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About Herald and news. (Klamath Falls, Or.) 1942-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 10, 1963)
r PAGE- IIKKALD AM) NEWS, Klamath Kails, Oregon Tuesday, December 10, 1961 'Whatever Became of Lyndon Johnson -That Fine Southern Gentleman?" WILLIAM S. WHITE LBJ Pushes Tax Slice Barometers Of Prosperity Business trends were good for Klam ath Falls for the first 10 months of this year. In all the happenings at the end of No vember, we completely overlooked the busi ness trends of the area as published in the Klamath Keynotes, chamber of commerce bulletin. One would naturally expect the cham ber bulletin to be optimistic, but little ma nipulating can be done with figures on such things as bank debits, postal receipts, parking meter receipts, building permits and water users. These items provide a pretty accurate barometer of economic conditions in the area. As of November, they presented a pic ture of a sound, progressively healthy econ omy on the local scene. Bank debits, which indicate the rate of turnover of money in the community were up $35 million over comparable figures for 19G2. This is a sizeable jump. Postal receipts also reflected a con siderable boost upward. Despite all the at tendant problems of post office moving, re ceipts soared from $331,000 to over $392,- mpede There is strong evidence that the amendments which Congress (in a state of shock over the drug thalidomide) tacked onto the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act last year now threaten to impede medical progress in this country. . Although it is still loo early to assess the full impact of the new laws on drug research, some ominous signs have already appeared. The most recent arc contained in the findings of a survey by Dr. William M. M. Kirby,. Professor of Medicine at the Uni versity of Washington School of Medicine. Dr. Kirby surveyed 650 medical school in vestigators on their reactions to the strin gent drug testing regulations issued by the Secretary, Health, Education & Welfare, in the wake of the Congressional drug amend ments. Here are some of the things Dr Kirby reported at a .recent meeting of the Associa tion of the American Medical Colleges in Chicago: "A .substantial majority (57 per cent) of those medical investigators responding, indicated interference with research." Their ibitial reaction to the New Drug Regulations is) one of "concern and alarm," Kirby re ported, and there is "at present a strong tendency to abandon the field of drug re search rather than enlarge and improve it." Dr. Kirby also stated that almost three out of four medical researchers who an swered the survey questionnaire said they FTsT' WASHINGTON CALLING . . Ily MAUIR IS C1IILDS WASHINGTON - Of all the memorials (o President Kenne dy none promises more for (lie future than one which In a dense he initialed himself. In tlie deep frulralion he experienced in Ihc last months of In.' Administration, as a halky and often hostile Congress lield up the principal proposals in his legislative program, one. satisfaction stood out. 'Mint was tlw $329,0(10.000 mental health prop-am finally passed and signed into law. Willi the liclp of powerful allies in ami out of Congress he had pushed this im portant step quietly und per sistently. Although Congress cut his ini tial request by more llwin half, sliearing away important as pects of (lie program, it is nev ertheless a big step forward The goal is community mental health centers which, in the tes timony of Dr. Robert H. Felix, director of the National Insti tute of Mental Health, can cut down care in instiUilions by half within 15 years. One of Kenne dy's last acts on tlw day be fore he was assassinated was to send Congress budgetary re quests for Uireo of tlie five sep arate programs so tlicy could be started as quickly as possi ble. How much this meant to Uie lata President lie revealed to only a few friends and co-wot k ers. Behind the triumphs of the Kennedy family, their worldly success, was a private sorrow. The eldest daughter Rosemary, mentally retarded, lias spent 000 for the first 10 months of this year. That's a boost of $61,000. Building permits also reflected a sharp upward trend. While there were a number of reasons for it, the total of building con struction in the city jumped from $2,821,000 in 19G2 to $5,744,000 for the same period of 1963. That is a jump of about 100 per cent. Even the number of water users inside the city limits came in for a significant in crease. The average number of water users in the city for 1962 was 9.488. This climbed to 9,606 for the first 10 months of this year, an increase of 118 new water users, or more accurately 118 new added families in the community. One area that failed to reflect signifi cant growth, however, was the receipts from the parking meters in the downtown areas. The net increase in receipts from park ing meters for the first 10 months of the year totalled exactly one dollar. Receipts through October rose from $48,756 in 1962 to $48,757 in 1963. One can easily gather from these re vealing facts that the community is healthy, economically, and moving toward one of its finest business years. Medical Progress would be reluctant to undertake future stud ies of new drugs because of the vastly in creased paper work now required by the gov ernment regulations. "Unfortunately," Kirby said, "The restrictive requirements aimed at policing unqualified investigators actually apply to all investigators, and may, it is feared, greatly hamper the efforts of quali fied scientists." Concluded Dr. Kirby: "It is evident from the results of this questionnaire that the new regulations have not been received enthusiastically by medical school investi gators. Far from participating much more actively in studies involving new drugs, thereby improving scientific merit as well as increasing drug safety, clinical investi gators in academic institutions are likely to undertake less of this type of research." Coining as it docs on the heels of the disclosure by Dr. Austin Smith, President of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Associa tion, that several of the nation's major drug producers have curtailed research and de velopment of new drugs. Dr. Kirby's find ings focus further attention on the danger of excessive government regulation of scientific research, particularly in the med ical field. Certainly the public has a right to ex pect safe drugs, but this nation lias far too great a stake in Ihc continuation of medical progress to allow burdensome laws and reg ulations to block the quest for new, life sav ing drugs. Measure Is Memoria much of her lite in an institu tion. This gaie .IKK special inter est in mental rehabilitation and psychiatric care. The Joseph I'. Kennedy Jr. Foundation was given large sums for the study of retardation. The President's concern as, however, much broader than this one phase of a brunch of medicine still in a tonnative stale and in urgent need ol ex pansion Mli in research and in training. He was convinced that the program he initiated would provide a broad, new base for treatment of the mentally sick He felt gratified llvat at Wast a start li.nl been made. l.ee Harvey Oswald, it has boon disclosed, showed in curly akilcsconce symptoms of a se rious mental disorder. That was wlulo he lived briefly in New York. Commitment for psvcln atric care was recommended but never carried out. Facili ties are always overcrowded, waiting lists long. Oswald and his mother resumed the wan dering th.K took tliem from stale to stale hi search of a livelihood. Who can say that Hie course of history would not liave been different if this sick adolescent, growing into warped and men acing manhood, had had ade quate care or had il necessary been confined. And who can say how many Oswalds, harboring murderous hale and paranoid lear and suspicion, are abroad in the land? Thousands of words have been written since die assassination about the sick hatreds that have spread like a plague in recent years. It may be that this ter rible act will mean a true awak ening and put a stop, as Presi dent Johnson so movingly said, to the virulence that breeds vi olence ami a defiance of law. The border line between rea son and irrationality is a n a r row one. That any substantial number of Americans could fol low a leader who found John Foster and Allen Dulles to be members of Uie Conuntmist con spiracy and General Eisenhow er a dupe if not an agent of that conspiracy is liard to be lieve. Likewise that any consid erable number of Americans could have accepted the d i c tales of Leninism and the sav agery of Stalinism that followed scorned impossible. Yd, (lie damage that even a few disciples of the extremes of hate and violence can do is groat. II lies not alone in a sin gle act, however monstrous 1'oisomng the wells of thought and belief is as destructive in Uie long pull as lo poison the source of the water we drink. Tlie mental health progiam now adopted will mean a gicat upsurge in mental care and un derstanding of the p r o b I e m throughout tin- nation. Congress has an opportunity lo act quick ly lo repair tlie damage done during passage of Uie measure. Tlie most serious blow was elimination of help in the slav ing of the local mental health centers. Kennedy said so often, "II is better to light a candle than to curse tlie darkness." As a tes tament to tlie belief in reason of a martyred President no light could shine so far. EPSON IN WASHINGTON . . . -Our Spur By PETER EDSON Washington Correspondent Newspaper Enterprise Assn. WASHINGTON I NEA - In creased consumer expenditures for 1903, continuing well into V.KA, are predicted by the lat est reports from U.S. Depart ments of Commerce, Agricul ture and Labor. Since consumer purchases ac count for two-thirds of the total sales of goods and services in the United Stales, these fore casts give a good indication of business trends. For the six months immedi ately ahead, Ihc Department of Commerce reports high c o n sumer buying intentions on au tos, houses and huusehold appli ance, the so-called hard goods. Reporting a record personal income at the annual rate of $470 billion for October, the Department of Commerce cred its the recent pay raise granted U.S. armed forces for one-thud of the S3 billion increase over September. The increase over October 1962 is five per cent, or $22 bil liun. Another five per cent in crease is predicted for 14. All this adds lo purchasing power, so it is a direct stimulus to the economy. Principal focus of the Depart ment of Agriculture's Oullouk Conlerence, held at this time every year, is on the prospects for farm production, prices and marketings. Farm output this year will be about 10 per cent above the 1937-39 average, establishing a new record high of $41 billion. Willi higher farm costs, howev er, the net may be below liltB's $12.o billion, and a little lower, in 19114. Along with the commodity forecasts, the Outlook Confer ence holds four half-day s o s sions on family living. This jear analysts from Agriculture's Bu reau of Family Economics and the Bureau of Labor Statistics have come up with new materi al to show changing trends in consumer budgets. This is the result of the first survey in 20 jears on com parative spending by urban, rural and rural nonfarm fam ilies. Preliminary data indicate av erage spending by city families has risen from S3.8CO in 1930 to $o.3(ij in I960. Food. clothing, house furnish ings and recreation now account for smaller shares of tlie spend ing than 10 years ago. Shelter, utilities, medical care, educa tion and transportation take larger shares. Although tlie consumers' price index, or cost of living, rose 24 per cent in tins decade, toed expenditures are reported lo hae dropped from 29 per cent of tlie family income to 24 per cent. The reason given is that while per capita consumption of Al manac By I nitcd Press International Today is Tuesdav . Dec. 10, the 344th day of 19K1 with 21 to bil low. Tlie moon is approaching its new phase. Tlie evening slat s are Jupiler, Saturn and Venus. Those born today include American poet Emily Dickinson, in 18.10. On this day in history: In 1S17. Mississippi was ad mitted into the I imm as the 20th state. In law, Spain signed the Treaty of Tans officially end ing Uie Spanish-American War and giving Guam, Puerto Rico Spending Spree; To The Economy meats has increased, consump tion of cereals has declined. Increased home ownership from 53 per cent of all dwell ings in 1030 to 62 per cent in I960 and increased ownership of automobiles from 5a per cent of the families in 1930 to 72 per cent in 1960 account for larger expenditures. A continuing shift from nat ural to synthetic fibers is cred ited with reduction of fam.ly clothing expenditures. Lowered prices on household appliances f'om the Korean war days to la:i0 account for another drop. Food produced fur farm-home consumption has dropped from 57 per cent of the retail value in 1941 to 40 per cent in lil'10. Deflecting tlie increase of off farm employment in rural fam ilies, 88 per cent of the rural families owned cars in I960, and one-fourth of them were two-car families. If these trends of the last decade or Iwo continue, rural family spending patterns are expected to become much more like those of urban families. The proportion of shelter, transpor tation, medical care and educa tion expenses will rise. The pro portion for home furnishings, clothing and perhaps food will decrease. As a basis for comparison, this is the budget given for an average family with expen ditures of $3.3113 in 1960 with item, cost and percentage in that order: Food, at and away f r o m home. $1,300, 24 4: housing and furnishings. $1,590, 29.6: cloth ing and services, $350, 10.2; medical and personal care. S500, 9.3: recreation and edu cation, $325, 6.0: transportation, $790, 14.7; tobacco, alcohol, miscellaneous, $'110, 5.8. There is a kind of magic in the naming of a large sum of money, a sort of incantation that hypnotizes people into tak ing tlie name for the fact the way a child uses "a million dol lars" to express some infinite and unattainable sum at the rainbow's end. 1 thought of this while over liearing two women in the booth next to me at lunch, who were talking about a television come dienne recently signed to a 10 year contract for $t,000.000 by a network. The wemen seemed to feel that this was a staggering sum lo receive. It amounts lo $100,000 a year. If tlie performer receives this as straight salary land not as capital gain', she will pay abom half of it m federal tax es, otf Uie top. Another 10 per cent will go tn her agent. Her lawyers wiil re ceive a substantial cut. Her personal manager must be paid out of this, as well as her pub licity man. And. in most cases, comedians pay the writers of their material out of their own iiuvme. Out of tlie half remaining, then, she is lucky if she retains and the Philippine Islands to the L'nited States. In 1901. distribution of the fust Nobel Prizes got under way on Hie death anniversary of Al fred Nobel. In 1941, Japanese troops land ed on Northern Luzon in the Philippines. thought for the day Emily Dickinson. Uie American poet, said. "Success is counted sweet est by those who never succeed." Bv WILLIAM S. WHITE WASHINGTON - President Johnson is moving powerfully to isolate and break all Con gressional opposition to the tax reduction bill, one of the two great legislative priorities of his Administration, by removing the one biggest objection to it. This is high governmental spending. He has done so by anticipat ing by several days what he knew would be an inevitably renewed Republican attack on the bill once the first period of mourning for the late President Kennedy had ended. Even as Rep. Charles Halleck of Indi ana, the Republican leader of the House, was reopening warn ings that tax cuts must be ac companied by "commensurate" cuts in federal spending, the President had already put in motion a series of measures to lead to demonstrable savings lor the current fiscal year. These are Mr. Johnson's first steps to redeem the pledge he made in last week's message to Congress to "get a dollar's value lor a dollar spent." What it amounts to is not a counterattack upon congres sional resistance lo tax cuts without spending cuts. It is a campaign to convince the most doubtful that the second will in fact march along with the first. It is. in the President's view, a question not of fighting but of leading Congress. Mr. Johnson's principal ally "in this campaign is Secretary Letters To The Editor Food On Credit If we are going to give away our surpluses, why not give them to people who really need them and w ill work to earn them? Allowing the Soviet Bloc to have cur focd on credit is equivalent to giving it to them. They haven't been paying their bills. In this ca-e the taxpay ers of the USA would have to. The food would be used to lur tlier communism. Why give focd to people who plan to eventually bury us? If their people are hungry, they have gold to buy focd for them. Or would they rather build bombs to kill us than feed their own people? There are many people in Ihe world who will work to im prove their lot by building schools, irrigation systems, hos pitals and any number of use ful projects, taking their pay (or labor rendered in food. Why not give our surpluses lo them? You can do this through organ izations like CROP or Church World Service. You can give your surpluses direct or cash lo buy up surpluses. Y o u r church will take care of your gift- If our economy is stagnant STRICTLY PERSONAL. By SYDNEY J. HARRIS a half of that. Her personal en tourage will include a maid, a hairdresser, a wardrobe super visor. Her living expenses, sim ply to maintain theatrical stan dards in New York, will be crushing. At the end of tlie vear, unless slie is able to supplement her income through personal ap pearances or other marguial ac tivities, she is quite likely to be broke. For she is being paid ui modern "paper" money, that sounds big in print, but lacks the real substance out of which profits are made. We are living in a paper econ omy. Salaries sound high, but they are illusory, and still based on standards we dimly remem ber from a quarter-century ago. The "bile" taken out by taxes, heightened living expenses, and the shrinking power of the dol lar, makes such figures almost meaningless, and always mis leading. A man making $200 a week 20 years ago would have been able to accumulate more prop erty and more savings tluin the comedienne making $1,000,000 for the next 10 years. Money has only relative value, and no absolute value it is relative not only to lime and place, but also to the needs and activities of Ihe persons who earn it. A country doctor earning even $1,000 a vear today may be rel atively better otf than an ac tress making 10 times as much in Hollywood or Manhattan. Ab solute figures in money hi.ve as Uitie signiticance as absolute temperatures for 20 below zero in dry skiing country, as every one knows, is not nearly as cold as 15 ahoe zero in the damp and windv citv But the njacic el the big nunSier moves us all. of Defense Robert McNamara. They are putting massive pres sure on defense contractors, to whum goes a vast percentage of this government's total outlays, to reduce not their output of arms but their cost figures for (hose arms. II is being made perfectly plain that contractors persistently refusing to cooper ate in stripping otf all expend able fat from the military budg et will not be looked upon kind ly when contract-renewal lime comes. And officials all over the gov ernme'it are getting this poig nant message from headquar ters: Fellows, one of the best ways to look for promotion in the bureaucracy is to find and orint nut specific places where avoidable expenses can be end ed. Within the Pentagon alone, the President has set an objec tive of actually accomplished savings of $1.5 billions in this fiscal year. That this is a fixed demand, and not a pious hope, is being drummed into evcrvbody in official Washing Ion in an unmistakable way by a President who is in a hurry on this matter and is making certain thai everybody knows it. He has not only so advised nil principal officials in writing. He is calling them in. one by one. to emphasize the point face to face. Favorable congressional ac tion on the tax bill the meas ure which held the highest pri because of surpluses, we should do something about it. But let's give it to needy people w h o want lo help themselves and not to those whose leaders w ish we'd all drop dead. Frances Ray, Ralston, Wash. Pet Killed During early November, friends of mine left their black Labrador retriever with us for safe keeping while they were away. He was a lovable, affec tionate dog. Our children played w ith him all of the time. Coffee disappeared Thanksgiv ing morning. We reported it to local and state police and the city and county dog pounds, but it was not until an ad appeared in the losl and found column of the Herald and News that we learned anything of his where abouts. A neighbor reported having heard a muffled gun shot and later found tlie dog in an alley, about two and one-half blocks from our home. We do not know whether this was the work of juveniles or adults, but in any case the shooting of firearms within Ihe city limits is a misdemeanor and makes the neighborhood un safe for small animals, as well as our children w ho play in and around the parks. Sy Rcdakowski. 1515 Eldorado Street. Smear At Work I would like to draw your at tention to a statement in your paper of Dec. 4 on page four. You quoted Sen. Stephen M. Young of Ohio as referring to fellow Americans as people who u-c "lunatic, right - wing vio lence." It is hard (or me to believe that a man who is smart enough to be a U.S. Senator would make such an un-Christian statement. I would rather think that some left wing, lunatic smear artist is at work. Possibly you can tell me why "We're jof to ttep meeting people will think BERRY S WORLD ority with the late President Kennedy is of enormous im portance to the new adminis tration. First, the President sees it as an urgent requirement of Ihe national economy and an earned reward for business. Second, he is quite determined It carry out his promise to the late President to do his damned est tn put tax reduction throuali. Third, this is both the first maior challenge and the first realistic opportunity for the new President to vindicate in a new ottice his old reputation a a master worker on Caoitol Hill. President Johnson's No. 1 pri. nrity enactment of a c i v i I rights bill is receiving perhaps even more urgent treatment at the White House. No informed man. however, supposes that, given the best of fortune, it can be passed within the short time remaining of this year. With the tax bill there is just a thin ghost of a chance to bring off a j victory before the old year ends. The all-out mish now ordered bv Speaker of the House John W. McCo-mnck lo bring the civ il rights hill to Ihe House floor by-passing the traffic-regulating Rules Committee, if neces sarv has improved civil rights prospects in the House. All the same, there is yet a brooding Senate lo contend with. An infi nite persuasiveness w ill be need ed lo bring it around to action on the section to forbid racial discrimination in private busi ness. so many newspapers go so far out of their way lo smear peo ple who are doing all they know how to keep this country out of the hands of communism? You never pass up a chance to smear such great Americans as Joe McCarthy and Richard M. Nixon: men who sacrificed their political career to rid this country of men who were anti American. I am not a Republican nor am I a Democrat, but if I were forced to make a decision, I would choose the lesser of the two evils and be a Republican. W. Woods, Dorris, Calif. America United During the lasl ten 'days, much was said about President' Kennedy's life and death. The sorrow of ihe nation, of the whole world, is beginning to calm down, bul the light burn ing at his grave will show us Ihe way lo love God. our coun try and every fellowman. What I have experienced dur ing Ihose tragic days was some thing I had never hoped to see during my lifetime. I h a v e seen our America united. Mat ter of fact, practically t h e whole world became like one nation, and even our worst ene mies had a kind word to say about someone we loved. Also. I have seen all church es united in fervent prayer. How much God must have been longing to see that day. How very much He must have been pleased. It was so peaceful during those four days. Not a word of hatred from anyone. With all the business, commercials and lies set aside. I believe for the first time in many, many years God was able to take a" long walk upon this earth, and say. 1 think, "People can hear me now." If President Kennedy could have spoken to us during those days, he would have said, "It was well worth it to die." Mrs. Frank Krok, 604 N. 7th St. in the museum, Arnold . we're gone artyl" I
