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mLsM&f: '9U R N S V U LE ,'NORThJc AROLIN
KTABLEHED 1936 ‘
EDWARD A. YUZIUK - EDITOR & PUBLISHER
CAROLYN R. YUZIUK - ASSOCIATE EDITOR
ARCHE BALLEW - PHOTOGRAPHER & PRESSMAN
jerry McGuire - advertising manager
MBS PATSY BRIGGS - OFFICE MANAGER
PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY BY
YANCEY PUBLISHING COMPANY
SECOND CLASS POSTAGE PAID AT BURNS VILLE.N.C.
THURSDAY, FEBURARY 5, 1970 NUMBER SIX
SUBSCRIPTION RATES $3.00/YEAR
OUT OF COUNTY $5.00/YEAR
SENATOR A
SAM ERVIN
WASHINGTON - The Senate has moved quickly in the new
session to pass the omnibus drug abuse control act. Revision
of federal drug law is long overdue, and for this reason, I
think many of the act's provisions will be helpful in dealing
with a most serious national problem.
At the same time, I am deeply concerned about the sud -
den impulsiveness of the Senate to vote for almost any provi
sion which bears the "anti-crime" label. Last week, duriig
a three-day debate, I strenuously opposed the insertion of a
"no-knock" provision in the drug control bill. R was distres
sing to me that in the Senate's eagerness to do something with
the drug problem many of its members emulated the e iampfe
set by Samson in his blindness when he destroyed the pilla rs
upon which the temple of justice rested.
The "no-knock" provision of this bill is a horrendous blow
to the heart of a free society. This drastic section, in aa
otherwise good bill, permits magistrates to allow federal of
ficers in drug felony cases to break into a house without block
ing if they can persuade the magistrate that an announcenent
of their presence would allow the evidence to be destroyed.
At first blush, without examining what this does to a free
society, many would say "so be it". The trouble with this
approach is that it ignores one of the basic adages of our law
that "every man's home is his castle". Under this 300 -year
-old English common law principle, an officer of the law has
no right to enter a man's house even with a search warrant un
less he first notifies the occupant of his presence, his purpse,
his authority to search the premises, and asks that he be ad -
mitted. The Senate action thus uproots a cherished precedent
of individual rights.
The bad thing about the "no-knock" solution is that it not
only permits federal officers to break into people's louses like
a burglar, hit it tends to bring the law into disrepute and en
dangers the lives of the officers. Under the law .of every state
in the union, a man has a right to resist illegal entry into his
home, and if he thinks an entry is illegal, he has a right to
resist it to the utmost. This raises a practical question: Who
will condemn a man who picks up a gun to defend his home
against an unknown intruder who smashes down his door and
later turns out to be an officer of the law?
True, this section of the bill is directed coward a grave
problem - keeping drug pushers and addicts from destroying
evidence before it can be seized with a search warrant. Pub
lic feeling is running high on this issue, and it is said tint the
national urgency to do something to prevent drug abuse justi
fies almost any remedy. On this point, I have repeatedly
urged that we take sensible steps to control unme and drug
abuse without delay. Yet, Ido not think we ought to destroy
a free society and institute the methods of a police state on
the plea that good intentions justify the passage of a bad law.
I hope that the House will review this problem thoroughly
and remedy the eiror which the Senate made in respect to
the no-knock" section of the bill.
An Alarming Statistic
Military men who support
S en. Barry Goldwater's call for
a resumption of the d
North Vietnam cite this alarm*
ing statistic! North Vietnam®
convoys moving along the Ho
Chi Minh trail have increased
eightfold since October. In the
early fall, reconnaisance pfcmei
spotted 250 trucks a week mov
ing south, but that has increa>
ed steadily to a figure of 2,000
This is more trucks than were
spotted during the same period
in 1967 when the build-up for
the 1968 Lunar New Year Of
fensive took place.
-Human Events
Where Will The Secrecy End? Closed
Courtroom Against American Tradition
The secret inquest at Edjpr
town, Massachusetts, to deter
mine whether Senator Edward
Kennedy incurred criminal lia
bility in the drowning of Mary
Jo Kopechne, has mocked the
Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence and
affronted the American peoples
The inquest has ended,but not
a word of the official testimo
ny may be released to the pub
lic until some undeterm i n e d
future time. Senator
attorneys sought the secrecy. The
Massachusetts Supreme Court
decreed it on the tenuous theo
ry that publicity might preju -
dice a fair trial in the e v ent
criminal charges are filed at
a later date.
The closed courtroom at RF
gartown was a dramatic exam
ple of shifting attitudes that
challenge traditional American
legal concepts. Lawyers and
judges increasingly have come
to sanction courtroom secrecy
because of exaggerated fears
that public information and
fair trial are incompatible...
Whether intended or not, such
a doctrine impugns the jury sys
tem and imputes omniscience
to judges. If jurors,v\ho swear
to be guided only by evidence
presented in court, are not to
be trusted, then who is? Are
judges alone to be trusted? Aid
once the time-honored tradi -
tion of open court has been
compromised, where-will the
secrecy end? What will pre
vent the fair-trial pretext from
shielding dishonest or incom -
petent judges?
The world wants to know
what v.ent on at EdgartownHin
'Faith And
Bejabbars’
Ireland has just instituted a
breath-test law that sets a ma
ximum of one hundred milli
grams of alcohol content per
one milligrams of blood before
a driver is declared intoxicat
ed. This is 56% higher than
the eighty milligram level just
across the sea in Britain.
Sure and it's said the rea -
son is the different driving and
traffic conditions in the two
countries. But faith and be -
jabbers, any son of Erin can
tell you it's merely logical re
cognition of a fundamental dif
ference in capacity between
young average Irishmen and
those puny Englishmen.
-Hemet (Calif) News
Stay Out!
Attention All Peace March
ers: Hippies, Yippies, Beat
niks, Peaceniks, Yellow- Bel
lies, Traitors, Commies and
Their Agents And Dupes
Help Keep Our City Clean...
Just By Staying Out Os It!
-Manchester Union Leader
dreds of newsmen were assign
ed to report any scrap of infor
mation. After tramping around
in the snow outside the closed
courtroom all day, they had
no alternative but to file un -
substantiated reports. In the
absence of fact, rumor often
became robed in respectability,
even creditility. Edgart own
was a case study of how dama
ging courtroom secrecy cam be,
Neither justice nor Senator Km
nedy was served by events thoe
And the advantage that Senator
Kennedy and his attorney was
seeking proved illusory, if not
self-defeating.
THE CURIOUS CASE
Ejg-ll OF THE DRY LICENSE Sj
■■■Ml JOHN J. SYNONm
If the truth about the Chappa
quiddick-Bridge incident ever
sees the light of day I suspect we
will have a single newspaper to
thank: The Manchester (N.H.)
Union Leader.
A person will recall it was this
newspaper’s chief investigative
reporter, Arthur Egan, who
broke the story of the 17 tele
phone calls charged to Ted
Kennedy’s credit card the night
the Kopechne girl drowned.
Now Egan has done it again.
And that you don’t know of The
Curious Case L>ry License
is the best evidence of the truth
in the common charge that our
mass media alters and suppresses
the news: The Associated Press
hasn’t run a word of it. It is also
the best evidence of how “alone”
a single newspaper can be in
trying to live up to its slogan:
“There is nothing so powerful
as truth”.
Let’s recap:
On July 25, last, Senator
Edward Kennedy told a nation
wide TV audience his version of
the mournful event. First, he
said, he struggled to escape from
his car, sunk in nine feet of
water. Having freed himself, he
went and got two lawyer friends,
came back to the sunken wreck
and dived time and time again in
a futile effort to free the trapped
girl.
Then, he told his enraptured
audience, he “impulsively swam”
across the channel waters to the
other side, over 500 feet to
Edgartown, “nearly drowning”,
then went to his hotel room. To
hear him tell it, he left the two
lawyers standing on the bank;
presumably, they didn’t even get
their feet wet.
believe that story? (It
is one of two he has told. The
other was a variation on this
theme, given in writing to Edgar
town Police Chief Arena). Is that
what really happened, is that the
truth - either story or is
United States Senator Edward M.
Kennedy the blackest liar in
American history?
*****
Seeking an answer to those
questions, Union Leader Reporter
Egan telephoned Massachusetts
Registrar of Motor Vehicles
Richard McLaughlin.
Reporter Egan had word, it
seems, there was something fishy
about Ted Kennedy’s driver’s li
cense and knowing the license
was in the possession of the Reg- ‘
istrar, Egan phoned the Bay State
politician and put the pump on
him.
Kennedy’s license, Egan had
been told, is of the “old” type,
that is, of pasteboard and therc-
Closing the courtroom in
America is not an event to be
taken lightly; once firmly clo
sed, the door will not reopen.
One is reminded that a signi -
ficant milestone in Angl o-
Saxon liberty was the abolition
of star chamber proceedings in
1641 - the climax of a pro -
tracted struggle between the
king and the people. And be
cause truth, the guardian and
guarantor of liberty, cannot
long dwell in secrecy, the
open courtroom is too basic fcr
Anglo-Sax on jurisprudence to
be compromised.
-Richmond News Leader
fore subject to disfigurement up
on submersion in salt water. Egan
went into this and drew from
McLaughlin the admission that
Kennedy’s license “does not ap
pear ever to have been immersed
in water”.
Egan wrote his “dry license”
story, the Union Leader pub
lished it, and the earth, silently,
began to rock.
The UPI, doing a follow up,
contacted Registrar McLaughlin:
What about it?
McLaughlin denied, out of
hand, he had talked with Re
porter Egan and said, “I don’t
believe anyone else did who
would have access to the license”.
Well; you don’t give the lie to
Union Leader reporters without
challenge.
Bill Loeb, the newspaper’s
publisher, had his lawyers request
of the New England Telephone
Company its records as they re
lated to phone calls placed by
his paper. The routine request,
curiously, was denied and it took
a threat of court action on Loeb’s
part to bring the telephone com
pany to taw. Parenthetically, one
of Ted Kennedy’s lawyers in this
case is also a member of the
board of AT&T, parent company
of the New England outfit. In a
formal letter, the company even
tually admitted that the calls
Egan claimed to have made had
been placed and had been com
pleted; Egan to McLaughlin.
*****
All of public interest, wouldn’t
you say? The AP doesn’t seem to
think so. It suppressed the story;
it hasn’t run a line about the
“dry license”.
Union Leader Editor-in-Chief
Bill McQuaid put the question to
Jack Simms, Boston AP Bureau
manager. Simms told McQuaid
he, Simms, had suppressed the
story on orders from the AP cen
tral desk in New York.
It is possible, of course, that
Kennedy didn’t have his driver’s
license with him that fateful
night, though no charge of
driving without a license is
known to have been brought
against the senator.
And it is possible the sun will
rise in the west. I would say that
possibility -a west-rising sun -
is even more possible than that
the AP will report the news, as
is, or that the man Kennedy
will volunteer the truth about
that poor girl’s death.
In any event, you may lay to
it, the Union Leader , through its
man, Richard Egan, will keep >
digging and perhaps, one day,
and despite closed inquest doors,
just maybe ~,.,