FOUR MEDFOHD (OREGON)
Kvcv n.u in au.. tin Orcuo
Keaos Ihe Man iribune"
Published Daily Except Saturday by
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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
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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
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33
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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. He didn't care for It
in 1952, which is what first
turned Mr. Truman against him.
He may not care for it this year,
either.
The Republicans have been
planning to make their campaign
attack this year in large part
against the Truman administra
tion and Mr. Truman. : Events
here have cleared Stevenson of
the charge that he is Mr. Tru
man's kept man. Some persons
believe the Truman bolt was a
good break for Stevenson and
Stevenson may be among those
believers.
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