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Seventy-eight years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan
jusit a song iin the wind
Oogle bot dinko wazzy
by juln -hieck
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.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1969
NIGHT EDITOR: MARTIN A. HIRSCHMAN
More politics and protest:
Filling legislative time
IF SEN. JOE McCARTHY were holding
hearings today, he'd feel right in his
element. The:rash of proposed investiga-
tions of campuses and harsh laws in
several states restricting demonstrators
would please any witch hunter.
Yesterday, California Gov. Ronald
Reagan proposed a national investiga-
tion of campus disorders to see if there
is "a nationwide plan or group behind
current outbreaks." Last week the re-
gents of the University of California vot-
ed to suspend for a quarter and cut off
financial aid to any student involved in
disturbances.
On Jan. 27 the Michigan State Senate
established an investigating committee
to look into "the possibility of criminal
conspiracy on university campuses." A
more sympathetic State House sub-com-
mittee is also looking into university
"problems."
The New York state legislature voted
recently to take away financial aid from
students involved in disruption.
Wisconsin Governor Warren Knowles
has asked for legislation that would
expel for a year any student found guilty
of participating in disorders and b a n
them from campus areas.
THESE ILL-CONCEIVED efforts, the
products of political expediency, pose
a serious threat to the academic freedom
of university students and professors and
the political freedom of all citizens.
We-all learned in grade school civics
that this country is a democracy. Demo-
cracy, we were told, is decision-making
by all the people, or their representatives.
If one group believes these decisions to
be faulty, it must have open access to
avenues for change.
Some suggest the appropriate avenue
for change is student participation in
politics. Yet many students, because of
age or the Ann Arbor city clerk, are not
permitted to vote. Working to elect candi-
Lot full
LEGISLATORS FIND Lansing a n i ce
' place to make laws, but they don't
enjoy parking there. So they spent more
than an hour in heated debate yesterday
trying to reconcile their parking problem.
Sen. Robert Vanderlaan (R-Grand
Rapids) touched off what has come to
be known as "The Great Parking Lot De-
bate." It was proposed that legislators
be given stick' cards to get into the capi-
tol parking lot. But Vanderlaan caused
a stir by saying electronic gates w o u 1d
bar the lot beginning Monday, and sena-
tors would need plastic cards to get in.
Roger Craig (D-Dearborn) would not
stand for it. Addressing his colleagues
as "Fellow Members of the Mickey Mouse
Club," Craig said "It's total nonsense-
running around with little cards sticking
them in slots."
dates is a slow, tedious process which,
as the McCarthy campaign illustrated,
can be very disillusioning.
Others suggest students should lobby
with university officials or legislators to
secure changes. Past experience, however,
indicates that this is often futile.
THUS STUDENTS are often in the posi-
tion of not being able to effect
changes in the universities or govern-
ment.,
In such an atmosphere, students found
massive demonstrations the most effec-
tive means to accelerate change.
The public, however, is apparently
bored with marches, sit-ins, and all the
other forms of peaceful protest. At the
present time nonviolent protest is often
not effective.
But a dissenting group must be able
to effect changes in a true demociacy.
Some of the concerned have turned to
civil disobedience and more violent pro-
test. In the tradition of the American re-
volution, Thoreau, and Ghandi they are
developing "a respect, not so much for
the law, but for the right."
Dissent is the lifeblood of democracy.
It corrects errors and keeps society from
becoming stagnant. The effect of these
investigations and laws, however, is to
discourage this means of dissent.
A student who faces the loss of a
scholarship will usually not participate
in a demonstration no matter what his
conscience tells him to do. A university
official who knows he will be investigated
will think twice before agreeing to any
student demands.
IT IS EASY TO see investigations ex-
tended to areas other than student
demonstrations. A number of competent
professors across the nation are already
said to have been fired and denied tenure
for political reasons.
These laws and investigations are de-
signed to politically constrain students
and faculty, a situation inconsistent with
free and democratic society.
Even more frightening is the spectre
of governors and legislators attempting
to dictate what is to be taught at uni-
versities.
While these laws and investigations
might not go this far, they create an
atmosphere of fear and mistrust that is
inconsistent with the idea of the univer-
sity as a community of scholars working
in an atmosphere of free inquiry and dis-
sent.
PUBLIC SERVANTS should turn to areas
other than educational institutions
for grand-stand plays. If politicians want
publicity, they should not engage in witch
hunts that threaten to constrain political
and academic rights.
--DAVE CHUDWIN
WHEN I WAS SIX days old I started
to learn a language.
Of course, I questioned-when I was five
days old-whether I should learn the lan-
guage.
I had gone through life fairly well with-
out having any language. They fed me
when I was hungry and put me to bed
when I was tired.
"Oody, gooody baby." They even talked
back to me.
But foresight got the better of me half-
way through my fifth day when one of
my uncles dropped me on my head and I
wanted to curse him and all that came out
was, "(}ogle bat dinko wazzy."
To which hereplied, "Shut up kid before
your mother gets back," which, of course, I
didn't understand.
SO WITH ONLY a tinge of reluctance
I decided to learn English.
I had a great time. Everything that was
said I listened to and it was not long before
I sort of understood what they were all
saying, without exactly knowing there were
such things as words or sentences or syn-
tax. I began to respond to my name and
sometimes even simple commands and
really began to feel like a part of the peo-
ple around me.
And then the day came. I looked up at
ma and said, "ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma"
trailing off at the end with a bit of solfe-
cetto drool.
She smiled, picked me up and I con-
gratulated myself for having achieved true
communication. I looked down at my dog
and snickered, having beat him in our
competitive task to communicate with the
big people.
AND I MUST NOW admit I don't regret
having set out upon the endeavor. I'm
sure-pretty sure-I could not have gone
to an institute of higher learning without
knowing how to talk.
But then the horrible day came some 16
years later.
"I think; Jim, you should really take
French."
Why, I don't know anybody who speaks
French.
"Someday you might, besides many col-
leges favor applicants who have had a for-
eign language."
But what good will it do me.
"Foresight, Jim, it takes foresight in
this world to get anywhere."
I don't need French.
"You don't know what you need, now.
You're right, you don't need French to go
farming in the summer or climbing moun-
tains or fishing-but someday, you might
need French in doing research on the La
Place transform as related to Camus' theme
in 'The Stranger'."
HOW COULD I argue against such im-
peccable logic? So I took French. What a
horrible experience. Our teacher was an
obese southern Baptist.
Besides that, she couldn't even speak the
language very well and I had a difficult
time understanding her when she spoke
English. It did remind me of my earlier
days, though. Once when asked, "Ou allez-
vous" I replied, "Oogle bot dinko wazzy"
and she said "bon" and went on.
But my high school days were days of
joy compared to those in college.
My raw carrots test said I would make
a good bio-chemist working with NASA on
exo-biology; as relates to life on other
planets from 1980 on.
"You need German to be a good scien-
tist."
I don't know any Germans.
"You might, -when you become a scien-
tist. Besides, it would be very difficult to
get into grad school without it."
But what good will it do me.
"Foresight, it takes foresight you know."
I don't need German.
"That's bit hasty. You're right, you don't
need German to go farming in the summer
or climbing mountains or make love-but
someday, you might need German for doing
research on exo-biology as relates to life on
other planets from 1980 on."
BUT I WAS older and wiser, then.
Hemingway, I told him, learned many
languages when he needed to just by living
with the people for a while.
"Ha, ho, oogle bot dinko wazzy," my
counselor replied and how could I argue
against such impeccable logic?
What a tragic experience. It was an eight
o'clock class two miles from where I lived
in a room without windows with a teaching
fellow who never heard of Hemingway. It
was dark, outside, too, so even the door
being opened didn't bring in much light
from the corridors. It was cold. And damp.
The course bored me.
I liked Herman Hesse and especially
Faust, but German filled me with ennui.
They made me dislike German, I think.
My friends say I disliked German because
I am a loving person who would have hated
Nazis, but I have a secret-I hate German
because everybody always told me how
lousy I was in it.
AND NOW I SPEND my time climbing
mountains and fishing and doing other
wonderful things and besides knowing how
to tie a slip-shot knot, I also know a little
French and German.
Monday the faculty is going to decide
whether they like meor not. I really have
my doubts. I don't see how such a corrupt
institutionalized place as this institution of
higher learning is can understand Heming-
way or fishing or many other wonderful
things and thus, no doubt, they will retain
the fact that you have to know German in
order to do research in exo-biology as it
relates to life on .
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Harris exp la in,'s ren-tt strike, position,
To the Editor:
PROF. SHAFTER'S "award-
winning" letter in yesterday's
Daily criticizing my "entertaining"
stand on the rent strike is an-
other illustration of how Balzhiser
and the Ann Arbor Republican
Party approach the real injustices
which have forced many students
to resort to the tactic of a rent
strike.
Prof. Shafter laughs, but the
fact of the matter is that many
students, are living in unsafe, un-
healthy apartments and paying
exhorbitant rent for the privilege.
over 675 multiple dwelling units
are currently being rented in Ann
Arbor, even though they lack cer-
tification by the Building and
Saftey Department. Rents for stu-
dent apartments are so high that
they prohibit many low-income
students from coming to the Uni-
versity at all.
The housing market is so tight
for students that many of ther
city's poor people are unable to
find any decent place in which
to live. Over 225 emergency hous-
ing cases are currently being pro-
cessed by the Human Relation's
Commission.
IF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY
sincerely wants to settle the rent
strike hand this must mean on
terms that would bring more jus-
tice to the rental market) it would
have come forward long ago in its
seemingly interminable period in
office with imaginative legislative
proposals that: (1) give govern-
ment recognition and government
protection to the right of tenants
to organize and to bargain col-
lectively; (2) make housing codes
truly enforceable; (3) increase the
supply of subsidized low-income
and moderate-income housing;
(4) reduce real property taxes;
(5) create a bus system that Nvill
permit more renters to live beyond
walking distance of the campus
and hospitals; (6) declare zertain
unfair, small-print clauses in resi-
dential leases to be against public
policy (thus helping tenants void
them in court); (7) authorize the
Housing Commission to serve, for
a small fee, as escrow agent to
hold damage deposits.
WHAT BALZHISER calls my
"unwillingness to get involved" in
the rent strike consists of a fiat
refusal to "endorse" the rent
strikers. I have felt and still feel
that a mayor and by extension a
candidate _for mayor should not
go into the endorsement business.
Labor relations history teaches
us that a fighting organization,
such as a labor union or a renants
union, owes its first allegiance to
those whom it represents in the
economic struggle-employes or
tenants. The organization's al-
legiance to the public 'nterest
comes second .There is nothing
disgraceful about this.
However, a mayor's first duly is
not to employes or to tenants, but
to justice. While justice and the
interest of tenants in this rent
strike may be similar, they .roie not
identical. For example, while a
rent strike committee may not find
it feasible to distinguish between
the landlord who is getting only
a reasonable return on investment
and one who charges unconscioi-
ably high rent, the representative
of the public interest should dis-
tinguish between them.
I THINK IT is hard for a mayor
to keep the interests of justice
distinct from the interests of a
particular band of embattled ten-
ants if he has earlier given a pub-
lic endorsement to that band.
Still I am told by some students
that extraordinary circumstances
are present here; that this strike
is like the grapepickers' strike,
that student tenants are the most
victimized people in Ann Arbor,
and that if I won't stake my can-
didacy in their cause, what more
important cause could I possibly
represent?
I have replied that I think there
are people worse off than students
-poor people without college ed-
ucation who lack the student's
option to turn his education into
social mobility and high income if
he so desires. If I am forced to on
ultimate choice in priorities a: any
point in my administration, I must
confess I would put the plight of
the poor above the plight of su-
dent tenants.
-Prof. Robert J. Harris
Law School
Democratic Candidate
for Mayor
Feb. 27
Bourgeois
To the Editor:
SOME DEFINE a bourgeois as a
honest man who loves his own
comfort.
Glancing through The Daily on
Sunday, my roommate and I were
appalled by Mary Radtke's article
attempting to exorcise personal
guilt feelings. It is most unfor-
tunate that a girl who appears
bright enough to discern some of
the issues involved in the rent
strike should come to such an
easy, flippant decision.
The choice between latching on
to the immediate, wombed security
of a "captivating" little apart-
ment filigreed with "light a n d
air" and supporting a real effort
to combat the filthy garbage bins
and papier-mache walls included
as bonuses in luxury-priced pre-
fabricated tenements infesting
Ann Arbor should be obvious. The
rental of the party of the first
part made in triplicate is' merely
a duplicate of the national apathy.
A need for immediate gratifica-
tion motivated Miss Radtke's rent-
al; by definition an emotional im-
petus precludes rational foresight.
The basis for her decision - the
dichotomy between principles and
practicality - is false. Both are
integral parts of real pragmatism;
the function of thought is to guide
action. Without ideals how is
pragmatic action possible?
Emotional selfishness not prac-
ticality over principle streaks her
roomy closet with "green and
gold."
-Daryl Deit
-Paula Smith
Feb. 17
I
Worthwhile education must include 'meaningful experie
nces'
(EDITOR'S NOTE: The author is
a graduate student in psychology and
Daily managing editor, 1963-64.)
By KEN WINTER
PROFESSORS Carl Cohen a n d
Theodore Newcomb have spelled
out arguments for faculty and stu-
dent power in recent Daily articles.
On grounds both of logic and my pre-
judices, I would award round one to
Prof. Newcomb.
Unfortunately, though, neither ar-
gument starts from (or even explic-
itly mentions at all) what I think are
the basic facts that make the issue
important.
Faculty a r e broadly speaking,
scholars. To the extent that the stu-
dent opens himself to their influence,
he is influenced to become a scholar:
"go on to graduate school" becomes
the o n Iy alternative which under-
graduate academic education really
prepares him for, in the sense of giv-
ing him skills, expectations, attitudes,
and habits which w i 1I be directly
useful.
THE FUNDAMENTAL 'catch, of
course, is that most students here to-
day are not going to become profes-
fact that the other alternatives the
student is likely to be aware of are
even less. appealing.
One result of this is simple pain,
the pain of having to devote consid-
erable time and energy to difficult
and pointless tasks. With all the suf-
fering in the w a r I d, perhaps the
thought of a middle-class kid sweat-
ing over his books won't melt many
hearts.
Nevertheless, what the student ends
up with is a big split inside himself.
his time and money, how to have good
sex, how to help others, how to ex-
perience beauty, how to eat, how to
love, how to fight . . . with s u c h
problems, he has been pretty much
on his own. In fact, worse than on
his own: he has been so busy with
the academic side of the split that he
hasn't had much time to try to piece
together the solutions on his own.
The observation I've just made is
a familiar one, but. I don't think the
usual suggestion (often from "stu-
".. the outcome is that great numbers of students
are spending much of their time and energy of the
best years of their lives in activities that are, on the
whole, irrelevant to either their present or their
future."
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lem. Demanding "relevance" of sch-
olars who want to be scholars will
yield, I think, only a watering-down
of scholarship on the one hand and
a lot of insincere, ill-considered prac-
tical advice on the other hand.
THERE IS A growing anti-intellec-
tualism among many young people:
"feeling" or "experience" or "action"
is where it's at, and the less thinking
and talking and reading the better.
It is pretty clear where the anti-in-
tellectualism comes from - w h e n
you've known your brain only as an
organ that jumps through hoops at
the command of some "educator," it
makes sense to think you'd be better
off without it. Thus our coercive ov-
eremphasis on purely intellectual
feats may turn back and destroy the
intellect itself. (Already, anti-intel-
lectualism is generally strongest
among the academically brightest
students.) But this would be a pyr-
rhic victory for the anti-intellectuals.
The powers of analysis, detachment,
clear thought and speech, and self-
criticism are as human - a n d as
necessary to getting things done -
tion centers could be established, or
students could just be given money
and set loose to learn from the world.
The best alternative, however, is a
more conservative one: start with the
university that exists, but open it up
as wide as possible.
Get people with as many different
life-styles, as many different skills,
as many different projects underway,
as possible. Don't bring them just to
stand in classrooms and blab, but ar-
range it so students can join up with
them in whatever way is most appro-
priate - preferably while they are
doing, not just talking about, what-
ever they do. Bring them to Ann Ar-
bor and/or enable students to go to
them. Build a giant computerized of-
fice in the middle of campus where
all the currently available opportun-
ities are filed and indexed and cross-
indexed, where students can go to
find out what is available. Get truck
drivers, doctors, ghetto blacks a n d
yellows and reds, grocery-story man-
agers, insurance salesmen, cops, vis-
ionaries, vagrants into that file.
WHETHER OR NOT you call any
get the reactions, criticisms and sug-
gestions of others.
In short, the idea is to lay out a
smorgasbord of resources for the stu-
dent and to make available some sta-
ble personal reference-points' which
will help him to organize the oppor-
tunities into an education that will
be useful to him. Questions of how
the student shall use which resources,
in which order, at what time, etc.
(the usual "curriculum" questions),
can be answered only at the level of
individual students or relatively
small groups of them. The questions
are absurd if you try to answer them
for great masses.
LET ME ADD that I do not pro-
pose this as an anti-scholar plan. In
fact, I propose it in behalf of sch-
olarship and other intellectual pur-
suits. as well as in behalf of all of the
kinds of education we are now miss-
ing. I am a scholar (part-time, at
-least); I want to be able to study and
do research and talk with scholars
and teach others to be scholars: I
do not want to waste my time cram-
ming scholarship down the throats
world they live in, they will f i n d
plenty of need 'for the knowledge and
methods of the academic disciplines.
FOR ME, one of the most exciting
prospects in what I'm proposing is
the prospect of discovering thousands
of ways in which scholars and people
whose focus isn't scholarly can co-
operate, to the benefit of both.
This kind of university, however
remote and hypothetical, represents
the direction in which the "student
power" movement is going.
Whenever students have gotten
meaningful power to do something
positive, this is the direction in which
they've chosen to go. And inasmuch
as the present faculty are scholars,
I suspect that only as students get -
or take - some "power," meaning
mainly autonomy from faculty con-
trol over their daily lives, are things
going to move in this direction. If
things don't move in this direction,
I'm not sure what direction they will
move. But most of the other possi-
bilities look grim, even compared to
the status quo: perhaps a dramatic
"breakdown" of the university sys-
4
On the one side is his academic learn-
ing, a glob of abstractions, symbols,
ideas, methods, etc., related mostly
to one another and scarcely to any-
thing else at all. He has the answers
to hundreds of questions that don't
dent power" advocates), that scholars
start teaching "relevant" things, is
much of a solution. Some of young
people's real-life problems have lit-
tle or no relation to any of the aca-
demic subjects, so obviously scholars