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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1969
NIGHT EDITOR: DANIEL ZWERDLING
County welfare
A year later, no better
I S
I"
/ /
--
"Face-Saving Device"
IN WASHINGTON
LAST YEAR'S confrontations forced the
state of Michigan and Washtenaw
County to realize that funds would have
to be allotted this fall to provide school
clothing for the children of welfare reci-
pients.
Accordingly, the state of Michigan
authorized the magnificent sum of $11
per child, and the generous county threw
in another $16.50.
You can't outfit a growing child for
$27.50, not when he needs a warm coat,
and new shoes, and replacements for all
the other clothing he has worn out or
outgrown.
The patient welfare mothers of Wash-
tenaw County for the past few months
have exhausted every official channel
available in their attempts to win an in-
creased clothing allotment. They have
met representatives from the county and
the state, and the answer has been the
same: There is no available money.
Gov. William Milliken has refused to
allot more funds to the state's Welfare
mothers, even after more than 100 moth-
ers were arrested in a series of demon-
strations in Detroit. Encouraged by an
opinion from State Atty. Gen. F r a n k
Kelley that the state could apply emer-
gency funds, the Wayne County mothers
have resumed demonstrations. But Milli-
ken shows no signs of yielding.
THE DETROIT MOTHERS realized
Wayne County's overburdened welfare
system has no extra money to give them,
and they have looked to the state, where
Milliken is eagerly anticipating a sur-
plus next year. The situation appears to
be even simpler in Washtenaw County.
Reliable sources indicate the county
has $124,000 in unearmarked funds, even
though the board of supervisors insists
the county can't spare any more money
llat il t i r's1 atics .
Fascist tactics ??
for welfare. The mothers are asking for
an additional $46 per child, which would
bring their total allotment to $73.50 -
roughly the same amount they won last
year after a series of confrontations and
300 arrests.
Last September, the state and county
finally conceded the $70 was a reasonable
allowance. But they did not make any
real attempt to provide for this fall, and
the county has rejected the mothers'
proposal that monthly allowances based
on 1961 living costs be increased 25 per
cent.
Yesterday the mothers realized that it
is no longer possible for them to win the
money they need through conventional
channels. The supervisors have refused to
meet with them directly, and representa-
tives of the mothers were not invited to a
closed meeting this morning between sup-
ervisors and state welfare officials, and
the Social Services Board.
But the mothers will be outside to de-
mand that the supervisors open the meet-
ing and begin meaningful negotiations
with their representatives. They have
asked for the strong student support
which last year enabled them to win $70
per child from the gruding state and
county. The mothers have already at-
tracted some support from a group of
middle-class mothers, but they need stu-
dents to help them teach Washtenaw
County the lesson it did not learn well
enough last September.
STUDENT DEMONSTRATIONS do not
often produce such tangible results
as did the welfare sit-in last year. The
mothers have asked for our help again,
and we must be there this morning at
the County Bldg. to provide it.
--THE MANAGING EDITORS
The
last great cause
Fleming tells it like it is
ARGUMENTS over -the bookstore issue in
the past week have centered over the
issue of control - should t h e students
manage their bookstore, or should that be
left to Vice President and Chief Financial
Officer Wilbur Pierpont?
Students have charged that an admin-
istration member would n o t be whole-
heartedly dedicated to the concept of a
discount bookstore. Administration-plan
proponents have argued that only a pro-
fessional manager can run it efficiently
at all.
For providing the needed information
to the community to resolve this sticky
point, the University community m u s t
wholeheartedly thank none other t h a n
President Robben Fleming, whose "Re-
port to the University Community" re-
leased Sunday confirms an important
fact:
Bookstores not controlled by students
do not operate in the interest of students.
FLEMING'S report came in form of pub-
lished results of a "Student Book Store
Study," a University-run survey of s i x
bookstores at in-state universities a n d
five Big Ten bookstores out of the state.
The report speaks for itself.
In every case, the bookstore w a s op-
erated by a manager whose final respon-
sibility was to the administration rather
than to the students. In six of the ten
schools, students were not allowed even
an advisory role. In no'case did students
have any authority other than advisory
capacity.
What was the result of shutting o u t
student control?
Only two of the 11 stores surveyed gave
students any discount (5 per cent and
four per cent) while 8 of the 11 stores
gave discounts to faculty members, rang-
ing from 10 per cent to 15 per cent.
In addition, every s t o r e operated to
make a profit - as high as $75,000 per
year at Michigan State University's book-
store.
ONLY TWO of the stores gave students
a discount (5 per c e n t and 10 per
cent) on prices of new textbooks. The cost
to these bookstores for texts is 80 per cent
of list price; 9 of the 11 stores sell the
books to students for the entire list cost.
These facts dramatically demonstrate
the basis for student disapproval of the
Regent's proposal to have our bookstore
operated by Pierpont. Only a truly stu-
dent-controlled bookstore will ever keep
the interests of the students at h e a r t.
Again, thanks to President Fleming for
having the courage to tell us the truth.
--JIM NEUBACHER
By WALTER SHAPIRO
Daily Washington Correspondent
CESAR CHAVEZ came to Washington last Sunday
and momentarily succeeded in recreating that
liberal-student coalition of those who really care.
Gone were the divisions between those who have
battled the War and those who supported it too
loudly and longly. Forgotten was the gulf between
those who cleave to the Panthers and those who
still respect Roy Wilkins. Ignored were the tortured
discussions over the limits of permissable dissent.
Sunday night's rally in support of the grape
boycott was almost a period piece. From a middle-
aged folk singer to the inimitable Fannie Lou
Homer, the dominant mood was 1964.
CHAVEZ, MAKING his first Washington visit
since 1967, is scheduled to make the rounds of Con-
gressional hearings, starting with Sen. Walter F.
Mondale's Migrant Labor Subcommittee.
Mondale (D-Minn), a key aide to Hubert Hum-
phrey last year, praised the grape boycott as "a
revolution against powerlessness." Conveniently
forgotten was Mondale's complicity in suppressing
last year's "revolution against powerlessness" with -
in the Democratic party.
When Rep. James G. O'Hara of Michigan, an-
other liberal whose humanitarian credentials are
somewhat suspect, told the rally, "I have come
for the purpose of expressing my solidarity with
the grape boycott," it was almost as if he were
doing penance.
Mondale bitterly attacked the paternalism of
the vineyard owners-which he likened to the
welfare system, the Bureau of Indian Aftairs and
the Selective Service System.
FOR MANY, however, the grape boycott repre-
sents a subtle form of paternalism. In a way. the
grape boycott fills the void caused by the advent
of black separatism and the traumatic death of
the civil rights movement.
Mondale accidentaly suggested this need to aid
the downtrodden when he said, "Tonight we can
LetterTs to
Correction in the picture ha
with the student
To the Editor: level-the buildi
YOUR EDITION of October 1 is our house an
carries the picture of a group near the LSA bu
of people with raised fists next We feel it is ve
to a story about the student take- the people knox'
over of the University's LSA since it has bee
building. It's very important that the Ann Arbor i
a correction be made concerning to implicate usi
this picture since it is of a group ing among the
of the White Panthers/Translove tl1(' student acti
Commune and friends. we have had no
Absolutely none of the people any of them.
join the picket line not only for Cesar Chavez, but cxi
for ourselves."e
ct
Attacking the Immigration Department's lag- en
Wi
gard efforts to prevent the importation of "strike-
breakers" from Mexico, Mondale said the flow ve
could be halted if "they tried half as hard to block oth
illegal strikebreakers as they do for marijuana."
Several speakers contended that the Defense tio
Department is taking up the slack caused by the not
grape boycott by increasing its purchases of Cali-
fornia grapes by 50 per cent. Despite the urgent wel
tones of those who made this charge, it is difficult wh
to place these grape purchases high on the Penta-
gon's catalogue of sins.
lib
CHAVEZ APPARENTLY recognized this, since but
he began by saying, "We know the grape boycott de
is important, but we're not the number one issue." an
He later stressed his support for the October 15 sto
Moratorium against the Vietnam War. stit
Toward the end of his speech Chavez reminded
the respectable Washington liberals who comprised sue
about half the audience of "those who came to us ver
long before it was fashionable- the students." Ai
One wished the Mondales and the O'Hlaras had
also been told that SDS had discovered the grape
pickers long before the cause became almost the
personal property of the Kennedy liberals.
Although he spoke in the limited context of the
farm workers, there was something strangely dated
when Chavez said "a union means progress." Set
against the construction unions in Pittsburgh and
Chicago, Chavez's remark reminds us what a
glorious anachronism the grape boycott is.
NONE 01 TIlS SHOULD be interpreted as
criticism of Chavez or the cause which he repre-
sents. The backward economic conditions in the
fields force him to fight the economic battles of
the 1930's anew.
It is a rare luxu'ry these days for liberals
to oppose an evil they did not have a role in
creating. For. the rest of us, relish the grape boy-
cott. Some day all the easy dragons will be gone.
ihe Editor
un~f
Off
anything to do I'm sure the Michigan Daily ho
takeover on any has had no intentions of doing this
g in the picture and that the printing of the pic- so
is not anywhere ture was a mistake of neghgence.
ing. I hope this letter is a sufficient An
important that correction.
this m i s t a k e All power to the people! Re
the practice of Life to the life culture! lea
xws in particular Death to the death culture!
the past as be- -Genie Plamondon
adership of all Communications boo
s-and for sure Secretary the
ing to do with White Panther Party
EDITOR'S NOTE: The pic- ver
ture of the members of the
White Panther party was print- a s
ed in error. The Daily regrets rat
this mistake.) ap]
Strike cre
To the Editor: by
the
IN VIEW of the reprehensible
failure of Michigan students to re- me
act en masse to the ringing words ing
of The Daily editors, it has now legi
become painfully clear that eith-
er (1 few people read the editor- lev
ial page in The Daily, or worse by
yet. 2> few people take the edi- as1
torials on this page seriously. The
students of this university are ob- oft
viously unenlightened as to t he
revolutionary import of such an sez
oPe
issue as a student-run bookstore. sid
ERHAPS the greatest irony of the current crisis over control of the
planned University bookstore is the criticism, often acrimonious,
ich professors have levelled against the tactics employed by student
nonstrators.
A few hours before the arrests in the LSA Bldg. early Friday morn-
I spoke to one professor, an expert in German history, who blasted
students for their "fascist" tactics and for "playing into the hands"
'law and order" politicians like Richard Nixoi and Douglas Harvey.
Yesterday, another faculty member I spoke to expressed a similar
w. And President Fleming himself, in his State of the University
iress Monday. also made the allusion to Nazi Germany.
I WOULD offer a different analogy.
In August 1831, Nat Turner led some 70 slaves who rose up in
ted rebelhion in Southhampton County, Virginia, killing about 80
ites.
"To justify the killings," wmrites historian Kenneth Stampp, "mem-
s of Turner's band declared that they had had enough of punish-
nt, or that they now intended to be as rich as their masters."
Students at this University - at least those that have participated
demonstrations over the past. .
k - feel that their disenfran-
sememt in decision - making,
cifically over control of t h e
>kstore, constitutes political
secution.
nd they now intend to be as
rerful as their masters.
)f course, the. same people who
npare the demonstration in the
A Bldg,,to tactics used by the
zis in 1930 Germany will scoff
the comparison to the Nat
rner rebellion.
ut it is certainly more absurd
compare Marty McLaughlin to
olph Hitler.
dmittedly, Robben Fleming is
slave master and students are
bondmen. But neither w a s
e LSA Bldg. demonstration a
rderous insurrection. In fact, A fascist??
vas hardly even a disruption.
IN ESSENCE, the demonstration was an act of civil disobedience
ough the use of a familiar and widely accepted tactic - the sit-in.
The description "building seizure" which has been used to describe
event, is highly misleading. Only for short periods was entry to or
t from the building blocked, except to police. The list of people who
ered the building during the sit-in is quite impressive: LSA Dean
Iliam Hays, Vice President for Academic Affairs Allan Smith, Uni-
sity Security Officer Rolland Gainsley, Fleming himself and many
ers who were hardly participating in the "seizure."
What is striking about the comparison between the LSA Bldg. ac-
ix and the welfare sit-ins in the County Bldg. a year ago, then, is
tthe differences, but rather the similarities.
But there was no great outrage over student participation in the
fare demonstrations, no apparent liberal opposition to the tactics
ich were employed.
TIlS WIDE disparity, it seems, can be explained in only one way:
erals are apposed not to the tactics employed in the LSA Bldg. action,
rather - consciously or subconsciously - to the politics of the
nonstrators. Behind the liberal rhetoric about the "facist left" is
apparently deep-seated feeling that the controversy over the book-
xre - unlike civil rights and welfare protests - is trivial and con-
utes an unwarranted attack on the University.
But this is precisely the point. Students do not agree that the is-
of control of the bookstore is trivial or that the attack on the Un-
sity is uncalled for. Certainly, in any case, this has nothing to do
h the legitimacy of the tactics they employed.
Another point related to the "facism" question concerns Fleming's
statement Monday about student
leaders who are "authoritarian,
anti-intellectual a n d masters of
the 'big lie'."
Frankly, I can't think of any
'big lies' that were expressed at
any of the recent tallies. Admit-
tedly, many students have mis-
conceptions about the bookstore.
Some do not even know that the
Regents have agreed to any kind
of bookstore, while others mis-
takenly beIie ve the bookstore
should receive a University sub-
sidy --not realizing this would
only increase their tuition. B u t
none of the so-called "authoritar-
ian" leaders of t h e demonstra-
[Wttions have expressed either of
these views.
I can only guess at what Flem-
iA f(SCis P ??ing is referring to. Perhaps he be-
lieves that some speakers h a v e
fairly criticized the fitness of Vice President and Chief Financial
ficer Wilbur Pierpont to run the bookstore. Surely this is not a lie,
xever, but rather a matter of opinion.
And that opinion. held by many students, certainly has at least
ne foundation: Pierpont has been a long-standing opponent of the
ation of a University bookstore and his close personal ties to the
n Arbor business and finance community are well known. That the
gents would put such a man at the helm of the bookstore ceitainly
Ives their good faith open to serious scrutiny.
TIE SMIPLE FACT is that students do not have to lie about the
okstore - even if they want to - because the Regents have given
in so many interesting realities to harp on.
In all fairness, any search for "big lies" should begin with the Uni-
sity administration. which has used them so adeptly.
A prominent example is the administration's claim last July that
pecial one-time $1.75 tuition assessment as proposed by SGC and
eiied in a student referendum would lead directly to a cut in state
)x'opriations.
Fleming argued at the time that the Legislature, seeing the in-
ase in total tuition revenues, would cut next year's appropriation
a corresponding amount. The argument sounded plausible and gave
Regents a good excuse to kill the bookstore entirely.
But a quick check with a few legislative appropriations committee
rmbers revealed that Fleming simply did not know what he was talk-
about and had made no effort to check out his assumption. The
islators flatly denied his theory as untrue.
And in an amazing reversal the Regents have now agreed to a
of up to $5 per student for the bookstore-an assessment which.
Fleming's own theory, would cost the University almost three times
much in legislative appropriations as the levy proposed by SGC.
As for coercion, one need only look at the decision-making structure
the University to discover who is coercing whom.
For example, while students were allegedly illegally trespassing.
ing and creating a contention in the LSA Bldg. (with the doors wide
n), Fleming, the vice president and city officials were, on the other
e of Regents Plaza, conferring behind closed doors, in a locked
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