The Times Herald from Port Huron, Michigan • Page 4

PAGE 4, SECTION A THE TIMES HERALD Monday, July 10, 1972 The Long Road Back To The Times Herald EDITORIAL VIEWPOINT Enforcement Effective Law By Poi.l Uo nit FBI Had Little Choice court is the discovery of guilt or innocence; that function has been drowning in a sea of legalisms. He said and hear this "The right of an individual to a fair trial does not outweigh the right of society to prompt justice." Ideally, we don't want tougher police, tougher courts. But practically, whenever individuals refuse to discipline themselves, government must. Also, ideally, it is better to correct the cause of a social sickness than to treat the symptoms. But that's for the religionists.

And until they are more successful cleaning us up from the inside out it's going to have to be done from the outside. all Nixon appointees to the court. You've heard dissent. You've heard some decry the decision as opening the door to future convictions on inadequate evidence. But those same protesters were protesting when the Supreme Court gave lawmen permission to stop and frisk suspects.

Former Atty. Gen. John Mitchell says the proper function of the little space to hide an effective weapon, like the Cuba-bound hijacker a year ago who held a safety razor blade at a stewardess throat. There are other ingenious ideas, too, like cutting a hole in the hijacker's parachute. Unfortunately, the ingenuity of the criminal mind is likely to be as sharp as that of his adversaries.

The one obstacle which the hijacker could not overcome, however, is firm refusal to take the aircraft off the ground. A potential hijacker, faced with the simple choice of death or capture, is likely to be discouraged about the whole business. The FBI stopped the hijacking in the San Francisco case. And that is what should be done every time such a case comes up. Innocent people may get hurt, but that is the fault of the criminals, not of the crime fighters.

The greater good argues for firmer resistance. BERRY'S WORLD Of all the impressions revised or re-established by the Nixons'. visit to Moscow, the one which must haunt us is the irrefutable and obvious fact that Russians behave themselves better than we do. But there is some evidence the United States has begun the long road back to enforcement of the law. The mayor of Moscow told our visitors, "You're safe anywhere here." Isn't that something.

Chicagoans, scared to death of being raped or knifed on a city bus in broad daylight, hear from Moscow in presumably backward Russia that anybody can walk any street day or night in safety. Guns are for sale In Moscow stores. You need a permit to purchase one, but they're available. Yet Vladimir Promyslov, mayor of one of the four biggest cities in the world, said, "Nobody shoots -anybody." And Mrs. Nixon, visiting a Moscow secondary school, noted that the students were "better disciplined" than those she sees in the United States.

But there is now apparent the first pale glow of a brighter day in the U.S.A. The United States Supreme Court, in a decision of no small significance, has decreed that state criminals may be found guilty without the unanimous agreement of the jury. None of us knows how many criminals have been getting off because one member of the jury held off perhaps was bought off. But hereafter, at least in state courts, no one juror can veto the other 11. It may be significant that the 5-4 Supreme Court decision reflected The tragic exchange of gunfire that took the life of one passenger and injured two others, when FBI officers overwhelmed two hijackers on a grounded aircraft last week, is sure to arouse bitter comment about the way the incident was handled.

It was not the officers' bullets that struck the passengers in San Francisco, but the argument stands that shooting would not have started if the federal men had not rushed aboard. Very probably the hijackers had no real intention of shooting anyone up until that time. On the other hand, as the special agent in charge indicated, the officers' mission was to stop the hijacking, and that is what was done. The hijackers practically died where they stood. Every time a bullet is fired in that kind of shootout there is a chance an innocent person may be hit.

The victim might be a hostage in a bank holdup, or a half-mile away from the scene of the crime, but the bullet will hit what is in its path. The decision to shoot, then, must be based on alternative danger great enough to justify that chance. We sumbit that armed men holding a planeload of people hostage constitute an acute danger. Sooner or later, if the hijackings are permitted to continue, an airliner and all aboard will be destroyed when a hijacking attempt goes wrong. Safety for the greatest number dictates that, whenever there is the opportunity, hijacking be stopped before it gets airborne.

Not so much in the news of late have been international hijackings. Nations are being more reasonable about holding and extraditing air pirates, thus making the practice less popular. The trend now, increasingly so, is toward extortion, with instant riches and getaway provided by the pirated aircraft. It adds up to a good gamble, unless authorities get tough about it. There are a lot of suggestions for stopping hijackers, mostly centering around search of passengers, and luggage, before boarding.

But it takes The Ugly American The placid world of chess will be little disturbed by the petulant display which has delayed start of the world championship match in Iceland. But whether the American champion wins or loses, the U.S. image has taken another beating all around the world. People have come to expect a degree of horse-trading when specialists in commercialized sports hold out for juicier contracts. Money is the name of the game.

But chess would seem to be in a different league. At least it seemed so until Bobby Fischer balked at the doorway, so to speak, demanding that the hat be passed around to build a richer pot. An unfortunate large part of the world's population apparently believes the streets of this country are paved with gold and that the consuming drive of every American is to get a bigger share of it. Fischer's performance so far has done nothing to change that opinion. A'Aler 1 don't think of 91 Startling Precedents Set Now, you see, inais wnec as 'defacing the building' but as a manifestation of my searcn ior peDunui Opening Top Unions To Minority Workers Nixon Hones Viet As Vote-Getting Ploy Br Victor Riesel f3? hi- I Sj! BruceBiossat 1 Newspaper Enterprise Assn.

638. The judge ordered 169 non-whites admitted to the union's "A Branch" and opened wide for future non-white admissions. In a tightly held labor market this is an upheaval. For jobs of this sort are top-paying ones which were handed down to blood relatives and close friends in other unions. National labor chiefs, such as the Plumbers president, 53-year-old "Marty" Ward, it must be reported, have been bucking their regional barons.

In the past few years the industry's "Apprenticeship Outreach" program has placed 12,976 minority workers of which 8,096 are in non-trowel trades the highest paying ones. All this has been voluntary. Now Mike Seymour while others are fascinated by the moon over Miami is ripping through the hard-hat screen over this metropolis using the Federal courts as battering rams. Seymour dryly points out that among the seven local unions he selected for Federal court action on a civil basis is Local 580, Iron Workers. This local has two non-whites among its 1,400 members.

And Local 40, whose leader is Ray Corbett, president of the AFL-CIO State Federation, is 3.2 per cent black, 1.3 per cent Puerto Rican and 5.4 per cent American Indian, according to Seymour's records. What he seeks is "minority representation proportionate to the population at large, fair hiring-hall procedures to ensure that non-whites get an equal share of the work, and non-discrimination in admissions to the apprenticeship programs." So he and his staff will spend much of the summer going over the books of union after union, preparing for a series of civil trials. One by one he'll haul them in in an effort, for example, to repeat what he did to the Steamfitters Local NEW YORK Unwatched, practically unreported, and unfortunately unhearlded these politically chaotic days is an unprecedented offensive launched against this area's powerful hard-hat establishment by U.S. Attorney for the massive Southern District, Whitney North Seymour, Jr. Beefing up his already overworked staff with volunteer legal "paraprofessionals," "Mike" Seymour has gone into the Federal courts to pry open, "union by union," the local building and construction trades and force them to admit black and other minority workers so they, too, can earn $200 to $300 a week.

If Seymour succeeds, he'll set a precedent for action in virtually all metropolitan areas across the land. "This action," says the tall, prematurely white-haired Justice Department official," is a carefully planned union-by-union approach to the problem. We are continuing to investigate on this basis (use of the Civil Rights Law Title VII VR) so when we are through every significant construction union will have been gone over, forced into court and opened to minority workers." Mike Seymour has already had some key unions in court, others are scheduled for trial in September and later this fall, others are on appeal and one is under the scrutiny of a court-appointed "Special Master" as well as an "Administrator." In all there are some 2 0 0 0 0 0 unionized construction workers under his jurisdiction. Seymour is fighting for high stakes and at a moment when most of the unions based here and in many upstate and Long Island counties some of the nation's heaviest building areas are striking some $2 billion worth of construction. This is a solid gold strike now.

It's back to the old days of demands for increases of $120 to $150 a man, per week, over a three-year contract. Some of the unions which have token black membership get upwards of $8 to $10 an hour before overtime. And their members take home as much as $20,000 a year, rain or shine. Thus local construction union leaders, defying their national chiefs' advice, are smashing at the national Pay Board and the Cost of Living Council with their demands for twice and thrice the national wage increase standards which the rest of the nation's workers must observe. Frankly Fie big Rather Rock Than Riot sire is that the whole business be settled at the table this fall-He is pressing Moscow hard to Jean on Hanoi to undertake serious peace negotiations.

Moscow has the levers, since it is the big supplier to North Vietnam. Nixon knows the Russians want to get on to more important things, like a Europewide conference, more trade, nuclear arms controls which could ease defense outlays and allow new focus on domestic development. He is simply suggesting that all this is possible if they will only help get Vietnam out of the way. And the President is also trying to transmit to Hanoi, via Moscow, the idea that this is the time to deal and get a fair break, that if he wins re-election, the terms thereafter might be much tougher. Our air and naval power still in place is the reminder.

At this stage, no one knows how Hanoi may respond, or even if the Kremlin will turn off the supply spigot. But if all Nixon's pressures fail, he still has that fallback prospect of "going public" in his peace bid. By Jim Fiebig WASHINGTON (NEA) In a year when many public figures insist the state of the economy is the big thing, President Nixon seems bent on trying to win re-election as a pre-eminent foreign policy president. We know now that his predicted fall bombshell wiU have "Vietnam" written on it, though we can't be sure of its size and shape. There are no more great capitals to visit, to top Peking and Moscow.

Well advertised is the President's wish to achieve some kind of settlement of the Vietnam war through negotiations. Obviously, however, unforeseeable responses in Hanoi make this a much chancier prospect than was getting to China and the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, it probably would be a mistake for either the Democrats or anybody else to assume that if he is frustrated in his hope for pre-election negotiations on Vietnam, Nixon will have no other way to deal with the issue in a politically profitable fashion. For one thing, he could "negotiate" in the public forum of offering fresh peace proposals going beyond those of May 8, when he suggested a cease-fire, new elections for South Vietnam, U.S. total withdrawal four months after agreement.

Such proposals would, of course, have to bear at least the stamp of still broader conciliation, and most likely would be underscored by troop withdrawals cutting our residual forces in Vietnam to almost token proportions. It was wholly predictable that, in the announcement of the withdrawal now of another 10,000 men, the President fixed the next deadline for action at Sept. 1. He thus reserves the opportunity to move critically on the very eve of the fall election campaign. If he were then to announce a slash to around 20,000 men, a total less than the 23,000 "advisers" we had in Vietnam before major U.S.

ground units entered that country in 1965, it would leave Sen. George McGovern as 1972 Democratic nominee (presumed) with not much to talk about on the war. To be sure, we might still be keeping substantial air and naval forces handy outside Vietnam, but the Nixon people are betting this will not trouble too many Americans so long as U.S. casualties are virtually eliminated and no draftees need go to Vietnam hereafter. Yet the President's greater de- only reason thousands of them are going to Miami Beach is because thousands of them are going to Miami Beach.

A rock concert will give them an alternative, and save the Republican Party the embarrassment the Democrats endured in Chicago in '68. Only Walter Cronkite will suffer. Led by professional radicals Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, as many as 100,000 protesters are expected to converge on the Republican convention in Miami Beach next month. Their alleged goal: to dump Richard Nixon. If the GOP would like to avoid all this, I have a foolproof plan for making sure these politically dedicated youths are thousands of miles from Miami Beach during the convention.

All the Republicans have to do is organize an outdoor rock concert somewhere in Oregon or Northern California to take place August 20-24. If that happened, Walter Cron-kite wouldn't two rioters to rub together. The truth is, you see, the protest types would rather go to a good rock concert than a political convention any time. A rock concert offers less cops, more pot and even some music. On the other hand, a political convention offers little more than the opportunity to run in front of the TV cameras so Mom and Dad back home can see the lumps on your head.

Most of these protesters aren't dedicated they're bored. And the SIDE GLANCES by Gill Fox. ICHUHM ATTEND I --v 1 ma Reader Reaction Further Back Than 1910- Editor, The Times Herald: In a recent article in your paper re garding the Hatton-Pomeroy Funeral Home in Lexington, there is a date given when Will Hatton opened this funeral home as the year 1910. My father died in March, 1898. As a boy of five I have a vivid recollection of the six-foot-plus Will Hatton who conducted that funeral from our farm home near Lexington.

In October of 1908 Will buried my brother Sidney Hill. In October, 1922, my mother Catherine; in August, 1927, my Uncle James Ryan, and in February, 1929, my sister Elizabeth Hill. Eleven years ago I had the pleasure of a nice long visit with Will'. He said that he had just started in business about two months prior to burying my father. I believe he said he was 19 at that time.

FRANK J. HILL Ferndals TIMELY QUOTE McGovern understood something that Muskie and Humphrey didn't: That the way you win conventions is to win delegates. Joseph Na politan, a political consultant "Confidtntltlfy. Bradford, do you vr fl Ilk th dvil With K1" 'Maybe they can float the British pound, but that wouldn't work here. Our dollar would sink." i.