The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 31

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1988- Lettcrs to the editor THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR- B-17 Pondering the progress of blacks Narth Amtric Syndtcatt Tom Uicker fought for life, not death: for family unity, not selfish concerns of "my life" or "my body." Isn't It sad that out of wedlock births of my people are epidemic: that "father" has become a title and not a circumstance; that fathers run from responsibility In droves: that my people flock to the abortion clinics because pregnancy Is inconvenient and. besides, where Is the father? Indeed. I cannot reconcile what has happened to my people since slavery. We have gained freedom, but at what price? To what do we owe our current circumstances? Dred Scott was a wrong decision morally speaking, and our nation turned from it with much soul-wrenching and bloodshed. Let's use this time of commemoration of black history for serious and searching answers to fundamental questions.

Let's re-lnstlll In our children the preclousness of life, even In the womb, and the blessings of correct and honorable relationships our ancestors could only dream about. NOLAN GOUDEAUX Indianapolis of America's future As a black American who has spent more than a decade in government service and one who respects history as a good teacher of life's complexities, this letter is offered on the subject of ISiack History Month. Sharing the noble and grand heritage of my people with my children presents me with a strange dilemma: Have we as a people truly progressed from the debacle of slavery and ascended to a grander and nobler plane? Many years ago. our Supreme Court rendered its famous decision of Dred Scott vs. Sanford.

It is a complex case In many ways but its meaning then was clear: Slavery was a legal reality and black slaves were mere chattel who could not attain citizenship without either an amendment to the Constitution or a change in the law. Indeed, as constitutional law goes, the court was correct though morally bankrupt. So the circumstances of the slaves In the South remained unchanged as the swirl of controversy around the Issue began to increase. I often ponder the circumstances of my ancestors: how my forefather felt when he loved a woman but could not marry her; when he and she secretly came together without the master's approval: when she gave birth to a child knowing that she could not Influence the child's future without the master's hand; when her heart broke with anguish at the sale of her child to another slave owner, literally tearing a relationship to shreds. In recalling these circumstances, my heart too, sometimes aches.

But there was hope then, and a change was going to come. In the 1850s and 1860s. the abolition movement gained great impetus from the perverseness of the Dred Scott decision. The abolitionists with financial support of many others who could stomach slavery no longer, framed the issue In volatile terms: slavery equals death, not life; slavery Is America's greatest sin. So there was always hope for my ancestors.

There would be a time when life would have meaning a chance to be a father, a provider, a protector, a A nation accustomed to thinking of Itself as No. 1 in the world's economy has had a rude awakening. Almost as shaking has been the realization that neither are we any longer No. 1 militarily. There can be no such thing between nuclear-armed superpowers which also are prone to stumble Into quagmires like Vietnam and Afghanistan, where their kind of power doesn't work well.

Reagan's swollen budgets notwithstanding. U.S. military pre-eminence exists today only in the spurious dreams of those at the drawing boards of a Strategic Defense Initiative that may never fly. EVERY DAY, moreover, the more specific crises of the times burst from the headlines. U.S.

businessmen, following the shuttle failures, turn to the Soviet Union for ventures Into space. California passes a law to force companies to post warnings about the toxic effect of 29 common industrial and commercial substances, with 149 others later to be added to the list of public dangers. Not Just Colombia but Panama and perhaps Honduras are taken over by an illicit drug empire that relies pri marily oil eager American consumers, many of them school-age. ao ii ncuncr surprising nor dismaying if Americans, for these and other reasons, no longer look to the future with boundless, sometimes mindless optimism. The new realism.

If sustained. Is badly needed. It's better to see things as they are than through the eyes of boomers and promoters, from whose lurid pitch so much wastage and deception already has resulted. Besides, If Americans stop looking so eagerly to the future, maybe they can begin to look with more Interest and understanding to the past from whence, after all, they came. N.V.

Tlmtt Niwi Strvlct A vision New York No one should be surprised It may even be salutary that some Americans have confessed to poll takers that they no longer believe the nation's future will be better than Its present or its past. These Americans were only acknowledging what has long been happening but too many of us have refused to perceive or believe. The economic power of the United States has declined relative to Its competitors: so has its military might: and the world's wealthiest nation has sunk deeply Into debt. In the daily grind of living, crises of drug abuse, education, aging, health and the environment nag the national consciousness. AIDS, the new plague, already has diminished the individual freedom some thought had been enhanced in the 1960s.

Racial and religious backlash seems on the rise threatening many but disclosing also the angry or anguished discontent of others. RONALD REAGAN came along in 1980. with his genial optimism and his promises of power redeemed, to paper over the traces of decline and disarray. He could still do it in 1984, aided by partial economic recovery and padded military budgets: but by now even the Pied Piper of morning in America seems Jaded and a bit off-key a lame duck of the spirit as well as the office. Only 43 percent of respondents to the New York Times-CBS News Poll approved Reagan's handling of the economy.

Most linked their restrained view of the future to economic problems, some citing the Oct. 19 stock market crash. And though the same respondents expressed more optimism about their own than about the nation's future, many voiced fears for their livelihood. No wonder. Though unemployment has dropped below 6 DRAPERY WINDOW Those name-calling contests percent of the work force, that's still nearly twice what was considered normal 20 years ago and doesn't Include the millions of unemployed who have stopped looking for work.

For blacks and some other groups, moreover, unemployment remains well above 6 percent. The specter of foreign competition and plant closings hangs over much of working-class America. MOST JOBS being created In the United States, moreover, are Most linked their restrained view of the future to economic problems. now in the service sector some of them good Jobs, but too many demanding less skill and paying less than the Industrial-sector Jobs that once made American workers well off. Millions of those workers have been "downscaled" laid off from challenged or vanished industries to lower-paying, lower-status service jobs.

For young people and not a few of their elders, upward mobility Is less a certainty than a hope; buying a house is not so much an American as a distant dream. Even the affluent have plenty to worry them the decline of smokestack industry, competition abroad in higher-tech fields, the stagnation of American productivity, the trade and federal budget deficits, a banking system threatened by uncollectable loans to barely developing nations, the Invasion of foreign investors, not to mention Oct. 19 and a market teetering since then. TREATMENT Call for an appointment today! 356-2431 responsible citizen, and a contributor to the defense of a great nation. Courage and hope came from the Bible, a book even the slavemaster could not ultimately ignore.

Now more than a hundred years later we look at where we've come. Somehow, however, I am confused. Our ancestors anguished over the preclousness of life and human relationships, but our liberal heritage has a new twist no longer is life precious or relationships cherished. Our "leaders" promote acceptance of abortion as a woman's right when our ancestor-mother's heart was Joyful of the being within her. Our "leaders" do not proclaim that abortion is a form of slavery: a symbol of death, not life.

Today we don't remind ourselves of the hopes of those men who were not recognized as fathers, but merely chattel. Today, our "leaders" proclaim our "right" to be free from true and correct relationships; freedom without responsibility. But white liberals too have departed from their noble heritage. The abolitionists of yesterday The limits on A common but erroneous perception is that politicians and others who are pro choice on the abortion issue are great defenders of civil rights because they seek to. protect women's right to control their own bodies.

In the same vein, pro lifers are frequently labeled "anti-women's rights" because of their opposition to abortion. The legal root of the right of women to control their bodies is the broader right to privacy. However, the Idea that a right to privacy includes an absolute right of control over one's own body ignores the fact that it is illegal for a woman to commit suicide, to Inject illegal drugs into her body or to sell her body. Any right, such as the right for a woman to control her body. Is subject to limitations in the face of overriding interests of the state.

Nevertheless, even assuming dates could actually be president in less than a year. I have yet to see one who looks even remotely presidential. Wake up America. Look closely at this year's contenders. It's time to re-examine the presidential election process.

It should be one that delivers the best man for the Job, not the one with the best sales organization. This year's group of candidates, for both parties, reaffirms my belief: The qualities a man must possess to be elected in this country are the very qualities that make him unfit to govern once elected. DOUG SHOWALTER Bloomington 48 years of Seventy years ago on Feb. 24, the Estonians declared Independence and at the same time were forced to repulse a Soviet-Marxist-communist intrusion. In the following peace treaty, the Kremlin promised to respect Esto-s nians' independence.

But the solemn peace treaty was broken because in 1940, during World War II. Estonia, together with neighboring Latvia and Lithuania, were overrun by the Red army and illegally annexed to the Soviet Union. After 48 years, the Soviets still formerly occupy free and independent Baltic states by military force, enslavement and exploitation. This is the highest crime on Earth. Silence is acquiescent to Soviet crimes, the arrest and torture of innocent people and infiltration of other nations.

In truth. Soviet dictator Gorbachev's glas-nost (openness) will be real only when all Soviet occupied and dominated nations are freed. But Gorbachev, marking the 70th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, said, "We are moving toward a new world, the world of communism. We shall never turn off that road." From Gorbachev's actions we hkki wimp; certain rights that the right to control one's own body were an absolute right, the right of a woman to kill the child In her womb would not follow because the child Is not part of the woman's body. It is an entirely separate human being with Its own genetic composition and a blood type that Is likely to differ from that of Its mother.

Unfortunately, while scientists recognize the unquestionable humanity of the unborn child, the Supreme Court has decided that the unborn child Isn't worthy of legal protection. A hauntingly similar Supreme Court decision in 1855 held that Negro slaves were subhuman chattel without the basic rights of human beings. Of course, now that we all appreciate the great evil of slavery we wonder how our forefathers could have ever institutionalized such a practice, and the absurdity of the Dred Scott decision is self-evident. But at the time Lincoln ordered an end to slavery, slaveowners certainly felt that their right to control their property was being infringed. However, the Infringement of the slaveowners' right was justified because of the superior right of Negroes not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law.

From the slaveowner's perspective his rights were unduly limited. The "pro choice" side of the slavery debate would have argued that the slaveowner himself should be left with the moral decision of whether to own slaves or not. Do we today consider the supporters of slavery to have been great defenders of human liberty? Do we view Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation as a manifestation of that president's "anti-Southern rights" bias? Then why do we allow the slaughtering of 1.7 million innocent children In their mothers' wombs every year under the banner of Individual liberty, and characterize those who are trying to stop this atrocity as "anti-women's When the right of life Itself may be so easily denied an entire class of individuals because a majority of the Supreme Court doesn't value those Individuals, talk of a nation founded on "certain inalienable rights" becomes idle chatter. DANIEL W. KELLY President Valparaiso University School of Law Valparaiso suppression see that the Soviet communist threat continues.

After 48 years of Soviet suppression, the Baltic people still resist occupation and work long for Independence. Estonians in the "free world" will display their flag on the 70th anniversary day Feb. 24. Telling the truth and working together we can achieve peace in the world and U.S. survival.

EDWARD LAETE Estonian Society Inc. Logansport Correcting error I have a question for those representatives who voted against aid for the Contra rebels. As a result of your Ignorance to see what the communists are slowly but surely doing in the Western Hemisphere. U.S. soldiers will eventually have to correct the error that you made and some of them will do so with their lives.

Will you go with these young men and stand at their sides when they have to fight to regain the land fallen to the communists? JIM A. WALTZ Indianapolis I cherish my right to vote. But it's a sad day when my vote must be cast for one of many self-serving, glory-seeking, mediocre journeymen who couldn't hold a candle to 90 percent of our past presidents. The evolution of the political process since the 1960s has made it Increasingly difficult for a quality candidate to be elected. A candidate must be willing to continually beg for money, commit himself to a grueling schedule of travel and appearances, and have no qualms about tooting his own horn while attacking his fellow candidates.

Most importantly, he must be willing to tell each particular audience what it wants to hear, even if it's totally different from what he said two hours before to a different audience. The kind of man I want for president wouldn't be caught dead doing these things. I've watched several debates, and one thing's for sure: Our next president will have two broken arms from trying to pat himself on the back. I've never seen so many egomaniacs in one place, with each man spewing forth all manner of self compliments alternated with ridiculous attacks against his opponents, taking credit and placing blame with reckless abandon. Campaigns have lost any semblance of dignity, becoming little more than name-calling contests among spoiled brats.

It's no longer enough to smear the other party. Now any candidate who hopes to win must smear all the other candidates within his own party as well. It turns my stomach. Especially when the party candidate is finally selected, and all the other candidates who called the guy every name in the book begin loudly singing his praises. It depresses me to think that one of the current crop of candi- Olympic skaters Hats off to The Indianapolis Star, The Indianapolis News and the city's television and radio community for terrific coverage of Indiana's figure skating Olympians.

In a city and state dominated by league-leading basketball, division-winning football and internationally acknowledged auto racing, it's great to see the spotlight focused on a "minor" sport. Without a doubt, the Seybold and Watson families must be elated to see their amateur athletes on the front page. This type of hometown support will encourage more Hoosier athletes to go for the gold. JOHN F. STURM IndianaWorld Skating Academy and Research Center Indianapolis FABRIC LINING LABOR RODS INSTALLATION The professional touch for a beautiful room yhv malfp Aornrxtino a rhnrp' Wp'll hrln fn rnorHinafe I A- 51 li urn Cm im ul af I colors and styles for the look you want.

Let us show you our beautiful decorator fabrics for draperies and L-l i upnuisicry. cverytning is mauc 10 your uruirr. i uu wun i even have to leave the house! Our decorator will come to your home, discuss budget and ideas and take measurements. REUPHOLSTERY LABOR YOU CAN PURCHASE DIRECTLY AT THE FACTORY OR 90-DAY FINANCING AVAILABLE NOW EXIT OFF 1-70 Rural or Emerson S. 16'hST jr I -jr I OHIO ENTRANCE ON 3 Jj SHERMAN OR II -Ja NORTH OFF JOHN J.

MADDEN Mfg. Co. "SINCE 1881" Fine Furniture for over one hundred years. COtUMBUS Ureat values every day and written guarantees for a lifetime. MONDAY AND TUESDAY, 1 0 A.M.

to 8 P.M. WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY, FRIDAY, 10 A.M. to P.M. SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.

East 16th and Sherman Drive, Phone 356-2431.