Seventy-Fifth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MIcHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
"Now for The Bi Fence-Mending Jobs"
- --
Where Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARDOR, 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.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1964 NIGHT EDITOR: JOHN BRYANT
The Student Slum:
Better Than $65 a Month
A TATTERED, stained rug-or none at
all--covering crooked, squeaky floors;
furniture from a 1910 bargain basement;
a kitchen with a stained sink, wired-to-
gether refrigerator and Ben Franklin's
first stove; cracked plaster and bare light
bulbs; windows that have to be propped
up and slammed down; old mattresses
on plain metal frames-these are some
characteristics of that genre of apart-
ment known as the "student slum."
It has one other characteristic: you
can live there for a lot less than you
can live anywhere else in town.
But now it seems that many well-
meaning people have decided that stu-
dents should be saved from student slums.
Specifically:
-New building inspectors have been
hired by the city in an attempt to find
"substandard" housing;
-Student Government Council has es-
tablished an off-campus housing board,
one of whose functions apparently will be
to push landlords to spruce up run-down
rental property; and
-Various people have called for the
University to improve off-campus living
conditions by forbidding students to rent
unapproved housing.
THE DETAILS of these efforts are not
clear, but their aggregate effect is a
general pressure on landlords to "im-
prove" their student slums. The catch is
that, to the extent that this pressure
succeeds, it will be the students, not the
landlords, who will pay for the "improve-
ments."
Any improvement the landlord makes
inevitably will be reflected in higher rent
for the next tenant. Eventually the cam-
pus will be surrounded by nice, sterile,
modern apartment buildings and immac-
ulately restored old houses-each of them
renting for $65 a month.
1WHAT, THEN, should be done? Though
any sort of "clean-up-paint-up-fix-
up" - drive would backfire, this doesn't
mean we need resign ourselves to total
anarchy in the housing market.
First, it probably is necessary to en-
force some housing standards. Two sorts
of inadequacies should be outlawed:
-Those which constitute a hazard to
people other than the landlord and ten-
ants. A firetrap situated close to other
property, for example, endangers people
who had no part in the decision to let it
remain a firetrap.
-Faults which cannot be detected by
prospective tenants. Students should be
free, if they wish, to rent apartments
with various shortcomings, but they
should be able to know about all the
shortcomings before the deal is closed.
BEYOND THIS MINIMUM, nothing
should be required. It is, after all,
quite possible for some people to not only
survive but thrive in a home with bare,
crooked floors, minimal plumbing and
cockroaches. (For active people, in fact,
it may be preferable to a shiny new place
which calls for time-consuming meticu-
lous housekeeping.) Those who prefer this
style of life are entitled to it, however
much it may scandalize those to whom
an immaculate wall-to-wall carpet is the
ultimate goal of existence.
Irk!
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By DICK WINGFIELD
W HEN THE 88th Congress is
seated inEJanuary the House
of Representatives will have two
Democrats for each Republican.
In the Senate, the margin will be
equally large. The President will
assume office with the strongest
popular endorsement in this cen-
tury. What is likely to result?
It is easy and ostensibly Justi-
fiable to contend that the long-
anticipated programs of medicare,
federal aid to education, the war
on poverty and other liberal ineas-
ures will be instituted in a blitz-
krieg manner. But merely count-
ing Democratic heads in Con; ress
and measuring the margin of con-
fidence-votes that the President
received-does not pass programs.
FIRST, the President-elect is
one who desires to be "President
of all the people." His efforts to
see broader federal aid to educa-
tion may be partially occluded by
his efforts to keep the budget be-
low $100 billion. Labor's requests
for a change in the Taft-Hartley
Act (an effort to eliminate right-
to-work laws) may have to be bal-
anced against the President's re-
luctance to alienate business. This
is not to imply that Johnson is
unsure of his goals, but that he is
working within definite limita-
tions-set in large part by himself.
A second consideration is the
chairmanship hierarchy in the
House. Twenty of the 22 commit-
tee chairmen have been returned
to their powerful positions. In 28
of the last 32 years the House has
been controlled by the Democrats,
and during that period it has
maintained the distinction of be-
ing more conservative than either
the Senate or the President-even
the Republican one. The basic
reason is the stronghold conserva-
tive- Democratic chairmen have
achieved through seniority.
Cases in point include Wilbur
Mills, chairman of the ways and
means committee, who has blocked
the medicare bill, Otto Passman,
chairman of the foreign aid ap-
propriations subcommittee, whose
antipathy toward foreign aid per-
ennially hinders its appropriation.
* * *
HOUSE REFORM:
Johnson, Liberals and
Progressive Leoislation
.t t'
qty. 7c ' Lt .1
~' T '7' f'S LJP ,Stt r GTeai..1 l "c.s7"
Second, providing
condition of specific
pendability of theI
relevant details is
Thus the results of1
whether conducted
University or SGC,
information on the
apartments, the de-
landlords and other
a valuable service.
building inspections,
by the city or the
would be used for
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
Students Pay Exorbitant Rent
informational rather than coercive pur-
poses. There is a world of difference.
Third, those interested in helping the
student apartment - seeker should use
whatever power they can muster to pre-
serve the broadest possible choice of hous-
ing. This will mean, ironic as it may
sound, defending landlords who want to
run their apartments as student slums.
TUDENT TENANTS have a right to
know what they're getting into when
they rent an apartment. But once they
know, they have a right to get into what-
ever they choose. Would-be do-gooders
should make sure they are protecting
both rights.
-KENNETH WINTER
Managing Editor
Responsibility at Roosevelt
ANYONE WHO FEELS that The Daily
staff enjoys entirely too much free-
dom when it comes to what may or may
not be said on its pages should consider
himself fortunate to be able to take ad-
vantage of so high a degree of journal-
istic freedom. Recent events at Roose-
velt University in Chicago have demon-
strated all too well the .extent to which
such freedom has deteriorated in the
case of Roosevelt's student newspaper,
the Torch.
The Torch's problems began last Sat-
urday when the Roosevelt administration
confiscated all available copies of that
day's paper, which reported that the uni-
versity president, Robert J. Pitchell, had
been "unofficially fired" and that the
university is $700,000 in the red.
The article went on to explain that
Pitchell's power had been transferred to
the university's Administrative Council
because he supposedly failed to bring
enough funds to the university, now deep-
ly in debt and forced to borrow in order
to pay faculty salaries.
WHEN ONE of the student editors tried
to get the administrators to release the
newspapers they had confiscated, she was
told that there would be one stipulation:
the editors would have to publish a sup-
plement containing statements by a full
bureaucratic battery ranging from Pitch-
ell to the chairman of the Board of
Trustees.
However, when the students complied
with the request, they added an italicized
insert above the letters, explaining briefly
the facts of the matter. For this reason,
the statement was rejected by the ad-
-inistrators, who insisted on writing
their own insert.
H. NEIL BERKSON, Editor
KENNTH.WINTER EDWARD HERSTEIN
BUT THE WORST was yet to come
for the Torch staff. After a four-page
supplement explaining the problem had
finally been published, and following a
meeting between the Torch editorial
board and the Student Activities Board
(a group of six students and six faculty
members), Pitchell himself gathered
enough remnants of his former power
to suspend the Torch staff from all stu-
dent activities pending a report by the
Student Activities Board.
This latest step by Pitchell really seems
to be the last straw for all concerned.
The unlucky Chicago students are being
punished for reporting the facts and for
refusing to reveal the sources of the orig-
inal story-a basic privilege of any news-
paper, student-run or otherwise.
The Torch editors maintain that Pitch-
ell's action was purely arbitrary on his
part and did not go through the "proper
channels": that is, the Student Activities
Board, to which the Torch is responsible.
IT WOULD SEEM that a university presi-
dent who has lost his administrative
power, whether or not he is directly re-
sponsible for the current financial con-
dition of his university, cannot hope to
escape what he might term the "unfav-
orable publicity" of having the matter
brought to the attention of the public.
On the contrary, far more unfavorable
publicity must surely accrue to an ad-
ministrator who first tries to keep such
facts hidden and then goes to such.
lengths to deal with those who have
brought his own shortcomings to light.
If the Torch editors had originally
hushed up the details of their adminis-
tration's inefficiency, the cause of truth,
as well as of journalistic responsibility
to the readers, would have been sacrificed
on the altar of managed news. That
Pitchell should now find himself in such
a position is certainly unfortunate, espe-
cially since there is no proof that the
onus of responsibility for Roosevelt Uni-
To the Editor:
THIS is in response to the edi-
torial entitled: "Why High
Rent is Necessary." It seems to me
that this editorial must have been
written tongue in cheek, for the
reasoning contained within it must
have been in jest.
Let us see the reasoning implicit
in the editorial. High rents are
needed to "draw out more capital
to build more apartments." So the
rents now in effect in the campus
area would only seem to be "exor-
bitant," and the benevolent land-
lords will plow their exorbitant
profits back into new and better
housing to meet student demands.
What would be the result of an
increased supply of low rent apart-
ments? Any first-semester econo-
mics student would tell you that
rents must drop.
NOW, let's examine the facts in
the case. High rents in the campus
area didn't start yesterday. The
latest census figures show that in
four out of the five census tracts
comprising the campus area, 36
per cent of which are students liv-
ing in private housing, estimated
proportion of income spent on
rent far exceeds that of any other
tract in the city. Since the cam-
pus area contains 50 per cent of
all rented units in Ann Arbor, it
may indeed be seen as a quite
lucrative affair.
The fact that rents are quite
high, though, is no new finding.
But let's examine the case fur-
ther. Where is all this profit go-
ing? Into building more apart-
ments to meet growing demand?
In improvements? In the cam-
pus area, 95 per cent of all dwell-
ing units were built before 1940,
as compared to 44 per cent for the
rest of the city. Where are the
new apartments? If anything,
there isless building here than in
the rest of the city. In the cam-
pus area, 12 per cent of the dwell-
ing units are rated "deteriorated"
and two per cent "dilapidated,"
as contrasted to seven per cent
and one per cent in. the local
area.
The only census tract surpass-
ing the campus in per cent de-
teriorated is the one with the
largestnonwhite element, which
contains one-fifth the number of
dwelling units. Also, there are
more persons per room and sub-
stantially less rooms per unit in
the campus area as contrasted
to the rest of the city.
M K
TO WHAT do these figures
point? A student of urban sociol-
ogy could tell you that high popu-
lation density coupled with lu-
crative rent practices and de-
terioration characterize the slum
area of our cities. This combina-
tion of characteristics exists in six
census tracts in Ann Arbor out of
the 18 having dwelling units. One
tract, containing seven per cent
of all rented units is the nonwhite
tract mentioned before. The other
five, containing 50 per cent of all
rented units, are in the campus
area. Where are the slums in Ann
Arbor?
The city is of course interested
in housing problems. However,
the nevailin sentiment in city
ing our campus slumlords. The
new high rise apartment building
may help alleviate the problem
somewhat, that is if the local
committee dedicated to prevntng
its completion doesn't get its way.
And who do you think opposes the
new building? Who stands to lose?
None other than our benevoient
landlord's who are only too happy
to lower the exorbitant rents in
the campus area and give the stu-
dents a break.
--Tom Moore, Grad
Radio
To the Editor:
.ACIFICA Radio and its non-
profit, listener-supported sta-
tions are well-known to many for
the high quality of their enter-
tainment, their courage in dis-
cussing controversial subjects of
public importance, and the pleas-
ure of hearing programs uninter-
rupted by frequent commercials.
Detroit has also been fortunate
to have a similar station, WQRS-
FM. Its format has included
classical and folk music, news and
discussion, stories for children,
current cultural events in De-
troit and on the Wayne campus
and other interesting features.
Anyone who has discovered them
will attest to the quality of ma-
terial and the dedication with
which they undertake their self-
appointed public responsibility.
NOW they are in trou
license has been transfe
commercial enterprise,
to introduce commercials
it as a profit organizati
Letters to Commissio
Liam Henry of the FCC
senator and congresssu
verbal and financial sups
to the Art Broadcasting
at Woodward and Ferry
are needed immediately
troit is to retain itso
profit, listener-supporte
-Richard Hawle
To the Editor:
I WAS very interested
speech by Governor
before the Michigan C
On Higher Education In,
criticized Michigan's edu
not doing more political
Until our peerless lea
spoken, I had always tho
function of educators ww
cate and the function o
leaders is to lead.
If a political leader
won't lead it seems unfa
to shift the blame to t
are dependent on his
leadership. Or to put i
way-"People in glass st
shouldn't throw stones."
-Larry Ro
in. JOHNSON and his administra-
ner Wil- tion see the obstacles and will at-
to your tempt to level them. As did Roose-
1an, and velt, Johnson will probably try to
port sent change the rules of the game. The
Co., Inc. most significant areas of prospec-
', Detroit, tive change in the legislative pro-
, if De- cess are committee chairmanships,
yne n - re-disciplining the Democratic
d station. Party and institution of the 21-
day rule allowing the House to
y, Grad bring bills out of the predatory
rules committee.
First Rep. Richard Bolling of
Stones Missouri has offered a proposal
which would authorize the party
caucus to appoint committee
in the chairmen. This proposal would
Roney h bring in liberal chairmen and de-
Romney molish the only real road block
onference the conservatives can establish in
which he this Congress.
cators for Second, recognizing that party
lobbying, loyalty is the root of all legisla-
der had tive success, the Democrats may
ought the take action against their com-
is to edu- rades John B. Williams of Missis-
' political sippi and Albert W. Watson of
South Carolina who aligned with
can't or Goldwater. In the last days of the
ir of him 88th Congress John A. Blatnik,
hose who leader of the Democratic Study
political Group, said that the group op-
t another posed the seating in the Demo-
atehouses cratic caucus of any member or
candidate who supported Gold-
water. The effect of this proposal
oss,'65L would be to strip the recalcitrant
ble; their
rred to a
planning
and run
representatives of their committee
assignments and to render them
virtually powerless.
Third, the Democrats are likely
to press for the 21-day rule. The
rule would allow the liberals to
circumvent the usual delay caused
by chairman of the rules commit-
tee, Howard Smith, and to see
more of their legislation acted
upon.
THE ADMINISTRATION may
not choose to press for procedural
reform, however. If it feels that it
can get its legislation enacted
without reform, it may try to do
so. To battle for a different sys-
tem of selecting chairmen or the
21-day rule while the substantive
legislation of medicare and the
war on poverty are ignored would
be senseless. The administration
may correctly see that its main
impediments are the rules and
the ways and means committees,
and choose to conciliate on a
small scale and succeed rather
than to renovate on a large scale
and risk partial failure.
But whether Johnson chooses
procedural reform or substantive
legislation-or a healthy Zombi-
nation of the two-hisschances for
success are great. Assuming that
his efforts are not marred by frac-
tionalism or absenteeism, his mar-
gins in Congress, the mandate
from the election, and history are
on his side.
G&S:
Only
Mo mentIs
THE GILBERT and Sullivan So-
ciety opened two of the Savoy
light operas last night in Lydia
Mendelssohn Theatre, and suffice
to say that each has its moments.
"Trial by Jury," the original
G&S curtain riser, is enhanced by
a sterling performance by Miss
Anne Niitme as Angelina, the
abandoned bride, but unfortu-
nately her supporting cast is not
equal to her work. Vocally they
are acceptable, but as actors, their
renditions of the parts are quite
wooden and restricted.
The show is not aided by an
especially dismal set, which re-
sembles a saloon slightly festoon-
ed by May Day more than a court
room.
* * *
THE SHOW does have high
spots, however. Miss Niitme's
numbers are excellent, and vari-
ous hits by Robert Westover as
*the Associate (who can't decide
what to do with his hands) and
Sidni Sehwaneke as the lady on
the jury (who knits all the way
through the trial), really steal
the whole show.
But, clever as these moments
are, they simply cannot rescue the
set or the ludicrous costumes
(men's cutaway coats are achiev-
ed by pinning back modern sport
coats), or the mysterious choreog-
raphy,
* * *
"THE SORCERER," however, is
another story. While it, too, lacks
a certain amount of polish, it is
far better than "Trial." Especial-
ly notable is Michael Baad as Dr.
Daly, the reverend, whose char-
acterization was strong and uni-
fied.
Also cited should be Milton Bail-
ey as Alexis. While it would ap-
pear that he labors under several
handicaps, including inexperience,
he shows definite talent and will
undoubtedly become a mainstay in
the G&S troupe. His vocal qual-
ity is excellent.
Grace Hanninen as Aline, un-
fortunately, is too old for the
part, Opposite Bailey she seems
old enough to be his mother rath-
er than his intended bride, which
quite destroys the intent of Gil-
bert's libretto. In addition, Miss
Hanninen's dramatic ability seems
to be limited, for her movement
and line interpretation are stilt-
ed and unconvincing. She has an
excellent voice, however, and vo-
cally she fulfills her role well.
LIKE "TRIAL," "The Sorcerer"
is plagued by technical handicaps.
The set is very colorful and im-
aginative, but the costumes are
sad. The women'schorus is deck-
ed out in fancy and colorful dress-
es, all of a kind, while the men
wear the most rag-tag conglomer-
ation imaginable., It looks as
though the costume budget ran
out just before they got to the
men's chorus.
The orchestra, as is too often
the case in Lydia Mendelssohn
Theatre, is no help at all. Some-
times it gets together with the
chorus, but more often it lags be-
hind annoyingly. Pick-ups are rag-
ged, in general, and sour notes
are all too frequent. Especially
bothersome aire the violins, who
are quite unable to make the
same mistake at the same time.
THE OVERALL problem with
"Trial" especially, but with "The
Sorcerer" to a certain extent, is
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FASCINATING FACTS:
Birch Society Supplement
By ROGER RAPOPORT
"IT IS my fervent hope that we
will last for hundreds of years,
and exert an increasing influence
for the temporal good and spirit-
ual ennoblement of mankind
throughout those centuries."
No, those aren't the words of
Pope Paul VI.
They constitute Robert Welch's
outlook on the function of the
John Birch Society.
THIS WAS just one of the fas-
cinating facts revealed in a 16-
page rotogravure supplement on
the John Birch Society that ap-
peared in the more than one mil-
lion copies of last Sunday's Chi-
cago Tribune.
The same supplement, financed
by the society at a cost of $200,-
000, has appeared in many other
papers across the country 'nclud-
ing the Los Angeles Times, St.
Louis Globe-Democrat, Dallas
News, Louisville Courier-Journal
and Boston Herald.
If you have never seen a pic-
ture of John Birch or read what
the society that bears his name
has to say for itself, try to get
hold of this supplement, undoubt-
edly destined to be a collector's
item.
IT IS all there. Pictures of
housewives getting signatures for
a petition to impeach Earl War-
ren and informing their local
butcher about the dangers of Com-
munist imports.
There is the John Birch Society
float moving along in a Dallas In-
dependence Day parade and mem-
bers placing "Support Your Local
Police" stickers on car bumpers.
Good old Ezra Taft Benson tells
why he was glad his son Reed
joined the society. "The society is
the most effective non-church or-
ganization in our fight against
creeping socialism."
In addition, society statisticians
inform the public that the United
States encirclement and infiltra-
tion by Communists is now more
than 50 per cent accomplished.
* * *
AT THE end of the supplement
is a coupon offering four alterna-
tives to individuals interested in
the society: a preliminary infor-
mation kit; a $1 introductory
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