Backtalk: Big Man On Campus Buncombe Facing i Threat Gambling THE ASHEVILLE CITIZEN "Dedicated to the Upbuilding of Western North Carolina" ROBERT BUNNELLE, President and Publisher HAL TRIBBLE, Editor RICHARD B. WYNNE, Executive Editor Associate Editors: PHILIP CLARK, LUTHER B. THIGPEN Wednesday, February 8, 1967 Local School Tax Plan An Essential Proposal (Editor's Note: Letters must be brief, signed, typed or written legibly on one side oi paper. We reserve the right to reject, edit, or condense.) be called a religious war be tWeen Christians on the one hand and Buddhists and non-Christians on the other, for most Vietnamese are either Buddhists or non-Christians. Also our soldiers are, according to Spellman, "soldiers of Christ," and some think that we are in Vietnam to.
protect the Christians the French left and the refugees from the North. It is certainly true that a certain high ecclesiastic was most instrumental in getting us involved. One wonders sometimes, "Do the Christians want peace?" "Have they ever advocated peace in the past?" J. B. Reynolds Asheville.
Buncombe County citizens should wake up to the threat of wide-open gambling in Buncombe County. Have we become apathetic, about moral Issues and dis-. miss them as "just On January 6, when Sheriff Harry Clay was. vacationing ABC agents seized whisky and confiscated tipboards, baseball lottery materials, punch boards, poker chips and cards In a raid on The Riverboat Lounge in North Buncombe. Now we read that the Sheriff, the top law enforcement officer in the county, does not deny that he vacationed In the company of Bob Greenwood, convicted in federal court on a charge.
Greenwood, who has 'a string of gambling convictions, was arrested with another gambler, Chicken Lunsford, in a raid on a trailer in Buncombe County a raid made by Internal Revenue special agents who watched the trailer for 10 days before they raided it. It would seem that the-sheriff could have made these raids. This is not "just politics." As the nation's top law enforcement men have pointed out, local gambling eventually finances national crime. Buncombe can't afford any laxity in its fight against gambling. Mrs.
Henrietta Scott Route 2, Asheville. erty evaluation. But the local per-pupil expenditure of $341 is still next to the lowest qi North Carolina's seven major cities. The proposed 40-cent tax for both city and county units would yield an estimated $1,700,00 annually. It would permit a 10 per cent increase in the salaries of teachers and other professional personnel; the elimination of all special instructional fees now charged by the schools; and the hiring of additional teachers and other staff members not provided by the State.
In addition, during the first year, the county school board would use about $300,000 of the income for school construction. The proposal originated with the Citizens Committee for Better Schools which, for more than 18 months, has conducted a painstaking study of local school finances and the need for a countywide supplement. There can be no serious question that the need exists or that it is urgent. In their own' interest and that of their children, residents of Asheville and Buncombe must vote for the 40-cent tax on May 2. We are confident they will do so.
The time may come when North Carolina will provide a statewide system of uniform schools, with pay scales high enough to attract superior teachers and staff members, and a program of instruction geared to meeting human needs in all Tar Heel communities. Indeed, that is implicit In Article 9, Section 2 of the State constitution, and it must remain a goal. But the time is not yet and, until It arrives, local school districts must devise means to supplement the basic State appropriations for education if they are to offer anything approaching adequate schooling in this competitive age. For that reason, the decision of the Asheville and Buncombe school boards to call for a public election, May 2, on a 40-cent countywide tax for school purposes is timely and, in truth, imperative. At the moment, the county has no supplementary tax.
Its annual expenditure of $299 per. pupil ranks 96th among the State's 1G9 school units, and 17th among 18 counties in Western North Carolina. The city schools are now levying tax of 25 cents on each $100 prop Roscoe Drummond Reviews: 1 Consular Treaty A Big Test State Needs Better Renewal Law try. Since some 18,000 Americans visit the Soviet Union every year and only a few hundred Russians visit the U. the benefits of the treaty to our side are considerable.
Would there be any great se Sanitation Foul Do you sometimes get the feeling that Backtalk is Asheville's Court of Last Appeal? I do. Take for instance the sewer maintenance problem: nobody expects preventive measures, but when a sewage stopage occurs sanitation should demand action swift and sure. This is not Asheville's way. There is a manhole over-. flow situation at the corner, of Bluebriar and Mayflower, (how incongruous:) that has.
been unsuccessfully reported four straight weeks and dur-. ing these springlike days you could have smelled your way. to it. Below the Castle Sternburg, nee Seely's, there is 1 a pipe rupture that looses every drop of the Tiara Apartment's (64 units?) plumbing wastes down the side of a mountain (picture it if you can I've seen it.) This particular geyser is so spectacular in its vileness that there is a well worn path from viewers of this 8th wonder of Asheville. A Tunnel Rd.
car wash runs residue and insolvents and detergents not. in the sewer system but. into creeks and streams which wind a mile further down into what used to be a beautiful lake but which for the, past few years is only Kenllworth's mudhole. I apologize for specializing on my section of town, but here I live and the smell is ting awful. Blanton Wright Asheville.
split on i this issue if Senate-Minority Leader Everett Dirk-sen continues to the treaty. His opposition would line up numerous GOP conservatives against the But there is a strong movement among the Republi-i can moderates to break away from the Dirksen lead on all those1 areas, of foreign policy East-West This movement is being led by Thruston B. Morton of Kentucky, a senior GOP Sen-. ator who has served both as chairman of National Committee and chairman of the Senate Campaign Com- I Is War Religious? It was comforting to read that 'God was on our side" in last Friday's Citizen, but surprising 'that Mrs. Nora Wieters thinks that this Vietnam trouble is a religious war and that we are 'considered a Christian nation.
Did not George Washington or some' one under him officially about 1799, that the U. S. was in no sense a Christian nation? Being an unreconstructed rebel I sometimes regret that God wm not on my grandfather's side about a hundred years ago, Is reported Lincoln's" birthday anniversary is sometime in February so it might well to quote him on his beliefs about God and War. He said, "Both the North and the -South) read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. I agree with you in Providence: but I believe in the Providence of the most men, the largest purse, and the.
longest cannon." 000 building, while the second highest bidder might be prepared to make an investment of $1 million. Although the taxpayers benefit in the short run from the higher land sale price, they lose in the end because of the lower income obtained from the property tax on the smaller investment. Nineteen North Carolina cities now have redevelopment: programs and others will soon be launching them, so this is a matter of statewide (Concern. The legislature should change the law to give local redevelopment commissions wider authority, to use the land for the best interest of their own communities. North Carolina cities which have urban redevelopment programs under way or soon will have them should make a joint effort to get the General Assembly to change the statutes affecting redeveloped land.
Redevelopment commissions need stricter control over the use to which redeveloped land can be put; and (2) some leeway by which they are not always forced to accept the highest bid for the land involved. Under general State law a redevelopment commission must sell cleared land to the highest bidder, and restrictions on its use are fairly broad. This means, for example, that on land designated for a motel site, the low bidder may put up a WASHINGTON At Stake in what happens to the U. consular treaty, soon to be before the Senate for ratification, are these three things: 1 The effectiveness of President Johnson's leaders in the new Congress, already shaky and certain to become more so if he loses the first big test. arrThe stance of the Republican party whether it is to be a discriminating partner with the President or a partisan obstructionist.
3 The willingness or refusal of Congress to support the Administration to improve a wide range of East-West relations at a time when important steps in this direction are being taken in Europe. The prospect for ratification is Improving but is far from certain. It seems to me that the case for is conclusive. Its main value is that it gives to each nation the means to protect the rights of its citizens traveling in the other's coun curity risk? Each side plans to open one consulate. This would add 10 to 15 Soviet officials to the 425 Soviet diplomats now in the FBI Director J.
Edgar Hoover informed the President that this small increment "would raise no problems which the FBI cannot effectively and efficiently deal with." Principal opposition to the treaty has been voiced by the ultra conservative Liberty Lobby. Support for the treaty has recently come from President Eisenhower. Former Vice President Nixon is known to favor it. It is also backed by a majority of Republican and Democratic Senators, but, because a two thirds vote is required to ratify the outcome is still in doubt. The Republicans will be badly mittce.
He feels that it is imperative that the Republican party support tiie consular treaty, back the President on expanding non. strategic trade with Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and give its backing to the cause of a treaty to ban the spread of nuclear weapons and to control the arms race. City Should Equip Its Policemen The Vietnam affair might Marianne Means: Sylvia Porter Explains: Power Blunder Averted Social Security Tax To Rise tion with the police departments of other WNC towns. Making a new member of the police force pay from $90 to $100 for his hand gun, and belt is unnecessary. The cost of this equipment would represent pnly a small item in the city's overall budget, but it is a real pinch on the policeman's first paycheck and conceivably even a deterrent to some men to entering the force.
The City Council should approve funds for furnishing complete equipment to all Asheville policemen in its budget for next year. Asheville's new Police Chief, J. C. Hall, has put his finger on two real needs of the Police Department: a continuous training program and purchase by the city of service revolvers, holsters and belts for all new members of the force. With the wave of break-ins that has hit Asheville and other American cities, the need for better police training is apparent.
It should be possible to work this out in collaboration with the Asheville-Buncombe Technical Institute and perhaps in coopera much as 60 per cent in the years ahead. But the total proposed benefit protection, the Social. Security Administrations would rise as much as 71 per WASHINGTON Despite President 'Johnson's, preoccupation with iSouth vital programs to. help that country stand ort its own feet are being handled by the State Department's vast bureaucracy with frustrating clumsiness. By way of illustration, the Department's Agency for In-, ternational.
Development has just been rescued from making a blunder of grave im-. plications. Av I. B. had approved a special mission dominated by private power' cbmpany executives There is unquestionably a "breaking point" for our So- 1 cial Security contribu- tiqns and we well may be approaching it.
But this year's suggested Social Security, tax won't put us at; that poirit; even though any tax hike is a paycheck bite, no matter how it's sugar coated. An Ex-Envoy Offers Good Advice assist setting up a punuc piwer system for Saigon a appealed to A. I. D. for help.
A. I. D. promptly appointed a task force headed by Walker Sisler, president of Detroit and composed of five other private power company executives and Leslie McClellan, a retired Bureau of Reclamation engineer. McClellan is friendly to public power but his principal experience has been with hydroelectric projects of which there are none in y- The American Public Power i Association discovered the pro-: posed mission by accident, and was not pleased.
A. P. P. A. Executive Director Alex Radin protested to.
John Glaws, the D. official in charge of the project. Glaws allowed as how he was sorry about that, but it was too late; the task force was almost ready to leave. The A. P.
P. however, represents some 1,400 statewide and metropolitan public power systems. And its political muscle is considerable. Radin protested to the White House, the Federal Power Commission, and Capitol Hill. Miraculously, A.
I. D. suddenly found that its task force could be delayed a while after all. It Is supposedly A. I.
official policy to maintain a meticulous balance between the Interests of public and private power. Its initial resistance to Radin' protests were born more of a reluctance to admit an error than a bias toward private industry. Eventually, four A. I. D.
officials sat down to dinner with Sisler and Radin' and worked out a compromise.1 So South Vietnam is now as-, sured that a chicken will have a say in how its coop is built. new Social Security tax bite would be definitely discernible: If you are now and. expect. to remain in the $10,800 and up income bracket, your monthly Social Security contribution would jump next year from the scheduled $21.45 to a new maximum of $25.35. It would ulti-.
mately go to a ceiling of $45.00 from 1973 on, compared with the $26.68 due under- present law. Translated' into yearly tot-, als, the maximum combined employer employe S. S. tax: would ultimately rise from today's scheduled maximum of $640.32 to $1,080 and with Medicare taxes added, this 1 ultimate maximum would be $1,252.80. These higher contributions, though, also would help finance your own higher benefits later.
Under today's law, the top monthly Social Security benefit you as an individual worker can ever expect is $168. This sum will become less and less realistic in terms of your actual living costs, than it already is and today no one is yet eligible to receive this maximum. But under the proposed law, this maximum rate would rise to $288 a month. And benefits for retired couples, widows and disabled workers also would climb in the years ahead. Thus, as Congress debates the size and financing of bene-, fit rises, you and I must weigh our future contribution rates against our future expected benefits.
For the higher in-, come workers the President's package could mean an increase in contributions--of as What would the huge bundle of proposed Social Security benefit boosts and liberaliza- tions now being debated by Congress mean to you, the American employe who is contributing to the Social Security system today? How much bigger would the bite from your regular paycheck be if Congress votes the full package submitted by the President, or its equivalent? A central point, almost hidden in the new proposed web of benefit and tax hikes, is that only those of you who are earning more than $6,600 a year would be affected before 1969 by the tax hikes the President is asking to finance the multi billion dollar package. Today, only about one in five workers is earning an amount above $6,600. Thus, the vast majority of workers and their employers would continue under today's maximum contribution of $21.45 a month each. In 1969 still two years away today's law will hike the monthly Social Security contribution of the $6,600 a year worker to $24.20. The proposed law would hike this worker's contribution only an extra 55 cents to $24.75 per month.
And in 1973, the ultimate maximum for this worker would be $27.50 under the proposed law Instead of today's scheduled maximum of $26.68. In short, the average employee would barely be affected, even over the long range, by the tax hike now being considered. However, for those of you In higher income brackets, the What's more, economic com-' mon sense -demands that we in-; crease the elderly'S benefits: for a full 38 per cent of Social Security beneficiaries today, So- cial Security benefits a 1 keep them above the poverty' line. To Tell The Truth "Those who corrupt the the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse." Adlai Stevenson, 1952 THE ASHEVILLE CITIZEN Published each week-day morning at 14 O. Henry Asheville, N.
C. Second-class postage paid at Asheville, North, Carolina. MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The Associated Press Is entitled ex-: clusively to the use for republication of all the local news printed In this news-paper, as well as allAP news dispatches. We are not responsible tor, nor can re return, unsolicited material. The newly-returned and retired U.S.
ambassador to Japan, Edwin O. Reischauer, is making a lot of speeches these days and voicing a lot of sense. He thinks, for example, that the United States "stumbled" into its involvement in Southeast A9ia. We were conned into supporting French colonialism. Then, when the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, "the United States stepped into the unsound situation." Adds Reischauer: "I had the feeling this was wrong, but nobody listened in those days (1954).
Many of us felt we should not back the revival of French colonialism in Asia. Step by step we became the major supplier of the French colonial war in Vietnam." He summarizes: "Let us not do this again. Let us at least think 12 years ahead and not get into any new commitments and new situations of this kind." Of course, the critics can say that Reischauer is biased. We don't think he is. He ended his ambassadorial' career in honor and dignity, and his public comments have been restrained.
What he's saying is, as we get the message, "In matters of foreign policy, let us look twice before we leap and then sit down." It is, for the United States, a timely and sobering suggestion. Postscripts Perhaps those who worry constantly about the worsening moral climate were cheered by the manufacturer of bathroom fixtures who calls his new "his-and-her" bathtubs "Mr. and Mrs." Columbia State. Oxford University students have voted that miniskirts have gotten short enough; that hemlines should go no higher. How scholarship has declined! Nashville Tennessean, move somewhat asm to appointing the fox to design the chicken coop.
Only after an outraged howl of protest from TJ public power advocates was the membership of the task force abruptly altered last week, almost on the eve of its departure for Saigon. The incident is disturbing riot only because of the special importance of the country involved but because A. I. D. officials were so peculiarly insensitive to the struggle between U.
S. public and private power a battle which for decades has raised profound questions of national policy. The whole affair is symptomatic of the ineptitude persistently displayed in the lower echelons of the State Department. The government of South Vietnam decided recently that rather than renew its present power contract with a French company it would prefer to set up a public power system to serve Saigon, similar to the one. which already provides electricity to Saigon's outskirts.
Lacking technical skill to make the transition, South Vietnam SUBSCRIPTION RATES length Dally Dally Sun. Only Only 1 1 or lime at aun. 1 Week ..55 1 Month S.40 1 Months 7.IS 1 1.10 I 3.30 4.55 6 i 9.10 1 i.6i MOnthS 514.31 Months 514.30 Year S2S.60 $13.20 Newsstand and Street Sale Price 10c Daily. 20c Sunday. Mail subscriptions art.
