Page Two
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Tuesday, January 14, 1969
Pdge Twc, THE MiCHIGAN DAILY
Tuesda-fyI. - Janu-ary 14I ,. 1969
SAME '1829' SHOW:
Inauguration costs soar'
theatre
A fair quartet on sex
emu players ser
ies-
WASHINGTON (A) - The
bill for the Presidential inau-
guration of Richard M. Nixon
on Jan. 20 may run nearly
$400,000 and up to this point
the -sta'r. has had no say in the
largely automatic arrangements
for the nation's one hour of
pomp and pageantry.
It all started the month be-
fore the election with self-pro-
pelled plans that go into effect
every four years without any-
one doing much about it.
Work on Capitol Hill is very
nearly completed. A vast wood-
en platform 18 incies off the
ground and half again as large
as a football field has been built
in front of the Capitol and rows
of benches erected on it.
A false front has been built
over the main steps, with the
white-columned portico on
which Nixon will be sown in
and flanked by more seats for
important guests. A steel-girded;
six-tiered tower for television
and news cameramen faces it.
The construction will provide
seats for 18,300 people.
There has been little b a s i c
chRange in. the, construction of
the inaugural stands and seat-
ing areas for 40 years. It's just
bigger and more expensive . .the
ceremony itself has followed the.
same general course since An-
drew Jackson was sworn in in
1829, the first president to take
the oath on the east portico of
the Capitol. The capital was
New York City when G e o r g e
Washington began it all in 1789,
and he remains the only Presi-
dent who traveled to his inaug-
ural by barge, a very fance one,
built to carry him across the bay
from New, Jersey.4
Nearly every President has
contributed something to the
*Inaugural ceremony, although,
sometiMes the precedent-hunt-
ers have to look sharply to de-
termine what it is.
John Quincy Adams' contri-
bution was that he was the
first President to be sworn in
wearing trousers, rather than
the tight breeches of the era.
Jackson attracted the first big
crowd of spectators from all
parts of the country to his in-
auguration in 1829. He made.
them happy by walking with
them all the way from t h e
White House to the Capitol.
A crowd estimated at 20,000
pushed into the White House for
a reception after Jackson's in-
auguration, standing on the tab-
les and breaking large amounts
of china and glassware in an ef-
fort to share in the refreshments.
Jackson, besides starting the
practice of holding the inaugu-
ral ceremony on the Capitol's
east portico, was the first out-
going President to accompany
his' successor from the White
House to the Capitol for the
swearing-in.
The inauguration of James K.
Polk in 1845 was the first to
be covered by telegraph. Sam-
uel F. B. Morse himself perched
on the edge of the platform and
tapped out Polk's words.
The contractor who built the
platform for the Polk ceremony
turned in a bill for $164.17 for
the job. It included $76 for
carpentry, $8.70 for nails, $2.50
for hauling and $2.25 for iron
fastenings. The lumber was val-
ued at half-price - $74.42 -
because the contractor got to
keep it for re-use. That same
practice is still followed. By
1853, when Franklin Pierce was
inaugurated, the same contrac-
tor had run his bill up to $647,
and four years later it reached
$887 for James Buchanan's
swearing-in.
Pierce's inauguration was
marked by a protest demonstra-
tion worthy of today's m os t
audacious militants. As the us-
ual throng waited along Penn-
sylvania Avenue for the inat-
gural parade to pass, a band of
poor, unemployed men streamed
onto the avenue and began
marching.
A contemporary newspaper
account, describing them as
"dressed in rags and tatters,"
reported that spectators ran out
and drove them off the parade
route.
The first big security scare
arose at Abraham Lincoln's in-
auguration in 1861. The South
having seceded and the Civil
War imminent, an attack on the
new President was feared and
soldiers surrounded his carriage
so closely on "the way to the
Capitol few could see him.
Armed men watched from the
House and Senate wings as he
spoke.
There was another scare in
1877 when Rutherford B. Hayes
won his contested electoral vote
victory over Samuel-Tilden, the
Democratic candidate who had
gotten the most popular votes.
LSA faculty
halts meeting
(Continued from Page 1)
In November, the faculty re-
ceived petitions distributed by
Student Government Council and
the Radical Caucus, signed by
3,500 students demanding an end
to language and other distribution
requirements.
SGC President Michael Koeneke
said his organization was not able
to agree with the Radical Caucus
on tactics for yesterday's meet-
ing. "We didn't want any harden-
ing of positions. We decided that
closing down meetings would put
us behind."
Koeneke emphasized, however,
that SGC and the Radical Caucus
will continue to work together in
the campaign to abolish required
courses, the language requirement
in particular.
The college's executive commit-
tee will meet tomorrow and prob-
ably will decide then whether to
reschedule faculty discussion of
the degree requirements. The next
regular meeting of the faculty is
Feb. 3.
Several professors expressed
dissatisfaction with the meeting's
outcome. Prof. George Piranian
of the mathematics department
said, "We might hope that next
time'both sides could be more
diplomatic."
By MICHAEL ALLEN
Robert Anderson's You Know
I Can't Hear You When The
Water's Running is described in
the brochure as a quartet, but
the movements have little in
common. If you don't mind
being teased in this way then
you can have an enjoyable eve-
ning.
The first play is, farce and
there are some hilarious lines.
Rand Mitchell plays the part
of a playwright who feels it im-
perative that the public see a
naked man and his toothbrush
walk downstage, looking ridicu-
lus but humanly familiar: that
is, he feels it is his duty to give
people a "shock of recognition,"
a sense of the real. His producer
(Sherman Lloyd) argues against
the propriety of this, and so
they rehearse the offending
scene with an elderly actor des-
perately looking for a job and
willing to do anything (King
Donovan). The outcome is a
sustained series of ludicrous
lines and expressions, with Don-
ovan timing it well nigh per-
fectly each time. However, one
cannot take the conflict be-
tween playwright and producer
seriously, and the human body
is simply there to be laughed at
in a conventional' way.
The next play is farcical
(though it's not successful), on-
ly now it's about sex and I
suppose it's a little wiser. At
least we feel the middle aged
male, played by Donovan much
as he piayed the first part,
knows more about his marriage
than his silly partner (Imogene
Coca), who is bent on abandon-
ing the good old 54-inch double
bed of 20 years standing.
However, it's the third play
that goes the deepest and offsets
the others by plunging into the
darker sides of sex and the
jungle of feelings that sur-
rounds our responses to our own
bodies and to other peoples'. In
this play Donovan is forced by
his wife, again neatly played by
Miss Coca, to discuss first of
all his son's masturbating and
then, as the tension rises, his
daughter's virginity and, final-
ly, his own marriage. We are
being forced to realize that the
human body cannot be laughed
at beyond a certain point. More
than that, that is cannot be
talked about "rationally," as
his stupid wife insists on talk-
ing about it and its emotions.
Anderson plucks chords here
that find no corresponding echo
in other movements.
The last play is short, sharp,
and sweet, but is little more
than an amusing envoi, in which
a married couple in extreme old
age discuss themselves and their
other marriages all in a great
muddle.
Without the third movement,,
this play would have been a
lightweight affair; with it, it
becomes strangely ambiguous.
It makes us feel that laughing
doesn't go very deep at all, be-
lying in fact our response to the
surrounding material.
THE HOUSE
OF
BERNARDA ALBA
-a fiery drama of Spanish women
January 15-19
Quirk Auditorium
For Reservations Call 482-3453
(Weekdays, 12:45-4:30 p.m.)
AlI Seats Reserved at $1.75
IKTITAF
COME TO
Student BookService
and visit
PETE SHERMAN
SAND RE A
DON BREITER
I __ __I
PROFESSIONAL THEATRE PROGRAM
FINAL PERFORMANCE
TONIGHT!
WRITER-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM
presents
ERZY KOSINSKI
TODAY
*10 A.M.-Noon Office Hours-1631 Haven
t
I~
Hal .
4 P.M. Peter Lorre's "M"-Arch. Aud.
4:10 P.M. "The Writer and Collectivity: The
Soviet Dilemma "-Aud. D, Angell Hall
111
I
5:30 P.M. Dinner with Russian Center
8 P.M'. "Montage in Cinema & Modern Fiction
Ref. to Film "M"
Rackham Amphitheatre
* Call for personal or grou appointments-
764-7442
n
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JANUARY 25 TO FEBRUARY 8
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LADIES DAY
75c for Ladies until 6 P.M.
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