r

PAGEFOUR

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

SUNDAY, MAY 18, 1941

v


TUE MICHIGAN DAILY

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.
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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.
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carrier $4.00, by mail, $4.50.
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420 MADison AVE. NEW YORK. N.Y.
rIICAGO . BOSTON . Los ANGELES * SAN FRANCISCO
Member, Associated Collegiate Press, 1940-41
Editorial Staff

Emile Ge . .
Robert Speckhard
Albert P. Blaustein
David Lachenbruch
Bernard Dober
Alvin Dann
Hal Wilson
Arthur Hill
Janet Hiatt
Grace Miller .

. . . Managing Editor
Editorial Director
. . . ss City Editor
Associate Editor
Associate Editor
Associate Editor
. -Sports Editor
. Assistant Sports Editor
Women's Editor
. . Assistant Women's Editor
Business Staff
Business Manager
. . Assistant Business Manager
. Women's, Advertising Manager
. . Women's 'Business Manager

j

Daniel H. Huyett
James B. Collins
Louise Carpenter
Evelyn Wright


NIGHT EDITOR: EUGENE MANDEBERG
The editorials published in The Michi-
gan Daily are written by members of The
Daily staff and represent the views of the'
writers only.
Sub-Contracting Plan
Aids Defense Industry
N ATIONAL DEFENSE PLAN OF THE
HOUR" is the name now being ap-
plied to the system of sub-contracting first intro-
dieed in this country by the businessmen of
York, Pa., in order to speed national defense
along its way. OPM officials have given the York
plan their solid approval and strongly believe it
is the answer to the bottleneck in machine tools
existing today. Since its baptism in York, it is
being adopted in many other sections of the
United States-with remarkable success.
The plan evolved after the fall of Dunkirk to
Hitler last June. It was then that the manu-
facturers of York, a medium-sized manufactur-
ing town in southern Pennsylvania,,began to get
worried. They wanted to help the country arm
itself but they were handicapped because they
were, not large enough. Most of the manufac-
turers were unable to bid on defense contracts.
Nevertheless, they possessed good plants with
machine tools in them; and many of the tools
were lying idle.
SO THEY SENT a Mr. William Shipley to
Washington as York spokesman. Mr. Shipley
returned with blueprints, some of which called for
work his company could not do. But he felt that
his friends might help. The officials of several
companies met, pushed together a couple of
tables, spread out the blueprints, studied' them
and looked at Mr. Shipley.
"Our company can't handle this order alone,"
he said. "Let's see whether we can swing it if
we all work together." Thus was born the York
Plan of sub-contracting which is bringing smiles
to the faces of William S. Knuds'en and President
Roosevelt.
IN SHORT ORDER, the York Manufacturers'
Association appointed a Defense Committee
whose duty it was to discover exactly what ma-
chine tools were available in the vicinity of York.
The idea back of this move was to pool the ma-
chine resources of York County, Pa., and fashion
a large arsenal out of the 'works.j
The members of the York Defense Committee
made a survey of machine tools themselves, by
personally visiting the heads of the various fac-
tories. This gave them a clear picture of what
they most wanted to know, for two reasons:
York is not a very large city; therefore informa-
tion was easily obtained because there was no fear
of its being misused for exploitation purposes.
More remains of the story, besides machine
tools. Before much defense work could be under-
taken by the York manufacturers, mechanics
had to be found who could operate the tools.
The Defense Committee hit upon the plan of in-
augurating training courses at the high school
-and in the summer of 1940 turned out ninety
new mechanics. So night schools were started.
Now one hundred new mechanics are being turn-
ed out every two months.
" TILL this could hardly suffice to man the tools
to produce the defenseproducts that Uncle
Sam needs-if the Defense Committee hadn't ap-
plied a little horse sense to the problem. The
Committee asked the local manufacturers to

The Reply Churlish
by TOUCHSTONE
CATCHING UP on loose threads, hello and
move over to Tom Thumb, and I will bet you
two bits you won't keep on covering the campus
or dealing with personalities of student life
because when as a young boy I began writing
this stuff I had the same idea and if you do,
somebody writes a letter to the editor.
You will not write about the following:
(1) Institutions (such as moving picture
shows) which you don't like. They always ad-
vertise and the business staff has a tough
enough time anyhow.
(2) The educational system, until just before
you graduate. Of Mascott, valedictory address,
subsequent address, Dog House, New Jersey.
(3) People you don't like. There are too many
of them, and they usually aren't the same ones
from day to day and the man you insult today
may be the one who has Annie Oakleys tomor-
row and besides we have libel laws in this state,
and if you still don't get it, you will in the neck
pretty soon and by that time you will be an
old, jaundiced person like your esteemed col-
league Touchstone and just remember I warned
you.
(4) Sportswriters. They don't rate it and
nothing can be done for them anyhow.
(5) Me. Gentleman's agreement.
(6) The weather. That's my beat because I
own the greatest little weather calendar in the
whole wide world.
(7) Alpha Phi Omega.
Aside from that, sonny, the world is yours
without a ribbon. And when you get that tired,
dull feeling, just read through an issue of Life
and you'll find plenty of material for non-close-
to-home carping. Hope you are all well, and
wearing your overshoes, and will profit by my
experience as have not I.
* * *
A REAL Julius Caesar-King Lear Storm two
nights before last (see above, (6) in re this)
and I did lie wi6 the shades of my rattling
windows rolled to the top so I could watch the
sky and indeed it did frighten me considerably
but I am glad I didn't miss it.;
And of course, having read Pascal, in part at
least, I did, as all men do in a storm, I think,
conjecture on the existence of an anthropomor-
phic God of wrath. No soap-I didn't get
scared enough, too many telephone wires around
a city to worry about getting hit. But the force-
if force means God-was there, mean and merci-
less, and I wish all the miserable ants of human-
ity who fight each other personally or from a
measly thousand feet in the air could get hep
to the fragility of steel, the ridiculousness of
shooting a seventy-five at lightning. Boy, maybe
Pascal didn't have the answer for moderns, but
he sure had a powerful argument on his side.
* * *
INAL NOTES to the world at large. Will
F somebody present me with a gilt-edged comp
for The Male Animal? Where is F.A.S., the best
fan a man ever had? Maritta Wolfe's novel,
Whistle Stop got four stars from Lewis Ganett
(Gannett?) and is reviewed by Clifton Fadiman
in the current New Yorker, which means local
girl makes good, and believe me, nobody was
ever changed less by it. To the Board in Con-
trol, how's about a larger appropriation for
Perspectives next year? So long until soon.
produce the defense products that Uncle Sam
needs.
In this respect, organized labor has helped
construct the reservoir. The seventeen heads of
the local unions had only to listen to the York
plan before they sat down with the manufactur-
ers to "talk things over." With public opinion
also looking on in approving fashion, the Defense
plan of the hour has already donned its first
pair of long pants.
The question may well be asked: What, spec-
ifically, has the York plan accomplished and
exactly why?

SO FAR, it has resulted in upwards of thirty
million dollars worth of defense orders
being awarded to York manuifacturers and
this figure may jump to ninety million dol-
lars in the near future. The York Defense
Committee does not itself get defense con-
tracts; its function is to offer the prime con-
tractor, who gets the government contract,
its assistance in fulfilling the contract as
quickly as possible. Further, it enables many
companies who would normally have lacked
the machine tool facilities to get government
contracts, become prime contractors in their-
own right, through the pooling of the com-
munity machine tool equipment. Lastly, idle
machine tools have been oiled up. All this
takes the cork from the machine tool bottle-
neck arid defense products are turned out
in a comparatively short time.
Profits take a back seat to speed in York, Pa.
A prime contractor who does not have the neces-
sary equipment to handle it completely will sub-
contract as much of the foundry work as pos-
sible. If the sub-contractor's costs of doing the
work are higher than the costs of the prime con-
tractor, the latter has the opportunity of sending
machinists or plant foremen to the other plant
in order to bring out confidential secrets and
thus to force down the costs of production. It is
taken for granted that the sub-contractor will
not charge in any of his overhead costs and will
not lose money in the undertaking.
COOPERATION-the will to spread work so
as to gain the speediest results-must
supplement such a plan. That the old "coin-

Editor Addresses
Ruthven-Objects

To Board Change
Editor's Note: This letter to Dr. Ruthven is re-
printed in The Daily with the permission of the
author, S. H. Cady, Jr., '27, a former Daily editor.
It is a reply to Dr. Ruthven's answer to the inquiries
and protests of Cady concerning the reorganization
of the Publications Board. It is printed here be-
cause we think it is a very apt expression of what
Cady and other Daily editors say is the opinion of
the majority of Daily alumni.
Dear Dr. Ruthven:
MANY THANKS for your courtesy in replying
so promptly to my letter regarding the pro-
posed change in the Board in Control of Stu-
dent Publications.
As you said, it is difficult to cover such a
complex subject in a letter, and I wish it was
possible for me to visit Ann Arbor, because
I feel very deeply that the University is making a
serious mistake in this matter. I noticed in Life
Magazine's story on Harvard last week that Ha-
vard exercises no control over the student publi-
cations there: That is a sharp contrast to the atti-
tude at Ann Arbor and there is no question in
my mind that in this instance Harvard is right
and my own University entirely wrong.
N REGARD to the sickness and absence of fac-
ulty members of the Board in Control, this is
no doubt a temporary situaition, or certainly could
be remedied by the selection of other faculty
members, not more of them. In regard to con-
tinuity of personnel it is true, of course, that
the students change each year, but each set of
seniors who take over The Daily have had two
and a half years experience on the paper and
are much more familiar with the operation than
faculty men who may have been on the Board in
Control for many years. The Board is primarily
a policy-making organization and I am personally
convinced that the old set-up gives the faculty
a control which is more than adequate.
As for the fact that you were out of the city
when The Daily published its first articles on
this subject, you could have opened the sub-
ject at any time this spring by presenting the
University's case, and you have beer in Ann
Arbor for some time now, since the debate start-
ed, and I have not seen any convincing state-
ment as to why the proposed changes should
be made, published in The Daily. If the Univer-
sity's airrf is to make the proposed change effec-
tive without public discussion, I am sorry that I
cannot agree that any mistakes The Daily may
have made could justify such a course. The demo-
cratic process may not be efficient, but there
are many of us who still believe in it.
I ATTENDED The Daily's anniversary banquet
at Ann Arbor last fall and heard one of the
Regents - I believe it was Mr. Stone - make
a talk advocating more rigid control of The
Daily. We thought at the time it was just talk,
not realizing that even then the steps which
have subsequently come out in the open were be-
ing taken. Both the reaction of the audience and
the speeches by prominent alumni later in the
evening made it very clear that Regent Stone
was greatly in the minority.
I do not believe that the change in the Board
in Control is your own project, and I feel that
you have been poorly advised by those who have
recommended the change.
The University has no alumni more loyal than
those of us who worked on The Daily while at
Ann Arbor, and nothing could more effectively
alienate this group than for the University to
take away from present students the opportunity
we enjoyed of making The Daily the finest stu-
dent newspaper in the country.
DO NOT EXPECT you to answer this letter,
but I do expect to read in an issue of The
Daily soon, either a frank and convincing state-
ment of the reasons why the changes are being
made, or an announcement that the proposal has
been dropped.
- S. H. Cady, Jr.
LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR

Flight Instructor
Clarifies Statement
'ko The Editor:
IN THE ARTICLE written to The Daily regard-
ing the flying instruction given locally in the
CPT the author did not wish to create the im-
pression that tfie instructors are incompetent
flyers. This is far from the case since they have
all passed a stiff flight examination given by the
government covering flight technique and prin-
ciples of instruction. What the author attempted
to bring out was the fact that it seemed to him
unjust that the students should entirely take
blame for the mishaps that have occurred and
that an explanation for the cause of the mishaps
could to an extent be laid to the fact that there
has been too frequent a turnover of instructors
at the airport, meaning that several of the newer
instructors who came in this semester would not
have the experience in teaching which in the
author's opinion is an important factor in the
question. The author feels that the inexperience
factor could be eliminated if the instructors who
do serve here could be induced to remain here.
- Flight Instructor
A Belated Correction
f 'TUY'f 1,T of "" ..L ~ nTh. L.. . .. Tnrm....' ravip

w

1

SUBVERSIVE PROPAGANDISTS allegedly burrow-
ing Into the schools of America; teaching doctrine
which is to flower in a socialistic, even communistic,
state, now receive as much attention as was formerly
elicited by the annual reports of the United States
Steel Corporation, That there are 'some few teachers
who subscribe to totalitarianism in one form or other
is a fact hardly more surprising or ominous than that
there are writers, artists, editors and business men who
profess similar faiths. The question as to how much
allegiances ought to be dealt with in a democratic
society is an arresting and difficult question. What is
far more, serious at the moment is that the whole
"progressive" trend in American education, grown
powerful 'through several decades, should now be
trounced by a variety of enemies for "fellow-traveler"
attitudes. For on this issue democracy is divided
against itself.

i

Changing Society
Dr. Harold Rugg, whose "Man and His Changing
Society" and other books explain to countless young
Americans that the political and social institutions of
their country have changed and must necessarily go
on changing, has been singled out for particular atten-
tion. The present volume is Dr. Rugg's answer to his
critics. It will, I think, be widely and appreciatively
read. Of course the schools have always been under
fire from those who disagreed with what the young
were being taught. Teacher-baiting is older than
Socrates and it remains an integral part of the cul-
tural history of- all modern nations. In its newest
American form, however, it can be traced to Mrs.
Elizabeth Dilling, the Chicago harpist and orator
who in 1934 published "The Red Network," a cata-
logue of movements and personages adjudged by its
compiler to savor of "radicalism."
JUST WHY Dr. Rugg calls this treatise a "little
handbook" I do not know. It seemed a stout enough
tome, indeed, and when President Roosevelt sponsored
the New Deal, copies of Mrs. Dilling's opus were dis-
tributed freely by all sorts of people who felt sure the
pillars of society were crumbling. The volume was
especially rich in comment on educators. In a few
years school boards in dozens of communities were
being asked to investigate teachers and cast out text-
books. Emotions waxed strong and Dr. Rugg became
a veritable pedagogical Dreyfus. The year 1939 wit-
nessed the rise of Bertie C. Forbes as an apostle of
educational regeneration in Englewood, N. J. Some
months later the Association of American Manufac-
turers subsidized an inquiry into the political and eco-
nomic views of Dr. Rugg and his associates.
None of these assaults quite came off. No such
powerful moon as had been anticipated, rose to con-
sort with what the progressive term "the evil tide of
reaction." The failure has various explanations, one
of them surely being the unflinching ruggedness of
Dr. Rugg under attack. By and large the school boards
and citizenry stood their ground. A portion of "That
Men May Understand" deals with this struggle and
offers heartening evidence that as yet the public is
resolved to take, its time reaching conclusions. It is
still not ripe for dictatorship of whatever complexion.
Native 'Radicalism'
DR. RUGG enjoyed certain notable advantages. He
could look back on nine generations of American
forebears. Too many equally well-sired people had
read his books and knew that the critics had usually
failed to do so. But the principal feather in the Rugg
cap was that the "radicalism" of his books was as

'That Men May Understand'

native to this soil as Vermont maple syrup or Indiana
pawpaws. The best sections of the present volume are
devoted to proving this autochthonism and they will
be read as a succinct personal summary of a signifi-
cant episode in our cultural history long after current
debates have been forgotten.
Thus the generation of educational reformers to
which Beard, Dewey, Robinson and Kilpatrick be-
longed was of small town vintage. It had known
the "neighborliness" of the old days before industry
and it had also imbibed some of that antique liquor
of utopianism which was always turning New England
heads. Perhaps. much that went on about them in
the name of modern pedagogy can be described most
aptly by saying that its instigators were a bit mad
but that they were geniuses. All sorts of things were
done in the name of, progressivism which the heirs of
the movement are eager to forget. But one may
say in retrospect that getting young people interested
in helping to make their world a better world was a
noble achievement, as deserving of recognition as in-
ventive enterprise or political acumen.
THE TWO DECADES which followed the World
War-termed the "long armistice" by Dr. Rugg-
were fretful' times during which, the schoolmen who
followed in the footprints of Dewey and Kilpatrick
labored to adjust their pedagogical philosophy to new
social patterns. Serious mistakes were made, "but
there was a growing readiness to. make concessions
to reasonableness. If at first the discussion of eco-
nomic problems was couched in terms of a dissatisfac-
tion which the surrounding world hardly justified,
teachers slowly came to feel that in America an econ-
omy of plenty could be created by technicians able
to utilize vast natural resources efficiently.
The attitude toward the arts and kindred spiritual
pursuits likewise became more tolerant and under-
standing. It was seen, for example, that Walt Whit-
man is not the only poet. Suspecting thinkers dedi-
cated to such concepts of Marxist fancies were a
curious aberration. Their heresy, if heresy there was,
must be traced rather to a conviction that the Ameri-
can mind should cut adrift from European reflection
-that the new American universe was the best of
all possible universes. A feeling that this is God's
country enamored them of every wagon that was
hitched to an unmistakably Yankee star. Emerson's
figure comes to mind the more easily because so very
many of the progressivists have been late (or belated)
Emersonians.
All this Dr. Rugg shows very clearly. Nothing could
be more absurd than linking such men as he with the
Communist faction. Realizing that the age-old query
of political economy is concerned with the limitations
of both the "I" and the "We", Dr. Rugg contended that
discovery of where private enterprise must give way 'to
public enterprise must remain the same slow, fact-
finding process it has always been in this country.
Similarly, Americans are learning that their democ-
racy must have integrity, dynamism and purpose.
Part Of Heritage
THIS BLEND of optimism and shrewdness, of dar-
ing and caution, may not be as new or even as
satisfying as Dr. Rugg believes, but at any rate it has
been imported from abroad. We must accept it for
better or worse as a part of the 100 per cent Ameri-
can heritage. The final words of the book remind us
that the great purpose of education is to make men
understand. It seems to me that Dr. Rugg has tried
hard to serve that purpose. You may differ with him,
but it is hard to repudiate him completely without
denying a vital part of yourself.

t


As Others
See It ... .

Dr. George N. Shuster, President of Hunter College, in New York Times Book Review section


President of Hunter College reviews Dr. Harold Rugg's latest
work-in this retrospect of life after the war Rugg traces
development of democratic tradition and applies it


Seammon, A Daily
Institution, Remarks
Editor's Note: Richard M. (For Mike) Scammon is a
former member of the Daily staff. As a columnist and
feature writer, he was as well-known a part of The Daily as
the AP teletype ticker. While here Mike was also an active
citizen, serving as the first speaker of /the present Student
Senate. He is now Research Editor for the University of
Chicago Round Table discussions which are broadcast each
Sunday.
MORE AND MORE Americans are realizing in these
days of 1941 that the military might of Germany,
the power of Nazi force on the land, in the air, and on
the sea, is increasingly menacing the very sovereignty
and independence of these United States. In the pres-
ervation of this sovereignty and independence it be-
comes more and more necessary for Americans to aid
the struggle for democracy, the struggle against aggres-
sion, for wherever aggression rules, wherever democracy
has been defeated, there is a living menace to the future
existence of an independent America.
FOR REASONS OF SELF-PRESERVATION, for rea-
sons of self-interest, for reasons of self-existence-
the outpost of America's struggle--Great Britain-must
be preserved, must be preserved as a base' from which
the ultimate attack upon the force of Fascism may be
launched. To ensure that the material aid of America's
farms and factories shall reach those fighting America's
battle in the British Isles, in the Mediterranean, in
Africa, in the Far East, any and all measures must be
taken to secure guns, planes, tanks, and food to the,
men who alone can grant America the time we need to
arm and equip ourselves for the coming Battle for the
World. As Wendell Willkie has so well said-it matters
little whether the ensuring of American supplies be
called "convoying," "safe delivery," "patrolling," or
whatever you wish. America's job is to keep England
going, to maintain our base in Europe so that we, in
our turn and in our time, can join more vigorously and
more effectively in the Weltkampf now upon us.
- Richard M. Scammon,
M. A., '8
Germany Likened To Fable
"Germany's claim that she imports nothing, buys only
of herself and so is growing rich from the war, is a
dreadful fallacy." Thus spoke Herbert Hoover during

Dominic Says,
Religion Above Politics
WHO can hear about those Greek soldiers who suc-
cessfully defended their homeland against one dic-
tator only to be done to death by a greater war ma-
chine, without lamenting this terrible age? I begin to
fear that the tough newspaper man we met last week
was correct when he observed, "Dominie, our God, if He
be, God, must both curse and weep daily in this cruel
decade." All I could say was in the words of Paul, "Faith
is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of
things not seen."
Immortality is again at a premium. That lofty doc-
trine, which seemed so useless in the easy days when
great men spoke of banishing poverty forever and clerks
made thousands by chance on the stock market, has
now become a problem solver and a basis for social
morale. If that newspaper man with his determined
but buoyant way of believing that by telling all the
facts he will forthwith enable the heroism of one cur-
rent week to become seed for the renewal of our civiliza-
tion, then the immortality thesis has vindicated itself
again.
THE MEANING of this sermon is clear. We who trust
in power see the destructive use to which power can
be devoted. We who put politics above religion can now
understand that the latter is the former's best ally. We
lovers of money see that sons of the wealthy must serve
and that even a salary larger than that of the President
of the United States did not hold great Hank to his na-
tional sport. Would we not do well to dig down into
the realities of spiritual life and see if we cannot find
some values which will endure as did those bequeathed
to us by the Jews? Those great people of faith led
captive often, spit upon in many nations, hated because
they were industrious, punished when good brains won
for them a disproportionate leadership in the profes-
sions, have their elegy in that same eleventh chapter of
Hebrews: "And these all, having obtained a good report
through faith, received not the promise; God having