Traverse City Record-Eagle from Traverse City, Michigan • Page 4

Pogt 4 MONDAY, JULY 10, 1972 RECORD-EAGLE, TRAVERSE CITY, MICH. 49684 WONDER )F LOSING FACE?" Editorials and Columnists As We See It-- Return to Responsibility While the Michigan State Chamber of Commerce, as the result of studies it has made of the state public school system, recently has issued reports critical of the system's operation, several university professors have been busy performing a similar study of the nation's institutions of higher learning. Their findings, published in a book titled "Return to Responsibility," was written by Paul L. Dressei, drector of institutional research and assistant provost at Michigan State University, and William H. Faricy of the MSU institutional research staff.

They were assisted in gathering data by Philip M. Marcus, MSU professor of sociology, and F. Craig Johnson, professor of higher education at Florida State University. Dressei and his colleagues pull no punches. "Universities have lost the confidence of the public because they have ignored their social responsibilities and have demonstrated their inability to govern themselves effectively or to operate efficiently," they say.

They attribute this loss of public confidence in higher education to an unreasonable concern with institutional autonomy and academic freedom on the part of university faculty and administrators. They observe that if constraints are not applied internally, forces that may not always be enlightened to the best interests of higher education may bring them about. They believe faculty members who speak out on sensitive social issues beyond their areas of professional competence are abusing academic freedom. This can cause a serious backlash, they say, because "when the professor fiddles beyond his expertise, the public burns." It is their belief that too much autonomy has resulted in irresponsibility. To Dressei and his colleagues, teacher tenure is no sacred cow.

"Tenure can reinforce faculty irresponsibility because it permits the faculty to ignore criticism while pursuing whatever gives them the most satisfaction (It) makes the academic gown a magic cloak which can transform mice into lions Academic has too often become a haven for the opinionated, the eccentric and the disruptive." Essentially the book is a constructive effort to illustrate ways by which higher education can preserve a necessary degree of autonomy while protecting essential forms of academic freedom and meeting its obligations of service to society. They recommend planning and program budgeting under efficient management information systems as a superior means of obtaining public funds than the present hand-to-mouth methods. "The luxury of autonomy for individual institutions can no longer be tolerated," they say. "In the present day, higher education must be regarded as a state and a national resource and must be coordinated and controlled so as to fulfill the needs of society." Their opinions are not likely to generate happiness among educators, but taxpayers are likely to approve. --David Averill Youth And Humor By Erma Bombeck Telling my kids a joke is like tickling Jane Fonda with an Indian feather.

They sit there like a mask of tragedy with a migraine and demand, "What's so funny about that!" To me, it is rather frightening to imagine that if a poll were taken tomorrow among our young people, their favorite humorists would be Dan Rather and Pauline Frederick. My husband says I am an alarmist. He says voun cr people do too laugh. They are just a little more serious and involved in current affairs. To prove a point, he collared one of our sons the other night and snickered, "Hey, son, why does a chicken cross the road?" "Who wants to know?" asked my son, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"This isn't a question on the last census, is'it?" "Of course not," said my husband. "What kind of a chicken is it?" he continued. "That's not important." "Ralph Nader thinks chickens are important. He did an investigation that proved. "This has" nothing to do with Ralph Nader.

It 3 this a Polish asked, "Because if it is, ethnic humor isn't. "It is not a Polish chicken," said his father patiently. "Well to begin with, it's against the law to let a chicken run loose. "For crying out "In the second place, the chicken would never get across the road. Statistics show there were more highway deaths last "Will you stop being so serious about a lousy chicken?" "shouted his father.

"You'd be serious, too," he said, "if you were a poultry grower. Do you know chickens are cheaper than lunch meat? It hardly pays to grow them "Look," said his father, "The chicken is nothing special It was raised to be diseased, 'and dumb enough to cross the road just for the sake of the joke. Now, why' would he cross the road?" Our son shrugged his shoulders. "To get to the other side," said his father; slapping him on the back. "Are you saying that the chicken is abiding and abetting the enemy by defecting to another power?" His father slumped'in a chair and buried ras head in his hands.

"You don't have to get so uptight about a chicken you don't even know, Dad. Just come on and tell me the tnd of the joke." Foreign News I By PHIL NEWSOM UPI Foreign News Analyst Window on the World China Air Link: Several international airlines are working behind the scenes to re-establish commercial air routes between Japan and China. -But Japanese sources say that Peking has shown little interest in opening its air corridors to flights from Tokyo. Marshall Green, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, flew direct from Shanghai to Tokyo after the Nixon-Chou talks in February.

Green's trip was the first direct flight between China and Japan in about 22 years. The Japan-China sea and air routes once were the busiest in Asia. Korean Solution: Now that Asia has caught its breath, it becomes clearer and clearer that the strongest initiative for the' bombshell North-South Korea agreement to seek peaceful unification came from the Seoul government. President Park Chung Hee faces many economic and political difficulties. He'd sincerely like to cut the budget for maintaining more than half a million men in the armed forces better to deal with his civilian home front problems, Further, there is the specter, of Japan i i domination again--this time with yen rather than bullets.

Japanese investment has mounted to $750 million in government and private loans and $129 million in private investments. Tanaka Takes Over: Despite a lot of wishful thinking among the Japanese that things will be better now that Kakuei Tanaka has taken over as prime minister, don't expect any startling changes. The 54-year-old Tanaka after all is BIG BUSINESS. Japan will continue its reliance upon the United' States; it is doubtful Japan will cut the ground from under Taiwan and the rich Japanese investment and trade there; and there is little hope of any startling improvement in relations between China and Japan. Arms for Iran: Britain hopes to get several hundred million dollars in arms orders from Iran over the next year or so.

Officials predict this will be a direct result" of the recent four-day visit--described officially here as the shah. Among items the government hopes to sell Iran are laser-directed range-finders for the Chieftain tanks already bought by tactical and close support aircraft, i a ground-to-air missiles. The shah also told the British government he has decided to buy three Angl(French Concorde supersonic airliners. The refused to estimate the total cost of his arms purchases but he said they will "contribute fairly well to Britain's balance of payments in the next few years." PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR HEART IS IN AMERICA Sign up for U.S. Savings Bonds Now Freedom Shares 'The Gut Issue By Sylvia Porter gut issue is going to be the pockotbook issue." This inelegantly phrased judgment of AFL-CIO president George Meany turned out to be a spectacularly accurate forecast of the 1970 elections; it could turn out even more so in 1972.

And by "pocketbook," Meany wasn't referring to the fancy economics which will befuddle many of the raucous sessions of the Democrats here this week--the ranking of national priorities, redistribution of our incomes, tax reform, minimum income grants. For to the vast majority of Americans, the pocketbook issue is your paycheck and your cost of living--about as unfancy and as close fo the reality of everyday living as you can get. How, then, does the pocketbook issue shape up--after almost four years.with a Republican in the White House? This is how: you are a typical U.S. worker, your gross weekly earnings are now up to an all-time average of $133.21 'against $110.33 when Nixon became president in January 1969. That's a hefty increase of $22.38 a week, or 20.7 per cent.

But in real dollars--meaning after adjustment for increases in consumer prices since the base period of 1967--your pay has risen from $103.40 at the start of the Nixon administration to S106.82 now. That's an improvement of only $3.42, or a mere 3.3 per cent in nearly four years. That averages out to a picayune yearly gain of less than 1 per cent If you're a typical married worker with three dependents, your spendable weekly earnings--average pay after deduction for federal income and Social Security taxes--is a record $118.77 against $96.74 at the beginning of '69, an increase of $22.03, or 22.3 per cent. But your real spendable earnings the purchasing power of your after-tax dollars--is up from $90.67 to $95.25. Your real gain in this entire span has been only S4.57, a modest 5 per cent.

"if you're a typical worker with no dependents, your spendable weekly pay is up to $109.47, a full $21.26 over your spendable earnings in '69. But, once again, your real spendable earnings have risen only $5.49 in almost four years to a total of $87.79, an increase of 6.7 per cent. This is the sort of breakdown which dramatizes more than thousands of words why so many millions of voters feel they have been in a never- ending squeeze--despite Nixon's assurances that if elected in 1968, he would bring back economic stability in the U.S. This is the reason, expressed in simple statistics, why so many Americans are deeply dissatisfied with the way our economy h-ss been'performing since the Vietnam escalation began in 1965 and helped to transform what had been a magnificently functioning economy into a nightmare of inflation. And by themselves, these few figures underline the extent to which inflation has--under the GOP as under the Democrats--continued to make a mockery out of the apparent rise in our.incomes.

No amount of rhetoric by anyone can hide this. But. what about the record since Nixon "adopted" the Democrats' policies and shifted to price- wage controls in August 1971? In real pay, the worker with three dependents has gained 2.2 per cent in the past 11 months in comparison, with a gain of 2.8 per cent in the 30 Nixon- months preceding wage-price controls. An improvement but hardly great. In real pay, the single worker has gained 2 per cent in these 11 months of wage-price freeze and then controls, against a rise of 4.6 per cent in the much longer pre-control period.

Scarcely an improvement to shout about. Of course, the pocketbook issue is not cut- and-dried and it couldn't ever be in a nation so diverse as ours. But at this kickoff date for the '72 campaign, it's shaping up on the side of those who can criticize and claim they could have and would have done far better. In economic terms, the Nixon administration cf 1969-73 divides into two distinct eras--pre-controls to August 1971 and post-controls since then. Here is the rise in both spans of the real pay of the married breadwinner and the single worker.

SPAN MARRIED 4- 2.2% 5.0% SINGLE 4- 4.6% 2.0% 4- 6.6% Scenario For Convention by Art Buchwald Everyone has his own scenario for this week's Democratic National Convention. The way things have been going with the party, one scenario has as much validity as the next. This is the one that I have written and if it comes true, remember, you read here. It is fourth day of the convention and the Democrats have been unable to decide on a presidential candidate, fight to seat delegations has taken up three days and those people who were ruled ineligible have refused to give up their seats to those who were officially designated as delegates to the convention. Almost every state delegation has two people sitting in every chair.

No one dares leave the floor for fear that someone will grab his seat. When someone tries to speak he is hooted down by the opposition faction. Larry O'Brien, the chairman of the party, has the podium ringed with the National Guard so no one can grab the microphone. The nomination speeches have not been heard, but the candidates have been nominated -McGovern, Humphrey, Wallace, Chisholm, Jackson and Muskie. There have been no demonstrations for the candidates in the hall because everyone is afraid if he gets up and marches they won't let him back in his section again.

On the first ballot McGovern picked up 1,234 votes, well shy of the 1,509 he needed. The rest were split between the other candidates with the uncommitted refusing to vote for anyone. The second and third ballot found no one budging. By the tenth ballot of Wednesday's all-' night session, the convention was hopelessly deadlocked. The state delegations caucused right on the floor, trying to get people to change their minds.

But it was impossible. On NBC, John Chancellor and David Brinkley became short- lempered and refused to talk to each other. Howard K. Smith and Harry Reasoner on ABC were also not speaking to each other, and on CBS, Walter Cronkite wasn't talking to himself. It was obvious to everyone in and out of the convention hall that a compromise candidate had to be found one who had not already been nominated.

But who? The Democratic Party leaders call a recess be- ind the podium. They argue and thrash it out for several hours. The only man whose name is proposed as the compromise candidate is a very famous, but controversial, figure on the American scene. He has announced many times that he is not a candidate for the presidency or the vice presidency, and has said under no conditions would he accept a draft. Yet, the leaders argue he is the one person who can save the party.

This young man, whose name had been associated with a very embarrassing incident, is a household word now. Because of the deadlock at the convention, he is the only one who can possibly beat Nixon in November. The compromise candidate is not at the convention. He has purposely stayed away so people would believe he was not interested in the nomination. O'Brien puts in a call to him.

Everyone, in gets on the phone and tells him he has to be the candidate. The compromise candidate speaks to George McGovern, Humphrey, Muskie and Wallace. They urge him to run. The candidate finally agrees to a draft and says he will take the next plane to Miami. And that's how Bobby Fischer, the U.S.

chess champion, became the Democratic presidential nominee for 1972. Down Memory Lane THE RECORD-EAGLE Grand Traverse Herald Established fa 1858. The Record-Eagle Established in 1897. Published at 120 West Front Street every evening except Sundays and New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, at Traverse City, Michigan 49684 by the HERALD RECORD COMPANY. ROBERT A.

BATDORFF, Editor and Publisher WILLIAM SMITH, Managing Editor FRANK WATSON, News Editor GILBERT A. BOGLEY, Advertising Manager GRAHAM KEEVIL, Business Manager Second Class postage paid at Traverse. City, Michigan TELEPHONES ALL DEPARTMENTS 946-2000 MEMBER: Michigan Press Association Inland Daily Press Association American Newspaper Publishers Association MEMBER AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATION 25 Years Ago Mrs. Fred Meckel has returned to her Bay Shore home -after spending the winter months in California. Miss Geraldine Atkinson will be graduated with honors next week from the nursing school, Butterworth G-ra Rapids.

She'has passed, her state board with highest mark of those from her class: Dr. and Mrs. E. F. Sladek have returned from Washington, D.C., and Atlantic City, where Dr.

Sladek attended the meetings of the American Proto- logical Society in which he was elected to membership by the board. Miss Jane Green started her 21st season as manager of Indian Trail lodge this'week when Mrs. C. H. Smallwood opened the lodge with a bridge luncheon.

15 Years Ago Traverse City will gain added recognition as the nation's cherry capital this Thursday afternoon, when a special historical marker, will be unveiled and dedicated in Clinch Park at 12:30 p.m. The marker, one of a number of such tablets auth- orized by the Michigan legislature and 'the' Michigan Historical will-recall the days of the voyaguers and fur- traders missionaries in northwestern Michigan and wfll trace development of the nation's cherry capital. A group Of Traverse City Bojy Scouts was on hand Saturday afternoon when roll was. called for the start of a. trip to Valley Forge, where the National Boy Scout Jamboree will get under way this week.

They are William Martinek. John Summerville, Mike Linger, Curtis Frook, -Mike Merrill, Chum Schrotenboer, James Frasier and Willard Wilcox: And leaders Harvey Montgomery afid Tony Wilhelm..