OPINION
Saturday, September 12, 1981
Page 4
The Michigan Daily,
6
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
}
Frosh, where's your hat?
Vol. XCII, No. 3
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
Improved meal services,
F OR YEARS, University dormitory
residents have been forced either
to fit hectic class and work schedules
around often inconvenient meal times,
or to simply go without eating. This
year,'however, the University housing
office seems to have demonstrated
concern and responsiveness to the
students' needs by offering a con-,
tinuous meal service at Markley.
The experimental plan is available
to anyone who has a University meal
card. If the program is successful,
housing administrators say it could be
expanded to other dormitories.
Such a move would make sense if
there is sufficient interest to merit the
expansion. As an increasing amount of
financial aid resources dry up, more
and more students are finding them-
selves in the job market.
While it is sometimes troublesome to
schedule classes around designated
meal times, scheduling work hours can
be impossible. A continuous meal plan
can help, relieve most of those
problems.
Frequently, the housing office seems
to take advantage of dorm residen-
ts-most of whom are freshpersons or
transfer students. These people, un-
familiar with Ann Arbor, turn to the
University for housing, and often find
an "if-you-don't-like-it-move-out"at-
titude. -It is refreshing to see the
housing office take an active interest in
- the welfare of the students.
The issue of hazing was brought to the
attention of nany Michigan students last
year when several members of the hockey
team were disciplined for taking part in a
bizzare hazing ritual. Subsequently, State
Representative Perry Bullard (D-Ann
Arbor) sponsored legislation which would
prohibit similar acts of hazing at all
Michigan colleges.
Replay
By
Will McLean Greeley
Hazing has occurred at the University
of Michigan since the mid-nineteenth cen-
tury, despite attempts by University of-
ficials to limit it. One such attempt oc-
curred in 1922, when the Student Council
formed the Underclass Conduct Commit-
tee. This Committee was authorized to
enforce "freshman rules"and thereby do
away with "mob hazing."
For example, freshmen were expected
to, wear a particular hat or "toque" which
would distinguish them from the upper-
classmen. The Underclass Conduct
Committee would summon before it any
alleged violators of the rules, and sit in
judgment of the accused.
In April 1922 freshman Louis Orr was
found to be in violation of several fresh-
man rules, and was ostracized by the
Freshman class, the Underclass Conduct
Committee, and the Daily.
Daily, April 25, 1922'
FRESHMAN CLASS VOTES TO
OUST ORR FROM RANKS
Resolutions stating the stand the freshman
classes of the University take on the question
of failing to observe Michigan traditions were
passed at the meeting of freshmen held
yesterday in the Natural Science auditorium
at the request of the freshman literary class.
More than 300 freshmen attended and after
a short discussion it was voted to declassify
and ostracise Louis T. Orrvthe yearling who
has refused to wear his freshman toque, this
action being followed by the following
resolutions drawn to meet all such cases
which might reoccur, reading that: In the
future all freshmen who refuse to live up to
Michigan traditions as statedaby the Student
council shall be declassified and ostracised
by their class. Second: That the Michigan
Daily be requested to publish the picture of
said violator and reasons for said action
taken, provided for in Article One.
The meeting was openedhby Vernon F.
Hillary, '23, secretary of the Coun .il, who
spoke on Michigan traditions. He stated the
case of Orr and told the freshmen that the
Student council had voted that his expulsion
be recommended. . . but that the council was
desirous of first determining the feeling of the
class concerning a man who has refused to
comply with Michigan's traditions, Hillary
then introduced R. L. Laurence, '25, who
spoke briefly on the same question and then
asked for discussion.
Immediately a dozen clamorous cries for
recognition were heard and the question was
discussed in all its points. The first speaker
attempted to, in a measure, champion Orr
and to question the methods employed in en-
forcing traditions.
Members Outraged
His efforts proved in vain, however, for the
majority were plainly of the opinion that some
action should be taken by the class as a unit to
make firm its principles and show its disap-
proval of Orr's confduct. Some were even so
outraged as to suggest a committee of mem-
bers visit Orr in order to attempt to impress
forcibly upon him their intense disapproval of
his violations of tradition.
NEXT WEEK: The Year Football was
Nearly Abolished.
Greeley is a student in the School of
Library Science. Every Saturday he will
contribute columns clipped from past
Dailies.
I
Weasel.
By Robert Lence
Those devil banks
A S IF THE whole Reagan program
. for economic recovery were not a
little unbelievable already,
Republicans in the Congress are ad-
ding a neat little fiction that makes the
whole package truly incredible.
It's the markets, they say. It's the
markets that are in league against the
president and his program; the stocks
and bond markets have some sort of
deathwish and are destroying the
country to profit themselves.
";It's time indeed," Senate Majority
Leader Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) war-
ned on Wednesday, "that the financial
markets realize that they are playing a
dangerous game." Republican leaders
in Congress are threatening to seek
restrictions on the' financial markets,
such as windfall profits taxes on in-
terest and credit controls.
The situation wouldn't be quite so
silly if the Republicans hadn't been
such ardent supporters of the markets
in the past. It was, after all, the
Republicans who won last November
after proclaiming the virtues of the
free market.
Perhaps the Republicans ought to
pay more attention to their campaign
rhetoric. The market does indeed have
something to say, and it has not been
saying great things about Reagan's
programs.
The indications are that Wall Street
is hesitant because the presidedt's plan
is inflationary. If the Republicans
really believe what they said last year
about deficit spending being a cause
for inflation, they should start hacking
away at the military budget instead of
looking for some deep dark conspiracy
of the devil banks.
CONTINUING IN OUR
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Ever since two atom bombs were detonated
over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the
people of the developed countries, in par-
ticular have been gripped by the horror of
death through nuclear annihilation. The ex-
pectation of atomic war receded after the
Cuban missile crisis of October, 1962, but
nuclear anxiety reasserted itself a decade
later in a "peaceful" variant: general fear of
the long-term effects of radiation produced by
power plants or other non-military nuclear
uses.
Now the full horror appears to be reviving
fast through the neutron bomb controversy.
INDEED, NOT since 1962 Was there been
such widespread concern that nuclear war
may once again be possible. The concern is
evident on both sides of the Atlantic, but it is
most acute in Western Europe, where the op-
position to nuclear power plants of the 1970s is
shifting quickly into an anti-war movement
of significant proportions.
The neutron bomb has therefore become a
watershed issue. The Reagan administration
views it-as a vital counterweight to the huge
Soviet force in East Germany. Its opponents
view its deployment as a Rubicon which, if
finally crossed, could mean the possibility of
nuclear war in Europe-and more especially,
nuclear war on the soil of the two Germanys.
This fear must be understood in the context
of the virtual absence of such anxieties for the
past 20 years or more. Caught up in the general
march of postwar peace and prosperity,
Europeans paid scant attention to the danger
of another violent conflict on their own lands.
WHAT MOST assured them was the feeling
that Europe played a special role in the
strategic thinking of the superpowers. War in
Europe was regarded by the Soviets as a
mortal threat to their existence, and by the
Americans as certain grounds for full-fledged
escalation. In other words, such conflict
would be virtually tentamount to all-out
nuclear war. The nuclear deterrent protec-
ting the United States and the Soviet Union
covered all of Europe, as well.
By the end of the 1970s, however, the boom
bubble had burst in Western Europe, Poland
was moving toward economic collapse and
social revolution-and the special role was
apparently crumbling. InEastern Europe,
the Soviets promoted a massive military
buildup. Warsaw Pact forces, studded with
By Franz Schurmann
IN SHORT, Europeans increasingly fear
that it may finally be their turn, after Korea
and ,.Vietnam, to become the arena of a
"limited war," this time involving nuclear as
well as conventional weapons. Hence the
renewed sense of horror occasioned by
President Reagan's decision to produce the
neutron bomb.
There is no question but that a fundamental
shift in strategic thinking has taken place in
Washington, and much of its roots lie in
Schlesinger's tenure at the Defense Depar-
tment, where he argued for just such a
strategy: Europe would simply have to
assume its place in the world like any other
region, with no-special role or shock proof
protection. The West European leaders had
vastly preferred Henry Kissinger, who made
it quite clear that he thought Europe was a
very special place.
Were it not for the Middle Eastern political
volcanoes, Western Europe. might even
welcome seeing the special relationship
wither away. It is no longer of economic
benefit to them, and many believe Europe can
best serve as an intermediary between the
two superpowers.
BUT NO EUROPEAN leader can ignore the
fact that the place most likely to witness
another proxy war between the United States
and the Soviet Union is the Middle East.
There it might well be virtually impossible for
Europe to stay unscathed and uninvolved, as,
it did in Korea and Vietnam.
On their part, American officials are
determined never again to get into a limited
war which directly involves the United States,
but only indirectly the Soviet Union. Yet the
new global strategy of the Reagan ad-
ministration, based on the irreversible
dependence of the United States on foreign
raw materials-chiefly Middle Eastern
oil-makes another Korea or Vietnam
possible. This time, however, the White House
has-let it be known that if the Soviets make a
move, even indirectly, Washington would
reserve the option of striking back elsewhere.
Where that elsewhere is has just been made
dramatically clear over the Libyan Gulf of
Sidra. With sizeable U.S. and Soviet fleets
crisscrossing the Mediterranean day'after
day, it is there that the fiat direct U.S.-Soviet
clash could most likely occur. And that clash
in turn could very well set off the nuclear.
"trip wire" in Europe.
Beyond Europe, Japan, the Soviet Union,
the United States and a few other countries,
however, there appears to be much less of the
renewed horror about nuclear war. In much
of the world, the holocausts still come in con-
ventional ways: bombs, bullets, bayonets,
and the bashing of heads.
An end to nukes would not mean an end to
war, but an end to a kind of war that par-
ticularly threatens the Western nations. In
fact, there are only two theaters of operation
in which the proposed neutron weapons could
effectively be used: the rolling hills of Ger-
many and the expanses of the Sino-Soviet
frontier. For only there would the neutron
weapdn serve its intended purpose: inflicting
radioactive death on tank crews in large-
scale land battles.
Many people hope that the present war
fever might be a prelude to new arms accor-
ds, as in the past. From 1960 to 1980, such ac-
cords effectively reaffirmed Europe's san-
ctuary status while leaving the way open for
conflicts elsewhere. Now the Reagan Ad-
ministration appears to be saying: never-
more. This time it is either a comprehensive
global accord or nothing.
If it-is the latter, then Europe could be in
real danger of being directly dragged into the
world's next "limited war"-or worse.
Schurmann is a professor of Sociology
and History at the University of Califor-
nia at Berkeley and is author of the Logic
of World Power. He wrote this article for
Pacific News Service.
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