UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers.
OCTOBER 27,1978
Bicycle paths needed
Lawrence bicyclists live dangerously. Each day hundreds of bicyclists are forced to joust with cars for a meager strip of asphalt and a safe trip.
And it isn't easy. Already this year, one person has been killed in a carbicycle accident. A 30-year-old Lawrence woman died Sept. 14 from injuries she sustained two days earlier when her bicycle was struck from the rear by a car at the intersection of 15th Street and Kasol Drive.
Peggy Welsch's death was tragic, and it was preventable.
FOR SEVERAL years, proposals for more bicycle paths have been batted around by the Lawrence City Commission, but nothing has been done since 1973, when the commission approved the development of three bicycle paths.
Although bicycle paths and lanes will not eliminate all of the problems of carbicycle accidents, it will greatly improve what is now a high-risk situation. It will allow to Lawrence police, more than 14 such incidents have been reported this year.
Despite the large numbers of bicycles used by University students,
Lawrence residents and University officials seem to be ignoring the problem in hooves that it will go away.
In late 1976, a city federal-grant proposal to build a new bikeway system was rejected by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Federal officials said at the time that a lack of KU support for the plan was the determining factor. With the rejection of the $85,000 grant, the city's plan floundered because of lack of money for implementation of the five-phase project.
THE ADVANTAGES of bicycle transportation are attractive, perhaps even more today than several years ago. Bicycles, of course, are pollution-free, but most of all they are a cheap and energy-conserving form of transportation. In a small city such as Lawrence, they are especially practical.
But the problems of bicycle safety must be faced, and a city wide bicycle path system would be the proper solution.
A cooperative effort between the University and city to plan, fund and implement such a system would be beneficial to everyone in Lawrence.
Last undisturbed land lost in hectic shuffle
Lost in the shuffle during the last hectic days of the 98th Congress last week was an important bill that would have determined the fate of the CARES Act and undisturbed 'bands in the Uni'<sup>14</sup>. States
The Alaska - national Interest Lands Conservation Bill would have set aside some 100 million federal acres in Alaska - land so far unspoiled by man and marked by mountain ranges, thick forests and wild and natural resources - for national parks and wildlife refuges.
The bill was supported by President Carter and was passed easily by the House of Representatives, but it met sufficient resistance in the Senate Energy Committee to insure that the session ended before the bill ever reached the Senate floor.
Nevertheless, the lack of a final decision on the bill this year does not harm its chances for eventual passage. The bill had considerable support in the Senate, and should have that support again next year if it reaches the Senate floor.
THE CRUCIAL problem for the bill's supporters, however, is whether the major provisions of the bill can escape the jaws of the Energy Committee unscarred. During its hearings on the bill this summer the committee had capitulated on several key issues, including mining interests, which have opposed the bill from the beginning.
Those interests were aided in their battle against Alaska's Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, who had repeatedly criticized Stevens attended all its sessions in an advisory role, and his influence on the committee.
While Stevens—an articulate expert on Alaska and a loyal friend of the profiters attempting to keep the Alaskan lands free for development—was faithfully attending each committee meeting, the committee's liberal members were spending the major part of the summer out campaigning and themselves. It was a costly mistake.
ES AACH item of the bill was taken up, Stevens was busy convincing the committee to skip away a bit here and a bit there. In some cases, he got more than a bit.
One major change from the House version of the bill was the committee's decision to allow oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and to allow last refuge for free and healthy caribou herds in the north. The committee decided to withhold wilderness status from the area under further mineral exploration, ignoring the pleas of Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus.
"That's the last piece of real estate on the North and South American coasts that has not been impacted by industrial man," Andrus told the committee. "Whatever oil and gas is there would last for maybe a week, maybe two weeks, maybe a month at the consumption rate of the American people. Are we willing to trade that very pristine, fragile crown jewel for two weeks of oil and gas that might or might not be there?"
THE ANSWER from both the committee and the developers was a resounding ves.
The main hope for the bill's supporters was that amendments reinstating the portions of the bill that had been slashed in committee could be approved on the Senate floor. But now the supporters of the bill must be reinstated, and they will be introduced again in the new Congress.
However, the battle between the business interests seeking profits by ravaging farmland and the government would like to maintain that land in its current pristine state is a classic confrontation that has occurred many times before, and difference is that this time be the lad.
The wild areas of Alaska are the only lands in this country that have not yet been touched and disfigured in some way by man. It is the last frontier.
"Up here (Alaska) some people are still saying there's an unlimited supply. I submit that we have learned from our development team to create an unending supply, so we should utilize some of our experience and knowledge from the top up there while we still have the opportunity."
"Alaska is now in the position the rest of the West was in the mid-1800s," he says. "When we stood on the banks of the Potomac and looked to the west we saw an unending supply of land, water, grass, timber, wildlife and minerals."
HOWEVER, all too often the frontier has been seen as an area to be conquered. But as Andrus has consistently said, the wild lands have a national treasure that should be nreserved
And Congress will have that opportunity in January. It is now up to them to take it.
Inflation plan could be disastrous
Give President Carter credit, he produced at least one minor miracle this week to prop up business and labor in the U.S. economy.
They both cameras. Carter announced his plan in a nationally televised ad featuring the Oval Office Tuesday night. The plan relies primarily on voluntary guidelines designed to limit 1979 wage increases to 7 percent and more complex voluntary guidelines to reduce price rises to an average of 5.75 percent.
They both called his anti-inflation battle plan bunk.
Rick Alm
The president declined to ask the American people to fight another "moral equivalent of war," but he did say inflation was the No. 1 domestic priority of his administration.
Well, at least Carter has sized up the importance of the problem; unfortunately for him, however, this anti-inflation plan could end up as the 1. disaster of his presidency.
His "time of national austerity" package, vague at best, blends wisdom thinking with a dawn of blind hope. Little in it has not been tried and been found wanting before. As with voluntary restraints used by presidents Kennedy and Ford, Carter's plan will fail badly because it asks people to act contrary to their interests.
AND, PERMIPS more importantly, it asks them to act contrary to strong economic currents that have been generated in Washington, D.C. by, among others, Jimmy Carter.
And, again like past presidents, he confuses the problem of inflation when he represents business and labor as the culprits. On the surface this seems reasonable; after all, businesses raise prices and unions demand wage incomes.
Carter, like presidents before him, refuses to accept responsibility.
A peculiarly difficulty arises, however; for if greed is the problem and businesses or unions can raise their selling prices at least, why do they stop at only 6 or 10 percent a year? Why not ask for 20 percent—or more?
And why did the inflation rate fall after 1975 before
rising again during the past two years? Does green fluctuate that rapidly?
Price and wage increases are limited not by the public spirit of corporate presidents and labor leaders, but by economic factors. The basic limit at any given time is the number of workers that can be employed more technically, the total supply of money in the economy.
IF, FOR EXAMPLE, the money supply doubled, consumers would have twice as much to spend. But if the output of goods and services remains the same, prices would have to double to compensate. Inflation—chronic, continuing, economy-wide inflation—is caused by the increasing increase in the supply of dollars.
Carter must know that.
The monopoly source of money in the United States, he must also know, is the federal government, which intricately regulates business.
Federal budgetary deficits pump money into the economy with no corresponding increase in output, creating economic current business and labor would find it difficult to support the president wholeheartedly—which they won't.
Carter appealed for cooperation and asked the nation "to give this plan a chance to work." But few men are publicized enough to act against their interests; and there are fewer who will do so regularly, especially when others are not asked to do the same. And Carter's plan suggests small businesses and workers who receive low pay.
CARTER, HOWEVER, forfeits any claim to the support of business and labor when he pretends that they, not the actual owners, are doing their work.
federal deficit, are to blame for the inflation that has been inching toward 10 percent this year.
Carter says his plan has teeth, but they're baby teeth. Companies will be induced to follow the guidelines through the $100 billion of federal contracts released each fiscal year.
Sounds good on paper.
Firms seeking federal contracts of $5 million or more will be required to pledge they are in compliance with both wage and price guidelines, which will be monitored by the Council on Wage and Price Stability.
"That's not easily done," economist Alan Greenspan said of the federal government's need to be careful with the federal government trying to buy paper. The vast proportion of government procurement is very specialized. You can't have the MacDonald's hamburgers or the Siemens factory.
The promise is an idle one. Carter did not say how he planned to achieve his goal or where the budget cuts were.
HE PLEEDD to cut the federal deficit to $30 billion or less next year, which would be a step in the right direction. But this is the same man who said this week that he will cut the federal-year $1.7 billion tax cut that can only increase the deficit.
Carter also pledged to fill only one of two federal job openings, enlarging 20,000 jobs budgeted for this year. However, a rider to the Civil Service reform bill passed in March added a 30,000 to 40,000 reduction in the federal work force.
Carter follows presidential tradition when he tries to disguise the true nature of inflation. Inflation derives from government overspending. And any attempt to minimize or labor causes it does not reflect well on any president.
Carter has no right to ask either business or labor to sacrifice for the proficiency of the federal government. His government is not obliged to do so.
Union militancy beneficial to all working people
By WILLIAM RYAN
N V. Times Feature
CHESTNUT HILL. Mass.—The Carter administration and the big corporations are fervently inviting us to join in their guerrilla warfare against labor unions.
The their cover story is the 'war against inflation.' When unions win substantial wage increases, they say, there is a boost in inflation that is harmful to the rest of us. They are getting upset as organized labor appears to be more militant and bulky, paranoid about the postal workers, teachers, firemen, polluters, and most impressively, miners.
Their cover story does not stand up to scrutiny. It is not true that wage increases produce price increases. More important, the results are negative. The rest of us is that when labor unions do get militant, all working people benefit from the resulting increase in wages. By "working people" I mean everyone who works for a company paying a paycheck every week or every month.
A QUICK check over the facts of the past 20 years demonstrates the important importance of building a future.
increases; there is little relationship between them.
For example, between 1950 and 1963, average weekly earnings of people working for manufacturing corporations increased 70 percent, $8.32 to $99.38, while during the same period prices increased only 27 percent. During the second half of this period, from 1963 to 1975, earnings increased by 64 percent to $163.90, while prices increased a third of this period, during the second half of this 25-year-period, wages increased somewhat less than during the first half, while prices increased at a rate three times as great.
if anyone out there doesn't know who does benefit from inflation, consider the facts about corporate profits. From 1960 to 1983, corporate profits increased from 1983 to 1978 they increased by 79 percent.
THE SECOND point to be made is that the overall rate of wage increase is directly related to the extent of union activity; high productivity and low wages occur during periods of labor "militarization."
When labor unions are organizing actively and flexing their muscles—as indicated by the acronym LFU—they have a lot of influence.
When organized labor is quiet and less active, all working people lose out. One can illustrate this by cycles in union activity over these past 25 years. There were two weekdays when the union held two and "quit" periods, 1957-1964 and 1972-1975. During the two militant cycles, real wages for all workers, actual wages less the effect of inflation, increased by an average of 1.8 percent a year. During the two quiet weeks, actual wages an average of 0.4 percent, only half as much.
DURING THE PEAK of the first active period, 1950-53, union membership was actively increasing, an average of one hour a day, with about two engaged in a labor stoppage during any given year and real wages were increasing at an average of 4.4 percent a year. During the depth of the next, or quiet period, 1960-64, union membership fell, with very little change in price increases.
number of strikes and other actions—all
in unions, in unions and not in unions, benefit.
one third period, an active one, peaked in 170-7 period, producing high wage increases, but the growth rate slowed.
During the last period, a time of labor quiescence, real wages were dropping at a rate of almost 5 percent a year and were, in fact, pushed back to the level of the mid-1960s. Everything that had been gained in the previous 10 years was lost.
first wave of the Nixon-Ford-Carter inflation.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
THE LESSON seems very clear: Those who would benefit from an increase in profits should join in the campaign to keep wage settlements low. Those who have an interest in seeing paychecks get bigger should be cheering the postal workers, the teachers, the auto workers and the rubber workers, urging them to get every nicked wage increase implemented because those wage increases have a ripple effect on all salaries and wages, including ours. The more they benefit, the more we will wind up benefiting.
William Ryan, author of "Blaming the Victim," is professor of psychology at Boston College. His newest book, "Count Equality," will be published next year.
Published at the University of Kansas daily August through may are monthly journals. Thursday during June and July except Saturday, and Sunday and holiday. Second-class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas 6045. Subscriptions by mail are $1 for six months and $2 for twelve months. County student subscriptions are $2 a semester, paid through the student activity fee.
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KU's 23-member delegation to the Legislative Assembly did vote to support the delegation. The other 18 delegates also was instrumental in defeating other proposed issues—namely the cigarette tax which the Kansan and the student body president, have opposed.
I wish to respond to a number of points made in the latest of a series of editorsorial (Oct. 19) opposing KU's affiliation with the Associated Students of Kansas.
Kansan's ASK criticisms are premature, unfair
To the editor:
In fact the 88.4 million cigarette tax would never have been defeated by the Legislative Budget.
2. The Kansan's insinuation that "KU students lust their voice" because the KU delegation did not adequately represent them is unfair.
The 25 students who represented KU (23 legislative assembly members, a campus director and a member of the board of directors) also represent a cross section of KU students' personalities, interests and backgrounds. In my opinion these 25 students represented KU as well as any 25 students could.
1. The Kansan's assertion that the interests of RU students were "submerged in the interest of a unified ASK front" is absurd.
The editorial correctly pointed out that the student body was not polled according to its lobbying priorities. But that in itself doesn't mean that the student body was not involved.
After KU's membership was finally ratified by the other student senates, there simply was not enough time to organize an effective survey for the meeting. Even if a
UNIVERSITY DAILY letters KANSAN
3. The Kansan's claim that students aren't getting their money's worth during KU's one-year membership is, besides being unsubstantial, blatantly premature.
Furthermore when the editorial was published last Thursday KU had been *n*
survey could have been organized one must wonder if it would have received enough responses.
At $2,500—only 25 percent of what every other university pays proportionately—KU's one-year trial membership is costing each student less than 11 cents.
official member of ASK for less than a week.
Surely that is not enough time to responsibly
survey the environment.
To close, I invite all interested students to attend the next ASK board of directors for the 2015 Fall meeting at Northern University in Topeka. Or, before, I know you to contact either Ron Allen, campus director, or me in the Student Senate office, or more information. Thanks for reading this.
Steve Young
K1 member, ASK Board of Directors