Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989, April 20, 1958, Image 4

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Medford mail tribune., April 20, 1958, Image 4

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Newspaper Page TextMAIL TRIBUNE, MEDFORD, ORE. 4 Sunday, April 20, 1958 MEDFORDt;WrRIUNE "Everyone in Southern vyregon Reads The Mail Tribune Published Daily except Saturday by - MEDFORD PRINTING CO 33 North Fir St. Ph. SP.2-6141 ROBERT W RUHL, Editor HERB GREV Advertising Manager GERALD LATHAM. Business Mgr. ERIC ALLEN. JR. Managing Editor EARL H ADAMS, City Editor HARRY CHIPMAN. Teleg Editor RICHARD JEWETT. Sport Editor OLIVE STARCHER. Society Editor DALE ERICKSON. Circulation Mgr. An Independent Newspaper Entered as second class matter at Medfor'' Oregon under Act of March 3. 1891 SUBSCRIPTION RATES Mail In Advance: Copy 10c. Daily and Sunday 1 year $15.00 Daily ana Sunday 6 mos. 8.00 Daily and Sunday 3 mos. 4.25 Sunday Only One year $4.20 By Carrier In Advance Med ford Ashland. Central Point. Eagle Point. Jacksonville. Gold Hill. Phoenix, Shady Cove, Rogue Riv er Talent, and on motor routes: Daily and Sunday 1 year S18.00 Daily and Sunday 1 mo. U0 Carrier and Dealers copy 10c All Terms Cash in Advance Official Paper of CKy of Medford Official Paper of Jackson County United Press Full Leased Wire MEMBER OF AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATION Advertising Representative: WEST-HOLIDAY CO.. INC, Of fices in New York. Chicago, De troit. San Francisco. Los Angeles, Seattle. Portland. St. Louis. At lanta. Vancouver. B. C. NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION NATIONAL EDITORIAL ASOCjj,TlgN Flight fo Time Medford and Jackson County History from the files of The Mail Tribune 10. 20. 30 and 40 years ago. The Press9 Calculated Risk 10 YEARS AGO April 20. 1948 (Tuesday) Patrons of 15 Jackson coun ty rural school districts yes terday approved the measure to exceed the 6 per cent levy limitation in the. consolidated budget of the rural school district. 20 YEARS AGO April 20. 1938 (Wednesday) Boycotting of aggressor na- tions is urged in a resolution adopted recently by the Ap uleeate Grange. From Arthur Perry's Ye Smudee Pot column: It now appears, candidates who swished info office on the coat-tails of the president, will have to do something besides look wise like a trapped skunk." 30 YEARS AGO . April 20." 1928 (Friday) The police and school au thorities have shut down firm ly on the practice of high school boys raiding semi-high school social functions in homes. Medford motorists are re minded that Medford' s first scenic drive will be officially opened next Sunday. 40 YEARS AGO April 20. 1918 (Saturday) The crop and labor survey taken in the early spring in Jackson county indicates the Jackson county farmers are doing everything in their power to materially increase crop production. From local and personal column: "Because of a bad freight wreck near Drain this city was without passenger train service from the north Sunday, after arrival of the morning train. What's Your I.Q.? Nina or ten correct is superior; seven or eight is excellent; five ot six is good. 1. Playgoers know that S.R.O. stands for what? 2. Bible: To what did Christ liken the Kingdom of God, ac cording to St. Mark? 3. Approximately how much money was paid to Russia for Alaska? 4. A fathom is 6, 60, or 500 feet? 5. How should a woman who occupies the chair at a meeting be addressed? 6. Molten rock that is erupted by volcano is called java, lava or guava? 7. Name the director of the Federal Bureau of Investiga tion. 8. What is the longest river in Africa? . 9. Silkworms feed on the leaves of what tree? 10. Name the capital of New Mexico. Answers: 1. "Standing Room Only." 2. The mustard seed. 3. $7,200,000. 4. Six. 5. Ma dame Chairman. 6. Lava. 7. J. Edgar Hoover. 8. "he Nile. 9. Mulberry. 10. Santa Fe. Our neighborly contemporary the Grants Pass Courier, in a rather patronizing lecture to this de partment declares that an important command' ment of journalism" is not to "assume things are true." No? Neither the Courier, the Mail Tribune nor any other daily paper in the country in fact the world could 'be published without such an assumption. The entire newspaper business, from a news standpoint is based upon "assumptions" of truth. XE HAVE a perfect example at hand. Last week we received a United Press dis patch from Weed, California, .that a Central Point boy had been killed in a head-on crash between his small car and a truck, a few miles north of there, and it was reported the small car had been weaving back and forth across the road before the fatal accident. There was no more reason to doubt the truth of that dispatch than the truth of hundreds of dispatches received that day. Newspapers just don't hire news services that are not reliable. . THAT doesn't mean mistakes by such services are never made, any more than it means mis takes by a paper's reporters, columnists, corre spondents yes, even editors are never made It merely means that it is a physical impossi bility for any daily paper to publish without as suming the truth of the information it receives. Every possible effort, of course, should be made to eliminate errors of ANY kind, but to check each and eveiy item, unless there is some imme diate question of its authenticity, just can't be done. ... If our neighboring daily practices what it preaches it will go out of business, much quicker than anyone expects or wishes it to do. DETURNLNG to. the above wire dispatch, that "weaving from one side of the road to the other" in the accident story was resented by 'the young man's family. They said that would mean to a majority of readers the boy had been drink ing, whereas, he had never taken a drink; had received honors for his skillful and careful driv ing, and they wished a correction. So a further investigation was made. It was established beyond ANY reasonable doubt that the boy had NOT been drinking, his car had NOT been weaving-from side to side and the truck driver had never said it had. The exact cause of the crash was, and still is, in doubt. But a certain amount of harm had been done. And the Mail Tribune at once did every thing in its power to correct it. But, of course, this could not be completely accomplished, which this paper -regrets.' XE cite the incident because it illustrates the "calculated risk" that every newspaper must run, if it is going to do its job as it should be done. It sounds very proper and pious to declare the factual accuracy of a newspaper's wire serv ice, its news staff, its correspondents, etc., should not be ASSUMED, but the plain fact remains, it must be assumed if the paper is to remain in business. The remarkable fact is not that under such conditions a system of supplying news as promptly and accurately as possible to the people so many serious mistakes are made. The remarkable fact is there are so few. R.W.R. s $50,000,000 Profit a Loss? No reader of the Mail Tribune is uninformed concerning this paper's belief the Southern Pa cific Railway should resume mail, express, bag gage and passenger service with as good or better equipment and under the same conditions that prevailed prior to its abandonment of such serv ice from Eugene, Oregon, to Dunsmuir, Cali fornia. It is popular in some quarters to look wise and say: "You can't expect a railroad to continue to oper ate at a loss." , Dennis the Menace HEY. WHO WSARS THE COPS CM?. HUH? WUIOiOM OF YOU GUYS IS A COP1 HUH? WHICH ONE? HUH? Yet, in the same breath the President of the SP ADMITS his company's net profits in 1957, a recession year, were greater than in 1956 a "boom" year, totalling this is after taxes, not before $54,507,686! So that's peanuts? Is that LOSING money? CEEMS to us the Southern Pacific to justify the granting by the people of its franchise to cany the growing volume of prof it-making freight orig inating in this valley, has an inescapable obliga tion to furnish at least ONE train a day for ex press, mail, baggage and passenger service be tween Southern Oregon and other points on its system. R.W.R. Mattes' of Fact 1 1 The S.P. s Phoney Claim Before those who have read the above dis miss it as the "same' old wheeze", resulting from the Mail Tribune's anti-SP "complex", let it be explained' that the undersigned did not write it. It was written by Walter A. Averill, editor and publisher of the "Casa Grande (Arizona) Dis patch" on April 3d, 1958. If anyone wishes a copy they can send a dime and get it. We have only reduced it, and made minor changes to conform to the local situation. But we are sure any unbiased person will agree, that the sentiments above are practically identical with the sentiments regarding the "Friendly Southern Pacific" expressed in this de partment for many years. And it is fair to assume that the people of Pinal County, Arizona, feel just as the people of Jackson County feel toward this railroad and he way it has kicked communities along its orig inal main line between Portland and San Fran cisco "in the teeth". The Casa Grande Dispatch thinks such treat ment an outrage just as does the Mail Tribune, the Ashland Tidings, the Roseburg News-Review and as far as we know, every other newspaper in southwestern Oregon except, of course, that stalwart champion of this billion-dollar corpora tion and all other entrenched Big Business the Grants Pass Courier. EISENHOWER'S GAMBLE Washington In dealing with the depression, the Ei senhower administration has MT"! Pretty firmly commit ed itself to the happy prin ciple of hoping for the best without pre paring for the worst. It is a com fortable s y s- Josenh Alson I e III, u 11 works. But if you take a long, hard look at the situation in Detroit, as this reporter has just done, you must conclude that the President has em barked on a fairly hair-raising gamble. This is because the Presi dent is clearly gambling on a big improvement in the limping automobile industry, when the change-over to the new models occurs in late summer. The automobile in dustry cus'tomarily chews up a fifth of the steel, nearly two thirds of the rubber, and fantastic percentages of the fabrics, glass, aluminum and scores of other things that this country prpduces. If the mo tor industry continues to limp, therefore, other key sectors of the American economy will limp also. TT IS childish and petty' to - do what the President re cently seemed to do blame the motor manufacturers for the recession, on the ground that they have misjudged the public taste in new' automo biles. The manufacturers have to back their judgment of public taste, after all, with annual investments of hun dreds of millions of dollars. They suffer acutely when and if they bet wrong, as they seem to have done this year; and one can only admire their willingness to go on making this sort of bet on such a stag gering scale. But if the President thinks the motor manufacturers bet wrong in 1958, then it is high ly likely he is betting wrong, too. For the 1959 models were not designed after the Ameri can public's taste for. dropsi cal juke boxes began to be sated. They were designed, and the dies for them were ordered at fabulous expense, no less than 18 months ago. Hence the new cars are virtu ally certain to be continua tions and perhaps even exag gerations of the style of car the President seems to think the public no longer wants. IN other words, the most vital question in the econo mic future is whether the American public will rush to buy the new cars that will be gin to pour out of the Detroit arid other automobile factor- By Joseph Alsop ies next September. But this is really a question give or take a few dabs of chromium of whether the American public will rush to buy next September very much the same sort of . car the Ameri can public is conspicuously not rushing to buy today. God forbid that this report er should seem to forecast the answer to any question that is at once so arcane, so import ant, and so remote from his own limited experience. It is plainly a serious question, that has to be noted because it has so much bearing on the President s gamble. There is another question, too, that also needs to be not ed, although once again this reporter has no notion of the answer. In brief, how great wUl be the feed-back effects of the existing level of un employment in our great mass industries? Going among the automobile workers, you begin to suspect that the feed back: effects will be very grave indeed, unless there is a big job pickup in the near future. rriHE vast labor force of these mass industries has ex perienced stable employment at high wages, protected by strong unions, throughout the whole period since the war. Until they lost their jobs, these workers regarded job lessness as unthinkable. They have been further tempted by the Eisenhower adminis tration's remarkably relaxed consumer credit policy. As a result, the workers in the mass industries have mortgaged themselves to the hilt. They are carrying time payments on everything from automobiles to wall-to-wall carpeting. The big layoffs in the automobile industry oc curred in December and Jan uary. Thus far, with the help of the unemployment bene fits, the time payments have generally been met by De troit workers I talked with But this spring, the time payments are not going to be met. They cannot be met much longer out of the re duced income provided by the unemployment benefits. So a great many tens of thousands of additional second-hand cars are highly likely to appear in the already-saturated used-car market, for instance, long be fore new cars can make new jobs. Add the snowballing secon dary effects of joblessness in the mass industries in cities like Detroit. Add the truly horrifying social effects on the people who are due to lose all they have gained from years of work. The sum of the addition is certainly not pretty. (Copyright. 1958. New York Herald Tribune Inc.) "THE Mail Tribune submits that the railroad has yet to submit audited statistics that will convince any unbiased person that the railroad in cutting out the "Night Rattler" service saved any appreciable sum, or that with such service there was any net loss in combined freight and passenger operation at ALL. IN OUR book it doesn't make sense for the Espee Klamath Falls. The SP could increase its revenues and re duce its expenses by routing one of its present three passenger trains through Medford. What are the commitments of the railroad, and to whom, that cause it to kick the communi ties on this its original main line in the teeth? JN COURT the railroad cries crocodile tears con cerning the great amount of money the railroad is losing annually. MOW just a word about that frequent alibi for A the Southern Pacific as noted by the Ari zona paper to wit: "You can't expect a railroad to continue to oper ate at a loss." Of course you can't. The answer is the "SP" did not operate at a loss when it ran one passen ger train a day between Eugene and Dunsmuir. It would not if that service were resumed. By its own figures it would still make a net profit on TOTAL operation of over $54,000,000 a year. And it is total operation that determines any corporation s income, not that of some one minor department in the organization. Today & Tomorrow By Walter Lippmann 1WL piNALLY we are weary of having SP apologists say something like this : "Why don't you ring off about the "Friendly SP" you haveii't done anything about it and you ought to know you can't." , "IIE HAVE always ignored this kind of talk because the answer is so obvious. However as it still persists, we might explain that any newspaper that only continues to sup port a principle in which it BELIEVES, because the odds of success look" slim, is not worthy to be a member of the profession. This paper believes very strongly that the Southern Pacific's position as a public utility, always placing its passion for an extra, buck above its obligations to the people in the way of service in the territory it serves is utterly and completely wrong. So long as there is any chance whatever of .correcting it, and getting the people of Southern Oregon a square deal, this paper will continue to do everything it can, in that direction. ' R.W.R. NORTH AFRICA AND THE UNITED STATES The French politicians who engineered the fall of- the Gaillard government seem to have decided ,'J to blame the United States for their in ability to put down the re bellion in Al geria. Their argument is as follows. The waiter Lippmann rebellion in Al geria would have been crushed by this time but for the fact that the guerrilla bands are supplied and supported, are aided and abetted, across the long fron tier with Tunisia. Instead of aligning itself firmly with France in demanding that Tunsia close the frontier and abandon the rebellion, the United States has remained friendly with Tunisia, thus enabling Tunisia to refuse to yield to France. In the eyes of these politicians, this makes us conspirators against the vital interests of France. In the second stage of in toxication, these politicians believe that our failure to support them unreservedly is due to a very sinister purpose. It is nothing less than that we desire to oust France from North Africa, and from the oil and the minerals of the Sahara, in order to establish an American empire in Afri ca. This is, of course, the Communist line. But that would not matter much, were it not the line also taken by the extreme Right. THE answer 'to the second charge is that with all our human frailties, we are not that stupid. We know, though the intoxicated politicians do not yet know it, that the French North African empire, far from being a desirable possession, is a heavy and thankless liability. The rea son the United States is using what influence it has to in duce a negotiated settlement is that we dread the conse quences if there is no settle ment. In our view, M. Sou- stelle and his Rightist friends are preparing a disaster in which we shall be, though we do not want to be, involved. If they come to power, they will not be able to close the Tunisian frontier by any pres sure that can be put upon the Tunisian government. The fact of the matter is that the Tunisian government is not strong enough, does not have the troops and does not have the political solidity, to close the frontier. M. Soustelle and his friends cart close that fron tier only by reconquering Tu nisia, and if they do that, they will set fire to the whole of North Africa. If this happens, it is any one's guess as to what would be the repercussions inside France. But no one can rea sonably suppose that the French nation will like a wide extension of this horrid, cruel, and interminable war, roTnycK (By M-T Staff and Contributors) An anonymous informant of ours Thursday afternoon overhead two men talking as they walked briskly to ward their hotel. One said to the other, "Oh, what a beautiful dayl And they said it was raining in Ore-e-GON." Well, it's spring, all right. But we agree with a sub scriber who thinks the wom en's section last Sunday was trying to speed things up a little by carrying a May 13 date-line. "So soon?" she in quired. Sign on a local laundry! "Have soap, will wash." And, down at the corner of Central ave. and Fifth st., the Medford police depart ment recently reported the loss of a soap dish. Communications Letters to the Editor must bear the name and address of the writer although under cer tain circumstances the use of a pen name or initial for publica tion is permissible. The Mail Tribune reserves the right to edit all letters with an eye to clarification and condensation. Letters submitted for publica tion must not exceed 400 words. The letters printed in this :olumn do not necessarily repre sent the views of the paper, in fact the contrary is often the case. "Fraud" is the Word To the Editor: In reference to Mr. Parker Bailey's letter, I'd like to inform him that I made my choice a number of years ago. I too wanted to know whether the Bible gave us facts or fiction, whether through it God revealed to the human race His eternal plan and intent. I was born and brought up in a country where the church was supported by the state. Every child had to learn and memorize a good portion of the Bible as well as the "Apostle's Creed" and the ten commandments. Then after two years of this religious in doctrination we were con- Officers are reluctant to ac cuse either prisoners in the jail, or fellow officers. But they're looking suspiciously at clean colleagues. One of our cynical young men comments that after one of the city's grocery stores remodeled their building and made the aisles about twice the width of the former ones, he no , lices that two women can still block the route with their shopping carts. That junior grade philoso pher of ours came up with a sheaf of notes reminiscing about childhood, the other day, and we pass them along for the edification of the youngser generation, as fol lows: Few if any youngsters now adays have to put up with such "blood-thinning" treat ment as offered by the old fashioned sulphur and mo lasses. However, a New Eng land grandmother who' be lieved fervently in home rem edies caused us to gag down quantities of the thick brown mixture. Try as we could, we never escaped. She usually managed to catch us . in a neighborhood ball game. Like as not we would be on third base with two outs and the score tied. She would bustle over with her large apron flapping, grab us by the nose, and shovel the awful stuff down our throat. By thinning the blood .this stuff was sup posed to prevent us from catching cold. And we didn't dare catch cold or we were faced with the inevitable chest-stinging mustard - plas ter. A dignified-looking wom an solved the problem of frayed nerves and the high cost of gasoline in Medford traffic. She was observed the other day, calmly pilot ing a motor-scooter down a main street, presumably headed home from market. The baks here have little AQff rVi 1 . . A. A. firmed and received the holy ZIUVpT c Z' , i v , ,i Prt heavy sacks of coins from one place to another. One such was in use the other communion. From then on we were on our own and if we were religiously inclined .. , . iii j , , . aay, an miormant tells us. Ji ZLC KST1Ce and iust as was being edged now and then, which to us lin riirK a on ' fr 1, nies rolled off into the gut- was a monotonous affair, cC 3d TJj-,!6 ter- The sa broke Grahams." So one day I at- . A, last ht' two red-faced tended one of these so-called ban "npjoye were sitting revival meetings. where We on the curb, tediously picking were informed that unless we were born anew we were surely lost and eternal dam nation was our fate. Well I for one took this seriously and fell in line. After a while, however, the devil started to work on me and I began to doubt. I was confronted with I the logical paradoxes of the Christian religion. I began to rpHE French who have asked us to give them our un qualified support in the Al gerian war are asking the im possible. The war has gone on for many years. There is no end to that war in sight. It is a war, we have come to realize, which eannot be brought to an end by military means, and the attempt to reach a military decision is more likely to spread the war to Tunisia and to Morocco than to end it in Algeria. We cannot allow ourselves to be entangled in such folly. We are bound, therefore, to be the partisans of a negoti ated settlement in Algeria within a negotiated agreement for North Africa and the Western Mediterranean. . The key to such a settlement lies in the proposition that as the political grievances of the North African countries are satisfied, their economic and social and cultural affiliations with France will cause them to insist upon remaining "with in the French sphere of in fluence. If once national and politi cal pride were satisfied, geog- j raphy and economics would determine the issue. (Copyrioht, 1958, New York Herald Tribune Inc. up the 5,000 pennies in the gutter. , A man recently com plained to city police that his wife took his glass; when she drove him to ana from work so he couldn't look at other women. And (another glasses story) use my reasoning powers, to we found the following note analyze and investigate. on our overouraenea aesic Then I said like Robert In- ine omer aay: gersol: It is, but it cannot be. "If the society editor doesn't I read his lectures as well as stop chewing on the bows of the writings of other noncon- her glasses, we will be forced lormists. Then and there I experienced the emancipation of my mind. No more fear of I a revenging God, no bended knees, no supplication, no I prayers, no heaven, no hell, no purgatory, no devil, no ghosts. Yes, and no' worship ing of a so-called inspired book, a book, that in no sense ' of the imagination could be considered a moral guide, a book that reveals scenes and to attch a teething-ring." A Medford police officer reported citing a man nam ed Small one night last week. Another officer, not to be out-done, cited a man named Large the followng night. They declared they were not looking for a man named Medium. One of our men was driving episodes that shock the minds down the highway the other of all decent people, a book so dav. listening to the car ra- - i j., I - ' . iuu uj. coniraaicuons, mat it dio. He heard an announcer creates nothing but confusion say: aim B"ue dmonS oeiievers, . . And now, baseball as witness its multitudinous from the Pacific Coast leaguef interpretations. Yes "fraud" i. 4Vi i. j I o 13 mc tuueti ueiiinuon. William Krauss, Route1, Box 373, Gold Hill, Ore. Criticizes Cong. Porter To the Editor: Congressman Charles O. Porter's sugges tion that this country cease testing atomic weapons might carry more weight if Mr. Por ter could suggest how Russia could be made to cease and desist also. Unfortunately. the congressman's proposal. u,f i like his jaunte around Central be sentimental, or else be- . ' lunations lieve in large ' families co'""lunisl gPs ana He says a second-hand their affiliates, can do no frnitnrp HpaW rpnnrts hp i more than give comfort to unable to get any used baby every iriena oi me soviet cribs union in America. When is He said he thought he was dreaming for a moment, but he kept right on, insisting that it was the PCL. Just habit, probably. One sure way to bring on a cold night, a colleague of ours insists, is to wash the electric blanket. Just like the surest way to bring rain is to wash the car. An observer we know de- our congressman going to re alize that he was elected to represent the fourth congres sional district of Oregon, and not the friends of Russia in the Americas? For further ev idence of where his heart lies, he recently recommended that our strategic Air Command remove atomic bombs from their planes that are always ready to strike at Russia on However, he added, peo ple probably lend standard baby equipment from one household to another. And he said, "We can remember when the family bassinette had to be brought back to home base every so often to have the rubber on the wheels retreaded." "Things are sure going to a moment's notice if the U.S. pot," we overheard a friend is attacked. .comment the other day. Ann J. Lynch, 835 East Main St., Medford. "First those birth-control pills, and now they're creat ing life in a test tjUbe!!"