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Show Center of Power What Is the "grassroots?" Each year as election time rolls around politicians and statisticians fill the newspapers with comments from the grassroots, they tell us what the voters are saying in the grassroots areas and attempt to predict various trends from the "grassroots" which will influence the nation. It is at the grassroots where political outlooks are sought out. It is these trends in the grassroots that stimulate stimu-late and promote predictions of outcomes and usually with a high degree of accuracy. For the sake of clarification lets identify the grassroots of the nation as any community with a total population of less than 25,000. With this type of figure all of southern Utah and most of Utah could be classified as "grassroots." Why so much emphasis on the grassroots then? Well, national figures reveal that out of the 48 states small-town and farm residents hold a clear majority of 42 states. The so called "grassroots" control 84 of the 96 U. S. Senate seats and dominates 275 of the 435 Congressional districts. dis-tricts. And of very great political importance under the rules that govern our Congress they elect 18 of the 19 Senate committee chairmen and 15 of the 20 House committee com-mittee chairmen. Yes, it can be said the grassroots is the center of power pow-er in this republic. |