EDITORIAL
CORRESPONDENCE Bmlorable Mention New York, N.Y. To the Editors: In his column of October 22 Mr. Peter Steinfels, while scarcely friendly to my cause, kept mainly to the bounds of fair...
...John Kenneth Galbraith was one of the few to oppose such a tax slash...
...However, I must question the accuracy of Mr...
...Black unemployment has always run higher than the national average...
...I have written for Commonweal...
...Carter owes them a political debt--although he does---but because the national welfare urgently demands it...
...1924, te date available through University Micrelllms...
...Carter is quite correct, and it is important that this concentration on jobs be carried out with special attention to the particularly distressing plight of the black community and the young, especially the black young...
...Second class postage paid at New gnrk, N.Y...
...Mlcratllms tram Vol...
...Peter Steinfels, while scarcely friendly to my cause, kept mainly to the bounds of fair comment...
...Surely there are no grounds for Mr...
...These questions divide themselves neatly into two broad categories, those arising from the nature of the deterrence of crime and those arising from the nature of television as a social phenomenon...
...The whole Watergate fugue of crim~, while perhaps derived from some passionate convicticl of Richard Nixon--that he was above the law, f~r example, as indeed he turned out to be--were nevetheless preeminently crimes of calculation...
...They are excluded, of course, because they have no tax liability to be reduced...
...It's no good telling a person in that state that he had better not strangle because he will shortly be strangled himself...
...In this we think Mr...
...Honest-anthentic murders tend to be committed by people driven over the edge of calm, rational planning, the sort of thing envisioned in deterrence theory...
...Buckley...
...The trouble with capital crimes is that most of them are committed out of some kind of personal desperation which renders the capital criminal insensitive to long-range considerations of personal welfare...
...my emphasis) Because Governor Wallace received apfContinued on page 27) NEWS • VIEWS: 2 CORRESPONDENCE: S EDITORIAL: 2 WASHINGTON REPORT: SpeemJatiee Speetaeulars: Frank Getlein 4 AN UPDATE ON LEONARD FEENEY: John Deedy 5 TJHfE GREENING OF VER~IONT: Jonathan Eisen 7 MINUTES OF THE ME~ING: Peter Stein/els 8 ]FOR CARTER: HEED THE POOR NATIONS: Brennon Jones 9 TRE OTHER ISILSAELIS: Joseph L. Ryan I B MARTIN REID~GER: IN MEMORIAM: William J. Richardson 16 PRESS: Reran|at|on That Warn't: Thomas Powers 19 TRE STAGE: Gerald Weales 2 0 THE SCREEN: Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr...
...If the Wategate calculators were capable of calculating that th0/ could cook the election by breaking into Larry O'Briem office, that they could lie to Congress and the publ~ and get away with it, that they could destroy evidene in criminal proceedings, that they could spirit Spi~ out of the vice-presidency with no punishment for crims 7 January 1977:4...
...I have written about Commonweal...
...21 MARIANISM AND MARINA WARNER: George A. Lindbeck 2 8 ROO~ g Irving Malin, Robert V. Remini Z$ ILLUSTRATIONS: Front cover: Peg Averili/Art for People/LNS JAMES O'GAItA: Editor JOHN DEEDY: MaeaglnB Editor IAYMONO A. SCHROTH: Associate Editor ANNE M. ROEERTSON: |dltorlel Assistant COLIN L. WESYEREECK, JR.: Movies JOHN FANDEL: PoatrlP FRANK GKTLBIN: Wasklngtoe BRIAN WICKER: Great |rltoin ALAIH WOODROW: Paris HENRY YEN KORTINAAR: Rome JOHN COQNEY: DeMIn EDWAItD S. SKILLIN: Peb/isker JOHN BRUBAKER: Advertising Manager Staff: LINDA F. KAYLIEIt, PAMELA J. Fn'LGINtALD, NARItlrrTE BALSKY COMMONWEAL A rev/ew of Psb//o Affairs, Llteratmre and tke Arts...
...And so on...
...Carter said that his first priority in stimulating the economy would be to channel money into programs to create jobs in public works and public service projects, community development programs and housing subsidies...
...The short range is overwhelming...
...But as for Commonweal, this is another matter...
...Indeed, there is every reason to believe they do not...
...Far from being a deterrent, televised executions may actually increase the incidence of capital crimes, ss those crimes are now constituted...
...Sbglo copies 7Sr Commonweal /s Indexed b Reader's Guido to Periodical LHeratura, Catholic Periodical Iodel, and Ileeh Review Digest...
...That last phrase is a key to the possible social usefulness of former Secretary Connally's suggestioz, despite its demonstrated dubiety at present...
...He states that "political reporters endlessly discussed the possibility that George Wallace's third party campaign might throw the election into the House of Representatives which it did not come close to doing...
...It may be Mr...
...Ths is for the reasons cited above, but there is no reasm at all to believe that those considerations--personal desperation and all thatmapply to all crimes...
...Powers' research concerning the 1968 presidential election...
...Is it any wonder that packs of wild youths prowl our inner cities...
...to/apiece: I2121 MU 3-2042...
...For black teen-agars the figures are especially distressidg--almost 40 percent as compared with about 16 percent for white young people...
...Fora/gn $19...
...The present waste of our greatest resource is a national disgrace...
...Referring to the contest for United States Senator from New York, Mr...
...Carter faces hard choices immediately-not least in the economic area...
...10016...
...Millions of youngsters are not being successfully integrated into American society...
...today it is twice as high...
...Connally probably has hit upon the one issue around which all of the right right can rally, but the proposal itself raises several questions which demand consideration, possibly resolution, before one can whole-heartedly endorse the Connally program for programming live, so to speak, TV...
...But the figures for youth in general are appalling: almost half of the nearly Commonweal: 3 8 million unemployed are between the ages of 18 and 24...
...As to deterrence, capital punishment does not seem to have deterred many people from capital crimes, although it must be conceded that reliable figures in the field are hard to come by...
...8teinfels writes: "Moynihan extends the adjective 'honorable' to his opponent Mr...
...WASHINGTON REPORT SPECULATIVE SPECTACULARS John Counally of Texas, in a brilliant mo~ve to rally support among the right wing of the Republican right wing, has come out in favor not only of restoring capital punishment as a deterrent to crime but of televising executions to make the deterrent more deterrent still...
...Initially, at least, Mr...
...Printed in tke USA and pub//sSed b/.weekly by Commonweal Publishing Ca., 232 Mad/son Ave., New Fee I,, N.Y...
...Carter has i]a mind...
...I have lent my name to the effort to raise other monies for Commonweal...
...Capital punishment is no deterrent to him...
...For those over 25 the unemployment rate is 6 percent...
...I have contributed money to Commonweal...
...murder and rape, the crimes most widely punished b/ death, are indeed the product of desperation more oftel than not, there are crimes that are the sole product ~f calculation, and calculation, of course, is just what s counted on in the deterrent theory of capital punislment, on television or not...
...He thinks, on the one hand, that that doesn't matter, anything is better than the situation as it exists...
...Galbraith put it, "A policy that systematically selects the most needful for the least help---in fact nothing--is utterly callous if not mildly obscene...
...The poor desperate sod sees suddenly the chance not only to settle accounts with his spouse, his boss, his brother, his hated classmate, but to become a national celebrity in the process...
...Such crimes, for example, are those committed by D many of John Connally's former associates in the Nixcl administration...
...on the contrary, as with the poor man in Utah, it may even be a positive incentive to crime, the one possibility of getting everything settled at once...
...The agents did steam open the Congresswoman's mail, after all, and the Russians did not land on Staten Island: dare we take the risk of not steaming open her mail in the future...
...300 N. Zocb Itead, Ann Arbor, Mich...
...As Mr...
...We hope such a program is what Mr...
...One statement, however, would seem open to objection...
...One's spouse has simply become so impossible that strangling seems the only sensible way to cut off the flow of invective from that oncebeloved throat...
...The "idle chatter" of reporters is a problem to those of us who closely follow the media...
...Among other arguments he noted, in an article in the New York Times, that the tax cut proposal benefited not at all the 25 percent-35 million--adult citizens who have the least income, have the greatest need and are most likely to ~pend anything they get, thus helping the economy...
...Steinfels' insinuation...
...It is like the CIA's implicit claim that by steaming open Bella Abzug's mail, the Agency was able to prevent a Russian invasion of the east coast...
...For a while there seemed to be a general conviction inside and outside the Carter camp that a tax cut after January was certain, with the aim of giving the economy a quick upward kick...
...Throw television coverage into that situation and yea get the geometric progression effect...
...I am aware of no such impediment, however, although admittedly I have not given much thought to the matter...
...41106...
...National Serials Data Program No.: ISSN 0010-3330...
...for those in their teens it is almost 20 percent...
...Copyright @ 1976 Cnmmosweat l~bllsb/etl Co., be.---US and Canada: $17 a year...
...What ve know about capital punishment, after all, is not that it does not work as a deterrent, but only that it does not work as a deterrent against the crimes now punishet or proposed to be punished by the death penalty...
...0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 000 'MILDLY OBSCENE" Once installed in the Oval Office, Mr...
...tax reduction, he said, would be only a supplement to such job-creating efforts...
...Steinfels knows something about himself which he feels that if I knew I would not consider him honorable...
...To supplement inadequate private efforts we need an imaginative, far-reaching program of service to the local community and to the nation--not a make-work, dead-end affair but one th~kt could render invaluable service and at the same time offer learning potential for later private employmenlt...
...The inquirer must also keep in mind that these two sets of considerations do not merely add up when placed together, but at the very least multiply and possibly go into geometric progression...
...D~'~mL r. MOVmtP, N C/age Call i i i i Cincinnati, Ohio To the Editors: I enjoyed the article by Thomas Powers--"Line of Maximum Consequence"--in the October 22 issue...
...It has become unclear whether he would extend it to me or, for that matter, to Commonweal...
...Special attention for the blacks, not because Mr...
Vol. 104 • January 1977 • No. 1
