Seventy-nine years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich. News Phone: 764-0552 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 1970 NIGHT EDITOR: ROB BIER In memorium: Arthur Max Ross Red By ROBERT KRAFTOWITZ RED WING, Minn. SLEEPY, JUST like it's supposed to be. Peering from the top of the tall, naked crag which overlooks this town on one side and the Mis- sissippi on the other, you think you're beginning to understand. Self-sufficient, his father called it. He's been living here for 31 years, and effuses the tranquility which he proudly describes Red Wing. Looking down, you first see the river, sitting quietly between Wis- consin and Minnesota. A sea of trees and blue-brown water, the northern Mississippi bears little of the majesty which is said to em- bellish its southern branch. Its border for miles is trees, dirt, and grass, broken only by a half-mile stretch of factories on which Red Wing is anchored. The factories are old and small, the visions of Adam Smith in a world of conglomerates. The brick walls, stained by years of billowing exhaust vapors, scar the clean, quiet beauty which envelops the rest of Red Wing. LOOKING AT THE untraffick- ed Main St., the sculptured churches, and the comfortable wood-and-brick homes, it is hard to detach oneself from a stereo- type. The people of Red Wing make it even harder. "No one's poor here," said my host's father, "and no one's very rich, either." You look in vain for some sign of need, some sign of contention or dissatisfaction among the people, some way to connect the turmoil of a metropolis with the tran- quility of this hamlet. "We take care of our own needs, pretty much," I'm told. "If one of the people is having difficulty, he's helped by his neighbors." PERHAPS WHAT brings the turmoil home to the people of Red Wing is their children, who es- cape to a metropolitan university and return home each summer with doubts, and strange ideas. A 'small group of them have started a campaign to elect anti- war candidates to Congress. But by-and-largethey stand unno- ticed, dwarfed by the lavish Me- morial Day Parade, with its Amer- ica-has-been-good-to-me atmos- phere. And naturally, this is reflected in the town's public school system, my friends says, with a note of bitterness. He speaks of textbooks and teachers who sugarcoat Amer- ican history, and barely touch on racial polarization. But then again, racial polariza- tion is non-existent in Red Wing. The town is white, Christian, and safe, so why bother students with the chaos erupting miles away. And the New York Times can be found only at the Public Library, carrying news which the Red Wing Republican Eagle either published or didn't publish four days ago, THE EASTERN GIANTS are mistrusted by most, and looked A wing: America is full of them WHEN ARTHUR ROSS came to the Uni- versity in 1968, he spoke fondly of his new home here at "the University of California," and soon gained a reputa- tion as being eccentric, a man with his head in the clouds. Many months later he would deny rumors that he had run up a $2,000 bill for the University by forgetting to return a rented car before leaving on a month's vacation abroad. The myth of the absent- minded technocrat had taken hold. But Ross was more than that. He was a cynic, and like most cynics, an eternal optimist. He rarely lost his sense of humor, joking, wryly for example, about the Legislature'$ "non-support" for the University during what must have seemed like just one more frustrating spring in the state capital. He pressed forward quietly on behalf of the University in its perpetual strug- gle with the Legislature, using his exper- tise in economics and statistical analysis with some success to convince state au- thorities to maintain funding for the institution he valued highly. Back in Ann Arbor, he worked quietly, too, slowly working up what was to be a revolution in University management and planning and, prodding others to seek modernization of their educational units. Sometimes the pressures of the vice presidency for state relations and plan- ning forced Ross to retreat-he spoke occasionally, for instance, of spending hours gardening to relieve the tension. But always he returned. He was often skeptical of the prospects for forging re- forms and improvements, but no less persistent in their pursuit. HE BROUGHT a certain humanity to his job, and succeeded as well, in avoiding for himself the de-humanization that the post might have caused. Arthur Max Ross is dead at 54, a shock to those who knew him personally and a great loss for the University. We mourn his loss, but with a hidden smile for the warmth and spirit he brought us. -MARTIN HIRSCHMAN down upon by some. The cries for law-and-order are directed out- side the town, because the crime statistics inside are too small to be significant. A state-operated reformatory on the outskirts of Red Wing has been lauded as being among the most progressive in the country. The same reformatory evoked a note of bitterness from Bob Dylan when he wrote "The Walls of Red Wing" over a decade ago. But the walls have since been removed, and now there is nothing to pre- vent the inmates from leaving. THE TOWN IS independent, it is isolated, and the independence and isolation feed on each other. Talk of revolution is received with a polite laugh. Standing at the top of the bluff, one thinks of all the Red Wings in America, a large collection of entities, all separate and equal, with limited ties to each other. But then, looking down, you per- ceive the Red Wing Shoe Com- pany, a small, red brick building, not much larger than its retailer in downtown Ann Arbor. 1l LETTERS TrO THE EDITOR ARM-Phase II: Try to. stop it The police blew it again r1IE STATE of Mississippi says it's of- ficial now-police acted in self-de- fense in killing two young blacks during a confrontation last month with students at Jackson State College. In a television report Thursday night the governor said the police were fired on by snipers and asserted that the of- ficers opened up with 200 to 300 rifle and sh'otgun rounds only after encountering physical assaults, gunfire and verbal abuse. Any blame should fall "on the peace-breakers, not on the peacekeep- ers," Williams said. Further, the governor stated, his re- port was based on a complete and im- partial investigation by the state "with- out interference or influence on my part." THIS ENTIRE announcement reminds one of a similar occurrence in Chicago last year when officials swore up and down that a group of Black Panthers, among them leader Fred Hampton, fired on police before police shot Hampton in his bed. Their evidence-bullets allegedly fired by the Panthers-later turned out to be from police gpns. Williams' conten- tion that a muzzle blast was seen on the side of the street behind the offices, and that a gun muzzle was seen protruding from a dormitory window were about as persuasive. The implications of Williams' asser- tion that the police fired back only after encountering gunfire, physical assaults Summer Business Staff IAN WRIGHT ...... Business Manager PHYLLIS HURWITZ .. ....Freshman Supplement BARBARA SCHULZ.... ......Display Advertising RICHARD RADCLIFFE . Classified Advertising-, DAVID BELL.. ... Circulation ASSISTANTrS: Suzi Bosch an, Debby Moore and verbal abuse is upsetting. Is one shot to be answered by a hail of gunfire shat- tering the entire front of the dormitory? Is a tin can or even a brick hurtling through the air justification for killing the person who might have thrown it? Is a string of expletives significant prova- cation for shooting soneone? ADMITTEDLY no one likes to be struck by a brick or can, and being called a host of uncomplimentary things is cer- tainly unpleasant. But that these things justify murder is totally unacceptable. The question of gunfire presents addi- tional problems stemming from William's assertion that gunfire was reported from the area behind the policemen. If it is true, one wonders why the police would fire at the dormitory which was in front of them; and not behind them where the sniper was allegedly located. THAT WILLIAMS can claim the report, investigated and written by Mississippi state officials, is "impartial" is ludicrous. How could an incident pitting young, angered and frustrated blacks against good, hardworking, law-abiding southern white folk possibly be seen in any other light than putting the whites in the right? One only hopes that the investigation by the federal government--personally checked on by Attorney General John Mitchell-will be even more "impartial" than Mississippi's. But then given the policies of the cur- rent administration, one realizes this is nothing but wishful thinking. --NADINE COHODAS To the Editor: WE ARE WRITING to inform you and your readers of the re- sults of our petition drive cam- paign here in Ann Arbor to Stop ABM-Phase II. We have collected 10,000 signatures from residents of Ann Arbor. Approximately eight thousand of these were collected during three days of solicitation, May 7-9, in front of Ann Arbor supermarkets. The other t w o thousand were collected at var- ious community and student func- tions. We know that there are still thousands of residents who have not had the chance to voice their opposition to ABM. However, we believe the support we have re- ceived to date is a strong repre- sentation of t h e opposition to ABM in this community. Conse- quently, we are now preparing to deliver these signatures to o u r representatives in Washington: Congressman Esch, Senators Hart and Griffin, and President Nixon. Since our limited resources will not permit an individual expres- sion of appreciation to everyone who has helped in the anti-ABM drive, we use this means to ex- press our public thanks to you now. Upon invitation from repre- sentatives of other communities in the Second Congressional Dis- trict, additional efforts to gain signatures will be made. In the meantime we urge all who a r e able to spare time. to work in sup- port of the McGovern-Hatfield Amendment to end t h e war in Indo-China. -Charles Cell, Second Congressional District Coalition to STOP ABM May 29 Prejudice To the Editor: PREJUDICE IT SEEMS can sometimes take surprising forms. So it seemed to me this past Sat- urday when my date and I were refused entrance to Bimbo's here in Ann Arbor because she was accompanied by her leader dog. This particularly surprised me as the dog and her mistress h a v e gone to a large number of the- atres, restaurants, and taverns in the Ann Arbor area without inci- dent and without question. These included the Village Bell, and Pretzel Bell. Only Bimbo's h a s been so shortsighted to fail to realize that to the blind these an- imals represent something more than a family pet. I find this pol- icy of Bimbo's to exclude the blind with leader dogs to be petty, cruel, insulting, and reprehensible. It is fortunate that most establish- ments are more understanding and humane in their dealings. I would hope that there are some, capable of compassion and empathy, who would also censure such thoughtless behavior on be- half of an institution that sup- posedly encourages good times and comradeship. -Larry R. Tate May 26 Letters to the Editor should I be mailed to the Editorial D~i- rector or delivered to Mary 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 submitted. Al4 "Richard, remember when you said if yOu had any money you'd be buying stocks ... well, I took our savings and ... 0V The ' should have self-government (EDITOR'S NOTE: The following article is a portion of the author's testimony before the Special Committee on Total Citizen Participa- tion Student Bill of Rights. The author is a member of Central Student Judiciary.) By MICHAEL DAVIS I SHOULD TODAY LIKE to discuss two related questions I think my credentials entitle me to speak on: First, w h a t is wrong with the University in particular with most large universities in general; and second, what legislation this commit- tee should recommend to help put things right. If the University were a city, it would be one of Michigan's larger ones, with a pop- ulation of about 40,000. The population consists of two kinds of people: students (30,000) and employes (10,000). There are three kinds of employes: nonacademic staff (6,000-7,000); faculty (3,000); and administrators (300). Nonacademic staff are the people who keep the physical plant of the University operating; faculty, the people who teach; and administrators, the people who control most of the Univer- sity's budget, who make most major pol- icy decisions, and whom outsiders think of when t h e y say "The University wants " UNLIKE A CITY, the legal authority to And, because they lack adequate sources of information of their own, they must de- pend upon the judgment of others when- ever they come to campus to govern. The people they depend on are the adminis- trators. The Regents depend on them be- cause administrators have a near monop- oly on the Regents' attention. There are many reasons for that near monopoly, but the most important is that certain administrators - the President of the University, the Vice Presidents, and anyone else the President invites - sit with the Board of Regents during the day and a half of secret deliberations that pre- cede the two-hour open session at which they announce their decisions. Students, faculty, and nonacademic staff must reach the Regents either through brief formal hearings or through the administration. Even the Regents' agenda is under the control of the administration. The admin- istration can open and close channels al- most at will. THE ADMINISTRATION is itself hier- archically organized. At the' top of that hierarchy are the President and his eight Vice Presidents. They in fact generally govern the University. The University's in- ternal structure is in no sense democratic. The University is a h i g h I y centralized University follows the policies the legis- lature wants. UNFORTUNATELY, the University com- munity has no one to look after its in- terests in the same way. Let me give an example. For several years the University argued that the state had no right to re- quire the University to submit architectu- ral plans to the state for approval as a condition of receiving state money for con- struction. T h e legislature responded by withholding funds for construction until the University submitted. In that way the state got some voice in the design of Uni- versity buildings. Meanwhile, the administration raised tuition and used two-an-a-half million of that raise to build a new air-conditioned administration building. (The old one was, you understand, nearly twenty years old) . That money could have been better spent to raise faculty salaries (which become less competitive), to build needed class- rooms (which had a lower unit cost), or to increase scholarships to poor students. I doubt the legislature would have allowed the administration to spend money f o r such a building. The University community had no lawful means of preventing that use of student money. unrest on campus simply because there is no democracy there. What I mean to say is that it is that fact together with most people's, but especially students,' admir- able willingness to stand and fight for what they believe right. Members of a University community could live sullenly under even an extremely oppressive ad- ministration or, at least, like some Brazil- ian aborigines, leave whenever they felt oppressed. They could do that, but you would not want them to do it. You would not want them to do that because it would be good neither for them nor for society. It would not be good for them because, if they stayed and were obedient, they would lose their self-respect and become shallow manipulated crea- tures; and, if they left, they would either have to go to another school much like the one they left or drop out and give up the good life that follows a college educa- tion. It would not be good for society be- cause, if they stayed and were obedient, they would lose the habit of self-govern- ment and the freedom of each of us de- pends in large part on our neighbor's being used to being free; and, if they left and dropped out, society would have to do without talent and skill it needs. IF THEN, IT is the lack of democracy 4 W