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October 19, 1968 - Image 4

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Publication:
The Michigan Daily, 1968-10-19

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Seventy-eight 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

1

Editorials printed in The Michigan Doily exp ress the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in ail reprints.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1968

NIGHT EDITOR: LESLIE WAYNE

JAMES WECHSLER
HHH and Gene:
Age-g ap confli*ct.
"HOW CAN ANYBODY hate that man? What's wrong with kids?"
The words were spoken in the lobby of the Americana Hotel by a
gray-haired, middle-aged woman who had just heard Hubert Humphrey
address the Liberal Party dinner.
The remark poignantly illustrated the age-gap that - among other
things - is haunting Hubert Humphrey's campaign and obstructing the
creation of a Humphrey-McCarthy alliance.
To the woman on whom I eavesdropped after Humphrey's warm.
almost plaintive appeal for remembrance of things past, it is unthink-
able that he was being picketed by several hundred youths as he entered
the hall. His pleas for nuclear sanity, his fervid attack on George Wal-
lace and his invocation of all the humane images long identified with
the liberal tradition were consistent with her affectionate, reverent
memories. The notion that he might be defeated by Richard Nixon -
at best a slick trimmer, at worst a survivor of the Joe McCarthy age -
seemed pecularily intolerable after she listened to Humphrey's inevi-
tably long but often moving speech.
But to the embattled young outside, who symbolize many others in
many places, his name evokes neither nostalgia nor sympathy. It is pri-
marily identified with the sinless horror of Vietnam, the central fact
of their brief political lifetime,

The Saigon government
bombs for i

FLURRY OF ACTIVITY in Washing-
ton, Saigon and Paris in the past two
days point directly at one conclusion -
the United States a n d North Vietnam
may soon reach agreement on a bombing
halt and move the peace negotiations off
dead center where they have been rest-
ing for the last five months.
The denials and hedging from "highly-
placed officials" and from President
Johnson have been couched in diplomatic
language which reveals such efforts are
taking place, although the outcome is
still apparently touch-and-go. A major
obstacle, as so often in the past, appears
to be the Saigon government.
After a series of meetings between.Am-
bassador Ellsworth Bunker and President
Thieu, the Saigon regime was holding out
for stronger commitments f r o m Hanoi
that the fighting would not be escalated.
The Americans probably would settle fort
a' tacit hold-ba'ck from offensive action.
THE SAIGON REGIME'S weak position
is revealed everytime doves start flut-
tering. Just a week ago Saigon was shak-
en by rumors of a coup against the 'Thieu
government. The U.S. embassy has con-
tinually resuscitated t h e regime by
threatening a with-holding of support for
any group that succeeds in ousting the

Thieu-Ky coalition. So far this has kept
the same puppets on the string.
But President Johnson's efforts to get
meaningful negotiations, underway comes
just a few weeks a f t e r Vice President,
Humphrey seemingly vowed a unilateral
bombinghalt if he is elected. One can
speculate on Johnson's political motives
for the peace offensive just three weeks
from election day. To the generals and
politicians in Saigon the trend is clear -
the Democrats can no longer buy time for
the South Vietnamese that was to be used
to improve their army and do more of the
fighting.
Saigon's predicament is that the bomb-
ing has provided its sole legitimacy as a
government for the last three years.
Thieu and Ky could claim leadership as
the only ones who could keep U.S. mili-
tary might behind them. Without that
backing, Saigon could not last a w e e k
against a coalition of nationalistic forces
waiting to take over and settle with the
National Liberation Front.
IF THE BOMBING IS HALTED and ne-
gotiations on witiedrawal of foreign
troops begin in earnest, the South Viet-
namese generals and politicians may as
well follow their bank notes to Switzer-
land.
-DAVID KNOKE

w

HHH on the streets of Detroit

Olyic lcowardice

AMERICAN IDEALISM turned out to be
an expendable commodity on the U.S.
Olympic team.
Spurning the time-honored sports creed
of one-for-all, all-for-one, U.S. team offi-
cials meekly surrendered to Avery Brun-
dage and suspended Tommy Smith and
John Carlos yesterday.,
Smith and Carlos' crime was their
fierce passion for the American ideals of
equality, justice and brotherhood. They
bowed their heads and raised black-glov-
ed fists on the victory stand Wednesday
in open support of those ideals.
Brundage and his collection of Madison
Avenue slicks, of course, judged the ath-
letes' gesture solely on its public relations
merits. Because Smith. and Carlos hardly
Second class postage paid at Ann Arbor, Michigan,
420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, Michigan. /48104.
Daily except Monday during regular academic school
year.

contributed to the pre-fabricated pastel'
Olympic image, Brundage engineered
their suspensions.
Assuming t h a t Brundage is a living
fossil from a predilectic age, his actions
can be understood.1
But the refusal by U.S. team officials to
stand up for fundamental American prin-
ciples on which Smith and Carlos had
acted is a stunning revelation of their
timidity.
This event opens up the very real possi-
bility that Americans have grown soft and
are no longer willing to sacrifice a day
in the sun for the long night of strife.
-HOWARD KOHN
Associate Editorial
Director
-DOUG HELLER
Associate Sports
EditorI

By TRACY BAKER
HUBERT HUMPHREY had a
rally in downtown Detroit.
Police said about 10,000 Detroit-
ers were there. I was one of them.
It was just before noon when I
arrived. Sound trucks circled the
block declaring that, "Humphrey
is the only one."
Two Detroit policemen were
talking. One was white, one was
black.
"Wallace is my man," said the
white one. "Al," said the black one,
"how can you vote for him. We've
been partners two years now. Don't
you know what he'd duo to me and
people like me?" The white patrol-
man answered: "Maybe he wants
to, but the American people won't
let'm do that. I want him so we
can get back. to doing our job like
it ought to be done."
CLOUDS HUNG LOW in the
sky. I moved past businessmen
eating lunches from brown paper
bags. Negroes were there, but most
were white. Groups from the
Young Socialist Alliance and the
Detroit Committee to End the War
in Vietnam milled arpund. Sound
blared from loudspeakers.
Someone was playing "Zorba
the Greek" on something that
loked like it should be an electric
mandolin. On the rostrum, a

woman was singing in Greek. I
saw a flurry of activity off to one,
side.
Demonstrators were forming a
line. A man with a bullhorn was
igiving directions. Signs appeared.
Some were anti-Humphrey. Some
were pro-Humphrey. A loud, fat
woman whose hair was blond at'
the roots shouted, "Look at the
Commie scum. Filthy swine!" An
anouncement came over the loud-
speakers.
"And now," declared an unseen
announcer, "Chubby Checker." A
chubby man in a red coat covered
with black checkers twisted to the
center of the rostrum.
"ONE MORE TIME for HHH.
Let me hear ya sockkitto-me-
now," shouted Chubby. A feeble
moan went up from the audience.
He quit cheerleading and started
singing. I thought it was "Give
Me That Old-Time Religion," but
I listened to the words.
Give me that vote for Hubert
Humphrey . . . (he's good for you
and me)."
A man in a yellow coat, tight
black pants and a black turtleneck
was dancing around among the
demonstrators. His grey hair was
ruffled by the wind and his goatee
swung from side to side. He
chanted in a German accent: "I

zed giff me Eldrich Cleafer vor
Prresident. Doomp zot Hoompty-
Doompty Hoomphrey." There was
a shout.
"No! No! No!", the demonstra-
tors chanted. On the platform
stood the Vice President of the
United States of America.
People applauded and jeered.'
Humphrey stepped to the micro-
phone.
"We want Humphrey," cheered
the crowd. "Talk about the war,"
jeered the demonstrators. "We
want Humphrey." "Talk about
Chicago."
HUMPHREY SPOKE for 40
minutes. When he left, there was
some scuffling.
Two sign-toting men in dark
suits, HHH-MUSKIE boaters and
campaign buttons pushed through
the crowd. I was with the demon-
strators. One elbowed me in the
stomach. The other kicked me in
the shin. The elbow was too hard,
the kick too high to have been ac-
cidental. The second man tripped
over my foot.
The crowd broke into knots of
people. A Negro man was arguing
with a demonstrator. "White peo-
ple can afford to protest. If Nixon
or Wallace gets elected you;'can
get a haircut and head for the
suburbs. Black folks can't afford
to protest unless they can afford',
to leave the country too." He
sounded like he was near panic.
A pudgy girl pointed and chant-
ed "Sissy, sissy, sissy." A man
walked up to her and said: "Call
us 'sissies'after you done some-
thing for the country, lady."
"I had two brothers in the
service, and I'm proud of them,"
she retorted. "What have you
done-sissy?"
"Fought with the 1st Marines
at Khe Sanh for 70 days, got a
bronze star and a purple heart and
picked up three bullets, lady," he
said, and limped away.
The police radio crackled. "Cen-
tral command to all units. Disperse
them." The officers moved through
the crowd. "It's all over, folks.
O., go on home now. folks"
Slowly, quietly, they dispersed.

THE GRAY-HAIRED woman may once have been a, supporter of
Eugene McCarthy, but she has experienced no emotional agony in re-
dedicating herself to Humphrey. She remembers the excitement of his
leadership of the civil rights uprising at the 1948 Democratic conven-
tion; when he was designated for the Vice Presidency in 1964, she prob-
ably envisaged it as a momentous
step in a liberal's progress toward
the Presidency.
While Humphrey's defense of the .
Johnson's Administration's course,
in Vietnam led her temporarily in-.* Y
to McCarthy's camp, she recovered
after Chicago. And the passionate . .
commitment he voiced to peace,
reason and justice in his Ameri-
cana address dispelled any doubt
th at he was the man she had
known in an, earlier political ro-
mance.
But there were kids outside who
'were at nursery school - or just
about to be born - when Humph-
rey led the convention upsurge of
1948. What they recall with anger
and anguish is the apologies he re-
cited for Richard Daley after the
convention of 1968. For many of
them the McCarthy movement was the crucial test of "the system";
some have already defected to varities of nihilism, but many others
have turned to such regional crusades as Paul O'Dwyer's Senate cam-
paign and Allard Lowenstein's battle for Congress in Nassau County.
To most of them it would be the supreme betrayal if O'Dwyer,
Lowenstein - most of all McCarthy himself - were to declare in even
restrained tones a preference for Humphrey.
LOWENSTEIN ESTIMATES that he has addressed about 11,000
students in recent weeks, froni Stony Brook and C. W. Post to Colgate
and Cornell. In each speech he has emphasized hi* belief that the Mc-
Carthy-Kennedy forces can win control of the Democratic Party if they
keep fighting. Then, in a procedure reminiscent of Robert Kennedy's
public poll-taking, he has asked those in his audience to indicate wheth-
er they have a Presidential choice. About 6 percent here voted for
Humphrey, half that number for Nixon, a handful for Wallace. More
than 90 per cent responded by sitting on their hands.
Yet there are Democratic and labor politicians now proposing to
punish such candidates for their continuing responsiveness , to "the
children's crusade." And McCarthy's abstention is portrayed as vanity
or eccentricity by the pros who have so repeatedly misjudged this year's
tides.
In fact, of course, the "children" speak for a larger constitueicy,
as they proved in many primary contests this year. But even if they
didn't, there would be a serious question as to whether they should be
lightly brushed off by those who won their confidence by defying po-
litical "realism."
FOR MANY aligned with Humphrey fin many battles of the last
two decades, there is heartbreak in the prospect of his loss to Nixon. For
the rebellious young that outlook seems a just ending to the Johnson era
and even a chance for a great new political transition. Only a dramatic
development can change this atmosphere.
It might still involve a major move in Paris by the President's ne-
gotiators - most obviously,,a halt in the bombings - or a forthright
declaration by Humphrey that he favors such a move in the light of
Hanoi's latest overture. He has tried in almost every wa'y to flash sig-
nals of his independence, but invariably stops short of the words that
would really matter to those outside his old family circle.
Perhaps a complicated proposition can be summarized a little
crudely by suggesting that a psychological - and political - turning
point in this campaign can corne only if Hubert Humphrey somehow
demonstrates publicly that he is not intimidated by Lyndon Johnson
(or Richard Daley). Many who never knew him in brighter days might
yet be stirred by the image of a man who has finally spurned the coun-
sels of craft and caution.

4

Waig for the inevitable greetings

By STEVE ANZALONE
IF YOU DIDN'T look too closely at
the campus this fall, you wouldn't
realize that almost all male graduate
students are living on borrowed time.
Last February when the Selective
Service System announced that grad-
-uate students were no longer eligible
for 2-S student deferments, there were
dire warnings that'by mid-October the
graduate schools would be populated
solely by the lame, the halt, the aged,
and the women.
Due primarily to the conjunction of
the massive bureaucratic inertia of
the antiquated draft system and a
series of below average, draft calls, few
students have yet been sold into slavery
by their draft boards.
BUT DESPITE THIS air of apparent
calm, the harsh realities of the war in
Vietnam and its accompanying man-
power needs are coming steadily closer.
Len Schneider, a.first year graduate
student in math, knows how close the
draft is getting. Hts orders to report
for a physical are tacked to a bulletin
board in his apartment-right next to
the current phone bill and a room-
mate's souvenir invitation to Guata-
mala's leading bordello.
Schneider is currently appealing his
reclassification; but for him and most
other draft eligible graduate students
with appeals in the works time, will
run out sometime in January or Febru-
ary.
While there has been wide discus-
sion of the effects of a massive draft-
caused exodus on the graduate schools
and the campus in general, there has
been almost a total disinterest in how
the graduate students themselves are
taking the long countdown toward'
confrontation with their draft boards.

"THE LEGAL BLUR" is what kept
Ted Wilson, another English 123 teach-
ing fellow, out of the draft. He is 30,
married, and does not expect to be
called. Even though he is technically
eligible until he is 35, few men in prac-
tice are drafted over the age of 26.
Wilson, however, brings up a signifi-
cant point: although he is certainly
happy that he avoided the call to 'serve,
he can foresee the day when he may
regret not having made a "moral deci-
sion" concerning the war and com-
plicity with it. He feels that it is better
to make a moral decision about re-
fusing induction than escaping through
bureaucratic technicalities.
THE DRAFT WILL probably spare
older students like Wilson and also
students who have received deferments
for having a family. In addition, those
students who have pursued the arduous
road of getting a conscientious objector
deferment are relatively secure.
But the rest tend to be very uncer-
tain; and most find it difficult to con-
centrate in their carrels in the Grad-
uate Library with the spectre of in-
voluntary military careers hanging
over them.
For those students who are con-
vinced that they will be soon on their
way to the Army, this lame duck se-
mester is far from academically fruit-
ful. For instance, Ron Gibbs; an an-
thropology graduate student, has
trouble planning his labwork.
He received his pre-induction notice,
recently, only three weeks after he had
gotten his 1-A reclassification. Gibbs
thinks that in his case induction as
early as November is quite likely.
SURPRISINGLY ENOUGH, there
does not seem to be a general panic
nmono e a nkrs of the Lerathat stu-_

Letters: Language requirements

teaching- and studying at the Univer- MIKE BALLIS, an Anthropology 101
siy, believing that Ann Arbor repre- teaching fellow also following the ap-
sented his best chance to remain un- peals route, says, "Where there is life,
claimed by the draft. there is hope."
Prof. Maxwell Reade, associate While Ballis remains somewhat
chairman of the mathematics depart- hopeful, there are other graduate stu-
ment, says.that normally a student dents appealing their induction notices
with Brook's ability would go right in- with 4n attitude of just delaying the
to research. inevitable.

To the Editor:
S A TEACHING fellow in
French, I would like to com-
ment upon the language require-
ment and your article about it that
appeared in The Daily (Oct. 15).
I strongly suspect that I don't
speak only for myself when I de-
fend Peter Hagiwara against some
of the charges levelled against
him in the article. I would like to
know who said that Mr. Hagiwara.
treats the teaching fellows like
children or dirt. We occasionnally
disagree with his opinions, but we
have never felt badly treated.
On the contrary, we feel that he
does his best to incorporate our
suggestions into existing proce-
dures whenever possible. Most of
us realize that considering the
scope of the operation and the
number of teaching fellows, ad-
ministrative difficulties are in-
evitable, and we don't blame Mr.
Hagiwara for not being perfect.
I TEACH French because I en-
joy it, purely and simply. I get a.

I HONESTLY don't know if we
should abolish the requirement or
not. 'Theoretically, of course, I
would agree that coercing a stu-
dent to take a course is not the
best way to have him learn. And
yet I can't ignore the fact that of,
the perhaps 50 per cent of my stu-
dents who initially don't care one
way or the other about French,
several of them each semester do
finish the course with the posi-
tive attitude that I think is so im-
portant.
And I am afraid that it is pre-
cisely these students who would
not take French were the require-
ment abolished, and who would
therefore miss the real excitement
(I choose the word deliberately) of
learning another language.
A re-evaluation of the language
requirement is all to the good. I
would only ask that students con-
sider the problem not out of pet-
tiness but out of a genuine con-
cern for the purposes of language
learning and the ways we can best
obtain our objectives.

Harvey
To the Editor:
THIS LETTER is being written
to inform everyone in Washte-
naw County of the type of man
Washtenaw County has as its-
sheriff. He is a liar.
Sheriff Harvey was quoted on
Oct. 15 as stating that he attempt-
ed to gain civil service for t h e
Washtenaw County Sheriff De-
partment, that he was not a union
buster, and that all new deputies'
he has hired have been given five
to eight weeks of intensive police
training.
(1) Sheriff Harvey stated to me
and other members of the sheriff's
department in November of 1967
that he would have no damn civil
service board telling him how to
run his department.
(2) Sheriff Harvey h a s twice
been ordered to cease and desist
from his anti-labor actions by the
State Labor Mediations Board.
Washtenaw County paid over $4,-
000.00 in back pay to deputies as
a result of Harvey's illegal firings
of Deputy Associate members.

THE APPEALS procedure in Brook's
case and those of many like him goes
something like this. If his personal
appearance before the local board is
unsuccessful, he then has 30 days to
file an appeal before the Michigan
board.
iT+-c avnrnaafajic -'o ahni f+ +li p

One English 123 teaching fellow said
that he is appealing after receiving his
draft notice recently, but he has al-
most no hopes for an occupational
deferment. For him time will run out
sometime in January.
DESPITE THE prosuect of being

i

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