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Show Page 32—THE HERALD, Provo Utah, Wednesday, August 26, 191 Opinions The Herald, its readers, Syndicated columnists and cartoonists discuss vital issues The Herald Comments America’s Greatness Dep ends on Us Believe it or not it’s been almost 10 months since wehadour last elections to choose candidates. So again it’s time to dust off our duties as citizens to choose a numberofoffices for city government. Provo and Orem voters will go to the polls and cast ballots for a mayor and a numberof city councilmen on Nov. 3. Othercities will vote on variousoffices the same day. Earlier this year, Orem and Provo changed the way their governments will operate. Now it is necessary to fill the posts created by the changes. City recorders in cities have application forms ready, along withall of the information a candidate needsto seek election. Asis usual atfiling time, the cities are alive with successful bid for office to day. The best campaigners meet with community leaders and large numbers of voters to determine what they believe the main issues are, and then they form opinions about issues and Suggest answers for some of the perplexing problems facing the offices they seek. The best candidates make themselvesavailable to voters to present those views, and theydoall they can to let people. take a look at them and evaluate their fitness for office. Occasionally, a candidate files for office and then disappears from public view. Such candidates generally are the unsuccessful ones. Most candidates usually are anxiuos to expose themselves rumors of who might and might not run. Candidates in someracesalready are. at work politicking among their friends and potential supporters since they elected to file for office early. The filing deadline is Sept. 14 in Provo and Orem. Less than a month later (Oct. 6), a primary election will be conducted if more than two candidatesfile for each office. Candidates who wait until the last minute to file will be pressed to put together a campaign committee and create a winning strategy in that short time. After the primaries, less than a month remains befire the final results are tallied on Nov. 3. It takes considerable time and money to wage a Lighter Side to questions and opportunities to present their ideas. A campaign is easier to wage with the support of people willing to carry the burden of candidacy. So people are needed to help distribute brochures, raise funds, make phone calls, contact service clubs and others to make offers to speak,or to makeotherappointments to be at public gatherings. The real heart of the American Democratic system is the electoral process itself. That involves not only candidates, but campaign workers. If qualified people shrink from the glare ofpublicity, or are too involved in their personallives to run for office, or otherwise support candidates, the system can fail. If we fail to make ourselvesavailable to work as a campaignaide, or to contribute financially, we then become freeloaders on the system. Time and money contributed to a political campaignis a contribution to America’s greatness. Whether we win or lose isn’t nearly as important as the fact that we participated. The ultimate failure in the system occursif wefail to vote and nowis the time to register if we haven’t already done so. We would fight if someone came from outside our nation and told us he was goingto rob us of any of our freedoms, our citizenship, or our right to vote. It’s not quite the same thing, but there are paral- ARMS LIMITATION TREATY?| GUN CONTROL? CERTAINLY NOT / ABS! OLUTELY NO/ ArmyCritics lels. When we neglect our duty as citizens and refuse to participate in the process of government, we rob ourselves of those things. If we believe we have ideas to offer for the improvement of our communities, then it is important that we seek a can- didate to support andtell him our ideas, or consider running for office ourselves, America’s greatness depends on millions of decisions in the electoral process. This month, America’s greatness rests on decisions being made about candidacies. It’s worth everyone’s time to give that process their attention. INCREASED MILITARY SPENDING ? You BET/ AND PLENTYOF IT/ On the Sauce? By DICK. WEST WASHINGTON (UPI) — Last month, as is his wont, Sen William Proxmire made sport of the Army for drawing up 17 pages of specifications for Worcestershire sauce I can see how so much fuss over condiment guidelines might strike a senator as excessive. and some of Proxmire’s jocular comments may have been well taken. But when he questioned the “national defense’ relevance of loose labels, he was perhaps on shaky ground One section the Wisconsin Democrat quoted verbatim reads in part: ‘\... label adhesive shall be examined for water resistance as, follows: Submerge glass cc@tainer, with label affixed int? room temperature water for four hours. Remove from water and remove excess water by blotting with paper towel. Press finger firmly against the label (in area where the adhesive has been applied) and move finger (ell pressed against the label) towards the bottom of the bottle. Displacement of the label indicates failure to meet this requirement."’ Yes. Exactly In failing to grasp the importance of this test. Proxmire apparently overlooked the opportunities for practical joking that are afforded by Worcestershire sauce Possibly he was unaware that in some circles the highest form of wit consists of steaming off the labels of Worcestershire sauce bottles and attaching them to bottles of ice cream flavoring. And vice versa. It is patent the first thing any rogue bent on such devilment would do would be to soak the bottles four hours, making certain the water was room temperature. Then he would remove excess water with a blotting towel. press his finger firmly against the label and push downward. managing editor. news editor, city editor and other members of the TALK TO YOU ALL DAY... fe Any Worcestershire sauce labels failing to meet federal specifications would slide right off and could easily be transferred to the ice cream flavoring. With dire, albeit in some minds hilarious. consequences. By protecting its own Worcestershire sauce against such tampering, the Army. in effect, is protecting us all. Your average Worcestershire sauce maker is unlikely to have two labelling standards — one for the military and the other for civilians. If, seeking a big order from the Army. he sticks on his labels tightly enough to satisfy federal inspectors, the product you and I buy almost certainly will possess the same degree of label adherence. Admittedly. the chances of a phantom label-switcher striking our pantry shelves is rather remote. Still it is comforting to know a Worcestershire sauce label is not apt to drop off, denuding the bottle and causing one to mistake it for massage linament. I can tell you from bitter experience that a Worcestershire sauce rubdown after a soak in the Jacuzzi is no way to reduce tension. AboutOpinions The Daily Herald attempts to stimulate healthy discussion of all sides of important public issues through the “opinions” Page by taking stands as a newspaperon community issues. by publishing varied commentaries trom statt and syndicated columnists and by providing a public forum in the *’Feedback” column Comments published on this page under “The Herald Comments headline represent’ the official editorial policy of The Daily Herald as determined by an editorial board comprising the publisher et HEY,LISTEN , TCcoup editorial staff, . Columns published under the names of individual columnists represent only the opinions of the individual writers and not necessarily the official editorial policy of The Daily Herald Letters to “Feedback.” likewise. represent the opinionsof the individual writers and not necessarily the official policy of The Daily Herald The Herald frequently will publish columns and letters which conflict with viewpoints expressed under “The Herald Comments.’” It does so in the spirit of giving its readers a balanced presentation of viewpoints on all issues ore wits WUUME roerworm GrapTeLeOm Am NIE.P. 8! Paul Harvey Survivors of New Depression By PAUL HARVEY We Americans who survived “the Great Depression’’ of the '30s will neverstop talking about — how hard it was, how poor we were,the scars it left. All our lives we will run scared from the specter of thin soup, patched britches and sour investments. Yet in retrospect we recognize the depression for muchof our motivation to work harder, do better, build higher. Wewentthrough hell — and came out heat-tempered and better than ever! There’s been another Great pI The spiritual depression of the 1960s. Let’s heed what's happened toits survivors. They've been called the homefront casualtiesof the Vietnam © War. They sat-in, loved-in, shot-up and freaked-out. They dropped acid and dropped out. For the most part they were middle-class ki.ls in over their head. They talked “‘revolution’’ without the slightest idea whatit was. They tried tc evolve suddenly and, as Darwin ‘new, there's no way. In a wall-to-wall world they tried tor vertical — and for the few who wentstraight up many wentstraight down. Tworecentstudies havecalled the roll of young adults — the youngsters of the '60s who are now in their 30s — to discover an alarming percentage are only marginally functional. A disproportionate numbersuffer behavior disorders. Psychiatrists from all parts of the United States, writing in a recentissue of Hospital and Community Psychiatry, agree that many who, a generation ago, would have been confined in mentalhospitals are now onthestreets. frequently victims of crime. Sometimes perpetrators of crime — as in the cases of misfits John Hinkley, who shot the President, and Mark David Chapman, who shot Lennon. Many, to support drug habits, commitlesser crimes. The arrest rate for these dysfunctional social dropoutsis eight times normal; their suicide rate 10 times greater. Casualties of the spiritual depression of the ‘60s. But what of the survivors? Thereis other evidence that most of the lost generation has found itself, has rediscovered that chemicals are an unsafe hiding place, that free sex costs too much, that do-your-own-thing eventuates in anarchy. And in their own enlightened selfinterest, they have reverted to doing the established thing. The proof is all around us: The Reaganelection, the renaissance of tradition, their fascination with the royal wedding. Tuey’re smoking less, eating soy bread. jogging. What'll you bet... Today’s young children of young parents, when they are old enough will hear more than enough of: “Son, when I was young...I survived one of the most troubled decades in American history...the social depression of the ’60s...but I'm betterforit.” (c) 1981, Los Angeles Times Syndicate N. La Verl Christensen Eloquence From ‘Silent Cal’ By N. LA VERL CHRISTENSEN Scripps League Newspapers They called him “‘Silent Cal.” But quiet, conservative Calvin Coolidge, 30th American President, left some eloquent, to-the-point quotations that make good sense today as they did in his time. For example, one of his famous quotes can be applied with considerable appropriateness to some currentlabor strikes. “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time,” wrote Coolidge, then governor of Massachusetts, in a telegram to American Federation of Labor President Samuel Gompers during the Boston police strike of September, 1919. Coolidge called out the National Guard to take charge of the police department and his handling of the crisis made him a nationalfigure. Consider the wisdom of ‘Silent Cal's” as it would apply to public safety implications in the presentstrikes of 390 deputysheriffs at Riverside, Calif.; 16,000 state employees in Minnesota; electrical workers in Los Angeles; and Rhode Island sanitation workers. Coolidge was born on the Fourth of July in 1872 in Vermont and made his home in Massachusetts after graduating cume laude from AmherstCollege there. A lawyer, he moved up the political ladder as president of the Massachusetts State Senate, Mayor of Northampton, lieutenant governor, and governor. When Warren G. Harding was nominated for President on the Republican ticket in 1920, Coolidge was his running mate. They won by a landslide. Harding's sudden death elevated Coolidge to the White House Aug. 3, 1923, and he waselected to a term of his own in 1924. His tenure was marked by business and industrial expansion and national prosperity. Spurning the popular image of a backslapping politican, he was a sincere hard worker whostood for economy and conservatism. People liked his style. Coolidge and his wife, Grace Anne Goodhue, a former school teacher, gave their two sons John and Calvin a good New England upbringing, stressing principles of hard work. Calvin Jr. had a summerjob in a tobacco field when his father became president, and a fellow worker commented: “If my dad were president I wouldn't be working.’ To which young Coolidge replied: “If my father were your father you would!" The boy's death in 1924 was the deepest tragedy of Coolidge'slife. When the man from Massachusetts decided not to seek reelection in 1928, he broke the newsto Teporters Aug. 2, 1927, in his usual succinct style with this line of headline Brevity: ‘I do not choose to run.” These additional Collidge quotes were taken from a compilation on Marvin Stone's editor's pagein U.S. News and World Report; “Inflation is repudiation.” “It has always seemed to methat commonsenseis the real solvent for the nation's problems — common sense and hard work." Americanshavenotfully realized their ideals. There are imperfections. But the ideal is right. It is everlastingly right. What our country needsis the moral power to hold to it.” “Thereis no dignity quite so impressive and no independence quite So important as living within your means. “The meaning of America is not to be found in a life without toil. Freedom is not only bought with a great price; it is maintained by unTemitting effort.” |
