THE MICHIGAN DAILY

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Rushing Revision

-'ro ...
BY GETTING rid of the discriminatory
rushing lists it now publishes, -the IFC
ill be doing an educational job on the prej-
diced.
Not all the discriminating that goes on
in the fraternity system originates among
the houses with discriminatory clauses.
How many of the non-restricted houses
can you count that have taken in Jews
or Negroes?

I Con...

The real prejudice remains in the minds
of the people and there are plenty left on
campus both in and out of fraternities who
practice discrimination daily.
Something which is in the mind must,
of course, be ended there; we can't push
out prejudices with laws; pamphlets or
books. The only way to convince the prej-
udiced is to bring them in contact with the
people they discriminate against without
their fore-knowledge that the rushees are
of a particular minarity.
This doesn't need to wait until the re-
maining fraternities with clauses remove
them. We all need the lesson of human re-
lations learned from personal contact if we
are not going to take our prejudices with us
when we leave school.
As for hard feelings arising, there
should be none. Certainly the minority
members who have lived the ripe old age
of college must have felt the heel of dis-
crimination before this if they've lived in
our democracy.
Those who must ask the questions will
perhaps find added incentive in their awk-
wardness to work towards elimination of
their clauses. Or, if they fall in the class of
the personally prejudiced they will feel no
qualms about finding out the racial religious
information. They can ask rushees about fi-
nances, scholarship, and atheltic ability.
-Don McNeil
Editorials published in The Michigan Daily
are written by members of The Daily staff
and represent the views of the writers only.
NIGHT EDITOR: ROMA LIPSKY

A RECENT DAILY editorial suggested that
the Interfraternity Council make dis-
crimination in fraternities more difficult by
omitting religious preference information
from lists of rushees.
Specifically, the editorial objected to the
practice of placing a J, C or P, for Jewish,
Catholic or Protestant, behind the name of
each man on the rushing list.
This objection is a good one, but I be-
lieve that to remove the religious prefer-
ence information from the lists at the
present time would do far more harm than
good.
Fraternities here and at other universities
must face certain realities. Most of them
must abide by national constitutions which
have been in effect for perhaps a half-cen-
tury or more.
Many of these consitutions contain dis-
criminatory clauses of one sort or another.
True, some fraternities have succeeded in
removing such clauses, but many others
face almost insurmountable difficulties
in doing so, thanks to old-guard alumni
who must approve constitutional changes.
Other fraternities are making some prog-
ress in lining up support against discrimina-
tory clauses, but find that no final action
can be taken for a year or two until national
conventions are held.
For such fraternities, the inclusion of the
rather obnoxious J's, C's and P's are almost
essential. Should they not appear on the
list, a host of embarrassing situations would
undoubtedly arise.
For example, both the rushee and the fra-
ternity would suffer if it should be discov-
ered at the last minute that a desirable man
who had been rushed vigorously could not
be pledged because of constitutional limita-
tions.
OF course, this could be avoided if fra-
ternities should welcome open-house
guests with pointed questions abaut their
religious beliefs, which could hardly fail
to lead to hard feelings on the part of
everyone concerned.
Surely it is better to avoid unnecessary
mental wounds and retain the lists as they
are, at least until national discriminatory
clauses can be given the axe by a large ma-
jority of campus fraternities.
-Paul Brentlinger

CIINIEMA
Atthe Orpheum .. .
SLEEPING CAR TO TRIESTE: Rona
Anderson and other commuters.
THE APPROPRIATENESS of the title of
this one is almost embarrassing. Having
had the good fortune to see a revival of "The
Lady Vanishes" a few years ago, I am aware
of the tradition it represents; and I am
chagrined for Mr. Hitchcock that this piece
is offered as being in that tradition.
I would place "Sleeping CartoTrieste"
more in the tradition of the cinema ver-
sion of Vickie Baum's "Grand Hotel." It
has all the requisites: a tired plot bur-
dened with innumerable incidental com-
plications, stock humor, and a petrifying
list of stereotyped characters.
A "sinister" thief is tailed by two "slick"
foreign agents, one of them supposedly the
daughter of the murdered ruler of a ficti-
tious kingdom. Her barroom diction and
swaggering hips could hardly have been
described as regal. These three are tusseling
for a statesman's diary which is supposed to
precipitate a civil war. One glance at the
elegantly bound volume throws several peo-
ple riding the rails into high gear. No one
in the audience, as far as I could tell, was
even mildly distressed.
The humorous element is provided by the
French chef, appropriately emotional and
distracted, being heckled by an English cook.
The bill, of fare on most trains I've been on,
belied the presence of a Fanny Farmer. This
doesn't seem to be the case on the con-
tinent. Thrown in for added confusion are
two foreign "lovelies" with a solid dozen
hat boxes, a Scottish lecturer, a martyred
valet, a yappy American Army Sergeant, a
British ornithologist, etc., etc., etc.
Eventually, everyone aboard with the
exception of the bartender, ge's involved
with the little book. In a couple of in-
stances the blood pressure of the finder
rose so visibly, I suspect the diary of being
pornographic. Unfortunately I'll never
know since the contents are rather cas-
ually left undivulged right up to the con-
clusion.
Benjamin Frankel's musical score, when
it could be heard above the shrill toot of
the choo-choo, offered the only relief from
this very long and very dull ride to Trieste.
It happily had almost no connection with
what little mood there was on the screen.
-Jim Graham.
Wood's Will
rTHE IDEA of loyalty oaths will receive
little encouragement from the loyalty
oath in Sam Wood's will. Under terms estab-
lished by the late film producer, his two
daughters may inherit incomes of $1,000 a
month, provided they swear they are not
Communists or subversive in any way. This
proviso sounds irrelevant, immaterial and
Hollywoodish.
Whatever reasons Mr. Wood. may have
had for subjecting his family to a loyalty
test, there are several kinds of loyalty
that such an innovation in bequests can-
not prove. One is loyalty to the memory
of the deceased. Another is loyalty to the
United States, which is hardly determined
on a cash basis. All that might be deter-
mined conclusively is loyalty to $1,000 per.
Mr. Wood was militantly anti-Communist,
and possibly he thought he set a precedent.
But few people bequeath as much as $1,000.
A more satisfactory idea of an heir's, loyalty
might be gained by making him choose be-

tween Communism and a bequest of grand-

MATTER OF FACT
by STEWART ALSOP

WASHINGTON - The present session of
the Eighty-first Congress has already
endured for nine pretty macabre months,
and the experts think it will not wind up
until Nov. 1. Even now, however, the political
results of the session are fairly clear. They
add up to a victory for President Trumary.
Nothing could have seemed more unlikely
during the early period, when the President
and his beleaguered Congressional leaders
were always being driven into corners or
suffering defeats. But the President has the
peculiar habit of obstinate resurrection
which can be very annoying, in a political
opponent, and the Republican leaders must
be particularly annoyed, since the President
is now an exceedingly probable candidate
to succeed himself.
* * *
ONE REASON that the President is pleased
with the results of the present 'Con-
gressional session is his conviction that they
afford a good platform on which to go to
the country. What Congress has done may
be summarized as follows:
First, all the really essential measures
of Administration foreign policy have
been passed. The President has taken the
shocking risk of virtually jettisoning bi-
partisanship. But the road for the great
measures of this session, like the Atlantic
pact, had been smoothed before the ses-
sion began.
Second, just enough has been done on the
domestic front to answer the charge that
the President promises everything and ac-
complishes nothing. With an assist from
Senator Robert A. Taft, the housing and
minimum wage bills have gone through. By
great personal efforts by the President, the

power lobby's efforts to cut the gizzard out
of the Federal power program have been
effectively frustrated. And Congressional
approval has been secured at last for the
two or three appointments the President
tossed to his liberal supporters, in the
manner of a very bored keeper tossing very
small fish to very sad seals.
Third, Congress has also administered
certain defeats to the President, but these
are of the sort he likes. The next session,
with the election coming up, is likely to
give much more serious- consideration to
the President's farm program and his pro-
posals for aid to education and extension
of social security benefits. And while Tru-
man seems unlikely to secure his civil
rights program or repeal of the Taft-
Hartley act in 1950, he will not be sorry
to conserve these issues for future use.
iT MUST be added that in this respect, the
Republicans have helped the President
very generously. The Republicans of the
Eighty-first Congress have been indistin-
guishable from the Republicans of the
Eightieth. And the speeches that Senators
Taft and John Foster Dulles and former
Representative Everett Dirksen are making
in Ohio, New York and Illinois, actually
sound like the Republicansim of the 1930s.
Everything depends, of course, on whether
President Truman is right in believing that
the political merchandise Taft, Dulles and
Dirksen are peddling is not what the Amer-
ican people want to buy today. But if Tru-
man's judgment is sound in this respect,
these is sound justification for the glow of
confidence that now emanates from the
President and his entourage.
(Copyright, 1949, New York Herald Tribune, Inc.)
ON THEni

ma's walnut bedstead.
-St. Louis

Post-Dispatch.

Looking IBack

79

Washington Merry-Go-Round

WITH DREW PEARSON

WASHINGTON-What very few people--
including the miners-realize about
John L. Lewis' welfare fund is that the pen-
sion part of the fund was never exhausted.
Coal miners saw red and struck when
Lewis announced that payments would stop
because the coal operators had not been con-
tributing to the welfare fund. But what
they didn't know was that:
1. Only three or four coal operators in
the entire United States had stopped con-
tributing.
2. The pension part of the fund was not
overdrawn and could have continued pay-
ing pensions.

',
When Lewis stopped all payments to
miners just before the strike, it was an-
nounced. that the welfare treasury had
dwindled to $14,695,504. But what Lewis
didn't reveal was that, out of this remain-
ing balance, only a little over $1,000,000 was
earmarked for pensions to retired miners.
MAYBE LEWIS WANTED FUND
DEPLETION
Of the total $104,000,000 paid out of the
fund since April, 1948, less than one-third
has gone to pensions. The rest was over-
spent, most of it on laudable enterprises,
but nevertheless with a wanton abandon
certain to deplete the fund and risk the en-
tire nension plan.

50 YEARS AGO:
The Wolverines opened the 1898 season
with a 21-0 victory over the Michigan State
Normal team of Ypsilanti.
15 YEARS AGO:
Gertrude Stein was due to visit America
for the first time in 20 years. She plannedt
to see a performance of her opera, Four
Saints in Three Acts.
* * *
10 YEARS AGO:
Italy's foreign minister, Ciano, hurried to
Berlin for a conference with Hitler over the
war situation, while German and French
artillery fought along the Moselle River.
1 YEAR AGO:
U. S. Delegate Warren R. Austin told the
UN Assembly's Political Committee that the
government wanted no monopoly of atomic
energy.
-From the Pages of The Daily.
The Soldiers

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