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Position papers

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I'

WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 1968

NIGHT EDITOR: STEVE NISSEN

-- --

Not by realism' alone
shall the poor people live

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WITH A severe budget cut a near cer-
tainty and with an army of poor
people encamped in Washington to de-
mand redress of grievances, President
Johnson Monday gave an 'optimistic
analysis of America's social problems.
"The age-old ills which agitate our
communities can be solved," Johnson
argued. "They will not be solved if we
give way to crippling despair.
"They will be solved," he continued,
"by realism, by determination, by com-
mitment, by hope and by self-discipline.
They will be solved by the impatience
of the American people - but not by
pessimism."
They will be solved, the President ne-
glected to mention, at least in part by
money. And the chances of additional
money ~(or even the same amount of
money) going to creative s'ocial pro-
grams this year seem rather dim.
TOCOGMBAT inflation, the President
is pushing an income tax surcharge.
To win that surcharge, he will accept
large budget cuts. A man with the Pres-
ident's intimate knowledge of the ways
of Congress knows from which programs
funds will be cut: not from national de-
fense, which eats up the lion's share of
Federal moneys; not from the pork-
barrel projects which make Congress-
men politically fat; not from unneeded
subsidies to .rich farmers, the spoils-
victors of an earlier lobbying campaign.
The money will come from programs to
cure "The age-old ills which agitate our
communities."
President Johnson is voting for "real-
ism, determination, commitment, hope
and self-discipline" to solve poverty in
the same spirit as the butcher pats the
pig affectionately before chopping his
head off. At a time when more creative

(and more expensive) programs are
needed to solve poverty, the President
only has nice-sounding words to offer.
THAT IS why the presence in Wash-
ington of the Poor People's Campaign
will serve as an embarrassing reminder
to the Congress and the President that
the poor are tired of waiting for "realism,
determination, etc." The working men
have organized, and Congress has passed
legislation in their behalf. Farmers have
organized, and Congress has sent money.
This, :protectors of the status quo insist,
is the American way.
Now the poor are organized. They have
gone forth unto their representatives
with petitions, and they will not return
until their voices have been heard. For
a society as ridiculously rich as: ours to
let their pleas go unheeded would estab-
lish beyond question "the fatal sickness
in our society" which the President in
his speech so vehemently denied.
THEIR CRIES itiust not go unheeded.
Men who seek social justice must lend
their hands. Students especially must
join -the poor in their campaign. In an
article appearing on this page, Wallace
D. Loh, a volunteer for the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, who
are organizing the Campaign, explains
the role students can and are playing
in the capital.
A rally to organize a caravan of Uni-
versity students to join the Poor People's
Campaign and the Poor People's Uni-
versity will be held at noon today on the
diag. For those who are unable to attend,
further information can be obtained by
calling 761-8943, 668-8124 or 663-8376.
The poor have waited too long.
-LUCY KENNEDY
-URBAN LEHNER

Poor People's U:
'Anew curriculum

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Today and Tomorrow ... By Walter Lippmann
Americ '~s-nw~rol

The last hurrah

4O NELSON Rockefeller, who learned
very well in 1964 How to Lose Friends
and Alienate Republicans, is taking a
new tack in 1968 - the course of politi-
cal expediency. Chasing the presidential
prize with non-committal statements
and ideological wavering, his recent over-
tures to Ronald Reagan have clearly
marked him as an American politician.
The inevitable first reaction to Rocke-
feller's assertion that he finds "little
ideological difference" between himself
and Reagan is disappointment. It was to
be hoped that the Republicans would of-
fer a prominent national figure who
could be respected for his politics and his
personal virtue. You can only shake your
head glumly at the prostituting require-
ments of American politics. "He doesn't
really believe that," you think. "He only
wants Reagan because he needs him if he
wants to win."
Yet this stance hds proven historically
dangerous. In the past four years, we

have had only too many "good" politi-
cians who at first "went along" with
anthropomorphic political repugnancies
and then turned chameleon-like into the
same kind of abominable creatures. With
the Democrats likely to offer us the prime
example of this type of politician, it is
all the more discouraging that the Re-
publicans may come up with an equally
disappointing product of coalition.
What's worse, a Rockefeller-turned-toady
for the conservative vote still seems more
appealing than the other Republican
choice.
RUTGOVERNOR Rockefeller's move is
more than disappointing, and it is
particularly discouraging that his court-
ship of Gov. Reagan is so blatantly com-
promising. It will become much worse if
the p'olitical compromise turns into a
moral compromise as well. Don't forget
Hubert Humphrey.
-DANIEL OKRENT

THE IDEA of taking a vacation
and getting away from it all
is, I now realize, becoming old-
fashioned and out-of-date. For
"it" is everywhere. It is the great
mass of modern men who are not
at home in the world they are
making.
It is some comfort, and surely
it is useful, to realize that while
the Europeans are not at war in
Southeast Asia and do not have
to confront the evil consequences
of Negro slavery, they are, lik:e us,
worried and bewildered and
anxious men. They also do not
have beliefs that sustain them or
leaders on whom they rely while
they try to find their way through
the crises of modern life and the
revolution of this age.
The word revolution carries
with it today a far deeper mean-
ing than it did when many of us
were younger. For the modern
revolution is engulfing not only
ancient institutions and estab-
lished beliefs and the ancestral
order of the family and the com-
munity which survived for so long
despite political disorder.
The common assumptions are
in many ways becoming out-
dated and irrelevant. For they
were addressed to a ksocial order
that is passing away more rapidly
than any of the conventional rev-
olutionists, such as the Commun-
ists, can undermine and replace
them.
Italy, where I am writing this
,article,,is in the throes of an elec-
tion campaign.
As at home, the feeling one en-
counters everywhere is that the
problems of Italy in the modern
age may not be soluble by con-
ventional political methods.
IN THESE old centers of West-
ern civilization no one can fail to
realize that the disorders and the
riots and the vandalism which
appall and frighten us have al-
most always been prevalent. We
have mistakenly come to regard
as normal the peace and order
which prevailed for a time in the
years of our fathers.
The few decades before World
War I were, in fact abnormally
secure and quiet. Only for a short
time was it safe for men to walk
about alone and unarmed in cities

at night. And only for a very
short time did masses with griev-
ances wait patiently for redress
by way of long-winded debates
and the counting of heads.
But while war and disorder
have been the normal condition
of mankind, the modern revolu-
tion is far deeper and more over-
whelming, more rapid and more
unpredictable than any other'
general experience of the human
race. The attempt, for example,
of a city like Florence, which was
laid out in the Middle Ages, to ac-
commodate itself to the automo-
bile of the 20th century is an ob-
vious and visually dramatic dem-
onstration of the problem. The
traffic problem, which is over-
whelming Florence and -strangling
the traffic, is a crude example of
what is going' on.
Just as the old cities cannot
take modern automobiles, so the
whole accepted apparatus of our
conventions and our beliefs and
our ideas is being overcome by the
dazzling and liberating and lucra-
tive results of science and tech-
nology and business enterprise.
The pill, for example, which
has broken the connection hbe-
tween sexual enjoyment and the
procreation of children, is revolu-
tionizing the family and educa-
tion and the literature of human
emotion.
Astronomy and histo cal re-
search are bringing about a tran-
valuation of religious experience,
of which the innovations of Pope
John XXIII are only the first and
not the last phase.
Above all, the general accep-
tance of the notion that the prog-
ress of science is unlimited and
that it is still in its early begin-
niings fills modern men with the
feeling that almost nothing they
think today about social, political
and worldly morals is sure to be
valid in 30 years.1
THE 'ROUBLES of the U S.
during the past year have had, for
me at least, an unexpected effect
on European opinion. There is,
of course, a precipitate decline in
American prestige as a world
power. Our inability to win the
war in Vietnam, the insoluble
racial conflict, the crisis of the
dollar and the uncertaid1 and in-

decisive tone of our public dis-
cussion have wiped out the Image
of an all-powerful, invulnerable,
wise and benevolent, dependable
leader and protector of civiliza-
tion.
We have, as one Italian histor-
ian put it to me, come down from
the pedestal and entered history.
We have become like the other
nations: we have become one
among many nations who have
troubles, insoluble problems and
who suffer defeats.x
This decline in. our prestige is
however, reducing the fear, the
envy, the resentmentof our pow-
er and of our wealth and of our
inexperience which are the in-
gredients of the anti-Americanism
which is so prevalent. The mighty
have not really fallen down all
the way. But they have come
down to earth and they are seen
to be human. There has been wide
and general sympathy in place of
awe and respect and resentment.
Although we are not at the
present time looked upon with
admiration as the undoubted
leader of mankind, there exists,
I think I have detected, no feeling
that because our prestige has de-
clined we have ceased to count.
WE ARE still enormously pow-
erful. The Europeans, moreover,
have learned not to expect any
nation to enjoy continuous suc-
cess and unbroken victory. While
we shall not again return to the
artificially high position of lead-
ership and domination which we
occupied in the postwar years, we
can recover a great influence in
human affairs. We can do that by
the force of our example - not,
as we have thought we could, by
the force of our arms and of our
money.
America can exert its greatest
influence in the outer world by
demonstrating at home that the
largest and most complex modern
society can solve the problems of
modernity. Then what all the
world is struggling with will be
shown to be soluble. Example, and
not intervention and firepower,
has been the historic instrument
of American influence on man-
kind, and never has it been more
necessary and more urgent to
realize this truth.

By WALLACE D. LOH
Daily Guest Writer
EDITOR'S NOTE: The au-
thor, f a volunteer worker for
the Southern Christian Leader-
ship Conference, is a graduate
student in psychology.
WHILE NATIONAL attention is
now focused on Resurrection
City sprawled along the Reflect-
ing Pool and 17th Street, a few
blocks away in the relative ob-
scurity of the basement of Con-
cordia United Church of Christ,
on 20th and "G" Streets, final
plans 'are being drawn-up this
week by the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference Student &
Campus Activities staff for a stu-
dent adjunct ofhthe Poor People's
Campaign: the Poor People's
University.
Earlier this month, the Rev.
Ralph Abernathy issued an ap-
peal to students across the coun-
try to Join America's poo in
Washington, D.C. "Students, both
black and white, have provided
great physical, moral, and intel-
lectual suport for human rights
movements in the past," he said,,
"and it was students who were
shock troops through sit-ins,
Freedom Rides, the Birmingham
and Selma movements. We are
now confident that they will join
their poor brothers and sisters of
all races, faiths, and nationali-
ties in this Campaign."
The Poor People's 'University
p r ov id es the organizational
framework for student involve-
ment in the Campaign. It will
officially commence on May 29th,
on the eve of the massive Memo-
rial Day Rally, and will continue
for about three weeks. The motto
of the University is "Come, Par-
ticipate, Learn." It is essentially
an extended Freedom School, or
prolonged Teach-in, with the aim
of providing an intensive work-
study program to educate stu-
dents in the problems of racism
and poverty.
The hope is that the University
would stimulate and equip stu-
dents to carry on the efforts be-
gun in Washington to their own
hom eand campus' communities,
To this end, a Summer Task
Force will be recruited among the
student participants, so that they
will follow-up the Washington
experience by alerting and con-
fronting people in their own com-
munities of the social and econ-
omic injustices in this country.
THE ORIGINATOR and or-
ganizer of the Poor People's Uni-
versity is Stoney Cooks, the
young, soft-spoken national direc-
tor for student affairs of SCLC.
While travelling around -the na-
tion in the past months recruit-
ing students for the Campaign,
he began to sense "a new mood
on campuses -- a 'mood that
transcends ideology anddsimply
asks the question: What .can I
do?" He also felt there was a
tragic alienation of academic
people and poor people, and
therefore decided to open a Uni-
versity that will accommodate in-
dividuals of varying educational
and social-economic backgrounds
where "all participants can be
united in the common goal of
positive, concerted action."
The Poor People's University is
primarily for students, though
undoubtedly many in the Poor
People's Campaign will also be
participating. It is, also entirely
organized by students. Cooks'
core staff consists of 31 students
from Berkeley, UCLA, and Stan-
ford, who are spending the sum-
mer as volunteer workers for
SCLC and receiving academic
credit since their work is con-
sidered a field study project. Pre-
liminary inquiries indicate that
between 5000 to 15,000 students
will converge on Washington dur-
ing the length of the University.
The program of the University
will revolve around large lectures,
filmn presentations, small seminars

and discussion groups, and work-
shops. Topics to be considered in-
clude The Urb'an Ghetto and Su-
burban Escape; The Economics of
Welfare and Poverty; Capitalism
and Poverty; Racism and Colo-
nialism; Philosophy and Tactics
of Non-Violence; History of Sla-.

very; The Draft and Minority
Groups; Poverty and the Vietnam
War.
In the past two weeks, letters
have been sent to over 100 peo-
ple-politicians, government of-
ficials, professors-inviting them
to speak it the Poor People's Uni-,
versity. As of last week-end, com-
mitments to come have been made
by Eugene McCarthy, Bayard
Rustin, Joan Baez, Dave Dellinger,
Michael Harrington, Lerone Ben-
net Jr., and I. F. Stone, as well
as by different leaders and par-
ticipants in the Campaign.
BUT THE University, like the
Campaign, is not without its trou-
bles. The college volunteer staff
at the basement of Concordia
Church is an enthusiastic but
amateurish group with respect to
qrganizational efficiency, so be-
tween brief periods of frenzied
activity, there are also long lapses
of disorganizationl, confusion,
and shifting of responsibility from
one committee to another. Stu-
dents from neighboring schools
who come down for the week-end
to help out are often at a loss as
to what is going on and leaye with
the frustrated feeling that their
time and abilities had not been
fully utilized.
But the primary obstacles yet
to be overcome concern housing
and classroom facilities. In a
meeting with Stoney Cooks last
week, representatives of the Con-
sortiurri of Universitiesf of the
Washington D.C. Area-Howard,
George Washington, Georgetows
American, and Catholic Univer-
sity-were reluctant to open-up
dormitory facilties for the several
thousand students expected to
attend the Poor People's Univer-
sity. Their apprehension at having
waves of outside students pouring
into their campuses is under-
standable given the current prac-
tice of seizing and occupying
school buildings. However, some
classroom ' facilities were made
available for the seminars and
lectures.
Des~ite these organizational
problems which plague any large
scale volunteer operation, the pro-
gress made in setting-up the Poor
People's University and the en-
thusiasm it has generated are re-
markable. There are no tuition
fees for attending the University,
but students are expected to de-
fray their own transportation and
living costs.
COOKS EMPHASIZES that this
is not a repeat of the Washington
'March of 1963 or of the October
Pentagon Mobilization, where peo-
ple had a one-day catharsis or got
beat on the head and then went
home. This time a non-violent
army of thousands is going to
come and remain in Washington
to ,study and to engage in direct
action. People who can come for
only a day or two are certainly
not discouraged, but they are
urged to stay for as long as they
can.
Students w1 o choose to engage
in direct action-militant non-
violent demonstrations can be ex-
pected wtih increasing intensity
after Memorial Day if e Gov-
ernment makes no constructive
response to the demands ,of the
poor-will sign a pledge to observe
and to submit to the discipline of
non-violence. This pledge, reads,
in part: "I understand the fol-
lowing considerations:
0 I may suffer privation, ex-
posure, and imprisonment as a re-
sult of my action:
" The method of non-violence
may subject me to insults and in-
juries to which I must not re-
taliate;
"* This Campaign is a major ef-
fort to concern people to the con'
tinuous struggle with those forces
which perpetuate poverty."
As one Stanford student sums it
up, "the Poor People's University
will be a rather unusual educa-
tional process." And indeed it will

be: for in trying to sensitize stu-
dents to the major issues of man-
kind, and in trying to relate rele-
vant knowledge to personal action,
the Poor People University will be
creating a situation where mean-
ingful learning can take place.

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ANOTHER VIEW
The premises behind the loopholes

SENATOR Robert F. Kennedy is clearly
right when he says the Federal tax
law is in need of reform. And he is equally
right when he adds that genuine reform
will take a great deal of time to achieve.
The basic trouble is that one man's
"loophole" is another man's idea of
simple justice. In an effort to chart a
course between divergent pressure groups
Congress has engaged in a great deal of
slapdash tax surgery over the years.
It's true further, as Senator Kennedy
says, that some of the well-to-do wind
up paying relatively less tax than those
with lower incomes. One reason is that
they are more likely to bq able to hire
lawyers to locate useful tax rules in the
legal maze.
Perhaps it's well to remember, though,
that the tax provisions the lawyers find
were not supposed to have been inserted
to help rich Americans or any other spe-
cial income group. The petroleum deple-
tion allowance, for example, was intend-
ed to encourage domestic oil output. At
least that was what was said in Congress,

tax provisions. Certainly it would be pref-
e'rable to Senator Kennedy's proposal of
an immediate "minimum income tax" of
at least 20 per cent on all higher-income
Americans.
After all, it's just that sort of hasty,
ill-considered action that has made the
present tax law the confusing mess that
it is.
-The Wall Street Journal,
May 21, 1968
Minor league?*
THE ANN ARBOR NEWS yesterday
quoted two of "Six University of Mich-
igan coeds, making a quick tour of
Europe during a semester break," who
"were nearly stranded in strike-ravaged
France Monday night.
"'We love Paris, but this is a little
ridiculous,' Chris Meyers of the Detroit
suburb of Farmington told a newsman
as the girls sat waiting for a bus.
"Liz Wainstock of Detroit asked a re-

Summer jobs for radical students

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By D. MICHAEL SHAPIRO
CHICAGO - The summer of '68
promises not to let any fledg-
ling young activist down for lack
of projects to work on. There are
group efforts catering to a myriad
of subjects, from white racism to
draft resistance. The midwest is
especially involved this season -
what with University rebellions,
riots, the Democratic convention
in Chicago, the Yippie gathering,
and so on. It was inevitable that
Chicago, "butcher of hogs,"
would become a center of much
of the action. A visit to 407 .
Madison, a nondescript building
being rapidly inhabited by the
radicals, produced a wealth of in-
formation on little-known sum-
mer projects.
By far one of the most impres-
sive and imaginative of the pro-
grams being initiated is the/

places such as Ft. Benning will be
included.
This "USO for Peace" idea is
being promoted by many notables
including Rev. Coffin, Marlon
Brando, Dave Dillenger, Phil
Oachs, ]dward Albee, Dustin
Hoffman and Admiral Arnold
Drew. The organizers are looking
for about one hundred people to
staff the coffee houses. Contact
"Summer of Support," Rm. 315,
407 S. Dearborn, Chicago, Ill.,
60605. Subsistence will be -pro-
vided. Funds are privately raised.
IF DOMESTIC socio-economic
issues appeal more to your fancy,
the National Community Union
sponsors the "Summer in Transi-
tion" program where one works
and lives with poor working
whites in order to gain a better
understanding of the conditions
and life-style of this group. Rap-

Now that white racism has been
officially acknowledged, programs
to deal specifically with that
problem have been set up by the
PeoplecAgainst Racism organiza-
tion centered in Detroit. They
need people to be trained for
community organizing in Cleve-
land, Boston, Los Angeles rend
Chicago. For more information
write the People Against Racism,
2631 Woodward Ave., Detroit,
Michigan 48201.
AMONG THE larger and bet-
ter-organized draft resistance
movements is the "Summer Of-
fensive" based in Wisconsin. Op-
erating entirely within the borders
of the state, the sponsors need
organizers to form an anti-draft
,aravan which would travel
around the state like an Old Eng-
lish minstrel show, disseminat-
ing anti-draft literature and gos-

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