Volume 8 - Issue 1

vol.

~

1\..o.

1

Volume eight, number one October 1, 1974

.•

The New Journal/ October 1, 1974 I 2

comment ____ Volume eight, number one David Sleeper Editor-in-Chief Daniel Denton Executiue Editor Stephen Sternbach Managing Editor Marla Schay Designer Tammy Jacoby Production Editor Michael Jacobson Associate Editor

Get that building off our back "The University doesn't seem to care until it would be embarassing not to.

Is a safe place to work too much to ask ? --Anne Maginnis, Art Library staff meJI?.ber.

"Yes, I'm bitter. I thought I might go blind. But we're starting to see things moue at last. "--Robert Kaufmann, Art Librarian.

"I am an architect. (pause] I suppose I don't need to comment on these problems." -~Paul Rudolph, architect.

In the Art & Architecture Building discontent has given way to a quiet sense of danger. Workers wearing Nancy Olcott masks and respirators will begin ripCirculation Manager ping out the asbestos ceilings that Ann Sprunt have rained down fibers for a decade.

Photography The old orange rugs will be destroyed. Each book in the basement liStaff: Naemi Stilman Larry Yang brary will be vacuum-cleaned and shuffled to the Cross Campus LiContributing Editors: Ron Roel, Stu Rohrer, brary for the year. The building is Steve Weisman, Daniel Yergin not safe.

I .

To the users of the building, parCredits: Dan Denton: P4ge 2 ticularly the librarians, news of the Tammy Jacoby: page 6 hazards came as no surprise. That Frank Martin: page 12 Marla Schay:cover the University would try so hard to Ann Sprunt: pages 4,10 remove them did, however, and the Naemi Stilman: page 9 story of that decision is complex. It Yale Daily News:pages 4,5,7,8 involves a Yale doctor who was Yale News Service: page 3 asked by superiors to "cease and desist" the investigation that actually brought the hazards to light. It involves university officials who knew remarkably little about a building that has plagued them from the The New Journal wishes to extend special thank s to Ed Woodhouse, Eli Spielman, and day it opened. And it centers around The Yale Daily News. the workers in the building and the years of complaints that seem now Unsolicited manuscripts welcome. The Ne w like a fever finally breaking.

Journal reserves the right to edit for clarity and length and does not necessarily agree The story began in 1963 when Paul with opinions expressed by the author.

Rudolph, the architect of the A & A building, had asbestos blown onto .1 The New Journal is published by The New Journal at Yale, Inc., 3432 Yale Station, some 70,000 square feet of ceiling New Haven, Conn. 06520,and is printed at during the final stages of construcTrumbull Printing Co. in Trumbull, Conn. tion. The snowy texture was quite Distributed free to the Yale .community. For fashionable then. That the ceilings all o t hers, s ubscription rate $7.50 per year.

Copyright © 1974 by The New Journal at Yale, had not been approved by the design Inc., a non-profit organization. Phone 432...0271. committee did not matter, for as Steve Ballou Business Manager

comment: Daniel Denton explores the perils of the Art and Architecture building; Emily Leamon takes a jaundiced look at the world's largest condensing mill.

3 After the Right On's David Sleeper and Patrick Hamilt on an interview with William Sloane Coffin 6 Blue Collar and the Old Blue Peter Kaufmann an analysis of Yale's union-management relations 9 Finding the Fluid Middle Carla Solomon and Stephen Sternbaeh the problems faced by Student-to-Srudent Counseling 12 Wayward Journey Alan Strasser a review of the autobiography of William 0. Douglas

relief for the library'!

The impetus came from two men who possess strong doses of irrever· ence--Robert Kaufmann and Dr. Robert Sawyer, a physician at the Yale Health Servicesr. Kaufmann, in a!1 emotional way, and Sawyer in a scientific way, made the potential dangers of the building seem suddenly real. · "I'm basically a pushy, bitchy New Yorker," says Kaufmann, "and I just didn't give up when I saw that my eyesight might be at stake."

Kaufmann is actually a mild Alabaman who describes anger as "havDean of the Architecture School Ruing your ass on your shoulders." He dolph enjoyed the double role of has lately come to know the feeling client and architect. Alvin Eisenwell. man, a member of that committee, Last July, Dr. Sawyer ordered remembers Rudolph as "a very Kaufmann to leave his library. An powerful man, a man who thought eye injury Kaufmann had received that middle class concerns like build- away from work was failing to heal, ing codes were holding back his artis- and he had begun to awake in the tic ambitions." Rudolph says he morning wjt;h his eye dry and painknew nothing of the dangers of the ful. When h~ would open his eye the fiber then. "I liked the look of it," he surface tissue of his eyelid would says and has reportedly compared it tear. Yale physicians examined his to "clouds in the sky." eyes and foqnd what they thought might be asbestos fibers. A biopsy By 1970 some states had out· lawed asbestos ceilings and the sample was scraped from Kaufpeople upon whom Rudolph's clouds mann's eye and sent to New York's Mt. Sinai Hospital for electron mi· were raining began to worry.

The University decided to remedy croscopy. No word has come yet, but the problem by painting the asbestos if the.biopsy reveals asbestos Kaufwith a latex sealer. This solution mann may sue the University.

Three other staff members have seems to have succeeded only in been experiencing conjunctivitis, an making the ceiling coarser and the irritation of the mucous membrane of fibers heavier--mor-e prone to fall. the eye. But since Kaufmann's prob· To the staff of the library the feelem is more serious, they remain in ble remedy was nothing new. It fit the building. Kaufmann, who has into a larger pattern of frustrations, been directing the staff by telephone, of piecemeal attempts to make the has visited only once since July-building liveable. The water had never been good-·"lt was the color of wearing plastic goggles. " I'm sure they feel as if I've dechicken bullion, " says Anne Maginnis, and the staff resorted to buying serted them," says Kaufmann. Al· their own water. During the summer, though Kaufmann's separation librarians suffered nausea and head· caused difficulties in communication aches, symptoms qf heat stress. Jn throughout the summer, only after the winter, temperatures would reach the University announced its plans ten degrees below the minimum estab- did the anxiety of some staff mem· hers become intense. lished by state law: 68 degrees.

The University had been treating " The asbestos will be flying soon," some of these inadequacies on the says Sonja Bay, another librarian. higher floors of the building. A mas"They expect us to go on working as sive fire in 1969 had provided the usual--how naive can they be?" necessity and the means--$800,000 Kaufmann's misfortune became a insurance payment--for renovation, graphic focus for the staff's disconand a number of problems were cortent, and it raised their complaints to rected in the process. The University a pitch that could not be ignored. spent at least another $200,000 in But the main impetus for relief came repairs on a building that, according on August 20 from Dr. Sawyer in a to John Embersits, Director of Uru· 16-page report that did what should versity Operations, "was not dehave been done long before--it fully signed with function in mind " documented the hazards of.the build· ·Conditions m the library impfoved ing, cited the law, and made s~ific little and the staff continued to send recommendations. . furious memoranda to the library " Very little was really known about the building," says Sawyer. administration. Eventuallv many resigned themselves to the tacts and "In view of all the complaints--if learned to joke about the water and . they burned them they could heat the heat and the falling dust. the building for the winter--the ignorThen why the sudden barrage of (continued on page 15)

1

~ I

•

After the Right On's: an interview with William Sloane Coffin

by David Sleeper and Patrick Hamilton

ÂŤWilliam Sloane Coffin., Jr., Chaplain at Yale. Mailer had some recollection that Coffin had been arrested in the South on one civil rights affair or another, perhaps in Selma. The man was not unimpressive at all; Mailer felt a dim increase of cheer: our Yale Chaplain looked like a winner. "

'{y7_,15 NA4 B l~1't-1S: o~t-Afr, C,. J(

eum. A kind of ornery instinct of mine said, if Magruder can write a book, then dammit, Coffin, (laughs) so can you, and have something more to say.

NJ: You mentioned in your review of Magruder's book in Harpers that his writing did not mean as much to Magruder as it should have--that it might have been just another PR from The Armies of the Night, stunt. How will yours be different

by Norman Mailer from that?

Coffin: I think Jeb, as I said, wrote too fast. It was ghost written After a year long sabbatical in and he had to get it done before he California, William Sloane Coffin went to jail to get that money for his is back at Yale--and back to stay. family and all. I'm not under that For Coffin it was more than a year same pressure. So I hope I '11 take a of relaxation and reflection. It was a little more time on some of the more year in which J eb Magruder linked difficult problems. For instance, Coffin's name to the Watergate scewhat does public life do to your prinario by claiming that Coffin (his vate life? And have I engaged in former ethics teacher at Williams action as an opiate or as a stimulant?

College) had broken the law durI'm not saying it's a deeply introing peace demonstrations. Also last spective book, but I'm going to try year, Douglas Dillon, the former and write about things--well, I have a Secretary of the Treasury, offered hard time still talking about it, beCoffin a full time position with the cause I'm still a little embarassed by new Institute for World Order, an it. I think that the more personal the organization oriented toward a globbook is, the better it's going to be. al future. He considered it seriously For instance, born a WASP in New but refused.

York, I know that in my upbringing The following are largely unedited correctness in behaviour won out over honesty of feeling. But I can be remarks from a casual conversation very specific about what feelings with William Sloane Coffin over were repressed. And what about the lunch at Berkeley College. return of the repressed, did it come back? Music was a big thing in my life, it was the only place where I was NJ: What's this about your really free to express all my emowriting an autobiography? Isn't that tions. I wanted to be a concert sort of an ego trip? pianist. So, there's that kind of Coffin: Well, that's what I thing. My hope in dealing with civil thought. So I said to these several rights and the anti-war movement in publishers who were nice enough to the book is to do it rather pastorally, think I had something to say, why not just as a chronicle of events. don't you publish my sermons, after NJ: What sort of change did come all, that's my art form. They said, if over you when you became an American folk hero? Towards the end of you insist we will. We'd rather do the sixties, students would write that secondly, we want your autobiography. I said that's kind of prethings like this, from the University of sumptions isn't it? I'm not even fifty Michigan, "Combining his compasand I'm to write an autobiography as sion with his energy and unrelenting faith and conviction, he is the imif my life is some kind of Norman Mailer litmus paper through which petus for the movement to continue.

We don't need a lot of Reverend everything that is past can come out with enormous interest? They said if Coffins. But we do need at least you want to wait until you're senile one." Etc. Etc. Coffin: Go right ahead. (laughs) and write something sentimental, feel free. But we kind of hoped you'd NJ: Did you feel comfortable write something tough minded that underallthatadulation?

Coffin: Well, if you don't inhale, I talked a lot about your failures. I got always figured it wasn't too dangersort of intrigued by that. I began to ous. No, I enjoy 3000 people coming see that an honest account of how it out to hear what I have to say if was with me--with the implication being how was it with you-could be a what I have to say is important to me to say it. No, I have not suffered useful book for others, as well as unfrom a shrinking ego, I know that doubtedly a wicked form of therapy perfectly well. But that's the kind of for myself. thing that's good to write about. I NJ: Might it tum out to be just thought at the time, one, that I another Magruder book?

Coffin: I tell you, my wife and I enjoyed it; and two, that I was grateful to the government for giving me made the appointment with Mathat platform. See, you ~~_indicted, gruder to meet the head of A then-

The New Journal! October 1, 1974/4

and right away Playboy wants an interview, and then "Meet the . Press." A lovely irony, the government gives you a platform by opposing you.

On the other hand, you have to be very aware that what you say you don't just say to get the right on's.

And writing about this period is going to be difficult. One of the reasons is that it's very painful. For instance, we didn't listen to each other. "Right On Right On" is not listening. And passion did distort judgement to an enormous degree.

People, as I used to say, hated evil more than they loved the good, so they ended up damn good haters.

The interesting thing is you really only find out how much you enjoyed it when you lose it. Where I used to go I'd get two or three thousand people out there. Now, no one has even heard of Coffin. That's good experience--I don't say I like it, but it's chastening. I don't think I ever had the problem of needing a public to maintain my identity. That was a problem in the peace movement.

NJ: Did you ever feel trapped by your role?

Coffin: I never thought I was under any pressure to say things I didn't want to say. It just so happened that what I wanted very much to say, other people wanted to hear said--they felt the same way. I felt that my primary role was raising to a conscious level the feelings that were inherent in thousands of people. In that sense there was a role to be played.

NJ: Are you feeling too old for this sort of part today?

Coffin: I turned fifty this year. My wife said to me you went from thirtyfive to eighty-five overnight. And you know, when you reach the age of fifty you don't have to become mellow, there's no single reason in the world for anyone to become

mellow. But you ought to become more compassionate and you ought to be able to distill from a lot of experience with a little more insight, a willingness to engage in subtlety.

NJ: It's when your hair starts turning gray, you can sit back and reflect.

Coffin: No, I'm not saying you sit back. I always felt there was a kind of rhythm, you see it in the New Testament. Jesus goes up on the mountain to pray, and then he's down in the valley to heal; he's back off by himself reflecting, and then he's in the Garden of Gethsemane getting arrested, and then he's hanged in the most public place. But there's an engagement-detachment rhythm to life which I think does have to be maintained. If you don't pull out and reflect, you may simply be using action as an opiate instead of as a stimulant.

NJ: Was your sabbatical largely that?

Coffin: Oh yeah, I didn't do anything active at all except play touch football.

NJ: When you write a sermon for Chapel here--for instance your amnesty sermon--do you mean it to be religious or political?

Coffin: I think there are nonpolitical dimensions to political issues, which are a religious concern.

If you view amnesty as a political

non-political dimensions of political issues. That's why Billy Graham is ..,) not politically dangerous in the way . Jesus was. ' NJ: You said once that Nixon used to surround himself with clergymen who were "house niggers." Is that the sort of thing you mean?

Coffin: Yeah. Reverence for God entails a certain irreverence for human institutions, all human institutions, including especially the church. The faith gives you a sort of detachment. If you can say a mighty fortress is my God, and not a mighty fortress is my country, or my job, my reputation, my money, my family-then you have a kind of freedom to be critical of all kinds of human institutions and actions. But if you get somebody in the White House like Rabbi Korff or this nut McGlaughlin who are simply sprinkling holy water on every kind of unholy thought and act--that's not religious. •~ NJ: Even Billy Graham did that for a long time.

Coffin: He did. You know it's funny, I wrote Billy Graham on amnesty. I thought I could persuade him that there was something in it for Mrs. Graham a.n d the kids, to put it cynically.

NJ: Did he reply?

Coffin: Yeah. I wrote him about how I applied the biblical text of the Year Jubilee to amnesty and he

.] get very annoyed when people call me anti-intellectual because ideas have c~nged my life to an extraordinary degree. issue, purely as a political issue, then your definition is not adequate. It's a question of how justice is to be tempered with mercy? Do all laws have to be enforced simply because people can't get away with anything? Is there such a thing as the bar of history--where God's judgement and society's judgement can take place?

Now these are all sort of non-political dimensions of political issues. I think that's where the preacher comes in.

Too many people like Billy Graham say politics is over here and religion is over there. Which is to the

wrote back right away, saying he had never thought of it. Of course he wouldn't because he's a law and order man and doesn't understand grace. But we never got together. We had an appointment and then he had to break it, and then I went off to Hanoi and then I got a letter from his secretary saying Dr. Graham felt that perhaps we would both feel more free to talk after the election.

So I wrote back and said I can't believe that Dr. Graham thinks political considerations can dictate terms of interchange between two Christians. (laughs) I never heard from him again.

NJ: Are you aware of the fact that many non-believers come to hear you preach in Batten Chapel?

Coffin: In an academic community you're apt to have a lot of people who are far from willing to stand up and make a confession of faith, and that is right and proper. I think as long as one is asking the right questions one is already of the truth.

NJ: Do you mold your sermons for the non-believer, who comes only to hear your political views?

The New Journal /October 1, 1974 /5

Coffin: We have to be very cogni· :!\ zant of the fact that he doesn't feel

' one excluded, because he's a non· believer. And one way you don't make him feel excluded is by addres· sing him in a language he will under· stand, with illustrations that won't put him off. I'm always puzzled when I drive around with the radio on in the car and I hear some of these religious programs. What the guy is actually saying I'm apt to believe just as much as be does, but somehow the way it's coming out strikes me as unbelievably false. "Being washed in the blood of the lamb," let's take a phrase like that. Now that can move the hell out of me. But I would never use that phrase in Batten unless I explained it. That's the kind of response to the non· believer that's called for. Now if you get up and use straight religious Ian· guage and talk about Sin, Salvation, ~" God, Jesus Christ, you can do it in such a way that people feel not only that you're not speaking to them, but you don't care about them.

That's the problem with the God Squad here. Their use of language shows a remarkable absence of sensi· tivity. So there's certainly that type of consideration.

NJ: Are you out to convert, too? '

Coffin: It would be selfish of me not to share that which means most.

If the proper questions are being asked, and being asked with real per· sonal concern, then I'm doing my job. And I certainly don't worry that ·<iod needs for his continued exis· tence my continued proof of it. Nor do I really think it is absolutely nee· essary that people believe in God. I had a very moving final talk with Norman Thomas just before he died-he was on his deathbed, blind, arth·

ritic, he could hardly move. And I asked him, I said Big Daddy do you believe in God? And he said, well, I don't believe in that all-loving and all-powerful God your uncle Henry and Emerson Fosworth used to teach us. This was at Union Theological Seminary. And I said, don't you believe that love is self restricting when it comes to power? And he said, yeah, I guess you can go a long way.with that. And I said let's face it Big Daddy, whether or not you be· lieve in God isn't really very impor· tant. What is important is whether God believes in you. And I am pre· pared to say quite dogmatically that you are his beloved servant. And he smiled, he was right at the threshold of death, and he smiled and said, you know, that made me feel good. (laughs) And I meant it too, I wasn't playing games with the old boy. I loved that man, he was a great man.

And I meant that.

NJ: Do you feel your place is at Yale? Why didn't you take the pos· ition the Institute for World Order offered you?

Coffin: I trust instinct a lot. In· stinct didn't quite come through and say, you gotta go. That job was very tempting. This group is really com· mitted to a global future. In the next ten years people should be able to think globally. They came to me and said this is a religious vision isn't it?

I said yes it is. Isn't it true that humankind is already unified by God? they asked. And I said, that's right. So what are you doing about it? I said, well, I try and preach it, and they said no, that's not enough.

We want you to organize a whole reli· gious community in this country. We know that there must be conscious· ness raising and unless there's a spiritual dimension, a moral base·· broadly defined and generally accep· ted--then this movement is not going to get off the ground, and it probably won't anyway. But it's the right thing to do and that's why we're asking you to do it. That is a very powerful plea, you know, one that I couldn't help but respond to. I would like to think··at least for the time being--that I can do some of it and still remain at Yale. At Yale it's a terrible thing that we don't have a global studies program, that we still think in terms of international affairs instead of global affairs. Why is it that in order to feel in, we have to feel that somebody else is out? The faithful always need the infidel to confirm them in their fidelity. And Americans always need somebody over there to confirm them in their Americanism. Now if the guys from Mars would only--maybe we can just fake it a little and say they're coming from Mars-boy, then we'll have world unity like that. You can do

that, I'm going to try and do that here; if you do it at Yale, maybe we can help other people do it a bit too.

I don't like to give up the com· munity. Yale is home, and the church, I'm a churchman. I feel it very deeply, to have a church and be in a community, is something very important to me.

NJ: But why here?

Coffin: I still naively believe, maybe naively, that the saving rem· nant in this country is the univer· sity. I still believe in the education with a human face. The question is now do the humanities humanize?

Do they always humanize or do they just neutralize? And since World War II we've known that people can bum Jews to death all day long in gas chambers and go home and read Rilke and listen to the Rasumowsky quartets of Beethoven. So we can't be that optimistic that education

their knowledge and who know that loveless knowledge is ultimately triv· ial, certainly irrelevant. I think the faculty is a very repressed group, repressed and oppressed. I've been here 16 years, and that question in really sharp focus form has never been raised for the university as a whole to confront. Do the humanities still humanize?

NJ: It seems like a very commend· able goal, but how do you go about humanizing the humanities?

Coffin: Well, first of all I think that when you get somebody who passionately believes in the serious· .ness of what he's teaching that it becomes a serious enterprise to ev· erybody else. That was Staughton Lynd's big gift. Everyone knew that Staughton was personally deeply committed to what he was teaching·· and didn't insist that everyone agree with his ideas, but that everybody

I don't like to give up the community. Yale is home, and the church, well, I'm a churchman. makes people humanely literate. The fact is that the worst evils of the cen· tury have arisen in the most civilized country, in terms of the highest number of people at the universities.

So you can't automatically assume anymore that education makes people any more human. And there's lots of evidence that says it goes for gain rather than growth. I'd like to make that kind of fight here. There are enough professors here who really are deeply human, who love

more or less agreed with his ques· tions, and come to their own personal kind of conclusions.

There's also the question of what dimension you're going to teach. Are you going to teach Hawthorne with· out going into the problem of what's sin? You can. You can teach Dostoy· evsky and never really be changed by it, never even know that Raskolnikov was a heretic. I think the pressures on intellectuals are to be less intellectual and more scholarly, (continued-on page 14)

Blue Collar and the Old Blue

by Peter Kaufmann

...

..

Graduation at Yale is strictly an ivory tower affair, problems from the outside world are not supposed to intrude. But last May, in order to keep worldly problems apart from the commencement ceremonies, campus police were stationed at the gateways to the Old Campus, and tarpauli.ns were draped over the fences.

While proud parents watched sons and daughters receive Yale degrees, the chants of DON'T DICTATE! NEGOTIATE! intermingled with the solemn festivities. For the third time in as many contract negotiations, the blue collar workers of Local35 engaged Yale University in a labor dispute--this one leading to a ten week walkout.

The strike raised troubling questions about labor-management relations at Yale. At issue was--and still is--Yale's priorities in allocating its financial resources.

As the situation stands today, the 1,100 workers of Local35 (Federation of University Employees, AFL-CIO, a local of The Hotel and Restaurant Employees International) are back on the job. But therecent walkout only halted when both parties agreed to submit thirteen unresolved issues to an independent fact-finder, Eric Schmertz, who will present non-binding recommendations in mid-October to both parties.

The dispute, therefore, is hardly resolved. Subsequent negotiations will follow Schmertz's recommendations. But if bargaining does not lead to a settlement within twentyone days, or if either side refuses to extend negotiations, then the Union has the option to strike again. This means that by late November Yale may be without its workers and their services, and students may be forced to march down to McDonald's for their evening meals.

And another strike may well be imminent. Although both sides emphasize the undesireability of a walkout, they are also quick to point to the present strike trend at Yale, which, they say, constitutes a pattern difficult to break. Whatever the outcome of the labor-management dispute, the University's future will undoubtedly be affected.

1 The 1974 dispute reflects the increasingly polarized relations between the Union andY ale management. This trend, dating from the mid-1960's, is suggested in a number of indicators. Before 1968, Local35 had only struck once in its previous twenty-six years. Three consecutive strikes have followed. Also, according to Leonard Marcus, Director of Employee Relations at Yale, Union

members submitted very few formal written grievances for alleged man· agement contract violations before 1967. Since then, the number of such grievances has steadily increased.

Marcus suggests this is due to more aggressive supervision and better trained union stewards.

Before 1966, the Union generally acquiesced to the offers of management. According to Union leaders, Local 35 enjoyed a friendly rapport with Yale's former Personnel Director, George Griswold. Acquiescence has now been transformed into bitter mistrust. The Union leadership sus· pects Yale management of trying to break the union and negate its effec· tiveness.

On the other hand, representatives of management regard certain actions of Union leadership as amateur· ish.

Several factors have caused this

polarization in union-management relations. Inflation, for example, hurts Yale's ability to satisfy Union demands for higher wages. For the worker, inflation erodes compensa· tion increases negotiated in the past.

A change of Yale's management team (and approach) in the midsixties led to a more militant unionand this made it more difficult for the two parties to get along. In the 1940's, the Union was little more than a mechanism through which the University could impose contracts.

This set-up generally continued in the 50's & 60's. A lthough the wage levels were considerably below others in the New Haven labor market, the Union nevertheless acceded to the University's contract offers. Most employees worked a six day week in order to take home a moderate salary.

Then, in 1966, Yale established a

~\

' :>•

The New Journal I October 1,1974 I 7

new Department of Personnel to coordinate personnel functions and introduce modem management programs. Leonard Marcus, a labor relations professional who worked for the Inland Steel Company, was offered the job of modernizing Yale's personnel programs. John Embersits, a former Yale footbal captain and also a veteran of Inland Steel, becam&-the University's Director of Business Operations. Together, they introduced a new management concept to increase efficiency and institute reforms--"professionalizing" Yale's style as an employer. Immediately, Marcus asked the Yale Corporation to approve pay rates competitive with the New Haven labor market and a reduction in work hours as well. This was done to attract and keep competent employees who would improve the quality of Yale's work force and decrease the costly '7 need for sub-contracting. Other changes were also made. Through negotiations all jobs were divided into seventeen labor grades with prescribed bidding procedures for job changes. Management cracked down on alleged sick leave abuses. Promotions became based on ability as well as seniority. Improved job security provisions were also negotiated.

With the advent of new management at Yale, the 'union membership perceived that t~ey had an opportunity to gain long-needed improvements in wages and working conditions--but that they would have to take a tougher stand to get them. In 1968, caught between craftsmen long dissatisfied with wages and unskilled workers who wanted to keep up with their skilled fellow-workers, the unaggressive Union leadership reluctantly called a strike.

But the Union was not yet strong.

During the 1968 strike, Vincent Sirabella, then head ofLocal217F and Director of the New Haven Central Labor Council, acted as a mediator. and saw the union settle for what he considered a "sweet-heart" contract.

In 1969, the rank and file asked Sirabella to become full-time business agent of Local35.

Believing that the working man, trapped in a class system, could only improve his condition through the labor movement, Sirabella was determmed to build a strong union.

Strength, he felt, would both counter the form.idability of management a nd force Yale to fulfill his vision of .... t he university's social responsibility to New Haven 1971 marked a significant s tep forward for Sirabella and the Union.

When the issue of a possible bursary' s tudent threat to Union jobs arose, Sirabella led a strike. The Union won important contract improvements ineluding guaranteed limitations on

.

student employment and significant wage increases for the unskilled workers deprived in the 1968 settlement. But more important, the strike effected an unprecedented degree of Union solidarity over the job security issue. Union strength continued to increase; by 1974 Local 35 was able to confront management directly over major financial issues while uniformly resisting its efforts to persuade workers not to support the strike.

Another factor that has led to polarized labor-management relations is¡the clash of the personal styles of the two leaders. The â&#x20AC;˘

fessional" Marcus, pedigreed by his association with Yale, and the "charismatic" Sirabella, dedicated to combatting the establishment, do not, to put it mildly, get along. Marcus employs formal argument, formulated procedure, and tough bargaining table techniques; Sirabella tries

impose a contract on the Union.

From Sirabella's vantage point, Marcus tried to maximize his position by forcing the union to consider the University's proposals before even beginning discussion of the Union's demands. Marcus maintains that both sides had "equal time" at the bargaining table.

These differences in fundamental perspective often lead to complicated communications. Sensitive to possible union-breaking tactics, the Union's negotiating team thought Yale tried to dictate a contract that would not only have negated some provisions in the 1971 contract, but

would also have pitted incumbent workers against new employees. At the twelfth hour, Yale offered to reallocate the fixed sum in its overall proposal-an offer regarded by the Union's negotiating committee as an attempt to "buy them off" at the expense of the rank and file.

More important than the state of unionmanagement relations in the 1974 dispute are the hard financial issues involved. to use the anti-Yale emotions of New Havenites, and the political forces at Yale (students, faculty, Administration, and white-collar workers) to exert pressure against the Uhiversity. Marcus is irritated by Sirabella's flamboyant politicking; Sirabella sees Marcus as an insensitive manager who suffers from a desire for overkill. Sirabella also regards Marcus's professional techniques as attempts at clever manipulation and deception.

This clash in personal style may hinder progress at the bargaining table where the two square off. In 1974, what Marcus regarded as professional bargaining techniques Sirabella viewed as calculated efforts to

But Yale management also had its qualms. It viewed the presence of sixty-five union proposals at the bargaining table at the contract expiration date as an example of Sirabella's amateurism. Management thought that Sirabella had refused to select for fear of ali~nating some of his constituency, and that this was testimony to Sirabella's lack of guJding leadership.

2 With the possibility of future strikes, the need to find a way to

avert walkouts becomes crucial.

From labor's position, strikes demand a significant sacrifice by the low-paid worker, particularly the unskilled ones who cannot easily find alternative employment. For Yale, strikes cause disruptions in the work of the university and tie up resources for long periods to resolve the dispute and mitigate its effects. Strikes also lead to bad relations between Yale and its workers, and Yale and the community.

Representatives of the University suggest that a formula for automatically submitting labor disputes to compulsory arbitration might be necessary in the future. Binding arbitration presents certain problems.

For one, it might make labor relations at Yale more formal~ already a primary cause of their polarization.

And such a formula might confront Yale with legal problems which would result from having an outside party determine how Yale is to use its funds.

Sirabella insists that the University first communicate its acceptance and respect for a strong union before a working relationship can be established between the two parties. He does not respond positively to compulsory arbitration, perhaps fearing the union may lose its right to strike.

To alleviate tensions, one observer in the 1974 negotiations suggested that Yale make a thorough publication of its finances. This would enable the Union to make demands with a definite sense of Yale's capacity to pay, while also reassuring the workers that Yale has an important place for them on its list of priorities.

The clash between Union and management operating style raises the question of whether a change in the leadership would bri.Qg Yale and Local35 closer together. But the polarization itself is subject to different interpretations. Marcus sees the development of polarized relations as healthy--a sign of the growing maturity of the Union in perceiving and pursuing the interests of its memhers. He believes that the conflict arising from opposed interest groups who recognize each other's demands--can lead to construct. ve gains. In contrast, Sirabella thmks the polarization marks a deterioration in union-management relations-h1ghlighted by growing worker antagonisms toward the Personnel admimstration.

3 More important than the state of union-management relations m the 1974 dispute are the hard financial

â&#x20AC;˘

.

' '

,

.-

The New Journal/ October 1, 1974 /8

issues involved. The strike reveals a classic c'lnfrontation between an employer trying to maintain the status quo in the face of rising costs and dwindling assets (i.e. by preserving priorities and a balanced budget), and a union militantly striving to improve the economic position of its members in the face of overwhelming inflation. Of the thirteen unresolved issues, six are purely financial in nature. Three of these have proved the most troublesome. One involves the University's wage rates. Another, the cost of living adjustment formula (which is designed to protect wages against the effects of inflation). The third deals with the degree and distribution of the University's payment of employee health insurance.

According to the University's figures, the union's proposals would increase Yale's costs by $10.5 million over the next three years, while Yale's offer would necessitate an increase of $5.2 million. The gap reflects the different priorities established by each party in determining its position.

The University asserts that in the current period of inflation, Yale can only pay its non-academic

restricted by charter provisions to purposes of scholarship, can only justify non-academic payrolls as they contribute to the academic enterprise.

Despite its distinction between academic and non-academic payrolls, Yale maintains that it does not employ the competitive market standard to discriminate against its blue collar workers. The same standard applies to faculty and administration salaries, tuition Levels, and scholarships. But University officials at the same time point out that its academic programs have suffered because of finances, and that faculty and stu· dents must come first in an economic pinch. To further indicate its lack of discrimination against the workers, the University contends that while faculty salaries have lagged behind inflation, the blue-collar workers have stayed ahead of cost of living increases.

But the Union adheres to a differ· ent set of priorities--it wants a "social wage." The Union insists that Yale meet the needs of its workers and lead the labor market in both wages and fringe benefits. Union leaders believe that as a well-endowed insti· tution, exempt from taxation, and

hypocritical in not living up to its liberal rhetoric. The Union leadership thinks Yale's claim that it cannot pay more indicates a lack of concern for its workers.

4 Using the social standard to determine wages would help the low-paid worker hit hardest by inflation. It would enable Yale to practice its professed humanitarian concerns by aiding its own workers. Finally, it would render irrelevant the Univer· sity's distinction between academic and non-academic remuneration, while also indicating Yale's recognition that the workers--as contrib· utors to the Yale community--have a right to fulfill their basic needs.

The University's argument that a social wage would be difficult to quantify does not provide sufficient grounds for rejecting the concept.

The social standard could be ascertained by answering a few basic questions. For instance, what items constitute the worker's basic needs?

Should family size or the composition of the family be considered?

Should considered income derive only from earnings from one employ· er or from all financial sources?

Should computed income include both fringe benefits and incentive pay? Should wage increases be re-

I

I

for private gifts and government grants, these are given for specific purposes and cannot be used directly for workers' benefits.

Furthermore, according to Yale, tuition (another major source of in· come) is already the highest in the country. It would not be practical to impose an additional burden on students and parents already suffer· ing from inflation-a burden that might prevent some candidates from entering the University. Yale claims that disadvantaged students have as much right to financial assistance as

The strike reveals a classic confrontation between an employer trying to maintain the status quo and a union militantly striving to improve the economic position of its members.

employees a competitive wage equiv· alent to the going rate in the New Haven labor market and the private university industry. According to Yale authorities, a more generous offer would force the University to compromise its educational priorities by either short-changing the academ· ic budget or dipping into the endow· ment fund, an important source of security and income. They maintain that Yale, as a charitable corporation

remarkably successful in balancing its budget during inflationary times, Yale could pay the workers more if it so chose. Union leaders say that Yale not only has the capacity to pay more, but that it should do so. They cite Yale as New Haven's largest and wealthiest employer. As such, Yale should fulfill its social responsibility to the city by paying its workers what they consider a decent wage.

Sirabella feels that the University is

lated to jobs performed or should they vary with the number of depen· dents of individual employees? Des· pite their perplexing nature, these questions invite response.

But the issue of the social standard runs up against both cold fi. nances and Yale's own philosophy.

According to Yale, the University has been operating at an overall defi· cit despite austerity measures that have reduced faculty positions by 541 over the past three years. Yale maintains that it simply does not have the immediate sources of income to pay the union's social standard.

A principle source of Yale's in· come, the endowment, has become significantly devalued due to the economic situation, and an increase in dividends from it is nowhere in sight. Stanley Flink, Yale's Director of Public Information, points out that Yale cannot sell portions of the endowment to pay its workers because the use of its funds is restricted by law to educational purposes. As

the workers have to higher wages.

As Yale sees it, then, the payment of a social wage to its workers might involve a grim choice between cut· ting back its academic budget and decreasing its services by reducing the number of workers.

Yale's payment of what it consid· ers to be a competitive wage would enable it to avoid this agonizing question and perhaps a more troub· ling underlying one: should it reorient its financial priorities, or sacri· flee its workers? In other words, should it continue to be an academic institution that places quality schol· arship and formal education first, or should it become a more socially oriented employer?

The future of labor-management relations at Yale may hinge on the answer to this question, and may well involve a new or at least clearer definition of the University's goals. 0 Peter Kaufmann, a junior in Daven· port College, spent last summer in

New Haven.

tr.

Finding the Fluid Middle

by Carla Solomon and Stephen Sternbach

..,

Carla Solomon, a senior English major in Branford College, has written for Change magazine.

Stephen Sternbach is co-director of Student-to-Student Counseling.

Student-to-Student Counseling. It's 路mate, while professing to be more a term some of us have heard for four than that. years now, and this fall it has come Why another counseling service? again-路in the crop of yellow posters Yale has the oldest mental health and on the mimeographed sheets in program of any educational instituthe registration packets. And again tion in t he country, and it has it has succeeded less in attracting always been used to full capacity. counselees than in raising a cloud of Some 900 students a year come for questions. Who is behind the serpsychiatric care, and though the vice? How did they get there? What waiting list is long, each student is can they do? entitled to at least a semester of After four years of Student-tofree help. Dr. Ernst Prelinger, a Student Counseling's existence the clinical psychologist at the health time has come to face other quesservice and advisor to sse, thinks tions that hinge on a simple fact: the overload is only natural for a while subscription to the service group of students "highly selected increases each year, sse has never on intellectual grounds but not on really been popular. What is more, emotional ones." while students on campus gener"Yale is a very hierarchical esally feel there is a need for such a tablishment," says Phil Zaeder, service, several counselors feel that Associate Chaplain of Yale and sse will fold if it fails to take firm another advisor to sse. "and often roots this year. it offers fixed extremes that cannot Five nights a week a rotating, be adapted to every situation. If a male-female pair counsels any stuperson has a problem here, he can dent who chooses to walk through either talk to friends or see a psythe doors of the Yale Health Serchiatrist, and despite the many vice. A night seldom brings more people who use the psychiatric serthan one visit, and often no one vices and the many who discuss comes. problems with their friends, both One reason for the service's lack alternatives are unacceptable to of popularity is also one of its some.''路 virtues--confidentiality. For just as Zaeder sees a need for a service counselors never discuss the cases, somewhere in between the two, a counselees rarely talk about the kind of middle ground that proservice. But last year only about vides neither friends nor total thirty students used sse, and this strangers, neither professional anstatistic clearly points to ~ther facalysts nor unskilled listeners. This tors that may say something about is Zaeder's conception of SSC's life at Yale: mistrust of a service role, and he calls it the "fluid that is run by other Yale students middle. " and the fear of admitting weakness and vulnerability to anyone. At least these are the concerns of those students and advisors involved with sse--concerns that in this crucial year of its short history deserve a closer look.

Begun in the fall of 1971 as an outgrowth of the human sexuality course given by Dr. and Mrs. Philip Sarrel, SSC viewed itself as a sexual information and counsel路 ing service. But its scope soon broadened. "We soon realized that we were talking about more than an information service,'' says Carolyn Grillo, one of the founders. "We ''Sometimes very realized that it was turning into a to find the intimate stranger," he sexual and social counseling organsays. "We need trust more than a ization." friend. We build up a trust and It has maintained that dual purendow it to the intimate stranger, pose over the last three years. sse who becomes a relief from the trial provides straightforward sexual inmotif which is very strong at Yale; formation about contraception, sometimes it's good to go to a place VD, abortion and related problems. where we're not on trial-not being And it attempts, by offering counjudged. Often a friend cannot proselors who have had experiences vide this and student counseling similar to the counselees, to allow can."

"Intimate stranger." "Fluid the student to get a better perspecmiddle." The words themselves are tive on the social tensions that the yale environment creates. sse vague, and the functions they name are just as hard to pin down, seems to cast itself in the role of the the boundaries just as loose. While empathetic but detached room-

(

TheNewJoumal I October 1,1974 I 10

'

t

Dostoyevsky's

The

Possessed

Alld the dev11s came out from the man. and entered mto the swine: and the herd rushed down the steep into the lake and were choked.

Luke:8:33 r Adapted and d i rected by

Andrzej Wajda , From the stage verston by.•

Albert Camus Prev•ew October 3 Amencan Prem•ere October 4·26 For '"lormatton o r resarvahons p lease call 436-1600

---

,.... --. ..-.

I

Four weeks only

~ -

yale repertory theatre

the service tries to play more than the role of a friend, it is emphatically not an attempt at in-depth psychiatry. When a problem seems to exceed the scope of social coun· seling--and this decision might vary with each counseling team·· the team refers the problem to one of the staff advisors.

An example. A freshman woman from a strict Catholic family where any discussion of sex was taboo coines to Yale expecting an active social life. She finds that boys are not asking her out formally, and she doesn't know how to respond to "just talking" or going to the movies. She becomes more and more withdrawn and confides only in her roommate, who becomes in· creasingly demonstrative in her affections.

She realizes she is being seduced.

Confronted by a problem her previous experience has left her un-

res9lve the problem and did not presume to, it simply referred it to a better source.

But there are problems that SSC does think it can handle--problems, for instance, of facing the aoademic and social pressures of Yale, of relating to people, of making friends, of the male student lonely on weekends and depressed at mixers, of the female student unable to deal with a new influx of sexual pres· sure, or of the couple not able to assimilate changes in the relationship. "We're not a psychiatric ser· vice," says Miriam Wimpfheimer, co-director of SSC this year. "But we're not just sounding boards either." And Steve Sternbach, the other co-director, puts it this way: "The counselors are trained and most of us have had experience in dealing with these kinds of prob· lems--and more severe ones··before.

If we can't do better than the average person off the street, then

While students on campus generally feel there is a need for such a service, sse could fold if it fails to take firm roots this year. prepared for, she is too embarassed to tell her freshman counselor and too frightened to see a psychiatrist.

As an aJternative, she goes to SSC. The counselors decided that the problem was beyond their scope, and they told the girl. But it did not end there--the counselors convmced t he girl that s he should consult someone at the psychiatric service, and they helped her set up an appointment. They offered no solu· tion, but simply eased the trepidation that the girl felt toward psychiatrists--the common fear of being classified as " sick," and the fear that records of treatment will jeopardize a career. sse could not

we're useless. But we can do better.

We know what 1ssues to raise, wha t questions to ask, what to point out, ho\\ t o build up trust."'

A fine line, however, exists be t ween this degree of investigation and the irresponsible excesses of t he " arm charr psychiatrist. •· In choosmg to walk this line, the counselors and advisors must be aware of its dangers. During the training sessions, in fact t.hey discuss the differences between coun· seling and psychotherapy.

"I have no obJection to a coun· selor investigating a person's past, " says Prelinger, "if that past has a bearing on the present prob·

The New Journal I October 1, 1974 I 11

lem. I am, however, against a counselor who ettempts to explain a person's life." In the terminology of psychotherapeutic techniques, what the student counselor does would be described as "supportive." Prelinger described the supportive role as "an effort to help somebody cope with acute stress by strengthening resources heal-

by their achievements--is so strong here that students dislike admitting failure to each other. Seeking help from a student counselor seems to imply incompetency or a kind of inferiority. The achievement orientation Zaeder mentions is a double-edged sword, at once causing anxiety and sealing off the way ~find relief.

'' 'Yalies are threatened by the prospect of another student who assumes greater knowledge.' '' ready has."

But beyond the label and beyond what the advisors think the service should be, it is the competence of the counselors themselves that determines what sse actually can do.

The initial training sessions for counselors involved role-playing exercises designed to elicit t he sensitivity the counselor will need and to give him a sense of the approaches he can use. One student plays counselor and another plays counselee while a psychiatrist supervises a nd the other prospective counselors watch and criticize.

The scenes serve as dry runs and are intended to help make the real dialogues as fruitful as possible.

But even for those students chosen to counsel, that dialogue rarely comes. Their night at the health service is more often than not a night to get some reading done.

Why the poor response? It may be that Yale has no use for the service, that undergraduate life is too fragmented for s tudents to feel that a stranger has anything to offer. It may be that Yale has no uniting force greater than its academic pressure. Indeed, the library is the closest Yale comes to offering a social center for undergraduates, and it is perhaps symbolic that when sse thought of changing locations, one of the few places it seriously considered was the Cross Campus Library.

Most minority groups on campus have a stronger sense of community than the students at large, and it is to these groups that minority students usually look for guidance. Chris Waterman, one of the directors of sse las t year, cannot remember ever having counseled a black or Chicano. As Phil Zaeder puts it, " If you' re give n a name, you want to feel comfortable with others of the same name.''

According to Zaeder, the causes for the difficulties of sse go deeper than this. He believes that the "achievement ethic"-the tendency for students to define themselves

"Yalies are threatened by the prospect of another student who assumes greater knowledge,'' says Reb McMichael, a former counselor, "and they fear admitting that another student, and not a professional, could handle a problem better than he or a friend could. For a Yalie to go to a student-run service means that he needs it--and it's hard for a Yalie to admit that he needs anything."

What the counselors hope, a.n d what Zaeder predicts, is that the achievement ethic will be superceded by a more basic human need-the need to express oneself. " We have a need to be more than episodic," Zaeder says. "We have to share with someone our whole s tory, to be creative and have people listen. We want a chance to account for where we have come from, what we're doing, and where we're going. " Zaeder questions the traditional Freudian notion that intellectual insight and a detached analyst provide the only route to a more positive emotional state. He thinks that sse can work and that it can fill a void left by the decline of religious counseling. And like everyone involved with the service, he predicts success. " Student counseling is the sort of thing you have to build a trust in, " says Dr. Robert Arnstein, head of the mental hygiene department at the health service and advisor to SSC. " I spent nearly a year and a half trying to encourage people to continue sse and we're jus t beginning to witness theres ults of hard work at building up an organization. We certainly did bet ter last year than the year before."

Whether this year will be the pivotal year of t he group's success or the year of its death has y et to be seen. Two things are certain.

First, if SSC takes hold, so will the idea that personal counseling does not require emotional "sickness."

And second, if the service disappears, the need for it will not. 0

Now that we've told you about the bargains let us tell you about

the plays The Possessed

From the gn'ppong novel by Feodor ~toyevsky comes lhos brolloant saga of conflict between young revolutionary terronsts and the fumblong loberal estabhshmenl on a Russoan town.

Adapted and Oorected by Andrzej Wajde.

Story Theatre IV: Joseph Conrad's Victory An aloof and profound skeptic who has long led a solitary tole on a South Seas osland. brongs a beautiful w oman to hos retreat and os suddenly caught up on the world lrom whoch he tned to rescue her.

Oorected by AMn ~

Happy End By ll«tolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. The Rep os delighted to announce the revoval of one of the most popular musocal shows on ots hostory. Happy End. the merroest of Brecht and Weoll's brolhant collaborations. a melodrama of g angster guys and Salvatoon Army Dolls. set to a haunting. bittersw eet score.

Oorected by Mk:tiMf Poenk:lt.

American Patrol Who's on patrol? None other than the Rep's own squad of revosoonost hostoroans What moght they fond?

Just how many of those beds George Washongton dod sleep on and w oth whom Newly uncovered ontervoews w oth the dry clea~ who pressed Chester A Arthur's 400 paors of pants and tne dernck operator who regularly greased Wolham Howard Taft's way out of the Whole House·s forst bathtub And much more orreveren and orrelevant muck The Rep's Bocentenoal bonanza Oorected by w-.,. ......._

A Midsummer Night's Dream Shake.pe-·s best-loved comedy on a production thai returrl$ the play to romance and follows on the musocal footsteps of last year's memorable TEM PEST weavong a lovely thread through the sponnong wheel of bewotchong songs by England's greatest composer, Henry Pur~l. a musocal genous matched on lyncosm woth Shakespeare homself Oorected by Al¥tn EpMeln. Musoc dorected by Otto-Werner Mueller.

A New Play Currently under consoderatoon are: The Insurrection THt byE L. Ooctorow The Golden Age by Terrence McNelly The Shaft of love by Charles Dozenzo

The Idiots Karamazov

By Chris Durang and Albert lnnaorato. Hop on our trooka and ors off through the wontery steppes as the four Karamazov brothers meet the Three Sosters. Ernest Hemongway Anaos Non and Mary Tyrone and practocally everyone else on the Mod Lot syllabus . on the uttomate satlroc musocal maddness of thos or any other season. Oorected by w-.m Peters.

The Yale Rep Student Pass.

Still only $12.00 To order the Yale Rep Student Pass just bnng $12.00 and your student 1.0. to our box office, comer of York and Chapel Streets. If you have any questions call (43) 6-1600.

yale repertory theatre

Wayward Journey

by Alan Strasser

Go East, Young Man The Early Years The Autobiography of William 0. Douglas Random House, New York 1974. $10 This book is mistitled. That, unfortunately, is the least of its shortcomings. Douglas's autobiography seems to have sprung fully-typeset from his brow, without the intervening aid of an editor or a second draft.

The book is unfocused and superficial; the writing is seldom inspired, usually insipid, and occasionally embarassing. A great man has produced a greatly disappointing book.

In all fairness, William Orville Douglas did go East as a Young Man; he also went West. He first travelled West: three year old Bill moved from his Minnesota birthplace to a Yakima, Washington home. In his early twenties, he journeyed east to Columbia Law School.

After graduation, however, hereturned to practice law in Yakima.

Since then, Douglas has alternated between W ashingtons, always considering "my own state of Washington to be my home," while writing treatises, lectures and judicial decisions in the nation's capital.

Douglas probably chose the title of his autobiography to emphasize the enormity of his eastward journey, and to reveal that fame and fortune have visited him only because he did go east as a young man. Douglas guesses that had he not left his childhood home, he might have by now risen to become principal of Yakima High. Yet he never tells us why he left. He asks rhetorically what could have made him, an unworldly country boy, leave secure Yakima f~r the uncertain world of New York C1ty and Columbia Law School. But he never stops to answer the question, never pauses long enough in the headlong description of his life to explain thE' first crucial choice he made.

Douglas seldom pauses to probe any part of his life very deeply. A more accurate title for the book would be People, Places, and Ideas I Have Met: A Sprint Through History with William 0. Douglas. He herds a bewilderingly large cast of characters through his book. The reader barely has time to become acquainted with any of them, for another waits impatiently in the next paragraph. Places pass by more slowly than faces , but Douglas circumnavigates the world several Alan Strasser, former Managing EditorofThe New Journal, is now chasing papers at Harvard Law SchooL

times before the book is finished. He also introduces a number of his social, political, and judicial ideas, ' but the handshake has barely passed before he travels elsewhere to meet a new thought.

Douglas admits that he has been extraordinarily busy throughout his life. In college, he studied and worked almost full-time (his mother counted on him, as the eldest son, to support the fatherless family). As a law student, he tutored, prepared materials for a correspondence course in law, and even managed to learn some law himself, although most of the last activity occurred, as he confides, "on the run."

Douglas's autobiography is no less rapid. One cannot avoid thinking that he wrote the book "on the run" to convey the impression that his life was indeed active. It is as though he has accumulated anecdotes for 75 years, and now spews them forth in a , great personal flood. Story follows story, case follows case, and person follows person, without respite, and often without apparent connection.

People appear simply because he knew them, or because they were famous. In discussing the personalities of the New Deal, Douglas says "Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945. should also be included." He does not include her because he knew her well (he devotes a scant four paragraphs to her) or because she played an important part in his life (he mentions her only two more times in the book). Rather, he felt she "should be" included because he was discussing New Dealers. Perhaps Douglas wanted to fulfill some self-appointed role as New Deal chronicler. Others, however, have written about that period with sharper insight, greater breadth, and clearer vision.

Unappointed but nonetheless undaunted, Douglas proliferates facts , faces, and thoughts. He repeats most of the important external events of his life: his education, his various jobs, his friends , and the outlines of his social philosophy--but he shows nothing of his feelings. He describes his first marriage in one paragraph, casually inserted between a summary of his earnings from tutoring and a short description of his election to the Columbia Law Review.

At one point in the book, Douglas argues that "contests in the law should never be at the emotional, but only at the intellectual, level." Does Douglas consider The Early Years to be a legal brief in which he argues the facts of his life? He certainly does fill his book with facts. His may be the only autobiography which frequently footnotes the Harvard Law ¡ Review and US Court Reporter. >

The New Journal I October 1, 1974 I 13

1111111111111111111111111111111111

BARGAIN BOOKS But Douglas isn't really arguing a case. Though he presents the facts of the matter, he fails to direct them toward a final argument, or to draw any conclusions. He provides no insight into himself, no glimpses of the inner principles by which he directs his life. His brief rambles, digresses, and moralizes--but it never con· eludes.

The book shows, though, that Douglas has had ample opportunity for reflection. He frequently takes long, solitary walks in the woods. He prefaces his work by announcing that he has written the book in the spare time of the last 10 or 12 years.

He must think deeply on the Court.

He says, "writing an autobiography is, in a sense, giving a detailed ac· count of the slow, step-by-step edu· cation of the author." But where does he reveal the lessons? Clearly he is a deliberative man; just as clearly, he has omitted almost all reflection, all intellectualizing from his autobiography.

Perhaps this is most disturbing: one expects Douglas to be a judge, but he comes off as merely an un· focused lawyer. One hopes for wis· dom, but Douglas offers only loose strings of anecdotes.

Douglas's writing style is equally disturbing. His prose is flat and con· ventional, legal language at its dullest. He mars his narrative with homiletic conclusions, superficial remarks, and unimportant digres· sions. He allows himself gratuitous attacks on various "bad guys": John Foster Dulles, The Dodge Motor Corporation, and assorted Wall Street Lawyers. He seems to con· struct chapters by choosing titles and then multiplying anecdotes until he has filled up the "right" number of pages. Sometimes the anecdotes don't seem to follow any particular pattern: the idea occurs that one could shuffle the pages without knowing the difference. As a result, The Early Years is often painfully boring.

Other times it is merely puzzling.

Douglas takes obvious delight in mocking "the Establishment." Yet Douglas has been a Supreme Court Justice for 35 years, was once a Securities and Exchange Commis· sion bureaucrat, and taught law at Yale. He confides that at one time he even had some support for a try at the Presidency. It is not easy to see how Douglas distinguishes himself from "the Establishment."

One must also wonder how often Douglas suspends--or softens--his critical scrutiny when he is judging himself. How has he selected the material he presents? Has he left out those events or thoughts which con· flict with the philosophy he now holds? To what extent has his present self-understanding shaped his interpretation of past events? Perhaps, as Douglas suggests in a slightly different context, "my wish dictates my conclusion." Does Douglas project the present backwards onto the past?

Questions of Douglas's narrative reliability aside, how can he--after an energetic, even important, life-produce such a disappointing auto· biography? The Early Years is frus· trating because I find Douglas's public philosophy so attractive but see no deeper justification for his thoughts in his autobiography. In· stead, he distracts with the window dressing of anecdotes. He teases with glimpses of his feelings, but never reveals much more than the facade.

Go East, Young Man is most frus· trating because it represents a squandered opportunity. Douglas has con· sistently championed the interests and rights of the individual in a society increasingly threatened by the impersonality of massiveness. If only Douglas had focused on his own individuality, instead of the social environment in which he lived; if only his autobiography were as prob· ing as his judicial decisions.

But better that he be a good judge and not a good writer than vice versa.O

Fly ELI! WINTER RECESS FLIGIITS Group Flight To LONDON-LUXEMBOURG CHICAGO-DALLAS

Charter Flights To LOS ANGELES SAN FRANCISCO

For Further Information Call or Visit ELI INTERNATIONAL, INC. 2182 Yale Station Office: 320 Temple St. New Haven, Conn. 06520

Tel. (203) 776-8522 (Office Hours 1:00-4:30 p.m.)

There are always hundreds of bargains in books at the Yale Co-op: Markdowns from our extensive stock, Publishers' Closeouts, Special Imports, Selected Reprints. Quantities are limited. New titles are continually added.

Among the many current bargains: Reg. Price REVOLUTION ASTHEATRE $5.95

by Robert Brustein WONDERLAND $7.95

by Joyce Carol Oates ONE MAN'S EDUCATION $10.00 the Autobiography of Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis, Editor of the Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence

111111111

Co-op Price $1.98 $1.49

$2.50

THE YALE CO-OP 77 Broadway, New Hoven STORE HOURS Daily 9:15-5:30. Thursdays Until 9

TheNewJournal I Octoberl,l974/14

do is present the furniture of faith, it's not our concern whether anyone (continued from page 5) sits down or not. to make perhaps a phony distinction.

NJ: Again, how do you do it?

I get very annoyed when ~pie call Coffin: I want to go to Edmund me anti-intellectual because 1deas Morgan, C. V ann Woodward ... have changed my life to an extraNJ: Morgan doesn' t need any con. ordinary degree. When I read Crime verting. and Punishment I was practically Coffin: I know it, but I want to converted to Christianity on the discuss this with him. I'll say you're basis of t he book alone, I was absoa scholar and you're a deeply human lutely shattered by it. I read it and being. I would like to get them thinkre-read it. But you can read it and ing about this, talking about it, get j u st prove t hat you know what the s ome of these prestigious scholars print is all about. around here to open up their hearts Take s omething like the social ·to encourage others. See, if I say it, sciences--that'$ the real bugaboo. e veryone will say there goes Bill .

Just take a phrase like " advanced Coffin being anti-intellectual agam. . industrial society." What a loaded Nobody would say that about Ed phrase that is. I could just as well .

Morgan. describe America as a backward sprrNJ: If the big guns around here itual society and be just as accurate. can convince people, it might change Intellectuals decide, well, we can' t things . deal with spiritual problems Coffin, Coffin: Just to make it a problem that's why there are guys like you would be a big step. It's known but around the periphery--we can only . not said, and that's what's bothering define things our way. But that defme. Let's face it, this is an elite place, inition sticks, and people forget it's and my feeling is let's use it. Let's only a superficial construct and they use the name of Yale for worthwhile apparently begin to think of themcauses. selves primarily in these terms. "AdNJ: You've often said that you vanced industrial society," what have a love-hate relationship with does that say to the poor bastards in Yale. Is there something special Latin America? We're a backwards about Yale that keeps you here? society.

Coffin: Well, every love relationSo how you define reality is really ship has hate in it, and it is a very a very important point. And some strong love relationship. Without definitions of reality around here are wanting to go aggressively psychso surreptitious, so devious. The ological about understanding my Law School for example. A profesattachment to the place... sor will say he can only deal with_le~al NJ: It's been 16 years. definitions. You get that same guy m Coffin: Longer than that. Home is his cups, and he'll finally blurt out, New Haven, my mother lives here.

My God the law fifty percent of the We never had a home for years and time co~es down on the wrong side. years and years, after my father died I say, what do you mean wrong side? we were wandering gentiles, finally According to what standard? And he coming to roost here in New Haven. says conventional legality makes a I went to the Yale Music School, mockery of higher justice, and the then after four years in the army I guy starts to cry. What a repressed went toYale College, and then I man that he can't get up and say went to Yale Divinity School. that not to me in his cups, but to his (laughs) A very incestuous relation- •• whoie class, and openly, and invite ship, then to be appointed Chaplain-their response. That's why I'm bea very suspicious appointment. So I ginning to think they are really guess it's a lover's quanel. I always oppressed. I have this feeling that if focus on Yale because I have a great you define reality in some deeply personal sense of responsibility for human and loving way, the faculty Yale, and I think every person at could then feel validated because Yale should feel the same way. I their reality validates them as loving tried to say goodbye to Yale this human beings. But in the absence ~f year and it wa!l difficult. 0 that sense of reality what does vallPatrick Hamilton, a senior in date them--they're tough, they're Berkeky Colkge, is a ckacon of hardnosed, they don't deal with the BatteU ChapeL soft stuff--they think all we have to

After the Right On's

STUDENT SUBSCRIP.T IONS $14 TO SEE Oct 11 -Nov.S SIZWE BANZI IS DEAD A remarkable South Alncan drama Nov.15-Dec.13

THE SOLDIER'S TALE by Igor Stravinsky and KNIGHT OF THE BURNING PESTLE

by Beaumont & Fletcher !newly adapted by Brooks Jones with music by Peter Schickele) Dec 20·Jan 17

AH, WILDERNESS! by Eugene O'Neill Jan 24-Feb 21

A New American Play by Richard Venture Feb 28 Mar.28

PYGMALION by Shaw Apr.4-Mav 2

To Be Announced May9-June 6

RICHARD Ill by Shakespeare 222 Sargent Dr.

787-4282

THE YALE SERVICE AGENCIES are now open Sun.-Thurs. 7-9

Yale Ring Agency Yale Record Agency Yale Typing and Tutoring Agency our office is at 198 Elm St. next to Durfee Sweet Shop 562-1209 or 432-4667 p1pes &pa perS ... good v1bra11ons...

concert t1ckets. .. belts. w allets...

posters... pipes. .. n 0

~

leather imported gifts candles

books head gear new england's

largest selling 101 W HALLEY AVE.• NEW HAVEN AVANT GARDE SHOPPES

···asuaou1 ···sa16ueq q s6uu Ja"I!S ···1!0 JtSnw

..\

waterbed. complete beds start at $140.

~

o.. <

0'

a;

g· :;)

!"

The New Journal/October 1, 1974/15

Get t hat b uilding off our b ack •

,

y

t

t.

_.

(continued from page 2) ance seemed strange, especially at an institute of higher learning. My purpose was not to find out why but to write an objective opinion of what the hell was going on in there.' ' Sawyer decided that the earlier studies were useless, that they had measured the asbestos in quiet rooms and failed to appreciate just how people were actually exposed to it--in dusting, for example, where the worker breathes no direct fallout but stirs up tremendous concentrations of accumulated asbestos. Monitoring the workers as well as the rooms was a new idea, and Sawyer's superiors told him to "cease and desist."

Sawyer went ahead with his study, nevertheless, and as the data accumulated, his colleagues started changing their minds. "One of them put his hand to his head and said, 'Oh my God, Bob, you're right!'"

The report, in its own words, "con· tains few revelations." It does, however, show that the familiar problems can be cured only with a major commitment because they are interrelated, and it puts those problems in the language of the law. It lists the violations--the poor water, the bird cadavers and animal life in the screenless building, the low temperatures, and the low railings and walls. The report concludes: "Perhaps a reaffirmation of safety policy and responsibility is needed.' ' I t appears that reaffirmation has begun. "Everything is clicking into place like dominoes now," says Sawyer, who continues to monitor the building and its renovation. He carries with him electronic air samplers, respirators and a camera, and he insists that he loves the building.

For Kaufmann, "Things are going more smoothly now than ever before, our bitterness is paying off. The Uni· versity is worried."

It is sad that the move has taken so long, that the private worries of some users of the building could end only when the public worries of the University began. And it could have taken longer. M. J. Costello, Business Manager of the Schools of Art and Architecture and a member of the ad hoc committee that recommended the action , "has mixed emotions about the decision."

It will cause so many disruptions," he says. "The University should have waited until next summer--they should have taught, no, they should have forced the people to live with the building another year.

It's been 11 years, you know, and no one has died from it."

No one knows what the building will look like when the library returns there next summer. Many be-

lieve that the problems are so buiit into its contours that they will never be rooted out. Memory of the danger and the frustration will surely re· main.

Nevertheless, a cautious optimism prevails. In the library it is a feeling that things can only get better. At the Health Services it is confidence that the tide has turned, that the University now has what Sawyer calls "a let's fix it frame of mind."

And in John Embersits's office it is the tired hope that a year's hard work can "finally get that building off our back.''

Daniel Denton

Daniel Denton worked in the Art Library for one year.

T he joy of shrinking In the climactic scene of The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh, the distraught employee of a garish fun- · eral home finds that injecting her· · self with embalming fluid is.the best way of dealing with her con- 2 fusion. Upon entering the well. manicured estate that The Read· er's Digest magazine calls home, I felt the same way.

D G I E

s

T

Those who have read Waugh's novel will remember that music was cbntinuously piped throughout the grounds; so too at the eightyacre site in Pleasantville, New York1 where DeWitt and Lila Wallace, the founders of Reader's Digest, have nestled the home of the world 's largest selling magazine. An oozing soporific that can best be described as religious Muzak emanates from the strategically placed " carillon::.," which sel the mood of the little corporate village. ·' Ptctures from Pleasantvill~. " simpers a leaflet the tour ll"Uirle hands me The leaflet offer 'an armchair tour" of the Digest headquarters, of the authentic Modiglianis, Gauguins, and Van Goghs with which Lila W allac~·who also selects the Americana cover painting for every issue-· has adorned the premises. But the insidious and mind-deadening philosophy lurk-

ing in "the hallways must be discovered in person.

The appearance of the Digest's employees is curiously outmoded.

Somber business attire is the order i of the day, with most of the women affecting a look somewhere between Peck & Peck and J. C. Penney. And women there are, but the tour guide admits they will be found mainly in typmg pools and at copy desks. The guide insists, however, that this is changing, slowly changing. Helen Hector, a senior editor whose mere seniority seems to have catapulted her to her nebulously defined heights, admonishes me, '' Don't listen to them at those other places like Ms. (a grimace here) when they tell you that women can't get anywhere at magazines You can work within the system, you know."

The philosophy that has raised The Reader's Digest Association, Inc. from a shoestring outfit in Greenwich Village to the multi· million-dollar corporation of today seems to be; "Ye shall inherit the earth if ye can condense it. "Although the gains have not been fully reaped, the seeds are surely sown, and a vice president of the company explains how the foreign language editions of the Digest help "spread the word." I ask him what The Word is. ' 'The Protestant work ethic," he says . ·patriotism, the belief that there 1s a solu tlon to every problem and that people want to know what the solution is." The vice president speaks of the DeWitts and their philanthropy, and the Digest and its wealth, but his pride is laced with caution--for he may say nothing about the company that has not been printed in press releases or the papers. He is the voice of the Digest and he speaks in verbal reprints.

The vice president nas opinions about other magazines , though, and he offers them generously. He explains that Life need not have folded had it only stuck with " visceral journalism," and not gotten into that "high-level •cultural nonsense."

An associate editor named Ric Cox, clean cut and about thirty, is presented to our group as the vouthful voice of ThP Reader 's Digest. I ask him what goes on at Digest editorial planning sessions and he tells me that there are none.

He speaks longingly of the day when a superior position at the Digest will afford him editorial power. If the Protestant ethic is the editorial Word, then Cox appears to be a lamb ready for the sacrifice.

He condenses books and bides his time.

"I don't particularly like to read," says Cox. "You take any novel, any article, anything, and you 'd be surprised how much just isn't. necessary, how much you could do without." He particularly dislikes long descriptions. "Style is fine, but people would rather know just what happens. When I cut a book I try to sift out the extraneous scenes, descriptions, characters. and find the thread of action.

This is what people want."

The fervor with which the W allace's digesting mill has recycled novels and magazine articles into tidy packages of prose seems to have overflowed into other parts of their lives. The tour guide shows us two lithographs that have been r~ produced from a tapestry and cut down to what Mrs. Wallace considers a manageable size--condensed, as it were. The guide also points to a Hepplewhite desk which was purchased because it can be folded up for trips, nice and neat. I point out the emerging theme to the tour guide who laughs and mutters under her breath, "They condense your wages here. too."

It is perhaps too easy to wax vituperative when speaking of The Reader's Digest; its please-everyone format invites criticism. If more people sneer at this magazine than any other, it is also true that more find unabashed pleasure in its pages. So be it. The Word continues to creep across the globe-drawing the dollars back to Pleasantville.

The tour is over soon. Throughout the group's brief look at the editorial offices we have been asked several times to be silent, PEOPLE ARE WORKING. There is no hubbub of voices at The Reader's Digest, no violent exchange of ideas. All business runs with orderly decorum.

They do not worry at The Reader's Digest that when today's youth become tomorrow's middl~ aged the magazine will lose its readership. They assert that as people grow older they begin to "come into the fold," and there is an undertone of smugness in the assertion.

As the bus pulls away from the ivy-covered building that resembl~s a college more than a publishing house, the thought occurs that the high-spirited Pegasus they have chosen for their logo is a less than apt symbol. Perhaps a bottle of Geritol.

Emily Leamon

Emily Leamon graduated from Vassar College last May and worked as a summer intern at Redbook magazine.

I

PHOTO BUSINESS EDIT DESIGN THE YALE BANNER MEETING OF MINDS ·~ WEDNESDAY, 2 OCTOBER.

8 PM.

WOOLSEY DOME.

THE YEARBOOK, THE UT, THE OLD CAMPUS, THE GUIDE TO NEW HAVEN, AND MORE.