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Beckley Post-Herald from Beckley, West Virginia • Page 4

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Beckley, West Virginia
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4
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BECKLEY POST-HERALD Thinking it Over R.SIDCRIM General Manager EDITORIAL PAGE WALTER C. MASSEY JR. Editor JIM WOOD Managing Editor LYELL B. CLAY Publisher JOHN F. McGEE President Page Four Wednesday Morning, October 12,1977 Costly Maneuver When Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd teamed up with Vice President Walter Mondale to break the Senate filibuster against natural gas deregulation, he earned the enmity of Senate liberals.

Byrd has worked hard to get from Sophia to his present position as one of the most powerful leaders in the country. But that- one maneuver may prove costly to him. There is talk among Senate liberals of possibly putting up a challenger for his job as majority leader. The filibuster was derailed when, apparently according to a prior agreement. Byrd began calling up amendments to an energy bill.

The amendments had been written by filibusterers as a means of slowing down procedures, and they ran into the hundreds. Each time Byrd would call up an amendment, Mon- dale, as presiding officer, would rule it out of order. This tactic killed the amendments and deprived liberal filibusterers of their most potent delaying weapon. a of the filibuster repeatedly protested what Byrd and Mondale were doing, but they were ignored. Now Senate rules governing filibusters and cloture will have to be reviewed in light of the Byrd Mondale maneuver.

And Byrd will have to defend himself against liberals who have revived hostility against him because of his conservative past. The Senate wound up voting to remove controls on new natural gas, which we believe will be good for the country if the measure survives conference. But we will regret it very much if Byrd's career is hurt because he was successful in bringing the filibuster to an end. Air Bag Questions The federal government is vigorously pursuing a policy of having all new cars equipped with air bags. Air bags' have been endorsed by Ralph Nader and many others in the safety and consumerism business.

But does the argument for air bags hold up to scrutiny? Consider this: Air bags don't work in side impacts, rear accidents or rolloVers, and nearly half of all traffic fatalities occur in such crashes. Air bags don't work at all in crash impacts of less than the equivalent of slamming into a parked car at 24 miles per hour. In a government study of 230 tow away crashes of cars equipped with air bags, the bags did not work in 97 of those accidents or 42 per cent of them. In order for motorists to get full protection, they will have to wear iseat belts in having an air bag in their car. So air bags are not the passive protection that they have been billed as.

Air bag supporters argue, however, that if car makers don't want to use air bags, they can equip their cars with passive seat belts -the kind that wrap itselves around passengers as they get into the car. But this is not necessarily true. Passive seat belts can be installed only where a car has bucket seats. They can't be used with bench seats where three passengers sit side by side. Further, tests have shown that passive belts give less protection than the three point belt that has to be fastened It has been thoroughly explained that after a crash in which an air bag-pops out, the cost of replacing the bags and sensors runs from $600" to $900.

Dependence on the air bag will mean that the public will pay more for less protection. The theory behind the passive restraint is that people win be protected in spite of themselves. But if the government put its efforts into persuading people to buckle up, the public would have better protection at less cost. Yesterday And Today The Double-Nickle Blues By WALTER MASSEY Editor I once was a staunch supporter of the 55 miles per hour speed limit. Rationally, I still am.

Emotionally, I'm ambivalent. It started out as the best of ideas. Everyone would stop driving 70 or 75 miles per hour and quit wasting all that fuel. The -internal combustion engine is more efficient at 55 mph than at 75 mph. The nation, therefore, would save a lot of gasoline millions of gallons if everyone would abide by the law.

When the 55 mph speed limit was first put into effect, people overwhelmingly obeyed it. That was just after the Arab oil embargo, and everyone knew full well that we had an energy crisis. Everyone wanted to do his part- After a while of almost universal observance of the 55 mph speed limit, it became clear that an unexpected benefit was being derived: Fewer people were being killed on the highways. It became evident that the 55 mph speed limit was good for the country in more ways than one. Of course, the nation could have had a mph speed limit years before the Arab oil embargo.

It was only common sense that if the whole country slowed down, fewer people would be killed. BUT AMERICANS are peculiar. Saving lives was not important enough to drive slowly for. Energy conservation -for a while at least was. When it comes to highway accidents, everyone seems to think that it's always the other guy who gets into a wreck.

We Americans have a certain fatalism. The government could, hire statisticians to stand in our ddriveways and give us the odds every time we got into the car on whether we would make it through tlte trip alive but who would be deterred? Driving a car is dangerous business. All of us know it is, but we will flirt with death to cut thirty minutes off a long trip. In the big cities, you see drivers taking their lives in their hands as they weave in and out of heavy traffic. With luck, they will advance five car lengths in the process.

Meanwhile, they have used up more lives than a cat. So, Americans are not very safety conscious. To the average driver, the prospects of always driving safely is a big bore. The idea is to get there in a hurry. Have you ever heard of someone finishing a long trip and bragging about how safely they drove? Unlikely.

More often, you hear about how they used their CB radio, put the hammer down and cut three hours off a thousand mile trip. We love to get there fast, hang the risks. --0-IF MOTORISTS are not motivated by the urge to stay alive, then what about energy conservation as a motive for 'er on the double nickles? Sorry. Most Americans don't believe in the energy crisis anymore. They know that gasoline costs more, but there's plenty of it and.

besides, the price of everything else has gone up so why not gasoline, too? It doesn't matter that the worlds reserves of oil are steadily running out or that the nation now spends $45 billion a year on imported oil. It doesn't matter that our trade deficit is heavily in the red and that we aren't exporting enough to pay for our oil imports. Nor does it matter that the American standard of living is dropping as the dollar devalued in relation to the currencies other nations. What matters is how impessed even-body back home will be when you come roliing in and show 'em how you averaged 64.3 miles per hour over a 500 mile stretch, and that includes one stop for hamburgers and three stops to let the kids uses the rest room. "Boy.

that's movin' on." your friends say. "Yeah, ain't it?" you reply. Plumbery Friend FACT IS, not very many motorists obey the 55 mph limit anymore. If you get but on an Interstate and try to drive 55 mph, you'll find an angry Mac truck on your bumper threatening to roll right over you. You might make it all right on an open stretch in the country where there's room to pass you.

But if you do it while going through a big traffic is heavy and everybody's in a hurry, you'll he lucky to see sundown. I have made two roundtrips of 1,000 miles lately. In the process, I have driven through West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama. In this accumulation of 2,000 miles of driving. I saw a lot of big trucks cruising at 70 and a lot of passenger cars passing them like they were tied to posts.

Maybe the 55 mph limit is being obeyed somewhere, but it doesn't seem to be in the Southeast. We're becoming a nation of scofflaws and bandits. We aren't slowing down, we're just trying to keep from getting caught by the s'tate police. All of this makes me wonder about the 55 mph limit. As an idea, it's great.

It just isn't working. Unless some leadership is exerted, it'll go the way of prohibition. It may already be too late for the 55 mph limit to be saved. Andrew Tully Ending Federal Pensions WASHINGTON Consider the Social Security tax. Congress has imposed this levy on the public, but not on itself or on the federal bureaucracy.

As a result, members of Congress and federal workers get higher benefits from their own pension plans when they retire. In the federal bureaucracy, employes pay seven per cent of their salaries into the pen- start system. This is matched by a seven per cent contribution by the government Benefits are worth an average of S670 a month. Congressional pensions, it goes without saying, are much higher. (Those jokers on Capitol Hill alawys take care of No.

1). Jack Anderson Carter Orders Embargo Study Postmark Hobby By SHIRLEY DONNELLY Eddie Cox 1106 Maxwell Hill Road, Beckley, has an interesting hobby of West Virginia history import. He goes in for collecting West Virginia postmarks. Incidentally, the Beckley man, confesses that "Being a West Virginia history enthusiast, I thoroughly enjoy- reading your column in the Beckley Post "I have especially enjoyed reading about the Lilly clan, as my mother is the daughter of the late Eli 0. Lilly, a Primitive Baptist minister for some 50 years." WHILE Eddie Cox has a lot of West Virginia postmarks he is still on the prowl for more.

Says Eddie: "I have a postmark of all the post offices that are now "in operation in West greatest thrill is in searching and finding older postmarks of fices that have ceased operation. "While I have many of the closed offices, there are many I am still searching for. I was wondering if you might by chance have a I postmark of Sun, Thayer and Kaymoor with which you would I "These I have searched for but to no My collection of I these postmarks is housed in six large three ring It is I most colorful with all the different stamps attached." In ending his letter to me, Cox continues, "Again, I want you to know I enjoy reading all your writings." Note: It is refreshing to learn that Eddie Cox is one who gives a body his flowers when he can smell 'em. Big wreathes of costly floral tributes don't help a fellow a bit when he is all astrut with pink embalming fluid and surviving friends, if any, walk by and say, "Doesn't he look natural?" IT WOULD be of no little interest to know exactly how many post offices West Virginia has had since June 20,1863. Not long ago a reader wrote and asked me for data and location of Carthage post office.

It was found out that the Carthage office was located In a hollow that was but a whoop and a holler from where I landed in America. I had a guide take me to the spot in one of those army jeeps. The house is still standing which housed the office in the days oi long ago. FAYETTE COUNTY, the county where I live, had but four post offices when the county was formed in 1831. They were Coal River Marshes, Gauley Bridge, Sewell Mountain and Mountain Cove.

Fifteen years later 1846 Fayette County had seven offices. They were Beckley (Raleigh C.H.), Coal River Marshes, Gauley Bridge, Fayette Court House, Locust Lane (Lookout) Mountain Cove and Sewell Mountain. In 1955 Fayette county had a total of 76 post offices. Long ago some of the offices with colorful names such as "Ravens Eye" were discontinued. By the way, Ravens Eye office was about half-a-mile up the James River and Kanawha Turnpike from the Old Stobe House a stage coach stop, near Cliff Top.

It was given its name when established in honor of the black eyes of the lady who was its first postmaster. Her eyes were as black as a raven's wing. While on the subject of a woman being the head man in a post office she Is never a "postmistress." She is always the "postmaster." THERE IS a real pretty young lady who is one of my cherished name sakes. She is the former Shirley 'Donnelly McQuade, oldest of the 15 children of Joe and Marion McQuade of South Hills at Oak Hill. When she was a little girl I was away in the army in World War n.

She set about collecting envelopes with stamps on them from every one of the. states in the nation. I helped her collect them by writing her from whatever state I chanced to be in. When an officer from my post was being transferred to a certain state, I would address a letter to Shirley McQuade and ask him to post it when he reached his destination in that state. In that way Shirley got a letter cover, stamp and all, from each of our states.

By the by, Shirley will be getting her Doctor's degree In higher mathematics from the University of Wisconsin this very month of October. She is an intellectual who has authored a book on mathematics. About all I know about mathematics is that two and two make four and they don't make anything Dullards in mathematics, one of whom I'm which, were not born under the same star as was Albert Einstein! WASHINGTON'-- President Carter has ordered the National Security Council to assess the effects another oil embargo would have on the United States. The secret study will analyze how vulnerable the United States has become and how the government might i overseas oil supplies should be cut off. Energy Secretary James Schlesinger has concluded darkly that the continued flow of Middle East oil into country is less ain that at any since the 1973 Arab oil embargo, confidential sources report.

The United States has become more dependent, meanwhile, on foreign oil fields. This country now imports 8.7 million barrels of oil a day. This is two million barrels more than the daily intake only two years ago. Yet oil is the'lifeblood that keeps the nation throbbing. Without overseas oil, the industry wheels would slow down and the highways would start to empty.

Even the nation's military machine would have to curtail its operations. ayi "The Senate filibustered all last week. We pay for wisdom and get wind!" 29.192S. I Selected and edited bv Brvan Sterling -Mi 'ighn reserved "or we Rogers 'Memorial. Iree Will Rogers lea 'otig.

slamDea, selt-aOdre In Will Roceri Leaflet. koines, lowo 50306 SO LAST JUNE, President.Carter ordered'a secret review of the nation's vulnerability. The exhaustive, four month study is now nearing completipn. The findings probably will be too sensitive to release to the public. The security analysts are'studying several possible scenarios.

They are particularly concerned, for example, that a sudden disruption of the international oil flow could cause a confrontation in Europe between the Soviet bloc and NATO nations over oil. One intelligence official stressed: "Oil is terribly important in national security affairs." The most likely result, according to sources familiar with the National Security Council review, will be tighter control of oil imports and a dramatic acceleration of the strategic oil program. OVERSEAS oil already is going into the strategic reserves in case of a future emergency. Schlesinger "would like to put as much oil in the ground as pos- sible." one administration source explained. Critics contend, however, that Schlesinger puts too much emphasis on conserving oil and not enough emphasis on replacing it.

Since the world consumes oi! faster than nature creates it, they argue, the world inevitably must run short of oil. They believe Schlesinger's first priority, therefore, should be to find a substitute for oil. Administration officials have indicated to us. meanwhile, that the president will start using his executive authority if Congress doesn't help him reduce oil imports. He may have to resort to using the Trade Expansion Act, they said, to curtail imports with fees and tariffs.

Footnote: Foreign oil purchases are also giving Treasury officials a four a i i a a "There's no question," an official told us, "that the balance of payments is causing concern at the highest levels." THE CARTER administration is fully aware of human rights violations in Panama, but has remained silent so far to avoid upsetting the Panama Canal treaty negotiations. One highly placed State Department olllclal conceded privately to our reporter Julia Keller that Panama "has areas in need of improvement," including abuses of human rights. Another official added that State cannot criticize Panama for such violations "until the Panama Canal treaty is in the bag." At the same time, presidential assistant Peter Bourne was recently reminded by the Panamanian Committee for Human Rights that, as we report in 197.1, the family of Panama strongman Gen. Omar Torrijos was involved in narcotics smuggling and that the State Department tried to cover it up- Bourne told the spokesman the White House didn't want to "ruffle feathers" during the sensitive, negotiations. Meanwhile, Mrs.

Leopoldo Aragon, widow of the, Panamanian writer who recently immolated himself to protest the canal treaty, plans to tell the House about tortue, kidnapping and forced exile under Torrijos. For the record, however, the administration insists it is "not aware" of any human rights violations in Panama. The Panamanian embassy has also denied such violations. THE JUSTICE Department has been accused of gypping American television makers out of hundreds of millions of dollars in favor of 18 Japanese competitors. In a scorching confidential letter to Assistant Attorney General John Shenefield, the nation's antitrust chief.

Sen, Birch Bayh, blasted the department deference to suspected antitrust violators." Shenefield has promosed Congress he would subpoena vital documents in the case. But Bayh charges he has double crossed Congress by indicating he would drop the case without issuing a single subponena. Roared Bayh: "The American television industry has been nearly decimated over the past 10 years by the operation of what appears to be a classic and illegal cartel." But Shenefield told us he is trying to persuade the Japanese and their American -competition to voluntarily surrender necessary documents. NOW THEN. Under Social Security, a worker and his employer each pays 5.86 per cent on the first earned.

At the same time, however, both the employe in private industry and his employer are taxed to provide their government's sven per cent contribution to the federal pension fund. The obvious.question is why workers and private industry should finance not only the workers' own. relatively meager, pension plan, but also con- to the fat benefits paid to members of Congress -nd the federal bureaucracy. Something now may be done about this inequitable situation. To be sure, that something is no bigger than a man's little finger, but it could be a start.

The House Ways and Means Committee has voted by 23 to 12 to start phasing out the Civil Service retirement system and bring 2.4 million federal into the Social Security system on Jan. 1. 1982. The committee vote was aimed at giving aid and comfort to Social Security by eliminating the deficits that have plagued that compulsory pension plan. Belatedly.

Congress has been forced to admit that if nothing is done the financial integrity of Social Security will be destroyed. If passed by Congress the Ways and Means plan would pump an additional estimated S13 billion into the Social Security trust fund in 1982. That money is badly needed to restore public confidence--not only among the 33 million Social Security beneficiaries but among those workers in the private sector nearing retirement age. Moreover, bringing public employes into Social Security would remove particularly irritating issue. Today, a federal employe can retire at age 55.

If he has previously worked in private industry or takes a private job after retirement, he can qualify for a second pension under Social Security. As voted by Ways and Means, the pros proposed legislation also would make participation in Social Security mandatory for all 12 million state and local government employes. For the nongovernmental working stiff, this would be a bonanza. the small society by Brickman Star Syndicate, Inc FOR EXAMPLE, it would eliminate "pension hopping." Under this popular loophole, a public employe may work for years as a carbon paper guard, then get appointed to a higher paying job just before he retires and get all his years as a flunky credited under his new higher salary to get an inflated pension benefit. In New York, the practice is notorious.

Only an employe's last year of work including overtime determines his pension base. In Tennessee, reformers pushed through legislation under which a state worker gets a pension baaed exclusively on the money he paid into the fund, plus the state or local government's matching contribution. Naturally, howls have been raised by federal employe unions over phasing out the present system bureaucratic benefits would still be higher than those of the private Social Security pensioner. But this is an idea whose-time has come. Congress will dawdle at its political peril.

Social Security pensioners and future eligibles out vote the total of public workers at every governmental level by more than 6 to 1..

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About Beckley Post-Herald Archive

Pages Available:
124,252
Years Available:
1930-1977