The Word from Washington
THE WORD FROM WASHINGTON The Senate of the United States is, as we keep reminding ourselves and reminding you (because we both, somehow, tend to forget), the World's Greatest Deliberative Body. A...
...In its zeal to shield the tots of Winchester, the Council provided some rather explicit definitions of "harmful materials"—so explicit, in fact, that the Winchester News Gazette and Journal Herald declined to print the legal notice that was required to put the ordinance into effect...
...What the Senate highly resolved to do, to be precise, was to proclaim next April 30 a "National Day of Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer...
...Our nation and its Government can do no less, under the circumstances, than to take over and operate the oil industry on behalf of our people, rather than on behalf of the profits of greedy industrialists and bankers...
...The Senate concurred...
...Who can blame the President for exclaiming, once in a while, that he wishes the — would —. The Reverend Doctor Billy Graham—you can be sure he will be observing the "National Day of Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer" with us come April 30—has finally found time, between preaching engagements and White House prayer meetings, to deliver himself of a queasy comment on the Watergate Affair...
...The energy crisis, then, is a synthetic crisis created by and for the oil companies in order to secure benefits for themselves that are so vast they defy the imagination...
...The Capitol Hill News Service, which covers Congress for a number of newspapers, did some lightning calculations and concluded that if all the "weeks" Congress has formally resolved to celebrate were observed back-to-back, the festivities would last until the year 2008...
...6. The power to boost prices unconscionably to the point where many workers no longer can afford to drive their cars...
...The shortage of fuel oil a year ago was artificially created...
...We intend to follow the Senate's instructions to the letter, and we hope you will, too...
...At this point if I have anything to say to the President it will be in private...
...Millions face unemployment today because of corporate greed in the energy industry...
...As for the rest of us sinners, Doctor Graham warns that we must "repent or perish...
...The rumor persists—and for all we know it was originally planted by the rumor-planters in the White House—that President Nixon's fierce determination to prevent disclosure of his famous tapes is founded not on any fear of possible self-incrimination, but rather on his reluctance to expose the pristine ears of the American people to the salty language that is frequently slung about the Oval Office...
...I do not believe the House of Representatives should be wasting its time on these resolutions," Hechler said...
...Well, we can understand the President's embarrassment—if, indeed, he is embarrassed...
...In the last five years refinery capacity was increased by 1.9 million barrels a day, whereas demand rose by three million barrels...
...That's the way it seems to be going everywhere, be it Winchester or Washington: Public officials doing their best to elevate the morals of the populace, and being frustrated by nefarious newspapers...
...Patrick E. Gorman Secretary-Treasurer Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen, AFL-CJO...
...A few days before Christmas last, the Senate once again proved its claim to that formidable title when it pondered the perplexing problems confronting the Republic—the decay of the economy at home, the dissolution of empire abroad, the energy crisis, the moral cancer metastasizing through the body politic—and highly resolved to Do Something about it...
...Millions more face a reduced standard of living...
...Still, members of the House manage to while away their time with matters every bit as momentous as those that preoccupy their colleagues in the other body...
...The roadblock was Representative Ken Hechler, West Virginia Democrat, who protested that the resolution, and similar commemorative exercises, were raising his own blood pressure...
...5. The power to drive independent producers and retailers to the wall...
...We can not tolerate this situation...
...Representative H. R. Gross, the crusty Iowa Republican whose boundless contempt for his colleagues' shenanigans is one of his more endearing qualities, solemnly suggested that the House might consider passing a resolution designating the first week of next November as "Re-elect Your Congressman Week...
...But there is no need, of course, to hold back-to-back celebrations: it makes splendid good sense, for instance, to schedule a joint and simultaneous observance of "Re-Elect Your Congressman Week" and "National High Blood Pressure Week...
...4. Access to the Government-owned shale deposits in Colorado and Wyoming which may eventually be worth $5 to $10 trillion...
...Take, for example, the House Judiciary Committee: Its members, though confronted with the tedious task of determining whether the President of the United States ought to be impeached, nonetheless found a moment or two not long ago to consider a priority item—a resolution proclaiming "National High Blood Pressure Week.'" Unfortunately, NHBPW—unlike Senator Hatfield's NDHFP—ran into a roadblock...
...There is, according to all information, an adequate supply of crude oil available to the United States...
...Potomacus THE OIL HOAX The energy crisis is a hoax perpetrated by profit-hungry corporations in an effort to manipulate the American people to their will...
...3. New offshore leases worth billions...
...The House of Representatives is not the World's Greatest Deliberative Body, and does not claim to be...
...It is a mark of Doctor Graham's generosity that he is willing to give his friend, the President, the benefit of doubt...
...Not a single new refinery is being built in the United States today...
...They have stampeded the American people and the Nixon oil-oriented Administration to give them the following benefits: 1. The Alaska pipeline...
...But he hastens to add, "Until there is more proof to the contrary I have confidence in the President's integrity...
...the shortage comes about as a result of a man-made refinery gap...
...In effect, the oil industry went on "strike" to wring vast concessions, worth trillions of dollars, from the American people...
...We can recall a time, in the dim and distant past, when Nixon piously denounced the late President Truman for letting fly with an imprudent word or two...
...2. Immunity from certain environmental protection requirements which would cost them many millions of dollars...
...Senator Mark O. Hatfield, Oregon Republican, offered the resolution, which was adopted without debate or dissent, and he provided some guidance on how we are all to observe the NDHFP: We are to "humble ourselves as we see fit before our Creator to acknowledge our final dependence upon Him and to repent of our national sins...
...Doctor Graham says, too, that some of President Nixon's "judgments have been wrong"—have, indeed, been "very poor...
...I fail to see that National Clean Water Week has resulted in any direct action toward cleaning up the nation's waters...
...But it should be noted that the "Arab" embargo is also an embargo by American oil companies which own most of the oil concessions in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf...
...also, in apartment houses, this resolution discriminates against those who live on the floors above or below...
...I fail to see that National Next-Door Neighbor Day has resulted in any specific examples of improvement in neighborliness...
...The President, if it's any comfort to him, is in about the same fix as the City Council of Winchester, Indiana, which recently approved "An Ordinance to Regulate the Exposing of Minors to Harmful Materials...
...The question which Americans must decide, therefore, is whether the oil companies shall dominate our economic life or the American people shall control their own wealth...
...He says that it has "become a symbol of political corruption," and that he deplores it...
...And we are looking forward to a carefree first of May...
...He has taken a firm and forthright stand against four-letter words in public, and it would be a pity if he were stripped of this last shred of what was once the Nixon image...
...This year's crisis, in addition, was compounded by the so-called Arab embargo, which made the shortage worse...
Vol. 38 • February 1974 • No. 2
