The Sunday News and Tribune from Jefferson City, Missouri • Page 4

4 NtWS YTHHHH, City, Sxtrfty, 1 975 of mt 3 iet of tt NEWS TRIBUNE COMPANY WILLIAM H. WELDON. Publisher ROBERT Bl.OSSER. President "We shall not fear to follow u'hcrerer truth may lead nor to tolerate error, so long as reason is 'left free to combat it. Thomas Jefferson Public Legislative raid Missourians making out their income tax forms and struggling to find ways to deal with inflation and unemployment be disappointed to learn that many state legislators are still trying to raid the treasury with self- serving benefits.

Bills to hike legislative pay and pensions are moving along in this General Assembly as they did in previous years. A S10.8 million taxpayer financed state pension increase, including hefty hikes for legislators and elected state officials, is pending in the Missouri Senate. Known as Senate Bill 236. the measure was introduced by Sen. Maurice Schechter.

D-Creve Coeur. the sponsor of several other self-serving legislative pension schemes in previous years. Under the bill legislators would no longer contribute 5 per cent of their salaries to the retirement fund. The state taxpayers would finance 100 per cent of future legislative retirement. The bill retains the current benefit that allows legislators to draw pension benefits after serving only six "C- years.

Let's compare the legislative pension with state employe nrement benefits in bill: A k-gislator. for example, could retire after 20 years of rvice and receive a state taxpayer financed pension of 3.400 a year for his part time job in Jefferson City. comparison, a full time 20-year state employe paid salary as a legislator. S8.400 a year, would earn an annual pension of only S2.140 instead of the S5.400 a legislator would receive. Legislators now have a maximum pension limit of two-thirds of the legislative salary in effect at the time they retire.

The bill raises the limit to four-fifths. Retirement for regular state employes is not anywhere near that amount, even though they work full time and legislators are part time. The bill also eliminates the retirement systems for the highway department and the highway patrol, and turns over all the money now in those retirement funds to the regular state employes retirement system. In the switch, elected state officials and some regular state employes would have their retirement benefits brought up to the current highway department retirement rate of 1' per cent instead of the current 1 per cent. The bill would make all funding come from state taxpayers, eliminating any retirement contributions by employes covered by the system.

The measure also provides a 3 per cent cost of living adjustment, something that has never been granted in the past because of the expense. A pending Senate committee amendment eliminates this feature. Another retirement measure. Senate Bill No. 5.

also has been approved in committee and is pending before the full Senate. It was offered by Sen. William Cason. D-Clinton, the president pro tem of the Senate and an announced candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1976. Cason's bill, which is estimated to cost the taxpayers an extra S2.8 million a year, would require the state taxpayers to provide retirement increases to already retired legislators, elected officials and other state employes.

It would raise their benefits to the highest amount the state law might authorize for future retirement. In the past such increases to persons who already have retired were considered unconstitutional. But in a scheme to fleece the taxpayers and get around the constitution, all retired state legislators and all retired state employes would be designated "consultants." They then would be paid higher retirement benefits for alleged "services" they could give to the system although they actually would do nothing. Such a scheme, similar to the Missouri Supreme Court judges retirement system, has been upheld by the Missouri Supreme Court in a recent decision. Both of the pension bills.

SB 236 and SB 5. should be defeated. Missouri taxpayers don't want to further enhance the benefits of legislators and elected officials while throwing crumbs to state employes. To their credit, most Mid-Missouri legislators have voted against self-serving legislation. But many other legislators, none of whom ran on a platform of serving themselves first, don't hesitate to vote for the schemes because they think the people back home will never learn how they voted.

Senate Bill No. 236. costing the taxpayers an extra S10.8 million and giving retirement increases and extra benefits to legislators, elected state officials and some other state employes, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 29. Voting for the bill were Sens.

Albert M. Spradling D-Cape Girardeau; John D. Schneider, D-Florissant; Frank Bild. R-St. Louis County; Donald Manford.

D-Kansas City; Marvin Dinger, D-Ironton. and Schechter. The lone no vote was Sen. Emory Melton, Cassville Republican. Committee members absent were Sen.

Lawrence Lee, D-St. Louis; Raymond Howard, D-St. Louis: Jack Gant, D-Independence; and Paul L. Bradshaw. R-Springfield.

Senate Bill No. 5, costing 82.8 million, was approved by the Senate Labor and Management Relations Committee on Feb. 6. Voting in favor of the bill which makes legislators and retired state employes "consultants" in order to get higher pensions were Sens. Donald Gralike, D-St.

Louis; i A. Jones, R-Brentwood; Robert Young, D-St. Louis County; John C. Ryan, R-Sedalia; Jasper M. Brancato, D-Kansas City; J.

H. Frappier, R-St. Louis County; Lee, Cason and Dinger. There were no negative votes. Kissinger hurts U.S.

By THOMAS A. LANE WASHINGTON Phyllis Schlafly and Read Adm. Chester Ward are not psychiatrists, but they have written a book, "Kissinger on the Couch." They are authorities on nuclear warfare who have put Henry Kissinger on the couch by examining his views and performance on this issue from his debut with the Council of Foreign Relations in 1956 to his recent negotiation in Strategic Arm Limitation talks (SALT). They conclude i i a compulsive abhorrence of nuclear war which causes him to surrender strength to the Soviet Union as the price of detente. The traditional way to avoid war of any kind has been to maintain our own military strength at levels which deter potential enemies from resorting to war.

How then can we explain the Kissinger policy of avoiding war by being weak? The authors take us back to the Gaither Report of 1957, which was reported at the time as a pitch for strengthened national defense, but which was held as a top secret paper until January, 1973. The secret Gaither Report was made available in these 15 years to elite groups working in the arms control field. With its depiction of Soviet nuclear power as then overestimated by the U.S. intelligence community, the Gaither Report fostered a surrender mentality. I a a a democracy could not keep up with a dictatorship in an arms race, that it would be better to be red than dead and that they key to avoiding nuclear holocaust lay'in making the United States so weak that a President could not resort to nuclear war.

Schlafly and Ward contend this thesis for U.S. inferiority became deeply imbedded in the philosophy of the Council of Foreign Relations and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, with which then Professor Kissinger became closely associated. In fact, because the Council launched Kissinger as a nationally famous author and because he long remained a Rockefeller consultant, it is Fun and gomes fax money The mail bag Different roles An open letter to women proponents of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA): "My rights, my rights, I'm being discriminated against." I'm so sick and tired of hearing this in regard to the ERA and in all other areas. You poor, puny, simple women that think you're so smart and sophisticated. Don't you have enough sense to see and know that men and women are different and are not meant to fulfill the same role in life? If any of you read the Bible and could understand what it says you might learn a few things.

I'll bet the majority of you think you're Christians and probably think you're good ones. If you are a true Christian, you really don't have any rights anymore. You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Jesus Christ came and died to pay for your sins and thus bought you. What if He had demanded His rights, the right to stay in Heaven as the true son of God, and not have been willing to come to this sinful earth to suffer and die on the cross for your sin and mine? Where would we be? Think it over.

By the way, I'm a woman, a liberated one liberated by Truth. Truth will set you free. Real Christians will understand about what I've written, others will not. And while I'm writing, I may as well say what I think about abortion, too. Most everyone in this country considers themselves to be civilized.

Well, I say that anyone who condones abortion simply to get rid of an unwanted baby is more uncivilized than the heathen of the deepest, darkest jungle anywhere. I believe that even they know instinctively that life begins at conception and to end it purposely is wrong. No one needs a lot of teaching or preaching about this. Every woman that reads this letter knows deep inside her that it is wrong and no laws or rulings by any courts can change it. tinuation of the struggle for human rights.

It began with the Declaration of Independence (all men are created equal), and each suppressed group in its turn has tried to make this founding moral conviction a reality. Always there were the voices of emotionalism, hatred, unenlightenment and fear. Always, there was too little reason. The fear is that making society constitutionally equal will destroy a cultural heritage of inequality many think is healthy and proper. The point overlooked is that this amendment applies to an equality of rights under the law, not personal relationships.

Thomas Jefferson never believed all people were equal, just that they had an inalienable and equal right to the birthrights of the nation life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Even with a constitutional amendment, it took more than 100 years to make it real for many of our citizens. Women may make it without an amendment. But it would be no nice if one people of the world would put into practice what they say they believe in. Mary B.

Epstein 1205 Lee St. bill Dear Sir: Concerned Dear Sir: Human rights The Equal Rights Amendment represents nothing more than a con- I'd like to express my views about why the Public Service Commission allows the Missouri Power Light Co. to overcharge the customers and why they can't give us the rebate all in one check. My light and gas bill was more than $64 with a S3.64 rebate. According to this my bill was actually $67.82.

I have never had a bill this large -winter or summer. In December by bill jumped by $17 and in January $14 more, and we haven't even had 0-degree weather. I have never had a bill of more than $50 at 10 degrees below 0. I think the PSC shouldn't be allowed an overcharge. Things are high enough as is without having to pay for what we haven't used.

I'd say they really aren't giving us a rebate, wouldn't you? A thinking customer reasonable to identify the public presence of Kissinger with these enterprises. As presidential assistant for National Security Affairs and as secretary of state, Kissinger gathered to himself the responsibility for shaping national defense policy. The authors argue that he consistently has subordinated the U.S. interest to the demands of Moscow. He entered the SALT I negotiations with U.S.

strategic weapons production shut down and Soviet production lines humming; so that protracted negotiations served the Soviet interest. In the end, he made concessions which had been unacceptable to our negotiating team to conclude an agreement conceding a 50 per cent superiority in controlled weapons to the Soviet Union. Kissinger negotiated the wheat sale which was a bonanza for the Soviet Union and a disaster for the U.S. He guided the replacement of Free China by Red China in the United Nations, a move of far-reaching benefit to Communist China and of damage to the U.S. and to the In the Middle East, his misplaced trust in the Soviet Union brought on the October War of 1973 and the oil price escalation which has helped cause a U.S.

recession. By any objective measure, Kissinger's service has been a disaster for the U.S. Our political and economic positions compared with the Soviet Union have declined sharply in this period. How then does Kissinger enjoy a i a i a achievement? The answer is that the Kissinger errors have enjoyed the endorsement of many in the news media. The authors conclude that the Kissinger policies have jeopardized th'e very survival of the U.S.

While I share much of their judgment about the damage Kissinger has wrought, I see him as the clever representative of an international perspective, essentially mercantile; propounded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and rewarded with a $50,000 gift for the service he would render in government. World leaders lose respect for Israel ByJOHNPINKERMAN South Korea and India a few days ago banned Israeli teams from international athletic tournaments being staged in their countries. In the global political arena this is a minor affront to Israel but it is symbolic of deterioration of one-time high esteem held for the tiny Jewish state. When Israel as a nation was created by the United Nations in 1947-48 there was rejoicing over much of the world that the Jews had, in essence, found a home. In succeeding years Israel won more applause for its energy in developing desert sand to lush farm land, for starting new industries to support itself and mostly for its bravery in successfully resisting armed attacks by Arab nations that vowed to push the Jews into the Mediterranean.

So, what has happened to bring Israel to its lowered place in world esteem? Frank Giles, foreign editor of the London Sunday Times, thinks the Six-Day War of June 5-10, 1967, started Israel down the road to unexpected troubles. Just back from the Mideast, Giles told me recently, "Since the Six-Day War Israel, rather than being the underdog admired by so many, became what you might call an They were too successful and since then many people around the world even have considered the Israelis the bullies rather than the Arabs." Giles perhaps is correct, but there are other reasons why Israel is in trouble these days, and the trouble includes a loss of affection in the Ford administration that indicates a serious shift in long-standing pro-Israel policy in Washington. Some of the reasons Israel faces political anguish over important U.S. ties include, not necessarily in order of importance: 1. Identity.

Over the years most Americans knew of and admired David Ben-Gurion, former Premier Golda Meir, Foreign Minister Abba Eban, even dashing Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. Now, however, who knows or cares much about Premier Yitzak Rabin, Foreign Minister Yigal Allon and Defense Minister Shimon Peres? They may be effective leaders but they do not attract the affection among Americans that their predecessors did. This is an important psychological loss to Israel. 2. Oil.

Arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, many Americans and other people around the world clearly blame the existence of Israel for gasoline shortages, heating fuel shorr tages and high prices of both com modities. The shah of Iran and Kuwait's ambassador to the United Nations recently strongly implied in public statements -thsft if Israel would bow to Arab and Palestinian demands the world's oil problems would vanish. 3. A fear in the United States and elsewhere that Israel, as fine a symbol as it may be in self-preservation, is not worth an atomic war with the Soviet Union. The result of this is to cause many formerly pro-Israel Americans to say of Israel as they say of Nationalist China on Taiwan, "They're brave people but we'd better separate ourselves from them and avoid a war." 4.

Israeli stubbornness. The Arabs, i i Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat, have vowed to destroy Israel if lands occupied since the Six-Day War are not returned, but Israel has been slow too slow, in the opinion of important Americans like Sen. Charles Percy in coming to terms on release of some of these occupied Arab lands. This stubbornness among current Israeli leaders must be cast aside if there is to be peace in the Mideast. And.

just as British journalist Giles says, "Israel is going to have to deal with Arafat and the PLO whether it likes to or not." Anyone who has stood at the Golan Heights during a Syrian bombardment can understand why Israel is anxious to keep that stronghold as protection against destruction of the rich Galilee Valley to the west. However, the matter of the West Bank and the Sinai are much different. And, even in Jerusalem seized by the Israelis as a capital and to protect Jewish holy places in the old city, there must be compromise. There are Arab holy places there and the Arabs should have some kind of control over them. The matter of the Palestinian refugees is a tougher problem but, like it or not, Israel is going to have to find a place for these people if peace is to come.

The solution could take many turns a West Bank presence with a corridor to the Mediterranean, a new- nation carved out of the Sinai if Egypt would stand still for such a proposition. In any event, time is running against Israel. All nations, including-the United States, are taking a less emotional and more pragmatic approach to relations with the Jewish state and this is ted clearly rightly or wrongly in public attitudes. Capital City memories 10 Years Ago Feb. 23,1965 Mr.

and Mrs. Ules Lawson and Mr. and Mrs. Homer Murry attended Taller Review, Saturday evening at William Jewel College in Liberty, with their daughters, Linda Lawson and Jane Murry who participated in the program. A son was born Sunday at St.

Mary's Hospital to Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Reinkemeyer, 814 Indian Meadow Dr. 25 Years Ago-- Feb. 23,1950 State Commissioner of Education Hubert Wheeler has been elected one of 34 educators in the nation to take part in Michigan State College's "Flying Classroom" to Europe March 20 through Mayl.

Mrs. Carl Morrow, 1706 E. Miller honored her daughter Patricia with a party yesterday afternoon on the occasion of her seventh birthday. 40 Years Ago--Feb. 23,1935 Miss Mary Hay was to be initiated into the M.E.W.

club at the weekly meeting which is to be held at the home of Miss Gladys Clatterbuck Wednesday. Miss Helen St. George, Miss Pauline Adams and Miss -Maybell Adcock are spending the weekend in Knob Knoster at the home of Miss Adcock's parents. 50 Years Ago-- Feb. 23,1925 Misses Nadine and Ella Hunter have gone to St.

Louis and to New Madrid where they will visit friends and relatives for two weeks. They are two charming girls of the younger set and very popular. Mrs. Henry Asel and Son, Robert, have been quite ill for the past few days and are now reported some better..