System Tried, Found Guilty At Enact Kickoff Rally

The system was put on trial last night in Crisler Arena, and the system was found guüty. No sentence has been passed as yet, but several were suggested by speakers at the Kick-off Rally of ENACT, including several not planned for on the program. Indeed, at times it seemed as if the whole ecology movement were on trial, along with the system, as scattered claques of radical students, some ensconced in a special "card section" with a "cheerleader" and flipping black and white cards that spelled out "Free H u e y , ' ' periodically shouted slogans and booed the speakers. Those who took the brunt of the booing were U-M President Robben W. Fleming, Gov. William G. Milliken and Arthur Godfrey, but as the program went on, and speakers merely talked over the disruptions, using the powerful public address system to override the sound, the disruptions became less and less. It remained for Barry Commoner, world-famous ecologist from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., to put it all together, tie up the loose ends of fact and allegation, and present it all in a package for approval. And the approval was near unanimous. Late in starting because the crowd which almost packed the 14,000-seat arena had difficulty buying tickets at the door and finding seats, the ceremonies finally got under way with the Chicago cast of "Hair" singing "Aquarius." Douglas Scott, co-chairman of ENACT, after a short plea to the audience to start being resp.onsible to the environment right here by lea ving the arena free of litter whrn they departed, introduced UM President Fleming who gave a short welcoming address. Fleming introduced Gov. Mil1 i k e n for the welcoming remarks. Milliken, who said he was "not going to indulge in the I doomsday game" because I "whether we might perish in 15 I or 500 years makes no differ-M ence - the point is we 're sit-B ttns on a time bomb and we'dB better aetuoo t", Uiew scat-H tered boos and catcalls fromH the audience, but he talked overB them. m ■ - Hls biggest applause of the evening was for the statement "what is bad for air, land, and water is bad for people, whether it is good for business or not", but what apparently was meantashisbombshell announcement of the evening - the formation of a "Clean Earth Corps" of young people, for which he will ask legislative funding this year - drew only light applause from the predominantly young audience. Milliken was followed by an unscheduled speaker, Edwin Fabre, a second year law student at the U-M, representing the Black Students Union and I the Black Action Movement, introduced by Fleming. Fabre, who said there was "no question about not being concerned about the environment, only a question about which environment you're talk-j ing about," called attention to the many environmental problems that are of particular concern to blacks, and are of more immediate importance to them than the Huron River or evergreen trees. Asking the audience to "look around and notice the absence of black s" at the rally, hc called the conference part of the "continuing process of avoiding the real issue- the disenfranchisement of people." Godfrey folio wed Fabre, and though he drew scattered catcalls, he also drew loud applause for his statements on population control. A vivid contrast was furnished by the next speaker, geneticist James Shapiro, formerly from Harvard University. Disdaining the normal introduction, Shapiro, who left Harvard last month to devote his energies to political activism, bounded on stage from his seat in the audience instead of coming from backstage as the other speakers had done. Openly calling for a "revolution," Shapiro quoted wcllknown business leaders t o prove his point that industry clöès not care about pollution control, and called for the people "to take back their industry and resources and run it for themselves, and not for private profit." Shapiro theh turned over "part of my time" to two young people, including Robert Parson, recenüy suspended for his allegedly striking a professor during harassment of a General Electric recruiter on campus some time ago. Parsons and Dina Zinco, who described ihemselves as part of a "Radical Ecology Group," echoed Shapiro's statements against business and industry, among other things. Seri. Gaylord Nelson, who is regarded as the prime mover behind the national teach-in m o v e m e n t , followed and expressed his gratitude that so many people, here and across the country, were taking up the fight against environmental pollution. "The best I had hoped for was perhaps 40 or 50 teach-ins but nearly 1,000 colleges and 2,500 high schools across the country have now jndicatect they will join in on 'Earth Day'- April'22." He püt the nation on warmng, though, that the battle will be difficult, that priorities must be reordered, and that "no environmental control efforts can ever succeed in the face of an exploding population." But it was Commoner, the ecologist, giving the major address of the evening, who reconciled all the points of view from the various speakers and put them into a tidy package. Spinning stories of cows and cars and the ecological implications of each, he alternately informed and denounced, and had the audience with him all the wav. "I was not trained as an I ecologist," he told them, "but as a cellülar biologist. It was the problem of war that first introduced me to the environmental crisis, and it was the Atomic Energy Commission showering the nation with fallout which made me an ecologist!" And he wove his ecological I web around all the other statements made before him on the platform. "I don't know any way to separate the ecological issues from the social issues, and as far as I am concerned the environmental effort will not divert attention away from the problems of the war and the ghetto. "They are linked by the economie system, and don't let anybody teil you that they can be separated." Going on with his thesis, Commoner declared that "blacks are the special victims of pollution. A white suburbanite can escape from the city's dirt, smog, carbon monoxide and' noise when he goes home - a ghetto dweller not only works in a polluted environment, he lives in it. "The environmental crisis is a crisis of survival, and we can learn much from the blacks to whom survival has been a way of lifé." Commoner, who d e c 1 a r e d that "war won't work", that ''thepurposeofthe war machine is to deiend a way of life, and if there might be no life at all, what's the purpose of it?", gave his government an 8-po'int program for survival. "If President Nixon wants to bc the 'George Washington oC Ecology', he can (1) announce we are in a fight for environmental survival, (2) release rpsparrh funds for tal studies, (3) return unused land to grass and trees, (4) halt development of the SST, (Supersonic transport) (5) stop the ecologically damaging Florida Barge Canal, (6) cali a halt to exploitation of Alaskan oil, (7) stop the war in Vietnam, and (8) declare that war is incompatible with the continued life of mankind." (Teach-in schedule, related story and pictures on Page 27. Other ecology stories on Pages 9 and 10)