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Show i rrv r t -- WV aunm jrwriNyiinMi w ' "" ? J Editorial Page of the Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 1973 A5 IN OUR OPINION ' Note to press, President: use power responsibly As everyone knew it would, the Wash- endo and rumor . Wih the rushing, careening momentum of these charges against the President, there is very serious question that the people of this nation will be able to find in their hearts the Good. The Post deserved it. Its two sense of justice and fairness which President Richard Nixon, like every other young reporters dug tirelessly and fearAmerican, deserves. lessly at the roots of this monstrous conspiracy at a time when digging was diffiThat is one great challenge facing the cult and unrewarding. The Post took the to heed such nations editors today administrations harshest criticism, and words as Clare Boothe Luce of the Time-Lif- e still it dug. It earned the award. empire spoke to the American SocieBut what now? The implications of Waty of Newspaper Editors last week: Is the pleasure of soaking the captain worth tergate to President Nixon, to his adminthe price of sinking the ship? istration, and to the American political system are being debated endlessly. But And then there will remain the other theres another consideration. What are challenge, to restore the proper balance its implications to the American press? between press and government as mutualTheres a lot of ly respected adversaries, each free to on editors Presithese pursue in its own proper way the same going among days. dent Nixon himself said that Watergate goal of building a free, strong, secure society. proved the value of a free arid vigorous press. Vice President Agnew has held out That balance has been seriously disan olive branch to the press, and White torted during the Nixon administration, House Press Secretary Ron Zeigler has especially during the past year. Since last publicly apologized for past criticisms. summers repressive Supreme Court deciis in But this sion, it has become increasingly difficult Tpe press riding high. of is need the vindication, hour; great for for the press to do its job of informing the restraint and balanced judgment. Among public. Newsmen including at least one have been subpoethe nations editors who have fought so probing Watergate and must continue to fight for naed, arrested, and jailed for refusing to hard, the ;free speech First Amendment, the divulge their sources; and the sources, need is critical to remember and fight for increasingly, are drying up. A revised Federal Criminal Code has been submitthe fair trial Fifth. to Congress that looks, in some reno ted Proxmire William Senator like an official secrets act. The week this said spects, of the administration, lover what ever American editor should say to government seeks to intimidate broadhimself: Doesn't the President have the casters and influence their programming in a number of ways. same simple right that every other Amerare and there are more These ican has, to be considered innocent until g and deep evidences of a proven guilty?" suspicion and hostility between the Nixon Americans expect the press to continue administration and much of the press. and to dig. They expect Congressional must be These indefeelings unhealthy and whatever special, grand jury have Vice President to conducted may Agnew are changed. pendent investigations be thorough and fearless and to get to the signalled the beginning of a change last week when he publicly admitted the adwhole truth of this whole sordid tangle. ministration is at least partly responsible But they expect fairness. They will for bad relations with the media and abhor efforts to turn this tragpdy into narcalled for an intelligent discussion of the row partisan advantage. And they will differences between us, adding that expect the press to remember the right of The administration is prepared to particevery American including the Presiipate in such discussions. dent to fair trial. Watergate, deeply sad as it is to all a whiteThe danger of a cover-up- , Americans, may yet bear healthy fruit. wash, is. we believe, now past; too many Out of it could come on the part of the adpeople are involved; the glare of the spotministration a new humility, a new openlight is too bright. ness, a new respect for the publics right as to know. And from the press greater now Senator The greater danger is, Tuesof its profound and sometimes floor awareness on Senate said the Proxmire is destructive The that power and a greater determipress rapidly developing day, nation to use that power responsibly. a reckless momentum of reporting innu . ington Post has won the Pulitzer Prize, American journalisms highest award, for its work in exposing the Watergate scandals. : . long-standin- Crack down on oil dumping There is no excuse, short of an accident cr dire emergency, for dumping nil, as apparently has been done in Daniels Canyon and Strawberry Valley by truck drivers to avoid overweight charges at the Daniels Canyon checking station. So Utah law officers and courts are correct in cracking down on such practices. One spill of about 1,000 gallons has been discovered in Daniels Canyon, and several other sites of deliberate dumping have been found along U.S. 40. If drivers think the overload citation is bad, they should consider the federal fines for pollution: Up to $10,000 for failure to report a spill, plus paying the costs of cleanup. The only explanation for overweight in the first place is either gross negligence or a deliberate attempt to evade the weight law. Most tank trucks are regulat- - p lr Purge can restore politics good name George Aiken of Vermont, venerated for his panite integrity, who called Percys and move reprehensible low politics.. By Nick Timmesch L.A. Times Syndicate WASHINGTON-T- he Repub- lican Farty was liberated last week from the Watergate onus offloaded by Mr. Nixon's most diligent technocrats and that creepy outfit, the Comof mittee for the the President. Republicans who carried that Watergate guilt around all these months are relieved because a cast of villains has been removed by the President from center' stage. senators and Republican congressmen were the first to feel that blessed relief. They had suffered the double frustration of feeling like office boys in dealing with the White House at the same time they were blamed by constituents for the curious event of the 1972 campaign now recognized as scandal. Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott spoke of the am- ateurs . who perpetrated the shabby Watergate affair, amateurs who insulted the He of politics. profession spoke glowmgly of the prowhose fessional politician good word is all he has." Sen. John Tower predicted that the relationship between Congress and the White House would improve because of Mr. Nixons severance actions said. and Whoever these replaces White House staffers will be more sensitive to Capitol Hill and will accept more input from Congress. far, that means Gen. Alexander Haig, who replaced Haldeman H.R. (Bob) as White House chief cf staff. That means a four-sta- r general takes over from a former advertising agency executive A fair swap? Now Haig is military, not political, but he returns phone calls, has small prospect of becoming an ogre and has dealt considerably with Congress through the prolonged effort by the Administration to extricate itself from Vietnam. Haig has a So good opportunity to let some sunshine into the White House. An attempt by Sen. Charles Percy to let even more sunshine into the investigation of the Watergate affair by getting the Senate to urge the President to appoint an outside investigator stirred some nasty feelings for a time last week, but even that one is smoothed over now. Percy got a voice vote on which was his resolution, by 12 fellow Republicans, when onlv four senators were on the floor. His timing angered several Republican senators, most notably Sen. siped There is one more possible answer to the problem besides stiffer law enforcement. That is to push ahead with the proposed heating stations for the Uintah lt in This situation exists every administration, Democratic or Republican, but more markedly so in the Nixon years. It took a Watergate to break this sore boil. Mr. Nixons accomplishments as President far outweigh the great damage resulting from his proclivity to secrete himself from the give and take of politics. Not that he has shown such reluctance in his many years in politics, for he was enmeshed with his party nearly all the time he worked his way toward presidential nominations. Hopefully, he wont repeat his grave mistake in allowing mindless, obedient technocrats to stand between his office and the people, Republicans or otherwise, who want him to listen. ed by the Utah Public Service Commission and the Interstate Commerce Commission, and tanks are calibrated for the weight of oil loaded at the well. Basin-Sa- The most obvious venting of feelings last week occurred at Staff the GOP Professional Conference held here for several hundred party workers. Somehow their conference would have to take place during Watergates most dramatic week, but participants responded with lusty cheers when speakers referred to the departure of Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and John Dean. One Republican speaker at a: media panel employed rich sarcasm to describe the ousted Palace Guard as former peddlers of insecticide and mustard, referring to their former connections with advertising agencies. Press Secretary Ronald Ziegler, who so far has survived the purge of technocrats, was described by Kevin Phillips, an apostle of Republicanism, as the one whose previous experience was to fend off the wooden hippopotamuses from the jungle boat in the backwaters at Disneyland. Its not so strange that the strongest purging of bad feelings was among professional Republicans. In the past four years, they have largely felt alienated from the White House and, to some degree, from the entire Nixon Administration. Lake City pipeline. weather slows down the ability of the pipeline to handle the crude oil, and increases the dependence on trucking. But with heating plants, more oil could be moved through the pipelines in all seasons, reducing the dangers from accidental or deliberate truck spillage into streams and other areas. Cold There is an irony here in that it took a major scandal to restore the status and the of credentials politicians men and women who love the political game and are proud of it. Trucks would still be used to haul the the pipeline head, but the distance they had to travel would be considerably oil to shortened. Co nnally switch: Show of support for Nixon? By Godfrey Sperling Jr. The Christian Science Monitor News Service DC. -JWASHINGTON, B. Connally says the ohn Retiming of his switch to the to had nothing publican party do with Watergate, but friends say his announcement was timed as a show of support for President Nixon in this monent of crisis. anThe party switch, nounced by Mr. Connally last week, places the former Secretary of Treasury under Mr. Nixon in position to seek a move the presidency which is said to have the sup port of the President. The thinking of Mr. Connally on making the party switch is known to run along these lines: That he had decided in just the last day or two that his decision of a week earlier to hold for several months before becoming a Republican was an incorrect reading on how best to forward his own aspiration of becoming the next GOP presidential candidate. his friends were telling him, and he seemed in accord with their advice, that he would be better off to wait Earlier and see if the President and the Republican party could make a recovery from the stigma of Watergate before committing himself to a political career as a Republican. Even at that time, Mr. Connally had been holding up his party switch because of the escalating Watergate scandal. In fact,, his original plan was to make his announcement on April 15. Now Mr. Connally, a particularly close friend and advise' of the President, has concluded that his role should be that of supporting the President and that his move to become a Republican at this time would be interpreted as a vote of confidence in Mr. Nixon. Further, Mr Connally has now determined that the President will be able to pull himself and his party back from depths into which they have been cast by Watergate. It is said he was persuaded toward this conclusion after hearing the Presidents television address where he felt Mr. Nixon moved strongly toward a comeback. Mr. Connally believes that Mr. Nixon now is on the right track lhat his move to clean house has already begun to restore public confidence in the President. There is speculation, too, that the President has been conferring with Mr Connally on his Watergate strategy. In addition, there ar ports around Washington Mr. Connally has been asked to step in and head up the Presidents reorganization of his White House staff. Mr. Connally, by tying in his party switch with a move that will be interpreted as an expression of confidence for the President, is able to avoid the charge that might have otherwise greeted the change that it was simply an opportunistic move which was aimed entirely at securing the GOP nomination and the presidency. Actually, there are those who are close around Mr. Connally who still maintain that be has no intention of deserting his law practice for a presidential bid. Also, Mr. wife has told Connallys friends she is opposed to her husband running for president. But the Connally switch will be widely interpreted as the first step n Mr. Connallys strategy to make a bid for the White House in 1976. ERfnfl BOfflBECK " V The big meat mutiny is in full swmg. Housewives are standing outside grocery stores eating dog food in protest. Signs have gone up suggesting. Fight meat prices: suck your thumb and a clever cookbook has just hit the bookstalls called, Good Cheap Food. (Unfor-tunatelthe book costs ten bucks! ) were At our house and who eats. drawmg numbers to see who V. talks. If things had worked out the way I planned them, 1 wouldnt be faced with the meat problem I have today. When our children were small and funds were limited. 1 had them believing meat made you sick. " . ' ?! ' I made them peanut butter sandwiches out of cookie cutters with raisins for eyes . . . tuna salad in bread boats . . . and soup with little fattening alphabets floating around. Then one day, I think our son was m the first grade, he came home from school and asked, Mama, whats a steak? I whirled around and grabbed him by the shoulders Where did you hear a word like that? ; A group of the boys at school were talking and Jeif I ate one at a restaurant once. I dont know what kind of a home Jeff comes from. I - ; want you mixing with his kind. said, but I t But it got harder and harder to hold the line. I heard 1 y stories of our children sneaking hot dogs under the football . stands, trying hamburgers at school parties and frequent- - fV V ing stores where minors could buy a pepperoni pizza right j & off the counter with no questions asked. $ We went into a restaurant one night and our son said , right out loud to the waitress, Do you have any filet V & dc-n- v r s& mignon? It like to broke my heart. Is that what theyre teach- ing in schools now? I asked. As a matter of fact, our French teacher explained it . , 4 yesterday. the battle and I knew it. They now knew that bacon would not make them nau- seated, ham would not make their stomachs break out and steak would not make their gums bleed. I had lied. The other afternoon, Brucie came in and said, Hey, Mom, does our religion let us eat a standing rib roast? What did you tell this My husband looked up sharply. I had lost t? C r - f - : - one? That we belonged to a religious group called Poverty Sect. Hes not too swift. He might buy it, he sighed thelln-Reforme- d r d SYDflEY r HARRIS 4 4 4 . 4 4 7 A Why would the Museum of Modern Art in New York want to buy an ancient Etruscan vase for $1 million, when it knows perfectly well that most ancient art offered for sale here is either smuggled or stolen? r. What do any of these shenanigans have to do with the Zy- - j spirit and expression of art and the men who created these ZrCj . lovely objects all the dirty deals and evasions and half- truths and surreptitious financing through dubious intermediaries? Nothing at all to do with art. Nothing to do, even, with ' public appreciation: a skillful copy of the Etruscan vase would give the average museum-goe- r just as much pleasure (or boredom) as the real thing. Only an expert could V'v' ? . t-- V? Zli v tell the difference, anyway. But it has everything to do with greed and vanity and publicity and the whole foolish and pretentious culture establishment, which battens off the artists and turns the esthetic pursuit into something as sordid as a pawnshop. . : . S ' ,A Each museum wants the finest collection it can get, and will try to get it by any means that permit the direc- tors' and curators to close their eyes to the scabrous facts of illegality, piracy, or customs evasion. It is a high-levgame, played for prestige in a closed circle of collectors ' and museums, and art itself runs a poor last. Such goings-oof art; they turn debase, rather than elevate, the pursuit into a mode of merchandising, a capital asset, a form of equity that nedges against inflationary tendencies. And the poor devil who painted it, or sculpted it, or pottered it, most likely went to his grave for want of , a dish of bean soup and a slice of fresh bread. This is not bringing culture to the people; this is not . elevating public taste. It is dragging art down to the level of the pander and the pawnbroker, the fat and greasy middlemen who might a? well be dealing in lard futures as in Goyas or Titians. n art .j- s: f " V - ; Such exhibits do not persuade the public that art is a but only that lofty and necessary calling in a civilization artists are fools to work so hard for so little, while the non- creative vultures gather up the loot. It reinforces our na- tive conviction that art is a toy for the rich, and it is far better to get rich and collect it than stay poor and make it The whole system of collecting and storing and exhibart needs a drastic, and wholesome, overhaul. Its entire approach smells of gross possessiveness rather than of iting reverential appreciation , - m ' |