Trinity College School - Record Yearbook (Port Hope, Ontario Canada)

Page 24 text:

THE PERFORMERS? November 3rd, 1970 will be a very important day in Amer- ican history. For two years, Richard Nixon governed with- out control of either the Senate or the House of Representi- tives and now on November 3rd, he will sit and sweat while Americans decide his future and that of his vice-president Spiro Agnew. Nixon has said that his tenure should be judged by the results not the oratory and this decision is the crucial one for America and the world. Indications are that the midterm elections will draw many people to the polling stations because the nation has become increasingly aware of the rising crime rates and the state of the economy in the last two years. Americans must ask if they want strict constructionists” in the Supreme Court and law and order men in Congress and in their state legisla- tures; if a hard line is the cure for the American malaise; if the economy is in a better state now than it was three years ago; if there is any truth or merit in Nixon’s argument that he must have control of the Senate if useful legislation is to come from the federal government; if Vietnamization is working and there is merit in the presidential hypothesis that the Vietnamese will soon be able to manage their own defence, and other questions, ad infinitum. The state of the American economy is bleak. Inflation runs at a rate of over 6% and 5 ' A % of the American labour force is unemployed. Blacks as usual are particularly ill off and of those between the ages of 18 and 25 unemployment is somewhere between 13% and 15%. They are becoming very vehement (somewhat of an understatement). It isn’t the blacks who protest the administration s policies most vigor- ously but the white industrial workers in New York and New England and the aircraft and missile industries of California where 8% is a reasonable estimate of the number of unem- ployed. The administration hasn’t made many comments about the economy since two million more people are unem- ployed now than before the administration took power and the plans if any to check inflation have remained undis- closed. The main administration plank has bee n the law ' and order issue which is a symptom but is not the disease. The past weeks have seen Agnew and Nixon slinging muck and being the targets for a lot in return. The “radical liberals” such as Senator Goddell of New York are the cause of our dilemma,’ states Agnew. Both of these big guns have campaigned extensively on this issue, as much emphasis in fact seems to have been placed on the one topic that Demo- crats with justification say that it is a travesty of public con- cern since the cities, the war and the race problem have never been discussed in this campaign. 14

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And thus here is, I feel the answer as to why Canada experienced these kidnappings before her violent neighbor. She only has that com- bination of cultural differences, language difficulties and concentra- tion of her people in Quebec. These kidnappings and murders, horren- dous as they are, nevertheless point out some valuable lessons to Cana- dians and Americans alike. This perhaps is the final answer to those who had wanted to confine the Negroes to certain areas of the U.S., where this fatal concentration would soon build up. This also shows us perhaps that campus disorder and student protests are not as serious indicators of trouble as they look. Certainly they have not produced anything like this except in cases where they were, in fact, treated as serious problems as at Kent State. And so 1 feel that more attention should be paid to less noticed facets of our own society such as the F.L.Q. The publicity has all been about such things as the riot at Sir George Williams while the real action has been going on secretly and quietly in the homes and meeting places of the F.L.Q. Perhaps we ought to realize that it is not always in the external symp- toms of dissent which often act as a valuable safety valve, that the trou- ble lies; it is also in the slow and silent buildup of hatred and other emotions which eventually and inevitably culminate in a tragedy. j. b. robinson 13

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The stakes in this election are very high. One third of the Senate seats are due to be filled and the G O. P. needs seven seats to gain control of the body. However, the prospects don’t appear heartening for tradition has been that the rul- ing party loses about 35 seats in the House of Representa- tives and 5 in the Senate. Mr. Nixon has pandered exclusive- ly to the south with his stratagems of going slow on the de- segregation and bussing orders and his attempts to get a southerner into the Supreme Court. In his two years it seems that Mr. Nixon has possibly aid- ed American withdrawal from Vietnam and temporarily cooled the Middle East, opened the way for a SALT agree- ment but his domestic policy has been shameful. The issues are now before the public as are Nixon’s and Agnew s politi- cal records. The importance of the decision cannot be over emphasized. — g. payne 15