y
ContourPlowing
Patterns in Grass
Caused by Spray
Dn An gell Hall Lawn?
By HERB KRAVITZ
Though most universities like to
boast of their green lawns, Mich-
igan is unique in that here the
grass is brown-and growing in
symmetrical patterns, too.
But those who prefer the old-
fashioned green campus have no
need for alarm. Green pastures
are expected to return in about a
week.
BROWN GRASS and race track
patterns on campus are the result
of 2-4-D, a weed killer which the
University has been using to elim-
inate one of the worst enemies of
grass.
Sam Wylie, grounds foreman,
explained that although the
weed killer was mixed in proper
proportions (seven pints of 2-4-
D to 200 gallons of water), the
spray machine used probably
put too heavy a dose on the
campus.
* * *
WYLIE POINTED out that with
normal rains the grass would
never have turned color. The man-
ufacturers of the weed killer ad-
vise, as a protection to grass, wa-
tering the laws about a day after
the spray is applied.
However, it is virtually im-
possible to water the entire cam-
pus manually and the past few
weeks have generally been dry.
Wylie cited the League lawn
where the grass had not been af-
fected by the spray. He said this
was due to the fact that the
League grounds are equipped with
a sprinkler system.
THE SPRAY KILLS the roots
of broad-leafed weeds by causing
the plants to grow so fast that
they die.
Though the spray does not af-
fect the roots of grass, under cer-
tain conditions it may harm the
top of the lawn, giving the blades
a characteristic brown color.
But now that campus weeds are
destroying themselves, thanks to
a chemical spray, students can
look forward to new green lands.
-Daily-Norm Steere
-Daily-Norm Steere
'TETE-A-TETE'
See Page 4
C, r
Latest Deadline in the State
a iiop
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(!"1
SCATTERED SHOWERS
VOL. LIX, No. 9S ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, SATURDAY, JULY 2, 1949
PRICE FIVE CENTS
Judith Coplon Given 40 Months to
10,
Years
.
Witness Kept
From Tellin
Story at Trial
Judge Repeats
Blast at Publicity
By ROMA LIPSKY
(Snecial to The Daily)
NEW YORK-Testimony from
xVrs. Hede Massing, former wife
of Communist Gerhart Eisler, was
ruled out at the Alger Hiss per-
jury trial yesterday.
The trial, expected to go to the
jury by the end of the week, re-
cessed until after noon while de-
fense and prosecution wrangled
in the judge's chambers.
AT 12:15 JUDGE Samuel Kauf-
man reconvened the court and
ruled that Mrs. Massing would
not be called.
By this ruling the judge se-
cured another point against
what he earlier in the week
called "trial by publicity."
The New York World-Telegram,
in its first edition yesterday print-
ed a summary of what Mrs. Mas-
sing is "prepared to testify." Thus,
the general public got a preview
of testimony which never reached
the jury's ears.
Defense attorney Lloyd P. Stry-
ker had objected to calling Mrs.
Massing on the grounds that it
was not "proper" rebuttal testi-
mony."
* *' *
MURPHY THEN put Lish Whit-
son, FBI special agent, on the
stand to relate a March, 1946,
talk with Hiss.
In the cross - examination,
Stryker continued the attempt
he had begun the day before to
discredit the FBI. Questioning
FBI agent Cortland Jones on
Thursday, Stryker tried to show
that the FBI had used routh
methods in their questioning of
two former employees of the
Hisses.
Dog's Status Has
Play Cast Confused
By PRES HOLMES
Play Production is going to the dogs.
Before those of you who agree with the rave reviews of Paul
Osborn's "On Borrowed Time" start throwing things, let me explain.
Osborn included in the show a dog, an ordinary dog of no
special breed or temperament, just a friendly, happy, well-meaning
canine.
THIS INNOCENT LITTLE creature, however, became the center
of a bitter struggle which almost made Play Production wish they
had never gone to the dogs.
Risk of China
Trade Up to
Shipowners
WASHINGTON-MP)-The Unit-
ed States Government is leaving
it squarely up to commercial
shippers whether to risk Nation-
alist sinking by sending American
ships into China ports held by
the Communists.
The Nationalist government has
ordered the ports closed to foreign
commerce but the U.S. has re-
jected the order as invalid unless
the Nationalists declare and main-
tain "an effective blockade."
* * *
FOLLOWING the arrival of a
new note from Canton the State
Department said yesterday it is
telling shippers who ask for offi-
cial advice "neither to go in nor
stay out" of the ports.
A spokesman said they are
being advised, however, thatif
an American ship should be
damaged by Nationalist planes
or warships trying to enforce
the closure order "the U.S. re-
serves its rights to claim dam-
ages."
In Canton, the Nationalist cab-
inet authorized its navy to sink
ships resisting search.
The U.S. Navy, meanwhile, said
it is not committing itself whether
it will or will not keep out Amer-
ican warships.
O As opening night drew near
the property crew had faithfully
fulfilled its task of assembling
everything from a bone speci-
men to dead frogs, and was
sitting back contentedly feeling
that the job was over and well
done.
Then came dress rehearsal, and
Betty, the dog. Bill Taylor, the
Sheriff in the cast, brought his
landlady's pooch to perform the
part.
* * *
THE BATTLE BEGAN. The
property crew maintained that she
was a part of the cast, while the
call girl, who already had to look
after the two boys in the show,
claimed rather exasperatedly that
the dog was a property.
Remaining in full command
of the situation throughout,
Mrs. Claribel Baird, the director
of the show, stepped in and set-
tled the argument. Betty is now
classed as a property.
The second play of the season,
"Life With Father" which opens
next Wednesday at the Lydia
Mendelssohn, also has a dog in it,
and the third play contains a
whole menagerie.
THEY ARE WATCHING, how-
ever, with raised eyebrows, what
will happen when the fourth play
k of the season, "The White Steed,"
goes into production. "I refuse to
take care of a horse," was the
comment of one crew member.
But despite the trials and tribu-
lations caused by this menage of
animals they grow to be really
liked and loved.
GentleHint!
PASADENA, Tex.-(P)-Mo-
torists won and then lost a
battle for removal of a fireplug.
It took businessmen four
years to get the city council to
remove a plug which they said
interfered with parking.
Thursday a fire broke out a
short distance from the former
site of the plug.
Firemen had to lay a hose
across a railroad track and the
city's main street. The fire
gained such headway that it
did $15,000 damage.
After it was controlled the
council met in special session
and ordered the plug restored.
W orld News
Round Up
By The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Legislation
was introduced in Congress yes-
terday to permit $4,000,000 of Eco-
nomic Cooperation Administration
funds to be used in aiding 3,700
Chinese students in the United
States.
* * *
TOKYO - Japanese Commu-
nists are turning out to welcome
home prisoners of war long held
in Siberia. Most of the prisoners
show pro-Communist leanings.
* * *
RENO, Nev.-A record-breaking
horde of migratory grasshoppers
covering some 3,000 square miles
is eating its way into Oregon and
California. The State Department
of Agriculture said yesterday the
band of hoppers in northern Wa-
shoe and Humboldt counties is 75
miles long and 40 miles deep.
MACKINAW CITY - State
ferry officials were prepared
last night to handle a rush of
tourists to the Upper Peninsula
for the Fourth of July weekend.
The state ferries were operating
without schedule to clear the
backlog of cars.
* * *
MUNICH, Germany-A German
Denazification court ruled yester-
day that all property left by Eva
Braun should be confiscated to aid
victims of Nazi persecution. The
blonde who reportedly married
Adolf Hitler a few hours before
'both committed suicide left a bank
account of 35,000 marks (about
$10,500) and a mansion in Mu-
nich.
ROME - Prince Tortorici Di
Raffadali, 70, a member of the
Palermo aristocracy, was shot to
death yesterday on a Palermo
street, the Italian News Ageny
Astra reported.
*' * *
FRANKFURT, Germany - The
Western Powers took the shackles
off Germany's merchant marine
yesterday. German ships may now
sail to any port. Previously Ger-
man vessels could carry cargoes
CIO Refuses
Second Ford
WageOffer
Auto Company
Asks Pay Freeze
DETROIT-(P)-The CIO Unit-
ed Auto Workers turned down
yesterday a second Ford Motor
Co., proposal that wages be left
as they are for 18 months.
UAW Ford Director Ken Ban-
non said in reply:
"We are sticking to our present
demands despite the attitude of
the company."
. * * *
FORD HINTED that the com-
pany could reduce prices if the
UAW would agree to a wage
freeze.
Meanwhile, negotiators work-
ing on a new contract for Ford
workers reported an agreement
to extend the current pact on a
"day-to-day basis" if necessary
after July 15, its expiration date.
That move was seen as reducing
the likelihood of a second UAW
strike this year in Ford plants.
THE UAW EXECUTIVE Board
has called for a strike vote in
Ford plants, and several locals al-
ready have reported approval. A
24-day speedup strike that shut
down the Ford system was settled
about a month ago.
In a letter to UAW President
Walter Reuther, the company
said:
"We are convinced that this
two-point pattern offers the
best-possible answer to our
problem-that of steady, well-
paid jobs at Ford in the period
ahead."
Bannon declared that Ford's
proposal would make the com-
pany's 106,000 production workers
vote "even more overwhelmingly"
for a strike. UAW Ford locals all
over the country are preparing to
hold strike votes in advance of
the July 15 deadline when the
present contractruns out.
The wage freeze suggestico-,
echoed a similar Ford proposal of
two weeks ago. It indicated that
current talks on economic phases
of a new contract are getting no-
where.
Attorney May Fight
To Supreme Court
WASHINGTON-(/P)-Scorning a mercy plea, Judith Coplon was
sentenced to serve 40 months to 10 years in prison for attempting
to betray her country as a spy for Soviet Russia.
The 28-year-old former government girl took the sentence with-
out a quiver.
But in a bitter outburst, immediately before Judge Albert L.
Reeves pronounced sentence, she cried out:
"I UNDERSTAND I could plead for mercy. That I will not do.
To me, pleading for mercy would be an admission of guilt."
Then, referring to prosecutor John M. Kelley, Jr., and Ray-
mond P. Whearty, she went on swiftly:
"I am innocent .. . I am innocent before all the Wheartys and
* tall the Kelleys and all the gov-
ernment, whatever they want to
do against me, and they may
gloat in the glory of their hollow
empiric victory .. .
* * *
"THEY WANT TO break me.
They will never break me!"
A few minutes later, with Miss
Coplon staring coldly up at him,
Judge Reeves pronounced sentence
as the climax of a sensation-
studded trial that ran for nearly
10 weeks.
Sternly, the 75-year-old jus-
tice denounced Miss Coplon
with an allusion to the revolu-
tionary war traitor, Benedict
Arnold.
Judge Reeves ordered her con-
fined in Federal prison for 40
months to 10 years on the first
count in the two-count indictment,
which charged Miss Coplon with
stealing government secrets "with
intent" to injure the United
States and aid a foreign power,
Russia.
ON THE SECOND COUNT, in-
volving unlawful removal of con-
fidential papers from the Justice
Department, Judge Reeves sen-
tenced her to one to three years.
LATER YESTERDAY Palmer
filed a formal notice of appeal,
citing 26 alleged errors in the trial
-most of them on rulings by the
judge.
Simultaneously, Miss Coplon was
released from the lockup in the
federal courthouse when a profes-
sional bondsman posted her $20,-
000 bonds. Then she and Palmer
left for New York, where she and
Russian Valentin Gubitchev face
trial on espionage conspiracy
charges.
Soviets Open
Berlin Rails;
TrafficSlow
Only Four Trains
Get IntoCapital
BERLIN-(/P)-The Berlin rail-
way system started freight flow-
ing yesterday-ike molasses in
January.
The Russian rail management
gave the go ahead signal after a
six-weeks shutdown caused by a
strike of non-Communist union
men and then found they were
too short of locomotives to do the
job.
AS A RESULT, only four loaded
Western trains came into Berlin
during the day and 12 empty ones
left.
Western transport men said' the
Russian-run railway obviously was
not geared to clear the chaotic
rail jam in anything less than a
week, so long as the Russians in-
sist on using only their own equip-
ment.
* * *
MOST OF THE 14,000 West
Berlin anti-Communist workers
who went on strike May 21 were
back at their jobs with a guaran-
tee of full pay in West Marks.
The city's elevated passenger
trains, all electric, started to hit
normal efficiency toward si-
down.
But inter-zone freight lines still
were clogged. With extra crews,
the management cleared up the
West Berlin trainyards in good
shape, Western engineers said.
However, outside the city and
around the Potsdam area the
shortage of Russian locomotives
prevented movement of cars
stalled all the way along the single
track to the West zonal borders.
June Jobs Hit
7-Year High
WASHINGTON -- (P) - More
Americans had jobs in June than
in any previous month of 1949.
Unemployment too hit a seven-
year high of 3,778,000 as vacation
sent school-agers pouring into the
labor market.
THE TOTAL number of Amer-
icans gainfully employed last
month was 59,619,000, the Census
Bureau reported. This was a rec-
ord for this year, although the
total was about 1,500,000 less than
in June, 1948.
For the first time since Decem-
ber, there was an up-turn (204,-
000) in the number of people
working on jobs outside of farm-
ing.
* * *
JUDITH COPLON
"..I am innocent"
Budget Ready
By Mid -July
The University's revamped bud-
get will probably not be finished
before mid-July, University offi-
cials revealed yesterday.
Provost James P. Adams andl
Vice-President Robert P. Briggs
have been working withndeans
and department heads_ on the
budget for the. past week.
Announcement of new promo-
tions will be held up until de-
partment budgets can be straight-
ened out, officials said.
Earlier in the trial, Raymond
Catlett, one of the brothers, tes-
tified that Jones offered him $200,
to find the old Woodstock type-
writer on which the government
claims secret State Department
documents were typed. Jones flat-
ly denied making the offer.
THE DEFENSE claims that the
Hisses disposed of the Woodstock
by giving it to the Catlctts before
1938, the time when the docu-
ments were taken and retyped.
Murphy alsotquestioned Paul
Solandt, who stated that he did
not "see, meet, or hear of the
Hisses" when he occupied an
apartment in a house owned by
Mrs. Lewin Wickes in Chester-
+ow n d. rinz the *summer
TAFT ON TAFT:
Few Revisions in T-H
Likely, Professor Says
The recently passed Senate la-
bor bill probably represents the
major changes that the 81st Con-
gress is likely to make, according
to Prof. Philip Taft of Brown Uni-
versity.
Prof. Taft, no relation to Ohio's
senior senator, is a visiting pro-
fessor in the economics depart-
ment for the Summer Session. He
cn-nnli.nc +n ta iPMof .
ley Law itself, Prof. Taft described
it as a "potentially bad one, hav-
ing many clauses that could harm
labor a great deal."
HE POINTED out that the
amount of harm done, if any, de-
pended upon the administration
of the law by the National Labor
Relations Board. The wording of
ENTHUSIASTIC RESPONSE:
Si cipsSbmte to Uno LOpeBr
By PAUL BRENTLLNGER
Campus playwrights and would-
be playwrights have responded en-
thusiastically to U'nion Opera's
call for scenarios for its 1950 pro-
post-war revival of the tradi-
tional Union Opera, after an
eight year absence from the
campus scene.
Trn n-ws, av Trnn onra
York have shown interest in bring-
ing the show to those cities, prob-
ably during the University's spring
vacation period.
During the course of the years,