Alton Evening Telegraph from Alton, Illinois • Page 4

PAGBA-4 ALTON EVENING TELEGRAPH WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12,1966 What we think about. shmtri Death The Changing World If one might make a single observation about the death of Indian Prime Minister Lai Bahadue Shastri, aside from paying tribute to the man, him- jtff, it would to the surface conditions surround- iflg the following that death. Years ago the sudden death of a top leader luch as Shastri, in a country where he had gone to confer on international issues, could well have brought protests and suspicious accusations against the host nation, if not outright military hostilities. Little time would have been lost in stirring up a first-class international incident. Monday night Shastri had been a guest at a deception given by Russian Premier Alexei Kosygin where in the old days it might be suspected he had been slipped a delayed action drug.

No such suspicions were given voice early in the proceedings, and it would appear the agreement forged between Mr. Shastri and Pakistan's Ayub Khan toward peace between the two embattled neighbors could proceed toward realization. Another of the more heart-touching details of the procedure following Mr. Shastri's death was the part played by both President Ayub Khan and Premier Kosygin in carrying his casket to the waiting plane, and Khan's permission for the plane to fly over Pakistan. Going to the conference, Mr.

Shastri bad to fly around that country. Prime Minister Shastri's successor, Gulzarilal Nanda, former Home Minister for India, has demonstrated his respect for the late leader by announcing he intends to observe terms of the agreement reached on Russian soil with Pakistan. Nanda was generally credited as having much stronger nationalist views than Shastri. and might have been expected to implement against the pact. The next item of interest to the public wOl, of course, be in how great a detail the agreement was worked out.

Will further conferences have to be called to itemize exact boundary lines? Will surveyors have to be sent to establish on the actual ground the lines to which troops from both sides must pull back, before fighting can stop? Such agreements have been reached in the past between the two nations, only to be pecked to pieces by individual incidents. We dislike to sound like envious critics, but it's possible the Kosygin pact may not last any longer than other agreements did, thanks to the milling movements of military forces between Pakistan and India. So Long, Senator! While the newspaper industry will miss Senator Paul Simon of Troy from its midst when he finishes disposing of his interests in a large chain of weeklies, we believe he is doing the right thing. He has not announced it, but we have a feeling one of the important reasons for his bow-out is his intent to remain on the upward climb of the political ladder. He is more generally regarded as the next foe for Majority U.

S. Senate Leader Everett Dirksen if Dirksen seeks return. Nevertheless, there still is a possibility that Sen. Paul Douglas could decide to retire and throw his mantle over Simon this time around. The national authorship image development would appear i program of development for future years.

His magazine article on Illinois' legislature made quits a splash. We know of numerous newspaper men high in the field who feel perfectly moral in doing so. Yet we do not believe a man in a position of high authority over policy in this profession has any business participating directly in government. It is a two-way conflict of interest. Particularly is this so where he owes it to a large number of readers to present them with a relatively complete report of current events and unprejudiced opinions on them.

Some would say this was fairer to his readers. It is also fairer to himself. It is good news to hear that Sen. Simon is in such demand among magazine and book publishers for his services that he must abandon the newspaper business. But we believe the public will eventually be learning the senator's intention of serving his country in the higher ranges of the government field have caused his decision to withdraw from news- papering.

A Mediator Much as we agree with Governor Kerner's decision to overrule the highway division on installation of signal lights flashing beacons, in this case along U.S. 67 near Godfrey School, it is easy to see the decision calls for legislative action. Such a decision as Kerner's places him in position counter to his own Department of Public Works, which District Engineer Robert Kronst informs has a policy of assessing costs for Such items against schools or municipalities presumably benefitted. We agree with the governor's action wholeheartedly. It follows a recommendation we made here recently, so we have no room to squabble even if we wanted to.

Logically the highway division should provide highway signals where school districts are concerned. The schools lack positive legislative authority to finance such projects, and the equipment in many cases could not be located on their property. However, if the legislature wants to step in and establish a rule of thumb for such controversies, the decision would go far to strtighten mess long an obstacle to solution of many small but grievous safety problems. The Best Test Southern Illinois University's Edwardsville campus makes a valuable contribution to not Only the field of education but to solution of the nation's need for conserving our best minds. It has launched an in-service training institute for special teachers of "gifted" children.

If we, as a nation, are to continue leadership of the world, and perform our responsibilities in that position of leadership, we certainly must accomplish the job with the best trained minds available. We will not want to permit a gifted mentality to slip through the meshes of either sloppy discovering methods or inadequate training, Once discovered. An encouraging development in the former field testing and discovery has arisen lately. Leaders in the field have finally come to admit that their tests suc as those for intelligence quotients are far from consummate. We may yet find that the best testing unit is an observant, sympathetic teacher who can discern unusual ability and leanings in youngsters then appeal to them and develop them without ostentation.

PAUL S. COUSLEY, Editor Readers Forum Why Firms Question Taxes Again, we have reached that time of year when we read of proposed budgets, and anticipated deficits, from almost all taxing bodies. This annual cry for more taxes will continue as long as we have deficit spending, the major cause of inflation. The question today is: How long can we maintain solvency with the ever-Increasing rush toward national disaster? haps we are headed directly down the path, as planned by the so-called On Dec. 10 there appeared an editorial chiding our City Coun- David Lawrence Necessity of Viet War: a Preventative WASHINGTON Nobody likes to see his country engaged in a war.

As the lives of young men are sacrificed daily, the questions asked again and again are whether the Viet Nam war is really necessary, whether it is America's responsibility alone, and whether the shedding of blood in defense of idealism often vaguely expressed is truly worthwhile. Today in the national capital, as members of Congress who have been to Viet Nam bring back discouraging descriptions of the jungle warfare and how bard it will be to win a victory, a certain skepticism concerning America's mission emerges. The people of the United States also may well express doubts, because neither the underlying issues nor the policy being followed by the President in limiting military operations has been fully explained. It's one thing to fight a war with maximum power, and it is another to carry on a war with limitations placed on the use of full military force. Perhaps the best explanation of what is really going on came in a little-noticed speech delivered hi Detroit on Dec.

6 by General John P. McConnell, chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, after a trip to Viet Nam. He said air strikes are designed to impede the flow of supplies and reinforcements being sent into South Viet Nam from the north, and to make it costly" for the North Vietnamese to continue this support, he added: "This strategy, which is best described as 'strategic gives the President a highly flexible tool in inducing North Viet Nam eventually to accept his offer of unconditional discussions. "It is true that we could achieve this objective, virtually overnight, by destroying North Viet Nam and forcing its surrender.

We certainly have the military capability to do so. But President Johnson has emphasized that it is our national policy to keep this conflict at the lowest possible level of intensity, for humanitarian as well as for political reasons. "As both our commander-in- chief and head of our government, he has the final decision on the exact level and scope of our bombing effort in North Viet Nam, and that decision must be guided not only by military considerations and recommendations but by many other and possibly more compelling factors." These words, carefully chosen, say, in effect, that the United States at present isn't fighting the war to win. This means that American boys are losing their lives in a strategic game which may or may not prevent a larger war. But will temporizing with the enemy achieve peace, or will it bring on the big war anyway? There is only one valid reason for the sacrifice of American lives in Viet Nam today.

It is to save millions of Americans from being killed or wounded later in the enlarged war that can come if the communist governments in Moscow and Peip- ing are not thwarted in their ambition to take over control of small as well as large nations in Asia, Africa and the Western Hemisphere. Red China, meanwhile, is accumulating nuclear weapons. Based on past experience, recklessness In the expenditure of human life can be expected from Peiping. The realistic truth is that the United States is powerful enough today to win in Viet Nam. It can demonstrate by a single example of unlimited bombing that any risk necessary will be taken.

This would simply be a recognition that the war of aggression in Southeast Asia could be the forerunner of a direct attack someday on the American people by an irresponsible government possessing nuclear weapons. cil for not increasing the wheel tax, and suggesting that such actions by local government could very well contribute to centralization of government at the national level. I fail to understand how municipal government that is completely controlled by the state legislature could have any influence on our benevolent federal government. Unless, of course, we ask for handouts such as Urban Renewal, Aid to Education, Rent Subsidy, or Open Occupancy under the 1965 Housing and Urban Development Act which empowers government to confiscate your home and then subsidize the new occupant that they choose just another move by the present administration to completely dominate your every thought and action. Did you ever stop to consider the fact that only the individual consumer pays taxes? If you pay taxes for a service, you are consuming at least a portion of the service.

If you consume any product, you are paying all accumulated costs- including taxes. No producer a product could possibly absorb taxes and survive. Industry need not be too concerned with federal taxes as they do not change their competitive position, but local taxes do. That is the reason that local industries pay a portion of their taxes under protest when the City of Alton levies a tax in excess of the legal limit. The smaller taxpayer pays because he cannot afford the cost of the complicated procedure necessary to recover.

HAROLD F. WADLOW 3520 Oscr St. Will Undermining It seems that the only way the Communists could make the United States welsh on its commitment to Viet Nam is by demoralizing American public opinion as badly as French public opinion was demoralized hi the 1950's. This is something the Communists are working very hard to accomplish, and a great many Americans are unwittingly serving the Viet Cong objective of undermining the nation's will and stamina, especially when they say: "Let's negotiate under any terms." FRED J. MILLER Rte.

1 Jerseyville Forum Writers. Note naraei and addresses must ba published with letters to the Readers Forum. must be cuncite (preferably not over 150 words). All are subject to condensation. Victor Riesel Drew Pearson Transit Strike Bad for Lindsay Transit Strike Good for Lindsay NEW YORK For John Vliet Lindsay, this dty's first angry mayor, with an antagonism towards amateurism and a proclivity to perfection, Thursday, Jan.

6, dawned as a gray, rainy puzzlement. As he walked the slippery wet streets toward City Hall, which by some reckonings is not far from the White House, he knew that many were waiting for him to fall on his face. He did not. Instead, by day's end he had executed the swiftest, shrewdest political maneuver which proved that, while he had been drenched, he was hardly wet behind the ears. By the time Thursday had blended itself into the bleary-eyed, early a.m.

hours of Friday, Lindsay no longer was the boy mayor but had vaulted into the big leagues alongside another pro called Lyndon Johnson. On Thursday, Lindsay had a chaotic city on his hands. To ease the transit crisis he had secretly offered the Transport Workers Union one of the best labor pacts in history. His offer had been relayed to Mike Quill via the hot-line strung into the hospital room of labor's own self-made Dracula. The money offer came to an increase of over $40 million.

It ran well over the 5 per cent pay package won by the United Steelworkers and United Auto Workers in '65 and '64. Lindsay had said he would dig up the money, even if it meant taking funds from other. services and then would struggle to keep those services going. It was, in effect, almost everything Mike Quill wanted. Everybody could look good.

County Kerry's own Oliver Twist had asked for $680 million and by taking $40 or $45 million would make it appear that the new Mayor had indeed won a victory. Furthermore, Quill could go to his union rank and file with virtually all they really had expected. And some eight million people would be unsnarled. Lindsay could then start running the city for the first time since he took office a week earlier and he would not have had to call on the aid offered by such labor relations experts as Bob Kennedy, Nelson Rockefeller and Lyndon Johnson. The young mayor had reason to believe the subway and bus strike, which had been disrupting the commercial and financial and produce exchange centers of the world, would end that night.

He bad offered more than had even Mike Quill's friend, ex-Mayor Robert Wagner. labor leaders were In jail. But then, labor leaders had been jailed for strike action several times during the preceding administrations here. It was a tense day, Word came to the tiny intelligence center in City Hall that Quill's allied legions were on the march. Harry Van Arsdale, a hard driving dedicated labor leader of one million Central Labor Council members, was planning mass demonstrations in support of the imprisoned Quill.

Big Joe Curran's National Maritime Union (NMU) had pulled crews off several commercial freighters in the harbor. One of his executive aides had approached John Bowers, executive vice president of the International Longshoremen's Assn. with a request for waterfront action which could slow the entire port without halting Viet Nam-bound freighters. There will be two important casualties of the New York transit strike in addition to the public, whose suffering is already well advertised. They are: 1.

Organized labor, which will have an increasingly difficult time ending the right-to-work laws in the current session of Congress and is certain to face demands for the compulsory arbitration of utilities disputes. 2. The political chances of Mayor John Lindsay, hitherto talked about as a dark horse GOP candidate for president. Those who have watched the past gyrations of peripatetic Mike Quill point to the fact that never before since he organized the transit workers in 1935 has Mike called a strike. He has customarily played the game of brinkmanship.

He has walked right up within minutes of a strike but never called it. This time, however, he wasn't dealing with his old friend, ex- mayor Bob Wagner, but with a new Republican mayor, who in the first place didn't understand Mike's gallic gyrations; second, strongly suspected that Mike, a Democrat, wanted to wipe the political sheen off the man some Republicans were grooming for the White House in 1968. At any rate, there is no question that Mike Quill was determined to go to jail from the very start, and to take his colleagues with him. There is also no question that nobody could get him and his transit leaders out of jail. They liked it there and wanted to stay.

Quill came hi with demands which were asthonomical and which the City of New York couldn't possibly meet. It is true that Mike faced some dissatisfaction among his workers. His motormen felt that they were underpaid compared with motormen on the Hudson and Manhattan. His bus drivers felt they were paid less than the drivers of refuse trucks in Manhattan. And electrical workers who worked at the city power house got a much higher wage when they moved over to Consolidated Edison and other private firms who operated under a higher wage contract negotiated by Harry Van Arsdale of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Van Arsdale, incidentally, held up the electrical industry of New York for the highest wages in history, whereby some of his men get around $600 a week. Mayor Lindsay played the game straight. He made a perfectly fair offer, which was rejected out of hand. It was obvious at the very start that the transit workers had no real idea of bona fide negotiations and that Mike Quill was determined to go to jail. In the past, Mayor Wagner, the late Mayor Bill O'Dwyer, and Mayor Vincent Impelliteri always allowed room for a neutral negotiator to come in and reach a settlement.

Either Anna Rosenberg or Arthur Goldberg or, in a couple of cases, John L. Lewis, then czar of the United Mine Workers, or the late Phil Murray, organizer of the CIO, came in to negotiate a settlement. This time, Mayor Lindsay got some sane advice from his friend Alex Rose, president of the United Hatters, Cap and Millinery Workers International Union, and from Dave Dubinsky, head of the International Ladies Garment Workers, to stay aloof from the negotiations while Mike Quill blew off steam. But this time it didn't work. This time Mike didn't play his old game of brinkmanship.

He went over the brink. All this has not only created a sour taste with the people of New York as far as labor Unions are concerned but has had its repercussions hi Washington. It is almost certain, therefore, that legislation will be introduced at this session of Congress setting up some form of compulsory arbitration for unions operating power plants, telephones, subways, bus companies and other forms of public transportation. Congressmen point out that the New York transit controversy affects not merely eight'million people but the rest of the nation. Had Mayor Lindsay yielded to an inflationary wage increase it would have been reflected in other wage demands all over the country.

Today's Prayer Open my eyes, 0 Lord, that I may see as much of Thy will and purpose as I need to understand in order to serve Thee and my fellow men aright this day. Give me also a brave will to speak and act in accordance with that understanding and to invest all that I have and all I am in the cause of Thy kingdom of love; through Jesus Christ. Amen. N. Sayres, Lancaster, professor-emeritus, The Lancaster Theological Seminary.

What They Did Then News From The Telegraphs of Yesteryear 25 Years Ago JANUARY 12, Dwight Herbert Green was inaugurated as the 10th governor of Illinois before 5,000 persons congregated to the Armory at Springfield, in an oath administered by Illinois Supreme Court Justice, Waller G. Gunn. In his acceptance speech, Gov. Green pledged strict economy, uncompromising integrity, tnd asked that the tax be lifted from food. Many persons visited the river road parkway proiect, and the Alton dam and locks in the Sunday afternoon's mild 58-degree temperatures.

High absenteeism at Horace Mann and Clara fSarton schools were listed in the wave of respiratory illnesses. Clara Barton School had listed as absent 129 and Horace 115 at the close of the week's classes. Others were 64 from Washington School, and 45 from Horace Mann kindergarten. Births in 1940 more than doubled deaths in Alton. Deaths were at their peak in 1940 in January when 61 were reported.

Births were the lowest in April with 64. C. A. Caldwel'. was elected president of the First National Bank Trust Co.

The election was the 51st one for Caldwell as an officer of the bank and its predecessors, who served first as a cashier. He had been in the employ of the first National and its predecessors fur 61 years. R. H. Levis was named chairman of the board; L.

A. Schlal'ly and Samuel Wade, vice president: E. W. Joesting, cashier; L. M.

Can- and W. B. Allen, assistant cashiers; and A. H. Cannell, trust officer.

W. G. Frank was re-elected president of the Siupman Citizens Stale Bank and W. 0. Sweet, vice- president.

Osker Reynolds was elected president of a new Beta Alpha Gamma, organized by Shuiileff College administration students. The purpose was to promote closer contact between business administration students, and business men in the industrial life of the community. 50 Years Ago JANUARY 12, 1916 The Italian steamer Oporto Said was sunk by an sumnarine and the steamer captain was forced by th' 1 nub commander to rescue the passen- When the submarine hove into view, news reports said, the ship captain turned and tried to ram it. The steamer was torpedoed and the steamer crew took to lifeboats and were rowing from the scene when the submarine commander overhauled the lifeboats and threatened to shoot the occupants if they didn't return to the scene and pick up those struggling in the water. E.

M. Clark, H. H. Ferguson, C. H.

Seger, A. K. WhJteJaw, S. A. Beach, M.

F. Manning and H. H. Clark were named directors of First State Savings Bank at Wood River. Other officers elected were Enail Michelbuch, vice president, William Hoff, financial secretary; John Aldinger, secretary; J.

W. Tonsor, treasurer; H. Wutzler, color bearer; Theodore Hoffman, salinspector. C. A.

StriUmayer, H. C. Meyer George E. Root and Patrick Conley of Alton were serving on a jury at Edwardsville. Wood River members of the jury were Dan K.

Haller, John Hazelton and Franklin. William Pohlman and sou, John, who had been operating a ferry at Graf ton, sold their interest to Herman Pohlman, John's brother. Jerseyville Board of Education closed Jerseyville schools for two weeks to all pupils below the seventh grade because of an outbreak of measles. At the same time Jerseyville Mayor A. C.

Robb issued a proclamation prohibiting the attendance of theaters, Sunday schools, churches, the public library or any other event or place by children in grades lower than the seventh. Earth Kennedy, Alton city clerk, was touting himself as the holder of some sort of record. In 11 years as city clerk, he said, his minutes of council meetings had apparently been so accurate that they had never been amended..