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August 16, 1973 - Image 4

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Publication:
Michigan Daily, 1973-08-16

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Summer Daily
Snwmr E dition of
T HlE MiC H IGAN DAILY
Edited and managed by students at the
University of Michigan
Thursday, August 16, 1973 News Phone: 764-0552
May the nocina
War rest in peace
President Nixon's promise yesterday to seek "appro-
priate action" if he believes North Vietnam is threaten-
ing the stability in Indochina echoes too closely to pre-
vious warnings which have been shallow euphemisms for
renewed bombing and destruction.
Nixon agreed only reluctantly to Congressional de-
mands to halt the bombings. In his diplomacy by terror,
humanitarian concerns for the people beneath those
huge bombers are of little consideration.
Since that historic agreement some 45 days ago, the
President has voiced very plainly his displeasure at hav-
ing to call off the Air Force goons.
Nixon decries the bombing halt because it "removes
the incentive" for a negotiated peace in Cambodia. He be-
lieves that the threat of bombing all civilization back to
the caves will bring peace to Cambodia.
But, the rebel troops were winning the war before the
bombing began and will almost certainly win the war now
that the bombing has halted. The burden for protecting
the Lon Nol regime now rests with the premier himself,
and if indications are true, a good deal of the people of
Cambodia are waiting for his expected fall from power.
Nixon, still has within his power $105 million in eco-
nomic aid and $186 million in military aid to give to
Cambodia. While the U. S. cannot personally bomb the
peasants in the field, we can take satisfaction that we
are supplying the money for the Cambodian army to do
it themselves.
Nixon has maintained throughout the dark Cambo-
dian addendum to the Indochina War that our princi-
ple goals are "an end to the fighting and respect for
Cambodian neutrality." That our government policy has,
to a great extent, prevented the realization of both those
goals is ignored.
But now that the bombing has been halted, we can
finally hope that we will no longer have to protest the
errors in judgement and lack of humanity that became
known as the Indochinese War.
Nixon will most probably continue to threaten and
lambast the Congress hoping that they will reinstate his
power to blast Cambodia.
But, Congress hopefully will resist the verbal abuse
from the President and with their help, perhaps the anti-
war movement will be able to rest in peace.
Summer Staff
ROBERT BARKIN and CHARLES STEIN
Co-editors
GORDON ATCHESON........Night Edtar
DANIEL IDOLE.. . .. .ight Editor
DEBORAH GOOD.... ...Assistant Night Editor
JACK KROST ... ... Assistant Night Editor
JOSEPHINEMARCOTTI ...... Assistant Night Editor
DAVID STOLL.... ....Assistant Night Editor

The division of money and state:
As crucial as Church and State

By PETE HAMILL
JTOHN LOEB, a thin, impeccably
dressed lawbreaker of 70, walk-
ed out into the sunshine in Foley
Square,a free man, his bank ac-
count same $311110 lighter. Of
course, he had to deal briefly with
the rabble of the press, but when
that was over he walked back again
into his life and his money. It
would not have been so easy if his
name had been Joe Rodriquez and
he had heisted a gas station for
$33 and change.
"I COULD NOT and would not
under any circumstances willfully
break the law," he said. But in
fact he did. Loeb gave $48,0600
to the campaign of Hubert Hum-
phrey last year, and got around the
campaign reporting laws by break-
ing the sum down into small por-
tions, which were donated to Hum-
phrey through some of Loeb's em-
ployes. You do not get as rich as
Loeb is by not knowing how these
things work.
BUT LOEB was nailed on eight
counts of violating the law, a n d
pleaded no contest. (Five of the
counts were dropped.) Judge John
M. Cannella could have sentenced
Loeb to three years. Instead, he
fined him $3000. That is like fin-
ing the average New Yorker a sub-
way token. But it is certainly in-
structive about the way justice
operates, and what we might see
in the next 18 months, when the
gangsters of 1972 start moving
through the courts to sentence.
"POLITICS IS PROPERTY,"
Muray Kempton once said, and, as
Proudhon said before him, "pro-
perty is theft." If the Loeb case is
a prelude, the men of the Water-
gate will soon start sorting them-
selves out into those of property
and those who are without. The
men of property last year paid at
least $40 million to buy a piece of
Richard Nixon's White House (the
figures are not all in about the piec-
es they brought of the Democratic
candidates). They did it the way in-
vestors always do such things:
money is the binding contract, and
with money men of property, ac-
quire more property. Like govern-
ments.
THIS MONEY was not earned by
the men of property through t h e
exercise of their bodies, the sweat
and strain of labor. Other m e n
built their railroads, other men got
Black Lung in the coal mines, other
men died in the wars from which
they profited. Carl Oglesby has
made the distinction between Yan-
kee money and Cowboy money, be-
tween the older, wiser, slicker
money of the East Coast and the
wilder, newer, cruder Cowboy mon-
ey of the West and Southwest.
Much of Nixon's money was Cow-

boy money, but John Mitchell came
from Wall St., not from Dallas.
WHEN THE Ervin Committee
gets past the Watergate burglary
and its coverup, it plans to exam-
ine the whole problem of money
and politics. Almost certainly, the
division of money and state w i ll1
become the major issue of the rest
of this century, if the Ervin Com-
mittee does its job. It will be as
crucial to the survival of this re-
public as the division of Church and
State was in an earlier time.
BUT THE ONLY thing that will
guarantee that forthcoming reforms
are real, and not window dress-
ins, is to make the sentences as
severe as possible, and as inevit-
able. Loeb said yesterday: "I can
only repeat that the violation was
totally innocent and unwitting." He
was almost certainly telling t h e
truth. But so was Herbert Porter,
who admitted yesterday to several
acts of perjury, but who didn't
seem to haverany conception of the
size of his crime.
THE ERVIN Committee has a
mandate to reform the current
laws. And yet there are already
laws on the books, which Loeb vio-
lated, and which could be m o r e
strictly enforced. If other r i c h
men see that Loeb got off with
a $3000 fine, they might take some
more chances on buying access to
special favors, defense contracts,
government loans and the rest from
future President. It would become
a business expense, like a book-
maker's fine or three days in jail
for a prostitute.
BUT SUPPOSE disguising contri-
butions led to mandatory jail sent-
ences of 10 years and up. After all,

Sen. Hubert Humphrey
corrupting a politician is as serious
a crime as assault and battery.
Suppose, in addition, that a n y
election in which any fraud wan
found were to be automatically re-
voked. If that happened, a rich
man who makes a big secret pay-
ment to a politician would first go
to jail for a long time, and then
see the victory he bought overturn-
ed. He could not get away with a
fine and a few polite handshakes
from the prosecutor. Instead, he
would work in the laundry or punch
out license plates. If that happen-
ed, there would be no more Water-
gates, and no more people like John
Loeb telling us be thought it was
all okay, because after all, people
like him don't break laws.
Pete Hamill is a writer for The
New York Post. Copyright New
York Post Corp, 1973.

I

Letters to
Textbook robbery
To The Daily:
WITH REGARD to the forced
sale by profesors to their students
of their own books, the last worl
has been said by Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon:
"The profesor, whose lectures are
paid for by the State, and who
through the intervention of a book-
seller sells them to the public a
second time, robs."
-J.C. Mirabeau
Aug.. 12, 1973
Pay toilets
To The Daily:
YOUR AUGUST 10 "opinion poll
on issue of pay toilets" report does
not even mention the fact that
these represent yet another area of
American life in which females are
being taken by the men who de-
sign, manufacture and install the

The Daily
equipment for segregated rest-
rooms in public facilities.
Wouldn't it be fun it the women
of the University took a couple of
week-ends to throw an "Unfair to
Women" picket line around Metro-
politan Airport?
Just because most of us only
use one-half of these facilities, few
have noticed that while the men
only have to drop that dime to
"drop their turds", as one of .your
respondents so colorfully put it,
wvomen have to pay each time they
need to perform any function at
all. Not counting change of men-
strual accessories, I figure the ex-
pense ratio of being a female at
anywhere from 3:1 to 5:1.
Would the Daily want to look into
finding a sponsor for a free bus to
take picketers from the (side door
of the) Union to the Airport?
-Edith Pelz
Aug. 12, 1973

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