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Show v 'So far, the only gold I've panned is an inlay I lost in a fight here two years ago" nttutiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniHimtinimiiiniiiiniiiiiiininniiimiiiiiiin DESERET NEWS LETTERS TO THE EDITOR SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH tillllllltlllllllllllllllllilimitllllllltllllllillllllllllllltlllllllllillllllllllllllltlllltlilllllU We Stand For the Constitution Of The United States Palace , Rodeo Both Bad As Having Been Divinely Inspired 10 A EDITORIAL PAGE WEDNESDAY, My family and I attended the Days of 47 Rodeo in the Salt Palace July 22, and were dismayed at what we found. From our spot in the $3.50 per seat section, we were unable to understand one word that was said. The loud mumbo-jumbwe did hear was extremely irritating, especially to our children. I talked with three attendants to see if -- omething couldnt be done. They said that they thought it had been corrected. Come on, fellas! JULY 29, 1970 Pentagon Needs A Thorough Reshuffling When President Flisenhower warned in his 1961 farewell address of the dangers of a military - industrial complex, he was genuinely roncerned about the possibility of an undue concentration of power. His fears were well grounded. The Defense Department, In fact, has become the most powerful organization in American history, and last year controlled $44 billion of industrial more than the combined sales of General Motors, work General AT&T, Electric, United States Steel and DuPont combined. In 19 years, the military budget has risen from $45 billion to $80 billion annually, and since 1946 military spending has cost the U.S. $1,000 billion. That is why control of the Defense Department must be more firmly in the hands of civilian authority than it is now. .And that is also why yesterdays recommendation of divesting the Joint Chiefs of Staff of their present control over Americas worldwide military operations and assigning them a planning and advisory role should be carefully considered. The plan, suggested by a presidential commission on overhauling the Defense Department, would substitute a new civilian deputy defense secretary with his own military staff. The Joint Chiefs would be restricted to supervising other individual services and advising the President on military matters the only duties actually outlined for them by law. Huge cost overruns in several weapons systems have pointed up the need for such a Pentagon reshuffling. In fact, panel leader Gilbert Fitzhugh, chairman of the board of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, described the defense establishment as a diffusion of responsibility in which everybody is somewhat responsible for everything, and nobody is So if anything goes completely responsible for anything. And if it goes right, no one to the blame. take wrong, theres theres nobody to pin a medal on. As Fitzhugh pointed out, You cant run operations by a committee, which the Joint Chiefs of Staff is. One example of how costs mushroom under such a system is in weapons projeach service apparently bent on gaining an advantage ects over a sister service. The continuing battle between the Air Force and the Navy over the value of carriers vs. planes is a case in point. While its foolhardy to be inadequately prepared for the foreseeable future, its also just as meaningless to spend vast amounts of money needlessly. Even more important, it is a waste of technical skills urgently needed elsewhere to solve our growing domestic problems. Revamping the Defense Department can help achieve these goals. land-base- d o Secondly, the Days of 47 Committee -D- . to the city. The need for upgrading medical services in rural areas is urgent enough to require the support of every organization involved, including the State Medical Association. Adequate health care is just as important in rural Utah as in urban l.reas. Football And Females Football has been so enormously popular with men, most of them cant understand why women dont follow the sport avidly, too. There may be a change in the air, however. This fall the American Broadcasting Company has contracted to telecast National Football League games every Monday night. Since Mondays are traditionally ladies night on television, when the women select the programs after a weekend of football programing, its obvious there are going to be some head-ocollisions in some households. But to ease the situation and protect its vital market the menfolk ABC is preparing a booklet for women on how to watch a football game. The network hopes, of course, that husbands and wives will bury the hatchet and watch the Monday night games together. Since most women don't know a flanker back from an artichoke, it's going to take some education. Its an expensive experiment. According to Broadcasting magazine's annual survey, released last week, Ty rights to 1970-7- 1 college and pro games have been sold for $66.3 million. That is more than four times the $15 million sum paid for the same package in 1963-6and $13.1 million more than just a year ago. That, of course, raises the ante advertisers must pay for game sponsorships. The National Broadcasting Company is reported asking $200,000 a minute for commercials during the 1971 Super Bowl game more than twice the 1970 rate. Even the are games selling for $35,000 a minute. With outlays like that, you can bet the networks and the advertisers will be bent not only on keeping the audiences they have now, but expanding to new fields. Move over, hubby. n Mass Transit Must Come First A great blow for progress might have been struck this past weekend, if only it had been possible to send the Congress, by private autoto the mobile, JAMES J. KILPATRICK This is lunacy, and the same lunacy obtains across our land. For want of a balanced transportation policy, we have become captives of our own machines, ces would have to a national obsession that sees to back hostages struggled a net 10,000 automobiles added to our their chambers on clogged highways every day. Monday and roared a mass When do we come to our senses? On transit bill to buJune 30, a House committee finally rern e d i a te enactported the administrations new mass ment. transit bill, authorizing $3 billion over the This past Saturnext five years in loans and grants for day produced a traffic jam that was improving public transportation systems. stalled bumper to bumper on Route 50, It is a useful sum it is about double over a stretch of 12 steaming miles, for what the Senate has proposed but it is upwards of three hours. Here were a only a patch on what needs to be done. quarter of a million human beings, more Yet there is no assurance the House d or less, into their cars with bill will finally prevail. Incredibly, most inner tubes, beach umbrellas, bath towof what we hear on Capitol Hill is that els and bathing suits. They were plungthe Highway Trust Fund must be kept ing like lemmings toward the sea. inviolate, limited to highway building Only they werent plunging. They that the answer to urban trafwere inching along, mostly in low gear, only, and fic congestion lies in building more highwith tempers and radiators boiling. still. Well, this is not the answer, of these people were little people, ways and a moment of truth is at hand. and they all had to go to the bathroom. An answer has to be sought in a comThey finally made it to the beach by The bulk of them stayed plete reversal of transportation policies, by which mass transit comes first and overnight. Then they fought their way back on Sunday afternoon. private autos come second. Otherwise we Chesapeake beach-heTheir eminen- s. shoe-home- Two-thir- agement, and Im afraid that its never going to be the same again. Which sets me to wondering about business takeovers. The new people bought the place, presumably, because it was flourishing, with a large and satisfied clientele. Then they immediately proceeded to change it for in help, in food, and in atthe worse mosphere. They are going to run it into the ground. Why would anyone do this? Yet it happens time and again, in many business ventures. Its like marrying a woman because you like the way she looks and then taking her to a plastic surgeon to change the whole bone struc- ture. I have seen the same thing happen, in my own business of inexplicably, nwspapering. Certain papers will buy my column, and then proceed to chop it to t shape. In September, the UMTA will receive the results of a intensive study of mass transit prospects in Dallas, Denver, Atlanta, Seattle and Pittsburgh. Such cities as Cincinnati, Dayton, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Haven and Philadelphia recently obtained grants to experiment with new ideas in their urban corridors. Yet the situation does not really improve. The transit industry is in deep trouble. Its profits before taxes have dropped from $313 million in 1945 to a loss of $31 million in 1968. Passenger volume this year is running nearly 6 per cent below 1969 levels. The more fares are increased, the more riders are lost. Maybe the House bills will help. But value will be nothing of significant achieved until we get our priorities straight, which is to say, until we decide that life has to hold more than five broiling hours on the road to Rehoboth Beach. death, leaving out important paragraphs, or slicing it from the bottom up, until what is left is hardly worth reading. Others will use it only a couple of days a week, instead of the five days it is written, and then wonder why it gets so little reader identification and loyalty. While the papers who run it five days have found that it builds a steady and steadfast audience. I mention this not out of pique or even greed (my reimbursement is the same, no matter how infrequently they use it), but out of genuine puzzlement. What is the point of buying something because you admire its quality, and then disfiguring or doling it out in minute portions. There seems to be something inherabout such operaently tions. The restaurant wants to attract a wider clientele, but it is actually losing most of its old customers by fiddling around with a menu everyone liked and Back in the days when I was working on my status (last week), I used to roll up the car windows to make people think we had air conditioning. Fool that I was, I used to think you kept your windows closed to keep the hot air out and the cold air in. Since we just got air conditioning in our car. I know better. 1 t's s o people won't hear you argue. had known I'd never have married you," If I I said to This car feels like a dime my husband. store in August. What's that supposed to mean? snarled. It means it's illegal to he freeze bodies. Then put on a sweater. ERMA BOMBECK In July? Youve got to be kidding. Besides, its my feet. Youre freezing my feet. You men wear trousers down to your ankles. What do you know? Then turn off your vent button. Youd like that, wouldnt you? Then youd get all the air and Id get nothing. Youve got a flaw in your personality. You know that? Here are your three children end your dog in the back seat gasping and you want all the air to yourself. Kids, how would you like to go to the moon with someone who hogs all the oxygen?" I'll put it on normal," he said tired- iy- - Kids? You getting on anything I shouted. Are you sure you normal? didn't switch the heater on. Theres hot air now pouring out of this car somewhere. Feel around under the dash with depended upon. In trying to please more kinds of people, it is simply trading off the loyalty of its regulars for a nebulous future popularity it cannot possibly gain. One human tendency explains this in are never as satisfied with part. something after we have obtained it as We we thought we would be while striving to e what we get it; we tend to dont have, and to disvalue what belongs to us. I think this is as true in the marketplace as in the marriage relationship and explains the high rate of bankruptcies as much as the high rate of divorce. over-valu- I have to look for a new snack place for lunch, and the owners will never know why the line has dwindled in the doorway. No doubt they will blame it on when all the changing neighborhood that has changed is our loyalty to a lost cheeseburger. your foot. Feel it? Whew. All I know is a few minutes Ill be confessing crimes I never committed. The dog what, kids? You see! Even the dog THEY STILL WILL, HUH? vJoAEti Will Pe PULING VloU? 7-2- T T Which Report's Correct? Thank you for your editorial of Saturday, July Voters, Watch Out For Smear Tactics. Now I want to know which report is correct as to why Gov. Rampton did not ride in the presidential motorcade? The Deseret News Not My Party Rampton Leaves, (Page July 25) or newscaster Allan Molls (KCPX, July 24, 11 p.m. news) emotional tell it like it is that Gov. Rampton was told he could not ride in the motorcade by a national newsman? 25, Whoever reported it wrong should retract and if a national newsman actually said this, we should know who he is. The public can soon put insensitive clods, such as this one, in his proper place, which is out of the news media. -E- LISABETH GUNNELL 1400 Beacon Dr. Editor's Note: Although seemingly contradictory, both reports appear to have foundation. Gov. Rampton said he did not seek a place in the motorcade, commenting its not my party. However, under prodding by newsmen, his office said that a Nixon aide approached the governor and told him, Sorry, but there's no place in the motorcade for you," or words to that effect. Political Pettiness Conflicting reports make it hard to say whether gross oversight or pettiness was responsible for the failure to officially notify Gov. Rampton of President Nixons impending visit until the day before. To his credit, the governor graciously carried out his duty to welcome the nations chief executive to Utah. Whatever his party affiliation, and despite political ill feelings that may have been generated in the past, Calvin Rampton is governor of all the state of Utah. To slight him is to show a lack of consideration for the state. Hopefully, the discourtesy shown the governor is not an indication of the importance the administration attaches to Utah in those official matters affecting Republican and Democratic taxpayers alike. -D- ON EARLE 4408 S. 43th West Honor Pyle Aug. 3 of this year would have been the 70th birthday of Ernie Pyle, the famous American war correspondent who recognized the honor and heroism of the U.S. fighting man of World War II, and who, in 1945, was killed by a Japanese sniper on the island of Ie Shima in the South Pacific. Pyle has since received verbal tributes from other great men such as the late President Dwight D. Eisenhower, former President Harry S Truman, and General Omar N. Bradley. Today there are standing markers denoting the place where he died, and the place where he rests in Honolulu. But greater honor of a lasting nature should be accorded this American. Ernie Pyle has our continuing gratitude for what he did for the American fighting men in well-know- n World War II. He was beloved by the men he wrote about and served with, as well as the people home to whom he reported. back What better way could we honor him than to have a commemorative stamp issued? This proposal is now on the agenda for the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee in Washington. The committee has not yet acted on this, but it is my belief that the 3tamp should be issued this year on Aug. 3, Ernie Pyles birth date. What is needed now is to have all former GIs who knew Ernie and-o- r served with him, and those back home to whom he reported, write to President Richard M. Nixon, urging ftfs support of the issuance of the proposed commemorative stamp for Ernie Pyle. The President has been known to say that he favors honoring the little man" and the choice of the people in common. THdAMP 7H& One recent example of the odds Moss has been up against was the resounding defeat of his bill to end government tobacco subsidies. Here again Moss lacked even the support of his colleague Sen. Bennett. How could a more lonely battle be waged? --MRS. POLLY J. LUND 3347 S. 9th East. in to is is panting. Why dont you open a window, he said. Is that wonderful? We drop a bundle for air conditioning and I arrive looking like Phyllis DiUers hairdresser. I tell you what. Why dont we put the air conditioning on low, the blower on medium, inch and drape the open a dog over my feet and then wed all be comfortable. In reply, my husband brought the car to a stop, leaned over and removed the manual from the glove compartment. He read in silence for a minute. Then he leaned over and pushed a button. Whats that for?" I asked. The manual says it is the only splu-tio-n to people who want different temperatures in the car." I answered him, but I know he didn't hear me over the din of the radio! bv Briekman THAT INTH& YeA 1VJO The Republicans point to a lopsided vote in favor of this bill when it finally passed. It was lopsided. The battle had already been won. and in many cases by very close votes. There is more than one vote on any bill. correct? the small society it victory. Psychologically, I might add, reports such as Allan Molls can have terrific reactions, not just against the Republican President (we all know the New Dealers are still in power) but in the form of reverse reaction against the very party who thought up this little stunt. The reports are at complete opposites. Which is Cool Car Heats Up Conversation n ' are caught on an expressway to chaos. The picture is rot wholly bleak. Over the past five years, the Urban Mass Transportation Administration has provided $685 million in capital grants, and another $105 million for technical studies. With local matching money, this has meant a billion-dolla- r shot in the arm. Some interesting possibilities are taking By SYDNEY J. HARRIS One of my favorite snack places for lunch has been taken over by new man- Sen. Moss has been accused of using his antitobacco legislation simply for his own political gain. There surely must be easier ways of playing legpolitics. Sen. Moss has introduced islation since he began to serve in the Senate in 1959. It has been a long and lonely fight to finally have been successful with his tobacco advertising ban o About Restaurants And Columns 4, pre-seaso- HARDY 1st Ave. -- Moss Battles Alone . Young doctors these days tend more and more to set up practice in the cities, where not only the fees are better, but the facilities also are more modern. The trend has led to a steady decline in the number of doctors serving in rural areas, and Utah is no exception. Hence any effort to upgrade medical services in rural areas of the state should be encouraged. Such is the case with Utahs plan to train and license paraprofessional medical workers to assist physicians, particularly in rural areas. Many medical corpsmen returning from service, particularly those who have served in combat areas, already are competent in many areas of medicine, including first aid for the injured. There already is a ready field for their services. Given some additional training to increase their competency, they can be a valuable community asset. Furthermore, with todays swift transportation and speedy communications, expert medical help should be available to most areas of Utah within an hours time by plane or helicopter. To be fully successful, such a program needs a system of periodic visits to Utah communities without a regular doctor. While a medical corpsman can take care of minor ailments, take tests and keep medical records, there are cases which need the attention of a qualified physician. Such patients may not, in fact, consider their ailments serious enough to make a trip OUG 1015 Upgrade Health Care Most persons who live in rural areas wouldnt change places with their city cousins except in one respect: Medical care. ' is to be congratulated for putting on a singularly bad rodeo. If rodeos of the past have been this bland, I cannot see how cramming them into an inadequate facility will make them anything but worse. Many neighborhood horse shows around the country have better barrel races. I couldnt believe this was supposed to be a major attraction. A display of sorts it was a rodeo it wasnt. 7 9 Support is needed now for the issuance of a stamp for Ernie Pyle this would be one way this nation could express its gratitude for one of its own, and it would also be paying tribute to his fellow newsmen. -- N. R. Calva Cleveland, Ohio A |