Observations From Editorial Columns

A Conservative View

The Dally Reflector, Greenville, N.C.~8nnday, June 1, 197SA*5

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Random Thoughts On The National Moral Tone

Chop Down Washington Portrait?

Did American artist Gilbert Stuart really paint the prtrait of George Washington that has been displayed in the White House since the early 1800s? Art histrnnan Marvin Sadik says no. White 'House curator Clement Conger sdys yes.

Further, Mr. Conger says he is not interested in arguing about dt We say its a Stuart arid were content to let it go at that, he said. Any questioning aoout it has come from people given to questioning things.

Mr. Conger has made it clear that he is no such person, and we dont blame him. Too much curiosity in such matters can be harmful. For example, the state museum in Mississippi once had what everyone thought was a tiny Egyptian mummy. It was ' on display for 50 years, delighting thousands of school kids and other visitors. Then a skeptical fellow decided to x-ray the ancient mummy. He found some old Milwaukee newspapers in what should have been the mummys tummy, leading to the conclusion that either the mummy was a fake or Egyptians had a 'strange diet

Gpherally were in favor of telling everybody just about everything, but this time we agree with Mr. Conger: Lets leave the painting alone. The way things are going in Washington, we might discover not only that it is a pseudo-Stuart but that it is

* not even of Washingtoninstead, some Royalist rum-runner or

* the like. Even worse, it might be painted on some old Milwaukee newspapers.

Charlotte (N. C.) Observer

Too Zealous

In his zeal for protesting the effects of candy on childrens teeth a British Columbia dentist overturned candy counters in a . ,store and was ordered by a court to pay for the damages.

Its commendable for one who knows about such things to protest in the interest of his young clients. But damaging property is no way to express dissatisfaction with anything.

If just emphasizing what sugar will do for childrens teeth wont be convincing, turning over sugar countetrs wont either.

Greenville (S. C.) News-Piedmont -

y

Wan^ yVon't Banish Bermuda

It is with a great deal of sympathy and understai^ing that we note the introduction o( a very special bill in the lower house of th General Assembly.

Rep. Robert Falls of Cleveland is the introducer of a bill which would prohibit the Department of Transportation from planting common Bermuda grass along the roadside at any point near cultivated land.

This is obviously a bill that represents a lifetime of blood, "sweat, and tears spent fighting Bermuda grass.

* i As any gardener Of any experience whatsoever can attest Bermuda is the meanest, toughest and most persistent of all weed foes. Pull it out by its roots and that one piece of root left behind will be up and laughing at you the next week.

' We are of mixed mind about the bill, however, for it reeks of snobbery. It does not ban the use of a sexually propagated hybrid Bermuda grass That, we suppose, is an educated Bermuda that has been taught some manners. ^

Moreover, the bill is objectionable because of its limitations to - highway rights of way next to cultivated land. If he wanted to be a friend of man, Rep. Falls could have made Bermuda grass illegal wherever it appeared. But, like prohibition, we suppose it would have failed becaue of the impossibility of enforcement.

In fact, if anyone thinks even roadside Bermuda will goeth "before a Falls he doesnt know his grass from... never mind.

^ The Salisbury Post

Manglesdorf...

(Continued from page A-4)

an entire resort isle.

'The Russians have some 10,000 windmills spinning on the Caspian Sea generating power to extract salt from seawater.

And, since the proposed sale of two nuclear reactors to Egypt fell through, an Oklahoma State University professor has bqen helping Egypts energy minister plan a windmill farm to supply cheap power for Arab cities and farms.

Ward says GPW has been contacted about building a demonstration windmill farm to power a- small Kansas town, a western Kansas radio'Station is investigating costs of powering the sjation by windmill, and Farmland Industries at Dodge City, Kan., has concluded it is technologically feasible to convert its fertiliser production plant to^ a windmill-powered operation.

Kansas State Universitys dean of engineering has devised a complete plan for a solar power plant to power the entire university with wind and sun energy.

Former Atomic Energy Commission Director Dixie Lee Ray proposed nearly $32 million be earmarked for a wind farm demonstration. Wards group is lobbying hard to locate the prototype in Kansas in the nations strongest inland wind belt running from Texas to the Dakotas.

The most immediate use of

By JAMES J. KILPATRICK

Here in the nations capital, where the atmosphere unhai^ily gets polluted, we are daily informed of the AQI. That is the Air Quality Index. It might be even more useful to have an HI, giving us regular readings on a Hypocrisy Index also.

For the past couple of weeks, hypocrisy has been thicker than pollen in these parts. Members of the Congress are jumping up and down. Members of the Securities qpd Exchange Commission are erupting in print. Such antibusiness magazines as New Republic are having conniption fits. And all this stems from what the Washington Post denounces as corporate bribery aborad.

Well. It appears that Gulf Oil, over a period of years, made about $5 million in contributions to foreign politicians. Most of this went to political figures in South Korea. Some of it went to the late Bolivian President, General Rene Barientos

Ortuno. United Brands reportedly paid bribes of $1.3 million in Honduras, in an effort to reduce a banana-export tax. The SEC has its eye on Ashland Oil, Phillips Petroluem, the Northrop Corporation, Minnesota Minning St Manufacturing, and a batch of smallen companies that copera te worldwide.

The air has been filled with windblown nouns. The offending coprorations are charged with greed, venality, chicanwy and corruption. They stand accused of deception, illegality, shame and scandal. It was all too much for Gulf s chairman. Bob R. Dorsey, who fell prostrate before a Senate committee. He confessed that Gulfs payments constituted a sorrowful chapter in the companys history.

What about all this? Perhaps my moral sensibilities are conquested, owing to the record HI levels of Washington, but I am truly puzzled by the uproar. What we are hearing, in part at least, is the abusive clang of the pot that calls the kettle

Threat To Economically Comfortable Life Fired Up Revolt Of Colonies

windmill power is to generate energy directly into power plants to stretch existing fossil fuel supplies. When the wind blows, the utilities simply shut off gas and use windpower.

Wind energy. Ward says, can be stored as electricity in huge batteries. It also can be stored in reservoirs of water created by wind-powered pumps fhising water into the jxwls. When the water is released, it runs down through turbines generating electricity.

Farmers, through windmill-powered electrolysis, could separate water into hydrogen and oxygen tanks, store the hydrogen to power everything including tractors, to dry grain and to produce their own hydrogen fertilizer. The pure oxygen could be sold at a profit. .

The hitch is the high cost of windmills now made by hand. *

Its like making a car by hand, you get a Rolls Royce, Ward says. We have to mass produce them.

Ward has had preliminary discussions with labor officials and is convinced thousands of jobless auto workers could go back to work mass-producing windmills.

In Detroit they work with structural steel, differential gears, generators and alternators the same gears arid parts needed for windmills, Ward says.

By DON McLEOD Associated Press Writer

The colonists who fought the American Revolution were a lot like petle today. What really got them worked up was the high cost of living.

This was at the bottom of all that furor about stamps and tea and taxation without representatioa It was upsetting the family budget and the merchants balance sheet

Before times got hard, you didnt hear Americans yelping about their rights.

The founding fathers were men of principle, to be sure, who fought for their beliefs. But like most things American these beliefs had good, sound, practical Yankee roots.

Most Americans had come to this country in the first place because of the economic opportunity, the right to sc^ek a fortune or at least a ^Ood living, to be independent and free from want and oppression.

For over a century the government in London had been regulating and taxing colonial commerce, and the Americans hadnt really objected.

For one thing, the duties were easy to evade. Smuggling was a way of life and Britain didnt try too hard to stop it Business was flourishing .and times were good.

But the close of th French and Indian War in 1763 brought with it the traditional postwar letdown. It was Americas first honest-to-goodness depression and Americans ^dnt like it

Few realized the industrial revolution was taking hold in Europe and the world was feeling its first industrial age cyclical adjustment

It would have been little solace to know things were tough in England, too. Thats why the colonists had left America was supposed to be a better place, where

Evans-Novak. .

(Continued Froni^age A-4)

thinking during the meetings. Indeed, the veto itself was also-uncharacteristic of his presidency. Just a month ago. even Republicans were grumbling that his administration stood for nothing^ and Mr. Ford still acted like a compromise-seeking Congressman. But the veto now suggests Mr. Ford is becoming more presidential and less congressional. For that reason alone, unpopular though it is among mass opinion, the veto could turn out to be the best politics of all.

recessions and > depressions didnt happen

Depression was a shock to Americans. The lamentations (rf the day could have come out of last weeks newspaper. Businesses failed. Credit was tight. Manufacturers complained of production costs. Landowners said costs were going up while their crc^ sold for less.

The trouble in England passed to America. Reduced buying power in the mother country meant less market for the colonies produce, which meant the colonists bought less from Englands manufacturers.

And as if things werent bad enough, Englishmen on both sides the Atlantic faced war debts and the taxes to pay them off.

At this very delicate moment in history, in the 176(iSi' Britain started trying to act like an empire, and did a very poor job of it

Victory over France had thrust upon England im-'

. mense territory. For the first time king and Parliament realized they were ruling an empire which must be . organized, governed and defended.

England decided the new American possessions would need a defense force and felt the Americans should help pay for its upkeep by fees on crfficial papers, everything from deeds to diplomas. It was the Stamp Tax.

The taxes werent that stiff in most cases, but they were a nuisance. And they taxed a wide variety of transactions.

The Americans raised such a ruckus that the Stamp Act was repealed without ever being enforced. But the British came right back with import duties on glass, paper, painters colors, lead and tea.

To make things worse, the English really enforced these new taxes as wellSks some older ones already on the books. And they demanded payment in hard currency, a scarce item in the colonies.

Americans in the 1760s reacted the same way their descendants do today. If England was going to nuike things cost more, then Americans would buy less. Housewives and merchants organized boycotts, developed substitutes, wore homespun and drank imitation tea.

The women of Newport pledged to make any sacrifice provided their husbands and lovers gave up their dearer and more beloved Punch, renounce going so often to Taverns, and become more kind and loving Sweethearts and Husbands.

English merchants, feeling the bind, demanded repeal. Parliament removed the

onerous tax on everything except tea, and American resistance collapsed.

For three years Americans drank taxed tea, if they couldnt get smuggled tea, without much thought for their rights. Prosperity returned, and the radicals fell into disrepute.

But just when it lookgd as if the Revolution wouldnt take place. Parliament stepped in and allowed the East India Company to sell its tea directly to American consumers, bypassing the colonial merchants.

Honest tea would have been cheaper, despite the tax on it, than smuggled tea with the middle man out of the way. But an outside company wwild have a monopoly.

America would be prostrate before a monster that may be able to destroy every branch of our commerce, cjrain us of all our property and)wantonly leave us to perish by thousands, one colonial said.

It was the cost of living issue again. The Americans got so mad they marched down to the piers and turned back the ships, except in Boston where they threw the tea into the harbor.

Principle and interest had been joined. Americans had one principle above all they were not going to be pushed around. With that one established they soon came up with some other pretty good ones, too.

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We ought not to look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dear-bought experience. George Washington.

Taylor Col. .

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graduatinj^lasses got too big for indoor ceremonies.

The graduation was held in the old College Stadium at the site of the Music building, and then were moved to Ficklen ->Staidum when that was built. I The ceremonies have been held around 5 oclock and it seems that rain threatened almost every year, but it seldom seemed to fall during the actual ceremonies.

During the years of Dr. Leo Jenkins, it has been referred to as the Jenkins luck. This year the program was moved up to 2 oclock, and though it was extremely hot I here was no rainfall. But at 5 oclock the bottom fell out. There would have been a drenched crowd if the graduation had started at that time

black. Are our own political practices and customs so pure, so virtuous, so unblemished, that we are lecture the Bolivians because we are holier than they?

Two observations come to mind. The first is that the {actice of bribery, to give it the short and ugly name, is ancient It wasnt invented by United Brands. In many foreign countries, the payoff is an accepted part of political life. The second observation is that Americas multinational coporations are not the only offenders. Scarcely a word has been said about payments by the great German,- Swiss. French, British, and Japanese companies, but we may be absolutely certain that they have made their contributions, top. For such companies, bribes are a basic business expense; you pay the bribes, or you dont do business.

Let us peer through the HI dimly. These matters are not sharply defined. They have a fuzz around the edges. A couple of months ago, the National Right to Work Committee published a documented report of $429,(X)0 in campaign contributions given by labor unions to members of the House Committee on Education and Labor. Back in the winter, we had a disclosure of hefty contributions by the trucking industry to members of the Commerce Committee. For the

past several years, we have been reading of contributions by the milk producers to everyone above the level of assistant doorkeeper.

Now, mind you, these are contributions. They are not bribes. Perish the thought! When American Airlines kicked in to the Nixon campaign, the idea was not that good things would happen if they sent a check. No, indeed. They were afraid of wjiat could happen if we didnt. When trade unions, bankers, doctors, and builders give to an American politician, they are merely supporting sound government. It is thefr civic duty. When a publisher takes a congressman to lunch, third-class mail rates are the last thing on his mind. When a governor goes on a duck-hunting junket in an oil company plane, do you suppose they talk of refineries? Why, sire, they talk only of ducks.

The Good Book asks a good question; Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brothers eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Morality is a sometime thing. The Huse of Representatives has just slipped itself a $10 million pay raise, in added staff, free newsletters, and further transportation at public expense. It might be something to shout about but the HI at noon climbs past the hazardous level, and it gets a little hard to breathe.

HUMAN NATURE, I GUESS!

By GAIL MICHAELS

A Choice: Kosher Diiis Or The Bolshoi Baiiet

By GAIL MICHAELS Expectant mothers have to give up a lot of thingslike drinking water before bedtime, wearing two piece bathing suits, and playing tennis in spiked heels. But the hardest thing for me to give up has been long trips. It used to be that when anybody said, Lets go, I was already in the car waiting. Now, the closest I can come to a trip is a sightseeing tour of Conetoe.

This particular restriction didnt really bother me until my husbands family started making plans to go up to Washington, D.C. to see my brother-in-law graduate. Naturally, 1 began to make up my itinerary, too. But my glorious fantasies of lunch at the Maison des Crepes, shopping in Georgetown, and entertaiprrient at the Kennedy "Center disappeared all to fast when my husband happened to mention, Of course, Gail cant go.

From that moment on, I spent all my time thinking up ways to convince him that we could make an exception in this one case. At first, I relied I in more subtle persuasion techniques I plucked the hairs on his big toe every

time he fell asleep; I poured garlic salt on his fried eggs; and I mopped the bathroom floor when he had an intestinal virus.

However, these tactics proved less than convincing. All he did was to retaliate by hiding my pickles. Therefore, I decided to take a more direct approach.

Why cant I go? 1 screamed in the middle of his favorite TV program.

GAIL

MICHAELS

You know good and well why you cant go, he answered impatiently. You dont want to endanger the baby any more than I do. The doctor says its just a little bitty risk, and for the Bolshoi Ballet, 1 might consider it, I pleaded.

Youve lived without the Bolshoi all these years you can live without it a little while longer, he answered.

trying to watch the TV with one eye.

Thats just it, I wailed. I cant live without it any longer. Ever since Ive moved to Greenville, the closest to culture Ive come is the sidewalk art show. Admit itc Im culturally

deprived!

But Greenville has tots of cultural events, he said defensively.

Sure, I sniffled, chomping a pickle. While you visit Kennedy Center, 1 can visit the 264 Playhouse. The, things I have to suffer. -. . Well, I guess I could stay home. . . he sighed.

Okay, I agreed promptly.

But I wont. Now why dont you try suffering in silence.

Puh-Ieeze. .

All right,all right, you can go, he yelled. But only on one condition.

Whats that?

If you go, he answered, leering evilly, Youve got to leave those stinking pickles at home

I stuffed three more pickles in my mouth. Kosherdills or the Bolshoi -~-tt wfMild be a rough decision!Poll Shows Muskie Leading Jackson As Presidential Choice

(Copyright 1975, Field Enterprises, Inc. All riglits reserved. Republication in whole or part strictly prohibited, except with the written consent of the copyright holders.)

By GEORGE GALLUP

PRINCETON^ N.J.,-Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine leads Sea Henry Jackson of Washington in an early, pre-convention showdown test between these two leading contenders for the 1976 nomination.

Muskie is the choice of 41 per cent of Democratic voters in the . latest nationwide survey, while Jackson is the choice of 34 per cent As many as one-fourth (25 per cent) of Democrats, however, currently do not express a preference between the two men.

These showdown test results are of particular interest inasmuch as Jackson has been campaigning vigorously in recent weeks, while Muskie has given littl? firm indication of his intentions for 1976.

At the same time, it should be borne in mind that Muskie likely has a built-in advantage over Jackson in this sh(wdown tMt

since he is considerably better known to the electorate at the present time. As reported last week, Muskie is known to 80 per cent of the public, while Jackson is known to only 59 per cent Here is the question asked:

Suppose the choice for President in the Democratic convention in 1976 narrows down to Sea Edmund Muskie of Maine and Sen. Henry Jackson of Washington. Which one would you prefer to have tte Democratic convention select?

Following are the results based on perswis in the survey who classify themselves as Democrats:

MUSKI vs. JACKSON (Choices of Democrats)

Muskie ^1

Jackson 34%

Undecided 25%

Analysis of the choices of Democrats by populatiwi groups reveals the following;

.Men are fairly evenly divided in their preferwices, but women lean in favor of Muskie.

- Persons with a collie background split their vote about

evenly, but Democrats with less than a college background tend to favor Muskie.

C Democratic voters under 50 years of age side with Muskie, whereas those over 50 are fairly evenly divided between the two f)residential possibilities.

-Among Democrats living outside the South, Muskie leads Jackson by a fairly wide margin. Among Southerner;^ alone, however, the two men are in close contentioa

Kennedy Leads Jackson.

Muskie, and Wallace As reported Thursday. Sea Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts holds a commanding lead in similar showdown tests over Jackson. Muskie and Gov. George Wallace of Alabama.

In a head-to-head contest with Jacksoa Kennedy leads by a vote of 70 to23 per cent. He holds a similar lead over Muskie, 70 to22 per cent and over W allace, 69 to24 per cent

Deulls of Surv ey *

The findings reported today are based on in-person interviews

with 675 persons who classify themselves as Democrats in a total sample of 1,478 adults, 18 and older. Interviewing was conducted May 2-5 in more than 300 scientifically selected localities across the natin.l:V

HL .MPHREY LEADS McGOVER.N BY W IDE MARGI.N, 48-3.'.%

Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota holds a wide lead over Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota as the nomination choice of the nations Democrats.

Of Democrats in the latest survey asked to choose between just these two men, 48 per cent chose Humphrey while 35 per cent chose McGovern (17 per cent not expressing a preference).

Both men lost in bids for the presidency. Humphrey was defeated by Richard Nix<^ by a nrrow margin in 1968, while McGovern was defeated by Nixon in 1972 by a vote of landslide proportions.