Seventy-Fif lb Year
EMrrED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MCMAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD TN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUSLCATOts
THE NEW SENATE MAJORITY WHIP:
Russell Long: Why Did He Get Elected?
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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
SATURDAY, 9 JANUARY 1965 NIGHT EDITOR: LAURENCE KIRSHBAUM
Uniform Criteria Are Needed
For Dropping Courses
By HAROLD WOLMAN
Special to The Daily
First in a Two-Part Series
WASHINGTON - In an action
seemingly inexplicable in
terms of the liberal gains in the
recent election, Senate Democrats
early this week elected a Southern
conservative, Sen. Russell Long
(D-La), to succeed Hubert Hum-
phrey as Senate Democratic whip.
Long, son of the flamboyant
former Louisiana Gov. Huey Long,
easily vanquished a liberal, Sen.
John Pastore (D-RI) and a mod-
erate, Sen. Mike Monroney (D-
Okla).
While Long is not as conser-
vative as some southern Senators
-many even consider him a lib-
eral on economic issues-he none-
theless opposed the administration
on such important issues as civil
rights, medicare, and the nuclear
test ban treaty. At the same time,
his election was even more amaz-
ing, for he hails from Louisiana,
one of the five states which did
not go Democratic in the election
last November.
The whip post which Long has
won does not on the surface seem
terribly important. Historically it
has been the whip's job to assist
the majority leader by keeping
him informed on how party mem-
ber's stand on various issues, by
lining up votes and by generally
acting as a liason between the
leadership and party members.
HUBERT HUMPHREY, how-
ever, was far more active and
powerful than the above would
suggest, and Russell Long is likely
to emulate Humphrey in these re-
spects. Majority Leader Mike
Mansfield has shown a distaste
for the strong personal leadership
which Lyndon Johnson provided
while he was majority leader. As
a result, Mansfield has shared
much of his power and policy-
making responsibilities with the
whip, who has in effect become
the assistant majority leader.
The present importance of the
whip position is further underlin-
ed by the obvious stepping stone
that position provides to the post
of majority leader. Mansfield has
made it known that he does not
enjoy the responsibilities of his
post, and there is speculation that
he may resign in the not-to-
distant future to spend the re-
mainder of his Senate career in
relative calm'.
Even if Mansfield stays on, Long
who at 46 is 16 years younger
than the present majority leader,
can afford to patiently wait for
the post to become naturally va-
cant. That these considerations
were not absent from Long's mind
was admitted by one of his staff
who commented, "Quite frankly,
the senator is hopeful that when
Mansfield steps down he will be-
come majority leader."
Although such a promotion
would not be automatic, there is
no doubt that the Louisiana sen-
ator would have the inside track.
Both Mansfield and Johnson were
majority whips before they as-
sumed the mantle of majority
leadership.
* * *
THE ELECTION of Long to
the whipship also means that all
the Senate Democratic leadership
positions are now filled by men
ACCORDING to the 1964-65 catalogue
of the College of Literature, Science,
and the Arts: "Once the student has had
his program approved by his counselor,
he may drop a course only with his coun-
selor's approval and then only for edu-
cationally valid reasons."
For anyone who has ever tried to drop
a course late in the semester, the above
statement is obviously inadequate to de-
scribe the complexities of the unwritten
rules which seem to govern the situation.
The lack 'of communication and the de-
gree of arbitrariness granted to literary
college officials in this area is truly
astounding and should be eliminated.
Besides the lack of information in the
catalogue, it is very difficult to discover
a consistent policy from talking to coun-
seling officials. Vague answers about
what general procedure is rather than
what is definite policy usually results.
CONSEQUENTLY, the literary college
catalogue gives a ,false ,impression of
what is likely to happen to a student
who wants to drop a course. A student
is led to believe that all he has to do to
drop a course is to convince a counselor
that his reasons for doing so are educa-
tionally valid. Instead, before a student
can even explain why he wants to drop
a course, a counselor may tell him that
it is too late to drop a course and that
he doesn't have a good reason anyway.
How late is too late is not mentioned
in the literary school catalogue. Ap-
parently this is an arbitrary decision left
to individual counselors. That any time
at all during the semester should be
considered too late to drop a course is
unreasonable. If a student has an "edu-
cationally valid reason" for dropping a
course, it seems irrelevant whether he
does so the first week or the last week
of the semester.
Even though it isn't mentioned in the
literary college "guidebook," the Admin-
istrative Board of the literary college
considers petitions for dropping courses.
However, students are prevented from
appearing in person to plead their cases.
They are allowed only to submit written
petitions-an obvious disadvantage for
the student who is forced to anticipate
the questions that the board members
might bring up in their consideration of
his request. A student may be denied per-
mission to drop a course just because
he was unable to answer an objection
to his petition raised by a member of
the board.
THERE IS A SOLUTION to developing
a fairer system of dropping courses.
What constitutes an "educationally valid
reason" for dropping a course should be
made clear in the catalogue. It should
be emphasized that each case still will
be judged on its individual merits, but a
student should have definite guidelines
in the catalogue so that he knows wheth-
er or not he might have an acceptable
reason for dropping a course.
Counselors would thus use the same
guidelines in deciding about individual
cases. This should keep arbitrary deci-
sions to a minimum.
-WILLIS C. BULLARD, JR.
Sports Editor
"All Aboard As Soon As We're Ready For Departure!"
Plan for a Great Society
PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S State of the
Union message presages a period of
rare achievement.
Discussing foreign policy, the President
kept primarily to generalities. According
to tradition, he invoked the United
States' overwhelming ability to wage
world war and reviewed the steps to-
ward world peace. Nevertheless, he gave
a view of global relations and made a
forceful restatement of fundamental
American foreign policy which implied
subtle changes from the usual approach
to the problem. The President indicated
that this country is not omnipotent, and
that its policies are frequently shaped by
events, however much it may wish to
shape them: "for today the state of the
Union depends, in large measure, upon
the state of the world."
JUSTICE AND ORDER in such a world
are in the best interests not only of
this nation, but of all nations, Mr. John-
son noted. And, perhaps mindful of burn-
ed USIA libraries, murdered American
missionaries and captive counter-guerril-
las, the President added a simple expo-
sition of this goal in explaining why the
U.S. willingly submits itself to such tra-
vails: "For ourselves we seek neither
praise nor blame, gratitude nor obed-
ience. We seek peace. We seek freedom.
We seek to enrich the life of man."
A strengthened UN, an enlarged com-
mitment to the Alliance for Progress, an
Atlantic Community-these are familiar,
There IS One?
TIME: 2 p.m., Thursday, January 7, the
first day of classes.
SCENE: Natural Science Aud. Every seat
filled with expectant, curious students,
many more standing at the door for
lack of seats.
ACTION: The lecturer looks up at the
mass of inquisitive faces, stretches his
arms out on the podium and quietly
says, "Hello, I am your course coordi-
nator."
-M. JULIAR
H. NEIL BERKSON, Editor
KENNETH WINTER EDWARD HERSTEIN
Managing Editor Editorial Director
ANN GWIRTZMANN.............Personnel Director
BILL BULLARD.........Sports Editor
but exceedingly difficult proposals. Butj
'President Johnson's proposed visit to
Latin America, his invitation to the So-
viet leaders to visit this country and to
exchange television messages and his de-
termination to "build bridges" to the
Communist bloc with trade are all ideas
which seem to suggest a major new U.S.
"peace offensive." Its course will be slow
and arduous, but the President has made
an enthusiastic beginning.
AT HOME, the Great Society, accord-
ing to the President, is a vast set of
new endeavors to improve the quality of
American life. Surprising those who
thought his would be a conservative,
"consensus" administration, he said, in
effect, that his election mandate was a
command to press forward vigorously
on all fronts.
In a tone similar to that of John Ken-
neth Galbraith's "The Affluent Society,"
the President declared that ". . . we want
progress to be the servant and not the
master of man ... The Great Society asks
not only how much, but how good; not
only how to create wealth, but how to
use it; not only how fast we are going,
but where we are headed."
TO THE PRESIDENT, the Great So-
ciety rests on national prosperity,
equality and opportunity and a high
quality of American life. By such pro-
grams as tax reduction, wage-price re-
straints, the War on Poverty, he will
seek to end poverty in the nation and
promote affluence. A foundation on the
arts, vastly expanded programs of edu-
cation and health care, dedicated en-
forcement of civil rights laws and a
strong, active, frugal government are
some of the prominent elements involv-
ed in insuring and giving meaning to
material prosperity.
This course, implying a total trans-
formation of American life and world
politics, will be difficult. The President's
specifics will be crucial. Some of the
programs will have flaws-the proposed
reduction in excise taxes, which a grow-
ing number of economists doubt will re-
duce unemployment to acceptable levels,
and the Appalachia program, which Har-
ry Caudill, lecturing at the University,
criticized as inadequate and ineffective
already illustrate this. Other proposals,
such as major tax reform, have not been
presented. The repeal of section 14-B of
the Taft-Hartley Act and wage-price re-
straints may be hard to get.
from the South and West. In
addition to Long, majority leader
Mansfield is from Montana, while
the third post of the leadership
triumvirate, Secretary of the
Democratic conference, is filled
by Sen. George Smathers of Flor-
ida.
Thus, at the Tuesday morning
legislative breakfasts at which
President Johnson meets with his
congressional leadership to plot
policy and strategy, the urban in-
dustrial liberal North will be with-
out a spokesman. This situation
will be compounded because two
of the three House leaders, major-
ity leader Carl Albert (D-Okla)
and whip Hale Boggs (D-La) are
from non-Northern states. The
third, Speaker John McCormack
(D-Mass) is from Boston, but he
Is hardly anardent liberal-in
fact, he abhors the very word,
calling himself a progressive.
Therefore, the congressional
leadership with which the Presi-
dent will consult on the shaping
of his program will be largely
devoid of representatives from
those areas where the Democratic
President himself can be expected
to show the most strength-the
urban industrial northern areas.
* * *
THUS, the election of Russell
Long seems at first glance to sub-
stantiate the thesis propounded
by Sen. Joseph Clark (D-Pa) in
his book "The Senate Establish-
ment." In that book, compiled
largely from speeches he and sev-
eral other liberals, particularly
Sen. Paul Douglas (D-Ill) and
Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis),
made in Congress during the early
part of 1963, Clark claims that
liberals from the North and Mid-
west have been numerically un-
derrepresented in the Senate
leadership positions, on the steer-
ing committee which assigns Dem-
ocrats to the various Senate com-
mittees and on the important
substantive committees such as
foreign relations and appropria-
tions.
Clark argues that a Senate es-
tablishment, consisting of south-
erners and "respectable" north-
erners has conspired to deprive
liberals of their rightful positions.
The Pennsylvania senator par-
ticularly attacks the power held
by southern senators, noting that
in 1963 eight of the fifteen mem-
bers of the steering committee
came from southern states.
However, rather than support-
ing Clark's contentions, Long's
election actually throws grave
doubts on this theory of con-
spiracy. It is quite clear that
Long's election was not due solely
to support from the Senate es-
tablishment or from the solid
South. Instead, the southerner's
victory can be directly attributed
to the inability of the liberals,
acting in the great historical tra-
dition of similarily minded groups,
to organize all their forces be-
hind one candidate.
* * *
DESPITE the fact that Pastore
had a much more consistent vot-
ing record than did either Long
or Monroney, liberals did not, line
up behind him. Senator Douglas
publicly supported Long, as did
Sen. Clinton Anderson (D-NM)
sponsor of the medicare bill. At
the same time, liberals such as
Proxmire and Sen. Eugene Mc-
Carthy (D-Minn) reportedly threw
their weight behind Monroney.
Clark himself came out for Pas-
tore only at the last minute, partly
because of his friendship with
Monroney, a co-sponsor of the
1946 Legislative Reorganization
Act, a piece of legislation which
both Clark and Monroney may at-
tempt to amend this session.
What prevented the liberals
from uniting? First, the creden-
tials of the liberal candidate Pas-
tore were slightly suspect. Pastore
is known more as an administra-
tion man rather than a liberal;
he has tended to desert the lib-
eral camp whenever that camp
disagrees with the administration.
Pastore, in fact, was floor mana-
ger for the communications satel-
lite bill which encountered a bitter
liberal filibuster before the Sen-
ate passed it two years ago.
Long, on the other hand, in
the tradition of his father, has
established the reputation of an
economic liberal of the agrarian
populist stripe. He was one of the
mainstays of the filibuster on the
Soapbox
ANOTHER INDEX of cultural
health is the student news-
paper. Here again the itch for
respectability among administra-
tors can prove the undoing of
an independent student press. I
am amazed and appalled at the
curious myopia among some col-
lege administrators-as if some
schoolboy japery in print had
serious consequences!
The best schools are those in
which the student press is un-
SENATOR RUSSELL LONG
satellite. It was thought that Long
would not bow to the administra-
tion's wishes as obsequiously as
would Pastore.
* *BL *th
THE REAL PROBLEM of the
liberals, however, was that they
felt there was no one they could
all unite behind. Several senators
voiced the belief that had a good
midwestern liberal been running
he surely would have won. Ac-
cording to one of Senator Doug-
las' staff men, great efforts were
made, starting in early November,
to induce Michigan's junior sena-
tor, Philip Hart, to run for the
post, but Hart steadfastedly de-
clined. Hart himself admitted he
had been approached and had
declined, commenting, "The whip
job is a stultifying position. Lots
of times you have to go against
your own beliefs to do what the
administration wants. I saw Hum-
phrey sweat blood several times
the last few years for just that
reason."
Most liberals now agree that
Long will not be harmful in the
whip's post, and,hin fact, will
likely do a fine job. Whether
they will retain the complacency
they have exhibited during Long's
election is somewhat more doubt-
ful should the son of America's
onetime most powerful demagogue
step up to the post of majority
leader.
'EMILY'-*
Enjoyable,
Awvkward,
Eulogy~
At the Michigan Theatre
"THE Americanization of Emily"
shows how awkward and fu-
tile it is too eulogize on the
screen. Through no fault of his
own, James Garner is forced onto
Omaha Beach on D-Day all by
himself and presumably killed as
the first casuality for the Allies
on that historic day.
From the time a solider throws
up into his helmet while waiting
on the troop transport until
Garner supposedly breathes his
last, the movie is edited sharply,
photographed cleanly and is mov-
ing in a soft kind of way.
* * *
WE CAN almost imagine the
fears that Garner goes through
before he hits that beach. It is
a much more striking pictoriali-
zation of war and what it does to
people than Garner's earlier dis-
tribe delivered to Emily's mother.
Garner delivers a sermon on
why he is a coward and has no
desire to be killed and have monu-
ments built to his memory-which
Emily's mother has been doing
spiritually for her late husband
and son for years. Immediately,
without argument, Emily's mother
turns her colors and becomes a
changed woman, a person who can
face reality and say to Garner,
"I like you, young man. Come and
see me again."
* * *
THIS MAY work on the stage,
but this is the cinema, where the
image is king and must be treated
with reverance and cautious con-
cern. I can understand what
Emily (played by Julie Andrews)
and Garner are doing, but I will
never know why. Let me study
the script for a while and maybe
I can give you an answer.
But after going through the
temporal experience of watching
a movie and using my memory to
comprehend what I have just wit-
nessed-and that is what you do
too often at a movie from Holly-
wood, you witness, instead of
feeling-I still do not find a rea-
son for their actions.
* * *
AS ENTERTAINMENT, "The
Americanization of Emily" is fine-
ly paced, systematically photo-
graphed and has that "devil-may
care, lets live now for we may be
dead heroes tomorrow" attitude
that has always appealed to
America as a serious nation.
We have been fed this kind of
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
The Pitfalls of LSA Bureaucracy
To the Editor:
L AM WRITING concerning the
sad history of a second semes-
ter freshman lost in the maw of
the abominable literary college
bureaucracy.
On October 29 of last term this
unlucky student went to her coun-
selor to preregister for the present
term. She was enrolled in Soc.
100 last term and wished to finish
a sequence this term with Psych.
101. However her counselor did
not inform her that Psych. 102 is
needed to fulfill the sequence and
not 101. She saw her counselor
SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL:
INew Book-.Based Movie
Treads Virgin Ground
At the State Theatre
THE CURTAIN RISES on the board room of the filthiest rag in
town, "Stop" magazine. With his voice choked with emotion, the
Chief paints, a rosy picture of the future profits of the scandal
sheet that has been in his family for four generations. He proceeds
to single out one after another of the editorial staff for special
praise for their dirty stories, including an expose of Dr. Helen Gurley
Brown, whose "Sex and the Single Girl" has become a best-seller.
"You haven't seen anything yet!" Bob Weston says, and he
proceeds to tell how his planned sequel will tell the world the one
thing they have been wanting to know about Dr. Brown: Does she
or doesn't she? (Of course she doesn't; why should she, when she's
having plenty of fun as a brunette?) And, he adds (oh, the sly dog!),
this is one story he's going to research personally. The other members
of the board gloat in approval.
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, the name of Dr. Brown and several shots
of the book itself are the entire thread on which Warner Brothers
is spinning its web of sex and single girls. To the tune of what
sounds like a harpsichord continuo (I'm no expert on Baroque
instruments, but it really should be a virginal), Tony Curtis and
Natalie Wood manage to build a truly flimsy idea for a script into
an almost-as-flimsy movie. The plot involves several somewhat dusty
twice more near the end of last
term concerning her program, and
the mistake was not noticed.
She discovered the error com-
pletely by chance a day after she
had registered while talking with
two friends who had stumbled
unguided into the same pitfall.
Of course the change of program
necessitated was unbearably frus-
trating, nearly all other courses
being closed by this time.
*I * *
BUT FURTHER bad counseling
prevailed. Russian Lit. 452 was
suggested by one counselor as a
replacement for another course
which was previously denied her.
After registering for this senior
level course, a second counselor,
the only hero of the afternoon,
strongly questioned a freshman
enrolling in a 400 level course, and
so further messy arrangements
had to be made.
This student's original program
was emasculated. Her morale was
considerably lowered before she
ever had entered a classroom. It
is bad enough that she and .nost
other literary college students
cannot count on getting the
courses they want. It adds insult
to injury when sloppy and/or ig-
norant counseling exacerbates this
already inexcusable situation.
* * 4
VARIATIONS of the above ac-
count are all too frequent. This
unhappy victim and many others
are working very hard to be able
to finance their University edu-
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