Seventy-eight years of editorial (freedom
Edit-ed 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 express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
Tuesday, November 12, 1968
NIGHT EDITOR: ICHARD WINTER
SGC funding r eeendum:'
Vote ..
Shall the Board of Regents of the University of Mich-
igan contract with Student Government Council, Incor-
porated, for the collection of dues in accordance with the
terms of the proposed Agreement, in order to permit the
student body, acting in referendum, to determine (increase
or decrease) the per-capita
funded?
. .Yes
STUDENT Government Council tradi-
tionally, has been an organization
seeking to justify its existence through
meaningful action.
Over the past few years, Council mem-
bers have spent most of their time em-
broiled in disputes with the University
administration. The battles which have
been fought on this front were well worth
the effort involved:
But today, these battles - on questions
like the existence of women's hours -
have been largely won, and Council mem-
bers have sought new avenues for mean-
ingful' action.
6pecifically, Council had chosen to be-
come active in one of the most difficult,
and most important areas of student con-
:cern - the economic sphere. The monop-
olistic control ,of local merchants assures
astronomical prjices in the campus area.
However, Council members are limited
in what they can do to break the monop-
oly.
The limitations are largely, but not en-
tirely, financial. Even now, the SGC
treasury is almost empty. The 25 cents
per student which Council receives from
the administration simply is not enough
to support presen't prograis, let alone
initiate new ones.
The other restriction which currently
stifles Council action is the ultimate le-
gal control of SGC funds by the Regents.
This is especially crushing to Council's
most recent aspirations for action in the
economid are since a Regental bylaw
prohibits the University - and, therefore,
SGC - from going into competition with
local merchants.
IN AN ATkEMPT to liberate SGC from
the confines of Regental regulation,
Council members have formed SGC, In-
corporated-a separate legal entity which
would have a broad range of economic
freedom to implement Councii programs.
But without funds, SGC, Inc., would be
ineffective. And to make things worse,
the University administration w i 11 not
even allow Council to use its usual appro-
pri'ations in support of the new corpora-
tion,
This became dramatically clear 1 a s t
month when the administration blocked
Council's first attempt to fund SGC, Inc.
While administrators finally1 made t h e
minor concession of allowing $100 to pass
from Council to SGC, Inc., .they made it
clear 'that further appropriations would
not be allowed.
UNFORTUNATELY, the way SGC pres-
ently is funded puts the administra-
tion on solid legal grounds. Under t h e
state constitution, the Regents have com-
plete control of all University funds.
And while SOC's annual appropriation
is calculated on the basis of 25 cents per
student, it actually is just another slice
out of the University's general fund bud-
get.
By contracting with the Regents to col-
lect SGC membership fees from the stu-.
dent body, Council can eliminate both
University control of expenditures and
the present fiscal crisis.:
.Things wouldn't look very different un-
der the system proposed in the referen-
dum. The Council membership fee, which
is now hidden in the usual tuition assess-
ment, could be collected just as it has
been in the past.
H OWEVEI:, the difference is that SGC
funds would be legally separate from
the general fund budget, and thus free
from Regental control. Furthermore, the
student b o d y - through referenda -
could increase the membership fee to give
Council more money for needed programs.
The difference - perhaps 50 cents a year
--- hardly would be noticed when paid
with the University's presently extrava-
gant tuition. +
rate at which SGC shall be
VOTE NO on this proposal.
The issue involved is more than sim
ply whether the Regents or the students
decide how much money SGC should re-
ceive. Even though students ought to de-
termine funding of student government
by themselves, the referendum still should
be opposed.
In this case, students are not going to
be determining the funding of SGC, but of
a private corporation named SGC, Incor-
porated. SGC never asked the students of
this University to approve incorporation.
The members declared SGC a corporation,
and now are asking students to support it.
CONSIDER the "terms of the proposed
agreement" referred to in the refer-
endum. Each voter should know what they
involve before he makes a decision.
The terms of that agreement ask the
Regents to make it mandatory for each
student at the University to become a
dues-paying "stockholder" of the private
corporation. Becoming a stockholder
would be a condition for admission to the
University and continued enrollment.
The Regeits currently subtract money
from each student's tuition and give it to
SGC for operating funds. Students could
simply ask the Regents to delegate power
to determine the amount of funds to be
appropriated to SGC, and avoid the incor-
poration of student government. That is
implied in the current question.
THE REAL ISSUE in deciding how to
vote on the funding referendum is the
relative merit of incorporating student
government, or leaving it a part of the
University.
Incorporation has two major d r a w-
backs, By incorporating, students might'
lose student government entirely, or re-
strict its operations severely. Each year
for the last three years, SGC has been un-
able to stay within its budget, and the
University has had to bail SGC out of debt
with extra funds.
If SGC went out on its own as SGC,
Inc., and found itself in debt, there would
be only two alternatives - bankruptcy,
which would put an end to student gov-
enment, or asking students to raise the
per capita fee they pay to support it.
There exists no strong force in our gen-
erally apathetZr student community to
keep SGC within its budget. Even if the
miracle could be performed, SGC most
likely would be forced to cut back from
its present scale of operations. Thus, stu-
dents would continually be faced with the
choice of paying more money or having
no student government.
IN ADDITION, SGC, Inc. would be liable
to lawsuit for its actions; SGC is not.
If one of the managers of an apartment
firm had decided to sue SGC for slander
during last year's "Wait for Eight" cam-
paign, SGC would have had the protection
of the University. A similar suit against1
SGC, Inc. might mean theend of student.
government.
There is a need for a student govern-
ment, and students should decide how
much money they give it. But there is no
need to go outside' the University to do
this: it can be done without incorpora-
tion. A vote against the referendum will
help keep SGC, Inc. from becoming a dan-
gerous reality.
-JIM NEUBACHER
-Daily-Eric Pergeaux
Flo peddles her wares
Fora fewdimesa week...
.URBAN LEHNER--
The almanac
as escape lite rature
"1871: OCT. 8, Peshtigo, Wisc.: over 1200 lives lost; 2 billion trees
burned."
Oct. 8, 1871, the same day as the Chicago fire. 2 billion trees - an
Information Please Almanac typographical error?
What I should have been doing was my Russian. What I ended up
doing was reading the almanac.
Not for any Marcusian poverty-of-alternatives reasons, of course.
Had I not read the almanac I might have tried cracking the logical
riddles in one of those games and trivia paperbacks. Or reading the
Travel and Resorts section of the Sunday Times.
But I read the almanac. The only remotely academic thing ap-
pealing was Zooey, and somehow fourth rereadings should be saved for
moments of far more acute restlessness, Salinger paper due or no.
AND THUS eventfully passed another Sunday in the life of a stu-
dent dilettante. Sometime between now and the next paper or the next
exam I'll sit down and force myself to memorize my Russian vocabulary
and write the goddam Salinger paper. The academic and social sanc-
tions for non-performance are operative at least to that extent.
Sanctions, coercion, discipline, repression, whatever the word, are
the beginning of all education, at least education in the classical sense.
Curiosity, zest for knowledge,'in the long run make education pos-
sible in the long run. In his four undergraduate years every student
takes at least three and a-half courses that inspire him to avid stud-
iousness and visions of a cushy niche in academia. (Coercion leads to
curiosity).
But without channeling, without coercion, curiosity alone produces
a race of almanac-readers.
THE ONE TENET of philosophical conservatism I cannot entirely
divest myself of is a belief in human nature. Man is lazy. And education
is painful. Maybe it is presumptuous for me to impute my own weakness
to all of humanity, but I have seen little evidence that anyone else is
really, fundamentally different. Ambitious, hard-working students (and
people) simply have been coerced and channeled more effectively.
If education in the classical sense must grow out of the barrel of a
gun, is it worth it? Don't ask me impossible questions. The only criteria
that can be applied are of the Jeremy Bentham, greatest-good-for-the-
greatest-number variety. And man has yet to devise an adequate cal-
culus for measuring happiness.
The mystics advocate tearing down the factories and returning
to organic food, poetry, and uncomplicated human relationships. While
I can appreciate their romanticism and even share their dreams of a
small farm in Nova Scotia, my American pragmatic roots are too strong
INDUSTRIALISM is the only answer, and even if we could tear
down the factories I would argue against it. Somehow the machine
must be tamed so that it doesn't destroy men; some system must be
contrived so that its product is divided more charitably in a world of
unparalleled privation. But industrialism in 'the long run is the only
way to end human suffering.
And industrialism demands - not necessarily technically trained
people - but people who at some juncture have acquired at least min-
imum habits of self-discipline. A successful industrial world can tolerate
only a limited number of almanac-readers. Professors work harder than
any other occupation group precisely because they are so self-disciplined
that they have made a life's work out of their own particular substitute
for almanac-reading.
MY PERSONAL and political sympathies are all with the academic
reformers. Teaching should be improved. T h e curricula should be
broadened. Courses can and should be made More "relevant." Three and
a-half captivating courses in four years is a deplorable average, after
all.
But.
But there is one nagging reservation, one back-of-the-mind pro-
viso. A certain level of coercion is desirable, if only to preserve society's
overall efficiency and allow' the British in The Bridge on the River Kwai
to build bridges, and make me, sometime, put down the almanac and
the Travel and Resort section and memorize my Russian.
By MARTIN HIRSCHMAN
P LOWAS jubilant at 10:57 a.m.
when the NBC computer gave
Richard Milhous Nixon the state
of Illinois pushing him "over the
top" and into the White House.
Flo would have been jubilant,
that is, if she had not been going
door-to-door in Rahway, N.J., sell-
ing educatignal materials to low-
er-middle income blacks.
"Good morning. I have a ques-
tionnaire for mothers of young
children. Oh do you? Could I come
in and talk to you for a few min-
utes?"
At 12:37 p.m., with two $250 or-
ders under her worn leopard-skin
belt, Flo entered Rahway's elite
corner luncheonette (Ernie's) and
got the word.
"Nixon's the one," boomed white
corner-luncheonette owner Ernie
White. Flo smiled and sat down to
a bowl of New England style clam
chowder.
Flo is a 58-year-old former
French teacher who switched to
selling because the Darien, Conn.
parents all expected her to give
A's to their children regardless of
how much work they did.
FLO WAS GLAD Nixon won.
"We have to get rid of the Demo-
crats because they spend too much
money. Nixon will balance t h e
budget and stop inflation."
Flo stared lovingly at the
chunky Doxie clam at the bottom
of the bowl, bathed in the creamy
white broth.
"We'd like to give you this pro-
gram - all these books. But there
is one condition. You've got to
take our series of ten annuals.
They pull the whole program to-
gether and keep it current."
FLO PAID Ernie White for the
bowl of iclam chowder and went
back down Cherry St. ringing
door bells, "Good afternoon. Ihave
a* questionnaire f o r mothers of
young children. Oh you don't,?"
"Hello. Hello. Is y o u r mother
h o Mn e? Oh she's working. Isn't
there anyone home with you child-
ren?"
Flo took her black folder 'and
moved off to Blossom Rd.
"Good afternoon. I have a
questionnaire f o r mothers of
young children. Oh, could I come
in and talk to you for a few min-
utes?"
"i . Then there's t h e Negro
History book. You probably had it
in high school in Atlanta, didn't
you? But they don't teach it up
here."
"Come here young man. See how
he likes the pictures. He'll learn
a lot from the program, don't you
think?"'
"OF COURSE, we'd like to give
you the whole program - all these
books. But there is one condition.
New things happen every day and
the series, of course, won't have
it. For example, yesterday's elec-
tion. Naturally, the main series
isn't going to have; anything about
it yet. But this series of year-books
will tell you all about the voting
and in a few years it will say what
Nixon did as President."
"Now we give you this bank. It
teaches the child thrift. Now if
you just put in a f e w dimes a
week, you can pay for the cost of
the yearbooks and have the whole
program."
"Now all you have to do is sign
this white card and I can let you
have the Negro History r i g h t
now.''
AT 3:30 FLO went back to the
car at the corner of Blossom and
Cherry to meetCharlotte. "How
many orders did you sell, Char-
lotte?"
She hadn't sold any, "I got right
up to the white card with two but
then I found out they were on
welfare."
Pearl and James had one order
each. As they drove back towards
the Lincoln tunnel, Flo said "What
did you t h i n k of the eletction,
Charlotte?"e
Charlotte, a 19-year-old black
girl, said nothing. She was think-
ing about having to work Satur-
day unless she could get a few
orders Thursday and Friday.
"What difference does it make,"
said James as he guided the blue
1954 Chevy stationwagon north-
ward. "They're all the same,"
4"011, NO, JAMES. I like Nixon
because he won't spend so much.
We've got to end inflation, don't
you think so."
Thty were silent the rest of the
way back into New York. A dull
five o'clock mist hung over the
city as they drove d o w n Fifth
Avenue, back to the home office.
r
"4'
Letters:
To the Editor:
BECAUSE The Daily does not
have enough integrity to ad-
mit in a retraction that it lied in
its editorial (Nov. 10) on the Stu-
dent Government Council candi-
dates, I am forced to use the let-
ters column to refute the smear
against the candidacies of Michael
Modelski. Douglas Morris and Wil-
lim Eldridge.
First of all, as to the platform
of the above being one "of ob-
struction and reaction," well, The
Daily is entitled to its own biases.
I just hope people will read what
our platform has to say.
What I object to, however, are
the points which follow in The
Daily editorial. The points are
nothing more than the creations
of some highly imaginative Senior
Editors. Eldridge never said that
he resigned from the Young Amer-
icans for Freedom and as a matter
of fact, he is presently treasurer
of the YAF chapter here on cam-
pus.
Secondly, he never stated that
most members of YAF were sup-
porting W a 11 a c e. Nationally,
though YAF takes no official posi-
tion, the support is overwhelmingly
for Richard Nixon. The same is
true here on campus, where the
University Students for Nixon
headquarters was directed out of
the YAF office.
UNFORTUNATELY, it seems
that The Daily does not like to
bother itself with facts.
Finally, I would like to ask what
the issue of YAF affiliation has to
do with anything. Though our
slate Is made up of YAF members,
how is that relevant as to our
qualifications? We are running as
a slate of concerned students, not
as YAF members. We are also
members of the College Repub-,
licans, why didn't The Daily cry
about that? Why didn't The Daily
refer to the organizations that the
other candidates belonged to?
What are the Senior Editors
afraid of? They seem to be un-
willing to debate us ons the issues
What does YAF have to do with it?
ial in question they would tertainment networks. RCA has
certainly print a retraction. acquired Random House which
But the statements were not had bought Knopf and Pantheon,
lies; they w e r e honest at- CBS has moved to purchase Holt,
tempts to portray what we Rinehart & Winston: Xerox got
were led to believe was Mr. American Educational Publica-
Morris' position.. That the tions from Wesleyan University,
statements were inaccurate is University Microfilms, and Heri-
d u e to the ambiguity and tage Library, and has explored
haziness of Mr. Morris' an- buying CBS. General Electric and
swers in his interview.TmehvcradteGnrl
Nor did Mr. Modelski ask Time have created the General
The Daily to print a retrac- Learning Corporatio.tu
tion AsEdioria Diectr I The inadequate factual and
tion. As Editorial Director, I political coverage of the political
would certainly have been mudr inMxc Cty th
aware of such a demand. As it murders in Mexico City, the
was, Mr. Modelski merely events in France, the Berkeley
handed me the above letter. iiots as well as those in the ghet-
Rather than edit or emend to, let alone the lies about Viet-
his letter, I chose merely to nam cannot be dismissed as nec-
correct herein what are clear- essary human non-objectivity. For
ly misrepresentations on his a political organization such as
part. SDS attempting to communicate
' --U.. L. its political beliefs, the issue of
cooperation with reporters for the
.rt i major news networks is not one of
SIJS prtection freedom of the press but of what
To the Editor: political interests shape their
I WAS pretty amazed when I journalism.
read Ron Landsman's article NO REPORTERS were removed
in The Daily on SDS because he from the meeting in the Adminis-,
obviously misunderstood our posi- tration Bldg. last Tuesday because
tion on the press, in general, and it is a public building and we had
the issues in the discussion at the no legal right to privacy there.
Administration Bldg. Rather than SDS members in other situations,
repudiate all the false accusations however, decide collectively what
he made, I would like to clarify procedures will be followed. We
our understanding of the press. have the right to limit filming
First, a distinction was made and taping of our meetings ac-
between the student and under- cording tho our own democratical-
ground press and the massive ly agreed upon choice. This prac-
news networks (bourgeois press). tice is not an arrogant denial of
This distinction is based on both humanness, but a necessary pre-
experience and theory., We've caution against the professional
found that the student and under- political distortion of the local
ground press services present a and national bourgeois press,
clearer picture of us to their read- -Tom Lee
ers than does the bourgeois press. Nov. 11
The bourgeois press will continual-
ly distort the political issues in- ROTC l
volved in our atcion; it must sub-Rri
ject us to journalistic sensational- To the Editor:
ism since it is an agent for ad- YOUR NOV. 8 editorial headed
vertising and popularizing the cor- '"ROTC: No academic value,
porate nature of American so- no academic credit" is refreshing-
ciety, to which we are opposed. ly in support of academic excel-
During the Columbia strike last lence and makes the valid point
spring, it has since been docu- that ROTC credits are not as in-
sequences. Unless human nature
takes a dramatic turn for the bet-
ter, the United States is going to
have a sizeable military force for
many years to come, and this es-
tablishment will require people:
civilians, officers and, as the Brit-
ish phrase it, "other ranks." Of-
ficers comb f'oi three main
sources: enlisted men who have
both the capability and desire
to upgrade themselves, ROTC and
the "trade schools," West Point,
Annapolis and the Air Force Aca-
demy.
Even under the present circum-
stances it takes a lot of motiva-
tion to be an ROTC cadet and if
credit is withdrawn, the amount
of motivation needed will be so
great that there would be very few
if any ROTC cadets on the cam-
pus, which may well be your aim.
ROTC or no ROTC, the military
establishment will still be there
and will still need officer inputs,
but will now be reduced to two
sources, the trade schools and en-
listed men.
THE MILITARY managers
would recact in two ways: First,
triple to quintuple the size of the
trade schools, and second lower
educational and intelligence ci-
teria to let in as officers those en-
listed men who now have the de'-
sire but not the capability.
The large percentage of ROTC
trained officers in our military
services have had and would con-
tinue to have both a democratizing
and liberalizing, effect and it seems
to me that it is a retrograde ac-
tion and contrary to liberal tradi-
tion to eliminate from the services
those men who both aspire to
serve in the military for a set
period of time and also want to
get a liberal arts degree.
Do you want your sons (what
you propose will not affect you
individually) and your 50 or more
billion dollars every year super-
vised and spent by men who
either got all of their academic
training at a trade school or, on
the other hand and in the main,
of ithe professor teaching the
course. In this manner the cadet
meets the standards set by the
military for military subjects anda
the academic subjects areisepa-
rately handled by the academic
authorities.
-Barton S. Pulling, Grad
Colonel, USAF '(Ret)4
Nov. 8
Right but warm
To the Editor:
AM disturbed and rather dis-
mayed by the attitude ex-
pressed by Mr. Okrent in his ar-
ticles of Nov. $ on the political
campaigns. I am disillusioned be-
cause it is an attitude that is be-
coming increasingly prevalent with
many left of center, a sizeable
majority as your newspaper cor-
rectly reflects. The attitude is that
all people to the right of center
are faceless and lack any sort of
interest as human beings.
I am sure tha the people who
hold this attitude will be surprised
to hear that I, as one who is left
of center politically, could find
that my experience of last year
as a roommate of Dave Eisen-
hower's at Amherst Invigorating
and warmly personal. Even as one
who a orees substantially with the
conservative policies of his grand-
father and Mr. Nixon, Dave is an
intensely personable andainterest-
ed human being. He is always
,eaver to talk and think out in-
tellectual and individual prob-
lems. The jokes he told. were no
dirtier than those an SDSerwould,
sniggerat and the expanses seen
were no broader on the right or
the left, or collectively than those
seen at Mark's. To sneak of his
love life as no more human than
a Nixon rally is to suggest that
Mary McCarthy would abstain
after an unhappy affair.
Why cannot we liberals try to
see what warmth there is in peo
ple, or is it that ideology has tran-
sended humanity?
A
I"'
TODAY AND TOMORROW students
will elect four at-large members to
Student Government Council. T h e
Daily Senior Editors h a v e endorsed
Larry Deitch, Mary Livingston, Howard
Miller and Bruce Wilson. All four are
excellent candidates with thoughtful
and concrete suggestions for SGC's fu-
ture direction.
The Senior Editors rated Mike Far-
rell and Mark Rosenbaum acceptable,
I
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