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EDITORIAL
Big Brotherism
The main trouble with a bad idea is that it often
takes awhile to recognize that it is bad.
Take for example the new TV monitoring
system presently in use in Mount Vernon, N.Y.
Described as. ‘““small cameras mounted in-
conspicuously on 22-foot poles,” the monitors are
used by police at night to scan the community’s
business district for would-be law breakers and
during the day, to help in traffic control.
Mount Vernon’s police and city fathers are
hailing the surveillance system as another of the
marvels of modern technology which Man has
harnessed for his use. In this age of ‘law and or-
der” rhetoric, who can argue with a tool which
- reduces crime?
It seems to us that the new monitoring device
offers a lot to argue about. Even if the system does
substantially reduce crime (and this is by no means
a clear-cut conclusion), the possibilities of misuse
and abuse inherent in such a program should be
enough to send shivers up the spines of Mount
Vernon residents.
The picture painted by George Orwell in his
novel 1984 includes mindless zombies who are
controlled by government-mandated ‘“uppers’’ and
“downers’’ and whose activities are scrutinized by
an omni-present ‘‘Big Brother’’ monitor. A
cheerless picture, certainly, and not one with which
we are famliar—or are we?
For the situation depicted in 1984 will not spring
full-blown from the head of some Washington
bureaucrat, but will come to fruition through a
series of encroachments upon our personal
freedoms. Today, TV cameras trained on us in
hotel lobbies, in department stores and on our
streets—tomorrow, monitoring systems in our
bedrooms.
Farfetched? Perhaps. But just how long a leap
is it from using TV cameras to detect possible
burglars on Main Street to using TV cameras to
keep track of the comings and goings of ‘political
‘undesirables,’ with that term defined by a govern-
ment agency.
The TV monitoring system is a bad idea all the
way around, but is it a bad idea whose time has
come?
Free Press?
The bill extending President Nixon’s power to
control wages and priees until April, 1973, con-
tained a provision, deleted by a House-Senate
conference committee, that would have exempted
newspapers and other media from wage-price
restrictions on the grounds that such restrictions
would infringe upon freedom of the press. Although
the issue is now dead, we feel that as a onetime
potential recipient of this special privilege it is our
- duty to speak out on the issue.
We can see no reason why, as a business, we
should have been singled out to receive such an
exemption. Certainly wage-price controls are not
discriminatory against the media, nor can we see
that they will be used by the government as a
weapon against the media. The possibility of the
latter does exist, of course, but the possibility is too
slim to warrant such special privilege. Inasmuch
as the media is business, it is subject to the same
levies and regulations as other businesses.
Inasmuch as the media is a channel for expression,
it is protected by the First Amendment.
The most disturbing aspect of this issue lies in
the fact that the special exemption provision was
given little attention in the press itself. We believe
the issue was too important to have been soft-
peddled as it was, and can only wonder how many
of our collegues were willing to let this slip by
unpublicized. Certainly those in the press who
favored this amendment must have realized that
accepting such favors would have undermined the
very independence vital to press freedom.
~~ We also wonder if Congress was motivated to
vote in favor of the provision, which it did before
the clause was deleted in committee, by its concern
for the First Amendment or by the realization that
next year is an election year. In any case we are
relieved that the conference committee saw fit to
eradicate the provision.
Me © ee foe
Cha y 7
Changes
By Eric Mayer
For the last time Sol’s axe arched with a
whoosh and a thump into the pine trunk. The
small tree gave way with a snap and a brittle
rustle of branches, then crunches down to lie
shivering in the snow. The sound lost itself in
the frozen silence and Sol heard his breathing
and the scrap of his heavy boots. That was all.
A leaden twilight was dropping down
from the north, pulling gray clouds ear-
thward. In the distance the mountains, white,
patched with evergreen, paled, faded in to the
drab sky, painting an impressionistic back-
drop. Then the snow drifted into the valley.
Sol hefted the tree trunk to his shoulder,
fumbing only momentarily with the lower
branches and their needle-quilts, He blinked
at the snowflakes that swirled at his face, that
danced up and away from the steam of his
breath. The almanac had predicted a rough
winter, and an early one. He hoped the boys
would think to bring some extra logs in from
the shed.
Pausing now, he wondered what direction
to take. He’d come through the forest and his
search for a tree had brought him nearly to
the edge of the valley. Rather than retracing
his steps through the blizzard, he struck out
for the township road. It was a longer but less
arduous route winding, as it did, past the
orchard that hid the farmhouse.
Snow settled down into Sol’s beard, clung
heavily to his jacket. Its chill reminded him of
the warm kitchen where he could put his feet
up against the stove till they returned to life.
The family could put up the tree. The popcorn
and cranberries must have been strung by
now, the paper cutouts must be ready along
with the candles and the precious or-
naments—six of them, brought from the old
country by Sol’s father; they were thinner
than egg shells, thinner than the first ice of
autumn, exquisite—a gaunt, severe-looking
santa, some angels, the face of a young girl.
The tree, he thought, would be especially
beautiful this year; it was straight and full.
The snow was deepening. Sol trudged
through the laurel, bowed under its heavy
white robes; he skirted the grove where the
TRB __
ashinghon
Powder the hair that comes down almost
to his shoulders and the thin, hatchet face that .
looks out with a twisted smile recalls
Voltaire’s. This is Pierre Elliott Trudeau,
prime minister of Canada who, at age 52 is
married to a pretty wife of 22 and expects his
first child any day now. What a contrast with
Richard Nixon who received him here. last
- week in the first of five summit conferences!
Trudeau’s visit evoked breath-taking con-
trasts not only between the two men but
between two styles of government. Take, for
example, Trudeau’s casual comment, ‘I told
Parliament last week.” Think of the thunder
of difference in this phrase for a citizen south
of the border whose isolated President not
only doesn’t go to Congress, but who doesn’t
even hold press conferences. He is beyond
outside questions, like a monarch.
Mr. Nixon is off now to see Premier
Pompidou on the Azores and we have a
chance to ponder the Trudeau
phenonomenon. The bigger issue behind him
is Canada itself, the unknown neighbor.
Canada neither frightens, entertains nor
exasperates us. So America generally
relegates it to the region reserved for familiar
good neighbors, oblivion. Nothing is so
exasperating in life than to be just taken for
granted. ? y
While minister of justice in the cabinet of
Lester Pearson, Mr. Trudeau advocated
liberalization of laws on divorce, birth control
and sexual relations between consenting
adults, even homosexuals. “The state has no
place in the bedrooms of the nation,” he
asserted. His father was a French Canadian
Insights
. wond
by Bruce Hopkins
I was not aware until just recently what
an exciting game football had become. I re-
member those days long ago of sitting on hard
bleachers on a freezing Saturday afternoon,
watching the fellows go at it down on the field,
becoming caught up in the suspense of it all
and shouting “Kill em, kill ’em, knock ‘em
dead’ along with the other blood-thirsty fans
and parents of the team. Understand, I never
played the game myself. No, when I was in
high school I tipped the scales at something
between 110 and 125 pounds. Bruce the Moose
they called me. Physical activity was never
my forte ’.Iwas, is, and will always be an ab-
solute coward when it comes to physical voi-
lence. However, there was a time when I was
willing to sit down with the other Saturday
sadists and watch the guys battle it out on the
miniature battlefield set up by the Board of
Education.
Those were the days when football was a
simple matter of hand-to-hand combat. Those
were the days of ‘rah, rah, ree, kick ’em in
the knee. rah, rah, kick ’em in the other
knee.” and other cute and catchy cheers.
Those were the days when, if you'd managed
to get the inside dope, you knew which man on
the other team had to be disposed of before
our team had a chance, and you sat back and
watched the fellows go at him. Those were the
days when vociferous fans shouted
vulgarities at the coach who was shouting
vulgarities at the teammates. And sometimes
the coach turned around
¥
THE DALLAS POST, DEC. 16, 1971
A Greenstreet News Co. Publication
One Snowy Christmas Eve
slender birches trembled and bent with their
burden. Some, Sol realized, would never
stand straight again. And one far off summer,
while walking in the forest, he’d notice a few
of the birches growing all but horizontal, and
he’d remember snow-smothered Christmas
eve.
The landscape caught the last glimmer of
daylight and glowed blue against a dark sky,
before the snowstorm congealed into a frozen,
inpenetrable fog. Sol felt the tree’s weight on
his shoulder. The sharp odor of pine filled his
nostrils. His hands, he knew without looking,
were black stained with pitch. He never did
manage to get his hands quite clean for
Christmas dinner.
Now the snow obscured his vision en-
tirely, a white blindness, gyrating in the
darkness. A moment of disorientation then; a
muffled stumble through a soft white limbo;
inhaling snow like icy feathers. Something
hard under his boots—the township road.
Sol smiled, shook his whitened beard to a
spotty gray. After his hike through the woods
with its looming tree phantoms and boot
clutching ground pine, the road seemed wider
and smoother than usual, a relief.
Sol smiled, shook his whitened beard to a
spotty gray. After his hike through the woods
with its looming tree phantoms and boot
clutching ground pine, the road seemed wider
and smoother than usual, a relief.
But as he started to walk, there was a
sudden jangling in front of him, not sleigh
bells, a harsher sound, accompanied in a
second by three lights that pierced the
wavering curtains of snow. They were daz-
zling lights, much too bright to be carriage
lanterns. They floated like impossible will-o-
the-wisps, a silver pair below, and above a
lone light that spun red and orange shafts
through the cascading snow, touching tree
limbs alternately gold and blood, sweeping in
double flashes across Sol’s startled face. He
tumbled into the gully, landing painfully in
the stinging grasp of his pine tree, rolled once,
15 ANRIES TIS SHD/IARE
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catching a glimpse of the huge shadow that
roared past, and came up against something
hard and cold.
It was only a road sign, but it was
fashioned of metal instead of wood. Per-
plexed, Sol got to his feet. The storm was
abating, moving on down the valley. To his
amazement he saw that the roadway was
wider than he remembered, and coated with
black stone; a far cry from the country rut he
was accustomed to. A strange Christmas
Eve, he thought. Unfamiliar roads marked
with unfamiliar signs, travelled by—what?
Apparitions?
He dismissed the idea. After all, this is
the 19th-century, he told himself. Chuckling
defensively, keeping carefully to the edge of
the road, he continued on. Around the next
bend lay the orchard, and it would be an easy
walk across it to the house.
Except that when he got to where the
orchard should have been it wasn’t there; not
a single apple tree of it, not even a lonely
weed. Instead there was a flat expanse of
concrete covered with scurrying people and
what could have been carriages but for the
apparent absence of horses. Lov ong
buildings, half built of glass, stretched around
the perimeter of the concrete. Most in-
credibly, the entire area was ablaze with
light, and a multitude of colored lights blinked
on the facades of the marvelous buildings,
some decoratively, others as signs!
Sol was petrified. Awe and chagrin
battled his face to a slightly slack jawed
standstill. He whistled softly, feeling fear and
curiosity warring within him.
Then a small breeze sprang up, and from
the gleaming complex there came, very
faintly, music and disembodied voices—
Christmas carols—the songs of angels borne
down from the heavens on gentle wingg of
snow. Sol’s curiosity won out. Dragging his
tree behind him, he headed for the strange
and inexplicable place. @
(to be continued...) ¥
The Unheard-Of North
farmer’s son who studied law and grew rich;
his mother was of Scottish Canadian stock. He
studied law in Montreal, with graduate work
at Harvard, University of Paris and London
School of Economics. He was a prominent
professor of constitutional law, an urbane,
witty bachelor. Then he ran for parliament in
1965, joined the cabinet two years later, was
elected head of the Liberal party a'year after
that which automatically’ made him ‘prime
~ minister. Just to settle things he called an
election and won a landslide.
Well, what has this to do with us? Simply
that a lot of problems that torment the United
States are dealt with reasonably in Canada:
Health insurance is virtually universal. They
have had family allowances for years. (The
mother of every child, rich or poor, gets a pay
check.) They have a public broadcasting
system that serves as a yardstick to private
industry. Canada gave the vote to 18-year-
olds before we did. In many anxious problems
on the mechanics of government Canada has
answers. Congress is just considering
nationally-supervised voter registration:
Canada has had it for years even though the
country is vast and many parts scantily
populated. Enumerators compile lists of
eligible voters, printed and posted in public
places, which anybody can check. It costs
Canada about $1 per voter which, in US term-
s, would be about $80 million. :
How about campaign expenses? In
Canada a candidate can spend without any
ceiling. But he must maintain records and,
following the election, make a public ac-
counting. Since the political parties are more
shouted vulgarities at the crowd. But
everyone knew that the tough coach, that
hard man who treated his boys like animals,
really had a heart of gold. He was only
working them like that to build men. Grr.
Roar. Rrraarff. Those were the days when the
football field was the training ground for life.
Guys were taught competition and sport-
smanship and strategy and defense—all the
things they'd need when they got out into the
cold, cruel world. Football taught them what
life was all about.
But life isn’t as easy these days. And so
football must be altered to meet the needs.
Life is harder to cope with now. Hand-to-hand
combat no longer meets the demands of life.
And in Premont, Texas, they've begun to
adjust football to meet those demands.
They've added mace to the game. Yes, last
month when Premont hosted Los Fresnos,
their arch rivals, they added a new strategy
to the game. With only a few minutes of play
left, Premont was losing. And so. boys being
boys, a knock-down-drag-out-brawl developed
on the field. Into this brawl entered a Premont
policemen, and cops being cops, he ended the
fracas by spraying chemical mace into the
faces of seven members of Los
Fresnos team. Can't you just imagine the
Premont crowd going wild with cheers as the
Los Fresnos boys fell screaming to the
ground, their eyes burning and tearing! Wow,
what a tense game! When these seven
‘members were cleared from the field,
organized and disciplined they put up much of
the money.
Lest premature publication of election
returns stampede voters who haven’t yet
gone to the polls, due to different time zones,
Canada makes it illegal to publish results
before the closing of polls in a particular
province. That is leaning over backward, isn’t
it? Furthermore, radio and TV partisan
appeals are banned both on election day and
the day! before.
Here is Mr. Nixon running things (or
trying to) with a legislature controlled by
Democrats. This mix-up happens repeatedly.
Nobody is responsible for anything. Not in
Ottawa. We watched Trudeau at a bilingual
press conference here, sitting relaxed under
his waved wig of hair, with a modish blue
shirt, and speaking in a calm conversational
tone (with a little more shoulder-shrugging in
French, we thought, than in English). It was
interesting to reflect on the two systems. If we
had the Ottawa system here Wilbur Mills,
Edward Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey,
Proxmire, Bayh, Fulbright, Mansfield,
Mondale and so on to the total of 20 or more
would be in the Cabinet. They wouldn’t have
to run for the presidency—the prime minister
would be picked automatically by the
members of his party in the legislature. The
Republican adversaries, led presumably by
Mr. Nixon, would sit dramatically facing
them. Like a football game, you would always
know which team had the ball.
All this sounds pretty abstract, of course.
Both systems work reasonably well. But
there’s question about ours in Washington.
Premont, fighting against time managed to
score a field goal and win the game. What a
victory! Alas, the Los Fresnos team, ob-
viously poor sports, tried to tear up the
Premont locker room after the game, causing
some $1200 damage. All in all it was another
great day for football.
Imagine if you will the new strategies
that can now be developed. I can picture
coaches now standing at the locker room
blackboards charting out the famous fourth
down play:drop back and spray.
Cheerleaders are already working out
movements for the new cheer: ‘Team, Team,
let's make haste. Spray them in eyes with a
can of mace. Victory Victory Victory.”
Can it react fast enough? Under modern
economics booms and recessions can be
controlled by tax changes, but these are
cumbersome under separation of powers. Up
in Ottawa, Trudeau can get results in weeks;
either that or there’s an election.
It is appalling how little attention the US
pays Canada. Not long ago a test was gijgen to
1000 Canadian and 1000 American high Minool
seniors, the latter picked from 12 separate
states along the Canadian border. They were
asked simple questions about the ger
country. All but 9 of the Canadians &5uld
identify the capital of the US. Only a third of
the Americans knew Ottawa was the capital
of Canada. Who was the American President?
All but one Canadian knew. Only a third of the
Americans know the Canadian prime
minister. Of the Canadians, 99 percent could
name two US states; only two-thirds of the
American high school students could name
two Canadian provinces. And so on.
It's so in all ranks of life. When
Washington studies health insurance it looks
to London, not across the border.
When Mr. Nixon, the other day, said that
Japan is America’s biggest trading partner
Canadians writhed; Canada is, of course
Looking at Trudeau’s Old World, €zr-
donic, 18th Century face there at the hotel
press conference, it was easy to imagine the
exasperation he felt at the sudden imposition
of the 10 percent US tariff surcharge. hi.
will Americans look north? What will attra€
our bored attention to a country ahead of us in
several ways? Maybe we should fortify the
border after all.
Spray, Team, Spray
Who knows where it may lead. Why ma
* perhaps, theyll be using napalm on the
football field. Hand grenades might be em-
ployed as a fourth down tactic. How about
using a time bomb instead of a football?
Think of the new meaning that would give to
the art of fumbling.
Yes, it’s good to see that the all-American
pastime is being updated to fit the needs of
America. We all know that the old adage
about how you play the game has very little to
do with corporate America. What matters is
whether you win. :
I thought this would be an appropriate
time to thank Premont and Los Fresnos for
the contribution they are making to peace on
carth and good will toward men. Yea, team.
Editor emeritus: Mrs. T.M.B. Hicks
Editor: Doris R. Mallin
News editor: Shawn Murphy
Advertising: Carolyn Gass
Tie SALLASCD0ST
An independent newspaper published every Thursday morning by the Greenstreet News Co. 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 the Greenstreet News Co. are William Scranton 3rd, president and managing editor; J.R. Freeman, vice
president, news; William W. Davis, vice president and general manager ; Doris Mallin, secretary-treasurer.
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