE RESULT of all that has happened in Novem- ber will be to give the West a de- gree of Senate influence it has hardly known in history. There will be a sharp corresponding fall in the influence in the Senate of both the East and Mid-West. And the ancient dominance of the Senate by the South, particu- larly in these times when party control lies with the Democrats, Inevitably will be much weakened. Indeed, it would be vastly weak- ened but for this fact: the South- ern moderates who now master the Southern Senate wing in general have long been close to the West- ern Democrats. The association has rested in part simply on mu- tual liking and in part on common interest.I These Western Democrats are universally liberal in things like public power, spending for public wor.ks and agricultural subsidies. They have an empire to build and they represent for the most part a have-not section of the country, long subject to economic discrimi- nation from the East. So, too, the Southerners. And so the Southern- ers, with a handful of Old Guard- ist exceptions, find it easy to make common cause with the Western- ers. Each section believes, from one point of view, in moving the country forward. Or each section, from the orthodox Republican view, is quite expert in widely dis- tributing money from the federal treasury. On a single issue, civil rights, the Western-Southern comrade- ship is far from close. But even here, the Westerners have never been willing to burn the last bridge with the moderate Southerners. What is likely for the future isj an increasingly successful West- ern-moderate Southern coalition. Actually it is potentially capable of mastering the Senate-and it will probably do so. * * * AT THE SAME TIME, the pow- er of the West in Presidential elections, thus in Presidential nominating conventions, has not risen with its Senatorial power. This, of course, is because in the Senate the smallest state has equal representation with the largest, whereas the Presidential electoral vote of Nevada, say, is a small prize indeed. Finally then, it is entirely pos- sible that we shall see a new con- test for ultimate power over pub- lic policies between the Western- Southern Senate on the one side and the Presidency that after 1960 is still likely to be dominated by the interest and attitudes of the East and Midwest. (Copyright, 1958, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.) AT THE STATE: 'Bad Plot' Makes Good "VJIE DECKS RAN RED" is saved from falling into the routine melodrama classification, not by its perilous situations and narrow escapes for the good guys, but by the breathtakingly nefar- ious plot of its bad guy, Broder- ick Crawford, who plans to kill the entire crew of the freighter, Bern- wind, water log the ship, and then ride her into port and collect half the valuation of the ship and her cargo - one million dollars. Crawford bases his scheme on the fact that in the past the courts have awarded half the disabled ship's value to the men who have ridden the water logged boats in, The Bernwind's crew is being stirred up by Crawford who is hoping that they will mutiny when the captain dies, and James Mason is chosen by the company to be his replacement. Mason is resented by the restless crew who feel that the beloved first mate should have been chosen. To add to his troubles, the cook and the steward have jumped ship and are 'replaced by a New Zeeland native and his wife, Dorothy Dan- dridge, who is aptly described by Crawford as "a well-stacked doll." When Crawford begins to shoot the crew as someone would kill flies at a picnic, the decks really do begin to flow with that stuff thicker than water. The best performances are turned in by Crawford, a study in sheer, unadulterated greed and ambition, Stuart Whitman as his accomplice with a weak conscience and a strong trigger finger, and Miss Dandridge who reveals, in addition to her endowments from Mother Nature, a fine dramatic sense. -Patrick Chester Communtity By J. M. ROBERTS Associated Press News Analyst IMMEDIATELY after World War II three of Europe's smallest and worst shot up nations launched a movement which has been spreading over the continent in ever-widening circles. Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg formed an organiza- tion designed to eliminate econ- omic frontiers and substitute co- operation for competition. They wanted their economic relation- ship to be much the same as those between the states of the Ameri- can union. They called the new organiza- tion Benelux, and set out for wht they knew would be a long haul, They-established a common tar iff system toward outsiders, and virtually free trade between them- selves. Early next year two big melons will be cut from what was once a sickly litle vine. The three small nations will be- come virtually a single economic state. The borders between them will be almost meaningless. There will be free movement of persons, capital, goods and services. Finan- cial and social policies, including wages and prices, will be coordin- ated. BEYOND THAT, the general idea will be extended through a new organization including Bene- lux with France, Germany and Italy. Through their long years of effort the three small nations will be able to speak as one in the new organization including the larger nations. Already the European coal and steel community has been issuing what amount almost to interna- tional citizenship cards to work- ers in that field. It also operates Joint schools for the children of members of its staff, itself an important germ in the growth of internationalism. Business and industry are set- ting the pace, but the more intri- cate problems of internationalized agricultural practice are already being attacked. The European economic com- munity faces great problems in its relations with traditional trade partners such as Britain and the United States. Britain has fought a determined but losing battle for establishment of a broader free trade area so that she would not be faced by a continent-wide tariff setup. She cannot submit her own economy to the European community be- cause of her preferential tariff ob- ligations to the commonwealth. There is a danger, especially during the long years of adjust- ment which are to come, that the European community may take trade repressive measures to pro- tect itself in crises.'They are now trying to compromise their posi- tion with Britain and other coun- tries. The United States has balanced these and other dangers against the need for a unified Europe and proffered constant cooperation. Convinced that continent-wide free trade has been one of the chief sources of her developing strength, the United States cheers as Europe's traditional internal boundaries come tumbling down. ',I II Gambit Begins Game By WALTER LIP'PMANN . ........ . E ACH DAY makes it seem more likely that the Soviet move in Berlin is the opening gambit in an extensive diplomatic operation. dealing with the whole German question. Al- though the long note from Moscow, which was sent last Thursday, makes specific propo- sals about the status of West Berlin, its gen eral tenor and the text around the proposals suggests very strongly that the Soviet govern- ment looks upon West Berlin as an instrument for raising the whole question of Germany. For there can hardly be any illusion in Mos- cow that the Western powers will refuse to evacuate West Berlin and to leave it sur- rounded by the Red Army and with its com- munications in control of the East German government. The proposals about Berlin are a talking point, not a serious offer. I say this because Mr. Khrushchev has already said in his press conference that the six months time limit would not be rigidly adhered to if prom- ising negotiations were under way. And if promising negotiations are not under way, pre- cautions have already been taken to see to it that nothing portentous happens if authority is transferred to the East German government. Mr. Dulles has said that we might let East German officials stamp the documents because we would regard these German officials as mere agents of the Soviet government. To this the Communist boss of Eastern Germany, Mr. Ulbrich, has replied that he did not care what Mr. Dulles called the officials, provided they stamped the documents, All in all, then, there is no instant crisis and we are at the beginning of a long game in which the distance runners will do better than the sprinters, It is not probable, I think, that on the whole German question there will be any really se- Europe and back within, its own' frontiers. It is reasonably certain that the Soviet govern- ment has not convince ditself that it can with draw its army without running a very great risk of an anti-Soviet and an anti-Russian ex- plosion among the satellites. Yet, at the same time, there is good reason to believe that the Soviet government lives in dread of another Hungary, and realizes that there is a great risk in the continuing military occupation of East- ern Europe. On our Western side a serious negotiation is not likely to begin soon because policy is made by Dr. Adenauer and Mr. Dulles. Their terms one in which ,negotiations with East Germany state and the extension of the frontier of NATO to the Polish border. This is literally and ex- actly a demand for the unconditional surrender of the Soviet Union, and it is not a negotiating position. IT IS REASONABLE to assume that the So- viet operation in Berlin is addressed to the German successors of Dr. Adenauer and to the American successors of Mr. Dulles. That is why the gambit in Berlin is only the begin- ning of a long game. Unless all signs fail, Dr. Adenauer's successors in West Germany, though they are as anti-Communist as he is, will move away from his absolute position to call for the liquidation of the East German and with the Soviet Union can take place. If and when this change occurs in Germany, the American successors of Mr. Dulles will have to change our position. On the long view, perhaps the greatest risk we are running at present is that we shall be- come alienated from the Germans who will succeed Dr. Adenauer. The risk is greater than we realize .For our nfficial nolicv anti tha s SECOND THOUGHTS ... By John Weicher A Step Towards Contacts &MIMIN WW MIIWM- INTERNATIONAL VVEEK, is by its very nature sul ject to sev- eral serious limitationis which must of necessity reduce its worth to somewhat less than is desired by everyone connected with it. First and foremost, it is a Week and only a week-in fact, it is even shorter, exte'riding from Tuesday to Saturday this year. Very little can be accomplished in eve days: lasting fr bendships are aot formed, heart-:,earching po- itical discussions bestween Ameri- man and internation- l do not take place, profound un'ierstanding of world problems does not develop, and so on. Secondly, attention must be called to the Week:'; people must be made aware of it. The easiest way is to bring in "name" speak- ers with knowledge +of internation- al affairs. These people can serve to highlight the week as a round of exchange dinneis, a dance and a fair cannot do. Etowever, in the process some atterdtion, perhaps a great deal, must b( diverted from the international students them- selves to the speakers, thus obscur- ing what the weelk is supposed to bring out. In addition, to, come off suc- blocks are set up, it still can do much. *0* * DURING THE WEEK, a start can be made towards bringing in- ternational and American stu- dents together. Here the World's Fair is the best place; students liv- ing in apartments, or fraternities, or dormitory floors where no for- eign students live can meet for- eign students if they want to and talk to them a little, and learn something, if not about them per- sonally, at least about their coun- try. At the Fair, for instance, we talked to an Ethiopian student briefly, and noticed several other Americans doing the same. Ethi- opia has been a legendary place since the middle ages and before, as well as being remarkable in our own days for attempting to fend off Mussolini's bombers by camel cavalry charges, in one of the first premonitions of World War IL But, we discovered, Ethiopia has other merits, and considerable im- portance in the present day. We doubt if this information will ever be of direct personal benefit to us, but probably no one in 1934 ex- pected Ethiopia to be important then .ither And it can't hurt. Ican students invited the Ethio- pian out for a cup of coffee to dis- cuss, for instance, the problem of being a strongly Christian, pro- Western country on the fringes of the Arab world. * * s WHETHER ANY DID or not is also beyond the scope of Interna- tional Week. What is, is whether International Week made this sort of meeting more possible, whether it served its catalytic function. On the one hand, it did make inter- national students more accessible to Americans. But, on the other, it created some problems, too. Few of the ex- hibits at the Fair were staffed by enough students of a particular country to make it possible for one to leave his post and go for a talk with an American-with some exceptions, such as Iran. This could be remedied easily. But it is indicative of the problem, suggested before, of organization. In the process of getting the Fair set up to promote cultural contact, cultural contact is likely to get lost in sheer administrative detail. Perhaps greater ecort in the di- rection of more events like the fair, with such loose ends as the shnrtae of international students Senimore Says ... " M1. '.:.AbaiC