HOW MANY MORE SHOPPING DAYS?
Knoll, Erwin
How Many More Shopping Days? by ERWIN KNOLL Washington The traffic seems heavier than usual in downtown Washington on a Friday noon, and a knowing cabdriver explains why to his impatient...
...The details are vague...
...Now they don't have enough money to pay for their welfare programs...
...President...
...It seems to me," he tells the National School Boards Association, "that the child of of the inner city ought to have at least as much financial support for his education as his most privileged contemporary in a suburb...
...His first reaction to the report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders was to challenge the stark finding that "our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white— separate and unequal...
...Our children are entitled to better treatment from the Administration...
...Congress never intended any cutbacks in Head Start programs...
...By Representative Sikes's standards, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey is an appeaser...
...They are not unmindful of the need to economize, and so they have made overall reductions of $59 million, bringing the total down to $1.3 billion...
...Those who recommend massive increases now in Federal spending in the cities are, in my view, not being realistic," he tells the voters of Cheyenne, Wyoming...
...In fact it is shopping for more...
...He is right, one must suppose...
...It must be cut some $8 billion . . ." Senator Robert F. Kennedy, campaigning in Lansing, Michigan, says, "We can slow down the race to the moon if it means our salvation here on earth...
...A bargain...
...Corporate profits, after stumbling through much of 1967, broke into a full gallop in the first quarter of 1968," reports The Wall Street Journal...
...The Commission report," said Martin Luther King two months before he died, "is a physician's warning of approaching death, with a prescription to life...
...Similar sleight of hand has been applied to demonstrate "considerable progress in all areas of endeavor...
...Candidates, after all, must shop for votes, and the Vice President has never been one to look at the gloomy side...
...And this, he notes, does not include interest paid on the national debt "which is caused primarily by war and defense...
...King was to lead into Washington, the White House is picketed by children, four and five years old...
...They cost $6 million each...
...We cannot enter into such an immoral agreement...
...All America—all white America, that is, all affluent America—is rushing to get its shopping done...
...Before that 'Poor People's March' ties up the town...
...Mayor Carl B. Stokes of Cleveland cares about education, too...
...OEO would like to save the children of Mississippi, of course...
...The measure (includes funds for the "thin" anti-ballistic missile system that is supposed to protect the United States from China at an eventual cost of $5 billion, maybe...
...They know that violence constitutes a threat to the very survival of America, and they want action, not appeasement...
...America is disturbed and worried, and it intends to do something pretty soon...
...aircraft on the ground in Vietnam since January 1, 1964...
...by ERWIN KNOLL Washington The traffic seems heavier than usual in downtown Washington on a Friday noon, and a knowing cabdriver explains why to his impatient passenger...
...On the floor of the House, Representative William H. Bates, Massachusetts Democrat, rises in support of H.R...
...Between 1945 and 1966, according to the Agency for International Development, it paid $3.7 billion for freedom in Greece, $2 billion for freedom in Spain, $519 million for freedom in Portugal, $150 million for freedom in the Republic of South Africa, $108 million for freedom in Haiti...
...Well, America is shopping for victory, and victory does not come cheap...
...It found that "America is a shocking place," where programs for relief and assistance have turned, through penury and indifference, into nightmares for the poor...
...President Johnson said so last fall...
...We can postpone work on the supersonic transport, which will get us to Paris or Rome in two and a half hours instead of six . . . if it means we can safely sit still in our cities...
...He wants to be remembered as the Education President...
...The Pentagon is not ready to give up on the F-111...
...He solemnly warns the Senate Space Committee against putting domestic needs ahead of outer space...
...It is the second lowest figure in recent years...
...The Education President has asked Congress to appropriate only $3.7 billion of the $6.4 billion previously authorized by Congress for education for fiscal 1969...
...Speaker," says Representative Robert L. F. Sikes, Florida Democrat, "it is more than a little disappointing that so few of the nation's top-ranking administrators, national and city, have moved resolutely to prevent a repetition of the frightening events which followed the death of Martin Luther King...
...America deplores violence...
...Yet to apply this principle in Cleveland would call for the additional expenditure of $70 million a year...
...It just wants to get its shopping done first...
...440,000 to Rice University for "Interdisciplinary Study of Social Change...
...There is trouble in the land, and any fool can see there is likely to be more...
...But it has had to cut Head Start funds all over the country—and Mississippi, the anti-poverty agency explains, was getting more than its share to begin with—so the explanation went...
...We can adjust our research and development programs, now running into the billions, if it allows us to search for purpose and human dignity within our own communities...
...Prosperity prevails...
...It was told, in part, in the report issued last month by a distinguished private group, the Citizens' Board of Inquiry into Hunger and Malnutrition in the United States, which found that more than ten million Americans lack sufficient food, that infants die of malnutrition, that "many Americans eat laundry starch and clay to fill out their inferior diets," that children suffer irremediable brain damage, that men and women waste away...
...America values freedom, and is willing to pay for it...
...It doesn't help for Federal officials to juggle the poverty figures and distort what is already a dreary picture...
...I think that if the people of America would become aware that every penny of individual income taxes they pay is spent for war and defense, our political leaders might be persuaded to pursue public policies designed to seek peace and to minimize our participation in foreign conflicts," says the Senator...
...Perhaps...
...The way it is is on display, for those who care to look, in every urban ghetto and rural slum where men and women rot and starve and die because they are poor...
...The Neighborhood Youth Corps has been brought to last year's level— 294,000 jobs—through reprogramming of funds and administrative adjustments...
...The way it is is grim beyond the rhetoric of campaign speeches...
...Knoll has been a reporter and editor in Washington for eleven years...
...Let's see now, how many Head Start children would that pay for...
...In advance of the arrival of the demonstrators Dr...
...But, obviously, there are limits...
...Wernher von Braun is shopping, too—shopping for a nuclear rocket which has already cost some $1.1 billion...
...Congress and the Administration have to awaken to urban needs and restore funds now cut below last year's levels," says The New York Times...
...The Board found these "emergency hunger" conditions not just in Mississippi and Georgia, but in 256 counties and such urban centers as Washington, New York, Boston, Des Moines, New Orleans, Cleveland, and Seattle...
...Save the children of Mississippi...
...and $285,000 to the University of California for "Himalayan Border Studies...
...America's shopping list has priorities...
...General Earle G. Wheeler, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says, for example, that the enemy has destroyed or damaged $132.5 million worth of U.S...
...Hostile ground fire destroyed 122 planes and helicopters worth $94 million, and damage to another 590 aircraft required $38.5 million in repairs...
...But let no one be deceived by the $30-some billion budgeted for the Vietnam war...
...The Senate votes fifty-four to three—Democrats Mike Mansfield of Montana, Ernest Gruening of Alaska, and Gay-lord Nelson of Wisconsin are the dissenters—to approve a $21.3 billion defense procurement bill...
...The way it is was told, in part, in testimony by doctors before a Senate subcommittee on the costs of medical care, which showed that racism is, directly and indirectly, causing more death, disease, disability, and economic loss than any other disease abroad in the land...
...But it must, of course, be an honorable peace...
...The duty of every American is to administer the remedy without regard for the cost and without delay...
...It makes unpleasant listening, and candidates must bear in mind the ancient punishment meted out to bearers of bad tidings...
...And thousands cheered...
...But even while telling what ought to be, he seems to shrink from telling it the way it is...
...Mr...
...The members have studied it "in depth," have made a "painstaking effort," have done "arduous work...
...The Gross National Product "threatens"—the word is that of the economists—to rise past the $800 billion point this year...
...Most of the damage could have been averted by the use of protective shelters, General Wheeler says...
...One of his responsibilities is the coordination of summer youth programs designed to buy a little time, a little peace...
...where dignity and hope and humanity itself are quenched and in their place are kindled hate and violence...
...Senator J. William Fulbright, Arkansas Democrat, reads into the record some of the studies that have been commissioned: $49,782 to Associates for International Research, Inc., for "Great World Issues of 1980...
...Their vigil is sponsored by the National Committee for the Children of Mississippi, which is seeking a $3.1 million appropriation to keep seven Head Start programs from having to drop 4,400 children...
...Our struggle is just and we shall prevail...
...America, mind you, is becoming concerned...
...At least...
...The budget must be cut...
...it tells what its values are...
...It requires thought and study, and so the Pentagon is spending $659 million this year on military science research not directly associated with equipment...
...Again this year," he reports, "the Armed Services Committee has given careful consideration to the bill...
...When he announced his candidacy, Mr...
...The British," he explains ingeniously, "built up welfare programs in the Fifties while ignoring the burgeoning aerospace technology...
...Senator Fulbright has been browsing in the April Economic Indicators of the Council of Economic Advisers, and finds that in every year since 1958—the year in which the statistics begin—the nation has spent more on defense than it has collected in individual income taxes...
...Exceedingly frank...
...I am convinced that this is the matter of greatest concern to the American people today...
...But we all make mistakes...
...Such a partnership, he seems to be saying, does not now exist...
...The money, he adds, must come from "the imaginative and responsible use of credit...
...In pointing out this low total," Representative Bates acknowledges, "I must state that I am comparing figures without the special construction costs of Southeast Asia, without the special construction costs involved in the NATO relocation of which there are $55 million this year and $60 million last year, and without the $227 million for Sentinel [missile] construction for this year...
...Senator Eugene J. McCarthy, under fire from some of his supporters for soft-pedaling civil rights, declares that the nation "longs for reconciliation" that will come "only with an Administration which is prepared to commit itself to massive programs of correction...
...Since I last reported on the status of summer youth programs at the Youth Opportunity Conference on January 2, 1968, we have made considerable progress in all areas of endeavor...
...A survey of 508 companies shows profits up 11.1 per cent...
...Obviously...
...Defense Secretary Clark M. Clifford asks the House Armed Services Committee to authorize $425 million for eight production models of a Navy version of the plane and sixty Phoenix missiles...
...When these sundry special costs are omitted, military construction since 1964 has totaled only $9.3 billion...
...Richard M. Nixon, prudent, polished, new, regards the cost and counsels delay...
...Humphrey proclaimed "the politics of happiness, the politics of purpose, the politics of joy...
...He also said, "Our Government guarantees to all of its citizens all the education he or she can take...
...It's all the suburbanites rushing to get their shopping done," he says...
...money from the Federal Government...
...He calls for a minimum income for all Americans, health care, job training, and a major housing program...
...Snap up these bargains while they last...
...Six of them went into combat in Vietnam on March 25, and three were lost within a month...
...It is a job he will not neglect, even while campaigning for the Presidential nomination...
...We invite you to join in a vigil at the White House protesting the course of action being taken by OEO...
...It is time to face up to the problem of violence throughout the nation...
...Where is the money going...
...Considering the amount of inflation that has set in between 1964 and the present, this is indeed an austere construction program," says Representative Bates...
...Very little has been offered as a cure or preventive other than the nauseating repetition of demands for more and more billions to be expended in slum areas...
...Well, not quite...
...But in conservative Indiana, Senator Kennedy's emphasis suddenly shifts to "the importance of law enforcement" and the promise of "a partnership of the private sector and the private enterprise system with government...
...He also says, "Priorities are reflected in the things we spend money on...
...Now, obviously, the adequate financing of education in the cities will require much more ERWIN KNOLL, formerly White House correspondent for the Newhouse papers, begins his new post as Washington correspondent for The Progressive with this article...
...The total foreign aid tab for those two decades was $122.3 billion, a generous "freedom budget," though not quite the one Martin Luther King had in mind when he called on America to spend more than $10 billion a year to eradicate poverty and discrimination at home...
...Behind the Committee's closed doors, he also relays the word that the Administration is preparing a $3.9 billion supplemental defense appropriations request...
...How many more shopping days...
...Standing before the television cameras in the rococo Indian Treaty Room of the Executive Office Building, the Vice President states: "Let me be exceedingly frank...
...The U.S...
...16703, the military construction authorization bill...
...Security entails more than hardware...
...A nation's budget tells what a society cares about and what it does not care about...
...The Air Force's F- 111 fighter-bomber, which used to be called the TFX, may have been a mistake too...
...The angry poor are knocking at the door, the bitter blacks demanding theirs after only a few hundred years of waiting...
...Office of Economic Opportunity insists that Head Start programs in Mississippi agree to serve fewer children this year...
...The Neighborhood Youth Corps has been brought to last year's inadequate level only by cutting the work week from thirty-two or more hours to twenty-six hours, and by scaling the program back from twelve weeks to ten...
...If we are to save and rebuild the cities of our nation," he says, "it will require an investment of at least $150 billion dollars of public and private capital over the next ten years...
...Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller also calls for partnership...
...The price of being an American is going up...
...The young pickets pass out leaflets that ask: (iHow long, Mr...
...This is not, after all, the age of military construction but the Age of Education...
...America shops for security...
...He is co-author with William McGaffin of "Anything But the Truth," a book about the credibility gap to be published soon by Putnam...
...America believes in peace—peace at home, at least, peace in the cities...
...But perhaps it does...
Vol. 32 • June 1968 • No. 6
