THE MICHIGAN DAILY HE MICHIGAN DAILY Defeated Gov. Phil La Follette Is Sure Third Party'sChance Is Not Ruined ________________,_i i You of M By Sec Terry DAILY OFFICIAL BULLETIN .. -1 Publication in the Bulletin is constructive notice to all members of the University. Copy received at the office of the Assistant to the President until 3:30; 11:00 a.m. on Saturday. 91 -. ___ :1 ~ ; '' w Wn+c !cAN[ RD M Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan under the authority of the Board in Control of Student Publications. Published every morning except Monday during the University year and Summer Session. Member of the Associated Press The Associated Press is exclusively entitled to the use for republication of all news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in this newspaper. All rights of republication of all other matters herein also reserved. Entered at the Post Office at Ann Arbor, Michigan, as second class mail matter. Subs Driptions during regular school year by carrier, $4.00; by mail, $4.50. REPRESENTED FOR NATIONAL ADVERTISING BY National Advertising Service, Inc. College Publishers Representative 420 MADISON AVE. NEW YORK. N. Y. CHICAGO 'BOSTON . LOS ANGELES - SAN FRANCISCO Member, Associated Collegiate Press, 1938-39 Board of Editors (Editor's Note: This story is a personal interview with the defeated candidate for governor of Wis- consin. Mr. La Follette is the leadingvproponent of a third party in this country.) By EDWARD MAGDOL While the defeat handed him in the Wisconsin gubernatorial race is generally considered the rock on which he wrecked his political boat, Gov. Phil La Follette steadfastly continues to believe that he is not through. The ambitious young son of fighting Old Bob bristles with energy in his conversation and in his thinking. There are moments when one can almost see the governor formulating an idea in his mind that will be expressed minutes later. And that is characteristic of his political move- ment known as the National Progressives of America. It is a matter of building the political auto under which will later be laid the road. Dictator Charge Hurled At Phil It is this ambition to which both friends and. enemies of the governor ascribe his loss. His ad- versaries labeled him a dictator whose methods and objectives were inimical to the American people. They cried for his political head. When the count was completed they collected it.. Chief among La Follette's critical friends is William T. Evjue, editor of the Capital Times of Madison, and a leading Progressive. In an espec- ially lucid editorial last week he too deprecated Phil's excessive aspirations, citing them, as a major cause for the Progressive setback. In addi- tion to agrarian discontent and the desire of most Reople for a change in government when econom- ic conditions show no general improvement, Mr. Evjue maintained that the third party blast from the younger La Follette last April split the liberal- and progressive vote in both the Democratic and Progressive parties. Editor Offers Friendly Criticism Of the venture he said: "The manner in which Phil developed the NPA gave validity to the charge of his enemies that the governor was developing a dictator men- tality and used roughshod .methods without consulting leaders who have been in the Progres- sive movement for years. "The failure of Phil to consult with Roosevelt, Senator Norris, Mayor La Guardia, Governor Benson and other liberal leaders of national stature did not sit well." If he has any hope and confidence it is in himself and his ability to construct, state by state, "the national party" for the United States. He likes to see himself as the new great personal leader coming out of the cradle of American poli- tical revolt, ,the land of the great Northwest Territory. Traditionally liberal from its establish- ment by the famous Ordinance of 1787 this region has proved fertile soil for the young and vigor- ous Republican Party before the Civil War, the Populist outbreak of the late Nineteenth century, the organization of the.Farmer-Labor Party and the Progressive Party itself under the. dynamic guidance of fighting Old Bob La Follette. Recalls Lincoln Of Illinoic This is the region that produced Lincoln, and Young Phil is aware of the great political tradi- tion behind him. Consequently he eschews the organization of a party with existing large poli- tical groups. He looks with disdain upon the popular front or the united front. While he has great personal admiration for President Roose- velt as the greatest political figure since Lin- coln he fails to agree with the principle of broad- ening the base of political organization, as the Democratic Party did in its 1936 landslide of votes from labor, farmer and small businessman, To La Follette this type of organization repre- sents a weakening of the forces behind the Presi- dent. This is true, he asserts, because also behind the President is a small but influential coterie of conservative and reactionary Democrats. This is a strong factor making for disunity and weak- ness, which La Follette's proposed party cannot, countenance. How Third Party Will Grow It is therefore not unnatural for Phil not to respond to the call of La Guardia. Significant too in the light of his notion of political organi- zation is. La Follette's contention that the great new political party will be built not on the basis of, for example, Labor's Non-Partisan League, the C.I.O., farm organizations and middle class groups. On the contrary, he believes the new party will grow because people as individuals will see the need for the new political vehicle. They will form nuclei for the party in each state, sweep into power in each state, and finally in the nation. When? 1940? 1942? 1944? The date is not definite but the governor is confident, despite claims that his scheme is a futile, romantic quest for the pre-war liberalism with personal leadership that does no good to liberalism today. Managing Editor Editorial Director City Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Book Editor. Women's Editor Sports Editor. Robert D. Mitchell. Albert P. May1o Horace W. Gilmore Robert I. Fitzhenry S. R. Kleiman Robert Perlman Earl Gilman William Elvin Joseph Freedman . Joseph Gies Dorothea Staebler Budf Benjamin Business Department Business Manager Credit Manager . Advertising Manager. Women% Business Manager Women's Service Manager Philip W. Buchen Leonard P. Siegelman William L. Newnan Helen Jean Dean * . Marian A. -Baxter NIGHT EDITOR: MORTON C. JAMPEL The editorials published in The Michigan Daily are written by members of the Daily staff and represent the views of the writers only. America And The Refugees . 0 .r TODAY in by DAVID WASHINGTON.... LAURENCE THE PROCESS of history, as reflected by the press during the past several years, has repeatedly recalled to us the fact that behind the changes which take place in colorings on maps, in flags on capitols, in proclamations and allegiances, in ministries and foreign offices, in laws, decrees and constitutions, there is a great mass of reality: the everyday lives of common people. Never does this realization strike us with more convincing force than when we read of the crowds of refugees who, after each fresh con- quest are left homeless, helpless and friendless. The Munich capitulation having been success- fully executed, the Chamberlain and Daladier governments have washed their hands of its con- sequences in the form of the new throngs of refugees from Central Europe. These people, the real losers at Munich, are left to shift for them- selves by the heads of the great nations who handed over Czechoslovakia, bound and gagged, to Hitler. The process of accommodation to fas- cismapparently requires not only the sanction of aggression, and the defense of it on moral and material grounds, but even the active abetting of its incidental cruelty to innocent victims. The democratic nations, in order to appease the ag- gressors, must themselves adopt fascist prin- ciples. What aid or consideration can the men, women and children forced to flee from the homes of their fathers, hope for from the Radi- cal Socialists of France and the Conservatives of Britain who coolly tore up their obligations and abandoned the principles they have prided themselyes on for the fatuous fiction of "peace in our Time." Refugees have no foreign office with which to cajole and no army with which to threaten. They can only throw themselves on the mercy of those who have. And truly, in the twentieth century as in the first, "the son of man hath nowhere to lay his head." Our own country has an obligation of its own to refugees. America has through its history pro- vided a haven for the oppressed of other lands. Today the need is perhaps more urgent than ever before. A difficulty exists, because of the immigration quotas; but it is a difficulty which can easily be obviated. The present situation is far different from that existing when the quotas were established; the quotas, therefore, should, be altered to meet it. An American government can scarcely shirk its moral duty to the victims of aggression in the light-hearted manner of the present British and French governments. -Joseph Gies Tidings From A Rearming World Leslie Hore-Belisha. British Secretary of War, tells the House of Commons that the Septermber crisis disclosed "starting deficiencies" in the country's defenses. At the same time, a spokesman for the Ameri- can Navy Department admits delays and defects have occurred in the program of warship con- struction. Russia's air fleet is inefficient, according to the celebrated Lindbergh report, and other observers report wrecking and purges have weak- ened other military branches. WASHINGTON, Nov. 14-The German stupid- ity which forced American participation in the World War in 1917 has now been exceeded by a new outburst of stupidity which deliberately alienates the decent opinion of the whole world and compels in America and elsewhere the con- sideration of armament programs of unprece- dented proportions. If anything could overnight wipe out the hopes and peace sentiments which attended the sign- ing of the Peace of Munich, this now has been supplied by the latest manifestation of Nazi fanaticism. For sheer arrogance, nothing has come from any foreign country in modern times that can equal the notification by the German rulers to the press of the United States and of other countries that German questions must not be discussed lest more reprisals will be visited upon the Jewish population of Central Europe. To Ignore Is To Acquiesce For the American government to ignore this attempt by a foreign power to control American opinion by threats would be in itself an act of acquiescence unlike the traditional spirit of this country. Undoubtedly some representations will be made on this point through diplomatic chan- nels, if indeed they have not already been trans- mitted to the German Embassy in Washington. What interests people here far more than this aspect, however, is the gradual alienation of American opinion by the Nazis which is going on now and which cannot but result some day in the breaking off of diplomatic relations between the United States and Germany, a move which other nations would then follow. There would appear to be little desire here to maintain rela- tions with a government which has forfeited the respect of mankind and has almost outdone the barbarisms of the Middle Ages. The deepest sympathy is felt here for the Ger- man people who are under such duress that they cannot make their protests felt. The German citizens probably do not know, because of the censorship, that mankind is now pronouncing judgment on Nazism in a manner which ulti- mately may mean more hardships for Germany and eventually a Waterloo of such tragic con- sequences as the world has seldom witnessed. The German episodes of the last ' few days have so shocked American opinion that undoubt- edly the new armament program here will be supported on every side as a measure of precau- tion in a world in which an important govern- ment has lost all sense of decency and humane spirit. Even prisoners of war are better treated in war-times than Germany treats her minority' populations today. To allow riots and looting and to encourage under the supervision of "storm troopers" a demonstration against innocent men, women an-d children in Germany just because a deranged boy in Paris committed an attack on an Embassy, secretary is to confess to the whole world the +nmn t1n^nr 7n ilc voF i ;_ V _ rY w will be similarly forced to remain silent while an inhumane sadism goes on in Germany is to misunderstand the temper and determination of free peoples. But the German rulers have shown themselves inept before.sTheyimistook pacific American sentiment as something which could be outraged at will by submarine warfare in 1917, and, as a consequence, 4,000,000 American troops went to Europe and with them billions of dollars of aid. Germany's economic plight and the un- just treatment she received at Versailles came only from a war which Germany lost because of her own stupidity in disregarding American{ opinion and world opinion. Active protests by foreign governments every- where now may be anticipated, as well as a deter- mination on the part of foreign countries gen- erally to ostracise the Nazi government and all its works. To boycott by trade reprisals, of course, is to hurt innocent German people and two wrongs never made a right. I Governments Should Protest What Americans can do, however, is to hope that all the governments of the world will speak to the German government-not that this will of itself be of avail, but, in the long run, news of these protests will sink by word of mouth into the consciousness of the German people. There's another step which is being taken. The Christian. churches have ordered prayers for' netx week on behalf of the oppressed Jews. These prayers might well be extended so as to include the present rulers of the German government. When a man goes mad and commits murder, we do not execute him nowadays. We treat him with the pity that madmen deserve. Today the organization of mass prayer meetings to ask divine forgiveness for the sins of the madmen' who rule Germany might be so impressive as to awaken the German people into a realization that their future is doomed if they stick to the Nazi barbarisms. It might indicate to them that their sole hope for economic salvation lies in making the fight against tyranny which Ameri- cans and other liberty-loving peoples in other parts of the world have made from time to time in world history. For Nazi Germany has sealed her-own doom, and the moral forces of the world can do more by organizing their weapons of shame and ostra- cism than all the boycotts and trade reprisals ever could accomplish. The present rulers of the Ger- man government are more to be pitied than scorned as the American people offer nation- wide prayers that "God may forgive them for, they know not what they do." 'Key To Recovery How to save democratic capitalism in America is no longer a huge, worrisome question mark. The problem is solved with comparative ease and in readily intelligible terms by Dr. Russell Weis- man, professor of economics at Western Reserve .Un,arci n Q -h nr m einA- - + - _