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About Eugene register-guard. (Eugene, Or.) 1930-1983 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 13, 1962)
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAFER ALTON F. BAKER, Publisher, 19271981 'Swell! But Do You Plan to Use Your Money or Ours?' nrv-cr ALTON F. BAKER JR. Editor and Publisher EDWIN M. BAKER General Manager RICHARD A. BAKER Managing Editor ROBERT B. FRAZIER Associate Editor A. H. CURREY Associate Editor The Register -Guard's policy is the complete and impartial publication in its news pages of all news and statements on news. On this page, the editors of the Register-Guard offer their opinions on events of the day and matters of importance to the community, endeavoring to be candid but fair and helpful in the development of construc tive community policy. A newspaper is a CITIZEN OF ITS COMMUNITY. Published every evening and Sunday morning by the Guard Publishing Co. 6A EUGENE, OREGON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 1962 Butte's Beauty Tightening Up It may be that Skinner Butte should be developed, not as an amusement park 6ort of attraction, but to provide better use of this marvelous vantage-point. In recent days, plans suggested by Charles 0. Porter and others have at tracted considerable attention because many Eugeneans do believe that the butte has greater potentials than have yet been developed. However, before enthusiasms go too far, it should be noted by all local resi dents that the natural beauty of the butte, its restful lack of development, lends charm to its appearance on our horizon. In other cities such promon tories are covered with homes, restau rants and so forth not unsightly in themselves, but far less attractive than the natural cover of trees and shrubs. If structures are to be placed on Skinner Butte to give tourists and towns--people protection from the weather while they gaze out over the city and stretch their sight to the mountains beyond, these should be planned to be as unob trusive as possible. If a restaurant, a tourist-service center or other establish ment is to be included in development of the butte, this, too, should be planned to be inconspicuous from below. Osten tatious neon signs, jutting buildings and other marks of man should not be al lowed to despoil the butte, - Finally, whatever may be done on the butte must be done without divert ing funds from other, more immediately necessary city park developments. If private investors, business organizations or booster groups are interested in mak ing the proper sort of improvements on the butte, under strict city control, there should be little complaint. Otherwise, however, these thoughts would be better laid aside until vital city park land acquisitions have been carried out. Freeloading In his state of the union message Thursday, President Kennedy led the Congress through a little financial exer cise. If the nation is lucky, that exercise is not typical of New Frontier thinking on money matters. He told Congress it was "in our interest" for this country to buy half of the bonds the United Nations will float this year to make up for the special assessments some nations have refused to pay. The idea is that these bonds will be redeemed from the regular assessments, which are easier to collect. Already the United States pays 32 per cent of the regular cost of the United Nations. This is called "our fair share." We have pungled up some 47 per cent of the money to finance the Congo opera tions. Now we are asked to buy 50 per cent of the bonds. Probably we ought to do that this year. For if we don't, the United Nations could very well fail to pull through. But let's not kid ourselves about its being to our interest, financially, to buy them. We know, as the result of long and bitter experience, that this $100 million we may be about to spend may never be paid back. This sort of thing shouldn't be al lowed to continue. If it is right that the United Nations adhere to the "one na tion, one vote" formula, then why is it not also right that it work on a "one nation, one share of the freight" formu la, too? In theory, and in theory only, a na tion that is two years behind in its pay ments is supposed to lose its voting privilege. But the General Assembly has yet to invoke this punishment. This matter of delinquency in pay ments is not serious just because it makes a sucker out of the American tax payer. It has a more pernicious effect, too. It makes freeloading an accepted practice. The United States, recognizing the economic facts of life, is willing to do more than its mathematical share, to be sure. But somewhere along the line this old game has got to stop, especially when so many of the freeloaders are freeload ers because of laziness and pique, not poverty. The University of Oregon this week took a first step toward tightening ad missions policies. The criterion for ad mission would be academic, with a 3 point, or "B" average, required of the high school senior who wanted into the university without further tests. The present standard is a 2-point or "C" aver age. (This is a faculty recommendation, not a final decision.) Meanwhile the University of Cali fornia has tightened up, too. Any high school student with a "D" on his record will be barred from admission. These changes, which are by no means limited to the Universities of Ore gon and California, are far-reaching in their effect. But for now consider just one of them: No longer can we speak of the old Pacific Coast (athletic) Conference as if it would just go on forever. These two universities have already tightened up. Others will follow. Both are becoming in creasingly graduate in character. Soon, it may be, the best teams will be fielded by colleges that today are considered minor league. UCLA and Stanford are also marginal football schools. In the very near future they, too, may have to abandon the big time for lack of quali fied players. This is one more reason why the University of Oregon and Oregon State should not be in a hurry to rejoin a league that may be meaningless by the end of the decade. wmmmm ....... 1 Eric Sevareid In 'Black and White . . . From a Distance Survival Not Enough? The Editor's Mailbag has lately been filled with comments, pro and con, about civil defense plans especially those re garding the construction of private andor public fallout shelters. Most of these offerings have come from persons who are, in one way or another, closer to the problems of sur vival in the event of nuclear war than are the rest of us. Closer, that is, in the abstract sense. Now, however, we may have indications of what our mass opin ions amount to in these matters. These indications are not of exactly local origin, and, therefore, they may not be entirely valid here. Nonetheless, we are indebted to the San Francisco Chron icle to whatever extent they are valid. The Chronicle has just completed a poll of its readers to learn what actions San Franciscans have taken to build or plan private fallout shelters, what they intend to do and how they feel about the wisdom of the federal government building mass shelters. Only 2 per cent of those queried by the Chronicle reported that they have constructed shelters of any kind; only 7 per cent of those polled said they in tend to build shelters; and, only 30 per cent Rre in favor of a shelter program. Perhaps even more revealing of pub lic thinking in this area is the fact that 69 per cent of the Chronicle's respond ing readers said they believe that a shel ter program would increase the risks of war by promoting optimism about sur vival chances. Following this same line of reason ing, 72 per cent of those polled said that money spent for shelter construction would be better spent in the U.N. and other peace-promoting programs. Finally, 69 per cent of the Chronicle readers covered in the poll said that they would rather not live through a nuclear war if, by some means, that were pos sible. Thus it seems that for all the talking, there's little likelihood of any politician campaigning successfully on the promise of a fallout shelter in every backyard. The public yearns, instead, to have world leaders accept its mass opinion that nuclear war would bo without vic tory of any sort worth sticking around to celebrate. The instinct of self-preservation seems to have been sublimated at least in San Francisco into one of preserving civilization. But what docs this offer those who might, even by mere chance, be left to face the necessity of going on living after another war? ,1 r tTj v State Department officials normally buried in endless "po sition papers" on endlessly re curring crises are currently pas sing around a 13-page letter, like connoisseurs ex amining a rare gem of uncer tain market value. This document is hard as a dia mond in reason ing, cool as a moonstone i n tone. The letter "black and Sevareid white impressions sketched from a distance" is the sum mations of conclusion about America's world position and policies, reached by a former American diplomat with 30 years' experience on four con tinents, a man who was greatly respected among his foreign service peers, never considered as cynic or reactionary- He has recently had time for funda mental thinking, a commodity usually denied to diplomats in active service. Here are a few brief excerpts from his conclu sions: ANTI-AMERICANISM "The commonest binding tie among the ruling groups of the under developed countries." It is in the nature of our power position and "if it did not exist, we would have reason to worry about our world position. We might emulate a predecessor, the British, and recognize for eign antipathy for its worth, but not become obsessed with it nor waste energy in combatting in ternational neuroses curable only (if even by that) by our withdrawal from the world scene. What was often taken for British arrogance was mere ly British boredom. Generations of civil servants had learned the futility of explaining to alien minds the rationale of world wide power and its attendant responsibilities." THE COMMUNIST APPEAL It exists not because under developed peoples like Russians or Chinese want to be ruled by them. "It is because they are drawn to authority, mass solidarity, a shared formula for salvation and governments tak ing problems off one's shoul ders . . . the less inured to choice and decision the people, the more attractive this simply fying formula. The people them selves, after colonial rule, sub mission to native tyrants or governing themselves through scallywags and weaklings, are receptive to authoritarianism in which the simple man finds brief realization as an individu al in local party meetings, 'popular' demonstrations and possession of a militiaman's gun, while losing his individuality in the socially secured 'people.' . . . Ideologically, the under-developed countries will tend in creasingly toward authoritarian ism. This trend does not neces sarily play into Communist hands. If the leadership is firm of hand, intelligently egocentric rather than frivolously vain, it is likely to resist Soviet penetra tion more successfully than the usual caricature of democracy encountered in the underde veloped countries." FOREIGN AID "There are two categories in this catalogue of good works, economic and political. As related to under developed countries, they are in conflict. For the economic In the Editor's Mailbag letters intended for the Editor's Mailbag column must be signed with the correct name and address of the writ er. No anonymous letters will be published. Letters of less than 350 words in length will be given preference, as will those in ichich the writer confines his remarks to one topic. Ambulances and DST YACHATS (To the Editor) What a wonderful life we could live if it were not for a few people who have drifted so far into dreamland that the old fable of Itip Van Winkle is a farce in comparison. A group of people known as the Oregon Ambulance Opera tors (union) . . . sponsored a law to restrict the majority of us from continuing our own care of the sick, accd, and in jured hy providing a commu nity ambulance service at a cost that the individual can afford to pay. This law was aided and abet ted by the state board, consist ing of a group of doctors who have erected i little white pin nacle for themselves and are totally ignorant of the ways of the people in industry, the farms, and the more common walks of life. This law was pasrri hy the last Legislature, composed of a group of characters who seldom get out of the incorporated lim its of a city, and then only at lection time or prior to that time, and apparently don't care about our interests or welfare that we pay them so handsome ly to protect. The ambulance law, as Is or In any other form, together with the awful confusion resulting from that daylight saving fiasco of last summer, will certainly be held against the Legislature, and I, as a citizen of the state of Oregon, hope to see the time when each of the members will be looking at the want ads to see if they can find a piace where they can make an hon est dollar. R. H. MIX Box 24. Peace and America EUGENE (To the Editor) Your recent editorial entitled "Turn Both Ways," was certain ly timely. As one interested in working for a peaceful world, I want to thank the writer for expressing this main truth so succinctly. It is difficult to understand why some people feel working for a peaceful world is not also work ing for the good of America. GKOIiGK SV. KOMINE BIO E. 23rd Ave. MEMHER OP THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Ths Associated Prest It entitled exclusively to the .use for republica tion of nil the local news printed Id this newspaper. member or the aitut bureau OF CIHl TLAVIONS Service! Inlted Tress International progress that we pay for can, in general, only be attained in dis regard of the political goals we press for. Economic progress of the magnitude we propose can be made in an underde veloped society only if that so ciety is disciplined . . . but even a strong leader, exercising so cial discipline and striving to improve the economy of his country, with all of our aid, may not win the race against eco nomic and social disintegration. For we talk of accomplishing in five or ten years, or at most a generation, economic revolu tions the magnitude of which took generations and centuries in Europe and Japan ... by the most extravagant construction, our moral responsibility as a state stops somewhat short of our capacity to do constructive good, beyond which limit we now are. "Outer space may be man ageable. From there in is the problem. I suspect that the answer may lie in reducing the size of the problem, for it is beyond ours, and anyone else's, wisdom or wile." The author of this letter, this needle shower of intellectual acid, is by no means a soured "agin'er." He is a positive, af fectionate personality, normally bubbling with life and ideas. But his training was in the classical school of diplomacy, in which the strength and welfare of the United States was the first and last consideration, in which the search for the hard core of truth in any situation was rig orously divorced from senti ments. He has spent half a lifetime in "backward" coun tries, in their spreading seas of crowded pain and passions. He appears convinced that we shall suffer harsh retribution for having, in our disrespect for history, in our lack of hu mility before the eternal hu man tragedy, carelessly ex panded our world-wide endeav ors to an ungovernable magni tude. Distributed 1962, by The Hall Syndicate, Inc. Carmichael AUo$T ANYTHING, YOU HaE SOMEONE to po IT WITH WILLIAM WASWANN Nvs Ldltol IX) N.N U BONHAM. City Editor ROSS O JOHNSON Advertising Director JARL rtT.LE, rirculsllon Manager ROBERT K. RFRTSCH Pronation W B. JOHNSTON JR. Auditor ARM 6TROMMER Production if i H3 Press Service Publishes 1961 Censorship Survey By Associated Press Censorship of the press both direct and indirect hai con tinued to impede the free flow of news in many parts of tlx world in the last year. ' Withholding of news at the source proved to be the most common obstacle encountered by newsmen. It was worst in Communist countries where official sources rarely make them selves available. But bureaucracy made things difficult in West ern capitals such as London, Paris and Washington. In one small area of the world, at least Burma news paper editors made a courageous and successful stand on be half of freedom of the press. Each year Associated Press correspondents around the world report on the status of press censorship and other conditions affecting the flow of news across international boundaries. Notable developments reported by them include: Western Europe Censorship at the source was practiced strenuously in France, particularly in regard to developments on the Algerian revolt and efforts to resolve it by negotiation. In Algeria itself offi cials withheld information unless it suited their purpose to release it. Foreign correspondents were warned they faced danger of expulsion if they carried interviews with former Gen. Raoul Salan or any member of the secret army opposing President de Gaulle's Algerian policy. Spain's domestic press remained under strict censorship but some signs of a more liberal policy appeared when newspapers were permitted for the first time to report such items as the imprisonment of a senior Franco government official for cor ruption in office, or trials of Basque nationalists for anti Franco activities. Foreign correspondents in Madrid can file dispatches freely but are often called on the carpet by govern ment officials for stories published abroad. In West Germany all shades of political opinion except Com munist found expression in the newspapers. Eastern Europe The Soviet Union abolished direct censorship on Western reporters and they were able to pick up a telephone and call their offices or cable their dispatches unchecked. Responsibility censorship remained. In another form of pressure the Moscow correspondent for the Paris newspaper Figaro was sent home not because of what he had written, but because of what his newspaper had pub lished. But Western newsmen in Moscow could write freely about touchy subjects such as internal politics and relations with Peiping. There was no direct censorship of foreign newsmen in Hungary but they could be expelled if they displeased the gov ernment. The Hungarian press is not subject to direct censor ship. With Communist party members occupying most edi torial chairs censorship is not needed. Poland continued to permit Western newsmen more freedom of action than enjoyed in other Communist bloc countries, but they were held responsible for their dispatches under threat of being expelled for violating vaguely defined ground rules set up by the government. Africa In general the countries of Africa have no formal censor ship but there are disturbing developments in some of the newly independent nations. Senegal requires foreign newsmen in Dakar to submit dispatches for reading by officials prior to transmission. Ghana took strong exception to correspondents who incurred displeasure of government officials. Three British and one American correspondent were charged with sending "obnoxious and tendentious" reports. Two of the British newsmen were ordered out of the country. The Middle East Censorship, either acknowledged or hidden, prevailed in every Middle East country. It was mildest in Lebanon and toughest in Iraq. The AP correspondent in Iran was punished by loss of filing privileges for a week because he insisted upon sending what he personally witnessed in a demonstration in which injuries were suffered by strikers. Only officially announced and strictly routine items came through the Iraqi censorship. Censors no longer occupied chairs in the editorial rooms of Cairo newspapers, but the government exercised absolute con trol over the domestic press. Dispatches of foreign corres pondents were subjected to blind censorship. The military government maintained a tough censorship in Sudan, while the situation in Syria since it split with the United Arab Republic was confused; dispatches were held up for hours. In Israel ell copy intended for local publication or for trans mission abroad was subject as in the past to military censor ship which would delete items for so-called security reasons. Criticism of the government was freely expressed in the do mestic press. Latin America Times of turmoil invariably bring censorship to Latin Amer ica and 19G1 was no exception. Both Brazilian and foreign newsmen got a taste of it when Janio Quadros closed down radio stations and sought to intimi date a critical and nonsubservient press. He threatened to expel foreign newsmen and close down their offices. Quadros resigned as president, setting off a crisis threaten ing a civil war. Gov. Carlos Lacerda, striving to keep Vice Presi dent Joao Goulart from succeeding Quadros, clamped severe censorship on newspapers, radios and TV stations. Outgoing dis patches were censored. Responsibility censorship heightened in Chile, where a Chil ean correspondent for Time Magazine was jailed four days on government charges he wrote stories published by Time that were harmful to the country's security and reputation. The charges eventually were dropped. Argentina remained free of censorship restrictions but one weekly was closed and the editor jailed on charges he instigated his readers against the government. Foreign correspondents filed freely from the Dominican Re public after the overthrow of the Trujillo regime. Fidel Castro's Cuban regime exercised iron control over all newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations. Outgoing news was under severe censorship. During the anti-Castro riots start ing in front of a church in September Western correspondents were cut off from the rest of the world for three days. Southeast Asia The censorship situation brightened somewhat in Southeast Asia, where a determined group of editors in Burma forced the government to relax its restrictions. After a scries of arrests and one shutdown the press struck back in November. On Nov. 6 all Rangoon newspapers and some in the provinces carried identical banncrlines: "Repressive Laws, Personal Spite Restrict Freedom of the Press." On the next day the newspapers came out with bbnk editorial columns. Prime Minister U Nu quickly arranged a "cease-fire" and promised repeal of longstanding restrictive press laws. The newspapers promised a more responsible press under a self policing action by a committee of journalists. Progress was made In Laos despite ravages of civil war. The pro-Western rightwing government of Prince Boun Oum lifted a censorship on foreign correspondents that had been erratic and inconsistent rather than rigorous. Neutralist Prince Sou vanna Phouma permitted Western newsmen to come to his stronghold in North Laos. Communist newsmen were permitted by the rightist government to cover negotiations at Vientiane Malaya. Japan. India and The Philippines enjoved freedom of the press, but in Indonesia all newspapers and news agencies were under absolute government control that was sometimes capricious. Cambodia did not censor outgoing dispatches but foreign newsmen found government officials reluctant to talk In South Viet Nam an American publicity firm was hired to polish up the public image of President Ngo Dinh Diem under a new government public relations policy that permitted more freedom for foreign correspondents. Strict government controls remained on Thailand's prs but there was no direct censorship of outgoing dispetches. Pakistan did not censor outgoirn dispetclsos. but tinder th martial law regime the government held strong powers to regu late the press. In Afghanistan the press was under strict government con trol, but foreign correspondents were free to cable what the wished. Ceylon operated under a state of emergency proclaimed last April. All outgoing dispatches required initialing by a censor Only two Western correspondents were stationed In Peiping Thelhreat of expulsion hung over their heads if (rtcy filed a reports displeasing to the Communist regime.
