THE'MICHIGAN DAILY" WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 1931 TH-MC IG N DAU'.WDNSDY ARL 9 13 ....... .r . Published every morning except Monday dur- ing the University year by the Board in Control of Student Publications. Member of Western Conference Editorial Asso- ci ation. The Associated Press is exclusively entitled to the use for republication of all news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in this paper and the local news published herein. Entered at the postoffice at Ann Arbor, Michi- gan, as scon class matter. Special rate of postage granted by Third Assistant Postmaster General. Subscription by carrier, $4.00; by mail, $4.50. Offices: Ann Arbor Press Building, Maynard Street. Phones: Editorial, 4925; Business, 21214. EDITORIAL STAFF Telephone 4925 MANAGING EDITOR Chairman Editorial Board HENRY MERRY FRANK E. COOPER, City Editor News Editor...............Gurney Williams Editorial .irector............Walter W. Wilds Assistant City Editor........Harold 0. Warren Sports Editor.............. Joseph A. Russell} W omen's Editor ............. Dary L. Behmiyer Music, Drama, Books ......... Win. J. Gormni1 Assistant News Editor.......Charles R. Sprowl Telegraph Editor ............George A. Stauter Copy .Editor................Win. E. Pyper NIGHT EDITORS S. Beach Conger Charles I. Sprowl Carl S. Forsythe Richard L. Tobin )avid M. Nichol Harold 0. Warren John D. Reindel Sports Assistants Sheldon C. Fullertons aJ.Cullen Kennedy Charles A. Sanford REPORTERS Uhomas XAL Cooley Morton Frank Frank B. Gilbreth Saul Friedberg Boland C 0dman Morton lper Dryan Jones' Wilbur J. Aeyers Eileen Blunt Nanette Dembit, Elsie Feldman Ruth Gallmeyer ily G. Griles JeanaLev. 3Dorothy Macgee Susan Manchestcr-, Robert L. Pierce Richard Racine Karl Seiffert Jerry E. Rosenthal George A. Stauter .John W. Thomas John S. Townsend Nary McCall Mile Miller Margaret O'Brien Eleanor Rairdon Anne Margaret Tobin Margaret Thompson Claire Trusseli BUSINESS STAFF Telephone 21214 T. JOLLIs'TERt MABLEY, Business Manager iASPER I1. IIALVERSON, Assistant Manager Department Managers Advertising..... ......Charles T. Kline Advertising ..............homnas M. Davis Advertising........Willianm W. Warboys Service...........Norris J. Johnson Publication............Robert W. Williamson Circulation..............Marvin S. Jiobacker Accounts..... .........Thomas S. Muir Business Secretary ...........Mary J. Kenanl h arry 1. Beglev Vern Bishop WilliaiaIlrown ERobert Callahan William AW. ]Dayis MIiles Hoisingtou Erie Kightlinger Agn W. Verner Marian Atran Helen Bailey Josephine Convisser Mai e Fishgrumd Dorothy LeMire Dorothy Laylin Assistants Noel D. Turner Don. W. Lyon William Morgan RichardtStratemneier Keith Tyler Richard H. Hiller Byron C. Vedder Sylvia Miller Helen Olsen Mildred Postal r Marjorie Rough Mary L. Watts Johanna Wiese lines unsurpassed in educational history-and raise its tread proudly saying, "Look, here's what we've done." MUNICIPAL COURTS Newly-elected Mayor H. W i r t Newkirk recommended last week that Ann Arbor establish a munici- pal court, to take the place of the present justice-of-the-peace courts. With his proclamation, he placed himself in the majority group of political theorists, who have long advocated abolition of the compli- cated, and often corrupt practices of the justices of the peace. Mayor Newkirk remarked that "I strongly favor a municipal court to take the place of the relic of an- tiquity-the justice court of colon- ial times." He has evidently analyzed the contemporary municipal judiciary of Ann Arbor and similar cities and boroughs, and discovered the num- erous flaws in its existence. Removal of the arbitrary judg- ments of the justices in civil and criminal cases alike; abolition of the fee system of paying fines, which is a temptation to police officers and constables to "patron- ize certain justices, in considera- tion of a percentage cut of the fines; recognition of the tendency to appeal cases from the justice courts, would all cause a speedier fairer administration of justice in minor cases. For Ann Arbor, the municipal council chamber represents the be- ginning of a solution to the prob- lem. Used but twice a month for official business, it could feasibly be usesd as a municipal court-room, the seat of a popularly elected mun- icipal judge. Corresponding reductions in fees, being removed from the whims of the justice of peace, a wider juris- diction for the court, and the op- tion of a jury panel for the defend- ants, might mean the first step in a permanent solution of the mun- icipal judicial problem. ,o 0 1 Editorial Comment i° ,THE DRIFT IN COLLEGE SPORTS (New York Herald-Tribune) Columbia has followed a good lead; it has decided not to differ- entiate between one sport and an- other in the awarding of varsity insignia. That is as it should be. What matters it whether an under- "graduate gives his best in a football game or in a fencing match? He should receive the best that the university has to award for athletic prowess. We rejoice over this de- cision because it means that an- other outstanding university has fallen into line as far as the ques- tion of sports in the life of the undergraduate is concerned. Nature gives this boy a sturdy 'pair of legs and a deep chest; to one it gives a supple wrist and a quick eye; to another it gives a sense of balance and the quickness of mind and muscle so essential to the adept at squash or indoor ten- nis. Because we believe in the bracing influence of competition we favor the awarding of college num- erals and letters to succesful com- petitors. The boy or man who never wins either his numerals or his letters may enjoy to the full his activit in the intercollegiate sports arena, but nevertheless we are still in support of the policy of [giving prizes. There is-a definite tendency to- ward building up what have been known as the minor sports-soccer, Rugby, swimming, boxing, lacrosse, fencing, basketball, golf and so on. The most recent development has been to give them equal standing with the so - called major sports. There could be nothing more whole- some in the undergraduate world. Colleges and universities are sup- posed to lay the foundation for the growth of good Americanism rather than to profit by the athletic pro- wess of a small group of abnorm- ally well developed youngsters, who are in no sense representative, either mentally or physically, of the generation in which they live. - About Books - FACT AND BIOGRAPHY WILLIAM CONGREVE: by D. Crane Taylor: published by Oxford Uni- versity Press, 1931: N. Y. C. The known facts about a man's life may be so plentiful and so re- vealing that his biography need possess only the patience to gather them, the skill to group them, the style to state them lucidly. The biographer who attempts to be "creative" about such a subject in- sults our intelligence. The ordinary scholar's anonymity and simple! presentation are both ideal when he has such a subject to recon- struct. Mr. D. Crane Taylor's new life of Congreve--who has been singularly neglected-is the first one since Ed- mund Gosse's in 1888. Mr. Taylor suggests the reason:\"two great dif- ficulties confront the biographer of Congreve and make his task, how- ever important, relatively thank- less. These are the dearth of relia- ble contemporary information about the dramatist and his habit of guarding scrupulously the details of his private life." That is, the facts aren't either plentiful or revealing. The immediate inference is that very probably the biographer will be forced to employ an additional effort of intelligence. He must in- terpret to adequately reconstruct. He must not only "creatively" inter- pret known facts. He must, in a sense, create new facts to fill in. The scholar's humility and implicit trust in presentation of fact as.the ideal method are stupid in such a case. The stupidity is especially unpar- donable when the biographer makes in his Preface a remark that should have told him his task was doomed to failure if he doesn't do some- thing scholarly about it. Mr. Crane probably knows more facts about Congreve than anyone else living. But the man, of whom Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who knew all the wits, said "I never knew anybody who had so much wit," emerges from Mr. Crane's pages a wooden man who led a dull life. The point is we don't be- lieve it. Neither does Mr. Crane, I suppose. We are grateful for the facts he has presented; but we re- sent his satisfaction with them, es- pecially when he himself realizes they aren't enough. Who is going to digest and speculate on the facts if not him who has known them in the intimacy of collection? Mr. Crane chose to look on his task as the "thankless" presentation of in- adequate factual material. His task was relatively "unimportant" as a consequence. DARK HERITAGE by Shirland Quin; Little Brown & Company; Review copy courtesy Slater's Book Store. "Dark Heritage" is not by any manner of means a great book; in fact, its only claim to being even a good book is the fact that it man- ages to hold the reader's interest through a bewildering maze of plot and character portrayal. The au- thor is, needless to say, a woman. The tortuous windings through which she leads the hero, Mervyn Morgan, are feminine in their -lack of consistencyand in the general scheme of their execution. The heroine, poor thing, being an apathetic, discouraged creature, seems to accept all the whims of the fickle Mervyn, who has to sur- vey the whole field of eligible women, to the extent of getting en- gaged to one, and marrying an- other, before he finally discovers that it is she for whom he has been waiting. Their reunion is particu- larly unconvincing, and spoils the effect for which Miss Quin has evidently been straining. . With these defects as its chief drawbacks, "Dark Heritage" is still an interesting novel. The Welsh background, both of landscape and of character, is fascinatingly for- bidding, for sombre as it first ap- pears, it is so graphically presented that it cannot fail to arouse inter- est. The wild grandeur of the Wales scenes, is an excellent setting for the stormy family quarrels of the hot-headed Morgans. The family seems to be imbued with the spirit of the land itself, and Mervyn seems strangely old-world and out of place when he first appears in America. It is in the AmerIt n scenes that the novel fails to carry put its first promise of power, for after the hero gets an American haircut ani2 be- gins to wear horn rimmed glass.S, he loses most of his individuality, and therefore, most of his charm. His struggles in adjusting himself to his new surroundings are very tiearly as interesting as a sociology textbook, and he never again re- sumes his more natural Welsh guise. Less emphasis on the American side of Mervyn's story; less detailEd accounts of his dissilusionments with women, less of the "go-getter" sentiment which is uncomfortably rendolent of Horatio Alger, would make this book literature instead of a misguided attempt at it. M. O'B. retirement and life after that? Was his infertility mere indolence? Was he, like Wycherley, just a gallant The long arm of the telephone I operator How to extend the operator's range five- fold? There's an example of the prob- lems put up to a telephone engineer. This was part of a study in stepping up the speed of service to distant points. "Long Distance" used to relay your call to one or more other operators. Now she herself reaches the city you are call- ing, 30 or 300 or 3000 miles away. made longer Result: in five years the average time needed to complete a long-distance con- nection has been cut from 7 minutes to less than 2 minutes. In this industry even, long approved methods are never considered beyond improvement. For men of the right aptitude, that viewpoint is a stimulating challenge. STEPPING I NTO A MODERN WDORKLD WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 1931 Night Editor - JOHN D. REINDEL N. Y. U. CELEBRATES New York university celebrates her 100th anniversary this month with ."Charter Day" dinners, insti- tutes, conferences, assemblies and special programs throughout New York city. Among her more promin- ent alumni are Governor Franklinj D. .Roosevelt, Ogden L. Mills, under-l secretary of the treasury, Dr. James R. Angell, president of Yale, and Dr. George S t e w a r t, nationally known surgeon and a member of the N. Y. U. medical faculty for years. This outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual accom- plishment during 100 years of schol- astic effort is a varnish which be- comes necessary to attract the na-. tion's attention to the fact that one of the oldest universities in the country is celebrating her centen- nial. Underneath all the flags and decorations at Hotel Astor, behind the gorgeous tributes which New York newspapers are this week pay- ing to their home town university, lies a pyramid of accomplishments unsung and unheraided. Foremost among these is the result of one Samuel F. Morse, a professor at N: Y. U., whose invention of the tele- graph in the laboratories of the university ranks as one of the na- tion's greatest achievements. The very nature of the founda- tion of N. Y. U. gives it a unique place in the history of education. Albert Gallatin, secretary of the treasury under Jefferson and im- portant to American history in his connection with the Louisiana ter- ritory, was the founder . It was his dissatisfaction with the narrowness of university curricula which in-' augurated the germ of N. Y. U. The institution should be, he said, one in which the young man of the large city could get a higher edu- cation in subjects of interest to him and not in a general course of G r e e k, Latin and mathematics which every then established insti- tution offered. This evocution from a democratic ideal has become one of the most important phases of the success and achievement of N. Y. U. .I' This practicability of courses, es- tablished as it was at New York, has spread into a versatile educa- tional institution throughout the BELL SYSTEM ,v* xxf 'CA1O A NATION-WIDE SYSTEM O1F INTER-CONNECTING TELEPHONES .... ;, :- , 0 A number of "Congreve" prob-living an past his time into the old lems occur to one which Mr. Taylor age Restoration comedy mocked? .gives no help on. Macaulay, inevit- Was it just a dull stolid existence ably wrong, thought of Corngreve's this member of the Kit-Kat club life as "the history of a conflict led, this man who went to dinner between two impulses," the impulse at Twickerham with Gay, Swift, to be a great writer and the impulse and Bolingbroke? What of the man to be a man of fashion. Mr. Crane who remained "young and fresh knows that Macaulay has absurdly and cheerful," as Swift writes Stel- simplified the problem. But correc- la, in the years when he was almost tion of Macaulay's very confident blind with cataracts and constantly statement must be an equally defi- afflicted with gout? What of this nite statement. That answer is man whom Prior called "Friendly probably best made in terms of the Congreve, unreproachful man?" experiment the upper strata of It seems possible that Congreve Restoration Society were making:- perfected the art-product of a past the experiment simplifying life to age, became disillusioned with its merely the task of becoming a gen- tendencies (Mr. Taylor disproves tleman, of escaping emotion by ut- the ordinary interpretation of dis- terly concerning oneself with ele- appointment at the failure of "The gance and finesse of manner and Way of the World" as the explana- speech whatever the situation and tion of his retirement but suggests demands. Restoration comedy is no other), could not readjust him- probably best understood as record self in the new literary mode, satire, of that experiment in the peculiarly (compare his statement: "I profess sublimated and ideal form with myself an enemy to Detraction"), which art records. What becomes of and so took the only dignified solu- the opposition of author and man tion-- a serene life of great friend- of fashion in such a light? Very ships (compare his remark to Keal- probably they coincide. Mr. Taylor ly "I am sure you know me well completes what he has to say about enough to know I feel very sensibly the age and its qualities in ten and silently for those whom I pages. That omission is the book's love"). outstanding stupidity. At least, Mr. Crane's biography, Another problem: John Palmer which thorouoghly documents the waves away the significance of Con- facts that Congreve came to Lon- greve's dates (he didn't belong to don, wrote a play, became a com- the Restoration period at all) by missioner of hackney coaches, wrote saying: "He lived in the world of some more plays for seven years, Etherege not the less definitely forj then retired to enjoy his fame and his living in the world of Pope." fortune and die, gives no dignity, Yet surely, Etherage is the lyricist meaning, or interest to the man's of the Restoration. He felt its im- life. The ordinary scholar's assump- pulses and spontaneously expressed tion that the facts, if found and them. Congreve was much more the presented, will reveal all has be- constructive artist, observing the trayed him into a view of Congreve Age, arranging its impulses as com- he undoubtedly doesn't hold. ic material with an amused detach- The book's positive virtues are its ment, and deliberately polishing his discoveries: several new lyrics, sev- style. Congreve's biographer should erl new letters. He also corrects little g up hek1 _;, <. 'F:: f. :. yourself / DON'T TAKE our word for it, switch to Camels for just one day then quit them if you can. The moment you open the package you'll note the differ- ence between fresh humidor packed Camels and dry-as-dust cigarettes. Camels are supple and firm to the touch. Stale, dried-out cigarettes crumble and crackle when pressed. But the real convincer is to smoke Camels. Every puff is a sheer delight of cool, mellow mild. ness; the Camel blend of choicest Turkish and mellow. est Domestic tobaccos, kept in prime condition by mois- ture-proof Cellophane sealed air-tight. R. J. REYNOLDS TOBACCO CO. Winston-Salem, N. C. r, Federal income tax investigators in New York will, this week, look into rumors of heavy dough being made in a "flour -racket."-Detroit News. Dr. Mann of the National Zoo says the elephant forgets about as rapidly as any animal. Since almost no one else remembers the G. O. P. party platform, it hardly mat- ters.-Detroit News. President Hoover was held up 40 minutes in a traffic jam on the way back to Washington. Possibly some middle-of-the-road Congressman IJAMELS =- rqa !o w " ., 1 m I(h I { fi/ III s r , illl, f d .s- d