? Page 4 EDITORIAL Parking Problem The Weiss Market has graciously put up ‘‘No Parking-Fire Lane’ signs in an effort to remedy a snarled parking condition which could result in disaster if a fire should develop. " They did not have to put up the signs, as the shopping area is private property not under the jurisdiction of Dallas Borough's traffic laws. Yet they did so at their own expense, at the request of the borough, even though they indicated that they don’t want to inconvenience their customers. A few die-hards, however, are negating the inten- tion of the Weiss Market compliance with the borough’s wish, by disregarding the ‘No Parking’ signs. A safety fire lane usually does not yet exist at the site. In order to save themselves, in most cases, from a few extra steps, these people are creating a hazard to themselves, others and private property, in the event of fire. They are also continuing the creation of a bothersome navigation problem for drivers entering that shopping area. Jacob Kassab, Pennsylvania Secretary of Trans- portation, has again told the residents of this area that they don’t deserve a traffic light system at the intersection of routes 309 and 415. His latest refusal is based on a count of traffic taken at that inter- section. The count showed that there has not been a sharp rise in traffic at that intersection in the past year. : His reasoning seems to be that since he didn’t think a traffic system was needed there last year, and since the traffic size is very much the same, the system is still not needed. Rather, we would suggest that the traffic system was needed last year, and that since his recent count did not show that traffic has diminished, the system is still needed. We would also suggest that Mr. Kassab count accidents rather than cars. That data, we believe, is the true indicator of a need for safety precautions. The Dallas Borough police report of last week, as carried in the Post, lists general information about two accidents that occurred during the previous week at that intersection. Looking back just one more Post issue we find an article about an accident at that intersection which sent two people to Nesbitt Memorial Hospital. The state transportation people counted the - traffic and left. The Back Mountain people remain, to count the accidents, the injuries, the damages, and to count their blessings each time they safely make a left-hand turn as they continue south on 309. Public Trust The action of the Environmental Hearing Board Friday in assessing a fine of $1,667,000 against Scranton’s Chamberlain Corp. is indeed a feather in the cap of Gerald Grimaud, the young man from Tunkhannock, a DER Strike Force lawyer, who prosecuted the Roaring Brook polluter. The action marks a distinct precedent, not only from the severity of the fine, but from the standpoint that it reverses the usual procedure of the Federal Government charging the states with laxity in the enforcement of environmental laws and regula- - tions. As first reported in this region in August, 1971, this newspaper called attention to a host of water pollution violations taking place along the tribut- aries of the Susquehanna. In that article, we discussed the aspects of the 1899 Refuse Act, which covers not only the type of pollution Chamberlain has been found guilty of, but the fact that the federal Environmental Protection Agency, in conjunction with the office of U.S. Atty. John Cottone, has been compliant, complacent and dere- lict in upholding the law when it comes to regional water pollution, particularly when violators are those firms supported by the Federal Government, such as Chamberlain. : As the case moves on toward a possible con- clusion before the U.S. Supreme Court, Atty. Grimaud and citizens of the region can con- template that while there is probably no covert collusion between EPA officials and officials of Chamberlain, it’s nonetheless apparent that EPA and the U.S. Attorney have been strangly derelict. It would appear that when pollution is perpretrated by that industrial complex which lives on govern- ment defense contracts, it becomes more apparent that EPA turns its head to cases of direct violation of the law and thus ignores the public trust. 3 Capitol Notes by William Ecenbarger In the unpublished Shopper’s Guide to Possible Democratic Candidates for the U.S. Senate in 1974, state Insurance Commissioner Herbert S. Denenberg is looking better all the time to the party professionals. Under normal circumstances, the best buy for the Democrats would be Lt. Gov. Ernest P. Kline, who has everything going for him save one: The man he would have to beat, Republican incumbent Richard S. Schweiker, appears unbeatable by an orthodox politi- cian—and Kline is an orthodox politician. Enter Herbert Sidney Denenberg, who isn’t an orthodox politician—indeed, there is some question whether he’s a politician at all. At least Denenberg is scarcely the type of individual to inspire spontaneous support among Democratic county chairmen. But, off the record, some of them are saying he just might make sense this year. Schweiker’s liberal Republicanism has eroded much support that Democrats expect as a matter of course, and the junior senator from Pennsylvania is within a whisker of win- ning the endorsement of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO. This unlikely love affair was brought on by Schweiker’s unwavering advocacy of pet labor projects, including higher minimum wages and private pension reform. Schweik- er’s right flank is exposed, but there doesn’t appear to be anyone there who can do much damage on Election Day, either in the spring- time or in the autumn. Thus, the Democratic polls are beginning to reason, conventional strategy won’t do. Throw the book out the window and go with something that’s never tried before. Publicly Denenberg eschews any interest in elective office, but privately he’s very carefully weighing the opportunity. He would not have to resign as insurance commissioner to run for the Senate. The Governor's Office has polls indicat- ing that Denenberg is the most popular public figure in Pennsylvania. More important for TRB from Washington We've been reading a review copy of that conjures up delicious possibilities for the historians, not to mention the gossipmongers, new that we know President Nixon was wired for sound from early 1971 until this July. Says Mr. White: ‘‘He (Nixon) had a reflex fear of being quoted—particularly since in pressed itself in an outburst of temper—as when an orderly child, building a pile of blocks, flares at someone who tumbles them. The outburst of temper could sound like a snarl, as when his nomination of G. Harold Carswell for the Supreme Court was rejected by the Senata...The full nature of the Nixon mind was probably known only to three people, the three who saw him on a daily basis—Kissinger, Ehrlichman and Halde- man. With such people, the President had no need to conceal the clear tenacity of his think- ing. With Kissinger alone the President could talk of the China problem in terms of Rus- sia... With Ehrlichman, he could sit down to talk about the problems of the city and then cut through the guff and say, ‘All right, now we're talking about the Negro problem.” But it was with Haldeman that the President was most at ease, Haldeman who could most easily put away his own pride of personality and become the President’s instrument, the guardian of his broodings and his privacy.” The passage got us to thinking. How does Rustlings A, by Russ Williams | The amusements and games concession area at the recent Pocono State Fair at Long Pond seemed like something out of an old English allegorical novel. Greed, it appeared, could only be that vividly portrayed through fiction or the surreal. Almost wherever one looked someone was trying to establish eye'contact so they could motion or call a likely customer over to their stand. They wanted me to pay 50 cents or a dollar to try to do something just this side of impossible; the reward for success was a stuffed animal that T wouldn't think of buying if I saw it on sale for 50 cents or a dollar. If their plush rewards didn’t entice you into their game, most of them thought nothing of taking you by the arm and almost dragging your money out of your wallet. The shy almost as much as they fear hearing it, would be forced. by the forceful personality of a single concessioneer, to play his game over and over until the unpleasantness of failure and loss of money became stronger than the unpleasantness of saying “no.” The concessioneers also knew how to play on the pride of the stronger personalities. They could illogically, yet successfully, shame a man into playing their game of no chance. I saw one young man spend at least $5, at adollar a try. attempting to win a teddy bear that probably cost the stand operator 84 cents. Alarge wooden ball on a chain was positioned in front of a single bowling pin. The practiced hand of the concessioneer showed him that he simply had to send the ball past the pin to knock it down on the backswing. The con- the post-Watergate era of 1974 is one poll’s assessment of his trustworthiness. The trust standard used for many years by Democratic pollster Oliver Quayle is TV newsman Walter Cronkite, who usually finished above all public figures in a poll. But last December he came out only slightly above Denenberg in trust among Pennsyl- vania voters. : Gov. Shapp is likely to be running on the same ticket next year, and he naturally wants a strong Democratic Senate nominee. How- - ever, the prospect of Schweiker winning over large numbers of Democratic voters to his candidacy does not unduly upset the gover- nor’s strategists—for Pennsylvanians are notorious ticket-splitters. In fact, the state hasn’t elected a governor and a senator from the same party in the same election since 1950. X Denenberg, of course, has made whole groups of people mad at him, but they are nu- merically small, and the only way they could really hurt Denenberg would be to contribute heavily to Schweiker’s campaign. 3 Even that doesn’t seem too likely. As far as the lawyers and doctors of vari are concerned, getting Herb Denertberg.out of Harrisburg and into Washington would not be an unmitigated disaster. 0 one buy into a piece of the Richard M. Nixon Library? With the presidential tapes we now know exist to preserve such conversations “for posterity,” the RMN Library should out- do Disneyland as Southern California’s most bizarre attraction. As Mr. White suggests, Nixon on Carswell, Nixon on China in terms of Russia, Nixon on ‘the Negro problem,” Nixon feeding instructions into Haldeman the robot—all with the bark off—should make fascinating listening. And how about Nixon on Wally Hickel? On William Calley? On Martha Mitchell? On the comings and goings of John Connally? On keeping Spiro Agnew on the ticket or dumping him? Or those presidential instructions to Adnew before sending him forth to commit oratorical mayhem? And let’s not forget what Nixon said to Haldeman about Ehrlichman when Ehrlichman was not in the room, and what he said to Ehrlichman about Haldeman when Haldeman was not in the room, and what he said to Bebe about both of them, if in- deed he ever said anything to Bebe. We're told as part of the folklore that he likes Bebe around because he doesn’t have to talk to him. Maybe the tapes can confirm that too. It all reminds us of the movie ‘‘Mill- house’’ by Emile DeAntonio, which was fash- ioned from old movie and television film clips, including much footage from out- takes—the discards that were never used in the finished products. There’s a marvelous one that shows Nixon in the 1968 campaign doing short TV and radio spots in a studio. He’s sitting at a table holding a bunch of index cessioneer, of course, never missed; he knew the trick. The young man, there with his girl- griend, missed ever so closely each time. In this case it was obvious that the con- cessioneer had made the game a test of mas- culinity for the young man. Here was how he could prove to his girlfriend that he was a real down with a silly wooden ball and win, for her, a cute little teddy bear. At the same game, at another stand, one of these greedy individuals got my attention and I had been fighting that. When I refused his demanding request that I play his game, he too picked up on the girlfriend bit. He pointed to the girl with me and asked, “What's a matter, isn’t she worth a buck to you?” That ridiculous question (probably time- tested) threw me way off balance. Much too far off balance to realize that the right answer was, ‘Sure she is. But your silly game, for childish prizes. isn’t.” : : Wanting to give him some kind of answer he didn’t expect, however, I managed (Heaven help me.) a ‘‘No.” That answer didn’t go over real big with the girl, and also failed to crush my opponent. He’d heard the answer before, because he took out his wallet and offered me $2 for her. I'd seen the way these guys worked up to that point. and had already been thinking about how their jobs might affect their attit- udes toward their fellow man, and therefore, also toward themselves. I didn’t take the $2, but asked. **How do you like your job?” He hadn’t heard that one before. He got angry. “Why'd ya ask that?” cards, and he tells the director he wants to do a few on civil rights. Suddenly he turns on the public face of sincerity, gives a few brief comments on his commitment to racial equality (‘‘an equal place at the starting line”’ was the way he used to put it; every man a Jesse Owens). Then he turns off the sincerity face, tosses the index cards aside and says rights.” We don’t mean to be greedy, but it strikes us that it’s an awful shame that the electronic wizards who thought of preserving all the presidential sounds for posterity didn’t install a nonstop TV camera too. By the way, has anybody asked about that? Guess not. Too preposterous. ' Anyway, we ought to be satisfied with the tapes, and we’ll probably have ‘a tough enough time getting even the non-Watergate stuff into the public domain. At the John F. Kennedy Library, scores or maybe hundreds of interviews were taped with notables in JFK's life, and only a small portion of them have been made public. The Kennedy Library has a screening committee headed by Burke Marshall, the former assistant attorney gen- eral under Kennedy, that listens to tapes and decides which can be made public and when. The committee is the overseer on matters not only of national security but also of taste. Presumably the RMN Library will have a similar screening committee. Who - would make a good chairman? If an old Justice De- partment hand is required, how about John Mitchell? No? Then Robert Mardian? Dick Kleindienst? John Dean? The woods are full I just smiled and said that I'd been wondering and left. : I'd freed myself, and then started doing some hard thinking about his job. I started to feel somewhat sorry for these people, whose greed caused them to live a life of one-week- here-one-week-there, caused them to see people at their worse, and caused them to see human beings as a species to challenge and trick. . As human beings themselves, the greedy concessioneers end up defeating and fooling themselves. Around the fair area were large painted proclamations of the low point to which greed your money to see their menagerie of living, human birth defects. “See the Half Woman!’ “See the Strangest Boy Alive!’’, “The Dog- Faced Woman”, ‘The Woman With Four Legs’, and so on. . per year. Call 675-5211 for subscriptions. The officers of Greenstreet News Co. President; and Doris Mallin, secretary treasurer. Mrs. T. M. B. Hicks, editor Emeritus J: R. Freeman, managing editor Doris R. Mallin, editor Dan Koze, advertising manager Sylvia Cutler, advertising sales of men who could be counted on to see that na- tional security and good taste were preserv- ed. : 2 Something tells us, though, that the great brainchild of this most bug-happy of all American regimes will itself be a casualty of Watergate. When the tapes were conceived ‘simply as grist for historians (like Victor Lasky) that was one thing; but now they’re like fingerprints, or bootmarks in ‘#& mud, in an'old Basil Rathbone movie. Their availabil- ity as mere entertainment, we fear, may be forever lost. We'll probably have ole for David Frye doing Nixon talking to¥galdeman and Ehrlichman in the Oval Office. And even if the tapes are released, how will we know the voice we hear isn’t David Frye’s? It’s a dilema. But we're sure the Nixon masters of public relations will work some- thing out. How about installing in the RMN Library one of those animated Presidents like they have in Disney World? Instead of having a lifelike, gesturing Abe Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address, the feature attrac- tion could be Dick Nixon walking around (out of sync, of course) mouthing a selected num- ber of his Oval Office tapes. One could be bill- ed “‘The President Talks to John Dean.”’ Ano- Plumbers.” Or, if the mechanical Nixon breaks down, they could put on ‘gR&he Pre- sident Doesn’t Talk to Bebe Reboz » With a little imagination at J. Walter Thompson Agency, it may yet be possible to make a silk purse out of all this. . : I “passed’’ on these, but I found out later that some of them had an extra, corrupted-by- greed twist. Obviously lacking in a sufficient number of unhappy cases of Nature’s mis- takes, some proved to be fakes. Ioverheard a girl say that on another day the “Girl with No Arms and Legs’ which she had just paid to see had been outside selling tickets, all limbs intact. “They do it with mirrors, she decided angrily, furious that these concessioneers even stooped to tricking one of her most base desires. Many people, however, came great dis- tances just to enjoy themselves at the, Pocono State Fair. Instead they found them $n a battle for their own money, against a prac- ticed army, that travels on its greed. If the Pocono fair is to become an annual event I suggest they need to look for;a new concession outfit. That army could defeat the whole affair. 5H id 2 194
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers