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About La Grande observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1959-1968 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 19, 1959)
A Glacier Melts Slowlv "i I Inc. DREW PEARSON SAYS: Congressional Probers Just Scratchng Surface Of TV WASHINGTON' If Chairman Oren Harris of Arkansas can keep some of. his congressional com mittee members away from jun kets unci fence mending, he plans to concentrate further on the Ijhoniness of certain TV networks. What connrcs-men are now be ginning to realise is that TV is as influential as the schools and the churches, c an make or break busi ness, influence juvenile delin quency, hint the nation's health, but has been exploited for the benefit of the dollar. They have found that at one and the same time phony TV shows have been used by Madison Avenue to sell phony products. In the fibs of the Harris com mittee, for instance, are memos from Charles Itevscn, president of the Kevlon Cosmetic Company, instructing the Batten, Barton, Durstinc and Osborn advertising agency to take certain contestants off the $114,000 question which Kevlon was sponsoring, and to keep othe:s on. The VA.mn Question was the program owned by l.ouis Cowan, I'resid' lit of C f'.S TV, regarding which Itev. Charles E. Jackson. Jr. of Tullahoma. Tenn., said he had been coached. CBS Vice President and Attorney Thomas K. fisher teslilicd before the Harris committee that network executives had no idea of any rigging. Mem bers of the Harris committee are getting more and more skeptical of these protestations. Significantly the Food and Drug Administration has just banned 17 shades of lipstick because they contain coal-tar dyes which are toxic if swallowed. Coal tars can also cause cancer. Thus the public was doubly fooled. For a rigged TV program the $04,000 Question, was responsi ble for boosting the sale of lip sticks, of which some colon have been banned from sale. The lipstick war over television became so frantic that one com pany charged its wires were tapped by a competitor in order to steal the SM.OOO Question. The public had no idea when it watched contestants sweat and ponder over the answers to $M.0O0 Question either that they had been coached, or that wire tapping was involved, or finally that the pro gram was .zooming the profits of one lipstick company and forcing two others into the red. That is hew potent have been the TV net works and how they have in fluenced the health and economy of the nation. The two real contestants in the $14,000 Question were not those who appeared in public be'ore the quiz-master, but Raymond Spector, chief owner of the Hazel PMinp Co., and Charles Hcvson, head of Itcvlon. Spector. an astute advertising man, had taken hold of a bankrupt lipstick company and by spending $1,500,000 on advertising put his lipstick in almost every drugstore in the land. He developed the TV show "This Is Vour Life," on which he spent nearly $4,000,000 annually. His profits skyrocketed. In five years he cleared $10,000, 000 and became one of the wealthi est men in ithe advertising busi ness. Suddenly he lost "This Is Your Life." The network, he claimed, took it away from him. Simul taneously he began flirting with a new show, the $64,000 question. He was about to sign up for it when out of the clear blue it was grabbed by a competitor. Revlon. Strang Leaks Spector had found strange leaks EDITORIAL PAGE LA GRANDE OBSERVER Monday, October 19, 1959 "Without or Willi friend or foe, we print your daily world as it goes" Byron. RILEY ALLEN, publisher Grady Pannell, managing editor George Challis, advertising director Tom Humes, circulation manager Wives Are Likened To Newspapers Governors are continuously making proclamations. We have Newspaper Week proclaimed regularly in October. Comes now a fellow up in Washington that proclaims "Wives Day" and tit the same time of Newspaper Week. Seems that after extensive jjrillinjr The Fraternal Order of Eagles admitted . it was all a put-up job. Tlie Order ad mitted to putting the governor up to it. Howsomever, it made wives happy, at i least the wives of Eagles nnd that may have been the original intention. The two proclamations are a happy j coincidence, actually, because w ives and newsapers have a great deal in common. Admittedly both are necessary and both suffer from being taken fur granted most of the time, just ask your wife. Much is expected of both newspapers and wives. They are supposed to sea to it that-expenses are down in their baili . wicks. They are both something that ' men look forward to when they get home in the evening. Wives or newspapers are not supposed to scold, nag or speak unpleasantries but instead to be understanding of others' shortcomings; sympathetic about others' troubles and lauditory of all accomplish ments however insignificant. Occasionally someone will say of wives that you can't live with or without tlioni and the same could be said of newspapers. Hut some may undertake to do just that filing for- divorce andor can celling their subscription to the paper with almost equal absence of compuction. And the grounds in either case may lie the same non-compatibility or mental cruelty. Hut there is at least one import ant difference. No subscriber, unlike a husband, can ever charge desertion, Hut wait on second thought, he could. Stop feeding your wife or stop paying for your newspaper and you'll be deserted, alright, alright. Shotgun Shells Remington 4 Suptr-X at La Grande Hardware In Ms office. Private conversa oons and trade secrets had been reported to his competitors. He called in Charles V. Gris, a wire tap expert, who checked his phones and reported they were tapped. Spector reported this to Frank Hugan, New York district attorney, and there followed a New York prosecution of the wire tapper, John G. "Steve" Broady. During the course of various wire-tap revelations, including' a probe by the New York Joint legis lative committee, it was revealed that Revlon had been using wire taps extensively. Revlon execu tives swore that they were mere ly tapping the wires of their ow employes, which was legal. Spector claimed they had tapped his wires to steal the $G4,000 Question. '" At any rate, Revlon got the $64 000 Question. Tn I AM Revlon was doing alKUit lai.oiM.iniO worth of business a year. Alter it got $M,000 Question, business shot up to around $100,000,000 a year. It made no difference that contestants were coached or fed the answers in ad vance. The public loved it and bought lipsticks with fervor. Drug stores were so anxious to get Rev lon cosmetics that the company forced them to give Revlon 40 per cent of the drugstores' cos metic display space to keep the Revlon franchise. Coty. a leading competitor, noted the impact of the TV pro gram in its report to stockholders explaining why it had gone into the red. Hazel Bishop also went into Uhe red. Gel NEW ADMIRAL APPLIANCES & FURNITURE for Prices As LOW AS USED La Grande FURNITURE Warehouse East Adams Ave. ft 124-HOUR AMBULANCE SERVICE One call to Us and we handle all the arrange ments for services anywhere in the United States. Serving the La Grande area Phone WO 3-5022 Hatfield Should Take A Positive Approach With the exception of a relatively 'small group of persons in the immediate area, it has become obvious in recent months a majority of Oregon residents favor the development of the national seashore recreation area between Keeds port and Florence on the Oregon coast. At least, everyone we know who has made any study of the proposed park area believes the majority favors such a development. If the matter were put up before the Oregon electorate, we'll wager it would carry by a very handsome ma jority. But, the development is opposed by Governor Mark Hatfield. At least, the Governor has put himself pretty firmly on record as opposed to the proposal in its present form. I, He is, however, willing to consider variations on the propositi, the Coventor Ihas said many times. In this connection, we have a sugges tion to make. The Governor would be on far strong er g round if he would take a i-ositive approach on the matter, rather than the completely negative one he has shown to date. All the Governor's pronouncements to date have been against the present pro posal of the National Park Service. Now, since Senate committee hearings on tha matter have been completed, the Governor has an opportunity to do a real favor for the majority which favors a park development. It's time for the Governor to say what kind of development in tke area he does favor, rather than just sAyinjr he doesn't like the present proposal. It will do no good for him to again suggest the Clatsop Plain area, since the National Park Service won't accept it. The Park Service, which has a re sponsibility to the whole country, not just to Oregon or the west parts of Lane or Douglas counties, will not accept Clatsop Plain. Sine, it's nice, but there are other areas in other states which are far belter. And the Park Service is not in business just to establish some new project in each state. We would respectfully suggest, too. to Covernor Hatfield, that he get some advice' from some other people, too, be fore he makes his proposals. There are, in the various state in stitutions and departments, a number of people with knowledge which would be helpful in thir. matter. Particularly on the faculties of Oregon State and the Cniversity of Oregon, there are men and women with years of training and ex perience in the various fields which -1hiiI, enter into a decision of this type. To date, Hatfield has depended upon Pan Allen, a former Kugene laundry "tan. Hatfield supporter and one-time part-time president of the Oregon divi sion of tlio Izaak Walton I-cague, for log-w-ork. Allen is totally unqualified, so far as e can find out, by training or experi '"ce, to handle the thing completely, as lie seems to have done in the past. He ' too closely allied with the Western 1-ane Taxpayers Association to b6 repre senting the people of the rest of the state. The Pend Pulletin. t MORE POWER TO 'EM M03ILGAS R-the West's highest octane regular meets the octane needs of Detroit's I960 economy and new compact cars, as well as foreign cars. Supplies all the octane demanded in seven out of ten of all cars on the road today... all at the price of regular. . , & mobilgas special with over 100 octane and important engine -cleaning additives ... delivers smooth, big-power thrust to 1960's high -compression engines that demand a premium fuel.' 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