Page A4 EDITORIAL Two-in-One Jackson Township residents lost their road fore- man with Harold Bertram’s resignation, Dec. 1. They have never had a full-time police chief. We feel that with the new budget coming up for appro- val, that with these two deficiencies, and because of the needs of the township economy, Jackson Town- ship would be wise to retain a qualified person to serve full-time as road supervisor and as full-time patrolman. The installation of a police-call receiver in the township road truck would make this man’s dual role quite functional. Mr. Bertram reported that his resignation was necessitated by his low salary, and a lack of funds has kept the township from enjoying full-time police protection. Combining the positions should allow the township to pay the man selected for them a suitable wage, while it should guarantee quick day-time answers to police calls. Because the current township patrolmen are not full-time and work during the day, township resi- dents with day-time problems have to rely on the assistance of the State Police, or other local police. An able-bodied individual, willing to be trained in police work and with an understanding of road The supervisors of Jackson Township should look for such a man quickly. The rising incidence of crime in the township, especially in the Sutton Road area, should make them aware that the resi- dents need better police protection. And the need for a road foreman at this time of year is obvious. Meanwhile the township’s part-time police force functions at lower than necessary efficiency be- cause part-time chief Robert Cooper hasn’t seen fit to seek the assistance of salaried patrolman Don Jones for the past seven months. It’s obvious that the young patrolman is not being ignored because of his lack of enthusiasm, for the job, as he has attended a variety of training sessions sponsored by the State Police and has taken a karate course on his own. We understand that patrolman Jones is eager to answer police calls, but only gets those that chief Cooper doesn’t. He has reported that he learned about some of the recent township burglaries only when he read about them in this newspaper. We hope that in 1974 Jackson Township supervi- sors will make every effort to secure a qualified road crew and demand beter utilization of their police force. Counterproductive One tenet we should all embrace by this time is that violence is counterproductive. Hundreds of truckers have been proving it again for the past ten days. Earlier this month, when thousands of indepen- dent truck drivers blockaded major highways throughout the country, including northeastern Pennsylvania, there was a definite spirit of good will among all concerned. The public handled the peaceful demonstrations admirably (they’ve learned a lot since Chicago, 1968), and the truckers got their point across to the government and the public at large. A check by the IRS revealed that the truckers were indeed being victimized by price-gouging deisel oil distributors and service station owners (some drivers were being charged as much as nine cents per gallon over the legal ceiling price), and their other de- mands were being investigated. For a while it looked like the truckers had suc- ceeded in publicizing their grievances, and getting ful resistance. “River Rat’ was a folk hero. Then the shooting and brick-throwing started. Public opinion turned against the truckers, and everything they gained may be lost. It will now be easy for government officials from Richard Nixon on down to spurn even legitimate demands of the victimized truckers in the name of good old American law and order. The truckers have made their point. They should return to work and give the government time to act on their legitimate demands. Then, if the govern- ment is not responsive, the truckers should or- ganize more prolonged peaceful blockades and demonstrations. It’s no secret that the truckers have enormous power—they could paralyze the nation without really trying hard. But only if they use this power constructively will it do them, or anyone else, any good. Several months ago, a Senate sub- committee retained the Louis Harris Asso- ciates to make a massive study addressed to this question: How do American people per- ceive their government? Last week the ans- wers were in: The people perceive their government poorly. Their disenchantment extends not only to government, but to other institutions also. By a substantial margin, the people believe the whole “quality of life” in America has de- creased in the past 10 years. Their sense of alienation gets worse, not better. For any person interested in public af- fairs, this Harris survey has to rank as must reading. It is not pleasant reading. Those who have responsibilities in government, in edu- cation, and in the media will read this report in dismay. At the White House, they will read it in shock. The study provides a crushing verdict on the damage done by Watergate. Asked to ex- press an opinion on 22 American institutions, the people ranked the White House dead last: Only 18 percent of the respondents voiced a “great deal of confidence” in the President. Their disenchantment reached to the federal government generally: More than half of the people—57 percent—said they have less confi- dence in federal agencies today than they had five years ago. The Harris pollsters have been measur- ing these attitudes for some years. Their find- ings must be accepted as reasonably accurate reflections of opinions that are widely held. Seven years ago, only 26 percent of the res- pondents agreed with the test statement that “people running the country don’t really care what happens to you.” Today that figure has soared to 55 percent. Seven years ago fewer than half the people (45 percent) accepted the cynical observation that “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” Now that belief is voiced by 76 percent. Compared to 1966, three times as many Americans feel ‘left out of things going on around you.” Among the most distressing aspects of the survey is the disclosure that millions of adult Americans know little about the people and the institutions that make up our govern- ment. While nine out of 10 respondents could name their state governor, only 59 percent could name one of their U.S. senators and only 39 percent could name both. Astoun- TRB from Washington CALIFORNIA—Here I am, sitting on a stanchion at the corner of Olympic Boulevard and Century Park East, watching them pour- ing cement for the enormous meccano-set skeletons of the two Century Plaza Towers (“A new international landmark’). I am counting the cars in the morning rush hour. Los Angeles! If there is one spot in America that the gasoline shortage will hit it is this sprawling city. The twin towers are startlingly triangu- lar, like opposed sword blades, 43 stories high and they will be, of course, hermetically seal- ed. It will take energy to heat and cool them, 24 hours a day. (Open Windows are old-fash- ioned.) Across the street the Century City Medical buildings are not only sealed but dark too, like black celluloid, absorbing enor- mous solar heat. That must be neutralized by even stronger air-conditioning and more energy. “What do you think of these sealed buildings?’ I asked Russell Train, adminis- trator of the federal Environmental Protec- tion Agency, before I left Washington. “Out- rageous,”’ he said succintly. It is a beautiful day. It is midwinter so the flowers are out by the sidewalk—some kind of succulent, with magenta, daisy-like blos- soms. And, yes, a dandelion. It always baffles Easterners. A palm rises preposterously 30 feet, with a trunk like a bent cement pipe end- ing in a brown feather-duster of dead leaves (where rats like to live) and on top a few green fronds. All that effort for so little result. Like an unpublished poet... The hum is from the cement mixers. A whiskered young man drives up in what looks like a motorized golf cart; the operator at the mixer pulls a lever; the top shaped bin rotates on its side rapidly; the stuff slops into the golf Capitol Notes by William Ecenbarger Most of the time Pennsylvanians worry about two aspects of state taxation--the rate of the taxes, and how the money from the taxes is being spent; seldom do they consider how taxes are collected-and nof collected. They're making a big mistake. As long as we're knee-deep in the energy crisis, let’s begin with the state gasoline tax of eight cents per gallon. The law authorizes a full refund of the tax for gasoline used in agriculture (Farmers still have a strong voice in the legislature). This loophole is big enough to drive a Lincoln Continental through, which is exactly do in Pennsylvania. The state gives back about $4 million a year to the privileged few in this manner. Most citizens pay $14 a year for their auto license tags, but the state currently is han- ding out some 200,000 plates free of charge to various groups deemed worthy of special treatment by the legislature. They include veterans organizations, churches, hospitals, local governments, YMCA'’s, foreign consuls and volunteer fire companies. Cost? About 13 million annually. dingly, only 62 percent knew that Congress is composed of the Senate and the House. One fifth of them—one fifth! —had the foggy notion that Congress includes the U.S. Supreme Court as well. What emerges from this disturbing sur- vey, among other things, is the urgent need for better communications petween govern- ment agencies and the people they serve Only 40 percent of the people feel reasonabl up to date on what is going on in federal an local government; only 27 percent feel weis informed on state government. Perhaps as a consequence, they regard government it every level with increasing distrust. Public officials themselves, who also were sampled by the Harris survey in a com- panion study, are convinced that they are doing a steadily better job. They know, as best they can know these things, that the quality of the public servant in state and local government is better than it was some years ago. They are mystified that the people do not perceive the improvements around them. How can confidence be restored? Some entirely new forms of education, communica- tion, and public relations may have to be de- veloped. Public officials tend to communicate through the media, by mail, by individual conversations, by giving speeches, even by going to funerals. Plainly this isn’t enough. If three quarters of the people feel they don’t know what’s going on in state government, someone in state government—and some of A Greenstreet News Co. Publication us in the media—are doing an inadequate job. I offer no easy answers. The loss of confi- dence is so deep, and so pervasive, thatonly a sustained and dedicated effort wi Forse the trend. Such an effort will have ¢ ) be made across the board—in business and * dustry, in the media, in the churches, in our institutions of higher learning, in organizec¢ labor, in “every significant part of society. Such an effort, properly mounted, would the people still have hope; overwhelmingly they believe that government ““‘can’’ solve e problems that afflict us. The disenchantment is not irreversible. But hope is a tencar has gone untended far too long. 0 NN A OVP HE RE 70S cart and the young man blithely trundles away. They are putting flesh on those steel bones. The girders have rusted already and are a scruffy brown: They have reached the third floor, working up; with cellophane windbreakers hanging down all around it. But I am interested in the traffic. I am playing a game. How many cars go by before I see one with two people? (Hauling people and goods in 1970 took a quarter of America’s total energy, and ridership on public vehicles fell from 23 billion in 1945 to 6.5 billion in 1972.) Angeles who uses them?—there is a flow of one-man cars. I jot down the scores 1 X 6 (the sixth car has two people); 1X 13; 1 X 5 (a woman driver with laughing schoolgirls); 1 X 22. Where are the buses? Finally a Santa Monica Municipal drives up—‘‘Welcome Aboard’, ‘Exact Fare Back in Washington there is a fuel short-. age. They whisper that it is worse than people think. The stock market has plunged. Maybe the Arab States will relax. But the energy cri- sis was here before the Middle East war and will be back here again in no time, even if we get through this grim winter. Oil supplies are getting short in the world’s new Era of Scar- city. My drivers in Los Angeles don’t believe it, though. They keep asking me, “You are from Washington, is it real?” I climb the wooden stairs on the hill be- hind, where there is ‘‘All day parking 75c”’ and a distant view of downtown Los Angeles with the morning smog hanging over the sky- scrapers and freeways. If it is like this on a clear day, what must it be like when all the photo-chemical pollutants are out in force? Elsewhere the sky is blue with an invisible plane leaving a vapor trail behind it like a line scratched with a finger nail. “The Avenue of Stars’ leads me past “Empyrean Way’ (a short street, with park- ed cars) and I come to Pico Boulevard and more traffic. This includes a second bus with a significant new sticker, ‘‘Fuel Saving: This bus can get over 200 passenger miles per gal- lon of fuel’’. A few people in it. Here, also is the Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. The sign says ‘Sorry, No Tours, Keep out.” Hollywood has fallen on hard times. Too many other illusions about, perhaps. I push in anyway and suddenly am in another world, the center of an illusion factory. Yes, sir, I am facing an exact replica of a Hudson River pier of the 1900’s with a sign saying, New York Central & Hudson R R R, and another “Go to Bergen Beach.” The authentic clock says 6:30. Another building and another, and streets running off it, the Fifth Avenue House, ca Gardens, “featuring Maud Adams.” Roof-top billboards bring waves of nostal- gia; I could lose my heart to ‘Adams Pepsin Chewing Gum: Aids Digestion—Improves the Appetite” and ‘‘Castoria—Children Cry For it.” Good lord, as an old Flatbush boy how often I have come over Brooklyn Bridge to see every water tank on the New York side plas- tered with Castoria signs! Now here is Benson’s Capucine—the Best Porous Plaster, with medical testimonials. A sign above the old Fifth Avenue Hotel soli- cits your patronage of Pearl Top Lamp Chim- neys—The Best in the World. Down the street is Engine House 58 (1860). Tall telegraph poles tell of the 80’s and a sign recommends Pavians Dog Cigaretts (get it?—they don’t ite.) \ . Here I am, #ssing down a dream wild. with the old Biltmore looming in the distafice, all 12 stories of it, and ‘American Theater: Castle Square Opera Company....Year-rogad program of Grand and Comic Opera; pus 95¢, 50c, 75¢....Matinees Wednesday &Fri- day.” Then the biggest shock of all; yes sir, a full scale steel 3rd Avenue El station, so life- like with girders and green patina that you can practically hear the screaming brakes. At a great moment like this the appro- priate deity always materializes. He is Char- lie McCauley, who tells me that he was the prop maker and foreman for all this and that it is the seven-year old set of ‘Hello Dolly!”’ Did I notice the rails for the horsecars; ah, it was a grand sight, he says, with 4500 extras, and the band coming down the Avenoo! He has a ruddy face and sideburns and is an authentic leprechaun, who tells me about his great uncle, Cornelius Aloysius O’Brien, who settled in Mattapan, Mass., ‘‘and you cant get more Irish than that!” " 48 Yes, it is a town of dreams and illusions. here, I can see the tall, skeletal frames of the two Century Plaza Towers—the two air-tight energy guzzlers—just poking up into the vio- lently changing world of energy shortages. Which will date faster, the 3rd Avenue El, or the outrageously wasteful new structures, and the quaint individual autos flowing past under them? The world shudders with change. On the way to the airport I pass a '76 filling station with posted prices, 42.9 and 45.9. Sorry, it says, no gas. Nothing's quite as susceptible to leakage as a high state tax on a very popular item. And because liquor and cigarettes are heavily taxed in Pennsylvania, the borders are positively awash with contraband. Some $25 million a year in revenues goes down the drain because Pennsylvanians flock to other states to buy booze, and another $30 million goes up in smoke every year through illicit cigarette sales. There’s an additional wrinkle to the cigarette tax problem. The state is, paying private ‘‘agents’’ (usually wholesale cigarette dealers) to put its stamps on cigarette packages. Last year the Com- monwealth doled out $7 million to some 300 agents, with the 10 largest stampers splitting up a handsome $2 million in fees. State Revenue Secretary Robert P. Kane says he can do the same job with state em- ployes for about $5 million less, but legislation stymied for two years in the General Assembly, where the stamping agents have an active lobby protecting their interests. This mishandling and misdirection of tax revenues is not endemic to Harrisburg. Local tax collectors in Pennsylvania’s boroughs and ,townships are earning unconscionaole commissions (one made $87,000 last year) for performing relatively simple 1duties. They are paid on the basis of what they collect--a factor that usually has no bearing on the difficulty of their tasks. Reformers’ pleas that some $20 million a year in tax money could be saved by turning the job over to salaried civil servants have gone unheeded. Even after taxes are collected, they can be mishandled. State government frequently j guilty of failing to get tax receipts quickly irf% ' interest-bearing accounts. A week’s delay can cost millions for a state that takes in some $6 billion a year in taxes and fees. No one really knows how much money is lost to the state treasury because of loopholes, cheating and expensive collection practices. But it’s undoubtedly a lot more than has separated Gov. Shapp and legislative Republicans in the year-long battle of the budget. 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