Seventy-Sixth Year EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS Peace Corps, : Orange vs. Green ere Opinions Are Free. 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN AFBOR, MicH. Truth Will Prevail NEWS PHONE: 764-0552 i Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. NOVEMBER 12, 1965, NIGHT EDITOR: CLARENCE FANTO Louis Lomax' Coming Visit: Victory for Student Concern i t { f i i t { f i THE UNIVERSITY is going to have a writer-in-residence this year because a group of students and the Office of Re- ligious Affairs cared enough to get one. Administration support for this program was discreet to the point of being non- existent, and it was entirely up to a few ambitious students and Miss Eliza- beth Sumner of the ORA to insure the practicability of the idea. They created interest within various student organiza- tions and from them got the needed funds to bring Louis Lomax to campus for a three week stay 'from January 24 through February 11. But, it seems, not too many students are excited or even aware of the Lomax visit. The magnitude of the enterprise has been lost on them, and they view it, at least now, as at best a brief repose' between mid-term vacation and the start of the Big Ten basketball season. The disinterest in the Lomax visit, while disconcerting in itself, reflects a deep sense of apathy that has pervaded a too-large part of the student . body. This editorial, however, is not meant to beat the drums for a rejuvenated student body emerging forth from the anes- thetizing environment which threatens' to engulf it. Instead, it is meant to be a 1oop1 at just what the Writer-in-residence program means-to the University, to the writer, and to the students who seem like they are going to ignore it. THE GENERAL MOTIVE behind a writ- er-in-residence program is basically rather noble, for the idea is that both the writer and the campus' he visits will prof- it from his prolonged stay. The author gets to mingle freely with, students, find out what they are think- ing and how they are reacting to life around them. The academic environment serves as a refreshing change for the writer, and all the while he is on campus he is free to work on whatever he is working on, and riot worry about the more mundane considerations of food and lodging. The students, in turn, are presented, with the opportunity to meet informally with a real writer. If the writer fulfills his end of the bargain he will welcome students to his office, letting them get a glimpse at the more human side behind the coldly printed name. In some previous programs at other universities, the writers-in-residence have become disillusioned, feeling that they tend to be curiosities to be displayed at faculty partiess and stared at by fresh- men.; But this is usually the result of poor attitudes on the part of the students and faculty rather than of basic defects in the program. IF THE LOMAX PROGRAM is handled well, and the present preparations un- der the able direction of Lynn Dolgin, '67, seem to indicate that it will, there is no reason to believe that it won't be a highly successful contribution to the gen- eral flavor of the campus. Lomax, both a philisopher and a so- ciologist, is an expert on the Negro in America, but his interests are broader than just this area. He is a dynamic speaker who is able to establish an al- most immediate rapport with his audi- ence and leave it profoundly affected. The only real valid criticism of this first attempt at the re-establishment of the writer-in-residence tradition, which began with Robert Frost in the '20's, is that Lomax's stay will be too short. In three weeks he might hardly be more than a highly attractive guest lec- turer who can never really become a, natural part of the campus. THE LOMAX STAY represents a start, a victory for student concern and par- ticipation in the establishment of Uni- versity programs. If it is successful, and there is no' reason why it shouldn't be with sufficient student support, perhaps next year another writer can be brought to Ann Arbor for a longer stay, and this, time with a little administration help. -NEIL SHISTER IF PEACE CORPS volunteers stayed overseas, most of their influence would never be felt, for they are having much more of an impact on our: life and times in this country than abroad. You take thousands of the United States' most motivated, re- sponsible, intelligent, talented, ex- pressive and sensitive youth and then you expose them to an ex- perience that requires the culti- vation and employment of all of these qualities. And when they come home-to a society that is largely motivated' by and sensitive only to money, one that admits that these "kids" are smart but sees them as too idealistic and romantic to either listen to ors grant'responsibilities to, what do you get? At some point you're bound to get a reunion, at a minimum, and that's what the Peace Corps had last summer. It symbolized the confrontation between these youth and the Establishment that is occurring on a national basis as the volunteers come home. Elmo Roper said at the end of the conference, "Of all the groups I've seen recently, there is none I'd rather see batter down the walls of that Establishment." All this was recorded in the proceedings of the conference, "Ci- tizen in a Time of Change, The. Returned Peace Corps Volunteer." It indicates, as one observer said, that "Of the wild experiments, this was the wildest." IT WAS a conference like no other, and while it may legiti- mately have been called an alum- ni get-together, it displayed none of the normal attributes of such meetings. No one wanted a con- tinuing Veterans of Foreign Non- Wars. "Lord, not another Ameri- can Legion!" was one response. One of the special qualities of the returned volunteer schooled in the hard, practical world of the underdeveloped countries' rural and urban slums is the ability to see through all the chromium wealth and verbal garbage that dominate U.S. thought and ac- tion. This was evident in what the conference proceedings editors (Ernest Fox, George Nicolau and Harris Wofford) labeled "The Crisis of Orange and Green." Hundreds of "special participants" from governnent, universities, businesses and assorted other oc- cupations were brought to the con- ference. They were distinguished by their orange cards while re- turned volunteers wore green ones. Sister Jacqueline Grennan, the controversial president of Webster College, Missouri, was speaking for the volunteers when she told a, fellow educator who was dispens- ing some conventional wisdom, "Don't do this to them! These clothes I wear hide the scars I bear from men like you." Certainly the special partici- pants came away from the con- ference much more effected than the volunteers, and that is the way the returned volunteers will, hope- fully, be effecting the nation. One of the orange cards said he want- ed to talk about plans, programs and new ideas. "The silences were very elo- quent. We just didn't have good ears. The volunteers were asking us to go back to the fundamentals with them and we weren't ready. They wanted to talk about who they were and where they are." By ROBERT JOhNSTON ANOTHER MORE directly ob- servable way that the volunteers are moving back into, this society and having considerable impact on it is illustrated by a statement by President Johnson at the be- ginning of the proceedings. The talent- and idea-hungry President says, "I have already selected men from the Peace Corps organization more frequently than from any other government de- partment or agency in order to staff this administration." That is a remarkable record-illustrative also of the mental inertia that grips most of Washington. If you can't fight 'em, take 'em over. The volunteers even managed to pull off their own small coup at Foggy Bottom. During lunch in the State Department cafeteria following a series of briefings and speeches, someone started circu- lating some anti-U.S.stand-in-Viet Nam petitions.1 The palace guards panicked, and the issue went up through the hi- erarchy, floor by floor, until Dean Rusk, sniffing Berkeley perhaps, enjoined the guards from inter- ference. So, on that score, Vice- President Humphrey's word re- mained good, "If you think things are not as they ought to be, right in the State Department, tell us." EVEN SO, Johnson's and Hum- phrey's magnanimity notwith- standing, Viet Nam is one issue the Peace Corps gets shy on. As one of four college editors produc- ing The Peace Corps News for four days last summer, I sensed clearly a mood at Peace Corps- Washington, as it is called, to .talk about anything . . . except Viet Nam." One of the conditions of our doing the job was that there would be no -censorship. So we talked about the Peace Corps and revo- lution overseas, linked it with home-grown student activists, and included a whole host of other dares to the bureaucracy to cen- sor ts.: They reneged on only one point, Viet Nam. In a glib recruiting ar- ticle I wrote ("there's no business like revolution to stir your blood") every single' reference to Viet Nam was blue-penciled, including a wonderful idea we had to "de- foliate McGeorge Bundy. According to the conference pro- ceedings, Rusk "told them that their Peace Corps experience would be a special 'plus' over others ap- plying for positions in the For- eign Service." And McNamara, the first third of U.S. foreign policy, "assured them that they had made a special contribution-a greater contribution to world peace than that df all three and three-quarter million Defense Department per- sonnel put together." McNamara and Rusk would do. well to join the Peace Corps them- selves. The returned Peace Corps vol- unteers are neither going to nor have they swooped down upon the country bearing messages of the, true faith. But they are products of something more than self-per-s petuating American suburbia., They know and understand more about human experience and hu- man problems than the home- grown, university-trained Ameri- can ever will. AS JOHNSON'S statement at- tests, the Peace Corps is rapidly supplying this country with a home corps of unmatched talent, skills, experienc'e, energy and in- terest in some more pedestrian values than cars, high incomes, a "nice" job, and a comfortable life. Combinations like that are not to be resisted very long. One said the volunteers weren't inter- ested in Jobs, but "a life that comes close to providing the ex- citement, opportunity for achieve- ment and responsibility that we felt overseas."_And one other tal- ent they were taught is how to be self-sufficient, how to get what they want. They are an "antidote 'to bu- reaucracy," an antidote to false posturing, to an individualism that is used to justify a neglect of hu- man relationships and even of hu- man responsibilities for reasons of comfort, convenience, or, ulti- mately, moral and intellectual laziness. One volunteer said, "If you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half a man's hunger." The returned Peace Corps volunteers are typ- ically neither lazy nor comfort- able, nor inhumane, nor selfishly individualistic, nor indifferent. HARLAN CLEVELAND of the State Department said, "I would summarize the mood as restless- ness, a restlessness for change." We can hope there will be some. I. "As A Matter Of High Principle, We've Finally Decided That Your Support Hasn't Paid Off" '-- - i-I - 11 ' I S E Pa xty 4 rCRnp Qt#'?r "S Letters: A Campus Fable To the Editor: AS I WAS walking along the Diag yesterday I met a toad. Having read two many fairy tales, I asked him what was wrong. The toad croaked: "Go away! Go away!" "Dear toad," I replied, "I am a concerned student; tell me your troubles." The toad croaked again: "I was a REACH candidate and urged SGC not to be concerned with off- campus issues. It's none of our business to be involved with civil- rights, apartheid, or social injus- tice, I said. We go to school for an education and all this outside classroom stuff is' not assigned homework. The sooner SGC con- fines itself to keeping the Diag litter-free the better. Well, as soon as I said this, a deus ex machine appeared and turned me into a toad. CROAK! Go away! I just want to hide my head." "But toad," I answered, "We are no longer following a policy of isolationism. President Johnson says so. We must open our minds and eyes. What goes on in the South, Africa, and SE Asia does concern me. SGC can't hide from these things, I don't want it to. I'm proud of SGC actions and I'm proud of GROUP's efforts to revitalize this body." IMMEDIATELY, a puff of smoke appeared PUFF! and Dante majestically appeared. Pontifical- ly he spoke: "The last circle in Hell is reserved for those who re- main silent in times of moral crisis."- The toad croaked: "Go away! Go away!" Dear Toad, you unlucky thing. As I thought this I bent over and gave it a kiss (I really have been reading too many fairy tales.), And sure enough, before my eyes, the toad was transformed into a beautiful GROUP candidate.' It really happened, honestly. -Mickey Eisenberg, '67 SGClember The Candidates To the Editor: FEEL a moment's reflection is necessary in regards to the SGC elections campaign. As the battle between the "parts"' rages,'this campus is being cheated; the elee- tion is not centering on the most important "issue" of the present campus election--the candidates. The issues are clear and most candidates or collections thereof are clearly advocating the same or equivalent goals-economic re- form, academic reform, improved communications. The student body should focus its attention on choosing the six people best qual- ified , to continue the resurgence of SGC-those people with the most knowledge, the'best "heads" for working. with the. administra- tion on student problems; i.e., those candidates best qualified to effectively work for the goals gen- erally agreed upon.- IN THIS REGARD, I would like to direct your attention to the IQC, IFC, Panhel and Assembly endorsements. Each of us can choose only four candidates and (ironically?) there are only four candidates who received the back- ing of all four organizations-two "independents," Joan Irwin and Bob Bodkin, and two "party" can- didates, Ed Robinson and Neill Hollenshead. These four candi- dates were judged by the above representativerbodies as the four best suited for the Job. For pre- cisely the same reason, they will get my attention and they deserve yours. It would be a shame for a party to "win" SGC-and the students to lose for lack of the talent of those candidates best qualified. -Marvin Preston,"6a Chma and the UN T IS IRONIC that the United Nations, an organization supposedly dedicated to maintaining world peace, has contin- ually rejected the membership of a coun-> try whose increasing power and influ- ence may make it the greatest threat to peace. Members of the United Nations will soon be faced again with the decision of whether or not Red China should b'e ad- mitted to the covnmunity of nations. China, one of the most powerful coun- tries in the world, can no longer be ex- cluded if the United Nations is to have any hope of preserving peace. Traditionally, the United States has been successful in keeping Red- China out, but in recent years, more and more countries have come to realize that ex- clusion of China is unrealistic. The vote has become closer and closer as nations all over the world have questioned the, United States' position. THE UNITED STATES government re- fuses to recognize the existing Com- munist government in China, which has been in power since 1949, when the ar- mies of Mao Tse-tung drove the forces of Chiang Kai-shek off the Chinese main- land. Instead, the government supports the old Nationalist regime which claims that' its removal 15 years ago was illegal and that it will once again regain power. Meanwhile, the Red Chinese are control- ling the largest population in the world combined with a vast geographical area. The Nationalist Chinese government now plays a leading role in the United Nations, a position which is completely unjustified since it no longer controls the population it originally did when the UN was conceived. At that time, major positions in the General Assembly were assigned to the powerful World War II allies-the United States, USSR, Great Britain, France, and Nationalist China. trary. The United Nations should be rep- resenting the world as it really is, not as the United States or any other country would like it to be. CHINA'S POSSESSION of nuclear weap- ons makes even more imperative its acceptance to the United Nations. France has pointed out that the situation in Viet Nam could explode into an atomic war, with the United States and China in opposition to one another. Admission of the latter into the United Nations would make any type of preventive negotiations easier. The United States cannot hope to reach any understanding with Communist China without effective communications. With China in the UN, contact would be much easier and reasonable accessibility would reduce unnecessary tensions. The United States has asserted that its violent disapproval of Red China's policies ;,makes it impossible for the U.S. government to approve of China's ad- mission. However, the U.S. does not agree with the policies of many other countries which have gained admittance. Why should it exclude China for that reason? More and more countries, Great Brit- ain, France, new nations in Asia and Afri- ca, have officially recognized the Com- munist government as the official gov- ernment of China. The United States is certainly not enhancing its own desire for world peace or its ability to be flexible by maintaining an opposition which is clearly outdated. THE MOST VIGOIOUS opponents to Communist China's admission repeat- edly state that such a move would be damaging to U.S. pride, as it would mean the U.S. is "giving in" to the Communists. Those who support this view should real- ize that there is a vast difference ,be- tween giving in and realistically looking at the world and coping with the prob- How To End the D raft: Hike Paty Rates By ROGER RAPOPORT WAR IS NOr HELL it's a busi- ness. And perhaps the management of the U.S. military machine should take an interest in the financial welfare of its employes. A soldier starting out in the army today makes $87.90 a month, which on a forty hour work week averages out to about 55c an hour. 155c an hour! Is it any wonder there is a Selective Service sys- tem? The fact is that through a very simple measure the United States government could avert the neces- sity of drafting more than 100,000 men annually.1 The government could also end the draft card burnings, eliminate the necessity for conscientious to object, and close down Selective Service offices. IF THE GOVERNMENT paid the military forces salaries on a level comparable to civilian jobs, enough voluntary manpower could be attracted to eliminate the draft. Prof. Ross Wilhelm, of the Graduate Business School, has been a major proponent of this plan. In the lead article in this week's Nationhe outlines his proposal, pointing out that in hearings this year Secretary of Defense McNamara conceeded that "the draft was unnecessary." Many congressmen, including Sen. George S. McGovern (D-SD) and Rep. Thomas B. Curtis (R- Mo) claim that. an increase in needed to increase the flow of volunteers sufficiently to close the gap. The most direct form of in- ducement would be higher salaries for all military ranks." TESTIFYING on February 26, 1965 in a Senate defense budget hearing, Secretary of Defense Mc- Namara said, "If the pay were raised to anything approximating a point where it would attract a sufficient number of men to do away with the draft, I suspect it would add $4 billion a year to the military budget. Perhaps this should be considered." Wilhelm estimates that a flat across the board increase of $250 to $300 a month would attract sufficient manpower. He also points out that an Air Force sur- vey showed that 5000 enlisted men on active duty were qn relief while another 55,000 enlisted men were eligible for welfare. Rep. Thomas B. Curtis (R-Mo) has called for a congressional investi- gation. Wilhelm's proposal is the most sensible way of ending the draft problem. As he comments, "pa- triotism is no excuse for slave labor." AND THERE is another sig- nificant consideration along the same line. In recent weeks the government, the press, and the lay public have vehemently criti- cized student protest demonstra- tions against the war in Viet Nam. Students insisting on a change in UnitedbStates Viet Nam policy have been accused of being un- hour for stalking the jungles of Viet Nam is even cheaper. If the government wants to thank its soldiers it could begin by paying them a wage at least commen- surate with that of a bus boy. The average Congressman probably spends more for public relations every year than a private earns defending his country. And isn't $1.25 an hour a minimum wage? About this time some perceptivet soul is probably saying to him- self, "Hmm maybe it's only 55c an hour but they do get room and board." Sleeping on cots with rats crawling around underneath and eating K rations in sweltering jungles is a pretty' inexpensive form of room or board. The point is that the country should put its money where its mouthing is. In these times of unparalled "postwar" prosperity. with plants booming, income up, and taxes down, the United States can afford to pay its soldiers a' decent wage. In the last session of Congress: a $1 billion military pay increase was passed although President Johnson had proposed an increase of only $500 million. There may well be another pay. increase this year and there is no reason why that ' increase could not be $4 billion. RAISING PAY and manpower' needs without conscription would leave room for the young man to adhere to his personal beliefs. No longer would the individualineed to justify his moral objection, to war. There would be no need to burn draft cards because there wouldn't be any.. Col. Arthur Holmes, director of the Michigan Selective Service System wouldn't need to worry over dissenters sitting in at° the Ann Arbor Selective Service of- fice. There wouldn't be an Ann Arbor Selective Service Office. In fact there' wouldn't even be a director of the Michigan Selective Service System. As Wilhelm notes; "The draft simply would become in- operative." There would no longer be a need to select who serves. From every standpoint the idea makes sense. It assures a decent wage for soldiers and allows the man who likes being a civilian to remain one. Political organizations like SDS would be spared the necessity of. worrying" about anachronistic draft laws and would be free to concentrate on more important issues. The paunchy pundits who edit Time - would be spare'd ulcers incurred in dreaming up labels like "Vietniks" to vilify protestors. NOW THAT EVERYONE agrees to this proposal in principle (can there be any doubt?) why not do something about it? The Secretary of Defense thinks it makes sense and a number of Congressmen support it. Certainly it will be considered in the next /session of Congress. Currently married men and graduate students are being draft- ed and SDS has predicted that un- dergraduates in the lower one- fourth of their class will be draft- ed beginning this winter. Obviously the idea then would be to endorse a military pay raise. a,