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About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 31, 1974)
Page 2 Horse sense I Bv ERNEST V. JOINER Being a Democrat can be hazardous to one's health. The reason I argue this is because the record shows that only Democrats get shot these days, not Republicans. It began when assassins tried to gun down President Franklin D. Roosevelt and wound up killing the Democrat Mayor of Chicago. Huey P. Long, Democrat governor of Louisiana, was shot to death in Baton Rouge, La. There was an attempt to kill President Harry Truman, but it failed. President John Kennedy was assassinated, as was his brother, presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy. They got Martin Luther King, Mrs. King and Medgar Evers. Gov. George Wallace was gunned down in Laurel. Md. AH the victims were Democrats. All the assassins or would-be assassins were either Democrats, left-winger radicals, or both. This is a curious circumstance, considering that so much hate and criticism is usually reserved for Republicans. The more people don't like Republicans the more thev shoot Democrats. Explain me that! Tuesday the voters will swarm to the polls in dribbles to return to office the congressmen who have shown themselves to be inept and incapable of doing anything about inflation, unemployment, crime, consumer goods shortages. Arab banditry, the wheeling and dealing of Henry Kissinger or the monumental ego of Henry's mentor. Nelson Rickefeller, who wants to be recognized as vice-president of the country he already owns. Our national leaders, including Mr. Ford, haven't the foggiest about how this country can be turned away from the chaos into which it is rushing. Mr. Ford's solution is for the people to elect him a Congress that will spend all the money he asks them to spend. Mr. Caspar Weinberger. Nixon's gift to the Department of Health. Education and Welfare, proposes to solve all our problems by giving S3. 600 in cash annually to all welfare families. The U.S. Supreme Court is still hooked on the idea of peace and prosperity for all by the forced busing of school children. All the aimless and hysterical postulations along the Potomac as Nov. 5 and economic Armageddon approaches puts me in mind of a story told by Cong Manuel Lujan Jr., Rep., New Mexico. A senator, a congressman and a priest were shipwTecked on a desert island. Starving, they found a can of beans washed ashore from the wreck, but there was no can opener. To handle the problem, the senator passed a bill making it mandatory that all citizens carry a can opener at all times, because he had been so successful in saving lives because he voted to make everybody put on a seat belt while driving. But the congressman objected because it would work a hardship on the taxpayers "My bill." he thundered, "makes it manda'ory for manufacturers to equip every can with a can opener." the senator agreed in a joint house compromise, provided an amendment was added that gave manufacturers a tax deduction for the cost of adding the opener. Thus was the bill passed. As they congratulated each other and gave each other the pens with which they signed the new law. they looked at the can and discovered it was still unopened and that there was no can opener. So they called the legislature back into emergency session. , Then they conducted joint hearings and produced 2.759 pages of testimony. But there was still no can opener. They subpoenaed witnesses, who did not appear. They initiated a s'udy. submitted a program proposal, voted to fund it and to conduct annual overseas hearings. They also cited the can for contempt of Congress. Finally, they turned to the priest and asked him to pray for a miracle to produce the can Opener. "Do you mean." asked the priest, "that you have discovered that there are some problems that can't be solved by new laws' That's right. Father," they unisoned. The priest smiled and said. "I'll pray, gentlemen, but not for a can opener. I'll pray for the greater miracle that you will be able to go back to Washington and convince your Colleagues of this great truth. And in the meantime," he added, "have some beans. While you are arguing. I bashed the can open with a rock." Have fun at the polls. But carry a rock with you. 0 Tuesday. I predict we're going to be busy a? the polls lowering the voting age to 18. While we're about it. how about lowering the age of puberty to 8. and really get this country rolling ! Jack Anderson, Pulitzer prize winning investigative reporter and a syndicated columnist, has a new book, "The Anderson Papers." It tells how he broke the ITT (International Telephone and Telegraph involvement with the Republican Party, and how the corruption and deception by ITT and the Nixon Administration are the same that led to Watergate. It is a frightening book, and one which remains uncontradicted by the principals in the ITT-Nixon Administration scandals. With the genera! election upon us, it is fitting to offer this quote from the epilogue of "The Anderson Papers" (a book available from the Heppner Library): "Very consciously, Congress has let the real power slip from its hands. Old, tired, and often corrupt men, from areas so geographically remote or politically regimented that they need not hear or reflect the desires of the people, hold their seats for a lifetime and rise to positions of great authority through the patently undemocratic process known as the seniority system. The beneficiaries of this patriarchal dictatorship prosper as they grow older, using their committee chairmanships to carefully protect their special interests. The new and vibrant voices, elected by citizens eager for change, are relegated to the bottom of the congressional heap and are politically impotent. Decades can pass before they gain sufficient longevity to make an impact on national policy. "By abdicating its role as the most direct link between the citizens and government, Congress has made it easy for ambitious Presidents to enlarge their own roles and become makers, rather than the executors, of the nation's will. The opportunities are abundant to abuse power so closely held. As we have detailed, the opportunities are exercised. The ability and the obligation to correct the abuses rest with Congress, which must reform itself before it can clean up the executive branch. The areas for congressional action are clear." It is not likely that congressmen will give up their dictatorship based on longevity in the office; and it is human nature to pursue personal power and then to use that power for personal gain. This is why it is my policy to vote against all incumbents in congress to help get rid of those who remain there, year after year, acquiring more and more power with which to subvert the will of the American people. No person, I think, should serve more than two terms in public office. There is no dearth of able, qualified people eager to be of public service. The old and corrupt must be turned out and these fresh new faces added. Nov. 5 is a good time to start this purification rite. 9 I have learned from Walter T. Greaney, national commander. Disabled American Veterans, that the Tax Reform Act of 1974. now before the House Committee on Ways and Means, would make veterans' service-connected disability compensation and military retirement disability pay subject to income taxes. These benefits have never been considered for income taxes before. Cong. Al Ullman, a ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, told the Gazette-Times yesterday that Greaney is wrong. Ullman said "pensions and disability payments from the Veterans Administration have not and will not be taxed." He said the legislation "is meant to close many loopholes in our tax laws, but I certainly don't consider VA pensions a loophole and as long as I'm on the committee I will make sure they are treated equitably." "'" ? ,. , J "' jjll. "LJ . " ''zr i-Up) rJ.ki, f'V ,-.. iJ " ft- fe A Q. c .. . Heppner, Ore., Gazette-Times, Thursday, Oct. 31, 1974 crossroads Mayor of Hardman REPORT DEAR EDITOR I see where the usual and some more demands for higher wages are being made all over the country by citizens pinched by somebody else getting more money. Which is normal and usually reasonable; but my people hiring neighbor says there is' one item which seldom gets mentioned by the pro-raise teams in wage negotiating contests. He hasn't heard of any law against it, but can't remember any case where wage-raise demaudors accompanied their "bargaining" with promises to be worth more. D. E SCOTT, Crossroads. U.S.A. quoteunquote "I am beginning to believe that the most serious impedi ment to my marriage is the difficulty of supporting the government and my family on one income." Dilion (Colo.) Summit Sentinel. Oregon Country . In a grave at the summit of the McKenzie Pass lie the bones of a man who single-handedly connected wild Eastern Oregon with the Willamette Valley. It was late summer 1862. John Templeton Craig had spent the last three months trying io herd 900 head of cattle from the desert country near Bend to Eugene. It took 60 men for the job but they finally discovered a high pass through the Cascades. Craig spent the next 13 years improving the trail through the McKenzie Pass He chopped trees to clear the road and laid the logs on the low muddy spots The trail wound up the eastern Cascades from Sisters and skirted the lava fields on the summit before it plunged into the deep valley of the forks of the McKenzie. Some said Craig w as crazy for spending all his time in the mountains and some thought it odd that he often slept in the hollow trunk of a cedar tree. When they first asked for someone to run the mail route from Camp Polk t three miles west of Sisters to Eugene, the only one crazy enough to apply was John Templeton Craig. For the next 12 years, until 1877. travelers fought the pass only during good weather but Craig battled through in the winter. He snowshoed the lonely 75 miles over the Cascades through snow thai was 10 feet deep. At the summit of the pass, just west of the lava flows, he built himself a rock cabin. The chimney extended 15 feet in the air. well above the highest snow line. Often during winter Craig was forced to wait out storms there. the SOVEREIGN STATE of AFFAIRS It was just before Christmas 1877 when John Templeton Craig left Eugene with a cold blizzard nipping at his heels It caught him halfway up the mountain but he (ought it to the rock cabin. There was kindling on the hearth and food in the cupboards. Craig lit a fire and dropped off to sleep. As the numbing cold wore off his body, the snow on his clothing melted When he awoke, the matches were wet and the fire was out . He wrapped a quilt around himself and lay down in the ashes to stay warm. Friends and relatives found-his frozen body in the spring. They buried him and heaped lava rock boulders to mark Ins grave A cross was fashioned from two sticks and stuck between the stones To the east the cauldron of Black Crater silhouettes the sky. And at his feet the sinister appearing knife-edge of North Sister juts into the sky. It's hard to imagine a spot more coldly desolate and repellant than to be surrounded by Vulcan lava on the very backbone of the Cascades. BOYD and WOOD ; !S THc ECONOMY Summit tWtREUct , 0 YET f; 1 T T-r- r . T WHAT r did they . DtcioeTODo?. ("ncthikg) WEIU IT'S k New endangered species., the paper clip First there was the energy shortage, then the food short age, and now the most serious of all: the paper clip shortage. Those bent bits of wire that hold international banking and commerce together are in short supply. Manufacturers find it more profitable today to make high-grade steei than low-grade wire. Yet without the 20 billion or more paper clips now being consumed each year, the world's business conceivably might fall apart. To avert this calamity, companies already are experimenting with plastic clips. But users say they lack the firm grip of wire ones. Though the ubiquitous clips in their present form are of relatively recent origin, paper clips of one type or another have been in use for centuries, the National Geographic Society says. Straight pins, made first of bone and later of wood, were used to hold documents to gether in Roman times. Some authorities believe the first fasteners were thorns cut from bushes. Papers still are fastened with metal straight pins in some offices, where employ es presumably are steeled against pin pricks. Another early form of paper fastener that still survives is the seal using w ax and ribbon, reserv ed now for legal or ceremonial documents. Wire staples made their first appearance in 1877, but didn't catch on for another 50 years. Unlike paper clips, however, they are not easily removed for day-to-day paper shuffling Manufacturers of paper clips report they are unable to keep pace with soaring demand Even though prices of clips have more than doubled in the last 12 months, one company executive says, "We've got customers offer ing io pay for a year's supply in advance, just so they can get their hands on them." What people do with paper clips when they get their hands on them varies widely. Before the advent of panty hose, the clips often held up secretarial stockings. Many are discarded after being employed to scrape pipe bowls, or unbent to clear clogged pipe stems. Some are fired from rubber-band cata paults at targets of oppor tunity. Others serve as toothpicks, manicure tools, or chips in office poker games. Still others are wrapped with cotton or tissue and used to clean typewriter keys. Some are simply twisted into odd shapes in a form of mechani cal doodling. One manufacturer ruefully concluded that probably not more than one in four of its paper clips is used to hold sheets of paer together. For whatever purpose, enough paper clips are used every year to form a chain from here to the moon. And with the new scarcity, many firms now require employes to recycle the clips by stripping them from papers destined for the wastebasket. -"sj. Y' ! 9 DEAR MISTER EDITOR: Never let it be said, Mister Editor, that the fellers that git together at the country store are shy about taking on the big decisions in life. Saturday night, they discussed the World Food Conference coming up in Rome in November. They studied the matter up one side and down the other, and they announced that all the .world has got to do is git the food where the mouths are. For instant, Ed Gonty said he had saw by the papers where up to a million people in India will starve between now and March. In America, Ed allowed, you can't buy nothing with a dime and not much with a dollar, but inflated folks is a more dangerous problem than inflated economy. If we could git some of our food to India, we might not have so many wimmen wiring their mouths shut so they can't eat, allowed Ed. and if some of them countries rich in oil and poor in food would wake up, we could git the prices of our energy down so we would git on with the business of raising more food. And if it ain't bad enough that folks in India is starving, Bill Wcatherford reported where he had read that they is five rats for every person in India, and that the rats eat eight million tons of grain over there ever year. And ever year, they kill 80 per cent of the rat population, but ever male and female rat that 's left turns out 900 more. It looks like they jest can't be enough food to go around fer the folks and the rats. Bill said he had read that in Vitnam rats are caught and eat, so India and Vitnam ought to work out a rice-rat swap at the Rome food meeting. Some things in this world git turned around fer the better, broke in Zeke Gruhb. He had saw where this doctor sends out notes with his bills, telling patients to reduce their pay according to their income, and he suggests a 20 per cent cut fer old folks on Social Security. If this idee was to catch on, ( declared Zeke, it might be possible in this country to practice medicine and not git rich, but he sees the doctor's union coining out strong for minimum fees like lawyers have done. And another good turn was reported from Durham, North Carolina, where. a doctor is holding a series of 12 sessions to show folks how to treat theirselves. For $45 a person, he shows them'what they can do to save his time. He figgers 10 cases of heartburn and 10 head colds a day treated at home by the patient will give him a chanct to help folks who can't help theirselves. Contrary, it looks like the public-supported Amtrak train is sidetracked. Bug Hookum had a clipping about how Amtrak workers have sent $750,000 riding airplanes to places the Amtrak trams run. That 's as bad as word that we got to quit using deodorant soap that kills germs, cause germs that make us smell bad are replaced by germs that make us sick. Yours truly, MAYOR ROY. Which-Countries-Shall-We-Condemn?' Bv LESTER KINSOLVING NEW YORK A carefully selected committee of the National Council of Churches (NCC) spent an envigorating Friday afternoon. Oct. 10. here playing the game of W C.S" W C '"Which countries shall we condemn?"). Quite predictably, the governments of the four nations that were condemned South ibut not North ) Korea, the Philippines. Brazil and Chileare all right wing. One observer at tins committee meeting was the Rev. Blahoslav Hruby. the Presbyterian minister who publishes the magazine Religion in Communist Dominated Countries. The Rev. Mr Hruby pleaded for some balance in this resolution. He asked for some inclusion of a concern about the massive Soviet oppression, or the murderous (black i tyranny of Uganda's dictator. Major General Idi Amin ("Big Daddy") Da da. But the Rev. Mr. Hruby didn't stand a chance. His appeal was nea'lv categorized along with such patent oddballs as Aral) press agent Frank Maria, of the Antiochian (irlmdox Archdiocese of New York, and his perennial demand that Israel be condemed. which was backed by the Rev. Rotiert Marshall, president of the Lutheran Church in America, and ( B an Armenian Orthodox (not to be confused with Antiochian Orthodox) priest who pleaded that Turkey should be included in the council's condemned list, not for its current action in Cyprus so much as for Turkey's suppression of the Armenians in 1915. Tins straight-out of-Alice's Wonderland committee was presided over by the Rev. Eugene Stockwell. Methodist, who recently achieved the impressive goal of politicizing the NCC's famed S25 million feed-the-hungry program called Church World Service iCWSi. For it was Stockwell who fired CWS director James MacCracken. because this Presbyterian layman believes that the hungry should be fed wherever possible regardless of the local political climate. iSnK-kweil: "We must also be engaged in a sophisticated political analysis of the roots of poverty and oppression.") Siockwell's abrupt ouster of MacCracken caused such a furor that the NCC began issuing press releases and explanatory newsletters commending MacCracken for his "Distinguished leadership and unquestioned integrity and confidence" as well as assuring the public that "His policies are unchanged . . we are not in the business of promoting violent revolution." The fact that despite these statements MacCracken is still fired prompted the Rev. Osborne Scott toobserve: "Isn't that stupid? Ttiis is a Watergate!. . . A power struggle, manipulation, a hidden agenda and questionable integrity." Scott, an ordained clergyman of both the Presbyterian and African Methodist Episcopal Churches, is also Professor of Black Studies at City University of New York. Hence, it is impossible to dispose of him with the familiar smear of "white racism." So, NCC president Sterling Cary quickly brushed off Scott's charges by nervously insisting to a press conference that Dr. Scott is "totally uninformed." Dr. Scott is a member of the Church World Service's advisory board. The Rev. Dr. Cary was then asked to comment on the statement of Disciples of Christ delegate Irwin Chapman, of Fullerton, Ca ; "It seems to me that it approaches the realm of hypocrisy when we criticize our government for interference with the governments of other countries allegedly in Chile and then use church funds in similar efforts in countries where some of our groups believe changes should be made." Cary: "I'll have to leave that as a question mark." This was wise of president Cary. For the real power in NCC today is the Rev. Lucius Walker, who set up the Detroit Conference which produced the notorious Black Manifesto. Dr. Walker (American Baptist) has been a leading supplier of U.S. church funds to African terrorist groups, and was naturally anxious to get control of a $25 million food program as well. TMC GAZETTE-TIMES MORROW COUNTY'S NEWSPAPER Bx 337, Heppner, Ore. 97836 :: Subscription rate: $6 per year in ? : Oregon, $7 elsewhere ;j: g Ernest V. Joiner, Publisher g Publishes every Thursday, and entered as a second-class 8 g: matter at the post office at Heppner. Oregon, under th f S March 3, 1879. Second-class postage paid at Heppner, v. -O""- IS
