a
Eighty years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
'Woman Time for a non-male defInition
%g, a^Y4'h
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich.
News Phone: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michiqon Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1970
NIGHT EDITOR:
DAVE CHUDWIN
The stalwart taxpayer:
Venting his frustrations
THE STAGE is set for another episode
in the continuing battle between the
legislature and the University over state
appropriations. The latest threat to the
University's pocket-book comes from the
chairmen of both the House and Senate
appropriations committees who have ex-
pressed their opinion that the major state
universities should share some of the
cuts being planned to avoid a deficit state
budget this year.
These university cuts, if and when they
are implemented, will no doubt bring an-
guished cries about the "low public prior-
ity being placed on higher education."
These people who wail about the low
priority on education, however, are also
the same people who are opposed to high-
er taxes. In essence, people want some-
thing for which they are not willing to
pay. Nonetheless, it will not do to berate
the taxpayer as hypocritical, since he is
only caught up in a vicious tax structure
which knocks him down and stomps on
him.
THE QUINTESSENTIAL aspect of t h e
problem involves taxpayer control
over tax levels. Taxpayer control is most
direct in the case of local schools, where
the voters must approve an increase in
the levy. City government runs second,
with the voters having ballot control over
some measures. The close proximity of
municipal government also allows immed-
late influence over other taxes.
State government is somewhat further
removed from the electorate, however,
legislators usuall live in the sme town
as their constituents, and are therefore
subject to local taxpayer influence and
control. Finally, there is the federal gov-
ernment -, the furthest removed of all,
with its entrenched and sprawling bur-
eaucracies, responsible to no one in the
electorate, yet making continually larger
demands on the public purse.
So, as taxpayer control decreases at
each higher level and demands for tax
increases at all levels become roughly
equivalent, it is the local levels, where
Editorial Staf
MARTIN A. HIRSCHMAN, Editor
STUART GANNES JUDY SARASOHN
Editrial Director Managing Editor
NADINE COHODAS .... .. Fature Editor
JIM NEUBACHER, Editorial Page Editor
ROB BIER. .... Associate Managing Editor
LAURIE HARRIS .. Arts Editor
JUDY KAHN . Personnel Director
DANIEL ZWERDLING Magazine Editor
ROBERT CONROW Books Editor
JIM JUDKIS. ......... Photography Editor
NIGHT EDITORS: Dave Chuwin. Erika Hoff, Steve
Koppman, Robert Kraftowitz, Lynn Weiner
EDITORIAL NIGHT EDITORS: Jim Beattie, Lindsay
Chaney, Steve Koppman. Pat Mahoney, Rick
PeroftI
COP EDITORS- .Tammy Jacobs. Larry Lempert. Jim
McFersn, Hester Pulling, Carla Rapoport, Debbie
tTha, Harvard Valiance
ASSISANT NIGHT EDITORS: Rose Berstein, Mike
Cleply, Mark Dlen, Sara Fitzgerald, Art Lerner.
Jonathan Miller. kiannan Morrison, M i c h a e I
Schneck, Bob Schreiner, W. E. Schrock, Edward
Zimmerman
SPORTS NIGHT EDITORS: William Alterman, Jared
B. Clark, Richard Cornfed, Terri Fouchey, James
Kevra Elliott Legow, Morton Noveck, Alan Shack-
elford.
Sports Staff
ERIC SIEGAL, Sports Editor
PAT ATKINS. Executive Sports Editor
PHIL HERTZ Associate Sports Editor
LEE KIRK..................Associate Sports Edito
BILL DINNER ........ Contributing Sports Editor
taxpayer control is most direct, that get
hit the hardest. The paradox is an un-
fortunate one, because it is precisely the
services which most directly benefit the
taxpayers - educational and municipal
- which are the greatest losers.
IT IS INTERESTING to speculate on the
possible course the Vietnam war
might have taken if the people had been
allowed to yote on the tax increases ne-
cessary for its escalation. Certainly, such
control over the federal budget, w h i1 e
possibly beneficial in some cases, could be
just as disasterous in others - the money
for Vietnam could have been taken out of
other budgets to an even greater extent
than has occurred.
However, the message is clear. As the
voters continue to defeat revenue mea-
sures needed to help solve the problems
of our schools and cities, those problems
will continue to worsen, approaching, in
time, crisis proportions. If the federal
government continues to maintain its co-
coon of non-responsibility, it too will
eventually be dragged down as well.
-ROB BIER
Associate Managing Editor
Good News.
ON CERTAIN DAYS, the news contains
items which are encouraging. Yester-
day was one.
The United States government, it was
reported, seems to be easing its hard and
fast opnosition to the seating of Com-
munist China in the United Nations.
While the State Department has not yet
gone so far as to advocate directly the
admission of the People's Republic to the
international body, it has shifted its ar-
guments. Now it professes a concern for
the future of the reresentation of the
Taiwan Government. It will not endorse
seating of Communist China at the cost
of exnulsion of Nationalist China.
In effect, the U.S. government has at
lone last embraced the two-China poliey
which it has rejected implicitly during the
last twenty years of all-out opnosition to
the admission of the Peonle's Reublic.
Perhans this will signify a new begin-
ning in the lone overdue attempt to bring
the Pople's Republic, which includes
one-fourth of the world's nopulation. into
the dilomatic and social community of
nations.
ANOTHER ENCOURAGING develonment
vesterdav was the self-reveral of the
Internal Revenue Service on their prev-
ious decision to end the tax exemptions
of organizations engaged in consumer
Prntpction litigation.,
These public interest law firms are the
mainstay of the trulv effective f o r c e s
fighting polluters. Some of these firms
are also engaged in civil liberties and wel-
fare rights litigation.
These firms can now survive financially
-by not having to pay taxes and by being
able to attract tax-deductible contribu-
tions. Their healthy existence and now
probable proliferation can only be wel-
comed.
-JIM NEUBACHER
Editorial Page Editor
ONE BY ONE the journalists in the country have run
out of things to say at one time or another and so
they have fallen back on the "non-timely" topic of
women's liberation. They considered it to be non-timely
because they felt there was no urgency to write on the
subject before and there isn't any urgency now except
that they ran dry. Women's liberation is certainly not as
popular a subject as ecology, and it is not being treated
as seriously. For male journalists, the topic lends itself
to cute - excuse me, clever - beginnings such as "I've
been trying to avoid this topic but Matilda Lib came in
to see me today . . ." For female journalists, "equal pay is
fine but can't they comb their hair . .."
I too have been avoiding the subject, not because of
priority judgements but because of fear. I have been
afraid that I was too ignorant to answer the criticism
motivated purely by male chauvanism. More importantly
I was afraid that I could not withstand the tremendous
pressure of just one letter that might state, "What does
that writer know about her body, womanhood, the beauty
of real love, and the world?"
The support of sisters who are showing that they
will not be put down has finally cleared my head. I
would laugh at my belief that any man would know
more about my body and womanhood than I just because
he is a man, if I did not feel like crying for the repressed
and unnatural women who have died or who are living
in estranged bodies.
I would laugh at my simplicity if I hadn't realized that
of the older women I know maybe two have lived as real
women and not bastardized versions of men. We are
told that there is a uni-sex trend in our lives now but if
there is such a trend, it did not begin with a clothes
designer as our mothers and Harriet Van Horne claim.
There has only been one sex-male. Females have been
cowed into thinking they are insubordinate beings, wild
sexual animals, or empty headed whimsies.
A WOMAN WHO wants some fulfillment in life must
make it as a man. This goes in fact for those who prefer
straight motherhood-in-the-home lives. They face laws
passed by men governing their bodies and morals. Our
society absurdly believes a mother is inordinately re-
slight excitability to the point of no emotions or else
she would be considered a weepy female. A working
woman must be tough in the manner of ! a man, not
woman. But then she's considered a hard bitch.
THE PROBLEM becomes all the more clear talking
to women on campus who are directly involved with ac-
tion groups or who are ,just starting to question them-
selves. "I feel this terrible conflict inside," says one, "I
want to be feminine and I want to be loved but I also
want to be able to think."
Even a woman who is basically aware of the problem
and who is actively working against sexism lapses into
believing men's definitions of her.
Why is it that a woman may not be feminine and
capable at the same time? Why is she not defined in
terms that allow her to be "normal" and able to follow
interests in academia, business, industrial design, or any
traditional male strongholds? Why is she sometimes
taught to think and then not allowed to use her intelli-
gence.
What the hell does "feminine" mean? Certainly not
wrist-length white gloves, a single strand of pearls and
a black dress for the proper occasion. Certainly "femin-
ine" does not mean lowering her eyelids in the pre-
sence of some big, strong male, when she knows she is
more accomplished in ways other than size.
And must she really repress any traditionally male
abilities or opinions because woman is defined as not
having them? Is a woman just the opposite of man -
or a lesser male?
Maybe these questions appear rhetorical. The real
tragedy is that to most women and men at this time these
questions are very hard to answer. I don't know the an-
swers now. An acceptance of myself as a living, thinking,
doing, person leads me to believe that men's definitions
of me and others classified in my sex category are wrong.
Women's liberation can no longer be treated as another
silliness. We must learn new definitions so that women
can be truly women, and then maybe men can be truly
people.
10
A
sponsible for family structure and growth. It is the
male-dominated society which places her in an inflexible
structure with inflexible social mores. A woman's own
upbringing does not provide the strength to withstand the
pressure to guide her family by the corporation men who
dictate what kind of entertaining must be done in the
name of "your husband's business career", how she
must dress and behave, and how she must bring 'up their
children (the right school and the right ambitions).
The women who want to work (and/or motherhood)
for what ever their reasons, must forget they are women
and act like men. (For reasons that are appearing more
and more obvious to women, a man is never required to
forget he is a man and act like a person.) Although men
for the most part are expected to keep their emotions un-
der wraps, the woman who wishes to work with them
- not as secretaries - must deaden any emotion or
A
The Steve Fraser trial: Framed in Phi~lly
By PETER RUSH
Daily Guest Writer
A PRE-REVOLUTION Russian
proverb advises that if you see
a mouse in the cage, and the
warden tells you it's a lion, don't
believe your eyes. Philadelphia's
District Attorney Arlen Spector
and Police Chief Frank Rizzo are
acting like the warden in the pro-
verb in the pending "conspiracy"
trial of Labor Committee members
Richard Borgmann and Steven
Fraser. (The Labor Committee was
formerly known as the SDS Labor
Committee).
Fraser and Borgmann are charg-
ed with possession of explosives
with intent to use. The case
against them rests on the shod-
diest of frame-up attempts and
only the most vicious newspaper
smears were able to muster a
shred of credibility for the charg-
es.
On the evening of April 9, 1969,
eight members of the Philadel-
phia Civil Disobedience squad en-
tered the apartment of Fraser and
Borgmann with a warrant to look
for explosives. Within minutes re-
porters and cameramen from a
prominent local television station
arrived at the door, and the po-
lice admitted them despite objec-
tions from Fraser. The CD men,
after ransacking the apartment,
suddenly converged around the re-
frigerator in the kitchen. Ef-
fectively blocking Fraser's view,
they lifted the refrigerator up,
fumbled around, and then turned
to face Fraser, holding t h r e e
lengths of pipe. Then, opening the
refrigerator door, they reached in-
side and appeared to pull out a
small container which later chem-
ical analysis revealed to be some
variety of plastique. A moment
later a CD man leaned down and
picked up off the floor a length of
fuse. During all of this, the tele-
vision cameramen were obedient-
ly filming when told to.
Photographs of those arrested
filled the entire front page of the
following day's Philadelphia News,
and appeared prominently in other
local papers. Extravagant police
statements on the case prompted
Philadelphia ACLU Chairman
Spencer Coxe to denounce the po-
lice handling of the case, charging
that the invitation to the press
was "a crude and gross example of
making news rather than enforc-
ing the law," and an attempt to
try the case in the press rather
than in court.
ASIDE FROM the issue of public
-smear, the "evidence" itself limps
along, and finally collapses in a
welter of self-contradictions, ab-
surdities and evidence of police
tampering. First of all, that any-
one illegally storing explosives
would leave fuses lying on the floor
and plastique in the refrigerator,
is little short of preposterous, es-
pecially in light of the a lm o s t
continual police surveillance the
apartment had been subjected to
during previous weeks. Moreover,
the refrigerator under which the
pipes were allegedly found fits
flush on the floor.
Even more suspiciously, it emer-
ged during the course of prelim-
inary hearings that no finger-
prints were taken on the evidence
- the police claim to have "for-
gotten." Photographs of the pipes
released to the press showed fuses
put into place - the police ad-
mitted to putting them there in
the station! The District Attorney
had to show intent to use the ex-
plosives, but all he could come up
with was that the explosives, were
hidden.
Finally, after having a lr e a d y
smeared Fraser, Borgmann and
the Labor Committee all over the
newspapers and television once,
the prosecutor announced two
days later that the FBI had evi-
dence linking Fraser and Borg-
mann to an alleged plot of an SDS
group in Boston to blow up na-
tional monuments in Philadelphia
and Boston. Challenged in court,
the prosecutor was forcd to ad-
mit to having no evidence at all
linking Fraser or Borgmann to the
alleged Boston plot [which was
never heard about in the coun-
try ! 1.
THIS BIZARRE CASE becomes
doubly incredible because the pro-
secutor will have to present a mo-
tive and establish the credibility
of the charge. Yet absolutely
nothing Fraser, Borgmann or the
Labor Committees have ever writ-
ten, advocated or done can be pro-
duced to substantiate the suspic-
ion of conspiracy to illegally use
explosives.
Within SDS, the Labor Commit-
tee was always among those op-
posing the degeneration into an-.
archism and terrorism, and re-
solutely fought the notion of "con-
frontation politics" as a viable di-
rection for the student movement;
Every campaign of the Labor
Committee, all of the literature
which it has produced, all of the
speeches by its members, represent
a positive, constructive approach
to issues.
In fact, the only rational ex-
planation for the frame-up is that
the Labor Committee's approach
to organizing, far from being the
clearly self-defeating terrorism
the police would like the public to
believe, had the potential to in-
vove mass numbers of people in
an attack on the leading political
and financial circles of Philadel-
phia. Ony a real throat of that
sort would be likely to impel the
police to take the risks involved
in such an obvious frame-up.
THE PENN SIT-IN provides the
key to understanding the motiva-
tion behind the ice frame-up.
For months before the February
(1969) sit-in, the Labor Commit-
tee had been propagandizing at
Penn about the expansion of the
University and a University sup-
ported science center into t h e
black community of West Phil-
adelphia, which was forcing t h e
residents out without providing
housing to replace that torn down.
The demonstration of about 100
people at the construction site
turned into a mammoth non-ob-
structive sit-in in an administra-
tion bpilding around demands for
community housing.
FRASER AND BORGMANN were
arraigned in April, 1969, but no
indictments were returned. Period-
ically over the next eighteen
months the Labor Committee as-
sumed the DA had decided to drop
the case; after all, the smear had
presumably been the main pur-
pose of the arrests. However, on
November 4, 1970, indictments
were finally handed down. What
could possess the DA to risk the
credibility of both the police de-
partment and his own office in
such a case?
On the one hand, the rash of
left-wing terrorist bombings (by
Weatherman and others), and si-
milar actions by police provoca-
teurs, may, in the DA's estimation,
have created a climate in t h e
country suitable to winning a con-
viction.
In response to the indictments,
the National Caucus of Labor
Committees has moved for the
formation of an independent Na-
tional Commission of Inquiry to
proceed .outside the regular court
proceeding to hear evidence as to
the guilt or the innocence of Fras-
er and Borgmann, and evidenceof
police frame-up. Prominent in-
dividuals around the nation, from
Paul O'Dwyer to Noam Chomsky,
have joined the call for such a
Commission. Under the circum-
stances described above, only such
a Commission can minimize t h e
otherwise almost certain probabil-
ity of a successful frame-up of
Fraser and Borgmann in the Phil-
adelphia courts.
* * *
(The author, a member of the
Ann Arbor Labor Committee, is
a graduate student from Briar-
cliff Manor, New York. Defend-
ant Stephen Fraser will be
speaking at the Michigan
League about the upcoming trial
Monday night at 7:300
Letters to The Daily should
be mailed to the Editorial Di-
rector or delivered to M a r y
Rafferty in the Student Pub-
lications business office in the
Michigan Daily building. Let-
ters should be typed, double-
spaced and normally should
not exceed 250 words. The
Editorial Directors reserve the
right to edit all letters sub-
mitted.
*1
I,
1 - .c -rA'
l
"This is the news .
. i
Letters
to
the
Daily:
Getting
higher on
the
real stuff
To the Daily:
TONIGHT I SAT and listened
to Stephen for a while. At one
point I asked him the question:
"If cops and children are t b e
same, and Cowboys and Indians,
then why should I listen to you
anymore than anyone sitting right
beside me?" I think I made Ste-
phen mad and I want to tell him
how and why I asked that ques-
tion.
Dear Stephen:
I HAVE TO write rather than
come see you again because there
are so many people coming to see
you here. I don't want my atten-
tive energy to be mingled in the
r. ne c oaf 11 3-n -+I, -- ..
sit at attention, listening, for on-
ly a short period of time. I get
restless, I talk with people near
me, I daydream - because atten-
tion is such a one-sided dialogue.
Sitting at attention my energy is
young, my perceptors focused.
Eventually the energy has to
spurt out somehow. Tonight the
energy escaped through my brain,
that sixth sense you spoke of: I
had to speak.
YOUR EQUATION OF atten-
tion-energy is authoritarian and
binding. Y o u r systems of com-
munication are borrowed from the
mass-minded culture you claim to
escape. You have put a general
formula on to the vision of truth;
Abortion
To the Daily:'
IN A NUMBER of recent issues
of The Daily, ads have appeared
offering do-it-yourself pregnancy
test kits, abortion referrals, and
contraceptives through the mail.
Upon writing to the test kit com-
pany, it was found that the test
would cost $15 and the offer was
coupled with an additional offer
of abortion referral at a N.Y. clin-
ic. Using commercial referral out-
fits such as these can be expected
to cost up to $600. The same preg-
nancy tests c a n be readily ob-
tained for only $5.00 at the Stu-
dent Health Service, and safe re-
liable abortion referrals to N.Y.
wanted conceptions in the first
place. The clergy consultation
service now processes about 2
abortion referrals every day. Per-
haps it needs to be made clearer
that the Student Health Service,
University Hospital and the Plan-
ned Parenthood League provide a
full range of contraceptive ser-
vices to anyone who seeks them,
regardless of age or martial stat-
us and without the' requirement of
parental consent.
IN ADDITION, the conducting
of studies using t h e "morning-
after" pills which c a n prevent
pregnancy when taken within
three days of intercourse has
meant that an additional back-up
use of temporary contraceptives.
The growing popularity for the
vasectomy for men was exempli-
fied recently in Ann Arbor when
600 men responded to a news re-
lease issued by the Planned Par-
enthood League.
In short, there's no reason to
let an unplanned pregnancy mess
up your education, your career,
or your life.
-Barry Karlin, Grad
Population Planning
Center
Nov. 13
Sports Bldg.
ro the Daily:
T.Afm T MON'TTH vnn r,,, rter3 the
been conveniently forgotten (the
students might benefit from it?),
they have quietly found $1/3 mil-
lion to increase their own house.
No c'oubt in answer, the Athletic
Department will say that such a
building will also help the Club
Sports who have nowhere to
change.
We, the general student popu-
lation and faculty members, bad-
ly need new and better intramural
facilities. And I suggest that the
Athletic Department could easily
spend the $%/ million that they
have somehow found in a financ-
;ally-bad year to construct a
building with a few new Paddle-
ball, Handball and Squash courts,
so that the individual students and
! ml * \U,