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Show qi i tf ' f, h PqmnJunt on Fnltral Grant --- In' f , , Salt be Sunday Morning, April Section Cuts Dont Intimidate Black Groups a k e (Tribune 1!), 1981 lj. A Easters Scaring Light Toss of the D'Urbervilles, (Tess on film) Thomas Hardy cites the chronic melancholy which is taking hold of the civilized races with the decline of belief in a beneficent Power. In his novel Five years later, in 1896, he wrote in Jude the Obscure, that a new breed of boys unknown to is growing the last generation to (of lifes) see all seem up: They terrors before they are old enough to resist them. .It is the beginning of the universal wish not to live. . The canny Hardys long-ag- o insight is hardly the stuff of which Easter commentary is made. These two examples are the an-"- i tithesis of the Easter message yet the contrast is useful and the observation valid. If the beginnings of a wish not "'to live could be detected in the v; rural Wessex (Dorset) of Hardys England almost a century ago, that desire must be in full flower in - modem America with its spiraling murder and suicide rates and the yearning of so many of its people obfor escape to drug-induce- d livion. Easter, with its ancient message of renewal and the triumph of life over death through belief in a beneficent Power, is thus a spar of saving hope tossing in the heaving sea of wrecked lives. Hardy had early in life considered becoming a clergyman. But, says critic Irving Howe, the perceptive novelist and poet was forced through the pain of integrity, to surrender a faith by which childhood had been warmed and moral sentiments forged, and to By Herbert H. Denton When leaders WASHINGTON rights organizations criticize President Reagans proposed budget cuts for hurting the accept a mechanistic universe, one containing neither inherent purpose nor moral quality. That kind of universe is many times more evident today and in the dark void that is its despairing legacy the timeless Easter message of rejuvenation is a searing light. bitant $135 an hour. His service, at this absolutely handsome fee, will no longer be needed. Also, the attorneys say the settlement becomes even more financially attractive when it is recognized it halted a class action suit that might settle the dispute between the city possibly have involved damage n and Geraldine is a awards to every woman who has small contingent of attorneys and Ms. worked for the city in the past five Kurth-Robinso- Kurth-Robinso- n. Thats because years. everybody involved agreed to keep this spending of public monies a deep, dark secret. Dr. Jim Rand, the citys personnel director, says it is perfectly legal because state law allows personnel records to be kept confidential. Thats all right, possibly. After all, personnel records contain considerable personal information and a person is entitled to some degree of protection of his or her privacy. Such can not be said about the expenditure of public monies, however. Those funds are collected, coerced some might say, from the public and the public is absolutely, no strings attached, entitled to a full, accurate and timely accounting of how and for what every last penny is Spent. The citys lawyers argue that the settlement was a good bargain, citing among other things the cost of hiring another out of town expert, a San Francisco attorney whose services cost citizens an exor And . out-of-cou- rt The settlement might be well the very bargain the and Dr. Rand would have attorneys citizens believe it is. But taxpayers have no real basis on which to make a out-of-cou- rt similar judgement because poor, they do not mention another concern the potential effect of the reductions on the civil rights groups themselves. Little noticed in the years since the Great Society of the 1960s has been the millions of dollars civil rights groups have received in federal contracts and funds to administer government programs. President Reagans economic recovery plan, w;th its deep cuts in federal funding for social programs, has caused cold sweat and tremors at the headquarters of civil rights organizations, which will be forced to lay off workers and cut operations if the reductions are approved. Receive $100 Million a Year The National Urban League and its affiliates in 46 cities take in about $100 million a year in federal grants and contracts, principally to administer jobs training programs. Jesse Jacksons Operation PUSH receives only about $2 million in federal funds but d or more of his these account for annual budget. Indeed, at least 10 of the 15 groups in the Black Leadership Forum, the loose federation of the major black advocacy organizations, have accepted federal dollars at one time or another. The NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the group the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. founded, have received small federal grants for one-shprojects, but as a matter of policy both have refrained from undertaking continuing administration of large federal programs. Our Role is Unique "We jump on government too much to have to depend on them for survival . . . Im not criticizing those organizations that do, said the Rev. Joseph E. Lowerys, who now heads SCLC. "Our role is unique. We are a fiercely independent advocacy agency. We may be poorer but were freer. Jackson and Vernon Jordan, president of the National Urban League, and their allies defend acceptance of federal dollars. They point to their many speeches criticizing the social Carter and now policies of Reagan as evidence the money did not compromise them. In many instances, they say, federal aid allowed them to expand projects they had initiated with their own money. Some ask, if they had not come forward to be the agents in black communities for Great Society programs, who else would have? What those programs represented was a joint venture, Jordan said. We are there as a middle partner, a broker, and that brokerage I think is necessary in the successful implementation of government programs. These are effective programs. one-thir- Hidden From View How much does it cost the taxpayers of Salt Lake City to settle discrimination suits out of court? '$1,000? $10,000? Who knows? At the moment about the only people who have any idea of how much public funding was expended to of civil the price tag is presently concealed under lock and key in the confidential files of the citys personnel department. Lawyers for the city might be able to find statutes permitting them and other city officials to make secret, unaccounted for, expenditures of public monies, but that doesn't make clandestine spending any more palatable. Or politically smart. ot then-preside- Jackson says his group always took the position not to seek government grants, For that matter, governmental secrecy of the kind demonstrated in n the paying off of Ms. is an abhorrent affront to the publics right to know what public officials are doing with the money they have involuntarily contributed toward the care and maintenance of those offi- because of the ol hanky-pankThat is why each grant we took was offered to us. The civil rights groups have been scrambling to get an audience with Secretary of Labor Raymond J. Donovan and administration budget-cutterThese efforts have not been marked by the kind of unity that the civil rights groups have demonstrated on other matters. My sense is that this is kind of every man for himself, said one Washington political operative with long ties to civil rights groups. Youre talking for some of those folks about organizational survival. Coalitions dont work too well when the question is organizational survival. Jordan did get in to see Donovan and subsequently received commitments to continue funding for most of his programs at least until September. Jackson and others so far have been rebuffed and the Labor Department has asked Jackson to meet with officials to negotiate termination of his programs. Going Out of Their Way Jackson angrily complains, I think theyre going out of their way in the attempt to punish us because of our support for Carter and our outspokenness on what he consider to be the presidents Laetrile approach to economic cancer. The flow of federal dollars to civil rights and the Urban groups began in the League got a big boost during the Nixon administration. That group and subsequently the others became adept at playing the grants game on a high level, pulling the appropriate levers both in the executive branch and on Capitol Hill. There is a line in federal jobs training legislation in which Congress suggests that the Urban League be favored for funds set aside for distribution at the secretary of labors discretion. Jackson has a similar line in federal education legislation for his federally funded PUSH-EXCEprogram to instill and a desire to succeed in high school students. Assistant Labor Secretary Ernest Green was the principal contact for civil rights organizations in the Carter administration. Green, the first black graduate of Little Rock Central High School in the stormy school desegregation battles in the South in the late 1950s, later had worked in New York running a firm, RTP Inc., that prepared poor youths for jobs in the construction trades. Aware of Generosity We knew that the people over at Labor, principally Ernie Green, were being generous to those (civil rights) groups, said a senior Carter administration policy adviser. The adviser recalled how the Carter White House would seek to avoid cutting jobs funds in the episodic efforts to reduce federal spending because officials knew that both because of this reasons of ideology and of our from would bring on squawking friends in the civil rights organizations. In December after the campaign and in January, up until the day before President Reagan was sworn in, Green and aides at the s. mid-196- L self-intere- st Former lawyer Edwin Meese III, now a top counselor to President Reagan, made this apt observation during a speech to a California A good sheriffs meeting in San Rafael: portion (of criminal trials) is taken up with running psychiatrists for both sides telling all the things wrong with the accused. The way psychiarists are now pushed and tugged and, in effect, compromised with their medical standards in order to provide testimony for one side or the other this is a We havent disgrace to their profession. consulted either hot or cold running shrink lately but we have long observed the complaint of which Mr. Meese speaks. However, it isnt confined to this one profession, Ed. Experts in all lines come hot and cold, upside down or downside up, over or under, any way the client last-minu- Funded by Two Budgets At the Urban League headquarters in New York, the staff of more than 300 is funded undqr two budgets. The feneral fund of $5 milliqp comes from corporate and foundation contribu- tions and supports less than half the staff. Tfye rest comes from a special projects fund ef about $20 million that is financed by thefederal government. Urban League affiliates receive about $80 million from other government grants. , Said Jordan, The budget cuts will not cdt the Urban League out of business. It will cut back special project funding that deliver services to black people. But it is clear that reliance on federal dollar's has put the groups in an awkward position as they prepare to battle the administration over its deep cuts in social programs, a battle that an overwhelming majority of black people across the nation want them to win. Jordan said firmly: I am less concerned about the impact of the budget cuts on the Urban League than I am about the overall K impact on poor people. Said Jackson: I will not betray our people just to keep a grant. We intend to march in Washington against these budget cuts thfs spring. Im not marching for a grant. Im marching against the budget cuts and for, a more humane consideration. In the meantime, he said he intends to fight to keep his grants. Our point is were not going to lay dead, roll over. We deserve equal protection under law under any administration. (Copyright) AI Haig Heads Off Mideast Advances wants. The expert witnesses are on the verge of cancelling themselves back into the legal limbo from which they sprang. A Learning Experience It was a masterpiece of understatement; the observation of the President of the United States that I found out it hurts to be shot." Perhaps, however, with this sort of enlightenment Mr. Reagan will consequently be more inclined toward championing the cause for realistic, enforceable and restrictive handgun legislation; increasingly sympathetic to the plight of the millions of Americans who served their country in Vietnam and particularly the hundreds of thousands of those veterans who also "found out it hurts to be shot; and, most knowledge importantly, with his recognize that by the increasing bellicosity expressed by his administration over such issues as El Salvador the risks increase many fold that thousands of young Americans may soon also be the possessors of the same grim knowledge Mr. Reagan has so recently, gruesomely and cruelly acquired. still-secr- mope new-foun- d successive, long-ag- o city pavements and troltrack remnants. One cant help notice how careful the company has been in trying to interfere as little as possible with traffic flows, intimately, however, it isnt how meticulously the street is dug up which will leave the most lasting impression, but, rather, how well it is put back together. ley Some administration officials believe that an of attitude less assertiveness and more conciliation might make possible a peace initiative to which Jordan and Saudi Arabia could subscribe. Some dramatic initiative, the equivalent of Sadats first trip to Jerusalem, may be required. Who could make such a gesture, and how, they do not know yet. Their hope is that the procedures laid down for consultations at Camp David could perhaps be expanded into a new round of peace talks with the European initiative on the agenda. Right now, none of the parties not the Arabs or the Israelis or the Americans are entirely satisfied with the European initiative.I The Arabs, of course, are delighted with the Europeans eagerness to hear Arab viewpoints, including that of the PLO, which they recognise is motivated by Europes heavy dependence on Arab oil. But they complain that the Europeans are too worried about offending the United States. The Arabs particularly object to .a proposal, said to be included in a draft of the European initiative, to hold a referendum among the Palestinians. , The Europeans would give Palestinians 'a choice: complete independence, federation with Jordan or federation with Israrel. The PLO fears that such a referendum would undermine its claim to be sole representative of the Palestinian people. The PLO is also unhappy about the Europeans reported willingness to adjust the frontiers with Israel of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They oppose suggestions that the Palestinian area be demilitarized. Recognition of the Palestinian right to statehood, they say, should come before the question of security. A proposed ban on sales of arms to all involved in a future peace agreement is equally distasteful to the Palesti' nians. Officials of the Reagan administration, lilte their counterparts in the Carter administration, are not hostile to the European Initiative. After Haig met the British foreign secretary last Friday in London to discuss their differing approaches to Middle East peace, a U.S. spokesman said they had agreed that neither pnnppnt PvnliiHprt th p nthpr Israeli change Mountain Bell has been expert and engaging in ripping up the middle of State St. as that areterial runs through downtown Salt Lake City. The excavation, to acocommodate a new phone cable, is perfectly straight and uniformly deep. It affords fascinating glimpses; similar to an archeologic workplace, at re-to- ol ar Reagan Not Ready cials. Street Seen reductions 1 exports will give us just the tlttie ' we need to our customers! n Kurth-Robinso- Random Shots Too Many Experts Labor Department processed millions of dolin grants to labor unions, consulting firms and the civil rights organizations. The Urban League, the National Council for Negro Women, the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Social Change, the National Urbdn Coalition and Jacksons Operation PUSH were among the recipients. Much of Jacksons $2 million two-yegrailt went for the establishment here of a research institute, giving PUSH for the first time a national presence in Washington. It is one of several of the grants, referred to 8s the Midnight Specials in the Reagan Labor Department, now slated for termination. Another $8.6 million grant went to Greens . former firm, RTP Inc. Green said he wanted to get the funds out to ensure that the organizations would continue to operate because it was clear the Reagan administration intended to cut the programs benefiting them. Jackson said he intends to fight efforts to end his federal funding and Jordan said he hopes to persuade the administration of the value of the programs the Urban League administers. But, both said in interviews, their groups would survive without the money. If they cut this room off of the house that we attached, then we will simply let that room fall off the house, Jackson said. But we will still be warm in the wintertime. lars By Dana Adams Schmidt Special to The Los Angeles Times As sectretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr, traveled throughout the Middle East recently he found representatives of the West European states looking over his shoulder, suggesting this, criticizing that and offering alternatives to the Camp David plan. This which origiEuropean initiative, nated at the Venice meeting of European states in June 1980 and has been spearheaded since by the British foreign secretary, Lord Carrington, is a proposal to do what the Unjted States cannot do at a time when the United States can do very little in the Middle East. The Europeans say: You Americans are unwilling to talk to the Palestine Liberation Organization. We Europeans can and will talk to them, and this could be useful in breaking the stalemate in the Middle East. Right now it is generally agreed that the Reagan administration cannot move far. It is inhibited by its own newness and by the need to wait for the Israeli elections in June and the visits to Washington that will follow from Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and the new Israeli prime minister. Only after that the United States will be able to formulate its Middle East policy. Haig undertook his tour precisely because of this hiatus in the formation of U.S. policy toward the Middle East. He recognized that Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachen Begin both want to come to Washington to Dana Adams Schmidt, a former Middle East correspondent, Is writing a book about the Persian Gulf area. consult the new administration, and he decided to head them off until the administration is prepared. The administration has no illusion that the Labor government that will probably emerge from the Israeli elections will be any easier to deal with than Begins Likud government. But policymakers in Washington are hoping at least for small concessions, such as cessation of new Israeli settlements on .he Jordans West Ronlr thot mav trot tha ontnnomv tallre ooina i i |
