e r idip gan tly 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 420 Maynord 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. SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 1968 NIGHT EDITOR: JIM HECK Ba ttle By JOHN GRAY "We do not sympathize with most of the "police brutality" Th talk. Few policemen are semin- (istor arians. In this instance, police could choose between keeping the p order as best they could and. let- to be ting the mob run wild. "They chose the former. Only a Commy ora complete kook, we believe, would say they chose ingly, eve wrongly." thie chant -rNew York Daily News smile to August 30, 1968 TEE ICTURE this. THERE and repot You are standing in a crowd of everywhe some- ,000 on the corner of Mich- f fl themha igan and Balbo in downtown Chi- to them cago. People around you are mill- some of t ing about aimlessly. Some are try- ing their ing to get back and forth to the hther ame Hilton Hotel. Most are participat- ing in chants. Only a "Peace now! Peace now!" seem to b "Daley must go! Daley must thing. Ev go!" kids have youths will start in with-"F*** once in tb you, LBJ, f*** you LBJ." Surpris- happy. TI Muskie: Party pro with proper credentials n passerbys seem to join t. Those who don't join themselves and walk on. are television cameras rters and photographers re. When the'huge NBC s go on, everyone turns and holds up their hands es the "V" sign. Even he reporters join in, hid- press crendentials from xas as best they can. few of the demonstrators e actually angry at any- 'en though most of the been teargassed at least he past few days they are hey are having their time e reports that the police were taunted into attacking were malicious rtions. There were isolated incidents of heckling and taunting, but olice who atacked had just arrived on the scene and hadn't had time taunted. ................e:. : ,,".:'::..1. . .. .. .. .:. :.. . at Michigan and Balbo in the limelight and are feeling the carnival atmosphere. As you look around to get your bearings and see how far the crowd extends you spot two rows of police marching up Balbo to- wards you. BUT THE police have been marching around the area all day and you can sort of understand their concern and you don't really have any objection to'their being around. Above all you don't want to antagonize them, because they have weapons and you don't and you have an idea that they're cap- able of beating your head in. So you move with the crowd to open a path for them. You let them into the intersection. The crowd, like all crowds, is incapable of moving very quickly, especially when being herded from the rear. The people a block away don't know you're trying to move and you can't really get through them. So you're standing on the edge of a wide semicircle surrounding the policemen, unable to m o v e away from them. YOU WATCH A man who ap- pears to be in command raise his nightstick and twirl it above his head as the television lights go on. The police charge. The crowd EDMUND SIXTUS MUSKIE defeated Julian Bond for the Democratic nom- ination for vice president Thursday night. Why? Muskie has been twice elected governor and twice elected Senator from his home state of Maine. Bond was only elected to the Georgia stateHouse of Representa- tives and even then had trouble taking his rightful seat in the legislature. Since 1967 Muskie has voted most close- ly with President Johnson's guidelines on Dl ey's Pole A SMALL NOTE for those whimsical few who believe that Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has lost his immense pow- er in the national Democratic Party as a result of this week's fiasco in Chicago. It is generally agreed that one of the main reasons for Hubert Humphrey's choice of Edmund Muskie as his running mate is the. Maine senator's Polish an- cestory. But did you know that there are more Poles in Chicago than any other city in the world except Warsaw? -W.S. legislation among all other senators. I don't quite think that Bond has this same allegiance to the party's commander-in- chief. MUSKIE is chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the clearing house of senatorial campaign funds received by the Democratic Party. I doubt if Bond has e v e r handled any campaign fund-raising for the National Democratic Party. Muskie has transformed Maine, one of the most secure Republican strongholds, into a Democratic plus. A good indication of the scope of this change is the fact that Muskie was the first popularly elect- ed Democratic senator in Maine's history. Yet about all Bond has done for the reg- ular Democratic Party in Georgia was to send half of its convention delegates back home following a credentials fight last Monday. IN VIEW of all. this it is surprising that Muskie won the nomination by only 1600 votes. Certainly he has done a lot more for the Democratic Party than has Julian Bond. But has he done more for the American people? -PHILIP BLOCK "wJAMES WECHSLER Gene: 'Rhetoric as an in dulgence' NOW IN the approaching twilight in his quiet suite on the 23rd floor of the madhouse Conrad Hilton Hotel it seemed very long ago since that day in May, 1967, when I first heard Eugene McCarthy talk privately of the chance of blocking the renomination of Lyndon B. Johnson. On that earlier occasion, he gave no intimation of readiness or desire to lead the rebellion. He spoke rather of his willingness to sup- port Robert F. Kennedy - despite his past differences with the Ken- nedy bloc -if RFK undertook the challenge. When I told Kennedy of our conversation, as McCarthy had suggested, his response was: "Did Gene really say that?" Of course events didn't follow that script; McCarthy entered first, and Kennedy thereafter, and yesterday, when Jerry Talimer and I visited McCarthy, it was hard to believe that so much - so many high moments and implausible upsets, so much joy and conflict and tragedy - had been compressed into so short a time, and that now the last scenes were at hand. YET PERHAPS the most startling thing was how little this man had changed in appearance and style and tone during this interval that has been at once so brief and intermninable. Surely there have been interior ecstasies and agonies along the way, but in all the in- formal retrospect during 50 minutes yesterday there was no sign of significant alteration. I suppose some of McCarthy's detractors, including a large army of volunteer psychiatrists, will find some final, fatal defect in the out- Let the students decide, SGC IN DISAGREEING with University Presi- dent Robben Fleming over the compo- sition of the committee which will select a new vice president for student services, student leaders are making only meager demands. - Instead of concentrating on the basic inequities in the structure and power of the committee, students have chosen to make only one demand-and it is a large- ly irrelevant one at that. In line with the current proposal, the committee would* be composed of three students, three faculty and a non-voting administrator who would act as chair-. man. STUDENT GOVERNMENT C O U N C I L leaders are demanding that adminis- trators be barred from the committee and that one of the student members act as chairman. Given their antipathy to administra- tors, it is difficult to understand why SGC is willing nonetheless to tolerate the par- ticipation of faculty members in the cru- cial selection of the vice president. NEITHER the' Office of Student Affairs, nor its proposed successor, the Office of Student Services, have ever dealt with Noconm-ent MAYOR DALEY is listed in Who's Who as director of the St. Joseph Home for the Friendless. -C.R.B. faculty problems. Both OSA and OSS are purely organizations designed to benefit students alone. What -rights, what responsibilities do faculty have where this student organi- zation is concerned? Clearly, they have none, and should have no place on the committee. Unfortunately, the strict breakdown of the committee is not its only inadequacy. Both the student and faculty members would be selected by President Fleming from slates proposed by SGC* (in consul- tation with Graduate Assembly) and SACUA, respectively. The president's in- tentions in this respect are unclear. At best the procedure is merely a waste of time. At worst it might be used to pur- posefully exclude certain points of view. FURTHERMORE, Fleming does not ex- pect the committee to select a new vice president. Instead, he suggests that the committee narrow the choice down to four or five candidates from which he would make the final decision. This, too, could tend to produce a vice president who is only marginally acceptable to stu-' dents. In order to be effective in his new post the vice president for student services must have the resounding support of the student body. The present proposals for his selection minimize the chances that such a person will be appointed. SGC leaders should demand that the selection committee be composed, of only students appointed by SGC and 6A and that their selection be final. -MARTIN HIRSCHMAN ward serenity he manifests as the long journey nears its end. He realistically recognizes that any long-shot chance of ultimate victory now hinges on some weird combination of events - or compound of confusion -largely beyond his own control (except perhaps for one, major address on the floor which he has not yet decided to make). BUT HIS DEMEANOR is relaxed, almost remote, and there will be those who say that is clinching proof that he lacks inner passion and fire. He has grown accustomed to that derogation; ,he answers it only obliquely by disparaging references to grown men who weep in public - for the plight of themselves or of others. The real clue to his calm, as the moment of decision nears, I sus- pect, involves neither aloofness nor apathy but rather the conviction that he has more reason than most men to possess a certain page of conscience about what he managed to do in circumstances of con- tinuing adversity. His judgment that Mr. Johnson was vulnerable was vindicated even more swiftly than he had anticipated. He sees thousands of young - and older Americans -moved into political action largely by his effort, and he believes the politics of the"nation may be drastically transformed regardless of what happens here this week. He knows that the smothered national dissent over the Vietnam war finally found expression under his leadership, and that even the first small step toward peace at Paris is largely attributable to his initiative. IN THE BEGINNING, when he was talking not of himself but of supporting Robert Kennedy, he had said that one of his daughters had reproached him with the query: "Do you just want to be remem- bered as a man who did nothing in 1968 except support Lyndon John- son for reelection?" He already is assured of a more memorable place in history._ He has no spirit of personal combat in discussing Hubert Hum- phrey. He believes Humphrey's grievous entrapment began when he accepted the Vice Presidency under the humiliating conditions im- posed by Mr. Johnson in 1964; in effect he suggests that Humphrey. consistently allowed himself to be bullied because he overestimated LBJ's strength. He speculates quietly about the "ifs" of his long year. In his view Robert Kennedy might have become the "unifying" candidate if he had supported McCarthy rather than moving on his own-and that even Humphrey might now be joined with both of them on policy is- sues in defiance of LBJ. INEVITABLY he confronts the question: "What would you have done differently if you did it over again?" He insists that there would have been no large variations and that whatever his errors, the pres- ent delegate-count would, be essentially the same. If he has any thinly veiled rancor, it is toward the political men who shared his beliefs but remained on the sidelines while he waged his lonely battle. He had said when he began this pilgrimage: "We're going to make a lot of people honest before it's over." He was not entirely suc- cessful in that effort. But he obviously derives satisfaction from the evidence that - often to the exasperation of some of his aides - he refused to stoop to conquer. In these final critical days, when he was being pressed to make desparate overtures to some Democratic emin- ences, he would usually respond with some variation of the words: "Whose ass do you want me to kiss?" His critics call his austereness arrogance; others will describe it-as dignity. CERTAINLY there were mistakes (perhaps the worst was his initial insistence on describing the Czech crisis in cold pragmatic termy because he regarded rhetoric as an indulgence). He avoided gestures that could have helped campaign morale; he tolerated oper- ational inaptitudes, partly because he was persuaded that conventional exercises had little bearing on his success. At moments he seemed al- most carelessly disposed to intensify the difficulties of his adherents. He is not a simple man, and his complexities are sometimes baffling and elusive. But in yesterday's twilight, the private warmth and wit glistened anew against the backdrop of this troubled convention. screams and tries to run but suc- ceeds only in stumbling over it- self. The sickening crack of wood against bone sounds again a n d again. You watch, in spurts, because you're trying to find an escape route at the same time, as the cops hit girls and drag them as. fast as they can over the concrete, leaving shoes and purses behind. You finally get on the sidewak and all you can feel is relief from your panic. The sidewalk is le- gal. Anyone can walk on the side- walk. THE COPS regroup and charge right at you. You backstep but can't get v e r y far. You're up against a wall. People are packed in in front of you so you can hardly breathe. A woman a few feet from you is being pressed against a plate glass window. It breaks and she falls through it and tries to run away inside. You hear the cracks again and can't believe it. The pigs are charging the crowd, beating them, dragging them away. One of the pigs walks up and down in front ;of you with a can of MACE. He has a little grin on his face and every once in awhile he just sprays it over the people, aimlessly, for no reason. No one has charged the police lines. THE REPORTS that the police atta'cks were instigated w e r e grotesque lies. The reports that the police used only enough force to "subdue" the "mob" were grotesque lies. The reports that the police were taunted into attacking were ma- licious distortions. There were iso- lated incidents of heckling a n d taunting, but the police who at- tacked had just arrived on the scenetand hadn't had time to be taunted. THE POPULAR idea that the police just lost control of them- selves in the excitement of the confrontation is incredibly irrele- vant. Let them tell that one to the judge. The word "arrested" was a eu- phemism when used to report the action of Wednesday night. No one was arrested. But almost 300 people were beaten and dragged to prison. The idea that the press was to blame for the incident is an bla- tant an example of blame-shifting as I have ever heard. The police only stopped beating and MACE- ing people when the crowd began to chant "The whole w o r d is watching." The press was the only restraint there was on the police. The reports that the demnstra- tors w e r e throwing bottles and rocks at the police are true. But it is also true that they di4 not start until the police began their f unbelieveable brutal charge. It is also true that residents of the Hil- ton joined in the pelting of police when they had a chance to see what was really going on. THE REPORTS that the police took off their identification in di- ' rect violation of the law before wading into the crowd are true. Although most of the cops had their name tags on on Wednesday night, some did not. And others wore their tags upside down so they would be illegible. There was no, could be no ex- cuse for what the police did at the corner of Balbo a n hd Michigan. Their action was so inhuman asf to be incomprehensible. Their grinning excuses for their action can only be called evil. BUT WHAT might, if it is pos- sible, be more disturbing than any of the actions of the police was the activity inside the Hilton Ho- tel while this was going on. Less than ten yards from the scene of the bloody battle hundreds of peo- ple were sitting in front of tele- vision sets watching interminable ' -nominating speeches and cheering in all the right places. Campaigners walked happily back and forth to the free Pepsi- Cola dispensers and discussed parliamentary procedure. A dove plucked ALASKA IS to Chicago what John Lindsay is to Mayor Daley. Nonetheless the 49th state was the scene of a distressing 'footnote to an in- credibly miserable week in American politics. Ernest Greuning, still remarkably ac- tive at 81, was defeated in his bid for renomination for a third Senate term by an Anchorage real estate wheeler-dealer less thah half his age. ' But Greuning is no Paul Douglas whose defeat for re-election in '66 was mourned merely because of the grandeur of the distant past. The beat society CHICAGO ) - A spokesman for the Chicago Police Department heatedly de- nied Thursday charges of excessive po- lice force in dispersing mass demonstra- tions in the city the last five days. Frank Sullivan, director of public in- formation for the department, instead ac- cused the news media and the major Instead it is probable that Greuning's outspoken opposition to the war caused him to be defeated by a candidate who continually boasted that his views on, Vietnam were in the mainstream of American politics. Tpi POLITICAL demise of the architect of Alaskan statehood is significant because only he and Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon had the courage and foresight to buck the mainstream and vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolu- tion when it was presented to Congress in 1964. And these same two senators along with less than a dozen members of the lower house have been the only members of Congress to consistently vote against war appropriations. It is this Congres- sional rubber stamp of funding the war effort that has given the Administration its almost unchecked control over our Asian Crusade. Greuning's defeat coupled with the very narrow primary victory by Morse 1st .Tnne are merely further illustrations McCarth y's Chicago 'audience I FIEIIFER I OFFP. TH1& ThIAK) ?Ouv&KT- 4 F[,LOER OUT OF ~ L L..Ov. (i7~ 4 A- OUT Of: MCTAI5HOR, . ,,/lL3V - XO OF ~ F-UI f3~~I ESCNATC. 7 L- 4 IT OF Tr,, 2 AXC92t~l9 Cuoiie.