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October 24, 1961 - Image 4

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The Michigan Daily, 1961-10-24

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"We Have A Few Primitive Conditions Here, Too"

Seventy-First Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
- UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
ere Opinions Are Free STUDENT PUBLICATIONS BLDG. * ANN ARBOR, MICH. * Phone NO 2-3241
Truth Will Frevail"a
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.

NESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1961

NIGHT EDITOR: ROBERT FARRELL

i

Fa.ern~t.. Aut01my
By PAT GOLDEN, Associate City Editor

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DEARBORN:
Ethnocentric City
Draws the Line

NY GROUP OF STUDENTS having the
right of occupancy of a living unit not
owned or administered by the University cer-
tainly has the right to choose other occupants
of that living unit. But if it operates within
the context of the University, making use of
facilities or activities of the University as a
housing unit, the group must select its mem-
bership within the framework of University
bylaws and regulations.
If this University maintains a bylaw prohib-
iting discrimination on the basis of race, creed,
color, national origin or ancestry, then no fra-
ternity or sorority chapter can use those cri-
teria.
The University's demand that member'ship
not be limited by arbitrary criteria is the sole
restriction in a group's right to choose its' own
members. There can be no justification for
allowing any other part of the decision-making
process to rest beyond the current residents of
the living unit. There can be no restrictions
on membership selection placed on the local
by its national organization. The -rest of the
national does not live in the chapter house. Any
criteria which the local sets for accepting new
members can only apply to the current crop
of prospective pledges, and cease to be ap-
plicable when those pledges become members
and other individuals leave the house.
A RECOMMENDATION from an alumnas
or an alumni group is a helpful addition
to the discussion about a prospective pledge,
but it cannot be a binding requirement for
membership. Neither can a negative recom-
mendation from an alumnus legitimately serve
as a blackball. The decision must be wholly
within the active chapter membership.
If membership is self-perpetuating at a lo-
cal level--with no one present merely because
his ancestors and relations belonged to that
group, and no one missing because he falls into
an arbitrarily excluded classification-then a
fraternity chapter may claim some measure of
the elusive quality called brotherhood. For this
brotherhood, or fraternal loyalty, of an affili-
ate group does not arise mystically with the
chanting of certain secret oaths or the per-
formance of ritual motions-I feel no tie of
brotherhood to the millions of persons who
everyday perform the same toothbrushing rit-
ual as I do, with the same brand of toothpaste.
Cooperative work, plus opportunities for social
and intellectual interaction, create group loy-
alty-and none of these depend on paper and
jewelry ties with fraternal groups at any other
campus,
The local co-ops can make a more legiti-
mate claim to the group loyalty and unity
than most sororities, because they elicit mean-
ingful cooperation from their occupants. In a
women's co-op, the kitchen is always open for
snacks and leftovers, and the women plan
meals, cook, serve and clean up. In a sorority,
the housemother plans meals, a hired cook pre-

pares them, hired male students serve and
clean up. Most sorority kitchens are locked be-
ween meals so the "sisters" can't get in and
"steal" any food.
TO SOME EXTENT, the loyalty of a chap-
er is built-upon its traditions and its alum-
ni. There can be, a feeling of ties through the
years with people who have lived in the same
house at overlapping times. But even these
bonds can only be to a particular campus chap-
ter where the alumnus once lived.
The status of a national is a pleasant fringe
benefit for a local chapter, granted. But this
status alone is not a legitimate reason for
maintaining affiliation with a group that binds,
a local chapter to outside control of its mera-
bership policies. And if status is not an ade-
quate justification, the only valid one is the
financial support a national can offer to a lo-
cal. Hence, a workable financial alternative
ought to eliminate altogether the reluctance of
a chapter to sever national ties which, by their
strangling bigotry, endanger the life of the local
on this campus.
BECAUSE IT DECIDED not to tolerate dis-
crimination after it had officially recog-
nized a number of organizations which do dis-
criminate, the University has an obligation to
provide feasible means for these units to re-
move their discriminatory restrictions, locally,
rather than immediately booting them out of
the University community.
In the Sigma Kappa fiasco of a few years
ago, the house in question had been admitted
to the campus after passage of Regents bylaw
2.14, .the anti-discrimination ruling. Since the
University was not applying a law retroactive-
ly in this case, it had perfect.justification for
removing the offending group. That it failed
to do so is a disgrace to the University. How-
ever, the only constructive way to deal with
the problem of enforcing the bylaw in 1961 is to,
deal with all groups as if they had equal right
to University assistance in removing their dis-
criminatory restrictions.
The University can provide a feasible pro-
gram by establishing a revolving, low interest
fund to assist local chapters in paying off all
debts to their nations, including the purchase
of chapter houses and the payment of mort-
gages and loans when necessary. It can fur-
ther provide assistance from the Inter-Cooper-
ative Council to help houses cut costs and set
up cooperative work plans. It can use its in-
fluence to persuade the alumni of local chap-
ters to remain loyal to the, Michigan chapter
rather than to the national organization.
The University should bend over backwards,
with financial and personnel assistance to
chapters that want to remove the fetters off
discrimination. Then it can legitimately re-
move from the University community those
groups which do not wish to operate on non-
discriminatory terms.

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A.F.A. WAR LORDS:
Loud Voice for Militarism

By ROBERT SELWA
Daily Staff Writer
DEARBORN, MICHIGAN, ac-
cording to many integration-
ists, is a city of sin. This is false.
Dearborn is not a city of sin.
Dearborn is a city of ethnocen-
trism.
Ethnocentrism is the belief in
the inherent superiority of one's
own group and culture accom-
panied by a feeling of contempt
for other groups and cultures.
This is the belief of many Dear-
bornites regarding their commun-
ityand their feeling toward the
Negro race.t
Ethnocentrism is a violation of
humanism, the emerging spirit of
the American nation. Those Dear-
bornites who maintain an ethno-
centric estimate of the Negro race
are operating on norms contrary
to the national movement toward
a more humane United States.
*r * *
DISCRIMINATION against Ne-
groes is a force that underlies
much of the political, social and
ethical life of Dearborn, but it is
a force that is not generally overt.
There is no discrimination in pub-
lic transportation and little in
public eating places. When the
Congress On Racial Equality con-
ducted, 35 tests of Dearborn res-
taurants this summer, Negroes
were served in all but two tests-
usually with courtesy, often with
resentment or anxiety.
Bigotry is a tacit issue in
mayoralty elections every two
years. Orville L. Hubbard has
neverlost an election since he
was first elected mayor in 1940. He
came in as a crusader intending
to clean up the town-there re-
portedly was a house of prosti-
tution directly accross the street
from the city's east-end high
school-and did as he promised.
Hubbard provided excellent
public service on the motto, "Keep
Dearborn Clean." The problem
emerged when many of the citizens
came to asociate this motto with
keeping Negroes out of Dearborn,
and Hubbard did not stop, this
development by his reportedly out-
spoken views "one million per
cent" in favor of segregation.
Many of the people of Dearborn
thus came to develop their spirit
of self-reassuring ethnocentrism,
and associated the maintainance
of it with the maintainance of
Hubbard in office.
HUBBARD USES no overtones
of race in his election propa-
ganda except as "Keep Dearborn
Clean" is given the added implica-
tion by some of meaning "Keep
us clean of Negroes." When many
of his supporters are asked why,
in the light of city hall extrava-
gance and of what is charged as
the rule of men rather than the
rule of law, they still back him,
they answer, "Would you like to
live next door to a Negro?"
Not all Dearbornites feel this
way. Many, particularily the
young and the students, are bit-
terly opposed to this point of view.
And'Negroes do live in Dearborn.
Mayor Hubbard will readily ad-
mit that there are a few Negro
amilies residing in Dearborn. They
live in the south end of the city,
a section in which many dark-
skinned people who are not Ne-
groid live.
But the 'knowledge that a few
Negroes do live in Dearborn seems
only to encourage more the ethno-
centrism of those who are bigoted.
* *' *
ETHNOCENTRISM operates in
spite of, rather than along with,
respectable American norms. For
the Dearbornites are members of

the solid middle and lower upper
classes. Nearly all are homeowners.
Most are regular church-goers.
The basis of humanism is there;
but for many the double standard
operates-humanism on Sunday
morning, ethnocentrism on Sun-
day afternoon when friends come
to visit.
The city's leading newspaper,
the Dearborn Guide validly ob-
serves that ethnocentrism is not
exclusive to Dearborn and that it
operates just as vigorously in
neighboring suburban communi-
ties. "Whatever bigotry exists in
this city is relatively small and
insignificant and should not be
branded on the community as a
whole," the Guide wrote after
Dearborn was visited by the Epis-
copal Society for Cultural and
Racial Unity.
* * *
BIGOTRY should not be branded
on the community as a whole, nor
on the' community exclusively.
However, that it is small and in-
significant can be disputed. Ethno-
centrism, which differs from bigo-
try, is certainly not small and in-
significant.
Mayor Hubbard is, rightly or
wrongly, the symbol of this society
as long as he stays in office. And
the outlook is that he will stay in
office and wield power as long as
he wishes to do so. He has this
fall's election cinched, and it ap-
pears that his majority of pro-
Administration puppets will be
re-elected to the city council.
THE YOUNG of the community
are' not entirely humanistic nor
anti-ethnocentric, but they tend
to be firmly opposed to the Hub-
bard regime, having been strongly
influenced by their teachers (edu-
cation and city government are
frequently at odds). But few of
the city's high school graduates
settle in Dearborn, which will re-
main an enclosed city unless it
agrees to annex Dearborn Town-
ship. In addition, the young have
little political force, although they
have a leader in 24-year-olcd law-
yer Roger Craig, a member of the
school board.
Intolerance is not subscribed to
by law in Dearborn; it is sub-
scribed to by attitude of a portion
of the community. The change of
attitude will emerge slowly and
only through recognition by the
ethnocentric that America was
founded on principles of brother-
hood and fraternity-that America
is seeking to better achieve :these
principles, and that Americsns
must move together in this
achievement. The realization of
this may be hindered by integra-
tionist groups that seek to make
an example of Dearborn, and in
doing so make it firmer in its
ethnocentrism.
DAILY OFFICIAL
BULLETIN,
The Daily Official Bulletin an
official publication of The Univer-
sity of Michigan for which The
Michigan Daily assues no editorial
responsibility. Notices should be
sent in TYPEWRITTEN form to
Room 3519 Administration Building
before 2 p.m., two days preceding
publication.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25
General Notices
Regents' Meeting: Fri., Nov. 17. Com-
munications for consideration at this
meeting must be in the President's
hand not later than Nov. 7. Please sub-
mit twenty-one copies of each commu-
nication.
(Cntinued on Page 5)

By RONALD WILTON
Daily staff Writer
MANY AMERICANS who laugh
at and ridicule those who fol-
low Bertrand Russell and his
"Better Red than Dead" slogan
are unaware of a more dangerous
group operating at the other end
of the political spectrum, here in
the United States.
The group is the Air Force As-
sociation. It is staffed largely by
retired Air Force officers and is
spokesman for the Air Force and
the aviation-missile industry, the
latter of which pays the bills. By
their very nature these two groups
are foremost among those which
have a vested interest in the con-
tinuance of the arms race.
At its last meeting in Philadel-
phia, September 20 to 24, the As-
sociation adopted a statement of
policy which appeared in full only
in the Sept. 30 issue of the Army
Navy Air Force Journal. The state-
ment heralds the birth of a
military-industrial alliance of the
type President Eisenhower re-
ferred to when he warned against
"the conjunction of an immense
military establishment and a large
arms industry."
* * *
THE GOAL of the Association is
nothing less than "the complete
eradication of the Soviet system."
As they put it, freedom must
bury Communism or be buried by
Communism. Thus we are pre-
sented with a goal which can
only come from people who have
let their hatred for Communism
and their desire for profits over-
ride their reason.
Their means towards this goal
are equally frightening. They in-
sist that "national policy must

prescribe that the choice between
nuclear and non-nuclear weapons
is neither moral nor political, but
is essentially a military considera-
tion."
What this is asking for, in ef-
fect, is the transfer of the de-
cision-making power on the use
of nuclear weapons from the
elected civilian leaders of this
country to the military. From
there it would be a small step to
control over the total American
foreign policy since they also say
that the U. S. should not hesitate
to employ its nuclear strength in
response to Soviet aggression --
whether in the form of nuclear
attack, non-nuclear attack, nu-
clear blackmail, aggression by So-
viet satellites, infiltration,. or
blackmail. And once foreign policy
is under their control the remain-
ing peak to conquer is domestic
policy.
NATURALLY, the statement
also calls for a massive step-up
in armaments research and pro-
duction, including a search for
new weapons "more selective in
application and less destructive of
life and property."
They will not be satisfied with
the Neutron bomb which can be
built to kill a variable number of
people yet leave buildings intact
and un-radioactive; they want
more effective toys, although how
something could be more militarily
effective than the N-bomb -is dif-
ficult to imagine.
THE ASSOCIATION claims that
the only insurance against a gen-
eral nuclear war is the ability to
fight, win and purposefully sur-
vive such a( conflict; yet they say

TODAY AND TOMORROW
SAlliance Troubles

By WALTER LIPPMANN

we must not hesitate to use our
own nuclear strength. What this
boils down to is a strike first
policy with the hope that our-
first strike could completely knock
out the Soviet Union's ability to
retaliate.
These same military leaders are
very fond of pointing out that if
the Soviets were to attack first,
they could not achieve this goal
with respect to us. How we could
do it to a country which is at
'least as strong as we are, and
whose retaliatory forces are more
spread out and possibly more
numerous than ours, is left out.'
What is also left out is the
slightly debatable explanation of
how anyone could win a nuclear
war.
SOME PEOPLE will argue that
the Association is merely a form
of lobby and thus is no better or
worse than any other interest
group, nor more dangerous. Un-
fortunately, this is not the case.'
The Association is merely a front
group, that says for various mili-
tary and industrial leaders what
the government will not allow
them to say for themselves. The
Philadelphia meeting was at-
tended by a large number of gen-
eralsheaded by Air Force Chief
of' Staff Curtis. Le May, and the
Army Navy Air Force Journal said
they came to the mneeting "under
wraps that had been put onat
the Pentagon," (or, in other words,
by the civilian Secretary of De-
fense Robert McNamara). One
of the generals made this known
by telling the convention that
after all the blue-penciling done
on his speech at the Pentagon,
"I don't have a hell of a lot, to
say." Such an attitude among our
highest military and industrial
leaders is frightening for the
chance exists that they will be
able to force the adoption of their'
policies.
The Air Force Association, and
the military leaders and arma-
ments industry behind it, reject
the concept of ;disarmameit, arms
control, negotiation, co-existence
and even the concept of a balanced
deterrent. They advocatestriking
first in a nuclear war which would
destroy us as well as the Soviet
Union.
THUS IT CAN BE SEEN that all
the Association's policies would
end up doing, would be to involve
this country in a total nuclear war
which we would have started. This
war would result in the death of
a majority of the American people.
Thus, by a somewhat less than
loose definition, the Association
can be said to be subversive, since
it advocates the violent overthrow
of the United States government;
going on the possibly naive as-
sumption that this government is
"of the people, by the people and
for the people."
This nation may still have to
do business with the "merchants
of death," but to let them set our
"-li- IV-..1s1% VI'

WHAT WE KNOW of the controversy in
Moscow about "Stalinism" is rather like
seeing the second act of a mystery play, hav-
ing missed the first act. Why, just now, should
Stalinism have become a burning issue? We
can only guess. Could it be because the hard-
boiled line taken by Red China, Albania, and
Herr Ulbricht in East Germany, is incompat-
ible with the paramount interest of Khrush-
chev's Russia, which is to realize the Twenty-
Year Plan of internal development?.
THE TROUBLE inside the Western- Alliance
is not nearly so important as that between
Red China and the Soviet Union within the
'Communist Alliance. For Red China is p0-
tentially a very dangerous rival, once it
achieves industrialization. With its enormous
population, its long and vague frontier with
the Soviet Union, it will in not too many years
be able to challenge not only the leadership
of the Soviet Union in the Communist world,
but the defenses of the Soviet Union on the
continent of Asia.,
As compared with this, there is no such deep
issue in the Western community about nego-
tiation concerning Berlin. But there is a con-
troversy and it is not negligible. If it is ne-
glected, it could fester into something dan-
gerous. The crux of the Western controversy
is this. We' are committed to the freedom of
West Berlin, free access to West Berlin, and
a continuing military presence of the Western
powers in West Berlin. But we are not com-
mitted irrevocably to the status quo in all
of Germany as it has been formulated in
foreign policy of Dr. Adenauer. We are com-
mitted not to recognize the East German
onvernment. Thi scnmmitment will he onn

negotiate a wider settlement within which the
freedom of West Berlin can be assured by
something more thana perpetual willingness
to unleash thermonuclear war.
FOR THIS we are being called appeasers,
and we are warned publicly by the French
ambassador in Washington that we must
not wreck the Western Alliance. Such threats,
which imply that the Western Alliance is very
fragile, are coming from Paris and from Bonn.
Their real purpose is to obtain a veto of all
negotiations. The threats are unpleasant but
they will prove to be unacceptable and un-
workable.
Experience has shown how costly can be
the policy of refusing to negotiate, the policy
not only of standing pat but of sitting down.
Last summer when the President had made
the crucial decision to stand firm at the
risk of war on our basic commitments in West
Berlin and to negotiate on wider issues, Gen.
de Gaulle imposed a veto on negotiations. Not
long after that veto there took place the
action of Aug. 13 to raise the wall in Berlin.
In the Rusk-Gromyko exploration, which
took place after the action of Aug. 13, there
was achieved the removal of the Dec. 31
deadline for signing a separate peace treaty.
It is impossible for us to break off these ex-
plorations. We cannot conduct the Western
Alliance on the troika principle. We cannot
repeat the mistake of last summer. For that
mistake led to the Berlin wall. The same mis-
take now would lead to the separate treaty,
and the nastiness of having to deal with Herr
Ulbricht.
IT IS BLATANTLY UNTRUE to say that our
willingness to negotiate stems from weakness

CAMPUS RELIGION:
Students Avoid
The Big Questions

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
Homecoming Judging*
Passing Fancies?

ALTHOUGH the colleges pride
themselves on the awakening
of young minds, on the asking of
the Big Questions of life (who and
what is man; whence has he come,
where is he going, what is love,
what is passion, what is reason, is
there a God?) it is soon clear to
college students that the Big Ques-
tions don't count-either in aca-
demic standing, or in later life, or
in research grants.
In the first place, the standing
assumptionris that ultimate ques-
tions are in principle unanswer-
able, and hence not worth asking
seriously. This assumption may
not discourage freshmen, but over
a four-year period it is pretty well
driven home. In the second place,
nobody is much interested in stu-
dents' answers to such questions,
or deems them worth putting in
competition with anybody else's.
Even among the professors it is
assumed that ultimate questions
are nonintellectual, personal, and
if mo+ai.c irnurnmP imnnrtoine

Anglo - American university has
committed itself to all that is "ob-
jective," countable, precise, pub-
licly verifiable. Though this com-
mitment suits the middle - class
temper capitally, it stifles religion
almost to death.
NOT ONLY RELIGION is stifled.
More fundamentally, it is possible
-_it is even common-for a stu-
dent to go to class after class of
sociology,'" economics, psychology,
literature, philosophy, and the rest,
and hardly become aware that he
is dealing with issues of life and
death, of love and solitude, of
inner growth and pain. He may
never fully grasp the fact that
education is not so much infor-
mation and technique as self-con-
frontation and change in his own
conscious life. He may sit through
lectures and write examinations-
and the professors may let him do
merely that - collecting verbal
"answers," without really think-
in +hrrnirh a ndA idinv ,hnit

To the Editor:
WENLEY HOUSE protests the
manner and process in which
the judging of this year's Home-
coming displays was conducted.
While this criticism was initally
expressed to the Homecomingdis-
play co-chairmen, it has implica-
tions for the whole campus com-
munity.
Homecoming officials, in per-
mitting the judging of displays
from inside of cars, place the
larger entries in favored position.
Small displays, often with de-
tailedrcomponents, are placed at
a severe disadvantage, even if this
is unintentioned.
Regardless of the judge's com-
petence, good intensions, or eye-
sight, their view of the displays'
details is obscrued by distance,
parked cars and people milling
about. Consequently, detailed dis-
play items are rendered insig-
nificant.,
In addition to this confinement,
the judges were only allowed
"about three minutes" (as con-
firmed by display co-chairman

evaluation. The role of conscien-
tious judges differs from that of
mere display spectators. The
Further, 'these questions are
raised about Homecoming:
1) Why were no judges selected
from personnel involved in art,
and architecture and design, es-
pecially for artistic evaluations?
2) Why must one set of judges
examine all exhibits instead of
separate judges for each division?
3) Why must football fans wait
until the dance to learn the names
of the winners, when the Ann
Arbor News, through an officially
denied "leak," announced the
winners in its 2 p.m. afternoon
edition.
-Thomas Rogers, '63
President, Wenley House
Clowns
To the Editor:
WHEN A STUNT is to be pulled
in a classroom it is custom-
ary to get the prior permission of
the lecturer.
Those muddy-headed S. A. E.

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