Seventy-Sixth Year
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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.
RSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23,1965 NIGHT EDITOR: LEONARD PRATT
Proposed SGC Housing Action
DPT
Deservyes Passage Tornht
TONIGHT, BOB BODKIN will present a
motion to Student Government Coun-
cil authorizing the formation by Council
of a University of Michigan Off-Campus
Housing Union. His motion shows a good
deal of foresight, and should be passed
by SGC. -
As proposed; the "union" would con-
sist of a two-part executive, an executive
board and three subcommittees. The
board, to be composed of two representa-
tives appointed by SGC and two appoint-
ed by Graduate Student Council, will be
responsible for setting. union policy and
appointing subcommittee chairmen.
First on the list of those subcommit-
tees will be a rent and leasing committee,
to study proposals for eight-month leases.
A second committee will be responsible
for representing the union to the Uni-
versity administration, with the last sub-
committee being responsible for working
within Ann Arbor proper to improve
building codes and to organize a housing
lobby among voting graduate students.
The thoughtful division of, responsi-
bility which this sort of organization, cre-
ates gives such a union some very im-
portant advantages.
ONE OF THESE advantages- is that it
will greatly widen the potential for,
effective mass support of the housing
movement. It has certainly been obvious
that- a key factor -in the hesitancy of
many persons to join the movement has
been their reluctance to associate them-
selves with the liberal organizations back-
ing it.
For these people, SGC sponsorship of,
a housing union cannot help but illus-
trate the fact that you don't have to be a
liberal, in any of that word's many senses,
to want better housing for students. SGC
sponsorship will thus have a legitimizing
effect on the movement, enabling it to
gain members who would otherwise have
been repulsed by its earlier political im-
plications..
To this same end, the union's executive
board would consist of both representa-
tives from SGC and GSC, thus uniting
two groups with the same interests and
increasing their effective power.
THE SECOND crucial step forward con-
tained in the motion is the establish-
ment of a subcommittee one of whose
major purposes would be negotiation with
the administration. One of the faults of
many previous student movements has
been the tendency of everyone in the
group to consider himself perfectly rep-
resentative of the membership's views.
The inevitable result " was confusion
within the administration about just
what, in fact, the group was talking
about.
What's more, this subcommittee can go
farther than just clarifying lines of com-
munication. Vice-President for Student-
Affairs Richard Cutler has already an-
nounced a student advisory board for
his newly-created housing office. It would
certainly be ideal to, have SGC housing
representatives dealing directly with OSA
housing officials, and that is exactly
what Bodkin's motion would allow.
POSSIBLY ONE of the most important
aspects of the proposal is Bodkin's in-
tent that the union should eventually
become independent of SGC. His motion
states that SGC should establish only
"an interim (his emphasis) structure for
the . '. . union." He expands on this in
Section Four, which states that SGC "ex-
pects to grant permanent recognition to
a more permanently structured UMOHU
sometime during the spring of 1966."
Union independence is important in or-
der that the organization can be consid-
ered more than a branch of SGC. Inde-
pendent, unified action is the only real
way to ensure that the union does not
become tied to its parent by policy, cus-
tom or default. These sections thus in-
sure the union against manipulation from
anyone other than its members.
In keeping with this pragmatic ap-
proach, Bodkin would further ask SGC to
"begin an intensive publicity and recruit-
ing campaign for the UMOHU . . . and
appropriate $500 as initial expenses." This
is the final test of the motion's ability to'
face reality, andit passes it well.
What the housing, movement most
*needs now is widespread dissemination
of the facts about housing in Ann Arbor.
Many of those facts are so powerful in
their impact that wide membership will
certainly follow their publication. Pub-
licity will thus serve the vital dual pur-
poses of informing the campus about
housiig facts and increasing the union's
membership.
ALL IN ALL, Bodkin's motion fills a lot
of the gaps which have so far un-
avoidably appeared in the housing move-
ment's work. Moreover, it presents SGC
with an opportunity to spawn an orga-
nization' which can do the University's
concerned students a great deal of good.
On both counts, SGC must be strongly
urged to pass this motion tonight.
-LEONARD PRATT
EDITOR'S NOTE: Peter McDon-
ough, graduate student in political
science, spent 1961-63 as a Peace
Corps volunteer. Those who hung
around the Fishbowl last week saw
him as the tall fellow, repeatedly
surrounded by fairly largernumbers
of students, who defended the "war
criminals" sign and argued against
U.S. involvement in the Viet Nam
war.
By PETER McDONOUGH
THE QUAKER across the hall
is in many ways disarming. In
his room there is a stuffed squir-
rel, a reproduction of "The Peace-
able K i n g d o m," Dostoyevski,
"Playboy," esoterica and statisti-
cal manuals. The room is both
gothic and neat, and unless you
like computers and jazz, or see
that one may be like the other,
you are lost there.
He is a pacifist and so disap-
proves of my wearing a National
Liberation Front pin. But then it
is not badlooking, and Mongolia,
he would admit, prints beautiful
stamps.
During the week when I came
back from the, fishbowl for lunch,
we talked about the reactions to
the sign placed by my friends and
myself accusing American soldiers
of committing war crimes in Viet
Nam. Friday, after the fishbowl
discussions had become particu-
larly ugly-a student having rip-
ped an NLF pin off one of our
group because his argument "was
not rational"-he was shaken.
HE WAS SHAMED by the fa-
miliar challenges: "You couldn't
be standing here now if Americans
hadn't died for freedom"; "If
someone attacked your wife . .."
On the radio, to background music
supplied by an Army band, Walter
Brennan was reading a statement
by J. Edgar Hoover about respect
for the law.
We talked a while about Prince
Myshkin's sanity. Organ and choir
began a patriotic hymn, and the
announcer said, "Today has been,
for the most part, Citizen's Day."
I said the burgundy he offered
would only make me sleepier and
returned to the Fishbowl.
A girl from MSU who had spent
the summer in Viet Nam was
opposing our position. Atrocities
are committed on both sides, she
was saying. She disapproved of
our use of napalm. But the Viet
Cong were worse: disemboweling
pregnant women, blowing the
brains out of infants, decapitating
headmen.
She sounded very plausible. No
one, after all, represents the hum-
ble peasants; it is the urban ele-
ments who cause most of the
trouble ("disgruntled office-seek-
ers?") while the bureaucracy
carries on; who can speak for
people who want simply to be left
in peace?
A PARTICIPANT in the alter-
native policies conference asked
me what I thought of her argu-
ment. I gave a jumbled answer,
trying out of frazzled charity and
a desire to persuade men with
whom I once agreed not to say
what I really felt-that hers was
a despair brought on by a case of
crackpot realism. He turned to a
friend, discouraged, and said you
have to go to Viet Nam yourself
and make up your mind.
I remembered Pakistan, a kind
of East Elsewhere so surreal that
only hope is improbable, and how
for a while I held her conclusions.
You come, for all the shrewd pre-
paration, in altruism; you leave
chastened, a little. punchy and
desperate. It is the mentality of
the conscientious colonial officer.
One of them, George Orwell, shot
his elephant and quit.
That morning, an ex-intelligence
officer in Viet Nam, now a stu-
dent, stopped by our table. He
talked honestly and in anguish
about military necessity and moral
imponderables. A sympathetic lis-
tener said, "All he means is that.
you have to put moral and mili-
tary considerations in proper per-
spective." I said nothing, and the
ex-officer nodded, almost satis-
fied.
MOST OF THE moderates and
liberals hesitated to get into the
debate, standing like a hapless
parody of some third force on the
fringes of the crowd. One of my
professors had said, apropos of
something forgotten, that you
can't protect yourself from non-
sense, and I wondered what fence
there was to sit on. Thucydides, I
had read, described the origins of
the Athenian empire in motives
of fear, honor and interest.
A graduate student in political
science said he thought the sign
was in bad taste, that it emotion-
alized the issues, that he would
not want himself associated with
it; that the situation was complex,
that we all have to examine our
premises. He didn't have much
time, we didn't know each other;
too well, and I said, rather melo-
dramatically, that we might con-
sider pressures as well.
Another graduate student call-
ed me over. He thought we were
alienating rather than persuading
people. Last year, he said, when
he worked against Goldwater, he
caught himself getting a peculiar
thrill out of fighting for a good
cause, without much regard to
those who happened to disagree.
Some of us might be guilty of
the same- thing, I said, though
people usually seemed more em-
barrassed than elated when pick-
eting or committing civil dis-
obedience. Was it bad, anyway, I
thought, to enjoy serious politics?
Instead I mentioned the im-
placable abolitionists, how their
position was an existential duty.
We agreed for different reasons
that the Civil War might have
been avoided, and talked of how
Kipling had been in a sense mis-
judged.
I TRIED DEBATING a profes-
sor, a good cross-examiner, who
asked me, in that style, whether'
I liked to kill. I called him rude
and vulgar for asking such a ques-
tion, even rhetorically. I inter-
rupted one of his questions. He
said I was rude. The debate con-
tinued on this level.
"Oh, so you, mean some Ameri-
can soldiers in Viet Nam are com-
mitting war crimes; why didn't
you say so on the sign?" "Did we
say all American soldiers?"
He kept wagging his finger in
my face. I ,wagged my finger in
his face and said deliberately,
"Nyaah, nyaah, nyaah!"
The debate trailed off in a mix-
ture of intense dislike adn curios-
ity. Finally I said in half-hearted
conciliation, "Well, there are ar-
guzments on both sides, it comes
down to a moral choice." I thought
of the student who wanted to
wring my neck because his brother
had been killed in Viet Nam, and
of the mother, agreeing with us,
whose son had died there.
Many of the faculty, it seemed,
felt we had identity problems.
I WAS looking forward to hav-
ing dinner with an Indian friend
Friday night instead of going to
the conference. We wanted to talk
of anything but politics. But I
arrived late and hardly touched
the curry she had taken so much
time to prepare. I was more tired
than I realized, distracted and
conjuring up dilemmas and per-
secutions about the loyalty oath
on my National Defense fellow-
ship, and frightened, as you can
be in retrospect after going
through something uncertain, of
the more physical antagonists and
of my own willingness to use them
occasionally as patsies in debate.
Didn't I find it difficult, she
asked, adjusting to East Bengal?
"Well, we had to boil our water
and learn the language," I said,
"and the rest was just as hard or
easy, more or less, as getting to
know people anywhere." Maybe,
she said, I didn't know Orientals
so well; and we quarreled a little
and laughed at ourselves.
Over the weekend the Quaker
and I had more of the burgundy
and talked about the past week.
"Nowadays," he said, "tolerance
means not having to take people
seriously." We saved some of the
wine.
4V
Free Speech Clamor over Sign Mistaken
'The Colleetor' and Foreign Policy
To the Editor:
ALTHOUGH the decision to post
the "war criminals" sign and
the official reaction that followed
are by themselves causes for con-
cern, I would like to comment
here on the manner in which the
Daily handled these events.
In the middle of P. 1 of the
Sept. 16 issue, in a report signed
by Michael Badamo, the second
caption reads: "Not Offensive."
In the paragraphs below, however,
nobody is quoted who holds this
view. What we have is a quota-
tion ascribed to Dean Haber ac-
cording to which he finds the
sign offensive. What is the rea-
son and motive for the misleading
caption?
Furthermore, Mr. Cutler's deci-
sion to leave the sign untouched
is featured in the headlines while
his statement that the OSA con-
siders the sign in poor taste, high-
ly subjective, etc. is printed with
small print at the end of Miss
Wolter's report. Why this lack
of balance in emphasis?
PERHAPS A CLUE is given by
your editorial which views the in- -
cident as an issue of "free speech,"
and criticizes" the administration
for considering an order to re-
move the sign, even on the as-
sumption that its posting was le-
gal. All of this is based appar-
ently on the assumption that "the
University does not limit the stu-
dent's freedom of political speech."
In reply may I point out that
the principle of unlimited free-
dom of political speech is un-
sound both morally and pruden-
tially. In a democracy the privi-
lege to express one's views is
brought into harmony with provi-
sions for protecting people and
institutions from slander and def-
amation, and provisions for pro-
tecting the public against expos-
ure to material which serves no
useful purpose and is offensive or
demented in its nature. The offen-
siveness of a sign does not de-
pend solely on whether it is
"written in conventional English,"
as your editorial implies..
THE ISSUE concerning the pos-
sible removal of the sign is: does
the sign exceed the limits of good
taste and propriety to such an
extent as to warrant official in-
tervention? On this issue there can
be, and obviously is, a legitimate
difference of opinion. But it is
wrong to assimilate this issue to
larger questions concerning free-
dom of speech, it is wrong to claim
that students or anyone else have,
or should have, unlimited freedom
of political speech, and finally it
is wrong to report events such as
these in a misleading manner.
--Prof. J. M. E. Moravesik
Philosophy Department
The Draft
To the Editor:
'M SORRY to see that such a
fool as Graham M. Le Stour-
geon has had a voice in your pa-
per (Sunday, Sept. 12). I would
like to answer his letter.
Mr. Le Stourgeon says that
American college students should
be glad to do their own fighting.
But he is blind to the fact that
some students want an end to
fighting. It is the single soldier
boys and Indians. They cannot
help us.
We must refuse to kill, refuse to
invent bigger and better weapons
with which to murder our neigh-
bors. We iust, in other words,
disobey our government, or bet-
ter, disavow it. We must refuse
to be part of the mass insanity
which is America.
AND THAT, Mr. Le Stourgeon,
is why the draft is slave labor,
and why some of us will never be
soldiers.
--Dale Murray, '69
Proof? Reason?
To the Editor:
THE RATHER OBVIOUS rhe-
torical devices of name-calling
and transfer used by Mr. Berko-
witz in his editorial would have
touched the heart of any Southern
segregationist who ever called his
opponents "Yankee nigger lovers."
It is much easier to label people
in support of the war in Viet
Nam as "anti-students" or the
"simple-naives" than to prove the
lack of merit of their ideas. It is
much easier to dismiss opponents
as a "counterweight to the dom-
inant tenor of their age" than for
Mr. Berkowitz to prove his own 1
arguments.
For Mr. Berkowitz to say that "it
ought to be abundantly clear to
anyone that being for President
Johnson's policy ipso facto places
one in close proximity to the
ideological framework of the
right" does not make it true, nor
does it make, it wrong. Proof, logic,
reason-have they no place in
discussion on Viet Nam?
HE STATES, "A rather conven-
tionally dressed young lady." By
whose conventions? His? So-
ciety's? Who the hell is he to make
that judgement?
Later in the editorial, Mr. Berk-
owitz quotes a "young female" as
saying, "most of the people in
support of the war in Viet Nam.
are-well-50 years old," implying
this assumption is correct by call-
ing it in "sympathy with the saner
course." Possibly these "adults"
know a hell of a lot more about
Viet Nam than Mr. Berkowitz.
Personal opinions and sarcasm
cannot be substituted for intel-
ligent arguments, which have been
absent on both sides of the Viet
Nam question.
--D. Jeakle, '67
The Real World?
To the Editor:
I SHOULD like to comment on
Mr. Berkowitz's self-righteous,
quasi-satirical editorial entitled,
"Supporting the U.S. on Viet Nam:
The Anti-Students Take Over."
Even accepting his thesis that
the individual attending the meet-
ing described are not capable of
judging the merits or demerits
of any program, Mr. Berkowitz
makes two serious errors:
First, his phrase "Although it
ought to be abundantly clear to
anyone that being for President
Johnson's policy ipso facto places
one in close proximity to the
ideological framework of the far
right . . ." shows a grave lack of
knowledge, both of the advocated
policy of the extreme right and of
the present policy of the Johnson
administration. (There is, after all,
some difference between bombing
Peking and attempting-hwever
unsuccessfully-to force Hanoi 'to
unconditional negotiations.),
SECONDLY, Mr. Berkowitz, who
glibly calls anyone for the policy
an anti-student, might consider
the true nature of the group of
so-called students who so violently
oppose, the war.
They disagree with Johnson's
policy-fine, so do I; but I have
seen nothing from them to show,
anything but the most appalling
ignorance of the political world
as it is-not as they would have
it.
Is it the mark of a true "tu-
dent" to spend his efforts demon-
strating for" an end to a policy
without offering an alternative
which recognizes the political
realities of the world? I think not.
AGREED: the war in Viet Nam.
is immoral. All wars are. Agreed:-
we should show our discontent
with escalation of the war. But
is demonstrating, with the poten-
tial danger of rioting, the way to
do it?
And to advance policies of "get-
ting out" or accepting the ri-
diculous "conditions" of the Hanoi
regime, while setting up a dual
standard of morality (where the
Americans and Viet Cong are
guilty of the same "crimes" and
only the Americans are criticized
for them)-this is hardly an en-
dorsement for the "world Intel-
lectual community" that was sup-
posed to be represented here at
the conference.
Nor is it a sign that true "stu-
dents" area the body of the anti-
war factions in campuses through-
out the world.
If students wish not only, to be'
heard, but to be listened to, they
must offer alternatives for the real
world, not their own phantom-
world of all noble ideals and over-
simplifications.
-Joel Hencken, '69'
Adults?
To the Editor:
THE SEPT. 21 editorial com-
menting on a meeting of the
"Committee on Viet Nam" is only
one of a series of rather naive
editorials in the Daily.
While I was not present at 'this
meeting, and am not particularly
sympathetic with the objects of
this committee, a cursory knowl-
edge of recent history makes this,
kind of writing particularly of-
fensive to me.,
First of all, the identification
of the people present at the meet-
ing with anti-civil rights, anti-
Medicare and pro-Goldwater
groups: does it not remind one
of the identification of people- at
other meetings with pro-Commun-
ist groups? Perhaps the writer
also takes pictures with a hidden
camera to prove his point?
SECOND, the statement that
"being for President Johnson's
policy ipso facto places one in
close proximity to the ideological
framework of the far right": Is it
not reminiscent of statements by
the John Birch Society, calling
President Eisenhower a Commun-
ist?
Third, the quotations out of
context of some of the' comments
'made at the meeting: how similar
to the methods used by the late
Senator McCarthy!
A recent editorial writer in the
Daily wrote: "We must remember
that we are still students and not
yet adults." Your writers had bet-
ter start to consider themselves
adults, as well as students, before
they start writing editorials.
-Herbert Winter, Grad
Conference
To the Editor:I
ATTEMPTING to take an objec-
tive, well-informed look at U.S.
Vietnamese policy as intelligent
citizens aware of the world poli-
tical situation is a goal that few
people would argue with.
But on examining last week's
"Alternative Perspectiyes on Viet
Nam" Conference Program one
notices an interesting fact: of the
more than 800 persons listed as
sponsors of the conference, com-
posed for the most part of "in-
tellectuals from the various parts
of the world," to quote a part of
the "Statement of Purpose" of
the program, we find that only 36
of the sponsors-less than 5 per
cent of the total--are political sci-
ntists or persons specially trained
in international relations.
THIS CONSPICUOUS absence
of political scientists sponsoring
the conference can lead us per-
haps to two' conclusions: First,
that the teach-ins as "a: viable
method of changing policy are'
failing' because they are too bog-
ged down by academic theory and
are not dealing with the every-
day realities of international re-
lations and policy as the President
and his advisors must see them,
and second, that perhaps the gov-
ernment, as it claims, and despite
the academic-theoretically bound
voices.crying to the contrary, real-
ly is doing its best in coping with
the political realities of the Viet-
namese conflict in its search for a
peaceful settlement.
-Michael D. Jakesy, '67
1*
10
IN LINE with recent campus activity
concerning Viet Nam and United
States foreign policy in general, it is
significant that the Campus Theatre has
held over' "The Collector." This movie,
which seemingly has no connection with
foreign policy, may actually be a vehicle
for subtle political analogies between in-
dividuals and nations.
The collector himself represents the
U.S in its world position today-he has
come upon a huge, unmanagable fortune
and is basically misusing it. The butter-
flies he collects can be likened to poli-
tical and military alliances-very pretty
when put on display but ultimately of
little but visual value. Miranda, the art,
student, is like Red China.
The collector would truly like to un-
derstand and be friends with Miranda
and her friends (the "emerging" nations),
but, because of different backgrounds and
his timidity (fear of social revolution),
he finds that his only possibility for a
relationship is through the use of force.
WITH HIS TRUCK (a long-range nu-
clear delivery system) and chloroform
Editorial Staff
ROBERT JOHNSTON, Editor
LAURENCE KIRSHBAUM JEFFREY GOODMAN
Managing Editor Editorial Director
JUDITH FIELDS....... Personnel Director
LAUREN BAHR......Associate Managing Editor
(chemical warfare), he captures her and
imprisons her in his cellar (the unpleas-
ant world realities from which neither
can escape).
He agrees to release her after a defi-
nite time, hoping that in the interim they
can become true friends, not merely re-
tain the guise of friendship (peaceful co-
existence).
Despite her friendly front, Miranda
maintains an intense desire for freedom
and consistently works toward it. She
makes her big blunder when she disputes
his interpretation of "The Catcher in the
Rye" (she argues for the Marxist inter-
pretation of history), whereupon he dis-
covers that there is no real basis for un-
derstanding between them, and thus no
basis for friendship.
IN THE END, she seeks an opportunity
to escape by attacking him with the
only weapon available-a shovel (China's
"superfluous" millions). He repulses her,
and then abandons her while he recovers.
When he returns, he finds she has be-
come very ill (deteriorated internally), so
he immediately seeks a doctor (the Unit-
ed Nations). The doctor proves irrelevant,
because her illness is too far along its
fatal course for any but divine interven-
tion.
She dies, and he seeks a nurse (the
U.S.S.R.) for his next conquest, ,feeling
he has more in common with her.
MIDWAY through the movie, after the
Refusal To Automate
Puts Times 'Of f Record'
By ROGER RAPOPORT
THE NEW YORK TIMES went
off record last week after being
struck by its newspaper guild.
Careful analysis by astute Daily
observers has revealed the follow-
ing behind-the-scenes story on the
strike:
Strike negotiations didn't ac-
tually get underway until two days
after the work stoppage began.
Negotiators needed this time to
decipher the Times stories that
had been written earlier in the
week defining the issues.
There has been a lot of curios-
ity about how the strike started.
One story has it that the strike
began when a guild employee su-
stained a hernia lifting a copy of
Sunday's Times. The Times al-
legedly refused to pay hospitaliza-
tion expenses for the injured em-
ployee.
THIS IS not true. The real is-
sue in the strike is automation.
Most people, however, have the
mistaken impression that this
means the Guild objects to Times
plans to automate various opera-
tions, putting employees out of
their jobs.
Nothing could be further from
the truth.
THE FACT IS that the Guild
new piece of headline type since
1894.
THE GUILD also is demanding
a change in the entrenched layout
methods of the Times.
For years 'the Times has been
laid out by a moonlighting em-
ployee of the Bell Telephone Cor-
pany who actualy makes up the
Bronx Telephone Directory for a
living. The Times' printers are
demanding the right to make up
their own newspaper:
In adition, the guild is demand-
ing improved equipment for the
Times photographer. Currently the
photographer w o r k s with a
Brownie Starflash which he must
share with a son who takes pic-
tures of weekend football games
for the Scarsdale High School
newspaper.
MOREOVER, the Times' repor-
ters are demanding release from
a previous contract clause which
requires them to write their stories
out directly onto, a linotype. The
writers complain that this process
not only eliminates jobs for edi-
tors but has also put a number
of printers out of work.
There is a widespread belief
that the Times may give in to
the guild on this point, since the
personnel office has been having
Schutze's Corner:
In the. Beginning
By JAMES SCHUTZE
IN THE BEGINNING Barry Blue-'
stone created UMSEU. UMSEU
was without form and void, and
darkness was upon the face of
the rank and vile; and the spirit
of Bluestone was moving over the
face of the masses.
And Bluestone rose on the
sweating back of his creation and
his tribe languished in Egypt, the
Great Serf'drank tea with Phar-
oah's wife.
NOW, ONE DAY, the enslaved
tribe must turn from the path of
Barry Bluestone and must elect
as its king an ordinary mortal,
whose eyes will stray less to a
throne in the heavens than to
$1.35 an hour.
t 3