94t Airtiga Daily Seventy-eight years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan Will the real President Fleming rise? 420 Moynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich. News Phone: 764-0552 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors, This must be noted in oil reprints. FRIDAY, MAY 9, 1969 NIGHT EDITOR: JUDY SARASOHN Abolish ROTC: A substantive issue THE QUESTION of whether Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) pro- grams should remain on our college campuses is being downgraded in the col- lege press and in private gatherings a an issue that doesn't really merit the atten- tion it is being given. Student leaders are calling for increased concern of large issues such as the draft or the War Fortunately, the amorphous student activity that coagulates into this general protest against ROTC seems to have more brains than the brains that want to lead students. ROTC is one of the most worthwhile issues concerned members of the univer. sity. community have been able to deal with in a long time. It is an issue over wbich they have almost complete contro It must be classed with the issues of stu- dent decision-making in tenure and cur- riculum decisions. The basic differences from this type of issue, of course, that ROTC is an institution of the outside world - not just within the university community. Thus, the power that students have in determining whether ROTC stays on campus is like the power they have in determining whether they should have a say in decision-making structures. But the effect of that power on the ROTC issue extends beyond the university com- munity itself. FOR THE EXISTENCE of ROTC is one of the pillars (one of the many pillars) that supports the Vietnam War. Students who cannot vote and who are being de- nied the right to express their sentiment against the War are now able to affect change by working to oust ROTC. It is highly doubtful that the elimina- tion of ROTC would immediately cause a necessary pullback in troops. But it is significant that the fear that ROTC may be eliminated by students and faculty is enough to cause the Defense Department anxiety. This anxiety is the impilicit an- ticipation that after ROTC goes, so will classified research (perhaps even as a reprimand by the government for elimi- nating ROTC) and that the sentimhent against the military as a whole will in- crease. ROTC IS THE first issue that directly confronts the military per se The broad protests of the Vietnam War or selective service are issues that Congress and the administration, as well of course as the military, can directly effect. ROTC, on the other hand, is almost entirely Editorial Staf MARCIA ABRAMSON . ............. Co-Editor JIHECK............................Co-Editor MARTIN HIRSCHMAN.. Summer Supplement Editor JIM FORRESTER...........Summer Sports Editor PHIL HERTZ:. ...Associate Summer Sports Editor ERIC PERGEAUX, JAY CASSIDY......Photo Editor Business Staff GEORGE BRISTOL, Business Manager STEVE ELMAN .. Administrative Advertising Manager SOE LERNR ................Senior Sales Manager LCY PAPP .................... Senior Sales Manager NANCY ASTN ........... Senior Circulation Manager BRUCE HAYDON .................. F'nace Manager DARIA KROGULSKI .....Associate Finance Manager BARtBARA SCHULZ.............Personnel Manager a concern of the military and as such, it is the military which must now answer student charges. Except for a few senators and congressmen who speak loudly over any student protest, Congress has ignored the ROTC issue-simply be- cause there is little it can really do to either resolve or inflame the present situation. It is foolhardy to suppose students on a dozen varied campuses who all protest the Vietnam War by marching down the middle of campus or turning in their draft cards significantly inhibit the war effort, especially in this time of blind trust in our President. But it is important that the ROTC issue is able in some small way to affect an end to the War. ALMOST HALF of all active duty of- ficers now in the Army are ROTC graduates; 65 per cent of our first lieu- tenants and 85 per cent of our second lieutenants come from the ROTC pro- grams. ROTC supplies 35 per cent of all Navy officers and 30 per cent of all Air Force officers. The 1968 graduating class- es contained more than 11,000 newly commissioned officers who will fill 85 per cent of the required annual input needed to provide troop leaders. Presently Officers Training Schools contribute only 2300 officers per year and West Point contributes only 550. This is not to imply-nor is it intended as good-that the military will be doomed if ROTC were abolished. It simply indi- cates that a new program must be de- veloped when ROTC is abolished. And a new program cannot be developed effec- tively when the program it is to replace is being depended upon to its maximum. Thus, while national defense takes sub- stantial priority over our Vietnam offen- sive, the threat of abolishing ROTC be- comes a major point for ending the War. AND IT MUST be said that the obvious major justification for abolishing ROTC is one of academic vacuousness. And this justification is valid. But there are many things in the academic com- munity which are just as academically worthless as ROTC, and, no doubt, they too should be attacked. But they, unlike ROTC, do not substantially aid our mass immorality nor do they tend to sustain our individual guilt. Physical education and Accounting 100 may be void of aca- demic merit and perhaps do not. belong in a strictly academic community, but they are not politically biased courses that teach people how to kill in a situa- tion where murder seems totally unjusti- fied. Thus, we must not lose any insight for the grandiose hope of confronting each issue at itself in order to effect it. There is no reason to tread silently, for the jus- tifications for abolishing ROTC are clear and valid. And the fact that this issue is finally effecting the direction of the War -if only by more exactly defining where. confrontation lies - is something to be thankful for, not something to be dis- carded. -JIM HECK By JIM HECK IT WAS A SUBTLE surprise yes- terday to hear University Presi- dent Robben Fleming finally say what all of us thought he thought all along. His remarks to the Con- gressional committee investigating student disorders finally snuck out the radical liberalism that excited us just before his term ended as chancellor of Madison. But since then Fleming's overt defense of student protest and his implicit understanding of why rocks were thrown mellowed quite a bit until his television appear- ances in which he co-starred under that cutey of the status quo, S. I. Hayawaka, and his endorsements of statements such as the one is- sued by the American Council of Education caused many of us much concern. It simply appeared that the man who was supposed to un- derstand was succumbing to the misunderstanding of hasty re- action thatunow has a tight grip on most educational purse strings. But either Fleming felt the country was too dumb to under- stand and must thus be fooled - which is probably ascribing too much moral radicalism to the pragmatist-or he was just waiting for the right time. In retrospect, we can smile comfortably, knowing that had anything bad happened here the quiet steadfastness that tempered violence and seemed al- ways to surface at least a hint of justice in Madison was still with the man in the Navy crew cut. NEVERTHELESS, F 1 e m i'n g seems to have suffered a bit in maintaining this cool facade for so long. Fleming equates student frustration with selective service with discontent over an inequit- able draft. While this may be so, it is not the reason for the extent of the anxiety that causes students to protest the draft-this must be reserved for the feeling that the Vietnam War is immoral. The problems with a draft such as ours are only manifest when the service is being used to sup- ply men who feel their activity would be immoral. If a war were accepted as necessary, the "guilt" Fleming observes in the college student who has a deferment would not be present, mainly be- cause the student who would feel guilt would first feel a moral com- pulsion to go and fight (unless he were a pacifist). Also, it is highly unlikely that local draft boards would issue college deferments during a time of declared, accept- ed war as freely as they do now. Thus the issue of substantive discontent as related to the draft vis-a-vis students is limited di- rectly to the issue of an immoral war. One of the frustrating pitfalls of the rationale such. as Fleming uses is the casual avoidance of this very serious and very relevant point. Obviously, such an explana- tion sans its basis may be more appealing to a Congressional in- vestigating committee than one that articulates their active, im- morality, but in the same vein it may also end up obscuring the is- sues later to be condemned as the logistic move it is. WITH MEN who have been be- friended by the establishment, such as Fleming has, and who con- tinue to nurture an aura of re- spectful dissent, it seems it might be more beneficial to honestly de- lineate the issues as they are. Surely Fleming, who is so tactful in being modest and secluded, could find subtle ways to tell the whole truth. FLEMING ALSO alludes to the demands for black separatist pro- grams by explaining them away simply as a trend "continuing to drift towards separate but' unequal societies." Without discussing why this trend .has come about, he says, "Some black students are giving up on the possibility of a society in which they can expect full participation. Many white stu- dents either agree, or believe that we are losing our last real chance for a society in which we can be one people." Unfortunately, this simplistic and common interpretation of why blacks are isolating themselves is rarely the true reason for campus operations to secure separatist pro- grams. As first so well explained in 1968 by Northwestern University's black leader Jim Turner when he led a building occupation to secure black dormitories, the resultant of black separatism is hoped to be "one in- ter-related society." THE MAJORITY of blacks-ex- cept maybe the Black Panthers-- argue for separatism using the same arguments the Supreme Court recently used when it ruled that such programs are not dis- criminatory and may be granted federal assistance because they are simply not "relevant" to whites. Taking this as the justification, the resultant's primary role is to foster the identity necessary for any individual who wishes econ- omic or intellectual parity in our society today. Because blacks have been so longed deluged with a per- sonal misunderstanding of their own selves (is my action black or white, am I an Uncle Tom, too?) the only viable means toward achieving some kind of ossification in the question, "Who am I?" is by a strict, continuous saturation of one's similarities. This bombardment of sameness will hopefully leave the black man with reference points, memory and perspectives by which to define himself. History and heritage are not enough-even when they are fully understood. They must be supplemented with a definitive, contemporary culture, something of which many black nien lack. Only by fabricating such a secur- ity can a true inter-relation of people with unalterable differences come about. FLEMING'S STATEMENT that "It is hard to get people to under- stand that certain kinds of re- search have both military and ci- vilian potentials" and that "elimi- nation of basic inquiry may bring certain kinds of scientific advance to a halt" is highly vulnerable to attack. He has stressed the wrong value. Fleming later discusses how the difference between the gov- ernment's priorities and the stu- dents' is the most vital factor in explaining the present turmoil; and Fleming sides, if not complete- ly certainly sufficiently, with the students' priorities. But on the issue of classified research he obviously has switched his belief and form or argument. His priority of the necessity for "scientific advancement" takes absolute precedence over tht prior- ity that military research has no plac in an academic community- even if that means scientific ad- vancement is inhibited. THERE IS A s light cop-out when Fleming appeals to the Con- gressmen not to stop financial as- sistance to the colleges because of the "misbehavior" of a small group of students. He claims this "would punish the great majority for the acts of a few" but when a few sentences before he says, "I do not see it (student unrest) end- ing soon because I believe it is basically attributable to a reject- ion by a sizeable segment of our youth of our national goals . . ." This hedge is perhaps tactical, and perhaps Fleming feels it is necessary. If so, he is much more radical than I believe he is. He would be saying it is necessary to point out there is great widespread unrest, but when asking for money that great widespread unrest must be called "the misbehavior of a few." And so Fleming the pragmatist may now be Fleming the tactician and Fleming the tactician may have to be Fleming the radical. Some may argue that faith alone cannot sustain trust in Fleming. And we can be pleased now that he has publicly reinter- ated our own beliefs, but should he appear to vacillate again it may be difficult to discern exactly where he does stand. And. this maybe more dangerous than hav- ing Hayakawa at our helm. At least it is obvious what he believes. Cohen comet WILBUR COHEN, dean-designate of the education school, is a short, spry-looking man, with a ruddy complexion and the rhetoric of a second-rate politician. His forte is administration, and in this area he has a grave task ahead of him. According to a ,special blue ribbon study - which only confirmed what many observers have known for a long time - the education school is unquestionably disorganized, directionless a n d inefficent. There has been no concerted effort, for example, to tackle the major problems faced by American educators today - the problems of teach- ing black children and utilizing modern technology and techniques to improve education on the whole. Educating University students to teach in the ghetto has been virtually unknown. Only this past year has a student-faculty committee developed a program for teaching in Detroit's inner city. And the com- mittee itself was established not because of faculty interest, but be- cause students in the education school demanded it. THIS IS THE SAD STATE of the education school as Cohen takes the helm. He brings with him evident experience in the field of edu- cation (although absolutely no experience in administering an insti- tution), apparent determination to face the problems his new job en- tails, and administrative ability of the kind that made him secretary of health, education and welfare. "" .TIiey've got guns ... !!" i But for all that, there are strange currents in the stream of poli- tics and ambition which tend to diminish the wave of optimism which has surrounded Cohen's arrival. -In what was probably amnecessary cutback in this time of finan- cial struggle for the University, the Regents last week ordered the edu- cation school to phase out University School. But some of the newly- available funds have already been spent - for the installation of Co- hen's new offices in the education school. AND COHEN has made it clear he will be asking for - and get- ting - increased funds for the operation of the school. Vice Presidents Ross and Smith have already promised extra money. This was report- edly one of the conditions which led to his acceptance of the dean- ship. Of course, there is little doubt that the school could put additional funds to good use. But with the vice firmly clamped on all University expenditures, it is unclear where this money will come from. Presum- ably the prestigious former secretary of HEW was brought to the edu- cation school so he could secure new funds from outside the University - not by robbing the coffers of others, equally needy schools and col- leges. BUT MOST DISMAYING is the widely accepted report that Cohen will not long hold the deanship of the education school, that this post is only a temporary resting place until a better job, perhaps a college presidency, becomes available. At last week's Regents meeting Cohen spoke seriously and at length about the problems facing American education and his dedication to solving these problems. Time will tell how deep this dedication runs. 4. A Midland Michigan, Dow, and super-patriotism By LORNA CHEROT Y ESTERDAY'S PROTEST at Dow Chemical Co. in Midland was a pitiable and hideous spec- tacle of the mighty versus vs. the weak., The 250 protesters from Detroit, Ann Arbor, Saginaw, and Grand, Rapids, who were led by Clergy and Laymen Concerned About the War in Vietnam (CALCAU), came not to convert or disrupt, but to set the stage for meaningful dialogue. Yet I wonder if their abortive attempts to persuade Dow not to manufacture napalm were nothing more than a tease to soothe the guilty conscience of the liberal mind. This was the second year the protesters picketed the stockhold- ers' annual meeting. Also, most of the speakers were the same as be- fore, and they delivered the same message. Essentially, they were saying, "Dow you must make a moral decision. Will you continue to burn women and children?" FOR THE SECOND time Carl A. Gerstacker, chairman of the Board of Directors, expressed the opinion of all the stockholders, succinctly and crudely when he said, "We have made a moral judgment, but you don't like it. I think you are absolutely wrong. Of course napalm harms people; that's why it is produced." At this point there was hardy applause by the stockholders. Neither did Gerstacker seem the least bit embarrassed to make such an inhumane statement. Indeed why should he or Mid- land be ashamed?'They can exone- rate themselves by explaining the military has asked to be supplied with .napalm so that it may win the war and bring the boys home. Who are we to obstruct the gov- ernment's duty? We are just doing what our government has asked. THERE IS ALSO a practical economic reason for Midland not to feel any pangs of guilt. Fifty per cent of the town relies on Dow for their income. Dow owns Midland; and while the green keeps rolling in, the guilty con- sciences slip away. AT A RALLY Tuesday night in Canterbury House, Rev. Richard Fernandez emphasized the dem- onstration must be peaceful. Fer- nandez said, "Our presence in Midland will be a big enough think it was myself. Sheltered in the isolated . haven of liberal apathy at Michigan, it was quite revealing to see a rampart wave of reaction take over a town when it feels its economic life threat- ened. High school students-who are the future employes of Dow- cheered the stockholders as they emerged from the meeting. They also made derisive comments and waved super-patriotic signs: "Bring our boys home, send more napalm." "Burn them! burn the babies!" "We like our V.C. well done." "We're Americans, Dow supports our boys!" GERSTACKLER e n d e d the meeting with a dramatic finale, that brought much enthusiastic applause, which I am sure is very typical of a stockholders' meeting. He read a letter from the son of a man who works in the patent office at Dow. The boy is stationed in Vietnam. The letter closes with matches, which almost resulted in sporadic fist fights. NOT ALL the community was hostile to the demonstrators. The very young, those in grammar and junior high, seem concerned. I saw a group of them talking to Jim Anderson, a teacher at Mich- igan State, who spoke before the stockholders "and warned them of the growing disenchantment of the young with industry's com- pliance to carnage in the name'of patriotism. OBVIOUSLY, Dow is not moved by the pictures of burned children. It conveniently vindicates itself with the findings of a local physi- cian, that the burnings are the results of accidents caused by gas- oline stoves, and there have been no more than two cases of vic- tims suffering from napalm burns. As Dr. Theodore Tapper warned the stockholders W e d n e s d a y, "When people cannot deal in rational dialogue then more dra- matic acts bypassing violence mimf 1 ak t'he+aia aV, nla pofn ,'. n inn' Lornau Cherot 4 1~ m