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About Herald and news. (Klamath Falls, Or.) 1942-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1963)
PAGE-I HERALD AND NEWS, Klamath Falls, Ore. Tuesday, October 1. 1K1 EPSON IN WASHIN6T0N . . . Overseas Trade Lags Behind Country Needs "Wipe Your Feet and For Heaven Sakes, Smile!" The word "politicking" isn't In the dic tionary. But it's a good, if homely, word just the same. It's as American as apple pie. It describes something that is going on in this country, in which anyone can run for any thing, day in and day out the calendar around. All the way from the Presidency down to dog catcher, people, informed and uninformed, are constantly arguing the merits and demer its of one possible candidate versus another. The next Presidential nominating conven tins are a year in the offing. But politicking involving them has reached an unusually tense peak. It may be due to the confusion of the world we live in. Internationally speaking, it is in dreadful shape. The whole Western de tense posture is in question. The Common Market is up in the air due to De Gaulle's in transigence. The political situation in Brit-' ain, brought to a head by the Profumo-Keel-er scandal, has, unless a major miracle occurs, doomed the Macmillan government. Here at home, an interminable Congress has produced practically nothing due to the extremes of dif ferences over a dozen and one major issues civil rights, the Welfare State in all its ram ifications, tax reduction and fiscal reform, deficit financing versus a balanced budg et, etc., etc. So far as candidates are concerned, in terest centers on the GOP. Mr. Kennedy will ride the donkey once again. But who will guide the elephant is a very different matter. It is probable that if the conventions were held tomorrow Senator Goldwaler would walk off with the plum. The Goldwater boom has been phenomenal. Indeed, some of the meet ings, largely organized by young people, have taken on the aura of actual conventions, com plete with state banners and the rest. The Senator hasn't announced his candidacy, but nosne doubts that he will come if called. The political arguments on his behalf are unique. His backers freely admit that the great North eastern industrial states with their huge ; By MARQUIS CIHLDS WASHINGTON-Tho waters ot oblivion have a disconcerting way In this capital of rolling over the reputaUon of a departed office holder almost beforo tile eulogies have ceased. But Estcs Kefauver of: Tennessee promises to be an exception to this unhappy rule if only because he stood for cer tain deeply held beliefs above and beyond the erosion of easy com promise. Whether his last big drive to Investigate the power of Ameri can drug manufacturers to en force high If not prohibitive prices for wonder drugs in Latin Amcri ica will be scuttled is (lie ques tion of today. WiUi his old oppo nents closing in, the prosects are not bright. Kefauver had an old-fashioned bojief in competition. Ho was for d ec enterprise free and compel, itivo enterprise. A close friend in Uie Senalo once asked him to join in sponsoring a "price noti fication" bill requiring firms in basic manufactures to serve ad vance notice of upcoming price increases along with a justifica tion for the boost. Kefauver de clined saying this sounded ton much like government regulation to him. .The Senator from Tennessee with the coonskin cap and the litnp handshake has a monument in the greatly strengthened drug bill that followed the thalidomide scandal and in an anti-merger law putting more teeth into the anti-trust statutes. But his real achievement Is in Uie massive record built up beginning in 1957 on his investigation ot "adminis tered prices" In bread, autos, steel and other areas in the economy where monopoly or mo nopoly understandings keep price tags high. Proposing to investigate the prices of American drugs in die Latin-American market, Kefauv er ran into a buzz saw. His as sociates believe his experience mi shocked and saddened him that it contributed to his fatal heart at tack. . McKesson and Bobbins, Uie na tion's leading drug wtiolesalcr, went into Colombia and began selling antibiotics and oUier drugs under their KCIric rather than their brand names. This meant a saving many times over to Uie consumer. But the big American pharmaceutical houses were out raged and McKesson charged thorn with shutting off supplies. When Kefauver proposed to In ' vestigate they turned Uie heat on i friendly Senators. Kefauver' antl t monopoly subcommittee was '.blocked by the full Justice Com They'll Be Interesting blocks of electoral votes, will go for Kennedy, and that some of the Midwestern and far Western states, including California, will be in his ranks too. But, they say, this can be offset and more by a sweep of the South. That would mean Republican victory in states that have always gone Democratic by huge majorities. But times have changed, say the Goldwater people, and past precedent has lost its mean ing. The main reason for this theory of South ern defection from the Democratic ranks, of course, is the integration issue. Then there . is another personable fig ure Nelson Rockefeller. His standing in the polls plummeted with his remarriage. It was widely stated that, politically, he was all through. But a lot can happen in a year and memories are short. And, some political writ ers say, the fact that various of his influential political backers ran for the woods when his popularity sagged may be something of a blessing in disguise. They deserted his camp; therefore, he is no longer obligated to them or their views and wishes in any way. He can be his' own man, just as Goldwater can, and say and do precisely what he thinks. This is no small asset. These two men certainly do not exhaust the possibilities. They could eliminate each other, and bring about the nomination of a comparatively dark horse. This could very well open the gates for George Romney, who is Eisenhower's favorite and has a great deal of support in powerful industrial and financial circles which prefer a mitldle-oMhe-roader to an outright liberal or conservative. And if Romney, too, fell by the wayside, a real long shot, such as Governor Scranton, could get the nod. Differences between political groups the prime examples being the Rockefeller and Goldwater factions are hot, increasing, and in some instances downright bitter. The bat tles that lie ahead may not be enlightening, but they'll be interesting. WASHINGTON CALLING Kefauver Tried mittee. This was a mailer f o r the Slate Department or the De partment of Justice. The hot potato bounced from hand to hand as Kefauver looked on with a growing sense of helplessness. Finally Kefauver was granted a hearing before the Senalc For cign Relations Committee to con sider the repercussions in Latin America ot tlie proposed investi gation. To the hearing came Thomas G. (Tommy the Cork of the New Deal oral Corcoran, representing his hrolher, David, president of .Sterling Products, a drug company w ith a large oper ation in Latin America. Conor an's law partner. Edward II. Fo ley, represents the pharmaceuti cal manufacturers association. Corcoran made a forceful, nut to suy fierce, presentation. He told Uie committee that even the proposal of an investigation had been blown up in sensational newspapers in Brazil and else where to show that American drug firms were guilty of trying to extort criminally high prices. This would bo used by political demagogues to justify confisca tion of the American drug busi. ness and that, Corcoran warned, would be another blow to foreign aid in Congress. Sen. Wayne Morse, chairman of the Latin-American subcommittee, sided with Corcoran. Kefauver felt "Now I bat I'm a noiJ figure, LAy Bird tbinkt t ewrAr to bi a national figurt." Hard that his allies of Ihe past had deserted him. In the face of Cor coran's warning It was agreed thai if anything was done it should he by the Department of Justice inquiring into possible vi olation of the law in this country. In an administration showing little interest in anti-trust, in marked contrast to Uie Eisen howcr Administration, this seemed to Kefauver a brush-off. The other day Sen. Phillip Hart of Michigan, who succeeded to Ihe chairmanship of the anti monopoly committee, got a vote of all eight members approving a resolution keeping in force tlio subpoenas issued for records of the big drug houses. Hart (eels strongly about the Kefauver goals of checkmating monopoly pres sure so Uiat business can be free to produce to Uie fullest. But when the real showdown comes on whether to investigate or not the chances arc that he will have only two votes his own and that of Son. Thomas J. Dodd of Connecticut. A melancholy footnote to the Kefauver career is that he left an estate of $20,000. Friends und admirers are trying to raise a fund to help educate the four Kefauver children. Honesty, as Lincoln said, may be the licst policy. But in an era when mon ey values are supreme it can im pose heavy penalties. IN WASHINGTON . . . By RALPH de TOLEDANO For most people, labor - man agement relations mean strikes, charge and counter-charge, and industrial dislocation. For some companies and unions, however, it means finding a means to co exist peacefully, to pay the maxi mum wages yet keep industry alive. In the case of General Elec tric and the International Union of Electrical Workers (AFT-CIO), it is confusion compounded. On the one hand, the company tries its best to do the right thing by its employes as it has always done. On the other hand, the union tor to be fair about it, its pugnacious president, James Carey) feels that to get along with management will violate all the rules and perhaps put Into 1 office a more reasonable labor leadership. As a result, Mr. Car ey has devoted himself less to la bor relations and more to violent name-calling. Given another kind of management, the dues payer would have lost substantially. The proof of the pudding and it should serve to inform other companies and unions is in Gen eral Electric's brand new in crease in pension payments to re tired employes. Without any prompting or threats from the 1UE, GE has increased its medi cal and hospitalization insurance coverage to some 25,200 retired employes makng them eligible for non-Kennedy Medicare pay ments of up to $ti,ooo a year for themselves and their wives. Jim Carey is, of course, furious at this new development. He likes it better when the companies By SYDNEY J. IIAKKIS The only disturbing aspect of an otherwise fine summer in the country was a new and menacing noise, heard overhead almost dai ly. This was sonic hoom, and both tlie natives and the city peo ple who had fled from such re minders of "civiKatinn" were grievously upset by it. Our sonic boom was created by fighter planes from an air base some 200 miles away. This (ear some noise, I suppose, was bear able to those who believe that such maneuvers are a neces sary part of America's defense program. But now the government is promising to give us "SST." which stands for "supersonic transport" in the commercial field. To produce even a proto type of such a plane, with siced up to 2.000 miles an hour, will cost $1 billion. Nearly all tlie mon ey, of course, will come from Ihe taxpayers. Do we want or need such a project except for the dubious reason of "international pres tige"? Noise has already reached a highly objectionable level around airports; and supersonic planes can rattle and break win dows for a 50-mile Strip across the flight palh. Why race into such a program until technol ogy has at least found a way to eliminate or greatly diminish the tonic boom? Besides, nobody In the public Enlightened Management doing business with the IUE are nasty to workers. Then he can justify his unshakable anti-business policy. This is good labor politics, or so Mr. Carey believes. It reflects a viewpoint perhaps conditioned by the fact that Mr. Carey has not done a day's work in a plant since he was 21 years old. Those of us who have had to work for a living think some what differently. General Electric's unilateral in crease in the benefits it gives its employes has only been a con tinuation of its traditional policy of getting along with unions. This policy has, sadly enough, n o t paid off in the eyes ot Jim Carey and other doctrinaire labor leaders. They hate GE precisely because it has met the union more than halfway. A look at the record shows that GE established a pioneer pension plan in 1912. Under the New Deal, it agreed voluntarily to collective bargaining, thus sparing its workers the kind of violent strikes which shook other industries. The Harvard Business Review recently pointed out that "by 1938, GE had signed a com pany - wide agreement with the newly formed (United Electri cal Workers)" precursor of the IUE "without strike or legal bickering." The GE story is important to day because the company devel oped a new philosophy of collec tive bargaining in order to cope with Master Carey's explosive demagoguery. Under Lemuel Boulware, one of its vice presi dents. GE embarked on a collec- STRICTLY PERSONAL sector needs to go that fast. At present jet speeds of 600 m.p.h.. our bodies already arrive before our minds and spirits have caught up with tliem. Time spent in the air, in fact, is only a portion of the vexing travel schedule that fares most airplane passengers. The great transport need today is for a reduction in terminal de lays, in faster access to airports, in simplifying the cumbersome process of parking, checking in, walking to gates, transferring from one line to another, expe diting baggage pickup, and, most of all, spending appropriate sums (or research in how to beat Uie weather. Everyone has remarked that we can now cross the continent in (our hours, but it takes longer to drive or taxi across midtown Manhattan than it did by horse in 1910. There seems little point in doubling or trebling our air speed especially if accompan ied by sonic boom as long as ground traffic becomes increas ingly chaoUc. The majority of Americans, it may surprise us. have never flown in an airplane. Trey can not afford it. or they are afraid of it. or they prefer to make trips by auto. "Supersonic trans port" would benefit only a few, and wxnild not necessarily attract new passengers. Our national prestige, and our morale, would be far better served if we learned to cope on the ground, with safe ty, comfort, and speed. Jf Uve bargaining course which in volved a "communications" pro gram with its employes. The Boulware line: Tell them the truth. The unions immediately tagged this new approach "Boul warism" and tried to make the term a dirty word. But "Boulwarism" was simply an application to collective bar gaining practices of American business principles. It meant that a company would carefully ex mine labor's demands, compare them with its capabilities and abilities for increasing wages and fringe benefits, and then make Ihe best possible offer. In the past, to meet labor's onslaught, management's counter-offer was always hypocritically low to per mit "bargaining." (Read: Hag gling.) GE, moreover, was al ways ready to revise its offer if the union provided information which justified a bigger settle mentand in a number of in stances, it readily increased its offer. Jim Carey did not like this. For one thing, it deprived him of the chance to proclaim a great 'and paper! victory after every contract negotiation. Secondly, it made the company look good to employes. The National Labor Re lations Board seems to agree with him that "bargaining in good faith" means making an uncon scionable low offer and then back ing down a practice common in the bazaars of the Orient. An NLRB examiner has cited GE and. if his decision sticks, all of management for an "un fair labor practice" because of "Boulwarism." The examiner list ed five legal acts by GE, and said that in combination they were illegal. As the Harvard Busi ness Review noted, the examiner constructed a "theory of illegali ty resulting from a series of legal acts." Given this kind of reasoning. T am surprised that Jim Carey, the IUE. and the NLRB have not attempted to throw GE into the plan which makes Medicare un necessary and unwanted. In the upside-down reasoning of the la bor moguls, the more manage ment does right, tlie wronger it is. which may explain why the IUE is losing members. Almanac By United Press International Today is Tuesday. Oct. I, the 274th day of 1963 with 91 to fol low. The moon is approaching its full phase. The morning stars are Mercury and Jupiter. The evening stars are Jupiter and Saturn. On this day in history: In I-.I03. the first baseball World Scries got under way at Boston as the Boston American League team played the National League team from Pittsburgh. In 1908. Henry Ford introduced the model-T Ford automobile. In 1938, German troops crossed into the Sudeten area of Czecho slovakia and enslaved one-million Czechs. In 1982, James Meredith regis tered at the University of Mis sissippi and became tlie first Ne gro ever to attend classes there. A thought for the day Aut maker Henry Ford said, "History is bunk." By PETEB EDSON Washington Correspondent Newspaper Enterprise Assn. WASHINGTON (NEA) - Presi dent Kennedy's goal for a $2 billion or 10 per cent increase in U.S. exports to wipe out Ameri ca's balance of payments deficit in 1964 was not equaled in 1962 and will not be achieved this year. This is the opinion of Fred C. Foy of Pittsburgh, board chair man of Koppers Company and vice chairman of the two - day White House Conference on Ex port Expansion. So the going for next year will be tough. But the drive to increase Amer ica's foreign trade now moves out of Washington and into the country with 39 Little White House Conferences on Export Expan sion. These conferences will be held within the next month by the 39 U.S. Department of Commerce field offices in cooperation with regional Export Expansion Coun cils. The 800 members of the Export Expansion Councils are private businessmen. This program, which has been dubbed "Operation Ten Thou sand," is intended to interest 10, 000 more American manufactur ers, who are now selling only on the domestic market, to get into foreign trade. If each one of these 10,000 could do $200,000 worth of export busi ness next year, the $2 billion goal would be reached. 1 At the present time between 15, 000 and 20,000 U.S. manufactur ers sell abroad. Nobody knows the exact number. But the 500 biggest exporters do 75 per cent of the business. The final report of the big White House Export Conference of 200 private business leaders has now been submitted to Presi dent Kennedy by Secretary ot Commerce Luther Hodges. It con tains detailed recommendations from 11 subcommittees of busi nessmen on what should be done to build up U.S. exports 10 per cent. The conference itself got oti slightly on the wrong foot by holding a press briefing immedi ately after adjournment. The 11 committee reports hadn't been fully analyzed or properly sum marized. The result was an impression that (lie principal recommenda tions were to give U.S. industry WASHINGTON REPORT . . . Federal Agencies Enter News Field By FULTON LEWIS JR. WASHINGTON A combat vet eran of World War II. crewcut Paul Findley runs two small weeklies in downslale Illinois. Voters in that state's 20th Con gressional District have twice sent publisher Findley to Wash ington and he is one of the few members of cither house whose background is that of a working newsman. Findley, to a greater extent than most Congressmen, sees the threat of managed news. He pre dicts a federal news service if current trends continue. He bases that opinion on the words and deeds of Administration officials. Lee Loevinger, a Kennedy-appointed member of the Federal Communications Commission, re cently suggested a "broadcast news association" be set up to compete with AP and UPt in the dissemination of news for radio and television. He claimed that present w ire services are oriented toward the printed, not the spoken word. He implied they should be replaced with a specific radio news service. Loevinger made his observa tions at the same time that an administration colleague was set ting up his own news agency. Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman was creating the Mar ket News Service to provide cost free reports and data on farm market activities (or publications across the country. The Agriculture Department has 19.000 miles of teletypewriter circuits to carry news to "clients" in every comer of Uie country. Its spanking new service now threatens with extincUon a privately-owned news agency, the P.A..M. News Corporation, which serves some 300 customers. The American Newspaper Pub lishers Association has issued a statement protesting against "the highly improper nature of the (Freeman i news service." It pointed out that the department can cancel service to any client for any reason when "in its sole judgment, such cancellation is de sirable." The publishers association de clared: "This provision would per j V S. Government censorship in in t i most odious forms." The pnriwt nvicai4 possible an incentive tax benefit, to get them into the export business and to resume trade with Soviet Rus sia and other Communist bloc countries. Those two subjects were recom mended for resurvey by the gov ernment in view of changed world conditions. But both would require changes in existing laws. And Congress in its present mood on taxes and Russia won't grant cither Ulis year. Only last June, Congress unanimously approved a three year extension of the Export Con trol Act. Other recommendations of t h e 11 subcommittees, as summar ized by Eugene M. Brademan, director of the Bureau of Inter national Commerce, include these main points: Revise ocean freight rates, which now make shipments from Europe to America cheaper than from America to Europe. Set up a commission to re view American anti-trust laws as they affect export business and to speed up handling of applica tions for exemptions by Depart ment of Justice. -Provide for better financing of export operations with liberal ized credit and guarantees by Export-Import Bank and (he For eign Credit Insurance Association of 70 private companies. Push tariff negotiations under Foreign Trade Expansion Act of 19S2, with hard bargaining to give U.S. firms equality in competi tion and to include American ag ricultural products. I Ask labor unions to conduct ed ucational campaigns with mem bers on idea that foreign invest ments do not necessarily deprive American workers of jobs, but actually create employment, since blanch plants are set up pri marily to preserve markets in compliance with foreign protecUve taiiff laws. Simplify foreign aid procure ment policies which now have so many regulations small business can't handle them. Improve foreign commerce at taches in American embassies away from State Department con trol and return them to Depart ment of Commerce, where they were prior to 1939. Improve Department of Com merce market surveys and infor mation services for benefit of American exporters. Continue and expand existing Department of Commerce pro grams for U.S. trade missions, fairs and centers overseas. cancellation of the service to a newspaper whose editorials hap pened to be critical of the ad ministration. "Thus," the publishers ob served, "this news service has transcendent importance. If it is not halted now it could lead to further ambitious attempts by this and any other U.S. govern ment agencies to expand and en ter into competition with private news agencies. "An expansion of this concept ' would result in a government controlled news service such as presently exists in some other countries, including the Soviet Un ion, where the so-called news service Tass is government owned and operated." Congressman Findley insists the government is not always a re liable source of information. He notes the philosophy of Arthur Sylvester, Undersecretary of De fense, who insists government has "the inherent right to lie." Freeman especially has utilized the half-truth in plugging for passage of pet projects such as tlie Administration wheat pro gram. There are now too many gov ernment press agents. More than 3,000 separate press releases have rolled off the Department of Agriculture mimeo machines so far this year. We need more good reporters, says Rep. Findley. and fewer propagandists. He adds: "Spoon - feeding Washington's press corps from a mountain of press releases is bad for report ers and had for freedom. Like farmers who get dependent on government checks, reporters get dependent on press releases. Farmers forget how to farm and reporters forget how to dig (or news. "Government domination of news gathering and distribution the discipline that makes (or quality, accuracy and integrity." Governments do not rise and fall on the Integrity of their press releases, the Congressman says, but newspapers do. If a reporter is inaccurate, warped or slanted in his writing, he will 1 o t his job. If a wire sen ice goes astray its customers will buy elsewhere. If newspapers and magazines are not reliable they will lose their readers.
