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PAGE FOUR.
we're in trouble
[J We're in real trouble.
With all the hullaballo over cleaning up the na-
tion's streams, lakes and rivers, and the Federal
Government's $5 billion expense on the effort over
the last 12 years, we are still polluting our waterways
faster than we are cleaning them up.
Most industry spokesmen, particularly ‘from
those industries which are known polluters, agree
that something must be done quickly, else we find
more Ohio Rivers and Lake Eries, which are now
eutrophic. But few industries are willing to foot the |W ARE
bill to clean up their effluents to any great extent.
Enforcement efforts initiated by state and fed-
eral agencies are hampered by bureaucratic boon-
doggling and legal loopholes to the point of being
rendered ineffective. In fact, it is not uncommon
that such agencies as the Federal Water Pollution
Control Administration and the Army Corps of En-
gineers have actually helped the polluters more than
‘they have acted to stop them.
Legislation now pending in the U.S. Congress
would tax known polluters for their mess to the ex-
tent that their operations would become uneconomic
if they did not clean up their effluents. But whether
such a measure becomes law, the nation’s fresh
water resources will not improve unless and until
the polluter and not the government becomes ulti-
mately responsible for the cost of cleaning up the
environment.
for whom do you work?
[[J] Who do you work for—and why do you work?
: The obvious answer, of course, is that you
work for your employer or for yourself, and that
" the reason you work is to provide the wherewithal
of living.
However, that answer is an oversimplification
nowadays. If you are an average citizen—and
-most of us are—more than a quarter of your eight-
hour working day is done on behalf of the govern-
ment. In essence, government is your employer
during that period and takes all of your earnings.
Government figures indicate that taxes take
Wo hodrs“and “45 minutes” of “your working’ time
each day. By way of contrast, food and tobacco
together demand only 1 hour 28 minutes, household
and household operations 1 hour and 30 minutes,
and so on down the list.
Considering these statistics, you might have
second thoughts if you think that taxation and
government spending aren’t of top importance to
you and your family. hr
less for Laos
: [1 President Nixon has revealed that American
involvement in Laos has been represented as
. “grossly inaccurate’ and that ‘‘only’’ 400 Americans
. have died there and ‘“‘only’”’ 400 planes have been
lost there. It is no reason for us to be pacified.
While he claims that only a few hundred Ameri-
cans are acting in a military capacity, and that
they have been doing so for the past six years,
again that is no reason to be pacified. The presi-
dent appears to be able to take comfort from his
statement that ‘no GI's are fighting in a ground
war’ (later determined to be inaccurate). We can-
not and must not permit the United States to be °
there in any capacity other than that of civilian.
~ It is almost too much to believe that we are
“there at all in any military role, yet we are. Ten
years ago in Vietnam we had only a few hundred
military ‘“‘advisors,” today we are engaged in a
battle that has taken nearly 50,000 lives. Are we
to be pacified because we are told that the only
military action the United States is involved in in
Laos is an ‘“‘aerial” one? The president also takes
relief from his statement that “U.S. personnel in
Loas during the past year has not increased, while
during the past few months, North Vietnam has
sent over 13,000 additional combat ground troops
into Loas.” We should think, in light of the Vietnam
tragedy, that the United States should: care less if
North Vietnam sent 13 million ground combat troops
into Loas.
Tie SDALLASC0ST
A non-partisan, liberal, and progressive newspaper published every Thursday morn-
ing by Northeastern Newspapers Inc. from 41 Lehman Ave., Dallas, Pa. 18612.
Entered as second class matter at the post office at Dallas, Pa., under the Act of
March 3, 1869. Subscription within county, $5 a year. Out-of-county subscriptions,
$5.50 a year. Call 675-5211 for subscriptions.
The officers of Northeastern Newspapers Inc. are Henry H. Null 4th, president and
publisher; John’ L. Allen, vice president, advertising; J. R. Freeman, vice presi-
‘dent, news, -
Editor emeritus, Mrs. T. M. B. Hicks; managing editor, Doris R. Mallin; editor of
the editorial page. Shawn Murphy; advertising manager, Annabell Selingo.
We don’t know his name so
we shall call him Smith, and
one day this man came to Smith
and said, ‘‘You have been very
fortunate; the government has
selected you in a Sociological
Experiment, and would you
mind accepting a monthly check
of $150 for the next three years?’
And Smith said, languidly,
“G’wan, feller; I'll call the
cops!”
And so to make a long story
short, Smith now gets in his
mail every month a nice check
from the U.S. Office of Econom-
ic Opportunity, and his wife
cashes it at the supermarket
and since it began in 1969, it
will continue in 1971. That’s the
story of Smith.
What I haven’t said is that
Smith has two children, and a
menial job that brings him in
just about $1600 a year. And
that, my friends, makes him a
classic example of a family of
four whose income is just half
of the $3600 which has been
taken arbitrarily by the U.S.
* Government as the poverty line.
“It didn’t just*happentorSmith
He had to have the right in-
come and live in the right place
and be willing to go along with
the experiment.
And if you don’t believe me,
I will say at once that there
are over 2,000 ‘“‘Smith’’ famil-
ies all told, some in the coun-
try and some in the city.
The 1300 urban families live
in four New Jersey cities, and
in Scranton, Pa., and 835
country families live in North
Carolina or Iowa. Many of them
are what are called working
poor ; they have jobs, they strain
off
by BRUCE HOPKINS
I had to share breakfast the
; other day with a cockroach.
. Yeah, it was terribly exciting.
- I had never seen one before.
It just kind of wandered in
during the night, I guess.
Everyone in the apartment
complex had been talking
about them, but I had never
seen one. In fact, I really
. didn’t know what they liiked
like. Oh, occasionally I had
. killed a little bug and thought
maybe it was a roach, but I
* didn’t know for sure.
Then the other morning I
was pushing the toaster button
down, when I happened to
. glance into the garbage bag.
There it sat, calmly munching
on a piece of lettuce. I
screamed.
“Chip, come here quick.” I
yelled. Chip came bounding a-
round the corner and looked
around frantically.
‘“Whatsa matter, whatsa
matter?’’ He asked. I told him
to look at the monster in the
garbage bag.
“Oh, it’s a cockroach.” He
said calmly.
“How can you be so calm?”
I inquired nervously. “I mean
look at it ? It looks like a 1956
Cadillac. It’s frightening.”
At this point the roach had
crawled underneath the lettuce
« for protection, and I asked Chip
what he thought we ought to
do. He thought we ought to
ignore it.
“But, for God’s sake, what
if it demands that I share my
eggs with it? We can’t leave
it there—it will eat us out of
house and apartment.”
Chip suggested that when
we left for sehool, we could
simply empty the garbage bag.
I thought that was a good idea,
and I suggested that he stand
THE DALLAS POST, MARCH 26, 1970
7 & DC
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the
from Washington
and sweat, but they are trap- :
ped.
There are an equal number
of families who are mirror
images of the first group, or
‘controls’, and are watched
carefully by the government
officials, but they don’t get
any monthly check.
For that is the purpose of
this experiment, which is surely
one of the most extraotdinary
ever undertaken by any gov-
ernment anywhere, to find out
what Smith and all the other
Smiths do with their money as
compared with like families
who don’t get it.
Will Smith spend his windfall
on women and strong liquor?
Will he put it in the bank? Will
he run harder and harder round
the squirrel cage, or will he
slacken off and ease up on an
incredible free ride at tax-
payers’ expense?
What really is being tested’
here is a something pretty im-
portant; it is a test of the
moral fiber of a lot of humble
poeple—and indeed, of you and
me, 100, because we are not
too different. + I nme
There is more and more talk
these days of putting..a mini-
mum income floor under every-
body; in short, of abolishing
poverty.
President Nixon, with a nudge
from his White House lepre-
chaun-in-residence, Dani€l Pat-
rick Moynihan, came up sur:
prisingly last year with his own
version of this, a proposed na-
tional Family Allowance
Program with a $1600 a year
minimum for a family of four
(supplemented by $800 in food
stamps).
Fn
i
JT
Smith experiment, what will happen?
Ideas for income maintenance
systems are blossoming out all
over. Pat Moynihan, before he
came to the White House, was
a backer of the Children’s Al-
lowance, which they have in
Canada and 60 other nations.
Sen. George McGovern (D) of
South Dakota last week pro-
posed this for the U.S.
It’s great virtue is that it
practically administers itself,
there is virtually no bureauc-
racy; the mothers take the
check and use it as they see
fit. (If you can’t trust a mother
to do what’s right for her child,
who can you trust?) The dis-
advantage is that it’s a scat-
ter-gun approach; alotof money
goes to middle income fami-
lies and not the destitute, and
only part is recovered in in-
come tax. 4
The Nixon plan is now before
the House Ways and Means
Committee. It stunned many
when he introduced it because
it was like Herbert Hoover hav-
ing a love affair with a Treas-
ury deficit.
And yet, this shouldn’t-have
seemedsecsurprising. America’s
present welfare system is al-
most collapsing; it’s nearly as
bad as the health-hospital-men-
ical complex in America. You
can feel in your bones that
within four or five years both
welfare and health will be na-
tionalized
other.
Gov. Rockefeller in 1967 got
minent American business lead-
ers, the chairman of Xerox, of
Inland Steel, Mobil Oil, Metro-
politan Life, and so on, and they
examined the unholy welfare
mess and reported unanimously
the cuff stuff
guard at the bag, while I fin-
ished breakfast.
Anyway, I sat there calmly
eating and keeping an eye on
the garbage, when Warren
came around the corner. He
remarked that there was some-
thing crawling out of the gar-
bage bag. I jumped up and
stood behind him, watching the
roach crawl down the side of
the bag.
“Kill it, Warren, kill it.”
I shouted. Warren said he'd
have to go put his shoes on so
he could step on it. He left.
He actually walked away, and
left me stranded in the kitchen
with this elephantine cockroach.
Some roommate. I backed up
against the wall. The only
choice I had was to make him
think I wasn’t afraid of him.
“Alright, roach, your days
are over. I'm going to get you
and get you good. Don’t think
you can scare me because you
can't.”
The roach, who for some rea-
son seemed to be ignoring me,
turned around and began head-
ing toward the back of the re-
frigerator. By the time Warren
would get back with his shoes,
the cockroach could be in Phil-
adelphia. I knew I had to
ake my move. There was
one possibility. The roach was
just passing an empty soda
bottle, and if I acted quickly,
I could trap him underneath
it. But I had to act fast.
I took two steps forward,
picked up the bottle, and went
“Aha!” Listen, have you ever
seen an excited cockroach?
I mean, they travel faster
than a speeding bullet. He kept
running in circles, coming pre-
cariously close to my stock-
inged feet. Just as I was about
to plop the bottle on his head,
he scooted behind the refrig-
erator. I plopped the bottle on
my big toe. Oh, the pain. It
crept up my ankle to my knee
and back down again. I stood
there cringing, and Warren
came around the corner.
“Did you get him?” He
asked.
“No, the score is 15—love,
in favor of the roach.”
Warren did his best to find
him. He moved the refrigerator
and everything, but there was
no sign of the roach. And we
haven’t seen him since. Frank-
ly, I hope we never do.
Of course, I keep getting
encouragement from the ladies
in the faculty room. “Oh my,”
said the home ec teacher, ‘‘if
you've got one, you've got 30.”
Now, I ask you, how can I
possibly be expected to feed
30 cockroaches? Can you im-
agine what might happen if
they ever got together and
formed a union?
Anyway, I never want to see
one again. Everytime I enter
the apartment, I play it safe.
I open the door, turn on the
lights and shout,
I am coming into my apart-
ment.” That let’s them know
I'm coming so they can get out
of the way.
My other preventative meas-
ure concerns my roommates.
I have instructed them not to
let the garbage pile up beyond
five bags full. The least we can
do is offer the roaches a chal-
lenge. Ya know?
in some way Or:
“Well, here
that, ‘It should be replaced
with an income maintenance
system, possibly a negative
income tax, which would bring
all thirty million (poor) Amer-
icans up to at least the official
Federal poverty line.”
Now Sen. Fred Harris (D) of
Oklahoma, (having broken free
from being chairman of the .
near-bankrupt Democratic Na-
tional Committee) comes for-
ward with his own federal in-
come maintenance proposal.
It’s a lot like Nixon's except
that it would pay more; the
checks would be graduated to
bring everybody up to the arbi-
trary poverty line. The cost
would rise from $7 billions the
first year to $20 billions the
third. (The Nixon plan would
cost around $4 billion).
A lot of money. But it would
be a substitute for a lot of mon-
ey now spent on the incredibly
inefficient welfare programs.
“A recent study by Gilbert
Steiner estimates that five as-
sorted Federal programs cost
$13.25 billion a year, with heav-
en knows how much more from
states and private charity. The
distribution is a nightmare of
inequality. Something must be
done soon . . . Oh, and by the
way, Sen. Harris reports that
the ‘Smiths’ are doing admir-
ably; at any rate they are plug-
ging away under the goad of
the old Puritan Ethic. They
seem to be working harder than
ever.
Notes: At a White House
reception for Sen. Russell last
week, Mr. Nixon explained that
he checked information with
a lot of people: ‘This is con-
sistent with our policy of cross-
ruffingeverything,’”’ Judith Mar-
tin of the Washington Post
quotes him as saying, ‘Rather
than just getting the opinions
of in-house people, we're check-
ing with out-house people, too”
. . . And we sympathize with
Nigel Calder in the New States-
man (London) on the problem
of England’s change to the met-
ric system: ‘‘Itis better to
know that 940-630-960 milli-
metres is a shapely figure
than to stop and convert it to
37-25-38.”
The Right
To Write
To THE POST:
The Dallas Post is the oldest
informative paper of the Back
Mountain area. We enjoy its
national, state and home news
of the community.
Mr. Editor, the time has
come for the ‘‘Silent Majority’’
to raise it’s VOICE and dem-
onstrate in ACTION and FAITH
our National Motto, “In God
We Trust” demanding VICTO-
RY for the dead and the living
soldiers in Vietnam and at
home and abroad, by joining
THE VICTORY MARCH FOR
GOD AND COUNTRY, Satur-
day, April 4, in Washington,
D.C. A chartered bus will be
at the Kingston Municipal
Building. For more information
you may call Dallas 675-1488
or Kingston 287-1451.
SALLY M. BROWN
Dallas
poetry corner
Morning mists,
Evening shadows,
frame the sunlit day
like bookends protecting volumes ti
of deeds and unread knowledge.
From
by HIX
It’s a little late this year, but
the first crocuses are here, and
the snowdrops, and in no time
at all the first wave of frost-
bitten robins will be hopping
around in the front yard, freez-
ing their feet in what remains
of the snow covering.
Better the robins than the
perch. There was an item on a
newscast not too long ago, that
land-roving perch had frosted
their fins down in Florida, when
they took off cross country
from one stream to another.
What's the country coming to,
if the fish start walking? Isn’t
there anything at all that we
can depend upon to stay put?
It would give me pause, a
whole lot of pause, if I were
curled in a sleeping bag some-
where near a stream, and a
perch nudged in alongside,
saying ‘‘Shove over, I'm friz,
howzabout sharing the
wealth?’ It would be abso-
lutely shattering. But I under-
stand that it has happened. Hal
Borland, in his compilation of
stories about the great outdoors
in “Our Natural World,” cities
an instance where a large cat-
fish, frozen into a block of ice
and completely immobile,
stretched itsfins, started breath-
ing, and leaped out of its tub on-
to the floor, committing suicide
in an attempt to reach a larger
body of water. He might have
made it, but the concrete floor
of the garage gave him no life
support.
Walking fish take you back
to the beginning of time, and
remind you that evolution is
still going on, imperceptibly but
steadily.
Robins, I can understand.
There is something comforting
about seeing the first flock of
robins. They're here to stay for
- the duration, and one stupid
set of parents is bound to try
building a nest on the curving
frame of the front door, shel-
tered by the porch. The straw
keeps falling off before the mud
cement can be applied to hold
it in place, and the porch is a
shambles. There is a small
shelf designed for a robin’s
nest, over one of the windows,
but the robin passes it up.
Mamma built her nest over the
door, so over the door it has to
be according to family tradition,
and eventually first one wisp
and then another is cemented
in place, and nest building pro-
gresses.
The lawn will need a ton of
topsoil to conceal the scar
where the submersible pump
was hauled to the surface last
fall. Pioneer Avenue, in com-
mon with the major portion of
the Back Mountain, has a strata
of water-bearing rock beneath
it, and the soil is very thin. So
thin, in fact, that in times of
prolonged drought the trees suf-
fer. One enormous oak was de-
nied water for years on end,
FORTY YEARS AGO
Fire destroyed three cottages
on the Idetown-Harveys Lake
Road Wednesday morning, with
an estimated loss of $2500.
The Rev. Harry F. Henry,
pastor of the Shavertown Meth-
odist Church, received another
threatening letter warning him
to get our of town or ‘‘take
what comes.” The minister
had been leading a campaign
against bootleggers.
Harold Lloyd’s Studebaker
touring car was badly damaged
by fire while he was driving to.
Wilkes-Barre.
THIRTY YEARS AGO
With the death of Mrs. Clara
Cook, much of the early history
of Dallas vanished. Mrs. Cook,
83, daughter of pioneer resi-
dents of the area, Mr. and Mrs.
Ira D. Shaver, had innumer-
able tales of the early days
at the tip of her tongue. Her
husband Charles, who died in
1931, made valuable maps of
the area during his long years
as a surveyor. Mrs. Cook’s
father had the first post office
in Dallas, on the location of
Kuehn’s drugstore (now Fi-
no’s). ;
Herman Sands, Carverton
auctioneer, noted that he had
more than 60 sales booked for
the season. He had been in
the business for 20 years. ‘It’s
“petting harder and harder to
make a living on a farm these
days,’”’ he said, ‘‘and that might
explain the spurt in farm sales.
Take an old fashioned earthen
vessel, especially one with a
crocheted silencer on the lid;
it always gets a laugh from
the crowd but we sell em.”
C. A. Frantz said he would
retire from active business
April 1, and his son-in-law
Harold Titman was named to -
succeed him in operation of
Pillar To Post
- side. They form a rr
and now is dead, dropping
off one branch after another.
It was a beautiful tree. It used
to carry on a stout branch ex-
tending = over
the . chilgiren’s
sandpile, a tall swing i@nich
an airborne passenger ‘could
swing far out over the steep
slope. As the tree gradually lost
the breath of life, it put forth
no more leaves, and now it
stands, a skeleton. And beneath
it, no longer shaded, the grass
is growing.
The heavy snows of this past
winter should be restoring the
water table. Melting has been
so gradual that there has been,
to date, no major run-off, and
the danger of a flood in the
valley is lessening day by day.
An advertisement in the Dal-
las Post brought a man with a
truck, who says he can take
down the evespouts. Gutters
become clogged with ne@Yes if
a home owner has a grove of
pine trees on the windward
resists the passage of raiff@hiter,
.and freeze solid in zero weath-
er. This winter specialized in
zero weather, and for a time
there, the icicles were reaching
almost to the ground. They nev-
er seemed to drip, but they
lengthened dav by day.
With the gutters removed,
there's always the chance that
the rain can drip down over
the eaves and provide welcome
moisture for the flowerbeds be-
neath, instead of slucing down
into the rain tub, overflowing,
and washing the thin topsoil
down onto the terrace.
That catfish. . .the man who
had it in his garage had cut a
solid block of ice containing the
fish, out of a pond, and had
taken it home with him just on
general suspicion. He was
amazed when the fish came to
life, gulped ‘feebly, roiied his
eyed, and suggested 2 Greer
container where a fellow" with
fins and. feelers could move
about. Transferred from tub to
tank, the catfish gathered his
strength before making the su-
preme effort to follow his in-
stincts and hunt more gmbi-
tious quarters. His an®¥ition
killed him.
There isn’t any moral. How
, could a catfish be expected to
trust a man to cart him back
to his native element? Do-it-
yourself is the law of nature.
Do it or die.
his general store. Mr. Frantz,
president of Dallas Bank, saw
Dallas grow from an isglated
hamlet. b
TWENTY YEARS AGO
Clifford Space, Huntsville
Road, lost a huge section of
his big barn when tons of wet
snow collapsed the roof.
Geroge Frantz, 65, cogpsed
from a heart attack anly died
in the back seat of his car late
Wednesday night. Mr. Frantz,
on his way back to his home
in Lehman from Wilkes-Barre,
stopped in front of the Trucks-
ville Post Office when he
found the steep grade was slip-.
pery from still-falling smow.
A young boy assisted him in
putting chains on his car. Mr.
Frantz then stepped back into
his car to rest for a time be-
fore battling the storm. William
Parsons, walking his dog short-
ly after midnight, discovered:
the body. %
TEN YEARS AGO s
A horrifying accident snuffed
out the life of a 5-year old
Shavertown boy when little
Charles Misson slipped in an
icy puddle and plunged under:
the rear wheels of a school
bus directly across the street
from his home on Main Road.
He was the son of Mr. and Mrs.
Carl Misson.
A representative of a Harris-
burg engineering firm met with
representatives
Township, Dallas Township
and Dallas Borough to explain
the first steps necessary to-
ward consideration of a sew-
age system for the Back Moun-
tain area.
Goodleigh Farm, in the dairy
business for nearly forty years,
went out of business with the
dispersal of 80 head of prize
guernsey cows at a Lancaster
sale.
of Kingston
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