THE MICHIGAN DAILY
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1951
____________________________________________________________________________________________________ II
A Word to Rushees
SINCE THE semi-annual collegiate exer-
cise in insincerity commonly known as
fraternity rushing is beginning today, the
temptation-as a fraternity member of long,
If not particularly good standing-to offer
a few words of advice to this year's crop of
rushees should not be resisted.
This year's rushees, just like the prospec-
tive fraternity men of any year, will be
bombarded with propaganda about the part
which fraternities can play in their educa-
tion. And this time they have already been
informed by the Interfraternity Council
rushing booklet that fraternities aim at the
most complete possible development of their
members' intellectual, social and physical
attributes.
In the weeks to come, rushees will be
subjected to a barrage of a lot of other
supposed benefits. They will be told of
the benefits of cooperative living, ahimni
contacts, social prestige and gracious liv-
ing without housemothers.
The 'home away from home' argument
will become familiar to them. Nebulous
phrases like 'character building', 'self-reli-
ance', 'appreciation of responsibilities', 'so-
cial ease', 'widening of acquaintance', 'nor-
mal adjustment', 'stimulating atmosphere'
'expanded mental horizon', 'crystallization
of philosophy of life', 'group consciousness'
and others of this sort will course through
their nightmares in the next two weeks.
Since fraternity rushees are generally no
less intelligent than other students, much of
this balderdash will make' no impression
whatsoever. However, since the prospective
fraternity man is about to make a decision
which will cost him a considerable amount
of money and will return to plague him,
long after he has left college, in the form
of fund drive solicitations, it can scarcely
be expected that he will not grab at some
of these vague generalities. He will do so
if only for the purpose of furnishing some
justification for joining a greek letter group
at all.
A few truths about fraternities in general
would thus seem beneficial to the rushees
who is interested in making his choice with
at least one eye half-way open.
P BEGIN WITH, the most salient char-
acteristic of fraternities on this and, I
suspect, on most campuses is smugness.
After surviving the rigors of both the
rushing and pledging programs, there is a
tendency for members, being somewhatsat-
isfied with their accomplishment, to sit back
and take it easy for the rest of their col-
lege year.
This, of course, is only part of it.
All fraternity members are encouraged
to feel that their fraternity is tAe most
important thing in their college lives
(except, of course, a mystical entity rev-
erently referred to as "your university.")
At least once a year, prominent alumni
are dragged back to abominably-served
banquets to declare that "my fraternity,
next to God and my family, has been the
most profound influence in my life."
A further impetus toward complacency is
provided at these banquets by the recitation
of the names of brothers who have succeed-
ed in the business world and will be glad
to see any of the graduating members
around job-hunting time.
All of this helps to strengthen the dispo-
sition to believe that, no matter how great
a blotch one makes of his academic career,
nor how many opportunities to widen one's
experience were ignored, one's college career
was still somehow a great success because
of the fraternity.
THE ENTIRE effort of the fraternity, its
exclusive ritual (written by a group of
callow teen-agers in pre-Civil War times),
its precepts and its purpose is directed
toward turning the attention of its members
inward on a small group instead of outward.
And for what reason? The fraternity
answer is that a well-integrated group can
work most effectively to get the greatest
social and intellectual dividends out of
college life for its individual members.
This may be a good idea, but, unfortunate-
ly, it is seldom realized. As has been pointed
out, fraternities tend to be anti-social and
cliquish rather than social.
Furthermore, in most fraternities, there
is a marked apathy toward anything of a
really serious nature. Discussion of im-
portant matters in art, in politics or other
factors of contemporary life, while not
deliberately discouraged are ce tainly not
encouraged.
An outstanding example of this is the pre-
vailing fraternity attitude toward the weary-
ing discrimination controversy. Most frater-
nity men prefer not to consider the charge of
discrimination in itself at all. They merely
assert smugly, that fraternity constitutions
are nobody's business but their own, and if
they must be changed, then let them be
changed in such a way that the letter of the
university regulation is observed, but not
the spirit. By this method, it is felt, defeat
maybe turned into glorious victory.
Th man who declares that it is better
not to waste time on considerations of this
sort because there are no real answers to
them fits perfectly into the unreal seclusion
of the fraternity living room.
WHAT HAS BEEN SAID so far is a pretty
damning estimation of fraternities. In
fairness to them, however, this is not the
whole story and probably represents an over-
statement of the case against them.
It is not so much because fraternities are
outstandingly venal that these remarks have
been written, but rather because fraternities
are sailing under false colors. They are not
all that they claim themselves to be.
They do not foster intellectual growth
nor "assist the freshman in the crystalliza-
tion of his philosophy of life" in any
healthy manner. In short, they do not
contribute anything worthwhile to the
intellectual aspect of a college education.
What they do contribute, and it is a sub-
stantial contribution in these days of sky-
scraper dormitories and the liquor ban, is a
social unit of respectable size. They provide
an opportunity for the average student of
making numbers of lasting friendships and
of living with fewer restrictions than is pos-
sible in the dormitories and some rooming
houses.
Another advantage which fraternities
have over dormitories is that, while they
are fully as stagnant intellectually, they
are at least organized about it. Social ac.
tivity of all types is more fully carried on
in fraternities, and, all in all, it is more
nearly possible to live as a human being in'
a fraternity house than in a quadrangle.
For those who must have a conclusion,
what this discussion seems to simmer down
to is this: fraternity life is an improvement
on dormitory life, but not too great an im-
provement. At any rate, rushees may clip
this editorial and carry it with them to the
open houses this afternoon. Perhaps it will
be seized upon as a fruitful topic of con-
versation; but I doubt it.
--Dave Thomas.
Union Library
SOMETIME LAST SEMESTER the Union
shortened the hours for use of its second
floor Pendleton Library. The Union library
is one of the favorite study places on campus
for a number of men and finding its doors
closed at certain hours when one wants to
study has caused a great deal of unnecessary
irritation.
Prior to this austerity plan the library
was open every day from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Now it is open from 1 to 5:30 and from
"7 to 11 p.m. On Sunday's the library's
facilities are not available until 7 p.m.
Having been routed from my studies once
too often because it happened to be 5:30,
I decided to find out why. I went to see
Frank Kuenzel, the Union general manager.
His explanation for the new hours was that
not enough men were using the library at
the hours that it is now closed to make it
worthwhile to pay the student librarian. The
student librarian gets 50 cents an hour. And
I have never seen less than 10 men in the
library at any hour.
On Sunday afternons when the library is
now closed, there are men studying in every
corner of the Union waiting for the clock to
strike seven so that they can study in com-
fort.
I proposed to Kuenzel that the former
library hours be restored and that I would
recruit men who use the library to act as
librarians free of charge. No dice, such an
arrangement wouldn't be very efficient, he
said.
Is the Union, the campus men's club,
using its facilities to the greatest bene-
fit of its members or isn't it? Obviously
not in this case.
This type of grievance seems to be ripe
for a Student Legislature investigation. An
SL sponsored plan to provide librarians if
the library's hours were lengthen'ed would
be very difficult for Kuenzel and the Un-
ion's board of directors to reject.
-Paul Marx
DORIS FLEESON:
Independent
Agencies
WASHINGTON-The current quarrel be-
tween President Truman and Congress
over the Reconstruction Finance Corpora-
tion is a colorful facade behind which a
much graver matter lies concealed. It is
the collapse of great principles and enter-
prises because the Truman administration
is proving too weak to sustain them,
RFC is but one of the many independent
agencies or commissions by which strong
Presidents and sometimes Congress have
sought to overcome or ameliorate the eco-
nomic and social evils arising in our sys-
tem. In the domestic field most of the
great policy decisions of our time, those
which shape our future, are made outside
the regular departments. The departments
handle routine; the independent agencies
break ground.
Opponents of the square, new and fair
deals have always understood this. They have
fought the delegations of power to such
bodies and the appointment to them of men
they considered too ardently attached to
change.
*. * *
THE TUG OF WAR goes back a long way.
Franklin Roosevelt's contributions to the
alphabet soup were more numerous-SEC,
TVA, CAB, FDIC, etc., etc.
These agencies have survived the frontal
assaults of their enemies as they could con-
tinue to survive direct attacks. In weakness,
inertia or dishonor, they cannot preserve
their aims or accomplish their goals.
What has been happening at a constantly
accelerated pace is that President Truman
has been unable to inspire them or to staff
them with men whose abilities and convic-
tions are of such a high order they can push
onward and upward under their own steam.,
The President's manpower difficulties
are an old story in the classic pattern of
the chicken and the egg. It is hard to tell
whether the selfishness of able Americans
in refusing to work for the government
forces Mr. Truman to resort increasingly
to mediocrity and his cronies or whether
able Americans shun the Truman adminis-
tration because it is so much in the hands
of mediocrity and the cronies.
In any case, the agencies work well only
in proportion to the availability of really
first-class people to man them. As that pro-
portion has grown less and the agencies
weaker, the President has had more often
to intervene personally.
* * *
EYEBROWS WERE RAISED when the
President overrhauled the Civil Aero-
nautics Board and allowed the transfer of
American Airlines' overseas routes to Pan
American Airways. Congress has not yet
probed the rumors that swept the cocktail
lounges but the prestige of the CAB plum-
meted to new lows.
The RFC debacle is about to be aired in
public hearings which the President has
dramaticized with his attack upon the crit-
ical Fulbright report as asinine. Yet most
members of Congress agree with the Presi-
dent's stand that Senator Fulbright's single-
administrator proposal is unsound; unfair
to the one man who might be named and
a clear violation of the commission principle.
The Week's News
. . . IN RETROSPECT . . .
The Fraternities Meet The War Situation
} r
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-Daily-13111 Hampton
"Cheer up, Eddie' You're bound to meet some of the
brothers over there!,,
DESPITE THE DRAFT SITUATION, war in Korea and CED, the
good old fraternal espirit de corps permeated The Row today as
affiliates set their annual snares for rushees.
A round the World... -
OSEPH STALIN HADN'T MADE any major pronouncements on
world affairs in two years, and some people were even beginning
to think that maybe he was dead. On Friday, however, the Soviet
Prime Minister emerged from obscurity long enough to make a few
observations.
Registering his unhappiness at the way things are going in the
world, Stalin blamed it all on "aggressive forces" in control of such
countries as France, Britain and the United States. These countries are
leading the United Nations toward war and disintegration "along the
inglorious road of the League of Nations," the Soviet leader asserted.
The most ominous note in his utterances was a rather cryptic
warning that UN forces face sure defeat in Korea unless Britain
and the United States accept Red China's conditions for peace.
Stalin's chief thesis, however, was that peace can be maintained.
He said World War III "cannot be considered inevitable," and he
pledged that the Soviet Union will "continue firmly to pursue a policy
of averting war and maintaining peace."
In Washington, State Department officials were perhaps more
concerned with survival than they were with peace. To be sure,
peace could easily be had by listening to Stalin and surrendering
fully to his ideology and his armies. But a better course, it seem-
ed, was to become as strong as possible ,in hopes that our might
would discourage a Russian attack, or, that failing, would enable
us to emerge victorious.
To that end, Secretary of War George Marshall told Congress
Thursday that the United States plans to send 100,000 more troops
to Europe, and Dean Acheson warned that delay in their dispatch
could mean "suicide for all of us."
Earlier, the Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously ap-
proved a bill calling for draft of 18-year-olds and extension of all
service terms to 26 months. The Senate may act on the measure
within a few days.
KOREA-Bugle-blowing Red troops surged down snow-caked
mountain passes in Central Korea early this week in a vain attempt
to break through Allied lines. After suffering some 27,000 casualties
in the first five days of their drive, the Communists were slowing up.
Meanwhile, President Truman told a news conference that Gen.
MacArthur still has UN authority to recross the 38th parallel, If
military needs dictate such a move.
* * * *,
worrying about how he could keep out of the Army in order to support
his wife and their seven-month-old daugh;ter. Ten days ago Shay, a
Michigan State Highway Department em'ploye, hit on a scheme. He
decided to set a fire in Lansing's State Office Bldg., reportedly think-
ing "a little fire" would get him a probationary sentence and save him
from the draft. The fire turned out to be much bigger than Shay had
expected. It roared through the 28-year-old structure's two top floors
for 45 hours, leaving in its wake at least $4,500,000 in damage. Shay
was this week charged with arson. Meanwhile, his draft board said
Shay's two dependents would have made him exempt anyhow.
*, * * *
Local .,*.
2-4 RULE ENDS-Shortly before the war the Student Affairs
Committee decided that it might be a good idea to make fraternities
hold a 2.4 grade average.
Suggested by the local Fraternity Alumni Council, the rule was
intended to make the fraternities maintain a grade average commen-
surate with other campus groups. It didn't really go into effect until
after the war, when it was enforced upon request of fraternity alumni.
Campus fraternity men fought vigorously against the measure,
while administrators recognized the incongruity of requiring one par-
ticular group to toe the 2.4 mark when the rest of the campus had
only to hold a 2.0 average. A few weeks ago, Dean Walter asked the
Alumni Council for their okay on removing the rule. Following their
favorable vote, the SAC last week announced that the regulation was
lifted.
FOOTBALL POOL-Two former University students, Lee Setomer
and Robert McGuire, were fined $250 apiece Tuesday and sentenced to
ten days in the Washtenaw County Jail for operating a football pool
on campus last fall.
MYSTERY PROJECT-Some people were confident it was to be
a nudist coloy. Others would swear it was a mining venture, cornering
most of the uranium in Washtenaw County. The 3,860 acres of land
in the western part of the county were bathed in storybook mystery,
ever since the time, five years ago, when John Hanna, a Detroit real-
tor, began buying up the land for reputedly fantastic prices. Last week
the mystery was at last solved. The Chrysler Corporation was behind
the purchases, and intended to build a proving ground for trucks and
cars.
-Bob Keith and Chuck Elliott
XettePJ TO THE EDITOR
The Daily Welcomes communications from its readers on matters of
general interest, and will publish all letters whichsare signedby the writer
and in good taste. Letters exceeding 300 words in length, defamatory or
libelous letters, and letters which for any reason are not in good taste will
be condensed, edited or withheld from publication at the discretion of the
editors.
Facing Facts *.. *
To the Editor: -
WISH TO compliment Jimj
Brown's editorial on the pres-
ent necessity of sending troops to
defend Europe.c
Since our generation has twice
before been called upon to shedI
blood in the lands our forefathers
deserted, this question may rea-
sonably be asked, "Will we again,j
and how many times in the future1
will we be asked to reconquer thisi
same land?" It is wonderful to
theorize on the abilities of the1
United Nations, or to listen to thec
World Federalist explain point by
point plans to obliviate world
troubles. However, we must face
the facts. The countries of the
world will never voluntarily co-
operate to provide permanent
world peace.
There is a way to end these1
periodic senseless wars once andj
for all. The method is simple.-
Every time we are ever called up-
on to resaturate land with our
blood, we should proclaim that
land to be our property. Eventu-
ally all lands either as a result ofr
war or through the request ofE
their populace will become ourj
possessions. And these posses-t
sions will eventually become states
almost as thirty-five states were
once added to the original thir-
teen. Therehmay be those that
proclaim the impossibility of
Americanizing the world. To these1
people, I point out Hawaii which
contributes more to our economy
than some states and which prac-
tices equality and freedom nearer
to the true theoretical than any
of our states.
Our fighting in Korea should
not be in vain. Instead of return-
ing this area to its corrupted rul-
ers, we should retain it, educate
the people, help them raise their
standard of living close to ours,
and eventually admit them to the
Union. After this is done, I doubt
if we will ever be called upon1
again to fight in Korea. If this
had been done with the areas we
liberated in Europe, we would not
be sending more troops there to-
day.
--Nistor Potcova
(EDITOR'S NOTE-Mr. Potcova has1
apparently missed the point of the
editorial which he refers to in his
opening paragraph. It called on the
United States "to defend the right{
of any way of life to exist in freedom
if it desres,"-not for the forcing of
all of the nations of the world to
accept our way of life. Perhaps Mr.
Potcova would like to see the United{
States make Great Britain her Crown
colony.)
-*" . .
Martinsville Seven,. .
To the Editor:
THE STATE OF Virginia cele-
brated Negro History Week by
executing seven Negroes from
Martinsville. Whenrthey died,
part of American freedom died
too.
The Martinsville Seven were
convicted of rape; there was an
all white jury; there were forced
confessions; and they were sen-
tenced to die.
Thousands of people tried to
stop these legal murders. Letters
and telegrams poured in to Tru-
man and Governor Battle. Dem-
onstrations bigger than any since
the war, took place in Washington
and Richmond. The Parliament
of Finland called on Mrs. Roose-
veltto intervene withhTruman.
Cablegrams came by the thou-
sands from people in England,
France. Germany, and all over
the world.
But the sowers of hatred had
their day, and they had their vic-
tims.
And such a shock went around
the world at this terrible carica-
ture of democracy as to make us
shudder and feel the agony that
others felt, for we surely cannot
be indifferent to the taking of
life.
We cannot be indifferent to
the vicious system of discrimina-
tion which in Virginia has claim-
ed fifty-two Negro lives since 1907
on the charge of "rape," while not
a single white man convicted of
rape has been given the death
sentence in this period since the
first court records werekept.
Justice is not the motive of
this rotten carry-over from slav-
ery. The motive is to intimidate
the Negro people in their rising
struggle for freedom-full free-
dom and equality. But such reck-
less brutality can only intensify
the struggle against jim-crow jds,
jim-crow education, a jim-crow
army, and jim-crow in all of its
outrageous forms.
And let us remind ourselves
that while seven Negroes were
executed for no other reason than
being Negroes (they were con-
demned before they were even
born), twenty-one Nazi war crim-
inals were freed by the Truman
government, which made such a
great point in seeing "justice"
done in Virginia. No doubt the
butchers of the Jewish people will
make excellent accomplices in
spreading jim-crow democracy.
But what a high price they paid
to murder seven Negroes! The
bigots turned the whole world
against themselves.
You don't silence people by
killing them any more. Their
deaths speak.
-Myron Sharpe, Grad.
* * *
False Rhetoric...
To the Editor:
FLOYD THOMAS in his editorial
of February 15 may merely
have been carelessly casting about
for some rhetoric which would be
in keeping with the usual allusions
made in the "Chicago Tribune,"
a paper which Mr. Thomas as-
tonishingly extolls for its true
liberality, when he used the term
"President Roosevelt's storm troop-
ers" in reference to the recalci-
trant Mr. Sewell Avery's being
comfortably carried (not "drag-
ged" as Mr. Thomas says, which
he would know if he was in Chi-
cago at the time and saw the pic-
ture, of the event) from his office
at Montgomery Ward. The order
to remove Mr. Avery, who had
refused to compromise in any way,
was not made by President Roose-
velt- or the United States Army
(the "storm troopers" Mr. Thom-
as refers to), but by the mediation
board in the dispute, a board
which included the Sewell Avery
Distinguished Service Professor of
Sociology at the University of
Chicago, who is a scholar, not a
storm trooper.
If Mr. Thomas reads the "Chi-
cago Tribune" sympathetically, it
is not at all surprising that he
uses such malicious and false
terminology, especially in refer-
ence to the late president.
I was disappointed and sur-
prised to see an editorial in The
Michigan Daily which contained
such a false and harmful refer-
ence. I have always thought The
Daily's editorials among the best
written and clearly thought out
of any editorial section I have
been acquainted with.
--Shirley Weller
*s :
Continutation . .
To the Editor:
... as I was saying in yester-
day's DAILY, Garg is having a
tryout meeting on Monday, Feb.
19, at 4 o'clock. Festivities will be
held in the Gargoyle-Generation
office on the first floor of the
Student Publications Building.
-Peg Nimz
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Movies --Subject for Study
WH'ETHER EDISON realized it or not, his
Kinetescope was destined to be a new
art form. Now, more than fifty years since
its invention, few people would dispute the
fact that the motion pictpre has arrived
as a new medium of expression, a medium
with perhaps greater potentialities than any
'other.
It is something of an anomaly, however,
that such an institution has matured under
almost no consideration but immediate
practicality. Its peculiar state is largely
due to the fact that it is strictly a com-
mercial enterprise, with artistic merits
considered incidentally, if at all.
Now that it has reached an advanced state
Editorials published in The Michigan Daily
are written by members of The Daily staff
and represent the views of the writers only.
NIGHT EDITOR: CHUCK ELLIOTT
of development, several schools have begun
to take up, in one way or another, the ac-
tual study of the motion picture-as an art
form, as a subject for criticism, the his-
tory of the medium, and simply as enter-
tainment. But most schools which have in-
stituted any sort of courses at all have
treated them in a rather perfunctory man-
ner, making them almost extra curricular.
It's about time that some school, and it
might as well be this University, recognized
that a study of the film has a legitimate
place on the academic curriculum.
Many weaknesses in current movies may
be directly traced to their position as a
popular art form. Such things as the star
system, in which everything is tossed away
in favor of some dubiously talented star, are
the direct result of having to account first
for the people who expect to see the pic-
ture.
Producers cannot afford to offend any-
one, even those to whom offense might be
constructive. The artificial position of the
motion picture in our society has cramped
its ideal development.
Stuy of the sort available in a large
university provides the atmosphere of free-
dom which any art form needs at one time
or another in its career. All this is on the
side of the film. But the student would also
stand to gain.
The program could take the form of a
series of courses: the abstract theory and
techniques of movie making, study of the
history of the film, using old pictures and
lectures, the actual filming of a movie, us-
ing student scenarios, and branch courses
in criticism and social influences.
In addition to the limitedly useful prac-
tical information which might be picked
up during the courses, the student could
It
Sixty-First Year
Edited and managed by students of
the University of Michigan under the
authority of the Board in Control of
Student Publications.
Editorial Staff
Jim Brown............Managing Editor
Paul Brentlinger............City Editor
Roma Lipsky:.........Editorial Director
Dave Thomas ..........Feature Editor
Janet Watts...........Associate Editor
Nancy Bylan..........Associate Editor
James Gregory........Associate Editor
Bill Connolly............Sports Editor
Bob Sandell.... Associate Sports Editor
Bill Brenton. ...Associate Sports Editor
Barbara .fans......... Women's Editor
Pat Brownson Associate Women's Editor
Business Staff
Bob Daniels........Business Manager
Walter Shapero Assoc. Business Manager
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Bob Mersereau.......Finance Manager
Carl Breitkreitz....Circulation Manager
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CURRENT MOVIES
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A t The Michigan.. .
BORN YESTERDAY with Judy Holli-
day, Broderick Crawford and William
Holden.
HOLLYWOOD HAS formulas for its Horse
Operas and Romantic Musicals, all of
which are bad.
But it has one formula which is good
time and time again: Take a bang up
Broadway hit and ventilate it with a few
outdoor scenes and serve up with same
BARNABY
You're sure those are the two
men who left the $99,987 to I II
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Jane's father? And he's hand
in glove with the police! And
I
t'll FLY down to a
rendezvous with
f Mr. O'Malley! They're
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