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Seventy-Fifth Year
EDrrD AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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Wh4ereOpinions AeFr, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MicH. NEWS PHONE: 764-0552
Truth will Prevail.
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily ex press the individual opinions of staf f writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1964 NIGHT EDITOR: JEFFREY GOODMAN
Toward a More Relevant Two-Party System
by iI. Neil eierkson
i
The Coming Soeal Crisis:
Trial of True Conservatism
UNEMPLOYMENT, poverty, social stag-
nation, and the forces working to per-
petuate them in the United States soon
will force the conservative politicians who
govern America to make major decisions
of far-reaching significance in domestic
policy. The politicians who must make
these decisions will face a terrrific prob-
lem. To act effectively, they will have to
introduce just the right amount of rad-
icalism into their practices. Too add too
little could lead to social disaster; to add
too "much could bring on political disin-
tegration.
The politicians' main problem will be
the social stagnation which has gripped
the United States over the last 10 years.
Since 1954, the poor have witnessed no
improvementin their relative position
in American society; the ich have given
4up not one iota of the power and priv-
lege which has been their inheritance.
The current rebellion of the civil rights
movement against its moderate leaders
indicates the approaching social crisis.
The whole movement is sliding quickly
to the left because it feels itself in the
clutch of this social stasis, now the domi-
nant character of American life. They
feel they have made no progress-though
they have made a little. They know for
certain the poignant truth that there are
more Negroes in segregated schools to-
day than there were on the day of the
1954 Supreme Court decision.
ANOTHER SIGN of the approaching
crisis is the feeling of despair and
apathy which dominates a huge section
of America's poor. The poor know that
it is harder to get a job now than it was
ten years ago, and they have experienced
three depressions in the last ten years.
After each depression unemployment has
been at a higher level than before.
The poor know that automation is
snatching thousands of jobs from them
every day. Perhaps they do not know that
the bustling, free American economy has
produced only a net of about 100,000 new
jobs in private enterprise since the end
of the 1956-7 expansion, and that ma-
chines have accounted for most of the
increase in production since then. The
poor. do know that a huge force of un-
skilled teenagers-the "grown-ups" of the
post-war baby boom-are just beginning
to pour into the private labor market, a
market with very few new jobs for any-
body. _
So the poor, left in the lurch by a pri-
vate economy, look to their government.
What do they see? They see a "war on
poverty,' designed almost solely for poli-
tical purposes, which will ease their
plight little, if at all. They see Congress
struggling to pass a weak public works
program for Appalachia; the program is
currently being crippled with amend-
mnents which give it little chance-if it is
passed-of snatching Appalachia from the
eastern mining and power interests which
hold it as their private fief.
THE POOR have looked to the left-
the Democrats now in power - and
have seen almost nothing. Out of curiosi-
ty, they peek at the right and there rises
before them a paragon of middle class
selfishness, simplicity and reaction. They
see a man who is willing to curtail what-
ever government has done for them,
who is willing to abandon them to the pri-
vate economy which has failed them so
H. NEL BERKsON, Editor
miserably, and a man who sometimes
denies their very existence. They see
this man-a reactionary, not at all a
conservative-entering a political contest
against the true conservative now in the
White House. As they see the whole cam-
paign drift to the right and away from
the issues, they lose all hope that either
candidate can help them in the foresee-
able future.
Something must be done about the
plight of this poor and frustrated seg-
ment of American society, and the true
conservative now in the White House
realizes this. If he wins this election, as
he must and surely will, he must set in his
mind two goals: a short-range one and a
long-range one.
First, he must give substantial atten-
tion to his vociferous opposition on the
right, and at the same time keep the
support of the rising dissatisfied forces
on the left. In other words, he must work
for enough government action to keep
the left solidly with him,. but not for so
much that the right consolidates against
him.
He must hope that his first and token
efforts at social improvement will meet
with enough success over a period of
several years to substantially weaken
the forces on the right. Then, if this hap-
pens, he can turn his attention to the
long-range goal.
THE LONG-RANGE GOAL can only be
to rid America of the causes of the
social and economic diseases that debili-
tate it. The federal government must
work to cure the ailments which the fail-
ures of private enterprise have allowed
to take hold. This work can take many
forms-a massive public works program
for Appalachia, a widespread urban re-
newal campaign, additions to Peace
Corps personnel, a significant extension
of federal aid and central planning for
the public school system.
But in trying to achieve this long-
range goal, the true conservatives, who
will control the government tomorrow
as well as today, will need to meet head
on, and in its most evil form, the basic
contradiction on which American society
was founded and has risen to power.
This is that the means of producing the
nation's goods, goods which must supply
the public, are in private hands, and in
very few private hands.
As automation eliminates bit by bit the
need for human labor over the next few
decades, are those who cannot get jobs to
continue to depend on those who can
get jobs for their only sizable source of
income? Is society eventually to reach a
point where a majority depends on the
efforts-and the charity-of a minority
for its survival? Is the one per cent of
America which owns 80 per cent of all
public stock to become, through the ad-
vance of automation, the absolute bene-
factor of a nation which is forced to live
on it like a huge leech?
Or will Americans realize that fair-
ness-leaving any economic arguments
aside-requires that a person deprived
of his employment by a wealthy so-
ciety be treated as more than a leech,
and that the benefits of his labors and
those of his forbearers belong as much to
him as to those who have used him and
then thrown him aside?
IF THEY EVER REACH this point, the
conservatives of the future will at last
enter in earnest the controversy of pub-
lic authority versus private liberty. They
will be required to use their conserva-
tism to ensure that with the increased
functions and power of government there
will come an increased respect for the
rights of the individual. These men must
guide the United States to maturity, so it
can be responsible to the joint concept of
huge government plus extensive private
liberty in the manner of many Western
European countries.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. has briefly out-
lined this conservative course of action-
a mixture of liberal radicalism with lib-
eral conservatism: "If socialism is to pre-
serve democracy, ibi must be brought
about step by step in a way which will not
disrupt the fabric of custom, law and mu-
tual .confidence upon, which personal
JAMES RESTON'S SENSE of fairness sometimes over-
whelms him. His Sunday column in the New York
Times strongly condemned the Democratic Party for
seeking both a presidential and congressional landslide
in the coming election. The Times' new associate editor
doesn't mind seeing Goldwater get trounced, "but it is
not going to help the country, the two-party system, the
Republicans, or even Johnson, to weaken the moderate
Republicans who have done so much to defend the prin-
ciples of collective security abroad and social security
and racial equality at home over the last generation,"
he says.
"There is, in short, a powerful case to be made for
ticket splitting. If the South likes Goldwater's social
and economic policies well enough to risk his foreign
policies, let it vote Republican all the way and create
a vigorous two-party system in the Old Confederacy.
This could be one of the few positive results of this
election."
GRANTING THAT the two-party system is funda-
mental to American politics, there remains nothing par-
ticularly sacred about the system as it currently exists.
The Republican and Democratic parties have been
getting more and more remote from national problems.
While the state department is beginning to realize that
Stalin is dead, our economic thinking-especially in
Congress-is basically pre-Depression. Even though the
welfare state is a natural development and necessary
for any complex, modern society, the term socialism
carries ridiculous conspiratorial connotations reinforced
by the prattlings of both parties. Meanwhile, the un-
employment level remains over five per cent during an
economic upswing while a permanent impoverished class
of disaffected Americans-currently some 28 million-
has developed.
Or consider the race question. The Civil Rights Act,
which finally passed Congress in an atmosphere of crisis,
was substantively proposed in the late 1940's. Had pass-
age been effected then, who knows how much agony
would have been saved both North and South?
By any standard but the American, the Democratic
Party would be in the center-right half of the political
spectrum. This makes even the moderate wing of the
Republican Party an outdated voice. Only five Republi-
can senators, after all, voted for Medicare.
THE QUESTION IS how to get the country off
dead-center, and I don't think the answer is to maintain
the status quo.
Let Goldwater destroy the Republican Party. The
Democrats are already far from cohesive. As they grew
more powerful the result would be much quarreling and
an eventual split. The nature of that split cannot be
predicted with certainty, but if it came along more
realistic liberal-conservative lines, the two-party system'
would be much more viable than it now is.
* * * *
LENORE ROMNEY, wife of one of Reston's supposed
moderate Republicans, addressed Washtenaw County's
Republican Convention Saturday night. Listen to her:
"President Johnson says the states are strong be-
cause the nation is strong. But how can the nation be
strong if the states are not?"
"Philosophers tell us that if you take the liberal
approach to the extreme, you end up with a dictatorship.'
"Thanks to the people of Washtenaw County, we
have a new constitution which is the best in any field
you'd want to name. Isn't this the sort of thing Sen.
Goldwater means when he says let's give more power to
the states?"
INCIDENTALLY, THE new Republican frontier
spirit really showed up at the convention. A number of
delegates got in a fist fight over credentials, and'one of
them had to get a tetanus shot at University Hospital
after being bitten.
* * * *
AND FINALLY, Barry Goldwater. Coming here. For
the Air Force game, of course.
Pity that the Arizona senator can't stay on campus
for more than a day. Two weeks of Political Science 100,
Economics 101, Sociology 100, and Linguistics 411 might
do wonders for him.
i
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
Outraged Honors Housing Residents Strike Back
To the Editor:
AS A MEMBER in good standing
(3.8750000-to eight significant
figures) of Frost House at the
University of Michigan Trade
School, I take umbrage at your
statements about myself and my
exalted colleagues.
It is true that I live an un-
creative life of utter banality, as
I move from honors course to
honors course (honors courses are
especially known for the trivia
which they teach) , grubbing and
grinding out my grades. It is true
that my only home is my desk,
where I grovel amidst books,
papers, and IBM cards, which I
leave only for few moments of fit-
ful rest, a New York Times as my
blanket, a Reader's Guide as my
pillow. But why must you say
"obviously the above is an exag-
geration," when it's not? If you
will excuse, please, I must now
re.urn to my studies.
-Bill Moore, '67
To the Editor:
SOME JOURNALISTS have the
happy ability to search out
and find the precise mood of a
society through observation and
patient questioning. Sadly, Karen
Kenah is not one of these. There
is no paragraph in her ill-conceiv-
ed editorial of September 13 about
honors housing without a mis-
represen;;ation, or misinterpreta -
tion of the group with whom I re-
side.
Her thesis that by putting Hon-
ors students together all student
drives but the incentive to be on
top of the academic heap are an-
nihila.ed is simply not true. Frost
House has more spirit for extra-
curricular activities than any other
house I know of; we have fielded
a team for every IM event .since
our founding. We have a wide and
varied social schedule of some
ingenuity, recognizing too the fact
that in Blagdon house brains and
beauty are not mutually exclusive.
We have many guest lecturers on
topics as varied as the Raw Car-
rot test and the history of Exis-
tentialism.
None but a poor few of us are
"chained" to desks. We study a
bit more than the campus aver-
age, as we would in any other
dormitory environment, but the
proximity of other honors stu-
dents manifests itself not so much
in increased competition as in
honest group studying, ten-minute
tutoring sessions, and a general
sense of intellectual as well as
social companionship.
WE DO NOT leave the Univer-
sity "crammed with facts but de-
void of initiative." On the con-
trary, having been exposed to the
interrelationships of the various
disciplines, we are willing to con-
tinue our liberal educations far
past graduation.
Finally, we do not lose our in-
dividualism. As many of us, if not
more, than the campus average,
are members of extracurricular
groups. We have as many eccen-
trics as the campus at large. We
are not assembly-line robots des-
tinedto make money and nothing
else, but recipients of a rich, full
varied academic experience much
intensified by the other honors
students around us. We wish that
those who disagree with our goals
would leave us alone.
-Fred L. Bookstein, '67
To the Editor:
SUNDAY'S EDITORIAL concern-
ing the honors housing at
Markley cofesses an exaggera-
tion of the facts. I would suggest
that while there is reason for
had no other connection with the
Honors College at all. Thus true
honors housing was not tried.
As for the effect of honors stu-
dents' slavishness to syllabi on
the ordinary student, this is non-
sense. Honors classes and sections
have very little communication
with the large introductory classes.
Their marks are usually indepen-
dently determined on the basis of
their fulfillment of their own in-
tellectual possibilities.
THIS POLICY, combined with
honors housing does create a prob-
lem, however. The students in the
honors program realize very quick-
ly that they are the darlings of
the literary college. In small hon-
ors classes, they get to know pro-
fessors, and are assured that the
University wants them to succeed
and that C's are not usually given
in any number to students of such
ability. This feeling of natural
superiority and patronage pampers
academic sloppiness. Syllabi are
not fulfilled, much less exceeded,
papers for Great Books 191, 192
are chronically late, and facts are
passed over as irrelevant for great-
er minds.
Honors housing frequently en-
courages this, by making even
scared freshmen aware that people
around him, honors students, are
not responsible scholars.
And this, Miss Kenah, scholar-
ship, is the aim of the liberal
education. "Raw intelligence" is
enough to win sympathy, for a
misguided adolescent, but by the
age of 18 or 19, he must begin to
perform, earn grades, if he is ever
to realize his potential.
There are many frustrated young
adults in Ann Arbor who are vic-
tims of the fallacy that if they are
"liberal" and not "narrow" they
need not produce anything of
value. Raw intelligence, if left
fallow too long, decays. It is not
a magical birthright that can be
retained without use.
HONORS HOUSING, because it
is located in Markley, emphasizes
the worst of this slopy attitude.
Sophomores and juniors, who may
be facing their academic respon-
sibilities more honestly because of
their age or dissatisfaction with
themselves, tend to move out after
the first year. Markley has no
single rooms, and serious students,
no matter how much they like
other people, often need the in-
dependence and peace of a single.
For men and senior women, there
is the option of an apartment,
which frees the student from rules
like "no books in the dining room"
and post-closing fire drills.
For these reasons, I believe that
honors housing will remain a pre-
iominately freshman phenomenon,
and one which may even dis-
courage close attention to the dis-
cipline of academic life.
-Susan Riebel, '67
To the Editor:
WHILE TAKING TIME off from
"grinding," last Sunday, I
happened to read my neighbor's
copy of the Daily. My glance fell
on an ominous sounding heading
at the top of the first page.
"Honors Housing vs. Education."
Since I had never even dreamed
that there was a basic contradic-
tion implied by these two in-
nocuous terms, you can imagine
with what trembling eagerness I
turned to the editorial page. What
befell my eye was such a flagrant
example of illogical and biased
conclusions based upon ill-founded
and slanderous accusations. that I
could hardly believe even the Daily
would print it. Written by a cer-
tain Miss Karen Kenah, "Honors
mighty grade." Had Miss Kenah
even bothered to check her sources
(assuming that she had any), she
would have found this statement
to be an outright falsehood. I am
also interested in this statement.
"The student forgets the existence
of University facilities other than
his own desk." Having lived in
both non-honors and honors hous-
ing, I have found from personal
experience that Blagdon girls, far
from being social misfits, were
much more aware andparticipated
in many more activities than the
residents of non-honors housing.
* *M *
PERHAPS if Miss Kenah had
bothered to examine Blagdon
house residents, she would have
found them as stimulating as I
have. I did approve of one of her
closing statements, though. "Mix-
ture of types never hurt anyone."
Too bad it's irrelevent to her case.
The students in honors housing
come from many different areas
and exhibit as much or more di-
versity of interests and back-
grounds as any living group on
campus.
Naturally, this article bothers
me, personally, for it attacks me
and the girls of my house. But I
think the problem goes deeper
than a few gross exaggerations
and ridiculous untruths. It touches
on the problem of responsible
journalism. Sure, the Daily may
boast of "Seventy Four Years of
by freedom here? Freedom to slan-
der? Freedom to misrepresent?
Freedom to print outright false-
hoods? The Daily has a respon-
sibility to every student on this
campus, and part of this respon-
sibility involves being fair, truth-
ful, and just. Don't mistake me. I
am in favor of differences of
opinion and freeediscussion, but
when I see. an editorial like Miss
Kenah's masking under the guise
of "editorial freedom," I know
that this freedom has been twisted
into abuse.
-Judy Riley, '67
To the Editor:,
A S INMATES of Frost Honors
house, we have taken the time
to unshackle ourselves from our
omnipresent desk chains for a
few preci~ous minutes to pen a
brief reply to Miss Kenah's edi-
torial in the Sunday Daily.
Miss Kenah's thesis as stated in
the headline ,of her article and
developed through a series of
shockingly misinformed statements
is that the procedure of housing
honors s rudents together repre-
sents a two-pronged menace to
liberal education at the Univer-
sity: first, she asserts, the honors
.student is necessarily limited to
a grinding, super-competitive, at-
mosphere which narrows his edu-
cational horizons and stultifies
his intellectual growth.
Nothing could be farther from
the truth. Put an honors student
in a house with average compan-
ions and he will be likely to be
content with the superficial satis-
faction and prestige that a good
grade will bring him. Put the
same student in a house with stu-
dents of equal or better caliber
and he will be more likely to judge
his own intellectual achievements
and those of others with a far
more critical eye.
THE GRADEPOINT is impor-
tant among honors students as an
indication of hard work -and solid
achievement; but the key to a
respectable intellectual reputation
and the incentive to broaden and
accelerate educational develop-
ment comes with the articulate-
ness and knowledgeability with
which one can participate in the
kind of intellectual interchange
which is almost uniquely a char-
acteristic of honors housing.
Secondly, Miss Kenah contends
that honors housing isolates the
able student from his educational
environment and deprives the Uni-
versity of talents which could
otherwise be developed and con-
tributed to the overall intellec-
tual life of the campus. We will
leave the reply to this typically
unsubstantiated and irresponsible
statement to our sophomore col-
leagues who, we are sure, will be
more than happy to supply Miss
Kenah with a detailed list of ex-
periences from last year's Frost
House program which should only
serve to reveal once more the
generally uninformed and care-
less attitude that underlies the
whole editorial.
It appears, then, that Miss
Kenah is suffering from a fatal
disease among editorialists: she
tries to pass off meaningless, mis-
informed opinion as intelligent
commentary.
In conclusion, if Miss Kenah
still entertains doubts as to the
wholesomeness and utility of hon-
ors housing, we will be glad to
personally provide a unique op-
portunity for her to sample the
delights of life at Frost House at
the same time that she is pur-
suing a higher degree of enlight-
enment in an °area about. which
she has proven herself remark.
ably ignorant.
-Sam Sherman,;'S8
Alan Kaufman, '68
To the Editor:
IAM WRITING this as a repre-
sentsacive of a group in Blagdon
House. The image of honors hous-
ing created by Miss Karen Kenah
in her .Sunday editorial is un-
justifiable and inexcusable. This
image of grade-point grinds was
not merelyr"exaggerated," but
totally incorrect.
Rather than attempt to refute
her points through the Daily, how-
ever, Blagdon House invites Miss
Kenah to visit with its members
"at home"uand discover for her-
self how untrue her accusations
are. We trust hat her liberal edu-
cation will alert her to the ad-
van agesof using evidence ac-
quired first-hand.
-Clare Michelson, '68
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KENNETH WINTER
Managing Editor
Et)WARD HERSTE1N
Editorial Director
ANN GWIRTZMAN..............Personnel Director
MICHAEL SATTINGER .... Associate Managing Editor
JOHN KENNY...........Assistant Managing Editor
DEBORAH BEATTIE.......Associate Editorial Director
LOUISE LIND........Assistant z dtoral Director in
Charge of the Magazine
BILL BULLARD..................... Sports Editor
TOM ROWLAND ............Asociate Sports Editor
GARY WYNER................Associate Sports Editor
CHARLES TOWLE.........Contributing Sports Editor
Business Staff
JONATHON R. WHITE, Business Manager
JAY GAMPEL...........Associate Business Manager
JUDY GOLDSTEIN ............... Finance Manager
BARP ARA1 JOHNSTON.,.......... Personnel Manager
SYDNEY PAUKER .......... Advertising Manager
RUTH SCHEMNITZ ... .....,...Systems Manager
.lTrNiOR MANAGERS: Bonnie Cowan, Sue Crawford,
Joyce Feinberg, Judy Fields, Judy Grohne, sue
Sucher, Pat Termini, Cy Wellman.
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