Seventy-Fifth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
Each Time I Chanced To See Franklin D.
The Decline and Fall of Student Government
by H. Neil flerkson
'l
Y
Where Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, Mica.
Truth' Will Prevail
NEWS PHONM: 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.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1964. NIGHT EDITOR: DAVID BLOCK
Waiting in Line for Tickets
Absurd Waste of Time
THERE ARE FEW MORE senseless
wastes of human resources than wait-
ing in lines. And yet on a campus sup-
posedly dedicated to the pursuit of knowl-
edge, adult college students are motivated
to divert their time from educational ef-
forts to the stupid, absurd and sometimes
futile activity of holding a place in line.
Students waited in line up to five days
just to get block tickets for Homecoming.
And because of lack of foresight on the
part of the Homecoming Committee and
lack of communication on the part of
students in line, tickets were sold only
to the first six purchasers, leaving many
groups ticketless after their representa-
tives had waited in line for up to four
days.
Furthermore, 25 students waited in line
at Hill Aud. all Monday night for gen-
eral admission tickets. They brought bed-
ding and blankets for the cold night in
preparation for what they said was an
unpleasant situation.
BUT WAS IT REALLY? What motivates
students to get in line five days early
for tickets?
Basically, the laissez-faire method of
ticket-buying leads to extreme competi-
tion for seats; good seats are purchased
at the great cost of waiting a long time
in line.
And yet there was another reason.
Waiting in line for days is a part of the
College Life. No matter how unpleasant
the immediate circumstances, the Long
Wait is seen as an inherently worthwhile
experience. I observed a remarkable de-
gree of esprit de corps among students
waiting for general admission ticekts,
united as they were against Homecoming
Committee ticket policy.
STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS should seek
means of distributing tickets which do
not allow or cause time- to be wasted wait-
ing in lines. Elimination of block ticket
sales does not seem to be the answer.
Even students who were left ticketless in-
dicated they would like to see a continua-
tion of block ticket sales.
But blocks should be kept to a reason-
able and worthwhile size, a fair and in-
clusive ticket policy should be set before
hand, and no lines should be allowed to
be formed.
Student organizations could keep secret
the location of the ticket office. Or, per-
haps more practically, block ticket re-
quests could be filled according to some
random system of choice after all re-
quests are in.
ONLY ONE JUSTIFICATION can be
made for ticket lines: they insure that
those who want the tickets the most will
get them. The time spent in line is de-
fended as a necessary evil-a price that
must be paid to buy good seats.
But this argument should hold no cred-
ence in a University community. Students
should not be allowed to squander their
time in such absurd activities as waiting
in line to get tickets.
--MICHAEL SATTINGER
Associate Managing Editor
"STUDENT GOVERNMENT COUNCIL still has a
chance. If the new members will earnestly go to
work, they can reverse the negative current which has
engulfed SGC for so long. But the time is growing
short. The campus will only mock SGC for so long
before it stops laughing and forgets the group alto-
gether."
Thus a certain Daily freshman editorialized in the
spring of 1962. SGC had just finished an election cam-
paign unmatched for voting irregularities, personality
conflicts and dramatic farce. Two candidates were dis-
qualified before the election; another was disqualified
after he had won a seat on Council.
Since that time the students' "voice" has gone from
bad to worse. According to the election just completed,
a - mere 2500 die-hard voters stand between it and
oblivion.
WHAT SGC SHOULD DO and whether it should
do anything are moot points. Why it has failed is a
simpler matter. Established in the aftermath of the
administration's refusal to deal with the question of
fraternity-sorority discrimination, SGC's only presumed
power-its only vehicle for prestige-lay in the area of;
membership regulations. However, when SGC tried to
assert its authority by withdrawing recognition from
Sigma Kappa sorority in 1958, the administration quickly
vetoed the action.
At this point student government returned to its
vacuum. While it preoccupied itself for five more years
with the bias question, the atmosphere had completely
changed; the campus took less and less interest in what
was happening. Fraternity discrimination went beneath
the surface as the nationals realized that prejudice could
flourish without written constitutional clauses.
SGC HAS ENCOUNTERED most of its difficulties
attempting to transfer its interests to other areas.
Fraternity bias, despite all the complications in the
past fifteen years, is a fairly simple issue to deal with.
It is limited in scope, and one can invoke all sorts of
values and principles both pro and con.
Educational policy, on the other hand, is a very
complex matter, and, as Council members have tried
to focus on some of the problems vexing the University,
they have discovered themselves lacking information and
the perspective necessary to say something meaningful.
In part, they are unable to accumulate the information;
in part, they have been unwilling. This situation has
reached tragicomic heights in the past few weeks: one
Council member has spent all his time railing at the
University's "sorry conditions," but he has yet to utter
a coherent sentence.
THE student-faculty-administration committee now
studying SGC may come up with a more viable structure
for student participation in University affairs. Or it
may discover that student government is better left to
high schools. It is clear that the student body here is
too intelligent, too cynical and too apathetic to put
up with any arguments about SGC's alleged intrinsic
value much longer.
* * * *
WALTER JENKINS has a friend running for President
of the United States. His alleged immorality has
therefore become a national issue.
Will the Jenkins affair hurt Mr. Johnson? Not if we
can judge by last Sunday's New York Times News of
the Week in Review. Jenkins' story, which normally
would have been the incident celebre of the week, barely
made it onto page two of the Times' section. It was
swamped by news from Russia, China and Britain. These
events should more than neutralize the harmful effect
Jenkins otherwise would have on the Johnson campaign.
* * * *
THE UNIVERSITY hosts two distinguished citizens of
the world today: physicist Hans Bethe and theologian
Paul Tillich. The opportunity to see one or both of
them is too good to miss.
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TODAY AND TOMORROW:
Campaign Collapses
Into Separate. Contests
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11
Identity and Numbers Games
U.'
HE FLOOD of student I.D. numbers,'
centrex phone numbers, area code
numbers, dormitory room numbers, mail
box numbers, class section numbers, class
seat numbers and zip code numbers, to
say nothing of social security numbers,
bank account numbers, driver license
numbers and student athletic ticket num-
bers is supposedly causing identity crises
on college campuses.
The student complains that his self-
image is a row of Arabic numerals and
that his individuality lies only in the se-
quence of the digits. An I.D. in hand, he is
a changed phenomenon-metamorphos-
ing from a human being to a human
machine.
THIS $UMERICAL identity crises arises
from taking too seriously the whole
institution of number identification. Let's
start having fun with our numbers. Let's
create games that families, clubs and ad-
ministrators can play at home or on the
road. This will undermine the imperson-
alization of the coding system by
strengthening p e r s o n a l relationships
through mental sports.
Such games will make mathematicians
of the young and will prevent the next
generation from suffering numerical
identity crisis. Those who play the games
will see the numbers in their proper per-
spective-play things for individuals and
play tools for the bureaucracy.
THE NUMBER syndrome is here to stay
and will grow with each committee
meeting. It must not destroy us. We can
prevent devastation by laughing at it, by
channeling each code into a game, in-
stead of replacing our identity with num-
bers. We must not mistake, "Your I.D.
please?" with "Who are you?"
-JUDITH STONEHILL
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L A 'A AN-15 EtTtEt ToNEQUAXI7R, IS'T HE ?"
PROGRAMMING:
Politics and Television Commercials
By WALTER LIPPMANN
HERE IN THE MIDDLE of Oc-
tober, it looks as if the
national campaign has collapsed
and that what remain are the
separate contests within the states.
The collapse has been accom-
panied by what the governor of
Mississippi has just called "craw-
fishing." On every specific issue
which the Presidential candidate
posed until San Francisco, on all
questions of nuclear weapons and
foreign policy, he has been acting
like a man trying to lose his own
persistent shadow. He has craw-
fished on balancing the budget, on
the graduated income tax, on sell-
ing TVA, on making Social Secur-
ity "voluntary," on repealing the
many laws which as senator he
has voted against.
Thus, by the outward evidence,
the national campaign has col-
lapsed botheat the level of a con-
test for votes and at the level of
issues and arguments.
IT CAN BE SAID of this cam-
paign that it has been fought on
issues that were real enough in
the 1 30s before the second world
war, but which are now obsolete.
Senator Goldwater has challenged
the Kennedy-Johnson adminis-
tration as if it were the New Deal
of Franklin Roosevelt. It isn't.
Although Lyndon Johnson be-
gan his public career as a disciple
of Franklin Roosevelt, he is not a
New Dealer today, and for that
matter neither would Franklin
Roosevelt be, were he alive. The
crucial fact is that since the New
'Deal of the 1930s there has been
not only the world war, but a
revolutionary development in the
technology of industry and in the
fiscal policy and social doctrine
of governments.
I think we can define this revo-
lutionary change in doctrine in
this amplified, but not I think
misleading, way. Before the first
world war the universal assump-
tion of reformers, not only of
Socialists, but of progressives from
Theodore Roosevelt through Wood-
row Wilson to Franklin Roose-
velt, was that the poor could be
raised up only by a redistribution
of wealth. This is still Barry Gold-
water's belief.}
* * *
THE BASIC ASSUMPTION of
the pre-war reformers is being
dissolved in advanced countries
like the United States by tech-
nological and fiscal innovations.
Since the end of the world war,
which had a profound effect on
industry and on government pol-
icy, we have come into an era
when the class struggle, as Marx
described it a hundred years ago,
has been overtaken by events.
The Marxian Socialist doctrine
of class war and the. dictatorship
of the proletariat and the con-
fiscation of productive capital
survives today in China and its
satellites. But it has been re-
nounced and abandoned by the
Labor Party in Great Britain, by
the Social Democratic Party in
Western Germany and by the
Scandinavian Socialists.
The United States, of course,
has never had a serious Socialist
movement, and there has never
been a serious challenge to the
American regime of private pro-
perty, competitive enterprise and
regulated monopoly.sBut the pre-
war reformers did assume, as did
their conservative opponents, that
you had to rob (or tax) Peter to
pay Paul. In the postwar era we
have seen that the total produc-
tion of wealth can be so much in-
creased by technology and fiscal
measures that the poor can rise
education-public, parochial and
private-is starved.
My own belief is that in the
days to come our paramount duty
is to persuade the American voters
that a second-rate systent of edu-
cation is no more tolerable than
a second-rate system of national
defense. If this nation is to suc-
ceed and flourish as it ought to
do, the day will have to come
when the American people will be
as willing to tax themselves for
good schools as they are today for
good nuclear missiles. For they
will realize that they are quite
able to afford both.
(c)19864, The Washington Post Co.
LETTERS:
Sorority
Finances
Efxplafined
To the Editor:
I WOULD LIKE to clarify com-
ments made by me in an article
which appeared in the Oct. 15
issue of the Daily concerning the
withdrawal of Phi Mu sorority
from the Michigan campus. I re-
gret any misconceptions which
may have resulted from those re-
marks.
In Panhellenic, the success or
failure of one sorority can never
be treated as an isolated incident
since factors affecting it are po-
tentially relevant to the status
of other chapters. As part of a
rapidly changing and expanding
University community, we must
constantly evaluate our ability to
offer undergraduate women op-
portunities which implement and
complement their individual goals
and those of the University. Only
as we are honestly and openly
critical of our efforts can we hope
to continue as a necessary and
meaningful part of that Univer-
sity.
* * *
ALL OF the sororities on this
campus are currently financially
solvent and the majority of them
have recently made or plan to
make in the near future a substan-
tial investment in the expansion
or improvement of their housing
facilities. This fact alone attests
to the stability of individual chap-
ters and the sorority system as a
whole. Although financial status
and membership are ultimately
related in any sorority operating
a housing unit, these two factors
had 'a more direct and immediate
relationship in the case of Phi Mu
owing to unique circumstances af-
fecting that chapter.
The primary value of sorority
membership lies in the inter-
personal relations and individual
development stimulated by the
responsibilities and rewards of
group living.
Panhellenic recognizes that every
every sorority on this campus of-
fers its members these advantages,
yet too often campus prestige and
quantitave strength are consider-
ed the most important criteria in
evaluating a sorority.
Panhellenic recognizes that every
sorority on this campus offers its
members these advantages, yet
too often campus prestige and
quantitative strength are consider-
ed the most important criteria in
evaluating a sorority.
PANHELLENIC, recognizing
this problem and the value which
all sororities offer i working with
It Beats 'Queen for a Day'
BARRY GOLDWATER is hoping to par-
lay a stripper, a topless bathing suit
and a speedometer into election to the
highest office in the nation.
Thursday afternoon, millions of soap
opera watchers will thrill to the most
sordid story of them all, a film on the
moral decay of America. Strip teasers
from New Orleans and girls in topless
bathing suits will be , featured as prod-
ucts of the Johnson administration's mor-
al laxity. Allusions will be made to the
President's alleged driving habits. Ray-
mond Massey, a gentle fatherly figure if
there ever was one, will handle the nar-
ration with rugged he-man John Wayne
providing authority and sex appeal for
the soap opera fans. Not surprisingly, the
film was paid for by The Mothers for a
Moral America.
H. NEIL BERKSON, Editor
KENNETH WINTER EDWARD HERSTETN
Managing Editor Editorial Director
ANN GWIRTZMAN..............Personnel Director
BILL BULIJARD r....... .....Sports Editor
MICHAEL SATTINGER .... Associate Managing Editor
JOHN KENNY ........Assistant Managing Editor
DEBORAH 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
Russell Walton, publicity director of
Citizens, for Goldwater-Miller, says that
the purpose of the film is to "make peo-
ple's stomachs turn." It should do that.
THIS WILL probably not be the last of
such films. One can envision that in
the next few weeks another will appear.
It might show a simulated rape scene,
interracial marriage and bribing a cop.
A followup could focus on homosexuals,1
mental patients and atheists.
Ith is certainly a fertile field for crea-
tivity. Yet one has an inkling that the
Goldwater people will never get around
to police brutality, McCarthyism and nu-
clear destruction.
-LLOYD GRAFF
No Comment,
AN ACTUAL QUESTION from a Political
Science 100 hourly exam: "Essay ques-
tion-10 Points (40 Minutes).:
"Both Democracy and Communism are
striving to cope with the problems of 20th
century society. Briefly relate and discuss
the major problems of contemporary so-
ciety."
-K. WINTER
Summary
IF THE OUTCOME of the presi-
dential election hinges upon
television, the Republican cam-
paign committee should watch a
few Democratic commercials.
Last night both parties appear-
ed on the "idiot box." The Demo-
crats took the last five minutes
of the Red Skelton show while
the Republicans pre-empted "Pet-
ticoat Junction."
The fundamental mistake made
by the Republicans was their
choice of a time slot. They put
their show up against popular
'That Was the Week That Was,"
and "Peyton Place," where "Rod-
ney was discovering that his rela-
tionship with Betty wasn't com-
pletely terminated."
REGARDLESS . of one's poli-
tics, the fact is that the Demo-
crats' show was better.
Borrowing a page from Gold-
water's campaign manual the
Democrats kept their commercial,
"simple." No trumpets announced
it. For five minutes a former Re-
publican merely told why he was
voting for Johnson.
The approach was natural. A
direct and straightforward speech
was made by a mild looking man.
The appeal was direct. Superla-
tives were absent in a talk that
can be characterized best as col-
loquial.
The commercial ended with a
second announcement, "Vote for
Lyndon Johnson on November 3."
* * *
THE REPUBLICAN speech fol-
lowed. First Ret. Gen. James Doo-
little spoke for Goldwater. Doo-
tion. The only glimmer of life was
when the camera panned an en-
thusiastic audience. In the final
analysis the sight of two sleep-
ing men quickly offset this po-
tential strong point.
* * *
THE SHOW ended with Com-
mittee Chairman Dean Burch
blasting the Federal Communica-.
tions Commission. Burch contend-
ed that Republicans deserved equal
time for a speech made last Sun-
day by President Johnson.
On the basis of last night's tele-
vision performance, perhaps Re-
publican partisans would feet bet-
ter if they left their sets off on
the evening of November 3.
--Roger Rapoport
PAMPHLETERRING:
Greek System Finds
A Friend in Goldwater
By STEVEN V. ROBERTS
Collegiate Press Service
WASHINGTON-About nine million Americans have turned 21 since
the 1960 election, and both parties are drooling like hungry wolves
as they attempt to win the hearts and minds of those innocent lambs.
The Republicans, for instance, have singled out particular interest
groups for special attention. One leaflet prepared by Youth for Gold-
water-Miller was sent to every fraternity and sorority president in
the country.
* * * *
IN BROWN BLOCK LETTERS, the first page bears the legend,
"The Fraternity System Has A Friend In Barry Goldwater."
Next to this portentious message, is a picture showing the can-
didate and his 22-year-old son Mike, as they admire a beer mug whose
lettering is inexplicably backwards.
The leaflet then quotes from a letter the senator evidently once
penned to Mike: "A man must select his own associates. In fact,
that right is expressed in the First Amendment of the Constitution .. .
A fraternity is a wonderful institution . . . It is the reiteration of
basic philosophy in the rites of all fraternities that I think makes
them important," the senator wrote.