........... , ..........
10
Seventy-Fifth Year
EDrrnD AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNwvERSrrY OF MICHmAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
Mississippi Holds Up
The Walls of Injustice
Where Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH.
Truth WiUl Prevail
Np'ws PHONE: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
FRIDAY, 19 FEBRUARY 1965 NIGHT EDITOR: MICHAEL SATTINGER
The War on Poverty
Needs To Be Refocused
'i
sb
ONE OF THE GREAT dangers of an all-
out war on poverty is that it tends to
divert the public from focusing on the
central battle inherent in the war. That
battle is- the struggle to develop quali-
fied manpower in this country and it
can be fought best in the classroom
under the supervision and with the sup-
port of private industry.
The public is not, however, being given
this impression. On the one hand, the
government has sought to impose its om-
nipotence with a deluge of programs gear-
ed to attacking poverty from every pos-
sible angle. On the other hand, liberal
thinkers are crying for a massive social
revolution which will reach beyond the
elimination of poverty and revamp the
present social framework.
Amidst the fanfare' and the foment,
the issue of manpower education has been
buried. And private enterprise, while uni-
laterally making some of the most dra-
matic strides against poverty in the past
few years, has been ignored. It is time
to refocus the war.
THE NEED for qualified manpower was
underscored in recent days by two
powerful chief executives. President Lyn-
don Johnson told businessmen Wednes-
day that by 1985 the work force will re-
quire 100 million jobs-compared with
the 60 million existing now. Mayor Daley
of Chicago told a University audience
that his city has over 100,000 unemployed
people along side large numbers of job
vacancies at skill levels.
The question is, who should take the
initiative in alleviating this situation:
the government, the poor themselves or
educational institutions?
Daley said his city's answer was a com-
prehensive manpower program aimed at
turning out 7500 men and women for jobs
in a 12-month period. The plan includes
everything from vocational education to
counseling, testing and job placement.
EVEN IGNORING the fact that 7500 is
a rather puny beginning, Daley's plan
is sadly nearsighted. The early experi-
ences in city job-training have shown a
tendency to turn out workers who are
simply not equipped for available jobs.
Their training consists too often of per-
forming bogus tasks such as cleaning
beaches and digging ditches; insufficient
attention is given to the job market. The
rapidly-expanding technology is much
too swift for the vocational teacher who
comes from the city college or high school
shop class.
The city's assault on manpower also is
basically handicapped by the fact that it
is part of a larger grand design to com-
bat poverty. In Chicago, manpower prob-
lems will ultimately fall to a special
urbanization committee which is also co-
ordinating social welfare, health, envir-
onment, recreation-culture and commu-
nity development programs. This diversi-
fication of fronts will tend to dilute the
quality of personnel in any one area. It
Will also confuse programs. Education,
for example, might fall in Chicago un-
der the Cook County Department of Pub-
lic Aid, the Chicago Board of Education,
the State Board of Education or a host
of social welfare agencies.
BUT IF THE CITY is not the answer
to manpower problems, what about
the "liberal" thinkers who want the poor
to work out their own problems?
While they would not impose the same
bureaucratic morass on the program, the
liberals want to complicate the man-
power battle (and the poverty war it-
self) by linking it to social revolution.
They argue that poverty cannot be
H. NEIL BERKSON, Editor
KENNETH WINTER EDWARD HERSTEIN
Managing Editor Editorial Director
ANN GWIRTZMAN . .... ..... Personnel Director
BILL BULLARD .. .............. .... Sports Editor
MICHAEL SATTINGER .... Associate Managing Editor
JOHN KENNY .. ........ Assistant Managing Editor
)EBORAH BEATTIE Associate Editorial Director
LOUISE LIND ........ Assistant Editorial Director in
Charge of the Magazine
TOM ROWLAND ............ Associate Sports Editor
GARY WYNER ............. Associate Sports Editor
STEVEN HALLER ............Contributing Editor
MARY LOU BUTCHER .. ....... Contributing Editor
JAMES KESON ... . ........... Chief Photographer
NIGHT EDITORS: Lauren Bahr, David Block, John
Bryant, Jeffrey Goodman, Robert Hippler, Robert
Johnston, Michael Juliar, Laurence Kirshbaum,
Leonard Pratt.
ASSISTAN~T NIGHWT EITOR: William Benoit, Bruce
eradicated without reshaping the politi-
cal and social power structure of this
country. To them, a poverty war financed
by the paternalistic government is an-
other method of reinforcing the existing
'system of society because the people
dispensing funds are citizen committees
of prominent business leaders who al-
ready run things.
THEIR ERROR as it applies to manpow-
er training is two-fold. First, they
neglect to realize that job-training is a
very specific process: the preparation of
one individual for one job. "The new
technology has removed the margin for
educational error," a recent national sur-
vey has declared. This means that to
mis-train an individual is practically as
bad as not training him at all-he still
won't find a job.
The new liberal philosophers cannot
clearly spell out the nature of the so-
ciety after turmoil. They would be even
harder pressed to determine what kind of
jobs will be available in a society where
the currently prominent defense indus-
tries would be practically collapsed. How
could they plan man-for-job training
programs?
SECOND, they too are guilty of over-
relating poverty problems. One speak-
er after the Daley speech said, "You have
to attack all 10 aspects of poverty at once
or the one you don't hit will set you
back." This is simply not true since edu-
cation alone can often make up the dif-
ference for a handicapped person: wheth-
er it be environmental or physical. There
is greater danger from hinging the suc-
cess of a number of less important pro-
grams to the fate of educational im-
provement in this country. The educat-
ed man-one prepared to accept and
handle a job-will eventually eradicate
poor housing, illiteracy, sanitation prob-
lems and delinquency through his own
decency and the thrust of his dollars in
the economy.
Nor will it matter how thoroughly the
economy and power structure are shaken
up-the mobility of labor will be limited.
The next answer would be, of course, to
guarantee every man a minimum wage as
these liberals propose to do. But then
wouldn't this be re-creating the pater-
nalistic hand-me-out of the government
-even a government which would assum -
edly be much more representative of the
poor?
WITH THE GOVERNMENT and the im-
poverished unqualified to run the
manpower training, the remaining answer
is educational institutions supported by
industry and by many of the federal
funds currently earmarked for city pro-
grams.
The operation of these programs could
take many forms. One functioning possi-
bility is the crossover program operated
at the University's Dearborn Center. This
project alternates classroom and factory
work for a student so that his education-
al training is both theoretical and practi-
cal. The University is concerned with the
student not .only in the classroom but
during his paid apprenticeship.
THERE ARE NUMEROUS variations of
this program being tried around the
country, but the higher education insti-
tutions would be unable to handle the
full labor load alone. Hence, the money
which is being flooded into the omni-
bus poverty programs should be invested
in the development of community col-
leges.
The University's. Dearborn Center was
sponsored by Ford Motor Co. Private in-
dustry, with a stake in the proper devel-
opment of its future workers, could be
encouraged to participate financially in
similar programs with matching grants
to communities. The Detroit area alone
could fill 15 community, colleges of 1000
students each according to leading state
educators.
These students would hopefully be able
to get the personal and environmental
uplift which the other poverty programs
hope to achieve right at the institution.
And once out, they would be ready for v
specific job and a specific niche in so-
ciety. They would be able to take a de-
cision-making part in the society. And
thv urnild h o trmandu swlfare hur
:ars, . bm. -
10 &e %M'f.$.a ~ i
Automiationi
TODAY AND TOMORROW:
War in Asia: Suprem e Folly
By WALTER LIPPMANN
WE ARE just seeing another
attempt to form a government
in Saigon, and much depends, for
the future at least, on whether it
is able to hold together for a
decent time. For the reason why
the situation in Viet Nam has
become so critical in the past
three months is that South Viet.
Nam has been crumbling and is
at the point of collapse.
The Viet Cong have been so
near winning the war and forcing
the United States to withdraw its
troops that Hanoi and Peking
havetbrushed off feelers for a
negotiated peace. They believe
themselves to be in sight of a
dictated peace.
We, for our part, have found
ourselves quite unable to put to-
gether a South Vietnamese gov-
ernment which is willing or able
to rally enough popular support
to hold back the advancing Viet
Cong. The American Army fight-
ing the Viet Cong have been like
men trying to drive away a swarm
of mosquitoes with baseball bats.
However, because there is noth-
ing else to do, we keep on. We do
not wish to face the disagreeable
fact that the rebels are winning
the civil war.
THE EASY WAY to avoid the
truth is to persuade ourselves that
this is not really a civil war, but
is in fact essentially an invasion
of South Viet Nam by North Viet
Nam. This has produced the argu-
ment that the way to stabilize
South Viet Nam is to wage war
against North Viet Nam.
The more thoughtless and reck-
less members of this school of
thinking hold that only by at-
tacking North Viet Nam with
heavy and sustained bombard-
ment can we snatch a victory in
South Viet Nam from the jaws
of defeat. They have not yet car-
ried the day in Washington. But
the President, when he ordered
the retaliatory raids, no doubt in-
tended to remind Hanoi and Pe-
king that the United States could,
if it chose to, inflict devastating
damage.
APART from ,the question of
the morality and the gigantic
risks of escalating the war, there
is not sufficient reason to think
that the northern Communists
can be bombed into submission.
We must not forget that North
Viet Nam has a large army-
larger, it is said, than any other
army on the East Asian mainland
except China's. This North Viet-
namese Army can walk, and no-
body has yet found a way of
bombing that can prevent foot
soldiers from walking.
It is most likely that if we set
out to devastate Hanoi and North
Viet Nam, this army would invade
South Viet Nam. In South Viet
Nam we could not bomb the army
because that would mean that we
would be killing our South Viet-
namese friends. There is little
reason to think that the Saigon
government and its very dubious
troops would be able to fight back,
or in fact that it would want to
fight back.
The Asian Communists fight on
the land, and they think about
war in terms of infantry. I be-
lieve that the reason why they
are not terrified, nor much de-
terred, by our kind of military
power is that they believe a war on
the mainland will be fought on
the ground and will be decided on
the ground. There they have not
only superior numbers, but wide-
spread popular support.
FOR THIS COUNTRY to in-
volve itself in such a war in Asia
would be an act of supreme folly.
While the warhawks would rejoice
when it began, the people would
weep before it ended. There is no
tolerable alternative except a ne-
gotiated truce, and the real prob-
lem is not whether we should ne-
gotiate, but whether we can.
It is not certain, given the weak-
ness and confusion in South Viet
Nam; that Hanoi and Peking who
are poised for the kill will agree
to a cease-fire and a conference
and a negotiation. But while this
has, I believe, been the implied
objective of our policy, the time
has come when it should be the
avowed objective, an objective
pursued with all our many and
very considerable diplomatic re-
sources.
(c), 1965, The Washington Post Co.
To the Editor:
PRESIDENTS HAVE SPOKEN,
courts have ruled and legis-
latures have acted. Under such a
withering attack the walls of in-
justice in Mississippi must soon
fall.
For a specific case in point, just
look at the town of Canton which
lies a few miles north of Jackson,
the state capital. Last year at this
time there were 600 Negroes reg-
istered; today there are only 300.
Between the years 1960 and 1964
the percentage of eligible Negroes
registered to vote in all of the
state increased from 5 per cent to
6.8 per cent. Between the years
1964 and 1965 the percentage of
eligible Negroes registered in
Madison County (Canton) drop-
ped from 10 per cent to 5 per cent.
Onward and upward in the Mag-
nolia State.
The overriding fact of Missis-
sippi's registration procedure is
its arbitrariness. Though there is
a 20-question application, each
county registrar is the sole judge,
accountable to no one but him-
self.
THE QUESTIONS on the Ala-
bama test are certainly difficult,
unjustly so, but at least there are
correct answers which one may
eventually learn. But what is one
to answer for question 19 of the
Mississippi test:
Write in the space below a
statement setting forth your un-
derstanding of the duties and
obligations of citizenship under
a constitutional form of govern-
mnent.
You may submit a doctoral
thesis as your answer, but your
success will depend upon the whim
of the local registrar.
Whim is the basis of law in Mis-
sissippi. The loss of 300 registered
voters in Madison County may be
attributed to it. The registrar
simply struck their names from
the voting rolls and informed the
individuals that they must regis-
ter again.
FEDERAL lawsuits are one
means of combatting injustice in
Mississippi. There are two excel-
lent examples of the efficacy of
the injunctive power of the federal
courts.
Last May the Justice Depart-
ment finally won a suit in Panola
County, the court ruling that
everyone must be registered upon
appearance at the registrar's of-
fice. Result: the same day that
the ruling was handed down, Ike
Shankle, county registrar, simply
closed down his branch office in
Sardis, leaving only the Batesville
office available. Panola is a rural
and impoverished county; the
journey to Batesville is simply im-
possible for many of the residents.
Justice has also been moving
swiftly in Forrest County (Hat-
tiesburg). After more than four
years of litigation and the ac-
cumultion of three trunks of evi-
dence, the case has still not been
settled and Registrar Theron
Lynd is still free. Ostensibly,
Lynd is in contempt of court, but
action here must wait the results
of another test case involving
contempt proceedings which will
undoubtedly go to the Supreme
Court some years hence
ONE MAY ASK why the For-
rest County case has already
taken over four years. It went
something like this: the Justice
Department asked to see the regis-
tration records, which the 1960
Civil Rights Act empowered them
to do; Lynd simply refused; the
Justice Department went into fed-
eral district court only to have
it uphold Lynd; the Justice De-
partment appealed to the circuit
court and finally got an order
permitting it to examine the
books; after preparing a brief, the
Justice Department took it to
district court which ruled in favor
of Lynd; appeal to the circuit
court produced a ruling against
Lynd, which he managed to delay
by appealing to the Supreme
Court.
When the highest court refused
to review the case, Lynd simply
disobeyed the original order; the
Justice Department then filed con-
tempt charges, which the circuit
court issued; Lynd demanded a
jury trial (sure aquittal in Mis-
sissippi) and the court ruled that
a decision would have to wait upon
another test case And there the
case stands; and there the Negroes
of Forrest County stand, unable
to register.
That person who said "go slow"
sure wasn't kidding.
-Sam Walker, '65
Diag Speeches
To the Editor:
HAVING ATTENDED the recent
protest rally on the Diag and
having afterwards read The Daily's
account of it, I should like to
suggest that at least the two main
speakers be given space in the
paper to state their views in per-
son.
I presume that Professor Berg-
mann's brief manuscript is still
extant and I hope that Professor
first have an undistorted version
of the original, though unpopular,
argument.
-Ingo Seidler
Professor of German
EDITOR'S NOTE: Unfortunately,
a six-to-eight-page paper cannot
nearly do justice to all of the
important things said on campus
every day. Between news and edi-
torial articles, the Diag debate did
receive a relatively large amount of
space; we regret the lack of space
which prevent all such events from
being described in more detail.
-E.H.
'Chez Torpe'
To the Editor:
'VE READ Miss Berry's reviews
before and have usually found
them graceful and with some in-
sight; that is why I was surprised
to find she is the author of a most
unsympathetic and uninsightful
review (Feb. 18) of "Chez Torpe."
She feels, according to her review
that the play can be "characteriz-
ed in one word . . . Tiresome." I
feel that this word better char-
acterizes her review.
She begins by saying, "Billet-
doux' play has no coherence of
theme, no resolution of the plot,
no explanation of motivation for
the characters, just no point." I
feel that this statement reveals a
misunderstanding of the form of
the play on her part.
WHAT MIGHT Miss Berry have
said about the form used by other
contemporary French playwrights
such as Beckett and Genet? Is
there any resolution of the plot
in "Waiting for Godot?" I think
that unless "resolution" is strain-
ed very far in its meaning, the
answer must be "No!" Is there
any explanation of the motivation
for the characters? Unless "mo-
tivation" isrused in an extreme
sense, the answer must again be
"No!"
As Martin Esslin puts it (in his
fine book, "Th Theater of the
Absurd"), "'Waiting for Godot'
does not tell a story; it explores
a static situation. 'Nothing hap-
pens, nobody comes, nobody goes,
it's awful'."And yet we must not
support that because the plot is
not constructed as we might ex-
pect, that it is on that account
not successful (it might be un-
successful on some other account) .
Nor must we suppose that because
the characters of Beckett and
Genet's plays happen not to be
motivated as we might expect,
are they on that account unsuc-
cessful.
IT MUST BE noted, however,
that Billetdoux play is not strict-
ly an absurdist play. Nevertheless,
as the program notes point out
he has been influenced by the ab-
surdists' techniques. Consequently,
we must look at the play as one
written in the same era-in the
same country-as "Waiting for
Godot" and "Endgame" by
Beckett; "Improvisation" a n d
"The Bald Soprano" by Ionesco;
and the "Madwoman of Chal-
leaux" by Giraudoux. It is a mis-
take to look for characters who
are motivated as they are in
"Hamlet," or for plots that urge
the characters to a fated con-
clusion as in "Lear."
It may be that Miss Berry will
say that I have told her nothing
new, that she is more than willing
to judge a play in terms of the
form appropriate to it. She might
contend that, even if one grants
that it is a play influenced by
the absurdists, it still fails, not
by traditional standards, but by
its own standards. Were Miss
Berry to take this tacl, I would
surely have to disagree with her.
Taken on its own terms the play
is both intelligible and interesting.
TAKE URSUAL TORPE. She
certainly is mysterious, but she
is not mystifying. At least, she is
not as mystifying as Miss Berry
indicates in the paragraph which
begins, "There is this inn full of
people with suicidal tendencies
run by a woman of tremendous
power (the nature of which we are
not told) . .
The nature of her power is not
told; it is shown. The nature of
her power is that she has the
ability to console extraordinarily
depressed people - or destroy
them.
The depressed come from many
places to be with her. But there
was one person by whom she
wished to be consoled. She told
him so, and it was perhaps this
loss of strength which caused him
to become the first suicide. With
his suicide Ursula's loss of strength
became more prounounced. She is
still profound, sensitive and ad-
mirable, but no longer can kindle
the will to live with those depress-
ed people who congregate around
her.
NOR DOES Karl Topfer, the
male protagonist, present much of
a problem. He is organized, in-
sensitive and has a "peasant's
face." He is strong, but at times
uncomprehending.
He provides a complement to the
character of Ursula. She is losing
strength; he has strength. She is
profound in her insight; he is any-
thing but. Not surprisingly, they
i
x
A
'
4
4
BUDAPEST QUARTET:
Beethoven Concerts
Maintain Excellence
THE BUDAPEST Quartet con-
tinued its illuminating series
of Beethoven concerts last night.
On the program were Op. 18,
No. 1, Op. 59, No. 2, and Op. 132,
a beautifully rounded sequence of
works. From the opening germinal
statement of the F Major Quarter
through the pithy opening of the
A Minor work, the progression
through historical and musical
time was a convincing study in
the unfolding of a personal style.
The Budapest presented unfail-
ingly well worked-in perform-
ances. It is true that the edge of
technical perfection has become
somewhat worn in the last few
years, but the situation is per-
haps analogous to the Beatles
"Who Do You 'Think You Are --e "
going bald: it takes a long time
until the condition becomes ser-
ious, since there is so much to
start with.
ALTHOUGH Joseph Roisman's
tone and technique were a little
edgy last night, Alexander Schnei-
der's superb ability to make the
role of second violinist meaning-
ful, as well as Boris Kroyt's and
Mischa Schneider's usual excel-
lence, made the evening tonally
and artistically rewarding. The
old Budapest sound has lost little
of its richness, and the always
amazing togetherness of the group
has retained its high quality.
The focus of the evening, as is
natural in a cyclical performance,
was on the works rather than the
performance. It is continually
gratifying to review and rethink
the Beethoven quartets, because
they change with the listener,
continually providing new rewards.
The early indoctrination one
gets into the, sharp divisions of
Early, Middle and Late linger
through many hearings. Eventual-
ly, the striking underlying stylistic
traits make themselves heard, and
the Early quartets start to sound
prophetic. In a further analysis,
one perhaps realizes that Beet-
hoven really is Beethoven at all
stages, from the significant three-
part statement of the theme in
the first F Major Quartet to the
condensed richness of the final
F Major Quartet.
* * *
THROUGHOUT the sixteen
quartets, it is fascinating to fol-
low the interplay of convention
and change. Even the great ab-
straction of the late quartets rests
solidly on the accepted bases of
late eighteenth-century taste.
The inability of the later nine-
teenth-century music world to
",<*.
r:
x
} : ?
-,.
I ^
I
Tv JN
S 1
.. r
Af
I 1
I(