| Show - - ---- - I COMPVIAR'Y I Editorial Desk: 237-201- Al4 THURSDAY September 5 1991 9 I L Zbe5nto k 1 Ito: kil ''' :: 4 1 local survivalists youth gangs and white supremacists could have created a misimpression that Utahns are increasingly bpinning off from the mainstream into fringes of disaffection While manifestations of intolerance can plague any society and probably are no more prevalent in Utah than elsewhere they could nonetheless escalate if the community fails to address them rest The survivalists who have combined their Mormon beliefs with radical political conservatism to predict and prepare for Armageddon suspect that the Soviet Union now is feigning weakness to war with gain the advantage in the United States Not only is the Soviet Union the "chief evil" of the world leaders of The American Study Group say but George Bush's "new world order" is part of a global conspiracy This group's strategy includes building and stocking shelters and arming themselves against "tyrants" The group claims 5000 followers all-o- ut anti-soci- neo-Naz- is Come to the Fair As a showcase of Americana State University is known almost as much for sending scientific experiments into space aboard NASA shuttles as it is for its agricultural science Despite all of this Utah and the larger nation cling to their rural heritage It was after all a nation of yeoman farmers who brought democracy into flower on this continent even as they tamed the land Rural life and values shaped this society So perhaps now more than ever the Utah State Fair which opens today is a touchstone for a way of life It's a physical manifestation of the state's historic and social roots an annual ritual and pageant of the past mixed happily with the sounds trends and people of today But enough of this philosophizing When it comes down to it the fair mostly is a lot of fun So take your family your spouse your significant other or just yourself and head out to the Fairpark at North Temple and 1000 West sometime in the next 11 days Buy a corn dog and immerse yourself in an American tradition the Utah State Fair it's tough to beat the Utah State Fair Carnival barkers corn dogs a rodeo hucksters hawking the latest kitchen knife country and western music twanging from the grandstand stage the biggest pumpkin the most luscious peaches the prettijar of est wedding dress the kid with the most freckles Rabbits chickens sheep dairy cows pigs pigeons and horses — lots of 'em It's amazing how many popular images of American life particularly rural life can be found at a state fair When the Utah State Fair debuted in 1856 Utah was a farming state The United States was a land of rural folk In 1991 both state and nation are overwhelmingly urban Why just yesterday The Salt Lake home-canne- d Tribune carried a story reporting that the US Census Bureau has declared Logan the capital of Utah agriculture one of the nation's newest officially designated urbanized areas Logan the home of the Aggies an urbanized area? It's almost incomprehensible until one stops to remember that today Utah Congratulations Trappers the team also sets seemingly annual records for attendance by a (70 games) professional team This season the Trappers crossed the 200000 mark in home attendance the first team ever to do so While the Trapper organization can take much of the credit for drawing such numbers to Derks Field with their creative promotions the numbers also underline the support for professional baseball in this community support that should be channeled into the movement to bring a higher classification of baseball (ie Triple-A- ) to Salt Lake City But such a movement is hardly the concern of the Trapper players They just arrived here in June brought together to compete against players who were deemed better than they are by major league organizations They wound up winning the championship and proving once again the wisdom of giving a man a second chance The underlying human drama of Salt Lake Trappers baseball — that of rejected men pursuing a second chance — would be perennially compelling rerecord gardless of the team's won-loThat the Trappers are collectively successful however is worthy of acclaim The Trappers won the 1991 Pioneer League championship at Derks Field Tuesday night They did it with players who arrived here with the same scarlet letter — "U" for undrafted by any league organization — stamped on past Trappers Still they became champions just 11 weeks after allowing 38 three-gamruns in a Idaho Falls sweep in This is the fourth time in their seven years of existence that the Trappers have won the Pioneer League championship They have had only one losing record is a season and their seven-yea- r short-seaso- n st short-seaso- major-- e g 305-18- 2 In addition to the championships n oorfI attwOW Dit61 oprtioparenvec Alir: r a riv'rl17 tfiriiviciAlt111 : FOlit'fiti e 1A'kb' it 1 0 0 - -- 1 4' : 111 1 OVVII 61441eilw4 1 0 11rt a44 4 It v k 7 ottportv t-l- k '411"11 Ilik A "viiz4 4 sL I ''' '---- v st ' - flö -- - 4kNki 4A-111" - - s Gogo-'' ' o 44111 ' it er: ' is‘p A tAril drnor -- P1111-t- - ' Of - till'M:' ) rALtiA OL s i c A iTP- ' IT - '' ' )11:::-::- 'il! - - ? 4 3111LNA it vN0 dIIIIP'"' —4 e‘- I - 61:33 3 A Lk e ''' it 1 ' itls 1111111141A g 100111111 410 tI " Illik 01411kor q iv - 41111- ': 10-"- 10— ‘ - - iii et c lir 144- if - J t ' J A Television Set's View of the World More Perfect Union' Echoes in Moscow NEW YORK TIMES SERVICE BOSTON — It is Moscow 1991 But at times it could almost be Philadelphia 1787 In the anxious voices of those trying to reshape what was the Soviet Union one hears some of the same conflicting concerns that preoccupied the framers of the American Constitution: fear of authority and fear of chaos the demand for local political independence and the recognition of economic interdependence We forget we ahistorical Americans how divided the 13 original states were how jealous of their individual sovereignty After winning independence from Britain they joined together in only a weak utterly ineffectual confederation What drove them toward "a more perfect Union" as the Constitution put it — what overcame localism — was economic trouble The states put tariffs on each other's goods and trade was dying Even then James Madison and Alexander Hamilton had to struggle against odds to persuade the states to send delegates to the Philadelphia Convention The Soviet people have lived for more than 70 years with a tyranny more complete — totalitarianism — than the 18th century knew It is no wonder that members of the Supreme Soviet want rea law as Depstraints on official power Zolotukhin Vladimir put it to make uty sure the president and "everybody complies with the law" Americans had had But their experience with George III and fear of centralized power was a dominant factor in the drafting of the Constitution That is why the framers divided power 18th-centur- y te 10" Anthony Lewis It 4 between the states and the center and among the branches of the federal government The intricate constitutional structure of divided powers was still not enough to reassure Americans In 1791 just four years after the convention 10 amendments were added — the Bill of Rights — to protect individuals from abuse of official power And here again we can find similar concerns in the Soviet Union today Alexander Bessmertnykh the former foreign minister complained bitterly the other day that he was being wrongly accused of passivity toward the coup "It's not my duty to prove what I say is true" he said "Let them prove my guilt" In short the burden of proof should be on the state — as in our system Valentin Fa lin reformist chief of the Communist Party's international department expressed outrage at the fact that prosecutors had ordered a search of his home without proper authority Our Fourth Amendment protects against illegal searches and seizures Another member of the Supreme Soviet Nadezhda Popova denounced officials for closing down a war veterans' organization on suspicion of activity pro-cou- p Time to Forgive 'Racist' NORTH AMERICA SYNDICATE MONTGOMERY Ala — George Corley Wallace the former Alabama governor who once was regarded as one of the nation's most destructive racists writhed on his sickbed recently and told me of the thing he regrets most in his 72 years of life He says his biggest mistake came during his 1963 inaugural as governor when he stood on a spot in the state Capitol and shouted: "Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" "I never should have said it because it wasn't true" said Wallace who lay for interview on a most of an almost bed trying to ease the pains hospital-typthat he has known since a bullet from would-bassassin Arthur Bremer parathe waist down during the him from lyzed 1972 presidential election campaign Wallace said that his health (his hearing is almost gone but his mind seemed sharp) has nothing to do with his stance in favor of racial integration now He says he realized in 1964 a year into his first term as governor that racial segregation could not survive "I saw then that a house divided could not stand — that black and white people had to live with each other" he said Then why I asked him did he say "segregation forever"? Why did he stand in the door to block the admission of two black youngsters to the University of Alabama? Why in his 1970 campaign did he run ads saying "UNLESS WHITES VOTE ON JUNE 2 BLACKS WILL CONtwo-ho- e e 41114ral - "When I first ran for governor Carl I had to stand up for segregation or be defeated but I never insulted black people by calling them inferior" he said "That statement in 1963 about 'segregation forever' and my stand in the classroom door reflected my vehemence my belligerence against the federal court system that seemed tu be taking over everything in the South I didn't write those words about segregation now tomorrow and forever I saw them in the speech written for me and planned to skip over them But the windchill factor was 5 below zero when I gave that speech I started reading just to get it over and read those words without thinking I have regretted it all Carl T Rowan tt-- 1 my life" Wallace then gave some clues as to why he was granting me the first interview he had given in some six years even though he knew that I was writing a book about him and other foes and friends of the hts movement He had placed beside his sickbed the honorary degree that he had received in 1985 from Tuskegee University the historically black school made famous by Booker T Washington and George Washington Carver "Blacks gave me a standing ovation when they put the cap and gown on me and that was the proudest I've ever been" Wallace said This man wanted me to believe that the damage to his reputation the American view of him as a brutal bigot had pained him more than the assassination attempt civil-rig- years earlier reminded him that some people thought his inflammatory racist remarks in 1963 provoked bigots to bomb days later the AG Gaston motel and the home of the Rev AD King brother of Martin 19 I nemni AlLtirl'i"41'' -- 7 ---- -- - - ' t !i 111'' 1"441v -- t 09:otot t I i ft or? Luther King Jr "No no" Wallace said insisting that he always fought violence He said those bombings and the blast at a church in Birmingham killing four black girls in Sunday School "sickened my mind and I said they ought to burn the bottom of the electric chair with the people who did those bombings" Then Wallace gave me a September 1990 letter from AG Gaston the black motel owner saying "You have made a I am now good governor for Alabama a wheelchair patient as you are It is my hope that I will live long enough to again vote for a Wallace as governor" "I don't support white supremacy" Wallace added "I'm the one who made them take 'white supremacy' off the roster that was the symbol of the Democratic Party in this state" "I did nothing worse than Lyndon Johnson" he continued "He was for segregation when he thought he had to be I was for segregation and I was wrong The media has rehabilitated Johnson why won't it rehabilitate me?" To show that the blacks who know him best have "rehabilitated" him Wallace gave me a computer printout of the 1974 gubernatorial election returns that show him getting a whopping majority of black votes He gave me a Birmingham News University of Alabama poll indicating that 74 percent of blacks regarded him as "the best governor the state ever had" As I was leaving Wallace asked me to join him in a glass of tea Two black men lifted him out of bed when he said he would feel less pain sitting in a chair lie lit a cigar and talked about the current politics of race across America Ile said Ronald Reagan had used tactics of divisiveness to install "a tax structure that is the most crippling system in the country the rich got richer while the poor and the middle class didn't get anything at all" " 7 without any proof She asked the delegates to support the veterans' right to "freedom of thought" That was Justice Holmes' phrase for a right protected by the First Amendment It is moving to hear such concerns expressed in the Soviet Union today For decades not only were homes searched without warrants but people were arrested and killed without a hope of redress Yet the sense of what was right and just survived in a form not so different from ours Of course the fact of parallel concerns cannot be taken too far The delegates at Philadelphia were insulated literally They worked in secret over months the paving stones around Independence Hall were covered with earth so the sound of horses and carriages would not disturb their deliberations The men and women trying to cope with the Soviet crisis face a very different world: populous instant tumultuous If a James Madison or Benjamin Franklin appeared it is not clear that he could function in an atmosphere rigged against reflection But then the Americans felt they were embarked on the most dangerous of adventures too The hope for the Soviet Union must lie not in instant solutions but in time and experiment Perhaps its republics like the American states will have to try separate existence before finding a lasting formula for cooperation If American experience shows anything it is that a diverse people in a vast country must rely in the end on law And the need for law — law independent of the state — is a powerful theme in the Soviet drama today Ex-Govern- TROL THE STATE"? 'Lk- -' 4w4014---:44- 4 i6PrVIIPIP" " irm al anti-neo-Na- zi Meanwhile some 30 members of the United White Workers Class paraded their bald pates and racial prejudices down Salt Lake City streets Monday apparently hoping to recruit hatemongers and to enrage their enemies Claiming some 50000 adherents the urged Utahns to combat Jews in particular Their strategy seems to be to replace fears of distant communism with fears of one's neighbor And citywide public officials and their constituents were worrying about the spread of youth gangs Last week's East High School shooting which injured a coach has renewed concern about the escalating violence a mani swk-4vi- 4tA 3 - To ignore fringe groups' aberrant behavior is to invite more radical demonstrations of their frustration Salt Lake area police and politicians already have established special law enforcement units for confronting gang activity But more comprehensive efforts are necessary to prevent as well as control gang violence and other conduct The community can make it clear that racism will not be tolerated The demonstrators at Mona fairly effective job of march did day's that but they need to be backed by a general attitude of racial understanding It is especially important that children have positive influences and experiences la and outside of school that will steer them toward success and away from alienation and violence These efforts will require commitments of tangible concern personal involvement and public financing Utahns cannot sit back while their poverty rolls swell They must fund education job training child care food health and recreation programs for those who most need them Constant communitywide attention that is paid to every neighborhood's claim on a share of opportunity prosperity and normal tranquility n remarkable -- 700 - festation of young minorities' alienation from the community It's a shame that more Utalms cannot have the satisfaction of witnessing the collapse of Soviet-styl- e communism by simply savoring the prospects of peace and harmony Unfortunately so many still are haunted by suspicions and resentment borne of stressful human events and conditions that none can Tuesday's Tribune with stories of season-openin- 2 It Community's Normalcy Depends On Efforts to Cope with Despair head-o- : l'j The tea was in Southern tradition unbearably sweet I put down my glass and upon leaving heard Wallace remind me that "they rehabilitated former Alabama Senator John Sparkman and Bill and Lyndon Johnson Why won't they rehabilitate me?" Fill-brig- ht George Wallace ! |
