St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 36

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH Outside die Assembly officials and citizens in hiding and others taking asylum in foreign embassies. News out of Haiti is scarce because of the terror and the dictatorship and perhaps also because Haiti is relatively insignificant to most of the world. The United States has cut down on economic aid and maintains only "correct but cool" relations, which is preferable to intervention. The U.S.

Marines pied Haiti for 19 years and obviously left no indelible benefits. Haiti has been left, as Papa Doc demands, to the Haitians, but his repression shows that he takes little comfort in that. If the United States wished to be legalistic, it could probably block the UN General Assembly session on the Middle East which the Soviet Union has demanded. Procedures which permit the Assembly to take up such issues as this exclude cases still before the Security Council; and the Council, though it rightly rejected the Soviet resolution condemning Israel and demanding an immediate troop pullback, is obviously not finished with the question by a long shot. ndf i by JOSEPH PULITZER Dtctmict It, I87J PMiAed by The Pulitwr PubliAMf C.

113 Franklin Aw. $3101 MAin Mill AJur SenictMAin 1-6666 THE POST-DISPATCH PLATFORM KNOW THAT MY RETIREMENT Witt 'CXAKE NO DIFFERENCE IN ITS CARDINAL PRINCIPLES. THAT IT WILL ALWAYS TIGHT FOR PROGRESS AND REFORM, TOLERATE INJUSTICE OR CORRUPTION. ALWAYS FIGHT DEMAGOGUES loF ALL PARTIES, NEVER BELONG TO ANY TARTY, ALWAYS OPTOSE PRIVILEGED CLASSES AND PUBLIC PLUNDERERS, "fc'EVER LACK SYMPATHY WITH THE ALWAYS REMAIN DEVOTED TO VTHE PUBIIC WELFARE, NEVER BE WITH MERELY PRINTING NEWS. ALWAYS BE DRASTICALLY NEVER BE AFRAID TO ATTACK WHETHER BY PREDATORY PLUTOCRACY OR PREDATORY POVERTY.

JOSEPH PULITZER fril 10, 190? Friday, June 16, 1967 Help From the Governor? Senate backers of, a reasonable, billboard control bill hope Gov. Hearnes may intercede to save the bill in the House. If forthcoming, the Governor's help seems to be the only thing that can salvage the measure, and even that may not be enough. The hard fact is that one legislator seems to have more power in this matter than the Governor. He is Representative Ruben Scha-peler of Butler, chairman of the House Roads Committee.

Mr. Schapeler is the author of a bill deliberately drawn to the specifications of the outdoor advertising lobby. He got that bill through the House and he seems to be in a position to kill the Senate measure. While the Schapeler bill would allow highway billboards nearly everywhere, by zoning roadsides as commercial or industrial, the Senate-approved measure of Senator Robert A. Young of St.

Ann would remove from present law permission for county courts to zone roadsides in the same way. The Federal Government has objected to the present law. If it is not changed, Missouri may eventually lose millions in federal highway aid funds. Unfortunately, many legislators are convinced that Washington does not mean business. Senator William B.

Waters, the majority floor leader, voted for the Young bill but admitted fear that the Government might abandon its roadside beautification program. Congress is dallying with proposed billboard control standards. But can the states really expect Congress to repeal or distort a program that it passed overwhelmingly? This is so unlikely that Missouri ought to put itself in a position to comply with eventual standards, whatever they are, and that is all the Young bill would do. It is ridiculous for the Legislature to go on enacting measures written for the billboard lobby and nobody else. As Time Runs Out The last-minute rush of the biennial Missouri Legislature kills bad bills as well as good ones, and we will not lament the fate of a measure to let the legislators set hunting and fishing license fees.

The bill was passed by the House, where past attacks on the Conservation Commission have begun. Now Senator Blackwell's Judiciary Committee is holding hearings on the measure. It should not take the committee long to learn that the bill proposes political determination of revenues for the nonpolitical conservation program. Not long, but long enough to let the bill expire. Letters from the People Why the Old P.O.

Must Stay The argument that a new high rise -ffice building on the Old Post Office site would help downtown is demolished -fcy two facts, the over abundance of pffice space and abundance of other sites, not only for office buildings but for "parks on parking too. The Old Post Office building needs "to be made more attractive now. The window and door openings could be iouched up with paint harmonizing with the structure itself; the section on the jfcof exposed in front to view of people bn the street needs repairing, cleaning and painting. St. Louis is a great educational center, growing in size and quality.

It is -located in the greatest river complex 'in the North American continent a water highway hardly touched for of recreation. Eventually a water program will add greatly to. this, as will the new-look riverfront and other attention being given to this phase of community living. A study should be made now as to how the Old Post Office can best serve our people. Those interested in education, industry, science, music, art, dance, entertainment (films, book reviews, lectures, exhibits, etc.) should contacted for ideas on using this The United States acted, wisely, while declining to join in the Assembly call, in agreeing to go along if a majority of members wishes it.

In the long run, it will be useful to have the Soviets committed to the; "Uniting-for-Peace" procedure which permits the Assembly to consider security problems stalemated in the Council. They have always heretofore denounced the procedure as illegal. Furthermore, an Assembly debate on the Middle East, bitter and tendentious as it probably will be, may help to purge emotions and clear the way for the hard task of dealing with new realities. The Assembly session is not likely to solve anything. It will enable the Soviets to display verbal support for the Arabs and level a lot of unsupported charges against Israel.

But instead of merely going on the defensive in a propaganda debate, American policy-makers ought to seize the opportunity to strive for genuinely meaningful discussions, outside the Assembly sessions, on a lasting settlement of the basic problems of Israeli-Arab conflict. Premier Kosygin's attendance at the session, and possibly that of other top leaders, offers an auspicious occasion for President Johnson to open up high-level talks on the whole range of issues that imperil all the painful progress of the two super-powers toward ending the cold war. Nothing should be excluded. Vietnam should be discussed as well as the Middle East. Though the Soviets and the United States are deeply divided on both wars, each urgently needs the co-operation of the other.

When the Russians have run through all their repertory of invective and propaganda designed to placate the Arabs and restore their own self-esteem, they will still need a stabilized Middle East as much as anybody else. They know quite well that simply refueling another round of arms race and economic war will not gain that end. After the Suez crisis in 1956 they proposed neutralization of the area, peaceful settlement of all its disputes, and an arms embargo coupled with non-intervention by the great powers. A return to something like these principles is essential if a durable Middle East peace is to be fashioned; and Soviet-American cooperation is essential if that is to happen. The need for co-operation is no less inescapable in Southeast Asia.

So long as the United States insists on striving for a purely military decision in Vietnam the Soviet Union, because of its ideological competition with Red China, has no alternative to full-scale support of Hanoi. Every escalation on our side must be matched by equivalent escalation on the other. Secretary McNamara must know this as he goes to Saigon to weigh the latest request of the generals for still more troops. If he grants the request, he can take it as a foregone conclusion that there will be a response the new escalation and tightening the dreary stalemate another Why not try to break out of the pattern? For peace in the Middle East, Soviet concessions will be needed. For peace in Southeast Asia, the United States will have to make concessions.

Yet, once the basic decision were made to seek political rather than military solutions in both cases, imaginative diplo-, macy could bridge the division without Russia's selling out any legitimate interests of the Arabs, and without our selling out any legitimate interests of the South Vietnamese people. In Washington and in Moscow, what is needed is the first great act of 'SEE, LIKE THIS' Escaping the Housing Code Magazine Charges That City Discriminates Between Home Owners and Investment Firms From FOCUS Midwest Investment companies specializing in slum housing not only escape the penalties of law for violating the St. Louis housing code but the system actually works in their behalf. Sixteen investment companies have been named by representatives from community agencies as the most recalcitrant owners and managers of The Mirror slum properties. These companies of control much of the substandard Public Opinion housing in St.

Louis. One com enforce the demolition of abandoned buildings. After the Building Division made door-to-door inspections, resident owners who were a part of the committee were sent summonses giving them 15 to 30 days in which to undertake major repairs. While the residences of individual owners are inspected and unresolved cases are referred to court, hundreds of dwellings owned by investment companies escape. From January 1966 to November 1966 approximately 300 housing cases, were referred to the Associate City Counselor for prosecution.

Only about 10 per cent of these cases involved investment companies. A resident owner was fined $500 Ill Kfl NATO Wants to Cut Forces Full-time officials of NATO this week began casting about for means to bring about a balanced reduction of forces by both Euro- pean blocs. They were given the assignment by the foreign ministers of the member gov-' ernments who have just concluded their spring meeting in Luxembourg. What may come of the effort of course, will depend on the response of the Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern bloc. But the very fact that it is being undertaken is fresh evidence of the conviction that the maintenance of large bodies of troops under arms has become an unnecessary burden on nations eager to devote their economic resources to more positive objectives.

And this desire must be just as pressing on the Warsaw bloc governments. They, too, can profit by the piercing of the iron curtain not by force, but by increased trade and better political relations. The United States, too, should welcome a reduction in forces, if only for the sake of easing its balance of payments problem. For hard-pressed Britain, a reduction is almost mandatory, And it is significant that the Kiesinger government in Bonn has proposed to make an Anglo-American reduction the occasion for reducing its own army, totally under NATO command, from 12 divisions to eight. The war in the Middle East inevitably cast a shadow over the Luxembourg meeting.

Its speedy termination, however, made it possible to dispose of the matter with a pledge of support of "the legitimate interest of all con-cerned." That's that. The present purpose is not find a new cause for apprehension, but to get on with the easing of tensions and the reduction of military forces which this makes possible. noble' and attractive building, with enough historic value to more than rjustify such an effort. I This, along with all the riverfront developments, could well bring people the downtown area a thing no building at the site can do as well. Noah D.

Alper i Outside Arab Boundaries A member of the Arab Student Or- referred recently to alleged -Israeli occupation of part of Jerusalem in violation of the UN resolution of 1947. Readers should note the following facts of history: Israel accepted the 1947 UN plan partitioning the British area of Pale-i gtine west of, the Jordan river into in-; dependent Arab and Jewish states, 'Surrounding Arab states rejected the UN resolution, refused to accept the 1 existence of Israel and sent their com- armies to frustrate the wjll of the UN. They were defeated. Armistice lines at the conclusion of hostilities marked the boundaries of territory held since then by invading armies. At no time did the United Na-; tions ever cede any legal or moral I right for these Arab countries to an-; nex these territories or to assume con-! Urol of the populations therein.

These areas of Palestine lie outside the legal boundaries of those nations. 5 1 Morris Pearlmutter First Time at the Muny Although this is our second year In St. Louis, June 4 was our first time to to the Muny Opera. It lived up to everything I had heard it was going to be. It was a delightful experience, but I must say that I was very disap-; pointed in the audience reaction.

Have the people of this city become so used "to the good things that they take it all i for granted? To me, the whole cast I should have received at least one cur-j tain call, and the characters of Anita 1 and Anybody's should certainly have gotten a curtain call of their own. Mrs. E. 0. Grimes inance.

Obligingly, city officials then reported that they could not attempt to use the ordinance until its constitutionality was upheld; but few laws are tested in the courts before they are put into effective operation. In alarm, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund is filing a "Friend of the Court" brief, While the city's legal concerns are touching, they conveniently overlooked that similar laws are in effect in New York, Illinois, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Indiana. Self-help becomes the only effective alternative left the tenant. After their pleas, complaints, and appeals have been ignored, they organize. In a typical instance, a group of residents filed complaints with the Building Division about code violations in their block which included seven resident-owned homes and twenty seven investment owned dwellings.

Inspectors found 462 code violations. Resident owners were immediately summoned to make repairs. When it was obvious that the city was going to take no effective action against the companies, residents established picket lines at investment owners homes and offices. Some tenants considered withholding rents. Eventually, a co-operating agency and the tenants were able to extract compliance with the housing code.

(Unfortunately, unlike New York and Illinois, Missouri law does not authorize tenants to withhold rents for uncorrected code violations). Picketing and rent strikes are signs that the city is not enforcing the code and is failing in its responsibility. Until recently, housing cases were heard in court less than one full day per month, in the midst of traffic cases. Late in February, St. Louis obtained a housing court of sorts, with City Judge George W.

Cady presiding. This new court has yet to demonstrate its intent and ablity to handle investment companies. Thus far, it has dealt almost exclusively with tenants and resident owners. In contrast, Chicago supports six chancery courts where only housing cases are heard five days a week. Investment companies are aggressively prosecuted.

Jail sentences are not uncommon penalties. Although St. Louis Commissioner Brown expects to double the number of court cases to 150-200 per month, and the city is adding 21 building inspectors to its 45 under a federal grant, observers of code enforcement do not believe these changes will significantly improve code enforcement. More important than any new law or personnel is a change in the attitude of the city. Unless the administration prosecutes investment companies as diligently as resident owners, code enforcement will remain a palliative rather than a creative gram.

Unit Control At Last The Missouri House's approval of the Senate-passed St. Louis public school unit control bill comes as something of an emotional anti-climax, however satisfying it is in the realm of principle. The Building Trades politicians who had successfully blocked this basic reform for more than a quarter century, continued to fight it right down to. the end. But we suspect they were acting more from ingrained habit than under the spur of immediate danger to self-interest, which in this case was patronage in the system's Building department.

The fact is the union politicians lost their patronage shortly after the 1961 election when the reform board took power, created a merit system for non-teaching employes and devised a makeshift method of centering most operations under the Superintendent of 4J mu cei. pany owns an estimated 1500 units, most of which are in violation of the code. The St. Louis housing code sets down the minimum requirements tor residential property to meet standards of health and decency. It includes such provisions as kitchen sinks, lavatory, tubs or showers; toilets in working order, adequate lighting and ventilation, and hot water.

There are neighborhoods in St. Louis in which almost no housing meets these standards. Still, that housing is being rented. The Building Commissioner and City Counselor are responsible for enforcing this law. Inspections are made by the Commissioner's office.

If a letter to the owner fails to obtain compliance within 30 days, the case can then be referred to the City Counselor for court action. More commonly, however, at the end of the 30-day period a second letter is sent, This process can and does continue indefinitely. In the meantime, tenants continue to live in dwellings which jeopardize their health and safety. Enforcement of the code in some areas has all but been abandoned in St. Louis.

Building Commissioner Kenneth O. Brown claims that inspectors can be used to more advantage in areas which can be rehabilitated, that -strict enforcement would force some-tenants to. move, and that repairs cost more than the value of the property. With the Building Commissioner taking this attitude, it is little wonder' that code enforcement operates as it does. When inspections result in an order to repair a dwelling, the city's policy sharply distinguishes between investment-owned and individually-owned buildings.

Resident owners, like tenants, sometimes find themselves the apparent Object of retaliation. In one neighborhood, much to their dismay, resident owners had their home insurance canceled. Insurance companies charged that one reason for the cancellations was due to the excessive number of abandoned buildings. Residents formed a committee and requested the Building Commissioner to Poit-Dispatch, Feb. 2S, 1946 A City or a Rat Run? $450 of which was stayed, while one of the largest investment companies was fined $10 for his failure to abide by city standards on one piece of property.

Another was fined $10 for' two buildings. Still another was fined $15 for three buildings. City officials report that many cases are settled out of court. This is no doubt true, for the resident owner is frightened into making repairs by the violation notice. Investment companies are a sturdier breed.

Experience has shown them that they will not be penalized. Even when cases do reach the courts, investment companies are granted months and years of continuances although the violations have existed for years. Moreover, companies can always trade buildings. The city's Building Division then drops the charges and starts proceedings against the new owner. Such cat and mouse games can continue indefinitely and the building is not repaired.

The city showed outright hostility when the St. Louis Board of Aldermen passed an ordinance giving the Building Division the power to seek the appointment of a receiver to manage and repair seriously deteriorated buildings. Curiously, the two investment owners selected for receivership are the same two companies who had promised to challenge the constitutionality of the ord embeds that basic organizational arrangement Long eekends in Muscovy By the end of the summer the five-davv in state law. So in theory at least even if the reformers were turned out of office the unit control apparatus would remain in place; the system would endure. The flaw in that reasoning Is that if the Building Trades politicians ever regain control of the school system they might not need to change the law to suit their purposes.

Law or no law, the best assurance of efficiency and merit in the school system is an elected School Board genuinely committed to progress and reform, which, happily, is what St. Louis has had for the last six years. Policy for the Park Golfing should be banned in Forest Park on Saturdays and Sundays between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. I realize that the minority golfing contingent of the population which uses the public park is doubtless more powerful than the majority contingent of children and non-golfing adults.

Hence, golfing in the park cannot feasibly be completely banned. But I feel (from rather painful experience) that even the more careful golfers are a public threat and a public nuisance. If these minimum precautionary measures cannot be immediately effected, we should revise our definition of the function of a public park and prohibit non-golfers from using the park altogether. Helen Hull Hitchcock workweek will be the rule for most of Russia's 80,000,000 factory and office workers. Lest this seem too slavish an imitation of capitalist ways, they will work a 41-hour week, rather than a 40-hour week.

Nevertheless, and for the first time in history, the Russians will be confronted by the two-day weekend. Sociologists, as well as Kremlinologists, already are wondering what they will do with it. Except for one fact, we would say that the Russians would fritter away the time just about as Americans do. That, however, involves massive and murderous use of the automobile. And there are not nearly enough cars in Russia to go around.

Most of the few hundred thousand built each year are destined for export or officialdom. So the Russians may have to spend their weekends in the backyard or whatever, serves as the equivalent of a backyard for a Moscow apartment dweller. No doubt, the commissar of consumer production already has stepped up the output of hammocks and barbecue sets. Perhaps he may also introduce the do-it-yourself rage. American merchan.

disers will take quick notice of any new weekend gadgets. The Russians, however, may conclude that the most luxurious blessings of the two days are the chance to skip a shave, and the time to get a good rest. If so, they will have caught up with "the American way," except, of course, for collisions on the highway. Between Book Ends Glimmer From Haiti More than 150 Haitian refugees landed in the Bahamas tne other day and at least eight boats of refugees have reached those islands in two weeks. All the refugees, officials say, are being shipped back to Haiti, and to what? To the most oppressive political system in probably the poorest country in the New World.

President Francois Duvalier is now in his tenth year of a nervous and sometimes hysterical dictatorship. "Papa Doc," as he likes to be called, named himself life President three years ago. His life seems to depend largely on generous use of prison? and his Tonton Macoutes, or bogeymen, who serve as his personal gangbusters. But reports reaching Santo Domingo say the internal situation in Haiti is more chaotic than ever, with many DRUMS OF KHARTOUM, by Chlot Gartner (Morrow, 342 $4.95) A fictional version of Gordon's defense of Khartoum and the failure of -the British forces to relieve the town in time, this story will hold the interest of anyone not versed in the facts of one of history's more romantic events. The characters are well done, full of appeal and about as real as a Grade Hollywood production.

In a sense this is not the author's fault; rather it is the fault of history, for there is a truism that many historical novelists fail to note that truth IS often stranger than fiction. rhetoric of an "utterance" (i.e., anything from a sentence to a book) is Judged by its effect; the grammar oy its "correctness." In other words, rhetoric amounts to what is usually called style. The most interesting essays in the book, at any rate, are defense of three or four different ways of analyzing; style usually thought to be unanalyzaible by using new sys- terns of linguistic analysis. If these really are workable they will be a boon to composition teachers (not to mention students) and to literary critics. Ethel Strainchamps NEW RHETORICS, edited by Martin Steinmann Jr.

(Scribners, 250 pg. Rhetoric has dropped out of fashion as a subject for study, but ac-. cording to the editor of this collection of essays it is back in vogue in college-English textbooks. The reader who hopes to find out from this book just what "rhetoric" means to the academics who use the word will be disappointed; the authors, all academics themselves, don't agree on the definition. However, it does become clear that rhetoric is not the same as grammar.

The Busy Man ou call Representative Albert Quie from Minnesota a church -college -trained farmer politician, a former school board member and father of five young children. Then just because he doesn't happen to agree with your editorializing you call him a hatchet man. Here's hoping his hatchet keeps getting sharper. H. M..