Page 91 - TheGoldBug1971-72

APRIL 17,1972 'THE GOLD BUG PAGE THREE Welcome to the constituency, new voter Dean Zepp by Nellie Arrington As election time nears, politicians are beginning the Angela Davis or Philip Berrigan trial. "No one Amnesty: Contributing to step up their campaigns to win over the over- ever comes down to traffic court," he says. "If the whelming potential of the youth vote. But Senator press never reports the everyday job the courts are Charles Mathias, a Maryland Republican, has held doing, then how will the jnrblic know that people to reconciliation seminars for college editors and student presidents are being caught and punished?" He admits, in previous years. So when his letter came, inviting however, that the percentage of arrests and con- us to participate at 10:00 a.m., April 11, we duly victions is very small. Of juveniles (anyone under by Dean J ra Zepp made plans to go. 23 in D.C.) he says, "vl'he chances of your com- We Americans soon will have to face very Wegotto Washington (a story in itself) at 9:30. At mitting a crime, getting caught, and something seriously the thorny issue of amnesty for 500 draft 10:45we found a rather dubious parking place eight serious happening to you are practically non-- resisters in federal prisons and the 70,000 refugees blocks and a construction project away from the existent." Of the lack of discipline in American living in Canada or other countries. Senate Office Building (please do not abbreviate). society, Judge Murphy adds, "When a law becomes Many prominent American churchmen, 'And at 11:00 we were ushered into one of Senator non-enforcable, you might as well throw it away." politicians and intellectual leaders have already Mathias' conference rooms. It turned out the Like many a questioning layman, the judge has the spoken out for amnesty. seminar had started late at 10:30, and in the en- problems, but no answers. But his advantage-and Recently, the United Church of Christ has called suing half hour the Senator had come and gone. the rest of the judicial branches' as well-is that he upon the government to grant amnesty to men who Apparently his feeling that one of his prime have been punished or driven into exile for refusing responsibilities is to meet with as many of his to serve in the Vietnamese War. The Church's constituents as possible does not include a lengthy statement said that amnesty would be "in the in- appearance. Granted we were late, we did expect terests of reconciliation and the binding up of more than a half hour of Senator Mathias' time. wounds, for the sake of our freedom and to show our So approximately twenty of us listened to John high respect for conscience." United Methodist Fogarty, Mathias' press secretary, and the Bishop John Wesley Lord, testifying before a Senator's youth liason aide and legislative aide. Senate subcommittee, called for unconditional Fogarty spoke against the overclassification of amnesty for was protesters now in exile and said documents such as the Pentagon papers, Daniel that they "have rendered a great service to their Ellsburg's indictment, and the silence of recent and country" by early awareness of the Vietnam War's present Presidential administrations' close- wrongness. mouthed press relations. The legislative aide tried The late Cardinal Cushing of Boston spoke out for to counter him. The seminar teetered momentarily, amnesty "two years age. balanced, and picked up on the subject of student Last October, a group of Americans, including apathy. Representatives from Johns Hopkins, Kenneth Clark, Erik Erikson, Ernest Greuning, Catonsville Community College, and Western Charles Silberman and Andrew Young, petitioned Maryland noted predominant moods .on their Congress and the President to bring amnesty into campuses. The conversation died apathethically. the very center of our current thought and action. We were led to a hearing room in the New Senate Abill now in Congress would provide for a form of Office Building to listen to District of Columbia amnesty conditioned on some kind of redemptive Superior Court Judge Tim Murphy, billed on the public service. invitation as "a member of the national judiciary." Amnesty is the means society uses to forgive the He was apparently supposed to impress us with his persons whose acts against that society were realistic conception of the attributes and fundamentally political even "though at the time discrepancies of the judiciary system. He came off they were thought to be traitors and criminals. like a conservative desperately trying to sound Judge Murphy of the Superior. Court of the The Supreme Court in Burdick vs. United States liberal enough for college .students' tastes. Murphy District of Columbia speaks to college editors on (1914)said that amnesty addresses itself to "crimes started by telling how many U.S. judges are poorly the fallacies of the U.S. judicial system in a against the sovereignty of the state, to political educated and/ or political figures, then switched to seminar held by Senator Charles Mathias. offenses, forgiveness being deemed more expedient judicial decision-making. He feels it "a great myth for the public welfare than prosecution and punish- and a great danger" to have judges think they know ment." everything about running society, then noted in- There are many historical precedents in Greek, tegration would never have occurred if it had been has the tools at hand to solve some of the problems. Roman, French, English and American history. At He does not seem to realize, alas, that it is his left up to the legislature. Judge Murphy also the end of the Civil War, Lincoln and Johnson, in an blamed many poor judicial decisions on judges' responsibility to use them, and to say no. effort to heal a very divided nation, granted am- feelings that "it's no fun being fair anymore; it's nesty to Union deserters and Confederate soldiers. alot more fun being an advocate." He wound up Truman, soon after World War U, gave full pardon with comments on his generation's poor handling of People Have a Right to Know to 1500imorisoned war objectors. Even President our generation, and' the lack of responsibility of Nixon has moved from outright opposition to the today's youth, especially regarding material goods. If the voting population is somewhat wary of the idea to a qualified openness in his CBS interview If Murphy was asked to speak to instill us with new stories they read in the newspapers these days, with Dan Rather in the early part of this year. hope in the American judicial system, he did not. they may have a good reason. The ever-present We did not go to this seminar with a pessimistic credibility gap is on the upswing again, and press viewpoint. Senator Mathias is known as an active people are becoming less reluctant to bite the hand This should not be made an emotional, political, and liberal Republican senator. Americans for that feeds them. much less a vindicative issue. We need no further Democratic Action recently gave him a highly Jack Fogarty, press secretary to Maryland exacting of pounds of flesh or eyes. Amnesty would favorable rating based on his Senate voting record. Senator Charles Mathias, says bluntly that the contribute to a reconciliation, as someone has put He has been in favor of the youth franchise for press is paying for what he termed "years of selling it, "between a government that made a tragic several years. But few voters know or are con- out to what the government wanted the public to mistake and the young persony of alJ classes and colors who are being victimized by that mistake." cerned with voting records. In an election where know." Government censorship of controversial Republicans must worry about cornering young stories has reached a new high in Washington, This is not to minimize nor for one moment forget people, most of whom are registering Democratic, the hundreds of thousands on both sides who have the Mathias seminar was a soggy, poorly which, says Fogarty," has always been .covered been finally victimized by the mistake. under a special set of ground rules." Questioned by organized, highly political attempt. local college newspaper editors about revelation of Welcome to the constituency, new voter. But it is to say in the words of Clark, Erikson and classified documents such as the Pentagon Papers company (mentioned above), "Let them go and/ret and the I.T.T. memorandum, Fogarty replied that their records be made clean. Let go those who Infallibility of American Courts those particular stories were overclassified, and refused to flghta war that we as a nation have come therefore should never have been secret in the first to detest and to believe wrongly fought. Let go Believers in the infallibility of the American place. Such is the case, he adds, with much so- those who ran afoul of military law during a war judicial system are in for a jolt,. Judge :rim Mur- called "top secret" material; as a result of the which many think is itself illegal. Erase the taint phy, a superior court judge of the District of publication of stories by such muckrakers as on the good name and careers of young men with Columbia, believes that the system is not only columnist Jack Anderson, President Nixon war-connected prison sentences or less than fallible, but at times downright corrupt. recently announced the declassification of reams of honorable discharges. " Ithink our democracy is still Postulating on everything from long hair to At- material previously labeled top secret. It is this secure enough to do thai. tica, Judge Murphy revealed that in the selection of backdown on the part of government that keeps the *** judges, politics, and not ability, are what counts. It free-pressmongers hopeful. More and more the is on this basis that the apparently powerless feeling of frustrated journalists is toward that pf a There will be a meeting of all persons intereste judicial system is founded. With this comes what total lack of censorship, national security or no. in helping the McGovern for President Committe Judge Murphy called "the biggest problem our For, says Fogarty, "I can't conceive of a situation generation has had to face ...saying no to your where it would be detrimental to the people to know of Carroll County Monday April 17 at 8:00 P.M. t generation." He credits the astounding juvenile what was going on." Basing his views on the theory room 102 of Baker Memorial for Chapel. Susa coordinator the Sixth the Jacobson, crime rate to this problem, but seems to have no that an informed electorate is an involved elec- solution. The courts, he says, "cannot do anything torate, Fogarty said that the people have a right to Congressional District, will be there to get a good to stop crime." When a students questioned this, he know how their government's actions were af- committee organized in Carroll County. All people who support McGovern or wish to help with any said blithely, that when a conviction did take place, fecting them, and why. "And if you think that canvassing, letter writing, etc. are urged to attend. it was not publicized unless it was of the stature of everyone here thinks the government's running right," he smiles, "you're wrong."