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Show DESERET NEWS, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH SATURDAY, MARCH 23. 1974 A5 We stand for the Constitution government, of the United States with its three departments of each fully independent in its own field Why Utah ought to get title to Great S.L. land Common sense triumphed this week a special master concluded that Itah should get title to land that is exposed when the level of Great Salt Lake falls The federal government certainly has no monopoly on wasdcm. Then, too, the U S government already owns 7D percent of the land in Utah and doesnt need any more. Now let's hope the U.S. Supreme Court, which has just about the final word and is not bound by this weeks recommendation, sees the matter as c 'early Since the state already owns the bed of Great Salt Lake, it seems only logical that the state should also own land exposed when the level of the lake falls What's at stake here is whether the state or the federal government has control over development of a resource whose value is estimated in tpe billions of dollars As it happens, the lake lias risen m recent years and nearly all of the land now in dispute is back under water again. But it would be absurd to think that title to these lands should change hands every time Great Salt Lake rises and falls. when If Utah doesnt get that control it won't be master in its own house. Utah would repeatedly have to seek federal permission to move ahead on developing the mineral and land resources of the lake. Yet there already are too many different agencies state and local, as well as federal that are pursuing their separate and narrow interests at the lake "Twenty-ni- years in the jungle! A likely story!" n federal the Besides, government shouldn't want these valuable land.; if it is really serious about returning money and power to the states, as is being done with revenue sharing Back from the jungle Court wont go along with this week's recommendation by its special master, then Utah should take its case to Congress If the Supreme "It would surprise nobody if in the year 2000 a Japanese soldier would hobble out of an Astatic jungle where he had hidden since World War II ended" Support the recovery house Chairman Ralph Y. McClure of the Salt Lake County Commission acted courageously this week m supporting efforts to establish a recovery house for emotionally disturbed patients in Taylorsville. The County Planning and Zoning Commission acted too hastily in turning down the proposal It would have been easy for Mr. McClure to go along with the planning group. Instead, he encouraged supporters to appeal the decision to the county commission. Those who would be served in this are in need of lov and support from them families and a chance to maintain more frequent contact with them. While many Beacon, Wichita, Kan. patients need the type ol treatment and structure provided in a mental hospital, hundreds of others can make much better and quicker progress m a setting such as that planned by Thomas L. Ericksen, Dr William Bailey, C. Joe Harrington, and other such responsible authonties. Residents near Alpine House, facility in Provo, who previously most strongly opposed to that art now said to be among the a similar were the program strongest supporters which prides itself on being concerned with Christian values should more carefully examine its thinking on the facility being proposed for Taylorsville. A community Survival of the seas When members of the American Petroleum Institute meet next week m San Francisco to discuss prevention of oil pollution of the seas, they will be talking the oceans and mans about survival less an authority than French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau has observed that all pollution of man eventually ends up in the seas, and warns that the damage being done may W'ell be irreversible. Dr. Jaques Piccard, another marine scientist, estimates that at the current rate of pollution, there will be no life left m the oceans in 25 years No Before the oil shortage, reports of oil pollution of the seas were alarming: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric reported that 665,000 square an area larger miles of the Atlantic was awash with oil and than Alaska tar. The Environmental Protection Agency said one and one quarter million gallons of oil were being spilled in the Mississippi River during a single month The Coast Guard has reported that a million gallons of oil were being spilled a month nto the Ohio and Sandy Rivers. All this runs mto the oceans. Ships vent their bilges on tne high seas, offshore drilling ngs add more, and then oil tankers run ashore, adding to the mess Particularly sensitive to criticism these days, the American Petroleum Institute will be saying things at the conference to put the pubbe at ease. But the public will be watching for action and results, not words of comfort from vested interests Leave discretion to judges must a man be to How act as his own counsel in a court of law d That is a question the U S. Supreme Court has agreed to answer in a case brought by a California man convicted last year of grand theft The man, in a law brief he wrote himself, claims that is abthe right to legal solute and cannot be denied because of a defendants lack of education Theres an old saying that "He who acts as his own attorney has a fool for a client. Thus courts, in the interest of justice. have sometimes attempted to verify a mans capabilities before allowing him o act as his own counsel. That was the case with the Soledad Prison inmate who is bringing the case The lower court asked him several legal questions. When his answers w ere not satd isfactory, he was assigned a over his attorney objections The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution provides that any defendant shall "have the assistance of counsel for his defense That isnt exactly a guarantee of a persons right to represent himself, as the complainant maintains But the courts have generally interpreted the phrase loosely by allow mg the accused to waive the nght to counsel and represent himself curt-appointe- Still, a judge has a responsibility to see that every defendant is given a fair chance in court. And what chance has a man against a sharp The Supreme Court attorney? prosecuting would do well to leave the judges with that discretionary power poorly-educate- d Another Nixon error An editorial from the Atlanta Journal President Nixon would like to see a federal libel law so that, as he puts it, good and decent people could run for office without slanderous attacks upon them and their families. Two points: One. Good and decent people have nothing to fear from the media They can run for office all their lives with no danger of slanderou.- - attacks upon them and their families. On the other hand, racketeers, finaglers and masters of chicanery need the protection of the sort of law the President proposes. Two The sort of law proposed by the President would make a Watergate sort of expose impossible Therefore we can ,ee where the President would strongly favor such a law but fail to see where it whose the would innocent, help best their after is all, innocence, -- "About that Japanese soldier exactly how would you get to that place where he'd been living all those years?" Smoking: By Norman Cousins in the small Connecticut community where I live, the high school authonties have reserved a large room in which students are free to smoke. There are no restrictions as to age. The theory is that youngsters are going to smoke any-ay, no matter what teachers or parents d, and that it is lar better to penmt the children to smoke in the open than m washroom stalls or behind stairways The trouble with this theory is that it assumes the school authonues have no choice but to come to terms with the v itable. Educators do have a choice They can use all the means at their disposal for helping to give their students a respect for life. For nothing the school can do is as important as educating in the fragility of human beings It makes little difference what else a m-e- it doesnt for the create respect preciousness of life and for the need to nurture it and safeguard it, then nothing else the school teaches will have full value school does. If The educators who favor school facilities smoking contend there is something hypocnUcal about trying to when so prohibit smoking many teachers and parents find it impossible to break the tubit themselves Here, too, the flaw in the reasoning t6at the weaknesses or inadequacies of adults must not become the standard It l l precisely because such inadequacies exist that there mu't be a p.are in the oc.e". -- of the educators cop-o- ut where youngsters can be exposed to standards on which there is no compromise. As for the argument that children are bound to imitate it is important to grown-ups- , remember that society has a responsibility to keep children from being narmed, no matter what adults do and no matter what examples adults may set. " Face it, Sarge, it's hopeless. Let's turn ourselves in." the health hazards of smokuig, it is quite possible that no will amount of education convince some youngsters that cigarettes are a senous hazard to their health any more than any amount of education ran convince some of those hazards grown-up- s but this does not mean that the school should put its seal of approval on smoking for which is the very clear sign a school gives when it officially sets aside a room for smoking teen-ager- Once a person attains his legal age, he has a nght to jeopardize his health if he wishes. Until that time society has the responsibility for protecting that individual With specific reference to In our own Connecticut community, 13 and children have equal access to the smoking room along with 18 and The an thonzed smoking room thus becomes a habit forming center for heavy cigarette smok- ers One of the unfortunate aspects of the situation is that it undercuts those students who understand the dangers of cigarettes. It is difficult enough for these nonsmoking students to exercise influence over the others to without having contend with the misguided permissiveness of school authorities. I dont know how many high schools in the country are providing smoking facilities for young people Not many, 1 hope These schools perform no smile to the youth ol America or to themselves in their shortsighted effort to deal with furtive smoking. All they succeed in doing is to in tensify rather than to mitigate an important national problem There are few more senous issues before the nation than the condition of our youth One of the most serious aspects of the problem is that vanous forms of addiction are searching out younger and victims younger Caspar of Weinberger, secretary health, education and welfare, has asserted that thousands ol 12 and 13 year-olchildren are now becoming alcohol addicts Does this mean that we will now have some elementary school officials tell us they will have to be "realistic" and provide facilities so that children wont be forced tc drink secretly7 This is an extreme example, of course, but it may serve to indicate the absurdity of surrendering to a problem rather than focusing on new ways of trying to solve it What do we have to look forward to as a nation if we scuttle aU standards m the of our upbringing young people? This year, the United States will spen' almost $100 billion for defense purposes What ns it we are trying to defend7 Real estate? Property? If our mam purpose is to protect human beings, what about the harm being done to millions of young American., through aU forms of addiction? It is difficult to thmk of any worse damage that could be inflicted on this country than the damage we inflict on ourselves through irresponsible policies bast'd on surrender rather than effective d Oil problems will persist By Harry B. Ellis The ChnsUan Science Monitor News Service DC WASHINGTON, Everyone may think, All the proolems are over, so lets go back on the joy ride. consumers What, then, can American expect, now that roughly two million extra barrels of oil daily the amount of Arab oil lost during the boycott may begin flowing into the U.S distribution stream? Thus does Marshall Nichols, economics coordinator of the National Petroleum Council, characterize the danger of public euphona after the lifting of the Arab oil embargo. "Supplies at least equal to 1973 demand, replied Lawrence Goldstein, of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, Inc., in New York. William E Simon, federal energy administrator, puts it another way: My hardest job, after this embargo is lift- This should mean, most experts concur, the eventual disappearance of gasoline waiting lines and possibly the restoration of Sunday sales and normal opening hours. ed, is going to be to keep the American people will continue to have a awake that we problem Why, since Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ahmed Zak Yamam says the U S can have "a million barrels of Saudi oil daily, as soon as tankers can bring it from the Persian Gulf to American ports7 Because, say the experts, America's gulpoil wa-- , outstripping ing and growing thirst for to Arab the embargo last fall. pnor - There is, notes Mr Nichols, excess world refining capacity on which the United States can draw by importing more refined products from Europe and the Caribbean But only to a lim.'ed extent, experts add, for other nations also will compete for that -- upplv It does not mean, stress officials of the Federal Energy Office (FEO), that Americans again can drive all they please. Mr. Simon puts it simply American-- , last year, he points out, consumed 18 million barrels of petroleum products daily. U S demand this year, he adds, was expected to reach almost 20 million barrels per day " To use all the oil they want in 1974, Americans would have to import 9 million barrels a three million barrels over the 6 million day daily import figure, pnor to the Arab embargo Ther will not be, in short, enough oil to meet unrestneted demand Here, says Mr Nichols, much depends on public understanding that a shortage still exerts 1 a i |