The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 16

PAGE 18 THE SUN, BALTIMORE, WEDNESDAY MORNING, JANUARY 20, 1965 visability of trying to cut down on or "Hello, Lyndon!" Politics and People Letters to the Editor hellbent on prevention, that It will loan proposal that wai to have pro vided fundi for a new police head quarteri. The expressway extension which he holds to be beyond further discussion as a supposedly settled issue is the one which was planned to go through the present police headquar ten building. Without the money for a new police building, which now can- not be provided for several more years, the extension he espouses leads straight to a large roadblock, put there by city voters. If anything is "un realistic and foolish," the voters may consider it to be Mr. Foley's call for full speed ahead on a collision course with an immovable object.

The Non-Payers The United Nations Organization has weathered many crises in the two decades of its existence but none graver than the one in which it is now entrapped. Strains and stresses at many levels are involved in the dispute over the question of whether nations which refuse to pay their dues and assessments there are sixteen such, including the Soviet Union and France can continue to vote as full members of the organization in defiance of the Charter. Since December 1 the General Assembly has been operating under a suspension of normal rules which allowed it to choose a presiding officer "by acclamation," a device which avoided the need to vote officially. On Monday the Assembly will get down to the business of choosing other officers. The Communists and many Afro-Asians want the non-payers to get equal voting rights with the payers, including the United States, which has footed about half of the United Nations bills since its Inception.

The decision of Alex Quaison-Sackey, Ghanaian president of the Assembly, to quit stalling and get down to business is interpreted in some quarters as a warning to the United States to back down. It seems more likely that the president, a sensible man, thinks it is time for a decision. If the showdown comes, as the United States delegation thinks it will, and the non-payers are challenged, the world must expect weeks, perhaps months, of hassling and squabbling and procedural votes and maneuvers. All the while (unless the United States and other friendly powers fork up another chunk of money) the work of the Assembly will be at a standstill because of the quarrel, and the work of the organization in jeopardy because of lack of funds. The United Nations, as Britain's delegate said yesterday, will be weak and poor and unable to move quickly in the face of disaster.

Thus paralyzed, its usefulness to the cause of world peace and comfort will be more than ever open to question from unfriendly quarters. The great question now is whether the "uncommitted" world the nations, mostly small or poor or both, which are officially neutral in the struggle between the Communist and non-Communist great powers will pull its weight in the United Nations dispute If these countries want to keep the United Nations, as a forum for grievances, as an aid agency, as a device for putting the great powers in their places, or even as an interna tional barnyard in which to crow, they must vote to keep it strong or make it stronger. They must make clear their belief that the rules apply to all nations equally and that some are not more equal than others. These coun tries have the votes, even if they have almost nothing else, to keep the United Nations alive. In the next few weeks we shall see how much it means to those who need it most.

Up in the Air The snarls from India's Parliament about Air India's tiny trademark maharaja, the tendency of Australians to deprecate the public lighthearted-ness of Quantas, have been outdone by the complaints of a British politician aboir British European Airways adver tising. A poster of a pretty model in a bikini on a warm Spanish beach is the cause of his choleric outburst, though whether he deplores the idea that Brit ish men might fly to girl-watching country, or the idea that British girls might be lured into bikinis, is not clear. A state-owned airline, clearly, must not be frivolous. It should lure tourists to Spain much as the old Intourist brochures used to do: "See the Moscow subway, built by the workers for the workers." Old churches, historic pic tures, bracing and healthy fresh air, but no suggestion of sensationalism. should guide its publicity.

B.E.A. has taken the hint. Its new poster girl (still in a bikini is 4 years old. She suggests decent, wholesome, British family vacations undertaken at a sacrifice by the adults purely for the chil dren's sake. And the political critic is satisfied.

dispose of local legislation altogether. The legislators will have two measures leading toward this end, one providing an optional method by which counties may obtain home rule and the other expanding the local powers available to county commissioners. Both bills have been put forward by the Legis- lative Council's committee on local legislation, and this first of the 70-day sessions should 'serve as sufficient demonstration of why the measures are aimed in the right direction. Yes and No Trying to keep abreast of the plan ning at the offices of the State Roads Commission is becoming an increas ingly difficult, if not impossible task. Consider this sequence of events: Last week a special legislative committee recommended the prompt construction of a $73 million bridge to parallel the present one between Sandy Point and Kent Island.

It did so on the basis of reports by engineering and traffic consultants and statements made by the legal adviser and comptroller of the commission. Yesterday John B. Funk, chairman-director of the commission, said the adviser and comptroller were not acting for the commission, and that the commission had yet to decide what priority in the construction list should be given the proposed parallel span. Inquiries at the offices of the com mission failed to resolve this seem ingly off-in-two-directions confusion. It was learned though that the commission may end up with two top priority projects for its bridge-tunnel toll facilitiesthe parallel span and the proposed $150 million second crossing for the Patapsco River.

If that be the case not only the Legislature but the public as well will want to see the detailed financing plans before a definite decision is made $223 million is a lot of money. Maryland Analysis The Ripon Society, an organization of Republican intellectuals based at Cambridge, is joining in the effort to get the GOP back on the road toward moderation and wider political success. It has just published a 124-page analysis of the 1964 campaign along with its recommendations for a new program. To its credit, the Ripon Society foresaw the disaster inherent in the Goldwater campaign last year and did what it could to warn other Republicans, and it now can claim the right to examine the extent of the setback. Its suggestions for the future, including a reversal of the "Southern strategy" which attracted segregationists to the Republican ticket in the South and drove Negro voters away in the North, a disavowal of extremist elements and a renewed attempt to attract big city voters, including Negroes, seem likely to receive attention as part of the move to restore a broader base to the party.

What the Ripon Society has to say about Maryland, in its election analysis, should be of interest to voters in this State. Thus it notes that Maryland was to have been one of the testing places of the theory of the "white backlash." But it found that "except for certain districts in Baltimore, the 'backlash' never developed, or if it did it was offset by a massive turnout of Negroes and Republican support for President Johnson." Continuing, the analysis says that the overwhelming defeat of Senator Goldwater in Maryland "was, at the least, the final obstacle to any new and significant Republican breakthrough in this border State. More importantly it may have destroyed the basis on which those successes might have been based in the future." After calling attention to the increases in Democratic registrations, the analysis added: "These figures may indicate the permanent destruction of that Negro-Republican alliance which was so carefully nourished by former Republican Governor and now Baltimore Mayor Theodore R. McKeldin as the formula for Republican victory." Collision Course The city's traffic director, James L. Foley, is showing great impatience with the small bands of earnest citi zens who are registering opposition "at this late date" to plans to extend the Jones Falls expressway southward in the vicinity of the Fallsway.

Asking now for new plans is both "unrealistic and foolish," he says. But Mr. Foley may have missed the point of last November's election, when city voters disapproved the municipal THE SUN PublUhed Every Weekday By THBA.S. ABELLCOMPANY WOLUU T. SCHMICX, Jl, PUDBSNl tntered the Pont Office Btltlmore econd-elmi mil metier Ratet by Mat! Outside Baltimore Morning Evening Sunday 1 month 1 1.6 1165 ii oo 6 month 13 90 8W) 5 60 I yew $15.80 118.60 110.30 Editorial Offices Baltimore, 3 Calvert Street Washington, 4....

National Prru Building London, I.O. 4 85 Fleet Street Bonn Koblenieretraaa 270 Moscow. eamotechnaya, 1224 Rome Via del Pleblsclto 112 New Delhi 145 Golf Links Bio de Janeiro Rue Do Carmo 27 Baltimore Telephone 439-7744 Member of the Associated Press The Associated Press la entitled exclu-aively to the use tot republication of all the local news printed In this newspaper ae well as all AP news dispatches. BALTIMORE, WEDNESDAY, JAN. 20, 1965 Inaugural This is a special day for all of the United States.

The inauguration of a President has its own place in our history in fact it has a history of its own from the swearing in of George Washington down through the decades to the inauguration today of Lyndon B. Johnson. It has its own weather record, carefully kept; its own record of the style of dress chosen by each President and his Lady, of the music played and the dances danced at the inaugural balls, and of the length and variety of inaugural parades. These are some of the things that give life and color and human interest to the day. It is a spectacle which has great popular appeal, and rightly so.

But however important these matters may seem, they are essentially the fancy trimming around the basic event. The big moment is the public ceremony at which the President takes the oath of office, when he swears to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States; and it is fitting now to remind ourselves that our Constitution has endured for 176 years of remarkable change. We give a President great power in our Constitution and our laws and our customs, and we share with him a sense of respect and awe as he takes office for four years. In addition we expect of a President, as soon as he takes the oath of office, an inaugural address in keeping with, again, the long line of other inaugural addresses. President Johnson already has given us the main outlines of his legislative program, in his message on the State of the Union and in subsequent detailed messages to Congress, but today he will have the opportunity to stress the spirit as well as substance of his Administration.

When Solons Meet Maryland legislators take their seats today for what would have been an odd-year 90-day session if Maryland voters had not approved in November an amendment to the State Constitution. Under the constitutional change there no longer will be 90-day sessions in odd-numbered years or 30-day sessions in even-numbered ones. Our lawmakers are meeting for the first of an endless vista of annual 70-day sessions, open to both local and State-wide legislation. Since local jurisdictions have been geared until now to holding local proposals for the odd-year legislative sessions, the General Assembly can anticipate getting a full 90-day work load which must be disposed of in twenty fewer days. Our State senators and delegates do not mind this, of course.

In drawing up the change in length of sessions they also included for themselves a 33 per cent increase in legislative salaries, so we may assumemay we not? that they are prepared to work harder than ever before. But careful organization becomes at least as important as the will to work with serious dedication. The first third of a 70-day session cannot be spent in relaxed preliminaries as so often was the case during 90-day meetings. The General Assembly has to start grinding out the routine bills, and especially those of only local significance, from the first day onward, so that ample time will be afforded for discussion of matters of State-wide import: the budget, capital improvements, congressional redistricting, legislative reapportionment, revolving retail credit, changes in insurance and criminal laws, financial aid to locai governments and other weighty subjects. Not only will it behoove the General Assembly to dispose of local bills as early and rapidly as possible but a ses- lion of twenty fewer days also should serve as an object lesson in the ad- By THOMAS O'NEILL- Elbow Room Washington.

The inaugural oath prescribed for the President of the United States runs to only 35 words, 1 requires only that he do the best he can, and leaves him free to take it from there. Similarly frugal in wording is the section of the Constitution from which his authority derives. The framers at Philadelphia In 1787 compressed this grant into a taut 220 words, and there-by through great good fortune erected a system for the Government for 4 million Americans that works as wefl for a population grown to 200 The genius of their creation was its allowances for elasticity and adaptability, with the result that each Presi-dent has been able to make of the office what each thought it should be. A transformation has been subtly occurring during the fourteen months since Lyndon Johnson became the thirty-sixth President. Whether the authors of the Constitution were guided by inspiration or simply in the comfortable foreknowledge that George Washington would be the first President and could be.

trusted to make a proper exercise of indefinite powers for the guidance of his successors is beyond discovery. At any rate they resisted the temptation to hem in the Chief Executive with limitations which might have been suitable to. their own times and disastrous in a later time. The oath subscribed to by Washington and all who have followed him says no more than, "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." The only deviation was when Franklin Pierce chose to affirm rather than swear, for reasons still unknown. At bottom, a President has ample elbow room to make of the office whatever he thinks it should be, within his capabilities.

Interpretations of the proper function of the Presidency have covered a broad range over the years, from those who would subordinate its independence to the will of Congress to the strong view that, as both Chief of State and head of the Government and as the directly elected representative of the people, the Executive ought to take the lead. No better statement for the exponents of an inactive Presidency is to be found anywhere than in a 1900 state-' ment of Adm. George Dewey announcing his availability for the Democratic nomination (he didn't get it). Said the hero of Manila Bay: "Since study-, ing the subject I am convinced that the office of President is not such a very difficult one to fill, his duties being mainly to execute the laws of Congress. Should I be chosen for this exalted position I would execute the laws of Congress as faithfully as 1 have always executed the orders of my superiors." A contemporary had a differing ouU look.

Theodore Roosevelt adhered to the Jackson-Lincoln estimation that "the Presidency should be a powerful office and the President a powerful man who will take every advantage of it." Either opinion can be argued, be cause the powers vested in the office are implied rather than Lincoln turned to what had been regarded as a ceremonial function pre scribed in the Constitution "the President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy" for the authority he needed to wage and win a bitter war. His predecessor, James Buchanan, insisted there was no authority for the President to coerce a sov ereign state, and let that war occur when prompt action against the first secessionists might have discour-. aged it. The great Presidents were those who set out to surmount seeming limitations upon the office. It has grown to its present scope less from any lust for power on the part of its occupants than because the jobs requiring doing could be done nowhere else.

An incoming President cannot put his faith, in a tidy timetable for developments that will arise during his tenure. Enough has been presented in four. teen months to make clear that Presi dent Johnson takes his place with the proponents of full exercise of the inherent powers of the White but with a difference. Mr. Johnson favors the soft ap-' proach over the headlong attack.

He prefers to hoard his power, or sheath it in use. He patterns his recommendations to Congress along lines likely to be acceptable, and wraps them in conciliatory language. He obviously is on guard against overspending his an thority. It is a system that has worked, as in his successes with the same legis- lation on which Congress had balked President Kennedy. In some measure the Johnson method arises from the circumstance that he was no stranger to the sights and sounds of Washington when he sue ceeded to an office that is no place for a political amateur.

Its evolution has made it the center of gravity of government, and the thirty-sixth President feels most at home in th center of things. voked to assist the accused in making a mockery of our police as they enter pool parlors and night clubs frisking black men during their limited leisure time activities. Has Commissioner Schmidt received a tip that the Veney brothers have shrunk to pocket size? If this be true heaven help our crime detection agency if these boys are able to hitch rides in white men's pockets or hide in white men's houses. It would be very helpful if Mr. Schmidt would take some of our human renewal, urban renewal, culturally deprived, anti- poverty and culturally disadvantaged espousers (top echelon) on some of his storm trooper raids of the "inner city." This first hand exposure might stimulate a revival in dedication, honesty, and justice.

And on second thought he and his statistic manipulators may be dismissed. William Rodwell Perry, Jr. Baltimore, Jan. 14. To Help the Whole Person Sir: It was interesting to note in The Sun of recent date the plan for the city Health Department to begin providing birth control advice and contraceptives in city clinics.

Our church has been one of the pri vate clinics serving, more than 750 patients since 1957, the first church in Baltimore to offer such services to the community. During that time, through counseling by our Community Services department, ten women, to our knowledge, have taken high school equivalence examinations and successfully passed them. Others have been helped with funds for textbooks, carfare, loans and evening school fees. Babysitting services have been offered for working mothers, nursery school at tendance at the church, under the direction of our Christian Education Director has increased and a continuing program of counseling and referral to agencies has been the church's role in helping these young mothers. We have felt that it is not enough to help with family planning, but it is our job to see what can be done to help motivate the children and families who are already here.

Our records reveal a high percentage of mothers who have completed the ninth to eleventh grades, who can be encouraged to complete their education and who need the services of day care centers for their children when they become employed, who need marriage counseling and child guidance clinics and often psychiatric help. The Church cannot do the job in rehabilitation alone, and has often been frustrated in many of its feeble attempts at rehabilitation by the lack of coordination and dialogue between serving agencies. Even so, we do not feel the end justifies the means. We do feel that Planned Parenthood and the Department of Health, the welfare agencies, adult education, housing and recreation, have an excellent opportunity to work together in a genuine effort to rehabilitate the people they serve, who are in dire need of multiple services, to the end that families will have more wholesome and satisfying lives. How much better this program will be if rather than just dispense supplies under the direction of a physician and nurse, there will be a pro gram of social service with a social i worker to counsel the patients and help them to continue or to start on a road to upward mobility.

This has always been our purpose at the church. I pray that this plan wfll not become so sterile, so impersonal, so Governor's Responsibility Sir: Your paper has done a public service in spotlighting an illness in certain aspects of the Baltimore Police Department. Please keep that light shining until the cause of the illness is defined so that it will be possible to apply the proper curative medicine. Terminology is an interesting thing. If this relatively fine enforcement or ganization were called the Baltimore State Police Department the illness could be readily defined.

The management of the department has been in the hands of only two men for the last fourteen years. We can all agree that final responsibility for failure in any organization is that of management. The two men who have managed for the last fourteen years have been the last two governors. No police organization can ever hope to build morale when political influence controls the appointment of all administrative positions from commissioner to sergeant. For many decades and in particular the last fourteen years appointments and promotions have come from the Green Bag with little consideration for talent, devotion or tenure.

Now that alleged and real shortcomings are discussed Governor Tawes appoints a committee to find out what happened during his six years of management and Mr. McKeldin remains strangely silent about what happened during his management from the State House. These two men cannot duck it or pass over it by pointing out that the Governor has many responsibilities. A $25 million department is not a minor responsibility and both of them know that they have lent sympathetic ears to political b'hoys from the back room when making appointments and promotions. The political Green Bag spoils system must be eliminated in the State and replaced by a genuine merit system.

Only by this method can men of talent be attracted to public service. With continuity of leadership and promotion by fitness only, morale will return to the Police Department. With this system will also come new respect from the public. The cop on the beat is the fellow who is taking the real beating as this issue rages and he is the fellow who gives so much for so little. Respect for the department has fallen so low that he is giving even his fife.

Charles P. Harbaugh. Riderwood, Jan. 11. Search of Homes Sir: As I attempt to earn a living, raise a family, and worship my God in my own way as a black man, there have been several occasions on which I have found it difficult to support or respect our Police Department as a whole.

In order for the police to sue cessfully carry out their obligations to the citizenry, the cooperation of all citizens is necessary. But some of our officers undoubtedly fail to comprehend that we of the Negro race are citizens. This utter disregard for feelings of Negroes seemingly has spiraled down from the top. We have seen prime examples of this in the public indorsement of police state tactics in seeking the Veney brothers by our elected and appointed leaders. The newspapers have documented actions in which men in uniform have invaded the privacy of hundreds of homes armed with fear provoking weapons in search of two criminals due to "probable cause." It is no wonder that those sought have been able to elude our "Gestapo In blue." No doubt some citizens have been pro be more concerned with "numbers served" than "numbers helped." If this move is meant to decrease illegitimacy, let it be known that even in the Scandinavian countries where abortion is legal and contra ceptive advice is freely given and accepted, the rate of illegitimacy is still high.

Doesn't this speak to the need for helping the whole person and not just one facet of his being? Doesn't this speak to the culture of our society that proclaims in all its ads, TV stories, movies, books and magazines that "Sex is And finally, doesn't this speak to us as respon sible citizens who believe in sexual morality, to practice this belief by being examples of it? Not unlike the beam and the mote and he who casts the first stone, eh what? Madeline W. Murphy, Director, Community Services, Cherry Hill Community Presbyterian Church. Baltimore, Jan. 15. County Clerk's Costs Sir: The lengthy article concerning the expenditures of the clerk of the Circuit Court of Baltimore County only considered half of the duties per formed by the clerk by its reference to the case load.

In all fairness it must be pointed out that more than half of the employees of the Circuit Court are employed in recording of deeds, mortgages, releases, etc. Mr. Gill has made a number of improvements in the archaic system of recording in Baltimore county. He is fulfilling the clerk's responsibility to see that the records are adequately maintained and preserved for future generations. The operation of the clerk's office should not be for collecting revenue, but to enable the residents of Baltimore county to have the protection of good recording and a system whereby the title to their property can be examined in a reasonable time so that they may be able to have a settlement within a reasonable time after the matter has been referred to their attorney.

Gerard H. Kessler. Baltimore, Jan. 8. Rapid Transit Sir: May I second Mr.

Emmett W. White's excellent suggestion in The Sun January 16 that good transportation in the city is far more important just now than another super-highway? At a time when the inner city of Baltimore is being rehabilitated at great cost, many persons who might prefer to patronize the shops and offices down town, nevertheless turn elsewhere for their requirements because of the problems of parking and traffic con gestion. Frequent and rapid service to the heart of the city would not only bring us back there, but would also help resuscitate withering property values and thereby help provide the city with badly-needed taxes. Mrs. Tenney Frank.

Baltimore, Jan. 16. Expressway Unlighted Sir: How many major accidents have to occur on the Jones Falls Expressway before the lights are turned on? I travel this expressway every evening and very few nights go by in which I do not see some accident, major or minor, on this road. The city expends outlandish funds for outland- ish-sized signs yet the road remains dark. I think it is much more import- ant to illuminate the Jones Falls Ex pressway than to post it with oversized signs from end to end.

Daniel M. Fink. Baltimore, Jan. 13..