Eighty-one years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan

IIC'CS 111~AX11lAS
A billionaire eccentric minus $1 billion
by lindsay cha ny

4W

420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich.

News Phone:. 764-0552

Editorials printed in The Michigan Dily express the individual opinions of staff writers
ur the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1972

NIGHT EDITOR: ROBERT SCHREINERI

HEW: Prodding on sex bias

THE issue of sex discrimination has
been the proverbial thorn in the side
of many University officials since fall,
1970, when the Department of Health,
Education and Welfare (HEW) first
charged the University with sex dis-
crimination and demanded that it im-
plement a program to correct its short-
comings.
The agency supported its charge with
statistical evidence pointing to the, lack,
of women in professorial and administra-
tive positions and inequities in hiring and
promotion practices.
Since that time the University has used
every possible pretext to stall and delay
corrective action in the matter. It took
the combined force of the charge itself
coupled with HEW's threat of the with-
drawal of over $3 million worth of federal
contracts to spur the University last
March to devise an affirmative action
program aimed at eliminating discrimi-
nation.
The subsequent goals and timetables,
which were never officially approved by
HEW, included provisions for salary
equity, back pay for victims of discrimi-
nation, and a vigorous recruitment of
women for academic appointments.
HOWEVER, it takes very little to make
proposals seem adequate on paper.
To make them work in practice requires'
efforts made in good faith and a willing-
ness to go beyond the minimum legal de-
mands. Unfortunately, the University
has failed on both counts.
For example, a Personnel Office em-
ploye review last month found 424 wo-
men earning 10 per cent or below the
median salary in their respective job

classifications. But only eleven of these
were recommended for salary acijust-
ments.
The case of Cheryl Clark, the first wo-
man to charge a university with sex dis-
crimination, was bounced around Uni-
versity grievance channels for over a
year and is still pending. Clark, a re-
search assistant, filed a complaint in
January, 1970, demanding salary equity
and back pay, charging that she was re-
ceiving a salary $3,400 less than a male
counterpart.
Likewise, after the University discov-
ered that HEW may not have the legal
ability to enforce the back pay stipula-
tion, the University's position on the is-
sue reversed and it is no longer a part of
the affirmative action program.
THE most alarming development is less
concrete because it deals with atti-
tudes rather than actions.
In a recently publicized interview,
President Robben Fleming stated, "Some-
thing isn't necessarily discrimination if
the society accepts those rules."
This type of logic is highly question-
able. Society is not infallible. The plight
of a minority in any society would be
hopeless if no initiative were taken to
break the status quo.
TODAY, officials from the department
of Health, Education and Welfare
will visit campus to check the progress of
the University affirmative action pro-
gram.
Hopefully, they will recognize the in-
adequacies of the present program, and
will apply pressure to speed up the Uni-
versity's faltering efforts.
--MARY KRAMER

THE TEMPERATURE was thovering
around zero one night last week and
the hoarse voice on the other end of the
phone was demanding that I meet him on
the top deck of the Williams Street park-
ing structure.
I was about to hang up the receiver
when he said, "there's about $700,000 in
this for you."
I suddenly became interested. "How do
I make all this money?" I asked.
"Can't talk about it on the phone," the
voice rasped. "Meet me on the top of the
Williams Street parking structure in ten
minutes."
"You're got to be kidding," I said. "It's
about 30 degrees below freezing."
"I'm very eccentric," he explained.
Eccentricity struck me as a red herring
argument in this case, so I held out until
he agreed to meet in the lobby of the
of the UGLI. "You can recognize me by
1 the yellow tulip in my hat," he said before
hanging up.
I HAD NO trouble recognizing the gen-
tleman, who was about six feet tall and
gaunt with long gray hair. He appeared to
be about 60 years old.
"Are you a minor writer?" he asked as
soon as I walked up.
"A miner writer?" I was puzzled and
was about to say that I had once done a
feature story on gold mining when he clar-
ified his previous question. "How many
best sellers have you written?"
"None, that I know of," I said.
"Good," he replied happily. "In that
case I can do for you what Howard Hughes
did for Clifford Irving."
"What exactly did Howard Hughes do
for Clifford Irving?" I asked, thinking about
grand jury indictments and assorted legal
entanglements.
"I can make you rich and famous by
selling you my autobiography," he said,
without quite answering the question.
"Who are you?" I asked, hoping I didn't
sound too blunt.
"Oh," he said, in the manner of an after-
dinner speaker who has just discovered
he is addressing the wrong dinner. "My
name is Roger Hopperfelder, and I am an
eccentric."

"Then I got divorced."
"Then what?"
"Then I got married again."
"Then what?"
"Then I got divorced again."
"How many times were you married?"
"Seven times in the first five years after
the Navy, then I decided that marriage
wasn't for me."
"I can understand that," I said.
"ANYWAY," he continued. "About 21
years ago, I inherited a grocery store in
Muncie, Indiana, which I have continued
to operate through intermediaries."
"You live in seclusion?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied. "I have one trusted
servant who buys food and conducts my
outside affairs."
"What do you do in your self-made
matchbox?" I asked metaphorically.
"Well . ." he paused to think. "I read
a lot, I call in bomb threats to schools and
libraries I make obscene phone calls. ."
"I get the idea," I broke in.
"What do you think about writing my
autobiography?" he asked, smiling.
"I think there is one primary difference
between Howard Hughes and you," I
said.
"What's that?" he asked, the s mil e
slowly fading.
"Howard Hughes has a billion dollars
and you don't."
"He has a billion dollars?"
"Something like that."
"That's a lot ; of money," Hopperfelder
said, sounding amazed. "But what does that
have to do with my being eccentric?"
"It doesn't have anything to do with
your being eccentric," I said. "But it has
everything to do with people wanting to
read about Howard Hughes. You see, in
order to have people read about you, you
have to have a billion dollars AND be
eccentric."
"I see," he said somewhat sadly.
"YOU'RE ECCENTRIC all right," I said
kindly. "Now all you need is a billion
dollars."
"But where am I going to get a billion
dollars?" he mumbled, shuffling. past the
guard and out into the night.

oF

"DOES THAT QUALIFY you to have an
an autobiography written about you?" I
asked.
"Sure. I read the papers about Howard
Hughes, and I said 'that's me'," he replied.
"I see," I said.
"You know how Hughes hasn't been seen
in public for about 15 years? Well, I
haven't been seen in public for 20 years.";
"Isn't this a public place?" I asked.
"Oh, you don't think I'd come here
looking like me, do you?" he asked, with
a slight chuckle. "This is a disguise. No
one would recognize the real me."
"Is that so?" I said. "What else do
you do?"
"Let me tell you about my history," he
said, warming up to the subject. "I grad-
uated from a big-city high school second
in a class of 900."
"Not bad," I said.
"Then I attended a major midwestern

university, intending to major in econo-
mics."
"DOESN'T SOUND terribly eccentric," I
commented.
"But abruptly in the middle of my juhior
year, I switched my major to philosophy,"
he said, as if answering my previous com-
ment.
"What did you do then?"
"I flunked out of c'ollege the next semes-
ter and joined the navy. I was a navy
pilot."
"Hmm," I said, trying to sound non-
committal.
"I was in three near-fatal plane crash-
es and got a section eight psychological
discharge."
"Anything else?"

"After getting
married."
"Then what?"

out of the military, I got

*

The Dems: Crowded and

pushing

Seeking legalized abortion

1VHEN"a popular demand for reform is
ignored by the duly-elected legisla-
ture, a constitutional alternative exists to
rectify the situation. Using the popular
initiative process, people of this state can
exercise their right to take an issue di-
rectly to the voters as a state referen-
dum.
This grassroots method is being pur-
sued now in Michigan to bypass a balky
legislature and promote abortion reform.
Although bills for abortion reform
have appeared in the legislature since
1968, they have been continuously de-
feated or buried in committee. Two weeks
ago an abortion reform proposal was
killed in the House by a 67-29 margin.
The only comfort abortion reform advo-
cates take from legislative response is
that the reform bills have been growing
progressivelyy liberal in the past four
years and abortion is no longer a word
too dirty to mention in the state legisla-
ture.
Despairing of legislative action and
believing that legal abortion is a right
too necessary to delay indefinitely,
abortion reform proponents have been
working for the past seven months on a

petition drive which seeks to put the is-
sue on the ballot in November.
The drive, organized by the Lansing
Coordinating Committee for Abortion Re-
form, has already netted 65 per cent of
the 214,000 required signatures. Nonethe-
less, intense efforts are still needed in
order to have the petition submitted to
the legislature in early spring so that it
has a good chance to be eligible for the
November ballot when there will be a
large voter turn-out.
Because every child should be wanted,
because when 20 weeks pregnant the
mother is more of an individual than
the fetus she carries, and because with
the threat of overpopulation society has
no right to dictate unwanted childbear-
ing, abortion qualifies as a right. Al-
ready 18 other states as well as other
countries have recognized this right.
THAT the legislature denies this right
is regrettably archaic and subjects
women to the unnecessary expense of an
out-of-state abortion.
Legislative inaction underscores the
need to prove that legal abortion is a
popular demand. The petition drive de-
serves active support.
--MARCIA ZOSLAW

Second of three parts
By TONY SCHWARTZ
OF ALL PEOPLE, Ed Muskie
owes a debt to Richard Nixon.
Nixon's agonizing trial-and-error
methods painlessly taught Muskie
the credo of the "frontrunner":
When you're ahead, let the op-
position make the mistakes.
When Garry Wills wrote a book
last year called Nixon Agonistes,
he shot a lot of illusions about
the American political system to
hell. And Ed Muskie has taken to
heart Wills' comments on the na-
ture of the two-party system.
The parties are built for com-
promise. Less romantic political
scientists, from all parts of the
theoretical spectrum, realize it is
the job of the candidate to s a y
nothing. The whole [election] pro-
cess lays greater stress on con-
formity and compromise than on
ability and vision."
FITTINGLY, MUSKIE'S efforts
have been to contrast himself with
his competition. In 1968, his dig-
nity and flexibility shone o v e r
Hubert Humphrey's defense of an
obsolete foreign policy and Spiro
Agnew's naive blunders. In 1970,
his calm election-eve broadcast
contrasted perfectly with the Pres-
ident's blunt and reactionary ap-
peal.
The similarity, however, of the
Muskie and Nixon strategies is
striking. Both have placed them-
selves in the ideological center of
their respective parties. B o t h
have at times avoided speaking out
on major issues.
Nixon apparently quietly d i f-
fuses support for liberal McClos-
key and conservative Ashbrook.
Muskie, too, holds the centrist
role among the Democratic can-
didates, seemingly aloof from Mc-
Govern, Lindsay and McCarthy;
and from Jackson, Yorty and Wal-
lace. Only Humphrey is competing
for the middle-liberal image.

national following. Rather. he -x-
plains that he has not alienated
voters and that his chance of uni-
fying his party and winning the
election is the greatest. His is a
calculated pragmatism much iki
Richard Nixon's.
IN GENERAL, the candidate
who wins the nomination must
succeed on three fronts. He must
garner major endorsements. main-
tain strong poll standings a..d fir-
ish high in a significant number
of primaries. From there all fol-
lows.
On the first two counts Muskie
is an astonishing success. He is the
only candidate with significant
endorsements; from 11 senators,
more than a half dozen governors
and a host of labor leaders. Many
of the endorsements are from pow-
erful men in strategic states and
have been cleverly timed to build
an effective bandlwagon psychol-
ogy.
As to the polls, Muskie leads on
all counts. A recent Gallup survey
showed that he has become t h e
leading choice of Democrats for
the nomination -*outdistancing
Ted Kennedy. In a recent Harris
test, Muskie rantevenly with Nix-
on - and significantly better than
any of his opponents.
That leaves the primaries.
Muskie is the only candidate en-
tered in all 23 contests. His real
hope is to wrap up the nomination
before the mid-July democratic
convention by assuring himself a
majority of the 3,016 delegates.
Although Muskie is considered
the frontrunner in almost e v e r y
primary state, the depth of his
support is, as he himself admits,
uncertain.
HIS MAJOR problem will almost
surely focus on his ability to main-
tain interest in his candidacy. To
date, he has done admirably, run-

Muskie does not claim a massive ning a low-key campaign and cal-

culatedly avoiding the media lime-
light until recently.
A second problem which top
Muskie aides fear is that "other
candidates will single-shot us." In
short, each of Muskie's plentiful
rivals would concentrate on -
and win - one or two different pri-
mary states. The translation: a
series of suicidal primary s e t -
backs for the frontrunner.
For if Muskie should falter, there
is a large contingent of Demo-
cratic hopefuls panting on the
periphery.
Notsurprisingly, it is venerable
Hubert Humphey who may be
Muskie's most formidable opposi-
tion. Humphrey's centrist predil-
ictions are similar to Muskie's.
Moreover, he rings an emotional
bell among a significant group
which grew up in his New Deal
liberal tradition.
He commands support among
the middle-aged, the less militant
blacks and - significantly -
among labor. Twenty-five years
of political office have given him
access to the big money w h i c h
many of his opponents lack, And
finally, of most tanglible import,
he has been running .a strong se-
cond to Muskie in the major polls.
HUMPHREY'S MAJOR obstacle,
excepting Muskie's fleet start, is
the acrid memory of 1968. At that
time he bumbled and hedged away
an election many Democrats felt
should have been in the bag. His
intractable stand on Vietnam
brought about a disastrous spilt
with Kennedy and McCarthy liber-
als.
Even among those party pros
Whose affection for the happy war-
rior is both unabashed and unabat-
ed, there is a gnawing sense that
Humphrey's time has passed.
Nevertheless, Humphrey's thirst
for the presidency is unquenched.
He counts on early primary show-
ings of consistent second-place
strength. Pennsylvania has been
designated as pivotal. A decisive
victory there, Humphrey forces be-
lieve, could turn the tide. N o t
surprisingly, Governor M i l t o n
Shapp's recent endorsement of
Muskie has dealt Humphrey a
major and unexpected blow.
GEORGE McGOVERN, the can-
didate longest on the stump, is
a mystery to many. His financing
is ample, collected in small
amounts through an extremely ef-
fective direct-mail solicitation.
In addition, he has run his cam-
paign at high pitch for a full' year
and his organizing group, consist-

#i

On the campaign trail

paign may finally be catching on.
He recently received the s o li d
support of the liberal New York
Democratic Coalition and of a
similar group in Massachusetts.
Moreover, he finished strongly
in two recent delegate strength
tests in Arizona and Iowa. If Mc-
Govern can pull out the victory in
the April 4 Wisconsin primary,
which his advisors are counting
on, he may generate considerable
momentum.,
He then hopes for major vic-
tories in the crucial late primary
tests in California and New York
which would give him the con-
vention momentum necessary for
the nomination.
JOHN LINDSAY stands in Mc-
Govern's path, crowding his base
of support. Both candidates seek
the' vote of the young, black and
generally disaffected. Only o n e
such candidate can possibly survive
in the long haul and - Wisconsin
should be the showdown.
Lindsay has already demonstrat-
ed surprising support by placing
second in the selection of dele-
gates in the Arizona precinct vot-
ing early this week.
His successful media blitz in
Arizona hints at the pitch he xx ill
employ nationwide. Lindsay is
clearly the most packageable can-
didate and his media consultant,
Dave Garth, stands out in rhe f.e&d.

er when his candidacy was mere
speculation; recently he was dealt
a staggering blow by George Wal-
lace's entry into the impcrtarnt
Florida primary.
Many of Florida's conservative
Democrats are now likely to vote
for the popular Alabama governor,
leaving Jackson with scattered
support in a state where he h a d
counted on a strong showing. If
indeed he finishes poorly, it might
well presage his early departure
from the race.
Two other candidates who ob-
servers say have no chance at the
nomination are Shirley Chisholm
and Vance Hartke.
For those with a gambling in-
stinct, Jimmy-the-Greek's odds-on
nod to Muskie remains a good bet.
Muskie has stumbled in recent
tests - but only slightly and per-
haps insignificantly..
If Muskie is to fall, his advisors
have pinpointed the reason. He
lacks support with a deep b a s e.
Signs that Muskie is faltering -
should they come - will be dis-
cernible early.
A strong Humphrey, Lindsay, or
McGovern, showing in Florida may
be the first indication. A McGovern
or a Lindsay victory in Wisconsin
or a Humphrey sweeps in Pennsyl-
vania could spell disaster for the
man from Maine.
A Muskie demise might also
mean that no candidate will muster

*

1


WE-