Milford chronicle., 1962-03-02
AIRLINE TROUBLES

transportation with money worries. Air
lines are in difficulties too. The recent mer-
ger with United Airlines is thought to have
saved Capital Airlines from bankruptcy.
Now American and Eastern Airlines have
asked permission to merge.
Doubtless these unions would do away
with some costly competing services. There
is more to the problem than that In 1861
the nation trunk lines collected $1,000, ,8O0,-
900 in fares, but their operating expenses
were $3,000,000 higher. And all this was
before taxes.
There do not seem to be enough paying
passengers to fill the seats on the new jet
planes. Last year only 56.2 per cent of the
seats were occupied. That does not bring in
the amount of revenue needed to meet the
amortization and interest charges on the
new jets. A man could make fortune if
he could devise way of running jet planes
and making money.
N~o~N
THE STAGE is SET
Picking flaws in any administration s
proposed federal budget is easy. Formu-
lating the budget in the first place-decid-
ing which programs to emphasize and which
to soft-pedal, without getting too far out of
balance-is. much more difficult The role
Of Congress, which is to make final decis-
ions as to emphasis and approach (always
with an eye cooked on that disturbing ques-
ton, allow much can we affOrd?) is the
hardest of ALL
The administration has done its part.
President Kennedy has submitted to Con-
gress a budget calling for expenditure of a
record 92 and half billion dollars during
the fiscal year starting July /. He envisages
modest surplus" predicated on the not
at all modest hopes that booming economy
will bring an 11-billion-dOllar jump in fed
eral income, that the world will not be jar
red by any new budget-breaking crises. The
precarious balance also depends on whether
Congress dutifully increases postal rates,
cuts farm subsidies, closes certain tax loop
holes-and then stays in line by not spend
ing more than the President asks in on area
or another
The 1aw-picking also is we'll under way.
The Republican and Democratic chieftainS
in the Senate have, in that order, said of the
budget that it is heading us toward the
Leviathan state" and that it offers "a sound
formula for maintaining both fiscal respon-
sibility and the forward momentum of the
nations economy"
Enter Congress in its role as disposer
of what the President proposes. Enter Con-
gress, frowning quizzically at measures for
health programs, educational aid, defense,
foreign aid, agriculture and on and on.
The scene is set. There will be sound and
fury aplenty on the stage in the months
ahead
LET THE WOMEN TRY
One of the more able Washington cor
respondents recently devoted his column,
as Washington correspondents occasionally
do, to the question Of how to provide good
enough education for Americans. He elab-
Grated at some length on the idea that if
only the nations women could be interest
ed in the problems of education, something
broad and definitive would soon be done
about those problems.
Aside from the fact that the writer
blandly ignores the very considerable effort
already being made by women along these
lines, the notion has some merit. 1t is true
that in recent years women, rather than
men, have been mainly responsible for COM
munity discussions of important cultural
and intellectual questions it is women who
have organized discussion groups and spOn-
sored lectures on such subjects. There is
at least a reasonable chance that if women's
study groups all over the country were to
focus on education, the quality of the ma
tional debate could be much improved.
At present most of this debate revolves
about such matters as whether the parOch-
ial schools are entitled to federal aid, racial
integration in the schools, and whether fed
eral aid will lead to federal control in the
classroom Although these are questions
that warrant discussion, they are more or
less peripheral. The main inquiry should be
ucVOCeu, TdIneT, 10 TdIulllCdIlOIS Oh Cne CELL
tral question: What is the best way to as
sure that the maximum number of young
Americans, wherever they are and regard
less of their financial status, will receive
first-rate education to fit them for citizen
ship in great democracy which leads the
free world?
Perhaps the women could bring about
this desirable change of focus. But it is to
be hoped that they will ring in their men
fol ole how cfo 10 in, o1,
|tion-and who knows, they might even con-
[trihute an idea now and then2