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do carry a gun." The statistic mayor
may not be accurate - but the
symptom is there, and the dísease is
deadly. T hat 's a basic part of our
sickness.
Take a look at the rise in crime.
From 1966 to 197 1, the American
populatíon grew by five percent.
A fíve percent ríse in crime
could have been "expected." But
during those five years, the crime
rate rose by 74 percent.
Comparisons between 1960 and
1970 can be even more shocking. In
1960, a murder was perpetrated in
America every 58 minutes. By 1970,
thís dropped to one every 33
minutes. In 1960, there was a rob–
bery every 6 minutes. This figure
dropped to one every 91 seconds by
1970. Forcíble rape increased from
one every 34 minutes to one every
14 minutes.
A twenty-two-year-old socia l
worker epitomized what many a
person thinks about cities. "A city
makes you hard," she saíd. "You
have to develop a kínd of crust in
order to survive."
When I think of our huge sprawl–
ing cities, belching fortb tbei r ef–
ftuent and barboring their personal
terror. to me it looks like Uncle
Sam's stomach is in bad shape.
We' re Constipated, Too
Our rivers and streams and a ir
could be compared to Uncle Sam's
intestinal traer
-
and we are well on
the way toward total blockage.
The United States of America
produces, per year, more tons of a ir
pollutíon than tons of steel. It 's hard
to believe, but that's why, on many
occasions. you can't see the down–
town area from your suburb any–
more.
A major vict ím of our ailmen ts is
the Míssissippi River, notoriously
known as the "colon of mid-Amer–
ica." Along its southern reaches, the
U. S. Public Health Service has
posted signs forbidding people to
even eat a picnic lunch along thc
6
banks. The concentration of infec–
tious bacteria in just the
spray
from
the river, when lighting on a per–
son's face or lips, can cause typhoid,
colitis. hepatitis, or dia rrhea !
We drink polluted wa te r , we
breathe polluted ai r. we travel
across a polluted land, we eat pol–
luted food.
1
don't need to list a
mass of additional statistics to con–
vince you that our nation is pol–
luted. We a ll live it daily.
The environment crisis is also a
symptom of our national sickness.
sapping us of our strength and rob–
bing us of the life we should enjoy.
Will Government Save Us?
Uncle Sam's
head
is governmenl.
And government is rather sick. Who
around the world hasn' t heard of
the Watergate alfair that has
reached to the very steps of the
Wbite House?
Social commentator Peter F.
Drucker described the crisis in gov–
e rnment succioc tl y : " The r e is
mounting evidence," he wrote, "that
[the] government [of the United
States] is big rather than strong; that
it is fat and ftabby rather than pow–
erful; that it cos ts a great dea l but
does not achieve much. There is
mounting evidence also thatthe cit i–
zen less and less believes in govern–
ment and is increasingly
disenchanted with it. lndeed, gov–
ernment is sick - and just a t the
time when we need a s trong,
healthy, and vigorous government"
(The Age ofDiscontinuily,
p.
2 12).
Today's swollen bureaucracy, at
federal levels alone. approaches 3
million individuals. thousands of
PLA IN TRUTH September 1973