The Delta Democrat-Times from Greenville, Mississippi • Page 4

Change and no change If one phrase could describe the effect of the changes which President Nixon has effected thus far in his Cabinet, it is that there have been changes so that there will be no change. The faces and names have been shuffled, but the net result is apparently not intended so much to guarantee that the second-term administration will not run out of steam, as the President has expressed it, as to make sure that no new head of steam is built up behind innovation. Putting it another way, the President has served indirect notice that he has no new ideas on ways to solve old problems. Government reorganization and a stress on improved efficiency are neither good or bad in themselves, since the pertinent point is not how well an organization functions, but what it produces. A more efficient mechanism for doing little or nothing is just that.

The most important faces are not going to be changed at all. Those are the ones who are closest to the President--the "German mafia" of presidential assistants. They, rather than the Cabinet members, have been the real power of the first Nixon administration, and they are going to be the real power of the second. The fact that they have been kept in place, while key personnel have been shifted at HEW, HUD, the department of Defense, Labor and other agencies is proof of that particular pudding. The appointment of Peter Brennan, the New York trade unionist, as secretary of Labor, is the most patently political move by the President.

Brennan has been a Nixon supporter since 1968, an ardent hawk and leader of a union which has been most resistant to government efforts to open its ranks to black members. By appointing Brennan, President Nixon has demonstrated that he intends to do everything he can to split organized labor and siphon off as many of its members and leaders as possible into a new Republican majority, but he has certainly not demonstrated that he intends to change by one iota his resistance to most fundamental union concerns. The Brennan appointment was a payoff to a faithful supporter and not a shift in direction. The President has no reason to believe that the country wants it any other way. He won a huge majority without promising that his administration would do anything except build on old policies.

His decision to give the Cabinet changes the maximum amount of public relations buildup, carrying with it the promise of something new in the offing, cannot disguise that fundamental truth. Obvious lesson Too often, it takes tragedy, confrontation or violence to make changes in public law which common sense should have required long before. Last week, fires in two high rise buildings in Atlanta and New Orleans resulted in needless deaths--needless because neither building was equipped with adequate escape routes or firefighting equipment. Although the top floors of both buildings were beyond the reach of each city's fire department, neither having ladders or snorkels which could reach that high, neither building was required to have ceiling sprinkler equipment. Cost considerations in both instances were cited as justification by city officials for not requiring the sprinklers.

But what is the dollar value of a human life? Would the people who died in either building have objected if they had been required to pay more, in rent or for their food, to insure safety? We think the question answers itself. That is precisely the kind of question which developers and too many public officials never ask, and if it is asked, prefer to ignore. Most cities do not have adequate fire codes for high rise buildings. Too many which have fairly decent codes choose to ignore them. Perhaps what is necessary is federal legislation which would be applied across the nation.

That is what insurance company spokesmen have been asking for several years. Such a law would have the practical side-effect of insuring that the added cost would be imposed no matter where a high rise was built, so that a developer building in community which had a loose code would not have a financial advantage over one building in community which had a tough code. Financial considerations aside, which is where they should be, the need for strict laws and stricter enforcement is obvious. It took two tragedies and too many lives to remind us of that fact, but it should not take any more to produce legislative action. Only yesterday 5 Years AgTM967 CLEVELAND--Dr.

Leon Jackson has been elected chairman of the Bolivar County Mental Health Association. Other new officers are Ed Kossman vice-chairman; Mrs. W. G. Webber, secretary; and the Rev.

J. C. Hubbard, treasurer. CLEVELAND--Jan Glenn, a Cleveland High School senior, has been named Good Citizen of the Year by the Madam Hodnett Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. John Carr, Democrat-Times reporter, has been awarded a Mark Ethridge Fellowship for the study of history and political science at the University of North Carolina and Duke University.

15 Years Ago--1957 Cub Pack 14 will meet in monthly session tonight at 7:30 at the Mississippi Power Light Company auditorium. The pack is sponsored by the Lions Club. ANGUILLA-The Anguilla Junior Garden club met Wednesday afternoon and elected new officers as follows: President, Nancy Martin; Vice President, Ann Sanders; Secretary, Freddie Green. Halfback Gene Fioranelli ran 29 yards over right tackle midway in tha third quarter of Saturday night's football game in Greenville to give the hometown St. Joseph's Fighting Irish a victory over Eudora High School in the final game of the season for both.

25 Years Ago--1947 Emory Rose of Leland was elected president of Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial class of the Delta Bodies of Scottish Rite Masons Wednesday as a three days fall reunion at Masonic Temple here neared an end. Mrs. Colleen Lancaster Bennett, daughter of Mr. and Mrs.

A. B. Lancaster, of Greenville was recently named in Who's Who Among students in American Universities and Colleges from Northwestern State College Nat- "thitoches, La. Plans for basketball in the Y.M.C.A. League were announced here Wednesday by General Secretary Walter Stokes.

Delta Br mac rat-Sinus Page 4 Monday, Dec. 4,1972 AND THAT IS WHY WE CALL IT A Hoddlng Carter, Publisher (1936-72) Hoddlng Carter III. Editor Mrs. Betty W. Carter, Publisher John Gibson, General Manager Pic Flrmln, Managing Editor The Delta Democraf.Tlmes is published Monday through Friday afternoons and on Sunday morning by The Times Publishing P.

0. Box 1018, Greenville, 38701. Delivery by motor route Is $2 per month and by city carrier, $1.75. Mail subscriptions payable In advance to subscribers In Washington and adjoining counties not served by routes: S6 for 3 months, Si: for 6 months, S24 for 12 months. Entered as second class matter at the Post Oil Ice In Greenville, under Act ol March Air extortion Bizarre plot revealed WASHINGTON--Fora few tense hours last September, a small plane circled over a lonely area of the Southwest waiting for a signal to toss out a satchel stuffed with cash.

The plane was secretly dispatched by phantom billionaire Howard Hughes's airline, Airwest, to stop an extortionist from blowing up a passenger plane in midair. The bizarre extortion plot, which authorities tried to hush up, began with an anonymous typed letter which arrived at Airwest's Phoenix offices. Though confusing on some points, the letter indicated that a pressure-sensitive bomb, set for a certain altitude, was on board an Airwest jet. It was timed for an explosion 150 hours after Airwest received the letter. To learn its location, the airline was to, within three days, collect more than $100,000 and send it aboard a small plane over a prearranged course over the barren stretches of the Southwest.

The extortionist said he would signal when the satchel was to be dropped from the plane. Once the satchel was received, promised the letter, the airline would be notified which plane was rigged with the bomb. Wild as the scheme was, Airwest chose to take it seriously. To risk a midair explosion with passengers and crew aboard was unthinkable. The airline has 20 jets operating over 9,000 miles of routes.

As fast as they hit the ground on overnight stops, they were searched from nose to tail, from wheel well to cabin roof. Once searched, each plane was kept under 24-hour surveillance to prevent a bomb from being sneaked aboard. Despite these precautions, the airline, taking no chances, assembled the cash. It was packed into a satchel and flown aboard a Cessna-150 over the designated course. The crew, ready to drop the satchel, watched for the signal which never came.

Footnote: Out of the incident has come both recriminations and constructive action. The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association has protested that its mechanics were kept ignorant of the danger by the airline, FBI and FAA during the bomb search. Union safety director James Sparling is using the September scare to ask the FAA, FBI, and Congress for guidelines in future cases. He is also asking the Labor Department to make it a rule that em- ployes must be notified of bomb and hijack danger. I I I A -President Nixon entered into direct negotiations with the South Vietnamese after the U.S.

embassy in Saigon reported that President Thieu had lost confidence in Henry Kissinger. He complained that Kissinger had accepted a draft, submitted by the North Vietnamese, in negotiating a cease-fire agreement. The proposed agreement, objected Thieu, was too hasty. It failed to take into account the complexities of the Vietnam War. NIXON'S NEPHEW--President Nixon's 26-year-old nephew, Donald A.

Nixon, has made the front pages, despite patient efforts by the White House to keep him out of trouble. He has turned up as a personal aide in the Bahamas to financier Robert Vesco, who has been accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of attempting to divert $224 million in mutual funds to his personal use. The White House was apprehensive when young Nixon went to work for Vesco's company last year. The President had given his trusted aide, John Ehrlichman, the delicate, confidential assignment of keeping a wary eye on this branch of the family. So Ehrlichman took the Nixon nephew aside and spoke to him for a couple hours, urging him to behave himself on the new job and do nothing to embarrass the President.

There's no evidence that young Nixon was involved in any way in Vesco's alleged fraud. But Vesco paid him generously and tried to capitalize on the fact he had the President's nephew on his payroll. PHONY ENVIRONMENTALISTS- TWO conservation-minded congressmen, Henry Reuss, and John Dingell, have caught the federal government trying to pass off strip- miners as environmentalists. They discovered the National Coal Association, which has contributed so much to ecological spoilage, listed in a new federal directory of environmental organizations. Reuss and Dingell wrote to environmental czar William Ruckelshaus that "if the National Coal Association qualified," then so do the oil, gas and other nature-destroying lobbies.

They asked Ruckelshaus to halt distribution of the directory until the coal lobby was stricken from it. Ruckelshaus sheepishly complied, acknowledging that his agency had goofed. EMBARRASSING DETAIL--Dr. Benjamin Ichinose, corporate president of a taco food chain in California, has been named in a federal suit alleging that the food chain discriminates against blacks. The suit comes at a most embarrassing moment for Dr.

IchinosefHe was just appointed to serve a two-year term on the President's Council for Minority Enterprise. "WE'VE mm mmmz SUT recipe Herewith, by popular demand, a re-run of the late Mrs. C. D. Horton's famous fruit-cake recipe, one which has been appearing in this column for twenty' years or so during the approach of the Christmas season.

First, as usual, the fruit-cake mixture: 1 pound dried figs 1 pound dates 1 pound white raisins 1 pound currants 1 pound crystallized pineapple 1 pound cherries (fresh or canned but never bottled) 2 pounds shelled pecans 1 pound citron 4 large pieces of candied orange-peel 1 cup of sherry The mixture is prepared the night before the cake is baked. Lay aside about two dozen cherries, a few pieces of citron and a few pecans for decorating in the finished cake. Cut the remaining cherries and pecans in halves. Cut the other ingredients into small pieces, then mix all together and drip the sherry over the mixture, stirring gently all the while. Cover tightly and store in cool place overnight.

Mrs. Horton suggested putting the mixture in a dish-pan, covered with a biscuit-board that is weighted down. Next morning add two cups of flour to thoroughly dust the mixture. And now for the fruit-cake batter: 6 eggs 3'A cups sugar cups butter (repeat, butter, not margarine) 5 cups flour Vh cups buttermilk 2 teaspoons baking-soda 1 level teaspoon cinnamon 1 level teaspoon allspice teaspoon cloves Beat egg-yolks until light or lemon- colored, and beat egg-whites until stiff. Cream the butter and sugar, then add egg-yolks, beating well all the while.

Sift the spices with the flour, adding one cup of buttermilk alternately. Dissolve soda in the remaining half-cup of buttermilk, then add to batter and fold the egg-whites into the batter. Now combine the fruit-cake mixture with the batter. Line baking-pans with heavy brown- paper that has been greased with butter, fill pans two-thirds full with batter, and cover with paper that is cut larger than top of pan so the paper does not touch the batter. Fill a heavy skillet with water and put it on the floor of the oven.

Add water to the skillet as it evaporates during the baking-period. This is done to keep the cake moist. DO NOT PUT BAKING-PAN IN SKILLET OF WATER. Bake cake in slow oven for four then remove and decorate with cherries, pecans and citron. Then return cake to oven for one hour's additional baking.

Leave cake in baking-pan overnight. Take from pan next morning and wrap in waxed paper. On the morning of the fourth day, drip five teaspoons of sherry over the fruit-cake. Repeat this process every morning for the next ten days. This recipe produces fourteen pounds of fruit-cake, and a ton or more of eating- pleasure.

And many thanks to the memory of the late and very dear "Miss Hattie" Horton who, incidentally, always referred to the sherry in the recipe as "the Birthday greetings tomorrow December 5th, to Mrs. Helen Lindsay, our fellow-Presbyterian, for whom we'll be wishing many happy returns of the day! -BG The Consumers Union on drugs The Consumers Union has issued a massive report on "Licit and Illegal Drugs" which will be released in a few days. The recommendations of the Union have been distilled and publicized. Concerning these, a few observations: l) The argument that heroin addicts should receive free heroin rests on an incomplete social evaluation of the addict's condition. Itis clearly preferable to give an addict heroin rather than "force" him to acquire the money with which to buy it from the black market.

It is established that the acquisition of that money is often done by theft--sometimes violent theft. It is not frequently enough remarked, however, that the is seldom satisfied to practice his vice privately. He is something of a cultist, both out of economic necessity, and psychic loneliness. The easiest way for him to earn the money with which to supply his own habit is to become a pusher. Pushers arc energetic salesmen.

Although they usually need to ply their wares discreetly, there is opportunity to proselytize. On this point alone society is entitled to conclude that the taking of heroin is a communicable disease. And that therefore those who do take I (should be sequestered. William Buckley 2) It is one thing to advocate the decriminalization of marijuana use, another to advocate the freedom to merchandise marijuana. The Consumers Union apparently argues that only if the sale of it is legalized as is it possible to control the quality of it, which is correct: but which is an insufficient point.

To permit the sale of marijuana is in effect greatly to encourage the regular use of it. The Union correctly says there is no conceivable law which will at this point succeed in the elimination of marijuana from the national scene. That argument is a sensible one for decriminalization. But package-store availability for marijuana is a positive, corporate encouragement of the use of a drug which the Union concedes is dangerous and undesirable. The Union's recommendation that the advertising of cigarettes and liquor be banned seeks most curiously to take off from the precedent of the banning of cigarette advertising in radio and television.

This was done several years ago but, to the dismay of the initiators of the ban, cigarette smoking proceeds at an all-time high. Since everyone concedes that radio and television in particular are the principal selling media for consumer products, does it follow that cigarette smokers have been encouraged to continue to smoke by the advertisements they come across in the magazines and subways? The notion is surely naive. Cigarette smokers aren't people who fantasize life in Marlboro country. They are, typically, 15-year-olds who are given a cigarette to puff by 16-year-olds. The fact that no apparent relief was enjoyed from the proscription of radio and television advertising hardly argues for prospective success by eliminating advertising in newspapers and magazines.

Moreover, the Union's report apparently neglects the point that advertising is primarily useful as a competitive spur. End the competitive stimulus, and you depress the anxiety for Improved tobacco. This could be the most conspicuous result of an end to any advertising whatever of tobacco. And even this is to suppose that there Is no constitutional point to worry about. Congress's authority over the airwaves is not disputed.

Its authority over what the newspaper prints in the way of advertising is by no means established. 4) On the other hand, the Union does a service in directing our attention to alcohol as the principal predator on American health, happiness, and stability. Alongside alcohol, smoking, and even pot are as nothing. The Union's assumption, however, that a ban on alcohol adveritsing is indicated once again belies practical experience. Its suggestion that alcoholic containers be clearly labelled as containing potentially dangerous stuff is more like an exercise in spiritual discipline, than a measure that could hope to reduce the consumption of alcohol.

Education is the answer. But a more subtle form of education than merely to reiterate the dangers of alcohol. A revival of the work ethos, and of the self- denying impulse, is more like it. Emphasis on the culture of duty, self- restraint, a consideration for others: something like the Christian ethic, broadly spoken. A hedonistic, self- concerned, sollpslstic culture concerned to discourage the use of drugs Is helpless, even as the editors of the Consumers Union report..