Seventy-Sixth Year EDITrED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNTVERSTTY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS Tolkein Book Draws Mixed Reaction ere Opinions Are Free. 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARB, MICH, Truth Wil Prevail Nevus Pt-ioNE.: 764-0552 'itorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. JNDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1966 NIGHT EDII'OR MICHAEL HEFFER the Exchange Proposal: An Idea Suffocates IN THE COMPLICATED channels of the Exchange participants could also learn University bureaucracy, ideas do not first hand how other schools are handling always meet a publicized death. Some problems the University is facing, such suffocate. as crystallization of student opinion, So seems to be the fate of a suggestion evaluation of courses, and student parti- made last spring by the Harvard Under- cipation in college decision-making. graduate Council that several colleges around the nation weigh the possibility THE COMPLICATIONS of an inter- of a reciprocal student exchange pro- change program within the United gram. States must not be overlooked, however. The proposal, which was last describ- There are serious questions which must be ed as being "under consideration by the hammered out: which year would be best Honors Council Steering Committee," was for an exchange; for how long would it intended to broaden the educational ex- last; what could be done with the tri- perience through geographical and aca- mester versus quarter overlap; ;how much demic diversity. would it cost; can credits be exchanged at face valte? THE HARVARD Undergraduate Council And within the University community, told The Daily last spring that it had there is a problem of which is the proper sent copies of the proposal to Chicago, body to decide upon the proposal? Per- Davidson, Pomona, ard several other in- haps the Honors Council Steering Com- stitutions.omittee, which was at the bottom of the administrative sliding board that the pro- Atee posal originally took, could continue its tedrumming up support for its idea abortive "investigation." ran into resistance from the Harvard ad- The Literary College Steering Commit- ministration, which. seemed to frown tee could begin a discussion of exchange upon most kinds of exchange programs. possibilities. Even Student Government Any continuation of the program, a.Har- Council could add a discussion of an in- vard source indicated, would have to ter-college exchange to its marathon come from one of the other parties. meetings. The University's activity in the area of exchange has been impressive, of course. IN ANY CASE, the University machinery A successful exchange program with must begin soon. Tuskegee Institute in Alabama has been No one is proposing that the recipro- underway for several years, and foreign cal exchange proposal is a ready-made versions are offered in universities from formula for an academic adventure. The England to India. truth is that it is simply an idea that was never given a chance. It did not re- YET NONE OF THESE specialized pro- ceive an adequate forum for debate nor grams has the direct appeal that an the attention it deserved. exchange with various American colleges Before another worthwhile proposal is, would offer. Attending a small West added to the University's graveyard of Coast college or a large Eastern univer- ideas, responsible organizations must take sity, would offer a University student un- the initiative and bring Harvard's sugges- limited exposure to new ideas in all fields tion back to life. of student education. -ROBERT KLIVANS Draft Referendum By NEAL H. BRUSS THE TOLKEIN READER, by J. R. R. Tolkein; c. 1966, Bal- lantine Books, $.95. 'j"HE MERE announcement that The Tolkein Reader, a new book by the author of The Hobbit, has been published is enough to pull students from their texts and send them running to the book- stores. Those who know about campus fads-the Saturday Evening Post, Time, and Holiday magazines - say that it has been a big year for Tolkein. All summer. the slicks, in turn, reviewed Tol-, kein's four books and told anec- dotes of the clever things his fans had done on badges and bumper stickers. TIME WENT as far as to say that "going to college without Tolkein is like going witnout sneakers." Those who had not read The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, the Two Towers, and The Return of the King, accord- ing to the magazines, got into lockstep and read them. 'Ihose who had read them read them again. It seemed that the only thing lacking was another Tolkein book, hopefully something on the hobbits and their friends. PERHAPS FEELING the pres- sure of it all, Ballantine Books whipped together a new Tolkein book. What may be unfortunate to some is that the Reader is not primarily a book about hobbits. The Reader, rather, is a book about some of the things Tol- kein thought about when he was- n't creating Middle-earth. In the Reader are four .hort works and an essay on Magic Ring by Holiday's peerrless re- viewer, Peter Beagle. The Reader is not a dark com- plicated heroic narrative-perhaps it need not be to qualify as qual- ity Tolkeinalia. The four selec- tions, like Tolkein's other works. are written with keen imagina- tion, skillful description, and masterful organization. In "The Homecoming of Beor- htnoth's Son", Tolkein has at- tempted to capture the alliterative form of ancient English minstrel verse as well as the mood of the fragments and related works. In two essays, 'Tolkein explains what he did and how his effort re- lates to the tenth century'works themselves. In respect to the fragments Tolkein presents in the two essays, "Beorhtnoth" is a measurable accomplishment; the essays themselves provide unde- niably valuable explanations of the project. "Tree and Leaf" explains what Tolkein considers the mechanics of fanciful writing. He shows the roles of fantasy, recovery, escape f I 4k and consolation in the fairy story. While Tolkein's essay gets caught several times in the business of his writing and analysis, it is a workable paper on that form of literature. "Leaf and Niggle," an almost- allegory about a fellow named Niggle who paints the leaf better than the tree, was written to show the functioning of fantasy, recovery, escape and consolation. "Niggle" accomplishes this, but clearly it is also the most inter- esting, most creative piece in the Reader. "Niggle", a somber, fan- ciful piece, was drawn with the same care for limited artistic de- cription that characterizes Tol- kein's major books. "Farmer Giles of Ham" is a clever, light, harmless piece, t.he type of story that gets read in the children's room of progress- ive public libraries, where, in fact, is has been since 1949. "The Adventures of Tom Bom- badil and other verses from The Red Book" are the only Hobbit ruvenirs in the Reader. Veterans of the War of the Rings remem- ber that Bilbo Baggins, hero of The Hobbit, settled down to writ- ing the Red Book in the House of Elrond after his quest. THE SAME VETERANS will remember the near-omnipotent Tom Bombadil, who lived and sang by his river and helped Fro- do and other folk on their jour- ney to Mordor. "Bombadil" has some poems that background the life of old Tom. Several other poems, the type of things hobbit kids recited before the War, are included. THEY ARE jolly poems, prob- ably of no interest to those who know nothing of Tolkein's other works. And this, even with considera- tion to Tolkein's play, essays and "Niggle,' is true of the Reader itself. For initiates, it will be in- teresting and enjoyable. For oth- ers, it will be nothing more than the doodlings and sketches of a man who painted an entire world. All the pieces in the Reader are well-constructed. Reviewer Beagle's piece on Tolkein's major books is complete, clever, and ea- sy-going-much more interesting than some other recent articles. BUT THE SEVERAL pieces in the Reader can only be unified in the mind of a Tolkein veteran, one who knows Tolkein's st,;le, who has puzzled the runes Tol- kein developed, who knows his pre-occupation with creative, s- lective detail. For the imexpej'Ien- ced the Reader presents several interesting but separate articles. And Reader is by no means a suitable introduction to hobbit- lore. The unexperienced must catch on to the major books before they read this one. Those who have traveled the hundreds of pages of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, those who are awaiting more of the same, will wind the Reader an interesting book, if a let-down. BUT THEN, Tolkein fans, the people who have been tacking "Frodo Lives" signs around cam- pus all summer, will read any- thing that comes out under the very special name of J. R. R. Tol- kein. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Maintaining Class Rank Not the Answer To the Editor: fOM WESTERDALE expressed a fear in Saturday's letters column that the University would losesits betterliberal arts stu- dents to the draft test if class ranks were not compiled. His fears are baseless. First of all, "a glance at cur- rent Selective Service procedures" will NOT tell us that students at non-ranking schools will have to take the draft test. The draft boards have, in practice, an al- most unlimited discretion in as- signing the II-S. They can, if they wish to defer you, use trans- cripts, recommendations, field of study, or other criteria to justify their decision. In different states, different "rules" will be set; in practice, almost no rule will be fully fol- lowed. So far as I know, students at Harvard, Cornell and Wayne (3 schools without ranking) have not been told that the only way to get deferred is to take the test. SECONDLY, liberal arts stu- dents now exempt because of. class rank-roughly, those in the upper half of their classes-would almost all pass the draft test, if they chose to take it. The Uni- versity's experience with the Kor- ean War draft test shows this; so do the College Board scores of these liberal arts students. But more important, the ques- tion before us is not what the draft boards will decide to do about ranking or grades (they can change their "rules" over- night, and will probably do so many times in the next few years) but what we on campus. will do here I THINK we should decide that the grade you get in class should have no effect on whether or not you go to Viet Nam. Teachers should not have to give out grades with that in mind: students shouldn't have to go to class thinking that each time they raise their hands the teacher's recognition will carry then-icfur'- ther from the war. _ If the Selective Service likes that kind of "education", I sug- gest that we should not. If we end class rank, the draft 'oards will still choose some and pass over others. They will go on se- lecting those to die and those to be saved, on and off campus, in the slums, and in the Reserves. That is the dirty work assigned to them. It is their duty. IT ISN'T our duty. though, and I suggest that we shouldn't vol- unteer. -Peter Steinberger, Grad Open Letter To the Editor: An Open Letter to Sen. Hart Dear Senator Hart: - ON SEPTEMBER 15, 1958, I wrote President Eisenhower relative to a speech he had made in which he equated mainland Chinese shelling of the islands of Quemoy and Matsu with the at- tacks by Hitler and Mussolini up- on foreign nations. I pointed out that for the activity in question -a continuation of civil war-to be likened to aggression by fascist dictators bore little resemblance to fact and that it was therefore a disservice to the search for peace. A recent Detroit Free Press lead editorial was captioned "Rusk Peddles An Elixir Instead of Sound Policy" and opened with the sentence, "To grant his pre- mise is to reach his conclusion." Of course his premise is that South Vietnam has been attack- ed by North Vietnam and that, as the Free Press put it, "the continued independence of South Vietnam was vital to American security." Now anyone really familiar with the, history of the long struggle of Vietnam, North and South, for independence knows that the Rusk premise is false. Such people understand that for- eign aggressors have to be foreign people. THEY ALSO KNOW that the foreign people in Vietnam are predominantly Americans with a token force of allies who are by no stretch of the imagination showing enthusiasm in supporting the false premise of this adminis- tratibn and the damnable actions which flow from it. There was a televised pubic meeting of the Senate Military Preparedness Subcommittee. And despite the unquestioned dedica- tion of the entire membership of this committee to the cause of anti-communism and their re- peatedly expressed approval of the Secretary of State, there did appear to be some misgivings. FOR EXAMPLE, Senators Sal- tenstall and Symington displayed concern-and I believe rightly- over a seeming lack of what they, called "mutuality" on the part of our allies in regard to the dis- charge of treaty commitmeirrs. ' They did not suggest that allied foot dragging results from either short sighted selfishness or cow- ardice. There remains, then, as a pos- sible explanation, the possibility that our friends cannot accept the premise of this administration and the malice in blunderland policies which follow upon it. But neither of the honorable Senat~ors named nor any of the other com- mittee members cared to mention this alternative explanation if in- deed they were capable of think- ing of it. You know my concern about this undeclared war from my many previous personal and pub- lished letters on the subject. Per- haps you did not know that I ran for precinct delegate in the lest election and lost by only one vote even though I'm relatively ui- known, having but recently moved to Ann Arbor, and even though I was the only candidate to publish and distribute an unmistakeable position on this most important of issues. You have yourself said that you knew few people that are happy about this war and that we all have an obligation, to searich ftrw constructive alternatives. Ever since I learned some well kept secrets related to the Berlin blockade, I have tried to do ev- erything possible to learn and disseminate truth to' serve the cause of peace and cooperation between nations. The result has not been too encouraging. In fact I su feired great personal loss when my friend Alice Herz underwent self immolation to protest what she regarded as a betrayal of peace loving people by President John- son. RECENT EFFORTS to :nfluen- ce foreign policy through a reso- lution at the state convention were dissolved when our senior Senator elected to. place the weight of his prestige and good reputation behind the administra- tion. Governor Williams has been less than an inspiration to peace seeking people and Senator Grif; fin offers them no hope whatever. Thus I feel like a neighbor who applauded my statement to the voters and said that he would certainly support me but that "as things now stand, I have no choice and thus have no inten- tion of voting in the fall elec- tion." For whom would you vote if you were in the position of my friend or me, Senator Hart? And do you share the Rusk premise or is your support of administration foreign policy based upon area- litical expedience? AS I SEE IT, this administra- tion has lied to the American people about every aspect of this war and is now making every ef- fort to stifle opposition. They no longer merit and will not receive the support of people who see an apt comparison with .Hitler's Ger- many in the sorry fact that we are daily roasting alive unfortu- nate fellow human beings. I've had it, Senator! And that is why this is an open letter. -R. F. Burlingame i4 I' ,* 11 THE KU KLUX KLAN, hitherto suckled by the House Committee on Un-Amer- ican Activities' alarums of pervasive Com- munist conspiracies, has now become committee prey. Robert Shelton, Jr., imperial wizard of the United Klans of America-the Caped Crusader, Southern style--has been found guilty of contempt of Congress by a fed- eral district court jury. He refused to produce Klan records subpoenaed by HUAC during this summer's hearings on illicit KKK dealings. His unsuccessful de- fense, managed by a Negro,' rested on Shelton's claim-that the subpoena was vaguely worded and did not specify the exact records desired. THE DEFENSE COUNSEL intends to ap- peal the conviction. to the Supreme Court. Since 1957 and the keystone Wat- kins case, in which . a HUAC contempt conviction was thrown out, the high t. - bunal has consistently overruled other ci- tations despite the fact that it has up- held the constitutional validity of the committee by 5-4 decisions in the Baren- blatt and Braden cases. The Shelton decision raises a dilemma for a liberal community that deplores HUAC tactics, yet which is cognizant of Klan terror in the South. The American Civil Liberties Union, so vociferous during recent Viet Nam pro- test hearings, should direct its efforts to have the Shelton verdict reversed. To tac- itly approve HUAC action against the Edit-orial Staff MARK R. KILLINGSWORTH, Editor CLARENCE FANTO HARVEY WASSERMAN Managing Editor Editorial Director BRUCE WASSERS EIN. Executive Editor LEONARD PRATT ......Associate Managing Editor JOHN MEREDITH . Associate Managing Editor CHARLOTTE' WOL'I'ER .Associate Editorial Direet ROBERT CARNEY .. .. Associate Editorial Director ROBERT MOORE .-..,.-Magazine Editor -GIL SAM4BERG--------Assistant Sports Editor BABETTE COHN Ass.sPersonnel Director NIGHT EDITORS: Michael Herfer, Merle Jacob, Rob- ert Klivans. Laurence Medow, Roger Rapoport, Shir- ley Rosick, Neil Shister. CHARLES VETZNER .......... Sports Editor JAMES TINDALL.........Associate Sports Editor JAMES LaSOVAGE Associate Sports Editor SPORTS NIGHT EDITORS: Grayle Howlett, Howard Kohn, Bill Levis, Bob McFarland, Clark Norton, Rick Stern, John Sutkus, Gretchen Twietmeyer, Dave Weir. Business Staff SUSAN PERLSTADT, Business Manager JEFFREY LEEDS .. . . Associate Business Manager Klan, while condemning the against the peace movement, dulge in part-time liberalism. campaign is to in- THERE IS NO NEED to make a martyr of the man. The viable alternative is to let the Justice Department deal with him and his violent cronies-the focus of anti-Klan action should be away from the rather tenuous ground of contempt of Congress and "un-Americanism." -STEPHEN FIRSHEIN HUAK, STUDENT GOVERNMENT Council's ref- erendum on the draft is not only- vital to the determination of University policy, but may have an impact on federal plan- ning. The referendum could be the first step in a nationwide student re-evalua- tion of the draft and eventual reform of the Selective Service System. The need for information on student opinion is evident. The President's Com- mission on Selective Service is presently compiling a report on the shortcomings of the draft system from which the new Selective Service law will be molded. President Johnson has specifically ask- ed Burke Marshall, head of the commis- sion, to give special attention to the opin- ions of draft-age young people. The SGC referendum can be the first major source of this information and all possible steps should be taken to insure its accuracy. SGC'S DECISION to separate the refer- endum into two parts, an opinion poll on the draft in general and a binding proposal on the University's policy of sending in rankings to draft boards, is a commendable one. A single proposal deal- ing only with the compilation of ranks such as the one petitioned for by Voice would only have revealed a small part of student opinions and could have been misconstrued as some kind of overall view of the draft. The inclusion in the referendum of a section offering alternatives to the draft is also wise. SGC PRESIDENT Edward Robinson in his consultations with Marshall and with Peace Corps officers has learned which alternatives to the draft are most likely to be considered in the formation of a new Selective Service nolicv. By in- Do Elections Reflect Policy Popularity? POLITICIANS have a way of viewing election results that favor them through rose-tinted glasses. And when the name of the politician is Lyndon Johnson and his 'style is consensus poli- tics, then the series of election results from la-st week must seem like a sign from heaven in favor of his Viet Nam policy. First there was the South Viet- namese election for a constitu- tional assembly. Over 80 per cent of the registered voters reportedly turned out to defeat roundly the Communists and neutrals who were not allowed on the ballot. Both Johnson and Premier Ky were mighty satisfied with the re- sults. Then came the September 14 primary elections in 11 states to pick Democratic and Republican candidates for the November elec- tions. In several races for national offices, so-called "peace candi- dates" running on an anti-Viet Nam war ticket were decisively beaten by Democratic party can- didates. The White House, follow- ing standard practices, did not publicly comment on the primar- ies, but President Johnson was "reported to be pleased" at evi- dence of voter support for his Vietnamese policy. "The primaries mean the 'peace- niks' don't have an issue," said one party official. ASSESSING electorate approv- al of administrative policy from ballot count is, however, often an oversimplification of the real pic- were discovered in the Democratic primaries. While supporters of the administration policy won handily in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and New Jersey, Royce Hanson won the nomination for the House seat in Maryland's 8th District over Mi- chael Monroney, son of the Okla- homa - senator. Hanson flatly refused to endorse the Viet Nam policy as Monroney did. And in New Hampshire, an obscure retired Air Force general, Harrison Thyng, swept the Republican senatorial nomination by advocating inten- sified bombing of North Viet Nam. IN THE DEMOCRATIC senator- ial primaries in New Jersey and Massachusetts, where the defeat of peace candidates buoyed admin- istration optimism, causes cannot be readily traced to voter response on the war issue. According to informants observ- ing the victory of former Massa- chusetts Gov. Endicott Peabody over Boston Mayor John Collins and peace candidate Thomas Boyl- ston Adams, the Viet Nam issue was of limited effect. Peabody was the first slate "A Model Like This Would Be A Lot Safer" w,' candidate in almost two decades to have his nomination affirmed at the primary; his victory is at- tributed to a well-publicized cam- paign, good organization and Col- lins' alienation from voter affec- tion, even in his own city. Adams polled only 50,000 votes, one-twelfth of the total of what was described as a "light voter turnout." He ran his campaign solely on the anti-war issue, which seemed to appeal only to a nega- tive vote with mainly intellectual backing. THE POWER of a large, well- run state machine was even more in evidence in the New Jersey senatorial campaign that saw Warren Wilentz smash by better thal. 5-1 the challenge of part- time Rutgers professor David Frost. Although Frost forced the war issue on Johnson-supporter Wil- entz, when the state party lead- ership wanted to play it down, he was unable to crack Wilentz's solid machine control. Voter apa- thy to the war or any other issue was noticeable as only 15 per cent of the registered voters turned out for the primary. The apparent rejection of peace candidates in the majority of races cannot be attributed solely to vot- er support for the President's poli- cies. In many cases, local issues were of greater significance, such as the "white backlash" of inte- grated housing that gave Demo- crat George P. Mahoney the Mary- land gubernatorial nomination over Carlton Stickles, a supporter nearly upsetting incumbent John- son-supporter Rep. Jerry Cohelan. The Scheer campaign, however, saturated the Oakland-Berkeley area with over a thousand pre- cinct workers. Scheer broadened his campaign base to include civ- il rights; he ran up to 62 per cent -of the vote in largely Negro districts and apparently the only thing that saved Cohelan was mid- die-class white backlash in the suburbs. In the aftermath of the near- win, enthusiasm for a fall peace campaign seems to have died down. A statewide conference is sched- uled to take place in Los An- geles at the end of the month to consider a write-in campaign. But sources close to the movement in- dicate that such action seems highly unlikely. M e a'n w h 11l e, prompted by Scheer's fund-raising success, a National Conference for "New Politics" has been organized in New York City to raise money for peace candidates. IN RETROSPECT, it appears that voter reaction to the war-as an election issue is still somewhat uncertain. The war is still too small and too distant to arouse any great passions outside the in- tellectual community, The war is unpopular, but most disgruntled voters seem to, favor a stepped-up military effort towards a negotiat- ed pull-out as the best course of action. Organized campaigns for the immediate pull-out have been sporadic and largely unsuccessful. If the war in Viet Nam is to be-