Newspaper Page Text
Griffin Daily News Thursday, April 18,1974
Page 14
Nixon planning to campaign more
By HELEN THOMAS
UPI White House Reporter
WASHINGTON (UPI) - De
spite the Republican defeat in a
special election in Michigan’s
Bth Congressional District,
President Nixon’s aides say he
will campaign for other GOP
candidates when and where he
is invited.
Nixon addresses a gathering
of the Daughters of American
Revolution today at 10 a.m.
EDT in Constitution Hall, but
White House aides gave no hint
if the speech will deal with
impeachment, Watergate or
Republican chances in forth
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coming congressional elections.
Presidential aides said he
was not “dismayed or dishear
tened” by the defeat of James
M. Sparling Jr., for whom he
campaigned in Michigan last
week.
Nixon sent Sparling, who lost
the traditionally Republican
seat to Democrat J. Bob
Traxler, a wire congratulating
him on putting up “a good
fight.”
Aides said that Nixon will
“never turn away” from future
opportunities to campaign for
Republican candidates if he is
invited.
The DAR can be considered a
friendly audience for Nixon.
The organization supports his
stand against amnesty for
Vietnam deserters and draft
resisters, but is wary of his
foreign policy views on detente
with the Soviet Union.
The DAR passed resolutions
Wednesday reaffirming opposi
tion to the Equal Rights
Amendment to the Constitution
and called for a ban on
teaching of “occult and pagan”
religions in public schools.
Nixon will be preoccupied
over the next several days with
drafting a response to the
House Judiciary Committee
subpoena for 42 taped conversa
tions relating to Watergate.
Nixon’s aides have promised
a “conclusive and comprehen
sive” answer early next week
after Congress turns from its
Easter vacation. The White
House has an April 25 deadline.
The aides indicate that
portions of the subpoenaed tape
recordings will be turned over
to the impeachment panel for
its inquiry. But, they said,
portions of the conversations
dealing with national security
and non-Watergate matters will
be screened out of transcripts
being prepared by Nixon’s
Watergate lawyers. The deleted
portions will be identified in a
Calluses maybe?
LONDON (UPI) — Member
of Parliament David Crouch
appealed for the House of
Commons to provide him with
self-sealing envelopes.
“I write about 7,000 letters a
year,” Crouch said, “and the
licking is getting me down.”
separate statement.
Whether a White House
response short of the demands
in the subpoena will be
satisfactory remains to be seen.
White House aides have indicat
ed that some of the taped
conversations which have been
subpoenaed do not even exist.
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FORECAST FOR GRIFFIN AREA — Mostly clear and cool tonight with lows in low 40s.
Tomorrow fair and a little warmer with highs in low 70s.
m -mM WmT ™
A widow waits
(Ed Note When Sara
Kaznoski s husband died in a coal
mine explosion in 1968 she bought
"the nicest cemetery plot I could
get him But today, more than five
years later, the gravesite is still
empty; despite what may be the
longest body search in American
mining history, Mrs Kaznoskis
man. and 22 of his fellows, remain
trapped in unlisted West Virginia
rubble Tom Tiede reports from
the scene of the long, long wait)
By Tom Tiede
FARMINGTON, W. Va. -
(NEA) — Until recently, Sara
Kaznoski had the sympathy
and support of much of the
nation.
The 1968 disaster at Con
solidation Coal Company’s
No. 9 mine killed 78 men and
so injured the public cons
cience that people near and
far joined widow Kaznoski in
condemning the company
safety procedures and de
manding that every lost
miner be found and
“returned home.”
But slowly, predictably, the
public support vanished.
When the U S. Congress
passed new laws concerning
mine safety, many who used
the Consol No. 9 holocaust as
a rally point felt satisfied
enough to go to other causes.
When the Consol Company let
it be known that the $6
million being spent on the
continuing search should be
used to expand coal mine
employment, local sympathy
gave way to pragmatism.
Finally, when the widows
were each offered SIO,OOO by
mine owners, in exchange for
a possible end to the hunt,
even the anguished began to
mellow.
Now it seems only Sara
Koznoski is on the front lines
of this war of attribution. She
says she refuses to be begged,
bought or broken off. "I want
my husband out of there. 1
want all the remaining hus
bands out of there. I want
them buried in Christian
earth, with proper flowers
about. I want these men to
rest in peace."
The history of this nasty
coal mine incident indicates
that what Sara wants. Sara
often gets. A coal miner's
daughter, now slim and plea
santly blonde at 60. Mrs.
Kaznoski was among the first
to recognize the Consol No. 9
disaster as a battleground.
She says no one from the
company "ever came to say
I’m sorry,” and at first began
to treat the disaster as
routine.
It wasn’t. It was the worst
mine tragedy in six decades,
so Mrs. Kaznoski organized a
miners' widows committee to
bring the point home to Con
sol; the committee's chief
goal, of course, was complete
body recovery.
The company naturally did
not like the pressure. Nor did
executives cherish the idea of
spending money to dig for
anything but coal. Several
Consol officials made intem
perate remarks. Early on, the
company said there was not
much use trying to evacuate
the dead men because explo
sion fires "likely cremated
everybody.”
Mrs. Kaznoski s committee,
however, perservered.
Though neither state nor
SARA KAZNOSI: She won’t give up.
local regulations mandated
anything else than routine
search attempts, Sara’s
widows invoked the ageless
law of the coal miner;
“If I’m trapped, I’ll never
be abandoned. No matter
how long it takes, someone
will come and get me.”
Faced with public relations
complexities. Consolidated
Coal has been reluctantly
obeying that law’ since; Con
sol crews continue to work
five days a week clearing out
the rubble from 10 square
miles of mines, more than 100
miles of mine tunnels.
"The search." says one
worker, “has been an
unprecedented pain in the
butt."
The search has also been
somewhat successful. Crews
have recovered 55 of the 78
dead — 14 of them in one re
cent week alone. Recovered
bodies are now decomposed
beyond visual recognition
(identification is made by
company employes, not anx
ious widows), but the remains
have put the lie to Consol’s
early theory of ashes among
the rocks; most men are in
tact, dead often of asphyxia
tion and not even their chew -
ing gum has been melted.
Yet although the major
portion of the search seems to
be accomplished and only 17
miles of tunnel remain to be
cleared, there is no certainty
that the job will be com
pletely finished. Local senti
ment seems now to favor an
early end to the matter. “Six
million to dig out old bones?"
yelps a local. “It’s a waste. I
say seal off the remaining
tunnels as a sort of cemetery
inviolate.”
The mining company says
that, too. Only not so bluntly.
Negotiating with United
Mine Workers Union attorney
Ken Yablonski, Consol
agreed to pay each widow the
SIO,OOO compensation and
also continue the No. 9 search
“so long as it is safe, reasona
ble, and practical to do so."
Yablonski thinks the
agreement is sound, not only
for the compensation but
because "It puts the company
signature on a statement to
continue the search. As of
now, they could stop looking
tomorrow. This agreement at
least insures they will con
tinue searching until it's no
ionger possible to do so."
To date, 70 of the 78 widow s
have signed the agreement.
Sara Kaznoski is the most
enthusiastically adamant of
the holdouts. “Never, never,"
she says. “All the company
wants is away out of the
search. If we all sign, the
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hunt will end inside a
month."
There are those here who
feel the Kaznoski obstinacy
must be rooted in something
more than lingering grief.
She’s being called “mixed
up.” a “headline grabber."
even “crazy.” Such com
plaints betray short memo
ries, says a regional newswo
man.
“It was Sara," she says,
“who made the company
jump, and it was Sara who
has stood up for the little peo
ple. She made the company
return the husband’s per
sonal effects; she won the
right for widows to keep the
company welfare cards (free
clinic use); if it weren’t for
her. Consolidation would
have forgotten both men and
families long ago.”
Os course, the company
may still forget both men and
families. But with Sara
Kaznoski around, not very
easily. Every other day the
widow is on the phone with an
executive, cornering a
federal man in the shopping
district, or crawling over the
rubble at a worksite:
“How’s it going? Anything
new?”
“If we ever do stop," says
one excavation worker, with
naught but respect, “I think
old Sara will come down here
and start removing the stones
herself."
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