Seventy-Seven Years of Editorial Freedom
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or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
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THE HARDER THEY FALL ...
It Was Football Weather Last Weekend
;
By John Lottier
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1967
NIGHT EDITOR: PAT O'DONOHUE
,. _ i
Writer-in-Residence:
The Frost Must Thaw
THE BITTER FRATRICIDAL struggles
of the old Ame ican left must have
developed in Irving Howe an exception-
ally high tolerance for the rigors of life.
For, judging from Leslie Fiedler's exper-
ience here last year, only phenomenal en-
durance coupled with unparalleled dedi-
cation can explain Howe's acceptance of a
$2000 offer to become this year's two-
week writer-in-residence.
Last year, Leslie Fiedler embarked on a
whirlwind schedule which seemed to de-
mand that he brighten every corner of
the campus with an epic thought. Fiedler
was poked, prodded and pursued by pal-
pitating students who demanded his
opinions on every controversial subject,
except, so it seemed, literature and writ-
ing.
Mary Benjamin, chairman of the Writ-
er-in-Residence Board, stresses that this
year's program will avoid the harried and
almost cultish frenzy of the Fiedler visit.
However, there are several underlying
weaknesses in the writer-in-residence
program which make a repetition of some
of the pitfalls of last year's program un-
avoidable.
The over-worked Writer-in-Residence
Board is the innocent victim of circum-
stances far beyond its control. Two
years ago, operating on the pragmatic as-
sumption that an imperfect program is
far preferable to none at all, they suc-
ceeded in reinstituting a writer-in-resi-
dence at Michigan. Without any Univer-
sity support, they have managed to raise
the funds necessary to bring Fiedler, and
now Hodges, to the campus, solely from
faculty and student groups.
HOWE'S VISIT to the campus cannot be
leisurely because the program is forc-
ed to attempt to do in two weeks what
better endowed programs at other schools
can afford to do in a semester. In addi-
tion, the program has an implicit obli-
gation to have Howe appear before most
of the groups who contributed toward his
support.
Another consequence of the financial
weakness of the program is that the
board must cater to the preferences of
most student groups -for a literate en-
tertainer rather than an actual writer. A
manifestation of this P. T. Barnum syn-
drome is that preference is given to a
scathing social critic who writes rather
than a creative artist who has few pre-
tensions outside his own sphere of serious
writing.
One becomes hardened to the skewed
calculus of values which governs Univer-
sity expenditures. Yet it is still upsetting
that the University, revelling in the self-
glorification of this, its pseudo-sesqui-
centennial, cannot at least match the $5,-
000 which brought Robert Frost to the
campus over 45 years ago.
With University support the true spirit
of a writer-in-residence might be captur-
ed. Rather than focusing on bringing a
"name" performer here for a few all too
meaningless weeks, the University could
play host to, with far more mutual bene-
fit, a struggling young serious author in-
stead.
A PROGRAM of this nature could focus
the University's attention on writing
in an age when the serious novelist has
become all but irrelevant to the young.
And, under such conditions, it is even
conceivable that such a writer-in-resi-
dence could, during his stay in Ann Arbor,
create as well as regurgitate.
Such utopian dreaming should not de-
tract from the achievements of the Writ-
er-in-Residence Board in arranging for
Irving Howe to kindle the Ann Arbor
cultural, literary and political scene dur-
ing the cold month of January. And
perhaps some of the fire from this visit
will melt some of the frost which has
accumulated -in the University since the
poet's visit so long ago.
-WALTER SHAPIRO
IT WASN'T JUST cool or crisp or mellow or bright or
sunny or breezy or anything that might be considered
normal last weekend. It was football weather.
For the first time this year everything was perfect:
the ground felt like football, the sky looked like football,
and the air smelled like football. And both the Wolverines
and the Lions were playing at home. Everything was set
for an idyllic weekend's escape from the perils of reality.
On Saturday afternoon over 79,000 student and alumni
type people slithered into the big bowl to watch the
Wolves take on a not-too-highly-regarded Blue Devil team
straight from Durham, North Carolina. The stadium was
clean and bright and homogenated; so were the people;
so were the players. It was almost sterile, but it was really
college.
EVERYTHING LOOKED THE WAY everything has
always looked: the band played old college favorites, the
students passed each other "over the top" at halftime,
the alumni parked their cars in front of the stadium
gates, the cheerleaders were all boys, and the football
team still didn't have a screen pass.
But something was different. The Wolverines, a team
which in recent years has shown a marked and unfliching
capacity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, won
the game with less than fifteen seconds to play. And
they won it on field goal to boot.
The contest itself was a rag-tag affair, probably the
worst played here in many years. There were ten fumbles
and three interceptions, almost one changeover for every
four minutes of playing time. But we won, and that's what
counts. Everyone was happy. And the football weather
remained, omnipresent.
Then on Sunday fellow pigskin pervert Robert Klivans
and I journeyed to far-off Detroit to contemplate the
relative pluses and minuses of the Cleveland Browns and
the hometown Lions. Robbie, an Ohioan, is a lifelong
Brown addict; I, a Detroiter, support the now-ferocious
Lions.
TIGER STADIUM IS TOTALLY unlike the Ann Arbor
bowl; it's square not round, has three decks, not one, and
is distinguished by a far more diverse if not sophisticated
clientele. The bleachers house football fanatics from all
walks of life, ranging from upper-echalon businessmen
and administrators to assembly line workers, the hard-
core unemployed, and Detroit Zoological Park zookeepers.
The people are not too bland, Joe College stereotypes, but
colorfully vibrant (and sometimes well-lubricated) en-
thusiasts.
We arrived an hour before kick-off time to peruse the
pre-game antics, both on the field and in the stands; the
atmosphere was totally football. A heavyset, unshaven,
and obviously inebriated Clevelander sauntered up and
down the bleachers steps proclaiming the halocaust of
an inevitable Brown crush: "You guys aren't playing the
Packers this week. But don't feel bad, everybody gets
beaten by the Brownies." His bright red, fireman's hat
with the ominous slogan "Go Browns" shone like a fore-
boding firebell in the night.
THE GAME FINALLY BEGAN. Cleveland took charge
almost immediately, and my mind was struck by the
paralysis of defeat. Everytime the Browns started to move
(which was often in the first half) my one-time friend,
Robbie, would jump up and down recording his obvious
approval. I was stunned.
But then the Lions started to roll. Halfbacks Tommy
Watkins (who used to play for the Browns) and highly-
touted rookie Mel Farr began to crash through the Brown
defense leaving a dual path of destruction in their col-
lective wakes. Quarterback Milt Plum began picking apart
Cleveland's defensive backfield, ends Pat Studstill and
Bill Malinchak leaping high into the air to snare the
spirallng aerials. At the game's close the Lion offense had
amassed over 450 yards, and had crushed the invaders
from the other side of Lake Erie 31-14. And the football
weather remained.
Robbie, once again my good friend, although obviously
disappointed and concurrently stunned by the awesome
totality of defeat, numbly acquiesced to my desire to visit
the respective dressing rooms. The showers and the locker-
rooms did not look arid or hot or stuffy or sweaty or any-
thing normal like that. They exuded football: and
looked like football, the players looked like football, and
the rooms smelled like football. It was football weather,
even inside.
In the Lions' lockers Mel Farr complained about his
broken nose and the fact that he couldn't see too well with
the nose splint on, Coach Joe Schmidt ebulliently show-
ered praise upon his players, and reporters moved from
player to player in search of "the perfect story" for their
newspaper.
HAVING SATISFIED OUR initial curiosity we moved
on to the losers room, mainly to talk with our old school-
mate Carl Ward, who is running the right way for the
Browns this year as a punt return specialist. Carl flashed
a smile at us and paid the customary but deserving de-
ferrence to the victors: "Oh, they played real good ball,
the Lions are a real coming team." This, of course, made
me happy again and I noticed that it was still football
weather.
On the way to the car however, something happened.
We passed a rather distinguished-looking gentleman
carrying a rather distinguished-looking transistor radio,
and I happily hailed him: "Who won the Tiger game."
He replied quite caustically that the Bengals had blown
it in the ninth, giving up three runs to the Senators.
I looked around and noted that the football weather
had vanished. It was time to go back to college.
I
Letters: Aid for Leslie Fiedler
To the Editor:
YOU HAVE no doubt read of the
arrest and harassment of Les-
lie Fiedler and his family by a
variety of forces in Buffalo (Daily,
May 4. The case has put the
Fiedlers under severe financial
stresses, involving their life in-
surance, fire insurance, and home
mortgage. In particular, the case
has already cost them $7000 in
legal fees and will cost more as it
proceeds. To help the Fieldlers in
this crisis and to enable them to
fight for the due process and free-
dom involved, we are establishing
the Fiedler Defense Fund. We are
grateful to you for publishing this
letter. We will be most grateful
to anyone who sends in a contri-
bution-to Fiedler DefensecFund,
Norman N. Holland, Secretary, 131
High Park Blvd., Amherst, N.Y.
14226.
-A. Alvarez
--Noam Chomsky
--Marcus Cunliffe
-Sidney Hook
--Frank Kermode
--James Laughlin
-R.W.B. Lewis
--Bernard Malamud
--James A. Michener
--Norman Podhoretz
-Richard Poirier
--Karl Shapiro
To the Editor
THE STUDENTS at Michigan
invited Leslie Fiedler to be a
visiting scholar last year. I know
he had a wonderful time. I hope
they did.
Given your interest in Leslie
last year, would you be willing to
print the enclosed letter which is
an appeal for funds to assist him
in defending the charges pending
against him? I should think the
students at Michigan would be
especially concerned. We would be
much in your debt for your help.
-Norman N. Holland
Chairman, Dept. of English
State University of N.Y. at
Buffalo and Secretary,
Fiedler Defense Fund
Anti-Missile
To the Editor:
AUTHORS SLOVIN AND BAN
are mistaken, either through
lack of information or misinter-
pretation, on the bulk of their
arguements against the proposed
"light" deployment of an ABM sys-
tem. First, a thin deployment of
the Nike-X system would be neith-
er "primative" nor "ineffective" in
dealing with the light attacks for
which it is intended. The Nike-X
system is composed of three, sepa-
rate, highly-sophisticated radars
for warhead tracking, decoy dis-
crimination, and interceptor guid-
ance.
For interception, Nike-X relies
on two missile systems: the Spar-
tan, for interceptions outside the
atmosphere in the 400 to 100 mile
range, and the Sprint, an ultra-
TOM
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high speed missile for local inter-
ception of warheads missed by the
Spartan. All in all, the system is
hardly primitive and will be able
to deal with any light attacks of
the type Red China will be able to
launch by the mid-1970's.
Secondly, a light deployment
would not be an "enormous in-
vestment." The $5 billion required
for the 'ystem is less than U.S.
citizens will spend on cosmetics
and cigarettes by the time it be-
comes operational.
Thirdly, an expensive fallout
shelter program would not be r~e-
quired. Since, in a light attack,
most or all interceptions would
take place outside the atmosphere,
the public would receive no more
fallout than it did from past nu-
clear tests. In fact, they would
probably receive less because
ICBMs carrywarheads much
smaller than those tested.
Finally, there is no evidence to
support the hypothesis that the
deployment of a defensive system
would escalate the arms race. If
this theory were correct, then we
should fear escalation through the
designation of shelter areas and
the maintenance of a Civil De-
fense Bureau.
--Jon Cooley
Aero. Engin. '70
Objectivism ?
To the Editor:
YOUR EDITORIAL in favor of
the MSU tuition plan was
splendid. Since most people who
are well-off financially did not
earn their money by their own
exertion, but rather by exploit-
ing their laborers, it is only fair
to appropriate this excess money
to send the "deserving poor"
through college. It would obvious,
ly not be fair to force a poor per-
son to labor under the burden of
having to repay a loan. Rather
the middle-class oppressors whose
productivity is a source of dis-
couragement to the underpriv-
ileged, should pay.
We should seek that the system
of justice initiated at Michigan
State University shall not perish
from theearth, and that we here
highly resolve that the principle
"from each according to his abil-
ity, to each according to his need"
shall become dominant across the
land. This noble ideal, if applied
by all universities, all government,
all businesses, would mean that
the engineer who earns $18,000
a year would pay exactly twice
the tuition, twice the taxes and
twice as much for food and cloth-
ing as the automotive worker who
earns $9000 a year. In effect,
then, all men would earn the same.
This would eliminate strikes.
OF COURSE, perhaps it is too
mnuch to hope for this in the near
future and for now we must con
tent ourselves with paving the way
for the rule of a philosopher-king
whose desire for power will be
motivated solely by a selfless con-
cern for humanity. Until that
time we must all become our own
philosopher-kings and, by the
moral assumption we all accept,
recognize our obligation to sac-
rifice for our fellow men. Which
means--to ask not what other
men can do for us, but what we
can do for other men.
The closer we approach our no-
ble ideal of "need" the greater
will be its benefits and the more
thoroughly we will understand it.
It is fortunate, in the ideological
battle to come, that the expression
"creeping socialism" has been bur-
ied under an avalanche of laughs.
Otherwise our opponents might be
tempted to use it.
-Philip Coates, Grad
Foreign Relations at Home
HERE ARE 2000 international students
at the University, and they are not
exactly ecstatic about the way they have
been received. The fact that their activi-
ties are restricted to what can be accom-
plished in an International Center held
together by rubber bands and chewing
gum is an outward indication of a deep-
seated lack of interest in their welfare
and their cultures.
This is not to say that there are no in-
dividuals who are interested in them.
There does exist, in the University com-
munity, a small, hard-core group of peo-
ple who attend the functions at the In-
ternational Center fairly regularly, wel-
come the international students into their
homes and actually try to learn something
from them. But these people are unfortu-
nately very much in the minority.
There is a regrettable lack of Ameri-
can participation in international stu-
dents' activities, in spite of a diligent
promotion campaign by the International
Center staff.
The lack of financial support by the
University is just short of an open in-
sult. International students have been
trying for 27 years to get funds for facili-
ties, and their failure-in light of all the
money for research facilities that is be-
ing thrown around--has forced many of
them to conclude that they are relatively
unimportant to the administration as well
as the general student body.
JF AMERICAN STUDENTS can become
alienated at the "big U" the problem
must be twice as intense for students
faced with a foreign language and cul-
ture. They need counseling and a great
deal of personal contact with people who
are sincerely interested in them. It is up
to the American students to take the
first step in getting to know these men
and women, and it is up to the University
to provide adequate facilities so that this
contact can take place.
America's foreign relations are in
enough of a mess as it is. We can ill-
afford to conduct them so poorly at home.
-JILL CRABTREE
"Read any good polls lately, George ?"
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KigFightsTodave Non- Violent Tactics
I
Congratulations to SGC
CONGRATULATIONS are in order to
our friends from Student Government
Council.
At last Thursday night's meeting SGC
members, pushing personal convenience
from their collective minds, defeated a
motion to spend $1300 for a "studentmo-
bile." Their rationale, in this case, was
excellent. They realized that they can ill-
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afford to waste money on luxuries when
so much in the way of necessities is lack-
ing.
There are pressing-and costly-proj-
ects such as establishing a student draft
counseling service and regenerating the
course evaluation booklet which must re-
ceive the primary consideration of Coun-
cil if that organization wants to be any
kind of a success as a student govern-
ment responsive to the needs and desires
of its constituency. The potential benefits
of pumping funds in these much needed
programs would far outweigh the bene-
fits of "riding around campus" to talk
to students; Council members are ade-
quately geographically spaced and are
fully able to reach the student body as
individuals if their interest is real.
A FTER HAVING already wasted over
By DAVID KNOKE
THE REV. Martin Luther Ding,
Jr. has charisma. He may also
be running scared.
These two observations explain
in part why King has remained
for a dozen years as one of the
most powerful, respected civil
rights leaders and why he is des-
perate to achieve some tangible
advancement for America's black
citizens before a frightened white
community begins to act repres-
sively.
King repeatedly says of the
civil rights struggle, "We have
come a long, long way but we
have a very long, long way to go."
He points with some satisfaction
to the abolition of the legal sys-
tem of segregation in the South.
"The Civil Rights bills have
brought very real changes to life
for the Negro in the South," he
says, "but in the North there still
persists a form of psychological
lynching which, like a bird whose
wings have been clipped, robs the
Negro of his integrity."
The massive, generation-long
ghettoization of major American
cities came from the migration of
rural blacks ill-prepared for the
requirements of a technological
society. To say that overcrowded
most radical program he has yet
organized. King intends to lead a
massive civil disobedience action
to draw attention to "the prob-
lems of joblessness, terrible hous-
ing and inadequate educational
facilities."
He will not release the details
"for a month or so" but promises
"an escalation of nonviolent civil
disobedience-something that is
as disruptive as riots." He also
does not rule out the possibility
of simultaneous demonstrations
in several cities.
"The alternative will be more
riots," King told an audience in
Toledo last weekend. "We can't
continue to be at each others'
throats every June, July and
August. Riots are the language of
the unheard. America has failed
to hear the plight of her poor
whites and blacks.
"We have never used the long
cold winters of delay that precede
the long hot summers. Now that
winter is coming it's time for the
nation and Congress to act."
King used the same "long cold
winter" message two years ago,
before the summer in which the
Southern Christian Leadership
Conference left the South to be-
gin an intensive summer of
I
Nobel Prize Winner Martin Luther King Leading the Way
The exact form the civil resis-
tance program will take is still
anyone's guess. Fund raising ral-
with anti-war activity since he
sees the Vietnam conflict as a
major drain on resources that
ing in nonviolent demonstrations
without the least resort to vio-
lence," he asserts "In Chicago we