Herald and Review from Decatur, Illinois • Page 4

DECATUR HERALD Decatur, Illinois, Monday, November 15, WbS. Editorials Our Opinions SOUTH AMERICA Conference Set To Help Negro Fulfill Rights By Richard Spong THE SIGHTS are hich. Onl Elections: Name's the Same, but the Rules Differ IIIIX VENEZUELA COLOMBIA Vs. Pro Xr ECUADOR NonouaelenT- fcxPERuC BRAZ'1 1 SHOWN V4. ELECTIONS mean different things to different people.

This aphorism was very much in evidence the past few days when citizens of six countries cast ballots in one form or another. To Americans, the off-year election day marked the end of an expensive political campaign and the possible emergence of new leaders. It also marked the temporary end of a buoyant, glittering fanfare which mysteriously, almost miraculously, serves to nourish the free traditions of one of the world's oldest democracies. In the Philippines, election day marked the alerting of the armed forces to cope with possible violence. It also marked the end of a bloody campaign in which 28 people were killed at last count, and in which both presidential candidates accused each other of murder, forgery and graft.

Most important of all, it meant the beginning of a new era under a new president chosen by "underdeveloped" Asians who had a relatively fair opportunity to evaluate both candidates. The same could not be said of election day in Portugal, an ancient country with an arch Map traces course of the Amazon Rivtr. The Green He' Amazon River: Umbilical Cord of the Jungle Another Roadblock to Ethics Probe By James D. Bowman Of the Associated Press Aboard the Amazon Steamer Lauro Sodre IT ALL BEGAN, says the Indian folklore, when a big tree toppled over. It would have been a tree some 3,690 miles tall, standing on the shores of the Atlantic near the port city of Helem, Brazil.

And it fell with a bang, its trunk and branches smashing out the depressions which became the Amazon and its tribu taries. The tip grazed the Peruvian Andres scarcely 100 miles from the Pacific. The rains came, the leaves turned to fish, and the world's mightiest river basin was born. So goes the legend of one In dian tribe which has roamed the jungles of the upper Amazon since long before the white man knew of the river and its 200 lesser streams. Wild, Primitive And except for a few sprink lings of civilization, the upper Amazon and its thousands of square miles of unmapped jungle remains the wild, primi tive area of Stone Age man.

"The most fascinating thing is that we actually know so very little about the jungle and its riches," says Peruvian air ABOUT THE ARTICLE The wealth is there. untapped in the steaming jungle world the Spaniards called the Green Hell." The trick is to get it out. There are no roads, no railroads, few landing fields. There is only the mighty Amazon, the broad, watery highway that flows through some of the least-known country on earth. four billion cubic feet of water into the Atlantic every second of every minute.

It is a world of green, brown and blue the jungle, the river and the sky. Tiny specks of brilliant colors occasionally vary the pa nor- ami. limn ui paj aftccia illli- ters over, said to be migrating to Africa. Flowering plants dot the lush foliage with brilliant chinesr reds, oranges, purples and yellows. Travelers call it both a mono tonous merry-go-round on which Brazilian woman holds Child.

the scenery never changes and a magnificent open sewer. But it Is above all a way of life for the people of this steamy, 6ticky part of the world The Amazon vanes in width from one to six miles from Peru to the Atlantic, forever twisting and churning out new channels. Wild Animals Only a few yards back from the steep clay banks the dense belt of green, towering several hundred feet high, marches off into oblivion. Within it lurk only the Ind ians unknown to the white man and the beats of the bush the jaguars, ocelots, wild pigs, boa constrictors, anacondas. There are harmless spiders the size of a man's hand and deadly ones no bigger than his fingernail.

A traveler today, if he should stick to his boat, could journey the length of the river without spotting anything wilder than the playful freshwater porpoise which delights in showing off its aquatic skills. The alligator and his smaller cousin, the cayman, is a noc turnal creatrue. He hides out by day and prowls only at night. The inland natives of Amazonian Brazil, Colombia and Peru, cluster in thatched-hut villages along the river's edge. Only the river offers transportation, a market for their animal hides and tropical fruits, and supplies from the mysterious outside world.

4 Minute With Great Books ROUSSEAU Censorship in a democracy is discussed by Rousseau in the Great Books of the Western World. IT IS USELESS to distinguish the morality of a nation from tne objects of its esteem; both depend on the same principle and are necessarily indisting uishable. There is no people on earth the choice of whose pleas ures is not decided by opinion rather man nature. Right men's opinions, and their morality will purge itself. Men always love what is good or what they find good; it is in judging what is good that they go wrong.

This judgment, therefore, is what must be regulated. He who judges of morality judges of honour; and he who judges of honour finds his law in opinion. The opinions of a people are derived from its constitution; although the law does not regulate morality, it is legislation that gives it birth. When leg islation grows weak, morality degenerates; but in such cases the judgement of the censors will not do what the force of the laws has failed to effect From this is follows that the censorship may be useful for the preservation of morality, but can never be so for its restoration. Set up censors while the laws are vigorous; as soon as they have lost their vigour, all hope is gone; no legitimate pow er can retain force when the laws have lost it aic system of government.

Here, election day meant more of the same. It meant the incredible withdrawal of all opposition candidates by election eve, just as they did during the election four years ago. It also meant the automatic extension of Premier Salazar's 33-year-old dictatorial reign. Even more incredible was election day in the Ivory Coast where 99.98 per cent of the bat-lots cast were supposed to have favored the first and only President, Felix Houphouet-Bo-igny. At least, that is what the Houpbouet-Boigny government told the world.

In neighboring Nigeria, election day meant a time of reckoning between the various feuding tribes and religions. It meant the death of more than 200 citizens, the burning of a newspaper in Ibadan and the threat of more massacres from opposing parties who believe in the principle of elections but who never seem to accept the practical results of the ballot without first putting up a "good" fight (massacre). There was no physical massacre in last week's Canadian election, but the results may have butchered the political future of two national leaders. preme Court, although that body has turned down a direct mandamus action aimed at acquiring the tapes. Commission members are proceeding on the basis of newspaper reports and the investigations of the Springfield hotel room that followed publication of the reports.

Three witnesses already have been called, and. others are to be invited to appear voluntarily or summoned to appear by subpoena. The tapes themselves are not in the hands of the commission, but a partial transcript is. Rep. Paul Elward, D-Chi-cago, said he doubted whether Douglass court has the legal right to hold the commission members in contempt.

He said the Illinois Constitution guarantees lawmakers freedom from questioning or arrest for any speech or debate made in the course of their legislative duties. The commission was set up by law. The legal question raised is a knotty one, indeed, and it probably will be settled only by the Illinois Supreme Court. But at this point, it would appear, at the very least, that Judge Douglass puts a strained interpretation on the anti-eavesdropping law when he seeks to bar any further investigation by the legislative commission of the bribery allegations. Deck the Home With Color TV THOSE WHO yearn for the comforts, conveniences and pleasures that surely will be theirs in the Great Society may be chastened as they note some of the problems of members of today's Affluent Society, which includes so many Americans who are not rich, but who have comfortable incomes and money to spend.

Those people today are having trouble buying color television sets; at least, the desired combination of cabinet design and width and shape of picture tube. In one of those in-depth reports for which it is admired the Wall Street Journal.docu-mented the finding that across the nation "there just aren't enough color TV sets to go around." The situation is certain to grow worse before it gets any better, because this is the season for shopping for a color television set as a family gift, a modest extravagance, for Christmas. The companies that assemble tubes, cabinets and controls are finding that although they can add another assembly line, they cannot obtain supplies of the component parts. Finally, color television is relatively new and there is a shortage of technicians not only to put the sets together and tune them, but to repair and service the color sets after they are delivered to the homes of new owners. Television gave the economy a stimulus 10 or a dozen years ago, in manufacturing, sales and services.

Color television seems to be doing it again. Is this just another television repeat? Neither John Diefenbaker nor Lester Pearson succeeded in winning a majority. To Canadians, this meant an extension of a shaky government which has agonized this British Commonwealth country for seven years. It also meant that both major political parties face the prospect of recasting their images, possibly under new leadership. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, another country is preparing for an election, and the outcome is just as obvious as it was in Portugal, although the circumstances are different.

Gen. Charles de Gaulle, that towering French institution, is expected to win handily without going through the "formalities" of political campaigning. France, usually stereotyped as the guintessence of egalitarian-ism, is offering itself to De Gaulle without giving much chance for opponents to be heard. Yes, elections mean different things to different people, even in countries espousing the same basic principles of democracy. There is no universal idealo-gy on elections.

And there probably never will be barring the advent of a one world, one government miracle. EXCHANGE TABLE Checking Pilots Good Suggestion The Quincy Herald-Whig A panel of heart specialists discussing the subject in Washington this week recommended that airline and other commercial pilots be given tougher physical examinations. It seems a good suggestion, and so does the panel's added recommendation that truck and bus drivers also be subjected to strict physical examinations. The panel was composed of leading aviation cardiologists from both the United States and Canada. It makes their recommendation more convincing.

One reason for their recommendation for tougher examinations is the fact that airline pilots are eligible to fly up to the age of 60. Several other proposals, along the same line, also make sense. One is that no pilot be permitted to return to fulltime flying duties once he has had a heart attack. Another is that a most exhaustive physical examination, more thorough and involving more modern techniques, be given before any pilot is accepted for training for airline duties. In connection with this it was pointed out that it costs $200,000 to train an airline pilot.

Of even more general interest, however, was the suggestion that truck drivers and bus drivers also school bus drivers and operators of crane and fork lifts should be required to pass adequate physical examinations. The panel noted that such drivers and operators, "also handle lethal weapons in their daily routine." Wondering if the driver of a large truck or bus, thundering down a busy highway or street, is in good health, is a thought most of us don't enjoy. IN THE HERALD 25 YEARS AGO TODAY THE U.S. circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago set aside a National Labor Relations board order directing the A.E. Staley Mfg.

Co. to withdraw all recognition of the Independent Starch Workers Union. THE WORK of classifying draft registrants who have answered "personal history" questionnaires will occupy tie three Macon County selection boards this weekend. DECATUR'S NEWEST organization is the Model Railroad Club composed of men whose hobby it is to build and play with model trains. He's going to church next Sunday to listen to the different clink of those new silverless quarters in the collection plate.

Russians have been assured by the Kremlin agricultural experts that crop failures have been reduced to only one a year. Today's schoolchildren are lucky. Almost any textbook will hide a paperback. time will tell how fine the aim of the White House Conference on Civil Rights. The rights increasingly are becoming assured and reassured by law.

The scope ot tne conference Wednesday and Thursday, was indicated in a commencement address delivered bv President Johnson last June 4 at Howard University, a largely Negro institution in Washington. The objective would be, the President said. 'In heln the Amencan Negro fulfill the ngnts wmch, after the long time of injustice, be is finally about to secure; to move beyond opportunity to achievement; to shatter forever not only the barriers of law and public practice but the walls which bound the condition of man by the color of his skin." Then came the Watts riots to reaffirm the need for a reappraisal of the condition nf the Negro in the cities of the North. as jonnson saia on Aug. 15: "Aimless violence finds fertile ground among men imprisoned Dy me snaaowed walls of President Johnson states objective hatred, coming of age in the poverty of slums, facing their future without education or skills and with little hope of rewarding work." Spring Conference The White House meeting this autumn will be followed next spring by a larger "conference of concerned Americans" who will take up its recommendations.

AU this activity reflects a growing awareness that the ghettoized cities of the North lems in racial relationships than the civil rights conflicts of the South. The burden of the Negro problem now and of the problem of relations between whites and Negroes rests on slum districts of the North. By 1990, according to one estimate, Negroes will be in the majority in seven of the 100 largest United Mates cities. Washington, which already has a rapidly growing majority, will be joined by Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia and St Louis. Today one of nine Americans is nonwhite.

When President Johnson's service ends, presumably, in 1972, one of eight will be nonwhite. Today one of seven American children is non-white. As Theodore H. White reports, "of infants under a year, one in six is nonwhite." James R. Dumpson, a Negro and a Roman Catholic, on Sept 13 pointed out that welfare authorities "have done almost nothing to tell the poor of the availability of (birth control) services." Now associate dean at Hunter College School of Social Work and formerly New York City welfare commissioner, Dumpson also advocated "serious and detailed consideration by economists of ways to provide a "minimum income for all citizens." Sargent Shriver, head of the Office of Economic Opportunity, on Oct.

10 suggested that the "investment" of $15 million in Harlem social projects and nothing in Los Angeles Watts section made the difference between a quiet summer in Harlem and riots in Watts which cost 34 lives and $175 millions in damage. This suggests a huge problem of great immediacy securing local co operation with federal efforts to restore to the Negro his deprived advantages. Mayors of only Los Angeles and Chicago, it was disclosed last Aug. 18, refused to cooperate in a federal program to head off summer race riots. And both cities did have riots.

A PROGRAM like this doesnt spring like Minerva, fully cloth ed, out of the head if Zeus; it takes time. Sargent Shriver, on the war on poverty. I Formerly Little Known Russian 'Reform' Economist Issues Plea for Anonymity force Maj. Orlando Castillo Go mez. Castillo heads a work crew assigned to carve out 17 landing strips in the jungle under a Peruvian foothold development plan.

He and his men work with their bands. Modern machinery is a rare luxury in this part of the world. Few differ with Castillo's belief that the Amazon jungle holds great stores of wealth. There is argument only as to how to get to it and get it out. Man can penetrate the jungle only a few miles in from the river's edge.

He must hack his way with a machete and travel on his own two feet. Hp ran lalrp nnf nnlv urhat hp can carry on nis Dae. It is the very conditions that created the Amazon's riches that bar the way to their exploitation. Heavy Rains Rainfall in some parts of the Amazon basin measures up to 200 inches a year. Temperatures, while balmy and pleasant on the river at night, hit humid 90s by day.

There are no rural roads, no railroads and few airstrips. There is only the Amazon, a great cocoa colored highway slashing through the endless tropical rain forests, always in a rush to dump its estimated "In age Professor Liberman is closer to the end rather than to the middle of his working career; with useful enthusiasm, however, he has provoked a real storm in Soviet economic life." For the burly 68-year-old pro fessor, the unaccustomed prom inence in nonacademic circles was unwelcome. It is often the case in Soviet Russia that publicity in the West is the last thing a would-be innovator de sires; it can vitiate his effectiveness at home. The Liberman case was particularly delicate. Many Westerners jumped to the conclusion that what the Kharkov professor was proposing really amounted to a switch from Communism to the ideas of capitalism.

Despite Liber'man's loud de nials, this notion died hard and stirred wide resentment among other soviet economists. In articles largely intended for foreign consumption, such as the one distributed recently by the government Novosti tress Agency, Liberman ar gued the legitimacy of profits even under communism. "Profit in a socialist society cannot serve as a source of private enrichment," he wrote, "no private capital appears. No one can purchase the means of production using his own in come and exploit hired labor for private interests. "The bulk of it (profit) is used for expanding socialist production and for improving social and cultural services for the population." On one subject Soviet publicity agencies have been eager to capitalize on the Liberman name.

The professor is a Jew; his success and influence are used to rebut charges of anti- Semiusm in the Soviet Union. Earlier this year, when So viet officials were registering protests at criticism heard from Jewish organizations in the United States, one letter of complaint was sent to the New York Times over the signature of Liberman. IT WOULD BE most unfortunate if new legal obstacles once again block the investigation of an Illinois House ethics commission just when it is beginning to make some progress on a probe of bribery allegations in the 1965 legislative session. Judge Creel Douglass has ordered the commission members to explain Wednesday why they should not be held in contempt for continuing their investigation of tape recordings of conversations ascribed to currency exchange 'lobbyists. Attorneys for the lobbyists have attempted to block the investigation at every turn.

The tapes were impounded by Judge Douglass on grounds that their use was contrary to state law even for use in legislative investigations. The House commission is appealing the order to the Illinois Su- Then there was the fellow who said he bad been warned that if he voted for Gold-water, we'd be at war. He did and we are. Mr. Quill Writes Costly Ticket SUBWAYS have been a source of trouble for New York in more than one way.

Many criminals find the subterranean trains noisy haven for their nocturnal activities. These activities are widely publicized, especially when a number of sensational crimes occur in a matter of days. Less sensational but just as socially significant is a labor dispute now going on between the city and the Transport Workers Union. The dispute is perennial, but this year it seems to be heading toward a new climax mainly due to the change in ciy administration. Michael J.

Quill, president of the union, this week congratulated Mayor-elect John Lindsay and in the same breath warned him that if contract agreement is not reached by Jan. 1, New York will be hit by a bus and subway strike. Lindsay, of course, does not officially enter into the negotiations until he takes office Jan. 1. The immediate burden will have to be carried by outgoing Mayor Robert Wagner.

And what a burden it is. Quill's principal demands are: A 30 per cent wage increase for 33,000 employes. A four day 32 hour work week with no loss in take-home pay. Right to retire at any age at half pay after 25 years of service. Six week vacation after one year of service.

Unions have indeed come a long way in their demands over the years. Mr. Quill apparently aims to steer his group into a materialistic nirvana. There is nothing basically wrong with this except that the nirvana would cost New York at least $250 million annually at a time when the city is faced with a $62 million per year deficit in the operation of public transportation. Some nirvana.

One Big Happy Family By Peter Grose (c) 1965 New York Times Moscow The aging economist who started the whole thing in the eyes of the West, at any rate-has issued a new plea for anonymity. The far reaching reform of the Soviet economy now under way has been given the label "Libermanism," after Prof. Yevsey G. Liberman of Kharkov State University of Changing the system of management in Soviet industry along the lines approved by the Soviet government ths fall. The label is used only out side the Sovet Union and the self-effacing professor does not like it.

"The importunate attempt by bourgeoise commentators to put mv name in the headlines be indignant," he has said. "It makes one laugh rather than is only due to ignorance that all the titanic research and the entire generalization of practical experience is reduced to the invention of an individ ual scientist." Before Sept. 9, 1962, Liber man was a little known eco nomics teacher in a provincial university. His writings were not widely read abroad; he did not rate a listing in the stan- a biographical reference books used by students of So viet affairs. On that day he published an article in Pravda, the Commu nist party newspaper, titled Plan, Profit and Bonuses, proposing that factories should have more "freedom of eco nomic maneuver." He stressed the principle that "the higher the profits the greater the in centive." This article and Pravda's willingness to publish subse quent articles along the same line started the profound eco nomic debate which has set Soviet economic thinking into a startling new course.

A Yugoslav correspondent. one of the few newsmen the professor has agreed to see, wipte recently:.