European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 30, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Thursday june 30, 1994 1 commentary the stars and stripes Page 17 tragedy of unwed mothers afflicts America David s. Broder last Winter when president Clinton visited Kramer Junior High school in the District of Columbia a student asked him a question that Cut right to the heart of the 1990s�?T moral political and social policy debate. A since family life has been breaking Down for the last 30 years a she asked a what can my generation do to restore family values a the presidents response took about five minutes and at the end he said a if you really want to rebuild the family then people have to decide in a not going to have a baby until in a married. I m not going to bring a baby into the world i can to take care of. And in a not going to turn around and walk away when i do it in a going to. Take responsibility for what i do. I wish there was some Highfalutin easy Way to say it but there Isnit any Way to turn this thing around except to turn it  the truth behind that Stark statement is contained in a Chart sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan d-., carries with him. It is a perfect parabolic curve starting from a Low almost Flat line and then soaring upward like a rocket. From 1940 to 1956, the rate of illegitimate births in this country was a Flat 4 percent. Then it began acc Lerat ing never receding in a single year since 1970. Nationally More than 30 percent of the births Are to single mothers and on current trends that will reach 50 percent by 2003. If that seems impossible Moynihan who has been tracking the breakdown of the american family Structure for More than 30 years will hand you census data showing the illegitimacy rate already nudging 70 percent in parts of Brooklyn . A there is nothing like this in history a he says using the fancy word a a speciation to describe the impending creation of a different Breed of human one raised outside a father Mother setting. For All the ideological and political tension Between conservatives and liberals about family values welfare programs and the rest no one a literally no one a challenges the demonstrable and catastrophic facts about this new species of fatherless children. The annual Cost to taxpayers of assistance to families begun by unmarried teen agers is about $34 billion. The human costs arc appallingly higher. The poverty rate of children born to unmarried teen age High school dropouts is 80 percent a 10 times As High As children whose parents Are married High school graduates and at least 20 years of age. Dropouts drugs and crime Are endemic among the first group far less prevalent among the latter. Teen aged unmarried mothers Are far less Likely to finish school find a Job or work their Way off welfare. This is unmistakably a Case where prevention is far better than cure. The one part of welfare Reform that everyone can embrace is pregnancy prevention. But when Clinton recently added his welfare proposal to the mix already offered by congressional republicans 11 Hrmz a k National health Ptan ims can support and democrats the pregnancy prevention program Drew Little notice. Many parts of the Clinton plan tackle this problem indirectly. The requirement that mothers work for their benefits after two years the intensified Effort to identify fathers at the birth of their children and extract child support payments from them a All these arc designed As nudges to responsible behaviour. But Clinton is also asking a modest sum a $300 million Over five years a for funding locally designed pregnancy prevention programs a starting with 200 schools the first year and adding 200 each additional year. William Galston the White House aide who is a Junior Moynihan when it comes to his passion on this subject is the first to admit that any such program will have More failures than successes. But he says a we have Learned something important in the past decade about what works. Experiments have been conducted virtually All privately funded in a number of cities and the results have been monitored so we know which models produce significant  some go Well beyond the stereotypes of Anatomy lessons or moral lectures from adults and Resi on what Galston Calls a a real understanding of adolescent  an 11-Ycar-old program in the Atlanta schools run by Grady memorial Hospital for example includes discussions that address pro Blenis that teens themselves raise a How do you say no without hurting the other persons feelings or cutting yourself off from a Friendship you really crave Quot ninth graders in the program reportedly Are one third less Active sexually than classmates outside it and have one third fewer pregnancies. Many conservatives argue that unless the welfare system is fundamentally changed to deny apparent economic rewards for out of Wedlock births All the classes and counselling in the world wont be enough. They May be right although Moynihan argues that the real Dollar value of welfare benefits is lower now than in 1970, and illegitimacy has Dolie nothing but increase. Experiments in denying extra Aid for additional children bom to welfare recipients Are being tried in new Jersey and other states. Clinton would Sanction such state efforts republicans would mandate them. But while that argument goes on preventive efforts need not a and should not a wait.  Post. A labor Book strikes at heart of  culture it is pleasant to forget about unpleasant subjects but Richard vigilante will make this difficult w Ith the publication of his Book strike the daily news War and the future of american labor. It is an engrossing account of the final months in the life of the new York daily news As a property of the Tribune co. In Chicago. The Book can be read for pleasure by those who have no particular interest in what happened in late 1990 and Early 1991, so graphic is the portraiture the arrogant sophisticated Union busting lawyer three resourceful and unscrupulous Union leaders a Crafty and evasive governor of the state of new York Mario Cuomo and an appallingly misled prelate Cardinal John of Connor. A but the principal player is new York culture. It is As indifferent to violence and graft when it is done by a labor Union As it is to playing the numbers smoking a Weed or patronizing a whore. According to the Book a no one Ever said publicly a yes it is right to let a Union terrorize innocent immigrants and Preem citizens of a democracy from buying the newspaper of their Choice so the mob can hang on to its rackets the uncorked Over time no show jobs and blatant Feather bedding thereby threatening the paper with bankruptcy and their own workers with  a no one had Ever said such a thing. But that is what happened and new York and the mayor the Cardinal the governor the state attorney general the Manhattan District attorney the police Force the Federal Justice department the press the entire labor Community even the business Community effectively  vigilante probes deeply the culture of the labor Union its place in the development of Industrial America the years in which organizers and members were harassed and brutalized. But he notes the decline in Union membership from More than 30 percent of the work Force a generation ago to 11 percent today. And from this decline he ruminates thoughtfully about the Challenge William f. Buckley of the new work scene in which As he Puis it we have less and less of the automated Man imitating the machine More of the intelligent machine imitating Man and inaugurating an entirely Dif Erent workplace from such As is associated with the daily news and its 50-year-Oid Brooklyn Plant a dirty noisy disorganized inefficient. It is sharply contrasted with the a Freedom Center modern Plant of the Chicago Tribune. That Plant constructed Only a few years before the daily news debacle transformed an ailing daily into a productive operation the entire focus of which is individuation care Given not Only to readers with different interests advertisers with different approaches but also workers with different aptitudes insights and skills. The idea was to import that revolution into new York s daily news. What happened was a strike in which the i rib Une lost $1 million every Day a strike a Wun Quot by the Union that ended by eliminating us work Torce under successor managements by More than had ewer been suggested As necessary by the 1 rib Une co. Vigilante does an exemplary Job of attempting to get answers to critical questions primary among them the dumb insensibility of almost everyone around in identifying and eliminating the malpractices of Union sponsored thuggery. Efforts to impede the distribution of the news to its readers can be compared to efforts by right to lifers to impede traffic to abortion Mills except that Clearing the path for this traffic has become the objective of moralists and legislators and the judiciary much More concerned to eliminate any hindrance to the killing of a fetus than Ever they got Over encumbrances to a free press. Vigilante has come out with a Book profoundly satisfying even though it confirms the political inviolability of so Many labor unions in new York City. But the probe takes us much further inquiring into the nature of the Post Industrial age and the comprehensive question How Best can men and women Combine to transmute the raw Abundances of nature into a general Prosperity a so r