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Show in. " Congratulations , men DESERET NEWS - this i is o ns crash program that's really going places SALT LAKE CITT, UTAH nniinii!iiiiiiiiiiii!iiii!iiiiiiiiiii!iiinii!iiiiiiiiiui!iiiiiiiiiiininiinn"miiiiunn:!i!i LETTERS TO THE EDITOR iiiiiiiiHiiiiiinuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!iiiiiiii!iiiii:mi'iiiiiii!iui;i,niiiiiiii:iiiiiiiin Farmers Need Boost We Stand For The Constitution Of The United States As Having Been Divinely Inspired 8 A EDITORIAL PAGE THURSDAY. OCTOBER We enjoy reading your editorials. They are well written, brief, and to the point. But we think you were either misinformed or uninformed when you wrote the Scrap Crop Boycotts editorial recent- - 2, 1969 You blunty state that the National Farmers Organizations efforts to boost prices by holding pro- - . duce off the market were a failure. The facts are' ; otherwise. Their action did result in price in- - . . creases. ' . We freely admit that dumping milk and shooting hags seems rather crude. But when men are fight-- . ' ' ing for survival they sometimes take desprats measures. You are probably unaware that tnese . ; " hogs were offered free to the needy if the packing ; plants would process the meat. The packers re- - Family is Still Basis Of A Strong Nation What is often billed as a breakdown in law and order i3 too often a result of the breakdown in family life. ' Thus the spiral of crime in the U.S. is itself a scathing indictment of the decline and fal of the American family. When one marriage in three ends in divorce; when crime among teenagers is far outpacing that for any other age group; when judges who, 10 years ago, handled perhaps three drug cases a year now handle that many every day, then not only the family but society itself is in danger. These points are well worth pondering as the 139th semiannual conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-da- y Saints convenes Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the Tabernacle on Temple Square. For the Churchs antidote to the evils befalling the family today hag never wavered: Love and respect for parents; understanding and love for children; Bt ituality, which President McKay has defined as the consciousness of victory over self and of communion with the Infinite; service to others; in seeking after chastity and morality; and the lasting values of life. These precepts are rooted in eternal truths and are not confined to the Church alone but are universally recognised by responsible men the world over. ever-increasi- ever-consta- Stop The Blight For years, Salt Lake City has enjoyed a reputation as a nice place to live a clean and community of to tribute pioneer integrity. But, as Dr. Edward 0. Moe, director of the University of Utahs Bureau of Community Development, warned this week before the Community Services Council, this image may be in jeopardy. For instance, Dr. Moe pointed out, 85 per cent of the city a substantial part of the city blocks west of 13th East to be seriously deteriorating, and the trend have been found increased at toward deterioration over the past few years has ' a much faster rate than had been anticipated. Granted, some efforts have been made to reclaim certain areas and individual properties within the city because of their historical or esthetic valqes, and these efforts are greatly appreciated. Moreover, many owners and renters are by no means remiss in their property upkeep responsibilities. But, as Dr. Moe further indicated, what has been done, no matter how commendable, is entirely insufficient to arrest the dilapidation trend. Following the natural trend of cities to fan out, leaving behind areas that are subject to decay, population in Salt Lake City has grown only three to four per cent between 1950 and 1960, compared with 89 per cent in Salt Lake County. . As Dr. Moe warned, the legacy of dilapidation is an acceleration of problems related to decline of property values, tax income, quality of services and the change of areas from stable family residential to transient housing, where transients bring with them their social problems such as drug adwell-plann- long-sjandin- diction. Nixon Toning Down Presidency . - President is WASHINGTON marching to a muffled drumbeat and he may be taking his cue from the Chinese -- who philosopher wrote 2,400 years ago: A leader is best when people barely know he exists. It is give the people a chance to swallow their own steam. Their mood is volatile and potentially unmanageable and a leader trying to steer his course by interpreting his times must pick his way among saviage whirlpools. He can only meet with calmness and pray that it will prevail. The danger is that an administration rotating gracefully like a lazy susan will fail 1a 'enerate the centrifugal force necessary to project solutions beyond the grip of events.' To date the Nixon CHARLES BARTLETT The criticism is that there was too much press relations under John F. Kennedy and too much action under Mr. Johnson. Mr. Kennedy's rhetoric stimulated aspirations wh'Ch Mr. Johnsons laws culd not satisfy. A lack of zeal to pass laws moves Mr. Nixon to be sparing in his rhetoric. He doesnt mind the exposure of divisions within the administration because they serve to placate a wider range of interests. He stands by oil depletion to keep his pledge to the oilmen but lets the Treasury move with the tax reformers. His antitrust officials take their opposition to joint newspaper operations to Congress without his blessing. Backstage scuffles between conservatives and liberals over issues like marijuana surface without embarrassment because Mr. Nixon is pleased to have the public know his teau embraces many viewpoints. It has been said that in a democracy those who lead follow. Perhaps in a time when the winds of change are blowing hard, the President performs most usefully as a drag anchor. The precures are so much greater than his capacity to respond to them that he must resist them as gracefully as he can. The intention of this Nixon style is to dear at least that Richard Nixon is playing the central role in the drama of his administration as lightly as he can. action Subordinates supply the while he stands aside and sums it up from time to time. He apparently has in mind what one associate describes as an activist administration without an activist president. Others who know say Mr. Nixon has borrowed heavily from Charles DeGauIle in shaping the style of his leadership. He admires the way the former French president enhanced the dignity of his office by cloaking it and himself in a carefully calculated degree of mystery. He suspects on the other hand that Lyndon Johnson was damaged by his heavy exposure. Mr. Nixons analysis of where the Democratic presidents went wrong is a key factor in his behavior. The basic on-sta- . frone-ticisn- approach has blurred the' remedies without denting the problems. Frustrations are multiplying in the White House but the President appeared as calm, compact and as ever when he met the press on Friday. His disappointments seemed only to have deepened his determination to radiate composure and assurance. "His need to stimulate support for his policies on Vietnam and inflation did not provoke him to raise his voice or sharpen his words. Mr. Nixon is pursuing his own concept of presidential leadership with a consistency that takes courage. He has stirred apprehensions among president watchers accustomed-ta stronger and more vivid style. But this is an awkward time in which there can be no dogmatic prescriptions for leadership and Mr. Nixon, after all, won the right to do it his d way. , An Overdue Honor A 'World Holiday: Gandhi's Birthday By SYDNEY J. HARRIS Today marks the centenary of Mahar, tma Gandhis birth. He was born at India, on October 2, 1869, and lived nearly 80 extraordinary years until he was assassinated in New Dehli in 1948. Por-bande- There are, at this stage in mankinds history, only national holidays. If there should be a world holiday, it seems to me that Gandhis birthday ought to be the first. For, in the full century since he was bom, he became the only public man to practice Christianity in all its aspects and he was not a Christian. He succeeded in freeing one of the laigest nations in the world from one of withthe greatest powers in the world out any more show of violence than crossing his legs and refusing to move. He was an intellectual who walked ' road to humanization and internationalization. He recognized the unitary nature of people everywhere, and rather than see India divided by partition, he recommended giving control of the country to his political enemies of the Muslim League. He was more interested in community than in government, in the welfare of villages than the authority of capitals; and he urged his own political lieutenants to forsake the trappings of power and go live with the humble poeple in the little towns where the need for leadership was greatest. Dismissed by the British as imprac- easily among the masses; an aristocrat who lived among the poor; a man of immense spiritual gifts who worked unceasingly for tne physical needs of his people; and an ascetic who was not sour but who and smug and loved to crack jokes, play tricks, and make solemn people laugh. and perhaps Gandhi was the first world figure of the 20th Centhe only tury. He alone among statesmen realized early in his career that violence begets only violence; that modem technology contains the seed of 'its own, destruction unless carefully controlled by ethical and spiritual values; and that love is the most potent and enduring force in the . universe. . Though he fought for Indias political power and national independence, he did not consider these things ends in themselves, but only steps forward on the tical, feared by the capitalists and scorned by the Marxist ideologies, Gandhi neverless made an impression on our century that will not be matched. In his doctrine of ahimsa he lived the message of Jesus. , - hower. The man is Arthur V. Watkins. And only this week is a honor being paid to him with the naming of Willard Bay Reservoir dam as Watkins Dam. The Interior Department approved Senator Wallace Bennetts proposal this week. A bronze plaque will be placed in the recreation area fronting the reservoir. Watkins has long been associated with Utah conservation movements. He helped organize the Deer Creek project and served as a director and general counsel. He either directed or helped organize metropolitan water districts in Salt Lake City, Orem Provo, Lehi, American Fork, Pleasant auobtain District. he And Conservation and Highland helped thorization for the $100 million Weber Basin Project some 20 years ago, as well as much of the work on the huge Colorado River Project. Thus Utah is paying homage in a small way to a tireless worker. It is a richly deserved honor. long-overd- Grove-Lindo- water-developme- n, nt Afterthoughtsto his. . . own taste is useful only after The saying, each we know which things are matters of taste only, and w'hich are matters of judgment; when a subject permits of judgment, to evaluate it by taste is as silly and uninformed as comparing the engine efficiency of two cars by their colors. A successful professor, in modern academic parlance, is not one who has the greatest influence on his students, but one who has the least contact with them who works for the glory of the college and for his own fame, while the students are exposed to third-rat- e teachers. Not looking ahead is the vice of the stupid; looking too far ahead is the vice of the intelligent. . ; I ; ; ; ! ; Reading Ability A National Scandal Dr. James E. Allen Jr., the U.S. Commissioner of Education,- turned up here the other day with a great message in hand. The Nixon administration, he said, had a new goal to proclaim: The right to read. By the end of the 1370s,' if all goes well, no one shall our be leaving without s c hools the skill and de- the ! Mr. Kilpatrick full limns of his capability. Well, look, look! Jolly, jolly! If I sound cynical, I mean to sound cynical. Dr. Allens purpose is to improve the teaching of reading. The ironical truth is this: He can reach his goal only by trampling over the dead bodies of most of the teachers of reading. In the whole of our educational system, no failure is greater than theirs. read. Personnel managers find young puzzling over the simplest application form. Perhaps you are a parent, and perhaps you are lucky: Your children can read this newspaper smoothly, at first glance, with understanding and expression. The more common experience is to find children who stumble on the hard words, and then JAMES J. KILPATRICK ft tion sums it up: The percentage of Jxior inreaders or steadily creases. Chicago has nearly doubled its school budget in a decade and New York City in six years, but the results of reading tests continue to show a downward give up. trend. Why has this tragedy occurred? The primary cause is not obscure. When the or word recogniapostles of look-sa- y tion got their monopolistic hands on the teaching of reading, d years ago, the decline set in. In their blundering stupidity, they exiled phonics and buried the phonetic approach. They condemned a generation of children to the sterile, tasteless pablum of basic readers that not written, just conwere contrived trived from basic work lists. No wonder our children cant read! Who would want to read such bilge? Dr. Jeanne Chall, Harvard professor of education, made some of these points two years ago in her masterful book, Learning to Read The Great Debate. (She is a lady, and made them more, gently than L) Her study proved a runa- e in its field, way with more than 100,000 copies sold. McGraw-Hil- l still does a brisk trade in the book. But even though Dr. Chall is a certified member of the Establishment, her findings have been muffled. The New York, Times never even reviewed the One does not have to examine comparative scores on reading tests. At every college I visit, professors of English tell me the same tale: The freshmen that come to them cannot write, ar.d they cannot write because they cannot GUEST CARTOON Dr. Alien said nothing new. The inability of millions of Americans to read, he said, is shocking. And of course it is. It was shocking 25 years ago. The situation, he said, is intolerable. Of course its intolerable. He cited recent evidence of illiteracy: 25 per cent of the nations students have significant reading deficiencies. In big city schools, half the students read below expectation. Sixty, eight per cent of young men surveyed by the Pentagon fell below grade seven in reading. Such evidence abounds. best-sell- i i( sad experiences have been widely reported. In the District of Columbia, reading scores are a scandaL The same picture obtains In New Yor't The crent ' bulletin of the Council fo Basic Educa- - high-octan- work. Californias . They sure don't moke roads like they used to." Chics Today ; ; . ! the farm financial tragedy. , But let the NFO come along with the only . , program offered for farm survival and everyone ; . screams to high heaven. Maybe you can suggest a better way. YTere ; ' listening. -O- SCAR ' W. JOHNSON . Idaho Falls, Idaho Pay Raise ' Inequitable' I feel the 10 percent increase in Social Security' proposed by President Nixon is unfair, as it gives the "break to those who are receiving higher payments, and not those in the lower brackets. For instance, if a person is now receiving $100 per month, his increase would be $10, making the payment $110, while the one receiving less, say $43 per month,' would only receive $4.30, which wculd not help much, in consideration of the continually rising costs of living. To be more equitable, if there is a raise, it should be uniform for each one, or a maximum payment of enough to at least pay the rent. LILLIAN M. JACOBSEN , 278 W. 2nd South t i Now It's Ammunition ' Listening to part of a radio newscast led me to hope that bullet registration was a thing of the The stark reality is that tnere is a hope of repeal,' but as of this moment, bullet registration is in full swing, and our friends are submitting by the thousands to the insidious plan, not realizing the potential trouble that could develop if our govern- ment lists become the property of dictatorial ter- rorism in this country. It has happened and only recently in a friendly foreign country. The public trusts its government, but looking at other countries proves that sometimes this is very dangerous to patriots. The forefathers of our nation realized that it would not be safe to place the government of this nation in the hands of men, but carefully they provided a written document to warn leaders that if they ever tried to usurp the powers that were then granted to the government, the people would not submit. The Constitution specifically demands many untouchable areas to be in the hands of the citizen and not in the hands of the government. Now, things have changed. We think we can negotiate with gangsters by submitting to them, and giving up weapons of defense. The Constitution allows me a gun, not for sport, but for defense gf myself and my interests. My Constitution is not too safe, now, because so many dont care any more .to stand firm and demand of government that they keep their hands off where they have no rights. We need to say no and now. We ought not to fall tori their line by registering to buy bargain ammunitiori -D- g - It is characteristic that the man who has done so much for Utah reclamation during the last 50 years is the same man pushing most ardently to rename Lake Powell- as Lake Eisen- ; , past. g Salt Lake City in the next decade will have to do much more in neighborhood protection and improvement than in the past, or be prepared to solve problems of greater consequence than protecting the citys image. fused. Buf why condemn holding actions? Dont you do !t yourself? You set the price on your paper. If a person cant or wont pay it, what do you do? Hold it, burn it, or otherwise destroy it. Every- where we go to buy something, whether its gn ceries, drugs, clothes, furniture, cars, machinery or what not, there is a price tag on it. If we dont pay the price, the merchant holds it. If organized labor doesnt get its price, its services are with- held. Arent all these things legitimate? " But let the farmers do the same thing and they villains. immediately become Its no secret that the prices farmers are getting for most of their crops do not pay the cost of pro- duction. It seems like every paper, magazine and' broadcaster in the country is giving lip service to t ss The breakdown of the family unit is the first step in the chain of events that topples nations. Our state rests upon our homes, one U.S. president declared, and if we cannot keep our homes from this constant demoralizing breaking up, we had better go out of the business of government entirely. As President McKay has observed, Every child is, to a influgreat degree, what he is because of the trainence of home environment and the careful or neglectful ing of the mother. , If Dr. Alien is to get anywhere in his new crusade, he must direct his energies and his grants - in - aid toward techniques of instruction that work. This means the alphabet It means phonics and linguistics. It demands that Dick and Jane and their mutt be strangled. AVID 1090 Top-Notc- . . . . 1 ; ; ; LAMOREAUX E. 3300 South - Fair - h Another Utah State Fair has come to a close, and what a great sigh of satisfaction for HugH Bringhurst, the state fair manager, who splendidly planned, shaped and sought out the finest and exceptional quality of shows for the ! finest fair the state has ever had. All exhibits were and interest- t, ing. The barns and sheds were clean and . the fine animals were groomed and well cared for ' and a joy to look upon, as were the art ex- - ' hibits, floral arrangements, and canned fruit add vegetables. In general, the beautiful atmosphere' of the entire fair grounds with such a festive and displayed ' grace, and everything so - - . was pleasing and most satisfying. The Ice Follies in the new Salt Palace was a beautiful display. It, too, was a great thrill and ' . treat for everyone. . ' Again I say the fair board, Mr. Bringhurst and staff deserve our deepest praise and gratitude' ' for a job well done! talent,-exhibit- s ' -- d well-kep- d . THELMA VEST SMURTHWAITE 2148 E. 13th South llll!lllllil!ll!l!i;illlllllllllllllllli;illllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!lllllllllllll CONFERENCE NOTICE The One Hundred and Thtrty-nintConference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-da- y Saints, to which all Church members . are invited, will convene Li the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Utah, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, October 3rd, 4th and 5th, 1969, with general sessions each day at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. The General Priesthood meeting will be held, in , the Tabernacle on Saturday, October 4th, at 7 p.m . Only those who hold the priesthood are invited, to h Semi-Annu- . i ! attend this meeting. , , Fast meeting may be held on the second Sun- day in October. Fast day should not be observed on . Sunday of quarterly conferences. It is understood that ward Sacrament meetings will be held Sunday evening after the close of the Sunday afternoon general session of the confer, ence, where practicable, 1 David O. McKay Hugh B. Brown N. Eldon Tanner j |