TWO THE MiUIIMAN lDAIL§Y THURSDAY, JULY 30, 1936 THE MICHIGAN DAILY-Y d a e Offcial Publication of the Summer Session A vaca, More While The Readers Write Southern Hospitality J corre-. rest. Al-. To the Editor:E to con- Dear "Southern Gal": 1 d Itvl Published every morning except Monday during the University year and Summer Session by the Board in Control of Student Publications,. Member of the Western Conference Editorial Associa- tion and the Big Ten News Service. MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS the -Associated Press is exclusively entitled to the use for republication of all news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in this paper and the local news published herein. All rights of republication of special dispatches are reserved. Entered at the Post Office at Ann Arbor, Michigan, as second class matter. Special rate of postage granted by Third Assistant Postmaster-General. Subscription during summer by carrier, $1.50, by mail, $2,00. During regular school year by carrier, $4.00; by mall, $4.50. Offices: Student Publications Building, Maynard Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Phone: 2-1214. Representatives: National Advertising Service, Inc., 420 Madison Ave., New York City. - 400 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, in. EDITORIAL STAFF Telephone 4925 MANAGING EDITOR.............THOMAS E. GROEHN ASSOCIATE EDITOR ..............THOMAS H. KLEENE Editorial Director...............Marshall D. Shulman Dramatic Critic...................... John W. Pritchard Assistant Editors: Clinton B. Conger, Ralph W. Hurd, Joseph S. Mattes, Elsie A. Pierce, Tuure Tenander, Jewel W. Wuerfel. %eporters: Eleanor Barc, Donal Burns, Mary Delnay, M. E. raban, John Hilpert, Richard E. Lorch, Vineent Moore, Elsie Roxborough, William Sours, Dorothea Staebler, Betty Keenan. BUSINESS STAFF Telephone 2-1214 BUSINESS MANAGER.........GEORGE H. ATHERTON CREDITS MANAGER ....................JOHN R. PARK Circulation Manager ..................J. Cameron Hall Office Manager..........................Robert Lodge The LandedI Fourth Estate .... N AN ADVERTISEMENT, the New Republic makes the point that the weight of the press is almost entirely on the side of reaction in this year's presidential campaign. "The press is big business, one of the biggest and most selfish businesses," it says. "Newspaper publishers, with a few exceptions, wrote Mr. Roose- velt off the slate when they discovered that he believed that they should stand equal before the law with other persons engaged in money-making enterprise. "Republican papers will be more virulent in theirj attacks than usual. Some Democratic papers will turn Republican for the campaign. Other Dem- ocratic papers will give lukewarm support. "A majority of the authors of signed columns on current affairs in the daily press are violently against the New Deal. "News columns are printing distorted news. "The greatest single popular force in radio is the news commentators; nearly all of them are hostile to the administration. "Hollywood is violently anti-Roosevelt. And Hearst . ." In our opinion, these statements are true. It is interesting to observe why they are true, and sec- ond, what the effect of a hostile press will be. It is worth noting that there are exceptions to these charges against the press. The New York Times, as we might expect, continues to be rational about its views; where it is pro-Roosevelt, it states in unemotional terms precisely why, and it has not overlooked some of the salient weaknesses of the New Deal. The same is true of the St. Louis Post- Dispatch. A newspaper is in business to make money. If the editor happens to be a man of social conscious- ness, it may also serve the public. If it should happen, and it does happen frequently, that the principle of public service conflicts ',ith its pri- mary function, the newspaper does what any other business would do. Even the Times, although it has been able in most instances to remain above the ordinary small demands upon it, has been known to compromise with its laudable policy. It is for this reason that a liberal magazine has never been able to make money. The New Re- public has been on the red side of the ledger for many years, and the same is true of most honest publications. The present administration has done much to incur the opposition of the press; it has sought to regulate it in a way that was construed by the press to mean a curb on its freedom of publication; it has pursued policies which have been to the disadvantage of the heavy advertisers; it has re-1 cently passed a bill which, by outlawing all price concessions through advertising allowances, has resulted in a withdrawal of chain store newspaper advertising throughout the East. It must be a source of considerable discomfort to these editors to have to report that President Roosevelt is still the popular candidate, although the New York Herald-Tribune, the Detroit Free Press, and George Gallup's America Speaks feature have at various times and on dubious bases report- ed that Roosevelt is falling behind Landon. But the fact that Roosevelt is still popular despite the ppposition of press and the most powerful business interests in the country does not mean that these two-forces are having no effect. The effect of their attitudes is visibly tremendous, and would defeat with ease a candidate less firmly intrenched in the minds of the large groups of those less favored economically. It may yet defeat him. By this divergence, however, the press has re- vealed that it does not have a positive grip on public opinion, and that the best interests of the AP Advertsing To the Editor: Tuesday's Daily carries two advertisements of The Associated Press. One advances the slogan- "If it's an (W) paper-read it!-Clean" The other claims that the "UP) Grinds no Axes, Punishes no Enemies, Makes no Profits." In connection with the second, it is particularly interesting to note The Nation's work on the (P) this week. An editorial says, in part-"When a court bites a news agency, it evidently isn't news. The most interesting aspect of the recent decision n the case of the Associated Press versus Morris Watson was not the decision itself . . . but the way the Associated Press handled the story. Jus- tice Mantor of the United States Circuit Court, with Justices Swan and Augustus Hand concurring, found that Morris Watson had been discharged by the UP) in violation of the National Labor Rela- tions Law and ordered his reinstatement with back pay. The U) sent out 192 words on the decision on the afternoon of Monday, July 13, just in time to make the last evening editions. Ordinarily a late story of this sort is given a follow-up the next day, but this was not done. Eighty-two of the 192 words were given to quotation from the deci- sion asserting the right to hire and fire for cause." The (P) it seems, punishes enemies when it can. Perhaps, like many other progressive journals, The Daily can try not to publish advertising that involves fraud. -Guild Supporter. POLITICS SEP and the Country Gentleman To the Editor: In politics the ,key men are essentially self- centered. They work together not out of love for each other but because of a common enemy. Gov. Landon has disapproved consistently the Town- send Pension Plan while President Roosevelt at least has not been discouraging, yet today Dr. Townsend says he prefers the Kansan to the Pres- ident. Just why the Doctor feels the way he does is hard to say, perhaps the bitterness which comes from disillusionment has something to do with it, but nevertheless his attitude is illustrative of a phenomenon peculiar to politics. There is evidence that Hearst's support of Lan- don grew out of dislike for others. First, there was his disappointment in Roosevelt whom he had supported in 1932. And then the Republican pos- sibilities were limited to the Kansan and Vanden- berg, whose views on foreign affairs were unsatis- factory, and Frank Knox, to whom he had a semi- personal distaste. So he selected Landon. But Hearst was not the discoverer of Landon. (Hey- wood Broun may say so, but he is no more reliable on the present political situation than Malcolm Bingay). Besides a number of medium-sized pa- pers, the Kansas City Star, nationally known for its independence, backed Landon for several months before the California publisher arrived in Topeka. If the Landon candidacy is little more than a creation of Hearst it would not have the help of the Detroit News, and anyone who knows anything I about the Detroit newspaper situation knows that. The News turned strongly anti-Roosevelt when Landon was nominated and when that paper lines up with its enemies, the Free Press and the Times, something is happening. The favor which the Republican nominee is drawing from business men does not mean he will take orders from them. They would take anyone in preference to Roosevelt. Surely no one thinks that because the Liberty League is not forming a fourth party that it is getting everything it wants. from Landon. The men that make up that group are practical-minded, they are not interested in splitting the vote. Landon is consulting a lot of men who are cer-- tainly not "economic royalists." Among them are Frank Lowden, Earl Taylor, Charles Taft, Ralph Robey, Ex-Comptroller McCarl, George Peek, Roy Roberts, William Allen White and Senator Capper. At Cleveland there was far more time spent bow- ing to Borah than to any eastern conservative. But then do the men around him really mean so much as we are led to believe? There is evi- dence that Landon, while a ready listener, makes his own decisions. A half dozen important in- stances when he acted against the wishes of his advisers were listed in Raymond Clapper's column in the Scripps-Howard (pro-Roosevelt) newspa- pers on June 13. The Kansan does not bespeak the views of any single newspaper or any chain. The publications which he most nearly represents in attitude, are those of the Curtis Publishing Company, the Sat- urday Evening Post and the Country Gentleman). Landon stands, pretty much, for the things which those magazines have stood for during the past two or three years. His attitude on the labor unions is essentially that of the farmers and the small cities and he is primarily their candidate. While tariffs in general may be economically desirable, the failure of the Roosevelt Administration to do anything with the Smoot-Hawley protection for manufacturers makes Landon's tariff for farmers only a matter of fair- ness for that group. Landon has a deep respect for the Constitution. While some of his program may have been held unconstitutional, he did not growl at the Kansas Supreme Court. Nor did he place himself in the Roosevelt class by asking for legislation whether it was thought to be constitutional or not. There is a difference in attitude there that is highly sig- nificant. Landon's mistakes were in good faith. He never.acted in defiance of the Constitution. -S.E.P. Reader. we must read critically and skeptically all informa- tion-opinion which we read in others. The free Preserved Smith To the Editor: A letter by Preserved Smith, eminent author of an interesting History of Moder'n Culture, was re- cently published by the New York Post. The letter might be entitled: "A Horse-and-Buggy Presi- dential Candidate." This is what Mr. Smith writes: "The other day Governor Landon accepted' the gift of a horse and buggy and apparently en- joyed having his picture taken in a vehicle of such ancient vintage. "If this gift were merely a tribute to the~ giver, this letter would never havebeen written, but following on the heels of President Roosevelt's denunciation of buggy-day thinking, it becomes an occurrence of national alarm. The gage of battle is taken at last, and nothing Mr. Roosevelt could say could be as surely prophetic as this little incident. "The horse and buggy should be the present symbol of the Republican party. Only the lack of the 1936 realism on the part of its leaders could be more antiquated. "The basic appeal of the New Deal does notI hark back to the "Good Old Days" when the sky was the limit for a few with the rest of the in- dividuals going ragged, but looks forward to the day when a balanced economic life is the right of all; that a balanced economic life is more impor- tant to our citizens at this moment than a bal- anced budget. "For the past few years our needs have been different, but Roosevelt is one of the few to recog- nize them and the government responsibilities I don't for a minute mean that the old virtues are9 outworn. Far from it, for their presence in society was never needed more than at the present time. "It is just a question of adding to the accepted scope of government activities in the interest of all of us. The economic forces are different and the obligations of government are changed. This year of 1936 requires a realistic program, not a sentimental appeal to the days of the buggy. "The industrial worker and his employer must have adequate protection against cutthroat com- petition, but not at the expense of those of us who require foreign goods not produced in the United States. "They must also accord to our large rural pop- ulation the same type of protection without sting- ing our Congress with the bogy of high cost of living. "Capital should be secure in its investments, but not at the expense of the human hopes of its employes. "Farmers should be free to farm but not at the expense of destroying whole states of gwd farm land or undermining the whole price structure by great overproduction of foodstuffs. "It is in times like these that it becomes neces- sary for the Central Government to attempt to bring us out of a chaotic state-a thing which Hoover did not realize and which Landon does not seem to appreciate-control the forces that have gotten out of bounds, help those who have become victims of the system which we permit, and try to rectify the basic wrongs to the end that "next time" things will not be so bad. "It is suicidal for us to depend on the promises of a party whose candidate takes for himself a horse and buggy as the symbol of his political credo." -A Reader. aerisc an le~J1Z over 6u woras, I suppose it is not fair of me to that right has not as yet been ex- eicised, but it may be necessary criticize, but as a staunch down-east- in the future. Readers are also erner I cannot disregard the urge to reminded that letters without sig- teach a damned Confederate a lesson nat are may not be published. 'in courtesy. Now we up here in the Further correspondence in an- North have our customs just as do you swer to 'Southern Gal' is not en- hill folks, and I gather from your couraged. letter that these customs clash with yours. A person of average intelli- girls, remember that love-seats are gence, I believe, would find contact fine things, but they .aren't particu- with new experiences broadening, larly conducive background for a girl and would attempt to understand the who wants to get a partner for a people for whom these experiences dance. . are customs instead of blatantly de- The reasons for this are clear. Men laring, "You ought to see the way like to see how tall the girls are; they it is back home." like to get a good look. I am sure Northerners have always taken this that if I were a man it would take tolerant attitude towards the South, more force than persuasion to make , even in regard,to some of your most me dance with a girl whom I hadn't unusual customs. For instance, I seen standing up. In fact, even suppose that any demonstration of though these summer school men life in the hospitable South which you sometimes make the officials a bit describe would include at least one, irked, they aren't to be blamed for lynching. Now we would not attempt. wanting to "pick out their own part- to compare a good old Southern ners" after all. lynching with anything back home, Last but not least, we want to and we wouldn't feel cheated because thank you for the invitation to the we were witnessing something com- dance down south, but we wish that pletely unique to us. No, we would, you would be a little more specific as instead, attempt to understand the to the time and place. spirit which can drive a people to in- -Just Another Officious Official. sane mob murder. The Daily welcomes al spondence of general inte though right is reserved d3 c all 1P ttr M7r n : t 3 . t SOCIETYJ To A Southern Lady To the Editor: In defense of the League it is only fair thatj someone say a few words in answer to the southernj lady whose criticisms were printed in your papert some days ago. First, it should be understood by everyone that summer activities must be self-supporting. The social committee can't afford to give any more free parties than it does already. Dances are ad-t vertised all over the campus at 25c per person. If we see that there is a particular evening honor- ing southern people, we should realize that on thatt occasion southerners are expected to feel espe- cially welcome. Of course, they are welcome at any and all times, just as anyone else. However,E on the evening of which mention was made, there was a watermelon cut given for southerners atl which everyone was given his or her fill of water-r melon-or Dr. Purdom and the social committee. were not to blame. The officials felt that it would be appropriate to invite particularly these people to the dance at a charge of 25c per person, justt as has been done for the last eight or ten years, and that that small charge was far from unrea.-' sonable. Very few places, after all, offer four hours of dancing for 25c. The lady wno wrote the letter which appearedt in Tuesday morning's Daily could have gone down to the ballroom had she explained to the guard that she wished to go down just to sit or to dance with another person of her own sex. However, no1 introductions will be made in the ballroom. Thist rule was instigated for the protection of the girls. It must also be pointed out that if the door-keeper let everyone by who wished to go by the ballroom1 and corridor in front of the ballroom would soon be so congested and crowded that no one could get through, and there would be little space left in the ballroom for dancers. The social committee knows, because it has been tried both ways. The present system is very much more efficient and pleasant. As far as a real southern dance with three men for every girl is concerned, that simply does not work, here at the University of Mich-; igan. It was tried once-sponsored by a groupl of southern men-and it did not work. Now, a word of advice. Any young lady coming to a dance piobably wants to dance. At least that's the common opinion of most experts. Everyone 7>v_ . 1_ _ ni if n - - + f r a a'_ c'l lil 1 Birds In Hands To the Editor: Dear Southern Gal, Evidently your mother did not tell you all you should know before you' came to the North. First, and this is just as important as not speaking to strong men, learn to keep quiet when3 you see something that doesn't jibe! with your notions of what's what. The injunction about what to do in Rome' still applies, in Ann Arbor as every- where else. How do ybu suppose a northern man would like the cut-in system as we practice it? Is it not possible that one of the northern girls you so freely invite to southern dances would think that she had gotten into a bargain sale by mistake-she being the bargain? What about the stags who imitate the Chinese wall around the orchestra, and who boast that they do not dance with a girl unless she is cut in on at least seven times a dance? Then, in regard to the tall, dark, and handsomes, of whom you speak, it seems to me rather wistfully, when going to the League in the North or to a Gym Dance in the. South, remember, Honey, that a bird in the hand is worth any number on the dance floor. -Southern Girl. Result: Four Weeks Gone To the Editor: Michigan at last! I had scarcely recovered my breath from luggingj my grips into the Union when I se-1 cured a Summer Session program of social events. From Sunday until1 Friday I eagerly looked forwardto meeting some of the Michigan girls.1 At last on Friday night I shook some forty hands at the League, and final- ly ended up at the dance hall. Just as I was trying to make my way to- ward a prospective dance partner, one of the hostesses (in those first days they really found you a partner be-! fore themselves going off to dance)1 tackled me and introduced me to a forlorn-looking school teacher. In- trovertive and how! Two dancesf were all I could endure. After a few more dances some one ditched his date on me, a Michigan girl, who preferred to sit on the sidelines most of the numbers and rave on politics and social problems! The rest of the evening-well, you guess it! Saturday night I decided to take another chance. This time the host- esses were too engaged to tag me for some rose-cheeked, studious soul who had long forgotten the true art of conversation, let alone dancing. Bet- ter luck followed. I danced with an Eastern girl-and a 'Southern Gal,' too, a sweet one like most of them from the South.< Wednesday I visited the Ford Motor1 Plant. On this occasion my eyes! caught the geniuine smile of a high! school graduate who had not as yet! been affected with the frigid gaze that dominates the Michigan coed. Niagara Falls trip? I was not mar-c ried, so didn't go. The rest of the1 social evenings? No thanks! The1 tea, so I went. Here I saw the second tea, so went. Here I saw the second girl in three weeks to smile back at1 me, so I asked her for a dance. Bet-, *ter luck here, too. She' was from Iowa. Result: Four weeks gone, and what to show for it? I can scarcely im- agine attending a coed school for this, length of time and becoming ac- quainted with six girls none of whom, are from Michigan. The Southern, Gal who invited us day before yes- terday to go to a party in the good old. South should have suggested to so- cial directors of the University a course in sociability for Michigan co- eds. Isn't it a pity that a girl should give you a cold look, if any at all, instead, of a smile when a smile is And another example : let us say that on our hospitality tour of the South we became acquainted with the illiteracy rate in such a state as Mis- sissippi. Would we immediately say, "Huh, you ought to see our illiteracy rates back home." Of course not. We would attempt to understand how a people can be so stupid and politically corrupt as to allow its children to remain comparatively uneducated. Or perhaps, in our tour, we would have occasion to consider the people, and the governor of Georgia, and the penal system which they have creat- ed, or we might drop into a court long enough to see the fair treatment which is accorded negroes. Not once, I assure you, would we invite compar- ison with anything back home. It may be trite, "Southern Gal" (what a swell name for a filly!) to remind you of the old saying "When in Rome do as the Romans do," but I imagine you get the point, and you may even come to realize that one of the chief phrases of courtesy is do- ing "as the Romans do," and at least pretending to like it. Yankee. GENERAL Democracy To the Editor: Professor George S. Counts of Teachers College, Columbia Univer- sity, is not only a great educator, he is an equally great reformer. In his pamphlet "Dare the School build a New Social Order?" Professor Counts touches upon a number of important timely problems. One of the best pages in the pamphlet deals with democracy-not as a political regime but as what may be termed a social contract. This is Professor Counts' conception of genuine democracy: "Democracy should not be identified with political forms and functions- with the federal Constitution, the popular election of officials, or the practice of universal suffrage. To think in such terms is to confuse the entire issue, as it has been confused in the minds of the nTasses for gen- erations. The most genuine expres- sion of democracy in the United States has little to do with our po- litical institutions: it is a sentiment with respect to the moral equality of men: it is an aspiration towards a society in which this sentiment will find complete fulfillment. A society fashioned in harmony with the Amer- ican democratic tradition would com- The Page bat all forces tending to produce so- cial distinctions and classes; repress every form of privilege and economic parasitism; manifest a tender regard for the weak, the ignorant, and the unfortunate; place the heavier and more onerous social burdens on the backs of the strong; glory in every triumph of man in his timeless urge to express himself and to make the world more habitable; exalt human labor of hand and brain as the cre- ator of all wealth and culture; pro- vide adequate material and spiritual rewards for every kind of socially useful work; strive for genuine equal- ity of opportunity among all races, sects, and occupation; regard as par- amount the abiding interests of the great masses of the people; direct the powers of government to the ele- vation and the refinement of the life of the common man; transform or destroy all conventions, institutions, and special groups inimical to the underlying principles of .democracy." What sort of a man Professor Counts is may be learned from a re- cent letter published in the New York Post. "One can only feel an affec- tion for the man who honestly and frankly opens his lectures with "Re- member, too, that every individual you hear in life is also prejudiced." -M. Levi. Random Thoughts To the Editor: Wife-There's one thing I ' don't know. Why was the Liberty League founded? Husband-That's another mystery. It is as if a band of men joined to- gether to assassinate their best friend. It comes under the head of abnormal psychology. My friend Jones has written an excellent monograph on the subject. It is called "An Investi- gation into the Behavior of Million- aires when Affected by a Severe Case of the Jitters." -Hamilton Basso in the New Republic. Governor Landon wants a consti- tutional government. The Constitu- tion is a noble document, but as it stands and as it is being interpreted by the United States Supreme Court, it is highly satisfactory to the ex- ploiters of the Amerincan people and to those who have most benefited by the New Deal. Father Coughlin thinks that if Governor Landon is elected or Pres- ident Roosevelt is re-elected, there will be Fascism in the United States. Father Coughlin forgets that most of his political principles are derived from Fascism-that is, from Hitler- ism and Mussolinism. The greatest of all religions is a religion of liberty, truth, justice and humanity. If knowledge is a thing superlative- ly good, ignorance-the opposie of knowledge-is a thing superlatively bad. There is no middle standing ground. -Alexander Bain, Practical Essays. No education equals self-education. * * Those who talk much about race haven't any. -Oswald Spengler, Years of Decision * * * Frederick the Great, the much-in- voked hero of the non-Teutons, was the ruler of an essentially Slavic Kingdom and he was neither a racist nor a "Nordic." -Foreign Affairs, April 1935. * * * The spectacle of Christian nations slaughtering and butchering each other in this enlightened century shocked "pagan" Asia. -Observer. Review Ot 'The Old Maid' 0 N A BEAUTIFULLY executed scenic background, Sarah Pierce and Ruth LeRoux last night sparred brilliantly for the dubious honor of top acting laurels in an interminable play, something called "The Old Maid," for which ZoeeAkins was given a Pulitzer prize. We are afraid we can't seriously disagree with those critics who have doubted that the late Mr. Pulitzer had any hand in the judging. Not that "The Old Maid" wasn't fairly entertaining. The original novel was by Edith Wharton, and you can't make a silk purse int a1 sow's ear. But it was awfully d,11, and we'll go into that in a minute. Miss Pierce, as old maid Char- lotte Lovell, added another fin char-, acterization to a list that already, quences, but this is debatable; her vocal nuances and her business were slightly overdone in the earlier se- qunces, but this is debatable; her forte is the dominant role of the high tragedienne, within which field she is capable of much variation; the representation of a young girl in the grip of social maladjustment is like- ly to lead her into a suspicion of af- fectation. In the last two scenes, how- ever .she found herself in the depict- ing of an embittered, curt, rapidly aging spinster. Liquid and mellow was the work of Miss LeRoux, as Delia Lovell, who married quite practically, manipulat- ed events with 'easy efficiency, and amazingly emerged as a wholly sym- pathetic character. Miss LeRoux is subtle and restrained, and her charm- ing domination of every episode knit the play together in a more mari- torious fashion than it deserved. Frances Davis, as humorously ma- triarchal Mrs. Mingott, deported her- self with high credit. The other fem- inine roles were just adequate. The costuming was excellent. The men varied from weak to useless. At the end of the fourth episode, a young lady in the audience was heard to remark, "I wonder what hap- pened to Joe." Joe being a leading character, the remark was pertinent. "The Old Maid" is episodic and in- coherent; the situations are common- place; the picture of the old maid's metamorphosis from an affectionate dear into a cruel, selfish, sadistic moralist is basically understandable, but inexplicable in its entirety. "The Old Maid" (always in the opinion of this writer) not only is unnecessary as thematic material, but is also very weak theatre. -John W. Pritchard. 1