ustxtxb_obs_1972_11_03_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

250 c,n 013 S A Journal of Free Voices A Window to the South E-4 Nov. 3, 1972 McGovern In our judgment, George McGovern’s televised speech on Vietnam Oct. 10 was one of the great events in the moral development of the country. Only from its totality may one apprehend the speech: the text may be seen in the library in some newspapers of the ensuing morning. We confine ourselves to six sentences from it: “And the war goes on also for the people of Indochina. Indeed, they are literally being crushed under the weight of the heaviest aerial bombardment the world has ever known.. .. “Now, there are those who say that you will accept this because the toll of suffering riOw includes more Asians and fewer Americans. But, surely, conscience says to each of us that a wrong war is not made right because the color of the bodies has changed… . 0, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. from Hamlet’s speech to the Players If the polls are right about Nixon’s lead over McGovern, then perhaps we McGoverns have made a strategic mistake contributing some $23 million to McGovern’s campaign. That money might have been more effectively spent purchasing the President’s support on key issues. Why, for twenty-three million we could have bribed Tricky to end the war, grant amnesty to draft evaders, take stronger positions on “Now, we used to say that we fought in Vietnam to stop Communist China or to stop Communist Russia. . . . How can we really argue that it is good to accommodate ourselves to a billion Russian and Chinese Communists but that we must somehow fight to the bitter end against a tiny band of peasant guerrillas in the jungles of little Vietnam?” We have never seen the columnists more hostile, in daily drum-fire effect, to a liberal Democratic presidential candidate. If you relied on Texas newspapers there would simply be no way of explaining the enormous crowds McGovern is now attracting. The polls have had so sinister an effect, we are moved to advocate hereon legislation requiring that all the pollsters’ books, interviews, statistics and financial accounts be available for public inspection pollution control and product safety and gotten a whole slew of ambassadorships on the side, maybe even a cabinet member or two. Money and power talk to Richard Nixon in a way that people don’t. The Washington Post the inflated cost of Presidential favors. White House invitations come for a minimum contribution of $25,000. Appointments to presidential commissions and ambassadorships go for $50,000, $100,000 and up. It makes one wistful for Honest Ike tossing Sherman Adams out irk the cold with nothing but a vicuna coat. Or even LBJ. Only six years ago Congress killed a George Goddard the moment they publish the results of their polls. Their “competitive secrets” are nothing compared to the public’s interest in not being manipulated by ulterior shysters. The implications of the $700,000 Nixon Fund what else can it be called, considering all the evidence that has been used to spy on and sabotage McGovern and the Democratic Party should likewise turn our minds to the fundamental law. Neither free speech nor high office justifies deliberate, lying, malicious political sabotage. Nixon has used his power to prevent trials of those charged with burglary, wiretapping and perjury until after the election; the Congress, for its part, should enact new law to make sure the purposes of these activities by the Nixon cut-throats should also be outlawed. What else do we get from the Nixon crew? From nicey-nice Secretary of State Rogers, we get the despicable charge that McGovern’s peace plan is “an offer to surrender.” So much for Rogers in history: a gut-punch justifier of an immoral war. From the Nixonized Federal Power To split the ears of groundlings