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PROTECTION^ Page 4 NORTHWEST HERALD Section B Wednesday, September II, IMS Opinion Helping small business The state has just announced the first recipients of special state grants to new, innovative small businesses. The program is set up so that if the businesses are successful, the state will share in the profits. This idea to encourage new busi­ nesses is an innovative idea in itself. We are always reading about reports on how the Illinois economy must change to meet the changing times. This plan should encourage needed changes. If the companies are successful, the state stands to get back up to four times its investment. If the firms fail, the state must sue to get back its investment. The idea of encouraging small businesses is a sound one. Small businesses make up the backbone of any economy. However, close attention must be paid to insure that this program is not abused. The state must not become a "Big Brother" to busi­ ness. Encourage business, yes. That is needed if the state is to be economically sound. But do not subsidize the tax "schemes" of the unscrupulous. Holdouts hurt parties' hunt for Senate candidates WASHINGTON (UPI) - Much in the manner of a major league baseball managers in spring train­ ing, political strategists are now trying to put together candidate teams with the best chance of go­ ing all the way -- winning the Senate elections of 1966. But, also like baseball manag­ ers, they are plagued by candi­ dates who haven't reported and are missing valuable training time by coming to camp late, soitie holdouts and a veteran or two who hasn't told the skipper whether he wants another time at bat. To some extent, the slates are set for the 34 Senate elections next year with 30 positions -- 20 Repub­ lican and 10 Democratic -- held by incumbents who are going to run again. . To fill out the rosters, the Repub­ licans are going to bank on rookies against the 10 incumbent Demo­ crats, and similiarily the Demo­ crats are putting up new faces to go against the GOP veterans. Both sides have to find candi­ dates to contest the four seats left open by retirements -- those in Arizona, Missouri, Louisiana and Nevada. In looking for the strongest pos­ sible candidate -- especially one who goes ^against an incumbent -- the tendency is try and recruit a popular governor at the end of his term. A governor, if his popularity has survived his time in the state man­ sion, has several built-in advan­ tages, notably an organization ready to go, statewide recognition and the proven ability to raise money. But, to the dismay of the Demo­ crats, some of their most popular Steve Gerstel governors are not getting into the game. Gov. Bruce Babbitt of Arizona plainly wants to run for president and feels he has a better chance out of office. Gov. Anthony Earl of Wisconsin has opted for another term. Gov. George Nigh wants to end his political career at home in Alabama. And Gov. Harry Hughes of Maryland hasn't made up his mind. A Republican political strate­ gist, perhaps taking some comfort in the failure of the Democrats to recruit governors for next fall, cites several reasons. A major one, he feels, is that the Senate is no longer considered the logical stepping-stone for the White House. The last two presi­ dents, Reagan and Carter, were out-of-office governors who never considered the Senate. Then too, a governor enjoys a lifestyle that includes a mansion, security and pampering that he would not be accorded in Washing­ ton. And there are the very practi­ cal problems of maintaining two homes and moving a family, usual­ ly with school-age children, to,a new locmimm. - Even Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm has kind words for some of the governors who have made the trek to Washington -- Evans of Washington, Bumpers of Arkansas -- and a fairly large number of current senators were elected af­ ter completing their terms as governor. (Steve Gerstel writes for United Press International) MDu vV \. • SSfcS-9 WS' NORTHWIST HERALD "Be ashamed to^die until you have won some victory for humanity." Horace Mann ROBERTA. SHAW Editor and Publisher LEONARD AA.'tNGRUSSIA "Ml&HACLE. MORSCH Executive Editor News Editor/Regional BECAUSE YOUR CASE IS 30 CRITICAL, NE CALLED IN A Amendment to limit spending William F. Buckley Jr. is ill and was hospitalized last week for chest pains. This column is a re­ print of a column written earlier this year. A professor of history from the University of Connecticut, disdain­ ful of efforts to adopt a constitu­ tional convention limiting federal spending to federal revenues, re­ calls something that happened at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Elbridge Gerry, the precur­ sor of George McGovern, proposed to write into the Constitution that at no time could the government conscript more than 3,000 men into the Army. "Washington, it was re­ ported, suggested in a stage whis­ per that Gerry's motion should in­ clude the proviso that 'no foreign enemy should invade: the -Unite#* States at any time with more than 3,000 troops.'" A nice anecdote, but more appli­ cable, however, to the ongoing de­ bate about the strength of our mili­ tary -- which strength, one supposes, Washington might have stipulated as: equal to the power to deter the enemy, plus one infan­ tryman. A margin of error. But the academic contempt for the balanced budget is a reflection on an immature knowledge of hu­ man psychology. Remove the dis­ cussion, for a moment, from the political context. It is generally supposed that a human being can, without running any risk to his lungs or heart, smoke and inhale 10 cigarettes per day. The problem, then, comes not from smoking cigarettes, so much as from smoking more cigarettes than the human organism can safely absorb. Suppose that one could devise a practical means of making the 11th daily cigarette unavailable? Or, to expand, suppose that, on discovering that one's alcoholic blood level was traversing the threshold beyond which a human being tend to lose control of his coordination, or his emotions, or his judgment -- suppose -- again, just to suppose -- that that incre­ mental drink were known to have in it an ounce of Antabuse, suffi­ cient to bring on the physical tor­ ment of convulsive vomiting and stomach pain. Wouldn't those re­ straints be welcome? We discovered, in the evolution of our democratic experience, that certain things we once took for granted we should no longer take for granted. For instance, that we could own slaves. For instance, Buckley that women should be denied the vote. For instance, that we needed to wait until the month of March before inaugurating a new presi­ dent. For instance, that the U.S. Senate, in order to warrant its equality with the House of Repre­ sentatives, should be composed of members elected by the people rather than appointed by the state political establishments. For in­ stance, that it subverts the demo­ cratic process to spend more mon­ ey on federal enterprises than is raised by taxation... In other words, the idea of the balanced budget amendment should be rescued from the idea that it is inconsistent with the evo-, lutionary modifications that are al­ ways being made on basic republi­ can instruments. The great crisis in England with the Reform Act of 1832 was, really, just another crisis in a long line of crises, among them those that gave us the Magna Charta and the Glorious Revolu­ tion of 1688. Many of our own cri­ ses have been internalized within the political system. We didn't have a constitutional convention to decide whether President Andrew Johnson had the right to name his own Cabinet. Instead, we im­ peached him for asserting that right, and then vindicated him -- by a single vote. But the Constitu­ tion had thus been changed. Congressman Phil Gramm -- this was before he was a senator, and before he was a Republican -- once introduced a simple bill ask­ ing that the cost-of-living adjust­ ment for Social Security take place MMffj ,XefB^butPnce a year» fiispofht being that *the working man paying the overhead of Social Security was suffering greatly dur­ ing the recession, and that the bur­ den of that recession should be shared more equally among work­ ing people and non-working peo­ ple. So he introduced a measure to that effect, and it was resounding­ ly adopted. At which point some­ one moved that the vote be put on the record. The result? The motion was resoundingly defeated.' The point is that we have gradu­ ally learned that unless there is formal, i.e., constitutional, pres­ sure to accept finite limits on fed­ eral spending, the moral strength to restrain oneself tends to fail, even as the strength fails among us to smoke, and to drink, with reference to our biological health. The notion that our political health will not respond to formal help defies experience with ourselves. And we are political animals as well as biological animals, and need to learn, and then to profit, from our knowledge of ourselves. (William Buckley is a columnist for Universal Press Syndicate) Reader Forum Boggled by comments refreshing through a personal rather than medical approach. I learned of STEVENH_HmTER Marketing Director KAREN A. ANDROS Saturday Editor DENNIS M.McNAMARA RONALD L.STANLEY Circulation Director To the Editor: The naive comments of some readers boggle my imagination. They contend that since we are blessed with people who choose (are not forced) to run for school boards, park boards, etc., that these people should be beytnd criticism if something is remiss. What a crock! If I elect to criticize Governor "Big Jim" Thompson (and there is certainly plenty there to do so), does that mean I should run for overnor? Or President of the U.S.? r perhaps lead a military coup takeover? Rather than talk in generalities^ as these naive people usually do, let's talk about the facts -- the hard realities. For some strange reason, factual information seems to impress more people than general banalities and idealistic pap. JohnF.Moog Crystal Lake Story of courage To the Ediierf^e!"^-" It was a pleasure to read about the --wonderful-opportunity 4o visit Disney World for 13-year-old Jennifer Farrell. "Off to the Magic Kingdom" (Wednesday,, Sept. 11) was Jennifer's courage despite several setbacks, which in turn encouraged me to write this letter. A member of my family is also a kidney dialysis patient so I can only admire Jennifer's persistence^ and attitude toward life. I don't think even with her dialysis she will have any problem keeping in step with her peers -- not with a drive like hers! It would be interesting to see The Herald run a follow up on Jennifer's visit to Disney World. I hope she enjoys her trip, along with each day she will meet in her own special way. Jessica M. Sexton Crystal Lake Penance and privacy "Anything you say can be used against you in court." Policemen now give such warnings routinely. If a new prosecutorial practice spreads, so will clergymen. . Cases in several states are chal­ lenging a form of privacy that used to be taken for granted: the confidentiality of a layman's con­ fession of sins to his priest or min­ ister. In one episode, a Florida minister was arrested for refusing to testify against a man he was counseling -- even though it was the minister who had persuaded the accuse* to 4urn himself in. In Texas, an advisory opinion by the state attorney general ruled that judges may force clerics to take the stand in cases of child abuse. Such cases launch criminal au­ thorities onto r COHftion course with churches. Apart from the Constitution, there is a purely pragmatic case for the confessional privilege. Pas­ toral counseling is a two-way street: not just an admission by the penitent, but an exhortation by the minister to disclosure and res­ titution. Clergymen sometime^ even escort offenders to the police Clerical involvement may thu be the only hope of bringing criminal to justice. If that hope i cut off, everybody loses. "We have erred, and straye< from thy ways like lost sheep,' says an old Anglican prayer o confession. The legislators an< judges behind the latest assault or the First Amendment should ad mit just that (Scripps Howard News Service) «