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May 19, 1981 - Image 3

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Publication:
Michigan Daily, 1981-05-19

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The Michigan Daily-Tuesday, May 19, 1981-Page 3

I

Proposal A vote

DETROIT (UPI)-Gov. William Milliken wrapped
up the Proposal A tax campaign yesterday with his
traditional last stop at J.L. Hudson's downtown store,
shaking hands, signing autographs and taking kisses
on the cheek.
The tax cut proposal will be voted on today.
"I'M DOWN here as a last minute effort to gather
support," Milliken said. "I think it's going to be a
very close race .. it's going to be a toss-up."
Proposal A would cut local property and income
levies in half and raise the state sales tax to 5.5 per-
cent from 4 percent. the State would use the ad-
ditional revenue to reimburse local governments for
their losses but still suffera net shortfall of about $200
million.
h Tax-cut crusader Robert Tisch, appearing on radio

and television programs, said he will insist that
lawmakers enact tax cuts if Proposal A fails and will
push for creation of a part-time legislature if they do
not. He also vowed to launch another tax cutting
drive in 1982 regardless of today's voting outcome.
A LARGE BLOC of undecided votes-perhaps one
third of the electorate-was seen as the key factor in
this first statewide, one-issue special election on
record. Some see the vote as a test of Milliken's con-
tinuing popularity.
Backers of Proposal A were hoping for a large tur-
nout, assuming hard-core opponents will vote, but
state officials were cautious about predicting par-
ticipation levels.
For his downtown campaign, Milliken greetedf
shoppers and handed out pamphlets-with his photo

today
on the cover-that read: "Vote yourself a-tax cut
now : Vote yes May 19."
THE GOVERNOR signed a bible, a child's balloon,
and shopping bags in his last ditch effort to garner
support for the proposal, which has met considerable
opposition.
"It's a genuine and honest attempt to reduce
taxes," Milliken implored the passersby. "I'm doing
what I consider to be in the best interest of the people
of Michigan."
Milliken, kissed on the cheek by several elderly
women as he left, has finished all campaigns with a
traditional stop at Hudson's since he won the gover-
norship in 1970, said aide Robert Berg.
WHEN ASKED if the traditional stop was a
favorable omen, Milliken said, "I hope so but I don't
See MILLIKEN, Page 11

Bumming' around
for college thesis

AMHERST, Mass. (AP) - Ted Conover's
classroom was a rolling boxcar, his first big test
a fight with a drunken hobo. He fell off a train,
foraged through garbage cans for food and got
lice in his hair.
The Amherst college student rode the rails for
three and a half months, living the life of a
railroad tramp to research his senior thesis.
HE FOUND THAT IT WASN't all bad.
"There's something about jumping on a.
freight train that just feels right," said Conover,
a 23-year-old anthropology major from Denver.
"It's the feeling of the wind in your face and
the train pulling you along. I think there's some
truth to the saying that every red-blooded
American boy should hop a train."
CONOVER RODE THE RAILS for 10,(00 miles
last fall, criss-crossing the American West to
study what author John Steinbeck called "the '
fast free men."
Conover said he didn't want to "suffer in the
library" researching his thesis, so he spent a
semester observing or interviewing 460 tramps.
He estimates there are at least 18,000 hobos
living in the United States today.
"They're invisible to most of us," he noted.
"But there's a romance about tramps. They've
found something valuable that the rest of us have
missed."
BUT CONOVER ALSO discovered some un-
pleasant realities about the life of a tramp.
"I went 2 weeks without a shower once," he
said. "My friends thought it sounded romantic to
get really dirty. But when I got lice it took away a
l lot of the romance."
Conover has concluded that tramps play an
important role in society.

"THEY DEFINE OUR society," he explained.
"A person can't be great unless there's someone
who isn't great. Tramps are our (grade) Fs.
They know that in society's eyes, they've blown
it."
Most tramps, he found, are middle-aged or
elderly men who either can't or won't work. They
are loners without friends or family, bound
together by a strange mix of failure,
camadaderie, and mutual distrust.
They wander across the West and South,
avoiding the other areas of the country where
cold weather and unfriendly "city hobos" lurk.
Recently, Conover says, they have been joined
by a large influx of Vietnam veterans and
migrant farm workers.
ALTHOUGH THE TRANSISTOR radio has
replaced the lonely strains of a harmonica, a
tramp's life is pretty much the same today as it
was 100 years ago, Conover said.
They survive on food stamps, scraps
scavenged from trash bins, missions, and an oc-
casional odd job. They spend their time drinking
and sitting around campfires in sprawling
"hobo jungles" built of cardboard and discarded
tires.
Among the obstacles Conover faced were his
youth and his ignorance of the hobo's unwritten
code of conduct.
"You never ask a tramp where he's from," he
said. "But you can ask where he's going. Each
man's past is his own business."
He also learned firsthand about the perils of
life on the road.
"The tramp's greatest enemy is a tramp,"
Conover noted.

AMHERST COLLEGE STUDENT Ted Conover stands in a
railroad boxcar after spending more than three and a half months
hopping trains and living among hobos to research his senior
thesis.

REITERATES STRONG ANTI-SOVIET VIEWS:
Haig speaks at Hillsdale

By STEVE HOOK
Special to the Daily
HILLSDALE - Secretary of State Alexander Haig,
speaking at commencement ceremonies at the small,
conservative college here Saturday, sounded the
familiar Reagan administration call for a stronger
national defense and a tougher stance against the
Soviet Union and world Communism.
In his 20-minute address to the 186 graduates, their.
families, and a large regional press corps, Haig of-
fered no surprises and strayed little from the
Reagan administration's strong anti-Soviet tone.
LATER IN HIS SPEECH, Haig urged Hillsdale's
graduates to "act with a sense of humor and a brave
heart" as they begin their careers.
Haig was among friends in this small (population
8500) and serene southern Michigan community.
Long regarded as a center of conservatism, Hillsdale.

has often hosted well-known right-wing national more minutes, praising the collge's conservative
ideology, before beginning his formal address, en-
leaders. Among the frequent guests at the 1000- titled "Foreign Policy and the American Spirit."
student college has been journalist William F. There were no disturbances at Hillsdale's
Buckley, Jr., who describes Hillsdale as "one of the ceremonies, unlike Haig's commencement address
truly exciting liberal arts colleges in America;" at Syracuse last week, where he was heckled by
another visiting the school regularly in recent years protesters. A small group of about 15 demonstrators
is economist and former Treasury Secretary William occupied the entrance to the college on Hillsdale St.,
Simon, who says, "I take my hat off to the school." displaying various anti-Reagan administration
Hillsdale's president, George Charles Roche III, is posters, bearing slogans such as "Stop the Arms
well known for his views on "political and economic Race," "U.S. Out of El Salvador," and "Feed the
freedom" from government. His rapport with Poor, Not the Military Budget."
Secretary Haig, therefore, was conspicuous. "'Haig is a threat to peace," said Rev. William
Myers, offering his Lyons, Ohio church business
"MY APPEARANCE HERE IS probably the first card. "He represents the worst aspects of our
thing this institution has accepted from the federal military-industrial madness . . he's probably a
government in years,' Haig joked during his in-
troductory remarks..He spoke caxoaly for several.-. , .. . .. S. ( , A. . ., . ,. .

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