THE MICHIGAN 1DAli.V
TUESDnAY, 0e
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_________________________________..__._..__......._
-L, 1:71/i" LV, LUa291
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IE MICHIGAN DAILY
Readers Claim Neutrality Demands
Reoassertion Of Faith In Democracy
I
/
Edited and managed by students of the University of
ohigan under the authority of the Board in Control of
udent Publications.
Published every morning except Monday during the
iversity year and Summer Session.
Member of the Associated Press
[he Associated Press is exclusively entitled to the
Sfor republication of all news dispatches credited to
or not. otherwise credited in this newspaper. All
hts of republication of all other matters herein also
erved.
Entered at the Post Office at Ann Arbor, Michigan, as
ond class mail matter.
ubscriptions during regular school year by carrier,
0; by mail, $4.50.y y
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420 MADISON AVE. NEW YORK, N. Y.
CHICAGO -'OSTON ' LOS ANGELES - SAN FRANCiSCO
ember, Associated Collegiate Press, 1939-40
Editorial Staff
Petersen
ott Maraniss
a M. Swinton
ton L. Linder
man.. A. Schorr
nis Flanagan
n N. Canavan
Vicary .
Fineberg
Managing Editor
Editorial Director
City Editor
* Associate Editor
Associate Editor
. Associate Editor
Associate Editor
. Women's Editor
. Sports Editor
r . ,_ ri
Business Staff
siness Manager
at. Business. Mgr., Credit Manager
)men s Business Manager
men's Advertising Manager .
blications Manager
. Paul R. Park
Ganson P. Taggart
Zenovia Skoratk o
. .Jane Mowers
. Harriet S. Levy
To the Editor:
We are all resolved to keep out of war. The
important decision involved the technique of
realizing that objective. Our task is to evaluate
the alternatives.
We do not believe that this country must in-
evitably be drawn into the European conflict.
The Gallup Poll does not force the future course
of American public opinion; a weak Allied posi-
tion need not inevitably bring us into war.
We feel, along with the Editors of The Daily,
that Democracy has meaning and promise--but
only so long as its political institutions reflect
the will of the people. There must exist a func-
tional relationship between the elected repre-
sentatives and the body politic. Hence, any
action influencing the will of the people is rele-
vant and practical. In these crucial times, there
must be a re-assertion of faith in democracy.
An appalling similarity exists between the
American position before the last World War
and the situation today. Once again, a "villain"
stands in the way of a "final" peace and a "final"
solution. But we cannot see how the present
conflict will achieve this "final" solution. For
neither side has gone into the fray with clean,
hands. And we cannot presume that a peace
made by any of the warring governments will
be a "final" peace. We firmly believe that the
diversion of our human and natural resources
to the European scene would achieve no worth-
while end. Today's battlefield of Democracy
is at home. Let us be militant in our efforts to
strengthen our own democratic institutions.
The first program we will consider-complete
isolation-has been advanced by the Editors of
The Daily. Mr. Rosa and Mr. Duesenberry have
rightly pointed out that the cessation of foreign
trade would severely contract our national in-
come. Untold hardships would be inflicted upon,
for example, the cotton growers of the South
and the automobile workers of Michigan. Such
groups would be fertile field for false panaceas.
To minimize these disturbances a planned eco-
nomy would be essential. We are not here in-
terested in discussing the merits or defects rof
such planning, nor the form and direction it
will take.
As an immediate plan of action it has no
chance of success. ? It-expresses a philosophy
that conflicts with the social, thinking of the
American people. We mustalso consider this
approach unrealistic.
Although Mr. Rosa and Mr. Duesenberry have
seen the economic shortcomings of a policy of
non-intercourse, they have advocated a "cash
and carry" plan without fully realizing its eco-
nomic implications. We maintain that "cash
and carry," unaccompanied by other controls,
would result in a war boom-a false prosperity.
Huge credits-gold reserves and. private securi-
ties (which can be liquidated by the various gov-
ernments)-would be the basis for trade in large
proportions. The effect of this trade would be,
as follows: "(1) Certain industries would expand
beyond their peactime level. (2) The profits ac-
cruing from the increased sales would lead to
even further expansion both in these and allied
industries. The effects thus become cumulative."
This process of' expansion would give rise to a
serious dilemma. The prolongation of the war
would rapidly exhaust the credit resources men-
tioned above, and it would become increasingly
difficult for the Allies to continue trade on a
cash and carry basis. If we then would revoke
the cash and carry clause, we would be faced
with the same conditions which drove us into the
last war. Yet the curtailment of trade would
leave us with misallocated resources and over-
expanded plant in certain industries, leading to
depression and unemployment.
There is considerable doubt as to the extent
to which Ameican resources may shorten the
war. And so long as such doubt exists and
America may be brought to the dilemma out-
lined above, the cash and carry proposal en-
dangers the security of the American people.
The discussion of neutrality in Congress has
explicitly assumed that the arms embargo and
the cash and carry, plan, applying to all other
materials, are mutually exclusive. We see no
such contradiction.
First, with regard to the value of the arms
embargo. Certain writers, among them the
editors of the New Republic, find no danger
in the repeal of the embargo. Their contention
is that the whole question of maintainance or
repeal has little significance, since American
munitions factories are operating at capacity
to satisfy the United States' peacetime needs.
The repeal of the embargo, however might very
well lead to expansion in these industries.
It is also argued that the arms embargo lacks
significance in so far as it is possible to send
to belligerent powers the raw materials used in
the manufacture of munitions. Although the
material effect of the act may thus be weak-
ened, we assert that -the- spirit in which it was
written is important today. The embargo now
represents the feelings of the American people
toward these warring nations and to war as a
means of settling disputes. It serves notice to
the people of both factions that the United States
favors neither side.
We assume as our main objective: to minimize
the disrupting influences which war will have
on our economy. Only with a peacetime economy
can we keep out of war. Cash and carry without
proper implementation would foster undue ex-
pansion in the war industries. A program of
strict isolation is also inadequate because it will
decrease our national income. - We advance our
plan not from the point of view of aiding either
side, but to remove the danger of misdirected
production.
We propose: (1) Maintainance of the arms
embargo: (2) 'Cashand carry,(on all other ma-
terials) governed by 'expert quotas.
We admit the difficulties connected with the
quotas, but we are convinced that the problems
such as the determination of a base year and
the allocation of exports among the various
American industries can be solved by experts
in international trade and finance. That such
a plan is feasible has been shown by Germany",
experience both in post-war and recent years. In
this.country, the export quota device would en-
tail the extension of the sphere of governmental
actions. But that control seems a small price
to pay. ,,Export quotas will, protect us from a
wild war ,boom and the cataclysmic depression,
which must necessarily follow.
We have not here attempted to give a complete
peace program, which would include such tasks
as the maintainance of civil liberties and the
promotion of closer Pan-American ties, but onfly
to deal with the questions now being debated in
Congress. Any complete peace program, how-
ever, must be predicated on the fact that our
entanglement is in no sense inevitable.
Edward Fried
Edward Lebeis
Harold Osterweil
NIGHT EDITOR: ELIZABETH M. SHAW
The editorials published in The Michigan
"il Daily are' written by members of The Daily
staff, and represent the views of the writers
:only.
Police Brutality
:And Poliuics *. *
ETROIT'S Mayor Reading, in vigor-
ously opposing a Common Counc
investigation of police brutality and lawless-
I ness, appears to have been unduly influenced
by his-approaching battle for reelection.
Only a short time before the Common Coun-
cil's -public. hearing on police brutality, the
Mayor had solemnly voiced his approval of. a
f Council investigationof Police Commissioner
Pickert's policies to a committee representing
progressive, church, Negro and organized labor
groups.
At the public hearing, his Honor rose, and,
Instead of supporting the investigation, branded
the petitioning organizations and individuals
"were the Civil Rights Federation and its leader
Rev. Owen A. Knox and Rev. J. H. Bollens;
State Senator Charles Diggs; Father Malcomb
" . Dade of St. Sepian Church; Mr. Mort Furay
of Labor's Non-Partisan League; and Rev. Rober5
. 4,Bradby of the Second Baptist Church.
Mayor Reading justified his reversal of opin-
ion by saying that the Police Department had
investigated itself and found that it had not
acted in a lawless manner. It is interesting to
note that the Mayor based his final decision on
the report of the department under accusation,
and not on the 50 detailed case histories of police
brutality compiled by the Civil Rights Federa-
tion and other petitioning organizations.
Mayor Reading found company in supporting
Commissioner Pickert. The Women's Legion of
the Blue Cross, avowedly against the retention
of democracy in America, was vehement in its
support. One pro-Pickert speaker declared that
an investigation was unwarranted because there
are instances of police brutality every day.
' It is a senseless policy to quarrel with the
Mayor who probably was driven to act as he did
by political expediency; but it is a sound policy
to ask the Common Council when it will in-
vestigate Commissioner Pickert and his depart-
ment."
--Richard Harmel
Tin Pan Alley's Neutrality
The current war is an unemotional dry-eyed,
affair according to commentators, and American
1 sentiment will not be aroused by heart-rending
j ballads according to the American Society of
t Composers, Authors, and Publishers.
In 1916, Tin-Pan Alley poured out such lyrics
as "I Didn't Raise My Boy to be a Soldier" and
Sother war themes. Musicians gleaned millions
from the pockets of war-conscious Americans.
t The convention of the nation's music-makers
reveals the profession in quite another mood re-
d garding the second war in our time; the key-
note of the meeting was in an anti-war-glooi
0 festival. Twofold purpose of the leaders is to
keep the conflict off the public's music mind, and
W to halt profiteering on sorrow and anxiety.
Determined to maintain an even balance in
themes, neutral publishers have not accepted
t the temperamental slush prepared by Tin Pan
t Alley since September. Such selections as
0 "Keep Us Out of the War," "Lizzy Don't Look
So Good in Her Gas Mask," and "Let's Stay Out
Sof It" have not found a market. If refusal to
print such songs represents the feeling of most
GULLIVER'S
CAVILS
B3y Young Gulliver
F YOU were Gulliver, sitting at this
typewriter and trying your damn-
dest to be brilliant in the correct
number of lines, your digestion
wouldn't be improved by the sight of
Morty Q lolling about with a gigan-
tic cigar between his yellowing teeth,
rolling it around his dirty mouth and
expectorating in businessman's style.
It takes one back to the days when
Tuure Tenander, the Finnish jitter-
bug, used to drive weak-stomached
college boys out of the Daily build-
ing with his foul-smelling, coal black
stogies.
The fumes have gone to Gulliver's
head, and as a result he is going to
break a precedent to which he has
been faithfully adhering. He is go-
ing to speak of the football team.
This is a subject which rightfully
belongs on the sports page; never-
theless Gulliver wants to inform the
student body that Capt. Archie Ko-
dros' correct name is actually Aris-
totle Kodros. That's all.
W E PROCEED now to a discussion
of Ballerina, the French film
which the Art Cinema League had
on display last weekend. Gulliver is
in disagreement with both Mr. Bern-
stein and Mr. Q, who thought that
it was a peachy picture. Y.G. liked
the dancing, the blonde ballerina Mia
Slavenska, and little else. It should
be apparent to anyone wh'o has been
seeing French films regularly for the
past few years that they are work-
ing this child psychology business to
death. Just as Hollywood has two
kid angles-Shirley T. and the Dead
End Kids-so France seems to have
just one kid angle-the sensitive mis-
understood child stuff. And you can
flip a coin to decide which is more
unsubtle.
In Ballerina, they do everything
except hit you over the head to con-
vince you that Rose Souris is Case
Four in Joe Doakes' Elementary Psy-
chology Book. The picture (except
for the ballet slant) is little more
than a remake of Les Maternelles,
Poll de Carotte, and half a dozen
other French kid pictures. Ballerina
is not exceptional in acting, direc-
tion, or photography, and Gulliver
left the Lydia Mendelssohn with the
following- Moral Lesson deeply en-
graved .in his alleged brain: Young
girls are apt to have crushes on
older women. These (the crushes)
may have- tragic results. But every-
thing usually works out all right in
the end anyway.
Maybe the Art Cinema League
thinks Gulliver is teeing off on them
just for nastiness' sake, but such is
not the case. The League has a fine
historical film series this year, and
their next two releases (Alexander
Nevsky and To The Victor) are two
swell shows.
All those who have been criticizing
Gulliver for wandering all over the
place will appreciate how splendid
his contributions to The Daily really
are after reading Morty Q's "column"
in Sunday's Daily. Those feeble
scourings of a badly disorganized
mind stand out in contrast to Gulli-
ver's fresh and lucid prose style.
Even so, Y.G. is going to attempt to
move upward and onward, with the
aim in view of writing of each column
about one subject: he will leave the
rambling stuff to Morty Q.
Today's closing item concerns the
enterprising freshman who had a
date with an extremely large young
lady. "Look," he said, "if I take this
girldout, do I get Physical Ed.
credit?"
Borah Nips Boomlets
Senator Borah, enjoying the inter-
national limelight, is under no illu-
sions about his availability for the
presidency. The Senate dean recently
has had the unhappy task of squelch-
ing Borah-for-President boomlets in
several states. That friends in Demo-
cratic South Carolina and 'Georgia
were among his willing sponsors
might indicate that some of this sup-
port stemmed from Mr. Borah's fight
on the administration neutrality pro-
gram-thin ice on which to found
White House aspirations.
The Senator, however, is frank
enough to admit other handicaps. He
feels that differences with the Re-
publican high command are sufficient
to bar any possibility of his nomina-
tion. To one friend he wrote that
his age-74-would prevent his con-
sideration.
Mr. Borah could have mentioned
another factor. He is from Idaho, a'
distinction he doubtless has enjoyed,1
but one with a serious disadvantage.;
Probably the veteran recalls a com-
ment once made by a colleague to the<
late Sen. John Sharp Williams ofc
Mississippi: "John, you're from thet
wrong state. If you came from New
York, you'd be President "
Our free and untrammeled de-I
mocracy usually requires that ment
great enough to rule the nation must 1
be summoned from states with large r
(Continued from Page 2)
p.m. in Room 3126 Natural Science
Building.
History Make-up Examinations:
Make-up examinations in all history
courses will be held in Room B, Ha-
ven Hall, from 3 to 6 p.m., Friday,
Oct. 13. All students taking a make-
up must see their instructor before
~Wednesday, Oct. 11, and must bring
to the examination his instructor's
written permission to take the make-
up.
Economics 51 and 52: Make-up final
examination will be given Thursday,
Oct. 12, at 3 o'clock in Room 207 Ec-
onomics Building. All students ex-
pecting to take the make-up should
see Miss Mabbs in Room 107 Econ-
omics Building before Wednesday.
Exhibition, Ann Arbor Art Associa-
tion. The seventeenth annual exhibi-
tion of works of art by local artists
will be held in Alumni Memorial Hall
from Oct. 13 to Oct 25. The open-
ing reception to members of the Art
Association and exhibiting artists will
be held Thursday evening, Oct. 12.
Lectures
Extracurricular Medical School
Lecture: Dr. Thomas Parran, Sur-
geon General of the Uned States
Public Health Service, will deliver
the first lecture of theseries on Fri-
day, October 13, at 4:15 p.m., in
the Horace H. Rackham Lecture
'Hall. The title will be, "Medicine in
a Changing World."
All classes in the Medical School
will be dismissed at 4:00 p.m. in or-
der that the students may attend
this lecture.
The meeting is open to the public.
Msgr. Thomas of Madras, India, will
discuss "The Current Situation in In-
dia" in the Rackham Amphitheatre
Wednesday, Oct. 11 at 4:15 p.m.
Today's Events
University of Michigan Glider Club
will hold its second meeting this
evening, from 7-9 p.m. in Room
348 West Engineering Building.
Movies of club activities will be shown.
Dues will be payable at that time.
Let's have everyone interested in glid-
ing out there.
Deutscher Verein: There will be a
business meeting, reception, and pro-
gram this evening at 7:45 p.m. in the
Michigan League. All students of
German, faculty people, and others
interested are invited.
Botanical Journal Club will meet
this evening at 7:30 p.m. in Room
1139 N.S. Reports on interesting ex-
periences in recent travel and ex-
ploration will be given by:
Professor W. R. Taylor
Linn Zwickey
Stephen White
LeRoy Harvey
Volney Jones
Elzada Clover
Choral Union Ushers: Last year's
ushers may sign up at Hill Auditorium
box office between 4 and 5:30 p.m.
today New men at same time Wed-
nesday.
Varsity Glee Club: The following
men, who tried out for the Varsity
glee club, will please report for the
Reserve Club rehearsals this after-
noon at 4:15, third floor, Union.
Allen, R.
Boynton, R.
Brill
Crowe, J.
Dellplain
Fox, G.
Goldstein, J.
Hartman, F.
Massin
Parkes, D.
Runyon
Spear, P.1
Whittemore
Math. 370, Seminar in Continued
Fractions will meet today at 4 o'clock
in 3201 A.H. Dr. Scott will speak on
"Convergence of Continued Frac-
tions."
Sigma Rho Tau will hold its annual
freshmen mixer in the Union at 7:30
p.m. tonight Prof. Morrison of the
Highway Department will speak and
there will be entertainment and re-
freshments. All interested engineers
and architects are invited.
International Center:
1. American Social -Customs Class.s
This evening at 7 o'clock will be held
the first of a series of four discus-
sions and demonstrations of typical
DAILY OFFICIAL BULLETIN
"beta-alanine, a Constituent of the
Molecules of Pantothenic Acid and
of Carnosine." All interested are in-
vited to attend.
Alpha Kappa Psi, Business Admin-
istration Fraternity, will hear Mr
Eugene Power speak on "My Experi
ences in Germany," at the Chapter
House, 1325 Washtenaw ,tonight at
8:15 p.m. His talk will be accom-
panied by his motion pictures taken
in Germany this summer. All Ec-
onomics and Business Administration
students are cordially invited. Re-
freshments will be served following
the talk.
Mathematics Club will meet tonight
at 8 p.m. in the West Conference
Room of the Rackham Building. Pro-
fessor E. W. Miller will speak on "Ap-
plications of Transfinite Processes."
Michigan Anti-War Committee
will hold its first open peace meeting
at the Michigan League this ,eve-
ning, at 8 p.m. Professor T. S.
Lovering will speak on "The Embar-
go", and the problem of the United
States keeping out of war will be
presented. All students are cordially
invited to attend.
Coming Events
Seminar in Physical Chemistry will
meet in Room 122 Chemistry Build-
ing at 4:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct
11. Dr. O. L. I. Brown will speak on
"Modern Methods in the Thermo-
chemistry of Organic Compounds."
Physical Education Men: There will
be a joint mixer of Phi Epsilon Kappa
and the Physical Education Men on
Thursday, Oct. 12, at 8 p.m., at the
Michigan Union. Every physical edu-
cation man, including freshmen, grad-
uates, faculty and coaches, is invited
and urged to attend the affair. Re-
freshments will be served.
Michigan Chapter A.AU.P There
will be a regional conference' of the
A.A.U.P..under the auspices of Wayne
University, Saturday, Oct. 14, at 10
a.m.; luncheon meeting at the War-
dell; and afternoon meeting at 2:30
p.m. Morning and afternoon meet-
ings will be in the auditorium of the
Detroit Institute of Arts. Those plan-
ning to attend, please call, Professor
Wenger, 2-2627, before Wednesday
morning.
The Graduate Education Club: The
Graduate Education Club will hold its
first meeting Wednesday, Oct. 11, 4
p.m. in the Graduate Library of the
University Elementary School.- Dean
Edmonson will give a report of the
Congress on Education for Democ-
racy held recently in New York. All
graduate students taking work in the
School of Education are welcome. Re-
freshments served.
Sociedad Hispanica: The first
meeting of the Sociedad Hispanica
will be held Wednesday evening, Oc-
tober 11, at 7:30 in the Michigan
League. All old members are urged
to be present and anyone else inter-
ested is cordially invited to attend
the meeting.
Phi Sigma business meeting will be
held on Wednesday, October 11, at
8:00 p.m. in the Graduate Outing
Club Room of the Horace Rackham
Building.
Institute of the Aeronautical Sci-
ences: There will be a meeting of the
Student Branch of the Institute of the
Aeronautical Sciences on Wednesday
evening, Oct. 11, at 7:30 p.m., in
Room 1042 East Engineering Build-
ing Mr. Cass Hough, Vice-President
of .the Daisy Air Rifle Co., will
speak on "Instrument Flight." An
open discussion will follow the talk
by Mr. Hough. Dues must be paid
at this meeting by all those students
who wish to receive the "Journal of
the Aeronautical Sciences." Refresh-
nents will be served.
Electrical Engineers: The Ameri-
can Institute of Electrical Engineers
invites you to the first meeting on
Wednesday, October 11, 8:00 p.m., at
the Michigan Union. Deati A. H.
Lovell, vice-president of the Great
Lakes District of the Institute, will
introduce the organization to new
members. Charles Forbes, magician,
will provide an evening of fun. Re-
freshments will be served.
Scabbard and Blade: F Company,
Fourth Regiment wiH hold its first
meeting on Wednesday, October 11,
at 8 p.m. in the Union. Everyone is
urged to come, since first plans for
the fall initiation are being made.
Uniforms are required. Bring dues.
" - MUSIC
By RICHARD BENNETT
Opera For What?
N WRITING the cultural history of the United
States, historians are going to be a little
amused and perhaps a little sad at discovering
the part that opera and the music drama have
had to play in it. For what has opera come to
mean to millions of Americans if not a baroque,
non-functional amusement of the select class of
their fellow-beings who are either fortunate
enough to live in the metropolitan centers where
such an amusement isaccessible to the few that
can afford it or of those who have been privi-
leged with an 'education' which makes it in-
telligible when offered to them second hand via
the victrola and radio?
They know that nothing is more corrupt than
the centralization of opera in the lone precincts
of the New York Metropolitan Opera House (and
its three or four satellites) with its bevy of
soloists and choristers most of whom are a dis-
grace to the art of music and a very few of
whom are so lauded by the press that it becomes
virtually impossible for any artist falling a split
hair short of their high endowments to gain a
hearing in their company. Likewise, they know
that nothing is more ludicrous and corrupt than
the performance and broadcasting of music
drama in a language not only alien to their own,
but one which is used. to conceal the essential
hollowness of the greater part of the works on
the current production list. For most of these
works, when studied in English, reveal a shock-
ing irrelevance to the psychological outlook of
today. They are concerned neither with the im-
mediate problems facing us nor with those con-
cepts which have long since established the un-
shakable modernity of the Greeks and Eliza-
bethans.
Of course, the companies controlling operatic
production know this. They also know that if
the mouldy body of music drama that is dished
sense about the difficulty of obtaining apt trans-
lations of truly significant works and the diffi-
culty of departing from precedent is a mere
subterfuge to justify maintaining the status quo
for reasons dangerous to explicate. Not only
are there enough competent poets (ask Mr.
DeVries of Poetry Magazine if you doubt the
statement) who would be glad to use their en-
ergies in this direction, Dut there are enough
vocal artists in the United States who are ready
and waiting to render in English roles long per-
formed in the language of the Big Ten.
If we are willing to content ourselves with
the tin-pan-alley music routine of vaudeville
and the cinema, we shall probably eventually
witness the final collapse of institutions such
as the Metropolitan Opera House, a collapse
which should be celebrated in some ways as sure-
ly as the fall of the Bastille.'
For what the Bastille was to the French work-
ing Class (and to some far more securely situ-
ated) the Met has become to would-be singers
and audiences throughout the United States. It
has given Americans a complex that smothers
every attempt at the performance of challenging
works by small provincial companies. While the
theatre boasts its rural companies and the dance
has expanded despite its Martha Grahams and
.Weidmanns, opera, in some ways the most com-
prehensive of the three, has allowed itself to be
hopelessly confined to one or two centers of
activity. The names of Bodansky and Flag-
stad have so petrified lesser artists that when
some group more foolhardy than the rest at-
tempts a performance of Fidelio or Wosseck, not
giving a damn whether Melchior would have
done it this' way or Tibbett that, a little flurry
of excitement has been aroused over the possible
paranoiac tendencies in our midst.
Nor is there any tenable argument that this
, is a necessary state of affairs. There is no good
social situations in which American
customs differ from those in other Hillel Registration: Registration for
countries. All foreign students and Hillel Classes is being held every af-
their American friends are invited to ternoon from Oct. 8 to Oct. 14 at the
attend. Foundation.
2. Broadcast over Station WJR De-
troit. Arrangements have been made Student Identification Cards will
to take a limited group of students at be given out Wednesday and Thurs-
the International Center to Detroit day, Oct. 11 and 12, in Room 4, Uni-
next Sunday evaning to he n rnent 't iversity Hail from 8 tn 5
C
E