Newspapers / Jones County Journal (Trenton, … / May 29, 1969, edition 1 / Page 4
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►r i OTHER EDITORS CHRISTIAN SCISNCS MONITOR Lessons from the Forfos Cose The best way for the Supreme - Court of the United States to recover from the damage done by the Fortas case is for the court itself to establish even strioker rules and customs for the guidance of its members. There should be a thorough and ungrudging disclosure of all sources of income. There should be a severance of all outside ties which might in any wise seem to make a justice suscepti ble to influence. There should be no further outside speaking or acting for money. And there should be an even stricter code in regard to the justices’ person al life — moral, economic, so cial, and political. It came as a great shock to Americans that a member of the high court could and would act as did Associate Justice Abe Fortas. Although there has been ■widespread discontent on the part of many over a number of recent court decisions, there was, at the same time, a strong and touching confidence on the part of the American people that, personally, the justices were above taint of this nature. In a democracy such as Amer ica’s, it is of the utmost import ance that a court, which wields so monumental an infuence ov er the lives of more than 200, 000,000 persons, be unquestiona bly above suspicion. Doubt on this score can be a corrosive, eating into the heart of the na tion’s trust in its system of gov ernment and this system’s high est public servants. And there is no time in American history when, given the present-day dis affection of so many young peo ple and so many members of mi nority ethnic groups, the coun try could less afford a weaken ing of confidence in one of the three top branches of govern ment. In a certain sense the whole Fortas career on the high court was a mistake. His appointment by President Johnson had strong personal and political motiva tion behind it And President Johnson’s later attempt to ele vate Justice Fortas to Chief Judgeship ended in tragedy, when' a Senate filibuster brought it to naught because of senator ial unhappiness over Justice For tas’s continuing political role with the White House. This chapter is now dosed. The Supreme Court and the Country can learn needed1 les sons' from it. Editor Rider's Note: One more Two Federal Grants Assure Building for Community College Fred Steel Jr., Co-chairman erf the Coastal Plains Regional Com mission last week announced approval of a $125,000 grant to help expand the Lenoir Com munity College. The student body is drawn from Lenoir, Jones, Greene, and other eastern North Carolina counties. In addition to a two year college program, the curri culum includes adult education and occupational training. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare is mak ing a $135,000 grant for the pro ject. Lenoir County will provide $77,500 to complete the $337,500 total cost. The college’s board of trustees is the applicant for the Commis sion’s funds. They will be used to help construct a two-story, 16-classroom building on the campus at Kinston. Special courses are conducted to help employed workers up grade their skills and to train the employed for jobs in new and expanding industries in the area. thing; the senate could be mor« careful about giving its ajiproval to justices! Dial station-to-station direct and save up to 40%. This way you can get Manhattan for as much as 40% less than person-to-person rates. The same offer holds good for practically every city in the United States or Canada. And the deal gets even better after 7 p.m. and all weekend when you can call anywhere in the United States (except Alaska and Hawaii), for a dollar or less, plus tax. Daniel P. JOHN J. SYNON Some weeks ago Tim*, the slantwise news magazine, ran a piece on race in which it quoted Nixon as having said that a person’s intelligence is formed “largely” by his environment. And because the President’s man1 on Urban Affairs (i.e. race), Daniel P. Moynihan, was involv ed in1 the story, the unflagging Carleton Putnam wrote Moyni han a letter... Putnam wanted an understanding of what was meant by “largely.” In time, Putnam receive a now-you-see-it-now-you-dion’t re sponse, but not from Moynihan. It came from one of Moynihan’s handy men; a brush off. But Carlton Putnam doesn’t, brush. So, the man who built an air line wrote Moynihan a second letter, a copy of which is at hand. In part, it went, so: “ . . . I have never disputed the fact,” Putnam wrote (as politely as a surgeon prepar ing to open one’s innards), “that environment plays an important part in the reali zation of potential ability and character . . . Environment does not, however, alter po tential. I would say that the most profound, damaging and dangerous misunderstanding in our society today is the as sumption that poverty and in equality are primarily the re sult of social injustice. The primary cause resides in gen etic differences in potential human capacity, both indiv idually and racially. “The preaching of the op posite of this truth over a period of 40 years toy our sci entific hierarchy, our educa tional establishment, our re ligious leaders, our politicians and our mass media is at the root of most of our national and international problems, today. It has given the Negro an imaginary grudge against the White man, and the White man a false sense of guilt toward the Negro with its re lated attitude of appeasement and permissiveness, which in turn has spread intraracially throughout our homes, our schools and our courts.” “The emphasis has been to tally wrong,” Putnam contin ues, “and the consequences are approaching a national disaster. The essence of the ' American dream was a fluid society in which ability and character at the bottom could rise to the top; it was never intended to be a society i in which the bottom, regard less of either ability or-char acter, could permeate - apd l dominate the top,; lowering its standards, flouting its laws, draining its substance and initiating the obvious current decline in our civiliza tion. “Everything therefore which tends to further the fallacy — such as Nixon’s statement that intelligence is largely formed by the environment — is to be regretted. The best evidence today, as you know, is that 80 per cent of the final produet is inborn. “(Rn reply to your remark that there still is ‘a good deal , of controversy’ about these issues, I must point out that while we indeed hear debate about an exact measurement here, or a fine point there, no controversy can be sustain ed as to the side on which the overwhelming preponder ance of the existing evidence falls, nor can there be any justification whatever for bas ing all our public policies on the assumption that the op posite of this evidence is true. “ . . . The one thing our people need most today is to be led) out of this slough of fawning self-abasement in which we wallow and in which excellence feels for ever obliged to surrender to its opposite. It is destroying moral courage throughout our society. “And: I might add that no thing is more certain to in crease trouble than coward ice toward the troubles you already have.” That was the end of the letter. And I would urge friends of this column to re-read the ex cerpts I have given for, in my opinion, the words of Carleton Putnam are understandable, and as truthful as were ever strung together on the problem that is rapidly making a shambles of this nation.
Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.)
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May 29, 1969, edition 1
4
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