The Independent-Record from Helena, Montana • 4

Tht IndeDendent Record. Helena. Montana. Sunday. July 9.

1972 Sunday Smorgasbo Page of Comment Pet Hysteria The president of the Pet Owners Protective Association calls it pet hysteria. But New York Mayor Lindsay says he is just trying to clean up the environment. As we all know, New York is crowded and even though it is crowded, many of its inhabitants love dogs. And, of course, they have to keep the dogs in their apartments. It's a common sight early every morning to see everyone out and about taking his dog for a walk so he can do his thing.

Well, Mayor Lindsay has had it. He has proposed a new law under which dog owners would have to clean up after their pets on city streets or face penalties of a fine up to $100 and 30 days in jail. The mayor says this is the best solution for the growing problem of streets, sidewalks and parks made filthy and unhealthy by some dog owners who are thoughtless. The only clean-up device modern science has been able to come up with is a bag and scoop. Our City Fathers have learned that they can't tamper with the trees.

Mayor Lindsay is probably going to find out that he can't tamper with dogs. Dog on leash and master with bag and scoop would make quite a picture though. presidential nominee. So, even if the McGovern dispute is settled, there will be a few other battles. The late John Nance Garner, who served as a vice president, said the office was equal in value to a warm pitcher of spit.

Gravel and Peabody apparently think differently. Legend Shot A former British intelligence officer, P. William Filby, who is now director of the Maryland Historical Society, shot a few holes in the legend that the flag waved over Fort McHenry when Francis Scott Key composed our national anthem. Filby says that Key got a little carried away. The flag couldn't have been waving because it had been raining that night, Filby says, and it would have taken a gale to unfurl the flag which was 30 feet in the hoist and 42 feet in the fly and required 11 men to raise it dry.

"What Key probably saw was a flag wrapped soggily around a pole," the historian said. To add insult to injury, he also says that someone other than Key had discovered that the English drinking tune "To Anacreon in Heaven" would fit the words. A British bloke just shot down another good legend. Ice Cream Remember that old cry, "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream." Ice cream has been around for a long time, but did you ever think about the cone? The advent of the ice cream cone has been attributed to a concessionaire who sold crisp sugar waffles at the 1904 St. Louis Louis World's Fair.

He shaped his confections into cones to hold the ice cream sold by a neighboring vendor who had run out of plates. home games coming up. The turnout for the Reps' dou-bleheader Thursday night was, to say the least, shameful. These kids work hard to provide you with good home town entertainment. Try an American Legion baseball game, you might like it.

Senseless While we're on the subject of baseball we would like to comment on some vandalism at Legion Park. Two ardent supporters of the Legion baseball program took a few minutes to give us a quick tour of one of the two dugout-dressing room facilities which are under construction. The porcelain drinking fountain was busted, the door to the dressing room had been kicked in and a number of electrical outlets were damaged. Volunteers contributed hundreds of hours of work on the dugouts and dressing rooms. This senseless vandalism makes us sick.

We can only ask: What in the world is wrong with people? Driver War The Missoulian recently carried an editorial in which it was stated that "at least once a year the drivers of Missoula should be informed that they are the worst in the West probably in the East4 too." The Montana Standard in Butte took objection to Missoula's stand and has laid claim that Butte drivers are not only the worst in the West and the East, but maybe the whole world. According to the Montana Standard Butte is where Hong Kong taxi drivers are trained; it's where they offer the written portion of the driver's exam in braille; it's where they put starting blocks at pedestrian crossings; it's the only city in the world where you can glance up at a traffic light and get a sly wink from the vulture waiting on top. So be it. We won't argue with Butte or Missoula on who has the worst drivers. However, we feel it is only fair to point up that we think Helena should lay claim to having the most discourteous drivers in the world.

Helena drivers don't believe in turn signals mechanical or manual. They wouldn't think of stopping for a second or two so a car can turn off of a street (such as into the Union Bank drive-in windows) or to let a vehicle enter a busy street. No siree, our drivers just wouldn't give courtesy a second thought. Butte and Missoula can fight it out; we know we have the undisputed lead when it comes to disregard of the common rules of courtesy. Convention Time From time to time we have editorially given the Montana Democratic Party a pat on the back for its well organized efforts propaganda and otherwise.

However, we can't say the same for the national Democratic Party which opens its convention in Miami Beach Monday. It's shaping up to be a real don-nybrook. At this writing presidential hopeful Sen. George McGov-ern doesn't know if he has the nomination sewed up or not. If the credentials committee has its say, McGovern doesn't.

There will probably be a battle royal and the Democrats will leave Miami looking and feeling like they tangled with a grizzly bear. If this isn't enough, Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel and the former Massachusetts Gov. Endicott Peabody are challenging the traditional method of selecting the vice presidential nominee. Gravel and Peabody are actively campaigning for the second spot on the ticket which is normally filled by the choice of the Play Ball 'What Makes You Think You Can Run the America Isn't Bad Really So The Helena Senators and the Reps, our two American Legion baseball teams, have been playing to disappointingly small crowds at Legion Field.

The Senators, with a 22-4 record, and the Reps, 9-7 for the season, deserve your support. The Senators are playing at home tonight and we're sure the coach and team would appreciate a good crowd. The senior team has been on the road most of the season to date, however, they have a lot of 1-J 9 veirira es By WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY Jr. Little by little the analysis rolls in, to the considerable disadvantage of Sen.

George McGovern who, when as he has now embraces the cause of Israel more hawkishly than anyone since General Dayan, will surely, sometime before election day, deliver a paean on the tax loophole. $42 Billion Missing A fortnight ago Stewart Alsop reported that a big McGovern backer from California, who had made a fortune in computers, consulted his computers, feeding them one consulted his computers, feeding them one of Sen. McGovern's fromulas for bringing wealth to the needy, and discovered that $42 billion was missing. I.e., that just one of the redistributionist schemes proposed by Sen. McGovern was under-financed by a mere $42 billion.

The backer was not the man best suited to question the reliability of computers so it is not known whether he will finally back off from his computers or from his candidate. Now the Economic Division of the Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, in its news letter, makes a few gentle comments about the loopholes Sen. McGovern is forever talking about. Do you remember the one about all the people who reported gross incomes in excess of $200,000 in 1970 who paid zero taxes? High indignation set in every time Sen. McGovern mentioned the matter.

What he did not mention is that there were exactly 106 such cases, and that a study of them reveals that the overwhelming majority either (a) paid taxes to foreign countries receiving the usual tax credit; or (b) paid state taxes, or (c) had deductions sanctioned by law. Facts Omitted Sen. McGovern also did not mention that there are in fact 15,000 American citizens who reported incomes in excess of $200,000 who did pay income taxes, at an effective tax rate of 44 per cent. Nor does Sen. McGovern stress the use of loopholes to people who are not necessarily rich.

For instance, the joint return permitted husband and wife, in the absence of which loophole the government would realize six to ten billion dollars in additional revenue. The new tax law of 1969, regularly disparaged as a rich man's tax law, deserves to be criticized for any number of reasons, all om them, however, more complicated than those Sen. McGovern comes up with. That tax law reduces the rate of income taxation by 82 per cent for those earning $3,000 or less; by 43 per cent for those earning by 27 per cent for those earning and so on, with a reduction of 1.7 per cent for those earning and an increase of 7 per cent for those earning $100 thousand and over. But the figures are tiresome, when put beside the principal point, which is that over the years Congress and the executive have done what they thought best to affect the allocation of resources.

The Mellon Bank's economic newsletter sums it up: Tax Law Objectives 'For example, it (the tax law) is used to encourage home ownership, to lower the cost of borrowing to state and local governments, to increase the value of retirement and unemployment benefits, to lower the cost of medical care, and to encourage private philanthropy. "Reasonable men can disagree on whether or not the individual income tax law is the proper vehicle through which such objectives should be accomplished. But it is clear that proposals to abolish the existing set of tax preferences, unless accompanied by other positive measures, imply a repudiation of the objectives which originally led to the a 1 i of the preferences." It is quite literally that simple: Should Congress, or should it not, encourage married couples, homeowners, the sick, the eco nomically venturesome? Candidate McGovern will in due course need to face up to the consequences of his rhetoric. a a i the state simply because it is a slate. In this respect the case of (ion.

a 1 1 the Air Force commander in Vietnam who exceeded his specific orders in his ardor to press the war, is interesting to examine. Lavelle should have been punished for this transgression and, indeed, he was. Whether the punishment was adequate is doubtful. It progbably wasn't, yet he did not escape scot-free. I think he should be tried by court-martial.

Nevertheless, the United States is hard enough on superhawks in uniform and whether it is hard enough on superdoves who avoid uniform is a matter of degree and also probably of emotion. The primordial fact remains that the legal system continues essentially to apply. On the whole it is remarkable that the United States has been simultaneously facing a disagreeable and highly unpopular war and an overdue and much needed racial revolution without coming apart at the seams. The sidespread black protest at unfair inequalities has begun to channel its energies increasingly into political expression. And, despite the strains of the Vietnam conflict which have imposed a burden on those fighting it, the armed forces remain firmly under civilian authority.

There are, of course, occasional blazing exceptions: race violence, military insubordination, cruelty and heartlessness. However, the United States appears to have escaped the kind of desperate solution attempted but a few years ago in France when regular officers, enraged with the French civilian attitude it held responsible for the loss of Indochina and Algeria, staged an armed insurrection against the government. The United States remains in plenty of trouble both at home and abroad. Yet I never expect to see Secretary Rogers distributing small arms to ardent Republicans in the heart of Foggy Bottom as I saw Andre Mal-raux doing in the interior ministry's courtyard 11 years ago when civil war was feared. And I never expect to learn that my friend an dcoellgaeu that my friend and colleague Tom Wicker has been locked up and banned from disseminating his views because the administration dislikes them as much as the Kremlin detested those of Andrei Amalrik.

Nor do I anticipate reading that Pyotr Yak-ir, after a jury trial reported in Izvestia, was freed for lack of evidence. By C. L. SULZBERGER JJrm $urk Staff LONDON Sometimes a a-tion is like its prophets who, the New Testament contends, are not without honor save in their own country. It is comforting to learn there are some people here who find moral value in the United States and rather more, indeed, than many Americans find.

Last month Bernard Levin, a thoughtful columnist for the Times of London, developed the idea of comparative national morality in a provocative column on the recent acquittal of Angela Davis. The brilliant Miss Davis is a proclaimed Communist as well as black and therefore (according to the president of Yale University) ineligible for justice because it is "impossible" for any Negro to get a fair trial in the U.S.A. Levin, recalling the situation of Soviet dissidents who are neither given fair trials nor allowed to air their views in the local media, goes on: "It is no use saying to me that the standards of Russian justice are irrelevant to a consideration of the American kind. "In the first place, those who declare that America is a tyranny ought to be continually reminded what a tyranny actually is, with particular examples, and in the second place it is the standards of i a justice that Miss Davis, who proudly proclaims herself a Communist, wishes to see prevail in America." In her acquittal by a jury which disliked the quality of ev-idence produced, Levin sees vindication of "the truth that American justice, whatever its faults, remains genuine justice." He urges her supporters to compare the justice America meted out to her with the type she would install in a different American system. It is appalling to hear the clamor of new left sympathizers with Miss Davis and other protesters against evident faults in contemporary U.S.

society and to compare it with the deafening silence on such subjects as the fate of Soviet dissidents recently locked up without the slightest respect for rights accorded them in theory by the Soviet Constitution. The American system has considerable tolerance for its own intolerants. The persevering determination of its judicial processes and of its press to root out injustice is too often forgotten among those who carp vsl it xj CHESS OMONSHIP ROTIKJOLWID Isn't It The Truth! By CARL RIBLET Jr. Even the most indifferent taxpayer must wonder where the money is coming from to set things right in our country. The solution, thank the stars above, is at hand: Tax the tax collectors twice, once because they are citizens like you and me, and again because they inflict such awful misery upon us and hide behind the skirts of government to escape our righteous indignation.

"If the public officers will Infringe men's rights, they ought to pay greater damage than other men." Lord Holt in 1702 Judicial ruling 'Mr. Fischer seems to be ready now shall we commence, Mr. Spassky?.