Page 4-Wednesday, May 17, 1978-The Michigan Daily
~micig nDAILYI
Eighty-eight Years of Editorial Freedom
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, M1. 48109
Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 11-S News Phone: 764-0552
Wednesday, May 17, 1978
Edited and managed by students
at the University of Michigan
Double bottoms
should be junked
THE DEBATE
over double
bottom tankers is
still raging in
Lansing, and some-'
time this summer
the legislature is'
likely to make a
final decision.
A long-awaited
study by the "
University on the
safety of double
bottom tankers
was recently
released, and it
found that double
bottoms were
by far the most dangerous liquid carriers on the
roads. The rash of tanker disasters in Michigan in
the past year attest to this fact. In short, double
bottoms are a hazard and should be banned.
But still the oil companies do not give in. They
have agreed thht the current design of double
bottoms is too dangerous to be permitted on the
highways, but seek a modification of the design
rather than a ban on the tankers. Oil company
lobbyists are pointing out that the University
study also shows that with structural changes and
tougher regulations the tankers can be made con-
siderably safer. So much so, that the trucks
should be permitted on the roads.
The problem with this argument is that accor-
ding to the study, the structural modifications
would still only make the double bottom tankers
80 percent as safe as the traditional single bot-
toms. And considering the lives lost and damage
caused by double bottom tanker accidents in the
past year alone, that 20 percent unsafety factor
seems far too much to risk.
SPRING EDITORIAL STAFF
BARBARA ZAHS
Editor-in-Chief
RICHARD BERKE KEN PARSIGIAN
Editorial Directors
JEFFREY SELBST
Magazine Editor
OWEN GLEIBERMAN
Arts Editor
ANDY FREEBERG
JOHN KNOX
PETER SERLING
Photographers
STAFF WRITERS: Mike Arkush, Rene Becker, Brian Blanchard, Elisa Isaac-
son, Dan Oberdorfer, Tom O'Connell, Judy Rakowsky, R.J. Smith
SPORTSSTAFF
BOB M ILLER.............................................. ....... ports Editor
PAUL CAMPBELL....................................Executive Sports Editor
HENRY ENGELHARDT... . ..Executive Sports Editor
CUB sCHWARTZ....... Exeutive Sports Editor
Gary Kicinski, Geoff Larcom, Brian Martin, Dan Perrin, Dave Renbarger, Jamie
Turner, Bob Warren
NIGHT EDITORS
Elisa Frye, Ljztvac, piane Silyer .
ASSISTANT N GJ T9PITORS
The American Nazi Party, the
direct descendants of Hitler's
Third Riech which syste-
matically slaughtered over
six million Jewish men, women
and children in World War II,
have announced their intention to
march ina predominantly Jewish
neighborhood-Skokie, Illinois.
The Nazis claim they are entitled
to the Constitutional privilege of
free speech while the Skokie
residents argue a Nazi demon-
stration would provoke riots and
violence.
As a journalist and a concerned
advocate of free speech, I .have
had an enormously difficult
problem in dealing with this ex-
treme case. But I have decided
the Nazis should not be allowed to
msrch in Skokie.
IT IS NOT easy to deny that
Nazis should have the freedom to
free speech; but it is not easy to
forget the Holocaust. The Nazis
gathered the innocent Jews and
stuffed them in gas chambers
and countryside pits to eliminate
what they called the "Jewish
problem." They liquidated almost
all of European Jewry in just a
few years and nobody, including
our beloved Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, did a damn thing.
Well, now we can do something
even if all these Neo-Nazis want{
to do is march and proclaim their
views. It is the content of their
views which far exceed any
tolerable demonstration of free
speech. They associate openly
and proudly with Hitler's crew
and advocate those policies to be
upheld in this country.
I know it has been stated that
the most difficult case of free
speech is when we must tolerate
views which we believe are
wholly unacceptable and totally
absurd. And I know that if we
prohibit the Nazis now, it will be a
Skokie:
a problem
offree,
'speech
By Michael Arkush
which inflicted death upon their
persuers but never, in the same
systematic, merciless and cruel
manner as the Nazis. The
Holocaust is beyond the U.S. Con-
stitution and any association by
any group which plans to
distribute the same anti-Jewish
literature and wear the same
Nazi uniforms must not be
tolerated, even at the cost of
ignoring the first aniendmeat.
And they have the gaul to march
in Skokie where over 4,000 sur-
vivors of the death camps are
trying to live normal lives and
forget their miserable past.
BUT FRANK COLLIN
(American Nazi Party leader)
and the rest of his group will not
let them forget the past. They
{ know the Skokie Jews will be
greatly hurt by their demon-
stration but they want that to
happen. They want to hurt the
Jews. That's what Nazis have
always tried to do.
The Nazis recently distributed
a leaflet stating:
"We have decided to relocate in
areas heavily populated by the
,real enemy-the Jews! where
one finds the most Jews, one also
finds the most Jew-haters. With
this basic truth in mind, we are
now planning a number of street
demonstrations and even
demonstration which citizens
find offensive.
WELL, ONCE AGAIN go back
to the nature of the Holocaust and
the place where these Neo-Nazis
want to march. The entire Skokie
community forbids it and claims
the demonstration would incite
riot. One could argue that com-
munities in the South could have
prevented Martin Luther King
and his followers from marching
in the 1960s but there is a huge
difference. King desired equal
rights while Collin wants the
Jews dead. Do you see the dif-
ference?
It has also been argued that the
Skokie residents could stay home
and not walk the streets that day.
Well, how could they stay in their
homes when they know that Nazis
are marching in their own
streets? They would feel sick
even if they didn't see the demon-
straion. It is most likely they will
appear and try to stop the
demonstration. The Nazis would
be severely punishing the Skokie
residents.
We are back at the beginning.
Do we have the right to stop the
Nazis from marching and
disobey the first amendment?
Many libertarians are greatly
worried what the damage would
be if we stopped the demon-
stration. Well, I believe we must
take that chance and I don't think
it is a dangerous risk. If we can
not afford to test the firstamen-
dment and let one highly excep-
tional case be forbidden then the
amendment is not the right one.
Now, I've really committed
myself. As " journalist I have
hinted that the first amendment
to the Constitution, on which I so
desperately rely, might not be ,
'As a journalist I have hinted that the first amendment to
the Constitution, on which I so desperately rely, might not
be conclusive.'
bad precedent for the future.
"Where can we draw the line and
who decides?" is the libertarian
argument. Well, I don't think we
can draw the line in any absolute
pattern just as I don't think there
can be one select group who can
always draw that magical line.
Yet, I believe the Holocaust is
an absolute once in a lifetime
happening and stands beyond any
normal human evaluation. There
was never anything like it. Sure,
there were other civilizations,/
speeches in Evanston, Lincoln-
wood, North Shore, Morton
Grove, etc."
Members of the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) argue
that free speech should not be
denied-even in light of the fact
that there are people in Skokie
who oppose the Nazi views. One
ACLU member calls it a
"hecklers veto." ACLU members
say that if the Nazi march is
stopped the public could just as
easily stop any other public
conclusive. Way above the Con-
stitutional law is a moral law that
must rule here. The moral law
states that the American Nazi
Party, because of its proud
association with past Nazis, must
not be allowed to march in a
place where the relatives of their
former victims reside. I know it's
difficult to draw that moral law
but it must be drawn in this case.
Michael Arkush is a Daily
staff writer.
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