The Morning News from Wilmington, Delaware • Page 15

in -4 1 A-15 Sunday Ntwi Journal, Wilmington, July 16, 1978 Grease By Pat Ordovensky 1 7 'Consider your said the king. 'Off with his said the queen Crusader WASHINGTON They call them Action Grants. They were the first major effort by Jimmy Carter's crowd to try to pump some oxygen into the nation's dying cities. But viewed with the cynicism that infects anyone who has watched our government perform for a few years, they also could be called rewards. Perhaps a better word is "grease," applied at appropriate spots in the legislative machinery to allow Jimmy's programs to move more smoothly.

Patricia Harris, the energetic, outspoken HUD secretary, wasn't talking about grease in the spring of '77 when she unveiled the program on Capitol Hill. She was talking about incentives to prod urban areas to come up with new money for revitalization. The feds, she said, would contribute $1 for roughly every $6 of private capital raised. The Democrat-controlled Congress could hardly wait to embrace this bold new initiative from the new Democratic president. The congressional leaders were echoing Mrs.

Harris' words about reviving urban economies, providing low-income jobs, restoring deteriorating neighborhoods. They gave Mrs. Harris $400 million to start and told her she could have another $400 million in each of the next two years. So far she has given away $262 million in 89 Action Grants. Wilmington got $1.9 million of it last April to help build a hotel on King Street.

And how are the lucky cities selected? As Mrs. Harris announces the awards, at full-dress hews conferences on the top floor of the HUD building, she tells us how her hardworking dedicated staff of 16 young men and women work far into the night sifting, reviewing and evaluating applications until they decide which cities are most deserving. Fine. Now let's look at those lucky cities. By far the two largest Action Grants have gone to Toledo and Milwaukee.

They got $12 million each. Toledo is represented in Congress by Thomas Ludlow Ashley and Milwaukee by Henry Reuss. Ashley chairs the housing subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over just about everything HUD does. Reuss chairs the parent Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs. Ashley's subcommittee wrote the law that gave Mrs.

Harris her $400 million. Reuss' full committee approved it. In third place is St. Louis, which got $10.5 million. A congressman from St.

Louis, William L. Clay, just happens to head the subcommittee that is considering Jimmy's massive civil service reform. Among the 11 largest Action Grants were a couple to such well-known centers of urban decay as Cambridge, and South Bend, Ind. The Cambridge congressman is one Thomas P. O'Neill who likes to be called "Tip" and is also speaker of the House.

Representing South Bend is John Brademas, the House Democratic whip. Could all this be pure coincidence? That question was put to Mrs. Harris at a news conference last week. "I'm asking you to believe that these cities have great need," the secretary said, "and that they have recognized this great need by electing outstanding leaders to the House and Senate." HUD's Harris gave away $262 million Mrs. Harris' hard-working staff, crowded into the back of the room, broke into laughter.

The cynical reporters merely frowned. But it doesn't end there. Consider Springfield, Mass. Springfield got $1.01 million to help an industry expand and demolish some slums. Springfield has had the foresight to elect Edward P.

Boland, who for years has had iron-fisted control of the appropriations subcommittee that originates all HUD money bills. Galveston, got $3 million to renovate a cruise ship, build a parking garage and restore an opera house. Galveston is the home of crusty old Jack Brooks, czar of the House Government Operations Committee. Of the 89 lucky cities, 33 have the good fortune to be represented in the House by a speaker, a whip or a chairman of a committee or subcommittee. And what about the others? Ah, the others.

To revise the cliche, HUD helps those who help HUD. To see this in perspective, one remember that there are 535 members of Congress. From that crowd, a total of 62 are selected to serve on the Banking and Urban Affairs committees of the House and Senate the committee that created Action Grants. Of the $262 million handed out to date, $190 million has gone to constituents of those 62 legislators. That's 73 percent.

That means only 27 percent of the money has gone to cities that have neither a congressman nor a senator on the committees that oversee HUD. The list of the big Action Grants, more than $4 million each, reads like a roll call of the home towns of House 'Committee members: Pawtucket, Baltimore, San Antonio, St. Paul, Portland, and don't forget Toledo and Milwaukee. Even cities represented by Republicans fare better if the Republicans are on the committee. Take Waterloo, Iowa, and Yonkers, N.Y., neither of which usually makes a list of dying metropolises.

Each got more than $3 million. Each has a GOP congressman on the urban affairs committee. So how did Wilmington become one of the Lucky 89? Did Sen. Joe Biden turn on his clout with Jimmy's crowd? Did ex-mayor Tom Maloney use his charm and influence with his new bosses at HUD? Was the application prepared by Mayor McLaughlin and his staff so overwhelmingly persuasive it could not be refused? Each of the above may have been partially responsible. But the evidence suggests an equally strong factor was Rep.

Tom Evans' seat at the far end of the table used by the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Sometime who knows when? we'll have a Mary Ann Sorden Stuart Day in Delaware. Who was Mary Ann Sorden Stuart? Glad you asked that. Mary Ann Sorden Stuart was a woman whom Delaware legislators tried to avoid. It wasn't that she was personally obnoxious. It was just that she was a crusader and hers was a message she was determined would be at least listened to, even if the legislators disagreed with her.

They sure did disagree with her but she was not to be silenced. Not this courageous, determined 250 pound lady, usually dressed in black. A lady who was reported to have been able to talk 10 hours a day at the rate of 200 words a minute. Mary Ann Sorden Stuart lived in the village of Greenwood, down in western Sussex, the most unlikely place for a radical to live. And she was a radical in that she believed women had the right to vote.

just like men, at any and all elections. A radical? Well, in her day, anyone who preached the gospel of women's suffrage was indeed a radical. That was a long time ago, long before the push for the current Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Actually, she was one of the pioneers if not the pioneer Delaware woman advocate for political and legal rights.

Though she came from the little town of Greenwood, she was by no means a small fry in the National Women's Suffrage Association. She was a vice president of the national organization representing Delaware. She was influential enough to bring to Delaware some of the top ranking women's rights leaders of her time, leaders such as Susan B. By Bill Frank according to the reporter, in the style of "the Goddess of Liberty." "Fifty years from now, Mrs. Stanton said, "men will wonder why in the world they had never given women the right to vote." That would be in 1921.

The women's suffrage amendment had already been included in the U.S. Constitution. Mrs. Stanton also called upon the Democratic Party to emancipate women just as the Republicans had emancipated the blacks. Both Mrs.

Stanton and Miss Anthony denied that politics was too mean and unladylike for women. One man had said to Mrs. Stanton, "Bullets go along with ballots. Are you ready to go to war?" Mrs. Stanton replied, "Yes I'm ready to vote and ready to do what you did in the recent (Civil) war.

Buy myself a substitute in the draft." It' was a common thing during the Civil War for drafted men with Mrs. Stanton also called upon the Democratic Party to emancipate women as the Republicans had done for blacks money to pay substitutes to go to war in their place. Nothing specific developed from this meeting with the General Assembly. And years later in 1897, the state convention to write a new constitution for Delaware also refused to enact a provision so that women could vote in Delaware. The women were not frustrated.

Even though they couldn't make any headway toward the vote, they did manage to get through some very good improvements in the laws pertaining to women and child labor. It was, nonetheless, a long winding road toward the major goal. Finally, the 19th Amendment was adopted in time for the 1920 elections. And good old Delaware, often hailed as "the first state" trailed along with ratification March 12, 1923, or two and a half years after 36 states had already approved the 19th Amendment. In contrast, Delaware was among the very first to ratify the current Equal Rights Amendment six years ago.

vital to AA holic who has embraced the AA way of life. In my opinion, anonymity is so vital to the AA Program, I seriously doubt its survival without this principle. JO.G. Newport Boosting Mr. Hefner I thought that the July 2 article "The search for beauty" was in very bad taste for the Sunday News Journal, a family newspaper.

Written by Roger Simon of the Chicago Sun-Times Service and circulated by numerous papers throughout the country, yours included, it has given the multi-millionaire smut dealer Hugh Hefner free publicity. I hate to think that I have contributed to making him richer. M.CARON Wilmington Mark Russell Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Okay, let's start from the beginning: Mrs. Stuart was born Mary Ann Sorden 150 years ago to John and Sarah Owens Pennewill Sorden.

Her father was a prominent Democrat down in Sussex County and at one time a large owner of land near Greenwood. He was far ahead of his times. He was the author of a bill in the State Senate in 1871 that gave a married woman the right to make out her own will. Mary Ann married Dr. William W.

Stuart at a very fashionable To understand life in Russia it's best to remember their legal system is based on the premise that you are guilty until proven guilty. This is always true except in cases in which it is the other way around. The spectators at a Soviet trial do not sit inside the courtroom but rather outside in the fresh air. A special seat is reserved there for the defense attorney. It is very difficult to become a defense attorney in Russia.

You must have at least three weeks of law school and be a relative of the prosecuting attorney. Los Anwles Times Etta wedding. They had five children but in the prime of his life, Dr. Stuart died. Just what prompted Mrs.

Stuart to become involved in the beginning of the women's rights movement seems obscure but she sure got involved. She badgered the General Assembly any number of times to consider an amendment to the state constitution, giving women the right to vote. She even appeared before a U.S. senatorial committee in Washington and spoke her mind. In January of 1881, she gained permission, though reluctantly given, to appear before a joint session of the General Assembly.

Her mission was to persuade the legislators to allow Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, national suffragist leaders, to address the law makers. The date set was for Thursday, Jan. 25, 1881. As the women appeared in the Senate chamber, where unfortunately not all legislators were present, the men did stand up out of courtesy to their visitors.

One of the Wilmington reporters covering the event seemed to be as much interested in describing the women speakers as he was in reporting their speeches. He pictured Mrs. Stanton as a "little more ponderous" than Mrs. Stuart and noted that Mrs. Stanton also wore black with a lace collar crossed on her bosom.

But she was impressive in her speech, the reporter wrote. Susan B. Anthony also wore black and her hair was dressed, letters Anonymity Re Sunday News Journal of July 9. Joan Kennedy's revelation of her membership in Alcoholics Anonymous is a blatant disregard of AA's Eleventh Tradition which states: "Our Public Rela-ti6ns Policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films" and Tradition Twelve which states: "Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all of our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities." However, this letter is not intended to evaluate Mrs. Kennedy's motives, but rather to make note of the anonymity break.

Also I would like to assure those neophyte and future members of Alcoholics Anonymous that the principle of anonymity is very much alive and living in practically every grateful recovering alco Want ERA ratified? Ladies, tough, brutal tactics are needed. Don't shave your legs until ERA is passed. Wear only suits at the passes. 1918-style bathing beach until ERA Take trumpet lessons and practice while the old man watches TV until ERA passes. Leave your hair in curlers for the duration make left turns from the right lane until it passes.

Fry everything in lard until, victory. Soon the men of this country will do your marching for you after removing their aprons. rr nu Cm 1 Thrf Stuff IS Sfrktly for.