Summer Daily
'Summer IEdtiooof
THEIIMICHIGAN IDAI Y
Edited and managed by students at the
University of Michigan
Friday, May 18, 1973 News Phone~ 764-0552
Watergate: The
crime of silence
YESTERDAY THE indefatigable Sam Ervin strode into
the Senate Caucus Room, bathed in klieg lights, and
ushered the biggest political spy show of the century,
Watergate, into America's living room.
Flashbulbs popped; aides moved like adrenalin
through the crowded room, clutching briefcases and
memos in hot hands, suggesting to million of Americans
who had never before been able to touch the sinews of
federal power that here, at last before the eyes, was the
urgent and horrible truth.
Sam Ervin, the unswerving protector of individual
rights, the statesman's statesman, fully sensed the mo-
ment.
He pronounced with awesome deliberateness, "The
nation and history itself are watching us," and the na-
tion and history watched his eyebrows hint at a nervous
smile, as if even the stolid senator from North Carolina
could not help but shake at the immensity of the occa-
sion
ELSEWHERE IN the nation yesterday morning, Ameri-
cans woke up to find daily television viewing sudden-
ly bereft of soap operas. Instead all three networks trans-
mitted the strange sight of those long-concealed sinews,
bared at last and twitching grotesquely beneath the klieg
lights as Ervin and the others began probing with razor-
edged knives.
We, the Ameriman nubic, seemed ready to vomit at
the sight. The m'ior networks reported receiving thous-
ands of phone calls demanding a return to soap opera
from the lte- diresttable real onera of Watergate.-
But for several weeks we will be forced to watch the
probing continue: we may stumble momentarily in our
dily routines as the probes cut deep and the beast in
Washington cries but Already a figure of the law so high
and resneeted as the Attorney General has been indicted
for criminal acts against the nation.
And many or most of us shall continue to wish the
soap operas were back, because Watergate is more than
a consiracy of power-seeking bureaucrats to dupe the
public and seize the government. The guilt shall not be
borne solely by that grisly political version of "The Un-
touchables", the Committee to Re-Elect the President.
WATERGATE WAS the rest of us as well. Since time
immemorial we have provided a mandate of silence
for Mr. Nixon and every other chief executive, assum-
ing that the President, like H. Howard Hunt and G. Gor-
don Liddy, acted "with the best intentions."
Now Ervin's committee cuts through that false cover,
and we shrink from the TV set as it indicts each of us
for that mandate of silence, coldly outlines our choices
the future, and forces us to live with Watergate.
The worid press
views Watergate
SOME NEWSPAPERS around the world are saying the Water-
gate scandal may weaken the President's ability, to conduct
foreign affairs.
"There are signs that President Nixon's home front crisis
over Watergate and other matters is now begining to have an
effect on the international scene," the London Daily Telegraph
said. The British newspaper added that although Soviet officials
have kept silent over Watergate it is apparent that Communist
party leader Leonid . Brezhnev "is ready to try to screw every
last drop of advantage" out of the scandal during his visit to
Washington next month.
In Hungary the newspaper Magyarorsag said Nixon may find
it difficult to "actually govern at home" because of the bugging
scandal and "will more and more fail to represent the interests
of the American capital .
"The power of a rightist conservative president has become
stabilized with all its corruption and reactionary measures . . .
in such a historic 'period when the interests of the American
capital demand sober and rational consideration of important world
issues," the paper continued.
IN ASIA, THE Jakarta daily, Indonesian Raya, said the
bugging incident "has made us doubt the rationality of the
American leaders on international matters."
"The confidence in Nixon's integrity was greatly shaken. Al-
though it cannot be proved that he was personally involved, it is
impossible for Nixon to say he has no knowledge of it," Indonesian
Raya contended.
Youth baseball being threatened
by Little League organizing
By ,ORDON ATCHESON
T VERYBODY HAD to use the
same bat. Some one brought a
ball wrapped in black electrician's
tape. Most of us played with hand-
me-down mits. We made a piece of
cardboard serve as first base, a
small rock second, and an unneed-
ed sweatshirt third.
Despite the inferior equipment,
we loved sandlot baseball.
But sandlot baseball is being kill-
ed off by a twisted, perverted imi-
tation called Little League.
Little League thrives on organi-
zation. There are permanent
teams, regularly scheduled games,
and carefully calculated won-lost
records and batting averages.
On Saturday mornings, the kids
get dressed up in fancy uniforms
and mother drives them to a real
baseball diamond, with real bases.
The pitchers throw as hard as they
can. The umpires enforce every last
rule of the game. Most of the
players sit on the bench and watch
- only the most talented people
participate because winning means
everything.
SANDLOT GAMES seldom re-
semble the impersonal, systema-
tic, almost plastic Little League
contests.
We just chose up teams and play-
ed. Nobody had to warm the bench
because he might boot a grounder
or strike out with a man on third.
Errors were common. Whoever
made one might be kidded for a
while. Stil we all goofed now and
then so the jokes were good na-
tured. Besides we didn't play for
the sake of victory.
The scores of our games weren't
published in the local newspaper.
hut after three innings none of us
remembered how many runs cros-
sed the plate . . . or cared.
The games weren't run by the
book either. We rarely played the
'icorrect" number of innings, quit-
hong only when the teams were de-
cimated by the dinner hour or we
decided football probably would
be more fun.
L.OGICALLY, of course, Little
League shouldn't seem much like
sandlot. Consider the heirarchy of
each.
Sandlot typlifies government of
the kids, by the kids, and for the
kids. No bureaucracy permeated
the structure, since none existed.
Little League destroyed sand-
lot's excitement which lacked com-
petitiveness and replaced it with
a "winning's the only thing that
counts" philosophy.
The players become miniature
pros. Instead of looking at a game
as pure recreation, they begin to
believe the contest is as important
as the seventh game of the World
Series.
Ultimately, however, L i t t1 e
League doesn't attempt to meet the
needs of the young but rather
adults who never entirely grew up.
The coach invariably is an ex-
high school star who thought he
might play in the big leagues some
day, but now bats clean up for
his church softball team on Sun-
day afternoons.
Steeped in jock mentality, t h e
coaches may speak more eloquent-
ly than Leo Durocher, still t h e
message is the same: nice guys
finish last.
The umpires aren't really all that
bad. They hit .200 in high school.
They know failure and humiliation.
They emphasize with the player
who drops a pop fly letting the
winning run score and then gels
the silent treatment from his team-
mates for a week.
ABSOLUTELY THE most obnox-
ious adults mixed up in Little
League are the crazed fans. Moth-
ers, fathers, aunts, uncles - who
ever - all come down to t h e
games and frantically cheer their
kid's team. They scream at the
umpires. The only kind of person
worse than the opposing pitcher
is a creeping communist.
That can't be the way to teach
sportsmanship and courtesy.
The adults should grow up. 'Re-
store baseball to the sandlot. Give
the game back to the kids amd iet
them have some fun.
Gordon Acheison isu a w'rifer for
The' Dail.
Letters to The Daily
Artz resigns destroyed, and a new student gov-
Arizre~gnS ernment of students, for students,
To The Daily: initiated.
I ask the students of U. of M. to
I, I.AURIE ARTZ, wish to pub- join with me in this goal. And may-
licly announce my resignation from be we can have a true student
the Student Government Council government at last.
of the University of Michigan. I ask only one thing of SGC
The regime now in paser is the and that is that I be paid the
most corrupt government thattI $40 dollars in back pay which is
have ever seen or studied. Nearly justly owed to me, but Bill Jacobs
$40,000 dollars or nearly half of the refused to pay, because he dis-
total budget was thrown away on agreed with my political stands.
elections which were as free and
fair as those in Communist Rus-
sia.''hetrest of the budget has
disappeared into phony "loans" and
"outside expenditures." All of the
members of the SGC and most of
the candidates are interested in the
power and prestige of SGC and
have no interest in the students at
all,
Because of the present corruption
in SGC, the longer I remain at-
tached to this group, the lower
my own credibility sinks. There-
fore, I am leaving SGC. But I can-
not simply walk away. The pre-
sent regime as it stands must be
-Laurie Arta
May 16
Letters to The Daily should
be mailed 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 normflly should not exceed
250 words. The Editorial Direc-
tors reserve the right to edit
att letters submitted.
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'As I understand Secretary Rogers, they are bombing us here
in Cambodia as an incentive to North Vietnam to uphold the
peace ugs eciient.'