Rapid City Journal from Rapid City, South Dakota • 14

14 tb Rnpicl Crty Journal Sunday, February 4. 1 979 Perspective eats in Congress may be too costly 0 A 1 1 iii i nVa piMil Warren Weaver Jr. (c) 1979 Y. Times News Service WASHINGTON The cost of running for Congress is going up so rapidly that Its members, reluctant as many of them are, may be forced to Impose national price controls. In last fall's Senate and House contests, some 875 candidates for 470 seats spent almost $150 million on their primary and general election campaigns.

Only two years before, the comparable figure was just under $100 million. Compilation of Federal Election Commission figures shows that the congressional cost-of-running index went up about equally for both houses. The average Senate candidate, win or lose, spent about $920, (WO last year, as against just under $600,000 in 1976. The average House candidate spent $108,000 in 1978 and $71,000 in 1976. This soaring inflationary trend, uncontrollable under existing federal campaign laws, is almost certain to increase pressure on Congress to Impose some ceilings on political spending for the 1980 election.

As the law now stands, this can be achieved only by offering Senate and House candidates campaign subsidies in exchange for their limiting overall spending. Political authorities believe that, aside from inflation, the major cause of increased campaign spending has been the increase in contributors from political action committees. These groups represent corporate, labor and other special interests and gave $35 million or more to congressional candidates last year. Proposed subsidy plans, by giving candidates federal matching funds, would reduce their reliance on this special-interest money, with the suggestion of influence its acceptance carries. New legislation will also probably reduce the maximum political action contribution to a congressional candidate below the current ceiling of $5,000 for the primary and $5,000 for the general election.

Although reliable figures have been available only for the last half-dozen years, the 1980 congressional total of nearly $150 million Is unquestionably a record. Like Senate statistics reported last week, the House figures confirm the maxim that the better-financed candidate nearly always wins. In races for 366 contested seats, the bigger spender won 82 percent of the time. In the Senate, the figure was 85 percent. A campaign subsidy bill, Introduced on the opening day of Congress with the blessing of the House Speaker, Thomas P.

O'Neill Jr. of Massachusetts, would impose spending celling of $150,000 on each House candidate and permit those who accepted it to qualify for up to in federal matching funds. This measure has the support of the Democratic Study Group and Common Cause, a public-affairs lobbying organization, and is expected to form the basis for action by the House Administration Committee. In 1976, for the first time, presidential candidates received matching funds In their primary campaigns, and the full cost of the general election for the two winners was covered by federal money. Congressional proposals, at this point, would provide matching funds only for the general election.

Supporters of campaign subsidies plan to deal with each house separately this year, beginning with a House bill confined to House elections. Even if the Senate balks at approving subsidies for its own members, as it did in the last Congress, authorities believe It might be willing to ratify a House-passed plan. Opponents of subsidy legislation contend that the program would be costly and an improper use of government funds. Privately, many members fear that it would weaken their re-election prospects, enabling challengers to raise more money and undercut the advantages of incumbency. Two House candidates shattered records by spending more than $1 million each.

Carter Burden, who lost in New York's 18th District on the East Side of Manhattan, invested almost $1.4 million, winning a five-way Democratic primary but losing the general election to Rep. S. William Green. Not far behind was Rep. Robert L.

Livingston, a Republican seeking reelection In the First District of Louisiana, who spent $1.3 million. Under the state's new "sudden death" law, he defeated a Democrat, Sanford Krasnoff, with 83 percent of the vote In an open primary and was then able to run unopposed In the general election. Six other House candidates spent more than $500,000 each. In descending order of investment, they were: Green, a Republican, who spent $837,000 retaining his New York seat. He had no primary opposition.

Rep. J. Marvin Leath, a Democrat, who spent $578,000 to win an open seat in a central Texas district that Includes Waco. He ran second In a five-man primary, then won a Democratic runoff. Ed Scott, a Colorado Republican, who spent $550,000 in an unsuccessful attempt to unseat Rep.

Timothy E. Wirth. He was unopposed in the primary. Rep. John E.

Cunningham, Republican of Washington, who spent $537,000 defending the Seattle seat he had won in a special election but lost to Mike Lowry. He had no primary. Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro, Democrat of New York, who spent $527,000 to win a three-way primary and then the general election for the seat vacated by Rep.

James J. Delaney. Al Cardenas, a Florida Republican, who spent $512,000 on a primary in which he won 80 percent of the vote and an unsuccessful attempt to unseat Rep. Claude Pepper of Miami. Altogether, 120 candidates spent more than $200,000 on their 1978 House campaigns.

Of these, 73 candidates spent from $200,000 to $300,000, 30 from $300,000 to $400,000, nine from $400,000 to $.500,000, six from $500,000 to $1 million and two were over $1 million. Collectively, the 807 House candidates had more than $5.7 million left over from their campaigns, or a little more than $7,000 each on the average. There is no statutory ban on can- Management nightmare of in problems with boardina 'i! 'i ri 'ff ii mi flt'R) ft 1 Prestige, power of seat on Capitol Hill didates' pocketing such surplus money but new Senate and House rules, in effect for the first time after the 1978 election, subject members to disciplinary action by their colleagues if they do so. These surplus figures for 1978 create a somewhat low average, because a number of candidates had healthy deficits. Among the candidates with impressive surpluses were Rep.

Bill Nelson, Rep. E. Thomas Coleman, Reps. Raymond F. Lederer and Austin J.

Murphy, both Democrats of Pennsylvania, $154,000 and $146,000, respectively; and Rep. James M. Collins and Bill Archer, both Republicans of Texas, $144,000 and $109,000, respectively. More than 70 other Hous can "The human experiment of tampering with Indian children's welfare and education for 100 years has been for the most part a failure," said Dr. Robert Bergman, a former chief of mental health programs for the United States Health Service now with the Department of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico.

"The number of children who are underachieves in both the Indian and Anglo world, the number of school dropouts, and the Increasing rate of juvenile drug and alcohol abuse will give testimony to this failure." Indians under 24 years of age die of alcoholism at a rate 28 times the national average for their age group, according to the Indian Health Service. The Indian suicide rate Is twice the national average, according to the National Institutes of Mental Health; on some reservations it is five or six times the national average, with the rates tending to be highest among young people. Dollie Yazzie, a teacher at the Tohatchi school and herself a boarding school graduate, said, "This is what I would like an Anglo to understand: the courage, the sacrificing it takes for the parents to give up their children so the children will have an education." How necessary is such sacrificing today? Lavis believes real justification for boarding schools now exists only on the Navajo reservation. While other reservations are small turnstyle and they are watched until they board a train back home or to who knows where. About 150 kids attend day centers In the city's Alternatives to Detention Program run by the Probation Department.

It reaches a fraction of the problem population: in 1977, 12,889 juvenile delinquency petitions were filed in Family Court. Turnover at the center is rapid, and there are no statistics on effectiveness. Success is elusive. It is measured In small and concrete degrees: Whether a kid can read the word "cat," stay In his chair, learn to talk instead of hit, listen instead of talk. "We start with the basics," says Ms.

Geraigiry. "Like shampoo, clean underwear and manners." And a civil tongue: Every four-letter word means a five-cent fine and the Dirty Mouth Fund Is used to buy Ice cream and caka for Wednesday afternoon movies. "What's the prognosis for these kids?" asks Ms. Geraigiry. "Can we I I 1- Mm 1 1 Irnw r-W'fliiM ttfll tWMiaMMMMi.

category Included Cardenas In Florida, Cunningham of Washington, and Gerraro of New York, $9.43. These figures reflect primary votes where there was a contest. The prize for performance In the face of financial odds almost certainly went to Terry L. Bruce of Illinois, who won 46 percent of the vote in the 22nd District despite being outspent by Daniel B. Crane, $408,000 to $84,000.

Similarly, Rod Walsh of California won 37 percent of the vote in the 21st District despite a spending discrepancy, and Jim Dillon of Texas got 31 percent in the Second District, despite the Tohatchi school, which is headed by Belone, one of the few Navajo principals on the reservation, the children are taught to read and write Navajo, which is not part of the curriculum at most other schools. The Toyei school used to be cited for its model dormitory program, but that has been discontinued. The schools are acknowledged to have many dedicated and excellent teachers, some of whom dip into their own pockets to buy supplies and to brighten classrooms. To many critics, the schools' problems He not so much in the classrooms as in the dormitories. Both Belone at Tohatchi and Paul R.

Duganne, principal at Toyei school, say their biggest problem is that the dormitory aides are too few and too unqualified. "Sometimes we don't have too much choice about our dorm aides," he added. "Frankly, there are some staff members here I'd like to get rid of, but, I tell you, the Civil Service Commission can be a monster there is no way to get rid of these people. And other times I find people I would like to hire, with a special gift for working with children, but they don't fit bureau specifications." Although a constant refrain of critics is that no one in the boarding school system "gives a damn about the kids," It is clear that a good many do, and are almost desperate in their efforts to change what Lavis called the "management nightmare" of the BIA bureaucracy. another lights matches, another aimlessly jabs and gouges his paper, another refuses to do anything, one struggles to sound out the word, "gr-o-w-l." McDonald gives them points for effort, achievement and improvement, and every week he gives a prize, maybe just an extra subway token.

The philosophy is "whatever works." And that includes praise. Joey, a slight 14-year-old, In court for robbery, laboriously copies a multiplication table and starts solving problems. "You know," says McDonald, "Joey was one of the noisiest In the class. Now he's one of the best." Joey stares down and smiles. "I help my sister with homework," he says.

"But nobody helps me because they say I'm too bad." lf.X,i J-iH! m- 111' 1 ttmrnm I ffl all sHI may be getting too costly didates, both winners and losers, wound up their campaigns with $25,000 or more In cash on hand in return for their efforts. A handful of Democratic Incumbents managed to defeat Republican challengers although they spent little or nothing on their campaigns. They included Reps. Jonathan B. Bingham of New York, Carl D.

Perkins of Kentucky, Charles A. Vanik of Ohio, $70; and Edward P. Boland of Massachusetts, $40. Burden, the loser in the Manhattan millionaires' race, paid the most per vote. $20.65, while Green ran second with $14.

Other contenders In this enough to make a system of day schools practical, special problems are posed by the Navajo reservation, which covers an area larger than West Virginia. Until the 1950's, there was not a single paved road on the entire reservation. Today, it is not unusual for Navajo families to live 40 miles or more from a paved road and more than four hours from the nearest school. Bad weather can make the reservation's back country inaccessible except by horse or helicopter. Several students interviewed recently at boarding schools on the Navajo reservation had asked to be sent there because they had to walk for more than an hour to bus stops in order to get to day school.

Some children have died from exposure between their homes and a bus stop, Lavis said. There is no consensus among the Navajos on what should be done about the boarding schools. Many tribal leaders would like to see them replaced entirely with a system of day schools, but acknowledged that the tribe cannot afford such a system. Some parents regard the boarding schools as a necessary evil, a fact of life over which they have no control. Others are working to improve the schools, but here, too, there is a lack of consensus on what should be done, and a recognition that solutions are far from easy.

Certain boarding schools have strong reputations for being good or bad. At make them into the people we'd like them to be? No. Can we give them a few skills, help them cope, make life a little easier? Yes." The center, rundown but sturdy, with cracked and peeling walls, broken windows and sputtering radiator, Is run by harried realists. One of them is John McDonald, iron-haired Irishman, a special education teacher who handles the slowest kids and doubles as a stern but likeable bouncer. "It's hard to get them to sit still," says McDonald who tries to capture their interest by talking about the $5 million Kennedy Airport heist a feat they admired.

"Their attention span Is so short," he said. "You do the best you can with individual instruction. You try to give some skill, teach them to use a multiplication table, teach them that Brooklyn Isn't In Asia, that there's more in the newspaper than a subway mugging." In class, one boy sleeps at the table, mi Molly Ivlns (c) 1979 N.Y. Times News Service GALLUP, New Mexico A truck stops outside a boarding school on the Navajo reservation and it's as though it was summertime in the suburbs with all the kids running out to buy Popsicles from the ice cream man. But this truck driver doesn't sell Eskimo pies.

He's a bootlegger and he sells his liquor to Indian children. At Many Farms Boarding School in Arizona, which has had 11 principals in the past four years, the General Accounting Office found that $1,185 was spent in 1977 for ammunition for the rifle team. $2,530 for equipment for water safety programs and $7,300 for materials for a leather crafts program. The supplies were purchased despite the fact that none of the programs exists. A teacher at Many Farms said that his department had received a total of 60 textbooks In the last four years.

He photocopies old textbooks so his 500 students will have something to read. One night four years ago, three students ran away from the Chuska school on the Navajo reservation. There was a snowstorm and they never made it to town. They were frostbitten so badly BIA shows schools counting system we are counting system we are playing a catchup game you would not believe." The boarding school system costs $157 million a year and has 18,562 students aged 6 to 18 nationwide. Of those students, according to the Navajo tribe, 17,262 are in boarding schools on the Navajo reservation, which covers some 24,000 square miles in New Mexico, Utah and Arizona.

Another 32,699 Navajo children attend day schools. The system was born in the days when the Indian affairs bureau was under the Department of the Army; It was part of the forced pacification program for Indians. The charter of the first boarding school on the Navajo reservation in the 1890'S stated that the school's purpose was to "remove the Indian child from the influence of his savage parents." Accordingly, Indian children were often taken forcibly from their homes, given English names, forced to speak only English and sometimes not allowed to return for years. Such abuses were corrected long ago, but the memory of them fuels the sometimes irrational criticism of the system. And many experts agree that despite the changes, the schools still do a great deal of emotional damage to Indian children and their parents.

workers. We keep them a short time until the court decides what to do. We do the best we can." The youngest is only 12 curly-haired, flirtatious, foul-mouthed. He beat up a kid and stole his bicycle. The oldest is 16 good-looking, arrogant, belligerent.

He was found with knives, bludgeons and a Molotov cocktail. In between are boys their real names are not used here who sell heroin, pack guns, get Into fights and start fires. Some just stay out late, get high, cut school and hang out. Every day they go to the center on an industrial street in Chelsea. For five hours they are kept out of trouble.

They are fed. They get some basic education, recreation and structure. If they want help, it's there. Every night they are walked to the subway, a token Is placed In the that parts of their limbs had to be am- putated. Child psychologists, educators, family counselors and Indian activists have all criticized the boarding school system of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and although there Is no consensus on what should be done, everyone from outside critics to inside administrators agrees there is room for improvement.

The GAO, an investigative arm of Congress, entered the fray last February with a series of reports harshly criticizing the system's physical facilities, fiscal operations and educational programs. The boarding school system has its defenders, too, and their main argument is that there is no alternative to it. "Nowhere else for 'em to go," said Phillip Belone, principal of the Tohatchi school on the Navajo reservation. Richard C. Lavis, a deputy assistant secretary of the interior with authority over the Bureau of Indian Affairs, sometimes despairs of changing the system.

"The BIA bureaucracy has been neglected for so long that it's a management nightmare," he said. "The procurement techniques, the ac join the 74,000 juveniles in detention or correctional facilities around the nation. Their cases are pending in family or criminal courts. Meanwhile, they won't be put In detention like some others. They attend this Manhattan Day Center because they seem to have a bit more inner strength and home support than many other kids.

Still, they have precious little going for them: fractured, fractious families, little schooling, previous arrests. "These kids are socially primitive, 15 going on 5, still at the crawling stage," said Fred Bonert, director of the four city centers. He Jokes with the kids, wrestles with them, baked their Christmas ham. He doesn't confuse the possible with the ideal. "How much can we do?" he asks.

"We are not therapists or miracle 'Nursery school' for juvenile offenders offers opportunity to kick down doors Victoria Graham NEW YORK (AP) Twenty-nine boys sit around a table in a blue and yellow playroom: There's a rapist, a burglar, a bicycle thief; a truant, an incorrigible and a neglected child. They attend a kind of nursery school for juvenile offenders, an Inner city street compressed every day into five hours and two rooms. A time-bomb air pervades the place. It feels of frustration. "Nobody is opening any doors for these kids," says Rosalind Geraigiry, director of this nursery-day center.

"They're going to have to kick them down. But they don't even know how to turn the knob." And these are not the "worst" kids they are locked up. These are dabblers in delinquency, not yet dyed in crime. But with time and neglect, they could.