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

CDnOKIALS OF BALL TROUBLE Greenville Thursday, July 13, 1967 Russia's Historic Drive To Not Much Influenced By New Mood Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesifato a moment to prefer the latter. --Thomas Jefferson The Sideshow Obscures The Need A political sideshow is being created in the hearings currently underway before the Senate subcommittee looking into poverty problems. It threatens to obscure basic problems and to impede progress. It has already produced some fantastic allegations, some occassionally irrelevant rebuttals and, somewhere under all the cannonade and bombast, the clear outlines of a disturbing problem already recognized by many. To deal with the problem first.

There can be no doubt that in this, the poorest state in the union, there are thousands of people who have a poor to very bad diet. Logically, there would be a higher percentage of these in a poor Elate than in a rich one. There should be little doubt that for the very poorest and the most ignorant, many of them set adrift by economic forces beyond their control, there is little or no medical attention as well. If anyone doubts that education is inadequate for those who attend school in Mississippi, or that far too many dp not attend school, we would refer them to the report released by the Mississippi Research and Development Center. If anyone doubts that there are rot enough jobs to go around, and certainly not enough jobs for the'Unskilled or under- skilled displaced by on the farm, we would refer them to the Mississippi Employment Ser- WHAT THEN'arises is a definition; of that" emotional sticking in the -great debate: the charge that people are "literally starving" in Mississippi.

Our dictionary is certainly not the last word, but It defines starvation as act of starving, or state of being starved." To starve, says our dictionary, perish with, hunger; also to suffer extreme hunger." definition it gives is "to suffer from any want; to be in need." Again'; 'cannot see how honest men could honestly say that there are no people in Mississippi who would fall into the category of suffering extreme hunger or suffering from want or being need. There obviously are. At this point, however, the political angles and semantic difficulties begin to mount. The dictionary says that the transitive verb starve means "to kill with hunger; also, to distress or'subdue by hunger." Remembering that, hear the doctor who was a member of the team which recently visited Mississippi and reported it found shocking poverty conditions. There is "an unwritten by generally accepted policy by those who control the slate to eliminate the Negro by driving him out or starving him to death," he told the subcommittee.

THAT IS not a statement of reason, but of demogoguery; it is not the reflection of a mature mind but of one obsessed by the conspirarcy theory of history. As deeply as have detested some of the official policies of this state and some of its officials, we can say without fear of accurate contradictions that no such "generally accepted policy" exists. To make the charge is to invite emotional reaction, and this is precisely what has occured. To make the charge is also to hide the real root causes of Mississippi's poverty conditions, which are not bound up in individual man's personal evil but in the sweep accelerated economic change and the inheritance of a tortured history which has left so many of our people, and so much of our economy, in a backwater easy to enter but difficult to leave. What we should be concentrating upon here in Mississippi is devising and supporting programs which will bring us and our people out of the backwater, rather than fighting each and every positive recommendation because we do not like its source or its reflection upon us.

What some of the critics, of what Mississippians have done for the very poor--most of whom happen to be Negroes here-should do is not engage in whole- scale onslaughts on an entire people, onslaughts only designed to produce a very predictable human reaction, but work to gain revision of existing federal programs and inauguration of new ones as necessary to aid the poor -whose exist-- ence they have spotlighted, It is not necessary to use slander to do this. IS tragic is that so many people who are figuring in the "great debate" in Washington are acting out predictable roles rather than joining.in. a common assault on the human misery and human want which exists here-and which also exists' elsewhere. The attacks are thundering from thrones of righteous indignation, throwing God-like thunderbolts down upon the white sinners of Mississippi, and in the process implying that all Mississippi whites must be sinners. The spokesmen for the state are all the w.hjl.e going to the other extreme, or very close to it, by denying that there is any problem at all or even if there is, there is one just'as bad elsewhere.

But it is irrelevant that conditions are bad elsewhere. They are certainly bad here, and it is here that we must live and our children must grow. There is great human need, and the best way to put the lie to the more fantastic claims of the critics is to work across the state to alleviate that need. 5353E2S Only Yesterday 5 Years Ago--1962 Capt. and Mrs.

Marlin Richardson and their four children who have just returned to the United States after four years in Madrid, Spain, are in Leland this week to visit Mrs. Richardson's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Carl Day. They discribed the bull fights, the advantages of U.

S. government housing, the language problem, ar.d various facets of their life while in Spain. 15 Years Ago--1952 The crickets are back. The bream fishermen are happy but the merchants and housewives are sour about it all, The crickets, thousands of them, are invading the city again at night, presumably attracted by the bright lights along Washington Two Lyndons Improve Relationship In Visit By Proud Grandfather brat Peartctt Jack Avenue and Main Street, since they congregate in the vestibules of the stores and along nearby walls. 23 Years Ago--1942 Cadet Eugene Bowler of Shelbyville, became the second member of the Greenville Army Flying School "Caterpillar Club" when he parachuted to safety from his basic trainer which crashed and plunged into the Mississippi River at Miller's Bend, north of the city.

Sgt. James L. Sparkrnan, an aviation student, is believed to be the first Greenville High School graduate to receive flight training at the Greenville Army Flying School here. HOBDING CARTER Publisher HODDIXG CARTER III Editor JOHN GIBSON General Manager WASHINGTON "He's best baby," said his mother. "I'm-just lucky.

He never cries unless something is wrong with him--unless he's hungry or his diaper is Then jf you find out what it is and iix it, "He stops right away." The baby is question was Pat- Tick Lyndon Nugent and the lady 'who was talking about him was his mother. Lyn had been nursing when his proud grandfather came in to see him and show'him off to visitors. When you have a grandfather who is President of the United States and who is quite a busy guy, his visits can interfere with meals. But Palrick Lyndon didn't seem to mind. In fact he wasn't a bit awed by his grandpa and went sound asleep while his mother was holding him.

LATER.WHEM his granddaddy held him, a little gingerly at first but with more confidence later, Lyn did manage to open his eyes enough to squint up at the President of the United States. It was a quizzical look, as if he wanted to know what the fuss was all about. Obviously Lyndon I was prouder of Lyndon II than if he has been holding a newly signed anti-ballistic missile treaty with the Soviet Union. I.yn is a big baby and will be tall like his grandfather. His hair is light like his father's, and his eyes, when he opens them enough to see, are gray.

Having shown this much of hirnself, Lyn went back to sleep. He and his father and mother had moved from Austin down to the ranch for the long Fourth of July week which Congress took olf, and which the President, with Congress oul of town, also used for a little relaxation. Luci, Pat and the baby live in a small cottage about a quarter of a mile from the main ranch house. It is painted dive green to match the pin oak trees that flourish in that part of Texas ami the foreman's house and the other farm buildings. Only the main ranch house and the house where LBJ was born arc painted white.

The cottage where Lyn is established is a two-bedroom affair, with a combined living room and dining room. A small kitchen is built behind a sort of bar so that food can be slid out on the bar without too much trouble. THE INSIDE OF the living room is lined with cedar which gives oft a faint woodsy smell, and there is a large picture window looking out on the brown parched pasture and Ihe pin oak trees in the distance. The pasture is brown because It hasn't rained at Ihe LBJ Ranch, or in this of, September. A little white dog named Youki which Luci picked up from an undetermined source and of undetermined origin barks, most disrepeclfully at the President as he is about to enter.

He takes his self-appointed role of guarding the first Presidential grandchild quite seriously. Finally the sleepy Patrick Lyndon was tucked back in his crib. He even finish eating. Luci then went to the main house, for lunch, wearing an attractive wide-striped green and white dress. "My father gave it to me last 1 she explained.

"I was only able to wear it once or twice before I started getting big, but now fortunately I can wear it again." SHE HAS dropped from 123 pounds before the baby was born to 109 and intends to slay that way. Always a prilty girl, Luci in motherhood has become more beautiful. She celebrated her twentieth birthday on July 3. "I have the best father," she said. "Whenever he takes a trip he brings back a present for me and rny sister and my mother.

It doesn't make any difference how busy he is, he never forgets to bring us something." After lunch she displayed some Thai silk her falter had given her. When others are present, Luci refers to her father as an to her mother as "Ma'm. Sha does It in a way that doesn't sound formal. Obviously she is about happiest little girl in the world and says, quite unpretentiously: "There is so much unhappiness in the world and one-half of happiness is sharing it with others." A few minutes after lunch Luci excused herself and went back to the job of being Mrs. Patrick Nugent.

NBC's publicity department has been pumping out promotion about how the network scooped the world by obtaining movies and tapes of ex-Premier Khrushchev in retirement. Actually, the story was dug out by Jess Gorkin, editor of Parade who included NBC in on the deal to help defray expenses. Under tha agreement, Parade magazine was supposed to come cut with the story two days ahead of the NBC telecast. In return, NBC was given exclusive, movies and tapes that couldn't be reproduced in the magazine. But NBC jumped the gun on Gorkin and released details of the story in advance.

As a result, the wire services gave NBC, not Parade, credit for the scoop. TM7 Niwi WASHINGTON The history of Russia's many historic adventures in the Near and Middle East docs not make very happy summer reading in fact it's enough to ruin a man's vacation--but It is relevant and many even be essential to an understanding of what's going on there. One thing is perfectly clear. The news about United Nations resolutions, Israeli conflicts between Eshkol and Dayan, Nasser's future, and Israel's territorial demands, are all secondary. The primary question, upon which all these other things hang, is what the Soviet Union intended by arming the Arabs In the first place, and what it is doing now that the Arabs are defeated, and wholly dependent on Moscow for arms.

The Johnson administration is not talking about this publicly. It is pleased with Israel's mili- tary victory, which was achieved by defying Washington's advice. It is delighted by the political reaction to the outcome of war and the Johnson-Kosygin talks, which have boosted President Johnson's rating in the popularity poll. But thoughtful and experienced men in the embassies here, ar.d even within the administration, arc less Interested in the politics of Wash- Ington, Tel Aviv, and the United Nations, than they are in the politics and strategy of the Soviet Union. AT LEAST some of them think we are seeing in the Middle East, not merely a regional conflict between Israel and the Arab states, important as that is, but a major strategic move by the Soviet Union to expel Western inlluence from the area, establish itself as the dominant power over the oil at the crossroads of the European, African and Asian continents, and thus weaken the Western Europeans who depend on oil from the area, isolate Turkey which controls the Bosporus and the Dardanelles and Iran which controls the Persian Gulf, protect the southern flank of the U.S.SR., and access to the warm wafer ports the czars and commissars have coveted for many generations.

This geopolitical view of the problem may be too neat. The Russians have less faith in logic and mathematics than the Germans, but they have a long history of trying to establish their influence in the Near and Middle East, and with British and French power expelled from that area and American power tied down in Vietnam, the theory that Moscow is now trying to achieve Russia's ancient objectives in this critical area is at least a topic of the most serious discussions a thoughtful men in Washington. Almanac By United Press International Today is Thursday, July 13lh, the day of 1967 with 171 to follow. The moon is between its new phase and first quarter- The morning star is Satum. The evening stars are Venus and Mars.

Born on this day in 188fi was Father Edward Flanagan, the founder of Boy's Town. On this day in history: In 17S7, the U.S. Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, setting up the first organized government west of the original 13 states. In 1865, Horace Grecley wroie an editorial (in the New York Tribune) that federal civil workers who didn't like Washington should "go West, young man, go West, and grow up with the country." In 1878, the Russo-Turkish War ended. A thought for the day: American statesman Daniel Webster once said: "God grants liberty only to those who love it, end are always ready to guard and defend Russian chronicles report 4M the Kievan St.

Valada; mir, sent a "fact-finding" mis? sion to Egypt as early as 1001 A. D. Russia's activities in Egypt under Catherine the Great seem to have been designed to threaten the Turkish empire by estab- tishing a power-base at its rear. She rendered military assistance to the Memeluk Ali-Bey and in 174 was reported to have agreed to support the independence of Egypt in exchange for the right to station Russian troops in Alexandria, Rosetta, and Damietta. THE RUSSIAN Foreign minister, Giers, stated in the 1880's: "The proclaimed principle of Egypt for the Egyptians is a Utopia.

Egypt because of its geographical location at the juncture of the three continents ho'ds a position of such political importance that its Independence is impossible. It ba too weak to defend it. It wolild become a battlefield, for European rivalries." This is a point which seems occasionally to be on the minds of officials in Washington today. It was Napoleon who realized that the way to control or at least weaken and neutralize Europe, was through command of land bridge between the Eastern Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean in Egypt. Russia saw this route as the path to agression against itself in the Crimean War.

And even after the end of the second world war, the Soviets, like their czarist 'predecessors, sought bases on the African shore: A United Nations trustee- ship over Libya, and, as Stalin said at the Potsdam Conference, equal voice in the determination of "what was to be done about Tangier." Therefore, when Soviet experts in Washington hear the por liticians talking about "the spirit of Glassboro" and read Secretary Rusk's statement in Chicago this week that President Johnson wants a genuine "detente" with Moscow, they have their doubts, not about Washington's intent- tioiis, but about Moscow's. JE Outlcek Question Of Liberal Abortion Law Likely To Stir Legislators Soon The touchy question of allowing legal abortions isn't an issue in this year's Mississippi elections, but it may cause heated arguments in the Legislature some day soon. The subject has been brought to the public's attention several times in the recent past. One was when the American Medical Association reversed its stringent position on abortion and adopted a more liberal policy. THE AMA's policy making body, the House of Delegates, adopted a report this summer recommending new guidelines under which abortions could be performed.

The i i became the AMA recommendation for legislation, go further than the vast majority of stale laws which permit abortion only to save a mother's life. While declaring itself as 'respecting opposing i of some groups notably the Roman Catholic Church the AMA said It "believes that physicians who bold other i should be legally able to exercise sound medical judgment which they and their colleagues feel to be in the best interest of the patient." A. FEW states including Colorado, North Carolina and California, have recently adopted laws along the same lines as the AMA policy. Mississippi has more liberal abortion laws than most states, although it docs not follow AMA recommendations. A amendment to Missis- Johnson Cutting Back On Domestic Spending! WASHINGTON In a secret order personally delivered to his Cabinet, President Johnson has directed spending reductions of unprecedented severity for a domestic programs because of Vietnam.

The order was issued in the June 28 Cabinet meeting. Mr. Johnson directed his department bosses to prepare a whopping, 15 percent, across the board slash in spending for submission to the White House less than a month from then on July 2fl. What's in a typically Johnsonian flourish, he forbade any advance publicity on his economizing order covering the fiscal year that started July IN FACT, nobody seriously expects a cut of that size to materialize. Apart from destroying Great Society social welfare programs, it would bring the business of the Federal government to a whimpering halt.

Nor it possible to finance any a through cutbacks in non-defense spending, whether or not the President decides on a troop increase in Vietnam. Yet, the directive of June 28 marks a turning point in the President's philosophy on how to finance Ihe Vietnam a ending the tacit assumption (hat the U. S. could afford both guns and butter. Even if never fully carried out, the 15 percent cutback order reveals a Mr.

Johnson now feels a cut in butter is an essential backdrop for a lax increase needed to avoid a staggering budget deficit. One reason Mr. Johnson's call last January for a 6 percent surtax on personal and corporate income taxes was not taken seriously on Capitol Hill was that no real cut in domestic spending accompanied it. Moreover, such key Congressional conserva- titives as Representative John Byrnes of Wisconsin, senior Republican on a writing Ways and Means Committee, will not back a tax increase of any size unless linked to stantial retrenchment in spending. THUS, I lie spending cutback is further evidence that the President now is deadly serious about higher taxes this year.

Although he did nrit congressmen returning this from a 10-day recess with a renewed ctll for higher Uxca, ti his advisors had recommended, Mr. Johnson will make such a call soon and for more than the old 6 percent request. In preparation for the tax battle, even the Pentagon is undergoing a spending squeeze. In remarks largely overlooked at his July 5 press briefing. Secretary of Defense Robert S.

McNamara asserted: "I firmly believe there must be water 50mcpbcc In our $73 billion this fiscal year. I propose to wring it and wring it out." What McNamara didn't say a that he already a assigned the unenviable task of 'bringing" 12 billion worth of "water," from a budget considered bone dry by the military, to Pentagon Comptroller Robert N. Anthony. The first victim: Major Army ground maneuvers scheduled in the North Carolina coastal region during August, now cancelled, INEVITABLY, however, a deductions must come in non- defense spending, and that is where the 15 percent cutback applies. Although bureaucrats privately downgrade June 23 order is just a larger version of the annual economy "exercise," most of the bureaucracy reganis it with proper se- riousncss-and anguish.

These officials believe the 15 percent order may itself into actual reductions as high as 8 percent. The Administration's strategy is to reach that level by deferring construction i until Inter years, while keeping social welfare spending intact. instance, officials at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare believe they can avert reductions in Federal aid fo education by drastically holding down on expenditures, for new buildings. But any cuts anti poverty spending must come out of actual program. This means still further slashes in Job Corps and Community Action spending, already down as a result of Vietnam.

Such reductions will mean renewed outcries liberals that Mr. Johnson is starving the Great Society to feed the, Vietnam war machine. that will be a small price (n pay, In the opinion of Administration strategists, to win the lax increase they desperately want Mid need, allows legal abortions in case of rape. The a already allowed them to save a mother's life. The trend obviously is toward Jaws providing for such operations in more cases than these.

Mississippi Boys' Stole an annual mock government composed of high school students sponsored by the American Legion delved into the subject this year in its session. youthful legislators approved a measure providing legal abortions in cases where a child might be born with grave physical or mental disorders. Legal abortions also could be autho- rised if the physical or mental heallh of a mother were jeopardized by continuance of pregnancy. IN A few years these a boys will be of voting age and in the no too i a future some fo them will hold real offices in slate government. During i span quite a of them probably will change their opinions on legal abortions as on things.

But won't, and many of their seniors are already forming opinions on this highly emotional subject. Look for it to come up again in the Legislature possibly within the next four years. IN THE MAIL is a letter from Claude Ramsay, president of the Mississippi AFL-CIO, regarding this column's comments of two weeks ago about his organization. Other than what he termed omissions of most of the candidates endorsed in this summer's primaries, Ramsay wrote "your stnry was fairly correct." He enclosed a copy of a news release which listed candidates the labor group has endorsed as follows: secretary of a Heber Ladner; attorney general Joe T. Patterson; state treasurer, Miss Evelyn Gandy; a auditor of public accounts; W.

Hamp King; superintendent of public education, Garvin John, slon; commissioner of agriculture ft commerce, Jim Buck Ross; state land commissioner, I. S. (Ike) Sanford; highway commissioner northern district, Herschel Jumper, central district, Sam Waggoner; South- district, W. H. (Shag) JOT,.