Neenah Menasha Northwestern from Oshkosh, Wisconsin • Page 49

Oshkosh Daily Northwestern Tuesday. October 19, 1 976 Opposition sure to counties plan A proposal to regroup many of Wisconsin's smaller counties into larger i will certainly meet with much opposition. The proposal was advanced at a meeting of the state Commission on State-Local Relations. Among other changes, it would change Green Lake. Waushara and Marquette Counties into one entity (or on a smaller scale.

just join Green Lake and Marquette. 1 The plan is admittedly more of a i for i i a a firm proposal ready for legislate action. It does seem to that "bigger is better," a propos i i which would i many people ready to argue. The plan actually two separate plans, one to assure counties with not less than 25.000 pop- i a i the other to asssure a minimum of 10.000 persons per county is assuming that the small counties at present are uneconomical and that consolidation would cut costs by eliminating duplication of many tions. One county clerk, for instance, rather than two or three.

That assumption would certainly be subject to challenge. The consolidated counties, by their geographic area, might require just as many people in its as the separate counties do now. What is saved in one place might be spent in another. If change in county structures is desirable, perhaps it would be better to seek it from the other direction. Rather than handing down from the state a dictate that certain counties should be consolidated, it might be better if counties were enabled and enc a i a services where feasible.

A multi- county sheriff's department, for i a i give several counties a more flexible law enforcement a a This would not require consolidation of the entire governments of the counties. It is fine to plan for efficiency and economy, but at the practical level, people who have a relatively handy county seat to do business in are not going to be happy to have the records and services a more They will want to keep what they have as being more convenient than the "new" wav. Mid-decade census approved (From the Sheboygan Press) One of the last actions of the now-adjourned Congress requires a nationwide census every five years, instead of every 10. The i i a census will be conducted in 1985. Proponents contended during debate that the rapid pace and mobility of contemporary American society has resulted in decennial census data becoming irrelevant for planning purposes years before a new census is taken Thev fur- ther contended that the increased costs be a a the a i of currently spent to commission special surveys between censuses.

In other words, a census provides accurate data, but a survey is just that. The census i a by gress gives assurance that much needed data on federal, state, and local governments as a.s business and industry i be up to date and as accurate as possible Strictly personal A tragic waste SYDNEY J. HARRIS Watching a dramatization of the life, and death, of Sylvia Piath, the immensely gifted writer who committed suicide at the age of 31, I thought of the tragic waste in such an act. For one but the incurably ill Can know what is going to happen tomorrow, around the corner. When I got home, I looked up the words penned in her diary by another woman, at the age of 30.

She wrote: "My God, what will become of me? I have no desire but to die. There is not a night that I do not lie down in my bed, wishing that I may leave it no more. Unconsciousness is all I desire If you tried for a year you would probably not guess the author of those words. She was Florence Nightingale. When she did die 60 years later, at the age of 90 it was said a the three persons who did most to alleviate a i in the 19th were- the inventors of antiseptics and chloroform and Florence Nightingale, the of the modern nursing profession At 30, her real mission in life was not even known to her; she felt useless and a There seemed to be no place for her in the Victorian society of her day so she a a a through sheer force of character, and gained a rare immortality for herself.

Of course, it is easy to say that she was a unique personality but so is each of us, whatever our talents or capacities or status in life. If was, after all, a lowly night watchman at the Watergate building whose a i i brought the whole conspiracy to light nd ultimately toppled a presidency. Another man might have stayed home with a hangover that night, or fallen asleep on the job. Suicide is regarded as a sin by almost religions because it marks the i a i over a since hope is the core of all spiritual belief, despair is looked upon as absolute rejection of one's Maker. Furthermore, the nearer the relation to the murdered person, the more heinous we consider the crime and man is closest to himself.

According to the ancient theologians, "A suicide is a sentinel who has deserted his post." Our attitudes have softened a great deal toward suicide since we began to understand more about profound mental and emotional disturbances, such as Ms. Plath We no longer condemn, but we must still deplore, in the great majority of cases. By enduring, and not succumbing to, her psychic pain, a "useless" woman like Florence Nightingale found a use for herself that no one else in the world had ever attempted before. (Field Enterprises) Venezuela's 'salesman' WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR.

The President of Venezuela is not unlike Hubert Humphrey enthusiastic, loquacious, warm, with an appetite for life and office unnvaled by the conspicuous leaders of this hemisphere. He is. moreover again like Humphrey a superb salesman. There is to besin with his conviction that he has taken the proper measure of most problems And apart from that, he communicates a jaunty lucity that incorporates the best of the well ordered academic mind, while rejecting any dreary traces of pendantry CAP. as they rail Carlos Andres Perez, was born to talk to people: to lead As head of the Accion Democrati- ca.

he is President for two and a half more Then, under the laws of Venezuela, he must step aside for 10 years before running for office again. In 10 years he'll be younger than Senator Humphrey is now. and I take the opportunity at this moment in Senator Humphrey's convalescence to predict that years from now. Humphey will attend the second inaugural of President CAP The achievements of Mr. Perez are.

all things considered, quite phenomenal. It isn't every day that the leader of a foreign country- nationalizes something on the order of 150 billion dollars worth of oil, paying one billion dollars to the people who discovered that oil and capitalized its development and leaves them if not exactly smiling, at least not mutinous. President Perez' formula for arriving at a contemporary' price was marvelous. He reimbursed the oil companies for the cost of their drilling rates and refineries, taking the position that the oil itself Was at no time the property of the oil investors. It reminds one of the enchanting story by Alexander VVoollcot about the French cadet who won the regimental pool and spent a night with Paris' most attractive, well, poule.

The next morning she asked how he had come on the five thousand francs necessary to buy her services for the night, and he confessed that his one thousand fellow cadets had organized a lottery, each man contributing five francs, the winner to spend the night with the renowned mademoiselle. Overcome with sentiment, she wept and wept and, recovering herself, walked to her purse and effusively returned to the cadet his five franc investment. How would Venezuela continue to attract foreign investors having dealt thus raffishly with the oil (and the steel) people? CAP smiled, and talked about the splendid opportunities in Venezuela for foreign capital, about the convertibility of currency, the repatriation rights of profits, about the rapid instilutionalization in Venezuela of a democratic order which is the best guarantee against such convulsive terms as are common in Latin America. CAP and his planners want everything, as soon as possible. He will tell you that he thinks it altogether possible that oil as fuel will be anachron- ized by the end of the century, even if oil as a petrochemical will be valuable into the far reaches of history- Under the circumstances, burn the oil, spend the money now, develop a strong capital base; eliminate poverty; raise educational standards.

In doing this he has difficulties. For one thing, Venezuelans do not like to stay out in the farms, preferring the city, never mind the squalor of their lives. For another, generations of what one would emphatically call a pre-Watergate morality make the journey of a federal dollar dispatched to relieve a poor family notoriously hazardous, arriving, typically, only in highly emaciated form. For still another, there is the specter of that political instability which for a while made a mockery of the vaulting rhetoric of the great liberator, Simon Bolivar. One hundred and fifty-five governments in 125 years.

But beginning 15 years ago, it appeared the democratic roots had begun to sink. As so often is the case, Venezuelan democrats overdid it, extending the franchise even to the illiterate. But the hard, revolutionary" left has only 6- per cent of thhe vote, and CAP smiles that isn't enough. Although he is prominent as a leader of the Third World, the President has in his office, beside the great canvas of Simon Bolivar, only two busts. One of them is of Abraham Lincoln, the other of Winston Churchill.

He ought to have, besides, the scalp of John D. Rockefeller. But he is too good natured to flaunt his triumphs. WASPs: Forgotten ethnic minority Whenever there is a presidential election, reporters always go to an ethnic bar to see what the workingman is thinking. They wind up talking to Polish-Americans in Chicago, German- Americans in Milwaukee, Italian-Americans in Queens, N.Y., and Mexican- Americans in El Paso, Texas.

But no one even bothers to get to a white American Anglo-Saxon bar to find out how the WASPs feel about the election. In order to correct this oversight, I went to the Biltmore Bar the other day to speak to WASPs who claim they are being ignored in the election and are getting fed up with it. The bar was crowded with men dressed in Brooks Brothers suits. Most of them were drinking Chivas Regal scotch on the rocks and watching a discussion on Public Television between William Buckley and Norman Mailer. Af first they were very suspicious of me because I ordered a beer.

Realizing my mistake, I demanded a double Beefeater Gin on the side. They relaxed a little. "I'm from the press," I said to the man next to me. ART BUCHWALD IRS bungles murder conviction An alleged "hit man" for the underworld was set free a year ago, we have just learned, because the Internal Revenue Service held back vital information that could have led to a murder conviction. A key witness brought the informa- JACK tion to the IRS, ANDERSON which spent three months processing it.

By the time all thft red tape had been cleared away, the trial was over. The witness never made it to court. When we told the prosecutor the details of what had happened, he called the IRS "bunglers" and "bumblers." The bizarre tale began in July, 1973, in a Fort Lauderdale, nightclub. As a rock band drowned out the gunshots, a Cleveland man was lured to a pay phone and murdered gangland- style. Two years later.

New York City police, acting on a tip, arrested Salvatore Ripulone. He was returned to Florida and charged with the murder. Meanwhile, an IRS intelligence agent named Steven Favis was contacted by a reliable informant. The informant disclosed that Ripulone had confided during a private conversation that he had committed the pay phone murder. Favis immediately tried to turn this important information over to the Fort Lauderdale authorities.

But IHk rcgu- lations, which have now been changed, required Favis to get prior approval from IRS headquarters in Washington. Favis waited three months before tho approval was finally granted. But it was too late. Ripulone had been acquitted, and he cannot be retried. Philip Shailer.

who prosecuted the case, told us the IRS witness could have led to a conviction. We have not retraced the bureaucratic run-around that Favis encountered. He requested permission in an Aug. 12, 1975 memo to arrange for his informant's testimony to be heard at the murder trial. Three weeks later, the request received the routine approval of Favis' superiors in Florida.

The request'arrived at the national offices in Washington on Sept. 2. No action was taken until Sept. 22. Then a memo of approval was drafted.

Although the memo contained only three short paragraphs, it took another nine days to get it typed. Then, with the outcome of a murder trial hanging in the balance, the three paragraphs were retyped twice over the next two days. Two weeks after the final typing, the request was approved by a national chief. It was not Oct. 16.

Two more IRS officials also approved the memo. Then another IRS man suggested that the memo be reworded again. It was redrafted. The branch chief gave his second approval on Nov. 6.

The other three IRS officials were also satisfied with it. The memo then was handed up to Lester Stein, a special assistant to the chief counsel, for a final clearance. By the time it reached Stein's desk, the memo already had been retyped five times. Yet incredibly, Stein disapproved the language, suggested further revision and sent the memo back to the beginning of the line. Then it had to be reapproved all over again.

Stem eventually gave his blessing to the much-typed memo, and it was for- wardedd triumphantly to the Florida field offices on Nov. 21. But unfortunately, Ripulone had been acquitted on Oct. 17. Although it's far too late to matter, here's the statement that Favis' informant would have repeated on the witness stand.

He told the IRS, according to intelligence documents, that Ri- pulone was "a hit man for the organization. He's a sick man. "He was always trying to impress me by relating to me the details of murders he had committed. He seemed to thrive on giving me all the details." The informant repeated the boasts he hhd heard from Ripulone, including an account about how he had robbed an elderly couple in Forida. "When they couldn't tell him where they kept their money," related the informant, "he held their hands to a hot stove." Footnote: Internal Revenue Commissioner Donald Alexander has now revised his own earlier orders and has authorized IRS agents to contact local police hereafter with this kind of information.

(United Feature Syndicate) "I'm from Westport," he replied. "We never see people like you in this bar." "I'm very interested to find out how the-WASPs are going to vote in the election." Several of the other men in pin-stripe suits overheard me and gathered around. "It's very puzzling," one of them said. "Both contestants have ignored the WASPs in their efforts to attract the ethnic groups, and it might cost them the election." "Our votes are of crucial importance," another man said. "After all, WASPs make up a large segment of the population, and we have as many dreams and hopes for our children as the blue-collar working class." "I know the ethnics look down on us," an advertising executive from Greenwich said, "because we read books and go to the theater and play golf and send our children to private schools.

But where would America be without WASPs? We built this country from an agrarian society "WASPs seem to be the butt of all the jokes these days. We're getting fed up with it." to the highest industrialized nation in the world. And we did it with private capital which our great-grandfathers invested in every conceivable project from factories to railroads. One becomes very discouraged when one hears both Mr. Ford and Mr.

Carter repeating that we don't pay enough taxes." "Frederick Campbell the Third is right," a stockbroker from New Canaan said. "WASPs seem to be the butt of all the jokes these days. We're getting fed up with it. We're as good Americans as any ethnic group in this country, and we're not dumb like everyone maintains." "Why is it," a banker from Oyster Bay asked, "there are no situation comedies about WASPs on television? And when they use a token WASP character in an ethnic show why is he always the person who doesn't seem to know the score?" "Well," Horace Richardson an IBM sales manager, chimed in, "the WASP image seems to have deteriorated as the ethnic image has improved." "They say we have the highest divorce rate, the heaviest drinking problems, and the largest tax shelters. We're always being accused of wife swapping because we live in the suburbs.

"These are generalizatons that do not take into consideration the majority of hard-working WASPs who are happily married, have only one or two cocktails before dinner and watch the Adams Chronicles on television." "Very well put, Waldo," an airlines vice president said. "Every time a white-collar crime is committed people automatically assume a WASP did it. It's true that a high percentage of WASPs commit white-collar crimes, but that is only because they are in positions of responsibility where the opportunities exist." As the first reporter ever to visit a WASP bar I came to the following conclusion: WASPs are tired of being ignored by both Ford and Carter, and if neither candidate addresses himself to their problems they may sit out the election in November. As one TV executive put it, "The Republicans have taken us for granted for too long. Just because we're ov- doesn't mean we don't have feelings, too." (Los Ajigele? Times) People's forutu adoption is bost alternative the Editor: I am getting a little hot under the collar about all the things I read in the paper about abortion, for and against.

There are good and bad reasons behind each. I feel personally that an abortion for mother's health, contacting German measles within the first three months, or retardation of the fetus are the only reasons. There are many couples in this country who for some reason or other can't have children of their own. So they turn to adoption agencies, who then tell these people there are no babies available. 1 know, because my hus- a a I a through this.

We were very fortunate to have adopted a little girl whom we love very much. We tried to adopt another child and were told the adoption agency was only taking two hundred applications and these were then put in a bat and pulled out and numbered. Whatever your number happened to be is how you were interviewed. We happened to be number fifty-eight, and we were told it would be about two years before we would be interviewed, and possibly three years after that, at the very least, before we would have a second child. That is a total of five years we would have to wait.

We then decided to take our name off that list because there were couples waiting for their first child, and seeing as though we had one child we would let one other couple find the joy and happiness we had found. We feel a if a girl is foolish enough to get pregnant with an unwanted baby she could grow up enough to place it i an adoption agency to make someone happy. There is no fee for the girl in a home for unwed mothers, the adoption agency pays it all. So girls, when you think about having an abortion think of all the people in the country who would do just about anything to be in shoes. I know I would.

Mrs. Wayne McWilliams 313 W. 15th Avenue Unborn children have their rights To the Editor: In regard to the "Good reason for pro-abortion stand" by Thomas W. in Thursday's paper, Oct. 14,1 do agree with him on some of his views about abortions.

I am sure there are a lot of women who have abortions, because they don't want to be on welfare even knowing they can still get the help. Or really want to have an unwanted child and that's why abortion is the answer for a lot of them. I am sure that people are tired of paying for welfare, spending our hard-earned money. Did you-ever stop to think that why so many women or young girls get P.G. in the first place? Why does welfare make it so easy for her to get the help she needs? Did you ever watch a film on abortions? It would make you sick to see a baby, a living life, destroyed.

I am against abortions; everyone has the right to live. What should be more strongly enforced is contraceptives or not doing it at all so you don't end up P.G. and have to have abortion to be your answer. The morals and loose values of sex are unbelievable all over our land. A baby is born, a wonderful miracle that can't be made by man's own hands.

So many things that man has accomplished, yet a human being is one of God's mysteries the wonderful birth of a baby who wants to live and look for- a to all a he has a right to just as much as you do. Therese Hanan Oshkosh Oshkosh Daily Northwestern Established Jan. 6, 186ft 224 State Oshkosh, 54901 Samuel W. Heaney, A. Thomas Schwalm, Co-publishers Full leased wire reports of the Associated Press and United Press International.

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