Page 2
Heppner, Ore., Gazette-Times, Thursday, Oct. 24, 1974
Horso sense
By
ERNEST V. JOINER
I
9 This is our final bout with the ballot measures to be voted
on by the people at the general election, Nov. 5.
No. 14-A. This proposed constitutional amendment would
require that each person holding an elective county office;
each member of a county planning, zoning or development
commission; and each chief executive officer of the county
who performs the duties of a principal administrator, be
required to file statements of economic interest as provided
in Chapter 72, Oregon Laws 1974. If this amendment is
approved, any person holding office (elective or appointed to
an administrative post) would be required to make a full
disclosure of his financial holdings, annual income and
apparently, bank accounts and valuables. I cannot think of a
better example of invasion of privacy than this forcible
prying into the intimate economic affairs of an individual
who serves on agencies such as the planning commission or
school board 'with no pay). What a man s bank account has
in d with his ability to discharge the duties of a public office
is hard to understand If Nelson Rockefeller is going to be
confirmed as Vice-President of the United States (which he
is ). isn't all this prying into his private financial affairs going
for naught? Bui his case is different. No. 14-A pertains to
county officials only. Nobody in the county is giving away $26
million to friends and political cronies for whatever reasons.
No official of this county is giving any money to friends or
political cronies that can have any bearing on his ability to
run his office
One of the biggest problems facing Morrow County, and
all Oregon cities and counties, is enlisting the aid of qualified
people to serve on the many boards, commissions and
agencies thai unfortunately exist. It requires a great deal of
public spirit and selflessness for a person to spend long hours
of work on these boards with no compensation and little
graii'ude from those he purportedly serves. So. to require
him to make public personal affairs that are patently none of
die public's business; and perhaps to embarrass and
humiliate him. is almost certain to result in mass
resignations of those already holding these thankless,
payless jobs and insure that few other than insensitive and
unqualified persons will offer themselves as replacements. If
Judge Paul Jones owns a ranch worth $100,000, what
bearing does it have on his ability to do his job? The position
if Gene Pierce, president of the Bank of Eastern Oregon,
affecs more people, perhaps, than the office of Judge Jones.
Mus we now require Gene Pierce to bare his personal
financial statement to the hundreds and perhaps thousands
of people whose interests are tied to his banking operation?
As a sop to the curious? Or to keep good men out of public
life? This is a preposterous amendment proposal and
deserves overwhelming defeat.
No. 14-B is the same as 14-A. except that it would force
'he same financial disclosures from officers and appointees
of 'he ci'y of Heppner. and is equally silly. I am a member of
he ci'y planning commission, giving my time without pay.
as my contribution to civic betterment. But if I were required
' file a financial disclosure and look forward to people
pawing through matters which are none of their business, I
wnild promptly resign. My assets and liabilities are
ffrftden'ial. So are yours. I hope we can keep it that way. No
'his one. too!
) Now that Willow Creek Dam is kaput, there should be
renewed local interest in the Heppner Water Control
District's activities. This group is responsible for flood
control measures in Shobe Canyon, through construction and
maintenance of dikes and diversion terraces. During last
year's heavy rains these dikes and terraces held up, stopped
the flow of runoff waters, thus preventing almost certain
flooding. The district's legal authorization runs out in 1975
unless voters go to the polls Nov. 5 and renew its life by
providing a tax base of 50 cents per $1,000 valuation (which is
already what the tax is. so there will be no tax increase if
HWCD is continued'.
The HWCD doesn't get many headlines. Few people even
know it's there. It operates quietly and efficiently, and on
$6,250 a year some kind of a record, considering what it
does. In addition to diversion terraces, dikes and debris
basins to prevent flooding in Heppner. it also saves the
farmers' land, increases production and puts more water
underground for irrigation purposes. HWCD operates the
automatic storm warning devices recently installed in Balm
Fork and Shobe Canyon by the National Weather Service. It
is charged with the responsibility of maintaining all its land
treatment projects, as well as keeping clear the creek
channels through Heppner. If voters agree, the HWCD
proposes to treat the remainder of the 67.840 acres of land
inside its boundaries and do it at a total cost of only $268,000
twith the Soil Conservation Service paying 75 per cent of the
cost) about half of that $450,000 a spendthrift federal
government spent in the most recent "study" of the
feasibility of a dam on Willow Creek!
One of the nice features of controlling flooding in
Heppner through the HWCD is that we know from experience
that it will do what it says: and that what it does, stands up.
The district is managed by Dick Wilkinson, chairman,
Claude Buschke, Gene Pierce, Don Bennett and Marcel
Jones. When these people tell you something you can believe
it. They are your friends and neighbors and are not likely to
lie about what HWCD does, steal your tax money, or use their
positions as directors to acquire power and prestige. They
are here where you can lay a hand on all of them at any time.
After having been assaulted by those liars and thieves in
Washington over Willow Creek Dam, I'd vote the HWCD the
$6,250 a year it needs for another three years just to know
(here are some honest men, honestly motivated, here
working for us. I hope voters will vote to extend HWCD's life
for another three years.
Up in Washington we don't get the kind of results and
kind consideration we get from locally controlled groups like
the Heppner Water Control District. While President Ford
was televising his patriotic appeal that every American
family live within its budget to help cure inflation, he was
attending a $1,000 a plate Republican fund-raising dinner. It
is a bit obtuse to hear Ford speak of living within budgets,
what with him presiding over a sizeable "family" that has
not lived within its budget for years and which refuses to live
within its budget. And we have our Congressmen coming
back home to point out that inflation is our No. 1 enemy, that
everybody must spend less and be taxed more if we are to
survive. And while they are thus engaged, they quietly raised
their salaries from $42,500 to $52,800 a year. They didn 't have
the guts to call it a pay raise and face the national ire. They
merely authorized each member's office expense allowance
upped $9,280, an inflation factor of more than 50 per cent. It is
this kind of deception, greed and callous disregard for the
tax-burdened American people that has justly earned
Congressmen the contempt they now enjoy.
Through The Eye Of A Needle
The mail pouch
EDITOR:
News stories perpetuate a misconception an error in
fact of a type which may support the growing public
distrust of the nation's press.
They state that the projects of the CIA "are reviewed by a
40-member committee in the government continually, and
there is oversight by committees in both the House and
Senate."
First, let's straighten out that "40-member committee"
business. Despite its name, the "40 Committee" has only five
members, not 40 as stated: State's Henry Kissinger and
Joseph J. Sisco, CIA Director William E. Colby, Defense's
William P. Clements and Joint Chief's Gen. George S. Brown.
The name of this group has nothing to do with membership
numbers. It is derived from National Security Council
Intelligence Decision Memorandum No. 40, which establish
ed the committee in its present form in 1969. Most of the "out
of control" action was prior thereto.
Finally, in regard to congressional oversight committees,'
this apparently is also a misconception. Ted Szuic, a Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist, made the following observations in
a recent article appearing in New York magazine: "There is
no known instance of the 40 Committee or its chairman
(Kissinger) consulting with any congressional committee
about what it orders the CIA to do."
As you can see. misinformation could lead the uninformed
to a false sense of security. After all, with all those checks
and counterchecks, how could anything go wrong?
But it already has! Proof lies in research of the Kennedy
assassinations and the Warren Commission false "one gun"
report and the Watergate set-up conspiracy.
Over the last two decades the coalition of juggernaut
corporate internationalists and zealot militarists hiding
under CIA guise has contrived secretly to rule us.
But not without traumatic struggles within their
out-of-control secret hierarchy which has resulled in one
president assassinated, one president forced to resign, one
presidential candidate killed, one presidential candidate
wounded, one candidate for president (Muskie)
sabotaged and now Richard the Great Commie Hunter (and
one of the original sponsors of CIA) has been destroyed by his
own anti-detente boy's trap set-up for him at Watergate for
betraying them.
To cap the climax, Charles Colson, Nixon's hatchet man,
now verifies "They (CIA) killed Dorothy Hunt. "To do this, 43
innocent people died on Flight 553, United Airlines and no
doubt the nine and sixteen minute tape erasures dealt with
that blackmail problem.
The ironic part is that the Supreme Court ruled this year
that the Warren Commission report, rammed through by
Nixon's member Gerald Ford, cannot be opened for 75
years which also means that the F.B.I, is an accessory to
the fact.
Why. you say? Very simple in fact, for Diem, John
Kennedy (Oswald and Ruby) and Robert Kennedy were
killed to keep the Vietnam "oil" war from being stopped.
CHARLES A. SPEARS,
Sherman, Tex.
L LrD
CROSSROADS
REPORT .
DEAR EDITOR:
. I see where Ralph Nadar,
the self-appointed people sav
ior, has prescribed a Law to
make us citizens go to the polls
and vote in all elections.
If this does not produce
results which please him, he
may conjure up a Law to
make us recall votes which
displease him and do them
over.
Obviously, when we have a
Law requiring every citizen to
vote in every election, it is no
giant step to a Law requiring
every vote to make Nader
happy.
D. E. SCOTT.
Crossroads, U.S. A.
quoteunquote
"I am leading a nation of
drunkards. . .Zambians have
hit the bottle so much that the
situation is going from bad to
worse. I don't want to be part
and parcel of a nation of
drunkcrds. I would rather die
than accept the responsibility
of running a drunken nation. If
you Zambians fail to heed my
warning. I am definitely going
to quit." Kenneth Kaunda,
President of Zambia.
Happier news
for
Episcopalians
Bv LESTER KINSOLVING
"I Call Her Sugar Because
She's So Expensive"
GREENWICH. CONN.-Ordinarily the news of four
bishops being formally charged with offenses which could
bring them to ecclesiastical trial would have caused
considerable dismay because such a thing is a definite
rarity in .the history of the nation's sixth largest
denomination.
But when the Executive Council of the 3.2 million-member
Episcopal Church learned that charges have been filed
against the four prelates who conducted the invalid
ordination-io-the-priesihood service for 11 females last July
in Philadelphia, there was little sign of distress.
For any such trial should not take long, since the four
prelates (Daniel Corrigan. Denver; Robert DeWitt,
Philadelphia; Edward Welles, Kansas City and Antonio
Ramos. Costa Rico) openly conducted the service and do not
in any way deny the charge that they violated the church's
laws.
What may well have motivated three Wisconsin bishops
(Stanley Atkins of Eau Claire; William Brady of Fond de
Lac: Charles Gaskill. Milwaukee) plus one bishop in Illinois
(Albert Hillestad of Springfield) to prefer formal charges
was a rather widespread and negative reaction that the
"Philadelphia Four," who openly defied the law and their
fellow bishops, were merely being knuckle-rapped. Neither
the irial nor the seniences should be severe but their being
charged means that there is still some authority in church
law.
Otherwise, the meeting of the Executive Council, which
runs the national program of the denomination between
three-year General Conventions, was so comparatively
happy, in contrast to most of the past decade, as to suggest
the beginning of a new era.
As a prime example of what may well be a new
denominational trust of the national headquarters, a
resolution was unanimously passed which asked that all of
the church's agencies and boards conduct open meetings and
do (heir business "On the top of the table." (The resolution
did not stipulate which boards have done otherwise but the
$250 million Episcopal Church Pension Fund closed its board
meeting to the clergy for years.)
There were a few reversions to the wild antics of the past
decade, but none of them were taken very seriously.
Robert Davidson, representative of "Youth" from Kansas,
was ruled out of order and reacted in a lachrymose manner,
but eventually settled down.
The Rev. Paul Washington of Philadelphia seemed almost
to have mastered the ability to sit without strutting. He
raised several eyebrows by waxing rhapsodically about the
idyllic conditions he had encountered while a guest in
General Idi Amin's Uganda. But most listeners seemed to
categorize this along with the famed statement of the late
Lutheran founder of Moral Rearmament, the Rev. Frank
Buchman, who in 1936 returned from Berlin and told a
reporter: "I thank God for Adolf Hitler!"
Perhaps the most joyful aspect of the new atmosphere of
the Episcopal high command was the ability of whites
actually to disagree agreeable with blacks and other
minorities without being denounced as "racists."
This development appears to be due primarily to the recent
resignation of Dr. Charles Willie, now of Harvard University,
as well as the end of the era of "Modest Leon" Modeste, the
Brooklyn black militant who very nearly bankrupted the
denomination in his distribution of some $7 million worth of
its funds.
Mr. Modeste's departure, however, was not accomplished
without cost. (Cost was $22,413.) For he was paid his full
salary and expenses for six months (after being fired) to
produce a report of his program (GCSP). This report 80
pages which Modeste describes as a "book" is so full of bad
grammar, factual errors, vulgarities and hatred that both
blacks and whites decided that the Episcopal Church shall
not publish it.
In the forward to this "book" Mr. Modeste discloses that he
wrote it while he was (1) "coordinating the National Black
Political Convention" and (2) "attempting to seek public
office." In September's Democratic primary for the
Brooklyn City Council, Mr. Modeste was third among three
candidates with only 16 per cent of the vote front the largely
black populace, which apparently knows him far better than
the gullible Episcopalians who hired him.
f.loyor of Hordnwn
DEAR MISTER EDITOR:
K:vir nniv nnn nein vnn unn m nnif tnnr anmenoov .. .
wrote you about my little piece, and I always read em with
interest.
That complaint from a school teacher about my spelling -
was kinda hard on a old man, special one that has always
figgcred it ain't the words so much as it is gitting the idee
acrosl.
I saw this magazine article some years back that told how .
much time and effort the Coca-Cola Company spends trying
to git you newspaper editors to spell Coke with a big C. The
company says when you write it coke you mean any soda pop, i
but when you write it Coke you are talking about one .
particular kind of pop. You fellers excuse yourself by saying
you have to go by your perticular style of using big and little :
Intlorc est uhu iton'l 1 nil Kir uritti eotfinir T ihu mil ntulik.nf
viivi., mi niij vail I . gii vj Willi Dating A im ' " J '
ennllincr '
jims pieve saiu iim i neoster 8 uicnonary goi so inixcu up ....
about capital letters they come out a few years back with a
edition that had ever word in lower case but God.
I onct knowed a feller that worked on a newspaper that
umrHc CltiA anrl tka HiimmirariA Dovtu fta Ufa if f hinrtc la
going now, I reckon the Devil and the Republicans can sue
cause their rights has been denied.
The Coke folks onct wrote to John Stineback and;
complained cause he had talked about their drink with a little .
C in one of his books. He told em if a word like coke could be
universal Known, tnpv nnent tn m nrnnri thai it was ine real
Omall Uinf4e llinl fltinb t tin, tint tn 1 1 r. jtanilnle tn kit .
onion .uiuo mat mum mtj gui lis uc put ill kapnaia iu
important.
As fer spelling, I recall that Sir Walter Raleigh that come
over from England and discovered North Carolina made a
naDit ot spelling his name so many different ways nobody
could figger how to name places and things after him. That
shows imagination in a man, and one of the big troubles with
education in this country, Mister Editor, is that we git in a rut
and we think its a groove and we stay there. We need some
Walter Rolly's in the schoolhouse, is my opinion. " ;
Actual, the thought is what counts. I recollect the story of J
the feller in the factory that wouldn't give a cent to the United
Fund. All the other workers give, and the plant was trying to
he 100 per cent givers. They all begged him to chip in a dime,
a quarter, anything, but he wouldn't budge. The boss called
him in and told him if he didn't make some kind of donation,
he was fired. The feller pulled out a $5 bill and said that was
the first time anybody had told him what a good thing the
United Fund is in a way he could understand.
In your business you got to be careful with words, cause a '
heap of people depend on you. I recall the time you got the' '"
letter from a feller that had lost his watch and had run a
lost-and-found ad. He said it worked quick, cause the next
day he found the watch in his other suit.
Yours truly,
MAYOR ROY.
Drug arrest . . .
(Continued from Page 1)
too. They just haven't been
caught by the law."
"I had everything going for
me." he shook his head. "I had
no need or craving for pot.
While pot is not addictive, a
person can have a mental
addiction for it. But I didn't. I
smoked it because it seemed
to be the thing to do;
everybody was doing it. But it
won't happen again. I've
learned my lesson. Further
more, my friends understand,
and they don't offer pot to me
any more."
"I just wish." he mused,
"that I could erase the last
year of my life."
When Darrel was arrested
his father told him he was "On
his own," that he would not
provide an attorney to defend
him. In short, he got into the
mess without any help and he
could get out of it by himself.
His attorney. Bob Abrams,
has been appointed by the
court to defend him.
One of these days, he said,
he is going to "get his head
screwed on right" and start
living again. He hopes to go to
coiiegc new year, ennt?rt
Blue Mountain in Pendleton or
a college in Portland if he
isn't doing time in prison.
Darrel spends his days at
work. 12 hours a day, and
sometimes at night. It helps to
keep him from brooding over
his trouble. His boss is
understanding and syrn
nnthafif nc nro hie frionrlc
and family. ;
How does he feel about his
father "turning him in?"
"Legally, my father didn't
have any other choice. He s a
disciplinarian, and strict, and
somehow it 's difficult for us to
talk. But I wish that before he
turned me in he could have sat
down with me and had a
heart-to-heart talk."
School board
(Continued from Page 1)
there, it was indicated, as an
extra teacher had been bud
geted for, who was not hired.
The board voted to continue
its policy of not belonging to
the National School Boards
Assn. because of the high cost
in relation to the benefits to
the district. Pauline Winter
pointed out that membership
fees for the state association,
to which the board belongs,
would be increasing this year.
The board felt that state
membership was of more
benefit to the district.
District Superintendent
Matt Doherty informed the
board that two reports would
be coming to the board for
their consideration. Improved
guidelines for the work-study
program are being worked on
at the present time. The
long-range plan for career
education is also nearing
completion.
The next regular meeting of
the board will be Monday,
Nov. 18. at Riverside High
School in Boardman, begin
ning at 7:30 p.m.
BRUCE BERGSTROM
NOW IN GERMANY
BITBURG, Germany-Airman
First Class Bruce D.
Bergstrom, son of Mrs. Mar
lene C. Peterson of Heppner,
Ore., has arrived for duty at
Bitburg AB, Germany.
Airman Bergstrom, a wea
pon mechanic specialist with a
unit of the U.S. Air Forces in
Europe, previously served at
Mountain Home AFB, Idaho.
The airman is a 1972
graduate of Heppner High
School. His father, Bob C.
Bergstrom, resides on Rt. 1,
Heppner.
gXzette-tcss
MORRdW COUNTY'S NEWSPAPEJl
Box 337, Heppner, Ore. I78M
Subscription rate: $6 per year in
Oregon, $7 elsewhere
Ernest V. Joiner, Publisher '
Publishes every Thursday, and entered as a second-class
matter at the poet office at Heppner, Oregon, under the act of I
March 3, 1879. , Second-class postage paid at HeppiMr, I
Oregon.