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Show 1 he salt I ake Tribune. Friday 'larch . 5, 192 ! f Chanpii Timo (hit Wtst What Has Watts Heritage to Do With His Interior Motives? By Bill Stall The Hartford Courant i was born in the West. I've lived in the West. That's my heritage. One of the criticisms I get is that youre so much of a westerner. " Yes I am because I'm a man of ranchers around Big Horn had tractors then Most people couldnt afford them anyway With our ranch came a huge team of work horses. Buck and Bally. Plodding and patient, they did everything. They pulled plows, seeders, discs to break up the dirt clots after plowing, the hay mower, the hay rake, the hay stacker, the hay wagon and the old 39 Chevvie pickup when it got stuck in snow or mud From November until May there was alway s plenty of mud or WATT SEEKS BILL TO A 10 WILDERNESS the land and I spent my entire youth working on the ranch. I know the land of the West differently from the way some of you know it. Some of you know it the first tivo weeks in August, but I know it with the bitter coldness and the winds and the driving rains. I've fixed the fence. Ive pumped water for the cattle. I know the land, and it's important to me because the wealth of a nation springs from its land. That's got to be taken care of. James snow G. Watt, 19S1 Whenever Jim Watt talks about his Wyoming heritage, I think about old Floyd Bard. Floyd and Mabel Bard lived next to us in a part of Big Horn, Wyo., known only as across the creek. It was called that because it was over on the other side of Little Goose Creek from the main part of town. At the time I was in about eighth grade, Floyd must have been around 75 and was still breaking horses. In fact, he kept his string in a little pasture just a Bill Stall is Washington bureau chief of The Hartford Courant. hundred feet down our dirt road. I remember being particularly fond of a young sorrel gelding he had. I bet that was some fine cow horse. Floyd was about 5 feet 6 inches tall. But he must have been a good 2 inches taller as a younger man, before his stubby legs became so bowed from being wrapped around the bellies of so many horses they looked like they had been shaped over a wine barrel. Floyd was a Wyoming cowman. From the middle of his forehead down, his face was old parchment: brown, wrinkled and dry. The rest of his forehead, up to the wispy white hair, was as pink as a new babys hind end. It was that way because, like many others of his age. Floyd spent most of his life outdoors and that dividing line between the parchment and the pink skin was precisely where the stained sweatband of a Stetson hat rested for damn near all his 75 years. Floyds generation spanned the evolution of America's last frontier: from the cattle empire of the 1870s and 1880s through the homesg and settler period to the teading, space age and the environmental age. It is the Wyoming of men like Floyd Bard that shaped Jim Watt, the man who now shapes so many of the nations environmental and energy polices. Watt says he is an environmentalist when he talks about living close to the land of the fragile West, and knowing that the land gives forth the wealth of the nation. He is i ight. The land can be fragile, but it also few ('In itoMun (rtiuiu If you cant l)eat em join cm! town-buildin- can be harsh and unforgiving. More often, until the bulldozers come, the people are more fragile than the land. Just drive through some of the dryland country between Sheridan and Gillette, out around places like Spotted Horse and Leiter and Arvada. Old windmills and abandoned frame buildings are the tombstones of hundreds of failed homesteads and shattered dreams. Things had not changed a whole lot from the early days of the century until my folks cut their city ties in the East and bought 160 acres and a heap of trouble on the outskirts of Big Horn, population 144, in the Little Goose Valley at the foot of the Big Homs. It was wartime and gasoline was scarce. Probably not more than half a dozen of the Tribune Readers Opinions j Initially I viewed the furor being raised over censorship of cable TV with some bemusement. It appears another case of those who have not yet come to grips with the physical nature of their existence in a body of flesh attempting to protect the rest of the world from their own limitations. After reading the letter by Rep. Selleniet, it appears to be more a case of political grandstanding in an attempt to out righteous the folks back home for votes come election time. And to do so with the claim of Protecting our children. Brother! It is exactly this guilt ridden, attitude about sex and our nature as sexual beings that contributes to the fear of honesty in our young people that leads to Utah having one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the country and which leads to a situation requiring laws be passed compelling birth counseling agencies to reveal that our sons and daughters are seeking their services. If our relationships with our children are so poor that viewing our own epidermis on TV is threatening to their sense of values (unless of course such epidermis is black, as in a National Geographic special) then we have failed far beyond the limit of the law. STEVEN BLACK, R.N. up-tig- ht Haing Trouble 1 have a little trouble buying the almost continous harange that President Reagan is keeping money from and hurting the poor, etc., etc., ad nauseam. Just 16 years ago President Johnsons was spending $35 billion a "Great Society less than 30 year on social welfare programs percent of the budget; Ronald Reagans administration however is spending $350 billion a thousand percent increase and over a year 50 percent of the budget on the same programs! Who are the whiners kidding? R. D. ARNER Back Wrong War It has been amusing to me to watch the U.S. Senators traipsing off to El Salvador with their ideas and little chance of learning the truth during their short stay. They are our instant experts. Why is it that human rights violations are largely ignored when Russia, China, and Cuba slaughter their opposition? Why does Edward Asner love the rebel forces in El Salvador more than the rebel Afghan forces? HoW can there be peace on earth as long as certain members of the United Nations stridently proclaim their support for wars of liberation?" Is killing OK as long as nuclear weai on.s are not used? If the people of El Salvador really supported these rebel forces the government would have been overthrown long ago, and the rebels would not have to destroy so many of the towns and villages. For examples of genuine liberation movements look at the Hungarian freedom fighters of the 1950s, or the Solidarity movement in present day Poland. Why confine "wars of i to those nations singled out by liberation Russia, China, and Cuba? I recommend that the United States also and that we support wars of liberation. begin by assisting the oppressed people under those dictatorships that are exporting terrorism and fomenting strife and murders among their neighbors. WENDELL E. EVENSEN Ways to Cut I would like to respond to your Feb. 9 editorial that critics of Reagans budget should suggest a better way. You suggest there is nothing to do but (1) raise taxes, (2) reduce defense spending, and (3) reduce domestic programs. You ask, Whats left to do? I can think of alternatives. First, make our tax structure more fair and by doing so bring in more money to the Forum Rule Public Forum letters must be submitted exclusively to The Tribune and bear writer's 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 writer's true name. All letters are subject to condensation. Mail to the Public Forum. The Salt Lake Tribune. Box 867, Salt Lake City, Utah. 84110. government. There are too many tax loopholes, shelters, etc., that are abused by the wealthy, no matter how legal they may be. For example, the IRS investigated many pdople donating gifts to BYU at exorbitant values of their true worth and then deducting if from their tax bill. President Nixon paid about $750 income tax one year on a $250,000 salary because he gave his There are personal papers as a tax write-of- f. thousands of examples of this among the wealthy. Just look at the new tax lienefit U S. Congressmen recently received. The tax falls on the backs of the salaried individual and family with no tax shelter. Yet President Reagans tax cuts favor the rich. Incentive plans such as IRA are not being used by wage earners struggling to buy food, shelter and clothing, but those in high tax brackets. Bank advertisements are aimed at people eating in a plush restaurant, not the lunch crowd at McDonalds. If the government would make everyone pay his fair share of taxes, then the budget would be balanced. The solution: simply tax every person who earns a dollar 20 percent of his gross income, right off the top. This would bring in enough to run the government and pay its deficits. Then that great economist of the Federal Reserve Board, Paul Volcker, would lower interest rates, the unemployed would go back to work, and begin paying their 20 percent. When the individual pays his fair share, make industry pay theirs. I believe it was in 1979. that Ford Motor Co. made millions in net profit and never paid one dime in taxes, but a bunch in dividends. L. C. DAVIS Starling Place I am continually amazed at the fact that "common sense is not so common in Utah. I am referring to Betty Jo Kramers opinion (Forum Feb. 24) that a family of 13 with an income of $30,000 is deserving of subsidized school lunches because pecile of this state value a large family. One can only ask, "Where would we be if every family irresponsibly leproduced itself beyond its income? If she really feels each of us should do our part toward balancing the budget, perhaps charity and good planning should begin at home. PAULETTE THOMPSON Kaysville The Way It Was Here are briefs of The Salt Lake Tribune from 100, 50 and 25 years ago: March 5, 1882 The Utah Legislature has but four days remaining out of the sixty allowed for its session. Its work has been so scandalously delayed that everything of import is yet pending. A dozen or so acts have been passed, of no special interest to anybody, except only the amendment to the charter of Salt Lake City. The four remaining days will have to bear at least ninety-fiv- e percent of the work of the session as to the bulk, while in importance, what is yet back, pretty nearly amounts to the full hundred percent. March 5, 1932 In response to the invitation issued by members of The Tribune chapter of the Knighthood of Youth, hundreds of girls are preparing to attend the big doll party Saturday afternoon in the Tribune auditorium. For the last three days, girls have been bringing to The Tribune the unusual and beautiful dolls that will be on display at the doll show March 5, 1957 nationally recognized educator sees a definite need for establishment of a junior college in Salt Lake City. Dr. Jesse P. Bogue, executive secretary of the American Association of Junior Colleges, said such a college could fill a variety of needs for both the city and the state. Less demanding facilities might result in some economy in education beyond the high school, he added. Dr. Bogue arrived Monday for the 37th annual convention of the association, which opens Tuesday in Hotel Utah. Some 600 delegates from throughout the United States are expected. Establishment of a junior college in Salt Lake City would help substantially in taking the student load off the University of Utah, the junior college man explained. A But Teddy Roosevelt sent his men out with the wire cutters and he opened the land to the people The old cattle empire died. "So how do I tell you that 1 have these (environmental) values0" Watt asks "1 can't prove it You cant prove you're better environmentalists (hail I and vice versa " That may be so But the Wyoming Watt seems to remember the Wyoming that stood frozen in time for so much of the 20th Century has changed. It is rapidly becoming the land of the bulldozer, dragline, oil rig, seismic coal train There truck, boom town and 100-cis a rich coal vein up near my sister's place on Tongue River and there may be near Big Horn, too. And oil, perhaps up by Floyd Bard's old cow camp on Lake Geneva In one breath, Jim Watt talks about growing uti in Wyoming, and how that made him an environmentalist. In the next, he speaks of the need to develop the West to develop the lands that have been "locked up" by the environmen-tals- . Congress set aside wilderness areas for the people to enjoy. They are not locked up. .Anyone can go. There are no barriers. There are no fees. Their status can be changed by Congress at anytime Wyoming is 20 times the size of Connecticut Only a fraction of it is wilderness. There are millions of acres of public land that are open to oil and mineral exploration and development, and to every sort of recreation for those who do not want to hike or ride horseback into the wilderness. Those areas, some of them but not nearly all, are being explored and developed now. That is why Evanston is overwhelmed with oil field workers with no housing, overcrowded schools, overwhelmed overburdened police force everything. The same has been true in Gillette and Rock Springs and Green River. They have become virtual instant slums. Jim Watt cites his Wyoming heritage as he charts the course of the nation's resources That is fine. 1 can share that But it has little to do w iili what is happening in the West today. Mike Ko ko The Public Forum Mav Have Failed About then. Jim Watt was a year younger than I. growing up in ranch life near Wheatland, about 200 miles to the south country pretty much like Big Horn although more out on the plains and a little drier and not so protected from Laramie Peak as we were from the Big Homs. In those days, everyone heled each other You had to. No one called it "volunteensm." The weather was always unpredictable and it was a scramble to get the hay stacked before it got rained or hailed on. So we would take Buck and Bally over to the Bensons or the Olsons and put up their hay and they would come to our place and help us. Later, when we had milk cows, the neighUirs all would take turns hauling the milk to town each day in cans. During the environmental decade of the 1970s, a lot of ranch people talked about being the first conservationists. In a way they were of necessity. Most of our ranch neighbors had little money and everything got used. To make it. you had to scratch the most out of everything. Bailing wire was an essential repair tool for almost everything. Binder the burlap bags that twine, too. Gunny sacks feed and grain came in served as foot wipers in the winter and. soaked with water, helped beat out grass fires in the summer. Much as Ronald Reagan recalls of his youth, we didnt consider ourselves poor. I knew about ration stamps and war bonds and war savings stamps, but had never heard of welfare or relief. Even in the 1940s and 1950s, living in Big Horn was like living on the edge of the frontier. The entire civilized history of the area (if you ignore the Sioux, the Crow and Cheyenne who prized this region for its hunting) was only a generation away. The fathersnd grandfathers of people I knew, and of my schoolmates, were the founders of the town. Malcolm Wallops grandfather was a pioneer rancher up Little Goose Creek near Little Goose Canyon where we used to go for picnics. The Wallops were among the many English and Scots who came to Wyoming in the 1870s and 80s to ranch. They raised horses and helped supply the British with mounts during the Boer War. Malcolm Wallop is now the senior U S. senator from Wyoming. Out of my high school graduating class of 13. I can think, offhand, of four who went to college. Most stayed around Big Horn although (he number of jobs and opportunities for i duelling dwindled. In 1962, Jim Watt left Wyoming to work in Washington for Sen Milward Simpson, the father of the other current Wyoming senator Today, he is back in Washington as the director of an agency that manages virtually all of the nation's public lands. Wyoming cattlemen back in the good old days would have liked Ronald Reagan and Jim Watt In 19(H), the cattle boys were being pushed around by Washington, D C. The bureaucrats were, of all things, making them take down the fences with which they had tried to expropriate the public lands for themselves and to keep the settlers out people like Jnn Watt's granddad When word of Theodore Roosevelt's election as president got out. the cattlemen were ecstatic for Roosevelt was an old North Dakota rancher He knew their problems. Old Teddy knows grass is worthless until a cow sticks her nose down in it." said one rancher. "He's one of us " News From Holy Molar: God Takes on IRS Chicago occasionally hear from people who claim they have been in direct communication with Sun-Tim- I God. By that, I devil.) dont mean that they have a spiritual sense of the existence of a diety, or that they try to live by the teachings of a religion. They say they actually hear from him. He talks to them in plain English. Some say he whispers messages in their ears. Or they hear his voice thundering commands in their brain. One woman told me that she receives her messages through a metal dental filling in one of her teeth, a left-sid- e molar, I believe. to Ive talked several people who say they not only hear from God, but sometimes see him. In a couple of cases, he has popped up on the street, appearing out of nowhere or descending slowly from the rooftops. Another told me he is sure he saw God one night firecely staring into his bedroom window. Since he lived on the eighth floor, it had to be either God or Spider Dan Goddwin. Then theres the man who has been telling me that God appears on his TV screen. The repairman insists that its just an electronic shadow caused by interference, and recommended an outdoor antenna, but he doesnt believe that and suspects the repairman is in league with the devil. The people who believe they are hearing heavenly messages have difficulty convincing others. That may be because most of them have a strange gleam in their eyes, and they tend to ramble in their conversations and walk around in a daze. Some stand on street comers, or in front of public buildings, wearing n signs and waving their arms and bellowing about what God told them over breakfast that very morning. Most people hurry by or, if cornered, say: I see. Well, uh, thats very interesting. Best of luck, bye. These receivers of messages are generally considered to be nuts. Harmless nuts, in most cases, but nuts just the same. If you doubt that, just turn to the person next to you where you work or in a bar and say: God spoke to me this morning. I heard his voice in my ear. He gave me an important message. Watch how their jaws drop and how nervous they become and how quickly they move away. And that really seems unfair, especially when you consider how many people are doing well, financially and professionally, by saying essentially the same thing. If you flip your TV dial away from the major stations and watch some of the UHF stations, it's just a matter of time before you see some corn-pon- e preacher who will tell you in great detail what God told him in their most recent conversation. (One of the things God almost always tells him is that he should ask you to send him a few dollars to help finance the war against Satan. I've never understood why the hand-lettere- same preachers who say that money is useless in fighting poverty, ignorance, lack of education and social injustice insist that great sums of money are needed in the fight against the anti-Sata- Uh-hu- ( And now Bob Jones, one of the nations most prosperous fundamentalist preachers, has disclosed that he recently had a vivid vision of God taking an interest in his affairs. The vision, which he talked about at a rally in suburban Chicago, had to do with Jones running feud with the federal governments tax collectors. Jones is president of Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., and hes angry because the fundamentalist school has been denied status because of its racial policies. What Jones saw in his vision was this: God was rolling up his sleeves and doubling up his fists." Why? Because, Jones says, the federal government is just waiting to be socked in the nose by God almighty. Thats one of the more interesting visions I've heard about in a long time. Most visions of God with his temper riled feature lightning bolts being thrown from above, walls collapsing, winds blowing, dark clouds filling the skies, great waves rolling in from the sea, and other dramatic special effects. I can't recall any of the people who contact me about their visions having seen God roll up his sleeves and clench his fists like a barroom fighter. Unfortunately, Jones did not go into further detail on his vision, so a number of questipns are unanswered. Did God have brawny arms? Did he have a tattoo? And since he had sleeves, what was he a flowing white robe? A denim wearing shirt? And did he say anything specific about who he was going to punch in the nose? That's important, because if God didnt tell Jones something like Bob, ol buddy. Im going to punch the federal government right in the nose for what they done to you. hear? Then how-caJones be sure exactly who God is planning on punching in the nose? For all we know, Gxi might have been indicating that he was going to punch Jones's nose. Or it could be that he was rolling up his sleeves to do some chores. After all, if hes the kind of diety who is not above rolling up his sleeves to throw punches, he could also be capable of putting up and taking down the storm windows. But if Jones is right. Ins vision is of great theological, as well as iwlitical, significance. Its the first indication that God is against the Internal Revenue Service, which would be good news. If thats true, though, I would be surprised. Despite what Jones said, I would have to ask this question: If God doesnt like the IRS, why did he create so many W-- forms? 2 (Copyright) Remember back when an automobile going down the street attracted as much attention as a horse does now0 |
