Curbing campus
disruption
By ANN MUNSTER
THE TREMENDOUS amount of construction on campus is causing
the greatest disruption of the normal functioning of the Uni-
versity in its 151 year history. These subversive forces are erecting
formidable obstacles all over campus, which are a far greater im-,
pediment to the University's normal activities than any real or
metaphorical barricades ever put up by students.
The present disturbance greatly surpasses the recent confronta-
tion between students protesting in support of the welfare mothers
and Sheriff Harvey's counterinsurgency forces, or the draft board
sit-in of 1964, and, yes, even the awesome student power movement
of 1966, when 1500 "radicals" occupied the lobby of the Administra-
tion building during the lunch hour.
Actual physical devastation of the campus is widespread in the
wakp of tlese disruptive outside agitators, who are rapidly taking over
an otherwise tranquil campus and grossly defacing it.
THE CAMPUS'S SERENE streets are giving way to their huge
superhigh/ways. The willful destruction of private property and the
wanton desecration of our forest land which this infiltration is bring-
ing about are disastrous.
Who knows for what subversive
purposes these structures have.
been designed? For at the momentv
all that is visible in the midst of
the vast defoliation of the campus
are gigantic bridges which appear
to lead nowhere, huge and mys-
terious caverns in the earth-
whose only conceivable function
would be to incarcerate loyalists
students-and immense highways,
for which there is ono justification
except an anticipated influx of
more enemy forces.
The depopulation of the coun-
tryside is proceding steadily. Nor-
mal daily commerce has virtuallyt - <
ceased. Even the nightly expedi-
tions for supplies of thin, white°
feminine undergarments have q
been sharply curtailed. It is
rumored that access to the Hill, the usual source of these delights
has been completely blocked and that men have been forced to
rely on the outpost at Betsy Barbour, which has never been a very
propitious alternative.
THE THREAT OF a complete takeover as a result of this vast
infiltration of subversives is indeed grave. All tactics for averting
it which have been devised to date have proven ineffective.
As we see it, for the well-being of the university community as
a whole, there remains only one drastic alternative. Merely cutting the
allocations of the agitators who are passing themselves off as ad-
ministrators and planners is highly unfeasible and likely to have
little effect.
.Those subversives who are undermining the morale of the student
body and generally disrupting the normal functions of the University
ought to be thrown in jail until they learn to respect law and order.
The reign of anarchy and disruption on campus must end'.
"l
I
my t t gn 43
Seventy-eight years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan
unpler authority of Board in Control of Student Publications
The land of milk & honey
By HOWARD KOHN
WAS the oldest of six on a farm where I learned
that minding my own business was life's greatest .
42G Maynard St, Ann Arbor, Mich.
News Phone: 764-05
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 29, 1968
NIGHT EDITOR: RICHARD WINT
virtue.
52 I was often up at six in the morning to hoe the
beans before the wilt of midday. I thought about peo-
ple, but only in the context of baseball players, poli-
ticians and ministers.
The niggers pulled into the yard one night during
milking time. Their black-bleached truck sputtered
ER and the cow I was milking jumped.
They were, itinerant niggers selling lightning rods,
I'd read in the paper that the sheriff's office had is-
sued a warning to be on the lookout for con-men
suckering the countryside. They would punch holes
in the roof of the barn with their hobnail boots and
then forget to hook up the ground wire so the rods
wouldn't work anyway.
On the seventh day,
r'
they:
TODAY DAWNED as imperturbable and
callous as yesterday.
Demons still frolic. Hubert, Dick and
even George are trying to win our votes
by downgrading our idealism. Justice
still masquerades as an assembly line.
Human values are still institutionalized.
And as if following some pre-ordained
plan, we still channel our hopes and
ambitions so that in the end we have wed
ourselves to some, little niche in the un-
vanquished system.
In many ways this is inevitable. We are,
all bastard sons of this culture's own pre-
embryonic impersonality.
BUT THE DANGER lies in mistaking this
pompous impersonality for relevance.
The pretence of significance, which we
too are often guilty of encouraging 'on
these editorial pages, leads us to build
illusionary edifices out of our own des-
perate urge to change the world-or at
least to challenge it rhetorically.
But it is important to take at least
one day a week to admit to ourselves
that buying or not buying California
grapes ultimately makes little difference.
Take time to admit that were it not for
the oppressive hand of the draft, even the
war in Vietnam would be tangential to
our daily lives.
We realize that the mechanics-includ-
ing newspapers-of an issue-oriented so-
ciety could not function if politicos and
academicians did not provide gist for
the mill'. And there Is a certain perverse
rested
utilitarianism in all of us which deludes
us in believing that GM price increases
are somehow more important than watch-
ing the flight of a flock of birds.
But behind a door marked "Life and
Leisure" we wage our own private battles
against an unwieldly and unyielding age.
sAway from a nation gone amuk and
away from a mammoth and ill-funded
university, we think our own personal
thoughts.
TODAY, IN A radically different format
entitled simply "sunday morning," we
are trying to come down from the Mt.
Olympus of politics and University affairs
and to present some rather individual and'
anecdotal perspectives on all our lives.
We would appreciate your comments in
assessing our experiment.
If successful, "sunday morning" could
become a regular, once a week institution
on the editorial page.
And if we fail, what the hell?
-HOWARD KOHN
Associate Editorial Director
-WALTER SHAPIRO
Associate Editorial Director
TRY UP THE ROAD, I said.
The old nigger looked old. And the two young nig-
gers with him looked just as old. We'll do a nice job,
they said, and we ain't et since yesstiday.
Damn, shiftless niggers. Got enough trouble trying
to squeeze a living out of this ground - what with
the neighbor's horses busting into the corn and the
government telling you how much wheat to plant -
without them trying to take me for a few more
bucks.
TRY UP THE ROAD, I said.
They didn't look like they enjoyed bothering me,
but'they kept on doing it. We could pick pickles, they
said, or maybe weed beets.
The cows were mad and bellering and one of them
kicked and sent a pail clanging and milk swimming
into a trench reserved for manure.
Get the hell out, I said, try up the road.
They started up then, jumping like they was sear-
ed and getting into the truck with its rusted-out run-
ning boards. Scummy niggers, worthless like the
green-bleached algae which stagnated in the crick
at the end of summer.
GOOD RIDDANCE, I said, try up the road.
Some months later I hitch-hiked to Florida. I was
standing on top of a hill in Georgia where..I could
watch the cars coming either way and. duck out of
sight if I saw the highway patrol.
The nigger pulled a pickup over to the side of 'the
road easing it onto the shoulder like a ,iog crawling,
out of the sun. He had a stubble of beard and wore
Sunday morning
A TALE OF WOE
They're coming to take my car away
By MARTIN HIRSCHMAN
I SLEPT LATE the day they came to take my,
car away.
After dressing hurriedly, I stepped out onto
the balcony to check out the weather, only to
notice the thiree police officers, two police cars,
one tow truck and one mechanic that had
come to take my car away -- it being the
biggest crime in Ann Arbor since the sit-ins at
the Count'y Building.
I hastened down to the nearby parking lot
in a valiant attempt to stay this conflagra-
tion of grease-monkey and urban swine from,
its appointed task.
"Good morning. This is my car.",
"IT'S PARKED ILLEGALLY and you owe $37
in back parking tickets. You can pay the $37,
or we will have to tow it away."
"Can you take an out of town check?"
They couldn't - or wouldn't.
"Would you like to come down to the sta-
tion and pay? It's you or your car."
As I walked away they shouted, "You can
come down to the station any time to get the
car. The towing will be $12, plus a dollar-a-day
storage.",
Now, then, the car probably isn't worth $50
in trade-in. But it is lovable. A tan 1961 Chevy,
it made it here all the way from New York
City at 80 miles- per hour, breking down only
when I pushed it up to 90 on return from a
journalistic voyage to Lansing.
THE MONSTER hasn't been the same since.
Nonetheless, it's been excellent for commgting
to campus from nmy distant apartpient, and I
couldn't see deserting the poor thing now, in
its hour of need.
So I scraped up $55 and wandered on over
to City Hall - center of the "All-American
City" and the local constabulary.
The lady behind the 6th floor counter glee-
fully rung up $37 on her cash register. She
gave me a receipt which said "Ann Arbor Park-
ing ,Violation Bureau/Judge S. J. Elden/$37."
The judge was nowhere in sight. A typical case
of blind American cash register justice.'
While I was giving the pudgy middle-aged
police clerk on the first floor another $16, a
plump lady in her late 40's, carrying a ,large
purse, walked up and asked him where she
could renew her license to carry a concealed
weapon. He directed her through the door la-
beled "Ann Arbor/The All-American City."
The clerk told me to have a seat and wait
for an officer who would drive me to The Pond
to-get my car.
As .the plump lady walked back out of the
building I could only wonder, "Who would at-
tack her?"
FINALLY, I got to ride - unhandcuffed -
in the front seat of a police car. As I sat down,
I appraised my chauffeur. He looked pretty
clean for a cop, even affable in a way.
The Pond is a virtually deserted lot, a block.,
off North Main near the edge of town. My car,
with it's glowing blue and white "Jim 'Joe'
Lewis for Sheriff" sticker lay dormant among
hundreds of its compatriots.-
The ignition sputtered a few times and then
there was only silence as I turned the key re-
peatedly. I asked my chauffeur-en-bleu what
to do, and he said he'd call' a tow truck..
Unfortunately that required more cash, so
I asked him if he could give me a lift back to
city hall instead. He grudgingly agreed.
"Why do you have that sticker on your car?"
he asked as we cruised back.
"YOU MEAN the 'Lewis for Sheriff' sticker?"
He nodded, "Well, what choice is there?"
"Oh come on," he said as we moved back in-
to town. Harvey has built up the county force
from nothing. It's now the second best in the;
state."
"Yeah, but what about the way he handles
peoplV. I didn't like having a shotgun pointed
at me when I was just watching the people get
arrested at the welfare sit-in."
"I would have done the same thing myself.
Do you realize how close this town was to a
riot those two days?"..
"Do you think using those guns would have
prevented a riot? What if one of those officers
had just flexed his trigger finger? There'd be
five people dead and you'd have a real riot on
your hands."
"THOSE GUNS couldn't fire, The firing pins
weren't down."
"Then why have them at all?"
"It would only have taken about a second to
fire them." '
Fortunately, at this juncture, we had arrived
at City Hall. I got out and thanked him. He
snorted like a good little barnyard animal and
drove off.
For those of us with hearts set on converting
---n xn . .i .. 4,,4~n~l~.;s l}YPT f,,\+ .'A .CL
coveralls but he looked pretty good because he was
riding and I was walking. ,Hop in, he said, and I di-
- He was hauling pickled herring in the truck. It
smelled oily and vinegary like a restaurant salad gone,
bad. But I didn't say anything because riding was a
lot cooler and faster than walking.
WE PASSED by a chain gang working on the road,
filling in potholes with asphalt. I read in the paper
that there are no chain gangs tip North, he said
that's where I'd like to go someday, up North.
Thanks for the ride, I said. Glad to help you out,
he said. 6
I was almost near this roadside stand selling hon-
er rocks-the outdoor vendor's code name for mel-
ons and cantaloupes. I bought one and spooned out
the sweet flavor with my.,fingers, I walked back to
the highway. In the distance, dark-bleached niggers
were bent double pickinghoney rcks.
Joys of s iltde.:
Ididn'trush,
By STEVE ANZALONE
SEEING TIS YEAR'S batch of freshman rushees
stepping quickly down South University on their
way to second appearances at fraternities, I realized
that I had made a irreparable mistake by not
rushing,
I understand now that I have nothing to show
for my three years of being "independent." The
rewrds for trying to make it on my own have yet
to compensate for ieing left out of all the quaddie
rush talk about theimerts of a, jock house over some
of the other, big name establishments.
And mealtimes in apartment living cannot com-
pare to the dress-up din1rs at the house. I tend to
get tired of 1my roommates' culinary botches and
their obscenities at dessert, and they get awfully
tired of my Daily hours that invariably lead to meals
being late. And so while the brothers are dining
graciously, I can, expect only my roommate's bare
feet and dirty t-shirts and a sinkful of dishes that
have accumulated throughout the day.
BUT THE HARDEST thing getting used to is not
knowing many people like the fraternity men do.
They can walk into the UGLI and exchange greetings
with everyone on the first floor. I don't even go
there any mor; I got tired of having coffee in the
basement by mself.
Not only do I know fewer people, but the ones I
know are not'as influential as people I could,know
if I were a Greek. Eric Chester says hello to me once
jin awhile. Yet, it isn't like knowing someone on the
central committee for Homecoming.. Eic Chester
can't even get me a good seat at the Voice meetings.
And the social life. When the fraternity regresent-
atives tell the orientation groups that the action
is on Washtenaw, they aren't kidding. Why not have
a good time on the weekends after a hard, unin-
spiring week at the UGLI?
SOMEHOW I COULD tae all these disadvantages
of "living in the real world" if I could get a sense
of direction. It is hard to measure intellectual pro-
gress by going from trying to understand academuio
reform to failing to come to grips with the-work-
ings of the University bureaucracy.
Fraternity men can measure their academic di-
rection from TG {o pledge formal to the IFC sing
to next year's hell week. That is something to hold
on to. Why not spend your time serenading the
sororities?
The completeness of fraternity life would also be
very comforting because I would not have to worry
about a lot of irrelevant social problems. They don't
worry about black people; none ever rush. They don't
have to worry about' poverty; one of them will run
a bucket drive. They don't have to try to understand
the protesters' complaints; they mind their own
business.'"
I haven't contributed anything worthwhile; to
solving any of these.issues; I could just as well go
through the comfort of ignoring them.
- ULTIMATELY, I WILL leave the University with
a less complete exper ence. I'll hear John Aldridge
make a-good point or two about Scott Fitzgerald,
I may win a scrabble game at the Daily office on
Saturday night. But it can't compare with fraternity
living.
Right now I am worried. When I finally have to
leave my position in the student caste, when I grad-
uate to middle class America and a new car and a
home in the suburbs, wil I have received the neces
sary preparation?
*
pi
w
I wvas a teenage
R'aymond(
By DANIEl1 OKRENT
A COUPLE OF NIGHTS ago, a friend cele-
brated his 20th birthday. Since he was
the last of his closest acquaintances to reach
this nothing-special plateau, he felt it ap-
propriate to celebrate his exodus from teen-
ager-dom with a full blow-out farewell.
After consultation with many of his
friends, John, proceeded to make a complete
reversion and have his last teenage party
as a typification of the genre. It was back
to the ninth grade. Crepe paper was strung
from, corner to corner, fritos and Cokes were
procured, invitations were addressed to "Dan-
ny 0.", "Cindy B." and the like. Each of us
was to assume a typical ninth grade role,
for day)
THOUGH IT WAS all something of a
psychotherapy session, we all got a decent
kick out of the various roles we played. Pre-
sent in the room were the athlete, the pretty
hoodlum, the ladies' man, the cheerleader, the
school "slut," the Girl With Good Grades.
As Raymond, I was the focal point. I was
ridiculed, laughed at, gawked at, joked about,
generally mistreated. The people present were
my closest friends, including among them
the girl I'm marrying next summer. But the
deeper we got into our roles, and the more
they attacked me, the more believable it be-
came. To be sure, if someone else hadr come
as Raymond, he would have served the same
function I had assumed. But it was me-not
someone else-that played the role, and it
bothered me.
. s'e clouds rollby
By DIANA ROMANCHUK
ONE OF THE things I loved to do when I was little was pick out shapes
in the clouds. It was the best way to spend those summer days that
were too hdt'for anything else. Or after making angel patterns in the snow.
(The clouds stick to the sky)
But eventually- we grow up and begin to forget the sky is there. Or
rather forget to remember to look up once in a while. There's no time for
the things we loved to do when we were little.
(Like a floating question why)
Sunrises and sunsets get noticed because they're supposed to be beauti-
ful. But we get so used to the day-in, day-out ordinary blueness (even in
drizzle-ridden Ann Arbor) that few are ever conscious' of the incredible
variety of shades that make up that blue.
(And they linger there to die)
And a flag remains pinpointed against a clear sky . .. a stormy sky
a blue sky . . . a grey and white sky as people each day hurry through the
Diag.
(They don't know where they're going):