Sixty-Ninth Year EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN then Opinions Are Free UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS Truth Wil ISTUDENT PUBLICATIONS BLDG. * ANN ARBOR, MICH. -'Phone NO 2-3241 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. The Un.iversity: An Inquiry Y, MARCH 15, 1959 NIGHT EDITOR: ROBERT JUNKERI 'Great Game of Polities' Shows Up Little Men in Lansing (EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first of a series of articles dealing with the nature of the University-com- munity and its problems.) By PHILIP POWER Daily Staff Writer F SOMETHING isn't done, this place is going to visibly de- cline," a University official re- marked the other day. But perhaps the skid has al- ready started. The financial crisis has only ag- gravated a gradual erosion of the quality and prestige of the Uni- versity. Faculty comment and complaint recalls the past "when this University really was some- thing." Even seniors remark that somehow the University in the past seemed to "have more stuff, more straight educational guts," than today. * * * ONE FUNCTION of a univer- sity is to critically examine life. Perhaps it is the time to turn the University's function upon itself, to inquire in a rational critical way into the state of the Uni- versity in the spring of 1959. Such a critique, in order to be valid, must be responsible and constructive in nature. It must be directed toward solv- ing problems, rather than toward a demonstration of the critic's wit or knowledge, or toward an attack on some person or institution. It is presented in a spirit of- good will, of humble straightforeward analysis and comment. The place of criticism is to build rather than to destroy, both by suggesting new solutions for problem areas, but also by pointing out and analyz- ing problem areas which have perhaps previously been over- looked. * * * WHAT THEN, is the nature of the University we must analyze? More specifically, what makes a university a university, and not just a collection of buildings and grass and trees? A university is a place. IN A STATE darkened by unemployment, threats of payless paydays and continued sport failures, a little optimism is welcome. Prof. Harvey E. Brazer provided some in a speech Thursday night by predicting that the, Legislature will eventually pass a tax bill. Prof. Brazer, a member of the economics de- partment, was research director for the Legis- lative tax study committee. His optimism, however, has been tarnished some by the corrosive action of politics at Lansing.'The Legislature has triedto solve Michigan's financial crisis with proposals, counter-proposals, reports and even sudden bursts of profanity. A NEW ATTITUDE must be taken because as long as the Republicans refuse to consider any of Gov. Williams' bills and Democrats de- feat Republican proposals, no action will be taken. Republicans must stop thinking any bills proposed by Gov. Williams are unacceptable because he is a Democrat. The games being played in Lansing are not gaining votes for anyone in the Legislature but undoubtedly will only help any individuals who might decide to seek election. People on relief and state employees threat- ened by blank checks aren't impressed by the juggling acts in Lansing. They only fear that their money will be cut off. THE REALITY of votes should stop the Legislators from playing politics and move them to consider the general welfare of the state. Unfortunately, they act as if they were shooting a mammoth game of dice instead of trying to solve the problems of a state that is facing a 110 million dollar deficit by July. Its time the state's elected representatives mature. -KENNETH McELDOWNEY It is a place dominated by a certain "esprit de corps," a "spirit of the body." 'T'his spirit is a sense of com- mon purpose and goal. It is a dedication to education on one hand and to scholarship on the other. As an educational institution, a university is dedicated to creat- ing responsible, intellectually trained, mature individuals. As a scholarly community, it is devot- ed to the advancement of learn- ing, to far sighted, objective, rational inquiry. It is thus an intellectual com- munity of individuals, motivated and bound into a meaningful en- tity by its own spirit. Perhaps it is, more than, any- thing else, this spirit which has ceased to flourish here. * * * IN THE last analysis, the effec- tive functioning of a university depends largely on its student body. Regardless of the short- comings of a university's facilities, the student himself must willingly grasp the educational opportunity offered by the school. Students themselves must be ready and willing to participate fully and freely in a university community; It cannot do the job ,by itself. The faltering of the University results partly from the student body itself, which may have fallen so low in interest and ability that it is incapable of either generat- ing or participating in a growing, meaningful university. All too many students are con- tent to muddle through any uni- versity safe in the assumption that somehow they will "become educated" through no effort of their own - by osmosis, perhaps. All too many students at Mich- igan are unwilling to be students in the true sense of the word: in- terested in learning for its own sake, rather than for the 'A' grade or for the good job after gradua- tion. Too many such students make it almost impossible for the University to educate instead of train. Something Better Than a Booklet WXT= SGC ELECTIONS calling attention to long-gone and long-unresolved campus is- sues, the course evaluation booklet has slipped again into campaign speeches. Most of the candidates "think it's a wonderful. idea." ' Some work was done on -:a booklet last year by SGC. It turned out to be unfeasible. No adequate technique was found for getting course opinions down on paper, and the project was duly shelved. Unmindful of the newly dug grave, candi- dates forget to pay the homage of inattention. Nevertheless, careful consideration of course evaluation could give it a final burial. BUT A SMALL,. not loudly heralded, com- mittee in the literary college, is in the pro- cess of collecting information on all introduc- tory and distribution courses. Letters have been sent to all departments requesting information, on 1) geneN"l course objectives 2) a subject matter outline 3) necessary preparation for students and 4) how the couse is taught-lec- ture or labs, texts, supplemental readings, out- side reports expected and general examination. pattern. Returned questionnaires will be bound in loose leaf notebooks. As supplementary an- nouncements, copies will be given to counselors and placed in the Undergraduate Library. Opinion will not be represented, but course information will. Feelings will not be hurt, and at the same time, an adequate guide for electing courses will be available. THE ONLY addition needed to make the supplementary announcement as valuable, and perhaps more so, as a course evaluation booklet might be inclusion of information on particular teachers' treatment. It would tell, for example, that Prof. X emphasizes the philo- sophic approach to Shakespeare, while Prof. Y takes the histdrical approach. The supplementary announcement is actually under way and its feasibilty makes an evalu- ating booklet a dead issue. The candidates would be wise to forget, and leave dead eiough alone. -NAN MARKEL j THE PROBLEMS raised by the student body lead to another problem area. The University of Michigan i faced squarely with the dilemma of a public university which none- theless is trying to retain the in- tellectual quality of a private in- stitution. This is unfortunate,, for in many respects it forces the University to ride two horses at once - neither of them well. In many respects, the students from outstate give the Univer- sity's student body its excellence, essentially because of the high selection standards applied to this group. However, the University is also a constitutional body of the state of Michigan, created to educate the citizens of the state. It must then accept a number of students from within the state who do not have the academic potential of those from outside. * r , A FURTHER complication is ilustrated by the sorry state of the University's finances result- ing from the confusion and petty political motivations of a State Legislature which cannot collect enough money to finance its own approprations.n Such hfinancial troubles are not at the base ofhprbesoanielcul the problems of' an intellectual community, but they aggravate an already difficult situation. Clearly, a private university controls the sources of its income and need not bow to the opinions See A SENSE, Page 5 LETTERS to the EDITOR Help! Help!,. To the Editor: AM WRITING this letter in the hope that other Daily readers may read it, and give me some enlightenment. Listen to this sad story: I am a junior, majoring in Eng- lish, and working for a teaching certificate. This semester I am carrying six courses, 17 hours. School has been in session, in- cluding this week, approximately five weeks. Now in that relatively short time, I have had to write four papers, totaling about 4,000 words. Besides that I have had Wo read to 500 page novels, And, I have had two exams. Now, certainly I came to college to seek knowledge. And, among other things, to stimulate my thinking processes. Yet, to me, college is not all studying-it is a place where one learns and makes lasting friendships, where one is privileged to take in various cultural aspects - concert plays, etc. And it is a place where the mind is opened-one is able to" meet students of foreign back- ground, different religions, differ- ent ideas. Knowledge comes first, but it is not the only thing present on a university campus. In these five weeks, I have been literally living from, paper to paper, exam to exam. I have not had a chance to converse as long as I would like to with my friends. I have been to few concerts, lec- tures, etc., because of academic assignments, and to those I have attended, I really could not enjoy them as I felt guilty about my work at home. I have not been able to converse with people of differ- ent religions, ideas, backgrounds, due to the fact that both they and myself have not had time to sit down and have a man.to man talk about the condition of the world, etc. In these five weeks, I have been stifled, my mind is .closed, overburdened with facts, bedause of the heavy assignments I have had to meet. Learning has not become pleasureable - It is a drudge. On top of that, I have had to stay up late, and thus, am fa- tigued the next day, so that I See SHOULD, Page 5 Where Are We All Going? REPUBLICANS AT FAULT: M Misplace State Money Crisis Blam JUST INQUIRING * *G..by Michael Kraft Seeing the Shades EEEEEEEER20REEENMMEOM .EEEEMW50EEMMWN EES PERHAPS Southerners aren't the only ones who see the world in terms of black and white. Foreign newspapermen attending last week's international press congress at the University of Missouri charged that American papers don't give enough space or attention to world news.+ Frank Starzel, general manager of, the As- sociated Press replied that the wire services. "deliver each day several times the amount of copy that any newspaper can print. What is printed reflects the people's views. "People are likely to want a win-or-lose black and white story," he said. And as if to prove his point, a "Berlin Box Score" came over the wires, showing at a glance that the Russians led in making demands but the West is ahead in saying no. Unfortunately, this approach to world and other affairs probably lies much deeper than merely the newspaper's lack of space and the reader's lack of time. EVEN AY-TO-DAY activities on campus prompt the suspicion that something else is missing, not lack of perspective but perhaps an inability, or lack of willingness to really see things in their various shadings. In a class comprised of junior and senior English majors, a girl asked during a recent discussion said, "What bothers me is why you English teachers always seem to disagree. How can a poem mean so many different things? Why can't you ever get together?" And down the hall, one can hear someone else say, "the nice thing about math is that you're either right or you're wrong." Some of these attitudes also run through discussions of attempts to change the literary College's distribution requirements, finding ex- pression in the fear that proposals to broaden the science requirements will result in students getting only an empty framework of theories and methods without any facts to fill them. THE CONFLICT between extensive and in- tensive approaches to understanding will probably always be with those wo hope to further a liberal education's 'attempts to de- velop the "whole man." And the "let's have the facts" approach has, of course, been a time: honored and usually legitimate one. But the volumes of statistics and figures which continually flood the nation indicates something approaching an obsession, It even carries over into the areas where really accurate facts are almost unattainable: TV ratings, public opinion polls and consumer re- ports. Perhaps this also underlies the public's will- ingness to accept the burden of the science race. It's easier to count the number of satel- lites and decide whether they're red, white and blue or just red than it is to watch atti- tudes and feelings flow across the Asian and African continents. YET PARADOXICALLY science itself is dem- onstrating the unreliability of facts. Con- tinual discoveries force men to discard one cherished theory after another. Not only does man see his world as the result of evolution, but the way he sees the world has also evolved through the years. This of course gives rise to all sorts of un- certainties and doubts, in some cases leading to a complete rejection of organized religion and in other to an eager, acceptance of "the truth" whether in religion, communism or other usually dogmatic ways of viewing life. A University's purpose runs directly counter to this. "If a student graduates with the feel- ing that he knows much less than he did four years ago as an entering freshman, then we've done our job," a dean recently said. BUT UNFORTUNATELY, while this realiza- tion may be there, the tendency to assume otherwise comes in an attitude of viewing By JAMES SEDER Daily Staff Writer THE STATE'S reputation is being pilloried by both state and na- tional ultra - conservatives as a gruesome . example, of economic collapse. The guilt for this ca- lamity is being assigned to Gov- ernor Williams and Walter Reu- ther. Their sins are "welfare-state- isms" and "virulent unionism." The scarlet letters of their guilt are "the flight of industry from the state," "the large pool of un- employed workers," and the state's "cash crisis." Although the state is faced with genuine-and relatively serious- problems, the above arguments are patently specious. The fact that they are so widely believed is a fearful'example of the effective- ness of tle "big lie" technique. Neither Governor Williams nor Walter Reuther is a particularly henious person. Both are intelli- gent, sincere, honorable, and per- sonable. Both are used as symbols, because they are the most success- ful - and perhaps the finest --- representatives of social philos- ophies. Governor Williams repre- sents honest, progressive - yet not rampently liberal - state govern- ment. He has been overwhelmingly endorsed and re-endorsed by state voters. Reuther represents honest, forceful - and seemingly not ir- responsible -unionism. * * * BUT IS "welfare-statism" lead- ing Michigan into economic hell? If one reads Republican party platforms, many of the newspapers of the state, or listen to the pro- fessional- anti-Williamists of the Legislature or some of the large corporations, one is likely to think so. But if one listens to the eco- nomists of the state, one hears a considerably less doleful tale. Al- though Michigan does have an un- desirably high rate of unemploy- ment and several large corpora- tions have left Michigan and others are de-centralizing their operations, it has proved diffi- cult to establish that "Michigan's high tax rate" is the cause of all this woe. Michigan does not have an un- reasonably high tax rate and taxes bring with them advantages-fa- cilities and sufficiently educated workers-to large corporations. "Virulent Unionism" is a won- derful term. It conjures up shades of bearded anarchists, grim com- mnkfn 'n no r e n1nl ul- But a few examples of "bad" unions which have been around for a long time hardly seems like an appropriate incentive for a sudden "mass exodus" of industry from the state. * * * ALTHOUGH high wage de- mands, in themselves, are not in- centives to business expansion in that area, Michigan compensates for this by having a large pool of highly skilled workers And busi- nessmen are aware that if they want skilled workers-and they do -they must, by the principles of Adam Smith, pay for them. Does this mean that the state's economic outlook is unrestrainedly bright? No, of course, it does not. Michigan does face the prospect of business diversification outside the state.sHowever, Prof. William Haber of the economics depart- ment and other economists at a United States Senate hearing in Detroit recently pointed out one solution to the problem: attract smaller businesses to the state, Gov. Williams suggested another approach to the problem: with the University's research facilities and the state's pool of skilled work- ers, perhaps, airplane and missile corporative giants can be attracted to the state. So there are at least some in- formed people who do not feel that the state's economy is crumbling. In view, of this, the citizens of Michigan seem justified when they ask why the solvency of the state treasury is at the mercy of the generosity of General Motors and other industrial giants in paying their taxes early - at cost to themselves. The blame for this slightly en- ervating phenomenon is, rather glibly, hurled on Michigan's "patch-work tax structure." Since 1946, the Republican- dominated Legislature has ap- proached every situation which clearly called for a tax increase as a crisis. For example, when the Legislature finds that all its avail- able tax funds have been appro- priated and there is still need for highway funds, the Legislative ap- proach has been to pass an addi- tional gasoline tax and stipulate that this money must be used for road repair. This system works out fine-for a year. But if the next year the state found that it did not need all that money for road repair, but _hnnefllvuthv wanted +h TTni- strength has shrunk from political domination of the to the point where they hav a few vestigil fortresses se around the state, the Repu apparently feel that they ar ticing "sound politics." * * * REP. ROLLO CONLIN, h the House tax committe parently had the interestso the state and the Republica in mind when he set up th partisan citizens advisory c tee. This group's plan has r approval-at least for itsg ideas-by a few of the Repu and almost every informed in-the state. Apparently some Repu honestly believe that any o which causes the state to or disperse a cent constit threat to the American way honestly believe that this- handling of money by the s is the first step to somes nightmarish socialistic tot ianism. The other reasoni these gentlemen appear 1 with hate of the governor. These gentlemen remain i er because they accurately: the opinion of the small o "downtown business men control the local Republic See CONSERVATIVES, Pa PERHAPS because few students really know why they are in col- lege, all too many have adopted a "know how" approach to edu- cation instead of "know why." Students with the "know how" at- titude seem to regard education as merely the stepping stone of technical training for future jobs. For this group, the education- al process is merely a specific means to a specific material end. Such an attitude can go much too e far. It denies the meaning of a flourishing intellectual communi- ty, for it allows it validity only as virtual a means to an end, and not for e state its own sake. ve only * * * attered THIS ATTITUDE is not only blicans confined to the student body. Per- e prac- haps influenced unduly by the student body it deals with, the administration also seems signi- lead of ficantly inclined to accept an edu- e, ap- cational philosophy' "devoted to. of both the tangible advantages of four n party years on campus. e non- In one of its publications, the ommit- University itself states, "More specifically the goal of the Uni- eceived versity may be described as the general development of persons who: blicans ,1) Are successful in profession- person al and business life; 2) Appreciate our cultural heri- blicans tage and use it to enrich -their ccasion lives and the lives of those around collect them; utes a 3) Combine healthy self-respect V. They and self-interest with responsi- - the bility for the welfare of the com- tate - munity, the nation and the sort of emerging world community; talitar- 4) Can get along with others is that and can get along with them- blinded selves,"- There is little in this statement n pow- which stresses the development of reflect the thinking, morally and ethical- utstate ly responsible individual -- the who type of individual most needed in an or- an intellectually healthy univer- age 5 sity, t V AS LEGISLATORS SEE IT: Income Tax Called Marxist Me asure (EDITOR'S NOTE: The following Is a statement sent this week to John Hannah, President of Michigan State University.) WE ARE most vehemently and unequivocably opposed to a system of taxation which will serve as an instrument for carry- ing out the Marxist concepts of a redistribution of the wealth, a leveling off process by which we will be converted into the socialis- tic state; a system of taxation which discourages and destroys the incentive of the individual to invest his capital in the truly American fashion of economic free enterprise as we have known it in the past and the thing which has made this the greatest and the most envied nation in the world. We refer specifically to the progressive income tax which Karl Marx advocated for destroying the hopes of improving them- selves in our cherished -"profit" system, and to provide employ- ment for their fellow men. WE BELIEVE 'that the theory of the income tax is un-American and violates the fundamental ten- ets of our Republic; that the most dangerous threat to our form of government is "internal," that governments nowadays obtain power over their own people, not by the sword, but by taxing away the earnings of their people and then doling it back to them, minus the bureaucratic brokerage. When state and national gov- errment together have discour- aged private industry the left- wingers will shout that govern- ment must do it. We can accept prgoressive in- rnP - in ,M,,hi-an nd asten amazed, and we very sincerely be- lieve, that it is appalling that a professor of Economics in a tax supported university would advo- cate the redistribution of income as Milton C. Taylor of the Michi- gan State University has done in his staff report to the Tax Study Committee of 1958, as follows: "The progres'sive income tax is an instrument for leveling inequali- ties in the distribution of wealth and income. The advantage of re- distribution of income is that it checks the tendency toward cu- mulative economic inequality, and so assures more nearly equal op- portunity." We are, indeed, shocked and chagrined and very much con- cerned to know whether or not the citizens of Michigan who are paying the taxes to support this Editorial Staff RICHARD TAUB, Editor :ICHAEL KRAFT Jo ditoriai Director DAVID TARR Associate Editor OHN WEICHER City Editor 4' LE CANTOR ................... Personnel Director AN WILLOUGHBY .... Associate Editoriai Director AN JONES ................... .. Sports Editor ATA JORGENSON.........Associate City Editor IZABETH ERSKINE ..s Associate Personnel Director COLEMAN......... Associate Sports Editor VID ARNOLD................Chief Photographer