THE MICHIG]N DAILY ShA Tm DAmr . . ............................ . .. THE MICHIGAN DAILY Letters To The Editor 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 newpaper. 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. Subscriptions during the regular school year by carrier $4.00; by mail, $4.50. REPRESENTED POR NATIONAL ADVERTIJING BV National Advertising Service, Inc. College Publishers Representative 420 MADISON AVE. NEW YoRK. N.Y. CHICAGO * BOSTON . LOS ANGELES * SAN FRANCISCO Member, Associated Collegiate Press, 1940-41 Editorial Staff Hervie Haul ler Alvin Sarasohn Paul M. Chandler Karl Kessler Milton Orshensky Howard A. Goldman Laurence Mascott Donald Wirtchafter Esther Osser Helen Corman . . Managing Editor Editorial Director . City Editor . . . Associate Editor Associate Editor . . . Associate Editor * . . Associate Editor . . . . Sports Editor . . . .Women's Editor . . . Exchange Editor Business Staff Business Manager Assistant Business Manager Women's Business Manager Women's Advertising Manager . Irving Guttman . Robert Gilmour . Helen Bohnsack . . Jane Krause NIGHT EDITOR: A. P. BLAUSTEIN The editorials published in The Michi- gan Daily are written by members of The Daily staff and represent the views of the writers only. Labor's Contribution To National Defense.. . RESIDENT ROOSEVELT yesterday asked Philip Murray, CIO president, to arrange a conference between William S. Knudsen, director-general of defense production, and Walter P. Reuther, of the United Automo- bile Workers, to discuss the Reuther plan for making airplanes in automobile plants. The plan was announced before the holidays and there has since been considerable debate about the matter. The (IP) quoted several "high defense officials" as saying that the plan was impractical, but the "high officials" have yet to be found. Other opponents have been more willing to divulge their identity. According to radio station WEAF's news reporter, Earl Good- win, a group of important tool manufacturers' meeting in Washington has not been averse to letting out a story to the effect that they thought the Reuther plan "impractical". It is a fact that the tool industry would make more money manufacturing new tools for new factories than it would re-tooling old tools, as contemplated by the Reuther plan. The plan itself is quite simple and yet phenomenal - 500 planes a day six months after the plan goes into operation from the used, the unused mind you, capacity of our automobile plants. AT PRESENT the automobile industry is uti- lizing but approximately 50 per cent of its capacity. Assembly lines are partially and in some cases completely idle; forges, presses, gear cutters, lathes, broaching machines, die casting machines, foundry equipment, header machines stand idle, literally working for Hitler. Reuther - a man who has been in the shops - has the details; P.M. newspaper has printed the full story in its January 8, 9 and 10 issues. The same basic machinery is utilized in the manufacture of both airplane and automobile engines, and the same presses can make air- plane wings and fuselages as well as auto bodies with comparatively minor changes. When the contemplated airplane plants (of the plan re- cently passed by Congress) are completed, they will have. to be equipped with this same basic equipment that now stands idle in our automo- bile industry. Thus the basic machinery will be duplicated and it will still be necessary to construct the special tools, dies, jigs, and fixtures required to adapt this machinery to the manufacture of airplanes. In the process of duplicating the basic equipment lies the biggest lag in the pres- ent plan. The Reuther plan proposes to short- cut the process by building only the tools, dies, jigs, and fixtures necessary to convert idle auto- mobile machinery to airplane manufacture. In this way a job that will otherwise take at least 18 months can be done in six. TECHNICAL PROBLEMS - are envolved, of course, in making the metamorphosis. That these problems are not insuperable is shown by the fact that Murray and Briggs body corpora- tions are already stamping wing parts for Doug- las bombers. To accomplish the adaption to airplane pro- duction a great amount of skilled labor to turn out the necessary tools and dies is needed. But the automobile industry has the largest reservoir of skilled labor in the world-more than 25,000 technicians. Tooling is a very seasonal occupa- tion even more so than production. When the The Interventionist Position .. . To the Editor: AS A MEMBER of the only campus group supporting all aid to the Allies short of war, I feel called upon to brand as UNTRUE the statement of Messrs. Huston and Muehl that the majority of the persons who have been and are still advocating all aid to the Allies short of war are interventionists. Not only from what everyone knows of the Honorary Chairman of the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, Mr. William Allen White, but from a rath- er large acquaintanceship among various mem- bers of that organization and from the student equivalent, The American Student Defense Com- mittee I can say that not more than ten per cent of either organization is interventionistic in either thought or word. The foregoing answer is, if anything, exaggerated, as I am, and was at strict interventionist and have been disap- pointed in the small number of persons who go as far as I do. The authors bring forth again the A.S.U. doctrine, not that the authors are A.S.U.ers, that after all Britain is no better than Germany; all one has to do, they say, is to look at India. What do the authors expect will happen to India if Britain should lose this war? Do they expect that the Indian people could hold off any one of the three great fascist powers, Rus- sia, Germany or Japan if it was impossible for the British people to do so? Do they feel that a German or Russian or Japanese government would be better for the Indians? If so I sug- gest that they take a look at Poland or the conqueretl part ,of Finland or at Korea, and I fancy they would change their minds. THE AUTHORS state that "no policy of a victorious Nazism could, harm this nation as seriously as a policy establishing our frontiers wherever the interests of Britain are assailed." Disregarding the fact that no important person has advocated this view, I am inclined to believe that the conquering of this nation by the Nazis would be considerably more harmful than the former policy and that hope of conquering the United States will certainly be the policy of a victorious Germany. Whether or not a British victory would be the first step towards a permanent peace or not, who has said that it would be? All that most of us say is, that it will give us a chance to try for a peace of some short duration or perhaps we might be fortunate enough to achieve a peace that would last for fifty or a hundred years, but a British victory would at least give us a chance, but would make a dead certainty of the fact that we would have to put up with frequent wars for quite some time. T HE AUTHORS SAY that "when we deal with the hates that divide the people of Europe, we touch something very close to their lives." That is to say that a good deal of these wars are caused by this hatred and yet is strange to see that the Italians hate the Germans more than they do any one else and yet they are fighting? on the German side, and the Russians and the Germans have usually, except for the times of the DreiKaiserBunds, been very antag- onistic to one another and yet they are cooperat- ing today, and what is, in my mind, the coup de grace of this argument is that the English people and the German have always been more than mere speaking acquaintances and yet they have been engaged in two rather serious con- flicts in the last twenty-five years. Nor can I agree with the authors' view that the human mind is the "most inflexible of all things with which we are familiar". The authors sum up by saying that if we are to be embroiled in Europe's affairs to wait until "a tangible threat appears". What do they think the threat of Nazism is? A bluff! That was what the people of Poland and other conquered countries thought until it was too late and now Germany has under its flag more conquered people than there are in the entire United States. In my opinion, the authors are ostriches hid- ing their heads in their doctrines of pacifism, and I believe that I am working for international peace too, and that they are overlooking the fact that peace ceased over a year ago and that now all they can do to further international pacifism is to help the side win that will give them the best chance to obtain their ends eventually. Naturally, I feel there is little doubt that their only chance is for Britain to win. - Charles Elwyn Karpinski for all future time his cherished isolationism as for John Bull to give up his cherished im- perialism. In the rest of the article I regret to have de- tected more lapses in logic, errors in history and statements contrary to fact than can usu- ally be found in a long book. I could not de- tail them all, still less discuss them, without exceeding the space limit fixed by the Daily. Perhaps the prize of the entire lamentable ex- hibit is "let's wait until a tangible threat ap. pears". If we are not facing a very "tangible threat" now, no nation ever faced one since the dawn of history! A good runner-up is the com- placent conclusion that "Europe" will not stop fighting wars till peace comes-about, if at all, "through the grinding of the centuries," as though a few more big wars would not wreck all civilization, both European and American, or as though no menace could ever overleap that tiny and shrinking little pond which sci- ence has made of the Atlantic! A word might be spared also on the phariseeism which re- bukes the British for protective tariffs, when our own tariff is much higher and of much longer establishment. BUT THE WORST ERROR is one of omission, Nazi Germany is discussed merely as one imperialistic power in conflict with others on some dispute of tariffs or colonies, a dispute toward which we can safely extend an indiffer- ent yawn. Nothing whatever is said of the phase of Nazi statescraft which really matters; that where it has been established it has trampled all liberty, all justice, all learning into the dust. As the complacent Messrs. Huston and Muehl were writing, Nazi emissaries were ransacking the libraries of occupied France to burn books of liberal leanings or those writtenI by Jewish or pacifist authors; Rumanian mobs, instigated by -Gestapo agents, were butchering Jews in the open streets; refugees were mysteri- ously vanisling from the streets of Amsterdam; Polish, Czech, Austrian and German professors and students were being slowly tortured to death in concentration camps, while their universities, famous for many centuries, were either closed altogether or turned into propaganda factories and drill barracks. Nor will even peace be bought at the cost of permitting this sort of thing to continue in- definitely. Everyone except Messrs. Huston and Muehl and a handful of Senators, seems aware that a Nazi victory will place us in the next line to share the fate of China, Albania, Ethiopia, Spain, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Finland, Rumania, Greece'and other countres which have within the past few years been assailed, by one or another of the despotisms. As one of those who have "grown timorous with advancing years" I do not want to spend the rest of my existence in a Gestapo concentration camp; I have the consolation, however, that I shall not lack for good company, for I shall meet Messrs. Huston and Muehl there and have the consola-' tion of telling them "I told you so!" - Preston Slosson Logical Attitudes . . To the Editor: TO ONE who knows something of the training in logic which Messrs. Huston and Muehl have received at the University of Michigan and in high school, it is somewhat depressing to dis- cover them taking so much time to say so little. From the assumption of their point of view to their conclusions, the editorial is artificial. I say from the assumption of their point of view because they state: "At least we will know why we're dying". Of course, they can say that the editorial "we" was used, but both Huston and Muehl are exempt from military service for reasons which they well know. Their thesis seems to be that war is tenable only if universal and perpetual peace is the, result. The implication of the thesis is that Messrs. Hitler et al. were born in the bulrushes by Divine Guidance and that we are unable to see the Promised Land because of our own short- sightedness and the smoke screen of the British Empire. And then Mr. Muehl's lovely conclusion in which he completely ignores what he knows, namely, that trade routes, wars, hates and boundaries exist only as manifestations of a long-terrn functioning of the human mind. Really, boys, let's quit acting and get back to studies. - A.E.S. Our Yesterdaysj 50 Years Ago Jan. 11, 1891-"Little Nugget", the favorite musical comedy, will visit Ann Arbor tomorrow. New songs, dances, specialties, music, new char- acters, two charming soubrettes and the lady quartette have been added. Herbert and Joe Cawthorn will give able support as comedians, and "Ole" Olson, the new Swedish comic, will make his second Ann Arbor appearance. ..Jan. 11, 1916 - Shook's Colored Orchestra, of Detroit, and Russo's Third Regimental Band, of Saginaw, have been selected to supply the music for the 1916 J-Hop, according to a con- tract signed by members of the Hop committee today. Student Failures Emotional upset causes more student failures in college than either academic incompetence' or laziness in learning subject matter. The Reply Churlish By TOUCHSTONE ( UERY, appearing in El Scratcho ', Paddo, (Scratch Padded?), 1- 10-41, quote: "To Touchstone: Why get so doggone excited about this music business?" Reply: Who's ex- cited? Who's excited? Who's excited? Question, to appear in El Touchstono, 1-11-41, quote: "To Senator Scratch Pad: Why get so doggone excited about this Jackpot Hop business?" Well. it's over with, for both of us. Heigh ho, and three asterisks. Quote. Fire and Water, 1-10-41, paragraph six: "We have decided not to mention either ASCAP. BMI or WCTU. We're not that hard up for ideas." Quote, Fire and Water, 1-10- 41, paragraph eight: "The only thing this here Jack-pot dance isn't giving away is free chinaware and Angell Hall-so they claim." No, we're not that hard up. Honestly, the minute I turn my back on those guys, something like this always happens. Such a business. News items for well-wishers. Norm Rosten's B'way play did a swan from the hundred and fifty foot tower. BEING NICE to the Detroit Free Press, for a change, I like those back page columns. Pickering is a right g, and probably, no make that certainly, the best man even to tour the faded night spots of the cheap car city. He makes the most out of Dee-troit cafe society, and despite a certain beer-on-the-house, slap- on-the-back tendency, manifest es- pecially just before pay-day, and de- spite too the fact that everybody in Detroit who wears a tuxedo rents it, the Pickering man has been doing a nice job since he started, simply be- cause he knows human interest, and blends good stuff on the forgotten- man front with the customary tripe released at the back door of the Bow- ery by the publicity department. Across the page, though, and this apropos the current issue of Stage Magazine, runs my orchid man of the New York all-nighters-bar none including patriotism Winchell-a man known to the profession and his wife by the name of Leonard Lyons, age 33, who looks, according to Wil- liam Saroyan, in an article appearing in Stage for January, like William Saroyan. That's grounds for a libel suit if ever I saw grounds for a libel suit. Saroyan looks like a butcher, nothing else. Saroyan has turned his facile pen to practically every branch of the writing trade, art, profession, or what you will, and in this little pro and con department of mine, he belongs strictly on the con side. Lyons is top of my list of columnists. Saro- yan is running a spavined sixth or seventh in the sell-out stretch, fol- lowing Benedict Arnold, Judas Is- cariot, John L. Lewis, and the field. He is now a far and laughable cry from The Daring Young Man, just how far may be clearly seen in afore- said Stage article. WELL CAMOUFLAGED behind a cosmopolitan drapery, here is a resume of the action, just the ac- tion of James Thurber's, and Elliot Nugent's The Male Animal. Tommy Turner, young assistant professor at a large Midwestern university, an- nounces in the presence of Michael Barnes, juvenile hot head and edi- tor of the campus literary magazine, that he will read as part of his Eng- lish course, a letter written by Van- zetti, of the Sacco-Vanzetti case. The campus has been undergoing a red purge, and several instructors have been dismissed for their real or sup- posed political beliefs, the execu- tions ordered by a big-business board of trustees, headed by one Ed Keller. Warned by the placatory Dean Dam- on that young Barnes has seized upon the Vanzetti letter as occasion for an editorial on academic freedom, Turn- er's first impulse is to throw the whole thing overboard, chiefly be- cause he doesn't think it's important, and because he expects a raise, but when his wife, Ellen falls for Joe Ferguson, ex-football hero to end all ex-football heroes, and Keller curtailment begins to stand for somel thing, Turner gets sore, and drunk, punches Ferguson in the nose, tells Keller to go to hell, wins back his wife, shows his wife's sister that the man of her choice should be Barnes rather than the clipping-carrying shoulder pad she at times shows in- terest in, and finally allows his wife to save his job for him. Sketchy, I'll admit, but that's most of the action And with an innocent whistle, I wend my way slowly into the deepening twilight, my mind occupied with nothing more serious than whether the trout will be biting down in the mill pond. So long until soon. Defense Jobs . . The federal security agency ha, announced that 64 engineering col- leges are prepared to offer 250 short training courses for national defensE SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 1941 VOL. LI. No. 75 Publication in the Daiy Official Bulletin is constructive notice to ali members of the University. Notices President and Mrs. Ruthven will be at home to members of the faculty and other townspeople on Sunday. January 12. from 4 to 6 o'clock. Student Accounts: Your attention is called to the following rules passed by the Regents at their meeting of Feb. 28, 1936: "Students shall pay all accounts due the University not later than the last day of classes of each sem- ester or Summer Session. Student loans which are not paid or renewed are subject to this regulation; how- ever, student loans not yet due are ( exempt. Any unpaid accounts at the close of business on the last day of classes will be reported to the Cashier of the University, and "(a) All academic credits will be withheld, the grades for the sem- ester or Summer Session just com- pleted will not be released, and no transcript of credits will be issued, "(b) All students owing such ac- counts will not be allowed to register in any subsequent semester or Sum- mer Session until payment has been made," S. W. Smith, Vice-President and Secretary Applications in support of research projects: To give the Research Com- mittees and the Executive Board ade- quate time for study of all proposals, it is requested that faculty members having projects needing support dur- ing 1941-42 file their proposals in the Office of the Graduate School by today. Later requests will, of course, be considered toward the close of the second semester. Those wishing to renew previous requests whether re- veiving support or not should so in- dicate. Application forms will be mailed or can be obtained at Secre- tary's Office, Room31508 Rackham Building, Telephone 331. The Dictaphone Station will be in the Council Room, 1009 Angell Hall, during the week of January 13. In- sofar as possible the work will be carried on in the regular manner. DRAMA Rowever, there will not be telephone service and it will be necessary for all persons to call in person atthe office. Repairs to the office necessi- tate this temporary change. Ifouseheads, Dormitory Directors and Sorority Chaperons: Women tu- dents may have late permission on Monday, January 13. to attend "Hell- zapoppin." They must rettu'n iii- mediately after the perfornmnce. Jeannette Perry Women Students are reminded that they must register any change of residence for the second semester in the Office of the Dean of Women by noon of January 15. They must also inform their househead of their intention by that date. Requests to cancel dormitory con- tracts should be made in writing. Such letters should give reason for change and be addressed to Miss Jeannette Perry, Office of the Dean of Women. All requests will be act- ed upon by the Conference Commit- tee of the Residence Halls. Jeannette Perry Academic Notices Bacteriology Seminar on Monday, January 13, at 8:00 p.m., in Room 1564 East Medical Building. Sub- ject: "Non-specific DefenseAMechan- isms in Virus Diseases." All inter- ested are invited. Aeronautical Engineering Students: The attention of junior, senior and graduate students in Aeronautical Engineering is called to the announce- ments of the following Civil Service examinations: 1. Junior Engineer (Aeronautical.) 2. Junior Professional Assistant (Junior Engineer). 3. Student Aid. Copies of these announcements are posted on the Department Bulletin Board. It should be noted that the first position does not require a written examination, while the second one does. It is understood that students who expect to receive their degrees in 1941 may submit applications for the first position at this time. Appli- cations for the second position must be submitted before January 20, 1941. The Student Aid positions of item 3 are available to juniors during their (Continued on Page 6) DAILY OFFICIAL BULLETIN 1 The only question left unsolved when the Lydia Mendelssohn curtain a rang down on "Children, 1777" yes- t terday afternoon was whether the children on the stage or the legging I clad audience had the most fun out t of the show. Even the four or five o adults who came in a little self-con- i sciously enjoyed every minute of it. "Children, 1777," written especially t for the Children's Theatre by Rich- ard McKelvey and directed by him, f takes place at the time of the Revo- Z lutionary War. Although the his- o torical background is alittle vague, there is no doubt about the trend of the actual plot or the actions off the juvenile Thespians. Twelve child- P ren, left for some reason in a cabin F about three miles outside Saratoga, u use all their wiles-and they have n plenty-to capture two British of- ficers who are attempting in turn, i to capture a messenger with an im- portant document for the coloniald army. With the aid of Aunt Polly,a a converted English "Lady," playedi by Mary Ellen Wheeler, the child-1 ren manage to divert the attentiont of the soldiers, help the messengerf to escape, and generally see that ev- t erything turns out happily.r One of the funniest moments in the play occurs when Scott, a whin- ing British officer who would prefer to be shut up with a band of canna- balistic Indians than with those "hor- rible" children, is told by his superiort officer to help three of the little girls take the laundrey out to the< creek and help them wash it. He re- turns, blubbering with grief and cov- ered from head to foot with assorted pieces of the weekly wash; to tell his sad story of how those conniving females got him out into the woods,' overpowered him and tied him up in *sheets. Although the "adults" in the cast did very nicely, it was children all the way as far as acting honors went. Biggest little scene-stealer of the lot was infinitesmal Georgia, played by Barbara Allen. Although she spent most of the first act sound asleep, and the greater part of the second act locked up in a cedar chest, Geor- gia, who insisted, at just the right times, that she was too young to understand, seemed to know pretty well what was going on when she held pudgy Scott, played by Edward Davis, at bay by sticking the sharp end of the captain's sword in his stomach. s Our sympathies, we're afraid, were - all with the British Captain, played t by William Mills, when he was at- e tcked hv five of the scranniest lit- RECORDSj FOR ONE REASON or another, this column has been unable to do nything but watch helplessly while he lines of recent popular releases went rolling by. In desperation, then, oday's effort is an attempt to single out some of the more interesting tems of the last two months. "More interesting" probably means to most of us, Benny Goodman's irst releases since his reorganization. The new band numbers 16 musicians, nly three of whom are Goodman holdovers. The rest have been drawn , rom Krupa, Savitt, Dailey, Bernie, Pollack, and even from the Julliard School of Music. This observer is unwilling to pass comparative judg- ment at this early date, but, if the band's debut with Columbia is an ndication, it would seem that Mr. Goodman is here to stay. For Hen- derson Stomp and Nobody bear the appreciated Goodman marks: solid- ity and finish. In the first, Fletcher Henderson at the piano, Benny on the clarinet, and Cootie Williams, former Ellington stand-by, on the trdmpet, take the feature solos. The reverse side re-introduces Helen For- rest in a song that is practically all lyrics. COLUMBIA has also added to its "hot jazz classics" series with the re-issuance of an album of Duke Ellington records rhade during 1932 and 1933 (Set C-38, four 10-inch records). The Ellington 'of many moods-vigorous, dreamy, downright blue-has been well recaptured for the most part. If Lightnin appears a bit ragged after all these years, Cootie Williams' mournful -yammer, the piano work of the Duke, Barney Bigard's clarinet, and the simplicity of the ensemble passages have worn well enough to make this album a collector's item. Count Basie, as quick as the next to capitalize on a trend, has pressed for Okeh Records a record of Draft- in' Blues and What's Your Number? The top side is the better number. It is conventional blues, but James Rushing does a redeeming vocal ("If you've got a lovin' man, you'd better love him while you can!") What's Your Number? is a fast fox- trot which gives the Count and the sax group opportunity for feature work. Okeh has also released two more novelty discs by Tiny Hill and Tom- my Tucker. Tiny does a smooth Dixieland and vocal with an "oldie," T Wish, Th. T Conud Shiammv ik Complacent Attitudes * " To the Editor: 1 WISH heartily to second the idea expressed in the long article printed recently in the Daily by Mr. Huston and Mr. Muehl that if we enter the present war it should be not merely for the negative gain of defeating Nazi Germany but for the positive purpose of "establishing a just and permanent world peace". I might add, however, that to establish such a peace it will be as necessary for Uncle Sam to give up industry for six months, from 12,000 to 15,000 skilled mechanics could be made available to build the necessary tools, dies, jigs and fixtures for the production of an all metal pursuit ship on a mass production basis. By then putting automobile production on a year-round, rather than seasonal, basis, we can have automobiles, and 500 airplanes a day where they are most effective for our own defense today, namely in England. /I