I
"My fellow Republicans!... The next President of the
' United States, Ronald Recall!"
"How's
a person gonna' sleep with all that
dreamin' going on .
~t~ Sti an Gaily
Seventy-seven years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan
under authority of Board in Control of Student Publications
.g" j _ a. .
1 r 4 ' I -' t Wp.
f I v, + Vh f a,. 'a. A . , r
, ., ,.. rw u , ., , ,
t ry _pA
1 , ,. n Naif N!
f°
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich.
News Phone: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily exp ress the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
WEDNESDAY, JULY 24 1968
NIGHT EDITOR: HENRY GRIX
A tribute to TRB,
a blast at USA
For a quarter of a century, Richard
Lee Strout, Washington correspondent
of the Christian Science Monitor, has
been doubling as the author of "TRB
from Washington" in The New Re-
public. His personal view of govern-
mental, political, and social events over
that period has been markedly cogent,
perceptive, and vivid. So, in honor of
Strout's fine record, and in dismay of
what he has seen take place in Amer-
ica, we reprint, with is permission,
his anniversary column from the July
20 issue of The New Republic. -Ed.
Ty ENTY-FIVE years ago this summer
Ken Crawford, who is the nicest fel-
low in Washington, asked us if we would
fill in as TRB temporarily and we have
done it ever since. Twenty-five years: it's
a long time.
Maybe a backward look is in order.
Some things we have written sound pret-
ty silly in retrospect; a few stand up; we
have been reasonably honest; have tried
to give an idea of what was happening
in Washington; and have never, so far as
we can remember, been curbed by our
editors (though we get an angry nudge
from readers with nearly every issue).
Back in 1943 when our files start, the
U.S. was at war and the story thereafter
was pretty much how the pieces fell after
the war ended - the coming of nuclear
power, the collapse of colonial empires,
the period of monolithic communism, the
split between Russia and China, the in-
creasing tension between Have and Have-
not nations.
THIS COLUMN'S interest has been pri-
marily at home. We have had FDR,
the tough little fox-terrier Harry Tru-
man; the beatific general who gave the
country a breathing spell and "sound"
economics, which meant inflation, a
rousing deficit, and three recessions in
eight years - a combination that really
took ingenuity. (Yet, to do him justice, he
only slowed the clock down; he didn't set
it back.) After him, Jack Kennedy and
Lyndon Johnson, and here we are now,
with all our troubles and Vietnam.
As to Vietnam, it seems to us (trying
to take the philosophic long-range view)
that the calamity is being slowly unrav-
eled. After the great Allied victory of the
Tet offensive General Westmoreland said
he needed 206,000 more men, and General
Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs,
was sent out to see him, Feb. 23-25. About
the same time Chairman Fulbright final-
ly got Dean Rusk on the witness stand
(after trying vainly for two years), where
two-thirds of the committee were critical.
Mr. Johnson's poll-ranking simultaneous-
ly sank to a new low. Mr. Johnson, we
must suppose, understood perfectly the
significance of Westmoreland's request
for reinforcements. As the general him-
self said later, victory "in the historic
sense" was impossible without reinforce-
ments. The goose was cooked.
MARCH 22, the handsome general
was tactfully promoted upstairs and
superseded. One of his decisions had been
to hold Khe Sanh, which was declared to
be vital, and where he got 6,000 troops
surrounded by 20,000 Viet Cong. Well, aft-
er five months it isn't vital anymore and
we have now climbed out of Khe Sanh,
too; Westmoreland is removed; the 206,-
000 troops aren't sent; Mr. Johnson has
removed himself, and Mr. Humphrey,
with some more of that old tact, has as-
sured the country that if elected he will
let Secretary Rusk go, too, as he needs a
well-deserved rest. Bombing of the north
has stopped. When some graceful way is
found we have little doubt all bombing
will end. Relations with Moscow show
some gain.'
Now as to TRB, the rule that people get
more conservative as they get older does
not seem to apply. Or, to be honest, we
feel just the way we think we always
have, but the speed of things is so much
quicker and the dangers so much greater
that it makes us increasingly concerned.
We do not start the 26th year with philo-
sophic calm.
We find ourselves wondering, more and
more, if our institutions are adequate for
the greater problems. Canada's elections
took two months, France's a matter of
weeks; ours will take a year and a half.
We have legislative hardening of the ar-
teries. A modern nation needs a flexible
tax system to balance the business cycle;
we knew long ago a tax rise was needed
and yet it took two years to get it. The
Electoral College has needed an appen-
dectomy for a century; will it kill us be-
fore we get it out? The promiscuous sale
of firearms is desperately dangerous but
Congress is as terrified of the National
Rifle Association as it used to be of the
Anti-Saloon League, and the Senate's
rotten-borough filibuster system gives the
gun-toting western states a veto.
IT IS THE WAY things are stacked
against the poor, and the incompetence
of Congress, that irk us most. Sixty other
nations have family allowances and we
don't; our infant mortality rate is a dis-
grace; concentration of industrial con-
trol marches on; the airwaves hum with
puerilities and the intellectual caliber of
tourconservative party gives us a Gold-
water.
Congress has steadily lost power for 25
years. It is still stacked for the conserva-
tives. You look to it often with despair.
There is the filibuster, the seniority sys-
tem and the absence of honest campaign
financing.
".".".Kooks "
(The following is reprinted from the
Facts on File. - Ed.)
1964 volume of
AIM
_
.
;; f
..,,
'" w
" . .
r
r." ,,."
..
r
+ "yr(
M
t/.
EFFORTS to build a "great society" in the U.S. were urged
by President Johnson in Ann Arbor, Mich., May 22 in an
address to 85,000 persons at the 102nd commencement of the
University of Michigan. He described such a society as one of
"challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny
where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous prod-
ucts of our labor."
We must "elevate our national life" and "advance the
quality of American civilization," Mr. Johnson said. To do
this, he said (a) "the entire urban United States must be re-
built," (b) "we must act to prevent an ugly America - polluted
air, water and food, disappearing fields and forests, over-
crowded recreation areas," (c) "we must give every child a
place to sit and a teacher to learn from" and (d) "poverty
must not be a bar to learning and learning must offer an
escape from poverty."
"The solution to these problems does not rest on a massive
program in Washington," the President said, "nor can it rely
solely on the strained resources of our local authority." He
said the nation needed "new concepts of cooperation" - "a
creative federalism between the national capital and the lead-
ers of local communities."
Two rifle, in every closet, two tanks in
every garage
5 , - _--
I- _
I.i.
y
' .1rd ii -.. r s+ :--ca xg.,
*'
CONRAD'S
A
--
VIEW
OF THE
WAY
THINGS
ARE,
(The following is excerpted from a speech President
Johnson gave to a joint session of Congress on March
16, 1965. --Ed.)
"THIS IS the richest and most powerful country which ever
occupied, this globe. The might of past empires is little
compared to ours.
"But I do not want to be the President who built empires,
or sought grandeur, or extended dominion.
"I want to be the President who educated young children
to the wonders of their world.
"I want to be the President who helped to feed the hungry
and to prepare them to be taxpayers instead of tax-eaters.
"I want to be the President who helped the poor to find
their own way and who protected the right of every citizen
to vote in every election.
"I want to be the President who helped to end hatred
among the people of all races and all religions and all parties.
"I want to be the President who helped to end war among
the brothers of this earth."
Congress is stacked by its committee
chairmanships to let rural members (oft-
en racist southerners) run the great ur-
ban nation. The lowest income city dwell-
er without a car desperately needs sub-
ways; instead Congress finances huge
freeways and superhighways for the car
owners. Inflation needs cooling, so this is
pV neatly arranged by a proposed mini-re-
cession that will put 800,000 or so out of
work: this cuts purchasing power, you
see.
THE POOR People's Crusade put it in a
nutshell; racist Sen. James Eastland
(D-Miss.) is paid $13,000 a month not to
grow crops and a starving child on his
plantation gets $9 a month in welfare.
You can't justify it.
It is virtually a condition for getting on
to the Senate's tax-writing Finance Com-
mittee that you have to support the 271/2
per cent oil depletion allowance loophole.
dim 1Under it the 20 largest oil companies have
a 6 or 7 per cent tax rate compared to the
Ann Arbor. Michigan, wage-earner's 20 per cent or more.
Michigan, 48104. Under our system we have produced a
onday during regular submerged, urban underclass, apparently
ng regular academic self-perpetuating, that is carrying on a
e Associated Press, the kind of chronic guerrilla war with society.
eration News service. Yet the leading issue of the 1968 election
2.50 per term by car- threatens to be "law and order" under a
entire summer ($5.00
program which would attack the moral
rate: $4.50 per term sickness by witchcraft, and exorcisms
for regular academic against the Supreme Court ... So now for
"T have a present adni inistration headache"
A
"Liceitsing is going to lead to government
confiscation of automobiles, mark my words!"
TRB
I
I
Second class postage paid at
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor,
Daily except Sunday and M
summer session.
Daily except Monday duri
school year.
The Daily is a member of the
College Press Service, and Libi
Summer subscription rate: $
rier ($3.00 by mail), $4.50 for
by mail).
Fall and winter subscription
by carrier ($5 by mail); $8.00
school year ($9 by mall).
- -ItiU jc
-AW
*
!r Vk'. VAll II '1\,J . ;W i i: ?
Ah