The Kerrville Times from Kerrville, Texas • Page 5

Commentary Sunday, September 27, 1992 5A President Bush has been listening If political campaigning is expensive and tiresome, sometimes wasteful and extravagant, it does provide would-be leaders with feedback that almost never penetrates the palace guard. While campaigning, a candidate learns, if only from which utterances are not applauded, where your interests lie. President Bush, however tardily, has been hearing from you. How I know is that when he addressed the U.N. General Assembly Sept.

21 it sounded like you talking. He proposed pruning foreign aid programs that have become "outdated and inefficient." "Our assistance efforts should not be charily," he said. "They should instead promote mutual prosperity." His international audience applauded only once, but then he wasn't really talking to them, he was responding to you. Can we afford to police the planet? Bush said, "Peacekeepers are stretched to the limit, while demands for their services increase by the day." The President echoed you again when he promised to overhaul foreign aid, replacing government-to- government programs with grants and credits to U.S. companies, thus to encourage them to do business overseas.

That is reverting to the essence of what once was a "good neighbor Instead of giving a man a fish teach him to catch his own fish! With Europe's economics in turmoil, while they sort themselves out, the United States can be much more helpful as a lighthouse than as a firehouse. Spain and Sweden, long mired in Paul Harvey PAUL HARVEY NEWS socialism, are now crying out that they want to be part of the capitalist- driven future. They need leadership by example. We best serve others if we mind our own business effectively and efficiently. Any election year I travel almost constantly.

Where possible I like to lose myself in a group waiting in line for a bus and "overhear 1 what I can. An early stroll to where cabdrivers congregate for coffee often yields some feel as to which way the wind is blowing. Never in nine presidential campaigns have I ever heard such an utter lack of enthusiasm for either candidate. That feedback the campaigners do not get from their cheering audiences. We, the people, are uninspired.

I cannot imagine that changing much in the few days remaining. The President's speech to the United Nations, while reflecting our enlightened self-interest, may have come too late in the race. But it did demonstrate that our system works best during an election countdown. Our presidents, between elections, tend to become enamored with their potential for "leading the world" to the neglect of less- glamorous domestic housekeeping. 1992, Los Angelas Times Syndicate Texas gambler tangles with Wild Bill Hickok LETTERS Always willing to entertain fellow Texans, Phil Coe gave four dozen cowboys a guided tour of Abilene, Kansas, on the night of Oct.

5,1871. For the first time in weeks, the genial gambler relaxed and forgot about his feud with Marshal Hickok. As adept at making friends as fil- linq an inside straight, Coe was so popular with a company of Confederates they elected him lieutenant. When the authorities insisted that the uniform went with the rank, the civilian fled to Mexico to avoid military service. Coe returned to Austin after the war and opened a saloon.

Though he preferred to personally fleece the patrons, the brisk business soon required the services of a second cardsharp. He gave the job to Ben Thompson and got Texas's fastest gun in the bargain. Long before the supply of suckers was depleted, the happy-go-lucky gambler and the grim gunfighter became constant companions. Searching for greener pastures, they chose the rowdy Kansas cowtown of Abilene in the winter of 1871. Unlike the wary locals, Coe and Thompson made the wild trail hands feel welcome at the Bull's Head Saloon.

While the visiting Texans paid dearly for the hospitality, few seemed to mind. Those who did dared not complain in the presence of the pistol-packing partner with the dreaded quick draw. After homesick Thompson left Abilene in mid-summer, Coe sold his share of the saloon. He resumed the life of the gentleman gambler earning a comfortable living at the poker tables. The arrival of Jessie Hazell in early August started a different and more dangerous stampede.

The demands of her profession had not yet stolen the young woman's stunning looks, which quickly caught the roving eye of James Butler Hickok. Although the long-haired lawman considered himself God's gift to women, Jessie resisted the temptation. But she practically swooned at the sight of handsome Phil Coe and his ever-present bankroll. Wild Bill's gut reaction was simply to eliminate the competition. But a well-founded fear of Ben Thompson, who was liable to show up in Abilene at any moment, kept him from killing his rival.

While on his appointed rounds several weeks later, Hickok stumbled into Jessie and her new beau. He completely lost his head and in a blind rage knocked her to the floor. Coe was on him in a flash. Bigger, stronger and far more efficient with his fists, the towering Texan beat Wild Bill to a bloody pulp in the middle of the barroom. Coe knew he was a marked man.

Hickok would find the time and place to finish him off all legal and proper. Nevertheless, he stayed in Abilene taking care not to let Wild Bartee Hail TEXAS HISTORY Bill catch him on the street alone. Two weeks passed without so much as a word between the two antagonists. The talk around town of an imminent gunfight had been replaced by optimistic speculation that an unspoken truce was in effect. Coe threw a going-away party for 50 cowpunchers the evening of Oct.

5, 1871. Surrounded by the small army of Texans, he felt safe and secure. Before the festivities were in full swing, Hickok warned the revelers against disturbing the peace and carrying firearms inside the city limits. He then withdrew to his favorite watering hole to await developments. At nine o'clock the marshal! heard the unmistakable sound of a gunshot from the vicinity of The Alamo saloon.

He slipped down the alley, entered the bar from the rear and stepped out onto (he front veranda. Past the point of mere intoxication, most of the Texans were falling-down drunk. Several were waving their pistols in defiance of the ground rules for the evening. "Who fired that shot?" Hickok demanded. His hands were on his hips a flick of the wrists away from his twin forty-fours.

Gcstunng with his smoking six- gun, Coe confessed with a laugh to taking a pot shot at a stray dog. He shrugged off the petty crime and assumed the marshal would, too. Wild Bill answered with a vile curse, and on instinct Coe turned to face him. Hickok's pistols were halfway out of the holsters when he raised his own and pulled the trigger in self-defense. Coe's shot passed harmlessly through Wild Bill's coat, but his opponent's rounds were right on target.

The simultaneous slugs struck the Texan in the abdomen and exited his back through a gaping hole. Running to help Hickok, Mike Williams elbowed his way through the crowd of bystanders. So nearsighted he did not recognize the familiar face, Wild Bill promptly put two bullets in the private policeman's head. Williams died on the spot, but death wailed three agonizing days before calling on Phil Coe. His body was shipped back to Texas, where hard-bitten Ben Thompson wept openly over the remains.

BirtM from Country has failed to learn from the past To the Editor: The vast majority of Americans, reared essentially under the "New Deal" economy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, have rarely been exposed to a balanced budget and have never known what it means for our country to be debt free. Some of our very senior if, in their youth, they were interested, may recall a sense of security thpt pervaded solvent decades of the early 20th Century. Perhaps they can relate to Adam Smith's sense of panic over England's mind boggling debt of 140 million pounds sterling, as they started the American Revolution not unlike our current 4 trillion dollars. In our own time, Arnold Toynbce has warned that history docs not repeat itself, as some say; but people who fail to learn from the mistakes of the past are prone to repeat them.

We can't blame FDR or John Maynard Key- ncs for their failure to learn, because we, who are "self governing," failed to learn well enough, ourselves, to resist the folly they led us into. Our choice, today, is between a New Deal protege, luring us back into a trap we've been trying to fight our way out of, and a much more mature statesman, who can identify with the fiscal solvency that prevailed before the New Deal came, derailing our free- dom train, planting in its wake the seeds of the greatest debt the world has ever known. The real issue is between more government bureaucracy and free enterprise. We can't help but see the fruits of bureaucracy in the Soviet world. Open competition, as commended by our forefathers, has given us the most enviable way of life known to man.

George Bush has not failed us. We have failed ourselves. There haven't been enough of us keeping up with his efforts to get our freedom train back on track to realize what he has been up against. Since our government is subject to the consent of the governed, we must exercise our duty to express ourselves through our representatives by 1) voting and 2) keeping those we elect (whether we voted for them or not) informed as to our convictions regarding the choices they have to make in our name in Austin or Washington. We may have to find other sources than the media to keep ourselves informed; though it is their responsibility to keep us impartially informed as to all our choices not just the ones they take a shine to.

They appear ill informed as to history's fundamental lessons and irresponsibly editorialize rather than factually relate the consequences of each choice in light of those lessons. Therefore, I hope our registered voters will exercise their sacred privilege by: 1) reviewing the lessons of history carefully, 2 sorting out the real issues from all the garbage both parties, as well as the media have dumped on us, 3) discussing these real issues with friends and neighbors, 4) deciding for themselves, rationally, what will help our country the most, 5) casting their votes accordingly and, finally, 6) keeping in touch with their representatives, whether they like them or not This is our only defense for our individual and collective freedoms and those of our unrepresented generations to come. Joseph H. (Joe) Stevenson Kerrville Indecency sentence was indecent To the Editor: On the first of September there was an article about a Hunt couple charged with sexual abuse of their child. At the end of the article was referral to a Ben Faulkner who pleaded guilty to indecent acts with an 11 year old girl and received seven years PROBATION, 250 hours of community service and a $700 fine from Judge Karl Prohl.

What is the reasoning behind such an unbelievably lenient "sentence?" This is one of the many outrages of "slap on the wrist" sentencing that enrages the long suffering public. I feel Ben Faulkner and Judge Prohl should be sentenced to serve jail time together, with no chance of probation, so they could become even better friends. Madeline K. Georgius Kerrville KISD day care program called a 'baby factory' To the Editor: I see where the School Board has their baby factory operating in full force. One month into the school year, they have 16 babies already.

I wonder what the output will be between now and June of next year? They (the School Board) said the reason for the day care center was so the students could finish their education. I predict before they finish school the teen mothers will be on welfare. They don't need an education to get on welfare. The caseworker will fill out the application forms for them. The student only has to mark their on the bottom of the paper.

Virgil Watson Kerrville Columnist's works were relevant To the Editor: If you really want your subscribers to see and read timely, relevant, interesting and highly researched articles about conditions and circumstances that count, then, please, have the good grace to reinstate Diana Hurst. Surely our community needs the breath of fresh air and point-blank, direct reporting that Diana gave it I have heard that Mrs. Hurst was fired by your paper as a result of protests by a coalition of ranchers, hunters, and wild life associations, and that your response was to let Mrs. Hurst go; not a good way to have handled the "situation!" Let's always have both sides of the issue, please. Erwin E.

Grimes Kerrville Clinton vs. Vietnam: A real issue History is not just written, it is rewritten. For political purposes. Pity poor Christopher Columbus, whose quincentennial day we will soon celebrate, and derogate. An authentic hero of the Age of Exploration, he is now offered to us as a racist, genocidal, Eurocentric maniac, and also a liucrbug.

Alas, the political revision of history does not only apply to old events. It concerns more recent examples, like the Vietnam War. Thus, in the light of Bill Clinton's checkered history during that conflict, it is said, and repeated endlessly, that "the country turned against the war," that "we scorned our troops in Vietnam," and that "everyone tried to slay out of the military." Why those particular lines of attack? Because if you believe that everyone did it and that America turned against both the war and the warriors, it is easy to put forth the mantra of the Clinton campaign "the draft is a diversion, only the economy counts." Saying Vietnam is a diversion is itself a diversion and an insult to our intelligence, and our history. Let us remember the Vietnam era, less revised than we've been hearing Ben Wattenberg In 1972, toward the end of that war we allegedly turned against, there was a presidential election. Strange, the "pro-war" candidate (Richard Nixon) beat the "antiwar" candidate (George McGovem, for whom Clinton worked) by the biggest landslide ever.

The polls during the war showed a majority of Americans supporting the war policy of the president of the lime (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon or Ford). And after ihe end of the war, Americans were asked (Harris Poll) lo rank certain groups on a scale of 1-10. Ai the lop were "Veterans who served in Vietnam" (9.8). Toward ihe bollom were "People who demonsirated against ihe war" (5.0). In lasi place were "draft evaders" (3.3).

Consider whal happened in Bill Clinton's part of the country. In 1971, the governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, proclaimed "American Fighting Man's Day" as a sign of support for the just-convicted Lt. William Calley, who led a shameful bloodbath in a Vietnamese village called My Lai. Not including National Guardsmen, 9 million Americans served in the military during the Vietnam era. That is a lot of millions, although probably less than half of those seriously eligible.

Vietnam was a complex, torturous, tragic and very important siluation. There were legitimate pro and ami positions, with many gradations. There was much talk about morality, and a great deal of moral hypocrisy. In 1968, for example, Sen. William Fulbright (at that time young Bill Clinton's employer) opposed civil rights legislation (as was his habit) and then chaired televised hearings to denounce the arrogance of the so-called immoral war.

And there was whal happened after the war. The oft-ridiculed, much- predicted "falling dominoes" Laos and Cambodia immediately fell lo communist forces. The oft- ridiculed, much-predicted reign of communist terror and totalitarianism came about Eventually, we won the Cold War, to the great benefit of America and mankind. The failure in Vietnam was a hot moment within that successful cold conflict The Clinton vs. Draft issue is more than a "diversion." It is more than jusl "character." Viemam should not be trivialized: It was a central political eveni in recent American history, shaping attitudes and policy for decades.

Americans, each by their own 1 ights, should judge a potential denl (like Clinion) and a poienual re- elecied president (like Bush) on (he sum of all his parts, and certainly about the main issues of our time. (Just what is Bush's explanation of his 1964 vote against civil rights?) Clinton has said as much: "If you choose to vote against me because of what happened 23 years ago, that is your right and I respect it But I hope you will cast your vote while looking to the future Viewed without the revisionism, how does Clinton's Vietnam behavior stack up? By my lights it is not a wipeoul issue, but clearly a stain on a mostly solid political record. 1992 EnUrpriM Avtn..