Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Herald and news. (Klamath Falls, Or.) 1942-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 16, 1963)
PAGE IA HERALD AND NEWS, Klamath Falli, Oregon Monday, September 18, 1963 EPSON IN WASHINGTON . . . Labor Problems Grow Right Along With Boy Squeaky Rocker Worried about how the big boys are con ducting the nation's and the world's affairs? Well, let's have a little look at how things are going down In the Department of Small Affairs. A friend who was going on vacation made the usual arrangements about stop :plng his newspapers and having his mail shift led to the holiday spot. : One newspaper was cut off two days be fore the date he requested. The other was continued for two or three days after he left town. ' , When he got to his vacation hideout, he found that his first-class mail was being for warded as he had asked. But so were his maga zines, which he had asked the post office to hold until his return. They, of course, all arrived "postage : due." If he declined to pay the charge, they were simply tossed away, not sent bade where , they should have been held in the first place. Then the man's wife had to go home (From the Milwaukee Journal) Parkinson's law propounded, tongue in cheek, by a British professor of that name declares that the number of employes in a , governmental agency increases in direct pro portion to the decrease in the workload. Chairman Magnuson (D) of Washington ' of the senate independent offices appropria tions subcommittee explained a how the law works in the federal "A $14,000 or perhaps career employe retires alter long ana useiui service. The man below him moves into his job. There is an unexpended appropriation because a man in the higher bracket is gone. But instead of hiring one new man, the ten dency is to hire two or three men at the bot tom of the payroll ladder. Both payroll and personnel grow. These men ultimately work up to higher salaries, eventually retire and Parkinson's law is rcneatGri all nvp.r , again." s- magnuson nas, according WILLIAM S. WHITE 2 ' VWe By WILLIAM S. WHITE WASHINGTON-Omlnous mem ories of one of the most tragic pe riods in our history the fall of .China to communism in the lale :'40s with a resultant embittorment Zof American politics which nearly ;tiyo decades have never wholly ;irased are crowding in now. ;t;ln South Vict Nam, tile shad ows of the past are (ailing across the present and menacing the fu ture. Again, the area of danger and crisis is Asia tho scene, In the destruction of Nationalist Chi na, of tho most terrible setback to American policy ever suffered and of the most-enduring damage ever done to IIks Democratic par ty. The loss of China to tho Com . munlsta moi o than any other , single factor broke 20 years of Democratic rule of Ihe White House, amid ceaseless charges that Democratic national leader '. ship had given too little support to the Nationalists and so was ' responsible for this disaster to the free world. That these were extreme accu sations, and often motivated by partisan politics, is undeniable on any .fair and calm and full Letters' To Policy Gap , . Work ot the county library w as ; . very pleasant. My resignation last ; '. week was both sudden and w ith ' aadness. Approximately three I . weeks previously 1 had refused a 1 ; much better paying Job to stay I with the library. I The board and Mrs. Puckctt I from city library board brought r the new librarian in "for t h e consolidation," they said. Tho em ployes had expected this but they had not expected tho unbusiness ' like and unethical action of Hie ' board which followed. Wlien I was again asked to iake the other Job (this can be verified!, I did , faith in four members of tlic ; board and court was gone. ; ' The questions in a recent letter to the editor are searching ones. . Most libraries have a written I" statement of policies. To my !; knowledge the board has never '- formulated a written set of poll- ' ciea for the operation of the coun ; y library. This is one of their functions. How can the court and board under land and follow the policies of ti county library it they have nona written? ev r i Bungling Begins At early. She quickly requested resumption there of first-class deliveries. For the next 10 days, half such mail came to their home and the rest to the vacation place. Now there is this other matter. A busi ness outfit which is moving its quarters from one building to another was startled one Mon day morning to discover Its telephone service had been prematurely cut off. For four hours the firm was severed from the outside world. But the telephone . company mustered its resources and was equal to the occasion. One of its eager agents stepped into the breach: "I'll report your trouble. Can you be reached by phone, sir?" Should you imagine these are isolated samples, ask around. And, by the way, have you tried to change address on any of your magazine subscriptions lately? That'll keep you busy for a couple of months. , So, now, what's all this about the big fellows bungling the Cold War? How Government Grows nett of the North American Newspaper Al liance, proposed a substitute law that an agency hire only one new employe to replace each one who retires. Magnuson learned in current hearings on budgets for the 26 independent offices and regulatory agencies that in the last year 4,345 employes retired but the agencies were requesting authority for a net addition to their payrolls of 8,160. That would mean hir ing more than 12,000 new employes. Magnuson found that only the general accounting office, which checks on waste in other agencies and departments, conformed with his proposed substitute. In the last year 150 GAO employes retired and the total num ber of its employes is dropping from 4,776 to 4,730. . The other agencies denied they were applying Parkinson's law. They said the duties assigned to thorn had increased. And who assigns the duties? Congress, by passing new legislation. while back government: $16,000 10 uavia Har Falter In Viet Nam knowledge of the record of those distant days. But that China did full, Units turning more than half a billion people over to the Com munist empire, is more than sim ply the most somber fact of all the cold war. It Is a fact of high and sinister relevance to today to this na tiun, to the Kennedy Administra tion, and to the hopes of all responsible men that our country may be spared a repetition of the savage Internal disunion of yester year, For American policy in South Vict Nam today where more than 12.000 American troops are committed in support of Presi dent Ngo Dinh Diem's armed resistance to Communist guerril lashas some undoubted paral lels with American policy in China of nearly 20 years ago. It is well meaning; but it is licsitant and confused. And it puts altogether too much stock in the doubts and fears and complaints of "liberal" experts who always find some thing wrong In the honest use of honest military power. Again, as then, we support a military movement of an ally. The Editor There are state library laws too. It is a function of the beard to sec that the library Is operated in accordance with lliem but, Is it'.' Increased circulation means more patrons and indicates the need for more staff to adequately serve them. According lo Ameri can Library Association standards the county library Is uixlerslaliod and has been for quite some time, Tho court and board prefer li brary trained personnel but no policy or plan has been adopt ed to enable staff members to ob tain additional training. Neither have they formulated proper job descriptions and salary scale. The one used by tho court and board at present time is not adequate, nor will the salaries attract live year library graduates. Hcord meetings arc liold and as I understand are supposed to be open to the public. All Inter ested citiiens should attend with their questions regarding the func tion ot lite board and Die prob lems confronting tlie county li brary, Etltel I'.. Zevely, 31X13 Austin. Klamath Falls, Ore. Home But again, as then, we simultane ously denounce that ally as cor ruptly "dictatorial." Again, as then, wo demand ot an ally more than that he be willing to fight the enemies of freedom and of our cause. Of Diem we de mand that lie cease what we call the "persecution" of Buddhists protesting his regime and what lie calls simply the repressive measures simply necessary for the very preservation of his gov ernment in a time of war with loreign invaders. All the ins and ouls and rights ami wrongs ot this wretched af fairwhere the American Stato Department and the Diem gov ernment daily trade insults while American and Vietnamese troops arc daily fighting Communist ag gressors side by side are quite beyond this columnist. But wh.it any reasonable man can surely see is this: Tlic United States now has only two possible courses open to it, If we intend In see through the militarily brilliant strategy we have adopted to halt creeping Communist assault in Asia. We must support Diem all tlic way notwithstanding all cries of "Bud dhist persecution" and of "dic tatorship." Or we must get rid of him and candidly take (lie responsibility for ushering in a successor regime capable of gov erning in his stead ami of carry ing on tlic war if, indeed, suelt a successor can be found. Hut would not this latter course lie "intervention" in Vietnamese atlairs? Of course it would. But tlte stakes are very high and in any case we did not in (lie first place guarantee that Diem's government would behave exact ly as would a government with centuries of democratic tradition behind it At stake is Ihe salvation of Southeast Asia; or. ultimately, (lie measureless catastrophe of another China. Amid these hard realities, logic-chopping and "liberal" qualms will not save world freedom, nor us nor tlx Administration. Nor will all the sighs and protests of tlie semi-pacifists, whose sensi tive suttering in behalf of "the persecuted Buddhists" must tie set against tlie demonstrable truth that they invariably say yes-but to any effort anywhere in the world to come to effective mili tary grips with the Communists. , The shadows, to repeat, are gathering over tlie five world's cause and over another Demo cratic administration. Will Uiere be, for both, yet anotlier China? ' ' I- q"V y "... 1 A x IN WASHINGTON ... The By RALPH de TOLEDANO In his valedictory speech last week to Washington corres pondents and tlie country at large at the National Press Club, Admiral George Anderson marshaled in sober and methodi cal fashion his experience in tlie Navy and as Chief ot Naval Op erations. And he pleaded tor a Dctcnse Establishment in which decisions that could mean sur vival or extinction tor tlie U.S. would not be left entirely in the hands of computer-happy "win, kids" who don't know one c.id of a rifle from the other. Admiral Anderson didn't put it that way, but his intent was clear. "Those who critizc the mil itary as being backward," he said, "tend to be the very ones who arc proponents of procedures and policies which would discour age a creative corps of military professionals. ... By attempting to stamp officers of all services Into a common mold, we may kill incentive, imagination, anJ independent thought." By SYDNEY J. HARRIS Oscar Wilde once defined a gentleman as "one who is never unintentionally rude." 1 wonder how many men, and women, re alize they are being unintentional ly rude when they ask: "Y o u don't remember me, do you?" They mean it in a kindly way, perhaps. Yet they are always a little bit hurt when you have to confess you don't remember them. They are hurt, and you are em barrassed. Rcing one of that vast and un happy number who not only have no memory for names, but (or- Al manac By tnited Press lnlrrnatlonal Today is Monday, Sept. 16, the 2,v.uh day of 1963 with 106 to fol low. Tlte moon is approaching its new phase. The morning star is Jupiter. Tlie evening stars are Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. On this day in history: In 1639, tlie Massachusetts Vil lage of Shawmut changed its name to Boston. In 1893, the Cherokee Strip In Oklahoma was opened lo home steaders. hi 1920, a bomb explosion on Wall Street killed 30 persons and injured at least 100. in IMS, the Japanese surren dered Hong Kong. A thought for the day Tlie American novelist Mark Twain said; "There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cow.udice." ' ..it try. ..';--v-vv;: w ..':.;-:.. Admiral's Warning-ll That such is the current ten dency can be observed by any re porter covering hearings on Capi tol Hill. Where in the past the services spoke freely and honest ly to committees of House or Sen ate, now they constantly look back over their shoulders to make sure that Secretary McNamara is not bearing down on them like a super-dreadnought. Perhaps the most significant warning uttered by Admiral An dersonbraving the wrath ot the Administration in remarks ad dressed directly lo the American people was against "a modern fallacy Uiat theories or computers or economics or numbers ot weap ons win wars. . . . Good leader ship unfailingly recognizes that man is the key to success or fail ure." This is an unfashionable, view in a time in which some technicians have reinterpreted the history of mankind. A materialistic philosophy holds to the new concept. But Admiral Anderson is a better historian than his critics. He says: "Some STRICTLY PERSONAL get faces just as easily, I have been tormented for years by this question, or variations thereof. . And further, being wholly incapa ble of pretending, I cannot carry off this social awkwardness with any kind of ease. , Those of us who meet people several times and still have no recollection of their identity (and no memory of the meeting) are pitiful creatures who deserve sympathy; instead, we are con sidered to be haughty and aloof and self-important. The most gracious persons 1 have met arc tlwso who antici pate such lapses of memory, and accost you with the lovely phrase, "I'm Mrs. Blank-Blank; we met at the Ciphers' dinner." This charming gambit permits you to counter gracefully w ith, "Of course, 1 remember it very well." This immediately creates an at mosphere of relaxed civility. Whether this shocking blank ncss of recollection conies from a deep fear of people, or from sell-absorbtion, or mere lack of atlentiveness. its consequences can be humiliating to anyone who is at all in the public eye sensi tive people inevitably feel that he considers himself loo superior to acknowledge their existence. This is, of course, nonsense. Many persons who give the im . , prcssion of being self-assured are, in reality, painfully shy; and so freeze up when they meet new people that the whole episode is blocked off from consciousness. At any rate, it is the finest point of politeness never to as sume that a casual acquaintance remembers who you are, and to remove him from embarrassment by giving him a handle to swing on. Thank you, friend. v.. . --r of the greatest victories, from Hannibal at Cannae and Nelson at Trafalgar to MacArthur at New Guinea, have come at the hands of forces interior in num bers but superior in human abili ty,' courage, and determination to w in. Our nation w ill defy every lesson of history if we think that stockpiles of weapons or the deci sions ot computers win wars. Man, bis wits, and his will are still the key to war and peace, victory and defeat." But where does this lead? Again, Admiral Anderson has pro posed a highly unpopular formu lation: "The key to leadership is understanding human nature your opponents, your allies, and your subordinates. To do anything to downgrade the role ot the men who have to fight our coun try's battles is to violate the first principle of leadership. Morale is the business ot every leader in our Defense Establishment. Do all else right, and do this wrong the product in a crisis is disas ter." Yet tills is what we are doing wrong. For morale in the armed services is lower today than it has ever been in my experience lower than when President Tru man's Defense Secretary, Louis Johnson, took the ax to the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The civil ians brought in by Secretary McNamara have shut off debate like tlie Napoleon who became intolerant ot criticism, stifled his commanders, and ended his great career in utter defeat. But Admiral Anderson w a s not simply making a plea for his military colleagues. Speaking of the American system ol checks and balances, he said, "The Con gress must be a check on tlie use of cither civilian or military pow er in the Pentagon and must not default, even in part, its Constitu tional responsibility and authori ty to provide for our armed forc es." The authority has been brushed aside by the "whiz kids" and the White House. Congress objects to tlie phasing out of America's manned bomber force and the Strategic Air Command, but it has not taken tlie necessary meas ures to compel the Pentagon to desist. The Congress watches in something close to panic as Sec retary McNamara goes ahead w ith plans to eliminate tlie Navy's vital aircraft carrier (orce. "Over centralized structures" such as tlie McNamara "monolithic-structured" Pentagon civilian high command "are conducive to the abuse ot power and the com pounding of mistakes." This is sound judgment. Tlie White House lias not been happy with the Anderson statement of principle. But it can do little to stop him. After all, the Presi dent has said that he "recog nizes the value of dissent and daring, that we greet healthy controversy as tlie hallmark of healthy change." It may be that Admiral Anderson will get his comeuppance for taking the Pres kient's words seriously. But if the nation is to survive, then o r military men must act as bravely in Washington as they have al ways acted under fire. By PETER EDSON Washington Correspondent Newspaper Enterprise Assn. WASHINGTON (NEA) - Every Labor Day finds the American labor situation ijiore confused than it was the year before. But this is partly paradox. The confusion is not worse. It's just that there is more of it as every thing grows bigger. Actually, more people are em ployed at higher wages and un der better working conditions than ever before in the country's his tory. In June the average weekly earnings of factory workers passed the $100 mark for the first time in history. The minimum wage for work ers in interstate commerce in dustries went from $1.15 to $1.25 t an hour on Sept. 3. The maxi mum work week dropped to 44 hours at the same time, with overtime bringing one-and-a-half times the basic rate. This will affect about 24 mil lion of the 44 million non-supervisory employes of private indus try. Minimum wage for another 3.5 million workers previously not covered by the Fair Labor Stan dards Act will rise to $1 an hour. This will leave another 16.5 mil lion workers still uncovered by the act. A law passed last year, requir ing equal pay for women doing the same work as men, will go into effect June 11, 1964. Farm employment at eight mil lion workers in July was just half of what it was in the "l910 14 base period. But farm labor earnings arc nearly seven times higher than they were 50 years ago. Those are the highlights on the credit side of the ledger. The problems of tlie unfortunates whose troubles haven't been solved make up the debit en tries. And the inventory of their woes is a constant reminder of what still needs to tie done. The roughly six per cent of the non fa rni labor force unemployed more than four million out of 70 million workers constitutes the worst blight on the economic landscape. In all, 14 million workers were unemployed for at least part of last year. The real underlying cause ot unemployment is lack of basic education and training in ad vanced skills for which there are actual shortages of qualified,, workers. WASHINGTON Bv FULTON LEWIS JR. WASHINGTON-l am grateful lo Bob Wilson, ever-alert chair man of the House Republican Campaign Committee. In a recent column I noted that White House ghost writers have become a little sloppy. They turned out one speech advocating ratification of the partial nucle ar test ban in which President Kennedy revealed he had ordered 97 underground nuclear tests dur ing the past two years. Correct figure: 58. Shortly thereafter, the Chief Ex ecutive unleashed a blistering at tack on those "short-sighted" Re publicans who were responsible for lopping off $535 million from his foreign aid request. In that statement, the President claimed to have consistently su ported foreign aid during his eight years in the U.S. Senate. The record, again, says other wise. On numerous occasions, the Senator voted to chop large amounts from tlic Eisenhower requests. On other key votes, Kennedy was nowhere to be found. Now Representative Wilson brings to my attention a few more instances in which the Pres ident has altered facts to suit his purpose. The most recent arc found in Kennedy's attack on Republicans for allegedly sab otaging the foreign aid bill. What the President did not say was this: The sabotage was car ried out by 66 Democrats, most of them Southerners, who voted with the GOP to apply the axe. Among them were seven veteran chair men of House committees. These Democratic leaders included Gar. ence Cannon Appropriations!; Omar Burleson t Administration'; Oren Harris i Interstate and For eign Commerce'; Wilbur Mills Ways and Means'; John Mc Millan (District of Columbia'; Howard Smith I Rules': and CHin Tcague (Veterans Affairs). In that same speech, tlie Presi dent said the House cut would halt any new development loans lo Iran, Greece. Thailand or any other country "on the rim of the Communist empire." The truth is the President himself decides how The cure for this would seem to be in the nation's school sys tems and institutions of higher learning not in labor laws. But tlie devices government has come up with to reduce unem ploymentpublic works, manpow er training and development, de pressed area redevelopment and Social Security have so far proved inadequate. Nor have management and la bor been too helpful. Restrictive union practices on membership and apprenticeship have cut down job opportunities. 'It is only recently that the United States Chamber of Com merce has set up a committee to study unemployment. The President's Labor - Management Commission has labored for more than two years without appreci able results. The problems of technological unemployment loss of jobs through automation have been creeping up on American indus try since the end of World War II. The Department of Labor esti mates that 35,000 workers are being displaced by machines ev i ery week. This situation has not been dealt with except in a few pio neering contracts Kaiser Steel, American Motors, the West Coast longshoremen's union. A joint res olution authorizing creation of still another government commission to study the issue and report is now gathering dust in Congress. The 4-year-old controversy over railroad work rules and job se curity was basically a matter of technological changes. What it has shown is that nobody, but no bodynot even Congress nor the President of the United States can settle a dispute which man agement and labor can't agree on. But the key issue in this rail road case is now turning out to be whether there shall be com pulsory arbitration. Compulsory arbitration has' been accepted by management and labor in a few transportation contracts this year Union Paci fic, Pan-American Airways and tlie East Coast maritime unions. But it is still opposed by a ma jority of the unions and by man agement. Free collective bargaining is still held to be the best way to settle labos and management dif ferences. 1 But if they can't be solved in that way, Congress is bound, in -tlie public interest, lo try another formula. REPORT Kennedy Misinformed In Statistical Data to allocate his foreign aid funds. He may, in fact, sharply increase funds fort the above-named na tionsif he knocks off the gravy train left-leaning neutrals and out right Communist states. The Republicans, said Kennedy, had been "irresponsible and dan gerously partisan." He called for bipartisan support of the foreign aid measure. The fact is that Kennedy's plea for bipartisan support was hol low. Not once this session has Rep. John Byrnes, chairman of the House GOP Policy Committee, been asked for his views on for eign policy. What Kennedy did not mention was that GOP leaders saved the foreign aid bill from complete defeat. Minority Leader Charles Halleck and other party chiefs helped switch enough votes to give Kennedy the $3.5 billion he otherwise would not have re ceived. Congressman Wilson reminds me of several other cases in which he charges that the Presi dent has misstated the facts. During his Presidential cam paign, candidate Kennedy starred in a TV film with an elderly Ken tucky man who, JFK said, had used up his life savings ot $900 to pay for medical expenses in curred after a hip injury-. The man later revealed he had a private health insurance plan that paid for all but $80 of his medical bills. (That figure would have been even less had he not insisted on a private hospital room.) Furthermore, the m a n said he had told Kennedy t h e whole story before the TV spot was filmed. On Nov. 4. I960 candidate Kennedy pledged economy In gov. ernment, and charged tlie Eisen hower Administration had in creased by 106.000 the number of federal employes. Actually, Ike had cut that number by 254.374. -On Aug. 1. 1962, the Presi dent told reporters he had kept his campaign promise to get America moving. He said the Standard and Poor level of stock prices had increased five points since he took office. The fact: It had decreased two points, to 57.9.
