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- FEIFFER 11o&) 1S: 15 AHERICA WVR~TH %AV1062 -U LP UP, 9 R I I OUT IS I&)6 IS A COMAMITMe&)T I HATS Jv0s PLAYI06 ii 6STABI$WS M&MT'5 WHY S OUT, W UT NtPILLA A1'L)CAAYT kILAR I TA IJS. I' OK, UT FAGJU "MEJ T covet- ?JOT COTE-. -1 I AA&YY fU O FAWsbD UMtT AMLO len WSW~TR TO E )k) DOAMI R(6VCRC C T Tt A D HOo3 kOP~AAY 19 iU IIMAB- [I$HMENT I , 465;