TR Page 4 EDITORIAL Last Car It’s frustrating to sit in a line at a gas station for an hour, only to be told after moving up to third in line, that the station has run out of gas. It’s also aggravating to sit in a line for half an hour, waiting for attendants to arrive and begin pumping gas, only to learn that no one is going to 7 gas. A little consideration by station operators could easily remedy the two situations. Station operators who put ‘‘last car’ signs on the rear of the car which they decide will be the last to be served, save drivers from a long and senseless wait. In return operators could save themselves from part of the ill-will or downright fury generated from those turned away after such a wait. An “‘out of gas’ sign or one denoting pumping hours, whether they are using the ““‘Shapp’’ or “Peters’’ ration plan, can eliminate part of the confusion gas customers are experiencing these A little consideration toward gas station operators by customers will come easier if customers aren’t totally disappointed following a frustrating wait for the hard-to-come-by fuel. Censorship is Obscene We view with alarm an ‘‘anti-pornography’’ bill adopted last week by the State Legislature. In this election year it demonstrates that what is popular is not necessarily right, and what is right is not necessarily popular. The bill contains some provisions, which, if car- ried to their logical conclusions, could have some horrifying consequences. _ Many self-righteous American citizens and politicians have denounced the Soviet Union, and henitsyn from his country because he wrote things which a select panel (in this case the Communist Politburo) deemed unacceptable. In essence there is little difference between this acfion by the Soviets and the decision by the legislature. The “Big Brother’’ mentality is the same in both in- stances. ’ : We hope Gov. Shapp vetoes the antipornography bill. —Larry Hertz As motorists inch their way closer to gasoline pumps, not knowing which station will remain open how long, they must wonder what happened to their free enterprise system to cause such exhaustive lines of thirsty autos backed up alongside the high- ways. They must wonder why suddenly the entire region appeared to be almost out of gas just a few they discovered that in almost any direction gas became more plentiful than it was here. The reasons are complex and vague at best, though two major points stand out: not only have local officials been derelict in informing state and federal agencies, but the entire federal allocation system operates on the premise that the major oil companies want to sell their gasoline as quickly as it is refined, the remarks of the President Monday night notwithstanding. a Why is it any more the duty of Joe McDade or Dan Flood to inform FEO and State officials than it is the duty of the local mayor or councilman, or even the county commissioners? And why would a major oil company want to sell off its gasoline right now when it’s obvious the price is going to climb still higher? Local residents and public officials are quick to turn to their congressman when they have a problem. And our congressmen, both Mr. McDade and Mr. Flood, are usually prompt in assurances that they will do what they can to help. But some- times that system breaks down, as it did in the current gasoline crisis. As FEO regional administrator Joseph Lasala said last week, his 10-week-old office is accustomed to ‘“‘serious problems.” It takes crisis more to heart. And from all indications, it wasn’t until Feb. 15, a good two weeks after the long lines at local gas stations began, that Mr. Lasala and state allocation officer William Wilcox were properly informed. Without debating the long list of concessions the crisis was summed up well by a spokesman in the state energy office: ‘“Let’s face it, the majors are in the driver’s seat, and no matter what the feds do, the majors are going to get what they want.” J.R.Freeman The first stories last week on the arrest of Alexander Solzhenitsyn said that the Russian police sent seven men to pick him up. Seven nen! If laughter can be found in this affair, let us find laughter here. Seven men! The masters of the Kremlin might as well have sent a battalion, or two divisions, or a thousand armored cars. In making this -arrest, the many would have been as helpless as the few. How do you arrest an idea? How do you put truth in irons? They came too late for Solzhenitsyn. They should have seized him 50 years ago, before the boy learned to write. The story speaks at two levels of time and truth. The first has to do with the Soviet Union in this century. The second has to do with man past and man future. Nothing could more clearly reveal the fundamental weakness of communism—the rotten core at the heart of the ideology—than the story of Solzhenitsyn. A vast deal of non- sense has been written in recent years to the effect that the Communist revolution has “matured,” or ‘‘come of age.” Specialists in Kremlinology have found ‘‘cracks in the Iron Curtain.”’ “The cheery watchword is “detente.” ) Yet nothing has changed, nothing at all. Communism is as fearful, as suspicious, as paranoid as it was in the bloody days of Stalin. The party cannot rule by reason; it can rule by force alone. In Hungary, in Czecho- slovakia, in Poland, on Gorky Street last week, it is always the same: Dissent is equated with heresy, and public criticism with darkest treason. The Soviet Union has the mightiest army on earth, the greatest navy and the deadliest missiles. And the Soviet Union is afraid—afraid of a novelist, atraid of a man’s ideas. But the encouraging thing—the part of the story that lifts us up—is that man endures. For 50 years the Communist masters have labored to put out the fires of human freedom. They have made the press an instrument of propaganda. They have herded their children into state nurseries. They have purged their libraries and monopolized the book stalls. ‘They have jammed the air waves and stopped up the people’s ears. They have banned travel in the free world. They have corrupted law TRB from Washington by Richard Strout To my amazement I found myself defend- ing Richard Nixon the other day. For one who thinks he ought to be impeached this was a strange experience. (I almost caught myself looking ‘round fo see who was doing it.) Things are becoming so topsy-turvy in this city that anything can happen. A Harris Poll, for example, says Mr: Nixon's popularity 1s down to 30 percent, his lowest point. But it also says that the rating of the Democratic Congress is even lower; it’s down to 21 per- cent. A good many things are breaking loose from their moorings here in all sorts of places. In this case the assualt on the President came from a supporter of Sen. Henry (Scoop) is the favorite Republican candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Sen. Jackson is a short, energetic, likeable man. There is a direct, disarming, folksy quality about him which is quite attractive. He’s no great shakes as an orator and may put you to sleep. And he’s running hard for the Democratic nomination a couple of years ahead of time which just shows how we stretch out our election campaigns. What Scoop says, in brief, is that Richard Nixon is soft on Communism. Crazy? All right. I said. things were getting daft. Sen. Jackson thinks Moscow is pulling the wool over the President’s eyes. And Sen. Jackson is also 100 percent for Israel and thinks the Arab pressure is just a Moscow plot. Now - there may be some truth in that. But, to Scoop, things are either black or white. He gave 100 percent support for the South Vietnam war. Today he wants a full military | Capitol Notes by William Ecenbarger You can tell a lot about an institution by the thing it reveres. Visitors to Capitol Park in Harrisburg are greeted by Boies Penrose, glowering down imperiously from a granite perch. Mr. Penrose—state legislator, U.S. Sena- tor, glutton. vulgarian, leader of one of the most corrupt political machines in American history has been immortalized by statue. sometimes complain that Penrose has his hand in his own pocket—an unheard of pos- ture for the flesh-and-blood Penrose. Walk into the Capitol Rotunda, look up to. the state Senate chamber, and there's Mat- thew Stanley: Quay, who taught Penrose everything he knew about practical politics. Mr. Quay, also a state legislator, U.S. senator and political boss, used to gamble state tunds on the stock market and collect for himself the interest on state funds deposited in Philadelphia banks. It is in this moral atmosphere that the current Pennsylvania General Assembly is weighing a wide-ranging series of bills de- 3 and perverted education. Solzhenitsyn is fifty-five. He was reared in this darkness, punished by imprisonment, denied access to every tool that might shar- pen his intellect. But the fires cannot be whol- ly extinguished. The spark never quite goes out. It is a lesson that tyrants learn in time: Something in the soul of stubborn man goes on. They could pave Red Square with granite blocks and cover the blocks with thick con- would still come up. To speak in terms of man or of mankind is lo speak in abstract terms. Survival is per- sonal. It manifests itself in the one human being—Joan at the stake, Luther at the door, Patrick Henry in a schoolhouse, Rosa Parks metaphorical trees, but they are watered in bol; he is also a very courageous man. As for today’s world, it has to be said that his act of martyrdom will not accomplish much. He has not loosened so much as one stone in the monolith. The Russian people will not be roused to counterrevolution. After a week or two, when the story drops out of the news, detente will continue as before. If Sol- zehnitsyn had been executed or imprisoned, the prospect might be different, but the Kremlin masters are brutal, not stupid. Exiles, even brilliant exiles, get to be tedious old men. Banishment was better. Yet things will not be precisely as before. Within the Soviet Union, the story will be told, and told again, of how the seven came for Solzhenitsyn; and under the snows of Russia fhe Suny will sleep like a single, indomitable seed. N ¢ Ze 2