THE
Summer Daily
Summer Fdilion of
TillE MICH IGAN DAILY
Edited and managed by students at the
University of Michigan
Wednesday, August 22, 1973 News Phone: 764-0552
U F W's victory in
Delano oly a start
THE UNITED FARM WORKERS (UFW) gained a con-
cession- in their struggle for survival against the
Teamsters Union yesterday, but their victory was limited
and points to the need for further action on the part of
Cesar Chavez and his followers.
Teamsters President Frank Fitzsimmons notified 30
growers in and around Delano, California that contracts
that had been signed since Aug. 9 have been "disclaimed
and repudiated."
The agreement came after several days of talks be-
tween AFL-CIO President George Meany and Fitzsimmons
in which the AFL-CIO leader apparently pressured
Fitzsimmons into making concessions to the UFW.
Fitzsimmons had had earlier meetings with Chavez
on Aug. 10 but Chavez walked out after learning that the
Teamsters had already signed contracts with the Delano
growers.
The Delano area has been the sight of arrests and
violence in recent weeks with both sides claiming that
the other side was at fault.
The Teamster move was a surprise, but its impact is
only limited.
The action makes no mention of the Coachella Val-
ley and the Arvin-Lamont grape growing areas, which
produce a great percentage of the California grape yield.
The Delano area was probably chosen because it is
the most controversial at the moment. The Coachella har-
vest has already been completed and the violence at De-
lano has brought national attention.
The Teamsters may also have wished to make amends
for the insult to Chavez at the Aug. 10 meeting and the
repudiation of the Delano contracts may be the price for
the resumption of meetings between Chavez and him.
Although the UFW and its followers may be proud
of the gains won yesterday in their battle to represent
the field workers in California, there is still a long road
ahead before total victory can be claimed.
Summer Staff
ROBERT BARKIN and CHARLES STEIN
Co-editors
GORDON ATCHESON........Night Editor
DANIEL BIDDLE.. . . . Night Editor
DEBORAH GOOD . .... ..Asistant Night Editor
JACK KROST ..........Assistant Night Editor
JOSEPHINE MARCOTTI .. .................... Assistant Night Editor
DAVID STOLL . _ . .................... . . A ssistant Night Editor
That felt hat belongs
to a confused old man
By EUGENE ROBINSON
HE FIRST thing you could see
was his hat . . . it was maroon
with a shiny gold-plated band
around the middle that looked like
a string of fancy bullets belonging
to some dude bandito . . . T h e
hat itself was a mutated felt pork-
pie, with a round, almost shape-
less brim and crown, and with no
character of its own in the form
of creases or dents. It looked al-
most like the kind of hat you'd
find riding atop some supercool
Superfly parading down C a s s
Avenue - almost, but not quite,
and the real sense you got was
that here was some geek w h o
got his cool essons from the six-
thirty news; one of life's runners-
up.
This also-ran hat was all that
stuck over the back of the bolt-
upright Greyhound seat, and since
this dude was a latecomer to the
Detroit/Ann Arbor run, and had
gotten on after I had, I still hadn't
seen his face. Just this hat that
kept bobbing and weaving in some
infernal off-rhythm . . . what sort
of convoluted beat its wearer was
wired into could only be guessed
at...-
FOR THE third day in a row,
rain slid depressingly from uniform
gray skies.
He was indeed old, a
his face that invited Cc
utes of idle banter, th
"HAD TO GO to my son's trial ain't so bad. Sure hope this bay
in Detroit this morning. He killed gets out in three."
a boy a few weeks ago. I don't
know why he did that. Don't know THE PAIN on this man's face
why . . ." He turned away as he was like a particularly intense acid
let that one fly, then turned back. rush. His voice was cracking at
"Yeh, he shot the other boy up. every other word. He had two sons,
Drinking, and fighting, and all and both were in Jackson serving
that. long stretches for reasons he was
"I heard it was over some wo- trying hard to understand.
That was the thinking behind that fake re-
volutionary hat he was wearing. . a desperate
need to understand the pressures, the reasons,
the blackness behind what his sons had done.
- ? s ysa 555555is5 '4stsssJt1 ,.d. : 1.:. .tssi .m .:-.-.. soe.s. s , .. : .
man. At least that's what some That was the thinking behind that
of the people who were there say. revolutionary hat he was wearitg
They were drinking, and all that, . . . a desperate need to under-
you know. Get a little drunk . . . stand the pressures, the reasons,
you know." the blackness behind what his sons
By now he was just pouring it had done. He needed to identify
out, responding to what must have with them - they had been good
benn almost all-consuming n e e d boys, even though they had com-
to tell someone, anyone at all, what mited crimes; somthere must be
he felt. A perfect stranger was the something there, some good rea-
best outlet . -strangers tell no son he could understand, some-
thing beyond his 60-odd yea:s' ex-
tales, create no embarrassment, perience that had driven them,
prodded them .
-, -- -i m H Be sat silent for some time, not
even moving. He gazed straight'
nd had a half-smile on out the window at the sorry rain.
The bus rolled noisily through the
nversation. A few min- colorless landscape of southeastern
rnvesatin. few mm- Michigan.
Then he turned suddenly and
Ten the bombshell .-.. said:
:;;;} -:ti.'1:;:.~ . "YOU KNOW, I've never been ;n
jail one day. Not in my whole life.
soon forget the whole thing. He Not for nothing, not one day. Now
was facing me directly now, tori- I'm getting too old to get into any-
ed completely backwards intnis thing. If I ain't done it yet, don't
seat. His speech was quick, eager, seem likely that I'll get into any
MANIC. foolishness."
"They gave him three-to-ten. As he said that, his craggy brown
Yeah, he could have gotten worse, face was neither proud nor wise.
They're sending him to Jackson. It was confused, puzzled by the
That's where he's going now. difference in lifestyle between him-
He could have done worse. That's self and his two good boys. It was
not so bad. something he had been pondering
for a long time, and would con-
"I DON'T KNOW WHY he killed tinue to ponder .. .
that boy. You know, he was al- He turned away for the last time,
ways a good boy. Never got into his confession done. He cocked his
trouble, always a good boy. He did hat jauntily to one side.
some drinking, you know. I imag- * *
ine you do some too. Just a little Eugene Robinson is co-editar
drinking. Never got into any troub- of The Daily.
le ... good boy."
After each sentence he paused, - -
grimaced just a little, then went The Editorial Page of The
on with the story he had to tell. Michigan Daily is open to any-
"My other son - he's in Jack- one who wishes to submit
son too. He robbed some store, articles. Generally speaking, all
you know. He got three-to-ten too. articles should be less than 1,000
He's been in three years, and they words.
say he'll be out soon. Three years
"Uuuhaaaah . . . it's raining"-
the voice belonging to the hat bel-
ched into action. The voice was
older than expected, maybe 60 or
70, the voice of an old black man.
"It was raining when I came into
Detroit this morning, and it's rain-
ing again. Heh heh. Been raining
all summer."
The man turned to peer at me
through the narrow space between
the seat and the window. He was
indeed old, and had a half-smile on
his face that invited conversation.
A few minutes of idle banter, then
the bombshell. . .
'J::
"'EiTAlNLY i1'S SAFE ! 1'rE AlC*%Wtlm4110f lWOLILPN1r LIE-ASOL
ANYo-t '4 O~N,..wou 1
It'
1~p
* iN '*
Letters to'
Animal cruelty
To The Daily:
THE DAILY has really outdone
itself lately in its display of cal-
lous indifference to the lives and
sufferings of animals. It is hard
for me to understand how the skew-
ering of any living animal can be
reported humorously - it is an
intolerable act of torture. B u t
humans have apparently projected
enough of their own qualities onto
bats to make skewering them seem
like justice. And remember, the
original Count Dracula, who im-
paled people for pleasure was hu-
man and the association of his
name with bats was also the act-
of humans.
The Daily seems also to have the
impression (the story on bats and
the wolverines) that all animals
were placed on earth solely to fill
gaps in human's diets when the
human leaders' incompetence pro-
duces artificial shortages. If this is
representative of the. thinking of
the University community, my dog
is never going outside alone again.
But the most harmful article in
this gallery of horrors is the one
which proclaims the glories of ro-
deo. The only statement in the
story with which I agree is "Riding
The Daily
in a rodeo is a disease." The "old
horse . . . Tom Kennedy drew"
probably didn't have much "fire"
in him. But he could still feel a
bucking strap drawn tight around
his genitals. That'll make any male
buck, regardless of age or spec-
ies.
In response to a letter from Mr.
and Mrs. C. Way, the editor noted
that the Saline rodeo was sanction-
ed by the American Humane As-
sociation (AHA). It was sanctioned
by the AHA alone. I think t h e
fact that The Fund for Animals,
the Humane Society of the United
States, Friends of Animals, Ani-
mal Charity, the Animal Protec-
tion Institute, the Humane Society
of Huron Valley (local) and all
other humane organizations do not
sanction rodeos should tell more
about the non-humaneness of the
AHA than the humaneness of the
Saline rodeo.
The use of the bucking strap is
illegal in the state of Onio because
of its cruelty, but it's right there
in the picture at the bottom dfpage
7 of the Daily (8/16/73) of the ABA
sanctioned rodeo in Saline.
-Sincerely,
N. C. Terry
8/18/73
'1