PAGE, FOVS

THE MICHIGAN DAILY'

IUESDAi, JUNE 23> 1953

PAGE FOUR TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 19&3 THE MICHIGAN DAILY
U

n

ditep rite
By HARLAND BRITZ
TwENTY-SEVEN days ago the presses of
The Daily ground to a weary halt. Since
then, America's other newspapers have been
occupied with some of the most important
news in years-truce negotiations, Rhee's
action, the Rosenbergs, the tornadoes.
Undismayed by the vagaries of, time,
some two dozen zealous college newspaper-
folk have made the journey back to Ann
Arbor to publish again what they consider
the country's finest college newspaper.
Though they missed some of the year's
top stories, they hope their issues will carry
brighter and happier news throughout the
next eight weeks.
The Daily was founded in 1890 and has
published .every year since. This makes
it the nation's oldest college paper in
terms of continuous publication. It cur-
rently occupies a spacious, excellently
equipped building at 420 Maynard St.
A modern $73,000 rotary press helps make
the building the showpiece of college
newspaper plants.
Realizing that machines alone don't make
,iewspapers, the dutiful staffers have put
bn their most professional manner to pro-
vide the readers with news of the Univer-
sity and its Summer Session activity, of
.local, national and world happenings.
Their's, too, will be the job of interpreting
and commenting on the affairs of the day.
Shortly The Daily will throw open its
doors and its typewriters to any students
interested in working on the publication,
whether they be experienced or not. For
those who can't work on the paper but wish
to express themselves, the Letters to the
Editor column will be available.
This summer's publication schedule has
been changed from last summer's. Previ-
ously our five papers were published from
Wednesday through Sunday. This year
we will print from Tuesday through Sat-
urday. The change was made because
many students are out of town on Sun-
days and because we would like to pub-
lish on as many school days as possible,
to reach the optimum audience.
The staff of The Daily, though it may be
small in numbers, hopes to make a major
contribution to the enjoyable side of sum-
mer school life, by informing, entertaining
=and influencing campus minds. With such
a diverse student body, such goals are in-
deed challenging. But we hope that the
very diversity of the student body will
prompt our staff to provide more interest-
ing and diversified newspapers each morn-
ing.

The Rosenbergs-
In Three Acts

GERMANY
r c.
f 46
F
1

MA IER OF FACT
By JOSEPH and STEWART ALSOP

IT HAD the makings of a three act tragedy
--only it was too real to be believable on
the legitimate stage.
Indictment, trial and revelation crowded
the long first act. The second, the mobiliza-
tion of vociferous partisan opinion and
jurisprudence questioned by interminable
appeals, prepared the emotionally involved
world audience for the climactic third act
--the last days in the lives of Julius and
Ethel Rosenberg.
Had the drama been penned, perhaps its
author would have scribbed his ideas in a
manner thus:
Act I-THE TRIAL
Scene I-A tabloid fed American public is
sensationally informed in the winter of 1950
the renowned and respected English scien-
tist Dr. Klaus Fuchs has been arrested on
the British Isles for crimes committed
against that state. It is generally believed,
in the secrecy shrouded case, that the hith-
erto irreproachable doctor has turned over
to a foreign power the formula for Man-
kinds' most destructive, self-sucidal weapon,
the Atomic Bomb.
Fuchs' trial and conviction rapidly fol-
low and the already shock-immune pub-
lic falls back into the squalor of its in-
sensibility. Six months later, however, the
public is again roused when it is an-
nounced that a ring of atomic spies has
been rounded up by the government of
the United States. (With this, the curtain
blots out the first scene.)
Scene II-The audience is taken through
the proceedings of the Rosenberg trial. Wit-
nesses for the state (chief among them
David Greenglass, who the defense accuses
of perjuring himself to save his life) tell
the innermost secrets of the spy ring. The
prosecution endeavors to show that David
Greenglass stole atomic information from
the Los Alamos project where he was em-
ployed in 1944. The lawyers for the state
charge Greenglass was in the employ of
the Rosenbergs who in turn were in direct
contact with a foreign power. The spy ring
cintinued in this nefarious direction until
1946, the prosecution maintains.
The defense lawyers, led by Emmanuel
Block, claim that the government has no
case because at the time of the alleged
spy activities this foreign power had been
an ally of the United States in its effort
to crush fascism. When the jury finally
reaches its verdict saying that the Rosen-
bergs are guilty of espionage, the scope
of the case takes on new proportions. The
judge in the trial, Judge Kaufman, sen-
tences the newly convicted spies to death.
He is lenient with the other members of


A rmisice Handicap

the ring giving most of them severar years
in federal penitentiaries.
(End of Act D
Act II-MOBILIZATION
The world is now divided into a number
of opposing camps and the Communists are
attempting to make political capital out of
the case. Some maintain the Rosenbergs
are completely innocent. Others that the
conviction is nothing more than a plot con-
cocted by the government of the United
States in a spasm of anti-semitic sentiment.
Most people in the United States are thor-
oughly convinced that the Rosenbergs are
guilty-some because of the edifice of the
law which has found them to be so, others
on the basis of the evidence presented dur-
ing the court hearings.
However, the major fight centers about
Judge Kaufman's death sentence. It is
pointed out that this marks the first time in
American history that in a time of peace
persons such as the Rosenbergs have been
condemned to die for committing acts of
espionage
The problem raised at the end of the
second act is whether or not Judge Kauf-
man's death sentence 'is justified.
Act III-THE LAST DAYS
(In the third act, the hypothetical author
'begins to examine some of the problems of
the Rosenberg case.)
Scene I-Monday
After two years of appeal and delay in
the date of execution for the emprisoned
Rosenbergs, their attorney Emmanuel
Bloch appears before the Supreme Court
asking for a review of the case. The high
tribunal refuses to do so and it appears cer-
tain that the furor will end in their execu-
tion Thursday.
In the two year interim between sen-
tence and what seems to be Bloch's last
appeal such notables as the Pope and
Albert Einstein have indicated their hesi-
tency over giving moral sanction to the
execution.
The case had been called a travesty on
justice and compared to the infamous Sac-
co Venzetti trial of twenty-some-odd years
before. However, while there is little ques-
tion today of these immigrants innocence,
no such clearance can be given to the Ros-
enbergs. The two cases are similar only in
their questioning of the fundamentals of
Western concepts of punishment.
(As Monday draws to a close with the
execution of the Rosenbergs set, the cur-
tain descends.)
Scene II-Tuesday arrives and one of the
justices of the Supreme Court is presented
with a brief which gives the defense a new
argument not before considered. The brief
claims that through all the hullabaloo the
Rosenbergs had been tried under the wrong
law. The problem then is, can the Rosen-
bergs be executed, guilty, or even brought
to trial again if this is true. The lone Su-
preme Court justice is asked to rule on this.
He rules on Wednesday. Justice Wil-
liam Douglas grants the convicted pair a
stay of execution. He rules that since sev-
eral of the Rosenbergs activities for which
they had been convicted could have pos-
sibly occurred in 1946 (the time of the pas-
sage of the Atomic Energy Act empower-
ing a jury rather than a judge to pass
sentence on those committing espionage)
it is possible that Judge Kaufman has ex-
ceeded his authority.
Scene II-The Supreme Court is called
into extraordinary session and reverses
Douglas' stay, and on Friday the Rosen-
bergs die in their self-conscious matyrdom.
The hypothetical author asks these ques-
tions of his audience-Did not the Supreme
Court act too hastily in its final decision
on the brief presented to Douglas and
shouldn't they have heeded the words of
Justice Frankfurter who thought that the
scope of the new question as to whether the
Rosenbergs were tried under the right law,
be considered at much greater length?
Even if the Rosenbergs were guilty as
charged which the author is inclined to be-
lieve was not the death penalty too severe
(as all such penalties are) and should it not
have been lessened?
The author would answer yes to both
questions, and resolves the play by saying

that although the machinery of the law
mad' the Rosenbergs death inevitable, it
may be advisable to remake the law to rid
it of its inhumanity.-
-Mark Reader.
Go It Alone
MUCH MORE VIVIDLY than in the Gen-
eral Assembly of the United Nations,
the political configuration of our world is
mirrored in the marshes of French and Ital-
ian politics. These two ancient and vital
centers of western civilization still give our
world the measure of its plight.
The American who gaes to inquire about
the politics of countries like Britain or
France or Italy is in for a rather unpleas-
ant time these days. Even if he happens to
be an isolationist, he is likely to be dis-
turbed by the realization that his "go-it-
alone" pattern of thinking seems to be a
European fashion. The British are too
naturally reserved and polite to put much
emphasis on it, but certainly they have the
Commonwealth, which, particularly in these
days of Coronation pageantry, offers a dra-
matic instance of how far intercontinental,
interracial partnership can go.

a
t
't . .
a y
;Y
a ,
',
.
-
. . '^
, . -
." ".
,
-
d
.} ';;.

DAILY OFFICIAL BULLETIN

The Daily Official Bulletin is an
official publication of the University
of Michigan for which the Michigan
Daily assumes no editorial responsi-
bility. Publication in it is construc-
tive notice to all members of the
University. Notices should be sent in
TYPEWRITTEN form to Room 3510
Administration Building before 3 p.m.
the day preceeding publication (be-
fore 11 a.m. on Saturday).
TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 1953
Vol. LXIII, No. 168

approved social events will be published
in the Daily Official Bulletin on
Thursday of each week.
Exchange and Guest Dinners may be
held in organized student residences
(operating a dining room) between 5:30
p.m.-8 p.m. for weekday dinners and
between 1 p.m. - 3 p.m. for Sunday
dinners. These events must be an-
nounced to the Office of Student Af-
fairs at least one day in advance of
the scheduled date. Guest chaperons
are not required.
Calling Hours for Women in Men's
Residences. In University Men's Resi-

denceHalls, daily between 3 p.m.-10:30
]\T ttesp.m.; Nelson International House, Fri-
day, 8 p.m.-12 p.m.; Saturday 2:30 p.m.-
Season tickets for the Department of 5:30 p.m. and from 8 p.m.-12 p.m.; Sun-
Speech summer plays are available at day, 1 p.m.-10:30 p.m. This privilege
the Lydia Mendelssohn box office dai- applies only to casual calls and not to
ly from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. The sum- planned parties.
WOMAN OF CHAILLOT July 1-4 omen callers in men's residences are
KNICKERBOCKER HOLIDAY, July 8- restricted to the main floor of the res-
11; THE COUNTRY GIRL, July 22-25 idence.
PYGMALION, July 29-August 1: and
THE TALES OF HOFFMANN, produced Lectures
with the School of Music, August 6, 1,c
8, and 10. Season tickets are $6.00- Professor Phillips Bradley of the
$4.74-$3.25. Tickets for individual per- Graduate School of Citizenship and
formances go on sale June 29. All per- public Affairs of Syracuse University
formances are at 8:00 p.m. will speak before the Social Science
Workshop at two o'clock, Room 429 MH,

. After months of dragging, seemingly end-
less truce neogtiations in Korea, a week of
almost anti-climactic waiting for the final
armistice to be signed seemed like the old
tale of the boy who called "wolf."
Now suddenly, a series of distressing
events has the newspaper reader picking up
his daily newsheet with a different Korean
incident in each edition.
Accusing cries are being tossed about,
denied, admitted, defended, lambasted. The
UN command has been placed in an em-
barrassing position on that hilly peninsula
which our own U. S. troops were sent to de-
fend almost three years ago.
The POW command has reported that
only 8,254 North Korean anti-Red pris-
oners remain in camps which held 35,-
414 until last Thursday, when President
Syngman Rhee ordered them freed.
Peiping radio continues to accuse the UN
of "connivance" with Rhee. Rhee has stead-
fastly accepted all responsibility for the ac-
tion.
Other statements of the last few days
have not been so steadfastly maintained.
Allied POW command first .reported that.
tanks and trucks of the South Korean army
assisted in the break. Later the report was
reversed.
Peiping Radio has charged that Allied
authorities, far from trying to halt the
breakouts, had been "encouraging Rhee
to carry out his desperado activities."
General Clark has denied this accusation
angrily and has charged Rhee with break-
ing his word and flouting Allied authority.
UN troops have been rushed in to round up
the escaped POWs and restore order. Yet,
since the initial breakout which shocked and
stunned the Western world-or so my morn-
ing paper from Detroit would have me be-
lieve-three additional breakouts have oc-
curred.
It may well be that no all-out attempt
was made to halt these subsequent escapes
for fear of setting off actual war between
South Korean and UN troops.
That original incident, the shocking ac-
tion of a dedicated and erratic man came as
no surprise to editors of the Manchester
Guardian and it's hard to believe that our
Democracy
E HAVE frequently printed the word
Democracy. Yet I cannot too often re-

own UN command couldn't have foreseen
and taken measures to prevent Rhee's ac-
tions which might have seriously jeopardized
a final armistice agreement.
On June 10, the Manchester Guardian
said, "President Rhee has it in his power
to cause great confusion by other means
than starting a new offensive. He could,
for example, release the North Korean
prisoners who are resisting repatriation,
since many of these are in the custody
of South Korean forces."
An innocent bystander might ask, how
could Rhee, who must surely realize ROK
impotence in the event of a "go it alone"
attempt, possibly have dared to make a move
that might arouse such anger that nego-
tiations be called off completely?
Rhee has dared.
And there has been no punishment save
for a sharp, angry letter from General
Clark.
As dedicated as this almost fanatic old
man is to an idealistic cause-the unifica-
tion of Korea-so is the UN now firmly
dedicated to a ceasing of hostilities on the
scarred peninsula. To pull out now in anger
and disgust would be to leave Rhee to fight
a battle against odds that would be hope-
lessly overwhelming without U. S. arms.
-The Allies have discovered a third enemy
in Korea-President Syngman Rhee-who
by his dedication to one theme has given
us a tremendous handicap in further ar-
mistice negotiations.
Most encouraging of all, is that talks have
not been completely broken off. The Reds
obviously want truce.
By our ineffectiveness in preventing such
fiascos as the prison breakouts (whether it
be simply a question of misunderstanding
about who actually has the final authority
in Korea, the UN command or Rhee) an-
other unfortunate, ill-used question is being
brought out of mothballs.
How earnestly are we in this country striv-
ing for peace? A mention here of how far
Dow chemical has dropped since an armis-
tice became imminent would bring ulcers
to a number of U. S. citizens.
Despite attempts to maintain the con-
trary, a sufficient number of people seem
to believe our prosperity is based on war.
Can we duck the inferences of those who
ask if money in the bank and a Lincoln Cos-
mopolitan in the garage are worth the fact
that the two kids. who used to drive around

N -w-
1N .
r -

.Mq NNW
1+k+ai7s 6.,ec rr.
arwaw.r, vn+.rtats.-a.. r .a.-,..

PERSONNEL INTERVIEWS
The Addison-Wesley Publishing Com-
pany, Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., will
have two representatives at the Bureau
of Appointments on Wed. and Thurs.,
June 24 and 25, to talk with young
men, either June or August graduates,
who would be interested in entering
the book publishing business with their
firm as a field representative to cover
the southern states.
PERSONNEL REQUESTS
The California Public Utilities Com-
mission is offering opportunities for em-
ployment to engineers who have at
least two years' experience in the field
of operation of utilities.
The U.S. Civil Service Commission
urgently needs men to fill positions of
Patrol Inspector (Trainee) in the Im-
migration and Naturalization Service.
The Merit System Council of NewI
Mexico, Santa Fe, New Mexico, has an-
nounced examination dates for posi-
tions in the New Mexico Dept. of Pub-
lic Health as Senior Bacteriologist- Se-
rologist, Senior Assistant Bacteriolo-
gist-Serologist, and Junior Bacteriolo-
gist-Serologist. Graduates with majors
in science or chemistry may apply.
Carbide & Carbon Chemicals Co. in
Oak Ridge, Tenn., has a number of
openings for men in the field of Bus.
Ad. or Accounting for a training pro-
gram in the General Office Manager's
office. These men should eventually be
placed in supervisory positions in the
Manufacturing Office Divisions of the
firm's Atomic Energy installations in
Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Paducah. Ken-
tucky.
For appointments, applications, and
additional information about these and
other openings, contact the Bureau
of Appointments, 3528 Administration
Bldg., Ext. 371.
STANDARDS OF CONDUCT
ALL students, graduate and under-
graduate, are notified of the following
standards of conduct:
Enrollment in the University carries
with it obligations in regard to con-
duct not only inside but outside the
classrooms and students are expected
to conductthemselves in such a man-
ner as to be a credit to themselves and
to the University. They are amenable
to the laws governing the community
as well as to the rules and orders of
the University officials, and they are
expected to observe the standards of
conduct approved by the University.
whenever a student, group of stu-
dents, society, fraternity, or other stu-
dent organization fails to observe ei-
ther the general standards of con-
duct as above outlined or any specific
rules which may be adopted by the
proper University authorities, or con-
ducts himself or itself in such a man-
nertas to make it apparent that he or
it is not a desirable member or part
of the University, he or it shall be lia-
ble to disciplinary action by the prop-
er University authorities. Specific rules
of conduct which must be observed are:
Intoxicating beverages. The use or
presence of intoxicating beverages in
student quarters is not permitted.
(Committee on Student Conduct, July,
1947.)
Women Guests in Men's Residences.
The presence of women guests in men's
residences, except for exchange and
guest dinners or for social events or
during calling hours approved by the
Office of Student Affairs, is not per-
mitted. This regulationsdoes not ap-
ply to mothers of residents. (Commit-
tee on Student , Conduct, January
1947.)
(Fraternities without resident house
directors and fraternities operating as
rooming houses during the summer
have no calling hour privileges andmay
entertain women guests only at ex-

on Thursday and Friday, June 25 and
26. His topic on Thursday will be "The'
Use of the Newspaper in Teaching So-
cial Studies." On Friday he will dis-
cuss "Teaching Labor-Management Re-
lations in Social Studies Classes." Vis-
itors will be welcome.
Academic Notices
Sports and Dance Instruction
for Women
All women students are invited to
participate in sports and dance classes
offered by the Department of Physical
Education for Women. There are
openings in: Archery; Badminton,
Modern Dance; Golf; Posture, Figure
and Carriage; Swimming and Tennis.
Register in Barbour Gymnasium, Office
15.
There is no charge for use of equip-
ment.
..The first of the regular Wednesday
luncheons sponsored by the Summer
Linguistics Program will be Wednes-
day, June 24, at 12:10 p.m. in the se-
ond floor dining room of the Michigan
League.
The first of the regular Wednesday
luncheons sponsored by the Summer
Linguistics Program will be Wednes-
day, June 24, at 12:10 p.m. in the sec-
ond floor dining room of the Michigan
League.
La p'tite causette: Every Monday and
Wednesday from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. in
the wing of the north room of the
Cafeteria of the Michigan Union. All
students and Faculty members inter-
ested to speak or to learn to speak in-
formally French In an informal and
friendly atmosphere are cordially in-
vited to join "La p'tite causette." First
meeting on Wednesday, June 24.
Exhibitions
:Museum of Art. Museum collections.
General Library. Best selcr of the
twentieth century.
Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. Gill-
man Collection of Antiquities of Pales-
tine.
Museums Building, rotunda exhibit.
Modern Mexican village ceramics.
Michigan Building, rotunda exhibit.
aModern Mexican village ceramics.
Michigan Historical Collections. Mich-
igan, year-round vacation land.
Clements Library. The good, the bad,
the popular.
Law Library. Elizabeth II and her
empire.
Architecture Building. Lithographs by
students of the College of Architecture
and Design.
Events Today
Square Dance at Lane Hall. 7:30-10:00;
Everyone Welcome!
Coming Events
Summer Session French Club. There
will be a meeting of a French Club
every'Thursday evening during the
first seven weeks of the Summer Ses-
sion. The first meeting will take place
Thursday, June 25, at 8:00 p.m. in
the Michigan League: Organization of
the club; election of officers; French
songs; a social hour; an informal talk
in French on France of today by Pro-
fessor Charles E. Koella. Director of
the club. All students and Faculty peo-
ple interested in speaking or in learn-
Ing to speak French and in singing
French soiigs are cordially invited to
join.
Conference of American and Canadi-
an la~ieit~s Cncnludes Tune 20.

WHO HAS heard of mega-
deaths? Can you define a
megaton? And would you know a
megabuck if you saw one?
In this strange aftermath of
the Korean fighting, these ques-
tions are relevant, and for a cur-
ious reason. If a truce comes, it
will wind up what we are likely to
remember-if there is any mem-
ory-as the last serious war on
something resembling a human
scale.
The scale would indeed have
surprised the great commanders
of the past. On a quiet day on
the Korean front, settling noth-
ing, leading nowhere, the casual
expenditure of ammunition must
have been perhaps ten times the
terrible fire of Napoleon's artil-
lery in the inferno of Austerlitz.
Yet the scale of the Korean
fighting was wholly human, for
all that. The outfits, the com-
manders, even the soldiers in
the ranks still somehow retain-
ed their individuality; still
showed and made their indi-
vidual marks against the bloody
background of the fighting. For
one who went from the Inhu-
man, gigantic intricacies of
world politics to the dusty,
doubtful front in Korea, as one
of these reporters did, the re-
ality of the war was very near-
ly a relief, very nearly a re-
freshment.
One could cheer for those who
won through, as men who had
met a great challenge, and not as
mere automata who had somehow
escaped the blind brutality of des-
tiny. And those who fell could al-
so be remembered as men as in-
dividual human beings, no dif-
ferent, despite the GI fatigues,
the comic books and the bazook-
as from all the men who have
fallen bravely fighting for their
countries in all the centuries of
history.
Over them, indeed, one could
properly repeat Simonides' great
epitaph inscribed upon the tomb
of the Spartans at Thermopylae.
The men who died to hold the
pass send to their people a mes-
sage from this common grave.
"Go stranger, and in Laceda-
emon tell that here, obedient to
the laws, we fell."
In the peace, if peace comes,
mere men, mere citizens, mere
soldiers will hardly count, how-
ever. The Medal of Honor win-
ner and the engineer from Pusan,
the battle-worn GI and the me-
chanic who tended a jet on Taegu
Airfield will all be merged and
lost and forgotten, along with all
the rest of us, in the great mass.
of people who do not know about
megatons and megabucks and
megadeaths. History will return to
the sole charge of the special sect
of officials who know about these
things.
It is perhaps time to answer
the questions with which this
report opened. What is a me-
gaton? It is a measure of the
explosive power of an atomic
or thermonuclear weapon - a
bomb of one megaton has the
explosive power of a million
tons of TNT. What is a mega-
death? It is the death of a
million human beings-as in
the phrase, "a saturation at-
tack resulting in eight mega-
deaths." And what is a mega-
buck? It is a milliondollars-
Mr. Reed Says No
THERE IS plainly something
wrong somewhere when a sin-
gle member of Congress, merely
because he happens to occupy a
key position on a legislative com-
mittee, can not only use his posi-
tion to defeat a basic piece of leg-
islation but can actually throttle
it by seeing that it doesn't even
come to a vote.

We refer to Representative
Daniel A. Reed of New York. Mr.
Reed in this Congress finds him-
self chairman of the important
Ways and Means Committee. He
was not elected to that post by
the people of the United States or
even by the people of his own
state. Neither was he appointed to
it because of any expert qualifica-
tions he possessed. He came to
this chairmanship solely by virtue
of that tradition which distrib-
utes important assignments among
members of Congress according to
the length of their service-the
"seniority" rule.
Happily, this somewhat hap-
hazard system of selection
works out well enough in a ma-
jority 'of cases. The reason is
that most incumbents bring to
their new posts not only a sense
of modesty but a realization that
their new role calls for a new
and broader sense of responsibil-
ity.
Mr. Reed, if one may judge by
his performance to date, is a con-
spicuous example of the exception
that proves the rule. He could
hardly wait until Congress had as-

as in the sentence, "it will cost
so and so many thousand mega-
bucks to deliver (or to prevent)
an attack of X-megaton pow-
er, which may be expected to
result in Y-megadeaths."
The simple fact that such words
as these have become part of the
arcane Jargon of the few hun-
dred men who know, speaks vol-
umes about our time and our con-
dition.
One should not be surprised, no
doubt. This inhuman iiflation of
the historical process began long
before the atomic bomb. Europe
and America rocked with indig-
nation in the early '90s, when the
first George F. Kennan reported
on the plight of the Russian po-
litical exiles in Siberia. There
were less than 400 of them in
those days.
But almost twenty years ago,
the second George Kennan, great-
nephew of the first, could reporti
from Moscow that the political
exiles now numbered in the mil-
lions. The second Kennan might,
if he had chosen, have estimated
in his dispatches that there were
now at least ten measlaves un
der the orders of the Soviet poli+
tical police. And when individual
men and women are utterly lost
in the faceless, lifeless mass of
the megaslave, it is hard to feel
the indignation that was aroused
by the first Kennan's stories of
Blok, Kropotkin and Vera Figne'.
And it is not only this loss of
the power to feel that is a dan-
ger to us. There is also the loss
of the power to understand,
which threatens the very foun-
dations of the free societies. As
Robert Oppenheimer remarked
in his article recently summar-
ized in this space, "I do not
think a country like ours can
survive for very long if we are
afraid of the people."
That remark was, in some sense,
a fragment of a private convesa-
tion, between Oppenheimer and
the rest of the tiny sect of those
who know. He was, in effect,
pleading with his fellow-initiates
to pass on their knowledge-to
tell the people the story that has
grown stale and unreal in the air-
cooled government offices remote
from busy reality. He wanted the
loss of power to understand that
menaces our society to. be over-
come by disclosure and by know-
ledge.
But that is too much to hope
for. The rest of us will go on
not knowing. The sect of those
who know will carry on their pri-
vate conversations about our des-
tiny. In the poem which will ook
well on the grave-markers of
these men who know, W. A. Au-
den astutely said:
"The last word on how we may
live or die
"Rests today with quiet
"Men, working too hard in
rooms'that are too big,
"Reducing to figures
to be done.
"What is the matter, what I
to be done.
"A neat little luncheon
"Of sandwiches brought to
each on a tray,
"Nourishment they are able
"To take with one hand with-
out looking up-
"From problems no smiling
"Can dismiss."
For such as these, a megadeath
has lost all human, meaning, be-
ing reduced to a mere statistic in
papers so top secret that they are
carried from office to office in
locked brief-cases by men of the
rank of Maor or over, who are
worried by their receding hair-.
lines and the doubts about their
promotions caused by their dull'
assignment..
(Copyright, 193, N.Y. Her. Trb., nc)

Air4ig tu Dailm

a.

1-1

4

I.

SixtyThird Year
Edited and managed by students of
the University of Michigan under the
authority of the Board in Control of
Student Publications.
Editorial Staff
Harland Britz.. ...... .Managing Editor
Dick Lewis.,.......... Sports Editor
Becky Conrad............Night Editor
Gayle Greene............Night Editor
Pat Roelofs.. .......Night Editor
Fran Sheldon............Night Editor
Business Staff
Bob Miller..........Business Manager
Dick Alstrom. Circulation Manager
Dick Nyberg .......... Finance Manager

1=