r
Seventy-Fifth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
Views on the Question of Racial Equality
Where Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH.
Truth Will Prevail
NEws 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.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1964 NIGHT EDITOR: JOHN KENNY
Student Government Council:
Chronology of a Meeting
WEDNESDAY NIGHT'S Student Gov-
ernment Council meeting was like
an automobile accident, the kind of thing
that civilized people should not want to
happen but really do because its so sadis-
tically fulfilling.
Unfortunately, however, not only on-
lookers but SGC members felt that way.
All concept of SGC as a semi-important
body which should be felt and not seen
was gone. Instead, sweeping drama and
pleas for unity and cooperation reigned.
Council members forgot about the seri-
ous problems at hand and settled down to
enjoy themselves as actors. And it was
so much fun to watch, like an old melo-
drama on TV at 2 a.m.
THE MEETING was called to order
(rather over 15 minutes late) by a
grave president dedicated to returning to
the main body of Council to work with
the plebians rather than seek re-elec-
tion. He got irate when there was talk-
ing and suitable graveyard silence settled
over the proceedings.
The melodrama even had a comic ele-
ment in the figures of Cohen and Blue-
stone, who entered just at that moment,
as dedicated to turning the melodrama
into a comic farce as other members
were to keeping it a melodrama. Cohen
wore a hunting jacket and brought a gun
to protect his interests in the forthcom-
ing elections (or could he have been try-
ing to induce some of the cohstituency
which Bluestone is so sure he accurately
represents to show up to support him?).
ELECTIONS BEGAN. Everything had
been predetermined, as is always the
case with a "proper" legislative body. The
two sides, tragic and comic; each strug-
gled valiantly to control the mainstream
of the play. For every grave and "proper"
nomination for every "properly" quali-
fied candidate, Bluestone had an equally
improper protest nominee.
For president, Nancy Frietag solemnly
nominated Doug Brook, extolling his ex-
perience, executive ability and helpful
connections with the University admin-
istration. Bluestone came up with Cohen,
who has no visible experience, executive
ability or connections with the Univer-
sity. In passing he noted that Brook has
done very little to demonstrate the dy-
namism the candidate professed he was
going to exercise. Unfortunately, neither
has Cohen, and from the looks of things
he couldn't care less.
FOR EXECUTIVE vice-president, Gary
Cunningham was the chosen one. And
again Cohen was Bluestone's boy. This
time Cohen played "Happy Days Are Here
Again" off-key on a portable tape record-
er, but none of the proper Council mem-
bers appreciated the humor and one even
proposed that it was not proper cam-
paign procedure.
For administrative vice-president, Blue-
stone tried another tack. He nominated
Rachel Amado, a new member. She did
not have Sherry Miller's long and bor-
ing experience, which she frankly admit-
ted, but on the other hand, Miller did not
have her commitment to finding a work-
able and original way to shore up or re-
juvenate the haunted house of the com-
mittee structure. "There were some things
that I had not done at the end of my
last term that I would like to put into ef-
fect," was her only remark.
INURED TO BLUESTONE'S impudence
and too much interested in their per-
sonal roles, Council did not even notice
the difference between the two candi-
dates. Like well trained seals they held
to the dogma of the sublimity of exper-
ience and elected Miller.
But Bluestone's masterpiece was his
nomination of Eugene Won. Won was sup-
posed to have been nominated anyway,
just not by Bluestone. And Bluestone said
the things that should be said, enumer-
ating experience and legislative record.
The only difficulty was that Won has no
experience and, more importantly, no
legislative record. However, he came back
strongly, admitting that his past was not
one of which to be particularly proud.
"But I have solved the problem," he
proudly announced. "I have dropped a
course."
to appear blase and important, but they
do not seem to realize that the quality
does not lie in the blithe flow of weedy
verbiage, of which most of them are ab-
solute master, but in knowledge. Simple
little word, but oh so hard for them to
comprehend.
Several issues they managed to get out
of the way with only minor bumbling.
Sharon Manning introduced a motion on
block ticket sales policy which she did
not know anything about; not even what
was printed in The Daily. The motion
requested that a committee be set up, ad
hoc of course. But flying to the cause,
Council replaced the committee with one
person, Manning, and the poor girl had
to vote herself into some work that she
had not expected. Maybe it will do her
some good.
THEN CINEMA GUILD brought some
money problems to the table, wanting
the body to reverse some decisions made
by the board which were leading it into
financial ruin. Yes, it seems that Coun-
cil has lost contact with its boards; no
one seemed to know that Cinema Guild
had lost $5000 last year through poor
management.
The drama leaped to its shoddy cli-
max (or rather anti-climax) when Blue-
stone presented a finished portion of his
grievance motion. Although Bluestone
originally presented the motion as a rush
project on September 16, Council nearly
voted to postpone it further. Were there
questions of the maker of the motions?
Two minutes of silence followed as mem-
bers skimmed through the proposal, try-
ing to figure out what it said on the first
reading, how it differed from the orig-
inal sections, and for that matter where
it fitted in the original motion.
NOW, WERE THERE questions? No, it
appears rather there was a reprimand
from Bodkin concerning bringing unre-
searched motions to the table. Bluestone
filled him in on the motion's history. No,
Bodkin's newness on Council was not suf-
ficient excuse for his utter ignorance
of THAT motion.
Then Bodkin, strangely unrepulsed,
said that he thought that motions should
be in Council members boxes 4 hours
ahead of time. Oh, the motion had been in
SGC boxes since Monday? Could it be that
Council members do not look at the mo-
tions before the Wednesday night meet-
ing? But that is part of being a "proper"
legislature, just too time-consuming, re-
gretfully.
THOSE WERE the most ludicrous er-
rors, but far from the most important
ones. In spite of the time that Bluestone's
motion has been under consideration, in
spite of the events which it precipitated,
not one member of SGC including Blue-
stone himself has really thought about
what should be done. Not one member has
even really looked at it since the first
fateful meeting of its presentation.
How should the motion be researched?
How should it be presented in its final
form? Which areas are validly the re-
sponsibility of the administration and
which the responsibility of the student?
What can SGC do apart from the ad-
ministration to alleviate grievances? Are
there sections of the motion which should
be struck, or other grievances which Blue-
stone in his unorganized rush neglected
to put in, Heaven forbid.
No member could answer any of those
questions, and they are only a sampling
of the ones which need to be asked. In
spite of all the publicity and agitation
nothing has been done.
AND SO IN CONFUSION and despera-
tion voices got higher, arguments more
bitter, and the melodrama funnier. "I
don't want this Council to be the last,"
said Bluestone. "There must be more re-
search," said Bodkin.
But Council members were getting tired
of the drama. They started going home.
Two-thirds of the members must be pres-
ent to operate. "I don't think there is a
quorum," said Smithson. "This had damn
well better not happen again," said Brook,
but those at whom the picturesque pro-
fanity was aimed were not there to hear.
--izAZ1in Kr VArar
To the Editor:
K ENNETH WINTER is to be
commended for articulating an
unpopular idea which deserves the
most serious consideration. The
argument that Negroes may be
genetically "inferior" must be met
as a distinct possibility, for to
deny it with such uneasy evidence
either way is both simplistic and
dishonest.
Winter points out, rightly, I
think, that racial inferiority, even
if proved, is irrelevant to the
civil rights issue, but he has given
the wrong reasons for its irrele-
vance. In citing the fact that
Negroes, whatever their .genetic
constitution, can be happy and
sad just as much as whites, Winter
seems to assume that government
systems or smaller systems such
as those of employment, must base
their authority on some sort of
morality, assuming that one ought
to help people to be happy or
satisfied as possible.
This, I suppose, is a tenable
position, though I personally dis-
like it. I wish, then, to deal with
what I think would be the con-
servative argument:tnamelysthat
governmental and other systems
are not obligated to satisfy any-
one's emotional needs; they are
obligated, rather, to advance and
reward only intelligence and
achievement. This is also a ten-
able position, and it must be dealt
with, assuming, only for purposes
of argument, that the Negro race
can be proved to be genetically
inferior to the Caucasian. There
are three points.
S* *
FIRST, our present knowledge
cannot establish that part of any-
one's intelligence which is gene-
tically determined. The genes in-
volved have not been isolated.
Were it proved that Negroes are
racially inferior, the inferiority
would still never be established
for the individual case, since the
possibility of suppressed "genius"
genes joining in an individual by
change is never ruled out. Even
Science magazine knows that.
Then, there is no such thing as
discrimination against a race, for
a race is an abstraction which
does not exist "out there." There
can only be discrimination against
individuals on the basis of race.
But if the individual cannot him-
self be proved inferior genetically,
all racially based discrimination is
unjust. One is considered "in-
nocent" of inferiority until proven
"guilty," and, gentics itself teaches
us that our present knowledge
cannot possibly prove any indi-
vidual "guilty."
Here the conservative will ask
us to suppose -the perfectly legiti-
mate possibility that science will
enable us to isolate "intelligence"
genes and further to test every in-
dividual for those genes in his
makeup. What then? If every Ne-
gro existing at a given time could
be proved to be genetically in-
ferior, why should a rational so-
ciety treat him as though he were
equal to whites? This is the radi-
cal point which Winter does not
touch. It requires a second argu-
ment.
THE ARGUMENT for social
domination by the superior and
for rigid class structure on the
basis of intelligence and achieve-
ment has been beautifully made
many times, particularly in the
poetry of Yeats, and we have had
deTocqueville to show us the ad-
verse consequences of democracy.
My second point, though, is that
any definition of "superiority" is
questionable. The Ayn Rand con-
servative (the best kind) will in-
sist that intelligence and achieve-
ment are superior because in-
telligence and achievement have
enabled man to dominate in evo-
lution.
But Winter himself has given
us the answer here, though he
did not develop it--intelligence
and achievement have given us
the hydrogen bomb, which may
After-D~itmier Smioke
~~'~1r
very likely put an end to our
evolutionary dominance. The con-
servative would then be put into
the position of saying that in-
telligence and achievement will
prevent us from ever using the
bomb, to which we may easily an-
swer, then why was it intelligent
to develop it in the first place?
(Its deterrence value disappears
as soon as we assume we will never
use it.) Clearly intelligence itself
is at least a questionable defini-
tion criterion of evolutionary
superiority. Most fundamentally,
it does not seem that contribution
TODAY AND TOMORROW:
Recapture of Hoover Era
By WALTER LIPPMANN
IT IS HARD to recapture for
those who did not know Her-
bert Hoover during the first world
war the brilliance of his repu-
tation and the personal fascina-
tion of the man.
The nation had entered the war
reluctantly and resentfully. The
American people were predominat-
ly isolationist, believing that our
ramparts were the two oceans,
and they were pacifists and they
hated war. Hoover, though he was
a Quaker and at heart a con-
scientious objector to war, had
in fact intervened spectacularly
long before Woodrow Wilson felt
himself forced to ask Congress
for a declaration of war.
Hoover had intervened by the
gallant enterprise of saving the
Belgian people during the Ger-
man occupation. This struck a
deep response in a nation which
realized that neutrality was in-
glorious and probably impossible,
but yet recoiled at the butchery.
WHEN THIS COUNTRY enter-
ed the war, Hoover was already a
legendary figure. He was also an
entrancing talker. Many felt, as
I did, that they had never met a
more interesting man, anyone who
knew so much of the world and
could expound so clearly what to
almost all Americans in 1917 were
the inscrutable mysteries of Euro-
pean politics.
When the war ended in 1918
and the Presidential election of
1920 began to take shape, Hoover
was the first choice of nearly all
the Wilsonian idealists, 'of the
progressives and liberals in both
parties. Destiny had marked him,
I have always thought, to be the
natural heir of Woodrow Wilson,
and in fact he was launched into
national politics by men who be-
longed to Wilson's following.
He chose, however, to declare
himself a Republican, and this
decision, which brought him to
the Presidency eight years later,
opened up a breach with the pro-
gressives and liberals. It was deep-
ened and envenomed by the 1932
campaign, and it was not until
much later in his life that the
breach was healed, thanks to the
initiative of President Harry Tru-
man.
* * *
AT A TIME like this it would
be foolish to attempt to anti-
cipate the verdict of history. But
those of us who knew Hoover
during his public career may, per-
haps, allow ourselves a few re-
flections. I would venture to say
that for the disaster which en-
gulfed him in the White House
Hoover was in no way responsible.
In the 1920s when the great
depression was brewing, there was
no one, no politician or financier,
who had any clear idea as to how
the world should be reconstructed
BUT IT IS an interesting his-
torical fact that as President he
adopted pragmatically virtually
all the main principles of the
early years of FranklinRoose-
velt's New Deal. The reader will
find the basic test for this asser-
tion in Hoover's speech accepting
the Republican nomination on
Aug. 11, 1932.
Writing three years later in the
light of the unfolding New Deal
program, I ventured to say that
Hoover's "historic position as a
radical innovator has been greatly
underestimated and . . . Mr.
Roosevelt's pioneering has been
greatly exaggerated. It was Mr.
Hoover who abandoned the prin-
ciples of laissez-faire in relation
to the business cycle, established
the conviction that prosperity and
depression can be publicly con-
trolled by political action and
drove out of the public conscious-
ness the old idea that depressions
must be overcome by private ad-
justment."
In the 1932 speech of accept-
ance, Mr. Hoover said that "the
function of the federal govern-
ment in these times is to use its
reserve powers and its strength
for the protection of citizens and
local governments by supportof
our institutionstagainst forces be-
yond their control."
Hoover's recovery program in-
cluded a deliberate policy of in-
flating the base of credit, the use
of government credit to supple-
ment the deficiency of private
credit, reduction of the' normal
expenses of government, but an
increase in the extraordinary ex-
penditures-the expansion of pub-
lic works in order to create em-
ployment; the assumption by the
federal government of the ulti-
mate responsibility for relief of
destitution where local or private
resources were inadequate. This
increase was not to be covered by
taxation, but by deficit financing.
* * *
WHILE HOOVER is remember-
ed now as a great objector to
the course of affairs since 1932,
this was, I believe, the effect of
his disastrous accident in 1929-
his being run over by the Great
Depression. His negativism was
not in harmony with his generous,
liberal and magnanimous nature.
In the field of war and peace,
however, Herbert Hoover remained
true to his original nature, that
of the bold and brilliant' philan-
thropist who binds up wounds and
avoids inflicting them. Hoover fed
the defeated Germans, and though
he hated communism, he fed the
Bolsheviks. Yet in spite of all of
it he never, believed in America
as a globel power with military
and political commitments in
every continent. He was an isola-
tionist and, insofar as his beliefs
could be reconciled with his duties
as President and Commander in
Chief, he was a conscientious ob-
j ector.
I remember him affectionately.
Thus, in 1928 when he was nomi-
nated for President, I sent him
congratulations and good wishes.
He replied to me at my office in
the New York World, which was
supporting Gov. Al Smith, that
"I do not expect you to love me
publicly until after November."
(c) 1964, The Washington Post Co.
to the survival of the human race
in evolution is necessarily the goal
or evena goal of intelligence, since
intelligence can always ask the
further question "Why should the
human race continue?" Thus Ayn
Rand's premise that intelligence is
good because it necessarily serves
the evolutionary continuation of
the human race is on two counts
false. Similarly with other cri-
teria of superiority-all can be
questioned, hence none can be
definitively established as a ra-
tionale for denying equality status
to persons who do not possess a
certain characteristic.
NOW THE conservative may
legitimately ask us to imagine (if
it is philosophically possible to do
so) that somehow we, or our com-
puters, can establish a definite
criterion of superiority, defined in
some unquestionable way. Suppose
that all Negro individuals can be
proved genetically to lack that
criterion. What then? The third
argument must question the de-
sirability of a completely rational
society and the desirability of al-
ways rewarding superiority, how-
ever defined, by giving special
privileges to those who possess
that superiority. Few people wish
to take this position, but I do.
Psychology is showing us all the
time that irrationality, even per-
versity, often coexists with (though
does not necessarily cause) pro-
pensities which we hold to be
valuable, for example, the propen-
sity to be an artist. The second
argument has shown that intel-
ligence does not necessarily con-
tribute to evolutionary survival,
and this argument shows that
irrationality does not necessarily
exclude the possibility of valuable,
even honorable, contribution to
society. Hence there seems to be
no reason to suppose that either
intelligencebor rationality (which
may even be the same thing) is
a desirable premise for the es-
tablishment of a social ethic.
The conservative may insist that
this general argument gives no
reason for giving a Negro a job
which he is not competent to do.
True enough; but then no civil-
rightser that I have ever talked
to has main'inec that a Negro
should hold a job which he fails to
perform well Te point is that he
must be given a special chance to
try that job if he appears even
remotelynto be qualified; a special
chance in order to compensate for
the possibility that we were mis-
taken in underestimating his abil-
Ay beforehand.
FURTHER, I would contend
that even if the majority of Ne-
groes should be proven genetically
unfit for high-paying jobs, they
should nevertheless be given, by
government, an average incone,
if they wish it. There is nothing
inherently wrcing with receiving
money without workiag, once An
Randhas been disposed of. Most
import c°ti3, I would a,_gle that
Negroes, even if genetically dif-
ferent, should be conhdered so-
cially equal not in oicer to cater
to their emotio,'ual needs, a de-
meaning proposition, sut because
we have no basis for assuming
that a rational judgment is a
desirable one, or that rational y
will ever give us an anquestion-
able criterion for making judg-
ments of value.
Democracy, I think, is misin-
terpreted if we declare its premise
to be the equality of all men. The
premise of democracy is skepti-
cism, that all values are question-
able, and even if we found an
unquestionable value we could still
question the method by which it
was established. We are obligated
to behave as though Lll p_- jpie
were equal, not because they are,
but because to behave otherwse is
to involve ourselves in untenable
Dremises.
constitute that undefined entity
we know as intelligence are so
complex, and so fraught with con-
troversy as to produce very little
in the way of a testable hypo-
thesis.
Furthermore, the whole field of
psychometry is so confused as to
preclude any sort of definitive
conclusion on the basis of test
evidence. However, even within the
context of contemporary psy-
chological fudgery, one canxeason-
ably argue for the notion of Ne-
gro superiority-or at least in-
telligence equity. For instance,
Northern Negroes scored signifi-
cantly higher on the Army Alpha
tests than Southern whites. Should
we thus treat the southern white
as being "possibly" inferior?
MORE IMPORTANTLY, no in-
dividual within racial groupings
is likely to be either 100 per cent
"white" or 100 per cent "Negro."
The infusion and diffusion of Ne-
gro blood in Western Europe went
on over a period of centuries. The
migration or movement of the
Moors into Spain is only the most
~well known of the many and con-
tinuous contacts between thenAf-
rican culture and the so-called
white world. (Needless to say such
a notion is even more descriptive
of the Southern United States.)
There is no entity which might
be known as the "white" (or
(or "Caucasian," or any other
euphemism) race or, conversely,
the "Negro" race. All "races" are
far more diffuse mixtures of sev-
eral racial groupings than one
might suspect (witness the inter-
penetration of Mongol genes into
eastern Europe).
Thus, when we speak of some-
one (that is to say, in this con-
text, a Negro) as being a member
of one group or another, we are
speaking, not in terms of absolutes,
but in terms of points on a con-
tinuum. This sort of assumption
precludes any sort of "Negro-
white" generalizations.
BEYOND THESE purely logical
difficulties, Winter's argumenta-
tion for Negro cultural inferiority
is clearly incorrect. Highly de-
veloped social systems have existed
in Africa for centuries. His notion
of the "African tribe" as some
sort of underdeveloped social en-
tity is so obviously simplistic, on
the face of it that the rest of his
anthropolically relevant argument
becomes suspect. (Immanuel Wal-
lerstein, a noted contemporary
writer on African affairs, collerates
the lack of a developed industrial
society in Africa very closely with
the tremendous depopulation of an
originally underpopulated area, by
slavery. He estimates that Euro-
pean slave traders removed be-
tween thirty and forty million
people from the African continent
-one half of whom died in transit
to the Americas.)
* * *
ALL OF THIS is really irrelevant
to the notion of a social ethic
based upon either Negro or white
inferiority. I would like to submit
that the most adequate rational
for equitable treatment of all
groups within society-within the
framework of adequate attempts
to adjust the inequities already
present in society's operation-is
the simple social psychological fact
that inequities within society are
more destructive of democratic
values than any sort of benefit
that might be derived from an
action ethic based on actual in-
equities.
-Stephen D. Berkowitz,'65
MEMORIES:
Don't Miss
Newsreel!
At the Michigan 'theatre
FOR THOSE WISHING to re-
live their carefree youth (like
last week, for example), the cur-
rent Michigan Theatre bill is
strongly recommended. At long
last the inevitable newsreel foot-
ball highlights are those of a
game that all of you out there
can identify with, whether you
really want to or not: last Satur-
day's game with Purdue.
Furthermore, those of you who
missed that particular debacle
have the opportunity to see the
highlights of the gridiron action
"live on the big screen," as the
friendly anouncers used to say.
Selected scenes from each thrill-
packed quarter are shown with
appropriate snide comments from
the announcer, while those who
attended the game in person can
scan the crowd shots and see who
dropped that cider down their col-
lars three seconds from the final
gun.
BUT THE NEWSREEL is not de-
voted entirely to the Wolverines.
There is also a fine wrapup of
some of last week's United States
medal-winning achievements: the
camera depicts the victories of
Lesley Bush in platform diving,
Sharon Stouder in women's relay
swimming and Bob Hayes in the
I
I
4
1
YOUNG, VERSATILE:
Paul Taylor Dance Co.
IN TODAY'S WORLD of pop art, music and literature with their
stress on empty spaces, it is extremely refreshing to see well
choreographed dances precisely executed. This is, what the Paul
Taylor Dance Company presented to a very receptive audience in
the first of the Chamber Dance Festival Concerts.
One is immediately impressed by Taylor's youth and versatility
as a choreographer and dancer, as well as the youth and well-
balanced performances of his company. It is difficult to single out
outstanding performances.
LAST NIGHT'S PROGRAM consisted of five works opening with
"Aureol," a study in five movements. In this work the outstanding
elements were precision, energy and the graceful polished movement
of a flock of soft, white doves, balanced against Taylor's own solo of
inversions, and his duet with Miss Walton based on precise mirrored
movements. The total work was set against the repetative background
of music by Handel.
The following duet by Miss Walton and Mr. Wagnoer was a unique
patchwork of Hayden's classical music, extremely fluent modern dance
movements and costumes obviously painted by an abstract modern
artist. As diverse as these elements may seem, the total result was
startling and exciting.
This company does not lack for a sense of humor as they demon-
started in their third work, "Three-Epitaphs." This number depicted
a nonenergetic, nonidentifiable society literally clothed in black from
head to foot, with mirrors attached to their heads which sent spectrums