t fe 3tr4§an Pai Seventy-eight years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan Flint College reaches critical point 420 Maynard 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 alt reprints. THURSDAY, MAY 22, 1969 NIGHT EDITOR: MARTIN A HIRSCHMAN Melvin Laird and his unanswer to war FEW STATESMEN can rival Melvin Laird's insensitivity to the chronic so- cial needs of the American people a n d their hope for an -early peace in Vietnam. Laird vaunted his insensitivity, thinly, veiled as genuine concern f o r' national security, ip his warning Friday that peace in Vietnam will not significantly decrease military spending. There has been an almost ten to one disparity since World War IIbetween fed- eral military expenditures and federal ex- penditures for educatiori, welfare, health and housing. If and when the Vietnam War e n d s, Laird will undoubtedly do his best to en- sure that much of the approximately $30 billion per annum now spent there will be refunneled into spending for the Safe- guard anti-ballistic missile system. ONE STEP IN Laird's campaign to in- duce insecurity in the American public and thereby win support for Safeguard has been his criticism of the Polaris sub- marine fleet. JN THESE DAYS of conservative atti- tudes one dare not suggest our govern- ment do anything unplanned, spontan- eous or interesting. But we will anyway. Because basically, o U r government is not so much conservative as it is general- ly dumb. Also highly defensive and en- fatuated with surprise and set on making sure every good thing that happens hap- pens in the U.S.A. Several Apollo 10 astronauts are sch- eduled to descend within nine miles of the moon's surface today. Now w h y spend $350 million just to go within nine miles of completing a quarter million-mile journey? We have no idea, and seriously doubt that our government could figure out one either. Therefore, it is predicted that we will land on the moon today to everyone's surprise but our own. MAYNARD et al NIGHT EDITORS: Joel Block, Nadine Cohodas, Harold Rosenthal,, Judy Sarasohn. ASSISTANT NIGHT EDITORS: Lorna Cherot, Erika Hoff, Scott Mixer, Sharon Weiner, Laird "seriously questions" whether Po- laris will provide an adequate deterrent in three years. However, Rear Admiral Levering Smith, director of the navy's strategic systems projects, has removed a sizable c h i n k from Safeguard's armor, so meticulously welded together from Laird's rationaliza- tions. Levering says he is "quite positive" the polaris system will remain relatively in- vulnerable f o r another forty years. He He knows of no new Soviet anti-subma- rine warfare methods. TRUE TO FORM, Laird is also doing his utmost to impede military de-escala- tion in Vietnam, in defiance of the wishes of most of the American public. Laird refuses to endorse a withdrawal of 50,000 American troops unless there is a significant improvement in the fighting ability of the South Vietnamese army, un- less the North Vietnamese make a recip- rocal withdrawal, or unless they limit in some way their military operations in the South. A Harris survey shows that by 49 to 34 percent, Americans favor immediate with- drawal of 50,000 troops without any of Laird's preconditions. (N THE PAST defense secretaries 1 i k e Clark Clifford and Robert McNamara proved a slight counterbalance to t h e militancy of the chiefs of staff. Clifford was influential in Johnson's decision to limit the bombing of the N o r t h which initiated the Paris peace talks. Secretary Laird, however, may well be more mili taristic than the military. r If Laird has his way with defense ex- penditures, those who perhaps too naive- ly presumed the Vietnam War prevented greater government involvement in social problems, will accuse the administration of bad faith. Laird will then have done more to pol- arize the American community than any other statesman in r e c e n t memory by pandering to the security paranoia of the conservative middle class while alienat- ing students, blacks, intellectuals and the poor. -TOBE LEV By TORE LEV Last of two parts THE PROBLEMS of the Univer- sity's Flint campus are more than just budgetary and racial. Housing is and will become even more of a problem as enrollment f r o m areas outside of Flint in- creases. Currently 90 per cent of all students commute. Non-com- muting freshmen must live in Uni- versity housing and many others who don't commute live in Uni- versity housing because they can't lease apartments off-campus. The university has m a d e no special effort to encourage local realtors to lease apartments to non-freshmen, says Flint college Dean David French, University housing comprises two apartment houses occupied by students under an agreement be- tween the administrators and Pi- per Realty Company. STUDENTS frequently c o m- plain about the crowding of five or six students into three bedroom apartments which are extremely cramped. Thin walls between bed- rooms a n d between different apartments make studying hard. No one is extremely happy about living conditions. But French says the apartments are as good or bet- ter than any that could be found close to campus. The University must either con- struct dormitories or make further arrangements with realtors to house incoming blacks from De- troit and more incoming students from outside Flint. THE HOUSING situation has helped make Flint unattractive to non - Flint students. A rumor is constantly repeated that enroll- ment is down this year because students have heard about condi- tions in apartments. Many students and townspeople have expressed fear the University is planning high rise apartments economically unfeasible to house incoming blacks on land present- ly belonging to an urban renewal project. French insists these fears are completely unfounded. "As our population grows we are interest- ed in examining the possibilities of other private housing develop- ments but there has been no talk of dorms or high rises with cen- tral facilities." French admits t h e housing problem is urgent but says no de- cision has yet been made on what and where to build or whether to make arrangements with local realtors for existing apartments. There are indications the Uni- versity has d~slgns on the urban renewal area, and will make no mention of its plans for fear of provoking a public outcry. BLACKS HAVE arranged to house incoming Detroiters in an off-campus apartment. J a in e s Robertson, director of student ser- vices, says the University will ac- cept this housing arrangement pending the furnishing of the prospective apartments- Many students have urged ex- panded services, including gym- nasiums, professional counseling for psychological problems, a full- time nurse and a doctor on call on campus, and more cultural facili- ties and coffee houses. Robertson agrees with m a n y students that the 1 a c k of com- munal areas and student activities inhibits any sense of college com- munity among students. The town itself offers few en- tertainment spots for students -p perhaps t h e largest outstanding share of General Motors stock in the country. As the town's major political force, he o w n s several major private and public build- ings in town, including the college classroom building and the library. According to the white and black radicals, the influence of Mott is pervasive in the school and in nearly every institutiob in town as the bulwark behind Flint conser- vatism. "Any person who is trying to rise up the political ladder in THE ADMINISTRATION and faculty feel the school is relatively new, that big strides have been made and that remaining problems; will be dealt with in good order. The administration seems to have moved too slowly in the areas of .student housing and student services. It does not seem to be acting decisively and energetically enough to obtain land and money for construction of a student ac- tivities building, cultural and ath- letic facilities, and new dorms or apartments for incoming fresh- men. THE PROBLEM of inadequate student services has existed since the school's inception as a two- year junior college in 1956. The problem of housing is of imme- diate concern in the next two years. Enrollment next year alone will show an increase of 250. Even high schools have their own gym- nasiums. The Students for Black Action (SBA) have caught the University by surprise in their demands for increased black eInrollment. No one at the school had ever con- sidered recruiting blacks in De- troit as the SBA did itself this year. The administration's passive at- titude toward influencing policy in local high schools and indeed at- titudes of its own student govern- ment council betrays in part a. lack of sentivity to the problems of blacks. The college has been equally passive in dealings with the many local realtors who refuse to lease to students under 21. The Flint administrators are.far from racist, inhuman ogres. How- ever, they lack a sense of urgency in dealing with certain problems and seem to have a certain in- sentivity to the frustrations of their students, the blacks in par- ticular. MORE DISHEARTENING the faculty and administration is no more conservative than the major- ity of students at Flint, or at least ho more apathetic. Students are extremely job- oriented at Flint to the exclusion of any social concerns, such as the problems of the poor or the black ghettoes in the city. "We are in a factory town, says Perlan, "and if you notice most of your demonstrators and pro- testers don't come from a working class environment." "My first impression of walking on the Flint campus," says Wilgus. "is having been thrown back to 1956. It is pretty hard to relate to people on the other side of the coffee shop, "It is pretty hard to get students to move out of sure things like bridge games and Saturday night parties." "I appreciate the efforts of the blacks and the progressive club," says Perlman, "and wish more stu- dents would get involved in cam- pus issues." ACCORDING TO FRENCH, the liberals and radicals have not availed themselves of the oppor- tunity of discussing campus issues with him. According to the liberals and radicals French is insincere and his whole manner and style puts them off. Presently the radicals mistrust much of what French says. French has proclaimed more than once the University had no intention of building on urban renewal area. His proclamations have not con- vinced the radicals. The administration had better make a final concerted effort to, look at and deal with crucial prob- lems before the polarization of ad- ministration and conservative stu- dents on the one hand and the radicals and libeals on the other critically worsens. op .4 4.- records Grumiaux for summer nostalgia By R. A. PERRY F , YOU ARE like most music addicts, summer probably finds you spending less time in front of the speakers and less- money on new albums. Recording com- panies know your disloyal perversities well and so they hoard their newly-taped treas- ures for the Fall Rush; nevertheless, they do dribble out enough new discs over the summer months to satisfy rainy day and, balmy night needs. Of the many recordings that have recently appeared, I would like to recommend the following. Any recital by violinist Arthur Grumiaux can be recommended, for Grumlaux pos- sesses a musical sensibility that appears to prevent any perfunctory gesture, and his playing finds' expression in the smallest detail, and meaning without exaggeration in large musical statements. His posture generally is cool and aristocratic, rather like Szeryng's, but he can adapt his tone and bowing to meet any virtuoso or sen- timental need. Recently Grumiaux teamed up with violist Georges Janzer (founder of the Vegh Quartet) and cellist Eva Czako, wife of Janzer and professor at-the Hanover Hoch- sehule fur Music. The resulting "Grumiaux Trio" has begun to make recordings for Philips and one can only hope that they continue to do so for many years, if no other reason, to correct the excesses of the Stern/Rose/Istomin approach. THE GRUMIAUX Trio have already re- corded Mozart's sublime K. 563, and this month Philips released the Trio's perform- ance of Beethoven's Opus 9, Nos 1 and 3. Both works are masterpieces by the "early Beethoven" and both a'e harmonically rich (especially considering the limitations of the trio form) and contemplative works that both muse and sing. The C-minor trio might be considered more compelling for the strange insistent .return to the four notes, descending the minor scale in unison, which open the work. These two trios perch between Classical antecedents and later Romantic prero- gatives; they honor balance and form and a certain defined architectonic enclosure, but at the same time the tendency to break through that enclosure and tackle more dynamic and freely poetic emotions can easily be heard. The Grumiaux Trio stress the former inclinations in a beauti- ' fully polished and tightly coordinated ensemble; they achieve a certain thickness of sound, still graceful and flexible, that C is not inappropriate to the works. Thatf Janzer and Czako seem reticent under Grumiaux's lead also indicates the Trio's more Classical approach. Philips has pro- vided examplary sound and for once, silent surfaces. To hear the second more Romantic ap- proach, energetic and individualized, you could "do no better than pick up the old Artia recording of these Beethoven trios with Kogan, Barshal, and Rostropovich. IF THE PAINTERLY category "Impres- sionism" belongs to any composer, it should be applied no to Debussy but to Frederick Delius. Delius the loner, who died in 1934, detested "cacophonies" of Stravinsky, Pro- kovief, and other moderns; to them, he said, "a beautiful face is no longer as in- that his larger works-choral pieces and the six operas-will only sell in England, where indeed much more Delius material is available. Angel's new release (S-36588, 'featuring Sir John Barbirolli conducting the Halle Orchestra, once again retreads familiar ground and offers only a few previously unavailable views. "In a Sum- mer Garden," "Summer Night on the River," and "On Hearing the First Cuckoo in, Spring" are all familiar, but other short pieces such as "Late Swallows," and the Intermezzo and Serernade from "Hassan," with a misty vocalise sung by Robert Tear, will please the Delius fan and waft anyone to sleep on a muggy summer night.' IF ADMIRERERS of the music of Henry Purcell are not yet sated by all the recent Purcell releases (doesn't Alfred Deller ever sleep?), they will want to know that two never-before-recorded works have just been released by Vanguard (VCS-10053), and that they are truly worthy of notice. For "Celestial Music" (Ode for Mr. Louis Maid- well's School), a commissioned work to which Purcell was obliged to attend, he provided some wonderful tableaus, especial- ly the final trio for. alto, tenor, and bass, where the tenor has the main melody and the alto and bass weave around him. Similar invigorating solo arias and chor- uses are spotted throughout the Ode for Queen Mary's Birthday, set to dull prose by Dryden's cur Shadwell. The soloists are English and sound it; that is, they are splendid unitl you get to the boomy, nasal bass. The Chorus and Orchestra of the Accademia Montever- diana are led with verve and pungency by C olu m b i a musicologist/conductor/ writer/promoter Denis Stevens. FINALLY, THERE'S a new Julian Bream record out. Bream, who hasi already rec- orded most of the major works written or adapted for the guitar, here applies his redoubtable technique and sensitivity to other than drive-ins, bowling al- leys and bars for those over 21. Entertainment is consequently confined mostly to private homes. ROBERSON SAYS the Univer - sity does not own any land to build on. Besides, he explains, the state legislature will not provide funds for a student activities building. Currently the college provides no medical facilities for students on the grounds that most are com- muters and should get treatment for themselves at home. There is a nurse on call at t h e University apartments. Presumably the same explanation applies for psycholo- gical services. "One problem I see is the bore- dom around here," says Carl Port' president of the W h i t e Liberal Progressive Club. "There is no challenge and nothing for a kid to do between 17 and 21 except go to the movies or a dance. "Flint has one of the largest per- centages of messed up kids of any school of comparable size in the country," he adds. Many are contemptuous of the school for preserving the. status quo in town. French alludes to this possibility, explaining that ap- proximately 20 per cent ,of each graduating class works for t h e town's General Motors Company. THE MAJORITY enter teaching in town, where they promote the "Mott philosophy." Charles Steward Mott, 91, is a multimillionaire and holder of If E c -r6 town is controlled by GM or the Mott foundation. Either he works at GM or teaches at a Mott-run school," says Jerry Wilgus, the town's only SDS member. One story suggests Flint- was created by a Mott financial deal. Mott wanted a college in Flint, so the story goes, to impress South- ern immigrants recruited into the General Motors system with the cultural advantages in town. Mott put three or four times the amount that went into the Flint college into buildings in Ann Ar- bor. Finally Ann Arbor consented to lend its name to the present structure in Flint. SCHOOL CONSERVATISM is the outgrowth of town conserv- atism and perhaps an outgrowth of town pressure and control in the guise of Mott, General Motors and other large firms. "This is an exaggeration about Mr. Mott. Nothing comes from local sources for paying faculty and operating expenses of the Uni- versity," says French. 'The Mott foundation gets blamed and credited far more than, it deserves or earns," says Flint sociology Professor Ellis Perlman. "They are not conservative so much as cautious. In my dealings with them for funds their reaction has not so much been an outright resistance to change but an un- certainty about what kinds of changes are needed for what kinds of purposes." Letters to the Editor should be mailed to the Editorial Di- rector or delivered to Mary Rafferty in the Student Pub- lications business office in the Michigan Daily building. Let- ters should be typed, double- spaced and normally should not exceed 250 words, The Editorial Directors reservesthe right to edit all.,letters submitted. ,t Letters to the, Editor To the Editor- THE LETTER of May U seen as the scapego tains the nightmare qt arguments where eachi sumes the other has the sE values and assumptions, is completely confused v other doesn't come to t conclusions. One side sees the mili solution to already existi lems. The other sees the *as the problem. We see violence per se a lem, war per se as a prob impossible for us to con. as a solution in light of torical definition of ever! its people .as just, holy,e for some noble cause. T' never been an aggressivec war being defined as def When we seer the eco many nations resting 'x factured military situatio we see conflicts like which are obviously not fense but only for kee military industrial , com cupied, we can only conc the military itself Jis a The military does not violence and war-it is and war. This is hardly a to the role of a bicycle l your lock steal other bicycles? WE ARE NOT ASSUMI solute love, truth, hones grity and human unders exist, thus making the ROTC get down in the dirt and grapple wjith it. It takes courage' and un- ~lrstanding. Make. sure that man 6, "ROTChas passed all his courses with at at," con- least a 3.0046 average befofe he uiality of begins on your daughter. 'Don't party as- you think he might be more re- ame basic sponsible and more reasonable to and then deal with?" when the What does Dr. Hess think all the the same discontent with current curricula stems from? Does he really think' ,we agree with him that present tary as a college curricula are humanizing? ng prob- The depth of this misunderstand- military ing is astounding. I did not realize it would be necessary to explain, "No, we -do not believe a bac- ks a prob- calaureate degree confers any lem. It is humanitarianism, in fact, just the sider war opposite." Universities are largely the his- training grounds for accepting the y war by cenventions and anti-life rituals of herenhs, society. 'I'm afraid it means very war, eahchlittle to me whether those op- war, each erating the gas chambers have, Lensive. their degrees or not. nomy of The prime motive in the anti- 0 manu- ROTC movement is to remove its ns, when image as a normal respectable pro- Vietnam fession. This image is what the for de- average citizen sees, and he goes ping the into the military as he would into plex oc- architecture or hotel management lu e that -just another prestigious position problem. in society. prevent violence MUCH OF SOCIETY, including analogous the military, is aimed at patterns )ck. Does which are useless and harmful, people's and this re'ality must be faced and evaluated, not accepted as a career like any other. What perpetuates ING "ab- violence is not so much valid ideo- ty, inte- logical confrontation, or even tanding" cruelty and callousness. It is more military the acceptance of societv's con- , r . 4