a iw tcbti a& Dtaily Seventy-Third Year EDITED AND MANAGED sTSTUDENTS OfTm Uvmrsrr Y oMICm(;AN UNDER AUTHORMT OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUicATIONS STUDENT PUSMCATIONS BLDG., Arn AioR., MICH., PHoNE No 2-3241 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in al, reprints. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1964 NIGHT EDITOR: MICHAEL SATTINGER The Direct Action Theory: Problems, Failures, Hopes Each Time I Chanced To See Franklin D. Repudiations: By the Voters, the Board and IFC by H. Neil Berksou THE DEMOCRATIC VICTORY in Monday's City Coun- SGC ADMINISTRATIVE Vice-President Howard Schec- into board meetings before his term starts in the fall. cil elections was both surprising and welcome. Win- ter will be bringing a motion to the Council table The board has no precedent to admit him. This is rather ning four out of five races, the Democrats have moved tonight to rewrite Regents Bylaw 29.08. This is the article unusual. Most boards allow members-elect to sit in on with in one vote of controllipg the 11-man council. The which refers to the Board in Control of Intercollegiate meetings in order to familiarize themselves with issues statisticians would have to go back to 1930 to find the Athletics. As the bylaw now stands, its most objection- and procedures. This is true for the Board in Control last Democratic majority. able features are the following: of Student Publications. It is also true of the Regents- In recent years it hasn't even been close. Prof. -Only men can vote in the elections for student Regent-elect Eugene B. Cudlip took part in proceedings Samuel J. Eldersveld of the political science department members to the board; long before his term began. ran on the Democratic ticket for mayor in 1957. He won, -While the ordinary student running for the board Weinberg wants to do a good job on the board; and three Democrats followed him to the council in 1958. must turn in a petition duly signed by 300 people, the he wants to attend meetings; it would be nice if he But since 1959, Republicans have never held less than athletic administration can automatically place any two were invited to do so. a 9-2 edge and actually held all eleven seats one year. candidates (always athletes) on the ballot. IFC HAS RECENTLY come out with a new publication: THE MOST interesting race was in the First Ward BOTH OF THESE ITEMS differentiate and discrim- Michigan Fraternity Commentary. The magazine is where incumbent Democrat Mrs. Eunice Burns turned inate among students. Women are as much affected off to an ambitious start. Its first issue has a long article back the right wing challenge of Republican Frederick by board actions (remember the $12.00 coupon?) as men. dealing with discrimination in the fraternity system, C. Tower. Tower's attempted smear campaign was fully Moreover, it is certainly contrary to the aims of the past and present. exposed through grass roots work within the ward, and Regents and the purposes of the University to distinguish Ever since the question of fraternity bias first arose he was convincingly repudiated. between students and student athletes. (The recent on this campus in the late Forties, IFC and Panhel have While there is certainly no definitive parallel to be elections, by the way, marked the first time a non- done everything in their power to obstruct and confuse drawn with the November elections, the Democratic athlete has been elected to the board within memory.) the issues involved. Under former President Clifford victory should not be overlooked. It may have its roots Schecter's motion should be a good one. If SGC Taylor the fraternity-system finally realized that it had back in the Kennedy assassination, and the Republican passes it, the Regents will hopefully act ... WHILE ON better take the initiative in solving the bias problem. Party nationally may well be in trouble unless it can THE SUBJECT, Thomas Weinberg, the student recently Taylor did a good job, and it appears as if the new clearly disassociate itself from the right. elected to the athletic board, is having trouble getting president, Larry Lossing, intends to follow him. DIRECT ACTION as a part of the Negro movement can be successful only to the degree that it proceeds from a firm base of understanding by the Negroes in- volved of the goals and theory behind their approach. Wherever direct action has had firm. financial backing, a leadership acquainted with the relevant political realities, and an understanding by the people engaged in the protest of what they are doing and why, a measure of integration has been achieved. IT WAS FOUR NEGRO college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, that ini- tiated the direct action concept in Febru- ary, 1960. They conceived, on impulse, the idea of a sit-in at a local dime store. Nothing can be more indicative of the latent Negro concern with civil rights than the incredible speed with which that one small action spread throughout the South. This direct action movement, with all the variations of the basic sit-in that have been developed since 1960, reached a climax last summer in Albany, Birm- ingham, Washington, D.C., and countless other Northern and Southern cities. CLEARLY, THE CONCEPT is a very im- portant and useful tool in the Negro movement; but, just as clearly, it has certain limits to its usefulness and can be effective only under certain conditions. In Atlanta, it has worked well. Sit-ins, picketing and boycotts have played apart in the desegregation of most of the down- town restaurants and motels, of the city buses and of the theatres and lunch coun- ters. But the civil rights movement in At- lanta has been a carefully-controlled, well-planned operation working within a generally favorable environment. These many environmental factors have played their roles in scoring civil rights suc- cesses. Such factors are hardly as favor- able in most other Southern, or even Northern, cities. FURTHERMORE, the movement seems to have reached the limit of its effec- tiveness even in this large, cosmopolitan city. Direct action has been able to bring changes in those areas where the city as a whole is directly concerned. Little prog- ress is being made in efforts aimed at public accommodations outside of the downtown area. Direct action can be successful only when staged in conspicuously public arenas. It can only work within a basical- ly sympathetic environment. When the local citizenry, papers and area leaders are inalterably opposed to any form of Negro protest or reconciliation, direct ac- tion, in proportion to its directness, will meet only an increasingly severe re- sponse. A final criterion for direct action suc- cess lies in the nature of the specific pro- test. Firm leadership and a strong grasp by all the participants of the goals and methods involved is necessary. Without these prerequisites, direct action lacks or- ganization and coherency and all too often deteriorates into some form of viol- ence. There is nothing which can possibly be more harmful to the Negro's goals in a white country than Negro violence. N VIEW of this last conclusion, those who are impatient and counsel in- creasingly direct action in the face of painfully slow civil rights progress must be answered. Theirs is false counsel. It courts disaster, for there is everywhere in this nation an undercurrent compound- ed of fear, dislike and distrust with re- gard to the Negro's aspirations. Negro violence is the inevitable result of too-direct action aimed at too-recalci- trant foes of the movement. In turn, the result of violence will be to bring this ugly undercurrent into the open. This would undo many years of pain- ful progress in the civil rights movement. It would, in fact, do violence to any hopes of the future success for many years. The Negro can hardly wish to see the broad front he has established in the last few years in his own behalf go up in smoke. There is no question that the movement's foundations are set on weak pillars of Negro education, leadership, self-awareness, financial resources and white sympathy. A determined white of- fense could destroy this painstakingly built foundation in very short order. HE NEGRO, then, must reconcile him- self to many more years of patient struggle against the many forces, both within and without, that are arrayed against him. Direct action, properly ap- plied and executed, is one tool among many for the Negro movement. Often use- ful, it can be equally destructive when overplayed. It is, no substitute for pa- tience, understanding on both sides and a great deal of hard work. -ROBERT JOHNSTON THE COUP IN BRAZIL: The Road to Real Revolution LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Legalzed a boron: (EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second in a three-part series of articles on the recent coup d'etat which ousted Brazilian President Joao Goulart.) By STEPHEN BERKOWITZ Daily Guest Writer THE BRAZILIAN COUP of last Thursday once again raises the specter of American supported dic- tatorship in Latin America. It marks the re-birth of gunboat di- plomacy in an age of ostensible political sophistication. The egocentric Yanquism of the 160's is, however, to come equipped with new and interesting trappings which are designed to dazzle the eye and dull the mind. In the age of Johnsonian prag- matism, the people of the United States are going to be asked to adopt a messianism so drenched in the waters of moral certainty that the missionary zeal of the past will stand awestruck before the image of its fanaticism. * * * AMIDST increasingly disturbing reports of a repression of per- sonal liberties in Brazil which finds few precedents in the history of that nation, the Johnson ad- ministration is asking the Ameri- can people to condone and extend their commitment to a regime of such a patently illegitimate char- acter that statements by various government officials to the effect that the coup was designed to "protect constitutional govern- ment and democracy," take on the appearance of low comedy. Not the least humorous of the factors surrounding the incident, of course, is the obvious way the witch hunt directed against "Com- munists and suspected Commun- ists" in government is calculated to satisfy the American palate. Were it not for the increasingly serious nature of the terror and political repression being conduct- ed by the Brazilian military, the whole episode might rightfully take its place as one incident among many in the chronicle of America's bumbling mismanage- ment in Latin America. * * * THERE IS little cause for levity in the history of rightist influence in Brazil. Although it is difficult to generalize amidst the diversity of so chaotic a political framework, it seems reasonable to say that in general the influence of the right and far right on the Brazil- ian political climate has been a potent one. Two parties, the So- cial Democratic Party (PSD) and the National Democratic Uiion (UDN), both representing the right of the political spectrum, have exerted a powerful influence on national and municipal politics in Brazil in the past, and have strong promise of doing so in the future. The only material dif- ference between the two lies in the fact that support for the UDN has been more urban and industrial in character than that of the PSD. In addition to these, there is a scattering of smaller groups on the right-many of them left over from the pro-fascist ferment of the Twenties and Thirties-which ranges well outside what might be called the operating consensus of democratic government. None of these sects are terribly influential in and of themselves, but given the highly fragmented nature of Brazilian polites and the presence within it of a large and for the most part unassimilated foreign population (many from Italy, Japan, Germany and Spain), they ought not to be discounted en- tirely. Many of the persons who com- pose the Brazilian middle class- a group reported to have provided much of the popular support for the Thursday coup-come from Although this pro-fascist activr ity has been waning in recent years, the potential support (as exemplified by the series of anti- semitic incidents in 1961) for such a development,,, nonetheless exists. It is because of this history of neo-fascism that the laudatory and ill-timed American support of the present military government of Brazil seems so distressing. In terms of the Brazilian affair at least, the present administra- tion seems to lack even the most obscuret'intellectual understand- ing of the character and develop- ment of events in European history between 1929-45 in its "anti-Communist" and "pragma- tic" approach to Latin American policy. * * BEYOND THIS, however, a reasonably serious argument can be made to the effect that the actions of the United States, in supporting the military regime in Brazil, not only compromises its vaunted "morality" but will lead yet learned that to support so repressive a regime as the one which apparently is now in power in Brazil, is to invite this sort of rebellion. * * * WHAT WE have seen in Brazil is neither of these sorts of ac- tivity. What we have witnessed was simply the utilization of mili- tary force by those who have held the power in Brazil to topple from office a man who had roots within or support from interests within Brazilian society other than those dominated by this elite. The structure of Brazilian so- ciety is extremely regressive. Much of the wealth of the society still lies in the hands of an extremely small portion of the population. It was toward this sort of situa- tion that some of the provisions of the Alliance for Progress (tax reform, better administration of funds, etc.) were directed. Both Joao Goulart and his pred- ecessor Janio Quadros realized, I believe, the necessity for some sort of change in the economic situation , within the country- especially in the distribution of land and/in the tax structure-if the nation was to progress. * * THE BREAKDOWN in the economy and government of Bra- zil which the country experienced under Goulart- was nothing new. The economic situation in Brazil has been extremely moribund since the end of the war. During the last six or seven years the situation has worsened. Since Quadros' inauguration, at- tempts have been made to correct the economic conditions within the country in the only way pos- sible-by bringing about broad changes in the distribution of wealth within Brazilian society. It was this attempt-not in- eptitude, or "Communization" or what have you-that the vested interests represented within the military and government reacted to. * * .* IN 1961, shortly after his in- auguration, President Quadros re- signed from office.bHis rationale at the time had been that "re- actionary" and "foreign" influ- ences had made any real change in Brazilian life impossible. Despite considerable opposition, Joao Gou- lart was initiated as his successor. The sources of this opposition, the landowners, the military and portions of the middle class, con- tinued to oppose Goulart. The legislative branch of government, which has a long history of leth- argy, contained considerable ele- ments hostile to reform-although some of the reforms which Qua- dros demanded were passed, in watered-down form, after his res- ignation. * * * FURTHER, in seeking to assess the responsibility Goulart's regime should bear for the disintegration of public administration, it should be borne in mind that although Brazil has a federal structure, it is far more decentralized than, for instance, the United States. The central government is dras- tically underfinanced and much of the administration of the country (as should be apparent from the regional nature of the develop- ment of the revolt itself) is in the hands of local government agencies with little contact with or responsibility toward the cen- tral authorities: Municipal admin- istration In Brazil has, for the most part, been chaotic and cor- rupt. Thus what popular participation we witnessed in the revolt in Brazil was either: 1) regional- that is to say, directed against a City Council: The New Mood To the Editor:, AFTER READING the editorial "Double Standard Demands Legalized Abortion" by Steven Haller, many questions crowd the mind. Is legalized abortion the answer to this problem? To treat a symp- tom and not the disease may ar- rest, but hardly cures the illness. The "double standard" which creates the problem of abortion seems to be the disease clamoring for cure. Let us not simply accept the double standard, but set on a program attacking it.. Are the human embryo and the fertilized ovum of a bird com- mensurate? I fail to see the paral- lel-save both are eggs. Is the question of murder ir- relevant "when one realizes that in our modern-day society abor- tion is inevitable anyway?" If a human being is killed at 20 days or at 20 years, just what is the difference? Hospitals, prisons and mental institutions are flooded with 20 year-olds quite useless to society. Why not rid America of these parasites? DOES CIVIL LAW alone deter- mine-the moral right or wrong of a human action? If there is no legal sanction, does a man become a law unto himself? This seems to be a highly dangerous tenet. Is morality to be locked in the hermetically-sealed compartment of forty-five minutes a week spent in church and life locked in an- other compartment altogether? Are expediency, the popular vote and sympathy for the plight of an unwed mother, the ultimate de- terminants of morality? Do all ethical ormoral truths have a relative standard which is in con- ctant flux? If this is true all. my "so-called" rights can be taken from me by the vote of the major- ity; what is true today might be false tomorrow. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are my rights today; tomorrow they may be taken from me by law. * * * IF ABORTION has nothing to do with morality and if the ques- tion the question of murder is out- side the ambit of this discussion, then why commend the girl who does not get the abortion, as you did in your editorial? If your premise is accurate, the one girl is no more ethical than the other. You might praise the one for her bravery in flaunting the accept- able norms of a condemning so- ciety; I might extol the other for her extreme prudence in procuring an abortion. Why praise one and not the other?. I suggest a program of action: Wage an all out campaign against the double standard of morals in our country. Be puritanical enough to em- phasize that a woman is more than a bundle of sex awaiting the exploitation of man. Up-date and render more severe the laws against "amateur abor- tionists" and "quack doctors." Readjust society's thinking to- ward the young girl who has had the misfortune of pregnancy out of wedlock. Everyone of us makes mistakes; let us not be so hypo- critical and condemn so easily. Create bigger and better hos- pitals and agencies prepared to cope with the unwed mother and her baby. Be ready to give finan- cial, psychological and spiritual help to the mother. -hA. Williams, '64 Recommends Cure To the Editor: THE EDITORIAL of Thursday, ing" as is suggested in the article still does not solve the problem because euthanasia has its own problems of morality, and is, I be- lieve, legally murder. Also, Mr. Haller states, "the entire question of whether murder is involved is irrelevant when one realizes that in our modern-day society abortion is Inevitable any- way." I, for one, do not believe that the question of. murder is ever irrelevant. HOWEVER, Mr. Haller ought to be commended for seeking, to dis- cues a very serious and relevant problem: sexual promiscuity in our society. Nevertheless, he is sug- gesting a course of action (not considering the real morality of abortion) which is aimed at the symptomatology of an ill, in so- ciety and not at curing the society. Perhaps the p'oblem might bet- ter be attacked through more clear teaching to our young people of the facts of love and life, through increased social services to unwed mothers, and through increased counseling services to families and individuals. -David G. Gordon Denied the Vote To the Editor: I AM A STUDENT who was twice denied voting privileges by the city clerk's office. I was once de- nied voting privileges by the city attorney's office.,I had one City Council member tell me that I didn't have a chance to vote. I talked with three lawyers, a judgeand two editors. Three newspaper articles resulted, and my case was in preparation for court. As a last measure for peaceful settlement, I went once more to the city clerk's office. I was cor- dially received. * * * PLEASE LET IT be know that today I received my license to vote. How wonderful it is to be licensed! How wonderful the kind- ness of those in City Hall who have finally come to favor me! What a shame, though, that the election is over. -Frank Andreae,'65E Religion at-Dearborn To the Editor: MR. DeWITT BALDWIN'S com- ments as reported in the April 4 edition of The Daily in- dicate an appalling lack of under- standing about the meaning of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. That the law- suit regarding the religious cen- ter in Dearborn "won't get very far because what was done favors no religious faith" begs the basic constitutional question. What the Dearborn Board of Education and apparently te Uni- versity are attempting to do is to use public funds to establish re- ligion. It does not matter that no particular faith is given a pre- ferred status; the concept of separation of church and state re- quires that government not be in- volved in the .promotion of sec- tarian matters. What is objection- able is that organized religion will be supported from monies drawn from the public treasury. Sensitive students of the re- lationships of church and state as well as thoughtful religionists readily admit that religion flour- ishes best in an atmosphere where government follows a strict policy of non-intervention and non- support in the affairs of faith. -Lawrence S. Berlin Extension Service JOAO GOULART what alternatives? ANN ARBOR'S Monday elections have resulted in a City Council shakeup along party lines. With the vote of Re- publican Mayor Cecil Creal, Republicans now hold only a 6-5 majority over Demo- cratic Council members. Until then they had dominated the council with a 9-2 majority. The new shift in city politics implies very important lessons for both Republi- cans and Democrats; the pattern of Ann Arbor City Council legislation may have been changed for a long time to come. The election results were not a fluke. Outside of the Fair Housing Ordinance, there were no §pecial issues occupying the minds of Ann Arbor voters. Yet, the ordinance has not changed substantially from the last two elections, elections in which voting was predominantly Repub- lican. Thus, the election of four Democrats was not the result of a sudden shift in public opinion about a highly popular voting issue. It was rather caused by a changing general mood of the Ann Arbor public, a mood created not by any one specific issue but rather by a culmination of issues over the past year. F THE ELECTION RESULTS are indeed a reflection of a changing general mood of the Ann Arbor public, what lessons for Democrats and Republicans will evolve from the new situation? The major new fact of life for Ann Arbor Democrats is that, while they are still the council underdogs, they now face the Republican party on a more even to bring more legislation to the council table with greater expectations of hav- ing it acted upon favorably. This is also certainly one of their new responsibilities. In addition, the Demo- cratic party must now take a very equal share of the responsibility for the actions of, the City Council. Certainly, no one would question the integrity of the indi- vidual Democratic councilmen of the past few years. But it is nonetheless obvious that it has been very easy for the rank- and-file party to evade the question of Democratic responsibility in an issue by reference to the 9-2 Republican majority. This is no longer possible and Democratic Ann Arborites must realize that now, more than ever, they will be called upon to stand up and account for council deci- sions. FOR ANN ARBOR Republicans, the problem is just the opposite; instead of an increase, their responsibilities for council actions have decreased by a three- vote margin. This means that the Repub- lican party no longer has to worry about being as strongly in the public eye as it has been in the past. Council mistakes will no longer necessarily be Republican party mistakes. This decrease in public pressure should make the Republican party a good deal freer in council actions. It can liberalize its proposals to a certain extent and feel freer to experiment with council legisla- tion and with public reaction to this leg- islation. The Republican party can now afford to take a legislative chance once to precisely the sort of authoritar- ian-leftist regime in Brazil which it sought to prevent. It is a com- mentary both on the impotence of traditional American diplomacy in Latin America and on the lack of understanding as to the simplest mechanics of revolutionary history which American policy makers en- joy, that a situation' which so clearly marks Brazil for revolu- tion has not only been tolerated, but indeed has been encouraged by the present administration. The various news media, gov- ernment officials, and what have you which have referred to the Brazilian coup during this last week as a "revolution" belie their ignorance as to the morphology of revolutionary change in Latin America during the last several years. A REVOLUTION-whether it is simply the expression of a tem- porary attribute of a particular society, or is more enduring both in terms of its 'goals and its temporality-occurs whenever a significant and/or strategic por- tion of a population becomes dis- affected with its conditions of life. As such, an adequate distinction ought to be drawn between revo- lution which, in some way affects the basic relationship between the governors and the governed with- in the society, and that which simply substitutes one ruling group for another. This first sort of change- revolutionary change which brings about a radical transformation of the society under consideration- did not occur and in fact has never occurred-in Brazil. The