Star Tribune du lieu suivant : Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 6

Minneapolis Tribune Established 1867 Charles W. Ballsy Editor Wallac Allen Associate Editor Frank Wright Managing Editor Leonard Insklp Editorial Editor Donald R. Dwlght Publisher 6A Saturday, July 19, 1980 7 jt-sw Simple questions about 'industrialization' IV. -Ml JWWJiw, lj.ii ic fM Kit ft Bid to Ford was a net plus for Reagan that goal clearly In mind. But If the problem is an absence of American products In world markets, reindustrializers might aim for aggressive export trading and a focus of investment on new products, not old.

Or if overconsumption and underinvestment are damaging America's economy, reindustrializers major goal might merely be changed incentives for businesses and Individuals. Where goals differ, so must policies. As their alms come in view, enthusiasts for Industrializing should be prepared to answer What must be done to reach the goal? Here contradictory concepts may come out most clearly. Those who hope to save traditional industries now In trouble will want subsidies steered to shrinking sectors of American enterprise. Their policies will be protectionist.

Relndustrialization will mean government intervention as a rear-guard effort to keep the future much like the past. By contrast, those who want to shape a particular American role in international trade will ask favors for the industries they consider most promising, such as microelectronics or biotechnology. Relndustrialization will mean choosing priorities for future development, with government Intervention in specific sectors or perhaps a push toward centralized national planning. And those who want an Increase of private investment for future growth will seek to make the tax structure more friendly to savings and profits. Their policies will focus not on Intervention, but on indirect support for free-market decisions.

Relndustrialization will mean whatever change in industrial patterns such decisions may lead to. None of these cases is apt to be pure. Elements of them all are apt to be desirable. But hard simple questions to people who now talk fashionably about relndustrialization may help the nation avoid some wrong simple answers. "Relndustrialization" Is a mouthful of a word, but you might as well get used to It.

It Is a catchword of the season. Across the political spectrum candidates, columnists, labor and business leaders say industrialization is what the nation needs. The word itself seems purposeful, dynamic and too positive to oppose. Its vagueness, however, sometimes encompasses contradictory concepts. As calls come from all sides for the nation to relndustria-lize, it may help discussion to start with some simple questions.

What Is the problem? Many look at America's economic ills and are mesmerized by what has happened to some traditional major industries. Automobiles, steel, shipbuilding and textiles are in steep decline. Leadership in their production has passed to other lands. The problem, therefore, is the unemployment and dislocation caused by these shifts. Other observers, though, pay primary attention to the economic dynamism of Western Europe and Japan and the growing industrial strength of countries like Brazil or South Korea.

The challenge in this context is a changed market environment that is less predominantly domestic and steadily more international. Still a third diagnosis pinpoints the need to provide for the future by forgoing some current consumption in favor of long-range development. Here the problem is seen as affluent America's improvidently low levels of personal saving, capital investment and non-military research. These are all true problems. But each in isolation suggests a goal and solution different from the others.

So after hearing the problem, ask a reindus-trializer What is the goal? If the dominant trouble Is a decline of traditional industries, the aim of reindus-trializing may be to revive those industries for their owners, workers and local communities. Automobile unions and steel stockholders seem to have By Tom Wicker New York Times Service Detroit been open to the charge of having handed over much of his power and authority to someone who had no right to them thus undermining the Constitution and selling out his supporters for short-term political purposes. Once In office, moreover, a "co-presidency" a term that quickly gained currency here though neither Reagan nor Ford used it clearly would have been a disaster. And some here believe the whole thing was no more than a plot by Henry Kissinger one of Ford's negotiators to return himself to power via back channels. True or not, that certainly would have been charged -particularly by Reagan's most conservative supporters.

mer president's actual presence In the highest councils of a Reagan administration would have been seen as a modifiying influence. And although he Is only two years younger than Reagan, most fears' that the nominee might not serve out his term would have been dispelled by such an experienced running mate. The Carter White House always regarded Ford as the president's most formidable potential foe; his presence on the Reagan ticket would have greatly enhanced Its general appeal, and possibly even have encouraged "dump Carter" efforts at the Democratic convention next month. Certainly there would have been no slighting talk about a "second choice" as a running mate. And even though the Reagan-Ford ticket finally could not be arranged, the episode seems to me a net plus for Reagan aside from having charged up a convention that might otherwise have been remembered mostly for waving flags and cowboy hats.

First the nominee did make the effort so many party leaders and others had urged upon him to "reach out" for a broader constituency than his own right wing and to bring experience and balance to his administration. Nevertheless, and despite the political lift Ford could have given him, he stopped short of undermining bis presidential powers before he had even won them. Finally, in quickly enlisting his most persistent challenger on a formidable ticket Reagan continued at only a slightly lower level his efforts to unify his party and expand his appeal. And if Bush is not quite so "presidential" as a former president, who Is? Was it a near-roaster stroke that displayed Ronald Reagan's political savvy and flexibility? Or a fumble that showed Reagan as Indecisive and finally unable to put together the ticket he wanted? Here's a preliminary' vote for the first Interpretation of the Republican nominee's extraordinary effort "unique," he termed It to bring former President Ford on to his ticket. But exactly what happened is not yet clear, and In any case the real verdict will be the public's rather than the commentators'.

The Reagan-Ford imbroglio did serve admirably to convert what had been a rather tame Fourth of July celebration Into a real convention, at least for one day and night With excitement mounting, rumors flying, the aisles jammed and almost no one in the Joe Louis Arena sure of what was happening until Reagan in person provided his surprise ending George Bush old-style politics momentarily put the smooth media version to rout. The case against Reagan's effort to sign on his old rival and a former president as his running mate Is reasonable enough. It would have been a strong ticket on paper, detractors say, but Impossible in practice, with the press constantly egging the two principals Into disagreement and spotlighting their differences say on the Equal Rights Amendment and the Panama Canal treaties. Worse, they argue, had Reagan accommodated Ford's Insistence on what the latter called "a meaningful role" In a Reagan administration, the presidential nominee would have Prescott house going, going The Philander Prescott house, Minneapolis's third oldest house, will fall to the wrecker's ball early next week. The Public Works Department, which owns the property at 4458-60 Snelling Av.

needs the land for storing vehicles. The 1852 house was And anyway, critics out, the Ford ploy risked exactly what happened that if it failed, Reagan's fall-back nominee would prove an anticlimax for the convention and would be seen by the press as "second choice." Reagan and BustMpent much of their first news conference dealing none too successfully with just that charge. On the other hand, if the Reagan-Ford marriage could have been arranged. It would necessarily have been on some basts mutually acceptable to bride and groom certainly not a "co-presidency" or anything like it Not only would the resulting ticket have been broadly popular in the Republican Party, it would have gone far to defuse the strongest charges against Reagan that he is an Inflexible ideologue without experience in foreign affairs who would be too quick to resort to force rather than diplomacy. Reagan's invitation and the easy-going Ford's acceptance would have tended to dispute this view; the for built by the city's first farmer and is a nationally designated historic site.

But, vacant for years, it is rat-infested and tumble-down. The house's historic associations don't justify its nuisance to the neighborhood. For five years efforts have been.made to find a site and use for the house, with no success. The Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission, the Minnesota Historical Society and Alderman Dennis Schulstad (whose ward it is in) all tried to save it The complications of moving the house elsewhere and completely rebuilding it proved too great for the Minnesota Territorial Pioneers, which hoped to use it for the group's headquarters. Minneapolis has buildings of more architectural and historic Importance, such as the Grove Street Flats on Nicollet Island.

If the fate of the Prescott house moves preservationists to find new uses for these buildings before they too become unsavable, its demise will have accomplished more than its preservation. k. rm-t ii till sit Ml i t-4 I i-v tsJ It 3 top candidates: 3 conservatives LLettera from readers contributions into the trust fund. The trust fund has grown to about $60 billion. The government borrows all the money from this fund that is available after cost-of-living adjustment and retiree benefits are paid, and pays interest into the fund at about half of what could be gotten from banks.

So far, cost-of-living adjustments have been paid from the Interest received from this fund. These Increases in cost-of-living adjustments do not trigger additional obligations on the part of the taxpayer. It Is misleading to say that It would save taxpayers $500 million annually. Roy A. Johnson, Brooklyn Center.

Reagan and blacks Ronald Reagan's decision not to address the NAACP conference was certainly an understandable one. Federal giveaway programs are the Democrats' traditional tools to win black votes. But Reagan recognizes that, as the cruel price for their loyalty, blacks have suffered as puppets on strings to the whims of government bureacrats. As a more dignified alternative, Reagan and the conservatives offer blacks: (1) a stop to inflation by reducing government spending; (2) more jobs available through reduced corporate taxes; (3) more jobs for young blacks In particular by the elimination of the minimum-wage law; (4) the opportunity to pick a private or public school of their choice through a voucher system; (5) lower-priced consumer goods by the removal of all tariffs. Timothy P.

Utter, Hopkins. tive Reagan and aimed at the blue-collar vote. Shades of William Jennings Bryan appealing to the turn-of-the-century farm vote against the hard-money Republicans can be glimpsed here. And here are the Democrats playing William McKlnley, Herbert Hoover and the old Eastern Republicans by promoting a recession to save the dollar and bedding down with corporate wealth to make sure that government tax policy is OK in Wall Street. It all serves to Illustrate the point-lessness of looking for ideological content in this ear's politics, though it Is worth looking at the ideological ancestry of the three candidates.

Reagan obviously comes out of Gold-water and the Western Republicans who took the party away from New York and drove out the old Internationalists. Carter descends from the Elsenhow-er branch of the Republican Party, which, having been purged by the Goldwaterites, found a new home among Texans and Southerners, in: ternationalists and big-money men. Anderson descends from Robert Taft's pay-as-you-go Midwestern Republicanism, which always refused to lead America down the easy road. The irony here in the twilight of ideology is delicious. The Republicans, though a minority party for two generations and once thought headed for extinction, have purged and purged, and become smaller and made the party smaller, with the re suit thaT there Is nothing for the electorate to choose among but a variety of Republicanisms.

It has given new meaning to the old saw: Divide and conquer. Politburo counts A July 12 letter objecting to a possible draft of young men in the armed services asked the question: "Regardless of what they are told by the government, are there truly millions pf people of their age from one or two other countries who must be seen as enemies?" The logic of the above is faulty. It is not the millions of Russians who count, but the ruling Politburo that makes the decisions. Is it to be trusted to renounce war if our young people refuse to serve In the armed forces? I think not. The letter promoted the idea that the conscientious-objector status was the route to go.

That idea is a cop-out. I also object to war, but as long as Russia's policy remains as is, there is no alternative to a strong deterrent, both in men and material. I pose this question to the letter-writer: Assume that the United States destroyed all our weaponry and disbanded our armed forces; would critical letters to the editor still be published? Maurice M. Narveson, Edina. ly to push fancy schemes for changing the present class structure or the present ways of distributing the na-.

Uonal wealth. The lack of much ideological dispute to stir Interest in the campaign forces everybody to reduce politics to a. quarrel about which man has the more pleasing personality and which can handle the machinery most effectively. An article by David Broder of the Washington Post for example, recently made the point that Reagan at this stage seems to be contemplating the presidency under many of the same delusions that Carter harbored when he first came up from Georgia and which led Carter to so many failures. The implicit question: Is Reagan any better qualified to be plant manager than Carter was? Here Broder was going to the heart of this year's political question, the question whose answer will probably decide the outcome.

It is not which direction should the country take, but who can do the best job of managing the plant? In effect we are choosing a government engineer. The lines of argument are already well-drawn on the engineering question. The Reagan people spent all week reciting Carter's record of plant breakdowns. The Carter people are already whispering that Reagan is too old to be trusted not to go to sleep watching the meters, too Inexperienced to be permitted access to the baffling switches and buttons. The Anderson campaign, such as it is, harps on the incompetence of both Reagan and Carter, cites them for lack of vigor and energy and ability to get the customers Interested In plant operations.

What we have is an arid though not unimportant dispute about which technician to retain for a very complicated management job. This does not mean that there is not some ideological fire in the ashes, but it is flickering in exceedingly unlikely places. There is, for example, the curiously populist tax-cutting scheme supported by the supposedly arch-conserva Russell Baker New York Times Service New York American politics in modern times is almost always a transaction among conservatives, for the very good reason' that the United States, having been singularly blessed by nature, accident and the 18th-century wisdom attending its birth, tends to like things the way they are and to yearn for a time past when If you don't read history, and most of us don't things seem to have been even better. This year's politics Is consistent with the pattern, only more so. Normally there Is a reformist faction, usually in the Democratic Party, which promises to make the machine run a bit more smoothly by tinkering about here and there among the valves and cogs with monkey wrench and grease can, and perhaps putting In a new piston or rebuilding a boiler.

The voters' rejection of Sen. Ted Kennedy in the primaries, having submerged this impulse for the time being, leaves a three-man competition among candidates whose conservatism is so impeccable that a generation ago any one of them would have been perfectly at home in the Republican Party quarreling about whether Dwight Elsenhower or Robert Tart should be the party nominee. Perhaps it is this absence of apparent ideological conflict which makes the elections seem so julceless. The politicians seem to think so, at least In the Democratic camp, for there is a campaign to portray Ronald Reagan as a conservative "Ideologue." This is one of those useful political words which has the double virtue of making the person it's applied to sound like a dangerous menace among people who don't know what the word means. Doubtless It will give Reagan some difficulty, if only In shaping his campaign to prove that It doesn't mean anything at all.

-In fact it is very hard to find much ideological difference among Reagan, President Carter and John Anderson, all of whom, like good conservatives, are fully at ease with the basic American system and not like A loving tribute Now that my tears have dried after having read Frances Cooper Thompson's tribute to her mother, Adeline Spelletich (Tribune, July 12), I must respond. Never have I read a more beautiful and loving account. What a magnificent example Mrs. Spelletich set for her family for generations to come. And bow privileged those friends and neighbors are who knew her and whose lives she touched.

I regret that I was not among them. Judy Shaffer, Edina. Column about Spiess Sincere thanks to Joe Soucheray for the sensitively written and inspiring July 11 column about Gerry Spiess. What a beaqttful start for a new, day. Jo Hornung, Edina.

More on pensions Your July 5 editorial on the federal pension bonus is not entirely accurate. You say, "Thirty senators tried unsuccessfully the other day to make a modest, sensible change in pension policy that would savethe taxpayers $500 million annually." This is a reference to the cost-of-living adjustment to the federal retirees. Federal employees have always contributed on the full amount of their salaries, but the percentage of salary contribution has Increased from 2.5 percent in 1920 to 7 percent at present. Since 1969 the government, as employer, has matched employee Hairy times From the Wall Street Journal The times are hairy, and as a result Bosley Medical Group; a Beverly Hills hair-transplant facility, reports that 20 percent of its customers now say they want to look younger In order to compete better tor jobs. In the past, those coming to Bosley for new hair almost always cited persomil reasons.

"Flrst the good news: Because of last year's profits, we will be able to buy a machine that will replace five i.