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About Herald and news. (Klamath Falls, Or.) 1942-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 30, 1963)
PAGE 6A HERALD AND NEWS. Klamath Fills. Oregon Wednesday, October 30, 1963 'If Anybody Asks . . . Secretary Korth Fell Into The Pool . . . !' Stampede To Disaster i gdtiouaf (paq& Rights One of the genuine puzzlers for 1964 is the extent to which President Kennedy and . the Democratic party may suffer defections : from among the minority groups which have helped provide smashing big city Demo cratic victories for 30 years. At this stage, short of any election test, the threat of some defection seems real. Re ports multiply that considerable elements of the white urban and occasionally sub urban population are angry over the Neg , roes' big civil rights push in 1963. Up to now this has been most often heard with respect to Polish descendents in such cities as Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. In Philadelphia, Irish and Italian elements checked in surveys are said to be complaining bitterly. Generally speaking, the resentment is found to be sharpest among those people who are closest to Negroes in the economic scale. The competition for jobs, and job preference, is recognized as growing keen er as efforts are made to advance the Ne groes' lot. The Irish, of course, have been with the Democratic party for long decades. The big new increment to the party in the 1930s came from the Poles and other Slavic peoples. Second generation families, coming of age as voting citizens for the first time, 'fnrmorl a rnv nnrf nf fhp fahlprl "Rnnspvplt coalition of that era. : For nearly 20 years that allegiance was generally unwavering. The Italians, the Ne groes (in 1936 and thereafter) and other mi norities swelled the frequently irresistible Democratic urban vote totals. Why Do They Stay Away? By CHARLES A. SPRAGUE In the Oregon-Statesman, Salem Marge Davenport, medical writer for the Oregon Journal, ;."has picked up a statistical item ; about schools and health and Mosses out a question. The Item ; is that on the avenige the scliool student in Oregon missed 10.8 days in the school year 19(2-63, while the average student over in Washington state missed only 10.5 days. The figures come from a compilation prepared by, Schering Corporation, a pharma ceuticil firm, for the National Education Association. Miss Da venport asks: "Why?" She says the State Department of Educa tion can't given an explanation, ;and that the State Board of .Health reports no general epi demic which might account for -the difference. The Schering slu. dy says the common cold was charged with primary rcspomi "bility for Oregon absenteeism. .'But the very word "common" implies that colds are no respec ters of state lines. It is, of course, entirely un safe to build a theory on so nar row a base as a comparison of one item with a single state for single year. NevcrUieless I will oiler one, to "try it on for site." Could It he that absence ; from school in this state is due ; to less leal for getting an edu ; cation, and less zeal on the part iof parents to insist on regularity Jn school attendance? How Imuch of the absenteeism was ' due to parents taking a trip. and having their children skip school to go with them? This is on the assumption that little would be missed in a day or two of absence, and the child could quickly make up (or the lost time. I suspect that even the sug gestion of this as a possible cause w ill draw hornets around my head, as teachers and par ents deny the inputation, and In sist that eagerness for an edu cation is fully as strong in Ore gon as In any other slntc. Very well; but please reflect on an .'other characteristic of Oregoni ans: they are quite self-satisfied. Oregon is about as close to paradise as they expect to find on earth and by paradise they don't mean California. Here the climate is "salubri ous," as the letters back home from the first pioneers and the literature nf land promoters pro claimed. Oh, yes, considerable rain; but no extremes o heat or cold; no cyclones: no severe drouths: no plagues of grasshop pers: no fever and ague. Another contributor to person al contentment Is ready access . to the outdoors, for fishing, hunt ing: year-round golf; recreation at tlie seashore or mountain lakes and streams, Portland Push Benefits The year 1952 produced a substantial though not severe break in the ranks. The Korean war, falling heavily on large Italian and Slavic families with many sons of draft age, was deeply unpopular with these groups. They turned in important numbers to support Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Many stayed with him and others joined the turn in 1956. He was viewed as a guar antor of peace. But 1960 was another story. Eisenhow er was gone from the ballot. Luring these heavily Catholic peoples back to the Demo cratic fold was a Catholic party nominee, John F. Kennedy. He won 26 of the 40 big gest cities, sweeping wide through the mi norities. Republicans quickly undertook a sober study to figure how to woo at least some of them back. The question now is whether the great civil rights struggle of 1963 may not have done more for the GOP in this regard than they could ever have done for themselves. The rumblings of white "national mi nority" discontent are real enough. But their size and depth have not been meas ured. The first major test of any conse-. quence comes next month in Philadelphia's mayoralty election, when Democratic May or James Tate runs up against young, per sonable James McDermott, Republican. De feat or even a fairly close squeak for Tate in a city which can produce massive Demo cratic majorities would be a powerful indi cator of trouble ahead for the President in 1964. General Electric is running a series of ads in national maga zines now exploiting Oregon as a place where "fun and work are close together." One ad was il lustrated with a picture of a man holding up a big salmon "caught before he came to work." Add the delights of var ied recreation to climate and the self-satisfaction of the aver age Oregonian is a m p 1 i f i e d greatly. Then making a living is fair ly easy in Oregon. Wages arc high; work is spread out pret ty well; unemployment, save for off-seasons, whose hardship is pretty well blunted with unem ployment comp., is nut extreme. Most everybody works; but he doesn't work "too hard," or have to. Rusinessmen are con tent (on the whole) with rela tively modest profits. It they build up a big stake, as in tim ber and lumber mills, the temp tation to sell out to a big corpor ation Is apt to be overwhelming why not relax and enjoy lite, and let the other fellow wrestle with the worries? This adds up to a lack of drive among Oregonians. Just living here has its rich compen sations, which is true. Why drive yourself and get heart trouble or ulcers it you do get that mil lion. A home, modest savings, social security what more do you need? 1 recall quite a discussion 'Man, It Looks Old-Fashioned ..y.M'A'.yf.;." sr'i-'-r : '. 'PA GOP among Oregon editors around 30 years ago. Then the charge was made that Oregon suffered from an inferiority complex. We were very humble, situate as we were between flamboyant California and wacky (then) Washington. ' Today I would say the state suffers from a superiority com plex. We huvc it "good" here; and we aren't anxious to have too many come in so we would . have to divide up our resources and splinter our satisfactions. Only thing we have to complain ot, so it seems, is the tax bur den; and, thanks to the referen dum, the people can, on occa sion, take care of that. New, I wouldn't say that this self-satisfaction, which invites indolence, explains why more Oregon students stayed out of school Inst year, than did those in Washington. But children may catch the easy-going attitudes ot their parents. One inference from the late election is that Oregonians aren't too greatly concerned with educational achievement anyway, at least at higher levels. Nor do I say that this eupho ria that attaches to residence in Oregon is really debilitating. Maybe e live longer and move happily thereby. Hut in this competitive age we do lose out unless we stand up to the "competition." And any inclina tion to indifference to school at tendance is a poor start for youngsters. Like A Real Halloween!' wjmm IN WASHINGTON ... By RALPH de TOLEDANO CINCINNATI, Ohio-A veteran newspaperman, who has seen . the rise and fall of political for tunes, says: "Dick Nixon didn't make it by much in Ohio. Come 14, I think President Kennedy can take the state." Another newspaperman com ments: "The Republicans have recovered from the beating they took in 1958. The 1962 election showed that this state has moved back into the GOP col umn. I don't think Kennedy can make it against a conservative Republican like Barry Goldwa tcr." This difference of opinion is what makes horse races and elections. At this stage of the game, no amount of polling by George Gallup can come up with any real answers. A visit ing reporter goes by the feel and the smell and this can be deceptive, as many of us will attest. The basis for the variance in opinions is what's interesting. Those who feel that Mr. Kenne dy is now ahead have their rea sons. Even in Cincinnati, the largest city in the country to go consistently Republican, there is a belief that the President was hurt seriously only by his han dling ot the Cuban problem. But this, it is argued, is pretty much forgotten. The test ban Treaty of Moscow seems to have put him ahead, giving In in a handle for the "peace" issue. Civil rights has made little dent on the public consciousness in Ohio, the Kennedy optimists as sert. Therefore, as the incum bent, he has an edge no chal lenger can overcome. This argument is seriously challenged by others. They claim that the Cuba situation is not forgotten, that it is mere ly quiet. Any flaro-up of trouble on the island will bring it back to lite. Civil rights remain a plaguing but "hidden" issue, particularly with labor, which is the backbone of the Democratic Party here. Given the strong conservatism of many Ohioans, the planned budget deficit of the Kennedy Administration lias been disturbing to many people. Ill a recent issue of the Allan tic Monthly, I was interested in reading an interview with Stir ling Moss, the pre-eminent rac ing driver of our time. Among other things, Moss con fessed that his great courage on tlic track does not extend to oili er activities: for instance, he would under no circumstances dive from a 30-foot board into the water, even though he "knew" the water was deep enough and safe enough for the dive. We tend to do w ith the word "courage" what we do with the word "intelligence" we assume that it is indivisible, when actu ally there are many cktferent kinds nf courage and many dif ferent kinds of intelligence. And those who possess one special kind of courage or intel ligence tend to think that those who lack It (even though kis sessing some other kind' aie wholly without the virtue. Physical courage, for example, is most admired in our society; yet a good case could be made out that not only are there dif fering forms of physical cour age, hut also that there may be superior kinds of courage that mike the physically brave man look like a coward. I was Impressed some years ago listening to the rebroadcast of a BBC talk given by Gen. Sir William Slim, former ..unman-der-in-chief of the Allied Land Forces in South East Asia, in Ohio Being Wooed By Both Candidates But more important than this, say those who feel Mr. Kennedy cannot take the state in 1964, is the undefined feeling they detect of unease about the President, the abrasive edge of the com ment about "Kennedy nepo tism," and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. There are some, in fact, who feel that Robert Kennedy is the GOP's secret weapon. Criticism of the President's younger brother was once limit ed for the most part to insiders, to Washington correspondents who had known him when he w as chief counsel to the Senate Labor Rackets Committee. But the Attorney General has been in the public eye since January of 1961, and some observers think he has not helped to en hance the President's image. One thing is certain. Unless there is a drastic change in sen timent, Ohio is one state that will not fall to either candidate ' without a considerable struggle. If the Republican ticket, as a whole, is strong, that will help the Presidential nominee .who ever he may be. At this sit ting. U.S. Senator Stephen Young is still determined to run tor re-election, and the opinion here is that he w ill be a drag on the Democrats. There are, moreover, signs of Democratic fragmentation, par ticularly in Cleveland, the stale's largest city, which is normally safe for Democrats. There is a possibility that many Cleveland Democrats will jump the fence in local elections. The stakes are great. If Sena tor Goldwater is the nominee, Ohio is one of the states he must take if he is to make his South-Midwest Mountain Stale parlay. The battle will be all out and, I suspect, with no holds barred. Perhaps because Ohio ans realize the pivotal role -they can play in the next Presiden tial go-round, they are confusing and dividing the experts. Nothing so sets up a state or a city as the knowledge that it is being wooed, and Ohio is aware that the courtship has just about begun. Kennedy or Goldwater, it's going to be fun. STRICTLY PERSONAL. By SYDNEY J. HARRIS which he began by saying that "Moral courage is a higher and rarer virtue than physical cour age." He went on to point out that no other army has ever pos sessed "massed physical cour age" as the Japanese did. The Japanese generals, he added, shared their men's physical bravery, but lacked moral courage. "Thus, we played on this weakness and destroyed their armies. Moral courage must be taught, he said, because so few, if any. have it naturally and "most men w ith moral courage learned it by precept and example in their youth " The outstanding impression ot courage he carried away from the retreat from Bur ma in 1942 "was that of Indian women refugees, and not of the fighting man." One man (ears heights, anoth er speed, and still another wa ter. One man will make the most heroic attack and then faint if a hypodermic needle is plunged into his arm. Physical bravery or cowardice are more a matter of childhood experi ences than an indication of ba sic character. Humanity has always respect ed physical courage, but high moral courage usually meets w ith contempt or martyrdom in its own time. How many men have been "brave" in an unjust w ar simply because they lacked the moral courage to resist the force of public opinion? By DR. JOHN A. HOWARD President, Rockiord College What is a stampede? It is a rapid mass movement. It is en gaged in thoughtlessly. It is caused by fright. It is danger ous, and it is exceedingly diffi cult to stop. The press toward federal subsidy of education, in my judgment, meets precisely each of these qualifications. We are being rushed into ill advised remedies for education that violate the nature and neu tralize the vitality of the educa tional system which has ably served this country's needs un der circumstances the most various. If our nation permits our edu cational system to be circum scribed and distorted by federal involvement as the agricultural system has been, the destruc tive consequences will be seen in every aspect of our lives. The qualities of the education al system strength or weak ness, wisdom or folly, diversity or uniformity will inevitably be reflected in the society some years later. As we may under mine the effectiveness of our schools and colleges, we reduce the potential of our society and alter its character. It is my be lief that we as a nation are un wittingly placing in jeopardy our entire system ot education. As the federal government be comes the largest single source of funds for college after col lege, and there are a number al ready in this category, the in stitutions" become beholden to the government. This is not a chimera born of a doctrinaire distrust of government. Recently I wrote to the pres ident of a well-known universi ty inviting him to join a group of college presidents in making known the arguments against the ever-growing federal subsi dies of education. He replied that, although he was in full agreement with our position that subsidies arc not in the long-range best interests of the colleges or the country, his own university was now so depen dent upon funds from Washing ton he could not take a public stand on this issue without jeo pardizing the university he served. Think of that answer, if you will. The mere flow ot money has silenced the opposition. The loss of political freedom on the part of those who depend on government for their income was the reason for refusing suf frage to the residents of the District of Columbia. Project the federal aid pro grams ahead, not too many years the way things are go ing, to the time when all col leges and universities will re ceive the largest part of their budgets from the U.S. Treasury. It is likely that all faculty mem bers in that day w ill feel some obligation to vote for whichever party promises the largest EDSON By PETER EDSON WASHINGTON (NEA There is no justification whatever for an increase in the U.S. price of bread as a result of wheat sales to Soviet Russia and Communist bloc countries, say Department ot Agriculture grain experts. Rumors of an i m p e n d i n g bread price rise have sprung up in various parts of the country as a result of wheat flour price rises recently announced at Min neapolis. Kansas City and Tex as milling centers. These in creases arc seen as seasonal ad justments and not big enough to warrant a rise in bread prices. Millers and bakers would be playing with dynamite if they used the Communist wheat pur chases as an excuse to raise flour and bread prices in the United States. The rumpus caused by steel price increases afler the last strike settlement and the fed eral grand jury investigation into more recent steel rises would be nothing compared to the uproar over a bread price rise now. Experts point out. however, that in a free world market, there arc bound to be some fluctuations reflecting changing conditions. World wheat prices advanced (mm an average of S1.79-J1.81 to S2 l6-$2 40 a bushel on a purely speculative basis when Rus.via made its first half billion dollar purchase from Canada. Previ ously, Canada had sold wheat to Red China and some to Rus sia at $1.74. The U.S. protested this low price. But wheat futures did not ad vance further when Russia let it be known she wanted to buy U.S. wheat and President Ken nedy announced that such a sale wmild be approved. Wheat flour price fluctuations are another story. A year ago. flour sold in Minneapolis at So 95 to SB a hundred pounds. Last July, when the 1963 wheat crop amount of additional education al subsidies, regardless of other partisan differences. Political freedom is sacrificed by those who depend upon government resources. Can we afford to for feit the political freedom of the whole academic community? There is no need to depend upon conjecture or ascertaining the effects of federal funds in education. There is now a man ual of almost 800 pages devoted to a brief description of each of the educational programs in which the U.S. Government is already engaged. College execu tives may subscribe to a peri odical solely devoted to the pres tions of changes in old pro grams. The scope of current fed eral programs offers plenty of opportunity or observation. Early this year an issue of "Nation's Business" contained an article describing the in consistencies, the distortions and the general confusion which characterize the aggregate of government educational pro grams. The source of that ar ticle is John F. Morse, who not long ago completed a n i n e month study for the Higher Edu cation Subcommittee of the House of Representatives. I urge you to read Mr. Morse's statement. The inescapable conclusion . seems to be that we must have a Washington super-authority to make plans for the academic . segment of our society and to coordinate as well as pay for education through a central bu reaucracy. This will be the dis aster referred to in the title. The predominant characteris tic of American higher educa tion has been its diversity. Each collegiate institution has its own particular nature, totally distin guishable from every other. The degree to which spiritual con cerns affect the student during his undergraduate years ranges on different campuses from pre dominance to insignificance. Similarly, the political impact upon the student varies from pure conservatism at one col lege to extreme liberalism at other institutions. College curricula differ to a much great er extent than is generally rec ognized. I am convinced that it is a convergence of diversely educated people in each of the different enterprises of our so ciety that has been the one con dition w hich more than any oth er has made ours a dynamic, successful and altruistic nation. What fosters this diversity? Principally it is the autonomy of the various institutions. As a college conceives' or receives a new idea that seems promising, it has to sell it only to its own board of control. However, each new educational undertaking of the federal government provides a single board of control and thus diversity of American edu cation is curtailed. I do not know of one college IN WASHINGTON Justified o Increase began to be harvested, the price dropped to $5.50-$3.55. The Oct. 23, 1963, price was $5.75-$5.80. Bakers did not lower the price of bread when flour prices went down last summer. Presumably, bakers bought wheat ahead last summer, before recent grain price increases. Bakers, there fore, have no justification for raising bread prices for at least six months, or even longer if there are no further increases in wheat and (lour prices. The recent 20-ccnt price in crease on ino pounds of (lour warrants an increase nf only one cent on a five-pound bag of flour. The comparable, justifi able price increase on bread would be about one-fourth cent a loaf. Payment will not be made in cash, but in wheat, which grain dealers can market for whatev er they can get. But in getting rid nf this Al manac By United Press International Today is Wednesday, Oct. 30. the SKird day of 1963 with 62 to follow. The moon is approaching its full phase. The evening stars are Jupi ter and Saturn. Those born today include for mer U.S. President John Ad ams, in 1735. On this day in history: In 1929. heavy selling was ob served on the New York Stock Exchange lollowing the "big bust" ot the day before. In 1938, actor Orson Welles caused a national panic with his radio dramatization of an invasion of New Jersey by men from Mars. In 1941. a German submarine torpedoed and sank a U. S. na val destroyer, although the United States was not yet at war with Germany. executive who would not quick ly agree that programs now sup ported on our campuses by fed eral funds could be carried on at least as effectively by a com parable amount of funds from oUier sources and, in many, many cases, could be conduct ed with more imagination, more flexibility, less bother and at a much lower cost. Why then, do not the same executives op pose federal aid? The answer is money. Money is a good servant but a dangerous master. The only legitimate justification for fed eral aid is Uiat education lacks money and the federal govern ment is far more prodigal with its funds than are other sources. If only the proponents of fed eral aid would come right out and state this fact, we could face the issue head on and meas ure what the easy money buys against what we must sacrifice in order to obtain it from Wash ington. It is undeniable that our in creasingly technical society re quires an increasingly skilled and knowledgeable population and, to accomplish this end, a larger part of gross nation al product must be invested in education. The issue is whether this ur gent objective is to be achieved through congressional action which forces people to pay more for education and at the same time diminishes the diver sity and circumscribes the cre ativity of the separate colleges or whether the nation can be persuaded to provide the necessary funds through tradi tional sources and thus preserve the freedom and the strength of American education. 1 cannot believe that my col leagues in college administra tion would so readily forfeit the full potential nf their respective institutions if they fully rea lized what was at stake. As diffi cult as their financial future may appear to them, it cannot be the reason for abandoning in tegrity. The course of education al statesmanship is to protect the greatest creative potential and the greatest institutional in dividuality. That course does not lie via the federal treasury. The college executives and the officers of the government who may have a part through their silent or vocal support of fed eral subsidy will have to answer to history for the consequences of their work. May this nation recognize in time the stake it has in keeping education decentralized and un federalized. If these views make sense to you, I urge you to do everything in your power to defeat additional federal sub sidies of education and also to increase the flow of funds to higher education through other channels. The accomplishment of both objectives is essential to the strength and vitality of this nation. wheat, the government saves on storage costs. At an average of 26 cents a bushel per year for storage, maintenance and handling, the saving on 150 million bushels would be $.19 million a year, or $195 million over five years, the average time CCC holds its wheat. The total purchase price on 150 million bushels of wheat, in cluding transportation charges, is expected to be $260 million. This would show up as about a $200 million saving on the 1965 fiscal year U.S. budget and an improvement of that amount on tlie balance of payments. Though there is now an in creased world demand for wheat from Communist bloc countries, there is no short supply justify ing any price increases. Tlie U.S. wheat supply is esti mated at 2.3 billion bushels for the 1963-64 crop year. With do mestic use of 600 million bush els and normal exports of 800 million bushels, the carryover as of July 1, 1964, would be 900 million bushels. Russia and its satellite coun tries' have been talking about purchases of four million tons, which is 150 million bushels. Most of this wheat would have to come from U.S. government stocks, acquired at a cost of $2 a bushel, average. The government's Commodity Credit Corp. is prohibited by iaw from selling this at less than 105 per cent of the present support price of $1.82 a bushel, which is $1 91. With world market prices run ning below this hcure, CCC makes a daily determination of the export subsidy it will pav to make up the difference. This 'has been running from 50 to 60 cents bushel. If Russia & Co. buy 150 mil lion bushels of U.S. wheat. CCC will have to write off a loss of M million.
