The Coral Gables Times

Thursday, June 21, 1962, page 4 (of 20)

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Coral Gables TIMES

Moment of Truth is Here For Gables Financing

For the past 16 years since 1945, Coral Gables has been in the position of the man who spends more than he makes and makes up the difference by going to the bank every week. One day the man wakes up to find his bankroll gone. In the hard nose business world, such a man would be regarded a fool. But here in Coral Gables we have boasted of lowering taxes while living off wartime surpluses. Meanwhile: — Street Repairs went begging. — Recreation facilities lagged. — Library facilities were inadequate. — Employes were underpaid and the turnover was great. To name a few things that went undone. And our bankroll is gone. The alibi always given was that we had a debt to pay off — the tax participation certificates issued in the 30s after the real estate collapse. This was partly true — but cheating a bit. The result is an apparent contradiction — debt paid, taxes up. This is the pill that is hard to swallow by a few individuals who don't accept everything handed down to them unquestionably or with resignation and apathy. Actually, this is the moment of truth for City. Since World War II our City Fathers have pointed proudly to one tax cut after another. Common sense dictated that the 22-mill tax level be maintained to keep the wartime accumulated surpluses for capital improvements abandoned during the war years. Instead, we had a theory that a tax cut was good for our image. Part of the theory went like this: If we cut ad valorum taxes it will stimulate real estate development and that will more than make up the cut. Of course that was a theory that was not realized. Now — a dozen or more years later — we are forced to increase taxes when they should have been reduced by payment of a long standing debt, we haven't had the benefit of the things we neglected to do and we are going to have to pay more for these improvements because of inflationary factors. Who's to blame? We all are. One of the few exceptions is Finance Director Kenneth Allyn who has had the opinion for years that there were better ways to handle money. Unfortunately, Allyn's weight was not felt until recently — and only when the moment of truth had arrived for everybody. Like Allyn said recently in his budget report: "Santa Claus is dead."

Remember The Times 25 YEARS AGO TODAY

Gables merchants were asked to contribute one per cent of their gross business to help publicize and increase the building fund of the University of Miami. The merchant's bureau of the Chamber of Commerce made the proposal . . . Randy Dickins, Alan Lobeck, Bill Starman, Taylor Francis and Dick Dougherty left for the National Jamboree of Boy Scouts in Washington, D.C. . . . W. Keith Phillips, was president of the Chamber of Commerce . . . Tight zoning on Ponce de Leon Boulevard foiled efforts of a businessman to put up a plant to make flour and other kitchen products.

VISITING FIREMEN CAN'T PASS HER UP—OUR ULTRA MODERN FIRE STATION

Newspapers Join Bread, Milk as Staples

From the National Geographic Society Newspapers are regarded as an essential of modern daily life — as much a staple as milk and bread. A recent survey showed, in fact, that more copies of daily newspapers are sold in the United States each day than bottles of milk or loaves of bread. The world has about 30,000 newspapers, including 8,000 daily, with a total circulation of more than 250 million copies. ROMANS POSTED NOTICES At one time, however, only three "newspapers" existed, and they were merely handwritten daily notices posted in public places in ancient Rome. The Acta Diurna, Acta Senatus and Acta Publica gave official news of the late Roman Republic and early empire. The first Chinese newspaper was a court gazette founded in the T'ang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907). It survived until the 1930's, spanning the ages from handwriting to printing from blocks and then movable metal type. The introduction of printing from movable type in the mid-15th Century spurred the development of newspapers in Europe. News sheets were issued irregularly in Nurnberg, Augsburg, and Cologne early in the 16th century. A monthly printed newspaper, Notizie Scritte, appeared in Venice in 1562 as an expansion of the old daily notices. The Venetian paper sold for one small coin a gazzetta, a word that soon became a synonym for newspaper. HISTORIC ITEMS Historic events casually pop from the columns of early newspapers. The Strasbourg Relation of September 4, 1609, reported that Signor Galileo, professor of mathematics at Padua, was building a new telescope. The first English newspapers were restricted to foreign news. James I, forbidding publication of national news, called it "lavish and licentious talking in matters of state . . . which the common people know not how to understand." Seventeenth Century authorities did not look kindly upon newspapers. The Allgemeine Zeitung appeared consecutively in Leipzig, Tubingen, Stuttgart, Ulm and Augsburg in its efforts to keep one jump ahead of the censor. BANNED IN BOSTON The first newspaper published in Colonial America also ran into censorship problems. 'on Sept. 25, 1690, Benjamin Harris issued in Boston his Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick to be "furnished once a month (or if any Glut of Occurrences happen, oftener;." Four days later the governor banned the first and only number because it contained "reflections of a very high 'nature" and "sundry doubtful and uncertain reports." The first continuously published American newspaper was the Boston News-Letter, started by John Campbell in 1704. In that day of personal Turn to Page 5, Col. 1

OFF BEAT By MAURICE LABELLE

By MAURICE LABELLE "So over violent, or over civil, That every man with him was God or Devil. John Dryden Terror IS a word used loosely by the movie industry to describe reaction to some fantastic imaginary monster. Newspapers talk of "terror weapons, terror tactics." But what do we, in the course of every day life at work or at home, know of terror. The Gables Jaycees recently completed a survey of needs. Nowhere is there mention of violence or protection from same except to say that the police are pretty good. BE GRATEFUL This is something to be more than grateful for. By contrast, probably no place on earth has known more terror in recent times than Algeria. News reports speak of the 71⁄2-year Algerian War, but the land has been the scene of continuous strife since the time of Stephen Decatur. For a dozen decades the Spanish, the Italians, but more notably the French fought to "pacify" the Barbary Coast. The tales of the Legion are legend. Over the years, following colonization by European powers, the Barbary peoples gained respectibility, especially in recent years. But wild Berber and Arab tribes persisted, continuing the chain of violence that has marked the area. When I visited the area in 1946, it had been ravaged by the Western European armies of World War II and was relatively peaceful. 500 MASSACRED A side trip to Constantine, Algeria, however, was postponed hastily following massacre of 500 Europeans there and accompanying revenge by the Legion. Oran, our main port of call, has since become the bastion of the OAS — the terror army that has managed unbelievably to outdo the Moslem terrorists and threatens the French government itself. OAS reasoning has been simple in more ways than one — terror in the hands of the Algerian nationalists brought DeGaulle to terms although the French Army was never seriously threatened — why not the same technique to bring both DeGaulle and rebels to terms? The tactic, however deplorable, apparently works. Neither side has had much pity for the millions of innocent caught in between. Terror must have victims. Meanwhile, back here we concern ourselves with controversy over supermarkets, golf courses and whether the Garden Club should be given land to grow pansies. How fortunate we are. May it always be so.