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THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Paew'
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- -
I4-ECONOMIC INSTITUTE:
mer Professor Battles Unemployment,
Referenda, Mock Conventions
'Oppose War, Support Liberals
A former University professor
is waging a one-man battle
against unemployment.
Edward Page, who heads Ann
Arbor'shSocio-Economic Institute,
feels that Federal training pro-
grams will not solve the problem
of unemployment. He rather con-
centrates on what he calls the
problem of "entry"-getting the
hard-core unemployed into the
economic system, after which "the
training problem will solve itself."
Page put his ideas into practice,
some time ago by founding the'
Employment Enterprises Develop-
ment Corporation, a non-profit
organization which took hard-core
unemployables, including patients
from Ypsilanti State Hospital, and
turned them into functioning
members of the economy.
EEDCO has now spun off from
the institute and become a totally
separate entity. Page now only
sits on its Board of Directors. The
institute, which he is trying to
make into a consulting agency for,
individuals and communities who
are attempting to form enter-
prises such as EEDCO, has become
his main concern. He also em-
barked on a number of projects,
most of them in the theory stage,,
which reacn far beyond employ-
ment projects into city planning
and reorganization.
Leaves UniversityI
Page left a position as professorf
of industrial engineering in 1965
and traded his tenure for a year's
sabbatical in order to found EE-
DCO. Using an Office of Econo-
mic Opportunity grant, which was
later revoked he says "because we
didn't follow O.E.O.'s strict train-
ing plan" he and his associates
established a gas station and oth-
er enterprises employing hard-
core unemployables and Ypsilanti
State Hospital patients.
The primary concept that EE-
DCO has used in fighting unem-
ployment is that it is the problem
of "entry", not training, which
keeps people from getting jobs. Of
the Problem, he says that "we
have an economic system that
doesn't know how to take care of
losers," and that the function of
EEDCO is to provide a resource
for losers, who can't compete suc-
cessfully in the highly competitive
economic system.
Training programs, Page feels,
don't solve the problem of entry,
because they don't solve the prob-
lems of appearance, of police rec-
ords, of prior work experience, of
transportation, or fear of failure,
all of which contribute to unem-
ployment.
Further Problem
A further problem with train-
ing programs is that they take
months to complete, which hikes
costs enormously. EEDCO's pro-
cess of getting the unemployed
person a job first and letting
training follow thus cuts both
costs and time.
EEDCO staffers found that in
many cases obstacles to employ-
ment are not so difficult to break
of about $500 per man. This com-
pares with the Federal Manpower
and Development programs, which
place under 50 per cent of their,
f applicants, with per man costs of
$2,500.
With EEDCO on its feet and
making progress, Page has begun
to devote his time to promoting
and gaining financial support for
SEI. He is also developing a seem-
ingly endless series of ideas deal-
ing with economic and social prob-
lems.
"Any social or economic prob-
lem has a rational basis and can
be solved," he says.- "Not perfect-
ly, perhaps, but to a satisfactory
degree." With this in mind he en-
visions:
Urban Villages
-Economic Urban Villages,
built in the center of large cities,
which would function as a town
within a town. The villages would
contain residences of all econom-
ic levels so poor people would not
be displaced.
-The people living in the vil-
lage could form a condominium.
This would be an organization to
run the village as an economic
(but not political) unit. The resi-
dents of the village would elect
a board ofhdirectors, who would
in turn hire a village manager,
who would be judged on perform-
ance alone.
The village would franchise
its business establishments. That
it, a city of 20,000 people could
support a certain number of doc-
tors, a certain number of drug-
gists, and so on. The village would'
franchise the needed number of
any kind of merchant, and revoke
the franchise if the merchant
abused it. Merchants would be re-
quired to live in the village. Fran-
chise fees could then be used toI
replace property taxes.-
Provides Jobs
Such a condominium would not
only provide much-needed hous-
ing but would also provide jobs-
all the services that 20,000 people
need.
Proposals with such far-reach-
ing social and economic implica-
tions would seem unlikely to come
from someone like Page, by train-
ing an engineer, not an economist.
At present he is receiving no out-
side support, and is in the process
of mortgaging his house to pro-
vide funds. He hopes eventually
to make a living working for SEI,
but admits that if things don't
improve in six months or so, "I'll
have to give up and go back to
teaching."
By College Press Service Washington vote, which was ac-
Student referenda and mock tually a poll, gave McCarthy 65
conventions are showing support percent while 81 percent of the'
for liberal candidates and general students opposed re-election of
opposition to the war in Vietnam. President Johnson.
Only a few campuses have held
conventions and referenda so far
this year. Several more are sched-
uled and there will be a national
campus presidential primary and
referendum on the war on April
24.
Students have been leaning to-
ward SenatorEugene' McCarthy
(D-Minn.) among the Democrats.
He has won every Democratic ref-
erendum held so far, at such cam-
puses as the University of Oregon, I
George Washington University,
Middlebury College in Vermont,
and the University of North Car-:
olina.
At Oregon, Middlebury, and
North Carolina McCarthy beat
both President Johnson and New
York Senator Robert Kennedy.
Kennedy was second at Oregon'
and Middlebury but only third at!
North Carolina. The George
),1R eTC
On the Republican side, there
is no clear trend. Former Vice
President Richard Nixon won the
nomination at a mock convention
at the University of Chicago in-
volving 22 Young Republican clubs
in the Midwest and primaries at
North Carolina and Rio Grande
College in Ohio.
But New York Governor Nelson
Rockefeller won primaries at Ore-
gon and Middlebury and captured
the nomination at a mock conven-
tion at the University of Missouri.
Notre Dame students nominated
Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield ov-
er both Rockefeller and Nixon at
a convention in which the vote
was seen primarily as a protest
against the Vietnam war.
Campus polls at Butler College
in Indiana, King's College in New
York. North Carolina, Ore
Middlebury, George Washin
showed students opposing
war. But students also opp
immediate withdrawal as a ;
tion to the war in polls take
the University of Texas, K
College. and Colorado State
versity.
Join the StafI
of the
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this summer
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-Associated Pr
THE WAR COMES HOME
A Vietnamese elder who has lived all his life in avillage ne.
Hue listens in wonder as he learns for the first time of the nea
destruction of the cuty during the Tet offensive early this yea
Since the battle of Hue, travel in the area around the city h,
been sharply restricted and communications severely disrupte
down as is assumed. Often lack
of drivers licenses, or lack of
transportation, or fear prevent
unemployed persons from getting
jobs. Page also found that mental
hospitals such as Ypsilanti State
contain many people who are
merely considered unemployable,
and not really mentally ill, Page
says.
EEDCO taks its applicants, pro-
vides whatever they need, builds
up their confidence, and puts
them to work, either at one of its
ess own businesses, or, if possible, lo-
cal establishments.
Results Impressive
EEDCO's results have been im-
r- pressive, especially whl:en compar-
ed to lavishly financed Federal
r. programs. For instance, EEDCO
as has succeeded in placing roughly
d. two-thirds of its people at a cost
//
l
GLEN PLAIDS
\ t
"The excitement in
engineering doesn't all
happen in a developmenttab."
"I found that out when I started selling computers.
"Obviously, they're expensive. Nobody's going -to buy one unless
I can show him why it'll be worth the investment. (This is Bob
Shearman, Mechanical Engineer, an IBM Medical Representative
in Marketing.)
"My customers happen to be doctors and scientists. Naturally,
I have to find out what their problems are before I can hope to
build a case for installing a computer. That's what I find excit-
ing. This whole process of helping somebody solve a knotty
problem.
"For example, one of my installations is at a cancer research
institute. A problem came up when they decided to build a
radio therapy suite about a block away from the compu-
ter. The doctors wanted to communicate with the com-
puter right from a patient's bedside.
"The general solution was easy enough. We knew we'd
have to use some sort of remote terminal. But from
then on it was a process of exploration. I asked a lot of
questions, dug up a lot of facts, and generally helped
the customer arrive at a detailed definition of his prob-
lem. Then I worked closely with IBM and
the customer until we had the right
terminals installed and functioning.
"In a job like this, you use your tech-
nical background all the time.
Whether you're defining a problem
or showing the customer how our
equipment can help solve it."
Bob's comments cover only a small
part of what IBM offers an engineer-
ing or science student who likes to
work with people. For more facts,
visit your campus placement office. Or
send an outline of your career inter
ests and educational background to
Irv Pfeiffer, IBM, Department C, 100
South Wacker Dr., Chicago, Illinois
60606. We're an equal opportu-
nity employer.
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