December 31, 1970 Shelton Mason County Journal | ![]() |
©
Shelton Mason County Journal. All rights reserved. Upgrade to access Premium Tools
PAGE 4 (4 of 16 available) PREVIOUS NEXT Jumbo Image Save To Scrapbook Set Notifiers PDF JPG
December 31, 1970 |
|
Website © 2025. All content copyrighted. Copyright Information Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Request Content Removal | About / FAQ | Get Acrobat Reader ![]() |
The advent of a new year is a time for optimism. It's a
time to remember that every cloud has a silver lining, what
goes up must come down, it's a long lane that has no turning,
and it's always darkest before the dawn.
This column has had its pessimistic moments during
1970. We have concluded that this was due to the fact that
we stressed the negative rather than the positive side of the
year's events.
For instance, we complained about the immorality of war
in Vietnam when we should have been pointing out the
sunny side of that conflict - the spread of Christian charity
to the heathen nation of Cambodia, the economic boost
given the munitions industry by the resumption of saturation
bombing, the educational opportunity afforded thousands of
young American men through free travel abroad plus a
bargain rate of seven cents apiece for marijuana cigarettes.
We deplored the slaughter of four students at Kent State
when we should have realized that this was one chance in a
million for National Guard troops to practice on real live
people, not unexciting targets on a practice range. The
experience will be invaluable when Ohio declares war on
Indiana.
We questioned the manufacture, storage and
transportation of nerve gas when our humanitarian instincts
should have told us that this substance provides probably the
most humane method ever divised to kill billions of people
in a short time. We concentrated on the nerve gas itself
instead of the merciful thought behind it.
o
O
We questioned the tax laws which allow an oil man with
an income of $1,600,000 to pay less income tax than a mill
worker earning $8,000, ignoring the fact that without tax
loopholes our political system would collapse for lack of
campaign funds and bribery kitties.
And, above all, we wrote lots of bad words about that
political system and the hacks and scoundrels who have
perverted a basically-sound plan for government, converting
it into a quagmire of inaction, self-serving obfuscation, and
legalized pocket-lining.
"We've got to make another trip. I forgot the SST's
for Senators Jackson and Magnuson."
hO
,0
It took a patriotic reader to point out to us that
"'although it has its faults, our political system is the best
there is and to attack it is to serve our enemies." He
suggested that we write an editorial supporting our leaders
before someone - in the interests of good government and law
and order - heaved a bomb through our window.
tte convinced us. To start out the new year, therfore, we
present the thrilling climax to the heartwarming success story
of" a great American who worked within the system.
Representative John W. McCormack, who will leave
office in January, was given the office retirement party to
end all office retirement parties last week. His colleagues
didn't hold one of those cheapskate affairs which are
prevalent in the business community; they didn't take up a
collection and present him with a crummy watch and a set of
second-rate golf dubS.
No, sir, they went first class. They gave him $76,000 of
the taxpayers" money $38,000 for each of the next two
years, distributed as follows:
$100 per month for office expenses, $100 per month for
telephone and $3,500 per year for stationery; an
administrative assistant and a secretary at annual pay of
$10,929 each. He was also given free office space in the Old
Boston Federal Building.
McCormack will also receive a Congressional pension of
$44,000 per year. The going-away present of $76,000 was,
according to the committee which sponsored the resolution
authorizing it. "tangible evidence and embodiment" of the
respect and regard in which McCormack is held by the House.
During debate on the resolution, Representative Wayne
Hays of Ohio, floor manager for the resolution, said he did
not "'see anything wrong with this measure." He added that
cabinet officers and bureaucrats "spend a lot more each
year."
How right he is. And how fortunate we are to have
representatives in Congress who realize that the United States
has a government "of the government, by the government
and for the government," with a democratic sharing of the
rewards of public service by all elected and appointed
officials. Representative Hays was issuring a plea for fairness
within the system, a brave call for justice.
This is a perfect example of one of the excellent features
of the system; the ability to take care of its own. When the
Representatives have respect and regard for one of their
colleagues, they are able to reach down into the full trough
from which they all feed and pull out a $76,000 morsel for
him.
Where but in this marvelous system would it be possible
to pay an administrative assistant for a man who has nothing
to administer?
The merits of the system boggle the mind. Who would
want to change it? How could it possibly be improved? Only
a pawn of our enemies would consider changing a system that
provides a $76,000 office and staff for a 79-year-old retired
politician.
God bless the system.
Founded 1886 by Grant C. Angle
Maaing Address: Box 430, Shelton, Wa. 98584 Phone 426-4412
Published at $helton, Mason County, Washington,
weekly, except two issues during week of Thanksgiving.
Entered as Second-Class Matter at the Post Office, Shetton, Wa.
EDITOR AND PUBLISHER ...................... Henry G. Gay
By: ROBERT C. CUMMINGS
Governor Dan Evans' decision
to send a seacoast management
bill to the Legislature means the
law-makers will have at least three
on their hands - including one
with which they probably are
stuck.
The Governor's bill was first
conceived on the assumption that
the Washington Environmental
Council would fail to get the
signatures needed to certify
Initiative 43 to the Legislature.
But it now appears the
environmentalists' own bill will
make it.
Another measure on the
subject will be brought in by the
Legislature's Committee on
Governmental Cooperation.
But the law-makers will have a
tough time getting rid of Initiative
43.
Almost Inviolate
If the Legislature wants to
amend the initiative, or substitute
a similar measure in its place, it
will have to muster a two-thirds
majority in each house.
To do this, they will have to
come up with a bill on which 33
Senators and 66 ttouse members
can agree.
It isn't easy. It only has
happened once. and that was on a
legislative redistricting measure
which, if approved, would have
redistricted a lot of members right
out of the Legislature.
It was a matter of survival.
The seacoast management
issue doesn't carry that nruch
import ; at least not yet.
Other Alternatives
Legislators don't make any
secret of the fact that most of
them don't like the initiative, but
One thing property owners
can be assured of is that their
property taxes won't be raised
any more in the ilnmediate
future unless they vote them for
themselves in the form of special
levies or bond issues.
Certification of Initiative 44
to the Legislature, which obtained
more than 200,000 signatures in
less than two months,
automatically freezes the
property tax limit at 21 mills at
unless they can musteg..the
necessary two-thirds ma~'rity, le~}tuntilthe.next,electL,on.
. The 21-mill lir~it '~wa~,,enacted
they are stuck with it.'~(0, by the special" 1970 session.
They don't have to pass it,
but if they don't, they will have
to submit it to the voters in the
following election.
They can, however, also
submit an alternative measure to
the voters along with the
initiative. That is exactly what the
members of the Committee of
Governmental Cooperation had in
mind when they drafted their bill.
But the Governor's bill could
muddy the waters.
In order to be submitted to
the voters, an alternate measure
must first get at least a simple
majority vote in each house.
The more bills that are
introduced on the subject, the
harder it will be to reach
agreement on any single measure.
The initiative would lower the
limit to 20 mills, and nobody
can conceive of anybody trying to
get a two-thirds vote to amend
that measure.
The legislature may decide to
enact the measure into law
immediately,
Records Fall
Sponsors of Initiative 44
broke two records when they
qualified the measure for
certification. The previous record
for signatures gathered was
185,000, gathered by sponsors of
Initiative 256, the bottle-refund
bill which was defeated in the last
election.
Sponsors of Initiative 44 also
obtained their signatures in record
Social values and images based on pioneering
concepts of man pitted against nature in a struggle
to subdue and exploit a foreboding wilderness lie at
the root of America's current environmental
problems, David G. Barry, Vice President and
Provost of The Evergreen State College at Olympia,
said recently.
Addressing the Fall Graduation Convocation at
the University of Oregon, Barry said, "Our
technological society and its related economy are
linked with a 19th Century theory based on
unlimited exploitation of nature and which we have
as yet to adequately modify or adjust to serve us in
the face of our new circumstances."
These circumstances, Barry said, "Tell us clearly
that man is a part of all natural cycles and not a
creature privileged and apart. He is part of the
closed system we call the planet Earth."
"We have run out of free land, air, water, and
soil," Barry continued. "We have nowhere else to
go. We know that growth in population is our
central problem and that growth without control -
perhaps any growth - is no longer automatically
consistent with what we consider to be the quality
of life."
"We know that the Gross National Product is no
longer an adequate measure of where our
., technological society is going unlessjit is balanced
against our Gross National Effluent.
"The Gross National Effluent is the recognition
of the fact that we are part of a closed system, a
statistical estimate of the cost of all those negative
feedback consequences of the GNP of unlimited
production, the cost of the additional travel we do
to escape dirly environments, the additional
cleaning costs for our clothing, the additional
medical services, the good prematurely replaced
because of soiling or corrosion, the cost of the oil
slicks, the algae-clogged lakes and rivers, the choking
haze of smog, and the cost of pollution monitoring
and conlrol equipmenl."
"And, perhaps most important of all, Ihi~
disillusionment of many young people their Iossof
hope for a future."
Barry told the Oregon graduates that America
faces a period of threatened shortage of resources,
coupled with "a burgeoning human population
whose growth will increase demands for material
goods and services whose production wilt create
increased energy demands."
"The whole of the processes of growth.
production, and consumption will contribute so
many pollutants into our environment that life itself
may be threatened," he added.
"What we are sure of was well described by
Aldous Huxley in the Politics of Ecology: 'Thanks
to our rapidly advancing science and technology we
have very little time at our disposal. The river of
change flows ever faster, and somewhere
downstream, perhaps only a few years ahead, we
shall come to the rapids, shall hear, louder and ever
louder, the roaring of a cataract.'"
He said the country still is in transition from the
old pioneer, exploitative ethic "to a newer one
oased on ecology and responslOflHy tot chmce in
stewardship over our environment" and that
"Congress is adjusting to the need for transition
about as fast as American thought in ~eneral is
adjusting to the new environmental imperatives."
"Ecology as a view of nature is a personal
matter," Barry remarked. "It will be expressed best
in how we ~anage our daily lives as well as how we
manage our industries, our technology and our
society. Personal choice is the key to solulion of the
problems -- whether it be in reduction of
population or the rejection of those aspecls of
technological society which dissipate our resources
and which produce needless pollution."
Barry concluded, "The environ|nent of the
future, the legacy which our decisions will pass on
to our children, will reflect the images and the
understandings which we translale inlo our political
action systems. As individuals, each of us must Work
to persuade olhers to the proper course of aclion.
Each one, convince one.'"
Page 4 - She!ton-Mason County Jou,nal - Thursday, December 31, 1970
"W
time. They didn't even file the
measure until after the Novelnber
3 election. Then they had to wait
to have a ballot title written
before they could get their
petitions printed.
Still another record is being
broken.
Never before since the
initiative process was established
has more than one initiative to
the Legislature been certified in
any one year.
This year there will be at least
two, prgbably three, and possibly
as many as five.
Eary Bird
Besides Initiative 44 will be
Initiative 40, the "litter control
bill" which got off to an early
start and had nrore than enough
signaturesto qualify it before
election before Initiative 44
had even started.
Assuming that Initiative 43
also will have enough signatures,
that adds up to five.
Also scheduled to come in
under the wire are the two
dog-racing initiatives, No.'s 38
and 39.
Initiative 39, which is
identical to one which failed to
get enough signatures to make the
ballot earlier this year, also got
off to an early start, and was
running all summer.
Solicitors worked virtually
every county fair in the state in
the quest of signatures.
Sponsors of Initiative 38, a
rival dog-racing bill, were slower
getting away from the starting
gale, but were endowed with
more professional know-how,
which was valuable in the home
stretch.
Another Record?
The only question remaining
is whether the dog-racing
signatures are sufficient to
withstand excessive mortalities.
These types of measures
usually lose more signatures
during the official validity check
than others.
If both are certified, it is
certain that the Legislature will
avoid taking any action on either
of them, which means that both
would go to the ballot in the next
election.
If this happens, another
record will be established.
There never has been two
initiatives on the same subject on
the ballot before.
If both should pass, the courts
would have a problem, because
the two measures conflict in
numerous respects.
The constitufion makes
provisions for the eventuality of
an initiative to the Legislature and
a legislative alternative both being
approved by the voters. But it
doesn't provide for conflicting
initiatives being approved in the
same election.
EET NO man be sorry he has
done good, because others have
done evil! If a man has acted
right, he has done well, though
ahme; if wrong, the sanction of all
manl