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Show lee Roderick Congress: Can It Fool Dedicated to the Progress And Growth of Central Utah Page 34-- THE Provo, Utah, Thursday, March HERALD, Mother Nature? 24, 1977 Election Reform - Questionable Provisions proposal of the The Carter-Mondal- e administration to remove almost all restrictions on voter registration seems to the Herald to be unnecessary and doubtful in its goal of increasing civic responsibility. The issue should receive full input and debate from Congress and the public. The administration's election reform package also includes provisions to finance con-gresssion- elections al with taxpayer funds and abolish the electoral college. These also should receive careful airing. The electoral college issue has been debated for decades. There appears some good arguments for the ban. Public financing of congressional campaigns is a more novel idea. Great care should be exercised in considering expansion of campaign financing lest this represent an unwarranted raid on the treasury which already is bogged down in red ink. One question: Why should federal money be used to finance contests within any one state? If serving in Congress were more of a public service there might be more justification for public financing. But being a senator or representative is a g esjob these days the $12,900 increase pecially after Congress accepted recently on recommendation of a salary comhigh-payin- mission, with presidential So They Say "It's just amazing. Everywhere we go people stop us and actually thank us for being such a good couple for their kids to look up to. They don't think we fight. Sometimes I don't think they even think we're human." Chrystie Jenner, discussing what life's been like since her husband Bruce won the Olympic decathlon. endorsement. From news accounts, the proposal to virutally abolish voter registration would make it possible for voters to simply show up on election day, prove they live in the neighborhood, and cast their ballot without prior signup. Almost all restrictions would be removed except the constitutional requirements of citizenship and age. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, called the plan a "giant step forward in our efforts to increase voter turnout, revitalize our democracy, and enhance the right to vote." We are not so sure such desired results would be accomplished through removing the simple requirement that a citizen plan would make an estimated 45 million more Americans eligible to vote but would this really increase the turnout substantially? (Last year there were 146 million Americans of voting age, but only 99 million of them were registered.) Is it too much to expect that a citizen should register if he desires to vote? Shouldn't some minimum responsibility be required of prospective voters? Some critics of the universal registration idea fear the plan would lead to voter fraud. Such qualms could be valid indeed despite proposed fines of $10,000 and prison term for such offenses. Furthermore, new problems of enforcement would Carter-Mondal- e 10-ye- ar be opened up. If news accounts are correct, the proposal would not require states to adopt the universal but they would registration receive federal funds if they did. Is such an optional plan really what we want? We will be interested in following the progress of the elec- tion reform package. Citizens should make their voices heard, whatever their opinions. Henry J. Taylor - justice President Wilson immediately dispatched to Petrograd distinguished Nobel Prize winner and statesman Elihu Root. France responded quickly. So did Britain. "This is now Europe's springtime. Russia is free''' extolled "The Times" of London. The Duma. Russia's Parliament, consisted of representatives of the whole Russian people, duly elected by secret ballot. The Duma communicated with Czar Nicholas II. He was aboard the royal train at the German battle ion t The Duma demanded that Nicholas abdicate It guaranteed his personal safety and that of the royal family The czar signed the abdication papers Russia was to have a constitution modeled on that of the United States, a president, a House ol Representatives, a Senate rotated in office by national election every four years The Duma leected Alexandr F. Kerensky, an outstanding lawyer, head of the f provisional government It instituted freedom of speech, the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, universal sufferage including equal rights for women) and voted to remain in World War 1. come what m.i Nikolai U nin s real name was Vladmir Ilich Ulianov He had not been in Russia for 10 years He was in the pay of the Germans and graced the British black list for was sabotaging the Allied war effort in Zurich when he read of Czar Nicholas' abdication in the Swiss "Neue Zurcher Zeitung" newspaper He immediately contacted German Gen. Eric von Ludendorff, his employer. Ludendorff provided Lenin and his conspirators with a sealed railway coach to transport them across Germany and to the railroad station on Russia's border; Helsinki, Finland Leon Trotsky's real name was Lev Davdovich Bronstein. Away from Russia for years, he was settled in Brooklyn. Trotsky U-ni- Diiliibuled by l.A f , li'intl Syndicate jraul Harvey Jim vs. Jimmy in 1980? J Home base for Paul Harvey is Chicago. It is necessary for me to make a conscious effort not to preoccupy myself with regional affairs. But we have a new governor in Illinois who is already overtly campaigning for the Presidency of the United States, so Big Jim Thompson is not "regional" any more. It helps in some ways when your governor wants to be President. The most obvious benefit is that he is going to try extra hard to be a good governor. In years past an incumbent might have suffered from the accusation that he was using a an as office "steppingstone"; not any more. Now Americans appear to prefer their politicans to be ambitious. Jim Thompson is a giant killer. As a U.S. attorney he was afraid of nobody; with carefully prepared factual evidence and rational argument, he went after and brought down the biggies 350 indictments against political officials; Then Lenin and Trotsky Took Over Everything March 21. 1917, the United States the first nation in the world to do so recognized Russia's provisional government. It was a far cry from today's U.S. S R. When the news reached Washington, President Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress He said: "Every American feels hope A fit partner is added to the fight for " two-thir- register before voting. The If federal en"ironmenta WASHINGTON regulations are carried to a conclusion a? logical as the regulations themselves, on May 31 -.- the nationwide deadline for compliance with primary standards of the we may see something like Clean Air Act this: "BULLETIN: Today federal authorities, acting at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), arrested the with U.S. following for clean-ai- r standards: (1) The coastline of California's Monterey Peninsula. (2) All deserts in the United States. (3i Virginia's Great Dismal Swamp. (4) The nation's forests. Further arrests are imminent." The Charges9 Monterey's balmy Pacific breezes kick up ocean spray which evaporates, leaving an unlawful level of salt particles in the air. Desert winds, minus the water, do the same thing with sand. And the Great Dismal Swamp, along with forests and other heavy growths of vegetation, emit too manv hydrocarbons into the air. Ludicrous? You bet. But tell it to Congress. Its members are the ones who are stampeded by environmentalists into passing clean-ai- r standards so stringent that not even Mother Nature can pass muster. Six pollutants are now regulated. In addition to particulates and hydrocarbons, nitrogen they include carbon monoxide, oxides, sulfur dioxide and photochemical oxidant. With just two months to go before the "final" deadline for compliance with primary standards on them, EPA data indicate that nearly half of the country won't meet the particulates standard, nearly won't meet the- - carbon monoxide standard, 10 per cent won't meet the sulfur dioxide standard, and nearly 90 per cent won't meet the oxidant standard. The head of the EPA said last year, in fact, that only the Virgin Islands and American Samoa had reached all the primary standards. While Uncle Sam has failed to fool Mother Nature, he has had somewhat better success in bringing industry into line with Capitol Hill's environmental edicts. But at what cost to other human values and national priorities such as low rates of inflation and unemployment and the development of new energy sources? Added expenses to companies, remember, are merely passed on to us in higher prices. "The situation we have gotten ourselves into would be ridiculous if it were not so serious," writes Irving Kristol in a recent Wall Street Journal commentary. "We are much exercised and quite rightly by the fact that the OPEC monopoly has cost this country some $30 billion in increased oil prices since 1972. "But in that time we have inflicted upon ourselves much larger economic costs through environmental and other regulations and will continue to do so, perhaps at an increasing rate." Echoing Kristol's concern is the executive vice president of the American Petroleum Institute, Charles J. DiBona, who argues that the problem is not regulation per se, but the setting of "zero discharge" standards that are impossible to meet without inordinate sacrifices. "The money and effort required," says DiBona, "would cripple the nation's programs in other areas. The Brookings Institution estimates that compliance with proposed amendments to the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts by 1985 would cost this nation at least $500 billion." The figure -larger than the entire current federal budget works out to $2,500 for everv man. woman and child in the United States. In an interview with Scripps League Newspapers, DiBona, a former deputy director of the White House energy policy office, added that unless these regulations are rewritten, "it will be impossible to open any kind of new plant in this country after May 31st." Instances of job- - and projects being torpedoed by questionable environmental priorities are numerous. Many of these projects die quietly. Others hit the headlines, such as the nearly completed Tellico Reservoir on the Little Tennessee River which has been stopped cold fish called the snail darter. by a three-incIt is strange indeed but a commentary on our time that the snail darter means more to the government than the people living along the Little Tennessee who will now be denied new jobs, tourism, and hydroelectric power. We all want a cleaner environment But that desire must be balanced with our urgent need to create more jobs and energy and to hold inflation to a reasonable level Otherwise, our planet will one day find itself a fit habitation for everything except man conviction 95 a percent rate. In a similarly methodical way he went after the governorship, and though Mayor Daley then ruled Chicago, the though Democrats otherwise carried the state, Republican Thompson won 2 to 1 Illinois is a microcosm of ! the United States. Sixty percent of the votes in Illinois identify with neither party. Obviously Big Jim has a way with the independents which is altogether as effective as that of President Jimmy Carter; in Illinois Big Jim was lital) more unital) effective. an impressive Thompson barely 40 years old does not have "to be in a hurry. If he can handle a politically hostile legislature during this r interim period and get himself elected to a full term thereafter he could time his bid for national office either to 1980 or 1984. two-yea- Thompson's campaigning is remindful of Mr. Carter's. He courted Illinois voters a wearing turtleneck which were the words; "Thank God I'm A Country Bov." on He stumped 44 county fairs for the farmer vote. He overtly went after black voters yet meticulously avoided shopping-lis- t promises. He urged only a very few public-work- s projects and those judiciously distributed around the state. As this political starlet threatens to become a national superstar, he becomes a larger target. Already some biting words have been exchanged between him and Texas' John Connally when Connally sought the national chairmanship of the Republican Party. Thompson also has turned thumbs down on the Reagan-dictated party platform, declining to be bound by it for the next four years. As governor he is waging a vigorous fight for fiscal frugality, elimination of fraud and waste, a balanced budget, with no increase in state taxes. "I've wanted to be President since I was 11 years old," says Big Jim Thompson. And so far he's done all the right things toward the realization of that objective. energy-producin- Washington Window g n arrived from Brooklyn, ready to overthrow the new government. The first thing Lenin did on arrival in Russia was to stage a Communist alien known as Bolsheviks against the U S. Embassy in Petrograd It was quelled by Gen Korniloff of the new republic's volunteer malitia. Lenin, a thorough coward, extolled his followers from the rear. He came, he saw, he capitulated. Then he he went into hiding In October the Germans oprdered Lenin to strike again. Obediently, the Communists staged their October Revolution It reeked of ghastly bloodshed and terror By Nov 8, lyi", they controlled Petrograd Lenin and Trotsky promptly made a separate peace with the Germans at at the Allies' blackest hour The Germans had bet on the right horse Lenin boasted that if he caught Kerensky Brest-Litovs- he would kill him. Kerensky fled to Sweden and, ultimately. New York City He died there in 1970 Trotsky commanded the Red Army And within a year after Irmn's demonstration against the U S Embassy he had seated himself in the authority of the Romanoff Czars He and Trotsky, riding in the carriages vacated by Nicholas, gave the nods that meant life or death Lenin immediately expelled all members of the Duma Instead of burning down the building, be padlocked it And Lenin decreed death to any member attempting to meet Then his men rode ever) where to sweep away the Duma's decrees adn to drain the blood of free men who drew them The Czar and Czarina had four duaghters and a son Icnin arrested the entire family and shipped them to remote Ekaterinburg. Siberia A Communist firing squad executed 1918 them there on the night of July The treachery had gone full circle The Communists have celebrated the revolution for 59 years But after 59 years the USSR still has its set ret police, Siberian slave labor camps persecuted Jews, controlled intellectuals, stopped authors and playwrights, norpersons, millions screaming for freedom and its mute peasants who can neither move out ol the 16-1- nor revolt was Russia's George Washington llokus, hokey, hokum U S S R I'iun Beheading the Messenger WASHINGTON iUPIi -Kings of old sometimes would chop off the head of a courier who brought news of a lost battle Some of the comments about recent hostage taking incidents in this country seem to be animated by the same logic Recent llanafi 11 v Moslems with a series of seized three grievances buildings in Washington, killing one man. injuring several others and holding more than loo persons hostage for !!9 hours before giving up There was heavy news coverage of the incident Then- w,iv some misinformation btoadi.ist and printed, but moM of the coverage was accurate and in some cases, reporters suppressed information that authorities felt would endanger the hostages. When it was over, some sug L'esled that the media gave loo llliieli attention to the episode and III doing so cncotllaged potential extremists to commit similar acN One ,i cVpicsMd this in-was ndicw N oung the foi mei i iv il rights ,i( tiv is and congressman u to now is US a mbassador he to United Nations Young called for ! hv the media, s.iv-:nthink we ( rcate a lot of I these phenomena for for we h,ie so d :Mm n il and otjfsHves g'"r if H event- - : In a s, i ,, .( w i e adveitising to neurotic people ihat when vou want a lot of at- tention do something SUK lJ.il and r idu ulous He also said. The h irst ' Amendment has got to be by the Supreme Court in the iight of the power of the mass media I don't know if it protects the right of people literally to destroy things we believe in " Most people in news work would agree that the press should be very careful in covering such stories as the llanafi siege Few would clarified agree, however, that the media should refrain from reporting such incidents and most would be extremely skeptical of Young's suggestion for "clarification" of the First Amendment That sounds like censorship and Andy Young, in suggesting anything that smacks ol it seems to forget from whence he came. There was so much bloodshed and so little in the early days of the civil rights movement that a leasonatilc person might be led to regard the Greensboro, progress Test Your Knowledge What country is completely heated by piped in natural hoi water from volcanic springs'' 2 ('apt William Kidd, the infamous 17lh century pirate, was an American True False 3 The capital of West Ger bi Bonn m.inv is a i Berlin ic Munii h E rui l the ('.. lunch counter Freedom Rides and the March on Selma "suicidal and ridiculous" and those who took part in them as neurotic" or worse Young might also recall that newspaper, television and radio news coverage of those protests frequently was blamed for inciting violence State and local officials and community leaders repeatedly claimed that blacks would not be protesting if the media N sit-in- would ignore them piii-,i.- ) j - Berry's World There is, of course, a difference. Young and those who struggled for equality in the civil rights movement did not shoot and cut up innocent people and threaten the lives of hostages in their protests But the effort to scare the press away from covering civil rights protests was put in the same terms as his own complaint about the media attention given to the Hanafi siege and other acts of terrorism It would be interesting to know how the civil rights movement would have farel in this country had there been no news reports of the Medgar Evers and Violet Liuz.o murders or films of dogs and firehoses being used on protesters in Birmingham Young is right when he says the First Amendment does not confer the right to destroy lives or property Bui to suggest that the press is engaging kind of violence reporting about it seems in thai close ANSWERS: h beheading tidings by to the bearer of bad Vn U I ,,- - I .SWlftfe "Want to hear a good one'' In court today, my client requested a speedy trial'!" |