Se ent y-First Year EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN "When Opinions Are Fre UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS TthWillPmaw STUDENT PUBLICATIONS BLDG. * ANN ARBOR, MICH. * Phone NO 2-3241 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This sist be noted in all reprints. Y, OCTOBER 15, 1960, NIGHT EDITOR: FAITH WEINSTEIN Should Legislator Represent University? A CONTROVERSY which has developed be- tween the rival candidates for the state legislative seat in the Washtenaw County First District is of more significance than a super- ficial examination might indicate. The dispute is whether Republican candidate Gilbert E. Bursley, assistant director of the University Development Council, is better qual- ified to represent the interests of this institu- tion in the State Legislature than his Demo- cratic opponent, Mrs. Grace Marckwardt. Bursley argues that his occupational con- nection with the University has equipped him with the understanding and knowledge needed to effectively present the case for higher edu- cation in the House of Representatives. But going beyond his individual case, he states that "There is no representative from the area of education in the State Legislature and-of particular importance to Ann Arbor-no one from higher education. I believe the schools and universities should encourage qualified staff members to run for public office, par- ticularly at the state level. It is the duty of education to furnish its fair share of public officials." fURSLEY thus grounds his candidacy not only on his personal merits and experience, but justifies it as part of a larger responsibility of educators in general. He is therefore vul- nerable to criticism on both specific and gen- eral levels, and Mrs. Marckwardt has exploited this dual opening. Mrs. Marckwardt, wife of Prof. Albert Marek- Wardt of the English department, has criticiz- ed Bursley as an individual on two counts. First, she says, Bursley is a Republican and has on several occasions indicated that he is not only satisfied but "proud" of the rec- ord of the State Legislature in supporting the University. He has justified the failure of Lensing to meet University budget requests by pointing out that the money asked for by all state institutions and agencies amounts to "hundreds of millions more than available revenues" could cover. Legislators "have a re- sponsibility to screen all requests and to match up the most urgent- needs with the available dollars," Bursley has said, and "the University will have to fully justify and document every dollar it asks of Lansing." MRS. MARCKWARDT states that if the Re- publican Legislature's record on support for higher education was as good as Bursley indi- cates, "the University faculty might be able to count among its members certain scholars who are no longer here." The second focus for Mrs. Marckwardt's per- sonal criticism of Bursley is the nature of his Job with the University. As assistant director of MAX LER N E R _ the Development Council, Bursley necessarily has frequent contacts with representatives of big business which may be induced to donate funds to University projects. Mrs. Marckwardt states that "one may quite properly question the appropriateness of sending to the Legisla- ture a University staff member part of whose job is to solicit funds from corporations who . . ,may have lobbyists in Lansing." On the more general level of the desirability and responsibility of educators to fight their owrn battles in the Legislature, Mrs. Marck- wardt also takes issue with Bursley. "The con- tention that the interests of this community and of the University in particular can best be served by having a member of its staff in the Legislature is open to serious question. The important qualifications are a knowledge of and feeling for, the problems of higher educa- tion in this state, a willingness to speak out on behalf of the University irrespective of what party caucuses may dictate, and the ability to see the needs andfunctions of higher educa- tion not just by themselves but in relation to the total educational picture. Whether or not such a person is on the payroll of some insti- tutions is totally irrelevant." MRS. MARCKWARDT would appear to be on firmer ground in both aspects of the con- troversy. I am not an economist, and I con- cede the possibility that University budgets are shamelessly blown up and extravagantly wasteful. But the hegira of top-caliber profes- sors from the University is an irrefutable fact. Too many good men are leaving-not just be- cause of low salaries, though this of course is a factor-but because of a general and wide- spread feeling that the University is coming to a standstill at a time when it cannot stand still without slipping back. If lack of funds is a contributing cause of this loss of momentum, then the record of the Legislature is hardly something toward which to "point with pride." As for Bursley's statement that it is the "duty of education to furnish its fair share of public officials," I only hope I am misinterpret- ing -it. Applied only to administrators and executives connected with the universities, the proposition has at least a semblance of plaus- ibility. But if it means, as it seems to, that our scholars and scientists have a responsibil- ity to participate in the political processes which insure them their bread and butter, then I must disagree. Involvement in politics, ad- ministration, and red tape is already a major headache in the academic world, and is posi- tively odious to a great many otherwise satis- fied faculty members. I see no moral responsi- bility of university scholars to dilute their serious work by engaging in political effort to justify it to legislators. -JOHN ROBERTS An Entertainment for Everybody Beneficial To All , 4 ' f .4 ~ - - ~ Dailyq ,rryJc o otelctrocefedfrmhrol a "personal secretary" TO THE EDITOR: Note-Taking Questions yrStill Unanswered Trces By JUDITH SATTLER Daily Staff Writer "A WORK of art is a tangible record of experience trans- formed by imagination," Prof. Marvin Eisenberg, of the history of art department, said. And, whether we talk about art of the fifth, seventeenth, or twen- tieth century, its actual nature remains the same, but its function changes," he added in a lecture sponsored by the Forsythe Gallery. Looking at modern art from the viewpoint of the art historian, Prof. Eisenberg demonstrated sim- ilarities in form, treatment, and composition between works from radically differing cultures. 4 PAINTING BY Jackson Pol- lack and a page from a liturgical book of the Dark Ages shared intricate interweaving of lines and colors. Intense personal emotion, and passion were portrayed in both a Rouault head of Christ, and a German Medieval sculpture of the same subject. Geometrical arrangement, and a pervading order were present in a deHooch genre painting of the seventeenth century, and in a completely geometrical painting by Mondrian, in which "the bones are taken out" of the natural forms. The sheltering quality of the mountain which dominates one of Cezanne's landscapes was also found in a fifteenth century painting of a madonna with a sheltering cape, painted by Piero della Francesca. In his portrayal of Christ's descent into limbo, Donnatello achieves the same emotional ten- sion and "vast pulling movements" of Picasso's "Guernica". * * * WHILE THE ELEMENTS of art remain constant, its function in society is a variable. The art of the pre-Renaissance times had different uses, themes. and en- vironments than that coming afterward. Before the Renaissance, art was produced by societies with definite values, strong religions, and power- ful monarchies. Because of this, art centered around three types of structures which embodied those values, Prof. Eisenberg noted. The tomb, such as the Egyptian pyramid was one center, as a nexus of religious and social values ;temples symbolized the unified ideas of society, and in such examples as the Greek temple, held the highest in art. In the Medieval worlds cathedral, works of art were teachers of ideas as well as creators of plea- sure. Art in these times was a 'part of its setting and so tended to stay in one place; this made sculpture the dominant art form, Prof. Eisenberg explained. WITH THE Renaissance and the rise of the middle class, more people became involved in art, and so artists had more variety, more themes. Since art was no longer purely institutional, a more movable form was needed, and so painting became the dominant form, he added. Caravaggio painted the descent from the cross with an everyday quality, making religion imme- diate, the art historian pointed out. Rysdale, Vermeer, and others painted part of the world because of "delight and love for things in themselves." The scientific influence caused painters like Courbet, in "The Stonebreakers," to want to record Cutural Prals life precisely, until the camera feels pulses, and thesc came into use, science prove them" FORSYTHE GALLERY: A NUMBER OF developing for- ces have freed the artist in modern times from traditional bonds. The loss of patronage, the loss of strict, well-defined societal values, and the loss of the necessity to record reality have all reduced society's demands on the artist, Prof. lEis"1i- berg asserted. A more complex and secular society made more themes avail- able, and loss of public function has made art more private, he noted. "But even though divorced from, society, the artist is engaged in prophesying the future. The artist PROF. EISENBERG found ex- amples of this in such things as Van Gogh's "Starry Night," in which the spiralling light fore- shadowed the later discovery of the spiral nebulae; in Mondria'n's purity and order reflected in the severe forms of modern architec- ture, and in the "neon-like" pic- tures by Leger, which foretold so well the pyrotechnic lighting of the modern city. But, even with this prophesying function, he commented, the art work is not a central image; "in our time, the picture is without a home." Aety and FOLKLORE SOCIETY: Drawls and Twa ngs' Punctuate Performance. LOOKING vaguely like Abe Lincoln, Mike Seeger mounted the stage of the Union Ballroom carrying a banjo in one hand and a bottle of pop in the other. The informality of his introduction continued through a thoroughly enjoyable evening of country music. His definition of "country" ranges from pure hillbilly through English ballads, with blues and novelty numbers interspersed. Seeger renders his mountain music in a variety of drawls and twangs. His own speech is more precise than his singing. For an English ballad called "Johnson Jinkson" he adds a pronounced hillbilly twang with good effect. Throughout the performance Seeger adlibbed to his very responsive audience about politics, his family, and his music, * * * THE MOST UNUSUAL INSTRUMENTATION he achieves is the combination of autoharp and harmonica. The autoharp gives a very full accompaniment to his singing, but there was a striking similarity in the arrangements he used for "Man of Constant Sorrow" and "Lonesome Road Blues." Seeger is perhaps least effective on the fiddle. He admits he does not play it well. "The Old Fish Song," a long Biblical ballad, was perhaps the only number of the show which dragged. He accom- panied it on the fiddle by simply following the melody line through seemingly endless verses. On banjo and guitar, however, Seeger is enchanting. Both "Cum- berland Gap" and "John Hardy" demonstrated hi sability at scrugs. style banjo. His fast and fancy picking' was enhanced by the switch in the middle of both numbers to strumming without finger picks. The two outstanding guitar selections of the evening were both songs Seeger learned from the family housekeeper, Elizabeth Cotton. These numbers feature intricate guitar melodies which he plays more softly than any others. For both he was forced to stand up in order to be heard. (He played without any microphone throughout.) "Lone- some Road Blues" is a plaintive ballad with interesting , lyrics; "Freight Train" has rather weak lyrics, but a familiar and simple melody which Seeger dressed up so that his audience was spellbound. -Pat Golden SIDELINE ON SGC: 7r7-17. 7", Nixon's Personality 77 AS THE PRESIDENTIAL campaign rolls into its final weeks, surviving the World Series and the UN excitement, most Americans are likely to forget the torrent of figures, issues, ar- guments, in the succession of speeches by both candidates. In the end what will stay in their minds is the two men themselves. It is time to take the measure of them. I start with Richard Nixon in this piece bec3use for at least a decade his personality has evoked wide discussion. Never terribly puzzling. Nixon as a personality has become pretty clear dur- ing the campaign weeks. MY SHARPEST impression is of a man who has made cleverness the inmost law of his being. I am not speaking here of other qualities whose meanings may seem to shade into clever- ness-whether shrewdness or astuteness, wit or brilliance or wisdom. I mean cleverness. A clever man, in my meaning, is one who is so absorbed with all the ingenious tactical hows that he has nothing left over for the what fors. He is a man of skillful maneuver, who wins his little triumphs by being smart and quick about means, and who is alert to what any new situa- tion may demand of him. I might add that there must be a dash of cleverness in every political leader, and some have a big splash of it, but that cleverness is not greatness. I don't suppose that many people, even his collaborators, have ever seriously accused Rich- ard Nixon of greatness. Eisenhower was for a time incensed at him because of the 1952 "Nix- on Fund" episode, played for a while in 1956 with the notion of ditching him, and has ended in 1960 with praise of him. But at no point does he show the kind of feeling about him that Gandhi, for example, had about his disciple and lieutenant, Nehru. Nelson Rocke- feller fought Nixon when he was a free man, and then was taken cleverly into tow by him, F YOU ASK why, you strike a cue to Nixon's character. Nixon is a good example or a man who in his development has tried out a number of roles for fit. I am willing to believe that he has "grown" in the sense that he found some of these roles no longer useful to him, and perhaps even harmful. But if growth means a deepen- ing and a taking on of strong beliefs, I doubt the growth in this -ase. His rapid change of roles has made many wonder whethier there is in fact a Nixon. I think there is a Nixon; in fact, that there are two. One is the Nixon who is oriented to every shift in the winds of political favor, and is sensitive to currents of thought around him. The other is thin-skinned, introverted, moody, easily depressed. One is confident and attuned to the crowd, the other withdrawn, anxious, doubt-ridden. We have all met such contra- dictory polar personalities. They are not par- ticularly complex, and once you have probed their pattern they are not even particularly interesting. But you feel about them, as I do about Nixon, that with all their experience of life they have not reached a sense of their identity. EVERY OBSERVER of Nixon has his own score of incidents to confirm how he feels about him. In the second TV debate, for ex- ample, I didn't like his saying that the people on Quemoy and Matsu "are not too important." It was an unwary remark, but suddenly a whole universe of value was revealed in it. More seriously I didn't like his taking a stand on the defense of Quemoy and Matsu on moral- istic grounds, as high "principle," when the question of what is defensible in a farflung defense line is always a matter of balanced calculation and judgment. Nor did I like his asserting America's "moral right" to the U-2 intelligence flights. Always a nation must do things by necessity which it must disown by the To The Editor: AM dismayed to note that to date no letter or editorial has appeared which answers my ques- tions, other than those which have boggled down in peripheral quag- mires. Mr. McEldowney's editorial of Oct. 12 appeared rather puerile in that he merely objected to criticisms of the note-taking ven- ture. No mention of resistance to change, sacredness of education, morality, or corruption appeared in my letter. His editorial suggests a "straw man" approach in his use of motive words and phrases. I do have " ... personal negative reactions . . . " at present because Mr. McEldowney mentioned in passing only one of my main questions (No. 2 below); and he didn't even fully comphehend that one. The "pro" letters were of low caliber and quite irrelevant; the writers of them were unable to make pertinent comments regard- ing the criticisms of the issue, and were forced to use ridicule. In light of Prof. Peek's views (The Daily, Oct. 13) in regard to copyright infringement and my above comments, I would like to restate my original and ignored queries SIMPLY. 1) A STUDENT-managed busi- ness is in operation, providing notes on large lecture courses for a fee. 2) How fair ("ethical") is it to realize a monetary profit from AT CINEMA GUILD: Song And .Dance IF YOU'VE had your fill of sex in suburbia and "problem" pic- tures, if movies have been doing, to your mind what Coricidin does to your nose, then take off to "American in Paris" at the inema Guild. "Amercan in Paris is pure enter- tainment. Its melancholy plot can never be takentoo seriously and all turns out happy in the end anyway (except for one discarded Frenchman) The famous ballet scene at the end of the picture is well worth the walk to the Architecture Aud- itorium. It is exciting, colorful, beautiful ballet - the likes of which have not been seen on the screen before or since. You may very well wish that the entire picture had been done in this format, THE MUSIC IS GERSHWIN at his greatest. ' O'r Love is Here to Stay," "S'Wonderful," "I Got Rhythm," "An American in Paris," and "The Concerto in F" are a few of the melodies which you will come out singing. Gene Kelly's dancing, Leslie Caron's near-beauty, and Oscar Levant's facial expressions are enough to entertain you in them- selves. Coupled with the Gershwin tunes, the color, the views of Paris, and the dancing -- you have someone else, who has put forth the -effort which makes such a venture possible? 3) How true are the claims of this service as to "expert" and "complete" notes? More important, what credentials of competence do they offer? 4) Can a professor publish the same material in the future with- out the permission of this busi- ness? What will be done in the case of guest lecturers? To these questions there have been no replies except for shouts that there is resistance to new innovations, that students are being martyred, that private en- terprize is bein restricted, ad nauseum. The managers of this service have yet to answer these questions themselves, and so far, they have presented nothing other than an innocent desire to aid their fellows - for a price. " * * I- THINK THAT notes which are really complete, compiled by per- sons with above-average training in the field, can be excellent study aids. I don't feel that one can be stimulated by a lecture and relax at the same time. Any second-rate attempt at providing lecture notes is, in some respects, nothing more than a student placebo: some- thing to allay his fears of failing the course. If first-rate notes are published, this should be done by the instructor or by qualified persons with proven competence in the field. The profits should go to them. -C. E. Eyman B The n now and a The r the par entirec voice o platforr is possi certain the ent the pl specific In it4 or at le florid d phrases "Tricks Or Treaties" r _ 1 f A'? _ yq; .,'y If -. Party Platform ess Than Partisan y PHILIP SHERMAN overworked expression, and "he Daily Staff Writer must passionately care" referring ew campus political party to , the student's consciousness of vhas a name -"Voice" - his role in the world. tentative platform. THE FIRST CRITICISM of the name is a good one, and if platform preamble is one of its ty is not the voice of the tone. It is now the time for the campus, it certainly is the American college student to realize f a good part of it. The his obligations and work, even m is also good, because it crusade, for the betterment of the ble to disagree with it on nation as a whole and the Uni- points without repudiating versity community. Such thoughts tire document. In general can be overdone, and it is hoped latform concentrates on that this ,tone will be modified. issues, as it ought to. "Voice" is hardly the sole word s first draft, the platform, from on high, calling Michigan ast its preamble, is a rather students to their sacred duty. locument. It includes such There is one other criticism in as "total community", an tone: in several parts qf the plat- form, specific planks seem to say "The 20-year-old American college student knows enough and is ex- perienced enough to determine his own future." This may be over- stating the case, but the party's desire that the University never communicate with students' par- ents without telling the students, and that students express their opinions to committees which de- cide on matters of "student con- cern" (almost everything that goes on here is of student concern, the writer would add) and that student organizations do not neces- sarily need faculty advisers, all seem to imply a small tone of z ~student .arrogance. This writer doesn't think that students in general are either that mature or that experienced. BUT THIS MIGHT have been expected. What is really good about the platform is that one can disagree on' specifics. This writer would take issue, for in- stance, on the party's stand on loyalty oaths. How much difference the plat- form will make is a moot question. If the party gets good candidates, asthey certainly will, how will they be able to determine how much effect the party itself, and its platform, will -have on the election? Party men say this ques- tion is irrelevant, for if they elect candidates, no matter how, they will consider their efforts a suc- cess. This is probably right. But the platform should not be Left out ! of consideration. It is something a candidate can run on, and run ho,.a e,,Ann- ,vter s ,hnl,4 keen r y I % ^tt 7 1 1 041 f r f 4 i law- ,? t; l al! --'-AILS