Seventy-Third Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY 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. Thi must be noted in all reprints.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1962 NIGHT EDITOR: ELLEN SILVERMAN
The Power
To Appropriate
The Sacred Cow
L =
l
FROM NEW YORK:
Musket-Style Musicals
Still Going Strong
IS THE POWER to appropriate the power to
destroy?
This, the central issue in the relation be-
tween state universities and the legislatures
on which they depend for financial support,
has reared its head again. In the latest case,
the Michigan Legislature is trying to use its
power to appropriate as a weapon to destroy
the Michigan State University Labor and In-
dustrial Relations Center.
To its MSU appropriation, passed this sum-
mer, the Legislature attached a string: MSU
must close down the LIRC, which the legisla-
tors felt had become "little more than a pro-
paganda organ" for labor, as one representa-
tive put it.
MSU, citing its autonomy under that state
constitution, refused. Hoping for support
for their position, the school's leaders asked
state Attorney-General Frank Kelley, in effect,
"Can we get away with this?"
Kelley said yes, legally, they could, and
friends of university autonomy cheered.
But whether or not this is. a meaningful
victory depends, as usual, on the attitude of
the Legislature. If, when next year's MSU
appropriation comes up, they decide to be
vindictive about the school's defiance of their
extra-legal ultimatum, MSU may find itself
with a curiously stingy appropriation. There
need be no accompanying mention of the
nasty business about LIRC-the neager funds
would be an adequate reminder.
Thialido-mide
A BELGIAN COURT last week found a 24-
year-old woman not guilty of murdering
her baby which was born deformed because the
mother ha dtaken thalidomide during preg-
nancy.
There was no doubt that the woman was
guilty of the death of the child. Horrified by
its deformity, she had fed it a fatal dose of
barbituates mixed with its honey-sweetened
formula.
In admitting that she herself had killed the
baby, the mother argued in her defense only
that killing the child "was better than letting
it live.'? The physician who signed the death
certificate testified that if he had been the
only person to know of the killing he would
have indicated that the child died of natural
causes.
TIlE COURT in acquitting the woman has set
a horrifying precedent. It has said in effect
not only that a 24-year-old woman is tech-
nically and morally competent to decide wheth-
er a helpless human child shall be allowed to
live, but has also, in effect, faced the almost
insoluble problem of the thalidomide effects by
simply washing its hands of its legal respon-
sibility.
Blinking at admitted murder and intended
complicity is a grotesque mockery of the duty
of a law court. Once this type of excuse for
murder is expected, it is impossible to predict
where it will stop. Responsibility for taking
human life is not a privilege to be' granted
whenever, a difficult situation arises. The sac-
redness of human life is not to be trusted to
the hope that the thalidomide nightmare will
not occur again.
-J. OPPENHEIM
IS THIS CRICKET? Does the Legislature have
the right to use such methods to influence
the internal affairs of a supposedly autonomous
institution? This is the basic question in the
LIRC squabble, in the controversy over campus
speaker policies, and, in fact, in any issue over
which school and government clash.
It is a complex question which cannot be
fully resolved by crying "academic freedom!" at
every dispute.
What we have here are two publicly-elected
bodies-the Legislature and a University's gov-
erning board. Neither, theoretically, legally or
ideally, has power over the other; neither is
subordinate to the other: they are both directly
responsible to the voters of Michigan. Simple
enough: the governing board runs its univer-
sity; the Legislature minds its own business.
Simple enough until apropriations time. At
this point, each legislator, whether he likes
it or not, whether he has an axe to grind or
not, must make a value judgement about the
work of the governing board. How much is
this university worth? Are its programs worth
the money requested for them? Is it accomp-
lishing the things a university should ac-
complish?.
When a legislator considers such questions,
it isn't necessarily a power grab-it is an es-
sential part of the appropriating process. The
Legislature cannot be expected to pass out
scarce funds indiscriminately whenever a uni-
versity asks, without some idea of how wisely
this money will be used. To do so would be
as irresponsible as to go to the other extreme.
T HUS,we have a problem of men, not laws.
In the final analysis, no one but the legis-
lators themselves can keep the Legislature from
abusing its power.,
We can ask that the legislators recognize the
necessity of exercising their power, while recog-
nizing the drawbacks of going too far. They
should avoid enlarging the area of school-
government coonflict, which is what happens
when they pass ominous resolutions against
Communist speakers, as they did this summer,
or when they add extra-legal threats to MSU
appropriations packages, or when they attempt
to exploit this power for any reason except
the good of the school concerned.
We can hope that they will remember that
university governing boards - ill-informed,
though they often are-are in a better position
to run their schools than a group of men in
Lansing, lacking the time (and often the
interest) to gain a real understanding of the
problems of education. The school governing
boards can help in this respect, by asserting
their determination and ability to run the best
possible institution, and by dealing with the
Legislature on this basis, openly and honestly,
rather than periodically conpromising their
rightful powers in fear of some retaliation
from Lansing.
We can remind a conservative Legislature
that,'it is hypocritical to condemn government
interference on the federal level while prac-
ticing it on the state level.
In short, all that can be asked is that each
legislator exercise honesty and integrity in
making the difficult decisions of the ap-.
propriating proocess. If, as it is said, power
corrupts, this conflict can only become more
damaging.
-KENNETH WINTER
1
'GENERATION PRECISION:
The Virtue of Clarity
THE CURRENT issue of "Gen-
eration," the "university inter-
arts magazine," is, noteworthy for
its clarity and precision. From the
18th Century Hogarth reproduc-
tions (though his first name was
William rather than John, unless
I've neglected a less well-known
artist by. the same name) that
distinguish the covers to a force-
ful and precise eight-line poem by
Ann Robbins, almost all the ma-
terial is sharp and well-focused.
The writers and the artists seem
to know what they're getting at
and to be trying to get at it as
simply and clearly as they can,
happily avoiding the kind of pre-
tentious and needlessly arrogant
obscurity that can bury any form
of art.
Yet clarity is not the only cri-
terior for judging art, and, within
the area of my general approval,
distinctions need to be made.
Among the poets, for example,
Trim Bissell seems clearly the best.
Both of his poems are marked by
a sharp sense of diction and a
genuine skill with descriptive
imagery. His work, particularly
"Sea's Edge," suggests far, more
than it states without resorting to
vague posturing or trite appeals
to standard symbols for emotion.
* * *
BOTH MARTHA MacNeal and
Alvin Fritz use tight, sharp lyrics
with dramatic impact. Miss Mac-
Neal works the antithesis of the
floral and the mechanistic skill-
fully, although I wish she'd cut
the slick and derivative sixth stan-
za from "This Quick Brown Fox
Jumped Over the Lazy Dog's
Back." Mr. Fritz manages to in-
ject intelligent qualification into
his moving stream of sensuous
emotion. I also liked the casual
grotesque quality and the sheer
skill with sound in Tom Clark's
"When I Went to the Zoo."
Somewhat less successful is the
poetry of Joan Golomb and John
Allen. Miss Golomb seems to de-
velop her poem almost too care-
fully, to rely on a crescendo of
rhetorical structure that almost
swamps the perception. Mr. Allen
has some ideas and good images,
but he sometimes seems almost to
abandon them for the consistency
of a sing-song rhythm (his shorter
poem, "Apology to Several," is the
better).
Unfortunately the editors have
devoted most space to the poet I
liked least: Penelope Schott. Her
work has a technical ease, but I
find the reminiscences of child-
hood too arch and cute, the his-
torical references more decorative
than essential, and the poetry al-
together too slick and easy to
generate either emotion or ad-
miration.
* * *
AS IN A NUMBER of other is-
sues of "Generation" in the past
several years, the fiction seems
less accomplished than the poetry.
Perhaps students devote more in-
tricate care to the shorter form.
Yet, despite their unfinished qual-
ity, I find two of the stories both
venturesome and interesting.
George White's "Grasping Some-
where In Between" tries to portray
a young man discovering mean-
ing and value through a relation-
ship with a girl, a fellow-counselor
at a summer day camp.
The style is lively and contem-
porary, a perspective that both
establishes the character and pro-
vides the point of view. But the
style becomes excessively thick
(too much involuted iconoclasm
and "all that jazz"), so much so
that it seems to block off the cen-
tral issues of the story and forces
the author to state his theme in
a climactic essay. The relation-
ship between boy and girl, in more
ways than one, never gets off the
ground.
I admire Joan Golomb's attempt
at a series of different comic per-
spectives in describing a Bohem-
ian blast in "Thirteen Cantos to
a Final Party." Miss Golomb shows
a rich sense of comedy and some
fine lines, but I feel that her
prose, like her poetry, relies too
much on repetitious rhetorical ef-
fects and tends to draw the com-
edy out in the direction oftedium.
What should be barbed and ma-
licious becomes a rather labored
."Walpurgisnacht." The third story,
"Checkers," is a deftly told ac-
count of the familiar young farm
boy who learns about life and
death simultaneously.
* * *
GENERATION IS, however, an
"inter-arts" magazine," and the
pages contain a number of attrac-
tive illustrations and wood-cuts. I
most enjoy an illustrative drawing
by Lahti and the photographs of
"Seated Figure" by Rene Salz-
man. The latter, depicting a heavy,
pendulous human figure, is,photo-
graphed from three different
angles.
On the other hand, I find Mi-
chael .Wentworth's drawings of
Victorian children graceless and
too heavily concerned with
clothes; Stephen Sumner's photo-
graphs of a young girl strike me as
too posed and precious. Paul C.
Yin's plan for an elementary
school is luxuriously spacious and
airy, although it seems enormously
lavish for a building housing only
seven classrooms. More funda-
mentally, I question the short
essay which he uses to explain his
design. Although I welcome the
large amount of space provided
for books, films, and demonstra-
tions, calling it "the information-
materials center" seems far more
constricting than the "library."
The whole short essay assumes
that the process of education is
necessarily connected to the phys-
ical use of the space in which
the education takes place. I won-
der. Some of my best classes have
been in spite of cramped rooms
on the fourth floor of Angell Hall
on sultry spring afternoons. The
whole relationship between the
human being, his learning, and
his environment seems to me a
good deal more subtle than that
allowed for by spacious regularity
constructed to satisfy the "whole
child."
ABOUT HALF the issue is taken
up by the complete script of "Bar-
tholomew Fair," the current Mus-
ket production written by Jack
O'Brien and Robert James. I am
in no position to make any judg-
ment on Mr. James' score, but Mr.
O'Brien's script, adapted from
Jonson's seventeenth century com-
edy of various forms of low life at
a London fair, is sprightly and
well-written. An appended ex-
planatory essay is intelligent and
helpful.
The editors have chosen wisely
in printing the whole script, as
they have chosen wisely, I/ feel
certain, in printing some of the
clearest, the most interesting, and
the most genuine literary work
now on campus.
-James Gindin
By MARK SLOBIN
Daily Correspondent
IF YOU KNOW "Brother, Can
You Spare a Dime," or if you've
ever hear "Men of the Maize and
Blue" at the stadium, you know
Jay Gorney; both songs, and
many, many more, are the pro-
ducts of his long andsuccessful
career as a writer for the Ameri-
can musical stage.
It was in Ann Arbor that Gor-
ney's first successes, five Michigan
Union Operas, were produced for
what is now Musket. From a start
at the piano in the pit of a silent
movie theater in Detroit, he has
since gone on to New York and
Hollywood, as producer of stage
shows and movies, song writer,
screen play writer for movies and
television, and composer of ballet
music, all for the musical theater.
The winner of a "Tony" Award
from the American Theatre Wing
this year, Gorney recently gained
new international stature when
several hundredrRussian school
children sang "Brother, Can You
Spare a Dime" on a coast-to-coast
television show on Russian educa-
tion. This is a far cry from Bialy-
stok, back in Russia, where he was
born, and where his father in-
vented the machine that made fil-
ter tips.
"The musical theater is one of
the great contributions America
has made to world culture," Gor-
ney says, and he has had a hand
in shaping the musical theater
since the 1920's, when he gave up
the practice of law, after graduat-
ing from the University, to write
songs on Broadway.
** *
HIS FIRST SHOW .was called
"Top Hole." By 1929, he was al-
ready working for Paramount stu-
dios, and was soon a member of
the editorial board, in charge of
musical motion pictures.
It was then that Gorney became
the Columbus of the musical show,
discovering talent of great promise
from the vast store of human re-
sources that was Hollywood.
Well aware of the trends of the
musical, and interested, as his
many discoveries show, in the de-
velopment of youth for the musi-
cal stage, Gorney takes particular
pride in his role of a teacher. In-
vited by the New School for So-
cial Research to create a musical
play department in 1948, he began
his teaching career, and has ex-
pandedhis activities to theAmeri-
can Theatre Wing's professional
training program. Along with his
wife, who has worked with him
on many shows, Gorney feels that
there is much talent "lying fallow"
in America, and it is time that
new methods were instituted to
find it and save it.
IN THE OLD DAYS, of course,
talent came out of vaudeville, and
emerged from night clubs; nowa-
days, the musical has become ser-
ious theater (witness "West Side
Story'), while what was serious
theater has taken over much of
the sex (and other) allure that
musicals used to have for that
standard patron, the Tired Busi-
ness Man. It is obvious on Broad-
way today that musicals h/ive
achieved dominance through the
simple law that states that a suc-
cessful musical will outdraw, and
therefore out-earn, almost %ny and
every serious play. Under these
circumstances, it seems necessary
to look at the musical in a new
light.
Gorney sees great promise in the
new extension of theater to the
college campuses; Ann Arbor's
APA is of course a prime example
of this trend. "The university is
a good place for theater to devel-
op," he says: "theater people need
to be educated too." This feeling
would seem to be substantiated
by Howard Taubman's recent en-
counter with an APA member in
Ann Arbor, who was up at the
unlikely hour of 8 a.m.-to take
a course.
Though it is an expanding field,
theater is still a very difficult
field: "I advise my students to
have another job ready for be-
tween shows" says Gorney, and
he feels generally that it may have
been easier to crack into the musi-
cal theater world in years gone
by. However, there are compen-
sations; today, once one is able
to break into this highly specializ-
ed field, the rewards are greater.
through the establishment of
unions as a protective device.
* * *
SINCE JOHN GAY first set
down "The Beggar's Opera" in
1728, culled from Scottish and
English folk tunes, the musical
play has changed considerably.
Gradually, over the course of many
years, the writer of the music,
anonymous in Gay's production,
has come to have greater and
greater significance.
Now, since, the many Rodgers-
Hart, Rodgers-Hammerstein, et al.,
works it is possible for a show to
succeed on little more than the
names of its co-workers (e.g. Ler-
ner and Loewe since their one
colossal, hit). the acme of this
concept of the musical play is
summed up in Hammerstein's
words: "the . . . composer and
lyrist . . . weld their two crafts
and two kinds of talent into a
single expression. This is the great
secret of the well-integrated musi-
cal play. It is not so much a
method as a state of mind, or
rather a state of two minds, an
attitude of unity," which may
seem somewhat of a paradox, but
which certainly seems to work. Jay
Gorney found two of his lyrists
through reading the light verse in
Franklin P. Adams in the 1930's,
namely Howard Dietz and E. Y.
Harburg.
The sum total of observation
and discussion of the New York
theater seems to be that the musi-
cal is "busting out all over," to
use one of the medium's own
phrases. Musket, keep at it.
LETTERS
to the
EDITOR
To the Editor:
LAST WEEK I read in the letters
coi mn, a statement by a coed
senior complaining of personal
thefts. She seemed biting mad,
disillusioned by people, and I felt
sorry for her-but that was all.
The story never strikes home un-
til it happens to you.
Yesterday afternoon, while I
was ushering for the NY City
Opera Co. production of "Rigolet-
to," my forms of identification
(I.D. card, social security, library
card, insurance card), keys and
pictures, was "lifted" from my
purse in the ushers' cloak room at
Hill Auditorium. I'm toldit's the
first time anything has ever been
taken from thatroom. One as-
sumes people who attend such
functions there are too refined for
such illicit indulgences. I was al-
ways under the impression that
anyone who attended this uni-
versity was too intelligent, too re-
fined for such practices. Slowly,
I'm learning I was wrong. Thieves
come in all sizes, all dress-yes,
even in the dress of a music lover.
* * *
SUCH AN INCIDENT only leads
me to ask what kind of insensi-
tive, unfeeling people attend this
university'and are there a major-
ity of them?'Considering the enor-
mous number of petty robberies
lately, one should ask what kind
of institution should we label our-
selves-one of higher learning or
that of a penal institution? Should
the walls be ivy-covered or slate-
gray with bars across the win-
dows?
May the person who so desper-
ately wants my ID. card, although
it will not buy him or her a beer
at the Pretzel Bell, rest well in
the pleasure of taking out several
books from the library and never
returning them. May she or he
also claim my social security in
another forty-three years. Then
may she or he rest in pieces!
I can only hope that for as
many insensitive people here,
there are a few idealistic, sensitive
ones. So I rest my hopes, should
the wallet be thrown away on
the street, one of those rare people
will return it. Until then, I'm also
pretty disillusioned.
-Ceil Ackerman, '64
Rum Runners and Gestapo
WELL, THOSE CHAMPIONS of free enter-
prise have done it again.
This time the State of Michigan has revealed
that it will actively pursue and apprehend those
evil crooks who live in Michigan, yet dare to
slip across the state line and buy their con-
sumer goods in Indiana and Ohio.
Like the Gestapo, the Michigan State Police
will lurk at the main portals to the state,
wreathed in those steel arches which proclaim
"Welcome to Michigan-Water Wonderland,"
and they will pounce upon each and every
Michigan auto which dares to venture home
from Indiana.
The unsuspecting citizen will then be grilled
to ascertain whether he is smuggling some tax-
free purchase back into Michigan without pay-
ing the state's four per cent sales tax.
Should he be found guilty of this crime, the
ransom will be exacted from him. No interstate
thief will escape.
IF NOTHING ELSE, this arrangement should
be highly amusing. It all came about when
the money-grubbing merchants of Southwestern
Michigan, long noted for their obstinacy when
it comes to adjusting prices to meet the rigors
of competition, complained to the state treas-
urer about all those horrid little ingrates who
run over to Indiana to buy their goods. Seems
that these fickle little people objected to pay-
ing the higher prices that Michigan merchants
offer.
So the merchants voiced their obection.
there, with no way of knowing whether they
buy or not.)
MEANWHILE, the citizenry, faced with hav-
ing the escape route shut off, is irate. One
lady in Cassopolis suggested that the state con-
struct a Berlin Wall, so that rural folk couldn't
sneak back and forth on country roads.
A farmer in Galien wants to know how the
Gestapo will check to see what you ate while
you- were in South Bend.
In short, the controversy has degenerated
from the sublime to the ridiculous. The idea of
the State of Michigan attempting to exact the
sales tax on out-of-state goods is so impracti-
cal, so hit-and-miss, and so discriminatory that
it can only be viewed as ridiculous.
But what is more frightening is that the state
even feels any obligation to take action. Just
because a handful of border line merchants are
too greedy to meet the rigors of competition is
no reason to call out the militia and penalize
the consumer.
MICHIGAN'S SALES TAX, in fact, is not the
only lure that draws buyers to Indiana. The
truth is that Southwestern Michigan merchants
have long maintained an unrealistically rigid
price schedule and at last are feeling the reac-
tion to it. This is the merchants' fault and they
alone should take steps to remedy it.
The state can only hang its head in shame
if it takes measures to aid the few merchants
against the many citizens. Rather the state
limA nnmato th aitlo ta n s n cn.i . ar .
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