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Show K7fr Xjr &mmz &j00f SA&rAfM r - ' v Ray Cromley f . Dtdicattd te the ProgrtM And Growth f Cntrc! Utah Page 40-T- HERALD. Provo, Utah Thursday, January IT, HE WASHINGTON (NEA) focus is on South Vietnam, 1974 instant sage these days, it's only necessary to say, or write, something like: "For years this country has been going its merry way as if energy would always be cheap Now rnd plentiful. having to pay the we're piper." Everyone will nod in sober agreement because, of course, it's quite true. Our modern affluence, with all its attendant comforts and conveniences, has been made possible by cheap and abundant energy, and few among us ever bothered before now to wonder what would happen when the day came that energy was no longer so cheap or abundant. not to minimize the Yet seriousness of the situation haven't men always exploited the resources at hand and proceeded on the assumption that there would always be enough for their needs? At any given point in history, economic forecasters could have plotted the lines of consumption and resources into the future and warned that eventually the former would cross the latter. In England in the Middle Ages, for example, primitive as industry was, men cut down the forests with reckless abandon for ships' masts and charcoal, and then crossed the Atlantic to exploit the virgin lands of the New World. Had they continued to depend upon wood for fuel or waterwheels for energy, there would have been no Industrial Revolution. But then came the age of coal, and long before the world's store of that To You resource was even dented, coal was supplanted by the more convenient and versatile petroleum and natural gas. In the early days of this century, gasoline was con- sidered a nuisance of petroleum refining and was burned or dumped. The great automobile industry, which directly or indirectly employs one out of every six or seven people in this country today, was built on this cheap and plentiful fuel. Even 70 years ago, it was by-prod- modern industrial and technological world is the optimism at every turn. And maybe also a little luck. All the lines are still converging on the graph resources, consumption, pollution more sharply than ever. There is no denying them. Know Who facsimile of an anonymous poem (?) which first appeared in "Kreolite News," published by the Jer.nison - Wright Corp. : To you who tell me "you know, you know, you know," Do you tell me "you know" because you know I know? Then why tell me I know if you know I know? But if you know I don't know, Don't tell me "you know,' Because I don't know. Just tell me, and then I'll know. And you won't have to tell me "you know," Because you'll know I know. You know? 60 - Vietnamese year old farmer, describing the government's relocation program for rural residents. How the hell can we find it if we don't have fuel to operate with? We're about to have a fit. Richard Fugler, manager of an Oklahoma drilling company, on a shortage of diesel fuel to run oil drilling rigs. There is less home-froheat this but aren't you glad we're young year out of Vietnam? The dead-enwar in Vietnam goes on. It has been almost a year since the cease-firyet the firing has not ceased. Since the cease-firsome 12,000 South - nt d e, e, Vietnamese have been killed 'and another 50,000 wounded. And the violence is not subsiding the last two months for it has been increasing. The two sides have lost more men since the cease-fir- e than we lost during our six years trying to put out the fire. Henry Kissinger has won a Nobel Prize for negotiating the Paris peace. President Nixon has been referring to the Vietnamese war in the past tense, reminding us that the world is at peace' But it isn't. There have been military and political talks between the opposing sides but they've amounted to nothing more than semantic squabbling, have effected no compromise on either side. Members of the International Control Commission are not even allowed to visit the scenes of the continuing fighting. The Paris agreement proclaimed a "cease-fir- e in place" but neither side's troops have remained in place and neither side has ceased firing, . It is difficult fur Americans to which misled us into meddling where we should not have. It must be difficult even for one as perceptive as Secretary of State Kissinger to comprehend the fanaticism of those to whom "purposeful death" is a religion. January 28, it will have been a full cease-firyear since the Those who imagined that the war would wither away know better by now. This month there have been some assaults on district capitals, some heavy air raids. Both sides justify whatever they do as "defensive." President Thieu is predicting that the Communists will bejin a massive, nationwide offensive early this year, and On e. - something in anywhere. superficiality is accompanied by such wonderful acuteness, unsurpassed literary force and such versatility that his fiery calls for liberty have no superior and scarcely a rival. Moreover, Voltaire was among the earliest writers always conscious of the great historical principle that history largely determines its own flow ; that few prominent men and tribes are able to change its flow for there is permanently e. settled 110 had an erudite Rousseau was Wordworth: "Homeless near a thousand homes I stood, and near a thousand tables pined and wanted food." Emotion stirred in Rousseau. In Voltaire's inside nature he was all brain. He was also a connoisseur of the ridiculous. "Let's talk auout an elephant," Votaire said during France's royal oppressions. "It's the only big subject that's sa'e." Voltaire was one of the 20 ricliest mep in France. He sailed the skies of this city in glittering tinsel. "How life crackles around me," he said. He was an insatiable seeker of celebrities and was always picking up a tow on somebody's coattails. Voltaire owned tho golden handcuffs around their wrists; handcuffs forged from money threads over a lonp time-Hwas a smooth campaigner in the ups and downs of this city's dinner parties and wrote that "Solemnity is a disease." was Rousseau's Solemnity birthright. Rousseau was a mole. In fact, Voltaire called him "that mole." "Life is a snare laid for us by our ambitions," said Rousseau. He alv.2ys stood transfixed between apprehension and expectation. Generations have been reared to the acceptance of ceaseless strife. It was our inability to comprehend perennial factional feuding in Indochina triumph, Rousseau's nature impelled him to find disenchantment and failure at the very heart of even his best achievements. , rooster. mean when we use the word. eyes glowed like polestars over a Voltaire and commemorating Jean Jacques Rousseau. Oddly, this is the same city that shunned Rousseau. These giants who remain two of freedom's most famous voices were always enemies in this country or Voltaire envision, much less accept, war as a way of life. There are no Vietnamese now alive who remember the kind of "peace'' we they may. Regardless, the two separate dictatorships will pursue their historic feud into another generation. I'm glad we're out of it and encouraged bv the subtle indications that since that misadventure we may be less impulsive in the future. is Rousseau never upbringing. went to school a day in his life. Voltaire was Chanticleer, the But Aren't You Glad We're Out of Vietnam T vv The here Museum Rousseau - Fighters for Liberty I kilometers north of here on the wooded Isle of Saint Pierre on the Lake of Biel, to whose shores he owes so many of his inspirations. He lay shackled in the dungeon of his miserably paid work, along with his laundress and his greedy cl'ister of complaining relatives. Voltaire refused to see Rousseau. They met only two or three times in this country. Each time the birdlike Voltaire drew in his sunken cheeks, his lips protruding like a beak, and all but spat on Rousseau. Jealousy of Rousseau was the savage that had Voltaire by the throat. He unjustly insisted that Rousseau was conspiring against him. Paul Harvey 1 f r Ferney-Voltair- I don't know where the Vietcong are now, but we cannot go back to our land because the government won't let us. A -- Voltaire, born in Paris, stayed away 28 years. And when royal France burned his books and sought his arrest, Geneva gave him sancutary. Today that Geneva suburb is named But Rousseau, born in Geneva, was banned a son denied his from Geneva own home. But the only way we could have avoided the challenge they present would have been to remain in some earlier, more primitive stage. operations. The internal struggle between Ho Chi Minh's successors continues unabated. The argument over whether to continue the war full tilt in the South or to give first priority to rebuilding the North has not been itjolved. Hanoi is attempting to play the game both ways, building its strength in the South, improving its military position by attacks on key southern positions, probing for weak spots in Saigon's first - line armies and local forces and holding its options open, either for an all out attack or a long drawn - out Henry J. Taylor ; Rath energy but of abundant population, Lf GENEVA. Switzerland product not only of abundant So They Say This is a reasonable economy. The political situation is as confused as the economic one. Here again, the Hanoi men have little experience in peacetime obvious that the world contained only so much oil. Should men have decided to limit the number of cars they would manufacture so that future generations would not run out of gasoline, not to mention the other resources consumed by automobiles? If so, how many should they have built, and how high should they have priced them to discourage ownership? And who would have made these decisions? This is no brief for waste or wanton consumption. It is merely to suggest that the He set up his Voltaire's writings are of sometimes accused but the superficiality, low - key war of infighting, terrorism and sabotage. something at work underneath. Voltaire: "History is the story of silk slippers descending the stairs; heavy boots marching up them." Rousseau's genius was a unique fusion of the capacity to see wi!h the clear eyes of a child and to reason with a mind as penetrating as any his century produced. His head shriveled to nothing and his eyes like carbuncles, Voltaire lived to the age of 84. Rousseau died in the same year, although Rousseau was 18 years younger. The endless struggle for freedom brings these lifetime enemies together. Both share a place in the great book of evidence that, come whay may, ideas are the masters of the world. sympathetic to Hanoi. During the war Paris maintained close informal economic ties with Ho Chi Minn and his successors. It brought backroom pressures in an attempt to improve Hanoi's position Saigon in the peace talks. It had plans for large - scale post - war economic assistance to Hanoi. vis-a-v- is Despite friendship, indicate this history of the latest reports the French are disillusioned with becoming North Vietnam's leader. They have, at this writing, been unable to work out assistance plans they consider reasonable. They reportedly are losing hope any such plans can be developed. The French will certainly end By contrast, the French have improved relations with the Thieu government. The men from Paris have found the South Vietnamese more realistic in economic planning, more certain of what they want to accomplish and more willing to take the steps necessary to assure that French aid will be well used. The question here is whether these Hanoi men who spent 40 years as revolutionaries can adjust sufficiently to peace to make their country economically viable and politically stable. The answer is important to the United States. The survival of South Vietnam, peace in Southeast Asia and our ability to work out more normal relationships with the Asian countries rests to an important degree on the ability of the North Vietnamese rulers to handle peace. That is, the war in South Vietnam may continue because the North Vietnamese revolutionaries cannot cope with an absence of war. They do not have the attitudes, the skills or the organizational ability to operate a peacetime economy or to govern a peacetime state. They may be forced to go on with the fighting in order to make their real world fit the only type of operating they know wartime regimentation and controls, wartime industrial and agricultural planning, government by crisis. The Russian and Chinese revolutionaries were able to make this shift. But these two lands had much in the way of resources. They had some considerable industry, sizeable numbers of technically trained men and experienced middle officials able to do technical planning and to keep wheels moving. e No Home Rule Emperor Tiberius ruled Rome from his residence in Capri during the last decade of his life. His orders were signaled by semaphore to a lookout station on the Sorrento Peninsula, and thence from peak to peak to the capital almost 125 miles away. First $300 Billion American Budget WASHINGTON, nother historic first D.C. -A- will soon be up by the Nixon administration. This will be the rung first $300 billion budget in the nation's history and running a relatively modest $6 to $10 billion in the red. We are reaching for $400 billion and the time for it won't be far off. Social fulfillment is the reason. What on earth is that? Merely the provision of money to fund the pay out of social benefits voted by Congress over the past eight or 10 years. Defending the country doesn't hold a candle in terms of cost to social fulfillment in the way it is growing. Since 1968 funds for "human resources" will have tripled, while defense costs remained relatively constant despite war and threat of war. In one session of Congress alone, which recently concluded, $4 billion was added to social fulfillment in the form oi increased Social Security benefits. Now a new health insurance program is coming along and in future years that will add many more billions. It can be said for Roy Ash, the President's director of management and budget, that he is trying. He is trying to hold back the dizzy rise of government costs. He is trying to avoid new taxes except for windfall penalties against the oil industry. But he can do nothing about new taxes loaded on in the Social Security program. When it comes to costs, his holdback is frustrated by new requirements of funding employment of those unemployed in the energy crisis. The point has clearly been reached when there is only one visible remedy for increasing costs and taxes which otherwise will simply continue to grow without effective control. Sooner or later, and the sooner the better, a system will have to be devised in which Congress and the Presidency come to agreement, prior to any action on spending programs, on the absolute maximum to be authorized for spending in any fiscal year. Having determined such a figure by Congressional action, the cloth must then be cut to fit it. Legislation for such a system is part way through Congress. It ought to b finally adopted and go into effect next year. Then appropriate leaders in Congress and the White House could agree in advance on the top limit essential to the health, welfare and safety of the nation which could not be exceeded except in dire emergency. If anybody knows a better way he has not revealed it. As matters stand now, Congress regularly exceeds the President's requests. As inflation rages, none of the known remedies can be applied. Classic ways to fight inflation are to cut spending, raise taxes or both. In the present circumstances back-to-natu- movement around an ancient Isle Saint Pierre priory. He wrote about the tumbted-dowplace in his "Confessions," unpublished until long after his death, and remarks that "the money you have in hand makes, you free. The money you hope to make makes you a slave." While Voltaire's bright stor.y As a straw in the wind, take the case of France which has been to the North up giving Vietnamese, if only to hold on to their historic economic and political interests in the area. But as things look now, that assistance will be considerably less than originally planned. Richard Wilson n , The the North has pumped in foot soldiers and weapons at a heady readies pace. President Thieu himself for an all - out attack which threatens his country's existence. But my Hong Kong informants say the real news is in Hanoi. Usually sympathetic visitors are report the North Vietnamese in bad shape economically. The hobbling economic politburo, can't decide on planning, priorities. Visitors say that after four decades of fighting the Hanoi decision makers are finding it most difficult to readjust to and peacetime economics normal development. They think of economic reconstruction in terms of military potential. Most North Vietnamese leaders have never operated a peacetime Exploiting Our Resources To be an ! Hanoi's Problem: Tooling for Peace aid -where 1974 by NCA. " feel sorry tor you, con. You may never be able to automobile!" aspire to a big, luxury, Quicksilver Since Roman times, the metal mercury has been called quicksilver, because of its color and because it is impossible to pick up with the fingers. It is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature. there is no chance of doing either. Ash and the President therefore choose to try to hold back spending increases, all the while cautious that such holdbacks won't bring- - on a recession. Ash, in fact, is bringing forth a budget for 1S75 which will be regarded as slightly inflationary. He is also promising rescue operations if the economy flops worse than expected. These are like plans for a dream house. Either their execution will cost more or will be changed before the structure is built. But at least they are plans, and the Congress which will receive them doesn't have any p!an at all. It merely calls the carpenters and masons together and says, "build a house." If that is to be the way it is, at least the carpenters and pasons ought to be told precisely how much they can spend and no more. Then maybe they can get together and revise the plans which have been shown them, and add no new rooms without reducing the size of some others Otherwise, the government's house will be as jerry - built as it is now with added - on rooms' running into infinity. People keep saying this kind of thing can't go on indefinitely and people don't dc anything about it. In the relatively brief peuod since 1969 when Nixon took office, his estimates of annual government spending have increased by more than $100 billion. This represents a cost third greater than about one Johnson's President last estimates. At this rate the $400 billion mark will bt reached by the time Nixon's second term would expire Twenty to 25 per cent of the increase can be attributed to inflation. The rest is mainly due to the uncontrolled expansion of social benefits with no end in sight until Congress and the White House can get together tt plan things better. j |