PAiGE FOUR H Ei M i C ff i GA -A- 1jc Sw11tigat Bat Ff y.F;tfh Yea Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan under the authority of the Board In Control of Student. Publications. WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND: Naton ideCoal Strike Seen Evelyn Phillips Stan Wallace Ray Dixon Hank Mantho Dave Loewenberg Mavis Kennedy Lee Amer Barbara Chadwi June Pomering Editorial Sta f. . . . . . Managing Editor . . . . . City Editor Associate Editor * . . Sports Editor S . . ±.Associate Sports Editor S . . . . Women's Editor Business Staff * . A Business Manager k . . Associate Business Mgr. p . Associate Business Mgr. Telephone 23-24-1 Member of The Associated Press The Associated Press is exclusively entitled to the use for republication of all news dispatches credited to it or otherwise credited in. this newspaper.- All rights of re- publication of allother: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 car- rier, $4.50, by mail, $5.25. Member, Associated Collegiate Press, 1943-44 NIGHT EDITOR. BETTY ROTH Editorials published in The Michigan Daily are written by members of The Daily staff and represent the views of the wrters only. Veteran's Button REP JOHN DINGELL, (Dem., Mich.) usually one of Congress' most progressive thinkers, seems to have leaped off the deep end on the annoying veteran button issue. Dingell yesterday criticized what he termed "Cheap insignificant discharge buttons."' "The gilded, plastic buttons are about on a par with products heretofore made in Japan," he said. These statements may be true. Discharge but- tons may be both cheap and insignificant, but it seems doubtful that the returned serviceman resents or is worried about the appearance of his discharge button. The vet is worried about the job and educa- tional opportunities offered him when he re- turns. Considering Rep. Dingell's commendable past political record, it would be extremely beneficial to the entire nation if he and all Congressmen of his high calibre directed their energies toward some more important legisla- tion. After all, even though servicemen may be wearing "unworthy discharge buttons," this nation is still at war. When the war ends, there will be the peace question, discharge buttons or no discharge buttons. s nBob Goldman FDR's Reluctance PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S departure for the big three parley in the midst of a domestic battle between "right" and "left" wing forces is a virtual invitation to the opposing groups to fight the matter out among themselves. Inten- tionally or not, the President seems to be wash- ing his hands of the whole business through his reluctance to bring any pressure to bear in Wal- lace's favor and by his failure to clarify the cryptic letter to Jesse Jones, which even Wallace supporters now suspect was a veiled admission that the appointment was made in payment of a political debt. The fall election has failed to reconcile the split in the Democratic party, the alliance between Republicans and conservative south- ern Democrats. This rift, which has dangerous implications both for post-war domestic secur- ity and for any peace measures, seems only to be intensified, perhaps inevitably, because few Presidents have had a united Congress behind them for longer than one term, and FDR in his fourth term must count on decreasing Congressional cooperation, diminished per- haps by war weariness and confusion. Antagonized by the CIO-PAC element in the Democratic party, distrustful southern Con- gressmen have again lined up with Republican elements representing industrial and financial interests, Republican elements which have con- sistently opposed every major social reform of the last twelve years. FDR himself has been accused of allowing the influence of conservative businessmen to reach an unprecedented peak in his administration, especially in his appointment of Ed Stettinius and his State Department team. Nor has his bow in the direction of progressive groups, the Wallace appointment, corrected this impression for the appointment is taking on more and more the aspect of an empty gesture. while it has had the effect of reopening old wounds. Roosevelt's compromises with conservatives By DREW PEARSON WASHINGTON, Feb. 2-Several backstage de- velopments point with almost tragic cer- tainty to a nationwide coal strike on April 1, despite the present desperate coal shortage. They are: 1.John L. Lewis has rejected the proposal of Hard Fuel Administrator Ickes to continue the present coal agreement for another year. 2. Lewis has also rejected Ickes' proposal that negotiations for a new wage agreement begin earlier than March 1, thus giving coal operators and miners more time to sign a contract. 3. Within a few weeks, Lewis' gigantic United Mine Workers Union finally will be taken into the American Federation of Labor, at which time several AFL leaders will back him in trying to break the Little Steel formula on behalf of the miners. This latter point is where CIO-AFL rivalry comes in. CIO Chief Phil Murray tried to up the Little Steel Formula on behalf of the steel workers, but failed. Now if the AFL, through John L. Lewis, (an do what Phil Murray failed to do, even if it throws the entire country into an even more serious coal crisis, it will he regarded as a big victory. What Lewis Wants. WHAT LEWIS DEMANDS is a wage differen- tial for miners working the second and third shift, plus $1.25 more daily for travel under- ground to and from the mouth of the mine, plus a. straight wage increase. Last year it was recognized that the mines had suffered in comparison with wages paid in other industries. But this year Economic Stabilizer Vinson believes the wage situation is more nearly balanced and is flatly opposed to giving John L. Lewis anywhere near what he is demanding. To do so would not only break the Little Steel Formula but shoot a gap in the dike against in- flation. So it looks as if there will be a sure showdown on April 1. sNte- The coal crisis points to one result of postponing a decision on a new Secretary of Labor. Miss Perkins is staying tn the job "by request," her heart not in the work, and never able to cope with these big strikes. Meanwhile, some White House advisers suggest that vari- ous moves could be made in advance to head off John L. Lewis, such as bringing home sev- eral hundred decorated heroes who live in mine areas, and who culd impress the miners with what coal means at the front. However, there is no far-sighed Secretary of Labor on the job to head off a national catastrophe. 'General' Elliott Roosevelt ... T DIDN'T LEAK OUT of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, but last week, its new chairman, Senator Elbert Thomas of Utah, made a deft move probably aimed to facilitate con- firmation of Elliott Roosevelt as a Brigadier General. Hitherto, all military promotions sent to the Sohate have been sent to a Military Affairs Sub- Cohimittee headed by Happy Chandler of Ken- tucky for scrutiny. This committee has then recommended passing or rejecting the promo- tions However, Chairman Thomas told his col leagues last week that this committee had been rather cumbersome and he believed it should be disposed with. At this point, Senator Chandler spoke up, and without any irritation remarked: "I'm not looking for a job for myself, but I think it would be a mistake not to examine these nominations. I've been chairman of this sub- committee for so long that I don't know that I'd want to continue anyway, but I do feel that no man should hold the high place of General 'in the United States Army without a group of Senators looking into his record and studying it carefully." Several other Senators agreed with Chand- ler but nevertheless it was decided for the time being to take military promotions up in full committee. The full committee, therefore, was sitting when Young Roosevelt's name was voted out of the committee for confirmation. Had a sub-committee handled the matter it might have been bottled up considerably longer. Under the Done . . . ABLE LAUCHLIN CURRIE, whom the Presi- dent said could not be spared from the White House staff on loan to the Foreign Economic Administration any longer, now is going to Switzerland to negotiate a new treaty. Looks like he could be spared after all . . . As a result of Ed Stettinius's new instructions to State Department employees to write personal, cozy letters he is now called "The Dale Carnegie of Diplomacy." . . Allied and Russian bombers will be heading out over the Baltic now that the Russians have new bases, to look for the German fleet. Hitler's remaining battleships have kept out of the western Baltic because of England- based bombers and took refuge around Danzig. These ports are now under Red guns. . . . Henry Wallace is winning a significant victory this week as the State Department signs a new tin agreement with Bolivia. Two years ago when he was in charge of economic warfare, Wallace tried to sign a treaty with Bolivia stipulating that the increased prices we paid for tin would be passed along to workers in increased wages. But the State Department said no. This week, however, the State Department is signing a new agreement, and this time Wallace's proposal to benefit the men who mine the tin is written into the text. Capital Chaff ... THE STATE DEPARTMENT was amazed to hear that Brazilian Ambassador Carlos Mar- tins had paid a call on Jesse Jones immediately after the White House demanded his resignation, and offered his condolences. It is highly unusual for diplomats to mix in U.S. domestic affairs, especially when a cabinet officer bucks the Pres- ident . .. Many local Red Cross chapters have been asked to curtail the 'olling of surgical dressings due to the fact that the Army now has a surplus. However, work will be resumed again when the Army's supply of bandages falls below a certain point . ..Some of the locals have been mystified by the sudden curtailment of bandage rolling, but National Red Cross head- quarters describe the order as merely routine ... Helen Gahagan Douglas, movie-star Congress- woman from California. has been elected chair- man of the 79 Club, a newly-formed organiza- tion of first-term Democratic Congressmen. (Copyright, 1945, by the Be1 Syndicate, inc.) I'D RATHER BE RIGHT: The Next Secretary? By SAMUEL GRAFTON NEW YORK, Feb. 2.-The President may have' messed the Wallace case a little by not being entirely frank. He said in his letter to Jesse Jones that he was in effect rewarding Wallace for his work during the campaign. This put the nomination on the lowest possible level. It gave the impression that the President was trying to put one over, that he was finding a job for a friend and supporter. Many thought, of course that the President had larger reasons, that he wanted Wallace to be Secretary of Commerce because Wallace is a liberal, and is determined to work out a plan for full employment. But by not mentioning these larger reasons, the Presi- dent made his own motives seem furtive and almost surreptitious; as if there were something to hide; again, as if he were trying to put one over. It is an astonishing performance, because there is, in fact, nothing to hide. The Presi- dent could have said, quite candidly, that he had just made a number of conservative ap- pointments. to the State Department, includ- ing such businessmen as Messrs. Stettinius, Clayton and Rockefeller; but that there is, after all, a huge liberal interest in America; that this interest deserves representation as well as any other, and that he was naming Mr. Wallace to Commerce in order to balance off and round out the picture. This would have put the whole thing on the table, where every- body could look at it. It would have been hard to object to Mr. Wallace after this kind of presentation, without convicting oneself of wanting everything one's own way, and to want everything one's own way is kind of unethical in a democracy. THIS CANDID, objective approach would have been of educational value to all of us. It would have made us face the fact that con- servatism and liberalism in America must learn to live together. It isn't Mr. Roosevelt's fault that there is a huge liberal bloc in America, as well as a great conservative bloc. He didn't in- vent the country; he has to work with it the way it is. But by acting sort of ashamed that there is a vast liberal bloc, by humming a wordless tune and doing his best to look as if he were only waiting for a trolley car in making the Wallace nomination, the President allowed conservative opinion to dodge reality, too, and to commence its uproar. The conservatives like it even better than he does when issues are presented oblique- ly, instead of frontally. The whole question of whether conservative and liberal opinion in America can work to- gether, or whether they intend to square off for a finish fight, is concealed in the Wallace matter. Some rather horrid vistas are opening. The Democratic party has succeeded in national elec- tions precisely because it has, even though nois- ily and unhappily, found room within its ranks for both conservatives and liberals; the Republi- can party fails because it is short-ended in this regard. But when conservative Democrats break this alliance with their own liberals, and work with most of the Republicans, they flirt with the possibility of new party formations in America; parties which will be opposed to each other on all points; parties which will mass their legions for verbal civil wars, instead of parties which will attempt trial flights of national unity within their own ranks. The rejection of Wallace, the refusal to admit that he represents a large and legitimate section of opinion, will be a gage thrown down for even worse battles in the future. That is something to be scared of. If we were an occupied country, the Allies might be worried about us, listening to our talk of the moment. How is America going to govern itself after the liberation? they might ask. The country seems split; its rival factions don't seem to want to come together; they fly at each other, over even so moderate a politi- cal figure as Wallace. Who will keep order after the war ends? (Copyright, 1945, New York Post Syndicate) By BERNARD ROSENBERG tion undauited, Rasselas manages "T HE HISTORY of Rasselas, Prince surreptitiously to hack through a fis- of Abyssinia" was Samuel John- sure in the- surrounding mountain. son's only novel. Really a series of He and his sister, Nekayah, and Im- dialogues, loosely fictionized and sick- lac, one day depart to seek out the lied o'er with the melancholy that was realities of life. just then bearing him down, it might RASSELAS meets every manner of, well be given the same name as his man in diverse walks of life and well-known poem, "The Vanity of always he is sorely disappointed. EachI Human Wishes." Thematically, both has flaws and weaknesses; all are uni- works are identical. In addition, they formly unhappy. Johnson, of course, reflect with the clarity of polished deplores this. His attitude is best and austere prose the classicism, described as severe acceptance of the skepticism, and especially the con- 1existing order, no matter what it may servatism of mid-Eighteenth Century be. Thus, while examining pastoral thought. life, he labels shepards, "rude and At times Johnson exercised ap- ignorant" because they considered parent prescience. He not only themselves condemned to labor for foresaw man's ascent into the air, the luxury of the rich and had the but the evil consequences that temerity to grumble about their hard would come with it. Rasselas, lot. He finds discontent anywhere a awaiting eventual accession to the j":canker" that could only spring from throne, lives in a paradisiacal val- malignity. ley one of whose brighter inhabit- Imlac is an Abyssinian Johnson, ants has mastered the art of fly- I supposedly wise and sophisticated ing. lie will not, however, instruct enough to see the uselessness of tanc-I others in this art. "What," he asks. pering with things as they are. Sta- "would be the security of the good, bility and order, the catch-all, for- if the had could at pleasure in- ever pharisaical terms of reaction vade them from the sky? Against even unto our day, are at the root an army sailing through the clouds .f this philosophy. -neither walls nor mountains nor Senator Bailey could have taken{ seas could afford any security." his cue last week for cross-exam- Some people think it remarkable ining Henry Wallace from Imlac- that Tennyson in the Victorian Johnson although he would have period had visions of aerial com- appeared no less foolish. For Im- merce. But, here was Johnson, in lac has this to say about what he his correct appraisal of man's called visionary schemes, "When we perversity, envisaging a Luftwaffe first form them, we know them to almost two hundred years ago. be absurd, but familiarize them by Rasselas, provided with every ma- degrees and in time lose sight of terial want and adulated by his sub- their folly." Change struck John- jects, having tasted all the sensual son as a kind of madness. He pleasures, still feels a great void. stubbornly believed in the immu- Kept within the confines of his hap- tability of institutions that were py valley, this prince knows nothing crumbling even then. Schemes for about the world outside. He deter- political reformation represented mines to escape and see things for nothing less than the indulgence of himself despite the admonitions' of fantasy to him and his neo-classi- Imlac. the wise man, who warns him,j cal confreres. "Human life is everywhere a state To which Senator Bailey would say. in which much is to be endured and "Hosannah!" were he a little more little is to be enjoyed." His resolu- literate and articulate. Ltr to theEd fore turn out all unne-cssary lights and are cautioned against changing any adjustments which may be made in Llth]tertosta soprano, willgive the eighth program put those dreams into action- in the Choral Union Concert Series, and in protesting with vehemence Saturday evening at 8:30 in Hill against a reinstitution of the spoils Auditorium. She has chosen a pro- system and of personal vendettas, gram of interest and variety, includ- these Americans are only fighting ing a group of Negro spirituals. for their belief and hope in the A limited number of tickets are maintenance of what America has available at the offices of the Uni- meant for 150 years. versity Musical Society in Burton -Alice Hall, Grad. Memorial Tower a t i 3 u i ti I { ! (E 'I .'I t , s I i I I I It C 't 1 1 lY1L11V1t:L 1 VW G . DAILY OFFICIAL BULLETIN FRIDAY, FEB. 2, 1945 VOL. LV. No. 74 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- urda ys). Notices Washington's Birthday: Washing- ton's birthday, Feb. 22, will not be observed as a University holiday. To the Members of the Faculty College of Literature, Science and the Arts: The February meeting of the Faculty of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts for the aca- demic year 1944-45 will be held on Monday, Feb. 5, at 4:10 p. m. in Room 1025 Angell Hall. The reports of the various commit-; Events Today Senior Society: There will be a meeting of Senior Society at 5 o'clock, Anyone unable to attend call Cor- nelia Groefsema at 22591. The Post-War Council will present an evening of movies on the people and the war effort of China this evening in Rackham Amphitheatre at 7:30. All those interested are in- vited to attend. Mr. Franklin Littell, Director of the Student Religious Association, will deliver the sermonson "Achieving an Effective Religious Discipline" at Conservative Sabbath Eve Services to be held at Hillel Foundation at 7:45 p. m. Faculty Women's Club. The next regular meeting of the Faculty Women's Club will be a lecture by Al- den H. Dow, Architect, tonight at 8:00 in Rackham Lecture Hall. All inter- ested are invited to attend as guests of the Club. Coyin Events Avukah: Dr. Alfred Jospe, Director of the Hillel Foundation, Indiana University, will speak Feb. 4 at 8:00 BA RNAB IrPop. Mr. O'Molley. my FoiryJ By Crockett Johnson fEveryihing's set, m'boy, for C So the program will start 'I C C, I I Pop says have you got a sponsor? i 4