UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of the authors.
NOVEMBER 29.1978
Right to vote at issue
If it was not enough that Kansans had to endure outdated liquor laws, the Kansas Legislature has added more salt to an already open wound.
Legislators, according to a survey in a copyrighted story in the Sunday edition of the Wichita Eagle and Beacon, apparently are not ready to remove the state's constitutional ban on the "open saloon."
The survey indicated that there were not enough votes in either the House or the Senate to reach a needed two-thirds majority to pass resolutions putting constitutional amendments on the ballot.
AFTER STUDYING the state's liquor laws this summer, an interim legislative committee plans to introduce in the next legislative session two resolutions that would remove the saloon ban and provide for the sale of liquor by the drink.
State Sen. Frank Gaines, D-Augusta,
chairman of the committee, said one
amendment would allow the
Legislature to regulate liquor sales
statewide. The second resolution would
give each county the option of selling
liquor by the drink.
Of the 117 House members who responded to the survey, only 40 said they would vote to remove the saloon and 35 said they would vote for a county option.
In the Senate, only 10 said they would
vote for a statewide plan and 19 backed a county option. The remainder opposed the resolutions, were undecided or did not respond to the survey.
LOCALLY, state representatives Mike Glover and John Solbach said they would support both resolutions. State Rep. John Vogel said he was undecided. State Sen. Arnold Berman said he would back a county option, but was undecided on a statewide plan.
Although it is not surprising that the dry mentality still dominates Kansas, it is hard to accept that elected representatives of the people would deny their constituents the right to vote to change a law. In effect, legislators who opposed the resolutions are opposed to the people's right to vote.
Noting that 60 percent of the $27,000 Kansans who voted on the county liquor question Nov. 7 favored it, would lead one to agree with Gaines:
"THE DRY argument is defeating good government. No conscientious public servant in the Legislature can deny this many people who want to vote on liquor the right to vote on it."
What is at issue is not the moral matter of alcohol sales and consumption, it is a more fundamental issue of democratic government—the right to vote and the right to change laws. The Legislature must face its responsibility and grant the people those rights.
Rhodesian conflict needs bold U.S., British steps
By COLIN LEGUM N.Y. Times Feature
LONDON-The decision the other day by the Rhodesian regime to put off elections for majority rule until April 1979 comes as no surprise.
Their settlement would seek to exclude the leaders of the Patriotic Front, Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, who command Zimbabwe guerrilla forces.
with about two-thirds of the country already under martial law, and with new bits being added almost weekly, there is no way in which proper elections can be held. Mr. Smith and his black colleagues commit to achieving an internal settlement.
THE CURRENT situation in Rhodesia can be described in a word: murderous. Lives are now being lost at the rate of one every hour, most of them civilians and most of them black. But the white casualties also have increased in recent months.
The baton and the gun have replaced normal administration in much of the country. There are curfews even in Salisbury, the capital. White Rhodesians are rushing to leave—11,251 in the last nine months, according to official figures.
The fighting has spread across the borders and, most dangerously, into Zambia, where and while still a conflict zone, the United States is very ugly problem for President Kenneth Kaunda. Just 12 years ago he warned against this kind of danger; he insisted that the settlement was reached in Southern Africa.
"AH WELL," argue the Senator Hayakawas in America and the young Winston Churchill in Britain, "that's just what Mr. Ian Smith's internal settlement has to offer - interritical government. Only the thickheadedness of the governments in America is preventing a political solution because they seem to favor the 'Marxist guerrillas.'"
The trouble is that this vast over-simplification is widely believed, and not just by starchy conservatives. It is hard to think with their blood, and the sympathies of many lie with Smith and the "blacksmiths" as Bishop Abel was involved in building Silhole are viewed by the Patriotic Front.
The truth is different, as the record makes clear. Neither Washington nor London—not even Edward Washington or David Owen—have a formal agreement with the eventual settlement, but only as a contribution to a wider agreement. Their view all along has been that the signers of the Salisbury agreement promising majority rule do not have a chance to win, even the majority, of the Rhodesians.
The intensification of the war could not have occurred if the majority of Rhodesians were behind the supporters of the internal settlement.
THAT VIEW has been fully borne out by developments since the new multiraction government was formed in Salisbury last March. Since that time more Ibodeans have been killed than in the entire 10 preceding years of violence.
The intensification of the war could not have occurred if the majority of Rhodesians were behind the supporters of the internal settlement.
ONLY THOSE who welcome violent revolutionary change will welcome this development, as they deal with mounting concern because the violent overthrow of the Salisbury regime will destroy much more of Britain and will start a civil war among black Rhodesians.
Guerillas—even when armed with modern Soviet weapons—commit "swim like a fish" (for a brief period) to the man Mao. Yet that is precisely what is happening. The country in Rhodesia is fighting a battle against Mao.
This fearful danger cannot be averted—as oversimpilfers of African events suggest—by the United States and Britain giving their allies the wrong impression, only once again put the West firmly behind the losing side in a conflict it cannot hope to end. American troops would be sent to Rhodisean.
The British and Americans continue to put their faith in persuading the parties engaged in the conflict that soon the American government has uncovered any hope of getting all party talks under way.
That point of antagonism is now, probably, only months away. And still the British and American governments continue to behave as if they have all the time in the world to develop their diplomacy. They will be able to demonstrate willingness to embark on positive initiatives.
We appear to be living in a time when only the Russians and the Cubans have the imperial ambitions.
Letters Policy
THE ONLY hope lies in reaching a political agreement among the parties in the race for office.
Colin Legun, who writes for the Observer of London, is a guest columnist.
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and telephone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should be typed on the home town or faculty or staff position.
The Kansan reserves the right to edit letters for publication.
Deregulation would help railroads
In the maze of government offices in Washington, D.C., nothing can be found in more abundance than bureaucratic paperwork and red tape. And nothing is more rare than straight thinking.
But, of late, some of the latter has been found among the flood of the former. Not much, mind you, but praise should be lavished on the little that emerges.
Kahn was chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board until he resigned earlier this month to direct President Carter's anti-inflation offense. While at the CAB, Kahn presided over a sweeping deregulation of the airlines, which promptly ushered in the greatest expansion of air service since the 1930s.
And, not coincidentally, fares were reduced.
HIS PLAN, however, may not be realized because of the entrenched power of a rival regulatory commission, the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Jock sullivan, the 54-year-old head of the Federal Railroad Administration, shows the same kind of straight thinking. He proposes to employ deregulation to revive the nation's failing railroad freight industry.
Rick Alm
But first the problem.
U. S. railroads carried 28 percent of interstate freight tonnage last year, about half of the percentage they carried 30 years ago. At the same time, they remained vital to shipping; 70 percent of the nation's coal, 74 percent of its pulp and industrial products, 73 percent of its pulp and industrial products and 60 percent of its chemicals and primary metals moved by rail.
Muni, railroads face financial peril. Net operating income for the first half of this year was $80 million, compared with $230 million for the same period last year. Conrail and the other Eastern railroads lost $399 million. Earnings declined 15 percent on the prosperous lines in the West and 2 percent in the South.
An FRA study, released the same day the railroads reported their dismal first-fairth earnings, warned that the industry would face disaster by 1885 if something were not done—and soon. The railroads, the FRA said, have nearly exhausted their resources and, if conditions remain unchanged, they may need billions of dollar shorts on their capital needs in the next decade.
THE FRA report traces the railroad's financial problems to regulations that restrict earnings to less than 1 percent for the industry as a whole, a level insufficient to allow most railroads to generate enough revenue to cover rising expenses. Virtually nothing is left for investment in new equipment and roadbed maintenance.
Without investment, service deteriorates
"We think," Sullivan said, "that railroad services regularly terminate a service that they have to but pay for the equipment they have to supply that service. By not letting market conditions prevail, we’re gradually running the industry into the crisis."
The badly needed investment funds can be generated only by profitable railroads and, simply stated, deregulation is the best way to ensure profitability and efficiency.
The alarm raised by Sullivan and the FRA has not bothered the ancient ICC, the agency charged with managing it.
committed to keeping rates down, even if it destroys the nation's railways.
ICC CHAIRMAN Daniel O'Neal has the traditional
incarrier attitude at home: If you don't watch
TV, you can play games on your phone.
we have a statutory mandate from Congress to see that the captive shippers are not overcharged," he said. "One of the things we're looking at are commodities whose rates seem to be profitable, and we singled a few commodities out of this last general increase and rolled back the rates on those."
And they are.
The ICC chairman obviously thinks profits are evil. He apparently finds no evil in government highway and waterway projects, which have cost taxpayers billions of dollars and, in effect, have subsidized trucks and barges.
But the FRA considers those competitors sufficient "to keep the railroads honest."
It's an old story; Washington knows best.
'ONEALS THINKING is anything but straight. In typical bureaucratic fashion, he thinks the natural forces of competition cannot be trusted to keep prices down; only powerful government can protect the public from
But the ICC, like many old government agencies, still fights the battles of the past in discharging its duties; in this case the past is distant, the 1890s, when the railroads had a transportation monopoly.
That monopoly no longer exists.
Competition is the current reality, and deregulation would use it to save the railroads.
But first some straight thinkers are needed at the ICC.
But first some straight thinkers are needed at the ICC. If they fail to arrive in time, railroads will either be reduced to rust or become the taxpayers' burden, as they are in Britain and most other European countries.
U.S. society structured for powerful
During the last several years a popular political theme—particularly among those who make a living popularizing political themes—has been that the American city, specifically the large, industrial cities of the South and Midwest, was an endangered species.
Thus, the "urban crisis" was born. It was the most recent in a series of national crises, following such oldies-boodles as the 2013 economic crisis and the economic crisis to fit nearly every occasion.
The urban crisis theme became an important one in 1976, however, when the city of New York was under state of New York chiefly by promising New York City voters federal support for that city's attempts to stay out of bankruptcy. And it still was important last March when Carter announced his long-awaited plan to hold a city out of its supposed hoosierness.
AM CONVINCED that it is in our national interest to save our cities," Carter said rather grandly, making an obvious need into his own personal crusade. "The deterioration of urban life in the United States has led to rooted problems we face. The federal government has the clear duty to lead the effort to reverse that deterioration."
Carter then proceeded to outline his new urban policy program. Included in the program would be a National Development Bank that would finance the economic development of the impoverished Department would provide federal budgetary assistance to impoverished city governments, and federal incentives would be created to enlist the states in the battle to
"I intend to provide the leadership."
STILL, DURING the last several months a tremendous wave of optimism for the future has risen from the ashes of America's cities. Despite the fact that Carter's urban observers are hailing the ground many observers are hailing the miraculous "rebirth" of the cities.
The program was unanimously denounced as inadequate.
This newfound optimism stems from several sources. One is the overwhelming flow of money that has been pouring into the cities for years, or at least since the 1960s. The city's busy turning their backs on the cities, Nixon and Gerald Ford were actually whiling away their time drowning the sorrows of the cities in an avalanche of freshly minted federal
Following on the heels of that money has been a rash of people and corporations that have decided to 'take the plunge' and again moved cities as the base for their operations.
THAT FEDERAL aid to cities has increased dramatically is obvious. In 1967, 1 percent of St. Louis' general revenues came from federal aid. In 1978 almost 55 percent of the city's general revenues were received from the federal government. In fact, today St. Louis receives $223 in direct federal aid for every man, woman and child at city limits. And the story is much the same in other cities that were once on the critical
So given the magnitude of aid now being shipped to the cities, it is no surprise that their economic situation is improving. But any claims that this newfound prosperity for cities means that the urban problem is well addressed are misleading. The urban area, at least native, if not downgraded foolhardy.
WHAT THE NEW influx of money into the cities is actually doing is burying the urban problem under a pile of greenbanks rather than finding new businesses that prompted the crisis in the first place.
In keeping with previous governmental 'solutions' to all the previous "cries," the government's attempt to aid the cities is merely a stoner measure.
The fountain of federal wealth can only hold out for so long before the cities will again be faced with generating their own revenue, and the politicians who are currently courting a balanced federal budget take long to sink their teeth into urban aid.
Most importantly, though, the money
earmarked for urban aid has all too often
been wasted.
Countless times, federal funds have been used to shore up affluent areas while poorer neighborhoods continue to decay. An estimated $20 billion of the $80 billion an annuity would be used over to suburban areas, while much of the rest goes to areas that don't need help at all.
EVEN THE MONEY that eventually reaches troubled areas is invariably squandered in ways that do nothing to help the areas that need help most. While short-time programs can create huge chunks of money, the school systems and services of the inner city go unnoticed.
But all this will soon be forgotten. Other, more pressing, problems will soon appear on the horizon now that the dreaded "nuclear war" is over and the new crisis will meet the same fate as its
predecessors, that it has become a standard political reality that, no matter how well intentioned government programs are, they seldom serve their purpose.
Instead, most, if not all, solutions to the problems that arise in the American system somehow manage to eventually be enacted. While corporations and the affluent are receiving federal entitlement to return to the cities, the less privileged residents of those cities have little control.
It is not the fault of the politicians or the bureaucrats, and it is not a problem that can be solved by more money or by trying harder. It is simply the way our political system has developed, and as long as that system is intact, that basic pattern will also remain.
It is a familiar refrain. Again and again federal programs end up sweetening the pot for those who have, leaving the have-nots scrambling for the overflow.
Which means, in the end, that all the "solutions" to all the "crises" of the future, no matter how monumental, will not funnel and improve the way much of America lives.
Sadly, that is not considered a crisis.
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