The Herald-News from Passaic, New Jersey • 11

II Section Les Plosia Stocks Week in Trenton B-2 B-2 Bill Doyle B-4 BusinessFinance B-4 Family Finance B-3 October 28, 1979 I R'jjgfl tilto ends WWAf 15 COfQR55lOAt RTCORP? roads, bridge repair and replacement, traffic signal and intersection improvement, and road reconstruction, resurfacing, and safety measures. It would also provide $80 million! for repair and resurfacing of county and local roads. The Legislature and the governor are under a more or Ifess steady pressure llf jEditorials because they provide revenue, patronage, and jobs without the political stigma of raising the taxes. A typical politician's view is that of Passaic County Freehodler Director James W. Roe.

He endorses the proposal, saying Passaic is In "dire need" of the $45 million it could expect from the bond issue. The phrase "dire need" is highly relative when used by a politician in any circumstance, but particularly when it enforces his moral authority to spend money. Would Freeholder Roe advise a constituent to mortgage his home for money to resurface his driveway? Would Freeholder Roe do so himself? It is argued in behalf of highway bond issues, that they attract matching funds from Washington. That is true. But not every bargain Is one that the buyer can afford.

The current season has been a fine buyer's market in automobiles, but the attractive terms should not induce anyone to buy who cannot afford a car. This newspaper, sometimes sympathetic to bond issues, believes the current proposal violates the traditional commitment to borrow only for capital improvements. The bond issues would set New Jersey out upon the same course that New York City followed to financial disaster: Expensive long-term financing to meet daily expenses. It is a concept entirely offensive to the spirit of prudence in public financing. THE $475 million transportation bond issue proposes an unhealthy new direction for New Jersey.

It would, involve the state in long-term borrowing and debt service to meet current expense. That course is to be shunned. The proposal would be imprudent in any season; it is particularly so in a season when the bond market is unfavorable. The extremely high current interest rates argue against any borrowing that is not unavoidable. The fevered money market likewise argues against the proposed $95 million bond issue for the state college system.

A problem even more fundamental for the college proposal is its basic inconsistency: It would authorize $95 million more to improve a plant that has steadily expanded over the last score of years, but now faces a probable protracted decline in enrollments. For these reasons, The Herald-News opposes both proposals, and urges their rejection by the voters. The transportaion bond issue would provide $150 million for mass transit facilities, $80 million for state aid to county and municipal roads, and $245 million for state highways. The money would combine with funds from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, federal funds, and state money to make up a $2.1 billion program for the next four years. It would provide for widening of state 14 OVERSEAS JUNKET5! from the road-building industry and the construction laborJ unions to promote bond issues.

But Jeven if it is assumed all of the contemplated work is necessary, it is not the ind of work that should be financed through long-term debt service. Pavement wears and cracks, and potholes appear. These things are to be expected. Roads must be repaired for winter damage annually, and repaved entirely every so many years. A household periodically replaces floor coverings; a government must; periodically renew roads.

Either is imprudent if it attempts to do so much at one time that it must borrow heavily. Borrowing is for creation of new facilities, not renewal of old. Bond issues are seductive. New Jersey politicians have found them irresistable Remember fito David Ballard was a 22-year-old Volkswagen mechanic from Baltimore, Md. He was in Las Vegas for his honeymoon; he had beeii married just about three hours before Jesse Bishop-robbed the small casino in the El Hotel, The cashier, hotel 'employee' wrestled with Bishop.

Ballard tried to help. Bishop shot both men; the casino employee recovered but Ballard remained unconscious for a few days and then died. Ballard was buried, leaving a widow who had not been a wife for a full day. Society did not join her in Ballard's other grieving survivors to consider his unreasoned, senseless, murder; or to regret that he will never grow old. Society forgot about Ballard's murder until it came time to execute Bishop's sentence.

And even then while it agonized over the large question of dignity for Bishop, it gave no thought to the innocent bride-grooni whose murder had occasioned the debate. Anyone who has covered a murder trial is familiar with the phenomenon. The murderer is the center of attention; he is after all alive and in the center of things, made more interesting by the uncertainty of his fate. His victim, dead and represented only by bloody garments, gruesome photographs and other unsettling things, is not pleasant to contemplate. In a murder trial the victim tends to be presented as an abstraction, to be argued or challenged the way an equation or chemical formula might be challenged in another forum.

The victim rarely excites sympathy, but his murderer does. In the extremely rare cases where a court imposes a punishment of death for a murderer, his sympathizers become shrill, and harsh, and full of accusation. They speak not of justice, but of compassion, dignity, and reverence for human life. They cry out for decent treatment for the murderer. It is an impassioned and altruistic argument, drawn from the finer strain of human thought.

And there is no place in it for a souring lump of clay like David Ballard. NO one saw a picture of David Ballard last weekend, although he was a figure in one of the major news stories. It went on for days, building toward a climax on Monday and concluding with follow-up details on Tuesday. story was that of Jesse Walter a murderer who died in the gas chamber at Carson City, Nev. His execution was only the third in America since the U.S.

Supreme Court invalidated most state capital punishment laws 12 years ago. In the final days preceding his execution, Bishop attracted the same attention that had followed Gary Gilmore to his place before a Utah firing squad early in J977, and John Spenkelink to the Florida electric chair last May. There was the speculation on the narrowing possibility that the sentence would be stayed or commuted; Vthere were stories describing the setting and man, and then the final of the execution. I No one can rejoice in the human! condition when a man 'contemplates the death of another. No (man is an island, and when society (extinguishes the life of one of its members, all the others are diminished.

Death is cruel. So it was for Jesse Walter Bishop. So it was for David Ballard. The difference was that society did not attend Ballard's death; he was dead before society was aware of him. He was the man Bishop murdered.

Save the earth Kill the commissions Malcolm Forbes is full of surprises My wife, who reads everything, this one is still the original. In including what I write, was either event, however, I wasl dipping into The New York News somehow surprised to hear thai And nowhere, to anyone's knowledge is there an environmental commission that has urged a town's industrial development group to bring in any busi- Malcolm had broken into the soci ety columns. Mike Stoddard Bolton yy Schwartz ness to lower ta xes. to their lifestyle, have wasted the valuable time and energy of the few state officials trying to cope with the real environmental problems that pose visible and imminent dangers to everyone. Let a strange odor waft across the horizon or let the drinking water taste "wrong" and the alarms are sounded, with the uproar focused on a few, overworked, state employees in the Departments of Health or Environmental Protection.

IT MATTERS NpT what priorities the state employees may have to solve pressing problems, let the commission members raise their voices and flex their political muscles and the pressing projects get shunted aside because the environmental commissioners want their problems to top the list. They have managed over the past decade to bring all major work on flood control to a grinding halt, shouting how each proposal will damage "the environment." It is intolerable to allow this to continue and yet the state legislators who can change the game and get rid of these useless remnants of a bygone era, believe the they make counts. APPARENTLY I was noil alone. In a brief conversation with Raymond Bateman, who in my mind knew Malcolm at leadt as well as anybody, and bettek-than most, I found he was also surprised. It wasn't that we didn't think he had everything necessary, but we had never beforp heard of him venturing into thiiit atmosphere.

I first became aware of Mu-colm Forbes in 1952 when he de Instead the environmental commissions have acted like border guards, battling anyone who is not a native to the area and; not looking beyond the artificial lines that define municipal boundaries even when common political problems link many towns and sometimes entire regions. ASIDE FROM THEIR militant resistance to any type of development, ignoring the good to paint them all bad, the commissions have long supported quixotic searches for others who agree with them and their distorted views of what constitutes a sane living environment. As if their local stupidities are not enough, the environmental commissions, in their never-ending whining of imagined threats According to the Bible there is time for everything and now it is time for the state to pass a new law getting rid of municipal environmental commissions. These relics of the late 60s when the unfettered idiots of the earth who represented themselves as the saviours of the world forced lawmakers to perform stupidities beyond their normal efforts, are no longer needed. As a matter of fact the continued existence of the environmental commissions is threatening the very thing they claim to protect, the environment in which we all live.

INITIALLY THE members of the commissions represent a style of elitist scum floating atop the political soup that should be off and thrown out as quickly as possible. By and large, the environmental commissions are composed of people who live at the end of long driveways, usually on high ground with scenic panoramas spread out before doublewide windows. Their concerns, somehow, never match those of the people who live in the lowlands or reside in the cities and yet the noise levels kicked up by the same commissions, on close inspection, mask their true Ineffectiveness and fantasies. For Instance, there has yet to be one of the more than 340 commissions In the state that has told the governing body of its municipality that there is a piece of land that would best be used for housing. THERE IS NO record of any environmental commission agreeing with its governing body that a public water supply or a town-wide sewage disposal system would be the beet course of action.

metals firm that bears the Englehard name. A key Issue was construction of a reservoir at Chimney Rock, which Malcolm espoused to the dismay of many of his friends. With two of the richest men in the state opposing each other, the campaign was newsworthy and memorable. Many a reporter sighed for assignment to that fight hoping for future rewards. Malcolm won.

Immediately, he turned to the governor again, winning the nomination, but losing in the general election to the by-then firmly-established Meyner, aided by his bride, the former Helen Stevenson. SPEAKING FOR myself, I am sorry Malcolm retired from the political scene. He was a joy to cover; straight talking, with more than a touch of humor. He must now be just about 60 years old, and surely that's too young to retire from anything. Like most good politicians, Malcolm pointed most of his humorous stories at himself.

I remember, even now, a story he used to tell when he was running for governor. He had just come home from a campaign stop, Malcolm said, and was getting ready for dinner. Two of his young sons came in shortly after. They looked disheveled. Malcolm asked how come.

They said they had a fight with "a kid down the block." What were they fighting about? Well, he said you were a son of a bee. As they were sitting down to dinner, Malcolm noticed the youngsters were still dirty. You can't eat like that, he said, go wash i.p. Reluctantly the two left the table. As they were climbing the stairs, one boy remarked, "Maybe that kid was columns the other day and came upon the name "Malcolm IFprbes," not once but twice.

The notices were in "Suzy's" column. They brought to mind images of the more remote years between the 1950s and now. And they set me wondering whether Malcolm, who has butted horns with a variety of fields of life and endeavor, is now girding for an assault on what, in my time, used to be known as "The 500." Because my contacts with the rich and famous have been few and far between (if they existed all) I was interested when my wife, reading from Suzy's column, announced that Mr. and Malcolm Forbes were the guests invited to a "chic supper party at Doubles, given by Princess Sumar." Also among the guests were such as Happy Rockefeller, the Laurence Rockefellers, the Walter Annenbergs, the Douglas Fairbanks, and so forth. LATER IN THE column, according to my wife, Suzy advises 'that Malcolm, himself, is throwing a party aboard his yacht, the Highlander.

The party i to -launch a book co-authored by Malcolm's son, Robert, who is "credited with the photography featured in the volume. As far as I could make out, the pictures are "toy boats." I knew Malcolm fairly well in the 1950s, although I cannot claim that we were close. In fact, along with other reporters I was a guest aboard the Highlander and was impressed by its beauty and com-'iort. I'm not sure whether or not that was the forerwner of the -current Highlander or whether feated Republican Senator Freiis Hess of Somerset County for the party nomination for senator. Elected senator, Malcolm cast his eyes at the Republican nomin.4-tion for governor.

Bateman was one of his managers. Malcolm was then a year or so over 30, the minimum age for the governorship. He had been graduated from Princeton in 1941, and served in the infantry in World War II, emerging as a staff sergeant wilh' a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, and had become associate-editcr-vice-president of the family publication, Forbes Magazine. 1 MALCOLM LOST the Republican nomination to Paul L. Troast, who was beaten by Robert 1 B.

Meyner in the general election. I In 1955 Malcolm's Senate seat was assailed by Charles Englehard, of the diamonds and preciouls SundayHerald Weivs A Drukker Communications Affiliate 1 08th Year in the Service of the Public 1872 DOW H. DRUKKER 1963 Austin C. Drukker President-Publisher Colt Hendley Jr. Vice President-Executive Editor 1906 RICHARD DRUKKER-W3 Richard E.

Wyckoff Vice President-Qeneral Manager C. Richard Paduch Managing Editor Offices are located at 988 Main Avenue, Passaic, N.J. 07055, telephone 365-3000. Willowbrook Vail, telephone 365-3252 Member of- the Associated Press 3-.