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Seventy-Fifth Year
EDrrED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNiVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLucATIONS
Each Time I Chanced To See Franklin D.
A 'Breathing Period' Before Finals Begin
by H. Neil Berkson
E _ '
TutherWOi reairee 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, Micx.
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.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1964 NIGHT EDITOR: DAVID BLOCK
The Apathetic Student:
Product of a Complex World
LAST SATURDAY night 500 exuberant
fans turned out at Willow Run to greet
the football team with cheers of "Hail to
the Victors!" and "Rose Bowl, Rose
Bowl!" Unfortunately, it seems that a
winning football team is the only thing
which is capable of arousing students
from their normally apathetic state.
Most students here, as elsewhere, pre-
fer not to look beyond the classroom, the
fraternity house, or the next football
game. Caught up with the everyday, they
have failed to acquire a thorough knowl-
edge of the complex and urgent problems
with which modern society must deal.
The Diag rally conducted by the Stu-
dent Action League a few weeks ago
showed signs of a renewal of concern in
the broader problems of the University.
However, student interest failed to ma-
terialize when confronted with the op-
portunity to act through proper channels
at the President's Convocation.
THE SITUATION here is not unique.
Students everywhere seem to be more
and more concerned with less and less.
It is clear that the majority of today's
college students are looking merely for
a "safety zone" between high school
graduation and the beginning of re-
sponsibility. They are not students but
simply undergraduates waiting to be
transformed into graduates so that they
can enter the Valhalla of high wages,
country clubs and split-level suburbs.
Prof. Paul Sshlipp of Northwestern
University's philosophy department re-
cently reminded University students that
they have a choice between perpetuating
the "mess" things are in or proceeding
to change them. He noted that there are
places where students not only pour over
their books, but take time to inform and
commit themselves. It is necessary to
permeate usable knowledge with sane and
real understanding, he said.
AMERICAN STUDENTS close their
minds too early, though. They are
blind to the need for a personal life of
moral dedication, backed up by devotion,
'commitment, daring and audacity. It
takes leadership, courage and people of
action to direct organizations and help
resolve indecision. Students have the op-
portunity and responsibility to assume
this leadership and show their concern
on the college campus.
A recent New York Times article stated
that the growth of student movements
on American university campuses is
"phenomenal." Such a statement can be
mainly attributed to the fact that today's
student activists are a fragment that is
vocal, militant, organized, growing and
full of determination.
Granted, there are marches, petitions,
pickets and endless small, student alpha-
bet-organizations which do reveal some
emotion and receive some attention. The
fact remains, however, that the number
of students involved make up a small per-
centage of the student population and
their actions are quite limited.
Gravel Garden
MAYBE Ann Arbor should change its
advertising motto from "Research
Center of the Midwest to "Gravel Garden
Center of the Midwest," for that seems
to be the new orientation the University
is pushing.
In one of its more frivolous improve-
ment programs, the University is grow-
ing some of the most extensive gravel
gardens of any institution of higher edu-
cation in the United States-AND IN-
DEED THE WORLD. These gardens, lo-
cated next to or between buildings are
little areas of land that are filled with
grey, dusty gravel.
Aside from being aesthetically unpleas-
ing, it's a waste of money; and
upkeep-after students throw or kick
all the stones out - will no doubt be a
problem.
ACTUALLY, the gravel garden plan is
just part of a larger plot to sterilize the
University campus. It seems that another
phase of this conspiracy is to stick con-
crete wherever it is seen that people
have been walking on the grass. A much
PERHAPS THE BLAME falls on the
pressures of a society which has
greatly expanded and a technology which
has become overwhelmingly complex.
The principle difficulty lies in the popula-
tion explosion which has nearly doubled
the college-age group in the last twenty
years. In those "good old days" twenty
or thirty years ago, about the only neces-
sity for attending college was the price
of tuition; colleges were satisfied with
the average student.
Today, the admitted represent one out
of every four, six or even ten applicants;
the high school student is driven to
work for superior grades, not out of love
for learning, but because it is the only
means to admission to college. Before he
sets foot on the University campus, he
has been conditioned to regard his aca-
demic work as the means to an end, in-
stead of an end in itself. And, due to
the pressure for graduate training, the
undergraduate finds no respite from his
frantic efforts. He has still another ad-
missions officer to impress.
IN ITSELF the population explosion
would not account for apathy. But the
expansion of population brings a relat-
ed transformation of technology and at-
titudes toward education. This is the
age of bigness-big business, big govern-
ment, big churches, big-screen TV and
"big" education.
Bigness per se is not unhealthy. A
large school has more resources at its dis-
posal than a smaller one. But it also
requires more organization, which in turn
creates the danger of over-organization
and the choking of the spirit of mutual-
ity which is essential to the functioning
of an active intellectual community.
William H. Whyte, Jr. has pictured
college as a training camp for the orga-
nization man. "Students do not wish to
protest, they wish to collaborate," he
wrote. They seek to run with the organi-
zation and receive its secure protection.
MOREOVER, at the University, pres-
sures are simply too great. The first
of such pressures is toward conformity
and relates to the 50 per cent of the
student body that Educational Testing
Service found came to college for social
reasons. The "wise" student quickly learns
to do homage to the accepted middle-
class values both inside and outside the
classroom. The insidious pressures of
higher standards and competition en-
courage the student to conform to what
is expected.
The second pressure is primarily one
of time. Both society and the University
are demanding too much every single
day. The average student cannot keep
up with the frantic pace; the pressures
and complexities become overwhelming.
Small wonder, then, that there is a
strong inclination to, as one student put
it, "lie down in darkness, leaving orders:
'Do Not Disturb'." It is easy to under-
stand how a generation, when it finds
out that the answer to the question,
"What can you do?" starts, "Well, it is
rather complicated . . ." quickly becomes
apathetic. Today shoulders are shrugged
more often than fists are shaken.
PRECISELY IN THIS AGE of bigness
and complexity, of increased pressures
within the University and from the non-
academic world, there is greater need
than ever for students who are dedicat-
ed to a renaissance of freedom and con-
troversy on the campus. But, ironically,
our concern for ourselves may keep us
from recognizing and meeting this need.
Such a reaction both increases the
apathy of disillusionment and makes of
today's students a causeless generation.
It breeds an apathy that is carried into
later life and may lead-as at times it
already has-to an abridgement of free-
dom and undue concentration of powers.
ONE STUDENT here carried the pres-
ent situation to its logical conclusion
by suggesting a merger of the Young
Democrats and Young Republicans to
form the Young Moderates, united under
the banner of an "Apathy Ticket." Hordes
of Young Moderate activists would
emerge, perhaps joined by a group of
YouInt' Americans for Nothing, mopa2gan-
WITH THANKSGIVING VACATION one week away,
the fall semester is coming to a close. If the reaction
on campus is anything like last year, students will return
to school a week from Monday, realizing for the first
time that finals are 16 days away. While the effects
shouldn't be as bad now that we've had a year under
the new calendar, many people will go dizzy cramming,
and there will be a strong yearning for the former
Christmas interlude.
Regardless of the feasibility of the new calendar-
and there can be no debate over the fact that it
works-the shortened semester creates much more pres-
sure than its predecessor. Blame students, perhaps, for,
being human, they find it somewhat hard to adjust.
While the work gets done, it would be a safe bet that
the number of shortcuts used in producing papers and
passing exams has increased. The new calendar em-
phasizes production over education.
Or blame the faculty, which hasn't adjusted its
courses enough to account for the new system. The fac-
ulty, by the way, imposed trimester against strong
counter-arguments because professors shunnedthe
wholesale revision of courses which the quarter system
would have necessitated.
THE POINT REMAINS that the shortened semester
is too tight; ways of relaxing tension should not be
ignored. One proposal-a classless reading period before
finals-was revived by a group of students at the begin-
ning of the week. This idea drew support as early as
last January and before, but no one has been interested
in carrying it through.
"We tend to overstructure class teaching. If a reading
period were properly led up to and guided, students
would gain much benefit." The speaker: President
Hatcher, in The Daily's trimester series last winter.
Dean Haber of the literary college hoped that "a
hard look can be given to adding a reading period, which
would ease some of the strain I observed." He advocated
a period of five to seven days before finals.
Such a "breathing period" creates many interesting
possibilities. It might be combined with an intensive
faculty speaker program-the campus, in other words,
would briefly turn away from the classroom ritual, opting
instead for a week of private study and more excha'nge
with the faculty. This period might even be better if
it came somewhat earlier than immediately before finals.
THE CATCH? The "time-schedule" orientation of
both students and faculty. Those who measure education
only in terms of grades, credit hours and degrees would
find a "study week" useless. Class, papers and exams
are important: when the first isn't in session and the
second and third aren't imminent, why be here?
Nevertheless, while the ideal may be eliminated, the
need to take some of the pressure off remains. Now
that the idea of a free period within the semester has
some backing, it should be pursued until it assumes
concrete form and becomes reality.
* * * *
THE LATEST ISSUE of Saturday Review contains an
article which will be read with interest by a number
of ambitious men around the campus. The article: "A
University Presidency: What It Takes" by Sir Eric Ashby.
Ashby, who was here for a few days last spring, is
master of Clare College, part of England's Cambridge
University. In the past few months his writing and
speeches have drawn increasing attention in the U.S.
press.
The college president, Ashby says, "cannot directly
help scholars to teach or to do research; on all but
one of the subjects in the curriculum he probably knows
less than the youngest assistant, and in the one subject
which was his own expertise (if he ever was an expert)
he is likely soon to become hopelessly out of date. What
then can he do to promote the purpose of the university?"
Ashby's answers counteract the "remarkably little"
which "has been written about this particular kind of
administration."
END OF LINCOLN'S PARTY?
Negro Voters Switch Power to Democrats
By HAROLD WOLMAN
AS ANALYSTS begin to sift
through the wreckage of the
Republican Party, it is becoming
clear that the GOP has committed
a fundamental mistake which may
plague it long after Barry Gold-
water and Dean Burch are no
longer major party figures.
In the election two weeks ago,
96 per cent of all Negroes who
voted cast their ballots for the
Democratic presidential candidate.
Should Negroes continue voting
for Democratic candidates with
anything close to this degree of
solidarity, the GOP may have
trouble ever winning another na-
tional election.
** *
NEGROES represent under 10
per cent of the national electorate,
but their voting power is strategi-
cally located. In border states such
as Kentucky, Maryland, Okla-
homa, Delaware, West Virginia
and Missouri, Negroes represent
a substantial minority of the popu-
lation and experience relatively
few barriers to voting.
In these states, Negroes al ready
hold the balance of political
power, In the Maryland primary
last spring, for example, a ma-
jority of whites actually voted for
Alabama Gov. George Wallace, but
the solid Negro vote for sen.
Daniel Brewster, who represented
President Johnson, gave Brewster
an easy victory.
On the basis of the recent elec-
tion it now appears that Virginia,
North Carolina, Tennessee, Ar-
kansas and Florida also can be
classified as border states, at least
in the political sense. It seems
only a matter of time b fore the
large Negro population even in
the Deep South gets the franchise,
and, barring a mass exodus of
White Democrats to the Republi-
can Party, Negroes should be the
key electoral force here also.
SHOULD THESE Negroes con-
tinue to vote strongly for the
Democrats, the GOP strategy of
the recent campaign will have
more than backfired. By ,appealing
to the white southerner's racist
sympathies in 1964, Barry Gold-
water may have permanently
separated the Republicans from
the growing force in southern
politics.
The extent of southern Negro
disenchantment with the GOP is
mirrored in the following melan-
choly statistics. In 1956, 45 per
cent of southern Negro voters cast
their vote for the Republican
presidential candidate. In 1960
this figure fell to 40 per cent.
However, two weeks ago Barry
Goldwater was able -to garner only
10 per cent of the southern Negro
vote for his version of the Repub-
lican Party.
* * * 4
POTENTIALLY more terrifying
to the GOP than the above, how-
ever, must be the voting statistics
they are reading from the nortn,-
em states.Lyndon Johnson re-
ceived 96 per cent of the Negro
vote in Pennsylvania, 94 per cent
in New York, 97 per cent in Illi-
nois and 99 per cent in Ohio.
These key northern states with
their total of 129 electoral votes
have in the past proven to be
competitive two-party states. A
solid Negro Democratic vote in
any of them would likely spell
defeat for the GOP.
Richard Nixon has conceded
that he lost the 1960 election be-
cause he was unable to capture
a sufficiently large Negro vote
in the North. Nixon, who attempt-
ed to appeal to the southern white
and the northern Negro at the
same time, actually won a majority
of votes from whites in the coun-
try, 52-48 per cent.
Yet nationally he could only
win the votes of 22 per cent of
the voting Negroes. The former
Vice-President insists that he
could have picked up needed Negro
votes in critical northern states
if he had directed his campaign
with that objective more in mind.
At the time, however, he devoted
only two speeches to Negro voters
and one of those was in Beverly
Hills, California, hardly a center
of Negro population.
* * *
NIXON'S COMMENTS high-
light the great mistake Republi-
cans are now beginning to rasalize
they have made. Prior to the
election Negroes were not delir-
iously happy over the prospect of
supporting Lyndon Johnson, a
southerner whose civil rights rec-
ord before he assumed the Presi-
dency was less than impeccable.
Had. the GOP brought forth a
moderate with a good civil rights
record such as Governor Scran-
ton, Governor Rockefeller or per-
haps even a wiser Nixon, they
would have stood to make strong
inroads into the Negro vote.
Instead, the Republicans nom-
inated Sen. Barry Goldwater, who
was one of the few Republican
senators to vote against the Civil
Rights Act.
Goldwater had clearly expressed
his strategy for the GOP three
years earlier at a meeting of the
Republican National Commitree.
At that time he said that the
Republican Party would never at-
tract a large Negro vote-a pro-
phecy he has helped to fulfill-
and that the GOP could best
profit by coveting the votes of
southern whites who were mis-
placed in the Democratic Party.
"Let's go shooting in the pond
where the ducks are," Goldwater
exhorted his party.
*~ * *
FROM THE MOMENT of his
nomination it was apparent that
Goldwater had indeed written off
the Negro. At the convention Gold-
water and his forces, after en-
gaging in a debilitating fight with
beleaguered liberals, refused to
include in the platform a para-
graph pledging enforcement of the
Civil Rights Act.
During the campaign Goldwater
gave great emphasis to the need
for law and order in the streets,
a plea which Negroes viewed as
a thinly veiled criticism of civil
rights demonstrations. At Chicago
late in the campaign Goldwater
actually devoted an entire speech
to criticism of the Civil Rights Act;
* * *
THE REPUBLICANS have fur-
ther injured their appeal to the
Negro voter by acquiring an al-
batross in the form of segrega-
tionist Sen. Strom Thurmond of
South Carolina who recently
switched parties. Nor will the
election of several like-minded
congressmen from the deep South
endear the GOP to the Negro;
Republicans are no longer able to
point to the Democrats as the
party of segregation in the South.
Can the GOP recoup? Obviously
in order to do so it must rid itself
of the leadership which is re-
sponsible for the present dilemma,
The party of Lincoln must return
to the principles of Lincoln if it
is to againwin elections on the
national level.
4
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
Wage Solution is Inadequate
To the Editor:
IT IS becoming more and more
apparent to many students at
this University that the corporate
structure of this institution is
more than just form. Gradually
it has become also the spirit of
the University administration.
Several weeks ago Charles Leh-
man of the education school in a
special article for The Daily
brought to light most percentive-
ly the "accounting network" of
thte University in regards to the
past sparcity of state allocations.
It might be added now that the
introduction of the "accounting
network" has brought a profound
change in the attitude of the Uni-
versity administration especially
in its confrontation with the stu-
dent community.
I
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FAR worse, however, is that the
university administration appears
now to see this institution as a
pure business enterprise. Educa-
tion is its product, as the Chevro-
let is General Motors'. Its inputs
are "unrefined" students, its out-
put. . . hopefully enlightened hu-
man beings as G.M. makes steel,
rubber, and glass into automobiles
. . hopefull which will sell.
To blame for this is the admin-
istration's business attitude and
spirit. It is a spirit which makes
the administration complex, with
few exceptions, think not in terms
of people, but in terms of profits.
It is a spirit which says we need
efficiency at any cost, profit at
lowest cost, and hang everything
which interferes with our plans.
It is a system which is concerned
only with the welfare of students
as it wishes to see it from its
State Street Ivory Tower. It is a
system which says, for example,
we set wages at a point where we
can get enough employes to do
the work and no higher.
s *
THE corporation spirit of the
University is a major threat to
the welfare of the student body,
the faculty, and to the whole
academic community. The admin-
istration must be reminded that
it is not General Motors Corpora-
tion and that, unlike industry
postulates, it has a definite re-
sponsibility for the welfare of its
employees, be they students or
not.
Vice-President for Business and
Finance Wilbur K. Pierpont said
last week, "The University will
continue its policies of establish-
ing wage rates to meet or exceed
the minimum rates established by
minimum wage laws." Yet, the
present University wage limits
many students to one dollar an
hour, far below the federal mini-
mum wage.
The University of Michigan
Student Employes' Union has
been in discussion with the ad-
ministration for several months.
In order to quell the rising sym-
pathy for fair student wages at
the University the administration
has offered reluctantly a small
increase, to'take effect in 1966. It
has even reluctantly decided to
increase the minimum wage level
to the minimum level which the
federal government set several
years ago... but says this will not
go into effect until 1967, three
Nnivreiy hiig~C from 'now!T
Administration instead of one
geared to profit.
-Barry Bluestone, '66
President, UMSEU
Sad
To the Editor:
STUDENTS Unite! We will meet
on the diag and march 10,000
strong to President Hatcher's
home, we'll go to Washington and
demand that the work load be les-
sened at the University. This way
the students won't have to sit
home on Saturday nights and
study.
You mean this wasn't the reason
for the poor turnout at the airport
Saturday night when the team
returned from Iowa? Oh, I k~now
the reason: the hard working stu-
dents decided that they needed a
study break so they put away
their electric computers and went
to see that great epic, "Pajama
Party."
WHAT ELSE could have been
the reason for Saturday's disgust-
ing sight at Willow Run? Only
about 500 people turned out to
greet the team and a large portion
of these were Ann Arbor residents
and their children. The Victors
doesn't sound too good when it is
sung by about 300 students and a
gathering of six- and seven-year-
olds.
Michigan has been accused of
lacking spirit before, but Satur-
day night's display was about the
worst. I am sure that Slippery
Rock Teachers College shows more
spirit for its "Knitting Club." All
the world loves a winner, but not
the students at the University.
They love to go to the stadium
and scream and yell, but when it
comes to showing real spirit they
prefer to sit back and do nothing.
Last year when Illinois returned
from beating Wisconsin, 8000 stu-
dents turned out to greet them.
This year, Michigan is one game
from the Rose Bowl and 500 people
greet them. One can only venture
to guess what will happen if Mich-
igan beats Ohio State this week.
Maybe the airport will let its em-
ployes off so they can meet the
team.
STANDING at the airport Sat-
urday night, one could have seen
Dick Rindfuss, John Yanz and
John Rowser standing on crutches
waiting for the team to return.
It's too bad they had to hurt
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