The Mexia Daily News from Mexia, Texas • Page 6

"Take That and That! Views Expressed On This Page Are Not Necessarily Those Of The Mexia Daily News TIMELY Bad Old Days Haunt Ex-Nazi Gnat In Ottinger Bonnet By BRUCE BIOSSAT NEA Washington Correspondent NEW YORK (NEA) Walk along upper Manhattan streets with Rep. Richard L. Ottinger, Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, and you'll discover that the kind of costly television blitz that got him the nomination last June has its limits. This day he is out with a new backer, former Mayor Robert Wagner.

Nearly everybody recognizes Wagner, but only about one in every 5 to 10 persons registers on Ottinger until he states his name. It has to be remembered that interest in the race last spring was not high, and that only 26 per cent of New York's dominant Democratic electorate voted in the June primary. Ottinger is obviously attractive though low key, as third- party candidate James Buckley is in a different way. It would be hard for anyone to get mad at Ottinger, but conversely he doesn't stir any great fires, either. Plainly his strategists (who say so privately) are concerned over Buckley's effort to portray Ottinger and incumbent GOP Sen.

Charles Goodell as look-alikes in opposition to the Vietnam war. They have reason to fear a burst of sympathy for Goodell from among Agnew-hating liberals, for Ottinger's lead-position strength has a shallow 1 feel to it. The tactic decided upon to separate Ottinger from Goodell is for the Democrat to portray his controversial GOP adversary as "wrong on economics" and somewhat indifferent to the country's social needs. I eavesdropped on many chats Ottinger had with voters and television interviewers on a morning street walk. No matter what the question, he always steered things around so he could blame Goodell for high bread prices and mounting unemployment.

Ottinger has done so much of this, a lot of it on television in joint appearances with his opponents, that he already has come under some liberal fire as being "too programmed" as well as being expensively "packaged" by his television experts. Goodell, free-wheeling, coming up on the outside with everything to gain and little to lose, has sounded tougher, more driving, more persuasive to those liberals who like the candidate's language to be uncompromising. If this impression of Goodell gains fresh force, and if Vice President Agnew's assaults help him spruce up his martyr's robes, Ottinger could be dragged down to the trouble level. Waiting there to pick him off is Buckley, who does not at all fit the liberal stereotype of the "right-wing conservative" which the doctrinaire leftists keep pasted on their walls. The truth is that to the visitor's ear Buckley sounds considerably more flexible and less programmed than Ottinger and a good deal less abrasive than the hard-scrambling Goodell.

It stuns Buckley some to be told it, but his positions on Medicare, welfare, education and other large social matters are so moderate that 20 years ago he could have passed for at least a fringe New Dealer. He wanted to take on Goodell in a Republican primary, but his Connecticut voting residency barred the try. Indications are he will pull heavily among conservative Republicans and Democrats, and could run very well in such usual GOP strongholds as New York City's suburban counties of Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, etc. But to win he needs to more than double the 1.1 million vote he got against Sen. Jacob Javits in 1968, and to see Ottinger chopped down.

That the soft-spoken Buckley has a genuine shot at winning is not entirely due to Gopdell's antiwar stance and his other issue positions displeasing to Republicans and others from the White House down. Testimony is ample that Goodell consistently neglected his party fences, that sometimes (as in Binghamton) he would visit a Liberal party leader while ignoring the Republican county chairman. Gpv. Rockefeller, good party soldier, snuffed out open organization opposition to Goodell, but many leaders quietly work for Buckley. Before Agnew came along, Goodell had another potent I get personal attention that far outstrips my importance.

The Army is hyperconscious about me. correspondent Robert Ridenhour of Dispatch News Service in Vietnam, whose letter-writing campaign as an ex-GI helped bring about investigation of the alleged My Lai massacre. Man's duty is not to be a hero, which is making a virtue of misery, and not to be a saint, which is making a misery of virtue. It is solely to become wise. Sperber, European psychologist.

To the extent that politics is a dirty like any business it can be so, of is not likely to get less so because people are apathetic about it. Richard W. Lyman, president of Stanford University. I'm trying to protect women from their fool friends and from themselves. Sen.

Sam J. Ervin D- N.C., on his amendment to the proposed equal-rights- for-w omen amendment that would continue draft exemptions for women. Let us foster all that unites us and not that which divides us. Let us give the world cause to say: These were dedicated men. They did not posture and postpone, but strove humbly and honestly, to lighten the afflictions that weigh so heavily on mankind.

Dr. Edvard Hambro, president of the General Assembly, as the United Nations observed its 25th anniversary. Those who promote violence within our institutions or within our by words or the greatest threat to our nation at this hour. Rep. Donald W.

Riegle R-Mich. We want America to know that we are proud of this nation. While there are 25 million blacks in this country, 22.5 million have never participated in a riot. Clay J. Clairborne, director of the Black Silent Minority Committee.

It is absurd to believe that the government is the only one to eliminate disorders The problems on campus should be addressed to the home, church and family. General John N. Mitchell. By TOM TIEDE WASHINGTON (NEA) According to John Patler, he had a fight with his wife on the afternoon of Aug. 25, 1967, and left his home to take a walk.

According to police, he did nothing of the kind. They say he stood on a roof above a shopping center laundromat in Virginia, fired a pistol and killed his friend and confidant, American Nazi "fuehrer" George Lincoln Rockwell. A 1967 jury believed the police and John Patler, now 32, a former American Nazi party captain, is legally guilty of first-degree murder. But today, many people in this area do not really know whom to believe. Patler served six months of a 20- year sentence, then was released on $40,000 bail, pending appeals.

He has been out of jail for more than a year. And as some Washingtonians wonder: "If he's a murderer, why did he only get 20 years? And if he's a murderer, what in God's name is he doing out of jail among the rest of us?" Patler himself seems the only one not confused by the whole situation. He has lain awake many nights figuring it out. His conclusion is: "People are trying to make amends. I think the judge and jury realize I didn't kill anybody.

I remember even the prosecutor, who demanded I get the chair; after the trial he walked up to me and said, 'I'm sorry, John, I had a job to So I was a convenient scapegoat, that's all. I think those people all realize that now." For those who knew John Patler in the bad old days, it's strange to see the man- on the streets today. And not only because he has been convicted of murder. As one of Rockwell's most trusted aides, Patler was strictly a Nazi stereotype- stiff, sneering, a hater of Jews, Negroes, Catholics; an altogether despicable sort who always tried to be uglier than thou. Yet in the autumn of this new decade, he appears an entirely different man.

He has reassumed his birthright name (Patsalos) which he formerly cursed as too alien. He has abandoned the starched shirt and tie routine for open neck, semi- mod attire. His crew cut has grown out to bushiness. And, most interesting, he says he has begun to champion minority group misery as his own cause: "It seems to shock people that I've changed from a hater of blacks to a lover of them. But really it's not all that strange.

I've finally realized just how close I am to blacks, and browns and other depressed people. I'm Greek, I have dark eyes and dark hair and here in America that can work against you. You can grow up, like the black, to think you just don't fit in. "That's the reason I became a Nazi. I hated my name, I hated my nationality and I wanted to strike back at my hate.

The Nazis seemed like a good place to do it. It was a special form of suicide, I guess. The Nazis were out to eliminate alien stock, I was out to eliminate my alien past I put on OUT OF JAIL now, onetime American Nazi John Patler still has particular for the safety of his family (wife Alice and sons Mark, left, and Nick, right). Some of the old gang don't like him. the swastika.

But now I know that all of them, myself too, were sick." Unfortunately, a 11 r' ideologic switch has not been followed by all of the Nazis of that day. The ANP folded with Rockwell's murder, but some diehards continue. The remnants formed another group National Socialist White People's Party and though very anemic, they are still around to haunt people. Mostly, they haunt Patler. Occasionally, he says, "They cruise around my house shouting dirty things like 'greasy On one afternoon Patler's wife was shot at.

In August the family received a live explosive in the mail. In response, Patler lives a worried life. He moves often. Changes his name back and forth. Watches his step.

"I think they're always watching me," he says, "so I never go any place without looking behind me. I know who most of them are think one of them may be the guy who really killed Rockwell. I don't think they'd have the guts to kill me, but who can tell?" But bad as they are, the Nazis may be the least of John Patler's troubles. He can stick his hand into his lifesack and pull out any number of greater woes. Money, for instance.

He tried to start a Spanish- language newspaper but it folded after an issue. Now he supports his wife, two children and his court fight on what he can: His wife works steady, he works part time and friends and relatives contribute to expenses on occasion. Then there is the court question. Patler has no future until the law decides it. Right now the judiciary is debating whether to free him for good, grant a new trial or send him back to jail to serve the remainder of his sentence.

As a supreme burden, Patler has his own reputation. He hopes people will forgive or forget that's unlikely. Some nut will always want to antagonize him. Others will always be suspicious of him. At best he will always be an object of curiosity.

Guilty or not, he will forever be in a prison of sorts. THOUGHTS In this you rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold which though perishable is tested by fire, may redound to praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Peter 1:6, 7. Kites rise against, not with the wind. No man has ever worked his passage anywhere in a dead Neal, American novelist. "For whoever has despised the day of smalt things shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel.

These, seven are the eyes of the Lord, which reigns through the whole earth." Zechariah 4:10. Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled by great ambitions. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. And the multitudes asked him, "What then shall we do?" And he answered them, "He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise." Luke 3:10, 11. A really great man is known by three in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in von Bismarck, Prussian statesman.

in Europe U.S. Tourists Keep in Touch By LEE MUELLER LONDON (NEA) One of the things that sets the American tourist apart from all the other tourists, we are told, is his propensity to touch things. "You can tell a Colonial when he comes through the door," said an elderly woman guide in Westminster Abbey. "He's like a cuffing blind man, he is, feeling his way along the walls." Even as she spoke a slim young man in a Michigan State sweatshirt hovered over the tablet that marks the grave of Lord Byron in Poets' Corner. He glanced about furtively, squatted and with the palm of his hand touched Lord Byron's tombstone.

"See!" the guide cried. "Why must Americans always touch things?" There probably is an explanation for this peculiarity, but it cannot be found in Westminster Abbey. Far away from here, in lake-splattered central New York, there is a community called Cooperstown which is best-known the home of baseball's Hall of sporting museum of sorts where old balls and bats and uniforms are displayed as proudly as the British display King George I's sword in the Tower of London. Within this museum at Cooperstown is an old metal locker which, for many years, contained the uniform of an American king named George Herman Ruth, the King of Swat. It is painted bright blue, this old locker, except for one area on the door handle.

Here, the paint has been worn away by thousands of young fingers, touching where they were sure the Babe himself once touched. This is not a new craze brought on by the drug culture. Americans have been touching things for years. Mark Twain, who probably knew as much about typical acti9ns as anyone, recognized it in "Tom Sawyer Abroad." Nothing in the world, he wrote, is bullier than actually touching something you always read about. There may be a few Englishmen and Europeans who walk about touching historic objects but, according to an observer at Stratford on Avon, not nearly so many as there are Americans.

"I can't understand the American attitude," said Peter Fish, who sells tickets at Anne Hathaway's 400-year-old family home. "Looking is not enough for them, it seems. They're not content to stand and look at the front entrance and imagine young Shakespeare coming to call on Miss Hathaway at that very doorway. No, They seem to need that extra dimension of touch so, I suppose, when they return home they can show their photographs and say, 'I have actually touched "Your average Briton does not care that much. History is not that far from him.

Every day, he strides where William the Conqueror or Chaucer strode, sleeps where Tennyson or Milton slept. "The United States is too young, I suppose. Americans go back 300 years and they're out of history. They're so much more fascinated with England than the English or maybe it's more crude than that. I say, maybe they're just used to handling things, you know." There is, certainly, something about standing in Henry VIII's dining hall at Hampton where he stood; looking up at the same stained-glass windows he looked up at; scanning the same empty room he scanned in search of another wife and maybe touching an old- looking piece of wall he might have touched.

Who really knows why? Maybe Fish is right. Maybe Americans are just compulsive touchers. Or maybe the kids and Babe Ruth have the answer. Maybe we're just hoping some history will rub off on us, Sign of Changing Times A councilman in the Cleveland suburb of Parma, Ohio, has introduced an ordinance calling for a change in the city's seal. The seal, which appears on more than 100 of the city's vehicles and on all official stationery, features a drawing of a private residence, and below it, a factory with tall chimneys belching clouds of smoke.

Dividing the two is the motto: The councilman wants the smoke removed and the chimneys made the seal, that "I don't think we should support pollution." The seal was designed a number of years ago when the suburb achieved city status and was one of the fastest growing communities in the country, thanks to the postwar industrial boom that made it possible for people to build homes there. Back in the days of our ecological innocence. Strike's the Thing But Just Why? By DON OAKLEY Automotive Industries magazine has come up with some figures showing what a prolonged strike could mean to General Motors in lost sales. The one-month-old strike has already cost the giant automaker nearly $882 million in factory sales. A two-month strike would cost $1.4 billion, and a three-month strike $2.1 billion.

That would bring us up to Christmas, which is how long some company officials reportedly expect the strike to last. GM, of course, will not lose all that money, not by a long sight. The loss will be shared by autoworkers who are not being paid wages, salesmen who are not earning commissions, dealer mechanics who are being laid off, supplier industries who are not supplying. In the meantime, all Americans have become not only victims but unwilling supporters of the strike as its effects begin to be felt throughout the national economy and as taxpayer dollars subsidize food stamps for striking workers. Someone must have the answer to the question of what purpose a strike serves in this day and age when the issue is no longer the fundamental one of the right to bargain collectively but is over money, fringe benefits and working of them exactly life-and-death issues that warrant the kamikaze tactic of a strike, which always hurts the individual worker more than it does the employer.

"The general malaise of our society has spread to the auto plant," United Autoworkers President Leonard Woodcock said three months before the strike. "Malaise" is a good word, but it only describes and doesn't explain. Industry Week magazine predicts that "only a miracle" could bring an early agreement in labor contract negotiations next year between the steelworkers and the steel companies. In other words, the steelworkers, as was the case with the autoworkers, are hyping themselves up with the idea of a strike and can't wait until negotiations with management begin and they can walk out on them. The strike's the thing, not only in these two industries but in almost every other where contracts are due to expire in the coming months.

"Malaise." Why? Why are we tearing our own flesh? He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city. Proverbs 16:32. The man who is bigger than his job keeps cool. He refuses to become rattled, to fly off in a temper, to stamp and holler and swear. The man who would control others must be able to control himself.

B. C. Forbes, American business editor. then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you." 13:14, 15.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and walk there yourself, once in awhile. Billings, American humorist. The saying is sure: If any one aspires to the office of bishop, he desires a noble task. I Timothy 3:1. An aim in life is the only fortune worth the Robert Louis Stevenson.

"For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. 1 am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble 3:25, 26. Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, but only saps today of its A. J. Cronin, British author.

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, "In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength." Isaiah 30:15. Exercise self-control, self- reliance, unselfishness, and pay such attention to habits that you won't have to worry overmuch about B. C. Forbes, business editor. Do all things without grumbling or 'questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.

2:14, 15. We are challenged by the need to pass on skills and knowledge to our ever-increasing body of youth to prepare them to live and contribute to the betterment of this complex Hubert H. Humphrey. By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as if on dry land; but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven Hebrews 11:29, 30.

Next to faith in God is faith in N. Bovee, author. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithful' ness, gentleness, setycon' trail against such there is no 5:22, 23..