v fitr igan Ratg
Seventy-eight years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan
764-0552
running wild
Nixon and the welfare farce
p.
by lorina ehi ot
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich.
News Phone:
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
FRIDAY,AUGUST 15, 1969
NIGHT EDITOR: NADINE COHODAS
Lo
for the.
HtESENATE'S recent amendment con-
trols on testing and transportation of
chemical and biological weapons offer a
grand ' display of sound and fury signi-
fying nothing.
Key provisions - which the media her-
alded. as "unprecedented restrictions" -
are so full of loopholes that the Pentagon
will have no trouble getting fits way. You
don't even have to read the amendment
to see theim - simply noting that t h e
Pentagon approved the "restrictions" in
advance is enough.
But the amendment's provisions a r e
worth picking apart one by one:
CHEMICAL - BIOLOGICAL w a r f a r e
agents can be open-air tested only if
the secretary of defense rules them nec-
essary for national security, and if the
surgeon general determines they will not
menace public health.
The fact is, the secretary of defense
can rule - and has ruled - anything he
and the military desire is essential to the
national security. T h e C5-A transport,
the TFX fighters, the Sheridan tanks,
and the numerous other technological-
financial fiascos which Congress is just
now hauling from Pentagon files were all
ruled "necessary to national security."
No one has as much access to military
information as the secretary of defense -
therefore no one, says the Pentagon, is
equally capable of judging military prior-
ities.:That is how the country has ope-
rated - it will not likely change. When
the Pentagon wants a CBW test - it will
get it.
The surgeon general, the government's
top health officer, does the government's
Down the
: 6iddle
THE IMMINENT nomination by Presi-
dent Nixon of South Carolinian
Clement F. Haynsworth, Jr. to the Su-
preme Court is far from surprising. The
sometimes segregationist positions taken
by the appeals court judge, and his
frequently voiced strict interpretation of
the Constitution mesh fairly well with
the views held by the President.
Nor is it of considerable interest that
a slew of liberals, from Sen. Jacob Javits
to the NAACP, haye expressed serious
opposition to Haynsworth's appointment.
What is surprising is the lukewarm
reception which the appointment has
received from southern conservatives.
Apparently, Haynsworth is seen in con-
servative corners as a j~udge who "has
followed the Supreme Court too much."
Perhaps this position is sincerely
taken. Haynsworth has not been averse
tb siding with non-segregationist posi-
tions-at least when the rest of his court
is unanimous in that judgment.
BUT, MORE LIKELY, is seems that
southern opposition is a diversionary
construct engineered possibly by the
President himself, possibly by Sen. Strom
Thurmond who has' verbalized support
for a more conservative judicial candi-
date,
The effect of receiving criticism from
both sides, of course, is to put the Presi-
dent smack in the middle-right where
Tricky Dick has always liked to be.
-MARTIN HIRSCHMAN
Summer Staff
MARCIA ABRAMSON.................Co-Editor
CHRIS S=ELE ..............Co-Editor
MARTIN HIRSCHMAN .. Summer Supplement Editor
JIM FORRESTER ............Summer Sports Editor
LEE KIRK.........Associate Summer Sports Editor
ERIC PERGEAUX .............. ....Photo Editor
Pentagon
bidding - few surgeon generals would
publicly oppose the secretary of defense
if he requested chemical testing The
Dugway, Utah proving grounds incident,
in which 6400 sheep were killed by chem-
ical agents, shows just how dependable
public health officers with vested inter-
ests in their governments can be. T h e
state health superintendent and highly
reputed doctors suppressed evidence the
chemical testing had killed animal life
and infected humans, because they did
not wish to jeopardize the town's major
source of income: the chemical warfare
base.
THE PENTAGON must alert Congress 30
days before transportation of any le-
thal chemical or biological agents. When-
ever practical, the agents must be detox-
ified.
Irate Congressmen will have little time
in 30 days to cut through the legislature's
bog of bureaucratic trivia and procrasti-
nation, whip Congress and the public in-
to an outrage, exert pressure on the Pres-
ident and halt the massive machinery of
the Pentagon, half the wealth of Ameri-
ca already in gear.
That is why the Pentagon began de-
ploying radar installation equipment for
the ABM long before the Senate began
voting on ABM amendments the Pen-
tagon knew simple inertia a n d money
down t h e drain in preparations would
override objections once Congress finally
took action.
Will the military detoxify agents? Per-
haps, when the Pentagon decides it is
"practical." It took Congress several'
months to persuade the Pentagon not to
tote tons of lethal chemicals from Colo-
rado across the nation, and dump them
in the Atlantic - and instead simply de-
toxify them right in the arsenal.
FINALLY, the Senate "bans" shipment
or storage of CBW agents outside the
United States without advance notice to
the nations involved and clearance by the
secretary of state.
The Senate's resolution demands "ad-
vance notice," but not permission - so
the Pentagon could h a v e avoided the
Okinawa controversy merely by first
calling the prime minister of Japan. Will
the secretary of state publicly oppose the
Pentagon and armed forces and d e n y
clearance? Prospects are not great.
None of these provisions will stop
chemical - biological warfare research,
testing. and development in the United
States. They may hinder the Pentagon
from time to time when angry Congress-
men and an irate public, can whip to-
gether enough antagonism and pressure
and strength. But even the tremendous
public and Congressional strength mobil-
ized now against Pentagon spending and
weapons deployment has hardly blocked
the military - it merely ruffles the Pen-
tagon as annoying but beatable obstacles
are thrown in its path.
The only possible way to control chem-
ical-biological warfare testing is to stop
it: eliminate research, eliminate testing
strike the concept once and for all from
America's military dabbling. Historically,
such dabbling has almost always ended
up on the battlefield -'because as long
as the nation has weapons, it uses them.
WE HAVE ALREADY bought our ABM
system. But we still have time to
obliterate our chemical and biological
warfare system - so if we somehow es-
cape melting in a nuclear blast, we will
not fatally convulse from poisons in the
air.
-DANIEL ZWERDLING
A "BOLD" Mr. Nixon has finally
proposed his domestic panacea
for the poor-namely a "revolu-
tionary" welfare program which
supports the "radical" philosophy
of a guaranteed annual income.
But Nixon's plan-which doesn't
even look good on paper - will
prove grossly ineffective once it is
implemented, if it gets that far
after a session or two with the
House Ways and Means Committee
and the rest of our do-nothing
Congress.
The President has been lauded
by newspapers and commentators
as a compassionate, insightful and
resourceful leader because he
alone has dared to walk where
angels fear to tread when he in-
troduced his quasi progressive
concept of the guaranteed annual
income. The Nixon formula will
not miraculously revamp Amer-
ica's social and economic prob-
lems; it will not suck the nation's
poor into the mainstream of Amer-
ican life; it will not break the de-
moralizing welfare cycle; and it
will not alleviate overburdened city
and state budgetary problems.
Nixon's attempt to provide a
piece of golden America for the
destitute begins at $1600 a year,
and with sufficient padding from
myriad governmental compensa-
tory programs, it can go as high
as $3920-but one dollar in excess
of that magic figure and Uncle
Sam demands a proportionate
kickback.
In 1966, the late Rev. Martin
Luther King Jr. suggested $6000
as the minimum guaranteed an-
nual income, and George Wiley of
the National Welfare Rights Or-
ganization set $5500 as a reasonable
amount for 1969. Both men based
their findings on statistics released
by the Labor Dept. during 'the
Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon ad-
ministrations. In view of this, the
Nixon figure of $1600 can be look-
ed down upon as a mere pittance
offering a family of four the only
progress of going from total gov-
ernment subsidy to a partial fund-
ing.
THAT PART of the Nixon pro-
gram designed to break the wel-
fare family cycle provides the most
explosive provisions against the
poor. Male members of a family
of eligible age not in school and
unemployed would have to go into
some type of job training prograni.
As bait the government is offering
an extra $30 a month to such
families. Also, women whose chil-
dren are over six years of age will
have to register for the first time
with their local employment agen-
cy. These mothers then become
eligible for job training.
This mandatory work provision
is detrimental for three reasons.
First, it deprives matriarchal fam-
ilies of important revenues former-
ly received under the Aid to De-
pendent Children clause, because
mothers with school age children
will be considered legal breadwin-
ners who must accept full time
employment.
The second evil is an extension
of the first. Since job training and
employment will be handled at the
local level, it will provide, partic-
ularly in the South; an unlimited
reservoir of coerced, passive, cheap
labor-namely the women who are
heads of family.
Finally there is no concrete
guarantee that job training sites
will provide anything more than
menial labor skills. Also there is
a notorious lack of government
funded training programs since
the administration axed one half
of the Job Corps camp sites estab-
lished by President Johnson, and
industry has not been conscien-
tious in helping the underprivi-
leged.
Also, Nixon's plan to provide
local government with 10 per cent
of federal tax monies to operate
the new welfare program slights
large industrial states and their
urban centers. For example, New
York City- appropriates $43 million
for its one million welfare recipi-
ents. Mayor John V. Lindsay es-
timates the Nixon proposal would
provide a mere $20 million for the
City. In New Jersey a family of
four is entitled to $287 a month, or
$3444 a year in welfare payments.
CERTAINLY industrial cities
and states are not going to slash
their budgets between 50 and 200
per cent just to accommodate fed-
eral guidelines. Actually the only
states that will benefit greatly
from the federal program are the
Southern states like Mississippi,
where a family of four are entitled
to only $30 a month.
In addition the Nixon plan will
neither insure family security and
togetherness in poor families nor
will it stop the migration from
the South to the North, or what
worried government officials term
the influx from low paying' wel.-
fare states to high paying welfare
states. It is absurd to think poor
people, specifically blacks, leave
the South and come North be-
cause they know its welfare code,
when t h e y aren't completely
knowledgeable of all the benefits
entitled them in their home states.
Rather the black exodus f r o m
South to North is similar to the
European migration to the United
States. Spurred by prejudice, un-
fair hiring practices and inade-
quate educational facilities, t h e
poor black is attracted to a myth-
ological North supposedly bounti-
ful in equal opportunity and
brotherhood.
The only favorable outcome of
the August 7 presidential address
to the nation is the obvious fact
that George Wiley has effectively
mobilized an important faction of
the poor welfare recipients and
thereby 'compelled the federal
government to reluctantly assume
some responsibility for the plight
of its indigent citizens.
A MORE FEASIBLE and mean-
ingful program, providing a nec-
essary flexibility absent in t h e
Nixon plan, would require each
state to establish its own mini-
mum annual income on the basis
of local employment and consum-
er reports. The states would then
submit their proposal to the De-
partment of Health Education and
Welfare.
The federal government in turn
would subsidize each state in pro-
portion to federal taxes collected
in that state. The states would be
required to reconsider the mini-
mum annual income whenever its
legislature made appropriations
,for the new fiscal year.
The Nixon welfare farce, which
will spend on the poor one half of
what the United States allocated
to send three men to gather moon
rocks, is like sending a man afloat
on the Atlantic Ocean in a ply-
wood canoe with half a paddle.
I1
On4 freshmeon
By BARD MONTGOMERY
SUMMER BRINGS a heat-laden sluggishness to the Univer-
sity community, thinning class-change crowds on the Diag
to penetrability, and reducing the departmental duties of the
remaining sandalled academics to an amiable routine.
Similarly, student activism, deprived of the masses which
have sustained consumer boycotts, rent strikes, welfare sit-ins
and course evaluation pamphlets( falls td unregarded gestures
like walkouts by student members of advisory committees.
Even The Daily, monitor of all that deserves attention, de-
clines to a flimsy four pages.
But even now fresh currents are finding direction in the
murky Summer Orientation channels of this scholarly sea of
tranquility.
Cosmopolitan crowds of tanned youngsters from New York
to Norway (Mich.) emerge periodically from Mosher or Jordan
to trek diligently among the $200 million worth of features on
this campus which will harbor them from their parents and
General Hershey for the next four years./
THEY ARE NOT as naive as we, with our veterans' super-
iority, would like to think they are beneath those blazing sports
shirts, flowered dresses and penny loafers.
Theirs is a pioneering spirit, a sense of shaping their own
destiny, which has perennially warmed the greetings of stodgy
deans and advisors, and is as genuinely well suited to planning
a course schedule as it is to scaling the heights of the hill.
WITH ENTHUSIASM unabated by dorm food and bureau-
cratic snafus, they return home to nurture hopes and plans
for the fall.
Not long from now, the men will have grown their locks
long in disillusionment, and women's newly liberated breasts
will bounce brassiereless. They will'have learned what bearded
leftist ancients would have told them on the second day of ar-
rival at 8:00 p.m. had not the lesson been lost in a 15-minute
pep-talk on revolution: that their life will be patterned less by
choice than by class schedules and library hours and fratern-
ities and friends.
And so, with a bit more fire, stoked by a renewed sense of
purpose, or perhaps a renewed sense of social advantages, and
a bit less cheer, students will thread the thickened Diag crowds,
they will picket grape marketers, withhold rent, produce mus-
icals and course evaluations, and fill at least ten pages of The
Daily until next summer.
Associated Press
(-olor blind?
i I
Letters: Optimism and a Radical Union
To the Editor:
AS ONE of the "optimistic"
radicals who strongly supports
the Radical Union proposed by
Radical Caucus last week, I would
like to comment on Dan Zwerd-
ling's editorial in last Friday's
Daily and Bruce Levine's response
on Saturday.
First of all, I fully agree with
Dan's criticism of SGC and with
some of his analysis of the need
for a University-wide student
union with mass-based support. I
was very disappointed by Bruce
Levine's attempt to avoid this
question with declarations imply-
ing that co-operations between
"the most rock-ribbed conservative
and the reddest radical" is impos-
sible. It is perfectly clear, I think,
that conservatives and radicals can
indeed co-operate in areas of com-
mon oppression - the Tenants
Union is just one example.
However, personally I believe
that it would be a serious strategic
error for the Left to provide the
impetus for a student union. Any
democratically controlled union
would probably be concerned, at
least in the beginning, primarily
with the student role in the Uni-
versity and with other questions
involving the oppresion of students
as students. But I think that it
would better serve the interests
of the students and of the Amer-
ican people to raise issues pointing
toward their oppression as women,
as blacks, or (most importantly)
as future members of the working
class. By working class, I mean
not only blue collar workers, but
also housewives, white collar work-
ers and the so-called professionals
like engineers and teachers. The
working class is, essentially, that
class of people who live off their
wages or salaries, not their divi-
dends, their rent or their other
profits.
IT SEEMS to me that a great
many student power issues are
reactionary when viewed in the
larger context of the fundamental
social crises of our country. For
example, putting ROTC, recruit-
ment by war contractors, or war
strike, the proposed bookstore,
etc.) are progressive and must be
supported by the Left. In this light
I view Dan's suggestion for a stu-
dent union with mixed feelings.
When such a union could act as
a progressive force, clearly radicals
should back it.
Dan's proposal is, however,
largely irrelevant to the debate
over a Radical Union. The forma-
tion of a RU would not delay, or
hasten, a student union. The only
objection to a RU which rings true
to me is the fear that Radical
Caucus, the Independent Socialist
Club and local SDS cannot over-
come their political and personal
differences enough to meet to-
gether in one room without chaos
developing. This is, frankly, a very
serious problem.
AMONG RADICALS here this
summer at least, there seems to be
general agreement that some kind
of co-operation on actions and
issues is necessary in order to
bring the Left's critique of our
society before the University com-
munity and the rest of Ann Arbor.
A great deal of sentiment seems
to favor co-ordination by a liaison
committee with little decision
making power in itself. I fail to see
how such a committee would be
able to respond to rapidly develop-
ing events in a crisis. Its members,
after all, would be little more than
divisions have been articulated by
the leaders of the various groups
and these are the people who will
make up the committee. Some op-
ponents of the RU have suggested
that the meetings will be open to
the public or to the members of
the component groups. But this
would merely raise the problems
of conducting a large meeting wth
supposedly hostile factions, the
very problem they say will destroy
any real Radical Union.
IN SHORT, the concept of a
co-ordinating committee fails to
remove the objectionable features
of a Radical Union, but increases
the danger of splits and bureau-
cratic manipulation. A co-ordina-
ting committee would probably be
ignored in a crisis sitgation and
would, therefore, fail to meet the
need of the Left for increased com-
munication a n d co-operation
among the various sects. It may
well be that differences (partic-
ularly the ones between Radical
Caucus, ISC and local SDS) will
cause the Radical Union to dis-
solve.
But the Left would then be little
worse off than it is now. Radical
Caucus, for one, has indicated i s
desire to form such a union, as has
ISC. The only real question-mark
remains local SDS, which has been
inactive here in Ann Arbor this
summer. Those prophets who fore-
tired from classes, and just stay
home watching TV.
Dinner time? Heavens no! Who-
ever eats dinner in the summer?
Saturdays and Sundays? Don't
be absurd. Students sleep all day
Saturdays and Sundays. Morning
to 3:30 p.m.? Good. That is the
time students cut classes and
flock to that wonderful heavenly
place; the Michigan 'Union Mug
Cafeteria. Don't forget that it is
also the time the University em-
ployes take their coffee breaks.
The genius or collection of gen-
iuses that devised this wonderful
new time for the union cafeteria
deserve the award of the year.
-Joe Berman, '69
Aug. 8
Okrent strikes
To the Editor:
IN HIS REVIEW of Shirley Po-
vich's All These Mornings, Eric
Siegel refers to sportswriting as a
"profession in which the hack-
neyed is quite often the common-
place.
In his next paragraph, referring
to Povich, Siegel says, "Yet, de-
spite the literary ability of this
Liberace of the blue-ribboned key-
board who weaves a symphony of
sports memories..."
In other words, Siegel proves
his point.
-Daniel Okrent
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