4
Thursdav, May 2, 1974
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
U.S. Aids Middlemen
Next time you're at the grocery store, watching the cash register go crazy as you check out your few meager items, you may wonder where your money is going. In case you didn't already know, about two-thirds of your food dollar goes to middle men such as wholesalers, processors and retailers. Those industries, therefore, are the ones with the greatest impact on the price of food, not the farmer.
According to a story in the May issue of Consumer Reports, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has concluded that that industry is making the bulk of the sales are made by a few large firms.
In the cereal industry, for example, four corporations account for 90 per cent of the sales. The big four in the soft-drink industry, Cocal Cola, PepsiCola, SevenUp, and Royal CrownCola, account for 70 per cent of the total sales. According to Consumer Reports, these companies estimated the concentration in the food industry is costing consumers an extra $2.6 billion annually. Much of that "windfall" profit the food industry receives is plowed back into unneeded advertising.
It would be pointless, however,
merely to revile middlemen and
idiotic television advertising.
Without an efficient distribution
system such as middlemen
provide, food prices in many parts
of the country would undoubtedly
be much higher than they are.
Advertising, besides paying for the
space in which editorials like this
one appear, helps to stimulate the
economy. Advertising and middlemen are not the villains they
sometimes are made out to be.
The truly appalling aspect of this situation is the extent to which monopolistic practices in the food industry have been protected by government.
In the past, according to the
Consumer Reports story, the FTC had to obtain permission from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to survey 10 or more businesses at one time. The OMB, under Nixon appointee Roy Ash, masseed a new law that usually edited the embarrassing questions out of the FTC survey form. When Congress passed the Alaska pipeline bill, an amendment was attached to that bill that strengthened the FTC and made it independent of the OMB. Now, however, President Obama did that he wants Congress to repeal the legislation that gave the FTC its new powers.
Congress was the hero in that story, but it is the villain in another. The FTC has filed antitrust suits against the soft-drink industry to break up the soft-drink industry. The Industry has responded by lobbying for legislative exemption from antitrust laws.
Consumer Reports says that the Senate has obigued the soft-drink industry by sneaking just such a bill through without debate or a recorded vote. Hearings on the bill are expected to begin this spring before the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee. It seems strange that the Congress would, on the one hand, enact antitrust legislation and empower a federal agency to enforce it and then, one by one, exempt certain laws from the law may be necessary, but the exemptions that are allowed should be for the interest of all the people, not just a few.
Congress' job is not to dispense favors to the various interest groups; its job is to serve the people. The voters' job is to remind congressmen and presidents from time to time exactly who they work for.
John Bender
YES
Should Impeachment Be Televised?
George Reedy is dean of the College of Journalism at Marquette University and a former press secretary of President Lyndon B. Johnson.
By GEORGE E. REEDY Special to the Los Angeles Times
The Daily Kansas welcomes letters to the editor, but asks that letters be typewritten, double-spaced and no longer than 800 words. All letters are accepted in order to comply according to space limitations and the editor's judgment, and must be signed.
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There are issues of public confidence at stake which go beyond the usual questions of press freedom and access to news—and the decision should not be made casually.
AFTER ALL, IMPEACHMENT is a device whereby 353 men and women—435 through indictment and 100 through trial—can take from a man a grant of ultimate power which was given to him by all the legislators. The judge would be hazardous for a small group to reverse a decision made by the entire electorate. Our constitution provides no method for direct public participation in the deliberations. But television provides a
Even though Congress still has to decide whether President Nixon should be impaired and tried, it isn't too early to give careful—and I, hope favorable—consideration to allowing full, live television coverage of the proceedings.
Traditionally, both Congress and the judiciary have been reluctant to admit television cameras to their proceedings. I am aware of this reluctance for this reluctance even though I am not certain the reasons are wise. But impachment is an extraordinary procedure, and whatever may be the morals of the court, I believe it is safe to without some unusual logical aerobics.
letters policy
method for direct public witnessing of the process, and there are values to this are incurred.
Admittedly, no device can make the final decision satisfactory to everyone. President Nikon's implacable foes—those who nated him even before Watergate—would regard anything less than 100 per cent impaction and conviction as evidence of legislative cowardice. His last-ditch defenders would regard anything less than 100 percent of a suspect plot to railroad their here. A senate vote somewhere between 50 per cent and the two-thirds required to convict would open up nightmares of recriminations.
Legislatures, of course, have always resisted the presence of television cameras during legislative sessions. The reason is simply that floor sessions are only a small part of the legislative process and here the lens can distort because it makes one—and not the most interesting—part look like the whole.
BUT THE ULTIMATE popular verdict will rest upon the majority which is in between the two poles. This is a group which can render a reasonable judgment—especially when its members have seen events with their own eyes. In terms of the legal verdict, the publicary verdict is fully as important as the legislative verdict. There should be no barriers whatsoever between the public and the facts.
But an impeachment session would not be a legislative session. All of the events of major importance would take place right on the floors of the House and Senate. Such an event would upon to be present and to listen to the arguments. The speeches would be relevant and cogent. And finally, there would be no precedent established other than the presence of television during an impeachment session—not during a legislative session.
WHEN EVERYTHING is added together, it seems to me that there is more than ample justification for televising the dinners in both the House and the Senate.
The President should have an interest in having his side of the case stated directly to the people as well as to the Congress. The Congress should have an interest in giving the people an opportunity to see for themselves that the legislative committee has made a decision should have an interest in permitting the readers to observe for themselves that interpretation and background is based upon fact and not faction.
But the most important interest to be served is that of the people themselves. The presidency belongs to them—not to the Congress or to the media. If Congress is to direct a change in the outcome of the election, to be least as spectators, and there could be grave consequences were they to be denied a right so readily available.
Energy Crisis: Battlefield for PR Experts
The energy shortage is a revealing demonstration of deception in practice. The crossfire of statistics and political bickering has sufficiently clouded the scene so that the situation is difficult to view in simple, trustworthy terms.
The befuddled public has become reliant upon the symbols that the persuaders are using to manipulate opinions by simplifying complex matters. That reduces the dispute over the causes and solutions of the energy shortage to a battle of public relations experts.
There are plentiful symbols for both sides of the dispute. The anti-oil company advocates need only to point to the long gas lines, rising gas prices, trucker strikes, 55 m.p.h. limits and vast increases in oil company profits. Those symbols, many of which confront the average person every day, are certain to cause public arousal.
out the cash at the gas station, but he can have the satisfaction of knowing that he is planting the seeds of a glorious bean stalk of future energy. The implication is that the oil companies are doing a public service by emptying Joe's pocketbook.
But the oil companies, despite their laments about lack of access to the media, the conspiracy of editors and unfair publicity, have a stock set of symbols of their own to insure public quiescence.
It would seem difficult to explain to Joe Citizen why he must be tolerant of all the inconveniences. But, through symbols, Joe has been gently taught that he is the real villain and must pay the price. He is wasteful and greedy like the dog in the Concoq ad who lost both bones. And Joe mustn't complain or he would be somehow threatening free enterprise and future economic growth.
The oil companies think that they have been maligned because their message is complex and unappealing. Thus they spend most of their public relations efforts simply explaining their woes and providing the most entertaining and uncomplicated, if irrelevant, messages. They think that their problem is complex and the public response is too slick and deceptive exchange of editorial ads that subdue Joe but leave him with a vague feeling that he is being fingled.
In one of its editorial ads, Shell proclaimed: "After all, we have basically the same ends in mind; that is, providing for the needs of the American consumer as well and fully as possible."
That is absurd. The purpose of Shell Oil Company is to make money. The advantage of capitalism is that Joe's needs and Shell's profit motive often coincide, though not intentionally. Joe can be sure that Shell is interested in his money, not his welfare.
The government would seem to be a neutral arbiter that would be more accountable to Joe, even if it is not more concerned about him. But the government, an institution, has an interest in maintaining the status quo, just as the oil industry does. The government will use the
An illustration of the self-interest of the oil industry and the inadequacy of government concern for the consumer was a set of facts revealed in a series of Philadelphia stories. Among the facts were these:
oil company for a scapegoat but probably will not seek fundamental changes in the political-social system.
d deliberately expanded its market
it in Europe and Asia despite the
weakness of global demand.
He may wince when he shovels
The Nixon administration failed to lift oil import restrictions after taking
—The oil industry has
The American taxpayer is subsidizing the sale of oil abroad through a variety of tax allowances to American oil companies.
Jerome Barron, professor of law at George Washington University, is a member of the American Bar Association's legal advisory committee on fair trial and free press.
That is an example of industry looking after its own interests and government cooperation. The free enterprise-related symbols have so far kept Americans acquiescent. But the society may have to come to grips with an endless energy shortage that may force a restructuring of the society to handle the crisis.
NO
Bill Gibson
By JEROME A. BARRON
Special to the Los Angeles Times
Impeachment trials, fortunately, are such rare events in this country that there is little direct, authoritative guidance on whether impeachment of a president should be televised; we have no experience on the nature of mixing impeachment with television.
M
TB
In an impeachment proceeding, the senators are the jurors.
When the Billie Sol Estes case came before the Supreme Court in 1965, Justice Tom C. Clark, speaking for the court, said that the "chief function" of judicial machinery was to "ascertain the truth." Rather tarty, the court said: "The use of authority to contribute materially to this objective." In an impeachment proceeding, the
IN AN IMPEACHMENT, the Senate is in effect, a courtroom, and we therefore should remember the counsel of Chief Justice Earl Warren in his separate opinion in the Estes case: "We must take notice of the inherent conventions of law and rule that its presence is inconsistent with the 'fundamental conception' of what a trial should be."
"IF THE COMMUNITY be hostile to an accused, a televised juror, realizing that he must return to neighbors who saw the trial balance nice, nice, nice, and true between the state and the accused," the Supreme Court said. Furthermore, is there any real answer to the court's anxiety that television coverage is the camera rather than on the testimony?
In an era when the law has extended due process concepts to more and more areas of American life, surely it is hard to argue that due process and its implications for criminal trials should not also apply to the question of televising an impeachment.
IT MAY BE said that hearings of the Senate Watergate Committee were televised, and that if the proceedings of the committee that led to an impachment could be televised, why shouldn't the impachment trial itself also be televised?
The two are not comparable. Only at the outsetperimeters of its legislative jurisdiction do they have the matte touch on questions of guilt or innocence as they might affect criminal defendants. The raison d'etre of the imminent danger is that the guilt or innocence of the accused.
Excluding the television cameras would not deprive the public of its right to know. Coverage by the print press of any imprints on television would be free and freewheeling. News and commentary on radio and television would be similarly free and extensive, that is our tradition, and the precedent of the Andrew Johnson trial. The public would allow publicity to become all pervasive.
I think the conclusion is clear: televising the national torment of a president's influence.
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Reader Responds
Garter-Belted Legs Overplayed
To the Editor:
The editors of the Kanan showed a deplorable, though perhaps not unusual, lack of news judgment in their handling of the controversy. After gathering garner bells published Tuesday.
In addition, the picture was hardly an illustration of garter belts as a fashion trend as much as "what's inside them," the main focus of this article. The best accord according to a quote from the story.
Not only was the four-column picture approximately twice as big as the story it accompanied, but it was also misrepresentative of trends at KU. We have yet to see one woman on the KU stage display "fashionable" garter belt, but the Kansas seems to think it is a fad that deserves considerable attention.
It was refreshing to note that at least one man quoted in the story considered the comfort and appearance of women in his comments.
Garter belts may indeed be part of the upcoming fashion trends for some women. However, Bryan Richards may be surprised to learn that at least some women don't dress solely to make their bodies "more accessible" to men.
Ann Gardner
Ann Gardner
McPherson junior
Sheila Jones
Wichita sophomore
Byrdy
Wichita junior
Robin Glozbach
Topeka freshman
Cindy Halderman
Concordia sophomore
Teresa Garcia
Kansas City Kan., junior
Lawrence sophomore
Auer Harlensk
Wichita sophomore