Aminoe £efi r4i40 4Pt an 4Daig~
Seventy-seven years of editorial freedom
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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily exp ress the individual opinions of staff writers
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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1968
NIGHT EDITOR: STEVE NISSEN
/ Welfare poltics:
Playing games with people
Sociology:
EDITOR'S NOTE: Young, radical called Health. Edt
academics have been asserting fare. Those of yc
themselves recently at the normally
staid annual meetings of their pro- passively to what
fessions- Both the American Politi- presumably agree
cat Science Association and the finition, this desc
American Sociological Association theiman tides
saw their recent annual conven- the man did, car
tions sparked by organized young message. Yet amon
radicalssattempting - and to some including the ha
degree succeeding -- in affecting wod nwb
the direction of their professional who do know b
associations. The following is a know better. The
speech delivered by Martin Nicho- which the mani
laus,: an instructor at Simon Fraser accurately dsrb
University in Vancouver, at! the a t describ
ASA convention two weeks agp. which watches ov
able distribution
THESE REMARKS are not ad- disease, over thef
dressed to the Secretary of estic propaganda
Health, Education and Welfare. tion, and over the
This man has agreed voluntarily . a cheap and doci
to serve as member of a govern- force to keep e
ment which is presently, fighting 'wages down, 'He,
a war for survival on1 two fronts, Disease, Propaga
Imperial wars such as the one bing.
against Vietnam are usually two- This may be p
front wars, -one against the for- for you, for you, b
eign subject population, one on where you lo
against the domestic subject pop- you stand. If you
ulation. The Secretary of HEW is Sheraton Hotel I
a military officer'in the domestic offensive. 'But if
front of the war against people. and ladies would
Experience in the Vietnam teach- across the street i
ins has shown that dialogue be- might get a diffe
tween the subject population and and a different vo
its rulers is an exercise in repres-, will look at th
sive tolerance. It is, in Robert through the eyes o
S. Lynd's words, dialogue between , at the bottom of
chickens and elephants. He holds eyes of the subje
some power over me; therefore, and if you will en
eves if he is wrong in his argu- with the same d
ments he is right, and even if I'm sightedness youi
right, I'm wrong. I do address my- courage amongy
self, however, to the Secretary's you will get a diff
audience. There is some hope- of the social scien
even though the hour is very late are devoted. That
-that among the members and this, assembly her
' sympathizers of the sociological kind of a lie. It is
profession gathered here there will together of thosei
be some whose life is not so sold know, or promo
and compromised as to be out of knowledge of, soci
their own control to change or a conclave of high;
amend it. ' scribes, intellectua
The ruling elite within your their innocent vict
profession is in charge of what is the mutual affirma
SIXTEEN county supervisors voted Sept.
10 to supply the Social Services Board
(SSB) with $50,000 to carry out a pro-
gram f or emergency welfare funds to
clothe 1,300 children for school.
Six days later the entire board of sup-
ervisors voted unanimously to renege on
the pledge. T h e y claimed the $50,000
could be, adequately found in SSB's own
budget.
T h e supervisors claimed $353,866 re-
mains in the SSB budget and that more
than $200,000 of that will be unused at
the end of this fiscal year.
Nevertheless, Ithe supervisors' decision
to renege jeopardizes the program, not
because money is not available, but be-
cause it has rekindled a feud between the.
SSB and the supervisors. As a result the
BSB has said it is not sure it can carry
out the program, despite indications from
reliable sources that it can.
Regardless of the financial realities,
the program is now endangered, and the
responsibility for this political mess must
rest with the supervisors. They made the
commitment, not the SSB.
Following the Sept. 10 decision it was
understood that the ratification of the
agreement by the entire board was, but a
matter of course. The action of the sup-
ervisors in refusing to follow-up their
earlier promise prompted Ypsilanti Mayor
John Burton to comment, "We must look
very silly."'
NFORTUATEIY, there is little room
for humor. Their action exceeds silli-
ness - it is misleading and unfair both
to the welfare recipients and other coun-
ty residents.
It is misleading in that it does nothing
to save anybody any money. The $50,000
will still come from the taxpayers' pocket
- whether it is labeled "supplemental;"
or "SSB funds."' Originally, the supervis-
brs appropriated the funds as "supple-
)nental" - the money would be obtained
from the surpluses remaining in various
ounti departmental budgets - such as
the SSB - at the end of the year. More
than likely, it would have been easiest to
allocate SSB's surplus funds as the "sup-
plemental" funds in the first place. In
any event, the, money is still coming from
the same place.
The action is further misleading and
unfair to the county in that the super-
visors have used the manuever to trick
the taxpayer into believing he is saving
money. As a matter of fact, it seems as
though their professional fraud outdid it-
self, as many of the supervisors them-
selves seem to think money is being saved.
Most important, however, it is unfair
because it seriously jeopardizes the orig-
inal commitment. Though the money re-
mains available, the age-old quibbling be-
tween the SSB and the supervisors has
been started again. The SSB has already
announced it may not completely fulfill
the commitments made Sept. 10. The SSB
may not allocate any ,of the $91,000 left
after the 30-day period to those families
showing a greater n e e d than $70 per
child - and that was one of the main
compromises by which the mothers set-
tled Sept. 10 and ended four days of ser-
ious disturbances and mass arrests.
The SSB says it may not fulfill the pro-
gram, because it cannot be sure funds
will be available. This is doubtful. it it
is true, the supervisors will have twice
lied and their rationale for failing to hon-
or their commitment will be shown to be
without any basis whatsoever.
But all indications suggest the funds
are available.
!k
THE SUPERVISORS' action was meant
r to place the responsibility for the pro-
ject on the SSB and thus funnel all crit-
icism of the agreements reached Sept. 10
to the SSB. Actually, b o a r d chairman
Harrison and his 15 supervisors had prac-
tically everything to do with the agree-
ments, and not the SSB. The commit-
ment was wholly their own.
The result of this political maneuver-
ing and the rekindling of the childlike
feud between the supervisors and the SSB
is deplorable for it loses sight of the cris-
is problem. While battling each other and
trying to get the upper hand, while trying
to pass the buck and ignore responsibili-
ty, the interests of some 1,300 s c h o o 1
children are being disregarded. T h e
children - who must remain the central
issue - now are suspended between the
whims of two quibbling, childish branch-
es of the county government.
And instead of trying to solve the prob-
lem,.s county 'government is using the
problem for what they ironically feel is.
their own tactical political gain.
JT IS NOW the immediate responsibility
of the SSB to ignore any false pride
and become a service agency and nothing
else. The surplus monies must be re-allo-
cated for this direct relief purpose. Some
$170,000 is presently in the SSB budget
for hospitalization of the indigient, but
recent medical aid laws make this money
available for re-allocation.
The SSB has claimed reallocation is not
a "customary procedure." It is true that
in the past the supervisors have not al-
lowed the transferring of funds from one
project to the next without their express-
ed consent. However, the situation is cer-
tainly not a "customary" one, and the
supervisors have already suggested re-al-
location publically.
i
I
Establishment's servant
ucation and Wel-
ou who listened
t he had to say
d that this de-
cription of what
ried an accurate
ng you are many,
Lard researchers,
etter or should
department of
is head is more
ed as the agency
ver the inequit-
of preventable
funding of dom-
and indoctrina-
e preservation of
ile reserve labor,
verybody else's
is Secretary of
rida- and Scab-
put too strongly
ut it all depends
ok from, where
stand inside the
these terms are
you gentlemen
I care to step
nto Roxbury you
rent perspective
cabulary. If you
e social world
of those 'who are
it, through the
ect population-
ndow those eyes
egree of clear-
profess to en-
yourselves-then
'rent conception
ce to which you
is to say that
re tonight is a
s not a coming-
.who study and
ote study and
ial reality. It is
and low priests,
al valets, and
aims, engaged in
ation of a false-
hood, in common consecration of
a myth.
Sociology is not now and never
has been any kind of objective
seeking out of social truth or real-
ity. Historically, the profession is
an outgrowth of 19th century
European traditionalism and con-
servatism, wedded to 20th century,
American corporate liberalism.
THAT IS TO SAY that the eyes
of sociologists, with few but hon-
orable exceptions, have been turn-
ed downwards, and their palms
upwards.
Eyes down, to study the activi-
ties of the lower classes, of the
The honored sociologist, the big-status sociologist,'the fat-contract soci-
ologist, the jet-set sociologist . . . this is the type of sociologist who sets the
tone and the ethic of the profession, and it is this type of sociologist Who
is nothing more or less than a houseservant in the corporate establish-
ment, a white intellectual Uncle Tom not only for this 'government and
ruling class, but for any government and ruling class ....
. : . . . . . .'... ". . " y . . . :E N:" . . : "iM V S #ti E E :# E:" 4 Y . . .' 1 Mw' l . : : : " .:
the same. The things that are
sociologically "interesting" are
the things that are interesting
to those who stand at the top of
the mountain and feel the tremors
of an earthquake.
Sociologists stand guard in the
garrison and report to its masters
on the movements of the occupied
populace. The more adventurous
sociologists don the disguise of the
people and go out to mix with the
peasants in the "field," returning
with books and articles that break
the protective secrecy in which a
subjugated population wraps itself,
and make it more accessible to
manipulation and control.
selves up in a loco parentis situ-
ation that is usually far more op-
pressive than any real parental
relation. The crime which grad-
uate schools perpetrate against
the minds and morals of young
people is all the more inexcusable
because of the enormous liberating
potential of knowledge about so-
cial life. Unlike knowledge about
trees and stones, knowledge about
people directly affects what we
are, what we do, what we may
hope for. The corporate rulers of
this society would not be spending
as much money as they do for
knowledge, if knowledge did not
confer power. So far, sociologists
4
V
subject population-those activi-
ties which created problems for
the smooth exercise of govern-
mental hegemony. Since the class
of rulers in this society identifies
itself as the society itself---in the
same way that Davis and Moore
in their infamous 1945 propa-
ganda article identified the so-
ciety with those who run it-
therefore the problems of the
ruling class get defined as social
problems. The profession has
moved beyond the tear-jerking
stage today-'social problems' is
no longer the preferred term-
but the underlying perspective is
Stop'the-,cheer, and,
Thus, the money promised
mothers and the public-the entiret
000-must be totally expected in
method agreed upon Sept. 10.
the
$91,-
the
MOST OF THE blame for the past sev-
eral weeks of political blundering and
irresponsibility rests in the hands of two
men: Ways and Means Committee chair-
man Fred Lunde a n d board chairman
Robert Harrison.
Lunde was negligent. He knew surplus
funds were available, but he refused to
indicate this during all of the protest. He
refused to attend any of the meetings,
subsequently held to deal with the prob-
lem, even the meeting Sept. 9 called by
Ann Arbor Mayor Wendell Hulcher.
Lunde failed in his responsibilities as a
public servant. He served no public inter-
est but some' still mysterious aims of his
own.
Harrison was put on the spot by the
problem. He could have dealt with it eth-
ically, but he ended up dealing with it
fraudulently. While offering compromise
and sincerity, he was only stalling for
time to let the demonstrations subside.
His appeasements in the forms of nego-
tiations he has since called irrelevant and
unnecessary. He claimed to mediate the
dispute and champion settlement, when
actually he was only deceiving all the
parties concerned,
Social Services director Alfred E. Brose
must also share much of the blame. It
was his consistent refusal to listen to the
mothers as far back as last April that has
now terminated in this political farce.
When the problem became immediate -
when the sit-ins began -- Brose left the
County Bldg with a deaf ear. It was at
this point that Harrison was forced into
the picture, as the only legitimate county
official who could speak with authority.
BUT THE commitment has been made.
The supervisors' attempt to deny
that the commitment was made is er-
roneous. Their commitment was printed
and publicized throughout the state, and
never once was it refuted until the meet-
ing Monday. It must still be honored.
O E MORNING not long ago,
but before Chicago, several of
us went to Detroit's Fort Wayne
induction center to demonstrate
against the draft and on behalf of
Frank H. Joyce, national director
of People Against Racism, who had
received an induction notice for
returning his draft card to his lo-
cal board.
To make the trip, we snapped
to the roar of the alarm clock at
four a.m. in a glimmering of con-
sciousness, spun silently east on
I-94 amid trucks packed with live-
stock and amid the fluorescent
sunless dawn developing east
above our destination.
In a clammy chill both from our
bodies' untimely arousal and from
theurbandawn, we reached De-
troit's industrial southwest side.
Down Livernois Ave. we followed
a semi-trailer packed high with
watermelon, driving between small
factories and dusty plate glass
store fronts.
We rediscover that in those
hours before seven a.m., one's sto-
mach moans and stretches, talking
a monologue of primordial feel-
Letters
To 'the Editor:
AS A FRESHMAN, I am upset
by the inability of the Daily
to serve the majority of the stu-
dents in this university. The
theory that a constant bombard-
ment of radical statements can
radicalize people is false in the
context of the United States to-
day. If a person or a paper be-
comes disgusting enough to peo-
ple, they can ignore him (or it)
and listen to someone else. If
radicals continue to speak in
terms that most people don't
understand, such as the "facist
pigs" of Mayor Daley, then in-
creasingly large numbers of peo-
ple will turn to George Wallace
to hear about 'fpseudo intellec-
tuals."
The radicals who are dismayed
that Wallace has more support
than Humphrey are in the wrong
movement, and should think twice
about it. The radical movement is
responsible for discrediting liber-
alism in this country, but they
have utterly failed to radicalize
this country. They drew the line
and said, "What are you average
Americans, facist pigs or human
beings (radicals) ?"
THE AMERICAN people have
answered decisively that they are
not radicals, and never will be,
and they are even willing to sa-
crifice a bit of their humanity
if the radicals force them to. A
lack of communication between
radicals, reactionaries, conserva-
tives, liberals, and moderates is
the problem.
The Daily editors must rise to
the occasion, and make this paper
an open forum for the expression
of all points of view. They must
go to the other groups on campus
and ask them for a statement of
opinion by one of their leaders.
Some suggestions: Young Amer-
icans for Freedom, fraternities,
ings, the invective of a mad pre-
man forgotten in time.
By seve4i a.m., we of Ann Arbor
had joined perhaps a hundred and
fifty persons walking picket ovals
on both sides of the driveway
which leads to the ,machinery of
Fort Wayne induction.
WE WOULD STAY for about
two hours until a person we would
take for Frank Joyce would flash
a V from a window of what we as-
sumed was the chartered bus
bringing inductees from Royal
Oak.
During those two hours perhaps
a hundred persons would observe
us.. A dozen Detroit cops with
nightsticks, keeping the peace.
Some uniformed soldiers on some
sort of' guard ,duty. Mysterious
plainclothesmen inside the gates,
photographing the demonstrators.
But also, many of the following:
white youths with sallow faces and
waterfall hair, accompanied by
mothers in low-heeled shoes and
by balding fathers. Blacks with
modestly Afro hair, accompanied
by tight-lipped Negro adults. All
entering Fort Wayne. 4
Carloads of whites or black men
in dark blue shirts and hard hats,
slowing down or stopping by the
pickets, asking questions or firing
frustrated epithets or staring
glumly.
A crowd of teens in T-shirts and
waterfall hair, sitting on door-
steps across the street from Fort
Wayne.
ALL THOSE PEOPLE, includ-
ing the police, looked at the dem-
onstrators with expectation, not
hatred or ridicule. They seemed to
be waiting for the marchers to do
or 'say something meaningful,
something which would resolve
and dismiss thelingering head-
aches of American militarism: ob-
noxious draft board secretaries,
threatened lives, murder abroad,
loneliness at home.
Unfortunately the demonstra-
tors had no tactic for those peo-
ple. The demofistrators, for the
most part, ignored or brayed at
spectators. Our picket oval was
executed in a chickenwalk. Our
anti-draft-chants were in the style
of high school football cheers. We
were taunting and somewhat chil-
dish.
And we were needed. Our obser-
vers-might have listened if we had
known how to talk to them. Or if
we had even tried. And they might
have joined us.
Our efforts at Fort Wayne
weren't much different than those
of other demonstrators elsewhere.
If anything was unusual, it was
the spectators, who looked more
desperate and less belligerent than
any group we had seen.
For it's 1968, and America's pa-
thological militarism concerns
others besides the veterans of
picket lines.
YES, 1968, and after years of
protest by what passes as the most
brilliant Americans, the Vietnam
War and the urban decimation has
not been stopped. Nothing has
changed, despite all the protest.
So maybe all the well-intention-
ed demonstrators have done some-
thing wrong.
"Playfulness" and "jiving" ade-
quately describe much of the,
Fort Wayne affair, if not much of
the ways in which The Movement
has confronted the .public. Or has'
failed to talk to the public.
My fear is that at Fort Wayne,
at least, we failed to bring a sense
of identity to people, that we fail-
ed to show that we had a purpose
which people could share. We
failed, as Seale would say, to
show we were for real. We failed
to teach.
AT BEST, some of the people
who observed our demonstration
were probably' uptight about Fort
Wayne, perhaps as uptight as we
were. At worst, they may have
,felt their American life was empty
and that they were powerless to
change it. And we should have be-,
gun to talk to those feelings.
We have talked mysteriously for
some time of "organizing" poor
whites, middle class whites and
young whites, as if it required_
some special skill we needed to
learn in professional school.
But we probably need only to
begin to get close to those others,
to identify with them as we have
identified with our protest.
The solution is probably em-
barrassingly simple: the next time
we are at Fort Wayne-or at any
other of the Fort Waynes-some
of us will have to stop the cheer
and drop out of the chickenwalk.
Some of us will have to cross the
street and spend our energies
where the people are.
How can we end wars arid liber-
ate the oppressed until we can
talk to the kids across the street?
The sociologist as reseacher in
the pay of his employers is pre-
cisely a kind of spy. The proper
exercise of the profession is all 1o0
often different from the proper
exercise of espionage only In the
relatively greater. electronic so-
phistication of the latter's tech-
niques.
THE PROFESSIONAL eyes of-
the sociologist are on the down
people, and the professional palm
of the sociologist is stretched to-
ward the up people. It is no secret
and no original discovery to take
public note of the fact that the
majoi and dominant sectors of
sociology today are sold--com-
puter, codes and questionnaires-
to the people who have enough
money to afford this ornament,
and who see a useful purpose being
served, by keeping hundreds of in.,
telligent men and women occupied
in the pursuit of harmless trivia.
I am not asserting that every in-
dividual researcher sells his brain
for a bribe-although many of us
know of /research projects where
that has happened, literally-but
merely that the dominant struc-
ture of the profession, in which,
all of its members are to some ex-
ten socialized, is a structure in
which service to the ruling class
of this society is the highest form
of honor and achievement.
The honored sociologist, the
big-status sociologist, the fat-con-
tract sociologist, the jet-set soci-
ologist, the book-a-year sociologist,
the sociologist who always wears
the livery, the suit and tie, of his
masters--this is the type of soci-
ologist who sets the tone aid the
ethic of the profession. And it is,
this type of sociologist who is
nothing more nor less than ao
house-servant in the corporate es-
tablishmen't, a white intellectual ,
Uncle Tom not only for this gov-
ernment and ruling class but for
any government and ruling class,'
which explains to my mind why3
'Soviet sociologists and American
sociologists are finding after so
many years of isolation that, after
all, they have something in com-
mon.
TO RAISE AND educate and
train generation after generation
of the brightest minds of this
,country's ) so-called educational.
system, to let °survive this soci-
ological ethic of servility, to soci-
alize them into this sociocracy, is'
a criminal undertaking, one of
the many felonies against youth
committed by those who set them-
have been schlepping this knowl-
edge that confers power along a
one-way chain. taking knowledge
from the people, giving knowledge
to the rulers.
What 'if that machinery were
reversed? What if the habits,
problems, secrets and unconscious
motivations of the wealthy and
powerful were, scrutinized daily by
a thousand systematic researchers,
were pried-into hourly, analysed
and cross-referenced, tabulated
and published in a hundred in-
expensive masscirculation journals
and written so that even the fif-
teen-year old high school drop-
out could understand it andpre-
dict the actions of his landlord,
so he could manipulate and con-
trol him?
Would the war in Vietnam have
been possible if the structure,
function and motion of the U.S.
imperial establishment had been
a matter of detailed public knowl-
edge ten years ago?
,Sociology has worked to create
and increase the inequitous dis-
tribution of knowledge; It has
worked to make the power struc-
ture relatively more powerful and
knowledgeable, and thereby to
make the subject population re-
latjvely more impotent and ig-
norant.
In the late summer of 1968,
while the political party currently
in power is convening amidst
barbed wire and armored cars; the
sociological profession ought. to
consider itself especially graced
and blessed that its own delibera-
tions can still be carried on with a
police-to-participant ratio smaller
than one-to-one. This may be be-
cause the people of the U.S. do
not know how much of their
current troubles stem-to borrow
Lord Keynes' phrase-fronm the al-
most forgotten scribblings of an
obscure piofessor of sociology. Or
it may be that sociology is still so
crude that it represents no clear
and present danger.
IN 1968 it is late, very late, too
late, to say once again what Rob-
ert S. Lynd and C. Wright Mills
and hundreds of others have long
said, that the profession must re-
form itself. In 'iew of the forces
and the money that stand behind
sociology as an exercise in intel-
lectual servility, it is unrealistic
to expect the body of the profes-
sion to make an about-face.
If and when the barbed . wire
goes up around the ASA conven-
tion in a future year, most of its
members will still not know why.
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Editorial Staff
MARK LEVIN, Editor
STEPHEN WILDSTROM URBAN LEHNER
Managing Editor Editorial Director
DAVID KNOKE, Executive Editor
WALLACE IMMEN,.................... News Editor
PAT O'DONOHUE .................... News Editor
CAROLYN MIEGEL ...... Associate Managing Editor
DANIEL OKRENT.................Feature Editor
WALTER SHAPIRO ...... Associate Editorial Director
HOWARDKHN . .....Associate Editorial Director
NEAL BRUSS....................Magazine Editor
ALISON SYMROSKI ...... Associate Magazine Editor
AVIVA KEMPNER ..:............Contributing Editor
DAVID DUBOFF..............Contributing Editor
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