The Mail-Journal, Volume 9, Number 22, Milford, Kosciusko County, 28 June 1972 — Page 10

. VMWRMf ' 0 PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY Th® Milford Mall (Est 1888) Syracu«®-Wawa®ee Journal (Eat 1807) Consolidated Into The Mall-Journal Feb. 15, 1962 DEMOCRATIC ARCHIBALD E. BAUMGARTNER, Editor and Publisher DELLA BAUMGARTNER, Business Manager Box 8 Syracuse, Ind., — 46567

I Am The United States

With the 4th of July being a few short days away we have decided to run the following editorial which we feel needs no additional words from our staff. It is complete in itself. I Am The United States I was born on July 4, 1776, and the Declaration of Independence is my birth certificate. The bloodlines of the world run in my veins, because I offered freedom to the oppressed. I am many things, and many people. I AM THE UNITED STATES. I am 165 million living souls — and the ghost of millions who have lived and died for me. I am Nathan Hale and Paul Revere. I stood at Lexington and fired the shot heard around the world. I am Washington, Jefferson and Patrick Henry. I am John Paul Jones, the Green Mountain Boys and Davy Crockett. lam Lee, Grant and Abe Lincoln. I remember the Alamo, the Maine and Pearl Harbor. When freedom called, I answered and stayed until it was over, over there. I left my heroic dead in Flanders Field, on the rock of Corregidor and on the bleak slopes of Korea. I am the Brooklyn Bridge, the wheat lands of Kansas and the granite hills of Vermont. I am the coalfields of the Virginias and Pennsylvania, the fertile lands of the west, the Golden Gate and Grand Canyon. I am Independence Hall, the Monitor and the Merrimac. I am big, I sprawl from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 3 million square miles

Extremism Accomplishes Nothing

Officials of the National Rifle Association held a press conference in Portland, Oregon, as a preliminary to the NRA’s 101st Annual Convention. General Maxwell E. Rich, NRA executive vice president, made a short statement on the history and purposes of the organization he represents — an organization of a million gun-owning sportsmen. In a question and answer period, he stressed that gun ownership and crime prevention were two unrelated issues — to the extent that confiscating the guns of the law-abiding would in no way curb the incidence of crime. The point was brought out that in countries such as Japan, as well as areas of the United States where guns are either prohibited or subject to stringent controls, violent crime flourishes. General Rich observed that the NRA is against gun registration . because we can’t see any reason for registration." He pointed out that the NRA has taken the position that instead

Congressional Corner — Earl Landgrebe Reports From Washington

The Word In D.C. 1$ 'Money'

WASHINGTON, DC. - Ap propriation time U here in Washington. This is the season when Congress starts voting on the use of your tax money. Congress has a reputation for providing great sums of money far sundry programs, some of dubvious value. Meanwhile, the expenditures continue to exceed the incoming revenue and our national debt skyrockets I’d like to review some of these appropriations with you. The house was asked to OK more than S2B billion dollars for the Departments of Labor and of Health. Education, and Welfare (HEW). Os this. S 3 billion was earmarked for labor and $25 billion was for HEW. When brought to the floor this bill was almost a billion dollars over the

EDITORIALS

budget estimate of the administration and three quarters of a billion higher than last year’s appropriation. As if these figures are not enough to boggle the mind, the house, by amendment, added another third of a billion dollars. Thus, the house increased the appropriations another 4.5 per cent Based on the past record. I doubt seriously that revenues will be able to take care of this expenditure as well as those of the rest of the federal government and I felt I must vote against the appropriation The bloated bill passed an overwhelming 287 to 80. On the other hand, appropriations for the Department of the Interior for $2.5 billion were also passed This legislation

Journal

throbbing with industry. I am more than five million farms. I am forest, field, mountain and desert. I am quiet villages — and cities that never sleep. You can look at me and see Ben Franklin walking down the streets of Philadelphia with his breadloaf under his arm. You can see Betsy Ross with her needle. You can see the lights of Christmas and hear the strains of Auld Lang Syne as the calendar turns. I am Babe Ruth and the World Series. I am 169,000 schools and colleges and 250,000 churches where my people worship God as they think best. I am a ballot dropped in a box, the roar of a crowd in a stadium and the voice of a choir in a cathedral. I am an editorial in a newspaper and a letter to a Congressman. I am Eli Whitney and Stephen Foster. I am Tom Edison, Albert Einstein and Billy Graham. I am Horace Greely, Will Rogers and the Wright brothers. I am George Washington Carver, Daniel Webster. I am Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman and Thomas Paine. Yes, I am the nation and these are the things that I am. I was conceived in freedom and, God willing, in freedom I will spend the rest of my days. May I possess always the integrity, the courage and the strength to keep myself unshackled, to remain a citadel of freedom and a beacon of hope to the world. I AM THE UNITED STATES. — Author Unknown

of trying to prevent crime by registering or confiscating guns, society should provide statutory minimum sentences for persons convicted of using firearms in crimes. Relative to another misconception — that hunting sportsmen are a threat to wildlife — he stated that on the contrary, many species of wildlife would be extinct were it not for the support of sportsmen whose license fees furnish the backbone of wildlife preservation' efforts. The NRA has become a leader in expanding the knowledge of wildlife conservation. Just as extremism has led to public misconceptions about the environment, so the issues of gun regulation and hunting have led to public misconceptions about gun ownership and sportsmen. Antigun crusades make no more sense than extremist antipollution attacks on industries that are the sources of livelihoods and services by which we all live. — LaGrange Standard

reduced government appropriations from last year by 1130 million dollars. In this legislation, funds were provided for the Smithsonian Institution, the forest service, national park service, Alaska pipeline, and programs for American Indians. This week, more appropriation measures are being considered by the house. I support the public works and atomic energy commissions appropriations bill. The appropriations committee has reduced the administration's budget request by 551 million and the 15.4 billion bill reflects that decrease. Appropriations of 15 billion for the Department of the Treasury, the Postel Service, executive office of the President and some of the independent agencies are also being considered. The committee's recommendation is a slight decrease from the budget request and I will most likely vote for the funding. One of the most controversial bills is the revenue sharing bill which is being considered this week. I have already stated my apposition to this bill. It is but another step to increase the federal bureaucracy, to centralise decision making on texes and funding at the federal level and to divorce the responsibility of raising money from the privilege of spending it.

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Know Your Indiana Law By JOHN J. DILLON -VBA Attorney at Law This is a public service article explaining provisions of Indiana law in general terms.

Vagrancy Laws

Practically every city of any consequence in the United States has a so-called “vagrancy ordinance.’’ These laws are noted for declaring certain everyday activities illegal and the basis for arrest. These laws have been used over the years as a tool of the police department to take troublesome citizens off the street or to hold suspicious persons pending the filing of more serious charges against the person. The courts have always looked with a jaundiced eye on these ordinances because they tend to proscribe such broad areas of conduct as to make it possible to arrest a person for doing anything and thus take him into custody. The Supreme Court of the United States has recently seen

SPECIAL REPORT FROM WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON — Eniwetok’s gentle natives, who have been waiting 26 years to go back to their nuclear-scorched island, will have to wait a while longer. U.S. authorities haven't bothered to tell them that their precious atoll, already ripped apart by 30 nuclear tests will be battered again by 21 secret, new bomb blasts. Thousands of tons of TNT will be used to simulate nuclear explosions on Eniwetok. The natives were evacuated from their tiny atoll —less than three square miles of coral in the vast Pacific — back in 1946. They were shipped to the neighboring island of Ujlang, a spot so barren it was inhabited only by hardy rats. For a quarter of a century, the islanders have been battling the rats for the sparse copra harvest, longing for the day they can go home. Lately, seven of their leaders were permitted to pay their first visit in 26 years to Eniwetok. They found three of its outlying islets had been vaporized by nuclear blasts. Ugly craters still marred the landscape. Yet they returned excitedly to Ujlang to tell families and friends that their homeland would soon be habitable again. The Pentagon roused their hopes by promising a possible return in 1973. But all the while, the Defense Nuclear Agency was sending hush-hush military missions to Eniwetok to prepare for the new TNT tests. LAWS VIOLATED Unknown to the islanders, heavy equipment was moved in and several acres were bulldozed The military, however, neglected to file an advance statement on the potential ecology damage as required by the new environmental laws. When they belatedly got around to filing a statement, they violated the law again by omitting the views of the natives about the upcoming destruction. , Indeed, the 400 former residents knew nothing about the plans for bomb-blasting their island again. The new bombs, we have

Vp JOtN THE FEM LIB MOVEMENT IF 17 WEPEH't FOf? FLL THOSE WOMEK '

fit again to rule unconstitutional one of these “vagrancy ordinances” when it found an ordinance of the City of Jacksonville, Florida, plainly unconstitutional. The court related the history of “vagrancy laws” from medieval England and pointed out that the language of the Jacksonville ordinance was in language which came straight from the middle ages. The Jacksonville ordinance had such language that made illegal among other things, vagrants, rogues and vagabonds or other dissolute persons who go about begging, juggling or playing unlawful games, common railers ' and brawlers, persons wandering or strolling around from place to place without any lawful purpose or object, habitual loafers,

Natives Promised They'll Go Home

disorderly persons, persons neglecting all lawful business and especially spending their time by frequenting gambling houses or places where alcoholic beverages are sold or persons habitually living upon the earnings of their wives. The ordinance prohibited other types of activity more normally considered criminal in nature but it was this interesting language which caused the Supreme Court to say this type of “vagrancy ordinance” is void because it “encourages arbitrary and erratic arrests and convictions.” The court noted that many of the amenities prohibited by the Jacksonville ordinance are part of the amenities of life as we know them today. The court felt that the present life style in this country encourages lives of high spirit rather than hushed, suffocating silence. The United States Supreme Court felt that any person strolling on the street who looked suspicious to the police could be subjected to arrest for violating this “vagrancy ordinance” and this constituted too precarious a rule of law to be constitutional. In light of the decision invalidating the Jacksonville ordinance and other cases by both state and federal courts invalidating such ordinances, cities in the United States will cease to use “vagrancy ordinances” as a

learned, will leave craters 140 feet wide. Poverty Corps lawyers have now volunteered to assist the islanders, who are largely illiterate. In their behalf, a counter statement has just been filed complaining that the new tests will prolong their enforced exile. The statement also charges that the blasts will stir up deadly, latent radiation which, along with cyanide from the bombs, will poison the atoll water supply. It is also alleged that the TNT will rip one offshore islet in half, wreck a vital coral reef, destroy fish and scare off birds. The fish provide food for the natives and the birds guide the native fishermen to tuna schools. The people of Eniwetok, it would seem, have already suffered enough in the cause of nuclear weaponry. Footnote: The Defense Department explained that the tests must be held at Eniwetok, because comparisons must be made with the earlier nuclear tests. Few stateside Americans, however, would tolerate the bombs in their own backyards without a fierce outcry. FBI FICTION One reason the FBI likes to cite “confidential sources’’ is because their information often is little more than gossip. The veil of anonymity, therefore, protects the FBI as much as it does its sources. The file on Muhammad Ali, for example, discloses an incident attributed to a “source who has furnished reliable information in the past.” The “confidential source’’ quoted Walter Turner, a “self-described public relations man” for the Black Muslims, to the effect that All’s managers were allegedly negotiation a title match with boxer Jimmy Ellis. At the time, Ali was being ostracized by professional boxing organizations because he had refused to be drafted. Ellis was recognized by the World Boxing Association as the heavyweight champion. The alleged scheme called for Ali and Ellis to fight in a Miami television studio and

J Bayh-Lines 153 FROM WASHINGTON

A REPOAT TO THE PEOPLE OF INDIANA |o*)M U. S. btNATOR B.RCH BAH

Bayh Talks Traffic Safety

Last week I introduced comprehensive new legislation to deal forcefully with the problem of highway safety. As chairman of the Senate roads subcommittee I am not content to let the mass murder on our nation’s highways go unchecked. Os course the state and the federal government have long been concerned about highway safety, and a considerable amount of progress has been made in this field. But much, much more remains to be done. My bill will help us reach our goal of safe and sane highways in five ways: first, by removing from the road drivers who are under the influence of alcohol or narcotic drugs; second, by improving our existing roads and bridges; third, by providing emergency medical care to victims of highway accidents; fourth, by authorizing increased funding for federal highway safety programs and grants to the states; and finally by providing a financial incentive for states to bring their safety programs into compliance with federal standards. The National Highway Traffic Safety administration has stated that “the use of alchool by drivers on the highways, particularly the continued, excessive use of alcohol by problem drinkers, is the single most important highway safety issue today.” And there is growing concern that the use of drugs by drivers also contributes significantly to accidents. My legislation, The Highway Safety Act of 1972, deals with these problems. It encourages all the states to bring their safety programs into compliance with federal standards on alcohol in relation to highway safety by requiring the secretary of transportation to cut off 10 per cent of federal-aid highway funds to states which do not meet those federal standards by July 1,1974. It directs the secretary to prepare a new safety standard requiring the states to have laws against driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs, to enforce these laws effectively, and to provide meaningful means to take suspicious or troublesome persons into custody. It is more probable that suspicious persons will be charged with a violation of the law which will more properly give them notice of the wrong doing complained of. Copyright 1972 by John J. Dillon

thereby “circumvent boxing commission bars concerning Clay’s boxing.” The entire deal, according to the FBl’s “source” was being arranged by a prominent sports announcer. “ of the Company’s television station in New York City is alleged to be negotiating this title match,” wrote an agent in the FBl’s Chicago field office, “and, if all goes as planned (the announcer) will receive $50,000 for his efforts.” We spoke to the sportscaster, who denounces the alleged incident as “a joke and “a farce.” “I haven’t the foggiest notion of what the FBI is talking about,” he told my associate, Joe Spear. A representative for Muhammad Ali, New York attorney Robert Arum, claimed the allegation “is a pipedream.” Walter Turner, the Muslim PR man quoted by the FBl's "source,” told us he remembered the story but said it was "a joke.” “Ali was kidding around about not being able to fight,” Turner said. “All in joking, he said he’d even fight in a television studio.” Further investigation has failed to turn up a shred of evidence that the FBI memo is accurate. Yet it is faithfully recorded in FBI files, without the slightest hint that it is more likely fiction than fact. NEW SMEAR STORY Presidential candidate George McGovern, according to the latest smear story, had to be sent home from Europe during World War II because he was a coward. We have traced the story — which is totally unfounded — to Frank Capell, an aging, rightwing smear peddler from New Jersey. Capell, over the years, has spread many stories about liberals. In 1965, he falsely charged that ex-Senator Tom Kuchel had been involved in a homosexual incident. For that tall tale, Capell was indicted for criminal libel. He pleaded “no contest.” It was Capell, too, who spread the preposterous rumor that Marilyn Monroe was driven to suicide by Robert Kennedy.

penalties for the violation of these laws effectively, and to provide meaningful penalties for the violation of these laws and, where appropriate, medical treatment for violators. Next is a program to improve the safety of our existing streets and highways. The bill establishes a special program to assist states in eliminating roadway dangers including high accident locations and roadside obstacles. The bill also creates a new, special pavement marking program for all roads other than those on the interstate system, with preference to be given to rural areas — where badly marked roads often produce terrible accidents. Also, a new authorization is included for the bridgel-eplacement program. The third section is directed toward emergency medical care for victims of highway accidents. This is a crucial new program. If “accidents will happen,” then we must help those who are hurt, to prevent needless complications, even death. My bill provides funds to assist states in preparing comprehensive plans for the provision of emergency medical care, and, after approval of the (dans, provides funds to help implement them. Whether it is more equipment like ambulances or helicopters, or better training for personnel involved, this part of the bill will make federal funds available where they are deeply needed. The fourth provision of the legislation provides an increase in highway safety funding. A good deal of money is needed, and it can be used effectively. There are, after all, more than 50,000 lives at stake. I should also point out that all of the money authorized by the bill will come from the highway trust fund which will not require any increase in taxation. Fifth, and finally, the Highway Safety Act of 1972 creates two new incentive programs designed to encourage states to comply with federal highway safety standards. This is a “carrot” rather than a “stick” approach. Under one new section, the secretary will distribute $10,000,000 to those states which “have obtained above average results” in the highway safety area. Under another section, the secretary will distribute $10,000,000 to those states which “have made the most significant improvements” in highway safety. The money will be used by the states to further their efforts in this field.

By JACK ANDERSON