"Boy, What Leadership!"
Seventieth Year
- EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNrVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
hen Opinions Are Fre. UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
Truth Will revil" 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 must be noted in all reprints.
INESDAY, JULY 6, 1960 NIGHT EDITOR: ANDREW HAWLEY
I
AT NORTHLAND PLAYHOUSE:
Battle-Scarred Plot
Gets Fresh Production
"JOHN LOVES MARY," the latest at Northland Playhouse, is a dated
play. It is a post-World War II vehicle and the basic plot has been
used so often on TV or in films that it is no longer very funny.
John, played by James Garner, comes home from the war to his
girl. Doing a favor for the buddy who saved his life in battle, he
marries this guy's wartime lost love, Bully. This is the only way she
can emigrate from England to the United States.
Then he finds out his buddy has married an American girl, and
trouble starts. This plot's virtue lies in' its being a period piece. While
1
K
Newport Jazz Festival:
Official Misjudgment
HE EXUBERANCE of youth and the in-
ability of authorities to cope with it is dis-
played in many ways and is prompted by any
number of strange causes as shown in two
recent occurrences.
Idealism, misdirected or otherwise, prompted
Japanese students, to form the bulk of those
shouting down President Eisenhower and the
Kishi government recently. Japanese officials
miscalculated both the forcefulness and the
sheer numbers of the demonstrators and the
result was a period of mass chaos in the streets
of Tokyo and the eventual collapse of Presi-
dent Eisenhower's projected trip and Kishi's
regime.
Here in the United States things were rather
peaceful, until this weekend's Newport Jazz
Festival got under way. Suddenly, the town
fathers were faced with an unruly mob of
sweatshirt-clad collegians and vacationing
servicemen armed with beer bottles who re-
fused to believe that tickets to the highly-
publicized festival were not to be had. Leaving
the town a shambles, the "rioters" left-forced
out by fire hoses and tear gas-just five days
before President Eisenhower is scheduled to
begin a Newport vacation.
Plannd Pii'
RR~eP lrS
FORMERLY THE American emphasis on
planned obsolescence was solely on manu-
factured goods such as automobiles, but this
appears to have changed. Dallas County, Texas,
announced recently that so far this year di-
vorce petitions have outnumbered marriage li-
censes 2,439 to 2,417.
Why' only stop with an apparently planned
obsolescence that could be only chance? The
American way suggests other possibilities. How
about a "free ten-day home trial marriage"
or perhaps a "satisfaction guaranteed or your
money back marriage license," or maybe a
"wife of the month" plan with a bonus wife
for every two selections?
A diamond is beginning to appear to per-
manent. Plastic engagement and wedding rings
seem more in tune with the times.
-McELDOWNEY
MAX LERNER A' ::
Casto and the
THE PARALLELS and the difference in mo-
tive between the situations are so obvious as
to seem trite when mentioned. But one simi-
larity stands out blatantly and embarrassingly:
neither the Japanese government nor New-
port's officials could cope with the unexpected
fervor of youth. The mature forces just didn't
seem to believe that things could get out of
hand until they did. Then it was too late for
preventive measures-fire hoses, tear gas and
billy clubs replaced, reason.
In Newport, at least-where no values and
ideals were being contested-inability to con-
trol the situation seems like -a major lapse in
judgment.
The students congregating in Newport \vere
merely looking for diversion, and empty beer
cans in hand, they found it in baiting local
townspeople. Their actions were unwarranted
and the impression it must have made on
"adults" here and everywhere abroad is de-
plorable. Why, though, did riots break out
there?
For years now the nation's students have
swooped down on some resort spot or another
at each vacation, with little incidence of out-
right vandalism and destruction. The local
townspeople and law enforcement officials pre-
pare for the influx, and remain intent on pre-
venting unwarranted trouble by keeping liquor
laws tightly enforced and watchfully ensuring
that restless groups of wandering collegians
have no chance to incite a mob-scene.
A few strolling ploicemen admonishing form-
ative groups to "move on" usually succeeds in
removing the cause-unwieldy crowds-before
it appears. The Jazz Festival in recent years
has attracted these vacation-bound students
on the long Fourth of July weekend. Newport
officials freely admit this year's events were
not unprecedented but, they cry, "we didn't
expect such crowds!"
The crowds are the sorespot of the situation,
since 10 or 20 people can be controlled; 10 or
12 thousand apparently cannot. A few preven-
tive measures could have insured peace and
quiet for the resort haven, and a long life for
the now evidently displaced Jazz Festival.
--KATHLEEN MOORE
Editor
/
4+Erc. o t .
Ithe plot is showing. its age, the
production itself is delightful.
JAMES GARNER, who is tele-
vision's Bret Maverick, has been
the funniest cowboy on the jump-
ing Rembrandt for three? seasons
now, and is fine for this part. It
involves the obvious in light com-
edy, at which Garner is superb.
And for the ladies (presumably)
he undresses in the first act, down
to his BVD's, displaying at least
as much horseflesh as "Maverick"
ever did.
Ellen McRae, as Mary, is an
obvious and occasionally forced
Mary, but looks good and comes
off tolerably well.
The supporting cast is almost
without exception good, the ex-
ception being a preposterously
overdone Willy.
* . *
THE FIRST ACT starts slowly,
but as Garner takes off his
clothes, things pick up, and by the
curtain one or two of the few
funny lines of the play have gone
by, and everyone is smiling, weak-
ly.
Act II is rapidly paced and well
played, with a seven-minute Red
Cross "soldier" doing his brief
scene. His exit is closely followed
by the entrance of a promotion-
hunting general, who struts
splendidly across the stage for a
minute and a half.
The last act is the low spot of
the play with many too many
obvious lines, and a Mary seduced
to a simpering teenager.
But if you like 1945-ish war
comedies, this is the classic of
them all, and is has just enough
good lines to still get by.
-Robert Junker
CAST
Mary McKinley... Ellen McRae
Fred Taylor.... Ralph Purdom
John Lawrence.. James Garner
Senator James McKinley ..
Alexander Clark
Mrs. Lewis McKinley..
- Lois Wilson
New Books at Library
Wendt, Herbert-Out of Noah's
Ark; Boston, Houghton Mifflin
Co., 1960.
,Sarraute Nathalie-Martereau;
N.Y., George Braziller, 1959.
Singh, Khushwant-I Shall Not
Hear the Nightingale; N.Y., Grove
Press, 1959.
Wallace, Bruce and Dobzhansky,
Th.-Radiation, Genes, and Man;
N.Y., Henry Holt & Co., 1959.
Wilson, Dorothy Clarke - Dr.
Ida. A Story of Dr. Ida Scudder of
Vellore; N.Y., McGraw-Hill Book
Co., 1959.
AT THE MICHIGAN:
'ghosts'
Ghastly'
SOMETHING subtle and won-
derful has happened to the
management of the Michigan
Theatre. The marquee screams to
Ann Arbor the message "William
Castle's 'Thirteen Ghosts' in ecto-
plasmic color is being shown." So
the unsuspecting horror movie
adict buys his ticket and has it
taken from him, but to his de-
lightand surprise, the ticket taker
actually gives him something to
replace the loss-a real honest to
gosh "ghost viewer."
After he settles himself in his
seat there bursts upon the giant
silver screen a sight that will make
women scream, strong men pale-
it's the hideously grotesque visages
of The Three Stooges 1!! !!
Slowly, ever so slowly, the movie-
goer will become aware of the fact
that the thirteen ghosts will come
as an anti-climax after having to
sit through this real horror.
THE TWO THINGS that will
stop one from woofing during this
mess are Greta Thysson with her
helanca stretch dresses, and the
knowledge that this short proves
beyond the shadow of a doubt that
Hollywood doesn't need millions
to make a really bad film.
Almost anything would seem
decent after this abomination and
"Thirteen Ghosts" is better than
any old thing; it's really not bad,
"Ghosts" is classic in its story
line. A likeable American family,
with a clever little boy and a
shapely daughter, inherits a vic-
torian mansion from a deceased
uncle who had dabbled in the su-
pernatural before his horrible
death.
A maid, known as "The Witch,"
comes with the house. She, a bed
straight out of the Borgias, and
the baker's dozen of spooks, that
appear and vanish in the "Ghost
Viewer," provide many creepy
moments. However, they can in no
way equal the haunted house's
greatest horror -its decor .is so
gauche.
But gosh, let's face it - all of
this is really quite incredulous.
Even the idiot-cretin chauffeur
doesn't seem any more persuasive
a character than the wolf-man or
Dracula. Instead of all this woof,
why not a good, solid horror double
feature, like "I Was a Teen-Age
Vice-President for Students" and
"The Attack of the Blood-Eating
Hillbillies"?
-Patrick Chester
THE POWERS OF POETRY:
Highet ChaisA bout Poets
$:
Russians
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NEW YORK - The struggle between the
United States and the Castro regime is
growing in depth and intensity, and has already
become the most fateful and dangerous struggle
of the century on the American Continent,
more dangerous when rightly understood than
the tensions with Mexico from Villa to Car-
denas and from Woodrow Wilson to Dwight
Morrow.
The quarrel today is about oil and sugar. To-
morrow it will be about electric power and tele-
phones, and the day after-about what? Under-
lying these specific quarrels is something more
important than the expropriation of foreign
investors, about which the countries involved
understandably feel sensitive.
It is the question of how far the little band
of determined America-hating Cuban leaders
dare-and can-go in setting up on the Ameri-
can Continent, so close to the United States,
an economy and society which are fast becom-
ing Russia-modeled, Russia-aided, Russia ori-
ented, and Russia-based.
IN ORDINARY TIMES this might prove an
interesting puzzle for history to unravel. In
our time it is fraught with the greatest danger,
not only for Cuba and the United States, but
for both Americas, and for Russia and the
world. There are certain zones around the
Great Powers which might be called the nerve-
end zones, because any encroachment on them
is like striking against raw nerve-ends.
The Russians showed that they felt thus
about Hungary and, in fact, about any of the
East-European nations which form the heart
of their Communist world-bloc. The United
States showed that it felt thus about West
Berlin and about Formosa. I suspect that, with
all of Nehru's distaste for such matters, India
will be found to feel thus about any serious
Chinese encroachment upon Nepal. It is a way
of saying to the encroaching power-"this far
you may go, but no farther."
It is not only the United States leaders who
must make difficult decisions involving Cuba.
The Russians have difficult decisions about it
too, and the Cuban leaders themselves will soon
have to decide how far they dare go and how
far they dare let the Russians go.
U NDERLYING MY approach to the Cuban
problem is an assumption with which many
of my readers may disagree: that the issue is
not one of Cuba's power to expropriate, or of
Cuba's sovereignty and America's capitalist
pressures, but of how far either of the super-
powers can go into the accepted security-zone
of the other without a blowup that may lead to
war.
I am not talking here of the rules of interna-
tional law but of the hard facts of the interna-
tional power system. I was an enthusiast for
Castro during his revolution, and afterwards I
wrote about it from Havana with a critical
sympathy. As long as Castro limited himself
to his own social revolution inside Cuba, he was
in the tradition of Cardenas in Mexico who
also carried through agrarian reforms and a
program of nationalization.
But for various reasons Castro chose-or was
forced by the-group around him-to go beyond
these limits in two directions. Perhaps to
strengthen his campaign against the United
States he has fanned out his propagandists and
partisans into a number of Latin American
countries where his land reform and his bold
anti-Americanism make him something of a
hero among the resentful and discontented. By
doing this he has also taken on multiple op-
ponents in regimes threatened by his partisans.
Secondly, he has made the fateful decision
of invoking the Soviet world to redress the
balance of the American. Already he is deep in
the oil and sugar deal with them, and the
armament deal. Already Soviet technicians are
turning up in Cuba ot carry through the tasks
assigned them. Each step is bound to lead to
a move farther into the web of Soviet power,
transposed from the Eurasian plain to the
Caribbean littoral. Increasingly the West is
bound to regard Castro, in very un-Graham-
Green-like terms, as their man in Havana.
ONE COULD ASK many questions about what
moves Castro to take on this dangerous,
perhaps impossible, mission of bringing Russian
power into the American continent to upset the
present equilibrium.
One cannot help a certain admiration for
the brashness of it. But it is a big order he has
taken on, in the fomenting of widespread re-
volts and the humbling of America's economic
and political power. I doubt whether he will
succeed. He seems to me another example of
the overreacher, who is carried away by his
own self-image of toughness and machismo,
who shows resourcefulness, courage, and tenac-
THE POWERS OF POETRY. By
Gilbert Highet. 356 pp. New
York: Oxford University Press.
$6.
GOV. BROWN:
Democrats'
Key10V oice
By MORRIE LANDSBERG
Associated Press News Analyst
SACRAMENTO - Gov. Edmund
G. Brown is playing his favor-
ite son role to the hilt in the final
days before the split Californi
delegation decides its Democratic
choice for President.
Brown, no longer rated even a
dark horse contender, is working
carefully to qualify as a key, big
state figure at the party's national
convention.
Prospects of a tight race en-
hance his position.
The 81 California votes pledged
to the Governor represent the
largest single uncommitted bloc
in the scramble shaping up in Los
Angeles. And his objective is clear
enough. As he puts it:
"I WANT the California delega-
tion to have some effect on who is
going to be nominated and who is
going to be the next President of
the United States."
He wants to back a winner.
There seems. little doubt any
longer that Brown will support
Sen. John F. Kennedy, in the ab-
sence of a challenging move by
the man who may be his first
choice-Adlai Stevenson.
He hasn't committed himself,
however, and he's not likely to
until he has talked it over with
the 161 other delegates, each with
a half vote.
+t M
AS IT STANDS today, a delega-
gation source gives Kennedy 51
votes, Sen. Stuart Symington six
to eight, Sen. Lyndon Johnson 5%
and Stevenson 16% to 18%.
One delegate told a reporter he
thought the figures were high for
Kennedy and low for Johnson.
And they do not reckon Stevenson
as a serious factor.
Stevenson has important latent
strength in California. No less
than 61 of the delegates went back
to Chicago in 1956 as members of
the state's delegtaion pledged to
the former Illinois governor.
However, there has been notice-
able slippage in Stevenson sup-
port-with much of it sliding over
to Kennedy because of his low
pressure response to demands that
he make a fight for his third
nomination.
* * *
THE ,DELEGATION is com-
mitted, by the results of the June
7 presidential primary to cast its
ballot for Brown the first time
around in the Los Angeles sports
arena.
After that, California's course
will depend upon Brown, who can
release his vote anytime, and the
IN HIS new book The Powers of
Poetry, Gilbert Highet sets out
to interest his readers in an inter-
esting subject-poetry.
"Most Americans do not like
poetry," he writes. "We may re-
spect it, but we do not enjoy it.
Some day, this may change . . -
Perhaps fifty or sixty years in the
future we shall appreciate poetry
.. .; but now we do not."
Having thus gained the reader's
attention and sympathy while
making it perfectly clear for whom
the book is intended, Prof. Highet
concludes some preliminary ob-
servations (on melody, rhythm,
and obscurity in poetry) and goes
on to chat about the lives of many
of the prominent English and
American poets before turning.
finally, for the greater part of
the book, to the elucidation of
some well-known works of poetry
of various kinds-and including
even an essay in the category,
"Poems on Insects."
PROF. IIGHET is known, in
the New York area at least, forhis
short radio talks on literary and
related subjects. The Powers of
P'oetry may well be a collection of
these talks, for the essays average
only eight pages in length and are
written in that clear, straight-
forward, simple language most
easily understood by the radio
listener.
For the reader, however, the
essays appear sometimes too
straightforward, often blunt. To
find "The Ancient Mariner" and
"Kubla Khan" referred to as
"crazy." to come upon other
works, both long and short, passed
off as "good," "fine," or "superb,"
may be convincing when the ear
can hear inflected enthusiasm,
but tends to be discouraging when
the eye can see no further evi-
dence of sincerity of feeling or
judgment.
* * * 4
PROF. HIGHET actually does
as much talking around poetry as
he does talking about it-and per-
haps in this way he hopes to lure
more people into reading some for
themselves. A third of the book is
devoted to primarily biographical
studies, something on the order of
Virginia Woolf's The Second Com-
mon Reader, but without Mrs.
Woolf's power or sensitiveness-
or, for that matte Rer femininity.
Thus we learn tha Shelley was
probably murdered, that Burns
was a "highly sexed" young man
(while Yeats and Tolstoy were
"strongly sexed"), and that sev-
eral of the great poets were pro-
foundly disturbed or influenced by
some event or events in their early
manhood-events so deep they can
only be hinted at, but whose exis-
tence is obvious in the poetry,
IN DISCUSSING individual
works, Prof. Highet discovers a
theme or themes and examines a
few lines-sometimes more-often
leaving the impression that much
more could be said.
produce a single great work of
poetry." Allowing even for the am-
biguity of the statement, it ap-
pears a curt dismissal indeed for
a poet many regard today as the
finest since Shakespeare.
* * *
YET EVEN THIS seems in a
way understandable, keeping in
view the book's intended popular
appeal. For it is not Highet the
scholar or critic, but Highet the
teacher who wages a minor war
throughout the book against "ob-
scurity" in poetry, again as if
siding with "most Americans" in
hopes of bringing them a little
closer at least to those poetic
works they can understand and
appreciate.
The final equation of poetry and
religion, as "aids to life," is clever
and can also be excused on the
same grounds. The Powers of
Poetry is interesting because po-
etry is interesting.
-Vernon Nahrgang
s"
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WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND:
Johnson Defended Oilmen
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By DREW PEARSON
WASHINGTON-The Democra-
tic Party next week will start
choosing between two men as its
nominee for President of the
United States.
Both men, Lyndon Johnson and
John F. Kennedy, have some ex-
cellent qualification, both have
some defects.
This writer, who has known
both candidates for a number of
years, herewith undertakes to
analyze the virtues and the de-
fects plus the power behind them.
It happens that both men have
wealth behind them. Kennedy in-
herited his wealth. His father,
from a relatively modest start,
has become one of the 75 wealth-
iest men in the United States. His
wealth has been a material factor
in financing one of the most
amazing publicity buildups since
the days of Wendell Willkie plus
a successful and very expensive
primary campaign which most
other candidates couldn't afford.
JOHNSON, ON 'THE other hand
started as a poor Texas school-
teacher, has acquired a modest
fortune through the acquisition
of radio-TV stations which have
been highly lucrative and which
were not hurt at all by Johnson's
strategic position in Congress.
Money talks very big in Ameri-
can politics today-which is the
cheif reason why Sen. Hubert
Humphrey of Minnesota, one of
the most courageous members of
Congress, had to bow out of the
Presidential race. And in analyz-
ing the two top Democratic con-
tenders, you have to consider the
money behind them. Let's take
Johnson first.
* * *
THE SENATOR FROM Texas
ing at windmills, was valiantly
waging his annual battle to close
one of the biggest tax loopholes.
He knew he couldn't win. But he
staged the fight, and rolled up 30
votes against the oil-gas compan-
ies. Johnson, leading the opposi-
tion, beat him with 56 votes.
It should be noted that the
really big oil money will be behind
Nixon in November. The Pew
family, which owns Sun Oil, con-
tributed $206,800 to the GOP in
'56; the Mellons, who own Gulf
Oil, threw in $150,000; while the
Rockefellers, owners of Standard
Oil, enriched the GOP kitty by
$152,604 in '56.
* * *
SOME OIL COMPANIES, of
course, play both sides of the po-
litical street. And when you see
what they have at stake in profits
and taxes you can understand
why. Senator Douglas cited some
figures. But he withheld names.
This column is not going to with-
hold the names. Here is the tax
picture of some of the companies
which will help pick the next
President of the United States:
Kerr-McGee-owned in part by
Sen. Bob Kerr of Oklahoma-
managed to chalk up so many de-
ductions under the tax loopholes
in 1958 that it paid absolutely no
income taxes at all on $5,378,973
net income.
The most taxes the company
has paid in the past 10 years was
$1,727,910 in 1957 on $7,972,558
net income. This was still less
than 22 per cent tax, compared
to-the 52 per cent rate other cor-
porations are required to pay.
IN 1956, KERR - McGEE paid
$699,000 on $5,378,994 net profits,
which amounts to only 13 per
cent. For the previous years, Kerr
a national scandal when his lob-
byists offered Sen. Francis Case,
South Dakota Republican, a $2,500
bribe for the latter's vote on oil-
gas legislation, is one of the big-
gest tax beneficiaries.
Since 1953, the company has
not only has paid absolutely no
income taxes to Uncle Sam but
has used the tax loopholes actual-
ly to collect from the treasury.
IN 1953, SUPERIOR earned
$11,500,382, but instead of paying
taxes, Superior managedto collect
a tax rebate of $500,000. This gave
the stockholders an income after
taxes of $12,000,382.
In 1954, when Superior earned
$10,260,388 net income, it collected
a $100,000 tax rebate as a bonus
from Uncle Sam. For the next five
years, the company paid no taxes
at all, although its profits for 1957
reached $18,877,389.
During this entire period, the
only income tax the company
shelled out was $175,000 in 1958
to foreign governments.
General American Oil Com
pany, a Texas firm, managed to
collect rather than pay taxes in
1957 and 1958. On a net profit of
$9,079,022, the company paid no
taxes in 1957 but collected a re-
bate of $5,860. Again in 1958, the
company collected a $23,352 re-
bate to add to its net income of
$7,076,455.
DURING THE 10-YEAR period,
the company never paid more
than eight per cent, sometimes
less than one per cent. compared
to the 52 per cent corporate rate
for non-oil companies. In 1951, for
example, General American Oil
paid only $404 on $4,477,673 net
income.
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