The Clinton chronicle. (Clinton, S.C.) 1901-current, August 13, 1970, Image 10
«
Sdiiotuik
Bumper Crop
2-B—THE CHRONICLE, Clinton, S. C-, Aug 13, 1970
PRESS POLICY
We agree with Clinton City Coun
cil’s move last week to set a definite
press policy for the Police Department
and Fire Department.
The policy is that all police and
fire information may be released to
the press only by the chief of police or
the assistant chief in the absence of
the chief.
All policemen and firemen have
been extremely helpful and coopera
tive in their dealings with representa
tives of The Chronicle. However, it is
understandable that such information
should come from the most authorita
tive source. In fact, that’s one of the
cardinal rules of accurate newspaper
reporting—go to the most informed
source for your information.
The reason behind the policy is
that a reporter for a Columbia news
paper talked to representatives of the
local Police Department after the fire-
bombings last month and failed to sep
arate fact from speculation in the
news article. The local sources gave
their opinions of what was behind the
firebombings. However, it was just
their opinions and they undoubtedly
were surprised as everyone else to see
the speculation appear in print
The speculation could have inflam
ed the local situation and could have
resulted in great harm to our com
munity.
The reporting of police and fire
news is a two-way proposition. Mat
ters of public record cannot be with
held from the press. However, news
reporters also have an obligation to re
port the news factually, steering clear
of unsubstantiated speculation.
TEAMWORK FOR PROGRESS
Now that the smoke has cleared
from Tuesday’s General Election, we
hope the new City Council will strive
for unity of purpose, progressive team
work.
We hope those who have been en
trusted with the progress of our town
will get some major goals and work to
gether toward those goals
It is so easy for such a group to get
bogged down in minor disagreements.
It takes people of vision and ambitious
dedication to keep a community mov
ing forward. The people who were
elected are entrusted with keeping our
community up to date. They were not
elected to carry out personal vendet
tas.
For the first time in recent years,
both candidates for the post of mayor
ran on specific issues. Both spelled
out some of the things they would like
to see accomplished.
We hope that city council will now
pull together as a team to accomplish
something during the next two years.
We hope that two years from now,
Clinton will be a better town. City
Council can make it so.
A LOVELY LADY
Mrs. Hugh (Lib) Jacobs, who died
last week, knew no “generation gap.”
She was a lovely lady to everyone,
young, old and in between.
As news of her death went through
cflnpnunity last week, some of the
.^•Oflunenfs summed up how so many
people felt about Lib.
A rising senior at Clinton High
School commented, “She was always
so nice to me, so friendly and so inter
ested.”
A city employee said, “Mrs. Jacobs
always spoke to everyone. No matter
what your station in life, she was al
ways a friend I never saw her when
she wasn’t smiling.”
A member of The Chronicle staff,
a man in his early sixties, said, “I was
in the hospital at the same time Mrs.
Jacobs’ daughter was there. She al
ways stopped by my room to see how I
was getting along. She seemed genu
inely interested in my progress. She
was so cheerful. She helped brighten
my stay in the hospital.”
That was Lib Jacobs. A cheerful
friend to everyone. She helped bright
en so many lives. A lovely lady.
"Then you pick him up by the rabbit ears, like this..."
SENATOR STROM
4 THURMOND
REPORTS TO THE
PEOPLE
PRESIDENTIAL ADVISERS
President Nixon has appar
ently repudiated the bad advice
piven to him by some of his
aides and executive officers. In
recent weeks, the Administra
tion had taken actions which
cast great doubt upon its com
mitment to treat the whole na
tion with an even hand. The
Internal Revenue Service an
nounced that private schools
might lose their income tax ex
emptions, and a Justice Depart
ment aide revealed plans to send
a special squad of compliance
officers to enforce integration in
the public schools.
These actions were wholly
unnecessary either under law or
the Constitution. They appeared
to assume that the South was
guilty before any facts had been
developed in the case. They
seemed to be examples of the
anti-South bigotry frequently
found in the North. They re
flected the attitude of a bitter
sectional philosophy—the phi
losophy of the Northeast.
WRONG ADVICE
Apparently the President’s
advisers had been shielding him
from the consequences of such
actions. The people of the South
believe in law and order, and
they will obey court orders from
which there is no recourse. But
they will not willingly accept
executive actions which single
out the South as an object of
attack.
I have been watching the Ad
ministration since it came into
power a year and a half ago.
The President has become sur
rounded with many liberal and
ultra-liberal advisers, with too
many of them drawn from the
Northeast. The President was
elected on the basis of a broad
nation-wide coalition, including
the South, the Mid-West, and
the West. Those who espouse
the philosophy of the Northeast
did not support the President in
1968, and will not support him
in 1972.
The South does not like forced
integration any more than the
North. The statistics show that
Northerners are very quick to
escape integration if they can.
Chicago has achieved only 3.2
per cent desegregation, as de
fined by HEW; Gary, Indiana,
only 3.1 per cent desegregation;
St. Louis only 7.1 per cent de
segregation; and New York
City only l'J.7 per cent desegre
gation. It is unfair to force the
Southerners to go beyond the
requirements of the law, while
the North enjoys immunity.
SPOKE AS FRIEND
I called these facts to the at
tention of the President on the
Senate floor. I spoke as a friend
who wanted to counsel with him
publicly on the course which was
best for the good of South Caro
lina, of the South, and of the
whole nation. I pointed out the
dangers of keeping the wrong
kind of advisers.
Apparently, the President’s
good will and common sense
won out. Two days after I spoke,
the Internal Revenue Service
announced that it had granted
tax exemptions to six Southern
private schools, exemptions
which had been delayed for
months. IRS also announced that
in the future such schools need
only submit a letter of declara
tion of an open admissions pol
icy to secure tax exemption.
This eliminates time-consuming
litigation, and the threat to
donors that they might not be
able to claim a charitable deduc
tion.
Three days later, the Presi
dent himself called an unex
pected news conference, in which
he reemphasized his support for
the textile quota legislation so
important to the welfare of
workers in the South. He strong
ly re-affirmed that his Adminis
tration will have “a one nation
policy—not a Southern strategy,
and not a Northern strategy,
but a one-nation strategy.” He
overruled the Justice Depart
ment aide who was going to
send a squad of lawyers to
coerce the South.
These are steps in the right
direction, but we will be watch
ing to see whether the Adminis
tration changes the underlying
attitudes being put forward by
the crew of liberal advisers.
Unless the President makes
some fundamental changes,
there will be difficult times
ahead for the Nation.
(not prrparrd <nr printed at gorrrnmrnt rxpente)
Volunteers Spark
Adult Education
St. Luke’s School of Con-
tinninf Education is begin-
its eighth year in Okla-
City, Okla. It provides
80 bonnet for approxi-
800 older adults,
ugh the school is een-
t§L Luke’s Church, it
fUUi and a few
Nfifioas faith.
January to May each year. For
$4 .00 per semester, a person
may attend as many classes as
he wishes. Lunch is provided
for an additional $1.00 per
week, with a guest artist
present.
Teachers and guest speakers
are strictly on a voluntary
basis and receive no honor
arium.
Bar. Joseph T. Shackford,
founder-director says, "Our
school continues to elicit the
war mast response of apprecia
tion fnxn those who come week
by week. It gives a great deal
of satisfaction to many, we be-
' lieve. And, for some, it actually
is almost their salvation.”
The results of a Women’s
Bureau survey show that pro
vision by hospitals of adeqots
child care facilities for their
health personnel benefits both
employers and employees. Per-
soonsl recruitment is improved
LABOR LAW REFORM IS URGENT!
The need for change in the labor laws is becom
ing increasingly evident. Many contracts are being
negotiated this year and unions are obtaining ex
ceptionally high settlements.
As William F. Schmick, Jr., publisher of the
Baltimore Sun and recently retired president of the
American Newspaper Publishers Association, points
out, “It is axiomatic that higher wages cause higher
prices. It is likewise clear that as a consequence of
overly protective labor laws, the pendulum has
swung too far to the side of unionism.”
Mr. Schmick listed several major abuses whicn
hurt the public: unfair damage to innocent parties
from product picketing and product boycotts;
NLRB decisions which have almost eliminated em
ployers’ freedom of speech in communicating with
their own employees; and featherbedding which
still plagues many industries.
“History has taught us,” he said, “that, when a
free people begin to turn on themselves for their
greater glory of greed and gold, the very existence
of their society is in danger.”
Revision of federal and state labor laws to correct
the imbalance between management and labor is
necessary for the good of the public. Congress
should give this subject top priority.
Parsoo Jones
• * *
Smokey Soya:
BUR
Parson Jones Says
HUMANS
ARE BORN
BACKWARDS
Dear Mr. Publisher:
For the last several years I
been trying to find out what’s
wrong with the human race. I
think I finally located the cause
human beings are born back
wards. When they’re young they
got lotsa energy, and no sense.
When they get old they got lotsa
sense and no energy. If you don’t
believe this, Mr. Publisher, just
look at the American scene.
W hen the younguns can take over
their elders and run the hole
shooting match somebody is
pushing and somebody is sleep
ing - and I think I know which
is which.
You take our last P.T.A. me
eting for example. Some of the
school officials explained a new
program that will go into effect
next fall. It seems that from now
on the kids will be allowed to de
cide for theirselves what they
want to study. From now on
they’ll only have to do what they
want to do. I can just imagine
my nine year old youngun pick
ing his studies. They would run
something like this; ice cream,
eating, baseball, wrestling,
water-fighting, and bubble gum
blowing.
There’s a hole heap a things
that worry me about this
approach but there’s a few that
really upset my stomach. I al
ways beard that a kite goes up
against the wind - not with It.
And a muscle gets strong only
by opposition. In the first place
I don’t see how a fella could go
through life just doing as he
pleased, and in the second place
somebody would knock his block
off if he tried.
Another thing - if a kid is
never taught to look qp to his
elders, how do we ever expect
him to look up to God? Folks
have got to learn to look up
some where in their lives.
And, I was just wandering how
a fella could support a family on
a bubble-gum diploma. Mr.
Publisher, I’ve heard tell that
education is the salvation of
a nation. If that’s true, we’re
sunk. Fve gotta close now and
try to figure out if there’s any
way to get this machine out of
reverse - or at least bow to slow
the motor down.
Drive carefully!
ook
r-tprnrftK;,
ley lew
*?».
/
/
Message
From Moscow
By Lennart Pearson
Head Librarian
Presbyterian College
MESSAGE FROM MOSCOW By An Observer.
288 pages. Knopf. 1969.
Ordinarily, messages from Moscow are blasts
of propoganda. This one is different. It is the
report of what everyday life is like for the aver
age Muscovite under a regime committed to re-
Stalinization-
The author is a "Russian-speaking, Russian-
loving, non-communist westerner” — British, I
suspect. His identity is concelaed too protect the
workers and intellectuals who confided in him
Until two years ago, the author says, he was
much enamored of the Marxist vision of a better
world. The Russian invasion of Czech Slovakia,
however, became a turning point as he observed
the reactions in Russia to these momentous
events: the passive indifference of the vast ma
jority of the citizenry, the monstrous lies by
which the government rationalized its actions,
and “the knouting of the one Russian in a mil
lion who dares to announce that he disagrees.”
Evidence drawn from talking with people in
all walks of life—chemists, taxi-drivers, office-
workers, students, etc.—indicates that the aver
age Russian is both willing and able to accommo
date himself to the political and social policies of
his government to a degree not found elsewhere in
civilized countries. In the author’s view, the ex
planation for this must be sought in the “Mother
Russia” mystique on which the Russian people
have depended for a thousand years. Accustomed
for centuries to autarchs and oligarchs, it seems to
be a matter of no great consequence whether the
precise form of tyranny is imperial of commun
ist; either one seems able to fill a socially neurotic
need.
From this report, it is possible to get a good
idea of the day-to-day life in the Moscow area:
Working-conditions, living standards, medical care,
night-life, meat-lines, red-tape, graft, morals,
humor—in short, the kind of information from
from which the tourist is carefully shielded by a
xenophobic government. Or particular interest is
the chapter on the intelligentsia—that infinites-
mally small segment of the populace whose guilty
knowedge of what is really going on makes them
the special targets of official wrath.
There are two appendixes. One provides an
example of typical newspaper fare in the form of
a verbatim translation of t h e front page of
Pravda for August 21. 1968 (the date of the in
vasion of Czechoslovakia), while the other de
scribes preparations for the 100th anniversary of
Lenin s birth—a saturation propaganda campaign
to which Russians respond with about the same
zeal as Americans do to TV commercials.
Message from Moscow depicts a style of life
which must be all the harder to love for being im
possible to leave
o tip from B.C.
MOVES THE MAIL!
Teachers 1 Union
Dear Editor:
As a teacher, I feel that it
is necessary to respond to your
editorial entitled NEA Presi
dent Wants Unions for
Teachers in the July 30, 1970
issue.
Teachers know more about
educating children than any
other groq?. Because of this,
they should have an important
voice in the administration and
organization of schools and
school systems, today they lack
this voice. Through unions they
envision the leverage necessary
to force Improvements in our
educational system.
You state that Teachers who
go on strike against education
of the nation’s young people have
no place in the classroom,; ^
I agree. Teachers are a very
devoted groqp of people. We, as
teachers, must provide the best
possible education for each
child. Teachers, who have ex
hausted all other avenues and
who go on strike for decreased
class size, for more individual
attention to each child’s needs,
for better facilities and for a
quality education for each child,
are doing their patriotic duty.
No, we would never strike a-
gainst the education of the
nation’s young people. We em-
plore you to styport us in our
demands for improvements in
the nation’s educational system.
Please, don't ever force us to
strike for the right to provide
your child with an excellent
education.
Sincerely
Ann L. Furr
(Mrs. Olin Furr)
1249 B Cedar Street
Fort Dix, N. J.’ 08640