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Ty l MCHIGAN DAILY
T~t~SflAY, DEC. 10, 1942
Fifty-Third Year
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CHICAGO BOSTON . LOS ANGELES . SAN FRANCISCO
Editorial Staff
STABBING OUR ALLIES:
The New Isolationism
Homer Swander
Morton Mintz.
Robert Mantho
George W. Sallade
Charles Thatcher.
Bernard Hendel
Barbara deFries
Myron Dann
* .
* .
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.
.
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.
.
. Managing Editor
. Editorial Director
* . .City Editor
. . Associate Editor
Associate Editor
* . Sports Editor
. . Women's Editor
Associate Sports Editor
Business Staff
Edward J. Perlberg
Fred M. Ginsberg
Tary Lou Curran,
Jane Lindberg .
James Daniels .
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.
.
.
.
Business Manager
Associate Business Manager
Women's Business Manager
Women's Advertising Manager
Publications Sales Analyst
By BUD BRIMMER
THERE is an "Old.Testament of
Americanism" to which a divi-
sionist faction among us still sub-
scribes.
It was incorporated in the words
and deeds of American endeavor
from the Declaration of Indepen-
dence to Woodrow Wilson's plea for
the League of Nations, but it is
currently represented by those who
would call a halt on shipment of
American industrial plants to Rus-
sia.
Once this early Americanism
meant "separation." However, after
America's formative years the. de-
featers of Wilson degraded it into
a doctrine of isolation by withdraw-
ing America from the era of nations
to the boundaries of a Chinese wall
of the Western Hemisphere. Now,
though actual war has proved the
isolationist's doctrine untenable,
'contorted separationist delusions
such as those in a recent editorial
in the Detroit Times are still with
us.
* * . *
T'HETIMES said:
"As a glaring instance of irre-
sponsible government . . . running
insanely wild is the wholesale ship-
ment of American industrial plants
to Russia at the very time when
Ameicans are being held down to
the ABSOLUTE NECESSITIES OF
LIFE."
The Times cited the treasury
procurement division's purchase for
Russia of two oil refineries, a steel
mill, an aluminum mill, a railroad
system (its size unspecified), an
electric power plant, an oil pipeline
and a tire manufacturing plant. It
went on to say:
"We are the military ally of Rus-
sia in our war against the common
enemy, but that does not mean that
we must give away our industrial
establishments."
The Times then quotes Repre-
sentative Woodruff of Michigan:
"If we are sending steel mills out
of this country we must be out of
our heads. We don't have enough
steel mills as it is.
And the shipment of an oil pipe-
line at the time that Americans are
asked to live in frigid homes be-
cause of the lack of transportation
to bring oil to the East, seems ut-
terly incomprehensible."
YES, perhaps this would seem
incomprehensible to these short
sighted men-the Hearst newspa-
pers, the Detroit Times and Repre-
sentative . Woodruff-whose self-
assured detachment from the world
of democracies was a factor in
causing smoking ruins at Dun-
kerque, Warsaw and Stalingrad.
Bitt, aiding Russia is no less in-'
comprehensible to them than their
criticism to any American anxious
to crush Nazism. To answer their
arguments about Americans being
held down to the absolute necessi-
ties of life and being asked to live
in frigid houses while we send oil
pipelines to Russa, one has only to
remember how the gallant Soviets
have stopped Nazi tanks with their
blood in Stalingrad's cold rains
and snows, to recall their bitter de-
laying action and how they stead-
ily whittled down the might of the
German hordes.
To recall that this great ally of
democracy has lost the factories of
Kiev and Kharkov, such giant elec-
tric facilities as the Dnieprope-
trovsk Dam, the oil fields of Maikop
is alone reason enough to justify
moving our factories to Russia, be-
cause by their heroic fighting the
Reds have given us additional time
in which to better prepare our own
armies !
HOWEVER, there is much more.
to be read between the lines. To
assume that America should not
send Russia manufacturing facili-
ties to replace those destroyed when
the conquest-bound Nazis swept
through the Ukraine means that
similarly this "Arsenal of Democ-
racy" should cut off the supply of
war materials to England and Chi-
na and every other one of our al-
lies. After that we would have to
retract our promises of hope, de-
liverance and the four freedoms to
the starved but fighting French,
Yugoslavs, Greeks, Czechs, and the
rest of the conquered peoples for
whom we have made the world a
living-space or dying-space for all
nations of men.
But to .do this would sap the
fighting spirit with which we now
endow democracy, and it would
wreak havoc upon our dreams of a
better post-war world. To do this
would mean that the goodwill
which men like Roosevelt and Will-
kie have furthered among cur allies
would be shattered. It would mean
that just as the foundations of the
house that Hitler built are begin-
ning to crumble under the might
bf Allied arms, the ring of steel that
surrounds the fascist enemies of
mankind would be broken.
THEREFORE, the men who criti-
cize our sending factories to
Russia are not the minute men of
1942 as they would picture them-
selves, nor are they fighting this
war for the same principles that
the Allied governments are. This
divisionist faction does battle only
for that early American "separa-
tionism," but they ignore what we
would call a "New Testament of
Americanism" that must identify
itself with world humanism, a post-
war era of nations that includes the
United States, and right now with
a U.S. policy of aiding Russia.
d'
Telephone 23-24-1
NIGHT EDITOR: JOHN ERLEWINE
Editorials .published in The Michigan Daily
are written by members of The Daily staff
and represent the views of the writers only.
- .
HELL WEEK:
It Should lie Abolished
By Fraternity Heads
To Fraternity Presidents:
IF YOU want to prove to a somewhat skeptical
public that fraternities on the Michigan cam-
pus are honestly and thoroughly finished with
"Joe College" for the duration, you can do a
large part of the job at your meeting tonight.
You can do it by voluntarily abolishing what even
in peace times was a dubious luxury-Hell Week.
When the American public thinks of fraterni-
ties, it thinks in terms of pots, paddles and par-
ties. This is unfortunate but a fact. The picture
is based upon stories-partly true, partly Holly-
wood-of excessive parties and excessive hazing
in past years.
Nothing less than decisive action completely
abolishing -not merely "curtailing" -Hell
Week and all that goes with it will erase that
picture from the public's mind.
You are constantly worried about people who
have long been enemies of the fraternity sys-
tem using the war effort as an excuse to do away
with it. It must be obvious that the best way to
defeat such persons is to make the general pub-
lic realize that fraternities and fraternity men
are voluntarily cutting out peacetime frills, are
re-making their college life to harmonize with
the nation's war effort and are constantly alert
to every opportunity to help in the strenuous
times ahead.
You have done a good deal already, but nei-
ther you nor anyone else has done enough. To-
night you can prove to the campus and the
nation that you are willing to forego tradition
in favor of the war and you can show that you
are sincerely interested in the good name of
fraternities. -Homer Swander
SPANGLER:
His Election Presages
GOP Fence-Straddling
EDITORIAL comments on the election of Har-
rison Spangler to the chairmanship of the
Republican party have noted cheerily, in most
cases, that the reactionary, isolationist element
in the party has been eradicated or at least that
it has suffered a severe setback.
Well, since it was a matter of choosing the
lesser of two evils, the progressives, of whom we
hear there are a few in the Grand Old Party,
have reason to blow a short sigh of relief. But
they can hardly be too enthused over the choice'
of a man who has been identified with the stand-
stillish ideas of Hoover and Landon.
Not only has Spangler toyed with stagnant
policies in the past, but even now when fore-
sight is of vital importance, he is stil able to
tell us in speaking of the post-war world that
"after the war we'll have to carry our share of
the load, but what that share of the load is, I
don't know ... my job is td build an army of
voters, and I don't believe there are many vot-
ers in China or Mongolia that I could get."
Words such as these can hardly be interpreted
as a complete overthrow of the reactionary ele-
ment. It seems to indicate rather that a session
PEARSON'S
MERRY-O-ROUND
WASHINGTON- This is the story of two boys
from Houston, Texas, who came to Washngton
to occupy two vital positions in the Government.
It is also the story of a David and Goliath feud
between them which has influenced armies and
the question of whether 130,000,000 Americans
walk or ride.
"Goliath" Jesse Jones-banker, newspaper
publisher-came to Washington, eventually to
lend more money to more companies than any
other man in the history of the world.
"David" Milo Perkins, a young bag sales-
man-came to Washington eventually to chal-
lenge the lending authority of Jesse.
The battle between them came to a head last
week when Secretary of Commerce Jones testi-
fied secretly before the Senate Banking and Cur-
rency Committee asking for a Senate amendment
which would override a White House order giving
his rival from Houston final power to buy rubber,
quinine, tin, and other strategic war materials.
Eight months earlier, the President had arbi-
trated the first battle between David and Goliath
and ruled in favor of David's Board of Economic
Warfare. So now Jesse is trying to get Congress,
particularly Senate Republicans, to go over,the
President's head.
Actually the two boys from Houston don't dis-
like each other. And when Milo Perkins heard
that Jesse had testified before a secret session of
the Senate Committee, he telephoned Jesse and
asked for a copy of his testimony.
"What!" said the Secretary of Commerce,
"Are you going up there to testify with all that
enthusiasm of yours?"
"Of course," said the executive of the Board
of Economic Warfare, "and you can't tell what
I might have to say when I get up there."
Whereupon Jesse invited Milo to lunch and
proceeded to turn on the charm. Jesse Jones can
be extremely charming, and he wooed Milo as a
second lieutenant woos a debutante, to get back
his old power to buy rubber, tin, quinine and
other war materials, which the President last
April gave to his rival from Houston.
Actually, a much more important principle is
at stake in this argument than the personal
prestige of two gentlemen from Texas. It is vital-
ly important to every member of the armed for-
ces, and every civilian left behind them.
It dates back to last winter, when on April 13,
four months after Pearl Harbor, Jesse Jones,
entrusted with buying rubber from the Amazon,
had only about six men in all South America.
During this period between Dec. 7 and April 13,
Vice-President Wallace-Perkins' boss-made
perhaps 40 trips to the White House urging the
purchase of Brazilian rubber and other strategic
raw materials.
There were perhaps 17 different meetings on
quinine which the army wanted so badly from
the Dutch East Indies. Jones called meeting
after meeting. Some of this vital medicine was
purchased, but the big order to buy was cabled
just one day before the fall of Java's capital,
Batavia.
The BEW also proposed to buy chrome from
the Philippines when it was still possible. But
I'd Raher
BeR ight_
- By SAMUEL GRAFTON
NEW YORK- The Nazis have always pictured
'Britain and America as slap-happy "capitalist
plutocracies," currently engaged in a meaning-
less fireworks display, for no clear purpose.
Every American who makes bad jokes about
war aims gives realism to this' attempted por-
trait.
Radio Berlin constantly says that America is
in the war to save its own skin, and for what it
can get. When one of our gpvn citizens, in a frenzy
of hard-headedness, announces that we are in
the war to save our skin, etc., and don't care
what happens on the Danube, etc., Radio Berlin
'nods. That, it says, with a Nazi leer, is the stuff.
THE NAZIS BELIEVE IT
THE NAZIS not' only say all this about us, but
for many years have believed it and acted on
it.
The cornerstene of Nazi foreign policy has
been that Britain and America 'were thorough-
ly selfish, and could be had.
They have always felt they could catch u
with a bit of peace-in-our-time cheese, or anti-
Bolshevik salami, or an after-all-what-do-we-
care sardine.
Time after time, the west rose to the bait,
while the world watched and wondered what
was with us.
The world is still watching, and every repe-
tition of that corny old "hard-headed" act
does us harm. Millions of little people listen-
when one of us raises his beak to Sthe heavens
and in an cutburst of lyrical sarcasm, tells of
his indifference to the little ieople 'of, say, 'the
Zulu Islands.
They always make it the little people of the
Zulu Islands, or some such place, because that
sounds funny, but the little people of Paris are
perhaps smart enough to read 'aris"for Zuu,
and the little people of Vienna are bright enough
to make the same easy transposition.
ACROSS THE NIGHT
THUS, every time we become funny 'and say:
Damn the problem of the unmarried mother
in New Guinea, anyway, we encourage the Nazis
to believe that their portrait of us, as a fat, self-
ish chuzzlewit, is substantially correct.
We also encourage the world to believe that
the Nazi portrait of us is substantially correct.
These -gags are like winks, or -the significant
psssst! announcing -that we are not such idealists,
after all. That is the way hard-head subcon-
sciously calls to hard-head, across the spaces of
ideological night.
That "hard-headed" vaudeville act assures the
top Nazi leadership that the "reasonable" world,
in which they once obtained such bargains, still
exists. It encourages them to fight on, to try to
change the bait, to set the trap another way,not
to give up too %asily.
As I've said, the Nazis really believe we are
what they say we are. They 'woid not have
dared do one-tenth of what they have 'done,
if they had not believed we would be "reason-
DAILY OFFICIAL BULLETIN
Scr
The
Pointed
pi,
Pen
ILKA CHASE says, "What this coun-
try needs is more love." She's
wrong. What the country really needs
is less-much less-of Ilka Chase.
If you listen to this female phi-
losopher for more than three min-
utes you get the idea that the big-
gest problem facing the women of
today is how to do the least pos-
sible ii the war effort without com-
ing right out and refusing to admit
the existence of a war.
Of course, the girls should look
pretty and dress expensively while
they aren't doing anything.
Miss Chase says, however, that if
the German forces were arriving at
the Ann Arbor station she "would ex-
pect everyone to man the barricades"
-even if you -have to leave the dance
early. After all, this is war. At least
we think it is, don't we, Miss Chase?
And the Oratorical Association
rust have paid her good money to
come here.
NDELL WILLKIE becomes more
.of a lost soul in the Republican
wilderness every day. -
Hard as he looked he couldn't find
anyone in the entire party worth sup-
porting for the national chairman-
ship. Someone finally stumbled onto
this fellow Harrison Spangler who,
while he wasn't worth supporting,
wasn't worth opposing, either..
Spangler's election has so con-
fused some Republicans and they
are so happy that Isolationist Wer-
ner Schroeder wasn't elected, that
they are trying to make themselves
believe the "progressives" (who-
ever they are) are in control of the
party.
If anything, St. Louis proves two
things: 1) the talent and leadership
'in the Republican Party is composed
of one Wendell Willkie; 2) Wendell
Willkie is in the wrong party.
-Homer Swander
certain kind of .America is the men-
ace. The combination is the menace.
if we change the western branch
of that combination, the whole
structure tumbles. That's the war
aims fight. The funny boys are
partlyv rigaht. The amount of milk
(Continued from Page 3)
the Alpha Omega Alpha honorary
medical society. All interested are
invited.
La Sociedad Hispanica 'announces
a lecture, "Lazos de amistad entre
los mejicanos y los estadounidenses,"
by Dr. Hirsch Hootkins of the De-
partment of Romance Languages to-
day at 4:15 p.m. in Room D, Alumni
Memorial Hall. Tickets may be ob-
tained at the door, from any Spanish
teacher, or from the Office of the
Secretary of the Department of Ro-
mance Languages.
Academic Notices
Experimental Discussion Group in
Psychology will meet tonight at 8:30
in Room 3126 N.S. Building. All who
are interested are cordially invited.
Events Today
Graduate History Club Meeting to-
night at 8:15 in the East Conference
Room, Rackham Building. Refresh-
ments and election of officers.
The Cercle Francais will hold its
annual Christmas meeting tonight at
8 o'clock in the Michigan League.
There will be reading of Christmas
plays and singing of French songs.
All 'members and prospective mem-
bers are cordially invited. Refresh-
ments.
The, Inter-Racial Association will
present Leonard B. Troutman at the
Michigan Union tonight at 8:00. He
will talk on "Twenty Centuries Be-
hind the Veil." All interested peo-
ple are urged to attend.
La Sociedad Hispanica will meet
tonight at 8:00 in the Michigan
League. Program: Sr. Jose Perdomo
will speak on "Colombia: aspectos
culturales y sociologicos"; Sra. Ro-
berto F. Olmedo of Paraguay will
sing popular Spanish songs, and
poems will be recited by Mary Ellen
St. John and E. McCarus. Everyone
interested is invited.
The University "Pops" Band will
meet tonight at 7:30 in Morris Hall.
This is for organizing the band and
will end by 8:30. .Please attempt to
be present.
The Surgical Dressing Unit invites
all women-Senior, Junior, Sopho-
more and Freshman-to help make
surgical dressings for the American
Red Cross in the Game Room at the
League this afternoon, 1:00-5:00.
The Merit Committee will meet to-
day at 4:30 p.m.
Interviewing for Orientation Ad-
visers will continue today and Fri-
day in the Undergraduate Office of
the League. Today, Underwood
through Zumack, and Friday anyone
who was unable to be interviewed at
her appointed time.
at the clubrooms just inside the
Northwest Entrance of the Rack-
ham Building. Plans call for a hike
and possibly tobogganning. All grad-
uate and professional students are
welcome.
B Michigan Outing Club will have a
Barn Dance on Friday, December 11,
from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m: at the Wom-
en's Athletic Building. All students
are welcome.
Wesley Foundation: Wesleyan'Guild
will have their annual Christmas
dinner and party Friday night at
the Russian Tea Room at the League
at 6:15 p.m. Please make reserva-
tions by calling 6881 before tonight.
FOR SOME REASON, no doubt a
secret shared by only a select
group of modern composers, Ravel's
"Bolero" has become the musically
metaphysical basis for the present
war. Last Sunday Harl MacDonald's
"Bataan," as played by the N.Y. -Phil-
harmonic, utilized the monotony of
this notorious show-piece to repre-
sent MacArthur's men or the Japa-
nese or something-and last night
Hill Auditorium echoed to a longer-
than-average blitzkreig persisting el-
ephantinely all through Shostako-
vich's Seventh Symphony. Serge
Koussevitzky conducted the Boston
Symphony in'a brilliant perfornmance
of this work and of the Haydn 88th.
Certainly there can be no doubt of
Mr. Koussevitzky's fondness for the
Shostakovich, but it seems, to this
reviewer at least, that he has es-
poused an ugly duckling that will
never be a swan. There is also no
doubt that the symphony has many
spots of contemplative beauty and a
few of raucous good-nature, but they
are far apart and separated by
stretches of insignificant noise, il-
luminated here and there by fifth-
rank themes from second-rank com-
posers, notably Tchaikowsky and Si
belius.
HE PROBLEM of simple and di-
rect musical articulation is doubt-
lessly a difficult one, but I cannot see
it being solved by pseudo-exciting
programmatic boredom. Tchaikow-
sky's "1812" is simple enough, but I
have never seen it compared to Bee-
thoven, except perhaps to the "Bat-
tle" Symphony, which happily is
played about once every ten years or
so in a fit of morbid curiosity.
Music is not so serious a proposi-
tion as war, but that is no reason for
going all out for a work because of
its historical connection and over-
decorating it with significance. The
Seventh Symphony, for one thing,
has overstepped itself and taken its
role entirely too seriously, so that
material for fifteen minutes was
swollen into shakily epic proportions.
Its musical ideas were sparse an