Ee iMi$igan Dariy
Seveity-tiniie years' of editorill freedom
Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan
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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1969 NIGHT EDITOR: STUART GANNES
Nixon's fiscal program:
Prices up, employment down
PRESIDENT NIXON'S anti - inflation
program is getting results, but not the
results he expected. Employment ratios
seem to be the only things going down,
while prices continue to head skyward.
According to t h e Labor Department,
unemployment last month reached a lev-
el unknown since the Eisenhower admin-
istration, soaring to 4.0 per cent of the
civilian work force. And as usual, the rate
is n e a r 1 y double for nonwhites as for
whites - 6.8 as opposed to 3.6 per cent.
7HEN PRESIDENT NIXON announced
his anti-inflation program early this
year, economists agreed t h a t, however
valuable any such program might be in
and of itself, it could only work if it re-
duced employment, at the predictable ex-
pense of workers at the lower skill levels.
Nonetheless, Nixon and his advisers -
led by Paul McCracken, on leave from the
University's School of Business Adminis-
tration - chose to go ahead w it h the
plan, which by a combination of tight
money, high taxes and decreased govern-
ment spending in domestic areas was cal-
culated to reduce inflation by reducing
government a n d consumer spending.
This, it was hoped, would both lower con-
sumer restlessness over inflation and be-
gin to remedy our balance' of payments
problem without ever really attacking the
primary cause of both phenomena: the
Vietnam war.
BUT EVEN THOSE liberals who opposed
Nixon's fiscal program on the grounds
that it would increase unemployment at
least expected it to work to reduce infla-
tion. And though unemployment is now
at a higher level than it has been since
the pre-Vietnam fall of 1960, wartime in-
flationary pressures h a v e persisted -
despite token efforts at de-escalation.
Fiscal programs such as Nixon's can be
invaluable in checking undesirable eco-
nomic trends, particularly when they are
a result of the normal fluctuations of the
business cycle. But when such trends
have their roots in something as costly
and unnecessary as the Vietnam war,
mere fiscal measures - instituted at the
cost of the poorest members of society --
are hardly the best solution. T h e y are
hardly a solution at all.
-JENNY STILLER
Editorial Page Editor
The b
By LISA STEPHENS
THE DETROIT NEWS has be-
gun what it touts as "an ex-
periment inljournalism" -- The
Other Section --- a weekly supple-
ment referred to as an "above
ground underground" rag. A ma-
jor, mass circulation paper with a
heavy conservative bias is eating
crow.
The supplement is intended to
open a forum for the life-style
of "those under 35" and, if it is
indeed so, the News' editors may
not be aware of what they are get-
ting into. Or if they are. they
don't believe it anyway.
. In one sense. The Other Section
is broadly experimental.
One wonders if an Establish-
ment newspaper with strong ties
to the Detroit status quo can
really change its stripes?
Can it really exercise what it
designates as its own good news
judgment in pacifying its adver-
tisers or the business community
in the rest of the paper and then
turn around and let the voices
of revolution be heard? It seems
unlikely.
AND INDEED IT is indicative
of the News' intentions that the
impetus for the supplement did
not come from their editorial staff
but from their advertising agency.
W. B. Doner and Company.
It did not spring from an edit-
or's conviction that voices of dis-
sent must be heard, but from a
young copywriter's idea of "chang-
ing the News' image."
The new sales pitch is now "90
Turned-On Days." Presumably, if
circulation does not increase after
that period, another approach will
be tried, and The Other Section
may die.
One can always hope, however.
that the News will begin to believe
its own propaganda.
THE OTHER SECTION is high-
ly significant if only for the tacit
acknowledgement its publication
gives to the influence of the
"filthy little rags" hawked on
street corners by kids wtih long
hair. The voice of the underground
is becoming one to be reckoned
with, and the mass media is begin-
ning to realize that some of its
audience is tuning them out.
The Section's format is a slick
version of the Ann Arbor Argus or
the South End, containing much
of the style of both (even to coy
first-names-only in the staff box).
But it has little of the content
that fills the pages of an under-
ground.
THIS IS where the supplement
runs afoul of the dividing line be-
tween the true underground and
the "swinging scene" ethic adopted
by those who follow the herd.
The true underground is un-
dilutedly and unabashedly polit-
icalI.
The underground exists because
political and social heterodoxy
have no outlet in the Establish-
ment and because the ideologies
of the underground and the Old
Order are antithetical. The essence
of the radical movement is that it
works outside of. and in opposition
to, accepted structures.
In the case of the News, politics
and circulation drives promise to
make strange bed partners.
In any attempt to re-establish
some kind of credibility with the
underground, an Establishment
news paper faces, almost insur-
mountable odds.
There isn't really much middle
ground. Any hedging on the use
on Anglo-Saxon words or hesita-
tion to call down those in power
will be interpreted as co-option.
An absence of fist-shaking would
certainly deprive The Other Sec-
tion of the real guts necessary for
a successful underground paper.
Failure to tackle the political
issues squarely would relegate the
Other Section to the realm of the
'pseudo," the plastic, the "fash-
ionable." And the ignored.
THE SUPPLEMENT is present-
ly managed by regular News staff-
ers until an editor can be im-
astard son of the
Detroit News
Kerplunk!,
ported and a regular stable of
writers assembled. The question
of who really runs the Section
will be vital. It must have as much
autonomy as the classical stand-
ards of freedom of the press al-
low.
The News must swallow hard,
pray to the gods of free speech,
and give Tha Other Section its
own head.
This places the News' editors in
the admittedly difficult position of
financing and providing a ready-
made circulation for a publica-
tion that may turn right around
and screw their own nice n e a t
works. But hell, Wayne State's
been doing that for years w i t h
the South End, and it may yet
prove to be their most lasting con-
(Strange bed fell owrs
tribution to good old-fashioned
honesty.
Turning The Other Section
loose would provide a solid basis
for belief in the good intentions
of all those who usually mouth
slogans about the press as the
watchdogs of society against op-
pression,
BUT THERE IS one enormous
saving grave that makes The Oth-
er Section valuable: unlike the
true underground rags, it reaches
straight society. It goes to every
single house the subscribes to the
News. It touches people who
would never consider reading the
Fifth Estate and who wouldn't
know where to buy it if they did.
In this sense it may not be ter-
rible important that the supple-
ment does not appeal to the True
Believers. They have their o w ri
anyway.
The Other Section goes right to
the doors of "nice" middle class
people and corporate biggies at
whom protest is aimed.
And they won't tune it out be-
cause the News' reputation is be-
hind it. Such a thin thread of
communication is much too im-
portant to be totally discredited
or ignored by the radical left. It
is the point of a wedge, a means
of shoehorning people gently into
a scene they might otherwise find
repulsive or confusing. As such, it
should be approached by its crit-
ics with a scalpel rather than a
meat cleaver.
Meanwhile, let us hail the in-
fant's birth. We can be thankful
for small favors.
ANOTHER OPINION:
Failing grades on campus protest
'JAMES WECHSLER.
Socking it to
Dick now -not in
'72
LESS THAN A MONTH into the new
academic year, American campuses
are already the scene of another round of
violent confrontations. A guerrilla-style
raid by youths claiming to represent Stu-
dents for a Democratic Society has 'hit
the Center for International Affairs at
Harvard, leaving several people injured
and threatening that University's fragile
calm. At the University of Michigan,
state police cleared a building occupied
by angry students, and a long and ir-
rational student-administration dispute
seems well under way. More incidents are
bound to occur.
If any lesson can be drawn from the
campus unrest at this early stage, it is
not to generalize. The Harvard attack,
for example, would be the worst possible
focus for this season's choosing of sides.
It represents neither a new strategy on
the part of rebellious students, nor the
imposition of a general climate for fear
at American universities. Few among the
20 or so invaders of the Center for Inter-
national Affairs appear to have been stu-
dents at Harvard or any other university.
They were more nearly vandals than ser-
ious protesters. Their charge that librar-
ians, secretaries, and students at an aca-
demic research unit concentrating on
arms control and American trade with
Western Europe are "opposing the Viet-
namese people" cannot be taken serious-
ly. If anything, Harvard has been drawn
together rather than paralyzed by the
raid; students are joining in condemna-
tion of such guerrilla action,
IN ANN ARBOR, on the other hand, a
more significant conflict simmers - a
clear example of how little the opposing
parties may have learned from the recent
history of university protest. The issue
seems to be a legitimate local one - whe-
ther students should share control of the
University's first campus bookstore. The
students say they could assure discount
prices, but the Regents claim they would
abuse this power.
But no one has conducted himself in a
manner likely to bring an early and fair
resolution of the dispute. University of
Michigan administrators refused to en-
tertain more orderly student representa-
tions, bringing an escalation of protest.
Student leaders resorted to occupation,
the tactic most certain to bring in police
against them. Police reacted with a de-
gree of force uncalled for by the circum-
stances, adding another cause to the
demonstrations. More than 100 students
remain under arrest, and the 37,000 stu-
dents at one of the country's largest
campuses threaten to strike. Officials in-
sist they are the victims of a vicious .form
of extremist agitation.
(-OULD THIS REALLY be the best way
to solve a disagreemeit over a book-
store?
-THE WASHINGTON POST
Oct. 2
DAY AFTER day. in one public
place or another. there ap-
pears some agitated speculation
about the identity of the Demo-
cratic Presidential nominee in
November. 1972. But for many
young Americans--and especially
those drawn into political combat
in last year's ferment--a more
relevant question concerns the
condition of Present and prospec-
tive Democratic leadershp in this
September of 1969. Most of the
manifestations are uninspiring.
It was both fashionable and
plausible for a while to explain
Democratic silence and hesitation
in terms of the usual period of
grace and tolerance accorded any
new Administration. But eight
months have elapsed since the
Nixon inaugural and on a series
of fronts the Nixon regime is
p~lainly vulnerable to serious op-
position.
Despite many headline exercises,
it has brought peace no nearer in
Vietnam: it appears as entrapped
in the dead-end alliance with the
Thieu cabal as Lyndon Johnson
ever was.
WHILE NO calamitous domestic
eruptions occurred during the
summer, no new "togetherness"
can be discerned in the realm of
racial conflict.
On the economic front the so-
called war against inflation has
produced no decisive breakthrough,
but rather a deepening skepticism
-in the business community as
well as the modest home-about
the combination of prophecy and
prayer that recurrently emerges
from the Nixon economists.
Yet only in the ABM fight has
there been what could be described
as a coordinated offensive of lib-
eral Democrats (and their Repub-
lican allies). Nothing before or
after has revealed much animation
and most of the ABM battle oc-
curred before Ted Kennedy's mis-
adventure abruptly diminished his
role.
GEORGE McGOVERN and Wil-
liam Fulbright have continued to
speak out on Vietnam, with oc-
casional assistance from a few
others. There are scattered out-
cries against Thurmondism.
But the largest political mystery
surrounds the failure of the
Democratic opposition to articulate
the steady growth in national sup-
port for price-wage controls.
Last April Louis Harris reported
that "a majority of the public has
consistently favored a system of
wage and price controls" as an
anti-inflationary alternative to
higher taxes. In June the month-
ly letter of the Cleveland Central
National Bank said that "if by the
year-end t h e inflationary spiral
shows no signs of responding to
general monetary-fiscal restraint,
new approaches will have to be
considered and direct controls is
one method that has worked in
the past." -
word, comparable sentiments have
been increasingly expressed in re-
cent months. In July a Gallup poll
reported a 47.41 per cent vote in
favor of a price-wage freeze.
Yet the subject remains virtual-
ly muted in Congress.
FOR A LONG TIME such re-
ticence among Democrats was at-
tributed to their reluctance to
tangle with their longtime AFL-
CIO cohorts. But not long a g o
George Meany publicly abandoned
his resistance to controls, insist-
ing only that ctrbs on wages must
be equitably accompanied by equi-
table price-restrictions.
Clearly Meany's shift reflected
the deepening conviction among
many unionists that wage increas-
es embodied in their contracts
were illusory triumphs.
In the face of all these develop-
ments, it is hard to fathom why
progressive Democrats (with very
rare exceptions) are still treating
the subject as unmentionable.
John Kenneth Galbraith, whose
heresies, on Vietnam and other is-
sues, have been so often vindicat-
ed, is a lonely missionary among
the Democrats in pressing for ad-
vocacy of a selective wage-price
control program. He has warned
that the Administration's present
emphasis on t h e "tight money"
tactic will in all likelihood pro-
duce "a slowing down in output,
an incr.ease in unemployment -
and continuing inflation." Recent-
ly he wrote:
"This unemployment, needless
to say, will affect the poorest and
most vulnerable members of the
community and the socially most
tense sectors of the society. The
reduction in investment f aI11s
heavily on the households, small
merchants and whoever operates
on borrowed money . . . And ad-
ding to the general deprivation
will be continuing price increases,
reflecting continued large w a g e
increases . . . Price stabilization
cannot be expected until unem-
ployment is intolerably severe."
WHAT HE calls for is a machin-
ery of price-wage restraint "for
that sector of the economy where
there are strong unions and where
the enforcement of wage restraint
requires, as a matter of simple
equity, that t h e r e be price re-
straint."
He visualizes no vast bureau-
cracy to administer the program;
"there need only be a determina-
tion of the increase in wages, giv-
en the productivity gains, that is
consistent with stable prices" and
a system of sanctions against the
few unions and corporations that
defy these rulings.
The counselors who repeatedly
persuaded Mr. Johnson-and now
Mr. Nixon-to shrink from such
proposals have prevailed for too
long; too many men who lack ad-
vanced degrees in economics have
been intimidated by their gospel.
But Dr. Galbraith is not an ama-
teur - in economics or politics.
Democrats who would lead us in
1972 should be listening to him
now.
(c) New York Post
Isetters to the Editor
Iii
ISS5
were
numerous areas of the busi-
community where "controls"
long branded an obscene
The allegory of the Mets
r---"
LAST WEEK NEWSWEEK devoted its
cover story to the forgotten American,
the people who put Richard Nixon where
he is today. A few weeks prior to that
Time did the same thing by focusing on
the Mets, the Dick Nixons of the sports
world,
It all goes back to 1962 when the Mets
lost 120 games to set a record for the all
time low of baseball. A few weeks after
the end of that baseball season, Nixon
lost the race for the governorship of Cali-
fornia and hit a low point in politics
from which no one thought he could re-
cover.
-UT BY 1969, Nixon had made it to the
White House, and now the Mets are in
the World Series.
Furthermore,, the New Yorkers a r e
striking parallels to the men the Presi-
dent has gathered around him. They are
all grassroots Americans--the products of
small town life, much like Nixon's in
Wittier, Calif.
Take Jeprrv T'oscn.rmho~rn oi-f iini-dniy'c
Koosman from his b r o t h e r who was
serving in the army with the pitcher. The
natural sequence in these boy-wonder
times, when middle America outquali-
fies city sophistication, is for the whiz
kid to become the local Horatio Alger.
And Koosman did.
LIKEWISE, BURGER spent his youth in
rural Minnesota. His career, too, was
obscure until the President pulled him
out of the judicial bush leagues and
put him in charge of the nation's highest
court.
The remainder of the Mets came from
out of the way places just like Koosman.
Only one grew up in New York.
AS FOR THE NIXON CABINET a n d
other appointments, well, how many
had you heard of before last December?
How many had political Hall of F a m e
credentials. (Former automobile execu-
tives not eligible in this contest.)
So the Mets personify the spirit of
0R4AThN 4INT'rW~PT
r/ .
1w
y(' V t
Bookstore politics
To the Editor:
THOSE STUDENT government=
leaders involved in last week's
confrontations over the bookstore
issue are in danger of subverting
the righteous cause they have
championed since last spring.
The Regents and Administra-
tion have been accused of break-
ing off dialogue because they have
not capitulated to student de-
mands for control of the proposed
bookstore. But dialogue implies bi-
lateral communication and nego-
tiation involves reciprocal com-
promise.
Initially the bookstore issue was
billed as a test of whether the
Regents were concerned about the
exploitation of a monopoly situ-
ation by privately-owned book-
stores. Although reluctant to ad-
mit the validity of this charge.
the Regents did recognize the fi-
nancial "squeeze" being felt by
students. For instance, there was
ample precedent among the Uni-
versity and other Big Ten schools
for a tuition hike this fall. The
Regents elected to pare the budget
instead. One can infer that -tuds
agitation about ballooning f osts
was a factor influencing their de-
cision.
WHEN THE REGENTS reversed
their earlier stand and recognized
the legitimacy of student demands
for a non-profit bookstore, I had
expected the SGC to retain the
initiative by agi'eeing in principle
to the Regents' proposal while re-
serving the right to negotiate oil-
fernces over policies governing
bookstore operations. Instead there
was repudiation of the proposal
and an attempt to impute ulterior
motives to Administration officials
SGC LEADERS, however, have
opted for the puerile tactics of
categorical rejection and melo-
dramatic confrontation. They have
manufactured martyrs by forcing
President Fleming to bring police
onto the campus. And so the
struggle for control of the Univer-
sity--not for the establishment of
a bookstore----becomes the battle
cry of the "victimized" students.
Friday I heard some of those
students address mass meetings
on the Diag and in Regents Plaza.
They complain that their rights
are being infringed by the Re-
gents, the President. the police,
by almost anyone who is not cowed
by their extremist tactics. These
charges are being put to the test
of law, and rightly so. Meanwhile,
what about the rights of those
who do not want to see the Uni-
versity shut down?
I am a former college drop-out
determined now to finish my ed-
ucation as quickly as possible. The
University (not the cops) gave me
a number when I enrolled. I con-
tend this gives me the right to get
my money's worth from those who
have taken my tuition!
IT WOULD BE ironic and un-
fortunate if the bookstore were
buried by the reactionary rhetoric
and disruptive tactics of those
who claim to represent the van-
guard movement on campus.
-Bruce F. Currie
Sept. 29
Daily eye
To the Editors:
I FIND interesting the apparent
tendency of Daily reporters to
drastically underestimate the at-
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