The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 4

Akron Beacon Journal Saturday showcase By Walt Ned fashion arpEfcr say ORgssw set STARK" COOtJTY WOLDS ABSENTEEISM EMffJAR. Founded Apr IS. 1839 C. I. KNIGHT.

Pubbshar. 1907-1933 AS CONOJy XAOPSeNS John S. Knight. Editor Emeritus PAUL A. POOH MAN Editor and Vice President KEITH L.

McGLADE Vice President and General Manager DAVID B. COOPER Associate editor ALBERT E. FITZPATRICK DALE ALLEN Executive Editor 1 Assistant Editor A4 Saturday. March 8, 1980 Editorials kbok) foremen's mew rastic That 'Nobel' sperm bank raises uneasy questions TWIEF POB5 LAWSOJS STQR PIOR? A V'lHtfTTOM- Bcem i 4 FALLS WOMAN CROCHFTS L' I WADDING. DRE55ES 15 THAT Klu, A A Vw ths stern stick Ef Vm fsuu.F XfapaifWD 2 Voice of the people IF A FEW Nobel laureates choose to donate sperm for use by high-IQ women and if someone chooses to set up facilities to make this possible, it's nobody's business but their own.

Even so, it's troubling to watch; it stirs the almost instinctive dread in most of us toward any deliberate controlled gene tinkering, calling up nightmare images of scientific manipulation of the whole human race. It probably shouldn't. Or should it? People generally are and ought to be free to do as they see fit with their genetic equipment, within the limits of the laws and customs of their societies and the limits of the choices available to them. And there is nothing that infringes that freedom in the Muller Repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank started by retired California businessman Robert K. Graham.

Its effect, instead, is to widen freedom of choice. This could be viewed as a gain for human liberty. Mr. Graham's extraordinary enterprise in no sense a business, because it entails no money beyond freight charges for delivery of the sperm was named in honor of the late Dr. Hermann J.

Muller, winner of the 1946 Nobel genetics prize. Twenty-five years ago Dr. Muller was accused of Nazi-like. "master race" thinking for suggesting formation of sperm banks to combat what he regarded as a destructive decline in mankind's genetic endowment. Now Mr.

Graham has done what Dr. Muller couldn't. As sperm donors, he accepts only scientists who have won Nobel Prizes. As recipients, he accepts only high-IQ married women young and preferably with infertile husbands, and doesn't identify the donors. So far, he says, three women have become pregnant this way and more than 24 others have expressed interest.

When all of this is voluntary, there is probably nothing wrong with it. Yet it still arouses echoes of Al-dous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's 1984. Some of this may be ingrained resistance not unlike the fear of change characteristic of primitive tribes: What we nave been doing has somehow worked, even though we may not understand it; the fact that we are here is proof. Change it and everything may fall apart. There is another reason, perhaps more rational, for concern: The breeders of animals know what they are after fleetness in a racehorse, beef or milk in cattle, a keen nose or great strength, say, in a dog, fine loins and hams in pigs But in people, we really aren't sure which way we should go.

If paleolithic peoples had had the power of conscious genetic control, we might all be Neanderthal-like creatures built to fell mastodons. In other societies, most might have been fashioned to march in lock step. Here the aim is high IQs but those who know most about psychom-etry will warn that with IQ tests we can't even be sure exactly what we're measuring. So we can't be sure eration of high IQs is necessarily the answer to human problems. On a small scale, like the one involved here, the problem is also small.

If it generates some monsters, they will be few and not a danger. But widen it to include a lot of us, and the worry becomes large: In pushing deliberately for certain characteristics we can fail to see what else we are doing, and generate problems we never dreamed of. Our knowledge is too thin. Which ALL PEOPLE want peace, but differ on how to gain and maintain it. One popular idea is to make our nation so powerful any other will fear to attack it.

But when other world powers get the same idea, you have the senseless arms race we're now in. Fear begets fear; our greatest fear now is that we'll be run over by some rival power. It's regrettable that in the midst of Lent, when our attention should be on the Cross, love, forgiveness, sacrifice, helpfulness and service, some church and community leaders are planning a "God Bless America Rally" in our city, to emphasize the increase of U. S. military strength.

I respect their right to believe as they do, but beg to differ. To fight for peace is a contradiction. Does might make right? Is America the religion of America? And is anyone who questions this suspect? By searching our own hearts, we may very well find the evils we oppose in others. Those who advocate strongly the inerrancy of Scripture how have they missed seeing there that all war is sin, way lies re It's dead issue THE FRIDAY letter protesting an effort by Madalyn Murray O'Hair to get religious services banned from the airwaves dealt with a matter settled long ago. The O'Hair petition was submitted to the Federal Communications Commission in 1974 and was denied Aug.

1, 1975, closing the matter. We apologize for any needless concern publication of the letter may have caused. and incompatible with the life, spirit and teachings of Jesus? Jesus melted the Roman-dominated world of His day by strange power called suffering love, which is stronger than gun force. Are there alternatives? Why not a "God Forgive America Then we could pursue love projects of resettling homeless refugees, cutting back on our waste and out of our affluence send heifers, blankets, hybrid seeds and fertilizer and agricultural experts to fore the opponent doesn't deserve consideration in the current contest. He says that these shadowy power brokers opposed him in both the primary and general elections, a conclusion I find doubtful.

I voted for Kapper and now I'm doubting my decision. It upsets me when someone. attacks my right to make a choice within the Democratic Party. I certainly hope Kapper's candidate, Larry Vuillemin, has more class and political acumen than his well-known sponsor. I am supporting Bob Strauber.

MICHAEL SWAN Akron I MEAN. YOU NEVER EVEN MET THE GUY, AND the PUKE. HEM50NE0FAKINPAN ORIGINAL, HE SHOT FROM STOOP IN NO MAN'S SHAPOU, Justice less blind TO AM Qi.VPAD AT nWi4n'urkA pays for $63 worth of items" 'whe'ri'he passes through the checkout; counter but leaves a $1 nail clipper in his pocket a crook? Yes, said the mayor of a suburban Cincinnati city who conyjctednd fined the shopper who said he8 forgot he'd put the clipper in his pocket. No, said the Hamilton County municipal judge who listened to the public defender's appeal of the case That's jurisprudence 4th the em phasis on prudence. 't'n Kapper letter offends Now high from sky-high I'VE RECEIVED a letter I find offensive in the extreme.

It was written by unsuccessful mayoral candidate Ray Kapper in support of his chosen candidate for the vacant council at-large seat. I am a lifelong Democrat and I certainly have no quarrel with a fellow Democrat for announcing his support for a candidate. But Kapper approaches his endorsement with a mean vindictiveness that American politics should be outgrowing. He says his man's main opponent is supported by people who opposed the Kapper mayoral candidacy, and there- PpOnesburV By Garry Trudeau I'M REALLY IMPRESSED. MAN.

THIS 15 JUST A FIRST-CLASS THE owen help backward peoples produce, their own food. Doctors, nurses, missionaries are needed for health care; many need to hear of Christ and His love. Right is might! Then God will truly bless us. L. BYRON MILLER Pastor, Eastwood Church of the Brethren Akron I DISAGREE with your Feb! 22 editorial "No choice but patience as Iran siege wears on." I think the time has come for America to demand, not yield.

I believe if America would stop tiptoeing cautiously around issues and letting other countries play us for a pushover, there would be no more Pueblos or embassies taken over by terrorists. In the last five years several of our ambassadors have been assassinated and a number of Marines killed protecting our embassies. When the American hostages in Tehran chose the, diplomatic field, they knew there was a chance that thev might be taken captive or even killed. When North Korea seized the Pueblo crew, there was no great outcry for justice from our government or the American public. I wonder if someone is not playing politics with the lives of the American hostages.

DICK RAINES. Akron A MAN WITH any brains and guts would have warned Iran to release our country's embassy people oy a reasonable time or be bombed. Let the world know tyrants are not going to get away with kidnapping U. S. citizens.

I intend to vote for the presidential candidate who shares my views. ERNEST A. McCURDY Akron IPLOVETO STAY AND wi PousH.euT.- iimFici SWORP. baggage lockers was one of the first in the country. Red caps and doormen were regularly on duty.

There was a mere 25 cents charge for all-day parking. certainly was aggressive in attempts to wean motorists away from their cars." The opening of the viaduct in 1922, iust imp Inn? hlnrk from th terminal saved northbound cars the long, slow pull up North Howard Street. This and other improvements, including several miles-of private right-of-way in northern Summit County, made possible a schedule of an hour and 15 minutes from downtown Akron to downtown Cleveland. Double-headers ran hourly; sometimes as many as three triple-headers took baseball fans to Geveland. But the convenience of door-to-door transportation in automobiles won out in the 1930s and the interurbans went out of business.

(Jackson is a retired associate editor of the Beacon Journal.) at A THE HIP, NEVER TOOK NO FOR AN ANSWER, ALWAYS Wm THE DISTANCE, ANPLIVEP TIME THOSE Akron-area opera lovers who have tried to enjoy the Saturday afternoon broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera this season over WKSU-FM may have been puzzled and bothered by some strange radio interference background "squawks and squeals and unsettling fadeaways right in the middle of the soprano's most important aria. The literbugs SHELL stations up in Lorain County are shifting to selling gasoline by the liter. Not only does it tie in nicely to this country's headlong rush to the metric system, but it simplifies all that stuff about half-pricing the pumps. It doesn't matter, though, what measure they use to sell it. At these prices, we'll all be, buying it by the ounce milliliter? soon anyway.

Have patience, opera fans. Help is on the way. The problem, as we understand it, is in the way WKSU-FM has been receiving the Met broadcasts for transmission, over telephone lines. Now the management of WKSU has complained enough to the czars at National Public Radio, which makes the arrangements with the Metropolitan. Beginning next Saturday, with the Met's broadcast of Verdi's Don Carlo, the operas for the rest of this season will reach this area's radio sets via satellite.

WKSU thinks that will solve the quality problem that has been so apparent in opera broadcasts this year. Opera lovers will listen intently, and hope that if it does both NPR and the people who runs things at the Met can be persuaded to keep us on the satellite next season as well. After all, what fun is opera if the tenor's most stirring notes disappear in a wave of electronic squealing? Behind the front page James S. Jackson local and interurban lines on double tracks across the viaduct when the picture in last Sunday's Beacon Journal was taken in the mid-'20s. The picture is from Carl H.

Pockrandt's collection and was printed first in Karl H. Grismer's Akron and Summit County. In 1921 the word "traction" gave way to "power." The Arm changed Its name to Northern Ohio Power Light. Then, in 1930, a corporate split-up resulted in establishment of Ohio Edison to handle the power business, the Akron Transportation Co. to operate city streetcars and buses and the Northern urn In those days the easy way to go was the trolley car STREETCARS did run on the North Hill viaduct.

The answer in last Sunday's Action Line was but the amplification concerning the lines that YOU CAPTURED HIM PERFECTLY! ANDPIWlri THE recently has been occupied by the County Welfare Department. Here was the terminal as described by James M. Blower and Robert S. Ko-rach in their book The Story: "The jewel of the crown in the way of stations was the elaborate terminal station in Akron, which rivalled the famed Milwaukee and Indianapolis traction terminals in size and exceeded them in some respects "It was four-story white granite building behind which was the double train shed containing eight tracks. An underground tunnel led from the waiting room to the tracks so as to give passengers complete protection from the many car movements.

Approximately 32 interurban trains an hour entered or left the station. "The station had very complete facilities, including a restaurant, baggage locker room and parking service for patrons' cars. The use of coin-operated Ua JOB! Ohio Interurban Co. to operate the lines to Cleveland and Kent-Ravenna. Before then, in 1928, the interurban line that once extended to Canton, Mas-sillon, New Philadelphia and Uhrichs-ville had been abandoned.

The Cleveland and Ravenna lines fell victim to automobiles and the Depression in 1932. In the late teens and early 1920s, Akron was the hub of an excellent network of interurban lines that provided fast, frequent service in all directions but especially to Geveland, where connections could be made to numerous other cities in Ohio and the Midwest. By 1918, the intercity operation had outgrown the store-front station on South Main Street just south of the present First National Tower, where buses now load at Cascade Plaza. Going north on Main to find enough open space (and to be nearer the talked-about viaduct) the NOT, as it was usually called, built a fine new terminal and office building. In later years this was Ohio Edison's headquarters and more used the bridge from Furnace Street to St.

Thomas Hospital may have left wrong impressions. The Akron Street Railway Co. was long in the past when the viaduct was completed and opened in 1922. The first company to operate horse-drawn cars in Akron was chartered in 1883 as the Akron Street Railway Herdic Co. (A herdic, named after its inventor, is a low-hung carriage having an entrance at the back and the seats at the side.) In 1888 the firm's assets were sold to the Akron Street Railway which built a power plant, laid heavier rails and put trolley cars in service.

A succession of ownerships and acquisition of some competitors led to establishment of the Northern Ohio Traction Light Co. in 1899. It was tins firm that was operating.