News-Press from Fort Myers, Florida • Page 4

Holmes Alexander Berry's World Fort Myers News-Press The Warlike Ways of Our World A Gannett Newspaper Established 1M4 Daily Sine 1111 WILLIAM R. SPEAR, Editor CHESLEY F. PERRY, General Manager JOE WORKMAN, City Editor JAMES N. BURSON, Circulation Manager ROBERT K. PEPPER, News Editor ROBERT G.

BRUCE, Advertising Director 4-A WEDNESDAY MORNING, JULY, 19, 1972 Government By the Numbers certainly have spread its influence into Japan and Taiwan. That still may happen, considering that Communist renunciation of "the use of force" usually translates into conquest by subversion, but it is less likely to happen if the United States keeps its nuclear umbrella up. India and Pakistan, once united under the British Empire, provide another example of what could be a longtime peace that grew out of war, not a nuclear one but almost as decisive as the one which ended on the deck of the USS Missouri in 1945. The meeting' between Prime Minister Ghandi and President Bhutto came only after the Indian Army had moved aggressively and won a total victory. The subcontinent, like the Emerald Isle, is still a cockpit of racial-religious strife, possibly endless, but strong action has put the lid on.

In North-South Korea and in India-Pakistan, we see settlements much different from those envisioned and recommended by the apostles of Utopia The Korean conflict was fought to a standstill and left uncompleted, which may be a reason why two decades had to pass before the present results could take place, but Eisenhower's firm stance was a no-surrender position. The India-Pakistan agreement occurred only seven months after the fighting began, and still less than that after it ended, which may say something for the MacArthur doctrine that there really is no substitute for victory. Our own sad experience of 1861-65 is still the best proof that when war is inevitable between two irreconcilable societies, the only way out is a test of strength on the battlefield, for which every self-respecting nation should be prepared. CURIOUSLY, the two sets of countries, fierce antagonists in our time and now making peace, are doing so under the force of atomic energy. And are doing so because President Eisenhower rattled his nuclear missiles.

North and South Korea, both calling themselves "republics" although hardly that, were the focus of Eisenhower's only threat to use the bomb, and it is known that he gave this warning through the most pacifist-talking major country of the time, India, which is now patching things up with its arch enemy, Pakistan. Eisenhower tells in his Memoirs how he sent word through neutrals that if the ceasefire in Korea did not-become a lasting truce, he might have to renew the war with no limitation on weapons a clear enough reference to the same arsenal with which President Kennedy stared down Khrushchev a decade later and also kept the peace. It was President Truman's A-bombing of Japan that ended the Pacific phase of World War II, and he also had the bomb ready for use, according to Air Force General Thomas Powers, when U.S. forces were penned up at Pusan at the worst stage of 'the Korean conflict. All post-war Presidents, save the last two, have either useS or brandished the atomic-nuclear weapon.

The decision" of pan-Korean officials to achieve a "reunification of the fatherland," in their words, suggests many observations, one of which is that the olive branch of peace is grafted into the club of warfare. Had we begged for surrender terms, as a Presidential candidate now proposes for Vietnam, Korea would have been unified long ago but by a Communist takeover that would 1172 Vf NEA, Uc 'Yesterday, we accepted barbecue cooking os a man's specialty. Today, we want a piece of the action!" The Mailbag Letters from readers a ret always welcome. They should be limited to 300 words or less and must carry the writer's name and address. A pen-name may be permitted only if the writer offers a good reason for it.

ways by which blacks could be assured of places on county school boards. One of his proposals is that school board members be nominated and elected by districts instead of by countywide vote so that a preponderate black area might have a better chance of electing a black. This would be a big step backward toward ward politics, completely vitiating the present legal requirement that each member of a county school board is to represent the entire county rather than the district in which he lives. An alternate suggestion by Maloy is that whenever the voters of a county reject the election of any black to their five-member elective board, two blacks should be appointed by the county commission or some other authority as full-fledged school board members, making a seven-member board. This would be a pernici3us distortion of the democratic process but no more so than many other actions undertaken in the name of "equal representation." There needs to be greater recognition of the fact that whites can represent blacks and blacks can represent whites, men can represent women and women can represent men, and do it fairly any elected representative can represent fairly the constituency that elects him.

There needs to be an end to this nonsense that citizens of certain physical types must arbitrarily be represented by certain numbers sharing their characteristics in the ratio that they bear to the total population. Otherwise we'll have government not by the people but by the numbers. Aided by a federal grant of $9,800, Gov. Reubin Askew's 22-member advisory committee on education is studying ways to get black members on county school boards in Florida. The appropriate Commentary on this is one word: Why? The notion that blacks or women or 18-year-olds, or other special groups cannot be properly represented by a public body unless one or more of their number hold membership on it is a ridiculous one but it seems to be gaining ever-wider acceptance.

It came to full flower at the Democratic national convention with some weird results. For example, in the presidential balloting the Mississippi delegation cast 12 votes for Shirley Chisholm, 10 for George McGovern, 5 for Terry Sanford and 0 for George Wallace, which obviously was misrepresentation for the voters of Mississippi. There should be no discrimination against blacks or women or youths, of course or against left-handed persons or those with freckles or any other groups with distinguishing physical characteristics. No stumbling-blocks of any kind should be placed in their way and if they can win appointment or election to public office on their merits, fine. But the idea that certain arbitrary numbers of such persons must be assured membership on public bodies simply by virtue of their physical traits is a perversion of the democratic doctrine of nondiscrimination.

It constitutes discrimination in reverse. The staff director of Askew's citizens committee on education, Dr. William Maloy, is suggesting some Virginia Payette Fischer Needs Woodshed Not Chess Title use and zoning, taking into consideration the unusual and specific needs of each part of the county. Let us therefore not be railroaded into hastily drawn-up crisis proposals but insist on impartial in-depth studies that give due weight both to environmental considerations and to the steady and orderly growth of Lee County as a whole. ERIK H.

PETERSEN Fort Myers Beach. WOPERSON'S LIB Editor, News-Press Although I am strongly in favor of liberation for all of us, men as well as women, and believe that there is a strong psychological factor in the use of Ms. instead of Miss or Mrs. (if there were not, surely there would not be such an uproar over so minor a point), nevertheless I enjoyed your editorial of July 15 very much. While still chuckling, I must say hooray for a sense of humor, down with "chairperson," and I'm afraid you missed the obvious but I'm still in favor of Woper-son's Lib.

BETZI ABRAM Fort Myers Beach. Hal Boyle Million Americans Get Face-Lifting FREE SPEECH Editor, News-Press Before the presidential campaign gets under way I'd like to express a thought that I hope will remain in the minds of all voters who have not yet made up their minds which party nominee to support. The strongest and most enthusiastic supporters of each party will of course be at their convention, as well as the opposition who will attend on the sidelines to observe what is going on. How the opposition behaves will give us an excellent opportunity to compare the class and kind of people who make up the base of their party. We have just witnessed the Democratic convention go off smoothly with no violence or lawlessness from the opposing Republicans.

Now when the Republicans hold their convention, will their Democratic opponents grant them the same courtesy and permit them to conduct their business in an orderly and democratic manner? The Democrats have been strong supporters of the rights of free speech. Will they practice what they preach and voluntarily permit the 1 i a ns to express themselves or will they resort to anarchistic attempts to disrupt and deny them their rights to free speech? Only time will tell. MELVIN BROOKS CRISIS PROPOSALS Editor, News-Press Lee County without a doubt is entering into a decade of its greatest growth potential. Being so, it behooves all concerned citizens to be acutely aware of actions by citizen groups and public agencies MAKING ALL DUE allowance for genius and temperament and tournament jitters, the plain fact remains that Bobby Fischer is a more likely candidate for a-trip to the woodshed than the world's chess title. He may be, as he claims, the greatest chess player alive.

(Although, after the amateurish way he blew the first game, there could be some doubt about that.) But nobody would argue that in a contest for the world's biggest spoiled brat he'd win in a minute. Fischer's track record of greed and rudeness adds up to a sorry display of sportsmanship. What he needs, judging by one parental itching palm, is a good spanking. He is, after all, the challenger who sought the match in the first place. And the International Chess Federation has bent over backward for months to meet his changing demands about money, location and time.

And still the temper tantrums continued. Instead of showing up in Reykjavik on schedule, he bolted from the airport, and went into hiding for a two-day sulking spell. In fact, he might be there yet, if a British chess fan hadn't sweetened the kitty by $120,000. (Which, it turns out," would have to be spent in England.) So much for that Embarrassed Fischer fans sighed with relief when he finally made it to Iceland reas- sured each other that now he would settle down and behave himself. He didn't.

For openers, he insulted the people of Reykjavik by refusing to attend -i a welcoming folk festival. They over- looked the slur, but the Soviet Union de-. cided Fischer's tactics had been insulting to Spassky. They forced him to apologize, in writing. From there on, things went from bad to ludicrous.

In an unprecedented display of nit-pick- ing silliness, Fischer pouted that the light- ing in the hall hurt his eyes, the drapes weren't thick enough, the TV cameras bothered him, the table was too long, the squares on the marble chess board too big, the chessmen too small, and his chair wasn't comfortable. (Spassky didn't like' the size of the board, either.) So they shortened the table, hunted up an obliging tombstone maker to carve a new board at the last minute (with squares a fourth of an inch smaller), re-lined the draperies and flew in a special swivel-based leather chair from New York. Maybe, since the chess world seems to be terrified of the bad-tempered Bobby, Henry Kissinger ought to take him in hand. After all, things were getting pretty -calm with Moscow for a while there, and Iceland used to be our friend. And somebody owes Spassky a vodka on the house.

Not enough: Can you name a deficiency and I don't mean in pocket money that at least one out of five people in the world suffer from? It's a deficiency of iron in their system. Unusual legislation: In Elizabethan England you could be hanged if you opened and read the message in a floating bottle. The law was passed after a fisherman found a bottle containing an important political secret. The Queen then appointed an official "Uncorker of Bottles" who was solely authorized to read their contents. Good catch: As a child, when you ran around with your mouth open, were you ever startled to have a bug fly into it? Well, that's why mother chimney swifts teach their young to fly around with their mouths open.

They catch more insects. Tip to fat men: if you're traveling and don't have a shoehorn, a folded envelope or two can be used as a handy substitute. Mighty waters: Ocean currents are one of the strongest forces visible in nature. They may travel only a mile a month or as fast as 100 miles a day. The largest in the world is the current around Antarctica.

According to the National Geographic Society, it carries more than 100 billion tons of water a second. Worth remembering: "Nothing makes a man go places like a woman who likes to." THINGS A COLUMNIST might never know if he didn't open his mail: A million Americans, hopeful that a change of face will give their life a change of pace, now undergo plastic surgery each year. Back in 1946, only an estimated 15,000 people had facelifts. If your teen-ager is moping because he can't make up his mind what career to follow, tell him to take heart from Bob Hope, the multimillionaire superstar. He had the same trouble.

Before going into show business, Hope worked as a dance instructor, clerk, boxer, and newspaper reporter. How well New Guinea headhunters treat your skull after death depends on whether you're a member of the family or not. If you're a relative even a mother-in-law they string up your jawbone in a place of honor. If not, they use it to make ornaments and weapons. Hunters don't have to hit ducks or geese with their pellets to kill them.

A study showed that three per cent of the wild fowl population wintering in the United States dies each year of lead poisoning from swallowing shotgun pellets that have fallen into their feeding waters. That is- a million birds each year destroyed inadvertently by hunters. Quotable notables: "Every life is a work of art, shaped by the man who lives it." G. Lowes Dickinson, famous English scholar. Makolm Johnson White Conservative South Loses Face to regulate andor control that growth.

THIRD PARTY Editor, News-Press History will be made in Louisville, next month when the American Party holds its first national convention there. It is anticipated that Gov. George Wallace will be nominated there for president and possibly Rep. John Schmitz of California will be nominated for vice president. I is presumed that a party platform will be adopted there containing all of the planks, such as the one against busing of school children to attain racial balance, i advocated by Wallace at; Miami Beach and scorned by the Democratic convention.

It will no doubt stand fast against those policies which have compromised the Nixon administration, including such things as deficit spending, inflation, high taxes and the depreciation of the dollar; the socialistic Family Assitance Plan; the dangerous deterioration of our military posture as compared with the Soviets; and the scandalous aid of and compromise and trade with the enemy. The rapid trend toward big central government and one-world government which is typical of both major parties will certainly be resisted by the candidate for this party. Americans who are unhappy with the way things are going and who desire a change for the better are urged to go as soon as possible to their county courthouse and change their party registration to American. To get Wallace on the ballot in Florida, we need 5 per cent Anthony? lewis World Goes on Despite Elections The convention, on good behavior for TV, had listened politely to Governor lace and his people then brushed off their platform suggestions, more with disdain than with the angry effrontery we watched when young Hubert Humphrey began reading the South out of the party in the 1948 convention. It has been coming on us for that Now the divorce is almost final.

We may debate whether the south left the party or the party left the south during the long series of separations and estrangements; but, in the last act, the party has thrown out the white conservative south. It is taking to its bosom the activist, liberal south black and white. Now, there are many of us who don't see anything to regret in this. This marriage, patched up every four years for convenience, hasn't been a rational match for a generation or more. We have yearned for a realignment of parties -according to clearer delineation of differences on policy and position.

But where do we go from here? The McGovern wing of the Democratic party now is in control and evidently willing to write off the south this year, at the risk of losing the presidency, in order to build a party on principles of the activist welfare state by 1976, when the Republicans will be caught in the disarray that comes when it doesn't have an incumbent President. The Republican party surely this year" will move to attract the "white conservative south" to help reelect President IT IS CLEAR NOW that the white conservative south has no place, anymore, in the national Democratic party. Whether conservatives of any color or region have a place in the party is doubtful; but the commentary today is on basic politics of the south. Gov. George Wallace expressed their attitudes in general on this matter, and on some others not involving race; but you must number among them several million other southerners who did not vote for Wallace in 1968 and wouldn't like to see him elected president.

More simply, a "white conservative southerner" may be described as one who sees nothing wrong with singing, playing and whistling "Dixie." Symbolically, he could see the door closing to him at one of the early sessions of the Democratic National Convention when the band wove a little of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" into an exuberant patriotic medley, but omitted any phrase of "Dixie." It was slammed in his face at the closing session, when the splendid old "Battle Hymn" which was the marching song against the south in the Civil War blared out following George McGovern's acceptance speech. Then the convention closed to the strains of the black anthem, "We Shall Overcome." Such things don't happen accidentally at these political conventions, so minutely planned and managed. Indeed, the managers must have known they could have thrown that convention into pandemonium by letting the least snatch of "Dixie" be sounded. By quota rule and deliberate manipulation, every delegation in the hall had members who would have been incensed and insulted (and they might have reacted violently at the "bigotry" of some among the Wallace state delegations who certainly would have whooped for a tune they learned as children to stand up for). No sir, it's really a good thing the Democratic convention managers didn't let the band play "Dixie" and that's the point: There no longer is any room in the national party for even that much condescension to the white Southern conservative.

In recent public hearings over the controversial proposed zoning regulations as submitted by Adley As- sociates I have been stunned to disbelief by certain facts which have been brought out. Let me enumerate a few of them: 1. A so-called "comprehensive" study paid for by taxpayers' money was in fact a crisis study resulting in hastily drawn up proposals. 2. Proposed changes in the zoning regulations were aimed at the Beach areas and admittedly did not take into account the socioeconomic effect on Lee County as a whole.

3. The heigh limitation figure had no basis except that it was being used on Sanibel Island. The density limitation was recommended because it was "what we, thought the people wanted," not the result of scientific or comprehensive study. 4. The owner of a small' motel was told in the event of a total loss he would not be permitted to rebuild except at a much reduced and therefore unprofitable den- sity level.

5. The regulations as proposed, we were were designed to seriously limit, if not stop, growth in the areas where This means no new construe- 1 1 increased unemploy-; ment, tax revenue losses and declining retail sales. We have come close to 1 being shackled by regula- tions conceived out of emotionalism, misrepresentation, expediency and pressure. The county would greatly'! benefit from a truly compre-r hensive study which would set guidelines on proper land spondent in Hanoi, was headlined, "Reporters See Battered Town in North." It described a visit to Hungyen, 36 miles east of Hanoi, which was said to have been hit by American bombs the day before. The correspondent wrote: "Nowhere in the part of the town we visited could we see a barracks or a fuel dump, or even a warehouse that could be used for storing war supplies the meanest dwellings, straw huts for the most part, had been blasted and burned." Those fragments sketch an America and a world in which the rich are growing relatively richer a perfect recipe for social and racial and national explosion.

And the richest and most powerful of countries is using far less of its resources to deal with those socially dangerous disparities than It is to destroy and terrorize a small country of whose political aims it disapproves. That is the hard reality about which a radical opposition candidate for president of the United States ought to educate his country. How effectively will George McGovern do so? McGovern has a clear view on the war: For longer than just about any of us he has understood what that savagery for dubious political ends is costing the United States. No cries of treason from John Connally or anyone else trying to out-Ag-new Agnew are likely to deflect McGovern from his commitment to end American killing in Southeast Asia. WHILE THEY last, the dramas of an American political convention seem overwhelmingly important to those concerned.

But the world goes on outside, the reality that will eventually face the politicians. During the Democrats' week in Miami the New York Times published three stories that sharply reminded us of that outside world. They suggested some of the painful realities with which any president will have to deal. One article bore the headline, "Jersey Black-White Income Gap Widens." It described census findings for eight New Jersey counties near New York City. As the headline indicated, the figures showed that between 1960 and 1970 suburban areas of predominantly white population increased their already large margin of affluence over black urban areas.

In Newark, now a black-majority city, median family income rose from $5,454 to $7,735 during the decade a gain of 42 per cent. In nearby Montclair, a mixed and not particularly rich suburban community, the figure went from $8,500 to $14,500 up 71 per cent. The headline on the second piece read: "Gap Between Rich and Poor Nations Widens Steadily." In the developing countries of the world, the story said, per capita industrial and agricultural output increased 27 per cent between 1960 and 1970. In the richer developed countries the Increase was 43 per cent. The third article, from a French corre of the registered voters in the county and three per cent in the state registered American.

Residents of Lee County who wish to stand up for America with Wallace in November and who wish to contribute to the cause should contact Mr. Mark Andrews, Box 9, Cape Coral, Fla. 33904. Those in Collier County should contact Mr. M.

Dan Nickel, P.O. Box 1126, Naples, Fla. Wallace supporters in Charlotte and Hendry Counties should immediately get together and form American Party organizations. BILL MORSE Naples. Views of Others PROGRESS IN REVERSE Forty years ago this week, the first transcontinental air mail flight gave California residents two-day letter delivery to New York.

It was quite an accomplishment. Even with jets, computers and higher-priced stamps, our modern-day Postal Service hasn't been able to duplicate the 1932 feat with consistency. The passage of time does not always mean progress. Tulsa (Okla). World 1.