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About Eugene register-guard. (Eugene, Or.) 1930-1983 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 31, 1963)
Mm wiWT mm nviwu AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER ALTON P. BAKER, Publisher, 1927-1MX Letters In The Editor's Mailbag ALTON F. BAKER JR. Editor end Publisher EDWIN M. BAKER Genera! Manager RICHARD A. BAKER Managing Editor ROBERT B. FRAZEER Associate Editor A. H. CURREY Associate Editor The Register-Guard' policy i the complete and impartial publication in it news pages of all newt and statements on news. On this page, the editor of the Register-Guard offer their opinions on events of the day and matter 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. 10A EUGENE, OREGON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1963 Shotgun Federal Aid Not Required If President Kennedy's federal aid to education program is adopted as pro posed, Oregon will receive about $3.8 million to assist with the construction of elementary and secondary school build . ings, the meeting of teachers' salaries and the financing of projects intended to improve instruction. Not meaning to seem at all insensi tive to needs for new schools, well-paid teachers and constantly improving edu cational methods, and, not meaning to seem ungrateful that President Kennedy should recommend federal assistance with what is one of our most critical public problems the proper education of our youth we still must ask: Why should Oregon receive anything from the federal treasury for elementary and sec ondary schools? The President's proposal calls for the distribution of federal aid on the basis of population and relative need, as indi cated by per capita income. Oregon is not a poor state. So why doesn't the President confine his good intentions to states which really are poor, too poor to meet their own school financing prob lems? Why should federal taxes be col lected from above-average-income states, such as Oregon, and then returned to them as federal "assistance"? At least at pre-college levels, federal aid for education should not be a some-thing-for-everyone program. It should, instead, be directly aimed at states fi nancially unable to cope with school needs. The national interest demands that education be improved. But, In stales capable of maintaining good schools on their own, the President's plan would serve only to require collec tion of additional federal taxes to pro vide for the reimbursement of these states with subsidies they didn't need in the first place. Either that, or it would become an invitation to states, rich or poor, to dodge their own responsibilities and rely increasingly upon federal aid. To accomplish its prime objective, federal aid to education should be based upon requirements that states do for themselves as much as they practicably can before they receive help from Uncle Sam. Unless they are so compelled, some states could sit back, take the federal dole and continue operating substand ard school systems. This would mock the entire purpose of the federal plan. Federal aid to education could assist states in genuine need, and, at the same time, prod laggard states sometimes with the carrot-on-the-stick technique, sometimes by demonstrating the bene fits of diligent educational efforts in other states and literally shaming the laggards before the rest of the nation. Considering the great importance of edu cation, Congress might even see fit to require that states match basic school standards, on their own or with prudent federal assistance, before they could qualify for other federal favors, i.e., public works, government contracts, etc. Comment from Washington, D.C., al ready indicates that the issue of whether, federal assistance should go to parochial schools as well as public schools may again block any action on proposals for pre-college educational assistance. This would be regrettable, to say the very least. There is pressing need for aid to colleges and college students; and there is pressing need for federal help in up grading pre-college and vocational edu cational systems in many of our states. As long as it is probably unconstitu tional for the federal government to provide financial assistance to church operated or other private schools, ef forts should be centered on accomplish ing what is constitutionally possible and, in the perspective of national interest, critically necessary. Congress needs now to zero in its sights on the bullseye, not be distracted by movements off the main target, and not yield to the temptation to use a shotgun where sharpshooting is required. ; & tV Take Alarm Every American with a friend or relative in the armed forces would do well to pick up the Feb. 2 Saturday Eve ning Post. It contains the most detailed story yet available on the arrest and persecution of Airman Gerald Anderson over at Mountain Home, Idaho. In "Inno cent's Grim Ordeal," James R. Phelan tells, step by step, just what happened. Some wonderment has been ex pressed about the "confessions" ex tracted during the notorious purge trials in Moscow and about the "confessions" extracted by the Red Chinese at the time of the Korean War. There need be no further wonderment. It's all explained in this article about the Office of Spe cial Investigations, this country's own GPU and NKVD. The agents lied, broke their word, applied everything but the Chinese water torture to wring a "con fession" from somebody, whomever was handy. When overwhelming evidence pointed to a tragic mistake, OSI men violated a cardinal ethical rule, honored by all decent policemen and prosecutors: free the innocent. If Mr. Phelan's article holds up, and all the evidence is that it does, some heads ought to roll in the OSI and in the Air Force, which permitted an Amer ican citizen to undergo the sort of thing we find so loathsome in Red China and the Soviet Union. Odd Man Out Howard Morgan, the stormy petrel of Oregon Democratic politics, has asked President Kennedy not to reappoint him to the Federal Power Commission. He has not been getting along with the oth er members, all of whom are also Ken nedy appointees. He says they're too easy on the big utility companies. Those who know Mr. Morgan will not be surprised that he doesn't find FPC Reminde service quite his msn oi tea. me Is a quasi-judicial body and Mr. Morgan Is not a judicial, even a quasi-Judicial, type. He's a born advocate, scrapper, and rough-and-tumble fighter. His considerable abilities, and they are considerable, are best exercised from the outside, when he is doing one of his masterful jobs of giving an insid er a hard time. Grandstanding All the grandstanding isn't done on the playing fields. Some is done in legis lative halls, even when it has to do with playing fields. Such is the case in Salom, where a bill has been introduced to for bid Oregon's public universities from playing ball games with the University of Mississippi or with any school that does play Ole Miss. The reason for the bill, obviously, is the Meredith business. Football schedules are arranged a good six years ahead of time. Neither Oregon nor Oregon State has Ole Miss on the list. But they do have on their lists some schools that likely will play Mississippi. Six years from now the University of Mississippi may have undergone quite a change. Would it be fair to anybody to refuse to play the schools then? And whose athletic program would be hurt if Oregon schools were to refuse to play schools that play Mississippi? It is not Oregon's role to punish Ole Miss, if Oregon's refusal to play one of the nation's top football schools could be termed punishment. Furthermore, the University of Mississippi doesn't need punishment. It needs help, help in reorienting itself to the conditions of a changed and changing world. The Oregon Legislature, we are con fident, will decide it has more important matters before it, matters that are Ore gon's business. If you feed the birds now, they'll cat your bugs all summer. Letter! Intended for the Editor'a Mailbag must be tigned with the correct name and address of the writer. No anonymous letteri will be published. Letters of less than 300 words in length will be given preference, as will those in which the writer con fines his letter to one topic. Cites Mileage EUGENE (To the Editor Everyone has read and dis cussed the high school bound ary issue and is probably sick of hearing about it. Those liv ing in the right areas seem to have no conception of the prob lem we are facing in the Bailey Hill area. Now let us get down to the basic fact of mileage. From Bailey Hill School to South it is approximately seven miles round trip as compared to ap proximately 14 Vi miles to North. As you can see, this be comes ridiculous as far as our students taking part in any extra-curricular activities. We would actually be driving a total of approximately 28 miles which includes two round trips of taking and picking up the students. Therefore, I feel those living closer to North should go there, not our pupils. CLELA ROORK 3152 W. 17th Ave. we as i nation digress. Our people walk the streets, draw ing unemployment, and on unto relief rolls and we become a welfare state no better than the communes of Russia. A very good and ever-increasing example of labor unions' be trayal of their own people stands in a recent article to the effect that the United States Navy re cently bought steel to build three new ships; the steel was purchased from Germany at 30 per cent below what we could furnish it here at home. Caught between the push of labor demands from beneath and the burden of government taxation and regulation from above, the corporate profit mar gin has been squeezed until ex penditures on new plants and equipment have lagged. Conse quently unemployment has vexed our government even in the best years of the recent past ... RUSSELL H. BLAND 318 N. Iowa St. Principle EUGENE (To the Editor) The principle involved in this matter of boundary changes is whether the school administra tion has the right to move chil dren who are riding buses to any school without reference to proximity. It is not just a matter of North High, South High or Sheldon. If they are successful in transferring children in high school just because they ride buses, elementary school chil dren could also be moved. In the Bailey Hill district all senior high students, all junior high students, and 87 per cent of the elementary students ride buses, so this is a serious mat ter. Property values could be affected seriously. It is surely to be hoped that the school board will refuse to support this policy. TtEETA R. NORDSTEN 1730 Buck St. Blames Unions -EUGENE (To the Editor) Labor official Frank Fellows, President of the Maritime Trades Dept. of the Oregon AFL-CIO, has labeled Sen. Maurine Ncubergcr, D-Ore., a traitor to labor because she in troduced legislation to permit foreign flag ships to haul lum ber between certain ports. This indeed seems to be a case of the frying pan calling the kettle black. The labor movement in the United States today is the traitor, a betrayer of the labor ing people and an ever growing menace to the economic stabil ity of the American dollar. Their ever-increasing demands for higher, and still higher wages, more and greater fringe benefits, and now shorter work weeks without any decrease in pay. The man past 40 most often walks the streets because he is considered a bad risk and an insurance liability for the employer forced into pension plans and old age benefits. . . . There are many ways one might earn wages and have less than expected to show for them: and one is to earn wages so high that they of themselves reduce the wage-earner's in come. Paradoxical as it may seem, this sequence of events is happening in our country. It is only a matter of simple arith metic to realize this situation. If more and more industries are forced to close their doors because of the extortionate de mands of the union, and still more move their industry to other countries, then indeed the laboring people of this country suffer. When we can no longer compete with foreign trade then 'Taxed to Death' COTTAGE GROVE (To the Editor) After reading "Re form Linked to Lower Scales," I wonder how many can see the clever deal, for the New Fron tier. Well, that frontier has been here since the famed New Deal. Our No. 1 servant in Wash ington isn't lowering taxes, he's just spreading out in a new way to get more. The only ones who will benefit are the ones who do not own anything. Our property tax is enormous already. Everything is taxed be yond reason. There is land, per sonal property, stocks and bonds, interest, corporation and inheritance tax. We're taxed to death, and after death the gov ernment acts like a big vulture. The unions are the next leeches. They have sucked the life blood from industry and forced many to move to foreign lands to survive. Now where are they going to get blood money? When labor tells management how to manage, they are killing David Lawrence the goose that layi the golden egg, and the U.S.A. has really been killing geese. We can't be a free nation of states, when labor and the fed eral government hold the only monopolies in our nation, backed up by the Supreme Court. We are being forced into a dole system, for we can't save for our old age, because our government is taking our money and giving it away to foreign nations like a good-time Charlie. Did anyone ever buy a friend? Even the Lord said not to cast your pearls before swine, and from the papers, they are even eating each other in Africa. Doesn't every tub stand on its own bottom? Isn't our first concern for our nation and its people? How long could com munism stand if we would stop feeding and building them up? The Bible says the world will get weaker and wiser. Well, let's get wiser before we get any weaker. As the saying goes, "A fool and his money are soon parted," so if what we have in Washing ton is an example of education, we've certainly educated our fools, and we are the bigger ones, who permit them to stay there as our servants. They are not the masters, but the serv-. ants, and is the servant greater than the master? LULU FLEMING 744 N. 10th St. To Halt Offenses EUGENE (To the Editor) Your Mailbag section has been crammed with pros-cons on sex and dope legislation lately. This last week some six bills are of fered in this '63 Legislature on this vital question. None have any teeth in them to put the fear of God into those people. A simple bill calling for "steriliza tion and life imprisonment with no pardon" would stop some of them. I wrote a short, plain reading bill for adoption in 1958 for stopping the dope traffic in Oregon. It was worded, "10 years and $10,000 fine for the first conviction, and the' death penalty for the second convic tion." Aa .everyone Jtnows, it was dropped, and our children are still wide open to those rats. A few years back there was an old-fashioned necktie party once in a while that put the fear of God into those rats, and our children were much safer than today. AL FISHER 1310 W. 15th Ave. Peter Edson Bay of Pigs Probe Would Be Vapid Liked Editorials EUGENE (To the Editor) I want to commend you on your fine editorial in the Jan. 17 is sue of the Register-Guard, re garding that "brawl" in Wash ington, D. C. which was spon sored by Sen. Vance Hartke of Indiana, and for your support of Sen. Wayne Morse in his at tempt to stop the serving of al coholic beverages in the public rooms of the Capitol and Senate office buildings where recep tions are frequently held. EDITH DAVIS 1159V4 Mill St. Not Impressed CHESHIRE (To the Editor) An artist, a critic, a collector and an art judge evidently have some things in common, and me being none of these mentioned above leaves me at a loss as to what that thing or those things are. However, I would like to ex press my opinion on the picture labeled "West Virginia Moon" that was displayed along with a write-up in the Register-Guard, Jan. 27, 1963. If this painting was the best offered, I feel that in all due respect for the state of West Virginia and the art exhibit, and art exhibits in general, that the exhibit this painting was a part of be publicly declared a failure. J. W. JOHNSON Box 32 Proposed Tax Cut Just Drop in Bucket fM lilv , Lawrence better. This WASHINGTON There are 42 million taxpayers who earn from $5,000 to $10,000 a year. How are they going to feel when they learn that the administra tion's proposed "tax cut" would mean an aver-1 age saving of about $1.56 a week during the next three years for a married couple with two chil dren? A couple without chil dren would not really fare any could turn out to be a political boomerang if the President's three-year program isn't ma terially changed. For, based on a calculation made in an Associated Press dispatch, the total savings on taxes during the next three years for individuals in the $5,000 to $10,000 category are to be surprisingly small. Stan ley Mcislcr, who wrote the AP article, took as a typical ex ample a married couple, one of whom earned $5,000 a year and the other $2,500, so that their combined income amounted to $7,500 a year. He figured the exemptions for two children and estimated the usual deduc tions for normal expenses. He concluded that for each of the next three years, beginning with 1963, there would be a $46 reduction in taxes, followed by $28 more for each of two years, plus a $50 reduction for the third year, or a total of $244 saved in three years. This is an average saving of $81.33 for each year. It amounts to $1.56 a week or 78 cents each for the man and his wife. But, unhappily, they can't Below Olympus M Mfci viv C.-IEAUr.R Whs "Out, Americans .tnrrd nr. tn W orld Wor f and in World U'or II. Fut tn World W'nr 111 hrrt r-iio'it not he any Ammeans. That's why ve must here our oirn nuclear vrapoM!" keep that sum. Social Security taxes aren't deductible and, of course, were not included in the Associated Press tabula tion. A new Social Security tax, moreover, has just gone into effect amounting to $24 a "year, so it brings down the combined saving from $81.33 to $57.33 a year. This means in reality $1.10 a week for a couple, or only 55 cents a week for each of them, in tax savings. This isn't all either, because the Associated Press article figured state and local taxes at $500 the level of 1962 and this item is scheduled to go up by a total of about $195 for the three years beginning in 1963. While there is a tax deduction for a part of this increase, it is conceivable that for this couple the whole saving on the Presi dent's tax plan may come close to being wiped out altogether. Without Arguing Case Unfortunately, with larger and larger deficits in the Fed eral Treasury, the purchasing power of the dollar tends to be come less and less, while prices tend to rise. It wouldn't take much of an increase in cost of living for the entire weekly savings in taxes for many taxpayers in several of the income tax brackets to dis appear by the time 1965 rolls around. The Associated Press gave its statistical information to its newspapers from coast to coast last Saturday without arguing the case one way or the other. Millions of taxpayers will them selves do some figuring and, for the next several months, members of Congress will doubt less be hearing from their many constituents in most of these tax brackets that the proposed cut is a piddling one. Indeed, some voters may come to the conclusion that maybe it would be better for the administration to let the tax rates and tax rules alone and try to instill the nec essary confidence for a business revival. The dictatorial behavior of the labor-union monopoly, for instance. - is being ignored by the administration and Con gress. It seems inevitable that acceptance of demands for higher wages will be compelled by strikes or threats of strikes in the next two or three years because the tax cut will appear to be inadequate. Very Small Sums If the administration, how ever, had a constructive eco nomic policy, it could boost the gross income of business to the point where wage increases would be feasible without any substantial price increases. For it is the volume of business and a higher gross income which are the most important ele ments that need stimulus in the economy. Thus, a lot is heard about the expected tax cut for corpora tions. But it involves very small sums which would hardly stimu late increased expenditures for plant and equipment. A com pany, for example, that makes $1 million a year now pays the government 52 per cent, or $520,000, in taxes and retains $480,000. Under the changes proposed by the administration, this corporation, three years from now, would have a 47 per cent rate and would be paying the government $470,000. This would mean a saving of about $50,000 on present taxes. Likely to Lose Enthusiasm Wouldn't any corporation pre fer to see the present 52 per cent retained if somehow in lieu of it the administration could pursue economic policies that would allow the corpora tion to make $2,000,000 in gross profit a year, from which the government would get $1,040, 000 and the company would re tain $960,000? What company wouldn't rather have $960,000 a year under existing rates than only $470,000 under the new rates? So it isn't the tax rate but the capacity to earn more income that counts. And if most of the 42,000,000 citizens are going to have only trifling sums more to spend each week, while prices become inflationary because of the big deficits, then a substan tial number of voters are likely to lose their enthusiasm for the so-called "tax cut" being offer ed them. To make larger tax cuts, on the other hand, would only compound the problem. Members of Congress will have to take a careful look at what they are doing on both taxes and deficits if they expect re-election in 1964, and, of course, all this will affect Presi dent Kennedy's chances for re election, too. Carmichael Trll-5 5 THE mtyoHl'S BEEN WAITIn FOR THE Hi Edson WASHINGTON (NEA) Re publicans on both sides of the Capitol, clamoring for an inves tigation of the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba two years ago, might well take a tear, from the book of their late Secretary of State John Fos ter Dulles. He had a rule 0 n operations policy which went something like this, though it was never re corded on tape or put down on paper in quotation marks: Don't bother about the details of what went wrong yesterday. If mistakes were made, learn what you can from them for fu ture guidance. But yesterday's mistakes are part of the situa tion as its exists today. That's what we have to concentrate on, to decide what we're going to do about it tomorrow. Don't spend too much time looking backward or refighting yester day's battles. Keep your eyes on what's ahead. The common sense of this ap proach might have some moral value in it for the Democrats, too. What stirred up this furor as much as anything else was Atty. Gen. Robert E. Kennedy's interview denying there had been any promise of U.S. air support for the Cuban invasion fiasco. Few Takers in 2 Years President Kennedy now con firms no U.S. air cover was planned. If there had been U.S. air cover, says the President, it ' might as well have been an ' American invasion. Sen. Wayne Morse's Foreign , Relations Subcommittee on La-. tin America investigated all this soon after it happened. He has been offering his colleagues a look at his closed hearings rec ord of two years ago, but he has had few takers. , But even if the attorney gen eral had not reopened this old sore, the Cuban controversy might have been revived by New York GOP Sen. Kenneth B. Keating. He insists that Russia is continuing its military build up on the island, though the missiles and the jet aircraft have been removed. Not on Past Mistakes The President in his last press conference tried to give reassurance that this situation was under constant surveil lance. He says that only one Soviet supply ship has arrived in Cuba since the withdrawal of offensive weapons. It may have brought arms. The Presi dent also admits that there are still 16,000 to 17,000 Russians in Cuba. This is of course a legitimate subject for investigation. It is focused on what might happen next, not on past mistakes. Senator Morse again moved quickly into this situation, call ing Secretary of State Dean Rusk and CIA officials to testify In closed hearings. This may head off further washing of dirty American linen in public, but probably not. To see the Senate or House or both of them in a joint commit tee investigation of what went on two years ago might be just another exercise in futility. Political Motivation It recalls the Pearl Harbor in vestigation of 1947 which ran for seven months, and the Sen ate investigation of Gen. Doug las MacArthur's dismissal by President Truman, which ran for four months in 1951. The latter ended with only a minor ity report signed by eight Re publicans, the majority voting not to isssue any formal find ings. There was political motiva tions in these investigations, just as there is in today's pres sure for dredging the mud from the Bay of Pigs once more. It is hard to see how this will con tribute anything to getting Cas tro and communism out of Cuba, which is the major objective ahead. Political observers also won der what the Republicans can gain from it. The probe would be all over and forgotten long before the 1964 elections. It is also recalled that former Sen. Homer Capehart, R-lnd., tried to make Cuba the big issue in his campaign for re-election. He was defeated. MEMRER Or THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Tho Aoclatrd Preu li entitled eirliulvely to the ue for republi cation of 11 the locl newa printed In thia newspaper. MEMBER Or THE AITIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATIONS Servlcea United Preji International Wn.I.IAM WASMANN, New! Editor DONN t. BONHAM, city Editor ROSS O. JOHNSON Adertitnf Director JARL FUGLE Circulation Manager RORKRT K. RF.RTSCH Promotion W. Ft. JOHNSTON JR. Auditor ARM STROMMER fiodueUtui J
