Seventy-Third Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UN1VERSITY OF MICHIGAN
UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
"Where Opinions Are Free STUDENT PUBLICATIONS BLDG., ANN ARBOR, MICH., PHONE NO 2-3241
'truth Will Prevail,.
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all repr'nts.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1962 NIGHT EDITOR: PHILIP SUTIN
Eleven SGC Candidates:
TWo thinkers?
'BETTER OFF OUT':
Partisan Political Action Hinders USNSA
ADMISSION to the University is based upon
high academic standards and the students
who are admitted are some of the most highly
qualified in the country. After talking to some
of the present Student Government Council
candidates, one would never suspect this; it
is as if the University admitted only mimics
and non-thinkers.
The issues which divide the so-called con-
servatives and liberals in this year's election
are clear-cut; one is either con or pro-
United States National Student Association
respectively. In fact, the issues are so clearly
defined that one doesn't have to listen to
candidates, the conservative or liberal "line"
is spewed forth by either side without any
individual or varied thought in evidence.
This is not to say that none of the can-
didates has bothered to consider why he
is either for or against USNSA. But once
past the three incumbent candidates a doubt
consistently is raised: didn't I hear these
ideas once before? Of course, you heard them
more times than once before; you heard the
conservative argument seven times and the
liberal one four times.
IT SEEMS inconceivable that in a Univer-
sity of such reputed academic excellence
at least one candidate cannot think of another
reason for leaving USNSA or another reason
for staying. Why can't someone say that in
order to change USNSA a campaign should
be started to get more delegates to the con-
ventions? Why can't someone list those pro-
grams which USNSA offers but have never
been used at, the University and evaluate
them? Why can't someone point out the press
service that USNSA offers and evaluate it
also?
The "why can'ts" can go on. And the answer
seems to lie in the fact that candidates them-
selves are arguing the "leaders'" arguments.
Liberals mimic Robert Ross and conserva-
tives do the same for Steven Stockmeyer.,
Candidates for Council in the past have
?gad their faults; indeed many of the elected
members of SOC once arrived found that
they were wrong in sone of their ideas.
But at least they had ideas; they thought
something!
THE PRESENT GROUP- (and they are only
a group, for the views of one are barely
distinguishable from those of another) could
all be merged into two individuals. Vote for
Joe Smith, conservative or Vote for Joe
Green, liberal: take your choice.
Inquiry and reflective thinking are a base
of the University philosophy. Classroom learn-
ing is oriented toward this taim as is the
spirit within living units as envisioned in
the Michigan House Plan. The University. in
philosophy, frowns on mere repetitive mem-
orizing, and strives for a combination of fac-
tual data and creative thinking. But the
candidates presented to the student body
negate the entire philosophy.
And once negated, the philisophy falls to
the wayside in a maze of repetition and
grandiose statements such as "I must agree
with the candidate who spoke, before me in
regard to.."
SSGC WILL NOT be a winner no matter who
wins next Wednesday; in fact for the
most part the whole concept of student gov-
ernment will be the loser. No matter which
way the election returns come in, those people
elected will certainly not be capable of find-
ing their own minds on certain vital issues
which Council will face in the coming year.
In fact, there is the possibility that the next
year's Council meetings will degenerate to
one person taking -a stand and then the rest
of the parrots will mimic, "I agree with him
and vote in the same way."
If student government is to prove to be
a worthwhile activity and fulfill its potential
as a governing body of the students, re-
flecting student opinion on issues, then these
potential members must inform themselves
before election day or all will be lost. As
the old cliche reads, they have to "shape up
or ship out."
-ELLEN SILVERMAN
(EDITOR'S NOTE Robert Fuke,
'63, is president of the Michigan
Union and temporary chairman of
"Better Off Out." He was a delegate
to the 15th United States National
Student Association Congress this
summer.)
By ROBERT FINKE
Daily Guest Writer
NO ONE DENIES that much of
USNSA's work does indeed
serve students here and around
the world. But the question of
the University's continued mem-
bership in USNSA hinges on a
much larger and more basic is-
sue; whether or not the same
USNSA that was founded 15 years
ago on the predication of service
to member schools' students and
student governments ought to be
used primarily, as it is today, as
a mechanism to promote specific
political and social ends.
It makes no difference whether
these ends are liberal or con-
servative; the principle remains:
that any student orginazation,
founded on the basis of student
government, and having its legis-
lative body composed entirely of
individuals knowledgeable chiefly
in the area of students and stu-
dent government and their prob-
lems, cannot realistically be ex-
pected to act with competence
primarily in the spheres of na-
tional and international politics,
as USNSA does today.
While important, the issues of
USNSA's unrepresentative charac-
ter, cost of membership, and ser-
vice to member school student
bodies pale before this larger and
more fundamental question. And
it is on this basis, and in the
belief that students ought not to
organize and act to achieve poli-
tical ends as students (rather as
citizens, working through estab-
lished political structures) that
we object to USNSA in its pres-
ent form.
a *-*
COMPARED with the anarchic
and, partisan-split 14th National
Student Congress held in 1961 at
Madison, Wis., the 15th National
Student Congress, held this Aug-
ust on the campus of Ohio State
University, was indeed relatively
quiet; and those in support of
USNSA will argue that this past
Congress was a triumph for the
more moderate elements, though
few, in USNSA.
While this may or may not be
true, and we believe that it is
not true, because if one looks
below the furface of the 15th
NSC, one will find much in evi-
dence the same extreme partisan-
ship that obscured issues in 1961,
the principle still remains: stu-
dent government leaders were
forced to align themselves with
conservative or liberal elements
and take stands on national and
international issues about which
only a very few of them had suf-
ficient particular information on
the issues at hand to make an
intelligent and considered judg-
ment of the resolution presented
to them.
What right, for example, did
the delegates from the University
have to vote, on behalf of the
University students, for or against
a resolution concerning West
Irian, or for or against a motion
which condemned our own gov-
ernment for resuming nuclear
testing? These delegates were not
elected to their student govern-
ment positions on these or sim-
ilar issues, and therefore how can
we presume them to be compe-
tent to speak 'for us on these is-
sues?
WHILE AT the 15th NSC, dele-
gates were under constant pres-
sure to identify with and then
to work unceasingly for or against
conservative or liberal forces. The
main question facing delegates
was not "what are the issues at
hand?" but rather "how can we
get more votes?"
And in this type of atmosphere,
delegates were unable to consider
prudently issues on their merit,
and more significantly, the ques-
tions relating to students and stu-
dent government problems were
hastily shuttled off to the sice
to get them out of the waj. What
was the result of all this?
Between 400 and 500 delegates,
from approximately 270 of US-
NSA's 400 or so member schools
(between 130-150 schools did not
send any delegates to the Con-
gress at all) "indicated" American
student opinion on only 20 per
cent of the final legislation pre-
sented to the Congress.
And the far greater share of
this legislation was concerned
with national and international
politics. The remaining 80 per
cent of the legislation was sleep-
ily referred by tired delegates to
the 35-man National Executive
Committee, there to be altered
and passed or rejected according
to the whims of this group.
It is within this kind of dubious
framework that USNSA presum-
ably does almost all of its work.
* * *
UNQUESTIONABLY students
ought to be concerned and know-
ledgeable about national and in-
ternational affairs. But this is
every individual's responsibility as
a citizen, and it is his obligation
to voice this concern not as a
student, -per se, but as a citizen
of this country. There is no more
of a national student community
(as USNSA contends there is)
when it comes to politics than a
national community of house-
wives.
Therefore USNSA, an organiza-
tion founded on and dedicated to
students and student govern-
ment, is not the mechanism
which ought to be used to trans-
late that concern into a vote
for or against a proposition re-
lated to it.
In the politically-charged cli-
mate of the legislative sessions of
the National Student Congress,
that vote is more likely to reflect
the success of skilled oratory in
heated partisan debate than the
considered judgment of the dele-
gate casting it on behalf of his
student body.
* * *
THUS THE NSC emerges as an
unrealistic mechanism, theoreti-
cally expecting delegates in three
days to vote intelligently for or
against more than 60 pieces of
widely diversified legislation, but
which in practice sees delegates
consider less than one-fifth of
the legislation given them.
It Is interesting to note that
the proponents of USNSA, in their
efforts to block a student ref-
erendum or initiative on USNSA,
have argued that two weeks is
insufficient time for the Michigan
student body to become informed
on USNSA; yet these same in-
dividuals expect delegates to US-
NSA conventions to become in-
formed on more than 60 widely
differing issues in even less time.
LETTERS
to the
EDITOR
To the Editor:
CLAIM no competence in either
the theory or practice of edu--
cational administration. Neither
have I studied in detail the or-
ganization of the Office of Aca-
demic Affairs. However, I would
suggest that: 1) the evidence that
Vice-President Heyns is a muddle-
headed victim of Parkinson's Law
is not at hand; 2) there is con-
siderably more to theoperation
of any organization than is re-
vealed by officially designated
titles and functions; and 3) argu-
ments based upon what someone
speculates may happen are not
as weighty as those based upon
what does happen.
Thus, I hope that we may re-
strain ourselves for a moment
in judging the worth of OAA.
Mr. Heyns has a substantial rec-
ord as Dean of LS&A. The func-
tions included in this new office
do not lend themselves to a
simply - structured or simple -
minded organization, both because
of their diversity and because the
persons involved have defined
their functions and competence
quite independently of what Mr.
Heyns might have ideally wished.
Finally, let us recognize OAA as
an attempt to reassert the re-
sponsibility of the faculty for the
direction of a most important
segment of University affairs.
When and if the evidence is at
hand, I shall join Miss Wacker
in a lively critique of OAA. In
the meantime, let us wish Prof.
Heyns Godspeed in an unenviable
occupation.
-Prof. Richard L. Cutler
And why, If USNSA is the very
essence of true democracy, and if
USNSA has nothing to hide, as its
friends claim, why then did these
very same friends try so diligently
to deny the students at the Uni-
versity the full benefits of the
democratic process by allowing us
to decide whether or not we wish
to be represented by USNSA?
* * *
IT IS VALID to object to con-
tinued membership in USNSA on
the basis of its unrepresentative
character and cost because the
facts are that USNSA costs SGC
more than one-fifth of its an-
nual budget, and while admittedly
there are returns, they are so
intangible that such an expen-
diture cannot be reconciled.
It will not do to shove the
blame for USNSA's failure on this
campus on SGC or its leadership,
because USNSA has failed to sug-
gest to SGC one significant pro-
gram in the last year which had
not already been implemented by
University organizations. And the
failure of SGC's committee on
USNSA to find anything to do
is not a result of the committee's
ineptitude; rather it is a result
of USNSA's failure to suggest
programs for the committee "to
implement.
It has been argued that the
cost of sending delegates to US-
NSA conventions should not be
included in assessing what US-
NSA costs the students at the
University. But would not the
University's membership in an
organization be totally meaning-
less if it did not have represen-
tation at that organization's con-
ventions?
But no matter what the cost
of belonging to USNSA, that is
not the issue, rather it is the un-
realistic character of the National
Student Congress and the aber-
ration of the founding principles
of USNSA to include partisan
political and social action, liberal
or conservative, by an organiza-
tion ostensibly formed for a more
convincing and practical purpose:
service to students and student
governments.
How much longer must Michi-
gan students continue to sub-
sidize such an organization? The
answer should be "no longer!"
TO POINT to USNSA and say
that it "is an unrepresentative
organization dominated by liberals
(or worse)," and that therefore
the University should withdraw, is
to miss the entire point at issue.
Our objections to USNSA would
be exercised just as loudly if the
Association were dominated by
conservatives. We object to US-
NSA not because it doesn't
"agree" with us, but because it
is absurd to presume that dele-
gates representing less than one-
fourth of all American students
can even begin to indicate ac-
curately American student opin-
ion on national and international
issues in such a situation as the
National Student Congress.
Clearly the issue does not rest
on "what do I get for my 10
cents" as some believe; rather the
question should be: what steps
can be taken to prevent USNSA
from continuing on its present
aberrated and unrealistic course?
NO ONE denies that USNSA is
the most representative national
student organization in this coun-
try, probably because it is the
only one.
But to say that the University
should not withdraw simply be-
cause of this is an invalid point.
Yet this argument is often given
along with the point that if Mich-
igan withdrew, USNSA would suf-
fer a crippling blow that might
irreparably damage the Associa-
tion.
While this may be true, if the
loss of one school would so ser-
iously injure USNSA that it would
not recover, then USNSA clearly
does not merit the University's
continued affiliation.
And this reinforces our belief
that USNSA is not representative
of even its own member schools
if one school out of 250 or, so
active member schools is so im-
portant to USNSA.
* * *
THE QUESTIONS yet to be
answered are "why is reform im-
possible to achieve within US-
NSA as a member?" and "Why
are we better off out than in?"
Our experience this summer has
shown us that reform of USNSA
is impossible to achieve as a
member school."
All attempts to achieve major,
conceptual changes, not merely
semantic constitutional conces-
sions to encourage the many un-
happy members of USNSA to stay
around one more year, have been
unhesitatingly blocked by pres-
sure groups within the Associa-
tion.
All major avenues of influence
have been closed off to those who
would rid USNSA of its legis-
lative functions. But more im-
portant even than these factors
is the point that most of us are
students active in student govern-
ment and USNSA for only a short
time, and therefore there can be
little prolonged or coordinated re-
form efforts when we are faced
by a group of professional stu-
dents who have controlled US-
NSA almost from its inception
and who return each year to help
run the Congress and the As-
sociation throughout the year.
* * *
EVEN IF those seeking change
could significantly influence the
Congress, they could never in-
fluence the Association itself be-
cause the national staff is not
and cannot be effectively super-
vised by the member student gov-
ernments. Student governments
now exist for USNSA and not
USNSA for student governments
and student bodies.
We often hear the student gov-
ernments aren't doing enough for
USNSA. But student government
does not exist to serve USNSA.
If USNSA were truly a con-
federation of student governments
as its proponents like to claim in
difficult times, its primary con-
cern would be what it is doing
for student governments. Because
this is clearly not the case with
USNSA, and because all roads to
reform have been blocked, with-
drawal is the only remaining step.
In addition, as long as USNSA
claims there is some kind of a
national community of students
and proclaims itself as a "national
union of students" concerned pri-
marily with political issues, it does
not warrant our continued af-
filiation.,
It was as a confederation of
student governments that USNSA
was founded and that the Univer-
sity joined.
Until USNSA leadership is will-
ing to return to its proper func-
tion, we should withhold our sup-
port.
We are for a national student
organization truly responsive to
legitimate student needs and con-
cerns. USNSA is not.
* * *
BUT WITHDRAWAL Is only
the first of several positive steps
which could be taken to make
USNSA more responsive to the
demands of many schools (OSU,
Northwestern, Iowa, et al) that
have recently withdrawn from
USNSA.
By working together with them,
and this is clearly possible as
several have already indicated a
willingness to do so, students at
the University could take the lead
in making USNSA a truly re-
sponsible and realistic national
student organization.
By approaching USNSA leader-
ship from without rather than
within the Association, a much
stronger bargaining position is
achieved in any attempt to se-
cure needed changes in USNSA.
And there are seven basic things
which USNSA must do before it
can be seen again as a repre-
sentative and pragmatic national
student ogranization:
1) Return in practice to a Na-
tional Student Congress which
formally deals wholly with student
and student government problems
and campus issues;
2) Abandon voting at the NSC
which forces delegates to take
stands on issues in national and
international politics about which
they often know little or nothing
prior to the National Student
Congress;
3) Work actively to indicate
all the various shades of student
opinion by publishing discussion
summaries of various NSC sem-
inars and discussion groups which
would be held, not as an official
part of the Nationay Student
Congress but in conjunction with
it, and which will have been pre-
ceded by a series of topical lec-
tures and/or debates on relevant
student concerns;
4) Work to create and main-
tain separate agencies to work in
those areas not directly related
to student government (e..g.: In-
ternational affairs, civil rights
and civil liberties);
5) Encourage those students
wishing to work for partisan poli-
tical and social ends to do so by
participating actively .in estab-
lished political organizations and
then help to establish these
groups on campuses;
6) Reflect the true transitory
character of American students
by eliminating from its ranks
those professionals who yearly re-
turn to manipulate the politically
unsophisticated but earnest dele-
gates;
7) Begin in practice, and not
just in theory, to devise and im-
plement meaningful programs for
its member schools to strengthen
their student governments.
r * * *
IT IS WITH these objectives
in mind that those of us com-
mitted to a responsible national
student organization urge with-
drawal. No one wishes to abrogate
the values of a national student
organization; no one wishes to
destroy, or even seriously cripple,
USNSA; and no one is quitting
or running away from anything.
Rather withdrawal of the Uni-
versity from USNSA is only the
first step toward achieving the
reforms necessary for a respon-
sible national student organiza-
tion concerned with students and
campus problems, and not extra-
neous issues.
Because all other routes to re-
form of USNSA have been effec-
tively blocked, and because we
would be in a stronger position
to affectmuch-needed reforms in
the present structure by working
without USNSA rather than with-
in the association, we are indeed
better off out than ini
Films Herald Culture's Demise
FOR A WHILE, one of the campus theatres
has been showing a dominant type of
movie, which has become popular with Intel-
lectuals and filth-lovers alike over the country.
The tendency to show this kind of film is
frightening: intellectually, it represents a
regression to the Middle Ages.
I speak of the Italian and French realistic
dramas, which pour one after another out
of Europe.
Admittedly, they do not all have the same
style. "Last Year At Marienbad" does not
have, the same style as "La Dolce Vita" or
"Il Vitellioni."
THEY DO, however, have one thing in
common: a preoccupation with the depic-
tion Qf reality. Praising the abstract qualities
of these films is in most cases meaningless
and contemptible. Instead, one is supposed
to evaluate the camera work on the basis
of its accurate portrayal of reality. This is
the god: reality.
I don't object to the movies as food for
Privilege
TODAY millions of voters will troop to the
polls to register their choice between
thousands of hopefuls for hundreds of offices
across the nation.
And just as many voters will sit at home.
They won't vote at all.
Some of their reasons are terrifying:
"I'm a Democrat and my husband's a
Republican," says one woman. "So I don't
vote. I would just cancel his out."
Another:
"We aren't interested in politics. They're
so dirty."
'1 T THESE are the people who stand
around the bars and gripe about the taxes
and the laws. These are the people who write
letters to the editor, complaining about their
representatives. These are the loud-mouths
who do not help either party in the election
effort.
Think you know any of these people? You
probably do.
It could be the couple next door or the
fellow down the street. It could be your uncle
or your brother or your cousin. It could even
be you.
PERHAPS YOV DON'T CARE, and that's
your privilege. But how do you feel when
you see a grade-school youngster, proudly
wearing his campaign button and talking
about one party or the other?
How do you feel when you see his en-
thusiasm for a precious part of America in
filth-lovers. That is what the movies are,
and filth-lovers aren't worth criticizing.
The intellectual advocates of the Italian
drama should be condemned, and the fright-
ening aspect of it all is that society follows
them.
REALISM IS the credo of our age. This is
symptomatic of barbarism.
Certain actions of men are important;
others are unimportant. If a man uses his
integrity to save his crop, this is important.
The act raises the question of good or evil.
One naturally responds "good" because he
acted heroically for a worthwhile cause, his
life.
The story of a man who does a heroic deed
is important, because it affects that man's
survival in a moral way. To those who value
life, that story is interesting.
Analyze the story of a man who brushes
his teeth. Brushing one's teeth is not a very
earth-shaking development. It has no moral
conflict. It is amoral and dull.
YET THE EUROPEAN drama offers one the
latter as a plot. It spends countless min-
utes- photographing people as they walk in
and out of houses, as they stare into nothing-
ness, as they walk through halls (photo-
graphing the halls several times lest one
miss the lice crawling on the ceiling). This,
the drama offers as reality, and the, the
drama claims it is important merely because
it exists. Often this is all the drama offers.
Focusing intensely on the toe-nail picking
of the leading lady, the drama transforms her
into a second reality. When her husband
walks in, it seems as if she's never met him
before (though you know she has, because
the film carefully shows you each molecule
of the church where they got married; you
also get to see the cracks in the wall, which
is supposed to be symbolic, perhaps of the
director's mind).
THOUGH the drama is dull, that doesn't
matter; though it is often filthy, that
doesn't matter. What matters is the absence
of import in the film. One leaves with the
feeling that one has expanded three hours
of mental energy for no purpose. The film
shows no exciting moral conflicts. It doesn't
even show evil winning all the time (which
has become popular in America). It assumes
that existence itself, the mere acts of breath-
ing, eating, and sleeping, suffices as a sub-
ject of importance.
These movies concentrate on the absence of
thought. Consciousness is forbidden; stifled
numbness is the rule. The characters aren't
ever capable of calling the world "absurd," as
some Frenchmen prefer. No, the realistic
drama can only say, "the world is," which is
"Aw, C'mon, Fellas ..."
{:: rS{r '::