Opinions offer historical perspective

Editor’s note: Looking Back is a new feature that reviews opinions published in The Spokesman-Review during this week in history.

Feb. 24, 1946: A Spokesman-Review editorial warned of the strained alliance among the three great postwar powers: The United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union.

“The situation is dangerous for all the powers know the peace they won so dearly by joint effort can be maintained only by continued joint effort. Yet fear and mistrust are palpably breaking the war-born unity of the big three. How to dispel these divisive influences before they lead to another war is the most pressing problem of statesmanship in the world today.”

Direct warfare never took place, though proxy conflicts sprung up around the world during a cold war that would last more than 40 years.

Feb. 27, 1966: This headline topped the front page: “LBJ Sees No Strain Meeting Troop Needs.”

Meanwhile, an S-R editorial wondered who the top Democrat would be after Johnson declared he wouldn’t be running for re-election. Vice President Hubert Humphrey was the preferred standard-bearer over Sen. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Vietnam was a chief reason.

“By his absurd proposal for a coalition government in South Viet Nam including Communists, Kennedy has probably secured his claim to leadership of the left, and Humphrey becomes in the eyes of the left a former liberal running errands for a war-making administration, even though the administration, in this case, is right.”

Feb. 22, 1976: An S-R editorial criticized Washington state Sen. Hubert Donahue’s idea for borrowing money to cover schools’ operating costs. It was described this way: “Just float a $150 million state general obligation bond and let school districts borrow whatever they need against general revenue … .”

The editorial dismissed this use of “funny money” and counseled a long-term solution. “It is better to bite a medium bullet now than to postpone it a year or two and find we have to bite a much worse bullet then.”

Instead, that bullet was allowed to grow into a giant cannonball, which is aimed at today’s legislators, some of whom were schoolchildren when the editorial was written.

Feb. 21, 2006: An S-R editorial urged voters to pass the special school levies that would soon be on the ballot, though it lamented the recurring nature of these elections due to legislative inaction.

“So it’s important that voters keep doing what they nearly always do. As one voter-approved levy expires, they approve another. That’s what they need to do again in the March 14 election, unless they’d rather make an ideological statement at their children’s expense.

“Admittedly, voters are over a barrel.

“If state lawmakers had been doing their duty – their ‘paramount’ duty, to quote the constitution – they would have assured that the resources were in place to guarantee every child in the state a basic education. Under those happy conditions, taxpayers and their local school districts could have a more uplifting talk about using levies for enrichment. Knowing basic education was covered, they could decide whether to provide some extras.”