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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (March 22, 1955)
FOUR MEDFORD (OREGON) MedforiwTribuni ' .truuu 1.1 ujuiein ureKun Reads The Mail Tribune" Published Dailv ExcDt Saturday by MEDFORD PRINTING CO. $7-29 North Fir St. Phone 2-6141 ROBERT W. RtTHL. Editor HERB GREY. Advertising Manaeer E C. FERGUSON. Managing Editor ERIC ALLEN JR.. City Ednor HARRY CHIPMAN. Telegraph Editor RICHARD JEWETT. Sports Editor OLIVE STARCHER. Societv Editor JACK JACKSON. Sundav Editor GERALD LATHAM. Circulation Mgr. An Independent Newspaper Entered as second class matter at Medford. Oregon, under Act of March 3. 1397 SUBSCRIPTION RATES By Mail In Advance: Per copy 10c. Daiy and Sunday One year $12 00 Daily and Sunday Six months 6.50 Dailv and Sunday Three mos 3.50 Daily and Sunday One month 1.25 j aunoay wuy une year o.au. Ev Carrier In Advance Medford. Ashland. Central Point. Eagle Point. Jacksonville. Gold Hill. Photnix. Shady Cove. Rogue River. Talent, and on motor routes: Daily and Sunday One year $15.00 Dailv and Sunday One month 1.25 Carrier and Dealers 5c per copy All Terms Cash in Advance Offirial Paper of the City of Medford official Paper of Jackson County l"nited Press Full Leased Wire MEMBER OF AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATION Advertising Representative: WEST-HOLLIDAY COMPANY. INC. Offices in New York. Chicago. De troit San Francisco. Los Angeles. Seattle. Portland. St. Louis. Atlanta. Vancouver. B.C. NATIONAL EDITOtlAL assocIFatiion u NEWSPAPER K VaIsociation Flight or Time Medford and Jackson County History from the files of The Mail Tribune 10, 20. 30 and iO years ago. 10 YEARS AGO March 22. 1954 (It was Thursday) New order of the Office of De fense Transportation limits log truck operators to 500 gallons of gas per quarter, local OPA office announces. 20 YEARS AGO March 22, 1935 From Arthur Perry's Ye Smudge Pot column: The vernal equinox came to pass yesterday, so alleged spring is alleged to be here. However. "Grim Winter" continues to mistreat "blithe some spring" worse than a meanie wrestler. Gov. Charles H. Martin visits Medford with highway commis sion, Highway Engineer and oth ers; is greeted by local citizens including F. L. TouVelle, rumor ed to be next choice for high way commission appointment; A. E. Reames. Ralph Stephen son, E. M. Wilson, E. E. Kelly, Frank DeSouza and State Rep. Moore Hamilton. 30 YEARS AGO March 22, 1925 Local and Personal item: The past two weeks have wrought a change in the tourists who are coming through Ashland. Until recently most of the auto travel ers were traveling light, without any bedding or camping out fits. However, lately there has been a great number of tourists with back seat, running board and every other available inch covered and loaded down with bedding and other camping equipment. Ashland Tidings. Still seized in Butte Falls area raid by Sheriff Ralph Jennings. 40 YEARS AGO March 22, 1915 From news item: In all Ore gon there is no better place to own and enjoy a car than in Jackson county. The new hard surfaced Pacific highway, south to Ashland and north to Central Point makes one of the finest driveways on the coas, and the other good roads throughout county make an auto a real pleasure and almost a necessity. New Elk clubrooms on North Central avenue to be opened this week. What's the Answer? (Can You Get 4 of the 7?) Copr. 1955. Editorial Research Reparl 1. President Eisenhower usual ly holds a press conference twice a week, once a week, once every two weeks, or once a month? 2. Unless present federal tax rate on cigarettes, 8c a package of 20, is continued by Congress, on April 1 it becomes 9, 8, 7, 6 or 5 cent?? 3. The U. S. city with the largest Negro population is At lanta, Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans, New York or Washing ton? 4. Secretary of State Dulles succeeded Dean Acheson, who had succeeded James F. Byrnes, E. R. Stettinius, Gen. Marshall or Cordell Hull? 5. Most rhododendrons do or don't do best in an acid soil? 6. A big fight for the guar anteed annual wage opens in several weeks: in steel, coal, autos. railroading, or textiles? 7. Hans Wagner, former Pitts burgh shortstop sometimes called the greatest baseball player of all time, is or isn't now alive? The Answers: 1. One a week; 2. 7 cents; 3. New York; 4. Gen. Marshall; 5. D07 6. In lht luto industry; 7. If. MAIL TRIBUNE The Ellsworth-Neuberger Debate It is a pleasure, for once, to agree with Congress man Ellsworth. It is all the more appreciated because it is so rare. In an article in the current "Reporter" entitled "Partnership in Power and the Public Interest" by the congressman from the Fourth District we quote : "What is the public good? For power development in the Pacific Northwest the public good is to get the job done so that the people and the industries of that rapidly growing area will have the electric energy they need, when and on the scale they must have it, and at a price they regard as fair." To which we say "amen." That "fair price" we believe is particularly impor tant. For it is not what the power companies may call fair, but the people and who have to buy it. I TNFORTUNATELY Congressman Ellsworth does v not develop this point. iar arguments against federal power projects and in favor of private powrer in "partnership" set-ups, with particular emphasis on the of the multiple-power projects, and the low cost if private power is given control with subsidies from the government and state, in a partnership arrange ment. (How much money could Oregon contribute!) Of course that cost calculation isn't correct. The cost of a federal project and a high dam at Hells Canyon for example, which our Congressman opposes, would not ultimately cost the taxpayers a cent, for the sum whatever it might be would be ulti mately repaid to the taxpayers through their govern ment. As for the original cost, Uncle Sam's credit in this direction is still pretty good, and necessary "loans" could be obtained, we are sure, if a majority of the congress should, in opposition to Mr. Ellsworth, and others, vote for it. BUT we do agree that the public good is to get the job done as SOON AS POSSIBLE not only Hells Canyon but the Talent project and thus provide for irrigation, flood control, and other collateral benefits as well as power at a "fair price." But strangely enough Mr. Ellsworth, though re plying to an article in the same magazine by Senator Neuberger, opposing private power at Hells Canyon, never mentions this project, so important to the Col umbia River development, at all. He doesn't say he is for or against a high dam on the Snake, in other words he skips the main topic of debate entirely and confines himself to the general proposition that fed eral development of power is wicked as wrell as costly, and the government has no money to spend, in that direction, anyway. LJOWEVER, as stated, on the proposition that in this matter of power, the program that would best serve the "public good" the greatest good to the great est number should be adopted, we agree with our Congressman 100 per cent. The only question is which plan wrould do this best, and there we disagree as far as Hells Canyon is concerned, for we think Senator Neuberger on this issue is right and Congressman Ellsworth isn't. "THERE is another item in this excellently composed "Reporter" article by Mr. Ellsworth with which we agree, namely: his contention that there is noth ing socialistic or communistic m the Public rower Act. This is in surprising contrast to what the con gressman from the Fourth District has claimed in the past. As he now states, quote: "There is no authorization for the Federal Government to go into or conduct a power business as such." He is right, there isn't. But there IS authorization for the government to pay the initial cost of a multiple-power project, for the benefit of the people, and that cost to be amort ized over the years, and the money loaned by Uncle Sam paid back by sales of .! ; V,0 nvno camrorl VV That is what has been done m lennessee, ana that is what will be done at Hells Canyon if the fed eral high dam project is approved. It isn't essentially a matter of competition and certainly not of profit, it is essentially a matter of public sendee, which the government can do better in some cases can only do effectively, than can private business, largely because of the time that must be consumed on a multi ple high dam project and the comparatively low re turn on the investment. However that is old stuff, the familiar but en tirely sound argument between those who favor gov ernment power development in certain areas be cause it can do the job better and cheaper than private power, and those who don't. Congressman Ellsworth presents the case for pri vate power as he has often done in the past. The Mail Tribune agrees with many of his state ments moreover, but simply disagrees as usual, with his conclusions. R.W.R. Knowland Balks On Charlotte, N. C (U.R) Sen. William F. Knowland (R-Calif.) said last nieht the time is "not right" for a Big Four confer ence because the United States does not know what will be the objectives. The former Senate floor lead er told the Charlotte Executive Club that "we do not know what price Russia is going to have to pay." "They are going to demand fomething," he said, "at they Tuesday, March 22, 1953 the industries, concerned He swings into the famil high cost to the taxpayers power at a fair price to the . Big 4 Talks did at Yalta, Potsdam and Geneva." He said the Soviet Union might demand recognition of the present boundaries of the Iron Curtain at such a meeting and "this would condemn to perpetual slavery all peoples of Eastern Europe." They also might insist on ad mission of Red China to the United Nations "which would destroy the moral foundations upon which it (the U.N.) rests," he said. i Communications Letters to the Editor must bear the name and address of the writer although under certain circum stances the use of a Den name or initial for publication is permis sible. The Mail Tribune reserves the right to edit all letters with an eye to clarification and condensa tion Letters submitted for publica tion must not exceed 400 words. Would Renounce Force To the Editor: Recent infor mation given out about atomic and hydrogen bombs has made a lot of us do some more ser ious thinking. The idea that I come up with is that we need to get back to vf undamental Christ ian ethics and that nothing else will work. I recently heard Arthur God frey remark that as much dam age could be done in one after noon as was done to Europe in World War II. He said that if planes could get through they could do that damage to our country, too. He said they could get through, too, and that the only way out was to stop them before they started and that therefore we should support the Strategic Air Command. I took him to mean by this that we should drop such bombs on enemy nations before they drop them on us. He implied that in this will be our "secur ity." I do not find this kind of security particularly appealing Then I keep mulling over the idea of '"massive retaliation" en unciated by Secretary of State Dulles. In spite of the fact that Mr. Dulles is a prominent churchman it seems to me that this idea is a direct denial of the basic ethic of Jesus. I think it would be much bet ter to be wiped out by nuclear weapons than to drop such bombs on other peoples. Our own survival is not necessary to the world. It is much better that we should live by principles of love and justice than that we should merely continue to live and be completely brutalized like the enemies we are trying to fight. There can really be no com promise between the war sys tem and the way of Christ. And we need no longer apologize about the Christian way as though it were something vis ionary and impractical. It is re liance on force which is-vision ary and impractical. The time has come to cast it aside com pletely without waiting for any one else. This may seem risky, but following Christ and taking his cross was never pictured as something easy and comfortable And who would not rather take risks following Christ and living by his way of love than to take them dropping bombs on the cities of other nations? Many people share the views I here express, but you don't often run across such expres sions in the public prints. 1 feel this is a suitable time to express them in a letter to the editor. Thomas McCamant, 300 Oakwood Dr., Medford, Ore. Accident Cause To the Editor: I am enclosing herewith clipping from the Mail Tribune of this date. This acci dent took place at the entrance of our driveway, and while I was not a witness to the acci dent, it apparently resulted from the injured person trying to cross the street where no side walk was available for the pro tection of pedestrians. This brings up a matter I have been trying to impress upon the city officials for the past two years. The danger to pedestrians in crossing the intersection at West Main and North and South Orange streets. A letter written by me to the City Manager un der date of Jan. 4, 1955, with an accompanying sketch, emphasiz ed the seriousness of the situa tion. However, my efforts have met with seeming indifference on the part of the city officials, as notning nas been done. No on knows for sure, but there is a possibility this lost life might have been saved had a safety zone been provided in which he could cross the street with some degree of protection. However, of one thing we are sure, having had the matter called to their attention, the ap parent indifference on the part of the city officials has result ed in nothing being done to re lieve the situation. When you ' see such indiffer ence as this on the part of pub lic officials you sometimes won der whether the apparent efforts of some in the safety campaign are actually sincere, or whether for purely publicity purposes on the part of the individual in question. My concern in the matter is simply one in the interest of hu manity and the further fact, that being located directly at this intersection, we would like to be relieved of the necessity of constantly witnessing these nar row escapes or accidents, and the nervous reaction thereto on the part of our clientele. A.J. Curry, 906 West "Main St. Providence, R.I. flj.R) Two nights after Martin Zawat sky's car was stolen he spotted it in traffic while driving a bor rowed car. He plowed through the traffic and forced it to the curb. He almost caught the thieves too, but they could run faster than he could. Shortage of Food In Eastern Germany Worries Authorities By CHARLES M. MC CANN A serious food shortage has hit Communist East Germany, and Red authorities seem to be get tins worried about it. There is a wave of panic buying. Fac tory workers have started to protest. Agri culture Minis ter Paul Scholz has lost his post. But there seems to be no remedy for the Charles Mctann Situation. It is one which is affecting not only every Russian satellite but So viet Russia itself and its ally Communist China. What it points to is a failure of basic Communist agricultural policies and of their application by Communist bureaucrats. The Communists must be es pecially anxious over the situa tion in East Germany. The work ers there have shown that they are not completely overawed by their Red masters. In the Day's News By FRANK JENKINS Drama: The Finnish tanker Aruba, carrying 13,000 tons of jet plane fuel consigned from Communist Romania to Communist China, is wallowing along in the Indian ocean. Her engines are barely turning over. She is under or ders to remain in international waters and if she is stopped by anybody for any reason to wait for further instructions. The Chinese Nationalists say they will stop her. The Chinese Reds say that would be piracy. Somewhere along the line, some body might start shooting. When somebody starts shooting in these days, nobody can know when the shooting will stop. It's a hair-trigger world, isn't it? rpHE Oregon legislature is look ing trouble in the eye. It is facing a deficit of about 560,000, 000 for the next biennium. A bi ennium is two years. We do our financing for two years because the Oregon legislature meets every other year in the odd numbered years. The reason a $60,000,000 defi cit has to be faced is that the budget for the next two years (the "budget" is the estimated cost of the services the people want the state to provide) calls for 560,000,000 more than pres ent tax sources are expected to provide in the way of revenue. rpHIS is the big question: Where is the money to come xrom? This is the answer: It will have to come out of the pockets of the people. There is no other place for tax money to come from. We talk a lot in these days about what govern ment GIVES to the people. Let's keep this clear in our minds: Whatever government GIVES TO THE PEOPLE it must first TAKE OUT OF THE POCKETS OF THE PEOPLE. II1TH that out of the way, this ' question arises: What SYSTEM shall we use to take the money out of the pock ets of the people? A REALISTIC answer to that question was given a long time ago by some straight-talk ing tax collector whose name has been lost down though the cen turies. He said: "That system of taxation is best which gets the most feathers from the goose with the least squawking." That's what the legislature is trying to figure out now. AT THIS point I'd like to re mark that I nersonallv nrefer the sales tax system. It pulls the feathers out of me with the least pain. It pulls them out one at a time i n s te a d of in BUNCHES. Somebody can pull one hair out of my head at a time and I'll hardly notice it, but if somebody should pull a handful of hair out all at once I'd squawk loudly. I pay my sales tax a little at a time. So my share of the sales tax is always PAID UP. There is no worry about having to dig up a BIG CHUNK all at once. That hurts. HERE in Oregon the sales tax is supposed to be a wicked thing with which we will have no truck. That is an old wive's tale. We HAVE a sales tax. By means of a sales tax, we raise the largest single amount of money raised by the state of Oregon the money with which to build and maintain our high ways. We pay it a few cents at a time whenever we buy gasoline. I like it that way, because it is easy to pay in these small in stallments and is always PAID UP. If each of us had to dig up his share of the cost of construct ing and maintaining Oregon's highways in one lump, it would hurt. Under the sales tax system, it doesn't hurt anywhere near as much. That's why I like it. The Communists certainly hafe not forgotten the riots of two years ago, in which the East German workers rose against the imposition of speed-up produc tion quotas. Reports of the food shortage in Eastern Germany started to reach West Berlin several weeks ago. Anti-communist agencies which get reports from East Ger man provincial newspapers, ref ugees, and agents maintained in side the Red zone first disclosed the situation. On March 7, it was reported, thhe East German Communist Central Cqmmittee issued a di rective to party workers confid ing that normal supplies of meat, sugar and butter would not be available "for several weeks." The party workers were told to explain in their propaganda that last year's beet sugar crop had been bad and that farmers had failed to deliver their full quotas of meat and fats. Next came reports that the Reds had cut the sale of sugar in the state-owned chain stores, that saccharine was replacing sugar in restaurants and that produc tion of chocolate bars and premi um beers of high alcoholic con tent had been stopped. Last week news reached West Berlin that the Reds had cut the quality of bread to the lowest level reached during the war. The Communists at first tried to deny the shortage entirely. They came around to admitting, in their newspapers, that house wives had started panic buying of flour, bread, meal and other foodstuffs, and of soap also. The official Communist news paper "Naues Deutschland" (dis closed that workers of the great leuna synthetic gasoline and rub ber works near Merseburg had complained that workers could not buy the food they needed. Last Friday it was announced that Agriculture Minister Scholz had been "relieved of his post" at his own request but that he would remain as a deputy pre mier. This was the technique used in the case of Soviet Pre mier Georgi M. Malenkov. German Command General Satisfied With Big Mansion Kaiserslautern, Germany (U.R) Maj. Gen. Miles Reber said today he was "personally very satisfied" with living con ditions in his 30 room mansion whose renovation touched off cries of "waste and extrava gance," in Washington. "It's very luxurious," he said. Reber, commander of the West ern Area Command in Ger many, inherited the mansion on which another general spent $52,000 to refurbish. He referred to questions to Army headquarters at Heidel berg. Army headquarters said the records and files on the case were sent to Washington Feb. 21. Reber refused to answer ques tions but volunteered that "somebody should have looked into the condition of the house before the money was spent on it." A U.S. congressional commit tee disclosed in Washington this week end that retired Brig. Gen. Oliver WendeU Hughes had been "appropriately disciplined" for juggling bookkeeping in reno vating the six bathroom house at a cost far above the author ized sum. Careful dialing saves you time. Dialing habits nave a lot to do with good telephone service, so here are some helpful reminders. Listen for the dial tone. Watch the dial as you turn it, letting it spin back at its own speed after each pull. These are simple points ... but they mean even better telephone service for you. Pacific Telephone. Matter of Fact THE TIMETABLE Hong Kong The moment when the Chinese Communists besan intensive preparation for military action in the Formosa Strait can be rather exactly dated. There were, of course, many prelim aries. The con struction o f the great Che- kiang - Kiangsi Joseph Also? airbase com plex started in earnest as soon as the Korean war ended. Redeployment of units out of Korea was noted more than a year ago. The pub lic outcry for "the liberation of Taiwan" was turned on in Pe king as soon as Communist vic tory in Indochina was signed and sealed at Geneva. Then Sino-Soviet agreement on the best approach to the For mosa problem was almost cer tainly hammered out during the long visit to China of Khrush chev, Bulganin and Mikoyan. This visit, which may also have been linked with the great change in Moscow, ended in mid October. But the first sign to the West that the "liberate Taiwan" shouting was in deadly earnest, was given here in Hong Kong. It took the form of a precipitous rise of the open market prices of kerosene, which is jet air plane fuel, and light diesel oil, which is the necessary fuel of an invasion fleet of motorized junks. The two prices shot up simultaneously just about the middle of last December. Since then the struggle has been continuous between the oil companies and the British con trol officers on the one hand, and the eager fuel buyers from the Communist mainland on the other. As always when such contests involve the ever ingen ious Chinese, the struggle has had its interesting quirks. Hong Kong's motorized iunks. for instance, have long been sub ject to ruei rationing to keen them from supplying the Com munists. But with mainland buy- eis onenng larger profits than all the fish in the East China Sea, the junk owners have been using their sails and seUing most of their diesel rations at a spe cial depot in the Pearl river estuary. OECAUSE of the controls, the -"quantities of diesel and kero sene leading out of Hong Kong have not been militarily import ant. Most probably the huyers have been private or state trad ers supplying the civilian mar ket in South-East China. But for almost two years previous to last December, there had been no sign of fuel shortage on the Communist mainland. Thus it seems clear that in December, the order came down from Peking to begin building maximum stocks of the two in vasion fuels. And this order im mediately created the demand felt in Hong Kong and more re cently reflected in the vovage of the "Aruba." With intensive military stock piling starting in December, the enemy should be ready to move in April or early May, if indeed he is not ready now. Here in South China, to be sure, Com munist stocks of fuel and other military necessities are unlike ly to be big enough to sustain operations on a big scale lasting a long time. But South China is only a secondary center. There are hardly one sixth of the aircraft in the Canton airbase complex, for instance, that are stationed in the Chekiang-Kiangsi com plex. And there are no indica tions of the kind of fuel short age in Shanghai that would quickly appear if stocks in this By Joseph AIsop more important area were un satisfactory. The different fuel situations, like the military dis positions themselves, are simply explained. The Canton region has to be mainly supplied by one overworked railroad, while tankers and freighters can ply freely between Mukden, Tientsin and Shanghai. Another kind of preparation has also been going on in an interesting way. The Commun ists cannot attempt the physical invasion of Formosa until they have stocked and occupied the Fukien airfields that command the Formosa Strait; and they cannot stock the Fukien airfields until they have taken Quemoy and the Matsus. But there are no such barriers to psychological invasion. And this is being at tempted in a very sly way. HPHUS when the new constilu tution was promulgated and the Peking government was re organized, a significant role was alloted to former mem bers of the Kuomintang govern ment. The evil old ex-governor of Yunnan, Lung Yun, the Gen eralissimo's ex-favorite, Gen. Fu Tso-yi, who sold Peking to the Communists, and several more turned up as vice chairmen of the National Military Council. And a really considerable num ber of turncoats were given simple council memberships. Only last week, moreover, an other old favorite of the Gen eralissimo's, Gen. Wei Li-huang, who head Chiang's expedition ary force in Manchuria, slipped across the border from Hong Kong and turned up in Canton in a blare of welcoming pub licity. There is no doubt that Wei Li-huang "chose commu nism" at a carefully prearrang ed time. If Wei Li-huang's old friends in Taipei are having any doubts about the future, the ef fect among them should be con siderable. Over all one can. discern a pattern of methodical, all em bracing preparation that 'be came intensive soon after the Khrushchev - Bulganin - Mikoyan visit to China. It is an ominous pattern. A carefully elaborate national plan is unlikely to be abandoned by the grim, dedi cated men who rule in Peking, at least unless they are decisive ly convinced there is no small est element of bluff in the big talk in Washington. (Copyright, 1955, New York Herald Tribune Inc.) FOR FREE Hartford, Conn. (U.R) The Connecticut Milk Producers association office has a vending machine that provides free drinks for employes and guests. Milk, of course. MR. INSURANCE Fred Brennan I have collected more than once on the "medical pay ments" of my auto insurance. Is "extended medical pay ments" now available to cover all family members in the household for any auto accidents, either as a passen ger, pedestrian or bicyclist? For Information Call MEDFORD INSURANCE AGENCY Phone 2-4940