Viewpoint
The Battalion
Slouch By Jim Earle
“It may look like lying around to you, but I’m doing research
for a best-seller — and please keep it under your hat! It will
be called ‘The Book of Sleeping’“
Political ‘defectors’
plague Democrats
By DAVID S. BRODER
WASHINGTON — The impulse is so
understandable in human and political
terms. The Democrats in the House of Rep
resentatives had their Independence Day
holidays ruined by the pre-recess rout on
the budget reconciliation votes. While 29 to
34 of their colleagues jumped fences to vote
with President Reagan, the House Republi
cans were unanimous on one key vote and
suffered only two negligible defections on
the other. So, naturally, the cry arises from
the Democrats:. Why can’t we whip our
people into line like they do?
Democratic National Chairman Charles
T. Manatt, who is new enough in his own
job to have trouble remembering the
names of the defectors he is criticizing,
nonetheless declares “it is high time” that
the House Democratic caucus deal with the
renegades. In response to similar mutter-
ings from within the House, the caucus
chairman, Rep. Gillis W. Long of
Louisiana, has promised to convene the
House Democrats to consider the disci
pline question.
As one who has seen the Democrats go
down this road before, all I can say is,
“Good luck.” The impulse is understand
able and even worthy. Parties are more
effective, impressive and accountable when
they can command the united support of
their elected officials for important policy
positions. But when the promptings of con
science or constituency or the normal colle
gial pressures prove insufficient to secure a
vote from a particular congressman, the
practical problems of compelling that vote
become very serious.
What starts as a demand for discipline
can too easily turn into a strident and in
effective clamor that everyone must tow the
line — whatever the line is that day.
The “discipline” issue is a legitimate one,
but it is not the simple question it seems. It
is a matter of some political subtlety, in
which the proper claim of party cohesion
must be balanced against the special char
acteristics of the American political system.
American parties are loose, decentral
ized coalitions, in which every elected offi
cial is ultimately accountable to his or her
own constituents and ultimately subject to
the discipline they can exert by their dis
approval at the polls.
Back in the 1960s, before the House
Democrats had given much serious thought
to this matter, they undertook to discipline
two renegade Southerners who had public
ly endorsed Barry Goldwater over Lyndon '
Johnson, by stripping them of their senior
ity. The effect was to make John Bell Wil
liams of Mississippi and Albert W. Watson
of South Carolina martyrs in the eyes of
their constituents, and then Republicans.
The clamor from Manatt and others to
crack down on Rep. Phil Gramm, the Texas
Democrat who has been Reagan’s favorite
partner in the budget fight, could have the
same effect. And there are some of his col
leagues who suspect that Gramm is aching
to be pushed into martyrdom and a party-
switch.
But there is another approach to the
question that, while less satisfying to the
search for immediate vengeance, offers
prospects of a longer-term cure. The House
Democrats established the proper princi
ple back in the mid-1970s, when they en
ded the seniority system as an automatic
route to committee assignments and ehakv
manships and gave that authority to the
elected leadership and the caucus.
What they said was that, as a matter of
general principle and not special punish
ment, they were going to make an impor
tant distinction. A member owes his seat to
the voters in his district and his vote to his
conscience and his constituents. But his
committee assignment and his leadership
role — if any — he owes to the caucus of his
fellow partisans.
Invoking that principle, the caucus strip
ped committee chairmanships from three
incumbents in 1975 and since then has sev
eral times passed over the senior claimant
in choosing important subcommittee chair
men or electing people to such prized com
mittees as Budget, Ways and Means or
Rules.
Phil Gramm, a free-market economist
whose principles are indistinguishable from
most Republicans’, was elected as a Demo
crat by the voters in Denison, College Sta
tion and Waxahachie. That was their re
sponsibility. But he became a member of
the Budget Committe by grace of the
Democratic caucus, and that is a privilege
that caucus can recommend the House re
voke.
Jim Wright, the majority leader and a
fellow-Texas, thinks that would be untime
ly now. He would prefer to wait until
Gramm comes before the caucus at the start
of the next Congress. He would deny him
immediate martyrdom while holding open
the threat of future discipline.
But Gillis Long, the caucus chairman,
points out from his perspective, as a South
erner who has in times past paid the price of
defeat for his willingness to take the risk of
voting as a “national Democrat,” that the
seeming impunity with which Gramm ing
ores the demands of party loyalty makes it
harder for others from his state or region to
vote with their party.
Whether the Democrats in the House
choose to take Wright’s advice or Long’s is a
matter of prudential political decision on
their part — not a matter for sloganeering.
But the principle is clear. The Democrats
do not have to choose between being rigid
seminarians of doctrine and discipline or
being a bunch of supine dopes. There are
sensible middle-ground options available to
them.
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©1981 Kmg Features Syndicate. Inc World rights reserved
7-2^0
July 15,1981
German youths moving aw a
from foreign stereotype imai
By HANS-ULRICH SPREE
BONN — Not long ago, when West
German President Karl Carstens invited a
group of Bonn University students to dis
cuss their problems with him, the meeting
grew so heated that the youths walked out,
refusing to shake his hand.
Such discourteous conduct may appear
unusual to foreign observers who still cling
to the stereotype of the disciplined Ger
man, respectful of authority. But young
people here no longer fit that old image.
They are not streaming through the
streets in riotous demonstrations as they
did in the late 1960s. Nor do many sym
pathize with the terrorists, as some did
during the 1970s. Even so, most seem to be
uneasy about the present, and worried ab
out the future. Their mood, in short, might
be summed up as one of insecurity.
Actually, there is no such species as a
“typical” West German youth. Young stu
dents, factory workers and office employees
differ widely, both individually and as cate
gories. Some are lazy, others industrious.
Some are angry, others passive.
Here, as in other countries, their atti
tudes also tend to evolve as their status
alters and as the temper of the time
changes. So it is difficult to assess their
moods.
Numbers of young West Germans have
lately been protesting against various
targets, such as nuclear energy and housing
shortages. But their motives are murky.
Some analysts claim that the failure of
the ecology party in the national elections
in October left many youths disappointed,
since the movement has been a channel for
an assortment of their complaints. Others
discern their frustration in such slogans as
one slashed across a West Berlin fence: “No
power to anyone.
In a government study recently pub
lished, a team of specialists suggested that
the majority of West German youths are
reluctant to adapt to society, feeling that
the existing order has little to offer them.
The experts conceded, though, that this
conclusion was only speculative. Nobody
knows what young people really think.
A fair guess, in my opinion, is that many
are nagged by a high degree of uncertainty
stemming from their doubts about the West
German economy, which is losing its steam
after two decades of unbridled expansion.
The recession has shrunk the job market.
In the process, it has dampened the enthu
siasm of young men and women, who are
unsure whether their education and train
ing will lead to the professions of their
choice. For some it has revealed the weak
ness of capitalism, but without making so
cialism a brighter alternative.
The pessimism generated £
by this situation cannot be ea:
stood by their elders. Having i
the debris of World War II to r
country, and they believe thattl
and daughters ought to displayj
kind of dynamism.
The older generation ofta
however, that its children startedoj
different set of expectations. Ai
necessities, they place a highen
freedom, which tops their listofp:
As a consequence, WestGei
are less interested than their pare:
formance and production. Iliey
the notion, basic to a successful
that the sheer output of goods
mous with happiness.
Not all of them are stagingifli
marches or retreating to rural coiq
defiance of the industrial envii
Very few have resorted to video:'
For the most part, I wouldfe .• •
youths here and perhaps elseviP^ 10 . 1 ^ 31
searching for a new kind of balancl. 00 ’ w
lives. If they find it, they will hup
hting to teach adults.
Editor’s note: Spree is a WestJ
radio and television commentator’
cializes in social issues in WestCd
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"...AUHOW ARK YfE DOING, DtSARRM-WlSE ?"
Corporate alphabet soup is out
By MARY TOBIN
United Press International
NEW YORK — The urge to change corpo
rate names remains strong, but the 1970s
trend to corporate “alphabet soup” seems
to be reversing.
Anspach Grossman Portugal Inc., a mar
keting communications and consulting firm
that specializes in corporate name changes
and identity programs, said 285 U.S. cor
porations changed their names during the
first six months of 1981, the second highest
number in the 12 years it has conducted the
survey.
Russell Anspach, a principal of the firm,
said while 40 percent of the changes re
sulted from mergers and acquisitions,
another 40 percent of the new corporate
names were “straightforward changes.”
But the trend to adopting initials that was
so popular during the past decade appa
rently is changing. The survey showed that
few name changes resulted in initials — the
biggest was Twentieth Century Fox Films’
reorganization into a holding company cal
led TCF Holdings, Inc.
“What happened is that so many com
panies adopted initials the corporate roster
became alphabet soup,” Anspach said.
“Many of the companies which had been
well known by their former names found
they were having identity problems.”
At least one company dropped its in
itialed name.
A-T-O, Inc., a diversified firm that
among other businesses is the largest pro
ducer of fire protection equipment,
adopted the name of its chairman Harry E.
Figgie, Jr., to become colorful Figgie Inter
national. AT-O, Inc., was Automatic
Sprinkler before it joined the alphabet
corps.
Financial institutions: banks, investment
firms, funds, brokerage houses and insur
ance companies accounted for 132, or near
ly 50 percent, of the new names, Anspach
said.
“We anticipate this trend will continue,”
he said, because bank holding companies
continue to absorb smaller banks and banks
are opting for less geographically-oriented
names in preparation for interstate
banking.
In changes deregionalizing banking
names, Western Bancorp., whose lead
bank is United California Bank, changed its
name to First Interstate Bancorp. Alabama
Bank Corp. changed its title to AmSouth.
Along this line, Anspach said that before
a company changes its name it must com
municate its new “corporate reality” to the
public.
Several years ago Continental Can
assigned his firm to change its name. “We
looked into all aspects of the name change,
came back and said, ‘You’d be making a
mistake. ’ At the time it was basically a pack-
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changed the name of its Chore
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line from GK Technologies in rfPLmtot
deciding to put the whole line
name found that housewives prefalL,
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