WALTER SHAPIRO
Sevenity- rigtgan dal
Senty-eight years of editorial freedom
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Fuibright's southern rationalism
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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily exp ress the individual opinions of staff writers
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1968
NIGHT EDITOR: MARCIA ABRAMSON
Probate court procedure:
The great mystery
TWO WASHTENAW COUNTY probate
cases are providing the stuff of which
great mysteries are made. It is almost too
easy to supply the lurid details to the
skeleton of facts implicating an esteemed
circuit judge and a prominent Ann Arbor
attorney.
It does not take a conspiratorial men-
tality to see the judge and the lawyer
plotting to amass fabulous fortunes
through the surreptitious handling of
two estates.
When one "victim" dies in an asylum in
1949, the judge delays the probate ;pro-
ceedings for 19 years, and the heirs of the
once moderately successful bookstore
owner die off waiting to become r i c h.
Perhaps the attorney, who is conciden-
tally handling the estate had nothing to
do with developing the modest estate in-
to a handsome $200,000--
]jEANWHILE, the attorney is handling
the sizeable trust a n d estate of a
wealthy industrialist, who died in 1951.
The heirs mourn in vain for their mon-
ey. However, the judge, who is poinciden-
tally handling the case, and several 'state
officials refuse to . acknowledge their
complaints that the attorney will n o t
show them the extent of the trust and
estate.
At a state investigation an implicating
report is issued: "Well over 100 discrep-
ancies were indicated in this case, which
possibly fall into the a r e a s of alleged
fraud, violations of the judiciary, tursts
. . . embezzlement . .
But nothing, mysteriously, ever hap-
pens.
The conclusion to the peculiar goings-
on should be a gun battle in a swamp out-
side Ann A r b o r. However, the charges
against Circuit Judge James R. Breakey
and attorney Roscoe Bonisteel Sr. have
been aired instead in The Detroit Free
P ess.
IT IS OF COURSE too early to judge the
culpability of either of the two hon-
orable men. Breakey has had a practically
untarnished court record since his 1945
election to the circuit court. And Boni-
steel, despite a somewhate stormy and
questionable career, has been a respected
attorney, and was a long time University
regent.
Indeed, the immediate issue is myster-
ious probate procedure. Even more cur-
ious is the sluggish and retarded response
of state officials to the appeals of heirs
who' have waited 19 and 17 years to col-
lect their estates. .
All the real horror tales of costly, time-
consuming court procedures in divorce,
adoption and probate cases seem to come
true.
Apparently the call for law and order
is out of order in a society that lacks jus-
tice In the courts.
HIS OPPOSITION to the Vietnam War has given
Senator J. William Fulbright a stature on college
campuses equalled by few current politicians.
And the importance of the Arkansas Senator should
increase, as he becomes a pivotal figure in a Demo-
cratic Congress under Richard Nixon.'
It is this context which gives its primary meaning
to the speech Fulbright gave in Hill Auditorium last
Sunday night.
Describing it as his first speech since the election,
Fulbright clearly considered it significant. And what-
ever its enduring value, the speech provided a close
observer with a fairly revealing portrait of the Arkansas
Senator.
From the beginning, the speech made it clear that
Fulbright is pre-eminently a Southerner, something
which is all too easy to forget in Michigan.
FULBRIGHT'S political millieu was best displayed
when he was asked to explain his vote on closing Senate
debate of the Fortas nomination. Fulbright smiled and
said ever so slowly in a perfectly elocuted Arkansas
drawl, "I never vote for cloture."
The influence of Fulbright's background and of a
special kindeofenlightened Southern moderation ap-
peared later, when he lamented the "sterile anonymity"
of modern American urban life.
Fulbright contrasted this with "the serenity and grace
of small town America." He then went on to admit,
"I'm biased on this, coming from a small town myself."
But despite this sweeping attack on our mass society,;
Fulbright later admitted that he has no remedies to
counter the encroachments of the computer age.
It is in his rejection.of modern urban life, even more
than in the area of foreign policy, that Fulbright feels
a strange kinship with the disenchanted students who
yearn for a more humanistic and compassionate society.
Fulbright paid tribute to these youths when he called
them "far more in the tradition of Jefferson than Marx."
But, as he too probably realizes, the Senator from
Arkansas is too wedded to conventional politics and pie-
ties to join with these students in anything more than
futile battles against the most glaring abuses of our
society.
RATHER THAN discussing foreign policy, Fulbright
tried to use his rather priviledged "entre" onto college
campuses, as a forum to articulate the vague parameters
of his domestic philosophy.
Focusing on the recent election, Fulbright restated
a now classical liberal appeal for student moderation. -
Bluntly ennunciating what few politicians will admit
publicly, he said that the poor "have no recourse in this
society beyond the conscience of the affluent majority."
And, he continued, this affluent majority indicated clear-
ly during the recent election that they are "not willing
to make sacrifices . . . for our underpriviledged minor-
ity."
He also pointed out that the election showed that
"middle class fear was a far more potent force" than the
dissenters "ranging from the Berkeley campus to the
United States Senate."
The Senator from Arkansas warned that "if held
back, this mood of fear could come down on us with a
fury." And he explicitly described this danger as a
"threat to the Republic from the right."
"We have no choice to bend somewhat in the direction
of these prevailing pressures," Fulbright said.
His meaning was clear, although he modified it by
repeating, "We must bend, not break." The major
area he staked out for bending was "law enforcement,"
and he added that we =would have to accept a "delay
in the fight for social justice."
THIS ARGUMENT reveals that Fulbright the war
critic does not ieally understand the origin of the war
the has so effectively criticized.
to answer such a question with bland optimism fail to
completely understand the peculiar juxtaposition of
forces which motivate Fulbright.
Being pre-eminently a rationalist, the Arkansas Sen-
ator understands the dangers of building anti-Coin-
munism or any other mythic system into a rationale for
a whole foreign policy. He indicated this Sunday night
by calling for "diplomacy devoid of ideological precon-
ceptions."
Furthermore, recent events have caused Fulbright to
articulate a foreign policy outlook which comes down
to "we should intervene unilaterally only when our own
security is directly involved."
But Sunday when he was interrupted by applause
after saying, "There are people who think that our
Intervention is not unlike that of the Russians," he went
on to argue, "I do not for a' moment believe that our
intentions are not good. Rather, what we suffer from is
a lack of wisdom."
Fulbright feels a strange kinship with the disenchanted students who yearn
for a more humanistic and compassionate society. But, as he too probably real-
izes, the Senator from Arkansas is too wedded to conventional politics and pieties
to join with these students in anyhing more than futile battles against the most
glaring abuses of our society.
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Liberals today still bear the scars of bending under
the pressures of anti-Communist hysteria now linked
with the name McCarthy.
"The Democrats really believed that they had lost
China," Prof. John David Singer of the political science
department said recently. Bending on command, leading
Democratic liberals, despite their sometimes belated op-
position to McCarthy, went to great lengths to contin-
ually demonstrate that they were no softer on Commun-
ism than their, Republican adversaries.
Inevitably, this bending in the face of conservative
pressure grew from a pragmatic tactic to a full-blown
ideology. The resultant doctrine of firmness against
Communism became built into the foreign policy of John
Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Hubert Humphrey.
When these men came to power, their entrancement
with this ideology led to such foreign adventure as the
Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile crisis, the in-
vasion of the Dominican Republic and the Vietnam
War.
IT IS HARD to predict how Fulbright will react to
a Republican President.'Sunday night he asserted whatk
has now become the prevailing Democratic doctrine of
charity and light toward the Nixon Administration say-
ing, "It would be a bad thing to be difficult with the
President. But I don't think he will be. inclined to be
arrogant either."
The crucial question is how Fulbright would react
if Nixon did "choose to be arrogant." Those inclined
IT IS IMPORTANT to realize that Fulbright's whole
opposition to the Vietnam War is based on his abhorrence
of our "lack of wisdom" rather than on any profound
moral indignation.
This was clear when Fulbright was asked,' what by
now is probably a standIard question from college audi-
ences, "Senator, what should I as a young man do when
faced with the drift?"
Fulbright's response followed neatly from his phi-
losophic orientation. "I think in a civilized, organized
society it is not acceptable to violate laws if you disagree
with them. If I were a young man, I'd accept the draft,"
he said.
Here Fulbright reiterated the same faith with which
he ended his address, when he said, "our society is worth
saving, not for what it is, but for what it is capable of
becoming."
FOR A MOUTHFUL audience which has known only
the Cold War and its bitter fruit in Vietnam and else-
where, it is difficult to have faith and patience with
a society that seems perversely reluctant to recognize
its potential, let alone to begin to act upon it.
But perhaps this kind of perception is too much to
expect from Fulbright.
This campus is full of deeply perceptive, but totally
impotent, war critics. Thus it behooves us to be patient
with the nation's most powerful opponent of the folly
in Vietnam.
4t
-HENRY GRIX
4i
"And to give thanks is- good,u
and to forgive.""Thanksgiving Day is the one daythatis purely American
"It's a waste of time to worry
over things that you have not.
Be thankful for the things you've got."
--Rodgers and Hammerstein
-Swinburne
-u. nen ry
merica.
IN AMERICA a man measures his wealth by the number
of shaves to a razor blade, the number of miles to a
gallon and the number of mistakes to a lifetime.
We are a nation of elitists. We know more and err less
than any nation ever before. We understand more and
solve more and help more.
(We also fool ourselves a lot more.)
Sometimes we nod apologetically and stare at the
pictures on this page. But this is not our America. This is
the America of unresponsive legislatures and power-mad
tosa o