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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1970-11-05, Page 44 10 Ass $e#4•41 A's twe' "7,ze fee", ei-ier,/ 7;44 ,s-7--"veoew c AArs 7-me 8.0,2-0,4 Aix 4,,e6,44s Mss „wow dr.,/,,etsr,(4, ./7440 4-444r4e*Pc WE roes T o "WC Pe A/, 2-7'ScO 77.446-A/ lotter to the 'Editor But none of them came close to the senseless vio- lence, the vicious, amoral des- tructiveness that we have ex- perienced in this autumn of 1970, The comparison that comes closest, perhaps, is that deadly period in Algeria a few years ago, when the French withdrew. French Algerians and Arab Algerians killed each other with a callous im- personality that shocked the civilized world, That was not war. It was assassination. People were blown up at lunch in a restau- rant, or attending the theatre, °there were shot down in the streets, for no reason except that they were on the other side, Pray that this never hap- pens in Canada, But it could, unless the nation unites to smother the blaze arid deal firmly and finally with those who would throw Oil on it. ' I don't want to sound like a Cassandra with hindsight, I don't think it can happen in Canada. But it Will take ecnne age, and calm, to prevent it. HOW did it happen? It is Obvious that the government, and certain police forces, were Caught with their panta dOwn. They were Warned by the press and by the actions of the F.L.Q, itself, that this Was Mord than "a little trou- ble in Quebec". They must,have known that this Was a ody of were-- ed men, and women, dedices ted to the destrtidtion Of Canada, There was ample evi- dence of the violence perpe- trated by similar groups of fanatics around the world, It demanded swift and drastic measures, Where were they? Then, when the horse is gone, the barn door is locked. The War Emergencies Act is imposed, While a majority of Canadians, in my opinion, would support the govern- menf on this point, in the minds of many it has raised a fear, an uneasiness that is not dispelled by government pla- titudes, This move was like declar- ing Open season on anybody the police might suspect, or even dislike. Friends of mine who have lived in police states in Europe ate partied- laxly dismayed by it, Iralieeet, Three police cruisers drew up at the home of a widow with three teen- age kids, on the Saturday Morning the Act was im- posed, Without a warrant; they searched the house for drugs, even examining all her plants to See whether she was groWing pot, They found nothing. They took one of the boys to the police station and questioned him for three hours. She was distraught. Trying times • ahead/ Yes. But chins up, chaps, both of them: You can't make an oinelet without breaking eggs, The rats will scurry back to their holes, And let's hope nobody In power will draw to an Inside straight, A 10,004:fee 444 .0.44Weecee A SUMMARY OF EDITORIAL OPINION FROM OTHER AREA NEWSPAPERS. Happy, Clutter Other views THE CLINTON INTON NEW ERA Amalgamated. THE HURON NEWS-RECORD . Established 1866 1924 Established 1981 Clinton News-Record A member of the Canadian Weekly Newspaper ASsoeiation, Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association and the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC)' second class Mail registration nurnber 0817 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: (in advance) Canada, $6,00 per year; U.S.A., $/.50 KITH W. ROULSTON 4 Editor HOWAFIO AITKEN General IVIenaget Published every ThUrsday at the heart of Huron County Clinton, Ontario Population 3,475 we POW RADARdR IN CANAN rrc "A few years back this column and its writer got into some considerable trouble for suggesting that too much emphasis ;,was „ placed,,,on development of championship teams in the minor sports classifications. We contended — and still do, that winning a championship is only incidental to minor sports. If it happens, fine, but the more important aspect is the development of a true sense of good sportsmanship in the youngsters. A broadly-organized minor sports program has validity only if its goal is the development of better citizens — not necessarily champion athletes. "Our particular objection, where the mania for championships was concerned, lay in the fact that coaches and managers tended to concentrate on those boys who had a little 0 extra ability. The rest of the herd, the ones with only average co-ordination and skills, were often left on the bench. "In the meantime a good many of those people who give so freely of their time to provide for the kids have apparently begun to agree with us. The formation of house leagues in town led to a much higher percentage of youngsters gaining experience. The adult leaders have realized that the second-rate player actually needs more playing time than his more fortunate fellows. "Now we find a lot of the youngsters who might benefit from this democratic approach to hockey are not half as interested as we thought. Although registration has been open for some time, there is such a shortage of players in the 8 to 12 group that it may be necessary to drop the Tyke and Squirt categories this year... "—It is not too late to registor if you want to play this year... ",..We've heard a lot about how little we do for the young people in this community. Now it's time to find out whether Dozens of 9ravel pit operations MOPS Canada are rapidly chewing up thousands• Of acres of beautiful countrYside and causing misery to hundreds .of families. They disrupt the life of long-established and once .,c1Uiet rural communities with the almost-round-the-clock roar of heavy • gravel truck traffic. For those living close to pit operations, noise and dust pollution are constant companions. Properties are devalued. This must be stopped, The pits must be cleaned up, and they . should not be permitted to continue operations on. the doorstep of residential communities. More important, priorities must be established peace and comfort must take precedence over profit and gain. Municipalities are almost powerless to regulate the gravel industry, and most provinces have made only weak efforts to regulate the operators. Ontario, for example, is considering recommendations of a legislative committee that would When headlines scream about pollution and violence, hijackers and overpopulation, there's a tendency either to panic or play ostrich. Not much can be done for those who are wilfully blind, but for the more rational among us, Thanksgiving Day is a good time to remember that our corporate woes aren't the whole story or even the most important part of it. The seasons still march past us in all their .beauty and variety; in spite of Women's Lib and other rumblings, the family circle still, holds its steadying power. Thomas Hardy ("In the Time of, the Breaking of Nations") reminded us of elementals when he wrote, "Yonder a main and her weight Come whispering by, War's annals will cloud into night Caged humanity The affair of the inhuman tiger cages on Con Son Island in South Vietnam, shocked the West. It surprised few people in Indo-China where the barbarities of warfare seem to have rendered people immune from the emotional pain most of us ' suffer when we hear of man's continuing inhumanity to man. One student who had been shackled in the tiger cages fir a year, and had been released not long ago, told correspondents in a matter-of-fact way he had been so hungry that he had swallowed live cockroaches in order to stay alive. He took it for granted that everyone know how he and other prisoners had been tortured and beaten. One prisoner, he said, had been shackled on Con Son Island for 13 years. Yet this was the kind of affair ten of twelve U.S. congressmen, civilian legislators supposedly picked by voters for Canada compared to Algeria In 'the past fesP weeks, Canada has gone through an emotional catharsis which may yet, despite the bitter medicine which brought it about, turn a psychotic na- tion into a strong and healthy one. Our emotions have run the gamut of shock, despair and shame to a deep anger and de- termination, There is some:, thing of the feeling of 1939 in the air, a feeling that wild beasts, when they are infec, ted by a type of rabies, must be destroyed, Canadians, at all levels, have realized that it is rather silly to preach either Christian brotherhood, or de- mOcraty,lo a mad dog, What we are going through is something that never has happened in this nation be- fore. There have been Many crises in the growth of Our nation. We had our Plains of Abraham and our War of 1812. But these were fought by soldiers. We had our rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada. Both Served a purpose, but they were comic opera, coin- pared to What's happening to, day, If I'm net mistaken, the P,L,Q, has murdered " More inert than were killed in William Lyon Mackenzie% at- tacit on Toronto in 18_37, Veshad the Mel Rebellion, a tragic farce for a tragie pet- pie, led by a tragic hero With- out a real MOO bf knoekieg Over the establishment, require operators to pay SecuritY deposits of Up to $100,000 to the governMent to insure the rehabilitation of lands spoiled by the ind4stry. The recommendations. which give nothing more than Political lip service to the growing protest against the operators, are not good enough. They are only a Patronizing gesture to those who have suffered over the years at the hands of the operators., It is time that the industry co-operated with municipal and Provincial governments to try to find a way that will make gravel pit mining acceptable.to local communities, If this cannot be done, then it is time to ban gravel pits from inhabited areas of the country and consider bringing the gravel in bulk trains from, the north. What must stop, however, is the blatant and systematic destruction .of our small villages and countryside by the gravel pit operators whose only interest appears to be the dollar. Ere their story die." In spite of technology, the human mind and heart are still the most significant elements of the whole social complex. Nobody has pointed this out more clearly than A. Whitney Griswald, president of Yale from 1950-1963. "The spark from heaven falls. Who picks it up? The crowd? Never. The individual? Always. It is he, and he alone, as artist, inventor, explorer, scholar, scientist, spiritual leader or statesman who transmits its essence 'There is no such thing as general intelligence. There is only individual intelligence communicating itself to other individual intelligences. And there is no such thing as public morality. There is only a composite of priyate morality." In other words — we count! Surely this is a cause for gratitude. their integrity, wished to hush up, and to. keep from the public, Men will remain in their mental cages of ignorance until they are prepared to involve themselves more deeply in the injustices perpetrated by dictatorial governments. The fact that the United States claims the Saigon regime stands for honor and justice and freedom is in itself a shameful lie. Many Communist governments, of course, are just as guilty of inhuman treatment of political prisoners. Yet this does not justify suppressing facts that show up Saigon's leaders as ruthless military dictators prepared to resort to grisly cruelties in order to perpetuate their rule, Canada must become more vocal in telling her American neighbors just what Canadians think of their "freedom-loving" allies in Saigon. What with the world seemingly falling about our ears these days, I suppose I ought to apologize for writing on such an incons"quential subject, but the fact is that I have developed a tremendous empathy with the little boy who lives in the apartment across the hall. All day long this little boy is being berated by his mother, a woman with a truly Wagnerian voice, for not hanging up his coat or for leaving his rubbers in the middle of the kitchen floor or for another of the thousand and one sins against neatness peculiar to the little boys of the world. ' Listening to her this very' morning the thought suddenly occured to me that I am now a' fully grown man with my own weekly column and that it's high time I struck a blow for all little boys, of every age, who are messy. All my life, you see, I have been untidy. For 21 years my' mother fought a hopeless battle against it, then wearily passed over the crusade to younger hands, one of which 'I decorated with a solid 10-karat wedding ring. My wife, in turn, grimly dedicated herself to the lost cause and does until this day (Wednesday). I could have told them both, from the age of six, that I was going to bumble through life this way, but no woman will ever give up in her endless pursuit of a life of regulated order. The simple fact is that there geelkeeee,eatega 75 YEARS AGO The Huron News-Record November 6, 1895 A large and appreciative audience greeted the appearance of The Guy, Brothers, old time favourites in the Opera House last night. On Saturday Mr. Frank Upshall had the misfortune while working with a ripsaw in the organ factory to have the top cut off his right thumb. In consequence he will be laid off Work for some time. The Drill Corps' held a very successful smoking concert on Wednesday evening and a strictly musical entertainment on Thursday evening: Yesterday Mr. James Southcarnbe's horse took fright near Clinton and in elevating its hind legs struck the gentleman on the knee causing him pain And lameness. Mr. Southcornbe held on and brought the animal under control with little or no damage to the buggy. 55 YEARS AGO The Clinton New Era Novemer 4, 1915 Remember that tomorrow, Friday afternoon, November 5, in the Council Chamber, the Women's Patriotic Society have a jam shower for the soldiers and an ekhibition of soldier comforts acid hospital supplies. Connell net on Monday everting of this week with Mayor Jaeltson in the Chair and Reeve Ford and Councillor Wiltse, Fitzsimdfts, Miller, Shepherd, Wallis were present Council adjourned at three minitteS to are boys and men who are constitutionally incapable of being neat and I am one of them. Everything I put on suddenly unpresses itself. Every room I leave is a rumpus room. Life to me is an unmade bed. I never notice when things are untidy. I have been in hotel rooms where I've been the host of a party, awakened in the morning to what seemed to me merely mild disarray, only to watch in horror as a chambermaid dissolved into bitter tears. Women take these things so seriously. I've often said to my wife that if I were running things everything would 'be different: She'll say to me, for example, "I get so tired running around picking up after you." My reply, given in the tones of deep patience I save for just such occasions is, "All right, don't run around. Just run around once each week — say Tuesdays at noon." Oh, no. Not her. Everything's got to be put away in drawers or placed in closets or put back in the bookshelf (if it happens to be a book) and the net effect is like living in a store closed for stock-taking. It isn't only that I'm naturally. untidy. In my wife's eyes it's worse than that: it's the fact that I enjoy it every so much. I take to the clutter and jumble. I wallow in the joy of being unsystematic after a long day on the rack of the system. To me this is a triumph of man over inanimate things, a refusal to be nine, The first snow of the season "blew in" to town on Wednesday morning of this week. 25 YEARS AGO The Clinton News-Record November 1, 1945 Restrictions, imposed by the Wartime Prices and Trade Board, on the manufacture of "long" wedding gowns, dinner and evening dresses and evening skirts have now been lifted. Brute Roy, son of Mr. and Mrs. W. V. Roy, Londesboro, and a graduate of Clinton Collegiate Institute in 1942. 15 YEARS AGO The Clinton News-Record November 3, 1955 Alvin Sharp was installed as the new Noble Grand of Clinton Lodge 1.0.0.r, NO. 83 at the regular meeting held in the lodge rooms October 25. Brett de Vries who' had the three point parish Of Blyth, Auburn and Belgrave last year, was ordained as a deacon on Tuesday by Rt. Rev. George N. Luxten, Mahon of Huron. Misses Frances and Ethel Fowlie, tayfield, have sold their store on the corner' of Main and Catherine to E, OddliefsOn, London* Mr. and Mrs, Oddliefson plan to' convert it into a summer residence, 10 YEARS AGO The Clinton News-Record November 3,1950. SeventyefiVe parents became ruled by mere possessions. I'd rather see a great, chaotic pile of books that look as if they'd been freshly read than behold an impeccable library. My idea of the perfect clothes for any occasion is a pair of well-worn corduroy trousers and a sweatshirt fog sizes too large. I'd like to live in a place that looked perpetually like a summer camp of bachelors, I still dream of Pollogh Pogue's cabin as the ideal environment for a man of my disposition. Perhaps Pollogh will be before your time. He was a nature writer who rebelled at ,city life and chose to spend his life in a small cabin in the deep woods. When I was a boy I used to hike there on weekends and watch Pollogh do his writing or feed the animals and birds that were his pets. Most of all I liked to marvel at the magnificent chaos of his little shack. What a joy it was to escape from home where the hanging up of a coat was a cause for a crisis and step into the old man's free, untidy world, far from the petty discipline of more orderly living. It is a memory I've detailed a thousand times fox my wife and would love to pass on to the woman in the apartment across the way. Don't be too hard on that little boy, mom, I'd say, he may have greater things on his mind. In life, dear, they don't give marks for neatness, I'd say. And if I was as brave as I. am messy I'd really do it, te,4ee charter members of the first Home and School Association to be established in Clinton for over a decade. The new Doan-Rumball Room of St. Paul's Anglican Church was officially opened by the Rt. Rev. W. A. Tovvnshend D.D. Suffragan Bishop of Huron. Clinton's Mait Eger received the 0, W. ,"Mike" Weichel trophey for contributing most to minor sports in the W.O.A.A. during the past year, Somebody brought bales of hay and an old tire in and set fire to them on Princess Street next to the P.U.C. They burned themselves out fortunately. The "old village well" as some term it, located under the sidewalk on Mary St. near King St., was filled in solidly yesterday morning. THir EPITOFI, As f was reading the Qetober 29 edition of the Clinton News-Record, X noticed in the sports column an issue on last Friday night's (October 23) Junior game. In this issue was one little paragraph that I would 'Bite to comment on and that is about the couple of so-galled drunks that interrupted the game. Well I'm one of them persons and I figure I am just as well liked and respected in this town as the thoughtless degenerate that wrote these words. And I would like for whoever so shamefully directed these words to do so in the right manner and place. ' It is not a public concern and I am being punished for it by being banned from all rights to the arena which I don't think is necessary. It is the first time I have ever got out of control in this arena and am very sorry •for doing so, but the punishment is a bit hideous. A DRUNKEN FAN BU A LOYAL SUPPORTER OF THE TEAM AND TOWN. they really want things done for them.” The Exeter Times-Advocate meanwhile was dealing with the problem of those who hunt but are not in the best physical health. HUNTERS AND HEARTS "It is not the intention of this editorial to' dampen the enthusiasm of the hunter, There's a nip in the air, a threat ofespow, and the anneal„ trek to Abe northlands, orThe woods has already started. The pace will pick up in another few days as thousands of deer hunters go after their game. "Yet with all the excitement and good times involved, there are some rather solemn facts to consider. For instance it is not widely known that heart attacks among hunters will soon surpass accidents caused by firearms. And that is quite a rate. "The Ontario Safety League claims that any middle-aged man who leads a sedentary life should have a medical checkup before taking off on a hunting trip which involves considerable physical exertion. Even if the doctor pronounces you in fit condition it is still highly advisable to pace yourself. Plan your hunting day so that you will have rest periods when needed to prevent exhaustion. Do not stay up half the night partying; get to bed and be rested for the start of the hunt in the morning. Do not attempt to carry heavy game out of the bush. Let younger, more physically fit members of the party do it or the guides who are tougher and used ,to this type of work. "If you do have a heart condition which is not severe enough to prevent hunting, make certain your hunting buddies are aware of your condition. This is no time to be proud, just sensible. Other people should also be aware of any medication you may need. Never hunt alone if you have physical impairments. "The plain fact that so many hunters do suffer heart attacks is proof enough that these common sense rules should be followed. Admittedly it's rough. We still have to be concerned with the nut who 'thought it was a deer.' " 4 clintOn News-Record,. Thursday, November 5,1970 fift04.1 ;0410..ent Stop the murder of our countryside Editorial writers from both the north and the south end of the county turned their attention to sports last week. The Wingham Advance-Times was concerned about lack of interest in a local hockey program. HOCKEY FOR EVERY BOY Gratitude is not outmoded