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At Easter Time
By ROSCOE DRLMMOND
Of Ihi Associated Frest
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER .
ALTON F. BAKER, Publisher, 1927 1961
(
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 newt. On this page, the
editors of the Register-Guard offer their opinion
on events of the dag 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, APRIL 13, 1963
This Protection is not a License
Adam Clayton Powell, the wander
ing congressman, has just lost a big
libel suit. For saying that a New York
woman was a "bag woman" (graft col
lector) for the police, he must pay $211,
500. At least that's what the New York
court held. Now the case undoubtedly
will go to the U.S. Supreme Court,
where the congressman proposes to test
a vital constitutional question. The high
court's ruling could have far-reaching
effect on the future activities of legis
lators, state and national.
In question is the idea of congres
sional privilege. The U.S. Constitution
says that "for any speech or debate in
either house, they (the senators and rep
resentatives) shall not be questioned in
any other place." This means that you
can't sue a congressman for something
he says about you in Congress. The Ore
gon Constitution uses almost exactly the
same language in extending this im
munity to Oregon legislators. This is an
important and necessary protection of'
the legislator.
Mr. Powell's contention, however, is
that as a congressman he possesses a
broader privilege than this. His attor
neys argued (Mr. Powell didn't show up
at the trial) that the privilege extends
to remarks made by a congressman off
the floor of the House, too. The remarks
for which he was sued were made in a
television broadcast. They contended
that a congressman has a duty to keep
his constituents informed of his con
gressional activities. If this includes re-
, fr ft ft
ScKool Names
Salem is seeking a name for its new
high school, on the north fringe of town.
North Salem seems logical, except that
Salem already has a school of that name.
The present North Salem is nearer the
middle of town. Could that be renamed
Central? Or would that be confusing?
Then how about a name like Capital for
one of the two north schools?
Eugene went through a similar dis
cussion when a new high school was lo
cated on the north side of town. We
didn't have quite that much of a prob
lem, however, because North Eugene
High is even farther north than the new
school, which wo called Sheldon. But
suppose we eventually build one out by
-Spencer Butte, far south of the present
.South?
! We now have three high schools,
North, South and Sheldon. Will Salem
have three, North, South and Capital?
That's like a family's naming its children
Ecnic, Mccnie, Mincy and George, or
Tom, Dick and Melvin.
The point is that these geographic
designations serve a growing community
for only so long. After a while, the towns
outgrow such names. But, please, no
;more names of presidents. What's wrong
with naming some after governors of
.Oregon?
Big Investigation
: Jack Anderson is a Washington re
porter who wrote a magazine article a
month ago charging that a number of
congressmen pad payrolls, misuse pub
lic funds and peddle influence. Ho said
ho got his information from a certain
.congressman, whom he preferred not to
name.
; The Administration Committee of the
House of Representatives was most up
set, and sought to quiz Mr. Anderson
about this anonymous congressman. The
'committee wanted his name. Mr. Ander
son said he'd be glad to talk to the com
mitteeif ho could list the names of a
dozen or so congressmen who cheat.
ft ft
ft
The committee didn't like that Idea
so well. It was obviously less interested
in exposing the dozen cheaters than in More Money
exjuiug uie one squcaicr. nir. Anderson
and the committee sparred around a
while. The committee didn't get the one
name it wanted, and Mr. Anderson didn't
get to mention the dozen names he had
In mind. And so the meeting adjourned,
with i fishy air hanging over the Capitol
dome that afternoon.
Worth Cultivating
One of the surest signs of spring in
this state is the budding of renewed en
thusiasm for promoting tourist trade.
This year, with no world's fair in
Seattle to lure extra tourists through
Oregon, this trade may be expected to
fall off a bit. But, the gross profits from
tourism the state's third largest indus
trycould hold up close to 1962's rec
ord level if each touring individual or
family is induced to stay one extra day
In Oregon.
Tourists out-of-state vacationists, if
you prefer spent a total of $217 mil
lion while they were in Oregon last year.
If each of these 9,255,000 visitors had
spent one more day with us, their gross
expenditures would have been $55 mil
lion dollars greater. And, if train, bus
and plane travelers had been induced to
stop over an extra day on their way
through Oregon, another $15 million
would have been added to the total.
Courtesy good old-fashioned west
ern hospitality is being stressed this
year by the Travel Information Division
of the State Highway Dept., the agency
charged with official drum-beating for
Oregon's tourist industry. And, the di
vision's expanded promotion program
for '63 will provide for the conspicuous
placement of more color posters, res
taurant table cards and booklets all de
signed to entice out-of-state visitors to
see more of the natural wonders of this
state.
News media, chambers of commerce
and other associations are already being
stirred Into action, a full two months in
advance of "Oregon Welcome Week," a
period in which the '63 tourist season
will be launched with special promotions
all around the slate.
Nothing, it seems, proves the arrival
of spring more conclusively than this
sowing of seeds intended to produce a
bumper crop of folding long green. Nor,
might we add, does Oregon have a crop
which can be more profitably tended so
easily.
Members of the British House of
Commons won't get a pay raise this
year. They will continue to make British
law for $4,900 a year, although some
perhaps will come to America, take out
citizenship papers, and run for the Ore
gon Legislature.
4 Reasons Congress Not Responsive to JFK
pcating otherwise libelous remarks off
the floor, that's just tough.
This was very important in the Mc
Carthy era. Senator Joe McCarthy said
some pretty rough things about a lot of
people on the Senate floor. A political
ditty sung by a guitar player of the age
had the lines, "He's smeared this and
smeared that, and libeled dozens more,
but he'll never, ever, ever say it off the
Senate floor."
Mr. Powell's attorneys were right in
saying that a legislator should keep his
constituents informed of his activities.
This he can do in many ways. A news
paper report or a television broadcast
of something said in Congress carries
with it the congressman's congressional
privilege. So does the material in the
Congressional Record. Many are the op
portunities for a congressman to keep
his constituents informed. He doesn't
need to walk around repeating his state
ments off the floor as Joe McCarthy
well knew.
To extend the Idea of privilege as far
as Mr. Powell wants the Supreme Court
to extend it would be to create a new
class of citizens. These people (legis
lators) could say anything they wanted
at any time about anybody, just so long
as they could hook it some way to their
work. Such an interpretation would be
an invitation to irresponsibility. It would
be unthinkable for the court to fail to
draw a firm line between necessary free
dom of debate and the kind of license
Mr. Powell seeks.
Drummond
WASHINGTON As Congress lakes off for its Easter re
cess, it is evident that President Kennedy's legislative pro
gram is thus far moving ahead on no front.
Some of his agenda probably, including a tax cut, will be
come law, but the outlook is that the White House will get a
rather low percentage of what it is asking. This
88th Congress, with more Democrats than its
predecessor, seems even less responsive to the
President.
Why? Why does Mr. Kennedy find himself
up against something near to a legislative stunt
wall manned overwhelmingly by members of
his own party? Why does a President, so obvi
ously popular with the country, find his do
mestic program so unpopular with the Congress?
The reasons, I think, are tnese: i
Most of the Democratic members of Con
gress least sympathetic to the President's views
are in the posts of greatest power because of
the seniority method of selecting committee chairmen.
The congressional machinery for transacting the public
business is fantastically out-of-date and disorganized. Congress
would have a very hard time passing a legislative program of
its own proposing, let alone the President's.
When the government feels it must spend $60 billion a
year on defense and space, this priority puts a serious damper
on new domestic programs.
Kennedy's personal popularity does not mean that his do
mestic legislative program has corresponding popularity. In
changing and resisting much that the White House is seeking,
Congress may well be reflecting voter opinion more faithfully,
than the President.
While approximately the same voters elect both the Presi
dent and the Congress, the majority may well have preferred
Kennedy over Nixon not because Kennedy was somewhat to the
left of center but despite that fact. The voters could prefer Ken
nedy as President but simultaneously wish to choose a Congress
as they now have twice done more conservative than Ken
nedy. I raise this point to call into question the frequently made
assumption that Congress is not being responsive to public
opinion when it goes against the White House. There is a good
deal of evidence to suggest that the present Congress is a
rather faithful mirror of the country.
It needs to be borne in mind that when the country narrow
ly chose Kennedy over Nixon in 1960, it elected a Congress
more Republican and more conservative than it did two years
earlier. Most elected presidents carry into office with them a
dividend of 30 to 40 additional members of their own party.
Kennedy failed to do so. The Democrats lost 22 seats in the
House that year.
It is true that the Democrats resplcndcntly held their own
in congressional scats in the off-year voting last fall. But this
achievement obscured the fact that the Democratic Party's
share of the popular vote for Congress fell off 3V4 per cent
from the previous off-year vote. It simply did not happen to
be reflected in a corresponding loss of congressional seats.
Thus the 1962 election produced no special mandate for tne
President's legislative program and, if anything, tended to
show that the go-slow mood of Congress was also the mood of
the nation.
Congress loiters and lopes along for about two-thirds of the
session and then frantically rushes to get down to business.
The President will begin to fare somewhat better a little later.
Congress is going to be discriminating and, at times, recalci
trant. But there is no reason to assume that in dissenting from
the President Congress is going against the wishes of the
country.
The critical issue is the stale of the economy and the need
to increase the pace of economic growth by removing tho brake
of excessively high tax rates. On this issue it seems to me Ken
nedy is profoundly right and there is a better than even chance
lhat Congress will agree.
C, 1963, New York Herald Tribune lnc.-
Bill Vaughan
Life's Little Things Count
Too Dad-Blamed Much
Vaughan
The trouble is that a man gets
known for one particular thing
and ever after why that's what
people expect from him. They
would yell, "Hey Napoleon,
put your hat on
sideways," and
Winston
Churchill has
to make the V
sign with his
fingers whether
he wants to or
not.
The late Ge
lett Burgess,
who wrote "The
Purple Cow"
also wrote how weary he became
of being asked to recite it. Ray
mond Masscy had to turn him
self into Doctor Gillespie to get
away from the hordes who ex
pected him to do Lincoln wher
ever he went and peppered him
with such remarks in doubtful
taste as "If you go to the theater
tonight, don't sit in a box."
Harry Truman is generally
acknowledged to have become
fed up with "The Missouri
Waltz," which was always clam
ored for when he sat down to
the piano.
And so it goes. A man can ac
complish many things in his life
time but some little facet of his
career sticks in the public mind
and he's typed forever.
Kven more cruelly, it doesn't
even have to be something a
man docs well that follows him
all his lite. It may be some
small error, like running the
wrong way in football or failing
to touch third base or taking
the day's receipts home with
him from the store.
That's all anybody wanls to
talk about when they meet this
man. Chances arc he would
about a hundred times rather
change the subject.
Or like once in his life a man
mistakes the dog food in the
icebox for the leftover hash.
For the next 30 years his
friends arc going "bow wow" at
him or if he encounters strang
ers his wife says, "Sam, tell the
Hendersons about, you know,
the time with the dog food"
Wives don't say, "Sam, tell
the Hendersons about tho time
you rescued the little boy from
drowning, or would have if the
lifeguard hadn't got there first."
No it's always the dog food,
and the Hendersons arc there
fore entitled to be in the vast
circle of acquaintances who go,
"bow wow."
Another angle on this, there
may be something that you are
kind of proud of and that while
you may not be the best at it
you are among the Top Ten.
Let's say you can crack your
knuckles to the tune of "Yan
kee Doodle." Well, that's fine
until you get to an age where
you've got some distinguished
grey at the temples and the
whole image is pretty sedate
and dignified.
Then just as you're telling
some lovely lady about the in
side story on Viet Nam as you
see it, a cry goes up for you to
crack your knuckles to the tune
of Yankee Doodle.
You know, you're secretly
pleased that people remember
and that they want to hear you
crack your knuckles to the tune
of Yankee Doodle. But you've
done it so many times that you
don't really pay attention and
as a result you make a little
mistake and people say, "Well,
he's washed up. I got a 9-year-old
nephew can out-knuckle-crack
him." And this from the
same people who were urging
you on and getting other people
to come in from the porch and
going, "Everybody hold the
noise down and listen to this;
it's fabulous."
Put this down as an indelible
fact the guy who is always
pushing you to play the zither
is the first one to spread it
around that you are getting to
be a pain in the neck the way
you always drag out that tired
old zither.
All the foregoing comes to
mind with the annual call for
me to pick the Kansas City Ath
letics to win the American
League pennant. I had intended
to pass it up this year; after
all a creative artist must grow.
He is not like the sports writer
who can go on repeating the
same thing year after year.
1 have been persuaded, how
ever, that for me to eschew this
annual rite would be like Judy
Garland leaving "Somewhere
Over the Rainbow" out of her
repertoire. So, all right, the A's
will lake it all this year. It is
my ninth straight prediction to
this effect. And. as I said above,
watch the very people who
crowded me into making it be
the first to snigger and say what
a bore Ihe old gent has become.
A Rell-McClure Syndicate Feature
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N1 Editor
City Edlor
Lagging Congress Focuses on Tax Bill
From Congressional Quarterly
Like John Glenn in his oft
delayed 1962 countdown, the
88th Congress seems to be hav
ing trouble getting off the
launching pad.
Whether it will ever orbit re
mains to be seen.
Early in March, House Demo
cratic Whip Hale Boggs (La.)
complained that a national
magazine had asked him some
"loaded" questions that would
"give the impression that the
President of the United States
is completely devoid of leader
ship and the impression this
Congress has accomplished
nothing." Boggs and his col
leagues March 6 read off a list
of current actions to "set the
record straight."
If the message traveled
across the Capitol, it was quick
ly lost. Senate Majority Leader
Mike Mansfield, D-Mont., mov
ing to head off an Easter re
cess, reminded his colleagues at
the end of March that "the Sen
ate has really done nothing in
the way of lawmaking this
year."
The following week the Sen
ate passed the President's mass
transit bill, but even so 1962
marked the slowest-starting ses
sion in recent memory.
No one seemed quite sure
why. There was a feeling the
Republican economy drive had
struck fire with the constitu
ents, and this was one factor
delaying key bills. House mem
bers would have a clearer view
of voter sentiments after tak
ing soundings over Easter.
The sheer lateness of the 1962
session could be another factor
in the slowness in getting the
current one organized (after
three months, several commit
tees' subcommittees have yet to
be named). ,
President Sees 'Rhythm'
President Kennedy is taking
a philosophical- view of the
situation. At his April 3 press
conference he spoke of the
"rhythm" of March, when the
"story starts to be written about
Congress not doing anything."
And then in May, the President
Sylvia Porter
added wryly, "we begin to get
some bills to the floor and some
are defeated and then there are
those stories about presidential
leadership."
There is some indication the
While House itself has played
a part in setting the "rhythm"
for the new Congress. The pace
of early session messages has
seemed to fall short of the ur
gent tempo of 1961 and 1962.
In fact, "nothing ventured,
nothing lost" might describe
the legislative strategy being
employed for some of the Presi
dent's more controversial pro
posals. He has yet to submit mes
sages or draft legislation for
creation of an Urban Affairs
Department, broadening of the
minimum wage law and an over
haul of the unemployment com
pensation program. The latter
would provide stricter federal
standards and, in some states,
higher taxes on employers. All
of these were mentioned in
Kennedy's general messages at
the opening of the session but
have not been heard from since.
All are opposed by a coalition
of Republicans and Southern
Democrats, and one theory ex
tant is that the White House la
not anxious to load down its
boxscore of 1963 requests and
accomplishments with detailed
proposals it has little hope of
seeing enacted.
Tax Bill Emphasized
Perhaps more to the point is
the President's apparent desire
to preserve tranquility on con
gressional seas while his tax
program is being navigated
through.
Once that is passed, Capitol
Hill and the White House can
go back to more traditional bat
tles, with plenty of lively issues
held in reserve as the 1964 elec
tions draw closer.
To date, the 88th Congress
has delivered five public laws
to the President's desk. Several
other bills have seen action in
one chamber or the other, but
a number have not yet reached
the hearings stage.
A congressional clampdown
on members' "junketing" and a
Senate investigation of the Pen
tagon's award of the TFX fight
er plane contract to General
Dynamics Corp. have caused
more stir than much of the leg
islative activity so far.
Easter Boxscore on 88th. Congress
(As of April 8)
Enacted: Draft law extension; Winston Churchill citizen
ship, and a minor supplemental farm appropriation bill.
Passed by Senate only: Mass transit; Wilderness, Youth
Employment bills scheduled. .
Passed by House only: Defense procurement authorization;
Interior Department appropriation; supplemental appropriation
scheduled, including accelerated public works funds.
Committee action: Foreign aid; military pay increases; tax
reduction and reform; debt ceiling; area redevelopment ex
pansion; Mexican farm labor regulation; cotton, feed grains,
dairy programs; medical schools; aid to education; equal pay
for women; packaging and labeling regulation; drug regulation;
mental health aid; land conservation fund; air pollution re
search. No action: Civil defense; stock market regulation; unem
ployment compensation overhaul; minimum wage revisions;
migrant labor aids; Social Security medical care; civil rights
legislation; transportation policy changes; aid to airports;
billboard control; congressional, executive salary increases;
Urban Affairs Department; wiretap laws; District of Columbia
home rule.
Copyright. 1963, Congressional Quarterly Inc. .
Advertising Fires Back at Its Critics
Porter
ROSS CI JOHNSON
Advertising Director
JARt, FLT.LK Circulation Wanaccr
ROHER1 K. HFR1SIH Promotion
W R. JOHNSTON JR. Auditor
ARM STROMMER Production
In its first recommendations
since its creation in 1962, the
President's Consumer Advisory
Council last month urged fed
eral legislation to stiffen con
trols over pack
aging, labeling
and the disclo
sure of interest
charges on in
stallment loans.
Before Congress
right now arc
"truth in lend
ing" and "truth
i n packaging"
bills. Califor
nia's Governor
Brown has just handed the state
legislature 25 separate, tough
"consumer protection" bills and
dozens of states have formal or
informal consumer protection
programs. And with mounting
fervor tljo various federal reg
ulatory agencies are handing
down "pro-consumer" rulings
guaranteed to raise howls of
protest from businessmen.
The target of much of this
activity is the $12 billion a-ycar
U.S. advertising industry
which has come in for some
severe criticism in recent years.
How does the advertising indus
try itself react to the blasts
about its ethics and quality?
Here, from Charles H. Brower,
president of Madison Avenue's
giant Batten, Barton, Durstinc
& Osborn, Inc., are some "re
verse twist" views on what's go
ing on which arc at the very
least refreshing.
PORTER: What's your reac
tion to the stepped-up drives to
protect the consumer?
BROWER: What we really
need in Washington is a cabinet
level department to protect the
manufacturer from the con
sumer! The consumer is not
nearly as defenseless as com
mittees may dream. She may be
a sweetheart to her husband
and a loving mother to her chil
dren, but she's a tough shopper
in the market place.
PORTER: You're not con
cerned about more government
regulation?
BROWER: I don't have any
great worry about it and a cer
tain amount of government reg
ulation is necessary'. However,
1 do wish the government would
decide whether it wants to put
its foot on the accelerator or
the brake where business is
concerned.
PORTER: What's your view
of the quality of advertising to
day' BROWER: I'm as proud of
the bulk of it as lawyers arc of
the bulk of law practice or
physicians are of medicine.
There arc quarks, of course,
there always will be, but on the
whole advertising is doing a
great job.
Unfortunately, if you were to
ask the average person what he
thought the advertising man
thought of him he probably
would say, "He thinks I'm
stupid." Actually, I don't think
advertisers are shooting at a
12-year-old level, but there is
too much repetition of TV com
mercials in an effort to justify
the original cost. People leave a
movie when they say "this is
where we came in," but with
TV commercials, they have to
say it 35 times. I don't know
the answer to this. It all comes
down to an economic question:
you have to spend the money
to get a good commercial in the
first place, and then to amortize
the cost you have to keep using
the commercial over and over.
My fear is not that people will
be mad at advertising or march
to Washington but that they'll
fall asleep not like it or look
at it. That would be the worst
thing that could happen.
PORTER: Can advertising
continue to grow at today's
pace?
Ralph McGill
BROWER: It will have to
grow faster. We're now pouring
two million more people every
year into the labor force on top
of those currently unemployed.
To employ these people, we'll
have to stimulate consumption.
Our gross national product
may reach $1 trillion by 1970.
We must have the consumption
to match the production and in
order to achieve that we must
sell. Increasingly, advertising is
the only contact a manufacturer
has with a consumer who buys
his cigarettes in a machine, his
groceries at a supermarket.
How can any manufacturer talk1
to them except through his ad
vertising? I think we're just on th
threshold of great new growth,
This April's Lilacs Have
Bitter Smell in Greenwood
McGill
in an ecstasy of
urge of the
WASHINGTON NOTES: Poets
have interpreted spring in many
moods. Don Marquis, in his eel
clcbratcd poem "Methuselah,"
had the Old Testament codger
lift his voice in
a paean to a
spring in which
the big bull oys
ter rode the
flood of the tide
and bellowed
for his mate.
"Fill me with
juniper juice,
nurse, and then
turn me loose."
exulted the Bib
lical ancient
spring.
This goatish
month of renewal usually pro
duces panty raids on college
campuses, and other exuberant
evidences that the elfin music
of Pan is heard in the ears and
felt in the blood.
But in this April, though the
redbud, dogwood, tulips and
flowering trees are as wondrous
ly beautiful as ever, the mood
of it seems to me more in keep
ing with T. S. Eliot's opening
lines in "The Waste Land":
"April is the crudest monlh,
breeding
Lilacs out o the dead land,
mixing
Memory and desirt. stirring
Dull roots tilth rain."
It is quite true that the dull
roots of old wrongs, inequities
and injustices are being stirred
by the rains of change. The
pale-purple lilacs, symbolizing
life rising out of the darkness
of death, are being bred out of
the land.
The April mood was of Mis
sissippi and perhaps half a
dozen other Southern communi
ties struggling with memory and
desire. They were performing
once again the ' preposterous
charade in which the actors
wear mask-like faces like those
In old Japanese dances repre
senting hate, passion, vacuity,
cruelty, and greed. There was
the same old choreography. In
it the police strike, pull, shove
or throw colored people into pa
trol wagons or buses because
they have committed the of
fense of seeking to vote, eat at
a lunch counter or attend a
movie without going up an al
ley and climbing backstairs to a
balcony.
The spoken lines are always
tho same . . . and have been for
more than a century. In many
places the crudest month bred
the funeral lilacs out of the
dead land, mixing memory and
desire. And on the stage in
Greenwood the mummers went
through their maneuvers of ar
rest and jail. Those with spoken
lines said, their faces strained
with pent-up fury, that if only
the outside agitators would go
away things would be all right.
... if only persons like the
night club performer, Dick
Gregory ("just look at him in
that Italian suit, he thinks he's
something"), would get out of
town and quit stirring up our
good colored people who know
their place and are happy in it,
all would be well. "If only if
only" ... the words have a long
echo. They come out of the
skeletal flutes of men who died
at the hands of the abolitionist
mobs; out of those dead on the
bitter battlefields of the Civil
War. . . "if only . . if only . . if
only. . ."
It is not only lilacs that are
bred out of the dead land.
Excesses breed excesses.
Dick Gregory would not be in
Greenwood, Mississippi the
outsider-ministers would not b
there if the registrars of
Greenwood and other Southern
areas had not coldly and cal
lously denied registration nf
qualified voters for i span of
almost t century.