Page 4 EDITORIAL Home Rule The Pennsylvania General Assembly, by a mandate of the people, has been directed to provide legislation to effect local government moder- nization through a variety of ways, including local home rule charters, optional plans of government organization, a new and uniform boundary change law and the creation of area governments. We believe very strongly that no subject is more deserving of our attention than the subject of local government modernization. According to a number of political scientists, Pennsylvania's local governments are organized in accordance with outdated 19th century concepts. There are over 2,600 local governments in the Commonwealth--74 of them in Luzerne County alone. Many of these, including some in this county, are too small to function effectively and too poorly organized and equipped to cope with this century’s complex problems. We agree with Roderic P. Terry, director of the Bureau of Local Government Services, when he states that “‘this is no assessment of blame on local government ....the Commonwealth of Penn- sylvania carries the basic responsibility for bringing its local governments into tune with modern times. It is up to the State to see that they ‘are structured and given powers commensurate with their current and future needs.” The State Constitution in 1968 classified the county as a ‘‘municipality’’ for the first time. Counties are open now to the possibilities of being units of local government, rather than merely ad- ministrative agencies of the state. The county as a local government unit could alleviate, hopefully, problems arising from the great number of smaller governmental units. If county residents so desired, and only after voting on the matter, the county could become a viable unit to function and provide county-wide municipal services. Admittedly, there are many issues and problems to be solved before the government unit at the county level can become a good, solid working unit. In some counties, government at that level may never: work—but isn’t the effort to ~ modernize worth a try? Busing In the past year we have seen the issue of busing emerge to the point where it has become, if the political analysts are correct, the hottest domestic issue at present. During that time we have seen school buses blown apart with bombs, set on fire, and overturned by mobs of angry parents. We have seen mothers refuse to allow their ~ children to attend schools in districts employing buses, and we have seen federal marshalls—the symbol of the early sixties—once again called out to insure the safety of our children. We admit that busing students out of our children. We admit that busing students out of their neighborhoods to a school miles away is in- convenient, expensive, and in some cases detrimental to those involved. But anyone who pretends that these are the motivating factors behind today’s strong opposition of busing are kidding themselves. When you take away the window dressing, when the polite arguments give way to violence action, the issue is white children attending school with black children and the motivation is racism. If any fact was driven home to us during the turbulent sixties it was that we have, either con- sciously or unconsciously, been practicing racial separatism for 200 years and that it was time we faced this fact and corrected it. Nobody said it would be easy, or convenient, or even that sacrifies wouldn’t have to be made. No society can practice discrimination for 200 years without paying for it, and busing is a pretty cheap price when compared to insurrection and violence. It seems, however, that busing has caught the imagination of numerous politicans who see votes in opposing the issue. It seems also that a good portion of our population is not quite ready to ac- cept integration, and is in fact adamantly opposed to it. That’s all well and good, except we would remind those parents and those politicians that the price of separatism grows dearer with time and what we are not prepared to pay now will be a pittance compared to what we will be forced to pay in the future. s Ch anges ic Mayer Benjamin hated winter. He hated the snow drifts that lapped in frozen waves against the shrubbery beside the porch. He hated the cold calligraphy of frost on his bedroom window. The short days, crushed beneath low, leaden skies, filled him with gloom and the brightly moonlit nights sent him growling out of bed to draw the shades. Snowmobilers enraged him. They were noisy ! they were a scourge on the ecology; and besides, they seemed actually to enjoy the season. Each ‘year winter set its traps around Benjamin’s home. There was ice to be salted before it pulled someone’s feet out from under him and there was snow to be shovelled before it turned to ice. Benjamin bought himself a small tractor with a huge plow, a snow blower and an enclosed cab. When he awoke to find fresh snow on roads and lawns a kind of hysteria seized him. First he brooded over a cup of coffee, steeling himself from the coming ordeal. Then, with great ceremony, he dressed. He put on his quilted underwear with the shiny silver snaps and over that a pair of baggy, waterproof trousers. Next came two heavy shirts, in- sulated boots, the scarf his mother once knitted for him. He covered his ears with ear- muffs and placed an orange hunter’s cap atop his head. He struggled into his red hunting jacket, resplendent with its brass buttons. When at last he pulled on his furlined gloves, I hired a car and skidded through the White Mountains in a half blizzard, to Manchester, N.H., most of the way sideways. Next mor- ning there was Sen. Muskie overcome on the platform of a flat-top truck. Whether it was melted snow dripping off his long nose, or tears, I couldn’t be sure. I stood right below him. He couldn’t speak for emotion. Behind him was the big, hand- some Georgian-style Manchester Union Leader office that looks like a public school or a US Post Office. Its near-Neanderthal publisher, William Loeb, had insulted Mr. Muskie, or at any rate so the senator believed. The Manchester Union Leader is probably the worst newspaper in America though some readers think this is only Yankee boasting and some other newspaper is worst. There’s on accounting for taste. In any case, all the paper had said, or implied, was that “Big drank, swore and told dirty stories. This was only mild stuff from Mr. Loeb who edits his paper like a 19th century yellow journal which has somehow survived into the jet age. For some reason the senator took this amiss. And his consequent show of emotion probably hurt him. Some people ask if there’s passion in the big, raw .boned, deliberate-spoken man from Maine. Well, it’s there all right. Publisher Loeb instantly fired back after the Muskie attack from his absentee-home in Massa- chusetts that the senator showed himself “near-hysterical.”’ The outburst proved, Mr. Loeb said, that Sen. Muskie was not the man to “have his finger on the nuclear button.” The outcome of the primary isn’t known as this is written, but Mr. Loeb’s favorite candi- [The Bread is Rising by Marie McCandless Last month’s statement by a Wilkes- Barre area police official that capital punish- ment is the most effective deterrent to crime raises anew a perennial problem. In Anglo- Saxon days, discipline was devised as ap- propriate to the offense, and many a thief had a hand amputated as a result. Time has not improved the situation all that much. Granting the sporadic attempts to update the modern penal system, certain truths still pertain. A man convicted of a done his time he may return to society a reformed man, determined never to break another law, or a cynic, determined never ‘again to get caught. He may return a defeatist, feeling that lawbreaking, getting caught and re-imprisonment are inevitable, and so takes his chances recklessly, uncaring. Idealistically, the present penal system assumes the first attitude as its goal; realistically, the other two are unavoidable. If an eight-year-old spitefully breaks a neighbor’s window after he has been scolded for playing on the lawn, we do not incarcerate him for a period of time with other young window-breakers. Instead, we apply con- structive discipline, so that he learns to channel his future frustrations and angers more acceptably. We teach him, for example, that he can release his aggressions in a football game, by mowing the lawn or raking leaves. We also direct him to replace the window or perform chores for the neighbor in retribution, and to make a personal apology. Application of similar principles can benefit adult window or law-breakers. Neither impounding them like animals nor executing them to remove the threat they pose to society has thus far corrected the causes of their unsuitable behavior. It seems evident that a criminal could learn law- abiding behavior more readily with a humane approach to discipline than by humilitation and spirit-breaking loss of self-respect. no part of him was left exposed to winter’s icy thrusts, save for his eys, which he squinted against the snow glare. Encased in this soft armor he moved stiffly out the door, mounted his tractor and rode forth to do battle with the white menace. When he had liberated his own driveway he ranged up and down the street, wreaking havoc on the enemy. If he saw neighbors beseiged by the snow he plowed their drive- ways also and they waved in graditude from their windows. This was the good part of winter. Unfortunately the highway department was not as valiant as Benjamin. On snowy mornings, the thought of leaving his safely plowed driveway to travel treacherous roads appalled him. Every night he listened with trepidation to the weather reports. Any hint of snow, any high or low fronts advancing up the The day before a blizzard was always the worst. At first there would be vague reports, “a possibility of some snow beginning later tonight.” Then the icy noose would begin to tighten until possibility turned to probability and from there to monstrous certainty. “Heavy snow warning.!” When the sullen snow with its awesome weight smothered the earth, a peculiar torpor fell over Benjamin. When temperatures dropped so that the sun admired its own reflection all day long in frozen ponds and the nuclear button either. He favors Los Angeles. mayor Sam Yorty as presidential hopeful on the Democratic side, and on the Republican side, Rep. Ashbrook of Ohio, who is far to the right of President Nixon. Perhaps that is a contradiction in terms. How can anyone be said to be on the left or right of President Nixon when he jumps around so? But in any case, Mr. Loeb and Mr. Ashbrook and Mr. Yorty put their faith in armaments and they hate Communists. It is worth taking a look at the strange political.world of New Hampshire to see what a thing the preference primary system is. All the soothsayers flock to find omens in the New Hampshire results. Indeed, on the negative side, it can be important in the winnowing out of candidates by the ordeal of publicity. New Hampshire is a lovely small state of churches: where the old textile mills are, mostly closed. Sixty percent of the people are Catholic. Many are French-Canadians con- ditioned to look to higher authority for leader- ship. New Hampshire has no sales tax, no income tax, and state aid to education is the lowest in the union. It is eked out by sin taxes: horse-racing and liquor (drinks are cheaper with no sales tax) plus highway tolls and the tourist industry. The latter is the big money raiser. In this happy, snow-topped paradise where you see the skiers going up and down any con- venient mountain like ant processions, Publisher Loeb presides. The peculiarity of the American primary system makes his venomous views nationally important every streams, then Benjamin's higher sensibilities burrowed down, like frogs, into the thick mud of inertia. His emotions became as gray as the landscape; his life shed its colors and, like a leafless tree, sought to outlast the winter in bleak and undemanding austerity. So it was that year after year his life mirrored the seasons, and in summer Benjamin was as bright and warm natured as he was cold and darkly morose during the winter. One autumn, when the early morning frost still came as a surprise, an inexplicable restlessness took hold of Benjamin. His friends at the office noted that he seemed nervous, worked in spurts and ate pro- digiously at lunch. The checkout clerk at the grocery noticed the anomaly also. Benjamin, who lived alone, frequented the store daily, carting off bag after bulging bag of groceries. Once the clerk, who knew Benjamin slightly, noted curiously that “Visitors sure can get expensive. . .what with all the food. . . ” Benjamin blushed and admitted that he didn’t have any visitors. : “I've just been terribly hungry lately.” And though the clerk was too polite to mention it, Benjamin was definitely showing the effects of his gluttony. After the first snow flurries filled the air with swirling white, Benjamin’s work at the office began to drop off. He was listless, stayed home days at a time, eating. He ate ice cream by the carton and milk by the quart. Mealtime was a meaningless term—he ate all four years. Physically, Mr. Loeb looks like a short Daddy Warbucks. When he or his third wife go out from their 30-room mansion, they are often armed. He is an officer of the National Rifle Association. He is always afraid of ‘“them.” He runs a paper by paranoids for paranoids. This year 25 states and territories have primaries, all different, most indecipherable, and all almost automatically dragging the media in to “interpret” the result, requiring: press and radio to play an unhealthy role as participants in the game. Who ‘“‘won’’ the New Hampshire Democratic primary four years ago? Why, ‘Gene McCarthy, you say; that knocked out President Johnson. Not true! LBJ got more votes than McCarthy on write- in ballots. But McCarthy won a moral victory, and LBJ opted out. The people who decide “moral” victories ‘dre the ‘press. They ifispect the slaughtered sacrifice to'decide the auspices. The number of ‘states’ with preferential primaries has about doubled in four years; the costs are enormous and reform is overdue: possibly a national primary, with a run-off. To come back to New Hampshire, another joker here is the right of independent voters to “cross over.” It is not so bad as in Wisconsin where Republicans can vote in the Democratic primary and pick the Democratic candidate. In New Hampshire there are about 160,000 registered Republicans, 135,000 independents, and 100,000 Democrats. Mr. Loeb is a force in this eccentric picture because his paper is the only one with state-wide coverage and a Sunday edition. Its daily drip of venom goes the time. He grew so fat that his clothes wouldn’t fit. Finally his boss had a long talk with him. it was obvious, he must be sick. Look at him. doctor. , Yawning, Benjamin insisted he was fine, from his pocket—a bit hungry. Well, more than a bit hungry, true. Nevertheless, he was sent home. His fellow workers bid him good bye, wished him a speedy recovery. They were obviously disconcerted, if not altogether frightened, by the enormous creature their once familiar friend had become. Among themselves they said, ‘“There’ll be no snow plowing for him this winter.” The first substantial snowfall of the year began just as Benjamin arrived home. As he watched the snow swirl past his window to cover sidewalks and roads, he shuddered with revulsion. Gradually an unshak gy le lassi- tude desended upon him and he woéled to his bedroom. His legs, unaccumstomed to the ponderous weight they now carried, gave out, toppling him into bed. He felt himself falling into a deep well of sleep, withdrawing into the very core of his elephantine form. until there remained only a glimmering spark of life. He became oblivious to the falling snow, oblivious even to the warm bed. He slept. The next thing he knew, a bird was singing. out in 63,000 copies. Are we being harsh? Well, to Mr. Loeb Mr. Eisenhower was a “stinking hypocrite,” John Kennedy was the “No. 1 liar in the USA,” and the senator from Maine is “Moscow Muskie.” Mr. Loeb’s attacks on Mr. Nixon are fairly muted since the president sprung James R. Hoffa from prison. When Mr. Hoffa was head of the Teamsters in 1957, he bailed Mr. Loeb out with the teamsters’ pension fund after Mr. Loeb was fined $3 million in an antitrust case. So I come back to Ed Muskie on the plat- form of his flat-top truck that morning in Manchester. Snow was falling. The sky was skim-milk blue. The senator was czmposed as he left his hotel and strode, ta¥ind bare- headed, over to the Union Leader. As he walked he spoke quietly into the mike of a trotting interviewer on his right. A reporter, on his left, had to leap gulleys and drifts. On'the truck the snow quickly zave Sen. Muskie a George Washington wig. ¢ looked out at the small crowd with his hound-dog eyes, and held the microphone in his left hand. He denied that he sneered at French- Canadians (Mr. Loeb’s latest charge). There were no notes, no text. When he got to the business about his wife he stopped, his face contorted; he didn’t lose his temper; he broke down. The affair has drawn unfavorable reaction. Men shouldn't be overcome in public. Maybe it will cost him the nomination. Mr. Muskie monette about fairness in a campaign, That was it; that’s how it happened. The snow continued. The sheer number of imprisoned men and women defies attempts at truly individual rehabilitation. But that is both raison d’etre and starting point for a new course of corrective, rather than punitive, action. It is reason because untold millions of dollars are now wasted maintaining those cages called modern prisons, not to mention the lives wasting therein. If we can reduce the number of prisoners, those remaining can be guided to a productive life. It is a starting point since many present prisoners have been convicted of lesser crimes than murder or rape. Assuming that chances are at least two out of three that these prisoners will not be reformed for having been imprisoned, examine the alter- native. X Convicted robbers could be released from prison, assigned to custody of a person or group accountable to parole-type authorities, and placed in a job at the going salary. From his earnings, the robber would make restitution to his victim, provide him own living expenses, and contribute a percentage toward the administrative ‘costs of the program. The advantages are fundamental: the victim recovers his loss; the robber assumes responsibility for his livelihood, but with the safety valve of being answerable to his custodian; and the minimal percentage applied to funding the project puts at least part of the cost of rehabilitation squarely on the shoulders of those who incur it. - Consider the person convicted of posses- sion of use of dangerous drugs. A portion of his income would be earmarked for medical research. He would be employed in a drug crisis or rehabilitation center, where the supposed risk of the availability of drugs is negated by the ex-prisoner recognizing drug abuse hazards, cooperating in treatment of drug abusers: and so realizing incidental treatment benefits. The potential danger of prisoners returned to society is minimized by the positive gains of self-respect and a means and purpose for a decent living. These reduce the likelihood of a man’s infringing on another’s rights. The economic advantages are tacit. A new federal work program could employ both released prisoners and chronic welfare collectors, who are otherwise prime material for lawbreaking and imprisonment. Just one chink in the visious circle of unemployment and educational and cultural lag could pro- to thievery and violence as outlets for their energies. Since the federal government con- tinually builds, tears down, or renovates, it wouldn’t be make-work. And surely the cost of salaries for ex-prisoners would be less than that of feeding, housing, and “rehabilitating” them behind bars. Isn’t that a better way to use tax money? Forestailing criticism, it is only fair to state that some American prison systems are experimenting with similar proposals. Pre- dictably, their greatest impediment has been ¢) which they go. The onus attached to the label “‘ex-con’’ is like that of the ex-mental patient. People disregard the reality that ‘there but for fortune go you and I”, and that what is needed is not stigmatizing but support, not only in the form of job openings, 5 it a sup- portive attitude. » ) It is admittedly radical to suggest releasing from prison the man who has beaten or robbed his fellow man, evaded the greetings of the Selective Service, used mari- juana, or differed with the opinions of Mit- chell, Kissinger et al. Probably as extreme as intimating that modern imprisonment in the main does not discourage crime, but defers and sophisticates it. And so the problem returns to the com- mon deification of the status quo, in this case punishment as’ vengenance, not discipline as improvement. Certainly, advances in crimin- ology promise to be thorny. The easiest solution is none at all. But for the sake of thou- sands of prisoners stagnating uselessly, it may be time for us to heed this advice: “Behold the turtle: he only makes progress when he sticks his neck out.” w Editor emeritus: Mrs. T.M.B. Hicks Editor: Doris R. Mallin News editor: St \ Murphy “Advertising : Carolyn Gass eS TD rt OP A es ot bpd Fr rd bee Ay oN NN & a td OS 0) TY et OY ee appt gm ed AN OTN tN) AYN Pe A PN PN A A PN dt BS TDOPTON I At LH LLNS oP Bair HL hse red or WES D CURSE CR Ler a NER SS
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers