Eighty-one years of editorial freedom
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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1972
Respect for the law
WHILE THE NIXON 're-election cam-
paign hammers on the need for more
respect for law, the men in charge of
the -campaign apparently have no scru-
ples about breaking the law when it suits
their purposes.
Early this week, a Texas oil executive
told House investigators how Nixon
fund-raiser Maurice Stans approved an
illegal Mexico-to-Washington transfer
of funds destined for the Republican
campaign coffers.
Pennzoil Corp. President William
Liedtke, a major GOP fundraiser in the
Southwest, last April told Stans that
money was available from Mexico, and
asked if such a transaction was legal.
After a day's thought, Stans informed
the oilman that it was "okay 'to bring
the money to Washington."
Liedtke got the money from Mexico -
$100,000-plus another $600,000 collected
in the Southwest on April 5, and rushed
the loot to Washington where it was
stashed away in Republican campaign
coffers without identifying the donors.
On April 7, an election reform act
went into effect that requires disclosure
of all contributors who give more than
$100 to any candidate or political com-
mittee.
THE ONLY TROUBLE with the Mexican
money escapade was that $89,000
came from a Mexican citizen. This vio-
lates U. S. election laws which prohibit
political gifts from foreign nationals.
The $89,000 has since been traced to
the bank account of Bernard Barker -
one of five men arrested in the June 17
break-in at Democratic headquarters in
the Watergate apartments.
Furthermore, Stans has been less than
open about the whole affair. He has de-
nied knowledge of the funds transfer
scheme, in spite of the fact that Liedtke
has sworn that he consulted Stans. But
no one has explained why the illegal
transaction occurred.
The Republican's furtive behavior with
regard to campaign fund-raising encour-
ages, disrespect for all law and authority.
After all, crime in the streets is really
nothing compared to crimes that would
steal a country.
-LINDSAY CHANEY
Editorial Director
"It's in the bag!"
The All-American girl
0@00
... a dream or a nightmare?
By CARL COHEN
THE RIGHT of free association comes ever more directly into con-
flict with the right to equal and non-discriminatory treatment.
The resolution of such conflicts may carry high social costs, but some
such resolutions cannot be sidestepped. Should a purely social club
be permitted to restrict its membership to whites only, or blacks only?
What if such a club is tax exempt? Shall a club restricted to Polish-
Americans he granted a liquor license? May the Harvard Club restrict
the use of some of its facilities to men only?
Deciding justly among competing claims in this sphere becomes
more difficult as it becomes more widely' necessary. General principles,
to which lip service has been given, have not been much tested until
recently. Now the testing has begun, and we encounter a host of mun-
dane considerations and practical circumstances that need to be fitted
into a set of moral judgments.
See the dilemma. On the one hand we cherish the right to assemble
with whom we please, for the mutual pursuit of such lawful purposes
as may be of interest to us. We are free to choose our own associates,
and our own objectives - charitable, recreational, religious orother.
Within reasonable limits, we need not answer to anyone, in or out of
government, for the worth or character of our private business, jointly
pursued. If just representative government is the warp of a good society,
real freedom of private action, individually and in groups, is its woof.
ON THE OTHER HAND, we cherish the right of all to equal treat-
ment. Irrelevant considerations of race, religion, sex, national origin,
or any other, certainly must not be allowed to interfere with the uni-
versal right to participate effectively in the life of the community, or in
the allocation of education opportunities, or in the distribution of any
goods which, in principle, are offered or guaranteed to citizens gener-
ally.
But how far into the private activities of voluntary associations
ought this protection of equal treatment reach? In admission to schools,
or the rental of privately owned but publically offered housing, we do
not find the question very difficult. The hard cases now arise in the
sphere of private, voluntary associations, with special functions, whose
activities are neither official, or public, yet which play a consequential
role in the life of the community.
Some cases get very sticky. General principles we must have, but
there is none that will resolve every variety of conflict. We may be
reasonably confident that any single-minded appeal - either to equality
or to freedom - will yield painful results.
There are two quite different approaches to this question which,
although conceptually distinct, do tangle in practice. The first concerns
the kind and degree of support given to a private association by the
government of the community, and the consequent right of that gov-
ernment. to impose standards regarding membership policies and, the
like. Direct government subsidies may clearly be conditioned upon
meeting such standards. But other so-called benefits - corporate char-
ters, liquor licenses, the use of public parks and buildings, tax-exemp-
tion of income, and tax-deductibility of gifts, raise some exceedingly
close questions which space limitations oblige me to bypass.
I ATTEND here to the second approach only, which looks not to the
kind or degree of government support, but to the nature of the private
association itself. Private associations differ greatly in kind and func-
tion, and these differences bear directly upon the right of such associa-
tions to discriminate (on the basis of race, religion, etc.) in their
internal business.
We need a fine taxonomy of private associations. Tentatively, I
offer a rough taxonomy, distinguishing seven categories, in three groups.
And I offer some conclusions, no doubt needing further defense based
on the distinctions drawn.
Group A comprises those private associations which:
1) offer goods or services to the public at large - e.g., hotels
and retail stores, barbers and automobile clubs;
2) offer no service to the public at large, but perform some of-
ficial or quasi-official functions in the public interest - e.g., medical
and bar associations, and real estate boards, which set professional
standards, or control opportunities to practice certain professions;
3) offer no general public service, and have no quasi-official func-
tion', but operate in fact as a place of public accommodation - e.g., a
fraternal order in whose clubhouse public dances, with charged admis-
sion, are commonly held; or a club adjoining city hall in which, in-
formally, much public business is carried on.
y
Attica: Now it's all better?
THIS WEEK the New York State Spe- jective'
cial Commission on Attica made pub- leads i
lic its findings, including its conclusion anti-er
that state governor Nelson. Rockefeller, lizes t
the commission's authorizer, made a mis- have t
take in refusing to go to the prison for fect is
negotiations before last year's uprising that th
turned into a bloody massacre. be solv
Today, a year after Rockefeller's de-. Inste
cisions caused the death of 32 gunless in- horror
mates and 11 prison employes at the seem li
hands of state troopers, conditions re- fect o
*main essentially the same, if not worse. has co
Attica, whose inmate population is still work;i
predominately black, continues to main- uneci
tamn intolerable food and medical con- doubt fi
ditions, and the prison's racist atmos- paigns
phere is equally intense, by all reports. son ref
The Attica Commission appears to su- AT T
fer from a traditional special commis- he
¢ion disease, the tendency to bury reality out co
under mld-mannered, reductive, "b- mates
could n
Editorial Staff inmate
SARA FITZGERALD Mildly
Editor conditi
PAT BAUER............Associate Managing Editort
ROSE SUE BERSTEIN ....Associate Managing Editor tica. R
LINDSAT CHANEY................Editorial Director slaught
MARK DILLEN ...........Magazine Editor
LINDA DREEBEN......Associate Managing Editor mately
TAMMY JACOBS................Managing Editor duced
ORIN LABARDEE. ... ....Personnel Director
RTHUR LERNER. ........Editorial Director Thee
JONATHAN MILLER.:...............Feature Editor Sesl
ROBERT SCHREINER.........Editorial Director seems
GLORIA SMITH.....................Arts Editor to the
ED SUROVELL ....................... Books Editor ney ge
PAUL TRAVIS..........Associate Managing Editor
NIGHT EDITORS: Robert Barkin, Jan Benedetti, mission
Chris Parks, Gene Robinson, Zachary Schiller, Ted collect
Stein.
COPY EDITORS: Diane Levick, Jim O'Brien, Charles not be
Stein, Marcia Zoslaw. Te'
DAY EDITORS: Dave Burhenn, Daniel Jacobs, Jim The
Kentch, Marilyn Riley, Nancy Rosenbaum, Judy York la
Ruskin, Paul Ruskin, Sue Stephenson, Karen Tink- subpoe
lenberg, Becky Warner.hsuwill
Today's staff:.records
sion is
tion of
News: Tammy Jacobs, Charles Stein, Ted punish
Stein, Paul Ruskin, Eric Schock Mr. L
Editorial Page: Lindsay Chaney to the
Photo Technician: Tom Gottlieb
New hopie
By BILL ALTERMAN unfortuna
FOR THOSE of you despairing of based on
ever hearing any good political Democrat.
news this Fall, cheer up. Though stronghold
not given much play in the na- where mo
tion's newspapers, a little noticed are from.
primary runoff last Tuesday serves Which w
as a ray of hope on an otherwise except th
gloomy horizon. today is 7
For on that glorious day R e p . you an id
John McMillan (D-S.C.) "T h e Washingto
Mayor of. Washington", lost in a last week
runoff election. Thus McMillan's that D.C.
chairmanship, that of the House tot of peo
District Committee, will in all Black Pa]
likelihood pass to Rep. Charles the city a
Diggs Jr. (D-Mich) a black, and McMilla
the colony of Washington D.C. will year as a
move one step closer to equal sta- man, and
tus with the rest of America. spent as
Washington's woes began way trict Coi
back in 1790 when President George has done
Washington decreed that a Fed- District o
eral City would be built on a ten for the m
mile by ten mile chunk of Mary- plantation
land and Virginia. Presumably. the more me
its chief claim to fame was its was ther
" prose. Their search for fact
ts members to a kind of amoral,
notional position which neutra-
he meaning their research might
oward producing change. The ef-
a false sense of resolution: now
e "truth" is out the problem must
ed.
ad, 500 pages of truth without the
and anger that the facts demand
kely to produce absolutely no ef-
n the prison system. Rockefeller
mmended the commission on its
it has produced an appropriately
ing document which will no
it in with future Rockefeller cam-
statements on the need for pri-
orm in the Rockefeller style.
HE SAME time it has avoided the
art of the issue-mentioning with-
nment that the assault on the in-
had no apparent purpose, since it
ot have saved the hostages if the
s were intent on killing them.
it deplores prison racism and the
ons that existed and exist at At-
ockefeller is not blamed for the
er; no important men are ulti-
indicted, no change will be pro-
only effect the commission's work
likely to have at this point relates
subpoena by deputy state attor-
neral Robert Fischer of the com-
'S testimony records, which were
d on the basis that sources would
revealed.
commission's general counsel, New
twyer Arthur Liman, who calls the
na "an incredible betrayal", says
go to jail before he gives up the
. It appears the Attica Commis-
about to experience a demonstra-
the state's ability to absorb and
criticism at once.
Liman may be closer in condition
Attica inmates than he realizes.
-REBECCA WARNER
for the
tely, committee heads are cludin
seniority. And due to the roy of
ic Party's longtime Caroli
I on the South, that is McMil
st of the committee heads among
popula
ould all not be so serious cent o
e District of Columbia McM
'0 percent black. To give jority
ea of what the people in the ru
n are up against, only (he re
McMillan proclaimed which
has "outgrown itself. A and 7
'ple have moved in. The ent b
nthers are trying to run one.
nd other things." Min
n is currently in his 28th 1970, b
South Carolina congress- Diggs
24 of them have been andh
head of the House Dis- bothm
mittee. As chairman he McMil
his best to deprive the fell 6
f Home Rule, running it major)
ost part as his own little runoff
up North. Among h i s rette.'
norable accomplishments Craig,
nasane of the District sunnor
By SARA FITZGERALD
WHEN I WAS 12, I didn't know
who Harriet Tdbman was, or
Carrie Chapman Catt, or even Su-
san B. Anthony.
But if you'd asked me about
Nancy Anne Fleming, Maria Flet-
cher, Jacquelyn Mayer, Donna Ax-
um or Vonda Kay Van Dyke there
was no hesitation - the Miss
Americas from 1961 to 1965.
The first Saturday in September
would find me in front of my tele-
vision set - rooting for M i s s
Michigan, and carefully judging
the talent, figure, evening gown and
final question of each candidate.
My parents let me stay up late
for thataspecial night of the year,
the perpetuation of an American
institution, the annual indulgence
in an American monarchy.
Once again we have a new queen
-Terry Anne Meeuwsen, 23, who
comes to her subjects from t h e
backwoods of northern Wisconsin.
Now to any Miss America buff
- and there are many - Terry had
to be the odds-on winner going
down to the final hours of the pag-
eant last Saturday night. The one-
time member of the New Christy.
Minstrels had confidently won her
talent preliminary, and she'd pick-
ed up the swimsuit award too. Any
double winner has got to be a real
threat.
(A brief note on Miss American-
dom: It's a "swimsuit" not a bath-
ing suit" contest - that makes it
more respectable, according to pa-
geant officials. And the s t a t e
queens aren't really supposed to
give their measurements out to the
press - the accent of the pageant
is supposedly on scholarships, not
beauty.)
'IUS, IT WAS no surprise when
the name of double-winner Terry
was called out, when she shed
the appropriate tears and walked
down the runway.
For she was in many ways a typ-
ical Miss America. Brown haired,
brown eyed, she's a fundamentalist
who supports President Nixon,
wears a POW bracelet and sends
money to an orphan in Thailand.
And she'll dutifully give up h e r
boyfriend for a- year (good grac-
ions, he's a 36-year-old divorced
father!) and take on such "friends"
as Pepsi-Cola and Toni.
But she's typical of Miss Amer-
icas in other respects. Like Debbie
Bryant, the 1966 version, who stud-
ied the biogs and photos of what
she considered to be her toughest
competition, Terry also charted a
course of action. She had to decide
whether to go to New York and
further her singing career or take
.a crack at the "big one" and risk
spending a year touring Wisconsin
dairy shows. She won the gamble-
and $50,000 in personal appearance
money and a $10,000 scholarship.
(Anita Bryant would disagree.
In her autobiography, Mine Eyes
Have Seen the Glory, the singer
recounts that she was glad she was
only second runner-up as Miss Ok-
lahoma of 1958. She got the ex-
posure she wanted without having
to put aside hertcareer for a year.)
Terry obviously felt differently.
For Miss America represents a
way for the all-American girl to
achieve national prominence. In
a world where little boys become
president, doctors, lawyers and so
forth, how else can little girls make
it to the "top" - that throne at
the end of the Miss America run-
way, that pre-packaged, wind-her-
up-and-she-talks-about-everything-
hut-the-Vietnam-war ideal of Am-
erican womanhood.
AND SO WE ALL tried to be
Miss Americas. We learned to do
our hair, to smile, and answer ques-
tions politely. And it was all pos-
sible until we only grew to 32 in-
ches on top and only got ,as far as
"Donkey Serenade" on the oboe.
Se we went back to the T.V. set
and dreamed - unaware that it
was all a farce, that at least one
ex-Miss America, Jacque Mercer,
from 1949, believed that "You
could take an orangutan, and with
a year'straining, it couldbe Miss
America."
The venerable- Bert Parks, adds
in Frank Deford's book There She
It, "It's corny. Let's face it. It's
corny and it's basic and it's Amer-
ican. But in this sick, sad, world,
a little fairlyland is welcome and
refreshing. Apparently, from the
fig'ires, we are right. About t h e
only thing I agree with Mr. Nixon
is that yes, there are a lot of nice
people out there beyond the big,
slick areas - and these are good,
straight people for the most part.
Perhaps they are narrow, but they
have a great longing -for normalcy,
asrifostn f do, and Mis s
Amerca bys tem apiece of that
dream.''
Or a piece of the nightmare.
Sara HI:. gcra/d
T/h' D~ally
Is editor of
# ,f
"last colony"
g Diggs and Walter Faunt-
the District went to South
na to whip up support for
lan's primary opponents
the sixth district's black
tion, which constitutes 40 per
of the total population.
lillan was kept from a ma-
in the first primary but in
noff the ageless Congressman
efuses to reveal his real age
is somewhere between 70
'6 defeated his black oppon-
y a margin of over two to
dful of what happened in
blacks such as Fauntroy and
stayed out of South Carolina
McMillan's opponents were
white. In the first primary
lan gathered a plurality but
percent short of an absolute
ity and was forced into a
with 36-year-old John Jen-
The third candidate, Roger
had originally promised to
rt Jenrette hut McMillan, who
Millan, whose antagonism towards
the citizens of Washington knows
no bounds, was calling for legisla-
tion ceding Washington back to
Maryland where it originally came
from. Apparently the idea of the
Federal City being controlled by
Blacks is more than the southern
gentlemen's morality can bear.
However, the officials and voters
of the Old Line State have made
it abundantly clear that when they
said aloha to that little chunk of
land 182 years ago it was for
keeps.
Actually Diggs is currently only
third in line for the chairmanship
but the two ahead of him, T o m
Abernathy of Mississippi and John
Dowdy of Texas are retiring at the
end of this term.
With the Committee realignment
in January, Congress will probably
pass a home rule bill setting up an
elected mayor and city council
with legislative authority subject
to congresional veto. Afer ithat
PRIVATE organizations inthese first three categories present few
serious theoretical problems. Racial, religious, or sexual discrimination
are obviously not relevant to the public or quasi-public functions that
are really being served by such organizations, and must therefore not
be permitted to interfere with the just fulfillment of those functions. Of
course, decding whether a given club or organization is in fact
serving an important public function through its membership, or within
its precincts, may sometimes. prove difficult.
Much harder to deal with are private associations in Group B,
being those which:
4) serve genuinely recreational purposes - e.g., private hunting
lodges, swimming clubs, or bowling leagues;
5) are based on special avocational or intellectual interests - e.g.,
stamp clubs, debating societies, or the local historical association;
6) are purely social, forming wholly around the personal attraction
of the members for each other.
Recreational or intellectual activities (categories 4 and S above)
sometimes rely upon facilities that are unique in the community-e.g.,
its only lake, or its historical archives. Because all citizens, regardless
of race, religion, sex, etc., are entitled to the enjoyment of such
community assets, all citizens (with appropriate avocational qualifica-
tions) have an equal claim to membership in organizations which con-
trol the use of such facilities. Barring circumstances of that sort, I
hold that in all of Group B discrimination in membership or participa-
tion on grounds of race, religion, sex, etc., even where we may think
it highly objectionable on moral grounds, ought not be prohibited by
law. The freedom to assemble or associate must not be conditioned upon
its use in certain approved ways. As in the case of free speech, we do
not ask what will be said to determine whether it may be said, so with
freedom of association, we ought not; as a community, ask first with
whom the association will be to determine whether the association may
be formed or allowed to continue. If that freedom is contingent upon its
being exercised in certain approved ways, no right of free association
remains; what is left is a privilege for those who act in ways the
authorities deem acceptable. Whether, on a given issue, the supervision
of those authorities proves honorable or despicable, the freedom of that
community will have been much damaged.
GROUP C comprises all those private associations which
7) are based openly upon special religious or ethnic affiliations -
e.g, Afro-American clubs, or Catholic Confraternities. Here discrimina-
tion is relevant to an honorable social function and ought to be
cherished rather than despised. Cultural pluralism is a value in Amer-
ican life greatly undervalued, in my view. But if we treasure such diver-
sity, we should realize that it can only thrive when supported concretely
by organizations and associations. Such associations must therefore be
z
Miss Arnerie,;1 973
HRP candidate
To The Daily:
THE MICHIGAN DAILY, long a
progressive force in the Ann Ar-
bor community, should be ashamed
of its sexist headline regarding
lane Fonda's fund-raising speech
against the war and for the state-
wide Human Rights Party. "Jane
smashes Dick at party" is neither
cute nor allowable at a time when
women all over the nation are
struggling to overcome all forms
of oppression.
That includes a woman like Jane.
Fonda. a long-time activist and