The Logansport Press from Logansport, Indiana • Page 4

The Pharos Tribune Press Sunday, August 23,1970 Editorial Comment Eyefaon to Eyeball Southeastern School Board Restrictions The Southeastern School Board was ill-advised in its decision to require taxpayers of that corporation to obtain permission 24 hours advance if they wish to speak at a board meeting. Certainly, the board is entitled to have an orderly meeting, but the arbitrary way it is attempting to assure order is worse than the "disruptions" which it is trying to prevent. Board members should remember that they are elected representatives of the people. They have a right to put a reasonable limit on any discussion, but taxpayers, on the other hand, have a right to express their opinions freely to their elected representatives on important matters that come before the board without the necessity of seeking unanimous approval for special permission to speak. The 24-hour permission to speak order obviously would be invalid at any board meeting involving the appropriation of funds since state law specifically guarantees all taxpayers the right to be heard at such meetings, whether they seek advance permission or not.

Many other matters may come before the board that are not known throughout the commun- ity 24 hours in advance even though advance notice may be given in the newspaper. And what is to stop the board from not placing on the agenda any distasteful matter properly submitted, purely for reasons of their own choosing? One of the major growing problems deservedly facing school boards and school administrators today is their tendency to run their school systems as their own private domain without being fully responsive to the taxpayers who foot all the bills. These same taxpayers therefore have a habit of retiring from office all those holders who act in this manner. The Southeastern School Board would be wise to revise its restrictions of opinion by the people it represents. Many area school boards set aside time before and after the general business meeting to allow for questions from the spectators.

Before the meeting, affairs of the previous meeting are discussed and after the meeting the discussions concern the business of that night. We think Southeastern taxpayers are entitled to the same courtesy. Pay For The Damage Regardless of its outcome, the damage suit brought by the state through Atty. Gen. Theodore Sen- dak against Indiana State University officials and students should have a salutary effect upon all state universities in Indiana.

What happened at Indiana State was worse than the disruptions at the other schools not only because of the much more extensive damage but also because some school authorities reportedly did nothing to try to prevent it. Furthermore, the taxpayers who have to pay for the damage at Indiana State have a right to wonder why the Indiana attorney- general found the head of the university "not cooperative" in the investigation of the incident. The attorney-general has the backing of all law-abiding citizens in his action to recover punitive damages from the students who are known to have been involved in the stone-throwing. The damage suit should have two good results. It should stiffen the backbones of all Hoosier college administrators, in any future campus disruptions and it should make the agitators think twice before they attempt to riot again on that campus or any other Hoosier campus.

Act On Trash Burning The city council of Logansport should not delay any longer in drawing up an effective ordinance against trash burning. As people become more conscious of the serious effects of air pollution, agitation against the burning of trash grows. Most citizens are aware that there is an ordinance against burning trash in any street, alley, or open lot after 4 p.m. and they wonder why it is not enforced. It cannot be enforced because there is no penalty clause.

But we had an obnoxious fire in the business district last week caused by the burning of refuse. There is a separate ordinance against burning refuse in the business district and it carries a fine of $5 to $50 upon conviction. There is no good reason why that ordinance should not be enforced. The council should draw up an ordinance against burning trash in the residential area also, with effective penalties to prevent violations. Such an ordinance will be of little value, however, if it is not enforced any more than the existing ordinance against fires in the business district and other ordinances we have on the books.

We have a good, dependable trash collection service. People have no excuse under the circumstances for setting fires within city limits. If trash fires are effectively prevented, it will be at least a beginning step toward the elimination of the air pollution menace. 70 Heat On Nasser For Era Of Peace WASHINGTON (NEA)-Very encouraging reports are now coming in from men whose job it is to keep in touch with high Egyptian government, army, business and intellectual pro- and anti-Nasser. These reports are couched in the most careful language.

But what they add up to is this: President Abdel Nasser is under the strongest pressure from powerful ele- RAY CROM1IY In some Egyptian circles a growing tendency is to refer to the Russians as neocolonialists. The longer the Israeli confrontation continues with no settlement greater tendency to blame the Russians for what goes wrong. These reports say the United States is more and more talked of among influential Egyptians as the only effective "balance" to offset the growing strength of the Soviet Union in.Egypt and the only, way to end the confrontation bottleneck. This thinking is known to be strong among some very powerful men close to Nasser. It led to Nasser's approach to the United States.

It is a strong influence on the Egyptian government to seek a peace that will bring the United States into a closer relationship with Cairo in the years ahead. ments among his friends and enemies alike to find some way out of the confrontation with Israel which has come to dominate and warp the national life. The confrontation, and the heavy in- debtness to Russia for arms and other aid resulting from this confrontation, is being blamed for inflation, tight censorship and other strong-handed government measures, for the difficulty educated young men are having to finding appropriate jobs at living wages. Nasser is under increasing pressure to free himself from the Israeli confrontation in order to devote himself to domestic problems. The confrontation is holding back economic growth.

It forces Egypt into a pan- Arab policy and prevents Cairo from developing alliances and arrangements best suited to Egypt's own needs and objectives. Strong forces within Egypt reportedly are for arranging stronger ties with Western Europe as well as with the United States. Nasser is under great pressure, these reports say, to balance off the Soviet influence. Growing numbers, of highly placed Egyptians view the Russians with increasing suspicion. Reportedly, they are asking questions While the Soviet Union may find it in its own interest to help Egypt now, what will happen when Egyptians and Soviet interests do not coincide? Uneasiness is growing about Moscow obvious interest in the Suez It suits Egyptian purposes to have Soviet warships prominently parading in the eastern Mediterranean today.

But numbers of high Egyptian government and military officials and intelligentsia worry what this Soviet naval presence augurs for the period five to 10 years Egypt's financial indebtedness to Moscow is growing and much of her agricultural production is pledged to pay those debts. Friction with Soviet advisers is on the increase. Despite Soviet military aid, strong friction is reported between Russian and Egyptian officers. Quarrels are frequent. Few Russians bother to learn Egyptian or go out of their way to make friends.

The Dally ana Sunday (except and Holidays) per week In the city area of Lj.gansport ana on rural motor routes: 50o per ween ny iirrler outside of Logansport area. By mall Indiana where no carrier or mo- service Is maintained, 120.00 rear- by mall outside. Indiana, 126.00 per All Mall subscriptions AdTance. No mall subscriptions sold carrier or motor route service Is maln- established Reporter established 1114 Journal established Tribune established In The Post One Year Ago Linda Hubeny, daughter and Mrs, Robert Hubeny, Rt. 3, Kewanna, was named Queen of the 1969 Kewanna Harvest Festival.

A review of all zoning maps in the county is planned by'the Cass County Planning Commission during the coming months. Permits for three new homes and one new commercial building in the county have been issued this month by the Cass County planning office. Ten Yeors Aao Cass County has been asked to send 15 youths to Indianapolis in draft calls next month, with three for induction and 12 for pre-induction physical examinations. Seventeen-year-old Andrea Dries, an exchange student from Neustadt, Germany, enrolled in senior classes at Logansport High School. Phsiip M.

Hyman has been named principal of the Lake Cicott schools. Twenty Years Aao The regular pre-school Cass County Teachers' Institute will be held Sept. 2 in the Lincoln Junior High School auditorium. Thirty freshman football candidates, the largest turnout in the history of Logansport High School, reported to Coach Fred Kinder this week: Frankie Perrone and Becky Cunningham were presented with new bicycles as winners of the second annual pet parade sponsored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars held yesterday afternoon. Aoo Robert Maniers, George J.

Lee, S. G. Smith and A. Troutman, veteran em- ployes of the local post office, will automatically retire from the service, as a result of the post office pension'law re- centlv passed. There will be no horizontal increases in personal property valuations ordered in Cass County this year by the State Tax Board.

Woman's golf club championship meet this season has been suggested atw is earnestly boosted by Country Club instructor, Jeff Adams. Celler Gets $35,000 For Douglas VVhitewash ALLEN-COLDSMITH REPORT WASHINGTON, August 22: It went completely- unnoticed, but just before the House quit for the three-week recess, it unanimously voted a special grant of $35,000 to the Judiciary Committee. In that quiet and heretofore unreported action lies a highly significant tip-off on what is in store on the long dawdling investigation of Justice William 0. Douglas by a special five-member subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee. The inside word is that this special subcommittee, in a move to get out from under increasing bipartisan denunciation and condemnation of its do-nothing record, is going to shunt the probe to the full Judiciary thus set the stage for a whitewash of the whole affair after the November 3 election.

Reputed mastermind of this backstage strategy is Rep. Emanuel Celler, 82-year-old chairman of both the Judiciary Committee and the special subcommittee. As previously disclosed in this column, the veteran legislator, a Douglas partisan, was against investigating his. financial and other extrajudicial operations and ties. But when 116 Democratic and Republican congressmen endorsed the resolution of Rep.

Louis Wyman, R- N.H., for a probe by a special House committee, Celler abruptly shifted course. With that handwriting on the wall, the octogenarian hurriedly resorted to a diversionary maneuver and announced that a special Judiciary subcommittee would tackle the him in charge. That was four months ago, and nothing has happened. The investigation is a 'total blank. No hearings, private or public, have been heldi No subpoenas issued.

No witnesses summoned or questioned. And the only report issued has been a so-called "Interim Staff Report" that was tagged "Confidential." There was no explanation for this secrecy until the "confidential" document was leaked to newsmen. Then the reason became clear. The staff report was an out-and-out pro-Douglas tract. RING AROUND THE ROSIE-Actually, the special subcommittee has now expired.

It is legally non-existent. Its last extension of authority ran out Aug. 20. That 60-day time extension was granted by Chairman Celler of the Judiciary Committee to Chairman Celler of the subcommittee when the original 60- day timeilimit expired June 20. But that special $35,000 appropriation slipped unnoticed through the House just before the recess is the tip-off on what's underway.

This money will be used to continue the Douglas a fashion; But that won't be done by the special Judiciary subcommittee. So far as it's concerned, that five-member panel is through. Its authority has expired, and with it the feeble motions the subcommittee Vent through in conducting a probe. The full 35-member Judiciary Committee (20 Democrats, 15 Republicans) will next step into the picture and go through the gestures of making an inquiry. That's what the $35,000 is finance the final whitewashing act.

When the House reconvenes after Labor Day, Chairman Celler will announce that the (legally expired) subcommittee had decided it was unable to complete its job and was turning the matter over to the full the many documents and other material accumulated by the subcommittee during its four months' existence. Celler will also announce that the full committee had agreed to continue the probe, and that some hearings will be held in due time. The inside betting is that when Celler. finally gives out a list of witnesses, they will be friends and defenders of Douglas. Strongly likely to be among them is former federal judge Simon Rifkind, N.Y., who has already filed two lengthy "legal memorandums" in defense of Douglas, with the subcommittee.

The subcommittee got Rifkind's second opus shortly before legally expiring. When this column asked Celler for access to the memorandum, he the ground that he hadn't yet read it. It's still under lock and key in his office. Insiders take it for granted that hte full Judiciary Committee will not complete its inquiry before the House takes another recess in October for electioneering. That in turn means just one thing: The investigation will not be con- cluded until after the November 3 election.

And that in turn means the stage will be set for a whitewash. When the House does resume in November, it will be a House. And just about anything and everythmg can happen in a lame-duck session Celler can be depended on to do everything in his power to use that situation in behalf of his long-time ultra-liberal friend Justice William O. Douglas. AMERICAN POW-No day passes on Capitol Hill without a barrage of speeches and declamations Vietnam war.

The daily Congressional Record is filled with These tirades and a cost of $120 a page to taxpayers. But only occasionally does a legislator rise and call attention to the agonizing plight of hundreds of American servicemen who are prisoners of war of the Communists. One of these exceptions occurred the other day when Sen. Carl Curtis, ranking Republican on the Rules Committee, took the floor and briefly and movingly talked about these long-suffering men. Sen.

Curtis' searing denunciation of Hanoi's fiendish brutality and in humanity should be blazoned throughout the world. His words also should be read and remembered by every American, dove and hawk. Following is what he said: "I often think of a sentence I read many years ago in Longfellow's Hiawatha. It said simply that every human heart is human. Today, over 1,400 American men are held prisoner of war by the North Vietnamese under conditions that violate the Geneva Convention; conditions that no civilized man with the slightest bit of decency or humanity in his heart would tolerate for a moment Yet this condition persists month in, month out.

"To deny the humanity of another man is not difficult. Proving it is difficult. But the North Vietnamese have managed to successfully demonstrate to all the world that to them, humanity is no more than an empty word without meaning. There is no humanity in their hearts. No further proof is needed." HERE AND Robert Byrd W.Va., Deputy Democratic Floor Leader, was paid an unusual tribute by a leading Republican.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Senator Barry Goldwater, 1964 GOP presidential candidate, warmly lauded Byrd "for the careful and industrious way he pays attention to his duties." Added Goldwater, "I don't believe I liave ever seen a senator, in fte years I have served here, who has spent as much time and done as good a job as has the distinguished Senator from West Virginia." The U.S. spent $6 million of taxpayer's money to build a new runway for Paraguay's major airport at Asuncion. Chief beneficiaries of this expensive foreign aid project are aerial smugglers who use the runway to bring in large cargoes of contrabands of all kinds, from cigarettes to electrical appliances, that are' sold in adjoining Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and even Chile and Peru. The recent report of the President's Commission on Student Unrest strongly advocated soft-pedaling on the use of forceful measures against demonstrators and dissenters. The report implied that police and National Guard are frequently responsible for riots, and violence.

Unmentioned in the report was the following: When students rioted in the summer of 1968 at Mexico University, with more than 90,000 enrolled students, President Ordaz ordered police and troops to fire on them with machineguns. More than a score were killed and several hundred wounded. Since then, not one student has rioted in any Mexican college. The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration will report a bill with a number of revisions in the immigration laws when the House reconvenes after Labor Day. The committee, headed by Rep.

Michael Feighan, held several weeks hearings on two establish a worldwide ceiling on immigration to the U.S., and limitations on Canadian and Mexican immigrants. Public Forum The Pharos-Tribune Press Invites views of its readers. Each letter sbonU not exceed Mi words and must be signed by the writer with address. A request to nse Initials, and not the fall name, may be granted If conditions warrant Address letters to: Public Forum, Pharos-Tribune Press, Logansport, Ind. the small society fay Bricfctnan "Lift putvpe'Min Only 1 iJgn and maybe we can pick tf somt of that Women's Lib bosoms!" Logansport established 1(21 pibHshed dally eicept Saturday and holidays by Newspapers 517 Broadway.

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