Thursday, February 20, 1969

Better Reasons For Change Needed

The Council-Mana:er form of government has worked well for Greenville and its citizens since 1952 when local voters approved that form of government to replace the old Jiayor-Alderman form which had been used for many years.

Since the form of government wms changed 17 years ago, local citizens have made only one further significant ^hge in their form of government. Rather than^aving five Councilmen as a governing board, with one of them designated as mayor by the group, local citizens decided a few years ago to

presumably will do so under local legislation.

ThQ proposed changes would do several things. First, the number of seats on the citys governing board would be increased from the present five (four councilmen and a mayor) to seven members (six councilmn and a mayor). Rather than all being elected for two year terms as is not the case, the councilmen would be elected for staggered four year terms and the mayor elected for two year terms.

If there is merit in the propc^etj^ change, it lies in the proposed staggered terms. But even this has

elect four councilmen and elect their mayor by direct its disadvantages. With three members of the Coun-

popular vote.

Now before the citys governing board is a proposal which would appreciably change the makeup of the local government. If the Council decides to anprove the changes, the General Assembly in

cil and a mayor elected every two years, it would mean there would never be a complete turnover of members of the citys governing board. This could provide continuity that is not guaranteed under the present system. On the other hand, Greenville dur-

Scott At 3e

-ase fore Press

Raleigh will be asked to alter the citys charter and ing the 17 years it has operated under the present

municipal system has not faced appreciable problems because of lack of continuity in the turnover of members of its governing board.

There is the further question of why the post of mayor, which should be at least equal to the other council seats, should be filled for two year terms by the electorate when they are electing their councilmen for four year terms.

As for increasing the number of members of the governing board from five to seven, we frankly question whether there are advantages that make the change worthwhile. Prior to the adoption of its Council-Manager form of government, Greenville operated with a governing board composed of eight or nine aldermen and a mayor. The quality of government in Greenville did not suffer by the change from that form to the present five-man board. Neither, in our judgment, was the larger board more representative of the local citizenry than the five-man board which succeeded it.

Increasing the number of members on the governing board from the present five up to seven does not seem^ to offer any real advantages for the city or its citizens.

It seems to us that before the citys governing board moves to make these sweeping changes in the citys government, it should come up with much better reasons than those vso far advanced in support of the proposed changes.

By WnXUM A. SHIRES

Reflector Raleigh Bureaa

RALEIGH - Gov. Robert W. (Bob) Scott met reporters for his first general topic news conference since becoming governor on a morning at Raleigh was suffering effects of snow, sleet, Icy streets and a chill winter wind.

There were a few min o r accidents on the streets and

WILLIAM

SHIRES

in the parking lots near the A f.iinistration Building but the newsmen straggled in, cold and stamping their feet.

And they were rewarded. 3Scott answered every ques-*tion without insofar as could be determined dodging a one. He covered the w'aterfront, everything from minor power failures because of snow and ice in the Hamlet - Maxton area, the role of Civil Defense in the political future.

- He began by saying he wanted to have the first news conference around the big fireplace in the Executive Mansion.

I already have the wood but we found out we couldnt use the fireplace, Scott said.

Apparently the firepl ace chimney is filled with wiring and pipes, left over from the former administrations of Govs. Luther Hodges, Terry ^anford and Dan K. Moore. *Scott said he had called General Services director Lawrence Watts to investigate.

He looked up the chimney and couldnt see daylight, so, we couldnt use it.

A television cameraman was having trouble setting up his equipment, causing a 15 minute delay. Scott said the cameramans T a r Heel badge might have to be revoked.

Lack Of Reaction Scott said that if anything

he is surprised at the lack of individual reaction to his controversial proposal to enact a tax on tobacco, and certain other specific points in his legislative budget proposals.

I may hear more about it this week since this is the first weekend they have been able to go home and get local reaction, he said, referring to legislators. But thus far, most of the reaction has been from the professional associations who represent respective groups. I expected him to be very vigorous in their efforts, and if they hadnt they would have been remise in their duties.

He said he does not anticipate a fight, as such, but hopes there will be careful consideration and full study and debate.

If anyone can suggest an alternative package of sources of revenue, thats fine with me if they will accomplish the same purposes. Scott said.

On the matter of complaints that state employe and teacher salary recommendations did not go far enough, Scott said he did not mention increased retirement benefits for both employes and teachers, nor increased state per diem pay and travel allowances.

Retirement benefits in full will be available to age 63 instead of 65 if present recommendations are passed, and will be increased.

This will not require new money in appropriations because the increased benefits will be financed by investment proceeds of the State Employes Retirement Fund.

Political Future When newsmen asked about his statements that a tobacco tax would hurt Scotts political future, he replied:

! m not concerned. Fve got three and three-quarters of a year to go in the gov-emdrs office. Im not looking beyond that now, if ever.

He added that he does favor allowing governors to succeed themselves but said any legislative proposal concerning this wouldnt apply to him unless it was so worded.

Turn Timi Other Cheekr

By JAMES KILPATRICK

I

Who Wants 'lo jve 100 Years?

To The Hills, Or, Duck

By HAL BOYLE

NEW YORK (AP) - Who wants to live to be 100?

Optimistic scientists although by no means all scientists hold out the po-sibility that the tradition a 1 biblical span of human life, 70 years, may be increased by another three decades.

This hope meets with popular applause. Practically everyone seems to harbor a

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yearning to become a centenarian. One wonders why.

Reaching such an extreme age would not appear in itself to be a personal victory of great virtue and would probably add few laurels to the annals of humanity.

Productivity is, except for the gifted few, largely limited to youth and the middle years.

The effective, moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages of 25 and 40, once wrote Sir William Osier, one of the grtat-est of modern physicians.

My second fixed idea is the uselessness of men above 60 years of age, and the incalculable benefit it would be In commercial, political, and in professional life, if as a matter of course, men stopped work at this age.

Dr. Osier didnt quite practice what he preached. Most men dont. He worked assidu

ously until he succumbed with rare cheerfulness and fortitude at 70 of a bronchial condition which he himself had diagnosed as terminal.

When one glances at the record of human history, however, it is hard to see why many should aspire to reach 100. The golden years get pretty well tarnished by then.

Can you recall any person who, after his 100th birthday, won a war, was elected to the presidency, became a pope, painted a great picture, wrote a famous poem, invented a useful household gadget, fathered a child or even ran away with a chorus girl?

No, indeed. The performance record of centenarians Is meager and bleak.

A few do manage to remain gracious and respect-worthy. But, for the most part, their only remaining occupation is to remember the past aloud and to explain how they managed to survive so long, punctuating their memories with such quaint exclamations as By gum, I vum, and Dad gum it!

Think how dreary the world would be if we all managed to make It to 100, sitting in our blanket - covered wheel chairs, supping on thin soup, and boring each other with tall tales of times gone by.

No one should want to live a long time just to be old. Longevity should have a goal of some kind, even if it be but a simple human desire to outlast ones enemies or confound ones coveto u s heirs.

I have such a goal. My goal is to live to be 88, not

(Contioned On Page 5)

' The terrible - tempered Texan, Wright Patman of Texarkana, returns this week to one of his favorite wars. As lead - off witness before the Ways and Means Committee, he will be blasting anew at tax-exenipt foundations. The best advice one might offer the foundation officials is to take to the hills, or duck.

At 75, Patman ranks third among all members of the Horse. Come March 4, he will have been around 40 years. Time has a way of mellowing most men. Not the gentleman from the Fir s t District of Texas. He is as furious today as he was in the days of his youth more furious, perhaps, and certainly more informed. He has become a walking, talking expert in his field.

Thus, when Patman talks of the dark deeds of the tax - exempt foundations, he knows where the bodies are buried. If he had his own way, the tax code would be drastically rewritten. The

few foundations that survived his Armageddon would be held to strict accountability; they would be compelled to disburse their receipts m a reasonable time to a few charitable causes of manifest public concern; and they would be sternly policed to keep them from what he regards* as hocus - pocus. razzle - dazzle, tax - dodging, and shell games.

Patman makes an impressive case. In 1966, the last year for which his staff has compiled figures, 596 tax-exempt foundations had receipts in excess of $1.3 billion. Their combined assets of $15 billion included nearly $2 billion in unspent income. Under present law, they can distribute th e i r funds for just about any project that is even remotely related to health, education or welfare; they can speculate in the market or, as Patman puts it, spend the widows mite on Wall Street. He wants to halt the shen-

?ublic

Jrorum

To The Editor:

Citizens of Greenville would do well to pause and carefully reflect the entire statement made by our Board of Education Chairman, Dr. Longino in The Reflector, Sunday, February 9, 1969.

Two points in his statement should especially bring us back to reality, despite emotional leanings. (1) Giving up some $380,000.000 in Federal Funds will not prevent legal enforcement of compliance. (2) The present Washington Administration has shown no signs of trying to reverse the course of events. President Nixon, Secretary Finch, and Commissioner Allen have all made very positive statements of position on this question.

We should applaud and appreciate all positive efforts toward the solution of an admittedly difficult problem. The sooner we all join energies and efforts toward compliance, the better for the community.

To do what is morally right is the safest and sanest course. To react negatively, based on false hope, is to engage in vain efforts to escape the inevitable; it is to pass up, what may very well be, our last chance for change through the OTderly process of evolution.

Woe be unto us, if we through neglect or default, permit ourselves to be caught in the catastrophic course of revolution!! ______

^ ^ Xndrew W. Best

Greenville, N. C.

anigans.

In the hearings that open this week on tax reform, the Texan will renew the blistering assault he waged two years ago. Then he denounced the foundations as monetary mastadons and^as masters of hanky - '^panky. They were tax - free leviathans engaged in wild speculations with money that should go to help the needy.' I^e _had pages of documentation.

There was one small foundatiwi in Grand Rapids, whose benefactor gave it a tax - free gift of $31,635 in 1964. Alas, the entire corpus of the gift was dissolved by expenses of $31,268, including miscellaneous expenses of $24,452.

Out in Oregon, an aging millionaire created a foundation which paid part of the expense to support twin sisters hrough several years of parties and gay living. In Atlanta, a philanthropist, convinced that charity begins at home, set up a foundation that made payments to his first and second wives. A Florida foundation, ostensibly devoted to cancer and blood pressure research, invested $159,000 in a labora-ory to raise better tomatoes, squash, and green beans for the larder of the founda-ions benefactor,

There was a retired general whose tax - exempt foundation purchased an oil portrait of its founder. This same foundation took in $894,-000 over a seven - year period, but oddly paid out only $350,000 for charitable causes.

As Patman points out, the benefactions of the tax - free foundations indirectly are subsidized by taxpayers generally. He asks repeatedly: Cannot a stiffer judgment be made of these expenditures? When the Bollingen Foundation finances a study of the origin and significance of the decorative types (Continued On Page I)

By ROWLAND EVANS and ROBERT NOVAK

WASHINGTON-A smouldering, backstage donnybrook is about to break into the open with the appointment, not announced as of this writing, of a Chicago investment broker named Robert Podesta to head the Small Business Adminis-trati(Mi (SBA).

Podesta, a Republican Catholic who has the powerful backing of Sen. Everett M. Dirksen of Illinois, the Senate Republican leader, seems eminently qualified for t h e jobfrom both business and political standpoints. He mad# a spirited though losing run for Congress on, Chicagos South Side last year.

Nevertheless, Podestas appointment is likely to unloose angry protest from Texas Republicans who believed they had a commitment from President Nixwi for somebody else and who may even delay Podestas confirmatiwi to demonstrate a displeasure that transcends the SBA appointment and is rising among all Southern Repubflcans.

The somebody else in tha SBA affair is Hillary Sandoval, a successful conservativa Mexicaz-American businessman from El Paso, Texas, who actually cancelled plans to run for mayor to accept the expected job of Small Business Administrator.

Sandovals political credentials include one major exhibit: all-out support from tha Influential Sen. John Tower of Texas, one of Mr. Nixoni earliest Presidential backers who was asked by Mr. Nixon to become his campaign chairman last spring. Tower said no to that but labored mightily for Mr. Nixonboth before and after Miami Be a c h. Consequently, he. piled up considerably credit in the Nixwi patronage bank.

Moreover, intimates of the Senator say he was told on two occasions during the preinaugural period, by Mr. Nixon himself and by top Nixon personnel chiefs, that Sandoval would definitely be named. That would make good on a Nixon campaign pledge to name Mexican Americans to high Federal office.

Threee weeks ago, when the appointment seemed headed for the rocks, Sandoval spent several hours in Washington with Nixon patronage aides. The meeting was so satisfactory that Tower then felt Sandoval was back on the right track.

Instead, the new Administration could not make up iti mind, unable either to mova forward with Sandoval or to give him the coup de graca. Thus there was plenty of tima for pressures to build for both Podesta and for New Yorker Irving Kirschenbaum, supported by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and Sen. Jacob K. Ja-vits. Kirschenbaum, a prominent Manhattan business advisor and attorney and an old friend of Javits was in tha running briefly but then faded. As of this writing, the decision on Podesta is absolutely final.

But the nomination comes before the Senate Banking Committee, where Towct fa second - ranking Republican, and Tower is considering tha exercise of all his rights for extended questioning of Podesta. The final result is, of course, a foregone conclusion. Backed by Dirksen, Podesta certainly will be confirmed. But a delay caused by a prominent Republican Senator to early in the Nixon administra-(Contnned On Page 5)

Holding Company Curbs Pending

BALANCE Gee, Ma, Im washing my face good and you keep yelling at me, Behind the ears, young man. Whos going to look behind my ears* J i m-mys mother doesnt keep after him this way. Maybe she gives him a ciout over the head once in a while, but thats better than being yelled at all the time.

The trials of childhood! They are all part of the most important educational system through which humans ever pass. The teachers of the race are mothers. The so - called educators simply submit a boy or a girl to what might be called fringe benefits. Youngsters have a lot of Important things to learn before they come to manhood or womanhood, and it, is up to you, or you, or you, to see that they get the proper training.

ing polite and thoughtful to others? Yes. Time and space would run out if we tried adequately to cover the list.

There is a lot of talk today about the failings of the mod-ern home. There are changes which certainly produce chan-ps in the children brought up in these homes. Taken by and large, good homes today are probabb' better than ho m e s have ever been, but the absence of fathers at work all day and of mothers frequently creates problems which are hard indeed to meet.

And this, of course, is a s.eriouR problem, for as the home goes, so goes the nation, and perhaps the world. Hie right balance of discipline and freedom would seem to offer .something like an adequte solution.

By Earl L. Douglass

By ELMER ROESSNER

The Nixon administration this week will send to (Congress legislation to regulate bank holding companies. The Hoii.se Banking Committee, headed by the long-time foe of banking holding companies. Sen. Wright Patman, D., Texas., will give it prompt consideration.

The growth of bank holding companies has been phenomenal. In the last two years the number has grown from 117 to 783 and their deposits have swelled from $11.8 billion to $108 2 billion.

This growth has led to predictions that within 10 or 20 years, 50 large corporations could control the country.

Under present laws, banks caftnot own businesses escept when taken over in foreclo.s-iircs: then they must .sell them. But laws peiinit a

banks officers and stockholders to form a bank holding company which can buy the bank, with no money involved, and the holding company can then buy any other businesses it wishes.

Can Be Powerhouses

Holding companies have taken over credit card, equipment leasing, computer service, mortgage and factoring companies but, in addition, they have entered 119 nonbanking enterprises in transportation, real estate, manufacturing. wholesaling, retailing, mining, petroleum, agriculture and in.surance.

Through control of its bank, a holding company could finance its acquisitions and deny loans to its competitors; it could finance the expansion

have been charged.

At present, bank holding companies holding only one bank are exempt from Federal Reserve control only banks controlling 25 per cent or more

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of ,its subsidaries;, and hel them dominate their fields, although no instances of this

of two or more banks are regulated. The banks themselves, of course, are under federal regulation.

Paiman's Points

In a study by the Housing

Banking Committee, Rep. Patman made these points:

Unsound financial decilions could be made by the bank to feed unwarranted amounts of credit to other subsidiaries of the holding company.

Loan discrimination by the bank to favor other enterprises owned by the holding company and disallow loans to companies competing with the holding companys subsidiaries.

Banks could force other borrowers to buy from the subsidiaries of the holding company forcing a greater concentration of economic Bower.

Meanwhile, 15 conglomerates have taken over banks. Leasco Data Pro cessing Equipment Corp. is trying to take over Chemical Bank, tha sixth largest in the United States. The bank is resisting.