The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 138

w4 k- JkU 9wra0i £3-BEE LETTERS TO TIIE EDITOR Miami Mcraljb Mass Transit System's Essential Here JOHN KNIGHT Editorial Chairman JAMES KNIGHT Chairman CEE HUS Publisher A1VAH CHAPMAN Jr President DON SHOEMAKER Editor JURGENSMEYER Can Mye GEORGE EIEEE Stmor Managing Editor URRV JINKS Managing Editor JOHN IX PENNEKAMP Astodat Editor 6-A Saturday January 8 1972 Miami is a beautiful eity now and it has a chance to grow ecen more if tee control our growth EDITORIALS Greater livability posed by autos and would gladly develop a mass transit system but for one major obstacle financing Dade County clearly cannot fund its own mass transit system we just have the tax base The money will have to come from the federal government But when we look to Washington we see that citizens must clearly bring about some changes there For President Nixon in wrangling with the economic problems chose not to increase federal spending on domestic needs (such as mass transit) in order to stimulate the An effective mass transportation system is one of the most urgent needs of Greater Miami if we are to avoid the recently predicted 60 per cent increase in the number of autos in Dade County by 1985 with the accompanying growth of air pollution traffic congestion and the concrete blight of expressways that already seem like stone pythons choking off our open spaces and quiet neighborhoods and slowly constricting our vital downtown area Miami is a beautiful city now and it has a chance to grow even more attractive if we control our growth and plan a city for human beings not economy chose not to raise taxes major concentrations of wealth that the government might have money provide for major urban development projects and chose not to fund widescale public service employment to put unemployed workers back to work at badly needed public works projects (including mass transit systems) Instead he chose to reduce taxes on autos to stimulate production of the last thing cities need more of i Citizens of Miami are going to have to take control of our own development if we want our city to re- main an attractive place to live but we must also help take control of the entire priorities in order to focus them on urban and human needs even if this means a new President in 1972 A Peek Is Not Encouraging for autos If we continue on our present course of development we will inevitably become a bleak stark network of freeways and rushing autos with the people pushed ever farther into the background I realize many public officials and citizens are aware of the threat to In Budgetary Shell Game Saturday Salon In 1940 (when admittedly the country was smaller) the federal debt stood at $429 billion It is a staggering thought that in 31 years it increased by 10 times We look forward to presentation of the fiscal 1973 budget but only through akind of fiscal shell-game with the dullest of anticipation FRANK HTAMEN i A Checque-Mate For Bobby Ruling Labels Us Stupid I can readily understand why every other country in the world laughs at the United States and refers to its citizens as One good reason was the unbelievable decision last week in Dade County Criminal Court in which a mistrial was rendered in a robbery trial because a police officer referred to a photo as a "Mug Our Appellate Court has ruled that the term implies that the defendant has a criminal record and of course this is classified as a "No As a decent law abiding citizen a combat veteran who has never had a draft card and a descendant of a clan of poor hard working Americans I shudder to think what our country will be like in another 10 years if we cannot walk the streets without fear because criminals are being pampered and coddled A PEEK at the next federal budget provided by George Shultz director of the Office of Management and Budget promises that it is that and that it is control but just Further the Nixon administration will follow the recent practice of handing Congress a budget balanced on a This is the favorite Washington gob-bledegook of the We wonder whether the public if it is not outraged by it is resigned to forgetting the whole thing The full-employment balance means that spending will not exceed the revenues which the economy would generate if it were running at a full-employment rate of production In the current fiscal year this simply means a $28-million deficit for there is no full employment Indeed the unemployment rolls have risen to 61 per cent a nine-year record Congress shortly must raise the so-called debt ceiling a practice which it indulges in periodically The debt stands at $420 billion-plus and will soon go through the present $430 billion ceiling Thus the ceiling and the full employ-m are meaningless terms We think they have become a fraud on the public which is fully aware that endless deficit spending which requires endless government borrowing is a major source of inflation IT IS written that is a game which the English not being a spiritual people have invented to give themselves some conception of These words come to mind at the flap in Moscow over the alleged mercenary tendencies of US chess master Bobby Fischer The Russians say that Bobby meet their champ for the checkmate crown unless some city pays them enough to perform One bid is in and at a loss to understand why Chess probably was invented in India where the people have some time on their hands There and everywhere a game of great skill but awfully slow going What are the TV rights worth at $20000 and upwards a minute? Not much say unless that is the price for mass treatment of insomnia DAVID THORPE History Will Judge Draft Evaders Mr Kissinger As Public Servant Most Americans now agree that Vietnam is an immoral war and that we were wrong to become involved But it also seems that a majority of Americans may still believe that those who refused to participate are criminals and should be punished The young people who evaluated correctly the meaning of this war may be dealt with more kindly by history than those who cooperated in carrying out' murderous acts such as My Lai Time will make the final decision as to who were the most courageous and heroic those who like obeyed orders to kill or those who resisted the efforts of the government to force them to participate against their conscience in a war without legal or moral justification JOHN DAVIS New Port Richey emerge that will change that assessment In either case such things in this election year should have ample oppor-' tunity for argument and airing Mr Anderson did his job well and deserves the thanks of both the media and the public We admire his information-gathering skill at the same time we worry about security arrangements that parted before that skill We do not join the tumult and the shouting however over the role of Henry Kissinger The Anderson papers clearly show that Mr Kissinger was carrying out the orders We are glad that the Anderson papers revealed this for it serves the public well to know that public servants do indeed lie to their public masters It is a custom in Washington and the Anderson papers help arm the public with a healthy suspicion that in time may make it unhealthy for politicians to continue the custom JACK Anderson the irrepressible Washington columnist again has thrown valuable light and perspective on the decision-making process in government This time it was no bumble by some bureaucratic underling no action that fell between the cracks of authority no mysterious sweep of policy that had no clear author and agent No this time it was the President making a foreign policy decision for his own reasons and in spite of considerable contrary advice from his stable of experts We do not yet understand the reasons but at least we know where the responsibility rests And we see nothing wrong with the resting place for foreign policy responsibility properly resides there At the moment the US posture toward India appears unwise After the Presidential trips to Peking and Moscow perhaps new information will Chopping Aivay At Liberty Tree By Dave Didio Of The Herald Staff i Profile: Modern Farm Life Sacred Too US Guilty Of Genocide Senator Lawton Chiles is co-sponsoring with Senator Scott and others an amendment to the Constitution with respect to the offering of prayer There are various ways of hacking away at the tree of liberty and this is one of them The complete separation of church and state is absolutely vital to the preservation of liberty in our country and any crack in this wall of separation is a dangerous threat of inevitable disintegration The founders of the Constitution learned the lessons of history well They provided a bulwark of protection Innocently or not well-meaning or not the sponsors of this un-American bill are doing a grave disservice to the people of all religions in this country LEWIS ALLAN A Noiseless Switch For Parks? Truly astounding logic was used in the letter against capital punishment when it cited the statements of convicted murderers that they no thought to the death penalty prior to the commission of a The fallacy is obvious It is as if I were to point to the deaths of a hundred patients shortly after their cancerous stomachs had been removed and were to then announce that the operation ought to be abandoned as a failure Such reasoning simply ignores the successful cases The letter does not cite it cannot cite interviews with those who because of fear of the death penalty gave up plans to commit murder An answer is in order to the Dec 18- letter that falsely charges the United States with colloborating with genocide in Bengladesh The writer says "All governments of the world are legally behind to punish the perpetrators of genocide whether governments individuals or private This is entirely untrue There is nothing in American law international law or treaty that imposes any such obligation on our government There exists a UN Genocide Convention but it does not apply to our government because the United States is one of the countries that have not ratified it Various groups of Hindus and Moslems have been slaughtering one another for centuries whenever it was feasible to do so but it is not the United States that is guilty of genocide ALFREDA HAAS one per state per year!) From 1960 through 1964 the rate had shrunk still further to 29 per year So we long ago stopped really using capital punishment for murder and it is therefore absurd to say that it has failed' Only once during the 20th Century have we used it in the 1930s when we really used it to stop kidnaping and kidnaping practically disappeared The most preposterous statement in the letter was the sentimental assertion primary purpose of prisons should be to rehabilitate not The primary purpose of prisons and of the entire criminal law is to protect society that is to protect the innocent potential victim of the criminal Other purposes must be secondary I agree with the writer of the letter in his regard for "the sacredness of He regards the life as sacred I the innocent potential victim of the murderer whose life is sacred I say ARTHUR BERNSTEIN sponsibility for municipal services that are yielded to county operation So the people of Miami would have the double opportunity March 14 of voting for more recreation and open space while getting all the people of Dade to help pay for it We know how a countywide vote would go on a major bond issue for new parks but it would seem that additional federal grants for parks and open space would be available in Dade County if there were a single agency responsible for such facilities Lindsay Takes Prize For Gall In escaping New York for the campaign trail John Lindsay leaves behind police scandals political scandals and a city ridden with filth crime and strikes This is the on which Mayor Lindsay stakes his claim to the national prize of the Presidency! One prize Mr Lindsay does win without contest is that for gall Lobbies Pressure The attempt to use statistics is equally illogical because it makes comparisons on the basis of figures for 1958 It asserts that "executions were carried out on a wide in that year which is simply not true The death penalty for murder was not widely used in 1958 and it has not really been used in the United States for generations On page 161 of the 197Q edition of the Statistical Abstract of the United States one can find the true figures for the executions for murder These show that in the 1930s an average of only 150 murderers per year were executed in the entire country the 1940s only 106 and in the 1950s only 60 (which is hardly more than Not The Job Of The Press For Wider Trucks THEY SAY there is no sound when a tree falls in the middle of a great forest because there is nobody around to hear it There was no great noise when the City of libraries were turned over to the Metro Library Department last October nothing except for some taxpayer sigh of relief within the Miami city limits The libraries are functioning under the same professional staff and library advisory board has been reorganized to provide Miami representation As we see it that is the route the Miami Commission should also take with its parks It is only fair that the burden of acquiring more parks and operating the present ones should be shared by all who enjoy them But it work that way now Key Biscayne residents have no public tennis courts so many of them play at Henderson Park courts Suburban residents without a public swimming pool pay a pittance to enjoy the wonderful Miami facilities at Morn-ingside Park It has been suggested that a $40-mil-lion Miami bond issue for new and expanded parks be placed on the same March 14 ballot with the question of turning the city park system over to the county That would appear to be a hopeless contradiction but the Metro Charter provides for assuming financial re Miami Be HARRY WACHTEL Brooklyn NY 1 Rural Idyll Cut Down The US Senate might capitulate to the pressure (and money) from the truck and bus people and permit the widening of these vehicles The House of Representatives has already fallen victim It must have been money that did the convincing Common sense would dictate other- On Immigration Our President recently took steps to slow down imports to help our domestic economy and to produce more jobs Why not slow down our legal immigration of 400000 a year? This certainly will reduce unemployment and also our welfare costs wise Leaving this matter to the AAA will not do Wider buses and trucks would sweep us auto drivers right off the road GRANT MORSE Jensen Beach Rule For Writers WM STRELOW Delray Beach THE FIRST use of new rules for Presidential primaries naturally is encountering some awkwardnesses Among these we count Secretary of State Richard request to the capital news corps for help in drafting the preliminary list of candidates for the ballot Only four of the two dozen news media representatives responded And at least one of them pulled a prank by nominating two of Secretary aides Members of The capital bureau properly reminded Mr Stone that the new primary law requires him to list candidates advocated or recognized in the news media rather than by news The duty devolves on the elected Secretary of State not on reporters and commentators Anyway Mr list is subject to revision additions or deletions by two three-man committees representing both major political parties They will have the final say Experience in operating under the new law doubtless will smooth jut the rough spots Should Be Excised Once more it is sad to see the self -appointed and self-anointed guardians of our environment running off at the mouth about limiting population growth in Dade County such as appeared in a letter advocating limitation of zoning to one-half-acre lots This is nothing more than a scheme to limit population to those well-heeled enough to afford such homes I know where people get the idiotic notion that good zoning equals low density It is all this acre and one-half-acre zoning which has materially encouraged urban sprawl use of automobiles clogging of highways unfeasability of mass transit and sanitary sewer systems More vicious is the predictable result that such a limitation will mean not less but more spiraling of land and home-resale costs out of sight of the common man because if the supply of a commodity is severely limited the higher the price is driven It is time we rid ourselves of the notion that this city is or can be or indeed should be an oversized suburb in an idyllic rural setting LAWRENCE FRIEDMAN Sign Your Name 11 ifjv Tl Tlie Notebook In the Jan 4 issue James Kilpatrick gives 10 rules for writers His rule seven uses in the meaning take I think the word excise comes closer to what he is saying Does he really want it removed by necromancy? I think the choice between and is resolved in many cases by considering if which can be replaced by "and it If not then probably is better JOHN KNIGIirs Notebook is taking a day off this week so additional editorial page space will be devoted to cur opinions Sunday in Letters to the Editor must hear the name and address The use of initials or pen-names as signatures will eliminate a letter front consideration for publication All letters are subject to condensation by the editors OKEECHOBEE JOE says success spoil Joe Robbie Not now Efjt Miami Hr raid WHEELER Fort Lyuderdala urxzz: ii.