Observations From Editorial. Columns

A Conservative View

On Abolishing

The Daily Reflector. Greenville. N.C.Sunday. Mar4> 2.

February And Greeting March

state Grand Jury

A' statewide Grand Jury holds some interesting possibilities. Particularly, where state investigations are in progress and where grand jury action should be required, the availability of such a state Grand Jury could facilitate matters considerably.

Such a proposal has been made, and it should not be passed of lightly. We understand that Attorney General Rufus Edmisteh is interested in such a move, and it surely would give Ins office a measure of efficiency now filmost impossible to have.

We do not know how widespread statewide investigations are today, Wit a State Grand Jury might be able to look into a lot of state matters and come up with some quick answers for the courts to pursue.

Such a State Grand Jury, we would expect, would be under the jurisdiction of the N.C. Supreme Court or under jurisdiction of some justice or judge named by the Supreme Court

The proposal is worth looking into. And we would hope that people of North Carolina, particularly those in positions of headership, will give the proposal some very serious thought

The Washington Daily News

^ In Vino Veritas ^

In wine is truth, the ancients said, but the. . .complete truth may not always be found in wines.

To go back a bit, th French government chnrged Lionel Cruse, head of the 155-year-old firm, his cousin Yvan, wine broker Pierre Bert and 15 others with doctoring \Vines, falsifying labels and tampering with official documents.

Wine-proud France carefully regulates the industry, and the Bdfkieaux scandal surfaced last year when government tax inspectors, first refused admittance to the internationally regarded House of Cruse cellars, finally got in and found certain authenticating documents altered or even missing. . .

During the trial, defendant Bert confessed to doctoring inferior, wines to improve their taste. ...

The defense produced witnesses. . .who testified that even an experienced wine taster cannot always tell where a wine comes from. . .

At least there.appears to be no record that*some elegant lip somewhere curled in rebellion over a glap, its owner snarling, This isnt a quality Bordeaux! This is fake wine thats been doctored! Call the police.!*

Anniston (Ala.) Star

^Orderly Sessions Needed

House Speaker Jimmy Greene says there is no doubt how that another term of the legislature will be held next year. Up until opening of the 1975 session hopes were expressed among many people that legislators wopld be able to get on with their work ^nd meetall biennia!obligations which need to be met this year.

Rep. Greene himself has beemaccused of slowing down the process. He has been unusually slow in naming members to committees and in selecting cominittee chairmen. A result is that senators and representatives have already lost about a months time. They have been in Raleigh wasting time arid money because of this lack of organization andjLailure on the part of Mr. Greene and others to initiate a reasonable start.

-Maybe the time has come anyhow, because of speeded up conditions and added complexities in government^ tOp go to permanent annual sessions. But they shaild be arrived at in an orderly fashioa And whenever they are firmly decided on, the General Assembly should act to establish firm limits, such as 90-day or 120-day terms, in which to get the states business transacted.

The Laurinburg Exchange

New State Office Building

A new state office building in Raleigh is planned to enable each legislator to have an office, suite with an anteroom for a secretary. The legislative building has ofilces pruposly made smali so there would be no room for a secretary for, each legislator, but since it was built the secretaries have been added without the space. Besides under-estimation of expansion in legislative activity, this might be said to show that the more help legislators have, the more often the legislature has^to meet With less assistance, the General Assembly used to get by with sessions every other year.

The Lumberton Robesonian

Today In History

By MMES J. KILPATRICK

SCRABBLE, Va.Back in 1946, as a young reporter covering the Virginia General Assembly, I tried to work up a constructive venture with a pixie legislator by the name of Lake Triplett. My thought was to have him sponsor a bill to abolish February.

The project never got off the ground. Triplett thought the idea altogether splendid, but he was then involved with his famous no-work bill. This was a bill to make it a felony in Virginia for any person to engage in a useful occupation. The^bill was forably reported by th Committee on Retrenchment and Economy, but then was re referred to Judiciary where, alas, it died. Two years later he introduced a bill to regulate the

depth of snow. I digress.

Plowing through some old papers the other day, I came across a draR of the bill to abdish February. I am minded to offer it to Senator Scoop Jacksoa who seems to have run out of projects lately. The bill would add 14 days to April, six days to May, five to October, and the other three or four by directiwi of the Speaker of the House. Who could oppose so humane a measure?

Does February have a redeeming feature? The question answers itself. Here in the frostbitten Blue Ridge Mountains, the memory of man does not encompass a February bleaker than the one now happily concluded. From Monday through

Increasing Emphasis On Basic Skills, Teaching In America's Schools

Friday the skies merely sulked, on Saturdays and SiBdays theV wept It snowed, it rained, it sleeted, it drizzlerdrazzled. The house smelled of wet collies. The firewood wouldnt catch.

Washington was as miserable. The House of Representatives, demonstrating rare good sense, took one look at February aril left towri. The President fled to Atlanta, thence to Houston. The snow turned to dirty slush. Spme idiot decreed daylight saving tiirte, and suddenly if was dark pgain at? oclock in the morning.

But now! Now' With March at hand, the*" thermometer last week yawned and stretched and reached up to'10. The fields that yesterday were the color of old oatmeal are today awash with greea The first crocus popped up on Tuesday, as purple and orange as college colors.

In the rock garden, snowdrops' are hanging like street lamps in a caterpillar town. The first iris have appeared. The heather is showing new growth.

In January, as every gardener knows, hope is sustained by the seed catalogs. One spends hours filling out orders. Now the packets of seed have arrived, bright with promise of melons amber and cucumbers j^de. It will be another eight weeks, at least, before these can go in the ground, but with February torn off the calendar, eight weeks can be endured. ,

Last mwith only the bir<iB were moving. They fluttered into the feedera for breakfast cardinals, juncos, titmice, ^irtckadees, a rdgtag bunch of schoolboy sparrdws. These are the xegular winter lodgers at the local hotel. Now resort crowd is streaming in. We have finches in Hawaiian 'shirts, grosbeads in black and gold blazers, a mockin^irdetrutting on a fence rail.' Yesterday a bluebird arrived; he spent a busy hour inspecting the several apartments for rent, and then signed a lease.

The animals emerge. The other night six rabbits met in the vegetable garden, planning their spring attack. We have seen three groqpdhogs and a possum. By dawn the air is delicately scented with the unmistakable eau de skunk. Twice we have watched a big red fox strolling through the high meadow, twirling his cane and smoking a fat cigar.

If there is one flaw to be found In the prospects of perfection, it comes with the blustering wihd. The pines and hemlocks, lined up like troops, in green fatigues, are doing calisthenics. The flags strain and snap on their leashes. We struggle down to the rflailbox and get blown back up the hill. But let it blow! Who cares?

This is March! Hurray for March! Given a better calendar, stripped of the February blahs,, we might have had all this a month ago.

By The Associated Press Today is Sunday, March 2, the 61st day of 1975. There are 304 days left in the year. Todays highlight in history: ; In 1836, Texas proclaimed in-

Franjola Col...

(Continued From Page A-4) those with the power to do so have had their reasons for holding back.

From the Cambodian point of view, his ouster might cause a debilitating scramble for power. From the American point of view, Lon Nol seems to be a throwaway card for'^gotia-tions with the insurgents.

Hes not a liability, saic diplomatic source familiar with American policy. If there were someone else who would fill that position with distinction and draw the people into a great upsurge, yes. If it would do any good, why not? But if you get rid of him without any return, what do you gain?

. dependence from Mexico.

( On this date

In 1585, Sir Francis Drake left Britain.for the West Indies as a privateer.

In 1775, colonista in Providence, R.I., publicly burned 300 pounds of British documents and tea.

In 1861, Dakota was organized as a U.S. territory.

Taylor Col. . .

(Continued From Page A-4) spread to the panhandling field.

Last Sunday, you ma> remember, was an exceptionally warm day and a few coeds donned bikinis on ,ECU* campus for sun-bathinl Its vehj^nice, one ad miring mal^scommented, but wonder bqw many

pneumonia cases

11 be

by the end of the week. Oh well.

By TERRY RYAN Associated Press Writer After a decade of experiment and innovation^ American schools are shifting gear. From first grade to senior high, there are signs of an inci;-easing emphasis on basic skills and traditional ways of teaching them.

Open classrooms and the new ma have lost some of their appeal Federal grants have switched from arts programs to reading. In some commumties, parents are demanding and getting ^ alternative schools that stress educational basics:

Evans-Novak. .

(Coiltinued from page A-4)

I-ong. .

Simultaneously,' Mr. Ford was deciding the fate of Kieran ODoherty, a skilled

veteran of right-wing politics. * H helped found and is still backstage leader of the New York Conservative party, which has sdught since 1962 to -retire Sen. Javits to private life. After Sen. James Buckley was elected from New York as a Conservative, he immediately began seeking a federal post for ODoherty.

ODoherty for one and a half years filled an unexpired term on the Foreign Claims Commission, but Javits blocked Senate confirmation of his nomination by President Nixon to a full term. Honoring Nixons commitments. President Ford reappointed ODoherty. Javits blocked him again last fall. The White House then indicated to Buckleythat Opoherty would be named to the Postal Rate Commission, which does not require Senate confirmation.

Javitss office was -informed a month ago, and a furious Javits delivered this lecture for presidential " counselor Jack Marsh: better decide who your friends are and stick with them. Javits meant he supports Mr. Ford for President in 1976 while Buckley and his New York Conservative party are in the forefront of Ford-must-go talk.

True enough. But Buckley supports the Ford oil veto and Javits opposes it. Javits supports the President but not his program; Buckley supports his program but not the President. The ODoherty decision could alienate either of the two proud men. Mainly to honor his commitment, the President appointed ODoherty Feb. 20 without informing JaVits. ^

Mr. Fords political margins are just too narrow. Most Presidents could offend I.ng, Javits and Buckley in one day with'impunity. For Jerry Fi .-d to have even one of them on the warpath is so dangerous that his freedom of action is narrowly restricted, a Jcondition insensibly >6kening the powers of the presidency. t

report cards and discipline.

We took for granted that the results were going to be there if we changed, said Robert Wheeler, head of the Bureau of School Systems in the federal Office of Education. It turns out that some of the innovations were not productive. Some were productive. The one most frequently cited now by educators is the idea of providing a variety of educational alternatives for pupils and their parents.

Interviews witK dozens of educators teachers, administrators, association officers and state and federal officials also indicated no widespread retreat from the goal of better* meeting the individual learning needs of children. It was the aim of much of t^e recent innovation.

But the signs of adjustment are many:

Partitio'ils were put up last year in the Forest Edge Elementary School in Reston', Va., an open space school built in 1971. The same thing was done in New Ipswich, N.H., and team teaching was dropped as well.

Enthusiasm has waned for ,the open classroom and its accent on allowing children to follow their learning instincts with little interference from teachers and curriculum goals.

There is a renewed streps on computational arithmetic the old math in elementary schools across the country. The new math and its emphasis on theory are being left to junior and senior high schools in many communities.

There is also an increasing emphasis on composition, grammr and spelling in many schools, a change that reflects; in part, the vocal complaints of college professors and admissions officers that many stu-clents cannot write English.

Two fundamental schools were, opened last fall in the suburbs west of Denver by the Jefferson County Public Schools system. They stress mastery of basic skills: reading, arithmetic, English, grammar, literature, spelling and penmanship. There are regular tests in all subjects and report cards with letter grades.

Similar schools are open or planned in California, Maryland and North Carolina. If nothing else, said many educators, they indicate a renewed awareness of achievement as a measure of educational progress.

It was the launching of Sput-nil? that triggered a re-exam-ination of American education in 1957. Widespread changes came in the next decide when the money of the Great Society started flowing. Federal expenditures for public schools increased from $500 million in 1956 to $2.1 billion in 1966 and ah estimated $5.9 billion this year.

In 1965, President Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Title III of the act established federal funding for innovative and exemplary projects. It was a springboard for change. About

$1.4 billiijn has been spent tinder the Title III program.

The projects funded under Title III have changed over the years, said^Lee Wickline, direc-for of Title III in the Office of Education.

We have more programs now, for example, that are coming to grips with reading problems, he said. In 1965, we had a lot that were dealing with the arts and things like that.

Title III money was used to fund experiments in computer-assisted instruction. There are few around now. Basically, it costs too much, said Wickline. The cost of education has just gone Up so muclr that it. is a major factor in casing sclv)ol districts not to look toward introducing new programs and ideas. ' .

On June 30, Titk III will be consolidated out o^ existence. It has been combined with nutrition and drop out prevention programs in an extension of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act signed last year by President Ford. During months of congressional debate, attention had focused on provisions in the legislation dealing with school busing.

The shift away from the innovative philosophy of recent years reflects larger changes in ' society, many educators said. There are some schools. Of course, that do not have far to go in going back to basics.

School administrators from dozens of states have visited, the John Marshall Fundamental School, a back-to-basics public school in Pasadena, Calif. However, officials there said there have been few vis-itol-s from the Plains States and they could remember no inquiries from Montana,,

Some inner-city schools have been emphasizing basic educational skills for several years. Blacks and other minority parents traditionally have stressed their importance, researchers say. Beginning in the late 1960s, community control of schools led to intensive reading and arithmetic programs at some schools in New York, Philadelphia and other cities.

The renewed interest in tradi-t^nal approaches shows up eVen in educations latest innovation. Sometimes called education by choice, it involves offering pupils and their parents a variety of options within a single school.

The education-by-choice ^schools invariably have at least one liberal, open classroom program. What is new is that , some of them also offer an alternative program that is more^ structured and more disciplined than what most students were getting before.

In (Quincy, 111., students can chopse from several schools within a new high school complex. There are two very open schools where students, call teachers by first names and work out their own study projects and schedules. There is also a traditional school.

JACKS GOT TO BE PREW NIMBLEL

&ee/.s.

I read in the newspaper the other day about a teenager who ran away from home because her parents wouldnt buy her a stereo. Sadly enough, thats typical. Were, all too dependent on machines. For example, when my neighbor decided to save energy by giving up her electric can-opener, her daughter announced in front of her home-ec class that she couldnt do her homework assignment because of her primitive kitchen facilities. Im not immune either when we moved from an apartment with a dishwasher to a house without one, my hands spent two weeks in culture shock.

But the machine were most dependent on is the car. The other week when our car stopped wheezing and started coughing and choking, we took it to the body doctor. It was obvious that the car had a severe respiratory ailment; I thought it might even be emphysema, considering all the smoking it had been doing lately. But I was totally unprepared for the final diagnosis.

Honey, Phillip said, a tear trickling down his cheek.

Were going to have to trade.

I stood there speechless, a rare occurrence at our house. Phillip continued, The mechanic said that the only thing he could do was to give it a f,ew squirts of oil to ease the pain of its demise.

By Gail Michaels

No Bedrooni^ Suite, But Reclining Seats Await

/ GAIL

MICHAELS

Wecant trade, I gasped Where will we get the money?

From the savings account, of course.

Oh. no we wont. I didnt risk stunting my growth by sittifll up until two oclock grading papers every Sunday night so that I could put my money into a piece of aluminum siding on wheels That moneys for a new tiedroom suite.

And just how do you ex p^t to get to school? Phillip asked. "You might ride a broom, but you certainly cant ride a bed.

Ill walk, 1 answered.

You walk? he asked incredulously. You expect me to believe that youre going to exercise those flabby muscles six miles each day Why, you even hitch a ride to the mailbox every morning. But if we buy a car, we cant afford a bedroom suite, I sobbed. And Im tired of nailing that bed we have back together every time.the cat jumps on it. Its so old, George Washington probably slept there

I doubt that they were making Danish modern back then, he grinned.

I could see that there was no use arguing any more. Phillip already had that gleam of new metal in his eyes, Okay," 1. sighed. Well trade.

Great!" he shouted, gleefully slapping me on the back until I was wheezing like the car You wont regret this, either, because Im going to make sure any car we buy has reclimng seats. Why wont I regret it? I choked. 1 never asked for reclining seats.

Well, look at it this way, he answered. If the bed does fall apart, at least well have some place to sleep.!.One In Seven In U.S. Work Force Is Fearful Of Losing Job

(Cdpyright 1975, Field Enterprises, Inc, All rights reserved. Republication in whole or part strjttly prohibited, except with the wriytten consent of the copyright holders.)

By GEORGE GALLUP PRINCETON, N.J.One person in every seven ii) the U.S. work force is fearful of losing his or her job during the next 12 months.

'The Gallup Polls current Job Security Index shows 5

per cent of employd persons saying it is very likely and 10 per cent fairly likely that they will lose their jobs, a total of 15 per cent who are insecure regarding their current employment status.

Job insecurity is sonoewhat greater among part-time workers (24 per cent say it is very or fairly likely that they will be laid off) than among full-time workers (14 per cent are fearful of losing

their jobs).

Job Security Index Adds New Dimension * The Jpb Security Index was developed by the Gallup Poll to provide additional insight into the employment situation in America today. The findings should be lookpd at 'in conjunction with estimates of th nem-ployment rate as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The January unemployment rate, as

reported by the Bureau, was 8.2 per cent.

While the results reported today show considerable job insecurity, the positive side of the employment picture should not be overlooked. In fact, more than eight persons in 10 in the current survey indicate a relatively high degree of jiJb security, with 27 per cent saying it is not too likely and 54 per cent saying it is not at all likely the> will lose their jobs or be laid

off during the next 12 months.

Following is the question asked to (jetermine degree of job security:

Thinking about the next 12 months, how likely do you think it is that you wUf lose your job or be laid off very likely, fairly likely, not too likely, or not at all likely? Here are the national results, based upon views of persons who are employed (approximately half thV sample):

HOW LIKELY TO LOSE JOB?

(Views of employed persons, nationwide) Very likely 5**

Fairly likely 10

Not too likely 27

Not at all likely 54

No. opinion 4

The findings reported today are based on in-person in-Herviews with 1,541 adults, 18 and older, in more than 350 sampling location^across the patioh during the period Jan

31-Feb. 3.

Job Insecurity Greater Among Non-Whites Analysis of thi^survey findings reveals patterns similar to those found in relation to unemployment data as compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Non-whites and persons at the lower end of the economic soale. for example, are considerably more insecure regarding their y current

employment status than are whites and persons in higher income groups. Proportionately. twice as many-non-whites as whites say it. is very likely they will lose t heir jobs or be laid off during the next 12 months.

Most likely to be fearful of losing their jobs are persons employed in blue-collar jobs, with the findings showing little difference in outlo<^ between skilled and unskilled workers.