THE MICHIGAN DAILY
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W ASHING TON MERR Y 0RUOUN~D:
Food Shortage Analyzed'
FIRST NOVEL BY YOUNG WRITER:
Prof. Boys Reviews 'Forever Amber'
By DREW PEARSON
W ASHINGTON.- Basic cause of our food
shortage boils down to the fact that the food
planners have been trying to figure too close to
the line. Instead of working during the last few
years to provide a margin of safety, they have
tried to schedule production so that when the
war ends we will not be left with large food
stocks on hand.
While the nation today is not going to
starve, we would really be feeling the pinch if
we had had a poor harvest last year-or if we
have one this year.
Chieflynresponsible for this "bare shelf" policy
have been two of War Food Administrator Mar-
vin Jones's most trusted advisers-Lee Marshall,
recently resigned as director of distribution to
return to Continental Baking Company; and
Lieut. Col. Ralph W. Olmstead, former deputy
director of the Commodity Credit Corporation
and now head of the WFA Office of Supply.
Olmstead was once secretary to Ex-Senator Pope
of Idaho.
Marshall made his position clear last May,
when he declared that "food stocks now are
large enough to roll smoothly over the various
distribution factors. They are large enough to
permit -us to consider the post-war situation as
well as what must be done more immediately.
That is why I say that from here on out we must
exercise the greatest possible care with regard to
food procurement in order that we may come
out as even as possible at the end of the war."
Rationing Canned Foods
AS LATE as last December, in a secret meeting
at the White House, Marvin Jones opposed
the rationing of canned foods.
But insiders in the food picture are con-
liomilnie Says
"AGAPE IS GOD'S WAY to man, Eros is man's
way to God." Here are two sentences by
Nels F. S. Ferre in his "Swedish Contributions
To Modern Theology." The Passover of the Jews
just celebrated and Good Friday of the Chris-
tians turn upon the nature of God and possibility
of man. In the Jewish faith God is worshipped
as the persistent lover of his suffering devotees.
"Let my people go to provide a feast in the wil-
derness" was Moses' and Aaron's plea to
Pharaoh.
More than a thousand years later, Jesus
of Nazareth with his disciples was celebrating
that Passover at the time when his hour ar-
rived for capture, trial and crucifixion. In a
unique medley of petition and loyalty Jesus
prayed: "Why hast Thou forsaken me? Not
my will but Thine be done." This great de-
votion and his ability to lift his human desires
to the level of the Deity's wish, he owed in
part to his parents. Their instruction in the
faith of his sires had been superb. That he
was subject to his parents from the age of
twelve, at which time he had been received
by the Rabbis, until aboyt his eighteenth
year, is a hidden period.
As educators we should lament the posity of
information about those vital years. Joseph
whose life was so inclusive and satisfying that
Jesus always addressed God as Father and Mary
whose place in history is exalted by Catholic
Christians to that of "Mother of God," were
Jews. Better yet, they were faithful parents who
faithfully furnished that precious lad with reli-
gious attitudes and wisdom.
Fully as dramatic as the cross itself, though
not so theological, is the fact that this week
around the globe in tiny hamlets from Jeru-
salem to Bogota or Sidney and in great cities
throughout all the continents that handful of
Jews, about seventeen or eighteen millions
in all, carry on the ritual in which Jesus was
disciplined. He was keeping that celebration
with his disciples when a few corruptors of
the people plotted his arrest. Why dramatic?
First, because the Judo-Christian religion is
one and there is the pathos of a deep misun-
derstanding between two divisions of a single
faith. Second, because the loyal Jew and the
reverent Christians are very near to each other
in civilian behavior but are far distant from
each other in their interpretations of sacred
history and religious practice. Third, because
our men will fight a war for freedom of wor-
ship, only to discover that at home in America
after 150 years of that basic Democratic politi-
cal principle there are citizens on the fringe of
worship who persistently repudiate the spirit
out of which this freedom arose. Fourth, be-
cause we approach a World Conference in the
city named for Francis of Assizi and as a re-
sult of persistent sectarianism our leaders in
religious thought will be only indirectly a
part of a World Peace Conference, confidently,
called to bring humanity out of a war oc-
casioned in part by Christian Germany's per-
secution of Jews.
We of the majority, perhaps 375 million Chris-
tians do well to discipline ourselves with the
following from that Swedish scholar, "Agape
(love) to God, lacks entirely the egocentric note
an dis identical with the complete abandon-
ment of self."
Edward W. Blakeman
Counselor in Religious Education
vinced that the key man behind Judge Jones
was Olmstead. Jones, they say, has given Olmn-
stead free rein, and Olmstead has insisted
upon a hand-to-mouth policy in the face of
warnings by the nation's leading food author-
ities, who could see a couple of years ago that
we were in danger of a real shortage.
Olmstead has been lucky so far, although even
with our good crops of the last few years thee
have been several occasions when we have been
unable to meet our commitments to Britain and
Russia. Whenever we have had an unusually,
large supply of a particular food, Olmstead has
demanded that it be taken off the ration lists,
instead of ordering an increase in canning. This
happened last year with pork, now in short
supply.
Likewise, in 1943. there was a period when
fats and oils were plentiful and reserves could
have been accumulated. Instead, Olmstead,
with the sanction of his then boss Roy Hen-
drickson, permitted diversion of edible fats
and oils into the making of paints, varnish
and soap. But no control over soap was im-
posed, with the result that today, when UNRRA
is crying for soap to prevent epidemics among
weakened Europeans, there is none available.
Personally, Olmstead rules his organization
like a tyrant, with many members of his own
staff joining outsiders who deal with him in the
constant chorus of complaint. To all corners,
Olmstead's stock reply is, "I'll run my own busi-
ness. You provide the ships and I'll have the
food there to load."
But today he is not able even to load the ships
that arrive as scheduled.
(Copyright, 1945, Bell Syndicate. Inc.)
I'D RATHER BE RIGHT :
Bretton Woods
By SAMUEL GRAFTON
THE BRETTON WOODS PLAN has been crit-
icized for being complicated. It is not so very
complicated. The nations of the world, under
Bretton Woods, pledge to keep their currencies
at stable values. Is that complicated? Second,
they agree to set up a pool of money fromwhich
member nations can obtain help, if needed, in
order to keep their currencies stable. Is that
complicated?
Too much comedy has been made about the
difficulties of understanding the Bretton
Woods plan for a World Fund. Many of the
most familiar institutions of our modern life
are just as "complicated" as Bretton Woods.
An ordinarily intelligent man, for example,
might have serious difficulty if he tried to
describe how his life insurance policy operates,
and what makes it safe, and how premiums
and dividends are computed. Ie buys insur-
ance, nonetheless. And he drives a car with-
out laughing himself sick every time over that
silly complicated carburetor.
A goat-like approach to Bretton Woods is
equally uncalled-for, and equally funny. One
of the questions which always comes up about
the World Fund is this: "Won't the poorest
nations borrow and borrow from the Fund, until
all the money is gone and the Fund is bankrupt?"
That is just as intelligent as asking, about a
neighborhood bank: "Won't the first bum who
comes walking down the street borrow all the
money out of it?" Does anyone suppose that
this brilliant objection has not been foreseen?
Another objection is this: "Since the Fund
allows other nations to take our dollars out,
and replace them with their own currency,
won't all the dollars vanish and nothing but
bad money be left at the end?" Look, honey;
there isn't going to be any bad money; that's
the purpose of the Fund.
You can have bad money only if you don't
have the Fund. The very existence of the Fund
guarantees that one kind of money can be trans-
lated into another, and thereby makes it as good
as the other. In actual practice, most nations
won't even use the Fund. They will be able to
convert their own currencies into any other,
direct; the fact that there is a World Fund will
make this operation safe for both parties. The
existence of the Fund will tend to preserve con-
fidence, somewhat as bank deposit insurance
tends to preserve confidence in all banks. Those
who talk about "bad money" don't realize that
the World Fund is a plan for making all money
good; they are objecting to a plan for a fire-
proof building on the ground that it might burn.
A further objection to the Fund is that it
will allow other nations to "buy our goods
with our own money." So it will. But, under
the Fund, there is a very easy way, simplicity
itself, for us to balance the score against these
other countries. That is to buy goods with
their money. That is the kind of reprisal
which hurts nobody, and makes the world
stable; and the Fund encourages it. If any-
body dares to buy from us, why, we buy right
back from them. This kind of going-on is
called business, and it is a peculiar objection
to the Fund to charge that it promotes it.
(Copyright, 1945. New York Post Syndicate)
(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first in a
series of book reviews by members of
the faculty. A discussion of a recently
published book will apear on this page
each Sunday.)
LAST summer amid persistent re-
ports of peace-feelers came rumors
of another impending event of start-
ling importance in the publishing
field. Little by little the literary gos-
sip columns fed us meager and tan-
talizing details about a new novel
destined to be a second Gone With
the Wind. The myth grew; the Mac-
millan Company was so certain it
had a giant on its hands that it was
going to put its whole yearly supply
of paper into it. Finally, on the eve
of publication, we were given conclu-
sive proof of the book's potential
greatness in the widely circulated
picture of the author, the beautiful
Kathryn Winsor.
The actual appearance of the book
marked the climax of one of the.
greatest pre-publication promotions
in history. It is interesting to specu-
late on the effectiveness of this cam-
paign. To be sure, the book has from
the start been near the top of the
best-seller list, but almost without
exception it has been treated harshly
by the critics.
Amber's Loves Depicted
The story of Forever Amber is cen-
teredtaround the heroine, Amber, and
depicts her many loves against the
colorful background of Restoration
England. There is, of course, one true
love, but neither Amber nor Bruce
let any silly constancy stand in the
way of greater things. Hollywood
will make much of all this (what they
won't do with the Plague and the
Great Fire!), but, as in the case of
For Whom the Bell Tolls, we must
distinguish between literature and
cinematic narrative. No one objects
to Macmillan's and Miss Winsor mak-
ing a lot of money as long as they
don't pretend that 'they are giving
the world a classic. (It is reported
that Miss Winsor was considerably
upset bythe casualness with which
the critics received her book.)
Interpretations Questioned
At its best, Forever Amber is cer-
tainly readable; the description of
the Plague is as vivid as the best ac-
counts of disease-ridden Bilidad
prison or devastated Cologne. And
for the reader familiar with the per-
iod, it is interesting to see famous
personages of history and literature
come to some kind of life, though
Miss Winsor's interpretations are
often open to question. Herein lies
one of the greatest weaknesses of the
book. The publishers' blurbs m'ade
much of the fact that Miss Winsor
had read hundreds of books in her
attempt to make the background au-
thentic, and such industry is certain-
ly commendable. However, frequently
the bare bones of the research stick
through. In one place, for instance,
there is a good deal of talk about one
of Dryden's plays, which might well
have been seen by Amber or her
friends, but the remarks about it
sound more like an M.A. thesis than
those we might expect to find in a
novel. Also at times the author has
lifted obvious devices from such books
as Defoe's Moll Flanders and Roxana.
One is tempted to say, in fact, that
those two books will tell you more
about what Miss Winsor is trying to
portray than Forever Amber ever
could.
King-Size Novel
It is remarkable that in these days
of a paper shortage a mediocre novel
of a thousand pages should find a
publisher. The New York Times re-
cently reported that the overseas edi-
tion now being prepared will be about
half the length of the original. If the
cutting is done properly this should
greatly improvethe overall quality
of the book. No doubt part of the un-
wieldiness can be traced directly to a
desire on the part of the publishers
to emulate Gone With the Wind, but
certainly GWTW is much more suc-
cessful at retaining the reader's in-
terest; it is also better written. For-
ever Amber more closely resembles
the interminable Anthony Adverse,
the first of the modern king-size
novels.
Lacks Lurid Details
Anyone who follows the papers
knows that the distinction of a book's
being banned in Boston is no longer
the great tribute it once was. Cer-
tainly Strange Fruit, another best-
seller that achieved this moral Oscar,
is harmless enough, and so is Forever
Amber. While it is true that Amber is
an amoral creature who would never
be able to make the approved list of
USO hostesses, the book lacks those
lurid details which offend so many
readers, even non-Bostonians. Rox-
ana is much worse, for one, and even
Moll Flanders.
Stylistically the book leaves much
to be desired, though most of the
narrative is dealt with adequately.
Particularly irksome is the author's
inability to handle dialogue. At times
she tries to approximate the everyday
speech of the late seventeenth cen-
tury but the gadzooks are curiously
mixed up with straight 20th century
slang. We certainly have no objec-
tions to translating the Restoration
into the idiom of our own day, but we
would like consistency on this point.
Why a Best Seller?
It is, of course, in the best tradition
of criticism to tear a book to pieces,
but there is no particular malice on
the part of the present writer. He is,
however, interested in a larger prob-
lem-what makes a bestseller a best-
seller? It would be rewardiing to make
a study of the great bestsellers of the
past two hundred years (many of
which are now completely forgotten).
These books obviously have some-
thing which appeals to popular read-
ing taste; just as obviously it is usu-
ally not a quality which can stand
the test of time. By standards of uni-
versal greatness Forever Amber falls
far short, but that does not stand in
the way of current popular approval.
Possibly it should be judged by less
strict standards than those applied to
it here. From the literary point of
view (notthe financial) it is unfor-
tunate that Forever Amber received
such Young and Rubicam acclaim, for
it put the critics on the defensive and
prevented them from judging , the
book as it should have been judged,
a first novel by a promising young
writer.t -R. C. Boys
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DAILY OFFICIAL
BULLETIN
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SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 1945
VOL. LV, No. 110
Publication in the Daily Official Bul-
letin is constructive notice to all mem-
bers of the University. Notices for the
Bulletin should be sent in typewritten
form to the Assistant to the President,
1021 Angell Hall, by 3:30 p. m. of the day
preceding publication (11:30 a. m. Sat-
urdays).
Notices
To the Members of the Faculty,
College of Literature, Science and the
Arts:
The April meeting of the faculty of
the College of Literature, Science,
and the Arts for the academic year
1944-45 will be held Monday, April
2, 1945, at 4:10 p.m. in Rm. 1025 An-
gell Hall.
The reports of the various commit-
tees have been prepared in advance,
and are included with this call to the
meeting. They should be retained in
your files as part of the minutes of
the February meeting.
Student Tea: President and Mrs.
Ruthven will be at home to students
Wednesday afternoon, April 4, from
4 to 6 o'clock.
Detroit Armenian Women's Club'
Award: The Detroit Armenian Wo-
men's Club offers a scholarship award
of $100 for 1945-46, open for compe-
tition by undergraduate students of
Armenian parentage residing in the
Detroit Metropolitan district who
have had at least one year of college
work and who have demonstrated
both scholastic ability and excellence
of character. The award will be
made by the scholarship committee
of the club May 15, 1945. Applica-
tions will be received and forwarded
by F. E. Robbins. Assistant to the
President, 1021 Angell Hall.
Students, College of Literature,
Science & the Arts: Applications for
scholarships should be made before
April 14. Application forms may be
obtained at 1220 Angell Hall and
should be filed at that office.
Michiganensian: Deadline for sub-
scribing to the 1945 Michiganensian
has been set for April 4.
To the Members of the University
Senate: A special meeting of the
University Senate is called for Mon-
day,, April 9th, at 4:15 p.m. in the
Rackham Amphitheater for the pur-
pose of receiving and discussing the
report of the Senate Advisory Com-
mittee, "The Economic Status
the Faculty".
Rules governing participation
Public Activities:
I.
of
in
Participation in Public Activities:
Participation in a public activity is
defined as service of any kind on a
committee or a publication, in a pub-
lic performance or a rehearsal, or in
holding office in a class or other
student organization. This list is not
intended to be exhaustive, but merely
is indicative of the character and
scope of the activities included.
II.
Certificate of Eligibility: At the
beginning of each semester and sum-
mer session every student shall be
conclusively presumed to be ineligi-
ble for any public activity until his
eligibility is affirmatively established
by obtaining from the Chairman of
the Committee on Student Affairs,
in the Office of the Dean of Stu-
dents, a Certificate of Eligibility.
Participation before the opening of
the first semester must be approved
as at any other time.
Before permitting any students to
participate in a public activity (see
definition of Participation above),
the chairman or manager of such
activity shall (a) require each appli-
cant to present a certificate of eli-
gibility (b) sign his initials on the
back of such certificate and (c) file
with the Chairman of the Committee
on Student Affairs the names of all
those who have presented certificates
of eligibility and a signed statement
to exclude all other from participa-
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may be obtained in the Office of the
Dean of Students.
Certificates of Eligibility for the
first semester shall be effective until
March 1.
III.
Probation and Warning: Students
on probation or the warned list are
forbidden to participate in any pub-
lic activity.
IV.
Eligibility, First Year: No fresh-
man in his first semester of residence
may be granted a Certificate of Eli-
gibility.
A freshman, during his second sem-
ester of residence, may be granted
a Certificate of Eligibility provided
he has completed 15 hours or more
of work with (1) at least one mark
of A or B and with no mark of less
than C, or (2) at least 2/2 times as
many honor points as hours and
with no mark of E. (A-4 points, B-3,
C-2, D-1, E-0).
Any student in his first semester
of residence holding rank above that
of freshman may be granted a Cer-
tificate of Eligibility if he was admit-
ted to the University in good stand-
ing.
V.
Elizibility General: Tn ror n
the Committee on Student Affairs
the X or I cannot be removed promp-
tly, the parenthetically reported
grade may be used in place of the X
or I in computing the average.
Students who are ineligible under
Rule V may participate only after
having received special permission
of the Committee on Student Affairs.
Victory Gardens: It is expected
that the plots for victory gardens at
the Botanical Garden will be ready
for; use early this week (unless the
rain continues). Those who have ap-
plied for space may learn their plot
numbers by phoning to O. E. Roszel
at the Storehouse. There are a few
more plots available than applica-
tions already received.
The use of some fertilizer in these
gardens is recommended this year.
A restriction on watering must be
made because of lack of facilities for
providing water to all gardens. Water
may be carried from the faucets in
cans and pails, but the use of hose is
prohibited.
All new gardeners and those who
failed last year to make their contri-
bution of one dollar toward the cost
of plowing must make this payment
before being assigned garden space.
Applicants for Combined Curric-
ula: Application for admission to a
combined curriculum must be made
before April J0 of the final pre-
professional year. Application forms
may be obtained at 1220 Angell Hall
and should be filed with the Secre-
tary of the Committees at that office.
Academic Notices
Attention Pre-Medical Students:
The , Medical Aptitude Test of the
Association of American Medical Col-
leges will be given at the University
of Michigan on April 13. The test
is a normal requirement for admis-
sion to practically all medical schools
and will not be repeated until next
spring. Anyone planning to enter a
medical school in the fall of 1945 or
in the spring of 1946 and who has
not previously taken the test must
write the examination at this time.
Further information may be obtain-
ed in Room 4 University Hall.
Faculty, College of Literature, Sci-
ence, and the Arts: The civilian
freshman five-week progress reports
will be due April 7 in the Office of
the Academic Counselors, 108 Mason
Hall.
The Five-Weeks' Grades for Navy
and Marine Trainees (other than
Engineers and Supply Corps) will be
due April '7. Department offices will
be provided with special cards and
the Office of the Academic Coun-
selors, 108 Mason Hall, will receive
these reports and transmit them to
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BARNABY
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the fact that J. J. O'Malley put O'Malley Enterprises,
Inc., in our hands without contacting us personally,'
inriatase 's hen hus vwith vastlv bigaer affairs.,
I'm certain he'll get in touch with
us very soon. And we'll realize howj
ridiculou were nnv of theslinht.
14
By Crockett Johnson
I'll make one more attempt to
establish communication with
my fm mirm ' I'll fr to drnw
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