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 -i A 'i ./ f \\ k ' . . y t fi}LY ' .1 t. ti ~ L .. f -I- __A \, 1 } ? I r ;r' 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 $ I ti V VAq VAW W. T 5 sKY'WAS Ftf(.4 0 1L ChURCH i TEMSA W~ ~AS R(ACK, t a AND PM fCc V OKE [NI FHPI C A iG~ I5: To G P 11t0 i it