The Mail-Journal, Volume 8, Number 32, Milford, Kosciusko County, 8 September 1971 — Page 7

PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY The Milford Mall (Est 1888) Syracuse-Wawasee Journal (Eat 1907) Consolidated Into The Mall-Journal Feb. 15, 1962 DEMOCRATIC ARCHIBALD E. BAUMGARTNER, Editor and Publisher DELLA BAUMGARTNER, Business Manager Box 8 Syracuse, Ind., — 46567

September Is MS Education Month

A month-long educational program to alert Americans to the tragic dimensions of Multiple Sclerosis, a neurological disease erf the brain and spinal cord, will open* throughout the country in September. September has been designated as MS month by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and its chapters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. According to Jim Shelton, educational chairman of the Indiana MS Chapter, broader public knowledge of multiple sclerosis is essential if the cause and cure of the disease is to be found in the near future. “Multiple sclerosis afflicts an .estimated 500,000 Americans,” Mr. Shelton declared. “We know neither the

drowing Pains Are Problems

Growing pains are again a problem at the Cardinal Center in Warsaw. With the enrollment up 34 per cent this year, there is a great need for additional volunteers. Why not give this a thought if you have extra time. Persons who have a half a day or more are needed to provide a helping hand in all aspects of Cardinal’s activities. You can be a volunteer if you have eyes and hands and lots of love to give. If you have never had the experience of giving a little and receiving a lot, officials at the center can show you how. If you have some hours to spare,

Beyond The Freeze

Nixon administration officials now are considering what to do when the current wage-price freeze ends. What will be done after the freeze, however, depends heavily on what happens while it’s in force. A brief extension of the freeze itself is a possibility, but no one thinks that the present arrangement could survive indefinitely. Senator William Proxmire is one who worries that the freeze may “already be falling apart,” as organized labor voices its angry opposition. For the freeze to work at all, there must be considerable cooperation not only from labor unions but from businessmen and the general public. The action inevitably caused inequities; although many people may put up with unfairness for a while, resentments are likely to build as time goes on. And although the government does have enforcement powers, it does not have the administrative machinery to make those powers fully effective throughout this huge land. Although Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans sees a need for some sort of limited mandatory controls after the freeze, most of the talk centers on a transition to some more flexible system. When Treasury Secretary John Connally was asked whether one possibility might be a wage-price review board with the power to subpoena witnesses and documents, he said, “We might well do that.” if a looser arrangement is to have any prospect of success, though, the nation will have to be making progress against inflation when it’s adopted. If inflation is worsening, not easing, a weaker counter-measure would make no sense whatever. What the actual inflation trend will be is impossible to predict. A good deal depends on labor unions. If they are able to force wage increases through the freeze, or if disruptive strikes push up business costs, at least some businessmen will press for price increases too. Much also depends on Congress. Some lawmakers already claim the President’s proposals for stimulative tax cuts center too much on corporations and higher-income Americans. It’s certainly possible that Congress will go along with Mr. Nixon’s tax plan but add features aimed at

EDITORIALS

cause nor the cure for MS,” he said, “but medical science has made significant advances.” In a major thrust of its Silver Anniversary observance, the Society wants to reach every American with facts which will create an informed and aroused public alerted to the gravity of this great crippler of young adults. The Indiana Multiple Sclerosis Society has literature, speakers, films, and professional information for individuals, civic clubs, sororities, women’s clubs, school groups, nurses, physicians . . . anyone who wants the facts! Contact the Indiana Society at 615 North Alabama Street, Room 222, Indianapolis, 46204. They will welcome your call.

they can use you. The children need you! Help those at the Cardinal Center and give them “their chance.” Why not call the center for details. The first day of school at the center was yesterday, Sept. 7. The number of children needing the service this year is 39. This represents an increase of 12 over last year. The Cardinal Industrial workshop, which operates on a 12-month basis, now has an enrollment of 54 in its various programs. Cardinal Center is partially supported by the United Fund of Kosciusko county.

lower-income groups, such as a suspension of the Social Security tax increase schedule for next January 1. At the same time, a number of the President’s critics object to his plan to hold down federal spending —for instance, by reducing the government payroll. Lawmakers are suggesting large increases in federal aid to the oities, in part to provide more economic stimulation. With the federal budget already deeply in deficit, moves to make the taxspending package still bigger would greatly increase its inflation potential. If the Federal Reserve System then continued to expand the money supply at the rate that has prevailed so far this year, the inflation pressure could easily prove to be too much for a wage-price freeze to contain, especially with labor unions in angry rebellion. So what would happen? In President Nixon's message on that historic Sunday night, he affirmed once again his adamant opposition to formal wage and (rice controls. “Working together,” he said, “we will break the back of inflation, and we will do it without the mandatory wage and price controls that crush economic and personal freedom.” If the freeze is failing, though, will Mr. Nixon feel he has any other choice? He has already accepted something of a philosophic jolt by opting for any sort of a freeze at all. In politics the payoff usually is based much more on results than on philosophy, and when results aren’t obtained in one way, the impulse is to try another, and the alternative almost always is one that involves the government more deeply. Neither a wage-price freeze nor a full set of mandatory controls is a cure for inflation. At best either will buy a little time while the underlying price pressures are brought under control. If the freeze doesn’t provide that breathing space, or if those involved don’t make proper use of it, formal controls over everything, and perhaps for a long time, have to look like a real possibility. Maybe some Americans welcome the prospect of that sort of bureaucratic regimentation. Anyone who doesn’t has a large stake in making the present wage-price freeze work. — Wall Street Journal

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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.

Spouses Suing Each Other

The average person knowing that much of the litigation in our courts involves divorce action by husband against wife and wife against husband is surprised to find out that in many cases one spouse cannot sue the other spouse. Indiana still adheres to the vestiges of the ancient common law which viewed a husband and wife as one person to such an extent that either could not sue the other. This has been largely modified in all states of the union and partially modified in Indiana to the extent that the Married Women’s Property Acts made it possible for a woman to sue her husband over questions of property rights but, according to

SPECIAL REPORT FROM WASHINGTON

Postal Increases Not Affected By Freeze

WASHINGTON — The only postal patrons who will benefit from President Nixon’s crackdown on prices and wages will be the hulk mailers who dump third-class junk mail on your doorstep. A few days ago, White House aides questioned whether the new postal rate increases, which went into effect last May 16, should be rescinded to bring the Postal Service into conformity with the spirit of the President’s economic turnabout. The increases are supposed to be “temporary’’ until the newly created Postal Rate Commission can decide what to do about permanent rate hikes. Some presidential advisers felt, therefore, that the higher postage rates should be rolled back. Now the plan has been dropped, and the Postal Service's only contribution to the national belt-tightening will consist of postponing until after the freeze an additional 30 per cent increase in third-class, junk mail rates, originally planned for Sept. 15. NIXON AND COURT President Nixon s attitude toward the Supreme Court has caused new apprehension among some of the justices. He used the Supreme Court as a whipping boy during the 1968 campaign. Now he has taken a public stand against two crucial, and unanimous, Supreme Court decisions (1) upholding the use of busing to desegregate schools and (2) barring government aid to parochial schools. The justices are wondering whether Nixon intends to campaign against the Supreme Court again in 1972. They fear the President, for the sake of political advantage, is willing to undermine the nation’s highest court. White House aides have assured us, however, that the President will enforce the court’s decisions even though he may disagree with them. Footnote: In private conversations, Nixon has blamed the permissiveness and laxness in America today upon Supreme Court decisions. He has sought, therefore, to change the ideology of the court. But both of his appointees, ironically, vetoed against him on the homing and school-aid issues. Indeed, Chief

the decisions of our highest courts in Indiana, did not extend this privilege to a wife to sue her husband in a tort action. In other words, a wife is still prohibited from suing her husband for injuries inflicted upon her to her person or character, whether these be negligent or intentional. The courts have theorized that a proper remedy is available to either the wife or to the husband in a divorce proceedings or a criminal action brought by the state to punish the erring spouse. The theoretical basis for this continued immunity of a spouse to a suit, for example, in a personal injury matter, is that to permit this type of suit would tend to distdrb domestic

tranquility and the harmony of the marriage. The courts have also pointed out that such suits between husband and wife would tend to clutter the courts with trivial lawsuits to handle complaints between man and wife which could better be handled in a domestic relation proceedings. A careful examination of most of the recent cases involving man and wife will indicate thafmost of these actions arise over the negligent operation of the automobile in which one spouse is injured by the operation of the automobile by the other spouse. Insurance carriers are quick to maintain that it is good public policy that a spouse should not be able to sue in these actions because it would tend to encourage fraudulent claims against the insurance company if a claimant were in effect able to collect from his own insurance company through collusion with his better half. As this problem of dissolving the common law creation that a husband and wife constitute a single entity is faced in the various jurisdictions, the courts are prone to find that either spouse has a right to sue the other spouse in a tort action for wrongs perpetrated upon either spouse. Indiana is not one of the states that has‘joined this movement

Justice Warren Burger, Nixon’s first appointee, wrote the decision on busing. DOUG KENNEDY’S ORDEAL The civil war in the Dominican Republic, which brought in the U.S. Marines to prevent another Cuba, has become little more than a footnote in history. But for two brave newsmen who covered it, the brief, bloody war remains a story of horror. The Miami Herald’s correspondent Al Burt and photographer Doug Kennedy did not cover the war, as some of their colleagues did, from the dimly opulent barroom of the Hotel El Embajador. On May 6, 1965, they were out on the hot streets in a rented car with a hired driver, seeking out the action which flared first here and then there like swamp fires. At one U.S. check point, their panicky driver threw the car into reverse and the young, frightened Marines manning the barricade opened fire with automatic weapons. Burt staggered, bleeding, from the car to implore help from the Marines for his bulletriddled comrade. The Marines, shockingly, refused. A fellow American reporter rushed on the scene and with the aid of a Dominican soldier managed to save Doug Kennedy with first aid. Both victims suffered disabling injuries. This past May, almost six years to the day after the senseless shootings, a federal Court of Claims judge ruled the Marines had “demonstrated inexperience, lack of professional poise, carelessness (and) poor fire control” among other military failings. The coterie of correspondents who had been in Santo Domingo on that sultry day, and had investigated the incident, including my associate Les Whitten, said a silent "Amen” to the verdict. An award to Kennedy of SIOO,OOO and Burt of $75,000 seemed small enough for their lives of pain. Meanwhile, tragedy struck down Kennedy again. Only a few days before the award, he was operated on for a malignant hrain tumor at Mayo Clinic. At best, his outlook is not good. Neither of the two men had sensationalized

CAPITOL COMMENTS With SENATOR J\ 4 VANCE HARTKEj«yk J Indiana -

Senior Citizens Earn More, Get Less

To many senior citizens who receive social security benefits, a good day’s work may mean less money for them. For every dollar they earn between $1,680 and $2,880 a year, they lose a dollar id benefits. In effect, we, through the present social security law, are actually penalizing people who are working to supplement their limited social security incomes. We are removing any incentive they may have to work. I am firmly opposed to the (resent earnings limitations set by the Social Security Act. Amendments to change these limitations are now before the Senate Finance Committee, of which I am a member. This fall, I will propose to the Committee and to the Senate, that the present $1,680 exempt earning limit be increased to $2,400. No deductions in benefits would be taken from earnings of social security recipients up to that point. Above this $2,400 level, I would propose that the reduction in benefits be one dollar for every two dollars earned instead of the present one-for-one situation. If this change is made, a person would be able to throughout the year without having a single dollar deducted from his already meager social security income. I will also propose that the new exempt amount be kept up to date, automatically, with increases in price and wage levels. During these past few weeks of the Congressional recess, I have had the opportunities to meet many Hoosiers who receive social security benefits. While each is grateful for this income, many point out — and understandably so — that the money is not enough to meet their basic expenses. For them, work is not just something to do to keep busy; work is a necessity. Recent poverty figures echo this fact. More than five million aged Americans live in poverty. In the past two years alone, this figure has increased while poverty among other age groups has decreased. To prohibit older citizens from but still adheres to the precedents which prohibit one spouse from suing for damages perpetrated by the other spouse. Copyright 1971 by John J. Dillon

their story. They told it with dignity, even with compassion for the raw young Marines whose nervous fire maimed them. They had every right to expect the same fair treatment from their government. Instead, their thanks from the Justice -s Department came in the form of a callous ruling that the ailing Kennedy would have to prove all over again that he has any money coining from the U.S. In fact, Attorney General John Mitchell has seized upon Kennedy’s second tragedy as an excuse for depriving him of full compensation for the first. Mitchell, believe it or not, wants to reduce Kennedy’s award because of his potentially lessened life expectancy. The unhappy photographer, plagued already by hospital bills, probably is too ill to testify in his own behalf. But before he gets a dime, the Justice Department wants to subject his tormented mind and body to many more months of legal ordeal — months which even he knows he may not have to spare. POOR ARE PROBED The Agriculture Department has unleased its gumshoes to investigate the summer food program for the poor. The investigation is regarded on Capitol Hill as revenge against the Senate for insisting that the summer program be fully funded. Therefore, the Department’s enforcement chief, Nathaniel Kossack, is now searching vigorously for evidence that the poor may have cheated the Agriculture Department. Kossack would save the taxpayers a lot more money by investigating how the rich have been chiseling the Agriculture Department. For years the favorite crop of the big farmers has been greenbacks which they reap from the Agriculture Department for holding down proctaction. They are paid the difference between the market price and the pegged price for certain crops. This support price is based on a complicated formula Which favors the big farms. For example, farms that gross more than SIOO,OOO a year compose less than 2 per ceit of the total farnm Yet they rake in 20 per cent of the price supports.

working to meet their basic needs and to supplement their inadequate pensions is to force them to live their lives in poverty. My proposal would enable social security beneficiaries to increase their earnings without being penalized for working in order to do so. These changes to the Social Security Act would enable our senior people to be productive individuals even though they have passed the “magical age” of 65. More important, retirement years could be years to look to, not with despair, but with anticipation. Revolution In Liberty Conceived in Liberty Revolution and Evolution The Bicentennial Year September 12 through September 18 1771 — American Philosophical Society, first truly scientific society in America, publishes its first “Transactions.” Founded in 1757, the society was an outgrowth of the Junta group started by Benjamin Franklin in 1727.... It becomes known in London that an epidemic of smallpox in Naples was fatal to 6,000 children during the month of August. London learns, also, that the Rt. Hon. Frederic Calvert, Baron of Baltimore and Lord Proprietor and Governor of Maryland, had died in Naples. By his will, the province of Maryland is left to his illegitimate son, Henry Harford, a child still in school. 1871 — First Grand Central Station open in New York City, a great vault of open and webbed wrought iron. ... Vatican City, previously under civil administration of the Papal States, is in its first year as an extra-territorial enclave within Rome, newly designated as capital of the Kingdom of Italy. It has its own military force of Swiss Guards, its own police and postal system, with Pope Pius IX and his successors posing as “prisoners of the Vatican” until 1929.

By JACK ANDERSON