The Right to Cut

Can "right-wing" opinion--or left-wing for that matter--logically be more than 50% of all opinion? Gerald Ford is often accused of right-wingism for his attacks on Government spending, and of course Ronald Reagan is rated even farther right on that issue. Now, however, the Gallup poll has come along with a finding that 57% of registered voters would support candidates who promise a 5% reduction each year for the next four years in the number of federal employees. Further, 67% favored Ford's plan for matching cuts in federal spending and federal taxes. Earlier in the month, not in a poll but in real elections, voters turned down a staggering 93% of all the bond issues on ballots all over the country.

Keeping Cities Sound

The plight of New York could give cities a bad name. To avoid that kind of guilt by association, the justly proud city of Wichita has launched a hard-to-crash National Alliance of Financially Responsible Local Governments. Membership standards require that a city actually collect money before it is counted as revenue, indulge in no long-term debt to finance current operating and maintenance expenses, and, of course, have its budget in the black. The group's purpose is to see that all the members keep on measuring up, and not incidentally, to have another selling point in marketing their municipal bonds. Among the cities represented at last week's inaugural meeting in Wichita were Sacramento, Indianapolis, Cedar Rapids, St. Paul, Albuquerque and Dallas. There are, of course, many other eligibles.

The Needle That Worked

To two generations of Americans, smallpox has been a minor inconvenience: you had to be vaccinated before traveling abroad. To people in Asia and Africa, it has been a scourge. As recently as 1967, it was endemic in 30 countries and claimed an estimated 2.5 million victims. Now, in one of those major human victories that get too little no tice, Donald Henderson, the Cleveland-born doctor who heads the World Health Organization's campaign against smallpox, has announced that "we will wipe out the disease within three or four months." No cases have been detected in Asia in two months; the world's last known pocket of smallpox is in a remote area of Ethiopia, and there too it will soon be stamped out. The victory was won by massive vaccinations, which may become a thing of the past.

Getaway Cars

Kidnaping has become so common in so many parts of the world that diplomats and businessmen are beginning to take some novel defensive measures. Last week in Washington, the first four U.S. Government employees (nobody will say what agency they work for) "graduated" from the private Academy of Defensive Driving, joining previous trainees from Ghana, Guatemala, Mexico and the Philippines. In a week of schooling they were taught a number of evasive tactics that had been developed, in racier days, by whisky runners and bank heisters. The curriculum consisted of running a roadblock and executing a "bootleg turn," an intricate maneuver of locking on the emergency brake while spinning the steering wheel to excecute a 180DEG turn within a two-lane road. The bootleg is not recommended for amateurs, but it may be one way for the skilled driver to get away from kidnapers or terrorists. Or at least prolonging the chase.

Upward Mobility

Scientists have long admired the cockroach as a durable creature that (given man's folly) could some day inherit the earth. Now there are signs that roaches want some of the better things right away. They were found last week in the kitchens of Manhattan's genteel Union League Club, according to in spectors from the New York City Health Department. Nor was this their first surge of upward mobility. Other clubs and expensive restaurants have been cited. By week's end, happily, the in spectors had given the Union League the all-clear.

Owe? No!

Look who's defaulting now -- the U.S. Army. It has just been discovered that from 1970 to 1973, the Army spent about $165 million that it didn't have. So payments to some 900 contractors, mainly electronics suppliers, have been stopped, and they may have to wait up to 18 months to collect. Perhaps some of them are former G.I.s, who will not be overly surprised that the Army, even computerized, or maybe especially computerized, can become confused.

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