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Seventy-Seven Years of Editorial Freedom
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
d: .^.{^ XE"a4' TODAY AND TOMORROW . . . by WA LTER LIPPMANN
LBJ Cheats the Democratic Process
V
Where Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH.
Truth Will Prevail
NEws PHONE: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1968
NIGHT EDITOR: CAROLYN MIEGEL
Time for Change: Administration's
Position Regarding P.A. 379
ICE.-PRESIDENT Wilbur K. Pierpont's
decision to ask the Regents to appeal
an adverse court ruling on PA 379 is an-
other in a series of bizarre indiscretions
in the University's handling of its em-
ploye relations problems.
The University's continued refusal to
recognize the right of employes to par-
ticipate in collective bargaining is a
clear indication that its anti-labor poli-
cies did not depart with Harlan Hatcher.
It seems inconsistent that President
Fleming, a former labor mediator him-
self, has not ended the legal battle which
the University has futily fought for two
years.
ARGUING THAT they are merely trying
to preserve the University's "con-
stitutional autonomy," two successive ad-
ministrations have obscured the real rea-
sons for their stand against collective
bargaining. The alleged threat to the
University autonomy is an administra-
tive guise. The threat simply doesn't exist.
As Judge William Agar Jr. of Washte-
naw County Circuit Court aptly pointed
out in his November decision, constitu-
tionally granted autonomy of state in-
stitutions of higher learning was, "not
meant to exempt the boards and regents
fromall laws passed by the Legislature."
The University is not a totally self-gov-
erning island in the State of Michigan
and was never meant to be.
Furthermore, the Administration's
claim has no validity for the State Legis-
lature has never succeeded in exercising
abusive control over truly autonomous
University operations.
IF, INDEED, there is no threat to the
University's constitutionally granted
autonomy, why then does the University
continue to fight PA 379? The logical
answer is that the anti-labor bias of
the Hatcher era still persists in the
Fleming administration.
Authorization to appeal the Univer-
sity's case against PA 379 still needs the
approval of the Regents. Unfortunately
they have accepted Pierpont's past rec-
ommendations.
The opportunity still exists for the Re-
gents to block Pierpont's request. Regent
Gertrude Huebner has said, "It's impos-
sible to avoid collective bargaining.. .
Unions are entitled to their fair share.
Collective bargaining may be difficult, it
may be costly, but it's an important pro-
cess and we ought to have it."
The University should face the reality
that the two-year-long court battle was
the result of bad advice from key vice-
presidents and that more bad advice
won't make the problem disappear. This
is an ideal opportunity for the Fleming
administration to rectify a grievous error
of the previous administration, and as-
sume a newer, more progressive image.
-STEVE NISSEN
NEW YORK - In a free ana
democratic society there are
ways, not all of them lawless, of
rigging the system and nullifying
It.
Thus, it is against the law to
bribe the voters and to stuff the
ballot boxes and to falsify the
count. If the culprits are caught,
they may be sent to prison. But
there are more refined ways of
cheating which are not illegal
and indeed are regarded as ac-
ceptable. They strike at the heart
of the democratic process.
One of the commonest of these
devices is to ignore the strongest
adversary in a controversy and
to turn the argument of the de-
bate against the least respectable
and most vulnerable.
We are witnessingsa prime ex-
ample of this misuse of demo-
cratic debate. The Johnson Dem-
ocrats are trying to reduce the
controversy over the war in Viet-
nam to one between the most
eminent of their supportersm -
President Dwight Eisenhower, for
example-and an assorted mixture
of hippies, peaceniks, draft-card
burners, pacifists, agents and sup-
porters of Hanoi, Peking and
Moscow, black-power Negroes and
what not.
IN A DEMOCRATIC society
this is cheating. Its inner prin-
ciple, the vital essence of democ-
racy, is that government is con-
trolled by free debate. For only by
free debate can an agreed truth
be found and an agreed course
be detrmined. Onlytheebest can
make this process work; only the
best spokesman of every aspect of
the case can make genuine the
debate to find out what is true
and what will be regarded as right.
When, however, the government
turns upon its weakest opponents
and avoids engaging itself with its
best opponents, it is destroying
this process by which a free peo-
ple ascertains what is true and
agrees upon -what is right. By
shifting the debate to what
President Theodore Roosevelt call-
ed "the lunatic fringe," the debate
is destroyed.
It is destroyed by pretending
that the argument is not with
Mike Mansfield, J. William Ful-
bright, Thruston Morton, John
Sherman Cooper, Mark Hatfield;
not with generals like Matthew
Ridgway, James Gavin and David
Shoup; not with academic com-
munities all over the country
from Harvard to Berkeley; not
with the great numbers of the
clergy in all denominations. When
the President of the United States
talks as if his opponents at home
were meerly "the placard car-
riers," many of whom badly need
a bath and a haircut, he is taking
refuge from the heat of the de-
bate. He is running away from
the issues.
IN WARTIME the favorite de-
vice for evading and falsifying
genuine debate is to exploit the
soldier dead. If it can be made to
appear that the critics of the war
policy are dishonoring the dead,
are ignoring and betraying the
soldier dead, there can be little
further argument.
President Johnson has used this
device several times, notably when
conferring aposthumous decora-
tion, and the implication of be-
traying the dead is now extended
to those who wish to fight the
war differently than it is being
fought and to those who, urging
negotiation, are ready to nego-
tiate on issues which the Admin-
istration happens to reject as not
negotiable.,
Gen. Eisenhower, who, when he
was President, refused to wagehan
American war in Vietnam, has
lent his authority to this decep-
tive device: "If any Republican
or Democrat suggests that we
pull out of Vietnam and turn our
back on the more than 13,000
Americans who died in the cause
of freedom there ..."
THIS IS ONE of those resound-
ing remarks which not only begs
the issue of debate but seeks to
destroy it. So if it is taken serious-
ly as a considered statement of
Gen. Eisenhower's Vietnam policy,
it means that, contrary to the
Manila Declaration, American
forces can never leave Vietnam. In World
For it can never be certain, not to end allv
even altogether probable, that the we were go
cause of freedom is secure. of peace adr
If this cannot be said, almost authority o
anyone at almost any time can Stalin's Ru
claim that we have turned our America. In
backs on the soldier dead. Quite were going
clearly the rhetoric is so inflated United Nali
that no statesman in office can, in sion could
fact, live with it. Vietnamese
P7
-
~'PEA(E FEELER? I (OUU' H4AVE 5WO12l IT
War II we were going
war. In World War II
ing to usher in an era
ministered by the triple
of Churchill's Britain,
issia and Roosevelt's
n the Korean war we
to show that with the
Aons at work aggres-
be stopped. In the
war we are establish-
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ditional surrender and without the
symbols of victory, is a betrayal
of the 13,000 soldier dead.
The general should alsoravoid
the trap laid by the war party in
this country. This to tell the
people to believe that the Amer-
ican forces must stay in Viet-
nam until what is, in fact, the
impossible has been achieved -
namely, that there is in Saigon
an anti-Communist, anti-Chinese,
pro-American, independent gover-
nment which can stand on its
own feet without the help of
American forces. That is what the
Johnson policy demands for an
American agreement to a negot-
iated settlement, and if the Re-
publicans have any sense of the
practical realities, including the
results of the 1968 election, they
will not fall into this trap.
FOR WE CAN TAKE it as one
of the certainties in this highly
complex situation that no negotia-
tion which has the prospect of
leading to a lasting result can
omit the pledge we first made at
Manila: that at some time and
under some conditions, the Amer-
ican forces will be withdrawn
from the continent of Asia.
A negotiation whichi mplies that
they will remain indefinitely on
that continent is, one might say
by definition, a victory that can
be only a temporary truce. For
the peasant revolution in Asia,
which is led by Communists, is
named by simple patriots who will
never for long accept the pres-
ence of rich, excessively armed
Western white men on the con-
tinent within walking distance of
other Asian countries.
Gen. Eisenhower should not
foreclose, by a rhetorical device,
the opportunity of the Republican
Party to dow hat he, himself, did
when he was President: to ne-
gotiate an honorable end of an
inconclusive war. If Gen. Eisen- d
hower does foreclose this op-
portunity, he may well deliver the
Presidency for another four years
to Lyndon Johnson.
it
0
WAS' A SNAKE :'
This kind of inflation of our
objectives beyond the practical
realities has been an American
practice in almost all of the wars
of this century. And because we
could not live up to the rhetoric,
it could always be said that we
had turned our back on the sold-
ier dead.
ing and protecting self-govern-
ment in South Vietnam and con-
taining Communist China for the
future.
Gen. Eisenhower should take
thought carefully before he com-
mits himself and his party and
the country to the idea that a
negotiated peace, without uncon-
A
(C) 1968, The Washington Post Co.
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" WANT A BUTTON! I want a but-
ton!" a student chirped at Bursley
Hall's hours-visitation teach-in Mon-
day night. The button was one of
those blue SGC ones with gold letters
spelling out that catchy slogan, "Let
the Students Decide."
Yes indeed, Bursley Hall is finally
getting a share of some of the action.
Upstairs in the West Bursley Lounge
(just about as luxurious as the latest
hotel) students-mostly freshmen-
were treated to a glimpse of the SGC
brass. There was oft-quoted President
Bruce Kahn, long-haired grad Tom
West erdale ("When Johnny Feldkamp
and I both came on campus . ."),
bearded Andy Quinn, blond-banged E.
0. Knowles, and more. A few Bursley
girls even dressed up specially for the
occasion in red, laced boots, army
jackets, and watches - especially
watches - on wrists, arms, and even
dangling, from ears to symbolize their
own catchy new phrase: "Hour Pow-
er." A festive air of familiarity per-
vaded the hall.
" OW I THINK it's great that people
know we're out here!" one Bursley
coed commented about the "beyond-
their - wildest - dreams" phenomenon
of "Student Power Comes to Bursley."
When asked why they had come to
the teach-in, a shrug almost visibly
swept the crowd. One student unwit-
tingly became a spokesman when she
drawled, "I don't know, I just want to
see what's going to happen."
The student speakers were there
with their verbal weapons: "The Ad-
ministration has been playing games,"
Kahn said, playing his own role of
good old Kahn with mass-movement
strategies; E. O. Knowles with his "It's
not forcive action, just people getting
together."
sity Investigator Harold Swoverland,
the vice president's and housing di-
rector Feldkamp's silent eyes and ears,
made the event official when he in-
toned, "Any gathering of students-
football games, basketball, sit-ins-
you'll find me there."
But some people weren't there for
games After the meeting some stu-
dents went up to Kahn and Co. in
small scattered groups and began
asking questions, real questions-not
just ones that are only saying "Man,
look at me-I'm with you, I'm with
everybody!"
Instead, some students even asked:
"I'm for abolishing women's curfews,
but is this the only way of doing it?
Can't we compromise somehow?" And
Kahn answered . . . "I wish it didn't
have to be this way (forcive action)
at this University; but that's the way
things work, that's the way things get
done.... You can't always compromise
your ideals, sometimes it becomes just
so odious-you can't."
NEVERTHELESS, one student who
hadn't been so sure of student
power tactics before, after listening
to Kahn spoke quietly, thoughtfully,
with the burdening depression of un-
certainty: "I just can't convince my-
self that there is no other way. . . .
Maybe I'm wrong, probably I am ... I
really don't know. I just wish them
luck."
EVEN BURSLEY has at last had
some action; it has been initiated
into the games that student power
leaders and University administrators
know how to play so well. Isolationism
is at an end-a new era is opening
for Bursley. Bursley is entering the
worid of the University, and with this
entrance will come the burden for
m-, .-. r Pv ivnci , .h 1Pi , oinnc c and _-
,htuiHaIIaSpndkat4
Letters: Chairman Views Course in Negro. History
To the Editor:
MISSCONNYE Hunt's letter in
The Daily of Dec. 7, 1967,
contained an unexpected attack
on me and the History Depart-
ment for not instituting a course
in Negro history. Preliminary de-
tails of the course have been
worked out, she says; recent sur-
veys have revealed a student de-
mand for it, and several qualified
professors have offered to teach
it. To the best of my knowledge
none of these statements is true,
and even if they all were they
would not bear on the chief ques-
tions about creating such a
course.
One question is whether Negro
history should be taught. We have
no course in the history of the
American Indians, or Jews, or any
other minority; why then of the
Negroes? Their role in, and con-
tributions to, American society
should be emphasized in, any
course in United States history
that is worth its salt. But to
single them out for special treat-
ment in the curriculum, it may be
argued, is to perpetuate emphasis
on their separateness at just the
time when their assimilation is
the crucial problem before the
rub. The graduateaeducation of
Negroes is so poor, at least in his-
tory, that well qualified Ph.D.'s
are virtually unobtainable--a fact
that is a disgrace to our educa-
tional system but still a fact. We
must apply the same standards of
training and scholarship and
teaching ability to everyone who
joins us; if we lowered our stand-
ards for a Negro, the students
would suffer and he would feel
himself, quite rightly, a second-
class academic citizen.
One remedy is to give special
training, in good graduate schools,
to promising Negroes who seek an
academic career; and the Depart-
ment is actively exploring what it
can contribute to this end. Such a
contribution will in the long run
be much more significant than
any course could be. But to wait
for the long run requires patience,
which these days is in short
supply.
-W. B. Willcox, Chairman
Department of History
Now, Howe
To the Editor:
IN RESPONSE to your article in
The Daily (Jan. 13) about Mr.
aware of this criticism and of its
justification. And so, in planning
Mr. Howe's visit we have made
every effort to improve the pro-
gram in this respect.
One of our primary goals has
been to, plan the program with the
writer-in-residence rather than
for him. Andweahave been very
fortunate in that Mr. Howe has
been extremely cooperative, and
has taken an active part in shap-
ing this year's program. For us,
this has been one of the most
gratifying aspects of working on
Writer-in-Residence this year.
MR. HOWE'S VISIT has been
made possible by the joint sup-
port of many student groups and
organizations including The Daily,
SGC, Panhel, IFC, UAC, individ-
ual dorms and the Residential
College, as well as individual fac-
All letters must be typed,
double-spaced and should be no
longer than 300 words. All let-
ters are subject to editing;
those over 300 words will gen-
erally be shortened. No unsign-
ed letters will be printed.
ulty departments. Our hope is
Wrong Answer
To the Editor:
RECENTLY, I have been con-
cerned with the nation-wide
protests against the Selective
Service System. My current draft
deferment runs out this April
when I receive my engineering
degree. Therefore, no one could be
more concerned than I am about
the draft.
On Jan. 13, I read an article In
The Daily which included a quote
by one of these protesters that
seems to embody therecent trend
toward lawlessness. "He said ral-
lies are insufficient and people
must take risks. 'I mean staking
your job, your future, by putting
yourself in the same position as
Spock and Coffin. Go out in the
community and break the law if
you feel you have to.' " To me,
this is so far from being right
that I have written this letter to
ask that it be exposed as the
wrong answer.
I FIRMLY believe in the right
to dissent. History is full of dis-
senters and they have been
healthy for our government by
posing constant questions. But,
these defiant protesters have car-
law to further their cause. Brtk
any law to gain recognition. But,
where does law breaking start?
With a little law like trespassing
at a draft board? Perhaps turning
your draft card in would be an-
other law they could get away
with.
The only trouble is, where do
they draw the line? How many
more laws would be tempting to
break? Right here, is the place to
check a situation that is on the
way out to control.
I believe full prosecution of
anyone breaking any law would
show protestors that their way is
wrong. Our country was founded
on basic rights, freedoms, and
laws which respect all its citizens.
We should move to defend these
laws with all means provided for
in these laws. We should respect
all laws, big and small, and obey"
them.
Our legal system provides for
orderly ways of changing our
laws. These are the only ways we
should tolerate. This is the best
thing our government, be it city,
state, or federal, can do. If our
legal systems defend our laws by
maintaining proper respect for
them through the full prosecution
of wrong-doers, we can honestly
sav we a edoing all we can to
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