The Mail-Journal, Volume 6, Number 50, Milford, Kosciusko County, 14 January 1970 — Page 9

TM*€* JMLa.il 0 > C J *JTc* i* jtm a t _j PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY ;jl The Milford Mail (Eat. 1888) Syracuse-Wawaaee Journal (Eat 1907) 'll'’ Consolidated fnto The Mail-Journal Feb. 15, 1962 ill * DEMOCRATIC i'j ARCHIBALD E. BAUMGARTNER, Editor and Publisher l! ' DELLA BAUMGARTNER, Business Manager • Box 8 Syracuse, Ind., —46567

It's The Taxpayers Who Pay

* Three federal judges, under a U.S. Supreme Court order, gave the Indiana General Assembly a deadline to reapportion the state according to the one-man, one-vote principle. This was not done, and so on Dec. 15 the judges handed down their own reapportionment plan for the state. My, how the howls went up, with cries that it was a “Democratic plan.” The plan of the judges was based on research of some 400 people, and while any plan can be picked apart, this plan did adhere closely to the one-man, onevote principle, with a less than one per cent variance in district populations. [Governor Edgar Whitcomb immediately sent a letter out to all Republican legislators telling them if they could come up with an alternate plan by Jan 12, he would call a special session of the legislature to consider their plan. This, providing they considered nothing else but the reapportionment plan — no money bills, that

Words Os Wisdom

Ulysses S Grant’s comment on music seems appropriate to today’s trends in tnusic (?). ij He assessed his taste in music quite pimply: “I know only two tunes; one of

Hyprochondriacs

“I want a disease I can call my own!” Maybe a somewhat macabre title for a song, but there are people who work on this, theme. .They are called hypochondriacs, having a morbid concern about their health. Their state of .mind is often associated with an imaginary disease and with an obvious melancholia. Hypochondriacs are referred to as enjoying poor health. Complaining at length about bodily - discomfort, the hypochondriac is over-concerned with the functions of his bodily organs. He harbors the belief that his body is diseased. 6 Even though physical examination

Flu Is Back

Back before the svorld supposedly became one big neighborhood, it used to be said of man’s parochial interests that a local drowning was front-page news while a million flooti or famine deaths in far-off Asia might rate a paragraph on an inside page, if that. Things may not really have changed apparently still have difficulty keeping our disasters in scale. A highway accident or plane crash can still be a headline affair while a mass threat to health and life goes almost unnoticed. Such, at least until recent days, was the case with flu, abroad in the world again and showing signs of making this one of its more devastating visits. Europe currently is heavily hit with millions bedded and the death toll mounting. Italy alone already reports some 5,000 dead, out of 15 million ill. Yugoslavia estimates four million ill and hundreds dead. In Germany, Britain, Scandinavia, hospitals and pharmacies have been hard-pressed to deal with the near epidemic. And, as if to demonstrate that there is no place to hide once it really gets started, the flu earlier swept across New Guinea, about as away from it all as it’s possible to get in today’s world neighborhood, and reportedly left thousands of tribesmen dead in the primitive island’s interior. Flu, or influenza properly, is actually a large family of viruses with previously unknown members turning up regularly. The current bug is an old acquaintance, however—the Haig Kong strain of the Asian flu that first appeared back in the epidemic year of 1957 and was so named because it apparently originated in mainland China. When the

EDITORIALS

is. Well, both the House and Senate came up with alternate plans all right, something they should have done when they were in session. Kosciusko county representative Thames Mauzy of Warsaw states a special session will cost the taxpayers a half million dollars. While a new plan calls for the legislators to meet without pay, there are other mounting costs, that will fall at the doorstep of Hoosier taxpayers. We aren’t endorsing any particular plan for reapportioning the state, but we feel the taxpayers should not be asked to foonne bill for a special session to do work that should have been done during the recent legal session of the legislature. This unnecessary cost to the taxpayers will not look good on the record of Governor Whitcomb, whose campaign promises were to keep costs down for Hoosier taxpayers.

them is ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and the other isn’t”

Whatever happened to “Yankee Doodle?

and laboratory tests confirm that there is no essentially organic disorder, he remains unconvinced. Unable to deal with his suffering as an emotional disease, he often goes from doctor to doctor hoping to find something that will substantiate his convictions about his health. While he may be a successful business or professional man, the hypochondriac is preoccupied with fear about his heart, stomach or bowels. He complains, continuously, about shortness of breath, rapid heart beat, light-headedness, backache or chest pains. Relaxing drugs sometimes help the hypochondriac, although severe cases indicate the need for psychiatric care.

Hong Kong variety cropped up a few years ago, the designation drew strenuous objections from the imageconscious British outpost, concerned for its good name. It has been, as a matter of fact, traditional to name flu after a countrysome other country. In past centuries, the Russians have called flu Chinese catarrh; to the Germans it has been the Russian pest; the Italians knew it as the Gorman disease, and the French have called it, along with “la grippe,” Italian fever. And before the Oriental varieties took over, we had the Spanish flu. (No name callers the Spanish, they settle for catarrh). The Italians probably are responsible for the cover-all name “influenza,” the result of a 17th-century belief that the affliction was the evil influence of certain planets. The disease has been known and epidemics have been reported for more than 2,000 years. It first hit America about the middle of the 16th century. The worst outbreak on record is still the great epidemic of 1916-19, which claimed more than 20 million lives worldwide, more than a half-million in the United States. Flu often is regarded as the brutal granddaddy of the common cold and is similar in symptoms and its defiance of cure and prevention. Present serums are proof against only one or a few specific strains, uncertain protection at best since there are so many and new ones are constantly showing up. Under the dismal circumstance, it’s probably best that we continue to look the other way. Gesundheit! Goshen News

BACK TO SCHOOL ! - PERIOD !

Know Your Indiana Law By JOHN J. DILLON Attorney at Law

This is a public service article explaining provisions of Indiana law in general terms.

Although the average reader ir.ay never want to copyright anything, it is something you are exposed to every day. You either read a book or a newspaper, or see a movie or hear a song. All of those things can be. and usually are, copyrighted. Even your preacher can copyright his Sunday sermon. This is a law which protects the property rights of the author in the reproduction erf his work. Not everything written can be copyrighted. You cannot copyright a thought. Your

Special Report from Washington

WASHINGTON—The hope of a Middle East settlement, like so many things people think they see on the desert, has turned out to be a mirage. It is now evident that Russia wants neither a showdown nor a solution. The Russians would like to continue the controlled tension that gripe the Middle East today. This permits them to pose as the protector of the Arabs without risking an open confrontation with the United States. In this guise, the Russians have been able to infiltrate the Arab world and build up their influence. A decade ago, most Arabs regarded the United States as their protector, and U.S. military bases were scattered throughout the Arab world. Today the last of these bases is being closed down in Libya, and most Arab bases and ports are closed to U.S. planes and ships. Soviet planes are now landing on air strips that the U.S. built, and Soviet ships are using the docking facilities that the U.S. financed. The State Department made new concessions last month in a final effort to produce a Middle East agreement that the Russians and Arabs to negotiate with the Israelis until they withdraw from the occupied lands. (The State Department was ready to bring delegations from Israel and Egypt into the same hotel with UN mediator Gunnar Jarring shuttling between their rooms. But before this could be arranged, Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin served notice qpon Secretary of State William Rogers that the American concessions still were unfair to the Arabs. This ended any chance of bringing the Israelis and Egyptians into the same hotel to negotiate through the UN's Jarring. HISTORY. JOHNSON STYLE Lyndon Johnson, while he was President, tried to manage die news. After a year alone with his memories, he is now trying to manage history. All Presidents, of course, have sought to present die best possible face to the public. But no President ever worked harder at it than LBJ. He has a larger-than-life image of himself, and be has always sought to get reporters to see him as he saw himself. As President, he brazenly seduced the press, passing out presents to correspondents, inviting the favored to White House extravaganzas.

Copyrights

thought must be expressed in an original composition of your creation. You cannot copyright your name, even though it might be very original, because this is not the type of thing protected by the law. A copyright is good for 28 years from the date your original composition is published to the general public. This can be renewed for another 28 years or a total of 56 years. A long time! Yes, it is, but there is many a fortune made by republishing literary works after the

copyrights have run out. Since the purpose of the copyright law is to protect the work product of the author, it means a slavish copying of his work is prohibited. To prepare this article, I had to read the copyright statute (which, of course, cannot be copyrighted) and research through other legal references to double check my knowledge. But the composition of this article is mine, and I could if I wished copyright it. You will note it is not copyrighted. Since I write this article to help people better to understand the law and as a public service I do not in any way want to discourage its reproduction The fact that you have registered your work for a copyright must appear on the composition. If your article is presented to the public without this notice you cannot later get a copyright. Like patents and trademarks, copyright law is a highly interesting field, but also highly techincal.

taking others on high-speed joyrides in his Lincoln Continental and gay parties aboard the Presidential yacht. No previous President had ever made himself more accessible to reporters. He shovel-fed information to them, though it was more often what he wanted to say than what they wanted to hear. He expropriated announcements that normally were put out by minor government agencies. During one weekend at the LBJ Ranch, he issued 42 separate announcements including one on the survival of the whooping crane. Another time, he summoned the government’s top press agents to the White House and berated them from failing to build him up to hero dimensions. He told them petulantly: “You’re not getting my picture on the front page the way you did President Kennedy’s.” Lyndon Johnson’s first contribution to recorded history was produced while he was still in the White House. He issued a pictorial history called “The Living White House,” which contains 63 pictures of LBJ and his family. George Washington, the father of our country, rated only two. Abraham Lincoln was allotted six pictures. More space is devoted to the wedding of LBJ’s daughter Lud than to all the other 11 White House weddings combined. If the reader flips through the pages of this publication too fast, he may get the impression that LBJ succeeded George Washington and was re-elected at frequent intervals thereafter. Now Lyndon Johnson, in a soles of television interviews, is offering the nation some more history. As usual, this is the LBJ version of history. BIG BOXES LITTLE PRODUCTS Despite the Fair Packaging and Labeling Law of 1966, the big food producers are continuity to package their products in large containers with excess air space. This gives the housewife the impression she is getting more for her mqney than she actually gets. As a result of this deception, Senator Moss of Utah, die Senate consumer chairman, will hold hearings this month on the effectiveness of the Fair Packagiiy Law. Moss believes that the law is weak and that a weak law is

Congressional Comer: John Brademas Reports From Washington

Need For Congressional Reform

With Congress in recess over the holidays, I’ll depart from my usual format of commentary of the past week’s events to talk about an issue of increasing concern—the need for Congressional reform. THE NEED FOR CONGRESSIONAL REFORM Most citizens—lawmakers in Washington in particular—are well aware of the forces over the last few decades that have eroded the power of Congress to influence public policy. Public issues have became much more complex than in the past, and the resulting needs of Congressmen and Senators for reliable information to analyze critical issues have grown enormously. Yet Congress has so far failed to adapt itself to meet these changing conditions. Among the major areas of Congressional activity that badly need scrutiny and reform are these: (n the committee system and (2) the lack of an effective method of- providing Congress with the accurate, up-to-date information essential to making sound policy decisions. Here are some comments on these two problems and some recommendations: THE COMMITTEE SYSTEM First, I believe the work of Congressional committees should be more open to the public and the communications media. Now, for instance, radio and television broadcasting of committee proceedings are not permitted in the House of Representatives (although they are allowed in the Senate). People are thus denied an important means of assuring public scrutiny of Congress. There are, however, some signs of change. The principle that committee meetings and hearings should be open to the public iS' gradually becoming recognized as valid, and legislation to this effect is now pending before Congress Another much-needed reform in the way Congress operates its committee system touches the distribution of power through the seniority system. The success of any organization largely depends upon the quality of those people it selects for leadership—and this is no less true of Congress Unfortunately, selection of the leadership of Congressional committees is based solely upon the seniority principle. The chairman of a committee is the majority party member who has

worse than no law at all because it fools the housewives into thinking that the government gives them protection they don’t really get. MILITARY BUDGET CUTS Secretary of Defense Mel Laird has estimated privately that the Viet Nam spending rate will drop about eight billion dollars by mid-19f&. He is also squeezing every possible penny out of the defense budget. The annual military spending rate; has been naming about SBO billion. Thanks to' Laird’s economies, however, President; Nixon’s budget message will contain a surprise. He will announce a military budget of only S7O billion. The hawks in Congress will warn that the Russians are negotiating an arms limitation agreement with us in order to lull us into slashing our military expenditures. The Russians, it’s true, haven’t reduced their military budget, but they have reduced the rate of increase. This could be the first dramatic break in the staggeringly costly arms race. “ : IJ The defense cuts, however, won’t mean that military money suddenly will be available to feed the hungry, eliminate pollution and cure our social ills. President Nixon is giving his anti-inflation program first priority. He wM concentrate on cutting budgets in 1970, increasing budgets to pay for new social* programs. However, he will introduce new programs but will hold off on the financing . until inflation has been licked. He will also urge private capital to spend more on social reforms. RUSSIAN TROOPS ON CHINA’S BORDER Intelligence reports claim that Russia now has 30 combat-ready divisions on the Chinese frontier. The majority of them, however, are massed in defensive positions along the Amur , and Issuri Rivers. This is the spot where Russia is most vulnerable to Chinese attack. The Chinese, in turn, are making elaborate preparations for a Soviet nuclear attack upon their cities. They are building underground shelters and training the populace in survival tactics. In other words, both the Russians and Chinese seem to be preparing primarily for defense.

served on the committee longest. Certainly this principle has much to recommend it, since it insures that the chairmen will be persons of lengthly experience as legislators who have developed specialized expertise in their particular fields. It is appropriate, therefore, that seniority be one of the criteria by which legislative leaders are chosen. But it should not be the sole criterion, as it is now, for often the effect is to place persons in key positions for influencing national policy who are completely unrepresentative of the views of the majority of the members of their party in the House and Senate. It must by now be clear that seniority cannot alone insure that the leadership of Congress will be the most capable and dynamic, the most receptive to new ideas and adaptable to changing circumstances. Unhappily, however, there are not many signs of substantial change in the sovereignty of seniority. THE INFORMATION NEEDS OF CONGRESS I Another great obstacle to an effective Congress in its two roles of legislating and monitoring the operations of the Executive Branch lies in its lack; of access to the accurate and relev&ht information which formulation of public policy in today’s • world demands. Congress should, in my view, take advantage of modem information technology which science and the rise of computers have made possible:; Yet Congressional action in using these information tools has been appallingly inadequate. Just two facts: —Well over half our state legislatures use some form of electric roll-call system; Congress has none —The Executive Brand) of our Federal government is today using over 4,200 computers to compile and analyze information; Congress, on the other hand, has only three small computers. These statistics dramatize a problem which is at the core of an effective Congress: the lack of access to needed information without serious time lag. Failure to close this “information gap” will leave Congress the captive of a better-informed Executive Branch and a victim of inadequate information systems.

By JACK ANDERSON