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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 17, 1956)
FOUR MEDFOHD (OREGON) Kvcv n.u in au.. tin Orcuo Keaos Ihe Man iribune" Published Daily Except Saturday by 37-29 North 'ir St Phone 2-Hl ROBERT W RUHL. Editor HKRB GREY Advertulns Manaeer GERALD LATHAM Business Mj.najr.r z-my. aula jk. Managing realtor EARL H ADAMS City Editor HARRY CHiPMAN Teiegrapb Editor KiLMAKU jtwtn sports Editor OLIVE SI ARCHER Society Editor DALE ERICKSON Circulation Mgr. An Independent Newspaper Entered at second class matter at Med ford Oregon under Act ol March 3. 1897 SUBSCRIPTION RATES By Mail In Advance Pel Copy 10c Dally and Sunday One veal $12 00 DjiIv and Sundav aix months 30 Daily and Sunday Three mot i-50 Sunday Only- One vear $3.50 By CaT.er In Advance - Medtord Ashland Central Point Eagle Point. Jacksonville Cold Hill Phoenix. Siady Cove Rogue River. Talent. an 1 on motoi routes. Daily and Sundav One year $15 00 Daily and Sunday -One month 1.25 Carrier and Dealers- 5c pei copy All ferms Cash in Advance Official Psper" ol'the City" of afedford Oi:!rUl Paper ol Jackson County United Pre; -Full Leased Wire MEMBER OF AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATION Advertising Representative W EST-H Ol XI DA V COMPANY INC Offices in New York Chicago Da trot! San Francisco Los Angeles Seattle Portland St Louis Atlanta Vancouver BC NATIONAL EDITORIAL ASSOCIATION NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION Flight o' Time Medford and Jackson County History from the files of The Mail Tribune 10, 20, 30 and 40 years ago. 10 YEARS AGO Aug. 17. 1946 (It was Saturday) An application for a permit to erect a $20,000 addition to the ie v iunior hish school denied by Oregon district Civilian Produc tion administration. From Arthur Perry's Ye Smudge Pot column: F. Luy, the Antelope cowman, has returned from wherever he has been. 20 YEARS AGO Aug. 17. 1936 (It was Monday) Pear shipments from Rogue valley, for the first week of the harvest, total 203 cars. Power of vision is discussed today by Dr. W. H. Hermitage at the weekly luncheon meeting of the Kiwanis club in the Med ford hotel. 30 YEARS AGO Aug. 17. 1926 (It was Tuesday) There is no more live and up-to-date city in Oregon than Med ford, according to C. M. Kidd, president of the Jackson county building and loan association. Greatest galaxy of horses ever seen in this area will compete in the speed program at the Jackson county fair, Medford, Sept. 15-17, according to Sid Brown. 40 YEARS AGO Aug. 17. 1916 (It was Thursday) First car of Rogue River bart letts to be sold at auction was sold Thursday at an average of $3.22 for blue triangle and $3.16 for red triangle. From Local and Personal col umn: Mr. and Mrs. Otto Klum returned last night from a short outing in the hills. What's ihe Answer? Can You Get 4 of the 7? Copr. 1935 Editorial Research Report 1. More shares of stock are owned by American men or American women, or is it about 50-50? 2. The U.Sr is or isn't one of the signatory nations to the treaty banning germ warfare? 3. The names of four Presi dents contained a doubled "oo." They were the two Roosevelts. Hoover and who? 4. Geneva is the capital of Switzerland, or its largest city, or both, or neither 5. Who in the Bible ate grass as an ox: Samson, Goliath, Nebuchadnezzar. Herod, Phar aoh. Delilah or Judas? 6. What did Czolgosz. Guiteau and Booth have in common? 7. Socialite Ellin Mackay mar ried Baron von Cramm, Arthur Miller. Leopold Stokowski, John Astor. Winthrop Rockefeller, or Irving Berlin? The answers: 1. More by men (but there are more women stockholders). 2. Isn't 3. Coo lidge. 4. Neither. 5. Nebuchad nezzar. 6. They shot U.S. Presi dents. 7. Berlin. McCANN ON VACATION Charles M. MeCann is on vacation. His weekly news out look and daily foreign news commentary columns will be resumed upon his return. MAIL TRIBUNE County Anachronism The Medford city administration has operated under the city manager plan of government for more than a year and a half now, and, generally speaking, it has proven to be highly successful. As those involved in the mechanics of city gov eminent become more and division of responsibility can be expected to be even more satisfactory. Which leads to this manager is good business good business for other units of local government the county, for instance? "THE answer"(as in so many other fields of human affairs) is not a clear-cut yes or no. It is "Maybe," or "Yes, if . . . " It has not been tried in Oregon, although both Clackamas and Lane counties have voted on it twice with negative results each time. One of the difficul ties has been in the state's enabling act, passed in 1945 at the request of, among others, the League of Women Voters, which sets up rigid, detailed ana limiting requirements which the voters have been reluctant to meet. It has, however, been tried in a few other sections of the country, and with some success. DEFORE possible new f orms of county government are considered, however, perhaps it would be well to decide whether or not the present form is satis factory. We think it is not. Aside from the judicial ed officials (county judge, two commissioners, sher iff, assessor, treasurer, county clerk-recorder, survey or, district attorney and school superintendent). This results in a diffusion of both authority and responsib ility, and any credit or blame is difficult to pin down. (We know of one woman who had a problem which she took to the courthouse ; she saw the county court, she was referred to the sheriff, the health department, the county engineer and finally wound up back at the court again, and never did get any satisfaction.) j A GAIN, the county is a "creature of the state," i creation of the legislature, primarily set up perform functions of the state government, uver tne years counties have been granted or have assumed other purely local functions, but the county court re mains an administrative body, with little if any leg islative power. This is in contrast to the cities, which in 1906 were granted substantial powers of "home rule." The county court, composed of three men indepen dently elected, is an unwieldy body unsuited to admin istration. Its functions can be exercised by two of the three members, which historically has not infrequent ly resulted in friction and jealousy. CINCE the system was set up nearly a century ago, it does not reflect the growth of the cities, the pil ing up of "fringe" problems, the present rapid means of communication and transportation. It lacks flexibil ity and the power to deal with urgent problems in a forthright manner! Kates of pay for both elected and appointed offic ials have been below comparable rates in other fields, thus tending too often to attract, not top-flight per sonnel, but those who look on their jobs as sinecures. Time after time, a county election race has been, to the voter, a choice of the less poor of two candidates, ra ther than an enthusiastic endorsement of one good man over another. THE easiest thing in the CWUllg ' 1111 W1V kJVUWMU vwa But imagination and experimentation and vision are needed if our needs in government are to be met. In the field of county government, these have been notablv lackine. - We see no reason why perience in other areas of government and apply it to the anachronistic and creaky and unresponsive but vastly and increasingly important field of county rule. COME of the questions selves may well be : Would not a single, paid professional, trained in gov ernment, meet our needs as a county executive better than three men, whose ability in government administration is" often catch-as-catch-can? - Do we really need 10 elected officials, all quasi-autonomous, to run the major offices? Or would appointed officials, responsible to an administrator, who in turn was responsible to an elected board of commissioners, be more responsive to modern methods and present day needs? Should a greater measure of "home rule" be extended to the counties (which are widely diversified in character in Oregon) to permit them to legislate for their own peculiar problems? Would it not benefit the people of the state if the legis lature were to make experimentation in county government a bit easier? 'IXT'E don't really know the answers to these ques V tions, although we have a hunch each of them could logically be answered "yes." What we do know is that county government in Oregon today is not meeting the needs of the people of the farms, of the fringe areas, of the fast-growing cities. It is too irresponsible. It is too inflexible. It is too prone to "pass the buck" to the legislature, to the cities, and to other sections of the county government itself. County officials too often forget that the bus iness they transact is the business of the public, and that the public is entitled to know what they are do ing,' and why, and how. The first step toward making any progress lies with the people, in pondering the problem. The next lies with the legislature, in taking action to solve it. - - E.A. Friday. Auguii 17, I9S6 more used to it, and to the necessary for its success, it question: If a professional for the city, would it not be officers, there are 10 elect a to world is to sit tight, and to we cannot profit by our ex we should be asking our- Installment Good, Bad, By ROGER W. BABSON Babson Park, Mass. My grandson, Rober Babson Webber, is much interested in the study and relation ship of future consumer pur chasing to the books which people now read, the pho nograph r e c ords they now buy, and the movies th!ey Roger w BabioD now attend. He feels that these may be good barometers of future business changes. Recently he has been calling to my attention that a best-selling record has been the song "Sixteen Tons." This is a song of a man work ing in the mines, whose job was to dig 16 tons of "number nine coal" every day and who bought all his supplies at the company store. Although he worked for years, he never could get out of debt. Having been taught that all debts should be paid, he prayed to St, Peter to give him more time before "calling me home." My grandson feels that one reason this recqrd has had such a big sale is that it repre sents the feelings of millions of consumers who are heavily in debt to some store: Of course, consumers have a perfect moral right to borrow in order to enjoy automobiles, re frigerators, radios, and probably television sets. There is no moral reason why a working man shoiuld not be entitled to use credit as well as his em ployer even though this is a custom which did not prevail 50 years ago. Probably modern ad vertising has been the force to bring about this change; now even conservative banks, which scorned such consumer borrow ing a few years ago, are solicit ing it. , Must Give Credit The "Five and Ten-Cent" va riety stores have built up a huge business on an all cash, no de livery, and now self-service basis. There will always be a field for such stores, but to oper ate successfully, they must get the benefit of huge buying power through large chains. A great many consumers, however, de mand credit, delivery, and more personal attention. Naturally, they must pay for these privi leges, and if the local merchant 3 Matter of Fact By CIVIL RIGHTS AND MR. WILKINS Chicago Because civil rights is the one make-or-break issue at this convention, Roy Wilkins, executive sec retary of the National Asso ciation for the Advanceme n of Colored People, is key figure here. He is al so an interest- ing man to Wilkins is a thin, soberly dressed Negro of 55, with an oddly boyish face. He is a decor ous man, mild-mannered, intelli gent, highly articulate, carefully reasonable. Most of the time, he talks like a learned professor of sociology. But once in a while you sense the intensity of feel ing behind his carefully chosen words. Here, for example, is Wilkins, in his best professorial style, on how change will come to the .south Areas of ra cial - reaction will so isolate themselves in their philoso phies and prac tices that great external and Stewart .Usop internal pres sures for change will automati cally be generated." But here. is. Wilkins when the bitterness breaks through the schoolmasterish style. "No other people would have endured so long being stomped on and kick ed and humiliated." TiHE bitterness is only occasion- -1- al. and Wilkins clearly makes a great effort to control it, to be patient and reasonable. "I'm not in favor of taking a baseball bat and beating anybody's brains out," he says. "If there's ever any violence down South, the Negroes won't start it. They nev er do. The Southerners talk about sending Federal troops down there to enforce desegre gation. You won't find a single Negro leader who's ever said anything about Federal troops.' Desegregation, Wilkins ex plains, again in his professorial style, has become the great sym bol-issue for all Negroes, we see it as a status issue whether we are going to remain second class citizens forever. The feel ing of status permeates the whole of Negro life from one end of the country to the other." Then the professorial manner breaks down again, when he talks with a grin about "that Judge Brady down South who says we're a criminal race only two generations from eating cockroaches." The grin is not a f"i. -2 it p. Sales Both Babson Says doesn't grant them it is very dif ficult for him to continue in bus iness. Also I understand that sell ing on installment tends to bring the customers back to the store every month, thus stimulating further sales. Make Business Conditions Business conditions are not de termined by bankers or poli ticians or. even by the leaders in your community. Now, my grandson's important question today is whether consumers are getting tired and want to rest, or whether they are still de termined to "keep up with the Joneses." Probably almost every reader of this paper is anxious to do both, and for a time this will continue to , be possible, with a further increase in retail sales. If, however, the tide changes and retail sales fall off, the retailer will buy less from the manufacturer; the manufac turer will reduce the number of his employees, and the pur chasing power of the country will decline. This could develop into a very serious vicious circle. I see no sign of this at the present time. In fact, if it should come now, Congress would take immediate steps, to check it. Probably the proposed tremen dous new road-building cam paign is partly to insure contin ued prosperity, in case there should be a severe slacking in installment sales, new building, and the automobile industry. What Shall We Do? We should not suddenly aban don installment purchases. But we all whether merchants or consumers should avoid getting into the pessimistic mood of the poor fellow digging the "sixteen tons of number nine coal." Cer tainly our appropriations for advertising should continue, as advertising is the life blood of business. On the other hand, It may be wise for consumers to avoid further debt and for mer chants to put more emphasis on cash transactions. I have often suggested to mer chants that they have a price differential between cash and in stallment sales, but they tell me this is practically impossible. It seems, however, that the mer chants associations could prevent the situation from becoming worse. In the meantime, I throw out the question of what would happen to retail trade, general employment, and our present prosperity if 50 per cent of the oo and Stewart A I sop gay grin. And there is a real. fierce, bitterness when Wilkins talks about the economic pres sures brought to bear on South ern Negroes who support the NAACP: "They'll take a share cropper, a poor country Negro tied to the land, and kick him out, and have no shame in starv ing him." . "NLY a few city blocks from where Wilkins sits in a hotel coffee room on Chicago's hand some waterfront, the Chicago Black Belt begins mile after mile of it, scabrous slums for the most part, crowded sometimes three and four to a room with Negroes. The outcome of the current pulling and hauling on the civil rights issue could determine who is to be the next President of the United States. Yet in the crowded hotel bedrooms and the echoing amphitheatre of this convention city, the issue has taken on a curious unreality. The civil rights debate has cen tered on using the dread words, "Supreme Court,' 'in the civil rights plank, which is precisely like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Yet the issue is very real to Wilkins and his fellow Negroes profoundly and bitterly real. It is equally real to the white Southerners here, who feel most deeply and sincerely that their established social system is threatened by the Negro up- thrust. Many of the Southerners quite genuinely believe that the problem can be solved only if the South is left to deal with It in its own way. . VlHETHER one agrees with ' ' them or not, it is possible to feel sympathy both with Wilkins and his Southern enemies, be cause they are not faking, be cause they mean what they say. But the vast majority of the poli ticians gathered here, including most of the leading candidates, do not really mean what they say. Indeed, they are not really concerned with the meaning of I the words written into the civil rights plank. They are thinking, instead, of the delicate balance between the delegates of the South and the delegates of Mich igan or Minnesota; between Southern votes and the votes of Harlem or Chicago's Black Belt.' It is only when you talk to a man like Wilkins, or to one of the wiser Southerners, that you are suddenly and sharply re minded that there is really a great deal more to it than that. You are reminded that the Ne gro problem is the great, central, unsolved problem of American society. (Copyright 1956. New York Herald Tribune, Inc.) 'Old Man1 Truman 'Goes Down' With Harriman's Political Ship By LYLE C. WILSON United Press Correspondent Chicago (U.R) The old man went down with his ship in the tradition of the sea. But that is not exactly the tradition of politics and there are poli ticians here abouts who wonder just what the old man is up to. "The old man," by the Lyie t wusob way, is Harry S. Truman's, own description of himself. He was saving only Thursday: "The old man never stops in the middle of a fight" To begin the story at the point where it becomes truly confus ing: Gov. Averell Harriman's top strategists began some 48 hours ago to admit to their best friends that Harriman was licked. The United Press had its contacts with the Harriman organization, of course, and got the word along with the others. Pessimism Stopped Suddenly , Not one, but several of the Harriman high command at one time or another conceded de feat. Some were quoted by name to that effect, others were pro tected against the governor's pos sible anger. But these private and public concessions of defeat stopped suddenly with Mr. Tru man's abrupt announcement Thursday that the fight would go on. Communications View on McKeon To the Editor: I am enclosing a letter from the Sunday Ore gonian that seems to be a good answer to Pat Graham's letter in the Sunday Mail Tribune, re garding Sgt. Matthew McKeon. It shows the difference between reasoning with the mind, as George Coleman does, and rea soning with the emotions as Pat Graham did. Graham's type of reasoning is usually erroneous. McKeon was not on trial for drinking. Mrs. F. S. Gold Hill (Name on file) The letter to the Oregonian is reprinted below: Save the System To the Editor: In reply to your editorial of Wednesday, there Lare a few facts I would like to aaa 10 tne controversy. To the people who think Ser geant McKeon got off-easy, what more would you do to a man who has had his career taken away from him, who has been stripped of all honor, rank, and privilege, who now has to spend nine months in a military pris on? Believe me, nine months in a military prison is equal to five years in a civilian jail. Do they think a firing squad would bring back those boys? I think the punishment fits the crime and the crime is negligence. If Sergeant McKeon had marched his men down a high way and some of them had strag gled onto the road and been killed by a truck, he would still be responsible, because a marine is always responsible for his men, but would that be justifi cation for forbidding drill in structors to march their men by highways? I think not. Then neither does what hap pened to Sergeant McKeon make a just reason for making marine boot camp easier. To change a system that has worked for almost 200 years is to do in justice to a service that has served its country faithfully in peace and war and to the thou sands of men who have gone through this type of training and are better men because of it. Men are killed from time to time in training accidents in aU branches of the service, but this is not the fault of the system. It is usually due to human error, and that is with us all the time. Don't let one accident change the shape of a system supported by an overwhelming majority of the men who have been through it. ' " George Coleman, ' ,959 Lee st, Oswego. families should suddenly get discouraged like our "sixteen ton" friend, and stop buying on installments altogether. Or, what would happen if the banks and merchants started to repossess automobiles, refrigerators,- tel evision sets, and other things? 231 MUTTON ROAST 19 Lb. The United Press tabulation at that hour already showed Adlai E. Stevenson an easy win ner with more than 100 votes to spare and more coming his way by the hour. Mr. Truman con tinued publicly to insist his man could win. The manager of Har riman's pre-convention campaign was Carmine DeSapio, boss of Tammany Hall and well on the way to being boss of the Demo cratic party in the state of New York. ' DeSapio invented Harriman, politically. He picked him as a 1954 long shot to run for gov ernor and put him across by a whisker. Sen. Irving M. Ives, the Republican candidate, could not have been more surprised if he had been defeated by a little green man from Mars with two heads. Tammany Boss DeSapio is a practical politician. Ives' 1954 surprise when Harriman came in first was nothing to the sur prise of the reporters who clus tered around DeSapio here Thursday to inquire into the political double talk sounding from Harriman headquarters. "Harriman is in," DeSapio de clared. "That's the way it's go ing to be. There are no doubts about it." He didn't even smile. If he winked, DeSapio's dark glasses concealed it It was like that for two days Stor-Mor have WHmamelk Freezing Amana-Matic Freezing, the fastest method known, keeps your foods colder, fresher, longer here's why! . B ' lllintrotod Model 9. holdi 685 pounds of frozen food alone. ALSO The NEW 25 W Holds 895 Pounds COME IN TODAV See oil the amazing your family. Be sure to inquire about our Amana FREEZERS AU OUARANTEID TO OUTPiRFORM Alt OTHIKS lodctx by Cntvry-Old Trod'itiom of Fin Craftsmanship r Attend the 4-H Club & F.F.A. Fall Fair Aug. 21-25 Terms to Suit- 225 E 6 St Medford EAST SIXTH ST. . PORK SAUSAGE BEEF ROAST 33 Lb. Lb. around here, Harriman spokes men conceding defeat only to switch under pressure from someone to insist publicly that their man still would win. This strategy of running out a hope less attempt was attributed to Mr. Truman and a lot of folk would like to know what the little man from Independence has in mind. He already had hurt Steven son's chances to defeat Presi dent Eisenhower by tagging him publicly as sure loser, shy on some qualifications for the White House. Mr. T. amended that later to say that Stevenson might win with help help, that is, from Harry S. Truman. There is some question now whether Stevenson will seek or would accept Mr. Truman's cam paign aid. 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