The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 6

SATURDAY MORNING, JANUARY 2, 1971 CEORCE IRAZIER The lifry life A lime of testing Current history suggests that on Beacon Hill this state may actually have reached a greening time. Never in memory have so many factors combined to set the stage for constructive change and progress. The structural reforms of the 60's have placed in Gov. Sargent's hands instruments of power unknown to such strong executives as Paul Dever and Christian Herter. As a man who has always felt that what the writing game needs more than anything else is fewer books and more bitchiness, I'm naturally delighted to notice' that lately the exchanges of incivilities between members of the lit'ry set appear to be increasing both in number and nasti-ness.

At last we're proving that our hatreds are in the right place. Not, of course, that we don't have some catching up to do. Offhand, I'd say, for example, we're still at least six months short of such majestical jousting as went on between CP. Snow and F.R. Leavis, perhaps a year to go to approach John O'Hara's snobbish sarcasticide of Clifton Fadi-man, and maybe a decade before we can compete with Carlyle's assessment of Emerson as a "hoary-headed and toothless baboon" and Henry 'Gene McCarthy's throwing his ring into LETTERS TO THE EDITOR James's dismissal of Carlyle as "the same old sausage, fizzing and sput- tering in its own grease." Still, we're getting there, and 1 largely, I'd say, because of the tender sentiments aroused in real writers by the collected works of Mrs.

Mans- field. Indeed, if Mrs. Mansfield ever achieves literary immortality, it may well be because, on a single evening1 i not long after the publication of her "Love Machine," Truman Capote de- scribed her as looking like "a truck driver in drag" and John Simon not only branded her novel "trash," but also accused her of having false teeth. Mrs. Mansfield, in turn, referred to the Mittel European Mr.

Simon as a Nazi. All in all, it was as exhilarating as anything since Capote, when asked his opinion of Jack Kerouac's ing, had stamped his foot and said, "That's not writing that's typing." Late, though, Tru has been taking it easy, and God knows where we'd be had not Simon been waiting in the wings to rush on as a replacement. But before we get to him, I i must tell you about the time O'Hara gave it to Fadiman, and gave it to him good, too, and if you don't be- i lieve'me, you can always look it up, as Thurber said about Pearl'DeiMon- ville. This particular bit of waltz- I me-around-again-Willie was incited by Fadiman's review of O'Hara's "Hope of Heaven" in the March 19, 1938, New Yorker, in which he Ob- terved, "A minor matter, the book is full of that pseudo-portentious detail which was so effective 10 years ago 1 but has become shiny with wear of iate. You know the sort of thing: 'I put on a new double-breasted suit and a blue shirt and brown foulard i tie and an old pair of Scotch-grain I say this is spinach.

Who i cares what he put on? Let others write ads for Brooks Brothers, Mr. O'Hara; you go ahead and be a novel- ist." I Well, if you knew John O'Hara -j like I knew John O'Hara. oh oh. oh State government is cither a 1 dying anachronism, the hope of thp 1 future or something else; and no- body, really, knows. i This coming year, on Beacon Hill and in the lives of people touched by state government activity, Massachu-1 setts is going to discover whether the institution can survive its troubles 1 and its critics.

This is no overstatement. Oh, there will always be states, in the sense that the traditional gco- graphical units will persist in pco-1 pie's minds. Capes Ann and Cod could scarcely be anywhere else but Massachusetts, could they? But serious doubts are growing in 1 thoughtful and influential minds as to the wisdom of continuing to in-' vest state governments with the vestiges of sovereign authority left to them by the Federal government. Regionalism is the alternative most frequently proposed. Another, once fashionable but currently out of style, is the continued expansion of the power of the Federal establish-' ment over the day-to-day lives of all of us.

Either course flies in the face of increasing disaffection toward, and even rebellion against, vast, impersonal institutions which blindly exercise an essentially meaningless, Kafkaesque control. Whatever its faults, state government for reasons of mere proximity and scale is more human, humane and capable of more and quicker responsiveness than the Washington Leviathan. But capability implies willingness and intention, which are functions of leadership. State government's most important task in 1971 will be to improve its chances of survival as more than a ceremonial unit by convincing people it is a better repository of authority than Washington. The challenge comes at a time when the state as institution is charged with being costly, unresponsive, wasteful, venal, archaic, ineffective and ridden with petty politics.

The charges have a lot of truth to them. But they do not represent the whole truth. Most private institutions suffer from the same difficulties. Institutions are, after all, human. And private institutions neither impose taxes nor do their business in a permanent glare of publicity and reportage in which individual ambition is well served by the sensational device of harsh criticism.

State government is dammed because people are poor, sick and old, because whites and blacks do not get along, because air and water are polluted. This is a little like damning the churches because people, quite often, are not good. All the institutions can do with any degree of credibility is demur. Route 128, salt In the short run, it is probably more important to speed traffic along Rte. 128 than it is to protect the underground water supply of the town of Burlington, and other towns along the circumferential highway, from chloride pollution.

And yet, isn't the current controversy between the town and the Department of Public Works a classic, textbook example of how we are spoiling the world for our own convenience? DPW Comr. Edward J. Ribbs states that the department cannot alter its policy of providing a bare surface on state highways for the safety of motorists. Perhaps. Again, in the short run, it is" not difficult to see his point The prospect cf cars passing at 60 miles an hour from a bare highway onto a snow-covered surface at the Burlington town line is not a pleasant one.

Nor is it reasonable to expect the Frosting on the Galileo once made a thumping discovery. Everybody had supposed the sun moved around the earth. He suddenly found it was the other way around, that it was the earth which moved. Another discovery of human error, much less cosmic but sweeter, has beea made by a local resident Cakes, he perceives, are wrongly constructed. All these years the bakers have been making the dough thick and the frosting thin.

The cake is likely to turn out two inches thick with only a buttering of icing on top. As th? mouth is constructed, it's. a (rare person who can bite down 1 through the whole cake. The ordi- The Legislature has new, young able leadership in Speaker David Bartley and about-to-be Senate President Kevin Harrington. It is getting competent staff and, under pressure and in the face of inherent difficulties, is striving to present a more favorable picture of itself to a public which has too often used it as a scapegoat.

The elections are over with the exception of legislative elections on the state level for another four years. Sargent won election in his own right by a convincing mandate. There is no personal bitterness between him and the Legislature. It is true that the tasks facing this state government are enormous. Massachusetts needs an over-all revision of its tax structure to relieve the real property tax burden, aid municipalities and preserve here a political climate conducive to industrial and commercial activity.

It needs to solve the transportation problems that threaten to paralyze and impoverish metropolitan Boston, and other population centers. It needs to see to it that its new automobile insurance laws work as promised for both the accident victim and the premium payer. It needs to revitalize its court system to speed up and refine the administration of justice. It needs more effective means of environmental protection, and the imagination, will and courage to employ them. It needs to see that the reorganization scheduled to take place in April and thereafter serves to make government more effective, responsive and economical, not merely heavier at the top.

All of these and more, are within the scope of authority and the present capability of the state government of Massachusetts. The question unanswered is whether both the will and the goodwill to achieve them exist at the top' and throughout the entire, structure of the insitution. Perhaps it is naive even to hope that they do exist. And yet, never in modern history, if we can see beyond our recent disillusionment, has the outlook contained so many favorable aspects. Indeed, if state government cannot produce and deliver in 1971, its critics' assertion that it is an outmoded relic will be powerfully documented.

For, if it cannot in 1971, it probably cannot in any year. and water DPW, on the basis of information currently available to it, to stop all salting immediately statewide, even if the Turnpike Authority, the MDC and the cities and towns would join in. Nevertheless, the DPW could easily have been more responsive. Perhaps Ribbs's successor may evidence more concern for the environment. The protection of water supply, in the long run, is probably more important than bare surfaces on state highways after snowstorms.

Not so long ago, before the widespread, heavy use of chlorides, society managed to survive. What is needed is an independent, adequately funded study, outside DPW, of just how serious the chloride contamination problem is and what can and should be done about it. Burlington Sen. Ronald J. MacKenzie plans to file a resolve for such a study, which deserves speedy legislative approval.

cake nary person has to gnaw off a section from the bottom, then get the sweetening later. What's more, the cake is likely to be rather dry, even though it's supposed to be moist Eating cake without frosting is something like eating bread without butter. By rights, the cake should be thinner and the frosting thicker. "Say, one inch of cake and a quarter-inch of rich, fattening icing. This change would be wildly popular.

Also, it would be better for those on diets, who are going to backslide anyway. Were the cake sweeter, with a richer proportion of sugar to dough, the craving for dessert might be much the sooner satisfied. the Whom does VA serve You recently published an inter-1 view with the head of the Veterans' Administration, Donald Johnson. It is intended as a rebuttal of my testimony before the Subcommittee on Veterans' Af of the US Senate. The testimony, based on a two-year study that I have been directing, indicated that when former combat troops return to civilian life they tend to engage in some of the same forms of violence that they committed in Vietnam.

I therefore suggested a bootcamp in reverse was necessary to partly rehabilitate these men before they become civilians. Six alleged quotes from my testimony appear in Mr. Johnson's comments. Of these, three are partially inaccurate and two are totally inaccurate. Further, I deliberately did not identify the community in which this research has been done: Mr.

Johnson identifies it again inaccurately. Far more disturbing is his assurance that the Vietnam war does not have adverse psychological effects on American troops when they become civilians. He makes one wonder whether the VA is serving veterans or the Administration. CHARLES J. LEVY Boston 'Waltz with Marxism' Naive is the name for David Deitch's Dec.

18 article. "Christianity and Marxism," which maintains that a philosophical merger of Christianity and Marxism is not only possible, but inevitable. I say naive, because I recall the case of Czechoslovakian theologian, Oscar Hromadka, who backed Marxism all his life, but flipped when Prague was invaded in the summer of 1968, and condemned Marxism roundly. The result was that the Russian Orthodox Archbishop Nikodim, the Moscow Patriarchate's representative to the west, ordered Hromadka expelled from the presidency of the Christian Peace Conference, which Hromadka, himself, had founded. Sure, waltz with Marxism, and find yourself hit in the face in one way or After all, the Siberian slave labor camps need workers.

In our own country, we are gifted with men so weak-minded that they consider the possible merger of philosophical ideas with known murderers, arid if you think I'm wrong, where do you think Sin as Kudirkaisnow? For shame, that we have come to tolerate those who kill and terrorize. God help us, that we have become so sophisticated, we can blithely shake hands with murder. PATRICIA C. SAMODELOV Wollaston GLOBE MAN'S DAILY STORY A Wellesley father who enjoys chess was out for a drive with his four year old son when they passed a cemetery which contained numerous Celtic crosses erected as gravestones. "Dad," said the boy, "look at all those big chess pieces." indeed pitifully small.

But defeat of the SST could be the beginning of a turn away from the paucity of the jet-set culture towards realistic values. In fact, it is a far more accessible target than the larger issues, and at the least it would serve as a focus point towards more important accomplishments. In killing it we would have made one step in progress, and perhaps it would give us the courage to move forward to attack the more expensive problems. GEORGE W. BREWER Dedham Rent control fiasco As to be expected, rent control has turned out to be a real bag of worms.

Brookline is in a comical state of confusion, with nobody knowing what rent to pay. Cambridge has just fired its Rent Control Board head for failure to fairly enforce a law that cannot be enforced fairly. And Boston (as always) takes the simplest approach by totally ignoring its law. I certainly can sympathize with low and fixed income families being forced out of their apartments by increasing rents. But I find it totally incredible that anyone can see rent control as the answer.

Rents are high because interest rates, construction and maintenance costs, and taxes are very high. This is coupled with the fact that demand exceeds supply an effect that almost always leads to higher prices. To lower rents, what is obviously needed is a larger supply of inexpensive apartments. This will only come when interest rates are lower, because construction and maintenance costs will probably not go down in the near future: The Tax Commission is a step in this direction. Rent control is a quaint leap backwards.

KEN BOUCHARD Brighton Dividing the map Concerning the Polish "bread" riots, I have been very surprised that no mention has been made in any coverage that I have seen, of the fact that these riots started barely a week after Chancellor Willie Brandt of West Germany signed over 40,000 square miles cf former German territory to the Polish government. Now why Willie Brandt had the authority to do this and not say, Chancellor Ulbricht of. East Germany or the United Nations, I shall never know; but the fact remains that as long as the established governments, of no matter what persuasion continue to go over the heads -of the people and divide up the map of Europe, (and indeed the world for that matter), according to their own dictates, i.e. the current geo-political fantasy of the time, then they and we are just asking for trouble. What I would like, to see is less emphasis on which establishment ideology is best for the people and more emphasis oh what identity and way of lif people throughout the world wish to freely choose fcr themselves.

MARTIN" MOGEY Boston SST risk's Passing the SST appropriation has four major risks. 1 The best way to control the environmental danger is to insure that large scale investments are not made in areas which are almost certain to aggravate the problem. A most sensible solution is to both halt construction of American SSTs and insure that the inferior European counterparts cannot successfully be produced by banning them from American airports. In this way, the rather questionable projects will be halted on all sides with a concurrent strengthening of more desirable segments of the economy. 2 In order to buy Egyptian oil, South American produce and African minerals, the United States relies on domination of the markets through advantageous balance of trade.

Americans must learn that they cannot perpetually prosper while citizens of these other nations live in poverty. Glamour projects such as the SST only aggravate a situation where emphasis should be placed on world cooperation towards genuine human goals. If we fail in these reforms we risk handing over these nations to hostile ideologies by default. 3 In a time of new pressure to utilize our vast technological resources for human needs (housing, mass transit, cities' problems), such a project as the SST would serve as a technological "sink" allowing these resources to remain in the grasp of the "Military-Industrial Complex." Finally, perhaps the biggest issue involved is a symbolic one. Compared to other wasted resources its costs are EDITORIAL POINTS The old grouch is glad when holidays are over.

He hates to have to work himself up to a pitch of enjoyment. Fortunately for all sinners, the extenuating circumstance is still with us. Even when it's a false alarm, the heavy-snow warning is something to take to'heart. Congress takes its sweet time about improving Social Security payments. Congressmen aren't sitting around waiting for a monthly $63 check.

If a person grew older at the rate the days grow longer, he'd think it was pretty fast Woman's place is said to be in the home, where she's happier if man is absent about 10 hours a day. Congress goes home but the President can't He lives there. Pro football doesn't stop all at once. Like the war, it gets wound down after an undue length of time. The situation in the Mideast reflects humanity's inadequacy.

It just doesn't know how to cope. Skinflicks might draw even bigger crowds, except that so many are afraid they'll be seen patronizing the box office. For a nice turn of speech, let us applaud the character who describes the "war on poverty" as a lover's spat what an implacable enemy. But he was sly, always willing to wait for an opening. One presented itself when he was asked to do the introduction to "The Portable F.

Scott Fitzgerald." In it, he was a Maxie Rosenbloom, a Willie Pastrano, a dancing master. After feinting Fadiman off-balance with a tribute to Fitzgerald's concern for brand names, he suddenly landed with his right. "A prejudice persists," he wrote, "among some eye-weary souls who are professional book critics that men's clothes are not worthy of description. I can think of one fellow, for instance, who used to earn his living at book criticism but is now a sort of radio announcer, who used to suffer terribly when Brooks Brothers was mentioned. And yet if a writer were to put the fellow into Brooks Brothers clothes he would recognize him right away for a spy.

This particular ex-reviewer doesn't, however, know much about clothes and there are photogjaphs to prove it." And I saw the photographs, and he was right John Simoni isn't a man to fool with, either as he proves in the December 21 issue of New York, where he made mince-meat of John Lahr, who in December 10 Village Voice had questioned Simon's review of a production of "Orlando Furioso." If Lahr were a bright boy, he would have kept a civil tongue, for Simon made the boy look absurd "infer" for "imply" and "brunt" for "butt," indeed! Why, Lahr didn't even know English, let alone Ariosto. Just, Wednesday evening, however, when he and Erich Segal were both on the Cavett show, he seemed almost affectionate, observing that while Jacqueline Suzanne was incapable of writing anything better than the trash cf "The Love Machine," Professor Segal naturally must have meant "Love Story" to be trash. Segal's loneliness as a long-distance runner was' as nothing to whet he suffered 6.