The Eugene Guard from Eugene, Oregon • Page 10

Book Sylvia Porter ctuatft 'Bloody Pulps' Revisited U.S. Dollar Needs Defense Mostly From Its 'Friends' AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER ALTON F. BAKER, Publliher, 1B27-1M1 By ROBERT B. FRAZIER KegUtrGtimrd Alloc late Editor U.S. government officials charged with the responsibility of protecting and maintaining confidence in the U.S.

dollar might well as they read the Back tn the "Studs Lonigan" era, when repeal was new, jobs were scarce, and long pants had just begun to replace knickers, kids couldn't watch television or drive around in cars. The well-adjusted ones played indoor The Register-Guard's policy it the complete and impartial publication in its news pages of all news and statements on news. On this page, the editors of the Register-Guard offer their opinions on events of the day and matters of importance to the community, endeavoring to be candid but fair and helpful in the development of constructive community policy. A newspaper is it CITIZEN OF ITS COMMUNITY. Published every evening end Sunday morning by the Guard Publishing Co.

ALTON F. BAKER JR. Editor and Publisher EDWIN M. BAKER General Manager RICHARD A. BAKER Managing Editor ROBERT B.

FRAZIER Associate Editor A. H. CURREY Associate Editor London newspapers these days be muttering the British proverb, save me from friends; I can take care of my enemies." For the attacks in the British press on baseball outdoors and dreamed of becoming great athletes or aviators. The rest of us, who were widely thought to be less well-adjusted, read the pulps. We read "Horror Stories," "Terror Tale "Argosy" (the old "Argosy," not the high-class magazine that now bears that name), "Phantom Detective" and "Doc Savage." 10A EUGENE, OREGON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 17, 1962 Reporting on the Alliance for Progress Porter have been our U.S.

dollar in recent weeks for a nickel. Two kids with a quarter apiece could buy 10, good for three or four days of healthy dreaming. These 10 could be traded around the neighborhood. Then, with all the neighborhood's magazines read, it was time for a trip to the secondhand magazine store. The old magazines were traded, two for one, for "new" copies.

There were several such magazine stores in Portland, clustered around the west end of the old Morrison Bridge. One, run by a fellow who rarely shaved and never washed, had tons, really tons, of "books," most of them with their covers off. It was just as well that the covers were off. The lurid jackets, even as paperback jackets today, promised a kind of reading that the pages didn't offer. And it was the covers, more than the contents, that gave the creeps to parents who never did understand why we weren't content to re-read "Beautiful Joe." THEY DIDN'T READ AT ALL Reading the pulps was thought to be a vice.

I don't think so. At least, we were reading. And that was better than holding up filling stations. In my salad days, I knew some juvenile delinquents, some real ones. But I never knew one who was a pulp reader.

The punks in my neighborhood didn't read at all in the summer. They had to learn over again every falL Mr. Beaumont says there were some "dirty" pulps. too, remember the "Spicy" line, but, as he says, those magazines were "searched," rather than read. The ones he has in mind were "Horror Stories," "Terror Tales" and "Marvel Tales." Of them he says "Ostensibly science fiction-supernatural publications, they packed more honest perversion into one page than one could find in Tijuana's most notorious den of iniquity." Is that so? I sure never got that out of them.

And that, I suppose, proves that smut, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. No kid, boy or girl, was ever ruined by a book. Write that 10 times on the blackboard. ONE UNFORGIVABLE ERROR And the ads! The "feet smell?" the Rosi-crucians, the Sherwin Cody English lessons, the "skinny on the beach," the dramatic adventures of a fellow lucky enough to have a handy Eveready flashlight. You just don't see quality advertising anymore.

Generally, Mr. Beaumont's article is good. But it contains an unforgivable error. He says "The Shadow" replaced "Doc Savage." He did not The only reason anybody bought "The Shadow" at all was that he had read the complete "Doc Savage" file, at least once. Ah, those summer afternoons! Maybe they were wasted afternoons.

But would they have been better spent hanging around the drug store watching the sports play the pinball against our gold reserve and, as the banker of the world, we pledge to honor all claims of our foreign creditors in gold on their demand. Our gold hoard has been shrinking steadily. If suddenly there was a concerted run on our reserves, we couldn't possibly pay off all the claims in gold. 'Europe to Have Last Word' This is the background for the stories that we'll solve our problems by raising the price of gold from its present $35-an-ounce level which would be devaluing the dollar because there'd be less gold in each dollar. Says a London Observer' writer: While European bankers believe that "given time and adequate help, the dollar problem could be overcome, few expect these to be forthcoming.

Sentiment is working against the dollar." Says a Sunday Times correspondent: Although the U.S. resents questions about the dollar, "Europe will have the last word" and the world price of gold will "no longer be primarily determined in or by the U.S." Says a London Daily Telegraph commentator: There is a "fundamental lack of confidence in the three systems of gold, dollar and sterling" and "to defeat speculators is not to provide any kind of cure" for this fundamental lack. A Gear Warning to Critics Meanwhile what are we doing about this? We have launched a major program to slash the deficit in our international accounts and it is being reduced. We have entered into an unprecedented series of agreements with the free world's central bankers to combat speculation. President Kennedy has pledged again that we "are not going to devalue." We are informing the London press with admirable restraint that devaluation could hardly be done by a stroke of the President's pen; it would take an act of Congress, and Congress is no more anxious to do this than the President.

We are also making it plain that we can balance our accounts any day we wish just by slashing our defense spending overseas and our foreign aid which should be a clear warning to our critics that if they try to force our hand they might bitterly regret it. The affluent society of the United States in 1962 is hardly the war-devastated economy of Britain when she devalued in 1949 and to suggest a similarity is malicious. As an Englishman said in the 15th century, "God save me from my friends Distributed. The HaU Syndicate, Inc. Especially "Doc Savage." He Frailer was better than "The Spider" or even "The Shadow." We dreamed (and, believe me, we dreamed plenty), of being soldiers of fortune.

Those pulp magazines with their rough feel, their sweet smell, their lurid covers and their shallow plots came back to life briefly the other day in an article in "Playboy," which is for sure a far cry from the pulps. Charles Beaumont, who must have been a real addict, the kind who had a lot of magazines to trade, recalls what "The Bloody Pulps" were like. A STELLAR STAFF I am indebted to Mr. Beaumont. A couple of Thanksgivings ago my brother (the professor) and I were trying to recall Doc Savage, the fellow we knew so well when we were 14 and 0 (the professor was 9).

What were the names of his assistants? The years had driven the names from our minds. Doc, we remembered, was a brain surgeon by trade. But he didn't ply his trade much. Most of the time he scooted around avenging Wrong. The assistants, Mr.

Beaumont reminds us, were Ham, the brightest star Harvard Law School ever graduated; Monk, the great chemist and one of the strongest men who ever lived; Johnny, the engineer and pugilist; Long Tom, the frail electrical wizard; and William Harper Littlejohn, the geologist and linguist who used such big words. Trash? Well, maybe "Doc Savage" was trash. But he and his friends respected education. They demonstrated that the man of learning didn't have to be a panty-waist. Also, 15 years before the rest of the world knew about it, we "Doc Savage" fans knew about SCUBA diving.

Doe had a contraption just like, the ones the divers use now. REALLY TONS OF 'BOOKS' Mr. Beaumont, who knows so much about pulps, must have been a rich kid. He speaks of a "bedroom full" of magazines. And he speaks of news stands.

I don't think I ever bought a pulp (and I must have owned hundreds at one time or another) on a news stand. They cost too much, usually a dime. Secondhand, they could be had nothing short of vicious. The contemptuous attitude Britain's commentators are taking toward every effort we make to balance our international financial accounts, stem the drain on our gold reserve, hold the dollar's value where it has proudly remained for over 28 years is almost incredible, considering this is the press of our closest ally. The eagerness with which the British correspondents seize on every adverse statistic as an indication that we can't hold the dollar and will be forced to devalue it is, as usually mild-speaking Undersecretary of the Treasury Robert Roosa said out loud the other day, "resorting to desperate contrivances to create" alarm about our dollar.

The downgrading of every bright statistic arouses the suspicion that the commentators want most to be prophets and don't care what evil they do to the whole free world in the process. Bard-Breathing Speculators The attacks have been constant and it's almost a sure bet they'll mount in intensity between now and mid-September, when the world's top financiers gather in Washington for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. This sort of pressure on a currency already being sniped at is commonplace before, these meetings. It's not inconceivable that the alarm being fed by the press reports most of them unfounded and the rest wildly exaggerated on the adverse side could increase the drain on our gold, particularly from such large holders of dollars as the Germans, the French, the Swiss, the Belgians. Certainly the speculators will be breathing hard during these next few weeks.

Why? What are we doing about it? The "why" is a familiar story. For years, we have been spending more money abroad than we have been taking in from abroad and running a big deficit in our balance of payments. As a result, our foreign creditors have built up huge claims in dollars Tax reform is sorely needed. He is hopeful about this. Colombia has a new tax law.

He feels Chile may get one. Ecuador needs one. The people need better housing, better living conditions. And they are not always willing to wait for an "eventual" improvement of conditions. The economist holds great hope for education.

Admitting that the North American picture of Latin universities as places that are hotbeds of irresponsible revolution is sometimes true, he thinks the situation would change if the schools were better. He calls for better staffing, better instruction. From these universities, he warns, the future leaders of Latin America will come. It is thus essential that they be strengthened. All this is going to take more money.

He is firm in his belief that dollars are not enough. Expert technical help is also needed. U.S. missions ought to be better staffed with people who really understand Latin America. He calls for "capable and dedicated people," who will "help them to help themselves." Those who fail to come to grips with the realities of social and economic problems in Latin America are playing into the hands of future Castros, he thinks.

This, of course, is what worries many in the United States. We do not understand how the leaders of Latin America, many of them wealthy and presumably intelligent, can stand by while their own position is made ever more precarious. This, also, is the point that President Kennedy made in Bogota last fall. The Cuban example is there to see. Castro did not spring from thin air.

He sprang, instead, from fertile soil, from soil made more fertile by those who did not, or would not, recognize that the old order is ever changing. ft ft ft Ridiculous If you put the strange case of Dr. Soblen into a movie, the critics would say the plot was preposterous. Right now he's in England. The British say he isn't really there.

He just stopped off en route for a few stitches. And because he isn't really there, the British say he has to leave. Israel, to which he fled after he jumped bail in New York, says he entered the country illegally. Therefore he had to get out. But if the British (who don't really have him) turn him loose, he has to go back to Israel, which he can't enter.

And Uncle Sam is acting more like a mouse than a man. What a farce. In the Editor's Mailbag For several days Columnist Roscoe Drummond has been writing from Latin America. The general tone of his articles has been glum, as he has reviewed the first year of the Alliance for Progress. A more detailed analysis of the Latin America situation and the Alliance has been prepared by Prof.

Ray Mikesell of the University of Oregon. Professor Mikesell, director of the university's Institute for International Studies and Overseas Administration, prepared the report for Sen. Wayne Morse's subcommittee oh American Republics Affairs. Conceding that the problems are great, Professor Mikesell is nonetheless hopeful. He says he has found widespread interest in the program and, even more Important, In the specific reforms that must be achieved if the program is to mean anything.

"Except for the extreme left and a small group of reactionaries who still hope to halt the forces of social change," he writes, "the vast majority of the leaders and of the articulate electorate appear to Identify themselves with the fundamental aims of the The program, he adds, has become a symbol and a basis for a largo number of political and economic groups. But there are problems. The Latin American economy, generally, is agricultural, and not efficiently so. New lands need to be opened for settlement. The subsistence farm must give way to a more diversified farm or, in many cases, to industrial employment.

But this can't happen until the industries are established and until the future workers have places to live. He notes, too, the effects of the population explosion, which threatens to wipe out any progress that is made. ft ft ft' No Whiskers In today's Mailbag, five distinguished Eugene citizens protest an editorial in which we spoke of the "sweat shirt and whiskers crowd" and advocacy of world peace. The editorial which offended them wasn't aimed at them at all. It is regrettable that they jumped to the conclusion that it was, and that we so phrased it that they could jump to that conclusion.

Some of the most high-minded, and tough-minded, people on earth are sincerely working for peace. They know the problems. They recognize the responsibility of the Soviet Union in this matter. They know who broke the moratorium on testing a year ago. The best of the "peace movement" was represented in Eugene last winter when the Turn Toward Peace organization was formed to bring together many groups which favored a world in which children can live to be adults.

However, there is also another group, the one we spoke of derisively as the "sweat shirt and whiskers crowd." That is the group that sees evil in what America, its own America, does, and which sees no evil in what the Russians are doing. That is also the group that kicks up the biggest rumpus. It's hard to understand how anybody who isn't in that group could voluntarily associate himself with it, no matter how loosely defined it was in an editorial. Roscoe Drummond pany's 15 directors can possibly be from 2) Only 50 of the stock will be sold to the private corporations, which AT will divide with other firms like RCA and IBM. If some doubt still remains, the Federal Communications Commission already controls every phase of any operation.

The public is, in this case, very well guarded. There seems to be no real alternative to believing what even nationally syndicated columnists are now saying Wayne Morse is creating a false issue merely for the sake of campaign publicity. How much longer must the people of Oregon wait for honest, conscientious representation in the Senate? I believe that Mr. Sig Unander is the answer to one of our state's biggest problems. Why the Alliance Falters And What to Do About It A Gem EUGENE (To the Editor) With all the serious discussion that goes on in the letters to the editor column, I thought that perhaps this gem of ace reporting ought to be given some notice.

In the August 13 Register-Guard in the article by Felix R. McKnight, the following priceless paragraph appeared: "Only a few hours after our group of editors left an old DC-3 type plane in the central Asian area of Samarkand, clutching rosary beads and saying Methodist prayers because of a misbehaving right engine, It fell in the wilderness near Tashkent." In the article the Russians are said to be filled with suspicion, but from this paragraph it would appear that even American type planes are superstitious. And what an odd sort of ecumenical activity! Could it be explained how such statements get beyond the editors and proof-readers? ALFRED BLOOM 1595 Walnut St. Dr. Erich Fromm submitted a declaration on disarmament at the Moscow Peace Conference.

Speaking unofficially for most American peace groups they pointed out that the Soviet Union broke the nuclear test moratorium. The Jack-Fromm statement also said, "We protest the testing of nuclear weapons regardless of what nation is responsible whether it be the United States or the Soviet Union (tests are) a threat to the future of mankind." We have no double standards for the U.S. and Russia, as you claim. In fact, Americans have traveled to Russia in order to publicly protest there against nuclear testing and the arms race. We believe in the dignity of life and in democratic procedures.

The best way to safeguard these is through disarmament under international inspection, by the ending of nuclear tests, and by a more flexible foreign policy. Jonathan Marshall, Coordinator, Eugene Turn Toward Peace Lucian Marquis 2260 E. 15th Ave. Paul J. Hoffman 3248 Bryceler Dr.

Joan La Forge 1429 Agate St. Barbara C. Wrench 1857 E. 17th Ave. SALVADOR, Brazil When the United States entered World War I and World War II.

the question everybody asked was not whether we were going to win but when. JIM MOONEY 2480 McMillan St. Now the United States has entered another kind of war; the theater of strug 'Dirty' gle is the Western hemisphere. The question' everybody's asking today is not when we are going to win but whether. Drummond Carmichael EUGENE (To the Editor) Your editorial (81262) on the "ban the bomb claque" is just plain dirty and beneath your dignity.

You call people working for peace the "sweat shirt and whiskers crowd." The Guard's editors know the people in Eugene working for peace. These include lawyers, merchants, faculty members, and civic leaders. Nationally, workers for peace include distinguished leaders such as former Ambassador James Wads-worth, Gen. Hugh Hester (ret), editor Norman Cousins, Dr. Benjamin Spock, Rev.

Harry Emerson Fosdick and hundreds of equally respected citizens. Is this a "sweat shirt and whiskers crowd?" Do your facts come from Steve Canyon on your "comic" page? In your ignorance you claim that U.S. peace groups are not as upset about Russian nuclear tests as about our own. Of course we are concerned. Eugene Turn Toward Peace and thousands of other groups and individuals sent protests to Khrushchev prior to the Soviet resumption of testing.

This summer Dr. Homer Jack, executive secretary of Sane, and A Waitress THAT PRW A Nice tip-How the Alliance which aims at infusing new development capital into Latin American economies and simultaneously promoting needed social reforms? The dominant views of those willing to speak with candor views I believe Washington and friends of the Alliance in Latin America ought to ponder responsibly are these: The Allianca has provided the plan for economic development without yet providing the machinery, either in Washington or in Latin American nations themselves, for carrying it out. In a word, we have a sound strategy for an economic war against stagnation and poverty but the troops are not in place anywhere. While the Alliance is rightly focused on a long-range ten-year concept to build the structure of an expanding economy, it is not yet realized adequately how essential it is now at the very beginning to invest appreciably in major visible socially useful projects such as schools, housing, and health services before mass frustration overruns the whole effort. Most of the technicians in Washington tend to shun these projects, seeing them as the later fruit of economic growth.

But because of the long delays in providing basic social improvements for most of the population, they are now an absolutely necessary pre-condition of successful economic development. The Alliance for Progress hasn yet begun to win active allegiance, genuine support of the masses of the Latin American people. The Alliance has not been made credible to them and thus far has created no means of doing so. It is smeared by the Communist left and resisted by the ultra-conservative right and millions of undcrpriviliged are understandably cynical because they have listened to empty promises so long. This is why Roberto Campos, Brazilian ambassador to the United States, speaking for himself, says the Alliance cannot succeed until it instills in the masses of Latin America "a personal involvement" as well aj "a national commitment." CopTrlfht.

1J No Vk Herald TrUnua tjat. Smokers' IQs I Telstar EUGENE (To the Editor) Even though the U.S. Senate's precedent-breaking cloture vote has made the Telstar bill almost a dead issue, I would still like to comment upon some of the misconceptions presented to the voters in the letter of Aug. 13 defending Senator Morse. In no way can Mr.

Morse's filibustering be rightly termed "in the public interest." The Telstar' bill is one which had earlier passed the House 354-9, and one which received overwhelming support from both sides of the Senate political aisle, as well as from the administration. What is the public interest in such a case? Is it the proper place of virtually one man to obstruct the workings of our government? Should he be allowed to block passage of a bill thought to be in the country's best interest by nearly every other one of our elected representatives? The bill itself Is a piece of sound legislation, which ought to now be quickly passed by the Senate. Mr. Morse's charge of a "giveaway" is a false one and has tended to cloud the real issue: Should our country's communication satellite system be paid for entirely by the taxpayers, or should private corporations be allowed to devote some of their money and talent to the project? The government will not be "handing it over to alone," and the writer of Monday's letter need not fear for enough "effective government regulation." News articles have repeatedly pointed out the facts: 1) Only 3 of the proposed com The reason this question is so fateful is that failure of the Alliance for Progress this massive common effort to rescue Latin America from economic stagnation would certainly bring on a wave of military dictatorships and military dictatorship is itself the seedbed for communism. For six days here in Salvador at a conference on economic tensions, I have had the opportunity to hear, question, and exchange information with more than 70 economists, political leaders, professors, and industrialists from every Latin American country except Cuba.

How does the Alliance look a year after it was signed at Punta del Este? I base my report on both Latin American and North American judgements. It is a very mixed picture with dark and ominous hues. There is no unanimous opinion. It ranges from hope to hopelessness. The technicians, mostly the economists, know that accelerated economic growth is possible and believe it can be achieved.

The non-specialized intellectuals from the universities are cautiously hopeful but very uncertain. Many of the Latin American politicians are deep in pessimism. Some are already convinced that economic progress will be so slow that extreme nationalism and military dictatorship, already evident in Peru. Argentina, and Brazil, will engulf most of the continent After one year of experience, what art. the, shortcomings of.

Casey's Bad Day Tuesday, which is Princess Margaret's 32nd birthday, is also another important anniversary. It is the 75th anniversary of one of the most noted baseball games ever played. The Phillies were playing the Giants. The score was 4 to 2 for the Giants, late in the ninth. As Ernest Lawrence Thayer, the great poet, put it later, "It looked extremely rocky for the Mudville nine that day." Things looked up briefly.

Flynn made it to third, Blakey to second. Next up was Dan Casey, Mighty Casey, the pitcher. It was an exciting moment as There uvs ease in Casey's manner as he slepped into his place, There was pride in Casey's bearing and a imile on Casey's face; And when re.tpoiidino to the cheers he lightly doffed his hat, No stranger in the croicd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat. Things didn't go so well. The angry crowd angry at the umpire, not at Casey watched the first two strikes.

Then, dn the critical one, the air was "shattered by the force of Casey's blow." And so it was, and is, that: Oh, somen here in this favored land the sun is shmino bright. The band is playing someu'here, and somewhere hearts are light; And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout. But there is no joy in Mudville Miohty Casey has struck out. A study of 6,910 Massachusetts high school students shows that those who smoke have lower IQs than those who don't. The more a student smokes, the lower is his IQ likely to be.

There is no evidence that smoking makes one stupid. But it seems likely, In light of all the evidence that's come out in the past five years, that a boy or girl who voluntarily contracts the nicotine habit is just not very smart. The above is said somewhat, but only somewhat, facetiously. It is even more likely that the cigarette in the face is put there as a mask, to cover up an inadequacy which very well could be an inability to compete in school. MEMBER Pr THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The Associated Press entitled exclusively to the use for republication of all the local newt printed In thla newspaper.

MEMBER OF THE AUDIT BUREAU Or CIRCULATIONS Services United Press International WILLIAM WASMANN. News Editor DONN L. BONHAM, City Editor ROSS C. JOHNSON, Advertising Director JARL FVGLE Circulation Manager W. B.

JOHNSTON JR. Auditor ROBERT K. BERTSCH Promotion 8-n.