Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Herald and news. (Klamath Falls, Or.) 1942-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 16, 1963)
PAGE-6A HERALD AND NEWS, Klamath Fallf. Oregon Wednesday, October IS, 1963 Harvest Moon WILLIAM S. WHITE . . foreign Policy Strife i Dropout The high school "dropout" problem is arousing national concern among educa tors, business people, government officials, just about everyone who has an awareness of the needs of this fast-changing age. President Kennedy has spoken of it, and proposed that a special study be made. It is a problem which is most acute in the major population centers, where reports say that dropouts average an astonishing and ominous 25 per cent, but it is certainly not confined to them. The smaller communities and the rural areas are faced with it too. ; There have always been substantial num bers of young people who failed to complete high school, so, in that sense, the problem is not new. But, in a simpler age, those with very limited educations had far more oppor tunity to find jobs and earn at least a margi nal living. Nowadays young people who leave school before gaining special skills too fre quently become not only unemployed, but un employable. They, with wives and children, drift onto the relief and public welfare rolls. Various solutions to the problem are being tried or proposed. They range a wide gamut, from outright pleas to young people to complete their high school education to dc mnnds that the government step in and do Something drastic about it. And various locali ties, to their honor, are taking positive steps pli their own hook. One of these is Bedford, dhio, which, some years ago, instituted an in tensified industrial-education-vocational pro gram in its schools with the cooperation of local industry and the local Rotary Club. The basic objectives of the Bedford plan were made clear at the start. One was to cre ate an incentive for the students to learn. Another was to create a goal for the students to reach, and to impress upon them that su IN WASHINGTON . REA No Longer lly RALPH de TOLEDANO One of the prime laws of pol itics seems to be that all bu reaucracies are self-perpetuating and bureaucratic agencies are immortal. Since the days when the New Deal sanctified the alphabet and gave us ono now agency after another, the Congress lias struggled to re peal this law. But it has been, in almost every case, a losing battle. Now Congress is trying again. Its target or rather; the target of those legislators who take their duties seriously Is the Ru ral Electrification Administra tion, which has long ceased to serve the need for which it was created but grows larger and more expensive eoch year. I have written about REA be fore, if only because it is such an obvious example of bureau cratic Immortality. Hut now the American Enterprise Institute, a puhlic policy research organ ization, has issued an inform ative pamphlet which states the facts and allows the reader to come to his own conclusions. The story it tolls should be of some concern to those who sco the national debt rise like yeast in a cake. The ItEA, it will be recalled, was set up by Executive Or der of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. Its basic purpose was to create work for the unemployed r-still unreseued by the New Deal. Its announced mission vas to bring electrification to fie 89 per cent of America's farms not receiving central-station electrical service. Few would quarrel with this aim. Electrification was need ed, and since many of the farms were In areas which the power companies could not roach without heavy loss, the government was offering to step in. But what has happened since then? Twenty eight y e a r s and $4 6 billion later, the REA it still in business. H has branched out into nil kinds of new fields, sending pino million on a tele phone loan program . alone. Though today more than 98 per cent of all American farms bave central station electric power, REA is still clamoring for more of Uie taxpayers' mon ey.. Some of it hat gone to fi nance ski slopes at winter sports retort. ' ' , ) t The farmer was to be the re- clplent of REA'i bounty. But Problem Complex perior accomplishment would ease their path into the business world. Still another was to stress the excellent facilities of the local high school, and to improve those facilities with contributions of discarded material, equip ment and tools from industry. The primary goal was to see to it that the student would have the foundation needed to assure him of an interesting and worthwhile job. Industry has responded enthusiastically more than a million dollars worth of equip ment has been contributed. While the program places emphasis on the machine shop, cours es are available in other fields architec ture, drafting, graphic arts, and so on. Plans are underway for expansion into the mechani cal and electronic areas. Whatever the par ticular course, students enjoy it simply be cause they see how the subjects taught have real meaning and purposefulness. Superior performance receives recognition at an an nual banquet when awards are presented and thus a spirit of competition among the learn ers is maintained. The proof of the pudding, of course, is in the eating. So, as a practical matter, it's fair to ask just how well the plan has worked. The answer is reassuring accomplishment records of the young people have been ex cellent. And requests from industry for grad uates have actually exceeded the number grad uating. Bedford, in sum, faced up to the dropout problem years ago and tackled it . without waiting for the slate or federal government or any other agency or institution to do the needed job for it. The result, it seems, has been maximum result at minimum cost. Other communities, one can safely say, could profi tably take a leaf from Bedford's book. with (he agency running out of farmers, it has begun financing tax - favored cooperatives which now sell their power to rural non-farm people, suburbanites, and industrial and commercial enterprises. Three out of four new customers buying power arc getting it from REA-fi-nauced systems. According to the law which set up REA, it was to concern itself solely with the distribution of electricity. Now it is sprawling into tile field of generation and transmis sion, to which 60 per cent of its loans go. Potential power users can now go to RKA for loans to set themselves up in business, if they buy REA power. REA borrows money from the Treasury at about half what it lends it out to those power co oiorativcs and businesses .seek ing capitalisation. The cooper atives arc exempt from all Fed eral and most slate taxes which means that the Treasury is tw ice deprived yet they are not as efficient as the private poucr companies. In fact, any system of accounting shows that their real costs are higher than Uiose of private companies. Sub " think I'm going to fov iMviillgtUng tht trndtruiorldl" Needed sidies to REA-created coopera tives have not helped them to do any better than an average yield of 1.8 per cent on total as sets. There is, however, more than a litllc method of REA's madness. For as it expands and competes with private power which it can do only because of tax exemption and direct government subsidies it begins to lay the groundwork for that dream of Uie socialists. They would like to sec all the nation's power companies the vast com plex which gives this country more electric power than any other nation in the world owned and controlled by the Federal government. From time to time, there is talk of a nationwide "power grid" run from Washington. It sounds very pretty on paicr. Rut it is one more step down the road to socialism. REA is part of this dream of tlic bureau crats. Congress has tried to do what it can but there is always pressure from the Administra tion and from the bureaucrats to give ItEA a free hand. This year's try w ill undoubtedly sill ier tlie same fate t SOFT WITH m IV - rVV &41 MUCE WASHINGTON REPORT . . Russia Lend-Lease By FULTON LEWIS JR. WASHINGTON - Pay up or shut up. That is the reply of Congress man John Pillion to Soviet trad ers w ho ask for increased com merce with the United States. The New York Republican, one of Congress' best experts on tlic Communist threat, points out that the Soviet Union owes Uncle Sam almost $3 billion. The deot dates back to World War II when this country shipped large quantities of lend lease material to the Soviet Union. The goods, both military and civilian, came to more than $11 billion and they continued to flow east at the war's end. In a burst of generosity, the U.S. wrote off all military items delivered during the war except naval vessels. We announced, too, that virtually all consumer goods were considered gifts. Discussions on settling the lend-lease debt took place in 1947 and 1948 at which time the 1 United States fixed the bill at $2.6 billion. In order to expe dite settlement, the bill was cut in half to $1.3 billion and then later (o $800 million. The Sovi ets gallantly offered $170 mil lion. In 1951, Uioy said they would pay $240 million, and in 1 5(52 raised the figure to $300 million. Lend-lease negotiations, dor mant since 1952. were revived after the Camp David meeting of President Eisenhower and Premier Klirushchev in 1959. At that conference. Khrushchev reportedly assured Ike that the lend-lease debt would be quickly cleared up. Negotiations began in Wash ington on Jan. 11, 1960, with Su viet Ambassador Mikhail Men shikov leading the Red team and Charles Bohlen heading up the U.S. representatives. Within two weeks, however, it was ob vious the Soviets had no inten tion of serious talk. They de manded a trade agreement and long-term credits. Bohlen said tlie lend-lease debt would have to be taken care of first. The Russians said no. The talks broke off Jan. 27 and have not yet resumed. Hep. Pillion says It is incon ceivable to him that the State Department can push a wheat By SYDNEY J. HARRIS Perhaps tlie two most million tial men ol the 20th Century in terms of changing the moral and intellectual climate of our limes have boon Einstein and Freud. Yet. by the paradox that al ways accompanies tlieir kind of greatness, neither of them is really understood, not only by tlie masses, but even bv tlie ma jority of educated people. Of course, tlieir technical thc ories need not lie understood; wlwt 1 mean is that not cen their basic premises are grasped accurately and clear ly. To most people, Einstein said, "Evcrytliing is relative." and Freud said. "Ever) thins is sex." Both these statements are to tally false, and would have horrified the men to whom they are ascribed, lvavuig Eiiislcm aside for the moment, kt us consider the widespivad distor tion of Freud's view into "Ev erything is x." Some psychiatrists in tlie past believed this. Tliey w?re known as "pan-sc.ualists." Freud fought these men vigorously and relentlessly. But at tlie same v.-. , LIME U.S. mm mm SHANKS, 1UFFALO EVENING NEWS Still Owes Outlay deal while the Soviets have made no attempt to pay an out standing debt. This policy, Pil lion says, will strengthen the Soviet political position and bol ster its sagging economy. The sale can "not appreciably aid the critical balance of payments deficit because the Soviets will not pay in gold. Russian gold is reserved for the purchase of Eu ropean industrial machinery and raw materials from the British Commonwealth." Note: Sen. Bill Proxmire, Wis c o n s i n Democrat, says we should insist that the USSR tear down the Berlin wall or agree to on-site nuclear inspection be fore it can buy U.S. wheat. Rep. Steve Dcrounian, New York Republican, takes a simi lar position. He says tlie Rus sians must remove their troops and military hardware from Cuba before approval for a wheat sale is given. There arc more than 1.000 aged and crippled persons who toil 10 hours a, day building roads in the town of Carnauba in northeastern Brazil. For this they receive 45 cents a week plus small quantities of beans, rice and flour. The food used as partial wages was given to the Brazili an government by the American people under Public Law 480 which set up the Food for Peace program. The above information was re laved to Rep. Gene Snyder by a missionary stationed in Brazil. He enclosed an article from one of Brazil's leading publications which said that the U.S. food was In "deplorable condition, sonic being rotten and all look ing bad." Pictures accompanying t h e article show the food packages arc clearly marked: "Not to be sold or exchanged." Rep. Snyder asked officials of the Agency for International De velopment for comment and re ceived a long, rambling, evasive letter that he calls "completely unsatisfactory." The cruel and inhuman distri bution of rotten foodstuffs to starving Brazilians, Snyder says, is another indication that the Ugly American is still at work. - . YTlSi STRICTLY PERSONAL. time, he was fighting conven tional society, and forcing us to recognize that many kinds of "non-sexual" behavior liad deep sexual roots. What we have forgotten if we have ever knon it is that Freud also demonstrated the opposite: that, in neurosis, what often seems to be sexual con- 1 duct is not really sexual at all. Take, for example, patterns of adultery and promiscuity. These certainly seem to be motivated by sexual drives. Yet. in many if not most cases, the sexual "acting out" is merely a symp tom of other discontents and dis sal isfacUons. Of tlie people who behave this way, relatively few are driven by genuinely sexual needs. Tlwy are unhappy In other ways. Uiey are enslaved by infantile fears or conflicts never resolved with in themselves and tlieir sexual misconduct is simply a symp tom of their deeply unconscious problems. Freud showed Uiat many things we do not commonly Hunk of as "sexual" are sexual in origin, but he also demon strated the contrary that "pseudo-sexuality" is one of Uie By WILLIAM S. WHITE WASHINGTON Friction be tween President Kennedy and the Congressional Republicans over foreign policy is becoming the most serious fact of politi cal life in 1963. Almost certainly a widening and progressively more embit tered partisan dispute over the proper conduct of the cold war will persist into the Presidential election year of 195. The strong probability is rising that in this field of issues the contest be tween Kennedy and whoever the Republicans may nominate will make the Kennedy-Nixon dia logue of .I960 look tame indeed in retrospect. Basically, the argument is set tling down into two increasingly divergent party positions. Ken nedy is making a continuing efj fort to reach separate accom modations with the Soviet Union on secondary matters the nu clear test ban, the deal f o r wheat in the hope that these may foreshadow Soviet willing ness to give some ground on such really capital issues as Berlin, Cuba and the like. The Republicans, on their side, are developing a steadily hardening position against such peripheral settlements with the Russians unless and until they have shown some genuine de sire to make concessions on those capital issues. As the President's approaches arc becoming increasingly bold as he moves almost immedi ately from the test-ban agree ment to the sale of wheat to re lieve Soviet shortages the Re publicans are becoming in creasingly tough in their oppo sition. For example, the country now hears a louder and more deter mined Republican outcry against the wheat deal than against the earlier test-ban pact. This is in spite of the fact that the nuclear accommodation pos es infinitely the greater danger of Soviet trickery and notwith standing the fact that the Re publicans have far closer ties with the presumed economic beneficiary of that sale, the Farm Belt, than do the Demo crats. Though there has been a scat tered G.O.P. rank-and-file at ;: WASHINGTON CALLING '.& II Bv MARQUIS CIIILDS WASHINGTON With the Cu ban economy already strained almost to the breaking point, Hurricane Flora has put a new burden on the Castro regime that could prove fatal. This comes at a time when relations with Moscow are em bittered and the Communist blot is itself under the necessity of importing a large volume of food for hard-won gold. As his troubles multiply Fidel Castro shows an increasingly sulky and rclwllious face to all the world with the possible exception of Red China. Can the Soviet Union continue to make up the deficits that are far more acute in the alter math of Flora? And how long can the regime survive without a far greater volume of help? These arc pressing questions as the anniversary of the great Cu ban confrontation of a year ago approaches. A careful survey by top intel ligence authorities shows how high the cost of the Khrushchev adventure has been to the So viet Union. This has been es pecially true in shipping. In ad dition to its own ships Moscow has had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to charter other ves sels to carry cargoes to and from Cuba. The volume of this tonnage has not appreciably declined in recent mouths. But it has be come more and more costly as many ships have had to go in ballast to pick up cargoes of su gar. They have also, according to Intelligence reports, had to sail from Cuban ports In bal last as tlie sugar crop failed by a wide margin to come up to expectations. And estimates arc that up to half tlie current su gar crop has been destroyed by Hurricane Flora. One major change In the sit uation tlie President finds great ly encouracing. As a result of prime ways in which tlie dis turbed or immature personality tries to come to terms 'unsuc cessfully, of course1 with its conflicts. This is why. as he pointed out. there is no real joy or lasting satisfacUon in such compulsive beliavior. The line! tribute humanity can pay its great men is to un derstand (hem. Instead, they atv venerated or condemned, out of bli:id iKlmuation or b'.ir.d ignorance: which is why Freud said, "I am not a Freudian. " tack upon this or that Kennedy foreign policy from the begin ning, the party leaders in Con gress have on the whole re mained in an essentially bipar tisan posture until recently. The armistice, however, is now very clearly a thing of the past. Senate Republican leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois and House Republican leader Charles Halleck of Indiana have joined forces in a major assault upon President Kennedy not simply for making Uie wheat deal but for his whole conduct of affairs in Latin America. Halleck accuses the President of having ignored the clearly ex pressed intent of Congress against the sale of subsidized American farm products to Communist nations. Dirksen as serts that the President lias been unduly fond of leftist-democratic regimes in Latin Amer ica. Kennedy's recent indication of official hostility to military coups against dangerously inef fectual "liberal" r e g i m e s in 9m mm Mi TOM A f I strong and persistent pressure the volume of free world ship ping has sharply declined. In the first nine months of last year 750 free world ships called at Cuban ports. For the first nine months of 1963 the figure was 250. Of this number 100 were of British reg ister and most of the bal ance were Greek and Lebanese. Greece has now put a stop to this trade over the angry pro test of Greek shipowners and while there is a dispute about tlie constitutionality of the gov ernment order it will stand in any event for two years. Greek arrivals had totalled 80 ships. To several Western visitors with whom he talked just be fore and during the nuclear test-ban negotiations Premier Khrushchev said that all organ ized Soviet combat units had been withdrawn from Cuba. The only Russian military remain ing were training cadres and they would leave when their mission was completed. Reports have persisted that Khrushchev has privately prom ised to complete the w ithdraw al by a deadline of Oct. 21. This would be announced on or before that date, marking the anni versary of the showdown when the world came so close to nu clear war. It would be on the assumption that the training of Cuban forces to use anti-aircraft and other weapons had been completed. The Soviet action of a year ago has quite a different look today than it had then. In the light of present knowledge it is seen to have been a desperate expedi ent to try to make up for the nuclear superiority of Uie Unit ed States. Intermediate - range ballistic missiles secretly sta tioned in Cuba were to compen sate for the growing preponder ance of America's long . range Minute Men and Polaris subma rines. A gamble of Incalculable recklessness opened up the gulf of nuclear annihilation. W ith the missiles removed the threat of Castroism remains what it has been from the begin ningas example and tutor to tlie revolutionary forces of Latin America. And it is here that the pohtual dilemma of Washington becomes acute, with one demo crat regime after another pushed over by the military, tn e'e Sam seems to be either im potent or privately a part to these betravals. Honduras and the Dominican Republic has further stirred the Republicans. This Republican concern is particularly acute and indeed understandably so because these coups were plain ly intended to avoid the possibil ity that obvious weaknesses in the old "liberal" regimes would invite Communist takeovers. In short, the President is more and more alienating Congres sional Republicans on nearly ev ery aspect of foreign policy the closer he comes to his cam paign for re-election. And the very nature of the ar gument is, on the Republican side, doing two things: It is drawing the Republicans into something they have thus far not had a strong unity of re sistance. And it is steadily pro moting the prospect that their 1964 nominee will in fact be Sen. Barry Goldwater, if only be cause he of all the G.O.P. possi bilities most nearly symbolizes an all-out opposition to nearly the whole of the Kennedy stance in the cold war. LITTLE, NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN th rma All this is grist to the Castro propaganda mill. Cuban exiles, who fled when they saw that far from believing in freedom and independence Castro was mak ing Cuba a satellite of Moscow, are deeply disillusioned by these developments. As one of the most thoughtful of the exiled leaders put it: "If it comes to a choice be tween a dictatorship of the right and a dictatorship of the left we shall choose the left because at least it seems to offer some hope of chance." One of the few voices raised in recent months to express con cern about the long-range future of a democratic Cuba was that of Sen. James Pearson IR., Kan.i. He proposed that the Or ganization of American States go to work to prepare a blue print for the political and eco nomic life of a free Cuba follow ing the fall of the dictator. When Castro goes, tlie strug gle will have just begun. To fail to realize this is to insure a tragic repetition of the tragic past. Almanac By United Press International Today is Wednesday, Oct. If.f the 289th day of 1963 w ith 76 to follow. The moon is approaching Its new phase. The morning star is Jupiter. The evening stars are Jupiter and Saturn. On this day in history: In 1846. the first operation with a patient under ether anes thesia was performed at Mas sachusetts General Hospital in Boston. In 1859, Abolitionist John Broun staged a raid on Harp er's Ferry, Vai, seizing a hotel, arsenal, firehouse and 30 towns people. In 1934, Chinese Communists began their "long march" to the northwest where they es tablished headquarters and planned to continue the attack against the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek. A thoucht for the day The Roman Emperor Marcus Au rc'.ius, said: "Receive wealth or position without arrogance, and be ready to let it go."
