Page 4 EDITORIAL Everybody Happy? Social scientists are out to find out more about the mood of America. So don’t be surprised if a pollster knocks on your door wanting to find out how alienated you are, whether you've been mugged recently, whether anyone has tried to take anything from you by force, whether you trust your government, whether you're basically happy or not. Chances are the results of any such poll are likely to vary tremendously from day to day. On the day after last year’s Super Bowl game, for example, half of the nation’s males would have said they felt lousy and had lost complete trust in their govern- ment and its institutions. They would have been the Washington Redskins fans. On that same day, the pollsters would have also found a vast majority of the nation’s housewives feeling much the same way. They are the ones married to Redskins fans and to Miami Dolphins fans. Thus, on that given day, the pollsters would have found nearly two-thirds of the nation’s popula- tion on the verge of boredom, madness or suicide. Or how about a poll taken last April? The results would be virtually unanimous that everyone con- sulted had something taken from him by force— namely, his yearly income tax. The poll results would clearly be warped by cer- : tain special interest groups. Ministers would testify to being tired and irritable on Christmas when everyone else was happy. Children would show ex- treme alienation on the day school begins, along with a case of hypochondria. Soldiers would grouse at the interviewers on the way back from leave. Politicians would testify to being mugged each election season—by their opponents. In short, the pollsters are likely to find the degree of happiness or unhappiness among Americans dependent more on the number of big toes stubbed, flower gardens trampled, cars dented, tests flunked and days of rain endured than on deeper manifestations of ‘‘the American character.” Chances are, too, that the ‘happiness index’ of most people also depends heavily on the number of times encyclopedia salesmen and pollsters knock on their doors at suppertime each week. American System Former Vice President Spiro Agnew didn’t exactly go down in a blaze of glory in his address to the nation Monday night, as some of his more ar- dent supporters predicted. From this vantage point, we detected a number of more subtle con- siderations. Mr. Agnew, for instance, never once said he was innocent of tax evasion, not only in the year 1967, as charged, or for any other year. In his condemnation of the press, the former vice president laid at our feet what sounded strangely like a statement from President Nixon upon his California defeat in that state’s gubernatorial race some years back: “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around any more.” Mr. Agnew again asserted that those who had testified against him had been granted partial or full immunity for testimony against him, despite Atty. Gen. Elliott Richard’s assertion to the con- trary. : The former vice president stayed clearly away from specific points of rebuttal to the now common- ly known charges that he received kickbacks from government contractors almost since the time he entered public life. And while Mr. Agnew tried to build a case that the Justice Department had attempted to make an example of him, it was interesting to note that right here in Pennsylvania, former Republican Con- gressman J. Irving Whalley pleaded guilty in fed- eral court in Washington to receiving kickbacks from his former employees. Mr. Whalley was fined $11,000 and sentenced to three years probation the same day Mr. Agnew addressed the nation. Perhaps the American public has learned from such scandals that our system of justice has room for scrutiny of the white collar criminal. More im- portantly, perhaps, Americans should take solice that the American system is adaptable enough that while an occasional criminal such as Spiro Agnew may rise to the second highest office in the land, our system is also equipped to remove him almost as quickly as they could devise a kickback scheme. Capitol Notes by William Ecenbarger The major difference between a cat and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission 1S that a cat has only nine lives. The patronage-laden commission, which was supposed to be eliminated (along with turnpike tolls) many years ago, is observing its 33rd birthday this month. And despite a withering attack from the Shapp Administra- tion. it seems likely to survive for at least a few more years. The commission's lifeline is the revenue bonds it sells to finance construction and im- provements along the 460-mile pike. As long as it owes somebody money, the commission cannot ‘be abolished. Mr. Shapp’s strategy is sound enough. As governor he must approve all commission bond issues—and for three years he has refus- ed to do so in an attempt to cut the bond life- line. The existing turnpike could be paid off within the next few years—an event that would automatically end the tolls and the commission. But the execution of that strategy is hampered by the bleak financial conditions along the toll road. It needs massive improve- ments, costing perhaps $500 million. The state cannot afford to finance the work with gener- al highway revenues, and the once bright hope of federal assistance has flickered into wishful thinking. That leaves one source—turnpike tolls, and this is why the governor has been forced to -abandon his hope of making the turnpike toll-free during his first administration. Instead, Gov. Shapp wants to pay for the needed improvements with money borrowed directly by the state (rather than the commis- sion)—thereby bringing about the commis- sion’s demise. The turnpike would then be operated by the state Transportation Depart- ment, which would collect tolls. would then be operated by the state Transpor- tation Department, which would collect tolls. But even this short-range goal is fraught with political perils. As long as Republicans control the five-member commission, legisla- tion to accomplish Gov. Shapp’s plan isn’t likely to clear the GOP-dominated House. TRB from Washington The new Era of Scarcity is coming faster than anybody thought, stimulated by the Arab-Israeli war. Your home and office may be five degrees cooler this winter because of the war, if the Arabs use their “oil weapon’ which seems possible. Very likely the Ad- ministration will be pushed toward rationing, which is a daunting thought when you think of how well they've handled other problems like the economy, inflation, the meat shortage and the Russian grain deal. The Middle East war illustrates graphically the need of detente with the Soviets, if we can get it, in this shrinking world, where popula- tion has already outrun food and threatens soon to outrun basic raw materials. The well- heeled United States is lucky, in some ways, but vulnerable in others. A statistic doesn’t strike home, perhaps. We have 6 percent of the world’s population and use 33 percent of its energy. But the problem comes clear when there’s an oil shortage. The shortage seems a complete surprise to the. President. At his press conference the other day he blandly warned the Arbs that ‘‘oil without a market doesn’t do a country much good” and tut- tutted them with the overthrow of the late Mohammed Mossadegh, premier of Iran, in 1953, after he nationalized western oil com- panies. The comment was as inept as some of his comments about Watergate. Iran was then producing only about 300,000 barrels a day: The man we are worried about today is pivotal King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, whose hot desert sands produce 8.2 million barrels a day. We are pressuring him to boost this to 20 million. He is friendly, but he has signaled Turnpike Still Alive commission. The reason is that it is quite ob- vious that a nomination could not garner the necessary two third vote in the Senate (Re- . publican support is needed). And as long as Republicans rule in the House, there will be no legislative adjournment to permit Gov. Shapp to make in interim appointment with- out Senate confirmation. Thus we have a stalemate. Gov. Shapp refuses to approve additional borrowing for turnpike improvements. The commission “Not unless we offer them the Capitol dome in return,’’ notes one pessimistic Shapp staffer. And Republicans are likely to control the commission until at least November, 1974. The term of Republican Lester F. Burlein, currently commission chairman, expired last June—but he will continue to serve until a successor is confirmed by the Senate. But Gov. Shapp has been in no hurry to name a Democratic successor to Mr. Burlein and give the administration control of the quite willing to take on more. The casualty is the turnpike motorist. Once a synonym for the latest in highway technology, the toll road now o frightful shape. The entire roadway needs to be resur- faced, additional lanes must be built in the Philadelphia area to handle ever-increasing commuter traffic, and a second tunnel is needed in the Poconos to erase a perennial weekend bottleneck. ¢ RRS A RY ENA AN RN A 2 SN I WN 3 2 WL pi \ ee ¥ reluctance to expand production unless we reduce support for Israel. He has never spelled out his terms, but if the Middle East oil states cut back production as they did for three months in the 1967 war there probably will be a shortage. Cheer up, the Administra- tion is going to give us a full-scale save-fuel public relations drive complete with mascot “Snoopy’’ the dog. Faisal, incidentally, is nobody to fool with: one informed official here says his oil royal- ties may amount to $15 Billion next year. Try as he can, he can only spend about $3 billion a year on internal improvements. In 10 years he will have accumulated $100 billion and may very well be the world’s banker. What super-power Russia will do in the Arab-Israeli war nobody knows. No one doubts it badly wants a detente with the United States. No one doubts it urgently wants American (and Western) technology, and will pay a price for it. No one doubts either that it has a nasty way with dissenters and is as far from democracy as many of the dictator states that are clients of the US. Up till last week it seemed that Russia would hold back in the war, but Israel’s bombing of Damascus may have changed the pattern. What pressures can the US assert? Again it raises the question of detente. Messrs. Nixon and Kissinger want to im- prove relations and increase trade with Russia, and this comes down to lowering tariffs to the level that we now charge ‘most favored nations.” In Joe McCarthy’s day it was the conservatives who fought closer commercial ties with Russia and the liberal If there is one cause that traditionally has been close to the heart of every truly liberal outfit, it is the cause of free speech. Common Cause, beyond peradventure, is a truly liberal outfit. If the directors of Common Cause want lo pursue a nice cause close at home, they might take up the matter of free speech within their own operations. This suggestion arises from a recent curious incident in Connecticut. It is not the greatest story that ever failed to make the evening news, but it casts a revealing light upon contemporary liberalism in action. It seems that the League of Women Voters in Fairfield, Conn., decided to launch its autumn season with a full-dress public forum on a major issue in the news: the public finan- cing of federal elections. The league arranged to hold the program Oct. 8 at Sacred Heart College in Bridgeport, and began lining up sponsors to help foot the bill. Common Cause agreed to contribute modestly fo the venture, and thus became a €0-Sponsor. Phyllis B. Hayes. president of the Fairfield league, began putting the program together. The idea was to have a principal speaker who - would respond to the questions and views of a supporting panel. Somewhere around the first of September, Mrs. Hayes telephoned » Professor Ralph Winter Jr. of the Yale School of Law, and explained delicately that the league’s budget would not afford a big-name Winter himself undertake to give the prin- cipal speech? He agreed. Professor Winter's credentials were ex- cellent. A former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, he serves as a special consultant to the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He has written and spoken on the financing of federal campaigns, and has testified on pending bills dealing with election reform. There was but one thing wrong: Common Cause supports public financing, and Prof- essor Winter opposes it. Let him continue the story: “In all my conversations with Mrs. Hayes, I warned her that some of the co-sponsors might object to my speaking because I disagreed with their position on the issues. She told me that it did not matter because the league chose the speaker. that the meeting was not intended to be a forum for the sponsoring groups but rather an open discussion of the issues, and that the other interested groups would in any event be represented on a panel that was to question me... : 8 **On Tuesday, Sept. 18, Mrs. Ernest Stuckel intellectuals who favored it. Richard Nixon is always our favorite weathervane in things like this: 10 years ago when the USSR had a disastrous wheat harvest and wanted to buy grain our man Nixon (then a private citizen) denounced the nation as ‘ ‘subsidizing Khrush- chev at a time when he is in deep economic trouble. It allows him to divert the Russian economy into space and into military aectivi- ties that he otherwise would have to keep in agriculture.” There was a lot more beating the breast about it and marked the difference between Nixon-out-of-office and Nixon-in-office. What is astonishing today is to see liberal I.F. Stone joining Sen. Barry Goldwater in the same theme, and John Paton Davies backing Sen. Henry Jackson against detente. It is a genuine moral dilemma. The so- called ‘‘Jackson amendment” says no favored-nation-clause for Russia until it liberalizes emigration for Jews. It tears liberals apart. Some want a tough line to Russia. Some, like the left-wing Nation want detente: ‘‘As for Senator Henry Jackson, who aspires to the Presidency,” the magazine asks, ‘does any informed person, whether in the Soviet Union or the United States. really believe that his heart bleeds for Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn? He wants an even bigger U.S. arms program than President Nixon dares to sponsor...” We think President Nixon is right and the anti-detente liberals wrong on this one. (It’s not easy to say it.) We don't think trade between nations is a good vehicle for trying to compel drastic internal reforms in one called me and informed me that some co- sponsors had announced that they would withdraw their support for the meeting if I were the principal speaker. She said that in particular, Common Cause was ‘very unhappy.’ She further stated that because the meeting could not be held without the financial support from these sponsors that my invitation was canceled, although they would permit me to sit as a member of the panel. Since I felt that I had been treated in an ex- tremely discourteous fashion and that the content of the meeting was being censored by Common Cause and perhaps other groups, I refused any further participation.” Burke Marshall, a Common Cause board member and deputy dean of Yale Law, RE country by another. We have no illusions about freedom in Moscow but things are far better than they were under Stalin. We are glad Nixon went, to Moscow and Brezhnev came to Washington. Better relations be- tween nations often come at junct@es when their material interests coincide as they have recently, between the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. We every bit of moral support we hn to the heroic Communist dissidents. Alas, Congress seems to be shying away from closer trade ties and the war may now bring the two super- powers into actual conforntation. The dawning Era of Scarcity isn’t going to be confined to oil and energy. Of 13 basic in- dustrial raw materials required by a modern economy, says Lester Brown in his World Without Borders (Random House $8.95) the U.S. in 1950 was import-dependent (i.e. im- ported over 50 percent) on only four sub- stances; aluminum, manganese, nickel and tin. By 1970 zinc and chromium were added. By 1985 we will have added iron, lead and tungsten. We will be buying half of these sup- pliés on the world market in competition with industrial rivals. By 2000 we will dependent on 12 of the 13 basic raw materials (adding copper, potassium, and sulfur.) Take heart, we'll still be in the clear on phosphate! It all sounds fairly fantastic, of course, but maybe a little less so as we conserve oil this winter. As for food, the protein war between have and have-not countries is already begin- ning, population experts tell us. Mankind will surely find a path, but things will be different. learned of the “‘disinvitation’’ and reacted in disbelief. His protest was in vain. He was told that because Professor Winter's views were not ‘‘consonant’’ with the views of Common Cause, the invitation extended to hig would have to be withdrawn. yy A spokesman for Common Cause, in Washington, has confirmed Professor Win- ter’s account. The spokesman suggested to story.” Well, it isn’t much of a story, but if the in- cident reflects the liberalism around which the directors of Common Cause are making common cause, some soul-searching is in order when next the directors meet. scripfion, $6. per year. Call 675-5211 for subscriptions. Sylvia Cutler, Advertising Sales TE
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