The Berkshire Eagle from Pittsfield, Massachusetts • 16

16 The Berkshire Eagle, Friday, Feb. 18, 1972 Letters to the Editor The 1 Eagle Ecumenical yawn confessed Published every day except Sundays and holidays by the EAGLE PUBLISHING COMPANY 33 Eagle Street, Pittsjield, Massachusetts, 01X1 Editorial The highwaymen strike back Looking Back 50 Years Ago Circelo del Progresso, or the Circle of Progress, was the name of. the newly organized club for Italian residents1 over 21 years of age. The-object of the new organization was to promote good fellowship among the older Italians in the Arthur Morano was named president. Dkfi Dondi.

for 14 years head chef at the'Wendell Hotel, resigned his position 'to assume the management of the Belmont Lunch, at 313 North which he purchased from the owner, Peter Pappas. 25 Years Ago John L. Sullivan, a member of the Pittsfield Police Department for 37 years, 31 years as chief, retired from his duties. Miss Laurette Martin, supervisor of elementary education In the public schools, and Mrs. Charles H.

Vickery, president of the Pittsfield Parent-Teacher Council, spoke at the second anniversary of the Crane School PTA. Atty. Stephen B. Hibbard was appointed a Marine Corps Reserve recruiting officer in Pittsfield. 16 Years Ago Vincent J.

Hebert, superintendent of parks and recreation for the City of Pittsfield, received the annual citizenship citation for meritorious service awarded by Adullam Lodge, B'nai B'rith. Carl D. Nichols of Williams-town, supervising conservation officer for Western Massachusetts, retired from the state Division of Law Enforcement after more than 34 years of service. John Kot'of Mahaiwe Street, Great Barrington, who bowled the first perfect 300 game in Great Barrington, was honored at a dinner at the Barrington House. To the Editor of THE EAGLE: I confess.

I yawned at the Ecumenical Service at Pierce" Chapel at Cranwell on Jan. 30. I also chattered once or twice in the back. And although it's been year or two since I've been accused of being a teen-ager, I am willing to bear that cross. I did not arrive late, because I consider it disrespectful.

Someone else will have to confess to that I yawned because I thought the liturgy was long, tedious, and by giving equal weight to the word and to communion-like aspects of the service, the poetic tension crucial to good liturgy was lost Traditionally, in Protestant liturgy the emphasis is on preaching the Word. In the Catholic Mass, each part of the Mass contributes to the evolution of emphasis on communion. When the liturgy attempts to stress both, the pace is fractured, the focus diffused and the ritual freezes into a rigid equilibrium similar to a see-saw held in horizontal balance. When elements of the Protestant liturgy and the Mass are combined, a hybrid results that is not fruitful After the service, several people said, "What counts is that we were all under the same' roof." I disagree. What counts is that we are true to ourselves under the same roof in order to hand down to our children a faith and a liturgy rich in vitality.

Compromise will not create this. Experimentation and evaluation will. Sharing our deepest joys and sorrows in honesty will. Covering them up will not. Father Ferrick is a brilliant ht- urgist I am glad that he is struggling with this difficult creative and religious problem.

I am grateful for his openness of heart which enabled my husband and I to tell him of our negative reaction to the liturgy. My gratitude also goes to Rev. Mr. Hindi cliff for his efforts and participation, and to the Cranwell community for allowing the service to take place. Experimentation and evaluation are essential to the.

development of dynamism in religion. With authority in disrepute, there must be vitality both in theology and liturgy to insure that witness to Christ reaches far and wide. Had more of the changes since Vatican initiated first In selected communities over a long period of time and evaluated carefully, some of the weaknesses that developed might have been avoided. A community of religious that welcomes the laity is perhaps the best place for such attempts because it is apt to have members who have had considerable experience in the universal church and because the question, "If they're doing it in that parish, why aren't they doing it in mine?" is avoided. I trust that my Protestant brothers and sisters value honesty as well as unity, and that my fellow Catholics and the leaders of my Church value vitality, more than the past, for the sake of the future.

Unfortunately, I find it necessary to suggest a penance for The Eagle for having exposed Jan. 31 my yawns and chattering to the world. The Eagle demands an expertise from those it hires to review movies and sports events. For its penance The Eagle must demand a professional background in religion and liturgical expertise from those it hires to review religious liturgies. The rest of us will stop writing letters then because we'll know religion is valued by The Eagle as much as movies and basketball games a miracle in this day and age.

VIRGINIA FINN 92 Cliffwood St. Lenox Ms. Firm was chairman of the Inter-Faith Dialogue Committee and wrote a newspaper column on ecumenism while living in New Hampshire. She has also served on the subcommittee for -liturgy at the Cathedral in Springfield, and taught homileU ics at a Roman Catholic seminary. Reasons behind Crisis in faith' To the Editor of TUB EAGLE The problems of Pittsfield's South Church 28 seem typical of many churches in the United Church of Christ.

I am a member of a UCC church, and I am also a member of two study groups, one based in Northampton, and the other a nationwide group based in California, composed of laymen and clergy concerned about questionable activities within the UCC structure. Studies show that withholding of financial support, and declining membership are the methods whereby the man in the pew expresses his rejection of such things as the shift to humanism, violent social action, the corruption of literature for youth, the growing involvement of the church leadership with communism (Fidel Castro' has boasted of this), the diversion of mission and endowment funds to support a mushrooming bureaucracy and political lobby, the opposition to the prayer amendment (42 people made that decision for the entire denomination), plus a "Big Brother Knows Best" viewpoint that suddenly transforms a church official into a pundit of wisdom on all secular matters. These tendencies in the UCC are some of the more evident reasons for the money crunch and "faith crisis" or lack of fol-loweirship so deplored by the hierarchy. Congregational churches are unique (and fortunate) for they are completely autonomous. They are free to continue the present trend toward so-called "Marxist or plot their, own courses without state and national domination.

Ephesians 6:12 and Luke 20:46 are offered for meditation. WENDELL S. MOULTHROP Bancroft Road Becket )'--" Unscientific method To, the Editor of THE EAGLE: Selling buttons would seem to be a mighty unscientific method highway expansion arid, in particular, to make some of the vast boodle in the federal Highway Trust Fund available for mass transit as well as for For the better part of two decades this fund has" been producing (through federal gas taxes) up to $6-billion a year. A host of special interests, ranging from highway contractors to truckers, from oil producers to bus companies, have come to regard it as almost their life's blood. But more and more of their former allies in Congress are defecting to the heresy of a "balanced transportation" concept.

Even Secretary of Transportation John Volpe, whom the road-builders once counted as one of their would now like to see the Highway Trust Fund tapped for mass transit. And at the state level Mas-, sachusetts, for example the insurrection is even more evident. An additional reason for the highway lobby's alarm is that the interstate system which the fund was originally designed to finance is now more than 75 per cent They want to be sure that the funds keep coming; and to this end they are pushing vigorously for the present program to be succeeded by an "economic development highway" plan which would construct new thruways in economically depressed regions with the rationalization that this On the theory that the best defense is a good offense, the national highway lobby has embarked on a major publicity and advertising campaign to persuade the public that what this country needs is a lot more macadam, not less. The campaign is already highly audible and visible on the airwaves and in the press, through ads proclaiming that the automobile is the greatest thing that ever happened to America and (somewhat inconsistently) that the safety of millions of motorists will be imperiled unless sufficient funds are provided for rebuilding and relocating some 200,000 miles of "unsafe and substandard" U.S. roads.

Supplementing the advertising efforts, according to a lengthy analysis of the highwaymen's campaign in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, is a small army of publicists who are fanning out across the nation giving canned speeches that picture environmental concerns like strangulation and auto-exhaust pollution as foolish fancies. The speeches contend, among other things, that it would take 26,972 years to completely pave America, that the only answer to highway congestion is more highways, and that if we didn't have auto pollution we would have the considerably worse problem of coping with "mountains and seas of horse excrement." As for the highway lobby itself, the theme of the highway lobby's promotion is that it doesn't exist. "If you call those who benefit from highways 'the highway lobby says the official propaganda in a masterstroke of ob-fuscation, "then it is the' entire Amer- Notes and An Irish solution suggested ican public." The main reason for this aggressive of determining wrro is the ro-thr Editm ut the eagle 7oofnotes Washington Calling We have to find a better way to pick Presidents By Marquis Child's WASHINGTON OF THE 30 SENATE roH calh so far in this session of Congress, the record of five Senators seeking the Democratic presidential nomination is as follows: Henry M. Jackson missed 27; Edmund. S.

Muskie missed 26; Vance Hartke missed 23; Hubert H. Humphrey and George McGovern each missed 21. No wonder Majority Leader Mike Mansfield called it lousy January end now a lousy Along comes Lincoln's Birthday and the Senate recesses so Republicans can speak at Lincoln Day fund-raisers. Washington's Birthday promises to bring a similar exodus. And that ancient curse, the Southern filibuster, has been hanging over the Senate since a measure to give the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission powers of enforcement over job discrimination was introduced on Jan.

18. THIS AMOUNTS to a virtual break- down of the legislative process. The root cause is the farce of the statewide dential primary system. It is becoming a form of roulette, with a flock of money players, who have about as much chance for the nomination as Clifford Irving. Currently 22 states and the District of Columbia have presidential primaries.

Another is soon to be added, with Michigan becoming the 23rd state, as the legislature wrangles over the form the primary will take. By 1976 the number will be 35 or 40, with each state having its own whimsy calculated to raise the haz- -ard for serious national candidates and enhance the lottery for the free riders. This is how it works. The head of the state Chamber of Commerce, who may be the secretary of the statewide hotel- motel association, or some other worthy concerned with promoting business comes to see the governor. Look, gover- nor, he says, at the publicity the other states are getting with their primaries.

You can't buy that kind of publicity! Why shouldn't we have a primary? And if it's set for the off-tourist season youH get a lot of folks coming in here, reporters and candidates and people hke that, who'll take up some of the slack. NEW HAMPSHIRE started it and, next to textiles and skiing, it rapidly became one of the state's principal industries. That so. much shouldiurriLQn such a minuscule count is one of the absurdities of the system. Four years ago 55,464 Demo- 1 crats voted in the Democratic primary.

Of that total Eugene McCarthy, the Pied Piper of the young and the disaffected, got 42.2 per cent. On a write-in vote President Lyndon B. Johnson got 49.4 per cent, or roughly 27,000 votes. This tiny tally produced explosive results. Johnson' announced he would not run for another term.

The impassioned with McCarthy as their guru, went on to savage the Democrats at Chicago, thereby contributing to the Democratic defeat in November. On the Rs-. publican side, sloshing around in New Hampshire's snows, George W. Ron -after a quick reading of the polls op'cJ out in favor of Richard Nixon. THE CANDIDATES confront grave handicaps in this Chinese auoton.

First is the inordinate length of the One result is indifference and bore-domwilh-crowds, if-they can be called crowds, embarrassingly small. The primary stretch-out means that choosing a President takes most of a year, with resounding apathy a consequence. The second serious disadvantage is money to finance the forays into seven or eight or more states. Political treas- -uries are exhausted even before the nora-mating conventions and the mercenary character of American political life is enhanced manyfold. Even among those who opposed It, a nationwide primary with uniform rules in each of ithe 50 states and a runoff be-tween the two or three top winners a week later is beginning to win favor.

Any-thing, they are saying, is better man the present chaos, with the prospect that in the last of the primaries, California's winner-take-all, an outsider with 22 or 23 per cent of the vote could cut down Muskie, the front-runner. AH this is taiiormade for President Nixon, the incumbent, seeking re-election with only token opposition. And so Is the do-nothing record of the Senate as the Democratic candidates pursue the wary voter. Lighter Side Accident prone The driver of a -huge made a sudden stop and the car behind him crashed into him. Uninjured but irate, the motorist shook his fist at the truckdriver and shouted, "Why in blazes didn't you stick out your hand?" "If you couldn't see my truck," came the reply, "how could you be expected to see my hand?" Wall Street Journal Oversight French student Jean Louviot traveled for several months throughout Europe this year with a false photograph on his passport He was never stopped, even though the photograph was of hia cocker spaniel.

Said a red-faced border offidal: "It's the way kids wear their hair these days." Die WtUwocht ririch). campaign off the kid gloves," as the Highway Users Federation defines it) is obvious. Because of the upsurge of environmental concern, there is mounting pressure to slow down the giddy rate of A mighty stalemate in the chess world world's strongest man, or the country's greatest ball player or Pittsfield's prettiest girl. One of the contestants in the Winter Carnival queen contest is reputed to have said, "The prettiest girl is going to sell the most buttons." Maybe and maybe not. It is not inconceivable that the most beautiful girl is not the girl with the most ambition or the most energy or the most time to devote to soliciting backers.

However, the least pretty of the contestants may be the possessor of aB these essential assets. As Loran Little said Letters, Feb. 1, most people buy me buttons because they don't want to appear cheap. -In my case, because I dislike to see disappointment and discouragement -in anyone's eyes, I purchased a button from the one1 and only contestant who approached me, without having any means of comparing her with her rivals. Measured by courage and honesty, Mary Murphy is probably the beauty of them all.

JAMES F. DERIVAN' 121 Collins Ave. Miami, Fla. 1972 is too far along in history to settle the 150-year-old English conflict with Ireland in half measures. Once and for all, here is possibly a way to eliminate this perennial hatred, bloodshed and strife.

The following four steps, in my opinion, would put, an end to this ever-widening civil war: Set a date preferably not beyond Dec. 31, 1973 for all of Northern Ireland to, be united with the Republic of Ireland. 2. Simultaneously guarantee that the Republic of Ireland will vigorously protect full civil rights and property of all non-Roman Catholics who choose to remain in the Republic of Ireland after unification. 3.

Set up a gigantic Relocation Fund for assisting and compensat--ing all Northern Ireland Protestants who are either unwilling or unable to live in a united Republic of Ireland. All those who wish to leave for resettling in such areas as England Australia, New Zealand, Canada, or other Commonwealth countries (certainly not Rhodesia) are to obtain resettling assistance from such Reloca- ROUND ABOUT: News that a federal judge has ruled that Georgia's law against mixed marriages was unconstitutional and that the U.S. Supreme Court voided a similar law in. Virginia brings to mind the story of the black who knocked at the pearly gates and demanded instant entry. St.

Peter asked why, and he said he'd taken part in the Selma (Ala.) March. St. Peter said lots of other blacks had, too, and that was no reason for special attention. The black came back by, saying he had been married on the Montgomery, courthouse steps," but St. Peter wasn't Impressed.

Persisting, the black manrsaid it surely was "special" because he had married a white woman. "You may have something," St Peter admitted. "When did this happen? "About 10 minutes ago," was the reply It's that time again. Notice comes of the annual Smith College FundVEiual-centribuhons to the Relocation Fund should be made by both the U.K. and Eire.

Savings when the IRA closes up shop, and when all English police, troops, equipment, and maintenance costs are removed from Northern Ireland, will go a long way in making up a major portion, if not all, of the Relocation Fund. 4. Assist all homeowners, land-, owners, businessmen and professional people who want to leave, in selling their property in an orderly manner, and at fair prices, prior to Dec. 31, 1973. With civil rights guaranteed and the threat of civil war removed, probably fewer than 100,000 persons of the one million non-Roman Catholic population in Northern Ireland will want to leave.

The time has long passed Jfot "right" and "wrong" judgments. Historically and geographically, Ireland is one island. To talk about the "Roman Catholic minority struggling for unification" or the "Northern Ireland majority (Protestants) insisting on maintaining ties with Britain" is playing games with numbers and history. In a united Ireland there would, be roughly 3.5 million Roman Catholics and 1 million Protestants. Indeed a different story! Apart from other considerations, and rather than permit such unification, would it benefit or be preferable for the non-Roman Catholic population in Ireland to accept last week's dire predictions of The Economist of London that, "there can be no end to the kill-ing in Ulster until Ireland is wasted and exhausted by its civil A.

J. ROSENSTEIN Clayton would spur employment and eventual industrial development. Some $100 million for this type of boondoggle was authorized under the-1970 Highway Act as a starter. A proposal to spend a chunk of it for a needless superhighway to cut across lyorthemNewEngland nas made and fortunately rejected by the six New England governors. But the highway lobby is confident that it can brainwash the public into seeing that the program is continued and expanded in the future.

land, which had offered a mere It seemed that the Russian defender is as interested in playing in a climate closest to his native steppe, Leningrad, as he is in the rubles. In order to get things moving again, the International Chess Federation has ruled that the match, scheduled to start in June, will be split between Belgrade and Reykjavik, 12 games in Yugoslavia and whatever is needed of the other 12 in Iceland. Splitting the difference in the bids brings the fig- ure to $138,500, which is better than a fool's mate. However, neither party has indicated whether or not this move is acceptable. There are the' pawns of Montreal, Buenos Aires, Sarajevo, sterdam, Paris and Dusseldorf still on the board.

Fischer is brooding in his castle and the Russians are looking for rookery. It could be that when the match does come off, it will be anti-climactic. can find consolation in the fact that one result has been a marked slack-off in the rate of increase for electric power consumption throughout the region It is decidedly encouraging to find the current Issue of the IUE Local 255 News voicing such responsible con cern for GE's economic problems in Pittsfield. If the union manifests a similar sense of responsibility when the time comes for some difficult decisions on efforts to increase local productivity through changes in work rules and incentive rates, the picture could brighten considerably A salute to Representative Dennis Duf-fin of Lenox for his llth-hour'save of Bertha Clark's bill making it easier for prison inmates to qualify for high school equivalency certificates. The state Department of Education's continuing effort to torpedo this obviously desirable reform on the grounds that it can't afford the miniscule financial outlay remains a shocking example of bureaucratic obtuseress.

More on nursing issue A stalemate in chess occurs when a player cannot move any piece except his king and cannot move his king without putting it in check, the result being a draw. A stalemate in setting up a site for a world chess championship, match occurs when our king, Bobby Fischer, and their king, Boris Spassky, cannot agree on which city should have the honor. Honor doesn't have too much to do with it because Fischer has made it plain that the honor should go to whichever city guarantees the most money for the. players five-eighths to the winner and three-eighths to the loser. Belgrade, Yugoslavia, came up with the highest bid, $152,000, a good move as far as Fischer was concerned, but Spassky held out for Reykjavik, Ice-In Brief Since no officeholder likes to be told that his job is superfluous, there's nothing surprising about the rising drumfire of opposition in North and South Berkshire to Senator Nuci-foro's eminently sensible proposal to reduce the number of district courts in the county from six to three.

It is annoying, however, to find it being attacked on the grounds that it would add to the taxpayers' burden when in fact its main purpose is to eliminate the economic waste of maintaining courts that aren't needed. To hear the champions of the present horse-and-buggy system tell it, the mostreconomic and efficient arrangement would be to have a court in every town and village in Ma'ssachu-' setts It's an ill wind that blows nobody good. The mild temperatures this winter have been hard on winter sports enthusiasts, and the sluggishness of the economy Is obviously no cause, for joy; but conservationists If the well ran dry To the Editor of THE EAGLE: I agree with Elroy Spitzer Letters, Feb. 14 on the necessity of sewer-use taxes. The only way to convince people of the need for improved water and sewage facilities (and the funds for them) would be the absence of such facilities; that is, empty taps and plugged drains.

Strange how Pittsfield can get so upset over a challenge to the sanctity of its Winter Carnival, but cannot stir from its stupor' to take a stand on an important issue. Public concern is not at a "low ebb," but in total subsidence. FREDRIC M. OLTSCH 248 Undermountain Road Lenox book sale at the Williamstown First Congregational Church. Proceeds go to the scholarship fund.

Actually, the sale isn't until April 27 and 28, but it's none too soon for folks to start gathering up books they will do-, nate to the sale. Donations may be left at the Red Feather House, 54 Wendell Pittsfield or with Mrs. J. H. Hunter, Buxton Hill, Williamstown (call in advance and Mrs.

W. L. Barber, Whipstock Road, Bennington. Obey that impulse v. Mrs.

Jennie Gleason called and asked if we would make known in these notes that the Benevolent Association of the Blind, of which she is a member, thanks everyone who helped reach this year's goal of some $2,000. So, there And another tjiank-you from Kenneth Knickerbocker, who writes, "Last Friday afternoon the power was off here in Ty ringham for three hours. As I emphysema and, need power to operate equipment I have to use, one good young man from Western' Mass. Electric truck (I do not know his name) was good enough to stop by and see if he could help me. He had helped me last year under similar circumstances.

Many thanks to him and our good neighbors who came to offer help." Well, what do you know! Three folks, with the Berkshire Hills report that as of this month they have among them 40 years' service. Mrs. Joseph Trasatti has been there 14 years, John V. Geary for 14 years, and Mrs. Raymond CaHahan, 10 years.

All started work in February of the respective years, and their total years are considered a record for a service agency tenure. JUST heard of a town so small that when someone plugs in an electric razor the trolley stops. DEFINITION: False modesty worry that others will find out how wonderful you are. it be just great to be as sure of anything as some folks are of thing. RICHARD V.

EAPPEL meet Pittsfield's needs, let alone Berkshire County. Congressman Conte is presently supporting a bill to give HEW more money to' fund hospital schools of nursing. It would be ironic if this funding became available after the St. Luke's school was closed. I agree $250,000 is a lot of money but in the over-ail hospital budget it isn't that great and there may be other and better ways to save the same' 'amount' and still retain the nursing school.

BEATRICE LAMONT, R.N. Administrator Berkshire Nursing Home 360 W. Housatonic St. Pittsfield i Patients will lose To the Editor of THE EAOLI: i I find it hard to believe the clipping that was just mailed to me saying St. Luke's School of Nursing is closing.

There is no comparison between the education received in a three-year diploma program and in a two-year program leading to an A.S. degree. Students in the iatter program do not have the hours on the wards to learn the practical side of bed-side nursing. It is sad, to see' an excellent -school turn its back on community needs. In this country today there is a serious nursing shortage.

The nurse of today must have more educatiojjthan ever before to carry out new procedures and to keep up with recent medical advances. The doctors depend on nurses to observe the patient and note changes in his condition. The bedside nurse is most likely to note these changes. The will be the losers in the end. It would be interesting to hear the doctor's views on this closing.

DOLORES CRONIN DAIGLE 95 Malley Ave. Avon To the Editor of THE EAGLE: In reply to Patricia L. Strizzi Letters, Feb. 14, who leaped to the defense of Berkshire Community College's nursing program, tiie issue is not whether St. Luke's School of Nursing or BQC provides a superior program nursing education.

It's a question of quantity: whether BCC will be able to meet the demands for nurses in Pittsfield and surrounding communities as well as have the two schools put together. There is also a question of advancement. St. Luke's is ac-' credited by the National League -of Nursing. One of the reasons the BCC nursing program is not accredited is that it has not been in existence long enough.

But any(nurse wishing to do further work toward her bachelor's degree or seeking a commission, in the armed services must be a graduate of a school accredited by the National League of Nursing. What happens then without St. Luke's? MARGARET McGURKIN, S.N. 333 East St Pittsfield. Possible, HEW help To the Editor of THE EAGLE: As an employer I know, how severe the nursing shortage is.

Every nursing home administrator in the county is worried about staff. St. Luke's has long been known for its good nurses and to sacrifice this quality care on the altar of economy may haunt us for years to come. True, health' costs must be considered, but how good is a hospital without good nursing -care? Berkshire Community College is doing a fine job with its two-year nursing program but state regulations, faculty and space limits their number of students. This number is insufficient to Other Opinion do not get the feeling of a country on the brink of revolution or torn apart by hatred -rthe kind of impression you might get if you only read the page-one Back-road America Charles Kurali, TV broadcaster, Natives are restless to the EditoTof "THE Once again it is town-meeting time in the Berkshlres.

Reports of sessions' held so far indicate the natives are restless and worried. Inflated budgets in ed still life I'm a AcHs) ucation and welfare are the tax 's' main concern: when we lge them, we are told that STEAKS-RSTsA BEEF ive no choice but to pay. in the Columbia Journalism Re viewu on ltis impressions after four years of roaming the nation -filming his "On the Road" series To read the papers and to listen to the news, to be a reporter working in the midst of the great movements that are sweeping the country and trying to make sense of them, one would think that the country is in terrible trouble. You do not get that impression when you travel the back roads and the small towns. You find many strengths that you previously weren't aware of.

You find people who are courteous and neighborly and who really do care about their coun-. try and wish it well, and seek for leader-chip to heal the wounds of the country. You iterity seems the watch' word this jeajDjallon. would be wise to maintain the status quo, keep our present form of government and thank the citizens who have served us so well. EVANORE TUPPER 51 Franklin St Dalton.