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This newspaper reported last week that the new school
superintendent will be selected by a committee composed of
two school principals; one faculty member to be selected by
the Morrow County Education Association; "and those
members of the Morrow County School Board who wish to
participate." I hope that this is not so. It is I'm sure, the
responsibility of the school board to select the superinten
dent, not principals and teachers who will be working under
him. However democratic it may be to allow persons other
than the board to hire a superintendent of schools, it is not
healthy for teachers to select the man who will supervise
them. It could be likened to workers at General Motors
selecting the chairman of the board. There is a vast
difference between supervisors and employes, management
and labor, as there must be. If teachers and principals are
going to select their boss, that boss is beholden to them from
the beginning. There is the possibility that he would be more
responsive to the teachers and principals who selected him
than to the school board which represents the people. It is the
board that is responsible to the people, and if the teachers
select the superintendent, who shall the people hold
responsible for his conduct in office? The people couldn't hold
the board responsible because the board didn't make the
choice; and the people can hardly hold a "committee" (not
elected by the people nor responsible to them) liable for
conduct of school affairs. Of course, this is the era of ducking
responsibility. State and federal legislatures have for years
been abandoning their duties by assigning them to faceless
and irresponsible boards, committees, agencies, bureaus
and departments ; none of which the legislatures can control
and none of which are responsible to the people for their
actions, as witness the Environmental Protection Agency, et
al. I hope the board will reconsider its position and assume
full responsibility for hiring the superintendent so that he,
whoever he may be, can be held accountable to the board and
not to the teachers under his jurisdiction.
Federal minimum wage laws have all but put young
people out of work. The $2 an hour minimum wage has
caused employers to lay off or decline to hire students for
summer work. Washington isn't expected to know this, but
there are jobs that are not worth $2 an hour. But many
employers can use low-paid labor during summer months,
and students certainly need whatever money they can earn.
In fact, students need the money far more than farmers need
the help. Employers would hire more student help, if the
government would permit it, more to help the students than
to reap any profit from their labor. But few are going to pay
$2 an hour, maintain countless records, provide insurance
and file mountains of reports to government agencies just to
keep a kid off the streets. It appears far more important to a
Congress dominated by organized labor that a youngster
steal hubcabs and mug old ladies than that a job be denied a
dues-paying union man who wouldn't take such a job in the
first place.
A good example of how the minimum wage is operating
is in the resort areas of the Pocono Mountains of
Pennsylvania. Much of the labor in the tourist areas is
performed by high school and college students. Tourist
reservations for these resorts are up 17 per cent over last
year. But because of the new minimum wage law the resorts
will hire only one-half of the 6,000 students they normally
hire. In this area alone, 3,000 students will be deprived of
work they desperately need to continue their education. They
are also deprived of the benefits of becoming acquainted with
the work ethic.
A couple of weeks ago in Sacramento, Ca., two teenagers
held up a bank, took 17 hostages and demanded (and
received) $1 million in ransom. They were captured. One of
them, Michael Madigan, told officers: "I can't get a job. I
can't do nothing. I have no money. I've gone hungry. My
dad's been sick." The other one, Brian Young, said he joined
in the robbery because "There was no food. I didn't have a
job. I have no transportation." Except for the ridiculous and
immoral interference of government there would have been
jobs for these two teenagers.
A reader wants to know what happened to springtime in
Eastern Oregon this year. The only explanation I can offer
as to how we plunged from winter into summer without a
chance to shed the longjohns is that the government must
have taken over the season business. How else could one
explain the shortage of springtime? Now if we can only
persuade the government to take over the crime business . . .
Paying taxes is a crushing burden. Most of us can
remember when we supported a family on what we pay in
property taxes today, and when our ambition was to earn an
annual wage equal to today's income tax bite. But there's a
bright side. What other country gives a man an opportunity
to earn more money than he can afford?
Down in Big D (that's Dallas, Tex., son) a U.S. district
judge has ordered the school system to color balance its
suspensions of students for unbecoming behavior. For
example, if 10 Negro kids raise a ruckus and need
suspending, it would become mandatory under our national
racial balance policy to also suspend 80 white kids, whether
they needed it or not. Next, I look forward to a U.S. order that
half the textbooks be printed on white paper with black ink
and the other half on black paper with white ink; Dallas'
venerable White Plaza Hotel will have to change its name to
Black and White Hotel ; and any family producing all white or
all black children will be held in contempt of court. Let me
know when you've had enough; for me, I'm enjoying the
colorful circus!
When convicted murdered Carl Cletus Bowles fled a
Salem motel while on a prison-approved tryst with a girl
friend, Gov. Tom McCall promised that should Bowles
commit a new crime or hurt anyone before being
apprehended he would fire the superintendent of the
penitentiary, Hoyt C. Cupp. Bowles has been caught, and now
McCall says Bowles really "didn't commit a crime or hurt
anyone" before he was gunned down this week in Idaho. Mr.
Cupp's job is therefore safe. Let's take a look at Bowles'
no-crime and no-hurt spree. He fired on FBI agents at
Eugene last Friday (illegal possession of a handgun,
attempted murder, assault upon a federal officer). A
Massachusetts couple were kidnapped by Bowles near
Kellogg, Idaho, along with their motor home (theft of a
vehicle, kidnapping). Bowles kicked the man, struck the
woman in the face (assault and battery). Bowles stole a car
at St. Helens and drove it to Idaho (interstate transportation
of a stolen vehicle). He was finally shot while standing in the
Spokane River at Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. He was shot because
he turned around to shoot down a pursuing deputy (resisting
arrest, assault with a deadly weapon). Well, it's nice to know
Bowles conducted his flight in such a gentlemanly manner. A
less-deserving and lovable person might have resorted to
crime trying to elude capture.
It's too bad streaking died out before women had a
chance to take it over.
Crossroads
Report
DEAR EDITOR:
Heppmr, Ore.. Oatte-Tim. Thursday, June 10, D74
Mayor of Hardman
The DBDers is full of weddings agin this June, and news of
all these voung folks starting their lives together reminds me
tha the more this old world changes the more she stays the
Cheap Shot
The mail pouch
I see where a senator by the
name of Muskie is all stirred
up because some local-type
governing bodies take their
"revenue-sharing" federal
handout and use it to cut their
community taxes.
It appears to be The Great
One's conviction that any duly
ordained tax-raising group
that lowers taxes is commit
ting the Unpardonable Sin.
'
Which, if true, gives us
questionably-saved Nobodies
the assurance that if we do go
to Hell, the same bunch of
consecrated tax-raisers won't
be there to work on us.
D.E.SCOTT,
Crossroads, U.S.A.
quoteunquote
"Heroes are created by
popular demand, sometimes
out of the scantiest materials .
. . such as the apple that
William Tell never shot, the
ride that Paul Revere never
finished, the flag that Barbara
Frietchie never waved."
G.W. Johnson
EDITOR:
Continuing what seems to be a one-man drive to discredit
Christian Science. Lester Kinsolving in his latest column on
the subject shows a characteristic disregard for the full
facts. While many religious bodies have been the butt of his
cynicism, it is interesting to find him devoting several
columns in the past year to the sole task of proving Christian
Scientists to be knaves, fools, and a menace to society.
Since no Christian denomination is made up of 100 per cent
saints, and no healing system has a 100 per cent record of
cures, it is always possible for a determined detractor to
sketch a dark picture with a few well chosen and carefully
rearranged facts. No doubt the Kinsolvings of the first
century pointed to Nazareth, where Jesus "did not many
mighty works.. .because of their unbelief," as concrete
evidence of the failure of his healing mission.
For almost 90 years sober, responsible evidence of the
healing by Christian Science of tuberculosis, polio, cancer,
and other malignant diseases in various stages has been
available to honest inquirers. Since the Christian Science
Journal first appeared in 1883, the publication of verified and
verifiable accounts of such healings has become a regular
feature of the Christian Science periodicals.
Disregarding the common mortality of the human race,
Mr. Kinsolving seems to find the death of even a single
Christian Scientist a proof of criminality. The presumption
appears to be that if only they would use medicine, they
would never be sick and would live forever!
Typical of Mr. Kinsolving's approach is his renewed
reference to the case of a California school teacher, Cora
Sutherland, who died of tuberbulosis in March 1954, nine
months after she finished teaching at the end of the previous
school year.
What Mr. Kinsolving does not mention when he claims that
he endangered the health of thousands of students is the
testimony of the school principal that when Miss Sutherland
left in June 1953 there was no evidence whatever of any
health problems, loss of weight, or other suspicious
symptoms. Nor was a single case of tuberculosis
subsequently reported among her pupils who, needless to
say, did not number in the "thousands."
Mr. Kinsolving, however, knows how to use shrewdly the
exceptional case and the isolated fact. The longstanding
policy of the Church of Christ, Scientist, has been that its
members shall conform with all health regulations required
by law, such as reporting to the proper authorities the
presence of any suspected contagious disease and observing
carefully all quarantine regulations. Where Christian
Scientists or others are exempted by law from vaccination or
inoculation requirements, this is of course not operative
when a specific condition of danger to others is presumed to
exist.
At the time of the 1972 situation which Mr. Kinsolving
claims exposed children in Massachusetts and two other
states to clanger, Dr. Nicholas J. Fiumara, director of the
Massachusetts Division of Communicable Diseases, stated in
an interview in the Boston Globe of Oct. 29, "The Christian
Scientists have always cooperated with me in the past 30
years that I have worked with them." And again we
cooperated, fully and freely, in the limited immunization
which he deemed necessary at that time.
In other words, Christian Scientists are not irrational
fanatics who have substituted a blind faith in special
"miracles" for careful thinking about divine and human law.
That is not their concept of Christian healing, which involves
among other things a loving concern for those who do not
share their convictions.
Mr. Kinsolving in an earlier column and in the face of vast
evidence to the contrary announced that Christian Science
was dying, and he has shown himself eager to assist at the
predicted death. Quite apart from such unseemly haste to
bury a Christian denomination, what are we to make of a
secularism so fierce and so arrogant?
There are many who say that Christianity itself is dying.
Many in the first century undoubtedly believed the same
thing. Yet these teachings did not die, nor have they ever
appeared to be dying to those who live by them to those
who have felt the redeeming power of God's love in its
healing of sin, sickness, fear, want, despair. This is the
Christian message, and it still has meaning in a scientific
age.
J. BUROUGHS STOKES, Manager
Christian Science Committees on Publication,
Boston, Mass.
EDITOR:
We look forward to each issue of the Gazette-Times to see
what is going on in Morrow County.
The last issue was really enjoyable, especially the news of
Everett Harshman's candidacy for the office of assessor.
Thankfully, there are still 141 level-headed, thinking people
in Morrow County.
Best wishes to Everett, and I hope that after he takes office
he will change a few things in the assessor's office; i.e., have
his hair done on his own time; be present personally to
answer complaints and questions the day after increase
notices and tax bills are received by the public; and handle
his own hot potatoes instead of relegating this to the staff.
Keep on holding the politicians' feet to the fire.
DICK AND MARY SCHLlCHTING,
North Fork.Ca.
P.S. Peggy Schlichting graduated from Galen College May 23
as a dental assistant. She is now doing her internship with Dr.
Couchman in Fresno. She had a 94 per cent average for the
course and graduated with honors. Dad had to brag!
EDITOR:
Referring to the letter of Joan Wells of Spray regarding the
Heppner Rummage Sale, there has never been any
consideration of discontinuing this project. The Kindergarten
Association contacted the Soroptimist Club of Heppner, the
members of which were pleased to accept the Fall Sale. We
understand some other local organization will take over the
Spring Sale.
The members of the Soroptimist Club of Heppner will be
happy to welcome our friends from Spray to our Rummage
Sale in October.
MRS. RANDALL PETERSON,
President.
EDITOR:
Your Horse Sense column of June 13 concerning the power
and abuses of the American Medical Association is most
commendable and is rated highest appraisal by those who
have read it. Your comment is not only horse sense with
locked in 100 per cent power, but a golden opportunity for
taxpayers to demand radical changes by their legislators in
Washington.
I'm wondering if the AMA controls the number of
veterinary schools too? My daughter has had the misfortune,
along with hundreds of others, to be turned down because
there is no room to accommodate all who apply for
admission.
Few people realize the waste of billions of our tax dollars
by piddling, pussy-footing researchers until the news came
out in the larger papers. It was shocking to find that our
legislators appropriated $3.6 million to test 600 beagles with
lethal and pollutant gas when they had prior knowledge of
data to find one part of pollutant gas in 10 million with a lasar
and computor published in the June 1973 issue of Mechanic
Illustrated.
An Air Force colonel, a medical scientist, told a U.S.
senator of April 4, 1974 that he never heard of the Lloyd B.
Kreuzer method of detecting pollutant gas. The June, 1973
article was front page news to medical scientists. Was Col. E.
Archie Nesmith aleep, or was he influenced by $3.6 million of
tax money to keep the job in high gear?
It would take only a few 10-cent stamps, a short note of
protest, and a copy of your Horse Sense article to make an
impact on legislators in Washington. It is past time to
demand that costly bureaus be cut from the gravy train and
our tax dollars be used more constructively, such as helping
sick people and senior citizens.
I'm sending copies of this Horse Sense column to my
legislators. Why don't you?
LOIS WINCHESTER,
Heppner.
Please, do not let the hospital close, for you may be sorry.
One day, some day, for some one in your family, it might be
too late if you have to hunt a hospital in some other town.
It's certainly nice to know that when you need a doctor or
nurse they are right there at your call. I know, for I am one of
those people.
MRS. LEONA SMALLWOOD,
Heppner.
(Continued on Page 7)
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We see a lot of new wrinkles in the ceremony, Mister
Fditor but the meanings are Jest as deep as ever.
Actual I can't see that It matters if they plight their troths
with vow's wrote 700 years ago or If they make promises they
wrote theirselves. And I wouldn't turn around fer the
differunce between standing in the biggest church in towrj
backed up by the biggest pipe organ, and perching at the top
of telephone poles like I saw this lineman and linewoman
doinfi The important thing is why they're doing It, what they
plan to give and what they figger to git out of sharing their
life with somebody else. ' .
Usual the fellers at the country store give their old ladies a
hard time when they're out of their hearing, but Saturday
niitht you would of thought the conversation was being taped
fer playing at the supper table. Everthing was sweetness and
light on the domestic front, and when Zeke Grubb's preacher
stopped by to pick up his pipe tobacker, nobody had to change
the subject or even turn a calender to the wall.
Clem Webster was the first to brag about his old lady. He
' said she alius did pritty well with her garden, but this year
she even was picking up a few dollars selling stuff she had
"shehas saw where farmers was raising strawberries and
letting folks pick their own, so she decided to take a stab at it.
She put a sign inviting folks to pick their own beans and
tomaters and all she done was weigh the vegetables and take
in the money. Clem said she got started on a small scale this
year, but she's planning to branch out into corn and okra next
sctison,
Practical speaking, went on Clem, if his old lady figgered
the hours she put in that little patch, she probable would of
come out cheaper buying can goods. On the other hand,
allowed Clem, if the folks that spend a hour picking a gallon
of butter beans counted their time at the minimum wage,
they'll be giving some cheap labor between the
pick-em-yoreself price and the store price. But Clem was of a
mind that in both cases it was the feeling of doing somepun on
your own that made the differunce.
The fellers was general agreed that value is in the eyes of
the beholder, and Bug Hookum said that goes for everthing
from wives and husbands to the President's cussing.
Bug said he had saw where the President's preacher had
called cussing "emotional drainage that is a good form of
release," but that Nixon's Ma would of washed his mouth out.
Zeke's preacher sided with Nixon's Ma, but he allowed that
in his line of work he usual sees men on their good behavior.
He reminded the fellers that his Boss keeps His tape recorder
running everwhere all the time.
MAYOR ROY.
The crumbling
anti-abortion
campaign
By LESTER KINSOLVING
WASHINGTON Catholic Congressman Lawrence Hogan
(R. Md.) is a leader in the campaign for an anti-abortion
amendment to overturn the Supreme Court decision of Jan.
22, 1973. But, according to the Chancellor and Vicar General
of the Archdiocese of Washington, Congressman Hogan is
currently "living in sin."
Moreover, according to Monsignor John Donoghue, any
children resulting from Congressman Hogan's remarriage
(not by his parish priest, but by the Methodist Chaplain of the
House of Representatives) will be "illegitimate."
Congressman Hogan disagrees and told this column:
"Legitimacy is determined by the civil courts, which legally
dissolved my previous marriage." He cannot, he admits,
receive the sacraments.
By contrast, the only Catholic member of the Supreme
Court, Justice William Brennan, has still not been
excommunicated even though ho voted with the majority
of the High Court, in the decision which some Catholic
leaders have charged has allowed for the "mass murder of
babies."
Just eight days after this decision, for example,
Congressman Hogan, in introducing the first of several
anti-abortion amendments, told the House, dramatically:
"If 1 had been alive in Nazi Germany, I like to think that I
would have had the courage to stand up and protest the
inhumane actions of my government."
This familiar attempt to compare abortion advocates to
Nazis was shot down across town at Wesley Theological
Seminary, however, when the Dean and Professor of
Christian Ethics, the Rev. Philip Wogaman noted:
"Adolf Hitler, while sponsoring outright genocide for Jews,
was strongly opposed to abortion for Germans."
Elsewhere in Washington, the "genocide" argument of
Hogan (as well as such "House Protestants" as the Rev.
Messrs. Jesse Jackson and Charles Carroll) has been further
obliterated by famed black columnist Carl Rowan, in
referring to what he termed "the anti-abortion fanatics":
"That so many black women are turning to abortion is
especially remarkable when you remember that they have
been bombarded with superstud talk about how abortion is
genocide. These women know that, as long as someone else
does not force an abortion on them, it is not genocide."
Over on Maryland Avenue the recently organized and
rapidly growing Religious Coalition For Abortion Rights
announced two new sponsors: prominent Catholic theolo
gians Rosemary Reuther of Howard University and Mary
Daly of Boston College.
Down on Massachusetts Avenue the Catholic Bishops'
leading anti-abortion campaign coordinator, affable Mon
signor James Mcllugh, has been trying assiduously to settle
a roundhouse brawl between the rival groups (1) The
National Right To Life Committee, and (2) The National
Committee For A Human Life Amendment. For Methodist
Marjorie Mecklenberg and Baptist Judy Fink of the first of
these two organizations, charge that the Bishops'
organization of the second group is proof that "Catholics are
trying to control the pro-life movement."
There was a similar reaction when four Catholic Cardinals
appeared at the Congressional hearing and managed to
attract most of the attention and most of the news coverage.
Moreover, their attempts to compare abortion with
infanticide was described as "deplorable" by
Congressman Ron Dellums (D, Ca.) who asked:
"Where is that reverence for tfie woman whose life oi
health is threatened by pregnancy?"
From the hinterlands, the news was little better for th
anti-abortion crusade. Notre Dame's President, Fathei
Theodore Hesburgh, has denounced what he terrnet
"mindless and crude" pro-life advocates who protested hi!
allowing a discussion of abortion of the Notre Dame campus
And in Pennsylvania, voters in the Democratic primary - X
in which there is one of the highest Catholic percentages ii
the nation - decisively xejected the attempt c
Philadelphia's ultra-conservative Catholic legislator, Marti
Mullen, to unseat Gov. Milton Shapp, mainly on the abortio
issue. Mullen who has also fought to keep adultery an
fornication on the books as criminal acts, has said:
"I am carrying the banner of God and I represent tl
people."