The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 6

Akron Beacon Journal Saturday showcase By Walt Ned DOG SLED PACES AT 6LEETY HOLLOW GOLF COURSE' LAHORE TEACHER ACROSS TODZESj LAKE 70 gEACH SCHOOL WWEKJ CAP FAILS "TO StAET C. L. KNIGHT, Publisher, 1907-1933 r-n I KNOW PE NOT SUPPOSED TO WAv John S. Knight, Editor Emeritus THERE NOTHING weCAife PAUL A. POORMAN Cditor and Vice President DAVID B.

COOPER Associate Editor KEITH L. McGLADE Vice President and General Manager J. SCOTT BOSLEY Managing Editor WITH SAylNfc A FW-r OIO THE VAy, IS THfcRfc ALBERT E. FITZPATRICK Executive Editor A6 Saturday, January 21, 1978 Editorials 7 'M tost -if (L V. v' SOCf aVME CLOSE EAJCOUMTERS- HU6E OaOwDS HEpG AKBOU GENERAL LETS StSTEPS AND -BCOTHRS VIEW NtWEDRU BABIES NEW AKBOU Cni HAtfE TOJT UOuCPlUG DEVICE CALlfD EIDERLV 6T ABOARD Akron schools, union should reach accord 'REMEMBER MOW,) HAWDS OR MV BASEBALL.

M.ITT AND IMS YOURS, I I I 1 I I I 11 m. III MI iii ii i I riHif rcv II IW I I 1 I I IV I a five percent pay increase this year and four percent next year. Local 100 is asking for a 10 percent increase in a one-year contract retroactive to July 1, 1977, plus its share of any unanticipated income. The dispute already has gone to an impasse panel. It recommended the same five and four percent increases given to other employes.

Customarily, the board has agreed to the same percentage increase for each group of employes. If particular unions chose to distribute the total to their members in different ways, that was acceptable. Perhaps that flexibility offers an avenue for successful maneuvering. In addition, all employes receive 87 percent of any unexpected income the board receives. The other employe groups received additional pay raises of .4 percent Thursday from that money.

The last negotiating session with the union held out some hope that a compromise can yet be reached, if both sides work at it. That compromise must be realized, or everyone will suffer employers, employes, the city and its children. Fetuses: Human or not? AKRON PUBLIC Schools are justifiably proud of their continuous record of operation and of financial stability. And it's important, especially for the approximately 45,000 pupils now midway in their school year, that this record be kept intact. That means, quite simply, that the board of education and the Firemen and Oilers Local 100 must find a solution to their current contract dispute.

Union officials who represent about 420 custodial, maintenance and trans-, portation employes say the members have never mentioned going on strike. But earlier this week, school officials expressed the fear that when the employes meet Sunday, they will vote to walk out. A strike could force nearly half the system's 65 schools to close because they cannot be heated without licensed boiler operators on duty. Local 100 has rejected a contract offer granting its members exactly the same percentage pay increases agreed to in contracts with four other school bargaining groups. The board already has settled with teachers, secretaries, cafeteria and administrative personnel in agreements that give those 3,500 employes Fine choice THE NATION-badly needs to have its faith restored in the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Since the death in May 1972 of J. Edgar Hoover, whose reign at the top of the bureau spanned 48 years, the shine has rapidly come off the FBI's image. The person to put the polish back on, President Carter believes, is U. S. Circuit Court Judge William H.

Webster of St. Louis. The President has asked the Senate to confirm Judge Webster as the next FBI director, succeeding Clarence M. Kelley, who plans to retire Feb. 15.

The President appears to have chosen wisely. For the new director to function effectively, he will need to have the strong confidence of the American people. There seems to be little in Judge Webster's background to indicate that he will have much difficulty gaining that confidence, With the FBI now slowly beginning to correct past practices by hiring more than just token numbers of blacks, other minorities and women as agents, it is important for the new director to be committed to eliminating racial and sexual barriers to bureau jobs. From what we know, Judge Webster is. With the bureau's past harassment of groups seeking racial and sexual equality in mind, the new director should be very sensitive to civil and human rights.

From what we can learn, Judge Webster is. With disclosures still fresh on our minds about how the bureau engaged in improper or illegal action against dissidents and even built files on some members of Congress, the new director should have a strong commitment to upholding the guarantees contained in the Bill of Rights. From what we can learn, Judge Webster does. With the ink still wet on a recent Justice Department report documenting instances of improper use of bureau resources by top FBI officials, I ASK your readers to please support passage of the abortion ordinance. This ordinance could save a great many infants from being senselessly murdered.

Many aborted infants are alive briefly. The ordinance would require that a physician be present and take all possible steps to preserve the child's life. One thing baffles me. Recently, when a woman died, the miracles of science were used to keep her body alive in a gallant effort to save the life of her unborn baby. Was this woman different in that her unborn child was human? What, then, are other pregnant women carrying around? I have a beautiful infant daughter, and the very mention of the word "abortion" repulses me.

It is a beautiful feeling to bring a new life into the world nurturing it and watching it grow. It brings a sense of fulfilment that cannot be understood until it is experienced. Perhaps this ordinance is the first step in the repeal of current abortion laws. Maybe the "almighty" Supreme Court justices will, by some miracle, realize their fallibility and open their eyes! MICHELE FRANKART Akron SURELY unborn fetuses are not persons. Their conception is the creation of a male and a female, married or not.

If that creation is not wanted, the creators have as much right to destroy it as a sculptor has to take a mallet and destroy something he has created and doesn't like. Not every woman is overjoyed to discover she is pregnant. If she is not able to adjust her thinking within the 22-week period, she ought to feel justified in terminating the pregnancy. I once assisted in a home delivery. What I saw lying on that bed was certainly no human being, Humans breathe air, and what I saw there had developed in a liquid environment.

It was no more a baby Wilbur Cooper Behind the front page Voice of the people Letters to the editor mast bear a signature and mast contain address and telephone number. All letters are subject to editing; names will be withheld only for good reason. than a doll is. When the doctor made it cry then it was a baby. Children have the right to be born to parents who will love and care for them.

If the parents are not able to do this, then it would be much better for them never to be born. Why bring forth more little ones to go hungry, cold, abused and forsaken? In India there are children who have never known where their next food would come from; they are piles of bones, sleep in doorways and are ill-clothed. Until those who talk of the "right to life" find a solution for such conditions I have no respect for their opinions. MRS. GERTRUDE R.

CROWTHER Akron MARY KAPPER BARRY, mother of 10, grandmother and a member of "Catholics for a Free Choice" (your Jan. 4 edition) has come a long way on the road of life, but has failed somehow to absorb the knowledge that each creature conceived is meant to contribute certain experiences to our existence. When a woman purposely stops the progression of the interaction between mother and child by abortion, she becomes judge and juror over an innocent choice is a death sentence not for herself, but for another entity. Life? Liberty? The pursuit of happiness? for whom? Her attitude of "me, my body, my choice" would make us become a nation of self-centered individuals, interested only in freedom with reservations. And what happens to a nation that Thanks, friends I CERTAINLY am grateful for the many wonderful gifts and the thought-fulness shown to me at my recent retirement.

As a followup to the article about me, I received a gold watch from an anonymous donor. Thank you. I enjoyed my many years of work with my Beacon Journal customers. Thanks, friends, for everything! WILBUR L. COOPER Akron Editor's note: After 36 years selling the Beacon Journal on downtown streets, Wilbur Cooper retired last month.

Mercurys. Many, of course, bear out-of-state licenses, particularly from Michigan and Ohio, but the Floridians have plenty of big cars, too. The EPA estimates of gasoline mileage for city driving would certainly go down several miles per gallon for small cars as well as for big ones if Florida conditions were factored in. Countless hours are spent by tens of thousands of vehicles just standing still with' engines running while waiting for the car ahead to move forward one length. For years, the situation has been notoriously bad in the bottleneck of US-41 as it passes through Bradenton and Sarasota and on to the south.

Lacking an extension of 1-75 from Tampa southward, all through traffic joins with the heavy local traffic on the sadly overloaded route. Red lights last interminably but when they turn green it is sometimes impossible to move forward because a solid line is backed up from the next red light. More than once, wesaw or were part of lines of standstill cars more than a mile long. limits freedom fo certain inddividuals? What happens to a people whose women choose not to promote courage, perseverance and trust? What happens to a society that has not been tempered by these character-building qualities that create experiences to mature and grow on? MARY THORNBURG I Akron WHEN ANY oppressed group of people struggle to liberate themselves, another group will try to take away their gains. These reactionaries often disguise their intentions from the public and even from themselves.

In 1973 the Supreme Court acknowledged that a woman's decision whether to terminate her pregnancy was a question pf personal liberty. I This gave women much more control over their bodies and their lives. Importantly, it helped decrease the necessity for women to attach themselves to men In order to survive economically, I Progressive women and men welcomed the ruling. The problem for the reactionaries was how to create a movement to restore this domination over women without revealing what was really afoot. They formed the "Right to Life" movement, an alliance of far right-wing groups like the John Birch the official hierarchy of the Catholic Church, a small minority of Catholics, a few conservative non-Catholics, and ultra-conservative poli-, ticians like Sen.

Jessie Helms. This movement took one element pf Catholic dogma and dressed it up in 'a mockery of the movement from the '60s. Less than a century ago the Catholic hierarchy (all male) declared a new dogma, that a "person" existed from the moment of conception. (The Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that this isn't true in law.) The hierarchy forbade abortion arid contraception. This dogma is used by the Right to Life movement in its for the rights of the fetus-people.

Akron was picked as the place to develop a "model" anti-abortion ordinance. At the invitation of Ray Kapper, local arid national movement figures have drawn up an incredible city ordinance. It Is clear that the purpose is to circumvent the Supreme Court. The plan is to harass the women, clinics and hospitals involved in abortions. I am certain the majority of Catholics in this city are fair-minded people who abhor any violation of the principle of separation of church and state.

It is essential that they take up the struggle inside the Catholic Church to stop this activity. (A national organization, Catholics for Free Choice, is doing this.) Other churches should become active in this. Finally, all progressive people in Akron must come forward to see that the proposed ordinance is defeated. I JERRY CARR Akron Florida One heard varying explanations as to why completion of the much-needed road has been delayed. Some said it was politics; others blamed environmentalists for objecting to a planned route.

At any rate, construction on the 20-mile stretch recently got under way. Although there are more superhighways along Florida's East Coast, a two-day foray to the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area brought us into traffic congestion just as frustrating and wasteful as Sarasota's. Probably to make up for lost time, when drivers in Florida get on the open road, they put the accelerator to the floor, thus wasting more, gasoline. As a 55-mile-an-hour driver, I am accustomed to having most cars and trucks pass me on the intcrstates in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York usually at about 60. In Florida, they zoom past and out of sight at 65, 70 and up.

Enforcement of the posted 55-mph speed limit could be the first and easiest way to save a lot of wasted fn5j in Florida. 1 for FBI chief WMmmm Judge William H. Webster including Mr. Hoover himself, the new director should have a sharply honed sense of morality and ethics. From what we can learn, Judge Webster does.

Judge Webster, a Republican appointed to the U. S. District Court in St. Louis by President Nixon in 1971, is pictured by acquaintances as a person of unquestioned honesty, integrity and fairness. A few have attempted to make something of Judge Webster's membership in three St.

Louis clubs with no black members. But. that should not be taken exclusively as a reflection of his attitude toward racial equality any more than a person's decision to join a racially segregated church. Even though this nation has properly demanded higher standards for its public officials the last few years, we must be careful not to set the standards so high that they are unattainable by any but those who have lived in isolation. The job facing Judge Webster is monumental.

His goal should be to turn the FBI into a bureau that once again reflects the highest standards and traditions of law enforcement in this country. Let's hope he succeeds. and commercial structures, it also calls for extensive reliance on air-conditioning, which requires at least as much energy as does heating. The catch is that cold weather does invade Florida and that heat is necessary for personal comfort but that much of that heat is produced inefficiently and not conserved properly. While we were in the Tampa Bay area, the temperature for three successive mornings dropped to about freezing and rose to only the low 50s during the day.

The Tampa Tribune of Jan. 11 reported that electricity consumption was at record levels. This was attributed to heavy usage of portable electric heaters certainly one of the most costly and least efficient ways of warming space. As we traveled around those days through stores, restaurants and airport lobbies, it seemed to us that there was too much heat probably an overreaction of shivering southerners. A few days earlier, when the temperature was in the pleasant 70s, it appeared Jthat some places of business were using Energy waste seems a way of life in sunny By JAMES S.

JACKSON WHEN THE PROBLEM solvers finally get around to dealing seriously with the energy crisis, a prime target for cutting down wasteful uses of fuel could be the state of Florida. With all that beautiful sunshine, you might think that the southernmost of the continental states was in a position to use less coal and petroleum per capita than the rest of the country. Without any hard statistics to back me in min nhvprva. tion during a recent Jackson two-week stay in the state is that Floridi-ans and their numerous visitors are among the nation's most profligate consumers of fuel. They waste it, indoors and out.

If the subtropical climate reduces (not eliminatesf'the need for heating homes the air conditioning unnecessarily. Solar heating certainly has great potential in Florida because the sun shines so many more days than in the North. But, at best, it takes several years for solar heating to pay for itself and it may 1k that the many persons of advanced years who have moved there are unwilling to make the investment. At any rate, we saw no indication that the power of the sun in Florida is being used more extensively for home heating than anywhere else. But if there is potential for fuel saving in heating in Florida there is even more for reducing fuel waste by motor vehicles, Gas-guzzling cars, insufferable congestion and excessive speed on the open roads all combine to cause what must be one of the lowest miles-per-gallon averages of any state in the union.

Noticeable to the visitor from Ohio are the unusual number of Cadillacs, Continentals and Thunderbirds. Far more common than Mavericks, Novas fand Valiants are big Oldsmobiles, Corddbas, Buicks and.