The Town Talk from Alexandria, Louisiana • Page 4

The Advance Man Established on March 17, 1883 fall of the Soum By Adras LaBorde Jllljf SATURDAY EVENING, MARCH 30, 1974 Managing Editor Ul It Power Play May Prove Costly 9fi Why Exempt Judges? Reporter's notebook: Ideally, judges are not or should not be politicians. But with the exception of federal judges, they all become judges via the political process. (What exception?) This means, assumedly, that they have to spend money to get elected. There is no evidence that some of that money is not contributed by friends and well-wishers. So why should judges be exempted from any law that regulates campaign finances and requires reporting of political contributions? There is considerable sentiment among members of a committee preparing campaign finances legislation at Baton Rouge to exempt judges.

Such an exemption would be difficult to justify with the laity. jQ- Yet the coal industry, allied with electrical power companies, continues to fight the bad fight, on the state level and on the national level, against any and every threat to its right to go in, rip out the coal and leave. Members of the House Interior Committee are reportedly under intense pressure from coal and power lobbyists to kill or gut a strong federal strip mine control bill. The measure narrowly escaped defeat in the committee last month. (The Senate is apparently beyond hope, having previously passed a similar bill by a large majority.) This is shortsightedness in the extreme on the part of the coal and utility people.

It is their environment as much as anyone else's, and what the nation fails to do today to protect its natural heritage will exact a far greater price tomorrow from their children, and everyone else's children, than mere money can pay for. Americans are pretty much reconciled to the fact that if they want energy and a decent environment, too, they are going to have to pay for them. Strip mining now yields more than half the nation's total annual output of coal, and will be called upon to yield more in the future. But nobody expects the coal industry to foot the entire bill or most of it or even any of it for the expensive and difficult reclamation of strip-mined land, or for devising some method of "cleansing" high sulfur content coal. The costs must ultimately be borne by the consumer.

The rationale behind the industry's traditional resistance to strip-mining laws that they would put coal at a disadvantage in the marketplace no longer holds today, if it ever did hold. America's demand not just for energy but the chemical derivatives of fossil fuels is going nowhere but up, and no one resource alone can meet it. 4 F0 1 Play Balk Governor Meets 'Demand' On March 16 1 reported here that the board of directors of the Opelousas Chamber of Commerce had "demanded" that Governor Edwards meet with the board "to clear up his stand" on the proposed north-south tollroad. Well, sir, the governor did meet with the board. The Opelousas Daily World published a picture of the governor with some C.

of C. members and said under the picture: "The faces of these local businessmen reflect just a little disappointment as they listen to Gov. Edwin Edwards." According to the report, Mr. Edwards told the group that there is no federal money available for the proposed tollroad. The Readers Write The Minimum-Wage Snowball to give equal space in your good newspaper for the ole chairman of comment and present another view point.

Henry O. Williams, Ret. 1, Box 124-B, Dry Prong, La. The Emerituses Are Back More unfinished business: The Commission on Governmental Ethics voted this week to look into the "emeritus" pay drawn by five retired state college presidents. The motion to investigate was made by commission member Victor Bussie, state president of the AFL-CIO, who said it was desirable to determine "whether or not university and college funds are being paid to people who are not performing useful work." The only "no" vote on Mr.

Bussie's motion was cast by Commission Chairman Vanue Lacour, who argued that the code of ethics was never intended to apply to college and university affairs. If Mr. Lacour said why, the press failed to report his explanation. Those formerly precise baseball terms, strike and balk, have acquired secondary meanings with the coming of labor unrest to America's National Pastime. The 1972 championship season was delayed by 13 days when players refused to report to games because of a dispute over pension benefits.

Eighty-six games and around $1 million in player salaries were irretrievably lost. This year, for the first time, the annual player-management wrangling over salaries has taken on a new dimension. Pay disputes are now subject to binding arbitration. Under an agreement reached in 1971 by the club owners and the Major League Baseball Players such squabbles may be submitted to an arbitrator by either party. The two parties do not enjoy equal standing under the new system, however, A baseball club must comply with the player's request for arbitration, but the player may decline the club's request.

In any event, the arbitrators chosen jointly by the owners and the players' association are required to hand down a decision within three days after hearing a case. The arbitrator may rule in favor of the owner's offer or the player's demand. He cannot settle on a compromise figure. Both sides were somewhat wary of arbitration at first. Each thought the other would be the primary beneficiary.

But it hasn't worked out that way at least this year. Of the 29 cases that went to arbitration, 16 were settled in favor of the owners and 13 in favor of the players. By far the most arbitration-prone club was the World Champion Oakland A's. As a headline in the Los Angeles Times put it, "Oakland Club to Get an 'A' in Arbi tration." No fewer than nine Oakland players elected for third-party settlement of their pay disputes, and five got what they were asking for. Outfielder Reggie Jackson won his demand for a salary of $135,000 in 1974.

Last year Mr. Jackson earned $75,000, and management had offered $100,000 for this season. In deciding individual cases, the baseball arbitrators take several factors into account. These include comparative salaries, quality of contribution during the previous season, length of career and pattern of earnings, and such ephemeral qualities as leadership and gate appeal. It's a far cry from the unabashed flesh market of previous years, when management held all the high cards.

Former New York Yankees pitching star Jim Bouton explained how the old system worked in his best-selling book. Ball Four. Mr. Bouton recounted that he was paid $10,500 by the Yankees in 1903, his best season; he won 21 games and lost only 7. As it.

happend 1905 was Mr. Bouton's worst season with the Yankees (4-15) but his best in terms of salary The reason is that a ballplayer's current salary depends largely on his performance the previous year. While arbitration is a welcome change, as far as players are concerned, they still chafe under the restrictions of the reserve clause. The clause, written into every major-league baseball contract, in effects binds the player to one club for his entire career or until his contract is sold that is, the player is traded to another club. This is the foundation of baseball's monopoly power, and the owners continue to guard it jealously.

Egg a la Ecrevisse? The ethics commission voted to conduct another investigation which could yield more interesting results than the one on the college presidents-emeritus. It will look into the spending of $1,500 in Louisiana Egg Commission money by Commissioner of Agriculture Dave Pearce for such things as steak dinners and crawfish boils. Legislative Auditor Joe Burris disclosed such expenditures in an audit report made public last month. They were entered in an account labeled "egg promotion program." Presumably the ethics commission will be told that the steaks and the crawfish were cooked in an egg batter. But if the crawfish were boiled and not fried Editor, Town Talk: Congress has again raised the minimum wage and the cost of living.

The minimum wage is the floor of wages, and as wages are the greatest part of prices, it is the floor of prices. The minimum wage is the wage of unskilled labor, and semi-skilled labor is not going to work for the wage of unskilled, nor is the skilled going to work for the wage of semi-skilled, neither are professionals going to work for the wage of skilled labor. Each segment of the laboring, or profession, class has its own step (or slot) in the wage scale that has been fixed by custom and experience, and is very jealous of any loss of standing. If the wage of unskilled labor (minimum wage) is raised it is only a comparatively short time until all wages and salaries are raised proportionately, and prices must be raised to get the money to pay these increased wages. The advantage to the unskilled is shortlived: the increase in the cost of living eats up the increase in wages.

The increase in minimum wage contributes to the increase in unemployment. Every increase uncovers a group that cannot earn that increased wage. Before the days of the minimum wage a youngster got a job as helper to some mechanic, at a very low wage, and as he acquired knowledge of, and the ability to do, some of the work his pay was increased. In the course of three or four years, usually, he became a skilled mechanic. But no mechanic is going to pay a youngster $2.

an hour, (or $1.00 an hour) to hand him his tools, so the youngster does not get a chance to get a start, and the number of skilled mechanics has shrunk so much that a plumber, or a repair man, charges more today for a house visit than a doctor docs; and we have to tax ourselves to provide schools to teach these youngsters what they were formerly paid to learn. Do you know how your representative and senator voted on this? F. V. Gallagher, 711 Shell Beach Lake Charles, La. The Subject Is Freedom Taxpayer Still Unhappy Editor, Town Talk: To Mr.

John K. Snyder, mayor: I know you are not the tax assessor as everybody in Rapides Parish knows. Second, I would like for Mr. Snyder to know I have the attorney general's letter in my possession and Mr. Peterman did not follow Mr.

Guste's opinion. I was told with witnesses present they had a lot of opinions, but they meant nothing. Now quoting from the attorney general's letter: "But the annexed property is not subject to municipal taxes for the year of annexation if it is annexed after the taxes have been assessed. The reason being that the annexed property was not a part of the' municipality at the time the municipal taxes were assessed." My taxes were assessed 'before April 15, 1973, and I was annexed on May 29, 1973, according to the records. Now, Mr.

Snyder, how do you interpret this quoted part of the attorney general's letter? I still contend I paid the city $106.70 tax I did not owe. I have no objection to paying my just tax, but I don't like being rooked. I signed to come into the city willingly, but I can't agree we even get 50 percent of the service the mayor claims we do. The mayor needs to know our citizens' problems better. I would like to tell the mayor, the people of Plantation Acres will find out next year when they get their city tax bills if they won or lost.

Certainly, the drainage ditch or culvert should be taken care of across the street from me, but what about all the water on Wimbledon Blvd. every time it rains. Everybody living down here needs protection from the water and we all, or at least we are all supposed to pay taxes for that purpose. (Maybe some don't.) As to the editor's remarks about the city code and the utility rates, I don't believe the editor, mayor, or a Philadelphia lawyer could explain them. I wonder how much time and how much taxpayers' money was spent getting all the utility figures together.

I didn't need them. I'll be happy to give The Town Talk a copy of Mr. Guste's letter to be run in the paper, if the paper wants the truth. Any further discussion I'll have on the right or wrong of taxing before annexation will be through an attorney or the attorney general. George M.

Asher, 614 Wimbledon Alexandria perhaps the definitive "undefinition" of academic freedom by writing that it is "the freedom to study what I want, when I want to, if I want to." If students don't understand the term, the sociologists ask, "what can we expect of the general public?" Well, the general public has a more than acceptable record in this matter of permitting the untrammeled pursuit of truth in the groves of academe, despite some rather extreme expressions of that freedom, by both faculty and students, on some campuses in recent years. A more pertinent question may be, if these 600 less 12 students at Iowa State and their counterparts elsewhere haven't learned what academic freedom means by the time they leave college, what can the general public expect of them? College students, or at least a bunch of them who were queried at Iowa State University, have some curious ideas about what "academic freedom" means. According to a report on a survey by sociologists Dwight G. Dean and Brent f. Bruton in Human Behavior magazine, of 606 students enrolled in their introductory sociology classes, only 12 could write an acceptable one-sentence definition of the term.

All the rest thought it meant "freedom for students, not faculty." No less than 419 of the students thought academic freedom meant freedom from required courses. Numerous others said it was the right to attend the college of their choice or the right to personal off-campus freedom or the right to have a say in the hiring of teachers. One student came up with what is Coming on Sunday's Op-Ed About that new city ordinance against impersonating somebody of the other sex: What if you wear pants, have short hair, and your name is Jo but you are a woman? Jo Tubb takes you through that ordeal. About that brouhaha over equal rights for women: Can a grandmother who is conservative by most gauges rationalize her support for the 27th Amendment? Helen Derr does. Then there's April Fools Day.

Jim Butler has a few "news bulletins" appropriate for the occasion. It all adds up to great reading in the big Editorial Section of your Sunday Town Talk tomorrow. 25 $atn tip AUxnnMa Qnila Soiun folk opened its new quarters at 214 Jackson Street with an open house. Dr. Arthur L.

Seale has been named superintendent of the Central Louisiana State Hospital. He is a member of the staff at Veterans Hospital. A Washington correspondent listed his "best senator" categories: "Best speaker: Claude Pepper, Florida Democrat. Most restless: Russell Long. Louisiana Democrat "He's only 30, but hops from seat to seat, getting clubby." News highlights of Mar.

30, 1949: Although the last induction of selective service registrants here was on Jan. 27, local draft boards are still operating. The clerk of the board said there are 3,000 veterans and married men among Rapides Parish registrants and the board meets twice monthly to classify them. Gen. Charles de Gaulle want the U.

S. to arm France at once as the principal defender of Western Europe under the North Atlantic Past The Chamber of Commerce officially Published each evening and Sunday morning, except Christmas Day by McCormick and Company, Proprietors Main at Washington St. Telephone 442-1331 P.O. Box 7558, Alexandria, Louisiana 71301 Mrs. Jane Wilson Smith Chairman of the Board Joe D.

Smith, Jr President and Publisher Thomas Jarreau O'Quin Vice-President Tom Jarreau Hardin Secretary-Treasurer, General Manager Adras LaBorde Managing Editor 'Coalition' Chairman Replies Editor, Town Talk: I note that in the March 20. Town Talk Mr. Chris Roy in a letter to the Readers Write section said a lot about the provisions in the new constitution which, he claims, affords an "improvement" (I am not quoting him here) over the present constitution as to the rights of the citizens to bear arms etc. My comment is: "Well, it is nice to learn that he has found something he thinks is good about the new proposed constitution. The people of Louisiana are not much concerned about the improvements he points out.

They feel secure with the laws they have now. What they fear most is that those laws will be changed, and they will have to go to the trouble of throwing, anyone who docs change them or attempts to change them, out on their ear out of office. I haven't found anyone complaining about the present provisions in our constitution on the right to bear arms. What Mr. Roy should have done while he was a delegate to the late constitutional convention is to have prevented the passage of Section 17, Article 6, and Section 1 (A) of Article 4.

Section 17 of Article 6 is the land use law and Section. 1( A) of Article 4 destroys the statewide elective office of register of state lands. I don't see "where the yellow went" with the comptroller's high office either. (I am somewhat obscure in my mind about this office's present status). The offense comes in that the people can't know that they are voting to destroy these offices, if they vote for the constitution, by anything written in the new constitution.

Hence, it is my opinion that there has been an attempt to deceive the voters. The foregoing is but a few of the objections we have to the new proposed constitution. The challenge, Mr. LaBorde, is for you WHERE ECONOMY ORIGINATES 7558. Alexandria, la.

71301- We will attempt to publish 'Keep Our Noses Out' Editor, Town Talk: Re "A War's Medium is the Message!" Town Talk, March 2, 1974: I thought by now (post Vietnam) we had finally learned we are not the world's policeman. If West Europe is not capable (or willing) to defend itself against Russia, why should we get involved? Karl Marx predicted England would be the first to go. Belatedly, I am beginning to think that Marx was right. "As for the Middle East, Russia knows that if she moves she must take on both Iran (with the world's strongest non-atomic military force) and Turkey, which would block the Black Sea. Notably, when warclouds threatened there, Iran picked a fuss with Iraq, forcing Iraq to withdraw the forces she had sent to the aid of Syria.

Remember, both Turkey and Iran are non-Arabic though Moslem in religion. Iran continues to ship oil to the United States, ignoring the Arab blockade. All we (the United States) need do is "keep our powder dry" and our collective noses out of other peoples business. Leon J. Saver, 24:10 North" View, Alexandria.

La. SALE This is a poge of opinion and comment. "EJ tonal opinion" expressed tn the columns obove is that of the editor ond publisher of The Town Talk. "Editorial comment" in S'gned columns on this page is the viewpoint of the writer, with which the editor ond publisher do not necessarily agree but which they feel warrants publication. Readers who wuh to disagree, or merely to comment, are invited, even urged, to express their own opinions tn writing.

Address letters to The Readers Write, P.O. Bo all reasonable letters and especially those expressing contrasting opinions and points of view. The column Talk of the Town by Adras LaBorde likewise is an expression of personal opinion with which you may or may not agree and about which you ore invited to write. The contents of other pages in this newspoper hove been written, edited and arranged to be factual, informative, fair ond objective. When we err we will be glad to make a correction.

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