"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 -A-14 . ............... ...... x,.vr.a-" r..x , r.:"}-.. .." r~~r r.t.. ..d' n ',..frf.r".~r. ....vi: .%..r 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" '-#. 7 i iti ' ; { I WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND: Johnson Defended Oilmen .4 1' 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. I' A l {i I