The Old Ballgame

Every four years, the American people are blessed with a third pennant race as the Yankees and Orioles, Phillies and Giants must share the national sports scene with the donkeys and the pachyderms. It may be, as many claim, that Mr. Jones has little or no conception of the issues at hand, but there's nothing like an election to rouse the sporting blood.

And even the most casual fan would not have missed the news of the potent addition to the Johnson City Texans last week. The passage of the anti-poverty bill gives the Democratic aggregation greater drawing power since versatile right and left-handed strength--the use of prosperity and poverty--will not be lost on the average bleacherite who thrills as the finish draws near.

Of course, only a few of the more acute spectators will be aware of anti-poverty's potential weaknesses. Few will know or care about the veto power given to the governors who object to integrated projects, will realize that this could cripple the program where it could do the greatest good--in the South. Few will know or care about the loyalty oath requirement which tramples the civil liberties of those who participate in the program.

Of course even fewer will realize that anti-poverty is undersalaried and hence will be undernourished. That the $495 million appropriation is less than the $15 billion spent on the RS-70 bomber fiasco alone. That the appropriation cannot possibly extend the proposed benefits of job-training, education, financial aid, and domestic Peace Corps to the 35 million men, women, and children whose per capita income was only $590 in 1962 (against $1900 per capita for the nation as a whole). And that the benefits themselves are not enough.

But of course one shouldn't complain; we are lucky to have the poverty bill at all, however maligned by Republicans, however decimated by Southerners, however compromised by the Administration. After all, that is--as they say--baseball.