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About La Grande observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1959-1968 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 10, 1959)
Beachcomber -c In 1 111 nir i.w:..-...-:.-'-.v ...--: i-.. . - EDITORIAL PAGE UA'GRANDE OBSERVER Monday, August 10, 195? "A Modern Newspaper With The Pioneer Spirit" RILEY D. ALLEN PtTBLTflfTED BT THH . LA O RAND IB PUBU8H1NO COMPANT GEORGE S. CHALLIS . TOM HUMES Publisher Adv. Director . Circulation Mgr. Working Within The Framework At least one Communist regime has been placed in the position of defender of constitutionalism and democratic pro cesses; its opponents, the traditional de fenders of these processes, advocate the overthrow of the government. . -.This topsy-turvy state of affairs exists in Kerala, India's smallest state where 15' million people live in a narrow 360-mile-long Btrip along the Arabian Sea hear the southern tip of India. Two years ago the general elections gave the Communist party 35 per cent of the vote and the biggest single repre sentation in the state assembly. Un able to vote the Communist cabinet out of power, the leaders of the opposition have carried their struggle into the streets. They maintain that unconstitutional and essentially revolutionary action is justified as a means of ousting the Com munist regime even though it has been voted into office by the people. Final resolution of these positions seem to favor oneide. If the Communist government is forced out of power by non-constitutional means, the Reds can use Kerala from that time on to justify their own obstructionism elsewhere in India and the free world. If the regime manages to stay in office' despite the efforts of the opposition, it will be recog nized as the stronger force and have a good chance of being re-elected in the 1962 contest. In Kerala, therefore, the Communists stand to gain in or out of power. While you can sympathize with the Indian government's plight something like taking the population of California, set tling it along the Oregon coast and set ting up a Communist party to rule the area you can't escape the conclusion that the best means of preserving a con stitutional system is to operate within the constitution's framework. DREW PEARSON SAYS: Simply By Enforcing Them Sometimes the most effective way to get a bad law changed is to demonstrate how bad it is. A justice of the peace attempted this in one community re cently with respect to Sunday blue laws. He went about handing arrest citations to everyone he found working on Sun day. The law forbade work on Sunday. The Federal Communications Commis sion, which rules the radio and TV in dustry with a firm and sometimes arbi trary hand, apparently didn't like the way the "equal time" clause of the FCC act was written. So it interpreted the clause to mean that newscasts giving attention to political candidates obligated a station or network to give an equal amount of free time to all of a candi date's opponents. Since there are often minor and ob scure candidates for many offices who have no hope or chance of being elected, giving such equal time to all candidates would be ridiculous. One can imagine the TV networks in 19f6, for example, allowing the candiates for president on the Prohibition Ticket and the Liberty party ticket as much time to air their views as they did Fisenhower and Stevenson. The FCC ruling caused the networks to say it would have the effect of ending political news coverage. So Congress swung into action and on Tuesday the Senate passed a bill to exempt radio-TV newscasts and other news programs from the equal time provisions. It should pass the House easily. Thus the FCC achieves what it set out to do. Most bad laws are just ignored rather than challenged in such manner. Prob ably there's not a community in the country that doesn't have some obsolete, unworkable or unreasonable ordinances cluttering its statute books. It would be easy to get rid of them by the simple expedient of enforcing them. 'em Out On A New Battleground "he Portland Reavers, notoriously un successful both on the baseball field and at the boxoffice in recent years, have decided to try to make money from base ball in a new fashion. The club is suing the major leagues, and asking big dam ages. ' This opens up an entire new side of ! baseball, where good lawyers become as j Important as a flashy shortstop who can hit .300. It will require setting up a whole list of new standards, too. ' For example, a good hitting .outfielder who can play every day always has been worth more money than a good pitcher, who'can pitch only every fourth day. Now, the legal education will be im portant, too. . Will one graduate of Harvard Iaw School, for example, be worth four Uni versity of Arkansas men, or only three? Barbs When a fellow takes several lumps w ith his tee it isn't. exactly a sweet golf game. , In the summer there is a lot more health to be found out in the open than out of a bottle. . Washington Dinner Hears Rocky's 1960 Strategy WASHINGTON. Another of Washington's hush-hush dinners re cently charted the strategy of Gov Nelson Rockefeller to capture the presidency in 10. This dinner was held, not In the White House, but the Georgetown home of Congressman Perkins Bass of New Hampshire, and was attended by Rockefeller's chief pol itical lieutenant. New orl State GOP Chairman Judson M or house At this private political, hair-down session, Mchouse made it clear that Rockefeller would be a candi date for president. Ex-Sneaker Joe Martin, not Bass. was supposed to be the biggest fish at the affair. Joe has not been an ardent admirer of Vice Presi dent Nixon since Nixon ioined with Congressman Charlie Halleck to oust Martin as House GOP leader. At the last minute, Martin had to' cancel out, but made it clear he will use his considerable influence inside the Republican party to help Rockefeller. Only House membe'S were in vited to the private political pow waw, among them Chester Mer row of New Hampshire. John Sav ior of Pennsylvania, John Lindsay and Stuyvesant Wainwright of New York. Morhouse started off by declar ing that he was confident Rocke feller would run for president, that his intentions would be made clear late this fall, and that his name would not be withdrawn from the key New .Hampshire primary-. Mor house added that Rockefeller might not campaign personally in New Hampshire, but that his campaign would be well-financed. Congress man Bass and Rockefeller inciden tally, got to know each other work ing on Dartmouth affairs. Both are alumni and Rockefeller is a trus tee. Bass' father is a former gover nor of New Hampshire. Congressman Merrow of New Hampshire cited private polls tak en in New Hampshire which show ed Rockefeller leading Nixon by as much as rive to one. Besides New Hampshire, Mor house said Rockefeller would en ter other primaries at least Ore gon and Wisconsin. He might ev en challenge Nixon in his home state of California. Nixon Dissected The group agreed that Nixon had scored a political bulls-eye on his Russian trio, but Questioned hnw long it would take' for the favorable impression to wear off. They re called that he-had come bark frnm being stoned in Venezuela a nat- Innnl nnrn Kiv - uooe ,..,.. v... ... . ui "ii ij mil i , inr i was slipping again in. the popu- r janty polls. k The grlxip expressed conviction r that Nixon, whatever his present p strength, could never win a nat ional election. They discussed his political drawbacks and even dis cussed how easy it was" for car toonists to caricature him. His heavy jowls, ski-jump nose and dark beard make him a natural for lampooning cartoonists Several warned, however, that L Kockereller should not make the mistake of underestimating Nixon. He is an abler politician than the laie sen. MoDert Talt. they agreed, and would not make the mistakes l alt made. Bass pointed out. for exsmnln that Taft was approached by a lit tle old woman after he had ail dreswd a rally during the 1!T.2 mew Hampshire primary. The beaming old lady presented him wun a jar oi maple syrup. In stead of accepting it with warmth, Taft coldlv nskeri her In ; to his Washington office. Nixnn h. more political senses, Bass said, man to pull a boner like that. The group acknowledged it would be difficult to start the Rneltnini. ler bandwagon now, because Re publican leaders would hesitate to oppose Nixon while he is only one neart oeat away from the presi- Too many people drive around under the influence of bad judgment. QUOTES FROM THE NEWS United Press International WASIIINGTONVire Pr.i,l.,.,t Richard M. Nixon, on the eco nomic contest between the I nii. ed States and Russia: "We have a tendencv ton nfin Just to assume that because we are ahead, that we will continue to stay ahead." - LITTLE ROCK. Ark.--The I!,-v M. L. Moser. a seerecatinnitt minister on Wednesday's sched uled opening of Little Rock schools on an integrated basis: I Question the wisdom of in. tegration. hut 1 want us to pray to one end . . . and that is that there is no trouble." NKW YORK William Ran. dolph Hearst Jr.. editor in - chief of the Hearst newspapers, saying the Russians want trade not war with the West: "If they Ithe Russians) will renounce all movements that at tempt to overthrow recogni?xi governments, the Western world might make trade agreements But the Russians first must dem onstrate a relaxation of their Fifth Column movement. And then if we catch them at it. we can call them off and tell them 'You're the skunks at the garden party.' " dency. They agreed frankly that if Ike should die and Nixon should move into the White House, it would be impossible to stop his nomination in 10. Republican politicians, having this in mind, don't want to risk antagonizing Nixon so early. But as convention time approaches, more and more leaders should be willing to hop aboard the Rockefeller bandwagon. Ike Pulls The Rug The President pulled the rug slightly out from under Vice Pres ident Nixon when he issued the all- important announcement of the Khrushchev-Eisenhower reciprocal visits. Though Ike made it appear that he was primarily responisble for issuing the invitation, actually this was not the case. It was Nixon. While it's true that the invitation had been dangled before the Krem lin earlier and had been discussed between Eisenhower and Herter as early as last May, actually the President remained reluctant right up until the very last minute even while Nixon was in Moscow. Nixon had talked to him before he left Washington about issuing the invitation, at which time Ike was dead opposed. He kept re peating the arguments that the late Secretary of State Dulles used to offer against a Khrushchev vis it. He almost acted as if he con sidered a Khrushchev invitation disloyal to Dulles' memory. After Nixon got to Moscow he cabled Eisenhower urging the in vitation. It was Nixon's advice that Khrushchev would only correct his misconceptions about America af ter he had a firsthand look at the U.S.A. That finally changed Ike's mind, Nixon reported that Khrush chev had come to believe his own propaganda so strongly Ihat he disregarded what anyone else told him about America. After receiving this cable fol lowing Nixon's private conversa tion with Khrushchev, White House aides went into a huddle with the President. Ike still seemed to be swayed by the advice of his late secretary of state. But he finally agreed to the exchange of visits. Nixon was touring, Siberia at the time. After he returned to Mos cow he was notified that the in vitation would be offered. Cult Denied Use Of Church For Service INDIANAPOLIS. Ind. (UPI)-A planned rally by an extremist Ne gro religious cult was cancelled Sunday when a Methodist church locked the group out of the church sanctuary. - t About 50 followers of Elijah Muhammad, self-styled ''messen ger of Allah," milled around out side the G or h a m Methodist Church after the church's board of trustees decided at the last minute to deny them use of the sanctuary. The meeting was switched to a Baptist church but then was can celled entirely because of the large number of police and news paper reporters present. Raymond Sharrieff of -Chicago, who identified himself as Muham mad's son-in-law and "supreme captain" of the sect, said Mu hammad didn't make it to Indi anapolis as scheduled Sunday but would attend a rally bere some time in the future. Police Inspector Carl C. Schmidt read to the cult members Indiana's laws against inciting to race hatred. The cult preaches supremacy of the black race, ac cording to a story in a national magazine. Schmidt said the statute pro vides a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine for those who "create, ad vocate, spread or disseminate ha tred for or against any person. . . by reason of race, color or reli gion." Schmidt told the cult members he intended to send two Negro police officers into the meeting to read the Indiana law again to the cultists. The cult members pro tested that they had suffered "no such indignities" at previous meetings in New York,, Washing ton and elsewhere. ADVISES ROCKEFELLER ; MEMPHIS, Tenn. (UPII Gov Nelson A. Rockefeller of New" York must "come out of solitude and express himself" to win the Republican Presidential nomina tion, Oregon Republican Gov. Mark O. Hafield said Friday. Hafield, a Republican, said Rocke feller "has wide popular backing'' but Vice President Richard M. Nixon "gained much popularity from his recent trip to Russia." Letters To The Editor Maximum length 300 words. No anonymous letters but true name will be withheld on request. To The Editor: With all the talk of reorgani zation of our school districts these days I can't help weighing some of the ponderables in such a move. The first thing that comes to mind is the advantages the new ly formed districts would have over the small or "Little Red School House" type of district. In the new set up the bonded debt, if my information is cor rect, of the existing districts would be redistributed on a per capita basis on every person in the new district but at the same time their voice in the district would become .immeasurably smaller. A comparable hypothe sis would be that a large district, such as La Grande, could have three or four of the directors of the total board of seven when some of the smaller communities would have one each, if, indeed, any at all. That makes pretty small potatoes of the small districts. The larger communities argue that they dispense a better brand of education than their little neighbors. And this is not with out some room for conjecture. Take, for instance, the inability to keep step with rising stand ards required for entrance to most universities and colleges. Preparing students for college entrance sTiould be one of the principle functions of a high school but it is a known fact that the present system is somewhat less than adequate in this re spect. And it is causing a great deal of shifting of blame and shrugging off of responsibility for the inadequacy. It seems that in order to learn grammar during the present system of "learning by doing" that one has to study a foreign language where they still not only congugate verbs, teach the table of personal pro nouns with their case forms, gender and person but, also, ac tually teach the "eight parts of speech" all of which are pretty generally unheard of by the new crop of graduates. They say it is old fashioned to teach this way but I think it should be fashion able to be able to spell well or to punctuate correctly or to em ploy correlative conjunctions cor rectly or to be able to use the right mode of verbs or even the knowledge of when to use the nominative instead of the objec tive case then if these be old fashioned, let's go back to the Little Red Schoolhouse where some of our old time teachers were able to turn out sUidentj who were taught character and the ability to be leaders in their communities and credit to themselves. I am most doubtful if the mass education system will produce the finely turned specimens of the inspired craftsman any more than moss production in industry has been able to do. I feel there has been too much emphasis on meeting standard scholastic requirements and that our teachers are being forced to become more a "skilled labor" class rather than the old fash ioned, dedicated type who was interested in implanting useful knowledge to a group of stud ents eager to learn the three "R's". Very respectfully yours, William Brentwood Ike Returns To Washington WASHINGTON (LTD Presi dent Eisenhower interrupts his vacation at his farm home today for an overnight return to Wash ington to keep some appointments and confer with Republican con gressional leaders. The President planned to leave Gettysburg early this afternoon. Before his departure, he hoped to get in a round of golf at the Get tysburg Country Club where he played nine holes Friday. Eisenhower's appointments to day included the swearing in of Commerce Secretary Frederick H. Mueller, greeting contestants in the annual Teen-Age Safe-Driving Road-E-O, and meeting the new president of Lions International. NEW RUSSIAN AIRPORT LONDON (UPI) Moscow Radio Friday night announced completion of Moscow's third air port, 16 miles outside the Soviet capital. The airport was built in view of the resent sharp in crease in air travel," the broad cast said. Baking "cookies" for better roads ' "Cookies" of asphalt paving are baked and : frozen in our laboratories, so we can measure how , highways wear in all types of weather. ' ' ' ' The man is William H. Ellis, one of Standard's scientists who conduct many such testa to improve highway materials and construction methods. We actually build roads, subject them to crushing pressure, try out many paving mixes, work closely ' with highway engineers. 1 Our work benefits you both as a motorist and a taxpayer. Asphalt costs less than any other pave ment ... three miles of highway for the cost of two. You also get roads that resist skids, cut down glare, make lane markers easier to see . . . roads which are smooth, quiet and comfortable. ) Asphalt roads are ready for use within hours ' after laying . . . cost less to maintain and can be even stronger and better after years of service. By such continuing research that brings you better products at lower cost, thm- pop of Standard an planning ahead to serve you better. Standard's asphalt products, are made and sold by American Bitumuls & Asphalt Company, a wholly mnnpfi ftuhsdAinrv. v h .- STANDARD OIL COMPANY OF CALIFORNIA