St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 24

12B ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH SATURDAY, JANUARY 14, 1995 THE POST-DISPATCH PLATFORM I KNOW THAT MY RETIREMENT WILL MAKE NO DIFFERENCE IN ITS CARDINAL PRINCIPLES, THAT IT WILL ALWAYS FIGHT FOR PROGRESS AND REFORM, NEVER TOLERATE INJUSTICE OR CORRUPTION, ALWAYS FIGHT DEMAGOGUES OF ALL PARTIES, NEVER BELONG TO ANY PARTY, ALWAYS OPPOSE PRIVILEGED CLASSES AND PUBLIC PLUNDERERS, NEVER LACK SYMPATHY WITH THE POOR, ALWAYS REMAIN DEVOTED TO THE PUBLIC WELFARE, NEVER BE SATISFIED WITH MERELY PRINTING NEWS, ALWAYS BE DRASTICALLY INDEPENDENT, NEVER BE AFRAID TO ATTACK WRONG, WHETHER BY PREDATORY PLUTOCRACY OR PREDATORY POVERTY. Founded by JOSEPH PULITZER December 12, 1878 JOSEPH PULITZER, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER 1878-1911 JOSEPH PULITZER, EDITOR AND PUBLISHER 1912-1955 JOSEPH PULITZER EDITOR AND PUBLISHER 1955-1986, CHAIRMAN 1979-1993 MICHAEL E. PULITZER, CHAIRMAN AND PRESIDENT NICHOLAS G. PENNIMAN IV, PUBLISHER WILLIAM F.

WOO, EDITOR FOSTER DAVIS, MANAGING EDITOR EDWARD A. HIGGINS, EDITOR OF THE EDITORIAL PAGE April 10, 1907 JOSEPH PULITZER 900 North Tucker Boulevard 63101 (314) 340-8000 EDITORIALS rZ TO QCf ON 7 Prisons And Single Parenthood Matt HandelsmanNew Orleans Times-Picayune LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that black inmates now account for 50.6 percent of the nation's prison population of roughly 1 million, even though blacks make up only 12 percent of the general U.S. population. This trend is likely to continue as Washington and the states devote larger sums to building prisons and beefing up police forces in response to blue-collar crime. i As the black incarceration rate shows, too little attention is being given to where this one-solution-fits-all approach to crime is leading.

Both state and federal prisons are full in part because mandatory sentencing laws require jail time even for certain nonviolent offenses, such as drug possession. The high-incarceration trend is one -of two recent sets of statistics that suggest the ominous direction in which unenlightened social policies may be taking this nation. The other set focused on the rise in single-parent families, most of them poor. The Census Bureau says 30 percent of all U.S. families are now headed by single parents.

An even bigger surprise is that small cities lead the list. Nationwide, for example, Albany, which has 112,500 residents, ranks at the top, with more than 37 percent of its households headed by single parents, the bureau reports. i These two issues, incarceration and one-parent families, are related. The growing incarceration of black males may well make marriage less of an option for at least some poor single mothers. At the same time, experts report a higher incidence of criminal behavior among young males growing up in female-headed households, especially in neighborhoods that have high concentrations of such households.

At some point, states and the federal government will discover that more prison space is no more a solution to the destructive behavior of these young men than orphanages are the cure for out-of-wedlock births. Some political leaders have long argued that marriage is part of the answer to lifting female-headed families out of poverty. For sure, not all these men would make suitable marriage partners. But marriage or other forms of long-term relationships, as well as productive work by the partners, must be encouraged. There always will be a need for some form of public aid for dependent children, just as there always will be a need for prisons.

But those needs could be reduced through more enlightened solutions to help young urban males see alternatives to destructive behavior and to help young, unskilled women understand that having a baby out of wedlock is a sure route to poverty. marked, mass grave. (The form my father signed had said only that his body would be cremated and buried in Sts. Peter and Paul Cemetery.) I asked whether we could have his ashes back for a private burial and was told that that was not possible. Although I was noticeably crying on the phone, there was no mention made of the beautiful Mass for the donors that St.

Louis U. says is held each year, nor were we ever told of this. Also, although St. Louis U. has stated that survivors are notified when the burial takes place, we were never notified.

I still admire my father's decision. Thanks to Viets' article, St. The Return Of The Boundary Commission Let the lumber industry cut what it has planted and leave the remaining 10 percent old growth to the environmentalists and the unique flora and fauna sheltered there. Bill Schell Affton Missed The Mark Marlin Morris's Jan. 8 letter la- ments the attacks made recently on the White House and supposed 1 attempts made on President Bill Clinton's life.

Violent threats against any president are contemptible and risk identifying America as a bar- barian nation. But I can't imagine why anyone would go to the trou-ble of employing such a device against a political gelding like Clin- ton. Nor can I see why anyone would want to grant Clinton a place in history through martry- dom that he could never achieve otherwise. Morris chimes in with the now familiar chorus that crestfallen lib- erals have been singing for the past year or so: The venom, hatred and criticism directed at Clinton are historical anomalies. If it's true that this president has suffered unprecedented ill will, it's because this president has committed such unprecedented I transgressions against the values of the typical American.

A final note: Liberalism's bete noire, Ronald Reagan, suffered at least one assassination attempt and another physical assault. Can we conclude that those attacks were incited by doctrinaire university professors, editorial writers and network anchors? Rebecca Sterling Kirkwood Target Dads I agree with James M. Talent Gan. 8 Commentary article) that the welfare system must be overhauled. But I seriously disagree with Talent's strategy.

For a woman, the deterrent for having children out of wedlock in Talent's parents' day was that she would be marked with a scarlet sent into poverty or be sent to State Sen. Wayne Goode, a Democrat from Pasadena Hills, hopes to pass legislation in the Missouri General Assembly this session to resurrect the St. Louis County Boundary Commission. His efforts couldn't be more welcome. I The late, lamented Boundary Commission was established to review and evaluate proposals for annexation and incorporation in Louis County; it could examine the boundaries and tax base for new communities and determine whether they were appropriate or sufficient.

By ensuring that proposals placed on the ballot were economically viable, it lent order to what had been chaos. Last May, the Missouri Supreme Court invalidated the Boundary Commission because the legislation establishing the commission applied solely to St. Louis County. Since then, the process has been fraught, with confusion. No agency exists to scrutinize proposals.

St. Louis County is obligated to put questionable proposals, such as the incorporation of Wildwood, on the ballot if they meet minimum standards. If Wildwood passes, the pressure will be on South County to incorporate; a Boundary Commission would be essential in devising the best plan. The need for a Boundary Commission is plain; the legal avenues for arriving at one that passes constitutional muster are less apparent. Mr.

Goode has two alternatives to address the Supreme Court's ruling that laws cannot be written to apply to a single county. One possibility, that of reclassifying counties, looks promising. Mr. Goode cooperated with county and municipal officials in coming up with his new, improved Boundary Commission. Through the appointment process, he has tried to make the commission more independent of the county, for example.

Now, all parties must continue to work together to ensure the passage of a bill to create a new Boundary Commission. $75,000 In Income Is Not Middle Class President Bill Clinton offers tax credits or deductions for families earning up to $120,000 a year. Rep. Richard Gephardt offers tax cuts for families earning up to $75,000. The Republicans offer tax credits for families earning up to $200,000.

These generous offers are termed help for the middle class. But the average national income in 1993 was $24,750 a year. So how is a yearly income of $75,000 to $200,000 considered middle class? It might be upper-middle or lower-upper, but it is still upper class. Eighty percent of families in 1994 earned less than $75,000 a year. Also, why do all the proposed deductions and credits concern only families andor children? There are millions upon millions of single people those whose children left the roost, the young who have not married and the 26 million over 50 and those who prefer to remain unmarried.

If a tax credit or deduction is being given, and it is highly dubious if the pittance received would be worth the added bureaucratic expense, give it to the true middle class those whose incomes are in the $20,000 to $49,000 range. The political establishment of both parties and those who gravitate around the establishment live in a world far removed from the average citizen. They don't even know what the middle class is. And why don't they like single people? Justine Eiseman Clayton Rails On Ice I could not believe the propaganda on the local TV news about the failure of MetroLink to function in the ice storm on Jan. 6.

(1) The steps and platforms were dangerously covered with ice that morning. (2) I waited for an hour before the truth was announced to us, not the half hour reported by the TV news. Some people chose the MetroLink that morning to avoid the roads. Were they disillusioned! (3) Shuttle buses were announced "to take us to connections." At the Forest Park station, less than one block from a bus garage, we saw nothing. Folks with luggage attempting to get to the airport were stranded.

How could they promise to get these folks to the airport? As with most bureaucracy taking taxpayers' money, MetroLink is a toy to get ball fans to the stadium and nothing more. There was no word of the train stuck on the bridge coming from East St. Louis and riders stuck at Louis U. seems to be re-examining its policy. Effecting just change is one of the aims of good journalism.

LaVona Robinson Mehlville The discussion about body donations to St. Louis University could have a resolution satisfactory to all parties. I long ago signed the papers for my body to go to that school, and I knew then that there would be no memorial. However, my daughter, Toni (a St. Louis U.

graduate) suggested a memorial would be nice as a remembrance for my grandchildren. The university should consider having a plaque of names somewhere on campus with the decedent's family donating a small sum to cover expenses. Since my family has been instructed not to spend on an elaborate (and to my mind, useless) funeral, a very small portion could be donated to defray the cost for those who wish to participate. Perhaps the art work for a commemorative design and name additions could be a project of the art department. in this manner, not only would feelings be addressed and assuaged, but a fitting memorial would quite probably result in increased donations.

Alice Ferrari Komosa Bridgeton Save Old Trees Once an old-growth virgin forest is cut, it is gone forever. As long as we need wood, it will never be allowed to reach its former stature. The demand for building material will grow just as fast as the population grows. We have already A Winning Proposition From The NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association took another step in emphasizing the student role of student-athletes with its approval of Proposition 16, requiring incoming freshmen to have stronger academic achievement in high school if they want to compete in sports their first year in college. The NCAA relented somewhat in the face of opposition by postponing the new rules for one year, but that delay should give the message extra time to sink in: Anyone coming to campus has to perform well in the classroom, not just on the field.

Proposition 16 is the direct descendant of Proposition 48, the controversial rule adopted in 1983 that set the first standards for incoming freshman athletes. Those requirements were a high school grade point average of 2.0 in 1 1 core subjects and an SAT score of 600 or ACT score of 17. The new standards call for a 2.5 grade average in 13 core subjects and test scores of either 700 on the SAT or 17 on the ACT. In some cases, if grades are lower, higher test scores can make up for them and still allow freshman eligibility. Opponents of the original tightening said it would deny a college education to many students, primarily minorities, and relied too heavily on culturally biased tests.

That question of bias remains a thorny one. But the experience of Proposition 48 has hardly been the disaster that its detractors foresaw. The basic argument in favor of the stricter requirements still holds true. College sports require a tremendous amount of time, and anyone who plans to play as a freshman needs a strong academic background to keep up with coursework as well as athletics. Allowing someone without that background to play anyway may benefit the university's athletic program, but it does the student no favor.

Once his athletic eligibility is over, if he has not kept up academically, his future is limited, except for the very few who can look forward to a brief career in professional sports. Proposition 16 will give student athletes a more realistic view of their future and the chance to buckle down before they graduate high school. Far from hurting their prospects, it improves them. platforms for more than two hours. Wouldn't MetroLink have been more honest to publicly inform riders not to use the train In Search Of Hillary Rodham Clinton cut 90 percent of the once expansive old growth.

The timber industry drools over the 10 percent left. Ask the timber people how many board feet suitable for building materials have or ever will be cut from replanted forests. Alan Mawhinney's Jan. 9 letter suggests growth exceed harvest by 37 percent. Why then don't they cut what they grow instead of the old growth? Many of the harvested trees are shipped unmilled to Japan and other countries, eliminating sawmill jobs.

Jobs are, after all, what the controversy is all about. How much of the replanted forest has been made into quality timber? Most of the timber is cut for paper pulp before it can reach the size to be economically harvested for building material. The sheer size and board feet per acre of these mighty forests will always make them desirable to loggers. until further notice that morning? I'm amazed at the media's re cent focus on the negative, that they minimized this glaring incom Once again, Hillary Rodham Clinfbn is out to remake her image. Once again, she is shooting for the kinder, gentler, more feminine Hillary.

And once again, her efforts are likely to fail dismally. With every makeover, Mrs. Clinton and her undoubtedly well-meaning advisers repeat the same mistake: They reduce a complex, complicated woman into a quickly stereotyped into the kind of woman described by House Speaker Newt Gingrich. After the election, that impression was reinforced by things as minor as Mrs. Clinton's use of her maiden name, as major as her role in health-care reform and as potentially scandalous as her commodities trading.

Still, when Mrs. Clinton retreated into a more petency. Once again we are supposed to believe the news media when they cooperate in this cover- another town to have the child alone and give it up for adoption. I am hard-pressed to find a demonstrable deterrent for young men seeking a casual sexual encounter tflen or now. Does Talent think that young girls force men to have unprotected intercourse with them? If so, don't these men know how to say no? Many young girls would not have a sexual relationship if men didn't lie to them or threaten to find another girl unless they comply with the man's wishes.

Would Talent suggest that men should be forced by law to be employed and marry the young women before all 1 sexual relationships? I agree, but I don't think men will. I do think the welfare system needs to be changed and that there needs to be an incentive not to have illegitimate children. However, targeting single mothers alone, in a punitive way, is gutless, and it won't work. Newt Gingrich's calling Hillary Rodham Clinton a bitch, men who use power to avoid the responsibilities of unprotected sex, the use of sex to sell everything from tooth- paste to automobiles and our inability to talk to our children about the joys and responsibilities of sexuality (this includes masturbation) these all contribute to the prob-, lem of unwed mothers. It is not about the welfare money.

Judith Williams St. Louis We want to know what our readers think. Mail your opinions to Letters From The People, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 900 North Tucker St Louis, Mo. 63101, or fax them to (314) 340-31 39.

Please keep letters short and to the point; they may be edited for length or clarity. Letters must be signed and include an address and daytime phone number for verification. Because we receive so much mail, we cannot acknowledge or return letters. one-aimensionai, political wue. Mrs.

Clinton periodically goes through these laborious but fruitless attempts to feminize herself. Her first major "gaffe" came early in the 1992 primary campaign. She was roundly criticized for saying, during the infamous "60 Minutes" interview after the Gennifer Flowers debacle, that "I'm not sitting here, some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette" as if it were preferable to be a idealized femininity, she was also blasted. Something as trivial as her hairstyle change was scrutinized for its psychological meaning. Some reports of her redecoration of the White House seemed to suggest that a woman who enjoyed hobnobbing on the Hill couldn't also enjoy examining wallpaper swatches.

Mrs. Clinton had to. be one kind of woman or the other and the verdict was already in. In many ways, Mrs. Clinton is up of a mess.

Robert Young St. Louis Memorial Needed Because of my own experience, I found Elaine Viets' Dec. 14 column, "Giving Body To Science Brings Grief," to be very fair and not at all biased as Father James Veltrie stated in his recent letter. My father was one of those donors. In 1985, when my father told my brother and me that he planned to donate his body to St.

Louis University, we thought it was an admirable thing to do. Previously, the parents of one of my friends had donated their bodies to a university in Tennessee, and they had been buried in marked graves. Therefore, in 1988 when my father died and I called St. Louis University, I was shocked to learn that he would be buried in an un passive, long-suffering wife. Later that year, she was also assailed when she remarked that she wasn't the kind of woman who wanted to "stay home and bake cookies." The campaign's reaction was to try to turn her into precisely that by involving her in a silly chocolate-chip cookie bakeoff with Barbara Bush.

With these kinds of statements, Mrs. Clinton was like a Rorschach test: People tend to see in her what they want to see in her. In the symbolic, tradition-laden role as first lady, Mrs. Clinton is a lightning rod for the confusion, ambiguity and uncertainty about women's changing roles. Instead of succumbing to the image-meisters and the focus groups, Mrs.

Clinton would be better off to remember the phrase from the popular song: "I gotta be me.".