Monologue
Idle Hands
By J. Dana Haynes
Back in 1976, the Board of Education in Island
Trees, N. Y. decided to pull nine books off the
shelves of that small community’s schools. The
books were referred to as “anti-American, anti-
Christian, and anti-semetic,” and it was decided
that, for the good of the students, these books
should not be available.
Better just to be rid of them, than have the
town’s children exposed to such things.
Unfortunately, the books were “Slaughterhouse
Five” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., “The Naked Ape” by
Desmond Morris, “Down These Mean Streets” by
Piri Thomas, “Best Short Stories by Negro Writers”
(edited by Langston Hughes), “Go Ask Alice”
(anonymous), “A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich”
by Alice Childress, “Soul on Ice” by Eldridge
Cleaver, “A Reader for Writers” (edited by Jerome
Archer) and “The Fixer” by Bernard Malamud.
Notice please: How many of the above works
would you label unfit? The books are, for the most
part, exposes on the art of surviving in this culture of
ours.
Yet the school board was worried that these
books (some of which, at other times and places,
have been called classics.) would corrupt the morals
of the children.
So the books were banned.
This is not an isolated incident. All around the
country, books have been banned or burned because
parent groups, political action committees or con
cerned citizens have feared their content.
Such writers as Hemingway, Steinbeck, Joseph
Heller and even William Shakespeare have had their
works barred from libraries. In one community in
Texas, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary was thrown
from the shelves because the word “sex” was listed
as a verb as well as a noun.
My father is a basketball coach/history teacher
in a small town in Idaho. When he arrived at this
school, about five years ago, the first person he
befriended was the school’s principal.
Some time later, the principal mentioned to Dad
that the John Birch Soci.ety, an ultra-conservative
and militant group, had been in to see him.
Apparently, the Society dropped by the prin
cipal’s office nearly every year to go over the
school’s text books. Many of the history and
sociology books were tagged as un-American,
because they brought to light such disturbing things
as Thomas Jefferson’s slaves, U.S. Grant’s affection
for the bottle and general, over-all shafting of the
various American Indian tribes.
The John Birch Society would then suggest
“changes” in curriculum to cover these “problems.”
Experience shows us that book banning is a
bad thing. It springs from ignorance, fear and pre
judice, and taints the quality of education in this
country.
Just because we live in a state that sits comfor
tably in the middle of political road, we should not
neglect the spectre of book banning. Not so much
on the college level, true, but in the high schools and
junior high setting.
When “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is
banned from the library of Mark Twain Elementary
School for its racist content, which it was last sum
mer, then it’s time again to worry.
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page 2
Guest Columnist
‘3’Consequences feared
(Charles Clemens is the
Superintendent of Oregon
City Public Schools.)
The biggest question before voters Nov. 2 is
Ballot Measure 3: the so-called one and one-half
percent property tax limitation. The logical first
reaction for Oregonians is to say, “Sure, I’d like
to cut my taxes-I am going to vote for Measure
3.” But simply cutting taxes would not be the on
ly result of the passage of Measure No. 3.Con
sider also its devastation of economic develop
ment with a resulting increase in unemployment,
What’s worse, the so-called guarantee for
essential services specifies only that those ser
vices will receive 100% of what they had in
1979. Remember that the measure would go in
to effect in 1983 and would ignore the more
than 45% increase in the cost of doing business
in the intervening four years. Consider also the
massive unemployment that would result when
schools, cities and counties are forced to layoff
employees because they have lost up to one-
third of their revenues beginning in 1983-84.
Ballot Measure 3 would strike an immediate
and severe blow to Oregon education. Oregon’s
“Come on to Oregon. We really want you--but, by the
way, we can’t afford to give you a sewer hook-up, a
new road or necessary water services. ”
the derailing of our Veterans Farm and Home
Loan Program, and the serious loss of local
government servies such as police and fire pro
tection, schools, programs for the handicapped
and elderly, not to mention streets, sewers,
roads and other vital services.
First, let’s consider the impact of Measure 3
on economic development. Once the IV2 per
cent limit were in place, nothing, not a vote of
the people nor a vote of the Legislature —could
exceed that lid. There would be no new bonding
for sewers or roads or water lines to prepare in
dustrially zoned land for development. There are
thousands of acres of property in Oregon zoned
for industrial and commercial development. We
vitally need to bring clean, new businesses to
Oregon to provide jobs for the hundreds of
thousands of Oregonians who are now looking
for work.
Eighty percent of the available land in
Oregon is not now served by sewers, roads,
water hookups, and other essential services
necessary to economic development. Under
Measure 3, these thousands of acres would
stand idle because State and local government
would have their hands tied. How is this so? Just
like a family buying a house, cities or counties
must borrow money at the lowest possible rate
and repay that loan over time. They pay for the
public services through the sale of bonds. Ballot
Measure 3 would make Oregon’s bonds much
investment in education has paid real dividends.
Our illiteracy rate is half that of the national
average. Half of Oregon’s high school seniors
further their education. Oregon students score at
the top on national achievement tests. What
would Ballot Measure 3 do?
Let’s look at California which used to be a
leader in education. Under their limitation
measure schools have fallen from fourth to forty
eighth place nationally. California schools are
highest in class size. A California senior
graduating today would receive the equivalent of
a student graduating at the beginning of the
eleventh grade in Oregon.
Oregon’s schools have already cut back
because of economic hard times. Ballot Measure
3 is way more than mere belt tightening. It’s a
heavy slash at the very fiber of our educational
system.
Consider also who wins and who loses
under Ballot Measure 3. About 60 pecent of
Oregon property taxes are paid by commercial
and business interests. Therefore, 60 percent of
the relief goes to the business community which
has neither sought nor particularly needs this sort
of tax relief. Furthermore, three fourths of
business property is owned by regional or na
tional interests. This property tax relief goes out
side the Oregon borders.
And finally, there are other important con-
cerns: Oregon has had a long-standing tradition
“Ballot Measure 3 is way more than mere belt
tightening. It’s a heavy slash at the very fiber of our
educational system.”
more expensive and much less attractive to the
eastern lending institutions that have been mak
ing inexpensive loans.
Under Ballot Measure 3, Oregon would say
to potential new business ventures, “Come on to
Oregon. We really want you—but, by the way,
we can’t afford to give you a sewer hook-up, a
new road or necessary water services.” Attrac
ting new business and industry to Oregon is
tough enough now. Don’t throw another
roadblock into the process.
And what about Oregon’s self supporting
Veterans Farm and Home Loan Program? Ballot
Measure 3 would STOP the issuing of new loans
under that attractive program. Approximately
133,000 Oregonians are still eligible for Veterans
Farm and Home Loans. If you are a Veteran
and plan to use your eligibility to purchase a
home or a farm, or to remodel your current
place, forget it if Ballot Measure 3 passes.
And what about local government services?
Backers of Ballot Measure 3 claim that their
measure “guarantees” the protection of essential
services. But the measure goes even further and
defines for us what essential services are: police,
sheriff, fire protection, ambulance, and
paramedical services. Somehow the backers of
the measure don’t think that courts, roads,
sewers, jails or schools are essential.
of local control. Recently, for example,
Portlanders said “yes” to improving their
stadium, to a new performing arts center and to
a new tax base for their school system. Ballot
Measure 3 would say that local voters don’t have
the sense to make such judgments for
themselves and would move decision making
authority from the local level to Salem where
down-state and Eastern Oregon Legislators
would be making important policy decisions for
Portland people. And another thing: Ballot
Measure 3 would cause Oregonians to ship more
money to the federal government—about $250
million in the 1983-85 bienium, and more
money to the State Legislature to spend as well.
Ballot Measure 3 is much more than a sim
ple property limitation measure. It is com
plicated. It requires great study and understan
ding. I would urge all Oregonians to know as
much as possible about it so they can make the
absolutely best informed choice possible on Nov.
2, balancing the property tax relief that can be
expected against the loss of local control, the loss
of local government services, and the shift of tax
burden that would result.
Chuck Clemens
Superintendent,
Oregon City Public Schools
Clackamas Community College