I 4fIt~tL PFiaiUI4; A QUICK LOOK-SEE at college papers around the country in the past week tells us that America's student population has reacted with shock and indignation to the Czech coup and the resulting clamps on academic freedom. But a searching look at the campus here uncovers nothing more than a passive indif- ference, and this is one of the leading uni- versities in the country. We've got a network of political action groups on campus. At regular intervals they declare themselves all for freedom, against thought control, for civil liberties. They get up fine, literary statements on free- dom. Each group seeks to outdo the other in its diatribe against sin. But a democracy goes under in central Europe. Students who are indignant, as we would be indignant, march to the Pres- ident's palace to urge Mr. Benes not to give in. They are shot and clubbed by the action committees who would rather not have the students reach their president. And here in Michigan, the fighters for academic freedom are silent. In New York's City College, at Ohio State University, out in California, students have condemned the Gottwald government. They have indicated to their freedom-loving, fellow students in Europe that Americans are not passive to their plight and will fight for a restoration of their values. But the organized students of the Uni- versity of Michigan say nothing. Two NSA interim representatives to the International Union of Students in Prague Editorials published in The Michigan Daily are written by members of The Daily stafff and represent the views of the writers only. have resigned because the Union sanctioned the Cottwald governnient's tactics. One of the representatives is Jim Smith, who was here last ycar to tell as all what the NSA stood for. We've got an NSA chapter here on cam- pus. Do its own members know what it stands for? So far, we've heard no applause, even from the local NSA, for the action of Jim Smith and William Ellis. Here on campus, too-or off campus, if you prefer-we've got an organization that has suffered a breach of academic freedom. MYDA has lashed out often against restrictions on its freedom to op- erate. This group more than any other understands what the whole Cezechoslo- vakian student population is up against. Members of MYDA, like the rest of us, have read that the Gottwald government is restricting higher education in Czechoslo- vakia to those who profess loyalty to Prague. And these members have said nothing about it. Does MYDA seriously hope for sympathy in its fight for rerecognition, its fight for academic freedom, when it sees only its own narrow struggle and cannot link it with a worldwide battle for freedom? There are the "hold-tightists" among us who tell us to wait for clarification of the mess in Czechoslovakia before we make any bold contention that freedom is in jeopardy there. These are the people who would wait for the Gottwald information services to get into functioning trim and prepare a neat rationalization of what has been going on. But it's going to be awfully hard to rationalize away the plowing under of freedom of thought-the suppressing of common values there. And it's going to be awfully hard for campus political groups to rationalize away inaction in this situation. -Ben Zwerling. NIGHT EDITOR: LIDA DAILES Halting Disruption THE FURORE created by the. recent Su- preme Court decision against released- time in public schools for religious educa- tion is reminiscent of the "Monkey Trials" of some years back. The present decision, however, may stir up a controversy of much greater consequence than the Bryan-Darrow debate on evolution. When the Urbana. trial began, more than two years ago, Vashti McCollum was suing to have religious training banned from the schools, testifying that her son Terry was INeitable T WAS BOUND TO HAPPEN. When radio stations gave their support to the Taft-Hartley Act last summer, they didn't foresee that they might be taking some of the jam off their own bread. The Federal Communications Commission is now holding hearings in Washington to decide whether or not to revise the ban of seven year's standing on radio editorial- izing. According to Jack Kroll, director of the CIO Political Action Committee, how- ever, if the ban is rescinded, stations may find themselves violating the self-made Taft-Hartley Bill they fought so hard to help pass. Section 304 of the law states that ex-' penditures by corporations, as well as by unions, in political campaigns is forbidden. This would directly apply to the big radio corporations. Whatever happens to the ban, one is re- minded of the old saw about "biting" the hand that feeds you." Yes, it was bound to happen. -Fredrica Winters. "embarrassed" and "ostracized" because she would not let him attend these classes. Although she herself is an atheist, Mrs. McCollum introduced witnesses to testify that this training discriminated against Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Je- hovah's Witnesses, Friends, Fundamental- ists, Christian Scientists and other minor- ity groups. Losing the case, she appealed it through higher Illinois courts, and finally up to the United States Supreme Court, which early this week declared the Urbana plan uncon- stitutional and branded it as an attempt to break down the harrier between church and state, Released time for religious classes is a fairly new idain. the history of this coun- try, originating in 1913, in Gary, Indiana. F'ron there it spread until, in 1947, only one state, New Hampshire, refused to per- mit church classes on school time. Nearly 2,000 communities, with over a million and a half -students, now have some kind of released-time plan. How these communities will be affected by the Supreme Court decision remains to be seen. But the testimony brought out in the McCollum trial is only indication of the havoc that can be wrought in the class- rooms when religious groups are divided and inevitably set against one another. For there can be no religious education that is not sectarian education, and separate classes divide and break down the demo- cratic unifying spirit of the schools. The Supreme Court decision will do much to halt the spread of a movement that can only lead to disruption in the class, room. -John Morris. ONE OF THE MORE nauseating develop- ments of the past few days has been the ever-louder talk of war. The stalwart warrior, Walter Winchell openly predicts war within a few month. Congress puts a "rush" label on the ERP: and draft boards in Kentucky are being reorganized as a "matter of preparedness." There are some, no doubt, who rub their hands in glee-the people who said in '42 and '43 that they "hoped the war continued for a long time." There must be others also, who have been shouting these last two years, "We've got to lick the Russians, and it had better be sooner than later." In the midst of the hysteria, sit other heads, cooler, less sanguine, their opinions tempered by the enormous bellyfull of war they .got in the heartbreaking, terrifying six years of the war. In this group are the men who fought. Among American young men, many of them had gone with misgiv- ings, but sure in the conviction that this war might be the last. This war had, after all grown out of the mistakes of an older generation. Our generation would be wiser, we would avoid the mistakes of the past and build a flourishing peace. Sumner Welles, former Under-Secretary of State wrote a book entitled "Time for De- cision," in which he outlined the pitfalls dotting the way and told how to avoid them. Walter Lippman told of the infant United Nations, and people began to cast off fear. It was going to be a rosy world indeed. But somewhere along the line the mech- anism was derailed. Here were our states- men in Washington and the other cap- itals of the world repeating the very mistakes we had been warned against. We railed at Communists and gave lip service to democracy, but sent arms and money to fascist governments. And those we did not help, we certainly did not harm. The unhappy result of the "Truman Doctrine" was a growing disaffection by the peoples of the world. They saw nothing to be gained from having fascism foisted upon them. They wanted peace and raw ma- terials and food to rebuild themselves, and got anti-Russian propaganda instead. UN- 1,RA was abandoned because it might en- courage social experiments in Europe. Life magazine tells us we do not have to put open restrictions on social experiments, but suggests it may be done subtly in the ad- ministration of the Marshall Plan. It should not be so impossible, then, for us to understand the recent events in Czechoslovakia and Finland. and the older stories in Hungary and Yugoslavia. The difficulty will lie in rationalizing the new war that so many are gleefully planning, and inviting us to start. The youth that marched off to war so un- grudgingly in 1939 and 1940 will not be so willing again. They will see it as the result of stupid blunders and bankrupt diplomacy. The words freedom and de- mocracy will not do to describe the aims. -Jake Hurwitz. Definitionls THE CONSERVATIVE definition of a lib- eral becomes more evident as time goes on. Conservatives envision the liberal as a fellow traveler, a Communist, or a dupe of the Soviet underground in the United States. Their picture is formed for them by the hundred and one Thomases, Rankins and Hearsts. But fact is contradictory to belief. In ac- tuality, the liberal does not regard the ac- tions of Stalin or Molotov in much different light than the Young Republicans. No liberal or progressive has come to the defense of the Russian coup in Czechoslovakia as the newspapers would lead us to believe. Rather liberals have been noted for detesting fas- cism, Red, German or American. The liberal can not be too shocked by Russian action in Czechoslovakia because he has seen the American regime in Greece. The liberal cannot be too dis- turbed by Commnunist sponsored strikes because he has seen British sponsored massacres in Palestine. lie cannot be dis- turbed by the censoring of Russian mu- sicians because he has seen American art- ists and writers attacked and hounded by the Un-American Activities Committee. The liberal skin is thick. He has born the brunt of a thousand attacks by thej radical right wing groups. He has been smeared as a Communist agent by every forthright "American" in the country. He goes right on standing for the principles on which the movement was begun some three hundred years ago. The conservative who seeks fellow-trav- eling in the liberal action is cutting his own throat. It has been the liberal move- ment since America began which has saved the nation. This does not remove the need for a conservative force, it merely points out that liberals are American as well, but that they can't see even the United States having its cake and eating it too. -Don McNeil. -' .~ - ' v s v ^r "Ya never can tell under artificial light. Wait'll ya see her in th' daytime." Letters to the Eitor ... EDITOR'S NOTE: Because The Daily prints every letter to the editor re- ceived (which is signed, 300 words or less in length, and in good taste) we remind our readers that the views expressed in letters are those of the writers only. Letters of more than 300 words are shortened, printed or omitted at the discretion of the edI- torial director. * * . Dascola rial To the Editor: ITE FAMOUS, or as you wish, infamous Dascola trial has come and gone. Gone too from many of us is the hope that in Ann Arbor "freedom" and "equal- ity" were not words without meaning; that perhaps that ray of light which gives men courage and enables them to fight on in the face of adversiiy, could be found in a small, dingy courtroom where Dascola stood trial before a jury of his peers. After a day of tes- tinony and armg oent which con- clusively proved how openly the defendant had disregarded the law, this all-white jury, as some of us had expected, returned a verdict of not guilty. During the trial the defense attorney stated that the citizens of Ann Arbor didn't need students to tell them how to run the city. How well-off would many of these Ann Arbor citizens be without the presence of 20,000 students? This is, as perhaps few years in our history, a year of decision. In other words. it's soul searching time. How long can you as a stu- dent in search of truth allow per- secuted minorities to wallow in the mire of hopelessness and de- spair, making them easy prey for any "radical" or "subversive" group while you sit idly by doing noth- ing? It's verdicts like that re- turned in the Dascola case which drive hundreds of Negroes into the ranks of Communism each year. ... It's up to the student body to show the citizens of Ann Arbor that it is capable of running the campus, even if its suggestions on how to democratically run the city are not appreciated. This can be done by refusing to patronize the E. Liberty shop, and urging your friends to do likewise; by in- quiring at the 'Ensian office why Dascola's shop (with the attend- ant free publicity) was chosen as the place to display 'Ensian pic- tures. The Daily has yet to ex- plain why Dacsola's ads, asking for all patrons except Negroes, are still welcome in its pages. Since the University is considering the advisability of changing its policy of banning political speeches in University buildings, it might be prevailed upon to reconsider its policy of non-interference in com- munity affairs. Other universities have seen fit to take such action. Remember, your decision can come too late! -Carroll Little. Elliot 1)ecson To the Editor: FEEL THE ENCLOSED 'open wire' to Prof. Frank Richart, University of Illinois, Champaign, Ill., expresses the sincere attitude of the University of Michigan stu- dents toward the Big Nine's re-o cent decision on 'Bump' Elliott. "Prof. Frank Richart University of Illinois Big Nine's recent ruling declar- ing Chalmers Elliott ineligible is not only unfair to Elliott, but a grave injustice to the competitive spirit of American sports and what it symbolizes." -Clarence 11. Baxter. Jr. Answer Ru mn an To the Editor: JEWS STILL ARE seeking for places to live. Evidently Wadi S. Rumman is an "expert" in in- ternational affairs, and he could easily give some information to the thousands of Jews as to the OTHER PLACES THAN PALES- TINE where they would readily be admitted. In case Wadi S. Rum- man is interested in going through with such a humanitarian task, I may inform him that all those people are il camps for displaced people Should anybody detect bitter- ness or sarcasm in this letter, I want to make it clear that those displaced people really would ap- preciate such information. As for the encouraging state- ment: WE CAN SAY THAT THERE IS NO MORE PERSECU- TION OF JEWS NOWADAYS, al- low me Mr. Wadi S. Rumman to keep a most significant silence. -saac M. Litvak. A Non-Zionist Jew. Misinformation To the Editor: JF THE MEMBERS of the US- AAF Intelligence in the Middle East have and get the kind of in- formation that Mr. Lapin is trying to enforce upon the readers of The Michigan Daily, then we the people of the Middle East better quit trying to clarify and explain our problems to the Americans. Mr. Lapin is writing nothing but nonsense about Egypt and the Christian Egyptians. The Christian Egyptians-about 1 not 3 millions-form that part of the Egyptian population which did not adopt th Moslem religion over 1,300 years ago. There was no discrimination in the past, theredis none now and there will be none in the future-neither in Egypt nor all over the Arab and Moslem World. We the Egyptians and Arabs, do not allow you Mr. Lapin or anybody else to impose himself on our affairs, especially if you are the prejudiced type . Mr. Lapin, I will not try to an- swer your misinforming letter in these few lines, but I defy you and your kind to come to any open meeting sponsored by any group you choose and you bring your references if you have any, and then I will be very happy to show our American friends what kind- of information they get from their ex-members of the USAAF Intelligence in the Middle East. Shall I hear from You? I hope! -A. M. Effat. Whose Failure To the Editor: TH1E IRA should send a tran- script of the Dascola Trial to . 77 t t a" admit's un der t i h l a Ile 1 ra neit her tool); nor ability to cut, hair for ia lai c Dori ie of'the ])opllation. -D. Roger NMaleau hton. To the Editor: rrHIS LETTER concerns some of my confe sed and:]prejudiced "prOile"ive" friends. I am re- fei'iing to those who daily beat their chests about the infringe- ment s upon civil liberties in this country but who cannot see