Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (July 11, 1958)
o o 0 o 0- MAIL TBIfSb MRR ReBThe Tribune" Published Daily Cept Satirday ey MEDF5kO)gab.TING CO 33 KorU Fir h. SPH6141 ROBEjT W BUHL, Editor HERB GREY Advertising Manager GERALD LATHAM. Business Mgr. XRIC ALLEN. JR. Managing Editor EARL H ADAMS. City Editor HARRY CHIPMAN. Teg Editor RICHARD JEWETT. Sports Editor OLIVE STARCHER. Society Editor DALE ERICKSON, Circulation Mgr. An Independftit Newspaper Entered as second class matter at Med ford Cfcgon unr Act ef SUBSCRIPTION RA-ES B? Maii In Advance: Copy - lOe. Daily and Sunday 1 year (15.00 Daily and Sunday moi 8.00 Daily and Sunday 3 mos. 4.23 Sunday Only One year S4.20 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: Dally and Sunday 1 year $18.00 Daily and Sunday 1 mo. 139 Carrier and Dealers copy . 10c All Terms Cash in Advance Official Paper of City of Medfari Official Paper of Jaefcion County JJnited 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. 47 NEWSFAMt i PUtllSHIIS "ASSOCIATION NATIONAL EDITORIAL ASSOCIATION U J 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 July 11, 1948 (Sunday) Commercial cherry canning begins at the Rogue River can ning company. Circulation in the children's department of the Medford Public library last month was reported the largest o rec ord: 4,455 books. 20 YEARS AGO- July 11, 1938 (Monday) From "Side Glances": Fath er Ernest Bartlam earnestly practicing with a gift bait . casting outfit, he doing ad mirably in snagging tree tops in his neighbors' yards." From Argiur Perry's "Ye SmtrSgs Pot" column: "The people will vote on 13 meas ures in November, and none of the lot offer anything upon which an irate citizen can whet h aboriginal hate." S3 YAR5 AGO - July 11, 1428 (Wednesday) Locgl business men and res idents are being urged to ouy dewalk rjlags by the Ameri can Legion flag committee in preparation for the Legion's convention here. O From "Local and Personal" column: "Seventy-one out of the at car registered here yesterday with the local state traffic bureau." 40 YEARS AGO Aly 11. 1918 (Thursday) Alfred A. Chapman, only living white man who wit nessed Custer's stand at the Little Big Horn in 1876, will give a slide lecture here to night. From "Local and Personal" column: "The uniforms for the Medford and Ashland companies of the state militia are still somewhere en route from New York City to the valley." What's Your I.Q.? o Nine or ten correct is superior; seven or eight is excellent; five er sis is food. 1. In what field of science was the naturalist Audubon most active 2. What countries of Eu rope are known collectively as the "Low Countries"? 3. In which state is the re sort town of Biloxi? 4. Name the printing plant that produces U. S. govern ment publications? 5. Ottawa is the capital of n8. Frost penetrates the ' ground three feet or more in partsO of northern United State tru or false? 07. Qp i person move a greater wgjght by pushing or pulling? O 8. Tfi Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians are in the ld, or the New Testament? 9. A canvas-back is a type ofJish, bird, or insect? 0. Name the late Ameri can bandmaster and compos er ho wag called the "March King." Answers: 1. Ornithology. 2. Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxerberg. 3. Mississippi. 4. Government Printing Office. Washington. D. C. 3. Domin ion of Canada. S. True. 7. Pushing. 8. New Testament. S). Bird (duck). 10. John Phil ip Souia. Royalties From Russia Adlai E. Stevenson arrives in Leningrad on Monday, July 14. His tour of Soviet Russia in part is as representative of the Authors League of America in efforts to arrange royalties for Soviet use of American works. Adlai Stevenson's prime mission in Russia appears to be to find out whether the U.S.S.R. is willing to pay for as well as to enjoy Western culture. A Soviet commercial attache here boasted in Chicago, July 8, that the Soviet Union was publishing more books than any other nation in the world. A surprising number are by American authors, but their payment has been distressingly greater in prestige, such as it is, than in royalties. The U.S. State Department told Editorial Re search Reports, July 9, that while there-may be an acknowledgement on the part of U.S.S.R. of a moral obligation to pay royalties to U.S. au thors, such payments have been relatively few. And there is no clear-cut pattern aboul them. SOME authors have received royalty payments, usually small, in the mail. Before breaking with the Communist Party, U.S. novelist Howard Fast had been notably fortunate. And royalties are paid to some U.S. authors visiting the Soviet Union, often, though not always, in blocked rubles. Moscow announced the payment, June 30, of $15,100 in royalties to Mitchell Wilson, American author of such science fiction' as "My Brother," "My Enemy" and "Live With Lightning. His books were said to have sold more than a million copies in the Soviet Union, with sales still rising. Wilsnn. on a four-month tour of Russia, where he has been lionized, received $12,100 in dollars and 30,000 rubles ($3,000 at the tourist rate oi PYrhano-pL Tt is suffffested that these uavments may have been made as a sort of prior demon stration to Stevenson that no representations for a more formal arrangement are necessary. SOVIET Russia has never acceded to the Uni versal CoDvriffht Convention, and has taken no advertised steps in that direction. This agree ment was worked out in Geneva in September, 1952, and came -into force on Sept 16, 1955. Under its terms, each member nation provides for protection of the rights of authors and other copyright owners in literary, scientific and artistic works, including writings, music, . drama, cinema tographic works, paintings, engravings, and sculpture. Works first published in any member nation, get the same protection in other member nations as these afford their own nationals. The United States and 28 other nations are members. Under U.S. law, the original term of copyright extends for 28 years, with a renewal term, upon application, of another 28 years. e THE Soviet Union claims 276 publishing houses and says it published 59,600 titles in 1956. Writers and others wTho earn royalties make up a prosperous intellectual elite in Russia. John Gunther reports: "The richest man in Russia is supposed to be a composer of popular music, whose earnings probably amount to a mil lion rubles ($250,000 at par) per year." And writ ers and artists can always win Stalin (now Lenin) prizes running up to 200,000 rubles ($50,000) each. Russia has always published the no longer copyrighted works of such American writers as Mark Twain,. Jack London, and .Theodore Dreiser, all extremely popular in the Soviet Un ion. But of late books by Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck even Mickey . Spillane have been widely pirated, as have U.S. technical books. And as Russia opens the doors wider to Western "popular culture," the piracy will prob ably multiply unless Stevenson's mission should prove spectacularly successful. E.R.R. What Price the Sahara Now? Who cared about the Sahara until recently? The great Powers let France acquire political control of the desert practically by default in the 19th centuiy. France wanted to connect her northern and western African possessions, and all she seemed to be getting was sand. . But in August, 1956, a rich oil field was dis covered in an interior area of Algeria that really lies within the northern Sahara. Various oil com panies have been exploring for other fields in central and eastern Algeria. These explorations will be intensified once the Algerian hostilities cease. Who can say that the Sahara doesn't contain more oil? Or that new developments in air trans portation won't make profitable the working of other minerals knom to be present in the desert? Or that new processes won't make practicable the watering of large stretches of the Sahara? TTHE northeast part of the Sahara often called the Libyan Desert lies largely within inde pendent Egypt, the extreme eastern part within the independent Sudan. If Algeria gets inde pendence it will share with independent Libya the north central Sahara. And independent Mo rocco is trying to chase the Spanish from the western strip along the Atlantic called Spanish Morocco or Rio de Oro. Interest in political sovereignty over the Sahara would have seemed fantastic not many years ago. But so would have the present disputes about sovereignty in Antarctica, to say nothing about speculation on the United States and Rus sia, some day staking out rival claims to or on the moon. E.R.R. Dennis the Menace 2T ,. l fil 'There's a suy oowhstairs. gur he's not a 6U031AR 'CAUSE HE'S NOT W4RM' A AMSfC. Washington Report By William S. White Washington Congressional investigations, with few ex ceptions in memory, are fated to an almost - inev i t a b 1 e I' cheapness and ' sordi d n e s s. This is now being illus- trated in the 1 House com- m i 1 1 ee's in- quiry into matters run- Wiiiam s. white ning from A to G that is, from Sherman Adams to Bernard Goldfine. A Congressional hearing room is not a courtroom and can never be. But the very absence of the restraints of a proper court proceeding often creates a vulgar parody of a trial. For the Congressional committee will sit simultane ously as grand jury, prosecu tor, judge and trial jury with some of the functions of defense counsel, too, being loudly and inexpertly exer cized by a few of the mem bers. No presiding officer, how ever able and determined, can always keep order and main tain fair play. There is no judge here with remote and absolute authority. There is only a chairman doing the best or sometimes the worst he can. rpHE "Adams-Goldfine com- mittee" is far from a hor rible example. It is an unusu ally responsible group as Con gressional investigators go. Its chairman, Representative Oren Harris of Arkansas, is a fair-minded and leading mem ber of the House. A first-rate man as a person, he is highly respected by those who know him best, his own colleagues. Thus here is a Congression al investigating unit that is considerably better than most, and one with a chairman who is very much better than most. Nevertheless, once Harris puts an end to one kind of error,- or silliness, or unfair ness, another pops up. Not long ago he had to clean up the procedures by which a good deal of hearsay and clearly malicious evidence was being allowed to go into the record. And then came Goldfine's valid complaint, theatrically shrill though it was, that a committee investigator had been using a "bug," or tape recorder microphone, against him. t VTOW, "bugging" does go on. But few would defend itj except in rare, grave cases Try and it 1.V i V , -By BENNETT CERF- REVTVED: the story of the little man homeward bound from a festive office party. He consulted his watch. It was 7 . p.m.! From the taxi window, he next spotted a clock outside a ' jewelry store. It registered 6:55. . Then he asked a driver for the time.- 'The time," was the answer, exactly 6:50." 'is- . Turn around fast, plored the little man. lm- Tm going in the wrong direc tion:" " J - Texasof course, is the lar gest state in the union but how many of you can name the following five in their proper order? Your list made? Well, here they are: Califor nia, Montana, New Mexico, Arizona and Ne'ada. ' . Jones had just flubbed his fourth shot in the same trap one Sun day morning. "The way Tm playing golf," he muttered disgustedly, "I might just as well have gone to church." , 1933. by Bennett Cert. Pirtributtd by Ki Features Sydicte, where infamous crimes against public safety or na tional security are involved. No sensible , Congressman could ever justify this essen tially lawless practice as a proper one for the highest law-making body of this coun try. Certainly Harris would never have sanctioned it, as he has so clearly shown. All the same, the incident did happen. And it happened primarily because Congres sional investigations are what they are. They are necessari ly, political less so under a good than a bad chairman, but political always. ' . THEY are never truly objec . tive, as is a court, nor could they be. For even the most decent committee is not exactly looking for an ac quittal. When it starts a hear ing, it naturally can have no wish to have it end in the col lapse' of whatever case the committee ' has developed." Such investigations, more over, do not have and cannot have the decorum and de tachment of a court. The at mosphere, though it may vary markedly in degree, in sub stance is -always the same: Ah-hah! You evil fellow; we've got you, haven't we? Most of all they are disor derly, in the deepest sense. And this is because Congress is the wrong place either to conduct investigations or prosecutions or to dispense any kind of justice. Not being a court, and having none of the carefully measured pow ers and responsibilities of a court, a committee is invaria bly tempted to go where it has rfo right to go. And not being under the protections of a court, the ac cused witness is invariably tempted to conduct his de fense as much on publicity rubbish as on fact. ' TERNARD GOLDFINE, for example, is surrounded by a battalion of public relations men. How does objective truth emerge from a contest between hucksterism on the defense side and irresponsi ble, penny-ante snoopism on the committee side? Truth is one of the victims of this sort of procedure. The accused sometimes are vic tims, too. (And rich, conserv ative Republican businessmen can bleed from the wounds of injustice quite as freely as did the liberal intellectuals in the days of McCarthyism.) But perhaps the chief of all victims is the dignity of the Congress of the United States. (Copyright, 1958. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.) Stop Me ' , ' ' Communications Letten 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 lolumn do not necessarily repre sent the views of the paper, in fact the contrary is often the case. Moves lo Oregon To the Editor: Failing health and old age, I am now 93 years of ageto compel me to spend my time indoors. I get anxious to do something. A friend said . why don't you write. So I will tell of a trip my parents, with four boys and two little girls, made to southern Oregon in a covered wagon in 1878. We moved from our home at Santa Monica, Calif., to Jacksonville. We put a canvas top on our 3V4 Bain wagon. We had four good driving horses and two .nice riding horses for us boys to take turns riding, which completed our caravan. . The reason for the move to Oregon in reality was drought in Los Angeles county. We had three drought years in a row. The land was so dry no crops of any kind could be- raised. New orange orchards set .out dried up completely. The rail road freight rates from Sacra mento on produce was so high, merchants refused to pay it. One day my father said to mother, "June, we are going to move. We have been living on Oregon food for three years, we better; move to where they raise it." We sold our furniture for any price we could get, boarded up the windows and locked up our nice home, as we could not rent it during the hard times. We got our caravan ready and 'started for Oregon. Us boys hung a sign on the wag on. "Oregon or Bust." The weather was really hot in the Baker sfield country, but we traveled early and late and some days drove 35 miles a day. It got some cooler when we got to Stockton and the Sacramento valley. We came by way of Adin, Calif., instead of going by way of Yreka, Calif., as father wanted to see the Klamath cattle country We found a nice country at Tule Lake and camped for the night at a bluff called "Bloody Point." In 1852, the Modoc Indians massacred an entire train of emigrants there. We soon reached Oregon and trav eled along the north east side of Tule Lake, and soon reacn- ed a cattle ranch where the Modoc Indians killed 1 Boddy and two sons, and son-m-law. They are buried at the Jack sonville cemetery. The tomb stones are plainly seen. When we reached Ashland, we located William Patton and family and Mr. and Mrs. John Parham, Patton's father-in- law. They crossed the plains in 1858 with my parents in the Red Horn Ox train. After my father spent two days looking over the Rogue River valley and country, and returned to Ashland, he said to mother, "It's the finest lit tle mountain valley I have ever seen, and! all produce is plentiful and reasonably priced." We lived at Jackson ville for one year, then settled at Ashland. Father passed away in 1882. I learned the flour miller's trade in Ashland in 1885. I accepted a position as flour miller at the new flour null built and owned, by the late Thomas Martin at Cinkville, now Klamath Falls. In 1894, Thomas Martin and I built the Martin and Bran don Flour mill at Merrill, Ore. Frank S. Brandon, 211 North Ivy st., Medford, Oregon. Ncse in Tent To the Editor: Seems the vicuna has his nose in the GOP tent. It started in the United States, where most of our trou bles start, and came fuU cir cle, ending there or has it ended? Before there were any Re publicans, any United States, any humans, a little critter large as a jack rabbit enjoyed liberty in what is now the United States 50 or 55 mil lions of years ago. What's a few millions when the U.S. government is billions of dol lars in debt? Elephants of that time were in Nasser's Egypt and had not become the symbol of the GOP. In that "Dawn of the Recent" (Eocene) the great, more great granddaddy of both the camels and vicunas grew large. Big animals of that far away time are dead and gone, little creatures thrived like countries and empires. Many kinds of camels wan dered over North America be fore the Mayflower landed and were one of our most prominent families. "Gazelle camels ranged in size from gazelles to sheep." Some giraffe-camels grew big, had very long legs and necks to see what went on in the world. Along your own John Day grazing camels cavorted. Nixon Seen as No. 1 Of Democratic Party By LYLE C. WILSON Unhed Press International Washington (UPI) It would be reasonably accurate to write that the current is sue of "The Democratic Di gest" is a sol id if not de liberate salute to Vice Presi dent Richard. M. Nixon. The Digest is pub lished by the Demo cratic Nation al committee. Lyle C. Wilsoe It IS a well edited political pamphlet. The July issue arrived on news desks here with a mimeo graphed attention - caller to the fact that the pamphlet's emphasis had been diverted from the Adams-Goldfine epi sode to center on the vice president. The Digest's cover bore a Nixon cartoon and the lead story dealt with Nixon, un deniable evidence that Demo cratic strategists rate Nixon their No. 1 political opposi tion, the man most likely to cause the Democratic party serious trouble in the elec tions of this year and in 1960v Traditional Dead End That is a solid tribute to a young man who occupies an office which traditionally is a political dead end. How 'dead an end it has been is indicated by a. paragraph from this week's Saturday Evening Post in which Stewart Alsop writes of Nixon, as follows: "Since 1836, when Martin Van B u r e n inherited the crown from crusty old An drew Jackson, no vice presi dent has been nominated as his party's presidential can didate. Yet' already, two years in advance, Vice Presi American Featured BY CHARLES M. McCANN UPI Foreign News Analyst The week's good and bad news on the international bal ance sheet. The holding of American captives, ' military and civil ian, in three countries fea tured the news this week. The ugly details of a Soviet Russian attack on an unarmed United States transport plane roused official and public Ameri can anger. The plane, on a flight frAryi fTiiY-b-A.r McCann to Iran, was driven across the border of Soviet Armenia in a storm on June 27 with its nine-man Air Force crew. Russian Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko, protest ing against an alleged in vasion of Soviet territory, told the State Department the plane was forced down. The fliers were released Monday and flown to their home base at Wiesbaden, Ger many. They disclosed that Russian jet fighters attacked them. Their plane was set aflame. Five men, were able to para chute from it. The remaining four rode it down. While they were trying to land the flam ing plane, the jets attacked again. . Gromyko had said that all the men were in good health. Actually, it developed, one suffered . serious burns. It was disclosed also that Armenian civilians beat the Later, something happened. Like people, camels weren't satisfied. Camels shook for ever the dust of North Amer ica from their feet. Some went to Asia and Africa, growing one or two humps there. The other bunch, deciding to be Southern Aristocrats, headed for South America, including vicunas, llamas' lit tle cousins, llamas and gua nacos, no humps. The vicuna, about 2Vi feet tall, with yellow brown to white wool, has had its wool used for cloth by "Indians" living in the Andes maybe a thousand years before Colum bus discovered America. Vi cunas do not choose to live south of Bolivia. Vicuna wraps are old style. The only one who would walk a mile for a camel, advertise ments notwithstanding, is an other camel of the opposite sex. Same holds true for vi cunas. The only one who real ly needs a vicuna coat is a vicuna. The vicuna seems to have his nose in the GOP tent and simply refuses to get out. Edith Y. Ingle 338 Bessie st. - - Medford, Ore. 1 A dent Nixon has the 1960 Re publican nomination tewed up in a nearly puncture proof bag. He unquestionably has a better chance than any other man to be the next president of the United States." It is with such as that in mind that Democratic strate gists hammer away at Nixon in preference to beating their drums about th'. currently timely story " of Sherman Adams' friendship with Ber nard Goldfine. The fact that Democratic sharpshooters are diverted from the fine target offered by Adams to concen trate on Nixon does to a con siderable degree endorse the judgment of columnist Alsop that Nixon has the 1960 Re publican presidential nomina tion in the bag. This Democratic judgment was not recently come by. The Democratic high com mand has been on the offen sive against Nixon consistent ly. During the early Eisen hower years, -the opposition was reluctant to tackle the president personally. He still was too much the popular hero. A bruising political at tack on him could have aroused public resentment. Nixon became the presiden tial whipping boy. That phase is long past, however. The op position no longer fears to attack Eisenhower but seems to count Nixon as the major target and the more formid able obstacle to , Democratic election victories. Nixon and California The Digest calls the roll of Nixon's political problems and they are substantial. The lead story is tiUed; "Nixon's California dilemma." The pamphlet wonders whether Nixon will campaign this year for Sen. William F. Know land, the Republican candi Captives in News five parachutists and nearly lynched one of them. But there was an odd twist to this incident. As soon as the fliers were able to identify them selves as Americans, the at tack stopped. Apparently the Armenians thought the fliers were Turkish or Russian. The State Department ac cused the Russian jets of roak ing an "inhumane" attack on an unarmed plane. It accused Gromyko of lying in his state ment that the men were in good health. The State Department con tinued a long series of pro tests to Russia against the de tention by the East German Communists of nine Army men - who strayed in a fog bound helicopter into Red ter ritory from West Germany. The flagrant violation of agreements, the Russians in sist that the United States deal direct with the East German puppet regime for the Ameri cans' release. In doing so, the Russians are trying to force the United States to recognize the puppet regime as sover eign. By trickles, the rebels under Fidel Castro in easternmost Cuba released Americans and Canadians 50 in all whom they had seized as hostages. All 17 American civilians and two of three Canadian ci vilians were freed, finally. Negotiations continued for the release of 30 American Marines and Navy men and one Canadian civilian still held. The voters of North Rhine Westphalia, West Germany' largest state, gave solid ap proval to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's decision that the West German armed forces must have tactical atomic weapons. The Socialists made the de cision and "the threat -of atomic death" the chief cam paign issue in an election for a state legislature.' But Adenauer, for the first time, won a clear majority in the legislature, with 104 seats out of 20U. In a big upset, the Com munists emerged as the big gest party in Finland, Soviet Russia's nervous neighbor, in a parliamentary election. The Reds won 50 seats in the 200-man Parliament. Be hind them were the social Democrats and Agrarians, with 48 seats each. Tte Village DAIRY-SMITH East Main Si. Nowhere In this wide, wide wonderful world will you find better blended fruit punch, not even in Fontainebleau, France! I I I Problem in Fall date for governor of Califor nia, remarking that Know land is running on a "fla grantly reactionay anti-labor program." Knowland is making a re-form-the-union campaign and advocates right-to-work legis lation which would bar the closed shop. The Digest hap pily scents trouble there for Nixon because, if he cam paigns for Knowland, "Nixon will seem to put himself in the Old Guard camp of the GOP." "Nixon has been working for years to gain coloration as an internationalist and eco nomic moderate to win sup port from the (Thomas E.) Dewey wing of the party. How can he keep this camou flage suit on and still work for Knowland." The Democrats would be pleased if Nixon found it im possible to campaign for Knowland. It will not be that way, however. Nixon will be there! In the Day's Hews Br FRANK JENKINS Cold war note: Radio Moscow issued a stern warning the other morning. A broadcast BEAMED TO WARD NORTH AMERICA claimed the United States is pushing the world closer to the edge of disaster. Specifically, the broadcast accused the United States of juggling with world peace by senaing pianes toward Rus sia's borders. The Russian commentator put it this way: "In spite of provocations, Russian planes are NOT fly. ing toward the United States but, alas, U.S. planes ARE still flying toward our bor ders. The result is that the world is practically on the brink of war." WHAT cooks? " I wouldn't know. But note this: The broadcast was beamed TOWARD THE U.S. That means it was designed es pecially lor our consumption and that the Russkies weren't particularly interested in whether the rest of the world heard it or not. That, presumably, means that their purpose is to throw a scare into us. ' WHAT shall we do? " Here's ,one thing we must do: . WE MUST SHOW NO SIGN OF FEAR. If we show fear, the Russians will be on us like a pack of wolves. A LONG that line, our state department has just made public some interesting World War II records. The records cover the ' period when we were coming to the assistance of Russia after she had been attacked by Hitler. They reveal that every time the Russkies asked too much and we yielded they got tougher and asked for more. When we stood pat, they backed off and showed signs of INCREASED RE SPECT FOR US. That's worth remembering. F PORT ANCE of water note: Back in Illinois, they're proposing to divert 1000 cfs (cubic feet per second) of Lake Michigan water into the Illinois waterway. (The Illi nois waterway leads from Lake Michigan to the Missis sippi river and thence to deep water at the Gulf of Mexico.) Senator Potter of Michigan protests bitterly. He tells the senate public works commit tee that every one-inch drop in Great Lakes water levels costs shippers heavily in re duced carrying capacity of ships engaged in 'the Great Lakes trade. He says Lake Michigan's level is already dangerously low and says all Great Lakes cities would suffer if the diversion plan i approved. THE nation as a whole does n't realize it yet, but the time is near when water will be our MOST IMPORTANT resource, without which other resources can be valueless. Out here in the West in cluding Southern Oregon and Far Northern California we're acutely aware that any area that loses its proper share of ITS OWN WATER is in for bad trouble in the fu ture. : I CenettM I I I