k Eighty-three years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Young's victory kindles hope 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mi. 48104 News Phone: 764-0552 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1973 I Overriding the veto THOSE WHO OPPOSE the President's use of American armed forces to in- tervene in the internal affairs of for- eign nations won a major victory yester- day when the House of Representatives voted to override the Presidential veto of the war powers bill. By a vote of 284 to 135, four votes more than necessary to obtain the required two-thirds piajority, the House voted to limit the President's ability to send American troops to foreign conflicts to 60 days, or 90 days with specific Congres- sional approval. The vetoed bill now moves to the Sen- ate, where it appears that the veto will again be overridden. It is imperative that the Senate follow the House's example. The -House vote may appear at first glance to be a surprise-yesterday's vote T9DAY S STAFF: News: Penny Blank, Ted Evanoff, De- borah Mutnick, Chris Parks, Jim Schus- ter, Charles Stein Editorial Page: Marnie Heyn, Eric Schoch, David Yalowitz Arts Page: Mara Shapiro Photo Technician: Steve Kagan was the first successful attempt to over- ride a Nixon veto in nine tries this year. HOWEVER, WITH the countless mili- tary adventures of past Presidents and this country's aggression in Indo- china behind them, it is not surprising that Congress has attempted to restrain what has become an almost unlimitable Presidential power to make war, however belatedly. Some observers will probably see the vote as a result of the extremely dis- credited position the President now holds in the eyes of both Congress and the public. Such a notion may have some validity, considering how long it has taken Congress to limit Presidential war- making powers in any way. But, hopefully, it may be that a grow- ing number of the members of Congress have come to realize that America's vi- sion of itself as world policeman no long- er has any validity, if indeed it ever did. The war powers bill will not prohibit the United States from operating clan- destine actions against foreign nations and groups (the sort of actions which helped involve this country in Vietnam) but it is a good beginning. By EUGENE ROBINSON IN DETROIT, that nearby grun- gy pit of factories and fire- bombings, hope is a luxury few can afford. Big-city despair is Mo- town's premier commodity, its stock bolstered by malignant in- ner-city decay and a nightmarish crime rate. On Tuesday, Detroiters, in a rare and brilliant display of com- mon sense voted themselves a lit- tle hope. By electing Coleman Young as the city's first b l a c k mayor, by choosing a Common Council that promises to be pro- gressive and innovative, and by approving a new city charter, they gave the Motor City what may be its last chance for survival. This election proved one thing: Detroit's huge black community has finally organized itself into the dominant force in the city's politics. The mayor's race came down to the wire as a battle between white and black: Tough-guy cop- per John Nichols against Young. Young was favored to win only if voter turnout was predominantly black. VOTING CONDITIONS Tuesday favored Nichols. The weather was bitterly cold, and turnout was pro- portionately light. Conventional pol- itical wisdom dictates that bad weather forces less-mobile black voters to stay home. The results of the election con- tradict this accepted wisdom and give hope that the city's blacks - constituting about half the popula- tion - have finally seized the op- portunity to run the city. Only 42 per cent of the city's voters turn- ed out at the polls - a little over 400,000. Yet Young won by some 12,000 votes, indicating that black turnout was much higher than any- one expected. Further, the voting adhered io racial lines even more closely than was expected. Young got about 90 per cent of the black vote, and Nichols received close to 90 per cent of the vote in most white areas. Thus, Young's 12,000-vote margin indicates that for perhaps the first time black voter turnout in De- troit was proportionately slightly heavier than white turnout, des- pite bad weather. This unexpected fact gives hopes that Detroit's blacks have finally realized their political potential, and have de- cided to give the city the kind of definite leadership it has lacked fir so long. IN ACKNOWLEDGING his vic- tory, Coleman Young told his sup- porters: "It is too bad that, if this victory is won, it should be won along sharp racial lines." It was a sobering note delivered on a gala occasion. If Tuesday's election gave some hope for pro- gressive leadership in Detroit, it also highlighted the political tight- rope Young will have to walk dur- ing his years as mayor. His con- stituency is black, and he knows it. And Young's lament over t h e black-whjte reality of Detroit poli- tics indicates that he already has a hint of the kind of criticism and backbiting he will surely receive from whites. Throughout the mayoral c a m- paign, Young downplayed the is- sue of race. In the coming months he will undoubtedly try to broaden his base of support to include some sizeable proportion of whites, but from the indications of Tuesday's voting the prospect of such a re- conciliation seems regrettably + grim., * * * THE UNIFORM base of support that Young lacks in the commun- ity is luckily present in his ad- ministration. Tuesday's election d I was almost a progessive cle>An sweep, and places liberals firmly in control of the city's affairs. Detroit voters chose: * A Common Council of six liberal-progressive (led by new Council President Carl Levin) and only three conservatives. This is the first time that a liberal major- ity on the council has ever been so clear-cut. * A liberal City Clerk, James Bradley, who promises to clean up the now-useless clerk's office. * The return to the school board of Cornelius Golightly, whose years as board president have shown that he sincerely cares about the city's school children. * The passage of a new city charter, which provides strong concentration of power in the may- or's office, a five-person.board of civilians to have absolute control over the city police department, and an ombudsperson to clear out city corruption. With this more or less unified city government behind him, Young must now attack the economic and cultural problems of the city which cannot be ignored any longer. Al- most everpone would agree th'at Detroit is dying; some claim it's dead already. Maybe Motown can- not save itself, but Tuesday's re- sults show that at least it's willing to try. Confronting the future in Dayton, o. MW-I A -t4E r By MARNIE HEYN IT MAY TAKE me years to ap- I preciate the full irony of being at an Indochina peace unity confer- ence at a Methodist camp near Dayton, Ohio, on October 25, the first anniversary of Henry Kis- singer's infamous "Peace is at hand" speech. The planet was run- ning out of fuel, war raged in the Middle East, and Richard Nixon foamed at the mouth on prime time TV. It was an action-packed week- end. The conference participants first came together in the dimly-lit base- ment chapel,- where we watched the president's press conference on a television set situated in front of the altar and below the cross. It was an appropriate way to focus the different people who came to Camp Miami: when Nixon spoke of his "hardship" in deciding to ini- tiate the Christmas Bombing of North Vietnam, everyone in the room was resolved that someday America would leave Indochina in peace. DURING THE FIRST plenary Friday night, we were addressed by a panel of speakers who spoke of current situations in Indochina from their own experience. While the speakers were working from different perspectives, they all re- iterated the same three points that became the basis for unity among the groups attending the confer- ence: the Paris Peace Agreement must be implemented, political pri- soners must be released ,and U. S. aid todThieu and Lon Nol must be stopped. The first speaker, Tran Quoc Hung, a Vietnamese national pres- ently living in the U. S., empha- sized the crises now facing Thieu. The economic crunch in South Vietnam is now so severe, that Thieu must choose between feeding the army and feeding the elite classes, the classes that form his only indigenous support group. Because the fabric of Vietnamese society, and therefore its economy, has been so badly shredded, such a large sector of the population is unproductive that there is no mon- ey, no food, no clothing, no shelter to be had in areas controlled by the Saigon regime. THE GOVERNMENT'S control is rapidly eroding. And as its grip on the populace weakens, it be- comes more vicious. Tran de- scribed a "reign of terror" that includes random arrests, burning of villages, and massive defolia- tion. The story Tran told that had the greatest emotional impact on me was about life in the refugee camps. He said that starvation is so extreme that parents kill their children and then themselves be- cause they cannot tolerate any more hunger. The mortality rate in the camps is dbout 70 per cent, and higher for children. And the U.S. government spends Food for Peace money on weapons. Tran also pointed out that mili- tary conflict is reescalating, Amer- ican forces are building up, and the whole shooting match could start up again at any time. Tran said, "The only hope for survival is to oppose Thieu, and to hope for peace and reconcilia- tion." SOKUM HING, a Cambodian na- tional and second panel member, spoke of the many connections be- tween the peace struggles in Cam- f bodia and America: the 1970 inva- sion and Kent State, the violations of the Cooper - Church amend- ment, and the related lies and sec- recy. Sokum explained that war will continue in Southeast Asia as long as the Nixon doctrine continues, and that the movement to end the war must be linked to a movement to get rid of Nixon and expunge the Nixon doctrine from American for- eign policy. He said that ending the war and changing foreign policy will in- volve a long, hard struggle, but that "the future is not in vain. The cause of freedom is larger than anything else. Do whatever you can to defend us - and, in the final analysis, yourselves." Fred Branfman, co-director of the Indochina Resource Center in Washington D. C., related impres- sions from the tour of Southeast Asia he has just completed. He said that a striking change has oc- curred in the political arena, be- cause the initiative has passed to progressive forces that earlier were compelled to channel all their energy into military efforts. HE CHARACTERIZED the re- cent upheaval in Thailand as "am- biguous," and said that the Ameri- can role in what took place is still unclear. Branfman warned Amer- icans that a new Phoenix (U. S. military pacification) program has been initiated in Thailand. Branfman said that the U. S. gov- ernment attitude in the face of defeat by liberation forces is to toughen up, to impose police states, characterized by Thieu's bellicose behavior at a time when the Provisional Revolutionary Gov- ernment (PRG) is talking about re- conciliation. f ees em only in the narrow range of cas 'here the group's collective interests a e subject of a dispute. These cases c ather easily be excluded from coveraj rder the plan. The second ethical problem cente round the catch-phrase "freedom boice", pointing to the obvious fact th i any but the "open panel" system, t enefits of the plan are unavailable to iember who uses an attorney other th ne designated by the group. Of cour: ie "choice" most members would ty ally make, given the lack of public i >rmation about competence of lawyers articular areas, is little better than sta ing a pin in the yellow pages. A n roup members have the ability to co ,ibute to the group's choice of which a >rneys will be designated. But in a fe ases, a member will have gol reas >r not wanting to go to one of the d gnated attorneys and thus effective] sing nis benefits under the plan. THE U.S. SUPREME COURT, mo cently in a decision against the Mic an State Bar, has firmly upheld t h ght to choose a group legal services pla her than those the bir associations a rove, as part of the freedom of associ< on guaranteed by the 'irst Amendmer the U.S. Constitution. The thing to hop 'r now is hat groups of working an According to Branfman, there is no doubt that there will be a tre- mendous upsurge in fighting, pos- sibly in the next few months, and that if the U. S. continues aid to Thieu, military struggle will re- place political struggle in a pro- tracted, ugly way. Branfman explained that politi- cal education has had a profound impact on prisoners who had felt that the war did not affect them. He told us about a man who had lost his wife and son, and been im- prisoned in a tiger cage. The pri- soner told Branfman that in j-il he learned that "peace is important, but independence is necessary. We learned reality, and we learned to love one another. I would do it all again." ANOTHER MAN WHO had been blinded with lime while in prison told Branfman that anyone could do what the Vietnamese have done, if they understand that the strug- gle they are involved in will trans- form their lives and if they are willing to make that change, that sacrifice. Tom Hayden relayed greetings to the conference participants from the Vietnamese delegations in Par- is. Their message was that the sit- uation is now -ery tense. Fighting grows increasingly heavier. The final sentence of the tape was, "American friends, please help us." At the Saturday morning plen- ary, we were addressed by Peggy Duff, a peice organizer in Eirone, who detailed various actions that are planned for the coming months, culminating in creating "a flood in Oslo", packing the city with so many people that there will be no room for Henry Kissinger to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. IN MY SMALL group session on Saturday afternoon, we met Re- becca Shelly, an 87-year-old Battle Creek resident, founding member of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and poet. She explained that she has worn mourning for the last four years for "the sins of my country," and told us that "The war in Vietnam has killed the conscience of the world." After dinner she recited some of her poems, and said that we were "responsible for kindling a new heart in humanity." In Sunday morning's plenary, John Froines, defendant in the Chi- cago Conspiracy Trial, reminded t'ie gathering that the anti-war struggle must be, defended at home. Jean - Pierre Debris, who was a 'irisoner in Saigon for two years, -leaded with Americans to con- tinue pressure on Congress, to con- tinaie writing letters to prisoners, :)nd to continue telling other Amer- icans what is hapnening in Viet- nam. He closed the plenary by saying, "The keys to Vietnam's prisons are in this country." '' MSE OF US who went to the n ference understood that thfe war is not over. When we left Camn Miami on a brilliant fall af- ternoor, we had a larger aware- ness of the vital role Americans c n olav in bringing the Indochina co-flict to a real concl'ision. "We must attack the war, the :weakest link in Nixon's foreign policy, so that Indochina can be free." Letters to The Daily should be m-iled to the Editorial Di- rector or delivered to Mary Rafferty in the Student Pub- lications business office in the Michigan Daily building. Letters should be typed, double-spaced and normally should not exceed 250 wvords. The Editorial D~irec- tors reserve the right to edit 411 letters submitted. I Group. legal services would ease hig) By TERRY ADAMS ONE OF THE least-heralded side-ef- fects of the discovery of poverty in the United States in the 1960's was that aca- demics, social planners, and a substan- tial number of ordinary people began to realize that in terms of the availability of certain important social services, the working and middle classes in this coun- try were nearly as "deprived" as the poor. This was particularly true for medi- cal and legal emergencies as well as the more routine medical and legal services. The inability to put the "cash up front" often means you just do without. As the Medicaid and the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) Legal Services Pro- gram began to make these services more readily available to the very poor, working and middle-class organizations such as la- bor unions, credit unions, and fraternal organizations began to devise systems to do the same for their members. Legal services in the United States have' always been securely available to the rich and to the big corporations, since they are able to pay a sizable yearly flat fee known less pressing situation arises where aj lawyer might be of real help (disputes with creditors, landlords, tax collectors, sellers of defective goods, and the draft- ing of wills and deeds), most people must get by as best they can without one. The reason people do without legal ser- vices is because they believe that the cost of legal services is very high and that a great part of the fees will have to be paid in a lump sum before the lawyer does anything. Although there is some variation among lawyers as to willingness to accept installment payments, legal fees are ex- traordinarily high given the time the law- yer spends. For example, a simple uncon- tested divorce proceeding with no child- ren and no major property will probably take a total of four hours of a lawyers' time and two of a legal secretary's time; yet the fee will be around $400 in Ann Arbor. THE FEES THAT lawyers charge arel typically based on "fee schedules" pub- lished by the local bar associations. Until very recently, any lawyer who consistent- ly charged less than the schedule could yers control the courts and most legisla- tures, and their fanatical opposition to both do-it-yourself and paralegal practice makes it a practical impossibility. IN ADDITION, many people irrationally believe that the higher the fee the lawyer charges the better the service, and con- sequently would refuse to shop for a low- er price even if available. And since law- yers are forbidden as a matter of "eth- ics" to advertise either specialties or prices, shopping is impossible anyway. To make lawyers available to working and middle-class people, they will have to get together in groups and "pool the risk" of the need for legal services so that the bulk of the cost for services to an individual member can come from small periodic payments rather than fees for the specific service. It is. this sort of arrangement that is called 'group legal services" or "legal insurance". The major argument over group legal services, due to the intervention of bar associations, is the type of provider. The bar associations have spent great amounts of energy, in the courts and in the legis- latures as well as with specific groups, trying to force or encourage the adoption of systems in which the member can go to any lawyer in the community for the services and the lawyer bills the fund for his fee. This is tvically called the "onen volume of business is great enough, the lawyer will take no other business and will be paid a flat fee for handling a certain volume of business, rather than billing on a case by case basis. Finally, in a "staff attorney" system, the group directly hires an attorney, pays him a salary, and he simply works a 40j hour week handling as many cases as he can in that time. The bar associations' reasons for op- posing anything but "open panel" systems are economic, political, and ethical. All the other systems promise that overall costs for legal services will be tess than at present, which could mean that fee levels would have to come down. More im- portantly, the promising new consumer market for legal services that these in- surance plans open up will not be exploit- able by the whole bar unless an "open panel" system is adopted, so the typical lawyer stands to gain less (and may even lose some if old fee-for service clients join a plan) than he otherwise would. THE POLITICAL reason is based on a fear that the "closed panel" and "ex- clusive contract" systems might be used to reward and punish lawyers in the community for their other legal and poli- tical activities. This is a problem only to the extent that one thinks lawyers ought to be able to act without fear of the r- as a "retainer" for a specified level of!! be disbarred. Since the Justice Depart- services should the need arise; in effect, ment threatened anti-trust action for this they pay an insurance premium. The price-fixing, most schedules are now lab- upper-middle-class and medium sized busi- elled "recommended". nesses typically do not hire a lawyer on The major factor bearing on the level retainer, but try to keep enough money of compensation is the monopoly lawyers