The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 5

The VANCOUVER SITN: July 15. 1972 5 'ELITISTS' TAKE PARTY PROS AT THEIR WORD KWix'''aiiifig''iJ PAGE FIUE Hell, they didn't really mean it Political asylum is not for terrorists TORONTO STAR An editorial in a liberal daily. this contention. He took the bne, following British legal authorities, that crimes of violence cannot be considered political offences unless they are part of an insurrection, rebellion or civil war. Since nothing remotely resembling these conditions existed at the time in the U.S., the Wisconsin bombing was regarded as an ordinary murder case, and By MIKE ROYKO A column from Miami Beach in the Chicago Daily Newt.

It was almost two years ago. The place was the VFW Post Hall in Chicago Heights, 111. The event was a fund-raising dinner for Tony Scariano, an independent-Democrat in the Illinois legislature. The ball was full of people eating spaghetti and chicken, drinking Gallo Hearty Burgundy, and breathing the smoky air. On the speaker's platform were politicians, most of them the local type.

All except one. Sen, George S. McGovern was there. I was sitting there, too, because Scariano, a friend, bad asked me to introduce the politicians with insults, which I accepted as a sacred duty. I couldn't think of any wisecracks for McGovern, though, because I felt sorry for him.

Here it was, more than two years before the next election, and he was in a Chicago suburb, at a spaghetti dinner for a local politician, trying to get it going. He was trying to add a fraction of a fraction of a point to bis wispy support. A Kennedy didn't have to do that, or a Johnson, a Rockefeller, a Muskie or a Humphrey. They might do it, but they bad something more important they could bank on: some sort of concentrated power in the form of a magic name or money or the big-time political powers. About all I could see that McGovern had was the urge.

Before his speech, I asked him bow it was going. I told him it looked like an impossible thing to do. In that very sincere way of his, he said: "It's going fine. We have a long time to go." He made his anti-war speech, got a good response, then spent the rest of the evening walking around, shaking hands, smiling, meeting people. And I still felt sorry for him because it seemed fruitless.

One of the others was sure to walk in and take it away from him. Now I'm sitting In the Miami Beach convention hall, waiting for him to make bis acceptance speech, while most of those forms of concentrated power are somewhere else, pouting and whining that he has turned the Democratic party into a shambles. I didn't recognize at that spaghetti dinner Hartford (Conn.) Timef "Wait a minute! Isn't that ting average than in keeping up wilh the way their congressman votes? The people sitting as delegates are those wbo got up and did something. They didn't turn on the TV and wait for George Meany to tell them who they like, or for Richard Daley to tell them how to vote. More and more such people are getting involved in politics.

I have a theory and it goes like this: For a couple of decades, one of the fastest growing industries has been leisure time activities. People have jumped from one time-killer to another. But many have found that fun and games aren't enough. They have found that they can't identify with a quarterback who peddles shaving lotion. Now they are finding that politics gives them something.

They can have fun, and thrills, and a greater sense of identity out of politics than out of all the store-bought pursuits. For this they are being called elitists. I don't know what that means. If it means somebody who takes an active interest in the course of his country, then they are elitists. But those who slump on the sidelines 1 call vegetables.

Maybe they mean Shirley MacLaine, the actress. She's easy to make jokes about, and I've made mine. But ail I've seen her do down here is tough, organizing work that is the backbone of a political organization. If that makes her an elitist, then so are Daley's precinct captains. And I find her less elite than millionaire Bob Hope, a joke-maker using his dough for the RepubUcans, or Spiro T.

Agnew hob-nobbing with Frank Sinatra and Zsa Zsa. There's nothing elite about most of the people at this convention. They can't compete, as elitists, with the kind of Wall St. powers who are never far from President Nixon. When they say elitists, I think about Chicago's Aid.

Anna Langford, a McGovern delegate, and I have to laugh. Ms. Langford is a brilliant and humane black woman, born poor, who put herself through law school late in life, barged into politics, and got herself elected to public office in Chicago. If that background makes Anna Langford an elitist, then so was Abe Lincoln. Those who now moan about shambles, elitists and disunity ought to be honest about what they mean.

They are saying that they don't bke not being able to call the shots any more. And they mean that letting people have their say is a nice theory, but they sure as hell never meant it. (: The decision of Judge Harry Waisberg in the Karleton Armstrong extradition bearings should help clear up a dangerous confusion that has been growing on the subject of political crimes. Canada's Extradition Act forbids the surrender of any fugitive to another country "if it appears that the offence in respect of which proceedings are taken under this act is of a political character." But what exactly are "offences of a political Traditionally these have included such actions as taking part in a conspiracy to overthrow the government of a country, fighting in a civil war or rebellion, or violating the sedition laws by spoken or written attacks on the government. Canada and other Western nations have generally been unwilling to surrender fugitives accused of such offences in their own countries.

The last few years, however, have seen the spread of a new type of "pobtical" crime. It involves acts of violence murders, kidnappings, robberies, bombings and burnings which are crimes under the ordinary law of ail nations, and for which the perpetrators could normally be extradited without difficulty. But they claim they were inspired by political motives, and that they are therefore entitled to asylum as political offenders. The Armstrong case was clearly of this type. Armstrong was accused of blowing up a research building at the University of Wisconsin and killing a scientist working there, and be was formally charged with murder by the Wisconsin authorities.

At the extradition hearings, however, the defence claimed that the bombing was a political offence, intended as a protest against the Vietnam war, and therefore that Armstrong should not be extradited. Judge Waisberg rejected porters he needed people like Tony Scariano, who says what he thinks, and the kind of voters who like Scariano. In this era of the image, advertising, TV, and ail the shortcuts, he and his supporters were organizing. They have created some shambles. If Muskie or Humphrey had been able to create this kind of shambles, one of them would have stood up there Thursday night.

George Meany says it's a shambles. But his definition of a shambles must be any situation in which he can't point his cigar at a grateful candidate and say: "You're it." The worst shambles I've seen in politics was not as McGovern's enemies are saying the year Barry Goldwater's people took over the Republican party. Instead it was 1968 in Chicago. That shambles was a gift from Richard J. Daley and Lyndon B.

Johnson, who virtually handed the election to Richard Nixon. Now they are crying that McGovern has snatched their party away from them and is ruining it. For years, the Democratic party milked the black vote. In return it provided handouts in the furm of welfare, and civil rights laws that people had coming anyway. But it didn't give The traditional politicians preached that the young should get out of the streets and work within the system.

Now they have done it and the old-line pols are upset. Who thought they would actually take the advice? Sure, a lot of the young political activists are obnoxious, especially to those of us who are losing our hair. But it keeps them out of the pool halls, doesn't it? The most significant new faces are those of the women. I den't know if the politicians realize yet what a political force women have become. They've been preparing for years, with their PTA work, charity drives, community organizations.

A determined woman with a list of names and a telephone can be awesome, especially those who know they have a brain but never had a chance to really use it. There's truth in the complaint that McGovern's organization and his delegates are short on blue-collar workers, union members, and the kind of people who were called "the silent majority." Whose fault Is It If people prefer being silent to speaking up? Who says they have to endlessly watch pro foolball, instead of a few political debates? Who says they have to take Karleton Armstrong Armstrong must be surrendered for trial. This is a sensible approach to a difficult problem. The present wave of terrorism is very different from the popular rebellions that sent so many exiles abroad in earlier times. Through vicious, cowardly methods, a small group of malcontents seeks to intimidate a whole community.

Canada has a special reason for taking a firm line in this matter. As the tragic events of 1970 showed, we have our own terrorist movements. Unless we are prompt in handing over fugitive terrorists from other countries, we cannot expect the co-operation of these countries in bringing to justice our own malefactors. that he was doing what the old-time politicians used to do so well before they became complacent and let it slip. He was gathering up the votes, here and there, a few at a time.

them a voice. Now they are getting it. I don't knowing some stranger's bat And he was gathering up the kind of sup was gathering up the kind of sup- see anything "divisive" about that. greater pride in kr Feeding the poor really pays off intelligent farmer in TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL A 29-year-old lays enormous atten- DOrne 11 children. greater pride in intelligent farmer in pays enormous atten A 29 year-old borne 11 children.

mother had Every Canada The first eight were born without diet From an editorial in a politically independent daily. Yes, chess can be a murderous game DETROIT FREE PRESS From an editorial. tion to the proper nutrition of the birds and beasts he raises. Canada gives nowhere near the same attention to ensuring that the human population of the country is properly fed. Yet, to take it at its lowest level, there would be a tremendous return in dollars and cents if Canada did.

Agnes C. Higgins, director of tiie Montreal Diet Dispensary, and her staff of dietitians, have since 1963 produced conclusive proof of what proper feeding can do. Canada has not been greatly interested in her work, but recently the report of herself and her colleagues on the Montreal experiment was one of five nutrition papers chosen for presentation to the International Congress of Endocrinology in Washington. Mrs. Higgins based her work on the research of others which had proved, among other tilings: that it was risky to the baby to try to keep the mother's weight during pregnancy fashionably down; that assistance, and all had small birth weights.

One died at the age of one month. For her last three pregnancies the mother had diet assistance, and these three babies all weighed within the ideal range. A physical and mental assessment of all the children was done at Montreal Children's Hospital. The last three children were found to be normal. All of the others were found to be disadvantaged and likely to require support off and on through life.

It cost the public $125 to give the mother diet assistance, including the free milk, oranges, eggs and vitamins, for each of her normal babies. The cost to the public of maintaining a defective child throughout life in an institution or in the community is more than $100,000. It would pay us a thousand times over in dollars and cents to apply Mrs. Higgins' good sense and compassion to all of Canada's poor. mothers who were well nourished during the last 15 weeks of their pregnancies produced bigger babies; that bigger babies (7 to 8'a pounds are considered the best weights) tend to have more brain cells than smalier babies; that small babies have drastically increased rates of stillbirths, deaths in the first weeks and months of life, cerebral palsy, mental retardation and lowered intelligence.

Functioning from this knowledge Mrs. Higgins and her colleagues went to work on some of the most deprived mothers in Canada, women from two public clinics in poverty-stricken areas of Montreal. Between 1963 and 1971 their study group included 1,725 mothers. Of these, 1,055 had five years of education or less, 1,164 were so poor that they were entitled to food supplements, 515 of the pregnancies were illegitimate. On her first visit to the clinic each mother was assessed on the basis of income and diet.

If her income was too small and the incomes of 67 per cent of the mothers were too small she was given food supplements of milk, eggs, oranges and the standard minerals and vitamins. Her needs were carefully calculated to take into consideration underweight, protein deficiency, shortage of calories and special conditions of stress. The average birth weight for these babies was the same as for babies born to private patients in the same hospital. The record for premature births and for early death was as good as that for private patients, and significantly better than for other public clinic cases who had not had the diet treatment, and significantly better than the Canadian average. A single family can perhaps most graphically paint the picture.

American chess whiz Paul Morphy used to amuse himself, and psyche out his opponents, too, we imagine, by playing eight expert chess players simultaneously while blindfolded. The antics of the likes of T. von Heydebrand und dcr Lasa, Georges Kolla-nowski and, of course the three Hungarians, V. Grimm, J. Szen and J.

Lowenthal, did not go unnoticed in their day. Bobby Fischer seems living confirmation of the well-documented medical syndrome in which the overdeveloped chess talent neurons are found with a concomitant atrophy of the maturity glands. Quibbling at the chess board, as we have been witnessing in Reykjavik, is not new the sport, of course. As is well known, King Canute was engaged in a hot match wilh Earl lilf when Ulf, in a fit of pique at having his rook captured by one of Canute's pawns, no doubt, kicked over the board. This so angered Canute that he ordered Ulf murdered, which dastardly deed was done in a cathedral a few days after the match.

And great chess players have frequently been characters and show-offs. In the mid-19th century, Audley, London Sunday Telegraph "We get this one for understanding how the Democratic nomination system works." SHj LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 'Where do the children Fete concert Force can't win allegiance thrilling stand why so many Quebecers of the laboring class have pinned tbeir hopes on the secession of Quebec. I suspect you know very little about the Well you've cracked the sky, scrapers fill the air, But will you keep on building higher, Till there's no more roon up there? Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry, Will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die? I know we've come a long long way, We're changing day to day, But tell me, where do the children play? From a child of twenty-one. JULIA DREXEL 6128 Southlands Place quote a song from Cat Stevens' album Tea for the Til-lerman: Weil I think it's fine building jumbo planes, Or taking a ride on a cosmic train, Switch on summer from a slot machine, Yes, get what you want to, if you want, Because you can get anything. I know we've con.s a long way, changing day to day, But tell me, where do the children play? Rene Levesque; mischief maker? Editor, The Sun, Sir You have once more stated in your editorial that the main cause of Quebec unrest was economic.

By underrating the cultural factor and overstressing the economic, you are actually implying that French-Canadians are incapable of idealism and are crassly materialistic. You have no right to present as a fact what is only your freely asserted opinion. You would do well to remember that what is freely asserted may be just as freely denied. The separatist movement gained its impetus in the '60s at a time of near full employment and great economic prosperity. You have also staled that the main exploiter of the French-Canadian worker is Uie French-speaking employer.

If this were the case, it would be difficult to under the province who wishes to specialize in French and study in a French-speaking university. 2. You could publish one cartoon in French. I must add that the late editor of the Edmonton Journal did both (1 and 2) on his own initiative. I do not know if this very praiseworthy policy is still in effect.

It is not by calling M. Rene Levesque a "mischievous man" and doing nothing on the positive side to "de-alienate" French-Canadians that you will serve the cause of Canadian unity. I was horrified to read that you sympathize with the suggestion that force be used to keep Quebec in Canada. Allegiance cannot be won by furce, as history has already proved. A.

J. JOHNSTONE 1314 Mountain Highway, Horth Vancouver Liberal gov'ts helped little Editor, The Sun, Sir Having listened to Minister of Transport Jamicson on the TV expound in this election year on all the developments in the northern half of our province, which our Ottawa Liberal government is now promising, my memory goes back fur a span of 40 years when as a young man I worked in the mineral areas of the north. Little or no help was ever given by the various Liberal governments to open up this vast region. It is only after Premier Bennett had the courage and foresight to extend road and rail facilities that these other politicians are now jumping on the bandwagon. I noticed that Minister of Transport Jamicson showed no element of sportsmanship in giving credit to tire B.C.

government. To me it was rather a nauseating spectacle to see and hear the minister, surrounded as he was by other B.C. federal Liberal cabinet ministers, enumerate all the "goodies" at a time when their re election is in doubt. After many long years of neglect and apathy by Ottawa, I feel sure the people of British Columbia will be able to properly judge the situation. R.

E. LEGG 6642 Adera i.t'llcri to the editor must be signed by and bear the address of the writer. A pen name may be used only in special cases. The Sun may edit letters for brevity, clarity, legality or lasle. Editor, The Sun, Sir Though it may be a little late to comment now, I have been thinking about the Kerrisdale school playground issue ever since reading the three letters which were pubUshed in your paper.

I am a resident of Southlands Place, which is about a block away from the proposed site of the playground. What strikes me as being odd about the whole issue is that I can't understand why people would bother to become so upset about such a small matter when there are some real problems for concern in and around Vancouver. (Four Seasons development, Second Narrows crossing, the downtown mess of high-rise construction, the careless development of the Gulf Islands .) Where were these people then? Or are highways, high-rises, and whole city-block developments all right because "they aren't hi my I find that kind of narrow and selfish attitude to be almost unbelievable, but perhaps it is still hanging on among some of the more comfortable members of society? (or which I admit I too am a member). Here's hoping that the "I'm all right Jack" attitude dies with Ihcm and does not prove to be hereditary. And here's hoping that the kids, who seem to be all but forgotten in the issue, don't decide that glue-sniffing or petty vandalism isn't more fun than an empty playground.

In closing, I would like to F'rench-Canadian mind, culture, language and history. Since you so ardently champion the cause of the confederation, may I suggest two positive steps you could take to promote "la bonne I. You could offer a yearly scholarship for a student in Editor, The Sun, Sir Why all the fuss about the concert on Parbament Hill on the 1st of July because it was uni-lingual? I watched the concert on TV and was thrilled, not offended. For after all is said and done, the people of the province of Quebec are Canadians, and here was a native of that province, M. Andre Gagnon, giving his best; that he spoke in his mother tongue should be beside the point.

Music is an international language, understood by all. How many people go to an opera, have no idea of the plot or of the language used, yet get great enjoyment from the music and the way the artists interpret it? So we have on Parliament Hill tins Dominion Day an all-Canadian orchestra, a Canadian conductor and a Canadian artist who played superb piano and who had composed most of the music performed; music that does not have to take a backseat to any composed by the masters. Here we had a true Canadian concert and it made me feel proud to be a Canadian. I made a tape of the music and sent it to my son in Laos pointing out these facts. I hope 1 may again hear a concert by the same performers including M.

Gagnon and his music. Let us be thankful that we have a Canadian artist of his stature. MAGNUS OPPEL 350 Harmston Courtenay Cat Stevens: have we com a long way? LJa hitchhiker: we have your coins' Hellyer loses votes Editor, The Sun, Sir South America. We did not exchange names but he did describe his family. Father a free lance writer.

Has written several books, one on tne California seals. The family lives alternately in Vancouver and Victoria. He has a brother a year younger than himself, and a sister, J4 years old. One of our group thought he said he bad spent three years in Amherst, U.S.A. We want to send the coins to the young man, and need an address.

He said he would seek employment as a forest firefighter next perhaps in Alaska. If you can contact the family or let us know where to send the coins we would appreciate it. (Mrs.) E. R. LEWIS 3285 MacVicar, Topeka, Kansas, 66604 Editor, The Sun, Sir We are trying to contact a young man wno was hitchhiking across Kansas on June 6, 1972.

He bad been away from home for nine months and was returning to British Columbia. Ife was travelling very Ught and left a bag of souvenir coins in our car. These probably are his only remembrances of his trip through Mexico, Central America and grievous mistake, and the arrow he shot will finally ricochet. Many families will be very disappointed but will look forward to the bill being passed in the near future. (Mrs.) MAY STONE 7272 Kingsway, burnaby Judging by the performance of Paul Hellyer in the House of Commons when he killed the baby bonus bill, he must be a very rich man, and docs not care about the low income families.

I think Hellyer has made a.