Page 2, THE GAZETTE-TIMES, Heppner, Ore., Thursday, Jan. 30, 1975
Horse sense
ERNEST V. JOINER
Sen. Mark Hatfield has suggested that Americans
embark upon a year-long period of fasting to save food and
money to send to starving people abroad. He also suggests
that we eat one less hamburger a week, thus making feed
grains available to starving nations. The obvious observation
is that the fasting and the hamburger-a-week saving be sent
to starving Americans at home first and starving people in
other nations second. A nation that won't take care of its own
hungry first isn't worth its salt. Sen. Hatfield is among those
who believe that if we give up eating beef we can conserve
grain that can be shipped abroad to the hungry. Being from
Oregon, a beef-producing state, the senator should know that
beef cattle subsist almost entirely on rough, fibrous
materials like grass and grain fodder which man can't eat.
Very little food grains (wheat and rice) are ever fed to cattle.
The grains cattle are fed in feedlots before marketing consist
of field corn, grain sorghum, barley and oats all in little use
as human food. A better suggestion, perhaps, would be for
the U S to furnish agricultural specialists to teach the people
of starving nations how to raise the kind of food to which they
arc accustomed. Just giving food away solves little, as past
experience has shown. Unless we are prepared to accept the
hungry of the world on a permanent basis, as non-producing
members of our family, we had better come up with a better
idea than giving away food to hungry nations unless it is
coupled with a program to make them self-sufficient in food
production.
Secret negotiations are under way to unionize employees
in the Morrow County sheriff's office and road department.
Workers will then have two bosses, the county and an
affiliate of the AFL-CIO. But they will be getting higher
wanes, more fringe benefits, better retirement, shorter hours
and more holidays all of which will be paid for by Morrow
County taxpayers. I am sorry to see this happen. I have never
understood why a man will accept a job. knowing in the
beginning the pay and working conditions, then begin
bringing pressure for higher pay and better working
conditions than he voluntarily accepted. Nobody forced him
to take the job. If the pay was inadequate or working
conditions intolerable, he could refuse the job. But once he
accepted the job a contract was established, and I think he
has an obligation to refrain from calling in outside pressure
to change the game rules. A man who can't abide his job
should quit and find employment more to his pleasure. But
all is not lost to Morrow County taxpayers. Every employee
who signed for unionization will be made an "instant
journeyman." His membership automatically makes him a
"competent worker." which is what unions guarantee to the
employer. Therefore, the county has a right to expect
journeyman quality work from each employee. For example,
if a blade operator goes to work smoothing out a section of a
road it had better turn out smooth and even, and not
resemble a run-over washboard. If it doesn't measure up to
journeyman standards, the employee is in trouble and the
union isn't likely to help him. If the union should balk at
furnishing journeyman performance by its members, the
county can still contract the work to outside firms that will. If
county employees think unionization is all roses they haven't
done their home work.
0 Spy report : Sheriff John Mollahan has been a prime
mover in selling sheriff and road department employees on
joining a union. He experienced his first disenchantment (to
be followed by others at an organizational meeting last week
when union organizers said the sheriff will have to give up his
tax collecting duties and transfer them to the
treasurer which means one of his office workers may be
looking for another job . . . Union officials ordered the county
to pay workers a half-day's pay while they were attending a
union organizing meeting and the county paid it . . . Greg
Sweeney. 12. asked to be excused from physical education
class at the grammar school last week because, he explained
to Dean Naffziger. he had an infected toe. Instead. Greg was
ordered to do 20 laps around the athletic Held. As a result,
Greg has missed a week of school while he's at home
recovering from a case of blood poisoning in the
aforementioned toe . . . Odds around town are that endless
meetings, endless oratory and endless debate by county
officials will result in the loss of the two Pendleton doctors
who would like to practice here . . . About five years ago
Orville Cutsforth gave 6-plus acres of land at Cutsforth Park
to the county, and found out the other day he's been paying
taxes annually on the land he gave away!
Well, if the environmentalists aren't making fools of
themselves the fluoride nuts are. Recently, the Amax Pacific
corporation was denied permission to build an aluminum
plant at Warrenton because state environmentalists insisted
that Amax certify a zero fluoride emission at the proposed
plant, an impossibility. Never mind that sea water contains
1.2 parts fluorine per million. Never mind that the Columbia
River has 0.2 parts per million. Forget that the cities of
Astoria and Warrenton require its drinking water contain 1.0
parts per million of fluorine, or that if Amax emitted its
fluoride into Young's Bay it would only raise the fluoride
content of that body by 0.0007 parts (thus insuring our fish
healthiest teeth in the world). Now the same people who
opposed the 1.0 part per million fluoride Amax planned to
discharge into the sea. have a bill in legislature (again) to
force every city and town put at least 1.0 parts per million
fluoride into all drinking water for tooth decay prevention!
Why is 1.0 fluoride added to sea water so bad and 1.0 parts
fluoride in the drinking water so good?
According to Sen. Ken Jernstedt, the legislature is
expecting another 2.000 bills to be introduced before the end
of this session at Salem. So it looks like a replay of the last
session where hundreds of ill-considered bills became law,
and for which we are all paying the penalty. People who
demand "a law" against anything they don't like should
consider the cost. Every law passed costs taxpayers a lot of
money, and it almost always results in the loss of some of our
liberties. Most laws demand the hiring of additional
personnel, to be paid with tax money. New bureaus and
commissions need offices and equipment, with a budget for
expenses all paid for out of taxes. New laws mean a greater
load on the courts, already jammed to the point where a
accused is denied his constitutional right to a speedy trial.
Add to all this misery and expense the fact that a law, once on
the books, is almost impossible to remove. Heppner still has
a law against bouncing a ball on Main Street, you know! And
look what happened the other day in Ocean Grove, New
Jersey. For the past 100 years it has been illegal to ride
around the city of Ocean Grove on Sunday, or to buy a
newspaper. Last month a Superior Court judge struck down
the ban as being "overly broad exercises of police powers."
One astute Oregon legislator remarked the other day that the
number of laws being considered is ridiculous. "Let's face
it." he said, "there just isn't that much wrong with Oregon!"
Give that man a cigar.
Economists are people who can spot a recession the
minute it's over and whose plan to stimulate the building
industry is to add two new wings to the poor house.
A Little Help At The Wheel
Bank's
deposits
are up
First National Bank of
Oregon reported record high
enrnings for the year 1974,
despite only a modest gain in
the fourth quarter, reported
Robert F. Wallace, president
of the statewide financial
institution.
Loan totals at the end of the
year were $1,441,689,000, up
Stf.im.onn. or 3 2 per cent,
from the $1,396,656,000 report
ed on Dec. 31, 1973.
Deposits at year-end totaled
$.m.444.ooo compared with
$2.2:lo,74:t.oi)0 reported at the
close of business in 1973. a
decline of $52,299,000 or 2.3 per
mil .
The Heppner branch report
ed deposits of $9,852,338 and
loans of $8,956,796 as of Dec.
31. Comparable totals for the
hram-h a year ago were
Si.22n.S5n in deposits and
S7.475.IWH) In loans.
quoteunquote
"The GA (General Assemb
ly of the United Nations) has
made it crystal clear that far
from representing a hope for
pence it is in fact an obstacle
to it "-Sen. Peter Dominick.
RColo.
The mail pouch
KDITOR:
It's high time the state stops forcing independent voters to
wear ridiculous party labels, refusing them a choice in
so-called "partisan"offices in primary elections. This heavy
handed practice artificially inflates party registration roles.
While serving as a voter registrar I discovered far more
independents than the records show, but their desire to vote
for all offices in primaries forced them to be captive to the
partisan political cliques.
The supreme court has ruled that every man is entitled to a
vote and the First Ammendment states that we the people
have the right to assemble ind petition the government for a
redress of grievances. This vicious and arbitrary restriction
on independence violates the spirit if not indeed the letter of
these legal decisions.
Slate Senator Charles Hanlon is working hard to correct
this si million, and I urge all the public and legislative support
we can muster on his behalf.
JOHN D. LUKER.
Hillsboro.
EDITOR:
I am pleased to know that Morrow County plans to become
involved in the bicentennial.
I am a member of the newly formed Morrow County
Historical Society and am very anxious to see what this
group will be doing to preserve the history and historical
sites of what is. to me. the greatest county in Oregon.
There are many ways to go. and Vern Casebeer and I (who
arc vice-presidents of the Genealogical Forum of Portland,
Ore.. Inc.) are hoping that the society will put out a bulletin
or booklet -type publication that will bring forth much needed
material from Morrow County. So many of the old records
are in the court house in Pendleton, as this was once Umatilla
County. Mr. Casebeer is a cousin of Alvi Casebeer of
Heppner. deceased.
I am also chairman of the Morrow County records for our
forum. I'm wondering if you people know that you already
have a valuable historian in your midst? Rachel Harnett has
for the past six years been busy typing historical records
from the court house, and has on her own tramped through
every cemetery in your area copying records for
preservation. Some such as the one on the Raymond French
ranch. I have been told, had been actually destroyed. Here
was a record of almost an entire family that was wiped out by
the dread diptheria. This was almost the only record that
existed, lost except through the efforts of Rachel. The new
society could prevent this type of thing from happening in the
future.
A child's grave is covered with a garage, the daughter of
Johnnie Elder, who homesteaded on Hinton Creek. There
was no trace of it. so there was no fault on the builder's part.
Only a marker near the graves of the Dee and Lizzie Cox
children on the side of the hill where the home once stood.
Three small children buried at the foot of Freezout Ridge, the
children of Jim Long. Only a few of us know the exact
location, and then only because as small children we made it
our task to decorate those graves each summer for 8 years.
I'm sure there are others, like the three-year-old girl killed
by Indians and buried at the first bridge up Hinton Creek
where a house now stands. Perhaps readers can inform us of
others.
I am at the moment in the process of typing a 199-page
thesis on Johnnie Redington, a scout who helped track Chief
Joseph's Nez Perce Indians through Montana. Getting to
chapter 4, we find Redington had tired of war and came to
Heppner. This thesis is much too long to give much detail, but
there are many quotes from the Heppner Gazette.
The first Gazette came off the press March 30, 1883. Started
by a Mr. Stine, he after a few issues sold the paper to J.
Redington. Redington was backed by the local merchants to
the tune of $600, to be paid back without interest. I have a list
of the men who put up the money and the amount raised.
J. Redington was not the most popular editor of the
Gazette. He wrote it like he saw it, and if what he saw wasn't
suitable for his cherished paper he printed on a small
leaflet-type paper which he gave away. This he called the
"Heppner Gizzard Junior," which was "ground out
whenever the mulepower press feels like it."
Twice there were attempts to start another paper called
the Times. Pulling no punches, J. Redington soon squelched
their efforts. The last time Redington went too far in his
printed remarks and was soundly thrashed by members of
the Times. He could dish it out, but his pride at least could not
take it, and so on May 16, 1901, after a blistering attack on his
assailant, he folded his paper and closed its doors. No sooner
had the ink dried on the last edition than he sold it to Fred
Warnock, and he went up to Tacoma to start a newspaper.
The young printer who worked under Redington was none
other than Garfield Crawford, and the Crawfords were
publishers of the paper until a few years ago.
I also have in my possession 24 pages from the scrapbook of
Henry Warren, who at one time owned a drug store in
Heppner and lone and at one lime the store in Hardman. But
more about him later His son. H. C. Warren of Lake Grove,
has given me permission to share these with the people of
Heppner. They are copied from the original news articles of
the I 'til flood, and written at that time. I am enclosing one
with this letter.
I am nut with my tape recorder talking to former Morrow
folmly residents, and I hope the society up there will do the
same Maybe they even know of people I could contact here.
When interviewing old timers, ask questions but mainly
just listen and he interested. If he gets off the track, repeat
some to get him back to it. but heaven forbid you should ever
correct him Errors can be ironed out later, but this Is how he
remembers it and how it was told to him or her. And to him
this i the gospel. They will say they remember nothing, but
talk a (vim nothing for a while and they will start
remembering things and they're not afraid of a tape
recorder Don't mention it; just set it down and start.
Sow . before I use up all Mr. Joiner's space for Horse Sense
I will close with one last thought. I hope Mike Sweeney will
use the records Rachel Harnett has worked for so long to
obtain I wish you all the best of luck with your bicentennial
committee. Mv records are available if they will be of any
help.
FRANCES COX GRIFFIN.
Beaverton.
.lorotforiun. on
grozong fees
The Secretaries of Agricul
tureand Interior have ordered
a moratorium on a scheduled
increase in grazing fees in
recognition of the difficult
economic and drought condi
tions facing the livestock
industry throughout the West
ern Stales.
Interior Secretary Rogers
C. R. Morton and Agriculture
Secretary Earl L. Butz said
that holding the fees at the
l74 level does not change the
grazing fee program objective
of gradually raising the fees to
fair market value by 1980.
The moratorium means that
grazing fees will remain at $1
per animal unil month (AUM)
on National Resource lands
administered by Interior's
Bureau of Land Management,
except in western Oregon
where they will remain at
$1.14 per AUM, On National
Forest Lands administered by
Agriculture's Forest Service
the rale is $1.11 per AUM. An
AUM is the equivalent of the
grazing of a mature cow for
one month. '
Grazing revenues from
BLM's national resource
lands in Oregon and Washing
ton total nearly one million
dollars annually.
If the moratorium had not
been imposed, the grazing fee
would have been raised to
$1 51 on BLM lands and to
$1 no on Forest Service lands.
When the program of annual
raises to maintain compara
bility between private and
public lands was started in
1't, grazing fees were 44
cents for lands managed by
Interior and an average of 51
cents on Agriculture-managed
lands.
About 25.000 operators now
hold permits for grazing
approximately 9 million head
of cattle and sheep for a total
of about 19 million Annual
Unil Months on lands admini
stered by the two agencies.
The permits specify the loca
tion, duration, and number of
livestock for each) permit
holder.
EKSTKOM RECOVERY
IS "ENCOURAGING"
John Ekstrom, lone, is
slightly improved in a Port
land hospital, but is still in a
coma.
He has been removed from
the intensive care unit and is
in a private room. Although he
opens his eyes at times, and
appears to be responding,
doctors are encouraged but
they say his recovery could be
a long process.
THE GAZETTE-TIMES
MORROW COUNTY'S NEWSPAPER
Box 337, Heppner, Ore. 97836
Subscription rate : $6 per year in
Oregon, $7 elsewhere
Ernest V. Joiner, Publisher
Published every Thursday and entered as a;
second-class matter at the post office at
Heppner, Oregon, under the act of March 3, 1879.
Second-class postage paid at Heppner, Oregon.
Mayor of Hardman
DEAR MISTER EDITOR:
The fellers had wimmen on Iheir mind Saturday night
during the session at the country store,
Actual, they were more interested in wimmen clothes after
Bug llookum tossed out the notion that as goes the hemline so
goes the country. They was full agreed thai if we got to have a
second sex we can't beat the one we got, but there was some
strong discussion on what they wear has got to do with how
we fare.
Rug said he has lived his three score and 10, and he has
seen the cycles In the economy go from out of sight up to out
of sight down, and he has noticed that the hemlines toiler
pritty closl, Back when we had the gownless evening strap,
Bug said, everything was booming. When the hemline and
the neckline met. the economy was hitting all the high notes,
allowed Bug. and when the Great Depression stopped the
country cold in her tracks, the skirts were sweeping the top of
the shoes.
Practical speaking, declared Bug. this is a bad time fer a
hemline economist. He said he had saw a ad in the paper
recent about sales of wimmen clothes, and they was offering
skirt lengths from "mid-thigh to calf." What's a hemline
predicter to do with that. Bug wanted to know. Nowdays, a
woman wears ever length of skirt she's got, but usual she'll
put on a pair of britches, and Bug said he ain't figgered out
where the pantsuit fils in his crystal ball.
Actual, said Zcke Grubb, pants is causing other problems.
Me said he recalled when school teachers were worried that
the next thing in skirt lengths would be a wider belt, but now
he saw this piece where school officials are coming out strong
ngin these bell bottom jeans that drag In the dirt. Pants with
the wide cuffs is bringing mud and gravel in the classroom
and making a mess of the carpet. The schools are hoping the
girls will rut off their pant legs or even git back in
mini-skirts.
Zeke said he could understand the problem, but worrying
nhmit dirty carpet in schoolhouses is a new angle in the only
country in the world where folks watch their $wio color TV to
learn the price of bread went up agin. If we can carpet our
schools. Zeke said, we can't be all bad.
Gitting back to the wimmen. Ed Doollttle recalled that
when gals got caught in a wind a few yean back they'd grab
fer Iheir skirl. Now. he said, they alius grab fer their hats,
and he wondered if that registered anything on Zeke'i Kale
of economic ups and downs Ed said it s a wonder to him why
men watch ever move wimmen make, and then we pick out a
wife by light we can't see how to eat by.
General speaking. Mister Editor. I think folks in this
rnnnlry just try to git some reasoning behind their worrying.
I saw where some Guvernment economist said Americans
were worrying unduly, and then a hole panel of experts
studied how much worrying Is duly.
Yours truly.
MAYOR HOY.
Church is
landlord for
oil lobby
By LESTER KIN'SOLVING
NEW YORK "That's none of the public's business!"
growled Warren Day. newly appointed executive director of
News and Information for the National Council of Churches
iNCO.
What evoked this angry outburst from Mr. Day was this
column's inquiry as to exactly how much money the NCC is
taking in as landlord-of all things-part of the oil lobby.
The Washington Post had Just published two installments
of page one features on the oil lobby. Both of these extensive
articles cited an organization called "Americans For Middle
East Understanding. Incorporated" (AMEU).
As the address of AMEU. The Post listed 47S Riverside
Drive in Manhattan, without mentioning the fact that this Is
the address of the Inlerchurch Center, the headquarters of
the National Council of Churches.
The Post did. however, report a number of things about
AMEU which rents space from the NCC-thal would not
ordinarily be regarded as very ecclesiastical (under which
category the NCC is tax exempt):
In vm. AMEU's Income totaled $89,757-of which $86,300
was "contributed" by the Arabian American Oil Co.
tARAMCO), which produces 90 per cent of Saudi Arabia ' oil .
Since 1968. AMEU has received more than two-thirds of its
income from ARAMCO and from Mobile Oil, By way of
gratitude. AMEU has sent to its mailing list (40,000) an offer
of "free subscriptions to Aramco World," a magazine for
which AMEU maintains there is "No better source of Middle
East information."
AMEU has also circulated mass mailings to service
stations, truckers, college professors and university
presidents, bringing to their attention such information as
"Congress is under Zionist control."
AMEU's executive director, Methodist minister John
Sutton, is quite matter-of -fact about the oily content of almost
all of his organization's financing: "We think we never get
enough financing from companies that do business in the
Middle East."
By striking contrast, the Rev. Mr. Sutton, whose AMEU
was described by The Post as a "tax exempt, charitable
organization," is not nearly so open regarding what he pays
in rent for office space to the NCC.
For when asked by this column just how much his
organization pays to the NCC, the Rev. Mr. Sutton refused to
reveal this amount, except to say:
"It's a lot more than $200 a month."
This $200 figure was the "rough estimate" of the NCC
Assistant Treasurer Edward Leonard. Mr. Leonard was
contacted after NCC Treasurer Carl Tiller, of the Baptist
World Alliance, explained that his treasurer's post is
"largely honorary," and referred the question to Leonard.
Leonard in turn referred the matter to a Roberta Berringer,
who handles such leases.
But after repeated inquiries, in which this lady was not
available for comment, her office informed us that they had
been ordered to refer any such inquiry to Information
director Day, who provided the information that "This is
none of the public's business!"
This statement Is admittedly something of an improve
ment over the public relations attitude of another New
Yorker, who said, "The public be damned."
But then again, railroad magnate William Vanderbilt was
not tax exempt, nor did any local churches throughout the
nation support him through their collection plates.
Tax exemption alone, not to mention Its national
solicitation of funds, makes the NCC's income the public's
business.
Moreover, the growing need for tax revenue, plus the
proliferation of organizations claiming tax exemption has
necessitated constant vigilance on the part of the Exempt
Organizations Branch of IRS, which Is now aware of the
NCC's oily income.