94r£fir4l!wn Dai
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
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich.
News Phone: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily exp ress the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1968
NIGHT EDITOR: LESLIE WAYNE
Regents meeting:
Closed door policy
HE REGENTS of this University are
elected public officials who should be
accountable to the members of the Uni-
versity community and the voters of this
state for their actions. In reality, the Re-
gents are accountable to no one but
themselves.
Friday's secret Regents meeting, sup-
posedly held to discuss proposed bylaw
revisions, is just another in a series of
affronts to the members of this commun-
ity and the voters of this state. Outside
of a few high administrators and the Re-
gents themselves no one knows what
business was actually conducted.
It has even been rumored t h a t the
meeting was held to discuss a recent Fed-
eral Bureau of Investigation report that
s tudents for a Democratic Society was a
Communist inspired group. VWho knows
what to believe?
THE WAY Regental decisions are made
baffles even the m o s t conscientious
student, faculty member or voter w h o
gives a damn about the future of this in-
stitution as there is currently almost
no way to judge the relative merits of a
particular incumbent Regent.
For on the third Friday of every month
when the Regents hold their public meet'-
Ahgs; the votes are almost always unani-
mous, although there has often been bit-
ter disagreement in private.
Moreover, the Regents are immune
from public pressure, because it is impos-
Housing
THE STRUGGLE to obtain enough de-
cent low cost housing for Ann Arbor's
rapidly growing low income population
is likely to be long and hard.
Thecity's vast need for this kind of
housing seems to have finally come to the
attention of some of its leaders, as indi-
ated by the recent spurt of resolutions
.pssed by City Council and the Housing
Commission.
At its regular meeting last Thursday,
the commission voted to request a $3.2
million allocation from the federal gov-
ernment, for the construction of 151 pub-
lie housing units, which have been plan-
ned for the past several years.
And last Monday night, City Council
finally approved the Housing Commis-
sion's request for an application to the
federal government f o r 300 additional
Vnits. There are already 248 'applicants
on the list for the 204 units which have
been approved.
Even private builders in Ann Arbor are
being stirred to do something about con-
structing low cost housing. The mayor's
newly formed Ann Arbor Civic Housing
and Development Corporation is already
seeking sites upon which to build, in co-
operation with the city, possibly 100 low
cost housing units.
BUT NO ONE should be deceived by this
apparent burst of activity. Although
these steps are certainly to be commend-
Sed, the impact that they are likely to
have on the total problem will probably
be quite small.
Ann Arbor has plenty of poor people
whose voice is yet to be heard. More and
sible to determine where any of t h e m
stand on a particular issue until after the
vote is taken. Combined with the tremen-
dous length of their terms this makes the
Regential decision-making process elit-
est and undemocratic.
Although recent hearings initiated by
President Fleming have helped improve
communications between the Regents
and the University community, meetings
such as Friday's must also be made open.
THE CLOSED nature of t h e Regent's
sessions only breeds suspicion. T h e
free and open quality of this aademic
community demands that the process of
decision-making, even on the highest lev-
els, be open and visible and that the offi-
cials who make such decisions be held ac-
countable for their actions.
The Regents have long claimed that the
closed nature of their meetings a 11 o w
them to be more frank in their discus-
sions. In other words they can say and do
things they would not dare if their words
and actions could be revealed to the
whole community.
Indeed open decision-making is the
best check that democracy provides
against arbitrary and ill-considered pol-
icies. It is surprising that the Regents
find it so difficult to understand this
basic premise of democracy.
-MARK LEVIN
Editor
the poot
more of them are aroused from despair as
the city takes each faltering step to ob-
tain low income housing.
But it is difficult to tell how much can
be accomplished in a city where the vast
upper middle class majority is still only
half-heartedly supporting these v e r y
moderate measures.
THE PRINCIPLE of building public
housing on scattered sites was bitterly
fought for and is by no means yet ac-
cepted. Somehow, the majority in Ann
Arbor seems more concerned about the
economy that would be achieved through
concentrating public housing in fewer
areas than with preventing the forma-
tion of vast low income and Negro ghet-
tos in their as yet undisturbed affluent
community.
And they have made no progress in
meeting the far more serious problem of
providing low cost housing for the much
greater number of people who work in
Ann Arbor and are currently compelled
to live in outlying areas.
A S THE RECENT welfare demonstra-
tions indicate, the poor p e o p 1 e of
Ypsilanti, in particular, are beginning to
band together to fight for their rights.
Perhaps when these more obviously op-
pressed persons become sufficiently or-
ganized, they will be able to exert the
kind of pressure that is necessary to com-
pel the fundamentally undisturbed upper
middle ,class which wields power in this
country to take decisive action in hous-
ing.
-ANN MUNSTER
"... Give us this day our Daley bread, and forgive us
our trespasses - although we don't >eessarily forgive
those who trespass against us ...
..MURRA Y KEMPTON--m
THE DESPERATION of our poli-
tics must be quite beyond con-
trol because persons have been
taken lately to asking ME how to
choose between former Vice Pres-
ident Nixon and Vice President'
Humphrey.
It had not occurred to me that
interest in such a choice would
extend beyond such expensive an-
tiques as Mr. George Meany on
the one side and Miss Rosalind
Russell on the other.
Vice President Humphrey seems
still the repository of some faint
hopes among the undecided.
There is a theory that his
speeches, having long been de-
plorable for so long, will now be-
come inspiring; it is to be noticed
that hopes for improvement in
Mr. Humphrey center as always
around his larynx, which is his
major organ of achievement, so
much so that the man who nom-
inated him for President had to
reach all the way back 22 years to
triumphs of administrative genius
long since forgotten even in Minn-
eapolis.
HIS PUBLIC UTTERANCES
are, in fact, just about Mr. Hum-
)hrey's whole record of service to
society, and they do not in them-
selves constitute a fair basis for
judging him, being very seldom of
his own inspiration,
A Humphrey speech can best be
understood as a police court con-
fession from the pre-Miranda per-
iod, being half beat out of him by
the tough cop and half conned
out of him by the pleasant cop.
He is our most conspicuous sur-
viving product of the old back
-room technique of having the
suspect tossed back and forth be-
tween a heavy-handed policeman
(Mutt) and a gentle-voiced police-
man (Jeff), whose job it is to
point out at strategic moments
that, if the suspect will co-oper-
ate, Mutt might go easy.
THERE HAS ALWAYS been a
Mutt in the backrooms where poor
Mr. Humphrey has been so regu-
larly thrown after arrest, Mr.
Johnson being only the last and
most august.
Mr. Humphrey was even pistol-
whipped into making that famous
civil rights speech at the 1948
Democratic convention by L e o n
Henderson who threatened that
otherwise he wouldn't get a dol-
lar for his Senate campaign from
New York. By the time Mr. John-
son went to work on him, this un-
fortunate victim of police aggres-
sion had been beaten to a state of
auto-suggestion: he would say
anything.
HIS TESTIMONIAL, to Mayor
Daley seems to have caused him
some embarrassment, although it
should be said in fairness to Mr.
Humphrey that no oneought by
now to render him the smallest
credence as a witness, either for
purposes of conviction or acquittal.
At this stage of his life, reality
is not something which exists for
him; he no more knows what
happened in Chicago than he used
to know what happened in Saigon
when Mr. Johnson let him loose
for his occasional tours of inspec-
tion there.
HE DOES NOT travel to see but
to be listened to. Since the r e a 1
world never intrudes upon his
consciousness, he may be excused
for the cruelties that sometimes
accompany his progress. For
example, he once told Marshal Ky,
having heard somewhere that he
ought to, that something must be
dlone about the black market in
Saigon.
Marshal Ky went out and found
a Chinese and shot him on tele-
vision in the presence of his wife
and children, thereby diminishing
by not so much as a carat the flow
of gold from Saigon to Switzer-
land.
The bereavement of this un-
fortunate family for purposes en-
tirely ceremonial would appear to
be the, most substantial achieve-
ment of Mr. Humphrey in t h e
Johnson-Humphrey Administra-
tion, although, as the kindliest of-
men, he did not, of course, notice
it.
AS A CARICATURE of estab-
lished liberalism, he is its pro-
per candidate at this particular
moment when it is itself a carica-
ture.
The game is up; all profit is
drained from it, and Mr. Hum-
phrey is left behind to endure the
national trial for perjury. The
kindest thing to do for him is not
to attend it.
(Copyright 1968-~New York Post Corp.)
On the record:
DullsvilleOSA
By MARTIN HIRSCHMAN
SOMEWHERE among the eight tons of records in the bowels of the
Student Activities Bldg. is a small manilla folder with my name
on it.
And with the recently renewed hassle over student records, it
seemed propitious Friday to cut a few classes and wander over to the
Office of Student Affairs to find odut what they were saying about me.
Who could tell what I'd find in that little yellow folder?
Perhaps my resident advisor in the dorm last year wasn't as friend-
ly as he had seemed. Perhaps some secretary with a devious sense of
humor had clipped and filed the editorial I'd written just two days be-
fore criticizing those very OSA files.
"I've come to see my record."
"My God, you're the tenth. person today. That entitles you to a
yard of IBM punch tape and a two weeks supply of cooked carrots -
or do you like them raw?"
THE SECRETARIES were bouyant. In the past, only one or two
students every six months had wandered in and asked to see their
records.
But, now, by comparison, durious or frightened students were vir-
tually streaming in to see what the University knew about their private
lives, the inner workings of their subconcious, and their political orien-
tations.
Very likely, however, most of them were disappointed.
After waiting my turn, I sat down to chat with the OSA's chief
recordkeeper, Assistant Director of Student Organizations James Law-
ler.
WE TALKED about the HUAC crisis of 1966 and about the prob-
lems inherent in maintaining records which are of some value to the
student while not endangering his privacy.
Back in August, 1966, OSArkept lists of student organizations -
including Voice-SDS and other radical campus organizations. And
when the House Un-American ActivitiesCommittee subpeonaed those
lists the administration stood on its head for a few days and then
complied.
BEING A POST-HUAC student, I was rather safe. In the wake of
those unfortunate, needless disclosures, the University undertook to
keep new records "clean" and purge old records of all political indicat-
ors. Along with this "political info" went the newspaper clippings and
counselling records with which the files had once overflowed.
Thus spoke Lawler, keeper of the records.
Nonetheless, I still wanted to see my file. Just curiousity .: Some
distrust . . . Suspicion.:
As we waited for a secretary to get the file, I asked Lawler what
he thought of Student Government Council's demand the night before
that the faculty be barred from looking at the files.
Lawler said he had already received two requests from faculty
members to see the files that day, but had told them there was an at
least temporary moratorium on such disclosure. The responsiveness of
the system was surprising.
FINALLY THE records came, and as I have hinted, it was a dis-
appointment.
Inside the folder (and I checked myself) were exactly three pieces
of paper:
- My transcript, identical to the one I received in the mail;
- A four page foldout with nothing written on it but my name,
address and expected year of graduation - all in my handwriting;
- An IBM card which included my college board scores and the
results of the freshman orientation aptitude and mental stability
exams.
The IBM card was interesting, though I think there is a duplicate
in my file at the literary\college counselling office. The percentile on
class ranking seemed inaccurate.
THE RESULTS of the "raw carrot test" showed a high interest
in humanities and the lowest possible interest in biological sciences
My conformity rating - in the seventh percentile - explained why I
felt no compulsions about cutting classes to look at the record in the
first place.
The four-page foldout was the, biggest disappointment. Where
were the antagonistic statements by my dorm counselors? Where were
themnotations made by angry instructors?
Then, up from the front page-of the fold-out jumped two beady
eyes, two flaming nostrils and the rest - a small picture of a freshman,
myself. An unkempt, tanned unshaven face; a cordoroy shirt, wild
hair, confident smirk. My registration picture - this was where they
put them!
I ASKED Lawler if I could remove, destroy this uncomplimentary,
unnecessary photograph.
"Well, it's your record," he said. "But you can't just take the pic-
ture off."
"Sure, I can. It'll come right off."
"Well, if that werepolicy - and it may be when we get this thing
straightened out - I don't think there will be any trouble."
In a way, I really wanted to provoke an immediate confrontation
over the picture. On the other hand, however, I was being picayune.
I thanked Lawler, keeper of records, and left.
BEING a member of the post-HUAC generation, I guess there was
never much to fear. But, as Lawler is ready to admit, it's just possible
that one of those counselling records, one of those newsclippings, or
one of those nasty notes from an instructor is still lurking - like a
needle in the proverbial haystack - somewhere amid the eight tons
of files. And for the unknowing student, that could mean. anything
from a moment of anxiety to the loss of a job.
All in all, the thirty minutes I spent checking out my record -
however frustrating to my radical, anti-establishment aspirations -
were well spent.
*
A
4'
II
Letter's to the Editor
First victory
To the Editor:
JUDGING FROM the editorial in
Wednesday's Daily and by the
talk of some students, the victory
of the welfare mothersmisebeing
down-graded on the premise that
if the power structure gives up
something to poor people, it could
not have been worth much in the
first place.
Such thinking is incorrect for
two reasons:
* Children in welfare families
will now be decently dressed when
they attend school.
0 As Wednesday's editorial
pointed out. the welfare system is
anachronistic. There is little doubt
it will be changed in the future.
But who will determine the
change?
THE NATIONAL Welfare Rights
Organization is organizing all ov-
er the tnited States on "bread
and butter" issues so that there
will be a large, militant group of
welfare people who will have the
power to demand a voice in deter-
mining any new system.
Only two days after the settle-
ment here, welfare rights groups
have been started in Saginaw and
Flint. The welfare mothers in
Washtenaw County can go back
to other people on. welfare and
say, "See what we can do if we're
organized?"
For anyone who believes that
people should have the right and
power to control their own life,
the welfare settlement is an im-
portant first victory.
-Neal Bush, "70 Law
Sept. 13
An empty victory
r
0
EFLECTING OUR TRADITIONAL pol-
icy of commenting on the significant
news events of our times, we note Denny
McLain's thirtieth victory yesterday.
In a gesture of respect, we will, not
mention that Oakland battered McLain
for four runs, or that he was only saved
from a humiliating defeat by a; fluke
Tiger rally in the bottom of the ninth.
While it is almost impossible to discuss
as serious a subject as baseball around
the Detroit area, honesty compels to try
to put the accomplishments of this 24-
year-old organist in their proper perspec-
tive.
We wonder how anyone can take pride
in his pitching feats during a year when
the American League has no one batting
over .300. In fact, glancing at the micro-
scopic batting averages, it is hard to see
how any pitcher could manage to lose
a game this season.
Furthermore, it is highly unjust to
greats as 30-game winners Dizzy Dean
and Lefty Grove because the quality of
baseball has been seriously compromised
by expansion. With talent now spread
over 20 teams instead of 16, a pitcher
rarely confronts even the dim shadow
of a potent line-up.
HOWEVER, SOME MAJOR accomplish-
ments which will be enshrined in base-
ball history have gone relatively un-
noticed as the entire sports world was
foolishly pre-occupied with McLain. To
wit: - Rookie Jerry Koosman in a much
tougher league and with an earned run
average comparable to McLain's has al-
ready posted his eighteenth victory of
the season for the New York Mets and
stands a good chance of winning 20.
-The New York Yankees have won 28
out of their last 38 and walloped the
Tigers in four straight games the last
time they faced these potent pennant-
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