Seventy-Sixth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MKCHTMAN
UNTER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
IT
420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MWIIc.
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EditurtaI printed iin The Mrch:ian Daily e/lnessT he irtidividuaI opinions of stall ritrvz
or the rdimtrs. T his mu t be nited in all reprnts.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1966 NIGHT EDITOR: NEIL SHISTER
The University, the Individual .
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SO YOU HAVE ARRIVED-for the first
time or for yet another time-at the
University of Michigan, the Cathelopis-
temiad ,of 1837 and the national multi-
versity of today. By about October or
November, you will settle into your rou-
tine with your initial questions largely
answered.
But a bigger question often remains
unanswered for four years: What is the
University and where do I fit in?
FOR MANY the academic aspect of the
University will come to mean the Uni-
versity itself, and it is easy to see how
this can be so. The best teaching at the
University is indeed excellent. But the
worst of University instruction is very
bad indeed. When they try to improve
their University, students will discover
its problems-and either strike out blind-
ly against them or try to change them.
They will realize the state and national
pressures which bear upon its freedom,
its. policies and its finances; they will
discover the complex politics of the fac-
ulty and the administrators and the-Re-
gents; and they will (in so doing) have
discovered another of the University's
facets.
Other students, disillusioned by the fre-
quent sterillties of academics or uninter-
ested in studies to begin with, will make
their University one of athletes, alcohol,
dormitory politics, Greek-letter groups
and sex. Their University is not one of
excellence, but of ease and pleasure. Yet
it is not hard to see why that is so-how
can we criticize when the student wisely
stays away from bad classes?
THE MEANING of the University and
the individual's role in it is alsohard
to find; for, if there is anything the ex-
periences of these groups of students
suggests, it is that the University is
meaningless, amorphous, diverse and cha-
otic. It is so large and complex that it
inhibits meaningful communication be-
tween different disciplines and different
people,
In brief, the problem is this: The Uni-
versity has grown to be so big and com-
plex that one's identity is lost and the
"University" becomes an odd collection of
people with disparate purposes assem-
bled in diverse and unrelated fragments.
jT IS PART of convention and propriety
that editorialists do not raise ques-
tions unless they can answer them-or,
in the case of student editorialists, un-
less they think they can. $ut there are
no ready answers to the decline of indi-
vidualism in 'the University or the de-
cline of the meaning of the University it-
self.
Indeed, no structural arrangement, com-
mittees, the new residential college or
anything else, can replace the sense of
lethargy and intellectual boredom which
seems to have penetrated into the hearts
and minds of so many members of the
University community.
And so the only way to protect in-
dividualism is to practice it; the only
way to ensure a sense of purpose is to
have one; the only way to feel a sense
of excitement and mission is to seek it.
The "student activists" scarcely have a
monopoly of truth or insight, but they,
among all the fragmented groups of stu-
dents and faculty at this University, pro-
vide some clue to what is to be done.
Faithful to their name, they are above
all active; and perhaps that is worth
some thought,.
For the decline of individualism and
the growing meaninglessness of the Uni-
versity as an idea or a unifying concept
are not going to end until people bother
to do something to stop it-until they
act to preserve the concept of individual-
ism and strengthen the unity of the Uni-
versity.
"LINCOLN WAS a sad man," Franklin
Roosevelt once commented, "because
he couldn't get it all at once. And no-
body can." This is the sort of sadness that
should prevail at the University-the re-
gret at not having done more, rather than
regret at never having' done anything.
There are no gains without pains, and
nothing good is ever easy.
"Happiness," the Greeks said, "is the
exercise of one's powers along lines of
excellence." This is the sort of happiness
that should prevail at the University--
the pleasure of accomplishment through
effort. And perhaps if enough people
bother to look, listen, speak, search and do
'the individual rather than the mass will
be supreme on campus and the Univer-
sity rather than a multiversity will be his
milieu.
LONG,
HOT
SUMMER
A
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. . . right to the
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...and The Daily
SUMMERTIME.. . and the liv-
ing wasn't always so easy.
For those who did have an easy
summer, however, and might not
have seen a newspaper, these are
the major issues of long-range
significance that the summer's
heat brought to the surface, as
told by the nation's three major
daily cartoonists.
The Supreme Court ruled early
in the summer (June 13th) that
the 45th .Amendment's protection
against self-incrimination re-
stricted police interrogation of an
arrested suspect.
Ruling that a suspect must be
informed of his right to remain
silent and of his right tohave
counsel present during interroga-
tion, the court maintained that
any suspect must be warned that,
anything he saiddmight be held
against him. It deemed further
that defense counsel must be pro-
vided by the court if the sus-
pect wanted counsel and could not
afford it.
And along with this the court
upheld that the prosecution must
prove a suspect knowingly waived
his rights if he confessed without
counsel present, that a prolonged
interrogation would be construed
as lack of such waiver, and that
questioning must end if a sus-
pect indicates in "any manner"
that he wants to remain silent-
even after starting to talk.
CONGRESSIONAL legislation to
prevent discrimination in the
"sale, rental, and financing" of all
housing suffered this summer un-
der compromises forced by the
House of Representatives. The
housing section of the new Civil,
Rights Bill came from the House
in a form which failed to include
60 per cent of all housing types.
The Mathias Amendment to the
section, for example, enables indi-
viduals owning private dwellings
to instruct their real estate agents
or brokers to discriminate without
fear of legal action against either
the agent or the owner.
AND THEN, too, this summer
there was the Austin sniper kill-
ing of 15 and the wounding of 32.
Charles Whitman, an architectur-
al engineering student in his twen-
ties, shot accurately and at ran-
dom from the bell tower of the
University of Texas. The Ameri-
can public, already -aroused by
Truman Capote's best - selling
chronicle of mass murder "In Cold
Blood," increased its questioning
of the easy accessibility and mail
order sale of firearms.
PRESIDENT Johnson did not
escape unscathed from the heat-
ed events of summer, 1966. Con-
centrated criticism over the war
in Viet Nam did not subside, and
now the problem of domestic in-
flation presses on the President.
In this election year, inflation will
be the key domestic issue.
The President's response to the
summer's lengthy airline strike
rendered his wage guide lines vir-
tually meaningless, while a rise in
the price of steel destroyed price
guide lines. Both the strike and
the price increase caught the Chief
Executive with his hands tied.
While President Kennedy had once
prevented a steel price hike, John-
son barely tried.
MEANWHILE, the House Un-
American Activities Committee re-
turned this summer for more fes-
tivities. This time hecklers and
subpoenaed witnesses added to the
fun with loud verbal attacks in
the hearing room, and with a Rev-
olutionary War costum.
Not so much fun, however, was
legislation recommended by Chair-
man Pool & Co. now pending be-
fore the House.
IN MAY, James Meredith, first
Negro ever admitted to the Uni-
versity of Mississippi, set out with
a small band to march from Mem-
phis, on Mississippi's northern bor-
der, to the state capitol at Jack-
son. The purpose of the march
was to "show Mississippi Negroes
they need not be afraid to reg-
ister to vote. A few days after the
march started, howevera, he was
shot and wounded by a sniper.
And with his shooting came hun-
dreds of sympathizers to take up
his march. Comedian Dick Greg-
ory led one contingent from the
spot of the shooting back to Mem-
phis, and the bulk of the march-
ers pushed on to Jackson.
At Greenwood, in the heart of
the delta region, Stokely Carmich-
ael was arrested. Later he led a
rally and led the chant "black
power."
THE CRY split, at least on the
surface, the Negro leadership. Fur-
ther, much white support for the
civil rights movement was alien-
ated, while those usually hostile to
such things looked on the riots
later in the summer in cities such
as Cleveland, Chicago, Brooklyn,
and Omaha with increasingly
harsh judgment. According to car-
toonist Conrad, however, the caus.
es were the same as always.
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A OSCAR WILDE put it, "In America
the President reigns for four years,
but journalism reigns forever." As for
the country, so for the University. And
that is only one indication of why The
Iaily is instructive, fascinating and in-
fluential-and why it should present a
great attraction to all University stu-
dents.
The Daily is, beyond all else, independ-
ent. Its finances are overseen by the
Board in Control of Student Publica-
tions; but students determine editorial
policy and the, Board keeps a careful
distance from our operations. There is no
faculty "advisor," no connection with
the Journalism Department, no admin -
istrative control. The opinions expressed
are those of their authors, and no one
else.
THE DAILY is also influential and in-
tensely involved in the affairs of the
University, the state and the nation. Its
advocated student particip'ition in the
selection of the next University presi-
dent; the result was the inclusion of stu-
dents in the process-offering comment
on the University's needs and suggesting
names for its next president. The Daily's
coverage of the residential college culmi-
nated in an extra edition (a day after
The Daily had officially ceased publica-
tion) on the college's formal approval-
and a later disclosure of a secret faculty
memorandum blasting proposed cuts in
the college's budget which key adminis-
trators had not yet bothered to read.
AND THE DAILY'S staff are as fasci-
nating as their paner. Majoring in
everything from political science to
French-and only rarely in journalism.
As individuals we have won prizes from
Hopwood Awards .to scholarships from
the Newspaper Fund, Inc.; collectively
we've run a string of awards, the most
recent ones coming last year from the
American Newspaper Guild as the best
college daily and the Overseas Press Club
deed, far from suffering, our academic
standards are good: The all-staff aver-
age is about 3.0.
The Daily has, to be sure, made its
share of mistakes and errors; we have
been inaccurate, petty, uninformed or
just downright confusing. We predicted
that Jerome Cavanagh might be made
the first secretary of housing and urban
development; one of our headlines pro-
claimed that the Johnson administra-
tion's $99 "Million" budget was a "Cost-
Cutting Triumph"; and things are for-
ever lost, strayed or stolen just when we
need them for the lead story for the next
day's paper.
BUT IF WE ARE sometimes inaccurate,
we are at least never dull; The Daily
may be a respected institution, but in the
last analysis it is only as good as the
strivings and the accomplishments of
those who work on it day by day. Inde-
pendence has given us what our mast-
head proudly proclaims as "Seventy-Six
Years of Editorial Freedom"; our own
youth has given us the drive, idealism
and spirit which our professional competi-
tors often lack; and our collective intel-
ligence has sparked or spawned Univer-
sity reforms and controversy in areas
from the administration to student sex
life. As the Saturday Review noted in an
article last year honoring The Daily on
its 75th anniversary, "Because of its un-
usual freedom from the normal yoke of
faculty and administrative control, the
Ann Arbor campus paper has developed a
tradition of crusading and professional-
ism that probably accounts for the fact
that only the Pulitzer journalism school
at Columbia University can claim as im-
pressive a list of journalistic alumni."
THUS THE DAILY - damned in the
United Nations Security Council by the
Soviet Union, and lauded in the United
States Senate, where Philip Hart read
one of' our editorials into the Congres-
sional Record-is full of exciting people
and exciting opportunities. It has ruined
A.
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