pwm - ---Mmp ARE- 1-1;: THE MICHIGAN DAILY F.. 4~ 4lo Page Ten THE MICHIGAN DAILY Thursday, February 7, 1957 T rI tt GeUahU) rUi~LJ nr E 195'7.. i nursaay rearuciry i 1 7 _ - - THE POLITICAL SCENE A Tribute to the State Politicul Science Courses Naively Ignore Dirtier Aspects The 'Michigan' Has Played Significant Parts in an Assa; Training of Troops and Peacetime Work By JAMES DYGERT IT CAN be said, and has been, that the only thing dirtier than' business is politics. Unfortunately, one does not learn this fact in school. The political science course is primar- ily designed to acquaint the stu- dent with the theories involved in government, the laws that sup- posedly govern governments, and the intricate organizational de- tails through which they operate. The democratic form of govern- ment, of course, is emphasized. Predictably enough, very few political science students become politicians. This is mostly because hardly anything they learn in political science is applicable to politics. Paradoxial? Yes. It's paradoxical that a science exhi- bits such little knowledge of its subject matter. ; SUPPOSEDLY, a study such as political science is not neces- sarily intended to produce re- sourceful politicians, but is con- sidered successful if it merely im- parts to its students information sufficient to guide him through the complexities of being a voter and contribute in part to his gen- eral understanding of life's vital processes. Even in these goals, political science is an incredible failure. In order to vote wisely, one must be able to see through the subterfuges, hypocrisies and mo- tives that lie behind issues and candidates. One must also know the possible ways to fortune an office holder can find in his pub- lic trust in order to eliminate ei- ther the ways or the office hold- ers who find them. rswm. CRACKING THE BOOKS .. .no path to paradoxes, special interest groups In order to understand that vi- tal part of life known as politics, one must be aware that there are only few exceptions to the general rule that men in politics are there only to advance their own interests. If all they want is fame, there's comparatively little danger. But these, too, are few. With most of them, it's a case of money seeming greener on the other side of the law, either civil or moral. Political science shrugs off this phenomenon with a paragraph or two on special interest groups, all very theoretical. THE NEXT paradox is that few politicians think about theory, let alone write their own speech- es. The rhetoric is just that. In fact, this writer would stake his income for the next ten years on the proposition that if a poll were taken, it would show that less than 20 per cent of them know what the word means. It's not your principles that matter, but how many hands you can shake, what connections you have and how you reward support., Ask Andrew Jackson, if you know a good spiritualist. He came right out in the open with his patronage system. That was a long time ago, too long ago for today to remember, evidently; be- cause there seem to be few people around who realize that almost all those who are -active in poli- tics are working primarily for that job or favor they'll get if their side wins. Even to think of power poli- tics only in terms of special inter- est groups, whether they be dairy lobbies or sovereign nations, is to be superficial. Most politicians are not as interested in what they car do for their special interest groups as they are in what their special interest groups can do for them. It's extremely difficult to ac- cept that political science in any way contributes to a fuller un- derstanding of mankind when it remains so obvious to the reali- ties of politics. Perhaps the pro- fessors know better; but if so, they're not letting on. WHAT ARE the realities of poli- tics? There have been many national scandals, which anyone with a conversational knowledge of his- tory can recall. The most recent' fad is the defense contract. Fur- thermore, it would take a person with supernatural naivete to be- lieve that those scandals which have been uncovered exhaust the facts. There are also plentiful oppor- tunities for curruption on the The Better Haircuts you eXpect, you will always get at- 715 North University state level. Just before last No- vember's election, the Republican Party of Illinois was embarrassed by the discovery that its state treasurer had found a way to benefit from high taxes. Illinois Democrats, joyous and smug over this windfall of campaign mater- ial, were all the more chagrined when some corruption of their own was exposed in Cook Coun- ty. It's all too obvious that there is little protection against collabora- tion between government officials and the private concerns with which they must do business. Some samples: road builders can use inferior materials, saving ten times as much as they pay offi- cials to overlook the shortcom- ings; an official whose election was won on extensive financial help from a certain businessman can hardly turn down that man's business, regardless of price; state owned land can be sold at low prices, so that officials can 'secret- ly share in the profit when resold at market value. Not only are these possible, but they have been done; and they are but a micro- - scopic sampling of the possibility ties. FFME are the same opportuni- ties in local governments. Building inspectors can poeket ' tidy sums by ignoring building code violations which save big- time developers hundreds of dol- lars per house. And so on. It's bad enough that men whom the voters elect betray their trusts. Very often, because of numerous vote fraud methods and even strong-arm tactics that still ex- ist, the man the people want is defeated. Throw in the political machines and the one-party sys- tems in certain parts of the United States, and the democrat- ic cystem begins to seem some- what undemocratic. O course, there are some hon- est men in politics; but it's quite a task to determine who they are. Too often the ones who seem most honest turn out to be our biggest mistakes. The wisest ap- proach is keep a steady eye on all of them, even though none of us has time for that. This is not to say that nothing good comes from politics. On the contrary, politicians are forced to turn out good things periodically in order to save their hides from other politicians. And even the ones that are dishonest and cor- rupt- are not completely so. It's See A LOOK, Page 22 By RICHARD SNYDER Daily Staff Writer WITH Michigan anxiously anti- cipating the St. Lawrence Seaway completion, residents of the state are again taking an interest' in the Great Lakes. There, is something intangibly fascinating about the history of naval power-a wealth of human associations and some of the sig- nificant episodes of this country's development are revealed in such slogans as "Remember the Maine" and "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" The Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria brought Columbus to his "mistaken discovery" of Amer- ica, the country which has wit- nessed the spectacular battle be- tween the Monitor and the Merri- mac, the tragic first run of the Titantic, the launching of the At- lantic's xecord-breaking United Etates, the initial test of the Nautilus, and all the drama in the sinking of the Andrea Doria. Few Michiganders know, how- ever, the State's contribution-if only by lending its name-to the development of United States Naval power. A side-wheel steamer and a lake steamer bearing the namesake of the Wolverine State have played significant parts in events from the assassination of Mormon King Strang to the train-, ing of more than 10,000 Navy pilots who saw action in World War II. While modern seagoing vessels make Michigan's namesakes ap- pear like rowboats, few ships before or since have been involved in events as intriguing and impor- tant. THE waters of the Great Lakes rose a little higher in 1843 with christening of the Navy's first iron man-'o-war-the start of a new and glorious future for Navy pioneers and initial appearance of the State's name on a Navy ship. After a series of diplomatic charges and countercharges, the USS Michigan was launched into a generally peaceful career, only interrupted by two dramatic inci- dents, but two of the most exciting incidents in Navy history. The Great Lakes had long been acknowledged by both Britain and Americans as crucial in controling the western region of the North American continent. Great Britain used the War of 1812 to press for naval domination of the Lakes and succeeded in seizing many strategic positions around them, including Detroit. Following Commodore Perry's successful challenge to the British, peace was restored with the Treaty of Ghent on the basis of the pre- War geographical status. Hoping to prevent any future contests for Great Lakes military supremacy, James Monroe began negotiations between the United States and Great Britain leading to the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817. monious boundary settlements,,1 several strains involving disarm-1 aments arose during its infancy. One of strains produced the1 Michigan. Overt rebellion in1830's Canada prompted the British toa send armed vessels into the Lakes,l violating the Rush-Bagot rulinga of a single vessel of 100 tons ljmit, armed with one 18-pound gun. The Royal Government contin- ued to send heavy troop enforce- ments into the area, and Ameri- can public opinion finally pro- voked Congress into passing the Fortification Act of 1841, giving the President authority to con- struct and fit out war vessels on the Lakes. AS well as providing the BritishI picturesque demonstration of+ Americaninterest in Great Lakes naval armament, the USS Michi- gan became the Navy's first iron ship and the first iron vessel of any kind in the Upper Lakes. Since the inevitability of iron ships had not yet been generally accepted in the, world, the man- 'o-war was referred to for a gen- eration as the "Iron Ship" or the "Iron Steamer." At the time the Michigan was launched, adventuresome pioneers from this country and Canada were disputing each other's land claims in utopia-like Oregon ter- ritory. The War of 1812 had ended with no definite solution to the problem of ownership of this large area in the Northwest. And when Russia withdrew her., discovery claims in 1824, the United States and Great Britain were left as sole protagonists in the fight to grab additional land on the grow- ing American continent. Though war appeared on the horizon in 1844 with chants of "Fifty-four forty or fight," the launching of the Michigan was one of the factors involved in the eventual easing of tensions which resulted in the boundary compro- mise on the 49-degree parallel. In July, 1844, while the boun- daries of the Oregon territory were being negotiated, the British pro- tested against the Michigan's arm- ament fittings. The Secretary of the Navy replied that the two eight-inch guns and the four 32- pounders on the Michigan, and the United States' consequent vio- lation of the Rush-Bagot Agree- ment, had been justified on the basis of the British violation of the same agreement. The armament was ultimately reduced to several small guns, though no battle shots were fired from the Michigan be- fore or after the British protest. EIGHTEEN-fifty-six saw the re- cording of a wierd adventure in Navy annals-an episode mys- teriously ignored by Hollywood. To this date the Navy has not yet cleared itself of the possibility that several of its officers were part of a plot ending in the mur- der of an American citizen. Nine years before the melodra- matic episode, James J. Strang had seen the revelation of "a land amidst wide waters and led the movement of a Mormon colony from outside Burlington, Vermont, to Big Beaver Island on the north- ern end of Lake Michigan. St. James, as Strang came to be known, had convinced hundreds of gullible "saints" he was the right- ful successor to Prophet Joseph Smith, who had been killed by a seething Illinois mob. By 1949, enough Mormons had migrated to Big Beaver to found the town of St. James around the shores of the Island s Paradise Bay. Here St. James was later crowned "King of the Earth" be- fore 400 stunned spectators. Here also he pronounced his famous revelation of God's will command- ing the establishment of poly- gamy; and, with dash and flour- ish, proclaimed himself the first beneficiary of the new order. AS the community grew, hostility also grew between the King- dom and residents of such main- land towns as Pine River, now known as the resort city of Char- levoix. Other citizens began to wonder how long the United States See THE RECORD, Page 17 ORIGINAL ' ... a link between It4 C~AN K G/' . I W BOKS You will find our store spe- cially equipped to supply you with LAW case books and Supplies. 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