One life’s
• just not
enough
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Oregon daily
emerald
Monday, March 4, 1985
Eugene, Oregon
Volume 86, Number 111
Lawyer warns of coming ‘new slavery’
By Dave Borns
Of the Emerald
Renegade lawyer Gerry Spence ranted and raged
about the inadequacies and dangers of multinational
corporations, law schools and other American institu
tions Saturday, in a speech at the Western Public In
terest Conference.
Spence, a Wyoming-based lawyer, who is probably
best known for his part in the Karen Silkwood case,
claimed the goal of the American corporation is to
"turn the living to the dead."
"If I killed one person for money...I would
receive the death penalty,” he said. But while gas tanks
the Ford Motor Co. has put into its Pinto-line cars could
kill a "certain number of people.” Ford can get away
with this crime because it owns the American judicial
system, Spence said.
Spence further characterized American corpora
tions as a beast, without a heart or soul, that enslaves
people. "We receive propaganda everyday saying we
are free, when in fact we don’t know we are being sub
jugated. This is a time of the new slavery, and we are
the new slaves.
“Our masters (corporations) don’t breath...at
least the black slave had a live human being for a
master. 1 grieve for our children who don’t know any
better and don’t have a chance. . . other than to become
a cog in the wheel.”
Spence made his comments to more than 300 peo
ple in the University law school, during the third an
nual Western Public Interest Conference.
Although speaking before an audience
predominantly composed of lawyers and law-school
students, Spence was vehement in his criticism of both
law schools and the legal profession.
"You all want to be Christ hanging on the cross,”
Spence told his audience. Instead of trying to better
everyone’s life, Spence said it’s enough to change the
life of one human being.
“Law school is most likely to be a negative, hurtful
experience,” he said. It teaches us to conform to the
laws of society rather than examine its foundation.
Spence said. “I would rather send my child to a school
that teaches him to question the system.”
“Computers pick our modern-day lawyers. That
machine can’t separate out very much about the in
dividual’s humanness,” Spence said, referring to the
process used in grading the Law School Application
Test.
During his 35-year legal career, the 56-year-old at
torney has handled a variety of environmental and
personal-injury cases against corporate interests. He
was successful in a $10 million suit against the Kerr
McGee Corp. for negligence in the 1974 death of
employee Karen Silkwood.
The conference included seminars on American In
dian rights and environmental protection, pesticides
and the law, ocean and coastal concerns, citizen par
ticipation and the law, and the conduct of environmen
tal trials.
Wyoming-based lawyer Gerry Spence told a 300-member audience at the University law school that law
school is most likely to be “a negative, hurtful experience. ”
Shift of tax burden refuted
Legislators oppose sales tax
By Paul Ertelt
Of (he Emerald
Three Lane County legislators Sunday told a
group of citizens at the Eugene Public Library their
reasons for opposing the proposed 5-percent sales
tax.
Rep. Larry Hill, D-Springfield, who voted
against the sales tax in the House, said the tax
package is designed to shift the tax burden in three
ways. First, it would shift about $30 million in taxes
from businesses to consumers, he said.
It would also shift the tax burden from big
businesses to smaller businesses. The bill has no
provision for relieving smaller companies that rent
business space, but businesses that own their own
property would get property tax reduction, he said.
The sales tax plan would also shift the tax
burden from upper-income families to middle
income ones, he said.
Hill cited a report by the Legislative Revenue
Office estimating that a family of four with an in
come of $25,000 would actually have an increase in
their total tax bill of $22 a year. The family’s proper
ty and income taxes would be reduced, but their
estimated sales tax payments would be greater than
those reductions.
The same report estimates that a family of two
with an income of $50,000 would receive a net tax
reduction of $222 a year.
The sales tax would not help renters, because
landlords cannot afford to pass on property-tax sav
ings to their tenants. Hill said. Holding the vote on a
sales tax would cost taxpayers about $500,000, he
said.
Since no formula for distributing the tax
revenues to local school districts has been establish
ed, it is impossible to tell exactly how much any
specific family would be affected. Hill said.
Sen. Margie Hendriksen, who promised to vote
against the sales tax, criticized the Legislature for its
plan to reduce the timber severance tax, the tax
timber companies pay in lieu of property taxes.
Under the plan, the severance tax would be reduced
from 6.5 percent to 5 percent in Western Oregon and
from 5 percent to 3.8 percent in Eastern Oregon.
Since the severance tax helps offset property
taxes, the reduction will add an extra burden to pro
perty owners, she said.
Sen. Ed Fadeley, a major opponent of the sales
tax in the last legislative session, said he would not
vote for the package as it is, but he might vote to
refer an amended version.
Fadeley criticized the sales-tax package for not
specifically limiting property tax levies of cities,
counties or special taxing districts. The package also
guarantees that property tax levies for public
schools. Educational Service Districts and com
munity colleges will increase after the initial sales
tax offset by 6 percent a year, he said.
For every $10 of sales tax collected only $7
would go to property and income tax relief, he said.
Ray Phillips of the Oregon Taxpayers Union
said his group had not yet announced opposition to
the sales tax, “but it would certainly have to."
Though the plan was first touted as tax reform,
its proponents now say it is only a means of stabiliz
ing revenue for Oregon’s public schools, he said.
“I don’t see how they can call it reform, when
they’re taking from this pocket instead of that
pocket," he said. “It’s still taxes.”
Valuable feline furs
stolen from storage
Two animal skins valued at more than $10,000
were reported stolen Feb. 25 from a building where
they were being stored temporarily, according to
Eugene Police.
The relics, which belonged to the University
Museum of Natural History, were discovered missing
from a former dormitory at 1652 Columbia St. when
museum employees went to the storage building to
move the skins to another location, said Officer Bill Jen
nings of Eugene Police.
The skins had been stored in the building since last
summer because of an insufficient amount of storage
space in the museum, said Herbert Wisner, a museum
curator.
“There's a lack of storage space here,” Wisner
said. “There just aren’t enough places on campus to
store museum exhibits.”
Wisner said the skins were about to be sold to
another museum and were not meant to be on display at
the museum. The museum doesn’t ordinarily exhibit
items such as trophy heads, he said.
“The donor made no specific mention about the
purpose of the skins,” Wisner said. “They were to be
used for whatever purpose the museum saw fit. The
donator asked not to be identified.”
According to the police, the skins were last seen in
the storage area Jan. 16 when they were viewed by an
appraiser. The thief or thieves apparently gained entry
into the building by breaking a side window, Jennings
said.
An African lioness fur rug valued at $3,500
mounted on a brown fabric lining is 125 inches long,
including the tail, and 88 inches wide. The fur is
yellow with a short, dark brown mane, black ears and is
mounted with its jaws open, according to the police
report.
The other fur is an Asian Indian Bengal tiger
valued at $8,400. The bright reddish-tan skin is crossed
with black stripes and measures 130 inches long and 84
inches wide.