zih ; 004e 3ici~igwu hatty 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 'A rr; it 'rp e rd:, . " . zix ; UL , Where Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH. Truth Will Prevail NEWS PHONE: 764-0552 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily ex press the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. bfIFELUc~kp .It "iTNAM WAR$ I View of McCarthy From a Bucket 'fri 11 f ( SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 1968 'I NIGHT EDITOR: JILL CRABTREE Roeky's Withdrawal: No Alternatives for '68 w GOV. NELSON ROCKEFELLER'S deci- sion Thursday to exclude himself from active campaigning for the Repub- lican Presidential nomination comes as a blow to all who had hoped the Repub- lican party may have been able to offer the American people a viable alternative to the present state of affairs. Unless Gov. Rockefeller reverses his decision in the near future, Richard Nix- on is virtually assured the nomination- and at the same time, the decision vir- tually assures the Republican party will lose again, whether to President John- son or Sen. Robert Kennedy. (It is only the naive, conservative Re- publicans who can bear to hold the notion that a man who has not won an election on his own in 18 years is able to win the presidency.) It may have been true, in Gov. Rocke- feller's estimates, the majority of Repub- licans did not wish to see him obtain the nomination. But the Governor is very premature if his decision was based solely on this archaic view that the will of the people is expressed only through party lines. , Gov. Rockefeller's support is a lateral one that transcends party politics. He should not have been reluctant to split the party between conservative and moderate wings, as happened in '64, for many Democrats and independents alike would have voted in Republican prima- ries to assure Rockefeller the nomina- tion. The party is recently a dual ideol- ogy, and to hope that the tremendous dif- ferences between the two factions can ever be healed is pure ludicrously. AS A RESULT, Rockfeller would have been disguised as a Republican nominee, but he would have truly repre- sented the will of Americans during this time when party differences are not valid ones. Those of us concerned with the con- dition of the country must now concen- trate our efforts within the Democratic party. The fight to oust Presideht John- son will be much more difficult than the one to oust Richard Nixon. And if in July we find the contest is between Nixon and Johnson, it will not be difficult to assume the democratic system is defunct. -JIM HECK -h ' 1' Las:«EA ir~re. a. %. %" I hope you will understand . . My political career is at stake!' Letters to the Editor Et Je Vous Accuse, Shapiro By MICHAEL ROBERTS T 9:15 IN THE morning the Diag looks deflated. The trees jut up from the matted grass, a few signs lean chained to trees and posts. There is a hollow, em- pty air about it. Bucketing money for McCarthy becomss more than politics. "Would you like to help sup- port McCarthy in Wisconsin?"' A little old man with a straight white beard and tiny blue eyes answered, "Do you know what you're doing? Why you're pan- handling. If I was to do that they'd throw me in jail." "Yes sir, but I'm not. . His eyes seemed to swell, "Well do you know what my last job as a soldier was?" "No sir." "Why fifty years ago I buried dead soldiers in France, that's what I did." "Yes sir." SOME PEOPLE choose not to answer at all. They turn their heads as if on a Listerine com- mercial. Others, with a little more forethought work their way around by way of the muddylawn or sidewalks which aren't really going where they'd like them to go. "Would you like to help sup- port McCarthy in Wisconsin?" Some answer quite honestly, "Sorry, I'm a Johnson man," or, "Ha, are you kidding." Others squirm a bit, "Ah, well, you see ahhh, I'm really, uh, a Republi- can." "Would you like to help sup- port McCarthy in Wisconsin?" Two guys stopped, "Yeah sure, what the hell." One dressed in denim, with the Canadian flag sewn on the back of his jacket, a small swastika on his back left pocket, one pant leg slashed to the knee, began digging in his pockets. The other one, larger, with a tired looking trench coat, threw a quarter in the bucket. "Put it all in," he said, "that nickel too." "Hell, I need it for the juke box," the Canadian flag said. "Oh, put it in for Christssake." He threw it in the bucket. "Would you like to help sup- port McCarthy in Wisconsin?" A MATRONLY lady with thick glasses peered in reply, "I really haven't decided yet." I suddenly had the feeling that I had asked her what kind of cookies she was going to make. "I'll think about it, though." "Would you like to help sup- port McCarthy in Wisconsin?" An elderly man who had been walking remarkably slow turned, "McCarthy?" He paused for a mo- ment as his mind locked on the name. "McCarthy, why, don't you remember the McCarthy we had before. No, I won't support an- other one." "Would you like to help sup- port McCarthy in Wisconsin?" OPINION The Daily has begun accept- ing articles from faculty, ad- ministration, and students on gub.ieets of their choice. They are to be 600-900 words in length and should be submitted to the Editorial Director. * A Nation of Sheep ONE OF tHE MANY dangerous side effects of the war in Vietnam is the masking of the continual danger both this nation and the world faces from the apparently unquenchable stamina of the arms race. The latest incident to indicate the pre- carious nature of our balance of weapons is the unexplained death of more° than 5,000 sheep on a Utah ranch 25 miles from the Army's major test site for chemical and biological warfare (CBW). Second class postage paid at Ann Arbor, Michigan, 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor. Michigan, 48104.' The Daily is a member of the Associated Press, Collegiate. Press Service and Liberation News Service. Daily except.Sunday and Monday during regular summer session.. Daily except Monday during regular academic school year. Fall and winter subscription rate: $4.50 per term by carrier ($5 by mail); $8.00 for regular academic school year ($9 by miail). Editorial Staff MARK LEVIN, Editor DAVID KNOKE, Executive Editor STEPHEN WILDSTROM URBAN LEHNER Managing Editor Editorial Director DANIEL OKRENT................. Feature Editor CAROLYN MIEGEL .......'Associate Editoria) Director WALTER SHAPIRO ....... Associate Editorial Director LUCY KENNEDY ... .. Personnel Director NEAL BRUSS....................Magazine Editor ANDY SACKS . .......Photo Editor ROBERT SHEFFIELD................... Lab Chief While the Army adamantly maintains that the base is "definitely ,not respon- sible," the peculiar way the animals have died has aroused suspicion among many experts that contamination from nerve gas is responsible. Whether this allegation is true, the entire incident emphasizes the extreme danger of continued CBW work. And the loss of four H-bombs off of Greenland in January illustrates the general uncer- tainty of the well-publicized Government security systems. THE GOVERNMENT'S rationale for all such efforts is the hoary Cold War argument that all efforts, no matter how Indefensible, are necessary because otherwise we would be at the total mercy of all our adversaries. This situation exists primarily because the Government has failed to make an adequate effort to reach further agree- ments with the Soviet Union following the 1963 Test Ban Treaty. It's bad enough that this Government refuses to learn from its mistakes in Viet- nam. But it is potentially cataclysmic for the Government to ignore the moral implicit in both the H-bomb and Utah disasters. -WALTER SHAPIRO To the Editor: WALTER SHAPIRO has done it: he has written a piece that is worse than "J'Accuse." (This much heralded piece, published in the Daily, March 9, stimulted a tremendous campus-wide contro- versy: Was it satire? or was it for real?) The first paragraph of his most recent triumph of astute insight and political sagacity fol- tows (March 18-The Enemy With- in) The real danger of Robert Kennedy's Presidential cand- idacy was hidden in two little- noticed words uttered during his maiden campaign press conference on Saturday. Here we have it: the very last word on the TRUE danger of Robert Kennedy's candidacy hid- den in two little-noticed words- so little-noticed in fact, that our boy Walter his the only observer who has managed to glean this rare insight from such slim pick- ings. By now, we are all waiting breathlessly for the two words; but Walter is not going to let us off lightly. We must wade through two more paragraphs of revela- tions which more or less draw us away from the issues, so can cen- ter our attack on Walter's favorite whipping boy - Robert Kennedy's character. At last, we get the two words, at the end of a not unreasonable quote (for political rhetoric) from the Kennedy press conference: "retaliatory action." Here it is folks: the insidious danger, long- hidden from the light, of the Ken- nedy candidacy. Loking at the title again - The Enemy Within - we begin to wonder again whether Walter isn't pulling our legs. From this kernel of vital in- formation, we hear Kennedy com- pared to Dean Rusk, a slight switch from "the Richard Nixon of the Democratic Party." (S u n d a y, March'17 - The Ballad of Bobby and Gene) One feels there may just possibly be a method to this cat's mannerisms - he is secretly writing a novel in the "Literature of Exhausted Possibilities" genre, cooly and calculatingly trying to to boggle the minds of hip English professors.hHis use of the word "maiden" has a certain flair of absurdity which goes right along vith thegeneral absurdity of draw- ing such an earth-shaking con- clusion from two words of a pol- itician's rhetoric at- a press con- ference. Other diction reminiscent of the absurd: "vividly illumin- ates," the tenor of our age being that anything which "vividly il- luminates" and is not concerned directly with light waves, must be absurd; "political chameleon," name one politician who isn't (one wants to add, name one person who isn't); "political miracle," miracle has a certain absurdity about it, reminiscent of the God of the Old Testament. The hope is, that Walter will be able to launch his candidacy for the Presidency in the near future, with a rhetoric of purity and hon- esty. Until that day, one sleeps easier knowing that Walter is on the job, and that Robert F. Ken- nedy is running for President. Hallelujah Brothers and Sisters!! -John Henderson Eugene McCarthy "Yeah," replied a short, serious looking man. With that he draw a dollar bill out of his wallet and dropped it in the bucket. "Would you like to help sup- port McCarthy in Wisconsin?" "Why what's he going to do?" asked a fragile looking little old lady. She had a plastic patch over one lens of her glasses. "I read he was, going to end the war." "Yes ma'am he. ." "Well he can't do it. Why, do you know what I was doing last night?" "No ma'am." "I WAS AT an American Le- gion meeting. Do you know where they started? In Paris fifty years ago. That just goes to prove that you can't end wars, they're in human nature, we'll always have them. I'm for President Johnson, he has been in office long enough to know what's going on over there." "Would you like to help sup- port McCarthy in Wisconsin?" A Japanese student stopped. He stood there looking at the bucket, thinking. He looked at me, smiled and then without a word he threw in some change and walked away. "Would you like to help sup- port McCarthy in Wisconsin?" Three hippies turned around and one said over his shoulder, "Sorry man, I'm flat." THE DIAG began to inflate again as some classes began let- ting out. Instead of ones or twos people, began walking by in packs and platoons. Bicyclists weaved by, their heads above the rest soaring like eagles over a forest of people. Someone was playing a guitar'in front of the library. "Would you like to help sup- port McCarthy in Wisconsin?" A girl stepped out from be- tween two waves of people. "Yes, I'd like to. Do you have anymore of those buttons?" "No, I'm afraid I don't, we . .." "You don't?" The words had the consistency of wet cement. She shoved her wallet back in her purse and stepped back into the moving crowd. "Never mind then." tI Voter Registration To the Editor: THE FOLLOWING is a letter to the editor of the Ann Arbor News. Unfortunately, the Ann Arbor News article on Wednesday about the lawsuit of the eight Univer- sity students trying to register to vote in Ann Arbor contained ser- ious distortions, First, the statement that a suc- cessful suit "could add as many as 15,000 voters to the city rolls" is erroneous. It is true that this is the total number of seniors and graduate students at the Uni- versity. However, approximately 8,000 of these are already eligible, and yet only a small proportion have chosen to register to vote in Ann Arbor. Thus, if the lawsuit wins and 7,000 additional could register in Ann Arbor, probably only a small proportion would choose to do so. Many students do not regard Ann Arbor as their home or de- sire to register here. However, that small proportion that views Ann Arbor as their true home and residence should be allowed to register, the same as other mem-. bers of the Ann Arbor commun- ity. Second, the paragraph at the end of the article states that the students bringing the lawsuit are from cities other than Ann Arbor. These students are originally from those other cities but now regard Ann Arbor as their home. -David M. Cbpi, '68L -Michael Koeneke, '69 BAd. 0 .,.u" .ro ,a...ca .>"..w:..:...x...n,,......a ...,*a.:..n..<..*n.** x:........ o- :.. .. : Y,. .. ..*. . .*...*.. ,..n~*... . Y. . . i C h ildnn....waa~.re . n ... .r. C o m mut .... ..._...... n it nn;..oy.,voSho,,"v"...+o,":eol:..:.: ..~~cnEd u c a tio n al..... :e... U to ph,.- .nn.r...Lv.: .. .. .. ......n...:. n>......:n.:...:...:..:...:...n.......n.... 1 4'::: .. .i.. ...YJ? p'f? "": ~l By ANN MUNSTER IT HAS always been an essential part of the American Dream to initiate a total transformation of the stifling social environment by simply withdrawing from it into the peaceful utopian community of one's choice, and let the larger society be renovated by example or be damned. Despite the long history of failures among the wide variety of utopian experiments which have sprung up throughout Amer- ica and the pervasive cynicism of our age, this, dream persists, though admittedly on a much more modest scale than in the past. The Children's Community School, an independent experi- mental school in Ann Arbor now in its third year of operation, rep- resents a new and local example of this yet unquenched innovat- ing zeal. Three years ago a group of Ann Arbor parents who could find no desirable alternative to the pub- lic school system started the Children's Community. They de- plored an educational system gov- erned by a "tracking system" mostly based along class lines and completely subservient to meeting the manpower needs of a techno- logical society. Now there are 24 kids, about 50 per cent Negro and 50 per cent' white, representing all income levels, going to school in the basement of the Friends' Cen- ter on Hill Street. The school aims to correct the until a built. full elementary school is A FIRST impression of the Chil- dren's Community School gives one more of a sense of blossoming chaos than of a budding utopian model for more sophisticated schools of the future. But a closer examination of the "fun and games" reveals that the kids are developing all kinds of skills and knowledge, some of which is very sophisticated, and all stemming from their own personal interests and experience. "The regular educational system sacrifices a child's interests to a series of standards in both learn- ing and discipline," says staff member Skip Taube. Bill Ayers, '68, another staff member, says that, in the end, the public schools in this country turn out children "who aren't creative but acquies- cent. The child's self-confidence and interests are lost-he's dis- trustful of himself and his own values-unhappy and confused." The Community School's answer to this dilemma follows the tradi- tional American utopian approach to eliminating fundamental social ills. The technique is to penetrate to the "heart" of the matter-to discern what is rotten at the very core of the system. The next step is to concoct an enterprise based upon an ingenious solution to the basic problem. In the case of the Children's Community School, the nanacea has sprung from far more which kids bring are either con- sciously neglected or simply over- looked. Subjects have arbitrary starting points and the child's interests are seldom, if ever, taken into account in the teaching pro- cess. Consequently, most kids learn that school is irrelevant to their lives, that there are certain rules to learn to get by, and that learn- ing, at least in the schools, is nei- ther stimulating nor exciting. The method in the madness of the Children's Community School is its effort to make all instruc- tion result from direct experience and thereby preserve the child's natural curiosity and innate de- sire to learn, now so efficiently stifled by the public school system. EXPERIENTIAL learning is the only way in which children can maintain any identification with what they are learning-it is the only way they can grasp the rea- sons for knowing certain things. As staff member Skip Taube says, "You can't expect a kid to like learning if you force him to add and subtract or read, if what's most important to him is to learn how to ride a bicycle, make friends, or just to play." But the Community School is not striking a blow against mas- tering the traditional skills-it is merely instructing the children in those skills in a revolutionary way. Their methods, however, are sus- tained by the same indomitable faith which underlies all utopian "All the kids have done very well once they have accepted as a fact that they are not in a situa- tion where they will be told what to do and have to get approval," Taube says. It is not like the en- vironment of the public school which is moulded by alien social concerns, notby the educational needs of the children. AND finally, education through direct experience is the only meth- od by which the naturally compre- hensive view of the world, un- cluttered by arbitrary thought categories, with which children start life can be preserved. The curriculum of the Community School is unstructured and pro- vides a variety of materials which the kids can make use of in any way that moves their imagination, rather than encumbering them with workbooks demanding the so- lution to predetermined problems in terms of answers that adult teachers can grasp. This enables the children to continue coping with their environment in the uni- fied way that is natural to them and generally more effective. The Children's Community also counteracts the stifling artificial- ity of the public school environ- ment in that there is no one teacher, no one classroom. Every- one can and does teach and every- one can and does learn. The Community School, despite its confirmed utopian approach to students are also incorporated as assistants because although they are often the furthest from being certified, they are at the same time the best qualified teachers available. They are eager and creative in using their own skills in working with the kids. The most effective of them (and probably the most effective teachers in general) are people who respect kids and other people as individuals, and who feel respect for and confidence in themselves. These are really the people who have the courage to learn from children, and to allow children to be, themselves instead of the carbon copy of some adult. The unbounded optimism of Community School staffers has led them to limit the roles that they themselves play in the educa- tion of the kids to just two. One of these is called "super-democrat" -the staff member tells the kids what they cannot do for reasons of safety and the like. Activity is then left to the kids themselves, pursuing their individual interests as long as it does not affect the group as a whole. The alternative role is quaintly termed "hippy prophet" where the staff member does something himself and the kids are free to join him if they want to. BUT THE KIDS learn also very much from each other, and one is exceedingly struck, amid the continual chaos which per- says Bill Ayers, "comes closer t ) assimilation. They are absorbing the ghetto child and teaching him his role in the dominant culture." "At Children's Community in- tegration is two-way, with no one model to look up to as 'correct.' We discuss differences in race or class freely-to avoid that would put some value connotation in the differences. Instead the kids pick up a lot from each other-race be- comes something now to find out about and maybe to learn from." The Children's Community School is also quietly revolution- ary in its relationship to the par- ents of its students. Rev. Robert Hauert, chairman of the Commu- nity School's Board of Supervisors explains "The involvement of par- ents is crucial - both in under- standing the school, participating in it and helping to make deci- sions. "FOR PARENTS to just send their kids to school, without know- ing what goes on there is simply abbrogating responsibility," Hau- ert says. The Community School is not daunted by the widespread feeling that the educational system is too big and too integrally related to the constraints of a society ruled by technocrats and that therefore the existence of such a small school cannot possibly be effective. It quietly persists in its own ef- forts. However, it still feels that the creation of the Children's