European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 20, 1973, Darmstadt, Hesse                              Tuesday november 20, 1973 the stars and stripes Page 13 Max Lerner what is there to say about mass murderers the murder spotlight of America seems to move from state to state. Awhile ago it Cen tired on the mass sex killings of restless rootless Young men in the Houston area in Texas later on several. Brutal killings by youngsters in Boston and now it has moved to Small town califor Nia. There were nine killings in the town of Victor including two whole families and police conversations with the two suspects led to a Trail which uncovered at least eight More deaths. Commentators have trained themselves to react confidently to watergate impeachments Middle East wars and cease fires. But what is there to say about the suspected killers of at least 17 people parents Chil Dren adolescents graduate Stu dents whom mostly they did t know who had done them no wrong whose Only fatal flaw was that somehow somewhere the killers Felt that these people might talk if they were left alive that they stood in their Way in the mass killings of the past my own reactions have focused broadly on a Central theme. I asked Why parents had not Given their children warmth and made real Homes for them which might have kept them from seek ing the lethal family the Manson family killings which tied them by blood guilt but tied them. I asked Why parents were so Little in touch with their Chil Dren the Houston sex killings that they did t haunt the police stations and did t put every thing else aside and turn them selves inside out to find their lost boy. I asked Why society lost in Terest in the group of men who were homeless drifters the farm labor victims in the Juan Corona Cas who moved from casual Job to casual Job and were lost men. The common elements were uprooting broken connections Lack of concern cities filled with strangers. But those Don t apply nearly As much to a Little town like Victor where nine of the kill Ings took place. Everybody knew everybody in Victor. The Man whose Safe was rifled of its Cash was a respected grocer who ran the Only super Market in town a Homey one where you cashed your checks and perhaps had a taste of a Stew prepared in the Back room by the local Butcher. One can conceive of the robbery. But evidently after opening the Safe the victim was brought Home and killed there with his family and another family coldblooded by by murderers on drugs according to the police theory presumably to leave no Trace or memory of the original crime. The key is Lack of feeling. Even a Small cohesive town is not immune to the destructiveness of the unfeeling. Sometimes we speak of psychopaths or sociopaths who find ways of get Ting around the rules of the game the opinions expressed id the column Sand cartoons on this Page represent those of the authors and Are in no Way Tobe considered As representing the views of the stars and stripes itself or of the unite states government. That others observe. But this goes beyond it. We shall have to live for some time with the fact of desensitized persons we Don t know How Many who have somehow been stripped Bare of emotion who would As soon kill a human being As swat an annoy ing Fly on a hot summer Day who have no fellow feeling since for them the human Factor is a pre tense or a bore. We Don t know much about How such killers become what they Are what bleakness they encountered in Early years what rages or blankness of emotion surrounded them and made emptiness their constant compan Ion. We do know that a society is mutilated if enough people in it have shorn themselves of any concern about human life of the sense that the life of another is a total Little universe like yours with Hopes fears dreams plans ambitions loves. Arizona and California Are vying to see who will try the two suspects. Arizona has the harsher death penalty Law. Califor Nia s new Law which does t operate until the first of the year provides the death penalty for multiple crimes like these. I am opposed to capital punishment not so much on de Terrence grounds As on the brutalizing effect it has on society. But in the Case of the totally in feeling who commit mass Mur Ders so casually i would waive my opposition. If anything were to break through into their consciousness it might just possibly be the knowledge that their own lives Are on the line. C los Angeles times Syndicate Roscoe Drummond i want a list of the names of All those who asked embarrassing questions Tom Braden the argument on behalf of Agnew a Reader in Bennington vt., sent me a clipping the other Day which is an Odd reminder of an argument now taking place in Washington. I say Odd because the subject of the clipping As you will see is rustic far removed from columns and comment the struggle for Power usually reflected in Washington arguments. Here is the clipping slightly abridged Clarence Ostrander 36, was found guilty by a municipal court jury of stealing eight bushels of apples from Everett Orchards on the morning of sept. 27. He was sentenced to four to four and a half months in the House of  the evening before i read this clipping i heard one of Agnew s former aides argue that the sentence or. Agnew received for cheating on his income tax was outrageously severe. It was t the $10,000 Fine that bothered him. It was the require ment that the former vice presi Dent resign his office. That was the Stab in the Back. He went on to develop the thesis that Many leaders of great movements had committed minor and even major crimes in their struggles to reach the Pinnacle. Alexander had sinned he recalled and Caesar. But Way to strengthen prosecutor both the Senate and House judiciary committees Are considering a Way to strengthen the Independence of the special watergate prosecutor without add ing further delay to the prose cution. The plan is for Congress to empower the Federal judiciary to name Leon Jaworski the court s As Well As the president s special prosecutor in watergate mat ters. This would give or. Nixon the Man he has named to succeed Archibald Cox but ensure that he could not be removed without the approval of the court. The open advertisement of its Bias presents the Reader with an easier handle for judgment on credibility. The Reader quickly perceives that its reporters Are not realtors but Are essentially porters instead of reporters. Their editors have the arrogance of. Men with closed minds who think the minds of All others Are open to the imposition of their opinions. The whole institution is dedicated not to telling what is Hap pening in the world and what people Are doing thinking saying and feeling about it but to telling what ought to happen and what people ought to feel ought to think ought to say and ought to do about  from Russell Wiggins former president of the american society of newspaper editors and retired editor of the Washington Post most politicians agree that the state of Public opinion will de Termine what happens. Since the president is not going to resign the Only recourse for those who hoped he would resign is to try impeachment. The advocates of impeachment cite the fact that the percentage of voters who find president Nixon doing his Job satisfactorily has sunk to 30 per cent in the Gal Lup poll. But what is often overlooked is that voters who do not think or. Nixon is presently doing a Good Job do not want him to quit and do not want him impeached. Fifty four per cent say no to impeach ment and resignation. If a decisive majority of the people feel the president is not handling his Job Well Why should t they be calling for his resignation or his impeachment the fact that they Aren t does t prove inconsistency. It simply proves that most Ameri cans would rather have or. Nixon As president than any attainable alternative. This Public opinion May also rest on the feeling that Richard Nixon will succeed in lifting him self out of his present unpopularity. During the Justice department tax scandals when Harry Truman fired his attorney general his prestige dropped even lower than or. Nixon s Down to 23 per cent and he came Back to win the presidency a year later. Advocating impeachment is understandable. Lobbying for it is a highly dangerous tactic. Al Cio president Meany is going much further than the most ardent democratic opponents of the president. His office is sending petitions to labor unions across the country seek ing to drum up the demand to get president Nixon out. It is already weakening the cause of impeachment by turn ing it into a partisan drive and this is the one thing the congressional democrats hoped to avoid. Meany is aiming to get Back into the top councils of the demo cratic party after he rejected George Mcgovern in 1972. The Union leaders May be ready to follow Meany. Whether labor rank and file will do so is questionable. C los Angeles times Syndicate their sins had been forgiven for the causes they led and the Vic tories they won. Agnew he pictured As the Leader of the new american conservatism a cause now powerless because enemies unnamed had skewered the Man who had brought it to the Edge of Triumph. Reduced to simplicity then the argument on behalf of Agnew is that it is All right to steal if you re a vice president and i suspect that before very Long the argument on behalf of or. Nixon is going to get Down to a similar plea. We have already heard the president argue that burglaries and wiretapping were necessary to the National Security and that everything that now goes under the heading of watergate certainly including corruption perjury and illegal handling of millions of dollars was just a Campaign excess like the Campaign excess of ugly mob violence committed the presi Dent suggested by his opponents. Now Nixon loyalists who Only a year ago were telling us that the watergate revelations were nothing More than the imaginings of a hostile and irresponsible press Are saying that if we take or. Nixon s Job away from him we destroy the presidency. Does t that come pretty close to the Agnew argument and does t it suggest the ultimate Bottom line that even if we think the president is guilty we should t try him because he s the president i do not know under what circumstances or. Ostrander stole the eight bushels of apples in Bennington. Apparently he did not enter the plea made famous by shoeless Joe Jackson who threw baseball games for Money in the world series of 1919 i done it i done it Jackson said for the wife and  for such a crime a judge might have been lenient to such a plea. But this was a jury trial presumably or. Ostrander maintained his innocence to the  his Fate is a reminder that every Day in this country people Are paying penalties for violating the Law and that every Day the Yare also hearing their leaders in their capital City arguing in effect that when they promised us Law and order they meant it for everybody except themselves. C us Angeles times Syndicate