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About Herald and news. (Klamath Falls, Or.) 1942-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 5, 1963)
HERALD AM) NEWS, Klamath FaUs, Oitjod Thursday, December S, 19GJ Write-In Candidate WILLIAM S. WHITE . . .Bold Action Is Keyword PAf.E-CA I We can't agree with those who call for an end to extremism. Somehow, the conformists who have channeled a great portion of this nation's thinking into a neutralizing middle-of-the-road position, have taken the occasion of the tragedy of the assassination of the President, to condemn those who exercise the privilege of free thinking. A wave of shame has been generated across this nation as an aftermath of this national tragedy. We disagree with this also. Just because a fanatic Marxist and avowed Communist commits a lunatic deed by shooting the President does not mean that every voice of disagreement across the land should be muffled, that every American should indulge in self-shame. Disagreement is the heart of the Repub lic, the oil that keeps a Democracy honest and moving in the right direction. Still the voice of criticism and you will fashion the chains that will bind freedom forever to dictatorship and tyranny. No one welcomes violence, and no one promotes violent extremism willingly. Admittedly, there are forces afoot In this land of freedom that have pushed causes Jails in three Klamath County cities and towns have been described as a "dis grace" by a grand jury investigating con ditions in these facilities. It was recommend ed they be Improved or abandoned. Granted jails are not to be furnished and maintained like the Ritz-Carlton, con ditions nevertheless should be sanitary and habitable. A few hard-nosed law enforce ment people take the attitude that if jails are unpalatable, members of the citizenry are less liable to do things that will cause their confinement in these places. On the other hand not every person placed in a jail is guilty of any crime. Frequently they are not. Sociologists and criminologists gener ally agree that jails, whether they be town, The By MARQUIS CH1LDS VASIIINGTON-Whnl is Pres ident Johnson really like? That question is being asked not only all over America but throughout the world. The aura ot power and parti ji politics will rapidly close in to shut olf the view. This is inevitable in the office lie now holds. In the fir&t rush ol sym pathy Clio sincere desire ol al most everyone is to Rive all aid and comfort possible to the new President who must take up his intolerable burden. It is being said with accura cy that he is the best-ti ained vice president ever to come into the Presidency. He has traveled to most areas o the world, he has sat in on most of the important conferences, lie was at the elbow of the late President when the great deci sions were being taken. But this ignores the temperament of the 53-year-old Texan, anil temperament is as important as training in weighing the bal ance. From le vera! who have worked closely with him in hit nearly three years In the vice presidency, this is an attempt to get a glimpse of the inner man. Kirsl of all, he is a Tex an in the best sense of that special statehood, unmarred by the hatc-mongering so widely advertised in recent years. He is. therefore, an activist. It will be both his strength and his weakness in the Presi dency. Hie lesson he must learn is restraint reflection and restraint. The model to serve him well in this depart ment U the late President Ken nedy. Yet as an activist in the vice presidency, Mr. .lohnton has already been schooled in re straint. Tlie two men, the late President and his successor, had one important trait in com mon. They were both intensely competitive. Each in his own separate and distinct way was out to win. When Senator Johnson lost hia fierce battle (or the Presi denUil nomination at the Lot i8a Let Them Be Heard to the point of violence and have oftentimes used violence as a means of accomplishing an objective. Extremism in this form should be con demned. But the give and take that governs the political life of the nation, the criticisms that keep government officials honest and pro tect the basic freedoms that are unique to Americans . . . these things we must ever maintain if we are to avoid the pitfalls of mediocrity and the end result of a stagnated nation. While we stand up for the rights and privilege of being able to disagree, we would also plead for tolerance as the best weapon against violent extremism. Those among us who would promote class hatred, mob rule or physical violence should be exiled to their own small, bigotted world. But let the voice of honest, constructive disagreement come forth with a volume in dicative of free men endowed with the in alienable privilege of being able to disagree. Only in this manner can we keep this nation free In a world of encroaching slavery. Dirty Jailhouses city, county, slate or federal, should be main tained properly.-And there's no reason why prisoners shouldn't do a great deal of the housekeeping. There seems to be no excuse for "dirty toilet facilities, refuse on the floor, cobwebs on the ceiling and no mat tress covers" as reported by the grand jury. If such problems are caused by the fact that these jails seldom are used then an ar rangement should be worked out where prisoners are brought from these smaller communities to larger ones where they can be Incarcerated properly. Then close up those that are substandard. It is good to know, however, that the grand jury puts its good housekeeping seal on Klamath Juvenile Home, the Klamath city and county jails. WASHINGTON CALLING Real Mr. Johnson Angeles convention in I960, the cup ot defeat was far more bit ter than it would have been (or most men. His decision to ac cept second place on the ticket amazed even his closest friends and associates. As an activist in the vice presidency, it was hard for ium to learn in the first weeks and months that he was not running the show nor even his own sideshow. Long-time friends and loyal admirers counseled him in this trying period on the need for re straint. Experience was a haid master. One result was an almost ti gerish loyalty to his chief, the young man who had bested him. Mr. Kennedy would say, "Lyn don. I hope that you can help me with such and such a job, and if I could have a paper on my desk that I could sign with in three or (our days, it would be fine." The vice president would mow every tiling down In insure Uial Uie task was com pleted, and under the time limit, too. Inevitably he clashed with some members of the Kennedy Administration, and tins has a bearing on the shape o( the Johnson Adiiunistialion. The new President felt that Secre tary of Defense Robert McNa mara was the most brilliant and forceful man in the Kennedy Cabinet. Hut he thought that Mc Samara's methods were w rong, and particularly with Congress where the vice president's knowledge was surest. Tlie two men clashed fre quently. They had sharp differ ences over the space pro gram, which was Mr. John son's special province. An asso ciate recalls a heated Ihiec and-a-lialf-hour session of tlie Space Council. They differed over the supersonic transport and how to finance it. Here another element ot the Johnson temperament is sig nificant. As a fierce competitor out to win. he looks with sus picion on rivals who crowd in too close Johnson associates, i! not tlie President himself, be lieved McNamara was in close alliance with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, creating the possibility of a McNamara Kennedy ticket in lWlfl. And there were those who were only too happy, both in print and in private, to try to poison the re lationship between the Presi dent and Uie vice president wilii this kind o( suspicion. Mr. Johnson had his eye ir revocably (i.ed on 'Ml. Ho was to win the prize on his own per formance, and his own record and anyone thwarting that goal was an enemy. A Texan fights and a Texan fights for keeps. In this beginning interval, a parallel has liecn suggested with Harry S. Truman, who an nounced on inheriting the Pres idency Uiat Ih- would keep the Roosevelt Cabuict. Yet within a short time Uiey had gone. But Mr. Truman had three and a half years to shape a new Ad ministration before an election. President Johnson has only six months. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ft In what area do farmers make use ol birds la fornraiting weather? A-South Africa The shrill call o( the osprey is usually heard sec eral days before rain. Q What are the chlrl crops In the Imperial Valley? A Lettuce, celery, cantaloupes, cotton and alfalfa. () Hnw Is the atomic number n( an element drtrrmined? A It is based upon the num ber of protons found in the nu cleus of the atom. Q Who la tha patma Hint el Casta Rica? A St. Joseph. Q What Island Is kaowi at the Pearl ol the Antilles? A Cuba. By FULTON LEWIS Jit. WASHINGTON Title 18, Sec tion 1114 o( the U.S. Code makes punishable by law the (ollowing crimes: An attempt on the life o( a (ederal game warden. The assassination of an Ag riculture Department file clerk. The murder of a federal judge, a U.S. Attorney or his assistant. Title IS. Section 1501 makes it a crime to assault a federal process server. Title 18, Sec tion 871 makes illegal a threat against the President of the United Slates. Title 10, Sec tion 888 provides court-martial for those commissioned officers of the U.S. Army who utter contemptuous words about their commander-in-chief. Nowhere in tlie federal code is there a law that makes as sassination of the Chief Execu tive a ciime. This gaping loop hole will soon be plugged if members of the Senate Judici ary Committee have their way. They are drafting legislation to make attempts on the life of a President, a vice president, a Cabinet member, or a member of Congress, a federal crime. The advantages in such a law are evident. The Federal Bureau of Investigation could enter the case immediately. Congressman . Charles Goodell points out that the "murder of a high federal official has ram ifications far beyond the per sonalities involved. The offi cials of Dallas found this out the hard way. "It is not fair to any local officials to place such a respon sibility on their shoulders. How humiliated and ashamed we would all have been if the Su preme Court had been com pelled to reverse the conviction of President Kennedy's assas sin because t h e defendant's rights had been violated." Note: Other legislation is likely to pass as a result of the President's tragic death. For two years, Senator Thomas Dodd has pushed for passage of his bill to regulate the sale of mail order guns. The Connecticut Democrat has chaired hearings in which vet eran police officials have begged for some sort of legislation that would prevent criminals ami ju veniles from obtaining lethal weapons. Hodd's hill, as originally in BERRY'S WORLD - I 1 i " kno", I I now' Ht got iht barbtr fo shove it to h could look lik Y. A. Tittlt!" WASHINGTON REPORT . Law Needs Correction In Light Of Tragedy troduced, would require pur chasers of mail order guns to sign affidavits that they have no criminal record and are 18 years of age. The Senator has now moved to strengthen that bill by re quiring buyers of such guns to leceive permission from local law enforcement oflicers. Lee Harvey Oswald, accused slayer of President Kennedy, would have been unable to pur chase the gun allegedly used in his dastardly crime if the Dodd bill had been in ellect. Representative John Ash brook will get nowhere fast with his resolution calling for a joint House-Senate investigation of the State Department. Reason: The department doesn't want one. The Ohio Congressman, one of the most articulate young Republicans in cither house, made his demand in the wake of reports that the department had advanced Lee Harvey Os wald $-100 to facilitate his re turn to this country from the USSR. Ashbrook's resolution reads in part: "Whereas the Stale Depart ment which had discretion paid the way back to tlie United Stales of Lee Harvey Oswald who had given an aflidavit re nouncing U.S. citizenship, sur rendered his passport to our Moscow Embassy and then spent three years being trained in Communist Russia and af ter repatriation returned to the United States and killed the President of the United States: "Whereas the 'dismissal of Otto Otepka signaled the end of effective security in the De partment of State; "Whereas Department of State personnel have played a major role in engineering a se ries o( miniature Munich: in cluding nuclear agreements, grain deals, over 53 per cent unilateral disarmament and a prospective nonaggression pact in evolving a policy ot peace through appeasement . , . "Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States . . . that the De partment of State, its person nel,, security and other policies be investigated from top to bot tom with the purpose of elim inating subversives and ques tionable personnel." By WILLIAM S. WHITE WASHLNGTON President Johnson, profoundly relieved and thankful that the country has so rallied in unity and strength from the shock of the assassination of his predecessor, now proposes to keep up the momentum of his administra tion on every front without pause or let up. These recent urgent days have shown to the nation and to associates he inherited from the Kennedy Administration t h e rapidity of decision and vigor of the new President in a crisis time. What these days have not yet shown is that these attrib utes are a part of Mr. John son's ordinary political life. In all the circumstances, of course, he simply had to decide and to act firmly and quickly and more or less all at once along tlie whole range of the enormous problems of an office thrown without an instant's warning upon him. He was racing against nothing less than national fear and potential na tional hysteria and chaos and an ominous tide of confused bit terness and counter-bitterness. He won the race. But his in stantaneous series of unhesitat ing actions necessarily taken at times by telephone and with almost dizzying speed as he pressed one button after anoth er to give clipped directives and a sense of sad but rock-like Presidential calm to one mo mentarily shaken official after another were unusual onlv in Washington Window Balanced By LYLE C. WILSON United Press International The balanced ticket, so-called, is likely to make its appear ance next year in presidential politics. Balanced tickets are old hat in the great cities of the North and East. It is customary in New- York City politics, for example, to distribute nominations for mu nicipal office among the reli gious and racial minorities and majorities. This usually pro duces a municipal ticket on which are represented Jews. Protestants, Catholics, Germans Italians, Negroes. This is called a balanced ticket. There are only two spots on a presidential ticket. It is be ing suggested now that the Democrats may desire to bal ance their presidential ticket next year with a Catholic nomi nated to run for vice president with President Johnson. For ex ample, Newsweek remarked that the Democrats' most criti cal 11104 decision would be on tlie vice presidential nomination and added: "Robert F. Kennedy would have sentimental attraction. Kennedy itiie late President's brother! is also a Catholic to balance LBJ's Protestantism." A columnist team i Rowland Evans and Robert Novak I ad vanced Sargent Shriver 'the late President's brother-in-law I as President Johnson's current choice for a 1984 running mate. These writers remarked that "for whatever it is worth, Shri ver would couple a northern Catholic with a southern Pro testant" on the 1964 presidential ticket. Others, including notable Pro testants, are being mentioned as likely Democratic vice presiden tial nominees. But tlie scattered emphasis on a presidential tick et balanced between Catholics and Protestants is. neverthe less, significant and something wholly new to presidential poli tics. Geographical balance long Al manac Bv United Press International Today is Thursday. Dec. 5. the 339th day of iW with 26 to follow. Tlie moon is approaching its last quarter. The evening stars are Jupiter, Saturn and Venus. On this day in history: In 177K. tlie first scholastic fraternity in America. Phi Beta Kappa, was organized at tlie College of William and Mary. In 1848. President Polk con firmed tlie discovery of gold in California, givuig impetus to the gold rush of '48 and '49. In 1933. Prohibition was abol ished with Uie 21st Amendment. In 1934. 65 persons were ex ecuted in the Soviet Union fol lowing the "purge trials" al which they were charged with plotting against the Stahn Re gime. A thought for the day - The English satirist, Jonathan Swift, said: "Satire is a tort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's (ace but their own " the tragic atmosphere that sur rounded them. Their s p e e d and firmness were standard operating proce dure for a man long known to his old colleagues in the Senate as Ureless in action and fretful only when there was nothing much that needed to be done. Of these qualities of decision, much more will be seen. Mr. Johnson, in short, has al ways believed, in every office he has held, that the enemy of sound and creative public poli cy is any loss within its leaders of the great elan that comes when the initiative is main tained and fully used. Doubly and triply he believes this to be true of the office of the Presidency, seeing it as the dis tilled and ultimate delegated power of the nation itself a power which must not be al lowed to waste away or to be come diffused into nothingness by absence of bold action at the top. To him a moment lost is not only something to be deplored. It is a grave spoilage. For in his view history in the present world runs with that nation which docs not sit down to rest after each task but finishes one only to reach with zest for another. He w ill, therefore, never care fully divide his duties and pro grams and label them "domes tic" and "foreign," giving pri ority to one or the other. To him, a problem is a problem. Ticket Talked has been an accepted fact of U.S. politics. The art of presidential poli tics will become much more complex and its ability to pick the right men is likely to be much diminished if the bal anced ticket deadweights the system. After religious balance would come racial balance and there after, who knows what balance, further to confuse tlie already imperfect means by which pres ident are nominated for that office. And if there is to be re ligious balance, shall Protest ants and Catholics only be con sidered or, or example, should Jews get their turn? And, if so, how would the choice be made? Perhaps by playing a little game of odd man out. The all - out balanced ticket system is likely lo be accom panied by a strange kind of ra- Purely Personal Prejudices: It is one of the ironies of nature that intelligence and talent do not necessarily go together; and so we find people of talent with out the intelligence to control their gifts, and people of intel ligence without the talent to ex press their perceptiveness. Those who tend to "blame" science for recent frightening developments in warfare and technology should recall what Gustav Le Bon said a long time ago: "Science has promised us truth ... It has never prom ised us either peace or happi ness." Marx and his followers were guilty of a dangerous half truth when they propounded Uie max im that "Tlie moneyed class is not it to rule"; this is true, but they failed to add thai no class is fit lo rule and perhaps the prnletariet least of all. The only time we are willing to admit that there are two sides to every question is when we do not adhere too strongly lo cither side. It is the grandness of sound, rather than the objecUvity of meaning, that sways most of us; for instance, "a Uiousand" sounds greater than "twelve hundred'' because Uie very word "thousand" is more impressive than "hundred," until we take a second look at the context. Tlie most false dichotomy we can make is between "mind" and "emotions" or "heart" and "head " for thinking and feel ing are inseparably linked to one another like the blades of a scissors, and we cannot rut anything accurately or cleanly unless both blades are operating in conjunction Children, unti they are civil ized. tend to laugh at cruelty, deformity or misfortune; in short, at anything they consider aiien or inferior to themselves; as we get older, we discipline these reactions and no lonjer laugh at cruelty, deformity or and the problems and chal lenges of national leadership whether across thousands of miles of ocean or simply up Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill are all big and urgent. He will be neither a "domestic" nor a "foreign affairs" Presi dent. He will only be President, a job he considers to be indivis ible. Even as he is pressing Con gress on his domestic legislative program he will be pressing his purposes on the international scene with what is his greatest operating skill. This is a capa city for persuasion to his point of view already long since known to the world's leaders, some of whom he has already met and will meet again and again. Most of all, he will never wil lingly lose his and the nation's present momentum in behalf ot a rest here and there. He w ill not get from Congress this year all the legislation he wants, and perhaps not even next year. But he will get some of it; and he will always come hack and back until at length he gets it all. And allied stales men and potential enemy chieftains, too will find in him what the late President Kenne dy also found in him: a skilled, seemingly casual negotiator needing no mass of papers and no briefcase, w ith an absolutely untroubled uncertainty as to where the real point in every discussion lies. oial segregation in political of fice. The office of borough pres ident of Manhattan has become a segregated job in New York City. It has become a political tradition to nominate for that post a Negro. There are a few jobs in the federal government thai have come to be consid ered the preserve of a member of a given race or of a woman. Tlie late President named An drew Hatcher as his assistant press secretary. Hatcher was the first Negro in that job. You may be sure that from now on there will be a Negro press sec retary or assistant press sec retary for many, many years to come. So might a religion or a race got a stranglehold on a party's ticket system. We just got rid of the Protestant stranglehold on presidential tickets. We should be too smart to get hooked that wav asain. STRICTLY PERSONAL. By SYDNEY J. HARRIS misfortune in individuals but, rather, we transfer such reac tions to large and anonymous groups of people who, we per mit ourselves tlie luxury of feel ing, are alien and inferior. But are we any better than the chil dren? In a surprisingly large num ber of families, the wrong member is going for psychiatric help: the more disturbed one who is rigidly opposed to gel ting help has driven the more flexible and less disturbed one into treatment which can hard ly have a satisfactory solution. Tlie peril of divided authority was never more forcefully or tersely put than by Napoleon, when he observed: "One bad general does better than two good ones." Every true artist is a moral ist who knows better than to preach; it is only when there is a deficiency of art that the mor alizing seeps through to the sur face and spoils the work. BARBS Why not give black hankies lo all kids who use them to wipe off their shoes? Take care of your health If ynu expect It to take eare of you. Advice to parents: sock the kids who go barefoot in the fall and flirt with a cold. Whe n the prlre of wheat goes up the dealers nay It with flour. A lot of drastic steps are be ing taken by newcomers on bowling alleys. You don't have to he slrk ll break out In a friendly imtle. Work never hurts a man un less he ducks away from it.
