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Page Four
EDITORIAL
Patrolman Sabol
Most policemen everywhere, including the Back
Mountain, receive inadequate salaries. Also they
can seldom get sufficient insurance to protect
themselves and their families in case they are in-
jured or killed in the line of duty—but these and
many other inadequacies do not deter the dedicated
“cop” from his duties.
Courage is one of the necessary traits needed by
a good police officer—among a number of other re-
‘quirements. It cannot be a sometime courage, but
must always be to the fore when needed.
Too often a courageous policeman does not re-
ceive public recognition for an exhibition of cour-
age and devotion to his job.
This week, for all citizens of the Back Mountain
area, we would like to commend all good and de-
voted law enforcement officers—with a special
commendation for Patrolman Paul Sabol of King-
ston Township.
Patrolman Sabol was called to the scene of an
attempted burglary early one morning last week.
Upon arriving at a local service station, he found
the alleged burglar crouching inside the building.
When the suspect ran out the front door and fled up
a steep bank, the Kingston Township officer pur-
sued him. Although Officer Sabol had his own ser-
vice gun and fired over the suspect’s head, he did
not know at the time whether the burglar was
“armed and dangerous.” This did not keep Patrol-
man Sabol from the performance of his sworn duty
to protect the lives and property of his township’s
citizens.
Needless to say, the suspect was arrested subse-
quently and taken to Luzerne County jail to await
trial. -
We believe this is a fine example of courage—as
displayed by many officers—and Patrolman Sabol
in particular.
Last week Gov. Shapp announced he would
veto a bill passed by the state senate which would
have substantially increased legislators’ pensions.
By ‘substantially increased’ we mean more than
double the present pension.
Legislators are currently allowed $540 in
pension per year served. This means that a man
with 10 years in the state house or senate would
receive $5,400 annual pension. The $540 dollar
figure represents 7.5 percent of a lawmakers an-
nual salary of $7,200. Under the new bill pensions
would be computed by taking 7.5 percent of $15,600
which is the sum of a legislator’s salary and ex-
pense allowance (currently $8,400 yearly.) This
would have raised legislators’ pensions from $540
per year served to $1,170. Furthermore the bill
would have raised the ceiling on pensions from the
current $12,000 per year to $15,600 per year.
It is interesting to note that there was hardly a
whimper of opposition to the pension bill before the
bill had passed the senate (36-12) and been sent on
to the house. The reason for this is that the senate
chose to insert the pension plan into a bill which
would have provided expenses for judges serving
outside their districts. This was done just the day
before the senate voted on the measure, and
senators from both parties chose to remain silent
about insertion. It wasn’t until the house caucased
that the pension proposal finally caught the
governor’s (and the public’s) eye.
In view of the fact that only months ago Penn-
sylvania was on the verge of financial collapse this
_action by the Senate can only be termed apalling.
Not only have the taxpayers of this state been in-
sulted by the senate’s action, but the insult is
compounded by the fact that state lawmakers were
given a $3,600 a year expense allowance increase in
June as part of a deal for passing the state income
tax. (Needless to say no objections were voiced by
the Governor at that time.) It is interesting to note
that some of those senators who were most
vociferous in calling for cutbacks in state spending
had no difficulty in voting for increased pensions.
Gov. Shapp has indicated that he will consider
a more ‘‘reasonable’’ pension increase, but has not
defined his term ‘‘reasonable.’”” May we remind the
governor and the legislators that with a new state
income tax, wage-price controls, and a shakey
national economy two pay increases a year is little
more than callous greed, especially to the currently
irate and overburdened taxpayers.
SER——
THE DALLAS POST, NOV. 18, 1971
A Letter to the Editor
Changes
By Eric Mayer
Swivelling in his chair, squirming like a
great grey jelly, Eugene James cast another
doleful glance at the office clock. 3:30.
Beneath the pounding of his head, he heard
himself sigh. He felt like a fish on a hook;
forever leaping forward toward five o'clock,
toward the short drive home to his evening
paper, only to be pulled up short by time’s
invisible cord and reeled back into the endless
afternoon.
Some days are longer than others.
Monday for instance, stretched to a thin
tedium between Sunday and Tuesday.
Everyone feels this in the immutable depths
do their mind, but since all clocks, planetary
motions, radioactive decay rates, even our
own pulses, are held prisoner by the cosmic
warpage, it will never be proved scientifi-
cally.
And so much for science, grumped Mr.
James, who was usually an avid fan of
science so far as it applied to ballistic missiles
and electronic scoreboards.
Eugene James—by day a mild mannered
form filer; a bolt (or maybe only a slightly
worm washer) in a large corporate machine;
he’d kept his dreams discreetly to himself and
had grown fat on them. For years he’d sub-
sisted on the bitter fermentation of youthful
expectations. A somewhat sour man, he had
avoided failure by writing letters.
Soit was that he waited impatiently to see
the Monday newspaper. A few days before,
having boiled over an editorial criticizing the
president’s escalation of the air war in
Vietnam, he’d composed a steaming rebuttal
that he figured would bring his friends to their
telephones, brimming with praise. Mr. James
was no ordinary man.
RGE
from Washington
As the minutes ticked by with a hideous,
immeasureable five-megaton monster buried
a mile deep on the earthquake line in the
foggy Aleutians that might or might not blow
up the world, what did frightened Americans
do? Why they did what every Greek would
have understood 2500 years ago in the time of
Herodotus, they hurried to consult the oracle,
the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court, make no doubt of it,
has an awesome, mystical, religious, value
very handy in commanding respect in a
humdrum government in a materialistic age.
No other modern nation has anything quite
like it; they have a King or Queen in some
countries or a ceremonial president who
stands above and behind the premier, but we
consult the Court. Nothing new in that!'Should
Themistocles abandon Athens to Xerxes or
should he fight the naval battle of Salamis?—
nobody knew, so he sent messengers hot foot
off to Delphi which handed down its judgment
which nobody could understand, partly
because it was written in hexameter verse
and partly because it was as skillfully vague
as a pollster’s prediction before a close
presidential election.
So what do we do in Washington when the
executive can’t, and the legislature won’t,
intervene? Like Lacedaemonians we go to our-
Greek temple, and ask the seven wise men
(two seats are empty). They don their holy
black robes and the votaries make their
pleas. You can browbeat an oracle or at least
try to: The Executive in this case almost
jumped up and down contending that they
must have a ‘‘go’’ signal by 12:30, or abandon
the awesome blast.
The seers gc into the holy of holies to
[Economy
by Hugh P. King
Q. With the advent of wage-price controls
in a peacetime economy, what lies ahead for
America in the foreseeable future?
A. Based on the experience of other
nations over the years, it appears that a
rockier road lies ahead for most Americans.
Abandonment of the free market philosophy
and substitution of authoritarian controls is
probably a more serious event than most
Americans yet realize. If history provides any
criteria, the Nation’s outlook is grim.
Q. Why do you think the movement away
from a free market economy is so serious at
this particular time?
A. Well, this move occurred under the
Administration of a ‘‘conservative’’
President supposedly representing the
somewhat ‘right of center’ view of the
average American. The more “liberal”
philosophers of the Democratic Party and the
radical Leftists might have made a similar
move much earlier. Either party, of course,
would be unlikely to undertake such sweeping
reform without some fairly concrete evidence
that they have the support of the majority of
the Nation’s voters. Before the move to wage-
price controls, opinion polls showed that over
70 percent of Americans favored the in-
stitution of such controls. Thus, with this kind
of support behind them, both major parties
may be expected to support the “‘controlled
economy’ philosophy more or less in-
definitely.
Q. If the wage-price controls begin to
cause serious difficulty for the average
American, won’t his opinion change and this,
in turn, cause a swing back to free markets?
A. This could happen, of course. But
analysis of events in other countries under
similar circumstances seems to indicate that,
once wage-price controls are substituted for
free markets, then a long period of increasing
control is the most likely course. This occurs
as the economy’s managers find that they
need more and more powers to make their
wage-price controls work. You see, people are
a perverse and cantakerous lot who,
/
“Why as a matter of fact,” he often
bragged to admirers, ‘‘I average two or three
letters a week. I don’t always sign my name
you see.”
In fact, not all of the “digusted”’, ‘fed up
to here’, “‘anonymous’’ missives that graced
area letters columns were the labors of the
prolific Mr. James—but they might just as
well have been, so similar were they in form
and content.
A pedant, taking the trouble to drudge
through the author’s bulging scrapbook would
be able to distill from the clippings a
distinct set of rules, a sort of formula, a code
by which the much set upon knights of con-
servatism might go forth to battle against the
monstrous liberal press.
These rules would enumerate all of the
familiar cliches; 101 ways to call someone a
dirty hippie or a leftist radical, several intel-
lectual approaches to the philosophical school
of loving it or leaving it, how to equate
patriotism with christianity for fun and profit.
There would be such useful advice as: ‘‘If you
find it impossible to refute an argument you
may do one of three things. 1. Imply that the
author in question has come to his point of
view as a result of some grave personal
inadequacy. 2. Hint that the president has
some secret information unknown to mortals.
3. If all else fails, suggest that the writer has
mo right to an opinion since he doesn’t have
any solutions.”
Undoubtably, a guidebook could also be
3 ATES THES ht
ee Ts Shore
‘AGNEW SHOULD NOT BE REPLACED,’ SAID SEN. GOLDWATER. ‘I GUESS THAT RIGHT NOW
HE IS MORE POPULAR IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY THAN MR. NIXON.’
A Greenstreet News Co. Publication
provided for those of liberal persuasion, but
Mr. James’ scrapbook would be of no value in
such an endeavor.
It’s hard to say how Mr. James viewed his
hobby, or compulsion. Did he simply enjoy
seeing his words, pale offspring of his brain
chemistry, decked out in glorious printers ink
onthe editorial page of a local paper? Was his
greatest goal in life to have a letter printed in
Time magazine? Or was he on a crusade,
venturing deep into the homeland of the in-
fidel, doing his duty, defending the honor of
his country and convictions? At times he gave
the latter impression.
But it must be remembered that Mr.
James, in his college days, had planted his
metaphysical commas with the best of them
and still indulged in a bit of doggerel. In fact
he intended to write a novel some weekend, or
whenever, if ever, he had the time. So maybe
his motivation was one of pride. Most likely
he didn’t know himself.
So he sat at his desk, an unimpressive
toad of a man, waiting for five o'clock.
Already, in his mind, he was compgsing
another letter dealing with the recer®*ap-
pointments to the supreme court. No doubt, if
it was eventually printed it would find its
space in his scrapbook. There, between the
glassine sheets, it would yellow slowly, would
at least outlast the transitory memos he
scribbled at the office, would have more
substance and reality than the chaotic, in-
visible musings that rattled around the dark
hallways of his brain.
The letters were a game—a survival
game. They meant little or nothing to anyone
but himself. Such were Mr. James’ thoughts,
at odd moments of the dragging day, when he
felt like writing and found his mind =e
The Nine Mystic Oracles v
consult the Mystery—America’s Bible,
Talmud and Koran—the Constitution
revealed two centuries ago, the original of
which is piously preserved in an inert gas,
hermetically sealed, in its own temple.
Search the ancient instrument as they
could the Seven found nothing in it about
nuclear blasts and Amchitka was not even
mentioned. They came out, looking more
profound and mysterious than ever as augurs
have since sacerdotal rites began, like
examining the entrails of chickens. They
reported 4 to 3, that they couldn’t get an exact
fix from the Founding Fathers, but that,
anyway, a mjority felt they shouldn’t hold up
the show. It was put in nice legal lingo, not.
_hexameters.
‘Talk about this institution as a simple
court !—it is vastly more than that. It is one of
the most potent mystical adjuncts of our
government, by which the common man is
kept in line, very handy in a democracy, by
which he is sometimes willing to suspend his
judgment when common sense points another
way and by which, on rare occasions, he is
persuaded to enter strange new paths of
progress when they are opened by men like
Earl Warren and his group.
So that is why the replacement of
members is so important. Mr. Nixon covered
the country in 1968 attacking the Court while
it was a liberal body but now that he has, in
practical terms, switched it to a conservative
body he urges respect. and observes
sorrowfully, “I have noted with distress a
growing tendency in the country to criticize
the Court as an institution.” Well, dear dear!
This from the man who said the Court had
abandoned the ‘“‘peace forces as against the
criminal forces.”
To this Ceurt Mr. Nixon has nominated a
respectable Virginia conservative, Lewis
Powell, who will surely be confirmed, and
join conservatives Burger, and Blackmun,
and a younger Goldwater conservative,
William Rehnquist, whose views are such that
they can only be termed astonishing. Only
seven years ago he carried out what amounts
to a one-man crusade in Phoenix, Arizona,
against a public accomodations law requiring
drug stores to serve Negroes, and he did it on
the basis of the holy rights of private
property. When the city council voted against
his volunteer effort unanimously, Rehnquist,
whois anactivit zealot, volunteered a letter to
the local newspaper charging that the ‘‘or-
dinance summarily does away with the
historic right of the owner of a drug store,
lunch counter or theater to choose his
customers.” He pleaded that the ‘freedom of
the property owner’’ should not ‘‘be sacrificed
to give these minorities a chance to have
access to integrated eating places. . .’”’ The
rights of property, under the Rehnquist
philosophy, would come before the rights of
Jews, Irish, Blacks, Italians or what have
vou: It is breath-taking. He told the Senate
Judiciary Committee that he has changed
these views. Why?—because he has found
that segregation doesn’t work, and ‘‘because I
have come to realize since, more than I did at
the time’ that minorities really care about
equality. Right down to 1964, Rehnquist
hadn’t realized that they cared.
“The white people of this country don’t
realize that a man who kicks Negroes in the
teeth is not suitable for the Supreme Court,”
said NAACP spokesman Clarence Mitchell,
The Road Ahead
foreseeably, will do almost anything to get
around the government’s controls. While it
may be anticipated that the average
American will wholeheartedly support price
and wage controls on the things he wants to
buy, it will be difficult, indeed, to find a man
who is enthusiastic about controls on things
he wants to sell or upon his own wages. For
this reason, unless the government is able to
impose a much more comprehensive system
of controls upon Americans than they have
been used to, the wage-price management
system will soon break down.
Q. If the wage-price control system
breaks down, why wouldn’t the government
simply abandon the idea and go back to free
markets?
A. That could actually happen. But
remember, the party in power has strongly
supported the idea that the way to do this is to
enforce wage-price controls. The major
opposition party has strongly supported the
same view for many years. If, for one reason
or another, the party in power finds that in-
flation is continuing, it will do its level best to
preserve its reputation by increasing the
degree of control over the marketplace. At
the same time, if wage-price controls don’t
work, the opposition party (which also sup-
ports strongly the idea of a managed
economy) will assuredly clamor for more
comprehensive and stricter control. Under
the circumstances just outlined, it will be
hard to find any voices advocating a return to
free markets. Government has assumed. the
responsiblity for assuring everyone ‘‘just
prices” and ‘‘just wages’ (an utterly im-
possible accomplishment) and will be ex-
pected to deliver.
Q. You seem to imply that wage-price
controls won’t work. Is this true?
A. That depends on what you mean. They
certainly will have very little effect on in-
flation. The causes of inflation lie elsewhere.
Trying to control inflation by the imposition of
wage-price controls is like trying to reduce a
patient's fever by putting the thermometer in
a glass of ice-water. We’d be aiming at a
symptom instead of the cause. Nevertheless,
if the government is willing to ‘go all out” in
its efforts to impose wage-price controls and
“make them stick’, it will achieve some
success in holding some prices and some
wages to the line. Some of the tools needed,
however, are rather unpleasant. These will
include materials and manpower allocation,
very intensive and detailed reporting,
massive policing, severe penalties for in-
fraction of rules, substantial expansion of the
judiciary (to handle the infraction cases), and
a big increase in spending for penal in-
stitutions (to incarcerate the miscreants who
won't obey the rules).
Q. What has the expanding money and
credit supply have to do with enforcing price
controls?
A. Quite a bit. if a nation’s supply of
money and credit is expanded rapidly (as is
presently the case) then the price-level (the
average of all prices) will tend to rise. This
occurs because, as time passes, people will
have more and more dollars in their pockets
with which to bid up prices of things they
want. It’s probably not feasible to control the
prices of every good and service within a
nation, therefore, the prices of the things not
controlled will tend to rise rapidly. This, in
turn, will make the price-level rise. Clearly,
and Joe Rauh of ADA, after reviewing
Rehnquist’s overall record called him ‘“‘the
most reactionary appointee to the Supreme
Court in the 20th Century.”
Rehnquist doesn’t just nourish his
prejudices in private: he writes letters to
editors about them; he is an activist. When
The Washington Post -attacked Carswell’s
nomination he volunteered a letter with the
strange juxtaposition that broadening of civil
rights would bring ‘further expansion of the
constitutional rights of criminal defendants,
of pornographers and of demonstrators.”
The Supreme Court will have staggering
. questions to answer. in the next genergkion.
We talk about busing, for example, but tat is
"just the outward symbol; the problem is a
nation divided between black slums and leafy
suburbs, with busing a desperate last mite
expedient to bring them together. If bu&ig
fails the problem of ‘‘one nation, divided”
remains. And already there is a new legal
attack on it; the new code word will be
‘zoning’’ not busing.
Factories are emigrating from the inner
slums to the suburbs but there they find that
restrictive zoning against garden apartments
and row houses segregates families with low
and moderate-incomes. Ford quits Newark
and buys 200 acres for a factory at Mahwah,
New Jersey, but the 4200 Ford workers learn
that they can’t live there unless they purchase
homes with an acre or so of land; the or-
dinances are tight and fierce. It is economic
segregation; not by race but by class. suo
or later(you can count on it) this zoning iss
will come to the Supreme Court. And what
kind of oracles are we putting in the Holy
Temple? ’
\
with the price-level rising, the “controlled”
wages and prices are going to be subjected to
some strong upward pressures. If
manufacturers are not permitted to raise the
prices of things they sell but, at the same
time, some of their costs are allowed to rise,
:then it seems obvious that their profits will be
squeezed to the point where manufacture of
“controlled” items is no longer profitable or,
at least, where greater profit, may be earne 1
elsewhere. At such point, unless the gove
ment insists on continued production, sup-
-plies of “‘controlled price’ goods will tend to
dry up. Rationing will then be needed to
assure an ‘‘equitable” distribution of scarce
goods. The individual who finds his wages
“controlled” during a period when the price-
level is rising, will soon seek employment
elsewhere unless he is forced to remain on the
job. Manpower allocation and control,
therefore, is a necessity under such cir-
cumstances. And, of course, people being just
people, there will be a widespread tendency to
“cheat’’ on wage-price controls by buyers
offering more than official prices or by sellers
asking more than the government allows. In
other countries, this practice is known as
trading in the ‘Black Market”. Generally, it
flourishes and must be fought vigoroursly by
imposition of severe penalties.
Editor emeritus: Mrs. T.M.B. Hicks
Editor: Doris R. Mallin
News editor: Shawn Murphy
‘| Advertising: Carolyn Gass doin
LR
Tie DALLASC20ST
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