Page 4 EDITORIAL Finding the Truth Attending town meetings gives those of us who are journalists the chance to see and hear people expressing their opinions, often with comments such as, “You won’t dare print that,” or “Why don’t you print our side of the story?’ Tt answer lies in the fact that a news story exists to recount what happens and who says what. By definition, a straight news story that appears on page one of this newspaper should not express the writer’s opinion. Likewise, a journalist should not express and in- terpret motivation behind events and statements unless such motivation is crystal clear. However, there exists a convenient device for expressing opinions and motivations thereof; namely the letter to the editor. The editorial page is the forum through which opinion is expressed, either that of the newspaper’s editorial staff, or of its readers. Before one berates his favorite newspaper for not printing his side of the story, he should write down his views on the issue, be it central sewage, the price of milk in Pennsylvania, “women’s lib,” or President Nixon’s latest maneuver for re-election. Readers deserve to stand up and be counted, and should not hesitate to sign their names. If a statement can be made in a public meeting, it can be made in a public forum such as this newspaper. Anonymous letters will not be published. If one compares the time, thought and understanding expended in writing a cogent letter with that required to attend a local meeting and become embroiled in a person-to-person debate, one realizes that putting ideas on paper tends to clarify and objectify them. And giving us a reader’s view point helps us to find the truth. FDA in Action Amid much protest from consumer groups across the country, the U.S. Food and Drug Ad- ministration has finally acted to at least partly eliminate some of the livestock feed additives from which comes meat sold in retail stores nationally. Ignoring the warnings of scientists and con- sumer advocates for years, the FDA did not see fit to act until a recent report by its bureau of veterinary medicine, which indicates that the possibility is real that some of the chemical ad- ditives, or combinations thereof, to livestock feed cause disease in man. The FDA acted reluctantly. At a news confernece on the matter, Dr. Charles C. Edwards, Commissioner of Food and Drugs, said the agency had no information that would warrant calling chemically treated animal feed an ‘““‘imminent’’ hazard, but he added that they were, without question, ‘‘a very real potential health hazard.” Why has it taken the FDA so long to act? Many | of the livestock feed additives, numbering more than 1,000 in all, have been used by the meat- raising industry for at least a quarter century. Under the new FDA rules, which went into _ effect this week, all producers of medicated animal feeds will be required to prove the safety and ef- ficacy of their products. The real purpose behind the new policy, however, was outlined in a report which said bacteria that were resistant to drugs had been found on meat and other animal food products, and that human illnesses and deaths had been at- tributed to antibiotic-resistant bacteria of animal origin. This, of course, by no means, proves that medicated feeds were at fault, which the industry is quick to point out. But with 80 percent .of the meat products on the American dinner table coming from animals that have been fed medicated feeds during at least part of their lives, who can depend on an industry to control its products which makes | more than $400 million a year. Changes By Eric Mayer One of the problems presented by the American political system is that the skills vital to attaining the presidency (or other high office) are not necessarily useful or even desirable in the execution of the office. Con- ventions tend to nominate good candidates rather than good statesmen. Potential leaders are lost when they refuse to engage in, or prove inept at, political machinations. America is condemning herself to mediocrity—and a dangerous kind of medio- crity considering the connivance one has to lower himself to to win elections. Richard Nixon is the latest mediocrity spat at us by the American political machine. Better men have been assassinated, both literally and figuratively in smoke-filled rooms. As always the politician, the man who in his lifelong drive to power has used everything from pink sheets to family dogs, has emerged victorious. Quite naturally (indeed, how could it be otherwise?) Mr. Nixon has treated his first presidential term as an extended campaign, deriving whatever unemployment and even Red China. In Vietnam he has gone so far as to heed the advice of Eugene McCarthy—10,000 deaths too late. As we approach ringmaster Nixon’s firecracker election eve finale, it is apparent that some of his electioneering has proved worthwhile (although his moves concerning the economy and Vietnam came later than they should have). Unfortunately the political Nixon, the man so obsessed with being “number one’’ that he geared his entire life to that goal, has, upon obtaining his cherished position, infected America with what can only be described as a gross and rampaging arrogance of power. It was no mistake that Mr. Nixon wished to TRB Washington We are prepared to believe that President Nixon wants to get out of Vietnam. He feels that he has made a generous offer in the terms of the secret negotiations with Hanoi which last week he revealed have been going on since 1969. The fact that at long last almost in despair he disclosed these negotiations in- dicates that there is small chance of their being accepted so long as General Thieu remains president. In fact we now know what we are fighting for; it is to preserve General Thieu, though he must run the seemingly small risk of a new election. The difficulty is that North Vietnam, we imagine, has not the slightest confidence in the proposed democratic process of holding an election despite all theibait Mr. Nixon has spread around, ‘Thieu’s resignation one month ahead of time, participation by the Vietcong and impartial supervision. Yale political scientist Robert Dahl once observed that of 150 nominally independent countries in the world today the people in only about two dozen regularly exercise the right to free elections. We can’t force the system on other nations, he argues. Certainly South Vietman hardly appreciates it in the farcical affair where Thieu ran by himself; an instance of “‘one man, one vote’ if we ever saw it, Furthermore, the North Vietnamese probably believe that they are winning; that time is on their side; that the Americans are interlopers. They have the perverse notion that it is their country and that we have no business being there. Yet it would be wrong, we think, for Hanoi to misinterpret the Nixon speech. Some of our friends here hate the war so much that they outfit his White House guard in quasi-Balkan state ceremonial uniforms. Aside from of- fering an insight into the quality of the man’s mind (didn’t he understand that those European palace guard’s uniforms he so admired had sprung from and derived their meaning from a long tradition?) that small episode reveals a great deal about his con- ception of the presidency. Richard Nixon, it would seem, sees himself as a king, a kind of elected dictator in no way accountable to his subjects. In spite of his shrewd cultivation of middle America and his rabid enthusiasm for football, he remains an elitist. Consider his conduct in office. Though utilizing television more than any other pre- sident, pre-empting network time at will, he has rarely deigned to hold a news conference. Top cabinet officials such as Laird and Mitchell have shown a similar reluctance fo subject their views and programs to public scrutiny. The Nixon administration persists in with- holding vital information from American voters. Cases in point: the infamous Pentagon papers and Jack Anderson’s revelations con- cerning U.S. support for the West Pakistani dictatorship in its war against the freely elected government of Bangla Desh. Obviously, King Richard is chafing under the burden of constitutional monarchy. He has circumvented and just plain violated the constitution time and again. Last year the Washington police kept the city running, by TE LAE THE SA or =~ ignoring the rights of thousands of protesters and setting an example that may prove far more dangerous to freedom than a peace demonstration. Mr. Nixon has been treating us to a government by surprise. He seems feo that the less the American people know about what’s going on, the less the commoners are allowed to meddle in the high affairs of state, the better. He wants us all to smile and let him handle things. The president knows best. Hasn’t he already stated his intentions to ignore presidentially-appointed commissions on pornography and marijuana? (He made good on the first promise. The second com- mittee hasn’t yet reported). His adminis- tration has already ignored the Kent State murders. Of course the brilliant Henry Kissinger (‘“‘threatened’’ by the laughable alleged kidnap plot) is a higher priority person than four innocent students, which explains the discrepency in Mr. Nixon’s highly selective enforcement of law. and or- der. Ignoring Mr. Nixon’s horrendous supreme court nominees and his support of such hatchetmen as Spiro Agnew, the fact remains work within the bounds of the constitution. Mr. Nixon has great designs and he can’t be bothered with trivialities like guaranteed freedoms, checks and balances and the like. If Mr. Nixon's extra-legal activities go unchecked, a disastrous example will be set, enabling future presidents to slowly leech the freedoms Americans still enjoy. It will be a momentum. Even Red China call tself a people’s republic. There could come a day when the victory of American democracy over tyranny is strictly a matter of seman- tics. want the lesson against imperialism driven home by the abject defeat of America. This is a luscious morsel of I-told-you-so and revenge toroll over the tongue, but we can’t buy it. We guess that Mr. Nixon’s earnest, injured broadcast is going to mute some critics, and produce a substantial feeling of sympathy— for a time at least. We think the leaders of North Vietnam should appreciate this. They will make a mistake not to explore this possible opening or to ignore the fact that many Americans who loathe the war are not prepared to see their country humiliated. For Americans it is a question now, we think, of getting out with the fewest scars possible so that we can get back to our own Agoniing internal problems. «ii "Historian C. Vann Woodvaid once argued that America’s long unbroken string of vic- tories had produced two myths, the myth of America’s invincibility and of American innocence. Only the South, he contended, had escaped the myths for it had seen war, defeat, and occupation on its own soil and these were not bedfellows of myths. Yet what a dif- ference for most of us 10 years of war in Vietnam have made. As for our innocence there is Mylai. As to our invincibility, it is a strange thought, the most powerful nation on earth now almost pleading with a little third- rate country, which we have been blasting for ten years, to please agree to a settlement! We want to depart, we want to end it, we want out. It is time to take some thought about what the war has done to us. Not merely all those lives lost and treasury spent—they are the brutal obvious costs. Some penalties have Insights and by Bruce Hopkins Rafael Yglesias is 17 years old. At the age of 8 he decided he wanted to be a writer. I'm 24 years old. At the age of 8, I thought I wanted to be a trapeze artist in a circus. My second choice was to be a writer. Rafael Yglesias just published his first novel, Hide Fox. And All After (Doubleday Books) My first novel, as yet untitled, lies in bits and pieces in the bottom left hand drawer of my desk, and the bottom left hand drawer of my mind. It remains incomplete because I haven’t learned enough or lived enough to finish it. I'm 24 years old. Yglesias is 17. He's learned enough and lived enough to write a novel—and a fine one at that. I'm jealous. I met Rafael Yglesias at an interview in New York City. He is tall and gangly (‘I'm still an adolescent,” he says.), and he talked about his education. He became disenchanted with school when he was in the eighth grade, and began cutting regularly. At the ripe old age of fifteen, he threw in the towel on formal education. It was stifling him. He decided he could learn more by getting out and living. He found school intolerable and adolescence a disastrous experience. “felt if I didn’t do something, I'd be dead as a human being,” he said as he sipped a vodka and tonic. (Well, you wouldn’t really expect him to be sipping a cherry phosphate, would you?) Thus finding himself with all this spare time on his hands, he set about writing Hide Fox, And All After. It's about an adolescent who finds school intolerable and adolescence a disastrous experience. It is not, Rafael insists, autobiographical. It is purely fiction. *'I wrote it out of fear.” The main character in the novel, Raul Sabas, does a lot of talking. He talks himself in and out of school. He talks himself in and out of friendships. He examines defines, and challenges a good many American in- stitutions including education, politics, art, and marijuana. Rafael supposes schools have some value, although he couldn’t come up been less glaring—Mr. Nixon's $40 billion dollar deficit, for example, announced last week; by the time he finishes four years the total deficits may well reach $100 billion—as he likes to put it “‘a genuine, historie first.” And what caused the deficits and dollar devaluation? Primarily it was the war; in- flation caused by the war, with inflation started by Mr. Johnson's failure to pay for the war with adequate taxes, because he thought he could win on the cheap. . In perspective the war is the longest ‘America has ever fought and one of the most important in some of its consequences. It forced Mr. Johnson out of office, and probably defeated Hubert Humphrey, and has be- deviled Mr. Nixon for three years. More important are subtler developments, widespread alienation of youth, a greater than normal distrust of politicians, a loss of faith in the very instruments of government, a malaise, a sourness, a feeling that the nation is in great trouble, a questioning of democracy itself. A year ago a Gallup poll showed 73 percent of the public wanted troops out; there is no greater danger for the spirit than to go on fighting a war which the people think is wrong, There is also the erosion of Congressional century but Vietnam sped it up, it underlined the humiliating down-grading of the legislature; Congress was gulled into whooping through the Tonkin Gulf resolution; it was not consulted about the Cambodia in- vasion; it only learns now that for 30 months secret White House negotiations with the enemy have been going on. What does Congress count? It debates ineffective re- solutions about ending the war by fixing a “date certain.” Its job is to vote funds; not interfere. The Vietnam war brought the famous 6-to-3 Supreme Court decision in the Pentagon Papers case; a decision that seemed to settle the right to publish for the time being but that left big issnes nncattlad that may rise in future crises. The war brought notable statements, too: such windy comments as Mr. Johnson's in 1965, ‘No other people in no other tizie has had so great an opportunity to work &§d risk for the freedom of all mankind.” And poor Hubert Humphrey on October, 1967, ‘‘The threat to world peace is militant, aggressive Peking, China.” American global evangelism is nol a discount but it was shared by the press and perhaps is responsible for the present latent isolationism that could be a major conse- quence of the war. The war brought from Mr. Nixon that tocsin announcement on the Cam- bodian “‘incursion’: ‘Tonight, American and South Vietmanese units will attack the head- quarters of the entire Communist military operation in South Vietnam...”” We never did find it. Well, well. We can tell our children about it. The myth of innocence and invincibility. Dis- ruption of the 1968 Chicago convention. Repeated examples of civil disobedience. Catch words like Tiger Cages, Mylai, Lt. Calley, Kent State, Protective Reaction, Moratorium March, Body Count. Yes, as some cynic said, ‘‘Vietnam has given war a bad name.” with anything specific. And he isn’t very optimistic about the future of American schools. In order to really change the schools he feels we must first change society—and that is not a very promising prospect. Schools, he feels, don’t teach you nearly as much as life does: ‘You want to make money . ’Paul Sabas says to a friend, ‘‘go to the Ivy League colleges. You want to learn—hike around Europe for a year; go to the country and read. Live any way you can, but not easily.” Essentially, of course, that’s a rather revolutionary statement. Encouraging some- one not to concern himself with money- making might be taken as un-American. “I'm very fatalistic about America,” Rafael explained. He is unable to vote at his age, but insists that he won’t vote anyway. “Who would I vote for? Liberals wouldn’t be able to do anything even if they were elected. When they try, they're killed. As long as that’s true, there’s nothing we can do.” I though that sounded pretty fatalistic all right. “There are certain realities (within the system) that cannot be changed by reform. They can only be changed by destroying that system.” Just how this can be accomplished, Rafael is not sure, but ‘‘certainly not peacefully.” The next logical question to be asked by logic buffs, is what he would replace the system with—but that is not the point, he says defying logic (a quality I admire in anyone). The point is that right now he can think of nothing being worse than this one. Every system is going to have inadequacies. However, "it is of greater concern to me that no one starve than,” he paused, then shrugged, ‘than that some people can live well.” In Hide Fox . . ., Raul’s closest friend encourages him to smoke pot claiming that it will develop him as an artist. Does Rafael believe that? No, he finds marijuana a nice sensual experience that has the advantage of not causing hangovers; but we all know that took a drag on my cigarette. would expect him to be interested in its possibilities. Wrong. Film has no subtlety. It has no way of expressing the details of experience.” There is, he feels, so much that can be expressed with words that simply cannot be transferred to a visual form. Raul Sabas, the fictitious adolescent, achieves a degree of fame in the novel, He enjoys it momentarily, and is then brought down to being just another adolescent—albeit a gifted one—in the eyes of those around him. Rafael Yglesias, the nonfictitious adolescent, has now published his first novel. He was encouraged by a literary agent not to publish it because it would ‘‘corrupt him.” The author himself is finding his success attractive although he does admit that his obsession with this first novel interferes somewhat with progress on the new one he is writing. (My God, I've got to get started). Hide Fox, And All After is a novel about a sensitive and intelligent adolescent, wWlkiten by a sensitive and intelligent adolescent. All of you sensitive and intelligent adolescents out there might find it enjoyable and certainly inspiring. All of you sensitive and intelligent parents might find it helpful in understanding that kid of yours who is getting out of hand. As for you teachers, you will hopefully find it frightening. It puts you on the line—and if you are open-minded enough, it can teach you a lot. It is important because it represents one adolescent’s a courage in defying a society that he finds wrong and an education that he finds unbearable. Rafael Yglesias is 17 years old. He’s not writing his second novel. I'm 24. I'm writing my seventh year of columns. I’ve not said in one novel. However, I can hang froggsa trapeze by my toes. I bet you I’ve got’ there. Editor emeritus: Mrs. T.M.B. Hicks Editor: Doris R. Mallin News editor: Shawn Murphy Advertising: Carolyn Gass
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers