The Journal Times du lieu suivant : Racine, Wisconsin • 14

RACINE JOURNAL-TIMES Page of Opinion Racine, Wisconsin Friday, February 5, 1971 John W. Dewey. Publisher11 Roger S. Kirk, Verne A. Hoffman, George V.

Hanson. Business Manager Director, News and Editorial Editor Merle Edwards Don Karkow Norman I. Monson, Advertising Director Circulation Manager Opinion Page Editor Tl i i ii 1 Change Name of Street ass i rs I 1 Street names shouldn't be changed by whim. There would be too much confusion and disruption. HI I Hf kirk i 2h Journal-Tlmts Photo Porto Rico Avenue, with five empty, boarded-up houses, Is offensive to Puerto Ricans living in Racine.

They want the street's name changed. An Editor's Mail Recalls Plan for Waste Collection But it must be auowea tnat special circumstances warrant a change in the name of a street. Such a case has come up with Porto Rico Avenue, a half-block street running south of Ninth St. along the east side of the Milwaukee Road tracks. The Puerto Rican Society of Racine i feels the avenue is degrading to the island by that name and offensive to Puerto Ri-cans living in this community.

The society is correct in saying the street hardly reflects honor on the Puerto Rican group. It has five empty, boarded up houses that once were owned by the Brill Real Estate Agency that filed bankruptcy. The houses have suffered the ravages of vandalism and are an eyesore, to say the least. Another real estate firm which now owns the houses, says they are structurally sound and hopes to eventually make them fit for human habitation. The Puerto Rican Society has asked the City Council to erase the name Porto Rico (an alternate spelling of Puerto Rico) from the short street.

The request was referred to the City Plan Commission for consideration. It would be a simple, small matter for the City Council to change the street's name. There are no individuals living there and no one would suffer any discomfort by a change. The name is a large matter of concern to the 50 families of Puerto Rican descent living in Racine. For them the street is a slur on their pride and a daily reminder of the frustrations they face in trying to improve their economic and social conditions.

Racine has many ethnic groups, but the Puerto Ricans are relatively new arrivals. In recent yearsjarge numbers have mi the canal Puerto Rico was retained as a prize of wSr. Racine City Council records are skimpy on the naming of Porto Rico Avenue, but it occurred about 1902 in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. Under American rule, the island languished; sugar became the principal export and the economy declined. During the Depression Thirties, Puerto Rico came to be known as the "Poorhouse of the Caribbean." Finally, in the 1940s, under the leadership of Luis Munoz Marin, the island began to awaken.

An economic de- -velopment program was begun and a political accommodation with the United States was reached, resulting in the ere- ation of a Free Associated State or Commonwealth, a unique relationship in which Puerto Rico remains part of the U.S. but governs itself. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. Residents of the island do not vote in presidential elections or elect voting representatives to Congress but neither do they pay federal taxes.

When Puerto Ricans come to the continental United States, they enjoy full rights of citizenship including the vote and they pay federal taxes. Unlike other Latin Americans they need neither passport nor visa. Retained Culture Puerto Ricans are a true immigrant group in culture and language. In the three-quarters of a century since the U.S. invaded the island, Puerto Ricans have steadfastly resisted submerging their culture to that of the Yankee.

Many who come to this country speak Spanish and little English. In the slums and on the farms, the Puerto Rican encounters not only an alien way of life, but outright hostility to his own way. He suffers discrimination and exploitation in employ mentf education and housing. He is an American citizen, but all too often a second-class citizen. The Puerto Ricans in Racine and in America are stirring from lethargy and political impotence to a new militancy.

They want the first-class citizenship that all Americans are entitled to. An important facet of this status is cultural pride. We can expect Puerto Ricans and other Latin Americans to persevere for self-improvement just as other nationality groups have in the past. This will be happening in large things and in small things, such as changing the name of a street. Ffivorsdty Going on Oivn To the Editor: In reference to petitions circulated by residents, of Caledonia to withdraw from the Unified School District, I believe that many residents of the City of Racine would be in favor of also withdrawing from the Unified School District.

So many of the current problems would be solved by doing this. If the adjacent townships and villages feel they are capable of going on their own, by all means let them do so. As the city encounters annexation objections, it seems that the city has arrived at a final student population growth. So if the city were to go also on its own, at least our city could control our landing a man on the moon and yet the auto makers claim, they can't design the internal combustion engine so as to eliminate exhaust emissions. I read an article some time ago that this critical problem could be solved if the carburetor was redesigned.

Basically the carburetor does not meter the flow of fuel to the combustion chambers precisely but permits an excessive volume of gas vapor to be drawn through the chambers and out the tail pipe creating unburn-ed hydro-carbon emission and creating an insufficient supply of air mixture to gas in the carburetor. -By metering the flow of gas vapor in the carburetor properly, the unburned hydrocarbon emissions would be eliminated, the air gas vapor ratio would change and the carbon nonoxide emission would be eliminated. a basic well-known fact. Also, the combustion efficiency would be much greater; the mileage would be obviously greater also. Perhaps the reason the Big Three makers can't figure this for themselves is because the oil industries which have close ties with the auto industries have instructed them not to.

Last, perhaps the real reason the U.S. government doesn't stop and solve this critical problem of pollution from auto fumes is because of the fact that various high officials in Washington, D.C., depend on large contributions from powerful interests during election time and yes, you must consider the possibility of collusion, corruption, incompetence and sloth in some areas of our government. own school problem. Also in regard to water and sewer services, let's apply the same procedure. As the city is bottled up, the time has come for the adjacent townships and villages to go On their own.

It sure would be beneficial to us citizens of toward this group's own views? What about Caledonia property taxes? Any informed person knows that consolidated, well-organized districts are favored over small inefficient ones for state aids. It stands to reason also that this will hurt the Town of Caledonia. Who would want to live where property taxes41 are higher, just to pay for an inferior school system? -JOYCE E. KIESLING Defends Use of Radios To the Editor: A person should stop to think what the word freedom really means. They say the word freedom means to be able to say what you want to, so I am going to say how I feel.

We were reading the article about the person who is complaining about the trouble the CB'ers make with their radios. Has a person ever stopped Jo think how many times citizens' band radios have saved a life? Sure there may be some radios that will cause TV "eye" but not all do. There are good citizens band operators and bad ones as there are in everything else. We do have licenses to operate these radios and we do not tend to cause any trouble. We are on the radios to be able to help anybody that needs us.

How many people have licenses for their television sets? -NATURE GIRL KCZ 1523 LaVerne Ogren 1811 Grand. Ave. Help-Others To the Editor: I am writing about a young mother whose husband is in a Vietnam hospital. She has three small children at home and is desperately in need of a washer and dryer in working condition, and also bunk beds and a dresser. It would be greatly appreciated.

Please call 632-3988 and we will make arrangements to pick them up. -HELPING HAND tlllllllllllllllllMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Policy on Letters The Journal-Times encourages readers to express their opinions on this page in letters to the editor. We require that all letters include the signed name and address. Please include your telephone number. We prefer letters which are kept as short as possible and reserve the right to trim letters that are lengthy.

The "Editor's Mail" column also will give preferential consideration to letters in which the name of the writer is published. Signed letters give more anthenticity and carry much more weight than those published with a pen name or some other anonymous signature. We recognize there sometimes is a valid reason for a letter writer to not want his name published. When that reason is explained and justified, such a letter, if used, will be published anonymously. IIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIItllllllMIIIIMIIIIIII save our world if it isn't beyond saving.

I am not saying this plan would completely take care of our city expenses, but maybe the city could see it as feasible to reduce the property tax of the elderly perhaps even eliminate them completely for these citizens who have given so much to our country and receive so little in return. -JEANNE GRABHER Re-designing Auto Engine To the Possible conspiracy between Big Three auto makers of high officials in Washington, D.C.? It is nothing 'more than ridiculous the United States government has given the Big Three auto makers until '1975 with a one year extension to produce a virtually free internal combustion engine, especially when you consider that these three corporations have a staff of highly qualified engineers and scientists. The United States has personnel capable of sending and To the Editor: I read in the Journal-Times that the city is going to request that all households bundle their newspapers which will then be collected by the garbage department and burned with the rest of the debris. This is for the purpose of developing a habit so eventually the papers could be collected separately and become a source of income. This rather amazed me because about 12 years ago I suggested this same" plan (among others) and was told by the powers that be this was not possible.

When I suggested this to the city, it was the- result of an article in Readers Digest, and also Science Digest, about a town in California which had completely eliminated property tax. Here is howjhey did it. Each home was ordered to have five disposal containers (approximately a $15 investment). All cans and bottles had to be rinsed put. thus reducing the dangers of flies and maggots.

All garbage containers had to have a disinfectant for the same reason. The easiest and very efficient way of doing this is to put a few mothballs into the toe of a nylon stocking and tying the top to the handle of a can. All newspapers had to be bundled. The rest of the residents' work was to separate their junk into the five Containers. Cans in one, which would be melted down, glass in one which at that time was tumbled for road fill, garbage was turned into fertilizer and returned to the land.

Paper was sold and recycled. Plastic was fifth and the only. thing with no revalue use. In addition to the yearly cleanup, the city made arrangements to haul large items at any time. You wrote a request, sent it with $1 and it was taken care of.

If I remember correctly, these items were salvaged if possible and students learned how to re-upholster, refinish and repair these items. Now all these suggestions sound so familiar. What wasn't practical 12 years ago is going to have to be done to grated to America from the island or have relocated within the United States. Many are in the Midwest. Chicago with 100,000 Puerto Ricans is the city with the second highest number.

New York, with 1.2 million has the most. Put in Perspective To put the Racine Puerto Ricans in larger perspective it might be worthwhile to review their history. The Puerto Rican association with the United States began when U.S. troops stormed ashore on the island in 1898 during the war with Spain. Because it sat strategically astride the routes to Panama where the United States a few years later was to create a country and build the ity of Racine.

ELMER D. JOHNSON 1315 Kewaunee Street Questions Town Petition To the Editor: I would like to go on record as a citizen of Caledonia who will vote "No" to any referendum for Caledonia to form a separate school district. Will the eight couples who signed the petition for a referendum guarantee Caledonia children good teachers, dated curriculum, adequate materials and supplies, and classrooms less crowded than they are now? Will they help our children reach adulthood prepared to make their own decisions in an intelligent responsible way? Or will our children be back in or stay in inadequate small schools with inadequate supplies, inferior teachers (who would work for Caledoni-a?) and a curriculum slanted Looking Backward in the Edgerton Ski Club's fourth annual jumping meet yesterday afternoon, with Bill Stark taking additional honors for the longest standing jump of the day, 87 feet. Brady Emerson tied for third in the Senior Class jumping 70 and 71 feet. Stark took second place in Class and Ivan Hjortness copped fifth in class B.

40 YEARS AGO February 5, 1931 Maximum 50; Minimum 27. Ernie Kratochvil, a Racine veteran boxer, won a four-round decision over Joe Ciesi-ak of Milwaukee, in the wind-up of the Eagles' amateur card in Sheboygan last night. 30 YEARS AGO February 5, 1941 Maximum 34; Minimum 19. Policemen were held exempt from compulsory military training in a ruling yesterday by state selective service appeal board No. 1.

The board concurred that trained policemen were as essential to national defense as trained soldiers. 20 YEARS AGO February 5, 1951 Maximum 37; Minimum 10. Three Racine riders placed CHARTING A TOUGH COURSE! Wisconsin Report Lucey Turns Attention to Proposals That Don't Require Heavy Spending CONFUSED Replace 'Parasites9 To the Editor: A recent letter criticized the high salaries drawn by some Unified administrators. Such criticism is understandable, as our culture has invariably condemned those professionals physicians, lawyers, teachers, etc. who are motivated more by their own greed than by humanitarian concerns or the challenges of their professions.

The school administrators, I fear, are turning the education of children into a business. The situation wouldn't be so tragic if these men could really manage the school systems and save the public many times their salaries through efficient use of resources, cost reductions and dynamic leadership. But this is wishful thinking. American school systems are infested with ivory tower bureaucrats ntempered by meaningful experience in the business world. These men apparently are incapable of controlling their bureaucracies, which grow ever less efficient, ever larger and more costly at public expense.

And yet we, the taxpayers, continue to permit these men to award themselves higher salaries in proportion to the size of their bureaucratic The Unified School District concept is a good one, as affirmed by the voters when Unified was brought into ex-i e. Unfortunately, no system is any better than the caliber of people chosen to run it. Let's not abandon Unified. Instead, let's replace the mercenaries and parasites with devoted, professionals who will solve problems, not become problems themselves. '-ALARMED is not wholly intended to throw dust into the eyes of the constituency.

The public officer who does not honor the rules of practical politics does not long survive. The voter needs reminding what is being done for him, and more particularly, what has been done lately. The Lucey administration has suggested scores of attention-generating propositions the com- plete acceptance of the 18 year old vote, the reform of the property assessment machinery which cries out for improvement, political finance controls (although skeptics will be many), disclosure of the private financial interests of high public officers, and tax redistribution which has generated such abundant headlines and will produce more, with a tangible push by the governor. Other Programs Listed There? will be heavy emphasis upon oujher environmental protection, strategic highway expansion, mass transit relief, consumer protection, beefing up of law enforcement through state involvement in local police services, enhance-, ment of a bigger training program for medical doctors, and exploitation of the tried and "task force" device to draw sympathetic attention from major Interest groups even in the absence of real accomplishment. By JOHN WYNGAARD MADISON The transparent worry of the democratic state administration about taxing and its first state budget will add urgency to the plans to unveil a series of dramatic general legislative programs.

It would be unfair to suggest even obliquely that such emerging plans as the reorganization of the higher education administration of the state, the commitment to examine critically the fulfillment of the teaching mission of the University of Wisconsin, the broadening of the scope of the environmental protection effort, the attack upon corporate farming, the embryo plan to set up a state department of commerce, and the many others that have been hinted or plainly suggested would not have been pushed under different circumstances. Many of these and others were told during the election campaign. But they will take on a new Importance and urgency. Speeches of Gov. Lucey and the increasingly solemn rhetoric he has employed show that he is interested in these general propositions and programs not only because of their merit, but because they may divert to some degree attention from the irritants of higher taxing and higher spending proposals in a time when people are worrying about recession and the need for belt tightening in the private sector.

Par Jor the Course This is not necessarily a cynical calculation. It Indeed, the first formal program addresses of the new governor show a greater variety of such attention attracting ideas than flowed from the last Republican regimes, which is perhaps a passable definition of the difference between the parties. Other Democrats in the executive office have provided useful precedents. Former Gov. Nelson confronted a fiscal impasse that was perhaps more delicate and dangerous than the one troubling Lucey today.

But he managed to blur the impact by hjinventive ORAP program and its thunderous'publicity plaudits. Pushed Road Program Former Gov. John Reynolds thought to dramatize his incumbency and to divert attention from his unpleasant fiscal tasks by devising an ambitious highway expansion program. A Republican legislature outmaneuyered him by submitting the issue to a referendum reminding a couple of mission motorists that Reynolds wanted to raise their taxes. The intended result ensued.

Reynolds was repudiated at the polls, although the Republicans later proceeded to raise the fuel tax without benefit of voter consent. Had Reynolds; succeeded, it is quite conceivable that he would have had a second term and that the Knowles era would not have been bora. A T'H.