The Tribune from Coshocton, Ohio • 4

4 The Coshocton Tribune Saturday June 1 1974 The Coshocton Tribune OPINION PAGE EDITORIAL Bicycle Boom Is On Looking Bach 10 Years Ago June 1, 1964 Maureen Tumblin. 18 year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs Casteel Tumblin, Coshocton Route 2, was named Dairy Princess for Coshocton County. Over 70 couples enjoyed a Memorial Day formal dance Saturday May 30, at the Town and Country club- Sheriff William Hoop expressed concern for the safety of Coshocton area youngsters who may have been tempted to swim in stripmine ponds. He warned that the practice was Illegal and dangerous.

Coshocton's Citv League All Stars defeated a visiting Zanesville team from Newmans Cafe Saturday night, 9-0, in a football contest held at the fairgrounds. 25 Years Ago f-" I'ljff i I vv product. As a result, foreign manutacturers have jumped into the breach and in 1972 had 37 per cent of the American market. Scrambling to catch up, U. S.

bike makers expect to turn out 12.5 million units in 1974 hoping to gain back some of their lost market. Whether they will or not, and what the total demand will be, remains to be seen. In the meanwhile the two-wheeler juggernaut rolls on. The Spring of 1974 is the first one since long lines at gasoline stations became a disagreeable fact of life for tens of millions of motorists. It would seem likely that millions of people, who never particularly thought about the advantages of the muscle-powered two-wheeler before and may travel relatively short distances from home to work over fairly level terrain, will take another look.

Many of us can remember fondly the childhood thnl! of our first bicycle. It may have been a chrome-plated, balloon-tired, headlight-bedecked beauty with, perhaps, a front-wheel shock absorber, coaster brakes and one gear ratio. The new two-wheeler is a far different animal indeed. In the first place, the selection is bewildering. If you consider differences in paint styling, combinations of frames, wheels seats, gear ratios and accessories, it is estimated that there are around 10,000 different bicycles on the market As to the future of the bicycle in America who can say? For the average American motorist who still remains in the majority, the problem of dodging bicycles on the highway is likely to get worse as more novices join the two-wheeler ranks.

It would be well to keep in mind that the oblivious, furiously peddling individual going down the middle of the road ahead of you and holding up traffic, may not really be some kind of nut or a "kid with no better sense." It could be your best friend, your next door neighbor or what is even worse maybe your banker on his way to work. Just in case, smile pleasantly when you are finally able to pass. Who knows, the bug may bite one of these days, and you will be peddling right along with the rest of them. 'HENRY, JUST IOVE YOU IN UHIF0KM1 Seas Are An Open Sewer response to disturbances, and if they dive on encountering floating oil, they become completely coated." Because these gregarious birds flock together, "a small oil slick (can) cause very large casualties," declares the report. "One colony of guillemots (was) reduced by 250,000 in two years, and razorbills which were once numerous are now extinct as breeders." A poignant passage in the report describes how mother birds coated with oil tried pathetically to hatch eggs but unwittingly covered the eggs with oil.

This weakens or kills the baby birds as they are being hatched. Birds that lay only a few eggs cannot make up for the losses caused by oil. On British coasts, according to the study, "90 per cent of stranded guillemots have been oiied." Their corpses are washed upon the beaches along a few miles of British coastline. The oil companies have responded to the protests of environmentalists by touting "the Louisiana story." Offshore oil derricks, the companies allege, have actually increased sea life, in the Gulf of Mexico. The fishing catches, it's true, haven't diminished.

But the report suggests this is because the fishermen often have shifted locations. Meanwhile, the 25,000 wells and other oil operations have dumped 1.1 millions barrels of oil in the Gulf, tainting the oysters with oily odors and tastes. Oil company canaling and dredging have also let salt water pour into the coastal marshes which eventually destroy oyster and shrimp breeding. The time period that the Louisiana fisheries can withstand these alterations is not known," states the report. Only the amazing ability of oysters and shrimp to reproduce under adverse conditions DUNAGIN'S PEOPLE The Future which the prefabricated Communist apparatus was erected has shaken both moderates and conservatives.

Socialists, Communists and left-wing Roman Catholics are now allied in the Portuguese Democratic Movement. Neither Soares nor Cunhal bothers to hide his contempt for Spinola's projected African federation. They are equally hostile to the rest of his projected program: the revitalization of Portuguese capitalism, greater Portuguese participation in NATO, and closer relations with the Common Market. Given the emerging objective conditions of Portuguese politics, Spinola's program looks like a quixotic pipe dream. Worse stilll, Portugal shows signs of becoming the focus of the international revolutionary movement, even as Chile was under Salvador Allende.

Leftists of all varieties are flocking to Lisbon from Western Europe, and the aroma of Allendism is in the air. A number of formerly small and impoverished newspapers, for example, have suddenly become affluent and fielded impressive teams ot reporters and photographers. Propandists and ideologues from far-left groups in German, Italy and France have been turning up daily in Lisbon. A Maoist formation of undertermined strength, the Revolutionary Movement of the Proletarian Party, has also emerged. Its slogans, sprayed all over the poorer quarters and on public monuments urge troops to desert, demand worker control of industry, and describe the junta as the instrument of the bourgeoisie.

The most likely end of all this is debacle. Despite the prominencs of the Left in the foreground, the temper of Portugal is fundamentally conservative. The present momentum will probably culminate in a right-wing coup. At a minimum, Spain could not tolerate an Allendist Portugal. Spinola's plan for Africa looks equally hopeless.

If order collapses in the colonies. South Africa has the military capability and the political will to seize southern Mozambique and the key port of Beira. Spinola has taken the cork out of the bottle, but wheather he can get it back in is doubtful. In the United States not so many years ago, any adult who rode a bicycle as a regular thing was a rarity indeed. Then came the environmental crusade and the bike became a symbol of purity in personal transportation.

It was adopted widely by college students and other young adults both as an economical means of getting from here to there and as a visible protest against that unsightly, noisy air-polluting monsterthe omnipresent automobile. Bike riding caught on, and its popularity grew, particularly in urban areas, as a means of exercise and recreation even among those who were not apostles of environmental purity. Now there is the gas shortage. The result of these influences has been a largely unforeseen, explosive growth in the demand for bicycles that has taken everyone by surprise and none more so than the major U.S. bike manufacturers.

An article in Fortune magazine tells the story of the bike boom in America that has raised such havoc with what for decades had been a sure and certain industry plodding along, as the Fortune article puts it, in obscurity." By previous standards, 1968 was a big year, with sales running to 7.5 million. There was a decline in 1970 with only 6.9 million new bikes taking to the road. Just what caused the explosion after that is hard to say. The youthful rebellion against the Vietnamese war or the crescendo of interest in ecology which culminated in the passage of major federal environmental legislation in 1970 probably had an influence. Whatever the reasons, with the arrival of better weather conditions in the Spring of 1971, the pot began to boil.

U.S. bicycle sales rose nearly one third to 8.8 million units. The lid literally blew off the market the following year with a jump in sales of over 5 million for a total of nearly 14 million and in 1973 15.2 million. It used to be that only one out of 20 bicycles sold was bought for adult use. Now according to the Fortune article this accounts for more than half of all sales.

The new prosperity in the industry has brought its problems. Profits are up dramatically, but U.S. manufacturers have not been able to keep up with the demand for their Spinola And THE NEW ERA By JEFFREY HART The new President of Portugal Antonio de Spinola, gives the impression of knowing where he wants to go but not having much notion of how to get there. First of all, though he has opened the floodgates to the Left in Lisbon, he actually differs little on colonial policy from deposed Premier Marcello Caetano. Here is his key assumption from his book, "Portugal and the "Without Africa, Portugal will be reduced to a meaningless canton in a Europe which has assumed the proportions of a giant Africa is essential to our survival.

Without our overseas provinces we would have to opt between the poverty of the underdog or absorption by Spain We might even become a Soviet thorn placed in the flanks of the West." Those words could have been written by Caetano or even Antonio de Salazar. Like Caetano, Spinola hopes to preserve the Portuguese interest in Mozambique and Angola by building upon the supposed loyalties of moderate African nationalists. The renascent Portuguese Left, however, is demanding complete independence for the colonies; and, in the wake of Spinola's coup d'etat, the Left has emerged as the most powerful and best organized political force in Portugal. When Mario Soares, the left -leaning chief of the Socialist Party, arrived by train from exile in Paris to be greeted by mobs at the railroad station, the event was widely compared to Lenin's arrival at the Finland station in 1917. A few days later still larger crowds cheered the returning Communist leader, Alvaro Cunhal.

The speed with ART BUCHWALD WASHINGTON The Environmental Morality Agency has just announced that it was lowering its moral standards for the next two years. Fosdick Fleigenheimer told me, "We feel we can lower the moral level of the country without its becoming hazardous to anyone's health." "But why?" I protested. "The whole idea behind the Environmental Morality Agency mandate was to clean up the political pollution in the country." "We don't like to lower the standards," Fleigenheimer said, "but we have no choice. If we raise the levels of morality in 1974, we could cause massive unemployment on Capitol Hill in November. We also feel that Congress and the Administration need more time to study the best way of doing away with political pollution.

I assure you the agency is still very concerned about the problem, but we do have to consider the costs." Soldiers Will 2LI ON THE LINE ttv HDH 'ON'SIDINE NEW YORK, Ah, there's good news out of Geneva for infantrymen of the next big war. The U.S. has informed the disarmament conference that we'll not add mini A-bombs to our nuclear arsenal. It is expected that Russia, China, Britain, France and India will make the same noble sacrifice. For the foreseeable future, therefore, infantrymen will be mowed down by conventional weapons, simple little arms like rifles, machine I Lowering June 1, 1919 Services were to be held Sunday in Newcomerstown for Pvt.

Robert F. Opphile who was reported missing in Huertgen Forest, Germany on Nov. 30, 1944. The Babe Ruth story, starring William Bendix, Charles Bickford and Clare Trevor was held over at the Star Theatre. Joseph E.

Padden, safety director of Ohio Power Company, addressed veterans and others at the Memorial Day service Monday in Newcomerstown. Mrs. Bessie Littick, 73-year-old widow of the founder of the Zanesvijle Times Recorder, died May 31, at Clearwater, Fla. 50 Years Ago June 1. 1924 Dr.

Stokley S. Fisher, 61, dean of Kansas City University, formerly of Coshocton, died at his home in Kansas City. He had been pastor of the P. church in this area. Charles E.

Royer, Democrat, Franklin announced his candidacy for county recorder, and L.D. Schott, Democrat of Roscoe, announced that he would be a candidate for probate judge. City Council was discussing plans for updating the city's lighting system from magnetite arc to incandescent. have kept fishing alive in Louisiana, the report suggests. On the other side of the globe in the Caspian Sea, a combination of petroleum pollution and a drop in the water level have reduced the annual fishing catch from more than 600 million pounds to about 240 million.

The study details how oil slicks and spills poison sea life. The hydrocarbons "invade nerve tissue-spinal cord especially." Mullet exposed to oil suddenly suffer strange fat deposits in their liver. Other fish simply smother or die of shock. No more than "two-cycle outboard motor affluent." the study found, caused fish to "begin gasping after 24 hours." Lobsters in polluted waters produced tainted eggs which taste like paraffin. The oily waters could also spoil the lobster meat, causing "tainting of the white meat, of the tail and finally the claw meat became tainted but only in the most severe cases of pollution," says the repory.

Another oil company myth demolished by the report is the cheery talk of cleaning up oil spills. The study shows that mechanical means, although usually safe enough, are often ineffective. But the ballyhooed "dispersants," which seem to make oil disappear, can cause even worse damage than the oil. The dispersants may make it easy for marine animals to ingest the oil into their systems. Dispersants may also pollute fresh water or even brackish water longer, with greater danger, than oil.

When the Torrey Canyon gushed oil into the sea, it was the dispersants thht did much of the damage. FOOTNOTE: We will report on the deleted findings about the cancer threats in another column. The Tribune welcomes letters to the editor but for publication, each must be signed with the writer's full name and address. Names may be withheld by request but each letter must be signed. While letters may be of general nature the editors, reserve the right to refuse letters that are libelous or in poor taste.

The views expressed in letters to the editor do not necessarily reflect those of the newspaper. Letters that arq short and written clearly on one side of paper receive preference. Letters snould be exclusive to the Tribune. Address letters: Editor, Coshocton Tribune, 115 North Sixth Street, Coshocton, Ohio 43812. ttSK Bible Digest "Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest." Joshua 1:9 The good word from your Heavenly Father is "fear Hear it now and walk with confidence.

"Have faith in God." I'" If' the White House and never again be permitted to run for public office. But nobody in the Soviet delegation, headed by Boris N. Ponomarev, one of the topmen in the Kremlin, deduced other than that the President will be present by the appointed time in Moscow, not only present but as politically potent as he was when he visited there in the pre-Watcrgate euphoria of 1972. Hence, the red carpet has been ordered. An incredible satellite, parked 22.300 miles above the Galapagos Islands, will enable doctors In remote areas of the U.S.

to get in visual touch with sophisticated medical institutions, "show" the urban specialists a dying Eskimo or an ailing resident of Appalachia, let's say, and get the word on how best to treat him. The "word" will be transmitted at the speed of light. NASA, however, will not transmit any information about cures for hangovers. The Seven Merry -Go-Round By JACK ANDERSON WASHINGTON A highly confidential scientific study describes how oil wastes have poisoned sea life, jeopardized commercial fishing, tarred beaches and made an open sewer of the Seven Seas. The 405-page document, prepared by the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, disputes the oil industry's massive advertising claims that petroleum production won't cause environmental damage.

On each of the 100 numbered copies, the academy has stamped: "This is a working draft for' internal use only, and it bears no official endorsement. for Publication. NOT QUOTE OR CITE." But already, the academy has deleted a crucial section on the cancer threat from oil dumping. Scientists' from Shell and Chevron oil companies will help prepare the final report. Therefore, we have decided to publish the findings before they are watered down.

The study shows that more than five million tons of oil wastes are dumped in the ocean each year by tankers, offshore industries, municipal oil users and oil-spilling motorboat engines. The pro-oil scientists lobbied in the secret sessions, we have learned, to emphasize the natual seepage of urban auto wastes, which are washed into rivers and carried out to sea. The strategy was to minimize Big Oil's sea fouling. Although this section was weakened even before it got in draft form, it still shows 8,000 oil spills a year in U.S. waters alone, almost all of it in coastal waters.

These accidental spills, bilge flushings and other oil discharges are killing oft birdlife, threatening entire species with extinction. Certain penguins, ducks and other seabirds are disappearing, the report warns. "These birds," it explains, "spend most of their lives on the surface of the sea. dive in "But according to the transcripts, the President was shown to have very low moral standards. Isn't it dangerous to let one man have that much power?" "Possibly.

But as Father McLaughlin, who is the White House adviser, put it, 'who wants a saint in the White House?" "That's true. But in 1968 President Nixon said he would clean up the political climate produced by the Democrats by 1972. Now it turns out the atmosphere is so bad you can choke on it." "Nobody's perfect," Fleigenheimer said defensively. "If the President of the United States can live with lower moral standards, so can the rest of the country." "Suppose Ralph Nader or John Gardner sues your agency for not carrying out the provisions of the Political Clean Air Act. What will you do then?" "We'd have to defend ourselves.

We'll tap their telephones, audit their income taxes, break into their offices and steal their doctors' records." "That should do it," I said. Fleigenheimer said, "You have to keep in mind political expediency in Washington must always have priority over unrealistic moral standards. Otherwise everyone in this town would be out of a job." determined "to establish a barrier against taking advantage of available technology to go into new types of weapons that make sense only if viewed as substitutes for conventional arms." This is believed to be the first official acknowledgement that nuclear weapons, even the midgets, "make sense." Perhaps it's a breakthrough, like the MIRV, a warhead cluster of H-bombs which, assembled like the parts of an orange, can split somewhere out there in space and spew each thermonuke to a different population center. Until the good doctor's revelation, everybody thought that the MIRV's miraculous guidance system made the most sense. Don't feel nakedly exposed, now that we're out o( the mininuke business.

Sure, each one lobbed into enemy lines would have had the "yield," as the polile term is, of about 1,000 tons of TNT. We're still developing tactical nukes as well as the dreadnaughts. A TAC-A launch pad, or aerial Moral Standards "What about the public? They were counting on higher moral standards after Watergate." "We've done some extensive testing in our laboratories, and we've discovered that the average American can take far more lying from his government than anyone thought he could. We know that we can increase the dose of false statements and contradictions three times the present level, and people could still live with it. While cleaning up the Watergate atmosphere is an ideal goal, Congress and the President do not want to throw out the baby with the bath water." "That's well put," I told Fleigenheimer.

"But aren't you going to have to do something within the next two years to show the country you are sincere about instituting higher moral standards in the government?" "1 assure you we re doing everything we can within reason. The do-gooders want us to destroy the whole system in the name of morality. But it can't be done overnight. The important thing to remember is that we have been living very well with low morality levels for a long time. Some people have even thrived on them." "Who sets the morality standards for the country?" I asked.

"The President of the United States. He is in the best position to know just how much morality the country can stand." "YEAH, PAP, SURE YOU H0U) IT TO 6T STRUCK OUT. TWEE TIMES A BUT" NOT BY A Be Mowed Down By Conventional, Not Nuclear Arms guns, grenades, napalm, tanks, artillery and 750-pounders dropped from on high. Don't tell me that the nuclear powers don't care about their troops! We, who could manufacture tiny battlefield nukes like doughnuts, shunned the very idea of producing teeny-bopper nukes because we know how undependable are our friends. Dr.

Fred C. Ikle, director of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, told the other doomsday chaps at Geneva, "We have no intention to move in a direction that could blur the distinction between nuclear and conventional arms." In other words, if some simple spear-carriers of the next war were killed by miniaukes, well, that might lead to a global thermonuclear holocaust that would kill the quality folks, the civilians huddled in their cities. Nobody wants that sort of thing to happen, right? Applause greeted Dr. Ikle's assertion that we're platform, can clobber a target, let's say a clustered division of troops and all their gear, from 300 miles away. Anyway, what a joy for the mud-stained toot soldier.

He'll always have the satisfaction of knowing that he was perforated stone-cold dead by an itty-bitty spray of lead instead of devoured under a radioactive mushroom cloud. Even those who would like to see President Nixon exiled to Saturn, and according to some of the polls they are in the majority, must have a grudging respect for either his guts or his gall. He has cheerfully assured a visiting Russian trade delegation that he has every intention of keeping his summit meeting with Leonid Brezhnev In Moscow late in June. By late June there is some indication that he will be impeached by the House of Representatives and that the House will have in effect recommended to the Senate that he be cast out of I.