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. . ., . ,. .