br, AlditgatnBatty Seventy-Second Year EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS "Where OpininsAre re STUDENT PUBLICATIONS BLDG. * ANN ARBOl, MICH. * Phone NO 2-3241 Truth Will Prevaill Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. OSA IN TRANSITION: 'I The Genesis of Conflict )AY, AUGUST 14, 1962 NIGHT EDITOR: CYNTHIA NEU Smith Act Lessens American Liberty T HE UNITED STATES has been burdened with the Smith Act for 22 years. This act makes it unlawful for any person to advocate, advise or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any ' government in the United States by force or violence, or to organize for this purpose. In passing this act Congress made a law abridging freedom of speech; in retaining the law, Congress continues this abridgement. But the First Amendment's mandate says "Con- gress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ... "The philosophy of the First Amendment," Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas writes in "The Right of the People," "is that man must have full freedom to search the world and the universe for the answers to the puzzles of life." This means that the channels of communi- cation should be broad and unrestricted and that freedom to express opinion should be as nearly absolute as we can make it. THIS Is WHAT democracy really means-not only the enfranchisement of all the citizenry; not only, the attempt to achieve equality of oppportunity and the 'greatest hap- piness for the greatest number"; and not only the constant perfecting of the machinery of representative government; but also and vi- tally, liberty so pure that no blemish shall exist. With this as our working ideal of democracy, we need be so tolerant that we permit the expression of not merely the opinions with which we agree, but, even more so, those with which we disagree, and disagree most strongly. Freedom shall then be complete, because it will include, even the freedom to try to destroy freedom. When we ascend to this height of tolerance, we will be. as Thomas Jefferson's "high minded men who "know their rights; and knowing, dare maintain." And it will be then that our rights will be safe, because we will be safe- guarding the rights of all our fellow men. John Stuart Mill has shown that the neces- sity of the fullest expression of opinion may be based on these three grounds: F T, the silenced opinion may be wholly true, in which case its suppression is wholly unjustified. Second, the silenced opinion may be partly true and partly false, as most opinions tend to be, in which case "it is only by the col- lision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied." Third, even if the silenced opinion be wholly erroneous, it should not be suppressed, because its very challenge of truth prevents the latter from degenerating into dogma and prejudice. This "collision with error" provides "the clearer Panic AMERICA SHOULD NOT panic at the latest Russian space success. In the past the United States has gone into hysterics after Soviet space feats and the results have not always been beneficial. Sputnik awakened the United States to the strength of Soviet technology, but the resul- tant demand for more science has put a crimp in the humanities that is still unerased. Rather the American people should realize that the space triumphs are hollow, based on the slavery and hardship of the Soviet people. America can point to real successes-freedom, prosperity and opportunity. -P. SUTIN preception and livelier impression of truth." It would seem, then, that it does more harm than good to suppress Communists who ad- vocate the overthrow of the United States government. Furthermore, we can be assured of the validity of our opinion that the United States government should be retained only if we permit this opinion to be disputed-by Communists or anyone else. Not to permit our opinion to be disputed is to make the assumption that we are infal- lible. PERMITTING COMMUNISTS to advocate the overthrow of the government has an- other benefit. Justice Douglas has adroitly pointed it out: "Tht airing of ideas releases pressures which otherwise might become destructive . . . Free and full discussion keeps a society from be- coming stagnant and unprepared for the stresses and strains that work to tear all civilizations apart." By imprisoning persons for the expression of hated ideas, we make martyrs out of them. As a result, for some people, the ideas become less distasteful, because the plight of their sponsors evokes sympathy. Christianity, a hated idea nineteen centuries ago, survived and be- came stronger as Imperial Rome put Chris- tians to the lions. In America, states passed laws making it a crime to teach Darwin's theory of evolution, thereby focusing attention on the theory. Would Communism prosper in a completely free America? It has not in Great Britain. In the elections of 1945, the Communists won two seats out of 640 in the House of Commons; in the election of 1950, they were unable to elect a single candidate, and they repeated this failure in 1951, 1955 and 1959. During these years, Communist voting strength has ranged from 0.41 per cent in 1945 to 0.21 per cent in 1959. Communist voting strength has also de- creased since 1946 in Austria (from 5.4 per cent to 3 per cent), Belgium (12.7 to 1.9), Denmark (12.5 to 1.1), France (28.6 to 18.9), Westj Germany (8.4 to 2.2), the Netherlands (10.6 to 2.4) and Norway (11.9 to 3.0). THE COMMUNISTS idea of revolution has not caught on in these countries. Why would America, which is a vehement opponent of Communism, embrace the idea of overthrow? On the contrary, the Communist Party has never been more than a small group in this country. As Justice Hugo Black has said, Communist Party membership had been dwin- dling even before the Government began its campaign to destroy the party by force of law. "This was because a vast majority of the American people were against the party's policies and overwhemingly rejected its can- didates year after year. "That is the true American way of securing this nation against dangerous ideas . . AMERICANS should put forward more "dan- gerous" ideas, with confidence in the com- mon sense of the people to sift the good from the bad. The resevoir of opinion should be unlimited, with the judgement of an educated populace as the guide. The Smith Act is an insult to this judgement and is an affront to the ability of the people to determine a pru- dent and enlightened course. Revoking the Smith Act will allow Jeffer- son's "high-minded men" who "know their rights" to "dare maintain" them all the more. American democracy will become more dy- namic. American freedom will become less imperfect. -ROBERT SELWA By GERALD STORCH Daily Staff Writer THE OSA WAR is cooling off. The two-year skirmish, some- times fought openly and bloodily, other times marked by sneaky, dirty, petty politics, was halted two weeks ago by a sort of truce: the new structure for the Office of Student Affairs. Perhaps the feud between Vice- President for Student Affairs James A. Lewis, and the students and faculty members out to "get" his as well as clean up his office, is over for good, as both parties turn to other matters; more likely, it will continue to smoulder and occasionally erupt, due to in- adequacies of the new structure and the continued presence of the mutually-unfriendly personal- ity cults involved. VIEWED FROM a purely ab- stract level, or by individuals dis- interested in the whole affair, the OSA debacle was a farce, with both sides acting in a ridiculous and childish manner. Many inhabitants of this cam- pus had more than a little troubleunderstanding why stu- dents should be meddling with administrators' business. Also the factors which turn disagreements into feuds-clashes of personality, grudges, little things - usually seem inexplicable to persons re- moved from the scene, while they are all the more serious to those intensely involved. The apparent absurdity of the whole affair, plus the remoteness and complexity of the relevant issues and points of contention, probably can account for the vast majority of students shunning and ignoring the struggle, as well as the smirking by most of the fac- ulty members towards the few professors involved. * * * MANY OF the administrators, too, were unconcerned, although some might have had nagging wor- ries that their departments could be the next target for the student- faculty madmen. But despite the almost total snubbing by the University com- munity of direct involvement in the OSA battles, it is well to un- derstand the issues and personal- ities of the war. It is importantif only for the fact that several highly intelligent students, highly- respected faculty men and high- level administrators thought that proposed reforms for the OSA did merit serious and intensive con- sideration. Since the debate was as much a clash of peronalities as it was a dialogue of issues, the in-groups must first be understood. * * * THE ADMINISTRATION: James A. Lewis, in his 50's, a man with an extremely difficult job, but who had hardly distinguished himself in his vice-presidency since being appointed in 1953; Known for his "non-directional" administrative approach, in which there are no or few written limits placed on subordinate or student conduct, until University author- ities would step in and lay down the law, sometimes in an arbitrary and ex-post-facto manner; Also known, or so the word fil- tering out of the SAB would say, for his far too lenient rein over OSA personnel, a weakness which cost heavily when excesses were committed, and which resulted in a bewildering hodgepodge of cen- ters of authority within the office; Also rumored, but never sub- stantiated, that Lewis was origin- ally hried and kept on as the "heavy" or "front man" for Uni- versity President Harlan Hatcher, who would thus be shielded from parental or student-faculty wrath towards the OSA policies the Pres- ident wanted to carry out. * * * THE FACULTY members: The University Senate Student Rela- tions Committee (SRC), and es- pecially Associate Dean Charles F. Lehman of the education school; a group of action-oriented, out- spoken and deeply concerned fac- ulty men, whose excellent aca- demic reputation afford them con- siderable influence when wading into campus politics; The committee, supposedly exist- ing to "advise" Lewis on OSA policy, but often chose to work against as well as with him; People fed up with the evils of the OSA, and the harm thereby generated upon the educational goals of the University. THE STUDENTS: Mostly Daily editors and staff writers, who with access to information avail- able to few other students, were appalled by some of the G OSA policies, especially in the dean of women's office, who also were disturbed by excessive paternalism and over-stringent regulations over students, and by vague feelings that Lewis was plotting to harm The Daily; either by indirect cen- sorship or by action from the Board in Control of Student Pub- lications, on which he sits; Joined by other leaders of the "student movement," namely stu- dents from the Human Relations began to emerge in the spring of 1961, when the 1960-61 Daily senior editors and three members of the HRB (which usually works to combat racial discrimination in private housing) compiled a dos- sier of malpractices in the dean of women's offices. There were a dozen or so cases of women being bullied (many were actively discouraged from as- sociating with men of a different race or culture) or receiving harsh, insensitive counseling (particularly on sexual problems, where help is usually needed the most). The Daily editors had gathered these cases through various contacts and verified their accuracy, mak- ing sure the names of individual women would not be used if they would be hurt as a result. The dossier was sent to the SRC -without anything being publish- ed-so that the group, chaired by Dean Lehman, could study the evidence and bring pressures to bear for the end of these mal- practices. THE COMMITTEE considered the charges, which were indeed both sensational and serious, and consulted with OSA officials (in- cluding Dean of Women Deborah Bacon) and President Hatcher on the matter. On May 30, 1961, the SRC re- leased its sharply critical recom- mendations to the vice-president. The Lehman report (also called the Bacon report) asked a seven- point student affairs shakeup: 1) That "the general educational responsibility of the University rest ultimately with the faculty ... (it) must assume leadership in the face of a world in flux, by provision of the widest possible opportunity for intercultural ex- change;" 2) Sweeping structural changes In the OSA, along with a less- than-subtle hint that the vice- president "must furnish leadership to the entire office;" 3) A positive program for the elimination of racial discrimina- tion. 4) A clear deliniation of the relationships of the OSA to other University units; 5) A "thorough review" of stu- dent housing arrangements; 6) Several "reassignments of present personnel" within the OSA; and 7) The establishment of an or- derly grievance mechanism for students. THIS WAS indeed a very strong statement. Unfortunately, t h e committee released only a sum- mary of its report, refusing for tactical reasons to make public the rest (which included all its evidence and the most convincing testimony). There was also some question of whether Lewis or the committee had the authority to release the full document. The Daily editors, angry that the SRC went only half-way, were sorely tempted to go ahead and print the complete Bacon report. But, dissuaded by fears of libel suits and of offending the com- mittee (which probably contains most of the best faculty friends of the newspaper), the editors held off, and retreated to con- sider the next action as they scat- tered throughout the country for the summer vacation. With Ann Arbor mostly barren of disgrunteled editors, Lewis then took the next step: the appoint- ment in July of a faculty com- mittee to study the structure of the OSA and make suggestions for revisions. * * * HOWEVER, he carefully stack- ed the committee-chaired by Prof. John W. Reed of the Law School -with faculty moderates, and was planning to keep students com- pletely off the committee until, after being grilled by the Regents, he promised to include one or two students in the fall. September rolled around, and Student Government Council after some effort managed to get four of its representatives on the 11- member Reed committee. The stu- dents, of whom it can probably be said were of ahmore "liberal" per- suasion than the faculty members, joined the committee as it began six months of hard work in eval- uating the OSA, as well as the general philosophies that should underpin University life. Just as the group (Lewis also sat in) was commencing its de- liberations, however, the campus was shocked by the resignation of Dean Bacon at the September 30 Regents meeting. STATEMENTS by Lewis and President Hatcher said that Miss Bacon had resigned due to the increasing volume of her work and her desire to return to English teaching. The rumors which always cir- culate after a startling change has been made indicated otherwise. The best one said that the reluc- tant President and vice-president, with Regental prodding, finally asked for her resignation when the SRC started its work. The speculation seems more MANY of the campus elements hailed the dean's resignation as solid evidence of student power, especially that of the press. Power of a more impressive sort, how- ever, came from an opposing view- point, as the OSA in subsequent weeks received more than 500 let- ters from rich, influential alumni, protesting Miss Bacon's "resigna- tion" and the "radical" students who brought it off. It is impossible to measure the countervailing effects these forces had on the Reed Committee. But it seems that, with help, the alum- ni's moderating influence won out. Between September and Feb- ruary-when the Reed Report was completed-the Detroit Free Press printed a slanted news article, making the student liberals look like fools and the "normal" stu- dents and Lewis like defenders of morality and righteousness. Also during this period came the famed "women-in-the-quads" motion by Inter-Quadrangle Coun- cil. When this proposed liberaliza- tion of women's visiting hours and regulations in the quads was slap- ped down by the Residence Halls Board ofbGovernors, it became confused by the general public with the overall issue of student freedom vs. student regulation. BOTH ACTIONS intensified the status-quo pressures upon the committee. But the clincher came the night before the Reed Report was released. At that time, several Regents and top administrators met privately with the committee, urging it to tone down its report. They really needn't have bother- ed; the document was a model of innocuity and flaccidness. Admit- tedly, the committee was faced with a real snarl to untangle. For during the years the OSA had become succeedingly more confusing in structure. Under the Bacon regime, the dean of wo- men's office was run like an army; on the other side, with Dean of Men Walter B. Rea, things were a lot more informal and decen- tralized. Worse yet, communication be- tween the two wings was con- spicuous chiefly by its absence; each deanship seemed to work in complete independence of the other, and couldn't care less about it. As a result, overlapping and muddling of authority became the rule; it was nigh-impossible to determine to what degree which administrator was responsible for what policy. And the Regents By- laws made absolutely no provision for the vice-president's powers and responsibilities. * * * THE DIFFICULTY of its task, however, did not excuse the gen- eral inadequacy of the Reed Re- port. The first section of the docu- ment dealt with philosophy of administration, and was fine. Every administrative action, the committee said, must be directed towards the education aim of this University: the maximum intellectual growth of which he is capable and to en- able him through resultant devel- opment of character and abilities to make maximum contribution to his society." S * * * . IN ORDER to achieve this goal, a "troika arrangement" of ad- ministration, faculty and students must be components pulling to- wards the same objective. Stu- dents, the Reed group continued, 'must be active participants in the whole process, . . because opportunities for participation are indispensable for individual edu- cational growth." Unfortunately, the committee chose to contradict much of its philosophy in the second part of the report: an administrative structure for the Office of Student Affairs. The chief brainstorm was for dean and associate dean of stu- dents. But the deans were to be of opposite sexes, and much of the powers an administrative dean normally enjoys were to be strip- ped away by the establishment of functional directorships for hous- ing and discipline. * * * THIS SETUP was proposed to accommodate "the particular in- terests and needs of both men and women," although the com- mittee never got around to speci- fying exactly what and how these needs differ. The Reed Report was thus sub- mitted to Vice-President Lewis. He also received proposals for OSA revision from SGC, and recom- mendations for other more de- tailed areas from a myriad of faculty, student and alumni groups. Lewis was to synthesize all these ideas into one giant, final recommendation for a new struc- ture. * * * NOW ENTERS that nebulous group known as the Regents, the final authority on any OSA changes. At their May meeting, the body considered-heatedly in private, smilingly in public-the final recommendations from Lewis. But the Regents took formal ac- tion only on the Reed Report's philosophy of administration (complete endorsement) transfer- ring the admissions and registra- tion and records offices to anoth- er vice-presidency and setting up the directorship of housing. They then left the remaining revisions of the OSA structure completely up to the Hatcher-Lewis duo. However, the Regents did make sure in private session that they knew what was going to happen with the main parts of the OSA structure, as they scotched any thoughts of instituting thedean- associate dean of students frame- work. Apparently this arrange- ment grated on the organized, sys- tematic minds of the Regents, bus- inessmen all, and was thought to contradict the philosophy of ad- ministration. BUT BEFORE and during tht times Regents and the general pub- lic were asserting themselves, the other relevant groups were not si- lent. The SRC kept up its behind- the-scenes pressures on Lewis, while The Daily throughout the year ran a 10-part editorial series focusing on personnel and struc- tural changes needed in the OSA. The open and secret clashes of all these interests finally culminat- ed two weeks ago when the of- fice's new structure was announc- ed by its vice-president. TOMORROW-The new OSA. "I Love My Wife, But, Oh You Kid!" -r r i iM 1 i I ....r... h;? I/III z' r Lk , r a " ' - 5 r ,,.,% - " . l' I , (IM ..,t Kennedy's Domestic Problem iy"" - - -- _ . sr .'ate. _._ . THE RECENT DEFEAT of the administra- tion's Medical Care for the Aged Bill marks the most serious injury to the legislative pro- gram of Kennedy's "New Frontier." The question being pondered at the White House is the reason why the administration has only managed to persuade congress to pass 20 of the 285 bills the President has endorsed. It has killed his precious Farm Bill; his plea for a withholding tax on income from divi- dends, as well as his hopes for a Department of Urban Affairs. If it is necessary for the President to bully Editorial Staff FRED RUSSELL KRAMER .................. Co-Editor PETER STEINBERGER.....................Co-Editor AL JONES ..............................Sports Editor CYNTHIA NEU.........................Night Editor GERALD STORCH ...................... Night Editor PHIlIJP SUTIN.........................Night Editor Congress with a two to one majority in the Senate, and nearly a five to three majority in the House, there is definitely something wrong. It is general knowledge that the foreign affairs policies of any president are dictated by the arms race, Russian whim, nationalism in Africa, and the crying needs of the underde- veloped nations. But there is no record of any President who in domestic affairs seems to have lost control of his own majority party in Congress over domestic affairs. FR EXAMPLE, his favorite legislative de- mand, Medicare, was voted down by one third of his party. These anti-Administration Democrats which he has termed a "handful" are in fact 21 Democrats, all Southerners ex- cept one. When Kennedy asks for even more Demo- crats in the next Congress, that he is really asking is that the South send him men that will support his policies. However, this is in fact wishful thinking for all the South has left these days is its veto power. So we can be sure that they will send back same men time and again in order to keep control of the Cnnarinno1 ommittee by the fact that theyu LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Whom Does Soblen Embarrass? To the Editor: SAO THE SOBLEN AFFAIR is 'very embarrassing to the United States," and this has a heartbreaking effect on Mr. Man- sour Hassan. Indeed, one views with contemp- tuous admiration the way Arabs "feel sorry" for a great nation especially when anything can be done in the way of severing its ties of friendship with Israel.' "Down with American Imperial- ism" cried the Egyptians when Mr. Dulles refused to finance the Aswan dam. But today how could Israel, the country that "owes so much" to its American benefactor, dare di- verge from the latter's opinoin? Don't these Zionists have any gratitude? Of course, the Arab students on this campus disregard the millions in foreign aid granted the other hopes to make its re- cipients see that democracy is wealthier politically and econom- ically than a forced dictatorship, Israel is a democracy in the very sense of the. word. It may disagree with the U.S. on Soblen; but when it comes to broader is- sues the two governments are united by the very democratic principles which both have happily chosen. -Henry J. Shrem, '62 gist. . To the Editor: THE LETTER on the Soblen af- fair published in The Daily on Saturday characterizes an unfor- tunate propensity on the part of a number of contributors to this column to use every possible in- cident as grist for their anti- SPECIFICALLY the "dual- al- legiance" charge against American Jewry the writer attempts to base on the Soblen case lacks persua- sion. As was revealed by Israel's Minister of the Interior, Moshe Shapiro, the great haste shown by theĀ° Ben Gurion government in expelling Soblen was largely a result of pressure from American Jewish leaders. It was the un- seemly haste of the expulsion (in which for example Soblen's law- yers were not fully informed of what was happening), as well as a natural resentment against the too-ready capitulation to outside pressures, which provoked the sharp reaction by the left-wing parties in the Knesset and in the general public as well. While the give-and-take of par- liamentary government may be sometimes difficult to understand for man in the ear East. it may