24,1960 THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Divided German City Bears Tensions of East, West
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NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET-Berlin, buffer city for the East and West in the game of international politics, has suffered from the partion through Communist
blockades but has served the Free World by serving as a base for Western intelligence agents and as a haven for East German refugees.

Government
Conference
Hears Talks
By MICHAEL BURNS
Despite the many inequities and
inadequacies of the tax, "property
tax is still the main source of
revenue for local government
throughout the country," Albert
E. Champney, director of the
Wayne County Bureau of Taxa-
tion, said yesterday.
One of five speakers at the In-
stitute for Mayors and Councilmen
held at the University, Champney
said, however, that the primacy
of this tax is declining, for "the
kind and quantum of government
which we demand today" cannot
be supported solely by a property
tax system.
Uniform Basis
The tax expert said the state
constitution provides for a uni-
form tax basis, which appears to
outlaw the graduated income tax
and the classified property tax
used in Ohio, which taxes differ-
ent items at different percentages
of assessed value.
Champney explained the county
and state "equalization of assess-
ments" procedure, by which each
unit of government assesses the
property and then adjusts the
assessments to be equal through-
out the state. There can be only
one tax base for the entire state,
he said, and that is why the state
equalization factor operates - to
equalize the assessed property base
of all counties.
In this way one county cannot
over-exempt its property at the
expense of another. The county
equalization prevents its cities
from doing the same thing.
Equalize Shares
Both state and county equaliza-
tion factors work to estimate the
relative share of the tax burden
to be borne by their subsidiary
units of government. But the state
factor also acts as the tax base
for all taxations, that is, all taxa-
tion is based upon the state assess-
ment figure.
The problem of the system is
ineffective units of taxation which
have developed as the country
grew and thus cannot be remedied
in the foreseeable future.
Also speaking yesterday at the
conference were Prof. Arthur
Bromage of the political science
department on "The Role of 'he
Councilman," Prof. N. Edd Miller
of the speech department on par-
liamentary procedure, Carl For-
sythe, Oak Park city attorney, on
"Personal Liabilities of Mayors
and Councilmen" and attorney-
at-law Milton M. Thompson on
"Municipal Financing of Improve-
ments."
The conference was sponsored
by the University's Institute of
Public Administration, Extension
Service and the Municipal League.
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Entertainment Friday, Saturday

By DAVID L. BOWEN
Associated Press Newsfeatures Writer'
Ten years ago, Soviet Russia
' gave up its attempt to starve the
city of West Berlin into submis-
sion and ended the Berlin block-
ade.
A massive airlift which shuttled
supplies to Berlin for 316 days had
forced the Russians to back down.
Now West Berliners are once
more feeling a Communist squeeze
on their tiny enclave of freedom
110 miles inside the Iron Curtain.
Fundamental cause is a Russian
threat this spring to take matters
into its own hands and sign a Rus-
sian - East German peace treaty
ending wartime guarantees of
Western access across East Ger-

many and making West Berlin a
so-called "free city."
Loss of these guarantees, which
might eventually be followed by
loss of access itself, is the danger
which gave the Berlin crisis its
importance.
Lengthy Struggle
The lines for the struggle began
to be drawn long ago in 1945 when,
in accord with the Yalta agree-
ment, Allied troops pulled back at
the end of the war from advance
positions in Eastern Europe, leav-
ing the whole of central and east-
ern Germany in Communist hands.
The West, however, did not sur-
render Berlin to exclusive Soviet
control even though the city was
buried inside the Russian zone.
A special four-power occupation

was organized. The Russians gave
the West a guarantee it could
supply its troops stationed in Ber-
lin over designated highway, rail
and air corridors. These agree-
ments are still in force; they are
the ones the Russians seek to dis-
card.
No one knows for certain the
Russian motive, nor how close to
war they will go to attain their
ends. Three reasons are commonly
advanced for Communist dis-
pleasure over present status of
West Berlin.
Contrast Embarassing
1) The bustling western half of
Berlin - with its sparkling shop
windows, busy industry, and free
exchange of ideas-is an embar-
rassing contrast to grim, poverty-
stricken, state-controlled East Ber-
lin.
West Berlin's 2,288,500 inhabit-
ants make it the biggest com-

munity in

either West+

or East

Germany. (East Berlin has a
population of 1,122,000.)
Despite war damage, isolation,
and the blockade a decade ago,
Berlin has made a largely success-
ful effort to keep up with the ex-
panding West German economy.
The city shipped $929 million
worth of goods to customers in
West Germany in 1957, and im-
ported $1.3 billion worth.
Land transport of these goods,
incidentally, is not restricted to
the single rail and road lifelines
which must be used by Western
military traffic. So far, commer-
cial trade routes have not been
involved in Berlin crises.
Provide Escape Route
2) West Berlin is the escape
route of about 150,000 discontented
East Germans a year. Once they
get into West Berlin, the refugees
-many with skills badly needed
by the Communists-are out of
reach of the Communists.
Under present agreements, the
Russians cannot seal off the
boundary between East and West
Berlin. Thus anyone in East Ger-
many with a pretext for travel to
East Berlin is within steps of free-j
dom.
3) An elaborate Western in-
telligence network is based in West

Berlin, which keeps track of East
German political developments
and watches Soviet troop move-
ments.
Symbol of Unity
West Berlin also has an im-
portant symbolic value. Two years
ago the West German Bundestag
confirmed it as the capital of the
Federal Republic, although all
federal administrative offices are
in Bonn. The purpose of the act
was to make clear the West Ger-
man government's insistence that
the division of Germany is tem-
porary; that eventually Berlin
must become the free capital of
a free united German.
This attitude must be galling to
the Russians, who have built East
Germany into their most produc-
tive industrial satellite in Europe.
They appear to have no intentions
of losing this prize of war in a plan
that would bring about a reunited
and free Germany. The underlying
cause for their desire to get the
West out of Berlin may be to ex-
tinguish the last beacon of hope
that Germany can ever again be
one nation.
Once gone from West Berlin, the
Western powers could never hope
for a reunited Germany except one
under the totalitarian grasp of
Communism.

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