The Valley Independent from Monessen, Pennsylvania • Page 4

4--THE DAILY TMEFENDEXT. Tafnatr. Off. 3, Editorials-More Light Needed On City Program THE MONESSEN City Council has announced a tentative financial program for next year that seems to us to call for some further reflection at the City Hall before bemg finally adopted. The item in the program which perhaps will attract more public reaction than any other is the plan to increase taxes on real estate by one and a half mills.

Added to the three-mill increase in school taxes on real estate which became effective last July, the city increase makes some bad year-end news for local industries, home owners and other holders of taxable property. We recognize, of course, that the cost of government almost inevitably follows the trends in other costs, and these trends until recently were upward. Also, the city has been advised by major industrial employers to anticipate some falling-off of revenues from the wage-income tax in 1958. So unless some economy measures are taken and the council does not seem so inclined there is not much choice but to raise taxes on real estate. We had hoped that, before any further tax increases were made, some program.would be started both in Monessen and in Westmoreland County as a whole to overhaul the antiquated assessment procedures which are producing more and more inequities each year.

If real estate taxes are going to continue to be the largest and most reliable source of income for local government, taxpayers have a right to be assured that the valuations on which these taxes have to be based are reached by reasonable and fair procedures. That simply is not the case at the present time, and it strikes us as a serious neglect of duty on the part of local and county elective officials who' have responsibility for assessments. CITY COUNCIL is also proposing to borrow $225.000 on its own authority and use the proceeds for the paving of streets, the construction of sewers and acquisition tf additional land for the new library building. Of this amount. $75.000 is already committed as the city's share of the Schoonmaker Ave.

project now underway and $15,000 is required to purchase a small building at the library site on Donner Ave. so that the new library building and the modern Manos Theatre building will not be separated by an antiquated property. The remaining 5135,000 of the proposed bond issue would be used for a list of street and sewer projects in various parts of the city. We understand, however, that these projects have not been coordinated with the Planning Commission under the master plan which is nearing completion. And we raise the question as to whether the council ought not io postpone further borrowing until this can be done.

The basic purpose of the master plan is to guide the city's physical improvements in order to produce, over a period of years, the broad result envisioned in the plan. And since the plan is but a few months from completion, doubt that it would be a serious matter to hold off 3. major improvement program to be pure that it is proceeding in the precisely the directions Monessen wants to go. WE HAVE city administration which seems sincerely anxious to build a better Monessen and which has been making solid strides toward that end. And we have no intention of dampening this ambition.

jt since the community has so solidly supported long-range planning as the best means rescr.ing desirable civic goals for future gen- erav.ons as as for those now living in Mon- tr would be a mistake for the council r.ov. 30 as it were, a list of unrelated proiecti costing 5135,000. To fulfill the objectives of the master plan will require large capital expenditures by the cily over a long period of years. Certainly it will not be possible to do everything at once, which means that a schedule of priorities will have to be established among fut projects and first things undertaken first. We believe that the sooner the city council starts: to do things this way, the sooner Monessen be the kind of community its citizens have shown they want it to be.

Behind The News- U. S. Io Be on DefensiA'c at Paris Meet Bj CHAKLES M. McCAXV The United States apparently is going to be forced into a defensive role at the approaching conference in Paris. Two from today, the 15 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are to pen their three- day meeting.

Headlines over dispatches on the meeting from Allied capitals emphasize that it Mr. McCanr, jn. be "vital," "urgent" and "critical." The talk in Washington is that President Eisenhower may still go through with his plan, despite his illness, to represent the United States. In Paris, NATO officials take it for granted that Vice President Richard M. Nixon will lead the American delegation.

But whoever leads it. it increasingly certain that he will face a demand for some promise? that he may not be able to accept. Has British Support The United States is pretty sure io have the complete support of Great Britain. West Germany is likely io go along with the United States and Britain. But France, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark and Norway are likely to ask for some sweeping commitments.

Primarily, a lot of the NATO nations want the United States--and Britain--to agree that there shall be advance consultation among the Allies on big issues in both the political and military field. France will want assurance, for instance, that there will be no more such incidents as that in which the United States and Britain sent weapons to its former protectorate of Tunisia er Us protest. Fear Land Invasion Countries like Belgium. The Netherlands, Denmark and Norway are likely to ask that the United States pay a lot more attention to the threat they would face from a sweep of Russian land forces in event of war. These countries a i acutely nervous also over what would happen to them if the terrible new weapon of nuclear wai- fare were brought into play by the United States and Russia.

Britain shares with the United States the fear that a pledge of advance consultation might give smaller NATO nations a veto power. Certainly, the cresent outlook for the "summit" meeting is not bright. Also, whoever leads the American delegation is going to a workout. Quotes from The News By UNITED PRESS MOSCOW Russian scientist V. Alexandrov, in a newspaper article outlining plans for a rocket plane that would be fired into space and then unfold us wings to return to earth: "The construction by the Soviet Union of an intercontinental bai- iistics missile and successful launching of Sputniks brought considerably nearer the rocket plane epoch.

The rocket plane is the last phase in development of the airplane before transition to interplanetary Deutschland Over All! GETTYSBURG Presidential Press Secretary James C. Hagerty. announcing that the President preside over whatever portion of any cabinet meeting he is present for: "Whenever the President walks into a room He automatically is in the chair." The Daily Independent Published evenings except Sundays at Tee Independent Sixtn street Monessen. Pa Harry William Pore, publishers. A R.

PORE Editor Publisfier (IS Harrv R. Port, William Pore. Business Manager Entered as second mall matter the post at under the act oi March 1897. National Advertising Representative; Bottlntlll-KUnball, 343 Lexington Avenue. Mew York City.

Member United Press Associations, Audit Bureau of Circulations Pennsylvania Newspaper Association. siibscripllon Rntej: By Carrier, 42 por By nsail, no i sUt months. anonthi, 45.00. WASHINGTON Dr. Theodore Von Karman, senior missiles adviser to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, explaining that Russia's rocket development has outmoded the use of powerful permanent bases: "It must be so arranged that missiles can be launched from unprepared places in the end we will have to arm all our friends." EDINBURGH A spokesman for Scottish police who caught up runaway heiress Tessa Kennedy, 19, and Dominic Elwcs.

26. who aie under court order i their marriage in England: In like thi? WP only f.ure ourselves that the girl is well and happy. We do not act." QUINCY. Adm. Jerauld Wright, at the keel laying for the United States' first atom-powered i "UY in i in.ii our ficunc ponrm'U't re- a i as overseas." The Lighter Side- The 100th Birthday of A Remarkable Man By DOC QUIGG From Washington-Why not Tell It Right? NEW YORK (UP)--The 100th birthday anniversary of one of the prodigious men of our time slipped by Sunday--and it was shame he couldn't have lived to celebrate it with his customary cigars, -scotch, wine, beer, and flavorful talk of high times past.

Dr. Mauric-2 J. Lewi almost made it. He lived--and worked, and played--into his 100th year. He had figured that when that century i a anniversary came around at last, the college which he had founded 1 throw a lulu of a banquet for him.

He would have made it. too, except for an accident at his office. He slipped and broke his arm. Three months later, he fell stepping from a taxi and broke the same arm and became bedridden. He died last May 27, weeks after having addressed a dinner by amplified telephone.

His Activity Amazing His activity was amazing. Until near the end, he presided daily as head of the New York College of Podiatry, which he. an M. founded in 1912. A gracious gentleman with clear blue eyes, old- fashioned stand-up collar, cigar a- jiggle between two fingers, he rocked in a swivel chair at his rolltop desk and spoke in well- rounded sentences, as if reading from a book.

He was the oldest active practitioner of medicine and education in the United States. Into his 100th year he: lived alone in a took a bus to work, made speech- PS, smoked eight cigars a day, ate "everything," had scotches before, and dry chablis during, dinner; played poker and whist three times weeklv at the New York Bridge-Whist Club (which ht founded in 1906), attended meetings of the Albany Society of N'2w York (which he founded in 1893) and-Most nights just before midnight he arrived at Tony's Italian across the street from his hotel, and hung out there sometimes until closing, mixing chaese, crackers, and scotch highballs with beer cocktails. "My associates know where to find me," he would say. Hobnobbed with Dr. Lewi was a wit of repute.

He hobnobbed with newspaper editors and once wrota editorials, just as a sideline to medicine, in his native Albany, N. Y. He knew six U. S. presidents personally, two of them intimately, and was mentioned in Teddy Roosevelt's autobiography.

When he was eight, he saw Abraham Lincoln in his the most spiritual thing in my life--I can see that face yet," he told me "gaunt. there was something in it really spiritual, even in death." To go into Dr. Lewi's achievements and would tak? a book. He wrote medical treatises, as secretary of the Statt Board of Medical Examiners in 1892 cleaned up New York City of illegal practitioners, attended post mortem of McKinley's assassin after being a medical witness at the execution, wrota verse, created jokes. "I hope," he wrote me "you will experience the yea at an early date to pay me social visit." His language had charm of its own.

The Women's Vicw- Tne White House is faced -with an unresolved dilemma over how to report promptly the medical facts concerning the President's illnesses. This dilemma arises not from any desire to cover facts nor from unwillingness to let the medical reports peak for themselves. However, when you look back over the record of official White House releas covering the ronary Sept. Mr Drummond 1955, the ileitis attack in June 3956, and the blocked brain artery last week, the following pattern emerges: 1--Consistently the White House has ultimately put nut the facts with unprecedented frankness and detail. There has been no squcam- ishness and in the end no concealment whatsoever.

That's mighty good. 2--Bui, in each instance, the ultimate release of accurate medical information was preceded by the release of inaccurate medical information. In each instance the accurate medical diagnosis was not made public until from 10 io 24 hours after the misleading medical diagnosis had been officially given out. In each instance Maj. Gen.

Howard McC. Snydcr, the White House physician, authorized the release of an account of the President's condition which was inaccurate. And not until hours after this authorized misinformation had distributed through all news media around the was the true account made available. Why Delay Facts? Why? Why does the White House allow itself to deal in inaccurate medical information before it deals in accurate medical information? The reason, I am sure, is not that Dr. Snyder deliberately wants to mislead.

J'ress Secretary James Hagerty has a superb record of candid White House medical reporting after the first 10 to 24 hours. His instinct is to get out the facts. Ho knows that concealment is impossible and that there is no profit in it. Dr. Snyder has said that i By ROSCOE DRUMMOXD -reason for first affirming a the Denver heart attack was a "digestive upset" and the i stroke last week as a "chill" was that he wanted to be surer of the facts, more informed in his medi- 1 diagnosis, before he said so.

This, then is the dilemma: In order rightly to guard against releasing premature diagnosis, is it necessary or wise for the White House to release inaccurate diagnosis? Not Good Enough The effect of the policy which Dr. Snyder has practised thus far is to try to avoid misleading the public by releasing misinformation and allowing it to stand from 10 to 24 hours in each of Mr. Eisenhower's three major illnesses. That isn't good enough, is it? Let us look at what actually happened. Dr.

Snyder arrived st the Doud house in Denver at 3:11 a.m. on the morning of Sept. 24, and Robert J. Donovan's book, "Eisenhower the Inside Story," reports that "it two or three minutes for Snyder to come to the grave conclusion that the President of the United States was suffering from a coronary thrombosis." But at 10.30 a morning Assistant Press Secretary Murray Snyder announced, on information from Dr. Snyder, that the President had a touch of indigestion.

It was 2:30 in the afternoon before this mis-statement was withdrawn and the facts put out. The ileitis attack brought a similar sequence of events. At about the time the 7 hite House was announcing on the morning of June 8 that the President had "just a stomach upset." Dr. Snyder. together with specialists, knew that it was ileitis.

The false information preceded the true by number of hours. The same last week. Between 3 and 4 p.m. Monday the doctors diagnosed the President's illness as a blocked brain artery, but for the next 24 hours the White House was announcing that the President has suffered "a chill." What Can Be Done? What can be done, constructively? From the record a pertinent fact presents itself: In every instance the withheld diagnosis the doctors has been right: in every instance the later diagnosis has confirmed the earlier diagnosis. Thus, there has not only been no justification, but no need, for the White House to issue medical misinformation even temporarily.

Jim Hagerty's wise advice has always been: "Play it straight." Wouldn't it be better if the White House physicians did the same? Life with Bernstein By GAT PATJLET The Views of Others- Tlie Uncommon Man By HERBERT In my opinion, wo are in danger of developing a cult of the Common Man, which means a cult of mediocrity. But there is at least one hopeful sign: I a never been able to find out just this Common Man is. In fact, most Americans especially women will get mad and fight if you try calling them common. This is hopeful because it shows that most people are holding fast to an essential fact in American life. We believe in equal opportunity for all, but we know that this includes the opportunity to rise in leadership.

In other words "to be Let us remember that the great human advances have not The Cynic's Corner- HOOVER brought about by mediocre men and women. They were brought about by distinctly uncommon people with vital sparks of leadership. Many great leaders were of hum- bli origin, but that alone was not their greatness. It is a curious fact that when you get sick you want an uncommon doctor; if your car breaks down you want an uncommonly good mechanic; when we get into war we want dreadfully an uncommon admiral and uncommon general. I have never met a father and mother who did not want their children to grow up to be uncommon, men and women.

May it always be so. For the future of America rests not in mediocrity, but in the constant renewal of leadr-e ship in very phas of our national life. NEW YORK (UP)--Mrs. Leonard Bernstein once observed that her musician-husband is difficult "to live with." ''But what man worth, living with isn't?" sh2 asked. ''Does this still apply?" I asked her today as we talked of her husband's new job permanent conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

"I stick with my statement." she said, and laughed. "Actually marriage to is hard only because his life is so hectic. As a person, he is even tempered, he's neat, organized and thoughtful." To some, Bernstein is a musical genius. "To me he's such a collection of things I know him so well," Mrs. Bernstein said.

"He's more than husband. He's my companion and I would never dream of doing things without him." Classic And Popular Composer Bernstein, at 38, is th2 first American-born conductor to take over the Philharmonic podium. But conducting is only one facet of his career. He is a composer in both the classical and popular fields, he wrote the music for the current Broadway hit, "West Sid 3 Story," he is brilliant pianist, and a recording artist. Any one job is enough for most people; but versatile Bernstein to thrive on work.

"When I see that he n3eds a rest. I just eart him off to a hospital," said his wife. "That's exactly what I did last week after the news of the Philharmonic was announced. "Lennie called up and complained, This Is rest? I've kept count and 13 people have been in and out of this room in the last three "He up talking the doctors into letting him watch operations." Domestication of Bernstein began when he met Felicia Montealegre at a party. Chilean-born, she had come to New York to study piano but got so intrigued after some acting lessons, she switched interests.

Mrs. Bernstein, 35. fragile blonde With great brown said she didn't know about her husband "but for me it was lovt at fhst sight." They were married in 1951 and have two children--Jamie. 5 and blonde, like her mother, and Alexander Serge, 2, named for the late conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, Serge Koussevitzky, who helped guide Bernstein's oarly con-ducting career. Daughter Shows Talent Jamie shows signs of developing some of her father's talents.

"She will listen to music by the hour." said Mrs. Bernstein, "or she will sit at the piano and improvisD. She i hear 8 melody shout, 'Mamma, that i Mozart." "1 don't encourag-e ber To me, this is a frightening thing in i 5-year-old." Mrs. Bernstein didn't drop her acting career by any means when she married the muscian. Most of her work has been concentrated on television.

"I think a woman has to keep her own identity," she said. "Acting lets me preserve some of mine. But I've just about quit the piano. I loathe it when I don't play well and I really don't practice efiough. Lennie's not critical, but I know if I hit a wrong note, he'll shout, 'That's A-flat.

Out of the FUes It'so Fact- There are about 50 thousand in the world which have not been explored yet. Rhode Island turns out more than one-half of the lace produced in the United States. Thirty Years Ago- Saturday, Dec. 3, J92 Police were called yesterday when a disturbance threatened to develop into a riot during the distribution of the semi-weekly food supply to striking miners at Monongahela. Every two weeks Local 280 of the United Mine Workers distributes approximately S500 worth of groceries and other food necessities among the miners- of the Monongahela district.

Yesterday there was some dissatisfaction as to the distribution. There are more than 20 million bicycle riders in the United States. Members of the Monessen Woman's club chartered the deluxe bus, "Miss Monesser" yesterday for a.trip to Pittsburgh. Various places of interest were visited. krop thinking-, all Ibis time, Russia is turning out The first cartoon of Uncle Sam was believed to have appeared in the New York Lantern in 1852.

Birds in the United Slates cop- Mime between three and four thousand tons of insects annually. The average farm house in the United States is more than SO years old. Skill in tho playing rf the bag- pipo is promoted by various Highland societies in Scotland. 1 Francis Hughes, son of Mr. and William Hughes, of Donner is a patient in the Presbyterian Hospital, Pittsburgh, as the result of burns on his foot, sustained while at work at the Tin Mill.

Twenty Years Ago Friday, Dec. 3, Mrs. James S. Hutchison will entertain members of her club tomorrow evening at the home of her mother, Mrs. John A.

Hart on McKce Ave, Ten Years Ago- Wednesday, Dec. 3, 1947 Dr. Thomas B. Hcrron, president of the Peoples National Bank and Trust Co. was elected chairman of Monessen's newly created Municipal Authority at an organization meeting last night in the City Building.

The Authority charged with the responsibility of constructing a city sewage system. Other officers arc Wilbur C. Harbarger: Oliver F. Pannabak- er; Michael Kiscda and the Rev. Owen J.

Kirby. Santa Claus himself will be the feature attraction in the big Christmas parade in Monessen on Friday, when he and his sleigh and reindeer occupy a float in the procession. Truck drivers of the furniture store in the Monongahela Valley continued a strike for a wage increase today and representatives of the furniture dealers and reunion planned a meeting in Charleroi this afternoon to try to reach an agreement. Forty i went on strike yesterday for a 25- cent hourly wage increase. In China, I.oi women have thcfr vines tatoocd on the backs of thcii hands.

IN EW SPA PERI SPA PERI.