St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 38

eiitcMls ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH FowuM by JOSEPH PULITZER December 12. 1878 Mr. Coleman's Indecision THE POST-DISPATCH PLATFORM i I KNOW THAT MY RETIREMENT WHL MAKE NO DIFFERENCE IN ITS CARDINAL PRINCIPLES, THAT IT WILL ALWAYS FIGHT FOR PROGRESS AND REFORM NEVER TOLERATE INJUSTICE OR CORRUPTION, ALWAYS FIGHT DEMAGOGUES OF ALL PARTIES. NEVER BELONG TO ANY PARTY.

ALWAYS OPPOSE PRIVILEGED CLASSES AND PUBLIC PLUNDERERS, NEVER LACK SYMPATHY WITH THE POOR. ALWAYS REMAIN DEVOTED TO THE PUBLIC WELFARE. NEVER BE SATISFIED WITH MERELY PRINTING NEWS. ALWAYS BE DRASTICALLY INDEPENDENT. NEVER BE AFRAID TO ATTACK WRONG, WHETHER BY PREDATORY PLUTOCRACY OR PREDATORY POVERTY.

111 JOSEPH PULITZER Ajn 10, 1907 Thursday, July 8, 1976 letters What Of The Spring? In the June 30 editorial on Gov. Bond's veto of a bill which would have improved Missouri's campaign spending law, you state, "In any event the alterations would not have affected this year's elections." Does no one other than Missourians for Honest Elections have any awareness or concern for those elections when the vast majority of candidates run for office? Over 80 per cent of the elective public offices in Missouri are posts on school boards, village and town councils, hospital and fire districts, etc. Those elections are held in the spring of every year. The courts have upheld the Elections Commission's rule that all such candidates even though those who spend nothing to be elected to nonsalaried offices must file at least three repetitious reports listing their personal financial interests. We have now experienced the spring elections of 1975 and 1976 under this new law, and only chaos has resulted.

Unless the Assembly overrides the Governor's veto (highly unlikely in an election year), the law cannot be changed in time for the 1977 spring elections when approximately 40,000 candidates may run for local offices. Wilhelmina Roberts Webster Groves Useful Calendar Congratulations on a fine new asset to the community. The Calendar section on Thursdays has been a personal joy to read but more importantly it has been an invaluable teaching aid for our humanities and fine arts program at DeSmet Jesuit High School the listing of theater events, museum exhibits and historical homes of architectual value has provided timely, concise and valuable information for our classes. John J. Faust Jr.

University City Same For All? it of of a Thanks, Your Honor' No Missouri Compromise Champion Of 'Missouri Denounces 'Missouree' As A Pomposity service to America, suggests another factor at work. We would submit that politics is that factor and that Mr. Coleman let the cat out of the bag when he protested that his decision would be made before the November election, thus not to be influenced by it. For a member of the Ford Administration, the most crucial political contest at this moment is not the November election. It is the vote of the delegates at the Republican National Convention in August for the party's presidential nomination.

Senator Percy of Illinois, in fact, has said publicly and flatly that the airport decision will not be made until after the GOP convention. As of now neither President Ford nor his challenger, former Gov. Reagan, has sufficient votes for the nomination. Mr. Ford has a microscopic lead over Mr.

Reagan and is unlikely to antagonize needlessly a single delegate, committed or uncommitted. That is, he needs to hold on to what he has and try to lure away what he can, the latter especially should the race go beyond the first ballot. Seen in these terms, Mr. Coleman's reluctance to commit the Ford Administration to a course that will be highly unpopular in either Missouri or Illinois becomes readily understandable. The price for this delay is being paid by the St.

Louis area. The costs of land and construction go up. Millions of dollars in bonds for improvement work at Lambert go unof-fered, putting off necessary work there. The applicants for the Columbia-Waterloo site are precluded from any kind of start on land acquisition. The reasons for Mr.

Coleman's indecision appear clear enough to us; and it is deep disappointment that he put off a decision on the airport until those reasons became so obvious and so controlling. Rights truth-finding process and often frees the guilty." The exclusionary rule was largely adopted by the Supreme Court in 1961, when it ruled that illegal evidence must be excluded at criminal trials in order to deter police misconduct and guarantee the defendants' rights. It is nearly the only way the courts have of enforcing such guarantees as that of reasonable search and seizure. In the new decision the court majority is surrendering some of its enforcement power, giving greater latitude to the conduct or misconduct of the police and, moreover, suggesting that the trial verdict may be more important than the way it is reached. In this case the Burger court has gone further than ever before in retreating from the fair trial guarantees worked out by the pre-Nixon court.

Perhaps it has assuaged those who think the old court was soft on crime. The new court, however, has become soft on the Fourth Amendment. less costly planes have been ignored. With testing of the plane not yet completed, Congress can still hold up this wasteful project by rejecting B-l production funds when the appropriation bill comes up and by putting off the final decision until after the election. The Jobs Veto An override of President Ford's veto of another public works jobs bill ought to be the first order of business when Congress resumes work after the Democratic National Convention.

An unemployment rate of 7.5 per cent constitutes a prima facie case for enactment of the 3.9-billion-dollar measure, and nothing in President Ford's recycled veto message made a case to the contrary. The President's objection to the bill was essentially the same as it was to the 6.2-billion-dollar employment bill he vetoed in February, namely, that it was too expensive. The 350,000 jobs it would create, he said, are exaggerated and, in any case, would be only temporary. Congressional staff studies differ with the President's assessment of the numbers. As for the temporary nature of the jobs, that is conceded; they are intended only as stop-gap relief until the economic recovery advances to the point that it absorbs most of the jobless.

Mr. Ford offers no alternative to the jobs bill; indeed, he does not even contend that unemployment will have dropped significantly a year and a half from now. To do nothing about an unemployment rate of 7.5 per cent is unacceptable, and that is why the jobs bill must be put into law over the President's veto. No To Canada As host of the Olympic Games beginning next week in Montreal, the Canadian government has the right to express reservations about certain aspects of the event. But Prime Minister Trudeau's government has gone beyond that by demanding that the Chinese team from Taiwan not call itself Chinese.

Otherwise, team members will not get past the Montreal airport, warns Allan MacFachen, external affairs minister. The attitude is unbecoming and also does not comply with a basic understanding between the government and the International Olympic Committee reached when Montreal was chosen as the site of the 1976 Games. The questions of which teams should participate and under what flags are ones which were to be decided by the IOC and each of the governments sending teams. It is not Canada's business to require certain countries to send teams only under certain names and certain flags. If the Canadian government gets its way and if host governments in the future make similar demands, the Olympic Games could easily deteriorate permanently into political rather than athletic games.

The news from Secretary of Transportation William T. Coleman that he has not yet reached a decision on the application to build a new metropolitan airport on the. East Side is bound to bring both supporters and opponents of the project together on the only point on which they have managed to find common ground. And that, of course, is the desirability of bringing this apparently politically intractable matter to some kind of resolution. Mr.

Coleman, let the record show, says politics has nothing to do with his often-deferred decision. The reason he has not acted is that he is examining the social and economic implications of the airport decision. Five, six drafts have been produced; none satisfies him, none as he puts it "hangs together." He will try, he says, to "have the opinion finished well before the November election so that nobody can say Coleman decided the issue to affect the election." Well, we would let the record also show that is scarcely a novel discovery that the question of whether the region's new airport is built at Columbia-Waterloo, 111., or is the result modifying old Lambert Field involves social and economic issues. That is not to say the question is easily solved; indeed if it were the matter would scarcely have dragged on for so many years and now need the personal attention of the nation's Secretary of Transportation. It is to say, however, that the salient arguments have long been put forward by both sides and that on balance they strongly favor the construction of a new airport in Illinois over an attempt to work miracles by enlarging Lambert.

Mr. Coleman's indecision, in such contrast to his forthright (if imprudent) response to the request for Concorde SST Softening Aside from expanding somewhat the power the states to invoke capital punishment, which it reintroduced last week, the Supreme Court in its latest ruling on this issue weakens the courts' power to restrict illegal activities by police and to protect individuals' rights to a fair trial. With an opinion by Justice Powell, the court held by 6 to 3 that a defendant may not challenge his state court criminal conviction in federal court on the ground that police illegally obtained evidence used at his trial. Two men on death row, one in Nebraska and one in California, had appealed to the federal courts, charging that the cases against them were based partly on the results of illegal searches. Lower federal courts upheld the appeals and ordered new trials and that, after all, is not the same as setting the men free.

But Justice Powell concluded that the central concern in a trial is establishment of guilt or innocence, and that use of the exclusionary rule "deflects the Wrong Rx By voting 20 to 4 to reject an application from the Dennis Chemical Co. for a 25-year tax abatement, the Board of Aldermen has put the city's Community Development Agency on notice that it will no longer rubber stamp every business development proposed for this special exemption. As a letter printed elsewhere on this page indicates, the chemical firm is asking why it was turned down after it had undertaken the time consuming and costly application process with the encouragement and approval of the city's Community Development Agency. The reason is obvious enough: it did not really qualify for a tax break, and to have extended it would have been a very bad bargain, not so much for the city government, which would have gained in earnings taxes about what it lost from the property tax, but for the city schools, which are the big losers when the Board of Aldermen grants a tax abatement. The real question in this situation is why the Community Development Agency encouraged the chemical company, and that is one CDA Director John Roach ought to be asking himself and his staff.

It is one thing to use the city's ability to grant tax abatement and condemnation powers where there is a clearly beneficial purpose to be served. But while such incentives can serve as a stimulant to the city's development, they are not an all-purpose remedy, and ought not be prescribed without regard to need or to their ultimate economic impact. Lobby Wins The military-industrial lobby won another victory as the Senate gave final approval to a 32.5-billion-dollar military procurement bill that authorizes production funds for the questionable B-l bomber. Although the Senate had voted earlier to delay production of the B-1, the House would not go along and the Senate in the end accepted the removal of the delaying amendment from the bill. In giving the B-l a green light, Congress responded more to the pressure of the prime contractor, Rockwell International, and its widespread network of sub-contractors and suppliers, than to the interests of the general public.

Rockwell's claim that the B-l project would be an important job-producing program has been undermined by its own commissioned study, which showed that more jobs would be created by comparable expenditures for housing or public works. The estimated total outlay for the B-l, including the projected fleet of 244 bombers and supporting equipment, would be nearly 92 billion dollars, making it the most expensive weapons system in history, costing each American family about $1800. Congress went ahead in approving production funds despite the doubts expressed by many defense experts as to the security value of an expensive new manned strategic bomber in an age of missiles. Alternative proposals for a Bill Vaughn In The Kansas City Star When a man sets up a certain number of principles by which to live, anything that happens to him for varying from strict adherence thereto serves him right. Among my strict rules is never to get into an argument with a person mirmr wn0 not on doesn't know IlliriXflT what he is talking about vP Wlft but has no way of knowing Ul UUUllL that he doesn't know.

A AfJfiJrvM man this condition will, UU1I1IUI1 inevitably, draw to his side of the question the unrea-' soning majority of mankind. Several months ago I allowed myself to depart from this sensible conduct in attempting to do a favor to a wandering carpetbagger who also happened to be an old friend. His name is Martin Quigley and he is editor of Midwest Motorist, the organ of the Auto Club of Missouri. He is from Minnesota or some such place and I thought he would appreciate knowing how to pronounce the name of the state in which he works and to which I first introduced him 40 years ago. He called the grand old state "Missouree," which is plain wrong, and I told him so.

I did not admonish him, because I think it is rather amusing to live in a state which has difficulty pronouncing itself. Still, right is right, and friendship is friendship, so I quietly explained that the state whose Auto Club magazine he purported to edit, is Mizzoura. Rule No. 2: Never play with the other man's cards. So I violated that one as well when he suggested a debate in his magazine, with a poll to be conducted among his readers and their ballots to be counted by his staff, on the proper pronunciation of Missouri.

I wrote a calm and well-reasoned argument, while Quigley argued strictly ad hominem, accusing me of living in a better neighborhood as a child than he did. I don't quite see the relevance, except that my boyhood was spent in Missouri and his wasn't. He also sought to cover up his lack of bona fides as a Missourian by claiming that his Great Aunt Emma or some such had been blowed up at the battle of Pilot Knob. Naturally the result of the poll was 60 per cent for the hog-calling Missouree and 40 per cent for the euphonious and proper Mizzoura. The Midwest Motorist printed many letters on both sides of the question, I'll give them that.

I also received a fair number of communications from men of stature and perception; also a few from pompous elocution students who disagreed with me. Missouri was intended by God and the early settlers to be pronounced Mizzoura. Then along came the elocution teachers who thought Missouree sounded more elegant. The proof of the classroom taint on Missouree is that people write they were taught it in school. Now in real Missouri schools they didn't teach how to pronounce the state any more than they taught sex.

They figured it was something you either knew or you didn't and probably never would get quite right. I go back to Eugene Field, who wrote in 1889, "He lives in Mizzoura, where the people are so set in ante-bellum notions that they vote for Jackson yet." (That's not Scoop Jackson.) I take my stand with former Gov. Guy B. Park when he said in 1933: "I've lived in Missouri all my life and I never heard any true Missourian pronounce the name in any other way but 'Mizzourah." The "rah," I'll admit is a little strong. Actually that final 'i" is more like the Meanwhile, From The Statutes Of The State Of Arkansas 5-102.

Pronunciation of state name. Whereas, confusion of practice has arisen in the pronunciation of the name of our State; and it is deemed important that the true pronunciation should be determined for use in oral official proceedings. And, whereas, the matter has been thoroughly investigated by the State Historical Society, and the Eclectic Society of Little Rock, which have agreed upon the correct pronunciation as derived from history and the early usage of the American immigrants. Be it therefore resolved by both houses of the in sofa. Although people who say, "Missouree" probably say "sofee." Much of the mischief originated with the Rev.

Walter Williams, who edited a newspaper in thaf hotbed of culture, Columbia, and came out for "ee." To make it worse he later founded a School', of Journalism which spread the heresy, especially since the prestige of the school brought in many outsiders who had no very clear idea where ''-'V The Midwest Motorist's poll indicates regional a. variation in the way Missouri is said, with the eastern half stronger on "ee" and the western going for or "uh." I do not wish to get too personal, but I grew up in the great City of St. Louis and its environs (one of which Quigley, the same man who accuses me of elitism, calls a ghetto), was city editor of a paper in the great City of Springfield in southwest part of the state and, furthermore, my' father was born in the northwest part of the And in none of these places did any of my kin1'' vary from "Mizzoura." I have pictures of old, white-bearded men. sitting under the trees on the family farm itv Bridgeton, and I would not envy any Minnesotan who walked among them bleating about "Missouri-EE." Well, as I said in my original essay, thajii beautiful part about those of us who know how pronounce Missouri is the well-nigh saintly pa- tience and tolerance we show toward those who don't. I am further buoyed by the thought that, in matters of this kind, whatever the majority thinks is probably wrong.

Since radio and TV people are pretty close to unanimous on the screeched "ee," I figure that they will drive Mizzoura out, eventually, there being a Gresham's law that bad pronunciation drives out good. It is an honor to fall in an honorable, though lost, cause. There is also this random thought: What ruined the Literary Digest's notorious 1936 poll showed Landon as a shoo-in was that it was taken among telephone subscribers. This one was taken i among automobile owners, a notably affluent; group. In any event, when the Republicans come to Kansas City, I hope that there will be enough real Missourians on television to counteract the an-m nouncers.

It should give the viewers a little i something extra to look for. All I ask them to remember is that we Missourians who disagree with each other on how to say the name of state aren't really mad at the other fellow, and often pray for him. In Arkansas General Assembly, that the only true pronunciation of the name of the State, in the opinion of this body, is that received by the French from the native Indians, and committed to writing in the French word representing the sound; and that it should be pronounced in three (3) syllables, with the final silent, the in each syllable with the Italian sound, and the accent on the first aji4 last syllables being the pronunciation formerly-universally, and now still most commonly used; and that the pronunciation with the accent on second syllable with the sound of as in man', and the sounding of the terminal is an innovation to be discouraged. -Concurrent Resolution No. 4, Adopted I would like to thank you for the June 25 article by James E.

Adams, "Four Missouri Baptist Colleges Receive Federal And State Funds." Doesn't it seem odd that the Rev. Dr. Wamble keeps preaching about separation of church and state but doesn't practice what he preaches? It seems to be okay in his mind for our tax money to help Baptist colleges but no other students. Mrs. John Murphy Thanks For Help The kudos given to the St.

Louis-New Orleans Bicentennial Showboat by Walter on CBS were not only a tribute to the Loretto-Hilton Story Theatre; performers, but also, to the superbly co-ordinated efforts of the Army Corps of the Coast Guard and Ingram Barge Lines. The City of St. Louis owes these extremely cooperative groups a vote of thanks for all their help in making this event nationally newsworthy on the biggest historical day of celebration our country has ever experienced. Mrs. Joy Melman Chairman St.

Louis Spirit Of '76 Creve Coeur Rules Changed Your June 29 editorial, "The Gluttonous Goose," in which you discussed the merits of tax abatement and used our company as a prime example, demands a reply. Dennis Chemical Co. has been in St. Loujs for 40 years, building an excellent national reputation in our field for the qua'lity of our products, service and integrity. The question of tax abatement can be open for re-evaluation.

However, as the rules now stand, we have been led to believe that we are entitled to an abatement. It is grossly unfair to change the rules in the middle of the game. We are innocent of any wrongdoing and strongly resent being held out as somehow unclean, when, in fact, we followed all of the guidelines of Section 353 of the revised Missouri Statutes and relajed St. Louis ordinances as administered by the Community Development Agency. It' is time-consuming and costly to apply for an abatement; it takes many months to complete the tax abatement procedure, which requires the formation of a development corporation, the drafting of a comprehensive proposal and architectural drawings of the building site and proposed construction.

We were encouraged all along this arduous path by the Community Development Agency, which ultimately approved our plan. Why do you vehemently oppose our relatively insignificant abatement, when you have been silent when infinitely greater tax relief was being approved for large businesses? We are as much entitled to abatement as all of the companies granted approval in the past. Aaron Dennis Administrative Vice President Dennis Chemical Inc. 2C 1 4..