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September 22, 1968 - Image 4

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The Michigan Daily, 1968-09-22

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he £frihig!an Dait3J
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

JAMES WECHSLER
Rewriting the history of Daleyland

4

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.

ON A FRIDAY that seems very
long ago, I flew back from the
Democratic debacle in dismal
Daleyland and slipped away for
the last two weeks of a divided
summer holiday. Rarely has es-
cape seemed more welcome but
I learned anew that there is no
serene hiding place for those who
cannot achieveaabstinence from
newspapers and TV. Chicago
would haunt me; it still does, but
for reasons somewhat different
than I had anticipated. For now

we are being told that it never
really happened as we saw it.
Amid all the nightmare remem-
brances brought back from that
wretched battleground outside the
Hilton, there grew the hope that
the shock-impact of the worst
scenes, so widely transmitted on
television, would stir the consci-
ence of the country and restore
sanity to a mindless national de-
bate.
All the simple-minded formulae
of the "law-and-order" brigades

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1968

NIGHT EDITOR: JIM HECK

Residential College:
Sharing the burden

THE CHIEF PROBLEMS inherent in any
educational institution of the size and
diversity of this University are inflexibil-
ity, anonymity, and expansion.
This University has the additional
problem that at this point in its history,
it is acutely in need of funds to expand
for the future and to maintain its cur-
rent level of services and its high quality
of instruction.'
The Resldential College is an imagina-
tive, educational innovation which ad-
dresses itself to these problems of t h e
multiversity on the undergraduate level.
But this exciting experiment, designed
to offer the intimacy and personal atten-
tion of a small college with all the advan-
tages of a cosmopolitan university, re-
quires a major committment of funds.
AND AT THIS JUNCTURE, the Univer-
sity just doesn't have the money. It
can barely afford to experiment for the
future when it is fighting to maintain the
present.
As it has developed over the last six
years, through planning sitages and actual
implementation, the college has b e e n
forced to scale down its cost and in the
process has altered some of its funda-
mental tenets.
Originally, costs of the college, which
was to be built near North Campus, soar-
ed as high as $15 million for classroom
a h d living units to accommodate 1200
students. The Regents committed the.
University to, a slightly modified invest-
ment of these proportions, but reneged on
the promise one year later. Private fund
raising drives had failed to produce even
a minimal amount of funds necessary to
begin the new construction.
In addition, the University's deadlock
with the legislature over Public, Act 124,
which placed restrictions on University
construction policies, had execerbated the
need for new construction financing
throughout the entire University. T h e
desperate need of the literary for class-
room and office space made the Resi-
dential College third or fourth on t h e
University's list of construction priorities.

COGNIZANT of this desperate construc-
tion situation, the Residential College
agreed to accept a completely remodeled
East Quadrangle with some adjoining pri-
vate apartment structures tied into the
package.
At that point Residential College offi-
cials said that as a result of their exper-
ience with the college's first class, they
now wanted to be close to central campus.
They n o w thought a greatly modified
East Quadrangle could fit their needs.
By STAYING in East Quad, a part of the
autonomous Residence Hall system,
difficulties in financing for the college
were also relieved. As announced on Fri-
day, the Regents authorized the Univer-
sity to float self-liquidating bonds in or-
der to finance the revised educational ex-
periment.
Dormitory fee payments will now go to-
ward paying off bonds for the renova-
tions and additions needed for the new
Residential College. Excess revenues from
dormitory system budgets of the past two
years are pledged toward the construc-
tion, in addition to a portion of student
fees.
All this financial shifting is only justi-
fiable if it does not meanthat only those
people who live in the dormitories, are
going to carry the burden for the Resi-
dential College. And the Regents should
be commended for their far-sighted
action.
BUT THIS method of financing must
not be used as an excuse for hiking
dormitory fees in the future. It must also
not be used as an excuse for requiring
freshman student and sophomore women
to live in the dormitory system in order to
keep it financially solvent.
The Residential College in the long run
may offer the only way the University
can successfully expand without sacrific-
ing the quality of instruction. The bene-
fits the college may bring will be shared
by-the whole University and the burden
of financing this project must be equally
'distributed.
-MARK LEVIN
Editor

Could this restore sanity to a "mindless national debate?"

Letters: Student power in Omnibus'

Confliet of interests

TIE REMOVAL of the voting power of
ex-officio members on SGC represents
a positive first step towards providing a
more open and direct process between the
council and the student body.
Although the voting power of the ex-
officio members - representatives from
Panhel, University Activities Center, In-
ter-House Assembly and Interfraternity
Council-was removed, the ex-officios
can still remain on council and partici-
pate in discussion.
What remains is the opportunity for
various student interest groups to bring
their demands to the Council table. Re-
moved is the injustice that resulted from
members of these organizations having
two voting representatives on SGC.
FOR INTEREST groups, when they do
arise and if they are true reflections
of a particular ideology, coalesce around
political rather than structural interests.
To say that all dorm residents have the

same interest is to contrive an ideology
to fit a pre-existing mold.
Furthermore, the selection of certain
campus groups for ex-officio status to the
exclusion of all other groups represents
an arbitrary choice by the University.
NOR COULD SGC benefit fully by the
presence of ex-officio members. If the
president of IHA or IFC is to carry out his
primary task, that of servicing his own
organization, he cannot devote the time
required of a full time Council member.
The relevancy of SGC to the student
body is an area of concern of both stu-
dents and the Council. Removing the vot-
ing power of contrived lobbies is a means
of doing away with some of the bureau-
cratic screen between SGC and its con-
stituency. Hopefully SGC will take the in-
itiative not only to remove archaic in-
terest groups but to respond to new ones:
as they are formed.
-LESLIE WAYNE

To the Editor:
IT WAS WITH g r e a t interest
that I read Professor Mendel's
article (The Daily, Sept 19) in
which he emphasized creative,
concrete reform of university ed-
ucation and administration, and
in which he suggested the desir-
ability of finding out what other
colleges and universities are doing
in terms of educational innova-
tion. During the 1968 Spring Se-
mester, an experimental, interdis-
ciplinary course was established at
the University of Texas at Austin,
in which "student power" achiev-
ed reforms previously unobtain-
able either by radical activists or
"establishment" student-faculty/
student government committees.
The course, entitled "Omnibus:
An. Experiment in Enviromental
Synthesis," was unique in many
respects. Offered in the School of
Architecture, it was taught by two
undergraduates -'seniors major-
ing in political science. The class
itself was composed of twenty-one
students, representing sixteen dif-
ferent majors and ranging in
classification f r o m freshmen
through graduate students (ag s
18 to 33). G r a d e pressure was
eliminated by offering the course
on a pass/fail basis. There were
no quizzes, no final exam, and no
required readings - yet the stu-
dents claimed that they did as
much or more work for Omnibus
as for their other courses. And
more importantly, they claimed
that in Omnibus they were inspir-
ed to THINK - as opposed to
memorize, fill in blanks or quizzes,
do busy-work, etc.
The class met in a different en-
vironment each time. During the
semester, the students were re-
quired to complete a project -- of
their own choice - over the units
into which the course was divided:
Environmental Perception and En-
vironmental Control. The result-
ant projects included poetry, mu-
sical compositions, films and still-
photograph essays, exhibits, mix-
ed-media experiments, research
papers, and even a reconstructed
restroom complete w i t h graffiti
(footnoted commentaries on to-
day's society). For all of this, the
students received three hours of
credit (advanced) - and a con-
siderable amount of attention
from the administration, faculty
and student body.
STUDENT POWER was a real-
ity in Omnibus. The two under-
graduates who conceived of the
idea, and who eventually taught
the course, were part of the
"masses" at the University of
Texas - with no radical political
affiliation, no education courses
fto their credit, no connections
with the administration, and no
positions (or even friends) in the
student government. They simply
went straight to the administra-
tion with their course proposal,
and a week later one of the more
progressive divisions of the uni-
versity (Architecture) offered Om-
nibus a place in its curriculum.

employed and offered the students
ample opportunity to suggest
structural and substantive chang-
es.
As one of the former Omnibus
professors, I am of couse pleased
that the experiment was appar-
ently quite successful - as indi-
cated by the University of Texas'
decision to offer more "interdisci-
plinary, Omnibus-type courses in
the future. In an era of sometimes
violent student demonstrations
and riots, it is particularly grat-
ifying to me - and should be sig-
nificant-to others - that in their
final evaluation of Omnibus, a
l a r g e majority of the students
claimed that one of the most im-
portant things they learned in the
course was tolerance of other peo-
ple's ideas. Perhaps serious re-
formers here and at other univer-
sities might take note of the in-
teresting reforms begun at t h e
University of Texas by means of a
little "quiet subversion" on the
part of some students -and by
means of an administration's tol-
erance of student power.
-Sharon Weldon, Grad
Sept. 20

Police brutality
To the Editor:
T HE MOST important realiza-
tion to come out of the beating
of a Daily editor by Washtenaw
County law enforcement offices is
that it can happen to anyone at
almost any time.
The myth of middle class ex-
emption from policel brutality is
slowly crumbling. Americans saw
it in Chicago recently, and it was
forceably brought home to Ann
Arbor ever more recently.
In a city whose police institu-
tions are almost as hostile to stu-
dents as they are to the blacks
and the underprivileged, any at-
tempt to deviate from the increas-
ingly totalitarian norms of gov-
ernment and social organization
will be repressed, and if neces-
sary, with violence.
IT IS AT ONCE ironic and
significant that this Daily editor
was beaten when he tried to cover
the sit-in at city hall. The moth-
ers whose children do not have
enough clothes to attend, school
were rebuffedsby a city govern-
ment long noted for its unrespon-

Progressivism in the history dept.'

fTHE HISTORY DEPARTMENT Forum
Friday between .students and faculty
set an exciting precedent for the possi-
bilities of co-operation and major chang-
es in the academic world.
With the nature of the meeting being
exploratory and experimental, discussion
ranged over almost all major issues be.
tween students and faculty - not only
issues of substance such as grading, cred-
it-hours and faculty appointments, but
the possible future forms of representa-
tion of students within the department
as well.
More important, the discussion, al-
though occasionally somewhat heated,
was rational and accomodating. Students
and faculty showed respect and under-
standing for the other's position and in-
terests, while stating their own openly
and unequivocally.

could and should be a precedent for the
rest of the literary college and the Uni-
versity. The prospects of the forum are to
return the issues to the grass-roots of the
academic-world-the departments. From
there, the process should reverse itself
and lead to an increase in the viable stu-
dent role in the colleges and universities.
The history department -- students and
faculty - has a very long way to go. So
far they have talked, and there is much
more talking yet to be done. But with
careful and political handling, much -
possibly everything within the realm -
can be accomplished, and the advance
can be extended to further implentation
of student demands.
--RON LANDSMAN
Our loss

Breaking the barricades
By DAVID DUBOFF
H ERE WE ARE only three weeks into the semester and already 'the
chances of creating any meaningful change in campus life this
year are rapidly diminishing.
A handful of students, politicized for the first time by the emotion-
alism of the welfare sit-in flounder as the issues dies in a morass of
bureaucratic court procedure. VOICE members huddle in back rooms
of the Union and plot while the rest of the students wander aimlessly
from class to class.'
Student Government Council sits in its ivory tower and debates
whether or not it is representative of student opinion while asking their
friends to petition for seats on SCG. Most freshmen probably have no
idea who their representatives are. Is it any wonder that students cry
"illegitimacy" when SGC uses student funds as bail for non-students
without first going out and educating the campus about the issue of
student privileged status?
DAILY EDITORIAL WRITERS deplore student radicals for leaving
the University to rot as they sit at their typewriters and play intellectual
games with student opinion.
We have set up false barricades.
The University will not be saved by getting rid of distribution
requirements or expanding pass-fail options as long as these issues
remain irrelevant to the student body. If the very students who are
are seeking change bow to the authority of the professor in the class-
room, how can they help but be frustrated in their efforts to overturn
the authority of the faculty outside of the classroom?
The real barricades are in the dorms, co-ops, frats and apartment
houses, where typical students lead typically frustrated lives, looking
for something meaningful to tie into. Campus leaders should remember
that the fight for control of your own life will begin only when people
see the need to' fight for that control.
BUT THE BARRICADES are also within us. Before we can go out
and talk with students about what is most relevant to them, we must
free ourselves. We must stop being the "local opposition," endlessly
criticizing the administration while living, day-to-day, the very values
that have made a mockery of the educational system.
We have to redefine "responsibility." Our responsibility as students
and as human beings is not to some abstract "University community."

siveness to community problems.
This may have been politically,
stupid, but it was also politically
inevitable, And without .reverting
to a Marxist analysis of the situa-
tion it seems plausable to say
that Americans fare slowly divid-
ing into two groups: those w ho
control the government and major
economic institutions and simply
don't give a damn about the trou-
bles of the rest, and the rest it-
self.
The second group holds the key
to American politics. They are di-
vided and internally hostile; they'
range from Wallace'supporters to
alienated blacks. Such incidents
as the sit-in, however, may draw
them closer together. The more
sophisticated among them may,
begin to realize that law and order
without an underlying foundation
of justice is simply a form of
totalitarianism. If so, then some-
thing good will have come out
of this display of stupidly repres-
sive violence.
-Daniel J. Feid '69
Sept. 5 1
McCarthy
To the Editor:
THE McCARTHY write-in is
much more than a protest
vote. It will give to those who are
dissatisfied with the other can-
didates a chance to vote in good
conscience. It will also support
local candidates who are pledged
to ending the war in Vietnam and
beginning a war on poverty and
racism; candidates who will be
elected by and responsible to the
people and not political machines.
Keeping the McCarthy force alive
will enable the grass roots move-
ment which has sprung up across
the country, to continue to gain
strength in Michigan; a force
which in four years could be strong
enough to take over or defeat the
Democratic Party and elect adcan-
didate like McCarthy, Kennedy,
Rockefeller or Lindsay, President.
Some people are concerned that
the write-in for McCarthy will
take away votes from Humphrey
and thereby help elect Nixon. But
the write-in will attract mostly
those people who won't vote at all
or who at present, in order to
register a protest vote are find-
ing it necessary to vote for Wal-
lace. Moreover, the pols show
Nixon far ahead of Humphrey.
There is even the chance that if
Humphrey sees that he can't win
without McCarthy support, he
might adopt a dove plank to stop
the write-in. Thus, to enable peo-
ple to vote in good conscience, to
electtlocal candidates who sup-
port the minority peace plank and
new policies at home, to keep a
grass roots movement alive which
can take over the country in four
years, to keep public pressure for
an end to the war on two hawk
candidates, the McCarthy write-
in is a good idea.
The write-in relies on a canvass
to reach the voters; on people
talking to people. This way seems
as good as any and better than
mncf. f nh.kninpr a n ,.znk r nn-

had been crudely tried by Daley
and his club-happy deputies. The
experiment had created a sham-
bles that dishonored America and.
in doing so, fulfilled the most
lurid fantasies of a handful of
pseudo-Guevaras whose avowed
design was chaos.
THE LESSON seemed self-evi-
dent. We had seen the conse-
quences of our spreading police-
state mentality - the Innocent
bloodied, the conscientious dis-
senter treated as if he-or she-
were armed enemies of the state.
F the press hounded antd, in some;
cases, beaten, volunteer medics
battered and, finally, the head-
quarters of a defeated candidate
-Eugene McCarthy-ruthlessly
invaded at dawn on a flimsy pre-
text reminiscent of totalitarian
night raids.
We had been an exhibition in
"overkill" staged in a mood of
panic and sadism under the guid-
ance of a hack mayor whose pro-
fane taunts at Abe Ribicoff fur-
ther sullied the debauched con-
vention floor. In a subsequent TV
interview Daley was to utter his
fatal malapropism-the police
were working "to preserve law
and disorder." No other commen-
tary so effectively summarized the
story of what had happened in a
city where, once the Bill of Rights
was abrogated by the denial of
adequate facilities for protest, the
stage was grimly set for "con-
frontation."
THEN THE rewriting of his-
tory began, and for a fortnight I
watched the process from a Con-
necticut refuge with futile anger
The"revisionist" operation was
actually foreshadowed before the
convention ended by Walter Cron-
kite's inexplicably obsequious CBS
interview with Mayor Daley.
This was the first of many
episodes calculated to blur ;the
ghastly truth recorded by the TV y
photographers in some of their
most diligent, dedicated hours.eI
wrote from Chicago that week of
my gratitude to TV for document-
ing what my eyes-and those of
hundreds of other newspapermen
-had seen. But soon the nation
was to be told that the cameras
had been out of focus anid, judg-
ing from subsequent polls, that
is what many Americans want to
believe.
In the early-morning hours af-
ter the "bust" at the Hilton,
where I had seen police charge
frenziedly into a sidewalk throng
and a youth senselessly beaten in
the lobby, I had a romaitic vis-
ion of Hubert Humphrey rising to
the occasion, crying out against
the madness and recapturing a
measure of esteem by standing up
to czar Daley. He didn't; his fail-
ure of nerve may one day be seen
as a tragically lost chance to begin
his campaign on a note of cour-
age and independence.
THEN, IN swift succession, there
came Drew Pearson's absurd "re-
velation" that TV had distorted
the Chicago story to punish the
Democrats for refusing to trans-
fer their assemblage to Miami
(and thereby cut TV's costs).
Journalists who have notoriously
served as FBI pipelines spread the
"authoritative" word that J. Ed-
gar Hoover had the names and
numbers of the key Chicago play-
ers and was pressing Attorney
General Clark to conduct a
roundup of 'the agitators. Thus
does Hoover once again play in-
cendiary Republican politics.
AFL-CIO president G e o r g e
Meany joined the hysteria, de-
nouncing the "dirty-necked, dirty-
mouthed demonstrators" and ex-
culpating Daley; the NAACP's Roy
Wilkins was almost equally insen-
sitive in his cool retrospect.
Now Mr. Meany and his asso-
ciates on the federation's execu-

tive council (whose followers were
once called dirty names by right-
wing essayists) are gathered here,
ruefully wondering why their
members are hypnotized by
George Wallace's demagogy.
YES, CHILDREN, there w e r e
provocative and vulgar voices in
the Chicago protest. There were a
few Maoists and other species of
far-out operatives (abetted by
zealous infiltrators whose activism
has never been fully explained).
But what they sought came to
pass not because of their revolu-
tionary skills but because Richard
Daley is a bully and/or a fool
who ran his fiefdom that week as
if it had been invaded by 200,-
000 armed aliens rather than by a
few thousand (mostly young) peo-
ple of very varied allegiances -
many of whom joined the street
dissent only when their dreams
died in that sick, oppressive con-
vention hall and whose "radicali-
zation" progressed under the
blows of Daley's nightstick bri-
gade.
Now we are told via Daley's,
Metromedia production that we
must joyously remember that no
one was killed during Chicago's
bloodletting hell-week. So far,
there are also no reports of fatali-
ties in' Prague's new era of Rus-
sian law and order.
But the story of Daleyland re-
_nin P. ,isrr.rR n r,,tta hn

M

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