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September 24, 1967 - Image 4

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The Michigan Daily, 1967-09-24

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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

ROGER RAPOPORT:
Rushing Roulette

-mmmmmMMkPL :..

Where Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH.
Truth Will Prevail

NEWS PHONE: 764-0552

.::.. . .. ....**.. ** ..* ..:. t4":i t :t :..t N t::;. .. .1... .. . .. .. :.. ::.

Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1967

NIGHT EDITOR: PAT O'DONOHUE

MSU's Tuition Plan:
Graduating Into Justice

THE PHILOSOPHY behind Michigan
State University's new graduated tui-
tion plan shows a good deal of foresight
and sensitivity to the needs of a college
oriented society. The plan both recog-
nizes the need for and provides a means
of financial assistance to families put-
ting students through college. If properly
handled, a graduated tuition plan could
provide much needed financial aid to
families with more than one child in
college, divorcees putting their children
through school without support from
their ex-husbands and students working
their own way through school.
It is important to recognize that a col-
lege education must be made available
to as many people as possible in a so-
ciety where technological knowledge is
becoming increasingly more important.
This recognition must take the form of
both increased space and increased fi-
nancial aid to those who need it.
The Michigan State Trustees have
shown that they recognize, and are will-
ing to do something about this crying
need.
THE PLAN places tuition at $167, raised
from last year's rate of $118. The plan
has a provision that any student whose
parents make less than $16,700 a year
shall pay one per cent of the parents in-
come provided that sum not be less than
$118. The university assumes that the
maximum rate is applicable unless the
students apply for a discount to the new
Fee Determination Office which comes
under the direction of the Michigan State
provost.
It is most unfortunate that this par-
ticular plan-the first in the nation-is
a hastily conceived, inequitable one. The
idea was first proposed at a trustee
meeting July 21, 1967 and was given fin-
al approval July 31.
Needless to say, the plan contains a
number of gross inequities. The basic
difficulty arises from the fact that the
rate of tuition is based on the father's
income, regardless of extenuating cir-
cumstances. The resulting injustices can
be demonstrated in three main ways:

O Families with equal incomes, but
different numbers of children in college,
pay the same tuition. That is, though real
incomes may be substantially reduced by
expenditures necessary to support several
children, the trustees do not consider this
important enough to act on.
A A divorced woman putting her son
through college without any support from
her ex-husband still has his income used
in fee determination.
* A student who is putting himself
through school has his tuition rate com-
puted on the basis of his father's in-
come, despite the fact that his parents
are contributing nothing at all to finance
his schooling.
THOUGH THE TRUSTEES are working
to correct these inequities, sources in
MSU's new Fee Determination Office' in-
dicate that no decisions made in the near
future can be implemented this term, and
perhaps not even next term.
With the necessary administrative lag,
and assuming that they could not have
perfected such a controversial plan in 10
days, the trustees should not have imple-
mented the plan as rapidly as they did.
Nevertheless, the trustees are to be
congratulated on instituting a worth-
while idea. This type of plan soon may
be in effect at universities all over the
nation. It reaches to the heart of the
financial difficulties now plaguing many
students attending college. The intent of
the plan is clearly demonstrated by a pro-
vision earmarking any excesses in tui-
tion receipts for the recruitment and
counseling of disadvantaged students, a
service sorely needed in campuses all over
the country.
The University community should keep
a close eye on this plan. Its present short-
comings are greatly overshadowed by the
good it can bring the University, partic-
ularly those students who are having a
hard time remaining in school for finan-
cial reasons. Justice in this area is al-
ready long overdue.
-DAN SHARE

SIX FRATERNITY BROTHERS crowd around the table
of a campus restaurant. A nervous rushee who has
his heart set on getting into that house walks in and
joins the somber looking group that includes a number
of personal friends and one boy he doesn't know too well.
"Bill," the fraternity rush chairman says, "We asked
you to meet us here this afternoon because we felt you
deserved more than a phone call. As you know, we have
a one blackball system at our house. It has its weaknesses
because it means one hardheaded guy can block all the
rest of us from taking you into the house."
Then one of Bill's closest personal friends who he's
known since grade school interrupts tearfully, "Bill, I
just don't understand how it could have happened. We've
always been so close. I did everything I could."
Then the unfamiliar face pipes up, "Bill I want you
to know that I'm the guy. And I'm not sorry I did it. I
felt I had to do it for my own conscience and the good of
the fraternity."
Then the rush chairman speaks again: "Bill, I just
want you to know that when I called for support of your
name in hash, I saw a sea of eager hands. It seemed as
if everyone in the room was for you. The air was heated
with emotion. After calling for blackballs I looked around
the room and was amazed, for throughout the entire
fraternity there wasn't a single hand."
"Congratulations, we'd like to extend you a bid."
Then the grim faces around the table turn to broad
smiles as a horde of backslapping fraternity men rush
out from an adjacent room in the restaurant to shower
Bill with congratulations.
THIS IS ONE common way that hundreds of men
across campus have been invited to join the Greek way
as over 1,300 underclassmen rushed fraternities during
the past week. But few people outside the fraternity
members themselves know what went into giving Bill his
bid.
The heart of the selection system is called "hash."
And while the system varies from house to house, it's
useful to understand how one leading fraternity does it.
Basically hash is a system that lets 90 fraternity
members pick 25 new brothers out of 200 rushees in a
week.
The members meet rushees during; 16 hours of open
houses, smokers, dinners and other functions over a five
day period. Fraternity members grade rushees after meet-
ing them Sunday and Monday. The grades are then
curved and the top 80 are kept, returning on specified

nights until they are bid or dropped. The remainder are
dropped and notified by telephone to "concentrate your
rush efforts elsewhere."
Fraternity members are allowed to appeal any of
the dropped names for about a 24 hour period. If they
can win enough support, the boy is brought back for
reconsideration.
THE HEART OF HASH begins on Tuesday night after
"open rush" officially ends and the members crowd in
to a recreation room where the names and faces of the
remaining 80 are broughtrup fornconsideration. On that
night only three rushees were selected for bids. But on
Wednesday night 16 were designated for bids and about
eight more were selected on Thursday and Friday nights.
On an individual rushee, the chairman will ask how
many members have met the rushee, how many support
him, and how many oppose him. If the opposition clearly
outnumbers the support, the rushee will be dropped.
But if, for example, 16hmembers support a rushee
and 7 oppose him, then the prospect will be actively
hashed. First the opposition will explain why they feel
obligated to blackball the candidate. Reasons vary wide-
ly: the rushee is unable to get along with the members;
he's too shy; he has nothing to contribute to the house;
he won't contribute to fraternity affairs; he wants the
fraternity for selfish reasons.
To cut the tension-the hash is a dead serious af-
fair-the blackballers will jokingly express their oppo-
sition. For example, one member might cast a "spaceman
ball" (of a kid who has his head in the clouds), a
"Maury Wills ball" (for a rushee that is a slippery char-
acter), a "vaseline ball" (for a rushee that appears
greasy), an "ivory soap ball" (used by a baller who is
99 and 44/100ths per cent sure he doesn't want the
rushee in the house).
If the supporters are determined to get the rushee
into the house, they wil get up one by one and make
vigorous speeches for the rushee. A new vote is called
after every other speech (sometimes after every speech)
and frequently several of the blackballers will drop their
opposition.
This puts the pressure on the remaining two or three
blackballers who must continue conspicuously raising
their hands in opposition. "After a while you begin
to wonder how you can block everyone else in the house
from taking a guy in," explains one member who was
under such pressure.
Thus it is normally rare that one or two blackballers

will be able to effectively prohibit a rushee with sub-
stantial backing from getting into the house, as they
will usually end up surrendering to house pressure.
WHILE THE MEMBER MIGHT hash a controversial
figure for two hours, they don't waste time with some
rushees. Brothers of active members generally get in
automatically while rushees with little support are drop-
ped quickly.
To expedite matters, members will sometimes "vote
on guys they have never met." For example, on a given
rushee there might be 21 guys who have met him, while
26 support him and one is against him. "A lot of times
you'll back a guy you don't know because all the guys you
respect are behind him," explains one member.
Fraternity members agree there is a good deal of
internal politicking during rush. For example, during an
open house a member who is especially anxious for a
favored rushee to get in might try to "keep him away
from meeting guys in the house who might notlike him."
But some members say they like rushees who take
them on. "I met one guy who really pinned me back in
a discussion, he knew a couple of facts I didn't" says one
fraternity member. "He really impressed me, so I voted
for him."
And generally the members claim they are cautious
about "picking guys who fit the stereotyped image of the
fraternity. We're a little self-conscious about doing that."
The members say they are generally trying to pick a
cross-section of new members who all have something
unique to offer the house. "But we take guys for all
sorts of reason, and sometimes a guy might get dropped
for the same reason another guy gets taken in. We don't
want to bring in too many guys of the same mold."
And other times members are selected for no par-
ticular reason at all. "We just see a big lumbering guy
who we figure we'd like to have around the house, so we
take him."
IT'S NO SECRET that some disenchanted fraternity
members question the rush system. Some of them don't
even bother to go to hash. Says one: "The whole idea
of trying to pick a guy afer a few minues of small talk is
ridiculous. The rush system is worthless. I. think they
should abolish it and fraternities along with it."
But the active members disagree. "Given the limit-
ations we have to work with," says one leader, "I think
the system is about as fair as can be."

I

I

4

I

I

A Path to Peace in a Far-Away Land

The Che Hey' Kid Returns

LET THE WORD go forth: Che Guevara
is alive in Bolivia.
At least that's what the captured docu-
ments and pictures which Bolivia pre-
sented to Friday's meeting of the Or-
ganization of American States (OAS)
purport to show.
The revelation that the almost mythi-
cal patron saint of the Cuban Revolu-
tion has been "the head, heart and soul
of the Bolivian guerrilla operation" will
undoubtedly be the high point of the OAS
Foreign Ministers Conference called to
combat Cuban subversion in the Western
Hemisphere.
Cold warriors the hemisphere over will
see in Guevara's alleged presence in the
jungles of Bolivia proof positive that Ha-
vana is the "head, heart and soul" of
revolutionary activity all across Latin
America.
IN ADDITION to searching for relics of
Che Guevara, the Bolivian military
government is holding incommunicado
Regis Debray, the young revolutionary
theorist whose writings stress that only
indigenous and self-sufficient guerrilla
revolution is possible.
Despite Jean Paul Sartre's contention

that "Debray was arrested . . . for hav-
ing written a book," the Bolivian authori-'
ties and their Green Beret 'advisers"
seem determined not to read it.
Small wonder. For "outside agitator"
theories are always so much more com-
forting to dictators and their benefactors
from the north than the harsh and brutal
truth that the people will no longer tol-
erate oppression and exploitation.
Yet the failure to comprehend Debray
coupled with the fierce belief in the de-
moniacal prowess of Che Guevara, are
crucial to understanding the rationale
behind America's destructive, but im-
potent, attempts at counter-revolution.
OUR EVER-ESCALATING efforts to help
despotic regimes suppress popular up-
risings throughout the hemisphere should
not be forgotten by those who regard
the war in Vietnam as an aberration of
an otherwise exemplary foreign policy.
For unless the belief is destroyed that
America must wage a holy war against
all guerrilla revolutions, Vietnam will
be only the first of a series of underde-
veloped countries obliterated, but not
conquered, by American bombs and na-
palm.
-WALTER SHAPIRO

Au Truong Thanh, former finance
and economic minister of South
Vietnam, was kept from running
for president in the South Viet-
namese elections because he plan-
ned to campaign on a peace plat-
form. He has received several invi-
tations to speak in the United
States, but at present the Saigon
government has refused to let him
go. This article, written shortly be-
fore the Vietnamese election, ex-
plains how he believes peace can
be brought to Vietnam. It was
given exclusively to Collegiate Press
Service by Tran Van Dinh, Viet-
namese journalist and CPS colum-
nist.
By AU TRUONG THANH
Collegiate Press Service
V IETNAM is the typical example
of a revolutionary war. The
long duration of this war has en-
abled us to see' the successive'
steps of an evolution through the
different phases of a development
which had been conditioned by
internal and external circum-
stances.
Up until now, all efforts made
to end or escalate the war have
proven ineffective. Violence, which
is normal in a conventional war,
has been used in vain. Pathetic
appeals to stir up humanitarian
feelings have been launched also
in vain. Offers of assistance with
the lure of material advantages
also were not responded to as
expected.
All these attempts not only fail
but also spread a climate of mis-
trust, of discouragement, and of
impotence in the face of the daily
intensification of the war.
Why so? Because of the lack of
time for an analysis of the facts
with due consideration to the
genuine opinions of thehnationals
of the country in which the war
is being waged.
It is now the right time to fill
this gap and to find in a rational
way an approach to the notion of

peace within the context of a
revolutionary war.
FIRST OF ALL, let us analyze
the factors which were at the
start of a revolutionary war. The
individual human being is at the
hub of the revolutionary war and
he has to be a native of the coun-
try where -the revolutionary war
is waged.
At the beginning one must find
all possible resources in order to
influence him psychologically so
that he will grab leaflets or
weapons necessary to initiate the
political and armed struggle.
Propaganda tools used by human
beings are but of minor impor-
tance, for a man driven by a pow-
erful motivation can achieve a lot
with very crude equipment indeed.
The elements of motivation
which a man possesses to fight
for a liberation war are numerous
but they can be enumerated in
the following order: the loss of
national independence, dissatis-
faction due to social injustice, bad
living conditions. If these com-
ponents do not really exist, they
muet be fabricated as needed.
GENERALLY speaking, it takes
some time to start a revolutionary
war because the simple and prim-
itive peasantry can be politically
transformed only under particu-
lar circumstances and with time.
In practice, the circumstances
the most conducive to a rapid and
violent explosion of a revolution-
ary war can be found in the nega-
tive attitude of the colonial pow-
er which refuses to grant genuine
independence to the colonized
people, a fact that crystallizes all
the will for liberation of the peo-
ple.
In the case of Vietnam, the me-
chanism had been launched by

the armed struggle to regain na-
tional independence. Once the
mechanism has been launched,
the process of development of the
liberation war went on a self-feed-
ing system, because a war waged
on a larger scale strengthens the
factors found at the start of a
revolutionary war.
IN EFFECT, an ideological war
with foreign intervention that
follows the war for independence
does worsen the thirst for national
sovereignty.
Also the war, in alienating the
city folks from the farmers causes
more social injustice, creating at
the same time among city folks a
widening gap between war prof-
iteers and war sufferers and thus
aggravates a dangerous social im-
balance.
Finally the war and the destruc-
tion it entails, the exodus and
the displacement of people it
creates, cause a steady deteriora-
tion of material living conditions
and therefrom rise the resent-
ment of people and their desire
for a change of regime.
THUS, IF THE'movement of the
revolutionary war encounters an
opposition by its action, this oppo-
sition will be enhanced by a reac-
tion as powerful as the force
exerted by the movement itself; it
in turn initiates a more violent
opposition and starts to snowball.
In this way, in the action and
reaction interplay with the recip-
rocal feeding effect, a development
process takes place inexorably
with the cumulative result and
with no end in sight.
Two hypotheses are to be con-
sidered:
(1.) Either the machinery op-
posing the revolutionary war is
not strong enough and in the
above-mentioned motion of cre-

scendo, the time will surely come
when that machinery will be over-
run by what is called "the general
counteroffensive."
(2.) Or the machine opposing
the revolutionary war is assisted
from without. In such a case, the
interplay of actions and reactions
will go on for a long time unless
in the prolonged course of events
the fighting machine wears out.
If it does, the end will be that-
of the first hypothesis, or unless
under horrible circumstances, it
decides to completely destroy the
country where the war is being
waged.
Even in such a case, the revo-
lutionary forces will not be wiped
out as much, because as long as
human beings are still moved by
strong political motivations the
revolutionary war will go on. It
will be a war of attrition, the end
of which can only be seen in a
world war.
IF THE ABOVE analysis is
correct, then we will have to deny
the possibility of peace in the
course of a revolutionary war and
let ourselves sink into pessimism.
But we feel that one possibility
of peace and only one does exist.
The approach being as follows:
We have said that the main fac-
tor in a revolutionary war is the
human being. That human being
can perform prodigies when mo-
tivated by strong psychological in-
centives which lead him to politi-
cal or armed struggle.
If one can ever find a stronger
psychological motivation which,
under certain given conditions can
neutralize the others, then one
can stop the war and move to
peace.
WHAT MUST these conditions
be? First of all, the war has to
last long enough so that aspira-

tions toward complete national
independence, social justice, and
better living conditions will lose
the attractive power they had at
the outset of the struggle.
It is also necessary that the in-
terplay of actions and reactions
reach a significant equilibrium
where the revolutionary forces
and their opponents can no long-
er negate, easily and quickly the
final decision.
Within this precise context, the
powerful psychological motiva-
tions which can effectively act on
the human being is the desire for
peace. This desire for peace has
to come from the populace and
can be, as the need arises, excited
and blown up to embrace as many
people as possible.
The birth of this desire amid an
atmosphere of prolonged war,
coupled with the fear of death,
will cut down or neutralize the
effects of psychological motiva-
tions.
WITH POPULAR support -
without which revolutionary war
is not possible-now directed to-
ward peace, the war -itself will
stop spreading and then move
downward. The machine opposing
the revolutionary war will also
have to follow suit. Then favor-
able conditions for negotiations
for a ceasefire and for peace will
prevail.
After long and painful years of
war Vietnam now finds itself fac-
ing the above-mentioned condi-
tions. The Vietnamese people as
a whole must be assisted to ex-
press themselves in favor of
peace and to transform the forth-
coming presidential elections into
a large referendum on the funda-
mental issues of war and peace.
It is a unique opportunity. It
would be criminal to let it slip by
without giving it a try.

41

I

4

FEIFFER

Thursday Night Circus

W&E OPEN
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IF STUDENT GOVERNMENT Council
were running the country, the tragic
war in Vietnam would never have occur-
red.
Council would still be wrestling with
nine previous points of order, courtesy,
personal preference and information. The
question itself would be ready for de-
bate by mid-1969.
Thursday night's SGC meeting was a
disgrace. Council members appeared to-
tally unprepared, debate was slipshod and
business was conducted under a pall of

In the past, members of Council made
frank decisions to let their grade points
slip.
MAYBE THIS TERM'S Council mem-
bers don't care as much. It is a mat-
ter of record that many of them have
earned high academic standings. "As
long as SGC is headed for the scrap heap
anyway, why should we care?" seems
to be the attitude.
The result is meetings as poor as any-
thing a high school student council ever

THWkK 1T5 somgo1
A~WT

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