r THE ii l- MAIT~7N iTX Illl.i 1in1 Y b ..... ............. .... ...U - W4 S** *j ta. AstuS, -- - Truman Speech lietter Arileril (dive UST HOW GULLIBLE are people ex- pected to be? Yesterday, President Truman informed Congress that we had supported freedom and the UN in every instance since the end of the war, but the gravity of the world situation requires immediate House passage of ERP, and swift action by both chambers on UMT and temporary revival of selective service. It is only too evident that we have never been willing to entrust the UN with enough power to accomplish anything, and that we have supported fascist governments to stall off the Communists. It was American objections to national- ization experiments in Europe that killed UNRRA, policies of expediency that allowed Peron and Franco to perpetuate their openly Fascist regimes and direct aid that bolstered the corrupt regimes of Tsaldaris and Chiang Kai-Shek. The vacillating legalistic stand on Palestine jibes no better with the President's statements. It will be remembered that the assembly resolution passed in November defined efforts to oppose partition by force as a breach of the peace. For some reason our delegate has never acknowledged this. Is this the freedom we are to protect by instituting a draft of debatable value in democratic country in time of peace? If so the game is scarcely worth the candle. But even the President wants peace, and suggests that his way is the way to peace. It is inconceivable, however,,that beating. the war drums will bring us peace or ac- complish anything but an atomic weapons race. Admittedly the world is in a serious state of danger, but power politics will bring only disaster. If we are really interested in freedom, there is no reason not to adopt a "get tough" policy with the fascists and nurture incipient democratic movements uninflu- enced by either Communists or fascists. At the same time if Truman were to propose a meeting with Stalin, neither would lose anything but face and some agreement might be reached. Even if nothing more concrete than a rewritten UN charter re- sulted, it would be a substantial step for- ward.' Faced with the war as the alternative, Truman should find writing a satisfactory charter for a limited world government with sovereign powers, more appealing than an armaments race. Certainly such a course is preferable to committment to inevitable war. --Jake Hurwitz. Editorials published in The Michigan Daily are written by members of The Daily staff and represent the views of the writers only. NIGHT EDITOR: HAROLD JACKSON COd Their Bluff WE ARE NOW officially living in a crisis. President Truman yesterday publicly recognized ; a situation that has been grow- ing for the last two years. The world is again in danger of war. There is no use putting on rose-colored glasses to keep from seeing the red glow rising over Europe. There is no use pre- tending we haven't seen the same thing be- fore-Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, one country after another falling before a Communist fifth column just as surely as they fell before the Nazi juggernaut, with the same results in loss of peace and civil liberties. It is senseless to try to absolve this coun- try from all blame for the situation. We gave the Balkans away at Yalta as though they belonged to us; we waved the threat of the atomic bomb before the world until it feared us as a possible aggressor. When Eu- rope asked for economic aid, we gave prom- ises-promises which Congress has yet to keep. But let those who denounce the United States for working outside the UN remember who it was that stopped all attempts at cooperation through the UN. Let them re- member 21 Russian vetoes in two years. Let them remember four councils of foreign ministers that ended in gloom and failure when the Russian delegation took a "take it or leave it" stand against all offers of friendship and compromise. Let those who would merely wait for Russia to condescend to cooperate, remem- ber that Russia is not waiting. While we haggle over the Marshall Plan, she is work- ing fanatically to undermine democracy in Europe. While we argue over UMT, Russia is going full speed ahead in armament, and training her young people in militarism as thorough as Hitler's. Some people say, let Russia take Europe, and that will be the end of it. But the Com- munists are bent on world domination. For many years they have been increasingly active and vocal in South America. They honeycombed Canada, as revealed in the Canadian spy trials of a year and a half ago. Their program is set forth as clearly by Marx as Hitler's was in Mein Kampf. Their methods are the same, only more cleverly managed. This is no time for hysteria or yellow journalism. In a crisis, men need to stay calm. War is not inevitable-but only if we call Russia's bluff, and show that we are not such weak fools, after all. The only language that a gangster government understands is the language of power. Must we learn the same lesson twice in one decade? -Andee Seeger. I'D RATHER BE RIGHT: Vision Clouded By SAMUEL GRAFTON IF YOUHAD to settle for one word to des- cribe the "situation,' domestic and for- eign, I guess disorder would be it. In the large, or philosophical sense, this is one of the most disorderly moments the American people have ever had to face. And the dis- order is like an enveloping fog, distorting every vista. One looks about and sees grain prices heading south, and the Russians heading west. The former movement threat- ens a recession, the latter something worse. And as the American people try to focus, cockeyedly, on both events, they are uneasily aware that they must soon elect a President from a swarming field, and that in all likeli- hood he will be a minority one. When, at such a time, Jan Masaryk goes out of a window to his death in Prague, the event takes on a kind of extended meaning, as an expression of the frank incredibility of our times. Who would have thought, at the end of the war, that within three years the postwar world would be one in which the gay and democratic Jan Masaryk would not want to live? His death is symbolic of the world's unbelievable present hour, its strangeness, its upsidedownness. But though there is a sense that the dis- order of our time is general, there is almost no effort to meet it in a general way, with a general program, one large enough to pre- vent recession at home, and to reestablish peace and order in the world. Instead our statesmen try to break it up into bits, and each is content to worry his pet fragment, A number of Congressmen bellow suddenly for military aid to China. A number of others hiss at "grain speculators.' Still others think the answer will be found in probing Hollywood, and yet another group wants to cut taxes, as an uncomplicated, almost magical way out. Such scuttling, such running to and fro! And each man takes hold of only as much of the general problem as he can carry in his two hands; each seeks a kind of manage- able segment, which is made to look like the whole thing. Each works, opinion- proud, in miniature, in a climate of steadily- declining stability in the world as a whole. What we need is a renewed humility, a realization that none of these jabs is very likely to work. We need to face the fact that our problems are big, and general, that the "trouble" which has come to every other country following the war had put in a sort of American visit, too. We need a program big enough to tame the huge disorder. Part of it, certainly, would have to be a plan to curb recession, and to mitigate its effects. The Marshall Plan clearly fits in, too; to abandon or weaken it now would transform mere disorder into chaos. We need, also, a new approach to peace, a re newed drive to negotiation, before we reach the stake at which the very desire for peace will come to seem a weakness; and we are at the border of that stage now. But the odd fact is that only through humility will we be able to approach and shape the big program; for the prouder and more arrogant our attitudes become, the smaller will our thinking be. Can we do it? But here we run up against our own prideful hate of planning, a prohibition erected by ourselves to stop ourselves. I can easily imagine that the Kremlin probably relies on this, that it is even gladder we have given up planning than we are; that it feels we will shout, and scurry around, and pitch a number of wild balls, but that we won't plan. And part of the current disorder is due, not to our problems, but to the uncoordinated atomic dance of our methods for solving them, to our scuttling and our thin squeals, our attempted broken-field runs and our hunch plays. (Copyright, 1948, New York Post Corporation) BRILL MAULDIN " ; Cnpr. 44 y n~e FAt, "I use him for low gear on hills." Letters to the Editor . Same Motives THE TIME: May 2, 1941-The Place: Iraq. The incident: Iraqi troops of the new Premier Rashid Ali Beg Gailani attacked the British airport at Habbania near the Mosul oil fields. From Berlin, Haj Amin el Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem broad- cast an appeal to the Arabs to begin a Holy War. (The British are now on both speak- ing and business terms with the Mufti.) German and Italian troops and aircraft landed in Iraq and Syria to aid the Nazi- inspired Iraqi revolt. Fawzi el Kawukji Bey, the Arab chieftain penetrated 170 miles into Trans-Jordan. But on June 1, 1941, the insurrection was over; Emir Abdul Illah had returned to Iraq and rebel Premier Gailani had fled to Iran. The question: Why was the British army able to put down the rebellion? The answer: The British army was de- termined to end this threat to its valuable oil reserves in the Mosul province and with only twenty thousand men was able to stop the trouble in exactly one month's time. A noteworth*y example, indeed, of Britain's might. The scene changes. The time: November 29, 1947. The place: Lake Success, New York. The incident: The UN here today an- nounces its plan for the partition of Pales- tine into an Arab and a Jewish state. Great LookingBack From the pages of The Daily: 50 YEARS AGO TODAY: The first in a series of lectures to raise funds for the Barbour Gymnasium was pre- sented by Frank Roberson before a large audience in University Hall. The lecture was illustrated with fine stere-opticon views "which made the lecture doubly interest- ing." 25 YEARS AGO TODAY: A survey of the leading American uni- versities showed that Michigan ranked fourth in enrollment with 8,703 full-time students. Ahead of Michigan were the Uni- versities of California, with 14,061, Colum- bia with 10,308, and Illinois with 9,285. A Daily poll failed to unearth a single Britain is to maintain order until its man- date ends and the UN formally takes over management. And in Palestine all hell breaks loose. Under the order of the Mufti of Jeru- salem (the same Haj Amim el Husseini) the Arabs begin attacking all Jews in sight. Imported Arabs from Lebanon and Syria (under the leadership of Fawzi el Kawukji Bey and his "people's army") battle the Jewish Defense Army, the Haganah. Attack:, reprisal, counterattack . . . civil war rages throughout Palestine. The British seem to be unable to stop the bloodshed. The Arabs are using British arms to mur- der both Jews and Englishmen (Britain readily admits selling arms to the Arabs). The Jews, however, are cut off from their main sources of supply by the American arms embargo. The British, with 70,000 troops, nearly three times the number they had in Iraq, are completely unable to maintain order. The question: Does Britain really want to stop the bloodshed in Palestine, or is she again merely trying to look out for her oil interests? -Allan Clamage. Change Attitudes THE PREVAILING ATTITUDE on campus and in the entire country is that war with Russia is inevitable. The feeling is that the sooner we fight Russia, the better our chances of victory. What the individual does not understand is that in the event of war he has little to look forward to before a violent death. The freshman engineer or law student at Michi- gan has little or no chance of graduating and practicing his professon if war does come. There will be no need of creative construction or law in an atomic war. The next war may be the last. It certainly will be the last for many people who are now reading this paper, including those who have this attitude of inevitability. If the war is inevitable, it will be so des- tructive that it may destroy the world and everyone in it. Accordng to the pessimists, then, we have little time left to live. There- fore, we should spend every precious minute 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. * * * Music Dispute To the Editor: A RECENT LETTER to Ralph Raimi's made the telling point that art could be socio-po- litical; that if the Politbureau wanted Soviet music they could and would get it. Mr. Raimi had been referring to the latest out- cry of anti-totalitarians against the chastisement of Prokofief, Shostakovitch, and others, by whatever Soviet agency is delegat- ed to do so, for the crime of com- posing "bourgeois decadent" mu- sic. Mr. Raimi fails to evidence awareness of: that which gives art life is its quality of emotional expression through its expert fu- sion of content and form. In judg- ment of a work or art these twin components can no more be sep- arated than one intent and prac- tical results in ethical examina- tion of any form of behavior, by the individual or by the state. The artist may be quite willing to direct his work to conform to the demands of the Inquisition, Stalin, or the Thomas committee. (This is evidenced by the volun- tary recantations in each case.) However, he, the artist is thereby forced into an unfamiliar genre or one he dislikes thus making him incapable or unwilling to achieve the spontaneity or bal- ance or x-factor that is the hall- mark of a good work of art. The impotence of one of our ex- perimental art forms, the movies, is in direct proportion to the amount of knuckling under by Hollywood producers to the pres- sures of the Johnston office, the League for Catholic Decency, the Thomas Committee and the polit- ical touchiness of foreign coun- tries and internal minority groups etc. All this, mind you, in a state where there is relatively little censoring of art forms. It is rather difficult, I imagine to ride Pegasus with one's hands and feet tied. The pressures put upon American movies, and Amer- ican publishers will indeed pro- duce American movies and Amer- ican books (J. Parnell Thomas American, that is) just as the pressures on Soviet composers will produce Soviet music. The usual philistinish question becomes rele- vant here: "But, is it art?" -Edward Tumin Czech Protest To the Editor: 1HE STUDENTS in Czechoslo- vakia are being faced today with the grim spectre of restric- tion and repression. It has become part of a pattern of violation of academic freedom and civil lib- erties throughout the world. We in Michigan know in a small way what abrogation of academic freedom means. It has become increasingly clear that the cases that at first cropped up sporadically, have turned into a deadly series of repetitions both here and abroad. Czechoslovakia has always had close ties with the U.S. We had aided in its formation after World War I, and the common bond of democratic institutions has al- ways been very strong. The tradi- tion of Czech freedom goes much further back than 30 years though. It has been a heritage won by many years of fighting for lib- erty. Reports from the nation's press and radio, representing almost every shade of opinion, have shown conclusively that the pres- ent Czech government's actions in violation of civil and academic rights have al but abrogated the work "democracy" in that un- happy nation. The march of reaction must be stemmed wherever and whenever it shows itself-whether in Czech- oslovakia, Greece, China, Spain, Russia - or the U.S. I therefore urge every member of this university to join in a meeting to learn what the situa- tion in Czechoslovakia means to us. It is part of an education in history that extends further than in classroom into the lives of every one of us. -Alfred Shapiro, Chairman, SLID. Real Face , To the Editor: r"HE BI-PARTISAN Administra- tion in Washington has at last begun to show its real face to the people. It no longer dis- guises the purposes of the Mar- shall Plan and the Truman Doc- trine. Either the Italian people, in the April 18 elections are to vote the way Wall Street dictates, against nationalization against a combined Communist - Socialist slate, or no dollars are forthcom- ing from the United States. This admonition to the Italian people and the people of Europe at large is coupled with a threat of armed intervention, if necessary, to re- tain these markets for Wall Street. President Truman's speech re- flected the hysteria of a fright- ened and doomed Wall Street. The Morgans, Rockefellers, Du- ponts and their spokesmen, as Forrestal, are at a loss because the common people of Europe have refu sed-by their expres- sions at the polls-to accept the domination of American trusts. They have rejected all attempts to mortgage their industry and land to American capital. Further, Truman reflected the hysteria of the two major war parties because the common peo- ple in the U.S. have rejected the path tohwar and have beguntto rally around the banner of Henry Wallace. A recent Roper poll esti- mated close to fifteen million sup- porters for Wallace. The conflict is not the way Tru- man and our kept press would have us believe-a struggle of western democracy against the Soviet Union. (Mr. Truman im- plies that democracy and capital- ism are synonymous.) In China, Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Palestine, Greece, Italy, Latin America, as well as the rest of Europe and the U.S., the rule of the big capitalists is being chal- lenged. The conflict is rather be- tween the democratic minded peo- ples of the world and a handful of would-be dictators from Wall Street, attempting to salvage the remnants of a decaying capital- ismn -Ernest Ellis, Student Director, (P of Michigan. War( Now To the Editor: THE TIMES we live in are cru- cal and cruel. This is a cru- cial period because war may come at any moment; this is a cruel pe- riod because people are confused and terrified and bitter. Because they fear and detest the war that draws nearer, they conclude that war is not inevitable and can be prevented honorably. The people of whom I write can be divided mainly into two groups, pure pacifists and those who ad- mired all things Russian during the last war; the events of each day batter their faith, but they can't bring themselves to let go; they hang on desperately. Al Blumrosen, author of It's Not In- evitable, I think, is of this latter group. In 1945, there existed in this country a tremendous amount of good will toward Russia. Then was the time to cement friendly rela- tions; and had this been done, the result would probably have been generations of peace on earth, a Golden Era of advances in the social and physical sciences, with no preparations for or fear of war. But the job was bungled, and I believe war is now inevitable. This is a terrible thing, of course, but it is too late now. Look at the record. In the UN, in Germany, in Eastern Europe, the Russians have blocked ac- complishment. Itais argued that all this is be- cause Russia distrusts us, fears American aggression. Ridiculous! Is America an aggressive nation? A further look at the record indi- cates that it is not. A quotation from a recent col- umn of Eleanor Roosevelt: "The USSR is not content- along her borders, at least-with just a friendly attitude. "They want the whole cheese of complete control, and they seem to know how to get it. "Masaryk was probably a saddened and disillusioned man. How many others will there be in the years to come?" An ultimatum now! The result: a quick, decisive war, or Russian retreat. -Myron H. Marks. No Food 1laint To the Editor: AS A NEW RESIDENT of a Uni- versity Residence Hall and one who is quite satisfied with the food situation, I would like to commend and support Craig H. Wilson's views expressed in his recent editorial in The Daily on "Food Gripers." Having lived in a private resi- dence this past semester, I have experienced both dormitory food and the run-of-the-mill food served in the various eating places here in Ann Arbor. I am sure that one will find that the vast ma- jority of the dormitory gripers have entered the University Resi- dence Halls as freshmen or trans- ferees, never having experienced the other side of the food prob- lem here in their fair college town. How many of them have wasted an hour or so every eve- ning lining up at the League along with the hordes of other hungry students and in the end reluctantly shelling out for one meal almost what a dormitory resident pays for a day's board (three meals)? Or how many of these gripers actually can say that the Union offers better food than that which can be obtained in the ResidenceHalls? Sure theUnion offers roast beef and sliced ham at every meal, but the finest cafe- teria in Detroit can match their prices for these "delicacies." Compare the foregoing criticism with the food situation in a Resi- dence Hall. The meals are care- fully selected and supervised by a dietician and are quite varied. The state of confusion is not prevalent during lunch and supper hours, and one has a decidedly improved atmosphere for his culinary satis- faction. For $10.50 per week, the student is provided with 21 ample meals. Gone is the necessity of walking several blocks, waiting in lines to be served, and leaving the establishment just as hungry as when you came in. No,' I am not under the influ- ence of opium, I enjoy the food in my Residence Hall. -Lincoln J. Racey. * * * What To Do To the Editor: AS I SAID in my last letter, 1948 politics spell DISASTER for F OR THE FIRST TIME in more than 400 years, the 60,000 Greeks of the Dodecanese had something to cheer about. They packed the festive, narrow streets of their medieval capital city of Rhodes as a Greek destroyer, es- corted by U.S. and British de- stroyers, nosed into the mountain- rimmed harbor. In 1522, when Suleiman the Magnificent stormed the battlemented castle of the Knights of St. John, the islanders had become Turks; since 1912, when imperial-minded Italy won its Turkins War, they had been Italians. This week, by the terms of the Paris peace treaty with Italy, they became again what they had always remained in speech and culture-citizens of Greece. -Time. l ty igh Y Fifty-Eighth Year U the United States-the question, then, is: What can be done? A year from now a Republican , will be sitting in the White House. That means four calamitous years. 4 And unhappily, those years are crucial ones for the world. What are we going to do in the course of the "four years"? I suggest three things: first, we must lay such groundwork as will prevent a Republican victory from demoralizing our ranks and will provide a program for the 'four years" Second, I suggest that we throw our suipport to, the Dem- ocratic candidate, trying to win a as many votes as possible from the Left and from the Right- chancing on a miracle victory. Third, we must at all costs elect a liberal congress. We can thus diminish the bleak effect of the "four years" and perhaps prevent. a deterioration of our interna- tional position. We know a liberal victory re- quires the collaboration of the lib- erals in the three parties, and I believe that such collaboration is possible. Mr. Wallace is committed to the defeat of the Democratic candi- date for the Presidency, but such a committal need not be directed, also, towards the defeat of his liberal congressional colleagues. On the contrary Mr. Baldwin, a a Wallace campaign manager, contends, with some truth, that Wallace's running will pull out the section of the liberal vote that otherwise would have stayed at home. This vote can be utilized, but certainly not if liberals are running aaginst each other. The Wallace men and liberal Democrats must agree on state and district levels who of their two parties is to run and get the combined vote of the two. Like- wise, if the Wallace office would abstain from putting a candidate in thedfield where such action would defeat a liberal Republican running against a rightist Dem- ocrat, much would be contributed. Such action will not appeal to prima donnas and self-seeking men, but it will help our.country at a time of desperate need. -Roger Shaw. v Local Controls - Edited and managed 1iy students of the University of Michigan under the authority of the Board in Control of Student Publications. Editorial Staff John Campbell .......Managing Edlte= Dick Maloy .............. City Editor Harriett Friedman .. Editorial Director Lida Dailes...........Associate Editor Joan Katz........... Associate Editor Fred Schott.........Associate Editor Dick Kraus ..............Sports Editor Bob Lent ......Associate Sports Editor Joyce Johnson.......Women's Editor Jean Whitney Associate Women's Editor Bess Hayes ................. Librarian Business Staff Nancy Helmick .......General Mana e Jeanne Swendeman.....Ad. Manager Edwin Schneider .. Finance Manager Dick Halt......Circulation Manager Telephone 23-24-1 CONGRESS IS NOW considering a bill to modify rent controls and extend them until March 31, 1949. What form the mod- ification will take is difficult to predict, because the Senate and House are at odds over whether rent control authority should be left in Federal hands or put on a local basis. The case for the House view is strong. It represents the adaptation of a war-time measure to a peace-time purpose. During the war, it was necessary to restrict all domestic housing because there was a na- tionwide housing shortage and rents could have shot right to the ceiling. Now, houses are being built and the old shortage has disappeared in many areas of the nation. The problem of rent control is now one of local application of rent ceilings where the shortage still exists. Only the officers of local boards are able to determine whether their district needs rent control. However, under the old law, Federal au- thorities make the decisions on all cases and the local board acts only in an advisory ca- pacity. This dissassociation of authority and on-the-scene information resulted in ,poor Member of The Associated Press ThedAssociated Press is exclusively entitled to the use for re-publication of all news dispatched credited to it or otherwise credited in this newspaper. All rights of re-publication of all other matters herein are also reserved. Entered at the Post Office at Ann Arbor, Michigan, as second-class mail matter. Subscription during the regular school year by carrier, $5.00, by mail, $6.00. Member Associated Collegiate Press 1947.48 -L, +" BARNABY,.. L f Peewill help increase .the benefiil 1i~ I' A minute Gran. Causina n/vn ,slight 1 Cwr++;..s. e.ra.p:,, 3 4 aCkmo I I W arĀ«,I