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About Herald and news. (Klamath Falls, Or.) 1942-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 6, 1963)
PAGE f HERALD AM) NEWS, Klamath Falls. Ore. Friday, September S, 1963 Your M " The Treasury Department, reportedly at (he request of the President, has asked Con gress to put its okay on a law to make insur ance premiums paid by employers taxed as in come to the worker. In other words, just as if the money paid by an employer were wages. Now we come to the era when we're thinking of taxing the fringe benefit. ' Tax authorities are raising a howling pro test. They say this would be double jeopardy in. that the employe, who would never see oney the money, must pay taxes paid by someone else and the Internal Revenue men will move in anyway to collect estate taxes when the insured dies. Ths men who said way back when tax tuts were promised by the Kennedy adminis trationthat it might be a cold day in July or August before taxes were reduced, was a wise fellow indeed. Again we say don't borrow money from the bank on the strength of getting a reduction in taxes. What Goes On? (The Christian Science Monitor) ' . Marquis Childs recently wrote that there is: a "continuing personal correspondence" h&ween President Kennedy and Premier jjjirushchev. Is there any other basis on which the ap parent softening of Washington's attitude to ward Castro Cuba could be explained? We, like most Americans, are largely in the dark and we would like to know more about what goes on. Fragments of evidence, all too incom plete, suggest that Washington is impressed with Mr. Castro's latest gestures toward eas ing tensions. "United States officials," reports the New York Times from Washington, "who . have been analyzing Dr. Castro's offers to 'normalize' relations believe they are moti vated by a genuine desire to relieve external pressures on his regime at a time when it must concentrate on solving pressing eco nomic difficulties. ... "Similar observations were made by Lat in - American diplomats --w h o recently returned from Cuba. They said that Dr. Castro had personally assured the govern-, ments of Brazil and Mexico that he would abandon his campaign to subvert the Latin American nations." "Personally assured". . .! What goes on? The OAS Council has just voted a mild resolution to curb travel to Cuba and to tight en inter-American security measures. But this reportedly replaced a stronger resolution. The United States is not now pressing for an eco nomic embargo as it earlier said it would. Why? Is it because of the supposed easing of Castro's militance? Is there a change of American policy despite the usual denials? Or has Washington been unable to persuade Britain and other European countries to stop trading with Cuba (their trade has been sharply increasing in recent months) and cannot therefore request their western hem isphere allies to cut their trade merely to have the Europeans take it over? Mr. Castro's present mildness could, con ceivably, be part of an important new gambit of the Soviet bloc which Mr. Kennedy knows about because of his letters from Mr. Khrush chev. But it could be tactical, too. Mr. Castro would have ample precedent for smiling while Soviet and western traders replenish his ec onomic larders, only to turn on the Amer icas with renewed strength and aggression later on. These are surmises and Mr. Kennedy owes us some facts. HOLMES ALEXANDER After The D.C. March By HOLMES ALEXANDER WASHINGTON, D.C. It was the day of drcud, AuR. 28, and this reporter Rot up early to face it. At 6:30 tlic alarm clock shat tered some dream, not worth trying to recall. For the realities of the Negro March on Washing ton were going to satisfy any journalist's desires. The day, ac cording to prcdicUon, would be news - packed, mob- spirited, fraught with emotion, excitement, perhaps peril. Maybe he ought to stay home and guard the household. From the local newspapers all week had come the likenesses of panic signals, the sort that are flashed in this not-qnite-SouHicrn city when the Weather Bureau fore casts a three - inch snowfall. Don't go downtown unless you must. Better stay put. The buses may take you. but they might not bring you back. The news papers weren't quite predicting race riots and pandemonium, but they came close. It was enough to make a journalist want to be there, yet caused him to worry about what might happen to those in his home. But, reassuringly, the neighbor hood was heavily policed, and the battle area a couple of miles dis tant. This reporter went off on his bicycle, the ideal conveyance on a day of resuictcd motor transport At 8 o'clock, the streets between home and office were warm, bright, as quiet as on an Easter morning and with serv ices in the churches there. On Pennsylvania Avenue, just past the White House, a car with a New York license plate, over loaded with Negroes, ran past a red light. The white policeman Indulgently gazed at Hie sky. At 9:3d, having touched base at his office, your repoirr re turned to the streets. A military policeman had ronlaced the Jolly cop who o'litiaies at tlie National Pi-crs Club corner, 14th and F streets. Had the Army already taken over? But as Hie reporter biked to Hie Washington Monu ment grounds, the spirit of Ihe day bcganQo assert Itself. Hawk ers were selling badges, pennants and ice-cream sticks. Strolling groups of Negroes and whites bought up tlie wuvenirs of The March like fans going to a foot ball game. The Monument grounds were filling with gossipy folks, often accompanied by children, people remarkably like the everyday tourists, only more numerous. Around 10 o'clock, a dark-maned girl (from a distance she might have been white, mulatto or mere ly sunburned) warbled feelingly into a microphone from a plat form. "Oh-ho, Freedom," she crooned. "And before I'd be a slave, I'd be burled In man grave. . . ." The thickening crowd edged to ward the stand. There amid the press of bodies, stirred by an ap pealing and fetching voice, moved by poetic words, tlie reporter felt Die first tickle of a Ihrill. These people! These youths of both American races! These family folks, come from afar! Those mussing thousands! Would (here he enacted Ihis day some tre mendous scene of upsurge and violence, a landmark or a catas trophe in national history? "Oh-ho. Freedom!" The song ster called for the crowd to join the refrain, and the plaintive chant rose from many throats, to be repealed . . . rccnted. The scene quickened with an expec tation of rising emotion but then expired as the singer finished her number. Some hours later, having sient that time at the Lincoln Memo rial and with the Marchers along Constitution Avenue, the reporter returned for luncheon at the Mem bers' Bar of the National Press Club that crossroads of the most informed opinion on earth. By now the demonstration, though it had several hours to run, and ten rousing sieeclics to go, hail settled into a character that was not to change and into a hack ground that did not allcr. It was essentially a prayer meeting iH tlie public parks, hut Ihe public business oh Capitol Hill proceed-r-J as usual. Both Houses of Con gress haJ pushed I lie Civil Rights hills out of sight and out of mind. Tliey were working apainst the clock on railroad legislation to BEIT'S Ml head off a strike Hint was every body's business. Ily B o'clock your reporter was pedaling home through a capital city that hadn't changed a n y more than the country had changed. He judged that t h e Congress, despite this massive exertion of the right of petition, hadn't altered by a couple of votes lis made-up mind annul the Civil Bights hills. Why should it? Those people who'd musically vowed never to be "slaves" were freely enjoying a summer day's outing. They'd been protected hy solicitous po lice. They'd liecn pampered by the attention of Ihe world's most powerful and popular government. That communal crooning of "Oh ho, Freedom" and the rest of it was not Ihe dirge of downtrod den bondsmen. No. thought the rcKrlcr, all that singing, all that cheering u( the speeches, w a s not much dittcrent than he'd heard at Alumni Bcuiiions when old grads got teary and obstreper ous in whooping it up lor Ihe Alma Mater. Vet nobody except ill-wishers of Hie country would wish anything ol lierw ise. There is a raw problem, and it ought to he rei ignized. There is an underdeveloj d tialionvviih-ix-a-nalipn that must he aided, 'there is inequality, and it must he overmatched hy opjiortimity. Oxly those who looked lor vio lence and upheaval went home that evening in disnppomlwem. The day of dread ended in some thing quite akin to thanksgiving. S.M, .' (IT It Takes Two to Scale the Heights IN WASHINGTON . . . Unilateral Disarmament By ItAI.PH dc TOLEIMNO ' The military performed before the Senate according to a script written at KiOO Pennsylvania Ave nue. There were one or two hold outs, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff contradicting earlier testimony they had reportedly given in se cret to tlie Senate Armed Serv ices Committee supported the lest ban treaty with the Soviet Union. Only the expressions on their faces and the lone of their voices gave away their real feel ings, and lliese don't show up on the printed record. But it can be reported that the Joint Chiefs are a very worried group of men. They do not like tlie test ban because they see it as one more instance of a psy chologically disarmed United Stales. They arc certain that the "safeguards" promised to them will be forgotten once the treaty is ratified. And they know from past experience that Ihe U.S. will let down its guard and allow our nuclear installations to be thor oughly cobwebbed. I say "from past experience" because the Joint Chiefs have been forced to drastically cut back our armed forces and their nuclear striking power. The gen eral public has been largely un aware of this and takes Uie whop ping $53 hillion defense budget as a sign that the U.S. is going all-out in its efforts to maintain a military lead. The test ban treaty fits in with tlie pattern. '"What can I do about the treaty and what's going on in the Pentagon?" 1 was recently asked. "Write to your Senator." STRICTLY pppcrnM ai ,)1 I llvJl N L i art , Kertr mlttj, sir , . probably just torn grouse shooting back!" By SYDNEY J. HAKIMS Have you ever noticed that it is generally the same people who talk about the need for "incen tive'' to make a man work suc cessfully, who resent the idea of "incentive" to make a man think successfully? If incentive is important in the world of action, it is equally im portant in Hie world of thought. The human animal resists think ing unless it is made uncomfort able, just as we resist working if the challenge of survival is taken away Irom us. The men who would scorn a game of golf if tlie cups were Ihrw feet wide, and who delight i the difficult task of overcom ing a tricky course, at the same lime demand that the books they read. Ihe music tliey listen to. and Hie paintings they look at be ,1s simple and effortless as til lattoc. When I hear people complain ing about tlie "obscurity" of a poem or the "hardness" of a Iwok. il seems to me that they are making a confession of weak ness thai tliey would he ashamed to admit in their work or in their play If we want simplicity, Uiere is nothing simpler Ulan being a slave. The enslaved Russian peo ple are told wliat to think and what to believe m A B C language, and Hieir intellectual problems are solved betore they are even slated. Democracy does not mean that everyone sinks to tlie lowest level, hut Ihat everyone rises to the luglk-st level. The founders ol the Republic envisioned a nation o( educated men and women who had cultivated Hie menial agility to grapple ith dillK-ult problems on a high plane ol thought. There is a misconception in modern society that Hie writer Q artist of any kind, is obligated to drop his work into Ihe public's mouth. Actually, every work of ai l is an act ol collaboraUon be tween Hie artist and Hie audi ence: and when Hie latter refuse to collator.itc, the artist petulant ly locks Hie door of his ivory tow er. As Randall Jarrcll remarks in his excellent hook. "Poetry and the Age." we could respect those who call modern poetry "hard" if they read older poetry Shakes peare or Milton or Sliellcy. But Ihey read nothing of the sort, and use the "obscurity" of tlie modern idiom as an excuse for intellectual sloth. Literature, like society, must be based on incentives: if ou resent the "welfare slate" which gives people something for noth ing, you should re.-enl "wellare act" which no lazy mind is en titled to accept. Freedom both of the body and of the mind de pends on our willingness to work tor it. Almanac By United Press International Today is Friday. Sept. 6. Ihe 24Hth day of l3 with ll to lollow. The moon is approaching its last quarter. The morning star is Jupiter. The evening stars are Mars. Saturn and Jupiter. Those born today are under the sign of Virgo. On this day in history: In 1620. Hie Pilgrims left Kng land for the New World. In President McKinlcy was shot and critically wounded in Buffalo. N Y. In l'.W, word was received that Adm. Robert Peary had discov ered the North Pole five months earlier. In hS!. Ihe Soviet Union again rejected Western proposals for peace talks to ease Hie tension in Bvilin. A ttKHight for the day: British wartime Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill said: "There is no (inor investment lor any com munity than putting milk mlo babies." I said. "It may be the most im portant letter you'll ever write in your life.") What the Joint Chiefs see hap pening is this: The Administration has not in augurated a single new weapons system since it took office. What we have today was planned and phased in prior to January, 1961. At the same lime, existing weap ons systems are being allowed to obsolesce or are being phased out. The catalogue is a grim one: 1. Production of the Minuteman missile, America's most powerful and reliable, has been cut back from 2,000 to 950. The Minuteman is a solid fuel missile with a range of 5,500 miles. 2. A 50 per cent cutback of nuclear productive capacity is now in the works. This means that the handicap of not being able to test in the atmosphere will be increased hy a nuclear shutdown. 3. Military space programs, in cluding the Midas spy-in-the-sky satellite, have been abandoned or slowed down. 4. Though President Kennedy, during the I960 campaign, pledged to push ahead with Hie B-TO program, production of this first real supersonic bomber has been interrupted. All Hie outcries of Congress, which appropriated money for Hie plane, have been ignored. 5. Tlie Skybolt air-to-ground missile, a revolutionary ad vance in warfare and an answer to bomb attacks on U.S. fixed missile sites has been jettisoned. 6. The B-47 bomber has been cut back from 1.000 to 650. and it will be completely phased out by li6. 7. The B-32 bomber, capable of carrying a oft-meguton bomb, has bees taken off assembly lines alt er production of 658 planes. It is also being phased out in the next four to five years. 8. The B-58. which cost billions In develop and put into produc tion, was taken off Hie assembly lines after only 80 planes had been turned over to the Air Force. 9. Missile bases in Italy, Tur key, and Great Britain were shut down right allcr becoming alional. This removed from the military scene 48 launching pJs for IHBMs with a 1.500 mil range. 10. The Nike-Zeus anti-missile missile has been cancelled. O lie Army ought bitterly for further development of Uie Nike-Zeus, but to no avail. 11. Military bases in more than live countries have been shut down, with others scheduled to meet the same fate. 12. Though tlie Polaris missile is still reported subject to "bugs." the Administration seems to be putting all its eggs in that basket even to planning for the gradual elimination of our car rier fleet. But this reliance comes al a time that Hie U.S. has designed Hie Subroc. an effective anti-submannc missile which can track and destroy undersea ves sels. If we have it, Hie Soviets will cither develop one of their own or steal the idea from us. These points explain why Hie Joint Chiefs of Stalf (eel that the Administration has embarked on a course that might lead to uni lateral disarmament. I WILLIAM S.WHITE... j Freedom Movement Could Be Subverted By WILLIAM S. WHITE WASHINGTON A clear and present danger is rising for Hie American Negro community and its leadership in the wake of the undeniably orderly and moving but nevertheless unwise "March on Washington" which so many are now somewhat emotionally sa luting. This is a danger long foresee able to Uiosa able to look beyond the appealing emotionalism of the moment. It simply is Uiat the movement for an end to discrim ination may be seized and per verted by forces whose interest is in quite other things than ra cial progress or racial harmony. The very success of Hie march in its own context its good or der and, on Hie whole, its sense of reason is playing into the hands of just such forces. The technique of massive stiect dem onstration appeals to them as a means of mounting pressures on national, state and local govern ments in no reasonable way re lated to the aspirations of Negro citizens for vindication of their civil rights. All this is now perfectly plain in the activities of such of the Negro "militants" as Bayard Rus tin, who coordinated the Washing ton demonstration. A. Philip Ran dolph, the elderly and respected "father" of the Negro movement, has publicly declared that young Rustin has "absolutely no con nection with Communists in any form." It is a fact, however, that Rus tin who was once a member of Ihe Young Communist League and others are using the Negro movement itself to seek to foment endless street demonstrations and "marches" on state capitols for purposes quite beyond that of es tablishing civil rights lor Negroes. The demand is to be not for the legal rights sought by Negroes but for such vaguely defined ob jectives as "jobs." The unem ployed. Rustin has said before the National Socialist Parly Work shop, should adopt the techniques of the civil rights groups so that "a new wave of militancy would sweep the nation," as one news report puts it. This columnist makes no sug gestion lhat what is involved here is a "Communist plot." Accepting that Rustin has no present con nection whatever with commu nism, however, this essential point remains: The massive and inter minable street marching Rustin and others are now proposing is strictly within the operating tra dition of the Communist and Fas cist marching movements of the 'thirties and has no relationship whatever to orderly petitions by minority groups for the legal lift ing of the burdens ut racial dis crimination. No fair man would suggest that the Negro march on Washington was in any way Communist-inspired or that its intention was to provoke disorder to promote other than racial progress. But the Rus tins now demonstrably intend to use the public acceptance of that march in order to take to the streets endlessly to promote their own economic and political lines. The mere fact of unemployment is surely not a violation of any civil right, except perhaps where employment is denied because of race. The Rustins ar? going far beyond the Negro aim of equal ity before the law to seek to cre ate a bi-racial force which, in his words, "can manipula'c and does manipulate economic power." All this is why the march on Washington was not a good thing. Rather, it was a bad thing organ ized and run off in a sincere and understandable and lawful cause, as eventually the peopie generally will see. And unless Hie responsible Ne gro leaders awaken soon, they may find it a bad thing, indeed, for their own cause and for their country, in the hands of men open ly resolved to use their ties with Ihe Negro movement to force con stituted authority, from Washing ton down to the state houses, to accept political and economic pro grams in no way uniquely related to Negro problems. The lesson here goes to the heart of the resjionsib.'e objections to the march voiced by some be fore it occurred. The great point is this: The right of petition, when petitioning is being done by hosts ol men and women and children in Hie streets, can so easily be exploited and turned into actions that are certainly not etilions, and certainly not right, cither, but are only mass and brutal intimidation. WASHINGTON REPORT . . 'Radical Left' Will Get GOP Spotlight , By FULTON LEWIS JR. Democrats, who will make the Radical Right a major campaign issue, may find themselves on the defensive next (all. Republican National Chairman Bill Miller has served notice that the GOP will throw a powerful spotlight on Ihe "Radical Left" and its peculiar affinity for the party of Jefferson ar.d Jackson. He has issued a public chal lenge to his Democratic counter part. John Bailey, to repudiate the resolutions passed by Young Democratic leaders from 13 stales who met last week in Bcrkclev, Calif. The Young Dems demanded a resumption of diplomatic relations wiih Fidel Castro; a non-aggression pact with the Communist satellites of Eastern Europe; ami the withdrawal of U.S. troojis from South Vietnam, now under Com munist siege. Chairman Bailey has hung out Ihe "no comment" sign lo those reporters who have sought access to his office. Other Democrats, perhaps fear ful of the "Radical Left" lag that Republicans ha to pin en their parly, are hI so silent. Congresswa Ralph Waning. Mu ho Democrat. wk faces a togli re-elcclion campaign. isue! ari immediate statement depif tlie "Radical Left's" lkc-ovr ol the Young Democrats. "I feel I have an thligation." Representative Harding told his constituents, "lo oppn.-e extrem ism on the left and that is exactly what I considered these resolutions to be. "I want to completely disasso ciate myself from these three resolutions. They are not only unwise but extreme." Under GOP attack next fall will come members of the ultra-liberal Americans for Democratic Action, who heavily populate the Kennedy Administration. S a v s Miller: "Chairman Bailey makes the broad and unsubstantiated gener alization that Ihe uitia-risht is taking over Ihe RejHiblican Party. He names no names, because there is not a single member of Hie John Birch Society or any other ultra-conservative group in a position of influence in our par- . ty structure. On the other hand. I can name names, and I will." Among those names, of ADA members, or former members, in the President's Administration Cabinet member 'reeman, ad visers Sorensen. 1 O'Brien and Schlesinger; the Stale Depart- ,! mcnt's Harnman, Williams, Bowles, and Rowan. Also Ivan Nestingen, Under Sec retary of Heallh, Education and Welfare; Under Secretary of Ag riculture Charles Murphy; and Henry Fowler, Under Secretary of the Treasury. Other ADA wheelhorses include Assistant Labor Secretary George Weaver and Assistant Poslmasler General Frederick Bclen, plus the U.S. Solicitor General, Archi bald Cox. and hundreds of as sorted underlings. The Democratic membership in the Senate is full of Americans for Democratic Action. Miller in sists, and the House has: a more-than-liberal quota. Some of these gro.'.ps are the Students for a Democratic Soci ety, the Young People's Socialist League, the Trotskyite Young So cialist Alliance, and the Commu nist Party. Both Marvin Markman. execu tive vice president ol Advance i the New York City Communist youth group', and Mo.limer Dan iel Rubin. National Youth Di rector of the Communist Party, USA, have been observed at the current convention in Bioomington. At a recent press conlerencc in lashingtoa, NSA President YV. Duoiis SIikiI explained his con cept of the student political spec tre1.. A Washington Post report er quotes Shaul as saying: "We always thought we could work with both the n;ional Young Republicans and Young Demo crats. But now it's impossible to work with the Young Republicans because they are oulside the poli tical consensus of students." This frank admission may have seri ous legal repercussions since NSA has obtained a tax-exempt status as a non-partisan educational or ganization. Us constiti.lion states: "Nobody acting on behalf of NSA shall participate in partisan polit ical activities." Dennis Shaul. himself, serves on Hie national board of Ihe left-wing Americans for Democratic Action i.DA. Attempts to "reform" NSA have gone on in vain for many years, and recently the trenl has been toward abolition of the organiza tion. Since Ml, .1:1 major col leges and universities have voted lo withdraw while an additional 14 hive rejected attempt , to affili ate. The atmosphere in P'oomington for this year's convention is far from cordial, since the meeting is being held on the campus of Indiana University, which just re cently joined Uie growing list of schools In withdraw from the Na tional Student Association. -I
