A Drop In theBucket
THE SUPREME COURT: PALLADIUM OF
FREEDOM, by Alphus T. Mason, Uni-
versity of Michigan Press, 208 pages,
$4.95
The University Press has recently pub-
lished Prof. Alpheus T. Mason's book
based on the William W. Cook Lectures
he delivered here last spring.
Prof. Mason, who is a noted student of
the Supreme Court, retraces some of the
more basic political crises of the Court
and concludes with an impassioned de-
fense of the Court's recent trends - an
activist role in the area of "preferred
freedoms."
This is a difficult book to evaluate, be-
cause it is a curious blend of impressive
scholarship, perceptive insights, incred-
bly sloppy writing and cavalier disregard
Df viewpoints with which the author does
not agree.
The book gives a fine general panorama
Df some of the more important "politi-
al dilemmas which the Supreme Court
has faced. It nicely sketches the back-
;round of these issues and presents a
;ruly impressive amount of source ma-
terial.
Prof. Mason's book ought to whet the
ntellectual appetite 'of persons unfamil-
ar with constitutional law. It is also
raluable to the student studying the
.ourt. He forcefully presents the argu-
nents in support of one view of the Court.
But on the other hand, the book is
oorly written - one almost suspects
hat after completing his exhaustive re-
earch, the author was too tired to write
book, so he merely pasted his notes
ogether.
It is often extremely difficult to dis-.
over where one idea leaves off and an-
ther begins.
Prof. Mason sometimes makes refer-
nces to cases without giving sufficient
nformation about them for the reader
o fully understand what he is saying.
his is especially irritating in the last
hapter where he bases his major thesis
in a footnote by Mr. Justice Stone: the
ext of the footnote does not appear in
he book.
In addition to being sloppily written
although it was apparently researched
n'th great care and diligence), the book
uffers from Prof. Mason's biases.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter is apparently
ne of Prof. Mason's judicial "bad guys."
'here is nothing wrong with this per se
-many people disapprove of Frankfurt-
r's notions. But Prof. Mason seems to
egard him as a fool, and dismisses his
rguments out of hand. Prof. Mason is
robably the only individual who has
ead Frankfurter's opinions to come to
ie conclusion that his ideas do not merit
erious consideration.
A similarly dogmatic assertion by Prof.
fason is contained in his discussion of
hief Justice Marshall's judicial tech-
ique in Malbury v. Madison, which is,
r Prof. Mason's words, on an "abstract,
lympian plane." He thinks this was just
ie right tone for the opinion. This is
Is privilege and he may be correct. But
i a book which pretends to be a piece
f serious scholarship, it is inexcusable
3 dismiss without discussion the counter-
rgument that judicial review could have
een more effectively defended by resort
y historical materials.
--James Seder
HE BORDERLANDS by Delia and Fer-
dinand Kuhn. Alfred A. Knopf, 321
pages, $6.75.
I'H E REGIONS surrounding the Soviet
Union and China are probably some of
ie least-known countries in the entire
orld.
Until recently, the lack of familiarity
q the part of even the well-read Ameri-
an was primarily due to the lack of a
Dod, readable authoritative book on this
rea. This is no longer true.
Delia and Ferdinand Kuhn have pro-
vided the book; its title is Borderlands.
Borderlands is a readable book by two
of America's outstanding travelers, jour-
nalists and free-lance writers. Its subject
matter is the area, life and character of
six remote, tense, struggling, and restless
regions roughly encircling the Soviet Un-
ion and China: Hokkaido; the Sulu Is-
lands; Northern Burma; Sikkim; Afghan
Turkestan; and Eastern Turkey.
The reader rides along with the Kuhns
in their interesting travels through these
varied and beautiful spots in the world. He
stands beside them' as they talk to the
strange and unusual and questioning peo-
ples who have come to play a large part
in the recent world events.
The Kuhns have accomplished some-
thing which many other writers have
tried to do-they have created a book
which is a travelogue that does not read
as dryly as a travelogue, a documentary
of current events which has the added
spice of personal observation and a chron-
icle of past history with the readibility of
a great novel. -Daniel Shafer
FAIL-SAFE by Eugene Burdick and Har-
vey Wheeler, McGraw-Hill Book Co.,
Inc., 1962, 286 pages, $4.95.
"TES, WE both trusted these systems
too much. . . You can never trust
any system, Mr. President, whether it is
made of computers or of people. .."
"But we did trust them, . . . We, and
you too, trusted our beautiful Fail-Safe
system, and that's what made use help-
less when it broke down."
With this warning, Eugene Burdick
and Harvey Wheeler add a stark new
novel, Fail-Safe, to the literature of dis-
armament. Through 286 pages they warn
that ao system, not even one as intricate
and double-checked as Fail-Safe can save
the world from the ultimate end of the
arms race.
Fail-Safe is the story of the senseless
destruction of Moscow and New York
when SAC bomber group inadvertantly
gets a positive Fail-Safe signal and at-
tacks Moscow. United States defenses
had been put on major alert when radar
picked out the trail of an unidentified
plane heading for the United States. SAC
bombers were placed on Fail-Safe sta-
tions and missiles were being- readied.
However, the plane proved to be a dis-
abled British Boeing 707, off its usual
course.
The alert was cancelled, but one bomb-
er group, getting a mechanically verified
signal to attack the Soviet Union, pro-
ceeds despite the lack of oral orders re-
sulting from unknown experimental Sov-
iet jamming of the Fail-Safe network.
The President (unnamed, but obviously
John F. Kennedy) orders the six-plane
bomber group shot down. Unfortunately,
the squadron is out of range of fighter-
interceptors.
A taught interplay with the Russians
begins, during which Russia is warned
of the impending disaster. The President,
faced with the need to prove to the
Soviets that the United States had not
attacked intentionally prepares the "Sac-
rifice of Abraham"-the destruction of
New York for Moscow, the murder of the
Soviet UN ambassador for the United
States Russian ambassador, the death of
the President's family for the death of
Khrushchev's. The United States bomb-
ers reach Moscow; a SAC bomber drops
four megaton bombs on the United
States' major city.
Intermingled with the action are some
character sketches of the major players
of the Cold War game, drawn from con-
temporary models with their chess board
view of nuclear war. There is Prof. Wal-
ter Groteschele who rose to Pentagon
importance on a shrewdly deducted
theory of counter deterrence. He seems
a composite of current deterrent theor-
ists, like Herman Khan, and through his
characterization the authors speculate as
to what makes these men play their
grizely and amoral game.
Col. Walter Cascio is the type of pat-
riot who holds-to an extent of an epi-
leptic-type seizure-to his background
and will not give the Russians the vital
secret information they need to save
themselves. Counter to this are the SAC
and other military personnel who per-
form their highly-trained tasks without
considering their ends-a totally deper-
sonalized machine without ethics.
Burdick, with a different co-author
this time, scores on his third attempt at
fictional documentaries. Based on known
unclassified material, he extrapolates and
weaves a suspenseful and shocking story
of disaster. Like Greek tragedy it winds to
a predestined end.
While this sort of writing graphically
visualizes the warnings of the peace
groups, it suffers from an inherent ten-
dency to over-generalize. Burdick and
Wheeler paint their picture too inexor-
ably. In spots, the incidents seem con-
trived and artificial. The Soviets are par-
ticularly cast'in this manner. The auth-
ors consider them exact counterparts of
Americans and fail to weave the Russian
character and Marxist ideology into
them.
' However, taken as a whole, Fail-Safe
should serve a sober warning about the
drift of the Cold War. In a time of ex-
treme crisis, when the press indicates
that that the armed forces were alerted
to peak readiness against attack, this
book triggers frightening second thoughts
about current policy.
-Philip Sutin
conductors who have already recorded
the work; in ~hoth cases the superior
sound quality justifies the new record-
ings.
Paul Kletzki's earlier performance of
Mahler's First Symphony (with the Israel
Philharmonic) dates back to Angel's
earlier days. The performance per se is
a personal one, with several ritardardos
not inserted by Walter. The basic tempi
utilized by Kletzki do not differ signifi-
cantly from those in the older version,
and except for a refinement of the sound
quality the newer performance is quite
similar to the earlier Angel.
In addition, both of Kletzki's editions
share a common fault: the coda of the
final movement suffers a deletion of some
24 bars. Whether or not this constitutes
a gross lapse of judgment on Kletzki's
part depends on how avid a Mahlerite
one is, since the portion omitted is some-
what repetitious to one not totally in-
volved with the spirit of Mahler (such
as Kletzki?). Walter's recording is not
marred by such a blemish.
On its own terms, the Kletzki disc is
a very good production indeed; but it is
nevertheless outclassed in many respects
by Bruno Walter's long-awaited new
stereo recording, with the Columbia Sym-
phony Orchestra (his earlier one featured
the New York Philharmonic), of a per-
formance rich in both majesty and vigor,
not to mention that special brand of
gemutlichkeit common to so much of
Mahler's music.
Both conductors do well with shaping
the first movement, with its slow pastoral
introduction an dits vigorous coda, al-
though Kletzki tends to whip the tempo
up more near the end of the movement.
Likewise the scherzo emerges under the
batons of both Kletzki and Walter with
all due vitality, although Walter's tempo
seems slightly more so. The horns of the
Columbia Symphony Orchestra a r e
brought out with full splendor by Walter
throughout, but this is also due in part
to the recording, which is much more
vivid than that which Kletzki obtains
on Angel.
The third movement, which utilizes
the well-known "Frere Jacques" trans-
posed to the minor mode, is beautifully
done on both records, but I question
Columbia's judgment in splitting the
movement between both sides. Although
the cut comes at what is probably the
most appropriate point if such a cut need
be -made at all, I find the Angel version
(with no such split between sides) more
in keeping with Mahler's direction that
there be a long pause between the second
and third movements.
The fourth movement (which shows
some similarity to that of the Shostako-
vich Fifth Symphony) begins amid such
a mass of sound that one cannot help
immediately being arrested by it. The new
recordings are certainly no exception; but
where Kletzki's brisker tempo maintains
the excitement set by the opening meas-
ures, Walter is slower and hence, I felt,
less successful here.
The Kletzki version of this symphony
features quite good sound, but it seems
almost muffled compared with the -ex-
tremely vivid sound which Columbia's
evidently closer miking secures for Wal-
ter. The bass drum in particular sounds
at times as if it were located directly_
beneath the microphone, and the Colum-
bia brass sound makes that of the Angel
disc seem rather pale by comparison.
Stereo aspects of both discs are fine in
all respects.'
I have no doubt that the Walter read-
ing' will attract the greatest critical
acclaim; indeed, it is probably the finest
memorial to the genius of -this conductor
which Columbia could have made avail-
able. But the Kletzki version is hardly
less outstanding an achievement in both
sound and interpretation. Either version
is a superb documentation of the artistry
of Gustav Mahler.
-Steven H~ale.
World
University
Service
Helps
Students
Around,
The Globe
By LOUISE LIND
THOUSANDS of students who believ
charity should have a place on a col
lege campus are involved in an organiza
tion known as the World University Ser
vice. Situated in nearly 600 educationa
institutions throughout the world, thes
students annually raise millions for an
organization that professes to "help stu
dents help themselves." Managing "pro
grammes of action" in 27 countries, WUS
is dedicated to helping institutions o
higher education in foreign lands mee
their basic needs and to fostering cooper
ation and understanding among the uni
versity communities of all nations.
In ,an age when too often an IBM car
and a tennis racket are the only keys
necessary to unlock the portentious gate
of higher education, it is not an easy
task for most people to imagine the pligh
of the student in a land where the aver-
age per capita income several years 4g
was under $300. The Algerian student
must somehow struggle to earn his tui-
tion money; the student in Hong Kong
must look forward to four years of poorly
balanced meals at prices he cannot af-
ford, and the Nicaraguan student must
find lodging in one of two existing hostel
which sleep five or six to a room and
offer no bathroom facilities.
WUS members are but too familiar with
such sordid conditions existing in many
institutes of higher education around the
e
Poor Meals Are Common to Algerian Students
GUSTAV MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO. 1
IN D;Paul Kletzki conducting the Vien-
na Philharmonic Orchestra: Angel
Stereo S 35913, $5.98 (Monaural 35-
913, $4.98.).
Bruno Walter conducting the Colum-
bia Symphony Orchestra: Columbia
Stereo MS 6394 (Monaural ML 5794).
:j.t
AS IS THE case with so many now-well-
liked works which were attacked by
narrow-minded critics at the outset, it
seems strange to recall that Gustav Mah-
ler's Symphony No. 1 in D ("Titan") was
labeled by the German musical press at
its first performance as "a crime against
law and order in the realm of symphonic
music.
To be sure, the newcomer to the works
of Mahler, especially if he has been nur-
tured primarily on Brahms, might find:
the going a bit rough at first. But those
leery of starting-out their acquaintance
with this composer via his later and
lengthier symphonies (often more than
an hour in length) could do worse than
to investigate the manifold beauties of
his First Symphony.
Mahler himself seems to be the subject
of a revival of interest since the centen-
nial observance of his birth was held two
years ago; but lovers of his First Sym-
phony have not had'much opportunity to'
experience its splendor in the stereo-
phonic medium. This problem has only
recently been solved with the addition to
the catalogue of two new stereo versions,
together with their corresponding mon-
aural editions. Both performances are by
-world. They not_ only comprehend the
- facts and their implications-they have
- taken measures to remedy them.
l Their mutual aid programs to students
e and institutions which, whenever possible,
n match WUS funds dollar for dollar, have
- built libraries, language laboratories, stu-
- dent hostels and activity centers; have
S bought books, lab equipment and student
f supplies; have paid staff salaries and
t have offered scholarship programs in
- underprivileged nations around the globe.
- Their two-year, six-million dollar pro-
gram is able to undertake sizeable pro-
d jects on an appreciable scale. Such has
s not always been the case.
e
y WHEN members of the World Student
t Christian Federation began in 1919
- the European Student Relief, the original
o ancestor of the present WUS organiza-
t tion, all activities were carried out strictly
- on an emergency basis. The early workers
g in the spirit of the present WUS move-
y ment were appalled by the devastating
~ effects of the First World War, especially
t its crippling action ton thousands of_
s European students. While they under-
I took assistance to these unfortunates
with funds contributed by others in many
parts of the world, their activities were
y definitely of a continental, even a re-
gional nature--a long distance from the
current global operations.
Yet even on a reduced scale, the early
group, which had sprung phoenix-like
from the war-created emergencies, was.
founded not on ashes, but on several
sound principles. These concepts, which
have happily been the heritage of all
successors to ESR, were five in number:
1) Assistance was not to be random
charity nor was it to be based on pre-
judiced policies.
2) Aid was to be administered along
sound economic lines.
3) Wherever possible, conditions would
be created in which students could help
themselves rather than relying on others.
4) Aid was to be provided without
regard to race, creed, nationality or sex.
5) Ability and proven need alone were
to be the criteria for aid.
So effective was the work of this early
group and so compelling was that spirit
in whose name it operated that its mem-
bers chose to continue their activities
even after the war-created emergencies
had been met.
In 1926, ESR was succeeded by the
International Student Service. Its work
was aiding victims of natural and man-
made calamities. When the 1930's saw
the Jews and other refugees from Ger-
many, Austria and Czechoslovakia under-
going a sub-human variety of oppres-
sion and persecution, ISS added several
thousand more names to its list of recip-
ients of moral and financial aid.
To cope with the calamities.of World
War II, ISS augmented by a new genera-
tion of students who found its cause com-
pelling, established the World Student
Relief (WSR) which aided student pris-
oners of war, internees and refugees by
supplying books, food and clothing and
by giving them hope for the future. At
the war's end, it began once more the
attempt to reconstruct university and
student life out of the havoc and despair
of the post-war years.
In 1950, the student aid organization
once more changed its name, expanding
its extensive relief and rehabilitation
operations in Europe to comprehensive
programs of mutual assistance in the
Middle East, Southeast Asia and the Far
East, and later to the continent of
Africa. Its new nomenclature - World
University Service-was an aptly chosen
one to describe the much extended stu-
dent aid programs now operating on
a global basis.
WUS, WITH headquarters in Geneva,
gathered strength each year and is
presently represented in 46 countries
with an equal number of autonomous
national committees. Attempting to do
the most good for the underprivileged
of the world, WUS maintains continuous
contact with many world-wide and na-
tional organizations operating on some-
what similar principles.
Thus, it cooperates with the special-
ized agencies of the United Nations, such
as the U.N. Economic and Social Council
and UNESCO. On the national level,
WUS has cooperated with programs of
the American State Department, the
American Committee for Refugees, the
Peace Corps and CARE.
In this country, WUS, the child of the
conscience of the religious community,
is sponsored by religious and non-relig-
ious organizations alike. Among these
are the B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundations,
National Newman Club Federation, the
National Student Association, National
Student Christian Federation and Na-
tional Student Councils of the YM-_
YWCA. Associated member organizations
are the Association of International Re-
lations Clubs, Federation of Jewish Stu-
dent Organizations in New York and
Institute of International Education. The
National Association of College and Uni-
versity Chaplains is a participating mem-
ber organization. WUS and its program
are endorsed by the Collegiate Council
for the United Nations and the American
Association of Junior Colleges.
In the United States, WUS programs
consist of interpreting the needs of stui-
dents around the world on the American
campuses, stimulating various activities
contributing to the betterment of inter-
national understanding and raising funds
from campuses, individuals and founda-
tions for the International Program ad-
ministered from the Geneva head-
quarters.
At the University, the local WUS com-
mittee, with a mandate from Student
Government Council, operates with a
small nucleus
year. Its prima
zation of a spi
incorporates a
an auction and
ners" as means
the programmes
Peter Eisinge
cal committee,
the yearly can
funds collected
their way to th
ters at Geneva,
aid programs in
tries chosen by
singer has desi
Basutoland as
from this year's
ed criterion of
these nations.
T THE UNIV
giers, when
damaged or des
prior to indepe
contribute to th
versity life by
tion of the educs
In Peru, at ti
ga, high in th
will assist in th
dent center to a
The university,
because it is de
indigenous India
nological trainii
works under ex
tions. At the pr
accommodate i
majority of them
fit for human be
In the Britis
WUS monies wi
a library at Pit
The university-1
ern Africa is no
(racial segregat
of South Africa
tion for non-wh
high standards.
Meanwhile, a
some 500-odd c
WUS and its
have become ar
Ann Arbor vol
that charity sh
college campus.
know how it fee
sometimes count
often, the lack
who eats bread
and goes to bed
realize that the
"help WUS he'
selves."
Louise Lina
literary colleg
editor on the
Per.