Y Ji TWOTHE MICHIGAN DAILY
TUESDAY, APRIL 0, 1945
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND:
Meat for U.S. Held in Mexico
IHE TREADMILL
By DREW PEARSON
WASHINGTON-Despite the increasing U. S.
meat shortage, it remains an unpublished
but actual fact that 2,000,000 pounds of Argen-
tine canned beef has been sitting serenely in
Mexico for two years awaiting admission into the
U. S. and because of British-American red tape,
it is still sitting there.
So far no government officials have been able
or willing to cut the red-tape and permit this
canned beef to cross the Rio Grande northward.
It is among the choicest corned beef ever pro-
duced in Argentina and there is no sanitary
restriction against it. Only red tape keeps it
out.
Here are the inside facts as to what happened.
Late in 1942, one year after the war started, the
S/S Rio de Plata steamed into Manzanita, Mex-
ico, carrying a cargo of 2,000,000 pounds of can-
ned Argentine beef. It was shipped by the Ar-
gentine meat cooperative composed of 50,000
Argentine cattlemen. At that time no permit
was required to import meat into the U. S.
by Mexico overland.
However, just as the good ship Rio de La Plata
was about to enter Mexican waters, the British
were given the right to be the exclusive pur-
chasing agent of all surplus Argentine meat for
the United States and the Allies. This meant
that the U. S. government could not purchase
any Argentine meat. Although we supply the
cash, all meat is bought through the British.
Hash Manufacurers Fume,. ..
Meanwhile, the British would not purchase the
2,000,000 pounds of corned beef in Mexico except
at a disastrously low price. A deaf ear was
turned to the fact that this shipment had been
made before British control regulations were
promulgated. U. S. hash manufacturers tried
desperately to get the War Food Administration
to allow importation into the U. S., but to all
inquiries the War Food Administration sent a
stereotyped answer: "The British Ministry of
Food is the sole purchaser of exportable surplus
meat and meat products from Argentina."
So the 2000,000 pounds of canned meat has
continued to sit in a Mexican warehouse, eating
up storage rates. A trickle of it has been sold
to Mexicans and a little bit was shipped across
the United States boundary to Newfoundland.
But most of it remains. This remainder some
time ago was purchased by U. S. hash manu-
facturers. They, not the Argentines, are chiefly
holding the bag. They estimate that the Ar-
gentine canned beef, when turned into U. S.
hash, represents more than 4,000,000 pounds
of fresh meat.
NOTE-Recently UNRRA indicated that it
would like to buy the canned beef in Mexico
but the British were opposed. Actually the
British have the sole right to buy meat from
South America, but the War Food Administra-
tion apparently overlooks the fact that Mexico is
not South America but North America.
Priorities for Veterans .*
For some time. honorably discharged veterans
of World War II have had to deal through sur-
plus property profiteers in order to buy war
goods to reestablish themselves in business.
If they wanted to buy a jeep, a discarded
army truck, or surplus anything else, they got
it through a secondhand dealer, who had pur-
chased these supplies in bulk from the Army.
This is because federal agencies have sold in
large quantities to secondhand dealers rather
than to individuals. However, this has meant
that the war veteran or anyone else had to pay
double or even triple the original sale price of
the jeep or the truck.
Now, however, the Surplus Property Board, in
cooperation with the Procurement Division of
the Treasury Department, plans to change this.
They are establishing a procedure whereby vet-
erans will receive a certificate from the armed
forces. This will entitle them to go to the
Smaller War Plants Corporation, which, in turn,
will assist them in finding the equipment they
need. Once the material is found, veterans will
receive a priority from the Treasury Procure-
ment Division to enable them to buy surplus
property without going to war profiteers.
.Dumbarton Oaks
WATCHTOWER over Tomorrow," a film on the
Dumbarton Oaks proposals, produced by
Columbia under the direction of the Office of
War Information and now being shown in local
theatres, is well worth the attention of every
citizen who sincerely desires a world organ-
ization to prevent future wars.
The San Francisco Conference, scheduled
for the week of April 26, is the concern not
only of the representatives of the various
nations who will attend the conference, but
of every citizen who will be affected by the
success or failure of that conference.
On the issue of an international security or-
ganization there is no political split. Party affil-
iations meaningless when our purpose is to in-
sure world security.
As a first step in informing ourselves as to
the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, "Watchtower
over Tomorrow," presents a clear outline of
what the world organization seeks to, accom-
plish and of the methods it will employ.
-Betty Roth
Canine igration.. .
Attorney General Biddle is asked to rule on
all sorts of unique questions since the Bureau of
Immigration was transferred to his Justice De-
partment. The other day the Department got
this inquiry:
"How long does a dog have to remain in
quarantine when it arrives in the United States?"
The young girl who answered the phone was
baffled. "Why are you asking the Department
of Justice?" she parried.
"Because," was the indignant reply, it's an
immigration problem, isn't it?"
Cigarettes to Sweden...
Guess where some of our vanished cigarettes
have- been going?! To Sweden! And from
there? Perhaps to the same place Sweden sent
her ball bearings-Germany.
U. S. export figures on cigarettes to Sweden
are supposed to be very, very confidential. Why
remains a mystery. But when Jesse Jones was
Secretary of Commerce, he would not permit the
announcement of export figures on various
commodities to any country.
However, the unpublished fact is that Sweden
last year was permitted by treaty to triple her
normal purchase of cigarettes from this country.
She bought two hundred million.
Why the Swedes should 1ave needed three
times as many cigarettes in 1944 as their nor-
mal import from the United States also re-
mains a mystery. Some people suspect the ex-
planation is that the Nazis are smoking cigar-
ettes which the American public does not get.
(Copyright, 1945, Bell Syndicate, Inc.)
I'D RATHER BE RIGHT:
Bretton Woods
By SAMUEL GRAFTON
SOME OF OUR BANKERS would like to have
us wait five or six years before setting up a
World Fund, as contemplated by Bretton Woods.
They say we don't know what kind of world
we're going to have, so we'd better not take a
chance. Maybe the world will be stable, maybe
it will be unstable; let's wait and see. This is
excess of caution, paralyzing wit. For the prime
purpose of the World Fund is to help make
this a more stable world. It is precisely because
we don't know what the next five or six years
are going to be like,,that we need a World Fund.
This sense that we can help shape the world,
with our own hands, is missing from the bank-
ers' approach. They view the world, glumly,
as a kind of puzzle box; something will come
out of it; they don't know what; theirs is only
to wait and see.
The World Fund gives us something better
to do than merely to wait, with our fingers
crossed. It gives us a kind of vote as to what
we want the next five or six years to be like, and
a vote is better than a wish.
The World Fund, roughly, is an international
pool of money to which each nation contrib-
utes its own kind of currency, and from which
it can borrow any other kind, thus helping
to make all currencies convertible, and stable.
The bankers say this is an interesting idea,
why not wait until we are sure the nations are
stable enough so that the Fund will be safe?
In urging this view, the bankers neatly stand
the question on its ear. The point of the matte
is that we want a World Fund to help make the
world safe, not the other way around. The
bankers are focusing on the question of how
safe the fund will be, and the rest of us are focus-
ing on the question of how safe the world is
going to be, and the difference is sharp indeed.
What the bankers are really saying is that
if the world turns out to be economically stable,
so that we don't need a World Fund, let us,
by all means, have one; but if it turns out to
be unstable, so that we do need one, let us not.
The bankers would seem to be viewing the
Fund statically, and to be missing the point of
its dynamic relationship with the world. For,
in scheme at least, and certainly to a degree
in performance, the Fund would lift the level
of world trade, and make the world more pros-
perous; and a more prosperous world would
make the Fund safer. Bretton Woods proposes
not only that we set up an institution, but
that we start a process.
The whole question comes down to whether we
really, in our hearts, feel ourselves to be part
of the world. For if we really do feel ourselves
to be part of the world, committed to it, we'll
make the modest investment called for by Bret-
ton Woods; and if we lose it, we'll consider it well
lost. For this is where we'll have to, live, and
there is no alternative, except to try to improve
the neighborhood, and one doesn't expect to
make a profit on every community enterprise.
But if we don't do it, the world will sense
that our attitude is tentative. The world will
feel that we are setting up a disjunction, we
and they. The world will feel that we haven't
yet decided that it's good enough for us; better
not build, this locality may be running down.
The world will feel that we have decided its
prospects aren't worth an investment of three
billions of dollars. So we might say that
the bankers, in their curiously static, frozen
view of affairs, have overlooked another dy-
namic relationship, too; that between thet
United States and the rest of the planet.
(Copyright, 1945, New York Post Syndicate)
By PAULA BROWER'
RUSHING is over at last. The bags
under the eyes of the sorority
women are beginning to disappear,
and they no longer glance nervously
from girl to girl on the diagonal for
fear of inadvertently snubbing a
rushee. The pledges are doodling only
one set of Greek letters instead of'
the considered several in their class
notebooks, and the independents are#
behaving like normal people as us-
ual.
This is Michigan's third year of
rushing according to experimental
systems. Because of their more or
less pioneering programs, Michigan
and Purdue have found themselves
the two focal points of interest for
other schools which are anxious to
develop improved plans for selecting
sorority members, and it is import-
ant for us to criticize this year's ex-
periment honestly.
The main issue involved is
whether or not we are to continue
to have deferred rushing. As far
as I am concerned there are only
two points in favor of it. From
the sororities'3 point of view it is
goodl because the girls must have
made a C average in order to rush;
hence the houses are less likely
to take on academic liabilities than
they were when they had nothing
but high school grades to go on.
From the freshmen's point of view
it is good because it gives them one
semester in which to make the ad-
justment to college before under-
going the added strain of rush-
ing.
These arguments, however, are
easily answered. In the old days
when the sororities rushed freshmen
at the beginning of the fall semester
without waiting until they had prov-
ed that they could make their grades,
a large number of the houses had
nightly study tables at the library,
which were supervised by actives and
which all pledges were expected to
attend. Sorority-minded girls thought
that working for initiation was a
greater incentive for making good
grades than just working for the
privilege of rushing. As far as the
freshmen are concerned a sorority
should be able to help them make
academic adjustment instead of ruin-
ing the semester in the week and a
half which was occupied by rush-
ing. And why not get it all over
with at once instead pf using the
first semester for getting used to the
University and the second for rush-
ing, which effectively quells any aca-
demic aspirations which a freshman
may have for the entire first year?
By far the most important thing
is the independent-sorority breach
which deferred rushing and its ac-
companying evil-the silence period
-have brought about. In order to
allay their fears of each other's
suspected' "dirty rushing" prac-
tices, the sororities have created a
rule forbidding their members to
have any dealings with indepen-
dents beyond saying hello until
rushing is over-unless more than
one sorority is represented at the
coke date, dinner table, or tennis
game, for instance, in which the in-
dependent is involved. This rule
naturally creates an extremely
artificial situation on campus, for
it seems to be effectively attempt-
ing to cut off all communication
between sorority and independent
women. The silence period in itself
is enough to condemn deferred
rushing, for to create artificially a
breach where in general there was
little accentuation of the differ-
ence between sorority and inde-
pendent women is to deprive both
groups of their chances for nor-
mal friendships outside of their
houses while they are at college.
The situation is both unnatural and
absurd.
For another thing, by spreading
the parties out over an entirely un-
necessary space of time, three weeks
have been all but eliminated from
the academic semester, and devoted
almost entirely to rushing, which is
not only ridiculous but unwarrant-
ed. It is a rare freshman who can
go to rushing parties four days a
week and devote her attention com-
pletely to her studies on the other
three. And with hash sessions to
attend, entertainment to concoct.
songs to practice, rooms to decorate,
invitations to write, and alumnae to
contact; as well as going to the par-
ties themselves, the sorority woman
is left with equally little, if not less.
time in which to get her work done.
Thus, in order that sororities may
replenish their membership, the two
thousand girls directly involved, to
say nothing of the numbers of disin-
terested students who are unfortunate
enough to be living close to a rushee,
are prevented from doing even par-
tial justice to their studies for three
weeks, a gap which most girls will be
'unable to make up for in the rest of
the semester.
Any situation which goes to such
extremes is hindering a girl from ful-
filling her purpose in being at school'
-theoretically to learn things-is
highly unjustifiable. If the main em-
phasis at college is to be placed on
social activity, then everything is as
it should be. There are schools whose
values are arranged that way, but
at wartime Michigan this is not so.
In what is undoubtedly an hon-
est effort to evolve a rushing sys-
tem which would create a minimum
amount of academic dislocation and
general inconvenience, the opposite
effect has been achieved and the
emphasis placed on rushing has
been exaggerated out of all pro-
portion. It is time that improve-
ments, not mere changes were made
in rushing.
DAILY OFFICIAL BULLETIN
TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 1945
VOL. LV, No. 117
Publication in the Daily Official Bul-
letin is constructive notice to allnmem-
bers of the University. Notices for the
Bulletin should be sent in typewritten
form to the Assistant to the President,
1021 Angeli Hal, by 2:30 p: m. of the day
preceding publication (10:30 a. m. Sat-
urdays).
CENTRAL WAR TIME USED IN
THE DAILY OFFICIAL
BULLETIN.
Notices
Student Tea: President and Mrs.
Ruthven will be at home to students
Wednesday afternoon, April 11, from
3 to 5 o'clock (C.W.T.).
To the Members of the University
Council: There will be a meeting of
the University Council on Monday,
April 16, at 3:15 p.m., in the Rack-
ham Amphitheater.
Group Hospitalization ad Surgi-
cal Service: During the period from
April 5 through April 16, the Uni-
versity Business Office (Rm. 9, Uni-
versity Hall) will accept new appli-
cations as well as requests for chan-
ges in contracts now in effect. These
new applications and changes will
become effective May 5, with the first I
payroll deduction on May 31. After
April 16 no new applications of
changes can be accepted until Octo-
her, 1945.
Attention Pre-Medical Students:
The Medical Aptitude Test of the
Associatiqn of American Medical
Colleges will be given here on Friday,
April 13, in 25 Angell Hall, at 2 p.m.
By Crockett Johnson
We'll take your bags right
(C.W.T.). Anyone planning to enter
a medical school in the fall of 1945
or in the spring of 1946 should take
the examination at this time. This
is the only time the test will be given
before next spring. Further informa-
tion may be obtained in Rm. 4 Uni-
versity Hall and tickets are still
available at the- Cashier's Office.
Use of Lane 'Hall: Due to increased
activities at Lane Hall, it has become
necessary to reconsider all non-
S.R.A. groups making use of our fa-
cilities. The principles on which
groups are, to be judged are as fol-
lows:
1. Student membership and opera-
tion.
2. Religious concern.
3. Approval from Dean Bursley's
Office.
Groups wishing regular hospitality
may apply on a prepared form to the
House Committee constituted by the
Board of Governors'and approved by
the Student Council.
State of Michigan Civil Service
Announcements for Veterinary Lab-
oratory Aide A, salary $150 to $170
per month, and Building and
Grounds Maintenance Foreman Al,
salary $166.75 to $189.75 per month,
have been received in our office. For
further information, stop in at 201
Mason Hall, Bureau of Appoint-
ments.
U.S. Civil Service Announcements
for the following have been received
in our office. Budget Officer, Man-
agement Planning Officer, $5,228 to
$7,128 a year, Budget Analyst, Ad-
ministrative Analyst, $3,163 to $7,128
a year, Director of Information, $5,-
228 to $7,128 a year, Information
Specialist, $3,163 to $7,128 a year,
Stenographers, Typists, and Clerks,
$1,752 a year. For further informa-
tion and applications, stop in at 201
BARNABY
I 1 Mab us won'I like ld'
My entire staff will fit/
Gus never invites anyone, rn'boy.