Corpus Christi Caller-Times from Corpus Christi, Texas • 28

yyyynnnMWHrrrvnnnnrvywinnnnorwwwnnnfyrvvwww THURSDAY OCTOBER 3 1968 wrar From Our Headers Cycle Helmet I-aw Denounced Editor the Caller: Three cheers for Fred Biersdorf for filing suit against the cycle helmet law I wish the knuckleheads who passed the law had to sit under ihe Texas sun for just one hour with a helmet on their heads In my opinion all the freedom and 5port of riding a cycle was ruined when the helmet was forced on the rider ties he insists sensibly that social welfare a strong thriving united society is a vital part of national security And thus social consciousness should be a part of Pentagon philosophy An example was McNamara's insistence on open housing for military personnel a heavy blow to housing discrimination Another example more directly in point here cited by Clifford is low-cost housing research and experimentation by the military (the biggest single housing user) that is beyond the housing industry's capacity and should have results that can be passed on to the cities grappling with slum problems A successful program for educating average or below average young people for higher skills devised to recruit educationally unqualified servicemen should aid a relatively neglected aspect of public education A approach" to designing better hospitals with lower operating costs a military' need surely can help meet a national social need So can encouraging military contractors to put plants in high unemployment areas among many other things The McNamara Clifford concept as we understand it is to make the military dollar where possible do double duly to make Ihe unavoidably costly military establishment be less of a drag and more of a boost to the growth and improvement of the society it protects And that should also help military' related industry to shift emphasis to peaceful purposes with end but final caution it should not be misused lo sustain an excessive military industrial establishment beyond security needs after the end 1 I 1 i 9 jy Social Benefit By-Product Of Military Costs Wciylicd Govommontal programs and policies like human life itself cannot ho strictly and arbitrarily compartmentalized by function as functions overlap and Intertwine But for orderly and effective governing functional organization must be respected with its deficiencies and difficulties overcome so far as possible by Intelligent coordination With that qualification or perhaps unnecessary caveat Secretary of Defense Clifford's call for broadening the social coiisciousness of the military es-tablishment initiated by former Secretary Robert McNamara is welcome It will have to be implemented if it is by the next president with approval of a new Congress and we think that it earofully should Ik Much of the technological development that has been translated into social progress in this country since World War II has been from military research and development McNamara and now even more emphatically Clifford have urged that thpsc spin-offs be calculated and accelerated That Is in doing its mililary job which costs half of federal operational revenues the Pentagon should keep continually in mind how its works can be of social benefit and help to make them so While Clifford rightly disclaims any intent of making the Defense Department a welfare agency or encroaching on any other federal responsibili- rw if -V't--s Texas in Washington Ends Stale Change Seen Texas may reach its lowest ebb in Washington influence in modern times after January 1 That will surely be the case if the Republicans win the presidency and gain a majority in the House Since the 1930s Texas has had two vice presidents a House speaker a Senate majority leader and a President Outgoing in January will be the President and numerous Texas White House aides two Texas Cabinet members (Atty-Oen Ramsey Clark and Postmaster Gene-al Marvin Watson) and former Gov Price Daniel director of the Office of Emergency Planning member of the National Security Council and presidential liaison agent with state governments If Hubert Humphrey wins the presidency it seems likely Texans may get some Cabinet or sub-Cabinet posts but that appears much less likely should Richard Nixon win What would happen if George Wallace won we don't even care to guess Tpxss now has chairmen on five House committees including the powerful House Appropriations Commit-lee though no Senale chairmen Should the Republicans win House control Texas would have no chairmanships in Congress Texas will have to fall back on its not inconsiderable basic political influence This state has moved from sixth to fifth in population and may be fourth bv the 1970 census And in another decade it may be third There is always another election coming up and that kind of numerical political power cannot be safely slighted especially now that Texas has become a "battleground state" Nevertheless the era" in Washington is drawing to a clasp and this will require considerable readjustment of political altitudes here 1 i I A jtf ft I They might save your head rase of an accident but they can also be the cause of an accident I have ndden rvdes for 40 years nr more but quit whpn the helmet was forced on us The law is unconstitutional It dpnies one his pcisonal liberty The precedent has already been set In three slates and I see ro reason why the helmet law should not he declared unconstitutional I think a windshield and crashbars are much more important to a rider than a helmet but I think they shnuld be forced on anyone You have many pe de behind you Mr Fred Biersdorf and I am one erf them BILL ROBINSON (Premont) JAMES RESTOS Nixon Exploiting War Issue Without Proposing Solution Democrat Wrongly Wanted Fd'inr the Caller: Open letter to nobert Lehman So the Democratic party allowed the Communists to pass a law to take prayer out of our schools where our chiF'ren get their basic upbringing I don't know if you did rr did not receive your basic upbringing In the school: but lot me assure you that I received mine in the home and the church The principle job of the school was to teach me to think So far as the "law" you speak of Is concerned the Democratic party had nothing to do with it It was a Supreme Court decision taken under a Republican chief justice appointed by a Republican president in a step to separate church and the state and banned under the provisions of the Constitution of the United States I quote the 1967 Almanac and Year Rook "This offended religious lMs irrre than religious leaders most of whom backed the I agre" with Geerge Wallace on one and only one point and that Ls the fact that there isn't a dime's worth of diiferenra between either candidate of the two major parties and I woukln't vote for any of the three Of course there hasn't been any difference between the two parties for witness the fact that there hasn't been a Socialist candidate for the past four nr five elections Yes Mr liehman I suggest you read your American history a little more closely if vnu insist on the use of it as reference The rest o'f your letter concerning the given to the Commies to bum flags kill and maim on the streets of our cities etc is pure hogwash and if you don't know it you are in a sad shape Further I am a veteran of WV II and Korea: also I am 64 years of age and wouldn't have bothered to answer you if I had not retired from the service of my country just IS yeans ago today after 30 years service 1 A MORRIS fapt Inf Ret'd MW YORK In an rlertlon 'campaign the advantages are supposed to lie with the man in office and the disiftivantages with his challenger but in this presidential election Richard Nixon has reversed the normal balance The Vietnam issue is probably the best Illustration of the point Nixon is exploiting it very shrewdly lie is simply saying it's a mess which it obviously is and holding Vice President Humphrey and the Democrats responsible for It lie Is rcrtainly not telling us how to get out of it lie is merely refusing to discuss it on the ground that this might interfere with the Faria peace talks and meanwhile putting out campaign TV ads showing dead American soldiers on the battlefield while a voice (Ties it is time for new leadership This Is very clevpr very effective and clearly very deceptive but the Democrats are stuck with it because they arc mainly responsible for escalating the conflict into a big war and because President Johnson won the List election on an even more misleading campaign of pence and no big wars in Asia Humphrey's latest effort to get out of Johnson's Vietnam trap shows the disadvantage he hears in this election He set out in his Salt Lake City speech to say two things about what his Vietnam policy would be after Jan 20 First he said "As president I would stop the bninhing of the North as an acceptable risk for peace because I believe it could lead to success in the negotiations and therehy shorten the war Second he addl'd "Now if the government of North Vietnam were to show bad faith 1 would reserve Ihe right to resume the This was his stifle-ment of post Jan 20 policy as written with the help of George Yotilh (iroupw reil Volunteers Editor the Crller: In to Mr Rcyncll Parkins' article on "Scouting and the Mr Parkins suggests having professional Scouts take over the troop meetings This is a suggestion which will be devoutly seconded by every person working as a volunteer with a youth group at least once during every meeting this year If he would only extend his suggestion to include professional parents in place of our present clumsy system of parents he would be a hero in every home with the adults at least A volunteer organization is just that a group made up largely of volunteers They come into and leave a volunteer organization for as many reasons as there are individuals The purpose of all youth groups is to train young people in the pattern of their future adult lives The guidance of the young people will depend on the ideals and hones of the adults who lead them The ideals and hopes as well as tha cverday style of life are influenced by the physical em-M inriil social and iinanciat environment of both the youths and their adult leaders Adults who share thus environment are obviously going to tic more understanding Some way must be found to assure such prople they have a contribution to offer as volunteers No city or county can "hire" enough people to work with its youth groups There is a need for professional workers and that need grows every day Rut the need which grows even faster ls tor the persnn who wants to do a little nit to help his or her own child the children of the neighborhood or just to work with "kids" because the results are there to see MARGARET NANCE JOSEPH AESOP Rail in the first draft This however raised a problem If he left the statement like that the vice president realized that he would almost certainly he accused at once not only by Nixon but by Johnson or Secretary of Stifle Rusk of promising something more than the President had promised the enemy and thus of interfering in the Paris talks I nable to fare such a charge he therefore insrrted another paragraph: "In weighing that (of stopping the bombing) and before titking action I would place kev importance on evidence direct or indirect by deed or word of Communist willingness to restore the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Vietnam" The result of this was that it was interpreted with the Insertion as tittle or no change at all from positions Johnson had taken in the past tfnd on lop of that Nixon suggested anyway that Humphrey was confusing everybody and maybe even encouraging Hanoi to Iwlieve it could get concessions "in which they could not get Actually there Is a difference between the President's present negotiating position at Pifris and the vice president's Salt Lake formula The President has said in the past that he would end the bombing if North Vietnam of-fered "any little thing as evidence of its good Rut his instructions lo his negotiators at Paris tfre much tougher When it comes In the negotiating table the official American position is that the enemy must pay a price for stopping the bombing and must pay it The truth Is that the vice president George Hall his new foreign affairs adviser and reportedly even the President's own chief negotiator in Paris Aver-ell Harriman do not believe the Communists will ever make a specific concession to end the bombing Humphrey was trying to find a formula that wmild let them end the negotiating impasse without ever saying a word but it is a complicated argument dealing with a complicated subject and is subject to a dear and simple counter attack which Nixon was quick to exploit Nevertheless the question before the country is not whether Humphrey or Nixon can make the cleverest argument about the war but how to get out of it and Nixon has not given the voters the slightest inkling of how his "new would end those corpses he shows on his TV dips Somehow the Issues of the vice president 's Salt Lake speech Vietnam arms control and the diversion of military funds to civil purposes must be debated in this last month of the campaign No doubt they will be drowned out ly the baseball World Scries for the next few days but Nixon's evasions are almost as unfair as Johnson's Vietnam deceptions of the last campaign and must at some point he openly and candidly discussed IM New York Times News Strvks Older Ethnic New Affluence Explains Wallace Elderly Hack Democrats Editor the Caller: The millions of elderly people who witnessed the years of ferocious battles in Congress fought by the Democrat administrations to secure needed medicare and Social Security paymnts for them will not now hazard all these and future gains by voting in another party They how the AMA set aside annually $75 million to oppose medicare which gave it tremendous financial and political strength in controlling bills in Congress Many Republican and a few Democratic officials were afraid the AMA would chop their heads off on election day and stayed mum on medicare But due to the pressure of the President and the majority of the Democratic congressmen the necessary relief has come and the senior citizens are not going to bite the hand that freds the mouth on next Nov 5 The Republican administrations have always been allergic to depressions In the last one thpre were three sieges Therefore the old folks do not care to risk another Republican depression with their present benefits They also know that the new party under George Wallace believps that the care of the aged is a problem for the states and relatives however deplorable and unsatisfactory that has always proven to be and will not give the new party any support ISAAC EAVES (Three Rivers) TOM WICKER Self-In leresls Strong III Congress Elections ASTORIA Ore Just smith of here along the flat while beach at Newport with its silvering driftwood and its iey surf the cold war is as tangible as the Soviet fishing vessels at work just over Ihe 12-mile limit nr maybe own within it Rut the ghostly visibility of the adversary on the horizon has not caused much concern for the great international issues Out here politics is still direct personal and elementary As one Oregonian pul it bluntly the other night to Roliert Paekwood a senatorial candidate: "Our votes are going to put you there as OUR voice in the United Stales Senate and we want OUR voice and not some kind 1 of a national voice" The 33-year-old Stale Rep Paekw ucd Is waging a night-and-clay uphill battle as the Republican nominee for Ihe seat of the redoubtable Wayne Morse 68 one of the original Senate doves the possessor of a national reputation for labor mediation and political volatility and an Oregon senator in one party or another for 24 years However the Packwood-Morse race is by no means a high-Ipvel referendum on Vietnam Tackwood on a recent day of campaigning made a speech on Vietnam taking a somewhat less dovish stand than Morse but advocating a flat withdrawal of American forces unless Saigon puts an end to corruption and gets moving on land reform Rut after Packwood's Sieech the questioners showed little Interest in Vietnam Wliat was Paekwood going to do to protect Americans against Soviet and Japanese fishing violations of the 12-mile limit? What about the new limitation on selling logs to Japan? Did Paekwood have any idea how to save the fishing industry from extinction due lo imports from cheap labor countries? Ted Jacobs Jr the president of the Oregon Fur Breeders Association then lamented that about 25 per cent of Oregon's 1 mink ranchers already had been put out of business by imports from Scandinavia and Russia Against this barrage Paekwood tried to maintain a reasonable free-trade position and the generally friendly audience did not press him But at a dinner meeting In Astoria a histone trading center the going was tougher Fishing Industry men and fur breeders derided his position that Oregon was "part of a greater and that he would have to look at their demands "in the same as he would those of steel or textile manufacturers "You'd better look at it in the light of something we produce in this a questioner replied "in the light of an Oregon senator and not a United States "And jeopardize the interest of the Tackwood asked "Oh we wouldn't want you to do anything like the man said "We just want von to look after our interests The surface plausibility of the protection requests (the fishermen want Imports rolled back to the level of 1964 the mink ranchers want them frozen at the present level) made Pack-wood's opposition harder to express Even when Paekwood warned that barring American markets to the Japanese might cause thpm to stop buying Eastern Oregon's white wheat his Western Oregon listeners were unmoved 1 As he fought back doggedly Paekwood could look out at the physical evidence of change and maybe even of progress But men in pursuit of their interests seemed unchanging i Copyright Now Vert Timet Mewl Sorvicp Prsfsrsnrt will glvM letters with writers- NMi puhltshed A writer's MMtlty will k(t cennaenhel reeuest or seed eaten gut all imn to he considered tor puOllcetien must Mar signature address and phone awnMr Mr editor's tntsrmetien Pimm hire MtMrt short lengthy totttn awy excerpted Anonymous Mttart will ha CiturM Ihe whole of this country with a share left over for the successful Jewish families In these decades however mainly because of the New Deal rnd its Democratic aftermaths all that has changed profoundly Everyone nowadays is a "citizen with a full (as Gen de Gaulle once put it) except for the newly arrived Puerto Ricans in some measure the Mexican-Americans and alas and above all for the black minority whose forefathers came here so long ago by no choice of their own Moreover what one saw and heard when George Wallace came to Cicero was all too reminiscent on a vast scale of the old gatherings of the WASPish rich that used to turn quite automatically into hate-Roosevelt sessions For the people of the ethnic groups once so poor and so excluded are neither poor nor excluded today They have their own large stake in this country now and they expect their sons and daughters to increase that stake In some sense they have become WASPs by adoption and what is scornfully called the "Protestant is also their ethic Furthermore they are frightened and angry because they think their stake Is threatened just as the millionaire members of the Liberty League were frightened and angry because they thought (how falsely as it has' turned out) lhat thir stake was threatened by FDR There really Is the source of the overwhelming national hostility to the students and professors erf the New I eft There is the exn'anition of the strongly favorable national reaction io the t'iuahnrss of the Chicago police despite the unanimous effort cf the so-called media to depict Mayor Richard Daley and his men as considerably worse than Cossacks There above all is the reason for the intense emotions evoked by the more extreme black militants So there is a mixed balance sheet as so often in this life On the one hand it Ls a mighty feat to have raised the nummr of our "citizens with a full from something like 40 per cent to something like 83 per cent in less than half a lifetime Rut on the other hand those minorities who still have nothing like a mean that the national task has by no means been completed And the prevalence of fear and anger are going to make it mighty difficult to complete that task even although the whole American future demonstrably depends on its completion ft IM The Wcmiingfon Pest Ce CICERO III In a peculiar way the Democratic party is now paying for its own success in the years since Franklin Delano Roosevelt first took office And if Cicero is any kind of test the price the Democrats are going to pay in 1908 will be very heavy indeed Cicero is notoriously charmless yet it offers a fair measure of the advance the United States has made in the long decades of hardlv interrupted Democratic leadership Italians and Rohemi-ans Poles Lithuanians and people from other ethnic groups (which really means non-WASPS) are the chief Inhabitants of the place They turned out in thousands to cheer George Wallace to the echo Yet nine out of 10 of those who gave way to paroxysms of enthusiasm for this little right-wing racist were the sons and daughters of men and women who used to greet FDR as men greet a personal savior What then has happened lo effect this strange transformation? The real answer if you go to the root of the matter is something that does high honor to our peculiar American political system For when FDR took office the WASPs the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants just about owned CORPUS CIIRISTI CALLER Published every week day morning at no Lower roadway corpus Chi-ttl Tern 7403 bv The Caiitr-Times Publishing Cn Sunday edition The Corpus Christs Caller-Times Second can postage paid at Cerpup ChrfsHTeai Edward Hart Publisher Pobert Jocksots Editor Gilbert Vetters (uslneu Manager John Stallinas Managing Editof Themoi Advertising TJireelrf Leland Barnes Classified Manager Clarence Trafton Circulation Manager Jomos Wesson Personnel Mongoer James Corieou Production Manager Philip Geyer PuOllc Services Member at The Associated Press Thii Associated press Is onttiltd'o-ciusiveiy to Ihe use lor publication of all Meal news printed In this newspapers wtlls all APjwws dispatches Mail RATES: Morning Evening and Sundays months SIS months HI 1 months St7S 1 month SJ31 Dally ICailtr or Times) and Sunday II months Ki months Sll months 16 1 month SI Dally (Caller or Times only) 11 months 111 6 months SIDI0 1 months S51S I month II7S Sunday only II months Sll 6 months mtaths 11 I month RATES BV CARRIER: Caller dally and Sunday SB cents a week Timed daily and Sunday JO cents a week morning avtning an a Sunday 7B cents a week A 'I I MhMdk Mid hJkAJMA I dtoMSito.