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Truth Will Prevail"MIH0PhnNo234
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
UESDAY, JUNE 26, 1962 NIGHT EDITOR: PHILIP SUTIN
BITTER STRUGGLE:
Ko er-
Clash Continues
Revenge Confused
With Justice
P ERHAPS, as everyone says, it is tine, now
that the trial and execution of Adolph
Eichmann are over, to forget the issue and
turn to moral and practical problems which
are more pressing. Certainly the Eichmann
case has been viewed pro and con from almost
every conceivable angle and further rehash
of the sordid details is unlikely to unearth any
new arguments.
But the Eichmann case-not just the trial, but
the war atrocities he committed as well-is
now history and should be commented on
and re-evaluated by all thinking people so
that the human and moral aspects of the
situation are handed on to future generations
along with the cold facts. The trial and the
execution both were carried out by the Israeli
governmeiat in the name of justice, one of the
most curiously and quickly changing concepts
of our time. For this reason they demand
merciless probing of the hearts and consciences
not only of Eichmann's judges, but of every-
one who has at any time made a mental
judgment either for or against the former
Nazi officer.
MY PERSONAL BELIEF is that what the
Israeli government did was wrong for
several reasons. To begin with, there is of
course the basic issue of capital punishment.
Those who are opposed to it generally feel that
no matter how vicious a crime a man com-
mits, no other man has a moral right (except
in self defense in an emergency situation) to
take the criminal's life as punishment.
Even if execution were found to prove a
deterrent to further crime, which is not the
case, human life-all human life-is sacred.
No human being, not even a government or the
most conscientious law court, has a moral
right to decide that an individual's life must
be extinguished for the sake of "justice."
The Israeli government apparently adheres
to this philosophy. Except in wartime there
°is no capital punishment in Israel. Eichmann's
was the first civilian execution in a state
which forbids such execution except for former
Nazis. In hanging Eichmann, then, the Israeli
government made an exception to a rule which
ought to be based on such firm philosophical
grounds that it cannot be broken even in ex-
treme instances.
I N ADDITION to the old capital punishment
question is the complication created by the
fact that the arrest and trial were technically
illegal. Eichmann was taken forcibly from
Argentina and tried under a law which did not
exist at the time he committed his crime.
Because of the unique nature of the issue,
many people, not only Israelis and Jews, were
willing to overlook the technical violations of
standard legal procedure in the interest of
hearing the evidence the prosecution and de-
fense would present.
Eventually, evert those who at first opposed
the trial admitted that it had done the world
a great deal of good. No one could have an-
ticipated the deluge of books, pictures, movies,
Expenses
u NOEVERY great life a little dilemma must
fall. And one fell unto Assembly Associa-
tion President Mary Beth Norton last month.
It was a question of duty or pleasure. And
cleverly, Miss Norton avoided the dilemma
completely and was able to have her fun and
do her work at the same time. She is a re-
markable girl.
the problem centered around the National
Student Association Convention which is being
held this summer in Columbus, Ohio. Normally
there would have been no problem for Miss
Norton. She lives in Indiana and the money
given her by Student Government Council
would have been nearly enough for her to
exist during the convention.
However,this summer Miss Norton is visit-
ing the Seattle World's Fair, and, curiously,
is visiting it right up until the day she -has to
leave for NSA. And she could not afford, she
said, to attend the meeting without an added
little something from Assembly.
Thus she decided that Assembly, through its
braintrust, Assembly Dormitory Council, could
appropriate some $75 which would enable her
to get from Washington to Ohio with a mini-
mum of discomfort, since she decided to fly by
jet.
Alas, for the sixth (or possibly seventh) con-
secutive week, ADC had no quorum. There is
no exact report of how, without enough mem-
bers to vote on any given issue, the body do-
nated $75 to her, but it did.
IT WOULD BE really pleasant to have Miss
Norton attend the NSA Convention. The
idea that the University's independent women
will have a voice at a national convention is,
among other things, interesting. However, As-
sembly works on one of the tightest budgets of
any major student group on campus.
And that its president should be able, at a
meeting with less than a full quorum present,
magazine and news articles, old letters and
records that have claimed the eyes and ears
of the world since the trial began, German
and Israeli children, too young to remember
World War II, are learning as a result of the
trial, things they would never have known or
dreamed possible about themselves and each
other. Older people who did not know or did
not want to know what was happening are
now being forced to recognize, remember,
acknowledge and admit, instead of being per-
mitted to live out their lives avoiding un-
comfortable memories and responsibilities. And
those who lived through the worst of it are
receiving the least that is due them-a full
public statement of the truth.
All this is the result of the trial and there
are a few people who wQuld still deny that,
although painful, this forced lesson in twen-
tieth century history was both necessary and
beneficial. If this had been the only result of
the trial and Eichmann had been imprisoned
or even sent back to Argentine, there could
really have been no legitimate objection to the
trial and Israel would have done a commend-
able service to the world. But whereas a public
exposition based on such shaky legal grounds
could surely have been justified morally, an
execution just as surely could not, and that
should have been plain from the beginning to
the Israelis as well as to everyone else who
knew from the first that Eichmann was guilty.
To follow up such a pseudo-trial, however
beneficial, with sentence and execution is going
too far.
INDEED, the Israeli government handled the
entire incident with an indelicacy matched
only by its unflagging (and necessary) self-
assurance. No one will deny-aloud, at any rate
-that the Jews of the world have a just and
staggering grievance against the Nazis, a great
many of whom are alive and hearty and hold-
ing high positions in the German government
today. But Hitler's army did not confine its
atrocities to people of any one race or religion.
Those who suffered suffered alike as human
beings in the power of an inhuman machine
and it was in the name of humanity that
Israel should have tried Eichmann. Instead
however, the Israeli government chose to try
him in the name of the Jews first and human-
ity only as an afterthought.
It is absurd to argue as some have that
by this action the Israelis divorced the Jws
from the rest of humanity. But Israel was
by its action ignoring the most monstrous
aspect of the Nazi persecution and in so doing
missed part of the essential point which should
have been made. Furthermore, Israel had no
right to speak in the name of all the Jews of
the world and many Jews, particularly in
America, are justly resentful that such an
actionrwas taken in their name without
authority.
All else considered, the most obvious ,-d
understandable excuse for the execution was
revenge and, all things considered, few ,eoIe
appeared disposed to deny Israel that revenge.
The Israelis have, on the surface, treated the
Eichmann case with Old Testament justice and
repaid his murders with execution. But to the
rest of the world, the execution will be remem-
bered only as settlement of a long-outstanding
debt. Eichmann murdered 6,000,000 Jews, the
Jews (there will be no distinction made be-
tween Israelis and Jews by the rest of the
world) executed Eichmann and the score is
settled. The slate is clean and now the world
can forget with a clear conscience.
THIS IS PRECISELY what should not be
allowed to happen. No debt has been paid
or ever will be paid. The score against the
Nazis is unpayable and no amount of senseless
execution will change the facts. What the Nazis
did must never be forgotten and is not to be
forgiven. As the recent movie "Judgment at
Nuremburg" points out, nothing can expunge
the details or expiate the guilt, even if it is
impossible to fix the guilt precisely. The Nazi
atrocities were not simply the unfortunate
aspects of war and they are not to be excused
by the sad story of the social and economic
problems of Germany prior to the outbreak
of the war. They are unique in scope and also
in design and any person who can hear an
account of the facts and not pass judgment
is shirking a great moral responsibility.
I believe wholeheartedly that this is true.
I understand, respect, and am in complete
sympathy with the feelings of Eichmann's
Israeli judges-but I am deeply disappointed in
their decision. In a country where so many
people have suffered so deeply and have borne
their trials with such superhuman patience,
one would expect to find an instinctive refusal
to inflict suffering on anyone, even Eichmann.
And where human life is such a precious com-
modity one would expect to find it a sin to
kill even one's deadliest enemy when he is in
one's power.
N° ONE will pretend that Eichmann as a
person deserved any kind of special con-
sideration. No one expected him to plead guilty,
repent his past or beg forgiveness. If there is
;.1w +h-A.-thi g a 1int lanl Eichmann's nrh-
By PHILIP SUTIN
Daily Staff Writer
IN THIS ERA of genteel labor-
management relations, the long,
bitter and brutal Kohler Company
strike in Sheboygan, Wisconsin
stands out like a sore, bloody
thumb. This eight-year long strike
marks the clash between a strong-
minded employer with medieval
views about employes and the
United States' most aggressive
union.
Now, more than eight years af-
ter the United Automobile Work-
ers struck the Kohler firm, the
conflict seems to have petered out.
On June 4 the Supreme Court re-
jected a Kohler appeal of a Na-
tional Labor Relation Board de-
cision finding it in violation of
fair labor practice standards and
ordering it to bargain in good faith.
Yet there is little to bargain for.
Most of the affected workers have
moved elsewhere, found other jobs
they are unwilling to give up or
do not desire to be reemployed by
the company. The ethical princi-
ples involved in the strike have
also been blurred by time and,
although the courts have given
the United Auto Workers a moral
victory, such issues will not weigh
heavily when and if collective bar-
gaining begins between the two
warring parties.
-* * * .
THE STRUGGLE between the
Kohler Company and its workers
has a long bitter history. The
company was founded in 1873 by
John Michael Kohler of an aristo-
cratic Austrian family. From its
beginnings Kohler was run as a
barony ruled over by the paternal-
ist Kohler and later by his son
Herbert V. Kohler who first joined
the organization in 1914.
Under their direction, the com-
pany built a model community
well above the standard of the
average company town. Kohler
was one of the first Wisconsin
companies to provide group in-
surance and workman's compen-
sation.
However, the workers did not
like the heavy-handed rule of
the Kohler Company that neces-
sarily accompanied management
paternalism. "We wanted room to
breathe," one striker told a mag-
azine reporter in 1957. Another
claimed that the company spied
on its workers and demoted any
dissenter to menial, low paying,
and unhealthful obs.
IN 1933 the company formed
the Kohler Workers Association,
a company union. One year later
an American Federation of Labor
attempt to organize the factory
was broken by the company army
and the state militia at a cost
of two lives and 47 injured men,
women, and children, many of
whom, the UAW claims, were shot
in the back.
Works manager Edmound Bie-
ver, then assistant police chief of
Kohler village, admitted under
'SAPPHIRE':
Thriller
With Moral
THE BRITISH FILM "Sapphire,"
currently on view at the Cam-
pus, is one of the first (1960) of
what appears to be a current trend
in that country of pertinent social
commentaries presented in the
form of a thriller (the latest being
the soon to arrive "Victim" with
its pusillanimous pederasts),. The
issue at stake here is racial pre-
judice against the Negro or what
the British call the "color bar."
Even if one accepts the some-
what devious dressing-up of the
problem in who-dunit clothing,
making it a motive for murder
doesn't speak much or in any new
way for its or the film's impor-
tance,. In the final analysis the
movie finds little for which it can
recommend itself.
First of all, in the attempt to
mix murder-mystery with moral
message on prejudice both sides
lose out. Either the necessary ele-
ment of suspense is depreciated by
digressions into facetious and
cliche-ridden commentaries on
"the problem" or the suspense is
such that all interest is directed
towards guessing who the murder-
er is, in which case the whole
color issue has no significance be-
yond its being only one of a num-
ber of possible clues in solving the
murder. In addition, the script
leaves much to be desired with its
plethora of hackneyed "I-can-see-
her-now" type dialogue.
THE COLOR photography and
design of the film is mentionable
only for the complete lack of any
conspicuous style or technique. Call
it Amorphous Anglo-Saxon if you
wish.
Director Basil Dearden should
probably share some of the guilt
for all the above but he is most
culpable in his febrile handling of
the final scene. Many a plodding
thriller has been saved by its end-
ing, but not so in this case.
oath that he ordered tear gas
bombs thrown at strikers so that
coal cars could enter the plant. In
the ensuing confusion he directed
the private Kohler force to fire
tear gas when crowds approached
the plant, but apparently bullets
were used. Kohler workers today
refer to Biever as "the man who
shot to the top of the manage-
ment hierarchy." This heritage of
violence has contributed to much
of the acrimony of the current
strike.
In 1951, Kohler workers voted
to affiliate with the UAW. After
eight months of bargaining, a con-
tract, substandard for the indus-
try, was signed.
* * *
IN RETROSPECT, the UAW
says it pressed five basic demands:
1) Standard arbitration proce-
dures to remedy grievances, end-
ing company domination over its
employes;
2) Full seniority protection to
eliminate arbitrary fining prac-
tices;
3) A 20 cent an hour wage in-
crease to bring Kohler employe
wages in line with the rest of the
industry;
4) A non-contributory pension
fund standard in most of the in-
dustry; and
5) A standard union shop ar-
rangement with the check-off,
shop stewards and other standard
union arrangements.
The company rejected most of
the demands, offering only a three
cent an hour wage increase at the
last moment before the strike and
presenting lesser proposals in
place of the UAW ones. The
watchwords of Kohler policy were
"The Kohler Company is opposed
to any form of compulsory union-
ism" and "We refuse to give the
union or an arbitrator a veto
power over management deci-
sions."
VIOLENCE erupted from the
April 4, 1954 start of the strike.
Mass picketing shut the plant
down for 54 days until the com-
pany could get the Wisconsin Em-
ployment Relations Board
(WERB) to issue a cease and de-
sist order against it. Rioting oc-
curred several times at plant
gates, even after the WERB order
had been issued. The company re-
cruited strike -breakers and
stocked its arsenals. Both workers
and strikers were beaten and their
homes damaged by vandals. The
savageness of the first two years
of the strike created deep rifts in
Sheboygan that may never be
healed.
The-UAW sustained the strikers
until 1957 when it aided them in
finding other jobs. Lonely pickets
remained outside plant facilities
until 1960. Meanwhile, both sides
fought in the sales offices and in
the courts.
A boycott of Kohler goods was
launched by the UAW in 1955.
Through pamphlets and personal
contacts it urged wholesalers and
the public not to buy Kohler pro-
ducts. The union claims moderate
successes, while the company said
the boycott hardly hurt them at
all.
* *, *
A MORE CORRECT appraisal
was given by Rev. Charles O. Rice,
who in the Nov. 11, 1960 issue of
Commonweal Magazine said "The
truth seems in the middle.
Kohler, a plumbing manufacturer,
lost many customers because,
while the AFL building trades
mechanics could not legally re-
fuse to install Kohler fixtures,
most unionized contractors were
loath to risk slowdowns and de-
lays by insisting on Kohler.
"However, the company sur-
vived the boycott by changing its
sales approach. It began to adver-
tise so as to reach the home trade
and the small builder, and it
picked up many suppliers who
were anxious for a plumbing line
but could not get it when other
suppliers dropped Kohler ...
"The company was hurt, it
seems, but not gravely, and, al-
though the boycott was never of-
ficially called off, the special boy-
cott staff of the UAW was dis-
banded."
Meanwhile, the NLRB waded
through years of testimony and
deliberations to find the company
essentially guilty of unfair labor
practices and prolonging the
strike. On Jan. 26, 1962, the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia upheld the Aug. 1960
decision of the NLRB.
LI
BASICALLY, the NLRB:
l Ruled that the company had
,committed unfair labor practices
during the strike;
2 Ordered the company to bar-
gain in good faith, the company
having stood firm on its "com-
pulsary unionism" stand of 1954
despite numerous appeals for ar-
bitration;
3) Ordered the reinstatement of
all strikers who applied for their
old jobs except 89 who were dis-
charged on March 1, 1955 for
violent strike activity;
4) Ordered the company to re-
store the same or equivalent hous-
ing to strikers who had beer oust-
ed from company-owned homes;
5) Ordered the correction of
certain seniority discriminations;
and
6) Ordered the company to pay
back pay to any striker who ap-
plied for reinstatement and was
refused, for the period of time
from the submission of applica-
tion to atual reinstatement.
WITH THAT decision, the UAW
ended the active strike phase of
the dispute. Strikers applied for
old jobs, but only a handful of
the original strikers have been
re-hired. Much of this is due to
the disbanding of the workers and
some to slow Kohler procedures.
However, little else has been
done. The animosities continue.
No bargaining on a new contract
has begun. The June 4 Supreme
Court decision rejecting the com-
pany appeal of the Appeals Court
ruling will probably push develop-
ments toward a settlement as the
company has virtually exhausted
the legal means of resisting the
UAW.
The Kohler strike, still unsettled
despite the NLRB, court decisions
and the abandonment of the
formal strike in 1960, only proves
that current labor dispute machin-
ery is cumbersome and Inade-
quate. It's time-consuming and
complex procedures bias it towards
the employer, who is usually better.
financed and less personally af-
fected by a strike.
MANAGEMENT has fast recourse
to action. If unions illegally mass
picket or engage in a secondary
boycott, management can go into
court and get an injunction to
stop it. Yet unions in the face of
an intransigent company must en-
dure years of delay until the
NLRB can force a company to
bargain or give up strike breaking
tactics.
~ As the long Kohler strike amply
demonstrates, such inequalities
only create bitterness and impede
the collective bargaining process
which works best in an atmos-
phere of mutual trust by both
parties. With speedier machinery
armed with stronger teeth much
money lost can be saved and much
acrimony avoided. This is the les-
son of the Kohler sti'lke.
'SPARTACUS':
Platitudes
Prevail,
SPARTACUS says too much and
reveals too little.
This Stanley Kubrick production
opens with a trite historical nar-
ration about ancient Rome, and
follows, in nearly four hours, the
slave revolt through constant bat-
ties, entertainments and love af-
fairs of a crude slave, Spartacus
(Kirk Douglas).
This miner turned gladiator fre-
quently forgets his most humble
background and spouts long series
of platitudes designed to both ex-
plain and cure the world's ills,
There are many cases of Spartacus
exclaiming the virtues of freedom
and his love for Varina (Jean
Simmons), and a few illustrative
examples.
* * *
IT IS IN those moments where
leading characters announce and
do not show what is good and
what is bad that the film appears
trite. Antoninus reciting a few
platitudes pressed into couplets
and Spartacus saying that freedom
is a wondrous thing both fail.
But it is in moments of light-
ness and simplicity, such as Peter
Ustinov telling a slave, "The sun's
over there," and the shot of Sir
Lawrence Olivier calmly sitting
helmetless atop a magnificent
white horse watching the final
battle and Olivier telling Tony
Curtis (Antoninus) after a lurid
bath scene that, "There boy is
Rome . . . No man can withstand
her; no nature can withstand her,"
that the film achieves realism and
meaningful dignity.
Such moments, however, are
rare.
-Joe Feldman
DAILY OFFICIAL
BULLETIN
The Daily Official Bulletin is an
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1.
I.
I-
''IT5 MR. JHERB[ERT HDOVY, SIR. H' S ASS
KCW' A S7IFF UPPER (P
TODAY AND TOMORROW:
Europe and Nuclear Arms
By WALTER LIPPMANN
SECRETARY McNamara 's
speech at the University of
Michigan stated the American
case against a French nuclear
striking force if it was "operated
independently."
It was, I understand, an expur-
gated, declassified version of the
speech that Mr. McNamara deliv-
ered at the North American Treaty
Organization meeting in Athens
at the beginning of May.
The Athens speech, which con-
tained the specific facts and fig-
ures of the nuclear situation of
the Soviet Union and the West,
made a profound impression on
the NATO Foreign and Defense
Ministers who heard it. It is said
to have convinced all the Euro-
pean members of NATO except
the French.
* * *
THE CRUX of the American
case against Gen. de Gaulle's plan
is in the words "operated inde-
pendently." Thus, we do not object
to the British nuclear force be-
cause, as a matter of fact, it is
not and cannot be operated inde-
pendently. The British force is
"integrated" with the United
States forces, and it could not be
operated independently e i t h e r
dently as against the Soviet Union
or even elsewhere in the world
where he felt that French vital
interests were at stake.
Such independence of opera-
tion is inconsistent with the basic
facts of the Western Alliance. For
since the United States, which is
spending $15 billion a ' year on
nuclear weapons, alone has the
capacity to deter and prevent
nuclear war, we cannot concede
to France the right to initiate or
to threaten to initiate a nuclear
war. For we alone would have
to finish such a war. That kind
of independent operation is what
Secretary McNamara described as
"dangerous," and we have told
the French government v e r y
plainly that the independent use
of their nuclear striking force
would not necessarily be backed
up by our nuclear force,
* * *
IT FOLLOWS that the issue be-
tween Gen. "de Gaulle and this
country is not whether France
should or should not have nuclear
armaments. We cannot, of course,
prevent France from making nuc-
lear weapons. But, as long as there
is an Atlantic Alliance in which
we wield the ultimate and decisive
force, we have to be heard on the
we do not claim a monopoly. What
we do claim is that a decision to
go to war with the Soviet Union
shall not be made outside of the
Alliance and with our consent.
* * *
IT IS TRUE, of course, that the
dependence of Western Europe
upon the American nuclear power
cannot be permanent, and that
our virtual monopoly and decisive
preponderance is bound to pass
away. There will come a day, we
must hope, when there will be an
order in the world within which
Europe can assure its own de-
fsense.
Our own position is that in this
long transition there may be a
better way of defending Europe
than by our virtual monopoly, but
that we do not know what that
better way is. Nevertheless, there
is a standing invitation by the
United States to its European al-
lies to work out the plan of a
NATO nuclear force, not forget-
ting, however, that we are our-
selves a NATO power. Nobody has
ever devised such a plan.
Perhaps someone, say Mr. Couve
de Murville, can devise a plan
which gives Europe a sense of par-
ticipation and ownership and
takes into account the specific