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U.S. Held in Mexico IHE TREADMILL By DREW PEARSON WASHINGTON-Despite the increasing U. S. meat shortage, it remains an unpublished but actual fact that 2,000,000 pounds of Argen- tine canned beef has been sitting serenely in Mexico for two years awaiting admission into the U. S. and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.