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 The Rise and Fall of a 'Cause Celebre' ' 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. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1968 NIGHT EDITOR: DANIEL OKRENT Johnson's Cri mestoppers: The Polities of Misdirection THE PRESIDENT'S war-on-crime grab- bag of construction subsidies, bureau- cratic restructuring and moral exhorta- tion. constitutes a cynical political trick at a time when nothing short of con- scientious, boldly-conceived action can be tolerated. With an eye to the November election, election, Johnson responded to the swell- ing current of popular anti-crime senti- ment with a statistic-studded proposal of 22 largely ineffectual, misdirected weap- ons, including: * re-evaluation of crime-combat tools on a local and state level; * passage of the Safe Streets and Crime Control Act (a measure providing for construction, research and education in all phases of law enforcement) which Congress did not pass last year, and a first year subsidy of $100 million, twice what Johnson sought last year; 0 coordination of all Federal law en- forcement efforts under the Attorney General (law enforcement is now done by uncoordinated cabinet off-shoots and independent bureaus); * a riot-control law which does not repress freedom of speech (Johnson's attempt at oxymoron for the year); * a spate of measures classified loosely under "drug abuse": more, coordination (there will be one Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, in capital letters), stifler penalties for both possessing and distributing LSD, an additional 100 fed- eral narcotics agents (Johnson warned, Strangeglovesque, "These powders and pills threaten our nation's health, vital- 'ty, and self-respect."'); A concentrated "strike forces" to rout out organized crime-details suppressed. INDEED, FROM 1964 to 1968 Johnson has followed public opinion full-cycle. Then he scoffed when Goldwater con- jured the spectre of crime in the streets. Now it is no longer a spectre. Police in Kansas City are training housewives to wield 38s; in Detroit, the grocers have been armed and shooting for months. Dogs hunt criminals in Miami. When re- porters kept track of the applause during the President's State of the Union mes- sage, they found the crime proposals re- ceived the most enthusiastic response. Civil rights got the least. Those radicals who believe the Presi- dent is not responsive to public opinion are wrong. Crime is what the people are The Daily is a member of the Associated Press and Colegiate Press Service. Fall and winter subscription rate: $4.50 per term by carrier ($5 by mail); $8.00 for regular academic school year ($9 by mail). Daily except Monday during regular academic school year. really concerned about. Crime is what Fr'sident Johnson is concerned about. According to Max Frankel in the New York Times' front page news cover of the President's proposals, "The message also bore the mark of an Administration whose leading officials have become con- vinced that crime in the streets and re- sentment of Negro rioters will be one of the top issues in this year's Presidential campaign." A a result, Johnson the politician has once again gotten the better of Johnson the public servant. The substance of the President's text speaks more volumes about the President's political motiva- tions than about constructive action to solve the very real problems crime poses. It is an ineffectual document and John- son must know it. Were the problem amenable to solution through stepped- up law enforcement it would still be in- effectual. Even to Johnson it must be obvious that building more police stations and reshuffling federal bureaus is scarce- ly calculated to frighten away even the least self-respecting criminal. WORSE THAN ineffectual, the fine energies the President dedicated to. the crusade against villainy are misdi- rected. Crime is not amenable to solution by calling forth more policemen with fewer shackles. It deserves being said again: to blot out crime, blot out its causes. The President knows this. It is not a new idea. He has been schooled in it by his political and academic advisers. The rhetoric of his Great Society visions at least paid lip, service to the principle. Surely, if nothing else, the tragedy of Vietnam must have taught him that a problem which can't be solved by force can't be solved by more force. Why has President Johnson forgotten? Political expediency can blur even the best memories. Crime is a legitimate and serious problem, but it is not the kind of problem which can be conquered by a show of vigorous action. To solve it will demand fresh analyses unbound by old cliches and intrepid in the face of fun- damental attacks, energetic and thoro- ughgoing action, and high political cour- age. With Johnson's most recent display of starkly Machiavellian tactics, pros- pects for that brand of politics in this country in the near future are very dim indeed. -URBAN LEHNER Daily except Sunday and Monday during regular summer session. Second class postage paid at Ann Arbor, Michigan, 420 Maynard St , Ann Arbor, Michigan. 48104. Editorial Staffr ROGER RAPOPORTr. Editor MEREDITH EIKER. Managing Editor MICHAEL HEFFER ROBERT KLIVANS City Editor Editorial Director By RON LANDSMAN First of a Two Part Series "I think the cops sold out." Elliot Barden comments on the Flaming Creatures settlement in which he was a defendant. "I'm glad they did, though," he adds. And for all practical purposes the cops did sell out. The first reaction of the average liberal civil libertarian is that Mary Barkey's pleading guilty was the sell-out-that she didn't stand up for principle and take the case to the Supreme Court. But there is an important question to be asked: Who gained most from the settlement? First, it must be pointed out that this was -a settlement-a deal if you prefer-between defense law- yers and prosecution. It is com- monly done in the American judi- cial system, and whether it is just or not is irrelevant. But "plea bar- gaining," as lawyers call it, is part of the system, and it does at times protect defendants from unduly serious penalities. So, to decide who gained most from this settlement, we might consider the advantages of each side before and after the settle- ment. IT SEEMED from the start that conviction in Ann Arbor was in- evitable. Washtenaw County Prose- cuting Attorney William Delhey was almost assured four convic- tions on high misdemeanor charges. The jury didn't seem too favorable-the average age of the panel members from whom the jury was chosen was 49 years, and "none of them had seen more than three movies in their entirelives." as one disgruntled Cinema Guild supporter put it. In addition, last summer-in the middle of hearings in Ann Arbor Municipal Court - the United States Supreme Court turned down an appeal from a New York group which was also arrested for show- ing "Flaming Creatures." But what really hurt the case was Chief Justice Earl Warren's com- ment that he thought the movie was obscene. The remark was le- gally unnecessary and clearly pre- judiced any other case involving the film. The Cinema Guild de- fendants and lawyers were "de- moralized." One of the main issues was the constitutionality of the search and seizure aspects of the case. While this was the major question for THE SITUATION after the settlement, with quite a few issues settled, is more clearcut. Delhey had one conviction on the books, although Prof. Joseph Sax of the Law School said it was "just 'tbat much' above a traffic ticket." Al- so, because Miss Barkey is a minor, the conviction will be expunged from her record in a few years. With the dropping of the $15,000 damage suit against Delhey, Lieut. Eugene Staudenmeier and Wash- tenaw County Assistant Prosecutor made again. Neither the prose- cutor's ofice or the defense attor- neys would confirm this report. Those, then, are the major feat- ures of the settlement. Lawyers don't like to call it "plea bargain- ning" or admit they make deals, but that is what they did. Whether or not it is "justice is another question, William Goodman, one of the defense attorneys, saw the out- come as -a "stand-off rather than a victory." He felt that what hap- ment and this was a fair way out. * He may not have felt it was a secure case. Although the jury was "bad," defendant Hugh Cohen of the engineering English depart- ment said he felt the jury might have been persuaded that Cinema Guild was a responsible organiza- tion. 0 He may not have felt like doing the work that was necessary for a case that was relatively minor in the city's eyes. He may have been unhappy with the case and found it to be more of a head- ache than it was worth. There were other possibilities to be considered in analyzing the case. Although the four defend- ants refused to consider it, the judge reportedly considered placing Cinema Guild as an organization on trial-in rem is the legal term. Cohen said, "None of us felt Cine- ma Guild did aynthing wrong. We wouldn't consider it." The defense attorneys had ear- lier asked for a straight deal-Del- hey drops the criminal charges and they would drop the damage suit. Apparently he turned it down. DIFFERENT possibilities were being considered on Tuesday, Dee. 11 when Mary Barkey unexpected- ly decided to plead guilty to the lesser charge. Actual court pro- ceedings began that morning, and Staudenmeier was testifying. When the prosecution moved to bring the film in as evidence-the de- fense's strongest argument was that it was seized illegally and shouldn't be allowed as evidence- Goodman and Robb moved that it not be accepted. A recess was call- ed and the lawyers were confer- ring with the defendants separate- ly when Mary decided it just wasn't worth it. What led up to the decision was a whole phantas- mogroria of different factors. The personalities involved and their reactions played a key role in the resolution of the case 10 At City Hall, the night they raided Cinema Guild. the defense, it was hurt by the fact that the movie was not an established classic, such as "Ulys- ses." It is unfortunate but true that judges deciding constitutional issues are swayed somewhat by the material involved. Also, appeal was not assured. The court of last resort-the U S. Supreme Court-may have decided not to hear the case at all, thereby completely wasting thousands of dollars and years spent in litiga- tion. Thomas Shea, Cinema Guild and the defendants have lost any chance of re-couping their financial losses. Although most of the costs were paid out of the Cinema Guild De- fense Fund, a victory in that suit would have served them nicely. And the film-although not the only copy-is permanently ceded to the police. It is also rumored there was a tacit agreement that no further seizures of the kind that started the 13-month battle would be pened "indicates the prosecutor felt Cinema Guild was willing to fight to make a show of legal and moral strength." WHY EXACTLY DELHEY was willing to make this final deal is a major question. He evaded com- ment himself, but speculation in- volves several possibilities: " He didn't want to pursue the case for either legal or personal reasons. He may have felt Cinema Guild didn't deserve a harsh judg- Letters: The CIA 's Campus Visit To the Editor: j CANNOT REFRAIN from pro- testing about the tone and some of the statements of Steve Nissen's article in The Daily (Feb. 8) about a luncheon meeting in 1966 between some CIA represent- atives and some UM faculty mem- bers in the Chinese studies field. It is by no means "a well-kept secret" that it was I who at the request of _a CIA representative, invited a few Chinese studies col- leagues (not "a number of lead- ers") to join me in lunching with some visiting members of the CIA research staff to discuss matters of mutual interest. It is not true that "most declined the invita- tion." To the best of my recollec- tion, no one declined; and I am sure that none who attended was "genuinely interested" in any un- dercover hanky-panky, as your ar- ticle implies. At lunch I myself taked-as freely as I would with any other interested persons-about the na- ture of our Chinese studies pro- gram, scholarly trends in Chinese studies generally, the inevitable difficulties CIA would have in find- ing recruits among current stu- dents of Chinese, and similar in- nocuous matters. Since one un- named participant in the luncheon has so grievously distorted the na- ture of the discussion, it would clearly be futile for me to explain it in further detail here. But I must emphatically deny the im- plication that CIA agents made any improper proposals about planting students in our program, about "CIA money (being) pro- vided to help these professors in their work," or about using the University in any other way. Since the luncheon there has been no CIA follow-up that I know of, and at no time have I myself been em- ployed by or the conscious reci- pient of funds from the CIA. The UM Chinese studies pro- gram, in which I participate as a professor of Chinese and chairman of the Department of Far Eastern Languages and Literatures, is one of the very finest in this country. It is supported in small part by Federal funds openly provided under terms of the National De- fense Education Act, and many of our students are supported by NDEA fellowships. The University can take great pride both in the prorgam and inits students. No useful purpose whatsoever can be served by implications that tne program or participants in it are improperly involved with the CIA or any other organization. -Charles O. Hucker Chairman, Department of Far Eastern Languages and Literatures Daily Misquote To the Editor: A DMINISTRATORS have long believed, "You're nobody on this campus until you've been misquoted by The Daily." Al- though I am not the administra- tor who said that, what was done in Jim Heck's article on the draft (Feb. 4) makes me sympathize with him. Let me quote from the second to last paragraph of this article. "Few (students) detest America or are unpatriotic. The vast ma- jority feel they have an obliga- tion to their country, but, as freshman Eric Jackson asks, "Can't it be something else?" Hold that quote in your mind as you read what I really said. Jim Heck called on the 'tele- phone Saturday, announcing he was taking a "draft poll." I stated I was opposed to conscription. "They have no right to draft me to fight or draft me for any-. thing else," is the most quoteable thing I said. Is this consistent with the so-called quotehinthe article which is used in the same sentence where Jim Heck makes the accusation (it is an accusa- tion) that "The vast majority feel they have an obligation . .."? I said the draft meant a wasted two years to me. At this point during the telephone call, I was told that I needn't be worried about dying, which I had never mentioned, becauseonly one-tenth of the draftees go to Vietnam. I said that the present state of the military did not make a military career appealing to me for either two or twenty years. I also said that a purposeless, wasteful war like Vietnam did not inspire me. All during this conversation, I was repeatedly asked if it wasn't really the fear of death that inspired my beliefs. When such methods of inspir- ing and manufacturing quotes are used, it is easy to write an article equating opposition to conscrip- tion with the sort of cowardice that can not dare to defend any- thing. Has General Hershey asked you for bulk rates on reprints? Eric Jackson, '71 Minimum Wages To the Editor: I WOULD like to call your atten- tion to several very serious de- ficiencies in Gary Barber's essay on minimum wages in The Daily (Feb. 1). Mr. Barber claims that "Many are unemployed because of these laws" and "minimum wages force up product prices." There have been several very good studies of the short and long run effects of minimum wage laws. None of them have shown that minimum wage laws have had any appre- ciable or even measurable effect on either unemployment or prices. Individual instances can be found in which employers changed their level of production or prices as a result of changes in the minimum wage, but those reactions have almost always been temporary. There are many other ways in which employers can and do adapt to price changes of inputs into their production functions. The empirical evidence shows that these other adaptations are the preferred way. Ignoring facts is bad enough, but the post hoc fallacy is worse. The evidence cited near the end of Barber's article attributes the employment effects of the 1957 recession to the 1956 increase in the minimum wage. Surely he doesn't believe that the recession was caused by the increase in minimum wages! 'The basic fault with Barber's analysis goes deeper, however. He tries to apply a partial, static an- alysis (the theory of competitive markets) to phenomena that are part of a dynamic system. Em- ployment and unemployment, the level of prices, and the pace of technological change are deter- mined by' the intricate interrela-, tionships that prevail in a grow- ing and changing economy. The competitive market equilibrium is only one part of this system, and is probably less significant in our age than the monopoloid aspects of the big business-big govern- ment-big labor syndrome. To rest an evaluation of minimum wage laws on the theory of competitive markets alone, while ignoring the best available facts as well, is most inappropriate. -Daniel R. Fusfeld Professor of Economics 14 I Will the Real George Wallace Stand Up for America? By WALTER SHAPIRO GEORGE WALLACE, related by marriage to the Governor of Alabama, kept his promise to the 'little people' yesterday. His an- nouncement of candidacy makes it official that they have a Pres- idential candidate who will give them 'a real choice' this fall, It's easy to dismiss the Wallace candidacy as the last gasp of native American racism, but such a facile analysis masks the un- derlying significance of the event. The Wallacites -- along with the anti-war forces and militant Negroes - represent a potential defection of unprecedented size from the American two party sys- tem. All three groups -- despite their exceedingly disparate concerns - share the common conviction that American politics as represented by Johnson and Nixon is incapable of dealing with the probems which affect them deeply. "ince Wallqce's supporters rep- resent a large portion of the po- teistial defentnor, it is vital to un- derstand that Wallace is far more than a 'red-necked' racist who appeals solely to fellow traveler; of the KKK. Wallace is appealing directly to the psyches of their 1968 coun- terparts. For Wallace recognizes that the dislocations of the six- ties are psychological and emo- tional, rather than strictly econ- omic. Wallace is talking to the for- gotten men of the age - the steelworkers, telephone operators and gas station attendants. He's speaking to the eighth genera- tion unsuccessful American farm- er.. And to the grandchildren of Polish, Italian, and Irish immi- grants who still live in sight of the rotting slums of their ances- tors. These are the real "alienated Americans." In an era when edu- cation is taken increasingly for granted, they are the uneducat- ed. In a land focused on the prob- lems of the affluent and the im- poverished, they fall in the neth- er world between the two ex- tremes. AT A TIME when the children of the affluent are discovering that materialism is not necessar- ily equated with happiness, they know full well that less material- ism does not mean more happi- ness. The obvious reasons for being own failures in terms of their own personal inferiority, so they anxiously look elsewhere for a more palatable explanation for. their distress. To the needs and .aspirations of these "little people" George Wal- lace has been successfully speak- ing. And Wallace never forgets to remind them that he too was once a taxi-cab driver. But underneath George Wal- lace is merely bewildering the "little people" with an updated version of the con game. For George Wallace doesn't have any answers other than faithfully echoing their prejudices. George Wallace's strength lies in his awareness that credible ignorance can, be a political asset. Consequently Wallace's anti- Communist, anti - Government, anti-intellectual, anti-Negro pot- pourri garnered impressive results in the 1964 Northern primaries. It is the height of self-delusion to believe that Wallace won't do strongly this time as well. AN ANALYSIS of this sort should not conjure up visions of a remake of Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here." For any to- talitarian threat to the American people does not stem primarily vanguard of a fascist takeover. Rather they represent the maxi- mum support that such a know- nothing crusade can generate in contemporary America. For example, in California where Wallace's American Inde- pendent Party got on the ballot by inducing 100,000 people to change registration, the anti-war Peace and Freedom Party did as well without the financial re- sources or an available candidate. The indications are that Cal- ifornia will not be the only ex- ample of such a four party com- petition. There is a lot of talk that many Northern states will have New Politics parties on the ballot with presidential tickets. FURTHERMORE, the Negroes are highly unlikely to again go 'All the Way with LBJ' since their discovery of the very real limits of American politics coincided with the birth of their pride in their black identity. A presidential election in which one of four or five voters cast their ballots for minor party can- didates will have profound reper- cussions in both major parties. The major issue is not which party will benefit. For in a John- son-Nixon clash, the two parties VOTING FOR minor party can- didates takes on a special im- portance in 1968. This election year is unique because by boxing themselves into a Johnson-Nixon type of confrontation, the two major parties have lost their tra- ditional weapon against third parties - co-optation. As a direct consequence of Viet- nam, Johnson cannot move to the left to destroy the base of the New Politics parties the way that Truman did in 1948 with the Progressive Party. Ideally, as a consequence of the defection of this vital 25 per cent, American politics will again at- tempt to become relevant to the mammoth and complicated prob- lems this country faces at home and abroad. If politicians fail to realize that they have ceased to be meaning- ful to a large portion of the American people, then R. Buck- minster Fuller will have been right in his focus on the irrele- vance of politics. FOR AS THE self-styled gen- eralist said in Washington this Sunday, "A hundred years from now, people will find nothing more laughable than the pathetic con- ceit that politics can solve man's ,'/ t /., r i // /! f = j,' ' . r 1 .+'+ - . ' ,4 ii E% III { 1 i y ; t( _, f. .. _. __ t t _ i J 1'1 __ 1 ' I I _ '! :( ! f !t i ,'r :! ? f. j Y "! f ' _ ,t tp3 Y C ,R !!! 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