The Pantagraph du lieu suivant : Bloomington, Illinois • Page 4

Art Buchwald Read it here! Convention scenario Opinion Page Ufa mi apagfy FwnJtd January 14, 837 byjnsi tV. Fttl Since I $46 DAVIS U. HAROLD V. LKTONfitor CHARLES R. IIILTY, Mkg jor On the first ballot McGovern picked up 1,234 votes, well shy of the 1,609 lie needed.

The rest were split between the other candidates with the uncommitted refusing to vote for anyone. The second and third ballots found no one budging. By the tenth ballot of Wednesday's all-night session, the convention was hopelessly deadlocked. THE STATE DELEGATIONS caucused right on the floor, trying to get people to change their minds. But it was impossible.

On NBC, John Chancellor and pavid Brinkley became short-tempered and WILLARD P. HORSMAN, Mtfmpr LORINGC. MERWIN, awfiiihJ dares leave the floor for fear that someone will grab his seat WHEN SOMEONE TRIES to speak he is hooted down by the opposition faction. Larry O'Brien, the chairman of the party, has the podium ringed with the National Guard so no one can grab the microphone. The nomination speeches have not been heard, but the candidates have been nomlnated-McGovern, Humphrey, Wallace, Chisholm, Jackson and Muskie.

There have been no demonstrations for the candidates In the hall because everyone is afraid if he gets up and marches they won't let him back in his section again. WASHINGTON Everyone has his own scenario for this week's Democratic National Convention. The way things have been going with the party, one scenario has as much validity as the next. This is the one that I have written and if it comes true, remember, you read it here. It is the fourth day of the convention and the Democrats have been unable to decide on a presidential candidate.

The fight to seat delegations has taken up three days and those people who were ruled ineligible have refused to give up their seats to those who were officially designated as delegates to the convention. Almost every state delegation has two people sitting in every chair. No one Bloominntan-Normal, Illinois, Sunday, July 9, 1972 Free press not quite so free if news sources unprotected source can rely on the shield of confidentiality against unrestrained use of the subpoena power, valuable information will not be published and the public dialogue will inevitably be impoverished. Newspapers ask no special privilege to remain silent when in possession of information concerning a crime which has occurred or is about to occur. However, the newest court ruling confuses confidentiality of source with withholding of evidence necessary to the investigation of a crime.

If the decision stands, the ultimate result may be jail terms for contempt of court. No reporter worth his salt will endanger the life or earning power of a source to whom he has promised anonymity. And no reporter worth his salt will refuse to write a story of consequence and fact out of fear that he will be punished for so doing. of those who govern us are seldom broadcast by those guilty of the misdeeds. Often a person aware of the misdeed informs a reporter, who gets important information on the pledge that the informant will remain anonymous.

This route is taken only when openness will not do; when protection is necessary to save the job or reputation of the informant. The truly important information on wrongdoing does not come from criminals, but from law-abiding citizens, some of whom, of course, may have personal motives outside a desire to right a wrong. Vet the Supreme Court majority wrote that the preference for anonymity of confidential informers was a product of their desire to escape criminal prosecution and hardly deserving of constitutional protection. The minority opinion held that when neither the reporter nor his refused to tauc to eacn oiner. Mowara Smith and Harry Reasoner on ABC were also not speaking to each other, and on CBS, Walter Cronkite wasn't talking to himself.

It was obvious to everyone in and out of the convention hall that a compromise candidate had to be foundone who had not already been nominated. BUT WHO? The Democratic party leaders call a recess behind the podium. They argue and thrash it out for several hours. The only man whose name is proposed as the compromise candidate is a very famous, but controversial, figure on the American scene. He has announced many times that he is not a candidate for the presidency or the vice presidency, and has said under no conditions would he accept a draft.

Yet, the leaders argue he is the one person who can save the party. This young man, whose name had been associated with a very embarrassing incident, is a household word now. Because of the deadlock at the convention, he is the only one who can possibly beat Nixon in November, THE COMPROMISE candidate is not at the convention. He has purposely stayed away so people would believe he was not interested in the nomination. O'Brien puts in a call to him.

Everyone, in turn, gets on the phone and tells him he has to be the candidate. The compromise candidate speaks to McGovern, Humphrey, Muskie and Wallace. They urge him to run. The candidate finally agrees to a draft and says he will take the next train to Miami. And that's how Bobby Fischer, the U.S.

chess champion, became tho Democratic presidential nominee for 1972. THE ISSUE Who is the ultimat. beneficiary of freedom of the press? Some Americans hold the belief that the free press guarantee in the U.S. Constitution is little more than a license for newspapers, periodicals and broadcasters to succeed in business without really trying. Attempts of the press to counter such beliefs seem self-serving to those of us who write about the free press and, so, perhaps, to most readers.

Vet, so fundamental is a free press to a representative government that the theory of press freedom Is never challenged not by Mr. Agnew, not by the Supreme Court and not by anyone who thinks about the issue at all. In practice, however, those who would curb free press, speech and assembly ordinarily do so by advancing other constitutional guarantees which they insist modify ond limit free press and speech. One such limit upon free press is the growing practice of government mostly federal government to force newsmen to yield up the identity of sources of information. The U.S.

Supreme Court, in one of the most fatuous decisions to come from that bench in years, has now ruled, 5 to 4, that the First Amendment does not protect a newsman who seeks to guard the identity of news sources. danger here can be exaggerated by the press, but danger exists nonetheless. And the danger is not to the press, but to a free people. With all their faults and abuses, free press and free speech have been the twin guardians of a free Go slow on space issue to- STOP FLAPPING YOUR WINGS AND SETTLE DOWN' bleak for a reversal of the upward trend, councilmen ought to explore every possible avenue for holding down these costs if they decide some type of expansion is in order. They should not allow the automatic veto of economy proposals by city administrators and department heads on the ground that the more expensive way would be more convenient for employes.

For example, the idea of moving the Parks and Recreation Department to the Miller Park pavilion instead of adding more space for it at city hall, shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. A demonstration of the need for enlarged facilities would not relieve the council of its responsibility to look- closely at ways existing facilities might be used more effectively to keep the expansion within reasonable bounds. The day may come when the Bloomington City Council decides there are no two ways about it either the city hall building must be expanded or the day-to-day functioning of city government will be seriously impaired. But that day does not appear to be immediately at hand, and the council is to be commended for taking a cautious, go-slow approach to the possible eventual need for structural growth. The reshuffling of office space within the building which the council seems ready to approve as a short-term answer to the elbow-room problem, should provide an opportunity for careful study of long-term space needs.

This way, the council won't have to commit-itself to a plan before all the facts are in. With construction costs at their current high level and the outlook Roscoe Drummond Primary system needs overhauling people from tyranny. This sounds Colorful and dramatic. But it is historically true and it's true to- day. in practical terms, the misdeeds Editorial views reviewed bring to bear on the end result a small minority of voters.

This just isn't good enough. Either the whole nation should have the opportunity to vote in one national primary or at most a series of three of four regional primaries-or there shouldn't be any primaries. Anything else is unrepresentative, undemocratic and misleading. THERE ARE pitfalls to such 3 national primary if the decision is binding. Things could go awry and in a moment of aberration an oddball could win.

I have always thought we ought to try out the national primary tentatively until we find out how well it works. It could be advisory with the conventions making the final choice. But save us from another such 23-mile cross-country primary race like this year. MIAMI BEACH-In the breathless moment between the end of the marathon series of primaries and the beginning of a frenzied national convention, two tilings can fairly be said: 1 Sen. George McGovern has earned the Democratic presidential nominationif anybody has.

2 Presidential candidates ought never again to be subjected to Uiis hideous, unfair, undemocratic process for deciding who shall be nominated. IF OPENLY ELECTED national conventions are not to be trusted to make the choice, then the exhausting, demeaning, profligate system of end-on-end primaries must be radically reformed. The fact that these primaries did not yield anything approaching a majority verdict of the Democratic party does not make McGovern's moral claim any less valid. He used the only system open to him. He used it honestly and effectively.

He won most of the delegates in contest. Fifteen other candidates tried; seven fell by the wayside. No other contender While we do not intend to lead a march to restore the death penalty, the Supreme Court's confused position in its death penalty ruling is a poor one upon which to excuse those presently convicted. The critical danger in an all-out assault on the property tax lies primarily in the more regressive or hidden features of taxes which often replace it. The property tax has one big advantage: We know how much tax we are paying.

Our hope is that the Supreme Court, in its review of obscenity laws, can come up with formulas to drive out the bad without condemning all adults to a diet of cannot stray too far from the pull of that center. A presidential victory in 1972 is not necessary for the emergence of a reformed and different Democratic party. Four more years of a Republican administration may be what the Democrats need to discover just what has happened to the party and to define its role. Japan, with a new premier, probably will find it easier to mend its relations with the United States than to bridge its differences with China. The Chinese fear a revival of Japanese militarism and suspect Tokyo of having designs on Taiwan.

The week's opinions pablum in literature, films and drama. A recent study indicates that another incentive may have greater appeal than money to young men pondering military service the guarantee of four years of paid schooling in return for four years of service. In politics, the center of gravity is the mass of people, and the major parties, if they would be major and not maverick, splinter parties, came near to his delegate total. HE IS NEAR ENOUGH to an early-ballot nomination so that if it is taken away from him by a coalition of second-choices, McGovern's supporters and not a few others will see it as a brokering of the nomination which jwill tear the party apart. If George Wallace supporters came that near and had it taken away from them, they would feel the same.

So would Humphrey and Muskie supporters. Just because McGovern benefited by an unrepresentative, outmoded set of primaries does not set aside his legitimacy. He played by the past rules and the rules ought not be changed in the middle of the game. But they do need to be changed for everybody before we face it all over again. The system needs to be overhauled for these reasons: It creates a distorted result.

The winner of the highest popular vote got the fewest delegates. With the largest popular vote, Humphrey got 300 delegates and McGovern, with fewer popular votes, got about 1,200 delegates. There's something wrong somewhere if the purpose is to enable voters to decide whom they want their party to nominate. THE PRESENT primary system produces winners on the basis of a minute percentage of voters. The primaries are massively neglected by voters because rarely does it appear that a single primary is crucial.

This isn't "participation it is nonparticipation politics. There is a further weakness. A national decision, wliich is what a party's William R. Frye Breaks sighted in war cloud UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. The myth that man is inherently a belligerent animal has been undergoing severe strain this past week.

Indeed, there has been clear evidence of the contrary: that, given minimal opportunity, man's normal inclination is to heal his differences and live in peace. In Korea, on the Indian subcontinent, in Ireland and hi Cyprus, serious new efforts are being made to bury the bloody hatchet. Progress toward a settlement of any one of these conflicts would be a newsworthy development; for presidential nomination is, rests on the whim of each state. Thus primaries are today held in a minority of states and How Time Flics all four of them to be simultaneously on the road to adjustment is indeed remarkable. Add that tills coming Thursday, a new attempt to negotiate an end to the Vietnam war is due to begin in Paris, and there can be no mistaking the break in the international clouds.

All that is needed to make the picture sensational is a serious peace negotiation in the Middle East. IT WOULD BE EASY, of course, to overinterpret these developments. To begin a peacemaking effort is not to end it successfully. Nor is progress, once begun, always uninterrupted as the Irish, in particular, have reason to know. But to try seriously, for whatever motive, is to take the first essential step.

It took the Koreans almost two decades to reach that point. Nineteen years after the Korean armistice, Seoul and Pyongyang at last have agreed to end their conflict in fact as well as in name; to cease sending terrorists behind the other's lines; to end their verbal hot war; to set up a "hot line," and to begin the long task of peacefully reunifying the country. This is the kind of thing that the Germans, almost equally reluctantly, have of late agreed to try. The Chinese just might follow suit, some surprising day. And the Vietnamese, if ever they are to know real peace as distinct from merely a negotiated American disengagement must do the same.

THE CONFLICT between India and Pakistan also dates, like the Korean, German, Chinese and Vietnamese antagonisms, from the 1940s. It will be at least equally difficult to settle. But the subcontinent has a remarkable new element: a Pakistani leader, in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who is realistic enough to recognize defeat and courageous enough to accept its consequences. From all appearances he is also strong enough politically to get away with this policy. Bhutto was not always thus.

En route to the presidency, he was a notable firebrand; but responsibility does sometimes change men, and it appears to have done so with him. Once an Ulbricht, he, now appears to be a Brandt. THE IRISH, who do not always disavow their reputation for belligerence, have had some outside help in easing their civil strife. And it is not yet entirely eased. But the massive, overwhelming fact in Ulster more compelling, by far, than isolated violations of the truce is that the Irish, too, have had more than enough of bloodshed.

They were ready for the British to step in and end their donnybrook. Whether the Cypriots, too, have had enough of tension and bloodshed to be ready for a sensible settlement remains to be seen. But in part as a result of intervention by U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim they now have by far their best opportunity for one. Talks between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities are no longer bilateral.

The Greek and Turkish governments are also represented at the table by "constitutional experts." So is Waldheim. These three external participants add an element of stability and serious intent to the talks. The new negotiators are, collectively, a kind of gyroscope. Athens and Ankara were not always stabilizing factors, but they are now. And the Cypriots themselves seem nearer ready for a compromise.

WHY ALL THIS is happening is harder to explain. The Nixon summits in Moscow and Peking may have been a factor in some cases. Waldheim had a hand in Korea as well as Cyprus. But the principal changes almost certainly have been in attitude. One common element is exhaustion.

Another is realism, the acceptance of what cannot be changed. Still another is an apparent willingness, on the part of those who have been inflicting injustice, to ease or correct that injustice. By Fern M. Downs Withers Library Staff 25 Years Ago July 9, 1947-Mr. and Mrs.

Lyle Hougham of McLean entertained 100 guests at their home Saturday afternoon in honor of their son and daughter-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Hougham of Cheney, Wash. The young people will visit here for about three weeks, Guests attended from Bloomington, Normal, Gibson City, Heyworth, McLean, Shirley, Towanda, Stanford, Holder, Chicago, Burbank, Calif, and Tucson, Arizona. Presiding at the tea table were Mrs.

Roy Quinn of McLean, Mrs. Alice Hale of Tucson, Mrs. Joe Special of Towanda, and Pearl Lawson of Normal. 50 Years Ago July 9, 1922 A large number of Bloomington's society young people will go to Decatur tin's evening to attend the dancing party given in honor of Miss Florence and Max Funk, of McLean at the home of Mrs. William McCullough.

The Funks are houseguests at the McCullough home. 75 Years Ago July 9, M. Heafer, who opened his tile factory southeast of the city this spring after a shut down of several years duration, said yesterday that there was no demand for tile and there had been none since the factory reopened. "Unless business opens up by the end of fall, the works will be closed down again," said Mr. Heafer.

100 Years Ago July 9, 1872 Several business lots arc to be sold on South Main Street, one block south of Liberty block, tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock. We hope very soon to see this street built up solid as far south as the I.B.1W, depot. 'It's ttill th only horse in th rc..