# News Notes (December 1972) **URL:** **Published:** December 1, 1972 --- “The judge ruled that such action, while not praiseworthy, was within the constitutionally protected right of free speech.” ## Free Speech for Subversives A New Jersey motorist who was arrested in August for holding up a cardboard sign proclaiming “Radar Ahead!” has been freed by a Bergen County District Court judge. The judge ruled that such action, while not praiseworthy, was within the constitutionally protected right of free speech. ## Public Servant The Texas House of Representatives has unanimously passed a resolution endorsing the job performed by the Boston Strangler in the field of population control. The resolution, submitted by two representatives who believed the Texas house would pass any resolution set in front of its members, commended Albert De Salvo for “dedication and devotion to his work in population control.” Rep. Tom Moore, the chief sponsor of the resolution, withdrew the commendation after it passed recently, saying simply that he had changed his mind. Moore said the resolution “might reflect unfavorably upon the dignity of the body. I wouldn’t want to do that.” The resolution commends De Salvo, implicated in the deaths of women in the Boston area, for unselfishly serving “his country, his state and his community.” \[UPI\] ## Expertise How did the cop in Bloemfontein, South Africa, know the substance he had seized was marijuana? the judge asked. “I used to smoke it before I joined the police,” the cop replied. \[AP\] ## Silence is Golden Mrs. Susan Russo, a high school art teacher dismissed from her position in Hernetta, N.Y. because she remained at “silent attention” during the required pledge of allegiance, was upheld by the Court of Appeals. In their decision, the judges stressed freedom of speech, including the right to remain silent: “We ought not impugn the loyalty of a citizen merely for refusing to pledge allegiance, any more than we ought necessarily to praise the loyalty of a citizen who, without conviction or meaning, and with mental reservation, recites the pledge by rote each morning. “Mrs. Russo’s belief was that the phrase ‘liberty and justice for all’ appearing in the pledge, which to most of us represents the spirit and abiding genius of our institutions, in her mind simply did not reflect the quality of life in America today. For this reason, she felt it to be an act of hypocrisy on her part to mouth the words of the pledge when she lacked the belief in their accuracy or efficacy. “It is our conclusion that the right to remain silent in the face of an illegitimate demand for speech is as much a part of the First Amendment protections as the right to speak out in the face of an illegitimate demand for silence. “To compel a person to speak what is not in his mind offends the very principles of tolerance and understanding which for so long have been the foundation of our great land.” ## Best Foot Forward A panel of leading scientists has agreed that highly advanced civilizations certainly flourish elsewhere in the universe. However, one of the participants, Ashley Montagu, the noted anthropologist, was not optimistic that contacts with the “beyond earthers” would be very satisfactory. “With our magnificent record with the Indians, the Chinese, the Filipinos, you can imagine what will happen,” he said. “We can show them how to achieve peace by making war. We could even send our Vice President to show them how.” If contact is made, he said, he hoped that it would be done with “every possible token of interest and friendship” and that no governmental officials would be permitted to be involved. ## Pre-Marital Licenses Swiss authorities have placed matchmakers under state control and required that all of them get a license, police report. \[AP\] ## When In Uganda…. The wash is still flapping on the line at some of the 10,000 residences in the former Asian quarters of Kampala, but their occupants have gone. At a few, the servants have moved in from their cramped quarters at the back. In the city, 80 per cent of the shops are closed, and Kampala has an air, as one diplomat put it, of “trying to live after an epidemic of plague.” None of the shops have been looted, a phenomenon credited by some to a recent visit by the President of the Central African Republic, Gen. Jean Bedel Bokassa. General Bokassa led an army squad into a jail in his own country to beat up thieves, some of whom died, and also threatened to cut off the ears of thieves who repeated their offenses. Nobody knows what advice General Bokassa might have given President Idi Amin on how to deal with thieves, but his presence in Uganda is thought to have had a deterrent effect on pilferage. Many Ugandans wonder—but dare not shout from the rooftops—how the economy and social services are going to function. The Asians played a prominent part in staffing the hospitals, public-health facilities, import-export concerns, and industries. With their forced departure, a shortage of skilled workers has been built into the economy. On the national level, Uganda’s economy has improved due to the cessation of imports. But the man in the streets is still desperately poor, and faces soaring prices of everyday products, which have already doubled in less than six days. Having expelled the Asians, Israelis and Britons, General Amin is fulfilling his pledge of “Uganda for the Ugandans.” His only problem is how to sell the businesses, possessions and property left behind by the emigrants to a population with little money. ## Quality Garbage David Bernstein, executive director of the Citizens Budget Commission, says that in many cities in the country it has been found that “real savings can be achieved and high quality maintained” through the use of private garbage collection. But New York’s Environmental Protection Administrator Kretchmer disagrees. He says the industry has “no responsibility nor profit motive for street cleanliness or reduction of noise levels in the city.” He does not believe “that the city can rely on private cartmen to meet the standards of quality service which the citizens of New York rightfully expect.” ## To Each According to His Greed An Italian government decree that would give lush pay raises to the high officials in the top-heavy state bureaucracy is arousing strong opposition to Premier Giulio Andreotti’s government among Italian citizens. Under the proposed pay structure, the annual salary of an administrative chief in a government department would go from $10,000 to $16,000 and of an ambassador from $10,000 to $23,000. The increases would be retroactive to January, 1971. High officials have such fringe benefits as chauffeured cars and sometimes free or inexpensive lodgings. Many of them have also managed in the past at least to double their salary by working overtime or holding part-time jobs in some semi-official agency. The projected salary increases for Cabinet members are particularly unpopular because each of them receives in addition an average of $15,000 a year after taxes as a member of Parliament. The new scales propose $27,000 annual pay for a Cabinet minister instead of $10,500 and $23,000 for under secretaries instead of $10,000. Politically independent newspapers say the proposed “supersalaries” are the more irritating because the bloated and inefficient state bureaucracy is full of high officials with little to do while Italy has not nearly enough letter carriers. Some mailmen earn as little as $150 a month. Ugo La Malfa, leader of the small but influential Republican party says that the Government is committing a serious psychological blunder at a time when organized labor is being urged to show restraint in current negotiations to renew the nationwide three-year contracts for about four million workers. The Premier, in an open letter to Mr. La Malfa, asserted last week that he too was all for austerity but said it would be discriminatory to have it start in the civil service. “Austerity, to be just, must begin elsewhere,” Mr. Andreotti wrote. He did not say where. ## Startling Discovery New York State Controller Arthur Levitt has come to the remarkable conclusion that government bureaucrats goof off on their jobs. An “alarming study” of New York City’s Welfare Department, made public recently, uncovered such “unusual office practices” during working hours as sleeping, playing cards and chess, reading, fixing each other’s hair and a daily physical exercise class. Upon receiving Outlook magazine’s Discovery of the Year Award, Levitt expressed his gratitude and favored the magazine with an advance scoop on his next two equally amazing discoveries: that the Pope is Catholic and that bears shit in the woods.