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Show v-: - Voice In The East Slums Need Help By ALICE EAST Let's all stop a minute and give three cheers for the way in which the people of South Salt Lake handled hand-led the meeting Monday concerning creating a Model City. As I heard the story from a person who was there with all her conservative indignation in-dignation aroused, one of the speakers speak-ers was actually booed so loudly that he couldn't give his speech in behalf of the proposal. A Model City, it was reported, would increase in-crease the use of eminent domain and displace families and increase taxes. While I can agree that some of the areas in South Salt Lake don't need the Model City approach to correct them, there are some areas that are badly in need of help. They are areas of rundown houses, vacant va-cant houses, businesses, weedy lots, that need to be cleaned up. While these conditions exist to an extent in most cities in the stat:e. thev are to be told what he may or may not do with his property, this is one of the prices that must be paid to live in a community with other human beings. Sometimes one must sacrifice his own self-interest for the good of the group. This was what was asked for with the Model City program in South Salt Lake. Some of the property owners would have had to sacrifice " for the good of the whole commun- ' ity. Yes, this is a Utopian view of the problem and its solution. Yes, I do expect a lot from government. I expect things like making every neighborhood fit to live and raise children in, jobs for those who need them and help for those unable to help themselves. To a conservative, I must appear to be well down the road to socialism but I can, and do, see problems in my community that can only be solved with the help of someone, or something outside out-side the confines of the community itself. That something that can help is the federal government. more plentiful in the South Salt Lake area. Unfortunately, the environment isn't the only thing that needs to be changed down .there. Before anything any-thing can or will be done to correct some bad situations, there will have to be a drastic change in the attitude atti-tude of the citizens towards government. gov-ernment. The basic belief down that way seems to be that the role of government govern-ment is to treat everything with the Laissez-faire approach. "Let the people do it." But they overlook over-look the fact that the people are not willing to do anything about their environment. Government has become a tool that does those things which the people are either unable or unwilling to do for themselves. them-selves. Where would the minority rights, for instance, be today if it had not been the government who did for the people what they were unable to do for themselves? The opposition to my views of government would say that it has gone to far in the direction of the good of the majority (or minority, in the ease of race) over the individual indi-vidual rights of a man to own property and do with it as he wishes. While it is true that no one likes |
