Seventy-Second Year EDITED AND MANAGED BYS TUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MIC1IHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS "Where Opinions Are Free STUDENT PUBLICATIONS BLDG. * ANN ARBOR, MICH. * Phone NO 2-3241 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 official publication of The Univer- f r 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