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Show William F. Buckley Jr, She Salt faltc Siilraiu Section A Friday Morning, February 0 Aw, Page I I 15, 1974 Check Figures Solzhenitsyns Banishment Casts Pall of Disrespect on Detente The swift and dramatic banishment of Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn has m permitted the Soviet government to have, rehave of worlds. two best They effect, the moved a persistent thorn from their side stress on their without putting undue efforts toward detente with western nations, the United States among them. By stripping the Nobel Prize winner of his for Souet citizen.-dup- , systematically with being a actions incompatible performing citizen," the Supreme Soviet has in effect branded him a traitor. The USSFts internal propaganda machine has gained substantial ammunition to attack the image of a man widely acclaimed for his essential Soviet patriotism. Soviet authorities hau been most careful to make clear that Solzhenitsyns wife and three children are free to join him in his place of exile, presently near Frankfurt, West Germany. While a pall i remains over the whole sordid mess involving Solzhenitsyns banishment, the fact he is alive and in West Germany is a bright ray through the clouds. One has to be elated realizing his fate was none of those alternatives conjured in the mind when a host of Russian policemen burst into the writers apartment and hauled him away. Imprisonment was the least of those alternatives, while banishment was none of them. From casual observation, the latest spate of troubles Solzhenitsyn wasaving with the Moscow autorities was not particularly understandable. He was in hot water because of initialhis book Gulag Archipelago, 1918-56ly thought to be an account of penal conditions during the Stalin era in Russia. It was hard to understand why Russian officials would be particularly upset about an pe-ni- In the excerpt, released a few hours before his arrest, the writer contends that even in recent years it has been impossible to get a fair trial m cases involving state or ideological interests of Soviet leaders. yard. - That is not to say the ancient economic principle has been uiscaided. Quite the con-- ; trary for junkers are providing a classic example of how the law functions. 7 J ; It was but a few years ago that city streets and country byways were littered with abandoned automobiles, their value not I z ! j I 7 equal to the cost of towing them off. Those were the days when the price of steel was depressed. Now, with demand for steel soar-ing to record highs, old auto bodies are like-- l wise in great demand. As a direct result, the battered hulks are slowly beginning to disappear from the American landscape. This is as true in the Salt Lake City area as in such once junker plagued metropolitan 7 Thus far the Soviet Union has demononly contempt for the honesty and courage of a man who dared criticize the injustices of the Russian system of justice. Hardly a show of respect. areas as New York City where car bodies once worth $5 now bring $15. In some places the price reportedly goes to $35. Steel mills use about 55 tons of scrap in every 100 tons of new steel. With mills in most parts of the country operating at capacity, scrap dealers are hard put to keep up with the mills requirements. Despite the new burst of activity, the nation is is in no immediate danger of running out of old autos. There are, by some estimates, as many as 18 million junkers in the salvage yards, on the streets, in vacant lots and elsewhere about the country. Preliminary figures of the U.S. Bureau of Mines indicate that almost 8.8 million were turned into scrap last year, a total which barely keeps pace with the average production of new cars for the past three years. The junker is not yet an endangered species. o Many a pair of small town sweethearts could tell Egypt and Israel that getting disengaged is a tough problem. Now that marriages are dissolved w ithout a divorce, how do we refer to the survivors? The dissolutor and the dissolutee? "Cannon" or "Kojak"? We have discovered that prefeiences for either one are divided between viewers who are fat and those who are bald Being a judge requires certain special skills, such as pronouncing judgment on a pornographic movie without giggling. 1, The Public Forum Short Changed Editor, Tribune: The battle for the Deseret defeated by short sighted people Ranch is over with no appreciation for Gods great outdoors. Defeated they tell us because of projects and needs with much higher priority than a mere camping, fishing and hunting area that would have served the center of our population for generations yet unborn. Another thing that makes the average American angry is that the White House had all those plumbers when the rest of us had trouble getting even one. is representative of a hard earned buck. We have been stifled to death with lawyers, political scientists, and the intelligentsia. Give us a few men with callouses on their hands instead of geniuses with barnacles on their bottoms and world federalism on their minds. BILL ROBIS Maybe Someday Yet, these same people approved a nearly equal amount of money for the Bicentennial Commission to spend on a music hall. How tragic that a music hall should have a higher priority than our own Utah soil. In terms of use by numbers of people, there can be no justihcation for the actions of our Legislature in this matter. Editor, Tribune: Tribune staff writer David L. Beck gave himself away in the catacombic paragraph of his Feb. 7 review of Die Fledermaus. He is admittedly a good writer" and is He, therefore, is adequate, journalistically, for pops, rock, and entertainment The people of Utah have been short changed again. I for one will not forget, nor will many others. EDWARD A. VIGIL nearly qualifies him to review Fledermaus until one is confronted with his second-to-laparagraph where he obviously is out of his depth: Ardean Watts conducted . . . Utah next-to-la- read-worth- generally. This very Symphony, etc. Question: who conducted chorus, in other words, the performance? principals I enjoy Mr. Beck in his element. But he and his readers both flounder when he takes on the big stuff like symphony and ballet. Good writer, he is; good critic, in his ken; music critic, some day, ... Hes Amazed Editor, Tnbune: 1 am amazed at your naivete that regulatory bodies havent hurt America, they wont harm oil. (Jan. 29.) in claiming of Your editorial states "the public regulatory bodies has produced benefits for companies and customers. The result has been, with admittedly some notable, yet minor, exceptions, an America with efficient transportation. Forum Rules Public Forum letters must be submitted exclusively to The Tribune and bear writers full name, signature and address. Names must be printed on political letters but may be withheld for good reasons on others. Writers are limited to one letter every 10 days. Preference will be given to short, typewritten (double spaced) letters permitting use of the writers true name. AD letters are subject to condensation. magnificent communications and inexpensive and reliable electrical power." Dont you read your own news columns? What about our railroad system? A disaster due to regulation. Radio and television? Stations and networks are constantly being threatened and intimidated by regulatory bodies. Inexpensive and reliable electrical power? The Federal Power Commission's decision to control natural gas prices at low rates was the grandfather behind todays energy' crisis in this country. to the Now, you propose turning bureaucrats authority over all petroleum prices. The result would be quite clear: A musclebound oil industry unable to plan ahead for future needs, a drying up of private investment, and ultimately total dependence on the Middle East for our energy supplies. WILLIaM M. JONES over Ormda, Calif. Time for New Faces Bill Vaughan's Orbiting Paragraphs i Bills Go Up "Well, Mr. Heath, this is a nice bit of hot water youve gotten us into! y If memory serves, it was the now defunct the floor would be able to retain them though Colliers magazine which used to carry a they were worth hundreds of dollars a credi- weekly feature poking fun at out of date tor might wish to lay hands upon. laws. Colliers went under but many of the These and other loopholes and antiquated laws it derided are probably still snugly provisions of the Utah law suggest that an embalmed in statute books. extensive overhaul is in order. But Mr. NelWe were reminded of the long-agmagason, the bankruptcy expert, doesnt think so. zine feature by an article on bankruptcy laws in the latest issue of Business Spectrum, pubBankruptcy filings are on the increase and lished by Weber Colleges Center for Busi- the onset of a recession will surely hasten the ness Training and Economic Research. trend. But, as Mr. Nelson observes, most perThe author, Mark Jay Nelson, reviewed sonal bankruptcies involve little or no assets Utahs bankruptcy exemptions, the personal anyway so there is no great pressure to property a bankrupt is permitted to retain change the laws. out of reach of creditors. Among them: Cows' In a roundabout way that speaks well of with suckling calves, two hogs with all the the unfortunate Utahns who find themselves suckling pigs; two horses or two mules and in financial distress. They are so honestly litheir harness. A minister may retain his broke that an exemptions law and thoroughly brary. Householders can retain any musical no has It is just such down on their meaning. instruments in use, all family hanging picluck people that bankruptcy laws are detures and all carpets in use. signed to aid and it is good to know that alPresumably a bankrupt with a couple of it is old and decrepit the horse and Old Masters on his wall and Persian rugs on though Utah statute is as serviceable as ever. buggy Locking The Door guaranteed loans. Though the figure varies, neither are students if their eligible for college loans and scholarships -ia than more earn figure particular parents sisters and brothers how of many rrespective there are to help eat up that income. . I know an industrious toiler in the vineyards of the middle class. His annual income, at $38,000, is almost exactly four times the median family income in America. Thus the author is accusing the Soviet regime of being no better today than it was in Stalinist times, something Moscow has been denying. No wonder Solzhenitsyn is now in West Germany. Bernard in a statement Malamud, broadcast from Munich via Radio Liberty into the Soviet Union said, Detente is a street. If the Soviet government wants detente with the United States of America or any other free nation of the world, they can begin by detenting with Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Detente ultimately means mutual respect." Old Law Still Serves Die Holland Cartoon it is particular, he had discovered that but to child a send to college, xtremely costly that it is especially expected of middle class Americans that they should send their children to of more college; and that parents with income than "$12,800 per year are not eligible for federally In Solzhenitsyn asserted that while the number of people in Soviet prisons in recent years was "no longer compaiable to Stalinist times, Soviet courts still get discreet, private instruction on how to handle what he called an overwhelming majority of cases. The Junkers Comeback . The much tinered with law of supply and demand is alive and well in th junk rtfi d strated Sundicate s There is a professor at Temple University called John Raines, a theologian who teaches courses in social ethics and religion, and is given nowadays to making prothe about nouncements plight of the American middle class, which if I may sav so, are on the order of someone breaking into a faculty meeting of MIT with the breathless news that he that the had discovered Prof. round. was world Raines has discovered that Mr. Buckley rwnnip in the middle class in That "why was explicitly explained Tuesday when Solzhenitsyn released a excerpt from the book dealing with a 1968 of the Soviet penal system. The 1968 section had not been previously published. two-wa- Star-New- Washington account of those times, even a derogatory one. After all, the crimes and atrocities of the Stalin era had been denounced by the late Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev, hadnt they? Then why all the flap? 1,500-wor- Cmon Prof, Editor, Tribune: There is one thing for certain, we are not a banana republic. We are a republic gone bananas. For a dozen years and more, we have witnessed an almost unbelievable division of Amencans on almost every conceivable issue. Instead of being the melting pot of various culwe have become a tures, races, and creeds cauldron of hatred, distrust, and condemnation of fellow citizens against other citizens. However, before anyone can cure any problem, one most have at least a vague idea of where the problem lies. And the bulk of it lies in Washington, D C. The federal government from Nixinger on down through the State Department, through the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the House of Representatives have originated and perpetrated most of our problems. As a body, they have consistently followed one cataclysmic decision with another. There is only one cure for the current American disaster. We need a new face, in every and no fellow travelplace, in American politics ers. We need bricklayers, carpenters, electricians, contractors, small businessmen, or whoever else maybe. LOWELL DURHAM Volunteers Editor Tribune: 1 was unable to be on the March of Dimes Telerama Feb. 2 and 3, due to being hospitalized with minor surgery. I, therefore, wish to take this opportunity to extend my grateful thanks to the thousands of Utah volunteers who have worked so hard on the Mothers March and the very successful Telerama. It is because of these great people that Utah ranks number one in the whole nation in March of Dimes per capita collections last year. This year looks even better Utah people are generous and great. JOE BERNOLFO State Chairman March of Dimes Theyll Be Proud Tribune: Someday perhaps be proud they have an Ettie Lee Home for w ayw ard girls. Editor, Draper will The good folks of Draper will be proud, that is, if they receive the girls with warmth, and if they go out of their way to provide the girls with something to do. Surely, even in dreams of a brighter Draper, there are hopes and future for everyone. GEORGE REID Sport Writers Better Editor, Tnbune: 1 would like to make a suggestion to your paper. You have a staff of very good sports writers who know their business and are able to distinguish a quarterback from an end. Your music reviews, however, are obviously suffering from lack of a sufficient budget. Still it would seem that with some care you could find a competent reviewer. May I suggest that one criteria be that such reviewer know the difference between an alto saxophone and a tenor saxophone. BERNARD PARKIN He has three children of college age, and they cost him each $5,000 per year. Two of them will go to professional school. Since my friend is in the foreign service, he has seldom livea where his children were near good public schools, so that at age, they went mostly to private schools. His school bills for the three children will total approximately $170,000. After taxes, food, rent, clothes, and maybe a cigarette every now and then, he figures he will have paid back the bank for his childrens schooling by the time he reaches, approximately, age 60. Moreover, the net rise in the actual purchasing power of the average American family, Prof. Raines has discovered, increased in the decade of the 1960s by only $1,160 per year or $96 per month. How much upward mobility does that asks Prof. Raines. Well, by the represent? worlds standards, a hell of a lot. But by American standards, its tough going. And then Prof. Raines, with that unerring academic eye for the false solution, tells us what he would do. What he would do is tax the top 1 percent more. He cannot understand it that the American middle class hasnt directed their "social anger and frustration at the top 1 percent of the economic scale, where I think it belongs. LGok at the Figures cant pick up the Statistical Abstract, or even the World Almanac, to keep from saying foolish things. In 1970 (I round off the figures) there were 59 million taxpayers. One percent of 59 million is 590,000. Now if you took everyone in America whose gross income was in excess of $50,000, you would come up with only 428,230 peopL. In other words, less than 1 percent of all Americans make more than $30,000. These people are paying a tax of on taxable income of $29.4 billion. $12.3 billion That leaves them with approximately $17 billion. And thats less, by one quarter, than $50,000 In other words, about $37,500 apiece if you take not a penny more in tax. When will the professors learn that the money doesnt exist up in those high brackets to run a rapid transit system let alone bring relief to the middle class. What the American middle class member suffers from is the high overhead of life. One wonders why full professors And the principal load on his shoulders is: .Government, for which he works approximately 18 weeks per year. You talk about lifting the burden on the middle class. If you take away 100 jiercent of the income of everyone making a million dollars a year, you have got yourself $624 million dollars. If the government increases its dependent exemption by $100, it takes $4 billion off the backs of the taxpayers. I hate to think of adding to the old man, but I wish he a course in economics burdens of the had treated young John to before sending him on to theology school. We are being told that the average Americans love affair" with the automobile is over. In our case, it was never more than a tentative acquaintanceship. The energy crisis has produced its own vocabulary, with words suen as shortfall and petrochemical, which may need explaining. Others need no translation, including "no gas. Interlandi Teachings Effective Editor, Tr.bune: That labor negotiations between teacher ; and districts should be placed on a two or three y ear basis seems to be acceptable to the parties concerned, (with the possible exception of Granite School District). I would, however, like to know on what basis you accept the idea that overtones of tension pervade the school system to such an extent as to erode effective teaching," (except for one idea you did mention, that being the "roundness of the earth")? Careful examination and research would reveal to you that in addition to the world being round, a great deal of effective teaching is going on in Granite School District and will continue to go on whether negotiations are in session or not. DANNY L. TALBOT' There are specials on Watergate, The Energy Crisis, Inflation, The Recession, and A Forecast of the Fall Election. Any preference? 4 I |