The Times from Shreveport, Louisiana • Page 68

2-F Sunday. Jan. 5. 1964 The Shreveport Timm -w- -c -ri ft A A ri 11 What's A I MS" 4f j.ti CritlCS DisfinrPP arnica ismii Oil What If AllVthilirt UUl II Slliyilllllg 'or their constituents, giving but perfunc- tory attention to their $100 billion lawmak- Is Wrong With the of Congress. Some of the Strongest Criticism Comes From Congressmen and Senators Themselves as They Prepare to Resume Work in 1964.

Phflt AP Lowly Slots Are Bread-and-Butter to Gambling Industry aT I I I 1 I 1 'Slots' Pay Nevada's I i AM- Not Yours Rules and Procedures rupted so members can attend to what often is listless, nonsensical business in the main chamber. Even the mechanical part of Congress is outmoded, especially in the House. W. G. Phillips, executive secretary of the Democratic Study Group, made up of around 125 administration House members who consider programs, tactics and reforms, say: "Take the house folding room, which does our mailing.

Those machines were put in around 1910, and they're so old it costs more to maintain them than it would to get new, efficient equipment. You ought to drop down there sometime. It's like watching an old Charlie Chaplin movie." DUTY TO VOTERS fi. No unwritten law is more faithfully observed in Washington than this: A politician's first duty is to get re-elected. For House members, who must face the voters every two years, this can be all-absorbing.

They can, and often do, spend most of their time running errands By ARTHUR EDSON AP Newsfeaturei Writer What's the matter with Congress? It limps back to town next Tuesday to begin a concluding session that could make, break or blur Lyndon B. Johnson's dreams of winning the presidency on his own in 1964. What happens to civil rights, to tax reforms, to a dozen other important bills is certain to be hotlv debated in the 1964 campaign. And Congress itself so easy to love, to deplore, to criticize, to laugh at has been under such relentless attack that it, too, may become an issue. From within and without, angry words have stabbed, belabored, whacked, belittled.

"Congress is becoming the laughing stock of this nation," Sen. Clifford P. Case, R-N. has said. "The whole Senate seems to be pervaded by a spirit of lethargy," Sen.

Thomas J. Dodd, has complained. "Every senator is becoming a partner in this fiasco." Rep. H. R.

Gross, R-Iowa, in discussing a proposed pay increase for congressmen: "They will be paying themselves for helping to mismanage the affairs of this country." Even Sen. George D. Aiken, the kindly sort who is rarely bitter, finally concluded: "The country is disgusted with us." Congress still has its loyal defenders, of course, who insist that before this year is out a splendid record will be made. DOCTORS DISAGREE But editorials, speeches, articles and books emphasize and expand this theme: Congress can't, or won't, cope with a $100 billion-a-year government in an increasingly complex world. Although its critics insist reforms are essential, they split quickly on what should be done; no surprise, since they disagree on what really ails their venerable patient.

Here are only a few of the complaints put forward by critics: 1. Congress is hobbled by antiquated rules that give the foot-dragger too many opportunities to impede legislation. In its tortuous course toward becoming a law, a bill can he killed in a dozen spots, all the way from a quiet, efficient knifing in the House Rules Committee to a public drowning in a Senate filibuster. 2. Blind devotion to seniority gives committee chairmen enormous power, sometimes at a doddering age when they are least able to handle it.

Under civil service, this government requires all employes to quit at 70, although in rare cases temporary appointments may go to older men whose health is good. But Congress puts no such restrictions on itself. 3. Congressional leadership is weak, at least by comparison with its predecessor. This complaint stems from the facts of life and death.

On Jan. 20, 1961, Lyndon Johnson stepped out as Democratic leader of the Senate and into the vice presidency. On Nov. 16 of that year Speaker Sam Ray-burn died. Not only was each a strong, opinionated leader in his own right; these two friends worked smoothly as a team.

'FELL APART' "You might say Lyndon and Mr. Sam left at the same time," a congressional observer has said, "and the result was almost inevitable. They held this place together with haling wire, and when they left, it naturally fell apart." One great difficulty is that most bills pass the Senate and House in somewhat different forms. These differences must be resolved in a conference committee, and then approved by both hodies. If either the House or Senate refuses to budge toward a compromise, a stale- ing, which in theory is what they hired out for.

7. Ethical lapses, or even outright scandals, are really a side issue in any consideration of what's the matter with Congress, but they may be paramount in what the public thinks of Politically we're a suspicious people, ready, sometimes even eager, to believe the. worst about our legislators. Stories about using influence to swing profitable deals, about relatives oh payrolls, about junkets all these can shake confidence in Congress even though investigation may show the innuendoes are far more spectacular than the facts. Curiously, the most damaging blow of 1963 didn't directly involve a congressman, but an employe.

Robert G. Baker, who worked up from page boy to secretary of the Senate majority, resigned after he was charged in a civil suit as a manipulator of vending machine contracts with government suppliers. Since Baker had been a protege of Johnson's, and since he was on the friendliest of terms with many senators, the allegations against him produced a shower of titillation and speculation; "We've got the Bobby Baker case," one Democratic senator has gloomily observed. "That's what this Congress will be remembered for." These complaints could be extended; indeed, several books are being written right now in which congressional failures and frailties are detailed at length. But it should remembered that some of the exasperation arises from traits inherent in the democratic process.

Anyone who ever attended a PTA or union meeting knows that in theory true democracy is wonderful; in can be a monumental bore. practice it 'EVERYONE'S AN ORATOR' Look at this: "I am wearied to death with the life I lead. The business of Congress is tedious beyond expression. This assembly is like no other that ever existed. Every man in it is a great man, an orator, a critic, a statesman; and therefore every man upon every question must show his oratory, his criticism, and his political abilities.

"The consequence of this is that business is drawn and spun out to an immeasurable length. I believe if it was moved and seconded that three and two make five, we should be entertained with logic and rhetoric, law, history, politics, and mathematics, and then we should pass the resolution unanimously in the affirmative." This criticism is pointed and timely, yet it was written by John Adams of the old Continental Congress, before the Constitution was adopted. Surprisingly, some complaints about Congress could be easily settled by instituting reforms and changes. Sen. Mike Mnnroney, who as a House member in 1946 joined Sen.

Robert M. La Follette, in writing the last re-organization plan, believes perhaps 20 to 40 changes may be helpful. Sen. Joseph S. Clark, a full-time, practicing critic of Congress, plumps for 140 to 1R0 changes.

No one is better aware than President Johnson that Congress, jealous of its own powers and rights, looks on a President, any President, as its natural enemy. Even in the honeymoon granted a new President, Johnson has had a reminder of this truth. He went before Congress to reiterate his support of the late President Kennedy's program and to plead for action, action now. Senators applauded. Then they turned to their own business: still further delay in money bills that were supposed to have passed months earlier.

Perhaps the best comment about life on Capitol Hill came from that long suffering, eternally criticized, Democratic leader, Sen. Mike Mansfield. How did he like' his job? "I find it frustrating, exhilarating and depressing," he said. That's our Senate. That's our House.

That's our Congress. To date, there has been no proof of any mishap from fallout to anyone in the whole world, with the exception of about 230 natives of Rongelap Island in the Pacific who suffered burns from large quantities of fallout accidentally swept over their island from a nuclear test explosion at Bikini. Some Japanese fishermen also were hit by this admittedly heavy fallout, and one of them died six months later, although the AEC says "his terminal -illness was not typical of radiation sickness." Of principal concern in the monitoring, surveillance and research efforts are the radioactive elements strontium-90, cesium-137 and iodine-131. This trio constitute, only a small fraction of some 200 different radioactive isotopesvarying forms of some 36 chemical elements which result from the fissioning of uranium or plutonium in a nuclear explosion. But most of these materials are of little or no concern because their radioactivity decays very quickly in a matter of minutes in many cases.

Not so for strontium, cesium and iodine. Strontium and cesium have long radioactive lives. Strontium has a of 28 years, meaning that it takes 28 years' for half of any given quantity of strontium to decay, another 28 years for half of the rest of it to decay and so on. Similarly, cesium has a half-life of 30 years. Thus, persons now living can be exposed throughout their entire lifetimes to radiation from both strontium and cesium even if there were no further tests.

CONCENTRATED Strontium is of concern as a potential health hazard because it tends to concentrate in the hone, and scientists believe that enough of it could cause bone cancer and possibly leukemia. But again, the question arises: Just how much fallout would it take to cause, 1 IS I By DAVID FARMER LAS VEGAS, Nev. W) Las Vegas is famous as a center for rou- lette, blackjack, craps, baccarat and other exotic and risky pastimes. But what really pays the gamblers' rent is the lowly slot machine. I Las Vegas and surrounding 1 Clark County, with nearly 10,000 slot machines, is the undisputed one-armed bandit capital of the world.

(Las Vegas call them I Ironically, slot machines are now against the law in San Fran- cisco, where they were invented by a mechanic named Charles Fey in 1895. Las Vegas rakes in about $36 million per year in gross winnings from slot The gaudy 1 metallic money-eaters are the bread- and butter money winners, and here why: In all of Nevada, such varied entrepreneurs as casinos, grocery stores and airport grossed $81 million on slots in 1962. This was out of $675 million in coins fed into the machines. Craps brought the casinos a big gross, $77 million. But they had to handle $3.08 billion to come up with that.

The owners win an average of 12 per cent of the money plunked into slot machines, which cough up about 35 per cent of the gamblers' annual gross winnings. And the machine's don't take coffee breaks, talk back to the boss, or insist on an eight-hour day. If slot machine victims pay the rent, why do they bother to play against machines they can't beat? Ben Goffstein, manager of the Pioneer Club in downtown Las Vegas, tells why. "Slot machines have a psychological attraction. They're simple to play, they draw people who don't understand 21, or roulette or dice, but who want the thrill of risking something and the chance of getting something back." There are screams of joy when a slot machine pays off from 5 cents to $5,000.

Some machines offer $10,000 for two simultaneous jackpots on two $1 machines. The odds against this are only 64 million to one. Inventor Fey, 29, whomped up the classic Liberty Bell slot machine so that busy bartenders wouldn't have to shake dice with customers for drinks. The Liberty Bell offered up to 10 free drinks. It paid off in nickels.

Ever wonder how slot machines work? Basically, they all nibble nickels, dimes, quarters, half-dollars or "cartwheels" the same way. A penny machine is a rarity, as is a left-handed slot.) You put in your coin and that unlocks the hand lever. Pull the lever, and the three wheels spin. That also starts a small timer which lets the wheels whirl for a couple of seconds. a bone cancer? The only gauge science has atjjresent is the amount of strontium needed to cause bone cancer in animals and this takes 1,000 to 10,000 times the amount of strontium represented so far in fallout.

Cesium is of concern because if it gets into the body, it becomes distributed through the system, principally in muscle. A given amount is eliminated relatively quickly (in about six months), but still it's considered a potential hazard, primarily on the genetic score. Iodine has a half-life of only eight days, but that's plenty of time for it to get into the food chain, such as milk, even from tests at polar latitudes or in the Pacific. Radioactive iodine is of concern because it tends to concentrate in the thyroid gland, and scientists believe that enough of it could cause thyroid cancer. But again the key question as with strontium and cesium: How much is "enough?" Radioactive carbon-14 is another fall-.

out by-product of potential concern. It's not directly produced by a nuclear device, but by the action of neutron rays from the explosion which convert atmospheric nitrogen to carbon-14. This later material has a half lite of 5,000 years. While the world breathes easier under the prospect that at least American, Russian and British nuclear test blasts no longer will inject radioactive poisons into the winds of the world, such activities as these are going on: CURRENT PROJECTS Public Health Service scientists, in cooperation with the AEC, will study children in Utah to see if there's any undue evidence of thyroid cancer which might be linked with unusually high concentrations of radioactive iodine which temporarily fell on parts of Utah during nuclear tests in Nevada more than a decade ago. Scientists from the Food and Drug Administration go to supermarkets regularly, push shopping carts like any other shopper, and collect and purchase on-the- shelf canned goods and other items.

Back in their laboratories they test them for their content of radioactivity from the skies. Radioactivity sleuths of the Public Health Service regularly analyze sample daily diets from 20 different boarding Kent- Then a lever hovers over a set ol notches for each wheel, and drops into oik of them, stopping the wheel on a certair symbol. The wheels click to a halt ont at a time, left to right. Slot machines are legal in three state? Nevada, Maryland with regulations, and Montana. The machines cost from $650 to $1,200, but they can be bought for use only in states where they are legal.

In Nevada, various governments tax them to the tune of $490 each per year. But the state's 20,000 slots gross $4,050 each annually. Many Las Vegas slots are set to keep about 25 or 30 per cent of the coins fed them. The big downtown "slot supermarkets" have more liberal machines. They give back all but 10 or 15 of every 100 coins Interested in the odds against you? Here's one calculation: A three-wheel slot has 20 symbols on each wheel.

If there are two bars on each of the first two wheels and one on the third, it's a shot against giving you a jackpot three bars. Las Vegas slots don't pay only the big jackpots. They dish out a certain number of coins for certain symbol combinations. You may get 18 coins for two bells and a bar, and so on. As with all Nevada gambling, it's a problem to keep the players from trying to cheat the house.

Two men were arrested in Las Vegas recently with a tool kit containing drills, wooden spoons, flexible probes and other devices. Police claimed that the tools were especially designed to victimize slots. But the men were released. It wasn't against the law to have such tools, and they weren't caught in the act. Slugs and foreign coins have lost their luster as cheating devices.

The slots have windows across the top that show the last four or five coins inserted. Goffstein says you can beat the slots legally if you know enough to quit winnersa tough thing for a slot addict to do. But it can be done. Some slots are "looser" than others, and will give back more coins. And the law of averages dictates that once in a while a slot will be on a payolf spree.

That's the time to beat the slots. On the other hand, Goffstein is fond of remarking, "A slot machine is the only thing that could fight Sonny Liston one-handed and beat him." Ted Tsouras, Goffstein's aide de slots, says people seem to drift into another world when they play the one-armed bandits. "They'll play as many machines as you'll let them four, five, six. They'll sit and play for hours, talk to the machines, spit on them, cuss them." Tsouras says some people actually have a knack of winning from the slots, one way or another. "We have to tell some people to go away." schools and orphanages throughout the country even including the soft drinks.

In the tundra country of Alaska, other scientists measure the radioactive strontium and cesium in caribou and reindeerand in the Eskimos whose diet consist almost exclusively of the meat of these animals. Due to conditions peculiar to the fond resources of the caribou and reindeer, the Eskimos have absorbed fallout exceeding at least average permissible limits. However, the AEC contends that at present, at least, there is no undue hazard. The Federal Radiation Council has concluded that the present and anticipated levels of fallout from all past tests through 1962 do not constitute any undue health risk to people now living or to future generations. It's a strange paradox of the atomic age that the three most-feared ingredients of fallout radioactive strontium-90, cesium-137 and iodine-131 are serving man every day in other guises.

USEFUL FORMS That is, these Jekyll-and-Hydes of chemistry also exist on earth in nonradioactive forms, entirely harmless to man. Their uses range from the strontium employed in railroad flares and fireworks to the vacuum tubes in your radio or television set. Iodine, of course, has long been a mainstay of the family medicine cabinet. In addition, even radioactive forms of all three elements are working for man in a variety of Radioactive strontium is the key ingredient of an "atomic battery" that powers automatic weather stations in the Antarctic and other remote areas of the world. It's used, too, in "thickness gauges" for measuring the thickness of sheet paper and sheet steel on industrial production lines.

It's even used to gauge the density of the tobacco in a cigarette. Radioactive cesium-137 is being used in such unusual jobs as furnishing power for an ocean floor seismograph unit. The heat from its radioactive rays is converted to electricity which powers the seismograph's recording devices. Radioactive iodine has long been used in medical treatment and diagnosis, notably in the form of a "radioactive cocktail" for treating certain ills of the thyroid gland. mate is created.

Without Rayburn and Johnson around to knock heads together so the argument runs intramural squabbling has reached a distressing low. 4. "A civil rights smog," Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey, says, hampers all progress on Capitol Hilr.

Those who want no part of civil rights legislation, this theory runs, enjoy a logjam that will help keep it off the floor. As assistant Senate Democratic leader do Sen. Mike Mansfield of Montana), Humphrey has no illusions about his job. Until the civil rights issue is resolved, Humphrey says, "Leaders can implore and deplore but there will not be much improvement." 5. Congress appropriates $5.1 billions a year for space exploration, yet in its own operations it travels by stage coach.

Traditionally, the House and Senate meet at noon. Once these sessions start, committees must quit unless they have special permission to continue. The result can be absurd: A cabinet officer may be testifying on problems of supreme importance, but he must be inter and in the course of experiments designed to use nuclear energy in space vehicles. In addition, the scientists say, there's a need to keep tabs on the fallout still aloft or no on the ground and to conduct other k'nds of radiation research for these reasons: 1. Despite some 20 years of research, and plenty of controversy among scientists, there's still no firm answer to the questions: How great or how little is the hazard to health from fallout in the relatively small amounts resulting from bomb tests so far? In fact, is there any hazard? 2.

There's a constant need to recheck on estimates of the amount of fallout still aloft, and upon predictions about its rate of falling to the earth and its distribution there. 3. There's a constant need of recheek-ing the accuracy of predictions and theories concerning how much fallout will get into the food chain and how much is getting in, or will get in, the bodies of people. 4. There's a need to develop practical and economic countermcasurcs for fallout preferably short of actual condemnation of food contaminated with it in case authorities ever should deem it necessary to order such countermcasurcs.

5. There's a need to develop radiation protection guides specifically for fallout, as distinguished from guides available now only for workers in the atomic energy industry. The Federal Radiation Council, at the urging of Congress, has promised such fallout guides by June, 1964. But the council scientists stress that even when such guides are at hand, they will not constitute a magic line between raidation that is safe and radiation that is dangerous any more than do the guides that are now available for industry. COUNTERMEASURES Rather, they would be designed as guidelines of exposure below which any risk to health might be deemed acceptable and above which it would be deemed necessary to institute countermeasures even though those countermcasurcs might be very costly financially and possibly even pose health risks greater than those theoretically posed by fallout.

That's why a lot of work is going on to develop safe and practical countermeasures. The protection guides for atomic workers, says the Atomic Energy Commission, The Treaty Banning All But Underground Nuclear Tests Has Removed Much of the Fear of Radioactive Fallout. But What About the Fallout That Still Remains Aloft or Has Been Deposited on the Earth From All Past Tests? Here Is a Report on What Scientists Think and What They Are Doing About It. By FRANK CAREY Associated Press Science Writer Despite the treaty barring all but underground nuclear weapon tests, American government scientists still see a need for keeping tabs on radioactive fallout. For one thing, they want to be alert in the event of a break in the treaty.

Neither do they foresee any letdown in the intensive research aimed at getting a better understanding of fallout and its possible though still unproven effects on the health of people now living or generations yet unborn. Of primary interest is the fallout debris still lurking in the stratosphere, or long since fallen to earth, from past tests dating back nearly 20 vears. The fallout still aloft will continue to come down for about another decade, although the peak is believed to have passed just recently. Vigilance is to be maintained although on only a standby basis as regards some facilities for various reasons including the possibilities that: Signers of the U.S. -British-Russian test-ban treaty might break it.

France, a non-signer, might conduct enough tests to add significant quantities of fallout to the debris still aloft from past tests of all nations. Other nations, notably Red China, might develop nuclear weapons and start testing them. Unforeseen, but still conceivable, release of radioactive materials might occur from underground weapons tests still allowable under the treaty. QUESTIONS REMAIN Experiments designed to explore the feasibility of using nuclear explosions for peaceful uses, such as building canals and harbors, might release unexpected quantities of fallout. Accidents might occur among the growing number of nuclear power plants, A have been established on the basis of the world's half-century of experience with use of radium and X-rays, and on animal experiments employing radiation.

And the Federal Radiation Council says the guides are "well below the level where biological damage has been observed in humans." This is not to say, however, that even the guides for atomic workers completely assure workers against undetectable damage. As to the uncertainties about health hazards from fallout so far at least in so far as degree of hazard is concerned Dr. Paul Tompkins, executive director of the FRC, put it this way in testifying at the recent fallout hearings of the joint Senate-House Atomic Energy Committee: "We can't prove the presence of deleterious effects. We can not prove the absence. The possibility of deleterious effects is assumed.

The existence has not been demonstrated. It is only the possibility which has been assumed." All scientists are agreed that large amounts of radiation from fallout and other nuclear rays as would be released in nuclear warfare would be lethal or at least would cause sickness. They also know that excessive amounts of medical X-rays can cause impairment. But the questions that still plague them are these: Is there actual danger to the health of some people now living or to some among generations yet unborn from fallout radiation which, so far at least, is much less than that always received by people from natural "background" radiation, such as cosmic rays? NO FROOF YET And, if one assumes as we do that there is such a possible hazard, just how little or how much fallout docs it take to cause a disease, defect, or impairment that we can recognize, and can directly link to fallout? 4.