Evening star., 1962-05-27
Cities
and People
The Politician
And the Expert
By ROBERT J. LEWIS

i Is BECOMING increas-
= ingly clear that the only
person you can fully trust is
the politician.
If it had not been for the
politician, the expert would
have long, since taken over.
The elected official seems
to be the last rampant left
against the engineered eff
ficiency of the automated
mind that whirS and clicks
with all the lightning, speed,
ice-cold logic, and fearful
impersonality of an cleo
tronic computer.
He stands almost alone,
these days, in direct opposi-
ton to what August Heck
Scher once called the mass
nature of our society"
In spite Of the abuse the
politician has inherited, gen.
GRAFTON after generation, he
remains - like a stubborn
rock in this bulldozed age
as almost the sole individual
left to whom one can most
surely turn fog human un-
derStanding.
He comes in all sizes,
shapes, degrees of informa-
ton, intelligence and pre-
judice, like all the rest of us.
But as soon as he is elected,
he becomes different.
BY definition and by fact,
he has been made reSpon-
sible to us and to our most
dominating national convic-
ton. 1t is to protect the in
dividual, and not the mass,
that must be his primary
concern.
Sometimes this obligation
is manifest, in secondary
form, among nonelected po-
liticians.
Among last weeks Wash
ington examples were clas-
sizes of both varieties.
Repr e S e n tative Multer,
Democrat of New York, was
the elected rock that stopped
the experts on what George
town should look like.
District Commissioners To-
briner and Duncan were the
nonelected ones that wrecked
the hopes Of the highway
experts.
IN BOTH CASES, 1t was
individuals deserving protec-
ton that led the politicians
to prevent the experts from
taking over.
That a good mass result
may possibly have come from
immediate approval of the
East Leg of the Inner Loop
Highway SyStem-or that q
good mass result may pos
sibly have been the ultimate
outcome of a strengthened
Old Georgetown Act - were
viewed by the politicians as
secondary to the primary
rights of individual citizens.
In the case Of the Old
Georgetown Act, Represent
ative Multer said he believed
the rights of individual own
ers should not be taken away
without prior arrangements
being made to compensate
them fairly for their loss.
In the case of the East Leg,
the two Commissioners made
clear they believed conStruc-
ton should be delayed until
a plan could be developed
that would prevent hardship
to individual families up
rooted by the expreSsway.
The fact that highway ex-
perts and the authorities on
civic beauty seldom see eye
to eye made no difference.
To the politicians, both sides
were at fault because each
had failed to consider the
rights of individual citizens.
WEEN THE TWO
worlds of politics and ex-
pertise, there is a vast gulf
that needs to be narrowed.
Too often the expert be-
lieyes that to be proficient
in his field is enough, that
the human equation should
not be allowed to count, that
the words of the Declaration
of independence do not pre-
vail for him.
A different idea is ex-
pressed in the Wriston re-
port of the Presidents Com
mission on National Goals,
published a year and a half
ago.
The report is entitled
Goals for Americans"
"The paramount goal Of
the United States was set
long ago." the first words
say.