Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 10

Pairspadtir 10 Section 1 Chicago Tribune, Friday. September 6, 1974 irk A forum Ideas, analysis, diverse opinion Bob Wiedrich New breed of cartoonists Ford's openness refreshing nation Stayskal satire moving to Tribune GERALD R. FORD hat WcceisfuDy 'ill in this together. I need your help. Without it I'm a goner." That's kind of nice, the suggestion that 200 million Americans coming up on their nation's 200th birthday are going to have to pull together to help' their President instead of languishing in two, antagonistic camps that were becoming more bitter every day.

It is a relief to see the President being questioned about the problems of the country instead of alleged criminal acts in the highest office in the land. It is a joy to see him stroll into the well of Congress and shake the hands of i Columnists Nicholas von Hoffman and Clarence Petersen' are on vacation. Stayskal at the drawing board; below, some final products. KtX. til Jr defused the time bomb this nation bad become when he was sworn in as the 38th President of the United States 28 days ago.

It has been a dramatic turnaround. And the results are sheer delight The clouds have lifted. You can see it In people's faces. You can sense it in the mood of Congress. You can detect it in the rapidly diminished pace of criticism we became so accustomed to enduring from television and the newspapers.

The uptight atmosphere of day-to-day crisis has eased. No longer is the national administration huddling in a bomb shelter, waiting for the next blast to go off. IT IS as tho a fresh mountain breeze had blown across the land to disperse the dust of a long and arduous day. In Washington, there is a spirit of frankness, an avowed policy of openness that is refreshing. There are indications the legislative and executive branches of government are again seeking to work in consort instead of with rancor and animosity.

Even the most devoted of former President Nixon's supporters, those who believe he was hounded from office, must share in this changing national mood of harmony, however great their disappointment. And for ail this, credit is due President Ford for setting the tone of his fledgling administration at the outset as one that will be open and above board, one responsive to the people. By his personal demeanor, Ford has started restoring confidence in government, an essential ingredient the nation lost during the two traumatic years of suspicion and grief sired by Watergate. He obviously has recognized that confidence can be regained only by establishing integrity as the hallmark of his administration. Then people can again have faith in the sincerity of purpose of their government.

Americans need that They need to believe in their national leadership. After two years of criticism, antagonism, a constant barrage of bad hews, divisive- ness that spilled across the dinner tables of millions of American homes, It is refreshing to be fed a little pap. We don't mean that in a demeaning way, Personally, we find it refreshingly disarming. A broad grin, a corny joke, a cliche or two, but most of all, an honest attitude that says, "Hey, we're all By Robert Davis WAYNE STAYSKAL had wanted to be a cartoonist since he was a kid sprawled on his living room floor copying the characters in Dick Tracy and Blondie. His dream has been fulfilled.

He has become one of the most admired and respected of the new breed of editorial cartoonists, who have abandoned the use of such symbols as elephants and donkeys and replaced them with sharp, biting satire and humor. i Stayskal's editorial cartoons win appear in The Tribune six days a week when The Tribune begins its all-day, all-night news operation on Sept.46." Tribune readers were introduced to Stayskal when Chicago Today dis-'continued its weekend editions in January, 1973, and regular Today features were shifted to enlarged weekend editions of The Tribune. Stayskal's cartoons have appeared Sundays in Perspective. A NATIVE Chlcagoan, Stayskal began his newspaper career in 1957 when he joined Chicago Today's predecessor, Chicago's American, as an artist in the Sunday magazine department after a brief stint in advertising art after training at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. It was while he was doing illustrations for the magazine and drawing occasional sketches to accompany feature stories in the newspaper that he decided his real interest was in becoming an editorial cartoonist "I decided to go up and talk to the editorial cartoonists at the newspaper, but I couldn't find their office," Stayskal said.

"I asked the art director and he told me they were syndicated out of other cities. We didn't even have an editorial cartoonist of our own." Stayskal didn't have much luck convincing his bosses that the paper should have Its' own cartoonist until Vaughn Shoemaker, a two-time Pu-lifter Prize winning cartoonist, joined the staff of the newspaper. "He took me on as his assistant, and I learned at his side," Stayskal said. Stayskal still remembers his first published editorial cartoon because "it was horrible, just horrible." The cartoon, which ran on Mother's Day, showed Uncle Sam in a dress, leading a boy by the hand and Nikita Khrushchev, also in a dress, leading -another boy by a chain around his neck. "The little Russian kid was look- Jsessn lng back, making some comment on freedom," Stayskal remembered, with a grimace.

His cartoons have changed since then, and traditional labels and sym- -bob have been replaced by succinct comments on political and American life. At least once each week, Stayskal tries to focus his comments on local happenings. His cartoons on topics of wider Interest are syndicated to about 60 other newspapers. "I try not to be preachy," said Stayskal "I like to see the funny side of situations; I think there should be more humor in things." Ironically, he said, the cartoon that has drawn the most response Is not at all typical of his work. As the distressed Apollo 13 space, capsule was returning to Earth after a crippling accident near the moon, Stays-, kal drew a cartoon showing hands outstretched from the Earth to welcome the capsule.

"People really felt that cartoon; but it's funny, I don't want to draw that way," be said. Stayskal gets a lot of letters. Former President Nixon wrote him, as did Henry Kissinger before he became so busy with world affairs. STAYSKAL DEVELOPS Ideas for his cartoons from newspapers, magazines, television and radio news reports; even from comments overheard on his daily hour-long train ride to work from his home In Wayne. "That train ride is really lmpor-v tant," he said.

"That's where I get my reading done and it gives me time to think of Ideas." He thinks regular followers of Stayskal cartoons find it difficult to place him in the political spectrum. Altho he voted for Nixon, he confesses to having been one of Us harshest editorial critics in the months of Watergate. Stayskal, whose work Is strongly Influenced by his religious commitment, alms his satire more at people's actions than people themselves. "I think everyone ought to be treated with respect and dignity. When things are going wrong, let's say so but not get vehement or cruel.

"Humor has that unique dimension to cut thru the seriousness of what's happening today, tho as James Thur-ber said, 'Humor is a very serious "I don't draw humor for humor's sake. My cartoons, hopefully, clarify some very serious situations In the countrytilings people are thinking about and talking about that are affecting them end capture the humorous side of American life." jar ran representatives, as well as those of page boys and girls, in a low-keyed, impromptu visit that causes Capitol Hill hearts to well with affection. It is heartening to see someone outwardly relaxed and enjoying the company of people, whatever the pressing problems of the day. As one congressman told us, "Here was a President you could talk to and touch. The enforced aloofness and apprehension of crisis was gone." That was all to the good.

Congress, needed something like that, too. Here was a man they understood, who bad just recently departed their He had spent most of his political career there in the place they cell the House of the People, the one national office for which one must run for reelection every two years and get out and know the electorate or quickly founder. WHEN PRESIDENT Ford took office, things were getting pretty heavy in this, country. We had lived with dissension and division so long that many Americans found it difficult to be civil with one another in discussing their government. There are a lot of good things about the United States.

We just got so tangled up in trauma we forgot them. Or, worse yet, we ceased to recognize them. We became a nation of bitchers. Either you were for something or against it. Or, if you were neither, there was something wrong with you.

Well, we think President Ford's first 28 days of attempting to restore national unity are great. Just being able to say' that is quite a turnaround. -I- Vernon Jarrett "If It's Thursday this must be "Oh, Rocky, how exciting I sup-Cyprus." pose I should get busy and boy some of those cute little SIM.OOO houses Vice Presidents usually live In." Robert Davis is a Tribune reporter. A One woman's bid for county office Seven days in August The opportunity for a coup in America cleaning crusade. It was really something to watch a hundred youngsters furiously sweeping the curbstones and sidewalks, their only rewards being a hot dog, a pop, and a lecture on neighborhood pride by "Mamma Ollie." Later I visited the i neighborhood youth center she and the members of ment to involve the Army even implicitly in politics by taking Haldeman's old Job.

He confused a civilian's personal loyalty to his political leader with an officer's institutional loyalty to his commander in chief. Such a confusion of loyalties could only be harmful to the Army's proper political neutrality. Haig displayed the same confusion -last October when, as Nixon's agent in the dirty job of firing Archibald Cox as special prosecutor, be told Deputy Atty. Gen. William Ruckelshaus, who was proving recalcitrant: "But you have received an order from your commander in chief." Having served Nixon faithfully thru time, Nixon rewarded him with frequent promotions, raising him from a colonel to a full general, sending him back to the Pentagon early in 1973 to be vice chief of staff.

Almost immediately thereafter, Nixon prevailed upon Haig's sense of loyalty to persuade him to return to the White House to replace H. R. Haldeman as the President's principal aide. Only reluctantly and some months after he took that civilian post did Haig resign his commission in the Army. Altho a superb staff officer, intelligent and highly industrious, he has never learned.the clear distinction that should exist between civilian and military values, i He showed spectacularly bad judg THE TEMPTATION at the moment Is to try predicting the black candidates who will be on the ballot for mayor of Chicago in 1975.

State Sen. Richard H. Newhouse 24th finally made it clear Thursday morning that he very definitely will run. Minutes later Atty. E.

Duke McNeil, former president of The Woodlawn Organization TWO, assured me that he ttill is a serious candidate despite the neutral position taken recently by his; earliest booster, the Rev. Jesse Jaeksoo. At the same time, there is a determined, behind-the-scenes move to convince George Sims, deputy police chief of patrol, Area 4, he's the only black who could corral enough white and black votes to win if the Republicans field a candidate attractive enough to make it a good four-way race. And a lot of type could be spread trying to guess how many votes Aid. William S.

Singer 43d, another declared mayoral candidate, will gather in the predominantly black wards if any black is on the ballot in February. BUT ALL such soothsaying will have to wait, because I refuse to postpone another day a tribute to a truly wonderful woman waging a furious campaign for county commissioner. Her name is Ollie Clark, a beautiful, deeply religious black woman who has spent all of her adult life trying to make Chicago respond to her sense of decency1 and integrity. Ollie, as she is known in her Wood-lawn community, is in her lata sixties it Ml i By William Shannon WASHINGTON When Fletcher Kne-bel and Charles W. Bailey wrote "Sev- en Days in May" a dozen years ago, most people regarded the idea of a military coup as merely the theme for an entertaining novel.

It is still more fantf sy than reality, but certain events in the fall from power', of Richard Nixon make the reality element a good deal stronger. For the first time, the shadowy outline' has emerged of how a clique of military officers could seize power In this country. During the weeks leading up to Nixon's resignation, there was occasional speculation, half nervous and naif jocular, that rather than yield power, he might forestall his impeachment by using military forte to dissolve Congress and control the newspapers and television networks. THERE IS NO evidence that Nixon ever contemplated such a desperate scenario. Even if he had, however, a coup of that kind was never a serious threat because Nixon lacked the popular support to sustain it.

In all his years of campaigning, he never aroused that animal roar from a crowd that a truly effective demagog like George Wallace or Joe McCarthy could evoke. Secondly, be lacked an easily dramatized Issue on which he could go to the people and appeal for support against the established institutions of the country. Yet we now know that Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger worried about the mental state and possible motives of his former commander-in-chief. Schlesinger has acknowledged that, during those weeks, he stayed in or close to the Pentagon at all times to make certain that he could Intercept any orders from the White House 'that he deemed improper. Equally significant is the critical role nlaved by Genl Alexander Haig.

A ca Ollie Clark: Bucking the odds. all the desperate disclosures of the last year, Haig was instrumental In the final week in easing him out of office. He was in touch with Sen. Robert Griffin the assistant Republican leader of the Senate, and Rep. Charles Wiggins Call, the President's principal defender on the House Judiciary Committee, letting them know how damaging the final transcripts were.

He helped James D. St Clair persuade Nixon to Issue the statement la which be acknowledged that be bad misled his own attorney about the nature of the evidence. When Sen. Barry Goldwater Ariz. and other Republican leaders from Capitol Hill called upon Nixon to tell him that his prospects were hopeless, It was Haig who told them in advance that the President had half-decided to resign and warned them that direct pressure might make him recant bis decision.

It was he who then arranged for Kissinger to have dinner with the President and convince him that it was bis duty to history and to world peace to resign rather than fight on hopelessly. In orchestrating the show of congressional outrage and delicately maneuvering his way thru Nixon's tortured psyche, Haig performed an act of patriotism. BUT IN RETROSPECT is it not evident that in a different situation, another four-star general occupying the same pivotal job at the top of the White House hierarchy and having comparable personal relationships and political finesse could have arranged a quite different result? The United States was lucky in August. Next time, a beleaguered President might be more ruthless or beyond caring. The Secretary of Defense might be feeble and compliant The highly placed general in the White Rous might be more ambitious or unprincipled- The history of other nations shows that a country with weak political leadership and a large military estab; ment is vulnerable to a military seizure of power.

America la not immune to the harsh lessons of history. The scary days of August were a warning. Htm Yor Tlmti Htm Service A "A her block club had converted from an old two-flat. This woman has been one of Wood-lawn's most persistent crime fighters, forever at war against prostitution, rowdy taverns, and gambling that the City of Chicago tolerated, if not couraged, in that community. She courageously oppposed street gangs when it was not popular to do so and she managed to convince a few gang members to become peaceful and responsible citizens.

She is a most devoted supporter of Holy Cross Catholic Church and has been an active member of the delegate body of TWO from its very beginning. She also is on the advisory board of the Woodlawn Mental Health Center. WHAT KIND of a chance does a responsible, honest, forthright public citizen such as Mrs. Clark have in a county election of this dimension, especially when she has only a meager war chest? She says the public is going to support her. In the recent primary her 31,213 votes led the Republican ticket of 10 and is a life-long Republican.

That alone is enough to make her an automatic loser in Cook County, she has been told. But Ollie won't listen to such comments. Not when she thinks she's right despite the heavy odds. I first met Mrs. Clark during her crusade in the late 1940s against the manner in which urban renewal was forcing home owners on the Near South Side off their property to make way for the Lake Meadows high-rise development.

Forcing established home owners to become renters again did not represent progress to her even when done in 111 name of "slum clearance" and "integrated living." she lost that battle, and I lost track of her until 1958 when I started some research on the 100-year history of Woodlawn, where she had bought another home at 6416- S. Drexel Ave. I found her leading pre-teens in a street- reer Army officer, Haig served as Henry Kissinger's principal deputy for four years the White House. During that William Shannon Is a columnist or the Ktw York Times. candidates for county commissioner.

And for one, cant wait for November just for the privilege of giving her my one vote. Gen. Haig on way to see Nixon at Camp David in 1972..