Seventy-Second Year EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS Where Opinions Ar FeeSTUDENT PUBLICATIONS BLDG. 0 ANN ARBOR, MICH. * Phone NO 2-3241 Truth Will Prevail" Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 1962 NIGHT EDITOR: GERALD STORCH e Poverty Continues in U.S. Despite General Affluence REVOLUTION'S 10TH YEAR: At Egypt's Anniversary Much Still Left Undone AMERICA'S DEVELOPMENT has made many affluent but has kept many poor. We have taxed the rich to redistribute the wealth a little, but we have failed a lot to reach the despondent. We clear slums and the slums reappear a few blocks away. We build housing projects but the housing projects do not change the ways of men. Poverty exists in the United States today. It persists among 25 percent of our people. According to Michael Harrington in his book, "The Other America," some 40,000,000 to 50,000,000 do not have means of eking out a proper level of subsistance. This is not new, but the familiar America, the America of the "affluent society" has be- come increasingly blind to this situation. Pov- erty has existed throughout our country's his- tory. We have had bad city slums and sunless, airless and ill-smelling tenement houses since the industrial revolution swept the country. The life of many Southern farmers is im- poverished today, but it has been impoverished since the Civil War. Many Negroes live under cruel conditions today, but they lived under crueler conditions when the institution of slavery blighted half our land. Hoboes live "in the gutters" today, but America's great composer, Steven Foster, spent his entire life in the gutters., THIS DOES NOT MEAN that the problem does not need solving; this is even greater reason for the problem to be solved. Previously we hadn't the means to solve it; today, for the first time in our history, we have the means. It is vital that we use the means, for if we cannot help those among us who are in sad shape, how can we expect to help the other 94 per cent of the world, most of whom are in worse shape? A complication arises because aspiration is lacking among the poor of America. As Michael Harrington notes, "If a group has internal vitality it may live in dilapidated housing, it may eat an inadequate diet, and it may suffer poverty, but it is not impoverished. But the new poverty is constructed so as to destroy aspiration: it is a system designed to be impervious to hope. The other America does not contain the adventurous seeking a new life and land These are the people who are immune to progress." It is difficult to help people when they are addicted to the status quo, 'even though the status quo is too far below the American norm to be bearable. But it is necessary for us to help the unfortunate who are unable to help them- selves. The able, because they are the able, have the moral obligation to aid the unable by setting their sights on a better way of life and giving them the means to achieve it. WHO ARE these poor? They are the captives of the economic underworld, the Negro ghettos, the ghettos of the'aged and the mi- grant labor camps. The economic underworld consists of the abscure millions who work at below-subsistence wages. It consists of the 16,000,000 workers not covered by the Minimum-Wage Law of 1961. It consists of many laundry workers, dishwashers and others who receive less than $50 a week in salary. It consists of workers at the mercy of tight or unscrupulous em- ployers and crooked unions and racketeers. The Negro ghettos are found in cities where liberal rhetoric is a prime prerequisite for election to public office. These ghettos consist of Negroes who get the dirtiest, the lowest, the worst paying jobs; who are hired last and fired first; the miscasts of a harsh system that punishes most, those who deserve punishment least. THE GHETTOS of the aged are centers of the deterioration of life. The economy rejects these aged from useful service when they reach the age of 65 while science prolongs their life span. These ghettos are made up of persons denied access to a healthy and active life by a nation that venerates youthfulness. They are made up by persons with no challenge co meet except the challenges of sickness and death and the lack of funds and strength. They are made up of persons forced to become, at best, dependent on their children and, at worst, dependent on government welfare with its slap to dignity. The migrant labor camps did not disappear with the passing behind of the 1930s and the dissappearance of John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" from the best seller lists. These camps consist of persons who work ten hours a day in hot fields for fifty cents an hour, who go for days with little food when work oppor- tunities are few. These camps are spontaneous settlings of wanderers with no future beyond the future that lies within a few days' walk. Poverty in America is politically invisible; there are few if any Congressmen and Senators who say they speak for the poor-indeed, their campaigns are financed to a great extent by the rich. Poverty also is physically invisible to the many who live in the suburbs and good T HE THREE-FOURTHS soothe their con- sciences with the housing projects that spring up where broken-down slums once stood, not realizing that these are little more than a veneer covering the old unsanitary habits that persist. The housing projects often do little more than segmentize poverty, and fre- quently more people are dislocated than are accommodated. The emotional torment of poverty is extreme. Contrary to what may be popular belief, the poor, rather than the middle classes or the upper classes, are subject to more mental illness than any other group. Statistics indicate that there is three times as much mental illness at the bottom of society than at the top. Those of the middle and upper class realize mental Illness for what it is, and see the need and have the ability to treat it, but for the lowest classes, mental illness is often an indistinguishable part of their way of life. Poverty is not a product of mental illness as many people believe; mental illness is greatly a product of poverty, of the grinding, dirty life of the unfortunate. Contrary to what may be another popular belief, the poor get less out of welfare capital- ism than the other groups. This is because the poor are often politically alienated and for- gotten and because the red tape of bureau- cracy presents difficult barriers. Here are people who are unorganized and without po- litical power; here are people too timid to work through pressure groups and incapable to work through the politicalparty system. Legislators have to depend in part on the pressure groups that can deliver them votes. Further, not niany lawmakers get letters from those who are in greatest need of federal as- sistance but unable to articulate this need because of a limited educational background resulting from their whole way of life. THESE ARE the problems. Basic to all of them is the complacency of most of those who have, and the limitations of most of those who do not have. There is this impediment: affluent America likes affluence and seldom is concerned about poverty; impoverished America sees little opportunity of betterment and has but feeble hopes at best. Harrington suggests that in order to destroy this pes- simism and fatalism that flourishes in the other America, real opportunities should be offered to these people, and the social reality that gives rise to their sense of hopelessness has to be changed. This can be done if our attack on poverty is comprehensive; we cannot overlook any sectors, and they should all be looked at in total perspective. It is good to keep all of the problems in mind while working on any one of them, for they are inter-related. Meeting these problems requires creative solutions. EVERY AMERICAN should be brought under the coverage of social security, and the payments should be adequate to support a dignified old age. A satisfactory minimum wage should be extended to all. Comprehensive medical aid should be avail- able to all the needy. Congress should recon- sider and pass President Kennedy's medical care to the aged bill as a starter. Civil rights should be granted all Americans. Congress should pass strong legisation in this field, since political rights are a component of the elimination of poverty. Negroes who are prevented from voting are prevented even more from achieving legislative remedies for their poverty. Americans should promote private welfare work more. They can give a little more, for example, to the humane work of their churches in home as well as foreign missions. They can also encourage their church leaders to promote home missions more. Our leaders ought to eliminate partisan poli- tics from the matter of a cabinet Department of Urban Affairs and institute this department as quickly as possible. SYSTEMATIC LIGHT EMPLOYMENT should be provided persons over 65 years of age. If possible, the age of retirement should be extended universally to 70, with the provision that a persons can retire up to five years sooner if he wants to, at no loss in amount of retirement payments. Perhaps there should be no standard retirement age at all. Congress could establish a Youth Corps that might be patterned after the highly success- ful Peace Corps. Cities could build halfway houses for the poor instead of huge, impersonal housing pro- jects-houses that could blend in with better community life, that could cushion the shock of transition, and that could provide the ex- ample and leadership of social workers and neighbors. We can also seek to implement retraining programs and to advance the sociological study of poverty. And we could provide the unemploy- .A .., +I-, fA, , r.xur. nnm a wn rka_ z..- FULL FADOM FIVE-The Stratford Festival is presenting its 10th annual season, with George Mc- Cowan directing "The Tempest." Desmond Heeley designed the Festival's production. Alfonso is played by Max Helpmann (front, left) and Gonzalo by William Needles (front, right). 'The Tem p est' Poses Difficulties QTRATFORD,.Ont.-An intellec- tual drama in which the actual conflict takes place within the mind of one man, a man who, through magic powers, controls an island, its inhabitants and its visitors, "The Tempest" is perhaps the most difficult to stage of all the Shakespeare plays. But it is also Shakespeare's last comedy, containing some of his finest writ- ing, and the challenge it presents to an acting company must be strong indeed. The Stratford Festival has taken up the challenge this year, pre- senting "The Tempest" as its third production of the season. And the difficulties of the Stratford stag- ing begin with the very short first scene. Where Shakespeare ' presents members of a ship's crew whose efforts to fight a sudden, severe storm are hindered by the comings and goings of a group of nobles, the Stratford setting reveals at once the entire company of the ship rocked and buffeted by storm and sea. * * * THE PEOPLE are too many and their costumes too interesting; for all the turbulence of the scene, it is difficult to follow what is said and to find the individuals who speak. While the result in both versions is chaos, that of the Stratford production is merely bewildering. Other problems in this staging of "The Tempest" are more dif- ficult to single out. The fourth act masque seems less than enchanted, and its Christmas tree decor is unfortunate. Little else is done for the play in the way of settings, which is the usual, quite successful procedure at Stratford. This play, however, is not so well suited to LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Defends Court Decision the bare Elizabethan stage as are most of the histories and tra- gedies, and the great burden of making the drama convincing falls entirely on the actors. Fortunately, the Stratford play- ers are well up to the task. Once past the first brief scene, they give a performance that brings out the beauty and meaning of virtually every line. * * * WILLIAM HUTT distinguishes the very demanding and appar- ently exhausting role of Prospero with a performancethat vibrates with the battle of vengeance and virtue for the old man's mind. The final triumph of the latter is the most moving moment of the play, occurring early in Act V in the moment of silence that is Pros-, pero's first reaction to Ariel's "were I human"~ remark. Bruno Gerussi captures the del- icate shadings of the spirit Ariel in a role that really wants a boy or a man of smaller build. Gerussi is further handicapped with a fish-like costume that would make a merman were he human and which, while appropriate perhaps to the island setting, seems hardly suitable to Shakespeare's Ariel. * * * AMONG OTHERS in the cast, Martha Henry (Miranda) and Peter Donat (Ferdinand) are at- tractive and sympathetic lovers. John Colicos achieves well the mixture of repulsiveness and pa- thos that is Caliban's lot. But Norman Welsh and Hugh Webster, as Stephano and Trin- culo, while effective, somehow fail to realize the full potential of their comic roles. Their scenes with Caliban are less merry than they might be. Here also Desmond Hee- ley's costumes, good as they are, do not achieve the real excellence and appropriateness that one has come to expect in the Stratford productions. George McCowan directed "The Tempest," and if his efforts have brought mixed results, it shold be remembered that the play is after all more a literary than a dramatic work. -Vernon Nahrgang By SARABETH RICHMAN Daily Staff Writer COLONIAL powers have a habit of leaving political vacuums' behind them whenever they de- part. This was also the case in Egypt although their departure from the country they had occu- pied off and on from the late 1800's was not complete until they were forcibly evicted. Approximately ten years ago, a "Committee of Free Officers," a secret group formed in 1947, over- threw the British-supported mon- archy of King Farouk and forced him into exile. A Revolutionary Command Coucil of eleven young officers assumed authority and the world heralded the coming of a new order to Egypt. This military junta, headed by Major - General Mohammed Na- guib, announced certain goals, both internal and external. Their main concern was achieving inde- pendence through a removal of foreign control and replacing the monarchy and its surrounding social system. * * * NAGUIB, who was soon to be re- placed by Gamal Abdul Nasser, and his followers enacted sweep- ing government reforms so 'that today not a vestige of the old political order remains. But, the new order is not what the Free World envisioned. Instead, the revolutionaries systematically set about to wipe out all political op- position ,so that now there is only one official party, which supports Nasser. An .opposition is officially unknown and the elections, with only one slate of candidates, are a farce. The evolution from Farouk to Nasser has not changed the ex- tent of political freedom. If any- thfng, there is less now then there was before. The Communists, the Moslem Brotherhood, and the So- cialists all disappeared during the three years in which the revolu- tionary council had foreseen that a "healthy democratic and consti- tutional regime" would be formed. Another of the proposal goals was the revival of the economy and the advancement of the so- ciety through reform and growth. Most of Nasser's reforms have been frustrated. Take, for example, the, Liberation Province in the western part of the Nile Delta. This exper- iment in irrigation and land rec- laniation was doomed from the start. Technical and agricultural training in Egypt was so poor that they did not know how to handle a project of this sort. * * * THEN, OF COURSE, there is the Grand High Dam at Aswan, which involved Egypt in world politics. Even when this magnificent proj- ect is completed, the condition of the farmers and peasants will be no better than it was in 1952 with- out the Dam, because the popula- tion explosion has reached such great heights in Egypt that the number of mouths to be fed will still be greater than the agricul- tural output, even with the bene- fit of improved irrigation. Nasser's goals for Egypt on the world scene have met almost the same fate as his internal plans. The hate campaign against Israel cost Egypt a big price both at home and among her Arab neigh- bors. Nasser blamed the 1948 Is- raeli victory on the policies of King Farouk. There was no one whom he could use for a scape- goat in 1956. The Egyptian military prepar- edness which had cost the coun- try much in terms of money, align- ment with the Communists, and neglect of domestic reforms, was useless. For, after Israeli forces successfully invaded the Sinai pen- insula to eliminate guerrilla bases, and made off with 5,000 Egyptian prisoners, there was not much Nasser could say, except to blame the Israeli victory on the British and French intervention which re- sulted from his nationalization of the Suez Canal. a * x AS FOR HER relationship with the Arab world, the unsuccessful United Arab Republic put an end to the grand Egyptian dream of a pan-Arab Middle East with Nas- ser at the top. There is nothing left today of theUnited Arab Re- public except the name and the long memory of the Syrians who got the worse end of the deal. In her dealings in the world arena, Egypt has managed to an- tagonize both the East and the West by trying to play one off aganist the other. Nasser has insisted on cleaning house and eliminating the Com- munist party in Egypt. At the same time he wants Russian aid without Russian influence. His by-play with the Commu- nist powers has made him sus- pect in the eyes of the West and they alternately try to bring him around by ignoring his demands or trying to buy him out by "one- upping" the Russians. Either way it is a long, narrow and dangerous tight-rope that Col. Nasser is try- ing to walk. If he falls, so will Egypt. * * *. THIS IS EGYPT ten years later. The names have changed but the situation remains the same. Their wished-for democracy is still an unknown word and the peasant is as hungry as he was before. De- spite ten years of threats of driv- ing her "into the sea" Israel still exists. There is no United Arab Republic or even a unified Arab world. Nasser is being threatened on all sides-by the West, the East, and competition from other Arab leaders. The name Nasser means many things to many people, the West cannot always sanction his actions but they are forced to respect the fact that he has his country's best interests at heart. At least the benefits of his regime, what bene- fits there are, are not intended for his pocket. Russia and the United States have come to understand that Nasser won't "play ball ex- clusively for any team and have learned to accept his brand of neutralism. TO THE ARABS, especially the Egyptians, Nasser has become a symbol of anti-coonialism and "do-it-yourself." He has given the Arab people a chance to regain their pride after many years of being a "white man's burden." His attempts at Arab unification have been in the interests of resurrect- in ga once-powerful Arab nation. His quarred with Israel is under- standable in light of the British mandate policy in the Middle East and Palestine being the "twice- promised" land. In the final analysis, these last ten years have seen the beginning of a new way of life, not only for the Egyptians, but for all the for- mer colonial subjects. To the Editor: I DO WISH that Michael Harrah would clear his editorials with some one who has taken a course in logic, or at least "thinking straight." It is painful to read his continual diatribes which border on slander such as calling the ma- jority of the State Supreme Court "four stooges" of the Big-Labor Democrat coalition. These four men have been electedtbya ma- jority of Michigan's voters and their action is entirely in line with the precepts handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court (dominated by Southern Democrats and Eisen- hower Republicans) and the ac- tions of other State and Federal courts in the past six months. Most of these are conservative and far from pro-labor. But they do read the laws. On page 1 of the same Daily in which Harrah's hapless harang- uing occurs, I read that the Ver- mont Supreme Court has just giv- en the same ax to the Vermont State Senate and called off the present system. Will Harrah now harass these rock-ribbed Big-Yan- kee-Small-Farmer "stooges?" , * " MR. HARRAH's miniscule knowl- edge leads him to confuse the fact that what he would have to change to keep the courts from protecting the rights of the citizens to fair representation in state legislatures is the United States Constitution, not the State Consitution. He also. ignores he fact that the governor and the state executive controls the, operation of the state's ma- chinery, not the Legislature. He also conveniently ignores the fact that the reason we have this problem is that the fossils dom- inating the State Senate, by their unwillingness to do anything of a constructive nature in the past ten years, have brought us to this state of affairs. Furthermore, most states of the United States, from the time of their entry into the Union until now have provided for equality of representation in their legislatures. Michigan did until 1952 when the present crew of seat holders devised a plan to hold back the facts of life and preserve their political lives. IF BIG-LABOR Democrats were scared stiff of losing big this year to the compact governor and his horse-and-buggy Senate mates, then holding an election at large would be the best way of ensuring complete oblivion. I think the shoe is on someone else's foot, and find- ing it pinching, Mr. Harrah is emulating Khrushchev's t a b 1 e trouble? Let's just abolish the court system and let the State Senate run all legal problems. And while we're at it, let's get rid of the governor's office, too. The most senior senator could fill that func- tion just prior to retirement. Or, better still, why not just expell Wayne County from the State of Michigan? -Harold L. Orbach Institute for Human Adjustment Prayer Case .. . To the Editor: MR. HARRAH'S editorial "Let's Pray for a Referendum" pre- sents an idea which is very dan- gerousalbeit simple. Contrary to Mr. Harrah's belief I feel it is not constitutional for it misunder- stands the whole concept of a written Constitution incorporating a Bill of Rights. Mr. Harrah has proposed that we have a nationwide referendum to find out whether or not the citizens agree with the school prayer decision of the Supreme Court. In effect he is saying that the people can do away with the First Amendment if they so desire. That if a majority favored it they could force the New York Times to cease publication because they disliked its editorials, or the Mich- igan Daily because they disliked Mr. Harrah's. In the first place we must realize that the meaning of any part of the Constitution is open to inter- pretation. This was realized at its writing, and hence the Supreme Court assumed the power. Like it or not, it is they who have the authority and we as citizens must abide by their rulings. Anything else would lead to anarchy. * * * SECOND we must realize that the writers of thehConstitution considered some rights so sacred that they wanted to make sure that they were not taken away either because the government dis- likes a certain situation or because 50 per cent of the people plus one dislike it. These rights are con- tained in the first ten amendments to the Constitution. I fear that Mr. Harrah failed to read the ma- jority opinion in the case where Justice Black said, "Our founders were . .. (not) . . . willing to let the content of their prayers and their privilege of praying when- ever they pleased be influenced by the ballot box ..." In any case the Supreme Court has made its interpretation. They have decided that the school pray- "You Think We'll Ever Get Together?" 'L