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;;23 "J) JUN 16 1972
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MAY 15-30, 1972

LIBERTY UNION
& VERMONT POLITICS
RALPH NADER:
Whose Law, Whose Order?

IN THE FACTORY
by Doris Lake
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plus! WHY YOUR PHONE BILLS WENT UP (AGAIN.> -~~ t ~
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Mov1!1111!nt. Published biweekly by the liberty Union, a political party 1n the state
of Vennont. Send remittances and correspondence to P.O. Box 431, Essex Junction,
Vermont 05452. Single issue, 25 cents. Yearly subscription, $5.00 (for 25 issues).
Copyright 1972 by Liberty Union.
~I Jt
Editor: Bemard Sanders; Assistant Editors: Harry Blumield, Ji111 Rader
-
I enclose SS. 00 for a one year"-
Send check to P.O. Box 431, Essex
~-,.
 Page One

FIRST ISSUE
MA BELL:Show&Tel _ _ _ _ _ _ __

(OR, WHY YOUR PHONE BILL IS HIGHER).

MAY 15- 30, 1972

We expect that you've·noticed
that your t elephone bill, if you live
in Vermont , is higher than it used to
be. Despite all the government rhet-
oric about "holding the line on in-
flation," and "keeping prices down,"
the Vermont Public Service Board in
Novemeer , 1971, granted the New Eng-
land Telephone and Telegraph Company
a substant ial rate increase . Kosh-
Glassman Associates. Inc .• the con-
sulting firm retained by the Public
Service Board, concluded that "the
monetary return filed by the petit-
ioners proposed rate of return of
7. 93 percent are not unreasonable."
The bulk of the rate increase af-
fects toll calls which were increased
on the average by 20 percent. And,
in Vermont, which is primarily a rur-
al state, this means substantially
higher phone bills for people who
make calls outside of their districts .
make calls outside of their district.
There was also a major increase in
rates for users of pay phones. Our
readers might be interested to know
that, despite the fact that this in-
crease in phone rates affects tens of
thousands of Vermonters, there were
no consumers at the hearing which
granted the increase. Not one. The
telephone company was ably represent-
ed by John D. Carbine, the major
lobbyist for big business in the
state.
As a result of the increase in
rates i t now costs, for example,
station to station daytime direct
dialing (the cheapest rates), 70¢ to
call Burlington to Brattleboro, 60¢
to call Burlington to Rutland, and
60¢ to call Burlington to Newport.
If you have the misfortune to be
outside and have to call from a pay
phone it now costs, once more using
Burlino,ton as a base, $1.15 to call
Brattleboro, 95¢ to call Rutland and
95¢ to call Newport. This is day
time dialing for the first three
minutes. If you need to converse
for more than three minutes it will,
of course, cos t you substantially
more .
The New England Telephone and
Telegraph Company serves Maine,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode
Island and Vermont. (In Vermont
there are some small independent
phone companies but N.E . T.&T. hand-
les about 85% of the business . ) Al-
though there are other large invest-
ment corporations which own stock in
it, such as Merrill, Lynch, Pierce,
Fenner and Smith, Inc . , N.E.T . &T. is
essentially a subsidiary of A.T.&T.
which owns over 90% of the stock in
the company. N.E.T.&T . , therefore,
like the other Vermont utilities
such as the Central Vermont Public
Service Company and the Green Mount-
ain Power Company is owned by large
corporate out of state interests
whose main connection with the state
is to take Vermonters' money back to
New York or Boston to further their
own private gain. Of the 30 major
investors in N.E.T.&T., 24 of them
(including A.T.&T . ) are based in New
York, 2 in Boston, 1 in Washington,
1 in Milwaukee, 1 in Rochester and 1
in Providence. None of the invest-
ors are based in Vermont. These are
the people who determine what the
rates are that Vermonters will have
to pay.
N.E . T.&T., like all telephone
companies, is a monopoly. The nat-
ure of telephone service is such that
monopoly, and centralized control of
service is inevitable if one is to
have any kind of efficiency . But the
question arises--if we are to have a
monopoly, who controls it and for
what purpose. I gather that we will
shock few people by suggesting that
the function of the New England Tel-
ephone and Telegraph Company is not
to provide as good a phone service as
possible at the lowest possible rates
but rather to make as large a profit
as possible for the people who own
the company. In other words, the
function of this monopoly is not to
~

A~RDof INTRODUCTION----------------------~

Hello. This is the first issue of Movement , a new
Vermont publication. Our function is to present t o you
radical ideas and alternatives to the status quo news
that isn I t printed by your local newspaper, information
'
a-
bout the hundreds of life-supporting movements that are
taking place throughou t Vermont and New England, and an a-
wareness of what the Liberty Union is about.
We are politically radical. Therefore, it goes with-
out saying that we oppose the Democratic and Republican
parties because they both represent the interests of the
handful of people who own and control the wealth, power,
and decision-making apparatus of this country and this
state. In this issue, for example, there is an article on
the Vermont State Legislature and the degree to which it is
undemocratic, sexist , and completely unresponsive to the
needs of the people of Vermont. There is also an article
on.the New England Telephone Company, a mammouth organiz-
ation of extreme importance over which the oeoole have
virtually no control - and which is clearly one of the
giant rip-offs in America. But even as we actively oppose
these people (and in Vermont the form of our political o-
pposition is called the Liberty Union) we are concerned
about a myriad of things which often fall outside of what
is usually called "politics."
In the weeks and months to come, therefore, we will
not only be writing about political and economic issuesbut
we will also attempt to delve into many aspects of our
culture and general way of life - and to present alter-
natives. We shall be discussing, fo r example, hospitals
and doctors - and why Western Medicine's approach to dis-
ease is often similar to the American government 's re-
sponse to the Vietnamese revolution . We shall be discuss-
ing infants and children, and the need to abolish compul-
sory education (and, perhaps, schools) so that kids can
grow up with a sense of independence and strength rather
than as cogs in this great bureaucratic, oppressive morass
which is called America. And more.
We also consider that an important function of ours is
to do some basic reporting about the communes in the area,
the free health clinics, the wome n's movement, the food-
coops, the welfare rights groups, the ecology groups,
civil liberties groups, the labor movement, the free
schools, the alternative economic undertakings, and what-
ever else is going on. We consider this type of reporting
to be important because people in movement, people who ar~
undertaking real activities, are a basic means by which
other people can be inspired to get out and do it. Ideas,
and discussion are obviously essential - but no real
change is ever going to take place in Vermont or America
unless people get off their collective asses, and do it .
So we shall tell you about the people who are doing it.
Movement, like all publications, needs money to keep
it alive . Printing, postage, and the need to keep a few
of us going economically takes cash - so we'd appreciate
your subscribing . Subscriptions cost $5 a year (for 25
issues) and a subscription blank can be found on the front
page . Movement will also be found on most newstands
throughout the state . •
NADER: Whose Law, Whos e Orde r ? - - - •
("Excerpted from a speech by Ralph Nader given at U. V.M.
on October 8, l97l) .
Why is it that it took 70 years for the Federal Gov-
ernment to discover the 1899 anti-water pollution provis-
ion? There wasn't a single enforcement by the Justice
Department although there were about 40,000 corporate
polluters dumping contaminants into navigable waterways
in a direct violation of criminal statutes that a conser-
vative Republican Congress passed in 1899. Why the dou-
ble standare? For example, if it is a crime for an in-
dividual to relieve himself in the Detroit River, why
isn't it a crime for corporations to relieve themselves
in the Detroit River? ~
 Page Two

benefit the millions of peopl e who
use telephones -- but rather the rel-
ative few who own the company.
Although we in Vermont (as well
as the people in Maine,Massachusetts,
New Hampshire and Rhode Island) Pho
wish to use the telephone have no
choice but to use N.E.T . &T., we have
absolut ely no control over the comp-
any . (The function of the Public
Service Board is a subject for anoth-
er article.) All of the basic de-
cisions of the N.E.T.&T . Company are
made by a Board of Directors sitting
in Boston--and are completely out of
the con trol of the people who use the
service. We can take it or leave it
but we have no say over what happens.
Vermonters who contr ibute to the
guaranteed profits of N.E . T.&T. might
be interested in knowing how some of
their money is spent. For example,
whereas the people of Vermont pay
their Governor a salary of $30,000 a
year, the Board of Directors of N.E.T.
&T. have decided to pay the Chairman
of the Board of their Company, Mr.
Allen C. Barry, $135,000 a year. The
Director and President of the Company
Mr. William C. Mercer, also receives
$135,000 a year and the Vice-Presi-
dent of the Company gets $75 ,000 a
year. All told, according to a list
published in N.E.T.&T . 's Annual Re-
port, 41 individuals receive a salary
from N.E.T.&T. of at least $40,000
a year . Women might be interested to
know that an examination of that list
suggests that no ~'~en are on the
Board of Directors of N.E. T. &T. or
are among the major office holders of
the company .
Another interestinR facet of the
workings of the telephone company is
that in 1971 these gentlemen spent
$540,455.67 of Hour mone~ for ad-
vertising. Despite the fact that they
have no competition these people, who
recently felt the necessity of rais-
ing the phone rates, felt the need to
spend over half a million of your
dollars so as to make an even greater
amount of profit.
One last work about the phone
company . Charity may be next to god-
liness -- but most people prefer to
donate to the charity of their choice
and not have their money donated for
them. For the record,therefore, those
people who pay their phone bills to
N.E.T. &T. might be interested in
learning that in 1971 some $368,000
was donated for them by New England
Telephone and Telegraph to various
charities. Among other charities,
N.E.T.&T . donated $10,000 to Harvard
University, $5,000 to Providence
College, $5,000 to Smith College,
$23,000 to the New England College
Fund, $157,000 to the Massachusetts
Bay United Fund, and $49,000 to the
United Fund of Southeastern New Eng-
land. -Bernard Sanders
---·DORIS LAKE: In
The Factory------
Doris Lake was Liberty Union 's can-
didate for Congress ~n the Special
Election hel.d in Jan ., 1972. She re-
ceived dose to 5% of the vote . She
is a memher of the L. U. Executive
Committ-
The position in Washington was
filled by Mr . Mallary, so now I'm
working in a factory . At one of the
best factory jobs in Brattleboro, I
walk sideways for eight hours feeding
lenses into fifty-eight edging mach-
ines . I'm turning out between 10,000
and 15,000 lenses with beveled edges
a week, and I'm not making piece-work
like most of the other workers. The
hourly wage is considered good for
this area, and one may go to the
bathroom at any time. There is a
lunch room too with vending machines,
but when you're trying to make piece-
work, who takes time to eat? Besides
I'm on the third shift, 11 p.m. to 7
a.m .. I never dreamed the world need-
ed so many glasses.
Most of the people that I talk to
have other work that they would rath-
er do, but the money is good. At
least some people seem to think it is
good. At least half of the men that
I talked to feel that they need an
additional job, especially the ones
who have families and whose wives
aren't working. Some felt a little
bad that they didn't see their child-
ren much. Others felt that the only
thin~ in life besides work was sleep.
One youngish man who has been working
for only seven months said that he
was just working to pay for his
piano, but now other things have come
up. One middle-aged father of seven
said that he was a farm machinery
mechanic, but he has been turning
stones in the factory that I'm work-
ing in for four years. He never
smiled. The foreman didn't smile
much either. He looks like he'd be
happy in the woods, a forester maybe;
but he has made the compromise to
work in a building built to hold
machines, with noise comparable to a
subway and pushing his body to the
pace ~f machines. I won't begin to
tell you what the work is doing to
me, but after four weeks part of me
is dead or at least dying fast. But
the house needs painting, and some of
the debts incurred during Peter's
campaign for Attorney General and
mine for Congress are still hanging
around. Who would a guaranteed min-
imum hurt? Or profit controls? •

What breeds disrespect for the law on the part of
many people is that it is so unevenly applied . It is the
knowledge that if you are wealthy enough, or if you have
enough lawyers, you can escape the impositions of the law
almost invariably . It is the feeling that large corp-
orations are buffers which shield culpable employees from
the arm of the law whereas the same employees, if they
act individually without this corporate buffer, could
never escape the law with such impunity. You can talk to
many poor people and they have a distinct understandinq
of what is going on at the top of that economic ladder -
and this affects their attitude toward the law. They
know what is being gotten away with at the top of the
economic ladder and they compare that to the situation
that they are in.
Let's take an illustration. Suppose a poor person
didn't want to pay very much for gasoline for his car - a
15 year old auto - and he doesn't like having to pay 35
cents for a gallon of gas. So one evening, when the gas
station is closed he goes - (and he knows how to unlock
the pump)- and he fi l 1 s his car with gas. That, of course
is a crime and is punishable by a significant jail sent-
ence. If he is caught for committing this crime he is
very likely to be prosecuted. The station manager cert-
ainly has an interest in stopping such action .
Well, on the other hand , suppose you were an oil com-
pany and you didn't 1i ke the low price +-hat you were get-
ting for your gasoline from the consumer. It just w;isn't
enouqh. After all, how else could you make 50 or 100
mil li on dollars and only pay 3 or 4 percent federal tax
because of all those depletion allowances. You wanted
more - you felt an obligation to your shareholders. ~nd
so you went to Washington and you went to the Executive
Branch - never mind Congress, that might be too visible
and you persuaded, in 1959, the White House to issue an
Executive Order which, in effect, limited oil imports.
It put a 12 percent ceiling. Th~t is, no more. than 12
percent of the domestic oil consumption could be im~or~ed
from abroad. And with the elimination of cheap oil im-
ports this Executive Order, in effect, artificia~ly
raised the price level of petroleum prodacts - gasoline
and home fue l in particular, to the tune of about 5 ~o 7
bil lion dollars a year . That is the cost to the American
consumer of the oil import quota imposed without a con-
gressional hearing, and w~thout a congress~onal .law -only
by an Executive Order which came from a nice little get-
together between the oil industry and a few government
officials - some of whom were already on their way after
their on-the-job training in the oil industry. Five to 7
billion dollars a year is not my figure. It is President
Nixon's Oil Import Task Force Study's conclusion which
reconmended the abolition of the oil import quota, a pro-
posal which was promptly overruled by the White House.
It disregarded its own task force .
Now that is just one example that amounts to over a
nickle every time you go down and buy a gallon of gas-
oline. Now why do they limit imports - particularly when
they, in effect, produce the oil overseas that is going
to be imported. They don't even want to have their CMn
oil i mportPd because it i s much more important to inflict
an artificial scarcity - which limiting imports does- and
keep the domestic price leve l high. That is what the
critical thing is for them. •
I
I .
Page Three
LIBERTY UNION & VERMONT P O L I T I C S - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Vermont State Legislature is composed of two bod-
ies- the Senate and the House. The Senate has 30 members
and the House has 150 members. Let's take a quick look
at the current State Legislature and the people who make
the decisions for the State of Vermont.
The Vermont Legisla.tw>e is grossly sexist. Of the
150 members of the Vermont House only 19 are women - 131
are men. In the Senate there are 3 women and 27 men.
The Vermont Legislature is, veritabl11 , an old aae
heme. The average age of the Vermont House is 57.4 years
of age . Some 75 menbers, a full 50% of that body, are 60
years of age or older. In the House, the Vermont Legis-
lative Directory mentions, under the heading of "occ-
·upati on" that 41 of the 150 menbers are "retired." This
means that almost 30% of that body consider themselves
too old to do gainful employment - and yet they decide
the future of the state. In the Senate over 25% of the
members are 70 years of age or older.
Economically, the Vermont Legislatw>e does not rep-
resent the econcmic condition of the people they are
supposed to be representing . Vermont is ( for reasons we
hope to explore in this publication some day) a poor
state. There is high unemployment, the wage scale is
low, and the small farmer, once the eco~omic backbone of
the state, has been almost completely driven out of bus -
iness. Let's take a look at the occupational background
of the members of the State Senate and see who they rep-
resent. Of the 30 members listed in the Vel'mOnt Legisla-
tive Directory 4 are listed as retired. Two members are
listed as housewives, and one is a registered nurse. Six
are connected with the insurance indus try, three are
listed as lawyers, four are in education, and one is in
real estate, and three are in assorted professions. Six
members are listed as being farmers or as being in farm
related work - but a check of their biographies s uggests
that they are rather unusual farmers. One of these
"farmers" (Janeway) happens to be the Director of the
Catamount National Bank and another (Hayes) is "retired
director, vice-president and Board-Chairman of the Enos-
berg Falls National Bank." Another "farmer" (Gibbs) was
formerly in banking and investment counseling before he
took up farming, and another (Bradford) has an M.A. de-
gree and a law degree. It appears that these are not
your average Vermont farmers.
In the Vermont Senate there are no students or young
working people. (This age discrimination is enforced by
law as the election statutes state that a State Senator
must be at least 30 years old). There are no women of
chil d bearing age (which should be recalled when we think
about who makes the decisions regarding abortion); there
are, apparently, no welfare recipients or recipients of
food stamps, there are no manual laborers and there are
no unemployed workers. Who does the Senate represent?
With regard to the actual election process the Ver-
mont Legislature is extremely "interesting" (for want of
a better word) . Almost half of the seats won in the
House in the last election were uncontested. And, lest
people think that this only happens in the hills where
Republicans are re-elected every year without opposition,
they should bear the following in mind. In the Burling-
ton-Winooski area of Chittenden County there were 15
seats up for election in 1970. Only 5 were contested as
the Democrats "won" 10 without opposition. In the Rut-
land area there were 9 seats up for election in the
House. The Republicans "won" 5 and the Democrats "won"
4. Of these 9 "races" only two were actually contested.
In the St. Albans area there were 4 seats up for elect-
ion, all "won" by Democrats - without opposition. In
Montpelier 2 out of 3 seats in the House were uncontested
on Election Day and in Brattleboro 3 out of 7 seats were
uncontested. In Newport both seats were uncontested.
WHAT'S TO BE DONE?
The function of Liberty Union is to provide a radical
alternative to the Democratic-Republican Party. Essen-
tially, we see both of these parties as one, identical on
almost all of the basic issues, both on a national and
statewide level. We believe that any real social chanqe,
both nationally and in the state, is going to have to
come by working outside of establishment politics. In
the two elections in which Liberty Union has participated
(the election of 1970 and the Special Election of January
1972) it has served a vitally important function. Be-
cause of the efforts of Liberty Union tens of thousands
of Vermonters have been exposed to radical political and
social alternatives. Our candidates have appeared on do-
zens of radio and t.v. shows, have had widespread cov-
erage in newspapers and have spoken at many meetings. We
have addressed labor qroups and high school and college
students, and have debated the sandidates of the estab-
lishment parties throughout the state. And we have had
an impact.
Now comes 1972 - and a general election in November -
and Liberty Union is about to face its greatest chall -
enge. The main question facing Liberty Union now is
whether we, as a party, can expand our base and become a
real qrassroots orqanization . In other words, can we put
together a ticket for the Novenber election which goes
beyond a slate of candidates for state and national
office. Can we filter dC1Nn into the cities and towns of
the state, make face to face contact with the people, and
run candidates of the people for state legislatue and lo-
cal office.
It strikes us that if Lieerty Union is going to grow
we have got to talk the issues in the local communities
by running local candidates. We have got to run working
people, and mothers, people on welfare and students,
people who are unemployed and people who just consider
themselves the "average folk. " We have got to run people
throughout the state and put the "powers that be " on the
defensive from Bennington to Newport.
In those areas of the state in which there are coll-
eges and universities there is no con ceivable reason why
radi cal students should not run for legis lature from
their districts. This is true for such areas as Johnson,
Lyndon, Castleton, Randolph, Plainfield, Marlboro, Wind-
ham, Winooski and Burlington . In many of these areas the
incumbents ran unopposed in the last election. The can-
didacy of a student running on a radical platform could
serve a valuable educational purpose in the surrounding
area, as well as help bring the students of the campus
into political activity. It is also not inconceivable
that in a few of these areas, if voter registration is
done well, we could win el ections. And in the cities and
towns throughout the state the situation is not dissimil-
ar. It will be absolutely inexcusable if the Democratic
machine of Burlington and Winooski goes unchal lenged as
it did in the last election - and we should be able to
run full slates in the other large cities as well.
WHAT ARE THE ISSUES?
Without offering any kind of definitive platform at
this time let us mention, in general terms, what some of
the central issues in a state-wide campaign for Liberty
Union would probably be.
1- Revision of state election laws. We should abol-
ish laws which prevent any eligible voter from serving.in
any elective office. We should lower the minimum vot1ng
age to 14 so that people of high school age can have the
legal power to protect their rights and gain control o~er
their lives. We have also qot to propose means by wh1ch
average people can serve in government without having
their normal style of life disrupted. The reason why the
present legislature is full of retired people and in-
surance agents is that people holding down 9-5 jobs, mo-
thers, and young people cannot take two or three months a
year out from their normal schedules. ~
 Page Four
2- Revision of the state tax structure. There
should be repeal of the sales tax, the poll tax and all
regressive taxes. The whole issue of property tax has
got to be reexamined. In general, the regressive taxes
should be replaced by a heavy tax on big business, real
estate speculators, and people who have the money .
People who have the wealth should be taxed, not working
people who are increasinqly finding it hard to make ends
meet.
3- The involvement of the state, on a democratic and
non-bureaucratic basis, into economic enterprise. With
unemployment high and wages low, with an economy based to
a large degree on the production of junk whose sales are
often stilll.llated by misleading advertising, there is no
reason why state money should not be used to produce use-
ful and ecologically sound products, which will provide
meaningful worK for Vennonters at good wages.
4- Public ownership of monopoly utilities. Monop-
olies such as the telephone and electric companies should
not be allowed to function, without competition, at a
guaranteed rate of profit. These utilities could be run
~by a public agency on a non-profit basis which would re-
sult in greatly reduced rates for the consumer. Or, they
could be run on a profit basis with the revenue going
back into the state treasur.v so as to reduce the tax
load. But to continue a policy in which a profit is
guaranteed to these huge private (out of state) monop-
olies is nothing but a giant rip-off of the people.
5- The abolition of welfare and its replacement by a
minimum income which guarantees every citizen of the
state a decent standard of living.
6- A concerted effort to make "freedom" a reality
and not just an empty word. The repeal of all laws which
rel~te to victimless ~rimes such as abortion, drug poss-
ession, and homosexuality. In a free society individuals
and not government have the right to decide what is best
for their own lives.
7- The abolition of compulsory education and the
creating of alternative ways for kids to grow up who do
not feel comfortable in conventional type schools.
THE LIBERTY UNION EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE