M Eirtgatt Dail
Seventy-nine years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich. 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.
.JAMES WECHSLERr-
Wallace: Nixon's
TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1970.
NIGHT EDITOR: RICK PERLOFF
I
Minority admission demands:
Procrastination by the 'U'
THE UNIVERSITY has procrastnated proposed t h a t the BAM demands be
too long on the minority admissions funded through an assessment of $15 on
demands made by the Black Action students and $25 on faculty. This is ab-
Movement (BAM). surd. There are many students and some
These demands which would increase faculty members who cannot afford this
the percentage of black students to 10 additional fee. It would be levied on both
per cent by 1973 and eventually a level low-income whites and blacks and the.
that equals or exceeds the percentage of upper middle class majority. This is to-
blacks in the state, are more than reas- tally unnecessary.
onable. Yet, the University is giving BAM Paying for the black admissions pro-
the usual runaround. They say they have gram by assessing members of the Uni-
to talk about it, and send it to commit- versity community constitutes nothing
tees. ' more than charity. The image of the gen-
When these demands were presented to erous white community giving the blacks
the Regents last month, they voiced gen- money to go to school smacks of white
eral support for them. Yet, instead of liberalism. Minority admissions should
acting on the demands, they adjourned be an integral financial responsibility of
and referred the matter to the adminis- the University.
trators. The administration later re- The University has the money - all
sponded by suggesting six per cent black they must do is relocate it.
enrollment by 1973 - a three per cent in- When t h e admissions officers locked
crease in four years. At that rate, parity the doors to the admissions office yester-
with the percentage of blacks in t h i s day afternoon at the approach of mem-
state would not be reached until 1989. bers of a coalition supporting the BAM.
Many sets of demands are written demands, it was symbolic of the way the
strongly, in. anticipation of a comprom- administration has reacted to t h e de-
ise with the administration. But the BAM mands.
demands were written and reflect the at-
titude that this is the very least the Uni- The Regents are meeting o March 19;
versity should do. Compromise is unac- the BAM demands are on their agenda.
ceptable. Everyone who cares about the future of
minority admissions should be there to
ONE VERY important aspect of the de- voice their support for the demands. The
mands is funding. BAM has demand- administration has postponed action too
ed tuition waivers. That is fine. However, long.
Students for Effective Action (SEA) has --DEBRA THAL
The consensus candidate
or death Of a primary
Pacifying
JN THE LATE, lonely hours, Richard
Nixon must ask himself plaintively:
what more can one man do to please
George Wallace?
The President unleashed Spiro Agnew
for the most primitive exercises in irra-
tionality since the Joe McCarthy (and
early Nixon) era. He initially tried to in-
stall Clement Haynsworth on the Supreme
Court and is now giving his all for an
even drearier exhibit of white Southern
manhood-G. Harrold Carswell.
He has allowed John Mitchell to trans-
form the Justice Dept. into an instrument
of political repression unrivaled since the
time of A. Mitchell Palmer.
He has cravenly surrendered to South-
ern pressures for the undermining of his
old friend Robert Finch's Dept. of Health,
Education and Welfare and deviously but
unmistakably joined the effort to nullify
the High Court's school desegregation deci-
sion. He is dangerously escalating the war
in Laos. He has once again yielded to the
Pentagon on the "second phase" of the
antiballistic-missile madness. He has bit-
terly estranged large areas of the black
community, driven some of the best young
kids back into the streets, inflamed the
academic world and even restored a sem-
blance of fighting spirit to organized labor.
How much more could George Wallace
have done in little more than a year in
office to reassert the power of Southern
racism and exploit the politics of discord?
STILL WALLACE refuses either to join
up or lower his voice. The most that Wal-
lace now slyly offers Nixon is the hint
that he may be prepared to endorse him
by 1972 if the President accelerates his
drift to the right. But he warns that many
morenconcessions will be mandatory before
Nixon can begin to count on him.
Meanwhile, despite everything the Ad-
ministration has done to seduce or sedate
Wallace's battalions, the latest Gallup poll
shows that his hold over his followers re-
mains unbroken, and even slightly increas-
ed. He can validly claim that he still main-
tains a balance-of-power bloc that imperils
the whole design of Nixon's second term
battle-plan.
Moreover, while the President still re-
tain a 58 per cent "plus" rating in a
simultaneous Harris survey, he has lost
four points since December. Perhaps even
more significant, only 15 per cent give him
"excellent" marks and the bulk of the
response ranges from "pretty good" (43 per
cent) to only fair" (27 per cent). The 15
per cent who are enthusiastic are about
matched by 11 per cent who rate his per-
formance "poor"; 4 per cent had no
opinion.
What emerges at best is the portrait
of a predominantly lukewarm relationship
between President and people. There are
indications that Spiro Agnew's demagogic
successes do not "rub off" on his leader
in Wallace territory.
AMID ALL the journalistic applause ac-
corded what is familiarly described as Mr.
Nixon's political adroitness, the fatal fal-
lacy in his Wallace-wooing may be dis-
cernible.
The tactic of imitative capitulation has
only failed to reduce Wallace's strength;
it may well be creating a national climate
in which Wallace looms larger rather than
smaller as an ultimate threat. It also nar-
rows Nixon's options. What if "Vietnam-
ization" begins to crumble under adversary
assault? Will the President then dare to
defy Wallace and finally embrace a coali-
tion solution that Wallace will almost sure-
ly brand a "sellout"?
Similarly, fresh eruption of street com-
bat triggered by new repressive measures
and the "radicalization" of a segment of
the young may eventually serve to
strengthen Wallace's hand rather than
Nixon's. In an atmosphere of psychological
civil war, it is Wallace who is more likely
to rally the right than Nixon-at least
enough to make his presence even more
formidable in 1972.
irst year
The present disarray in the national
Democratic Party no doubt sustains the
White House in moments of deepening
anxiety. But that condition need not be
permanent. It might be dramatically alter-
ed, for example, within the next year or
so by John Lindsay's shift t) the Demo-
cratic camp - a possibility steadily en-
hanced by Nixon's submission to Wallace-
ism.
THERE ARE THOSE (on the left as
well as the right) who now see reaction
as the wave of the American future, and
they often nourish each othler's fantasies
and nightmares.
The notion that a "social revolution" will
be the sequel to such an interlude is as
remote from American reality as the view
that Wallace represents an irreversible
tide. No iron law of history dictates our
destiny-any more than it rendered Joe
McCarthy invincible. By assuming that his
primary mission was the wooing of the
Wallace legions, Nixon may have become
captive and victim of the man he sought
to disarm. A voice that has appealed to our
worthiest national instincts and idealism,
as Lindsay is now doing, may be the one
the country seeks after three more years
of incivility and discord.
0 New York Post
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Housing demand
exceeds the supply
(EDITOR'S NOTE: The following article, first of a three part series, was
originally written as an Ann Arbor International Socialists position paper.
By DANIEL BOOTHBY
Daily Guest Writer
IN 1951-52, after most GI bill students had left the University,
15,364 students were enrolled at the Ann Arbor campus. Seventeen
years later, in 1968-69, Ann Arbor enrollment had skyrocketed to
31,245 - over 200 per cent 'of the 1951-52 total.
From 1952 until 1960, the University consistently housed around
35 per cent of these students. During the same period, the private
sector of the student housing market grew slowly from around
30 per cent to about 35 per cent. The percentage of people living at
home, in fraternities, and in sororities declined.
As enrollment grew dramatically in the sixties, the University's
sh'are of the housing market declined. From 36.5 per cent in 1959-
1960, it fell to 31.5 per cent in 1966-67. Meanwhile, the private sector
of the market rose sharply from 35.5 per cent in. 1959-60 to 46 per
cent in 1966-67.
THROUGHOUT THE FIFTIES, the vacancy rate in the Ann Ar-
bor student apartment market was very low. During the upsurge in en-
rollment in the sixties, vast numbers of new apartment units were f
built. From 1959 until 1967, somewhere between fifteen and twenty
thousand apartment spaces were added to the Ann Arbor market. In
the same period, the number of student apartment dwellers grew by
about 6,500.
1967 was the last year in which significant quantities of single
student apartments were built. However, the demand for these units has
not decreased. From 1967-68 to 1968-69, the number of students living A
in such units increased by 300. With overcrowding in the dorms, clos- -
ing of two houses in West Quad, rising dorm rates, the release of fresh-
men from dorms, and the continued expansion of Ann Arbor, town
and campus, demand for single student-type apartments must in-
crease.
There are two primary reasons that no more single student apart-
ments are being built. First and foremost is the high cost of financing
construction. Buildings completed in 1967, it must be remembered,
were financed in the days of easier money. Second, given tight money
and a 6 per cent annual inflation rate, mortgages which tie up capital
for twenty years are far from attractive.
THE MICHIGAN Republican leadership's
decision-whether by intimidation or
intent - to field a consensus senatorial
candidate has greatly restricted citizen
participation in government.
The top leadership's insistence on the
first consensus vote, in which Mrs. Le-
nore Romey received only 59 per cent of
the vote, and then a second vote-where
she received more than the 75 per cent
required for consensus-has inflicted se-
rious bruises on the party membership.
It made it clear that the most powerful
members of the party who control the
finances, were willingly to impose their
feelings on the rest of the leadership.
In trying to present a unified image to
the state, the Republican party has de-
stroyed the possibility of meaningful dis-
cussion on party policy being held. Al-
though they may not have won the pri-
mary, Congressman Donald Riegle (R-
Flint), or State Supreme Court Justice
Thomas Brennan might have prompted
some meaningful discussion.
As it is, there is little hope that a pri-
MARTIN A. HIRSCHMAN, Editor
STUART GANNES JUDY SARASOEN
Edit rial Director Managing Editor
JIM NEUBACHER ............ ..........News Editor
NADINE COHODAS ..................Feature Editor
ALEXA CANADY;................Editorial Page Editor
BRUCE LEVINE................Editorial Page Editor
R. A. PERRY ........ ..................Arts Director
LAURIE HARRIS ....................Arts Page Editor
JUDY KAHN ... ..............Personnel Director
DAN ZWERDLING..................Magazine Editor
mary election between conservative State
Senator Robert H u b e r (R-Troy), with
non-party financial support, and Mrs.
Romney will prompt more than rhetoric
and a few jabs at Sen. Philip Hart (D-
Mich.).
A LTHOUGH the integrity of primaries
has been tarnished by such political
maneuvering, their importance in our
political system should not be overlooked.
They provide an important, if not crucial
step, in determining whether or not peo-
ple have an opportunity to determine
their representation. If consensus candi-
dates are offered, and all other chal-
lengers are refused the necessary finan-
cial support of the party, the holding of
a primary election is essentially a fraud.
In addition, primaries often provide an
indication of changes in 'the political
atmosphere. The overwhelming support
that Eugene McCarthy received in the
New Hampshire presidential primary cer-
tainly has to be considered as a factor
that made Lyndon Johnson choose not to
seek re-election, and as an indication of
the country's growing sympathy against
the war.
Although the consensus election was
held in order to avoid "tearing the party
apart," it succeeded only in destroying
the credibility of the party leadership,
causing some bitter hostilities within the
party, and in further discrediting an im-
portant part of the political process.
-ALEXA CANADY
Editorial Page Editor
"'N
1970, Thc Rr ^r
anid Tribun.e 'rdce
*/J
"It's nice to be accepted, but. :.' -
letters to the Editor
Slavery?
To the. Editor:
ON MARCH 3 The Michigan
Daily editorially endorsed slavery.
The draft is an abominablescrime.
and endorsing any form of it, for
any reason, is criminal; in this
case the excuses offered were both
specious and contemptible.
It was suggested that a volun-
teer army ("as we all know") is a
"mercenary" army, and that pro-
fessional soldiers necessarily would
lose touch with American society
and perhaps overthrow a too-lib-
eral government. "Mercenary" is
meaningless in this context; if a
mercenary is anyone who gets paid
for working in a particular pro-
fession, then most of us are doom-
ed to be mercenaries. There is ab-
soutely no correlation in fact be-
tween the kind of recruitment a
country uses and its form of gov-
ernment. As the author said, "this
is neither South America, nor
Greece, nor Spain"-is the author
aware that Greece, Spain and
most South American dictator-
ships are supported by armies of
draftees? The list of autocrats
who have seized power and/or
held it with conscript armies reads
like a totalitarian Who's Who:
everyone from Julius Caesar to
Napoleon, Hitler, Franco, Stalin,
Mussolini, Nassar, Chiang Kai-
Sheik, Mao Tse-Tung, Ngo Dinh
Diem, Thieu and Ky, and the
Greek and Brazilian juntas. The
political and social factors which
encourage coups d'etat are unre-
lated to the recruitment method
and are probably notpresent in
this country. If anything, Amer-
ican draftees are more resentful
of the civilian Establishment than
volunteers.
SAFEGUARDS can also be built
into any volunteer system. Many
advocates of a volunteer army sug-
gest a limit, perhaps ten years, for
service as an enlisted man. Some
military jobs can be filled by civil-
ians; in any case, the majority of
military jobs are supportive: only
12 per cent of the army consists
of combat infantry. With military
pay raised, with ordinary retire-
ment benefits and with some of
the idiotic army ritual and regi-
mentation reduced, an all-volun-
teer army of reasonably normal
Americans can be raised.
Nor is there any reason that a
volunteer army should be largely
poor and black; it isn't even theo-
retically possible, since even if all
eligible blacks without exception
were to volunteer, they would
make up oply 26 per cent of the
army. It is the present system that
exploits the poor: present salary
levels are unacceptable to the
middle class but may often be
moreattractivethan life in the
ghetto. The higher salaries are
raised, the higher the income
strata which would find a military
career atttractive-the author has
forgotten that we already have a
half-volunteer army. With an
army career upgraded and un-
tainted by the draft (and pre-
sumably after the Vietnam de-
bacle), the military will lose much
of its repulsiveness to ordinary
people.
This is exactly what the author
fears: that without the artificial
stimulant of the draft. college stu-
THE PAST CONSEQUENCES of low vacancy rates in a rapidly
expanding Ann Arbor market have been highly unpleasant. Among
them are high rents and large numbers of students living in substand-
ard housing.
The present consequences crowd disaster-skyrocketing rents and
an incredibly low vacancy rate. John Feldkamp, director of the Office
of Student Housing, described the present vacancy situation to Vice-
President for Student'Affairs Barbara Newell in a memo dated April
1, 1969; "more recent developments would indicate that we may be
facing an absolute housing shortage'by Fall, 1970.
How has this situation evolved? The typical student housed off
campus during the fifties probably lived in an old house converted
into rooms or apartments. The quality of this housing was often very
low.
Rapidly rising enrollment and a relatively slow increase in apart-
ment facilities guaranteed landlords a low vacancy rate during the
fifties. Thus the landlords were able to fill their shoddy housing. And
freed of the pressures of competition, they were able to drive rents.%
sky-high.
WITH THE PRECIPITIOUS expansion of the University in the
sixties the character of the housing market changed radically. Rooms
declined rapidly in importance; the new units constructed were largely
what John C. Stegeman, a leading Ann Arbor realtor called "apart-
ments for the affluent student."
In the early sixties, however, construction barely kept pace with
the rise in demand. Vacancy rates remained low, and student apart-
ments tended to be newer and better furnished than during the fifties.
During the brief period in late 1966 through early 1968 when
vacancy rates were relatively high, students were generally unaware
of this fact. They failed to take advantage of the opportunity offered to
drive rents down through economic pressure. A boycott of Campus
Management was attempted but failed to gain much support.
By Fall, 1968, vacancy rates were declining rapidly and rents rising
even more swiftly. By Spring 1969, Mr. Feldkamp foresaw a housing
shortage in Fall, 1970. Average rents for 1969-70 (as estimated by
Mr. Feldkamp's office) had shot up to $87.50 a month for an eight
month lease. and $70.00 for a twelve month lease. Apartments which
had originally seemed likely to generate around a 15 per cent rate of
return on original investment were now bringing closer to 25 per cent.
Yet no private developer could afford to build and rent at the market
level.
In the fifties and sixties, then, conditions in the Ann Arbor student
housing market can only be described as worsening from vile to in-
tolerable. Except for a brief period in 1967-69, any attempt at economic
pressure made by the students alone was doomed to failure by low
vacancy rates. Are the prospects any brighter for the seventies?
The current University estimate of Ann Arbor enrollment increase $
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